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Ankara (AFP) - Turkey has asked German authorities to detain and extradite a prominent Syrian Kurdish leader who was briefly arrested in the Czech Republic last month, state media reported on Monday.

Saleh Muslim, the former co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), was detained late on February 24 at an upmarket Prague hotel before a court released him last week.

Turkey says the PYD and its People's Protection Units (YPG) militia are linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has been waging an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

Turkish officials demanded the temporary arrest and extradition in connection with an attack in 2016, state news agency Anadolu reported.

An Ankara court last week issued an arrest warrant for Muslim after 36 people were killed on March 13, 2016, in a suicide car bombing in Ankara claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), seen as a radical PKK offshoot.

Muslim has also been indicted in Turkey over a February 2016 bombing in Ankara that killed 29 people, and he faces up to 30 life sentences if convicted.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he would discuss the issue during a visit to Berlin on Tuesday where he will meet his German counterpart Sigmar Gabriel.

- 'We will not give up' -

But Cavusoglu told reporters that Turkey would not "limit its efforts to the Czech Republic or Germany" for Muslim's extradition.

"Let him go wherever, we will follow and not give up," he said.

The Kurdish leader appeared at a demonstration in Berlin on Saturday against Turkey's offensive launched on January 20 and dubbed "Olive Branch" in the border region of Afrin in northern Syria targeting the YPG.

Turkish media published images of the demonstration in the German capital, where there were flags with images of the jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and the YPG militia's female branch, the Kurdish Women's Protection Units (YPJ).

Story continues

Muslim's release on Tuesday by the Czech court caused immediate anger in Ankara, which said the move was "unacceptable" and showed "support for terrorism".

The Czech foreign ministry hit back saying it rejected allegations that the court's move "runs counter to the Czech Republic's pledge to fight international terrorism".

During the protest, Muslim told supporters he believed in Europe's justice system despite Turkey's actions.

"I would like to say we believe in the judges in Europe and this... Turkish game will never work in Europe.

"I am now free and I will be free until we get the victory in Syria and Afrin," Muslim said, according to a video shared on Facebook by the PYD.Ankara (AFP) - Turkey on Monday launched a crackdown on the Islamic State extremist group and boosted security in Ankara after the US embassy said it would be closed for a day.

The Ankara prosecutor said 12 suspects had been detained after it issued 20 arrest warrants as part of an operation against IS, state news agency Anadolu reported.

Those detained were foreigners who were trying to recruit members for IS, Anadolu reported, adding that the suspects were in contact with those in "conflict zones".

IS has lost control of swathes of Iraq and Syria after US-led military operations but it still holds sway over small pockets in Syria.

The embassy said it would be closed on Monday because of a "security threat", without giving further details.

The Ankara governor's office said in a statement it had taken "extra security measures" after US sources provided Turkish intelligence with information on the possibility of terror attacks against the embassy and where Americans lived.

The US embassy is in the heart of the capital, close to parliament.

On its website, the mission urged Americans to "avoid large crowds" and "keep a low profile".

The embassy was the target in 2013 of a suicide bombing claimed by a far-left group that killed a Turkish security guard.

Turkey suffered multiple terror attacks in 2015 and 2016 as well as one in 2017 blamed on IS and outlawed Kurdish militants. Hundreds of people have died.

The last attack which IS claimed was just 17 minutes into 2017 when a gunman killed 39 people at the elite Istanbul nightclub Reina during New Year's celebrations.

Turkish police often carry out raids against IS across the country including one last month when 29 foreigners were detained in Istanbul over alleged links to the group.

Ties between Turkey and the US have been strained over multiple issues, including Washington's support for the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, which Ankara considers a terrorist group.

Ankara in January launched an operation against the YPG in the Syrian border region of Afrin, but the US has called on Turkey to show restraint in the offensive.ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A Turkish court on Monday rejected a request for the release of two Greek soldiers who were detained after crossing the border into Turkey in bad weather, private broadcaster CNN Turk and other local media said. The decision appears likely to further heighten tension with Greece. The two NATO allies, which teetered on the brink of war as recently as 1996, have seen renewed diplomatic strain over natural resources in the eastern Mediterranean and the fate of eight other soldiers who fled to Greece after a failed coup in Turkey. Greece has said the two soldiers had been on a border patrol when they strayed from their route, calling it "the result of a mistake" because of poor weather and saying it expected their swift return. The court decided to remand them in custody on Friday, on the grounds of attempted military espionage and entering a prohibited military zone, Turkish media said. On Monday it ruled against their lawyer, who had requested their release, CNN Turk said. Prior to Monday's court decision, Greece called on Turkey to comply with international law. "Turkey is obliged to implement what is prescribed under international law...and not turn an everyday procedure into a major political, legal issue," Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias said. Greece said in January it would not extradite eight Turkish soldiers who fled there after a failed 2016 coup attempt against President Tayyip Erdogan. It also refused to grant them asylum and said they could be tried in Greece. Turkey said that neither country had requested that the two Greek soldiers be swapped for the eight Turkish ones. The two NATO partners were at the brink of war in 1974, 1987 and 1996 over long-running disputes on ethnically divided Cyprus, mineral rights in the Aegean Sea and sovereignty over uninhabited islets. During Erdogan's visit to Athens in December, the two countries agreed to revive a consultation process for confidence-building measures. (Reporting by Ezgi Erkoyun and Renee Maltezou in Athens, Writing by Ali Kucukgocmen; Editing by David Dolan and Angus MacSwan)By Andrew Chung

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up Iranian government-owned Bank Melli's appeal of a lower court ruling that allowed victims of militant attacks allegedly backed by Iran to seek millions of dollars in compensation from the bank.

The justices left in place the lower court's ruling that allowed some plaintiffs, trying to satisfy part of nearly $1 billion in court judgments against Iran, to go after roughly $17.6 million that Visa Inc and Franklin Resources Inc owed to Bank Melli related to credit card use in Iran.

This marked the second time in two weeks the justices have acted in a case in which Iran has refused to pay judgments won in American courts by U.S. plaintiffs who have accused Tehran of complicity in various militant attacks.

The high court on Feb. 21 rejected a bid by another set of plaintiffs to seize priceless Persian artifacts held at a Chicago museum to satisfy a separate $71.5 million court judgment against Iran.

Both disputes center on the reach of a 1976 federal law called the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act that largely shields foreign governments from liability in American courts, except for countries like Iran that have been designated by the U.S. government as state sponsors of terrorism.

In the case in which the court acted on Monday, about 90 plaintiffs in four lawsuits won nearly $1 billion in court judgments against Iran for its alleged complicity in various attacks between 1990 and 2002.

The plaintiffs include people injured or relatives of people killed in attacks including the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers residence at a U.S. military base in Saudi Arabia, the 1990 killing of militant U.S.-born rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City, and two bombings in Jerusalem in 2001 and 2002.

Bank Melli appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the $17.6 million, funds frozen due to U.S. sanctions against Iran, cannot be seized because the bank does not actually own it. Rather, it is owed to the bank by Visa and Franklin.

Story continues

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2016 that Bank Melli had no immunity because a 2002 law known as the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act allows victims to access certain frozen assets of a country designated as a terrorism sponsor or one of its banks.

The 9th Circuit also said the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act included a right for victims of militant attacks to collect on judgments regardless of commercial activity or other exemptions. The Supreme Court effectively overruled that finding in its Feb. 21 decision.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)Paul R. Pillar

Presidency Strategy Russia China, United States

Unipolar Strategy in a Multipolar World

Vladimir Putins video show about formidable new Russian strategic weapons, which took up half of the Russian presidents recent state of the nation address, has given defense analysts plenty to chew on. The presentation, which Putin probably was aiming at his domestic audience as well as an international one, left open questions as to how close to deployment are the weapons that were depicted in animated form, such as nuclear-powered cruise missiles and port-demolishing nuclear torpedoes designed to circumvent U.S. defenses. But also important is the larger international political process of which this show is just one manifestation. That process involves not only Russia but also other powers and how they are responding to U.S. policies.

To understand what is going on, use as a reference point the National Security Strategy (NSS) that the Trump administration released late last year (while bearing in mind that this type of document, in any administration, is less a true strategy than an expression of attitudes and objectives). The dominant theme of Trumps NSS, articulated in its opening section, is that the world is overwhelmingly a competitive place in which Americas adversaries are determined to do unfriendly things. Russia and China are described as determined to grow their militaries. Other adversaries are determined to threaten Americans through other harmful actions.

The NSS explicitly rejects engagement with adversaries, but at least as significant is what the document does not say. It gives not the slightest hint that any of the apparently unfriendly actions by adversaries could in any way be responses to actions or policies of the United States. Instead, any untoward or unwelcome action by an adversary is assumed to have occurred because the adversary was already determined to do it.

The NSS declares the unipolar objective of rebuilding our military so that it remains preeminent and able to fight and win anywhere in the world. But it refuses to recognize any way in which even a dominant single pole would influence the thoughts and actions of other players, other than to awe, deter, or defeat them.

Story continues

The administrations public documents that are subsidiary to the NSS follow the same principal line, although with some wavering from that line. The more recently released National Defense Strategy (NDS) does briefly mention offering competitors and adversaries an outstretched hand, open to opportunities for cooperation. But the only way in which the NDS refers to U.S. policies affecting the policies and actions of others is in declaring, The willingness of rivals to abandon aggression will depend on their perception of U.S. strength and the vitality of our alliances and partnerships. Its characterization of the thinking and motivations of adversaries is illustrated by its summary comment on China: As China continues its economic and military ascendance, asserting power through an all-of-nation long-term strategy, it will continue to pursue a military modernization program that seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and displacement of the United States to achieve global preeminence in the future. In other words, it is again all about determination on the part of the other guy.

The also recent Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), which gained public attention for its advocacy of the development of new low yield U.S. nuclear weapons, sounds downright pacifist in places in comparison with the NSS. It says good things about arms control, accepts as an ultimate goal the abolition of nuclear weapons, and states, The United States does not wish to regard either Russia or China as an adversary and seeks stable relations with both. But as with the other Trump administration documents, there is no explicit recognition of how what the United States does, including building up its nuclear forces, can affect the decisions of other states, other than to deter them from doing bad things they supposedly otherwise would want to do.

These documents are products of a process that involves political leadership as well as bureaucracies, and some of this mixture shows through in the results. It is not surprising that the most unexpurgated Trumpism shows through in the White House-centric NSS, while the NDS and NPR contain hints of more careful thinking among professionals in the Department of Defense and elsewhere in the national security bureaucracy, some of whom no doubt have thought seriously about the variety of ways in which other states react to U.S. policies.

Some of what these documents express reflects long-established thinking of a Washington national security establishment, a.k.a. The Blob, one of whose tenets is the maintenance of worldwide U.S. hard-power superiority. But a total disregard for how others might respond assertively rather than submissively to what the United States does is more distinctively Trumpian. The same blithe disregard for such responses is glaringly displayed in Trumps declaration of a trade war.

With a new Cold War developing with Russia, and perhaps another one with China, it would once again behoove U.S. policymakers to acquaint themselves with some of the doctrine dating from the earlier Cold War that stemmed from long study by political scientists and strategists. Two phenomena in particular, both of which are disadvantageous to U.S. interests when they occur and both of which the Trump administrations posture ignores, are worthy of note.

One is the security dilemma, in which what one state does for defensive reasons, another state perceives as offensive and threateningand is likely to respond in kind. This situation is increasingly applicable to much of what the United States is doing with its hard power, given that it is the most powerful player in the world and that it plays at least as much in other peoples neighborhoods as it does in its own. Security dilemmas can arise not only vis-a-vis Russia and China but also with other states that the United States has defined as adversaries.

The other phenomenon is arms racing: the responding to an adversarys military build-up with a build-up of ones own, in an attempt to restore the previous balance. And then the adversary builds up some more to try to regain its version of a balanceand so on. Putins show-and-tell was part of an arms race already under way. Russia explicitly cites the George W. Bush administrations withdrawal from the ballistic missile defense (ABM) treaty as a reason for developing the kind of defense-circumventing advanced strategic weapons of which Putin spoke. His government is not making such efforts just because it is determined to do so, even when taking into account Putins domestic political equities. The ingredients for similar security dilemmas and arms-races, at the conventional as well as nuclear level, between the United States and China is considerable. And insofar as domestic sentiment in China may influence the actions of Chinese leaders during an international crisis, those leaders are less, not more, likely to back down in the face of a military threat from the United States.

The multipolarity of todays world exacerbates security dilemmas and arms races, in ways that extend beyond great powers to middle-level ones. The Bush administration explained its withdrawal from the ABM treaty in terms of a need to defend against rogue states. The United States explained the later installation of missile defense systems in Eastern Europe in terms of protecting Europe from Iranian missiles, but Russia saw it as a threat to itself and as an effort to negate the capability of Russian strategic weapons.

Some of those who give thought to the original Cold War may think longingly of how Ronald Reagan declared an arms race with the USSR and won in the sense of what happened a few years later to the USSR. But that is a wrong lesson to draw, because similar events are not about to recur. Russians already have lived through their history of the break-up of the union, the disarray of the Yeltsin years, and finding a nationalist vibe that Putin skillfully expresses and exploits. Putin isnt going anywhere soon. Neither, evidently, is Xi Jinping in China, which shows no sign of becoming like the Soviet Union in 1991.

The Trump administration is on course, through disregard for the rest of the worlds responses to its own policies, to keep adversaries adversarial, if not more so, and to keep the world just as threatening as ever, if not more so. The military spending may become higher and the bluster may become louder, but Americans will be no safer.

Image: Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the Federal Assembly, including the State Duma parliamentarians, members of the Federation Council, regional governors and other high-ranking officials, in Moscow, Russia March 1, 2018. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

Read full articleRussia believed it effectively blocked former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney from being President Donald Trumps choice for secretary of state, according to an unpublished memo penned by the same author of the Trump-Russia dossier.

Former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele reportedly wrote a separate memo in November 2016 that cited a senior Russian official who claimed the Kremlin believed it had managed to influence Trump to favor a more Russia-friendly choice who could help lift sanctions over the Ukraine crisis, according to a Monday report from The New Yorker.

The report goes on to suggest that Steele may have discussed the unreleased memo with Special Counsel Robert Muellers team investigating Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

Trending: WhatsApp New Feature: Users May Soon Have an Hour to Recall Embarrassing Chats

Steeles other memo, unlike the 35-page dossier published in January of last year and denounced by Trump and a number of Republicans, cited a single source. Yet its content was still startling. It claimed that Russia had somehow reached Trump and asked for a secretary of state who could possibly alleviate sanctions put in place for its annexation of Crimea and work with Russia on security concerns.

Romney said last year that Trump's defeated opponent Hillary Clinton had encouraged him to go for the position. After much speculation and even a dinner together at Trump Tower, Trump did not offer Romney the spot, instead opting for former ExxonMobil chief Rex Tillerson, who has a longstanding relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

GettyImages-925996100

Getty Images/Win McNamee

Don't miss: Robot Flips Burgers for California Restaurant Better Than a Human

That narrative of Russia holding influence over Trump fit the one originally posited by Steele in the dossier. While citing Russian sources, Steele wrote that Trump and Russia had been closely linked since 2013 and that Russia intended to help the billionaire real estate mogul defeat Clinton.

Story continues

It also outlined that Russia could have damning information about the president, which could be used to blackmail or extort him should he take power. The most infamous example, according to Steele, was a supposed video of Trump instructing Russian prostitutes to urinate on a bed that President Barack Obama had previously slept on at the Ritz Moscow.

Trump and his administration have denied the allegations of collusion or ties to Russia, but questions have persisted over the presidents attitude and policies toward Putin's regime. Trump, who has called for better relations with Russia, only recently conceded publicly that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election after Muellers team indicted 13 Russians and three Russian entities last month.

Most popular: Final Fantasy XV PC Download Time: When Will Windows Edition Unlock?

Trump also said he believed Putins denials when he asked about election hacking and meddling during their meeting at the Group of 20 Summit in July.

Trump, the White House and many others close to the president have stated publicly on numerous occasions that Steeles original dossier was fake and or unverified, while pointing out that Clintons campaign started to pay research firm Fusion GPSwhich originally hired Steeleto keep working during the 2016 general election after conservative outlet the Washington Free Beacon had stopped.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekVatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell faces a crunch hearing starting in Australia Monday to determine if he stands trial on historical sexual offence charges.

The 76-year-old, a top adviser to Pope Francis who has taken leave to fight the allegations, is accused of multiple offences relating to incidents that allegedly occurred long ago.

Pell, the most senior Catholic cleric to be charged with criminal offences linked to the Church's long-running sexual abuse scandal, has denied all the claims.

The exact details and nature of the allegations have not been made public, other than they involve "multiple complainants".

One of charges was withdrawn on Friday, reportedly because the accuser died.

Up to 50 witnesses could be called during the four-week committal hearing at the Melbourne Magistrates Court, which will be closed to the media and public for up to two weeks while they give their accounts.

The magistrate will then decide if there is sufficient evidence for the case to go to trial.

Pell's defence team said last week part of their cross-examination would be to determine when the accusers first disclosed he had allegedly abused them, as they try to prove the allegations were a "recent invention", the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

A frail-looking Pell has so far made two court appearances at preliminary hearings -- in July and October last year.

He has not had to enter a plea, although he instructed his lawyer from the outset to make clear he intended to plead not guilty.

"For the avoidance of doubt and because of the interest, I might indicate that Cardinal Pell pleads not guilty to all charges and will maintain the presumed innocence that he has," his barrister Robert Richter said in July.

- Royal commission -

The former Sydney and Melbourne archbishop did not have to attend the previous hearings, but opted to do so having vowed to clear his name after a two-year investigation led to him being charged on June 29 last year. He is expected to be in court again on Monday.

Story continues

Since his last appearance, his legal team has been denied requests for medical records of the complainants, with the magistrate saying disclosure could be harmful.

The Pell case has coincided with Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, ordered in 2012 after a decade of pressure to investigate widespread allegations of institutional paedophilia.

The commission spoke to thousands of survivors and heard claims of child abuse involving churches, orphanages, sporting clubs, youth groups and schools.

Pell appeared before it three times, once in person and twice via video-link from Rome over his dealings with paedophile priests in Victoria state in the 1970s.

In its findings handed down in December, the five-year inquiry found Australian institutions "seriously failed" children in their care with tens of thousands sexually assaulted.

It recommended that celibacy among Catholic priests should be voluntary to help curb abuse.

With Pell proclaiming his innocence, Australia's Catholic leaders have spoken out in support, describing him as a "thoroughly decent man".

The Archdiocese of Sydney is providing his accommodation while he fights the charges, but it has said it will not foot his legal bills, which could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a rally to support his bid in the upcoming presidential election in Moscow: Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via Reuters

Vladimir Putin has denied his government had any connection to Russian nationals charged with interfering in the US election.

As part of his investigation into potential Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential contest, Special Counsel Robert Mueller last month charged 13 Russian nationals and three organisations in connection with what an indictment described as a sophisticated plot to foment distrust of American government and tilt the election.

In an interview with NBC, Mr Putin said Russia would never extradite its citizens and rebuffed the notion of a link to the Kremlin.

I know that they do not represent the Russian state, the Russian authorities, the Russian President said.

American intelligence officials have concluded that Mr Putin directed an offensive aimed at undermining faith in American democracy and attacking Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, eventually developing a clear preference for Donald Trump.

Mr Putin and other government surrogates have rejected that conclusion. Former ambassador Sergei Kislyak last month called the allegations in Mr Muellers indictment of Russian nationals fantasies that were being used as ammunition for Americas domestic political disputes.

The indictment alleges the Russian operatives work for the Internet Research Agency, an outfit commonly described as a troll farm which the indictment describes as an organisation engaged in operations to interfere with elections and political processes, saying it was guided by a strategic goal to sow discord in the US political system, including the 2016 US presidential election.

The document does not allege the Internet Research Agency was controlled or directed by the Russian government. But it describes the organisation being overseen by a man named Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch who is seen as close enough to Mr Putin that the Russian media has dubbed him the Presidents chef.All around the country, every day, unsung heroes are making a difference in peoples lives  conducting vital research, making cultural breakthroughs, supporting the most vulnerable and planting the seeds for a better tomorrow. HuffPost champions such individuals because they maintain the very fabric of our society. Its important to us to highlight people like educator Rachael Jones, who directs a program that helps provide meals for low-income children in Livingston, Montana. Or Sam Rhodes, an Army veteran in Georgia who launched Warrior Outreach, which aids veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

People like Jones and Rhodes are seldom acknowledged publicly for their service. But we want to change that. Thats why we are partnering with TIAA to launch the TIAA Difference Maker 100, a program that celebrates these difference makers. And why were so proud to have Laila Ali along for the ride as our program ambassador, helping us honor amazing individuals like these.

As a Difference Maker 100 ambassador, I will help recognize individuals who work at nonprofits and tirelessly work to move a cause forward, lift up their local community and serve others. This program inspires all of us to give back and make a positive impact.  Laila Ali

TIAA, which helps enable the success of those devoted to bringing positive and lasting change to the lives of others, celebrates its centennial this year. We hope youll join us in marking this milestone by checking out our stories as they unfold this year  and by entering yourself or recommending someone you know who is doing work that inspires you. TIAA will be honoring 100 difference makers with $10,000 each to help support the nonprofit of their choice  thats $1 million altogether. Were excited to share these stories with you, and we cant wait to hear yours, too.

Meet one of the people who inspires us to make a difference in this video from TIAA

Read about some of the extraordinary people making a difference, below.

Story continues

TIAA has been putting customers first for 100 years, helping them achieve financial well-being and peace of mind so they can devote themselves to doing what they do best: making a difference in the world. Weve partnered with TIAA to celebrate its centennial by highlighting difference makers in the nonprofit field. Are you interested in recommending someone, or are you a difference maker yourself? Go here to learn more.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.West Virginia public school teachers are set to strike for an eighth day on Monday after the state legislature did not meet their demands for higher pay and better benefits.

The West Virginia legislature debated for hours on Saturday, but could not come to an agreement on how much of a raise teachers should receive.

As a result, schools are expected to be closed across all 55 of the state's counties.

Trending: Who is Donya Fiorentino? Gary Oldman's Oscar Win Clouded By Domestic Abuse Claims By Ex-Wife

GettyImages-926417004

Spencer Platt/Getty

What do West Virginia teachers want?

As many as 20,000 teachers took part in a walk out on February 22, bringing classes for nearly 277,000 students to an abrupt halt.

The teachers, who earn an average annual salary of about $45,000, are some of the lowest paid educators in the U.S.

Union leaders have said teachers will not return to work until they get a 5 percent raise. They are also demanding better benefits.

The teachers' strike came following an announcement from West Virginia Governor Jim Justice, saying he had signed a bill that would give teachers a 2 percent raise as of July 1 and a 1 percent raise each of the following two years.

Teachers argued that those raises would be swallowed up by premium hikes and benefits cuts from the Public Employee Insurance Agency. While PEIA board members had frozen benefit cuts for a year, teachers said a temporary freeze would not help in the long-term.

Stuck in legislative limbo

Don't miss: In Pictures: The World's 15 Poorest and Most Dangerous Countries

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice had agreed earlier in the week to meet the demands of teachers and service personnel and give them a 5 percent raise.

However, because West Virginia is not a collective bargaining state, the raise must be first be passed as a law in order for it to be brought into effect.

Story continues

The state Senate approved a bill on Saturday to reduce a proposed pay rise from 5 percent to 4 percent, which upset teachers. The House, which had previously approved a 5 percent pay rise, rejected the Senate's bill.

The Senate has been torn between those who believe teachers deserve a raise and those who believe the state cannot afford it.

"We're being penny wise and pound foolish," state Senator Ron Stollings said on the Senate floor, according to CNN. "We need to invest in education," he added.

However, Senate President Mitch Carmichael and other Republican legislators have maintained that the state cannot afford to meet teachers' demands.

The West Virginia Education Association (WVEA), the union representing striking teachers, said senators had argued that West Virginia could not give the state's teachers a raise without giving other state employees one too.

"In order to achieve that, their solution was to reduce our amount by 1 percent and take the money to increase state employees to 4 percent also," WVEA president Dale Lee said in a video statement posted to Facebook.

Most popular: Horrified Villagers Cut Open 20ft Crocodile and Find Remains of Man Missing for Two Days in Indonesia

"We would love to see state employees receive the same percentage increase as our school employees and we are fully supportive of them also receiving a 5 percent increase. However, you do not equalize pay for different groups by simply taking away from one and passing to another," he said.

Lee said many teachers were visibly upset with "some of them in tears," when they realized a deal would not be struck over the weekend.

"People were visibly upset, some even in tears, because they hoped that we would be back in our schools on Monday," Lee said. "Unfortunately, Senator Carmichael and the Senate Republican leadership have needlessly chosen to extend this."

"They are the ones responsible for our students not being in school," he added. "They had the opportunity to do the right thing."

Senate Snafu

Teachers nearly saw their demands met after a brief mix-up over the weekend saw the Senate accidentally send the original 5 percent pay rise proposal to the House.

"The Senate screwed up," the WVEA said in a Facebook post. "This might be one of the craziest legislative screw-ups in WV legislative history. You can't make this stuff up," the union added.

What happens next?

A conference committee has been appointed to help the state Senate and House come to an agreement.

It's unclear when the committee will meet, however, which means the strike could be extended for several more days.

WVEA has said teachers will not be returning to their classrooms until the demand for a 5 percent pay increase is met.

"They continue to disrespect our educators and keep our children out of school," Lee said.

"They believed that we were bluffing when we said that we would stay here, hold their feet to the fire until they honored the agreement made to educators and public employees by the Governor," he added.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekUnions representing West Virginia teachers and service personnel say they will stay out on strike after the state Senate voted to cut the 5 percent pay raise they had negotiated with the governor.

A joint legislative committee has been formed to address differences in the pay raise bills of the state Senate and House.

In a joint statement Saturday, the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia, West Virginia Education Association and the School Service Personnel Association said Senate President Mitch Carmichael and his leadership team had left them with no choice after they voted to reduce the raise to 4 percent.

The statement said all public schools in West Virginia would be closed again Monday and remain closed until the Senate honors the agreement that was made. Teachers walked out of classrooms statewide starting Feb. 22.

The Republican-controlled Senate voted Saturday evening to approve the lower pay raise, bucking teachers, Republican Gov. Jim Justice and the Republican-controlled House, which approved the 5 percent raise Wednesday.

House members later Saturday wouldnt agree to the Senates move, and the two bills will now have to be reconciled by a legislative conference committee.

House of Delegates spokesman Jared Hunt said Sunday no meeting had been scheduled yet of the conference committee. It wasnt yet clear when it would meet.

The committee will include Delegates Bill Anderson, R-Wood, and Brent Boggs, D-Braxton, and House Education Chairman Paul Espinosa, R-Jefferson; and Senate Majority Leader Ryan Ferns, R-Ohio, Senate Finance Chairman Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, and Sen. Robert Plymale, D-Wayne.

The Senates vote came as the teachers strike rolled into its second weekend. Republican Sen. Greg Boso of Nicholas introduced the amendment to lower the raise, which the full Senate adopted by a vote of 19-15.

Senate Republicans have repeatedly emphasized exercising restraint with state spending, while agreeing that teachers and West Virginias other public workers are all underpaid.

Story continues

That compensation increase is long overdue, said Sen. Charles Trump, a Berkeley Springs Republican. Weve been able to do this without tax increases.

Approving a 4 percent raise, instead of the 5 percent hike, will save the state $17 million, Boso said.

Democratic lawmakers said their Republican counterparts should approve the deal the governor negotiated with union leaders for a 5 percent raise.

Were all caught up in our egos, said Democratic Sen. Douglas Facemire of Sutton. He noted the impact of the impasse on students, including those who depend on schools for their meals. For 1 percent were going to let kids go hungry, he said.

Teachers are protesting pay thats among the lowest in the nation, rising health care costs and a previously approved 2 percent raise for next year after four years without any increase.

Justice told school superintendents gathered at the Capitol on Friday that he believed the votes for the raise were there. One administrator noted the impasse is affecting 277,000 students and 35,000 employees.

Protesting teachers have argued that education in West Virginia  where more than 700 classrooms lack fully certified full-time teachers  needs to be a higher priority among politicians. Pay starts at about $33,000 a year, lower than in surrounding states.

Justice said in a statement Saturday night that his sole focus is getting our children back to school. This wrangling needs to stop right now.By Rich McKay (Reuters) - West Virginia teachers said their strike would go on at least through Monday, as state lawmakers unraveled the governor's promise of a raise in a late Saturday night legislative session, union officials said. More than 277,000 students have been out of school since Feb. 22, as teachers and other school employees pushed for higher pay, protesting that their wages are among the lowest in the United States. Last week, Republican Governor Jim Justice promised a 5 percent increase, a move later supported by the Republican-controlled House of Delegates. But the Republican-controlled Senate balked at that plan, offering a 4 percent raise instead. Dale Lee, the president of the West Virginia Education Association, said in a Facebook video to the membership on Saturday night, "We're asking that all public schools in West Virginia be closed again Monday and remain closed until the senate honors the agreement that was made." Media reports said that the other unions, the Federation of Teachers-West Virginia and the School Service Personnel Association, also called for schools to remain closed. "They believed that we were bluffing when we said we would hold their feet to the fire," Lee said, while calling for the strike to continue. Governor Justice said in a tweet on Saturday night, "We've got to our kids back to school." He added, "It's time to quit playing politics." Neither union representatives nor a spokesperson for the state Senate were immediately available for comment. (Reporting by Rich McKay; Editing by Alexander Smith)Abu Mohammad Alaya, 50, is helped after getting out from shelter in Douma, Syria

The White House has accused Russia of killing Syrian civilians in one of its most direct condemnations of Moscows wartime conduct.

Defying a 30-day United Nations ceasefire agreement, Russia went on to kill innocent civilians under the false auspices of counterterrorism operations, the White House said in a statement.

This is the same combination of lies and indiscriminate force that Russia and the Syrian regime used to isolate and destroy Aleppo in 2016, where thousands of civilians were killed, the statement said.

A government siege of Eastern Ghouta, near regime-controlled Damascus, has left hundreds dead and spurred urgent pleas from world leaders to avert a massacre.

Russian forces carried out at least 20 daily bombing missions in Damascus and Eastern Ghouta over a four-day period in late February, the White House said.

The White House charged Syria and its allies, including Iran, with perpetrating a brutal campaign including chemical weapons attacks and strikes on medical infrastructure.

Donald Trump joined with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France this week in calling on Russia to halt its air offensive, according to a readout of their call.

Relations between Russia and the West were already under strain in recent days after Vladimir Putin boasted of powerful new nuclear weapons, illustrating his claim with a depiction of missiles striking Florida.

American officials previously excoriated Russia for stalling the UN effort to broker a ceasefire, with UN ambassador Nikki Haley singling the nation out as she asked how many more people will die from inaction.

Moscow has repudiated accounts of the bloodshed in Eastern Ghouta as exaggerated, with Russias UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissing other nations as having succumbed to a mass psychosis created by the media.By Phil Stewart WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Sunday made its strongest accusation to date of Moscow's complicity in civilian deaths in Syria, saying Russian aircraft flew bombing missions over the besieged eastern Ghouta region in defiance of a United Nations ceasefire. The White House said Russian military aircraft took off from Humaymim Airfield in Syria and carried out at least 20 daily bombing missions in Damascus and eastern Ghouta between Feb. 24 and Feb. 28. It did not say whether the jets dropped ordnance, which could be harder to determine than tracking the flight paths of Russian aircraft on U.S. radar. But the United States directly accused Russia of killing civilians. "Russia has gone on to ignore (a U.N. ceasefire's) terms and to kill innocent civilians under the false auspices of counter-terrorism operations," the White House said in a statement. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed on Sunday to continue the offensive in eastern Ghouta, one of the deadliest in the war. A local insurgent group called it a "scorched earth" campaign. With the war entering its eighth year, capturing eastern Ghouta would be a major victory for Assad, who has steadily regained control of rebel areas with Russian and Iranian support. Government shelling and air strikes have killed 659 people in eastern Ghouta since Feb. 18, while rebel shelling of Damascus has killed 27, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday that Syrian government air strikes on eastern Ghouta and shelling from the rebel-held zone into Damascus probably constitute war crimes. The White House called on pro-Assad forces to "immediately cease targeting medical infrastructure and civilians." In a separate statement later on Sunday, the White House said President Donald Trump and Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi "discussed Russia and Iran's irresponsible support of the Assad regime's brutal attacks against innocent civilians." "President Trump and President al-Sisi agreed to work together on ending the humanitarian crisis in Syria and achieving Arab unity and security in the region," the White House statement said. Russia and Damascus have accused rebels of preventing civilians from leaving eastern Ghouta during daily ceasefires. Rebels have consistently denied the accusation and say people will not leave because they fear the government. The multi-sided war has killed hundreds of thousands of people since 2011. (Reporting by Phil Stewart; Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Daniel Wallis)The 90th Academy Awards broke away from tradition in a major way Sunday nightand a lot of people noticed the absence of one particular actor.

It is customary for the previous years best actor and actress winners to present the opposite categories at the Oscars, but by all accounts Casey Affleckwho won best actor for Manchester by the Seawasnt even in attendance at last nights ceremony. Instead, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) paired up previous best actress winners Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster to hand Frances McDormand her award. (Best actor was presented to Gary Oldman by Jane Fonda and Helen Mirren, rather than last years best actress Emma Stone, its worth noting.)

With the theme of Times Up permeating through Oscars season this year, Afflecks absence stood out. When he was awarded the best actor prize in February last year, it was amid renewed focus on past accusations of sexual harassment. According to Variety, he withdrew to avoid becoming a distraction.

Trending: Condoleezza Rice Says Rex Tillerson's Job Must Be 'Exceedingly Difficult' When Trump Tweets at 3 A.M.

Casey Affleck skips Oscars

Frazer Harrison/Getty

Affleck settled two sexual harassment lawsuits brought against him by women who worked with him on the 2010 film Im Still Here. Producer Amanda White and cinematographer Magdalena Gorka claimed the actor made unwanted sexual advances and became abusive when they refused.

It was settled to the satisfaction of all. I was hurt and upsetI am sure all werebut I am over it. It was an unfortunate situationmostly for the innocent bystanders of the families of those involved, Affleck told The New York Times before the Oscars in 2017.

Don't miss: Iran Nuclear Program Can Restart Within 48 Hours If Deal Collapses, Official Claims

Story continues

He later told the Boston Globe: Theres really nothing I can do about it, other than live my life the way I know I live it and to speak to what my own values are and how I try to live by them all the time.

Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster present best actress

Kevin Winter/Getty

Afflecks win at the Oscars last year also drew some raised eyebrows because Brie Larson, who presented him the award, did not clap as he took the stage and gave his acceptance speech. Larson won the best actress prize in 2016 for playing a sexual abuse survivor in Room.

I think that whatever it was that I did on stage kind of spoke for itself, Larson later told Vanity Fair about her refusal to applaud.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekSebastien Roblin

Security, Europe

They're a symbol for Kiev.

Why Is the Trump Administration Selling Giant Sniper Rifles to Ukraine?

On Dec. 20, 2017, the U.S. State Department publicly announced it was finally issuing an export license for Ukraine to purchase lethal military weapons. Pres. Donald Trump personally approved the move after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis briefed him.

Curiously, the only specific form of lethal aid in the authorization is $41.5 million worth of Barrett M107A1 .50 caliber anti-material rifles, as well as combat shotguns, silencers, military scopes and flash-suppressors. This was a far cry from the 1,200 Javelin anti-tank missiles that Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko requested.

But just a few days later, the State Department also announced it was licensing $48 million of Javelin missileswhich amounts to 35 launch units and 220 missiles. In both cases, the authorization of the sale does not necessarily confirm that the transfer will occur.

Why did the Trump administration authorize nearly as many millions of dollars for purchasing giant sniper rifles as it did for sophisticated anti-tank missiles?

There are two explanations, one tacticaland the other political.

Recommended: Smith & Wesson 500: The Gun That Has As Much Firepower As a Rifle

Recommended: Smith & Wesson's .44 Magnum Revolver: Why You Should Fear the 'Dirty Harry' Gun

Recommended: 5 Best Shotguns in the World (Winchester, Remington and Beretta Make the Cut)

Pro-Russian separatists consolidated their position in early 2015, capturing key Ukrainian government strongpoints at Donetsk International Airport and Debaltseve using Russia-supplied tanks, artillery and mercenaries. Afterward, both sides settled into defensive positions. The Minks Accords led to the partial withdrawal of tanks, missiles and artillery from the front line.

Though that front line has remained largely static for two years, there are nearly daily outbreaks of fighting involving snipers, artillery and the occasional anti-tank missile. These have caused at least 3,000 deaths on all sides in this frozen conflict, with the violence reportedly intensifying the second half of 2017.

Story continues

In positional warfare between entrenched defensive lines, snipers have plenty of time to settle into well-hidden nests and wait for opposing combatants to expose themselves to a clear shot. They can also scan for concealed troop concentrations and call in heavy weapons to destroy them. Effective sniper fire can pin troops downfixing them in position until a heavy artillery strike rains upon them and inflicts heavy casualties.

According to the U.S. Armys Russian New Generation Warfare Handbook, which is based on observation of combat operations in Ukraine, Russian-trained forces employ snipers on a larger scale than is done in NATO militaries, including platoon-size sniper formations.

Often, three lines of snipers deploy. The forward line is likely to involve local proxy forces with basic assault or sniper rifles, while progressively better-trained mercenary or special forces snipers with high-power rifles make up the middle and rear lines.

According to the handbook, there are only two effective tactical responses when coming under sniper attack. Either immediately disengage when coming under sniper fire to avoid getting pinned down, accepting that a unit will likely take at least two casualties in the processor return accurate fire with heavy weapons or ones own snipers to neutralize the attacker.

Ukrainian forces, until recently trained according to Russian doctrine, are doing their best to improve their counter-sniper game, but mostly are limited to using Dragunov SVD rifles. While the Soviet-era weapons are ubiquitous and reliable, they are not ideal for extra long-range shooting, especially due to lower-quality sights.

Recently, Russian snipers have been photographed using T5000 sniper rifles, which use the Lapua .338 round. Due to precision manufacturing and the high power it generates for each shot and, the T-5000 boasts an effective range of up to 2,000 meters and can reliably penetrate body armor at a distance.

Enter the Barrett

The M107A1 is perhaps better known as the Barrett M82, the commercial designation of a .50-caliber anti-material rifle in use with the armed forces of more than 60 countries. The U.S. military has been using the M82 since 1990 on a special-issue basis and even tested a bolt-action variant called the XM107.

However, the Army instead decided to stick to a semi-automatic version formally designated the M107A1 for standardized issue. The M107A1 also differs from the standard M82 in being five pounds lighter at only 28 pounds unloaded, uses a cylindrical titanium muzzle break and is designed to be used in conjunction with noise- and flash-suppressors.

The huge .50-caliber BMG rounds come in 10-round magazines weighing one pound each, can fire accurately up to 1.8 kilometers away and can penetrate 20 to 40 millimeters of armor depending on range. Upon firing, the Barrets barrel assembly is designed to slide backward against a spring to help absorb the recoil, making it easier to handle than preceding World War II-era anti-tank rifles were.

This long-rang hitting power makes the heavy rifle ideal for destroying valuable military equipment such as satellite dishes, missile launchers, sensors on tanks and vehicle motor blocks. The penetration is even sufficient to pose a threat to light armored personnel carriers, or to shoot strait through obstacles as thick as a brick wallallowing it take out enemies behind cover.

To aid in destruction of materiel targets, the Barrett can also employ special Raufoss NP500 armor-piercing incendiary rounds that explode after penetrating the target. The Red Cross has sought to ban the Raufoss rounds, however, on the grounds they are inhumane against human targets

The sheer energy behind each 12.7-by-99-millimeter slug gives the weapon relatively good accuracy over distancethe rounds experiences less dropeven though purists maintain it is not precise enough to be a true sniper rifle. Regardless, the huge guns have been used extensively against personnel targets at very long range, and are listed as having been used for five of the top 20 longest range sniper kills currently on record, with hits achieved at ranges from 1.3 to 2.8 kilometers distant.

Therefore, though the M107s anti-material applications would remain in demand, the tactical rationale is primarily that they will be used to counter pro-Russian snipers using long-range rifles by extending the reach of their Ukrainian counterparts.

The Ukrainian armed forces already had made limited use of the Barrett. Reportedly, the Yanukovych government acquired M82s in the early 2010s, prior to the war in Ukraine. Photos of Ukrainian forces using Barretts circulated on the internet in 2015. One militia even announced that it had acquired M82s but complained that it lacked night-fighting gear and requested donations of additional firing equipment.

How bad is the need?

Ukrainians do not feel an acute shortage of such weapons, according to commentator Pavel Asenkov on BBC Ukraine, and they are unlikely to greatly alter the balance of power. Ukrainian military observer Serge Marko argues in the same article that the M107 is too large and heavy to infiltrate to a forward sniping position, and would thus likely be employed to reinforce static defensive positionsa role which heavy machine guns and automatic grenade launchers can already perform effectively.

Marko believes that high-precision .338 caliber rifles would be far more useful.

According to The Washington Post, Trump chose the M107 rifles out of a menu of options presented to him by Tillerson and Mattis. Trump has exhibited conflicting impulses regarding Ukraine. He has frequently expressed his admiration for Putin, and has been eager to improve relations with Russia, including initially seeking to reduce or remove sanctions imposed due to the invasion of Crimea. However, he also criticized Pres. Barack Obama for not providing lethal military aid to Ukraine.

Nonetheless, Trumps election campaign intervened to remove language calling for the United States to arm Ukraine from the GOP platform in July 2016likely due to the influence of his then-campaign manager Paul Manafort, who had previously been advisor to the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine.

However, Manafort was ousted from the Trump campaign in August 2016, and Moscow-friendly general Michael Flynn was forced to stepdown as National Security Advisor in February 2017. Trump instead appointed two Russia hawks, Generals H.R. McMaster and Mattis, as national security advisor and secretary of defense, respectively. In the summer of 2017 it became clear the generals influence had put lethal weapons sales to Ukraine back on the table.

However, Trump did not want to give weapons to Ukraine as aidhe saw it as a means for U.S. manufacturers to make a sale. However, while Kiev would eagerly accept a donation of hundreds of arguably the best anti-tank missiles available, it wouldnt want to pay for a lot of top-shelf hardware as the government is strapped for cash, and more cost-efficient missiles will likely suffice.

Indeed, Ukraine is attempting to ramp up manufacturing of heavier Stugna and more portable Corsar anti-tank missiles, which can be produced at much lower cost.

These factors may explain the odd decision to approve the export licenses for small quantities of arms. The Trump administration, always looking for ways to undo Obama-era policies, was keen to demonstrate its willingness to flout his predecessors caution and provide lethal weapons to Kiev, but didnt want to to give enough to seriously change the balance of power and possibly elicit Russian retaliation.

However, the M107 license was too obviously of marginal consequence to be credible, which may explain why a few days after announcing the M107 deal while excluding the Javelin, the administration apparently reversed itself and also issued a Javelin licenseeven though it was curtailed to just 35 launcher-units.

Because importing Javelins had been accorded such symbolic importance, Kiev was willing to pay for a small quantity of pricey anti-tank missiles in the hopes it will encourage other NATO countries to provide lethal military assistance. For example, Canada has also green-lit arms sales to Ukraine.

In the end, the U.S. was already and is still giving free training and non-lethal hardwarenamely, electronic warfare and communications systems as well as counterbattery radarswhich are much more desperately needed by the Ukrainian military according to most commentators.

While providing big guns like the M107 draws attention, and even arguably has a certain tactical rationale, its likely less important than ongoing transfers intended to enable Ukrainian troops to resist Russian jamming, hacking and drones.

This first appeared in WarIsBoring here.

Read full articleWomens rights marchers in Ankara met with tear gas and arrests Sunday as they gathered for a protest ahead of International Womens Day later this week.

After the marchers ignored calls to disperse, Turkish riot police fired tear gas and detained about 15 women, Agence France-Presse reports, citing Turkeys private Dogan News Agency.

The marchers mainly came from a womens rights-focused NGO called Ankara Womens Platform. They reportedly held aloft banners, including one that read we are getting stronger in solidarity.

The disrupted protest in Ankara coincided with another march in Istanbul, where around 1,500 women gathered to voice opposition to Turkeys military campaign against Syrian Kurdish militia.

Read more: Turkey Threatens Its Alliance With Russia After Charging Into Syria

The U.S. partnered with Syrian Kurds in the fight against ISIS, but Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has labeled them a terrorist group that supports Kurdish separatists inside Turkey.

One of the women protesting in Istanbul told AFP: There is a war on our border. We cannot remain indifferent.Beijing (AFP) - Thousands of Chinese legislators erupted into enthusiastic applause on Monday over plans to give President Xi Jinping a lifetime mandate to mould the Asian giant into a global superpower.

China's rubber-stamp parliament met in the imposing Great Hall of the People for an annual session that will make Xi the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, concentrating the growing might of the military, economy and state in the hands of one man.

As Xi looked on from a stage dominated by mostly male party leaders in dark suits, a constitutional amendment to scrap the two-term limit for the presidency was read out to the chamber, prompting fervent applause.

The legislators are all but certain to approve the amendment this Sunday, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership sets the agenda for the National People's Congress (NPC).

The text says the change "will be conducive to safeguarding the authority and the unified leadership of the CCP Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core and to strengthening and perfecting the national leadership system".

The amendment was presented after Premier Li Keqiang delivered a report warning that the country is fighting "three critical battles" against financial risk, poverty and pollution.

The government set an economic growth target of around 6.5 percent for 2018, in line with expectations but lower than the 6.9 percent GDP increase in 2017.

It announced an 8.1 percent increase for the defence budget to 1.11 trillion yuan ($175 billion) this year, giving the world's largest armed forces a boost after spending growth slowed in the previous two years.

The report also warned Taiwan that China "will never tolerate any separatist schemes" amid tensions between the mainland and the self-ruled island.

But the spotlight was squarely on the party's most powerful leader in more than four decades.

- 'Unify leadership' -

Lifting term limits would allow the 64-year-old leader to stay on as party chief, head of the military and president beyond 2023, when his second term is due to end.

Story continues

"I support Xi Jinping. I support the constitution change," Zhou Feng, a delegate from Shanghai, told AFP.

Another delegate from central Henan province said "Xi Jinping is great", but several other legislators refused to answer questions about the amendment.

Censors have worked furiously to stamp out dissenting voices on social media, blocking dozens of words from "disagree" to "emperor" on the Twitter-like Weibo website in recent days.

On Monday, some Weibo users defied censors to post comments such as "shall we say, long live the king?" or "history will judge him harshly".

State media outlets masked the comments sections on the stories they posted about the amendment on Weibo on Monday.

Analysts have warned that the move carries risks as it ends a "collective" model of leadership that maintained stability after Mao's chaotic reign from 1949 to his death in 1976.

NPC spokesman Zhang Yesui has downplayed its significance, saying on Sunday it would merely align the presidency with the titles of Communist Party general secretary and Military Commission chairman, which do not have term limits.

The amendment says that opinions had been sought at the "grassroots level" and that "the masses, party members and cadres in many regions" had "unanimously called" for the revision of term limits.

The parliament will also vote on constitutional amendments that will inscribe Xi's name in the state constitution and create a new national anti-corruption agency.

- 'Right successor' -

Xi will get a second five-year term during the session. Remaining in power beyond 2023 gives him a chance to push through his vision of a rejuvenated China with global clout, a prosperous society and a powerful military.

He has also pursued a relentless but popular campaign against corruption that has punished more than a million party officials.

Hua Po, a Beijing-based political commentator, said Xi was handed "a mess" when he took office five years ago and needs more time to finish the job.

"One of the greatest tasks after he took office was to remove all threats to the party and state. To do this, it is not enough for him to serve only two terms," Hua told AFP.

"The Chinese system is a system that requires strong leaders, but it's not easy to train a strongman. Xi needs more time to find and train the right successors," he said.

"If Xi transfers power on time, it is likely that the power will be returned to the hands of the corrupt groups and the elite class and all his efforts in the recent years will be wasted."

While the NPC is expected to approve the amendment, analysts say legislators could voice their displeasure by abstaining or voting against the appointments of certain Xi allies to top posts.

"We don't hear about opposition to his life tenure because of censorship," said Willy Lam, politics professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"But there is opposition within the regime from people who think that this is outrageous, that he is going too far, that he has launched a coup against the party."Here are the charts of the day for Monday March 5, 2018.



XL Group (XL): Shares are up sharply. French insurance company AXA is in a deal to buy the New York listed insurance company for $15.3 billion. AXA calls it a major leap forward for its strategic journey, saying the deal creates the worlds largest property and casualty commercial platform.

Qualcomm (QCOM): Shares are off after a US national security panel asked Qualcomm to delay its annual meeting to give the government more time to review Broadcoms proposed takeover. Broadcom claims the news comes after Qualcomm secretly encouraged an investigation into the proposed $117 billion buyout deal.

Boston Scientific (BSX): Shares are gaining after the medical technology company announced it is buying EMcision, a privately held company. The deal expands Boston Scientifics endoscopy portfolio. The company says it will be immaterial to earnings in 2018 and accretive thereafter. No deal terms were released.

For more on todays big stock movers check out the Final Round, live at 3:55 p.m. Eastern, right here on Yahoo Finance.JACKSON, Miss. -- The Mississippi Legislature might authorize the state treasury to invest in Israeli bonds.

The House passed Senate Bill 2051 Wednesday by a 118-2 vote. If enacted, the law would allow the state to use excess general funds to invest in bonds issued by Israel.

The bill says these investments must be made in US currency and are capped at $20 million.

State treasury Chief of Staff Michelle Williams says the treasury invests most of its excess funds into state banks, then into the US Treasury. The bill would give the treasury another option for investment -- one that Williams said is safe but with a higher rate of return.

The bill heads back to the Senate for debate.Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai uploaded footage to his Facebook page showing Hamas operatives hooking up illicitly to a Gaza power line Saturday in order to siphon electricity. The footage came to light on the backdrop of a worsening crisis in Gaza, partly due to electrical shortages.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



"The Hamas terror group continues stealing from the people of Gaza," Mordechai wrote. It was reported Saturday Hamas forces arrived to an area near the Gaza Strip's border with Israel, where power lines run, to create unlawful hookups for their own purposes.

COGAT's footage of Hamas illegally siphoning power

X

"The power line crosses into the Gaza Strip and the pirated connection was carried out in the region between Maghazi and Khan Yunis," COGAT added. "This power was intended for hospitals and schools, but Hamas is uninterested in the populace and even exploits it. Watch the daylight robbery."

A Hamas operative climbing a high voltage line

Gaza's daily power supply reaches half of amount required

A triumvirate meeting was held in Ramallah last month with the participation of Israeli, Palestinian and United Nations representatives to discuss the matter of Egypt halting diesel fuel shipments to Gaza, which caused the strip's sole power station to stop working.

Gaza's power station, built in 2002, runs on diesel. Its maximal production output stands at 140 megawatts, but it currently only produces between 60 and 80 megawatts.

The Gaza power crisis is worsening (Photo: EPA)

According to Israel, 125 megawatts are being sent to Gaza every day, with an additional 25 megawatts generated by the diesel-powered power station, with no power being transferred from Egypt.

Said supply only affords the people of Gaza four hours of electricityfollowed by a 12 hour blackout.

The power crisis worsens once every few months since the Palestinian Authority , which pays for the power station's diesel, demands Hamas pay the excise tax levied on diesel bought in Israel , whereas Hamas refuses to do so but nevertheless collects tax from Gazans for power consumption.Guatemala will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in May, two days after the US embassy makes the same move, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said on Sunday at a conference in Washington.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



I would like to thank President Trump for leading the way. His courageous decision has encouraged us to do what is right, Morales said in a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committees annual policy conference, according to a translation of his remarks on the pro-Israel US lobbying groups website.

Morales. Following in Trump's footsteps (Photo: AFP)

Guatemala has already started looking for a location for its embassy building in Jerusalem. In unofficial talks, it has asked Israel to help fund the move, and Israel is expected to comply with the request.

Guatemala was one of only a handful of countries that backed US President Donald Trumps December decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and it is the first country besides the United States to set a date for moving its embassy there. Trumps move reversed decades of US policy, upsetting the Arab world and Western allies.

Afterward, 128 countries defied Trump by backing a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution calling for the United States to drop its recognition of Jerusalem.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest obstacles to forging a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as their capital.

The international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the entire city, home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions.

Morales with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington (Photo: Haim ZachGPO)

The United States is an important source of assistance to Guatemala, and Trump had threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that supported the UN resolution.

Prior to 1980, Guatemala and a dozen other countries maintained an embassy in Jerusalem. Israels passage in June 1980 of a law proclaiming Jerusalem its indivisible and eternal capital led to a UN Security Council resolution calling on Guatemala and several other countries to move their embassies to Tel Aviv, prompting their transfer.

Morales said his decision to return the Guatemalan embassy to Jerusalem strongly evidences Guatemalas continued support and solidarity with the people of Israel.

Morales, a former television comedian with an important base of conservative Christian support in the Central American country, became embroiled earlier this year in a dispute with the United Nations when a UN-backed anti-corruption body in Guatemala tried to impeach him.

Although Morales avoided impeachment, he failed in an attempt to expel the head of the body, the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, after criticism from the United Nations, the United States and the European Union.The name of an additional suspect in the Bezeq affair (also known as Case 4000) was cleared for publication Monday morning: Eitan Tzafrir, the former chief of staff at the Communications Ministry while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu served as communications minister.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



Tzafrir, who is suspected of breach of trust, was detained for questioning last week, answered his investigators' questions and was released without any restrictions.

Tzafrir. Defined as 'acting communications minister' (Photo: GPO)

On Friday, Tzafrir was questioned by the Israel Police's Lahav 433 Unit. Simultaneously, police also questioned the prime minister, his wife Sara, Bezeq's controlling shareholder Shaul Elovitch and his wife Iris, as well as Netanyahu's former media advisor, Nir Hefetz.

Attorneys Tal Shapira and Ariel Kafri, representing Tzafrir, offered the following comment: "Tzafrir isn't a state's witness, and any report indicating he has signed such an agreement does him injustice.

"He served in the position only several months alongside Avi Berger, the director-general who preceded Shlomo Filber. He resigned from the Communications Ministry as soon as Filber took office. He has no knowledge of whatever happened after his departure and wasn't involved in any way in the decisions related to Bezeq, which were all approved after his departure. Tzafrir will keep cooperating with the investigators to help them reach the truth."

Tzafrir was appointed chief of staff at the Communications Ministry in December 2014, shortly after Minister Gilad Erdan left and Netanyahu took over. At the time, he was tasked with supervising the professional staff on behalf of the prime minister. Police suspect he was also involved in matters benefitting the Bezeq telecommunications company and its owner, Shaul Elovitch, and are investigating whether he did so as part of an alleged bribery system involving Netanyahu, Elovitch and Hefetz.

Attorney Tal Shapira (Photo: Israel Yosef)

A Calcalist report from back then, titled "All the prime minister's men," defined Tzafrir as the acting communications minister. His term was marred by tensions with former Communications Ministry Director-General Avi Berger, who served under Erdan, which included considerable differences of opinion. Berger said at the time that Tzafrir had made a quick request on behalf of Netanyahu to receive an expert opinion against Channel 10, but Tzafrir denied submitting such a request.

Tzafrir left the Communications Ministry in June 2015 following the appointment of Shlomo Filber, who recently signed a state's witness agreement in the Bezeq affair, as the ministry's director-general.

Tzafrir was considered a close associate of Nir Hefetz, who was placed under house arrest Sunday after about two weeks of detention.

Police suspect that Bezeq received benefits worth about NIS 1 billion in return to favorable coverage of Netanyahu and his family in the Walla! website, which is owned by Elovitch. Upon Netanyahu's return from Washington later this week, police investigators will likely ask to question the prime minister once again.

Ynet reported Sunday that police had summoned Bezeq CEO Stella Handler, who is suspected of bribery, for questioning under caution over the weekend as part of the investigation into alleged corruption at the telecommunications giant, and surprised her by setting up a confrontation with state's witness Shlomo Filber.

"You knew about everything that was going on," the suspended Communications Ministry director-general accused Handler, noting that he had held personal meetings with her set up by strategic advisor Eli Kamir, who was Bezeq's advisor at the time and who was also questioned in Case 4000.

"We metme, you and Eli Kamiron the Bezeq thing," Filber said, alleging that some of the meetings were held late at night in Kamir's private residence.

Handler, who denied any wrongdoing throughout her days in custody as well as in her court appearances, continued maintaining that everything she did "was for Bezeq and within the confines of the law."The Israel Police and Israel Securities Authority are holding advanced talks with Nir Hefetz, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's former media advisor, in a bid to turn him into a state's witness in the Bezeq corruption investigation known as Case 4000.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



Ynet has learned that senior criminal defense lawyer Ilan Sofer, who has finalized a number of state's witness deals with the police's Lahav 433 Unit in the past, met with senior Lahav officials on Hefetz's behalf several times last week to discuss the conditions of such an agreement.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former media advisor, Nir Hefetz (Photo: Amit Shabi)

On Monday, Hefetz arrived at the Lahav 433 offices in Lod for a meeting with police and ISA investigators. A source involved in the investigation said a state's witness agreement was closer than ever.

Hefetz, who was detained for two weeks in Case 4000, has so far denied all the allegations against him. He has been represented throughout the affair by Adv. Yaron Kostelitz. On Sunday, Hefetz was released from custody and placed under house arrest.

Below the surface, however, it seems the police's crime-fighting umbrella organization and the ISA have been operating on a secret channel. Adv. Sofer, who met with Lahav 433 officials on Hefetz's behalf last week, was the architect of the state's witness agreement that was signed with Miki Ganor in the submarine affair.

Although the police already have a state's witness agreement with Communications Ministry Director-General Shlomo Filber, they realized Hefetz would be able to make a significant contribution to the case. They called Adv. Sofer and arranged for him to meet with Hefetz several times. The negotiations are reportedly in advanced stages.

Another associate of Prime Minister Netanyahu, his former chief of staff Ari Harow, signed a state's witness agreement in Cases 1000 and 2000.

Nir Hefetz in court (Photo: Yaron Brener)

Minister Gila Gamliel, asked by Ynet whether the talks with Hefetz would send the political system into an even bigger tailspin, said Monday: "We are no longer excited by state's witnesses in the criminal proceeding. In terms of evidence, a state's witness holds a relatively lower weight than a regular witness. We have to wait patiently for the attorney general to have all the considerations before his eyes before receiving a more accurate picture and knowing where we are headed."

Hefetz was arrested about two weeks ago on suspicion of taking a bribe and obstruction of justice. One of the court hearings revealed he had already provided the ISA with a detailed testimony in late December and was asked about his ties to Shlomo Filber and Shaul Elovitch, the controlling shareholder of the Bezeq telecommunications company.

Police suspect that Bezeq received benefits worth about NIS 1 billion from the Communications Ministry in return to favorable coverage of Netanyahu and his family in the Walla! website, which is owned by Elovitch.

In recent years, Hefetz has been considered one of the confidants of Netanyahu and his wife Sara, often defending the family to the media. He served as the family's media advisor from 2014 to 2017, working primarily with the prime minister's wife.

During that period, State Comptroller Yosef Shapira uncovered irregularities in the administration of the Prime Ministers Residence, leading police to launch a criminal investigation.

A source working at the residence at that time told Calcalist that Hefetz "assisted Sara in withstanding the media pressure and served as a personal bodyguard of sorts to her. He invested a lot more work than would have been expected of him as the prime ministers spokesman.

Adv. Ilan Sofer at the entrance to Lahav 433 Unit (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Hefetz was one of the six people questioned simultaneously in the Bezeq affair on Friday, along with Prime Minster Netanyahu and his wife Sara, Elovitch and his wife Iris, and Eitan Tzafrir, a former chief of staff at the Communications Ministry.

Hefetz was released to house arrest on Sunday and placed under identical conditions. He is forbidden from entering government offices for 45 days and forbidden to leave the country for six months. In addition, he is not allowed to contact any of the people involved in the affair for three months.

Hefetz is also suspected in Case 1270, an attempt to bribe District Court President judge Hila Gerstl with appointment to attorney general in return for tossing out a case against the prime minister's wife Sara Netanyahu.

Adv. Kostelitz offered the following comment: "I dont represent state's witnesses. That's my response. I am unaware of Nir being a state's witness."Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks Sunday night in a bid to advance a solution to the coalition crisis threatening his government's stability. Netanyahu, currently on a state visit to the United States, spoke to Tourism Ministry Yariv Levin, who has been put in charge charge of reaching a compromise that would allow the passing of a Haredi-exempting amendment to the draft law, and to Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who stated recently that his Yisrael Beytenu party would not allow the bill to pass.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon of the Kulanu party met Sunday with Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman (United Torah Judaism). During the meeting, Litzman asked Kahlon to postpone the approval of the 2019 budget and allow the approval of the draft law beforehand. Litzman even offered to provide a commitment in writing to support the budget without any further demand, if the draft law is approved.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held talks Sunday night in a bid to advance a solution to the coalition crisis threatening his government's stability.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



Netanyahu, currently on a state visit to the United States, spoke to Tourism Ministry Yariv Levin, who has been put in charge charge of reaching a compromise that would allow the passing of a Haredi-exempting amendment to the draft law, and to Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who stated recently that his Yisrael Beytenu party would not allow the bill to pass.

Left to righgt: Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri, UTJ's Yaakov Litzman, Kulanu leader Moshe Kahlon and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Yoav Dudkevitch, Alex Kolomoisky and Ohad Zwigenberg)

Political sources say, however, that Netanyahu's efforts were insufficient, noting that there is a feeling the prime minister has yet to throw his weight around.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon of the Kulanu party met Sunday with Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman (United Torah Judaism). During the meeting, Litzman asked Kahlon to postpone the approval of the 2019 budget and allow the approval of the draft law beforehand. Litzman even offered to provide a commitment in writing to support the budget without any further demand, if the draft law is approved.

The government has two weeks to try to solve the coalition crisis. Despite declarations by coalition parties that they are uninterested in elections right now, if a solution to the exemption of Haredim from the military draft is not found and the budget cannot be passed, the Knesset is headed towards dispersal and the country to elections. Senior Bayit Yehudi and Likud officials have accused the prime minister, however, of taking advantage of the situation to call elections.

Education Minister Bennett implied in a conversation with party activists that Netanyahu was enjoying the situation. "It's a fake crisis," he stressed. "If Netanyahu wanted to, he would solve the crisis within 10 minutes."

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked told the AIPAC conference in Washington on Sunday, The draft law crisis is a fake crisis. It would be irresponsible for it to lead to early elections and the fall of a right wing government. We must work with our coalition partners for an agreeable compromise that everybody could live with.

The current government is good and is doing important things in security, economics, law and education. There is no reason to give the left the pleasure of toppling a right-wing government. No one can promise that the left will not come to power," she said.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked at the AIPAC conference, Sunday (Photo: AIPAC)

If the decision to head to elections is taken, the timing is very tight. The vote on dispersing the Knesset might even take place next week and election will be scheduled for June, at least three months from the vote.

At this rate, and if the opposing sides continue to stick steadfastly to their positionsthe ultra-Orthodox are insisting on passing draft laws that will grant exemptions to yeshiva students whose Torah study is their profession, while opponents oppose any such bill before the state budget is passedthe Knesset will be dispersed shortly before the Passover holiday recess.

'Netanyahu is leading us to elections for his own sake'

Senior Likud members said in closed talks that Netanyahu was taking advantage of the situation to move up the elections to late June.

"June is Netanyahu's preferred date," said a senior source in the ruling party. "The next date for elections can only be after the High Holy Days in September, and no one knows how all the affairs against him will develop by then. He stands to benefit twice from moving up the elections now: He will be going to elections after waging a successful campaign (against the police recommendations in Cases 1000 and 2000) and will gain more disciplined coalition partners. The public must understand that Netanyahu is leading the country to elections for his own sake."

Another Likud source said that if Netanyahu is reelected, his partners would have trouble dissolving the government in case of an indictment against him.

"If a decision is made to indict him several months after the elections, it would be much harder for Bennett, Kahlon or Lieberman to disband a new government after Netanyahu received the public's trust," the source explained. "Instead of investigations, he can now call elections over the draft crisis."

Other Likud lawmakers fear they won't make it into the next Knesset in case of elections.

Netanyahu and his wife in Washington, Sunday (Photo: Haim Zach/GPO)

The governments original plan was to pass the 2019 budget next week (the 13th through the 15th of March), a move that would have allowed the current coalition to hold steady until November, 2019.

But then the ultra-Orthodox parties realized that the last state budget for the present term, which is also their last lever of pressure to deal with a High Court of Justice ruling requiring a new draft law, might slip away from them - and in consultation with the Council of Torah Sages, the decision was made to shorten the life of the current government.

Netanyahu said before taking off for a five-day visit to the United States that there was no reason for the crisis regarding the draft exemption law to lead to early elections: "There is no reason for this to happen, and with good will, it will not happen. I have positive intentions; I hope that our partners do as well," he said.

In recent years, the Knesset has been deliberating the issue of enlisting ultra-Orthodox Jews to the IDF, and committees have formed and dispersed, sometimes even before they have succeeded in formulating an agreed-upon route.

But then the High Court got involved in the matter, which is considered especially volatile by governments with Haredi coalition partners, who consider the matter especially dear to their hearts, and instructed the government to pass an egalitarian recruitment law by September 2018.

Ultra-Orthodox parties formulated an outline that will try to bypass the High Court of Justice. First, they announced that they intended to enact a new Basic Law for Torah scholars, which would legally define Torah study for the first time; while the status of those studying Torah would be recognized just as the status of those who enlisted in the army is recognized.

In addition, the Haredim want to advance their own recruitment arrangement, which will enable anyone who wants to study Torah at a yeshiva to study without the state intervening. Thus, for example, the ultra-Orthodox propose to ease the sanctions that were set under previous arrangements against Yeshivot whose graduates do not enlist, and offer them alternatives.

The Haredim are looking to set relatively low recruitment targets, and to allow the government to make a decision that the quotas will be reduced (as long as they do not meet the target so as not to impose sanctions).

They have stressed that they are not interested in elections. Political sources say some UTJ members were stunned by the crisis and the very real threat of elections, but Deputy Health Minister Litzman has explained that their hands are tied and that they cannot accept any decision that deviates from the rabbis' explicit decision.

Litzman made it clear to Netanyahu that there would be no withdrawal from their original position, since the Haredim have no room to maneuver with regard to the issue of enlistment. "If there is no draft law, then there is no right for the government to exist," he told Ynet.

Netanyahu is expected to meet with US President Donald Trump on Monday and address the AIPAC conference on Monday. On Sunday, the prime minister met with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, who announced that his country would move its embassy to Jerusalem on May 16, two days after the US embassy move.On October of 1967, Martin Luther King underscored that when people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. Youre talking anti-Semitism! This bold and unapologetic statement is something that you would not hear today from the membership of Black Lives Matter (BLM).

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



In today's age of technology, we see more rapid use of social media and soft power by pro-Palestinian groups hijacking the narrative of peace, justice and human rights, while in reality they yearn for Israel's destruction.

The term social justice is nothing new in todays world but may represent new ways of thinking among many who advocate for full equality in our society. Among many African Americans, the mere notion of social justice can be a constant reminder that institutionalized forms of racism still exist across all sectors of our society.

The reality of racism remains a constant force of evil that must of necessity be confronted by all Americans who subscribe to the basic principles that gave birth to America. Yet even among African Americans, there are divergent views about the concept of social justice and what it means in the larger context. This has particular relevance to many of the current events taking place in the Middle East and in the state of Israel.

BLM protest. A deliberate distortion of historical realities (Photo: AFP)

To place this issue in some historical perspective, it should be noted that the murder of six million Jews was a causative factor in the creation of the state of Israel. Israels basic right to exist represents a foundational principle of social justice.

Interestingly enough, there is growing trend is to regard Palestinians as people of color as they continue to superimpose BDS on racial and other protest movements, even as violence by BDS supporters, and their intersectional allies, undermines their broader appeal.

It is predominately on the political Left where the adaptation of the Palestinian cause as their own under the guise of "intersectionality," a term coined by legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw in the 1980s to highlight the dual oppressions faced by black womensexism and racismand the feminist and anti-racism movements that failed to fully represent and advocate for them. Currently, it has become a slogan under which minority groups join to fight what critics see as unrelated battles, but what activists see as iterations of the same struggle for justice.

As it is clearly articulated by the Black-Palestinian solidarity statement, "Palestinian liberation represents an inherent threat to Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid, an apparatus built and sustained on ethnic cleansing, land theft, and the denial of Palestinian humanity and sovereignty. While we acknowledge that the apartheid configuration in Israel/Palestine is unique from the United States (and South Africa), we continue to see connections between the situation of Palestinians and Black people.

Israel's widespread use of detention and imprisonment against Palestinians evokes the mass incarceration of Black people in the US, including the political imprisonment of our own revolutionaries. Soldiers, police, and courts justify lethal force against us and our children who pose no imminent threat. And while the US and Israel would continue to oppress us without collaborating with each other, we have witnessed police and soldiers from the two countries train side-by-side.

The deliberate distortion of historical realities, fueled by those who oppose Israels right to exist, tend to exacerbate the path to peace in the Middle East. Clearly, there are many difficult issues that need to be resolved between Israel and the Palestinians, starting with a functioning Palestinian Authority (PA) removed from Islamist influence which has yet to be seen.

For many African Americans, the notion of social justice is indeed a complex phenomenon, and Palestinians are viewed as people of color and Israelis are viewed as white Europeans. There are, however, large numbers of Jews of color, many of whom support the Jewish homeland and call for peace in the Middle East.

Groups like BLM have distorted the reality of the Middle East and have thereby pushed many African-Americans to make assumptions and conclusions based on falsehoods and misinformation. BLM statements are anti-Semitic not only because they are false and modern versions of tradition anti-Semitic blood libel, but also because BLM selectively chooses the Jewish state out of all the states in the world to demonize. The facade has fed into the worldview of intersectionality that has divided the world into a conspiracy of oppressors and an agony of oppressed: Victimizers and victims.

Finally, in a time where universalism trumps particularism, we see more individuals lacking any sense of history or collective memory, thereby generating a postmodernist form of social justice that seeks not equal treatment for all, but rather an equality of outcomes by erasing the same systems that developed the West at large.State Attorney Shai Nitzan told the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice Committee during a discussion on the exchange of text messages between Judge Ronit Poznanski-Katz and Israel Securities Authority investigator ADV. Eran Shacham-Shavit in the Bezeq affair, "I don't think prosecutors should be exchanging text messages with judges discussing their cases. On the personal level, I was amazed. Even when the full picture was revealed, our amazement didn't fade away."

The committee's chairman, Knesset Member Nissan Slomiansky, called for an investigation into the matter.Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut on Sunday announced the appointment of a senior inquiry team to look into the relationship between prosecutors and judges discussing requests before the submission of indictments, following the recent exchange of text messages between a judge and an attorney in the Bezeq affair.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



Hayut made the announcement following the failures revealed in as part of an inquiry conducted by former Justice Eliezer Rivlin, the ombudsman for complaints against Judges, into the conduct of Judge Ronit Poznanski-Katz, who corresponded with an Israel Securities Authority investigator on the remand hearings for Case 4000 suspects.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Esther Hayut. 'An opportunity to fix what needs fixing' (Photo: Courts website)

The team appointed by Hayut will be headed by Supreme Court Justice Yosef Elron, and its members will include Be'er Sheva District Court Judge Revital Yaffe Katz and Judge Einat Ron, who presides over the central region's magistrates' courts. The panel was asked to submit its recommendations by April 15.

Supreme Court Justice Yosef Elron, head of the inquiry panel (Photo: Gil Nehushtan)

In an email to the courts' presiding judges, Hayut wrote: "The ombudsman's decision on the systemic level and the circumstances that led to it call for a fundamental, deep and urgent examination. With all the difficulties we are experiencing these days, we have been given an opportunity as a system to fix what needs fixing and provide a proper transparent and professional response to any systemic failure that may be found, to maintain the public's faith in the courts."

Be'er Sheva District Court Judge Revital Yaffe Katz

In the correspondence between the judge and the attorney, held on the WhatsApp Messenger app, Shacham-Shavit is seen telling Poznanski-Katz that the prosecution will seek an extension of remand for Bezeq shareholder Shaul Elovitch wife and son, Iris and Or, the latter of which was a member in Bezeq's board of directors, Bezeq Strategy and Business Development Manager Amikam Shorer and Bezeq CEO Stella Handler, ahead of last Monday's hearing on the issue.

Judge Einat Ron (Photo: Courts website)

"Look surprised," he told the judge after informing her of the upcoming release of Or Elovitch and Shorer.

"I am starting to work on an appropriate expression of total surprise," she joked in response.

Shacham-Shavit then went on to reveal to her what the prosecution will ask of her in the coming hearing regarding the remand of Handler and Iris Elovitch.

"Stella and Iriswe will ask (to extend their remand) for a few days tomorrow. They'll ask for 3 days, but you can certainly give two," Shacham-Shavit wrote, to which she said, "you continue to reveal everything to me and I will have to look really surprised."

She later added that "perhaps the plan we thought about is not so far from reality."Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's former media advisor, Nir Hefetz , signed a state's witness agreement Monday, joining two other close associates of the prime minister who have turned state's witnesses recently Ari Harow and Shlomo Filber

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



As part of the agreement, Hefetz will receive full immunity. He won't serve time in prison and won't be required to pay a fine.

As first revealed by Ynet, Hefetz arrived at the Lahav 433 offices in Lod on Monday morning for a meeting with police and Israel Securities Authority investigators. Hefetz provided the police with all the information available to him as part of an initial testimony which would not be used against him.

Hefetz (L) with Prime Minister Netanyahu (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

As part of the agreement, Hefetz is expected to incriminate Netanyahu both in the illicit gifts affair (Case 1000) and in the Bezeq affair (Case 4000). He will also testify in Case 1270, an attempt to bribe District Court President judge Hila Gerstl with appointment to attorney general in return for tossing out a case against the prime minister's wife, Sara Netanyahu.

Hefetz's attorney, Yaron Kostelitz, announced his resignation following the dramatic development.

Prime Minister Netanyahu's associates offered the following response: "When there is something, there is no need for a single state's witness. When there's nothing, even a thousand state's witnesses won't help. The unstoppable pursuit of state's witnesses is the best proof that there is nothing and there will be nothing."

Hefetz, who was detained for two weeks in Case 4000, was released from custody Sunday and placed under house arrest.

Although the police already have a state's witness agreement with Communications Ministry Director-General Shlomo Filber, they realized Hefetz would be able to make a significant contribution to the case. They called Adv. Sofer and arranged for him to meet with Hefetz several times. The negotiations are reportedly in advanced stages.

Another associate of Prime Minister Netanyahu, his former chief of staff Ari Harow, signed a state's witness agreement in Cases 1000 and 2000.

Hefetz's attorney, Yaron Kostelitz. Resigned following dramatic development (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

Minister Gila Gamliel, asked by Ynet whether the talks with Hefetz would send the political system into an even bigger tailspin, said Monday: "We are no longer excited by state's witnesses in the criminal proceeding. In terms of evidence, a state's witness holds a relatively lower weight than a regular witness. We have to wait patiently for the attorney general to have all the considerations before his eyes before receiving a more accurate picture and knowing where we are headed."

Hefetz was arrested about two weeks ago on suspicion of taking a bribe and obstruction of justice. One of the court hearings revealed he had already provided the ISA with a detailed testimony in late December and was asked about his ties to Shlomo Filber and Shaul Elovitch, the controlling shareholder of the Bezeq telecommunications company.

Police suspect that Bezeq received benefits worth about NIS 1 billion from the Communications Ministry in return to favorable coverage of Netanyahu and his family in the Walla! website, which is owned by Elovitch.

In recent years, Hefetz has been considered one of the confidants of Netanyahu and his wife Sara, often defending the family to the media. He served as the family's media advisor from 2014 to 2017, working primarily with the prime minister's wife.

During that period, State Comptroller Yosef Shapira uncovered irregularities in the administration of the Prime Ministers Residence, leading police to launch a criminal investigation.

A source working at the residence at that time told Calcalist that Hefetz "assisted Sara in withstanding the media pressure and served as a personal bodyguard of sorts to her. He invested a lot more work than would have been expected of him as the prime ministers spokesman.

Hefetz was one of the six people questioned simultaneously in the Bezeq affair on Friday, along with Prime Minster Netanyahu and his wife Sara, Elovitch and his wife Iris, and Eitan Tzafrir, a former chief of staff at the Communications Ministry.Turkish police detained four Islamic State suspects as part of an investigation into a possible attack on the US. Embassy in Ankara, the country's state-run news agency reported on Monday.

The arrests came as the embassy was closed on Monday over an unspecified security threat.

The Anadolu Agency said police detained four Iraqi nationals in connection with the threat against the embassy. Two of them were detained on a bus at a security check on a highway linking the Black Sea city of Samsun to Ankara. Two others were detained in Samsun by police acting on information they provided, the report said.

The agency identified the suspects by their first names only.GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir warned Monday that "Hamas in Gaza is getting closer to Iran and Hezbollah and playing a dangerous game."

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



Speaking at the annual Sderot Conference for Society, Maj. Gen. Zamir stressed that "the threats on the borders haven't been lifted. We're committed to remain on guard and to be prepared for war. And if it breaks out, to win it."

Addressing the situation on the Israel-Gaza border since Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014, Zamir said the prosperity there "is the result of a strong society that showed immense strength, and a responsible leadership that navigates in complicated conditions."

GOC Southern Command Eyal Zamir (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

"Alongside this prosperity, there are many challenges," he continued, "like terror organizations who entrench in urban areas under the cover of the civilian population, above and below ground, and have semi-military abilities."

"Israel invests much resources in building the underground and overground obstacles," Zamir went on to say. "We will create a separation above and below ground between the citizens of Israel and the two million Gazans and terror organizations."

"The mission continues, it is a process that takes time. At the end of the process, we'll have unprecedented defense and will have removed the threat of tunnels from our territory. I don't know if a war will break out in our time, but the obstacle will be builtwith and without a campaign," he stressed.

IDF troops on the Gaza border work to prevent Hamas from growing stronger, he said. "The society here (in Sderot) is independent and vibrant compared to the society several hundreds of meters from here, where the Hamas leadership is harming civil rights. Hamas is investing resources in terrorism and not in the welfare of its residents," Zamir accused.

"The situation there is difficult, no one dispute this. This is a failure of the leadership there, which doesn't take care of its citizens. Hamas failed not just as a leadership, but cynically takes advantage of the situation of the residentsHamas men steal electricity meant for hospitals and schools," he continued.

"Over 40 attempts to smuggle items for terrorism through the civilian border crosses were thwarted over the past year. This puts the (Gaza) residents in danger in order to hurt Israel," Zamir said.US President Donald Trump told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a meeting at the White House Monday that he may come to Israel for the opening of the new American embassy in Jerusalem

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



Trump asserted that decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem "was a wonderful thing, and I know it was very much appreciated in a big part of the world, not just in Israel."

"That was a decision I had to make. Many presidents were discussing whether or not to make that decision, and they promised this in their campaigns, but they never were able to do what they should have done," he asserted.

Trump and First Lady Melania welcome Netanyahu to White House (: )

X

Netanyahu thanked Trump for Washington's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the Israeli capital and move its embassy to the holy city. "This is the first time we meet in Washington, America's capital, after you declared Jerusalem as Israel's capital. And this was a historic proclamation, followed by your bold decision to move the embassy by our upcoming national independence day," Netanyahu told Trump. "I want to tell you that the Jewish people have a long memory," the prime minister continued, detailing other important decisions in the history of the Jewish people. "This will be remember by our people throughout the ages," he determined. "Others talked about it, you did it."

Netanyahu and Trump meet in the Oval Office (Photo: AFP)

While Trump's plan to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem this year has brought the two leaders closer together, it has infuriated the Palestinian leadership and was condemned by 128 states in a United Nations General Assembly vote in December.

The issue has also caused a widening rift in US public opinion. A survey in January by the Pew Research Center showed that 79 percent of Republicans were more sympathetic towards Israel than the Palestinians, against just 27 percent among Democrats.

The Middle East peace process grew even more complicated recently after Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and one of his senior advisers, lost his top-secret security clearance.

But Netanyahu sounded optimistic about the peace process, noting that "the Arabs have never been closer to Israel; Israel has never been closer to the Arab states. And we seek also to broaden that peace to the Palestinians."

President Trump and First Lady Melania welcome Prime Minister Netanyahu and his wife Sara to the White House (Photo: Reuters)

Trump himself was also confident of the chances to reach peace between Israel and the Palestinians, asserting that "If we could do peace between Israel and the Palestinians, that would be a great thing for the world, that would be a great thing for this country, and a great thing for everybody."

The American president further insisted that by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, "We've taken (the dispute over Jerusalem) off the table. So this gives us a real opportunity to peace."

He was also hopeful that "the Palestinians, I think, want to come back to the table. If they don't, you don't have peace. That's a possibility also. I'm not saying it's going to happen."

The two leaders were also expected to discuss efforts to curb the regional influence, which Netanyahu described as the "greatest challenge in the Middle East."

"Iran is not giving up its nuclear ambitions. It came out of this nuclear deal emboldened and rich. It is practicing aggression everywhere, including on our own border, and I think we have to stop this country that chants 'Death to Israel, Death to America.' Iran must be stopped," the Israeli premier stressed.

At the outset of their meeting, Trump also boasted "the best relationship right now with Israel that we've ever had. I think it's closer now than maybe ever before," saying the two countries were "very close on trade deals, we are very very close on military and terrorism."

Netanyahu echoed Trump's sentiments, saying, "Ive been here for nearly four decades with, talking, seeking to build the American-Israel alliance. Under your leadership, its never been stronger. And the people of Israel see your position on Jerusalem. They see your position on Iran. They see your magnificent defense of Israel and the truth in the United Nations. And I as prime minister see something that you as president see, but others cant see. Its the extent of our intelligence and other cooperation in matters that are vital for the security of both our peoples."A collapse of the Iran nuclear deal would be a "great loss", the UN atomic watchdog's chief warned US President Donald Trump on Monday, giving a wide-ranging defence of the accord and his agency's work under it.

Trump has threatened to withdraw the United States from the accord between Tehran and six world powers, signed in 2015 before he took office, unless Congress and European allies help "fix" it with a follow-up pact. Trump does not like the deal's limited duration, among other things.

Iran has stayed within the deal's restrictions since Trump took office but has fired diplomatic warning shots at Washington in recent weeks. It said on Monday that it could rapidly enrich uranium to a higher degree of purity if the deal collapsed.A new controversial art installation of an Israeli flag atop a tilted mast, which appears about to fall, was erected at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv on Monday morning.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



Sculptor Itai Zlait, who created the exhibitcalled "Flag"explained that it signifies the country's "interim state," between order and disorder, prosperity and austerity, democracy and tyranny.

"When a flag stands, it signifies a proper state and conduct, but the flag behind me is in an interim state, in between, in a tilted stateand this is the situation of Israel in 2018," Zlait told Ynet in an interview near his installation.

"Flag" (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

Zlait has already made waves with his 2016 golden statue of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which he also erected in Rabin Square.

He called that exhibit "King Bibi," referring to Netanyahu by his nickname. In the end, the statue was taken down as Zlait had not received approval from the municipality to erect it there.

"The pillars of the democratic structure are swaying, and we are in a historic place where everything can be completely dismantled," he warned.

"What I'm trying to do is show the depth of the rift we're in. We are exposed to a lot of hatred and lack of information, and I've tried to show it neutrally," he added.

"King Bibi" being torn down (: AP)

Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev dismissed Zlait's exhibit as "cheap and outrageous political provocation from fringe leftist circles, for whom (any day of) right-wing rule is a day of mourning."

"The flag stands to fall only in certain parts of society and for extremists who are not willing to accept the decision of the voter," she slammed.

"While the whole of Israel is proudly waving the flag, there are those who choose to take it down. We will continue to proudly wave the flag and honor it."

Zlait denied this installation is politically motivated, saying that, unlike with "King Bibi," it was meant to "connect all groups of the population."France's foreign minister visited Iran on Monday on a delicate mission to reaffirm Europe's support for a nuclear deal that opened Iran's economy, while echoing US concern about Tehran's missile programme and role in regional conflicts.

Jean-Yves Le Drian's visit reflected French efforts to safeguard Iran's 2015 accord with major powers. US President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out unless three European signatories help "fix" the deal by forcing Iran to limit its sway in the Middle East and rein in its missile programme.

Iran's clerical rulers believe that even if it were to do so, as called for by Western leaders, the United States is bent on "regime change" in the Islamic Republic and therefore any concessions would be futile.Nir Hefetz, a former media adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who signed a state's witness deal to testify against him, told the police that Netanyahu's mind could easily by swayed by his wife and son.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



"The decisions being made at the Prime Minister's residence were bizarre. Senior defense officials would make a decision, but then Yair would yell at him, and Sara would make a scene, and he would cave," Hefetz told investigators.

"Bibi, inspired and influenced by his son Yair, showed lack of national responsibility and made decisions that harmed Israel's national interests and state security," Hefetz told his close associates, using the prime minister's nickname.

Hefetz with Netanyahu, 2010 (Photo: Amit Shabi)

"Yair also caused damage to his father and to the country; that is why I left there (in October 2017). He simply could not withstand the pressure from his family. I realized the Bibi era has ended; that there was going to be an indictment against him with or without me," he went on to say.

Hefetz alleges the decisions influenced by Netanyahu's son and wife led to the crisis on the Temple Mount after Israel placed metal detectors at the holy site to increase security and the crisis with the Jordanian government following the shooting at the Israeli Embassy in Amman. Both events took place at the end of July 2017, mere months before Hefetz left his position as the Netanyahu family's spokesperson.

When signing the state's witness deal, Hefetz provided police with all of the information in his possession, including text messages.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, center, with son Yair and wife Sara (Photo: Avi Ohayon/GPO)

As part of the agreement, Hefetz is expected to incriminate Netanyahu both in the illicit gifts affair (Case 1000) and in the Bezeq affair (Case 4000). He will also testify in Case 1270, an attempt to bribe District Court President judge Hila Gerstel with appointment to attorney general in return for tossing out a case against the prime minister's wife, Sara Netanyahu.

Hefetz reportedly claims Netanyahu was "aware of everything" surrounding the Bezeq corruption affair. "We'd sit in the living room, and Sara would yell at me while Bibi was present, 'Why are such unflattering stories and photos published on Walla! News, after everything we've given them?' Bibi would sit there and say nothing," Hefetz told his close associates.

Hefetz also told associates that Arnon Milchan, the billionaire suspected of bribing the prime minister in Case 1000, "received additional benefits from Netanyahu. Things you still don't know."

Arnon Milchan (Photo: AP)

News of Hefetz's deal only broke out on Monday, but police investigators had reportedly already known he was about to become a state's witness on Friday and even confronted Netanyahu with some of Hefetz's testimony when he was questioned.

While in the past, Hefetz said he loved Netanyahu and considered him a "great leader," in recent days he has changed his tune. "Bibi delayed his questioning for days," Hefetz said. "He knew I was sitting in jail because of him; that I was being held under hard conditions until he would be so kind as to be questioned. He didn't care."

A statement on behalf of the prime minister dismissed Hefetz's testimony, saying "The comments attributed to Nir Hefetz concerning Sara and Yair Netanyahu are nonsense. For over 7 years now, Nir Hefetz has been entirely excluded from receiving any intelligence, diplomatic or security information and from the decision-making on these matters. Therefore, the claims attributed to him are baseless."

Hefetz at court during a remand extension hearing (Photo: Reuters)

Netanyahu's close associates later attacked Hefetz again, saying that "The top intelligence briefing Nir Hefetz received was the information about the health of Kaia," the Netanyahu family dog, which recently died.

Hefetz, whose deal grants him full immunity from prosecution, joins two other close associates of the prime minister who turned against himNetanyahu's former chief of staff Ari Harow and the suspended director-general of the Communications Ministry Shlomo Filber

Hefetz's attorney, Yaron Kostelitz, announced his resignation following the dramatic development.

Netanyahu's associates offered the following response to news of Hefetz become a state's witness: "When there is something, there is no need for a single state's witness. When there's nothing, even a thousand state's witnesses won't help. The unstoppable pursuit of state's witnesses is the best proof that there is nothing and there will be nothing."

Hefetz was arrested about two weeks ago on suspicion of taking a bribe and obstruction of justice. One of the court hearings revealed he had already provided the ISA with a detailed testimony in late December and was asked about his ties to Shlomo Filber and Shaul Elovitch, the controlling shareholder of the Bezeq telecommunications company.

Police suspect that Bezeq received benefits worth about NIS 1 billion from the Communications Ministry in return to favorable coverage of Netanyahu and his family in the Walla! website, which is owned by Elovitch.

In recent years, Hefetz has been considered one of the confidants of Netanyahu and his wife Sara, often defending the family to the media. He served as the family's media advisor from 2014 to 2017, working primarily with the prime minister's wife.

During that period, State Comptroller Yosef Shapira uncovered irregularities in the administration of the Prime Ministers Residence, leading police to launch a criminal investigation.

Hefetz was one of the six people questioned simultaneously in the Bezeq affair on Friday, along with Prime Minster Netanyahu and his wife Sara, Elovitch and his wife Iris, and Eitan Tzafrir, a former chief of staff at the Communications Ministry.Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev dismissed Monday the growing number of state witnesses against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that unlike the media, she's not thrilled over every state's witness deal, as she does not "hang everyone in the city square," ignoring presumption of innocence.

Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter



Speaking on the recent state's witness agreement signed by Netanyahu's former media adviser, Nir Hefetz, Regev urged the public to let the police "do their job" and refrain from jumping to conclusions.

"I do want to allow every person under investigation the presumption of innocence and to allow him to have a clean and fair legal proceeding. This means we need to wait for the end of the investigation," she said at the Sderot Conference for Society.

Culture and Sport Minister Regev (Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

"I suggest that everyone stop taking half-leaks and half-statements and turning them into facts. Anyone suspected of one or any number of affairs should be allowed to defend himself," added Regev, who is a member of Netanyahu's ruling Likud party.

She also cast doubt over the possibility for early elections due to the recent rift in the coalition over the draft law , saying she "doesn't see it as a possibility at the moment," though reiterating that "the only party that has no reason to fear elections is Likud."

"We are only getting stronger in the polls as you see," she noted, adding that, contrary to what people may say, Netayahu plans to resolve the crisis with the Haredi parties "early next week," after he returns from Washington.

On Saturday, Regev compared Israel's gatekeepers, the heads of the state's security and judicial authorities, to Bigthan and Teresh from the Book of Esther, two eunuchs in service of the Persian king Ahasuerus (believed to be Xerxes I), whom Mordecai heard plotting to kill the king. Mordecai informed the king through Esther of the plot, and the two were hung in punishment.

"We are chosen by the people, but there are advisors and officials who are used to deciding what is right and not right, they are called the gatekeepers," she said.

"In the Book of Esther there were also gatekeepers, Bigthan and Teresh, a perfect match. They look stately, maintain the rule of law, ensured there was proper conduct, but it turned out that the moment they didnt identify with the king and didnt agree with his management of the kingdom, all that disappeared, their stateliness disappeared as if it never existed, the rule of law became less critical."

But Regev rejected criticism on Sunday morning, insisting that her words had been "twisted."

"Indeed, I used motifs from the Megila (Book of Esther). In light of the recent cases of improper conduct between the judge and the investigator, I stood up for the fundamental tenet of democracythat the people are the sovereign and for the need for gatekeepers to conduct themselves democratically and in accordance with the rules of proper administration."Minister of Education and member of the Security Cabinet Naftali Bennett warned of Iran and Saudi Arabia's attempts to acquire nuclear weapons.

In a speech at the AIPAC conference, Bennett said: "Saudi Arabia is already trying to achieve uranium enrichment capabilities. Today it is a convenient regime for the West, but in the Middle East and the Arab countries there is a built-in structural instability.

"Iran, Saudi Arabia, or any other country must not have nuclear capability. It is dangerous to Israel, dangerous to the region, and dangerous to the world."The news of ebony accident shook the entire Ghana nation. Not many would have thought that the young Dance hall stars life would end the way it did, abruptly and painfully. Blames have been shifted, claims on the forces and persons behind the gory accident have also come up. As condolences stream in and people remember Ebony for her contribution to the music industry in Ghana, there are things that you probably did not know about the accident. Here are three interesting ones.

Top 3 Things that will Shock You about Ebonys Death

1. Ebony went out of her normal routine

The interesting thing about this particular Ebony death story is that it seemed to be calling to her. A few days before her death it appeared as though she was thanking a few people that were instrumental in her lifes path. On that particular day, she did not take a plane as she would ordinarily do. All her trips to Sunyani were always on flight except or that day. In addition to that she also left the house late, a practice that her housemaid says was unlike hers. The death of ebony continues to take a mysterious turn, it was as if death was calling her out. Her house help speaking at Joy FB revealed that Ebony carried just two sets of outfits. Something she considered strange.

READ ALSO: Seven doubts you should clarify about Ebony death

2. Ebony - Ghanaian musician with influence

It is evident that Ebony songs had become something that Ghanaians of all walks identified with. This truth was revealed when Parliament observed a moment of silence when the news of her death reached them. Government officials paid tribute to Ebony musician after her death. It is not surprising that the ministry of tourism and creative arts promised to give her a befitting sendoff. The Ebony Gh influence in music is one that will live on even years after she has been forgotten.

3. Pastor Laurence says Ebony accepted Christ before her Death

Ebony, Ghana favorite dance hall musician was led to Christ before her untimely death. This are claims made by pastor Laurence. This makes the speculations even more enticing as many will think that she saw her end nearing. It is almost confirmed by the new Ebony gospel video that has since hit the internet after her demise. It leaves one wondering if she was changing her music genre. Was Ebony music changing to gospel? Was the famous dance hall queen crossing over to the other side? These and many more questions will probably remain lingered in the minds of fans and foes alike. Unfortunately, there will never come a person that can truly answer them.

While different quarters may have an explanation of her death, there will always be conflicting information on this matter. The only fact that we can all agree on is that Ebony is gone and there is no coming back. No explanation or claim beats this. We can only remember what she has left behind. Her great music that lives on.

RIP Ebony.

Source: YenLife becomes useless when we make no meaning out of it . We all can agree that for a fact the Zylofon Media CEO , Nana Appiah has indeed demonstrated what being resilient really is. Read on to know what life lessons you can draw from Nana to become successful.

About Zylofon media

Zylofon media is a licensed company in Ghana that focuses on multimedia and arts. This company is well known for creating actors and actresses and also Ghana musicians that have become very successful. Zylofon media is made up of an amazing team of individuals that offer quality services. The zylofon media website is zylofonmedia.com. at the website you can learn more about the amazing opportunities in creative arts that this company offers.

The zylofon media audition take place once and in a while. The auditions are meant to nature talents of young people who are interested in creative arts. Interested individuals should look at the website to ensure that they do not miss a chance at sharing their talents with the rest of the world. The zylofon media headquarters are at East Legon.

1.To be successful you have to start somewhere

Below is Nana Appiahs biography:

Zylofon media ceo biography

The CEO of zylofon media is Nana Appiah Mensah. He is the zylofon media owner and he is popularly known for his good work in the media industry. He was born in Accra and he is married to a business woman, the owner of Rozzys collection. They have a boy child together. Nana Appiahs parents are very successful, since his mother Susie Ivy as a business executive and his father Napoleon Mensah as a very successful banker. All through his life, Nana always worked hard to get to where he is right now.

Nana Appiah wife and son.

2. Education is the key to success

Nana learnt at Adisadel College and later on he went to the University of Ghana to do his undergraduate. Later on Nana went back to school and has learnt mining, environmental studies, finance, economics, psychology and many more. Nana has a deep love for education and clearly it has contributed to his success.

3. Success involves pulling each other up.

Nana has taken part in uplifting the Zylofon media artists. Zylofon media Ghana has signed various successful artists such as

Shatta wale

Stonebwoy

Becca

Joyce blessing

Kim guitar

Apart from zylofon media, he also owns other companies like break marketing consult Co. limited. Nana is indeed an inspiration to many at a young age.

READ ALSO: What You Can Learn From A Person Like Jackie Appiah

4. Part of success is the various achievements

You must be wondering too about Zylofon media CEO private jet .Well ,Nana Appiah is one of the few billionaires in Ghana who owns a private jet. His private jet is a worth millions of dollars. The private jet is self contained with nice leather seats.

Nana Appiah private jet.

5. After a long struggle, education bears fruits of wealth.

Knowing an individual is not enough. Everyone would like to know the Zylofon media CEO net worth. Well, his net worth is currently at billions. This figure keeps changing constantly but he is one of the richest young men according to pulse Ghana. During his sisters wedding he actually made it rain with money and showered her with thousands of cedis. It does not take any science to believe that the man is filthy rich.

6. Living a comfortable life is part and parcel of success

Zylofon's media owner house is quite impressive!

Nana has a very huge mansion at the suburbs. The mansion is large enough to accommodate many people but now he has one son. Well, his is what money can do. The zylofon media owner cars are no exception. He has a fleet of cars among them one of the most expensive houses in Ghana, a Rolls Royce.

7. Education makes you healthy, wealthy and wise.

The man is indeed rich. He is a role model to many young people. The zylofon media CEO is indeed a game changer in Ghana.

READ ALSO: 50 Facts About Ghana's History, People and Lifestyle

Source: Yen NewspaperYou have to agree with me, this lady is endowed! Curves are part of a ladys beauty and Ghanas Matilda Hipsy, aka Matilda Quaye si the full definition of what Africa is made of. They say all that glitters is not gold, but Matilda Hipsy is pure gold, any man would be lucky!

Matilda Hipsy's biography

Matilda Hipsy, guess most of us still remember that name?

Well in-case you have forgotten, she is a video vixen and philanthropist from Ghana credited as the woman with the widest natural hips ever in the country.

Most of people will argue that the socialite hips are fake but NO, face it, they are natural.

Matilda Hipsy's measurements indeed prove that Ghanaian women are really endowed.

However, Matilda Hipsy's weight is not even something we can discuss, the good thing is that the video vixen can carry her weight and she's beautiful and attractive.

Matilda Hipsy Instagram

The Ghanaian international is very active with 67 photos and recently, 163k users are following her natural beauty and it's evidently seen to how many people are busy stocking her to appreciate the African beauty (tourist attraction).

READ ALSO: Photos: Meet Matilda Hipsy - The woman with the "biggest natural hips" in Ghana

Sadly, our local boys shouldn't be all excited perhaps her attention is somewhere else.

Matilda Hipsy's Snap Chat has many photos that show how attractive she is.

However, fans can't wait to see Matilda Hipsy 2018 new looks.

READ ALSO: 11 pictures that prove Matilda Hipsy is a national treasure

Source: YenIt was all smiles when Former President John Mahama met three other former African Heads of State in Sierra Leone on Sunday.

The former president is currently in the West African country as the head of the Commonwealth Mission to observe general elections set for Wednesday, March 7, 2018.

Former President John Mahama

As part of Mr Mahama's duties, he participated in discussions to review preparations towards the elections.

READ ALSO: 11 sad photos from Franky Kuri's burial that will break your heart today

At the meeting were Nigeria's Goodluck Jonathan, South Africa's Kgalema Mothlante and Liberia's Amos Sawyerr.

While Dr Jonathan is leading the Electoral Institute for Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA) observer mission, Mr Mothlante and Mr Sawyerr are leading the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS missions respectively.

The meeting according to Mr Mahama, "reviewed and discussed the security situation, preparations by the National Electoral Commission, concerns raised by the various political parties and their candidates and the issue of a ban on vehicular movement across the country on Sierra Leone."

READ ALSO: Ghanaian lady whose "boyfriend rejected her proposal" at Accra Mall has finally spoken

After the meeting, the four former Heads of State stood before the cameras to capture some memories and they seemed very happy to have bumped into each other.

READ ALSO: Ebony's funeral in limbo Ebony's funeral in limbo

Check out YEN's video of hilarious insults from politicians to their colleagues in Ghana:

Your photos and stories are always welcome.

Send us a message via our official Facebook and/or Instagram page to get it published on YEN.com.gh.

Source: Yen NewspaperGhanaian actress Jackie Appiah is known to be a very beautiful and adorable lady who knows how well to get the attention of the public.

The star actress may have been off the television screens in recent times, but she is still very much connected to her fans.

Jackie Appiah sets Instagram ablaze with ravishing pictures

READ ALSO: Bullet performs at the Pent Hall week

On Sunday Jackie posted a ravishing photo of herself on Instagram and her fans could just not have enough of it.

The stylish actress was clothed in a white dress, complimented by a shiny bejeweled headpiece and gold earrings.

The photo was accompanied by an acknowledgement of her makeup artist, hairdresser, costume designer and the photographer behind the picture.

Jackie Appiah

Within two hours, the post had gathered over 32,000 likes with her fans raining all sort of superlatives in admiration of her beauty.

Join YEN on Instagram to be always informed and entertained!

Jackie Appiah is one of Ghanas most loved actresses, having starred in numerous award-winning movies both locally and internationally.

She started her acting career in the television series Things We Do For Love but has since risen to become one of the most sought-after actresses in the country at present.

Below are some of the comments of Ghanaians on Instagram about Jackie's photo.

Some Ghanaians comments about the picture

Who is going to be Ghanas next top pastor? Checkout YEN.com.gh's top picks:

READ ALSO: All there is to know about actress Maame Serwaas 5-year deal with Silvanus Records

Send us a message via our official Facebook and/or Instagram page to get it published on YEN.com.gh

Source: Yen NewsForeign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang's Regular Press Conference on March 5, 2018

2018/03/05

Q: According to reports, ROK President Moon Jae-in today sent a special delegation to visit the DPRK, which aims to improve the DPRK-ROK relations and create enabling atmosphere for the dialogue between the DPRK and the US on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue. What is your comment?

A: Recently, the DPRK and the ROK have taken the opportunity of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics to actively conduct dialogue and interactions and there has been a hard-won momentum of amelioration for the tension on the Korean Peninsula. China welcomes and supports this, and we have made clear our stance multiple times.

The ROK today sent a special delegation to the DPRK to exchange views on relevant issues. China believes that this is good news and hopes to see positive outcomes of this visit.

We hope that all relevant parties will bear in mind the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and work for the shared goal so that the dialogue during the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games could continue as a regular one and the DPRK-ROK interactions could bring about the ones between all relevant parties, especially between the DPRK and the US, and that the efforts to improve the DPRK-ROK relations could lead to the concerted ones that will realize the denuclearization and achieve the lasting peace of the Peninsula. China stands ready to play a positive role to this end.

Q: According to reports, Germany's Social Democratic Party said on March 4 that 66% of its members have voted in favor of joining a grand coalition with the Christian Democratic Union of Germany led by Angela Merkel. Reports say that this has cleared the way for a re-run of the grand coalition that has governed Germany since 2013 and ended a five-month uncertainty in Germany. Angela Merkel is expected to begin her fourth term by mid-March. What is your comment on this?

A: China has noted relevant reports. Germany is an important European country and China's comprehensive strategic partner in Europe. Recent years have witnessed sound development of China-Germany relations and there is widespread consensus on deepening across-the-board cooperation between the two governments and various sectors of the two countries. China highly values its relations with Germany and looks forward to working with the new German administration to continuously advance the steady development of China-Germany comprehensive strategic partnership at a high level under the principle of mutual respect and mutual benefit and win-win outcomes.

Q: According to the exit polls, the 5-Star Movement in Italy was the biggest single party, and the center-right alliance won the most votes. What is your comment on the election? Is China concerned about the danger of instability or populism in Italy?

A: We have noted the relevant information about the Italian general election. China and Italy enjoy traditional friendship and are each other's comprehensive strategic partners. During the past forty-eight years since the establishment of diplomatic ties, our bilateral relations have enjoyed sound and steady growth. China attaches high importance to its relations with Italy and we are willing to join hands with the Italian side to move forward bilateral friendship and cooperation.(WB) The turnout for a rally on Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial in support of President Donald Trump, which was organized by the leader of the group Gays for Trump, grew from about a dozen people at its 11 a.m. starting time to nearly 100 enthusiastic participants by shortly after noon.

Gays for Trump President Peter Boykin, who was the first of about a dozen speakers to address the gathering, announced that there were no officially scheduled speakers and that the March4Trump event would adopt an open mic format where everyone would be welcome to speak, including our liberal friends.

As it turned out, all those who spoke on a makeshift stage with two loud speakers expressed strong support for Trump.

A similar March4Trump rally organized by Boykin one year ago on the grounds of the Washington Monument drew about a dozen counter protesters who denounced Trump and shouted insults at the pro-Trump participants. There were no counter protesters at Sundays event.

Donald Trump has delivered for us every single day, Boykin told rally participants, who assembled on the lower plaza in front of the Lincoln Memorial steps and a short distance from the Reflecting Pool that U.S. Park Service officials had drained during the winter months.

And you can see here our president has drained the swamp in Washington as he has promised, Boykin said, pointing to the drained Reflecting Pool, which connects the Lincoln Memorial to the grounds of the Washington Monument.

We love a president who is open and honest, Boykin continued. We dont have the fireside chats. We have his Tweets at 3 in the morning.

Boykin and other speakers said the severe wind storms that hit the mid-Atlantic region and the East Coast prevented people who planned to attend the March4Trump event from coming to Washington.

A lot of people stayed home and organized local Trump rallies, Boykin said. For every one person here there are 1,000 Trump supporters who could not be here today, he said.

Tim Rush, who identified himself as a 40-year activist and official within the Lyndon LaRouche movement, accused British intelligence agencies of attempting to orchestrate a coup against the Trump administration. He said British agents were behind efforts to stir up opposition to Trump by liberal activists in the U.S., including left-leaning news media outlets such as CNN, which he called Cable News Nonsense.

D.C. conservative activist Susan Monk said she and her husband are committed Trump supporters in a city where the majority of voters may not agree with them.

No matter how blue this city is, we are proud to come out here to support Trump, she said. The network of Trump supporters is whats saving this country, she added, noting that she and other Trump supporters are working to encourage fellow Trump backers from throughout the country to vote Republican in the November general election even if they have to hold their noses because GOP U.S. Senate or House candidates dont excite them.

Our president needs a Republican Congress, she said.

Monk praised the diversity of those who turned out for the D.C. March4Trump, noting that among those in the audience were gays and lesbians, Latinos, African Americans and Asians.

One of the African Americans who described himself as a proud Trump supporter was Boykins husband, Tavaris David Smith, who wore a red Make America Great Again hat with an equal sign decal designed by the LGBT group Human Rights Campaign attached to it.

I was raised in a Democratic family, Smith told the crowd. Im a Republican. I voted for Trump. Im on the American team and Im gay, he said. God bless America. God bless Trump.

Conservative activist and Trump supporter Isaac Smith of Charlottesville, Va. said Trump has created a sense of national solidarity that is helping the U.S. cope with a dangerous world and with divisions within the U.S.

We need to stick together, he said. The American dream is for everyone and Trump, according to Isaac Smith, who is not related to David Smith, won election as president, among other things, by emerging as a strong advocate for the forgotten Americans.

A young man who said he was visiting from South Korea compared some Americans who dislike Trump to what he said were a small but growing number of younger South Koreans, including students, who are becoming sympathetic to North Korea.

None of the speakers, including the gay speakers, addressed concerns raised by most mainstream LGBT rights organizations that the Trump administration has rolled back LGBT rights initiatives put in place by President Obama. Among them, LGBT activists have said, is Trumps attempt to rescind Obamas directive allowing transgender people to serve in the military; the reversal of a transgender nondiscrimination policy by the Department of Education for the nations schools; and the discontinuation of a White House LGBT liaison staff member.

At about 2:30, after the crowd dwindled to about 25 people, participants in the March4Trump began their planned march from the Lincoln Memorial to the White House. Two U.S. Park Police officers mounted on motorcycles escorted the group along a path next to the Reflecting Pool to 17th Street, where the group proceeded on the sidewalk to the White House.

After displaying an American flag, signs saying Thank You President Trump, and at least two rainbow flags with the words Gays for Trump printed on them near the White House fence, the group dispersed. Boykin said he and several participants planned to walk to the nearby Trump Hotel where they would have a late lunch.

 Lou Chibbaro Jr., Washington Blade courtesy of the National LGBTQ Media Association.Le Collectif Cheikh Yassine a organise un certain nombre dactivites et de festivites pour les enfants de Gaza sous le theme  La joie des enfants de Gaza pour lAid . Ces activites ont commence le premier jour de lAid et continue jusquau 4eme jour de lAid dans la bande de Gaza.



Plusieurs activites, ont ete organisees parmi lesquelles : des competitions recompensees par des prix, des jeux, des animations et des chants presentes par un groupe ainsi que des distributions de cadeaux et daides financieres.



The 2018 edition of Night of 1000 Pours happens Friday, Mach 16th, raising funds for the American Civil Liberties Union in their ongoing fights to support immigrants rights, LGBTQIA rights, and the rights of students to conduct lawful protests. Coffee brands across the country are getting in on the action by raising funds and throwing parties, including Equator Coffees, Stumptown Coffee, Heart Coffee Roasters, Reanimator Coffee Roasters, Everyman Espresso, G&B Coffee, Joe Coffee, Intelligentsia Coffee, Fleet Coffee, and many more.

Interested in joining in on the fundraising? Register an event here and learn much more at the official Night of 1000 Pours homepage.

For this, year two of the Night of A Thousand Pours, Sprudge is getting in on the action in a new and special way. We've teamed up with Portland Coffee Social Club and members of the Portland, Oregon coffee community to host a very special coffee and childhood breakfast treat service. We're calling it the Pop-Tart Pop-Up.

The first-annual Portland Pop-Tart Pop-Up will take place from 10am-3pm on Friday, March 16th at Sprudge Studios (3640 SE Belmont Avenue), with all proceeds benefitting the ACLU of Oregon. $5 at the door gets you a Pop-Tart of your choice (there will be a surfeit of options)toasted to your preferred level of perfection on Breville Smart Toastersand a delicious cup of batch brew drip coffee, sourced by Omar Herrera of La Bodega and roasted by Angel Medina of Smalltime Roasters, the house brand of Portland's own Kiosko Coffee. Coffee service will be supported by the experts at Black Rabbit Service Co., with delicious condiment options on hand thanks to Oatly, Pacific Foods, and Sunshine Dairy. There's also a lovely raffle happening with prizes donated from near and far, hosted by Portland Coffee Social Club, and who knows, Buzzy and Speshour giant anthropomorphic coffee beansmay be making a very special appearance.

This is the first public event at Sprudge Studios, the new creative studios and events space from Sprudge Media Network. You can learn much more about the development of this project over the last few months in the latest episode of the Coffee Sprudgecast, out nowdownload via iTunesbut suffice to say we're thrilled to welcome you into our space to drink delicious coffee, snack on a Tart or two, and raise money for the ACLU.

Thank you and we'll see you March 16th!Judicial Watch Files Two Lawsuits Against Justice Department for Docs on Top Officials' Ties to Clinton Dossier Creator Fusion GPS

DOJ Official Bruce Ohr's Wife Worked for Fusion GPS

Contact: Jill Farrell, Director of Public Affairs, Judicial Watch, 202-646-5172

WASHINGTON, Mar. 5, 2018 /Standard Newswire/ -- Judicial Watch announced today that it filed two FOIA lawsuits against the Justice Department for records about top Justice Department official Bruce Ohr and his wife Nellie Ohr's involvement in the Trump dossier authored by Christopher Steele (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:18-cv-00490)) and (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No.1:18-cv-00491)).

Until his dossier-related demotion, Bruce Ohr was the fourth ranked official at DOJ and a contact for Steele. The House Intelligence Committee memo released by Chairman Devin Nunes on February 2 says that Nellie Ohr was "employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump" and that Bruce Ohr passed the results of that research, which was paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign, to the FBI.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuits in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia after the Justice Department failed to respond to two separate FOIA requests in December 2017.

MORENYS Child Victims Act is Flawed

Contact: Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, 212-371-3191, pr@catholicleague.org

NEW YORK, Mar. 5, 2018 /Standard Newswire/ -- Catholic League president Bill Donohue (photo) explains the flaws in the Child Victims Act, a measure included in this year's budget by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. It is being widely distributed to lawmakers, bishops, and the media:

Under current New York State law, victims of child sexual abuse must press charges against the institution where the offense took place by age 21; they have until 23 to file charges against the attacker. The Child Victims Act would allow victims to sue until they turn 50, and would allow criminal charges to be filed until they turn 28. This is a positive step that most applaud.

However, the provision in the Child Victims Act that allows a one-year window to bring suit--for offenses extending back decades--is simply wrongheaded. It not only would make it extremely difficult to render a just decision, it would place in jeopardy the rights of the accused. To be sure, everyone wants justice for victims, but it can never come at the expense of justice for the accused. Here are two recent cases that were investigated in New York that make this point.

Just before Christmas, KIPP Academy, a prominent charter school network, detailed accusations of sexual misconduct made by two students against two New York City teachers. The accusations extended back more than a decade. KIPP did the right thing by hiring a distinguished law firm, Debevoise & Plimpton, to probe these cases and offer a conclusion.

Both of the women accusers refused to cooperate with the lawyers. Moreover, the investigation found that no adult at KIPP knew anything about the allegations when the abuse took place. But they did find some students who claimed to have known about the abuse. Those accounts, however, were riddled with inconsistencies.

To continue click here.Because robots are the future of space exploration, NASA has decided that its high time the International Space Station got its own robot. During a recent press conference, a NASA spokesperson declared that in June or October, they would send up an AI-powered floating robot to help scientists in their experiments.

New International Space Station Robot Created by IBM and Airbus

According to NASA, the new automated assistant is called Crew Interactive Mobile Companion or CIMON, for short, and it will really make a difference in the months to come. Unlike Robonaut which only received menial tasks like giving a spit and shine polish to the stations handlebars, CIMON will really be used in sensitive research.

CIMON features the latest advances in terms of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Furthermore, since its the brainchild of IBM and Airbus, CIMON will also feature the Watson 3D camera, which will greatly improve its spatial recognition and navigating abilities.

If that wasnt enough, the engineers even gave it the ability to interact and learn from the crew using its voice. Paired with an ever-smiling face, CIMON is sure to make an impression once it arrives on board the International Space Station.

If all goes according to the plan, the AI-powered robot will arrive on the ISS in June or October where it will work side-by-side with German astronaut Alexander Gerst. To test out its abilities to interact with the human crew, NASA has scheduled three types of experiments, stretching over four months.

First, CIMON will have to assist Gerst with his crystal studies. After that, CIMON will try to solve Rubiks cube as fast as possible under Gersts supervision. Last, but not least, the floating robot will have to use its Watson technology in order to assist the astronaut conduct several medical experiments.

Image source: MaxPixelMaybe the unions need to discuss this with Kate Steinle.

Oh wait

Via Breitbart.

California unions claim that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) immigration raids across Northern California will destroy farmers by causing fruit to die on the vine.

President of the United Farm Workers of America Arturo Rodriguez has complained that last weeks ICE raids in Northern California, which led to widespread panic, is a threat to Californias agricultural industry.

His concerns were echoed by President of the Western Growers Association, Tom Nassif, who told Bloomberg that 75 percent of Californias 2 million farm workers are undocumented (illegal) aliens.

The unions supposed outpouring concern for business came after it was reported that the Department of Justice is investigating Democrat Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf for tipping off illegal aliens through the media to suppress the effectiveness of ICE raids. ICE made 232 arrests, but the DOJ argued that Schaafs warning prevented up to 800 more criminal arrests.

National Sheriffs Association Executive Director and CEO Jonathan Thompson denounced Schaaf, saying her warning to illegal aliens put city residents and ICE officers in danger.

Despite liberals trying to paint ICE as victimizing harmless farm workers and their families, ICE claims that its focus in the arrest warrants was illegal aliens with criminal charges outstanding, mostly for failures to appear for court hearings.By Olivia Rose

THE CARIBBEAN Community (Caricom)s thrust to build a more climate-resilient region was a key item for deliberation during a recent heads of government meeting.





Category five hurricanes Irma and Maria swept across the region last year leaving a swathe of destruction, taking lives, devastating infrastructure and rolling back years of economic development in several Caricom member states.





Caricom with its Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) at the forefront has been helping to lead the recovery and rebuilding effort.





While the region still needs significant levels of financing for recovery and building resilience many member states are gearing their energy towards creating more climate-resilient nations.





Caricom heads of government met at the 29th Inter-Sessional Meeting in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on February 26 and 27.





Just three months shy of the next hurricane season, members examined measures to ensure adequate preparation and quick responses to emergency needs.





The high level of crime and violence across the community was also discussed at the summit.





Heads at their last meeting discussed key initiatives directed towards combating transnational organised crime which, they noted, continues to be one of the most immediate and significant threats facing the region.





Focus was also directed towards the development of a Caricom counter terrorism strategy which is being finalised for adoption.





Sean Astwood, Deputy Premier and Minister of Border Control and Employment, held talks with several member state leaders including the president of Haiti, Jovenel Moise to discuss matters related to migration.





He was accompanied by Ronlee James, Executive Director in the Office of the Premier and Bernadya Smith, Executive Administrator for Border Control and Employment.





The heads of government of the 18-member body and its associate membership also discussed issues relating to the regions slow recovery from the global economic crises, the heavy debt burdens of some members and the effects policies by international financial institutions have had on the economies of the community.





Other key items on the agenda of the Inter-Sessional assembly included tourism, regional security, and blacklisting and de-risking.





The meeting sought to advance plans to further strengthen key elements of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) including those related to travel and trade.SEVERAL representatives of the TCI Government flew out to Belgium recently to attend two European Union conferences.





The Ministerial Conference of the Association of Overseas Countries and Territories of the European Union (OCTA) and 16th annual European Union Overseas Countries and Territories Forum took place in Brussels on February 22 and 23.





Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson was chair of the OCTA this year.





She was joined by Deputy Governor and EU Programme Manager, Anya Williams, Permanent Secretary of Finance, Athenee Basden, Director of the Office of the Premier, Ronlee James, Head of the London Office, Tracy Knight and Consular Officer, Kimo Tynes.





According to a Government press release, the TCI has had a long relationship with the European Union and has benefitted from expertise, advice and financial assistance.





This includes two European Development Funds (EDF) 10 and 11 and several regional EU programmes.





The EDF 11 Programme is focused on improvements in the education sector and sustainable energy, marine biodiversity, climate change and disaster risk reduction.





Cartwright Robinson said: "The past several days spent with fellow OCTA leaders and representatives as well as the European Commission, signify to me their commitment to issues we face both collectively and individually.





"It has been a rewarding year as chair of OCTA and we look forward to continuing our relationship, building on the successes we both share.





She explained that on assuming the chair of OCTA, she outlined that one of the main areas the Government would be focused on is the environment and renewable energy.





This is important for the long-term protection, survival and vitality of marine and eco environments, she said.





"I was pleased to report on the success we have had at that, particularly in light of experiencing two major hurricanes in 2017.





"But my Governments commitment doesnt end there. I remain steadfast to the issues around climate change, a specific concern to all members of OCTA and which remit falls under my office, as we have begun to identify initiatives that will lower our carbon emission and footprint and increase our adaptability.





Deputy Governor and EU Programme Manager Anya Williams said that since the Turks and Caicos Islands was reinstated into the programme in 2008, it now manages one of the most successful EU programmes in the region.





"We are grateful for our continued partnership with the EU and for the early release of the first tranche of $4 million under this programme which was received shortly after the passage of hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017 to assist with any potential cash shortfalls.





"The Turks and Caicos has already submitted an application for emergency relief funding under the EDF 11 B envelope to assist with rebuilding works required in our education

sector.





She said the territory is also a part of the regional programme which will be focusing on renewable energy and marine biodiversity, along with the thematic programme which will be focusing on climate change.





As the chair of OCTA, the premier was responsible for chairing the ministerial conference and round table discussions with her ministerial colleagues.





This year, the TCI also participated in a one-day meeting on oceans organised by OCTA, under the theme, More than 17,000,000 km2 of ocean policy: OCTs and the sustainable management of the ocean and its resources.





During that discussion, the premier highlighted the Governments challenges and commitment to the issues faced including challenges with pollution, fisheries, new opportunities for blue growth and new opportunities for research.





As chair of OCTA she hosted a gala dinner in honour of the delegates, officials and guests who travelled to the host country for the auspicious occasion.





The premier brought some of Turks and Caicos Isalnds best cultural performers along with her to treat guests to a taste of TCIs culture.





They were musicians Quinton Dean and Lindsey Zeus Butterfield, as well as London based students Renate Hinds and Mary Fulford who performed songs and poetry.





At the conclusion of the week of meetings, French Polynesia was elected as chair of OCTA and thanked the TCI for its leadership over the past year.A SIGNIFICANT and long awaited ground-breaking was the talk of the town this week, one that many see as the start to bigger and even better developments for the Turks and Caicos Islands.





After seven years of challenges, the Desarrollos Hotelco group will soon begin construction on the territorys first 12 storey resort and spa.





Ceremoniously breaking the earth on Monday (February 26) with a small toss of soil at the Grace Bay site of the new hotel, were Roberto Stipa of Desarrollos, Marriott brands Tim Sheldon, Governor John Freeman, Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson and local realtor Walter Gardiner.





Roberto Stipa, who represented his father Walter and other principals of the Desarrollos Hotelco group, spoke of the ambitions his company has for the project.





"Todays ground-breaking milestone is the first of a series to follow. Weve had a long road, too long, a road full of potholes and setbacks.





"I think we can all agree that it has truly been a bumpy road to paradise. We are not there yet, but with all of your continuous support and assistance we will prevail and successfully reach the ultimate goal.





Addressing the gathering of government ministers and officials, opposition members, former premier, and other high ranking members of government and civil societies, Stipa said that their attendance was a sign of the level of support the hotel group has received over the years.





"Not only from government and community leaders but also from the people of Turks and Caicos. To all of you, thank you, Stipa said.





He added that he is true believer that business can be one of the greatest powers for good, as such, he said that this project will bring significant benefits for the Turks and Caicos community.





"This ground-breaking event marks a big step towards the long last relationship between Desarrollos Hotelco and the Turks and Caicos Islands.





"Together we will give the tourists even more reason to visit the Turks and Caicos, an incredible paradise, Stipa said.





A strong foundation

Local point person for the Desarrollos Group, Walter Gardiner, also spoke words of relief and encouragement.





"As we celebrate the fact that we are at a ground-breaking of this long awaited momentous project we must keep in mind that any building, whether its a house or a multimillion dollar condominium, is only as good as its foundation.





Gardiner stated that the foundation of this project is built on the union of three premiere brands - brand Turks and Caicos, a luxury brand second to none and one of the most sought after destinations.





Two, the proven track record of the Desarrollos Hotelco, which he said has completed several hotel projects throughout the Caribbean.





And three, on the foundation of the strength of the Ritz Carlton hotel brand, a brand that is synonymous with superior luxury and unsurpassed service with over 90 luxury hotels and resorts in more than 30 countries throughout the world.





Gardiner noted that the culmination of all of this results in the Turks and Caicos Islands finally having its first internationally branded five star luxury resort and residences.





"Today we meet to mark the start of a welcome turn of events in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Premier Sharlene Cartwright Robinson said in her remarks.





"Like Walter Gardiner Jr, I believe this is the beginning of a marked up turn for us as a country.





"We celebrate with the Desarrollos Group and Ritz Carlton family and the people of the Turks and Caicos and officially welcome the world class Ritz Carlton brand to our family of strong TCI brand.





She said that this signals to the world that the TCI is still a well sought after destination that is definitely open for business.





"With my Governments endorsement of a new strategic tourism direction we are on the cusp of ensuring that we remain a well sought after destination, consistent with the strong TCI brand that many continue to work to maintain.





The premier further thanked the hotel group for its commitment throughout the years, which was first touted three administrations ago, and also acknowledged the work of the Ewing administration.





"It is important that we do that because of the seven years this project has been around it has been four years under the Ewing administration.





"I must acknowledge the work in the last year, the work of the Department of Planning, DECR, the Attorney Generals Chambers and the Ministry of Border Control who pushed very hard in this final phase, Premier Cartwright Robinson said.





A balance

Echoing the sentiments of many, Governor Freeman in his remarks said that it has indeed been a long road.





"Nothing is more important to the economic well-being and the future of TCI than the tourism sector.





"Care in the development of the sector is crucial to that well-being. In care in the development of the sector a balance must always be struck between the needs of development and the duties and stewardship of these Islands, between new facilities and the wonderful natural beauties of land in the surrounding waters.





"But, if the balance is right the gains are evident.





He too stated that the prestige of the Ritz Carlton brand will add even more lustre to brand Turks and Caicos.





"I want to offer my best wishes to all who will be involved in the development of this site, not least to the men and women who will build it, and to the men and women who will find employment in the new Ritz Carlton and to the people of Turks and Caicos who will benefit from an additional and splendid hotel and residence in this territory, the Governor remarked.





Tim Sheldon, president of Latin America and the Caribbean for the Marriott brand, also brought remarks on behalf of the Marriot brand, which was first proposed by the hotel group to occupy the land in Grace Bay.





He stated that the TCI will be very appreciative of what the group will do with the Ritz Carlton project as Roberto and his father Walter have been phenomenal partners with the Marriott for nearly 20 years as they developed products throughout the Caribbean.





"On behalf of Marriott International and our employees all around the world, we are so excited and it is such an honour for me to be part of this transformational and spectacular secluded and magical destination.





"This is a special moment as the ground-breaking for this project will mark another rare locale set up for those who seek a personal, meaningful and transformative place to relax, and we believe that this will occur here for sure, Sheldon said.





He stated that the residences will offer homes not only defined by sophisticated style and luxurious finishes but equipped to deliver legendary Ritz Carlton service from concierge services and in-residence dining to a dedicated residential management team, a lifestyle of privacy and comfort awaits every owner, all of which reflect the many years of tradition behind the iconic brand.





Following the official ground-breaking, guests were invited over to the Le Vele Plaza two blocks away to sip drinks and chat with the developers.



THE RITZ Carlton and Marriott brands, which merged operations some time back, have been known for community and social developmental works within host countries worldwide.





This is according to principal of the Desarrollos Hotelco group, Roberto Stipa Teneriro, whose company has now started construction on the Turks and Caicos Islands first 12 storey resort and spa.





Speaking with the Weekly News, following the official ground-breaking on Monday (February 26), in Grace Bay, Teneriro was full of praise for the incoming world famous hotel brand.





"I can tell you that Ritz Carlton as a brand, and Marriott as a brand fight for the training they give to those local people, it is amazing.





"We have other properties in the Caribbean - Aruba is a good example - where you can see stories about locals that started as busboys, waiters working themselves up because of that training and that is the possibility that Ritz Carlton and Marriott brand provides them.





Teneriro boasted that not only do employees have the opportunity to work at in-country hotels, they are also afforded opportunities to work with any of the Ritz Carlton branded hotels around the world.





"Once you start working at Ritz Carlton or Marriott you have the chance to be transferred elsewhere for another position then come back if you want to.





"You have the chance at training in various courses to grow up in the company, its amazing.





"So that is something that is going to happen and we are looking for that to happen here in Turks and Caicos.





He stated that personally, it is a huge accomplishment for Desarrollos to get to this stage - that of breaking ground in the TCI.





"It is a huge accomplishment, the company is really excited to start here, we have been trying to get something moving for years now.





"We bought the land in 2012, so we have believed in this island for so long. We believe that the future of this island is bright and we want to be a part of that future. So, it took a while but it was worth it.





He also stated that there is never going to be a Marriott in the TCI, as the group had first proposed.





Questioned about the conditional building licence and the Department of Environment and Coastal Resources (DECR) requested completion of the environmental and impact assessment report to include the reef, Teneriro said that they are jumping on that as soon as possible.





"The EIA has been done, but we got some comments back from the DECR and we are working on those comments.





"Its safe to say that in my experience in developing the Caribbean this one [EIA study] was the most extensive study we have made and it is almost to 700 pages.





"We tried to cover everything that we can under the DECR and under what planning department proposed.





"There are some things coming up but they shouldnt take much longer to respond to that, he assured.





Community give back

Teneriro also praised the community programmes of the Ritz Carlton and Marriott brands.





"They have a great programme. I can speak on behalf of the developers, and with the experience of having another Ritz Carlton in the area, as well as working with Marriott for over 20 years that they have a good programme called Community Footprints where they engage with the community in different activities.





"Its part of their brand to be active in the community.





That programme, from a glimpse of the hotels website, seeks to engage, contribute and inspire.





The website outlines: "These are the guiding principles of our social and environmental responsibility programme, Community Footprints, which aligns us around the issues that are important to the communities where we operate.





"By mobilising our resources and skill-based volunteer efforts, we strive to make a difference through child wellbeing, hunger and poverty relief, and environmental responsibility.





The Ritz-Carlton was the first founding partner of IMPACT 2030, a private-sector led initiative in collaboration with the United Nations and other global stakeholders, that will marshal corporate volunteering action to advance the achievement of the sustainable development goals.





Under the hotels strategy for environmental responsibility, its principle is to sustain, protect and experience.





These are the principles that guide The Ritz-Carlton Environmental Responsibility Strategy and goals, including: further reducing energy and water consumption 20 percent by 2020 (energy 20 percent per kWh/conditioned m2; water 20 percent per occupied room. Baseline: 2007);

increasing local and organic dining options by partnering with local farmers, growers and seafood purveyors; sourcing environmentally preferred products; empowering hotel development partners to build green hotels; and engaging and inspiring employees and guests in conservation efforts.





"We are focused on integrating environmental sustainability throughout our business, including architecture and construction, hotel operations, and procurement.





"A comprehensive set of initiatives and practices are in place, designed to reduce energy use, water consumption and waste, while database and monitoring systems help us to track consumption and monitor progress against goals, the hotels site reads.



This Page

has moved to a new address:

Sorry for the inconvenience

Redirection provided by Blogger to WordPress Migration ServiceTrump-Netanyahu meeting is chance to project common front against Ira

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Reuters, Washington :

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold talks on Monday that offer a chance to project a common front against Iran but are expected to do little to advance seemingly stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects. Mired in corruption investigations threatening his political survival, Netanyahu - questioned at his home by police on Friday - will step into a different spotlight during his five-day US visit. Trump's push to change or scrap Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and concerns over Tehran's foothold in Syria are expected to top the agenda of his talks with Netanyahu, U.S. and Israeli officials said. Both leaders have long railed against the deal, citing its limited duration and the fact it does not cover Iran's ballistic missile program or its support for anti-Israel militants in the region.

Trump has threatened to pull out of the agreement unless European allies help"fix" it with a follow-up accord. An Israeli official said Netanyahu and Trump were likely to talk about how to overcome European resistance on the matter.

"I intend to discuss a series of issues with (Trump), but foremost Iran, its aggression, nuclear ambitions and aggressive actions in the Middle East, including along our very border," Netanyahu told reporters on his departure from Israel. Israel has accused Tehran of seeking a permanent military presence in Syria, where Iranian-backed forces support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war.

Netanyahu has also cautioned that Israel could act against Iran itself after an Iranian drone flew into Israel last month and an Israeli warplane was shot down while bombing air defences in Syria. He has accused Iran of planning to build precision-guided missile factories in Lebanon, amid tensions along that border.Enlistment of real estate developers with CDA to begin from March 20 next

Chittagong Bureau :

A view exchange meeting between the officials of Real Estate & Housing Association of Bangladesh (REHAB) and the Chairman of Chittagong Development Authority Abdus Salam was held yesterday at latter's conference hall REHAB team led by its Vice President and Chittagong Zonal Chairman Md. Abdul Kaiyum Chowdhury .

In the meeting , REHAB members presented a number of proposals to CDA chairman including introduction of one stop service in connection of project approval, compulsory membership of all developers with REHAB, registration of all REHAB members with CDA, inclusion of REHAB members with CDA committee.

CDA chairman praised the role of REHAB in country's development. He said to resolve the accommodation problems of the country, REHAB's role is praiseworthy and friendly relations grown up between CDA and REHAB from very beginning.

CDA chairman also said as per decisions of the Ministry of Commerce, every developer should have registered with REHAB compulsorily and the enlistment of developers with CDA will begin from March 20 next.

He further told that subject to membership registration with REHAB, real estate developers will be entitled to have registered with CDA. CDA chief expressed consensus over inclusion of REHAB members in the project approval committee.

Among others, Regional co-chairman Alhaj Engr. Didarul Hoque Chowdhury, members Mijanur Rahman, Dr.Kazi Ainul Hoque, Engr.ASM Abu Sufian, Engr. Iftekhar Hossain, Chief City Planner Engr Md Sahidul Islam Khan, Authorized Officer Engr. Manzur Hasan, Authorized Officer Engr Shamim , City Planner Md.Abu Isha Ansari were present on the occasion.

Owners make Ctg container depots inactive

REHAB top officials met with CDA Chairman Abdus Salam at latter\'s conference room on Sunday.

Chittagong Bureau :

At least 15 organisations of truck owners and transport workers are demonstrating in the port city on Monday, halting freight movements at the 18 depots.

Since Mar 1, vehicles are being charged Tk 150 while entering the depots, said Safiur Rahman Tipu, a leader of inter-district freight owners' union, the Truck-Covered Van Owners' Association.He told the media that depots workers also charged Tk 600- Tk 1,300 per vehicle for loading and unloading.

"We have halted all freight work at private container depots from Monday morning to demand an end to this extortion," said the association's Organising Secretary Tipu.

On Saturday, transport owners moved the Chittagong Port Authority chairman and other concerned offices with memorandums over the issue.

"The transport owners are not allowing any vehicles to enter the depots this morning, so all freight is halted com", Bangladesh Inland Container Depot Association's Secretary Ruhul Amin told this correspondent yesterday.

He, however, said that vehicles have to pay Tk 100 while entering the depots, not Tk 150 as the transport owners and workers claim. "It's Tk 50 for the gate pass and another Tk 50 for parking."

All depots charge for a 'gate pass', but parking fees are only charged at those depots that have the facility, claimed Amin adding the Chittagong port also charges Tk 57.50 for parking.He said the money raised from gate passes are used to cover maintenance cost of the depots.

On depot workers charging to load and unload, Amin said no depot operators support it. "But if

Govt using modern technology to spread Bangabandhu's strategies



Government, through its ICT Division, is applying modern technology to spread strategies and prudence of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

"Greatest Bengali of all time, Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman is a great inspiration for all of the freedom-loving people across the world. Therefore we have taken multifarious initiatives to spread his strategy, prudence and good sense by using modern technology," State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak told BSS. "We have released an analytical publication on Bangabandhu's historic 7th March speech, its e-book edition and mobile application, which was unveiled by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on November 13, 2017. A demo version of that historic speech has been made in VR (Virtual Reality) and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the app on December 6, 2017, at the 'Digital World-17'," he added.

According to the ICT Division sources, Bangabandhu App has been downloaded almost 1lakh times from the Google Play Store. Besides, the publication of analytical book on 7th March speech titled "Bangabandhur Sat-e March Er Bhashon: Rajneetir Mahakabyo" (Bangabandhu's 7th March Speech: An Epic Poem of Politics) is a compilation of analysis of the 26 renowned political commentators, analysts and academic personalities. Each of them analyzed a selected sentence from the Father of the Nation's historic speech. Minister of Commerce Tofail Ahmed, Prof Mustafa Nur-Ul Islam, Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury, Prof Emeritus Dr Anisuzzaman, Prof Muntassir Mamun, Prof AAMS Arefin Siddique, Dr SA Malek and Selina Hossain are among those whose comments were incorporated in the book. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina wrote the preface of the book. The main planner, Chief Adviser and Patron of this book is State Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak.

"Basically, we are targeting the youth to let them know the Father of Nation. His contributions in achieving the freedom of Bangladesh from the repression of the Pakistani ruler, how he led and motivated the unarmed people fight for their rights and liberated the country. We all should know how Bangabandhu gradually prepared a whole nation for the Liberation War, and how a speech prepared a nation for the independence," Palak said. The state minister added that with a view to spreading the spirit of the Father of the Nation to the young generation, government has developed a colored version of that historic 7th March speech and made the Bangabandhu App public in order to spread his activities, thoughts and sacrifices among the people all over the world.

The electronic version of the book or e-book is available at the Google Play Store and Apple Store.

The released mobile application '7th March Speech Analysis' could be downloaded from the Google Play Store link given bellow. (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bangabandhuspeech.)Oil tanker with 9,000 litres fuel overturns in city

An oil tanker of Meghna Petroleum overturned after driver lost control of the vehicle in city\'s Ashkona area on Monday.

banglanews24.com :

An oil tanker of Meghna Petroleum overturned after losing control on the airport in Dhaka's Ashkona Monday (March 5).

Airport Police Station Officer-in-Charge (OC) Nure Azam Mia told Banglanews that the tanker contained about 9,000 liters of fuel.

The tanker turned over as a wheel of it detached away while taking u-turn at the airport intersection, leaving the driver injured.

Vehicle movement was obstructed to some extent following the incident.

Afterwards, the tanker was removed from the road after almost four hours, added the OC.Higher education, higher unemployment

Farook Ahmed :

Within the next decade we will have the largest number of higher educated unemployed youths in the world. It can be said without a shadow of doubt that the outcome of such large-scale unemployment would be disastrous for us.

Our policy makers seem to be either blind or nonchalant to such a grave impending disaster. We have no concrete and realistic education policy. This has made the situation more parlous. Our innocent students do not know what is in store for them in future. Neither their parents know whether their hard-earned money spent on their children's' higher education could be recouped ever.

The alarming rise of private universities like grocery shops has tainted the sanctity of higher education. These private universities churn out thousands of so-called higher educated youngsters faster than popcorn fryer machines. Their products have no demand in the job markets and the certificates which these institutions provide to the students prove to be like demonetized bank notes.

We have so many private and public universities that Thailand, Singapore, Nepal and Malaysia combined do not have equal number of universities like us. Japan, China and Singapore have not yet made higher education open for everybody. These countries put emphasis on technical education and only the exceptionally meritorious students can reach the door of university.

But the situation in our country is quite the reverse. We discourage technical education and encourage higher education.

This flawed and prejudicial education policy is decimating the future of our students. Survey reveals that 85% of our university students come from middle and lower middle class families.

Their parents find it back-breaking to defray the costs of their wards' tuition and other fees. The private universities extract exorbitant tuition fees from the students. When poor parents find that their sons and daughters despite having university degrees are jobless, then their hopes are vanished and their dreams are dashed.

Their higher educated sons become a double burden on them. Now every household has at least one or two higher educated unemployed member.

Being a poor country we cannot afford to bear the burdens of so many higher educated unemployed young persons.

Government needs to take due diligence to erase the blight of all-pervasive unemployment scar from the face of our country.

We cannot deny the fact that our private universities are squarely responsible for creating this wide-ranging unemployment in the country. These private universities' only goal is to make money by fair or foul means.

They do not impart quality education to their students. Hence we see that most of the students of private universities are either half-educated or ill-educated. So they naturally become misfits for any job. Government should not have permitted so many private universities to come into being.

The university grants commission should bring all existing private universities under its rigorous oversight. This may compel the private universities to maintain at least minimum standard.

It would be certainly better for us if we like China, Japan and Singapore make higher education not open for everybody. Our survey reveals that half of the existing private universities can be easily converted into technical institutions.

Government may form a body to examine the possibility and viability of this proposal.

Sociologists are afraid that our acute and ever mounting unemployment may cause serious imbalance in our society. If our youngsters do not find any job in sync with their qualifications they will plunge into dire despondence and many will resort to criminal activities for a living.

We have found that sizable number of unemployed young persons have become drug addict out of sheer frustration. This epidemical unemployment issue has already pushed us into deep crisis. We cannot allow this crisis to deepen further. This is our national crisis. It demands concerted and well-planned efforts to effectively tackle it.

Time has come to ponder over why we have so many unmarried girls in our society. We have so many unmarried girls because of so many unemployed boys. If a man gets employment, a woman gets a husband.

We cannot dispute the fact that our so-called higher education is inextricably complicating our unemployment problem.

If we really want to disentangle us from the bear hug of unemployment, we must disenchant our young generation from the lure of higher education. We need to create ample opportunities for vocational and technical education.

Theoretical education has little value in this highly tech and digital age and that is why our education policies should be overhauled root and branch to cope with the demand of the prevailing situation.

We propose that government may urgently consider setting up at least one vocational cum technical institution at each district. This measure will facilitate our youths to learn technical knowledge at their own locality.

Education ministry may embark upon vigorous campaign to emphasize on the importance and usefulness of vocational and technical education instead of traditional higher education. We have long been observing that most of our public universities are plagued with session jam which takes away extra two or three years from the life of every student.

So when the students finally leave their universities, they become age-barred for entry into government service. Currently a person who is above thirty years can not apply for government jobs. Hence the cut-off age limit for entry into government service may be increased from 30yr to 35yr.

This step if taken will obviously conduce to many job-seekers to find a most coveted government job. A country like ours cannot move forward with such load of huge number of educated unemployed young people. The unemployment issue is exponentially turning into explosive situation.

We should not pretend to forget that we are sitting on a veritable time-bomb. If we do not act now, we are likely to be caught flat-footed.



(The writer is a freelance contributor).Poor infrastructure, lack of teachers at our public universities

NEWER public universities, in and outside of Dhaka are failing to woo students for their poor performance and infrastructure. Moreover, the number of vacant seats at these universities has tripled in the last three years.



More specifically, as per University Grants Commission (UGC) sources, about 4,100 honours and post-graduation level seats were vacant in 2016-2017 session in public universities - an increase by three times from 1,615 seats vacant in 2014-15 session. And when this is the reality - the government instead of providing qualified teachers and resources in these universities - are planning to set up more universities. At least 11 more public universities are in the pipeline and of them 10 are in the outlying districts.



These are signs of poor decisions by the government's policymakers. Academicians have also blamed hasty and unplanned opening of public universities without creating the needed infrastructure and recruiting required number of teachers. It is more than unfortunate that so many seats remain vacant at our public universities when many of our students are going abroad in order to pursuing degrees at a higher cost.



The point, however, menace of poor and short-sighted decision making has riddled the country with non-performing institutions and businesses - be it a new bank, communications mega project or a new power plant - the decision makers are rushing to materialise them - only considering their visible existences. Also most of these hasty projects and institutions not only fail to serve their respective purposes, they end up as white elephants.



Spreading higher education by establishing newer universities is needed for taking the country forward, and not for seeking cheap publicity and drum about tales of ' success and development'. Our politicians, bureaucrats and policy makers must realise this fact and accordingly, put focus on providing quality teachers, labs and proper infrastructures at all our public universities.





Trump's Mideast peace plan in limbo as Netanyahu visits White House

Voice of America :

There's much to celebrate but plenty of cause for trepidation, too, as President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet Monday at the White House.

For all his talk about brokering the "ultimate deal" between Israelis and Palestinians, Trump's long-awaited peace plan has yet to arrive, even as Palestinians and other critics insist it will be dead on arrival. And although Israel's government is overjoyed by Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital - with a U.S. embassy set to open in the holy city in May - misgivings are percolating under the surface over Iran, where Israel sees Trump's efforts to date to crack down on Israel's arch-enemy as lacking.

One major, growing concern: that the United States is acquiescing to Iran's growing presence in Syria and influence in Lebanon - two Israeli neighbors.

"If we don't come up with a strategy against Iran, we're going to make Israel go to war here pretty soon," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Swirling legal investigations distracting both leaders at home, and a stunning fall from grace for Trump's son-in-law and would-be peace negotiator, Jared Kushner, have added to the mix of politics, personalities and historical grievances that have always hindered Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. An already volatile situation now looks even more combustible than normal. Netanyahu arrived in the United States over the weekend as Washington was gearing up for the annual conference of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby. He planned to hold a meeting and working lunch with Trump on Monday before speaking at the conference later in the week. Top-ranking U.S. officials including Vice President Mike Pence and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley will also address the conference.

In a poignant reminder of his troubles back home, Netanyahu and his wife were questioned separately by police for hours on Friday before the prime minister left the next day for Washington. Those interviews were part of an investigation into a corruption case involving the country's telecom giant, and police have recommended indicting Netanyahu on corruption charges in two other cases as well.

The Trump family has legal problems of its own. Kushner, Trump's point-man for the Mideast, is under intense scrutiny over his business dealings as special counsel Robert Mueller barrels forward with his Russia probe. Kushner has also been stripped of his top security clearance in another blow to his credibility as an international negotiator. Kushner's peace proposal is near completion, U.S. officials have said, but Palestinians have already written off Trump's administration as a viable mediator following his decision last year to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. A ribbon-cutting for an interim facility is being planned to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Israel's independence.

Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, speaking at AIPAC on Sunday, said that the Jewish people will "forever" remember Trump's decision. But while the visit may give Trump a chance to bask in Israel's delight, Netanyahu also comes with serious concerns to raise about the president's broader approach on the Middle East.

Israel is increasingly worried that Trump is backsliding on a pledge to "fix" or dismantle the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Of particular concern is that Trump may push new restrictions to prevent Iran from developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting the U.S., but will allow Iran to keep developing medium-range ballistic missiles that could strike Israel. The Europeans have balked at the possibility of medium-range missile restrictions, arguing that existing U.N. resolutions on Iran only focus on longer-range projectiles. U.S. officials negotiating with Britain, France and Germany appear to agree with the Europeans, prompting the Israeli concern. At least publicly, Israel is still giving Trump some political cover, while gently reminding the president that he's long vowed to scrap the deal if it can't be sufficiently strengthened. "I have no doubt whatsoever that this president is willing to walk away," Dermer said.

BNP blames AL for attack on Zafar Iqbal

It's a ploy to divert aggrieved people's attention after Khaleda's jail, says Rizvi

Staff Reporter :

Protesting the Awami League's blame against BNP over the knife attack on Professor Dr Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, BNP Senior Joint-Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi on Monday alleged that Awami League has a strong connection with the stabbing incident.

"A question has arisen in public mind how did a youth dare stab prominent writer Zafar Iqbal on his back and head amid huge security on the university campus and his personal security? How is it possible without state or government backing?" Rizvi questioned.

Speaking at a press briefing at the party's Nayapaltan central office, he also said, "Who was arrested over the incident has only Awami League's connection. Awami League's connection has also become clear with the identity of the attacker. It's Awami League which can only carry out it."

Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said incidents of sudden stabbing on Shahjalal University of Science and Technology's Professor Zafar Iqbal, killing of Baraigram upazila chairman of Natore Nur Hossain Babu with sharp knife by local 'Chhattra League' and Jubo League', and killing of juvenile worker Biswajit by stabbing by 'Chhatra League' have the similarity with attempt of killing Zafar Iqbal.

He said people believe that the attempt to kill Zafar Iqbal was for diverting attention of public who got 'aggrieved' and protestant' after Khaleda was sentenced to jail.

He said whole nation was surprised following Awami League general secretary Obaidul Quader's comment that BNP was behind the attack on Zafar Iqbal.

Protesting Quader's comment, Rizvi said the ruling party general secretary has been making weird and inconstant comments to malign BNP and hush up his party's misdeeds.

He said it is Awami League's political tradition to shift blame onto others after carrying out bloody incidents to mislead people. "There'll be no use of such tactics as people know what is Awami League and what the party can do. You won't be able to hide the facts."

About BNP's programme, he said as human chain in Dhaka part of the party's countrywide programme would be held in front of National Press Club from 11:00 am to 12:00pm on Tuesday while sit-in in front of BNP central office from 11:00am to 12:00pm on Thursday.Attack on Zafar Iqbal: Pub varsity teachers, students demand exemplary punishment

Staff Reporter :

Teachers and students of the country's public universities on Monday demanded exemplary punishment of the culprits who stabbed noted writer and Professor of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology Professor Dr Muhammed Zarar Iqbal.

They also demanded security of the universities' teachers and students to avert any further attack by the evil forces.

Dhaka University Teachers Association (DUTA) formed a human chain in front of the Aparajeyo Bangla on the Dhaka University campus around 12:30pm protesting the attack on eminent educationist and popular writer Dr Zafar Iqbal.

"Professor Muhammed Zafar Iqbal has a good reputation all over the country for his excellent writings and as a student-friendly teacher. He is one of the top intellectuals in the country also. It was not an attack on him, it was on whole teachers as well as nation," said DUTA President Professor Maksud Kamal.

"Please nab all the culprits and bring them under trial. We want exemplary punishment to the culprits," he said.

At Rajshahi University (RU), a section of the university's pro-Awami League teachers formed a human chain under the banner of "Progressive Teachers Society" in front of the university's Senate Bhaban around 11:00am.

Teachers of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) observed a sit-in from 11:00am to 1:00pm on Monday to protest an attack on their colleague Professor Zafar Iqbal.

Teachers from different departments began to congregate in front of the administration building for a sit-in programme. Vice-Chancellor Farid Uddin Ahmed and Treasurer Elias Uddin Biswas also joined the protesters.

During the sit-in, the VC said whatever happened was a heinous crime and teachers and students should come forward to ensure security on the campus.

"We have formed an investigation committee on the issue and instructed them to file a report soon," he said, adding: "Although the government will look into the legal side, the university administration will take care of the internal issues."

Syed Hasanuzzaman, President of Teachers' Association, said it was a planned attack against the spirit of liberation war and the free-thinking people. "We urge the government to find out the masterminds and take them to task."

A silent procession was also brought out by teachers and students of the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department, Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department, and Software Engineering Department.

Faisal Ahmed, a student of CSE Department, said the three departments will bring out silent processions for next three days. Also, they will pray for Prof. Iqbal's quick recovery through lighting candles at Shaheed Minar on Tuesday.

Islamic University Teachers' Association (IUTA) on Monday formed a human-chain on the campus in Kushtia protesting the attack on eminent writer Professor Mohammad Zafar Iqbal.

At least three hundred teachers of different departments joined the human-chain in front of the university's arts faculty building.

Speakers at the human-chain demanded exemplary punishment of the attackers so that no one can commit such heinous act in future.

Such kind of crimes would happen consecutively if the culprits were not punished, the speakers added.

IU Vice-Chancellor Professor M Harun-Ur-Rashid Askari, pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor M Shahinoor Rahman, Treasurer Professor M Selim Toha and IUTA President Professor Mizanur Rahman, among others, spoke at the human chain.

Chittagong University Journalists' Association (CUJA) formed a human chain and demanded exemplary punishment of the perpetrators involved in the attack.

Professor Zafar Iqbal, a faculty member of Computer Science and Engineering Department at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST), came under a knife attack on the campus by a youth on Saturday. He is now doing well at the Dhaka CMH.

The attacker youth was caught red-handed after the attack.Attack on Zafar Iqbal : Krishok League leader among 6 held

Locals claim ruling party men's involvement, Cops watch on suspected program participants

Staff Reporter :

Law enforcers have detained at least six persons, including Joint-Convener of the Sunamganj District Krishok League and the attacker's parents, in connection with the attack on noted writer Professor Mohammed Zafar Iqbal in Sylhet on Saturday.

A team of police picked up attacker Fayzur's father Atikul Islam and mother Minara Begum from Madina Market area in the Sylhet city around 10:30pm Sunday, said Muhammad Abdul Wahab, Additional Deputy Commissioner (Media) of Sylhet Metropolitan.

The Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) members also arrested two uncles of the attacker. They are Abdul Kader, paternal uncle of Fayzur Rahman, from Kalierkapon area in Derai upazila of Sunamganj while attacker's maternal uncle Mokhlesur Rahman was picked up from Sheikhpara area of Sylhet city on Saturday night for questioning, said our local correspondent quoting police.

Earlier, a joint-team of RAB and Police also detained Abul Kahar Luloi, a Joint-Convener of the Sunamganj District Krishok League, said RAB-9 Sunamganj Captain Lieutenant Commander Foysal Ahmed. The detectives intensified watch on the participants of the concluding ceremony when Professor Iqbal was attacked by a youth, said a senior leader of Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL) of the university.

Seeking anonymity, a student of the SUST, alleged that carrying out the attack was impossible without the help BCL men.

He also claimed that the attacker might have taken the shelter during the attack as his dress was dirty and in poor condition. Normally BCL leaders did not allow such youth in the high profile program.

"Villagers were not very close to Fayzur and his family," said the Jagdal Union AL chairman, Mizanur Rahman.

Another neighbour of the attacker seeking anonymity said that a vested quarter of the ruling party might have influenced Fayzur to attack Zafar Iqbal centering their prior enmity over different controversial statements.

"Fauzur usually doesn't mix much with other people," a villager, Mojahed Ali told The New Nation.

"We have talked to some local people. They said, in their family only Fayzur believes in salafism. That is why the family members are not happy with him," said the additional police super, Mohammad Habibullah.

Lt Col Ali Haider Azad Ahmed, CO of RAB-9), claimed that attacker Faizur confessed to the law enforcers that he attacked Dr Zafar as 'he is an enemy of Islam'.

Meanwhile, Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mohammad Javed Patwary on Monday vowed to bring the assailant and perpetrators behind the attack on Prof Muhammed Zafar Iqbal to justice.

"Whoever is behind the attack, we will unearth them and bring them before justice," said the police chief, speaking at a programme at Jagannath University on Monday.

"Zafar Iqbal is our family member. His father was a police officer. I condemn the attack on him and wish him a speedy recovery. We have arrested the assailant with the help of people and students," he said.

Imran Khan, General Secretary of BCL SUST unit, told The New Nation on Monday, " BNP is trying to tarnish the image of the glorious activities of the campus."

The SUST secretary claimed that that law enforcers intensified watch on the campus to identify the culprits.

Torturing youth hanging upside down: 2 'confess' to their part

UNB, Naogaon :

Two accused in a case filed over the brutal torture of a young man hanging him upside down over a theft charge in Patnitala upazila reportedly confessed before a court here on Monday to their involvement in the incident.

Judicial Magistrate Md Sirajul Islam of Cognisance Court-4 recorded the confessional statements of Nurun Nabi, entrepreneur of Akbarpur union digital centre, and Mozaffar Ahmed, a VDF member, said Md Firoz Kabir, inspector of Naogoan court police.

The court also sent them to jail, he said.

Earlier on Friday, a video of a youth being hung upside down and brutally beaten by some people in front of Akbarpur union parishad complex went viral on social media.

On Sunday evening, victim Shafiqul Islam filed a case with Patnitala Police Station accusing four people, including Nurun Nabi and Mozaffar. Police arrested the duo at night.

Shafiqul was admitted to Patnitala Upazila Heath Complex for treatment.Pub varsity teachers, students demand exemplary punishment

Staff Reporter :

Teachers and students of the country's public universities on Monday demanded exemplary punishment of the culprits who stabbed noted writer and Professor of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology Professor Dr Muhammed Zarar Iqbal.

They also demanded security of the universities' teachers and students to avert any further attack by the evil forces.

Dhaka University Teachers Association (DUTA) formed a human chain in front of the Aparajeyo Bangla on the Dhaka University campus around 12:30pm protesting the attack on eminent educationist and popular writer Dr Zafar Iqbal.

"Professor Muhammed Zafar Iqbal has a good reputation all over the country for his excellent writings and as a student-friendly teacher. He is one of the top intellectuals in the country also. It was not an attack on him, it was on whole teachers as well as nation," said DUTA President Professor Maksud Kamal.

"Please nab all the culprits and bring them under trial. We want exemplary punishment to the culprits," he said.

At Rajshahi University (RU), a section of the university's pro-Awami League teachers formed a human chain under the banner of "Progressive Teachers Society" in front of the university's Senate Bhaban around 11:00am.

Teachers of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST) observed a sit-in from 11:00am to 1:00pm on Monday to protest an attack on their colleague Professor Zafar Iqbal.

Teachers from different departments began to congregate in front of the administration building for a sit-in programme. Vice-Chancellor Farid Uddin Ahmed and Treasurer Elias Uddin Biswas also joined the protesters.

During the sit-in, the VC said whatever happened was a heinous crime and teachers and students should come forward to ensure security on the campus.

"We have formed an investigation committee on the issue and instructed them to file a report soon," he said, adding: "Although the government will look into the legal side, the university administration will take care of the internal issues."

Syed Hasanuzzaman, President of Teachers' Association, said it was a planned attack against the spirit of liberation war and the free-thinking people. "We urge the government to find out the masterminds and take them to task."

A silent procession was also brought out by teachers and students of the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department, Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department, and Software Engineering Department.

Faisal Ahmed, a student of CSE Department, said the three departments will bring out silent processions for next three days. Also, they will pray for Prof. Iqbal's quick recovery through lighting candles at Shaheed Minar on Tuesday.

Islamic University Teachers' Association (IUTA) on Monday formed a human-chain on the campus in Kushtia protesting the attack on eminent writer Professor Mohammad Zafar Iqbal.

At least three hundred teachers of different departments joined the human-chain in front of the university's arts faculty building.

Speakers at the human-chain demanded exemplary punishment of the attackers so that no one can commit such heinous act in future.

Such kind of crimes would happen consecutively if the culprits were not punished, the speakers added.

IU Vice-Chancellor Professor M Harun-Ur-Rashid Askari, pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor M Shahinoor Rahman, Treasurer Professor M Selim Toha and IUTA President Professor Mizanur Rahman, among others, spoke at the human chain.

Chittagong University Journalists' Association (CUJA) formed a human chain and demanded exemplary punishment of the perpetrators involved in the attack.

Professor Zafar Iqbal, a faculty member of Computer Science and Engineering Department at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (SUST), came under a knife attack on the campus by a youth on Saturday. He is now doing well at the Dhaka CMH.

The attacker youth was caught red-handed after the attack.Hamid, Quang for boosting trade ties

UNB, Dhaka :

President Abdul Hamid and his visiting Vietnamese counterpart Tran Dai Quangon Mondayput emphasis on taking joint initiatives by the entrepreneurs of the two countries to expedite the bilateral trade and commerce.

They came up with the remarks at a pre-dinner courtesy call at Bangabhaban in the evening.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, Chief Justice Syed Mahmud Hossain, ministers, MPs and senior officials attended the dinner hosted by President Abdul Hamid.

During the meeting, Abdul Hamid said the trade-investment prospects of Bangladesh and Vietnam are bright, underscoring the importance of taking initiatives to utilise possibilities in Bangladesh.

The President hoped that the visit of Vietnamese businessmen and investors as the entourage of Tran Dai Quang will expedite the investment process, said President's Press Secretary Md Joynal Abedin said after the meeting.

Mentioning that the existing bilateral relations between the two countries are very excellent, he hoped that the ties will expand further

in the days to come. About the signing of three memorandums of understanding with Vietnam on cooperation in the fields of fish and livestock, mechanised engineering and cultural exchange during the ongoing visit of Tran Dai Quang, Abdul Hamid said these will help strengthen the bilateral relations.

About the forced displacement of Myanmar people, who took shelter here, he said it is a big challenge for Bangladesh. He urged his Vietnamese counterpart to play an effective role in ensuring a safe, dignified and sustainable return of Rohingyas to their homeland. The President said Bangladesh is eager to be the 'Sectoral Dialogue Partner' of Asean and sought Vietnam's support for this. Tran Dai Quang said Vietnam always gives priority to the trade and investment relations with Bangladesh andemphasised on building more communication through air and waterways between the two countries to accelerate trade and commerce in both the countries.

He lauded the role of Bangladesh over the Rohingya issue, as well as its socioeconomic development.

Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali, State for Minister for ICT Zunaid Ahmed Palak, Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque, secretaries concerned and Vietnamese envoy to Bangladesh were also present at the meeting.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese First Lady Nguyen Thi Hien also made a courtesy call on Rashida Khanam, wife of President Abdul Hamid,where Abdul Hamid's family members were present.The Undead Archives

I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world.Yes, the decision belongs on the local level

No, no one should be able to dictate whether people wear masks

Vote

View ResultsPhoto by Charlotte Cooper/Wikimedia

After court victories against abortion laws in Texas and Louisiana, a reproductive rights group filed a federal challenge on Tuesday of a Louisiana licensing law it blames for more than a thousand burdensome anti-abortion regulations.

The state rules require a vaginal exam whether or not a womans doctor thinks its necessary, enable state officials to review the medical records of every woman who has an abortion, and make doctors provide their patients with misleading or false information about abortion, such as the bogus claim that abortion causes breast cancer, said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York.

The Louisiana Department of Health referred a query about the lawsuit to the Attorney Generals Office, which said it cant comment on specifics. State lawyers are evaluating the 56-page lawsuit, but our office is confident the laws are constitutional, their emailed statement said.

The center filed its federal lawsuit in Baton Rouge, on the first anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a Texas requirement that abortion providers have hospital admitting privileges. The justices ruled 5-3 that abortion regulations are unconstitutional if evidence shows their burdens outweigh their benefits.

Legal abortion is extremely safe. It does not require a multitude of specifically targeted regulations  governing buildings, medical personnel, recordkeeping, testing, counseling, and everything in between  to make it safer, the lawsuit says. Such laws are burdensome and superfluous, since abortion clinics must already meet all standards for clinics, hospitals and doctors offices, it says.

The main focus of the 56-page lawsuit is a 2001 Louisiana licensing law that has been the basis for most of the more than 1,000 regulations imposed on abortion providers in the state, attorney David Brown said during the groups teleconference.

Louisiana had 11 abortion clinics in 2001 and now has only three, so its easy to see the laws had the intended effects, said Kathaleen Pittman, administrator of the Hope Medical Group in Shreveport.

Hope Medical Groups parent company is joined by three anonymous doctors as plaintiffs. Two work at the clinic and the third is a surgeon who would like to do so, but cannot because hes not licensed in family practice or obstetrics-gynecology, as the state requires. Its an example of how abortion clinics are forced to meet much stricter standards than outpatient clinics for other similarly low-risk healthcare, the lawsuit says.

The effect has been to make it substantially more difficult to access abortion in Louisiana, without making it any safer, it says.

The Texas ruling made it very clear that sham restrictions on abortion have to be evaluated on a fact-based standard, Brown said.

Still, forcing states to apply the burdens vs. benefits balancing test will likely require similar lawsuits in every state that has restrictive abortion laws, he said.

Similarly worded restrictions might have different effects in different states, he said.

Louisianas admitting privileges law remains in court because the state appealed a ruling by District Judge John deGravelles that cited the Supreme Courts decision on the Texas law. The center is also litigating its request for $4.7 million in attorneys fees from Louisiana in that case.

Meanwhile, the center has invoked the Texas ruling to persuade courts to block similar laws in Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama, Ohio and Wisconsin, president and CEO Nancy Northup said. New cases citing the ruling have been filed in Alaska, Arkansas, North Carolina, Texas and Louisiana, where a separate suit challenges seven laws passed last year. Virginias board of health has amended its Texas-style clinic shutdown regulations in light of the ruling, and similar laws in Kentucky and Missouri are on hold, she said.Charlotte NC Shooting Range  Setting the Bar High

If you are new to the area or just want a place to hone your skills with an old-fashioned feel, then you might want to check out the Charlotte NC shooting range. This is where you will find traditional hunting as well as the latest technology at your fingertips. The indoor facility is clean, organized, and stocked with anything you need to be a success. From youth programs to military training, from the newest technology to the oldest bows and arrows, you are sure to find something that will fit your needs.

This range offers everything from youth programs to military training, from new technologies to the oldest bows and arrows. If youre looking for the very best in bow hunting equipment, this is the place to go. From bow hunting beginners to the most seasoned hunters, you will find it all at this one of a kind facility. With everything you need including bows, recurve and compound bows, arrows, shooting accessories and apparel, this is the place to be.

If you own your own business, this is the perfect place to advertise, display your wares and raise money for your favorite cause. If youve always wanted to start your own business, this great shooting range is the perfect setting to do it in. With all the benefits of a professional location, as well as being within a short driving distance from Charlottes professional downtown area, your business will boom. Your customers will come from all over the world, which is always a good thing when youre trying to expand. Its a truly win-win situation for everyone involved.There's a small landing outside my apartment, and in the corner are propped up a few umbrellas. The apartment itself is small, and there...The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), a leading national entity for development aid, has financed three strategic projects in Albania valued at Dh424 million ($115.43 million) over the past seven years, a senior official has revealed.

Helping the Albanian government achieve its development goals, these projects have directly benefited large segments of the population through creating job opportunities and stimulating various economic sectors, said Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, Director General of ADFD.

He was speaking during a visit by a high-level delegation from Albania to ADFD's headquarters in Abu Dhabi.

Headed by Erion Veliaj, Mayor of Tirana, the delegation met with Al Suwaidi and explored potential areas of cooperation. Ermal Dredha, Albanian Ambassador to the UAE; Khalifa Al Qubaisi, Deputy Director General of ADFD; and senior management representatives from the fund also attended the meeting.

The two sides discussed bilateral relations between the UAE and Albania and explored ways of enhancing synergies in shared areas of interest. The meeting also examined ADFDs leading role in financing development projects and achieving socio-economic progress in the East European nation.

Al Suwaidi said: The visit of the Albanian delegation marks an important step in bolstering cooperation between the UAE and Albania, especially with regard to development opportunities and assistance. Over the last seven years, ADFDs special relations with the Albanian government have advanced steadily, with the fund financing three strategic projects in Albania valued at Dh424 million.

For his part, Veliaj praised the UAEs development efforts and the achievements of ADFD in financing infrastructure projects that support economic and social development in various developing countries. He pointed out that the Funds projects in Tirana have contributed to the improvement of infrastructure facilities that have in turn boosted commercial activities and led to a resurgence in the tourism sector.

In October 2017, a technical delegation from ADFD, visited Albania to review the status of three of its financed ventures  the Tirana River Rehabilitation project, Tirana River Northern Boulevard project, as well as the Tirana-Elbasan Road project.

The fund allocated a Dh103 million concessionary loan for the Tirana River Rehabilitation project in 2013. More than 70 per cent of the river rehabilitation works are now complete and the project is slated for handover by Q2 2018. Revitalising the bed of the Tirana River, its shores and the surrounding areas will greatly enhance the environmental and living conditions in the area.

ADFDs second project in Albania - the Tirana River Northern Boulevard project - was funded with a Dh137 million concessionary loan in 2013. Works include a two-storey underground car park with 333 parking spaces, equipped with an electric vehicle charging station. This project focuses on developing the infrastructure surrounding the Tirana Rivers Northern Boulevard with the aim of attracting investments, tourists and trade.

The funds third project in Albania, the Tirana-Elbasan Road project, is funded via a Dh184 million concessionary loan. The works include the construction of a 28.2-metre-wide, 27-km-long highway with a 2.2-km-long two-lane tunnel. Once complete, the tunnel will ensure smooth flow of traffic between the Albanian capital Tirana and the countrys third-largest city of Elbasan. - TradeArabia News ServiceSaudi Arabia and Egypt have jointly set up a $10-billion fund to develop a planned a $500-billion mega-city and a business zone, with the latter committing over 1,000 sq km of land in the south Sinai region, said a report.

The announcement comes at the start of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's first public overseas visit after becoming heir apparent last year and purging the kingdom's business and political elite in a crackdown on corruption that saw top princes and businessmen detained, reported Reuters citing a senior Saudi official.

He was given a grand welcome on his maiden visit to Cairo by Egypts President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi at the airport. As a special gesture the princes plane was escorted by Egyptian fighter jets when it entered Egypts airspace.



Prince Mohammed had previously announced plans for the 26,500-sq-km zone, known as Neom, at an international investment conference in Riyadh.

The project is aimed at turning the kingdom into a leading global hub that exemplifies the future of human civilisation by offering its inhabitants an idyllic lifestyle combined with exceptional economic prospects.



Set to be the worlds first independent special zone stretching over three countries - extending across the Egyptian and Jordanian borders - Neom will become a new vibrant destination located in the northwestern region of Saudi Arabia, said the report.

Riyadhs part of the new joint investment fund will be cash to help develop the Egyptian side of the Neom.



The mega-city, with its own judicial system and legislation designed to attract international investors, is to focus on industries such as energy and water, biotechnology, food, advanced manufacturing and tourism, it added.

The project is part of bold moves by Prince Mohammed to wean the worlds top crude exporter off oil revenues that include plans to float a portion of state oil giant Saudi Aramco.



Saudi Arabia plans to build seven cities and tourism projects, while Egypt will focus on developing the existing resort cities of Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada, said the report citing the official.



It will also set up 50 resorts and four small cities as part of a separate tourism initiative announced last August and backed by the countrys Public Investment Fund (PIF), he added.



Work is set to start in 2019 on the kingdom's ambitious project and its first phase is likely to completed by late 2022.



The first official visit of Prince Mohammed paves way for potential investments between Saudi Arabia and Egypt in major sectors including oil and gas, electricity and infrastructure, reported Arab News.



Egyptian Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Tarek El Molla said Saudi Aramco agreed to supply Egyptian refineries with 500,000 barrels of crude oil per month for six months starting in January 2018, stated the report.



In the power sector, the duo is working on an electricity interconnection project that aims to connect the power grids of the two countries to exchange a total capacity of 3,000 MW.



Egypt is contributing $600 million to the $1.6-million project, while other funders include the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and the Islamic Development Bank.



Another ambitious project for the two countries is the Saudi-Egypt causeway that is aimed at linking the Saudi border to Sinai region. The entire project is expected to cost about $3 billion and to pass through Tiran Island at the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba, said the Arab News report.



The construction of the King Salman Bridge is said to be the largest project of its kind in the world, it added.

Prince Mohammed also witnessed the signing of a MoU along with President Sisi to activate a SR60-billion ($16 billion) investment fund within hours of his arriving on the maiden overseas trip.

Following his three-day visit, the 32-year-old Saudi prince will next head to Britain on March 7 and then to the US, Riyadh's closest Western ally, later in the month.LuLu Group International, the top retailer in the Middle East, has signed an agreement with Dubai Wholesale City (DWSC), the largest global market for wholesale products, to set up a central logistics hub within the fully integrated facility at an investment of Dh300 million ($82 million).



Work will soon start on the 1.3-million-sq-ft central logistics hub which is likely to be completed within two-and-a-half years.

Once ready, the hi-tech facility will provide efficient distribution services to meet the consumption requirements of LuLu Group Internationals growing network of malls and hypermarkets across Dubai, Sharjah, and Northern Emirates.



The agreement was inked by Abdulla Belhoul, the chief executive of Dubai Wholesale City, and Yousuf Ali M A, the chairman of LuLu Group, in the presence of Saud Abu Al Shawareb, the chief operating officer of Dubai Industrial Park, along with other senior executives.



Speaking on the occasion, Belhoul said: We welcome LuLu Group International to Dubai Wholesale City. The upcoming facility will benefit from the DWSCs world-class infrastructure, governmental support, and full suite of services that can enhance efficiency across all stages of operations."

"Set to serve as an all-encompassing destination for food trading as well as a variety of other sectors, DWSC is making steady headway in completing infrastructure works in line with emerging market trends, he noted.



Dubai Wholesale City is keeping a close eye on local, regional, and international market needs in order to provide a fully integrated ecosystem through its two components: Dubai Industrial Park and Dubai Food Park. DWSC is set to play a vital role in supporting Dubais economic diversification efforts, he added.



LuLu Group International operates 144 hypermarkets and shopping malls across the region making it a top player in the organised retail sector. According to the recent Deloitte Integrated Annual Report, it is among the Top 50 fastest growing retailers globally with a market share of 32 per cent.



Yousuf Ali lauded Dubai Wholesale Citys integrated services that will contribute to the significant expansion of the Groups operations and enhance its ability to meet the growing demands of consumers.



The upcoming Central Logistics Hub will benefit from Dubai Wholesale Citys proximity to Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Road and Emirates Road. Just 10 minutes away from Al Maktoum International Airport, the park is also a 15 minute-drive from the Jebel Ali Free Zone, he stated.

Notably, the destination is set to provide a range of comprehensive governmental services including customs, clearance, licensing, food safety and supervision all under one roof.



Lulu Group Internationals decision to set up a dedicated, state-of-the-art Central Logistics Hub comes at a time when the UAEs retail sector is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.9 per cent and value close to $71 billion by 2021.-TradeArabia News ServiceTrade relations and investments between UAE and Australia are expected to gain momentum with Premier Mark McGowan of Western Australia set to visit the UAE and meet with senior government officials in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.



The visit, on February 28 and March 1, aims to further enhance the Dh8.4 billion ($2.28 billion) trade relationship between the two countries.



I am pleased to announce the Premier of the largest State in Australia, which is also the largest mineral and grain exporter, and with three out of four Australian universities in UAE from his state, will be conducting his first visit to Dubai and Abu Dhabi. This visit demonstrates the importance of the UAE relationship, said Pankaj Savara, commissioner of the Government of Western Australia, Middle East office.



Coinciding with UAEs Innovation Month, this visit looks to foster the growing importance and culture of innovation in UAE and the global hub for scientific and technological innovation, Western Australia.



This visit also supports the government trade and investment office based in Dubai and our ongoing activities. The Premiers engagement with the Dubai and Abu Dhabi governments and major business establishments from the Middle East region will encourage our offices proactive facilitation of Western Australian education, trade and investment through this region, Savara further added.



As the closest Australian capital city to the UAE, Perth is serviced by both Emirates and Etihad for tourism, business and cargo. The state accounts for 47.8 per cent of Australias exports to the UAE and 74.8 per cent of Australias imports from the UAE.



The UAE is also the second largest GCC market for Western Australian agricultural produce, accounting for 27.3 per cent of the GCC market. Carrots, alone, make up $19 million of the total $25 million in vegetables dispatched to the Emirates.



In recent time, Western Australian education has taken center stage with three Western Australian Universities establishing a presence in the UAE. Both Curtin University and Murdoch University have campuses in Dubai offering a variety of programmes to meet the education and skills needs of the UAE. Edith Cowan University in partnership with Emirates Group Security runs various diploma programs.



The states world-class education stems from a long and proud history of entrepreneurial drive and innovative achievement across many sectors, including mining, construction, professional services, healthcare, manufacturing and agriculture. - TradeArabia News ServiceZomato, a leading restaurant discovery and online food ordering platform, has raised $150 million in a fresh round of funding from Ant Financial Services Group, one of the world's leading digital financial services providers.



As part of the transaction, Ant is also buying $50 million worth of shares from Info Edge, taking the total investment from Ant in Zomato to $200 million. This transaction values Zomato in excess of $1 billion.



Zomato will use the investment to further strengthen its leadership position in its core markets by investing in product and technology and by offering more convenient and seamless payment options to its users in partnership with Ant and Ant's strategic mobile wallet partners. Zomato is used by millions every day to decide where to eat in over 10,000 cities across 24 countries. By helping people discover great places around them and providing dedicated engagement and management tool for restaurants big and small, Zomato has secured its place as one of the most widely-used restaurant search and discovery mobile apps in many parts of the world, including India, Middle East, Southeast Asia and Australasia.



Deepinder Goyal, founder and CEO of Zomato, said, "At Zomato, our long-term vision is 'better food for more people'. This partnership with Ant will significantly accelerate our journey towards our vision. We believe that Ant is the right strategic partner for our business at this stage and we can gain tremendously by learning from and leveraging their global network, scale and technology."



"Ant Financial is pleased to be part of Zomato's growth journey and hopes to contribute to its future development into a full-fledged food services platform. We plan to work closely with Zomato and share Ant's business and technology know-how in building lifestyle apps. Through our strategic mobile wallet partners in India and across Southeast Asia, we see immense opportunities to collaborate with Zomato to bring a much improved user experience around dining, food ordering and delivery," said Douglas Feagin, president of Ant Financial International. - TradeArabia News ServiceDigital transformation is set to revolutionise business processes, according to the leading global strategic procurement provider, Jaggaer Mena / Tejari.



Businesses across the Middle East can leverage the power of a new generation of fast and efficient digital technology and advanced analytics to enhance their customers experience and profitability, said a statement.



Digital transformation is making it easier than ever before for a procurement function to effectively play a significant role in optimizing business and its supply chain, while delivering cost savings. It reduces strategic sourcing costs and cycle times by 30 per cent and reduces data-collection errors, leading to cost savings.



The proliferation of digital transformation initiatives in the region is also driving increased spending on the internet of things (IoT) to allow powerful analytics to be embedded even deeper into the organisations supply chain, it said.



According to International Data Corporation (IDC), regional organisations will ramp up their IoT investments which is forecast to grow 15 per cent year-on-year in 2018, with spending predicted to reach $6.99 billion in 2018 and $12.62 billion by 2021.



Dan Quinn, senior vice president, Jaggaer Mena / Tejari, said: The Middle East is experiencing major transformation in the digital world. This transformation can be utilised so that organisations can streamline procurement processes and increase efficiency.



Digital innovation is able to impact the bottom line and therefore contribute towards the growing economy. Forward thinking organisations that make strategic IT investments considerably strengthen their business outlook, he concluded.  TradeArabia News ServiceThe total value of deals signed at the Unmanned System Exhibition (Umex) 2018 and Simulation & Training Conference and Exhibition (SimTEX) 2018 in Abu Dhabi, UAE has reached Dh 878.371 million ($239.1 million), said a top official.



A total 10 defence deals worth Dh294.225 million ($80 million) were signed on the third day of the dual event in Abu Dhabi, UAE, added Major Pilot Saeed Mohammed Al Yamahi, the official spokesperson of the dual event.



Al Yamahi added that the Armed Forces signed two contracts with the UAE-based Abu Dhabi Autonomous Systems Investments (ADASI).The first contract, valued at Dh70.673 million, involves the renewal of technical support for UAV systems for 24 months, whereas the second contract worth Dh34.626 million involves the purchase of spare parts for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).



Al Yamahi also revealed that the Armed Forces signed a Dh122,153 deal with Trust International for the maintenance and repair of nano NUAS PD - 100 Black Hornet PRS aircraft systems, and a Dh719,000deal with Computer and Power Technology CPT for the purchase of training systems and supplements for luggage and baggage inspection.



Another deal involving two contracts was signed with DENEL DYNAMICS from South Africa to increase the financial allocation for technical support for Seeker 2 unmanned aircraft systems. The first contract worth Dh14.720 million and the second worth Dh11.040 million



Another important deal signed on the day three includes a Dh130.391million deal with CAE Maritime Middle East from Canada for the purchase and installation of equipment for the Blackhawk and Bel aircrafts.



A Dh5.640 million worth deal was also signed on the third day with JSC RPC 'KBM from Russia for the purchase and supply of rocket propellants.



Al Yamahi also announced that the Armed Forces inked a Dh22.006 million deal with Insitu from the US for the purchase of 4 Intergreater aircrafts, and a deal worth Dh4.285 million with Inovex Simulation & Training from Switzerland for providing technical and training support for the operation and maintenance of BMB 3 machine simulators.  TradeArabia News Service

Abu Dhabis renewable energy company Masdar, also a subsidiary of the Mubadala Investment Company, has announced plans to install a 290-kilowatt (kW) solar photovoltaic system to serve the Khazna Data Centres (Khazna) facility in Masdar City.



Mubadala inked a collaboration agreement on the project along with Masdar and Khazna aimed at further advancing Abu Dhabis reputation as a hub for renewable energy and clean technology.



As per the terms of the agreement, Masdar's energy services unit will install a solar PV system on the car-park roof at Khaznas Masdar City facility.



Khazna, the only dedicated commercial wholesale data centre provider in the UAE, safeguards mission-critical data using the highest levels of security and operational reliability.



The project will serve as a pilot for additional sustainable initiatives at both Khazna facilities in the future, remarked Khaled Al Qubaisi, the chief executive for Aerospace, Renewables and Information Communications Technology at Mubadala, after signing the deal with Masdar CEO Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi and Khazna CEO Hassan Al Naqbi.



"The UAE is committed to building a sustainable nation of the future, and pursuing bold ambitions  aiming to achieve 27 per cent clean energy over the next three years as part of the UAE 2021 Vision," stated Al Qubaisi, who oversees both Masdar and Khazna.



"Mubadala and its subsidiaries are committed to supporting this vision, and are always looking at ways to adopt clean energy technology. This project between Masdar and Khazna is another step forward for our sustainability plans, with more projects like this to come in future," he added.



Al Ramahi pointed out that this partnership was an example of the synergy between Mubadalas subsidiaries and capitalises on Masdars holistic expertise in renewable energy.



"It also shows our commitment to helping the tenants of Masdar City access the commercial benefits of clean technology by reducing their utility bills," he noted.



Highlighting how this agreement fits into the long-term strategy of his company, Al Naqbi said: "Data centres have significant power consumption needs, and this new initiative represents a first step in Khaznas long-term strategy of becoming a greener, sustainable facility."



"Not only will this support our environmental priorities and commitment to social responsibility in Abu Dhabi, it also makes commercial sense for our company and our end users -- by increasing energy efficiency and lowering costs," he stated.



With additional operations at Meydan, Dubai, Khazna is one of the largest data centre infrastructure operators in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena).



The company is currently in the process of expanding its capabilities across both Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Once completed in 2019, these will include a total built-up area of around 31,000 sq m over the existing facilities and deliver over 24 MW of IT load, he added.-TradeArabia News ServiceThe Bvlgari Resort Dubai has been selected as part of the prestigious US magazine Travel + Leisures 2018 IT List.



Bvlgaris latest luxury resort, which opened its doors in Dubai last December on Jumeira Bay Island, has already become the destination of choice for both visitors seeking a resort experience on an island within the heart of a city, and the sophisticated Dubai crowd looking for the best in terms of dining, relaxing and escaping.



Designed by renowned Italian architectural firm Antonio Citterio Patricia Viel and embracing a maritime theme, the Bvlgari Resort Dubai includes 101 hotel rooms and suites and 20 hotel villas, all exquisitely furnished with the highest quality Italian luxury furniture brands in an expression of the quality of Made in Italy. All rooms and suites have expansive views over the breathtaking Dubai skyline or the Arabian Gulf, with large balconies to truly soak up the magnificent scenery.



The resorts dining offer presents several sumptuous options, from Il Ristorante - Niko Romito, interpreting the exquisite flavours of Italy with modern simplicity, to Il Cafe, where a mix of Italian and Arabic dishes can be enjoyed on the deck in front of the Marina. Besides, La Spiaggia restaurant serves international food and drinks in the sea breeze delight while the soon-to-open Hoseki will prepare the purest Japanese cuisine at its best.



Some other unique features such as the resorts beach club, with private villa cabanas and an outdoor pool, the 1,700-sq-m BVLGARI Spa with a 25-m swimming pool, and the worlds first Bvlgari Marina & Yacht Club hosting 50 berths, add further luxurious touches and complete the guest experience.



Conveniently situated in the stunning Jumeira area in the centre of Dubai, the Resort is just a short drive from many of the citys attractions such as the magnificent Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood along Dubai Creek, and the trendy areas of Dubai downtown.



Silvio Ursini, Bvlgari vice president, said: We couldnt be happier to enter the T+L IT list as it represents for us a reward to all of our efforts to offer unique and exquisite hospitality experience to our guests. We are extremely proud to have been selected by T+L and we renovate our commitment to deliver an unrivalled service and the best Italian contemporary luxury excellence. - TradeArabia News ServiceDubai's Federal Tax Authority (FTA) board is considering the refunding of VAT amounts paid by tourists, it has emerged.



An FTA meeting, headed by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, UAE Minister of Finance and chairman of the FTA, reviewed the outcome of the tourist refund tender. The integrated refund system - currently being developed - will cover outlets and shops in the country, said a report in Emirates News 24|7.



Furthermore, a plan to exempt businesses that are late in registering with the FTA from penalties until April 30 was approved by the board.



The UAE implemented the 5 per cent VAT from the start of this year, and businesses were initially required to register by the end of last year, it said.



In the first phase, all businesses that sell goods or services exceeding Dh375,000 ($102,084) are required to submit tax returns and pay their dues within a set timeframe (28 days) or face penalties.



The penalty for those who fail to pay tax is no less than Dh500 ($136) and no more than triple the value of the tax on the transaction in question.



A first incorrect tax filing will result in a fine of Dh3,000 ($816.6). Each following error will then result in a Dh5,000 ($1,361) fine, the report said.



Sheikh Hamdan said: The results of the periodic follow-up show that the response levels to the tax system by the business sectors and all segments of society are very satisfactory. There is a steady increase in the tax compliance ratios, which confirms the success of the model adopted by the FTA which is based on encouraging self-compliance by businesses through easy electronic registration and electronic compliance. - TradeArabia News ServiceHospitality leader Hilton is expanding and strengthening the senior leadership team in the Middle East region.



The group has appointed William Costley as the new vice president operations for the Arabian Peninsula and Turkey. Ben Bengougam, senior vice president Human Resources for Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), has also moved from the Europe regional office to be based out of the Middle East & Africa regional (MEA) office in Dubai.



Rudi Jagersbacher, president, Middle East, Africa & Turkey, Hilton said: I am very pleased to welcome William to the senior leadership team in the region and to have Ben based here with us in Dubai. This expansion to our MEA regional office is a testament to the rapid growth Hilton is experiencing across the region. I have no doubt that both William and Ben will continue to build on the successes Hilton has experienced to date, in order to deliver a world-class hospitality experience to all of our guests.



Costley joins Hilton from the APAC region where he served as vice president for South-East Asia and India, overseeing 35 hotels across 11 countries. In overseeing the Arabian Peninsula and Turkey, Costley will have responsibility for the countries where he was appointed to his first general manager roles. A 27-year Hilton career to date has seen William live in many destinations beyond his native Scotland, from England to Turkey, UAE, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore.



Known for his conceptual thinking and innovative approach, Costleys Middle East and Turkey experience will be invaluable for him in his new role based in the MEA regional office Dubai.



Bengougam, now based in Dubai, is responsible for leading the Human Resources function across the region, which includes more than 46,000 team members in 57 countries.



Since joining the company in 2010 with a European remit, Ben has facilitated Hiltons growth by strategically overseeing global processes of recruitment, development and retention of talent. He has since had his responsibilities widened to include the Middle East and Africa.



Key initiatives launched during Bengougams time at Hilton include [email protected] Live, a global initiative that informs young people of the many and varied career opportunities in the hospitality sector.



Hilton Worldwide currently has 456 hotels operating across Europe, Middle East and Africa, with a further 298 in the development pipeline. - TradeArabia News Service

Philippines largest carrier, Cebu Pacific (CEB), is once again offering 25kg of additional free baggage allowance to UAE residents travelling from Dubai to Manila.



From March 1 until November 30, all passengers travelling from Dubai to Manila with pre-purchased baggage allowance of 40kg will be receiving an additional 25kg baggage allowance, free-of-charge. The extra baggage allowance will be given upon check-in of the guest at the airport.



It is a tradition for overseas Filipinos to bring food or gifts, known as pasalubongs, from their destinations to their families and friends back home. Many Filipinos ship a 'balikabayan' box filled with gifts several days ahead of special occasions or ahead of their travel to the Philippines and wait for 30 to 60 days for the box to arrive. Sending such boxes costs Dh115 ($31.3) to Dh379 ($103.1) for shipping alone. With CEBs promo, boxes can now be loaded on the same flight and arrive in the Philippines at the same time.



Candice Iyog, vice president of Marketing and Distribution of Cebu Pacific, said: CEB has always been committed to offering the best innovations for its valued passengers. We believe that this special promotion will enable all our UAE passengers travelling from Dubai to maximize their trip to the Philippines. This is also an added benefit for our UAE-based kababayans who work hard for their families, giving them the opportunity to bring more gifts and 'pasalubongs' for their loved ones, at no additional cost."



A 40kg baggage allowance on Cebu Pacific costs between Dh320 ($87) and Dh340 ($92.5). Passengers, even those with connecting flights to other Philippine domestic destinations operated by Cebu Pacific, will get the advantage of the additional 25kg being carried over up to their next flight, as long as their flight itinerary is booked under one reference number only. This promotion is not valid on return flights from the Philippines to the Middle East, and on bookings with Cebgo connecting flights.



With the special offer from Cebu Pacific, passengers who travel from the UAE can take their 'balikabayan' boxes with them on the same flight, given that such boxes pass the regulations set by the Dubai Airport, without having to wait and while saving on the costs of shipment.



Last year, many UAE-based Filipinos travelling from Dubai enjoyed the same promotion as Cebu Pacific ran the special treat in time for the Philippine Independence Day.



CEB currently offers flights to a total of 37 domestic and 26 international destinations, operating an extensive network across Asia, Australia, USA, and the Middle East. - TradeArabia News ServiceKazakhstan flag carrier Air Astana has signed a codeshare agreement with Hong Kong-based airline Cathay Pacific.



In a statement released by the Kazakh airline, the agreement will enhance travel options for Cathay Pacific customers travelling to and from Kazakhstan and for Air Astana customers travelling to and from destinations in Asia and Australia via the airlines' hubs in Hong Kong and Almaty respectively.



Commencing March 15, Cathay Pacific will place its 'CX' code on Air Astana's non-stop flights between Hong Kong and Almaty, the financial and cultural heart of Central Asia, as well as on connecting services between Almaty and Astana, the Kazakh capital.



Air Astana currently flies twice weekly between Hong Kong and Almaty, on Tuesdays and Fridays, but will be upping frequency by adding a third service, on Mondays, from March 25.



Cathay Pacific will also codeshare on Air Astana's five weekly services between Bangkok and Almaty (going daily from March 25) and four weekly services between Seoul and Almaty, giving customers additional options for travel between Hong Kong and Kazakhstan.



Air Astana will place its 'KC' code on selected Cathay Pacific services operating between Hong Kong and Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Singapore.



Cathay Pacific, director Commercial and Cargo Ronald Lam welcomed the codeshare partnership, saying it underlined the airline's commitment to establishing convenient connections to captivating new destinations.



'We are delighted to join with Air Astana and provide our customers with links to one of the most fascinating countries in Central Asia. With its vibrant economy, which is set to grow as a result of its integral role in the Belt and Road Initiative, and beautiful natural landscapes, Kazakhstan has many attractions for both business and leisure travellers alike,' he said.



Richard Ledger, vice president marketing and sales at Air Astana, said: 'With its excellent worldwide connectivity, Cathay Pacific is our ideal partner as we look to extend our reach across Asia and Australia via Hong Kong. Together, our airlines share an award-winning reputation for consistently delivering the very highest standards of customer service.



'We are thrilled to strengthen co-operation with this wide-reaching codeshare agreement, which will further benefit our respective passengers, as well as the overall economic relationship between Kazakhstan and dynamic Hong Kong.'



Tickets for the new codeshare flights are now available for sale on Cathay Pacific and Air Astana websites. - TradeArabia News ServiceSabre Corporation, the leading technology provider for the global travel industry, celebrated the opening of its new regional headquarters for Sabre Travel Network, Middle East (STNME) in Manama, Bahrain.



Located at the iconic Harbour Towers/East in Bahrain Financial Harbour, the new office was officially inaugurated by Raymond Vrijenhoek, vice president, Sabre Travel Network, Middle East, in the presence of delegates from Gulf Air, Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB), leading travel companies in Bahrain and the media.



Attendees at the opening were given a tour of the new office, which has been designed to reflect Sabres passion for innovation. The office is equipped with the latest state-of-the-art technology to provide support to a large scale of travel agencies and corporate travel buyers in the Middle East.



We are investing to attain high levels of efficiency and provide support to our growing customer base and that requires expanding our operations to continue providing uncompromised levels of support, said Vrijenhoek.



We have moved to a bigger office with an advanced training centre and have upgraded our helpdesk support technology to provide world-class customer service that provides support in four different languages across the Middle East.



Agencies are looking for a reliable technology partner that can provide innovative solutions to help them grow, and we are here to show them that Sabre is the first choice, he added.



The regional Travel Network headquartered in Bahrain serves as an operational hub for 11 offices located in strategic markets including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, UAE, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt. - TradeArabia News ServiceCity Centre Rotana Doha, a leading five-star hotel in Qatar, has appointed Hicham Hankir as assistant executive manager.



Hankir brings over 17 years of outstanding experience in the hospitality industry from several countries in the Middle East.



In his new position, Hankir will oversee all administrative processes related to food and beverage operations at the hotel, in addition to creating and applying strategies concerning all dining outlets such as the upscale restaurant "Teatro", the "Boston" bar, the Lebanese restaurant "Zeituna, the all dinning "Olive Oil", the lobby lounge "Caramel", the poor bar "Aquarium" and the new outdoor lounge "Sama".



Furthermore, Hankir will ensure the provision of the finest and unparalleled services to visitors of the hotel, in addition to creating a constructive working environment among staff under his supervision, through training, development and performance enhancement, that will reflect positively on the level of services they offer to City Centre Rotana Dohas guests and visitors.



Welcoming Hankir, Martin Kendall, general manager of City Centre Rotana Doha said, We are delighted to welcome Hicham Hankir to our team and we are confident he will prove to be a valuable asset for us. With his strong track record and solid experience, he will play an instrumental role in the management of the food and beverage operations within the hotel and enhance the overall City Centre Rotana Doha guest experience.



Hankir started his career at the Hilton Lyon-International City as hygiene and stewarding manager from January 2001 to March 2002.



Commenting on his appointment, Hankir said: I am delighted to join the team of City Centre Rotana Doha which has always been renowned for providing the highest level of hospitality through its unique and exceptional restaurants. I look forward to adding value to the services at all our facilities and continue maintaining the prestigious reputation of the hotel through high quality and best services to its guests." -TradeArabia News ServiceNew Delhi, (IANS): The Election Commission (EC) told the Supreme Court on Monday that it supported the demand of replacing booth-wise counting of votes with the totaliser system of counting to prevent disclosure of voting pattern at a particular booth.

The Election Commission told a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra that what the PIL petitioner Yogesh Gupta was seeking was already a part of their larger electoral reforms since 1998 and was reiterated on December 6, 2016.

The bench, also comprising Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y.Chandrachud, asked the Election Commission to provide the Centre with all the documents related to its recommendation on the mixing of EVMs before the counting of votes to eliminate the knowledge as for which party the voters at a particular polling booth voted.

Support TwoCircles



While not opposing the plea for the mixing of EVMs before the counting of votes, the Centre said there were questions being raised about the credibility of EVMs and tampering of the machines.

Appearing for the Centre, Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh said that the Election Commission, while switching over to the totaliser system of counting votes, will have to ensure that there was no leakage of data or tampering of the machines and their genuineness is also kept intact.

The Centre also told the court that most of the political parties were opposed to mixing of EVMs before the counting of votes.

Adjourning the matter for two weeks  the court gave one weeks time to Election Commission to submit its papers and gave one week time to the Centre to respond.By Aas Mohammad Kaif, TwoCircles.net

Lohadda, a village situated on the Budhana road along the Meerut-Muzaffarnagar highway, might have a population on only about 3,000, but this small village has left the biggest cities of India behind by raising the symbol of women power in a land where females have always received a raw deal.

As one enters the village, a girl named Sundar is seen in charge of a general goods store, which belongs to her father Brijendra. The 17-year-old is shy but intelligent enough to understand the importance of her job and the store. This probably explains why Sundar did not talk to this reporter until she supplied the goods asked by a customer in her shop.

Support TwoCircles



The village girls are no less than the urban ones. We can also give better result to the society if someone shows trust in us, says Sundar while commenting on the unique thing happening in her village.

The doors of about 700 houses in Lohadda village have been marked with the names of the daughters living in those houses. Doors or adjoining walls have been painted in red, yellow and blue with the slogan mere gaanv ki yahi pahchaan, beti ko mila samman (The respect to my daughter is the only identity of my village).

Right after the slogan, the name of the girl and her father living in the particular house is written. For example, Tanvi D/o Sohanlal, Riya D/o Sandip Kumar, Yashmeen D/o Mohammad Shamim, or Shaheen D/o Umardeen, etc.

It is almost a custom to write the name of the head of house  who is often a male  on the door or the nameplate, but by showcasing the names of hundreds of girls, the village has come up with a unique example.

The drive was initiated by the village head Satendra Pal who was elected as the village head in 2015. He told TwoCircles.net, I am a father of two daughters. So I thought that the village should be known by the name of its daughters. Then we launched a campaign for the same.

We painted the wall and door of every house with the names of the daughters. The government helped us with Rs 10,000 rupees, while I contributed Rs 20,000 from my own pocket to get the work done, added Pal, who tells that while the village has a lesser number of girls than boys, there are more girls going to the school when compared to boys.

Naaz, a post-graduate from Science, agrees to the fact regarding the higher enrolment among the girls. There are more girls in regular studies here. About 50 girls of the village have finished their college, but boys have not crossed the halfway yet, said Naz. So the girls are achieving things, obviously they are getting the identity too, she added.

Pooja, another post-graduate in English, believes that the days when boys used to take the family name forward are now a thing of the past. I feel happy whenever I see my name with my fathers written on the door of my house. Even my brother liked it very much. There is no rule which says that only boys should do earn the respect of the family, now the girls are doing so very efficiently, said Pooja.

The drive has sparked a new motivation within the rest of the girl students of the village. Girls are now dreaming of things which were considered as urban for a long time. Maybe it is this motivation, which pushes Anushka, an 11-year-old primary student, to say I want to be a doctor within a second of being asked what she wants to be when she grows up.

My mother called me Malkin (landlady) the day when my name was written on the house door, says Dipanshi, a 13-year-old primary school student.

The village of Lohadda is filled with many such tales where the girls have decided to take on the world after their parents and neighbours put their trust in them. Be it 13-year-old Umra, who learns from her aunt the important of studies, or 8-year-old Ikra, who is considered to be house monitor by her father Afzal, the village Lohadda is blooming with a new tale.

The episode has also spread a sort of remorse or sadness in the families where there are no daughters, but on the other side, the whole village is celebrating what their daughters have been achieving. As Om Prakash, 56, tells, It doesnt matter anymore if it is a girl or a boy.

Village residents show an example where there is not any discrimination in families between girl or a boy. Dharmendra Kumar, Sub-district Magistrate at Khatauli, has embraced the drive and claimed the work to be outstanding.

According to village head Satendra Pal, few nearby villages like Satedhi or Sikandarpur have also adopted the same model by engraving the names of the daughters at house doors.There were 950 attacks reportedly on Muslims and mosques in Germany in 2017, according to new government figures. In Spain, more than 500 Islamophobic incidents were recorded in the same year, including incidents against women and children and several mosques, according to a civil society group, Aljazeera reports in its article Anti-Muslim 'incidents' surge in Germany, Spain.

Islamophobia in Germany

Special category: Last January, German police began registering Islamophobic crimes under a special category, after calls by the country's Muslim community to take more serious measures against the growing number of anti-Muslim hate crimes. In most of the incidents, the perpetrators were part of Germany's far right, according to the ministry. Death toll: In Germany, at least 33 Muslims were injured in the attacks, which included assaults against Muslim women wearing headscarves and attacks against mosques and other Muslim institutions, the Interior Ministry said in its reply to a parliamentary question. The ministry recorded at least 60 attacks last year that targeted mosques and other institutions of the Muslim community. Anti-immigration protests took place in the German town of Kandel on Saturday, with some protesters carrying placards that read "Freedom instead of Islam."

Germany, a country of 81.8 million people, has the second-largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France. Among the country's nearly 4.7 million Muslims, three million are of Turkish origin. Many of them are second or third-generations of Turkish families who migrated to Germany in the 1960s. The EU's largest economy has witnessed growing Islamophobia and hatred of migrants in recent years triggered by propaganda from far-right and populist parties, which have exploited fears over the refugee crisis.

Islamophobia in Spain

Rising trend: In Spain, details of anti-Muslim incidents were documented in the report "Islamophobia in Spain 2017" released Friday by the Citizens' Platform Against Islamophobia (PCI). According to the report, a rising trend of prejudice against Islam was noted among various political views in Spain. Street, media and internet campaigns by far-right groups were also recorded, said the report. Incident types: Out of the 546 Islamophobic incidents, 386 were media and internet-based while 48 percent comprised verbal attacks against Islam and Muslims.

Twenty-one percent of the incidents were against women, eight percent targeted men, four percent were directed against children and seven percent targeted mosques. There were also attacks against Muslim communities' businesses and associations. By region: Of all the Islamophobic incidents documented by PCI in 2017, 51 percent occurred in the northeastern Catalonia region, followed by Andalusia with 22 percent and Valencia with 20 percent.The ruling center-left coalition lost the parliamentary elections held on Sunday. According to the preliminary data, it became only the third and the right-centrists won. As The Washington Post writes in the article Italys election is another blow to the European establishment, on Feb. 22, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker offered an anodyne statement about Italy's elections: Whatever the outcome, I am confident that we will have a government that makes sure that Italy remains a central player in Europe and in shaping its future, he said.

But in private remarks he delivered at a think-tank in Brussels earlier the same day, Juncker took a much gloomier line. He fretted about how populist, anti-E.U. parties were likely to make gains, and he warned of the potential political chaos of a fragmented result. Europeans, he reportedly said, needed to brace ourselves for the worst scenario, and the worst scenario could be no operational government.

As votes were tallied in the early hours of Monday, it seemed Juncker's worst-case scenario had arrived. About half the Italian electorate voted for populist parties once considered fringe, and a stable government is nowhere in sight.

There were two big winners: the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, founded less than a decade ago by a comedian, which won about 32 percent of the vote, and the League, a far-right, anti-immigrant, Euroskeptic party. The League likely surpassed its center-right ally, the Forza Italia party of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Meanwhile, the Five Star Movement  an anarchic faction encompassing Euroskeptics, libertarians, progressives and a strong core of disenchanted youth voters  became the single biggest party in Italy.

In an extraordinary result, it appeared to have won nearly as many votes as the mainstream center-left and center-right parties combined, my colleague Michael Birnbaum explained. "Italys complicated electoral system means that initial results could still shift slightly, but politicians of all stripes were treating the first projections as an earthquake."

In the run-up to Italy's elections, much of the international media fixated on the storm clouds on the horizon. Italian voters were disaffected and angry, fearful of hundreds of thousands of recently arrived migrants from the other side of the Mediterranean and fed up with a lack of opportunities, the perceived corruption of elites and the inefficacy of the ruling centrist government. The front-runners in the polls included neo-fascists, a party of unpredictable Euroskeptics and an aging former prime minister.

Some analysts framed the contest as a last-ditch battle between an advancing tide of illiberal populists and beleaguered, maligned defenders of the liberal European status quo. What would be the Italy to emerge after March 4, eminent French political scientist Dominique Moisi asked? "Will it be one that joins with French President Emmanuel Macron in reinforcing the European project, or will it embrace the authoritarian populism now running rampant in Central Europe?" he wrote. "Whether or not they realize it, Italys voters are about to choose not just among political parties, but also  and more importantly  between political regimes."

The contours of the new regime are still unclear, but an old one is certainly passing. A populist alliance between the Five Star Movement and the League, unthinkable just months ago, is now at least plausible. Another scenario  a coalition between the League and Berlusconi's Forza Italia  could see League leader Matteo Salvini become the next prime minister. Even in politically febrile Italy, it would mark a remarkable turn of events. In the weeks ahead, Italy's populists and ultranationalists will have to reckon with the actual prospect of taking power. That may moderate their positions. Italian politicians talk a better game than they actually play, Dutch political scientist Cas Mudde wrote, pointing to the advances of Euroskeptics elsewhere. "For all the public flirting with Euroscepticism and populism, Italian governments have caused the E.U. fewer problems than France or the Netherlands, let alone the United Kingdom."

Other European officials argue that Italy's vast economic problems  including the largest public debt in the European Union and high youth unemployment  mean the country can't afford prolonged political uncertainty. I just dont know how long the patience of financial markets will last, a diplomat from Northern Europe told Politico EU. In the Netherlands or in Germany [coalition] talks have lasted a long time, but they dont have that debt.

But problems of policy will have to wait. The key theme underlying the election was an anti-E.U, anti-immigrant backlash that echoed the angry tribalism of elections elsewhere in the West. Salvini, whose once-regional party has shifted its ire from southern Italians to foreigners, wants to carry out mass deportations while radically refashioning the Italian economy.

In an interview with the New York Times, Stephen K. Bannon, the former adviser to President Trump who is now exiled from the White House, gleefully hailed Italy's politics as a validation of his own ultranationalist agenda. The Italian people have gone farther, in a shorter period of time, than the British did for Brexit and the Americans did for Trump, he said while in Italy last week, in clear support of Salvini. Italy is the leader.President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev declared 2018 as Year of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). The centennial anniversary of the ADR will be marked not only in Azerbaijan, but also in other countries of the world, by forums, conferences and plenary sessions, dedicated to the creation of the first democratic republic in the Muslim world.

During the plenary session titled 'History of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic: a look back a century later, 1918-2018', which was held in the Russian Civic Chamber, Deputy Director General of the Information and Analytical Center for the study of post-Soviet space, Ismail Agakishiyev, told about the contribution of the ADR founders to the formation of the Azerbaijani statehood: We all have great respect for the leaders of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic - it's been 100 years, but the memory of these people unites us. Serving the values of freedom and democracy, they promoted national self-identification of Azerbaijani people through their activities. Thanks to these people, we have known ourselves as a people, as a nation."

Ismail Agakishiyev recalled that the creation of ADR was preceded by the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907, as well as the annexation of Northern Azerbaijan to Russia in the first half of the 19th century: "That is when the Azerbaijani people received the opportunity to study in Russia's secular schools and universities.It was the formation of the secular intelligentsia, the representatives of which became the ancestors of the democratic movement in the first years of the 20th century, and later - the creators and leaders of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. The first political club, which became the first political party of the Azerbaijani democratic intelligentsia in the years of the Russian Revolution, was called 'Hummet' (Unity). The founders of the club in October 1904 were Seid Movsumov and Mammad Emin Rasulzade, who was just 16 years old. I read the articles of future ADR leaders published in the newspapers of that time, and I was amazed at the level of the language, the level of knowledge, the level of education of those people. "

One way or another, national self-identification needed time, a sovereign economy and an independent state in which a nation would be formed. "At that time, the development of the Baku oil industry was progressing, a big contribution to which was made by such people as Tagiyev, Nagiyev, Asadullayev and Murtazayev. There was a process of forming a national bourgeoisie, without which the creation of a nation would be impossible. It was the creation of a sovereign state - Azerbaijan Democratic Republic - which gave the real opportunity for the gradual formation and development of the nation. And the values preached by the ADR leaders turned out to be wider than the national framework - these were universal values, thanks to which both a nation and the rule of law could be formed. All citizens of the country should have equal rights before the law regardless of their ethnic background.

However, the formation of the nation and the rule of law needed time, and ADR existed for only 23 months. If sufficient time was provided, then it would be possible to speak with confidence about the formation of the Azerbaijani nation. Then we would not have heard the question "haralisan?" (Where are you from?) and would probably not have faced most of today's problems existing in Azerbaijani society," Ismail Agakishiyev said.

The expert named the creation of the geographical framework of the state with the capital in Baku as the great merit of the ADR founders: "The people who lived here felt themselves and called themselves Azeris. Already in the 7th-8th centuries, when Arabs invaded this territory, according to the sources written by Arab authors, the name Azerbaijan was used for these lands. It was used along with the names of Shirvan, Mugan and Arran. After part of these territories became part of Russia, its borders with Iran (that is, with southern Azerbaijan) were open, communication between the people of the two countries were maintained and the process of forming a single people continued."

Speaking about the values of ADR, Agakishiyev emphasized that it became a legal state, dominated by the letter of law both inside the country and in foreign policy conducted in accordance with the requirements of international law, as well as at a high diplomatic level and the principles of mutual respect: "The ADR leaders had experience of working in the State Duma of various convocations and in the state structures of the Russian Empire. For example, the Foreign Minister of the ADR, Alimardan bey Topchubashov was a deputy of the State Duma of the first convocation and the leader of the Muslim faction. The ADR leaders were politicians, able to defend the interests of the nation at the talks with the leaders of such a level as Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau ...

The devotion of these people to national interests and responsible attitude to the fulfillment of their tasks is striking. Surrender, respect for colleagues and modesty were characteristic features of the ADR leaders. They did value national interests, not positions and fame. The resignation of the first ADR government and the abolition of the National Council for the sake of preserving the Azerbaijani statehood is especially indicative in this sense. The main argument of the opponents of the National Council was that it was created as a result of the Russian Revolution and became its continuation, therefore it cannot correspond to the principles of national independence. Mammad Amin Rasulzadeh, the chairman of this institution, admitted that the ADR was a continuation of the Russian revolution, but in the sense that it set itself the task of eliminating class contradictions and national oppression."

Mammad Amin Rasulzadeh

As an example of mutual respect and responsible attitude of the ADR leaders, Agakishiyev recalled the voluntary resignation of the chairman of the National Council, Mammad Amin Rasulzadeh, and the head of the first ADR government, Fatali Khan Khoyski: "In order to overcome the political crisis and preserve the sovereignty of the ADR (there was the issue of its accession to Turkey) they left their positions, thanked their colleagues and like-minded people for respectful attitude, apologized for possible mistakes and promised to work for the common good even after the resignation... By the way, when they said that ADR had no close relations with the Russian state, Khoyski urged not to engage in demagoguery: "It is our primary objective to establish relations with Russia, with the great Russian people. But, unfortunately, the Bolshevik government has not responded to our repeated appeals. "

Fatali Khan Khoyski

Ismail Agakishiyev also noted that the ADR leaders were distinguished by high asceticism: "Their salaries were very modest, they were not enough even to meet the minimum demands. Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the ADR, Nasib-bek Usubbekov, asked his father to help make a fence in the suburban area in Ganja. There is a letter from his father, an answer to this request: "My dear son, I have endured for a long time, and, finally, I will speak out. Getting into debts, I was able to give you a good education. After completing your studies, you returned home ... You became Minister of Education of the Transcaucasian Seim in Tiflis. You asked me for money several times, and I sent them to you. Then you proclaimed the independence of Azerbaijan. You became Minister of Education of our Republic, but your salary did not cover your expenses again. You asked for money, and I always sent it. I even sold part of my land. Today you are the prime minister, the head of state. Could it really be that I should buy reeds for your dacha fence again?"".

Nasib-bek Usubbekov

The expert also noted that, despite the difficult time, the ADR leaders paid great attention to education from the very beginning : "The foundation of Baku University was laid back then, the representatives of Azerbaijani youth have started to study in European universities."

"I want to especially thank the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, who declared this year as Year of ADR by his decree.The leaders of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic dedicated their lives to eternal values. They pursued not their own selfish interests, but the interests of the nation. The national pride was more important for them than their own pride, national freedom - more important than their own freedom, national wealth - more important than their material interests. Therefore they succeeded in creating a nationwide state, in fact, restored after the adoption of the Constitutional Act on the State Independence and the establishment of the foundations of the state, political and economic structure of the independent Azerbaijan Republic by the Supreme Council of Azerbaijan in 1991. "Initiators of the DUDUKIST project sent a letter to the Roskosmos corporation asking to deliver ancient musical instrument - duduk - to the orbit."The Armenian alphabet visited space in 2012 as universally recognized treasure of world civilization. Duduk is much older than the Armenian alphabet! This instrument was mentioned for the first time in written monuments of the ancient kingdom of Urartu. So duduk is at least three thousand years old," co-founder of the DUDUKIST project Suren Bagdasaryan told Sputnik Armenia.

According to him, "the sound of duduk organically combines with the starry sky. It's impossible to describe it, you can only feel it. There's no more suitable instrument for space than duduk," co-founder of the project said.

However, it remains unclear why duduk should be sent into space and why it's necessary to send musical instrument, used by representatives of all peoples living in the Middle East and the Caucasus, just as "Armenian". Varieties of this instrument have certain constructive differences, and perhaps the DUDUKIST project considers it fundamental for representatives of intelligent extraterrestrial civilizations to learn to use Armenian duduk. Or maybe authors of this initiative don't think about space and simply pursue armenization of the entire Caucasian legacy.Israel is discussing Russia's guarantees that Iran would not approach the Golan Heights, Israeli Foreign Ministry's Deputy Director General Alexander Ben-Zvi said.

According to Ben-Zvi, the withdrawal of the Shiite troops is necessary to stabilize the situation in Syrias the southern de-escalation zone.

He stressed that Russia "definitely" understood Israel's concern over the presence of Shiite troops in Syria and whether it could provide guarantees that Iran would not approach the Golan Heights.

Ben-Zvi noted that Iran has disagreements with Russia over Iran. "Our position in this situation is clear  we have reiterated many times to our Russian colleagues how we see the situation and that in any case a settlement in Syria can be reached only when there is no Iran, Hezbollah and Shiite troops," Sputnik cited the diplomat as saying.

He added that, from Israel's point of view, the Iranian presence in Syria will not lead to a settlement of the conflict, but rather to an escalation of the situation.Israeli Foreign Ministry's Deputy Director General Alexander Ben-Zvi declares the country's readiness for direct talks with Palestine if a substantive program is provided.

"If there are direct talks, we can sit down with the Palestinians and talk. The main thing is not where to do it, but what to discuss. That's the thing. Because we need some kind of program," Gazeta.ru cited him as saying.

The diplomat recalled that Israel twice offered territories to Palestine - in 2000 and 2008 - but these proposals were rejected.Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said one of the priorities of the government is to ensure balance among the different regions of Georgia.

Introducing the regional decentralization strategy, Kvirikashvili said local governments should have both the decision-making authority and the resources for their fulfillment.

According to him, there has been a slight difference among the levels of life in different regions. To encourage the local population remain in their regions, the Government of Georgia aims at eradicating this imbalance.

The eight-year strategy will ensure that the local self-governments have: increased authority; more financial resources for effectiveness; transparency and accountability and public engagement. The PM believes this will bring more tangible results for regional development.

Kvirikashvili said the reform will be carried out through active cooperation between the executive and legislative bodies. However, public engagement and the expertise of international partners is also essential for successful implementation, Agenda.ge reported.A newly-built Culture Center has been inaugurated in Shaghan, Khazar district of Baku. The ceremony was attended by the First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva.

Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfas Garayev informed the First Vice-President that the construction of the two-storey Culture Center started in 2014. He noted that the center features a 200-seat auditorium, cinema theater, make-up room, drawing workshop, musical, applied, arts, literature, dancing clubs, reading hall, library, 41-seat amphitheater. In addition, green areas were created around the center.

First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva viewed the center, and wished its staff success.Russia's Federal Security Service may use offensive tactics and strategy in the fight against terrorism, Russian President Vladimir Putin said today.

"It is necessary to push ahead with vigorous efforts, use offensive tactics and strategy in the fight against terrorism and improve the coordinating role of the National Anti-Terrorism Committee," the president told a meeting of the FSBs board.

Vladimir Putin also stressed that over the past six years, Russia has seen a decrease in the number of terrorist crimes, TASS reported.Russias Foreign Ministry will continue doing what is necessary to ensure the legitimate interests of compatriots living abroad, the country's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a welcome address to participants in an international forum dubbed 'Together with Russia'.

The address, read out by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin, says that todays meeting is dedicated to the most pressing issues related to the multifaceted activities of the Russian World, aimed at engaging compatriots in Russias social and political life, including the upcoming presidential election on March 18..

The diplomat stressed that "it is hard to overestimate the contribution that the Russian communities based abroad, supported by the World Coordination Council, have made into expanding the Russian-language space and countering attempts to distort history, including the outcome of World War II."

He stressed that it is particularly good to see young compatriots take "an active part in these activities".

"We will continue to do what is necessary to ensure the legitimate interests of compatriots living abroad," TASS cited Lavrov as saying. "I am confident that the forums debates will facilitate the search for effective solutions to the tasks that we have been facing, including preparations for the Sixth World Congress of Russian Compatriots, scheduled to be held later in the year," the Russian top diplomat added.US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May agreed during a phone call that Russian President Vladimir Putin's claim that Russia had nuclear weapons that could evade US anti-missile defense systems was "irresponsible."

May and Trump also discussed how Syria and its Russian and Iranian sponsor should call for an immediate ceasefire across the war-torn Syria, Politico reported.

In addition, Trump and May in their call affirmed that their two countries "will hold Russia accountable for compelling the Assad regime to halt attacks against civilian areas and for granting access to humanitarian relief in East Ghouta."

During the 14th State of Nation Address to Federal Assembly Putin announced that Russia has nuclear weapons that could get around defense systems, in addition to underwater drones and intercontinental missiles.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke on the phone to discuss the humanitarian situation in the besieged eastern Ghouta region in Syria, the French presidency said in a statement.

According to the statement, the French President "spoke of his deep concern and of immediate measures to be taken, notably by Iran and Russia, so that Damascus finally accepts the UN resolution, gives access to humanitarian aid convoys and for a truce be implemented under UN control," Reuters reported.

The two presidents will continue to seek a political solution to the Syrian crisis within the framework of the inclusive Geneva process with all involved partners and representatives of the Syrian opposition, the statement reads.Europe and the United States have violated the nuclear deal, so are not in position to set conditions for Tehran, Irans foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said in an interview published today ahead of a meeting with his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian.

Zarif warned that any action to satisfy the party that has most violated the nuclear agreement is useless.

"At present, two groups have violated the nuclear deal: the United States and the Europeans. The Americans because of Washingtons policy and the Europeans because of the US policy," Express Tribune cited the minister as saying.

"The Europeans, because of the policy of the US could not meet their commitments, especially in the banking sector. Therefore these two groups are not in a position to set conditions for the country that has fully implemented its commitments," Zarif told the Etemad newspaper.HCM CITY  Demand for industrial land around the country is expected to increase thanks to significant growth in terms of both industrial production and FDI.

Last year the citys index of industrial production grew by 7.9 per cent while Ha Nois expanded by 7.1 per cent.

FDI flows into HCM City topped $6.3 billion while for Ha Noi they were worth $2.4 billion, a national year-on-year increase of 22.5 per cent, and most foreign and domestic investors are seeking to expand production.

At HCM City IPs, according to real estate service consultant Colliers International, at the end of 2017 the average annual rent was $142.2 per square metre, an increase of 0.9 per cent from the previous year.

HCM City now has 20 operating IPs with a total area of 3,025 hectares. Cu Chi District has the largest number of industrial parks totally measuring 863 hectares, but the price is lowest there at $80 -90 per square metre.

By 2025 it is expected that more 2,300ha in eight new industrial parks will come into the market with a promise of better infrastructure and services.

From now through 2025 rents are expected to increase sharply.

Authorities around the country continue to offer incentives to promote supporting industries.

The HCM City science and technology department has set up a database for all enterprises in supporting industries, including foreign companies, for easy connection and technology transfer.

Around 200 hectares in the Hiep Phuoc and Le Minh Xuan 3 Industrial Parks will be earmarked for supporting industries.

Ha Noi has 11 industrial parks with 2,700 hectares, mostly in outlying districts.

Rents in Ha Nois IPs increased more than in HCM City in 2017 with an occupation rate of 82.6 per cent, 5.3 percentage points higher than the year before.

By 2020 Ha Noi will have 14 more IPs with 6,100 hectares in operation.

With a business-friendly environment and high demand from customers, we hope the trend will continue through 2018, David Jackson, general director of Colliers International Viet Nam, told the Thoi bao Kinh te Viet Nam (Viet Nam Economic Times) newspaper.

Ha Noi is a good location close to northern industrial centres like Hai Phong, Hung Yen and Bac Ninh, and this helps the city be the best location for IPs.

In other cities too, demand for industrial land has increased as many enterprises have expanded their production since the beginning of this year.

For instance, HTMP Ltd signed a contract with TNI Holdings Viet Nam to expand its production at the Quang Minh Industrial Park, Japanese automobile parts maker Toyoda Gosei started construction of a new plant in Tien Hai Viglacera Industrial Park in the northern province of Thai Binh.

Industrial production has recovered and is expected to expand, and the occupancy ratio at industrial parks has significantly increased, especially this year.  VNSThe southern province of Vinh Long and the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Farmers Union will organise the first ever Agricultural Inputs Festival in the province this month.  Photo danviet.vn

HA NOI  The southern province of Vinh Long and the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Farmers Union will organise the first ever Agricultural Inputs Festival in the province this month.

To take place from March 23 to 29 in Vinh Long City, it will feature an agricultural-industrial and trade fair, orchid, bonsai and red-whiskered bulbul singing competitions, among other activities, Pham Minh Hung of the Central Committee of the Viet Nam Farmers Union, said.

Speaking at a press briefing in HCM City on Friday, Nguyen Thanh Son, a member of the festival organisation board, said farmers and craft villages would have a chance to promote their products while enterprises can introduce their agricultural machinery and equipment, seeds, fertilisers and pesticides, and other agricultural inputs.

Seminars on creating livelihoods for farmers amid climate change and on sharing the benefits of agricultural input producers and distributors with farmers would be held on the sidelines of the festival, he said.

More than 800 localities, establishments and businesses have so far registered to participate, with 200 businesses involved in the field of agricultural inputs.  VNSOver 2,000 Honda cars from Thailandthe first batches of cars to enjoy zero per cent import duty under the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA)have been imported to Viet Nam. Photo nld.vn

HA NOI  Over 2,000 Honda cars from Thailandthe first batches of cars to enjoy zero per cent import duty under the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA)have been imported to Viet Nam.

Under the AFTA commitments, a zero per cent tax is applicable to cars imported from the bloc, with a localisation rate of 40 per cent or more in the country of origin, starting January 1 this year.

The current batch has Jazz, Accord, CR-V and Civic models.

A representative of Honda Vietnam said that to import the autos to Viet Nam, the firm had completed procedures to meet the requirements of Viet Nams Decree 116 on the conditions for production, assembly, import, business of warranty service, car maintenance and particularly the Vehicle Type Approval certificate granted by the Thailand Department of Land Transport.

A consulting staff member at Hondas My inh agent told Viet Nam News that the new vehicles would be rolled out to the market in May or early June, as it will take one or two months to complete checks on emission, quality and technical safety at ports.

The price of each car is expected to fall by more than VN200 million. This will be a turning point in the Vietnamese automobile market, said the staff member.

Earlier, the insiders calculated that with the zero per cent import tax, the price of imported cars from ASEAN countries to Viet Nam would fall by 20-25 per cent.HA NOI  Vietnamese export companies will have opportunities to set up distribution channels in the Middle East thanks to a market research programme launched by the Investment and Trade Promotion Centre in HCM City and the Vietnamese Embassys Commercial Affair Office in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The research will be carried out from March 4-9 this year. It aims to help rice, food and fruit exporters seek opportunities in Middle Eastern nations.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, trade between Viet Nam and the Middle East reached US$12.8 billion in 2017, up 17.4 per cent from 2016.

Viet Nams main exports were mobile phones, computers and accessories, seafood, footwear, garment and textiles, fibre, rice, pepper, wood products, cashew nuts, natural rubber, vegetables and fruit and coffee beans.

The country mostly imported materials for domestic production, such as plastic, liquefied gas, electronic spare parts, machines and animal feed, from the Middle East.  VNSHA NOI  Vietnam Technological and Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Techcombank) plans to sell more than 158 treasury shares to foreign investors.

At the banks Annual General Meeting of shareholders on Saturday, Chairman Ho Hung Anh said the price of the shares must be at a minimum of VN23,445 (US$1.03), the price at which the bank had bought back the shares from HSBC last year.

Anh said Techcombank would prioritise investors from the United States and Europe for the sale.

The bank will also sell 14 million preferred shares from the treasury stock, equal to 1.5 per cent of the banks charter capital, to its employees in the second quarter of the year.

The proceeds from the treasury share sale will be used to increase the banks assets, expand its network and credit operations and for investments in Government bonds.

Anh said Techcombank would also list its shares on HCM Stock Exchange (HoSE) this year, adding that the bank had planned to list its shares on HoSE last year but felt the timing was not right.

Explaining about the sale of its consumer finance firm TechcomFinance in mid-January this year, Anh said Techcombank had not selected the high-risk business model to not pursue the operation.

Techcombank plans a profit of VN10 trillion this year. This appears to be a tough target given that only Vietcombank in the entire banking system had met its target last year.

To meet the target, Techcombank has set a 17 per cent total assets increase, a 40 per cent rise in capital mobilisation and an 18 per cent credit growth this year, while keeping bad debts to below 2 per cent.

Last year, the bank had posted a pre-tax profit of nearly VN8.04 trillion. It took the fifth position in terms of highest profit in the banking sector.  VNSHA NOI  Minh Phu Seafood JSC is seeking shareholders approval for a listing shuffle from the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) on Ha Noi Stock Exchange to HCM Stock Exchange this year following a good show of business in 2017.

The decision for approval will be made at its 2018 shareholders meeting scheduled for March 9.

Minh Phu Seafood JSC is known as Viet Nams king in shrimp production. It had voluntarily cancelled the listing on HCM Stock Exchange on March 31, 2015, for restructuring and to seek more capital from foreign partners. But the delisting did not help in raising more capital and the firms business went down.

It incurred a loss of VN7 billion in 2015. However, it rebounded with a profit of VN82 billion in 2016 on a revenue of nearly VN12.1 trillion.

The company planned its official return to the stock market with its listing on UPCoM last October. The stock with the sticker MPC has been consistently rising from VN79,000 (US$3.47) per share on the first trading day to nearly VN102,000 on March 5, valuing the company at VN7.04 trillion ($309 million).

Minh Phu is one of the two largest seafood exporters in Viet Nam. Its export turnover amounted to more than $692.5 billion in 2017, up 30.5 per cent year-on-year and surpassing its annual target by 1.7 per cent, thanks to aggressive growth in the United States (39 per cent) and Japan (23 per cent).

Exports to these two markets accounted for over 62 per cent of the companys total export turnovers.

The companys 2017 net revenue rose nearly 41 per cent over 2016 to VN16.85 trillion, while the net profit climbed 772 per cent from VN82 billion in 2016 to VN714 billion by the end of 2017.

Plans to raise capital

Minh Phu is plotting a charter capital hike from the current VN700 billion to VN2 trillion via additional share issues in 2018 and 2019. The new capital is aimed at boosting the companys financial capacity and supporting its business expansion.

The shrimp exporter has also targeted an export revenue of $800 million this year, an annual growth of 15 per cent. The expected output is 63,000 tonnes, up 13 per cent year-on-year, with a consolidated revenue of VN18.2 trillion and a net profit of VN990 billion in 2018, up 8 per cent and 39 per cent year-on-year, respectively.

The biggest risks for its business expansion will be increasing competition from rivals in other countries, such as India and Indonesia, as well as protectionist policies of major markets, notably the United States.  VNSHA NOI  A year after a government decree on stringent punishment for environmental violations came into effect, its enforcement leaves a lot to be desired.

Decree 155/2016/N-CP was applicable from February 2017, which includes administrative fines at 10 times higher rates for petty demeanours than previously seen. Leaving trash on sidewalks, roads or in the drainage system invites a penalty of VN1-3 million (US$44-133) or as high as VN5-7 millionall high amounts considering the average income in Viet Nam. Those caught urinating, defecating or spitting in public and littering the ground with cigarettes will also be issued heavy sanctions.

Authorities of many localities in the capital city of Ha Noi conducted large-scale campaigns, including going door to door to popularise the new environmental provisions as well as performing intensive crackdowns on violations.

A short time after the decree came into effect, most localities reported encouraging improvements in environmental protection. The positive results, however, were short-lived and the situation reverted to the "status quo" as the campaigns died down.

Currently, on Ha Nois streets, it is not hard to find mounds of garbage dumped in unauthorised places or to notice people carelessly discarding litter in public, Vietnam News Agency reported.

Alley 105 on Thuy Khue Street in Tay Ho (West Lake) District has been a "makeshift" market for years. Despite the convenience, it might bring to those seeking to quickly buy groceries, the residents here are upset about the mess and stench coming from the market.

Thu Ha, a local resident, said she was greeted by the distinctly unpleasant odour of fish stalls every morning when she leaves for work and the smell of oozing heaps of garbage every afternoon when she returns. The infamously polluted To Lich River beside the alley had residents on both sides throwing trash directly into the water, but no one had ever been sanctioned, Ha added.

Nguyen Hoa, currently living in the downtown district of Hoan Kiem, said she passed the Guinness-recognised "ceramic mural street" (along the Red River dyke wall) every day on her way to work, and she sometimes saw pedestrians and drivers stopping to relieve themselves on the murals.

These are really offensive acts. I sometimes just want to take photos of the offenders and send them to the authorities. But really, by the time I stop, they would have finished already, Hoa complained.

Cigarette butts are strewn all over the grounds in parks, bus stations and hospitals  seemingly with impunity.

In HCM City, littering can also be observed on the streets of Nguyen Thi Minh Khai and Hai Ba Trung in District 1 or on Ha Noi Highway in District 2.

Many bus stations are located on this important road, but not all of them offer enough dustbins, so sanitary workers are unable to handle the excessive workload, remarked Le Thi Ha, a florist on the Ha Noi Highway.

A street food stall in Ha Noi polluting the sidewalk with wastewater and miscellaneous trash.  VNA/VNS Photo

Not easy to fine

Despite featuring very detailed levels of punishment for each violation, it is hard to enforce these penalties in reality, local authorities said. Le Trong Sy, vice chairman of Phan Chu Trinh Ward of Hoan Kiem District, blamed the situation on the excessive responsibilities being shouldered by local policemen and officials, despite these departments being understaffed. The understaffing issue is also shared by authorities in HCM City. According to a District 1 representative, currently each ward can only have one environment official, who oversees a large area with a dense population.

In addition, to issue fines, "caught-in-the-act" evidences or witnesses are needed, so actual instances of being able to attribute blame are rare.

So far, the ward is able to fine households that take up public space to conduct a business, but we havent been able to issue a fine to anyone committing the crime of littering or public urination, Sy said.

Truong Anh Tu, a lawyer registered with the Ha Noi bar, commented that the decrees rules have failed to "step outside the legal documents into real life" as low public awareness is an issue that cannot be resolved in a short time. He also pointed out some existing legal problems. For example, issuing high administrative fines (above VN1 million) are beyond a wards jurisdiction. To issue fines of this amount or higher, ward-level police must submit reports to the district-level police, who then issue an official administrative fine document against the offenders. Even after completing these lengthy procedures, there is still no guarantee that the offender will willingly pay their fines.  VNSHA NOI  The water quality in Ha Nois lakes, including 86 in the inner city and 44 on the outskirts, earmarked for renovation has improved markedly after months of dredging and cleaning, experts have announced.

Lakes such as Ngoc Khanh, Kim Lien, Ba Mau and Thien Quang were once severely contaminated and needed urgent cleaning to protect their bio-systems, safety levels and the surrounding areas.

"Ive seen a big improvement. The water in the lake [Ngoc Khanh Lake] is cleaner and less smelly," said Vu Khac Hoa, a resident of Ha Nois Ba inh District, who lives near Ngoc Khanh Lake.

The surrounding area had also been beautified, he said.

The investor has separated the water drainage system so the waste water from residential areas no longer flows into the lake, Van inh Hung, another resident told Vietnam Television.

Bui Ngoc Uyen, from Ha Noi Sewage and Drainage Company, which is responsible for maintaining Ha Nois lakes, said over the past year the company has used chemical products together with a number of measures like the installation of aquatic rafts with a view to increase oxygen and the self-cleaning ability of the lakes.

The main task for Ha Noi lakes is to regulate drainage, drought and environmental landscapes and they have met these criteria, experts say.

According to the Centre for Environment and Community Research (CECR) report released in 2015, the number of lakes in Ha Noi reduced to 112 from 122 between 2010 and 2015. The water surface reduced by 72,000 sq.m compared with 2010.

Data from the CECR analysis showed that a lot of lakes, which were once beautiful spots for the citys residents to visit and enjoy, were seriously deteriorating due to rising levels of pollution.

Test on water samples taken at these lakes revealed that lakes contained an excessive amount of pollution, compared to national standards.

To improve the water environment at lakes, the municipal Peoples Committee had assigned the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to research and implement the testing and treatment of water pollution in rivers and lakes in the city.

The experiment was conducted in 12 lakes including Ngoc Khanh, Xa an, Hai Ba Trung, Kim Lien, Ngoc Ha, en Lu, Van Quan, Giang Vo. In addition, the Department handled the pollution of water in Ho Tay (near the Water Park) and My inh ditch.

Algae are planted during a pilot programme on Thanh Cong Lake in Ha Noi as a way to absorb the pollutants and purify the lakes water.  VNA/VNS Photo Bui Tuong

In 2016, the City Peoples Committee has directed Ha Noi Sewage and Drainage company to implement the treatment of Redoxy-3C technology for 83 lakes in the city to enhance the water quality.

After the product was proved effective during trials in Ho Me, Ba Mau and Giap Bat Lake, Redoxy-3C has been applied to other lakes in the city including Hoan Kiem Lake (Returned Sword Lake).

Covering an area of around 12 hectares, the lake is located in the historical centre of the city. Not only important historically, Hoan Kiem Lake has a beautiful landscape, and is considered a scenic, relaxing escape from the chaos of the Old Quarter.

However, the lake is severely polluted and has lost the ability to revive itself. Its water quality is getting worse by the day, its pH level is high, and the amount of suspended deposits is higher than the permissible limit at all five monitoring locations, according to Ha Noi Sewage and Drainage Company.

The lake also has high organic contamination, with the indices for both biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and chemical oxygen demand (COD) two times over the limit.

The lake water has lost its distinctive dark green colour in several spots, and there is a one-metre layer of mud at the bottom of the lake, causing pollution and reducing the water level by 0.5 to 0.8m.

By the end of last year, the company was assigned to dredge and clean Hoan Kiem Lake.

After over one month of cleaning, the original colour of water in the lake has returned and there is no longer a bad smell.

Pham Tung Lam, head of the Management Board of Hoan Kiem Lake, said the polluted mud layer disappeared when the dredging process had finished.

It would be a good opportunity for aqua-culture and creatures to develop in the lake, he said adding that as a matter of fact, a tortoise had been seen laying eggs near Ngoc Son temple.  VNSHA NOI  The fourth Steinway Youth Piano Competition will launch the countrywide audition round on March 20 to select the national winner to represent Viet Nam at the regional final in Taiwan .

The International Steinway Festival takes place every two years and is one of the most significant events for piano students in the world. Every two years, children and teenagers from around the world meet to take part in a musical community with the festival concert as the highlight.

In Viet Nam the competition has been being held since 2012 by Viet Thuong Music, a Steinway representative in Viet Nam . This year there are about 130 young contestants registered.

"It is the only professional competition for all piano students under 17 years old," said Phuong Nguyen, from the national organisation. "The number of participating contestants has grown over time. This year the number of contestants almost tripled than 2016. It means that quality of the contestants will be improved."

The competition will include audition, semi-final and final rounds. The semi-final round will be held in April 20 in Ha Noi and HCM City . The final round will take place on May 19 in HCM City .

There are three categories for different ages. The first category is for 11 and under, the second category is for 12 to 14 and the third category is for 15 to 17. Participants must present three constrasting selections totalling a maximum playing time from 15 to 20 minutes.

The repertoire must include the first movement of a Sonata by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Clementi or Schubert. Participants are required to perform the exact same repertoire for further stages of the competition.

The winners from the categories will perform the same piece at a gala concert to compete for one slot to present at the regional finals in Taiwan in August. There, competitiors will vie for a chance to represent Southeast Asia at the International Steinway Festival 2018 in Hamburg , Germany .HA NOI  Vietnamese and Italian designers and architects will gather in Ha Noi to celebrate Italian Design Day.

Accordingly, they joined a workshop held late last week in Ha Noi to discuss sustainable designs and future architecture.

The event gathered many experts such as Italian Design Ambassador to Viet Nam Aldo Colonetti, technician Luca Paioletti from the Ghella Construction Company, architect Duong Binh Thai from Exposure Architects Company and architect Takashi Niwa from the Vo Trong Nghia Architects Company.

Under the framework of Italian Design Day, a fashion show and workshop on creating a sustainable and environment-friendly fashion industry will take place on March 17-19 in Ha Noi. Vietnamese and Italian designers will join the event.

The activities are part of an initiative of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation. Italian Design Day celebrates the globally acknowledged leadership of the Made in Italy label.

In 100 locations around the world, 100 ambassadors of Italian culture (designers, entrepreneurs, journalists and critics, as well as communicators and teachers) will participate in a panel discussion on Italian designs unique blend of factors, both material and immaterial, which have retained their distinctive features through the centuries despite a major overhaul by communications and mobility systems; creativity and originality; top-quality materials; and high-quality construction, as well as production processes that respect the environment, workers and end users and the highest quality packaging and advertising.

The culture of design in Italy began during the Renaissance and developed due to the influence of the schools of industrial design and artistic trends and followed diverse and innovative flows linked to territories and entrepreneurship. After World War II, Italian design symbolised the countrys economic growth and became the leading element of Italys industrial production.

Miss Viet Nam 2010 ang Ngoc Han (left) and models present long dresses inspired by Italian culture during a fashion event last year.  Photo baomoi.com

Italian design has tangible and intangible features that have made it recognisable across the world for its original projects, the quality of materials employed, the manufacturing of these objects, the environmentally friendly production processes (considerate of those who work at them as of those who will use them), and the distinctive characteristics of its packaging and advertising, according to Italian Ambassador Cecilia Piccioni.

Italian design combines the concreteness of traditional craftsmanship and the spirit of experimentation. By integrating the beauty of design into mass production, Italian design has fostered the coexistence of art and industry along a mutual development process, she said.

Sustainability is a concern of both developed and developing countries. We selected sustainability as the theme of Italian Design Day 2018 to celebrate the mutual understanding and diplomatic relationship between Viet Nam and Italy.

Design Ambassador Colonetti said this year, the events target special techniques with the aim of creating products that are friendly to the environment and durable to use.

Thats the future trend, he said.

People have known Venice as the city of canals, bridges and as a floating city. Venice is famous for its architecture, artwork and settings, where well-decorated wooden poles are used for traffic guidance. Recently, we recycled damaged poles (because they sink after standing in water for a long time) and restored them. The poles were redesigned to make furniture and other items.

Colonetti said this will be one of the stories he will share during the event in Viet Nam to honour designers, craftsmen and workers who have joined hands to build a sustainable design industry for the future.  VNSHCM CITY  Around 3,000 women and students from womens organisations, universities and high schools, and celebrities showcased the ao dai (Vietnamese traditional long dress) on Nguyen Hue Pedestrian Street in District 1 yesterday for the annual HCM City Ao Dai Festival.

They included the 2016 Miss Viet Nam, o My Linh, Meritorious Artists Thanh Loc and Kim Xuan, and MC Quynh Hoa, who are the ambassadors of this years festival, which had opened on Saturday night.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Tran Vinh Tuyen, deputy chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee, said: The Ao Dai Festival has been organised since 2014 and become one of cultural and tourism events that play an important role in the development of the city.

Through the event, we seek to honour the Vietnamese traditional dress and hope to encourage people, both men and women, to love and wear the ao dai.

The festivals highlight was music and fashion show held on Nguyen Hue Street last night.

More than 100 models presented the latest collections by 10 of the countrys leading ao dai designers, including Sy Hoang, o Trinh Hoai Nam, Thuan Viet, and Lien Huong.

Traditional music bands Phu Sa, Nam Viet and NM performed.

An exhibition titled Duyen Dang Ao Dai Thanh Pho Ho Chi Minh (Charming Ao Dai of HCM City) will be on show until March 31 at the Ao Dai Exhibition House on Nguyen Hue Street.

It displays more than 50 ao dai designs from various periods with descriptions in Vietnamese and English.

Also on display are a replica of the robes worn by Nguyen Dynasty kings and ao dai worn by some women who have great contributions to the countrys politics, military, diplomacy, culture, and healthcare.

A cultural exchange called "Ao Dai and Tsumami Flowers" (Japanese traditional fabric flowers) will be held on March 11 to celebrate the 45th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with Japan.

It will be the first time Vietnamese traditional dress decorated with tsumami flowers to be on display.

A series of talk shows and photo exhibitions on the ao dai will be held at universities, cultural centres, museums, and libraries around the city, including the Museum of Southern Women and the HCM City General Science Library.

The organisers have invited women consuls, wives of foreign consuls and women staff of foreign consulates in the city to the festival.

More than 111 tailor shops, dozens of garment and textile companies, and several fashion houses have signed up to offered discounts of 5-30 per cent to customers during the event.

The festival will close on March 26 and is expected to attract more than 70,000 local and foreign visitors. VNSHOLLYWOOD  Legendary filmmaker James Ivory won the first Oscar of his storied career Sunday (local time) for his screenplay of Call Me By Your Name, a sensual tale of first love set in sun-drenched 1980s Italy.

Ivory, 89, is now the oldest ever winner of a competitive Oscar.

After three nominations for directing A Room with a View, Howards End and The Remains of the Day, Ivory finally struck Oscars gold for best adapted screenplay, from a novel by Andre Aciman.

Ivory bested a field that included Aaron Sorkin (Mollys Game), Virgil Williams and Dee Rees (Mudbound), and the writers of superhero flick Logan and The Disaster Artist.

The film focuses on Elio (Timothee Chalamet), a precocious but bored 17-year-old American who becomes transfixed by Oliver (Armie Hammer), the handsome graduate student who has come to work with Elios professor father in Lombardy.

"Weve all gone through first love, I hope, and come out the other side mostly intact," Ivory told the audience at Hollywoods Dolby Theatre while accepting his award, sporting a shirt featuring Chalamets face.

He thanked Aciman, Chalamet and Hammer, and also his long-time collaborators, both of whom have died  Indian producer Ismail Merchant and German-born writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Born June 7, 1928 in Berkeley, near San Francisco, Ivory dreamed of being a production designer, and studied architecture and fine arts.

He graduated from the University of Southern California in 1957 with a film degree, producing a documentary on Venetian painters that drew the attention of The New York Times.

Ivory went on to produce a body of work inspired by his love of India and marked by a satirical approach to exploring the tensions of social class.

His fascination with India began at age 23 when he saw Jean Renoirs The River (1951). Many of his early films would have India as a backdrop, with the confrontation between Eastern and Western societies as one of his preferred themes.

He worked extensively for years with Merchant, who became his partner in both life and cinema until his death in 2005.

As heads of Merchant Ivory Productions along with Jhabvala, they put together more than 40 films.

After several films based in India, Ivory moved on to adapt classic novels of British literature, including The Europeans The Bostonian and A Room With a View.

That film, based on the book by E.M. Forster, depicted the struggle between emotion and the rigid codes of Edwardian society. It won three Oscars including best screenplay for Jhabvala.  AFPA NANG  An aircraft carrier-led group of the US Navy ships docked in Tien Sa port yesterday, beginning their first-ever visit to Viet Nams central city of a Nang.

They include the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain, and missile destroyer USS Wayne E Meyer.



The welcome ceremony was chaired by Director of the municipal Department of External Relations Lam Quang Minh and attended by officers from the Military Zone 5 High Command, the municipal Border Guard Command, the High Command of the Naval Zone 3, and other agencies, together with representatives from the US Embassy and agencies in Viet Nam.

Later, Minh together with Vice Admiral Philip G Sawyer, Commander of the US Navys seventh Fleet in the Pacific co-chaired a press conference to introduce the visits agenda.

Its significant in the relationship between a Nang and the US and for Viet Nam at large. The visit of the group of US ships is a chance to show off the possibility of logistics supplying and services of a Nang city, Minh said.

The US and Viet Nam have had successful co-operation in the Pacific Partnership programmes in recent years and Viet Nam has hosted several navy ships from the US, Minh said.

The visit marks an enormously significant milestone in our bilateral relations and demonstrate US support for a strong, prosperous and independent Viet Nam, said US ambassador to Viet Nam, Daniel Kritenbrink.

Crew members of USS ships are welcomed at a ceremony in Tien Sa Port of a Nang.  VNS Photo Cong Thanh

Through hard work, mutual respect and by continuing to address the past while we work toward a better future, we have gone from former enemies to close partners.

During the visit, representatives of commanders of the US Navy ships will pay courtesy calls to leaders of a Nang City, the Commander of the Viet Nam Navy and the High Command of the Naval Zone 3.



US officers and sailors will join community activities in a Nang, such as music performances, sport exchange and visits to SOS childrens village, the Sponsor Centre for Agent Orange Victims, the Nursing Centre for the Mentally Ill, the Social Sponsorship Centre, and the Centre for Orphan Children.



They will also share their technical expertise in water and electricity supply, response to disasters, firefighting, health care and personnel training on aircraft and in several local venues.



The visit will contribute to continuing bolstering the relations between Viet Nam and the US to match their comprehensive partnership and at the same time to maintaining peace, stability, security, cooperation and development in the region.



The five-day visit is expected to improve Viet Nams role and stature in the region and the world, contributing to popularising the country and people.



The ships will leave Tien Sa port on March 9.VNSEquipment at Tan Rai bauxite-alumina complex in the Central Highlands and equipment at some environmental treatment systems has deteriorated after nine years of operation.  Photo tuoitre.vn

LAM ONG  Equipment at Tan Rai bauxite-alumina complex in the Central Highlands and equipment at some environmental treatment systems has deteriorated after nine years of operation.

The equipments life expectancy was not as long as expected, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has reported.

The information was released as part of analysis on the economic efficiency of Nhan Co Alumina Plant and Tan Rai bauxite-alumina complex in the Central Highlands province of Lam ong sent to the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

In the analysis, the ministry said Chinese contractors had the capacity and experience to carry out the bauxite-alumina project in Lam ong Province. However, the two projects investor, Vietnam National Coal and Mineral Industries Group, and the Ministry of Science and Technology should pay attention to the quality of equipment provided by contractors, including equipment for environmental protection.

In the past nine years, under the supervision of the ministrys environmental monitoring group, the Vietnam National Coal and Mineral Industries Group made great efforts to overcome environmental protection shortcomings.

But the mining and processing of bauxite in the two plants always had a risk of environmental pollution. Three environmental incidents occurred in Tan Rai bauxite-alumina complex and four incidents occurred in Nhan Co Alumina Plant.

The ministry also reported that the delay of the projects, which were two years behind schedule, caused the delay of environmental protection work.

For example, the red mud reservoir of Tan Rai bauxite-alumina complex had completed construction of the third chamber, but it has not been put into use.

The ministry said that it would inspect the environmental protection and water sources of the two projects at least three times per year.

It also asked the two projects to address environmental items, such as the completion of the construction of mining areas, ore sorting, ore processing plant, red mud reservoir, power plant and coal gasification plant for both plants.

The ministry requested ak Nong Provinces Department of Natural Resources and Environment to continue monitoring the Vietnam National Coal and Mineral Industries Groups ability to remedy the situation and monitor the water around the plants, especially in the downstream areas where the plants discharge gates are located.

It also asked the investor to continue setting up plans to prevent and respond to environmental incidents. They were required to carry out prescribed legal procedures for the ministry to issue certificates of completion of environmental protection works for the projects.

The Tan Rai bauxite-alumina complex, which extracts the soft clay-like substance to produce aluminium, has total investment value of more than US$805 million with capacity of 650,000 tonnes per year. It was put into operation in late 2013.

The Nhan Co Alumina Plant has total investment value of over US$814 million with capacity of 650,000 tonnes per year. It went into operation late last year.  VNSHCM CITY  Relocating households living near canals, renovating old apartments and developing transport infrastructure are among major projects the HCM City aims to carry out in 2018, according to the citys authorities.

HCM City still has more than 20,000 households living on and along canals, mostly in District 8, which must be relocated. However, only half of them can be moved by 2020 due to a shortage of capital.

Tran Trong Tuan, director of the Department of Construction, said at a meeting with representatives of the citys sectors on March 2 that the department is calling for investment in relocating households living along canals.

The department is seeking investors for rebuilding 13 old apartments bloks in districts 1, 3, 10, Tan Binh and Tan Phu.

Tuan said, This year, the city plans to destroy 10 old apartments blocks and build seven new ones.

He added that the department would spend VN80 billion (US$3,500) from the state budget to renovate some old buildings.

According to the department, HCM City has 474 old apartment buildings built before 1975. But only 16 old apartment buildings were renovated or rebuilt in the past decade.

The city asked the department to build or rebuild 200 apartment buildings by 2020.

For transport infrastructure, Bui Xuan Cuong, director of transport department, said, The department plans to carry out 26 new projects and complete 14 projects on road and waterway development to ease traffic congestion.

He said the department would focus on increasing bus services to attract more bus users.

The department targets to have 635 million passengers traveling by bus in 2018.

It has also proposed that the citys Peoples Committee soon issue policies on the management of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects, so that the department can call for investment on major projects to reduce traffic congestion and flooding.

Tran Vinh Tuyen, Vice Chairman of the municipal Peoples Committee, urged the construction department to seek investors for projects to relocate households in and along canals, and renovations.

He also asked the department to check all current projects on renovating old apartments and recall the projects which could not be carried out.

Tuyen asked the transport department to focus on developing waterway traffic and public transport, boosting metro projects, and building a railway system around harbours to provide good transit.  VNSHCM CITY  Many banks throughout the country need to recruit more employees for their newly opened branches this year or to replace staff members who quit their jobs before Lunar Tet holiday.

On the website of Nam A Bank, for instance, the bank is seeking to recuit 1,000 employees for many different positions, such as directors, deputy directors, managers and others because it wants to expand its operations this year and next.

It also provides many internship programmes for students of majors including economics, finance, and business administration.

Nguyen Luong Hieu, head of the Nam A Banks Human Resource and Training Division, said that the bank is focused on recruiting more human resources for lending and telephone sales.

IT engineers also are needed for the banks digital banking this year, Hieu said.

Others banks, including Indovina Bank Ltd and Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank, have published their recruitment needs on an online recruitment portal, VietnamWorks, with more than 680 jobs on March 2.

According to experts in the banking sector, its positive results last year and strong forecast for this year have fostered the heavy recruitment.

VnEconomy cited a statistic of the State Bank of Viet Nam released in the beginning of this year showing that 25.3 per cent of credit organisations nationwide are facing a shortage of employees.

A banks employee in HCM City told Viet Nam News that many of her colleagues have quit their jobs because of heavy workloads and pressure to reach high sales targets.

They also thought that the industry had many legal risks.

More than 52 per cent of these organisations plan to increase their staff in the first quarter and 68.7 per cent will recruit more employees for the whole year, the SBV statistics say.

A banking workforce report on February 26 released by Navigos Group, a recruitment company in Viet Nam, shows that 56 per cent of 15 surveyed banks could enhance their policies to attract employees although they already had basic and reasonable policies for employees.

According to the report, up to 89 per cent of the surveyed banks have an average salary ranging from VN10 million to 30 million (US$440-1,321) per month.

Twenty six per cent of employers said that uncompetitive wages and remuneration are the biggest recruitment obstacle.

Thirty seven per cent of employers also said that in order to increase the efficiency of recruitment, banks should consider offering financial incentives to attract candidates.

According to the survey, 62 per cent of 237 candidates received a bonus of one to three months of salary on average; 18 per cent received 3 to 5 months of salary; 7 per cent received 5 to 7 months of salary and 5 per cent received over 7 months of salary.

Moreover, the average annual salary increase of the surveyed candidates is quite high. Forty per cent of them have an annual salary increase of over 10 per cent.

According to the report, 50 per cent of candidates said they would like to work at a foreign bank or branch of a foreign bank in Viet Nam; 31 per cent of them want to work for joint stock commercial banks; 11 per cent select state-owned commercial banks and 3 per cent select joint venture commercial banks.

The candidates said that some main reasons why they want to work in foreign banks including expecting to be treated fairly and work in a healthy environment; expecting high salaries and more promotion opportunities; expecting to use English and work with expat colleagues and managers and expecting to have training opportunities. VNSBINH PHUOC - Hundreds of labourers in southern Binh Phuoc Province fully received three months of wages owed by a South Korea-invested company yesterday.

Earlier the trade union of industrial parks in the province filed a lawsuit to the court against Sang Hun limited company for wages owed after its South Korean owner fled the country.

The labourers received cash worth nearly VN4.9 billion (US$213,000) in total, including more than VN1.8 billion ($78,200) in wages and over VN3 billion ($130,400) in social, health and unemployment debts.

Most labourers have debts owed between July and September last year.

The average debt paid to the textile labourers was over VN10 million ($435) for one person.

The highest owed wage received by an officer was more than VN64 million ($2,800).

Hoang Van Trung, one of the companys maintenance workers, told Viet Nam News Agency I will use the wage to pay the debts I borrowed for my childrens tuition fee.

Nguyen Hong Tra, president of Binh Phuoc Provinces trade union, said that this was the first successful lawsuit to ask for wage benefits of labourers.

He said that trade unions of enterprises should listen to labourers and report cases to the provincial trade union in order to take measures to ensure legitimate rights of labourers.

inh Van uc, a representative of the provinces Social Insurance Payment Agency said that the agency would instruct labourers to take health check-ups and follow procedures related to labour accidents to ensure their rights. The agency will also help Sang Hun companys labourers address remaining problems related to social insurance.

Sang Hun Limited Company, which specialised in textile for export, started operations in March 2015 and ended operations in September 2017.

The companys workers launched 15 protests against the company due to owed wages and social insurance payments.

On September 22, 2017, owner Lee Hong Sang returned to South Korea and was unable to be contacted. - VNSSix houses in a scrap-collecting area of Tan Trieu Commune, Thanh Tri District, Ha Noi and all furniture inside were destroyed yesterday morning by a major fire. The blaze reportedly started from a scrap-collecting house in the area and spread to the adjacent ones. There were no casualties. The cause of the fire and estimated property damage are being investigated. - VNA/VNS PhotoHA NOI  Ha Noi Social Security has announced it would coordinate with the citys inspectors in compiling a list of enterprises that have owed social insurance debt for a long time.

The list will be submitted to the city authority and relevant agencies so that the defaulters are given due punishment.

Late last year, authorities in Ha Noi had ordered the citys inspectors to inspect 80 enterprises with long overdue social insurance premiums.

Inspections were conducted in January at 40 enterprises, retrieving more than VN3.7 billion (US$162,500) or 21 per cent of the total debt owed by these companies (over VN17 billion or $746,620).

Of the 80 enterprises in the inspection list, 32 have paid off their debt amounting to some VN11.1 billion ($487,500).

Enterprises that were previously inspected but have failed to repay their debts include Song a 12 Joint Stock Company (owing more than VN783 million or $34,390 ), An Linh Company Limited (over VN 518 million or $22,750) and Nhan Viet Education Joint Stock Company (over VN719 million or $31,580).

City inspectors will continue inspections at the remaining eight enterprises and others who have failed to pay the debt, according to Ha Noi Social security.  VNSTEHRAN  Frances Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived in Tehran early on Monday for talks on the 2015 nuclear deal and Irans role in the Syrian conflict.

It is the first visit by one of the European signatories to the nuclear deal since US President Donald Trump set an ultimatum that he would abandon it in May if it was not "improved".

Le Drian has made it clear to Tehran that he is no "emissary of Donald Trump", the foreign ministers team have said.

The visit was originally scheduled for January but postponed due to a week of violent protests in Iran.

"We want to preserve the nuclear deal because it is working, its robust and because the Iranians are respecting it," Le Drians team said.

Le Drian, however, has said that without an end to ballistic missile tests by Iran, it will "always be suspected, with reason, of wanting to develop nuclear weapons".

Tehran denies seeking nuclear arms and says its missiles are purely defensive and not up for discussion.

Iran has said it "will not accept any amendments in (the nuclear) agreement, be it now or in the future, and it will not allow any other issues to be linked to (it)".

Despite their differences, Iran has welcomed French efforts to re-engage economically and politically with the Islamic republic.

Last year, Iran signed a US$5-billion gas exploration deal with French energy giant Total, Tehrans biggest since the nuclear accord.

But political differences were on show on Sunday in a call between presidents Hassan Rouhani of Iran and Frances Emmanuel Macron.

The French president called for Iran to put "the necessary pressure" on its Syrian ally, President Bashar al-Assad, to stop attacks on civilians.

For his part, Rouhani said countries exporting weapons to Saudi Arabia -- France being one of the biggest suppliers -- must answer for war crimes being committed by that country in Yemen.  AFPpast daily news Sep 13 (1) Sep 09 (15) Sep 06 (12) Sep 04 (10) Sep 03 (10) Aug 31 (17) Aug 29 (14) Aug 26 (13) Aug 22 (11) Aug 21 (12) Aug 19 (21) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (10) Aug 10 (10) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (10) Aug 06 (10) Aug 05 (8) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (14) Jul 29 (1) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (5) Jul 24 (10) Jul 22 (11) Jul 19 (16) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (10) Jul 15 (13) Jul 12 (7) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (8) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (8) Jul 04 (11) Jul 03 (8) Jul 02 (7) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (8) Jun 28 (7) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (7) Jun 25 (8) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (9) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (9) Jun 18 (8) Jun 15 (9) Jun 13 (13) Jun 11 (11) Jun 09 (19) Jun 06 (10) Jun 04 (10) Jun 03 (8) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (5) May 30 (5) May 29 (6) May 28 (7) May 27 (7) May 26 (6) May 25 (4) May 23 (6) May 22 (6) May 21 (4) May 20 (7) May 19 (9) May 18 (4) May 17 (6) May 16 (5) May 15 (7) May 14 (3) May 13 (3) May 12 (9) May 10 (3) May 09 (7) May 08 (4) May 07 (3) May 06 (5) May 05 (8) May 03 (9) May 02 (1) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (8) Apr 29 (5) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (7) Apr 26 (12) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (8) Apr 23 (7) Apr 22 (5) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (1) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (6) Apr 15 (5) Apr 14 (2) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (2) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (3) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (5) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (10) Apr 04 (2) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (9) Apr 01 (7) Mar 31 (10) Mar 30 (6) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (10) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (10) Mar 22 (6) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (11) Mar 19 (8) Mar 18 (5) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (11) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (7) Mar 13 (7) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (6) Mar 07 (8) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (12) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (8) Mar 02 (6) Mar 01 (8) Feb 28 (7) Feb 27 (5) Feb 26 (6) Feb 25 (7) Feb 24 (3) Feb 23 (6) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (1) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (2) Feb 15 (5) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (6) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (6) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (6) Feb 06 (4) Feb 05 (2) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (1) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (8) Jan 30 (2) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (1) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (4) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (2) Jan 20 (2) Jan 19 (3) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (2) Jan 16 (7) Jan 15 (6) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 05 (5) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (1) Dec 31 (5) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (5) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (2) Dec 17 (1) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (2) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (7) Dec 12 (5) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (2) Dec 08 (2) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (1) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (5) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (5) Nov 29 (10) Nov 28 (6) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (3) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (6) Nov 19 (2) Nov 18 (5) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (2) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (5) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (5) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (5) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (9) Oct 30 (9) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (6) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (6) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (6) Oct 22 (4) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (5) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (4) Oct 12 (7) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (10) Oct 07 (1) Oct 06 (10) Oct 05 (6) Oct 04 (8) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (1) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (6) Sep 26 (5) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (6) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (6) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (5) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (6) Sep 13 (4) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (7) Sep 10 (6) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (8) Sep 05 (6) Sep 04 (7) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (5) Aug 31 (8) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (6) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (1) Aug 26 (4) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (7) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (4) Aug 21 (4) Aug 20 (7) Aug 18 (5) Aug 17 (8) Aug 16 (8) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (2) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (8) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (10) Aug 02 (9) Aug 01 (8) Jul 31 (1) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (2) Jul 28 (11) Jul 27 (10) Jul 26 (10) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (5) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (2) Jul 21 (7) Jul 20 (10) Jul 19 (8) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (1) Jul 16 (10) Jul 14 (7) Jul 13 (6) Jul 12 (11) Jul 11 (7) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (8) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (6) Jul 03 (7) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (2) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (5) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (6) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (8) Jun 18 (2) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (4) Jun 15 (3) Jun 14 (7) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (7) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (8) Jun 08 (8) Jun 07 (8) Jun 06 (10) Jun 05 (14) Jun 04 (6) Jun 03 (6) Jun 02 (8) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (7) May 30 (2) May 29 (7) May 28 (7) May 27 (2) May 26 (4) May 25 (5) May 24 (4) May 23 (5) May 22 (5) May 21 (5) May 20 (3) May 19 (10) May 18 (6) May 17 (3) May 16 (6) May 15 (2) May 14 (3) May 13 (5) May 11 (1) May 10 (5) May 09 (3) May 08 (4) May 07 (2) May 06 (4) May 05 (6) May 04 (5) May 03 (5) May 02 (1) May 01 (6) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (7) Apr 28 (8) Apr 27 (9) Apr 26 (14) Apr 25 (6) Apr 24 (6) Apr 23 (7) Apr 22 (1) Apr 21 (8) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (1) Apr 15 (8) Apr 14 (1) Apr 13 (7) Apr 12 (10) Apr 11 (7) Apr 10 (2) Apr 09 (2) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (6) Apr 05 (6) Apr 04 (9) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (4) Mar 29 (8) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (9) Mar 26 (4) Mar 25 (5) Mar 24 (11) Mar 23 (10) Mar 22 (9) Mar 21 (10) Mar 20 (11) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (7) Mar 17 (3) Mar 16 (7) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (6) Mar 13 (9) Mar 12 (6) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (6) Mar 07 (13) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (7) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (6) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (5) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (6) Feb 23 (9) Feb 22 (6) Feb 21 (7) Feb 20 (8) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (6) Feb 15 (5) Feb 14 (7) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (5) Feb 09 (9) Feb 08 (8) Feb 07 (7) Feb 06 (10) Feb 05 (7) Feb 04 (2) Feb 03 (8) Feb 02 (7) Feb 01 (5) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (7) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (7) Jan 26 (8) Jan 25 (6) Jan 24 (6) Jan 23 (5) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (6) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (8) Jan 17 (12) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (8) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (6) Jan 10 (7) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (6) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (6) Jan 05 (9) Jan 04 (9) Jan 03 (4) Jan 02 (6) Jan 01 (8) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (1) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (8) Dec 26 (4) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (12) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (7) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (5) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (1) Dec 15 (7) Dec 14 (10) Dec 13 (7) Dec 12 (12) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (6) Dec 08 (7) Dec 07 (12) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (13) Dec 04 (6) Dec 02 (8) Dec 01 (8) Nov 30 (6) Nov 29 (7) Nov 28 (7) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (8) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (11) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (10) Nov 18 (7) Nov 17 (6) Nov 16 (11) Nov 15 (10) Nov 14 (7) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (5) Nov 11 (12) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (14) Nov 08 (10) Nov 07 (11) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (5) Nov 04 (11) Nov 03 (9) Nov 02 (10) Nov 01 (8) Oct 31 (12) Oct 30 (5) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (5) Oct 27 (11) Oct 26 (13) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (10) Oct 23 (8) Oct 22 (5) Oct 21 (11) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (5) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (6) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (9) Oct 13 (10) Oct 12 (11) Oct 11 (9) Oct 10 (10) Oct 09 (7) Oct 08 (5) Oct 07 (10) Oct 06 (9) Oct 05 (14) Oct 04 (9) Oct 03 (12) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (9) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (7) Sep 28 (13) Sep 27 (10) Sep 26 (11) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (9) Sep 23 (7) Sep 22 (10) Sep 21 (12) Sep 20 (12) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (7) Sep 16 (11) Sep 15 (8) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (8) Sep 12 (8) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (10) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (9) Sep 07 (8) Sep 06 (11) Sep 05 (2) Sep 04 (8) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (6) Sep 01 (9) Aug 31 (9) Aug 30 (7) Aug 29 (9) Aug 28 (4) Aug 27 (8) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (5) Aug 24 (8) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (2) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (6) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (4) Aug 16 (6) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (4) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (6) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (8) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (7) Aug 06 (7) Aug 05 (7) Aug 04 (7) Aug 03 (11) Aug 02 (6) Aug 01 (9) Jul 31 (11) Jul 28 (7) Jul 27 (11) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (5) Jul 24 (1) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (2) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (8) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (7) Jul 15 (4) Jul 14 (2) Jul 13 (6) Jul 12 (10) Jul 11 (11) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (5) Jul 06 (6) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (6) Jul 03 (5) Jul 02 (3) Jun 30 (8) Jun 29 (5) Jun 28 (6) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (1) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (11) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (7) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (7) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (6) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (6) Jun 09 (8) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (8) Jun 06 (7) Jun 05 (5) Jun 04 (7) Jun 03 (1) Jun 02 (9) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (8) May 30 (7) May 29 (5) May 28 (5) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (3) May 23 (5) May 22 (2) May 21 (3) May 20 (7) May 19 (11) May 18 (1) May 17 (7) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (4) May 11 (11) May 10 (2) May 09 (6) May 08 (6) May 07 (2) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (5) May 03 (8) May 02 (4) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (13) Apr 28 (5) Apr 27 (7) Apr 26 (5) Apr 25 (5) Apr 24 (2) Apr 23 (7) Apr 22 (9) Apr 21 (11) Apr 20 (2) Apr 19 (2) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (6) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (2) Apr 12 (9) Apr 11 (10) Apr 10 (6) Apr 09 (5) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (10) Apr 06 (7) Apr 05 (7) Apr 04 (7) Apr 03 (9) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (4) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (6) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (8) Mar 23 (7) Mar 22 (4) Mar 21 (10) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (6) Mar 17 (7) Mar 16 (11) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (6) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (9) Mar 08 (10) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (2) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (3) Feb 27 (8) Feb 26 (9) Feb 24 (11) Feb 23 (8) Feb 22 (9) Feb 21 (8) Feb 20 (7) Feb 19 (4) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (6) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (7) Feb 14 (11) Feb 13 (2) Feb 12 (5) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (10) Feb 08 (9) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (2) Feb 05 (9) Feb 03 (7) Feb 02 (5) Feb 01 (7) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (5) Jan 29 (6) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (7) Jan 24 (8) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (14) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (10) Jan 18 (11) Jan 17 (9) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (9) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (7) Jan 10 (2) Jan 09 (7) Jan 08 (6) Jan 07 (10) Jan 06 (8) Jan 05 (7) Jan 04 (9) Jan 03 (8) Jan 02 (5) Jan 01 (14) Dec 30 (13) Dec 29 (13) Dec 28 (9) Dec 27 (5) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (7) Dec 24 (4) Dec 23 (5) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (8) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (8) Dec 18 (9) Dec 16 (8) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (5) Dec 13 (8) Dec 12 (4) Dec 11 (17) Dec 09 (8) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (10) Dec 06 (12) Dec 05 (6) Dec 04 (8) Dec 02 (6) Dec 01 (7) Nov 30 (9) Nov 29 (6) Nov 28 (11) Nov 27 (6) Nov 26 (15) Nov 24 (7) Nov 23 (15) Nov 22 (9) Nov 21 (6) Nov 20 (11) Nov 18 (11) Nov 17 (13) Nov 16 (8) Nov 15 (13) Nov 14 (7) Nov 13 (7) Nov 12 (3) Nov 11 (13) Nov 10 (13) Nov 09 (6) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (6) Nov 06 (4) Nov 05 (12) Nov 04 (8) Nov 03 (9) Nov 02 (8) Nov 01 (6) Oct 31 (10) Oct 30 (8) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (8) Oct 27 (15) Oct 26 (10) Oct 25 (10) Oct 24 (13) Oct 23 (9) Oct 21 (8) Oct 20 (13) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (11) Oct 17 (8) Oct 16 (14) Oct 14 (9) Oct 13 (11) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (13) Oct 10 (7) Oct 09 (15) Oct 07 (7) Oct 06 (11) Oct 05 (18) Oct 04 (14) Oct 03 (1) Oct 02 (10) Sep 30 (11) Sep 29 (11) Sep 28 (11) Sep 27 (15) Sep 26 (7) Sep 24 (9) Sep 23 (11) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (17) Sep 20 (20) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (11) Sep 16 (10) Sep 15 (12) Sep 14 (9) Sep 13 (12) Sep 12 (14) Sep 11 (4) Sep 10 (8) Sep 09 (9) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (13) Sep 06 (15) Sep 05 (8) Sep 04 (11) Sep 03 (10) Sep 02 (12) Sep 01 (12) Aug 31 (14) Aug 30 (14) Aug 29 (8) Aug 28 (8) Aug 27 (9) Aug 26 (12) Aug 25 (6) Aug 24 (8) Aug 23 (12) Aug 22 (6) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (6) Aug 19 (9) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (7) Aug 16 (11) Aug 15 (2) Aug 14 (12) Aug 12 (15) Aug 11 (11) Aug 10 (6) Aug 09 (7) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (5) Aug 05 (7) Aug 04 (7) Aug 03 (4) Aug 02 (5) Aug 01 (5) Jul 31 (7) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (9) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (8) Jul 26 (7) Jul 25 (6) Jul 23 (8) Jul 22 (6) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (15) Jul 15 (14) Jul 14 (5) Jul 13 (6) Jul 12 (12) Jul 11 (8) Jul 10 (3) Jul 09 (11) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (7) Jul 06 (10) Jul 05 (4) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (5) Jul 02 (7) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (10) Jun 28 (8) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (2) Jun 23 (11) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (7) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (7) Jun 18 (10) Jun 17 (11) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (7) Jun 13 (14) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (8) Jun 09 (9) Jun 08 (11) Jun 07 (14) Jun 06 (16) Jun 03 (8) Jun 02 (12) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (7) May 30 (15) May 28 (7) May 27 (5) May 26 (21) May 25 (14) May 24 (10) May 23 (7) May 22 (8) May 21 (11) May 20 (5) May 19 (4) May 18 (10) May 17 (11) May 16 (5) May 15 (6) May 14 (7) May 13 (12) May 12 (10) May 11 (7) May 10 (13) May 09 (4) May 08 (7) May 07 (3) May 06 (6) May 05 (9) May 04 (14) May 03 (7) May 02 (10) May 01 (10) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (9) Apr 28 (5) Apr 27 (9) Apr 26 (8) Apr 25 (8) Apr 24 (6) Apr 23 (14) Apr 22 (16) Apr 21 (11) Apr 20 (7) Apr 19 (16) Apr 18 (8) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (10) Apr 15 (8) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (11) Apr 12 (10) Apr 11 (8) Apr 10 (12) Apr 09 (5) Apr 08 (13) Apr 07 (9) Apr 06 (11) Apr 05 (15) Apr 04 (7) Apr 03 (15) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (11) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (10) Mar 29 (8) Mar 28 (7) Mar 27 (12) Mar 26 (8) Mar 25 (8) Mar 24 (7) Mar 23 (15) Mar 22 (17) Mar 21 (9) Mar 20 (8) Mar 19 (4) Mar 18 (16) Mar 17 (8) Mar 16 (19) Mar 15 (13) Mar 14 (7) Mar 13 (20) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (11) Mar 09 (13) Mar 08 (13) Mar 07 (7) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (9) Mar 04 (10) Mar 03 (16) Mar 02 (16) Mar 01 (13) Feb 29 (8) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (16) Feb 26 (10) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (12) Feb 23 (14) Feb 22 (9) Feb 21 (11) Feb 20 (8) Feb 19 (12) Feb 18 (12) Feb 17 (11) Feb 16 (8) Feb 15 (9) Feb 14 (7) Feb 13 (10) Feb 12 (11) Feb 11 (13) Feb 10 (5) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (13) Feb 05 (10) Feb 04 (11) Feb 03 (7) Feb 02 (19) Jan 31 (21) Jan 29 (11) Jan 28 (10) Jan 27 (13) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (2) Jan 23 (8) Jan 22 (13) Jan 21 (11) Jan 20 (9) Jan 19 (13) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (11) Jan 15 (7) Jan 14 (13) Jan 13 (9) Jan 12 (9) Jan 11 (5) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (7) Jan 08 (7) Jan 07 (6) Jan 06 (11) Jan 05 (7) Jan 04 (7) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (8) Jan 01 (5) Dec 31 (10) Dec 30 (9) Dec 29 (7) Dec 28 (9) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (1) Dec 25 (5) Dec 24 (6) Dec 23 (6) Dec 22 (7) Dec 21 (6) Dec 20 (7) Dec 19 (13) Dec 18 (16) Dec 17 (10) Dec 16 (13) Dec 15 (11) Dec 14 (8) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (9) Dec 11 (10) Dec 10 (12) Dec 09 (10) Dec 08 (13) Dec 07 (7) Dec 06 (12) Dec 05 (8) Dec 04 (11) Dec 03 (12) Dec 02 (16) Dec 01 (14) Nov 30 (10) Nov 29 (11) Nov 28 (15) Nov 27 (16) Nov 26 (11) Nov 25 (9) Nov 24 (13) Nov 23 (10) Nov 22 (1) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (12) Nov 19 (10) Nov 18 (11) Nov 17 (11) Nov 16 (10) Nov 15 (3) Nov 14 (10) Nov 13 (14) Nov 12 (8) Nov 11 (13) Nov 10 (10) Nov 09 (6) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (11) Nov 06 (12) Nov 05 (17) Nov 04 (12) Nov 03 (11) Nov 02 (5) Nov 01 (12) Oct 31 (11) Oct 30 (11) Oct 29 (10) Oct 28 (18) Oct 27 (16) Oct 26 (11) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (12) Oct 23 (11) Oct 22 (14) Oct 21 (12) Oct 20 (17) Oct 19 (12) Oct 18 (13) Oct 17 (15) Oct 16 (14) Oct 15 (10) Oct 14 (16) Oct 13 (12) Oct 12 (13) Oct 11 (8) Oct 10 (12) Oct 09 (21) Oct 08 (22) Oct 07 (19) Oct 06 (18) Oct 05 (6) Oct 04 (17) Oct 03 (13) Oct 02 (14) Oct 01 (13) Sep 30 (14) Sep 29 (15) Sep 28 (12) Sep 27 (11) Sep 26 (15) Sep 25 (13) Sep 24 (9) Sep 23 (10) Sep 22 (12) Sep 21 (8) Sep 20 (4) Sep 19 (12) Sep 18 (12) Sep 17 (16) Sep 16 (21) Sep 15 (14) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (10) Sep 11 (16) Sep 10 (7) Sep 09 (8) Sep 08 (10) Sep 07 (7) Sep 06 (5) Sep 05 (8) Sep 04 (9) Sep 03 (8) Sep 02 (11) Sep 01 (10) Aug 31 (4) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (1) Aug 28 (10) Aug 27 (8) Aug 26 (8) Aug 25 (14) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (13) Aug 20 (9) Aug 19 (13) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (6) Aug 14 (8) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (12) Aug 11 (9) Aug 10 (8) Aug 09 (14) Aug 08 (6) Aug 07 (1) Aug 06 (4) Aug 05 (8) Aug 04 (6) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (2) Aug 01 (6) Jul 31 (6) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (6) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (6) Jul 23 (5) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (7) Jul 20 (5) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (5) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (9) Jul 14 (2) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (1) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (8) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (13) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (5) Jul 03 (6) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (7) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (1) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (7) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (9) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (3) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (7) Jun 17 (7) Jun 16 (7) Jun 15 (11) Jun 12 (6) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (10) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (2) Jun 05 (9) Jun 04 (8) Jun 03 (9) Jun 02 (6) Jun 01 (4) May 30 (7) May 29 (9) May 28 (13) May 26 (8) May 25 (5) May 24 (2) May 23 (8) May 22 (9) May 21 (7) May 20 (4) May 19 (6) May 18 (7) May 17 (8) May 15 (9) May 14 (5) May 13 (8) May 12 (6) May 11 (6) May 09 (7) May 08 (6) May 07 (11) May 06 (7) May 05 (4) May 04 (11) May 03 (5) May 02 (4) May 01 (9) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (9) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (5) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (10) Apr 22 (8) Apr 21 (9) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (4) Apr 18 (8) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (6) Apr 14 (8) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (6) Apr 10 (2) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (5) Apr 07 (5) Apr 06 (2) Apr 05 (2) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (7) Apr 02 (7) Apr 01 (12) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (1) Mar 28 (2) Mar 27 (6) Mar 26 (2) Mar 25 (5) Mar 24 (4) Mar 23 (7) Mar 22 (4) Mar 21 (6) Mar 20 (9) Mar 19 (9) Mar 18 (8) Mar 17 (9) Mar 16 (7) Mar 15 (11) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (12) Mar 11 (9) Mar 10 (12) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (5) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (11) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (8) Feb 27 (9) Feb 26 (9) Feb 25 (8) Feb 24 (6) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (10) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (7) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (2) Feb 14 (8) Feb 13 (12) Feb 12 (8) Feb 11 (10) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (2) Feb 06 (7) Feb 05 (4) Feb 04 (11) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (7) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (8) Jan 29 (12) Jan 28 (6) Jan 27 (8) Jan 26 (13) Jan 24 (8) Jan 23 (12) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (10) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (9) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (11) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (6) Jan 10 (2) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (6) Jan 06 (4) Jan 05 (4) Jan 04 (3) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (6) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (3) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (5) Dec 18 (8) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (9) Dec 15 (7) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (10) Dec 12 (10) Dec 11 (9) Dec 10 (10) Dec 09 (11) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (9) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (8) Dec 02 (10) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (1) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (9) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (7) Nov 25 (12) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (8) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (12) Nov 19 (6) Nov 18 (10) Nov 17 (12) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (12) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (7) Nov 11 (8) Nov 10 (7) Nov 09 (6) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (6) Nov 05 (12) Nov 04 (9) Nov 03 (6) Nov 02 (14) Nov 01 (3) Oct 31 (6) Oct 30 (7) Oct 29 (9) Oct 28 (9) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (8) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (2) Oct 19 (11) Oct 17 (6) Oct 16 (7) Oct 15 (7) Oct 14 (8) Oct 13 (5) Oct 12 (8) Oct 11 (6) Oct 10 (5) Oct 09 (11) Oct 08 (10) Oct 07 (8) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (8) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (10) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (7) Sep 29 (6) Sep 28 (5) Sep 27 (8) Sep 26 (11) Sep 25 (11) Sep 24 (15) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (9) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (9) Sep 18 (10) Sep 17 (10) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (8) Sep 10 (6) Sep 09 (7) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (7) Sep 04 (11) Sep 03 (7) Sep 02 (7) Sep 01 (2) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (1) Aug 29 (10) Aug 28 (5) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (10) Aug 25 (6) Aug 24 (9) Aug 22 (11) Aug 21 (8) Aug 20 (12) Aug 19 (8) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (4) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (6) Aug 14 (4) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (8) Aug 11 (7) Aug 10 (12) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (6) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (8) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (4) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (6) Jul 30 (12) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (5) Jul 27 (7) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (8) Jul 23 (8) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (8) Jul 20 (6) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (8) Jul 17 (2) Jul 16 (7) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (9) Jul 13 (10) Jul 11 (9) Jul 10 (8) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (7) Jul 07 (7) Jul 06 (7) Jul 05 (10) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (6) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (5) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (1) Jun 27 (15) Jun 26 (10) Jun 25 (9) Jun 24 (16) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (12) Jun 20 (6) Jun 19 (8) Jun 18 (10) Jun 17 (6) Jun 16 (7) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (13) Jun 12 (7) Jun 11 (14) Jun 10 (3) Jun 09 (2) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (7) Jun 06 (16) Jun 05 (7) Jun 04 (18) Jun 03 (12) Jun 02 (8) May 31 (3) May 30 (6) May 29 (6) May 28 (7) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (6) May 23 (4) May 22 (8) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 (2) May 18 (9) May 17 (1) May 16 (5) May 15 (5) May 14 (7) May 13 (7) May 12 (7) May 11 (4) May 10 (4) May 09 (5) May 08 (10) May 07 (4) May 06 (13) May 05 (4) May 04 (10) May 02 (2) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (9) Apr 29 (6) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (9) Apr 25 (9) Apr 24 (7) Apr 23 (11) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (10) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (6) Apr 15 (7) Apr 14 (11) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (9) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (6) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (6) Apr 05 (10) Apr 03 (9) Apr 02 (9) Apr 01 (12) Mar 31 (4) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (10) Mar 28 (7) Mar 27 (8) Mar 26 (8) Mar 25 (15) Mar 24 (11) Mar 23 (8) Mar 22 (7) Mar 21 (14) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (11) Mar 18 (11) Mar 17 (12) Mar 16 (8) Mar 15 (8) Mar 14 (13) Mar 13 (8) Mar 12 (10) Mar 11 (8) Mar 10 (7) Mar 09 (3) Mar 08 (12) Mar 07 (15) Mar 06 (16) Mar 05 (9) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (12) Mar 02 (20) Feb 28 (11) Feb 27 (8) Feb 26 (11) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (14) Feb 23 (5) Feb 22 (6) Feb 21 (8) Feb 20 (11) Feb 19 (7) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (8) Feb 16 (11) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (10) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (10) Feb 11 (7) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (6) Feb 07 (5) Feb 06 (4) Feb 05 (10) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (5) Jan 29 (2) Jan 28 (6) Jan 27 (3) Jan 26 (2) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (7) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (5) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (7) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (5) Jan 13 (4) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (3) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (6) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (1) Jan 05 (4) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (6) Jan 01 (2) Dec 31 (6) Dec 30 (1) Dec 29 (5) Dec 27 (1) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (8) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (1) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (8) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (4) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (4) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (7) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (2) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (10) Dec 04 (9) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (2) Dec 01 (8) Nov 29 (5) Nov 28 (7) Nov 27 (5) Nov 26 (9) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (5) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (12) Nov 20 (12) Nov 19 (10) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (8) Nov 15 (7) Nov 14 (7) Nov 13 (6) Nov 12 (12) Nov 11 (6) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (10) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (5) Nov 05 (9) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (3) Oct 31 (10) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (11) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (7) Oct 26 (7) Oct 25 (6) Oct 24 (7) Oct 23 (11) Oct 22 (2) Oct 21 (7) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (7) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (8) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (5) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (7) Oct 11 (20) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (21) Oct 07 (20) Oct 06 (34) Oct 04 (24) Oct 03 (21) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (7) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (5) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (5) Sep 26 (6) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (2) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (9) Sep 19 (11) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (7) Sep 16 (6) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (8) Sep 12 (11) Sep 11 (7) Sep 10 (6) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (6) Sep 06 (10) Sep 05 (7) Sep 04 (7) Sep 03 (5) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (8) Aug 31 (5) Aug 30 (7) Aug 29 (10) Aug 28 (7) Aug 27 (6) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (8) Aug 23 (6) Aug 22 (6) Aug 21 (8) Aug 20 (8) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (2) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (7) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (4) Aug 12 (6) Aug 11 (6) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (8) Aug 08 (6) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (12) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (10) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (6) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (7) Jul 23 (10) Jul 22 (8) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (7) Jul 18 (9) Jul 17 (10) Jul 16 (11) Jul 15 (5) Jul 13 (5) Jul 12 (9) Jul 11 (11) Jul 10 (12) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (8) Jul 06 (9) Jul 05 (10) Jul 04 (8) Jul 03 (10) Jul 02 (12) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (5) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (23) Jun 27 (18) Jun 26 (12) Jun 25 (14) Jun 24 (15) Jun 23 (11) Jun 22 (11) Jun 21 (15) Jun 20 (9) Jun 19 (8) Jun 18 (11) Jun 17 (7) Jun 16 (6) Jun 15 (6) Jun 14 (6) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (6) Jun 11 (9) Jun 10 (10) Jun 09 (9) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (2) Jun 06 (6) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (3) May 30 (5) May 29 (8) May 28 (7) May 27 (2) May 26 (2) May 25 (8) May 24 (7) May 23 (6) May 22 (9) May 21 (6) May 20 (5) May 19 (6) May 18 (9) May 17 (10) May 16 (11) May 15 (5) May 14 (11) May 13 (6) May 12 (7) May 11 (7) May 10 (5) May 09 (3) May 08 (10) May 07 (8) May 06 (11) May 05 (5) May 04 (9) May 03 (3) May 02 (2) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (5) Apr 29 (8) Apr 28 (6) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (9) Apr 25 (11) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (11) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (5) Apr 20 (7) Apr 19 (10) Apr 18 (8) Apr 17 (10) Apr 16 (8) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (7) Apr 12 (11) Apr 11 (6) Apr 10 (7) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (9) Apr 05 (10) Apr 04 (7) Apr 03 (2) Apr 02 (6) Apr 01 (4) Mar 31 (3) Mar 30 (4) Mar 29 (3) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (10) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (7) Mar 22 (6) Mar 21 (9) Mar 20 (5) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (9) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (8) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (10) Mar 12 (10) Mar 11 (2) Mar 10 (1) Mar 09 (6) Mar 08 (4) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (7) Mar 03 (6) Mar 02 (8) Mar 01 (9) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (8) Feb 25 (7) Feb 24 (3) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (7) Feb 20 (4) Feb 19 (4) Feb 18 (2) Feb 17 (1) Feb 16 (6) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (5) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (7) Feb 11 (2) Feb 10 (2) Feb 09 (5) Feb 08 (5) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (4) Feb 05 (9) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (3) Feb 02 (10) Feb 01 (9) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (8) Jan 29 (5) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (6) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (7) Jan 18 (3) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (8) Jan 15 (7) Jan 14 (9) Jan 13 (1) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (1) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (2) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (4) Jan 02 (4) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (8) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (4) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (7) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (6) Dec 17 (4) Dec 16 (5) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (8) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (6) Dec 11 (8) Dec 10 (5) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (4) Dec 07 (7) Dec 06 (7) Dec 05 (6) Dec 04 (6) Dec 03 (7) Dec 02 (1) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (8) Nov 28 (16) Nov 27 (7) Nov 26 (5) Nov 25 (2) Nov 24 (6) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (15) Nov 19 (8) Nov 18 (2) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (7) Nov 14 (6) Nov 13 (9) Nov 12 (7) Nov 11 (8) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (5) Nov 08 (8) Nov 07 (9) Nov 06 (9) Nov 05 (1) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (8) Nov 02 (6) Nov 01 (3) Oct 31 (6) Oct 30 (7) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (8) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (1) Oct 22 (6) Oct 21 (1) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (6) Oct 18 (10) Oct 17 (6) Oct 16 (15) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (5) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (7) Oct 10 (1) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (7) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (8) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (7) Oct 02 (6) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (8) Sep 29 (6) Sep 28 (13) Sep 27 (10) Sep 26 (8) Sep 25 (8) Sep 24 (8) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (9) Sep 20 (7) Sep 19 (8) Sep 18 (4) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (8) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (7) Sep 12 (7) Sep 11 (9) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (10) Sep 08 (4) Sep 07 (12) Sep 06 (13) Sep 05 (15) Sep 04 (5) Sep 03 (4) Sep 02 (6) Sep 01 (9) Aug 31 (7) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (8) Aug 28 (11) Aug 27 (2) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (15) Aug 24 (6) Aug 23 (8) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (6) Aug 20 (7) Aug 19 (2) Aug 18 (5) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (11) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (9) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (6) Aug 09 (5) Aug 08 (7) Aug 07 (9) Aug 06 (4) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (9) Aug 01 (10) Jul 31 (11) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (11) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (7) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (8) Jul 22 (5) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (10) Jul 19 (6) Jul 18 (9) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (7) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (7) Jul 12 (8) Jul 11 (6) Jul 10 (14) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (5) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (9) Jul 05 (8) Jul 04 (5) Jul 03 (8) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (6) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (8) Jun 25 (3) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (14) Jun 22 (11) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (8) Jun 19 (7) Jun 18 (4) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (12) Jun 15 (12) Jun 14 (10) Jun 13 (10) Jun 12 (9) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (12) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (12) Jun 06 (6) Jun 05 (7) Jun 04 (6) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (8) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (8) May 28 (7) May 27 (4) May 26 (3) May 25 (5) May 24 (9) May 23 (16) May 22 (12) May 21 (11) May 20 (7) May 19 (10) May 18 (8) May 17 (8) May 16 (10) May 15 (8) May 14 (5) May 13 (1) May 12 (6) May 11 (9) May 10 (9) May 09 (10) May 08 (9) May 07 (6) May 06 (5) May 05 (7) May 04 (10) May 03 (7) May 02 (9) May 01 (10) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (9) Apr 28 (12) Apr 27 (9) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (5) Apr 24 (9) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (8) Apr 20 (9) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (2) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (10) Apr 14 (7) Apr 13 (5) Apr 12 (7) Apr 11 (7) Apr 10 (7) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (7) Apr 07 (10) Apr 06 (8) Apr 05 (8) Apr 04 (9) Apr 03 (6) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (4) Mar 31 (11) Mar 30 (12) Mar 29 (16) Mar 28 (8) Mar 27 (10) Mar 26 (12) Mar 25 (6) Mar 24 (9) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (12) Mar 21 (12) Mar 20 (14) Mar 19 (8) Mar 18 (7) Mar 17 (8) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (9) Mar 12 (6) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (13) Mar 09 (8) Mar 08 (10) Mar 07 (12) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (2) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (12) Mar 01 (8) Feb 29 (11) Feb 28 (5) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (13) Feb 25 (10) Feb 24 (13) Feb 23 (10) Feb 22 (9) Feb 21 (18) Feb 20 (6) Feb 19 (7) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (5) Feb 16 (9) Feb 15 (7) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (6) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (8) Feb 09 (5) Feb 08 (8) Feb 07 (10) Feb 06 (7) Feb 05 (7) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (11) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (12) Jan 30 (7) Jan 29 (7) Jan 28 (7) Jan 27 (12) Jan 26 (7) Jan 25 (11) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (6) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (12) Jan 20 (11) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (6) Jan 17 (11) Jan 16 (9) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (6) Jan 12 (9) Jan 11 (9) Jan 10 (10) Jan 09 (5) Jan 08 (10) Jan 07 (5) Jan 06 (6) Jan 05 (8) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (8) Jan 02 (7) Jan 01 (7) Dec 31 (10) Dec 30 (11) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (10) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (5) Dec 24 (7) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (9) Dec 21 (8) Dec 20 (8) Dec 19 (5) Dec 18 (1) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (6) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (13) Dec 13 (8) Dec 12 (7) Dec 11 (9) Dec 10 (12) Dec 09 (7) Dec 08 (11) Dec 07 (9) Dec 06 (11) Dec 05 (10) Dec 04 (6) Dec 03 (8) Dec 02 (6) Dec 01 (14) Nov 30 (7) Nov 29 (8) Nov 28 (8) Nov 27 (6) Nov 26 (9) Nov 25 (10) Nov 24 (12) Nov 23 (10) Nov 22 (10) Nov 21 (10) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (8) Nov 17 (9) Nov 16 (9) Nov 15 (12) Nov 14 (6) Nov 13 (9) Nov 12 (3) Nov 11 (9) Nov 10 (10) Nov 09 (10) Nov 08 (7) Nov 07 (8) Nov 06 (10) Nov 05 (8) Nov 04 (7) Nov 03 (10) Nov 02 (11) Nov 01 (10) Oct 31 (5) Oct 30 (8) Oct 29 (8) Oct 28 (8) Oct 27 (11) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (9) Oct 24 (10) Oct 23 (5) Oct 22 (14) Oct 21 (10) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (11) Oct 18 (13) Oct 17 (7) Oct 16 (6) Oct 15 (9) Oct 14 (7) Oct 13 (12) Oct 12 (13) Oct 11 (9) Oct 10 (8) Oct 09 (9) Oct 08 (7) Oct 07 (12) Oct 06 (8) Oct 05 (13) Oct 04 (11) Oct 03 (7) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (14) Sep 30 (12) Sep 29 (12) Sep 28 (11) Sep 27 (11) Sep 26 (7) Sep 25 (10) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (7) Sep 22 (8) Sep 21 (8) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (7) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (14) Sep 16 (7) Sep 15 (11) Sep 14 (13) Sep 13 (11) Sep 12 (9) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (13) Sep 08 (11) Sep 07 (11) Sep 06 (16) Sep 05 (1) Sep 04 (10) Sep 03 (8) Sep 02 (8) Sep 01 (7) Aug 31 (1) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (2) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (6) Aug 26 (8) Aug 25 (5) Aug 24 (5) Aug 23 (6) Aug 22 (7) Aug 21 (6) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (9) Aug 18 (7) Aug 17 (7) Aug 16 (10) Aug 15 (2) Aug 14 (5) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (10) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (8) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (12) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (7) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (14) Jul 31 (7) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (13) Jul 28 (10) Jul 27 (6) Jul 26 (7) Jul 25 (7) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (12) Jul 22 (14) Jul 21 (6) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (12) Jul 18 (9) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (6) Jul 15 (8) Jul 14 (15) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (10) Jul 11 (6) Jul 10 (6) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (6) Jul 07 (9) Jul 06 (15) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (10) Jul 03 (6) Jul 02 (6) Jul 01 (11) Jun 30 (7) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (8) Jun 27 (8) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (11) Jun 24 (9) Jun 23 (10) Jun 22 (8) Jun 21 (8) Jun 20 (6) Jun 19 (5) Jun 18 (15) Jun 17 (8) Jun 16 (13) Jun 15 (15) Jun 14 (11) Jun 13 (6) Jun 12 (15) Jun 11 (7) Jun 10 (7) Jun 09 (18) Jun 08 (20) Jun 07 (17) Jun 06 (9) Jun 05 (9) Jun 04 (12) Jun 03 (13) Jun 02 (14) Jun 01 (8) May 31 (13) May 30 (8) May 29 (6) May 28 (8) May 27 (17) May 26 (8) May 25 (13) May 24 (12) May 23 (9) May 22 (4) May 21 (4) May 20 (11) May 19 (14) May 18 (6) May 17 (10) May 16 (4) May 15 (5) May 14 (28) May 12 (9) May 11 (17) May 10 (15) May 09 (12) May 08 (5) May 07 (4) May 06 (10) May 05 (8) May 04 (10) May 03 (5) May 02 (6) May 01 (8) Apr 30 (8) Apr 29 (12) Apr 28 (6) Apr 27 (11) Apr 26 (12) Apr 25 (6) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (5) Apr 22 (10) Apr 21 (19) Apr 20 (13) Apr 19 (11) Apr 18 (11) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (12) Apr 15 (11) Apr 14 (17) Apr 13 (6) Apr 12 (16) Apr 11 (10) Apr 10 (1) Apr 09 (18) Apr 08 (14) Apr 07 (6) Apr 06 (10) Apr 05 (21) Apr 04 (12) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (13) Apr 01 (8) Mar 31 (10) Mar 30 (11) Mar 29 (10) Mar 28 (8) Mar 27 (6) Mar 26 (12) Mar 25 (15) Mar 24 (10) Mar 23 (12) Mar 22 (12) Mar 21 (8) Mar 20 (4) Mar 19 (11) Mar 18 (7) Mar 17 (7) Mar 16 (9) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (2) Mar 12 (14) Mar 11 (13) Mar 10 (7) Mar 09 (9) Mar 08 (17) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (7) Mar 05 (13) Mar 04 (10) Mar 03 (14) Mar 02 (12) Mar 01 (18) Feb 28 (8) Feb 27 (2) Feb 26 (9) Feb 25 (13) Feb 24 (17) Feb 23 (13) Feb 22 (12) Feb 21 (11) Feb 20 (11) Feb 19 (16) Feb 18 (17) Feb 17 (15) Feb 16 (15) Feb 15 (15) Feb 14 (10) Feb 13 (8) Feb 12 (10) Feb 11 (15) Feb 10 (11) Feb 09 (13) Feb 08 (10) Feb 07 (9) Feb 06 (6) Feb 05 (15) Feb 04 (15) Feb 03 (11) Feb 02 (14) Feb 01 (15) Jan 31 (11) Jan 30 (9) Jan 29 (19) Jan 28 (9) Jan 27 (9) Jan 26 (16) Jan 25 (19) Jan 24 (17) Jan 23 (8) Jan 22 (15) Jan 21 (9) Jan 20 (11) Jan 19 (7) Jan 18 (9) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (7) Jan 15 (12) Jan 14 (9) Jan 13 (14) Jan 12 (11) Jan 11 (13) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (8) Jan 08 (20) Jan 07 (11) Jan 06 (11) Jan 05 (8) Jan 04 (14) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (7) Jan 01 (7) Dec 31 (14) Dec 30 (15) Dec 29 (7) Dec 28 (10) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (11) Dec 24 (9) Dec 23 (9) Dec 22 (15) Dec 21 (12) Dec 20 (11) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (16) Dec 17 (6) Dec 16 (12) Dec 15 (14) Dec 14 (11) Dec 13 (10) Dec 12 (6) Dec 11 (10) Dec 10 (17) Dec 09 (11) Dec 08 (12) Dec 07 (16) Dec 06 (11) Dec 05 (5) Dec 04 (12) Dec 03 (15) Dec 02 (15) Dec 01 (12) Nov 30 (16) Nov 29 (7) Nov 28 (11) Nov 27 (13) Nov 26 (13) Nov 25 (16) Nov 24 (15) Nov 23 (10) Nov 22 (10) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (8) Nov 19 (9) Nov 18 (16) Nov 17 (11) Nov 16 (11) Nov 15 (10) Nov 14 (9) Nov 13 (6) Nov 12 (10) Nov 11 (12) Nov 10 (15) Nov 09 (9) Nov 08 (10) Nov 07 (6) Nov 06 (7) Nov 05 (12) Nov 04 (14) Nov 03 (10) Nov 02 (13) Nov 01 (9) Oct 31 (9) Oct 30 (11) Oct 29 (18) Oct 28 (13) Oct 27 (23) Oct 26 (12) Oct 25 (14) Oct 24 (20) Oct 22 (18) Oct 21 (18) Oct 20 (19) Oct 19 (12) Oct 18 (11) Oct 17 (5) Oct 16 (18) Oct 15 (8) Oct 14 (11) Oct 13 (9) Oct 12 (13) Oct 11 (6) Oct 10 (7) Oct 09 (27) Oct 08 (14) Oct 07 (10) Oct 06 (9) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (10) Oct 03 (6) Oct 02 (9) Oct 01 (13) Sep 30 (12) Sep 29 (13) Sep 28 (8) Sep 27 (9) Sep 26 (8) Sep 25 (14) Sep 24 (4) Sep 23 (14) Sep 22 (20) Sep 21 (11) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (9) Sep 18 (14) Sep 17 (8) Sep 16 (17) Sep 15 (6) Sep 14 (11) Sep 13 (9) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (7) Sep 10 (14) Sep 09 (12) Sep 08 (17) Sep 07 (12) Sep 06 (13) Sep 05 (9) Sep 04 (20) Sep 03 (16) Sep 02 (16) Sep 01 (10) Aug 31 (13) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (9) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (8) Aug 26 (11) Aug 25 (10) Aug 24 (14) Aug 23 (12) Aug 22 (13) Aug 21 (10) Aug 20 (13) Aug 19 (15) Aug 18 (8) Aug 17 (10) Aug 16 (8) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (11) Aug 13 (12) Aug 12 (15) Aug 11 (10) Aug 10 (17) Aug 09 (6) Aug 08 (13) Aug 07 (11) Aug 06 (13) Aug 05 (11) Aug 04 (11) Aug 03 (10) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (6) Jul 31 (10) Jul 30 (21) Jul 29 (14) Jul 28 (13) Jul 27 (16) Jul 26 (10) Jul 25 (15) Jul 24 (17) Jul 23 (15) Jul 22 (15) Jul 21 (19) Jul 20 (17) Jul 19 (9) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (26) Jul 16 (18) Jul 15 (20) Jul 14 (16) Jul 13 (19) Jul 12 (11) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (13) Jul 09 (11) Jul 08 (8) Jul 07 (12) Jul 06 (16) Jul 05 (9) Jul 04 (5) Jul 03 (15) Jul 02 (11) Jul 01 (14) Jun 30 (13) Jun 29 (19) Jun 28 (8) Jun 27 (9) Jun 26 (16) Jun 25 (22) Jun 24 (17) Jun 23 (11) Jun 22 (15) Jun 21 (14) Jun 20 (8) Jun 19 (17) Jun 18 (10) Jun 17 (10) Jun 16 (17) Jun 15 (13) Jun 14 (14) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (13) Jun 11 (15) Jun 10 (25) Jun 09 (10) Jun 08 (23) Jun 07 (14) Jun 06 (20) Jun 05 (10) Jun 04 (11) Jun 03 (12) Jun 02 (21) Jun 01 (14) May 31 (10) May 30 (14) May 29 (8) May 28 (23) May 27 (20) May 26 (16) May 25 (13) May 24 (12) May 23 (10) May 22 (18) May 21 (14) May 20 (12) May 19 (18) May 18 (14) May 17 (13) May 16 (4) May 15 (7) May 14 (16) May 13 (13) May 12 (8) May 11 (18) May 10 (8) May 09 (7) May 08 (13) May 07 (11) May 06 (15) May 05 (18) May 04 (17) May 03 (7) May 02 (5) May 01 (11) Apr 30 (19) Apr 29 (21) Apr 28 (18) Apr 27 (16) Apr 26 (8) Apr 25 (11) Apr 24 (9) Apr 23 (20) Apr 22 (23) Apr 21 (5) Apr 20 (16) Apr 19 (13) Apr 18 (6) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (16) Apr 15 (18) Apr 14 (13) Apr 13 (14) Apr 12 (9) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (16) Apr 09 (14) Apr 08 (12) Apr 07 (18) Apr 06 (7) Apr 05 (11) Apr 04 (9) Apr 03 (19) Apr 02 (17) Apr 01 (16) Mar 31 (16) Mar 30 (22) Mar 29 (16) Mar 28 (16) Mar 27 (19) Mar 26 (31) Mar 25 (25) Mar 24 (26) Mar 23 (27) Mar 22 (22) Mar 21 (22) Mar 20 (13) Mar 19 (21) Mar 18 (20) Mar 17 (24) Mar 16 (18) Mar 15 (9) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (29) Mar 12 (15) Mar 11 (11) Mar 10 (11) Mar 09 (20) Mar 08 (12) Mar 07 (6) Mar 06 (21) Mar 05 (22) Mar 04 (19) Mar 03 (9) Mar 02 (20) Mar 01 (11) Feb 28 (11) Feb 27 (27) Feb 26 (15) Feb 25 (18) Feb 24 (17) Feb 23 (19) Feb 22 (24) Feb 21 (10) Feb 20 (14) Feb 19 (25) Feb 18 (16) Feb 17 (19) Feb 16 (23) Feb 15 (8) Feb 14 (11) Feb 13 (25) Feb 12 (16) Feb 11 (12) Feb 10 (18) Feb 09 (12) Feb 08 (14) Feb 07 (8) Feb 06 (27) Feb 05 (28) Feb 04 (24) Feb 03 (17) Feb 02 (20) Feb 01 (23) Jan 31 (16) Jan 30 (20) Jan 29 (26) Jan 28 (17) Jan 27 (21) Jan 26 (24) Jan 25 (16) Jan 24 (14) Jan 23 (16) Jan 22 (17) Jan 21 (19) Jan 20 (21) Jan 19 (17) Jan 18 (13) Jan 17 (14) Jan 16 (10) Jan 15 (21) Jan 14 (16) Jan 13 (19) Jan 12 (30) Jan 11 (14) Jan 10 (11) Jan 09 (8) Jan 08 (23) Jan 07 (13) Jan 06 (21) Jan 05 (15) Jan 04 (18) Jan 03 (9) Jan 02 (12) Jan 01 (15) Dec 31 (18) Dec 30 (7) Dec 29 (13) Dec 28 (11) Dec 27 (8) Dec 26 (6) Dec 25 (8) Dec 24 (28) Dec 23 (12) Dec 22 (12) Dec 21 (17) Dec 20 (19) Dec 19 (19) Dec 18 (22) Dec 17 (24) Dec 16 (17) Dec 15 (29) Dec 14 (22) Dec 13 (12) Dec 12 (22) Dec 11 (24) Dec 10 (25) Dec 09 (18) Dec 08 (15) Dec 07 (21) Dec 06 (24) Dec 05 (30) Dec 04 (28) Dec 03 (26) Dec 02 (22) Dec 01 (33) Nov 30 (23) Nov 29 (9) Nov 28 (18) Nov 27 (25) Nov 26 (17) Nov 25 (23) Nov 24 (27) Nov 23 (12) Nov 22 (10) Nov 21 (15) Nov 20 (23) Nov 19 (23) Nov 18 (24) Nov 17 (21) Nov 16 (20) Nov 15 (13) Nov 14 (15) Nov 13 (27) Nov 12 (23) Nov 11 (19) Nov 10 (21) Nov 09 (13) Nov 08 (16) Nov 07 (16) Nov 06 (32) Nov 05 (24) Nov 04 (20) Nov 03 (29) Nov 02 (12) Nov 01 (15) Oct 31 (20) Oct 30 (22) Oct 29 (27) Oct 28 (20) Oct 27 (23) Oct 26 (21) Oct 25 (15) Oct 24 (23) Oct 23 (26) Oct 22 (27) Oct 21 (28) Oct 20 (24) Oct 19 (13) Oct 18 (9) Oct 17 (30) Oct 16 (8) Oct 15 (20) Oct 14 (14) Oct 13 (17) Oct 12 (16) Oct 11 (8) Oct 10 (19) Oct 09 (22) Oct 08 (16) Oct 07 (18) Oct 06 (23) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (15) Oct 03 (21) Oct 02 (17) Oct 01 (22) Sep 30 (25) Sep 29 (20) Sep 28 (17) Sep 27 (13) Sep 26 (20) Sep 25 (15) Sep 24 (24) Sep 23 (23) Sep 22 (18) Sep 21 (20) Sep 20 (11) Sep 19 (24) Sep 18 (25) Sep 17 (25) Sep 16 (19) Sep 15 (21) Sep 14 (15) Sep 13 (10) Sep 12 (23) Sep 11 (23) Sep 10 (25) Sep 09 (25) Sep 08 (17) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (17) Sep 05 (14) Sep 04 (24) Sep 03 (16) Sep 02 (11) Sep 01 (19) Aug 31 (20) Aug 30 (11) Aug 29 (24) Aug 28 (24) Aug 27 (16) Aug 26 (26) Aug 25 (21) Aug 24 (15) Aug 23 (19) Aug 22 (15) Aug 21 (25) Aug 20 (27) Aug 19 (19) Aug 18 (24) Aug 17 (14) Aug 16 (10) Aug 15 (15) Aug 14 (16) Aug 13 (21) Aug 12 (30) Aug 11 (19) Aug 10 (8) Aug 09 (12) Aug 08 (17) Aug 07 (21) Aug 06 (26) Aug 05 (23) Aug 04 (21) Aug 03 (12) Aug 02 (7) Aug 01 (19) Jul 31 (21) Jul 30 (25) Jul 29 (29) Jul 28 (23) Jul 27 (17) Jul 26 (11) Jul 25 (21) Jul 24 (14) Jul 23 (15) Jul 22 (19) Jul 21 (15) Jul 20 (9) Jul 19 (10) Jul 18 (15) Jul 17 (22) Jul 16 (18) Jul 15 (21) Jul 14 (20) Jul 13 (7) Jul 12 (9) Jul 11 (29) Jul 10 (19) Jul 09 (17) Jul 08 (26) Jul 07 (21) Jul 06 (18) Jul 05 (14) Jul 04 (20) Jul 03 (17) Jul 02 (24) Jul 01 (23) Jun 30 (23) Jun 29 (18) Jun 28 (16) Jun 27 (16) Jun 26 (17) Jun 25 (23) Jun 24 (32) Jun 23 (29) Jun 22 (8) Jun 21 (17) Jun 20 (25) Jun 19 (28) Jun 18 (19) Jun 17 (25) Jun 16 (23) Jun 15 (9) Jun 14 (11) Jun 13 (14) Jun 12 (22) Jun 11 (19) Jun 10 (17) Jun 09 (15) Jun 08 (16) Jun 07 (7) Jun 06 (29) Jun 05 (27) Jun 04 (24) Jun 03 (22) Jun 02 (22) Jun 01 (13) May 31 (9) May 30 (26) May 29 (19) May 28 (15) May 27 (15) May 26 (23) May 25 (13) May 24 (12) May 23 (24) May 22 (13) May 21 (21) May 20 (18) May 19 (16) May 18 (7) May 17 (12) May 16 (25) May 15 (24) May 14 (23) May 13 (19) May 12 (17) May 11 (8) May 10 (6) May 09 (14) May 08 (21) May 07 (26) May 06 (14) May 05 (14) May 04 (3) May 03 (3) May 02 (24) May 01 (13) Apr 30 (15) Apr 29 (24) Apr 28 (24) Apr 27 (11) Apr 26 (8) Apr 25 (13) Apr 24 (27) Apr 23 (15) Apr 22 (21) Apr 21 (19) Apr 20 (17) Apr 19 (8) Apr 18 (20) Apr 17 (27) Apr 16 (27) Apr 15 (21) Apr 14 (8) Apr 13 (8) Apr 12 (7) Apr 11 (7) Apr 10 (22) Apr 09 (15) Apr 08 (15) Apr 07 (17) Apr 06 (14) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (12) Apr 03 (19) Apr 02 (17) Apr 01 (19) Mar 31 (25) Mar 30 (13) Mar 29 (9) Mar 28 (16) Mar 27 (23) Mar 26 (22) Mar 25 (17) Mar 24 (25) Mar 23 (16) Mar 22 (13) Mar 21 (24) Mar 20 (27) Mar 19 (20) Mar 18 (24) Mar 17 (17) Mar 16 (11) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (20) Mar 13 (28) Mar 12 (30) Mar 11 (20) Mar 10 (21) Mar 09 (12) Mar 08 (8) Mar 07 (17) Mar 06 (20) Mar 05 (19) Mar 04 (15) Mar 03 (17) Mar 02 (8) Mar 01 (12) Feb 28 (16) Feb 27 (17) Feb 26 (8) Feb 25 (23) Feb 24 (15) Feb 23 (8) Feb 22 (10) Feb 21 (24) Feb 20 (14) Feb 19 (24) Feb 18 (19) Feb 17 (27) Feb 16 (13) Feb 15 (11) Feb 14 (15) Feb 13 (13) Feb 12 (13) Feb 11 (21) Feb 10 (16) Feb 09 (15) Feb 08 (10) Feb 07 (17) Feb 06 (21) Feb 05 (17) Feb 04 (14) Feb 03 (23) Feb 02 (5) Feb 01 (8) Jan 31 (17) Jan 30 (22) Jan 29 (23) Jan 28 (10) Jan 27 (24) Jan 26 (12) Jan 25 (9) Jan 24 (12) Jan 23 (19) Jan 22 (19) Jan 21 (14) Jan 20 (21) Jan 19 (12) Jan 18 (8) Jan 17 (20) Jan 16 (14) Jan 15 (23) Jan 14 (8) Jan 13 (20) Jan 12 (9) Jan 11 (7) Jan 10 (18) Jan 09 (11) Jan 08 (18) Jan 07 (13) Jan 06 (12) Jan 05 (12) Jan 04 (11) Jan 03 (10) Jan 02 (9) Jan 01 (9) Dec 31 (12) Dec 30 (11) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (9) Dec 27 (13) Dec 26 (15) Dec 25 (8) Dec 24 (6) Dec 23 (8) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (6) Dec 20 (14) Dec 19 (17) Dec 18 (14) Dec 17 (14) Dec 16 (13) Dec 15 (9) Dec 14 (9) Dec 13 (11) Dec 12 (16) Dec 11 (18) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (24) Dec 08 (11) Dec 07 (19) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (26) Dec 04 (15) Dec 03 (20) Dec 02 (17) Dec 01 (11) Nov 30 (10) Nov 29 (18) Nov 28 (21) Nov 27 (10) Nov 26 (22) Nov 25 (16) Nov 24 (12) Nov 23 (8) Nov 22 (18) Nov 21 (9) Nov 20 (17) Nov 19 (16) Nov 18 (16) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (9) Nov 15 (21) Nov 14 (17) Nov 13 (20) Nov 12 (16) Nov 11 (13) Nov 10 (9) Nov 09 (10) Nov 08 (16) Nov 07 (15) Nov 06 (18) Nov 05 (19) Nov 04 (16) Nov 03 (11) Nov 02 (5) Nov 01 (17) Oct 31 (17) Oct 30 (21) Oct 29 (9) Oct 28 (16) Oct 27 (6) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (16) Oct 24 (18) Oct 23 (14) Oct 22 (17) Oct 21 (10) Oct 20 (6) Oct 19 (8) Oct 18 (11) Oct 17 (12) Oct 16 (14) Oct 15 (19) Oct 14 (15) Oct 13 (11) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (10) Oct 10 (23) Oct 09 (13) Oct 08 (15) Oct 07 (20) Oct 06 (13) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (16) Oct 03 (17) Oct 02 (17) Oct 01 (20) Sep 30 (17) Sep 29 (9) Sep 28 (8) Sep 27 (14) Sep 26 (20) Sep 25 (19) Sep 24 (13) Sep 23 (11) Sep 22 (9) Sep 21 (5) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (21) Sep 18 (12) Sep 17 (20) Sep 16 (16) Sep 15 (10) Sep 14 (6) Sep 13 (18) Sep 12 (14) Sep 11 (24) Sep 10 (17) Sep 09 (16) Sep 08 (16) Sep 07 (10) Sep 06 (20) Sep 05 (13) Sep 04 (23) Sep 03 (14) Sep 02 (12) Sep 01 (11) Aug 31 (11) Aug 30 (13) Aug 29 (18) Aug 28 (14) Aug 27 (21) Aug 26 (10) Aug 25 (8) Aug 24 (10) Aug 23 (17) Aug 22 (15) Aug 21 (14) Aug 20 (20) Aug 19 (20) Aug 18 (7) Aug 17 (9) Aug 16 (11) Aug 15 (12) Aug 14 (14) Aug 13 (19) Aug 12 (14) Aug 11 (6) Aug 10 (12) Aug 09 (7) Aug 08 (18) Aug 07 (16) Aug 06 (16) Aug 05 (20) Aug 04 (12) Aug 03 (8) Aug 02 (12) Aug 01 (14) Jul 31 (16) Jul 30 (16) Jul 29 (11) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (9) Jul 26 (17) Jul 25 (20) Jul 24 (17) Jul 23 (11) Jul 22 (18) Jul 21 (7) Jul 20 (10) Jul 19 (14) Jul 18 (11) Jul 17 (15) Jul 16 (12) Jul 15 (10) Jul 14 (8) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (17) Jul 11 (18) Jul 10 (16) Jul 09 (13) Jul 08 (10) Jul 07 (12) Jul 06 (8) Jul 05 (16) Jul 04 (14) Jul 03 (17) Jul 02 (13) Jul 01 (16) Jun 30 (19) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (19) Jun 27 (21) Jun 26 (27) Jun 25 (23) Jun 24 (23) Jun 23 (12) Jun 22 (9) Jun 21 (18) Jun 20 (15) Jun 19 (24) Jun 18 (21) Jun 17 (13) Jun 16 (9) Jun 15 (9) Jun 14 (18) Jun 13 (24) Jun 12 (18) Jun 11 (23) Jun 10 (25) Jun 09 (24) Jun 08 (27) Jun 07 (5) Jun 06 (25) Jun 05 (30) Jun 04 (23) Jun 03 (22) Jun 02 (16) Jun 01 (17) May 31 (18) May 30 (19) May 29 (17) May 28 (23) May 27 (15) May 26 (10) May 25 (19) May 24 (16) May 23 (16) May 22 (27) May 21 (20) May 20 (26) May 19 (6) May 18 (8) May 17 (20) May 16 (8) May 15 (18) May 14 (5) May 13 (21) May 12 (9) May 11 (8) May 10 (12) May 09 (18) May 08 (11) May 07 (27) May 06 (12) May 05 (16) May 04 (19) May 03 (14) May 02 (18) May 01 (18) Apr 30 (25) Apr 29 (27) Apr 28 (11) Apr 27 (10) Apr 26 (18) Apr 25 (10) Apr 24 (29) Apr 23 (29) Apr 22 (14) Apr 21 (15) Apr 20 (20) Apr 19 (22) Apr 18 (16) Apr 17 (32) Apr 16 (12) Apr 15 (21) Apr 14 (21) Apr 13 (15) Apr 12 (13) Apr 11 (14) Apr 10 (16) Apr 09 (20) Apr 08 (36) Apr 07 (22) Apr 06 (11) Apr 05 (28) Apr 04 (20) Apr 03 (29) Apr 02 (32) Apr 01 (18) Mar 31 (12) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (15) Mar 28 (22) Mar 27 (24) Mar 26 (17) Mar 25 (17) Mar 24 (13) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (12) Mar 21 (15) Mar 20 (18) Mar 19 (19) Mar 18 (16) Mar 17 (10) Mar 16 (6) Mar 15 (18) Mar 14 (24) Mar 13 (18) Mar 12 (18) Mar 11 (17) Mar 10 (13) Mar 09 (12) Mar 08 (18) Mar 07 (25) Mar 06 (16) Mar 05 (16) Mar 04 (22) Mar 03 (17) Mar 02 (6) Mar 01 (23) Feb 29 (19) Feb 28 (25) Feb 27 (26) Feb 26 (23) Feb 25 (12) Feb 24 (13) Feb 23 (15) Feb 22 (26) Feb 21 (31) Feb 20 (12) Feb 19 (21) Feb 18 (15) Feb 17 (10) Feb 16 (15) Feb 15 (19) Feb 14 (15) Feb 13 (25) Feb 12 (20) Feb 11 (9) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (28) Feb 08 (20) Feb 07 (22) Feb 06 (20) Feb 05 (19) Feb 04 (14) Feb 03 (16) Feb 02 (28) Feb 01 (37) Jan 31 (27) Jan 30 (31) Jan 29 (18) Jan 28 (14) Jan 27 (10) Jan 26 (18) Jan 25 (26) Jan 24 (34) Jan 23 (21) Jan 22 (21) Jan 21 (18) Jan 20 (18) Jan 19 (18) Jan 18 (26) Jan 17 (24) Jan 16 (23) Jan 15 (30) Jan 14 (20) Jan 13 (18) Jan 12 (24) Jan 11 (11) Jan 10 (23) Jan 09 (22) Jan 08 (17) Jan 07 (17) Jan 06 (9) Jan 05 (18) Jan 04 (15) Jan 03 (19) Jan 02 (14) Jan 01 (6) Dec 31 (12) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (15) Dec 28 (11) Dec 27 (7) Dec 26 (10) Dec 25 (16) Dec 24 (13) Dec 23 (16) Dec 22 (11) Dec 21 (26) Dec 20 (28) Dec 19 (14) Dec 18 (25) Dec 17 (23) Dec 16 (19) Dec 15 (22) Dec 14 (38) Dec 13 (26) Dec 12 (25) Dec 11 (27) Dec 10 (31) Dec 09 (15) Dec 08 (30) Dec 07 (31) Dec 06 (27) Dec 05 (38) Dec 04 (25) Dec 03 (27) Dec 02 (15) Dec 01 (36) Nov 30 (23) Nov 29 (17) Nov 28 (23) Nov 27 (13) Nov 26 (16) Nov 25 (14) Nov 24 (18) Nov 23 (21) Nov 22 (21) Nov 21 (24) Nov 20 (20) Nov 19 (23) Nov 18 (17) Nov 17 (17) Nov 16 (34) Nov 15 (25) Nov 14 (17) Nov 13 (21) Nov 12 (18) Nov 11 (9) Nov 10 (15) Nov 09 (9) Nov 08 (9) Nov 07 (12) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (4) Oct 29 (1) Oct 01 (1) Jul 29 (1) May 11 (1) Jul 11 (1)Yes, you can transfer your domain to any registrar or hosting company once you have purchased it. Since domain transfers are a manual process, it can take up to 5 days to transfer the domain.

Domains purchased with payment plans are not eligible to transfer until all payments have been made. Please remember that our 30-day money back guarantee is void once a domain has been transferred.

For transfer instructions to GoDaddy, please click here.Mar 5, 2018 | By Tess

Bossard Group, a Swiss fastener technology and logistics company, has signed partnership agreements with three 3D printing companies including metal AM specialist TRUMPF, German RepRap, and stereolithography company Henkel. Through the partnerships, Bossard Group says it will supply industrial 3D printing equipment and additive manufacturing materials and provide consultancy for the design of 3D printable complex parts.

Through its new partnerships, Bossard says it will develop a new range of additive manufacturing technologies. Working with TRUMPF, German RepRap, and Henkel, the company will offer three 3D printing systems based on each of the companies specialties: laser-based metal AM, FDM, and SLA.

Bossards three additive manufacturing systems will reportedly be destined for the professional market and will have applications in product development, prototyping, model and mold making, architecture, and more.

TRUMPF, a German machining tools company, has become known in the AM industry for its laser metal fusion and laser metal deposition technologies. German RepRap, for its part, is a specialist in fused filament fabrication 3D printers and will cooperate with Bossard in the development of professional FDM printers. Finally, Henkel will partner with Bossard to share its DLP 3D printing technology.

Bossard views 3D printing as forward-looking technology that will transform some areas of industrial manufacturing, said the company in a press release. Its involvement relies on partnerships with three manufacturers of premium industrial 3D printers and related technical support services.

[Bossard] will contribute its technical expertise, experience in solving industrial manufacturing problems, and an established sales network. Consulting services will extend to the design of prototypes and complex customized components, with its application engineering and prototyping resources acting as a centre of competence.

This week, Bossard and its subsidiary KVT-Fastening will be demonstrating three types of 3D printing technologies at the Additive Manufacturing Expo in Lucerne, Switzerland.

Posted in 3D Printer Company

Maybe you also like:











Mar 5, 2018 | By Tess

A student from Texas A&M has demonstrated how 3D printing can be used to help future settlers on Mars. The demonstration was part of the recent AMADEE-18 simulation mission organized by the Austrian Space Forum and the Oman National Steering Committee.

This past February, parts of Omans Dhofar desert were temporarily used as a setting for an extensive Mars simulation project. The mission, named AMADEE-18, was carried out by a small field crew who were tasked with conducting a range of experiments to help gain practical insight into how humans can settle on the Red Planet.

One experiment, A3DPT-2-Mars, had the express purpose of testing how 3D printing could be used by astronauts on Mars surface to additively manufacture tools, replacement parts, and other things.

Over the course of the four-week experiment, Mauricio Coen, a graduate student from Texas A&M, showed how additive manufacturing technologies could be a crucial tool in assisting future Mars settlers. One immediately useful application for the technology was to 3D print a shovel part when Coens shovel broke.

We hypothesize that astronauts will be able to adapt more quickly to changing mission goals, said Coen. Crew time is one of the most valuable assets in any space exploration mission, and hopefully, 3D printing embedded in their daily operations will reduce time spent in cumbersome tasks, especially with repairs.

Not only useful for repairs, 3D printing could provide the means to fabricate structures on Mars (and elsewhere in space) using local materials, which would eliminate the need to send construction materials on the long and expensive journey into space.

The AMADEE-18 simulation experiment was completed at the end of February, though results of the experiments have yet to come in. Coen, for his part, believes that 3D printing will play an integral role in future missions to Mars which, according to NASA, could happen well within the next two decades.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

Maybe you also like:











by Akim Reinhardt

Pocahontas was an informal childhood name, a nickname meaning "playful one" or "mischievous girl." Although "Pocahontas" is what the British colonists came to know her by, her formal name in public was Amonute. Her ritual name, known to her kin, was Matoaka.

Amonute spoke an Eastern Algonkian (sometimes spelled Algonquin) language. While some Eastern Algonkian languages are still spoken, such as the Abenakian dialect of Mi'kmaq and the Delawaran dialect of Munsee, Amonute's Powhattan dialect is extinct. However, modern English retains several loan words from her language, including: hickory, hominy, moccasin, muskrat, opossum, persimmon, raccoon, terrapin, and tomahawk.

Amonute was not a "princess." This is a designation of European royalty, not Algonkian hereditary politics. But even if we use the word more colloquially, she still would not qualify, despite being the daughter of "royalty." Her father, Wahunsenacawh, was the werowance (leader/ruler) of a large Native confederacy in the southern Chesapeake Bay region. He is more commonly known by his throne name, Powhatan, which was also the collective name of his confederacy's people. However, the Powhatan people had a matrilineal society, and Amonute's mother was a commoner; thus, her daughter did not inherit any aristocratic lineage from Powhatan.

Amonute was about 9 years old when she first met John Smith, maybe a year or two older.

The story of her saving John Smith from a beheading by her father is a myth, nothing more than a colonial creation story. In later years, Smith published sensationalized accounts of his globe trotting exploits, and a literary theme he repeatedly invoked was stories of exotic and infatuated young women rescuing him from certain doom; it helped sell books. Smith's tale of Pocahontas saving him from execution does not appear in his initial reports, but only in his later, fantastic travelogues. The story also does not align with any known Powhatan diplomatic rituals. Furthermore, the idea that her father, the ruler of some 20,000 people over an area larger than the modern state of Delaware, would set vital foreign policy based on the impetuous whims of a nine year old is, at the very best, utterly laughable. Smith was indeed a captive whom Powhatan eventually adopted diplomatically as a "son" (akin to a vassal). But however Powhatan's diplomatic adoption of Smith unfolded, the young girl either played a minor, prescribed role, or more likely, was not even present. She was probably outside her father's great hall, tending to chores or playing with other children.

Smith did encounter and interact with Amonute on several occasions, both in Powhatan's village of Werowocomoco and at Jamestown. In 1609, following an accident that badly burned his leg, Smith left the colony and never returned.

Amonute did not sing with raccoons.

As a young girl, during her visits to the English fort at Jamestown, she was known to engage in playful behavior, such as spinning cartwheels.

When she was about 13, maybe a year or two older, Amonute married a soldier named Kocoum. He might have been from the Patowomeck (Patomac) people who resided in the northern reaches of the Powhatan confederacy. He may also have been a member of Powhatan's personal guard. Since Amonute did not have royal lineage, this was probably not an arranged marriage; they likely married each other by choice, Kocoum paying a bride price to Amonute's family. The couple was together for at least a year, perhaps three. They may have divorced, or Kocoum might have died.

In 1613, the English kidnaped Amonute. They came to a Patowomeck village where she had been living for about three months, working as an emissary on her father's behalf, and threatened to attack the town if the Patowomecks did not hand her over. The town's leaders agonized over the situation for several hours before eventually acquiescing; to avoid Powhatan's wrath, they colluded with the English, play acting to make it look like they themselves had no role in the matter.

Amonute was brought to Jamestown. However, because the English misunderstood Algonkian lineage and politics, and mistakenly thought she was a "princess," they overestimated her ransom value. Powhatan initially declared his sorrow over her capture and told the English he would pay the ransom, but he did not, and may never have intended to. Months later, he suggested that Amonute simply remain with the English, and that Thomas Dale, the colony's leader, should adopt her as his own child, presumably in much the same way Powhatan himself had previously adopted John Smith as his son. The English kept Amonute for more than a year, mostly at the settlement of Henrico, about 50 miles upriver from Jamestown.

During Amonute's time in Henrico, Reverend Alexander Whitaker tutored her daily in Christianity. She also learned to speak English and wore European clothes. In April of 1614, she publicly converted to Christianity. Since she left no record of her thoughts, it is impossible to know what she felt about this, but many similar episodes of early Native conversions to Christianity suggest that she was incorporating Jesus Christ into her existing pantheon of okees (spiritually powerful beings), and perhaps making Jesus her premier okee, replacing the one from the Algonkian village where she'd previously lived.

When Amonute converted to Christianity, she took the biblical name Rebecca.

The same week Amonute became a Christian, she also married an English widower named John Rolfe, whose first wife and young daughter had died during the journey to America. Rolfe was about 27 years of age and a roughly decade older than Amonute when he, by his own account, fell in love with her. The colony's leaders agreed to the marriage on condition of her conversion. Powhatan also agreed, and the union helped cement a peace agreement between the two sides, which had been engaged in intermittent warfare for several years. There is a strong possibility that Amonute viewed both her conversion and marriage as part of her duty to facilitate her father's diplomacy.

Amonute had a son by John Rolfe. They named him Thomas.

Amonute spent two years living on a tobacco plantation with Rolfe across the James River from Jamestown. Tobacco native to the Chesapeake tobacco had a coarse flavor when smoked and did not sell well in England. Rolfe had brought over and successfully planted seeds of Caribbean tobacco that was already well established in the European market.

While Amonute lived on the Chesapeake's first commercially successful tobacco plantation, Native women helped her tend to domestic work and raise Thomas. The English considered these women servants.

In 1616, Amonute visited England. She traveled with her family and leading members of the colony, and was accompanied by a delegation of Powhatan Confederacy dignitaries and diplomats.

While in London, Lady Rebecca, the Indian "pricess," was the toast of the town and at King James court.

Amonute had her portrait engraved by the Dutch artist Simon Van de Passe, who was about her age. Probably at Amonute's insistence, the picture labels her as not just as Rebecca, but also by her ceremonial name Algonkian name, Matoaka, and as a daughter of Powhatan.

Amonute was surprised to encountere John Smith towards the end of her stay in England; the English had previously told her he had died. He was happy to see her. The feeling was not mutual. By Smith's own account, in a letter to a friend not meant for public consumption, Amonute greeted him with nothing more than a silent, modest salutation, and then turned her back on him. Mistakenly thinking she was embarrassed because of what he presumed were her diminished English language skills, Smith left Amonute's presence for a couple of hours. When he returned, she upbraided him, in English, for being a liar, like the rest of the countrymen.

Amonute took ill during the trip. At its conclusion, she, her husband and child, various colonial officials, and the rest of Powhatan's delegation, boarded a ship for her homeland, which the English called Virginia. As the ship wound its way eastward along the River Thames towards the English Channel, Amonute died. The cause may have been pneumonia. She was about 19 years old.

After burying Amonute at St. George Church in the town of Gravesend along the River Thames, Rolfe left their son Thomas behind to be raised by an uncle. He returned to England and never saw his son again.

There was no stone placed at Amonute's grave, and the church has since been rebuilt. The exact site of her burial is unknown.

Sources

Rebecca K. Jager, Malinche, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea: Indian Women as Cultural Intermediaries and National Symbols (University of Oklahoma Press, 2015).

Helen Rountree, Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown (University of Virginia Press, 2006).

Camilla Townsend, Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma (Hill and Wang, 2004).

Daniel Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Harvard University Press, 2001).

Akim Reinhardt's website is ThePublicProfessor.comby Shadab Zeest Hashmi

On particularly tough days of my first Ramadan in college, I had vivid dreams of Peshawar, my hometown. Eager to succeed as an international student, I would never have confessed to being homesick but for my Psychology course Sleep and Dreaming which required a dream journal. Its mid-day, I noted in one of the entries, Im having piping hot, fried fish from that vendor next to Dr. Framji the dentists clinic in sheher (Peshawar city). Im with my mother. The naan is fresh.

For years, nostalgia emerged only in poems or in snippets of conversation with my brothers, but around the time I had lived away from Peshawar for longer than I had lived in Peshawar, I began to draw maps from memory: earliest home, school, airport, TV station, Abasin Arts Council, Qissa Khawani bazaar, chowk yaadgaar, Peshawar club the maps were eccentric, juvenile, and completely inaccurate. The best map of my Peshawar, was handed to me in the neat hand of my father.

Pondering beyond the intimate and focusing on the larger, global significance of the ancient city of Peshawar, as I researched the Silk Road cultures for a manuscript, I found myself irked and emotionally exhausted by the material generated by Western authors; I did not recognize the city in their writings. I continued hitting dead-ends until I came across Dr. Amjad Hussains work. As a distinguished cardiovascular surgeon/researcher and long-time academic, Dr. Hussain is well-known in the international medical community, but hes also recognized as a photographer, an expedition-leader, a builder of interfaith dialogue, a journalist and author; it was quite a stroke of luck for me to receive a beautiful, handmade map of Peshawar from him, to read his publications in Urdu and English, his running journal from a recent Silk Road expedition and especially, to meet this true polymath belonging to my beloved city in person.

Our conversations crisscrossed myriad topics, as expected. For this particular email interview, I decided to capture a part of the wide range of things Dr. Hussains work encompasses.

Shadab Zeest Hashmi: The title of your newly published memoir From the Khyber Pass to the Great Black Swamp: A life journey without a map is a wonderful oxymoron. On the one hand, the book delves into your passion for exploring places and shows the geographic particulars of the places you have called home (including the rare and rich details of Peshawar and its environs), and on the other hand, you describe your lifes journey as being without a map: quite apt for somewhat of a mystic approach to life (in my opinion). As a reader, this book reveals many aspects of a life poised between science and art, between disparate cultures and traditions, and between the different kinds of losses faced by different generations that tie you to your Pakistan and your America. What did this memoir reveal to you, as its author?

Dr. Amjad Hussain: My dear Shadab,

It is obvious that we both share an unfettered love for Peshawar, our city.

Here is a short poem on Peshawar by Ejaz Rahim, a poet extraordinaire of English language and retired Cabinet Secretary of the Government of Pakistan:

My heart sprawls out

Like the environs of Peshawar

Seen from the sky.

In portions of Jamrud brown,

At place cantonment green,

The heart is a city of contrasts,

Held together by a dream.

You have posed some very interesting questions that would force me to delve deeply into my psyche. We are complex beings and sometimes it is difficult, if not impossible, to connect dots (Lifes wayside stops) to get a coherent line of trajectory. Some reportage of my life is best left alone because it is hard to recall the details and I don't wish to create a fuzzy, unfocussed picture, not to mention a self-serving one. But your request is something I cant set aside. You seem to be saying:

Gahe Gahe Baazkhan, Ee(N) Qissa e Pareena Raa. (Oh the story teller, tell us the tales of the times past.)

Your request is very flattering. So here are few pages from Qissa e Parreena or the ancient tale.

Shadab Zeest Hashmi: As someone who has been writing about the history of the Silk Road in poems and essays for a few years, I am fascinated by the accounts of your Silk Road expedition last year (which has been partially published in the Toledo Blade and in newspaper coverage of your public talks). Among the many observations and historical insights you share, a special one is the detail of how disease and cures crossed over in different places along the Silk route. Your medical background sheds light on the topic in a unique way. Please share with us some of your findings.

Dr. Amjad Hussain: My life journeys had no set plans. In fact I did not know my next step most of my life. I failed chemistry in college and thus missed out the chance for admission to medical college that year. I also missed the admission the next year and got in on 3rd attempt. Third time was indeed a charm.

Deeply influenced by a young charismatic surgery teacher, Professor SAR Gardezi, I wanted to go to England (wilayat) and learn the art and craft of surgery. A few friends kept bugging me to apply to American hospitals but having set my eyes on England, I refused. A friend handed me an application form for a hospital in Toledo Ohio and said that I should use the form. I told him I was planning to go to England. What do you have to loose, he asked? So I applied and to my utter surprise I was selected.

After finishing training as a general and cardiovascular surgeon I turned down to an academic job and left for Peshawar to an uncertain future. After four years I came back to America, dejected and rejected. Considering that I was the only qualified cardiovascular surgeon in our province, I could not land a job in my chosen field.

The bitterness and resentment I had towards the country and its institutions and the men who ran those institutions were mercifully short lived. Every year for the past 40 years I have been going to Pakistan to teach and sponsor projects there.

Wouldnt that qualify as a life journey undertaken without a map?

I love Pakistan and I love America. The former gave me the philosophical and cultural underpinnings and the later gave me the room to grow intellectually. I am in love with both countries. Such an ambiguity could be explained by this quote by Anton Chekhov: Medicine is my lawful wife and literature is my mistress; when I get tired of one, I spend the night with other. I guess it also applies to my life but in my case I had many mistresses.

Shadab Zeest Hashmi: Please describe your project related to the excavations in Peshawar, and your interest in Peshawars ancient history.

Dr. Amjad Hussain: It was in early 1990s that the well-known archeologist and chair of archeology at Peshawar University Dr. Farzand Ali Durrani while on a visit to Toledo asked me if I would help raise money for the excavation of Rahman Dheri near DI Khan. He was interested to excavate sites that are considered older than Moenjodaro and Harrapa. I retorted that why should I be interested in proto sites in Indus Valley when I have no idea how old is my own city of Peshawar. So some of my friends and I helped raise funds to excavate part of Gorkhatri citadel in the city. That excavation proved that Peshawar was a living city in the 6th century BCE. The department of archeology has protected the excavated site by covering it with a fiberglass roof. It is an amazing site to see 2500 years of cultural history of Peshawar compressed in 30 feet deep excavated pit.

It goes without saying that I have a deep spiritual bond with the city of my birth. It was this attachment that led me to revisit the magnificent Stupa that Kanishka built outside the present day Gunj Gate in the 2nd century CE. The site was excavated in early 1900s and the remnants of the Stupa were found that according to the archeologist David Brainard Spooner was the tallest and most magnificent structure in all of India and China. The discovery of a small reliquary casket containing a small quartz bottle containing three bone-fragment of Buddha was the sensational discovery.

I have spent many decades studying the travel accounts of Chinese pilgrims when they came, centuries apart, to visit Peshawar and the sacred Stupa. From all accounts it had to be the neglected 8th wonder of the ancient world.

Based on those accounts, I have tried to peel off the 1500 years from the face of Peshawar and commissioned an oil painting that in my view represents Peshawar as it looked at the time of Kanishka.

I have given presentations on the subject to the Taxila Institute for Asian Civilizations at Quaid-Azam University, Peshawar Museum and the Archeological Institute of America among many other venues. My hope is that the Government of Pakistan would accept that we were Buddhists at one time and the magnificent Stupa was build by our own ancestors. A designation of International Heritage Site by the UN would go a long way to give that neglected relic its proper recognition.

Shadab Zeest Hashmi: I found your idea of a monument in No Mans Land stunning. Could you describe the idea and the response.

Dr. Amjad Hussain: During a teaching sabbatical at the Government Medical College, Amritsar in May 2006, I was invited to speak to the Rotary Club of Amritsar. I had just crossed Wahgah from Pakistan into India. I decided to talk about the unfinished business of the Partition.

When I was crossing the border I was reminded of Saadat Hasan Mantos short story Toba Taik Singh. After the Partition some harebrained bureaucrat decided to send Hindus and Sikhs patients of Lahore mental asylum to India and bring back Muslim patients from India mental asylums. So they took patients from Lahore to Wahgah where they were to be exchanged for Muslim patients from India.

A patient Bishan Singh from the village Toba Taik Singh was a long-time patient in Lahore asylum. He refused to be repatriated because in his crazy mind if his village was still in Pakistan and was not going with him to India, why should he go to India. He drops dead in the middle of the night in No Mans Land, the narrow strip between India and Pakistan.

I told the Amritsar Rotarians that Indians and Pakistanis have different versions, often opposing, narratives of the Partition. The people on both sides of Wahgah border have not owned up to the cataclysm of the Partition where more than one million people were put to sword and anywhere between 10 and 15 million people were uprooted from their centuries-old homes and forced to flee to the safety of newly demarcated border between India and Pakistan. It was, by any standard, one of the most tragic watershed events in human history.

I suggested that we as people should come to term with the crimes we committed against each other. I proposed a monument to be erected on the spot where the fictional Bishan Singh aka Toba Taik Singh dropped dead in the No Mans Land at Wahgah. It should show a Hindu, a Muslim and a Sikh with their heads bowed down in shame. A short sentence engraved on the monument should state that,  We are ashamed of what we did to each other during the Partition.

There were no takers in the Amritsar Rotary and my proposal went down as a lead balloon. There have not been any takers in Pakistan either.

Shadab Zeest Hashmi: Your writing stands out for its authenticity, its inclusiveness and humanity, its generosity of vision, humor and a persistent sense of adventure and discovery. There is much to admire in your work as a practitioner/scholar of medical science, the rigor with which you have pursued the scientific and artistic aspects of Peshawars cultural heritage, but mostly, the value of devotion to family and the deeper, personal connection to culture/s that comes across as the building block of your ethos, the essence of your lifes work. I was deeply moved by the genuine admiration and attachment you have with the women of your family your wife, your sisters, your daughter, and especially your mother, the piece about whom is a gem of a tribute. Please share with us the female influence on you and your work.

Dr. Amjad Hussain: The last of your question is both easy and difficult.

I lost my father when I was 6 year old. I had five elder brothers and one elder sister and two younger sisters. My mother was an unlettered woman. The only gift of education given to her was the reading of the Quran with Tajweed. She passed on that gift to three generations of children from the neighborhood.

My brothers played a major role in my upbringing. The elder brothers were like father-figures; stern, disciplinarians, and keeping us on a straight and narrow (very narrow) path. The women in the household were loving, caring and nurturing. After all as children we are deeply influenced from our surroundings and it is in our childhood that we gather building blocks of our personalities. They stay with us throughout our lives.

I was also fortunate to fall in love with Dottie, a woman who understood my needs (not wants) and my deep attachment to my roots and she nurtured them. She accepted my family with grace and understanding. And then came along my daughter Natasha who made me understand what it means to live as a professional woman in a mans world. I am a feminist because of my daughter. So the influence of women in my life have been tremendous.

Thanks!by Paul North

Humanities professors are the true conservatives. What is it to be conservative? A professor hunches over a podium and says, "well,  you know." The lecture begins. Well you know: Chateaubriand's pro-restoration journal Le Conservateur started it all off in 1818, proposing a return to the society of orders after the revolutionary republic. For this lecturer, saying what something is requires saying what it was. A minimum description of a conservative is that. A conservative prefers what was to what is.

Humanities professors are way ahead of the curve on this kind of thing. A rambunctious student wants to debate current events: a humanities professor blinks and says "wellit wasn't always that way." Thank goodness for the delaying, retarding, preserving "well"! Humanities professors use the opening that a strategic "well" gives them, in order to talk about how it was.

Well

Why don't we ask what it was to be conservative.

A classics professor dusts off a volume of Cicero and finds these words:

pro di inmortales, custodes et conservatores hujus urbis atque imperii.

Oh immortal gods, protectors and preservers of the city and the empire.

It is a cliche phrase, really. Cicero repeats it from old political chatter.

Still, it's a huge claimwho is the conservative? The gods conserve the city and the empire. Cicero has heaven in mind, the classics professor a much smaller thing. Not gods or empirewords are what's important. Who conserves Cicero's words? The classics professor of course. a conservative of the highest order, the professor nonetheless is faced with a hard question. What do Cicero's words preserve? Here is the real crux of the matter. For there are two words here, "protectors" and "preservers." What is the difference? Something is being said in the contrast between the two. The difference will help us say what it was to be conservative. Conservatores differ from custodes, though here they are put together. To know what it means to be a conservator in old Roman republican wisdom then, we also need to know what it means to be a custodian. Gods are custodians: they protect the city from inside and outside, keep it safe from tyrants and from enemies, and they carry out this protection for the purposes of preservation. Gods protect the city in order that the city may endure as it is, as it was.

This all seems quite basic. If protection is for the purposes of conservation, that also means that conservation depends on protection, at least in this cliche. Looking at cliches is not a bad way to learn the opinions a culture holds about itself. Just because it is a cliche doesn't mean we don't believe in it. We believe in it so much and so uncritically it is painful to hear it repeated. Especially when it begins to clash with new realities. Cicero's cliche says: conservation depends on warding off threats. What it was to be conservativephilologically speakingwas to protect something from a threat. Not just one threat but clearly many. Who can limit the enemies, intriguers, historical forgettings, natural threats, insidious contaminations, and all the other infiltrators of the city walls? A philologist is a true conservative. But conserving the words includes conserving all the words, even the ones that don't seem to fit our view of the past. Not just conservatores but also custodes. And conserving all the words brings forward the multiplicity of highly unconservative factors in any act of protection. The threats and the protection go together. Without the threats, no protection, without the protection no conserving. What it was to be conservative was to preserve, alongside the good, safe city, also and at the same time all the externals and alternatives to Rome. Within every conservative is a lover and collector of alternatives in all their myriad forms. No one knows the loose, the lost, the fleeting better than the true conservative.

To be clearto conserve the past you have to identify and cling also to what made the past that past, what made Rome Rome. That means every single drop of all that is not Rome. You love Carthage and the Gauls, Greece and Egypt, and the network widens ever so. A professor of classics secretly loves the moderns above all. A modernist yearns for Greece. A true conservative loves the whole past. It is a crazy dream, Don Quijote work; impossible, and yet every decision on what the past was leads you further and further into a wider and wilder context of cities and gods, friends and enemies, shifting alliances and values that shift along with them.

Conservator has to mean something else as well: to judge. From among the whole past, partially illuminated by their efforts, a true conservative decides what is to be protected and what is to be left out on the mountainside for the vultures.

Julius Caesar drives the point home.

Caesar sese eos in fidem recepturum eat conservaturum dixit.

Caesar said  he would receive them into his protection, and would spare them.

Caesar judges. He will protect these new friends of Rome from their Gallic enemies. He also says he himself will not harm them, he will spare them, conservaturum. Conserve also means to spare something or someone from one's own violence, to judge it worthy of protection from the judge. The "friends" of Rome would be preservedfrom their enemies and from their protector, the Roman Proconsul. Caesar is the protector here, whereas in Cicero's cliche it was the gods. It doesn't matter which. Everyone is a god with respect to a past to be protected. You hold the power of conservation and of dissipation, diminishment, abandonment, and destruction. We don't think enough about the power to consign whole tracts of material to oblivion.

A true conservative is a curator of oblivion. It is a much more difficult task than you might think. To say "yes" to one city, one regime of words, one way of life or set of values you have to say "no" to a vast labyrinth of other, incompatible things. The barbaric "no" of the true conservative rings out through history's halls, a cry of desperation at the mass of alternatives pressing down on them. Humanities professors by and large are used to this desperation. They know that decisions on the past are like the children's game "Ker Plunk." History as we see it is a precarious balance of marbles on top of thin straws. The true conservative pulls the straws out strategically one by one. One of them will be the wrong straw and the whole configuration will come tumbling down.

This is the point that separates true conservatives from false ones, humanities professors from dogmatists. We already know that in order to conserve something there needs to be at least two things, what is protected and that which it is protected from. And there needs to be the protector. So there are at least three. This, the triangle of true conservativism, has the form of a choice. Behind any triangle there has already been a judgment. You decide for Rome over Carthage. The professor decides for these words over those words. The city over the enemies, these gods over those gods, these texts over those texts, "values" over texts, and so on. What separates true conservatives from false ones is first of all whether they decide, and second of all how clearly they see the precariousness of this decision.

I am not saying it is a choice to believe that Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. That is a matter of truth. We are talking about matters of plurality. Each point is a star, each star a system, each system a galaxy of events and changes, small and large, with small and large effects. 1815 was a great year for the Duke of Wellington, not so good for Napoleon. It was a pretty darned good year for George Boole however, the English logician without whose algebraic logic we would not have computers. He was born in 1815. Is 1815 the year of Napoleon's final defeat or the year of Boole's birth? Obviously it is both. But the year is cut in two by the two events. It is one year with two significances, which are largely irreconcilable. The events are as far apart in meaning and effects as the north and south poles. By any measure, the two belong to vastly different categorieslet's call one political, the other technological, and eventually economic. However you categorize them, the events are of different kindsone a biological event, birth, the other a military event; one a beginning which really predicted very little, the other an end which confirmed a trend in France and in Europe toward, well, conservatism.

Most importantly, the first event, the birth of baby Boole, called out to a future not yet envisioned or envisionable. Boole's becoming important depended on many other factors in other systems with other stars. To be concrete about one of them: Claude Shannon read Boole in college, and just after, in 1937, he applied Boolean operations to switching circuits. This is one necessary condition of the micro-chip. You can see that the origin is split. The nobel prize would have to go to Shannon and Boole, and many others too, though decidedly not to Napoleon.

In any past there are multiple pasts and in any act of conservation of a this, a that is preserved along with it, and another that, and another, whether you want it there or not.

At its zenith, true conservatism welcomes into its theater, with no price of admission, the fleeting, the bizarre, the differently formed and the unformed, the oppressed and the excluded and the detritus without which nothing could come to stand, ringing out echoes through deep time, against the nihilistic frame, the only frame in which the maelstrom of history makes sense.Iceland is a country forged of powerful elements, composed of glaciers, more than 100 volcanoes, and the meeting point for the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates. It is a harsh and volatile environment that exudes stunning natural beauty.

With a population of just over 300,000 people, Iceland has some of the most liberal and forward-thinking social policies in the world. Gender equality, natural energy, and fantastic social programs are all enviable aspects of Iceland's infrastructure, which has unquestionably bounced back since the economic recession in 2008.

Reykjavik is a true cosmopolitan city with a small-town feeling. It is the world's most northerly capital city and is home to a majority of Iceland's population. Despite only having a few hours of sunlight on its shortest winter day and continuous sunlight for almost 24 hours during the peak of summer, Icelanders do not hide from the difficult seasonal changes but embrace them and enjoy all the city has to offer year-round.

Reykjavik has quite the reputation for late-night drinking and debauchery, as weekend pub crawls, known as the Runturwhich stretch until 5amare the norm. From rowdy dive bars to sophisticated hotel lounges, the city has it all. A few highlights are the silly Lebowski Bar, which oozes kitsch and serves delicious White Russians; Apotek Kitchen+Bar, in the Apotek Hotel (formerly a pharmacy, which explains the mixologists in lab coats); and Slippbarinn, in the Icelandair Marina Hotela favorite pre-game spot for locals as they gear up for the night while sipping freshly muddled cocktails. Reykjavik also has a robust live music scene and plenty of music venues to check out.



Blue Lagoon spa. (Frank Denney)

The Sights

The city also offers numerous cultural sights and points of interest. Hallgrimskirkja is Reykjavik's towering church, an architectural beauty with a massive organ and uncompromising views from the tower. The Settlement Exhibition Museum, in the heart of the city, offers an interactive display showcasing a 10th Century Viking longhouse. The Saga Museum and National Museum also offer well curated and interesting displays of local culture, people, and art. Harpa is a gorgeous concert hall and cultural events center built with LED panels that can display a moving feast of images and colors. Just a short walk along the shore from Harpa is The Sun Voyager (Solfar), an iconic sculpture of a Viking ship right on the ocean's edge and a necessary photo pit-stop. There is also a lively flea market on the weekends called Kolaporti, which offers all manner of goods, food and clothing. For a bit of a rest, take a seat at Tjornin Pond, where ducks and swans roam freely. Right next to the lake is a gorgeous cemetery with headstones stretching back to the very early 19th Century. In the summer, whale watching is a fantastic activity as more than 20 species of whale have been found in Icelandic waters. For a half day of true relaxation, head to the Blue Lagoon, a very touristy yet fun spot to soak in the gorgeous blue geothermal waters that are always perfectly warm.

(Jon Flobrant)

Day Trips

Outside of Reykjavik, you can truly get a sense for the awe-inspiring landscape of this country. Guided bus tours are easy options, but it is recommended to rent your own car for day trip exploration along Iceland's Southern and Western coasts. During the colder months some roads become impassible, especially when attempting to drive along the entirety of Iceland's coast, known as The Ring Road, but many roads that offer exciting day trips from Reykjavik are usable. A necessary drive is the Golden Circle, which takes travelers to Thingvellir National Park, a UNESCO site and where Parliament was based from 930 until 1798. This is also where the continental drift between the two tectonic plates can easily be seen. Snorkeling, and hiking and camping during warmer months, are popular activities. Continuing on the drive is the Geysir geothermal area where the Strokkur geyser shoots up a fantastic display of water almost 100 feet high about every 10 minutes. Then, stop at the powerful Gullfoss Falls, a sight of majestic beauty.

A drive along the South Coast offers impressive natural scenery unrivaled almost anywhere in the world. Massive cliffs covered in snow (during colder months) meet lava fields blanketed in moss, plus famous volcanoes and stunning glaciers are all nearby. The shorter tour generally ends around the southern town of Vik, known for its black sand beaches. Along the way, excursions at the Seljalandsfoss and Skogarfoss waterfalls could leave you wide-eyed for hours. Additionally the Solheimajokull glacier is a perfect pit stop for some hiking or ice-climbing. Be sure not to miss one of the numerous horse farms along the drive and become acquainted with the gorgeous and famous Icelandic Horse. An additional 2 hour drive past Vik will take you to Jokulsarlon, a glacier lagoon on the edge of Vatnajokull National Park. Another fantastic day trip from Reykjavik is a drive out to the Snfellsnes Peninsula, a rugged and stark part of Iceland. This is where The Snfellsjokull Volcano resides which is the famous point of exploration in Jules Vern's science fiction novel Journey to the Center of the Earth. The glacial ice cap is surrounded by monstrous cliffs, spiky lava fields and beautiful crashing waves.

(Courtesy of Matur og Drykkur)

Fare From Land + Sea

All of this exploration and sightseeing undoubtedly works up an appetite and Icelandic cuisine does not disappoint. There are a number of local eateries to score a fine meal; Reykjavik is, in fact, a foodie destination with restaurants adding modern spins to traditional fare at places like Islenski Barinn, Matarkjallarinn, Kol Restaurant and Matur og Drykkur. As it is surrounded by the Arctic and North Atlantic Oceans, it offers up a bounty of delicious seafood. Lobster, cod, salmon, haddock, monkfish, and herring are all found nearby and are a true staple anywhere you go in Iceland. Meat eaters shouldn't fret though; there are a lot of sheep here, which means delicious lamb. Sheep generally roam free in Iceland, munching on berries and grass before they are herded in the winter leading to tender, delicious flavors. Most people's favorite lamb-centric meal is the iconic meat soup (kjotsupa). Originally used to make tougher pieces of meat more palatable, the dish now utilizes the finest cuts, is cooked with herbs and vegetables and is generally served with delicious local bread, plus is the perfect thing to warm you up on horribly cold days. Another favorite way lamb is served is smoked, known as hangikjot. This is a very traditional dish usually served with potatoes, peas and red beets. For something a bit healthier, Skyr, which is similar to yogurt even though it's technically a light cheese, is beloved by practically everyone in Iceland.

(Courtesy of Kol Restaurant)

Moving on to more unique and controversial fare, Iceland offers plenty of oddities. Fermented shark, known as hakarl is probably the most disliked item anyone visiting Iceland could try and is described by as Anthony Bourdain as the most disgusting thing he has ever put in his mouth. The dried shark has a very unique odor and is not for the faint of heart. Horses are abundantly found around the island and do end up on some menus, not that the dish itself tastes bad, but serving this animal can cause some moral angst for certain travelers. Similarly to horse, whale is another controversial meat served in Iceland. Mink whale, which is not endangered, is generally preferred, and if it is well prepared usually as a steak, seared or on a kebab, it is flavorful and robust. Finally, Svi is singed and boiled sheep's head and looks a bit grotesque; it is only served in one restaurant in Reykjavik outside of an annual month long winter festival so can easily be avoided.

Iceland is a land of contrasts; rugged and barren landscapes border the adorable yet cosmopolitan town of Reykjavik. The warmth of the people here persists despite harsh and ever-changing weather, and ancient traditions meld with truly modern social and political institutions.

This post was originally published on Rogue Habits.

You Might Also Like:

Top 5 Destinations for Art Lovers

Why I Left a Comfortable Life to Travel the World

PFS - Calcine and Leach Testwork Complete - Strong Results

Sydney, Mar 5, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Cobalt Blue Holdings Limited ( ASX:COB ) announces PFS - calcine and leach testwork has been completed and delivered strong results.- Over 90 kg of concentrate from Thackaringa has been treated in the furnace, producing 70 kg of calcine.- A total of 56 leach tests have been completed on the calcine by ALS Metallurgy Tasmania.- >95% conversion of the pyrite into pyrrhotite reliably achieved.- 96% typical leach extraction of cobalt with optimum conditions now established.- Cobalt Blue - mine to battery strategy - focussed upon cobalt sulphate.- Cobalt sulphate samples produced - commercial meetings to follow.- Thackaringa Resource Upgrade expected to be released shortly.Pre-Feasibility Testwork OverviewThe Thackaringa project is planning to mine ore from three surface deposits. The host rock (silica and feldspars) contains approximately 20% sulphides (mainly pyrite), with cobalt at 800-1000 ppm. This announcement presents the most recent results for processing of the sulphide concentrate to extract cobalt.Diamond drill core samples were collected in late 2016. Approximately 820 kg of the ore, representing Railway Hill and Pyrite Hill deposits, was composited in August 2017, and is being used to test the preferred process for the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS). The grade of the composite used in the testwork is only 607 ppm cobalt, which is lower than the average grade of the resource estimate. The results should therefore be considered as establishing a baseline set of data, with higher grade ore giving better recoveries and lower capital and operating costs compared to the baseline.The PFS test work program is designed to deliver 'reliable and repeatable' results at a scale 10-50 times larger than the tests used in the Scoping Study (July 12 2017), where the 'proof-of-concept' was determined. The results will be used to conducted engineering studies and cost estimates for the PFS.The PFS is examining the processing path shown below:There are four stages to the metallurgical test work (post mining):A. Concentrate: Preparation of a sulphide concentrate from the oreB. Calcine: Calcination (thermal treatment) of the concentrateC. Leaching: Leaching of the calcineD. Product Recovery: purification of leach liquor, followed by crystallisation of cobalt sulphateProcessing - Concentrate - summary of resultsOre was processed by crushing to p100 @ 1.2 mm and passed through a gravity spiral circuit. The tails were screened, with the fines subjected to froth flotation. The gravity and flotation concentrates were combined into a single concentrate. Approximately 144 kg of concentrate was produced from the 820 kg of ore composite, with a recovery of 92% of the cobalt to concentrate.Further work examining finer grind sizing was then conducted. Results indicated that varying the particle size down to 425um permitted 94% recovery of cobalt to concentrate.Processing - Calcine and LeachA total of 90 kg of gravity-float concentrate has been calcined by ALS Metallurgy in Perth, producing approximately 70 kg of calcine. Process conditions have been varied to determine the optimum parameters for selection as design criteria set-point for the PFS engineering design study. Importantly, the target conversion of >95% of the pyrite into pyrrhotite has been repeatedly achieved, with no loss of cobalt to the sulphur collected from the off-gas. Further, the typical removal of sulphur from the head feed has increased from 35% (27 Dec 2017) to 40% in recent tests. Potential equipment vendors are presently involved with the PFS engineering study. Preliminary marketing studies have now commenced for the elemental sulphur product.A total of 56 leach tests have been completed on the calcine by ALS Metallurgy Burnie, systematically varying temperature, liquor composition, solids density, residence time, particle size, and oxygen uptake. The optimum conditions have achieved repeatable cobalt extractions of 95-98% with the average being 96%. The average data from 5 runs (~ 1 kg per test) is shown in link below.Equipment vendor packages for the autoclave are now being prepared as part of the PFS study.The key outcomes to date are:- Calcining the gravity concentrate typically removes ~40% of the sulphur from the pyrite.- Elemental sulphur condensed from the gas phases averaged 97.5% sulphur with 1.5% silica as the main contaminant. Improved engineering design of the off-gas handling is expected to improve the quality of the sulphur in future testwork.- There are no losses of cobalt to the gas phases it the thermal treatment step.- Leaching of the calcine typically achieves cobalt recoveries of 96%.The leach liquors were collected, and have been advanced to the product recovery stages, where cobalt sulphate will be produced. Testwork is ongoing, with the focus being on purifying the solutions to remove iron, copper, zinc, nickel, manganese, and calcium, which would otherwise contaminant the final cobalt sulphate product.Cobalt Blue's PFS Manager, Dr Andrew Tong said:"The PFS testwork has successfully achieved high recoveries of cobalt from ore to leach solution (total recovery of 88% cobalt from ore to leach solution). The key process steps have been validated: concentration, calcining, and leaching. The remaining focus of testwork is to produce high purity cobalt sulphate from the leach liquor. The high recoveries augur well for the economic evaluation of the project, which will be completed in the PFS."PFS - Conceptual Plant DescriptionConceptual schematics of the commercial plant circuits are shown in the following graphics. The aim is to treat 5 MTPA of ore and produce 1 MTPA of concentrate. The concentrate is then thermally treated, with removal of ~ 40% of the sulphur as elemental sulphur. The resulting calcine (~0.8 MTPA) is then treated in the leach circuit to extract cobalt. Cobalt Blue is targeting a total recovery of cobalt from ore to product of ~85-90%.PFS test work - looking forwardOverall COB remains delighted with test work results to date, and is looking forward to completing the program in Q1 2018. Further progress updates on the testwork will be the subject of separate market announcements. COB remains focused on proving up the processing and economics of our unique ore. Our goal is to prove a long life mining operation capable of operating at cobalt cycle troughs.A schedule is shown in link below for the first 820 kg ore sample. The second 500-600 kg sample will be processed during Q1 2018.Thackaringa - Mine to Battery StrategyOur strategy is to produce cobalt sulphate which can be used directly in the manufacture of batteries. High purity cobalt sulphate commands a premium to LME cobalt metal. Cobalt Blue is aiming to develop an integrated mine/refinery model, and generate ~4000 t of contained cobalt per year.Cobalt Sulphate Samples Produced - Commercial Meetings to FollowInitial cobalt sulphate product is being produced (see image in link below) from Thackaringa ore. Following this milestone, and using these samples for customer evaluation, COB management will be meeting with key global battery industry participants during March. Investors can expect updates as they arise.Thackaringa Project Indicative timetableResults to date continue to justify proceeding further along the pathway towards commercial development of the Thackaringa cobalt project. The overall company timeline is shown in link below.The Thackaringa district map below shows the proximity to Broken Hill, the supporting rail and road network, as well as the availability of both power and water utilities to support future production.To view tables and images, please visit:About Cobalt Blue Holdings Limited

Cobalt Blue Holdings Ltd (ASX:COB) is an exploration and project development company focussed on green energy technology. Work programs are advancing to enable an upgrade of the Mineral Resource at the Thackaringa Cobalt Project in New South Wales to include Measured Resources.

Cobalt is a strategic metal in strong demand for new generation batteries, particularly lithium-ion batteries now being widely used in clean energy systems.

Potential to extend the Mineral Resource at Pyrite Hill, Big Hill, Railway and the other prospects is high. Numerous other prospects within COBs tenement package are at an early stage and under-explored.

Cardinal Upgrades Indicated Mineral Resource to 6.5Moz

Perth, Mar 5, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Cardinal Resources Limited ( ASX:CDV ) ( TSE:CDV ) ( OTCMKTS:CRDNF ) ("Cardinal" or "the Company") is pleased to advise that it has completed an update to the Mineral Resource estimate for its Namdini Gold Project ("Namdini") in Ghana, West Africa.As a result of an additional 15,684m of HQ diamond drilling within 35 holes since the last Mineral Resource estimate in September 2017, the infill drilling program has been successful in delivering a substantial conversion of the Inferred category ounces into the Indicated Mineral Resource category which is now at 6.5Moz of Indicated Mineral Resources and 0.5Moz of Inferred Mineral Resources.HIGHLIGHTS- 6.5Moz of gold contained in 180Mt at 1.13g/t Au at a cut-off of 0.5g/t Au within the Indicated Mineral Resource category- 0.5Moz of gold contained in 13Mt at 1.2g/t Au at a cut-off of 0.5g/t Au within the Inferred Mineral Resource category- Remains open along strike and down dip- Maiden Ore Reserve estimate and Pre-Feasibility Study due mid-2018Cardinal's Chief Executive Officer / Managing Director, Archie Koimtsidis stated:"We are extremely pleased that our intensive infill drilling campaign has significantly upgraded our confidence in the Namdini deposit with an overall lift in Indicated Mineral Resources from 4.3Moz to 6.5Moz. Further to this, we are confident that Namdini can continue to grow with more drilling given it remains open both along strike and down dip, with mineralisation intersected down to 650 vertical metres, and still open."This upgrade to the Mineral Resource ismore than a 50% increase in the Indicated category from the estimate published in the September 2017 NI 43-101 technical report and supports a long mine life as demonstrated by the results of the recently announced Preliminary Economic Assessment."With the majority of the Indicated Mineral Resource continuous from surface to an approximate vertical depth of 400m, we anticipate a conversion of Mineral Resources to Ore Reserves within a simple, single, large-scale open pit, with a very low strip ratio of 1.2 to 1 over the life of mine as the preferred mining method."The higher-grade areas of the deposit, close to surface, will be targeted within the Stage 1 pit in the early years of production, as the recent results of our PEA study indicate, this pit will be the area most likely to repay capital investment soonest. The Stage 1 pit will see approximately 400,000oz to 900,000oz produced over three to four years at an average head grade of approximately 1.3 to 1.5 g/t Au based upon the PEA results and the throughput size selected."MINERAL RESOURCE UPGRADEThis Mineral Resource update incorporates the results from the latest infill drilling program which was completed in Q4 2017 totalling approximately 15,684m in 35 drill holes. The primary aim of the drilling program was to infill the deposit within the conceptual pit to focus on converting the remaining Inferred Mineral Resource to the Indicated category. This drill program also incorporated grade control, pit geotechnical, hydrogeology and tailings infrastructure drilling. With all of these programs completed, we will be able to produce an Ore Reserve estimation as part of the Pre-Feasibility study which is currently scheduled to be completed in mid-2018.Table 1 (see link below) highlights the Mineral Resource estimation reported at a series of cut-off grades. Currently the 0.5 g/t Au cut-off grade approximates an operational parameter that the Company believes to be applicable. This is in accordance with the guidelines of Reasonable Prospects for Eventual Economic Extraction ("RPEEE") per the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum "CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves" (CIM, 2014) and the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (the JORC Code 2012). Refer to Sections 1, 2 and 3 of the JORC Code 2012 Edition Table 1 (see link below) criteria in Appendix 1. The effective date of this Mineral Resource estimate is 5 March 2018.All figures in Table 1 (see link below) have been rounded to reflect the relative accuracy of the estimates.MINERAL RESOURCE ESTIMATE PARAMETERSThe following information summarizes key parameters relating to the Mineral Resource estimation:- Geological and structural modelling: Logging, interpretation and modelling were undertaken by Cardinal Resources' technical staff and specialist structural consultants Orefind Pty Ltd, (Davis and Cowan, 2016-2018) updated the three-dimensional model of key lithologies, structures and weathering zones.- Survey Control: A detailed topographic survey was completed using Lidar technology, a remote sensing method used to examine the surface of the Earth. Drill hole collars were surveyed using differential GPS (DGPS), with down hole surveys taken at 30m intervals using electronic multishot and gyroscopic equipment.- Bulk density data: Bulk densities are routinely measured as part of exploration data acquisition protocols. The bulk density database for the Mineral Resource estimate comprised 8,132 measurements. Statistical analysis was undertaken on the bulk density data and a matrix of bulk densities were applied based on lithology and weathering zone. The large majority of the Namdini deposit is fresh rock. Bulk densities vary from 1.80 tonnes per cubic metre (t/m3) for strongly weathered rock to 2.73 t/m3 (for granite) and 2.82-2.83 t/m3 for metavolcanics, diorite and metasediments.- Grade Estimation: MPR Geological Consultants Pty Ltd ("MPR") (QP/CP Mr. Nicolas Johnson) estimated recoverable Mineral Resources for Namdini using Multiple Indicator Kriging ("MIK") with block support adjustment, a method that has been demonstrated to provide reliable estimates of recoverable open pit resources in gold deposits of diverse geological styles. The mineralized domain used for the current study was interpreted by MPR and Cardinal geologists on the basis of two metre down-hole composited gold grades and captures zones of continuous mineralization with composite grades of greater than nominally 0.1g/t Au. The domain trends north-northeast over 1.2km and dips approximately 60o to the west with an average horizontal width of approximately 350 m. The Mineral Resource can reasonably be expected to provide appropriately reliable estimates of potential mining outcomes at the assumed selectivity, without application of additional mining dilution or mining recovery factors. Validation of the MIK model was undertaken visually, statistically and comparatively, with an alternate Ordinary Kriged model estimate (OK). All checks were found to be within estimation accuracy.The Mineral Resource classification also considered the quality of the data collected (geology, survey and assaying data), the density of data, the confidence in the geological models and mineralization model and grade estimation quality.- Variance Adjustment: MPR's resource estimates include a variance adjustment to give estimates of recoverable resources at various gold cut off grades. The variance adjustments were applied using the direct lognormal method. The variance adjustment factors reflect comparatively large scale, open pit mining consistent with Cardinal's perception of potential mining scenarios. The variance adjustment factors were estimated from the variogram model for gold grades assuming mining selectivity of 5m by 10m by 2.5m (across strike, strike, vertical) with high quality grade control sampling on an 8 by 12 by 1.25m pattern.Figure 1 in link below, is a perspective view of the mineralization wireframe constructed to encapsulate the data used for the block model generation. The conceptual Starter and Life of Mine pits from the recent Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") results, are displayed.Figure 2 in link below, shows the distribution of Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources through a longitudinal slice of the block model.Figure 3 in link below, shows the grade distribution and continuity through a longitudinal slice of the block model. The higher-grade areas towards the northern part of the resource, close to surface, will be targeted in the early years of production within the starter pit.Figure 4 in link below, shows the distribution of Indicated and Inferred resources through a typical crosssectional slice of the block model.Figure 5 in link below, shows the grade distribution and continuity through a cross sectional slice of the block model.The Mineral Resource is prepared in accordance with both the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum "CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves" (CIM, 2014) and the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (the JORC Code 2012). Refer to Sections 1, 2 and 3 of the JORC Code 2012 Edition Table 1 (see link below) criteria in Appendix 1 (see link below).A technical report in support of the mineral resource estimate described herein and prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 will be filed on SEDAR www.sedar.com within 45 days from the date hereof.To view tables and figures, please visit:About Cardinal Resources Ltd

Cardinal Resources Ltd (ASX:CDV) (TSE:CDV) (OTCMKTS:CRDNF) is a West African gold exploration and development Company that holds interests in tenements within Ghana, West Africa.

The Company is focused on the development of the Namdini Project with a gold Ore Reserve of 5.1Moz (0.4 Moz Proved and 4.7 Moz Probable) and a soon to be completed Feasibility Study.

Exploration programmes are also underway at the Company's Bolgatanga (Northern Ghana) and Subranum (Southern Ghana) Projects.

Cardinal confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information included in its announcement of the Ore Reserve of 3 April 2019. All material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning this estimate continue to apply and have not materially changed.March 5, 2018



Does Virginia Heffernan Only Wear Clothes Made Out Of Hemp Grown By The Hippie Neighbors?

I will preface this for anyone who is not a regular here by saying I am not a Trump fan -- to say the least.

What I'm also not a fan of is writers who can't make publishable points on a subject sans flagrant hypocrisy. Also, a thoughtful exploration of what we believe to be true -- to see whether it actually, you know, is would be nice.

Virginia Heffernan has an op-ed in the LA Times, "Ivanka Trump: Born to legitimize corruption and make the shoddy look cute":

The enabler sector now boasts several household names. Among them are the lobbyist and onetime Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who has been indicted for financial crimes; and Trump's favorite child, Ivanka, who holds an indeterminate public-facing position in the White House -- or in real estate, or maybe fashion. Oh, Ivanka. Her livelihood is as opaque as her full-coverage foundation, but she plays a critical role in her father's administration -- and in the broader danse macabre of corruption and legitimacy. The so-called first daughter proves that "laundering" applies to more than money. She washes and gilds just about everything she touches. Consider her warehouses upon warehouses of petroleum-based separates, many of them sewn for poverty pay in sweatshops. When you call this schmatte smorgasboard the Ivanka Trump Collection it does brisk business -- if not on Rodeo Drive, then in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Here are a bunch of pix of Heffernan, who, from the looks of it, is no stranger to clothes sewn in sweatshops for "poverty pay."

This blouse she's wearing in a shot in the Berkshire Eagle looks suspiciously petroleum-based.

This top looks very stretch polyester. Do we think it was ILGWU made? Could be. I'd guess -- and I think it's fair to guess -- it's maybe a Zara or something: probably made in some factory overseas. Does Virginia check the factory to make sure the workers get ample pay and adequately long lunch breaks?

The reality of those "sweat shop" jobs is like the reality of those nail salon jobs well-meaning progressives killed in New York City. Here's John Tierney in The New York Times:

Most "sweatshop" jobs -- even ones paying just $2 per day -- provide enough to lift a worker above the poverty level, and often far above it, according to a study of 10 Asian and Latin American countries by Benjamin Powell and David Skarbek. In Honduras, the economists note, the average apparel worker makes $13 a day, while nearly half the population makes less than $2 a day. ... If you're committed to Bono's vision of "making poverty history," shouldn't you take a less parochial view? Shouldn't you be more worried about villagers overseas subsisting on a dollar a day? Some of them prefer to keep farming or to run small local businesses, and they're lucky to get loans from the Grameen Bank and its many emulators. But other villagers would prefer to make more money by working in a factory. If you want to help them, remember the new social justice slogan proposed by Strong: "Act locally, think globally: Shop Wal-Mart."

*Note: Is this about the cannabis or the audacity of trying something other than pharma's Risperdal for autism?



###



Texas judge weighs whether father who treated autistic daughter with marijuana is fit to be her guardian



Christy Zartler had practiced what to say, yet she was still nervous on the witness stand. She and her husband had always done what they believed was right for their autistic daughter, Kara. But now, the judge could decide they were criminals, or at least her husband was, and not allow him to be Kara's guardian.

Christy leaned forward, her glasses perched atop blonde bangs, as she listened to her attorney's questions. She glanced at Kara, her 98-pound 18-year-old, seated in a wheelchair by her own attorney in the courtroom in downtown Dallas.Assyrians Commemorate 100th Anniversary of Patriarch's Assassination

His Holiness Benjamin Shimun XXI (1887-1918), Patriarch of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of East. ( AINA) (AINA) -- On March 3* Assyrian around the world commemorated the 100th anniversary of the martyrdom of Mar Benjamin Shimun XXI, Patriarch of the Church of East. Mar Shimun was assassinated on March 3rd, 1918 by Ismail Simko, a Kurdish warlord. The Patriarch had accepted Simko's invitation and had gone to his residence in Kohnashaher (Persia) to negotiate for peace. According to historical sources, the Patriarch was accompanied by his military leaders, advisors and four Russian officers [1]; all were killed. The assassination unleashed punitive action by Assyrian troops who attacked Simko's residence, but he managed to escape with his men to Khoi, where they took part in a massacre against Assyrians [2].

When the First Word War began in 1914, Turkey joined Germany and Austria against Britain, France and Russia. Jihad was declared against the Christian population living in the Ottoman Empire -- the Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks. The majority of the Kurds, who are Muslims, followed the call to Jihad, accepted conscription and served in the Ottoman armed forces. In addition, from the outset of the war, the Young Turks leadership created the Special Organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa) units by enrolling criminals released from prison and providing them explosives, rifles and other military equipment. These paramilitary groups, led mostly by Kurdish chieftains, were mostly responsible for the murder of the Assyrian, Greek and Armenian populations in the Eastern provinces of the Ottoman state. The pogrom was systematic and planned by Turkey and has been recognized by prominant scholars and by a number of national parliaments as the first genocide of the 20th century.

His Holiness Benjamin Shimun XXI (1887-1918), Patriarch of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of East. ( AINA)

Mar Benyamin Shimun was born in 1887 in Qudshanis, Turkey. His father's name was Eshai, a member of the Patriarchal family, and his mother's name was Asyat, the daughter of Qambar of Eill. He was consecrated to the rank of Metropolitan on March 1, 1903 by Patriarch Mar Rueil Shimun (1861--1903). Two weeks later Patriarch Rueil passed away, and by a unanimous decision taken by the Church hierarchy Mar Benyamin was consecrated as the Catholicos Patriarch of the Church on March 30, 1903, by His Beatitude Mar Ishaq Khnaneeshoo, Metropolitan of Rustaga, Shamisdin. The ceremony took place at the Church of Mar Shaleeta, an ancient Cathedral Church built in 1689 during the Patriarchate of Mar Shimun Dinkha, Catholicos Patriarch of the East [3].

Unlike other Patriarchs of oriental Christian Churches, Patriarch Mar Benjamin Shimun XXI served as the temporal leader of the Eastern Assyrians and played an important role as the supreme arbiter over the social and tribal structure of the Eastern Assyrians [4], in which maliks (chieftains), as the head of each tribe, played an important role. While attentive to their general interests, he maintained religious authority. The Patriarch was a hindrance to the strategy of Talaat Pasha, the Turkish Minister of Interior and later Grand Vizir, who not only wanted to deport the Assyrians from the Hakkari region, but sought eliminate them physically and destroy their identity. The Assyrians in the Hakkari and Urmia region were also seen as an obstacle to an emerging nationalist pan-Kurdish agenda as well.

The willingness and active role of the Kurds in the Assyrian genocide and the assasination of the Patriarch has fueled tensions and mistrust between Assyrians and Kurds to this day. The position of most Assyrian organizations, that Kurdish leaders are generally untrustworthy, stems from the Kurds honoring Ismail Simko as national hero, with complete disregard of his involvement in the treacherous murder of the Assyrian Patriarch in 1918. Even before the assassination Simko was, during World War I, involved in the persecution of Eastern Assyrians in the Urmi, Iran region. According to O'Shea 1,000 Christians were killed in Salmas, in a massacre instigated by Simko [5].

This lack of self-reproach by the Kurds was again evident in Autumn 2013, when Kurdish authorities of the city of Erbil in northern Iraq named a street after Simko Shikak. While there were some Kurdish critics of this action, it is clear that the majority of them choose not to confront the seamy aspects of their own history, even as they sought acceptance as democratic members of the global community. Kurds confronting honestly their own history would be an important step in establishing trust in order for the Assyrians to continue live with the Kurds side-by-side in Turkey, Iraq and Syria of today, and collaborate on building secular societies based on mutual respect, democracy and human rights.

A street in Kurdish north Iraq named after Simko, the Kurdish warlord who assassinated the Assyrian Patriarch in 1918.

Taner Akcam, professor of history at Clark University and a renowned Turkish genocide scholar, gives three reasons in particular why facing history is important. First, "to respect the victims, to accept their dignity and even contribute to end their trauma." Second, "to enable reconciliation in a society, which values the democracy and human rights. A society that cannot face its own history cannot claim to establish democracy." Third, relating to the second aspect; "if you want to state "never again", it can only be possible, if society faces its own history. If a society does not acknowledge its wrongdoing, there is a potential danger that it will repeat it."

Notes:

[1] Yonan, Gabriele. Assyrians Today, Society for Endangered People, Gotingen, 1978, p. 35

[2] Joseph, John. The Modern Assyrians of the Middle East: Encounters With Western Christian Missions, Archaeologists, and Colonial Power, Brill, 2000. p. 147

[3] Solhkhah, Norman (Ed.). The Assyrian Martyr -- Mar Benjamin Shimun Patriarch of The Church of the East, Center for the Assyrian Genocide Studies, Chicago, IL, 2008

[4] Yacoub, Joseph. Year of the Sword -- The Assyrian Christian Genocide. A History. Hurst & Company, London, 2017, p.162

[5] O'Shea, Maria T. Trapped Between the Map and Reality: Geography and Perceptions of Kurdistan, Routledge, 2004. p. 100

* The date is given in the Julian Calendar. In the Gregorian Calendar the anniversary would be on March 16.Assyrian Archaeological Site in North Iraq Looted

Halamat cave is believed to date back some 2700 years. Assyrian reliefs have been carved into the mountainside. ( Rudaw) DUHOK, North Iraq -- Thieves have stolen pieces from a nearly 3,000-year-old archeological site in Duhok. Halamat cave is located on Mount Zawa, south of Duhok city. The site is not easily accessible. Last week, unknown persons reached the cave in a Humvee and stole some of the pieces from the cave. "On February 25, one of our guards informed us that some people had damaged the archeological items in Halamat cave. Later, a team visited the site and prepared a report on this issue. It was revealed later that some people had taken part in stealing the archeological items of the cave. The archeological piece stolen is called Sanharib," Nivin Mohammed, head of legal affairs for Duhok's archeology directorate, told Rudaw. No persons have been arrested yet, but an investigation is ongoing. Ten people were arrested last year for theft of artifacts, Mohammed said. This is the latest in a string of thefts or attempted robberies of Duhok's rich history. Kovan Ihsan, an investigator and archeologist at Duhok's archeology directorate, explained, "Since 2014, there have been efforts to steal and damage 212 archeological sites in Duhok. The latest was the archeological site at Mount Zawa." The Kurdistan Region saw a spike in this kind of theft after ISIS took control of large areas in northern Iraq in 2014. The terror group reportedly sold valuable artifacts as well as destroying many sites. "There are constant attempts to take Mosul's archeological pieces abroad via Ibrahim Khalil gate. This has paved the way for people from Duhok and some IDPs to steal archeological pieces," Mohammed said. Halamat cave is believed to date back some 2700 years. Assyrian reliefs have been carved into the mountainside. According to statistics produced by Duhok's archeology directorate, there are 456 archeological sites in the province. There are also 4,000 artifacts preserved in Duhok museum. "The sentence for people trading in archeological pieces or damaging archeological sites is three months to six years. But if those doing this are employees of the archeology sites, they get double this sentence," explained Judge Sidqi Saleem Khan, an investigator in a Duhok court. "Those who have so far been tried at Duhok court are mostly Kurdish. Some of them were Arab IDPs," he added.The South African Competition Commission has rejected the proposed purchase of Safair by South Africa (SA) Airlink over competition concerns.

The Competition Commission said that it felt the merger of the two airlines would result in the removal of an effective competitor to SA Airlink on routes that it currently operates on.

Safair offers competitive prices and has been growing in the market both in terms of its existing routes, as well as recently entering new routes, the regulator said.

Safair is also a potential competitor of SA Airlink in those routes which it has not yet entered and is likely to pose a competitive constraint on SA Airlink bearing in mind its currently competitive pricing on competing and non-competing routes.

The Commission found that there are significant price differences between Safair and SA Airlink and that if the merger were to be approved, there is a likelihood of significant price increases.

The two airlines said they were disappointed with the decision and said they would continue to pursue a deal.

We will approach the Competition Tribunal for an opportunity to address and allay the Competition Commissions concerns (most of which relate to airline operational technical matters) and for the Tribunal to reconsider our application, the companies said.

We will not elaborate on these now as we do not wish to prejudice our case before the Tribunal.

We firmly believe the proposed transaction will be beneficial, not only for the two companies, but for their customers, employees, suppliers, the local and regional air transport markets as well as the broader South African economy.

The proposed deal would have seen SA Airlink purchase Safair. Meanwhile, Safair parent, ASL Aviation Holdings, would have taken a minority stake in SA Airlink.

The Airlink and Safair brands would have continued to operate separately, with their respective fleets, products and management teams and there would have been no job losses, teh airlines said at the time.

Safairs humanitarian operations for the United Nations and International Red Cross would have continued with its fleet of civilian Hercules and B737 Combi aircraft. It also operates a low-cost passenger airline.

Airlink is primarily known for its passenger operation but does also offer cargo services to more than 37 destinations across southern Africa.

Read more freighter operator news

Share this story



Panalpina expects Asias growing middle class and digital natives to drive the development of perishable demand in the coming years.

Speaking at Fruit Logistica 2018, Panalpina global head of perishables Colin Wells said that the perishables industry was undergoing massive change in terms of trade flows and buying behaviour.

Wells said the worlds appetite for fresh products is growing, owing to constantly changing consumer behaviour in Western countries and rising incomes and increasing populations, specifically in Asia-Pacific.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) estimates that today, China and India account for about 15% of global middle class consumption. By 2050, the organisation expects the two countries to account for more than 50%.

To a great extent, Asia Pacifics growing appetite for fresh products will be fed by Africa as well as South and Central America. Exports from South Africa and Kenya to China in particular are expected to go up, explained Wells.

In addition, new markets will develop to compensate for the loss of traditional supply into Western markets, for example Uganda.

Another global trend that will shape the perishables industry is the changing demographics of customers

From 2020 onwards, digital natives are going to be the most important consumer group in many countries, for example in the UK, Wells said. This will change the way consumers and businesses purchase perishables, with speed of delivery becoming increasingly important.

Panalpina estimates that by 2020, 20-30% of all B2B purchases including perishables will be made through e-commerce.

They grew up in an app-based environment and have lived their lives online, most do not even remember the times without the internet, Wells said.

A new breed of B2B buyer is emerging and they expect a more consumer-like experience. They will have a major influence on how we purchase things, including perishables.

New models for the final mile will have to be found to meet the expectations of the consumers. I also expect new virtual retailers  companies we have not even heard about yet  to emerge over the next few years.

The challenges we are facing are common to all irrespective of size. We should use the pharma supply chain as a benchmark to set high quality standards and share customer expectations across the complete supply chain. Knowledge sharing is the recipe for success in tomorrows perishables industry.

Wells added that the industry was currently facing a shortage of airfreight capacity from Africa.

Recent airfreight demand growth has outpaced capacity, putting pressure on low-yield cargo such as perishables, he said.

Airlines are deploying their aircraft on trade lanes where they can expect the highest yields, and typically that is not out of Africa.

Read more perishables logistics news

Share this story



Former Sikorsky Aerospace Services president David Adler is the new president of BrightWater Aviation Capital.

Adler, who retired in 2015 from Sikorsky, will head the new entity that joins Arista Aviation Services of Enterprise with R&B Machine of Upland, Calif.

According to a news release, BrightWater Aviation Capital will focus on the "sales, lease and sustainment of military and commercial aircraft."

While at Sikorsky, Adler presided over the company's aftermarket business for military and commercial customers around the world. He previously served as president of Helicopter Support Inc. In 2008, he formed Sikorsky Aerospace Service (SAS), which grew into a $2.5 billion global business focused on helicopters and fixed wing aircraft.

BrightWater Partners works in providing principal investing, transaction advisory and capital raising services to companies in the special manufacturing, aerospace/defense and specialty distribution market segments.

In a statement, BrightWater principals Mark Williams and David Sosa said they were "pleased David has joined Brightwater Aviation Capital."

"His relentless focus on customer service, delivery performance and innovative thinking, will result in a global presence capable of offering a full portfolio of products and services to the aerospace industry," the statement said.Employers are struggling to hire workers in tightening U.S. job market. Marijuana is now legal in nine states and Washington, D.C., meaning more than one in five American adults can eat, drink, smoke or vape as they please. The result is the slow decline of pre-employment drug tests, which for decades had been a requirement for new recruits in industries ranging from manufacturing to finance.

As of the beginning of 2018, Excellence Health Inc., a Las Vegas-based health care company with around 6,000 employees, no longer drug tests people coming to work for the pharmaceutical side of the business. The company stopped testing for marijuana two years ago. "We don't care what people do in their free time," said Liam Meyer, a company spokesperson. "We want to help these people, instead of saying: 'Hey, you can't work for us because you used a substance,'" he added. The company also added a hotline for any workers who might be struggling with drug use.

Last month, AutoNation Inc., the largest U.S. auto dealer, announced it would no longer refuse job applicants who tested positive for weed. The Denver Post, owned by Digital First Media, ended pre-employment drug testing for all non-safety sensitive positions in September 2016.

So far, companies in states that have legalized either recreational or medicinal marijuana are leading the way on dropping drug tests. A survey last year by the Mountain States Employers Council of 609 Colorado employers found that the share of companies testing for marijuana use fell to 66 percent, down from 77 percent the year before.

Drug testing restricts the job pool, and in the current tight labor market, that's having an impact on productivity and growth. In surveys done by the Federal Reserve last year, employers cited an inability by applicants to pass drug tests among reasons for difficulties in hiring. Failed tests reached an all-time high in 2017, according to data from Quest Diagnostics Inc. That's likely to get worse as more people partake in state-legalized cannabis.

"The benefits of at least reconsidering the drug policy on behalf of an employer would be pretty high," said Jeremy Kidd, a professor at Mercer Law School, who wrote a paper on the economics of workplace drug testing. "A blanket prohibition can't possibly be the most economically efficient policy."

Companies are having a hard enough time hiring, with unemployment hovering around 4 percent. "Employers are really strapped and saying 'We're going to forgive certain things,'" said James Reidy, a lawyer that works with employers on their human resources policies. Reidy knows of a half-dozen other large employers that have quietly changed their policies in recent years. Not all companies want to advertise the change, fearing it might imply they are soft on drugs. (Even former FBI director James Comey in 2014 half-joked about the need for the bureau to re-evaluate its drug-testing policy to attract the best candidates.)

Why the change? Pre-employment testing is no longer worth the expense in a society increasingly accepting of drug use. A Gallup poll in October found that 64 percent of Americans favor legalization. That's the most since the company first started asking the question in 1969, when only 12 percent supported changing the plant's status. Drug tests costs from $30 to $50 a pop, but the potential costs to an employer are far greater than the actual test.

In addition to helping ease the labor market, eliminating drug testing could have even broader benefits for the economy, said Kidd. Employers could hire the best, theoretically most-productive workers, he said, instead of rejecting people based on their recreational habits. Companies have said they lose out to foreign competitors because they can't find people who can pass drugs tests, a particularly acute problem in the areas most affected by the opioid crisis.

Some jobs, such as those involving the use of heavy machinery, will always require drug tests. Excellence Health still drug-tests any employee working on a government contract, even in states where weed is legal. Companies are also reserving the right to test after an accident or if an employee comes to work notably impaired.

Not all companies are ready to change course. Restaurant Brands International Inc., which owns Burger King, hasn't altered its corporate marijuana policy, said Chief Executive Officer Daniel Schwartz. Ford Motor Co. still treats pot as an illegal substance, according to a company spokeswoman.

Weed-averse employers have a notable ally: Attorney General Jeff Sessions. A longtime opponent of legalization, Sessions rescinded in January the Obama-era policies that enabled state-legalized cannabis industries to flourish. The uncertainty caused by the Justice Department's actions may discourage companies from making changes.

Employers can also get discounts on workers' compensation insurance for maintaining a "drug-free workplace" by, in part, drug-testing workers. But the types of workplaces forgoing pre-employment tests already enjoy relatively small savings. A job in an office setting, for example, won't have very many workers' compensation claims, compared to a factory. The money saved by meeting the qualifications for a drug-free zone isn't worth it.

"We assume that a certain level of employees are going to be partaking on the weekends," said Reidy, the employment lawyer. "We don't care. We're going to exclude a whole group of people, and we desperately need workers."Revered evangelist Billy Graham was laid to rest on Friday. Among the musical selections, a gospel song written by an Alabama musician was chosen for the ceremony.

According to Christian Today International, Graham handpicked six songs for the arrangements of his funeral. In that list, Graham chose "Above All" by Lenny LeBlanc, from his 1999 album of the same name.

LeBlanc is a Florence resident, well known as a session musician and as one-half of the '70s rock duo LeBlanc and Carr.

The two had a Billboard Hit in 1977 with their song "Falling".

The band moved from Florida to Florence in 1973, LeBlanc told The Times Daily in a 2017 interview. In the 1980s, he chose to walk away from secular music, focusing instead on gospel songwriting.

Graham's funeral was held in Charlotte, North Carolina, with 2,000 invited attendees. Christian Today International wrote a full review of the music performed.It's been 62 days since a 24-year-old mother of three vanished and family members are desperate to find her.

Jessica Lee Ann Hamby was last seen on Jan. 2, 2018. Her father, Keith Hamby, said his daughter and another young woman were in a detox center in Haleyville when they had a disagreement with someone there and left of their own free will.

The other young woman dropped Jessica Hamby off at a house and then returned to her hometown of Cullman. No one has seen or heard from Jessica Hamby since then.

"A week went by and usually she would contact her mom every three or four days. We were getting worried, but we weren't panicked. Then two weeks went by, and panic started setting in,'' Keith Hamby said. "Now, 62 days later, the state has stepped in. Before that, we went 58 days with no help from anybody outside of Kenny Hallmark, the Hackleburg police chief."

Jessica Hamby is the mother of three children - ages 9, 5 and 4. The children live with Keith Hamby and his wife in Russellville. She has struggled with drug addiction for several years, her father said.

"Up until she got addicted, she was a really good mom and she still spent time with them, but they were staying with me until we could get her straightened out,'' Keith Hamby said.

Jessica Hamby, on her own, had gone several months drug free but then she slipped up, her father said. "Because she slipped up, she knew she was going to need help,'' and that's when she voluntarily checked in to a detox center.

Keith Hamby said he wants people to know that just because his daughter struggled with substance abuse, that doesn't lessen the impact of her disappearance. "A lot of time when people hear that drugs or an addict is involved, it kind of turns them off,'' he said. "What I want people to know is that Jessica is a person, she has people that love her and, most importantly, her babies want to know where mommy is."

"She is a very sweet-spirited, kind person,'' Keith Hamby said. "I want to bring her home."

Late last week, the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency and the 25th Judicial Circuit District Attorney's Office got involved in the case and are asking for the public's help, saying a multi-agency investigation has been launched. "We've got information, credible information,'' Keith Hamby said. "They are following all leads and searching in different locations."

The family is hoping for the best but trying to be prepared for the worst as well. "My best hope is that she is alive somewhere, but I'm realistic about the situation,'' he said. "We know the chances of that are probably slim, but we're hoping. We just want her back, one way or another. We'll let God handle the rest."

Jessica Hamby is 5-feet, 2-inches tall and weighs 125 pounds. She has brown hair and hazel eyes. She has a "Bodiqua" tattoo on her right wrist, and a "Forever" tattoo on her left hand.

Anyone with information on her whereabouts or her disappearance is asked to call the State Bureau of Investigation at 256-436-1344 or the Marion County District Attorney's Office at 205-921-7403.A 22-year-old man under arrest in stabbing that took place outside a Tuscaloosa bar was involved in a strikingly similar case two years ago, but that fight ended in death.

The parents of the young man killed in Lubbock in 2016 say they are shocked that it has happened again, and news of John Henry Allen's arrest has brought renewed grief, as well as concern.

The Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit last week said Allen, a Tuscaloosa native, was arrested after an altercation early Sunday morning. Tuscaloosa police responded at 12:35 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 25, to 2326 Fourth Street on a report of an assault.

Once on the scene, they learned a 26-year-old man had been involved in a physical altercation with Allen behind that location. During the fight, said Capt. Gary Hood, the victim realized he had been cut by the suspect, stopped fighting and went for help.

He was taken to DCH Regional Medical Center where he was treated for multiple cuts. The victim's injuries were non-life threatening.

Hood said Allen had left the scene and then was involved in a traffic accident in Northport. Allen fled the scene of the accident and was found at his home a short time later. He was taken to Northport DCH where he was treated for an injury to his hand he sustained during the fight.

Allen is charged with second-degree assault. He was booked into the Tuscaloosa County Jail, and has since been released after posting $15,000 bond. His attorney didn't immediately return a call for comment.

Allen was arrested in January 2016 in the death of 20-year-old Zachary Kafer. Lubbock police responded about 1:38 a.m. to University Medical Center where Kafer was taken by friends after suffering multiple stab wounds, according to the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal. Kafer died from his injuries shortly after.

Zachary Kafer

Lubbock police arrested Allen at his apartment where he admitted to stabbing Kafer in self-defense. He said he and another man were heading to his vehicle after withdrawing money from an ATM near the bar when Kafer approached them and began an argument. Allen said he didn't know why Kafer argued with him but said Kafer followed them as they entered his vehicle, according to the publication.

Allen said Kafer punched him while he sat in the driver's seat and the window was open. Allen reportedly told police he grabbed his pocketknife and stabbed Kafer with it multiple times before driving off.

Allen told police he went home, cleaned Kafer's blood from his knife and went to sleep.

The Lubbock County District Attorney's Office said a grand jury declined to indict Allen in the homicide.

John Henry Allen

Kafer's parents, Dave and Teresa, said Allen's arrest rekindled emotions about their son's death. "I can tell you losing a son in the prime of his life is something changes your life forever,'' Dave Kafer said. "While our son wasn't an angel, he was a bright young man with a promising future and no history of fight or violence."

Kafer was in his third year at Texas Tech, where he was majoring in civil engineering and had a 3.0 GPA. He had just returned to school from Christmas break when he was killed. "The grieving of such loss never ends,'' he said.

Dave Kafer said the initial argument in his son's case began on the street outside a bar and Allen eventually got into his car. "My son can be seen on close circuit video reaching through the car window,'' he said.

"I'm struck by the comments of the victim in Tuscaloosa say that during the fight he was surprised to find he was being stabbed by John Henry Allen,'' Dave Kafer said. "The other boys with my son that night said my son expressed the same surprise when he stepped back from the car and exclaimed, 'I've been stabbed,' seeming shocked at the unexpected escalation of the confrontation. Neither my son nor his friends had weapons and had John Henry Allen been fearful, it is clear from the video he could have easily driven away."

The Kafers said they are stunned at the similarities. "An altercation takes place outside a bar, escalating into a fight where John Henry Allen pulls a knife and stabs the victim,'' he said. "John Henry Allen flees the scene, gets arrested at his home/apartment by the police and from what I understand has posted bail and hired a very expensive lawyer, all of which took place in Lubbock."

"While I don't know the circumstances of what took place outside the bar in Tuscaloosa, our second reaction would be concern that with his expensive lawyer, John Henry Allen will claim self-defense and be released,'' he said. "This has definitely renewed the emotions of the loss of our son and reinforced the fact that John Henry Allen didn't face any significant consequences for his actions in Lubbock. We just hope and pray that this time it is different and that he is incarcerated before he seriously hurts or kills someone else."A Cordova man is behind bars, accused of attacking a Jefferson County Sheriff's Office tracking dog who had successfully hunted him down.

Sheriff's officials on Monday identified the suspect as Zachary Hunt. He is 26.

Just after 5 p.m. on March 1, deputies responded to a call for assistance from an Adamsville police officer, said Chief Deputy Randy Christian. An officer had conducted a traffic stop on Highway 78 near Walmart in Adamsville.

The driver - now identified as Hunt - was found to have several outstanding warrants for his arrest, Christian said. When the officer tried to arrest him, he fought the officer and then fled on foot into a nearby wooded area.

Sheriff's deputies, including a K9, responded to help in locating and arrest Hunt. The K9 tracked Hunt into the woods and located him. When the dog found him, Christian said, Hunt began to kick and punch the dog. The K9 held his ground and Hunt was taken into custody.

Hunt was treated and released from a local hospital for minor injuries sustained while fighting with the K9. He was taken to the Jefferson County Jail where is held with no bond on charge of failure to appear in court on charges of receiving stolen property, possession of a short-barreled rifle, unlawful possession of marijuana, and unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia.

He now faces new charges of resisting arrest, attempting to elude, and interference with a police animal.

Authorities said it wasn't a smart move on Hunt's part. "You don't tug on Superman's cape and you don't dare raise a hand to a dog, most especially our dog,'' Christian said. "That's not acceptable."A shooting Sunday near the Alabama-Florida line resulted in a multi-agency manhunt that ended with the rapid arrest of an Alabama man in Florida.

Phillip George Parker, 24, was arrested by the Walton County Sheriff's Office after being notified shortly after noon of a fatal shooting at the Huddle House restaurant in Florala. The restaurant is near the Alabama-Florida line; according to information released Monday by the WCSO, Parker had been quickly identified as a suspect.

Multiple agencies were involved in the search for Parker, according to the WCSO, including the Covington County Sheriff's Office, the Alabama Bureau of Investigations and the Opp Police Department. Intially, authorities believed Parker was traveling south toward I-10 on U.S. 331. However, the WCSO got a tip saying he was farther to the west, traveling north on Florida 85, a road stretch of road that runs from Crestview, Fla., east of Pensacola northward to Florala.

As Florida 85 nears the state line and Florala, it crosses from Okaloosa County, Fla., to Walton County, Fla. Walton County Deputies made a traffic stop at the county line and took Parker into custody.

Parker will face murder charges in Alabama. The victim has been identified as Tekevious Darnell Best.A nonpartisan campaign watchdog group filed a complaint Monday against a pro-Doug Jones super PAC for failing to disclose its donors before the special election.

The Campaign Legal Center is accusing the Highway 31 super PAC of engaging in a "secrecy scheme to spend $4.2 million in the race" to aid Jones, a spokesman for the center told AL.com.

Highway 31's sole report to the Federal Election Commission before the election said it spent $1.15 million but raised no money. The group, headquarted in Birmingham, claimed its vendors lent them the money on credit.

Two weeks after the Dec. 12 special election between Jones and Republican Roy Moore, Senate Majority PAC -- a Democratic super PAC based in D.C. -- told the Associated Press that it was Highway 31's main backer.

The Campaign Legal Center's complaint to the FEC accuses Highway 31 of not diclosing that fact and misrepresenting its donors.

"Democrats talk the talk about supporting transparency in political money, but then national Democratic groups push aggressive new legal theories to undermine the transparency laws that are on the books," said Brendan Fischer, director, federal and FEC reform at the center. "Despite laws requiring that super PACs disclose their donors, Alabama voters went to the polls on election day without knowing who was backing Highway 31. This secrecy scheme cooked up by Highway 31 and its backers threatens to create a new disclosure loophole that will be exploited by billionaires and operatives supporting both parties, unless the FEC does its job and enforces our disclosure laws."A rally is planned for tomorrow to support the establishment of a holiday to honor late civil rights leader Rosa Parks.

The rally will be held at the Alabama State Capitol Auditorium at 10:30 a.m. State legislators Rep. Laura Hall and Sen. Vivian Figures have sponsored bills in both chambers that would designate Dec. 1 as Rosa Parks Day.

Hall and Figures will speak at the event, along with Dr. Quinton Ross, president of Alabama State University; Bishop Harry Seawright, Presiding Bishop, 9th District AME Church; Dr. Jack Hawkins, Jr., Chancellor Troy University; and Wayne Reynolds, Chairman, Global Institute for Freedom and Justice.

If passed, Alabama would become one of only five states with a day to honor Parks. She would be the first woman in Alabama honored with a holiday.

Parks was arrested on Dec. 1, 1955 after refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery city bus. Her refusal touched off the Montgomery Bus Boycott, a seminal event in the civil rights movement.

Parks, who received the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal during her lifetime, died in 2005.

Currently, California and Missouri celebrate Rosa Parks Day on her birthday, Feb. 4. Ohio and Oregon celebrate a holiday in Parks' honor on Dec. 1, the date she was arrested.Deborah Gibson, one of the women who said failed Senate candidate Roy Moore pursued her romantically as a teenager, has signaled her intention to run for the Florida Legislature.

Gibson said she will seek the 89th District Seat in the Florida House as a Democrat. The seat is currently held by Republican Bill Hager.

"Coming off the sidelines for the first time politically seems a natural response to realizing that too many of us, particularly women, have felt that some special mysterious qualification was needed to participate in our democratic process as a candidate," Gibson said in a statement posted to fundraising site CrowdPac.

"The past 5 months have crystallized what's been coming to me for a decade more gradually-- the Republican Party is no longer the right fit for me; I am proudly running as a Democrat."

Gibson was one of women who said she was pursued romantically by the former Alabama chief justice when he was in his 30s and she was a teenager in Alabama. The dating relationship between the two reportedly began when Moore, then with the Etowah County District Attorney's Office, spoke at Wesson's high school. Wesson did not accuse Moore of molesting her, saying their relationship consisted only of consensual kissing.

Other women, however, said Moore sexually abused them as young women. One of the women, Leigh Corfman, has filed a defamation suit against Moore, claiming he and his campaign defamed her by calling her a liar and immoral.

Moore, who lost to Democrat Doug Jones in the December 2017 Senate election, denies the allegations.

Gibson, who lives in Delray Beach, Florida, was formerly a registered Republican. An Auburn University graduate, she is the founder of a company that provides sign language interpretation services.

Candidate qualifying in Florida opens June 18 with the primary on Aug. 28 and general election Nov. 6.Attorney General Steve Marshall raised $219,000 in February, leading all candidates for the office with $956,000 raised overall in his bid for a full term this year.

Marshall's biggest contribution in February was $125,000 from the Republican Attorneys General Association RAGA Action Fund of Washington. Marshall is a Republican.

Friday was the deadline for candidates to file their monthly finance reports leading up to the June 5 primary with the secretary of state.

Other large contributions for Marshall included $50,000 from Alabama investment firm CEO Raymond Harbert of Birmingham. Marshall also received $5,000 from the Birmingham law firm Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, LLC Pact.

Marshall has spent $383,000 leaving a balance of $588,000.

Republican former Attorney General Troy King was second in fund-raising with $108,000 raised in February. King has raised $394,000 since beginning his run to return to the AG's office. He has spent $103,000 leaving a balance of $290,000.

King's largest contributions came from Clermont Radiology, LLC of Orlando, Fla. ($19,800); Augusta Motorcycle Company, LLC of Augusta, Ga. ($19,700) and Anderson Custom Vehicles of Anderson, S.C. ($19,000). He received $10,000 each from T-Town PAC II of Tuscaloosa, Innovation PAC of Montgomery and Leadership PAC of Tuscaloosa.

Alice Martin, a former U.S. attorney and Alabama chief deputy attorney general, was third in Republican fundraising with $61,000 in contributions. Martin began her campaign with $125,000, has raised $441,000 and spent $151,000 for a balance of $390,000.

Martin's biggest contributors in February were the Deserve Victory PAC, three contributions totaling $13,000; Claire Austin of Montgomery with $6,000; and $5,000 each from FARMPAC and Carmen Anderson of Muscle Shoals.

Fourth in February fundraising was Chess Bedsole of Birmingham, the former state campaign chairman for President Trump, with $5,230 raised. Bedsole's campaign began with a $300,000 loan from himself, has raised $223,000 and has spent $256,000 for a balance of $567,000.

Bedsole's biggest contribution in February was $3,000 from Shoreline Transportation of Alabama.

Birmingham attorney Joseph Jay Siegelman, son of former attorney genera446,l and Gov. Don Siegelman, was a late qualifier for the race in February and has a campaign balance of $2,800 and no expenditures. Siegelman is a Democrat.

Siegelman has two $500 contributions from Robert Segall of Montgomery, $500 contributions from Drew Barnett of Mountain Brook and J.L. McPhillips of Montgomery.

Democrat James S. "Chris" Christie Jr. raised $8,425 in February and spent $18,000 leaving a balance of $39,000. Christie started the month with a balance of $46,000.

Christie's largest contributions were $1,000 each from Troy Haas, Nancy Christie and Mike Hall, all of Birmingham.

Full campaign finance reports are available from the Secretary of State's website.

(Updated to include the report of James S. "Chris" Christie)

(Updated to correct the February fundraising of candidate Alice Martin)Mobile-based Infirmary Health and UAB Health System announced a partnership Monday, a relationship that brings together two of the state's biggest healthcare institutions.

Tuesday's announcement didn't go into fine details of how the alliance would work. Leaders of both organizations said it would have a range of benefits for Infirmary Health and UAB, such as providing a site for residencies for doctors training at UAB. They also said it would benefit patients along the Gulf Coast, giving them improved access to the specialized resources of UAB.

Mark Nix, President and CEO of Infirmary Health System, described it as a "strategic and operational affiliation agreement" that was unanimously approved late last year by the Infirmary Health and UAB trustees.

"The relationship will serve to improve healthcare and access to specialty care for the residents of southwest Alabama for many, many years to come," Nix said. "This affiliation gives Infirmary access to a world-class academic medical center, with research and clinical studies that are not currently available within our organization ... Opportunities to train UAB medical school graduates at Infirmary facilities will create access to more physicians throughout our region for years to come."

Nix said he expected UAB resources to improve some specific fields of care at Infirmary Health, possibly including "neurology, neurosurgery, neonatology, advanced oncology services" and more.

"UAB found that educating most of the physicians in Alabama, conducting groundbreaking research, and being the tertiary referral center for the state was not enough," said Dr. William Ferniany, CEO of UAB Health System. "To really impact health you need partners near the people you are serving. Today we are developing the University Health System, a statewide network that currently consists of 19 owned, managed and affiliated hospitals in 12 Alabama counties. These hospitals, like the hospital in Infirmary Health System, are partners to work together to leverage the resources of UAB to improve care."

Nix described Infirmary Health as "the largest non-governmental system in the state of Alabama as well as one of the largest employers in the state."

"We are the two largest health systems in the state," said Ferniany, a Mobile native. "And we really fit together with our strengths, and how we can leverage them."

"Over the next few weeks, IHS and UAB will be developing a strategic plan on ways we will work together to achieve these goals. We welcome other providers in Mobile to join with us in this effort."

John White-Spunner, chair of the Infirmary Health Board, said the alliance was a long time coming, but was the right one.

"Over the past years, for some time, we've been looking for a strategic alliance, and we've looked around. And it became really clear, and really easy to see that this one with UAB was just the answer. You've got two healthy, successful systems joining together to even become better."The hunt for the wreck of the Clotilda, the last American slave ship, goes on.

A previously unexplored 19th century shipwreck discovered in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta, which archaeologists said might be the Clotilda, has been ruled out as the ill-fated ship after further examination this week. In the end, this wreck was simply too big, with a significant portion hidden beneath mud and deep water.

AL.com reporter Ben Raines found the wreck when it was exposed along the shoreline of the Mobile River during extreme low tides in the first week of January. The wreck was found alongside an island where Captain William Foster wrote that he burned and sank the Clotilda in 1860. Raines brought archaeologists to the site, who made further examinations during the few days the ship was exposed. Their study set in motion a full-scale investigation of the wreck by the Alabama Historical Commission and the international partners of the Slave Wrecks Project, which include the National Park Service, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, and Diving with a Purpose - a group of African American divers who donate their time to the Slave Wrecks Project. In addition, SEARCH, one of the world's leading private archaeological exploration firms, provided an archaeological team.

Jim Delgado, in the foreground, and a team of divers spread out along different parts of the hull of an unidentified wreck in the Delta as they map the ship.

The overall effort was spearheaded by SEARCH's Jim Delgado, one of the most acclaimed marine archaeologists of the modern era. Delgado, a Nat Geo explorer, was the longtime host of The Sea Hunters, a National Geographic TV series. He famously and single-handedly discovered the wreck of the lost 19th Century "Sub Marine Explorer" (the vessel that gave submarines their name) while on a cruise ship vacation stop in Panama, and participated in the exploration of the Titanic and the raising of the Civil War era submarine H. L. Hunley.

A team of a dozen archaeologists from the various groups armed with scuba gear studied the submerged site Thursday and Friday, carefully mapping the wreck site, including portions of the ship that are located in deeper water and were not exposed during the low tide event. That part of the search required scuba divers to feel their way around the bottom of the muddy Mobile River in zero visibility conditions.

With the proper permits from state and federal officials, the archaeologists were also allowed to dig around on the ship, probing the mud to find its outline even where buried. Delgado said that made the difference. He said University of West Florida archaeologists Greg Cook and John Bratten made the right judgment when they called for more study after their initial field examination during the low water event in January. During that examination, because no permits had been issued, archaeologists were not allowed to disturb the wreck in any way.

Based on the evidence available at the time, "they made a perfectly reasonable call that this might be the Clotida and said 'let's take a better look.'"

"Based on what was known from the first examination, the photos of the site during the low water, it definitely looked intriguing. There was no way to know without this more thorough investigation, with divers in the water, whether this was Clotilda," said Delgado. "Even though it is not, the fires have been lit. There is a strong will to find Clotilda now. There is international interest in this story now."

Delgado credited the Alabama Historical Commission with assembling a top-notch team to investigate the wreck.

"The response you see here, this is a state government that acted quickly, decisively, and in the right way. They reached out to the federal partners and the private sector. I couldn't be more impressed to see what Lisa Jones and her team put together to get us here so quickly," Delgado said.

"We could not have done this without these people and these partnerships. We've made all these new friends. This is a powerful story," Lisa Jones said, adding that finding the final resting place of the Clotilda "is an important objective and we look forward to working with our partners on the next phase of this exciting project."

"The discovery and first examination of the wreck by Ben Raines and our colleagues at the University of West Florida and the media stories that followed have powerfully reconnected the story of Clotilda to a national and international audience," said Lisa D. Jones, Executive Director of the AHC. "It shares a story with profound meaning in Alabama, and especially to the descendant community of Africatown. While the follow up investigation of the Twelvemile Island Wreck has found that this wreck is not Clotilda, its discovery and the attention paid to it will be the start of a renewed effort to find Clotilda."

The archaeological team suggested such an effort begin quickly.

"When your story broke, the ripples went all the way around the world. I got calls from people in my line of work all over saying, "Have you seen this!" said Dave Conlin, chief of the National Park Service Submerged Resources Center, the most highly specialized unit of the park service. Conlin led the team from the Slave Wrecks project. Previously, he helped plan and execute the recovery of the Mobile-built H.L. Hunley, the first submarine to successfully sink an enemy ship during war, and participated with Delgado in a detailed mapping of the Titanic wreck site.

"We've learned this is not the end of the story here, but now everyone around the world wants to hear how this turns out," Conlin said.

At present, no one knows the whereabouts of a single American ship involved in the slave trade. The slave ship on display in the Smithsonian is actually a Portuguese ship recovered off the coast of South Africa. The Clotilda is the only chance for finding a ship involved in the American slave trade, and coincidentally, its voyage is better documented than any other slave ship.

The captives brought aboard the Clotilda are the only group of African brought to the United States who know precisely where they were taken from, precisely when it happened, the name of the ship that brought them, and where they ended up once in the United States.

Many of those aboard the Clotilda ultimately settled in a community they created near Mobile known as Africatown. The captives were freed just five years after they were enslaved, thanks to the end of the Civil War. The group, 110 strong, originally asked their captor, an Alabama steamboat captain and plantation owner named Timothy Meaher, to pay for passage back to Africa. After he refused, they appealed to the U.S. government, again to no avail. Ultimately, some members of the group bought a small piece of land north of Mobile from Meaher and created Africatown, where some of the descendants of the original slaves still live. They spoke their native tongue, farmed using traditional African methods, and ran their own school. They created a small piece of Africa in coastal Alabama.

For decades, Africatown has suffered from political and economic neglect. Residents hope the ultimate discovery of the ship may bring some attention and prosperity to this unique piece of the nation's history.

"If this isn't the Clotilda, then we'll keep looking until we find it. This story has reminded everyone that we are here, and that the ship is out here," said Joe Womack, a descendant of a Clotilda survivor and a community leader in Africatown. "This whole episode has finally brought Africatown and its story to everyone's attention. That's something we've been trying to do for as long as I can remember."

David Morgan, director of the National Park Service's southeast Archaeological Center, said, "This is a story about community. We've looked for wrecks that carried enslaved people, but what is important is the people, that's what these stories are about."

Morgan said the international hub-bub over the possibility that the Clotilda had been found was proof of the power of this story. But it was also appropriate for a story of national import. In the end, it is a story of people who triumphed over incredible odds, Morgan said.

"It's wonderful if you can lay your hands on actual history. But even if you can't, the search for it is just as important in some ways, because the search for it is the thing that gives you the opportunity to talk about it," Morgan said. "And to take things, and bring them back into memory - that's one of the phrases I've come to like using, to bring this back into memory. That makes things a tool, but also a way to speak about them, to remind people of their past, of our past."

Delgado said the reaction to the news of the possible discovery of the Clotilda illustrates the power of archaeology and exploring the past.

"This really shows how inspirational a find like this can be. Even though you didn't find what you were looking for, I think that the ship is going to be found very close to this spot that you honed in on. The ship is here, somewhere right around us, right now," Delgado said.

Delgado said the AL.com article revealed something that will guide the search going forward.

"The only part of the Mobile River that hasn't been searched with modern equipment is this part where we are sitting, where you found this ship," Delgado said. "This is great, because it tells us where to look. Everywhere else has been searched, so we've narrowed it down to this short section of the river, and that's where we will focus our search going forward."

Finding the Clotilda 44 Gallery: Finding the Clotilda

Ben Raines specializes in investigations and natural wonders. You can follow him via Facebook, Twitter at BenHRaines, and on Instagram. You can reach him via email at braines@al.com.

You can watch Ben's most recent documentary, The Underwater Forest, here on Youtube.Rep. Terri Sewell

By Congresswoman Terri A. Sewell (D-AL)

It was fifty-three years ago today when hundreds of marchers crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their way from Selma to Montgomery to claim their right to vote. Today we remember Bloody Sunday as a turning point in the battle for voting rights in America, but in 1965, that day's march looked less like a triumph and more like a massacre.

John Lewis was beaten so severely by Alabama state troopers that his skull was fractured. Amelia Boynton Robinson was beaten unconscious. The price these marchers paid awakened America's conscience to the violence of racism and laid the groundwork for passage of the Voting Rights Act, but on the day of their march, those victories must still have appeared distant on the horizon.

Today, at another moment in history marked by injustice, intolerance, and inequality in our country, the anniversary of Bloody Sunday is a chance to remember the perseverance that pushed the civil rights movement from interrupted marches and broken bones to a better America.

In the past year, our fight for justice has suffered its share of setbacks. The repeal of DACA has put American DREAMers at risk of deportation, sabotage of the Affordable Care Act has left millions uninsured, and the President has turned a blind eye to foreign interference in our elections. Inaction in Congress on restoration of the Voting Rights Act, on the minimum wage, and on family leave, is nothing short of a defeat in our fight for working families.

While we do not face the same violence that voting rights foot soldiers faced on Edmund Pettus Bridge, the lesson we can learn from their story is timeless.

After their march on Bloody Sunday, after they were beaten and turned back, that day's marchers regrouped at the Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, where John Lewis stood to speak. Beaten and bleeding, Lewis called on his audience for another march. He called on the foot soldiers around him to march again on Montgomery and then to march on to Washington. In the aftermath of their meeting with brute violence, John Lewis refused to stand down.

In the days that followed, a federal court ordered an injunction against the marches. The U.S. Assistant Attorney General traveled to Selma to urge that postponement of another march. And yet they persisted.

Today we still face calls to turn back, to go home, and to be silent. We are told that now is not the time to speak up about gun violence. We are told that now is not the time to address DACA, and that now is not the time to restore the Voting Rights Act.

What makes me hopeful is that I see the same fire burning in the American public today that burned in John Lewis when he set foot on Edmund Pettus Bridge fifty three years ago. I see students speaking up, and women on the march, and American voters who are demanding action from their lawmakers.

Dr. King once famously said that "Only in the darkness can you see the stars." Fifty years after Dr. King's death, a new generation of leaders are following the same constellations that once guided John Lewis and Amelia Boynton Robinson. They are shining brighter than ever.

As we remember Bloody Sunday, as we honor the foot soldiers who fought, bled and died for our right to vote, we must also recommit ourselves to their work. We must not only remember their perseverance and their courage, but we must work to find the same within ourselves. Today's fight for justice demands that we march on.John Meredith, of Huntsville, is a former Capitol Hill lobbyist who was recognized as one of the country's 100 most influential Black Republicans.

The national Republican Party has lost its moral compass. The President has proven he is incapable of governing. Congressional leaders have refused to put the good of constituents above those of far right special interests.

John Meredith is a contributing columnist for AL.com (Contributed photo)

House and Senate members have lied to the American people so often nothing they say can be assumed to be factual. Most of the blame for the cesspool that has befallen our national party falls directly on Fox News.

Richard Nixon's resignation of the Presidency was the result of his irrational behavior and the cooperation of his Republican White House Counsel. Instead of taking responsibility for Watergate and obstruction of justice, the GOP misled the American people by claiming the resignation was the result of pressure from a biased "liberal media." To counter imaginary liberal bias, Fox News was created.

Fox News has never been a news organization. It exists solely to provide political cover for troubled GOP politicians and their issues. It once advocated for fiscal responsibility and family values. Today, it advances gerrymandering, voter suppression and racial politics.

In Alabama, the Republican Party is everything the national party is not. When a GOP Governor put his desires above those of the people, our Republican led legislature removed him from office. When a GOP Speaker of the House took a journey down Corruption Lane, his fellow Republicans threw him out of office and sent him to jail.

When any Republican in the Tennessee Valley delegation tells me something, I can believe them because they have earned my trust. They may tell me to my face they disagree with me on an issue but they have never lied to me.

They have also never run from or refused to meet with constituents--Republican or Democrat. I recently pulled into a local strip mall and saw a state GOP House member talking with a man as he made his way to one of the stores. I parked, went into the store, shopped and returned to my car before that representative was able to enter the store. It took him that long because he talked with every person who approached him for a moment of his time.

Over the years, I have seen them at Starbuck's, Cracker Barrel, Walmart, Rite Aide, Publix, Blue Plate, Costco, and Mapco just to name a few public places. I have never seen any of them "duck" a constituent.

Alabama lawmakers fight payday lenders who exploit the poor. They successfully fought for additional healthcare benefits for those with autism. Our Republican lawmakers are honest, God-fearing people. I assume many other states have Republican officials just as righteous as ours. So, how did we wind up with a U.S. Congress and Executive branch that doesn't come close to reflecting our values?

The disconnect lies in where we get our information. Alabamians get their information -- whether it is about their municipality, county, or state -- from local news organizations. These traditional news organizations still hold missions directing them to disseminate fact-based news. They do not confuse facts by offering opinions during their broadcasts.

Therefore, at the state and local levels, all viewers are presented with the same fact-based information. As a result, citizens have a stronger sense of community and their politicians--knowing they cannot advance false narratives--still put people above special interests.

Making America great again is easy. In addition to watching all the Fox News we want, Republicans should watch at least one hour of any other national news broadcast.

The addition of factual information derived from ethical standards of journalism into the Republican consciousness means voters will finally be able to cast an informed ballot at the national level.Posted on: March 5, 2018 3:57 PM

In the past month, three new military bases have been established by the United Nations peace-keeping force in the democratic Republic of Congo  MONUSCO  in the Djugu territory of Ituri province, but it has so-far failed to stem the increasing tide of violence. Last week, 33 people were killed in an attack on the village of Maze. The Bishop of Bogo, Mugenyi William Bahemuka, has said that it is difficult to confirm that the recent violence is an extension of ethnic and tribal conflicts. Is it a planned insurgency that will turn out to be either a civil war or a genocide? he asked. Both are situations no one would like to experience. Once again we need prayer and advocacy for peace.

Bishop William said: It is becoming difficult to understand the main reason of the killings in Djugu. The situation appears to be beyond control as time goes on. The Provincial and National governments keep assuring people that that situation will come to an end soon. Community leaders and politicians from the two communities claim to dissociate an ethnic conflict on what is happening in Djugu.

On the night of Thursday to Friday, the village of Maze and few surrounding villages were attacked  and this is happening after the deployment of police, the army and United Nations peace-keeping forces in the area. . . Who is behind all this? No answer is found yet.

He said that past experience had led him to believe that worse was still come.

Yesterday, I travelled from Paidha to Bunia going through Mahagi, Djugu. It was risky to have taken that route at this moment. It has allowed me to see how people are going through a real stressing and traumatic situation. The happy villages and towns of Libi, Fataki, Pimbo are almost lifeless.

There was a movement of many people moving towards Gina, Lopa and Iga. Our taxi driver was scared and feared to stop. We pray for peace, Gods peace.

Bishop William said that the conflict was now nearing Bunia, with many people flooding to the town from Katoto, which was recently attacked, and Mandro. People in Bunia are very stressed and alert, he said. By tomorrow, if things dont improve, there is a clear risk of Bunia being affected and that will difficult to control.

Dozens of people have been killed in increasing levels of violence in the Ituri province since January. Homes have been burnt, many people have been forcibly displaced, and women and girls have been subjected to sexual violence.

I am deeply shocked by this latest attack which has targeted civilians, and that the majority of the victims were women and children, the UN Secretary Generals representative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Leila Zerrougui, said. I express my sincere condolences to the families of the victims and those affected by this horrifying act.

I condemn all kinds of violence and I call on the authorities to swiftly investigate this attack and to ensure that justice if fully served. The perpetrators of these acts must be held to account.

At the end of February, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan were the subject of an international ecumenical prayer focus, after a call for a day of prayer and fasting by Pope Francis was endorsed by leaders of other churches, including a number of senior Anglican bishops and archbishops.Posted on: March 5, 2018 11:16 AM

Women from across the Anglican Communion are preparing to make their way to New York to take part in this years meeting of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). Established by the UN in June 1946, the CSW is the principal global inter-governmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The Anglican Communion has a long tradition of active participation at the event and this year  the 62nd session of the CSW  some 44 people representing the Anglican Communion, the Mothers Union and the US-based Episcopal Church will be taking part in the meeting. This years event, from 12-23 March, will discuss challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls.

Delegates at the CSW will hear from a number of Anglican women from around the world. The Anglican Communion is sending 20 women from 16 provinces; the Mothers Union is sending seven women from five provinces; and the US-based Episcopal Church is sending 17 representatives  men and women  from the US, Puerto Rico and Venezuela.

Anglican women from around the Communion will bring to CSW62 and its priority theme even more than their grass-roots experience and knowledge  they will bring their Christian faith and values which bring something vital to advocacy on any issue, not least the empowerment of rural women, the Revd Canon Terrie Robinson, Director for Women in Church and Society at the Anglican Communion Office, said.

Rural women are particularly vulnerable to social, economic and distributive injustices but they also bring a great deal to the table when it comes to finding solutions, she said. Just for example, for many reasons rural women are disproportionately affected by climate change but they bring hard-earned wisdom to advocacy and mitigation. While the Anglican and Episcopal delegates are in New York for CSW, an evening event hosted at St Bartholomews Episcopal Church will enable them to listen to each others experience of the affects of climate change, pray together, and consider what commitments they can take forward.

Good things happen when Anglican women get together!

The Anglican Communions Representative to the United Nations, Jack Palmer-White, commented: One of the central roles of the Anglican Communion Office at the UN is to enable authentic Anglican voices to be heard at the UN. The Anglican delegation to CSW is a fantastic example of how we bring local experience and knowledge to the corridors of power at the United Nations, equip delegates with a better understanding of the UNs activity on gender equality, and encourage them as advocates for the continued development of Anglican partnership with the UN, from the local to the global level.

The Chief Executive of the Mothers Union, Bev Jullien, will join the MUs delegation. Our attendance at CSW is important as we represent the voices of more than four million globally, she said. Our position on the issues facing rural women, the theme this year, is informed by responses from over 250 members across the world.

Isolation and loneliness are challenges in both global north and south, and the issues of womens economic empowerment are even more acute in rural than urban communities. I am honoured that our delegates have direct experience of the issues and will be advocating nationally to urge these to be addressed.

Rachel Chardon, General Program and Administrative Officer for the Anglican Communion at the UN, commented: the Anglican Communion remains dedicated to sending women from around the world to the annual two-week session each year. While no country has achieved gender equality, we need women and men to lead the cause.

The 44 Anglican representatives taking part in this years CSW come from the Anglican Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, the Anglican Church of Canada, the Church of the Province of Central Africa, the Church of England, the Province de L'Eglise Anglicane Du Congo, the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui, the Church of the Province of the Indian Ocean, the Nippon Sei Ko Kai, the Anglican Church of Korea, la Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico, the Scottish Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa, the Province of the Episcopal Church of Sudan, the Anglican Church of Tanzania, the US-based Episcopal Church, the Church in Wales, and the Church of the Province of West Africa.

Watch some of last years Anglican delegates to CSW talk about their experiences:Posted on: March 5, 2018 5:31 PM

The statutory inquiry investigating institutional responses to child abuse in England and Wales has begun a public hearing into the Church of Englands Diocese of Chichester. The Diocese is being investigated as a case-study in the Anglican Church strand of the inquirys investigation into the Church of England and the Church in Wales. Today, Senior Counsel for the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), Fiona Scolding QC, began the hearing by setting out the structures of the Church of England and a history of cases involving the diocese, from the 1950s onwards.

A series of allegations came to light from the late 1990s onwards, and then engulfed the diocese in the first decade of the 21st Century, she told the inquiry. The role of this hearing is to examine what happened and what it demonstrates about the response of the Church to child sexual abuse.

It is also to ask about the Churchs ability to learn lessons and implement change from that which it has already largely acknowledged were mistakes. This hearing will also seek to examine how the Church dealt with those who, having been abused as children, came to speak to the Church as adults, to tell their stories, and of the inadequacy of the response by the Church to those disclosures.

She explained that much of the evidence that the inquiry would hear was already in the public domain, either through earlier criminal and civil court cases or the Church of Englands own published serious case reviews. What is different is that the focus of this investigation is upon the themes and issues which emerged from the reviews and trials, to seek to draw them together and synthesise them, to examine the extent to which the Church has been able to change many of the deep-rooted structural, governance and cultural problems identified in those reviews.

Scolding told the Inquiry panel, chaired by Professor Alexis Jay, that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, asked the Home Secretary to establish the statutory inquiry. In a letter to the Home Secretary, Archbishop Justin wrote that Public authorities all need to be open about our own failures and not to be perceived to be hiding in the undergrowth of other institutions shortcomings and that such failures need to be faced in order to move forward and to have more effective institutions in setting a better path for the future, she said.

In his opening remarks to the Inquiry, the C of Es lead counsel, Nigel Giffin QC, said: That children have been abused within the communities of the Church is, indeed, shameful. We agree . . . that the voices of those children are not to be marginalised and the future prevention of such abuse is, and must be, a very high priority.

After summarising the C of Es position, he concluded his opening remarks by saying: I end, as I began: with an unqualified apology to those children whose lives have been damaged by abuse, and who did not experience from the Church the love and the protection that they should have done.

Senior Council for the Archbishops Council, Nigel Giffin QC, sets out the C of Es position to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse this afternoon.

Photo: IICSA

The Anglican Church in England and Wales is one of 13 investigations being carried out by the Inquiry. Last week, it published a report into Child Migration Programmes  one of a number of individual case studies that form part of its investigation into the protection of children overseas.

The report criticises the British Governments policy of child migration and recommends that all child migrants are financially compensated through a redress scheme. The report also recommends that organisations involved in implementing the migration programmes  including the Church of England Advisory Council for Empire Settlement and the Childrens Society  offer apologies to child migrants, where they have failed to do so.

Chair of the Inquiry, Professor Alexis Jay, said: Child migration was a deeply flawed government policy that was badly implemented by numerous organisations which sent children as young as five years old abroad.

Successive British governments failed to ensure there were sufficient measures in place to protect children from all forms of abuse, including sexual abuse. The policy was allowed to continue despite evidence over many years showing that children were suffering.

We hope that this report offers acknowledgement to those who experienced abuse resulting from the child migration programmes.

Responding to the report, the C of E said in a statement that inquirys findings make distressing reading, adding: we are truly sorry for any part the Church of England, through its Advisory Council for Empire Settlement, played in supporting the Governments migration programme.

We renew our apology to the children and their families who were affected by this scheme. . . We pay tribute to the courage of the former child migrants who came forward to share their stories providing detailed accounts of how unaccompanied children sent abroad, supposedly for a better life, often suffered appalling hurt and abuse.

While there is some evidence of reporting back to CEACES, we accept that this was not enough to provide detailed information on how the children were being treated abroad. Although the migration programmes are closed, we hope that the conclusions of IICSAs report will be widely read to ensure that this never happens again. As a Church we accept the recommendations and will be considering the detail of the reports findings.

The current hearings into Chichester Diocese are expected to take three weeks. The Inquiry will hear from a range of witnesses, including survivors and clergy, including Archbishop Justin Welby.CAIRO - Large posters displaying a photo of Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohamed bin Salman, line the streets of the Egyptian capital and a red carpet was rolled out at the entrance to a boat for his visit to the Suez Canal.

The Saudi crown prince's three-day visit to Egypt is his first mission abroad. Greeted and accompanied by Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Mohamed bin Salman will be looking at projects alongside Sisi such as once for an industrial settlement on the banks of the Suez Canal and the large investments that Riyadh has announced, after providing a great deal of funding to the Egyptian government in recent years. Sisi and Salman will also discuss problems in the region, such as conflict in Syria, Libya and Yemen.

The two leaders have already presiding over the signing of four agreements for the establishment of a joint Saudi-Egyptian joint investment fund and a cooperation program to promote investment and anti-pollution measures.

BEIRUT - At least 44 civilians were killed on Monday by Syrian government airstrikes and artillery on opposition-held Eastern Ghouta.



Some 400,000 people are in the area east of the capital, according to the UN. It has been besieged since 2013.



Some humanitarian aid reached the area on Monday but the Syrian government reportedly ordered medical supplies to be taken out of the convoy.



The death toll was given by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which said that among the 44 civilians killed in Eastern Ghouta were at least about ten children and several women. There were civilian victims in northwestern Syria as well, where Turkish artillery killed 16 civilians including two children according to Syrian Kurdish media.



The information cannot be verified in an independent manner on the ground.Ghost landing near Agrigento, Mareamico reports Association documents abandoned boat from Tunisia

(ANSAmed) - Agrigento, March 5 - The association Mareamico in Sicily has reported a ghost landing on Zingarello, southeast of Agrigento, on Saturday night. The association photographed the abandoned boat and documented the traces left by the migrants of their passage. They are said to have climbed a hill and disappeared into the countryside between Punta bianca and Zingarello.



The boat came from Tunisia.



Investigations are underway. (ANSAmed)US embassy in Turkey closed due to 'security threat' US citizens invited to maintain 'low profile'

(ANSAmed) - Istanbul, March 5 - The US embassy in Turkey is closed to the public on Monday due to an unspecified security threat. The closure was announced in a statement on Sunday evening inviting US citizens to stay clear of the diplomatic mission in Ankara and big gatherings and to "keep a low profile".



In 2013 a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the embassy, killing a Turkish guard.



Turkish officials blamed the local political left for the attack. (ANSAmed).



Saudi prince visits Egypt on first mission abroad Warm welcome in Cairo for Mohamed bin Salman

(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, MARCH 5 - Large posters displaying a photo of Saudi Arabia's crown prince, Mohamed bin Salman, line the streets of the Egyptian capital and a red carpet was rolled out at the entrance to a boat for his visit to the Suez Canal.



The Saudi crown prince's three-day visit to Egypt is his first mission abroad. Greeted and accompanied by Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Mohamed bin Salman will be looking at projects alongside Sisi such as once for an industrial settlement on the banks of the Suez Canal and the large investments that Riyadh has announced, after providing a great deal of funding to the Egyptian government in recent years. Sisi and Salman will also discuss problems in the region, such as conflict in Syria, Libya and Yemen. The two leaders have already presiding over the signing of four agreements for the establishment of a joint Saudi-Egyptian joint investment fund and a cooperation program to promote investment and anti-pollution measures. (ANSAmed).



WASHINGTON - US president Donald Trump may take part in the inauguration of the US embassy in Jerusalem, planned for May 14.



Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu in a meeting in the Oval Office that he would be present if his schedule allowed for it. Netanyahu reiterated during the meeting that ''Iran is the biggest danger in the Middle East''.

Marysville, CA (95901)

Today

Rain showers this evening with clearing overnight. Low 59F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Rain showers this evening with clearing overnight. Low 59F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.Jihadi militias sweeping across Iraq during 2014 and 15 saw many Middle Eastern government leaders breaking out into a sweat. As a direct result, several countries are now equipping their militaries to take on such armed groups, while at the same time lessons are also being learnt from the on-going conflict in Yemen. Alan Warnes reports.

At the Dubai Air Show in November, the war in Yemen, jihadi terrorists and the Iranian threat were uppermost in many military leaders thoughts.

The eighth Dubai International Air Chiefs (DIAC) Conference, held the day before show opened, saw the United Arab Emirates Air Force and Air Defence (UAEAF&AD) chief, Brigadier General Ibrahim Naser Al Asawi, speak briefly on operations over Yemen.

Asawi told a packed audience: The UAEAF&AD is currently participating in Operations Decisive Storm and Restore Hope in Yemen, under the leadership of the Saudi Arabia. It has been almost 1,000 days since the start of this operation and, during that time, we have executed more than 130,000 flying hours involving fighter, transport and support aircraft, as well as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms.

The UAEAF&AD continues to adjust to the ever-changing battle scenarios as it tries to defeat the enemies, including ISIS, in Yemen. I think we all agree that the battles we are facing there will continue for a long while and are similar to the threats being faced in Iraq and Syria  against a well-trained and well-worked fighting force.

It was left to the UAEAF&ADs deputy commander, Brigadier General M Al Shamsi, to tell the DIAC audience of the importance of multi-role, multi-sensor platforms as part of UAEs network-centric strategy. One of the important needs for the future is to embark on a more versatile set of procurement requirements that would see more multi-role platforms with the ability to share data and enhance command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence (C4I) selection and distribution systems, he said.

Thus, it wasnt surprising to see several examples of multi-role aircraft, in the shape of strike ISR platforms, on display at the air show itself.

A significant newcomer to the strike ISR world is the Calidus B-250 light attack aircraft, which made its public debut at the show.

Calidus LLC is an Abu Dhabi industrial machinery and equipment company, which has moved into aircraft manufacture. However, claims that the B-250 was the first military fighter to be developed in the UAE might be a little ambitious as Brazils Novaer has been influential. Having being contracted to design the new aircraft in 2015, Novaer was instructed to have the new design ready for the Dubai show.

Powered by a 1600shp Pratt & Whitney PT6A-68, with a four-blade Hartzell propeller, the cockpit houses two Martin Baker Mk 16 ejection seats and a Pro Line Fusion avionics system from Rockwell Collins.

A pressurised cockpit system means the aircraft can reach heights of up to 30,000 feet. Not too surprisingly, the B-250 looks similar to the Embraer Super Tucano, because they both share the same designer, Novaers Joseph Kovacs.

Calidus senior communications consultant, Hares Shehab, said: Calidus, supported by the UAE Government, sees a niche for a light aircraft with multirole capabilities. You must remember that technologies used to build some of the aircraft currently operating in this role are up to 50 years old. Some US companies [like Iomax and Air Tractor] have even adapted agricultural aircraft! We decided to start from scratch, using all the 21st century technologies available to build this new aircraft.

A plethora of weapons surrounded the B-250 in the static display, produced by Brazils Avibras, or in UAE by Tawazun Dynamics (now Al Barj). An L3 Wescam MX-15D electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) turret with an advanced video tracker has also been integrated to cater for its close air support, ISR and counter-insurgency needs.

After being transported by a UAEAF&AD C-17 to Minhad, the B-250 was flown by Saif Alkaabi, Calidus VP marketing and a former UAEAF&AD Mirage 2000-9 pilot, during a short demonstration to his former colleagues at the base before the show. He checked the aircraft out at the Dubai show and was part of the team presenting the aircraft to the UAEAF&AD afterwards.

According to Calidus, the single-engine B-250, when loaded with four 250lb GBU-58 Paveway II laser guided bombs, two AIM-9 Sidewinders and a drop tank, has a range of 350 miles (560kms).

Production of the aircraft is expected to take place at Al Ain, home to the new national aerospace park, which will undoubtedly lead to the UAEAF&AD eventually acquiring the new multi-role turboprop.

While the B-250 might have been catching much of the local attention, it was the Airbus C295 gunship that caught the imagination. Despite being only a modular concept, it provided many would-be customers with food for thought.

Miguel Morales, Airbus head of airborne ISR marketing said: There are several light attack aircraft [in operational use in the region] but we have been told by potential customers that, while they are good with high-quality weapons, they lack endurance and ISR sensors.

To ensure the concept would appeal to as many potential customers as possible, Airbus looked at different weapons proposals, with US and non-US options.

Non International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) systems are important to many potential customers, particularly in the Middle East. This was highlighted by the choice of weapons for the pre-production phase programme on display in front of the armed C295W. It included Madrid-based EXPAL Mk 40 guided and Mk 46 unguided rockets, as well as CAT-70 (2.75in) rockets that could be fired from a rocket launcher designed by Brazils Equipaer. All are options that could arm the four hard points under the wings.

Munitions from Turkeys Roketsan were also a feature, with the 2.75in CIRIT laser-guided rocket and laser-guided long-range anti-tank missile (L-UMTAS) both on show. They are already being used by the UAEAF&AD on the Iomax Archangel and AT-802U.

Another Roketsan exhibit was the 500lb Teber 82 laser-guided bomb.

Morales continued: Some of our potential customers want these weapons and were interested in working with two of the providers, which makes it easier.

There are also machine gun and cannon options, as could be seen around the aircraft. Morales added: We have already integrated a 12.7mm M3D machine gun on a C295 for a customer in the Middle East, which will be delivered soon. Its fixed to the cargo hold and can be installed in 30 minutes, working with a fully integrated tactical system (FITS). The Rheinmetall Bk27 auto-cannon used by the Eurofighter, Tornado and Gripen, is also an option, with a range of up to 4kms. It is useful for the heavier targets.

Morales was keen to point out the duration of the aircraft with a heavy load: The C295 can fly up to 10-hour missions, depending upon weapons integration. The most limiting configuration would be 16 L-UMTAS, four missiles on four hard points, which will limit endurance to between six and nine hours. Other configurations could allow 10 hours with two crews on board.

He continued: We are doing the critical design review before the end of the year (2017). Ground tests, with all the weapons under wing, will take place before the summer of 2018 and flight-test is expected in October 2018. Several potential customers are currently defining their requirements.

During the later stages of the show, the UAEAF&AD announced a $250 million contract for five C295s, which might eventually be armed. Airbus is hoping to complete weapons integration on the prototype by October 2018, with a first aircraft operational in mid-2021.

Airbus was keen to stress that the full-up armed version is likely to include systems available on the Saudi General Security Aviation Command (GSAC) C295W, which was parked next to gunship version.

A satcom on top of the fuselage allows the C295 to transmit huge bandwidths of imagery to the ground. The data-link aerial positioned between the main undercarriage allows the on-board operators to send and receive smaller levels of data, while the radar housed in the forward fuselage provides the aircraft its eyes.

Airbus would not confirm any of the systems on the Saudi example, although an L3 Wescam MX-20 EO/IR system was mounted under the nose. The latter has an integrated laser designator but a second EO/IR system for the auto-cannon could be fitted and fired via the fully integrated tactical system.

The highly modified Saudi airlifter is the second of four ordered by the GSAC. It was on delivery to Riyadh, where it will undergo technical evaluation. The first example was a passenger aircraft delivered 18 months ago.

Orbital ATK was at the Dubai show marketing its next generation armed Caravan, the AC-208 Eliminator, which already has a launch customer. The company remained tight-lipped on who that was but confirmed it is a new Middle East operator.

The Eliminator is fitted with two dual-rail weapon pylons under each wing allowing a mix of AGM-114 Hellfires and/or 2.75in rocket pods, although the launch customer is looking at an unguided version for the latter.

Also on board was a high definition (HD) EO/IR system with an integrated laser designator, probably a L3 Wescam MX-15. Both Iraq and Lebanon, which already operates armed AC-208Bs, are prospective AC-208 Eliminator operators.

Orbital ATK is also the preferred partner for the armed An-132, which Taqnia Aeronautics is set to develop with the Royal Saudi Air Force.

AirLand Textron flew its Scorpion ISR/strike jet into Dubai after participating in several evaluation sorties in Saudi Arabia over a two-week period.

The tandem-seat light fighter had enjoyed an eventful year as the company looked to push the aircraft to the next level. It led to two full-spec aircraft  P2/N532TX and P3/N534TX  making their maiden flights during the summer to join the other two jets, D1/N531TA and P1/N530TX.

P2 was involved in a light attack experiment (LAX) at Holloman AFB, New Mexico during most of August, where it flew 21 missions.

Scorpion test pilot, Brett Pierson, said: Earlier it had gone to [Naval Air Station] Patuxent River for weapons clearance work. The USAF had specified the weapons it wanted to use in the LAX so, we set about clearing the 500lb series GBU-12, FN Herstal HPM 400C 15 calibre single-barrel machine gun and LAU-31 rocket pods to fire unguided and guided rockets.

US aerospace company Iomax debuted its new company Block 2 demonstrator. Lee Moritz, senior director, marketing said: We built the aircraft specifically for this show and then flew it out here.

Mounted under its wings were two Roketsan CIRIT 2.75in launcher pods, a GBU-58 250lb Paveway II laser-guided bomb, two AGM-114 Hellfires and a GBU-12 250lb laser-guided precision-guided munition, in addition to two Terma self-protection systems.

However, the most obvious difference from previous Block 1 versions is the L3 Wescam MX-25 EO/IR turret, rather than the standard MX-15, mounted underneath the nose.

The companys Archangel instructor pilot, who didnt want to be named, said: It allows the aircraft to operate at the maximum stand-off range [he wouldnt provide exact details] and at the same time provide the best standard of imagery on the 17in HD display in the rear seat.

He went on: The MX-25 is designed to operate at high altitude, up to 25,000ft, which our customer wants, so it means the aircraft cant be heard.

The UAEAF&AD has taken delivery of 24 Archangels but crashed one on operation over Yemen on September 11, 2017, during a reconnaissance mission. While the pilot was killed, the back-seater survived.

The bigger MX-25 will help to keep aircrews out of harms way. Iomax is now putting the aircraft through a US Air Force non-defence military aircraft (NDMA) certification, which will pave the way for sales through foreign military sales. Egypt is already showing interest in this new version of an agricultural aircraft first built 50 years ago.

Oversized pastel colored changing rooms with matching monochromatic furniture define the atmosphere of the concept store Garderoba designed by BIRO. Located in Zagrebs Design district, this concept store invites you to a leisurely shopping experience. The concept store Garderoba (wardrobe, clothes, walk-in closet, changing room in Croatian) is built on the philosophy of slow-shopping. Brought to Zagreb by the owner Ana Ivancic, this experience is meant to last longer than usual shopping, during which one spends time looking through new lookbooks, trying on clothes, having coffee (or champagne) with friends, consulting with the in-house stylist and overall - relaxing. The interior that follows this philosophy is designed by the architectural office BIRO (Sasa Kosuta, Mario Kralj, Dora Loncaric). Three oversized wardrobes define the atmosphere of the store, their soft shape, materials and colors hold strong contrast to the stores minimal and neutral base. Each wardrobe has its own color theme (yellow, pink and green) that is applied to everything inside the wardrobe and gives it unique character. The overlapping curves of the curtain allow customers to arrange the wardrobe in regard to their preferences  a smaller sized wardrobe for single and intimate shopping or a large one that fits a whole group! A flexible system of hangers spreads across the whole space and enables the store to host different types of events and shows in addition to slowshopping. This system also enables each collection to be presented in a different manner in compliance with the collections specific character. Designers at Grupa (Filip Despot, Tihana Taraba and Ivana Pavic) have specifically designed the furniture pieces in accordance with the store's overall interior concept. The products (coffee tables, chandeliers, freestanding mirrors, seating benches, and stools) are located inside individual wardrobes and follow their colour schemes. The Baluna pendant lamp, with its telescopic arm that enables height adjustment, is the studio's newest item designed for the Grupa Products Baluna line. Several Monk chairs, designed by Grupa for the Prostoria manufacturer, are also used in the interior. Garderobas visual identity, designed by Lana Cavar and Narcisa Vukojevic, is based on the stores concept of flexibility and spontaneity. Also following the main color scheme, it translates to a playful curve interpreting the stores curtains and soft fabric folds on clothes.

Project team : Sasa Kosuta, Mario Kralj, Dora Loncaric

Product design : Grupa

Visual identity : Lava Cavar, Narcisa Vukojevic

Photography : Jure ZivkovicIndia-focused offshore funds and ETFs are a subset of the overall foreign portfolio investor (FPI) flows.

According to the report, India-focused offshore funds have seen an investment of USD 876 million in January.

New Delhi: India-focused offshore funds as well as Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) witnessed a net inflow of USD 1.1 billion (over Rs 7,100 crore) in January, making it the highest inflow in 10 months, according to a report by Morningstar.

This comes following an inflow of USD 6.5 billion in these funds in 2017. Offshore India funds not domiciled in India receive flow from overseas investors and in turn, invest the money in Indian markets.

India-focused offshore funds and ETFs are a subset of the overall foreign portfolio investor (FPI) flows.

According to the report, India-focused offshore funds have seen an investment of USD 876 million in January, while ETFs witnessed an infusion of USD 224 million, translating into a total of USD 1.1 billion. This also marked the highest investment since March 2017, when such funds had received net inflow to the tune of USD 1.2 billion.

Generally, investment through India-focused offshore funds are long-term in nature while that of ETFs are for short term.

"Despite challenges, India-focused offshore funds continued to receive net inflows throughout 2017; whereas outflows have typically happened from India-focused offshore ETFs," Morningstar India Senior Analyst Manager Research Himanshu Srivastava said.

"The current trends are more of a short-term disruption rather than long-term structural changes. So, I am inclined to believe that the trend in India-focused offshore funds and ETFs will not be very different from what we have observed in the past," he added.Students becoming pawns on political chess board. Course contents have a strong political flavour.

Students take part in a protest demanding the release of JNU student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar, accused of sedition, in New Delhi in Feb. 2016.

Students constitute the most idealistic, impressionable and impulsive segment of society. They are in the vanguard of social change. They are national assets and must be allowed to bloom. University and college campuses are great altars of learning where students start thinking freely and are able to demarcate right from wrong. As William Shakespeare wrote: 'There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.' It is on the campus that ideas and thoughts are dissected by an emerging generation.

Unfortunately, intolerance is growing. The Film and Television Institute of India witnessed turmoil in 2015 when students protested against the appointment of its chairman. Earlier, in 2014, the police bashed up students at Jadavpur University when they demonstrated peacefully demanding an investigation into the molestation of a female student. Neither campus has really recovered since. The malaise is spreading to other universities.

Why is this happening?

Intolerance is being engineered. The liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship is being curbed.

The culture of "toe my line or get hounded" is becoming rampant. Intellectual space to listen/appreciate a contra view is shrinking. Every other freedom and right becomes meaningless unless there is freedom of speech and expression, guaranteed under the Constitution.

As Tagore said: 'Where mind is without fearwhere knowledge is freewhere words come out from the depth of truthwhere mind is led forwardinto ever-widening thought into that heaven of freedomlet my country awake.'

Students are becoming pawns on the political chess board. Course contents bristle with political flavour. Ideology of a particular kind is being injected. Free thinking and the freedom of expression is being stifled. The situation presents a dismal picture and the biggest casualty is academic excellence.

Policy makers must take lessons from student movements across the world. In France, students have been shaping public debate. They are treated with respect and taken seriously by the authorities. Recently, Chile witnessed a student-led nationwide protest seeking a new framework for education. A few years ago, in Hong Kong, students protested against the introduction of Moral and National education. Some 40,000 students protested and the government had to yield. In 1967, 100,000 students held a rally in the UK in the aftermath of suspension of two students at the London School of Economics. Such examples abound across the world.

Fortunately, in India, in August 2017, the Supreme Court delivered a landmark verdict in the Right to Privacy Judgment. A nine-judge bench, in Puttaswamy vs Union of India, held that the right to privacy is an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. The freedom of privacy now stands guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution. Privacy has both negative and positive facets, ruled the Supreme Court. The negative content restrains the State from committing an intrusion upon the life and personal liberty of a citizen. Its positive content imposes an obligation on the State to take all necessary measures to protect the privacy of the individual. This verdict of the Supreme Court, read with the preamble of the Constitution, firmly protects the freedom and speech and expression on the campus.

One hopes that after this judicial pronouncement, campuses will become more tolerant. Our students are national assets, not liabilities. Politicians beware, lest the education system be irreparably dented!

(The author is a senior counsel in the Supreme Court and former additional solicitor general of India)Universities reflect the times we live in; one that is more intolerant than we would like it to be.

I woke up earlier this week to news that worshippers at a Pennsylvania church clutched AR-15 rifles while attending a commitment ceremony. A nearby school cancelled classes, but that is beside the point. Rifles in a place of worship would make the headlines any day, but this not-so-subtle assertion of gun rights got there faster than usual, coming as it did just days after a former student gunned down 17 people, including students and teachers, at a high school in Parkland, South Florida. So, there you have it. Proof that the Second Amendment, which gives people in the United States the right to keep and bear arms, is not in danger of being infringed upon. I wish I could say the same about the right to free speech on university campuses. In February last year, the University of California in Berkeley reported $100,000 worth of damage to the campus after protesters, including 150 masked agitators, went on the rampage to protest an appearance by Milo Yiannopoulos, professional provocateur and Donald Trump supporter. The university had to cancel the event following protests, but Yiannopoulos was back in Berkeley in September, addressing supporters and leaving the university, which had to provide security, poorer by $800,000.

In April last year, the university cancelled a speech by right-wing social and political commentator Ann Coulter, then had a change of mind, before cancelling the event for the second time. At Auburn University in Alabama, alt-right white nationalist Richard Spencer had to approach the court for permission to address students after the university tried to cancel the event. He hadn't even begun his speech when two people, one a Spencer supporter and the other opposed to his views, got into a brawl and later landed in jail. Wary of violence between conflicting groups, an increasing number of American universities are playing it safe by banning polarising speakers. As I dig deeper into the subject, I realise that threats to freedom of expression on university campuses isn't a new phenomenon. As far back as in 1994, the American Association of University Professors had let its stand known on the issue. "On a campus that is free and open, no idea can be banned or forbidden," the association said. "No viewpoint or message may be deemed so hateful or disturbing that it may not be expressed. An institution of higher learning fails to fulfil its mission if it asserts the power to proscribe ideas - and racial or ethnic slurs, sexist epithets, or homophobic insults almost always express ideas, however repugnant."

I do not think it is a coincidence that threats to free speech on university campuses have increased in recent times. Universities reflect the times we live in; one that is, unfortunately, more intolerant than we would like it to be. Diversity - of people, thoughts and ideas - is a beautiful thing, but not everyone seems to share that view. I remember my days as an international student at the University of Louisiana (Masters) and University of Southern Mississippi (PhD). Life on campus was pretty smooth. There is an underlying tension when it comes to race or religion, but it is subdued to a certain extent in a learning environment. Additionally, students are exposed to people from different cultures and races on a daily basis; such interaction may help mitigate any deviant behaviour. From what I see around me, in universities in US, the discussion on race and religion has become a lot more pronounced or explicit since Trump became president. Going purely by what I hear in the media, there has been an increase in instances of racism on university campuses as well as the outside world. While the man is as capable as anyone else in polarising opinion, I do not believe Trump is the only reason why we are witnessing an increase in intolerant behaviour.

Free speech is a precious right and should remain so. Being an educational institution, a university should be a beacon of hope and set a prime example of freedom of expression. However, I understand why universities sometimes act to pre-empt violence or unruly behaviour on campuses. University policies are designed to check deviant or anti-social behaviour and such regulation helps to keep a check on individuals that try to disrupt the free flow of information. Southern Methodist University, where I teach advertising, is one of them. A good example is when it sought input from more than 1,300 students, faculty and staff on a sensitive "campus carry" law in Texas. Even though the law contained an option for private universities to opt out and ban concealed handguns, the university chose an inclusive process before deciding that it would remain weapons free. Everyone had their say on the issue, and a decision was arrived at, democratically.

Acceptance of opposing views may be too much to ask in a deeply divided world, but I believe tolerance is an attainable goal. According to a recent survey of 3,000 college students by Gallup for the Knight Foundation and the Newseum Institute, 78 per cent favour campuses where even offensive and biased speech is permitted. That tells me that there is hope; that universities can show the world how it is done.

(The author is Assistant Professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, USA)Erosion of academic sobriety of universities paves the way for abuse of freedom of expression one way or another.

First, a word about the idea of the 'University'. It has been, for the most part of history, an elite phenomenon; like the right to freedom of thought and speech itself. It took the now iconic universities in the UK centuries to open their doors to commoners.

Within such tiny, homogenised socio-cultural matrices of universities, 'freedom of expression' hardly had any scope for disruptive contestations, especially of ideological virulence. Universities accommodated divergent schools of thought. They coexisted amiably within an ambience of 'persuasion', which fell in the province of rhetoric. The idea of freedom of expression as a democratic phenomenon is one of comparatively recent origin.

To see themes of expression and intolerance in perspective, it is necessary to link at least four connected issues germane to universities today.

First, they have become spheres of specialisation, which compromise width in favour of depth of narrow scope. Specialisation, for all its merits, has the tendency to fragment academia. Universities become an aggregation of silos of specialisation and not an integrated whole with which students and the faculty can identify.

Secondly, the hitherto excluded segments of our society are finding their way increasingly into the privileged club of university education, reflecting the significant changes happening in our society. Social change spews up dormant tensions.

Third, 'freedom' is understood more as 'freedom from' and less as 'freedom for'. This aligns freedom more to clash of wills than to exchange of views.

Fourth, the sanctity and inviolability that educational institutions enjoyed in the past now stand compromised. This opens the floodgates to outside interferences in universities.

Conjoined with these are three other issues of general significance. Tolerance of differences has declined. The glorification of violence, of brutal imposition of one's will over the rest, is the current fashion. Even the sphere of personal choices and liberties - covering food, dress, livelihood activities and so on - is invaded with impunity. Intolerance, not tolerance, is what's in vogue.

The second issue pertains to the alienation of academia from real-life realities. The fact that our universities are infiltrated by ideological and political forum-hunters does not mean that they are rooted in national realities.

Thirdly, the culture of democratic exchange of views - of dialogue and debate - has declined. In this regard, it suffices to recall any one of the Parliamentary sessions in recent times and compare it with the quality of debate obtained even a quarter century ago. Informed debates have been displaced by a war of wills meant to result in victory or defeat. Lack of space does not permit any detailed examination of specific instances, especially those pertaining, but not limited, to JNU and the University of Hyderabad.

My four decades of experience in higher education convinces me that the freedom of expression in academia should not be discussed in isolation from the level of human development through higher education. Universities must be seen as domains where significant ideas are generated and expressed. Nurturing a culture of rational and responsible thinking should be their bottom-line mandate. It is for want of this that universities tend to become battlegrounds.

Intellectually it is dishonest to idolise freedom of expression without any regard to duties that go with expressing oneself in public.

Perhaps the most worrisome development vis-a-vis universities in recent times is the intrusion of the authoritarian element. The 'authoritarian', it needs to be noted, rises in the wake of the degeneration of authority. Intellectual and creative life is incompatible with coercion of every kind. But this pathological development cannot be understood aright unless we reckon the vicious cycle of which it is a part.

Erosion of the academic sobriety of universities - the dilution of their academic essence - paves the way for the abuse of freedom of expression one way or another. This, in turn, activates and legitimises authoritarian responses from officialdom. This authoritarian aberration provokes rebellious vanities all the more, and invests them with the romanticism of disruption.

The question could well be asked: 'Shouldn't university students, who will be called upon to steer the ship of state in the near future, be schooled in the politics of their times? Is not education a political project?'

I am fairly convinced that what serves the students and the nation best is the all-round development of their personality and intellectual resources during their university days. This calls for engaging with real-life issues. But it has to be an academic engagement, not ideological confrontation that generates more heat than light.

The time for action, or fulltime activism, will come. In life and in nature, there is a time to wait, and there is a time to act. Wisdom lies in knowing what to do, and when. Violence denotes a failure of social imagination. It points to our emerging poverty in human resource development.

That, I believe, is the core issue. The undermining of freedom of expression is a symptom of this generic disease. It is the disease, not its symptoms, we need to address.

Beef festival:

Youth Congress, trying to outdo pro-LDF students, slaughtered a cow in the open in Kannur in July last year. Police booked 16 YC activists under IPC Section 428 and section (ii) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act 1960.

SFI double talk:

The Students Federation of India, which is pro-Ambedkarite at Hyderabad Central University, doesnt spare anyone who tries to set up an Ambedkar forum in Kerala, where they seek to enforce their hegemony.

Suspension for invite:

Prof Rajshri Ranawat of Jai Narain Vyas University, Jodhpur (Rajasthan) was suspended in February last year following an ABVP protest for inviting JNU professor Nivedita Menon for a talk.

No Baba, go back:

JNU students opposed invite to Baba Ramdev for keynote address at 22nd International Congress on Vedanta in December 2015. The administration succumbed to JNU Students Union demand and revoked the invite. This was after a poster was printed with the Babas name on it

Exam bar for Vemula solidarity:

Hyderabad University barred students from exams in February last year for joining a national movement, expressing solidarity with research scholar Rohith Vemula, who committed suicide, unable to tolerate caste discrimination.

Kanhaiya gets it for opposing hanging:

Kanhaiya Kumar was held for sedition for protesting the hanging Kashmir separatist leader Afazal Guru. ABVP activist Kuldeep Varshnay offered Rs 5 lakh as reward to anyone who cut off Kumars tongue. Embarrassed, Parishad expelled the activist.

(The writer is author of On a Stormy Course, which focuses on his years as the principal of St Stephens College of University of Delhi from 2008 to 2016)She reveals why the global star inspires her and also spoke about turning friendship into professional association.

Mumbai: Alia Bhatt is one of those who disproves the adage Actresses cannot be friends, something her bonding with Deepika Padukone and Katrina Kaif have proved multiple times.

Another actress she is extremely comfortable with is Indias export to Hollywood, Priyanka Chopra.

The duos camaraderie was visible at various events and bashes where they were seen together.

This friendship was apparently set to turn into professional association when it was reported that Priyanka had offered Alia, an animal lover, a film on stray dogs in December last year.

This was months after Priyanka lamented about her struggle to cast for a kids film she was planning to produce, saying, In Hollywood, you have films where you have incredible actors who come together just to do four or six scenes. Thats the thing I miss in India. I was casting for this kids film and I wanted a big-time female actor to come and do six scenes. Its a small issue-based film about kids and stray dogs. My mother shot me down saying the actors entourage will cost more than the film. So, I will probably end up doing it myself someday.

Alia was also of a similar opinion when asked about it during an interview with a leading daily.

I have never been someone who has seen films in that way. It doesnt matter what screen time I have. I dont look at it as a parameter or the only diktat to do films, Alia told DNA.

Priyanka has produced films in various regional languages and Marathi venture Ventilator and Sikkimese movie Pahuna were among those well-received and Alia is also impressed by her.

Im really inspired by the way shes doing things. She has produced some amazing films and more so, in different languages. Its about different corners of India and shes got a great mind so, she recognises that.

Coming back to the question of a collaboration on the aforementioned film, Alia said, Ive not been offered the film. But if PC did come to me and I find it interesting, Id love to be a part of that film. It totally depends on the right time and the right subject. Id happily do it, if everything falls in place.

With Alias latest statement, Priyanka should surely heave a sigh of relief soon and fans would surely look forward to the collaboration.The Wire had earlier claimed that the delay in release of funds was due to alleged standoff between the Prasar Bharati and the I&B ministry.

Prasar Bharati Chairman A Surya Prakash had earlier said that the public broadcaster had to pay staff salaries for January and February out of its contingency funds as the ministry led by Smriti Irani had not released the funds. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry released Rs 208 crore for the salaries of the employees of Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR) on February 28, Prasar Bharati CEO SS Vempati said on Sunday.

Vempati's remarks came two days after news website The Wire quoted Prasar Bharati Chairman A Surya Prakash as saying that the public broadcaster had to pay staff salaries for January and February out of its contingency funds as the ministry led by Smriti Irani had not released the funds.

The Wire had claimed that the delay in release of funds was due to alleged standoff between the Prasar Bharati and the I&B ministry.

Reacting to the news report, the I&B ministry had issued a statement saying that the Prasar Bharati had not signed an MoU with it as required by autonomous bodies getting grants-in-aid by the government.

Vempati on Sunday tweeted, "Noticed reports in sections of media on non-disbursal of salaries to DD & AIR staff. Rs 208 cr towards salaries were released on the 28th Feb 2018. Attempts to create panic malafide. PB has so far received Rs 1989 crores from MIB as grants-in-aid for salaries during FY2017-18".

However, the tweet did not specify the month for which the funds meant for salaries was disbursed by the government.

The Prasar Bharati is an autonomous body that runs Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR) but receives grant from the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry.BJP MPs and minister celebrated the partys victory in the Northeast by wearing a Tangkhul Naga haora muffler in parliament on Monday.

A large contingent of the party members posed with smiles and holding up the victory sign for photos near the Prime Ministers Office. (Photo: Twitter | ANI)

New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MPs and minister celebrated the partys victory in the Northeast by wearing a Tangkhul Naga haora muffler in parliament on Monday.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in parliament, BJP president Amit Shah presented him with a traditional Naga scarf, after which a large contingent of the party members posed with smiles and holding up the victory sign for photos near the Prime Ministers Office (PMO).

As Amit Shah entered the Rajya Sabha wearing Tangkhul Naga haora muffler draped it around his neck. He walked in when Hishey Lachungpa of Sikkim Democratic Front was taking oath after being re-elected in the Rajya Sabha.

BJP MPs and ministers greeted Amit Shah with loud cheers and thumping of desks.

Some even rose from their seats to welcome the party chief.

While the BJP trounced the CPM to win the Tripura Assembly polls, it is in alliance with local parties which won elections in Meghalaya and Nagaland.

Law and Information Technology (IT) Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and some others in the ruling dispensation too where sporting the traditional Naga muffler.

Amit Shah was seated in his chair by the time Lachungpa finished taking oath in Hindi and signed off with "Jai Hind".

Members also thumped their desk to welcome Lachungpa.Gandhi alleged that BJP is 'obsessed' with 'grabbing' power and has shown 'utter disregard' to the mandate of people in the state.

'Like in Manipur and Goa, showing utter disregard for the mandate of the people. Obsessed instead with grabbing power, using big money to create an opportunistic alliance,' Gandhi said. (Photo: PTI | File)

New Delhi: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused the BJP of "usurping" power through proxy in Meghalaya and using "big money" to create an "opportunistic alliance" in the state.

Gandhi alleged that the BJP is "obsessed" with "grabbing" power and has shown "utter disregard" to the mandate of people in the state.

Also Read: Cong respects NE mandate, will win back trust: Rahul Gandhi

"With just 2 seats, the BJP has usurped power in Meghalaya, through a proxy.

"Like in Manipur and Goa, showing utter disregard for the mandate of the people. Obsessed instead with grabbing power, using big money to create an opportunistic alliance," Gandhi said on Twitter.

He also used the hashtag "Democracy Demonetised" with his tweet to target the BJP.

With just 2 seats, the BJP has usurped power in Meghalaya, through a proxy.



Like in Manipur & Goa, showing utter disregard for the mandate of the people. Obsessed instead with grabbing power, using big money to create an opportunistic alliance.#DemocracyDemonetised  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 5, 2018

The Congress emerged as the single-largest party in the state winning 21 seats, but failed to cobble up a coalition with other regional outfits.

Meghalaya had been under Congress rule and after losing the state, the party is now in power only in three other states, including Karnataka where elections are slated next month, and Puducherry.In joint statement, Vietnamese President applauded PM Modis efforts which improved Indias ranking in the ease of doing business.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held delegation level talks with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang on Saturday, who is on a three-day India visit. (Photo: AFP)

New Delhi: India and Vietnam will explore substantive and practical measures to achieve the bilateral trade target of USD 15 billion by 2020, according to a joint statement issued in Delhi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held delegation level talks with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang on Saturday, who is on a three-day India visit.

The joint statement further said both the sides agreed to hold the next Meeting of the Joint Sub-Commission on Trade in Vietnams capital city Hanoi in 2018 at the earliest.

In order to realize potential to both increase the volume of trade and diversify its composition, they (Modi and Tran) requested the relevant ministries and agencies on both sides to explore substantive and practical measures to achieve the trade target of USD 15 billion by 2020 including but not limited to utilising established mechanisms, strengthening exchanges of trade delegations, business-to-business contacts, regular organisation of trade fairs and events, the joint statement said.

As per the statement, both the sides urged leaders of business and industry of both countries to explore new trade and investment opportunities in identified priority areas of cooperation.

The Vietnamese president applauded Prime Minister Modis efforts which improved Indias ranking in the ease of doing business, it added.

Referring to defence cooperation, the joint statement pointed out that their cooperation in oil and gas exploration, thermal and hydroelectric power and renewable energy and energy conservation is registering remarkable progress.

The Vietnamese president welcomed Indian businesses to expand their oil and gas exploration and exploitation activities on land and in the continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Vietnam, the joint statement said.

It also pointed out that the Vietnamese side took note of the request by India on actively considering signing the Framework Agreement of the International Solar Alliance with a view to strengthening the cooperation in the renewable energy space.Karti has challenged the summons on the ground that the ED has no jurisdiction to issue such notices based on the FIR lodged by the CBI.

Earlier, a single judge bench of the Madras High Court had stayed the LOC issued against Karti Chidambaram and others in the graft case. (Photo: ANI)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear a fresh plea from Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union minister P Chidambaram, seeking quashing of the Enforcement Directorate's summons against him in the INX Media case.

In his fresh writ petition, Karti Chidambaram has challenged the summons on the ground that the ED has no jurisdiction to issue such notices based on the FIR lodged by the CBI.

The plea was mentioned on Monday by his counsel before a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, which agreed to hear it along with related pending matters scheduled for hearing on Tuesday.

The apex court is likely to hear on Tuesday the anticipatory bail plea of Karti Chidambaram, who is presently in CBI custody in the case. The top court had earlier refused to stay the summons issued by the ED, saying he could make a request in this regard to the competent authority.

It had posted the matter for hearing on Monday after senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Karti Chidambaram, had sought time to file a proper application to challenge the ED proceedings.

An FIR, filed on May 15 last year, had alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when P Chidambaram was Union finance minister.

The apex court was hearing pleas, including the CBI's appeal, challenging the Madras High Court order staying a lookout circular (LOC) issued against Karti. The CBI had on September 1 last year said there were "good, cogent" reasons for issuing the LOC.

The Chidambarams, however, have denied all the charges made against them. Earlier, a single judge bench of the Madras High Court had stayed the LOC issued against Karti Chidambaram and others in the graft case.

Later, the apex court considered the CBI appeal and stayed the operation of the high court order staying the LOC. The Supreme Court, however, has kept to itself another batch of petitions related to registration of FIR in the corruption case.Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the NPAs increased manifold under the Cong-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said, 'These days the Congress has been asking too many questions about the NPAs. We have categorically said that not a single loan given under our rule has become NPA.' (Photo: ANI)

New Delhi: Facing the wrath by the Opposition over a host of banking frauds, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday hit back the Congress-led UPA government and the former prime minister saying that the banking system was dented under the so-called economist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"Under the so-called economist, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the entire banking system went haywire due to all kinds of interference with it," senior BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told at a press conference in the national capital.

He said, Congress party is anti-reform and it has been indulging in the politics of fear and confusion in the last four years.

Accusing the former UPA government of not allowing the correct data to be entered into bank records, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, Time and again we have stated that not a single loan given under our govt is Non-Performing Asset (NPA). In 2008, the total advance to people given by the banks was Rs 18.06 lakh crores. By March14, the amount went up to Rs 52.15 lakh crore. The stressed asset identified out of this was only 36 per cent. Now the stressed asset has risen to 82 per cent out of that advances made in the UPA govt. This means for more than one occasions the correct data could not make it to the records. Under the so-called economist then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the entire banking system went haywire due to all kinds of interference with it.

Further responding to the Congress attack over the multi-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud, involving celebrity jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, the Union minister sought a reply from former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

He accused P Chidambaram of helping Gitanjali Jewellers in 2014. There was a Scheme 80:20 introduced in August 2013 and repealed in November 2014. On May 16th, 2014, the date of the declaration of results, the then Finance Minister gave aashirvaad (blessings) to seven private companies under 80:20 Scheme. One of those companies was Gitanjali. The party must answer why this benefit was given to these companies.

The 80:20 scheme was launched by the UPA in August 2013, when the government was trying to curb gold imports to tackle the current account deficit.

According to the scheme, private traders were allowed to export 20 per cent of the imported gold and retain the rest for domestic use. The scheme was scrapped by the NDA government in November 2014.

"The Congress must answer who were those people who were lobbying on behalf of Gitanjali and related companies. And how much cut were they taking? Rahul Gandhi must answer after he returns from Italy," the Union minister said.

Alleging that stressed assets of government banks rose from 32 per cent to 82 per cent during the UPA tenure, Prasad said, "Many times the UPA did not allow correct data to be entered into bank records. Advances (to banks) rose during UPA but were not recorded in the books."

Calling the Congress "anti-reform", Ravi Shankar Prasad said the party that came up with Aadhaar is today its worst critic.

"Congress party has issues with technology since technology brings transparency," the Union minister said.

Ravi Shankar Prasad also targeted the Congress over the Rafale deal controversy. It is very surprising that the Congress party which is drowned in corruption in Bofors among other purchases of the weapons system is raising questions on Rafale deal. It couldnt execute Rafale deal for ten years and are now creating a chaos when PM Modi has got the best deal in terms of price, effectiveness and weapon system, he said.

Targeting Congress president Rahul Gandhi for not doing proper research before posing questions on Twitter, the Information and Technology minister said, Now once he is back from Italy, I expect him to answer our questions.

Referring to the recently-concluded Northeast Assembly elections, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, While BJP is moving from shunya to shikhar (from zero to top), Congress is moving from shikhar to shunya (from top to zero).

Calling Nagaland election results as a tectonic shift, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, In a state with 80 per cent Christian population, 12 of our 20 candidates won the seats. This shows that people are coming forward under PM Modis vision of Sabka saath, sabka vikaas.Earlier Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had said that any delay in resolving the Ram temple issue could result in a Syria-like situation in India.

However, Rizvi cautioned that a rift may crop up between the two communities if the matter is not resolved at the earliest possible. (Photo: ANI)

Lucknow: Downplaying the possibility of a Syria-like situation in India as highlighted by Art of Living (AoL) founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Shia Central Waqf Board Chairman Wasim Rizvi claimed that secular Hindus and Muslims reside in India.

"There is no possibility of a Syria-like situation in India, as the Hindus and Muslims living here are very secular," he said.

However, Rizvi cautioned that a rift may crop up between the two communities if the matter is not resolved at the earliest possible.

"Currently, there is a difference of opinion between Hindus and Muslims. However, if the Ayodhya land dispute is not solved soon enough, the differences can turn into a rift," he said.

Earlier on Monday, the Art of Living founder in an interview to a leading television channel had said that any delay in resolving the Ram temple issue could result in a Syria-like situation in India.

"If the Ram Mandir issue is not solved, we will have a Syria in India," Ravi Shankar said in his interview.

Read: Ram Temple mediation: Too early to arrive at conclusion, says Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

On a related note, the Ayodhya land dispute is a century-old issue between Hindus and Muslims over a piece of land, which was claimed by the former to be the birthplace of Hindu Lord Ram and thus entitled for the construction of a Ram Temple.

The Babri Masjid built in 1528-29 CE that stood in the same site was demolished by Hindu Karsevaks on December 6, 1992 in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, which caused massive riots across the country.

In October 2017, the spiritual guru had offered to make a fresh start in the dialogue process in connection with the aforementioned dispute, saying that he was willing to talk to the stakeholders to find a middle ground.

Presently, the case is pending before the Supreme Court and will be heard on March 14.Banerjee pitched for regional parties to come together to take on the BJP after the results of assembly elections in Northeast.

Banerjee has taken a lead in defeating the BJP by talking to 'federal' parties. 'We are on track', TMC Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien said. (Photo: Twitter)

New Delhi: Amid a fresh unity bid by the Opposition to take on the BJP, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Monday said its chief Mamata Banerjee had reached out to Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) working president M K Stalin for co-ordination in and outside Parliament.

Banerjee has taken a lead in defeating the BJP by talking to 'federal' parties. "We are on track", TMC Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien said.

After calling up TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, Banerjee held telephonic conversation with Stalin, O'Brien said, adding there was "good coordination" between TRS, TDP, SP, BSP, TMC and DMK in Parliament on various issues on Monday.

Also Read: KCR may initiate discussion to take non-BJP, non-Cong front forward

His remarks came in the backdrop of Banerjee again pitching for regional parties to come together to take on the BJP after the results of assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

Responding to a question, O'Brien rejected the suggestion that the Congress has been "excluded" from the grouping Mamata Banerjee is working on.

He said the West Bengal chief minister also spoke with Shiv Sena Uddhav Thackeray. The two leaders had been in touch with each other. Though it is part of the governments in Maharashtra and at the Centre, Sena has been critical of the BJP and its leadership.

Also Read: Non-BJP, Non-Cong front chances rise as Mamata pledges support to KCR

The Lok Sabha saw frequent disruptions on Monday following vociferous protests by opposition members over the Punjab National Bank fraud and other issues while MPs of NDA ally TDP continued to raise their demand for a special package to Andhra Pradesh.

Soon after Speaker Sumitra Mahajan made obituary references, members from the Congress, TRS and other parties as well as from the TDP trooped into the Well raising various issues.

O' Brien said that during her nearly 12-minute conversation, Banerjee told Stalin that a good show by the TMC and the DMK in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu respectively would mean a block of nearly 75 MPs in Parliament.

A day after he announced his entry into national politics, Telangana Rashtra Samiti supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao had received support from various political leaders, including Banerjee.

"From morning, I have been receiving many calls from various places in India. This afternoon West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee called me and said that I have taken the right decision and she will be supporting me and that we will go forward together," Rao had said a couple of days ago.Sources further said the quantum of the alleged fraud perpetrated in the bank by Modi and Choksi stands close to $2 billion.

New Delhi: With a special court in Mumbai issuing a non-bailable warrant against diamond traders Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi  key accused in the over Rs 12,000 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) bank fraud case, central probe agencies CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) may soon initiate the process of issuing Red Corner Notice (RCNs) against the jewellers to locate and provisionally arrest them.

Sources said, Nirav Modi has already refused to join the investigation saying he has businesses abroad because of which he cannot return. Same is the case with Choksi. Central probe agencies are now exploring the possibility of issuing RCN against the duo to locate them as the earliest. The CBI had earlier asked Nirav Modi on his official email id to join the investigation related to Rs 12,636 crore scam pertaining to fraudulent issuance of the LoUs and Letters of Credit (LCs) from Brady House branch of PNB in Mumbai in favour of his and his uncle Mehul Choksis companies. He (Nirav), however, refused, they added. Both Central agencies are now tightening their noose around Nirav Modi and Choksi. A special court in Mumbai recently issued a non-bailable warrant (NBW) against Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. The court, set up under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, had also allowed the central agencys plea seeking issuance of Letters Rogatory (LRs) to six countries  Malaysia, Armenia, France, China, Japan, Russia and Belgium 1 for obtaining information about the overseas businesses and assets of the duo, sources said.

Sources further said the quantum of the alleged fraud perpetrated in the bank by Modi and Choksi stands close to $2 billion.RS was adjourned amid uproar over Rs 12,700-cr PNB scam and other issues including TDP demanding special package for AP.

Noisy protests continued amid speaker PJ Kurien's remarks that 'You are all agitated on separate issues. I know each subject is very important.' (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Rajya Sabha was adjourned on Monday for the day amid uproar by the Opposition over the Rs 12,700-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam and other issues including NDA-ally TDP demanding special package for Andhra Pradesh.

As soon as the Upper House met at 2 pm after witnessing two quick adjournments of proceedings in the first half of the day, members from opposition parties trooped into the well creating a ruckus over issues ranging from the Rs 12,700 crore alleged fraud by fugitive jeweller Nirav Modi, to constitution of the Cauvery Water Management Board.

Amid slogans by the opposition like "Nirav Modi wapas lao" (bring back Nirav Modi), Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien who was in the chair stood on his feet and urged members with folded hands to allow proceedings.

However, noisy protests continued amid Kurien's remarks that "You are all agitated on separate issues. I know each subject is very important."

Kurien said if members allow, a short duration discussion can be held on frauds in public sector banks and after that different issues could be taken one by one.

He said for today, he has given permission to conduct a debate on frauds in public sector banks. However, members relentlessly shouted slogans and displayed placards like "Constitute Cauvery Management Board Immediately", "Keep your promises" and "Implement special category status Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act...".

Stating that it was "indiscipline", Kurien asked Leader of the Opposition (LoP), Ghulam Nabi Azad whether the Opposition will allow a discussion, to which the Congress leader said if other parties are ready, they have no objection.

Azad further said the government and the Prime Minister had "failed" and banks are without money while likes of Nirav Modi were absconding. Kurien then adjourned the House for the day.

Earlier, proceedings were disrupted twice and the House saw two adjournments - first for 10 minutes and then till 2 pm. While the Trinamool Congress (TMC)-led the charge against India's biggest bank fraud, Tamil parties - the AIADMK and the DMK came together to demand implementation of the court order on constitution of the Caurvey Water Management Board.

TDP and a Congress member demanded implementation of the promise to give special status to Andhra Pradesh after Telengana was carved out of it.

AIADMK, DMK, TMC, TDP and KVP Ramachandra Rao of Congress rushed into the well of the House, raising slogans on their respective issues. Earlier, Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu first adjourned the proceedings for 10 minutes and then till 2 pm when similar scenes were repeated on reassembly despite his assurance to members that discussions on issues would be allowed under appropriate rules. When the House reassembled after the first adjournment, Naidu was able to persuade members to return to their seats for a shortwhile. Stating that he has received notices from several members under Rule 267 requiring listed agenda to be set aside to take up discussion on the issue being raised, Naidu maintained that the issue of fraud at PNB was very important and the House needs to discuss.

"This is agitating the minds of the people," he said.

Also Read: LS adjourned as Oppn slams PM silence on PNB scam, AP gets special status

Observing that he has received notices from several members under Rule 267 requiring listed agenda to be set aside to take up discussion on the issue being raised, Naidu said the issue of fraud at the PNB was very important and the House needs to discuss.

"This is agitating the minds of the people," he said. He, however, said he cannot accept the notice under Rule 267 given on the issue by Leader of the Opposition and senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, party's deputy leader Anand Sharma, Pramod Tiwari, D Raja (CPI), Sukhendu Sekhar Roy (TMC) and others. A discussion on the issue can be allowed under Rule 176. The Rule 176 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Rajya Sabha allows raising of matters of urgent public importances through a short duration discussion but without a formal motion or voting. Naidu said he will need to discuss with the government and the Leader of the House the issue of allocation of time before allowing a discussion on the issue.

On the notices given by Tamil parties over the Cauvery water matter, he said he would allow the matter to be raised as a zero hour mention. To TDP and Rao, he said the issue had been discussed before and if they wanted a further discussions they could give a notice under proper rules or raise it during the debate on the Union Budget for 2018-19.

Naidu also said he has received a notice under Rule 267 from Vinay Sahasrabuddhe (BJP) over alleged corruption by relatives of a former minister. "That is also important but I am not allowing it as 267. Give notice under appropriate rules," he said. But the members were not satisfied and rushed into the well.

TMC members shouted slogans for bringing back Nirav Modi, the alleged mastermind of the fraud at PNB, while Tamil parties raised slogans on the Cauvery issue.

TDP and Rao stood in the well holding posters in support of their demand for a special package for Andhra Pradesh.

"You are in Parliament. Don't create hungama (ruckus). Don't lower the dignity of the House," Naidu said. "This is not the way." He said no posters should be displayed and warned of action against violators. "Members seem determined to disrupt," he said before adjourning proceedings till 2 pm.The panel also comprising another minister, retired bureaucrats, academicians and journalists was expected to submit its report within six months.

Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday set up a panel headed by a senior minister in his Cabinet to push forward Prime Minister Narendra Modis idea of holding simultaneous polls in the country.

Headed by state information and public relations minister Narottam Mishra, the committee would interact with elected representatives, intellectuals, and people in different walks of life on the issue and devise a mechanism based on inputs gathered from deliberations to hold all elections simultaneous once in five years in the country.

The panel also comprising another minister, retired bureaucrats, academicians and journalists was expected to submit its report within six months. The committees report would be submitted to the Centre as well as the election commission. Prime Minister has floated the idea of holding simultaneous polls and the President of India talked about it. We need to have a serious thought about it, Mr Chouhan said told reporters. The CM however ruled out possibility of postponing the assembly elections in the state, due in November this year, to hold it along with general elections, slated for May, 2019.

Assembly elections in MP will be held in November, he said.

Replying to a question, he said ruling BJP was upset over the loss of recently held by-elections in Mungaoli and Kolaras Assembly seats. He however drew consolation for drastically bringing down the victory margins of Congress in the by-polls in the two seats over the last elections by his party. The two assembly seats were won by Congress in 2013 elections.

BJP is pained at the loss of the by-polls. But, we fought well in the by-elections., he said.

He exuded confidence that BJP would retain power in the upcoming assembly elections in MP.There are allegations that Choksi and Modi got letters of undertakings and foreign letters of credit of Rs 12,636 crore on fraudulent claims.

New Delhi: The CBI on Monday questioned S.K. Chand, the general manager of Punjab National Bank (PNB) who handles the treasury section, in connection with its investigation into the alleged Rs 12,636 crore bank fraud case involving billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi.

The CBI, on Sunday, arrested four people  two employees and an auditor from Nirav Modis group of companies, and a director of Gitanjali group of companies in connection with the case.

There are allegations that Choksi and Modi got letters of undertakings (LoUs) and foreign letters of credit (FLCs) of Rs 12,636 crore issued in favour of foreign branches of Indian banks based on fraudulent claims. The accused officials of PNB did not enter the instructions for these LoUs in their internal software to avoid scrutiny. They were sent through an international messaging system for banking called SWIFT, which is used to pass instructions among banks globally to transfer funds.

An LoU is a guarantee, which is given by an issuing bank to Indian banks with branches abroad to grant short-term credit to the applicant. In cases of default, the bank issuing the LoU has to pay the liability to the credit giving bank along with accruing interest.

The PNB officials allegedly sent these messages to Indian banks  Canara Bank, State Bank of India, Bank of India, Axis Bank, and Allahabad Bank  located in Antwerp, Hong Kong, Bahrain, Mauritius, and Frankfurt without making entries in the banking software about the LoUs. After receiving the messages from PNB under SWIFT, the banks abroad transferred these amou-nts to the Nostro account of PNB with them. Nostro account is an account that a bank holds in a foreign currency in another bank to enable foreign trade by its clients.Assomption is 40 km to the southwest from the Aldabra atoll, which is located 1,150 km southwest of Mahe, the capital of the Seychelles.

New Delhi: The 12 sq km Assomption Island in the outer Seychelles region in the Indian Ocean has become the focal point of a number of Seychellois protesters who are opposing the setting up of an Indian military base on environmental grounds.

Reacting to these protests, a top official in Indias security and military establishment said on condition of anonymity: We have been noting the protests. We are looking at them. But we talk to governments.

Implicit in the officials response is that despite the protests, since the Assomption Island agreement is between two governments, the development of the island as a military site will continue. While the January 27 agreement between Barry Faure, Seychelles secretary of state for foreign affairs, and S. Jaishankar, Indias then foreign secretary, makes it clear that the Indian military will be on Assomption only at the Seychelles request, such a facility will offer strategic advantage to Indias growing ambition, specially in the backdrop of growing Chinese interest in the region as well as ability to combat sea piracy in one of the worlds busiest shipping lanes.

Minister of state for defence Subhash Bhamre said in a written reply in Parliament Monday: Government is aware of Chinas stated objective of becoming a maritime power. As part of this strategy, China is developing ports and other infrastructure facilities in the littoral countries in the Indian Ocean region, including in the vicinity of Indias maritime boundary.

Assomption is just 40 km to the southwest from the Aldabra atoll, which is located 1,150 km southwest of Mahe, the capital of the Seychelles.

The protests are being led by the Save the Aldabra Island Group (SAIG), where the former Seychelles tourism minister, Alain St. Ange, is a key figure.

A pristine group of four large coral islands, the Aldabra group is a difficult location to access and because of its isolation has been unspoilt by human activities and is considered to be an important natural habitat to study evolutionary and ecological processes.

The Indo-Seychelles pact now has to be ratified by Indias Union Cabinet and by Seychelles cabinet of ministers as well as by the National Assembly. On ratification, the pact will be valid for 20 years.

The facilities (on the island) will comprise aviation, maritime, communication and surveillance and miscellaneous infrastructure and facilities, says clause 3.1 of the pact.

While India will build, maintain, and operate the base, its ownership rights will vest with the Seychelles. India will also at its own cost train the Seychellois military personnel and also conduct joint military exercises.

Interestingly, clause 3.6.10 of the January 27 agreement permits use of the facilities by military, quasi-military or government ships and aircraft of third countries... as per procedures that India and the Seychelles will agree upon.

While India will appoint a Navy officer to oversee the operations and maintenance of the base, the Indian personnel deployed there will wear Indian armed forces uniforms and carry their personal weapons.

The pact, besides prohibiting any nuclear weapons on the vessels, aircraft or other platforms, also says the facilities will not be used in any way whatsoever for the purposes of war or for the storing of weapons, arms and ammunition.Dress code for boys include shirt, trousers, sweater (winters), shoes, socks and belt.

Jaipur: Students in Rajasthan colleges may be barred from wearing jeans and T-shirts from the next academic session. The department of higher education is considering introduction of uniforms for all students. The state has 148 government colleges, including 15 law colleges.

The department of higher education says that colour of the uniform should be decided by the college administration in association with students unions. After feedback from each college, a final decision on the colour would be taken. Dress code for boys include shirt, trousers, sweater (winters), shoes, socks and belt. Meanwhile, dress code for girls include salwar suit, dupatta, sweater or cardigan (winters), saree, shoes, sandals and socks.

Kiran Maheshwari, the state higher education minister, said, The move intends to bring uniformity in colleges. A dress code will bring a sense of togetherness, discipline and identification of a student. Pointing to engineering and management college students or private university students who follow a dress code, she said the government college students too must have the same.

However, the move has triggered political controversy as Opposition Congress has accused the BJP government of working on directions of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

The BJP government in the state is running on instructions from the RSS. First, they made changes to curriculum followed by introducing saffron uniform for school students and now they want everyone to wear saffron. They want everyone to become godman, Congress chief whip Govind Dotasara alleged.

However, minister Kiran Maheshwari defended the movem claiming that the demand for a dress code came from students.

Many college students have requested their teachers and principals for a dress code during the Shikshak-Chattra Samvad programme, initiated by the department. Its being implemented keeping the sentiments of students in mind, said Maheshwari.Gupta is often given credit for his political acumen in gauging the pulse of social media users on political, governance and social issues.

New Delhi: The man credited with Narendra Modis successful social media campaign in 2014 for the Lok Sabha polls, Arvind Gupta, will be shaping the image of his government in its final year ahead of the 2019 general election.

Sources said Mr Gupta, who was the BJPs information technology cell in-charge for the Lok Sabha campaign, is now expected to shape the Narendra Modi governments presence on the social media, which includes the human resources handling its top online accounts. It is learnt that the decision came after a go-ahead from the Prime Ministers Office.

The tech entrepreneur also held a strategy session with information and broadcasting minister Smriti Irani last week to finalise the governments gameplan regarding its outreach on various social media platforms.

It is understood Mr Gupta enjoys the total confidence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and he appears to have been given a free hand to decide on what strategy to adopt to reach out to a wide spectrum of citizens with the message of the governments people-centric policies. It is learnt the social media strategist is expected to devise strategy and guide the handles, pages and Internet presence of various ministries and their ministers.

Mr Gupta is often given credit for his political acumen in gauging the pulse of social media users on political, governance and social issues. The move to appoint Mr Gupta to this important position and his involvement in the social media strategy is being considered significant ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Sources said at the first such high-level meeting, various officials dealing with social media platforms of various government departments and units were also present. Mr Gupta was last month appointed the CEO of MyGovIndia, a platform that aims to build a partnership between citizens and the government with the help of technology.Prime Minister Narendra Modi was present in the Lok Sabha when the protests started.

This was the first day the Lok Sabha met after the recess of the Budget session. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Acrimony marked the first day of Budget Sessions resumption on Monday as both Houses of Parliament failed to transact any business due to vociferous protests by Opposition members seeking a discussion on the PNB fraud. The ruling NDA governments ally Telugu Desam Party (TDP) added to the ruckus by demanding special status for Andhra Pradesh, forcing both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha to be adjourned for the day.

Immediately after Speaker Sumitra Mahajan made obituary references in the morning after the Lok Sabha assembled for the day, members from the Congress, Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and other parties as well as from the TDP, trooped into the Well of the House raising various issues.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was present in the Lok Sabha when the protests started.

Amid unruly scenes and slogan-shouting by the Opposition and TDP members, who were holding placards, Ms Mahajan adjourned the House at 11.08 am till noon.

However, noisy scenes and protests continued when the House met again at noon, forcing the Speaker to adjourn the proceedings for the day.

This was the first day the Lok Sabha met after the recess of the Budget session.

Before the start of the days proceedings, BJP members were seen clapping when Mr Modi walked into the House. With folded hands he greeted the members.

As the BJP and its allies captured power in the three North Eastern states, many of the saffron party MPs were seen wearing Assamese scarf known as gamosa.

Holding placards, Congress members trooped into the well, raising the banking scam. Trinamul Congress members also highlighted the PNB fraud.

The Congress demanded a reply from the Prime Minister on the whereabouts of diamond trader Nirav Modi, one of the alleged kingpins of the `12,700 crore fraud involving PNB.

TDP members stood in the well demanding a special package for Andhra Pradesh while those from the TRS sought an increase in reservation limit in Telangana.

Later, at a meeting of the Lok Sabhas business advisory committee chaired by the Speaker, representatives of the Congress, Trinamul and the BJD insisted that the debate on the banking fraud should be taken up at noon on Tuesday for four hours and other issues should come up for discussion after that.

An Opposition member, who was present at the meeting, said that parliamentary affairs minister Ananth Kumar made it clear that the government was open to discussing all issues, but there was no word on whether the debate on the banking scam would take place on Tuesday after the Question Hour.

The banking scam also rocked the Rajya Sabha which was adjourned for the day amid uproar by the Opposition. TDP members raised the issue of special status for Andhra Pradesh.

The BJP also moved an adjournment motion notice to debate reports of corrupt practices indulged in by relatives of former ministers under tacit protection by ministers, after the arrest last week of Congress leader P. Chidambarams son Karti Chidambaram.

As soon as the Upper House met at 2 pm after witnessing two quick adjournments in the first half of the day, members from the Opposition parties sought answers on Nirav Modi and the constitution of the Cauvery Water Management Board.

Amid slogans by the Opposition like Nirav Modi wapas lao (bring back Nirav Modi), Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien, who was in the Chair, urged members with folded hands not to disrupt the proceedings.

However, noisy protests continued amid Mr Kuriens remarks that you are all agitated on separate issues. I know each subject is very important.

He said if members allow, a short duration discussion can be held on frauds in public sector banks and after that different issues could be taken up one by one.

However, members relentlessly shouted slogans and displayed placards like Constitute Cauvery Management Board Immediately, Keep your promises and Implement special category status under Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act.

Stating that this amounted to indiscipline, Mr Kurien asked Leader of the Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad whether the Opposition will allow a discussion, to which the Congress leader said that if other parties are ready, they have no objection.

Mr Azad said that the government and the Prime Minister had failed and banks are without money while likes of Nirav Modi were absconding.

Mr Kurien then adjourned the House for the day. Earlier, proceedings were disrupted twice and the House saw two adjournments  first for 10 minutes and then a longer one till 2 pm.If sources are to be believed, a former MP and two MLCs are even preparing to quit the party and join the Congress in protest.

Lucknow: The thawing of relations between the Samajwadi Party and the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh has apparently not gone down well with the rank and file of the BSP, which sees the move as suicidal.

With hours of BSP president Mayawati announcing the partys support to SP for the Lok Sabha bypolls, a virtual revolt has started building up in the BSP.

A number of senior party leaders, who spoke to this correspondent on condition of anonymity, said the decision to support the SP was nothing short of blasphemy.

More than the political animosity between the two parties, it is the social hostilities between the two social groups  dalits and Yadavs  that will prove detrimental to the interests of the BSP. For more than two decades, we have tutored our voters not to befriend the SP, and now we are doing the same ourselves. As it is, dalits are veering towards the BJP and this move will push them further away, a senior party MLA said.

If sources are to be believed, a former MP and two MLCs are even preparing to quit the party and join the Congress in protest.

In my constituency, we have been fighting against the atrocities on dalits by local SP leaders for years, and suddenly we cant expect them to kiss and make up. If this is the kind of politics that our leaders are pursuing, I would prefer to look for greener pastures, the former MP said.

Senior BSP leaders confess they were never consulted by the party leadership on this issue. There is no culture of seeking opinions in the BSP. We are simply informed of the decisions, and opposing any decision will mean expulsion from the party, a state-level leader said.

A former BSP leader who has now shifted to the BJP also echoed similar sentiments, and said: We have all seen what happened to the Congress-SP alliance last year. The respective voters of the two parties refused to accept the bonhomie between Rahul Gandhi and Akhilesh Yadav, and both the parties hit rock bottom. This story will be repeated with the BSP and SP: after all, their hatred has acquired legendary proportions.

Party leaders feel the coming together of SP-BSP may seem a fantastic option on paper as together they will rule over 50 per cent votes. But in practical terms, this doesnt translate into reality so easily. There are factors and counter-factors that come into play when an alliance materialises, said a party functionary.

In the Samajwadi Party too, there are voices of dissent over this issue. Senior SP leader Shivpal Yadav said: This is a temporary arrangement for the byelections, and this will do more harm than good to our party. If everyone is sincerely concerned about defeating the BJP, all like-minded parties should come together under one umbrella and keep their egos and demands on the side.Acharya said he had asked Rio to submit the signatures of all 32 MLAs supporting him by Monday.

Guwahati: Nagaland governor P.B. Acharya on Sunday evening gave 48 hours to the ruling Naga Peoples Front to prove its majority in the 60-member Assembly, soon after the states chief minister T.R. Zeliang announced that he would not resign following the declaration of election results. Mr Zeliang, who heads the NPF, claims to have the support of 29 legislators, and said he would meet BJP president Amit Shah in New Delhi to discuss the formation of a new government in Nagaland. NPF chief Shurhozolie Liezietsu has also written to Mr Shah, saying that they were still friends.

Earlier on Sunday, BJP general secretary and the partys Northeast in-charge Ram Madhav and Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) president Neiphiu Rio called on the governor and staked claim to forming the next government in Nagaland. After meeting Mr Rio, Mr Acharya said Mr Rio had a majority and that he should form the government as he claimed to have the support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly. Mr Acharya said he had asked Mr Rio to submit the signatures of all 32 MLAs supporting him by Monday.

A senior leader of the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), an ally of the BJP, said that Mr Rio, in his meeting with the governor, staked claim to forming the government in Nagaland, saying he has the support of 32 MLAs.

While the Nagaland Peoples Front has emerged as the single largest party, winning 27 seats in the 60-member Assembly, the combined strength of the NDPP-BJP-led alliance has become 32.

The BJP, which had won only one seat in the 2013 state Assembly polls, bagged 12 seats this time, while its ally, the newly-formed NDPP, won 17 seats in the 60-member House. The National Peoples Party (NPP) bagged two seats, while the JD(U) got one seat. One Independent legislator has also extended its support to the NDPP-BJP-led alliance.

Sources in the NDPP-BJP alliance told this newspaper the new government would take office on Tuesday or a day later. They said the BJP would announce its decision formally only after the legislature party meetings. The newly-elected legislators are expected to meet in Kohima on Monday to elect their party leader.

The NPF had, however, given a letter to the governor on Friday apprising him of a pre-poll understanding with the NPP and JD(U). The NPF, in its letter, also informed the governor that it had decided to propose T.R. Zeliang as chief minister of their alliance.

The JD(U), however, decided to back out of the pre-poll alliance and gave a letter of support to the NDPP-BJP-led alliance.

NPF president Shurhozelie Liezietsu earlier said: The people of Nagaland are with us and they want us to form the government. Our priority is to bring a solution to the Naga political problem.

Sources in the NPF said the newly-elected legislators had started reaching Kohima, where the legislators would be meeting to decide their next course of action. There were indications that some legislators loyal to NDPP leader Neiphiu Rio may also switch sides and desert the NPF to join the NDPP. Sources said it would be very difficult for the NPF leadership to keep their flock together after failing to form the government.The accused told police that due to her husband's drinking habit, the family had debt of Rs 10 to Rs 12 lakh.

54-year-old DS Murti was killed in the incident that was reported from the Mandir Marg area in Delhi, police said. (Photo: Representational)

New Delhi: A 44-year-old woman, who was fed up with her husband's drinking habit, allegedly poisoned him to death, Delhi police said on Sunday.

54-year-old DS Murti was killed in the incident that was reported from the Mandir Marg area in Delhi, they said.

Murti, who was a finance manager with a realtor, died at RML Hospital.

His wife KV Rama and her accomplice Shyam Singh alias Bhagatji have been arrested, DCP Madhur Verma said.

Singh, a tantrik, had allegedly provided the poison, the officer said.

Rama told police she was not happy in her marriage because of her husband's drinking habit. It also led to debt of Rs 10 to 12 lakh on the family, the DCP said.

Murti's brother Siva Sarma had lodged a complaint in this regard, he said.The order is a part of the check on safety measures guidelines issued by the Delhi govt in November last year.

New Delhi: Amid increasing concerns about safety of children in primary classes schools in the city, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has directed all schools not to deploy any male guard or sanitation worker in their primary wing.

It has been observed that male guards or sanitation workers are not to be deployed in the primary wing in schools. No male guard or sanitation worker should be seen nearby toilet area in the primary wing, said a letter issued to all schools by the directorate of education (DoE).

The order is a part of the check on safety measures guidelines issued by the Delhi government in November last year after incidents of assaults on students were reported from schools. The government had issued a 117-point checklist for ensuring student safety on their premises and warned that there would be zero tolerance for any violation.

The checklist included installation of CCTV cameras, complete police verification of their non-teaching staff and was prepared in the wake of the Gurgaon school incident and the rape of a minor girl by a school attendant in Delhi.

In the communication issued on Monday, the heads of schools have been asked to ensure that the entry and exit gates of the school/field/office area are kept closed and any outsider should not be allowed to enter without permission. .

In case the boundary wall of the school requires further extension in terms of its height and or is under repair, the principals concerned should contact the PWD office, the letter said.Meghalaya has given a fractured mandate, but there is a clear story there  that the verdict has been anti-Congress.

The verdict on the just-concluded elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland has established three major points  the complete regionalisation of the BJP, making it a truly pan-India party; the relegation of the Congress from a position of dominance to that of a fringe player in the region; and the continued relevance of regionalism, as demonstrated by the fantastic performance of regional parties, in an area known for unique aspirations, even sub-national aspirations.

Going by how the BJP managed to sweep the CPI(M) away from its bastion in Tripura, the state it had ruled without a break since 1993, it is only natural to look at the saffron partys election-winning strategy. It is actually simple: the BJP worked to a plan that began in 2015. The party despatched an RSS prahari from Maharashtra, Sunil Deodhar, 52, to stay put in Agartala and prepare the ground to oust the Left from the latters stronghold.

Mr Deodhar, an old RSS Northeast hand since the early 1990s, began with a social engineering exercise by getting leaders of indigenous groups and ethnic communities interested in the BJP. The narrative the party weaved was that of utterly poor development and progress and highlighted the flaws of the Manik Sarkar government. The resultant broader narrative that started catching the imagination of the masses was that of anti-incumbency. Chief minister Manik Sarkar may have a clean image but he is presiding over a corrupt government  was the refrain.

This approach worked, with the BJP (that fielded 51 candidates) winning 35 seats on its own, and its tribal ally, Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), winning eight of the nine seats it contested. The BJP spiced up the campaign by putting a dynamic new leader of the party, Himanta Biswa Sarma, a top Assam minister and convenor of the North-East Democratic Alliance (Neda), as its in-charge for the Tripura polls. Mr Sarma took Tripura by storm and his high-voltage, whistle-stop, hop-in-hop-out campaign style took the Communists by surprise. The Left had no one to match Himantas charisma in the vicinity.

The Left has been left far behind (it managed to win only 16 seats, down by 34 seats from its 2013 tally) in the battle of ideologies in Hindu-majority Tripura, but it hasnt come as that big a surprise considering the poor law and order situation in Tripura and other factors. But what will the BJPs critics say about Christian-majority Nagaland, where the party managed to win 12 of the 20 seats it contested, up from just one seat it won in 2013?

Why am I using phrases like Hindu-majority Tripura or Christian-majority Nagaland? This is because of the obvious charge or description the BJPs rivals and critics reserve for the saffron partys ideology as that of trying to push nothing but the Hindutva agenda, and the perception about the resultant polarisation on religious lines. That is a different debate, but it had its bearing on the Nagaland polls, with some churches issuing appeals to voters not to elect people who could become an affront to Christianity.

The Churchs diktat, however, had no impact at all. This is because the BJP refrained from raising anything touching on religion or issues relating to food habits that irked people across the country sometime ago. The only thing the BJP talked about in states like Nagaland was development and progress. Yes, BJP leaders in charge of Nagaland like Union minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju said it was important for the state to have a government with the BJP as a partner as it would help in an effective implementation of the Naga peace agreement as and when it is signed.

Significantly, the BJP had sidelined its ally of 15 years, the Naga Peoples Front (NPF), and entered into a tie-up with the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP), headed by former chief minister Neiphiu Rio, an erstwhile mover and shaker of the NPF. This was just weeks before the election on February 27. But NPF leader and chief minister T.R. Zeliang said soon afterwards that the BJP-NPF alliance, too, was still on. On results day, March 3, Mr Zeliang said although the BJP has a formal alliance with the NDPP, the doors of the NPF were open for the BJP to come and join. This means the two most important regional parties in Nagaland, NDPP and NPF, have no problem whatsoever in working together with the BJP.

Meghalaya has given a fractured mandate, but there is a clear story there  that the verdict has been anti-Congress. The Congress emerged as the largest single party with 21 seats (down by eight seats from its 2013 tally), but 38 other MLAs who won belong to other parties. Of them, 19 went to the Nationalist Peoples Party (NPP), six to the United Democratic Party (UDP) and two to the BJP. One seat went to KHNAM, a local party, while the polls to one seat had been deferred due to the assassination of a candidate in Garo Hills. The Congress and the NPP are evenly poised to stitch up an alliance, but the NPP, which is close to the BJP and is an NDA ally, has a better chance of bringing regional parties on its side.

To what extent is the Congress responsible for the BJPs rise in the Northeast? To a large extent, really. In Tripura, the Congress was first sidelined by the BJP, which usurped the position of the main Opposition party before the polls. The Congress seemed to have abdicated to the extent that party president Rahul Gandhi came to campaign in Tripura only on the last day of electioneering. In Nagaland, the Congress, for some strange reasons, fielded just 18 candidates. The party did focus in Meghalaya with Mr Gandhi launching his bitterest attack on the BJP, accusing it of trying to buy the Church. That worked, but only partially. The clear warning to the Congress is that it needs to start from scratch in the Northeast, which was once its bastion. That means the forces to watch in the region are the BJP and the regional parties.GOES-S is the second satellite in a $11 billion effort that's revolutionising forecasting with fast, crisp images of natural calamities.

Besides the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii, GOES-S also will keep watch over Mexico and Central America. (Representative Image)

NASA launched another of the world's most advanced weather satellites on Thursday, this time to safeguard the western US.

The GOES-S satellite thundered toward orbit aboard an Atlas V rocket, slicing through a hazy late afternoon sky. Dozens of meteorologists gathered for the launch, including TV crews from the Weather Channel and WeatherNation.

GOES-S is the second satellite in an approximately $11 billion effort that's already revolutionising forecasting with astonishingly fast, crisp images of hurricanes, wildfires, floods, mudslides and other natural calamities.

The first spacecraft in the series, GOES-16, has been monitoring the Atlantic and East Coast for the past year for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . The same first-class service is now coming to the Pacific region.

Besides the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii, GOES-S also will keep watch over Mexico and Central America. It will become GOES-17 once it reaches its intended 22,000-mile-high orbit over the equator in a few weeks, and should be officially operational by year's end.

"We can't wait!" tweeted the National Weather Service in Anchorage just before the rocket soared from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The weather service's Jim Yoe said on NASA TV that he was "really excited" to see his first launch in person.

"I'm even more excited about the work that's coming up for me and my colleagues, putting these new data to work for better forecasts and warnings for the American public," said Yoe, an official at the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation.

With these two new satellites, NOAA's high-definition coverage will stretch from the Atlantic near West Africa, a hotbed for hurricane formation, all the way across the US and the Pacific out to New Zealand.

It's the third weather tracker launched by NASA in just over a year: "three brilliant eyes in the sky," as NOAA satellite director Stephen Volz puts it. GOES-16 launched in late 2016 and an environmental satellite rocketed into a polar orbit from California last November.

These next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, or GOES, are "a quantum leap above" the federal agency's previous weather sentinels, Volz said. This is the 18th launch of a GOES since 1975; one was lost in an explosion during liftoff and all but three of the satellites already up there are retired. Rockets by United Launch Alliance, a venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, carried all those GOES.

Even as it was still being checked in orbit, GOES-16 provided invaluable data to firefighters battling blazes in Texas, Oklahoma and elsewhere last March and to Houston-area rescue teams in the flooded aftermath of Hurricane Harvey last August, according to officials. GOES-16 also observed the uncertain path of Hurricanes Irma and the rapidly intensifying Hurricane Maria in September.

GOES-16 "turned out to be better than we expected it to be," said National Weather Service director Louis Uccellini, on hand for Thursday's launch. The satellite wasn't officially on duty yet, "and we were just standing there gawking at the imagery,"

As Hurricane Harvey approached the Texas coast, the satellite revealed the clouds sinking in the eye and the eye expanding as the storm morphed from a category 2 to 4, Uccellini said. Those images helped determine when it was safe for rescue teams to go out and save stranded residents, he added.

The satellite also alerted authorities in Texas and Oklahoma to the eruption of new blazes even before the 911 calls came in, Uccellini said. He said the satellite also tracked the direction of the fires like never before, prompting first responders to later tell NOAA: "You saved lives."

Two more are planned in this four-satellite series: GOES-T in 2020 and GOES-U in 2024. The $10.8 billion cost includes the development, launch and operation of all four satellites as well as ground systems through 2036.Pakistans Hindus, who make up around two percent of the countrys 20 crore people, have long faced economic and social discrimination.

Islamabad: In a first, a Hindu dalit woman was elected to the Senate, the upper house of Pakistani parliament, in the elections held on Saturday.

Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)s candidate Krishna Kumari Kohlis victory went viral on the social media. Ms Kohli said she felt proud and was thankful to the PPP for nominating her.

Pakistans Hindus, who make up around two percent of the countrys 20 crore people, have long faced economic and social discrimination.

Polling was held to elect 52 members, and the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) won 15 new seats in the Senate, securing a total of 33 spots in the 104-seat upper house, which along with support from allies earns the party a dominating majority in the chamber.

Ms Kohli is from Nagarparkar village in Tharparkar. Born in 1979, the Senator-elect battled hunger and poverty early in her life, and was also a victim of bonded labour. Despite her hardships, driven by her passion for knowledge, she continued her education at a run-down school in her neighbourhood.

Ms Kohli was married when she was in ninth grade. Fortunately my husband and in-laws were extremely supportive and encouraged me to continue my education, she said.A WHO official said the govt removed most medical material from UN vehicles including surgical kits, insulin and dialysis equipment.

The convoy had been scaled back from providing food for 70,000 people to providing for 27,500. (Photo: AFP)

Beirut/Geneva: An aid convoy began to cross into Syrias eastern Ghouta on Monday, bringing the first relief to the besieged enclave since one of the deadliest government assaults of the seven-year war began two weeks ago, but stripped of vital medical supplies.

A senior UN official accompanying the convoy said he was not happy to hear loud shelling near the crossing point into eastern Ghouta despite an agreement that the aid would be delivered under peaceful conditions.

We need to be assured that we will be able to deliver the humanitarian assistance under good conditions, Ali al-Zatari said at the crossing point.

A World Health Organization (WHO) official said government authorities had removed most medical material from UN vehicles, preventing surgical kits, insulin, dialysis equipment and other supplies from reaching the enclave of 400,000 people.

Zatari said the convoy had been scaled back from providing food for 70,000 people to providing for 27,500.

The United Nations says Syria has agreed to let it bring the rest of the food for the full 70,000 in a second convoy in three days.

The convoy is not sufficient, said Zatari.

President Bashar al-Assad vowed on Sunday to continue a military push into the biggest remaining opposition stronghold near Damascus, saying the offensive did not contradict five-hour ceasefires arranged each day by his main ally Russia.

A wider, full ceasefire backed by the UN Security Council has not come into effect during the campaign, which began with massive government air strikes two weeks ago and has continued in recent days with a ground assault.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the death toll from the offensive had exceeded 700 people in two weeks of intense bombardment on the densely populated region of farmland and towns.

Pro-Assad forces have made sudden advances into eastern Ghouta in recent days, capturing a third of the area, the Observatory said, and bringing them close to cutting it in two.

Late on Sunday, a rebel official said factions in eastern Ghouta were working together to prepare to retake lost ground.

SIEGE Syrian state television broadcast on Monday morning from al-Shifouniyeh, one of the villages captured by the government, showing collapsed concrete buildings, rubble-strewn streets and bullet-pocked walls.

The area has been under siege by government forces since 2013, and the United Nations had feared that people inside were running out of food and medicine even before the major assault began two weeks ago.

Only one convoy of aid has reached the area so far in 2018, on February 14.

In comments broadcast by state television on Sunday, Assad dismissed Western statements about the humanitarian situation in eastern Ghouta as a ridiculous lie.

Moscow made a similar case at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva: The media atmosphere is saturated with lies, Russian diplomat Alexei Goltyaev said. As a result we see debates and votes that are entirely removed from the actual situation on the ground.

Mondays convoy of trucks sent by the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent passed the last Syrian government checkpoint and began to drive into the rebel-held area, a Reuters witness said.

The UNs Zatari said it would take many hours to offload the aid and it might be well after nightfall before it could return. Syrian army and Russian soldiers stood on the government-held side of the crossing point, and empty buses waited to evacuate any civilians who might leave eastern Ghouta.

The UNs aid agency OCHA said on Sunday it aimed to deliver a convoy with 46 truckloads of health, food and nutrition supplies to eastern Ghouta.

A WHO official said that Syrian government officials had rejected 70 percent of the supplies it had prepared for Mondays convoy, including all trauma (kits), surgical, dialysis sessions and insulin.

Russias military said the rebels which control eastern Ghouta had agreed to let civilians leave in return for aid.

Assad and Russia have both repeatedly accused the rebels of stopping civilians fleeing eastern Ghouta, a charge denied by the insurgents, who say people there fear arrest, torture or forcible conscription if they cross into government areas.

Concern for civilians in eastern Ghouta helped prompt a UN Security Council resolution a week ago demanding a full ceasefire across all of Syria.

Veto-wielding member Russia accepted the resolution, but says it does not apply to the rebel groups in eastern Ghouta, which Moscow regards as members of terrorist groups banned by the United Nations. Moscow has instead established daily humanitarian pauses from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.by J.B. An Dang

Two days ago they celebrated a Mass at the altar of the Chair. Msgr Joseph Nguyen Chi Linh, president of the CBCV, expresses the joy of showing the deep bonds of fidelity and love of the Vietnamese Catholics for the Church and the Pope. The percentage of Catholics in the population of over 96 million Vietnamese has fallen to 6.6%, from 10% of the first decades of the twentieth century. The faithful express fears over the repercussions in Vietnam of an agreement between the Holy See and the Chinese government.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - The 32 bishops of the Vietnamese Episcopal Conference (CBCV) meet Pope Francis today. It is their first "ad limina apostolorum visit" since 2009, when the prelates came to the Vatican to honor the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul and to meet Pope Benedict XVI.

Two days ago, the bishops celebrated mass at the altar of the Cathedra, inside the basilica. Presiding over the function, Msgr. Joseph Nguyen Chi Linh, archbishop of Hue and president of the Cbcv expressed the joy of the prelates to be in Rome to show the deep bonds of fidelity and love that the faithful in Vietnam feel for the Church and for the Pope. He then invited those present to pray intensely for the universal Church and in particular for the Church in Vietnam.

In his homily on the parable of the prodigal son, Msgr. Joseph Nguyen Nang, CBC vice-president, exhorted the faithful to reconciliation with God as a prerequisite for communion in the Church which, in turn, gives impetus to missionary zeal. "At the tomb of St. Peter, inspired by the parable of today's Gospel, the command to proclaim the Good News all over the world (ad gentes) resounds intensely through the Church in Vietnam," said the bishop of Phat Diem.

"Challenges and difficulties are always present on the path of the mission, every age has its problems", continued Msgr. Joseph Nguyen Nang, stressing that "the main obstacles are not the external problems, but rather the interior attitude of the disciples of Christ who choose to retreat within the walls of the Church". The percentage of Catholics in the population of over 96 million Vietnamese has fallen to 6.6%, from 10% of the first decades of the twentieth century. The Church in Vietnam has 26 dioceses, including three archdioceses, with 2228 parishes and 2668 priests.

Since the mid-1980s, Vietnam has made the transition from a highly centralized economy to a market-oriented economy, which has led to large foreign investments in the country. However, investors seem to focus mainly on large cities, which meet their needs. Therefore, in the last decade, the Church has expressed concern about the widespread phenomenon of internal youth migration. Among the crucial problems afflicting the Church is the need for adequate pastoral care for young internal migrants, who are attracted to the metropolis to find work or continue their studies. They face the great risk of being uprooted from their local traditions and faith, of not being able to seek ethical advice and practical guidance.

Nowadays, with vivid memories of persecution that is constantly present here and there in the country, Catholics are very concerned by rumors of an imminent agreement between the Vatican and Beijing, which could lead to more political control over the hierarchy of the neighbouring Church of China. As the Vietnamese government increasingly depends on the Chinese regime, as a domino effect, it could follow the example of its Chinese counterpart and demand more checks on the appointment of bishops in Vietnam, especially if its "master" exerted pressure to force it to do the same.The campaign in Germany started on 17 February; in India on 18 February. Fr D'Souza calls on young Germans to eat vegetarian, use public transit, and not waste water.

Mumbai (AsiaNews)  For the first time Caritas India and Misereor Germany jointly launched the Lent campaign, which this year will focus on the ecological teachings of Laudato Si, the encyclical of Pope Francis on the protection of the environment and human communities from the risks of climate change.

"Caritas India and Misereor have been working together for a long time, said Frederick D'Souza, executive director of the Catholic association, speaking to AsiaNews. The two have been involved in the development sector for more than 50 years. The success in organising the joint Lent campaign this year has helped bring forward the benefits of mutual collaboration."

The theme of this years campaign  Have you changed the world today?  is climate change. The programme was developed with a series of preparatory meetings, attended by young people from the development organisation of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Germany.

The first was held in May 2017, then in June and February of this year. On 17 February, Fr D'Souza celebrated a solemn Mass in St Lantperts Catholic Church in Munich, with which he officially launched the programme in Germany to last until Good Friday.

During the ceremony, he called on young German to be responsible members of the Church and support the value of solidarity.

Avoiding wasting water, using electrical power only when really necessary, taking public transit, eat vegetarian as much as possible, and cutting air travel are some of the practical steps the Indian priest suggested to the young Germans to save the planet.

In India, the Lent campaign was launched on 18 February at the Church of the Sacred Heart in New Delhi.

The event is part of the universal Churchs call to respect the environment, prevent the negative effects of climate change, and act individually and collectively for sustainable production, use and consumption. (NC)The Saudi hereditary prince is in Cairo, for the first trip abroad since his ascent to power. He will also fly to Britain and the United States. A 10 billion dollar fund for the development of a megalopolis in southern Sinai. Egypt "gives" disputed Red Sea islands to Riyadh.

Cairo (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Saudi hereditary prince Mohammed bin Salman (Mbs), number two after King Salman and the countrys power broker, landed yesterday afternoon in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, for the first diplomatic trip abroad since his ascent to power. During this first stage in the land of the pharaohs he will meet President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, today a key ally in the region after years of divisions between the two nations.

In addition to Egypt, the Saudi leaders diplomatic tour will also touch Great Britain on March 7th and, later, the United States.

In these hours, Egypt and Saudi Arabia have created a 10 billion dollar mutual fund, aimed at developing a megalopolis of over 1000 square kilometers in the southern Sinai.

From 2013, concurrent with the rise to power of President al-Sisi  who is seeking a second term in the elections scheduled for the end of the month - Riyadh and Cairo have strengthened economic, trade and diplomatic ties. Since the banning of the Muslim Brotherhood (which both countries consider a terrorist group) to investments in economic matters, there are many issues that unite the current leaders in power.

The billions made available by the Saudi kingdom underscore, once again, the deep bond that unites the richest nation in the Arab world - and guide of Sunni Islam - with the most populous Muslim country in the Middle East and North Africa. A bond that is also military, considering Cairos support of Riyadh in the fight against the Houthi rebels (Shiite) in Yemen and the adherence to the boycott promoted by the Gulf States against Qatar.

Meanwhile, over the weekend, the Egyptian judiciary has in fact served a welcome gift to the Saudi hereditary prince. In an unprecedented sentence, and annulling all the previous verdicts of the judges, the Constitutional Court has effectively ratified the controversial passage of the two disputed islands (Tiran and Sanafir in the Red Sea, of strategic importance) to Riyadh.

The delivery of the islands could take place in these days, during Mohammed Bin Salmans visit.by Wang Zhicheng

At the opening of the National People's Congress, the prime minister reassures the country about financial risks, promising 6.5 per cent growth, as well as greater efforts against poverty, overproduction and pollution. Military expenses are set to increase by 8.1 per cent. Nothing is said about constitutional changes in favour of Xi Jinping.

Beijing (AsiaNews)  At todays opening of the National People's Congress (ANP), Prime Minister Li Keqiang has listed all the successes achieved by the country in recent years and proposed future ones, based on greater openness to foreign investment, an increase in the defence budget, and the fight against pollution and poverty.

The NPC is Chinas parliament and is often deemed just an echo for decisions made by the Communist Party of China (CPC). The approximately 3,000 delegates began their annual session today. Over the next ten days, they are supposed to vet the actions of the government and vote on laws proposed by the Standing Committee. Since it was established, it has always voted for what was placed before it.

The meeting is taking place a few months after the CPC Congress, held in October and a few weeks after the Party proposed to change the constitution and drop the limit of two terms for the offices of the president and vice-president.

The change will certainly be approved by a large majority, boosting Xi Jinpings hold on power. Li paid tribute to Xi's leadership, stating that the Party and the armed forces must obey him.

A two-hour report

In the two-hour report, which reviewed the policies of the past five years, Li said that the country had successfully managed economic downward pressure and avoided an economic hard landing.

He went on to say that the government managed to transform the economy from one relying on investments and exports to one more centred on services, domestic demand and industrial production.

The country has become a world leader in high-speed trains, e-commerce and mobile payments.

Its investment in research and development have grown at an average annual rate of 11 per cent, some 68 million people have been lifted out of poverty, and a basic pension has been introduced for more than 900 million people.

To curb overproduction, the authorities plan to phase out 30 million tonnes of steel capacity and 150 million tonnes of coal in 2018.

Growth at 6.5 per cent

By maintaining 6.5 per cent growth, Li pledged that the jobless rate will remain under 5.5 per cent.

He said that the authorities now included the surveyed jobless rate in the government report for the first time because this jobless rate covers the countrys migrant workers and reflects its real employment situation. Previously China only used the urban registered jobless rate, which does not cover the countrys 270 million migrant workers, who leave their rural homes to seek jobs in cities and towns.

This year the government wants to lift out of poverty another ten million people in rural communities and relocate 2.8 million others.

On pollution  considered the top issue by ordinary Chinese  Li promised more stringent law enforcement, as well as a greater food safety, another issue that scares the population.

Overtures and threats

The prime minister promised that China would continue to open up its markets  including the telecoms, health care, education and new-energy vehicle sectors  and remove foreign ownership caps on banks, brokerage houses and fund management firms.

Recently, more and more foreign banks have said they might pull out of China, tired of unkept promises about the liberalisation of the banking sector.

Whilst promising to make it easier for overseas Chinese to work and open businesses in the mainland, he also warned the people of Hong Kong and Taiwan against seeking independence.

Li said Beijing would continue to implement, both to the letter and in spirit, the principle of one country, two systems and fully support the economies of Hong Kong and Macau.

Likewise, he also said that the Taiwanese will have the same possibilities as other Chinese to work, study and get medical treatment on the mainland.

Armed Forces

Li pledged that the country will continue to build a first-class military, advancing all aspects of military training and war preparedness, and firmly and resolvedly safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests. He added that the Armed Forces must be tough.

He gave no figures, but a report issued on the sidelines of the NPC announced an increase in defence spending of 8.1 per cent this year to 1.1 trillion yuan (US$ 175 billion).

According to many analysts, Chinese military spending is twice that figure. Many of the expenses  such as lighthouses, runways, buildings built in the disputed islands of the South China Sea  are counted as civilian costs rather than military.

The 36-page report did not mention other issues that have made the headlines in recent months, most notably proposed changes to the constitution  with the inclusion of the thoughts of Xi Jinping alongside Maos  and the prospects that Xi Jinping might remain in power for life.Religion and faith are not "a show". The pontiff calls for carrying out new actions the Christian way, the way that comes from the Beatitudes. One can recite "the whole Creed, even all the dogmas of the Church", but if one does not do it "with a Christian spirit", it serves no purpose.

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  In his morning Mass at Casa Santa Marta, Pope Francis said that religion and faith are not "a show". During Lent, the Church makes us reflect on the conversion of thinking, of its ways, as well as the conversion of actions and feelings.

The pontiff spoke about the first reading dedicated to Naaman the Syrian and the Gospel of Luke in which Jesus explains that no one is prophet in his native place.

"The Church, Francis said, tells us that our actions must be converted; she speaks to us about fasting, almsgiving, penance: it is a conversion of actions. Performing new actions, actions the Christian way, the way that comes from the Beatitudes, Matthew 25: do this. The Church too speaks to us about the conversion of feelings: feelings must also be converted. Think, for example, about the Parable of the Good Samaritan: converting to compassion. Christian feelings. Conversion of actions; conversion of feelings; but, today, it speaks to us about the 'conversion of thinking': not [only] about what we think, but also about how we think, of the ways of thinking. Do I think in a Christian or a pagan way? This is the message that the Church gives us today."

With respect to the story of Naaman the Syrian, who suffered from leprosy, the pope noted that "he goes to Elisha to be healed" and is told to bathe seven times in the Jordan. However, thinking that the rivers of Damascus are better than the waters of Israel, "he gets angry, outraged and wants to come back without doing it", because, as Francis put it, "this man was waiting for a show". But Gods ways are different: "he heals in a different way."

The same, he pope added, happens with Jesus who returns to Nazareth and goes to the Synagogue. Initially "people looked at him", and were amazed, [. . .] happy". However, "there is always a busybody who began to say: 'But isnt he the carpenter's son? What is he teaching us? Where did he study this? Yes, he is Josephs son.

Various opinions interact; people's attitudes change, and [so] they want to kill him. From admiration, from amazement, to the desire to kill him. These too wanted a show. Let him do his miracles, what they say he did in Galilee, and we will believe.' As Jesus put it: I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.' Because we resist saying that some of us can correct us. One who is showy has to come to correct us. Religion is not a show. Faith is not a show. It is the Word of God and the Holy Spirit acting in the hearts."

The Church, the Pope added, calls upon us to change our way of thinking. One can recite "the whole Creed, even all the dogmas of the Church", but if one does not do it "with a Christian spirit", it serves no purpose.

"The conversion of thinking. It is not usual for us to think this way. It is not usual. Our way of thinking, our way of believing, must be converted. We may ask: 'With what spirit do I think? With the spirit of the Lord or with the spirit itself, the spirit of the community to which I belong or the small group or social class to which I belong, or the political party to which I belong? With what spirit do I think? Looking to see if I really think with the spirit of God. Asking for the grace of discerning when I think with the spirit of the world, and when I think with the spirit of God. Asking for the grace of the conversion of thinking.Seoul sends five representatives to the north. Dialogue between the two Koreas continues in an attempt to convince the North to sit down at the negotiating table with Washington and the international community to denuclearise the peninsula.

Seoul (AsiaNews / Agencies)  A South Korean delegation arrived today in North Korea with the goal of persuading Pyongyang to sit down at the negotiating table with the United States and resume dialogue with the international community for the denuclearization of the peninsula.

The journey represents a further step forward in the inter-Korean dialogue, which was rebooted in the context of the Winter Olympics last month. The delegation, made up of five members, left at 2 pm from Seoul, led by Chung Eui-yong, director of the National Security Office. Suh Hoon, head of the National Intelligence Service, is among the four delegates to follow him.

"First of all - said Chung at a press conference before departure - I will deliver President Moon Jae-in's sincere and firm resolution to maintain the dialogue and improvement in relations between the South and the North, which were fostered on the occasion of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula ". Of the same importance, he added, is the resumption of relations between the "North with the United States and the international community".

The return of the South Korean delegation is scheduled for tomorrow. According to the Blue House in Seoul, Chung and Suh will head to Washington to discuss the result of the trip with the American authorities.In a written appeal, the religious systematically take apart the version of the conflict touted by governments, NGOs and international news organizations. In Ghouta east, jihadists attack the capital and use civilians as human shields. The Syrian government and people have a duty to defend themselves from external attacks. The conflict alone has undermined the coexistence between Christians and Muslims in the country.

Damascus (AsiaNews) - "We, the people who live in Syria, we are really exhausted and exasperated by this global indignation that issues blanket condemnations of people who defend their lives and their land". Because the victims of a bloody war now in its seventh year, are not only hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, but also the truth and information too often enslaved by the interests of foreign governments and powers. These are the harsh words contained in a written appeal issued by the Syrian Trappist sisters, who have first-hand experience of the tragedy of the conflict.

In recent weeks, international bodies, Western chancelleries and large news networks have launched a frontal attack on the Damascus government and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, accusing them of deliberately targeting civilians trapped in Ghouta East, a rebel enclave in the suburbs of the capital. However, the religious say, it is from that area "that the attacks against the civilians who live in the part controlled by the government began, and not vice versa". Moreover, those in the area "who did not support the jihadists, were put in iron cages: men, women, hung outdoors and used as human shields".

The religious do not spare the neighbouring countries that have favoured the entry of "mercenaries" to fuel the conflict and the governments in the West who have trafficked with the jihadists to get oil below cost. "Today to tell Syria, the Syrian government, not to defend its nation - the nuns emphasize - is against all justice". And those who speak of "the Churches partisan reverence of " Assad, they conclude, "reveal that they do not know Syria, because Christians and Muslims live together in this land. This war alone is to blame for wounding this cohabitation in many parts of the country".

Below, we publish the testimony of the Trappist sisters sent to AsiaNews:

When will they silence their weapons? And when will they silence so much partisan journalism? We, the people who actually live in Syria, we are really exhausted, nauseated by this global indignation that issues blanket condemnations of those who defend their lives and their land.

We have gone to Damascus several times in these months; we went after the rebel bombs had massacred a school, we were there a few days ago, the day after they had dropped 90 others from the Goutha, on the governmental part of the city. We have heard the stories of the children, the fear of leaving home and going to school, the terror of having to see their classmates still being ripped apart mid-air, or they themselves being ripped apart ... children who cannot sleep at night, for fear that a missile will crash through their roof. Fear, tears, blood, death. Are not these children worthy of our attention too?

Why did the public not bat an eyelid, why was no one indignant, why were no humanitarian or other appeals launched for these innocent people? And why only when the Syrian government intervenes, arousing the gratitude of Syrian citizens because at last they feel defended from so much horror (which we have seen with our own eyes and of which we hear), are we indignant about the ferocity of the war?

Of course, even when the Syrian army bombs there are women, children, civilians, wounded or dead. And we pray for them too. Not only the civilians: we also pray for the jihadists, because every man who chooses evil is a lost child, is a mystery hidden in the heart of God. And it is to God that we must leave judgment, He who does not want the death of the sinner, but that the sinner be converted and live.

But this does not mean that you do not call things by their name. And you can not confuse those who attack with those who defend themselves.

The attacks on civilians in Damascus, began from the Goutha area into the government-controlled part, and not vice versa. The same Goutha where  must we really remind people? - civilians who did not support the jihadists were put in iron cages: men, women, exposed outdoors and used as human shields. Goutha: the district where today the civilians who want to escape, and take refuge in the government-area, who dare to take advantage of the truce granted, are targeted by rebel snipers ...

Why this blindness on the part of the West? How is it possible for those who inform the public, even in the ecclesial context, to be so one-sided?

War is bad, oh yes, yes it is so bad! You do not need to tell the Syrian people this, a people who have seen the war rob them of their home for seven years now ... But we cannot be scandalized by the brutality of the war and keep quiet about who the wanted war and still wants war today, or keep quiet about the governments that have poured their powerful weapons, their military intelligence into Syria in recent years... not to mention the mercenaries deliberately allowed to enter Syria passing through neighbouring countries (many who went on to join Isis, the West should at least recognise these initials and what they mean).

We cannot keep quiet about the governments that have earned and gained from this war. Just look at what has happened to the most important Syrian oil wells. But this is just a mere detail, there is [something] much more important at stake here.

War is bad. But we have not yet reached the goal, where the wolf and the lamb will dwell together, and for those who believe, we must remember that the Church does not condemn legitimate defence; and even if she certainly does not wish for a recourse to arms and war, faith does not condemn those who defend their country, their family, not even their lives. You can choose non-violence, until you die. But it is a personal choice, which can only be brought to bear on the life of those who choose it, we cannot certainly ask a whole nation, an entire people for this.

No one, man or woman, who has a minimum of true humanity can wish for war. But today to say to Syria, to the Syrian government, not to defend its nation is against all justice: too often it is the only a way to facilitate the task of those who want to plunder the country, massacre its people, as happened in these long years in which truces have been used above all to re-arm the rebels, and the humanitarian corridors to allow new weapons and new mercenaries to enter ... and how can we forget what atrocities have happened in these years in the areas controlled by the jihadists? violence, summary executions, rapes ... the stories we have heard from those who finally managed to escape?

Recently an article was brought to our attention: so many words spent on a single thesis, namely that all the Churches of the East are mere servants of power ... for convenience ... Some beautiful sentences to that effect, such as reverence bishops and Christians to the Syrian Satrap ... a way to delegitimize any appeal by the Syrian Church that reveals the other side of the coin, the one the mass media ignores.

Beyond any useless defence and polemics, let's make a simple reasoning, starting with a consideration. And that is that Christ - who knows well the heart of man, that is, knows that good and evil cohabit in each of us, wants his to be leaven in the dough, that is the presence that little by little, from the inside, makes a situation grow and orients it towards truth and goodness. It supports where support is needed, it changes where change is needed. With courage, without duplicity, but from within. Jesus did not support the sons of thunder, who invoked a fire of punishment.

Of course Syrian politics suffers from corruption (as in all the countries of the world) and there is sin in the Church (as in all the churches, as the Pope has so often complained)

But, appealing to the common sense of all, even non-believers: what is the real alternative that the West invokes for Syria? The Islamic State, Sharia? This in the name of freedom and democracy of the Syrian people? Dont make us laugh, actually, dont make us cry.

But if you think that in any case it is never legitimate to compromise, then for consistency we remind you, just to give one small example, that you would not have gas "without compromising with the strong powers", given that most companies have bought cheap oil from ISIS, across the bridge of Turkey: so when you drive a few kilometers, you do it thanks to the death of someone from whom this oil was stolen, consuming the diesel oil that was supposed to heat the house of some child in Syria..

If you really want to bring democracy to the world, make sure of your freedom from the satrapies of the West, and worry about your consistency, before intervening in that of others.

Last but not least, one should at least suspect the fact that if a Christian or a Muslim denounces the atrocities of jihadist groups it meets with a media silence, he finds only a rare echo in marginal agencies, while those who criticize the Syrian government gain the front pages of the big media. Does anyone remember an interview or an intervention by a Syrian bishop on some important newspaper in the West? One can disagree, obviously, but true information supposes different points of view.

Moreover, those who speak of an interested reverence of the Syrian Church towards President Assad as a defense of the short-sighted interests of Christians, proves that they do not know Syria, because in this land Christians and Muslims live together. It was only this war that hurt cohabitation in many parts, but in areas secured by the army (unlike those controlled by "others"), we still live together. With deep wounds to be tended, today unfortunately also with great difficulty to forgive, but still together. And good is good for everyone: I am witness to the many works of charity, relief, development run by Christians and Muslims together.

Of course, those who live here know this, even in the midst of so many contradictions, not those who write from behind a desk with many stereotypes of opposition between Christians and Muslims.

"Deliver us Lord from the war ... and deliver us from bad journalism ...".

With all due respect to journalists who really try to understand situations, and really inform us. But they will certainly not take us to task for what we write.Brunei is heavily dependent on its gas and oil reserves, which are set to run out in 20 years. Western banks are leaving the country. So far China has invested US$ 4.1 billion. Chinese capital is behind a new US$ 3.4 billion refinery and petrochemical complex under construction as well as the bridge that will link it to the capital. Some US$ 12 billion in investments are expected in the future.

Bandar Seri Begawan (AsiaNews/Agencies)  As it tries to cope with a recession that is now in its third year, Brunei is increasingly turning to Chinese investments, which can give the sultanate an important place in Beijings Belt and Road initiative (BRI), Chinas new silk road.

In Muara Besar, a small island in the South China Sea off the northern tip of Brunei, thousands of Chinese workers are building a refinery and petrochemical complex, as well as a bridge connecting it to the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan.

When completed, the first phase of the US$ 3.4 billion complex, run by China's Hengyi Group, will be Brunei's largest-ever foreign investment project.

The project comes at a time when the oil-dependent country needs it the most since its oil and gas reserves are expected to run out within two decades.

As production falls, oil firms will not be investing much into existing facilities, further hampering output, oil analysts say. Thus, the country's oil revenues, which provide virtually all of Brunei's government spending, are in steady decline.

With youth unemployment rising, Brunei's ruler, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, is trying to quickly reform the economy and diversify its sources of income, whilst fighting graft and cracking down on dissent.

Brunei's changing fortunes have been reflected in its financial industry. HSBC pulled out of Brunei last year, whilst Citibank exited in 2014 after 41 years. By contrast, the Bank of China opened its first branch in the sultanate in December 2016.

A US$ 12 billion second phase will expand the refinery capacity to 281,150 barrels per day, and build units to produce 1.5 million tonnes per year (tpy) of ethylene and 2 million tpy of paraxylene.

Total Chinese investment in Brunei is now estimated at US$ 4.1 billion, according to the American Enterprise Institute's China Global investment tracker.

China, the latter noted, has invested about US$ 205 billion in East Asia between 2010 and 2017, mostly in ports, roads, railways, and industrial plants.

At the same time, Beijing has been increasing its investments whilst tussling with four other South-East Asian nations, including Brunei, over competing claims to islets and atolls in the South China Sea.by Nirmala Carvalho

The Rev. Vipin Kumar was held in custody for eight hours. Far-right thugs interrupted a prayer gathering. The accusations of forced conversions "are used to intimidate Indias tiny Christian community".

Mumbai (AsiaNews) - A Pentecostal pastor was arrested yesterday in Uttarakhand, northern India, without charges being presented against him. Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), told AsiaNews: "The police arrested and kept the Rev. Vipin Kumar at the Kotwali Laksar police station. In the end the pastor was released without charges ".

The president of the GCIC explains that the rev. Kumar "was leading a prayer meeting in the village, when - without any provocation - a crowd of right-wing thugs interrupted the gathering. The officers arrested the pastor and locked him in the police station at 11 am. They questioned him and only released at 7.46 pm ".

The Christian leader complains that "while the right-wing henchmen interrupted the prayers and caused disturbances to public order, an innocent Christian was arrested. Thanking heaven, the pastor was not indicted. In any case, it is a paradox of justice that extreme right-wing extremists escape the hands of the law even if they terrorize religious minorities, and innocent people are detained and arrested ".

Sajan George reports that "Pentecostal Christians are treated as second-class citizens". Then he expresses concern because "during the holy period of Lent [we are witnessing] a peak of [episodes] of interruptions of prayers, intimidation and arrests of the faithful".

The president of the Christian group recalls that Christians in India represent 2.3% of the total population [about 27.8 million, of which 19 million Catholics, out of 1.2 billion inhabitants - ed.]. "The accusation of [forced] conversion - he continues - is continually used to fuel suspicion and intolerance towards the Christian minority in India. Extremists use false propaganda based on fabricated accusations. They manipulate the majority in order to harass and intimidate the miniscule Pentecostal Christian community with numerous attacks ".Aussie Farmers Direct closed for business





Australian grocery deliver Aussie Farmers Direct has entered into voluntary administration and closed its doors for business effective immediately.

After 13 years of operation, Aussie Farmers Direct placed a notice on its website Monday 5 March 2018 announcing the closure, a move it referred to as hugely disappointing.

According to the appointed voluntary administrator, Korda Mentha, approximately 100 franchisees, 260 employees and 100, 000 customers will be impacted by the closure.

No further orders or deliveries will take place with Aussie Farmers Direct saying customers waiting on orders will receive refunds shortly.

In its closure statement, Aussie Farmers Direct thanked all of its customers, farmers, franchisees, suppliers and staff for their support.

After 13 years of working with many of Australias great farmers and delivering their fresh produce to Australian families, it is hugely disappointing that it has come to this.

We are simply no longer able to compete against the domination of the major two supermarkets and the influx of cheap imported produce, Aussie Farmers Direct said.

The only part of the Aussie Farmers Direct business that will continue to operate is its Home Delivery Services division.

Home Delivery Services is a logistics service that provides last-mile delivery services.

Craig Shepard from Korda Mentha said a number of options had been explored to try and keep Aussie Farmers Direct doors opened, including recapitalising, finding a strategic partner and selling the business.

All avenues were however not enough to safeguard the companys future Shepard said.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to continue trading and the business will stop operating immediately, Shepard commented.

Aussie Farmers Direct began 13 years ago as a home delivery service for fresh milk, cheese, bread, and juice in Victoria. Over the next five years it expanded to NSW, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia and the ACT.

By 2010, it had been named by Business Review Weekly as the fastest-growing franchise in Australia. Then it introduced organics to its range of local produce. Two years ago, it challenged the supermarkets by offering thousands of grocery items.

Shepard said the company struggled to compete with the big supermarkets in a tough retail environment exacerbated by low wage growth. Directors believed their ability to sell local products was hampered by the promotion of low-cost imported products sold by their opposition.

Sheppard further stated that there was little cash in the company with most of the companys debt was held by entities associated with local and overseas investors. There was no significant bank debt. A meeting of creditors will be called next week.

Related articlesMacadamia innovation challenge driving new product development



Winners of Australian Macadamias Innovation Challenge - Ashna Gobin and Leonardo Bohorquez, Kinga Wojciechowski and Adeline Wong

The winners of Australian Macadamias world-first Innovation Challenge have been revealed, along with a number of new innovative macadamia food products.

Hosted 1 March 2018 in Byron Bay, NSW, the Australian Macadamia Society invited innovative food industry professionals and students to develop new value-added food products using macadamias.

Australian Macadamias Market Development Manager, Lynne Ziehlke, said the idea behind the Innovation Challenge is to drive new demand for macadamias amid increasing global supply.

We know that global production is increasing and that consumers want to see more products with macadamias, Ziehlke said.

This challenge is about inspiring food manufacturers across the world to take advantage of these opportunities.

The challenge involved finalists from across Australia visiting Byron Bay to create their innovative macadamia products before presenting them to a panel of expert food judges.

Judges for the challenge included Pam Brook, Co-Founder of Brookfarm, Nick Palumbo, Founder of Gelato Messina, Barry McGookin, General Manager at Food Innovation Australia and William Peterson, owner of Infinity Bakery.

Winners of the challenges three categories included Adeline Wong, winner of the professional category with a superfood Macadamia Mind Food Bar, Kinga Wojciechowski, winner of the student category for her Macadamia and Miso Caramel Cookies and Ashna Gobin and Leonardo Bohorquez, winner of the student pairs category for their macci ice cream.

Winners of the professional and student categories have won trips to SIAL food exhibition in Paris in October 2018. The student pair winners were awarded a $5000 cash grant to go towards their studies.

Judge, Pam Brook from Brookfarm, said all the judges were impressed by all of the entries.

As soon as these products touched our tastebuds we loved them, Brook said.

All the winners demonstrated a strong point of difference to traditional products available, presenting innovations that reveal a huge opportunity in the local and international market.

A complete list of winners and finalists for the challenge are listed below:

Professionals

Macadamia Mind Food Bars by Adeline Wong  WINNER

by Adeline Wong  WINNER Macadamia Yoghurt Tropo-pops by Jade Gibbons

by Jade Gibbons Twisted Macadamia Coconut Fro-Yo by Cassandra Spies

Students

Macadamia and Miso Caramel Cookies by Kinga Wojciechowski  WINNER

by Kinga Wojciechowski  WINNER Matcha-damia Cranberry Health Muffins by Pridhuvi Thavaraj

by Pridhuvi Thavaraj Matchadamia Berry Balls by Evie Crowe

Pairs

Macci Ice Cream by Ashna Gobin and Leonardo Bohorquez  WINNER

by Ashna Gobin and Leonardo Bohorquez  WINNER Golden Organic Macadamia Bagel by Andrew Dong and Sarah Dawes

by Andrew Dong and Sarah Dawes Macadamia Myrtle Balls by Sarah Boykett and Natasha Lane

by Sarah Boykett and Natasha Lane Macadamia Infused Brioche Delight by Han Chung and Hung Hzin Ke

Related articlesYou can't add the child to a sc. 300 visa that has already been granted. I take it the child was included as a non-migrating dependent ?



A dependent child can be included with sc. 820 application, but the child would need to be in Australia on some other visa without "no further stay" condition.



A dependent child can be added to your sc. 820 application after it is lodged but before the temporary Partner visa (subclass 820) is decided, but the child would need to be in Australia on some other visa without "no further stay" condition.



A dependent child can be added to your application after your temporary Partner visa (subclass 820) is granted but before the permanent Partner visa (subclass 801) is decided. In that case the child must first be granted a Dependent Child visa (subclass 445), which will let them stay in Australia or come to Australia if they are overseas.Darlingside

When: Doors open at 6:30 p.m., show at 7:30 Wednesday

Where: Bakersfield Music Hall of Fame, 2231 R St.

Tickets: $20, available at eventbrite.com or may be purchased at the door

Information: 864-1701Thank you for reading!

Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.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.A significant number of the 35% of Tulsa Public Schools who left the district in the last two years did not head to greener pastures out-of-state, but to other Oklahoma school districts with comparable pay, according to an investigation led by Tulsa World education reporter Andrea Eger. Teachers interviewed for the story cited poor leadership and lack of respect from administrators at district and school level as the main reason for seeking a new place of employment.

I encourage you to read the article at the World's website, but here's a summary to give you a sense:

Teachers mentioned overly prescriptive curricula that had them reading from a script or coordinating laptop-based instruction, reducing the teacher from a creative instructor to a mere "computer lab attendant" and making it impossible for teachers to learn and respond to the individual struggles of their students.

One veteran foreign language teacher quit to take a lower-paying gig as a freelance photographer: ""It was 100 percent the awful administration and the district showing us they didn't care."

Discipline, or the mandatory lack thereof, seems to have significantly damaged teacher morale and inspired departures and early retirements. Robert Dumas, a former Memorial Jr. High teacher criticized the all-positive, all-the-time news from district headquarters, saying, "Our suspensions are down because they stopped suspending kids for the same things." Mike McGuire, now retired from East Central High, suggested that the state aid formula, which is based on average daily attendance, might be a motivation for reducing the number of suspensions.

Mr. McGuire then dropped this bombshell, which (I hope) will get an investigation of its own (emphasis added):

McGuire said his tipping point was being formally reprimanded for how he responded to students concerned about two of their classmates being allowed to return to school after 10 days in jail on human trafficking complaints . "I told my students, especially the girls, 'If you're concerned, you need to tell your parents so they can express their concern to their school board representative,' " McGuire said. "If my daughters were going to school in a place with pimps running around it, I would want to know."

Apparently the paramount value for Tulsa Public Schools administration is making the administration look good. It's not a problem to have pimps in school; it is a problem to let parents know so they can take action to protect their children.

(This reminds me of the time, in 2000, that I got scolded by Jeannie McDaniel, then head of the Mayor's Office for Neighborhoods for Susan Savage, for alerting Crosbie Heights neighborhood leaders to a plan to demolish half of it for an amusement park. McDaniel didn't seem to be bothered that influential people intended to destroy the neighborhood, but that neighborhood leaders were panicked because they'd been told about it.)

Hats off to the Tulsa World reporters who produced this investigation and to the editors who gave it the green light. At a time when it's common wisdom to blame every school problem on the amount of state aid (and Superintendent Deborah Gist tried that gambit in this story), it would have been easy to bury the story for the sake of maintaining that narrative or out of fear that the story would provide fodder for the "wrong" people.

Meanwhile Deborah Gist is focused like a laser on the important issue of schools wrongly named after honorable and heroic men of history like Christopher Columbus and Robert E. Lee.

Just remember, folks: The TPS preliminary expenditure budget for 2017-2018 was $561,241,887 for an average daily membership for the first nine weeks of the year of 37054.40. That's $15,146.43 per student.

MORE: One of the teachers interviewed for the story mentioned a "student behavior management system" called "No-Nonsense Nurturing," which, combined with very scripted curriculum, became "too much to bear." On Twitter, Abigail Prescott links to an essay by a teacher explaining the No-Nonsense Nurturing system, which evidently involves coaches in the back of the classroom giving commands to the teacher through an earpiece, which she is supposed to carry out in a monotone. The World story quotes Superintendent Gist as saying that "TPS is committed to the philosophy that suspending students isn't a real solution to underlying behavior issues and noted that it offered the new behavior management strategy called 'No Nonsense Nurturing' only in response to personal concerns expressed to her by teachers when she first arrived in summer 2015."The Florida Senate passed a gun violence prevention package Monday evening, with a watered down plan to arm some school staff.

The bill narrowly passed, 20-18, and will now go to the Florida House.

A Republican amendment changed the so-called Marshal Program Monday. The program originally allocated $67 million to arm teachers who volunteer to go through law enforcement training.

The new version of the bill only allow teachers who perform other duties, such as coaching, to have guns. Other school staff, such as psychologists and guidance counselors, can also be trained to carry guns.

Democrats tried to strip the whole proposal from the bill during a rare Saturday session at the state Capitol, but failed.

What's in the bill?

The bill that's being sent to the Florida House would do the following:

MENTAL HEALTH

Creates a process to allow law enforcement to petition a court for a risk protection order to stop someone from accessing firearms if there is a danger that they will harm themselves or others. Orders can be issued for up to 12 months.

Allow law enforcement to seize firearms or ammunition for someone taken into custody under the Baker Act for 24 hours after that person has been released, provided there is no risk protection order against them

Prohibits a person with a mental illness or has been committed to a mental institution from owning a gun unless a court says otherwise

FIREARMS

Raises the age a person may buy a gun like an AR-15 to 21, unless they are a member of the military or law enforcement

Prohibits bump-fire stocks from being bought or sold in the state

SCHOOL SAFETY

Establishes a public safety commission to investigate the mass violence incidents and make recommendations

Allows a county sheriff to set up a program to train certain school staff members to carry firearms. Excludes classroom teachers who only teach.

Requires school districts to work with law enforcement in placing officers in school facilities and designating a school safety specialist

Provides funding for mental health care programs in schools

The bill also prohibits a person from making or posting threats about a mass shooting or act of terror, and orders FDLE to create a mobile app to allow the community to relay information about threats.

The cost of the package is $400 million. READ THE DETAILS.

Some pro-gun Republicans think those proposals go too far.

"I think it's window dressing, and I, for one, won't be going home trying to pretend that I did something to solve the problem," said Sen. Tom Lee, R-Brandon.

However, Democrats felt differently.

"I don't know how the pro-NRA legislator thinks, but I would assume that they're not going to get the credit they think they're going to get by voting for it," stated Sen. Oscar Braynon, D-Miami.

Democrats also tried to ban assault-style weapons used at both Pulse and the Parkland school, but those efforts failed on Saturday.

The measure does boost school security and creates new mental-health programs in schools.

The Florida House still has to take up the bill, but time is ticking as the legislative session is expected to end Friday.

However, if they do not get something passed, a special session may be called by the governor.SeaWorld Orlandos rescue team helped rescue an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin that was attacked by a shark.

SeaWorld rescues dolphin attacked by shark

Dolphin has multiple bite wounds to body and right flipper

RELATED: Video: SeaWorld returns 17 sea turtles to Atlantic Ocean

The 265-pound female dolphin was found near Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida last week.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission called SeaWorld to assist after determining the animal had life-threatening injuries. The dolphin had multiple shark bite wounds to her body and right pectoral flipper.

SeaWorld transported the dolphin to its Cetacean Rehabilitation Facility for treatment and rehabilitation. The dolphin is able to swim unsupported, SeaWorld said. However, members of the rescue team are providing 24-hour care until the dolphin gains her strength.

The Georgia Aquarium Conservation Field Station assisted with the rescue.

SeaWorld has helped more than 31,000 animals for more than 50 years.The Healthy Start program is facing huge budget cuts from the State Senate.

Healthy Start program faces budget cuts

Program helps high-risk mothers and babies in Florida

State Senate has proposed $19 million in cuts

The program helps thousands of high-risk mothers and babies in Florida. The State Senate has proposed $19 million in cuts.

Officials with Healthy Start say that is 29% of its budget.

"These are for women and children without a voice really," said Jane Murphy, executive director of Healthy Start Coalition of Hillsborough County. "Especially infants. And everything we've been about for 26 years has been about reducing infant mortality and I cannot imagine why people would make that kind of cut."

Healthy Start helps families ensure at-risk babies have the best chance at a healthy start in life. They work with opioid addictions, infant care, safe sleep, child development, pregnancy care and much more.

The cuts are so substantial Murphy says the program could disappear in some areas of the state.

"What may happen more in rural areas than urban areas is that some of those communities might not have Healthy Start and Healthy Start might be the only program they have for high risk moms and babies because it is universal around the whole state," Murphy said.

Reverend Alex Gallimore is the Senior Pastor at Bayshore Baptist Church in South Tampa. He has seen firsthand how vital Healthy Start is for families.

"We see moms who have to decide between buying diapers or food. Moms who have to decide between diapers and gas," said Rev. Gallimore.

He says Healthy Start connects mothers with all kinds of resources available to them and even partners with churches. He says that kind of support can't be replicated.

"An argument that I hear so often is, 'well that should be something done in the private sector. Churches and religious organizations need to do that'" Gallimore said. "Let me tell you that we can't pick up the slack. The work that they do is too far reaching, is too important. They have the skill set and the resources that we cannot come close to stepping in and trying to fill those shoes."

Since Healthy Start came to fruition in 1991, infant mortality in the state of Florida is down 35 percent.

Murphy says they need support for their funding to maintain the critical services they provide for high-risk pregnant women and infants in Florida.People are fed up with long lines at the Polk County Tax Collectors office.

Changes on the way at the Polk County Tax Collector's office

People are fed up with long lines

Tax Collector Joe Tedder says offices are seeing more customers

Lines out the door are now common at the Lakeland office.

"I wasn't expecting it, said Debbie Schwab, who just moved to Winter Haven from Hernando County. I was shocked.

Gary Sandow, another customer, said he had to wait two hours to get his driver's license renewed.

"Monday we came and sat two hours and the computers went down and they sent us home, he said. This is our second trip up here to do this.

Tax Collector Joe Tedder blames part of the problem on the statewide system which was down Feb. 26-27. Tedder said the state has been having issues with the system for months, but it appears to be working now.

He said the other issue is growth. His staff simply can't handle the increasing amount of customers coming in for driver's license services at the four Polk County offices.

"Simple renewals, from 2016, there was about 16,000 to 2017 it was close to 55,000 and we're projected this year to be somewhere around 70,000 to 75,000, he said. "And this problem in Polk County, you will see it across the state right now.

Tedder would like to open two more offices and hire about 80 employees to service both of them, but he said the funding isnt there.

"We will not be able to grow that capacity to meet the volume unless the state shares more of their fees with the actual provider of these services which are tax collectors across the state, said Tedder.

Tedder said the tax collectors office only gets about $6.25 of each driver's license fee.

He's looking at solutions to wait times including eliminating walk-in driver's license services and making them appointment only in the next two to three months. Also, his staff is asking customers more questions at the front door to insure they have the proper paperwork before having to wait inside.

In the meantime, he said customers can reduce their wait time by not coming on Mondays and Fridays and doing their license and tag renewals online or through the mail.Manatee County Schools is following through with its plan to tighten security at its schools.

Manatee schools steps up law enforcement presence

Law enforcement officer at every school; 2 at county's 6 high schools

Manatee County School District

Every school in the county is seeing some type of change with a law enforcement officer stationed at every school.

At Palmetto High School, students were greeted by two officers Monday. That is the case at all six high schools.

All totaled, 34 officers were dispatched to Manatee schools across the county.

Both the school board and law enforcement agreed having every school staffed is necessary. It is also expensive at about $600,000.

About 25 of the officers are from the sheriff's office with the rest coming from the Bradenton, Palmetto and Holmes Beach police departments.

Sheriff's Office officials said not all of the officers will technically be school resource officers since that requires a special type of training but instead will use off-duty deputies and those that have recently retired.

"This is a tremendous amount of hours all of a sudden just thrown in there," said Dave Bristow with the sheriff's office. "So were going to use reserve deputies, those are deputies that have recently retired but they are complete certified deputies. Some of those might wanna come back and work this."There have been recent morning delays on the Courtney Campbell Causeway that are not characteristic for the drive from Clearwater to Tampa.

Project is to fix an 83-year-old problem

Recent morning delays reported on Causeway

Want to suggest a Traffic Inbox story for Chuck? Click here



Real Time Traffic Expert Chuck Henson looked at road work there that has nothing to do with the road.

The work started last month on the east end of the span near the Ben T Davis beach.

"I have noticed traffic backing up a bit given the lane change configurations," said viewer Mike G. "I'm sure the joggers and cyclists would like to know if the trail is going to be restored to its previous glory when the project is done."

To answer that requires a trip back in time, because the work is to fix an 83-year-old problem.

When Ben T Davis' Davis Dredging Company built the span, it cut off most of the north end from the rest of Tampa Bay.

As a result, the water quality has suffered, according to Florida Department of Transportation spokesman John McShaffrey.



When the span was built, it cut off most of the north end from the rest of Tampa Bay.

"This is about water circulation and water quality and tidal flow," he said. "Right now the tidal flow cannot reach the northeastern quadrant of old Tampa Bay because there's no channel there. It's all west of here."

To fix that, the state is installing a channel -- a small low level bridge where water can flow from the mid-bay to the north bay. It's a small project that will have big ecological impact.

Right now, eastbound traffic has shifted onto temporary lanes. Soon, westbound will shift onto the old eastbound side and the channel construction will start.

Once the north half of the channel is finished, traffic and the bike trail will shift to the north side, and the south end of the channel can be built.

"We will maintain the trail and we will maintain all lanes of traffic throughout the project," McShaffrey said.

Once the channel is finished, the run/bike trail will also be restored to its full capacity.

Oregon Coast from Orbit: Seeing the Beaches from Space

Published 03/04/2018 at 6:35 PM PDT - Updated 03/04/2018 at 6:36 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Oregon Coast)  To enter that divine state of being blown away by any scene along the Oregon coast is no surprise. The region is one jaw-dropping moment after another. Its Oregons number one attraction for a reason, and it doesnt hurt that theres 363 miles of shoreline to pick from. (Above: Astoria seen from space).

However, what if you could see it from space?

There was until 2014 a wealth of such pictures pouring from the skies. An imaging system aboard the International Space Station called HICO  for Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Ocean  was taking such amazing shots on a regular basis. They were sending them down to researchers here on Earth, including at Oregon State University (OSU) and at the central Oregon coasts Hatfield Marine Science Center for all kinds of scientific endeavors.

However, according to OSU, the steady flow of those beauties is now gone.

In September 2014 during an X-class solar storm, HICOs computer took a severe radiation hit, from which it never recovered, the university said in 2015. Over the past several months, engineers at NRL and NASA have attempted to restart the computer and have conducted numerous tests to find alternative pathways to communicate with it. None of these attempts have been successful. So it is with great sadness that we bid a fond farewell to HICO.

The point was to examine the ocean and near-shore environments from orbit. Above is the image of the Columbia River from orbit, including Astoria and the southwest Washington coast. Below, youll find Newports Yaquina Bay.

Then there's the stunning pleasures of simple aerial shots.





Looking at Cannon Beach a little closer to the ground, here you see Ecola State Park from an aerial vantage point. The gigantic parking lot looks more like an enormous, even ominous slug from this high up.





Nearby, the Tillamook Rock Lighthouse started shining in the 1880s. Extinguished in the 1950s, it became a resting place for the ashes of the dead, until that company went belly up around the Millennium. The ashes are still there, but the birds and waves have taken over.





Cape Falcon near Manzanita has much more to reveal. Gigantic sea caves abound here, otherwise out of sight and out of mind. Oregon Coast Hotels in these areas - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours





What does outer space and the Oregon coast look like together? As if the beaches have taken a selfie with the universe behind it, including some awe-inspiring glimpses of the Milky Way Galaxy floating above the waves at Cape Foulweather near Depoe Bay. Below: the galaxy from Cannon Beach.









More About Oregon Coast hotels, lodging.....

More About Oregon Coast Restaurants, Dining.....

Coastal Spotlight



LATEST Related Oregon Coast Articles

Back to Oregon Coast

Contact Advertise on BeachConnection.net

All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permittedThe Loeries, in partnership with AB InBev Africa, will host a networking function for creatives in Lagos on Thursday, 8 March 2018. Loeries CEO, Andrew Human will be engaging with leaders of the advertising industry on why and how to enter the awards which take place annually in Durban, South Africa.

About Loeries Africa Middle East

About AB InBev

Attendees will be presented with examples of winning entries from Loeries 2017, to better understand how to prepare entries and learn what the judges will be looking for, in winning submissions for Loeries 2018.Human says, Weve enjoyed a successful partnership with AB InBev for a number of years and are delighted to extend the partnership into Nigeria for this event, especially in a milestone year where we celebrate rewarding creativity for 40 years.Nigerias 7even Interactive Limited won a Loerie award in 2017 and is currently ranked joint 18th in the agencies outside of South Africa category in the Loeries Official Rankings.Continues Human, Were looking forward to seeing even more inspirational and award-winning work come out of Nigeria in 2018 and were confident an engagement of this nature will bring the iconic Loeries statue back to the region.Arne Rust, Marketing Director for AB InBev West Africa says, AB InBev Africa and International Breweries Nigeria are proud to partner with the Loeries to showcase African Creative excellence. We are passionate about building brands, making connections and bringing people together for a better world.The Loeries entry deadline is 15 May and the early bird deadline, which offers a 10% discount off completed and paid for entries, is 16 April.Loeries Creative Week takes place in Durban, South Africa from 13 to 19 August 2018.More information can be found on loeries.com The Loeries has been rewarding creativity for 40 years. As Africa and the Middle Easts premiere award that recognises, rewards, inspires and fosters creative excellence in the advertising and brand communication industry, winning a Loerie is the highest accolade for creativity and innovation across our region. The Loeries promotes and supports creativity by helping marketers, agencies and consumers appreciate the value of fresh thinking, innovative ideas and outstanding execution.Culminating in the biggest creative gathering in the region, Loeries Creative Week brings together the best innovative minds from our industry for a festival that offers networking, creative inspiration and the recognition of great work.The creative economy across Africa and the Middle East is world-class and has great potential to offer employment to our talented youth, and the Loeries places a significant emphasis on education and development.DStv Media Sales, Gearhouse GroupAB InBev, Accenture, Brand SA, Facebook, Gagasi FM, Google, JCDecaux, SANBS, Unilever South Africa, WoolworthsAAA School of Advertising, Antalis South Africa, Aon South Africa, Association of Practitioners in Advertising Kenya, Backsberg, BEE Online, Chivas, First Source, Fresh RSVP Guest Logistics, Funk Productions, Gallo Images, Grid Worldwide, Hetzner, Multiprint Litho, Lingo Communications, Newsclip, Paygate, Rocketseed, Scan Display, Shift Social Development, South African Airways, Tsogo Sun, Vega School, VQI Communications Nigeria.Between 10and5, Bizcommunity.com, Book of Swag, Campaign Middle East, Design Times, Film & Event Media, Ididtht.com, Goliath and Goliath, Leading Architecture and Design, Marketing Edge Nigeria, Marketing Africa Kenya, Media Update, The Redzone.We are ABInbev: We are committed to driving growth and improving the lives of more people in more places. Through brands and experiences that bring people together. Through our dedication to brewing the best beer with the finest, natural ingredients. And through our commitment to helping farmers, retailers, entrepreneurs and communities grow.We are Brewers: Our brewing heritage dates back more than 600 years, spanning continents and generations. From the Den Hoorn brewery in Leuven (Belgium), to the iconic Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis (US), from Castle in Johannesburg (South Africa), to Bohemia in Petropolis (Brazil), our geographical footprint connects people and brings them together.We are Brand Builders: We are committed to building great brands that stand the test of time. We are proud to have a diverse portfolio of global, multi-country and local beer brands. These brands are the foundation of the business and the cornerstone of our relationships with consumers.We are Value Creators: We are always looking for new opportunities and ways to improve. We are committed to growing our business, building our brands, increasing shareholder value and helping our communities to thrive. Delivering consistent, superior top-line growth is our top priority. Strict financial discipline keeps us on course and our company culture drives us forward.We strive for a better world: We strive to make the world a better place by combining our scale, resources and energy with the needs of our communities.The City of Cape Town is introducting post-natal services for moms and babies at all of its clinics. Until now, post-natal assessments in the first six weeks after birth have only been available at the Western Cape Government maternal obstetrics units (MOUs).

Alderman JP Smith, mayoral committee member for safety and security; and social services launches CoCT's mom and baby service

Integrated services

Early basic ante-natal care (before 20 weeks and up to six visits)

Post-natal care for the mother (before six days and at six weeks)

Reproductive health education and access to a variety of family planning methods

Coordination of mother and baby appointments for immunisations, baby services (including nutrition education) and developmental screening

Advice on breastfeeding, referrals to other levels of care (as needed) and access to support systems available in the area.

The city's healths services were limited to family planning, basic ante-natal care (Banc) and testing for HIV, TB and sexually transmitted infections. Going forward, mothers will be able to access post-natal services like breastfeeding and nutrition advice as well as prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) in cases where the mother is HIV positive.This is a significant addition because it improves accessibility for the client as this service would be available in the area where they reside. It also contributes to the continuum of care and the integrated package of care that City Health wants to make available.The City of Cape Town has been making an effort to ensure that mothers and babies are seen as a pair who receive integrated care starting from the time of conception and extending for as long as is required. It is critical that once women receive a positive pregnancy test, they are immediately booked, tested for HIV, enrolled on anti-retroviral treatment (ARVs) if needed and, after delivery, that they return to the original clinic for post-natal and child health services. Sending them from one healthcare facility for a service to another for something else, and being seen by various other clinicians confuses clients and leads to gaps in care.The integration of mom and baby care means that during the Banc appointments, future moms can be given the babys Road to Health card ahead of time, taught about the importance of loving and talking to the baby in the womb and making sure she is connected for extended support. The early follow-up after delivery helps staff identify mental health issues and offer support for breastfeeding.Offering these services together is a cost-effective way to identify and address problems that otherwise might play out negatively in the first thousand days of the life of the child. The well-being of the mother, including the provision of a safe family planning method to prevent unintended pregnancies is just as important.This new integrated package of care makes it easier for clients to observe all recommended health measures, but it also reduces the number of clinic visits and saves time, enabling women to be more active in the labour force, improve household income and invest more in their own as well as their childrens health, education, and well-being. This approach also means savings for the healthcare system by eliminating unnecessary clinic visits.The integrated mom and baby one-stop-shop strategy at city clinics includes:The source of the world's largest Listeriosis outbreak has been traced to an Enterprise Foods facility in Polokwane, Limpopo, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced on Sunday.

Product recalls

Compromised individuals

The cause of the outbreak strain ST6 was confirmed in 16 environmental samples collected from the Enterprise facility. The foods linked to the outbreak have been identified as Enterprise polony smoked Russians and frankfurters, but Motsoaledi has urged the public to abstain from eating any ready-to-eat meat products.While we know that polony is definitely implicated, there is a risk of cross-contamination of other ready-to-eat processed meat products, either at production, distribution or retail. We advise members of the public to avoid all processed meat products that are sold as ready-to-eat, said the Minister.In addition to the Polokwane facility, another Enterprise facility located in Germiston, Gauteng, tested positive for Listeria but it is yet to be confirmed if it is the same ST6 strain. Enterprise Foods has confirmed that it is undertaking a full national recall on the Enterprise ready-to-eat meat products, and operations have been suspended at both the Polokwane and Germiston facilities, and supply to retailers has been halted. Enterprise Foods forms part of FMCG giant Tiger Brands.A Rainbow Chicken Limited (RCL Foods) factory in the Free State also tested positive for Listeria, but samples from this facility are not the same strain that is causing the outbreak. The company has confirmed that its Wolwehoek processing plant has taken the precautionary measure to suspend all production of the Rainbow Polony brand. Additionally, it is in the process of recalling all Rainbow Polony products from its entire customer base."RCL Foods is continuing its detailed discussions and is working closely with representatives from the DoH, the Department of Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries (DAFF), and the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD). RCL Foods is sharing all results from its testing, both internally and externally, with the relevant authorities," the company said in a statement.The department has issued the affected companies, Enterprise Foods and RCL Foods, with safety recall notices. National Consumer Commission deputy commissioner Thenzi Mabuza said that "companies would have to come up with a plan on how they would recall all products which they must present on Monday morning.They also need to let us know which other products were made in the factories and could have been contaminated by Listeria bacteria. They also need to say the time they are going to take to recall the product and the strategy of how consumers dispose of products.Retailers have stated that they are in the process of withdrawing all products from the manufacturing sites identified by the Department of Health. Pick n Pay, Shoprite and Checkers shoppers are advised to return any Enterprise and Rainbow ready-to-eat products for a full refund."All Enterprise products - including the Bokkie, Renown, Lifestyle and Mieliekip brands - have already been recalled by the company concerned and we are urgently withdrawing them from our stores," said David North, group executive, strategy and corporate affairs, Pick n Pay Stores."In addition, all ready-to-eat products such as polony and Russian sausages manufactured at the Rainbow facility in Sasolburg are also being withdrawn. This action is taking place in all Pick n Pay and Boxer stores. In addition, as a precaution, Pick n Pay-branded chicken polony, manufactured by Rainbow, is also being withdrawn.All fridges and food preparation areas in our stores will now be re-cleaned to prevent any cross-contamination. Recalled meat is being isolated and will be safely destroyed," North stated in a press release.The foodborne disease has claimed approximately 180 lives since January 2017, and more than 900 cases have been reported. Newborns, the elderly, pregnant women and their unborn babies, and immune-compromised individuals with HIV, diabetes, cancer and chronic liver or kidney disease are at a higher risk of being infected. Pregnant woman, in particular, may display no symptoms when being infected with the bacteria but can pass it onto their baby.According to the department, Gauteng is still leading the pack with the number of Listeriosis cases at 60%, followed by 13% in the Western Cape and 7% in KwaZulu-Natal and others sporadically spread out across the country.The following food safety precautions have been advised by the department:Wash your hands before handling food or when coming back from the bathroom.Cook food thoroughly.Separate raw food from cooked food.Store food at an appropriate temperature.Wash uncooked food with clean running water.Only use pasteurized or boiled milk products.Mark1 was recognised as leaders in the digital industry when it scooped the silver pixel in display advertising at the 2018 IAB Bookmark Awards.

The Bookmarks rewards excellence in digital and recognise the powerful impact interactive has on the overall marketing mix. It sets the benchmark for tech, digital and leading-edge innovation. The award-winning work by agencies seeks to inspire and educate the industry about the power to build brands through creative and high-impact digital executions that deliver measurable results.Daan du Toit, Mark1's managing director, says he is ecstatic about the award, which he says demonstrates that Mark1 is leading the way in the digital industry in South Africa and that it's on par with the rest of the world."This is a world-class award for an outstanding campaign and to be recognised by the IAB - a prestigious industry body is both an honour and a privilege," he says.Du Toit explains that the category Mark1 scooped the silver pixel in was for its work done on the KFC Add Hope campaign. The campaign used 360 video and built it into a 300x250 video banner, specifically aimed at a smartphone. The banner ad displayed a one-touch virtual reality (VR) mode and invited mobile users to insert their mobile device into a VR headset, with the ultimate aim of providing South Africans the unique opportunity to meet some of the disadvantaged children who benefit from KFC's Add Hope campaign, which requests that customers donate R2 with every purchase to help tackle hunger in the country."The success of this specific campaign illustrates that digital is considered a powerful vehicle of change that can be used so well for social good. As a team, we are proud of this accolade and thrilled that we are able to deliver to our clients work of an award-wining standard," Du Toit says.The 43-year-old Italian, who was creative director at the famed French fashion house from 2005 to 2017, will take over the reins at Burberry on 12 March.He is credited with reviving Givenchy by cultivating links with celebrities, including by designing stage outfits for the tours of Madonna, Beyonce and Rihanna, and directing the artwork for an album by Jay Z and Kanye West.Tisci will be based in London and direct all Burberry's collections, presenting his first in September, the company said.Chief executive Marco Gobbetti said he was "delighted" at the appointment, adding: "Riccardo is one of the most talented designers of our time. His designs have an elegance that is contemporary and his skill in blending streetwear with high fashion is highly relevant to today's luxury consumer."Riccardo's creative vision will reinforce the ambitions we have for Burberry and position the brand firmly in luxury."Tisci said he was honoured to take over and pleased to be reuniting with Gobbetti, who was chief executive of Givenchy between 2004 and 2008. "I have an enormous respect for Burberry's British heritage and global appeal and I am excited about the potential of this exceptional brand," he said.Bailey presented his final show at last month's London Fashion Week, bowing out after 17 years.Tuesday will see the Food and Allied Workers Union (FAWU) march to the South African Revenue Services (SARS) and parliament, the first this month, to call attention to job losses in the South African sugar and poultry industries. FAWU will be leading the marches to the SARS office in Pretoria on Tuesday 6 March and to parliament in Cape Town, tentatively on 12 March, to protest the loss of jobs through illicit trade practices and inappropriate government policies to prevent these job losses.

KarlHumphries via pixabay

Watch: FAWU general secretary Katishi Masemola on @eNCA earlier today, talking about the planned protest action on March 6 to SARS in Pretoria. To demand action against all forms of illicit trade affecting our economy.#Fightillicit @Abramjee @SAFTU_media pic.twitter.com/DuGnvqGtED  FAWU Media (@fawu_media) March 4, 2018

Marches backed by FairPlay

Employment in sugar and poultry industries is declining because of inadequate protection, including through appropriate tariff measures.We need the government to clamp down on the illicit trade in poultry, sugar and sugary sweets, tobacco, alcohol, fishing, soft drinks it is rampant across so many of our industries at the cost of our peoples jobs," said Katishi Masemola, FAWU general secretary. We need action to create jobs and job security. We need action to guarantee revenue for government coffers. We need action for better health outcomes in our country.The marches will be supported by the FairPlay movement, a not-for-profit trade movement that fights for jobs. Its goal is to end predatory trade practices between countries so that big and small nations play by the same rules on a level playing field. It supports the principle that penalties for transgressing those rules apply equally to everybody.We are supporting the South African sugar industry because it is an important and strategic industry under threat. Jobs are being lost unnecessarily because the measures to protect the local industry are not timeous and flexible enough, said FairPlay founder Francois Baird. Like the chicken industry which we have supported for more than a year, the sugar industry is in decline, and because of government inaction, it is shrinking when it should be growing, creating jobs and exporting its products. The government needs to wake up to the jobs crisis in the sugar industry, Baird said. He was speaking at a Poultry Forum held by Proudly SA held recently and called for the government to investigate the implementation of a zero rating in VAT for uncooked locally produced chicken.The SONA speech by President Cyril Ramaphosa and his commitment to supporting small business and entrepreneurship has been welcomed by Tony Da Fonseca, the Franchise Association of South Africa's Chairman, who in 2017 had already met with the chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee for Trade & Industry to pave the way for greater co-operation between government and the franchise sector.

Perfectly poised to grow small business

Opportunities in public/private development space

We are encouraged by the Presidents promise to increase co-operation with business and look at ways to encourage entrepreneurship, youth training and job creation, says Da Fonseca. We are confident that the franchise sector can play a pivotal role through innovations like the development of social and micro franchising which hold enormous and largely untapped potential for the development of the economy and improve service delivery.Confirming that the growth of the economy will be sustained by small businesses, as is the case in many countries, Ramaphosa confirmed that government would honour its undertaking to set aside at least 30% of public procurement to SMMEs, co-operatives and township and rural enterprises and would continue to invest in small business incubation. It is our shared responsibility to grow this vital sector of the economy.As a sector that already contributes 13, 3% to the countrys GDP generating an estimated R587 billion through its 845 franchise systems, 40,528 franchisees and employing 343,319 people, franchising is perfectly poised to play an even bigger role in furthering small business development, skills transfer and job creation.As a successful businessman and former franchise owner himself, Ramaphosa is familiar with the far-reaching potential that franchising has in small business development, skills development and job creation, says Da Fonseca. We are hopeful that he will look to us in the franchise sector to assist in building that small business support ecosystem that assists, nourishes and promotes entrepreneurs that he referred to in his SONA speech.That, together with the welcome measures by government to reduce the regulatory barriers for small business and the introduction of an innovation fund targeted at start-ups and small suppliers that could become supply chains to the franchise sector, will go a long way to opening the doors to small business expansion and the benefits to the economy that will flow from that.According to Da Fonseca, much more can be done in the public/private development space. The opportunities to transform government services, such as healthcare, water delivery, education and in many other areas, through the social franchise format, are enormous. Both locally and internationally, pilot projects in social franchising that operate on commercial principles, making enough profit to sustain operations and re-investing surplus profits into the community they serve, have proved to be viable.Da Fonseca says that the franchise sector is well-positioned to come together in a concerted effort to stimulate entrepreneurship and create much-needed jobs. Franchising in South Africa currently services around 17 business sectors  way behind countries such as Australia, Europe, Canada and the USA who boast between 25 and over 70 business categories.The opportunities to expand into many more sectors and particularly in the social and services sectors of the economy are endless. We welcome the opportunity to work with government in creating an entrepreneurial environment that will grow investment confidence, introduce new small business concepts via the franchise system, accelerate BEE and enterprise opportunities, giving training to the youth and above all create those much-needed jobs."Mr President, the franchising sector is ready and able to take on the opportunities for renewal and revitalisation, and for progress to build the fair, just and decent society to which Nelson Mandela dedicated his life."This company article has been removed.As the pressure on Impala Platinum (Implats) eases in Zimbabwe around compliance with indigenisation demands, the world's second-biggest platinum miner is acting on the far more pressing problems at its cash-burning mines in SA.

Nico Muller, CEO: Implats

Half of Implats's output from its 11 shafts around Rustenburg was unprofitable for the first six months of its 2018 financial year to end-June and new CEO Nico Muller said there was an urgency to "normalise" operations in the heart of the company.Implats cut 1,400 jobs at a cost of R170m in the interim period, generating a R350m a year saving and has closed its old 4 Shaft, taking 10,000oz of production out of the group.Over the next two years it will shut its 1 and 9 shafts, removing a further 100,000oz. Until these shafts are shut the remaining reserves will be "harvested", meaning no capital will be invested in them.The 12 Shaft that accounts for 80,000oz will be shut in a similar time frame if productivity and costs do not improve or if the basket price for the platinum group metals it provides does not rise, said chief operating officer Gerhard Potgieter. A reduction of 15,000 tonnes of concentrate from the closed shafts could be replaced by concentrate from the Waterberg project Implats will share with Canada's Platinum Group Metals if there is a decision to build a mine there in the next few years, he said.In four years, the two new 16 and 20 shafts will be in steady state production of 310,000oz a year, with the 11 and 14 shafts generating 250,000oz in total. These four shafts will account for 80% of production from the Rustenburg area and are being scrutinised over the next six months to ensure they are cash generative and suitably capitalised, Muller said.The other 140,000oz to bring the Rustenburg shafts to a steady 700,000oz of platinum a year will come from the large 10 and 12 shafts.Mark Munroe, a Lonmin veteran, has been tasked with managing the Rustenburg mines, restoring a profitable engine room for Implats during the next 18 months and putting it in a position where it can possibly enter the consolidation race.Sibanye-Stillwater snapped up the Rustenburg mines once owned by Anglo American Platinum and Aquarius Platinum and is now in an all-share bid for Lonmin, but this swathe of mines and plants under a single owner has little effect on Implats, said Muller.The most obvious synergies for Implats to unlock lie to its north where Royal Bafokeng Platinum is building the Styldrift mine in two phases and Implats is mining part of its smaller peer's resources under a royalty agreement.The new 20 Shaft underground infrastructure could be used to more quickly and cheaply access the undeveloped second phase at Styldrift."There are potential longterm opportunities for us to collaborate. However a prerequisite for that is for us to get our house in order at Rustenburg," Muller said. "To consider anything before we do that would just create a lot of noise."Kenyan conservationists expressed outrage on Thursday, 1 March 2018, after construction of a railway line began inside Nairobi's famed national park, saying this defied a court order halting the project.

The extension of a Chinese-built railway that is Kenya's biggest infrastructure project since independence through the vast wildlife reserve on the outskirts of Nairobi has been tied up in legal battles since 2016.However last week, cranes, heavy machinery and scores of workers from the China Road and Bridge Corporation set up inside the park borders, working furiously inside an area cordoned off and protected by armed rangers."What we have seen here is a government that is hell-bent on getting its way and building this project even in defiance of court," said Jim Karani, legal affairs manager of Wildlife Direct, which has been involved in the litigation.A small group of activists held a protest Thursday to demand government comply with court orders stopping construction."It is very disappointing. The government is openly breaking the law," said one protester, Catherine Chumo.Just 7km from the heart of town, lions, hyenas and giraffes roam at will in the vast reserve that is facing multiple pressures from a burgeoning city and the accompanying infrastructure demands.A first 483km railway line from Mombasa to a terminal east of the Nairobi National Park was completed in 2017. The second phase through the park is being portrayed as vital to Kenya's ambitions to eventually link to its regional neighbours. Under the scheme, an elevated rail line will run across six kilometres of the park perched on pillars between eight and 40 metres (24 to 120 feet) tall.Rail authorities maintain the pillars will be camouflaged, noise pollution reduced and freedom of movement maintained for the animals.A coalition of interested parties first appealed to the National Environment Tribunal in 2016 to complain about the way in which an impact study was carried out, citing lack of public participation. The tribunal ordered construction be stopped until the case could be heard, which it was required by law to do.However in 2017, government tried to amend the law imposing an automatic halt to a project when a complaint is lodged at the environmental tribunal - burying the change in an unrelated prevention of torture act. When conservationists learned of this they complained to the high court which suspended the amendment.While the protesters insist the stop order is still in place, Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) insists construction is taking place legally. Spokesman Paul Gathitu told AFP that the Chinese construction company had appealed to the high court, arguing this automatically invalidated the stop order while that case was ongoing. Kenya's government has come under fire for recently ignoring a string of court orders.Transport Minister James Macharia told AFP he did not wish to comment.The Financial Services Board (FSB) has placed the Bosele National Provident Fund - whose members include preschool teachers, doctors' assistants and even members of the United Christian Democratic Party - under curatorship.

Early in February, the high court in Mahikeng approved the regulator's application to appoint Tony Tshivhase and Malcolm Campbell as joint curators to run the fund."An on-site visit to the fund was conducted in August 2017, and the matters emanating from this on-site visit formed the basis for the application to place the fund under curatorship," says Corlia Buitendag, head of pension surveillance & enforcement at the FSB.The on-site visit found serious lapses in governance at the fund, the FSB says."The visit revealed several matters that were prejudicial to members' interests in the fund, and the [pension funds] registrar considered that the board of trustees was not adequately or appropriately addressing them, and that curators needed to be appointed to protect members' interests," says Buitendag.But what is concerning is that the curatorship comes nearly six years after the FSB reported senior executives of Kopano Employee Benefits (KEB), a subsidiary of trade union federation Cosatu's investment arm, and certain other individuals to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) for plundering more than R120m from the provident fund.The financial services regulator also withdrew KEB's licence to administer retirement funds at the time. This followed a damning report arising from an inspection of the operations of Kopano ke Matla - Cosatu's investment arm - and Westside Trading, a consulting company Bosele paid to trace beneficiaries.Kopano was irregularly appointed as Bosele's administrator, and minutes were fabricated to make its appointment appear legitimate, according to the report.Inspectors recommended that the companies, and certain key individuals working for them, be investigated for "unusual and suspicious transactions and payments", including R123m paid to companies within the Kopano group, with more than R57m ending up with top Kopano executives. A Kopano executive then paid R6.9m of Bosele's own money to the fund's board of trustees.The FSB says it acted on the report. However, industry insiders say the fund should have been placed in curatorship a long time ago."After finalisation of the 2010 inspection report the registrar took regulatory action, including the removal from office of the then trustees and principal officer," says Buitendag."The FSB referred the report to the Hawks during May 2012,and to the Asset Forfeiture Unit during April 2014 for criminal investigation."But Hangwani Mulaudzi, spokesman for the Hawks, said in response to the Financial Mail's questions that he was hearing about the referral for the first time.He undertook to inquire about the case, but had not found it by the time of going to print.Luvuyo Mfaku, spokesman for the National Prosecuting Authority, under whose ambit the Asset Forfeiture Unit falls, refused to answer repeated questions.Evidently the FSB's action had little impact on the fund'sgovernance.Says Buitendag: "There were several attempts by subsequent boards of management to bringthe fund back to acceptable levels of governance, but the registrar concluded after the last on-sitevisit that these actions were not yielding the desired results, and the members of the fund were suffering."Consequently, the registrar formed the view that good cause existed to place the fund under curatorship," Buitendag says."The effect of the curatorship order was that the management and control of the fund now vests in the curators, and the trustees of the fund were divested of their powers."Fund administrator Alexander Forbes has refused to comment.Entrepreneurs are set to benefit from an investment of R1.5 billion, says Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu.

Building solid framework for businesses to prosper

This is the outcome of a collaboration between the Department of Small Business Development, Small Enterprise Development Agency (Seda), Small Enterprise Finance Agency (Sefa) and the Services SETA. We [recently] launched the Entrepreneurship and Cooperatives Development Institute (ECDI) in Johannesburg in which the three-year R1.5 billion fund will be invested, Minister Zulu said.She said the partnership is the culmination of a long process of efforts from various stakeholders in both private and public sector organisations for the past 12 months in an effort to build entrepreneurship and an enterprising nation.A programme of action has been mapped out and it comprises business [advice], monitoring and evaluation, entrepreneurship societies, a micro entrepreneurship programme, business growth programmes, start-up enterprise villages (such as 22 on Sloane) and skills development, Minister Zulu said.She was addressing inter-sectoral stakeholders on Friday in Tshwane to solicit views from key stakeholders and address concerns of stakeholders.She said her department is working on further enforcement measures that will ensure that suppliers are paid within 30 days.The payment of suppliers within 30 days remains a challenge. As at September 2017, a total of 71 883 invoices (R4.3 billion) were older than 30 days and not paid, Minister Zulu said.She said her department will be working with National Treasury and the Department of Planning Monitoring & Evaluation (DPME) to come up with further enforcement measures to ensure that all government departments pay their invoices within 30 days.Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Dr Zweli Mkhize said government wants to partner with small business to create a framework that will ensure that entrepreneurs succeed in their endeavours.Our partnership will focus on a number of things. [We want to look at] the issue of improving the ease of doing business for small business through the reduction of red tape, Minister Mkhize said.He urged the small business sector to be specific about the challenges that they face at municipal, provincial and district municipal level.We need to embrace the youth. The number of entrepreneurs that come from young people is very high, Minister Mkhize said.He said young people need to be supported not only through funding but also sustainable mentorship.He encouraged young people to start businesses and use policies such as the Integrated Urban Development Framework to create conducive spaces for entrepreneurship to thrive.He further called on the private sector to invest in small businesses.The stakeholder engagement was also attended by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Deputy Minister Andries Nel and some MECs.The Department of Small Business is confident that the inter-sectoral stakeholder engagements will help create a conducive environment within which small, medium, micro and cooperative enterprises may thrive.These engagements are meant to sharpen our collective response to the challenges confronting small businesses and cooperatives and to influence the entrepreneurial ecosystem," Minister Zulu said.The Allan Gray Orbis Foundation Fellowship programme is open for entry, with 1st and 2nd year university students invited to apply.

1st year university criteria

Minimum average of 65% for your 2018 mid-year (June) exam results



Studying towards a degree in Commerce, Science (excluding Medicine), Humanities (majoring in Politics, Philosophy or Economics), Engineering or Law



Studying at one of the following universities: WITS, UJ, UCT, NMU, Rhodes, UWC, Stellenbosch, UFS or UP



Applicants must be under the age of 22 in the year of their application



South African Citizenship



The application closing date is 17 August 2018

2nd year university criteria

Minimum average of 65% for your 2017 year-end exam and 65% in 2018 mid-year exam



Studying towards a degree in Commerce, Science (excluding Medicine), Humanities (majoring in Politics, Philosophy or Economics), Engineering or Law



Studying at one of the following universities: WITS, UJ, UCT, NMU, Rhodes, UWC, Stellenbosch, UFS or UP



Applicants must be under the age of 23 in the year of their application



South African Citizenship



The application closing date is 17 August 2018

How to apply

Visit our portal allangrayorbis.microsoftcrmportals.com/ to apply.



The application closing date is the 17th of August 2018.

Through the fellowship programme, the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation invests in the education and development of individuals with entrepreneurial potential and believes that these curious, driven and responsibly-minded young people are capable of significantly, positively and permanently impacting the economic lives of the communities, cities and our country.The Foundation supports entrepreneurs who will improve the socio-economic landscape of southern Africa. Further, it provides youth who demonstrate the highest potential access to education and assists them with cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset.Fellowship recipients, known as Candidate Allan Gray Fellows, receive funding for university in addition to access to support and development to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset. Personal leadership and academic excellence also forms a core part of the Fellowship Programme.More information is available at www.allangrayorbis.org and www.facebook.com/allangrayorbisFRANKFURT, Germany - German computer chip maker Infineon said on Friday it is teaming up with China's biggest carmaker, SAIC Motor Corporation, to produce power modules for the Chinese electric car market, the world's biggest.

 Jakub Jirsak via 123RF

Infineon said in a statement it will hold a 49% stake in the new Shanghai-based company, SAIC Infineon Automotive Power Modules (SIAPM), which will make inverters - vital parts that convert power from the battery to a form that can be used by the car's engine.SAIC will hold the other 51%.The joint venture has already received the necessary regulatory approval and will begin large-scale production in the second half of this year, Infineon said.SIAPM will focus on the massive Chinese market for electric or hybrid vehicles, which saw 794,000 sales last year according to local auto industry association CAAM.Meanwhile, Infineon will continue independently to supply customers outside China.Complex electric car quotas that Beijing will enforce from next year are expected to accelerate a growing trend towards electric mobility.Annual production of hybrid and all-electric cars in China could reach two million vehicles by 2020 and 4.3 million by 2024, or around 45% of the forecast global market, Infineon said, citing an IHS Markit analysis.The move is a further step into future car technology for Bavaria-based Infineon, which announced at the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January that it would join Chinese internet giant Baidu's Apollo platform for self-driving cars.Catherine Grenfell, ex-5FM presenter who co-founded and manages The Eye radio station, opened this year's IAB Digital Summit sharing her experience of digital in the radio space in particular. "I've always believed that radio is the most personal, yet anonymous medium," she said. "I also believe that by telling personal stories and experiences, whether, through radio or podcast, you connect with your listeners, but you also connect your listeners to each other."

Radio is definitely not dead, it is evolving and so to be able to use all the digital tools and combine them is what is changing the world of radio. It gives the listener the power. The power to listen or to watch in their own time wherever they are; to be able to pause a show and then come back to it. It then fits into their lifestyle and this is the future: giving people the power over content.

Our CEO @jozib_sa speaks "Future-proofing digital marketing" with emphasis on women & youth empowerment in the industry. #DigitalSummit2018 pic.twitter.com/SGHfBBHAhE  IAB South Africa (@iab_sa) March 1, 2018

Quote of the day (and that was only the first speaker ) Inspiring talk by the fabulous @LotangMokoena. Great day on the horizon #DigitalSummit2018 pic.twitter.com/HtOTmLK92o  Bronwyn Hardick (@missbronni) March 1, 2018

The companies that will succeed will be the companies that embrace design and experience. @wayne_hull @iab_sa #DigitalSummit2018 pic.twitter.com/hi15fUW0m9  Accenture SA (@AccentureSA) March 1, 2018

"If content is king then context is god! If context is god then data is its religion!"

- Lee Naik @naikl #Digitalsummit2018 pic.twitter.com/pjUawbgG7K  The SpaceStation (@SpaceStationZA) March 1, 2018

This speaks to me on so many levels #digitalsummit2018 pic.twitter.com/hEidQhKqmq  Olivia Ponte (@_olly_pop) March 1, 2018

She explained how they do things differently. We dont use traditional time clocks but rather get people to come in and tell their stories. The shows are live and then put up as podcasts, and we have now started integrating Facebook Live into the broadcast. As such, listeners are able to join the conversation instantaneously.Josephine Buys then gave her opening address, with a special focus on data and disruption in future-proofing digital marketing. She talked through a number of the IABs successes and mentioned that the event organisers, 360 Digital (an all-female team of five including herself), inspired her to create a line-up of dynamic women in digital in this notoriously male-dominated sector. Todays line-up of females blazing trails in our industry and the men who support them is proof that we are maybe slowly, but certainly surely championing diversity in digital, she said.The day's format comprised a series of PechaKucha-type, six-minute presentations in between longer keynotes. First up, Lotang Mokoena, junior digital conceptual strategist at VML South Africa, spoke about the art of intentional black representation for blacks, followed by Zach Louw and Qamani Loza Nyewe who shared their first-hand experience of Ogilvys internship programmes, and Gilbert Pooley from Umuzi who explained why he thinks Design Indaba is a white privilege and talked about creating value, improving access to value creation and sharing value.This was followed by numerous other talks on everything from augmented reality, brand safety, innovation and interaction, but more importantly encouraging and championing change and diversity and celebrating and supporting dynamic women in the digital industry. Ill mention just a few.Wayne Hull, MD Accenture Digital Africa spoke about experience as the new battleground powered by data and design. Accenture Digital has developed five dimensions for measuring customer experience, which they call the Love Index. The five things to ask yourself are, is it fun, relevant, engaging, social and helpful? And each of these elements needs to be underpinned by powerful design and applied intelligence that is exceptionally personal. A great experience is one that is exceptionally hard to replicate by competitors. Innovative and engaging customer experiences are only created when powerful design and applied intelligence meet technology and brave business thinking, he explained. Some examples of brands that are getting this right in his opinion are: Nespresso, Disney  My Magic+, Lemonade and of course Amazon Go, and some local disruptors include Ikeja, WiGroup, Bank Zero and Discovery Vitality.Carmen Murray, founder of Boo-Yah!, explained how mobile is a catalyst and enabler of the connected marketer. Click through for my interview on the subjectWhile Lee Naik, CEO TransUnion Africa spoke about the rise of alternative data in knowing the customer more personally. He believes the key might lie in drawing insights from places nobody has thought to look before, such as places of residence, qualifications, mobile data, movement, cars and lifestyles in general. Read more about this hereThen, lastly, I thought Id mention Mynoot and Clock Education CEO Musa Kalengas thought-provoking talk on the ability to act like a human and think like a brand. His key message was that being human is good for business and that the focus should be on impact investments: changing lives and then growing revenue in that order. In his opinion, technology should always be the slave to humanity because only once we get things right at a human level, will we be able to see real advancements in the industry and society at large. To further clarify this, he said that although winning is fun and should be the objective, touching lives is much better, and should be the spirit. Some local examples of businesses that are trying to figure this out are: Spazapp M-Pesa and Zipline The Summit was followed by the 10th annual Bookmark Awards. In case you missed it, here's my overview of the ceremony:Talking fast and dreaming big, William Elong shows off the first "made in Cameroon" drone at his sixth-floor workshop in downtown Douala, minutes from the economic capital's Atlantic seafront.

 Sorapong Chaipanya via 123RF

"Get out of the Afro-centric vision of business"

Commercial market in Africa is expanding

Selling drones to Vietnam, Venezuela, Denmark

The 25-year-old, known as a high-flyer after being named one of Forbes' most promising young Africans under 30, is enthusing about his new unmanned aerial drones and keen to promote his company and Africa as a place where IT and new tech can flourish.We must "get out of the Afro-centric vision of business" to "understand that when one has a global vision, worldwide, this includes Africa," Elong says in a discussion of future technologies.Elong has no degree in IT or robotics but studied strategy and competitive intelligence in France, becoming the youngest-ever graduate from Paris' Economic Warfare School.He founded his startup Will & Brothers in 2015 with a main project called Drone Africa, which aims to provide drones for civil purposes to businesses, the state in Cameroon and elsewhere.With a top range of up to 20 kilometres (12 miles), the drones can be used for purposes as different as cartography, media coverage, support for agriculture and detecting gas in mines to reduce the risk of accidents."The know-how is here, in Cameroon," says Elong, who is aware young African talent often seeks employment in Europe and elsewhere. He says at this stage his firm's capital of $200,000 (162,400 euros) has come from Western backers.Also supported by the government of President Paul Biya, Elong hopes eventually to raise $2m to expand the business but he regrets that "not many Africans are involved" in the project, which features two airborne types of drone and one terrestrial model.The commercial market in Africa is expanding with unmanned aircraft already whizzing across the skies delivering items like medicine and food, and even helping farmers sow seeds.In Rwanda, drones get medical supplies such as blood and vaccines to remote areas. Tanzania is launching a similar programme. And drones equipped with night-vision cameras help to detect and track poachers in Kenya, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.Elong presents the two airborne prototype models on a table inside his assembly shop. The first "flying wing that we've baptised Algo" has the furthest range and could prove an economical solution to the costly task of making maps, he suggests.The second type, known as Logarythm, has four arms forming a propeller, can reach an altitude of up to 500 metres (1,640 feet) and is fitted with high-definition cameras, which would be useful in high-risk zones and for precision work, Elong adds.Crucially, he argues, manufacturing costs are lower than those of foreign manufacturers, so the drones produced will be priced competitively across the African marketplace.He envisages "selling drones to Vietnam, to Venezuela, to Denmark for example, and becoming one of the biggest global enterprises in this sector."Elsewhere, two young engineers in white lab coats are carefully building a prototype. "When all the components are available, we are able to assemble a drone like this in 24 hours," says engineer Louis Ekani.Some of the parts are made in Cameroon, while others are supplied from abroad."The start was extremely complicated," says young technical director Yves Tamu, who is described on the company website as an entrepreneur, digital champion and inventor. "But we have a dynamic, autonomous and state-of-the-art team thanks to which we found the solution (to assembling drones)."The average age of employees is barely 22 and the team comprises mainly engineers and developers who have spent two years building airworthy drones."Will & Brothers is the pride of Cameroon," gushed Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Libom Li Likeng at a government ceremony to present the drones in early February.Their design demonstrates "the innovative capacity of Cameroonian youth", she added.Elong's firm is represented in Ivory Coast and plans to open offices in France and the United States, but he stresses the development of artificial intelligence is his primary goal.Will & Brothers has worked on an AI known as Cyclops, which enables drones to detect people, objects and vehicles and to identify different types of animals at specific sites."Artificial intelligence is the future of humanity," Elong says, confident that Africa can at least try to compete with the big tech giants in California. "It knocks me out that so many people here take no interest in technology."Source: AFPEthiopia on Thursday acquired a stake in a port in the breakaway state of Somaliland, its operator DP World said, as a legal dispute rages over another major Horn of Africa shipping hub.

 evrenkalinbacak via 123RF

Developing infrastructure

Dubai-based DP World last week accused Djibouti of illegally seizing a port that is the main transit route to landlocked Ethiopia, the second most populous African nation.More than 90% of Ethiopia's trade passes through Djibouti, located on the Bab al-Mandab strait, the key shipping lane to Europe from the Gulf and Asia beyond.Under the agreement signed Thursday in Dubai, Ethiopia will own 19% of Somaliland Berbera port, according to a statement released by DP World, which will hold a majority 51% stake.Representatives from Somaliland were in Dubai for the signing of the deal, which will leave their self-declared state with a 30% stake in Berbera port.Somaliland is not recognised by the international community despite 25 years of de facto independence from the rest of war-torn Somalia.Ethiopia will invest in developing infrastructure at the Berbera corridor as a trade gateway for the inland country, the statement said.DP World has also pledged to invest $442m (360 million euros) to develop Berbera, strategically located on the Gulf of Aden coast near the entrance to the Red Sea.The group, one of the world's largest port operators, won a 30-year concession for the management and development of a multi-purpose port project at Berbera in 2016.Before Thursday's agreement, DP World owned 65% of the project and Somaliland held the remaining 35%.DP World last week announced it planned to seek international arbitration against Djibouti, after the tiny state terminated its 50-year concession at the Doraleh container terminal.The Dubai government has also publicly criticised the decision by Djibouti, which is home to military bases of the United States, France, Italy, Spain, Saudi Arabia, Japan and China.The Chinese base is immediately adjacent to the Doraleh terminal.Doraleh is the terminus for a Chinese-built railway, which opened in 2016, linking Djibouti with the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.DP World, which operates 78 marine and inland terminals in 40 countries, is also focused heavily on concession deals for ports in war-torn Yemen and across the Horn of Africa.Sappi Limited, a leading global producer of dissolving wood pulp, specialities and packaging papers, printing and writing papers and biomaterials, has announced that all conditions precedent relating to the acquisition of the speciality paper business of Cham Paper Group Holding AG (CPG) have been fulfilled and closing has been completed.

Supports Sappis diversification strategy and 2020vision to grow in higher margin growth segments



Strengthens Sappi Europes specialities and packaging papers footprint and skills; adds 160,000 tons of speciality paper to our capacity



Increases Sappis relevance in specialities and packaging papers, opening up new customers and markets to Sappis existing products and generating economies of scale and synergies



Gaining greater share-of-wallet with valued brand owners; accelerating innovation and new product development



Improved near-term profitability and serve as platform for organic growth and further acquisitions. Will add 183 million of sales and approximately 20 million of EBITDA before taking into account synergies



Builds on the investments currently underway to increase specialities and packaging papers capacity at our Somerset, Maastricht and Alfeld Mills



Unlocks the growth potential of the CPG speciality paper business

The transaction includes the acquisition of CPGs Carmignano and Condino Mills in Italy, its digital imaging business located in Cham, Switzerland, as well as all brands and know-how.The main benefits of the acquisition include:Commenting on the transaction Steve Binnie, chief executive officer of Sappi Limited, said: I am very pleased that we have been able to finalise this acquisition so quickly. We are now able to move with speed to combine Chams strong brands, employees and assets with Sappis global presence. Our existing as well as new customers will benefit from a broader range of products coupled with our well-established excellent customer service. This transaction strengthens Sappis specialities and packaging papers business both in Europe and globally, improves our profitability and is another significant milestone towards realising our Vision2020 goal.This week, duchess-to-be Meghan Markle confirmed she plans to minimise the mansplaining man-ologue and "shine a light on women feeling empowered," as she begins to work with British royal charities. If you didn't hear how an 11-year-old Markle convinced FMCG giant Procter & Gamble that equality and inclusivity is a good thing by changing the wording of its Ivory dishwashing liquid ad, you're in for a treat...

Screengrab of Markle from her 2015 UN Women speech.

Women need a seat at the table, they need an invitation to be seated there, and in some cases, where this isnt available, they need to create their own table. It is said that girls with dreams become women with vision. May we empower each other to carry out such vision. Because it isnt enough to simply talk about equality. One must believe in it. And it isnt enough to simply believe in it. One must work at it. Let us work at it, together, starting now.

Changing the mainsplaining manologue

I hear a lot of people speaking about girls empowerment and womens empowerment; you will hear people saying they are helping women find their voices. I fundamentally disagree with that because women dont need to find their voices, they need to be empowered to use it and people need to be urged to listen.

Meghan Markle is really living the dream.confirms she was the most Googled actress of 2016, largely due to her now-former role as high powered paralegal Rachel on, but also because thats when news first broke that she was dating Prince Harry. Now shes set to become royalty when she marries Harry this May.This will not be a push-over princess, duchess or other lady of leisure, however. Markle has already made her feelings on equality known, with her impassioned speech in front of former United Nations (UN) secretary-general Ban Ki-moon at the UN Women's 2015 conference.In it, Markle shared that she unknowingly and accidentally became a female advocate when she was just 11-years-old and found a dishwashing liquid TV commercial unfair. The ads tagline?  and two boys from her class agreed thats where women belong  in the kitchen. Young Markle felt a need to do something to try right this wrong. And so, following her fathers advice, she wrote letters to the most powerful people she could think of.These included American First Lady at the time, Hilary Clinton; as well as Linda Ellerbee, who hosted a kids news programme Markle enjoyed; and powerhouse attorney Gloria Allred. In the UN Women speech, Markle confirmed that she received letters of encouragement from all three.Even more remarkable? Ellerbees kids news showsent a camera crew to her home to cover the story. Markle also obviously wrote to the soap manufacturer, and about a month after the TV crew visited, Procter & Gamble, actually changed the wording in the commercial for their Ivory clear dishwashing liquid, from Women to People.Markle says thats the moment she realised the magnitude of her actions and that she had already created her own small level of impact by standing up for equality.Now, shes one of those powerful people the rest of us look up to, and shes taking further steps towards righting societal wrongs and getting female voices heard.Just this week, she appeared with the rest of the young royals  Wills, Kate and Harry  as they took to the stage at the first-ever Royal Foundation Forum  Im neither on first-name basis with them nor one of the UK monarchy obsessed, it was in a BBC video that popped up on my Facebook feed, I couldnt resist clicking through to:In the BBC interview, Markle amplified her UN Women message, that women need a seat at the table  if not their own table  with the caveat that men also need to play a part and be educated in how to listen.With mansplaining memes rife in 2018, at a time where you just cant click on a link without stumbling upon a #MeToo and #TimesUp hashtag  no complaints here, raise those hands  this is exactly what the world needs.adds that as a former actress herself, the #MeToo and #TimesUp allegations in Hollywood likely hit closer to home for Markle than most.In Markles view, its less about women finding their voice and more about feeling empowered to use it, while educating men on how to listen to that voice. Vanity Fair reports that Markle is set to hit the ground running championing the cause for gender equality and womens rights issues after the wedding, quoting her as stating:I, for one, am certainly looking forward to hearing more of Markles voice in future!In 2016 alone, Cristiano Ronaldo generated almost half a billion dollars in media value for his main sponsor Nike. According to Hookit, which measures social media and digital media values for brands, his over 1,700 posts across social media generated 2.25 billion interactions (likes, comments, shares, retweets and video views). Nike's logo was featured in 347 of these posts, resulting in 477 million interactions worth an estimated $499.6m.

Word of mouth

Levels of influence

Celebrities are the original influencers  mostly well-known actors, musicians and athletes. The people in this group, by virtue of their roles in society, would have been the same endorsers of big brand soft drinks, jeans and automobiles in the early 20th century. The only difference is they now have access to many more media platforms, which they can now control themselves for more authentic interactions with their fans. While an influencer ad might be hidden by ad blockers or bypassed by personal video recorders (PVR), a well-placed branded Instagram post by universal celebrities such as Bonang Matheba or Cassper Nyovest reaches the audience unfettered.

Influencers are individuals who have found their fame in the online space and have amassed huge audiences. These are the YouTube stars, Instagram models and Facebook entrepreneurs. Personalities such as SuzelleDIY have gained almost cult followings by offering entertaining, functional content with cross-over appeal.

Micro-influencers are otherwise average people with small followings but have expertise on a particular subject. Their reach isnt huge, but their special knowledge draws a distinct niche of loyal devotees.

Brand influencers are ordinary people who are active in a brands social media communities, who unknowingly carry the velocity and impact of conversation. Their natural passion for the brand or topic draws attention from others and their influence grows depending on their activity.

Demand and respect for brand influencers

Deep-diving into real influencers

No longer is it enough for a brand spokesperson to just appear in a few media advertisements and receive a paycheque  they are expected to be engaged with the brand every day on their widely followed social networks.Influencer marketing today is very different from its origins of celebrity product placement and is proving more effective than digital ads, which are increasingly filtered out by ad blockers.According to DigiDay, $570m was spent in 2016 on influencer marketing on Instagram alone, and this is expected to grow faster than digital adspend. Digital marketing itself is expected to overshadow traditional television as the biggest area of marketing spend as access to affordable, broadband internet reaches more people. The drop in traditional television viewing, particularly in the 18-24 age group, means fewer opportunities for brands to reach their audiences in mass media.A key ingredient making influencer marketing so attractive is word-of-mouth, always seen as the holy grail of marketing. People are more likely to trust a strong recommendation from a friend  and how many of us have imagined our favourite artist or athlete as our best friend at some point in our lives?Influencers carry digital word-of-mouth  the almost instant ability to reach and drive consumers to a product or service  but the trick is to identify and engage with the right influencers.With the growth in tribes of die-hard followers of increasing numbers of sub-cultures driven by digital, influence is no longer the exclusive currency of instantly-recognisable superstars.Media fragmentation has led to the emergence of new types of personalities that can aggressively drive the conversation around brands in their own special ways. These are broadly grouped (for now) into four categories: celebrities, influencers, micro-influencers and brand influencers.Micro-influencers generally have between 5,000 to 50,000 followers while brand influencers might only have several hundred focused, loyal followers. Influencers and celebrities usually have millions of followers on various platforms, with celebrities usually commanding the biggest follower numbers due to their mainstream prominence.While influencers might not be skilled professional journalists or commentators, people listen when they have something to say, their followers most of all. The lack of media diversity in South Africa means consumers have fewer platforms from which they receive quality content, driving up the demand  and respect  for brand influencers.However, the limited pool of big celebrities and influencers means that brands are constantly tapping into the same personalities, decreasing influencer authenticity and impact. This is where micro-influencers and brand influencers can come into their own, with a little help from some cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology.In the shortage of fresh celebrity influencers, software platforms can now unearth a wealth of brand influencers previously untapped. The powerful personalised marketing and social technology use advanced computational statistical algorithms to analyse brands social media communities, enabling them to identify authentic brand influencers who drive the velocity of conversation within their communities.As the importance of influencers continues to rise, the South African marketing industry will need to take a much more strategic approach to influencer marketing  decide what influencer type is the most relevant to their brand, and identify genuine, effective brand advocates using a combination of gut-feel and smart tech.The theme of the 30th edition of the African Public Relations Association Conference, APRA Botswana 2018, endorsed by the African Union Commission, is Re-PResent Africa.

Kwesi Quartey, deputy chairperson, African Union Commission.

The AUC deputy chairperson, Kwesi Quartey made this known after accepting APRAs invitation to be special guest of honour at the conference, scheduled to take place May 9-11, 2018 in Gaborone, Botswana. Quartey will be delivering the keynote address at the opening ceremony May 9, 2018. The endorsement gesture brings to fore the AUCs commitment in joining hands with APRA to Re-PResent Africa, which is the theme of this years conference. AUCs endorsement comes alongside several others from the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), International Communications Consultancy Organization (ICCO), Global Alliance, Public Relations Networks and national associations across Africa.Notably, APRA Botswana 2018 will also feature the second edition of the SABRE Awards Africa for Excellence showcasing the best in public relations work from across the continent, organised in partnership with the renowned Holmes Report.APRA Botswana 2018 will focus on issues around fake news, ethics and storytelling, as a tool for public relations. APRA is the umbrella body for the practice of public relations in Africa. It is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation established to foster unity via interaction and exchange of ideas among public relations practitioners in Africa as a whole, and through communication, promote social, political and economic integration on the continent.This job expired on 3 May 2018.This job expired on 4 May 2018.Alain Rouquie, political analyst and author of numerous works on Latin America (or the Far West, [1] as he defined the region three decades ago), is well-versed in Argentinian history of the 20th century. Here he presents a work that summarises Argentinas long journey since the advent of the Peronist century. The book, empirically rich and suggestive in terms of its argumentation, while avoiding a reading of Peronism as an exceptional phenomenon, raises a range of normative questions  in the same spirit as Federico Neiburg, something not uncommon when dealing with Peronism. A. Rouquies concerns are also scientific, and his idea of hegemonic democracy seeks to go beyond current conceptualisations. The author uses this idea as a means of identifying the specificity of Peronism within a more widespread series of political manifestations that combine mass democracy, national reform, the charisma of a leader (envisaged in terms of a supreme leader, orchestrator) and other orientations often opposed to Republican principles and a structuring of the party system. This idea provides the scope to go beyond the epistemic limits of other interpretations  false extrapolations of the idea of Bonapartism, the pseudo-concept of populism and all the pejorative notions it implies.

The history of Peronist policy

The French reader will discover all the different episodes of a journey that is simultaneously complex, dramatic and sometimes violent. The events recounted are too numerous to mention, and each chapter and period would deserve a detailed commentary that goes beyond the ambit of a review. With remarkable empirical and historical density, A. Rouquie recreates the events, cultural traditions and social feuds that served to anchor Colonel Perons movement in the Argentinian political landscape. Peronism was born out of the depths of the nationalist military groups of the 1940s. One of the leaders, Colonel Juan Peron, State Secretary in 1943 and 1944, who went on to become the democratically elected president in 1946, managed by a political and social feat to impose himself as the iron ruler and representative of the working class worlds and their trade union organisations. Until its fall from power in 1955, the Peronist regime favoured the popular classes, encouraged an industrialisation model that remained incomplete, adopted a nationalist political programme and pursued a doctrine that was neither capitalist nor Marxist. Then, as throughout its history, Peronism went on to incorporate new actors, new social strata or various modes of political contestation. As a movement it took shape around a partisan as well as a trade union branch, and developed specifically around the figure of its leader, his successors and a whole group of nebulous territorial solidarities and policies. When its founder died in 1974, and after a period of uncertainty, the movement reorganised allowing emerging figures to take over the Peronist Party. [2] In the 1990s, when trade unions were no longer the unifying factor of worker representation, and industrial production was in decline leaving a large section of the population in extreme poverty, Peronism drew its support from territorial leaders or caudillos  provincial governors and above all, the mayors of the most densely populated towns in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. Nonetheless, it did not ignore the emergence of the piqueteros movements, the social organisations for the unemployed, which for two decades, and particularly during the 12 years of the Kirchner couples government (2003-2015), entered the informal and sometimes even formal arena of politics.

A. Rouquie demonstrates a great skill for synthesis in this detailed work of historical reconstruction. Although some of his analyses can be considered imprecise, (the historian of the Peronist Resistance, Julio Melon Pirro, would certainly contest the statement that Peron himself called upon civilians and the army to rebel. A military uprising took place on 9 June 1956 (p. 117)), others are extremely perspicacious, for example the description of the Ultra Kirchnerist or Cristinist [3] La Campora organisation the youth lobby group that was a training ground for administrative skills (p. 314).

Beyond singularism

One of the books great qualities consists in not adopting an isolated approach to Peronism, but including it in an in-depth analysis of Argentinian society and its complexities. The pages of the book teach us that the Peron century (a title chosen by the author to explain the impact of this phenomenon on political life in Argentina from the 1940s to date) is also the century of anti-Peronism, for two somewhat inextricable reasons. The first reason the political analyst suggests deals with the actions of individual and institutional actors who opposed Justicialism. [4] The anti- and non-Peronists played just as decisive a role in Argentinian politics, often founded on the radical and recurring questions that have pervaded it over the last fifty years: what should one do about Peronism? What should one do with the Peronists? Questions that no one has been able to answer to date. The second reason is embodied in what offers a partial explanation to the problem: without anti-Peronism, Peronism would have taken a different form. On this question the author is explicit (pp. 324, 379): the Peronist following and the characteristics of the movement developed because of the failure of the attempts on the part of the government to propose, at times, an alternative to Peronisms electoral hegemony and, at others, to eradicate the very the societal and political expression of its existence.

Thus, A. Rouquies approach goes beyond the Argentinian political system to suggest a global, or even comparative view. This is an excellent means of avoiding the trap of singularism. The final part of the book deals with the question of similar democratic models. Other recent political regimes in South America (Chavism, Evo Morales Indigenism, the Citizens Revolution in Ecuador) as well as Putins Russia, represent cases of hegemonic democracy which A. Rouquie analyses. These regimes claim to be reformative, in the sense that they are driven by a desire to wipe the slate clean (p. 354). Some democratic institutions become incompatible with the idea of recreating a Nation around a leader and imbuing it with a radically innovate historical sense. Electoral procedures are indispensible to these State regimes, they impose a legitimacy based on majority rule that is at variance with certain democratic principles, which are in fact abused: freedom of the press, the separation of powers, pluralistic respect for partisan minorities. In this manner it is accepted that Peronisms are both legitimately elected regimes with an anti-democratic tendency (p. 349). Undeniably Perons Nueva Argentina encouraged a rewriting of national memory and the pantheon of fathers of the Motherland, amongst whom Peron went on to play a decisive role in national history. However, the following Peronist experiences cannot easily be qualified as reformative: in the 1970s, there was a return to origins, a revival of the ancient justicialist utopia, as well as its institutionalisation. The issue was no longer one of reforming the nation, but of finding a type of Peronism that would prevail in the fratricidal war,  the political struggle was by now essentially intra-Peronist: between the revolutionary fraction and those faithful to the old leader. In the 1990s, Menem was more interested in economic liberalisation and the modernisation of the country than reforming the nation: nonetheless, his Peronist identity cannot be questioned. Kirchnerism developed more in the continuity of the earlier political experiences: the core group of its political staff was drawn from the classically Peronist elites. It is only much later, between the landowners fiscal revolt of 2008 and Kirchners death in 2010, and particularly from this time on, that Kirchnerism reinforced both its reformative discourse and its hold over the State apparatus (with the La Campora trying to take over the highest posts in the administration). The figure of the late ex-president was then glorified, almost sacralised, in a consecrated dynamic that A. Rouquie is well aware of (pp. 297- 306). But the reform, limited to a few radical thinkers who formed the Kirchnerist core, remained a limited phenomenon that was exacerbated when the political model began to crumble.

Conclusion: the limits of an interpretation

In this work, A. Rouquie tries to arrive at a balanced synthesis; but what are the key points of his interpretation? How does one understand hegemonic democracy in the light of the Peronist influence? We can but note that the latter plays an inevitable role in Argentinian political society, and that it is deeply ingrained socially and politically; but it is not an overarching collective and political actor. From our perspective, Peronist hegemonism turns out to have had a relatively weak influence in terms of stabilising the partisan game. However, for A. Rouquie, Peronism remains the motor of a paradoxically democratic system:

Indeed, Peron was not unaware that Peronism had lastingly shaped the Argentinian political system and created a dominant political culture that encouraged it []. The direct influence of the Justicialist model on the functioning of other political systems is not negligible either, as it contributes to weakening partisan identities and the representative system (p. 331- 332).

We should nonetheless add that the flaws in the Argentinian political system existed historically prior to the Peronist wave and are common to, and reproduced by all, or almost all, the actors and institutions in the field of power in Argentina. For our part we would be more inclined to emphasise the limits of Peronism than its strength and success. Peronism or Peronisms, according to A. Rouquie, transform reality and when the model has to face up to its own shortcomings, it is replaced or reinforced by propaganda. The twelve years of Kirchnerism, with their myths, legends, appropriations and manipulations of issues related to Argentinian history and memory did not succeed in establishing a model of reform. Fierce Kirchnerists and anti-Peronists mistakenly agreed on the Kirchners power  some were in favour of an irenic reading, while others denounced an unlikely risk of totalitarianism  Cristina Kirchners mandates, particularly the second, were remarkable for their dubious efficiency, the repetition of political errors and the dilapidation of an electoral legitimacy that had been approved in 2011.

A. Rouquie underscores the gap between this type of system and representative democracies. He tells us that of the two pillars of representative systems, electoral consultation and freedom (or rule of law) only the former was maintained, or even reinforced by a extension, or over-development of the electorate, (p. 389). What about the elements they could have in common? Max Weber, a reference dear to A. Rouquies heart, lucidly noted that in the advanced democracies of his time, there existed a tension between the charismatic power of the leader and the mundane power of the party apparatus. [5] Indeed, between the two democratic models there are common and widespread problems. The exacerbation of charismatic power infuriates the hegemonic regimes analysed in the pages of the book.

In Peronism one can see a strong social democracy (p. 384) in which the leaders display a little concealed appetite for power, incompatible with Republican values. In Argentina, this model takes the form of a paternalist approach, politicising certain social rights  this hypothesis deserves to be nuanced, as it is not always the case  by depoliticising the party system as Peronism finally merges with national identity. This paternalism, a pejorative idea associated with that of clientelism, opposed other paternalist models. A. Rouquie recalls: it is an authoritarian paternalism projecting an efficient social model that subverted, for example the paternalistic social relationships in the Argentinian countryside (pp. 49- 50).

For this reason, and many others, A. Rouquie clearly avoids any attempt to compare the incomparable, a left wing electoral victory with a fascist style coup a counter-revolutionary dictatorship (p. 353). It is evident that an explicitly formulated fundamental question runs through the book, structuring the authors concerns around the salient characteristics of Peronism. This question is not resolved as, in the end, we continue to question why the transformation of social hierarchies embodied by Peron 

 was a result of Peronism and not of a Popular Front, of an autarchy and not a coalition between left wing parties in a democratic context. In other words, why did social democracy first triumph in an authoritarian regime, then join hands with anti-democratic excesses? Lastly, an additional, but essential question: why were the cult to General Perons personality, and his glorification such efficient means to achieve the social objectives propounded by a transformative popular regime, while it seems highly likely that a structured party would have ensured far greater continuity and coherence? (pp. 353- 354).

Marking the differences between a highly idealised typical model (with a mobilisation of masses around a party structured along European lines) and a concrete historical experience (that of Peronism) runs the risk of leading to seriously insufficient and predominantly Eurocentric analyses. Recognising the situation prevalent in Europe today, A. Rouquie, concludes his book with a few lines dedicated to the unequal machine of Western democracies, where political vacuity and feebleness, highly characteristic at least of the last French governments, in no way conceal the use of decisional mechanisms of a questionable democratic nature. An explosion of inequalities, social hardship, denationalisation (p. 697), will the 21st century be that of European Peronisms? The formula is simple; it does not explain the differences between Peronism and current European populisms. It nonetheless has the advantage of drawing attention to a reality that the elites in France do not seem to notice.

Reviewed: Alain Rouquie, Le siecle de Peron. Essai sur les democraties hegemoniques, Paris, Seuil, 2016, 409 p.Marcelle Soares-Santos ponders the cosmos

On Wednesday, May 30, Soares-Santos will discuss the mysteries of dark matter on PBS's NOVA.

Photo/Mike Lovett

As part of our series profiling new professors, Marcelle Soares-Santos of the Martin A. Fisher School of Physics talked with BrandeisNOW about her field and research. Soares-Santos joined the Brandeis faculty in the fall of 2017; watch her discuss dark matter on NOVA on May 30.



How did you become interested in your field/research area?



Physics was close to my heart way before I could articulate the word. I was a very curious child, and as I grew up and began studying math and science, that became my passion. The fact that I was terrible at all forms of sport in school might also have had something to do with it. I was the slowest runner, the slowest swimmer and couldn't catch a ball to save my life, but if you were to give me a math problem or a puzzle, I would be one of the first to find a solution. The focus on cosmology, in particular, started when I was in college. There was a colloquium about this topic, and when I heard that 95 percent of the matter and energy in the universe is unknown, I knew that this was a puzzle I had to help solve.



What was your favorite course as a college student?



The modern physics course in which I was introduced to Einstein's theory of relativity.



What has been your proudest career moment so far?



The role that my team played in the discovery of GW170817, the first ever binary neutron star merger to be observed, is by far my highest scientific achievement. That moment when we saw the image with the bright spot corresponding to the merger in it was magical. Close second was the moment our camera, the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), achieved first light on the telescope in Chile on September 12, 2011. I was a postdoc then, and it was my first time working on a project of such large scale. I still get emotional when I think about those two dates. I have been extremely fortunate to work on such great projects.



What specific question/project are you most excited to explore in your work at Brandeis, and why?



My group is now working on the problem of dark energy, the largest unknown component of the universe. In order to solve this puzzle, we use data from several cosmic surveys combined with information from the gravitational wave detectors. This is now an exciting time for this science because the wealth of data collected by the gravitational wave detectors has opened a new window of exploration with real opportunities for discoveries that may change our understanding of the universe.



What book would you recommend to introduce others to your field?



A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, is a classic. Cosmology for the Curious by Delia Perlov and Alex Vilenkin is a very modern introductory textbook, great for first-year students who are interested in this area.



What's your favorite book/movie/television/radio program/podcast or hobby unrelated to your field, and why?



I like superhero comics and movies. The serialized shows produced by some of the streaming services are also great.



As a physicist, it is incredibly fun to sit back and see some of the laws of physics be "suspended from reality" for the duration of a movie or a TV episode. And have you noticed how many superheroes are also scientists?



What has surprised you about Brandeis since you came to campus?



The big surprise is how welcoming the campus felt to me. Everyone I meet is invested in their work, but also willing to go the extra mile to engage with a new member of this community. It is fantastic.



What advice do you have for students who are interested in your field?



Seek research experience early and often! There are many aspects and possible approaches: observational projects using telescopes and cameras, experiments to detect dark matter particles in underground labs, studies with supercomputer simulations and so much more. You will definitely find onepossibly more!that suits you, and these different experiences will enrich your worldview and make you a better scientist.Travis Perkins plc celebrates the 200-apprentice milestone in the lead up to National Apprenticeship Week 2018.

Travis Perkins plc is proud to announce that in the run up to the 11th National Apprenticeship Week (NAW 2018) the company has so far recruited 200 new apprentices to join the business in 2018. These new recruits will be working across the groups 20+ industry leading brands and will be at the forefront of the companies celebrations for NAW 2018.

Louise Powell, Head of Education & Learning at Travis Perkins plc said: We are a huge advocate of apprenticeships at Travis Perkins and we are extremely proud to announce that we have had 200 new apprentices join us in 2018. In the run-up to NAW 2018 we want to reaffirm just how committed we are to apprenticeships and apprentices.

NAW 2018 will be taking place from 5 to 9 March 2018 and during this period Travis Perkins plc will be actively celebrating both the value of apprenticeships whilst encouraging even more people to consider them as a path to a rewarding career.

Chantel Marshall, Assistant Branch Manager at Travis Perkins, began her career on the Travis Perkins plc Management Apprenticeship scheme in 2015 and will be on the panel of the The Big Assembly  a live video stream that will broadcast to thousands of young people across the country. During the stream, Chantel will share her apprenticeship experience and explain how it helped launch her successful career. The Big Assembly will be broadcast live at 10.30am, on Thursday 8 March 2018.

Chantel said: Choosing to do an apprenticeship was one of the best decisions I have ever made so I am really keen to share my experience with others. Apprenticeships are sometimes overlooked but they shouldnt be as they can help launch great careers.

Additionally, to help spread the word about apprenticeships, Travis Perkins plc will be taking part in the NAW 2018 10,000 talks movement that is aiming to tell 10,000 people why apprenticeships work. To help, the business will be visiting local schools in the Northampton area and will be delivering talks and sessions on apprenticeships and all they can offer.Another Airbus A320 Neo aircraft with Pratt& Whitney engine was grounded on Sunday at the Pune airport prior to its departure for New Delhi due to the oil chip detection in one of its engines, a source said.

IndiGo, later, operated the flight with another aircraft but in the process it was delayed by more than four hours, according to the source.

When contacted, refused to comment on the incident, which came close on the heels of another incident involving its aircraft last week, in which passengers had a close shave after one of the engines of a A320 Neo plane failed midair.

After the airline operated its Nagpur-Pune flight, was forced to ground the A320 Neo plane due to the oil chip detection in engine-2 of the plane, the source said.

The glitch-hit IndiGo plane was scheduled to fly to Delhi from Pune.

As the aircraft was not airworthy due to the engine failure, the airline arranged another plane later, an A320, to fly the passengers to their destination, the source added.



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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Sunday arrested four more people in connection with the billion dollars Punjab Bank fraud case.

The investigation agency arrested an auditor and two employees of jeweller Nirav Modi's Group of Companies and a director of Gitanjali Group of Companies in the said case.

Manish K Bosamiya, then Additional General Manager (operation) and Miten Anil Pandya, then Finance Manager of Firestarter Diamond International Pvt Ltd., a Modi's diamond firm, were arrested for their alleged role in the preparation of applications for the fraudulent Letter of Understandings (LoUs) submitted to the PNB.

Sanjay Rambhia, the partner in a Mumbai's Chartered Accountant firm M/s Sampat and Mehta and Aniyath Shiv Raman Nair, then Director of M/s Gili India Ltd. was also arrested in the same case.

The Punjab Bank detected a 1.77 billion dollar scam in which Modi acquired fraudulent letters of undertaking from one of its branches for overseas credit from other Indian lenders.

The scam was started in 2011 and was detected in the third week of January this year, after which the PNB officials reported it to the concerned agencies.

Meanwhile, the PNB filed a second complaint with the CBI on February 13.

The CBI had received the complaint from the PNB on January 28 and a case was registered in the case on January 31.The situation in South Kashmir's Shopian district was tense after the police on Monday recovered two more bodies, raising the death toll in last night's firing incident on a vehicle to six.

"Two more bodies were recovered in Shopian district this morning," a police spokesperson said.

Police recovered the body of another militant, identified as Ashiq Hussain Bhat of Lashkar-e-Taiba, seven km from Pahnoo where the Army had fired upon two vehicles when they tried to flee from a Mobile Vehicle Check Post. They also fired on the Army and policemen, officials said.

Bhat was a resident of Rakh Karpan.

Besides this, body of a civilian -- Gowhar Ahmed Lone of Chitragam in Shopian -- was recovered from another vehicle near the firing incident. The Army alleged that he was an overground worker of militant groups.

A Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant and three civilians, also alleged to be overground workers for the militant group by the Army, were killed in a firing incident last night in south Kashmir's Shopian district after the ultras fired upon a joint check-point of the security forces.

A police official said a joint MVCP (mobile vehicle check post) near Pohan in Shopian had signalled a car to stop, but it did not. The Army men were fired upon and they retaliated, in which a militant was killed.

Police rushed to the spot and identified one of the deceased as Amir Ahmed Malik, who had joined the LeT militant group in July last year.

Bodies of the others were handed over to their legal heirs, a police spokesperson had said.

"Weapons have been seized and legal proceedings initiated," he said.

Police personnel were deployed in large numbers to keep a strict watch in militant-infested Shopian area, besides other parts of the Kashmir Valley as separatist amalgam -- Joint Resistance Front -- has given a call for bandh today.

Schools and educational institutes, which were to open today after two-month-long winter break, were closed as a precautionary measure in the Valley.Giving in to the demands of hundreds of job aspirants, the Staff Selection Commission Chairman on Sunday said he will request the department to reconduct the SSC examination and also request the CBI to launch a probe into the matter.

The standoff started after a weeklong demonstration by hundreds of job aspirants who picketed outside the Staff Selection Commission's (SSC) office, housed in CGO Complex at Lodhi Raod.

The SSC Chairman Ashim Khurana met a delegation of protesters on Sunday, reportedly after the intervention of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who ordered the commission to act on the demands of the protesters.

The job aspirants are protesting over an alleged paper leak which came to light during the exams on February 21. They are demanding that the exams should be reconducted and a probe be conducted by the top investigation agency.

Various leaders have openly supported the aspirants during their protest, asking the government to intervene. Social activist Anna Hazare, Congress Leader Shashi Tharoor and Delhi BJP leader Manoj Tiwari are a few of the people who came to meet the aspirants at their protest site.

"The Commission after having heard the delegation agreed for recommending to the Department of Personnel and Training to request the Government to conduct a CBI enquiry into all the allegations pertaining to conduct of CGL (Tier-II) Examination 2017 held from February 17 to February 22, 2018 including alleged leakage of questions, if any, alleged deficiencies observed in the conduct of the examinations by the service provider, if any, and other related issues.

"It was also agreed that all evidences of examination related malpractices submitted by the protesting candidates, including the screenshots of the questions taken during the examination from February 17 to February 22, 2018, will be handed over to the CBI for enquiry," read the Chairman's note.

However, the job aspirants have refused to disperse, demanding a more "unambiguous" directive from the government into the matter.

"This is just a tactic of the government to divert the attention and disperse the crowd. The Chairman is even now only 'requesting' a CBI probe and 'requesting' for re-examination, whereas he should be ordering for both unequivocally," Umesh Yadav, one of the protesters, told IANS over the phone.

"Chairman has tried to deceive again, He is not addressing the issues the way we demanded... We will not stop the protest. It continues," he said.The central government has been taken aback by consumer goods major Hindustan Unilevers (HUL) offer of Rs 1.19 billion in two tranches for not having passed on goods and services tax (GST) cut benefits to customers.

HUL is actually in the process of offering another tranche as well but is still awaiting instructions on how to deposit the allegedly profiteered sum in the consumer welfare fund. According to officials, the current guidelines allow the government to accept penalties in the said fund after an investigation by Directorate General of Safeguards (DGS) and then an ...In the fight between information technology, fintech and e-commerce firms in India and Google and Facebook, the global giants seem to be winning hands down. It is becoming a matter of survival for these sectoral ones, as one-stop solutions such as business listings, travel bookings, money transfers and financial services are available on both platforms and these firms rely on Google and Facebook to promote their services.

Google has in the past two years systematically got into a host of sectors and businesses. Starting from listings where it competes with firms such as Just Dial ...Vijay Mallya reportedly left Indian shores on March 2, 2016. It has taken the government two years to expedite the introduction of a law to deter economic offenders from fleeing the country. A sense of deja vu prevailed in the Punjab National Bank fraud case, involving diamond traders Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. The proposed Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEO) Bill, 2018, seeks to empower the government to confiscate the property of proclaimed economic offenders who have fled the country. However, experts expect several legal challenges in its implementation that may nullify the deterrence caused by the threat of forfeiture for economic offenders leaving the country.





ALSO READ: PNB chief Sunil Mehta admits the collusion of employees in LoUs scam

The existing provisions of the law do not deter the fugitive economic offenders largely because the extradition processes between India and other countries are generally cumbersome and time-taking, say legal experts. India is not a favoured country in case of extradition requests. Courts in the UK have rejected the extradition requests on the ground that the jail condition in India was inhumane and that the accused could not be guaranteed a fair prosecution, noted Anuj Berry, partner, Shardul Amarchand Mangaldas.



ALSO READ: PNB scam fallout widens as NCLT bars over 60 entities from selling assets

The provision to confiscate the property of proclaimed offenders is already there under different laws. For instance, the Prevention of Money Laundering (PML) Act, 2002, prescribes three stages before the final confiscation of an accuseds property. This involves provisional attachment of the property, confirmation of the attachment pursuant to adjudication and finally the confiscation of the property subject to conviction. If the alleged offender cannot be brought before the court to participate in the trial and defend himself, the objective of the existing laws is often frustrated, says Ajay Bhargava, partner, Khaitan & Co.





ALSO READ: Mauritius promises strong action against any entities involved in PNB scam

Under the existing laws, the power of the court is confined to the attachment of properties of the offender which were secured or those properties which are proceeds of the alleged crimes. However, under the proposed Bill, the Special Court has the power to authorise confiscation of all properties owned by the fugitive offender.





ALSO READ: Parliament session tomorrow: BJP, Oppn to lock horns over PNB, triple talaq

Under the PML Act, only the proceeds of crime or such property that is involved in money laundering attract the provisions of attachment. That is not the case in the proposed FEO Bill. It seeks to allow authorities to also attach the personal properties owned by such offender.

The PML Act provides that all the properties attached shall vest with the central government. An administrator is responsible for proper maintenance and custody of such properties. However, the provisions of the FEO Bill provide for the disposal of all such properties by the administrator to satisfy the claims of the creditors.



This proposed Bill would create an added pressure on the fugitive economic offender as all the properties belonging to the offender will automatically come under its ambit, says Sandeep Grover, partner, IndusLaw.

While the measures to deter economic offenders to turn fugitive may appear well-intentioned, legal experts stress on the need for ironing out several loopholes in the draft Bill. The provision that empowers any court to disentitle any person from putting forward or defending any civil action if that he/she is declared as a fugitive economic offender is seen as draconian. A challenge may be made against such provision on the ground that it is disproportionate and arbitrary, says Berry.



Chandrasekhar Tampi, partner, Kochhar & Co, points out that this provision effectively punishes the fugitive economic offender as well as the minority shareholder(s) of the company who may have had nothing to do with the offence. Significantly, from the standpoint of constitutionality, this provision may face a challenge on the ground that it seeks to oust the principle of natural justice, he adds.

Legal experts say the draft Bill that is in public domain does not provide for a situation where the confiscated property is in excess of the claims against the fugitive offender. There also may be a challenge to the pre-determination of the status of the property as proceeds of crime without considering evidence and without trial, says Bhargava.

Experts say taking away the right of the accused to pursue or defend civil proceedings is contrary to the basic tenets of justice and fair play, besides being violative of the Constitution.

Berry points out that though the scope of the proposed FEO Bill is restricted to those offences value of which is Rs 1 billion or more, this provision could easily be circumvented by mischievous or devious actions. There is no such monetary limit under other corresponding laws, other than the PML Act, which has a limit of Rs 10 million. The monetary limit of Rs 1 billion appears to be excessive, he says. This limit must be made harmonious with such other laws, he adds.

Legal experts agree, as is the case with any new law, the various provisions of the proposed Bill is likely to be tested in the court.British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sunday told US President Donald Trump that she has "deep concern" at his decision to raise tariffs on steel and aluminum.

A Downing Street spokesperson said May had a telephone call with Trump earlier Sunday, in which May also said that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem.

"The Prime Minister raised our deep concern at the president's forthcoming announcement on steel and aluminum tariffs, noting that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity in all parties' interests," the spokesperson said in a statement, Xinhua reported.

Trump has said he plans to slap a 25-percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum next week. He has also threatened to increase taxes on European cars if the EU retaliates against his steel and aluminum tariffs.

May's Cabinet Office minister, David Lidington, also rebuked Trump when speaking on BBC One's Sunday Politics program.

"I just think that the United States is not taking an advisable course in threatening a trade war," Lidington said.

Lidington suggested the American authorities could overrule any tariffs, as they did in the case of aircraft manufacturer Bombardier when the Trump administration threatened huge duties on its C-wing planes, but his plan won't work.

May and Trump also discussed the "appalling humanitarian situation" in Eastern Ghouta in Syria. They said that Russia and with influence over the Syrian government must act to cease their campaign of violence and to protect civilians.Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney won supporting actor Oscars on Sunday, while Academy Awards host Jimmy Kimmel dove into Hollywoods most embarrassing moments - sexual misconduct and last years best picture blunder. Rockwell, the front-runner for the Academy Award, took home the trophy for his role as a racist, dim-witted police officer in Fox Searchlight dark comedyThree Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Janney, as widely expected, was named best supporting actress for her performance as a domineering mother in ice-skating movieI, ...Precious metals are negatively co-related with US dollar and so as expected, we are seeing selling pressure in Gold and Silver. Gold failed to sustain the uptrend on weekly chart and now appears to pull back towards its 50 percent retracement level of $1302 in COMEX. However in MCX because of weak Indian Rupee, MCX Gold still has not retraced as much as gold in COMEX but we still expect Gold to retrace to Rs. 30,000 levels ...

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As many as 42 militants affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) group and Taliban were killed in different airstrikes by the Afghan forces in the last 24 hours, Afghanistan's Ministry of Defence (MoD) said on Monday.

Seven Taliban members were killed and six were injured in airstrikes launched by the Afghan National Army (ANA) in Garmsir, Grishk and Nad Ali districts of Helmand province, the MoD said in a statement.

Also, two terrorist bases and two vehicles were destroyed during the airstrikes.

An airstrike in Khas Uruzgan district of Uruzgan province killed 15 insurgents and injured 16 others, the MoD was quoted by TOLOnews as saying.

In the third airstrike, 20 IS militants were killed in Darzab district of Jowzjan province in Afghanistan respectively.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)As many as five people were injured when a foreign contractor helicopter crash landed at a military base in the Afghan capital, Kabul on Sunday, Afghanistan's Ministry of Defence (MoD) confirmed on Monday.

According to officials, the helicopter crashed at the Marshal Fahim Military Academy near Qambar square in the city.

The spokesman for the MoD, Dawlat Waziri was quoted by the TOLOnews as saying that the helicopter crashed shortly after taking off from the military academy. He added that five people, who were injured in the incident, are in a stable condition. The injured were all foreigners.

According to reports, the helicopter is owned and operated by a private company, responsible for assisting at a construction site at the academy.

The military academy in Kabul was the site of a suicide attack in January, which killed 10 soldiers. The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attack.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has demonetised democracy.

Taking to Twitter, Gandhi said the BJP had usurped power in Meghalaya through proxy.

Accusing the BJP of disrespecting the people's mandate, Rahul said, "With just 2 seats, the BJP has usurped power in Meghalaya, through a proxy. Like in Manipur and Goa, showing utter disregard for the mandate of the people. Obsessed instead with grabbing power, using big money to create an opportunistic alliance."

As per the results of the Meghalaya State Assembly polls declared on March 3, the Congress party won 21 seats, while the NPP bagged 19.

The BJP thereafter had suggested that the NPP and UDP form an Non-Congress government in the state with NPP President Conrad Sangma as the new chief minister of Meghalaya.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Communist Party of India (CPI) secretary D. Raja and Samajwadi Party (SP) MP Naresh Agarwal on Monday gave adjournment motion notice in the Rajya Sabha over Punjab Bank fraud (PNB) case.

Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe has moved adjournment motion in the Upper House under rule 267 on 'reports of corrupt practices indulged in by relatives of former ministers under tacit protection by ministers'.

As the second part of the Budget session resumes today, the Opposition parties are likely to corner the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government on recently unearthed banking scams.

The Parliament could see disruptions on diamond businessman Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi allegedly defrauding the Punjab Bank (PNB) and other banks of Rs. 22,000 crore.

Apart from this, the arrest of Karti Chidambaram in connection with INX media case is also likely to be raked up in Parliament.

Both houses of Parliament will meet after a month-long break in the Budget Session today.

Meanwhile, Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill and the triple talaq bill will be high on the government's agenda.

On March 1, the Prime Minister Modi-led Union cabinet approved the proposal to introduce the offenders' bill 2018 in the Parliament.

The bill has been brought to confiscate the assets of a fugitive, including Benami assets.

Parliament will also take up a discussion on the Union budget, which was tabled in the first half of the session, and pass it.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) MPs on Monday protested against Punjab Bank (PNB) fraud case in front of the Gandhi statue in Parliament.

Earlier in the day, TMC leader Derek O'Brien said his party is for a debate and a discussion in Parliament and would evolve a joint opposition strategy soon.

"We will coordinate with other opposition parties to expose this BJP government that has not delivered on their promises. I don't want to name any particular issue as there are many. We have issues for every day in Parliament," O'Brien said told media.

The second part of Parliament's Budget Session begins today, with the opposition ready to corner the government on the issue of bank frauds.

Meanwhile, Congress deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma has given a notice for a discussion under rule 267 of the House on the issue. His party is also likely to raise the issue of government formation in Meghalaya, where the Grand Old Party emerged as the single-largest party, but the BJP managed to ally with regional heavyweights with just two seats of its own.

The BJP, meanwhile, is likely to counter the attack with the allegations against Karti Chidambaram, the son for former finance minister P Chidambaram in connection with INX media case.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)'Get Out' continued its successful run in the award season as Jordan Peele's directorial debut took home the trophy for 'Best Original Screenplay' at the 90th annual Academy Awards.

The film beat fellow nominees 'The Big Sick' (Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani), 'Lady Bird' (Greta Gerwig), 'The Shape of Water' (Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor) and 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' (Martin McDonagh).

"I knew if someone let me make this movie that people would hear it and people would see it," said Peele.

He added, "This means so much to me. I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible, I thought it wasn't gonna work, I thought no one would ever make this movie - but I kept coming back to it."

Peele also thanked "all the people who raised my voice and let me make this movie," the film's cast and crew, wife Chelsea Peretti, and his mother, "who taught me to love even in the face of hate."

He then expressed gratitude for everyone who saw the film. "To everybody who went and saw this movie, to everybody who bought a ticket, who told somebody to buy a ticket, thank you - I love you for shouting out at the theater, shouting out at the screen, let's keep going. I love you all, thank you so much."

Meanwhile, 'Call me by your Name' won the Academy Award for 'Best Adapted Screenplay'.

Writer James Ivory, more than 30 years after his first Oscar nomination, James Ivory has finally been honored with his first win.

The 89-year-old arrived wearing a classic tux complete with a graphic portraying the film's leading man (Timothee Chalamet) emblazoned onto his button-down.

Ivory, who became the oldest winner of a competitive Oscar at age 89, started off his acceptance speech thanking the novel's author, Andre Aciman.

"Whether straight or gay or somewhere in between, we've all gone through first love, I hope, mostly intact," Ivory said.

Ivory's screenplay beat out Aaron Sorkin's 'Molly's Game,' Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber's 'The Disaster Artist,' Dee Rees and Virgil Williams' 'Mudbound,' and Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green's 'Logan'.

Meanwhile, Denis Villeneuve's 'Blade Runner 2049' took its second Oscar of the night in the category 'Best Cinematography'. The movie earlier won the Academy Award for 'Best Visual Effects' at 90th annual Academy Awards.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)China will raise its defence budget by 8.1 percent in 2018, up from last year's 7 percent, as the communist country looks to shore up its military preparedness, according to a budget report submitted to the national legislature on Monday.

As per the report, 1.11 trillion yuan (175 billion US dollars) has been earmarked in the defence budget.

The growth rate, although slightly higher than the last two years, this is the third time that the figures are in single digits since 2013, following 7.6 percent in 2016 and 7 percent in 2017 respectively.

"China's defence budget takes up a smaller share of its gross domestic product (GDP) and national fiscal expenditure compared with other major countries. It's military spending per capita is also lower than other major countries", the Xinhua quoted Zhang Yesui, the spokesperson for the first annual session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) as saying.

"A large part of the growth of the defence budget is to make up for the low military spending in the past and is mainly used to upgrade equipment and improve the welfare of servicemen and women and the living and training conditions of grassroots troops," he added.

Also, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of China is forecasted to grow at around 6.5 percent for the year 2018-19, slightly lower than previous figures of 6.7 percent in 2016 and 6.9 percent in 2017 respectively, but will remain as one of the world's fastest-growing economies in the

China's economy has been witnessing a slowdown since 2015, as the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) wants to move towards an economy led by consumption and services, rather than one driven by exports and investment.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Designated Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Monday said his alliance have a clear majority to form a government in the state and "it was nothing to be surprised about".

Sangma was responding to Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge's statement that the grand old party had worked hard in Meghalaya and secured more seats than Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

"Congress had 21 seats, we went with 34 to the governor. It's a democracy. Aap hi bataiye, Governor 21 waale ko bulaenge ya 34 waale ko? We clearly have the majority. There's nothing to be surprised about," Sangma told ANI.

As per the results of the Meghalaya State Assembly polls declared on March 3, the Congress party retained its hold with 21 seats, while the People's Party (NPP) bagged 19 seats.

Yesterday, Mallikarjun Kharge hit out at BJP claiming that Congress had worked hard in Meghalaya and secured more seats than BJP.

"Our leaders (Congress) had worked hard in Meghalaya and secured more seats than them. BJP had won only two seats. They converted that two to 30. They broke off our party supporters and took them with them. Governor shouldn't agree to this, they can't be the single largest party," Kharge told ANI.

"Opportunity must be given to single largest party. If it can't prove majority then party at 2nd position could be invited. They don't want democracy and want to create environment of fear. It won't go on for long, people will understand this gradually," Kharge added.

The People's Party (NPP) President Conrad Sangma will be the new chief minister of Meghalaya and the swearing-in of the new ministers will take place on March 6.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Buddhist Community of Itanagar celebrated the silver jubilee of the Losar Festival at the Nyokum Lapang Ground here.

The three-day festival, organized by the Itanagar Buddhist Cultural Society (IBCS) was celebrated from March 2 to March 4 with a lot of enthusiasm and traditional zeal.

Addressing the people on the occasion, Education Minister and chief guest at the event Honchun Ngandam emphasised the need to preserve their tradition and especially their dialect.

Capital Complex Deputy Commissioner, Prince Dhawan graced as Guest of Honour and appealed the people about the need to take a resolution for cleanliness and retain Open defecation free status.

For the Buddhist community, the festival is termed as the 'New Year' according to their Buddhist calendar.

For the locals, Losar gives them a good harvesting year ahead.

"We've been celebrating this festival since 24 years. Today is its silver jubilee. We celebrate Losar so that harvesting is good and we stay healthy, away from any kind of illness," said a organising committee member.

The festival was full of cultural presentations from across the state, including the colourful Bhutanese and the Gorkha Cultural programs.

A community feast and prize distribution were also a part of the three-day festival.

The Losar festival which is celebrated as the New Year by the Buddhist community has entered into 2145 Earth Dog year as per the Buddhist calendar.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)'Interstellar' father and son, Timothee Chalamet and Matthew McConaughey, reunited at the 2018 Oscars red carpet.

McConaughey was all praises for the 'Call Me By Your Name' star, even if he had no idea why he was the Oscar nominee's "spirit animal."

"He's a good young man," the 48-year-old Oscar winner told ABC's Red Carpet Special host Michael Strahan. "I played his father in it [Interstellar]. I saw natural talent and I also saw a real confidence. And when you see his work in Call Me By Your Name, it is a fierce performance, man."

"He's dangerous in that performance and completely natural," he added. "He didn't have a false moment in it and he's here to stay. It's true, you see his work and it speaks for itself."

Chalamet had shared a photo with McConaughey on Instagram on Friday, alongside the caption, "spirit animal next 3 days."

Talking about the same, the 'Dallas Buyers Club' star said, "Someone sent that to me about 30 minutes before I got here. I don't quite know what it means, but he went over there and he was showing the picture like, 'Look at this focus that you've got! I'm there for three days.' And I'm like, 'Good man, stay on it.' "

Chalamet is nominated for Best Actor for his performance in 'Call Me By Your Name.' McConaughey won an Oscar in that category in 2014 for Dallas Buyers Club.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has wished his country people lots of luck for the much awaited 90th Academy Awards, which are underway in Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

"Lots of Canadians up for Oscars again this year. Congratulations, good luck tonight and thank you for bringing your magic to the big screen," tweeted Trudeau.

The Oscars will see a host of Canadian film-makers in line for award.

Canadian Producer J. Miles Dale is part of lead Oscar nominee The Shape of Water. Shot in Toronto and Hamilton, Guillermo del Toro's unlikely romance is heading into the Academy Awards ceremony with 13 nominations, with Canadians in the running for their work on the fantastical film's production design, costume design, sound editing, sound mixing and film editing.

Animated film The Breadwinner is another example of this year's Canadian success stories.

The film's Irish director Nora Twomey, Canadian screenwriter Anita Doran and author Deborah Ellis (the Canadian who penned the bestselling novel on which the movie is based), are the core drivers of the acclaimed animated film, which was executive produced by ace actor Angelina Jolie.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Both the houses of the Parliament were adjourned within 10 minutes of convening amid protest by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MPs demanding 'Special Category Status' for Andhra Pradesh.

The Lok Sabha was earlier adjourned till 12 noon and the Rajya Sabha till 2 p.m.

Ahead of the commencement of the second part of the budget session, the TDP MPs staged the protest in front of Mahatma Gandhi statue in Parliament premises demanding 'Special Category Status' for Andhra.

The MPs were holding placards with slogans like, "Listen to the voice of five crores AP people", "Save alliance dharma".

TDP MP Jayadev Galla demanded all the promises made earlier related to the Andhra Pradesh to be fulfilled.

"We want special development package for the backward district, we have received a very small package, but that is not enough, we want it on the basis of per capita income. We also want industrial incentives in line with other hilly states," Galla said.

Interestingly, TDM MP Siva Prasad dressed as Lord Krishna during TDP protest here.

The decision to grant SCS was announced in the Parliament and endorsed by opposition parties, including BJP in 2014.

SCS was announced in lieu of foregoing Hyderabad, which houses employment generating industries, and such a precious clause should not be foregone for some insignificant package.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday blamed Congress over Punjab Bank (PNB) fraud case and said the matter of diamond merchant Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi is connected to the grand old party.

Laying the blame on the Congress, Goyal stated that the Opposition party is trying to mislead the country.

"Matter of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi is connected to Congress, the problem started during their time, they cannot mislead the nation on this issue," Goyal told media here.

To the unversed, the PNB detected a 1.77 billion dollar scam in which Modi acquired fraudulent letters of undertaking from one of its branches for overseas credit from other Indian lenders.

Yesterday, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested four more people in connection with the billion dollars PNB fraud case. The investigation agency arrested an auditor and two employees of jeweller Nirav Modi's Group of Companies and a director of Gitanjali Group of Companies in the said case.

The scam started in 2011 and was detected in the third week of January this year, after which the PNB officials reported it to the concerned agencies.

Meanwhile, the PNB filed a second complaint with the CBI on February 13.

The CBI had received the complaint from the PNB on January 28 and a case was registered in the case on January 31.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)All Trinamool Congress (TMC) Derek O'Brien on Sunday predicted that Prime Minister would deliver his last speech as the prime minister from the ramparts of in on August 15, 2018.

"First tackle 2019 and then imagine about Bengal. This is our clear message to the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party). If their target is Bengal, then our target is Lal Qila (Red Fort). I make it clear that Prime Minister will not deliver his address from Lal Qila on the in 2019," O'Brien said while addressing the media here, a day after the saffron party sweeped Tripura, and for the first time bagged more than 10 seats in

Challenging the prime minister, Brien asked all the opposition parties to come together.

He also asked as to why BJP was so happy by winning and highlighted the party's performance in Lok Sabha bypolls.

"The results of the bypolls in came out only 15 days ago. It included Alwar seat where the BJP won by a margin of 2.80 lakh votes in 2014. But this time the BJP's margin of 2.80 lakh votes has gone down to minus 1.50 lakh," said the TMC

On Saturday, the BJP ended the CPI(M)'s 25-year-long rule in and registered their first win in the northeastern state by winning 35 seats out of 60, while the left party managed to take only 16.What's an award show sans some political moments? The 90th Oscars saw contemporary social issues taking the centre stage.

From celebrities wearing 'Time's Up' buttons, Twitter buying a 'MeToo'-inspired ad, Wal Mart and Nike channelling diversity and empowerment to activism getting an Oscar salute via the 'Stand Up for Something' song, the event witnessed it all.

Fashion was used as a political statement. Many attendees sported the signature 'Time's up' black and white pin. The #WearOrange pins and ribbons from gun control group Everytown also made their way to Hollywood's biggest night.

Political activists were also seen attending the event. Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards attended the Oscars with Patrisse Cullors-Brignac, one of the co-founders of Black Lives Matter, and Bryan Stevenson, Equal Justice Initiative director.

Moreover, there were a few political zingers.

Jimmy Kimmel, who returned to the helm as host, said in his opening monologue, "If you are a nominee tonight who isn't making history, shame on you," a nod to the anticipation of a more diverse set of nominees and the show's hopes of social change ahead.

He urged winners to say whatever they wanted, whether it be on sexual harassment or gun violence, but he also jokingly offered a Jet Ski to anyone who gave the shortest speech.

The first United States President Donald Trump joke came about 10 minutes into Kimmel's monologue. "None other than President Trump called 'Get Out' the best 3/4 of a movie so far this year," Kimmel said when addressing the mastermind behind the film, Jordan Peele.

He also made a joke about Mike Pence while talking about best actor nominee Timothee Chalamet, nominated for the film 'Call Me By Your Name,' a gay love story.

"We don't make films like 'Call Me By Your Name for money. We make them to upset Mike Pence," Kimmel said.

Kimmel didn't leave Hope Hicks, the former White House communications director and one of Trump's longest-serving and closest aides who resigned last week, behind.

While introducing director Greta Gerwig and actress Laura Dern before they presented the best documentary feature category, he said, "If the last two years have taught us anything, it's that reality can be ... depressing. But tonight's nominated documentaries show us that where there is darkness, there is also hope. Except at the White House. Hope quit on Wednesday."

In addition, the Russian Olympics doping documentary "Icarus" took home best documentary feature on Sunday.

During his acceptance speech, filmmaker Bryan Fogel got a little political himself.

"We dedicate this award to Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, our fearless whistleblower, who now lives in great danger," he said. "We hope 'Icarus' is a wake-up call -- yes, about Russia, but more importantly, about telling the truth."

Also, Oscar nominee Kumail Nanjiani, co-writer and star of 'The Big Sick,' and Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o addressed one of the biggest political debates of the year: immigration.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)New Delhi [India], Mar 5 (ANI): The January 2018 murder of a young Pashtun shopkeeper, Naqeebullah Mehsud, in Karachi who aspired to be a fashion model may not have been the spark that lit the flame for a Pashtun Spring but it has certainly set the stage for what many commentators describe as Pashtun awakening. The young Mehsud was killed in a gun battle staged by one of Karachi's notoriously trigger-happy law enforcers. Since then the Pashtun from FATA and the rest of Pakhtunkhwa province have been protesting seeking redress on various issues.

As the angered protesters launched the Pashtun Long March, the authorities' initial response was the usual extra muscular tactic and another Pashtun, Aftab Mehsud, close to the murdered Naqeebullah, was killed in suspicious circumstances in Dera Ismail Khan. Aftabhad earlier organised the protest in Islamabad, where Mehsud tribesmen, tribal elders and youth from South Waziristan gathered to demand the arrest and accountability of Rao Anwar, the police officersuspected to have killed Naqeebullah.

The scope of the demands quickly enlarged to other basic Pashtun demands as the authorities kept the mainstream media, including Urdu TV channels, away from the brewing problem. They seem to have largely complied. However, in the days of the social media the Pashtun have borrowed from the Arab Spring tactics of the Egyptian internet activist WaelGhonim but a number of hashtags - #PashtunLongMarch, #StopPashtunGenocide, #Ihsanuddin, #AftabMehsud #NaqeebMehsud, #PashtunTahafuzMovement, #PashtunUprising and others have been active and have kept the informed of developments inside FATA and Pakistan. Governments can no longer work in echo chambers.

The Pashtun have been feeling restless for quite some time or a few decades. Since the rise of the Taliban, most of the Pashtun, especially from the FATA region and Afghanistan have been routinely identified with the Taliban. It is true that the Taliban grew from among the Pashtun madrassah alumni of the region in the initial years, but not all Pashtun were Taliban.

In Pakistan's unending battles for control of Afghanistan and America's ill-conceived war on terror, the Pashtun living in FATA and Pakhtunkhwa province have faced triple jeopardy of Taliban depredations, Pakistan government's aggressive antagonism and American drones.

All this led to the rise of Al Qaeda in FATA, the emergence of the Pakistan Taliban and a host of other Pakistani Islamist organisations battling on the same turf. Over the years, Pashtun were repeatedly uprooted from their villages by Pakistani authorities in their so-called war on terror. Their livelihood destroyed, their children received no schooling, and their tightly knit family bonds damaged. In different parts of Pakistan, especially in Punjab and Karachi, Pashtun shopkeepers and labour were frequently arrested on suspicion as security suspects. The price paid by the Pashtun has thus been heavy.

There was a flip side to the displacement. The Pashtuns saw the marked difference between what they had in their lives and the facilities the urban dweller had. The legal systems, the law and order and education available were markedly different from their FCR run systems that provided blanket punishment or reprisal against a family, clan and tribe for actions of an individual.

The protesters this time were not the traditional tribal elders (Malaks) alone but there were many young well-informed educated and politically savvy professionals, seeking an end to the colonial-imperial laws like the abominable Frontier Crimes Regulation under which they were governed by Islamabad. Another demonstration in Peshawar by a large number of professionals seeking employment went unreported. The current movement may have been sparked by the recent killings but Pashtun grievance has been expressed at least since 2015 when there was a demand that Waziristan be freed of the landmines planted indiscriminately by the counter-insurgency forces.

FATA's wounds are not recent but extend back further in Pakistan's history. Not only were the FCR regulations persisted with by the new government Pashtun from FATA were roped in by Mohammed Ali Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan to invade Jammu and Kashmir and seize a chunk of Indian territory.

The Pashtun got nothing in return for their loyalty to what was described as an Islamic cause. Later, Zulfiqar Bhutto would toy with the Pashtun to take new battles to Afghanistan in 1973 after the epic 1971 defeat at the hands of the Indians. The Afghan president Najibullah retaliated in the 1980s by reviving the demand for Pashtunistan.

Unable to control Afghanistan and fearing the rise of Pashtun nationalism, after the withdrawal of the Soviets, Pakistan created the Taliban with recruits from the madrassas of NWFP and Balochistan and were supported them from 1994. They were to try to achieve what the Afghan Mujahedeen could not do for Pakistan. For some time the Taliban appeared to have succeeded but the Al Qaeda had their own plans against America.

The US invasion called the global war on terror began in 2001 and nearly seventeen years later, this has become America's longest war. The main sufferers have been the Afghans and the Pashtun on both sides of the Durand Line. Others in Pakistan have suffered too but this has been the result of Pakistan's policies of supporting terror in the neighbourhood.

The Pashtun have had to face ethnic profiling and stereotyping, frequent and massive displacements of populations especially since Pakistan launched its Zarb-e-Azab operation in FATA (about half a million had fled/moved after military operations in 2009); unlawful abductions and detentions by the Pakistan authorities. Resentment has grown in recent years once it became clear that the political leadership was unable to abandon the FCR and other reforms to merge FATA and Pakhtunkhwa. The FCR were seen as a useful weapon to keep the tribes in control. That said what is apparent is the price an ethnic population pays for the adventures and ambitions of a powerful majority population - in FATA, Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan.

Many commentators feel that there is new awakening among the Pashtun. The Pashtun Long March and the ten-day sit-in outside the Islamabad Press Club was meant to kindle that awakening. This was the result of some sustained campaigning by Pashtun activists from FATA, especially North Waziristan. The agency had become home to several Islamist groups and gave the impression that FATA was a jihadi state. The activists have been demanding a return to normalcy and seeking basic amenities - roads, communications, schools, banks and an end to endless harassment by security forces.

There were some early symbols of hope in that Maulana Sami ul Haq, the administrator of the notorious Darul Uloom Haqqani in Akora Khattak, and head of JUI(S) failed to getelected in the just-concluded Senate elections. The rejection of this dean of the Islamists used for jihad may be significant. In another display of Pashtun nationalism, the young have begun adopting new surnames - Pashtun, Pashteen, Pakhtun, or even Pakhtunzai.

Meanwhile, the will continue to talk about the Rohingyas; talking about human rights in Pakhtunkhwa, FATA or Balochistan is not strategically convenient. The Pashtun have a long lonely fight ahead.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Fans and celebs alike got emotional after the 90th Academy Awards paid homage to the late Indian actors, Sridevi and Shashi Kapoor.

They took to Twitter to share their outlook on the event.

Rishi Kapoor, a celebrated Bollywood actor, wrote, "Oscars. Thank you for remembering Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi. Thrilled to see the name Raj Kapoor as the executive producer of the show. We are on the threshold of world cinema!"

Oscar pays tribute to Shashi Kapoor | Photo twitter

Choreographer-director Farah Khan tweeted, "Teary eyed to see #Sridevi being featured in the Oscars IN MEMORIUM.. ??".

Teary eyed to see #Sridevi being featured in the Oscars IN MEMORIUM..   Farah Khan (@TheFarahKhan) March 5, 2018

Oscars. Thank you for remembering Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi. Thrilled to see the name Raj Kapoor as the executive producer of the show. We are on the threshold of world cinema! pic.twitter.com/YMkqntZ4Xz  Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) March 5, 2018

One user wrote, "Nice that two giants of Bollywood, Sridevi and Shashi Kapoor, were shown in the annual IN MEMORIAM segments of #oscars".Another user posted, "Well done #Oscars Wake up Indian Cinema! #Sridevi".

"The #Oscars paid tribute to #Sridevi while most media at home played malicious monsters post her death. Never forget how they ignored the legendary #OmPuri too, while he was remembered at Hollywood posthumously. We have failed ourselves as a cinema loving nation", wrote another fan.

The Indian stars were honoured at the Academy Awards in its memoriam section

The Memoriam performance was done by the American musician, Eddie Vedder, who took the stage to sing Tom Petty's "Room at the top".

Padma Shri awardee actress Sridevi passed away on late night on February 24, 2018, in Dubai, where she went to attend a family wedding.

According to the forensic report, the 54-year-old Indian actress died of accidental drowning in her hotel room's bathtub, after suffering a dizzying spell. Traces of alcohol were found in her body too.

Shashi Kapoor, a Padma Bhushan awardee, passed away in December 2017 at the age of 79 due to liver problems.

Other legends that were mentioned in the Memoriam montage included Walter Lassally, Robert Osborne, Harry Dean Stanton, Jonathan Demme, John Heard, Glenne Headly, Jerry Lewis, Roger Moore and Sam Shepard, among others.Two senior members of the Islamic State (IS) group have been arrested by the Afghan intelligence operatives on Sunday, in connection with the last year's Kabul mosque attack, which claimed 50 lives.

The National Directorate of Security (NDS) said the detained individuals have been identified as Ehsanullah son of Karimullah and Omaar son of Abdul Hadi.

The National Directorate of Security (NDS) detained two individuals - Ehsanullah, who is a senior member of the military commission of the IS group and Omar, a member of the recruitment committee of the dreaded group, the Khaama Press reported.

According to a statement by the NDS, the militants confessed that they had planned and carried out the deadly attack on Imam Zaman mosque in Kabul in October last year.

The NDS added that the militants were also involved in other terror-related incidents as well.

The dreaded IS group had claimed responsibility for the Kabul mosque attack.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on March 1 inaugurated the week-long 29th annual, world-famous International Yoga Festival (IYF) international yoga festival in Rishikesh's Parmarth Niketan.

The IYF offers daily classes from 4 a.m. until 9:30 p.m. with more than 80 revered saints, yogacharyas, presenters and experts from nearly 20 countries around the world. There are also classes in meditation, mudras, Sanskrit chanting, reiki, Indian philosophy and spiritual discourses to be held by revered spiritual leaders from India and abroad.

Ashtanga Yoga, Raja Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Kundalini Yoga, Iyengar Yoga, Vinyasa Yoga, Bharat Yoga, Ganga Yoga, and Somatics Yoga are just a few of the nearly 200 different offerings throughout the week.

The Festival was officially inaugurated by President of India, M Venkaiah Naidu at a ceremony that included congratulatory statements from Uttarakhand Governor KK Paul, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, Union Minister of Tourism, Alphons Kannanthanam, and many more as well as the participation of numerous renowned faith leaders, dignitaries and yogacharyas from nearly 20 countries across the world.

The official inauguration of the event saw a beautiful and colorful tapestry of participants representing the world's faiths, nations, cultures, races and regions as Argentinians, Afghans, Israelites, Iranians, Japanese, Kenyans, Italians, Americans, Yemenis and people from numerous other nations formed bonds of togetherness under the common flag of yoga, on the banks of the sacred River Ganga, in the World Capital of Yoga.

Last year, H.H. Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, President of Parmarth Niketan and Founder of the International Yoga Festival, and Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswatiji, Director of the International Yoga Festival, led International Yoga Day events at the United Nations in New York.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Solvent Extractors' Association of India

We welcome the announcement on 1st March of substantially increasing the import duties on Crude Palm Oil from 30% to 44% as well as Refined Palmolein& Refined Palm Oil from 40% to 54%, stated The Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA). We had been representing to the Government to increase duties on imported oils as our dependence on them has reached alarming levels of almost 70% of our consumption. We are happy at this hike, added SEA.

Import duty as on 1stMarch, 2018

While, we welcome this increase in duties we are surprised at singling out Palm only for increase in duties.

This looks grossly unfair and may defeat the objective of doubling farmers income by raising domestic values of all oils. With mustard crop getting harvested our farmers will feel cheated if import duties on Soya, Sun and Canola oils are not increased in same proportion as Palm oils. Needless to mention it would be difficult to encourage oilseeds farmers to grow more oilseed and augment their income if duties on these oils are not raised. The industry also feels unhappy that our long-standing demand of raising the duty differential between CPO and Palmolein to minimum 15% from existing 10% has still not been acceded.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sun Pharmaceutical Industries rose 2.86% to Rs 549.80 at 15:04 IST on BSE on bargain hunting after a recent slide.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 300.23 points, or 0.88% to 33,746.71.

On the BSE, 10.65 lakh shares were traded in the counter so far compared with average daily volumes of 6.88 lakh shares in the past two weeks. The stock had hit a high of Rs 552 and a low of Rs 527.10 so far during the day. The stock hit a 52-week high of Rs 728.45 on 14 March 2017. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 433.15 on 14 August 2017.

Shares of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries fell 6.26% in four trading sessions to settle at Rs 534.50 on 1 March 2018, from its close of Rs 570.20 on 23 February 2018.

Last month, the company informed that the United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) conducted a Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) inspection of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries' Halol facility in Gujarat, India from 12 to 23 February 2018. At the conclusion of the inspection, the agency issued a Form 483, with three observations. The company said it was preparing the response to the observations, which will be submitted to the USFDA within 15 business days. The company is committed to addressing these observations promptly.

The company said it remains committed to working closely with the USFDA and continues to enhance its GMP compliance on an ongoing basis.

On a consolidated basis, net profit of Sun Pharmaceuticals Industries declined 76.76% to Rs 400.17 crore on 14.12% decline in net sales to Rs 6598.21 crore in Q3 December 2017 over Q3 December 2016.

Sun Pharma is the world's fifth largest specialty generic pharmaceutical company and India's top pharmaceutical company.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)TVS Motor Company rose 1.27% to Rs 685.40 at 09:19 IST on BSE after total sales surged 37% to 2.90 lakh units in February 2018 over February 2017.

The announcement was made after market hours on Thursday, 1 March 2018. The stock market was closed on Friday, 2 March 2018 on account of Holi.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 195.11 points, or 0.57% to 33,851.83.

On the BSE, 4,312 shares were traded in the counter so far, compared with average daily volumes of 1.31 lakh shares in the past two weeks. The stock had hit a high of Rs 686.70 and hit a low of Rs 678.90 so far during the day. The stock hit a record high of Rs 794.90 on 2 January 2018. The stock hit a 52-week low of Rs 414 on 8 March 2017.

The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 47.51 crore. Face value per share is Re 1.

TVS Motor Company's total two-wheelers sales rose 36.2% to 2.80 lakh units in February 2018 over February 2017. Domestic two-wheelers sales recorded growth of 33.5% to 2.30 lakh units. Scooter sales grew by 35.6% to 93,573 units. Motorcycles sales grew by 92% to 1.13 lakh units.

The company's total exports grew by 53.2% to 58,564 units in February 2018 over February 2017. Two-wheeler exports grew by 50.4% to 50,589 units. Three-wheeler of the company grew by 86.3% to 9,731 units in February 2018 over February 2017.

TVS Motor Company's net profit rose 16.34% to Rs 154.35 crore on 22.69% rise in total income to Rs 3703.11 crore in Q3 December 2017 over Q3 December 2016.

TVS Motor Company is a leading two and three-wheeler manufacturer.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Foe a Live Quiz show

Viaan Industries has signed an exclusive licensing deal to launch a digital live trivia game show for India. iQ Live is a trivia game, not wholly dissimilar from TV gameshows like Kaun Banega Crorepati & Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, except minus the studio audience. Twice a day 1.30pm and 9pm, a host walks everyone watching through a series of 12 multiple-choice general knowledge questions. Its free to play, get all 12 right and you win a share of the daily cash prize pool which will go into lakhs. Get a single question wrong, and you're out! The company funds the daily prizes through advertising & marketing tie ups. It's a new rage in the USA & China where these apps have a devout following of millions of users. This is Viaan Industries Second LIVE game show the first was Aunty Boli Lagao Boli on Colors TV and Now iQ Live which is a pure live digital show.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)"The Shape of Water" emerged as the big winner with four honours at the 90th Academy Awards ceremony - including Best Picture -- where a celebration of cinema was laced with political jibes as well as powerful statements on debates like sexual harassment, immigration and gender balance that are plaguing Hollywood.

Gary Oldman won Best Actor award for his role as Winston Churchill in "Darkest Hour" and actress Frances McDormand nabbed her second best actress Oscar for "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri", two decades after winning an award for "Fargo".

There were jibes at US president Donald Trump and disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, while some celebrities pledged support to immigrants and pitched for gender balance in the industry.

: Sam Rockwell, winner of the award for best performance by an actor in a supporting role for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri", poses in the press room at the Oscars | Photo: AP/PTI

India had missed the Oscar race in the foreign film category this year with "Newton" being ousted in initial stages of the shortlist.

Also, Indian actor Ali Fazal-starrer "Victoria & Abdul" and Anupam Kher-starrer "The Big Sick" lost on their chance to win an Oscar.

Celebrated Indian screen legends Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi were remembered during the "In Memoriam" montage along with late Hollywood icons like John Heard, Tony Anne Walker, Jane Foray, Robert Osborne, Martin Landau, Glenne Headly, Roger Moore, George A. Romero and Jerry Lewis.

Popular TV host Jimmy Kimmel opened the night at Dolby Theatre here on Sunday by revisiting the past.

Frances McDormand places her award for best performance by an actress in a leading role for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" on the stage at the Oscars | Photo: AP/PTI

He took a swipe at last year's Best Picture winner fiasco wherein "La La Land" was accidentally awarded instead of "Moonlight" due to an envelope mix-up, saying: "This year, when you hear your name called, don't get up right away".

The 'envelopegate' was quite a scene-stealer at the event, aired in India on Star Movies and Star Movies HD.

Amid the sexual misconduct allegations that have emerged in Hollywood and across the world since complaints against disgraced producer Weinstein came to the fore, Kimmel poked fun at the Oscar statuette.

"Oscar is a very respected man in Hollywood, just look at him. He keeps his hands where you can see them, never says a rude word, and most importantly, no penis at all. He's literally a statue of limitation," he quipped.

Kimmel also urged the winners to say whatever they wanted -- be it on sexual harassment or any other issue -- but keep it short.

He also offered a Jet Ski to anyone who gave the shortest speech, which finally went to Mark Bridges, who won the Oscar for Best Costume Design for "Phantom Thread" for his approximately 30-second acceptance note.

Tiffany Haddish, left, and Maya Rudolph present the award for best documentary short subject at the Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. AP/PTI Photo

Coming to the winners, "The Shape Of Water" dominated the show -- much like this year's nominations -- with four awards. It came as a surprise considering filmmaker Guillermo del Toro is facing a copyright infringement lawsuit for the film.

He took home the golden statuette in the Best Director category for the film.

"The Shape Of Water", which tells a story of a deaf woman's love for an aquatic creature, was also named as the Best Picture, along with Best Production Design and Best Score accolades.

Oldman, scoring his first Oscar for "Darkest Hour", said: "The movies, such is their power, captivated a young man from South London and gave him a dream."

"Darkest Hour" also earned a Make-up and Hairstyling award.

Actress Frances McDormand got here latest Oscar for her role as a grieving mother who takes on the police chief of Ebbing for not doing enough to find her daughter's murderer in "Three Billboards ...".

McDormand, 60, pipped, among others, "The Post" star Meryl Streep, who scored her 21st nomination and the 17th in this category at the Oscars.

McDormand left an impact with her acceptance speech after she asked every female nominee in the room to stand up, and asked male gatekeepers to ask them about their projects and ideas not just at Oscar after-parties, but in office meetings following awards season.

As her fellow nominees stood, she said: "We all have stories to tell and projects we need financed." She urged stars to demand inclusion riders -- requirements for gender or racial diversity -- in their contracts.

"Coco" was named as Best Animated Feature Film at the Oscars 2018, and co-director Lee Unkrich dedicated the honour to the people and culture of Mexico, saying "representation matters".

Some records were also set.

At 89, filmmaker James Ivory became the oldest Oscar winner for his adapted screenplay for "Call Me By Your Name". And Jordan Peele became the first African-American original screenplay winner for "Get Out".

Actors Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney picked up Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress honours.

Extending support to the 'Dreamers' in the US, Pakistan-origin comedian Kumail Nanjiani and actress Lupita Nyong'o from Kenya also took a dig at their own immigrant status.

"We are the two actors who you keep hearing about but whose names you have trouble pronouncing," Nyong'o quipped.

Nanjiani added: "Actually, I have to complain... Kumail Nanjiani is my stage name. My actual given Pakistani name is Chris Pine. So you can imagine how annoyed I was when the other, the white one showed up... The real Chris Pine

"And I am from Pakistan and Iowa, two places that nobody from Hollywood can find on the map."

Actresses Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek and Annabella Sciorra, who have accused Weinstein of sexual misconduct, walked on the stage at Oscars 2018 to stress on the need to change the culture in Hollywood with focus on diversity and equality.

The ceremony was about hope and positivity, as Judd said the next 90 years of the Academy Awards will "empower these limitless possibilities of equality, diversity, inclusivity, intersectionality -- that's what this year has promised us".

There was also a performance by Common and Andra Day, along with social activists, who shared the stage while the artistes performed the "Stand up for something" from the film "Marshall".Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Monday afternoon left for Mumbai's Lilavati Hospital for further treatment, leaving a committee of three senior cabinet ministers in-charge of the coastal state's administrative affairs and with an assurance of conducting cabinet meetings via video conference.

The Chief Minister's Office also said that Parrikar could be shifted to a health facility overseas, if doctors at the Mumbai hospital recommend it.

"Today, the Chief Minister is travelling to Mumbai for further medical check-up and, based on his doctor's advice, may travel overseas for further treatment," a statement issued by the CMO said.

On a day of hectic developments, Parrikar conducted a series of meetings with top ruling politicians, bureaucrats and police officials in the state, where he spelled out instructions related to governance.

Among key cabinet ministers who met him were Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardesai of the Goa Forward Party and Urban Development Minister Francis D'Souza.

The two ministers, along with Public Works Department Minister Sudin Dhavalikar, who was in Delhi on Monday, will form a three-member committee which will take a call on administrative decisions to be taken in the Chief Minister's absence.

"He has also told some ministers, who met him today (Monday), that cabinet meetings would be conducted via video conference," a cabinet minister who met the Chief Minister on Monday said.

"The three-member team will have the power to sanction works up to Rs 5 crore, while each individual minister has been empowered to sanction work contracts up to the tune of Rs 50 lakh each," Arts and Culture Minister Govind Gawde told reporters after meeting the Chief Minister.

Parrikar in a short video on Monday requested for more prayers from the people of his state to tide him over a bad health patch.

"The way you have blessed me now, I hope your blessings will continue and hope that you will allow me to take a few days holiday," Parrikar said.

"I want to thank all Goans. For the last 15 days, you prayed for me and because of your blessings, I have recovered and I am heading for Mumbai and if doctors advise in Mumbai, then to become fully well, I may be going abroad for a few days to cure my ailment," Parrikar said in the video clip, which was released to the media, soon after he was taken to Mumbai by special flight for treatment.

Parrikar was on February 15 rushed to the Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai, where, according to the Chief Minister's Office, he was diagnosed for "mild pancreatitis".

Parrikar returned on February 22, to deliver a truncated budget speech, two days after which he was shifted to the Goa Medical College and Hospital, near Panaji, for dehydration and low blood pressure, according to another official statement.

Parrikar was discharged from the hospital on March 1 and has been recuperating at his private residence near Panaji.

Earlier on Monday, the Chief Minister's Office also released a photograph of Parrikar wearing a pair of shorts, meeting Chief Secretary Dharmendra Sharma and Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister P. Krishnamurthy at his private residence where he instructed the duo on "urgent and important matters" related to the state.

--IANS

maya/qd/dg

(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.)Veteran actor Anupam Kher is here to shoot for an "exciting" project.

"On my way to Heathrow Airport, London, to travel to New York. Looking forward to shoot for an exciting project. Jai Ho. Please send me your love and best wishes," he captioned a video that he shared on Twitter on Sunday.

Details about the project were not shared.

In January, Anupam shot for his 512th film titled "Singh In The Rain" in Malibu. The upcoming film will be directed by Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri.

Anupam-starrer "The Big Sick" on Sunday missed out on winning an Oscar to "Get Out".

Pakistan-origin actor-comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily V. Gordon lost an Oscar for their original screenplay for the film.

It was the first nomination for the couple.

"The Big Sick" is loosely based on the real-life romance between Nanjiani and Gordon. It follows an interracial couple who must deal with cultural differences after Emily falls ill.

--IANS

dc/nn/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Centre on Monday constituted a committee headed by the Economic Affairs Secretary to consider ways for further development of the financial technology (Fintech) sector in India, according to an official announcement.

Among other things, the Steering Committee would look at the ways to make fintech related regulations more flexible and generate increased entrepreneurship in the sector, a Finance Ministry release said here. The Union Budget 2018-19, presented in Parliament last month, contains the proposal for forming such a committee.

"The government constitutes a Steering Committee on Fintech to consider various issues relating to development of the sector in India with a view to make regulations more flexible and generate enhanced entrepreneurship in an area where India has distinctive comparative strengths vis-a-vis other emerging economies," it said.

"The Steering Committee will also focus on how Fintech can be leveraged to enhance financial inclusion of MSMEs (micro, small and medium enterprises)".

FinTech is a rapidly evolving segment of the financial services sector where technology focused startups and other market entrants are disrupting how the financial services industry traditionally operates. Some known fintech companies operating in India are Paytm, Mobikwik, BankBazaar and PolicyBazaar.

Besides taking stock of the developments in the fintech sector globally, the committee's terms of reference include analysing "the regulatory regime spread over different entities that has impacted the growth of Fintech in India".

It is also required to consider "how Fintech can be leveraged in critical sectors of the economy, especially financing of MSMEs, affordable housing, delivery of e-services to vulnerable sections, provision of land record management and other government services, access and adoption of digital payments".

The Committee is "to work with government agencies like UIDAI to explore creation and use of unique enterprise identification number," the statement said.

"To consider international cooperation opportunities in fintech with countries like Singapore, UK, China, etc," it added.

The other seven members of the committee are the respective Secretaries of Electronics and IT, Financial Services, MSMEs, the Chairperson Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC), Chief Executive Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor and Economic Affairs Joint Secretary (Investment), who will act as committee convener, the Ministry said.

--IANS

bc/nks/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)China on Monday hiked its defence spending to 8.1 per cent of its GDP, pegging its economic growth at 6.5 per cent in 2018.

China's defence budget in 2017 was 7 per cent of the country's GDP and has been in single digit since 2013, but this year's military spending is the highest in three years. The budget of $175 billion is three times higher than India's defence spending.

China's economy, which grew in double-digit for three-decades, has slowed down over the years.

The economic target was announced by Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang when he delivered the work report to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's Parliament which opened on Monday.

China has the world's largest standing Army and spends the most on defence after the US in the world. President Xi Jinping has vowed to make the Chinese Army a modern force by cutting down its troops.

This was mentioned by Li while delivering the work report at the Great Hall where nearly 3,000 Chinese lawmakers had gathered.

"We have completed the task of reducing the armed by 300,000 troops," Li said at the opening session of the NPC.

The two-week Parliament session will be a historic one as the rubber-stamp legislature will remove the two-term cap on the Chinese presidency, giving Xi unfettered power and license to rule until he retires or dies.

The party's powerful Central Committee in February passed a proposal to remove the two-term cap on Chinese presidency -- a move that has startled the world.

China's revered leader Deng Xiaoping in 1980s had restricted the presidential five-year tenure to two to avoid the perils which the cult around Mao Zedong had brought.

In 2017, at the Communist Party's once in a five-year meet, Xi began his second five-term without announcing his successors, a convention his predecessor Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin had followed.

The move was widely speculated as Xi's desire to rule the country of 1.4 billion beyond the customary 10 years.

Xi is China's most powerful leader since Mao. He has been conferred with the status of "core", an honorific given only to Mao and Deng.Britain's National Crime Agency (NCA) has accused Facebook and Google of raking in profits from "pop-up" brothels on their platforms.

According to a report in The Sunday Times, "Pop-up" sex clubs were discovered in Cornwall, Cambridge, Swindon and holiday cottages in the Peak district.

The NCA accused Google and Facebook of "making profits" from the trafficking of vulnerable women.

According to the agency, web companies have become the "key enabler for the sexual exploitation of trafficked victims in the UK".

"People are using the Internet and social media sites to enable sexual exploitation and trafficking," Will Kerr, the NCA's Head of Vulnerabilities, was quoted as saying.

"It is clear that the internet platforms which host and make a profit out of this type of material need to do more to identify and stop these forms of exploitation," Kerr added.

The British government is seeking new laws that make internet firms responsible for content on their platforms.

The US government is already working on a legislation aimed at cracking down on sex trafficking on Internet platforms.

According to Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's Chief Operating Officer, sex trafficking - particularly of young girls and boys is one of the most heinous acts that takes place anywhere in the world.

"We all have a responsibility to do our part to fight this. That's why we at Facebook support efforts to pass amended legislation in the House that would allow responsible companies to continue fighting sex trafficking while giving victims the chance to seek justice against companies that knowingly facilitate such abhorrent acts," she said on February 26.

"Facebook is committed to working with legislators in the House and Senate as the process moves forward to make sure we pass meaningful and strong legislation to stop sex trafficking," she added.The government is committed to extending every support to Indian industrys focused efforts to increase investments in European countries, Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar said on Monday.

"I am happy that European businesses are looking towards India and are increasingly finding business toeholds in an outward looking manner," Akbar said while delivering the keynote address at the Fourth India-Europe 29 Business Forum here.

"At the same time Indian businesses are becoming a significant investor in Europe," he said.

"I would like to assure you that the government of India is fully committed and working towards supporting this."

Organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and industry body Ficci, trhe Forum is an institutionalised platform to initiate and discuss business prepositions between India and European countries. This year, the Czech Republic is the focus country.

Akbar said India is undergoing a transformation in an unprecedented scale led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's effective and transparent government.

"India is moving towards a knowledge-based society which aims to build a $5-trillion economy by 2025," he stated.

"This will make us the third largest consumer market in the world by then. According to World Bank and IMF, our growth rate is going to be stable and high."

The minister pointed out India ranked that Moody's has upgraded India's ratings on account of its economic reforms.

"India has climbed 30 places in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business index last year, the biggest jump by any country," he said.

Stating that India is a union of states, Akbar said many of these states have embarked on the process of being competitive.

"We call this competitive federalism," he said.

"More than 90 per cent of the FDI rules have been put on automatic approval. As a result, there has been a sharp rise in FDI in the past three years from $36 billion in 2014 to $60 billion in 2016-17."

The radical reforms that were introduced by the government of India some four years ago under the leadership of Modi have delivered robust results, Akbar said, while highlighting the government programmes that contributed to the socio-economic transformation of the country.

He cited how interventions in the areas of micro-finance and housing have strengthened the participation of women in development endeavours.

Pointing to the threat of terrorism confronting global societies, Akbar said that India and Europe have come together to fight the war against terrorism and make the world a peaceful place to live in.

Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic Tomas Huner, in his address, said that India is one among the 10 most important non-European trade partners of Czech Republic. He underlined the immense scope for bilateral partnerships in the area of energy development.

Huner highlighted the core strengths of the Czech Republic, such as a highly qualified domestic workforce, investment protection laws, among others, as factors that would attract Indian investments to the country.

Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade Promotion of Malta Camelo Abela urged Indian industry to increase their investments in Malta and enjoy the benefit of easier access to the European and African markets.

""Malta is open for business," he said, and referred to pharma manufacturing, education, healthcare, consultancy, renewal energy, financial services, events, biotechnology research, knowledge-based industries among other sectors that would be particularly attractive for investments by Indian companies. He also mentioned about Malta being a global film production hub.

Ficci Vice President Sandip Somany, in his welcome address, said there is significant scope for increasing the India-Europe 29 bilateral trade flows that stood at $38 billion in 2016-17.

He also pointed to the need for strengthening these partnerships involving small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The conference attracted the participation of some 170 officials and business leaders from the European countries, and an equal number of Indian delegates.

During the inaugural session, a Ficci report on "India-Europe 29: Synergising Economic Vision for Expanded Relations" was released.

--IANS

ab/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Monday visited writer Muhammed Zafar Iqbal, who was stabbed by an attacker at a university last week and was hospitalised.

Iqbal, known for his secular activism and science fiction writing, was stabbed in the back of his head by an assailant while speaking at a two-day fair on the Shahjalal University of Science and Technology campus in Sylhet city on Saturday.

The writer suffered six knife injuries to the head, back and left hand. He was taken to Sylhet's MAG Osmani Medical College following the attack but was later shifted to the Combined Military Hospital in Dhaka on Hasina's instructions.

Hasina went to see Iqbal in the afternoon and "instructed everything possible be done for him", said her Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim.

"The Prime Minister was at the hospital for nearly an hour. She also spoke to the medical board formed for his care," Karim was quoted as saying by bdnews24.com.

Doctors said Iqbal was out of danger and "will take some time to recover".

The attacker, a madrasa student named Faizul Hasan, was apprehended by teachers and students and beaten. He was later taken into custody by the police.

The 24-year-old madrasa student dubbed the famed writer as an "enemy of Islam", due to which he attempted to kill him.

Hasan's parents were also detained by the police late on Sunday from Sylhet city's Madina Market area.

--IANS

soni/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)As a globally renowned professional historian, she has in recent years been the target of vicious right wing trolls who are out to spread their own version of history. If it doesnt seem to overly bother her, it is because, unknown to most, Romila Thapars life has been one lived amidst sustained hate and criticism.

Thapar completed her PhD in 1958 from the University of London and returned to India in 1961 and joined Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, in 1970 as professor of Ancient Indian History (after brief stints at Kurukshetra University and the University of Delhi).

Just seven years after she joined JNU, her troubles began. In the late 1970s, several members in the Janata Party and the Morarji Desai government sought changes in textbooks. The books that were targeted by members of the Jan Sangh - which later morphed into the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- included two significant works by Thapar: "Medieval India" written by her, and "Communalism and the Writing of Indian History", which she wrote along with Harbans Mukhia and Bipan Chandra.

Those protesting against these books criticised Thapar for several reasons, primarily for going soft on Muslim rulers like Aurangzeb."I did not allow the text books written by me to be changed because every time they would want to make a change, I would say, yes go ahead and make a change, just take my name off the book. But they didn't want to do that because they wanted the legitimacy of the name of a historian and yet they wanted to make the changes," she told IANS in an interview.

Her troubles with the BJP did not end there. She was removed from the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) less than three months after the BJP came to power in 1999.

Merely four years later, criticism hit her again when, in 2003, she was appointed as the Visiting Chair at the US Library of Congress. She was supposed to spend 10 months at the John W. Kluge Center researching "Historical Consciousness in Early India" -- but a petition against her appointment described her as a "Marxist" and "anti-Hindu", while emphasising that it was "a waste of US money to support a Leftist".

"Within a month of my getting there to Washington, there was a long 15-page petition saying the most vicious things about me. Really, I mean, written by people after reading whom one could make out how paranoid they were. And I was terribly disturbed at that point of time because I thought, What do I do, I am sitting in Washington, I know nobody in the embassy, I know nobody in the Library of Congress; and I wondered how was I going to manage this attack," she recalled.

The question that many of her critics raise is why she does not respond to them, claiming that she is scared of a public debate.

"Do I respond? Or do I just keep quiet? The problem with responding is that one would then have to respond each time somebody wrote against one. When I was facing all of this in Washington, a couple of senior academics in London wrote to me and said, 'For god's sake don't respond, because that's exactly what they want you to do.' They will want you to spend all your time defending yourself on stupid issues whereas you should be doing serious research.

"And so I thought about it at great length and eventually I decided not to respond -- and I haven't for that reason, although they call me a coward, they say I am not willing to have a public debate and so on. And my attitude is that as an academic I am not into public debate: I write what I think is right, I give my evidence, I give my references, take it or leave it. I am not insisting that you follow what I am saying," she maintained.

"I think the main point is the insistence that I have the right to research and write and give evidence for what I am saying and make my statement about the past. I think this is the right that everybody has, and why should I be denied that right which everybody has?" she asked.

She maintains that arguing a particular position in any discipline is a constitutional mandate as long as she sticks to the given methodology and substantiates her research with enough evidence. This is also where she makes a distinction between "academic history" and "fantasy history". Fantasy history, she maintained, is written for public consumption.

"But I have been firm on the fact that as an academic historian, I will go on saying what I wish to say, on the basis of my research," she said.

Meanwhile, Oxford University Press has published "The Historian and Her Craft: Collected Essays and Lectures" by Thapar. This set of four volumes, according to the publisher, reflects "the scholarship of one of the foremost historians of our time". It is a comprehensive collection of lectures and essays by Thapar, with each focusing on a theme -- Historiography, Pre-Mauryan and Mauryan India, Social and Cultural Transactions, and Religion and Society.

(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)

--IANS

ss/ky/tb/sac

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a drive-by shooting that killed two security personnel in Yemen's southern port city of Aden on Sunday.

In a statement by its official news agency Amaq, the IS said its fighters assassinated "two apostate soldiers in Aden's neighbourhood of Mansourah," Xinhua reported.

The terror group also posted four pictures showing two of its fighters launching the attack in Aden.

Meanwhile, a local security source also confirmed the assassination.

"Two security guards at Aden's port were killed by terrorists while they were heading to the workplace," he told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Last month, the IS claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings that struck the headquarters of the counter- forces backed by the United Arab Emirates in Aden.

Medical sources said the bombings killed 6 soldiers and injured 53 others, mostly civilians.

Aden is considered Yemen's temporary capital, as the Saudi-backed Yemeni government has based itself there since 2015.

During the past two years, terrorist groups such as the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the IS, had an active presence in the southern part of Yemen.

The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since 2014, when the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab military coalition which intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Iran-backed Houthi rebels forced him into exile.

The UN has listed Yemen as the country facing the world's top humanitarian crisis, with seven million Yemenis on the brink of famine and cholera causing more than 2,000 deaths.

--IANS

ahm/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The centre-right coalition uniting former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with other ultra-rightist parties is expected to win the general elections in Italy, an exit poll released by the public RAI television channel claimed on Monday.

The poll found that Berlusconi's Forza Italia garnered between 13-16 per cent of the seats in the Senate and between 12.5-15.5 per cent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies, reports Efe news.

Its partner, the Northern League, also looks to have won between 13-16 per cent of the seats in the Senate and 12.5-15.5 per cent of the seats in the lower house, while the Brothers of Italy won between 4-6 per cent of the Senate seats and 3.5-5.5 per cent of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies.

The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) received some 29-32 per cent of the vote in the Senate and 29.5-32.5 per cent of the vote in the Chamber of Deputies, the largest of any single party, with the group - founded in 2009 - getting support from people fed up with adverse economic conditions and corruption within the eurozone's third largest economy.

Although the centre-right may have secured as much as 36 per cent of the vote, according to the early exit polling, this would be several percent shy of the 40 per cent that political analysts have said is the minimum needed to command a legislative majority.

This situation might mean that the centre-right must negotiate with M5S to form a coalition to be able to govern.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party (PD) of former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi seems to have lost the election after governing for the last five years, and it will be the third-largest political force, according to the early exit polling.

The PD, which heads a centre-leftist coalition of several parties, garnered 29-32 per cent of the Senate seats and 20-23 per cent of those in the Chamber, according to the RAI poll.

Other exit polls by Mediaset, which is owned by Berlusconi, and by SkyTG24 obtained similar percentages.

Some 46 million Italians were eligible to vote in the elections held on Sunday.

--IANS

ksk

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Italy is on course for a hung parliament after voters backed right-wing and populist parties in Sunday's general elections, vote projections based on partial results suggested on Monday.

Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing coalition looks set to win the most seats in the lower house of parliament, BBC reported.

It is tipped to get 248-268 seats - below the 316 needed for a majority.

Forming a government may now take weeks of negotiation and coalition-building.

Alternatively, fresh elections could be held in a bid to produce a more decisive result - though there is no guarantee that would happen.

Public anger over unemployment and immigration appears to have battered the ruling Democratic Party of former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

Its centre-left coalition is projected to come a distant third, with an estimated 107-127 seats.

"It is clear to us that this is a blatant and clear defeat," said Agriculture Minister Maurizio Martina.

However, final confirmed results are not expected until Monday night.

Other exit polls by Mediaset, which is owned by Berlusconi, and by SkyTG24 obtained similar percentages.

Some 46 million Italians were eligible to vote in the elections held on Sunday.

--IANS

ksk/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In the ongoing war of words, the Cellular Operators' Association of India (COAI) has said Reliance Jio's allegation against the association that it has acted arbitrarily, discriminatorily or as the mouthpiece of some members is misconceived.

In a letter written to Jio by the COAI on February 28, it said: "Your captioned notices are patently misconceived and based on assertions that are false to our knowledge. The Press Release expresses our concern and grievances against the TTO (Telecom Tariff Order) and the TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India)."

The letter further said: "It was issued in good faith in furtherance of our duty as an industry association inter alia to call attention to regulatory decisions that are detrimental to the growth and development of the telecom sector."

A copy of the letter is available with the IANS.

Reliance Jio is also a member of the COAI.

The COAI said it is its duty to raise grave issues concerning the growth and development of the telecom sector. Further, it said the allegations against COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews are "uncalled for and in bad taste".

The industry association further said the earlier Press Release issued by it was bona fide.

An aggrieved Reliance Jio on February 26 said the press statement issued by the COAI has failed to furnish the public apology that was demanded by Jio earlier in the ongoing war of words agitating the telecom sector.

In a letter to COAI Director General Rajan S. Mathews, Jio asserted that "Rather than take the requisite remedial action, the media statement not only fails to include a public apology for the injury to Reliance Jio's reputation occasioned by the Press Release, but extends the campaign of falsehood and defamation that COAI and you have maintained against Reliance Jio".

"By way of its legal notice, Reliance Jio had demanded that COAI and yourself issue a public apology and appropriate clarification in regard to false and defamatory statements contained in the Press Release," Jio said in the letter dated February 26.

The COAI had on February 24 asserted that its differences were with the telecom regulator and not with any operator in particular.

Responding to Reliance Jio's 48-hour ultimatum for a public apology for its "defamatory statements" wherein COAI had said it is likely to drag the telecom regulator to the court following its recent Telecom Tariff Order (TTO), COAI maintained that "Our differences are with the orders of the Regulator and not with any specific operator. Our intention is not to aggrieve any particular operator".

Reliance had earlier termed COAI's comments "defamatory" and in a letter to COAI on February 22 said: "COAI and Rajan Mathews (Director General, COAI) are hereby called upon to issue a public apology and issue appropriate clarification expressly regretting their callous and defamatory statements through a separate press release issued no later than 48 hours from receipt of this notice."

--IANS

ag/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress-led opposition on Monday slammed the Pinarayi Vijayan government in the state assembly for "haunting" those non-resident Keralite's (NRKs) who return to the state to set up business ventures.

The opposition blamed the government for trying to hush up the case of an NRK returnee "who was forced to commit suicide after being haunted by activists of youth wing of the CPI".

Former State Minister and senior Congress legislator Adoor Prakash moved the motion, accusing the state government of trying to hush up the case of the suicide of 64-year-old Sugathan in Kollam district.

"Sugathan took a plot of land near his home on lease to set up his own workshop after returning home from Oman. When he got the verbal sanction from the local bodies, he erected a shed there.

"But the local activists of the youth wing of the CPI put up a flag there, stating that it was a wetland and no construction would be allowed there. It is alleged these activists asked him to pay Rs 2 lakh.

"He knocked every door for justice but to no avail. Finally, on February 25, Sugathan was found hanging from a rope in the shed that he had erected," said Prakash.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan condemned the incident and said three activists of the CPI had been arrested.

"The incident should have never happened. Of late, the practice of putting up a flag where new ventures are coming up does not augur well. Such acts will no longer be tolerated... With such incidents going on, we will reach nowhere. The case will be probed and action will be taken," said Vijayan.

Unhappy with the reply of Vijayan, leader of the opposition Ramesh Chennithala said that he was told by Sugathan's family members that he had pledged gold and got Rs 63,000 which was handed over to the CPI leaders.

"Sugathan's family wishes to see all the culprits brought to justice, but at the moment attempts are being made to hush up the case. The CPI should see that all the accused be ousted from the party," Chennithala said and walked out of the house.

But R. Sajilal, the youth wing leader of the All India Youth Federation (CPI's youth wing) told the media that what Vijayan told the house was not true.

"If one takes stock of the number of instances where flags have been raised, that would definitely go to Vijayan's party -- CPI-M, as it's known to all that its CPI-M who always raise flags anywhere and everywhere," said Sajilal.

State Secretary Kanam Rajendran said that the need of the hour was not to take stock of raising flags, but the rate of suicides in the state.

Meanwhile, the elder son of Sugathan on Monday told the media that his father's leg bore a big injury mark.

"We have taken the pictures of it and handed them over to the police. We want a proper probe into the entire episode," he said.

--IANS

sg/qd/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were adjourned on Monday as soon as they met for the second part of the budget session of Parliament amid opposition protests over the Punjab National Bank fraud and special status to Andhra Pradesh.

The Lok Sabha was adjourned till 12 noon after Trinamool Congress and Left party MPs started shouting slogans in protest against the alleged bank fraud amounting to over Rs 12,600 crore by jewellery designer Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi who have fled the country.

TDP MPs also protested seeking special category status to Andhra Pradesh. The Anhdra issue also let to adjournment of the Rajya Sabha.

--IANS

mg-sar/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh on Monday agreed to a CBI probe into the alleged question paper leak, irregularities and mass cheating in the combined graduate level exam of the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) held from February 17 to 21.

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor said he spoke with the minister in Parliament over the issue.

"Spoke to (Jitendra Singh) in Parliament today. He has agreed to a CBI inquiry on all the issues raised by the students protesting the SSC-CGL Mains papers 'leak, conduct of exams'. I thank him for his willingness to listen to these legitimate demands (with) an open mind," Tharoor tweeted.

The SSC, which conducts examination for subordinate services, on Sunday said it would recommend a CBI inquiry into the allegations. Nearly 190,000 candidates appeared for SSC CGL Tier II exam.

The examination on 17 February had be to cancelled after malpractices were reported at a Delhi exam centre where paper chits with answers were found in a toilet.

In Bhopal also, the SSC had to cancel the exam after candidates found out that several questions were already marked with answers.

Aspirants have been holding protests outside the SSC's office at CGO Complex here for the last six days, demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) investigation into the matter.

The Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP have come out in support of the candidates.

--IANS

sar/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Gary Oldman, for essaying former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in "Darkest Hour", and Frances McDormand for her role as a grieving mother in "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri", won the best actor and best actress in a leading role categories at the 90th Academy Awards here.

McDormand, 60, pipped, among others, "The Post" star Meryl Streep, who scored her 21st nomination and the 17th in this category at the Oscars.

She has won an Academy Award over two decades after first winning the honour in 1996 for "Fargo".

In "Three Billboards...", she plays Mildred Hayes, a mother grieving over her daughter's rape and murder.

McDormand left an impact with her acceptance speech after she asked every female nominee in the room to stand up, and asked male gatekeepers to ask them about their projects and ideas not just at Oscar after-parties, but in office meetings following awards season.

As her fellow nominees stood, she said: "We all have stories to tell and projects we need financed." She urged stars to demand inclusion riders -- requirements for gender or racial diversity -- in their contracts.

Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster presented the Best Actress trophy to McDormand, in a break from tradition that the previous year's Best Actor winner presents the award.

As for Oldman, it was his second nomination in the Actor in a Leading Role category. He was previously nominated for "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" in 2011.

While accepting the award, Oldman said: "I've lived in America for the longest time, and I am deeply grateful to her for the loves and the friendships I have made and the many wonderful gifts it has given me. My home, my livelihood, my family, and now Oscar."

He also thanked Churchill, who he said "has been marvelous company on what can be described as an incredible journey".

Oldman, 59, also took a moment to express gratitude to his 98-year-old mother.

--IANS

rb/ksk

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Former "Hollyoaks" actress Rachel Shenton used sign language during her acceptance speech as she won her first Oscar here for "The Silent Child" featuring a six-year-old deaf British girl.

The movie won the Academy Award in the Short Film (Live Action) category. Shenton shared the award with her fiance Chris Overton, who has directed the project.

Shenton used sign language for the star of her film, youngster Maisie Sly, as she delivered her acceptance speech, reports mirror.co.uk.

"I made a promise to our six-year-old lead actress that I'd sign this speech," Shenton, best known for playing Mitzeee Minniver in "Hollyoaks", told the audience.

Shenton is not the first actress to use sign language in her Oscar acceptance speech.

Jane Fonda signed part of her speech as she accepted the best actress award for "Coming Home" in 1979, as did Louise Fletcher who signed to her deaf parents when she won best actress for "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" three years earlier.

Marlee Matlin, who is deaf, also signed when she won best actress for "Children Of A Lesser God" in 1987.

"The Silent Child" is about a deaf 4-year-old girl named Libby who lives in a world of silence until a caring social worker teaches her to use sign language to communicate.

Of the film, Shenton said: "Our movie is about a deaf child being born into a world of silence.

"It's not exaggerated or sensationalised for the movie. This is happening, millions of children all over the world live in silence and face communication barriers and particularly access to education."

While backstage, she said: "I'm so, so proud of putting this ability that isn't talked about in front of a huge audience - it's a story that isn't told often so I'm really, really proud of that."

Overton added: "It's just incredible, especially for this subject it usually gets swept under the carpet, so this is huge for deaf people."

--IANS

rb/nn/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Authorities imposed restrictions in parts of Srinagar city on Monday to prevent separatist-called protests, police said.

Separatist conglomerate, Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) headed by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik, have called for a valley-wide protest shutdown against the killing of three civilians and a militant during a gunfight in Shopian district on Sunday.

According to the army, the gunfight occurred after a mobile vehicle check post (MVCP) was fired upon. The victims comprised three over ground workers (OGW) and the militant, it claimed.

Another civilian's body identified as Gowhar Ahmad Lone, 24, was found on Monday morning some 250 metres away from Sunday's gunfight site.

The police said: "Partial restrictions will also remain in force in some areas falling under the jurisdiction of Maisuma and Kralkhud police stations of Srinagar to maintain law and order." police said.

The State Public Service Commission has ordered the cancellation of Monday's civil services exams.

Internet and rail services have been suspended in south Kashmir.

Shops, other businesses, public transport remained shut in Srinagar.

--IANS

sq/ksk

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)There were debates whether Ryan Seacrest will be back to host the Oscars red carpet after being accused of sexually inappropriate behaviour by his former stylist. And the TV host returned for his award show responsibilities and host the red carpet show for the 90th Academy Awards here.

Nominees Allison Janney and Christopher Plummer stopped by Seacrest's spot on the carpet at the Dolby Theatre here on Sunday early-on and chatted with the host about being nominated, reports foxnews.com.

Later on, actor Richard Jenkins, who was wearing a Time's Up pin, also spoke to Seacrest.

The pin is meant to show support for the movement that aims to put a stop to the mistreatment of women. "Empire" star Taraji P. Henson also had a conversation with him and told him she'd see him in New York.

Seacrest, 43, a long-time host for E!, has in recent months been facing accusations of sexual misconduct from his former stylist -- all of which he's denied.

Suzie Hardy said that she was fired in 2013 after she made graphic complaints of harassment against Seacrest to E's human resources department.

Despite the allegations, E! has stood by Seacrest, saying that an investigation found there was "insufficient evidence to support the claims" made against him.

Critics have slammed the network for letting the "Live with Kelly and Ryan" co-host continue his hosting duties on Sunday amid the whole #MeToo movement.

--IANS

sug/ahm/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)South Korean President Moon Jae-in's special envoys left for Pyongyang on Monday, a trip aimed at persuading North Korea to resume the denuclearisation dialogue with the US and the international community.

The special delegation, comprising five emissaries and five working-level officials, is being led by Chung Eui-yong, Moon's top national security adviser Moon and head of the National Security Office of the Blue House.

"Most of all, I will deliver President Moon's sincere and firm resolve to maintain the dialogue and improvement in relations between the South and the North, which were fostered on the occasion of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, to denuclearise the Korean Peninsula," Yonhap news agency quoted Chung as saying ahead of his departure from the Seoul Air Base in Seongnam.

"In addition, I plan to hold in-depth discussions on various ways to continue talks between not only the South and the North, but also the North and the United States and the international community," Chung said.

The scheduled trip marks the first of its kind since Moon took office in May 2017.

The two Koreas resumed dialogue in January after a two-year hiatus to discuss the North's participation in the PyeongChang Games held from February 9 to 25 in South Korea.

Chung will visit Washington shortly after the North Korea trip to directly explain the outcometo US policymakers.

The special delegation is set to return on Tuesday.

--IANS

ksk/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Strict restrictions were imposed at various places and internet curfew clamped across the Kashmir Valley on Monday, a day after six people, including at least two militants, were killed in a shootout in a south Kashmir village.

While the security forces claim that all those killed were militants or their over ground workers, separatist leaders and locals alleged that four of them were civilians.

The deaths on Sunday evening occurred after a militant travelling in a car attacked the Indian Army's mobile vehicle checkpost near Pahnoo village in south Kashmir's Shopian district, some 60 km from here.

Four were confirmed dead on Sunday night and two more bodies were recovered on Monday morning, police said.

Police said they recovered the bullet-ridden body of Lashkar-e-Taiba militant Ashiq Hussain Bhat at Saidpora area in Shopian, about 6 km from the firing spot. He was missing since November 13, 2017.

"Preliminary investigation suggest that Bhat's death was part of Sunday's gunfight in Pahnoo village. Further investigation is on," a police officer said.

The body of another civilian, Gowhar Ahmad Lone, 24, was also found on Monday morning, some 250 metres away the gunfight site.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said she was "deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire in Shopian" and expressed her "heartfelt condolences to the deceased's families".

Separatist leaders by Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and Yasin Malik called for a valley-wide protest shutdown against the killings.

Fearing street protests, the authorities imposed restrictions in parts of Srinagar city and south Kashmir region amid a shutdown call by the separatists.

The State Public Service Commission ordered the cancellation of Monday's civil services exams in the state.

Internet and rail services were suspended in south Kashmir while as shops, other businesses and public transport remained shut in Srinagar.

Malik, the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief, was arrested from here on Monday during a protest march against the killings.

Police intercepted Malik's protest march and took the separatist leader and some of his supporters into custody.

Speaking to the media, Malik said: "It is the MLAs of the state who are responsible for the killings of these civilians.

"The Army has been given a freehand as no effort has been made by the so-called law makers of the state to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)".

--IANS

sq-sar/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Russia is killing innocent civilians under the false garb of counterterrorism operations in Syria, where people in an enclave near Damascus are caught up in a struggle between rebels and government forces, the White House has said.

The bombings and shellings by Syrian and Russian aircraft in Eastern Ghouta, the besieged rebel-held enclave on the outskirts of Damascus, continued despite a UN Security Council resolution demanding a 30-day ceasefire.

Over 600 people have been killed in the strikes since February 18.

"Russia has gone on to ignore its terms and to kill innocent civilians under the false auspices of counterterrorism operations," White House Press Secretary Sanders said in a statement on Sunday.

"This is the same combination of lies and indiscriminate force that Russia and the Syrian regime used to isolate and destroy Aleppo in 2016, where thousands of civilians were killed," she said.

Sanders blamed Tehran along with Moscow over the deteriorating conditions in Syria. "The US condemns the ongoing military offensive that the Assad regime, backed by Russia and Iran, is perpetrating against the people of Eastern Ghouta," Sanders said.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May spoke about Syria and agreed the situation is a "humanitarian catastrophe" for which blame rests with Syria and Russia, according to May's office.

"They agreed that Russia and others with influence over the Syrian regime must act now to cease their campaign of violence and to protect civilians," the British readout said.

--IANS

soni/vm

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Kicking off a fresh controversy, Conference president Farooq Abdullah today blamed the country's first prime minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, Maulana Azad and Sardar Patel for "division" of united India.

Speaking at a function here yesterday, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir absolved Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah of partition.

We still have the record of a commission that came in. In the commission, it was decided that we will not divide India, and that we will have a special representation for Muslims and other minorities like Sikhs, but the nation would not be divided," he said.

"Jinnah agreed to this, but Nehru, Azad and Patel did not listen. This led to the foundation of Pakistan by Jinnah, Abdullah alleged.

The comments drew strong reaction from Union minister Jitender Singh, who asked the NC chief to "re-read the history of the sub-continent", whereas state unit of BJP accused Abdullah of using selective quotes from history to rouse communal passions.

Singh said a large majority of Muslim community was not in favour of partition of the country.

Let us not forget that a committee was constituted by some Muslim intellectuals who had vehemently opposed the idea of partition," he told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

Taking serious exception to the NC president's statement, state BJP spokesperson Anil Gupta said through selective quoting from history, Abdullah was not only trying to please his vote bank but also triggering communal passions.

"Abdullah referred to the Cabinet Mission which visited India in 1946, but conveniently ignored to tell his audience that the demand for Pakistan was made by Jinnah much earlier in 1940 at the Lahore Resolution," he said.Within days of proposing a "non-Congress, non-BJP front, Telangana Chief Minister and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief has received support from several political parties including the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress.

Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren and Hyderabad lawmaker Asaduddin Owaisi were the other leaders who have extended their support to the TRS chief.

The chief minister, on Saturday, had expressed his wish to join to effect a "qualitative change", while accusing successive governments ruled by the Congress and the BJP at the Centre of having "miserably failed" to ensure development.

"Since morning, I have been receiving many calls from various places in India. Today afternoon, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee called me and said that I have taken the right decision and she will be supporting me," Chief Minister Rao said while addressing a huge crowd at his official residence, Pragati Bhavan in Hyderabad."Farmers, Dalits, most backward classes are neglected. This situation should be changed. How long do they need to face problems. This has to change and this is not possible from these two parties. Hence, a non-Congress, non-BJP front should be formed in the country," Rao said.

I welcome Telangana CM's statement & he rightly stated that people of the country are fed up with BJP governance & Congress is not a viable option, neither it can become one. KCR has given exemplary governance to Telangana in the last 4 years: Asaduddin Owaisi pic.twitter.com/8FSfftZT78  ANI (@ANI) March 4, 2018

JMM leader Hemant Soren and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi have also expressed their solidarity."Former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren also called, telling me that he is standing behind me. Soren also told me that he is trying to speak with many other people in India and will meet up soon and speak on the issue," said Rao.He was addressing a gathering of prominent TRS leaders, ministers and elected representatives of the party at Pragathi Bhavan, his official residence in Hyderabad.The TRS chief further said he would talk with all like-minded parties and leaders for creating an agenda for the country's growth."I will soon meet like-minded leaders and we will also hold consultations with economic experts, social scientists and farmers for creating an agenda for the country's growth," Rao said.The Congress failed to get a majority in Meghalaya and did not win a single seat in Tripura or Nagaland, for which elections were held last month.In a press conference on Saturday after the BJP decimated the Left and Congress in the three states, Rao hinted at forming a third front-like platform.The TRS chief said he was keen to participate in to bring about a "change"."There is need for qualitative change in .. There is a serious need. People are vexed now. No qualitative change is seen by people even after 70 years of democracy.... China developed in less than three decades. What both the Congress and the BJP did all these years?" Rao had asked."People are looking for change. Can we expect something new to happen if the Congress comes to power after the BJP? It can be a third front or any front... Are we not part of the country? Discussions are going on. There is no secret about it," he had said.In the gathering today, Rao underlined the need to implement "truthful cooperative federalism" and delegation of powers to states for their development."Such initiative would spread across country from Telangana," he said.Rao alleged that the BJP at the Centre had failed to do anything for developing the country in the last four years."The national parties, the BJP and the Congress, should change their attitude towards states. Federal system is for a namesake (now). Is there federalism in this country?The agriculture system, education, urban development should be handed over to the states. But it is not being handed over but kept at Delhi (with the Centre)," Rao said.He said states should be allowed to frame norms regarding quotas.Batting for decentralisation, the chief minister said that even states can launch and implement schemes such as the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY)."Can't state governments do it (undertaking such measures). Change should start and it starts from Telangana for the development of India. Change has to be brought... You cannot threaten me. You can threaten those who resorted to scams not me," Rao said.He said the Constitution should be amended for the sake of the people."I spoke to some people in Delhi and they say the law and constitution in China is different. I say then you become different. Constitution and the governments, the PM, CMs all are for the public. You bring in changes in law and also amendments in the Constitution. The countrymen will be with you," Rao said.The TRS chief also referred to the "fleeing" of liquor baron Vijay Mallya, wanted in loan default cases, and diamantaire Nirav Modi, an accused in the PNB fraud case, from the country."Is there no one to question. Vijay Mallya fled the country and now Nirav Modi... What is this?" he asked.Rao said farmers were committing suicide because the BJP and the Congress did nothing for them."My countrymen, you know and understand the 'chamatkar' of both the parties who ruled the country for over 60 years. The price of every essential commodity is increasing but not the minimum support price on agriculture produce. GDP growth is not reflecting in the lives of farmers and their income is not increasing," Rao said.What the countries like China, Japan and Singapore have achieved in terms of growth can be achieved by India as well, he said.Revealing his national ambitions, Rao had said people were yearning for change and he would not mind leading the movement for effecting the "change".He said he had recently met CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury and discussed a lot of issues.Yechury's party had officially rejected any tie-up with the Congress for upcoming elections.Rao had also said he had nothing against the prime minister.

(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.)Mounting pressure on its electoral ally BJP, the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) on Monday said that it would support the new government from outside if it was not given 'respectable' positions in the ministry.

Clarifying the meaning of 'respectable' positions, IPFT president N C Debbarma said it meant proportionate representation of IPFT MLAs in the Cabinet and allocation of major departments to them.

He said that the IPFT would also seek a separate block for its MLAs in the Assembly unless it was given 'respectable' positions in the state Cabinet.

The BJP and IPFT combine had swept to power in the state winning 43 out of the 59 seats for which elections were held. The BJP had won 35 and IPFT 8 seats.

The election for the Charilam ST reserve constituency was countermanded due to the death of CPI-M candidate before the elections.

"There is an apprehension that we may not be given proper representation in the Cabinet and important portfolios would not be allocated to us as the BJP, the major constituent, alone secured 35 seats," Debbarma told PTI.

He also said that the BJP and IPFT had fought the elections in alliance with the sole target of defeating the CPI-M and it was achieved.

"Now if we are not given respectable positions, we would support the government from outside," he said.

Debbarma also demanded that the chief minister should be from among the indigenous MLAs and said it was the tradition of the northeast that a chief minister is selected from the indigenous community.

The BJP leadership did not make any comment on the IPFT's demand.

State BJP president Biplab Deb said that a joint meeting of 43 BJP and IPFT MLAs will be held here tomorrow in which Union minister Nitin Gadkari will be present.

The IPFT came into being in the late 90s and had campaigned for a separate state for tribals by carving out the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) on the plea that the indigenous people had become marginalised due to the huge migration of people to this state after partition of the country in 1947.

The tribal council area comprises two-third of the state's territory and the tribals form one-third of the population.

The IPFT had forged an alliance with the BJP before the elections on the basis of a common minimum agenda, which included formation of a high-power committee with representations from the central and state governments and the indigenous community to address the problems of the tribals.Two youths were beaten up and then handed over to the police for allegedly teasing a girl student here, the police said today.

The accused allegedly harassed the girl while she was on her way to school. Following this, the girl's family members thrashed the acused and handed them over to police yesterday, a police officer said.

A case under section 354 (Assault or criminal force on woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the IPC and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act has been registerted against the accused, the police said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Chile's "A Fantastic Woman" today took home the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film trumping front-runner "The Square" from Sweden.

Director Sebastian Lelio accepted the award, along with the female lead of the film, transgender star Daniela Vega, whom he lauded for her critically-acclaimed performance in the movie.

In his acceptance speech, Lelio thanked a"lifetime of friends, artistes".

"I share this with you all," he added.

The plot follows Vega's Marina, who grieves the death of her love, Orlando, who is about 30 years older than her. After his death is investigated, it comes to be known that she is a transgender woman and is shunned by her lover's family because of her gender identity.

How Marina grapples with the situation at hand and becomes a woman in a tumultuous journey is the story of the film.

Other nominees in the category was "The Insult" (Lebanon), "Loveless" (Russia), "On Body and Soul" (Hungary) and "The Square" (Sweden).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 3D-printed artificial intelligence system - described by its creators as a "flying brain" - will soon join the crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) to assist astronauts.

Airbus, an aeronautics company based in Netherlands, is developing CIMON (Crew Interactive MObile CompanioN), an AI-based space assistant for Germany's DLR Space Administration.

The technology demonstrator, which weighs around five kilogrammes, will be tested on the ISS by German astronaut Alexander Gerst during the European Space Agency's Horizons mission between June and October this year.

"CIMON will be the first AI-based mission and flight assistance system," said Manfred Jaumann, Head of Microgravity Payloads from Airbus.

"We are the first company in Europe to carry a free flyer, a kind of flying brain, to the ISS and to develop artificial intelligence for the crew on board the space station," said Jaumann.

The entire structure of CIMON is made up of plastic and metal, created using 3D printing.

CIMON has a brain-like AI network and is designed to support astronauts in performing routine work, for example by displaying procedures or offering solutions to problems.

With its face, voice and artificial intelligence, becomes a genuine 'colleague' on board.

With CIMON, crew members can do more than just work through a schematic view of prescribed checklists and procedures; they can also engage with their assistant.

CIMON makes work easier for the astronauts when carrying out every day routine tasks, helps to increase efficiency, facilitates mission success and improves security, as it can also serve as an early warning system for technical problems.

The Watson AI was trained using voice samples and photos of Gerst, and procedures and plans of the Columbus module of the ISS were loaded into the database.

Gerst also helped select CIMONs screen face and computer voice so that he could 'make friends' with his electronic colleague.

Once the functional testing of the system has been completed, Gerst and CIMON will experiment with crystals, work together to solve the Rubiks cube and perform a complex medical experiment using CIMON as an 'intelligent' flying camera in space.

In its first Space mission, CIMON will only be equipped with a selected range of capabilities.

In the medium term, aerospace researchers also plan to use the CIMON project to examine group effects that can develop over a long period of time in small teams and that may arise during long-term missions to the Moon or Mars.

Social interaction between people and machines, between astronauts and assistance systems equipped with emotional intelligence, could play an important role in the success of long-term missions.

Airbus' developers are convinced that, here on Earth, developments of the assistance system could also find future use in hospitals and social care.

CIMON will get its first 'taste of space' as early as March 2018: the 31st DLR parabolic flight campaign will focus in particular on testing and optimising GNC algorithms (Guidance, Navigation and Control) under zero gravity conditions.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Arunachal Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Chowna Mein has asserted that the state government will fast track cases of violence against women and children, an official release said here today.

His statement comes a day after a delegation of Arunachal Pradesh Women's Welfare Society (APWWS) met him in his office, urging him to ensure provisions for quick justice for women victims.

Responding to the plea of the APWWS delegation, the deputy chief minister, who also holds the finance portfolio, said his department would consider the suggestions for inclusion in the Budget and may also place it before the cabinet for consideration, the release said.

The Budget session in the state is set to commence on March 9.

The delegation, led by APWWS president Dipti Bengia Tadar, also requested the government to involve women in major policy decisions of the state, it said.

Chief Secretary Satya Gopal, who was also present during the meeting, asked the APPWS team to generate awareness on work culture among the government employees, it added.

Earlier, APWWS had submitted a memorandum to the government, seeking safety and security measures for children and women of Arunachal Pradesh.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Spotlighting the differences between the BJP and its coalition partners in the northeast, the Congress on Monday accused the party of playing a "dangerous game of destabilising the region through its blind quest for power at any cost.

The differences are on key issues such as the bifurcation of Tripura and Meghalaya, Congress communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala said in a series of tweets as the BJP was set to form government with its partners in the northeast states of Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

BJP is following a dangerous game of destabilisation, subversion and usurpation of power in North East, unmindful of the stability, security, peace and progress. Hope Modiji had cared to learn from Rajivji who put Nation First and brought peace to the region by Assam and Mizo accords, he said.

Every Indian, he added, is concerned that assumption of power at any cost and by any means by the BJP doesn't blind it into destabilising the entire region.

Tell tale signs of BJPs blind quest for power superseding the stability of region, propagation of democracy, nipping the separatist tendencies and ignoring core issues of region are already visible, Surjewala said.

In Tripura, the Congress leader said, BJP has aligned with the IPFT, a party with division of the state as its election plank which is now demanding a tribal chief minister.

(It is) Time for Modi Government/BJP to address both issues. Does it stand for demand for division of State of Tripura? Would it reject the demand for a tribal CM? he asked.

In Nagaland, the BJP is in government with the NPF and yet fought and election in alliance with opposition party NDPP, the Congress leader said. The NPF won 26 seats and the NDPP won 18 seats.

With both NPF and NDPP staking claim to form the Government, Is Nagaland headed for another round of instability like in last 5 years? And Naga Accord? he asked.

In Manipur, the Congress leader said the BJPs coalition survives with the support of three NPF MLAs.

"Would the formation of a govt in Nagaland by BJP with NDPP (18 MLAs) ignoring the NPF (26 MLAs), only in the effort of a larger share of pie of power, not put the stability of Government in Manipur under a cloud?" he asked.

Moving on to Meghalaya, Surjewala said every discordant party that fought BJP and each other, "ideologically-politically-electorally", is sewn up to form the government at any cost -- NPP+UDP+PDF+HSDP+BJP+Ind.

"Is this the answer to Meghalaya's aspirations and a stable Government?"



The chief ministerial candidate Conrad Sangma and his party NPP have promised division of Meghalaya and a separate state of Garoland, he said, asking if other parties agreed to this.

"Does Mr Sangma propose to carry out the promise on becoming CM? And what is Modijis/BJP take on it? Surjewala tweeted.

He, however, gave his partys best wishes to the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, praying that peace, progress, cohabitation and development would be on the agendas of the new governments.Global hospitality firm Carlson Rezidor said today that it has been re-branded as Radisson Hotel Group, effective immediately.

The new identity leverages the brand equity of the Radisson name to drive awareness in the market place, increase marketing efficiency across the global portfolio and offer exceptional experiences to make 'Every Moment Matter' for guests, owners and talent, Radisson Hotel Group said in a statement.

It capitalises on a strong partnership between Radisson Hospitality Inc and Rezidor Hotel Group AB who has master franchise agreements to develop and operate several brands across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, it added.

Rezidor Hotel Group President & CEO and Chairman of the Global Steering Committee Federico J Gonzlez said: "Today is the start of an exciting era for the Radisson Hotel Group, united by our new brand and long-term vision to become a top three hospitality company in the world."



The company's five-year operating plan includes initiatives that redefine its value proposition, optimise its portfolio, streamline operations, invest in new technology systems and align team members to deliver on its signature, Every Moment Matters, he added.

"The creation of the Radisson Hotel Group is an evolution of our long-term partnership with the Rezidor Hotel Group," Radisson Hospitality Inc CEO & COO John M Kidd said.

Together, we are clarifying and executing a new brand architecture to create more value for our guests and owners, he added.

On the impact of rebranding in the Indian market, Radisson Hotel Group South Asia CEO Raj Rana told PTI, "Radisson has been present in India for more than 15 years. It has well established brand identity in India".

The rebranding will capitalise on the brand awareness in India. The company already has 34 hotels under Radisson Blu brand and 18 Radisson hotels in India, he added.

Radisson Hotel Group has eight distinctive hotel brands, over 1,400 hotels in operation and under development around the world, the company said.

The portfolio which ranges from luxury to economy includes Radisson Collection, Radisson Blu, Radisson, Radisson RED, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson, Country Inn & Suites by Radisson and prizeotel, it added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)China's parliament commenced its annual session today, setting the stage for the ratification of controversial measures to remove two term limits for President Xi Jinping and inclusion of his thought into the Constitution.

Nearly 3,000 legislators from around the country will attend the two-week gathering of China's National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing.

Ahead of the session, the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) has proposed to remove the two-term limit for the president and vice president.

The term limits were being followed by the party for over two decades to avert a dictatorship on the lines of party founder Mao Zedong and to ensure collective leadership in the one-party state.

Xi, 64, along with Premier Li Keqiang and other senior leaders today attended the opening session of the NPC.

Often referred as the rubber stamp parliament for its routine approval of the CPC proposals, the NPC during its session is expected to endorse a constitutional amendment which remove the hurdle for Xi to rule indefinitely.

Xi, already seen as the most powerful Chinese leader in decades, also heads the party and the military.

The move to remove the term limits has sparked a debate around the world and even in China over its implications. Some questions have been raised over whether China is veering back to an era of one-man rule.

The NPC is also expected to endorse another draft constitutional amendment to enshrine 'Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era' in the fundamental law.

This would ensure Xi's name written into the Constitution, putting him on par with past strongmen like Mao and Deng Xiaoping.

"The constitutional revision is a major move to advance law-based governance and modernise China's system and capacity for governance," read an explanation on the revisions to be delivered to lawmakers this morning at the first session of the 13th National People's Congress.

Scientific Outlook on Development is also proposed to be constitutionalised this time, state-run Xinhua agency reported.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 50-year-old Congress leader Munni Beghum was today shot dead by some unidentified assailants at her residence here, police said.

The incident took place in Ketipura locality under Baghpat kotwali area, Superintendent of Police Jaiprakash said, adding the accused fled the spot after killing the woman.

"Prima facie it seems to be a case of personal enmity," the SP said adding that the body was sent for post-mortem.

Beghum had contested the urban local bodies' polls here last year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress legislators today staged a walkout in the Rajasthan Assembly alleging the state government was turning a blind eye to the woes of farmers whose standing crops were damaged due to rain and hailstorm.

During the Zero Hour today, Congress chief whip Govind Singh Dotasara raised the issue saying the government was not concerned about the farmers.

Speaker Kailash Meghwal asked the Congress legislators to let the House proceed, but they continued disrupting the proceedings of the House and trooped into the well.

Members of the ruling party and the opposition continued to exchange barbs and then the Congress walked out of the House.

Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria accused the Congress of trying to hog limelight on the issue.

"Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje without any delay has ordered to prepare a report to estimate the crop damage. An immediate action was taken in the matter by the state government." Kataria said.

He said if the Congress was serious about the issue, it should have raised it in the House through adjournment motion.

"The Congress legislators should be shameful of the motions that it moved in the House today. If they were serious, they should have moved a motion in the House as the government was ready to discuss the issue," Kataria said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Cardinal George Pell's barrister accused police of failing to follow proper procedures as a crucial hearing opened today to determine if the top Pope Francis adviser will stand trial on historical sexual offence charges.

The 76-year-old, the most senior Catholic cleric to be charged with criminal offences linked to the Church's long-running sexual abuse scandal, denies all the claims.

He has taken leave from his role as Vatican finance chief to fight the charges, which relate to incidents that allegedly occurred long ago. Their exact details and nature have not been made public, other than they involve "multiple complainants".

Pell, in a beige jacket on top of a black shirt with a clerical collar, arrived by car and was escorted by dozens of police as he made his way up the steps and into the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

This was in contrast to his two previous appearances at preliminary hearings -- in July and October last year -- when he walked from his nearby lawyer's office in chaotic scenes as he was mobbed by the media.

A small group of protesters and supporters, holding placards and signs, were outside the court.

"Go to hell George Pell," shouted Valda Ann Hogan, while a supporter, Beverly Hastie, told AFP: "I know him and he is an innocent man, a good man, a holy man and we're here to support him."



Up to 50 witnesses could be called during the committal hearing, where they will give their accounts and be cross-examined by Pell's legal team. The hearings are due to last four weeks.

Magistrate Belinda Wallington will then decide if there is sufficient evidence for the case to go to trial.

The court was open to the media for some 30 minutes before the hearing was adjourned until the afternoon when evidence from Pell's accusers is due to begin via video-link in closed proceedings.

During the brief session, in which Pell coughed but said nothing, his barrister Robert Richter said the defence team had supplied police with many witness statements favourable to the cardinal that they were obliged to investigate.

"They have not done so," he claimed.

He also requested that a support person be allowed to accompany Pell to court "in regard to the cardinal's age and medical condition".

Pell was excused from giving evidence in person to a session of Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2016 due to a heart ailment.

Pell does not have to formally enter a plea unless committed to stand trial, although he instructed his lawyer from the outset to make clear he intended to plead not guilty.

"For the avoidance of doubt and because of the interest, I might indicate that Cardinal Pell pleads not guilty to all charges and will maintain the presumed innocence that he has," Richter said in July.

Pell's defence team said last week that part of their cross-examination would be to determine when the accusers first disclosed he had allegedly abused them, as they try to prove the allegations were a "recent invention".

Since his last appearance, the cardinal's lawyers have been denied requests for medical records of the complainants, with the magistrate saying disclosure could be harmful.

His case has coincided with a national inquiry into child sexual abuse, ordered in 2012 after a decade of pressure to investigate widespread allegations of institutional paedophilia.

The commission spoke to thousands of victims and heard claims of abuse involving churches, orphanages, sporting clubs, youth groups and schools.

Pell appeared before it three times, once in person and twice via video-link from Rome over the Church's handling of complaints against paedophile priests.

Australia's Catholic leaders have spoken out in support of him, describing Pell as a "thoroughly decent man".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The death toll in last night's firing incident in Shopian district of Jammu and Kashmir has climbed to five after one more body was recovered from the scene today.

"Another body has been found at a distance from last evening's incident at Pahnoo Shopian," a police spokesman said.

He said the deceased has been identified as Gowhar Ahmed Lone of Chitragam in Shopian.

Sources said Lone's body was recovered from a car.

Four persons, including a militant, were killed in a firing incident last night in south Kashmir's Shopian district after the ultras fired upon a joint check-point of the security forces.

A police official said a joint MVCP (mobile vehicle check post) near Pohan in Shopian had signalled a car to stop, but it did not. The Army men were fired upon and they retaliated, in which a militant was killed, the official said.

He said a weapon and a pouch were found near the militant's body.

He said when police were called in, they found a car some distance away in which three boys were found dead.

Srinagar-based Defence Spokesman Col Rajesh Kalia said the militant has been identified as Shahid Ahmad Dar, a resident of Jamnagri Shopian.

He said the three boys were over-ground workers and accomplices of the slain militant.

All the three were locals and residents of Trenz, Pinjoora and Imamsahib areas of Shopian.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Delhi High Court today directed a lower court to pronounce its verdict in a case relating to the alleged tampering of documents during the trial of the main 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy case by November 30 this year.

Justice Anu Malhotra also sought a status report on trial in the matter by September 7.

The trial court is directed to complete the proceedings in the case and pronounce the judgement by November 30, 2018. A status report is called for on September 7, 2018, the court said.

The high court also asked the Delhi government and other parties in the case to cooperate in the trial to expedite disposal of the matter.

Senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, representing the Association of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT), sought a day-to-day trial in the case related to tampering of evidence in the main case.

He said the lower court was giving only one date each month, leading to a delay in the trial.

The state and the Delhi police, however, said that they were assisting the court so proceedings are expedited.

On January 17, the high court had sought details of a case relating to the Uphaar cinema fire tragedy which was being heard by a trial court. This was after the victims' group moved a plea for a speedy trial in the matter.

The high court sought to know the status and number of witnesses being cross-examined in the case relating to the alleged tampering of documents during trial of the main case, which involved real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal.

It sought to know the details of pending matters before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate at the Patiala House court here.

On June 13, 1997, a fire broke out at the theatre during the screening of Bollywood film 'Border', killing 59 people and injuring over 100.

On January 31, 2003, a trial court ordered an inquiry after some documents related to the case went missing from the court's record room. After an inquiry, a court employee was dismissed from service.

The case is related to the tampering of a judicial file pertaining to a letter written by Vice President of Ansal Properties Industries Ltd, V K Nagpal, to the Delhi Fire Service. An FIR was registered in this regard.

"It is important to note, that even in the main Uphaar fire tragedy case, the entire trial was concluded within a period of 10 years with the intervention of this court...

"However, in the instant case, which arises out tampering with the original court records of the Uphaar fire tragedy case, despite 10 years from the date of registration of FIR, not a single prosecution witness has been able to complete their deposition," the plea by association president Neelam Krishnamoorthy said.

The Delhi High Court had on May 12 last year, upheld a trial court order framing charges of tampering of evidence against Ansals.

A magisterial court on May 31, 2014 ordered framing of charges against seven accused for abatement of offence, causing disappearance of evidence, criminal breach of trust by public servant and criminal conspiracy under the IPC.

Theatre owners Gopal Ansal and his brother Sushil Ansal, Anoop Singh, Prem Prakash Batra, Harswaroop Panwar, Dharamveer Malhotra and Dinesh Chandra Sharma were accused of tampering with evidence in the case, pending since 2006.

All the accused have denied the allegations against them.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Maharashtra Assembly witnessed noisy scenes today over the revocation of suspension of MLC PrashantParicharak, who had allegedly made derogatory remarks about wives of soldiers last year.

The BJP-backed independent MLC was suspended from the state Legislative Council in March last year, after he joked during an election campaign about the wives of soldiers.

The legislator had later apologised for his statement.

The state government last week revoked his suspension.

The issue was raised today by the opposition Congress and NCP members in the Lower House as soon as it assembled for the day.

They shouted slogans criticising the government for revoking the legislator's suspension.

The state revenue minister, Chandrakant Patil, told the House that a high powered committee of the Legislative Council had recommended the revocation of his suspension.

Shiv Sena MLC NeelamGorhe was a member of the committee, he pointed out.

"The government cannot make any correction for a year in the committee's decision adopted unanimously by the House," Patil said, adding the members should not bring the Legislative Council's matter in the Lower House.

Sunil Prabhu (of the Shiv Sena) demanded that Paricharakbe expelled and tried for treason as he had allegedly insulted martyrs' wives and the country.

The members from the treasury benches, who were also in the well of the House, then started shouting slogans against Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Council, Dhananjay Munde, over a controversial audio clip that allegedly featured his name.

Amid the din, Speaker Haribhau Bagde adjourned the House for 15 minutes.

After the House reassembled, the speaker took up the Question Hour.

But, the opposition members continued to shout slogans against Paricharak.

Leader of Opposition in the Assembly, Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil, demanded that the MLC be expelled from the membership of the Upper House.

Jayant Patil (of the NCP) supported the demand.

Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil then said that the Council members' committee which recommended the revocation of Paricharak's suspension included former Congress MLC Narayan Rane, LoP Dhananjay Munde and Sena member Neelam Gorhe.

The opposition cannot criticise the decision now, he said.

The government has no love for Paricharak, he said while pointing out that the state had earlier moved the resolution to suspend him.

"The committee now feels that the suspension be revoked and the government can't make any correction," Chandrakant Patil said.

However, the opposition members continued to shout slogans over Paricharak's issue while the treasury benches kept shouting slogans against Munde.

Amid the din, the House was adjourned for half-an- hour.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Egyptian prosecutors have remanded a prominent state television talk show presenter in custody for four days on accusations he insulted the police, officials said.

Pro-government Khairy Ramadan was ordered detained late last night after he last month discussed the alleged low salaries of police officers on his show "Egypt Today" on the public Channel 1.

Citing a policeman's wife, Ramadan presented a breakdown of the officer's monthly gross salary of 6,890 pounds ($390, 320 euros), with which he has to provide for his family.

The decision to detain the presenter comes after authorities warned they were keeping a close eye on media and would take action against anyone spreading "false"



Egypt is currently gearing up for presidential elections on March 26-28 that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi looks certain to win.

The state prosecution said Wednesday that it would monitor outlets and social media "in light of recent observed attempts to harm the security and safety of the homeland by publishing lies and false "



Prosecutors were ordered to "take the necessary measures under the criminal law" against "false statements, news and rumours that harm public safety or bring terror into the hearts of individuals.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A surge for populist and far-right parties in Italy's election could result in a hung parliament with a right-wing alliance likely to win the most votes but no majority after a campaign dominated by anger against immigration.

The projections based on early results on Monday also showed the far-right League party ahead of media mogul Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy) party within the right-wing coalition in yesterday's vote.

That raises the prospect of League leader Matteo Salvini, who has promised to shut down Roma camps, deport hundreds of thousands of migrants and tackle the "danger" of Islam, becoming Italy's next prime minister.

The eurosceptic, anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which has drawn support from Italians fed up with traditional parties and a lack of economic opportunity, was predicted to come second to the coalition.

The boost for far-right and populist parties has drawn comparisons to Britain's vote to leave the European Union and the rise of US President Donald Trump.

"The European Union is going to have a bad night," Marine Le Pen, leader of France's National Front, tweeted.

Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage congratulated the Five Star Movement, his allies in the European Parliament, "for topping the poll" as Italy's biggest single party.

Resentment at the hundreds of thousands of migrant arrivals in Italy in recent years fired up the campaign, along with frustration about social inequalities.

"These are historic results," Giancarlo Giorgetti, deputy head of the League, told reporters in Milan.

Alessandro Di Battista of the Five Star Movement, said: "Everyone is going to have to come and speak to us".

The ruling centre-left Democratic Party, which has struggled to get across its pro-European message of gradual economic recovery, was left trailing.

"This is a very clear defeat for us," Michele Martina, a minister in the outgoing government, told reporters.

Andrea Marcucci, one of the party's lawmakers, said: "The populists have won and the Democratic Party has lost".

The projections by public broadcaster Rai showed the right-wing alliance winning 35.5 percent of the vote, including 15.8 per cent for the League and 14.5 percent for Forza Italia, with the Five Star Movement at 32.5 percent and the centre-left at 23.1 per cent.

If no party or coalition wins an overall majority, the projected results leave Italy with few options.

One is a an "anti-system" post-election pact between the Five Star Movement and the League -- a prospect that has spooked foreign investors and European capitals.

The other would be a minority Five Star government, which could prove highly unstable. A third option would be a temporary government and new elections.

Maurizio Molinari, editor of La Stampa daily, said the victory of "anti-system forces" was a first for Europe.

In L'Espresso weekly's online edition Marco Damilano wrote: "On the night of March 4, the winners are (Five Star Movement leader Luigi) Di Maio and Salvini".

"And there are two catastrophic losers: Berlusconi, the old man on his last lap, and his young heir (Democratic Party leader) Matteo Renzi."



Berlusconi, a flamboyant three-time former prime minister, cannot hold elected office because of a fraud conviction but has put forward European Parliament President Antonio Tajani as his prime ministerial nominee.

The billionaire, who won his first election in 1994, has returned to the limelight at the age of 81 despite a career overshadowed by sex scandals and legal woes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Oscars, the biggest night of Hollywood, was all about custom-made gowns and designer tuxedos, with celebrities moving on from this year's award season red carpet black out and instead choosing other ways to register their support to sexual harassment victims.

While various Hollywood A-listers, dressed in black, walked hand-in-hand with Time's Up activists at Golden Globes, at Oscars it was all about colours, couples and celebrities having fun on the red carpet.

The Oscars 2018 ceremony was a departure from the major awards that took place this year. Colour of protest, black, took a back seat as the Dolby theatre was dominated by bright shades, with stars such as Meryl Streep, Whoopi Goldberg, Nicole Kidman, Viola Davis, Saoirse Ronan, Jennifer Garner, Greta Gerwig, Allison Janney and Helen Mirren donning hues of red, pink, blue, yellow and green.

The labels were missing on the limelight they usually receive during the award nights, but the 90th Academy Awards gave them their moment in the sun with celebs donning popular high-end couture brands like Armani Prive, Dior Calvin Klein, Atelier Versace, Vera Wang, Valentiono, Gucci and Ralph Lauren among others.

However, black still managed to make its presence felt, with stars such as Taraji P Henson, Zendaya and their male counterparts sporting the colour.

Metallic shades were also star favourites with Jennifer Lawerence, Sally Hawkins, Sandra Bullock, Lupita Nyong'o donning them.

The red carpet may have been a melange of colours, but the political undercurrent was inconspicuous with Time's Up pin, blue American Civil Liberties Union ribbons and orange American flag pins calling for gun safety reforms in the wake of Florida school shooting, making their way on designer wears.

Jane Fonda, Sam Rockwell, Richard Jenkins, Guillermo del Toro, Patrick Stewart and Sunny Ozell were some of the stars to pin the Time's Up badge.

Lin-Manuel Miranda orange American flag pins in honour of Everytown for Gun Safety.

Jordan Peele added a special accessory to his suit jacket as an ode to his Academy Award-nominated film "Get Out".

Peele, who was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, hit the red carpet with a golden deer antler pin (featuring blood spatters) placed on the left lapel of his white suit jacket, which was a nod to the deer symbolism shown throughout the dramatic film starring Allison Williams and Daniel Kaluuya.

Tiffany Haddish dedicated her outfit to her father and her Eritrean Heritage.

Veteran actor Rita Moreno proved that some looks really never go out of style when she showed up to the 90th Academy Awards in the same gown she first wore to the Oscars in 1962. The actress arrived on the red carpet Sunday in a black strapless dress with a full, patterned skirt, which she wore when she won the Best Supporting Actress award for West Side Story.

James Ivory, who was nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay for "Call Me By Your Name", wore a shirt with lead actor Timothee Chalamet's face on it.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A fire broke out at a chamber of a Calcutta High Court judge in the court premises this morning, police said.

The fire broke out at around 9 am at Justice Joymalya Bagchi's chamber on the first floor of the Centenary Building of the high court, a senior officer of Kolkata Police said.

Three fire tenders took almost three hours to douse the flames, he said.

"The reason of the fire at Room No 28 of the Calcutta High Court Centenary Building is not yet known. Forensic experts are looking into it," the officer said.

The chamber was locked yesterday as it was a Sunday and the air-conditioning system was also not working. So there was no question of electrical short-circuit, the officer said.

Police personnel from the local Hare Street police station rushed to the spot, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Two decades after winning her first Best Actress Academy Award for playing Marge Gunderson in "Fargo", a police chief about to give birth, Frances McDormand today took home her second Oscar for her role of Mildred Hayes, a mother grieving the loss of her teenage daughter, in award season's favourite "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri".

This year, the 60-year-old actor had also won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Awards for her role in Martin McDonagh's film.

Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster presented the Best Actress trophy to McDormand, in a break from tradition where the previous year's Best Actor winner presents the award.

They replaced Casey Affleck, last year's Best Actor winner, who withdrew as a presenter from this year's ceremony following two sexual assault lawsuits, which he settled out of court.

"So I'm hyperventilating a little bit," McDormand joked as she began her acceptance speech.

She then asked "all the female nominees in every category" to stand with her in the room with a special shout-out to fellow nominee Meryl Streep.

"Okay, look around everybody. Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed. Don't talk to us about it at the parties tonight. Invite us into your office in a couple days, or you can come to ours, whatever suits you best, and we'll tell you all about them.

"I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: inclusion rider," she said referring to a need for a race and gender diversity clause in contracts.

McDormand emerged victorious against Saoirse Ronan ("Lady Bird"), Streep ("The Post"), Sally Hawkins ("The Shape of Water") and Margot Robbie ("I, Tonya").

In the black comedy drama, McDormand played Mildred, the disillusioned and angry mother of a young woman whose murder has gone unsolved in her small-town American community.

When local cops fail to catch the culprit, Mildred takes things in her own hands, putting up a series of brutal and hard-hitting billboards in her neighbourhood, calling out the police for their indifference and inaction.

McDonagh wrote the character of Mildred with McDormand in mind. However,the actor was initially not sure about her casting in the role as she is older than the character. Her filmmaker husband Joel Coen convinced her to say yes to the part.

Born on June 23, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois, McDormand earned her BA in Theater from Bethany College in 1979 and her MFA from Yale in 1982.

She started her career onstage and has retained her association with the theatre throughout her career. She made her film acting debut in 1984 with "Blood Simple", the first film by the Coen brothers -- Joel and Ethan Coen. Same year she tied the knot with Joel and in 1995 the two adopted a son from Paraguay, Pedro McDormand Coen.

Since then the couple have collaborated on many films including "Fargo", "Burn After Reading" and most recently "Hail, Ceaser!".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Two decades after winning her first Academy Award for playing Marge Gunderson in "Fargo", a police chief about to give birth, Frances McDormand today took home her second Oscar for her role of Mildred Hayes, a mother grieving the loss of her teenage daughter, in award season's favourite "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri".

This year, the 60-year-old actor had also won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Awards for her role in Martin McDonagh's film.

Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster presented the Best Actress trophy to McDormand, in a break from tradition where the previous year's Best Actor winner presents the award.

But Casey Affleck, last year's Best Actor winner, had withdrawn as a presenter from this year's ceremony amid allegations of sexual harassment, which he settled out of court.

In her acceptance speech, McDormand thanked her family and asked all the other female nominees to stand up. She also urged producers to back small and independent films



"I have two words to leave with you tonight, 'inclusion' and 'writer'," an emotional McDormand said.

McDormand emerged victorious against Saoirse Ronan ("Lady Bird") Meryl Streep ("The Post"), Sally Hawkins ("The Shape of Water") and Margot Robbie ("I, Tonya").

In the black comedy drama, McDormand plays Mildred, the disillusioned and angry mother of a young woman whose murder has gone unsolved in her small-town American community.

When local cops fail to catch the culprit, Mildred takes things into her own hands, putting up a series of brutal and hard-hitting billboards in her neighbourhood, calling out the police for their indifference and inaction.

McDonagh wrote the character of Mildred with McDormand in mind. However,the actor was initially not sure about her casting in the role as she is older than the character. Her filmmaker husband Joel Coen convinced her to say yes to the part.

Born on June 23, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois, McDormand earned her BA in Theater from Bethany College in 1979 and her MFA from Yale in 1982.

She started her career onstage and has retained her association with the theatre throughout her career. She made her film acting debut in 1984 with "Blood Simple", the first film by the Coen brothers -- Joel and Ethan Coen. Same year she tied the knot with Joel and in 1995 the two adopted a son from Paraguay, Pedro McDormand Coen.

Since then the couple have collaborated on many films including "Fargo", "Burn After Reading" and most recently "Hail, Ceaser!".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Iran's semi-official ISNA agency is reporting that France's foreign minister has arrived in Tehran amid French criticism of Tehran's ballistic missile program.

The Monday report said Jean-Yves Le Drian will hold meetings with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Le Drian's office says a key part of the trip will be diplomacy over the war in Syria and trying to get Iran to use its influence on Syrian President Bashar Assad to agree to a cease-fire.

This is the third time that a high-ranking French official visits Iran after the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. France increasingly has criticized Iran's ballistic missile program since the deal.

Le Drian also will inaugurate an exhibition called "The Louvre in Tehran" at the Iranian National Museum.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP today demanded a probe into alleged frisking of girl students at a school run by Pune-based institute, while they had come there to appear for class 12 examinations.

"Around 30 girl students from a school had come to take an examination in a school run by MIT in Loni Kalbhor. The girls complained that they were asked to remove their clothes for search in name of preventing cheating," Shiv Sena MLC Neelam Gorhe told reporters outside the Legislative Assembly here.

"But I am told by the state minister Vinod Tawde that there is no such provision allowing frisking of girl students like this," Gorhe claimed.

"I am surprised to find out that all the girl students who were frisked by MIT guards belong to a particular school. The girl students from other schools who had their centre in MIT were not treated in this way. The matter should be probed," said Gorhe.

BJP MLA Medha Kulkarni said that she has personally raised the issue with Vinod Tawde, who assured her that the matter would be probed.

"It is completely unacceptable behaviour of the guards towards the girl students," she said.

Leader of Opposition and senior Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and NCP leader Ajit Pawar also sought an action against the school administration and the guards who "frisked the girls".

"The centre should be changed immediately as those girl students would be uncomfortable in attending the exam. It could affect their results as there are 2-3 exam papers still to be attended," said Vikhe Patil.

"There should be a thorough probe in this matter. The women guards who frisked the girls in this manner should face some kind of action," he added.

"Such treatment to girls is shocking and it has never happened in our state. The government needs to step up and conduct inquiry," said Ajit Pawar.

Yesterday, the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary had denied allegations that two girls appearing for class 12 examinations were "strip searched" by two women guards at the school.

The alleged incident, which occurred during the exams held between February 21-28 at the Gurukul School of the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT), had caused an outrage among parents.

Meanwhile, refuting the allegations, MIT has said, "The charges levelled against our two staffers are baseless, false and defamatory towards our institution.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has defended President Donald Trump's proposed tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, saying it would help correct a decades-old policy that has given away all kinds of concessions to countries like China and Germany ever since the end of World War II.

Trump on Thursday proposed slapping a 25 per cent tariff on imported steel and a 10 per cent tariff on imported aluminum.

Ross dismissed concerns that European nations may respond by placing tariffs on American goods.

"Think about it, we have unilaterally given away all kinds of concessions ever since the end of World War II. And in the beginning that was probably good policy to rebuild Europe and rebuild Asia after the ravages of the war," Ross told ABC



"The mistake that our trade negotiators made way back then and continued to make was not time limiting it, concessions that were perfectly reasonable to make to Germany in 1945 or China in 1945 don't make sense anymore. Those are now very mature, big, strong economies," Ross said.

"So, there's a lot of history that needs to be undone," he said ahead of President Trump signing an executive order that would impose tariffs on aluminium.

Trump is expected to sign it next week.

There has been sharp reaction from countries with the European Union and China indicting retaliatory measures.

Trump in a series of tweets early this week said that it would not work and the US would impose additional tariffs on other items.

"If the EU wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on US companies doing business there, we will simply apply a tax on their cars, which freely pour into the US. They make it impossible for our cars and more to sell there. Big trade imbalance," Trump said.

In another tweet, Trump said that trade wars are good and easy to win.

"I think what the president had in mind was that unlike the Smoot-Hawley days in the 1930s, back then US had a big trade surplus and the world was in a depression. Now, we have a big trade deficit. Well, if we have big trade deficit with our other partners, they have a lot more to lose than we do, because those hundreds of billions of dollars are in their pockets now, not ours," Ross explained.

He refuted reports that increase in import tariff on steel would hurt American industries in particular the car manufacturing industry.

Similarly, all the other products, the total amount of tariffs we're putting on is about USD 9 billion in a year.

That's a fraction of one per cent of the American economy, he said.

"So, the notion that it would destroy a lot of jobs, raise prices, disrupt things is wrong.

As to the idea of retaliation, they may well be some sort of retaliation. But the amounts that they're talking about are also pretty trivial. It's some USD 3 billion-odd of goods that the Europeans have threatened to put something on," Ross said.

"Well in our size economy, that's a tiny, tiny fraction of one per cent. So, while it might effect an individual producer for a little while, overall it's not going to be much more than a rounding error," the commerce secretary said.

The Trump administration has argued that it is imposing such a tariff under national security interests.

Ross reiterated that there would be no exceptions to the rule.

"As of the moment, as far as I know, he's talking about a fairly broad brush," he said to a question.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Andhra Pradesh Governor E S L Narasimhan today asked the Centre to expedite resolution of all provisions in the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, including according special category status to the state.

Addressing a joint sitting of the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly this morning on the opening day of the state's budget session, he said the state government "would not rest" till its dream of emerging as a power to reckon with in the Asia-Pacific region were realised.

His remarks came in the wake of the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) last month expressing disappointment over the resources allocated in the Union Budget 2018-19 for Andhra Pradesh and asserting that it would continue to fight for the state's due.

The governor said, "As per the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, and the assurances made, the Government of India (GoI) has to fulfil commitments of the special category status, bridging the resource gap and completion of the Polavaram project with the funds of GoI."



The Centre also has to fulfil promises of formation of a railway zone, establishment of greenfield crude oil refinery and petrochemical complex and financial assistance to Amaravati (the state's new capital city), Narasimhan said.

The Centre has to establish the Duggirajupatnam port, increase seats in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly, resolve anomalies in taxation matters, construct a steel plant in Kadapa district and establish the Vizag-Chennai industrial corridor, he said.

The governor said the Centre needs to construct Metro rails in Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada, set up rapid rail and road connectivity to Amaravati, apportion Schedule IX and Schedule X institutions and establish a greyhounds training centre.

"My government has made rigorous and untiring efforts during the last three years and nine months to get all the issues listed implemented," he said, adding, "Hence, we reiterate people's demand to expedite the resolution of all provisions incorporated in the AP Reorganisation Act and assurances made in relation to it, including according the special category status."



Once a prosperous state, Andhra Pradesh is now faced with a severe drop in per capita income, leading to a decrease of Rs 35,000 compared to other southern states, requiring support of the Union government to the state till a level-playing field is achieved, the governor said.

He said this would be done by expeditiously implementing all provisions and entitlement incorporated in the Reorganisation Act and assurances made on the floor of the Rajya Sabha.

"My government will leave no stone unturned to get them resolved favourably," Narasimhan asserted.

Hailing the "astute leadership" of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, "who converted every crisis into an opportunity", the governor underlined that the vision of the government was to build a happy, inclusive and an innovative society.

"We -- the government and the private sector -- have to strive hard for a common cause of rebuilding our state by overcoming the pains of bifurcation," he said.

"Our state is endowed with vast natural resources, coastline, huge skilled man power as our strength to be exploited to realise our dream of being not only the foremost state in the country but also a power to reckon with in the Asia-Pacific region and a global destination," Narasimhan said.

"I reassure the people that my government will not rest till our dreams are realised to be a happy, inclusive and innovative society and till the fruits of development reach the last man," he said.

In his 58-page address, the governor highlighted the "success story" of the sate, saying it accomplished an average economic growth rate of 11.31 per cent in the last three years, as against the country's growth rate of 6.97 per cent.

"We are targeting a compound annual growth rate of 12 per cent till 2029 and a high level of human development index of 0.90 per cent through structural and social transformation and through macro-level planning and micro-level execution," Narasimhan said.

Referring to the Polavaram multipurpose project, he said the government was determined to "overcome all hurdles" to complete it in record time and get water into the right and left main canals through gravity by early 2019.

On law and order issue, the governor said the government has infused technology into policing, thereby streamlining police administration.

"Left-wing extremism has been brought under full control, spread of terrorism has been prevented and rowdyism fully brought under control. People are able to work and sleep peacefully," he noted.

"We are going to further reform administration of law and order machinery to make the state a model where police are invisible and policing is visible," Narasimhan said.

State Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu will present the budget for 2018-19 on March 8.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Hollywood veteran Harrison Ford says passing the torch of the "Star Wars" universe to younger members, such as John Boyega, was not something he gave any thought to.

Boyega's character Finn shares a lot of qualities with Han.

The 75-year-old actor, who symbolically encouraged the new cast to continue the journey of the popular sci-fi franchise after the death of his beloved character Han Solo, says he simply played his part.

"I don't know that I thought of it that way at all (passing the baton). I was there to die. And I didn't really give a rat's a** who got my sword," Ford told New York Times.

The actor's role ended in the first part of the latest trilogy, "The Force Awakens".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Delhi High Court today agreed to hear Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash's plea challenging a breach of privilege notice issued to him for allegedly skipping a meeting called by the panel.

The matter was mentioned before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar which directed that it be listed before an appropriate bench for hearing today itself.

Advocate Vivek Chib, appearing for the chief secretary, sought quashing of the notice and submitted that Prakash was summoned to appear before the privilege committee for inquiry without being provided any copy of the complaint or opportunity to respond to the same.

The panel had on February 21 recommended privilege proceedings against the chief secretary (CS) for contempt of the House after he skipped the meeting called by the committee.

A committee of the Delhi Assembly yesterday accused Prakash of "lying" before the High Court with regard to the breach of privilege notice.

Members of the Question and Reference Committee said that they would also initiate "forgery proceedings" against Prakash for misinforming the court.

An AAP MLA had yesterday said, "We have learnt that the CS has moved the High Court challenging the breach of privilege notice served to him by accusing us of arm-twisting him in a matter related to alleged attack on him, but he is hiding the fact that the meeting was related to rising NPAs."



"The committee members challenge the CS to stick to the contents of his affidavit and not alter these contents. The chief secretary is clearly trying to shield those involved in the multi-crore scam, which appears to be on the lines of the Punjab National Bank scam," the committee had said in a statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Shampa Mukerji, an Indian-American attorney, is running for a judge seat in the US state of Texas.

Mukerji, launched her candidacy for the seat in the 269th Civil District Court of Harris County, Texas.

The Democratic candidate said she is running for the seat because she believes she can make a great contribution to the civil courts in the county.

"I will uphold the laws of the state of Texas and be fair and equitable to all parties that come before me," she said on her campaign site.

"I believe in the Seventh Amendment, the right to a trial by jury and access to the courts for all," she said.

Early voting for party primaries began on February 20. Election Day is tomorrow.

The winner of this primary will face Republican incumbent Judge Dan Hinde in the general election.

A native of Houston, Mukerji is the daughter of immigrant parents who came to the US in the late 1960s to pursue the American dream.

Her father was an engineer who spent his career in the oil and gas industry and earned a doctorate in philosophy after he retired. Her mother, a college graduate, dedicated her time to raising their three children. Her husband Sam Mukerji is a trial attorney.

Mukerji graduated with a bachelor's in communications from Northwestern University in three years. She then went to law school at the University of Houston Law Center, during which she served on the Houston Journal of Health Law & Policy as an editor and as chief justice of the Honor Court.

Her main objective is to ensure clients receive the best possible resolution to their case and she continually strives to protect the rights of individuals and families.

Mukerji has been endorsed thus far by the Area 5 Democrats, the Bay Area New Democrats, the Communication Workers of American Local 6222, the Harris County Labor Assembly COPE, AFL-CIO and the South Asian Bar Association.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Jordon Peele today became the first black screenwriter to bag the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for "Get Out" at the 90th Academy Awards here.

Peele was a surprise winner at the otherwise predictable award ceremony. He triumphed over front-runners "The Shape of Water" and "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri". Other nominees in the category were "The Big Sick" and "Lady Bird".

This is the first Oscar win for the actor-turned-director, who was also nominated in the Best Director category for the horror film about a young African-American, who visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend and realises there is something wrong going on there.

"This means so much to me. I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible. I thought it wasn't going to work. I thought no one would ever make this movie. But I kept coming back to it because I knew if someone let me make this movie, that people would hear it and people would see it. I want to dedicate this to all the people who raised my voice and let me make this movie," Peele said in his acceptance speech.

He also thanked the film's team, his wife, mother and "to everybody who went and saw this movie. Everybody who bought a ticket, who told somebody to buy a ticket, thank you. I love you for shouting out at the theatre, for shouting out at the screen."



Hollywood star Nicole Kidman presented the trophy to Peele.

Soon after the announcement, various celebrities took to social media to congratulate the filmmaker.

Ben Winston tweeted, "Great moment here when Jordan Peele wins for Get Out !"



Christine Teigen said, "My first jump of the night! So happy for Get Out!"Zendaya wrote, "Get out! Yes."Zac Efron, BJ Novak, Laverene Cox and Josh Gad also expressed their excitement over Peele's win.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A labourer, who used to work in the agricultural land of a farmer here, was found dead in at Bhensi village in the district, the police said today.

The 50-year-old man, from Murshidabad district in West Bengal, had been working for the farmer for a long time, they said.

His body was found in the farmer's house under suspicious condition yesterday, the police said, adding the body has been sent for post-mortem and an investigation is underway.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will arrive here today on a two-day visit during which he will hold talks with the Nepalese prime minister and other officials as part his country's efforts to engage with regional nations.

Abbasi is visiting Nepal at the invitation of Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli.

Abbasi is the first high-level dignitary to visit Nepal after Oli assumed office.

During his visit, Abbasi will call on President Bidyadevi Bhandari and hold meetings with Oli as well as Nepalese officials.

Abbasi is the first Pakistan prime minister to visit Nepal after an interval of three years.

Former premier Nawaz Sharif had visited Nepal to attend the 18th SAARC Summit.

Prime Minister Oli will also host a dinner in honour of Abbasi, according to a statement issued by Ministry of Foreign Affairs here.

The visit will provide an opportunity to further expand and strengthen bilateral relations across all areas of mutual interest including trade, education, tourism, defence and people to people contacts, Pakistan's Foreign Office said in a statement.

The visit is a part of Pakistan's "pro-active and outreach efforts" to engage with regional countries, the Foreign Office said yesterday.

It said ways of invigorating the South East Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) as an important regional organisation will also be discussed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar will go to Mumbai today for a health check-up and if needed, may even go abroad for further treatment, his office said.

Before heading to Mumbai, he called a meeting of his government's senior ministers at his private residence in Dona Paula near here and formed a cabinet advisory committee to take administrative decisions in his absence.

Parrikar was admitted to Lilavati Hospital in Mumbai on February 15 where he received treatment for a pancreatic ailment. He was discharged on February 22, and on the same day attended a session of the Goa Legislative Assembly, where he presented the budget and made a brief speech.

The session was truncated to four days owing to Parrikar's illness.

On February 25, the chief minister was admitted to Goa Medical College and Hospital after he suffered mild dehydration. He was discharged from the hospital on March 1.

"Today, the chief minister is travelling to Mumbai for further medical checkup and based on the doctor's advice may travel overseas for further treatment," the chief minister's office said in a statement issued here.

Ahead of his Mumbai visit, Parrikar met senior ministers -- Sudin Dhavalikar of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), Francis D'Souza of the BJP and Vijai Sardesai of the Goa Forward Party (GFP).

The chief minister formed a cabinet advisory committee comprising Sardesai, Dhavalikar and D'Souza, which would advise the state administration on important matters and financial sanctions, GFP leader Sardesai said.

The MGP and the GFP are allies of the BJP-led Goa government.

"Financial sanctions of more than Rs 50 lakh would be cleared by this committee. The mechanism has been worked out to avoid paralysis of the administration in the chief minister's absence," Sardesai said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)"Queen bee syndrome" - the phenomenon of women discriminating against other female coworkers as they rise in seniority - may be getting worse, a study has found.

As women have increased their ranks in the workplace, most will admit to experiencing rude behaviour and incivility.

"Studies show women report more incivility experiences overall than men, but we wanted to find out who was targeting women with rude remarks," said Allison Gabriel, assistant professor at the University of Arizona in the US.

Researchers set out to answer that question across three studies. Men and women who were employed full time answered questions about the incivility they experienced at work during the last month.

The questions were about co-workers who put them down or were condescending, made demeaning or derogatory remarks, ignored them in a meeting or addressed them in unprofessional terms. Each set of questions was answered twice, once for male co-workers and once for female co-workers.

"Across the three studies, we found consistent evidence that women reported higher levels of incivility from other women than their male counterparts," Gabriel said.

"In other words, women are ruder to each other than they are to men, or than men are to women," she said.

"This isn't to say men were off the hook or they weren't engaging in these behaviours," she noted.

"But when we compared the average levels of incivility reported, female-instigated incivility was reported more often than male-instigated incivility by women in our three studies," she added.

Participants also were asked to complete trait inventories of their personalities and behaviours to determine if there were any factors that contributed to women being treated uncivilly.

The research showed that women who defied gender norms by being more assertive and dominant at work were more likely to be targeted by their female counterparts, compared to women who exhibited fewer of those traits.

The researchers also found that when men acted assertive and warm - in general, not considered the norm for male behaviour - they reported lower incivility from their male counterparts.

This suggests men actually get a social credit for partially deviating from their gender stereotypes, a benefit that women are not afforded.

The research is important not only from the standpoint of individual employee health but also in terms of organizational management.

Evidence emerged in the three studies that companies may face a greater risk of losing female employees who experience female-instigated incivility, as they reported less satisfaction at work and increased intentions to quit their current jobs in response to these unpleasant experiences.

Paired with estimates that incivility can cost organisations an estimated USD 14,000 per employee, this presents a problem for organisations.

The findings are an opportunity for companies to re-evaluate their cultures and how they address this issue, Gabriel said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Rachel Shenton, who today took home the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film for "The Silent Child", used sign language in her acceptance speech.

The 30-year-old actor stars in the short about a child Libby, played by Maisie Sly, who lives a silent life until a social worker (Shenton) teaches her to communicate through sign language.

Shenton, who also wrote the film, used gestures to help Sly talk on the Oscars stage.

"I made a promise to our six-year-old lead actress that I'd sign this speech. My hands are shaking so I apologise," she said.

The actor added "Our movie is about a deaf child being born into a world of silence.

"It's not exaggerated or sensationalised for the movie, this is happening, millions of children all over the world live in silence and face communication barriers and particularly access to education."



Shenton has become the fourth female actor to deliver their Oscar acceptance speeches in sign language.

In 1976, Louise Fletcher signed to her deaf parents when she took home the golden Best Actress for "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", which was followed by Jane Fonda using the language in her address as she accepted the Best Actress award for "Coming Home" three years later.

In 1987, Marlee Matlin, who is deaf, delivered her acceptance speech using gestures on winning Academy Award for Best Actress for "Children Of A Lesser God".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Rajya Sabha today witnessed repeated adjournments of proceedings in the morning session after opposition parties created a ruckus over the PNB scam and constitution of the Cauvery Water Management Board.

Slogan shouting from the Well resulted in proceedings being adjourned first for 10 minutes and then till 1400 hours, which resulted in the Question Hour not being taken up.

While the TMC led the charge against India's biggest bank fraud, Tamil parties - the AIADMK and the DMK came together to demand implementation of the court order on constitution of Caurvey Water Management Board.

The TDP and a Congress member demanded implementation of the promise to give special status to Andhra Pradesh after Telengana was carved out of it.

AIADMK, DMK, TMC, TDP members and KVP Ramachandra Rao of Congress rushed into the well of the House, raising slogans on various issues.

Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu first adjourned the proceedings for 10 minutes and then till 1400 hours when similar scenes were repeated on reassembly despite his assurance to members that discussions on issues raised by members would be allowed under appropriate rules.

When the House reassembled after the first adjournment, Naidu asked members, "Are you in Parliament or somewhere else" and persuaded members to return to their seats but only for a short period.

Observing that he has received notices from several members under Rule 267 requiring listed agenda to be set aside to take up discussion on the issue being raised, Naidu said the issue of fraud at the Punjab National Bank (PNB) was very important and the House needs to discuss.

"This is agitating the minds of the people," he said.

He, however, said he cannot accept the notice under Rule 267 given on the issue by Leader of the Opposition and senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, party's deputy leader Anand Sharma, Pramod Tiwari, D Raja (CPI), Sukhendu Sekhar Roy (TMC) and others.

A discussion on the issue can be allowed under Rule 176.

The Rule 176 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Rajya Sabha allows raising of matters of urgent public importances through a short duration discussion but without a formal motion or voting.

Naidu said he will need to discuss with the government and the Leader of the House the issue of allocation of time before allowing a discussion on the issue.

On the notices given by Tamil parties over the Cauvery water matter, he said he would allow the matter to be raised as a zero hour mention.

To TDP and Rao, he said the issue had been discussed before and if they wanted a further discussions they could give a notice under proper rules or raise it during the debate on the Union Budget for 2018-19.

Naidu also said he has received a notice under Rule 267 from Vinay Sahasrabuddhe (BJP) over alleged corruption by relatives of a former minister. "That is also important but I am not allowing it as 267. Give notice under appropriate rules," he said.

But the members were not satisfied and rushed into the well. TMC members shouted slogans for bringing back Nirav Modi, the alleged mastermind of the fraud at PNB, while Tamil parties raised slogans on the Cauvery issue.

TDP and Rao stood in the well holding posters in support of their demand for a special package for Andhra Pradesh.

"You are in Parliament. Don't create hungama (ruckus). Don't lower the dignity of the House," Naidu said. "This is not the way."



He said no posters should be displayed and warned of action against violators.

"Members seem determined to disrupt," he said before adjourning proceedings till 2 pm.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Bollywood veteran Rishi Kapoor today thanked the Academy of Motion Picture and Science for paying tributes to Indian stars, Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi in the In Memoriam segment at the 2018 Oscars ceremony.

The 65-year-old actor expressed his gratitude to the Academy on Twitter.

"Oscars. Thank you for remembering Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi," the actor wrote.

He is the nephew of the legendary actor, who passed away last year in December after a prolonged illness.

Rishi was a close associate of Sridevi, having acted opposite her in films such "Chandni", "Nagina" and "Gurudev" among others.

The 54-year-old actor passed away on February 24 due to accidental drowning in a Dubai hotel.

Rishi also said that Indians are taking the centrestage in international cinema and posted a video clip of the ceremony's closing credits which showed his father actor-filmmaker Raj Kapoor's namesake as a co-producer.

"Thrilled to see the name Raj Kapoor as the executive producer of the show. We are on the threshold of world cinema!" he wrote.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A treasure trove from India's Rathore dynasty in Rajasthan, which includes exquisitely crafted arms and armour, jewels and intricately carved furnishings amassed over the centuries, was put on display at an exhibition here.

The exhibition titled 'Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India', organised by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) in partnership with the Mehrangarh Museum Trust of Jodhpur, will be open to the public till August 12 before traveling to Seattle in the fall and then Toronto.

Through lavishly made ceremonial objects, finely crafted arms and armour, sumptuous jewels, intricately carved furnishings and more, the exhibition outlines the dynamic history of the Marwar-Jodhpur region and the Rathore dynasty that ruled it for over seven centuries.

Most of the 300 exquisitely detailed objects have never left India before. Many are signature possessions of the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, established in the early 1970s by His Highness GajSingh II, the current Maharaja of Marwar-Jodhpur, to protect treasures his ancestors commissioned from the 17th to the early-20th centuries.

Grand paintings, jewellery, weapons, devotional objects, room settings and vehicles, including a 1927 Rolls Royce Phantom and a 1940's Stinson LF Sentinal airplane are arrayed across five galleries of the museum.

Digital renderings of palace walls and large projections enhance the viewing experience. The landmark show brings nearly four centuries' worth of treasures from Jodhpur, India, to light, exploring the patronage of a single royal Indian house in depth for the first time.

The unique exhibits from Indian courtly life illuminate how the Rathores acquired and commissioned objects amidst cross-cultural exchanges to leverage patronage, diplomacy, matrimonial alliances, trade, and conquest.

Drawn primarily from the collections of the Mehrangarh Museum Trust and the private collections of the royal family of Jodhpur, the exhibition gives a rare peek into the riches of the maharajas and maharanis of the Rathore Dynasty.

It is the first time these treasures have left their repository in India a palace dating to 1459, now preserved by the Mehrangarh Museum Trust, which made the US tour possible.

"This is an opportunity to connect your children and grandchildren to their heritage," Consul General of India Anupam Ray told Indian Americans here.

"There is no better way of engaging them to what is good, exciting and magical in Indias heritage."



Gary Tinterow, MFAH director, SAID: "We are deeply honoured and grateful to be the first U.S. organization to present this show, and for the opportunity to provide visitors this unprecedented experience of India's rich cultural history."



The Rathores ruled one of the largest princely states in India for more than seven centuries, and their jaw-dropping wealth did not go unnoticed by other empires who eventually ruled India -- the Mughals and the British.

Visitors will learn more about the Rathore clan and its history, view a model of the Mehrangarh Fort, turbans worn by the desert community, and imagine royal life through pages of illuminated manuscripts.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Rajya Sabha was adjourned today for the day amid uproar by the opposition over the Rs 12,700-crore PNB scam and other issues including NDA-ally TDP demanding special package for Andhra Pradesh.

As soon as the Upper House met at 2 pm after witnessing two quick adjournments of proceedings in the first half of the day, members from opposition parties trooped into the well creating a ruckus over issues ranging from the Rs 12,700 crore alleged fraud by fugitive jeweller Nirav Modi, to constitution of the Cauvery Water Management Board.

Amid slogans by the opposition like "Nirav Modi wapas lao" (bring back Nirav Modi), Deputy Chairman P J Kurien who was in the chair stood on his feet and urged members with folded hands to allow proceedings.

However, noisy protests continued amid Kurien's remarks that "You are all agitated on separate issues. I know each subject is very important."



Kurien said if members allow, a short duration discussion can be held on frauds in public sector banks and after that different issues could be taken one by one.

He said for today, he has given permission to conduct a debate on frauds in public sector banks.

However, members relentlessly shouted slogans and displayed placards like "Constitute Cauvery Management Board Immediately", "Keep your promises" and "Implement special category status Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act...".

Stating that it was "indiscipline", Kurien asked Leader of the Opposition, Ghulam Nabi Azad whether the Opposition will allow a discussion, to which the Congress leader said that if other parties are ready, they have no objection.

Azad further said the government and the prime minister had "failed" and banks are without money while likes of Nirav Modi were absconding.

Kurien then adjourned the House for the day.

Earlier proceedings were disrupted twice and the House saw two adjournments - first for 10 minutes and then till 1400 hours.

While the TMC led the charge against India's biggest bank fraud, Tamil parties - the AIADMK and the DMK came together to demand implementation of the court order on constitution of the Caurvey Water Management Board.

TDP and a Congress member demanded implementation of the promise to give special status to Andhra Pradesh after Telengana was carved out of it.

AIADMK, DMK, TMC, TDP and KVP Ramachandra Rao of Congress rushed into the well of the House, raising slogans on their respective issues.

Earlier Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu first adjourned the proceedings for 10 minutes and then till 1400 hours when similar scenes were repeated on reassembly despite his assurance to members that discussions on issues would be allowed under appropriate rules.

When the House reassembled after the first adjournment, Naidu was able to persuade members to return to their seats for a shortwhile.

Stating that he has received notices from several members under Rule 267 requiring listed agenda to be set aside to take up discussion on the issue being raised, Naidu maintained that the issue of fraud at Punjab National Bank (PNB) was very important and the House needs to discuss.

"This is agitating the minds of the people," he said.

Observing that he has received notices from several members under Rule 267 requiring listed agenda to be set aside to take up discussion on the issue being raised, Naidu said the issue of fraud at the Punjab National Bank (PNB) was very important and the House needs to discuss.

"This is agitating the minds of the people," he said.

He, however, said he cannot accept the notice under Rule 267 given on the issue by Leader of the Opposition and senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad, party's deputy leader Anand Sharma, Pramod Tiwari, D Raja (CPI), Sukhendu Sekhar Roy (TMC) and others.

A discussion on the issue can be allowed under Rule 176.

The Rule 176 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Rajya Sabha allows raising of matters of urgent public importances through a short duration discussion but without a formal motion or voting.

Naidu said he will need to discuss with the government and the Leader of the House the issue of allocation of time before allowing a discussion on the issue.

On the notices given by Tamil parties over the Cauvery water matter, he said he would allow the matter to be raised as a zero hour mention.

To TDP and Rao, he said the issue had been discussed before and if they wanted a further discussions they could give a notice under proper rules or raise it during the debate on the Union Budget for 2018-19.

Naidu also said he has received a notice under Rule 267 from Vinay Sahasrabuddhe (BJP) over alleged corruption by relatives of a former minister. "That is also important but I am not allowing it as 267. Give notice under appropriate rules," he said.

But the members were not satisfied and rushed into the well. TMC members shouted slogans for bringing back Nirav Modi, the alleged mastermind of the fraud at PNB, while Tamil parties raised slogans on the Cauvery issue.

TDP and Rao stood in the well holding posters in support of their demand for a special package for Andhra Pradesh.

"You are in Parliament. Don't create hungama (ruckus). Don't lower the dignity of the House," Naidu said. "This is not the way."



He said no posters should be displayed and warned of action against violators.

"Members seem determined to disrupt," he said before adjourning proceedings till 2 pm.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sam Rockwell today won the Academy Award for the best Actor in a supporting role for his portrayal of a racist-yet-redeemable police officer in Martin McDonagh's "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri".

The 49-year-old actor, who earlier bagged a BAFTA, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award for the critically-acclaimed performance in the film, concluded his award season journey as he walked home with his first ever golden statuette. This was also the first Academy Award nomination for Rockwell.

Rockwell, who was wearing a Time's Up pin, thanked his film's team, director McDonagh, fellow nominees and co-stars, calling Woody Harrelson and Frances McDormand his "heroes".

"This is for Phil (Philip Seymour) Hoffman," he said in a short speech.

Other nominees for the category were Willem Dafoe for "The Florida Project", Richard Jenkins for "The Shape of Water", Christopher Plummer for "All the Money in the World" and Rockwell's co-star Woody Harrelson.

"Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" was the third collaboration between Rockwell and McDonagh. The director-actor duo first worked together in 2010 Broadway production "A Behanding in Spokane".

They followed it up with 2012's black comedy "Seven Psychopaths", which featured Rockwell in the role of psychopath/hitman Billy Bickle. The film also starred Harrelson, Colin Farrell, Christopher Walken and Abbie Cornish.

In "Three Billboards...", Rockwell played the role of racist cop Dixon, who has a past record of showing brutality towards black people. His character arc, however, takes a turn for good. After being burnt and beat up, Dixon is shown getting sympathetic to the people and offers a helping hand to the protagonist, Midred Hayes, in the search for her daughter's killer.

In other words, his character is redeemable, which did not go down well with many people, including the critics who thought the film was tone-deaf in its portrayal of racial issues in a small town.

They said the film trivialised the experiences of abused and tortured blacks in order to humanize a white character. But all of this was not enough to stop Rockwell's dominance during the award season.

In his close to three decades long career, Rockwell has acted in more than 60 films. He made his Hollywood debut in 1989 with "Clownhouse". Over the years, he has appeared in popular as well as money-minting project such as "The Green Mile", "Charlie's Angels", "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind", "Matchstick Men", "Frost/Nixon" and "Iron Man 2".

Duncan Jones' space drama "Moon", which is considered Rockwell's best film till date, saw critics warming up to him and putting faith in his acting prowess. Many of them batted for Rockwell to get a Best Actor Oscar nod for his role of Sam Bell, a struggling astronaut who is entirely alone on the Moon apart from a robot but he missed out on the nomination.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actor-producer Seth MacFarlane has criticised the Academy for favouring dramas over comedies.

The "Orville" creator took to Twitter to point out the long-standing trend.

"Here's another big problem with the Oscars no one talks about: It's 99percent drama. Until a movie like Bridesmaids or Airplane! gets a Best Picture win or even a nomination, it's all conspicuously incomplete.

"Get Out is a breath of fresh air to be sure, but it's the exception," tweeted MacFarlane, who hosted the Oscars in 2013.

Traditionally the ceremony acknowledges serious subjects, biopics and period dramas as its top winner.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The bodies of seven people were found in an abandoned truck on a rural road in Mexico's southern state of Oaxaca, local officials said.

Police from the town of Santo Domingo Zanatepec -- some 350 kilometers from the state's capital city Oaxaca -- made the discovery of the as of yet unidentified bodies, all of which showed bullet wounds, according to authorities.

At least 30 people have been killed in the region in recent days, local press reports say, likely because of rivalries between drug trafficking gangs.

Mexico has suffered a wave of violence linked to drug trafficking that has intensified in recent years.

Authorities recorded 25,339 murders in 2017, the most violent year since official data-keeping began in 1997.

Since December 2006 -- when the government launched a controversial military anti-drug operation -- more than 200,000 murders have occurred, although official figures do not track how many cases are linked to organized crime.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Jammu and Kashmir government today told the Supreme Court that Major Aditya Kumar was not named as an accused in the FIR of the January 27 Shopian firing incident in which three civilians were killed.

Taking on record the statement of the state government, the apex court said there should be no investigation till April 24 in the case.

"Let the matter be listed for final disposal on April 24. In the meantime, there shall be no investigation on the basis of FIR till then," a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said.

The apex court had on February 12 restrained the Jammu and Kashmir police from taking any "coercive steps" against Army officers, including Major Aditya Kumar, who was earlier reportedly named as accused in the case.

Three civilians were killed when Army personnel fired at a stone-pelting mob in Ganovpora village of Shopian on January 27 this year, prompting the chief minister to order an inquiry into the incident.

The FIR was registered against personnel of 10 Garhwal Rifles under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Ranbir Penal Code (the penal code applicable in Jammu and Kashmir).

The apex court was hearing the plea of Lieutenant Colonel Karamveer Singh, the father of Major Aditya Kumar, seeking to quash the FIR against his son.

Singh had said in his petition that his son, a major in 10 Garhwal Rifles, was "wrongly and arbitrarily" named in the FIR as the incident relates to an Army convoy that was on bona fide military duty in an area under AFSPA and was isolated by an "unruly and deranged" mob pelting stones, causing damage to military vehicles.

During the hearing today, the counsel representing Jammu and Kashmir told the bench that Major Aditya was not named as accused anywhere in the FIR.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Normal life in Kashmir was affected today due to a strike called by separatists to protest last night's firing incident in Shopian, in which six people, including two militants, were killed.

Schools, colleges and other educational institutes remained closed due to the strike called by Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL). Public transport was off the roads in most parts of the Valley, but some private vehicles and cabs could be seen plying.

Train services from Baramulla to Banihal have been suspended as a precautionary measure, a railway spokesperson said.

Authorities have imposed restrictions in areas falling under seven police stations of the city as a precautionary measure, officials said, adding these police station areas include Rainawari, Khanyar, Nowhatta, M R Gunj, Safa Kadal, Kralkhud and Maisuma.

Kashmir University has postponed all examinations scheduled for today, a spokesperson of the university said.

Last night, a joint MVCP (mobile vehicle check post) near Pohan in Shopian had signalled a car to stop, but it did not. The armymen were fired upon and they retaliated, in which six people, including two militants, were killed.

While the militant was found dead on in the site of the incident, bodies of three young men were recovered from a car. Another man was found dead in another car near the scene of the shootout, while the body of another militant was found in Saidapora area of Shopian several km away.

The Army alleged that apart form the militants, the four persons killed in the firing incident were overground workers of militant groups.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The opposition AIADMK today urg'ed Chief Minister V Narayanasamy to take immediate steps to convene a special assembly session to discuss andpersuade the Centre to constitute Cauvery Water Management Board in keeping with the directive of Supreme Court in sharing of river water.

AIADMK legislature wing leader A Anbalagan told reporters here said that the Chief Minister was remaining silent on the matter without taking steps to urge the Centre to constitute the Board'.

By not doing so, the Congress government was doing injustice to farmers of Karaikal region who are dependent on Cauvery water, he said, adding that the Chief Minister should realise their pathetic plight.

He said if Narayanaswamy was not able to conevene the special assembly session or take steps to persuade the Centre to set up the Board, he might as well step down owning failure to protect them',



Anbalagan said AIADMK MLAs would soon present a detailed memorandum to Lt Governor Kiran Bedi to urge her to direct the government to have special session of the House to discuss the Cauvery issue.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Due to climate change, spring is arriving earlier in the polar regions and other high latitudes than it does at lower latitudes, according to a study.

The research, published in the journal Scientific Reports, found that for every 10 degrees north from the equator you move, spring arrives about four days earlier than it did a decade ago.

This northward increase in the rate of springtime advance is roughly three times greater than what previous studies have indicated, according to the study led by researchers at the University of California, Davis in the US.

For example, at southern to mid latitudes such as Los Angeles, New Orleans, or Dallas, the study suggests spring might be arriving a mere one day earlier than it did a decade ago.

Farther north, in Seattle, Chicago, or Washington DC, it might be arriving four days earlier. And if you live in the Arctic, it might be arriving as much as 16 days earlier, researchers said.

"This study verifies observations that have been circulating in the scientific community and popular reports for years," said Eric Post, a polar ecologist at UC Davis.

"Yes, spring is arriving earlier, and the Arctic is experiencing greater advances of spring than lower latitudes. What our study adds is that we connect such differences to more rapid springtime warming at higher latitudes," said Post.

The study is the most comprehensive analysis to date of springtime advance, or phenology, as you move north with latitude.

Such signs include birds migrating, flowers blooming, amphibians calling and the emergence of leaves.

The researchers analysed 743 previously published estimates of the rate of springtime advance from studies spanning 86 years across the Northern Hemisphere, as well as rates of springtime warming over the same range of years and latitude.

Even after accounting for differences in the length, time, and location of those previous studies, the relationship between earlier springs and higher latitudes was strong.

Springtime provides important biological cues for many plant and animal species, and it is unclear how an accelerated spring could play out for these species across the planet, researchers said.

The study notes that impacts to migratory birds are a potential concern. Many birds move from tropical zones to higher latitudes, such as the Arctic, to breed.

"Whatever cues they are relying on to move northward for spring might not be reliable predictors of food availability once they get there if the onset of spring at these higher latitudes is amplified by future warming," Post said.

"The springtime emergence of the plants and insects they will eat when they arrive is happening faster than the changes at the lower latitudes those birds are departing from," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In some relief to commuters, Delhi Metro today opened one of the gates of the JLN Stadium station for public after two days of closure in view of a protest by job aspirants at the CGO Complex nearby, officials said.

The demonstration is against the alleged paper leak in one of tests held by the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) on February 21.

"The JLN Stadium station is now open for public, but entry and exit is allowed only from the main gate, i.e., Gate No. 4. Rest of the gates would remain shut till further directions," a senior DMRC official said.

The station falls on the Delhi Metro network's busy Violet Line that connects Kashmere Gate to Escorts Mujesar.

It was closed around 9 am on Saturday on the advice of Delhi Police.

Students from across India have gathered outside the CGO Complex, where the SSC is headquartered, demanding a CBI inquiry into the allegations of leak of questions of the Combined Graduate Level (Tier-II) Examination 2017 held from February 17 to 22.

In a statement, SSC chairman Ashim Khurana yesterday said, "The commission agreed recommending to the Department of Personnel and Training to request the government to conduct a CBI enquiry into the allegations of leak of questions of Paper-I on February 21, and other related issues."



Social activist Anna Hazare yesterday met the students protesting outside the Commission's office, and supported their demand for a CBI probe.

Rohit Kumar, a candidate from Bihar, who has been part of the protest, said, "The number of students participating in the protest has gone down, perhaps, after all the assurances and support extended to the protest. But, scores of students are sill sitting there.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Stage prodigy Kismat Bano has got a mini theatre hall built at her house in the state capital to train neighbourhood children in the art of acting.

Most of the funds came from her own savings and the rest was contributed by her contractor father Liaquat Ali for constructing the structure atop their residential house at Dhirenpara area, Kismat Bano, who is in her early 20's, said.

The theatre hall, with a capacity of 75, will also help raise an awareness about theatre by staging plays.

The theatre hall is scheduled to be inaugurated on March 6 during which two plays - 'Bidhyabalan' (Assamese) directed by Naren Patgiri and 'Bade Bhaisahab' (Hindi) directed by Dilip Khanal - will be staged.

Kismat Bano was selected by the North East Zone Cultural Centre (NEZCC) under the Union Ministry of Culture to receive its prestigious annual award of 'Young Talents Artistes Award' for the year 2016-2017 from Arunachal Pradesh Governor P B Acharya in July last year.

She had established her own theatre troupe 'Wings Theatre' (cultural group) in Guwahati with a view to using theatre in education for children, conducting theatre performance-oriented workshops for orphan and indigenous girls in rural areas and working with blind children of Guwahati in promoting theatre.

In December 2016, Kismat Bano and her team had staged their play 'Helen' in Dhaka.

Kismat Bano has already acted in over 25 plays in different languages, including Assamese and Hindi, Nurul Islam Laskar, founder of the 'Stars of North East', a platform for showcasing the unknown talents of the region, said.

Kismat has participated in events such as Bharat Rang Mahotsav, Nandikar, EZCC, Sangeet Natak Academy, Prithvi, Nehru Centre, PDA festivals, Kalakshetra Chennai, Octave festival (Goa and Rajasthan) and Qadir Ali Baig Theatre Festival, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Hollywood veteran Susan Sarandon has revealed she was told to not to get pregnant or even speak about having children when she started her acting career in 1970s.

The Oscar-winning actor and mother-of-three said she was told not to talk about having children "because that made you less sexy".

In an interview with The i Paper, Sarandon said, "I was told you were done by the time you're 40 and you definitely shouldn't talk about having children, because that made you less sexy."



Sarandon, 71, said it were her character roles helped her to remain afloat in the movie business for so long.

"You have to choose to be beautiful or smart. If you're smart, you're not very feminine. I don't think I was ever the most beautiful, so I got character parts, which allowed me to survive," she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Syrian regime and allied forces pushed deeper into Eastern Ghouta on today and have now retaken a third of the rebel enclave, a monitor said.

"Regime forces now control 33 per cent, or a third, of besieged Eastern Ghouta," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said.

"Regime forces are advancing at a high pace because operations so far are mostly conducted in farmland," said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Observatory.

Pro-government forces were two kilometres south east of Douma, the main town in Eastern Ghouta, a semi-rural area that lies within mortar range of central Damascus.

The government lost control of Eastern Ghouta in 2012 and has besieged the area, which is now controlled by Islamist and jihadist groups, almost ever since.

Government forces have over the years clawed back nearly two thirds of the territory they lost just east of Damascus in 2012.

President Bashar al-Assad vowed on Sunday his forces would continue the latest campaign until the whole area is retaken.

The regime intensified its air strikes on the enclave last month and on February 18 further ramped up its campaign, with an assault that has left more than 700 civilians dead in two weeks.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Tripura poll results will have no impact in Karnataka, where Assembly elections are expected to be held in a few months time, as there is no "Modi wave" in this state, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has said.

He also said the state BJP should worry about how B S Yeddyurappa, who was imprisoned in an illegal land denotification case and "presided over mining loot", would convince voters of providing stable, corruption-free governance in case the saffron party wins the Karnataka polls.

Post #Tripura results there is excitement in media about the results implications for Karnataka. Since 2014 Lok Sabha results #BJP has lost Assembly segments in over 50 Lok Sabha Seats & has won only about 2 LS seats. So let us not lose perspective: there is no Modi wave here  Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) March 4, 2018

While the BJP wrested the Left bastion of Tripura and received an invitation to be a part of the government in Nagaland, it was a hung Assembly in Meghalaya.

Congress emerged as the single largest party in Meghalaya with 21 seats.

. @BJP4Karnataka has to worry about convincing voters here how former #JailBird @BSYBJP who presided over mining loot, illegal denotification of Bengaluru lands & cash-for-MLA scam called OperationKamala, can provide stable corruption free governance.  Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) March 4, 2018

Earlier, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who was slated to visit poll-bound Karnataka on March 6, had said the lotus would bloom in Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal and Odisha.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah are the architects for the historic performance of the party in the northeast.

Adityanath also praised Modi for drafting development policies and Shah, for his organisational skills.US President Donald Trump today discussed the situation in war-torn Syria with his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the White House said, with the two leaders airing concerns over "irresponsible" support of Russia and Iran to the brutal attacks on innocent civilians by the Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The two leaders also discussed, over phone, opportunities to enhance the American-Egyptian partnership on a range of security and economic issues, and agreed to work together on ending the humanitarian crisis in Syria, the White House said.

According to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 690 civilians have died in air strikes, artillery fire and rocket attacks on the besieged rebel stronghold of Eastern Ghouta over the past 15 days by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The leaders discussed Russia and Iran's irresponsible support of the Assad regime's brutal attacks against innocent civilians, the White House said.

Trump and Al Sisi agreed to work together on ending the humanitarian crisis in Syria and achieving Arab unity and security in the region, it said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, the White House condemned the ongoing military offensive that the Assad regime, backed by Russia and Iran, is perpetrating against the people of Eastern Ghouta.

After repeatedly delaying the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2401, which demanded a 30-day cessation of hostilities across Syria, Russia has gone on to ignore its terms and to kill innocent civilians under the false auspices of counterterrorism operations, the White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said.

This is the same combination of lies and indiscriminate force that Russia and the Syrian regime used to isolate and destroy Aleppo in 2016, where thousands of civilians were killed, she said.

Between February 24 and 28, Russian military aircraft conducted at least 20 daily bombing missions in Damascus and Eastern Ghouta from Humaymim Airfield in northwest Syria, Sanders said.

Pro-regime forces must immediately cease targeting medical infrastructure and civilians as part of the brutal campaign in Eastern Ghouta. The civilised world must not tolerate the Assad regime's continued use of chemical weapons, she said.

The Assad regime, along with its backers in Moscow and Tehran, should adhere to UNSCR 2401, cease hostilities in and around Eastern Ghouta, and allow unfettered delivery of humanitarian aid to the nearly 400,000 innocent civilians in critical need, Sanders said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Turkish prosecutor's office says police have detained 12 suspected Islamic State militants in the capital of Ankara and are searching for eight others.

A statement from the Ankara chief prosecutor's office says the suspects were nabbed in a police operation on Monday. It says all the suspects are foreigners, without providing detail on their nationalities.

According to the statement, they are suspected of trying to recruit members for the extremist group and were allegedly in contact with people in "conflict zones." The detentions came as the US Embassy in Ankara was closed today due to an unspecified security threat.

A statement posted on the embassy's web page urged U.S. citizens to avoid the embassy in Ankara as well as large crowds and to "keep a low profile.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The suicide of a 65-year- old Gulf returnee, whose efforts to start an enterprise failed allegedly due to interference of CPI's youth wing, rocked the state assembly today with Congress led UDF staging a walkout.

CPI is the second largest partner in the CPI(M) led LDF government.

Opposition UDF members led by Ramesh Chennithala trooped out of the house though Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan made it clear that government would not tolerate such types of interference and that three persons had been arrested in connection with the suicide of P Sughathan in Punaloor.

Chennithala alleged that local All India Youth Federation leaders disrupted construction of the man's automobile workshop, erected four AIYF flags there and allegedly demanded bribes to allow work to go on, leading to Sughathan hanging himself in a temporary shed at the place on February 22.

Agriculture Minister V S Sunil Kumar, a CPI member in the state cabinet, however denied Chennithala's charge that local AIYF leaders had demanded bribes.

Replying to the notice for the adjournment motion on the matter, moved by Adoor Prakash (Cong), Vijayan said government was committed to extend full support and co-operation to NRKs to start businesses in the state.

However, certain 'unhealthy practises' existed in the state, creating problems for starting an enterprise, he said.

One such was to to put up party flags in the proposed site by public workers, he said, adding government wanted to put an end to these practises.

'No one approves these kind of things', he said.

Another practise was the demand by local workers union to the entrepreneur that a minimum number of workers to be employed should be those suggested by them.

"These kind of things have to be stopped", Vijayan said.

The Chief Minister also flayed the system of 'Nookukooli' in the state, under which wages are paid to trade union activists for allowing investors and builders to unload belongings and material using machines or their own labour.

Vijayan said the government planned to call a meeting of various trade unions to discuss these issues.

"If these things are not resolved, there is no point in coming out with a policy of Ease of Doing Business', he said.

Vijayan termed as very unfortunate the suicide of the NRK and said the reasons that led to his death would be probed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The UN Human Rights Council today ordered an urgent investigation into the situation in Syria's besieged rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta and demanded immediate humanitarian access to the area.

The council voted in favour of a resolution calling on rights investigators to "urgently conduct a comprehensive and independent inquiry into recent events in Eastern Ghouta."



With 29 votes in favour, 14 abstentions and four opposed, the UN's top rights body also demanded immediate humanitarian access to the area where 400,000 residents have lived under siege from the regime since 2013 and face severe food and medicine shortages.

The United Nations said Sunday it planned to deliver desperately needed humanitarian assistance to the enclave on Monday with a convoy of "46 truckloads of health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people in need".

But fresh violence could jeopardise the deliveries after fresh air raids by the Syrian regime killed at least 14 civilians overnight in the enclave.

"The UN and partners are ready to go as soon as all the necessarily elements are in place for us to do so," Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, told AFP today.

He added, however, that he did not yet have confirmation that that was the case.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said barrel bombs -- crude, improvised munitions that cause indiscriminate damage -- were used, including on the town of Hammuriyeh, where 10 people were killed.

The latest deaths brought to 709 the number of civilians killed since regime and allied Russian forces intensified their campaign against Eastern Ghouta in February.

According to Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Observatory, at least 166 were children.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The United States today condemned Syria's "brutal" Russian-backed assault on the Eastern Ghouta rebel enclave that has reportedly left hundreds of civilians dead.

"The United States condemns the ongoing military offensive that the Assad regime, backed by Russia and Iran, is perpetrating against the people of Eastern Ghouta," the White House said in a statement, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Washington also accused Moscow of ignoring a UN Security Council resolution calling for a 30-day cessation of hostilities, saying Russia has killed "innocent civilians under the false auspices of counterterrorism operations."



"This is the same combination of lies and indiscriminate force that Russia and the Syrian regime used to isolate and destroy Aleppo in 2016, where thousands of civilians were killed," it said, referring to Syria's one-time economic hub, which was devastated by the country's civil war.

The White House also called on pro-regime forces to "immediately cease targeting medical infrastructure and civilians" in Eastern Ghouta.

Assad's forces have seized over a quarter of the enclave on Damascus's eastern edges after two weeks of devastating bombardment, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.

The advance on the back of air strikes, artillery fire and rocket attacks that are reported to have killed more than 650 civilians, sent hundreds into flight to western parts of the enclave.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actor Amandla Stenberg says stepping away from a role in the super successful Marvel film "Black Panther" was one of the "most challenging things" to do.

The 19-year-old actor, however, said she had to make the tough decision as she believed her lighter complexion would be a disconnect to play a character which was a part of the world of actors playing Africans in the Ryan Coogler-director film.

"One of the most challenging things for me to do was to walk away from 'Black Panther'. I got really, really close and they were like, 'Do you want to continue fighting for this?' And I was like, this isn't right.

"These are all dark skin actors playing Africans and I feel like it would have just been off to see me as a biracial American with a Nigerian accent just pretending that I'm the same colour as everyone else in the movie," Stenberg said, according to DigitalSpy.

"That was really challenging, to make that decision, but I have no regrets. I recognise 100 per cent that there are spaces that I should not take up and when I do take up a space it's because I've thought really, really critically about it and I've consulted people I really trust and it feels right," she added.

The "Hunger Games" actor did not, however, reveal the part she could have played in the film.

"Black Panther" is the first Marvel film to be led by a person of colour - Chadwick Boseman - and featuring a virtually all-black cast with Michael B Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o, Danai Gurira, Andy Serkis, Martin Freeman, among others.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Ibrahim Alhasbani is like generations of Middle Eastern immigrants in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn: he fled war, came with dreams and worked for others until he could strike out on his own.

Now, like an increasing number of people from Yemen who have come to the United States, he sees a long-term future outside the country he left and seeks to bring aspects of his native country into America.

"Here you build; over there you have memories," said Alhasbani, owner of Qahwah House, a cafe that serves coffee made from beans harvested on his family's farm in Yemen's mountains. "I live here, so this is the main thing. This is what's going to help first build my career, build my business ... and help the people over there."



Yemenis have been coming to the US for more than a century especially since the 1960s but in recent years they have been planting stronger roots, raising their profile and looking outward opening upscale restaurants and cafes and running for political office.

And, in cases like Alhasbani, they are making Yemeni culture a key part of the business proposition.

It's a path that's not unusual for first- and second-generation immigrants in the US For Yemenis, the shift is also a reaction to chaos in their homeland, where a devastating civil war has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced 2 million.

"People are coming here and bringing their resources here," said Sally Howell, an author and associate professor of Arab American Studies at University of Michigan-Dearborn.

"In the past, they weren't really committed to here. Now the situation has been so bad in Yemen for so long, they're doing what other refugees and exiles do: they're acknowledging their future is here."



The highest US population of Yemenis is in the Detroit area, where Syrian and Lebanese immigrants had already settled and became more prominent in business. Unlike their Arab neighbors, many Yemeni men came alone and didn't have relatives follow them, so they were more likely to go back and forth between the US and their homeland.

"We're not going back to Yemen like we did before," said Rasheed Alnozili, publisher of The Yemeni American "We learn from Lebanese. They built here then they built there. We made a mistake: we built there, now we built here. ... We learned late, but we're still in process.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)ATLANTA (AP)  Georgias highest court tossed out a gag order in the high-profile case of a slain high school teacher and former beauty pageant contestant whose mysterious disappearance more than 12 years ago drew significant media interest.

Tara Grinstead was reported missing in October 2005 when she didnt show up for work at a school in rural Irwin County. The case went cold until new information led to the arrest in February 2017 of Ryan Alexander Duke, a former student at the school where Grinstead taught.

But authorities have been tightlipped about what led to the arrest and any motive behind the slaying, and the judge overseeing the case issued a gag order.

Duke burglarized the teachers home in Ocilla, about 190 miles (305 kilometers) south of Atlanta, and used his hands to kill her inside the residence, according to warrants that were read at a court hearing when his arrest was announced. He removed her body from the home with the intent of concealing her death, the warrants said.

Soon after Dukes arrest, the judge overseeing the case issued a gag order prohibiting attorneys, investigators, potential witnesses and even relatives of the victim and suspects from publicly discussing Grinsteads slaying. The judge later modified it to prohibit attorneys, law enforcement and court personnel from disclosing case evidence, any statements made by Duke, expected witness testimony and potential pleas.

Duke was indicted in April on two counts of felony murder and one count each of malice murder, aggravated assault, burglary and concealing the death of another.

A second man, Bo Dukes, was indicted in June on charges of concealing a death, tampering with evidence and hindering the apprehension of a criminal.

WXIA-TV and WMAZ-TV challenged the amended gag order and the Georgia Supreme Court heard arguments in the case in October.

A gag order like this one may be constitutionally permissible in exceptional circumstances, but the record here does not reveal circumstances sufficiently exceptional to warrant such a restraint, Justice Keith Blackwell wrote in a unanimous opinion. For that reason, we vacate the gag order.

The high court acknowledged the significant media interest in the case but found no inflammatory or prejudicial statements attributed to anyone covered by the gag order that would be likely to prejudice Dukes right to a trial by an impartial jury. Many of the details in news reports were drawn from arrest warrants and other public records, the court noted. The case was also featured on a popular podcast Up and Vanished.

Attorney Derek Bauer, who argued against the gag order, said his clients are happy with the ruling and that it should serve as a guide for future cases.

We believe the opinion reinforces the importance of the publics role, through the news media as its proxy, as the nations watchdog over the criminal process, and will improve public oversight of the courts in Georgia for decades to come, he wrote in an email.

Tifton Judicial Circuit District Attorney Paul Bowden, who had argued in favor of the gag order, said in an email that the order speaks for itself and declined to comment further.DEARBORN, Mich. (AP)  Ibrahim Alhasbani is like generations of Middle Eastern immigrants in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn: he fled war, came with dreams and worked for others until he could strike out on his own.

Now, like an increasing number of people from Yemen who have come to the United States, he sees a long-term future outside the country he left and seeks to bring aspects of his native country into America.

Here you build; over there you have memories, said Alhasbani, owner of Qahwah House, a cafe that serves coffee made from beans harvested on his familys farm in Yemens mountains. I live here, so this is the main thing. This is whats going to help first build my career, build my business  and help the people over there.

Yemenis have been coming to the U.S. for more than a century  especially since the 1960s  but in recent years they have been planting stronger roots, raising their profile and looking outward  opening upscale restaurants and cafes and running for political office.

And, in cases like Alhasbani, they are making Yemeni culture a key part of the business proposition.

Its a path thats not unusual for first- and second-generation immigrants in the U.S. For Yemenis, the shift is also a reaction to chaos in their homeland, where a devastating civil war has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced 2 million.

People are coming here and bringing their resources here, said Sally Howell, an author and associate professor of Arab American Studies at University of Michigan-Dearborn. In the past, they werent really committed to here. Now the situation has been so bad in Yemen for so long, theyre doing what other refugees and exiles do: theyre acknowledging their future is here.

The highest U.S. population of Yemenis is in the Detroit area, where Syrian and Lebanese immigrants had already settled and became more prominent in business. Unlike their Arab neighbors, many Yemeni men came alone and didnt have relatives follow them, so they were more likely to go back and forth between the U.S. and their homeland.

Were not going back to Yemen like we did before, said Rasheed Alnozili, publisher of The Yemeni American News. We learn from Lebanese. They built here then they built there. We made a mistake: we built there, now we built here.  We learned late, but were still in process.

The New York City, San Francisco, Chicago and Buffalo, New York, areas also have Yemeni communities. About 43,000 people of Yemeni ancestry are in the U.S. according to a 2015 census survey. However, advocates say the number is much higher because of historical undercounting, and has significantly increased since that last survey because of deteriorating conditions in Yemen, which fell into chaos following its 2011 Arab Spring uprising that removed longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Then, in September 2014, Shiite rebels known as Houthis seized the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, after driving out the internationally backed government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-led coalition backing Hadi has been fighting to defeat the Iran-backed Houthis since March 2015.

Dearborn and the Detroit enclave of Hamtramck have several sit-down restaurants specializing in Yemeni cuisine. In Hamtramck, where a Yemeni serves on the majority-Muslim City Council, there are also shops devoted to Yemeni sweets and sub sandwiches.

The real difference today is that Yemeni are representing Yemen to the public, not just having ethnic Yemeni restaurants in tightly knit Yemeni enclaves, Howell said.

At Qahwah House, the goal is not only to serve Yemeni-style coffee, with its alluring tastes of cardamom and ginger, but also to impart information about Yemens history and culture. The country is, as the National Coffee Association notes, where coffee cultivation and trade began, though Ethiopia boasts being the birthplace of the discovery of coffee.

Thats why I want to  be like a messenger for my country  give the right picture about the people over there, and the coffee, said Alhasbani, whose brother was blinded after a bomb exploded near his familys home several years ago.

In Hamtramck, Abraham Aiyash, a first-generation Yemeni who is running as a Democrat for state Senate, is inspired by those who have struggled and recalls an uncle who died last year in Yemen after an airstrike.

Ill always remember that in the work that I do.  Ill be reminded that people before me kind of had to toil and sweat to make this possible.



Jeff Karoub is a member of APs Race and Ethnicity Team. Follow him on Twitter at <a target=blank href=https://twitter.com/jeffkaroub>https://twitter.com/jeffkaroub</a> and find more of his work at <a target=blank href=https://apnews.com/search/jeff%20karoub>https://apnews.com/search/jeff%20karoub</a> .Courtesy of the Cache County Jail

LOGAN  The sentencing for Jacob W. Wilson, who is convicted of sexually harassing a teenage girl, has been postponed so attorneys can gather more information in the case.

Wilson appeared in 1st District Court Monday morning. The 19-year-old Logan man previously pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual activity with a minor and dealing in materials harmful to a minor, both third-degree felonies, and misdemeanor drug possession.

Wilson was arrested in October by Cache County Sheriffs deputies, after he took a video of the underage girl, while she was in the shower. He later sent naked pictures of himself to her cellphone.

Court records show, he previously served 81-days in jail for sexting with an underage girl and criminal mischief.

During Mondays hearing, public defender Mike McGinnis asked to delay sentencing, so he could review a pre-sentence report about Wilsons criminal history. Judge Thomas Willmore said he would allow more time and rescheduled sentencing for March 19.

Wilson will remain in jail. He could face up to five years in prison.

<hr /><p style=text-align: center;>will@cvradio.comANKARA, Turkey (AP)  Turkey has requested that German authorities detain and extradite a wanted Syrian Kurdish politician, Turkish officials said Monday.

Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said Turkey asked Germany to extradite Salih Muslim, the former co-chair of the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, on Friday, who, according to state-run Anadolu Agency was spotted addressing a rally in Berlin over the weekend.

Muslim was released from custody in the Czech Republic last week, after being briefly detained on a Turkish arrest warrant. He was requested to remain within European Union territory and be available for hearings in his extradition case.

Turkey considers the PYD a terrorist group because of its links to outlawed Kurdish insurgents fighting within its own borders. Muslim was put on Turkeys most-wanted list in February, with a $1 million reward for his capture.

Bozdag told reporters that Turkey received information that Muslim planned to travel to Germany from the Czech Republic and requested his return on Friday.

Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said he would take up the issue with his German counterpart when he visits Berlin on Tuesday. Cavusoglu said Turkey did not know whether Muslim was still in Germany but said Turkey would continue to seek his detention and extradition wherever he goes.

There will be no more respite for him, he said.

A spokesman for Germanys interior ministry declined to comment on the case of Muslim, citing privacy rules.

In general terms, should we receive such a tracing request, either bilaterally or via Interpol, then there always needs to be a very, very diligent examination procedure, Johannes Dimroth told reporters in Berlin.

He added that the German government would take into account all aspects that need to be considered in such situations before making a decision.

Germany has objected in the past to Turkeys use of Interpol warrants to get other countries to detain Ankaras critics.SRINAGAR, India (AP)  Tens of thousands of angry protesters poured into the streets more than a dozen times in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Monday, hurling rocks and shouting anti-India slogans after soldiers killed four civilians and two suspected militants. Government forces responded with tear gas.

The overnight shooting at a military checkpoint threatened to spark even more unrest in a region that in recent years has seen renewed rebel attacks and repeated public protests against Indian rule.

The authorities had put parts of the highly militarized region under lockdown after the late Sunday night shooting, deploying soldiers and riot police, shutting schools and internet service and ordering people off the streets in some places in an attempt to derail protests.

But widespread anger, along with funerals for the six victims and separatist calls for a business shutdown, helped ignite angry demonstrations.

Many protests centered around the town of Shopian, where the shooting occurred, a region of mountain forests and apple orchards.

There were no immediate reports of injuries from the protests.

The trouble began late Sunday night, when officials say a car refused to stop at a checkpoint outside a Shopian military base and militants inside fired at the soldiers.

Indian army spokesman Col. Rajesh Kalia said a rebel and three civilians were killed when soldiers fired back. A fourth civilians body was recovered from a nearby car, officials said, and the body of another rebel was found a few kilometers (miles) away. Authorities said he was injured in the shooting and died later.

Kalia called the slain civilians over-ground workers, a term that Indian security forces use for people who give support to the rebels.

Police, though, were careful not to use that term, calling them simply young men and saying they were investigating the incident. However, Kashmirs top elected official, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, termed them civilians. In a tweet, Mufti said she was deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire in Shopian.

But across the region, most people believed all were killed in cold blood. The soldiers shoot even at shadows, and theyre employing every tactic to suppress people, said Bashir Ahmed, a Shopian resident.

Separatists challenging Indian sovereignty over Kashmir called for a strike after the shooting, and shops and businesses slammed shut across the region.

Top separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq called the armys version propaganda and lies and said the soldiers had let loose mayhem at Shopian.

Authorities cut cellphone internet service in the most restive towns, and reduced connection speeds in other parts of the Kashmir Valley, a common government practice to calm tensions and prevent anti-India demonstrations from being organized.

Officials also ordered schools and colleges closed until Wednesday and suspended rail service in the region.

At one of the funerals for the dead rebels, soldiers fired in the air to disperse thousands of mourners in a village in the Shopian area. No one was reported injured.

In January, anti-India protests erupted across Kashmir after soldiers killed three civilians during clashes in the same area.

Indian troops are covered by controversial powers that shield them from prosecution while serving in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, army and paramilitary officers can search homes and make arrests without warrants, shoot at people suspected of being separatists and blow up buildings or homes on suspicion that insurgents are using them.

Rights activists accuse Indian troops in Kashmir of routinely misusing their power, killing civilians in staged confrontations for promotions or rewards and to suppress public sentiment against Indian rule.

Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India, with both nations claiming the entire region.

Rebels have been fighting Indian rule since 1989, demanding Kashmir be made part of Pakistan or become an independent country. India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, a charge Pakistan denies. Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.



Follow Aijaz Hussain on Twitter at <a target=blank href=http://www.twitter.com/hussain%E2%80%94aijaz>twitter.com/hussainaijaz</a>SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had an openhearted talk in Pyongyang with envoys for South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the North said Tuesday.

Its the first time South Korean officials have met with the young North Korean leader in person since he took power after his dictator fathers death in late 2011  and the latest sign that the Koreas are trying to mend ties after a year of repeated North Korean weapons tests and threats of nuclear war.

North Koreas state media said Kim expressed his desire to write a new history of national reunification during a dinner Monday night that Seoul said lasted about four hours.

Given the robust history of bloodshed, threats and animosity on the Korean Peninsula, there is considerable skepticism over whether the Koreas apparent warming relations will lead to lasting peace.

North Korea, some believe, is trying to use improved ties with the South to weaken U.S.-led international sanctions and pressure, and to provide domestic propaganda fodder for Kim Jong Un.

But each new development also raises the possibility that the rivals can use the momentum from the good feelings created during North Koreas participation in the Souths Pyeongchang Winter Olympics last month to ease a standoff over North Koreas nuclear ambitions and restart talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

The North Korean report sought to make Kim look statesmanlike as he welcomed the visiting South Koreans, with Kim offering views on activating the versatile dialogue, contact, cooperation and exchange.

He was also said to have given important instruction to the relevant field to rapidly take practical steps for a summit with Moon, which the North proposed last month.

Moon, a liberal who is keen to engage the North, likely wants to visit Pyongyang. But he must first broker better ties between the North and Washington, which is Seouls top ally and its military protector.

The role of a confident leader welcoming visiting, and lower-ranking, officials from the rival South is one Kim clearly relishes. Smiling for cameras, he posed with the South Koreans and presided over what was described as a co-patriotic and sincere atmosphere.

Many in Seoul and Washington will want to know if, the rhetoric and smiling images notwithstanding, theres any possibility Kim will negotiate over the Norths breakneck pursuit of an arsenal of nuclear missiles that can viably target the U.S. mainland.

The North has repeatedly and bluntly declared it will not give up its nuclear bombs. It also hates the annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises that were postponed because of the Olympics but will likely happen later this spring. And achieving its nuclear aims rests on the North resuming tests of missiles and bombs that set the region on edge.

Photos distributed by the North showed a beaming Kim dressed in a dark Mao-style suit and holding hands with Moons national security director, Chung Eui-yong, the leader of the 10-member South Korean delegation. Chungs trip is the first known high-level visit by South Korean officials to the North in about a decade.

The South Korean delegates have another meeting with North Korean officials on Tuesday before returning home, but its unclear if Kim Jong Un will be there.

Kim was said to have expressed at the dinner his firm will to vigorously advance the north-south relations and write a new history of national reunification by the concerted efforts of our nation to be proud of in the world.

There is speculation that better inter-Korean ties could pave the way for Washington and Pyongyang to talk about the Norths nuclear weapons. The United States, however, has made clear that it doesnt want empty talks and that all options, including military measures, are on the table.

Previous warming ties between the Koreas have come to nothing amid North Koreas repeated weapons tests and the Norths claims that the annual U.S.-South Korean war games are a rehearsal for an invasion.

Before leaving for Pyongyang, Chung said he would relay Moons hopes for North Korean nuclear disarmament and a permanent peace on the peninsula.

Chungs delegation includes intelligence chief Suh Hoon and Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung. The South Korean presidential Blue House said the high-profile delegation is meant to reciprocate the Olympic trip by Kim Jong Uns sister, Kim Yo Jong, who became the first member of the Norths ruling family to come to South Korea since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

Kim Yo Jong, who also attended Mondays dinner, and other senior North Korean officials met with Moon during the Olympics, conveyed Kim Jong Uns invitation to visit Pyongyang and expressed their willingness to hold talks with the United States.

After the Pyongyang trip, Chungs delegation is scheduled to fly to the United States to brief officials about the outcome of the talks with North Korean officials.

President Donald Trump has said talks with North Korea will happen only under the right conditions.

If Moon accepts Kims invitation to visit Pyongyang it would be the third inter-Korean summit talk. The past two summits, one in 2000 and the other in 2007, were held between Kims late father, Kim Jong Il, and two liberal South Korean presidents. They resulted in a series of cooperative projects between the Koreas that were scuttled during subsequent conservative administrations in the South.



AP writers Hyung-jin Kim and Kim Tong-hyung contributed to this report.PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP)  Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday rejected a request from opposition leader Sam Rainsy for talks about the countrys political problems, denigrating his archrival as a traitor and a convict.

Hun Sen was responding to a message posted Sunday on Twitter by Sam Rainsy, a founder of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which called for negotiations to end a political crisis that has quashed many aspects of democracy, with the opposition party dissolved and its members thrown out of parliament.

Cambodian courts, generally considered to be under ruling party influence, last November sustained a government claim that the opposition party had conspired with foreigners to overthrow the ruling party.

A general election is scheduled for July, but with the absence of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, Hun Sens Cambodia Peoples Party faces no credible challengers.

I am always open to meeting with Hun Sens government in order to find a peaceful solution to this unprecedented crisis, a solution that would be acceptable to both sides, with international guarantees, Sam Rainsy tweeted Sunday.

Hun Sen said he was open to talks, but not with Sam Rainsy and his group.

Speaking at a Buddhist ceremony on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh, Hun Sen said he has spent more than half of his life negotiating for an end to conflict, an evident reference to his role in ending the threat posed by the communist Khmer Rouge, who after being ousted from power in the late 1970s carried out a guerrilla war. He said he was willing to hold talks for the sake of the countrys peace and stability, but not with convicts and traitors.

Hun Sen also denounced foreign countries promoting talks with Sam Rainsy, accusing them of interference in Cambodias internal affairs.

In recent years the opposition party has faced an onslaught of legal challenges from Hun Sens government. Court rulings forced Sam Rainsy to remain in exile and pressured him into resigning from his party.

Sam Rainsy has been in self-imposed exile since late 2015 to avoid being jailed in one defamation case, and was convicted again in December in connection with a Facebook post in which he accused Hun Sen of offering $1 million to a political operative to assail the opposition.

The attacks on the opposition culminated last November, when the Supreme Court ordered the Cambodia National Rescue Party to be dissolved for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government. Independent media have also been forced to shut down.

Kem Sokha, Sam Rainsys successor as opposition leader, has been charged with treason for allegedly conspiring with the United States to topple the government, and now faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted. He was arrested on the basis of videos from several years ago showing him at a seminar where he spoke about receiving advice from U.S. pro-democracy groups. The opposition party denied the treason allegation, saying it was politically motivated.

Hun Sen said Monday he will not ask King Norodom Sihamoni to grant an amnesty to Kem Sokha, who is in detention awaiting trial.

Choung Chou Ngy, a lawyer for Kem Sokha, said Sunday his client has high blood pressure and diabetes, and has fallen sick and weak in prison.

The lawyer said his defense team submitted a request two weeks ago for the court to give Kem Sokha permission to go to Singapore for medical treatment, but there had been no reply.

Hun Sen has been in power for three decades, maintaining a framework of democracy while exercising near-total control. His grip seemed shaken in 2013s general election, when the Cambodia National Rescue Party mounted a strong challenge, winning 55 seats in the National Assembly and leaving Hun Sens party with 68.CAIRO (AP)  Egypt gave a warm welcome to Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Monday, with military fanfare and a trip to the Suez Canal meant to underline a growing strategic partnership.

It is the first trip abroad for the 32-year-old Salman since he became heir to the Saudi throne, and comes after a tumultuous year in which he consolidated power by sidelining rivals, vowed to modernize the country and stepped up its rivalry with Iran.

Posters featuring Salman alongside President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi lined major roads in central Cairo, where Salman later met with Egypts Coptic Pope Tawadros II in the first such visit by a Saudi official to the spiritual center of the countrys Orthodox Christian community. He also met Egypts top Islamic official, Ahmad al-Tayyeb, and saw a performance at the Cairo Opera. Salman will travel to Britain and the United States later this week.

The prince and el-Sissi travelled through one of the new tunnels being built under the canal, before boarding a boat from a red-carpeted dock as an army band played marching music. He later cut the ribbon at a ceremony to inaugurate a nearby army-built resort.

Egypt seeks investment from oil-rich Saudi Arabia to help develop the area, where Cairo wants to establish an international transport, logistics and production hub. On the first day of the three-day visit, the two signed agreements on common investment funds and environmental protection, the Saudi news agency SPA reported.

The leaders are also expected to discuss the ongoing wars in Syria and Yemen, as well as their joint boycott of tiny Gulf nation Qatar, which they accuse of fomenting extremism across the region.

Salmans trip comes just a week after he triggered his most recent shake-up, replacing the kingdoms military chief of staff and other defense officials in what appeared to be an attempt to rethink tactics in the stalemated war in Yemen.

A Saudi-led coalition has been battling Iran-allied Shiite rebels known as Houthis since March 2015. The war had killed more than 10,000 people and devastated the Arab worlds poorest country, while the Houthis remain firmly in control of the capital and much of the north.

Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world, and Saudi Arabia, one of the wealthiest, tightened their longstanding alliance after el-Sissi led the military overthrow of an elected but divisive Islamist president in 2013, with Riyadh providing tens of billions of dollars in aid. As el-Sissi has consolidated power and global oil prices have fallen, however, the emphasis has shifted to investment.

The two countries have plans to build a causeway across the Red Sea and to jointly develop areas on both sides.

El-Sissi faced a backlash, however, over the transfer of two strategic Red Sea islands to the Saudis, denounced by critics as a quid pro quo for the massive aid package. The move sparked some of the largest protests against el-Sissis rule, which were swiftly dispersed.

The government insists the islands were always part of Saudi Arabia, and that Egypt only assumed temporary custodianship of them in the 1950s at a time of soaring Arab-Israeli tensions.

On the eve of the crown princes visit, Egypts Supreme Constitutional Court dismissed all previous rulings on the islands, including those that struck down the deal. The agreement has been ratified by Egypts parliament, which is packed with el-Sissi supporters.

Egyptians have a generally favorable view of Saudi Arabia, where many have worked in the booming oil economy during Egypts decades of stagnation since the 1970s. Remittances from Egyptians there play an important part in the local economy, while conservative religious customs have also taken root in Egypt, in part due to expats exposure to them in Saudi Arabia.ANKARA, Turkey (AP)  A Turkish court on Monday rejected lawyers requests for two Greek soldiers arrested in Turkey to be released from custody.

The two were arrested last week for allegedly entering a Turkish military zone and on suspicion of attempted espionage. Greece said the two soldiers  a lieutenant and a sergeant  accidentally strayed into Turkey due to bad weather during a patrol of the Greek-Turkish border.

The development has added further tensions to already strained ties between the NATO allies.

Lawyers for the two Greek soldiers filed a demand Monday for their release at the court in the northwestern Turkish city of Edirne. The court however, ruled that they must remain in custody on grounds that they did not have permanent residence in Turkey and because the court was still examining the digital data seized from them, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Family members of the two soldiers were able to visit them in jail Monday.

Earlier in Athens, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias renewed a demand for their swift release.

Turkey must observe procedures prescribed by international law, and not turn a routine incident into a big political and legal issue, he said.

A river marks most of the Greek-Turkish border, while a fence runs along much of the land section. However, some parts arent clearly marked.

Relations between neighbors Greece and Turkey have soured in recent weeks over longstanding disputes about boundaries in the Aegean Sea and natural gas drilling rights off the coast of war-divided Cyprus.

Last month, a Greek coast guard vessel was rammed by a Turkish patrol boat off disputed islets in the east Aegean, and Turkish warships prevented an exploratory gas rig from drilling near Cyprus.

Turkey meanwhile, is angered by court decisions in Greece rejecting the extradition of eight Turkish servicemen wanted by Ankara for their alleged involvement in a failed military coup in 2016. The eight deny any involvement in the failed coup, and Greek courts have ruled they would be at risk of not receiving a fair trial if returned to Turkey.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag rejected speculation that Ankara could use the Greek soldiers arrest to secure the extradition of the eight Turkish soldiers.

The arrest of the two soldiers in Turkey is not the subject of a swap, Bozdag said. Neither the Greek government nor the Turkish government have made a request for a swap.



Associated Press writer Derek Gatopoulos in Athens contributed.TEHRAN, Iran (AP)  Frances foreign minister traveled to Tehran on Monday promising tough talk on Irans ballistic missile program but was met with stiff resistance from his Iranian counterpart, who said Western arms deals had turned the Middle East into a gunpowder depot.

From his first meeting with a military uniform-clad official, Jean-Yves Le Drians one-day trip highlighted the challenge Paris faces in challenging Iran while at the same time trying to keep the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers intact.

While French leaders, including President Emmanuel Macron, have criticized Irans missile program, French companies like oil giant Total SA, carmaker Renault and airplane manufacturer Airbus have bullishly entered the Iranian market after the atomic accord, complicating any possible sanctions.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also made a point to mention France armed dictator Saddam Hussein during the bloody 1980s Iran-Iraq war.

The United States and other countries that have turned our region into a gunpowder depot by selling arms must stop such actions, Zarif said, according to a report by the semi-official ISNA news agency.

Iran insists its ballistic missile program is for purely defensive purposes, and has denied accusations by the U.S., France and the United Nations of supplying missile technology to Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have fired ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia.

Iran has learned to rely on its deterrent power, Zarif said.

Le Drian also met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who expressed hope that the 2015 nuclear deal could be preserved.

It would be a point of regret for everyone if the deal is not honored, Rouhani said, adding that his country is ready to deal with any situation that is not agreeable to Iran.

Ahead of Le Drians trip, the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying he would pursue a frank and demanding dialogue with Iran.

Irans ballistic missile capacity and position worries us enormously, Le Drian said last week at a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Having such tools is not uniquely defensive, given the distance they can reach.

Le Drian faced immediate pushback over French concerns about Irans ballistic missiles, starting with Iranian students waving signs at Irans Mehrabad International Airport protesting his comments.

That continued with Irans armed forces spokesman, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, who this weekend said over the weekend that Tehran would only give up its missiles when the West abandons nuclear arms.

The countrys defense capabilities will continue non-stop and foreigners do not have the right to enter this field, Jazayeri said Monday, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Le Drian first met Monday with Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council. Shamkhani, a former chief of Irans navy, made a point to wear his military uniform to the meeting.

Le Drian had been scheduled to visit Tehran earlier but postponed his trip after protests across Iran in late December and early January that saw at least 21 people killed.

Macron praised the demonstrations as the free expression of the Iranian people, but did not match President Donald Trumps full-throated encouragement of them.

Macron also has said he wants to see the emergence of an accord limiting Irans regional presence. The Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assads forces.

Its unclear how much of an effect Le Drians talks will have in Iran, especially as newspapers greeted him Monday with headlines calling him an impudent guest and Trumps Parisian servant.

Le Drian did not meet with anyone from Irans Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and runs the ballistic missile program.

During his visit, Le Drian also inaugurated an exhibition called The Louvre in Tehran at the Iranian National Museum.



Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.SALISBURY, England (AP)  A former Russian spy was critically ill after exposure to an unknown substance, British media reported in a case that immediately drew parallels to the poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.

National and local authorities said only that a man and a woman were found unconscious Sunday afternoon on a bench in a shopping mall in Salisbury, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) west of London.

British media identified him as Sergei Skripal, 66, who was convicted in Russia on charges of spying for Britain and sentenced in 2006 to 13 years in prison. Skripal was freed in 2010 as part of a U.S.-Russian spy swap.

Wiltshire Police, which is responsible for the Salisbury area, said the man and woman appeared to know one another and had no visible injuries. They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance. Both are currently in a critical condition in intensive care, the police department said in a statement.

The discovery led to a dramatic decontamination effort. Crews in billowing yellow moon suits worked into the night spraying down the street, and the Salisbury hospitals emergency room was closed.

The BBC, which first identified Skripal as one of the victims, quoted eyewitness Freya Church as saying it looked like the woman and man had taken something quite strong.

On the bench there was a couple, an older guy and a younger girl. She was sort of leaned in on him. It looked like she had passed out, maybe, Church said.

He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky, she said.

Public Health England said it had only limited information about the patients, but there doesnt appear to be any further immediate risk to public health.

PHE understands that those exposed to the substances have been decontaminated, the health agency said in a statement.

Public records list Skripal as having an address in Salisbury.

Skripal served with Russias military intelligence, often known by its Russian-language acronym GRU, and retired in 1999. He then worked at the Foreign Ministry until 2003 and later became involved in business.

After his 2004 arrest in Moscow, he confessed to having been recruited by British intelligence in 1995 and said he provided information about GRU agents in Europe, receiving over $100,000 in return.

At the time of Skripals trial, the Russian media quoted the FSB domestic security agency as saying that the damage from his activities could be compared to harm inflicted by Oleg Penkovsky, a GRU colonel who spied for the United States and Britain. Penkovsky was executed in 1963.

Skripal was pardoned and released from custody in July 2010 as part of a U.S.-Russian-spy swap, which followed the exposure of a ring of Russian sleeper agents in the United States.

The circumstances surrounding Sundays incident were still murky and police urged the public not to speculate. But few could avoid invoking the name of Litvinenko  the former Russian agent who died after drinking polonium-210-laced tea in a swanky London hotel in 2006.

His illness was initially treated as unexplained; evidence eventually emerged indicating he had been deliberately poisoned with the radioactive material.

A British judge wrote in a 2016 report that Litvinenkos death was an assassination carried out by Russias security services  with the likely approval of President Vladimir Putin. The Russian government has denied any responsibility.

Keir Giles, the director of the Conflict Studies Research Center in Cambridge, England, said he would be surprised if this were not linked back to Russia in some direct way.

He said he could not rule out an overdose or some other kind of accidental poisoning  but found it hard to picture such a scenario that would lead to a full-scale decontamination of the street and the hospital.

Giles also invoked a string of suspicious deaths of Russian government opponents in Britain since Litvinenkos slaying.

Its not just Litvinenko, he said. Its hard not to see a pattern of the attacks becoming more and more brazen.

Igor Sutyagin, who was part of the same spy swap as Skripal and now is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said there was not enough evidence to point fingers in any direction.

There are lots of former security officers that deserted to the West, he said, urging caution until more is known. It is necessary to balance this information.



Satter reported from London. Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Danica Kirka in London and Jo Kearney in Salisbury contributed to this report.BEIRUT (AP)  A U.N. convoy carrying desperately needed food and medicine to besieged civilians entered the war-ravaged eastern suburbs of Damascus on Monday, but aid agencies said Syrian authorities blocked the delivery of some of the health supplies, including trauma and surgical kits and insulin.

The shipment was the first to enter eastern Ghouta since Russia instituted what it called daily humanitarian pauses in the fighting a week ago. It also was the first time in weeks that any aid has been allowed in amid a crippling siege and a government assault that has killed hundreds of people in the past month.

Despite the truce, at least 50 civilians were killed Monday in airstrikes and shelling, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. The activist-run Ghouta Media Center said 24 people were killed in Hammouriyeh and another 10 in Harasta, both towns in eastern Ghouta.

The U.N.s humanitarian office said the 46-truck convoy of health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people, entered Douma  the largest town in eastern Ghouta  around midday.

But it said the Syrian government did not allow 70 percent of the health supplies to be loaded and would not allow them to be replaced by other items.

The World Health Organization said that during an obligatory routine inspection by Syrian national authorities, many of the supplies in the WHO shipment were rejected, including all trauma, surgical, dialysis and insulin supplies.

Marwa Awad, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program in Damascus who accompanied the convoy, also said many of the life-saving health supplies were not allowed to be loaded.

Consequently, three of the 46 trucks being sent to Duma today are close to empty, she told The Associated Press. We hope to be able to take them inside on the next convoy Thursday.

The government routinely removes lifesaving medical supplies from aid convoys, in a pattern of denying such aid to civilians living in opposition areas. U.N. officials have complained for years about such actions by the Syrian government.

Many civilians in Douma are desperate for food and medicine, and had hoped for relief as the convoy began entering the area, one of the last rebel strongholds near the capital.

Eastern Ghouta, home to about 400,000 people, has been under a crippling siege and daily bombardment for months. More than 700 civilians have been killed in the last two weeks alone.

Douma-based media activist Ahmad Khansour said there is tremendous reproach against the U.N. and the international community in eastern Ghouta.

Its not possible that the (Syrian) regime is allowed to besiege a city for six years, and then we wait for them to approve an aid delivery, he said.

Khansour said the aid covers 7 percent of the people in need.

Can you imagine such a number? It means if we divide it evenly, each family gets 2 kilograms (about 4.5 pounds). Its enough for one day. Its unbelievable how shameful this is of the U.N., he added.

The U.N.s Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Ali al-Zatari, said the aid was delivered to civilian groups and local councils, in coordination with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Military groups did not receive any supplies, he said.

We hope that civilians will get a fair share, their share, their ultimate share of the humanitarian supplies, al-Zatari said.

Ingy Sedky, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Damascus, said the aid delivery was a first positive step that would lessen the suffering of the civilians.

However, more needs to be done in the coming period, she added. A one-time aid delivery will never be enough to fulfill the needs. Repeated and continuous access to eastern Ghouta by humanitarian organizations is a must.

Sedky said the delivery included 5,500 bags of food and flour, enough for 27,500 people, in addition to medical items. One food parcel should last a month for family of five, the ICRC said.

Feels like racing with time, said her colleague, Pawel Krzysiek, in a tweet after the trucks arrived in Wafideen, a key crossing point set up by the Syrian government for civilians leaving eastern Ghouta and for aid to enter.

The only other U.N. aid delivery to eastern Ghouta this year was on Feb. 14, when a convoy of supplies for 7,200 people reached Nashabiyah, a smaller town.

Syrian President Bashar Assad vowed Sunday to continue the offensive in eastern Ghouta despite a U.N. Security Council resolution passed Feb. 25 demanding a 30-day cease-fire.

The daily humanitarian pauses would continue, allowing any civilians wanting to leave the region to do so, Assad said.

There is no contradiction between the truce and the military operation, Assad said in comments broadcast on Syrian TV.

The daily pause was ordered last week by Russia, a key Assad ally. It has been implemented with daily violations for the past week, and no civilians have left the encircled region.

Russia has accused rebel groups of preventing civilians from leaving, while residents say they fear permanent displacement or retribution by Syrian authorities.

The Assad government, meanwhile, said it achieved significant progress in its ongoing military operation in eastern Ghouta, seizing about 36 percent of the total area held by different armed groups.

Syrias Central Military Media said troops continued advancing from the east and were only 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from meeting up with troops coming from the west, which would cut eastern Ghouta into two parts.

Mondays announcement came a day after troops recaptured Nashabiyah and a number of villages and farms in eastern Ghouta in the largest advances since the governments wide-scale operation began last month. Besides the 50 reported civilian deaths, there also has been a wave of internal displacement of people fleeing the front lines.

In Geneva, the U.N.s top human rights body called for investigators to conduct an urgent and targeted probe of the violence in eastern Ghouta.

The Human Rights Council adopted a resolution proposed by Britain instructing its Commission of Inquiry on Syria, created 6 1/2 years ago, to conduct a comprehensive and independent inquiry and report back in June.

The measure also threw the councils support behind the U.N. cease-fire across Syria to allow humanitarian aid in and to evacuate the sick and wounded.



Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Philip Issa in Beirut contributed.The former Minister Delegate at the Ministry of Finance, was on March 02, 2018 promoted at the Presidency.

ADS





He hails from Kupe Muanenguba in the South West Region of Cameroon. His educational prowess made him emerge one of the best students of his batch at the National School of Administration and Magistracy (ENAM) where he graduated as Inspector of Treasury. Elung Paul Che proceeded to Harvard University in the United States where he obtained a Masters degree in Administration and Public Policy with specialisation on Finance and Development Policy report CT.



Over the years, he has occupied several administrative positions in the country during which observers have praised him for the values of promoting transparency, financial accountability, leadership and managerial skills. Formerly General Manager of the Hydrocarbon Prices Stabilization Fund-CSPH, he was appointed Minister Delegate in the Ministry of Finance.



He has also served in the following positions; Paymaster General in the North West and South West Regions, Director of Treasury, Director General of Treasury, Auditor at the bank of Central African States- BEAC, Commissioner at COBAC, Commissioner at the financial markets commission of BEAC, member of the audit committee of BEAC and focal point of the reform of the payment system in CEMAC amongst others.



Described as humble and a workaholic, his nomination has been received with contentment. In his reaction, he pledged full dedication to work that will be assigned to him within stipulated timeframes. He is married.



Eulalia AMABO

The former Economic Commissioner for CEMAC was on March 02, 2018 appointed Minister Delegate at the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development.

ADS





Economic and managerial skills of Paul Tasang, an elite from Lebialem Division, South West Region has enabled him rose to the rank of Minister Delegate at the Ministry of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, MINEPAT. He returns to a Ministry where he had some years back served as Secretary General write CT.



The experienced Economist was till December 2017 the Economic Commissioner for the Central African Economic and Monetary Commission, CEMAC.



After graduating from the then University of Yaounde with a Degree in Public Law and Political Science, he gained admission into the National School of Administration and Magistracy, ENAM, graduated with a Diploma in Taxation.



The urge for knowledge pushed Tasong to pursue a Masters Degree in Public Administration and Management in the Belgian University of Antwerp RUCA. From Belgium, he moved to the United States, where he read Executive Education and Public Financial Management at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government.



In his administrative career with the government of Cameroon, Tasong has served as Director of Public Investments in the then Ministry of Finance and the Economy, and one time Regional Delegate of the Economy, Planning and Regional Development, South West.



Before he moved on as a Regional Delegate, Tasong had served as Assistant Legal Research Officer in the Department of Taxes, Yaounde, Value-Added Tax Auditor in the Centre Provincial Tax Centre, Yaounde, and Chief of Centre for Taxes, Tiko, Fako Division, South West Region.



Paul Tasong prides himself with planning, monitoring and control skills. He is said to have powerfully contributed to the drawing up of the Growth & Employment Strategy Paper, GESP, which carries the Vision 2035. He is married with children.



Eulalia AMABO

Abidjan, Cote dIvoire, March 5, 2018  The President of the African Development Bank, Dr. Akinwumi A. Adesina, is pleased to announce the following Senior Management appointments:

ADS





Director, Macroeconomic Forecasting and Research



The African Development Bank is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Hanan Morsy as Director, Macroeconomic Forecasting and Research, with effect from March 12, 2018.



Dr. Morsy is a citizen of Egypt and a renowned macro-economic and public policy expert with vast experience in international financial institutions and the private sector. She brings a solid track record of top-quality policy analysis and research, a wealth of cross country experience and high-level policy dialogue and partnership. She has published extensively on wide range of economic and development issues and led a number of major flagship publications.



Dr. Morsy has been working as the Lead Economist for the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean Region at The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London since 2012. In that role, she established and headed the economic analysis and policy advice for the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean region as a new area of operation, led country missions, headed the policy dialogue with senior officials and the private sector, and developed country strategies for establishing transition priorities while supporting inclusive growth and structural reforms. She led the first The European Bank for Reconstruction and Developments flagship publication on Private Sector Diagnostics for Egypt and the 2013 Arab Competitiveness Report and managed several donor-funded technical assistance projects.



Prior to joining The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, she worked at the International Monetary Fund between 2003 and 2012 in various capacities across different departments including, Fiscal Affairs, Middle East and Central Asia, European, and Monetary and Capital Markets as well as Advisor to Executive Director. During her time at the International Monetary Fund, she led and contributed to work on exchange rate assessment, fiscal vulnerability, global financial stability, and macro-prudential policies. She gained extensive experience in economic reform program design and monitoring across a wide range of countries from developing (Kyrgyzstan, Iran, Dominican, and Antigua and Barbuda), to emerging (Pakistan and Kazakhstan), and advanced economies (Italy and Slovenia). Previously, she worked as an Economic Advisor at KPMG Consulting implementing public finance reform project in Egypt.



Dr. Morsy is a Board of Trustee Member at the London Middle East Institute and a Research Fellow at the Economic Research Forum. She served on the Global Sovereign Risk Panel founded by the Peterson Institute for International Economics and Moodys Investor Services to exchange views and analysis on sovereign credit risk issues. She is a Member of the Economic Policy Panel for Aberdeen, the first Scottish local authority to issue sub-sovereign bonds, as part of the new governance to underpin the Bond Issue, and advise the City Council on economic policies.



Dr. Morsy holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the George Washington University, USA, a Masters degree in Economics from University of California, USA, and a Bachelors degree in Economics and Computer Science from the American University in Cairo, Egypt.









Senior Director, Africa Investment Forum



The African Development Bank is pleased to announce the appointment of Stella Kilonzo, as Senior Director, Africa Investment Forum, effective March 1, 2018.



Kilonzo, a Kenyan national, has been the Division Manager, Capital Markets Division, since December 2013 when she joined the African Development Bank. She brings into this role 17 years of rich experience in the financial sector covering development finance, investments structuring to bankability, capital markets, risk management, corporate finance advisory and accounting.



As the Manager of the Capital Markets Division at the African Development Bank, she has been responsible for driving innovation in capital markets in Africa to accelerate development. One of her key achievements was her leadership of the Banks first-ever Partial Credit Guarantee to cover the exchange rate risk on foreign currency borrowing for Cameroon in its first-ever Eurobond issuance to finance infrastructure. She also provided leadership on the Banks investment projects in private equity funds, including a fund solely run by women asset managers in Africa.



In support of the Banks High 5 agenda, Kilonzo innovated mortgage finance lending operations at the Bank for Improving the quality of life for the people of Africa. She has also done good work on the financial sector integration pillar in support of the Banks Integrate Africa strategy. To boost liquidity, and the depth of Africas capital markets and regional financial integration, she led the Banks formal engagement with the Africa Stock Exchange Association. She directed the Banks conceptualization and co-funding of the Africa Exchanges Linkages Project, which led to a roadmap study recommending modalities of securities exchange linkages in regional sub-markets. She has also hosted several successful knowledge events.



Prior to joining the African Development Bank, Kilonzo held various executive and advisory positions in the financial sector. From 2005 to 2012, she worked at the Capital Markets Authority of Kenya first as Manager, in the Compliance and Market Operations Department, and later as the Chief Executive Officer, responsible for developing and regulating the entire securities and capital markets in Kenya while advising the Government on capital markets and financial policies. She led the expansion of the scope of the Capital Markets Authoritys approval and regulation of vanilla capital market products comprising debt and equity to more complex, structured products such as commodity and financial derivatives, futures, real estate investment trusts, asset backed securities and Islamic capital markets instruments. Previously, Kilonzo worked as Senior Associate, Corporate Finance Advisory Services, at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Kenya between 2004 and 2005, and as Senior Compliance Auditor at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority Chicago, in the United States of America from 2000 to 2004. She started her career as an internal Auditor at the GE Capital Subsidiary in Chicago.



Kilonzo holds a Master of Business Administration in Corporate Finance from the Loyola University Chicago Graduate School of Business, Illinois, United States of America, and a Bachelor of Commerce, Accounting degree, from the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya. She is also a Chartered Public Accountant (CPA) of the United States of America.







Director, Syndication and Technical Services Department



The African Development Bank is pleased to announce the appointment of Olivier Eweck as Director, Syndication and Technical Services Department, effective from February 1, 2018



Eweck is a citizen of Cameroon and was until this appointment the Manager, Financial Technical Services Division, for the African Development Bank since 2009. He brings into this role over 18 years of diversified experience in financial and capital markets, including portfolio management, private-sector investment as well as quantitative and derivative expertise



As Principal Financial Analyst and later as Manager of the Financial Technical Service Division, he was responsible for product innovations and development as well as marketing of the Banks local currency funding initiatives and client advisory services. He developed competitively priced and innovative financial products (debt and equity) for countries and private sector clients, drafted guidelines and established responsibilities and risk controls for their implementation across the Bank, monitored the Banks competitiveness and relevance to a variety of clients and made recommendations to Senior Management and the Board on the Banks pricing policy. He also identified and originated funding requirements in African currencies, executed funding programs and recommended strategies and instruments for the management of these resources pending their disbursement to projects.



Earlier, Eweck worked as a Portfolio Manager between 2006 and 2009, when he managed the Banks and affiliates fixed-income portfolios (African Development Fund, Nigeria Trust Fund). As an Investment Officer and Private Sector Analyst, he planned, prepared and coordinated preliminary evaluation notes on new projects between 2004 and 2006.



Prior to joining the African Development Bank, Eweck worked on Equity Derivative Structuring at Societe Generale  Paris La Defense, France from 2002 to 2004, and as a Wall Street Trader on the ISE, SG COWEN, and New York from 2001 to 2002.



Eweck holds a Masters degree in Applied Mathematics and General Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France, and a Masters degree in Finance and Economics from Ecole Nationale Des Ponts et Chaussees, Marne La Vallee, France.







Director, Regional Integration



The African Development Bank is pleased to announce the appointment of Moono Mupotola as Director, Regional Integration, effective from March 1, 2018.



Mupotola is a Zambian national. Before the launch of the Banks new business delivery model, she was the Director in charge of the Regional Integration and Trade Department. She has over 20 years of in-depth experience in trade and regional integration across Africa. She joined the Bank in 2009 as Division Manager, Regional Integration and Trade, and has provided strategic oversight and leadership for the Banks trade and regional integration agenda by supporting research, infrastructure projects, capacity-building programmes and the reform of regulations and policies. She initiated and established the Banks Africa Trade Fund and led the development of the 2014-2023 Regional Integration Strategy. She provided strategic oversight and leadership to key divisions, coordinated and prioritized projects for the African Development Fund, and provided advisory services on trade, investment, regional programs and multinational operations. She represented the Bank at global and African institutions on all matters regarding regional integration, trade, investment and regional infrastructure. She has provided significant expertise in the design of trade and transit facilitation measures in Africa, and technical support to the Africa Union Commission, Regional Economic Communities and Regional Member Countries. She has also helped drive the delivery of strategy, and the creation of results management tools, and knowledge frameworks. She also led inter-organization coordination and resource mobilization while managing a team to generate knowledge for policy change.



Mupotola earlier worked as Regional Policy Consultant for the Food Agriculture Organization Regional Office in Zimbabwe between 2006 and 2009; Trade Specialist at the SADC Trade Hub in Botswana and Zimbabwe between 2002 and 2004; as a Development Consultant in Zimbabwe from 2004 to 2006; and as Division Head and Chief Agricultural Economist at the Ministry of Agriculture, Directorate of Planning and Policy in Namibia from 1997 to 2002.



Mupotola holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Bennington College, Vermont, United States of America, and a Master of Philosophy degree from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom. She also has post-graduate qualifications in Leadership from the Wharton Business School, United States of America, and in Strategic Management from Cranfield Business School, United Kingdom.









Director, Water Development & Sanitation



The African Development Bank is pleased to announce the appointment of Wambui Gichuri as Director, Water Development and Sanitation, effective from March 15, 2018.



Gichuri is a Kenyan national, and joins us from the World Bank, where she had served as Water Practice Manager, Africa Region since July 2016.



Gichuri brings to the African Development Bank rich knowledge of Africa and strong global partner relationships. She has extensive leadership and management experience in the water sector, having developed and implemented several regional and country sector strategies and programs that respond to client needs.



At the World Bank, she has been responsible for leading the sector strategy, managing a water portfolio including water supply, sanitation, water resources management, irrigation and drainage in 12 countries. She joined the World-Bank in June 1998 as a Water and Sanitation Specialist, and worked as the focal point for sector dialogue and as a key team member of operations in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Mozambique. In June 2004, she became Senior Water and Sanitation Specialist, and as Task Team leader and key team member for operations and knowledge activities in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. In July 2008, she became the Regional Team Leader, Water and Sanitation Program in Africa, responsible for Africas Regional Technical Assistance and analytical program and strategy covering 14 countries. Thereafter, she was promoted to become Water Sector Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean region between April 2012 and June 2016.



Gichuri had earlier worked for the Business and Economics Research Company, Kenya, first as Project Manager and later as Deputy Research Director between 1990 and 1997, and led the Task Team for a large Sida-funded program covering more than 10 districts, in addition to over-seeing the companys operations, staff and budget.



She holds a Masters Degree in Economics, a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in Economics, Kenya and a Bachelors degree in Economics and Sociology from the University of Nairobi, Kenya.







Contact: Olivia Ndong Obiang, Principal Communications Officer, o.ndong-obiang@afdb.orgSunday, March 4, 2018 at 7:45PM

Unless youre living under a rock, youve probably seen the Solo: A Star Wars Story movie posters. And now one French artist claims Disney plagiarized his work. Hachim Bahous designed a series of album covers for Sony Music France and he says this became the template that Disney followed to create the posters for Solo. He posted the two designs side by side on his Facebook saying (originally in French): I am flattered that the quality of my work is recognized, but it is still pure and simple forgery, I have not be asked for my permission, I wish to be credited and paid for this work I have done for Sony!

The movies posters, according to IMP Awards, have been designed by BMT Communications and you can definitely see the similarities in things like the stylized typography, similar color schemes, and featuring images inside the lettering. We arent certain who specifically made the posters and we havent really gotten any word from the creators or Disney about the stylistic influences or inspiration for the posters. There is no comment yet from the company about the allegations.

Source: io9news, latest-news

AP-RO-POS: Five artists from Western Australia. Bilk Gallery for contemporary metal and glass. Manuka. Until March 24. The Western Australian connection between Helena Bogucki, Christel van der Laan, Brenda Ridgewell, Claire Townsend and Robin Wells does not exert a common influence across the group. Each artist has woven a personal narrative into their work with inspiration found in a sense of place, the forces of nature and the remnants of memories left in collected found objects. Bogucki graduated from Edith Cowan University in 2003. Her jewellery pieces are constructed narratives of history and place, and are fabricated using a wide variety of materials and metal-working techniques. As an archaeologist collects shards from a dig to construct a historical narrative, so does Bogucki collect objects such as old shell purses and stories from her field trips to explore Western Australia history. The shell purses she reinvents as jewellery pendants, engraving them with birds in the manner of scrimshaw and enamelling them to enhance the colour of the shells. The resulting objects could be interpreted as a cross-cultural reference to colonised Indigenous people. Her copper plaques of enamel work, with their weathered appearance, also seem mysterious  indecipherable signposts to a past history and place that remains unknown. Van der Laan also uses found objects to create her jewellery, which is characterised by a geometric sense of design that brings order to unlikely combinations of materials. Van der Laan was born in the Netherlands and arrived in Australia in 1981. She lives and works in Perth. One of the most intriguing elements in Van der Laan's work is her use of ceramic honeycomb - a refractory material used for soldering on a jeweller's bench. This white material filled with tiny holes when filed, cut and sanded looks like old ivory. In two brooches in particular (the Aligned series) the honeycomb makes a soft, pleasingly coloured, textured contrast to the other metals and materials of wood, plastic, bone and silver. The ceramic honeycomb used as the main material in three pairs of earrings is surprisingly successful and looks like tiny seed cones. Ridgewell has had an impressive career since her graduation in 1997 with an MA from RMIT, Melbourne. The artist has crafted a series of neckpieces, brooches and bracelets in sterling silver with accents of nine-carat gold. The brightness of the silver is the first impression of these works as well as their seemingly complicated construction. The wirelike silver strands are created into jewellery that is flexible, interactive and alive with energy and movement. These constructed forms, like the octagonal series of bracelets, define space in an architectural manner and impose their own presence rather than conforming to the contours of the body. Townsend lives and works in the Perth Hills. Her jewellery makes reference to a historical period and a personal memory. Inspired by her grandmother's collection of old embroidery, the artist has beautifully recreated the tiny motifs of flowers and embroidered lace edges in her jewellery. As well as hand piercing and enamelling, Townsend uses a metal inlay technique (Ibsa) to delineate delicate gold and silver patterns of flower and bird motifs that illuminate dark metal surfaces. Townsend's mastery of these techniques creates pleasing patterns of contrasting surfaces and textures on pendants, rings and brooches. Wells graduated from Curtin University in 1991. Since then she has established her jewellery practice in Melbourne. Her work, however, is informed by a rural upbringing in Western Australia that made her aware of the natural rhythms of nature - its fecundity and its devastation. In this exhibition, her work references bushfires and aspects of bird life using sterling silver. Of special note is her beautiful silver bushfire necklace where silver strands are woven together like twigs. Also striking is the brooch Aftermath, where the remnants of blackened burnt trees are rendered so graphically in oxidised silver that the work has a powerful impact despite its miniature size (7 centimetres by 4 centimetres). This is an exhibition of some importance. It reflects the high quality and diversity of contemporary jewellery being made by Australian artists who, although they have a connection with Western Australia, are also defined by their recognition both nationwide and internationally.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/345bb687-ae8b-49ca-a390-e40e871eb774/r0_113_2000_1243_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgnews, latest-news

It's a condition that affects one in 10 Australian women and yet forces so many to suffer "behind closed doors" according to Canberra dancer, choreographer and producer Liz Lea. Journalist Bree Winchester chatted to Liz about how endometriosis inspired her new one-woman show, RED, and how she's celebrating her ageing body. Bree: How would you describe RED in three words? Liz: Fabulous, entertaining and contentious. I rarely wear red. I feel empowered in the colour. Should wear it more. Bree: There are references to surgery in the show? Liz: Yes. I had endometriosis for over 20 years and needed major surgery. How best to talk about this? With humour, hard facts and bright lights. Bree: There are quite a few people you've collaborated with on RED, what did they bring to the table? Liz: RED is a one woman show but I do have some guest artists joining me on stage. We have film, dance, spoken voice and song. Each artist has a strong voice in the work. Three choreographers, in addition to myself - Vicki van Hout, Martin del Amo and Virginia Ferris - as well as dramaturg and mentor Brian Lucas have contributed enormously to the production. Each holds an important part in the different voices of the work to aim to tell one person's story but with a universal focus.Bree: What's your fascination with the colour RED? Liz: Red is the colour of the blood that runs through us all - regardless of colour, ethnicity, sexuality, creed and politics. Healthy and unhealthy. Blood keeps us alive. Bree: What's been the hardest part in developing the work? Liz: The process of actually putting it together! Questions of illness and disease are pushed away from public consciousness and yet so many have to deal with many issues privately. How to articulate this? My journey has taken place over 20 years. How to encapsulate this in 60 minutes? How to ensure people feel comfortable attending the show? How to ensure humour and pathos? Questions, questions, questions. There are also many collaborators involved in RED and ensuring all voices are heard and integrated into the work when we can't all be in the studio together has been a big job.Bree: What's been the most joyful part? Liz: The moments of beauty, joy and synchronicity - when I create a work of importance (or as I grow older and appreciate things) there are moments when the universe seems to bring a gift. These are the moments of beauty. I also have a supporting cast of amazing people. How will people feel when they leave RED? Liz: We hope they will be laughing. Uplifted, informed. Who knows, some might be challenged and unsettled. My journey is a classic one of being lived out behind doors. We are opening the doors to my particular story with an aim to sharing universal themes. Bree: A display of your dance costumes from the past two decades will appear in the foyer as part of the show. Which costume is most special to you and why? Liz: Probably Bluebird - which premiered at the Royal Opera House, London, in 2005. It had its Australian premiere at the Choreographic Centre in 2006. But also the green Madam Lou costume from 120 Birds. I sourced the sari in Goa where I was living at the time and dreamt on the work and costume while I was there. The outfit brings back strong memories and is a reminder of the way we can take one item, re-think and dream on it to create an entirely new identity with it. Bree: You've been dancing for decades. How has you body changed over 20 years? Liz: Oh my God. What a question - and perfect. My body is 25 years older than the first costume shown in the 20:20 exhibition at RED. Aged, worn, cut into, cut out of, still standing, persevering. The body is thicker in the middle but the mind is sharper and more aware. I can still wear the costumes but I'm not the same woman, so I choose not to. Liz Lea's one woman dance show RED, Thursday 8 March to Saturday 10 March at 8pm, and Sunday 11 March at 5pm, QL2 Theatre, Gorman Arts Centre. Tickets from eventbrite. Follow Bree Winchester on Instagram and Facebook

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/c2659e8c-0d5c-490f-b898-270e2dd4c707/r0_869_1333_1622_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgnews, latest-news

Canberra developer Michael Koundouris has settled a long-running legal stoush stemming from defects in the 32-apartment Manhattan building in Turner. Residents said they had recently reached a settlement with Mr Koundouris to fix issues at the apartment, although could not comment further because the details were confidential. In 2015, the ACT Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal identified a number of issues plaguing the building, such as significant cracks in the building's facade, and corrosion of steel beams holding-up a concrete slab above the basement car park. Resident Ed Purrer, who is a former chair of the Manhattan building's body corporate, confirmed a confidential agreement had been made with Mr Koundouris and Access Canberra. "We reached a confidential agreement, through mediation, and the three parties have agreed to it," he said. "It's important that Access Canberra were a party to this as well." Another resident described the agreement as bittersweet, saying many who lived in the apartment had lost their appetite for the legal battle and just wanted to move ahead with repair work. A representative of Mr Koundouris said the confidentiality clause stopped him from commenting on the terms of the settlement. "The Manhattan Apartments settlement deed was signed by the parties on 31 March 2017. The deed contains a non-disclosure confidentiality clause about its terms," the representative said. "I am therefore unable to answer your request." A spokeswoman for Access Canberra said the government was a party to the agreement through the Construction Occupations Registrar, who oversees construction work in the territory. "...an arrangement was reached with the parties - builder, owners and the-then registrar - with a confidential deed being signed," she said. The ACT government first issued a rectification order against Mr Koundouris in late 2013, with the ACT Civil and Administrative Appeals Tribunal backing this decision in 2015. Mr Koundouris argued the problems were a result of faulty maintenance, rather than faulty construction, and said at the time that he would appeal the tribunal's decision. Last month Mr Koundouris lost a separate legal bid to overturn a $1 million court order for defective work at the Lagani Apartments in Braddon's Fawkner Street. The owners corporation sued the developer in the ACT Supreme Court for a number of defects on the building, including significant waterproofing defects on balconies, in bathrooms, and the roof, structural-steel corrosion, and cracked masonry. The owners said the water leaks and other defects became obvious in 2001 and Mr Koundouris had investigated and conducted repairs on the building between 2001 and 2009. The critical factor in the case was time as the building had been completed in 2000 but the lawsuit not launched until 2010. The statutory warranty period for the building work in the ACT is five years. But the parties dispute when that five-year period should start. Mr Koundouris argued the case was out of time as it had been brought outside the warranty period and the Limitations Act. His lawyers said time should start accruing when the owners either knew or ought to have known about the problems with the building.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/db0a71bd-0c09-4b86-8d5d-5058e54a577d/r0_165_1969_1277_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgnews, latest-news

Expecting her sixth baby, Liberal parliamentarian Giulia Jones thinks this time she might have met her match. With the baby girl expected to be delivered early by caesarean in May and five other children aged 12 and under, Mrs Jones said this will be her last. The pregnancy is complicated, with a risk of bleeding, after Mrs Jones had caesarean births for her five previous children as a result of pre-eclampsia for her first two. Her risk of bleeding is such that this baby is likely to be delivered about five weeks early. But Mrs Jones, who has made the rights of women in the workplace one of her defining issues, is determined that the baby's birth and upbringing will be as natural a part of her life as a politician as the previous five. The baby will be born a few weeks before New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Adern makes history with her birth, an event Mrs Jones celebrates. "She's winning because she's having a baby and she is the prime minister. The naysayers win when you don't have the baby because of what people say." As for the other political baby in the news, Mrs Jones says Barnaby Joyce hit trouble because he disappointed the people who vote for him. "Barnaby's support base have changed their opinion of him and that's a problem for him," she says, of the news that the deputy prime minister, who has since gone to the backbench, is expecting a baby with a former staffer. "His support base is shocked and I think that's fair and reasonable. If you appeal to a support base of a political kind you actually tell them who you are and what your character is and what you value in this world." Mrs Jones's army officer husband Bernard Jones takes a big load of the childcare in her family of four boys and one girl, aged 12, 10, 8, 6 and 3. He was from a family of six children and Mrs Jones from a family of five, so the couple always planned a big family. She says big families make for great teenage years and teach the children to take care of each other. Two of the couple's children are in nearby family day care, two attend after-school care and two catch the bus home. The children are schooled at Trinity Christian School in Wanniassa. Having already made history breastfeeding in the ACT parliamentary chamber, Mrs Jones, 38, is determined that her family commitments will not stand in the way of her political career. She plans to take four or five months off, depending how much recovery time she and the baby need, during which time she will be paired for votes in the chamber and will stay involved from her home in Duffy. Having worked "very hard" over 10 years and three campaigns to get elected, she's not giving it up easily - and doesn't see why she should. Instead, the "dinosaur" working world should learn to accommodate families, she says. "I really strongly think why should we give up being women and give up all our aspirations to have our job?" she says. Mrs Jones points to small but important gains she has pushed through in Canberra: All public agency buildings now have locks on the doors of rooms for breastfeeding so women can use breast pumps without fear of someone walking in. And portable toilets are now provided at the frontline for firefighters.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/241ed7dd-9afc-452a-a850-079c76512967/r0_135_2000_1265_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgI read with interest Bill Ferguson's letter. I would agree that this is one of the most poorly thought out pieces of legislation ever. It would seem that the NDP wish to continue a war with Alberta that they initiated over pipelines over which they have no authority and try and punish Albertans.

I don't wish to deal with the oil issues for which they have far less than unanimous support but address the "Speculation Tax" Firstly I have no quarrels with stopping speculation, the new tax does little to address this issue rather it poses severe penalties on fellow Canadians. Alberta and BC have been good neighbours until the present government.

Many of us have deep roots in both provinces. My wife's family originally arrived in BC around 1905 and her father arrived around 1922. Our current property has been in the family since the 1950's and we have owned it since the 1990's. Suddenly we may be subjected to an exorbitant tax as we are "speculators". This makes no sense. Although our current primary residence may be in Alberta our family is more in B.C., my sisters live in B.C., my wife's 6 siblings live in B.C., our aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces live in B.C. Many of our neighbours went to Kindergarten with my wife.

We maintain a residence in B.C. not because we are speculators but because have we have a deep history of family and friends there. We pay our property and school taxes and contribute to the local economy, now according to the NDP we are speculators. Many of our friends are in similar positions with deep ties to the community, Mr Horgan and his cohorts thinks we can just be written off as we can't vote. That may have a little bit of truth however as we are retired we could spend the requisite 6 months in B.C. to vote against him. However our family and friends would provide a much more substantial vote as would the family, friends and others in similar position.

For a politician in such a precarious hold of power this would seem a political nightmare with a strong chance of becoming a backbencher.

Larry HunkaPhoto: Contributed

An award-winning brewmaster will be hosting a beer tasting course this month at the Okanagan College Vernon Campus.

Stefan Buhl has spent 17 years brewing beer and overseeing production for Tree Brewing in Kelowna and is now the owner of his own brewing and packaging solutions company.

Im really looking forward to chatting with people about the evolution of craft beer in B.C., hearing about what styles they like and talking about whatever they want to know more about, says Buhl.

After completing his apprenticeship as a brewmaster in his homeland of Germany, Buhl brought his knowledge and passion for German-styled lagers and ales and English ales to Canada in 1996.

Buhl was among those who helped ferment the craft beer revolution in B.C.

Craft beer was not on anyones radar at all here when I first arrived, says Buhl. People are much more knowledgeable and interested in it now, which is great to see."

Given the growth in the number of craft breweries out there, and with more and more people building an appreciation for craft beer, I felt like it was a great time to pass on what Ive learned over the years.

Buhl will share his decades of experience during a three-hour beer appreciation course on March 8 starting at 6:30 p.m. at Marten Brewing Company in Vernon.

Participants can expect an interactive session touching briefly on the history of beer making and Buhls experiences in the early days of craft beer in the Okanagan.

They will then taste their way through some of the brewmasters favourites from around B.C. The session will cap off with a question and answer period.

The course is offered through Okanagan Colleges Continuing Studies Department in partnership with Marten Brewing Company. Seating is limited.



Following the March 8 course in Vernon, the College will be also offering beer appreciation courses in Kelowna on March 10 and April 14 in partnership with Tree Brewing.

For more information and to register online (participants must be 19 or older), visit Okanagan.bc.ca/beerappreciation.Photo: Contributed

This week, we answer three frequently asked questions:

Should I update it?

Should I replace it?

Should I renew it?

Should I update it?

Surprisingly, often when I repair a computer or perform routine maintenance on a computer, Ill find a big whack of updates waiting to be applied.

If you have Windows 10 Home edition, it pretty much updates itself. Its almost impossible to stop that. But other programs need to be updated, too. In general, if you are using a program and it prompts you for an update, you should update it.

These programs include:

Java

Adobe Reader

Any browser (Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc.)

Any anti-virus program

Adobe Flash Player

iTunes (If you dont use it, uninstall it. If you use it, keep it up to date.)

Updates to those programs tend to be security-related more than performance/feature enhancements.

You might have a specific reason not to update a specific program (I heard it was bad, usually isnt specific enough for me), in which case hold off. You may subscribe to the theory of If it aint broke, dont fix it!

Thats fine as long as you realize that if it wasnt broken, no one would be issuing an update for it.

Some anti-virus programs, including the free version of Avast, notify you when programs need to be updated. If you dont have an anti-virus program that does that, then be guided by the requests from the programs themselves to update.



Should I replace it?

Desktop computers, if you properly maintain them, should last at least five years. Most will last longer than that. The main reason people replace desktop computers is that they are under-powered or RAM-deprived. In short, they are too slow.

When you replace a computer, replace it with something more powerful and with at least as much RAM as your old computer.

Laptop computers wont usually last as long. If you have a laptop for five years, it doesnt really owe you anything. Start budgeting to replace it. Again, replacing it with another under-achieving laptop doesnt make for a good computing experience.

You are backing up those computers, arent you? How old is the external hard drive youre using for your backups? I replace mine every three or four years.



Should I renew it?

Are you using a paid anti-virus/anti-malware program? That means youre subscribing to it, and eventually you will need to decide whether to renew the subscription or not.

When you buy a new computer, it usually comes with a trial anti-virus subscription. Sometimes thats 30 days. Sometimes its more. Whatever that subscription is, trust me, the program will begin nagging you well ahead of time, urging you to renew your subscription.

Thats the time to ask yourself if you are happy with that product, and whether its worth the time and effort of uninstalling it and replacing it with something else. If you dont want to pay for whatever it is you have, you must uninstall it completely before you install something else.

The choice is yours, but whatever you do have a working antivirus program on your computer. Just one, but a working one!



What have you been wondering about updating, replacing, and renewing?

Send email to [email protected] and Ill try to help.Many bio-plastic bags have no place in the garbage. They dissolve too slowly in oxygen-deficient environments like biogas plants and when incinerated they are a burden to the environment. A research project at the Austrian Centre of industrial Biotechnology (acib) hunts for enzymes, which accelerate degradation and avoid emissions. The aim is to reduce plastic mountains and replace conventional packaging by bio-based polymers.

Only very few know it and we all do it  bio-plastic bags have no place in organic waste collection bins. According to DIN standard EN 13432 biodegradability means that, after a fixed period of time, 90 % of a material have degraded to water, CO2 or biomass under defined temperature, oxygen and humidity conditions in the presence of bacteria or fungi. Lately, part of the bio-waste in plastic bags has been introduced into biogas plants where anaerobic conditions (oxygen-deprived environment) generate biogas as a valuable energy source. Under these circumstances bags from certain polymer types can only be degraded very slowly. The bio-waste cannot be set free and the process is disrupted, says Doris Ribitsch, scientist at the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (acib). Together with a team in Tulln, she addresses the question if the decomposition of plastic labelled as bio-degradable such as customary bio-waste plastic bags, food packages or mulch foils could perhaps also work in fermentation plants.

Botox in Bio-sludge

First the scientists did some in-silico research. We screened thousands of entries in an enzyme database to identify certain bacteria, which produce specific enzymes for the degradation of plastic, says Ribitsch. After some years they were successful. The bacterium Clostridium botulinum whose proteins are also present in Botox meets all requirements, declares the scientist, and small quantities of it are also present in bio-sludge.

In order to enable the enzymes of bacteria to degrade plastic under anaerobic conditions in a large area, considerable engineering efforts are necessary.

In cooperation with ETH Zurich acib produced an optimized enzyme variant, which was introduced into a biogas testing plant. Up to this time there had been no information on how enzymes from this anaerobic microorganism work and so the scientists developed a method to measure the degradation process of polymers.

First experiments proved to be promising: the enzymes optimized in the lab scattered on the polymer layer and stimulated the degradation process. Like a large shear they cut the long polymer chains in shorter and shorter pieces until only monomers, the smallest molecular parts, are left. These monomers are then metabolized by microorganisms. Thus, the plastic bags can completely be degraded and converted to valuable biogas together with the bio-waste, explains Ribitsch.

Considering that about 12% of the worldwide plastic waste (about 45 million tons per year) are incinerated, this new process could mean a turning point for the permanent degradation of plastic. A subsequent project with a company partner is just about to start and two patents have already been filed.

Plastic from Renewable Resources

The new method is, however, only an intermediate step on the ecosensitive route to a plastic-free life. As long as biologically degradable plastics cannot be recycled and reused properly the most reasonable solution is to gather them in biogas plants together with biogenic waste. Thus, the generated energy can at least be used for electricity, heating or bio-methane., says Ribitsch. In the long run the project results are expected to replace conventional packaging by bio-based polymers (from renewable resources), which degrade within some days. This would mean to close the carbon cycle and to avoid plastic waste.

If you are now worried that these new plastic bags will decompose on your way home from the shop rest assured. To decompose they still would need the conditions of compost pile or a biogas plant, says Ribitsch. No danger for your groceries  and for the environment either, thats the plan.Guest Commentary Fair maps for our children, for our Hispanic communities, for our futures My son will vote for the first time next year. And for his first time, the state of Indiana will have brand new legislative and congressional districts. It should feel like a clean...

Voice of the People During the 13 years I have called Chesterton my home, there are few small-town activities I have come to enjoy quite like the high schools homecoming parade. It is always a beautiful moment of celebrating our students, gathering for an afternoon of fun and seeing...

Voice of the People I find it hard to believe that the majority of Town employees will put their self-interest over the GREATER GOOD which is, the viability of the Town of Chesterton by not getting vaccinated. Our town tried to save money by self-insuring itself. We could be...

Guest Commentary Local coalition aspires to achieve smokefree air for all More than 1 in 5 Indiana adults smoke cigarettes (21.5%), one of the highest rates in the nation, while the number of youths using vaping products remains a concern for anti-smoking advocates. Secondhand smoke is estimated...The facility will serve as Aspen Dentals second practice support center outside of New York, so that we have a home base in the Midwest as well, Dwyer said. It will house a learning and development center for dentists around the country whose practices operate under the Aspen Dental brand.In a statement after Mondays reversal, the Association of Flight Attendants said it was encouraged to see that United management has taken flight attendants' feedback seriously and decided to pause any changes, according to spokeswoman Taylor Garland. Earlier, the union had said that employees were entirely opposed to and offended by this new select bonus program.Last month, as the world watched the Winter Olympics in South Korea, another nail-biter was unfolding across the United States, in classrooms throughout Illinois, and in the same rural hamlets and urban centers that gave us speed skaters and Alpine skiers. It was a sport requiring a murderous degree of precision, a contest played by young people asked to show poise beyond their years, a tournament in which countless hours of repetition could crumble in a microscopic flub. No one stood on a mountain and launched themselves into Korean airspace, no one hurled her body down a canyon of ice at 80 mph. But it takes guts of steel to survive a competitive poetry recital."But what happened with Harvey, and what's happening all over, was long overdue. We can't let bad behavior slide anymore. The world is watching us. We need to set an example. And the truth is, if we are successful here, if we can work together to stop sexual harassment in the workplace, if we can do that, women will only have to deal with harassment all the time at every other place they go."Urreas most helpful guide through this tangled familial web is Little Angel, the youngest de la Cruz son. His mother was an American woman who, as his older half-siblings see it, stole their dad. Now an English professor in Seattle, Little Angel is half outside the family circle and so overwhelmed by their numbers (It was as if a dump truck had spilled a ton of humanity into the yard) that he has to take notes to remember whos who.Beware of social media. Fifty years ago, if you misbehaved badly, it would just be a local thing, and maybe your family would be the only ones who knew. But now, its instantaneously shared by millions all over the world. Not only that, its there forever. Nothing is really private; you can go viral in a second.On a night that saw host Jimmy Kimmel and a handful of stars carry sub sandwiches and hot dog cannons into a movie theater filled with Regular Moviegoers; on a network that tripped all over itself to remind us that the upcoming Roseanne reboot is a show about people who look like us; on a show that clumsily poked fun at Hollywood being out of touch  each of the 45 million Swarovski crystals on this stage tonight represent humility, Kimmel joked  Haddish pulled a dress three-peat.Built in 1912, the church lay dormant for nearly a quarter-century before the Sydell Group bought it five years ago. (The New York-based company operates several hotel brands, including the Line, NoMad, Saguaro and the Ned.) When the new owners entered the neoclassical building, they discovered a scene frozen in place and prayer, down to the tithe envelopes tucked inside the prayer books. The design team salvaged many of the furnishings and materials. They painted the pews in Rothko shades and set them by the elevators. On each of the eight floors, they placed room numbers inside hymnal boards to help guests find their accommodations. And they preserved the arched milk-glass windows that diffuse the sun's light like a squeeze bottle of golden honey.Johnson said the movie, in which Willis plays an Evanston surgeon who seeks violent retribution for the murder of his wife and shooting of his daughter, is not the type of narrative we want for our city, because we get poked enough on the crime issues that are in this city. What frustrating for me about that is that this city is not the crime show that people want to paint us out to be.Elleson, who last week removed text from his campaign website that appeared to falsely imply a Chicago Tribune endorsement, and continues to falsely claim that he has been endorsed over Schakowsky by an independent voters group, told Inc. in an email that, There is no sense in engaging in any of this with you, as you are going to write as you see fit.We dont know what was going on in the apartment where three people were having a scuffle. Neither did Thomas when he burst in there with his high-powered rifle. All we know is that one man was later treated for minor knife injuries and the one who allegedly stabbed him was arrested.Generally, what airlines want, what they think is best for themselves and their customers, is a facility for adequate capacity for all the flights that need to be there, but isnt too expensive, said Kaplan, referring to space for planes and passengers. Airlines dont want Taj Mahals, and theyve criticized projects around the world that were so expensive that, though they added capacity, they added so much cost it can depress air service. Higher costs are passed along to passengers, which can hurt business.The same day, a 16-year-old sophomore at Lake Park High School in Roselle was in court after authorities said the student  frustrated by an earlier threat that had shut his school down  posted that his peers ought to shut up about school shootings or he would do one. His lawyer said it was a joke, albeit one in poor taste.The 13-year-olds, a boy and a girl, and a 14-year-old girl were shot about 7:10 p.m. in the 4900 block of West Rice Street, according to police, correcting earlier information that the shooting took place a block farther east. Police also earlier said the 14-year-old girl was 26.They have not had an opportunity to properly grieve because of the media involvement  to the point that (the Davis) minor daughter, somebody got a hold of her cellphone number and was trying to contact her. Contacting a minor is not good, he said.Chicago police are searching for an 86-year-old man who went missing Sunday afternoon from the Marquette Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side, authorities said.We need to have a big-tent party. We need to rally around those issues that can bring all Democrats together, and thats what Ive always done, he said. First and foremost, we have to be for working men and women, for being champions of the middle class and taking care of the bread-and-butter issues that people really care about and restoring the American Dream. That brings all Democrats together, and I think thats what we should focus on.And there are political benefits for Ives in proposing it. Mondays news conference allows her to highlight a difference she has with Rauner ahead of the primary. Last year, Rauner signed into law a bill that protects immigrants who are in the country illegally from being detained solely because of their immigration status. Conservative Republicans like Ives accused the governor of turning Illinois into a sanctuary state.The U.N.'s humanitarian office said the convoy with health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people in need, entered the town of Douma in besieged eastern Ghouta. But it said the Syrian government did not allow 70 percent of the health supplies to be loaded, and would not allow them to be replaced by other items.The (Champaign) News-Gazette reports prosecutors told jurors Alexander on Friday was an aspiring rapper who was angry about being kicked out of the club and that nine witnesses identified him as the gunman.On Thursday, the White House announced yet more tariffs, this time on steel and aluminum imports. Predictably, this protectionist measure pushed stock prices for beneficiaries like U.S. Steel and Century Aluminum way up. It also initially pushed stock prices for other industrial companies such as Caterpillar and Boeing  which will now face higher prices for raw materials, as well as the threat of retaliatory tariffs abroad  way down.I told you about her last week. Shes 7. She and her mother fled Congo and arrived in Southern California in November seeking asylum. They followed all the rules, passed an initial screening that found they have a strong case for asylum and then were separated with no explanation. The mother remained at an immigration facility in San Diego  and the child was taken 2,000 miles away.My mom has been a teacher for 21 years, and she is one of the many teachers who are opposed to having guns in classrooms. She believes that we should focus on giving educators resources to help teachers identify and work with kids in crisis and kids with mental health issues instead of giving teachers guns. We should also teach nonviolent, productive ways to handle conflict and disappointment, such as the see something, say something policy where bystanders report something that they see."I am definitely open to opinions from the public," Frieders said. "I don't think the historical quality of the jail is something that the entire jail itself should be memorialized from funds dedicated to preserving (it). Let's hear some ideas but I am not too excited about actually doing it as property the city owns.""It definitely feels colder than the 40-something degrees they are saying it is," O'Malley said as he grabbed a towel. "I think I've got ice in my shoes. As far as it 'taking your breath away' as people say, it does that and then some. I sort of walked in instead of running. I'm not sure that was the best decision."Hits were hard to come by for the Chicago White Sox, who lost 2-1 to the Texas Rangers on Saturday at Globe Life Field. Five Rangers pitchers limited the Sox to just three hits  a Luis Robert single in the first, a Yasmani Grandal home run in the sixth and a Romy Gonzalez single in the seventh.Renehan believes she can be a better steward of their tax dollars. She said she would insist on awarding contracts based on an objective cost/benefits analysis and reduce the number of no-bid contracts, though she said she does not know the total number or dollar amount of contracts that are awarded without going through the competitive bidding process.Carson's had been an anchor at Lincoln Mall, southeast of U.S. 30 and Cicero Avenue, since the mall opened in 1973. After the mall closed in January 2015, the Carson's store remained open while another former mall anchor, J.C. Penney, opened a freestanding store just east of the mall a few years ago.Our jury is part of the art world, King said. One is a gallery owner. Another is a former gallery owner and art collector. Of the jewelers we want a couple who are goldsmiths, a couple who are silversmiths. For our wall art some paint oil on canvas. We make sure we dont have too much of the same.Drivers whose vehicles are damaged by a pothole have the option to file a claim for repair reimbursement with local municipalities, counties and the state. But the general rule of thumb is what DuPage County has on its website: Illinois law holds that the county is not a general insurer of motorists traveling on county highways and in order to be liable for damages, the county must have had prior notice of a condition and have had an adequate length of time to remedy or repair the condition.Trying to find a solution to her baby brother's wet diapers inspired Kiera Jesse, 10, to experiment which disposable diapers are the most absorbent. Kiera said she started out with a hypothesis that the most expensive diapers would absorb the most liquid, but after trying out several brands, she found out the least expensive brand had the best layers for absorbing liquid.But if a majority rejects the referendum, District 95 residents' property taxes are estimated to drop by $118 for every $100,000 of home value, Malek said, since the district wouldn't be issuing additional bonds for the proposed projects while still working to pay off bonds that are scheduled to expire by 2019."Our mission is to basically help local cancer survivors to offset some of the day-to-day costs that they might forget about while they're undergoing treatment," Hunt said. "We just want them to be able to focus on healing."The event also brought out people who said they had never been involved in a political protest before, like Kane Peterson of Aurora, who brought his wife and 17-year-old son, Quintin. "With everything that's been happening, we need common sense gun safety, background checks, minimum age requirement. It's too easy to get a gun. The government is not doing enough to protect us."The Rev. John McGivern said Quiano was someone who sought connections with others and never hesitated to ask for help. The community learned important lessons from a man who lived simply and quietly, McGivern said; he encouraged congregants to carry that with them in the face of the cruel way Quiano died.As police investigated, they learned that two other teachers were also involved, Mierzwa said. After the employees were taken into custody, they said they didnt think there was anything wrong with giving the kids melatonin because its an over-the-counter supplement, he said."Although it was a long year of negotiations, the communication was excellent as we worked to create our first contract as a union," union co-Presidents Rene Eggleston and Jason Borst said in a statement released by the district. "We are thankful to our negotiations team and to the district's team for working together successfully through this process, and we hope that this positive communication between us will continue going forward.""We are aware, and feel it is important to note, in our investigation we learned there are two subjects that attend the high school with the exact same name as the individual that allegedly made the post," Erow said, adding the individual who allegedly made the post has been taken to a local hospital for evaluation.There was a lot of discussion about STEM and STEAM, Jacobs said. We had a back and forth about whether its good or not. I said part of the problem is the survey we got back was split 50/50 and that doesnt really help us when the community cant even decide which way we should go.Every day women and children flee violent conditions in their countries and cross the border into the United States seeking asylum. The majority are from Central America; others come from Haiti, Cuba, Romania, Asian countries and elsewhere.



The asylum process is difficult, confusing, and takes years, according to Virginia Martinez, a lawyer by trade and a member of the Illinois Prison Review Board. The Chicago native volunteers with the CARA Pro Bono Project at the Texas Family Residential detention center in Dilley, Texas, where she helps prepare women for their interviews with asylum officers.



"The difficult part is waiting for that interview on which their entire future depends," said the lawyer who, since 2016 and out of her own pocket, travels to the Texas border to see her clients.



During the interview, the women are asked a series of questions that determine if there are no other options for them outside of asylum. Martinez listens to their stories first and then helps them structure each one so that it makes sense to the officer and compels them to issue a decision in their favor. Otherwise, she helps the asylum seeker appeal their case or get a new hearing with an immigration judge.



Asylum applicants typically come with a history of violence and suffer physical or mental health issues, Martinez explained. They are often robbed by organized crime and women are at times raped in their own countries and then raped again on their way here, she said.



Women say that in some of the countries where they come from, gangs run the show and the police have no power to act or they choose not to act. Some of the gangs, like the MS-13, were originally started in the United States and later deported. They built up a gang structure there that have displaced the authority of the government and the police, Martinez said.



Both international and United States laws have a process through which individuals can enter the country when facing persecution or harm in their home country. This may include physical violence, torture, threats, detention, discrimination, and other actions of a government or a group that the government cannot or will not control, according to the Department of Homeland Security.



In order to request asylum, people must first reach the border, get arrested or turn themselves over to border patrol or ICE agents to then request asylum, Martinez explained. The immigrant must demonstrate a credible or reasonable fear before being released to their relatives in order to continue the lengthy petition process.CSU Pueblo football gets first win of season to open RMAC play

The CSU Pueblo football team found a way to get into win column by edging Black Hills State 19-16 in the RMAC opener for both teams at the ThunderBowl in PuebloA series of highly publicized scandals at Chinese preschools rocked the country in recent years, which increased both government and parental scrutiny on private education. Observers were shocked that such maltreatment could occur at well-regarded private preschools in wealthy neighborhoods, including at RYB Education  Chinas largest private preschool chain, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

Rather than discouraging participation in private education, however, the scandals underscore the need for more reliable, high-quality schools. And Chinas education industry  already enormous  is poised to grow even larger. With the rise of Chinas lower tier and inland cities, and a government interested in equipping the workforce for a changing economy, demand for education continues to grow.

Despite high market demand, the education industry remains a sensitive area for foreign investment in China. FDI is either encouraged, restricted, or prohibited depending on the subsector. With increased scrutiny, new laws, and a variety of investment vehicles to consider, investing in Chinas lucrative education industry is challenging without a detailed entry strategy.

RELATED: Hong Kongs New Two-tiered Profits Tax

Education subsector opportunities

Chinas education industry is vast and varied, with different opportunities for different demographic subsets and school types. Foreign investors must enter into a joint venture with a Chinese partner for most types of educational institutions, and are prohibited from participating in compulsory education  primary and junior secondary schools for students aged 6-15.

Preschool and early education

Although Chinas population is rapidly aging, the recent relaxation of the One Child Policy has increased birth rates at a time when families are better equipped to spend on education.

When launching the One Child Policy reform in late 2015, the government projected that it would lead to an additional 17.2 million new births between 2017 and 2022. With this boom in newborns, Chinas preschool education market is expected to grow from RMB 380 billion (US$57.8 billion) in 2016 to over RMB 540 billion (US$82.1 billion) by 2020.

With the recent child abuse scandals at preschools, however, new market entrants will face higher entrance requirements. For example, preschools will have to install surveillance cameras in classrooms, and, in Beijing, government inspectors will be responsible for continually checking in on operations.

After-school tutoring

Chinas education system  and the job market upon graduation  is fiercely competitive, which leads many students to enroll in supplementary after-school education to keep up. Chinese families are prepared to spend heavily on education to keep their children competitive with their peers.

Although foreign schools cannot provide education services for compulsory school years, they can set up after-school tutoring schools for additional education. However, given that education during compulsory school years is heavily geared towards preparations for the grueling gaokao standardized exams that determine university placements, curricula is invariably developed to cater to these exams. As a result, foreign education providers have less to differentiate themselves from domestic providers that are more adept at gaokao preparation.

Despite these limitations, there is still space for foreign education services. China is the worlds leading source of international students, with 544,500 Chinese nationals studying abroad in 2016. This means that in addition to preparations for the gaokao, many Chinese students also attend SAT preparation schools and other schools to prepare them for studying overseas.

Additionally, foreign education providers continue to have opportunities in language instruction. Although this sector is mature in Chinas first tier cities, there are strong expansion opportunities in lower tier and inland cities. Such schools can cater to both younger students and adult learners.

Vocational education

As Chinas economy transitions towards services and higher value-added manufacturing, the countrys workforce needs more technical and specialized training. For example, although China aims to become a world leader in artificial intelligence (AI) and is investing heavily to meet this goal, its workforce has a severe talent shortage in the industry.

This trend can be seen not just in highly technical fields, but also creative ones. Chinas garment industry, for instance, is looking to transition from labor-intensive production to higher value product design, but lacks qualified talent.

The Chinese government is aware of the need to upgrade its workforces skills and education, and is investing heavily in vocational education to bridge the gap. China has the most vocational training institutes in the world, with nearly 27 million students attending some 12,300 institutes.

But despite the high number of vocational schools, many are low quality and lack teachers who are qualified to instruct these topics. As a result, China is in need of foreign investment to bridge the shortfall, which explains why vocational education is the only educational sector completely open to FDI.

Vocational education providers face their own set of challenges, however. Students at such institutions have high expectations of employment upon graduation, which means that providers must ensure the skills being taught are always up-to-date and relevant for the local business environment.

Further, vocational education carries a stigma of not being as prestigious as academia, particularly given the uneven quality of existing institutions. Foreign vocational schools may do well to highlight their professionalism and expertise for families who see the appeal of foreign education for not just its quality, but also its cachet as a status symbol.

Pre-Investment, Market Entry Strategy Advisory Services from Dezan Shira & Associates

Choosing the right investment vehicle

In addition to ownership restrictions on foreign investors, Chinas private education laws set forward a wide range of regulations on how private schools can function. Amendments made in November 2016 to the Promotion of Private Education Law (the Law), together with supporting amendments, more clearly differentiate private schools as either non-profit or for-profit.

However, while the amendments, which came into effect on September 1, 2017, banned for-profit private schools from offering compulsory education services, they also provided private schools with more legal clarity for profit-seeking activities.

Before the amendments to the Law, private schools in China were usually set up as non-profit schools. However, foreign investors were able to derive profits from private schools through investment vehicles such as variable interest entity (VIE) structures  VIEs allowed foreign investors to form contracts without holding direct legal ownership. The updates to the law, in addition to legitimating the idea of for-profit private schools, which leads to less regulatory risk, and reduces the potential for disagreements with partners, give for-profit private schools more operational flexibility.

For example, for-profit private schools are now able to set tuition without having to seek government approval; they also operate under more clarity under Chinas corporate laws. However, while non-profit schools will still be able to benefit from preferential land use and tax policies, for-profit schools are no longer able to avail of these incentives.In a festive white carnival tent reminiscent of beach parties and bar mitzvahs, 400 of Hollywood's talented and progressive independent (non-studio) filmmakers gathered Saturday in the pouring rain to honor their top picks for the most talented and innovative films and filmmakers in the world.



Jordan Peele's horror film "Get Out" was this year's big winner, sweeping up two out three of his nominations for Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture, leaving only Best Screenplay unclaimed.

Groundbreaking director, Spike Lee, who won Best First-time Director himself at the Spirit Awards in 1986 and who teaches a masterclass in film direction at New York University, presented Peele with the Best Director statue.

In his acceptance speech, Peele said: "Our truths are the most powerful weapons we have against the lies in this world. I didn't think it could ever get made, but I knew (this film) had to exist."

He went on to say: "Its clear we are at the beginning of a renaissance right now, where stories from the outsiders, stories from the people in this room, the same stories that independent filmmakers have been telling for years are being honored and recognized and celebrated."

For the last 33 years, the Independent Spirit Awards have been an important part of the motion picture industry, shining a spotlight on the world's most poignant, insightful and politically active films and filmmakers each year.

The mission statement of Film Independent, who hosts the awards, is to champion creative independence in visual storytelling and support a community of artists who embody diversity, innovation and uniqueness of vision.

Comedian hosts, Nick Kroll, who voices Netflix' "Big Mouth" and John Mulaney, from the Broadway hit, "Oh Hello on Broadway," opened the show by addressing the topical elephant in the room: the #TimesUp movement to stop sexual misconduct and exploitation.

Activist Producer, Effie Brown, took to the stage to speak passionately about Film Independent's successful mentorship program, Project Involve, extorting the attendees to get involved in mentoring, hiring and funding the hundreds of new filmmakers they have mentored over the years.

The Best Supporting Female Actor Award went to multi-Award-winner Allison Janney, for her "eats-her-own-young" mom in "I, Tonya."

Janney told Xinhua that "can-do" spirit of "I, Tonya" that enabled them to get it done, "represents the best in independent cinema."

Best Supporting Actor went to the reigning favorite, Sam Rockwell, who has a big chance in wining at the Oscars tomorrow as well.

Best Female Lead went to Francis McDormand, who wore her bedroom slippers up on stage and expressed relief that she was allowed to swear at the Spirit Awards.

"Martin McDonagh knows that a well-placed (expletive) makes a sentence sing like nothing else," she explained.

Best Male Lead went to youngster, Timothee Chalamet, for "Call Me By Your Name," who promised that "Things are going to change" in the industry.

Women and minorities walked away with the majority of the awards on Saturday, including Tatiana Riegel, the first woman to be nominated for a Best Editing Award, who took home the prize for her tight, compelling edit of "I, Tonya." When asked if her win might put her in a position to get equal pay to male editors, she replied: "There is a discrepancy. I hope to get parity, but it may take time."

"Mudbound" won the Robert Altman prize, which is presented to the director, ensemble cast and casting director of the top film by Film Independent, the sponsor of the Independent Spirit Awards.

"Mudbound" director, Dee Reese, told Xinhua: "This film is a powerful reminder that although our nation's painful past is woven into the present, we can move into a better future."

The Best First Screenplay Award went to Pakistani-American, Kumail Nanjiani, of "Silicon Valley," and his wife and writing partner, Emily V. Gordon, for their hit, comedy biopic, "The Big Sick," about an interracial couple who confront illness and parents resistant to their daughter's ethnic suitor. The two are also nominated for an Oscar in the same category.

First Feature Award went to "Ingrid Goes West" and Best Documentary went to "Faces Places," by noted French director, Agnes Varda and Kiehl's Someone to Watch Award went to Korean-American writer/director, Justin Chon, for "Gook."

Best Screenplay went to a very surprised Greta Gerwig, who later told Xinhua, "It was 350 pages, but I managed to pare it down to the more interesting, manageable parts." She is also up for an Oscar tomorrow.

Chloe Zhao, a Beijing native who immigrated to the United States with her folks when she was 15, was nominated for Best Feature, Best Director, Best Editing and Best Cinematography for her latest film, "The Rider." She was awarded the newly-vested Bonnie Award, an award given to women filmmakers in mid-career, rather than first-timers.

Multiple Emmy Award-winning and Academy nominated director, Ava DuVernay, raved about Zhao: "Her work burns so bright, it hurts my eyes." DuVernay is a leader in the #TimesUp movement and recently directed Oprah Winfrey's film adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's young adult classic, "Wrinkle In Time."

After accepting her award, Zhao told Xinhua: "This isn't about one person. I have an amazing team. Working with my gifted cinematographer is like a dance. And to Ava and all the strong women out there, thank you for being great role models." Zhao is now planning a Sci Fi film which she intends to shoot in China.The Spring Golden Eagle Festival, a traditional Mongolian festival, opened near the capital city of Ulan Bator on Sunday, with the aim to promote ethnic Kazakh cultures and boost tourism.

Twenty eagle hunters aged 14-86 are competing in the 11th edition of the two-day festival to catch small animals, such as foxes and hares, with specially trained golden eagles, showing off the skills of both the birds and their trainers, according to the Mongolian Eagle Hunter's Association.

Prizes will be awarded for speed, agility and accuracy, as well as for the best traditional Kazakh dress, and more.

One of the participants, Aisholpan Nurgaiv, is a contributor to the promotion of the tradition of hunting with eagles. When Aisholpan was 13, she became popular for her hobby of hunting with eagles. She was trained by her father to hunt on horseback with a golden eagle, traditionally a male pursuit.

Israeli photographer Asher Svidensky became the first to discover the girl in 2013 and published a series of jaw-dropping photos of the brave eagle huntress. Inspired by these bright pictures, British Director Otto Bell shot a documentary "The Eagle Huntress" where Aisholpan starred together with her eagle.

"I have been hunting with golden eagle since the age of 10. The birds are taken from their nests as chicks to be trained. Currently, there are over 400 people hunting with eagles in Bayan-Ulgii province in western Mongolia. Only six of them are female," Aisholpan said.

Mongolia is home to the thousand year-old tradition of hunting with trained Golden Eagles. This unique tradition has been passed from generation to generation among the Kazakh nomads.

The Golden Eagle Festival is held twice a year in the spring and autumn season in Mongolia. The autumn festival is held in the Bayan-Ulgii province.

The festival, one of the most interesting tourism activities in Mongolia, is estimated to attract 3,000 domestic and foreign visitors this year. The last spring festival attracted over 2,000 visitors.You are here: China

Southwest China's Tibet will strive to make highways reach all townships and administrative villages by 2020 in a bid to boost rural development, said the regional transport authorities.





By 2020, all townships which meet necessary conditions and 80 percent of administrative villages would have access to bus service, said a senior transport official of Tibet Autonomous Region.





Road construction will help the region reduce poverty and increase the income of farmers and herders, according to the official.





This year, the region will launch projects to make 13 townships and more than 1,000 villages connected by asphalt or cement roads.





Rural road mileage in Tibet is currently 60,421 km, compared with 53,244 km in 2012, thanks to heavy investment in this field.



You are here: Travel

 Flash





Safety has become the No 1 issue among China's outbound tourists, with most taking into serious consideration the security of destinations when making holiday plans, according to a report.





Online travel agency Ctrip received 2,191 requests for assistance on its Global Travel SOS platform in 2017, and 82 percent of those were from people traveling overseas, the report said.





The platform, launched in January last year, is a free service based on Ctrip's mobile app that offers 24-hour emergency aid during natural disasters, terrorist attacks and traffic accidents for users at home and abroad.





The report was released by the China Tourism Academy and Ctrip on Thursday.





Accidental injury, loss of personal belongings, certificate applications and language barriers were listed as the top four problems outbound travelers confronted.





Outbound visits by Chinese residents hit a new high of more than 130 million in 2017, up 7 percent year-on-year.





Revenue from outbound Chinese travelers in 2017 totaled nearly 736 billion yuan ($116 billion), a year-on-year increase of 5 percent.





Outbound Chinese travelers spent more than 5,800 yuan per capita in 2017, 7 percent over the previous year. Travelers departing from Beijing spent the most per capita at 6,817 yuan, followed by travelers from Shanghai; Suzhou, Jiangsu province; and Wenzhou, Zhejiang province.





Outbound travel has become a popular way for Chinese to spend their holidays given their rising living standards, preferential travel policies like visa waivers and growing number of international airline routes.





Dai Bin, president of the China Tourism Academy, said Chinese travelers today focus more on experiencing foreign cultures rather than simply shopping, and Chinese tourists abroad become "living name cards", as they enrich the knowledge of foreigners about China.





China is the largest source of tourists for 10 countries - Thailand, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Russia, Maldives, Indonesia, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and South Africa.





Countries in Southeast Asia - Singapore and Malaysia, for example - remained popular with Chinese travelers in 2017, while Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Germany and Britain have tremendous potential to attract Chinese travelers, the report said.





Tunisia, for example, received 18,000 Chinese visitors in 2017, more than 150 percent more than the previous year, thanks to the country's visa waiver policy for Chinese travelers.



 Flash

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Sunday that the offensive against the rebels in the capital Damascus' Eastern Ghouta countryside will continue in tandem with allowing civilians to leave toward government-controlled areas in Damascus, as the Syrian army has made significant progress, capturing 36 percent of the areas held by the rebels.



Assad said most of the civilians in Eastern Ghouta want to leave the rebel-held areas toward government areas, noting that there is no contradiction between establishing cease-fire in that area to allow the civilians to leave and the military operation against the "terrorists."

Assad made the remarks as a Russian-backed partial humanitarian pause has been taking place in Eastern Ghouta to allow the civilians to leave that area since last week, while military operations continue after the end of the daily five-hour-long pause.

No civilians have left and no humanitarian convoys entered that area, with the government accusing the rebels of preventing the civilians from leaving.

In his Sunday comments, Assad said the Russian-proposed humanitarian pause balances between giving a space to the humanitarian work and at the same time achieving the goal of striking the "terrorists."

"This is why we must continue in this operation in tandem with giving the civilians the opportunity to leave toward the state areas (government-controlled)," he said.

He hailed the progress made by the Syrian army in that sprawling rebel-held enclave in the eastern countryside of Damascus.

Meanwhile, the War Media, the media wing of the Syrian army, said in a statement late on Sunday that the Syrian forces have made important progress in Eastern Ghouta over the past few days, capturing large swathes of areas in the eastern part of Eastern Ghouta, reaching the central sector of that area.

It said the Syrian army forces have captured 38 square km, or 36 percent of Eastern Ghouta, which is estimated at 105 square km.

The Syrian forces that are advancing from the eastern side are only 3 km from the military units in the western part of that rebel-held enclave.

When the two units meet, Eastern Ghouta would be split in half, the statement said.

As Assad has said that the military operations against the rebels in Eastern Ghouta, mainly the al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee (LLC), otherwise known as the Nusra Front, the humanitarian work, which has been hindered during the past days, is expected to continue as of Monday.

The United Nations said in a statement Sunday that it's planning to deliver humanitarian assistance to the rebel-held Douma district in Eastern Ghouta.

In a statement, the UN said the aid convoy will consist of 46 truckloads of health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people in need and will be led by Ali Al-Za'tari, the UN Resident Humanitarian Coordinator.

"We hope that the convoy may proceed as planned and will be followed by other convoys. Our teams on the ground are ready to do all that is needed to make this happen," stated al-Za'tari, according to the statement.

The UN said it had received approval to deliver assistance for 70,000 people in need in Douma, adding that assurances were made that the remaining supplies for all approved people in need will be delivered on March 8.

The only UN delivery of assistance to Eastern Ghouta in 2018 was on Feb. 14, when a convoy with assistance for 7,200 people reached Nashabiyeh, said the statement.

Meanwhile, Syria' Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said the Syrian government is ready to send aid to Eastern Ghouta, noting that the rebels have targeted the crossing point into Eastern Ghouta.

Eastern Ghouta has been the major threat to Damascus since the rebels took hold in that area in 2012, with armed militants keeping launching attacks on the capital with mortar shells and in some instance through implementing incursion attempts.

Four major rebel groups are currently positioned inside Eastern Ghouta, namely the Islam Army, Failaq al-Rahman, Ahrar al-Sham and the LLC.

Eastern Ghouta has grabbed international attention recently since the military showdown started to gain momentum on Feb. 18.

The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2401 on Feb. 24, which requires all parties in Syria to immediately cease clashes and provides a sustained humanitarian break for at least 30 days across Syria.

Two days later, the Russians demanded a daily humanitarian pause for five hours in Eastern Ghouta specifically.

But those initiatives have slightly reduced the number of rebels' mortar shells on the capital and the Syrian airstrikes and bombardment on Eastern Ghouta.

During the five-hour-long truce, the situation becomes calm, but the military confrontation continues right afterward.

The oppositional Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government forces' bombardment and airstrikes on Eastern Ghouta have killed over 600 people since the situation started flaring last month. Flash

The Republic of Korea (ROK) President Moon Jae-in decided Sunday to send his special envoys to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in an effort to mediate direct talks between the DPRK and the United States.

Yoon Young-chan, senior presidential press secretary, told a press briefing that Moon's special delegation, composed of five emissaries and five working-level officials, will make a two-day visit to Pyongyang starting March 5 for talks with senior DPRK officials.

The delegation will be led by Chung Eui-yong, top national security adviser for Moon and head of the National Security Office of the Blue House.

Suh Hoon, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the country's spy agency, is included in the delegation along with Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung, Second Deputy NIS Director Kim Sang-gyun, and Yun Kun-young, a senior Blue House official.

The special delegation will travel via a western direct route to the DPRK on a special plane Monday afternoon, and will stay in Pyongyang before returning to the ROK Tuesday afternoon.

On coming back to Seoul, the special envoys will report to President Moon on their trip to the DPRK, and then will visit the United States to explain the result of dialogues with the DPRK side, said Yoon who noted that South Korea will also closely cooperate with China and Japan.

Yoon said the envoys will make a comprehensive discussion with the DPRK side about issues especially on necessary conditions to be created for a dialogue between the DPRK and the United States.

Moon's plan to send his envoys to Pyongyang and Washington in succession is part of his efforts to play a mediating role in bringing the two countries to a dialogue table to peacefully resolve the peninsula's nuclear issue.

When he met with Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, Moon called on Pyongyang to more actively engage in a dialogue with Washington.

The younger Kim came here last month as a special envoy. She conveyed the DPRK leader's invitation to Moon to visit Pyongyang at a convenient time, and the ROK president stressed the need for talks between the DPRK and the United States before the first summit between Moon and Kim.

In response, the DPRK leader delivered his message through Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea who led a high-ranking DPRK delegation to the Olympic closing ceremony.

During his three-day stay here through Tuesday, the chief DPRK delegate said his country was open to a dialogue with the United States.

On Thursday, Moon had a telephone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump, telling Trump about his plan to dispatch his special envoy to Pyongyang.

During a phone conversation in January, Moon agreed with Trump to delay the joint annual South Korea-U.S. war games during the Winter Olympic and Paralympic period after the DPRK showed its willingness to participate in the Winter Olympics. Pyongyang has denounced the war games as a dress rehearsal for northward invasion.

The delayed military exercises between South Korea and the United States could be conducted after the end of Winter Paralympics on March 18.

Chung, the chief ROK delegate to Pyongyang, is the highest official on security and foreign affairs, except Moon. He is known to have a direct, close dialogue channel with senior White House officials. Flash

Italian voters headed to the voting booth Sunday to elect their representatives in parliament for a five-year term under the country's brand-new electoral law.



This closely-watched election has been described in international media as the next big test for the European Union (EU) due to rising populist and nationalist sentiment in Italy, which has borne the brunt of the migrant crisis while grappling with a sluggish economic recovery and persistent high unemployment hovering at 11 percent.

As of 12:00 noon local time, 19.38 percent of some 46 million voters had turned out, according to a running tally on the interior ministry website. A further 4 million Italians residing abroad also have the right to vote, electing 12 members of the Lower House and 6 senators.

Voters told TV reporters they had to wait up to an hour in line due to a new anti-voter fraud system, which slowed down operations at the polls in Italy's 7,958 municipalities.

Italians are being called on to choose their representatives in the 315-member Senate and the 630-seat Lower House under a new system that is one-third majority and two-thirds proportional -- meaning that no single party or coalition is likely to win enough seats to claim an absolute majority.

This means that after Sunday's vote, the different political forces will have to work together to reach a compromise and form a government. This may be a tough call, as the major players have taken pains to assure their potential voters they will never make deals with parties whose positions differ from their own.

The contest is among three main forces: the populist Five Star Movement, a center-right coalition led by media mogul and ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi, and the center-left Democratic Party of outgoing Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

Italy's last general election was held in February 2013, when over 75 percent of 46.9 million voters turned out to hand a victory to the center-left Democratic Party in the Lower House and a slim majority in the Senate.

During the Sunday election, polls opened from 7am until 11pm across the Italy. The first exit polls are expected to be published around midnight and the votes will be fully counted in the early Monday morning local time. Flash

A special plane carrying the Republic of Korea (ROK) President Moon Jae-in's special envoys left for Pyongyang Monday on a mission to mediate talks between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The plane carrying the 10-member special delegation took off from an airport in Seongnam, outside of the capital Seoul, at about 2 p.m. local time (0500 GMT), local TV footage showed. The passenger jet, called Air Force Two, will fly via a western direct route to the Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang.

The delegation, composed of five emissaries and five working-level officials, was led by Chung Eui-yong, top national security adviser for President Moon and head of the National Security Office of the Blue House.

Also included in the delegation were Suh Hoon, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the country's spy agency, Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung, Second Deputy NIS Director Kim Sang-gyun and Yun Kun-young, a senior Blue House official.

Before leaving for Pyongyang, Chung told reporters that he will convey to the DPRK side President Moon's firm will and resolution to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and build a genuine, lasting peace on the peninsula.

The chief delegate said the emissaries will make an in-depth discussion on ways to continue a variety of dialogues between the DPRK and the international community, including the United States, as well as inter-Korean talks.

The Blue House indicated that the delegation's key mission was to broker talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

During their two-day trip, the ROK envoys will hold talks with senior DPRK officials about issues, especially the conditions to be created for any U.S.-DPRK dialogue to denuclearize the peninsula, the Blue House said Sunday.

Baik Tae-hyun, unification ministry spokesman, told a press briefing Monday that the delegation's main focus is to encourage the start of the DPRK-U.S. talks to advance the denuclearized peninsula.

After returning to Seoul Tuesday afternoon, the envoys will brief President Moon on their DPRK trip, and then will visit Washington to explain to the U.S. side about the outcome of talks between the ROK envoys and the DPRK officials.

Chung and Suh reportedly planned to visit Washington within this week to discuss the possible start of talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

Local media speculated that the ROK delegation would meet top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un to deliver the letter of President Moon, but the Blue House had yet to confirm it.

Moon met with the high-ranking DPRK delegations, who came here last month to attend the opening and closing ceremonies of the 23rd Winter Olympics.

During the meeting with Moon in Seoul, Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of the DPRK leader, delivered her brother's letter to Moon, conveying the DPRK leader's invitation to the ROK leader to visit Pyongyang. Flash

New Zealand will make an initial contribution of 500,000 NZ dollars (US$360,886) to help with the emergency response following the 7.5-magnitude earthquake in Papua New Guinea's Highlands region last Monday, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said on Monday.

"The rugged terrain and loss of communications in the area impacted means it is taking time to build a complete picture of the damage, but we know that tens of thousands of people are reported as requiring humanitarian assistance," Peters said in a statement.

New Zealand is working with Papua New Guinean authorities, the United Nations, donors and aid agencies on the ground to identify how New Zealand can best assist, Peters said, adding that New Zealand stands ready to assist Papua New Guinea.

A RNZAF C130 Hercules aircraft carrying emergency relief supplies departed for Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, on Monday, carrying family hygiene kits, shelter kits, jerry cans, and tarpaulins.



China Aviation Daily | Mar. 05, 2018

Cathay Pacific and Air Astana today announced an agreement that will enhance travel options for Cathay Pacific customers travelling to and from Kazakhstan and for Air Astana customers travelling to and from destinations in Asia and Australia via the airlines' hubs in Hong Kong and Almaty respectively.

Commencing 15 March 2018, Cathay Pacific will place its "CX" code on Air Astana's non-stop flights between Hong Kong and Almaty, the financial and cultural heart of Central Asia, as well as on connecting services between Almaty and Astana, the Kazakh capital.

Air Astana currently flies twice weekly between Hong Kong and Almaty, on Tuesdays and Fridays, but will be upping frequency by adding a third service, on Mondays, from 25 March.

Cathay Pacific will also codeshare on Air Astana's five weekly services between Bangkok* and Almaty (going daily from 25 March) and four weekly services between Seoul and Almaty, giving customers additional options for travel between Hong Kong and Kazakhstan.

Air Astana will place its "KC" code on selected Cathay Pacific services operating between Hong Kong and Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Singapore.

Cathay Pacific Director Commercial and Cargo Ronald Lam welcomed the codeshare partnership, saying it underlined the airline's commitment to establishing convenient connections to captivating new destinations.

"We are delighted to join with Air Astana and provide our customers with links to one of the most fascinating countries in Central Asia. With its vibrant economy, which is set to grow as a result of its integral role in the Belt and Road Initiative, and beautiful natural landscapes, Kazakhstan has many attractions for both business and leisure travellers alike," he said.

Richard Ledger, Vice President Marketing and Sales at Air Astana, commented:

"With its excellent worldwide connectivity, Cathay Pacific is our ideal partner as we look to extend our reach across Asia and Australia via Hong Kong. Together, our airlines share an award-winning reputation for consistently delivering the very highest standards of customer service.

"We are thrilled to strengthen co-operation with this wide-reaching codeshare agreement, which will further benefit our respective passengers, as well as the overall economic relationship between Kazakhstan and dynamic Hong Kong.".

Contributed by Cathay Pacific



TEHERAN - A senior Iranian military official said on Saturday that Iran will not negotiate its missile program unless Europe and the United States destroy their nuclear weapons and missiles.

"What Americans say out of desperation about exerting restrictions on Iran's missile capabilities is their unreachable dream," Deputy Chief of Staff of Iran's Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri said.

The US' concerns about Iran's nuclear power stems from "their failures and defeats in the region", Jazayeri said.

Development of Iran's defense power has put the US in a weaker position, he said, adding that US forces should leave the region.

"The precondition for talks on Iran's missiles program is the dismantling of US and Europe's nuclear weapons and long-range missiles," Jazayeri said.

Under US pressure, Europe had urged Iran to start negotiations on the country's developing missile program.

Iran has reiterated that its military forces will keep boosting defense capabilities and deterrent power.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry announced that Iran does not allow any interference in its domestic affairs and defensive policies, especially its missile program.

However, France's foreign minister told Iran ahead of a visit to Teheran on Monday that the country needed to address concerns over its ballistic missile program or risk new sanctions.

"There are ballistic programs of missiles that can reach several thousand kilometers which are not compatible with UN Security Council resolutions and exceed the sole need of defending Iran's borders," Jean-Yves Le Drian told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

"If not tackled head on, this country risks new sanctions," he added.

Separately, Iran confirmed that the foreign minister had met with his former US counterpart John Kerry on the sidelines of a Munich meeting last month.

The New Yorker magazine earlier reported that Kerry had urged Teheran not to abandon a 2015 nuclear deal, despite tensions with the administration of US President Donald Trump.

On Friday, the New Yorker reported that during a meeting, which it said was attended by others involved in the nuclear deal, "Kerry quietly urged the Iranians not to abandon the deal or violate its terms - whatever the Trump administration does".

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi, quoted by the IRNA news agency, said that Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif "has always met on the sidelines of such international summits with attending personalities and elites ... in the framework of preserving Iranian interests".

Zarif had met on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference with "John Kerry and Ernest Moniz, foreign and energy ministers of the previous US government, who have a critical attitude toward Trump administration policies", Qasemi said.

Xinhua - Reuters

(China Daily 03/05/2018 page11)Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewiss personal secretary, once commented to the great Christian writer about a clever inscription engraved on an atheists tombstone: Here lies an atheist. All dressed up with no place to go. Not bemused, Lewis quipped: That atheist probably wishes now that were true.

Impertinent as Lewiss one-liner might first appear, it was not a malicious verbal barb. Lewis was deadly serious. After all, he viewed atheism as having deadly serious consequences. Rather he sought to woo and warn atheists they faced a desperate future apart from Christ.

Lewiss specific apologetic endeavor to thwart atheism possesses an intriguing backstory: Lewis had been a convinced atheist himself. He knew very well of what he spoke. He had been there, done that credibility. In Surprised by Joy, Lewis recounts his conversion to theism, a sinuous path from childhood belief to atheism to theism and finally to Christian faith.

My personal surprise in reading the book was caused by the discovery that Lewiss account contained experiences with which I could loosely identify. The simple reasonone for which I am not proudis that as a young person I, too, had rejected the Christian faith. It was reassuring to learn that Lewis had experienced an unconventional journey of faith similar to the one I had experienced. Not everyone becomes a Christian by going forward at an evangelistic altar call in a church or camp. God sometimes chases people down in very surprising ways.

Countering an Assumption

Retelling the conversion stories of former atheists who became Christians, like Lewis and myself, is especially needed today. These stories decisively countermand the widespread secular myth that atheism is the inevitable final intellectual stop for any serious, educated person determined to be scholarly, scientific, rational, and objective in assessing the world as it is.

Especially in certain academic settings, the influence of methodological naturalism is assumed. Notre Dame historian Brad S. Gregory observes: Regardless of the academic discipline, knowledge in the Western world today is considered secular by definition. Its assumptions, methods, content, and truth claims are and can only be secular, framed not only by the logical demand of rational coherence, but also the methodological postulate of naturalism and its epistemological correlate, evidentiary empiricism.

In American culture, atheism as a belief has grown substantially in recent years. In 2016, the Pew Research Center reported that between the years 20072014, the number of self-identified atheists in the United States jumped from 4% to 7%, the number of self-identified agnostics from 2.4% to 4.0%. The number of Americans claiming to be Christian fell from 78.4% in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014.

But despite this trend and the narrative that is purported to explain it, secularism is not the inevitable outcome of the life of the mind. Before his conversion, Lewis noticed that some of the most intelligent people he knew were Christians. After my own conversion, I began to recognize that a number of the Christians I most admired included many former atheists: Lewis, John Warwick Montgomery (apologist and church historian), Kenneth S. Kantzer (theologian and editor of Christianity Today), Carl F. H. Henry (theologian and editor of Christianity Today), William Craig (apologist), Graham Cole (theologian and educator), Alister McGrath (scientist and theologian), Scott Chapman (pastor), Lee Strobel (journalist and apologist), Craig Ott (missiologist), and the list goes on.

These individuals and many others had moved from disbelief to faith as a result ofnot in spite oftheir intellectual pursuits. The reflections of former atheists like these can provide valuable apologetic insights regarding perplexing questions they felt forced to navigate in coming to faith, and many become apologists or scholars who dedicated their lives to answering these questions.

Article continues below

The Departure of the Prodigal

But the questions are real and can be a stumbling block for many. In my own case, it was these questions that initially led me away from faith into cynicism and atheism. Raised in a caring Christian home, I attended attractive church youth ministries and summer camps and received a solid liberal arts education at a Christian college. During my sophomore year of college, I encountered Ludwig Feuerbachs assertion that prayer is simply self-catharsis. The proposition struck me as a brilliant insight.

At a Sunday evening church service, a godly pastor said, Let us pray, and people reverently bowed their heads. I did not. Nor did I close my eyes. For the first time, I realized I did not believe. At the same time, I did not feel there was anyone with whom I could dare confide about my private unbelief. I now had to navigate life as a non-believer in a Christian community.

On graduation day, my father asked if I were planning to go to a seminary for which I had been pre-enrolled. No, I replied. Somewhat startled, he asked why not. I said calmly, I do not believe. Almost like a quip, but it wasnt, he said: Thats a good reason not to go to seminary. At the time, I experienced no feelings of remorse for any potential pain I might have caused my father. And pain there could have been. After all, my father was the 14th generation of pastors in our family and had counted on me to be the 15th.

I headed off to a Big Ten university to work on a masters degree in history. I tried to recover my Christian bearings by acting like a Christian. Internally at least, my subterfuge didnt work. Possibly sensing my hypocrisy, a few Campus Crusade for Christ friends urged me to visit Campus Crusade headquarters in Arrowhead Springs, California, before I began a trek to study in France as a Fulbright scholar. For some reason, I acceded to their suggestion. Such was a bad mistake. To my dismay, I found the intensely evangelistic atmosphere at Campus Crusade more than a little off-putting. When I was told I had to engage in beach evangelism along the Pacific Ocean, I had had it.

I made an appointment to see Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru), who graciously invited me into his office. He had taken a class in church history from my father in seminary. I sat down on a spacious couch. Bright kindly asked me what was on my mind. I attempted to muster my best asinine voice: Dr. Bright, do you actually believe Christianity is true? Not unsurprisingly for the founder of Campus Crusade, Bright responded, Yes. Discerning my rebellious spirit, Dr. Bright engaged in no Christian handholding. He proceeded to hit me over the head with a verbal two-by-four: Woodbridge, your life will either count for God or you will become an intellectual bum.

I promptly stood up from the couch and replied, Thank you, Dr. Bright. I wheeled around and walked out of his office. We would become friends in later years, and he graciously never brought up my insolence that day in his California office, though when I asked him on one occasion, he told me he remembered it. On that fateful afternoon, though, I didnt care a fig what he thought. At last, I had really been outed, and I was on my way to France to study with several world-class historians. Christianity was now very much in my religious rearview mirror and fading fast.

Article continues below

No Escape

While intellectual scruples may lead some away from Christianity, they do not necessarily have the last word. The conversion testimonies of former atheists provide both apologetic support and genuine solace and comfort to Christian parents whose children have turned away from the faith. No matter where these children might find themselves spiritually, they are not beyond the reach of being chased down by God the Holy Spirit.

In Surprised by Joy, Lewis described a pre-conversion encounter with an atheistic friend:

Early in 1926 the hardest boiled of all the atheists I ever knew sat in my room on the other side of the fire and remarked that the evidence for the historicity of the Gospels was really surprisingly good. Rum thing, he went on, All that stuff of Frazers about the Dying god. Rum thing. It almost looks as if it had really happened once. To understand the shattering impact of it, you would need to know the man (who has certainly never since shown any interest in Christianity). If he, the cynic of cynics, the toughest of the toughs, were notas I would still have put itsafe, where could I turn? Was there then no escape?

Just before Lewis had this alarming encounter with an atheist, he had finished reading G. K. Chestertons The Everlasting Man. Chesterton claimed that the one great startling statement that man has made since he spoke his first articulate word is the assertion that the Creator of the cosmos walked this earth. Other religions cannot make this claim. For this reason, wrote Chesterton, Christianity makes nothing but dust and nonsense of comparative religion. It was a turning point for Lewis that would eventually lead him to theism: In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed, perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in England.

My own story is similar. At the University of Toulouse in France, I thoroughly enjoyed my studies and drifted to the political left. But then it happenedsomething totally unexpected. Lewiss warning to young atheists about the danger of reading Christian books came true. A bibliophile but with little money, I wandered one day into a bookshop in Toulouse. Out in front of the bookshop was a scrambled collection of cheap books for sale.

For whatever reason, my eyes lit upon the volume, Jesus Christ in His Times [English translation], written by Henri Daniel-Rops, a French Roman Catholic historian. For whatever reason, I picked up the book and purchased it, not realizing such was a dangerous mistake. And for whatever reason, upon returning to my student room, I began to read the bookanother bad mistake given my atheistic orientation.

As I began to read Daniel-Ropss volume, I encountered his recitation of a passage from Tacitus, a Roman pagan historian, referencing the life of Jesus and the spread of early Christianity (Annales 15:44):

A persistent rumor associated Nero with the starting of this fire. To combat this he decided to provide culprits and inflicted the most atrocious tortures upon that sect, popularly detested for their practices, who are known as Christians. This name comes to them from one Christ, who was condemned to be crucified by the Procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius. This pernicious sect, formerly proscribed, has established itself not only throughout Judea where it originated, but in the Very City itself.

Like a thunderbolt, the idea struck me that Jesus might very well have existed and walked this earth. After all, I reasoned, Tacitus was no Christian propagandist and had nothing to gain in reporting a myth. If you have been a believer all your life, you will probably find it difficult to imagine that anyone could be so out of touch with the Christian faith that coming to understand Jesus existed would constitute a surprise. But major surprise it was. Not only the fact itself, but what the fact possibly meant.

Article continues below

As I read the statement by Tacitus, it dawned on me that if Jesus had existed, it had potentially huge implications. I had never read Chesterton as Lewis had, but in a much more simplistic fashion, I came to his same conclusion. Could it be that Jesus not only existed but that his message was true after all?

Late one evening, I was walking through the streets of Toulouse only to be trapped in a torrential downpour without an umbrella. The Romanesque Basilica of St. Sernin afforded the only open door I could see where shelter might exist. I entered the large dank and empty church to get out of the pelting rain. Puddles of water were scattered on the floor. Naked light bulbs strung across the church provided the only light.

After a few minutes, I felt compelled to go up to the front of the church. I paused by a pew and asked Godif he existed at allto accept my very meager faith because I did not believe much of anything. Something of an interior nature happened when I prayed that prayer. I felt as if I was now at least a theistperhaps even a Christian.

Valuable Witness

Testimonies of former atheists provide evidence of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to transform lives, reminding us that the gospel really is the very power of God unto salvation (Rom. 1:16). Additionally, former atheists themselves often possess a fair amount of patience and empathy in interacting with persons struggling with matters of faith. Often, hostile atheists are close to the kingdom.

A prominent American intellectual who is an avowed atheist once said to me that despite his acclaimed academic career, he had not found satisfaction or happiness. His words were poignant and also unforgettable: John, dont you know there is nothing at the top of the ladder? Like everyone else, atheistswhatever their intellectual postureneed to be born again (John 3:112). They need to know that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6) and that the gospel of Jesus Christ is in fact life-giving. It offers marvelous resurrection hope. Through the convicting power of the Holy Spirit and Scripture (Heb. 4:12), even the most hardened atheists can be converted to Jesus Christ.

John Woodbridge is research professor of church history and the history of Christian thought at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois.We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!

Go to form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.APL-urile din sudul tarii au aflat cat de transparente au fost in 2020, dupa ce au fost monitorizate de catre OSC-uri de la nivel localBAY VILLAGE, Ohio - City and school district officials in Bay Village, Rocky River and Westlake were asked for their thoughts on the recent school shootings. They were also asked what type of meetings or policies are being considered to discuss the events or to improve school safety.

In each community, the questions went to the schools' superintendent, the mayor and the City Council president. Here are their responses. Those who did not respond are listed at the end of the story.

Bay Village

Outgoing schools' Superintendent Clint Keener:

"We all wish there was an easy answer to stopping these horrific acts. This must continue to be approached in many ways, through physical security and through intervention with disconnected students and other threatening individuals in the community.

"We may need to change the way we design and construct schools and school grounds.

"The school partnership with local police authorities is very important. In our district, our partnership with the City of Bay Village provides support through Bay Family Services. Our school buildings all have the services of school counselors, and their job includes providing support for students in need."

Incoming schools' Superintendent Jodie Hausmann:

"Recent events demonstrate that we must use a smart, multi-layered approach to make sure our schools are safe and secure. Clear safety protocols, regularly practiced, empower staff and students to make the right decisions should a threat arise.

"Security upgrades to buildings can make a big difference, as can the strategic use of technology. But just as important are the teachers, administrators and counselors who are trained to detect a troubled child early and intervene to provide a network of appropriate support.

"As incoming superintendent, I plan to build upon the solid foundation of safety practices and community support that Superintendent Clint Keener has established. Those strong relationships with Bay Village police and city officials, as well as with other agencies dedicated to student safety and wellbeing, give our community the best opportunity to protect our children.

"I am also asking my state representatives to support the pending House Bill 37, which would provide funding for facility and technology upgrades expressly dedicated to better securing our buildings. We need to tap every resource available to keep our schools safe."

Mayor Paul Koomar:

"The recent school shooting incident in Parkland Florida, which took the lives of 17 innocent students and teachers, causes us all to reflect on what our city and schools are doing to prevent and respond to such tragedies. It is a natural reaction for parents to be concerned about the safety of their children in the schools during such tragic incidents.

"The Bay Schools have emergency management plans in place for each school building in the district. These plans were promulgated and reviewed by school administrators; the police and fire departments; parent, teacher and non-teacher employee representatives; and others. Within this comprehensive operations plan are procedures for active-shooter incidents.

"For several years, the Police Department has worked on conducting safety training sessions with all the schools, including participating in active-shooting scenarios. The next training has been scheduled for early March. Important insight is gained from these trainings in addition to ensuring the students, faculty and law enforcement understand how to react and are coordinated in their response.

"Prevention of acts of violence within the schools is the top priority. We feel that early identification and prompt intervention is the key to keeping our schools and community safe. The exceptional communication between the Police Department and the schools enables quick action when concerning behavior arises.

"Intervention takes many forms and depends upon the particulars of each case, but always involves the student, parents, schools, the city and any professional services that may be required. The Bay Family Services program, in place since 1996, provides prevention, intervention and counseling services to our youth and their families.

"For more than 30 years, the city has also been involved in a juvenile diversion program that diverts low-level offenders from Juvenile Court back to the city. Individualized wrap-around services are then implemented to better serve each youth offender. This highly successful program allows for efforts to focus on the underlying issues which resulted in the offender's behavior and a more rapid resolution to the case.

"The safety of our children is paramount. Together, the Bay schools and the City of Bay Village have established education/prevention programming and counseling/intervention services and continue to work toward making the City of Bay Village a safe community."

Rocky River

Mayor Pam Bobst:

"We are having discussions with Police Chief Stillman. He has had discussions with Superintendent Shoaf. We have ongoing discussions and there are preparedness plans. We have a school resource officer at the high school.

"We also have a 'cops in schools' program. Every day at random times, officers visit the schools to look around and develop relationships between police, staff and students. We are very pleased with the program. A presence every day at different times creates that very positive relationship.

"We will continue ongoing communication with the police and schools and are available to work with them on additional school safety projects."

Council president James Moran:

"The school board president and superintendent meet with the mayor and council president usually twice a year, or more, to discuss issues that affect all of us.

"This is one of those issues that is not a quick fix. Discussion of prevention, awareness, and solutions must be considered, and I feel there is not just one type of person or situation that fits all. It is like our opioid problem. We all must work together and find out solutions that would fit. Preparedness is key right now --making sure teachers and students know what to do in this situation.

"We have a meeting coming up in a month and this will be a topic. We are working with our school resource officer, and his input is key."

Westlake

Schools Superintendent David Goggin:

"At Westlake, our hearts go out to those who have been affected by the recent school shootings. It is devastating. As a district, it is something you plan for and pray never happens. The safety and wellbeing of our students is at the forefront of everything we do. We have a safety committee that meets regularly to review our safety policies and procedures. Additionally, we have regular lockdown drills and train our students and teachers how to respond in those situations.

"We take seriously any potential threat or rumor and investigate it fully. Most importantly, we need everyone who sees something that doesn't seem right, to say something to district administration or the police.

"In addition to safety measures, we also work to create an inclusive environment were all students feel welcomed, loved, safe and a part of the Westlake family. We work hard to ensure all our students have the resources and support they need to succeed."

City officials who did not respond to the above questions include: Bay Village President of Council Dwight Clark, Rocky River Schools Superintendent Michael Shoaf, Westlake Mayor Dennis Clough and Westlake President of Council Michael Killeen.BEREA, Ohio -- In solidarity with others throughout the country, Berea-Midpark High School students will walk out of class at 10 a.m. March 14 to raise their voices for positive social change.

Students Ben Collopy, Eliza Karp, Lexi Lee and Ryan Bolin are coordinating the event, with the assistance of teachers Mary Draves and Sherri Fox.

Collopy explained that the 17 shooting deaths at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, have spurred a national movement to honor the victims and bring about greater awareness of societal issues contributing to such tragedies.

"Our event isn't simply walking out of school," Collopy emphasized. "We will recognize the victims, but for the rest of the day there will be an information station set up in the cafeteria. This walkout isn't just getting out of school, making a statement and then forgetting about it. We are actually taking charge and making a difference."

Students will have access to information about the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation, how and what to say when contacting legislative representatives, how to register to vote, and information about upcoming election candidates.

Participation is completely voluntary.

Students who wish to be part of the event must indicate in advance on a provided poster the cause for which they are walking. It's unknown how many students will walk out.

Though not by nature a political person, Collopy, a senior, said the Parkland shooting became his catalyst for action.

"I was enraged," he said. "Students should not be scared to come to school. They shouldn't have to sit in class and think, 'Will we be next?' I want these tragedies to end."

A passion for change has no age limit, he said.

"You are never too young to make a difference," Collopy said. "You can achieve anything if you truly feel powerful enough to take a stand. We can't just sit back and wait and hope for people to stop committing mass shootings. It's time to open our eyes and do something about it."CLEVELAND, Ohio - The MetroHealth System is committed to revitalizing its West Side neighborhood while also replacing buildings and adding green space at its main campus, officials told Cuyahoga County Council members Monday.

Walter Jones, senior vice president of campus transformation, outlined the status of the MetroHealth Transformation plan, funded by $945.7 million in hospital revenue bonds the health system issued in 2017.

Council members at the committee meeting praised the county hospital system's plans to build a desperately needed new hospital as well as improve housing, add retail and oversee redevelopment of the Clark-Fulton neighborhood.

"This is really amazing," Council President Dan Brady said. "This is so ambitious, but it is real. It has to to be the biggest thing to happen in this part of the city for several generations."

Brady gave kudos to the hospital's administrators for working with a complex number of local, state and federal groups and financing nearly the entire transformation on its own.

"It seemed like pie in the sky when it was envisioned four years ago and seemed too far fetched to be true," he said. "But it is great."

The design of the new hospital, which is scheduled to open in 2022, will be unveiled in June, Jones said.

Jones showed schematic designs and described how the Ohio Department of Transportation is working with the hospital on access.

A campus gateway will be created at Valentine Avenue and a four-way intersection will be created at the Interstate 71 south exit at West 25th Street.

"The hardest thing for people to do is to find the front door of the hospital," Jones said. "We will have a dedicated drive to the front door."

The 1,500-space staff parking garage will be completed in September. Once that opens, the current 900-space garage will be demolished to create a site for the new hospital.

See his presentation to council below or click here if on a mobile device.

Plans for the West 25th Street neighborhood are extensive.

"We elected to become an EcoDistrict - the only health-care-supported district in the country," Jones said.

EcoDistricts promote a new model of urban regeneration and community development, according to the organization.

While the process of forming the district is ongoing, it is listed on the EcoDistrict's website as the 585-acre MetroHealth Community District.

"The system sees itself first and foremost as a member of a community and believes that it can, will, and must improve the vibrancy and wellness of its neighborhood," says the EcoDistrict statement.

"MetroHealth knows that good health is not just good health care. Good health is determined to a large degree by a healthy neighborhood. MetroHealth is committed to improving health equity and playing an important part of the national movement toward partnerships between community development and health organizations to holistically revitalize communities in need."

Last July, MetroHealth formed a non-profit corporation to revitalize the Clark-Fulton neighborhood.

MetroHealth plans to move its police station from the patient towers into a redeveloped complex of three buildings it owns across from the hospital on West 25th Street, officials told council. It is also considering moving the ground operations for the LifeFlight helicopter to that location.

The community also is working to develop La Villa Hispana, an area just north of MetroHealth, into an innovation center for nonprofits, classes and programs.

MetroHealth also is working on an employee-housing program that officials hope will result in 500 people living near the campus.A fire damaged an apartment building Monday on Arliss Drive in Lakewood, officials said.

LAKEWOOD, Ohio -- Six adults and two children were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries after a fire damaged an apartment building early Monday in Lakewood, officials said.

Paramedics took four people to MetroHealth and four people to Fairview Hospital following the fire that broke out just before 3 a.m. on Arliss Drive near Cove Avenue, Lakewood fire Chief Scott Gilman said.

A toddler and an infant were among the eight people hospitalized, Gilman said.

Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the fire that started in a first-floor apartment, Gilman said.

The fire destroyed the first-floor apartment and damaged an apartment on the second-floor. Four other units sustained smoke damage, Gilman said.

Nine people were displaced from the 11-unit apartment building, Gilman said. Other residents were allowed to return home.

Rocky River, Fairview Park and Westlake firefighters assisted at the scene.LAKEWOOD, Ohio - Michael C. DeAloia has been named StartUp Lakewood's Entrepreneur in Residence to help launch an incubator located in Front Porch Media Network's Detroit Avenue office.

"The Entrepreneur in Residence is a position at the civic level that helps any of the residents of Lakewood with their idea for a new business or opportunity," said Front Porch Media Network Chief Executive Officer DeAloia, who is the former city of Cleveland "Tech Czar" responsible for the economic development of the technology trades.

"What makes this very unique is we're also launching an incubator with LaunchHouse, the city of Lakewood, StartUp Lakewood and Front Porch Media. It's a really provocative idea for the city the size of Lakewood."

Expected to launch in May, the incubator space will provide start-up businesses access to DeAloia's counsel, as well as amenities such as a conference room, printer, fax machine and the Internet. The goal is to create jobs and activate storefronts in Lakewood.

"Out of the eight desks, two will be free and unencumbered, thanks to grant money from the city, while six will be paid for on a modest weekly or monthly fee," said DeAloia, who writes The Plain Dealer's Tech Czar Talk column.

Over the last seven years, StartUp Lakewood, which promotes entrepreneurship and connects new businesses to resources, has successfully spun off several businesses: PlayGrounds, Little Lakewood Pasta Company and the soon-to-open Nosotros Rock Climbing Gym.

DeAloia takes over for former Entrepreneur in Residence Mike Belsito.

Lakewood City Planner Alex Harnocz said what the initiative lacked until now was a permanent location.

"When Michael brought his idea for the incubator to us, we were thrilled at the opportunity to establish a physical presence for the group and give its members an opportunity to take advantage of the space," Harnocz said.

"LaunchHouse brings a great deal of experience in programming and a huge network of entrepreneurs across the region. We expect that they will be able to elevate the quality and frequency of StartUp Lakewood's educational offerings and speaker series," he said.

Highland Heights-based co-working and entrepreneurial network LaunchHouse will also augment StartUp Lakewood's existing programming.

"After many years of being asked for a LaunchHouse on the West Side, we will now make that a reality with LaunchHouse Lakewood," CEO Todd Goldstein said in a press release.

"As LaunchHouse continues to expand, we're excited to offer two separate locations, Highland Heights and Lakewood, to our community of entrepreneurs, small businesses and remote workers."

Tech or business incubators provide start-ups with everything from management training to office space and amenities.

"We hope to grow StartUp Lakewood's membership and impact on our business community," Harnocz said. "Greater access to mentoring, educational programs, business plan development and other resources can only advance our local entrepreneurs and their eventual impact in Lakewood."

DeAloia said the StartUp Lakewood incubator fits perfectly into Front Porch Media Network's creative corner vision for Lakewood.

"We've got our own little studio, which is kind of cool, but we wanted some additional creative folks to work in our startup and creative environment," DeAloia said. "It's a destination area in Lakewood where they can feel safe to do some provocative work and create something special."CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Police are investigating after three people were wounded in separate shootings Sunday on the city's East Side.

A 21-year-old male was wounded in the left leg near the intersection of East 105th Street and Wade Park Avenue, just north of University Circle, in what police are calling an assault shooting.

Police say the victim was taken to the hospital in a private vehicle.

Two unidentified victims were shot on the 15700 block of Holmes Avenue, which is east of East 152nd Street and north of St. Clair Avenue in the South-Collinwood neighborhood.

The conditions of the three victims and other details of the shootings were not released by police.

There have been at least three shooting incidents in Cleveland on Sunday. Earlier in the day, a 51-year-old man was shot multiple times on the West Side, police say.

There are no reports of fatalities.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.LIMA, Ohio -- A large military vehicle backing into a garage pinned an Army reservist against another vehicle, killing him, reports say.

Authorities identified the reservist as Jacob R. Wilkes, 20, of Oregon, Ohio, the Toledo Blade reports.

Shawnee Township police tell WTVG Channel 13 the incident occurred at about 1:15 p.m. Saturday. A vehicle was backing into a garage at the Reserve Center so it could tow out another vehicle.

Wilkes, an Army specialist, was pinned against the other vehicle, suffering severe head trauma.

He dead by the time emergency responders arrived, the Blade reports.

The U.S. Army and police are investigating, reports say.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.CLEVELAND, Ohio - Daphne Johnson, the wife of Cuyahoga Community College's President Alex Johnson, has died. She was 68.

She died following a lengthy illness, Tri-C spokesman David Hoovler said Sunday.

While she was very supportive of her husband behind-the-scenes, Daphne Johnson did not really want to be in the public eye, Hoovler said.

In a brief statement, her family said this of Daphne Johnson: "If life is about praising God, loving friends and family and exploring talents to the maximum extent possible, Daphne D. Johnson experienced life to its fullest."

The family also wanted to spotlight Daphne Johnson's "great passion and talent" for quilting that celebrated African-American women throughout history, Hoovler said.

This 2013 file photo shows Cuyahoga Community College President Alex Johnson.

Daphne and Alex Johnson have two children, Hoovler said, and one of the driving factors behind the couple's return to Cleveland in 2013 was to be closer to them and grandchildren, Hoovler said.

Before his most recent tenure as Tri-C president, Alex Johnson was president of the community college's Metropolitan campus from 1993 to 2003. He was president of the Community College of Allegheny County in Pennsylvania before his return to Ohio.

Throughout his most recent stint at Cuyahoga Community College, Alex Johnson has spearheaded programs to retain and graduate student.

Funeral arrangements:

Visitation: 5-7 p.m. Friday, Mar. 9 - Calhoun Funeral Home, 23000 Rockside Rd., Bedford Heights, OH 44146

Service: Visitation at 10 a.m. followed by an 11 a.m. service; Saturday, Mar. 10 - Olivet Institutional Baptist Church, 8712 Quincy Avenue, Cleveland.

Repast: Immediately following the service - Cuyahoga Community College Eastern Campus, Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Humanities Center Lobby, 4250 Richmond Road, Highland Hills.

Memorial gifts may be made to the Daphne Darlene Johnson Veterinary Technology Scholarship Fund. Checks may be made payable to Cuyahoga Community College Foundation, 700 Carnegie Ave., Cleveland, OH 44115. Donations may also be made online at www.tri-c.edu/donate; select Daphne Darlene Johnson Veterinary Technology Fund as the designation.WASHINGTON - To Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is a prime example of the welfare state run amok.

The conservative House Freedom Caucus co-founder from Champaign County says that SNAP, which provides low-income people with government subsidies to buy food, has become a "permanent way of life" for many Americans instead of a temporary safety net. And he wants that to change.

Jordan's Freedom Caucus voting bloc has enough members to deny Republican leaders the votes needed to pass legislation along party lines. When a new farm bill is unveiled later this month, Jordan wants it to impose stricter work requirements on those enrolled in the program. Otherwise, he says the bill should be short term.

Jordan says "it helped everybody" when states like Maine and Alabama required those enrolled in the program, also known as food stamps, to work more.

"It has helped taxpayers, it has helped the economy because there is a labor shortage, and it helps those people in the welfare system get to a better position in life," Jordan said in a recent interview.

The below table, compiled from U.S. Department of Agriculture data, shows the average nationwide enrollment in the SNAP program each year over the past decade, the average monthly benefit per person and the program's yearly cost, including benefits and administration.

Year Avg. Enrollment Avg. Benefit Yearly cost (billions) 2007 26,316,000 $96.18 $33.17 2008 28,223,000 $102.19 $37.69 2009 33,490,000 $125.31 $53.62 2010 40,302,000 $133.79 $68.28 2011 44,709,000 $133.85 $75.69 2012 46,609,000 $133.41 $78.41 2013 47,636,000 $133.07 $79.86 2014 46,664,000 $125.01 $74.06 2015 45,767,000 $126.81 $73.95 2016 44,219,000 $125.40 $70.93 2017 42,203,000 $125.79 $68.07

Warrensville Heights Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge has a different view of SNAP. She says it provides invaluable help to working families whose jobs don't pay them enough to make ends meet. The program already requires able-bodied, childless adults to work at least 20 hours per week to receive food assistance, and locales where that requirement is waived don't have enough available jobs to require work, she says.

About 1.6 million Ohioans - roughly 14 percent of the state's population - get SNAP benefits and most are families with children, or the elderly, or people with disabilities, says Fudge, a House Agriculture Committee member who will try to protect the program during the farm bill debate.

"Who are they trying to punish?" she asks. "Are they trying to punish children, the elderly and the disabled?"

Safety net programs like SNAP are meant to expand during recessions and contract when less aid is needed. Its nationwide enrollment soared during the last recession, peaking at more than 47 million people enrolled during an average 2013 month, according to statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Since then, enrollment has slowly decreased. Last year, the program's average monthly enrollment was 42.2 million. Before the recession hit, average monthly enrollment was 26.3 million.

The fact that SNAP enrollment is still elevated despite the improved economy rankles fiscal hawks like Jordan, who contends that "instead of giving impoverished families and individuals a helping hand, the current welfare system penalizes positive steps toward self-sufficiency."

"We have to make sure it is a hand up and not a hand out," says Bainbridge Township Republcian Rep. Dave Joyce. "Helping people in a time of need is not meant to become a lifestyle."

But defenders of the program, like Niles Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, say many people are still struggling despite low unemployment. He says assistance programs like SNAP will be needed until investments are made to create better paying jobs.

"Nobody is for any fraud and nobody is for wasting any money, but the reality of it is the economy is not producing jobs with wages that are high enough for people to work 40 hours a week and still be able to make ends meet, especially if they have kids," says Ryan. "And we can't turn our backs on those people. If we could get wages up, we wouldn't need programs like this, but until we do, we're going to need them."

A recent study on Ohio SNAP use from the left-leaning Policy Matters Ohio think tank found that "most households with a working age, able-bodied adult have at least one member who works while receiving SNAP," and many of them have low-paid jobs in professions like food service, freight moving, retail sales, cashiering, cleaning and nursing assistance.

"In Ohio, the employers with the most employees on SNAP are household names, including Target, Kroger and the Cleveland Clinic," the study says. "SNAP helps put food on the table for the people who work at these companies and make below 130 percent of poverty, or $26,208 annually for a family of three."

Republicans in Congress and the administration of President Donald Trump are targeting SNAP for cuts this year. Trump's 2019 budget request called for cutting the program by more than $213 billion over the next decade and replacing some of the benefits usually redeemed in grocery stores with "harvest boxes" of shelf-stable foods selected by the government. In February, the Trump administration announced it will solicit ideas from the public "to promote work and self-sufficiency among able-bodied adults participating in" SNAP.

"Long-term dependency has never been part of the American dream," said a statement from Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. "USDA's goal is to move individuals and families from SNAP back to the workforce as the best long-term solution to poverty. Everyone who receives SNAP deserves an opportunity to become self-sufficient and build a productive, independent life. "

Federal law limits the time a non-elderly, able-bodied adult without dependents can receive SNAP benefits to three months in a 36-month period, unless the individual works at least 20 hours each week.

The law currently exempts individuals from the time limit for reasons including age, unfitness for work, or having a dependent child. It also lets state agencies request a time limit waiver if the area doesn't have enough jobs to provide employment. Perdue wants to crack down on those waivers.

"Too many states have asked to waive work requirements, abdicating their responsibility to move participants to self-sufficiency," said a statement from Perdue. "Past decisions may have been the easy short-term choice, but USDA policies must change if they contribute to a long-term failure for many SNAP participants and their families."

The farm bill being drafted by the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee - K. Michael Conaway of Texas - is expected to cut billions from the program by tightening eligibility, although Conaway hasn't yet released details, even to his fellow Republicans on the committee like Holmes County GOP Rep. Bob Gibbs.

"SNAP is always an issue," says Gibbs, who said he'd like to see "freeloaders" purged from the program, but cautions that some apparently able-bodied people who get SNAP benefits - like veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - may have legitimate issues that keep them from working.

This table, from a September report compiled by Policy Matters Ohio, shows the number of households in every Ohio congressional district enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the percentage of enrolled district households, the number of families receiving SNAP, and the percentage of those families who were working.

Gibbs, a former president of the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation, is skeptical about the prospects of the Trump administration's suggestion that households receiving $90 or more per month in SNAP benefits get some of their benefits in the form of Agriculture Department "harvest boxes" that would contain products like shelf stable milk, cereals, pasta, peanut butter, beans and canned items.

In addition to the logistical challenges of creating a new federal program that Trump's budget director Mick Mulvaney compared to the Blue Apron grocery delivery service, Gibbs predicted strong opposition from grocery stores. Policy Matters Ohio says that during 2006, $2.4 billion in SNAP benefits were redeemed in 9,644 Ohio superstores, supermarkets, grocery stores, convenience stores, farmers' markets and other establishments.

"Right now, I don't see it flying unless they can answer logistical questions about how it will work," says Gibbs. "On the surface, it sounds like a nice idea to get people a box of fresh food, but there are all kinds of questions about how to make it so it doesn't cost a lot of money and waste food."

Fudge, too, is a critic of the government grocery delivery plan, calling it "big government at its best" to force poor people to eat particular foods. She said it was hypocritical for Republicans to suggest such an idea after saying "you can't tell people what to eat," when former First Lady Michelle Obama's crusaded for healthier school lunches that included fruits and vegetables.

After Perdue signed a proclamation last year to restore local control of school lunch guidelines, he said "if kids aren't eating the food, and it's ending up in the trash, they aren't getting any nutrition - thus undermining the intent of the program."

"It will cost more to deliver this garbage, it won't save them any money and it will be an unfunded mandate on the states," said Fudge.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A 51-year-old man was taken to the hospital Sunday morning after he was shot multiple times on the West Side, police say.

The shooting occurred on the 4800 block of Briar Road, which is just north of Interstate 480 between West 150th and West 130th streets in the Puritas-Longmead neighborhood.

Police say the suspect "randomly shot" the victim, but did not offer more details.

The victim was taken to MetroHealth Medical Center but his condition was not released.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.MIDDLEFIELD, Ohio -- Hailey Burns disappears into a heavenly scene of steam, turning sap into divine maple syrup.

Burns, an employee with the Geauga County Park District, is hard at work with her colleagues inside the sugarhouse during the Sap's-a-Risin'! program at the Swine Creek Reservation in Middlefield on Sunday. It's a sure sign of spring when steam rises from the sugarhouses in Geauga County.



Visitors can follow two Percheron draft horses pulling a sap sled into the sugarbush and help collect the sap from the buckets hanging on the maple trees. After the gathered syrup is poured into the sap sled tank, the horses bring it back to the sugarhouse to pour into the evaporator where steam rises from the boiling sap.



Swine Creek Reservation has set aside 30 acres of trees as a working sugarbush. About 90 percent of the tapped trees are sugar maples, the other 10 percent red maples. According to Joshua Inks, an employee with the Geauga Park District, about 700 trees total are tapped this year, with 550 trees tapped with buckets. Starting in 1984, every year the park taps in for sap on President's Day, making about 120 gallons of Ohio maple syrup each season. The syrup is for sale inside the Swine Creek Lodge.



According to the Ohio Maple Producers Association, the maple syrup industry contributes $5 million to the state's economy each year. Approximately 100,000 gallons are produced each year by 900 Ohio producers and Ohio is ranked 4th or 5th in maple production nationally. Syrup gained popularity with abolitionists in the North during the Civil War to replace cane sugar harvested by slaves in the South, also according to the association.

Sap's-a-Risin'! will also be held Sundays, March 11 and 18. For more info, visit: https://reservations.geaugaparkdistrict.org/programs/MAPLE HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Police are searching for a suspect Sunday after reports of shots fired at a vehicle.

Police were called at about 4:44 p.m. to the 5100 block of Catherine Street, which is just south of Interstate 480 and east of Lee Road.

Police say the suspects were gone by the time officers arrived, but they did recover evidence at the scene.

A young male wearing a yellow and black hooded sweat shirt was seen firing down the street at a dark-colored Chevrolet Malibu Maxx hatchback with tinted windows, police say.

There were no reports of injuries.

Police are asking anyone with information to contact the detective bureau at Detectives@mhpd-ohio.com or at 216-587-9624.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.WASHINGTON - Vice President Mike Pence will visit Cleveland on Friday to tout tax changes adopted last year in appearance with U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci, who is running for Senate, a Renacci spokesperson said.

The spokesperson said the event will include a panel discussion on the benefits of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, followed by a speech by the Vice President on tax cuts. It will be hosted by America First Policies, a 501(c) (4) organization with close ties to Trump. Pence's press office did not immediately respond to inquiries about the upcoming Cleveland visit.

Pence's office announced Monday that he'll travel to Iowa and Kentucky on Tuesday and Wednesday to deliver "keynote remarks" at America First Policies "Tax Cuts to Put America First" events. He has previously made appearances for the group in Michigan and Texas.

The liberal-leaning watchdog group Common Cause on Monday filed complaints at the Department of Justice and Federal Election Commission that allege America First Policies is illegally coordinating campaign spending with Pence, President Trump and the Republican National Committee. A contact person listed for the America First group did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaints and the upcoming Cleveland event.

The Wadsworth congressman is among several Republicans seeking the party's nomination to take on Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown this fall. He announced he was jumping into the race in January, after obtaining assurances that President Donald Trump and others in his administration would campaign on his behalf. Renacci had been running for governor up to that point.

Pence, a former Indiana governor, intends to make dozens of campaign appearances for his party's candidates before November's election.

Republicans who believe voters will like their tax legislation have been hammering Democrats, like Brown, who voted against it. On Monday, the Republican National Committee released a statement touting raises that an Ohio-based company said it would give employees because of the measure, and condemning Brown for voting against it.

"Sherrod Brown will regret his vote against middle-class Ohioans come November," said a statement from RNC spokesperson Ellie Hockenbury.

Brown's office released a statement the same day that said stock buybacks facilitated by the bill's passage soared past $200 billion in two months, showing the "tax bill is benefiting wealthy shareholders over workers."CRYSTAL RIVER, Florida -- A middle school teacher has been removed from the classroom after a report in the Huffington Post says she hosts a white supremacist podcast under a different name.

Officials with the Citrus County School District say they are investigating the claims against Dayanna Volitich, 25, who teaches social studies at Crystal River Middle School, the Citrus County Chronicle reports.

"On Friday, March 2, 2018, the Citrus County School District was made aware [by a HuffPost reporter] of a concerning podcast," Citrus County School District Superintendent Sandra Himmel said in a statement released Sunday. "The Human Resources department was notified and an investigation was initiated immediately. The teacher has been removed from the classroom and the investigation is ongoing."

The Huffington Post report says Volitich hosts a white nationalist podcast called "Unapologetic" using the name Tiana Dalichov. The report says "Dalichov" has bragged about being a teacher and expressing her views to her students.

She also reportedly bragged that she was hiding her views from administrators and used social media, particularly Twitter, to espouse racist views. The Twitter account, also under the name Dalichov, has been deleted, although Volitich's picture was used, the Miami Herald reports.

According to NBC, Volitich attended Ohio State University, where she earned a bachelor of arts degree in 2014.

Volitich is denying the allegations to WFLA Channel 8, saying statements made on the podcast should be considered political satire.

"None of the statements released about my being a white nationalist or white supremacist have any truth to them, nor are my political beliefs injected into my teaching of social studies curriculum," Volitich says in a statement to WFLA. "While operating under the Russian pseudonym 'Tiana Dalichov' on social media and the Unapologetic Podcast, I employed political satire and exaggeration, mainly to the end of attracting listeners and followers, and generating conversation about the content discussed between myself and my guests."

Volitich also denied telling her students about her views.

Huffington Post reports that in a recent podcast, Volitich said more white supremacists need to infiltrate classrooms and said "science" has proven some races are smarter than others. She also interviewed interviewed Lana Lokteff, who works for the media outfit Red Ice TV. The Southern Poverty Law Center recently designated Red Ice as a hate group.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.LAKEWOOD, Ohio -- Looking at her Samsung phone through a cracked screen protector, Carly Jones beams with pride.

Open is an app that tracks the progress of her latest job as a driver for an app-based food-delivery service. She brags that in just a few days she has earned a 4.7-star rating from customers.

"The company wants drivers to be up to five stars," she says.

Dispatched through her phone much like an Uber or Lyft driver, she races around Cleveland, Lakewood and beyond in her black Kia Soul to pick up everything from sushi to chicken wings at area restaurants. She delivers the food to working millennials, busy families and couch potatoes.

She never has to deal with money; transactions are handled through the app. All Carly has to do is focus on being zippy and personable.

She's both. Her rating proves it.

This single mother, who is trying to get her children out of their impoverished Cleveland neighborhood, regularly tries new jobs. She tells a reporter that the constant change is exhausting but worth it, as long as the latest job pays more than the last one.

Each new job gives her renewed hope that she can pay her bills and have more time for her daughters -- 12-year-old Michaela and 8-year-old Ruby -- and to nurture her business.

It's been almost a year since Carly opened a clothing boutique, Level Up, in Lakewood's historic Birdtown neighborhood. The last 12 months have been tough. She had to figure out almost everything on the fly, from securing permits for the store's sign to trouble-shooting machines that process credit cards. She's struggled to build much foot traffic but added online sales to pick up the slack. She had to take extra jobs to help buy inventory and keep the store going.

She is now getting some business advice from mentors who reached out to her after reading her story in cleveland.com's A Greater Cleveland series, which chronicles several Cleveland families as they try to break out of poverty.

Before settling on her current food-delivery job, Carly considered delivering cookies at night for a downtown bakery. But parking in the Warehouse District stressed her out, so she backed out. It would have been her third job, on top of her work as home-health aide and as a dishwasher at Grumpy's Cafe in Tremont.

Of course, that's in addition to managing her store.

But she recently quit her jobs as a health aide and dishwasher because she believed she had landed the perfect gig - working third shift at Swagelok, a giant manufacturer of fittings and valves and other precision parts. It paid significantly more and required only four shifts a week.

"I could work less and make more money than the other jobs combined," she explains. "I wanted to finally build a routine and focus on my family and store."

So, Carly arranged to have someone stay in the house at night. After work, she planned to get from Swagelok's Highland Heights factory to her home in Cleveland's Central neighborhood in time to get to the girls to school at the Dike School of the Arts Lower Campus, a Cleveland public school on East 61st Street. She planned to sleep after that.

Carly wanted everything to work out so badly that she popped caffeine pills on her first night at the factory to ensure she could make it to morning.

She did -- but then crashed hard. When she woke, she concluded her childcare plans were unmanageable. She also dreaded returning to the mindless work, which involved placing small rings on racks and pushing them into an acid bath.

She called the company and quit before her second night.

Carly has little time to question whether she should have stuck it out a bit longer at Swagelok. She needs to make her $284 car payment. She convinced Capital One to lower her payment after falling behind for the first time in almost five years.

"I had never missed a payment, so they worked with me," she says, noting that she dumped cable and internet service at home to save money.

She says she learned about the food-delivery job by striking up a conversation with a stranger while grabbing food for her family at Manhattan's Fish and Chicken Restaurant on East 55th Street. The stranger encouraged her to give it a try. When she got home, she signed up on her phone.

In her first 10 hours of driving, spread over three days, she made enough to make her car payment.

She thinks this could really work.

"I'm so happy spending time with the kids," she says. "I've also abandoned my own self. Now I might have time to also focus on me."

Carly mostly delivers during the dinner hours and on weekends, when she can make the most money in the shortest period of time. She also takes assignments in Lakewood and Cleveland, which pay a bit more than deliveries in less congested suburbs.

On this day, Carly closes her shop around 5 p.m., runs to her car in the pouring rain and turns on her app. Within minutes an assignment pops up: Grab food from Lakewood's Aladdin's Eatery, a Lebanese-American restaurant, and deliver it to a home in Rocky River's Beach Cliff neighborhood, one of the most exclusive in Northeast Ohio.

She cranks up her music - rapper Cardi B -- and takes off, driving with one hand on the steering wheel and holding her phone close to her face with the other to follow the GPS directions.

"I like Cardi B because she is like me," she explains. "She started from the bottom."

Whether Carly realizes it or not, she is a part of the tech economy, which is notable for the vast wealth gap separating the workers from the consumers. Carly is on the low end of the gap. But she doesn't think much about that.

As she turns off Lake Road into a neighborhood of well-maintained older homes, all within walking distance to Lake Erie, she wonders aloud how much the homes cost. The reporter who is riding along ventures a guess that the homes cost a half-million dollars and up.

"For real," she says. "These are so nice."

She parks in front of large brick home on a corner lot. She delivers the food and returns to the car in under a minute. She then heads back to Lakewood. As she drives east on Clifton Boulevard, the weather takes a turn for the worse. The winds pick up and the rain changes to snow. Her windows begin to fog up.

But Carly is not bothered. Her outlook remains bright and full of promise.

That's because she dreams of moving to Lakewood, which she sees as dramatically quieter, safer and friendlier than her inner-city neighborhood. When she opened her shop on Madison Avenue last April, she fell in love with the town and its people. Delivering food, she says, allows her to get to know the streets.

"I will be here - you watch," she says. "I'm going to get nice little house."

A Greater Cleveland is a call to action to the community to help remove the barriers to success faced by Cleveland children in poverty. It is a project of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. Because of the sensitive family matters discussed in this series, we have provided the people we write about anonymity and are using pseudonyms to identify them. See the entirety of our project by clicking here.OLMSTED FALLS, Ohio - Acting as the cherry on top of its Right to Read Week activities, Falls-Lenox Primary School held its annual Family Literacy Night March 1 at the Bagley Road building.

"A strong partnership between school and home is extremely important for the success of each child," Principal Lisa Barrett said.

"Family Literacy Night encourages parents and guardians to read with their children, as well as provides them with educational activities that they can do at home.

Falls-Lenox Primary School student Colin Atkins and his dad, Kevin Atkins, play a reading game at Family Literacy Night. (Photo Courtesy of Falls-Lenox Primary School)

"The children love having the opportunity to spend this one-on-one time reading with their family member and sharing with them all that they are learning about literacy," Barrett said.

First-grade teacher Cassandra DeLuca said that more than 150 students in grades 1-3 and their families attended the evening affair.

"It's been going on more than a decade," DeLuca said. "Each family visits stations, which have different literacy elements about something your child needs to know and can practice at home."

The four Literacy Night stations focused on fluency, nonfiction text features, literary elements and a book fair. Barrett said students also received activities that they can do at home, as well as a book donated by the PTA.

As far as Right to Read Week, highlights included library assemblies and an author visit by Diana Perry, as well as middle school and special guest readers.

"My favorite part of literacy night is to watch the interaction between the parent and the kids," DeLuca said. "Just to see them doing things that are academic-based in a fun way where it's uninterrupted, just individual time with their child. I love to see that.

"We always hope parents leave with ideas to help make students more motivated and engaged to do school work at home and that teaching and instructing can be done in fun ways, too."COLUMBUS, Ohio - As promised, a Cincinnati Democrat introduced a bill in the General Assembly that would prohibit insurance companies from denying paying for some of their policyholders' emergency room claims.

House Bill 536 attempts to halt a new rule by Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield that went into effect at the beginning of the year, in which the company reviews all ER claims and denies those it determines were not an emergency, according to Monday morning's Capitol Letter, cleveland.com's daily Statehouse newsletter.

The insurer is hoping to decrease expensive ER visits, which can cost 10 times as much as trips to urgent care centers.

Rep Alicia Reece's bill would prohibit the new rule for individual and employer policies as well as policies Medicaid recipients get through managed care.

Currently, Anthem's rule does not apply to Medicaid managed care recipients.

Failure to comply would be an unfair or deceptive insurance business practice in HB 536, making the policy not compliant under Ohio insurance law.

"You would not be able to get government contracts, tax credits, tax abatements, all of the things to do business in the state," Reece said.

She said she's working with the Ohio Department of Insurance on any additional penalties that could be imposed on companies for what the bill calls "selective emergency services insurance coverage."

Reece hopes the bill will nip Anthem's new rule in the bud.

"This is a slippery slope," she said. "if we allow this to happen, it becomes the standard for how all insurance companies operate."

Cleveland.com sent Anthem and Ohio Association of Health Plans representatives the bill, but neither provided an opinion on it.

The bill faces an uphill battle: All the sponsors are Democrats, but the legislature has a GOP supermajority.

Reece said she's also trying to attack the rule through the executive branch: She and other Democrats wrote a letter to Gov. John Kasich. Kasish's spokesman said he's received it and the letter is under review.

Reece believes there should be a moratorium on the policy - and an end to government contracts and tax benefits for Anthem - at least until she, other concerned Democrats, Kasich and the Anthem president meet and work something out that would be in the best interest of Ohioans, she said.

It's unreasonable for someone with chest pains to have to self-diagnose to determine whether it necessitates an emergency, she said, noting that Anthem and the Ohio Department of Insurance don't agree on who the new ER rule applies to.

Anthem insures 3.4 million Ohioans and has never said how many people are affected by the new ER rule.

In addition to Medicaid managed care, some policyholders work for companies that hire Anthem to provide health insurance. Others work for self-insured companies that hire Anthem to verify and pay claims.

The Ohio Department of Insurance last week told cleveland.com the new ER rule only applies to companies that self-insure, but that Anthem was looking to expand it to other coverage groups.

But Anthem disputed that assertion, saying it also applied to people covered by non self-insured employers.

"The Department of Insurance and Anthem are saying two different things," Reece said. "If people are confused, how do you imagine a citizen who is sick can figure out what (a policy) means?"Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Finnish company HMD Global pretty much nailed it at MWC 2018, but many good things are still about to happen to Nokia fans. Although Nokia 8 Sirocco is the company's new flagship smartphone, at least two other top-tier Nokia-branded samsung battery original will be released by the end of the year.

If you believe Nokia 8 Sirocco leaves to be desired when it comes to the camera or other aspects that you think should offer more in terms of features, HMD plans to launch the Nokia 8 Pro and Nokia 9.

Even though we don't know what names HMD will use for these phones, sources with knowledge about the company's plans claim the Nokia 9 will be the better phone. It will boast a slightly larger 5.7-inch display, whereas the Nokia 8 Pro is said to include a 5.5-inch screen. Their specifications haven't been confirmed though, so take it with a pinch of salt for now.

However, one of the main selling points of the Nokia 9 will be the long-rumored penta-lens camera module, which won't come with the Nokia 8 Pro. Also, rumor has it, Nokia 9 will be HMD's first smartphone to feature an in-display fingerprint sensor. Both how to open samsung galaxy s6 will be equipped with Snapdragon 845 processors, but they may come with different amounts of memory.

Price-wise, Nokia 9 is expected to cost around the same as other major flagships coming this year, such as the Samsung Galaxy S9. Still, the Nokia 8 Pro will be much cheaper to offer consumers a better alternative to the likes of Samsung Galaxy S9, LG G7, and HTC U12.

The report suggests HMD plans to unveil the Nokia 8 Pro sometime in August, while the Nokia 9 should be revealed at least one month later.But it turns out that prison time makes criminals more likely to reoffend further down the line, because prison is basically school for sociopaths. The longer you spend inside, the less you learn about how to run a Dairy Queen and the more you learn about severing toes and sending them in ransom notes. Australia found that mandatory minimums were associated with increased crime rates, because if you treat people like career criminals, that's what they become.

Mandatory minimums also ruin a judge's ability to exercise discretion. Take the case of Tonya Drake, who was offered $100 to mail a package for a stranger. She agreed because she needed the money to feed her kids (and had apparently never seen any crime show ever). The package contained crack, of course, and Tonya had technically trafficked drugs. She was sentenced to a mandatory ten years for making a dumb decision in a moment of desperation. The judge said, "This woman doesn't belong in prison for ten years for what I understand she did. That's just crazy, but there's nothing I can do about it."

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

So that's where we're at. We have laws so ridiculous that they make judges feel powerless.Gun enthusiasts and action figure collectors aren't that different when you think about it. Both spend large amounts of money on objectively ridiculous items that will probably never be used for their intended purpose, mostly just to admire them and appease their inner 14-year-old. The only difference is that when a gun nut spends too long on eBay, instead of paying $50 for the pizza-throwing tank from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , they'll buy something like ...

6 A Shell That Allows You To BBQ A Deer With A Single Shot

To a certain demographic, owning a firearm is all about sending a message -- not to the government, criminals, or the liberal elites, but to ammunition manufacturers. And that message is: "We'll happily buy the stupidest crap you can think of, as long as it looks cool as hell." Behold the "Dragon's Breath":

FPSRussia/YouTube The mannequin doesn't seem terribly impressed.

These shells -- also known as "zirconium pyrotechnic ammunition," because gun nerds are still nerds, after all -- are standard-issue shotgun shells, only packed with magnesium pellets in lieu of buckshot. When the trigger is pulled, the highly flammable magnesium ignites and sprays hellfire in the face of anything or anyone unfortunate enough to be caught inside its range (anywhere between 50 and 300 ft). If you're lucky enough to survive being shot, congratulations! That deep burning sensation you're experiencing comes from knowing that some dirtbag is already putting the footage on YouTube ... and also the literal deep burning, as magnesium burns at 3,000-4,000 degrees.Jessica Vomiero

National Online Journalist Global News

March 2, 2018

History will be made in Canada this year and Edmonton will be put on the flat map, reads the Facebook event page for an international flat-earthers conference that is coming to Canada in August.The Flat Earth International Conference is headed by Edmonton-native Robbie Davidson of Kryptoz Media, who says that the many events hes hosted over the years often sell out months in advance.The upcoming events Facebook page states that the conference will be held at West Edmonton Mall on Aug. 9-10, and over 2,000 people have marked that they are interested in attending.I think a lot of us that came to this at first ridiculed and laughed at it I think right now, there are a lot [of people] out there that believe this, that really havent come out of the closet, Davidson said in an interview with Global News.Flat-earthers are a community of people that do not believe the Earth is round, despite NASA firmly asserting that it is.We all really severely do not believe we are on a ball spinning through space, Davidson explained in an interview with Global News. He added that those who entertain the possibility that the Earth is flat identify with several key arguments.The main point Davidson emphasizes is what he sees as a lack of empirical evidence proving that the Earth is spherical.We think science is good, were not anti-science, he said. A lot of science has moved away from what science is supposed to be, its very theoretical. What experiment do you actually do to prove the curvature of the Earth?In addition, Davidson explained that he would stop hosting flat Earth conferences should an experiment ever be developed to prove that the Earth is round. He also cited satellite imagery as inadequate proof of the shape of the Earth, arguing that the majority of these images are composite or computer generated/rendered images.Until something is 100 per cent verified, I think a lot of people in this community are going to demand different answers, he said.The Flat Earth Society dismisses photographic evidence and space travel as conspiracies.The most commonly accepted explanation of this is that the space agencies of the world are involved in a conspiracy faking space travel and exploration, the group states. This likely began during the Cold Wars Space Race, in which the U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. were obsessed with beating each other into space to the point that each faked their accomplishments in an attempt to keep pace with the others supposed achievements.NASA clearly states on its website and through other research documents that the Earth is indeed round. The space agencys website cites ancient Greek research  which measured the shadows during summer solstice and also calculated the Earths circumference  as well as modern methods for measuring the shape of the Earth.Today, scientists use geodesy, which is the science of measuring Earths shape, gravity and rotation. Geodesy provides accurate measurements that show Earth is round. With GPS and other satellites, scientists can measure Earths size and shape to within a centimetre. Pictures from space also show Earth is round like the moon, a statement on NASAs website reads.Furthermore, scientists have long rejected the possibility that the Earth could be flat, and many are perplexed that such claims still thrive in certain circles.Its hard to explain or understand a theory that you know even before you start thinking about it, is wrong, Bryan Gaensler, director of the University of Torontos Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, previously told Global News.In science, [theory] means something very specific, which is a hypothesis based on assumptions that is testable with future measurements, and none of these things are theories in that sense, Gaensler continued.During the referendum campaign, David Cameron was ridiculed when he declared that Britain leaving the EU could put the Continent of Europe at risk of war. No one believed it: probably not even Cameron.

But now those leading the campaign to thwart Theresa May honouring the result of that referendum are using the threat of civil war to terrify us.

Specifically, they claim Brexit will create a 'hard border' between Northern Ireland (outside the EU) and the Republic of Ireland (inside it), and that this could somehow provoke 'the men of violence' to return to terrorism.

The former prime minister John Major  who last week admitted he wanted to stop Brexit happening at all  was at it again yesterday, warning that such a 'hard' border would become a 'target  for Unionist or Nationalist fringes that wish to provoke trouble'.

those leading the campaign to thwart Theresa May honouring the result of that referendum are using the threat of civil war to terrify us.

The argument, also put by Tony Blair and Michel Barnier, who leads the EU's Brexit negotiating team, is that a customs border between the North and South of Ireland puts at grave risk the entire Good Friday Agreement.

This scare-mongering enrages David Trimble, the former Unionist leader who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his role negotiating that settlement: 'It is not true that Brexit in any way threatens the peace process. There is nothing in the Good Friday Agreement which even touches on the normal conduct of business between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

'Leaving the EU does not affect the agreement because the EU had nothing to do with it  except that Michel Barnier turned up at the last minute for a photo opportunity.'

Why, then, are Barnier and the European Commission making this issue so central to their negotiations, even to the extent of suggesting, to the outrage of the Prime Minister, that a new border be drawn across the Irish Sea, with Northern Ireland becoming a detached subordinate province of the EU?

The former prime minister John Major (above) last week admitted he wanted to stop Brexit happening at all

During the referendum campaign, David Cameron (above) was ridiculed when he declared Britain leaving the EU could put Europe at risk of war. No one believed it

The reason is Ireland is actually Brussels' weakest link in its attempt to drive a hard bargain with the UK. More than any other EU state, Ireland is dependent on unimpeded free trade with Britain. More than any other EU state, Ireland wants a deal that retains the maximum amount of ease of business.

Cunningly  and ruthlessly  Barnier's team have turned this weakness into a strength by weaponising the Good Friday Agreement. This is designed to terrify the British into agreeing to become an affiliate of the EU Customs Union. This would be a crazy idea from our point of view, as we would be compelled to adhere to all the EU's external tariffs, and lose the power to negotiate our own trade deals with other nations.

Yet Labour has fallen headlong into this elephant trap. Last week, after flying to Brussels for talks with Barnier, Jeremy Corbyn declared his party's support for Britain becoming an appendage of the EU Customs Union.

As Professor Vernon Bogdanor, a Remainer and leading constitutional expert, pointed out in the Labour-supporting Guardian, this would 'make Britain in effect a client state of the EU'.

But the craziest thing of all is that this notion of a 'hard border' in Ireland post-Brexit is not even believed in Brussels. Last year, the EU parliament itself produced a lengthy paper (Smart Border 2.0. Avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland) authored by Lars Karlsson, the former director of the World Customs Organisation and Deputy Director General of Swedish Customs.

It concluded that modern technology and customs practice meant there was no need for a 'hard border on the island of Ireland: The solution presented here can be implemented regardless of the legal framework for the UK's exit from the EU.'

But you don't need to project into the future. Think of the world we live in today. How often have you been stopped by customs officials when you return from a trip abroad? Actually, it's hard to find one if you do have something to declare.

This goes for business, too. When the Commons Brexit Committee investigated this matter, they were told by the chief executive of HMRC, Jon Thompson, that his staff physically inspected only 0.5 per cent of imports from non-EU countries.

And Thompson went on to tell the Committee: 'We do not believe, and this has been our consistent advice to ministers, [that] we require any infrastructure at the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland under any circumstances.'

The argument, also put by Tony Blair (above), is that a customs border between the North and South of Ireland puts at grave risk the entire Good Friday Agreement

Indeed, we can observe this in the way in which business moves between the EU and Switzerland  which is not a member, nor in any customs union with it.

A highly successful businessman friend, who, incidentally, is very much not a Brexit supporter, wrote to me last week to criticise the EU's posturing on this issue: 'I frequently cross the Swiss border into France, sometimes two or three times a day. By the way, 35,000 people cross back and forth from Germany and France every day to work in Basel [a Swiss city]. It is a way of life.

'Virtually none are stopped. I did this myself for nine years and was stopped twice in all that time. And this was without the technology that a Smart Border could bring, and before Schengen [the treaty introducing visa-free travel].'

This most experienced businessman added: 'Surely the Good Friday Agreement has nothing to do with whether there is a border of any sort? It may be perceived as a negative symbol to see border controls, but why does this undermine peace? It only would if you're a troublemaker.'

And who are the troublemakers here? The European Commission's Brexit negotiating team. It is shaming that two former British prime ministers, determined to deny the reality of the referendum result, have enlisted as M Barnier's useful idiots.

Labour double standards? Surely not!

A week ago, Jeremy Corbyn and Dawn Butler, the Shadow Equalities Minister, posed for pictures with newly appointed members of Labours LGBT advisory group  one of them the mixed race transgender model Munroe Bergdorf.

Now a series of Bergdorfs tweets from 2010 have emerged, in one of which she (or rather he, as was then Bergdorfs identity) told someone: Hows your barren womb? We all know your little secret  hairy lesbian.

And another in which he expressed a desire to gay-bash a certain individual.

Bergdorf has apologised but insisted: Who I am now, is not who I was almost a decade ago when I wrote those tweets.

A week ago, Jeremy Corbyn and Dawn Butler posed for pictures with newly appointed members of Labours LGBT advisory group  one of them the mixed race transgender model Munroe Bergdorf (above, with Mr Corbyn)

That seems good enough for Dawn Butler. This is the same Dawn Butler who led Labours campaign to get Toby Young sacked as a board member of a government higher education regulator earlier this year, after it emerged that Young, the founder of a number of free schools in London, had in 2009 tweeted crude remarks about womens breasts, among other regrettable observations.

The virulence of Mr Youngs misogyny, said Butler, meant he should lose his position. And when he resigned, she denounced Theresa Mays total lack of judgment in appointing him.

Now that one of her own advisers has been caught out by offensive tweets of similar vintage, Ms Butler has nothing bad to say about it. At least in Youngs case, the PM and the Education Department didnt know about the offending nine-year-old tweets when he was appointed.

But Ms Butler must have known that last year Bergdorf was sacked by LOreal after she wrote on Facebook that ALL white people are guilty of racial violence and that the Suffragettes were white supremacists. (This was based on the models totally false assertion that only white women got the right to vote in 1918.)

Dawn Butler must have been aware of this when she appointed Bergdorf, and should have known that her appointee wrote only last year that gay male Tories are a special kind of d***head. I can only conclude that Butler agrees with Bergdorf.

And thats worse than hypocrisy.With Donald Trump threatening a trade war over steel, its more important than ever that the Foreign Office forges strong links with the White House.

Last month, our man in Washington, Sir Kim Darroch, was invited by Mississippi Republican governor Phil Bryant to a cocktail party to mark the launch of the Royal Commonwealth Society of the United States.

Lord Howell, a Cabinet minister under Mrs Thatcher, went in his capacity as president of the Royal Commonwealth Society in Britain.

'With Donald Trump threatening a trade war over steel, its more important than ever that the Foreign Office forges strong links with the White House,' writes Andrew Pierce

Guests included two of Trumps heavy hitters: education secretary Betsy DeVos and commerce secretary Wilbur Ross.

There were also more than a dozen senators and governors at the soiree.

But the British embassy was a surprise no-show.

Unfortunately, the British Ambassador Sir Kim Darroch will be out of DC at that time and our Deputy Ambassador has a clash of events, so neither will be able to attend, was the embassy response to the invitation.

The White House smells a rat  not least because the invitation named not only Lord Howell as a special guest, but also former Ukip leader Nigel Farage.

Arron Banks, the insurance tycoon who gave millions to the Leave campaign, was at the party, and said: Our American hosts regarded the absence of our diplomats as a snub.

'Last month, our man in Washington, Sir Kim Darroch, was invited by Mississippi Republican governor Phil Bryant to a cocktail party to mark the launch of the Royal Commonwealth Society of the United States. Arron Banks (above), the insurance tycoon who gave millions to the Leave campaign, was at the party'

'The Mississippi governor says they stayed away because of Farage, even though hes the British politician best connected to the White House.

The embassy in Washington has a huge diplomatic corps, but they couldnt spare one person for the party. What a joke.

The embassy was criticised after the U.S. election for spending too much time wooing Hillary Clinton and virtually ignoring Trump, who it assumed would lose.

No wonder Trump said weeks before his inauguration: Many people would like to see Nigel Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!

If Farage did have that role, I doubt hed have turned down the invitation  especially if there was a stiff drink involved!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FIB OF THE WEEK

Environment Secretary Michael Gove, asked about Tory Remoaner Anna Soubry, said: I love her, I think shes fantastic.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FACE FACTS, ADONIS

'Committed to overturning Brexit, former Labour transport secretary Lord Adonis is taking his message to 100 Leave constituencies'

Committed to overturning Brexit, former Labour transport secretary Lord Adonis is taking his message to 100 Leave constituencies.

Its the Face The Future Tour  after the title of Labours great 1945 manifesto, which championed social reform and internationalism and didnt set the one against the other. Sounds more like a delusions of grandeur tour.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The LibDems are 30 this weekend. At their 20th birthday they had 63 MPs: today they have 12 and are languishing below 8pc in the polls.

No wonder their celebrations were low-key.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott is advertising for a press and communications secretary.

The successful applicant needs: excellent oral and written communication skills.

'Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott (centre alongside Emily Thornbury and John McDonnell) is advertising for a press and communications secretary'

The advert also says: They should be at ease in a high-pressure environment and have a proven track record in press work.

And be able to add up. Unlike Abacus Abbott.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A jealous Jeremy Corbyn tried to stop Sadiq Khan giving a platform speech at last years Labour conference.

Now Labour is asking members to pay 100-a-head for a fundraising dinner where the star attraction will be . . . none other than the London Mayor.

Khan is more popular with the moderates than Comrade Corbyn will ever be.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MAJOR CASE OF DOUBLE STANDARDS

Even Remain-supporting Tory MPs were taken aback by the ferocity of Sir John Majors attack on Theresa May over Brexit.

It was the usual double standards from the former PM who, in his memoirs The Major Years, attacked his illustrious predecessor Margaret Thatcher for not being sufficiently supportive.

'Even Remain-supporting Tory MPs were taken aback by the ferocity of Sir John Majors attack on Theresa May over Brexit'

In retrospect, I think her behaviour was intolerable, he wrote.

Mrs May probably thinks the same about Major.Teachers have taken to Mumsnet to discuss their pet peeves in the classroom, and it's the parents who come off worse than the children.

Giving a rare insight to life in the industry, British educators complained about an array of unpleasant incidents they've encountered with children who start school still in nappies at the age of five a particular thorn in the side.

One teacher revealed she had experienced 15-year-olds farting on purpose, while another admitted her bugbear was children who started school still in nappies, aged five.

Another had a whole array of complaints, explaining: 'Children who can't dress themselves, wet playtimes (no such thing when I was at school), water bottles and parents who can't accept that their child isn't the cleverest in the class and somehow it's my fault'.

And another teacher described how children would use their parents as an excuse for not taking part in activities, something they would deny when confronted.

Explaining that she would always believe the students, she wrote: 'Children pass on messages like "My mum says I don't have to do games because it only rounders and rounders is rubbish" or "my dad says we don't need to learn about the Celts because that's all nonsense, so I've not done my homework".

Teachers have taken to Mumsnet to discuss their pet peeves in the classroom, with one teacher revealing she had experienced 15-year-olds farting on purpose

'I am petty but I email the parents every time to check. And every time they sell their kid out "No Mrs Jobbiesh**, I would never say such a thing. What you are doing is soooo important."

'I believe the child 80% of the time. You can tell because they use vocabulary they don't normally use and its obviously a direct quote!'

One teacher described the rather unsavoury activity of having to change children after toilet accidents- and not getting the school's spare clothes back.

'Parents who dont send in spare clothes for wet/soiled accidents. And parents who dont return the school spare clothes,' she wrote.

Another teacher admitted her bugbear was children who started school still in nappies, aged 5

One teacher had a whole array of complaints, citing: 'Children who can't dress themselves, wet playtimes' adding 'no such thing when I was at school'

One teacher described the rather unsavoury activity of having to change children after toilet accidents- and not getting the school's spare clothes back

Entertaining children when it's too get to outside is a pet hate for many, while another mentioned students turning up without a pen.

And another teacher had a whole list of irritants to get off her chest, describing how one mother complained because she wouldn't take her call during teaching time before making her search 100 pupils for her son's lost hat.

Continuing her list of pet hates, she added: 'The parent who immediately says 'he must be being bullied' whenever you try and discuss their child's behaviour with them (naturally, it's the same parent).

'The parent who takes their child on four weeks term time holiday and complains to the Principal because you won't set four weeks of school work for them to do during their absence.'

And things didn't end there, with her continuing: 'The parent whose child doesn't bring their communication diary every day, but the parent complains that you never write anything in it.

Teachers soon flocked to the post to assure mothers that the discussion wasn't a criticism, writing: 'The thread is clearly aimed at teachers and meant to be lighthearted'

'The parent who wanted to pick her child up every day at 12pm and told me that I couldn't do anything curriculum related after that because her child would miss out.'

And one teacher revealed it was the parents more than the children that caused her problems, recalling a list of ridiculous complaints from overprotective mothers and fathers.

'The parent who complained to the Principal because I wouldn't peel her 9 year olds banana every snack time for him, the parent who told me off because I made her child sharpen his own pencil and the parent who says 'you don't understand what it is like having to work full time and be a parent', they wrote.

But some parents took offence at the thread, replying to a message that listed 'children not being able to dress themselves' with 'I'm sorry my child isn't perfect'.

However teachers soon flocked to the post to assure mothers that the discussion wasn't a criticism, writing: 'The thread is clearly aimed at teachers and meant to be lighthearted' .Lip enhancements have grown in popularity with the likes of Kylie Jenner and Roxy Jacenko admitting to lip injections in the past few years.

But there is a new lip augmentation beauty trend called 'Lip Flip' that is making itself known in Australia.

According to Allure, the 'Botox Lip Flip' is a procedure where Botox is administered into the muscles around the mouth, creating a more pronounced pout.

There is a new lip oriented beauty trend called 'Lip Flip' that is making itself known

It is a non surgical procedure designed to add fullness to the upper and lower lip but it is just an illusion as it doesn't actually make the lips any bigger.

The lip lift relaxes the mouth muscles and rolls or flips the upper lip, adding the illusion of a fuller mouth.

The effect of the Botox treatment is seen immediately and weans off after three to four months.

The main difference between lip fillers and Botox is the fillers add volume, whereas, Botox relaxes the muscles around the mouth.

The lip lift relaxes the mouth muscles and rolls or flips the upper lip, adding the illusion of a fuller mouth

The effect of Botox treatment is seen immediately and weans off after three to four months

Unfortunately there are some downsides of using Botox in lieu of fillers for lip augmentation.

'The tricky thing is that if you use too much [Botox], your mouth doesn't move properly,' Min S. Ahn, a certified facial plastic surgeon based in Boston, told Allure.

'It would look really smooth, but, essentially, your mouth doesn't move. You can't suck on a straw.'

To avoid this happening to you Min explained you would have to use less Botox but the less you use the shorter amount of time the treatment lasts.

The procedure takes under a minute to administer and should only be done by certified professionals.

While this treatment can cost up to $120, getting filler in your lips will set you back about $300-$400 per procedure.

However, not all clinics are convinced that the 'Lip Flip' is a better alternative to traditional lip fillers.A desperate couple struggling to have children are advertising for a surrogate - but there's just one very awkward catch.

Paul Bennett, 52, and his wife Elisabeth, 61, from Trundle in the Central West of NSW, want a female companion to move into their home so they can raise the baby together.

Speaking to That's Life, the pair said they are searching for a woman who will either carry their child via an artificial insemination or a 'more physical connection'.

'We both agreed it didn't seem right to take a child away from the woman who helped create it. So we came up with the idea of finding a woman who wishes to have children but doesn't want to do it alone,' Paul told the magazine.

Paul Bennett, 52, and his wife Elisabeth, 61, from Trundle in the Central West of NSW, are looking for a surrogate - but there's just one catch - she would have to move in with the couple

The couple met 28 years ago when Elisabeth was married with five children.

Following her marriage broke down, Paul told her how he felt about her - but she wanted to shift her focus on raising her family.

But when her children moved out of home 15 years later, the pair sparked up a romance.

The duo started talking about having their own children after tying the knot, but unfortunately, scans showed Elisabeth was no longer fertile.

After joining a community foster club to learn about how the system work, the pair decided they wanted to have a biological child.

And so, their unconventional plan sprung into mind - and they placed an advert in their local newspaper.

'Are you a single female? Looking to relocate. Yearning to have children, wanting security? Then I want to hear from you,' Paul wrote.

The pair have placed an advert in their local newspaper looking for a female companion who will carry their child via an artificial insemination or a 'more physical connection'

So far, they have no received any response.

The couple said they were aware their request was strange but they are holding onto a glimmer of hope a woman would come forward.

'Whether it be artificial insemination or a more physical connection, both Elisabeth and I are open to discussing what our new female companion wants,' Paul said.

'The main thing is the three of us would raise the child together, as a family unit.'

The duo said they are proposing to build a dwelling on their land for the woman if she wants privacy - but she also has the option to live under the same roof as them.

After having her own family, Elisabeth said she was determined to give her husband the child he wants.

The couple's full story is available in That's Life magazine now.Bleubeard and I welcome you

Art, including the journey, background techniques, sewing on both paper and fabric, new experiments, photos, failures, and successes will be shared on this site. I have removed my e-mail address until such time as I can get it to work again. Thank you for understanding. You can always leave a note on my blog and I will visit you.



Please check out my Previous Collaborations link above to see what projects I have been involved in over the past ten years. Current and ongoing projects only are shown below.



Occasionally, Silent Sunday will showcase photos of my home, neighborhood, or community. A picture is often worth a thousand words.



Feel free to drop by every second Thursday of the month for my Second Thursday Tutorials. They are interspersed with my other Tutorials found at the link above.

Post-Weinstein, the 2018 Academy Awards were always going to be slightly muted: if there is one truism that the past few months has reinforced, it is that fame often comes at a terrible price.

Novelists seem to have always held a jaundiced view of Hollywood and actors more generally.

From the satire of Evelyn Waughs The Loved One, to Henry Farrells Whatever Happened To Baby Jane and James Ellroys LA Confidential, the authenticity of that ephemerally glamorous world has long been questioned.

The female protagonist of Maggie OFarrells This Must Be The Place is fleeing fame. Claudette Wells had been a box-office smash, as well as the lover of a Scandinavian arthouse director.

This week author Patricia Nicol, recommends the best books on acting to help you through the trickier times in life

By the time Daniel Sullivan encounters her, a recluse in rural Ireland, she is known less for her films than for having vanished at the height of her career.

A far from securely locked roman-a-clef, is how Stephen Fry recently described the late actress Carrie Fishers Postcards From The Edge. As the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, she was a Hollywood insider, just like her funny, recovering addict actress protagonist, Suzanne Vale.

From rehab, Suzanne calls her mother, movie icon Doris Mann, and is told: You were happy as a child. I can prove it. I have films. But isnt Suzannes problem actually her mothers star wattage?

That fame can be a troubled heritage was also a subject for Daphne Du Maurier.

In her 1949 novel The Parasites, capricious, self-centred actress Maria Delaney and her bohemian siblings are lambasted by Marias husband, Charles: Youve none of you done a stroke of ordinary honest work in your lives, but batten upon us, the fool public who allow you to exist.

Life in the limelight may look glamorous, but it can leave you vulnerable and exposed. Safer to be like one of these writers  watching from the wings.Having had their time to shine on the ice at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, Team USA figure skaters Adam Rippon and Mirai Nagasu were ready to make their mark in another forum: the red carpet at the Oscars.

And Adam, 28, certainly didn't hold back in the sartorial stakes, making quite the statement in a bondage-inspired suit, as he arrived at the 2018 Academy Awards alongside his fellow figure skating favorite Mirai, 24, who looked ravishing in blue lace.

Making a move away from the latex looks he models while out on the ice, Adam instead wore a unique Moschino suit jacket that featured a leather harness.

Style statement: Figure skater Adam Rippon, 28, wore a rather unique bondage-style suit featuring several leather straps and buckles at the Oscars

Shaking things up: Instead of a traditional tuxedo, Adam opted to wear a cold-shoulder jacket that had leather accessories over each arm, as well as a crossed harness over his chest

Designer duds: The harness, which is from Moschino, was paired with a pleather bow tie

Excited: Adam shared several snaps on his Instagram Story as he made his way to the award ceremony to walk the red carpet

Stylish: On Friday, Adam attended a pre-Oscars fitting with Moschino designer Jeremy Scott, sharing an image of them together on his Instagram

His suit jacket had cut-outs at the shoulders, allowing his plain white shirt to show through, while also highlighting the leather straps across each gap.

The look also saw Adam wearing crossed harness over his chest under his suit jacket.

He finished off the ensemble with a shiny pleather bow tie, and a more traditional cummerbund and plain black trousers, while also adding some gold jewelry at his wrists - including a Cartier Love bracelet - and several rings.

Although Adam did not find any gold medal success in PyeongChang, he found himself quickly thrust into the spotlight thanks to his outspoken attitude, and his history-making medal win, which saw him become the first openly-gay man to stand on the podium for the US at any Winter Olympics.

During an interview with USA Today, the athlete took issue with Vice President Mike Pence leading the U.S. delegation in South Korea.

'You mean Mike Pence, the same Mike Pence that funded gay conversion therapy?' he said. 'I'm not buying it.'

He also spoke out to confirm that he would be one of a few athletes who wouldn't attend a post-Olympics celebration hosted by President Trump at the White House.

Olympic stars: He was joined on the red carpet by fellow figure skater Mirai Nagasu

Close: The duo were both part of the US team that brought home a bronze medal in the group competition, but neither managed to medal individually

All smiles: Adam proved himself to be the darling of the Olympics, however, particularly thanks to his outspoken critique of Donald Trump and Mike Pence

Beauty in blue: Mirai, 24, went with something slightly more traditional, looking elegant in a long pale pastel number

Before he got bronze, Adam and freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy this year became the first open gay men to even compete at the Winter Olympics for the United States.

Rippon finished in 10th place at the Men's Single Free Program this Saturday.

Supermodel and Americas Next Top Model host Tyra Banks was clearly a firm fan of Adam and his ensemble, and even tweeted her support, writing: 'Hoe, but make it fashion @Adaripp!' before adding the hashtag #YouAreFierce.

The outfit choice almost didn't make it to the red carpet, however, as Adam revealed on his Instagram account earlier in the day that it was still being sewn together ten minutes before he was due to walk out of the door.

This is despite the fact that Adam attended a final fitting for the ensemble on Friday with Moschino designer Jeremy Scott.

Adam shared an image of himself with Jeremy, 42, on his Instagram on Friday, thanking the designer for dressing him for the star-studded occasion.

'Dressed to impress in @moschino,' he captioned the snap. 'Getting ready for the Oscars! Huge thank you to the brill, beautiful, and kind, @itsjeremyscott.'

Ice, ice, baby: Adam wowed the world while competing at the Olympics - thanks in large part to his outspoken attitude, particularly in relation to President Trump and Vice President Pence

History-maker: Mirai, meanwhile, became the first American woman to ever land a clean triple axel in Olympic competition during the team event

Mirai, meanwhile, who charmed the world when she became the first American woman to land a triple axel in an Olympic competition, looked beautiful in a floor-length pale blue dress.

The design featured a plunging neckline and long sleeves, as well as the sexy addition of a sheer floor-length skirt, showing a flash of the shorter slip she was wearing underneath.

She carried a small white box clutch in one hand, and left her neck and wrists free from accessories.

The California resident did add a pair of dainty dangly earrings to the ensemble however, and a chunky ring, while her long dark hair was pulled back from her face in an elegant, but slightly undone, up-do.

Adam and Mirai have clearly remained close throughout the Olympics - where both were part of the team that brought home a bronze medal, although neither managed to land an individual spot on the podium, despite high hopes going in.

Indeed, Mirai in particular faced bitter disappointment in the ladies' competition, having arguably been the favorite US athlete going into the figure skating competition.Monica Lewinsky may never be able to escape the fall-out from her affair with former US president Bill Clinton - however she proved on Sunday night that she is more than capable of rising above the gossip and controversy when she hit the red carpet at an Oscars viewing party.

The 44-year-old made a stunning appearance at the Vanity Fair event, wearing a figure-hugging teal blue silk dress that featured a funky asymmetrical neckline, leaving one shoulder bare.

Monica's choice of dress color could be seen by some as a strong statement, particularly as her appearance at the red carpet event came just a few days after she spoke out again about her affair, labeling her relationship with Bill Clinton as a 'gross abuse of power'.

Scroll down for video

Happy as can be: Monica Lewinsky attended Vanity Fair's Oscars party on Sunday evening in a form-fitting blue silk dress

Dazzling: The 44-year-old's gown featured an asymmetrical neckline that left one of her shoulders bare

Beaming: Monica appeared delighted to be at the event, smiling for the cameras, just days after speaking out about her affair with former president Bill Clinton

In an opinion piece written for Vanity Fair, Monica noted that, although the affair that led to impeachment proceedings against the former president was not sexual assault, she believes that it certainly 'constituted a gross abuse of power'.

Speaking out about the Time's Up and #MeToo movements, Monica added in her piece that she is 'in awe of the sheer courage' of women who have been confronting 'entrenched beliefs and institutions' in recent months.

Thoughtful: Her choice to wear a blue dress seems like provocative one, given how famous this blue dress became as a form of evidence to prove her affair with Clinton

She also admitted that she was recently moved to tears when a leader of the #MeToo movement told her: 'I'm so sorry you were so alone.'

The former White House intern lauded the #MeToo movement for providing 'the safety that comes from solidarity' as she revealed that she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress from being 'publicly outed and ostracized' in the weeks, months, and years following her affair with Clinton.

President Clinton initially denied the affair before admitting to it in 1998; the Democrat was acquitted by the US senate.

Following the publication of her opinion piece, Monica's choice of dress design at Sunday evening's star-studded occasion was certainly a provocative one because it was a blue dress that first sparked the investigation into her relationship with Clinton back in November 1997.

At the time, Monica is said to have admitted to a close friend and confidant that she was still in possession of a Gap dress that was stained with semen from when she had performed oral sex on Clinton earlier that same year.

This dress was eventually used as a pivotal piece of evidence to tie Clinton to the affair, after he initially denied all involvement.

In recent years, Monica has been outspoken about the toll that the public scrutiny and criticism had on her, revealing that she suffered from a great deal of personal distress and trauma.

Now, however, she explained in Vanity Fair that she sees the affair in a new light - thanks in large part to the #MeToo movement.

Speaking out: In an opinion piece for Vanity Fair, Monica noted that, although her affair with Clinton was not a form of sexual assault, it was a 'gross abuse of power'

A change: 'Now, at 44, Im beginning to consider the implications of the power differentials that were so vast between a president and a White House intern,' she wrote

Praise: She also took the chance to celebrate the #MeToo and Time's Up movements

'There are many more women and men whose voices and stories need to be heard before mine,' she wrote.

'There are even some people who feel my White House experiences dont have a place in this movement, as what transpired between Bill Clinton and myself was not sexual assault, although we now recognize that it constituted a gross abuse of power.

'Now, at 44, Im beginning to consider the implications of the power differentials that were so vast between a president and a White House intern.

'Im beginning to entertain the notion that in such a circumstance the idea of consent might well be rendered moot. Although power imbalances  and the ability to abuse them  do exist even when the sex has been consensual.'

She added: '[Bill Clinton] was my boss. He was the most powerful man on the planet. He was 27 years my senior, with enough life experience to know better. He was, at the time, at the pinnacle of his career, while I was in my first job out of college.'

Despite the piece putting her affair back at the top of the news agenda in recent days, Monica appeared determined not to let any controversy take a toll on her, smiling happily as she made her way into the Oscars event, happily smiling and posing for the waiting photographers.

Putting on a very glamorous display for the event, Monica accessorized her dress with a pair of gold heels, and wore her long brown hair in loose waves around her shoulders.

She finished off the look with a pair of large dangly earrings and a silver box clutch.A 35-year-old mother has claimed she was left shocked after she was forced to express her breast milk beside the toilet.

Business development manager Kathy Smith, from Brisbane, was travelling to Melbourne for a 90-minute meeting on February 19 when she needed to pump milk.

She claimed Brisbane's Qantas staff had told her she could use the conference room when she got to The Qantas Club Lounge at Melbourne Airport.

But upon arrival, she claimed she was directed by the airline's staff to use either the shower rooms or the parents' area - both of which were already full.

She claimed she had no choice but to express her milk next to a toilet with no lid and multiple sanitary bins.

Kathy Smith (pictured) shared a photograph of herself in the bathroom at The Qantas Club Lounge In Melbourne - where she had to express milk beside a toilet and multiple sanitary bins

Taking to social media, Ms Smith slammed the airline for not providing a private room for working mothers who want to breastfeed or express milk.

'I needed to pump milk and found that my only options were to bare my breasts and plug in at the lounge itself, go to a shower area which had no seat, or pump away beside the toilet and bins in a parents' room,' she wrote in a Facebook post, which has since been deleted.

'The shower rooms were in use so I headed to the parents' room. I was so shocked at having to bring out all my sterilised equipment in that environment.

'There are many working mothers in Australia and surely a respected company like Qantas can cater for their needs.

'There is every other thing you could need in that lounge.'

According to the Australian government, mothers should be provided access to a private hygienic room with comfortable seating for the purpose of breastfeeding or expressing milk.

The woman slammed the airline for not providing a private room for working mothers who want to breastfeed or express milk

Speaking to 9Honey, the mother - who pays $510 a year for her lounge membership - said her story would be different if her eight-month-old son was with her.

She explained breastfeeding her baby in public would not be as 'confronting' as sitting there alone with 'two pumps hanging off your breasts'.

'If I'm travelling with colleagues, male or female, this is business. I don't really want to get my breasts out,' she told the publication.

'And if you've been in the Qantas Club Lounge before, I'd say it's 90-10 male-to-female ratio... There's no way I have the balls to do that.

'All I want is a private area that is not a toilet. Just somewhere where I'm not going to upset other people.'

A Qantas spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia: 'Our lounge staff and cabin crew will always do their best to assist new mothers and fathers in any way they can.

'Our staff are trained to assist mothers by providing them with a comfortable and private space in the lounge where they can breastfeed or express.'The Duchess of Cambridge could be set to give the country a patriotic boost by giving birth to her third child on St George's Day.

Kate, 36, is due in April and now sources have told The Sun that her due date is close to the patron saint of England's feast day on the 23rd.

'There's no certainty with due dates of course but the Duchess is working off a date around St George's Day and it would be a lovely patriotic coincidence if he or she were born then,' the source said.

If the royal baby does arrive on the feast day, it could reignite calls for 23rd April to become a public holiday.

The idea has been brought up in parliament every year since 2006 and most other countries have a day off to celebrate their national Saint, such as St Patrick in Ireland.

The Duchess of Cambridge, 36, could be set to give the country a patriotic boost by giving birth to her third child on St George's Day

Kate, pictured outside hospital after giving birth to Princess Charlotte, will attend Harry and Meghan's wedding just weeks after having her third child

Kate has a busy time ahead as she prepares to become a mother-of-three just weeks before Harry and Meghan wed at Windsor Castle.

The Duchess will have a newborn on her hands when the couple tie the knot on 19th May and will also be looking after George and Charlotte who are expected to take on the roles of page boy and bridesmaid.

It comes after a hectic few months for the expectant mother who has had her busiest start to the year to date - completing 38 official engagements so far despite being weeks from giving birth.

Kate, who is more than seven months pregnant, has had a whirlwind calendar so far - including a jam-packed overseas tour to Sweden and Norway.

Who was St George? Little is known about St George. Pope Gelasius set the tone late in the fifth century when he listed George among those saints 'whose names are rightly reverenced among us, but whose actions are known only to God.' If there really was a St George, the most likely candidate appears to be George of Cappadocia who sold bacon to the Roman army in third-century Turkey. According to Gibbon's Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, he 'raised himself by the talents of a parasite' and by flattery or bribery, secured the lucrative army bacon contract. 'He accumulated wealth by the basest arts of fraud and corruption,' Gibbon said, 'but his malversations were so notorious, that George was compelled to escape from the pursuits of justice.' George's next caper was to become a bishop, then Archbishop, 'and each moment of his reign was polluted by cruelty and avarice.' Yet someone seems to have decided that George would be a good chap to worship and Christian scribes began appending wondrous stories to the life of St George. The bacon business was replaced by heavenly myths and miracles. Although his association with Britain may date back to the seventh century, his position as patron saint of soldiers was established by King Richard I, The Lion Heart, in the late-12th century, at the time of the Crusades. In 1222, the Council of Oxford declared April 23 to be St George's Day and he replaced Edward the Confessor as England's patron saint in the 14th century. He is also patron saint of Aragon, Catalonia, Georgia, Lithuania and Genoa, and the second patron saint of Venice after St Mark. St George is also patron saint of soldiers, archers, cavalry, chivalry, farmers, riders, saddlers and lepers. The dragon-slaying story seems to have emerged when George was adopted as England's patron saint. The 'dragon', of course, may not have been a dragon at all, but a nickname for the tyrant Emperor Diocletian, who persecuted Christians. Because of doubts over his existence, St George was demoted to 'optional worship' by Pope Paul VI in 1969 but Pope John Paul II reinstated him to full membership of the calendar of saints in 2000. Advertisement

During the same period in 2016, Kate had completed seven official engagements, according to the Royal Court Circular.

The Duchess had a busier diary in 2015 - when she was pregnant with Princess Charlotte - completing 13 official engagements.

In the past, she and Prince William have been accused of not pulling their weight, with the couple often completing fewer engagements than older members of the royal family over the course of a year.

Experts say the recent influx of engagements may be due to Kate wanting to help Meghan with her first steps into royal life, as well as the Duchess preparing to take time off after the birth of her third child.The UK is just getting back to normal after days of weather havoc thanks to the Beast from the East, but one amateur climatologist claims we haven't seen the last of the snow yet.

Weather guru David King - who correctly predicted a tough winter during an appearance on This Morning in August - has returned to the show to predict a further blanketing of snow for the UK in less than two weeks.

'By March 17th if the air is cold enough, we will get another five days of snow. We will get a repeat of dry powdery snow,' he told a disappointed Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby on Monday's show.

Forecasters have said that temperatures will rise to 10 degrees in the next few days days after a rare red warning was issued about the weather by the Met Office, but if David is right, Britons will need to brace themselves for another flurry.

David, who is a former Met police detective and isn't a trained scientist, simply interprets the signs from nature to predict the pattern of the weather.

Weather guru David King returned to This Morning to share his predictions for the UK, claiming that we could expect more snow

Freezing weather conditions dubbed the 'Beast from the East' brought chaos to many parts of the country, with snow and sub-zero temperatures

The amateur climatologist explained to Holly and Phil on the daytime show that we could expect a late summer and a washout spring

He explained in January 2017 that the UK would have 'a hard winter, followed by a poor summer, followed by an even harder winter and that is 600 years old and that is 100 per cent true'.

Then he followed that with a eerily accurate forecast in August, saying: 'We are going to have a very hard winter, from the second of January.'

David told Phil and Holly that he was able to correctly predict the snow because the hottest days on June 13th to 23rd 'give you the coldest days in February'.

The presenters then giggled away as he added about what we can expect for summer 2018.

'As I said to Ruth [Lansgford] last time Im very sorry its going to be like last year wet and warm in spits and farts,' he said.

'And by spits and farts I mean three or four days at a time. And if it rains it pours doesn't it!'

Blizzards swept across the UK causing havoc on the roads with red warnings put in place telling people not to travel

David correctly guessed the UK would have a 'hard winter' back in August last year and is now saying the snow could come back in less than two weeks if the air is cold enough

David also explained that if Alsace, the border between France and Germany, had a heatwave like last year the hot air will blow towards the UK.

The weather fanatic also advised Brits on when to book their holidays saying June, but to avoid leaving the country in the middle two weeks in August because the UK will receive a late summer.

'Spring is four weeks late which means summer will be late two weeks in August. We will have a cold, long, wet spring like we did in 2015 and 2016.

'It's definitely not a barbecue summer,' he added.

This Morning airs weekdays on ITV at 10.30amA seven-year-old who went viral after she offered to become a model for Zara's boys range to prove girls can wear the clothes too has been turned down by the retailer.

Eliza Brichto from London was invited to the fashion giant's headquarters in Galicia, Spain last week after MailOnline reported on the letter she'd written to the brand.

Her story was picked up as far away as China and Australia, but despite a wave of support her mother Jess Brichto explained in a Facebook post that the retailer 'could not make a decision or commit to anything'.

'The staff at Zara were wonderful with Eliza, she enjoyed her time there,' Jess told Femail.

'It may be some time before there are any changes in the way their kids clothes are branded. I hope that some day Eliza's dream of being a model for their boys clothes comes true.'

Supporters were not impressed by the brand's decision and said it was 'foolish' and that bosses would be 'kicking themselves' at a later date.

Eliza's efforts have not gone to waste, however, as she's had modelling offers from other gender neutral clothing brands and is being interviewed for a BBC documentary celebrating 100 years of votes for women.

Eliza Brichto from London was invited to visit Zara HQ in Galicia, Spain after her letter to the brand asking if she could model for its boys range went viral

The youngster even posed for photos in her favourite outfits from Zara's boys range to prove that girls can pull off the clothes just as well

The youngster received a warm welcome but was left disappointed when bosses said they couldn't commit to any decision

Last month, Eliza sent a handwritten letter to Zara Kids to offer herself as a model for their boys' clothing as she couldn't understand why girls aren't encouraged to wear the range.

In the handwritten note, she told the brand that although it might 'seem a bit weird', she 'loves' its boys' department, adding: 'It's the only place I go clothes shopping'.

She even posed for photos in her favourite boys' clothes from Zara to show how well she could pull off modelling the range.

Her mother Jess explained: 'She decided that she wanted to be a Zara Boys model to show that girls too could wear the clothes, and to encourage others to do so, as she was worried that they were missing out.

Supporters were left disappointed by Zara's decision, saying it was a missed opportunity

'She commented once that it wasn't fair that all the models were boys and that no girls were allowed to be in their photos. She just didn't get why as the clothes were so cool.'

According to Jess, who runs wedding choreography school Start The Dance, Eliza has never liked wearing dresses and was delighted when she found her dream wardrobe at Zara.

'Eliza has always been very much her own person, and very sure of what she liked and didn't. She has never been interested in following the crowd.

Eliza was delighted to meet Zara designers and choose some pieces to take home on the trip

'After being forced, by me, into a bridesmaid dress age three, with everyone staring her and telling how beautiful she was, she decided she never wanted to wear a dress again.

'She's always been interested in fashion, but just never felt girls' clothes were for her.

'When she saw Zara Boys on a shopping trip for my son it was love at first sight. The biggest treat of any holiday is a visit there - and if we'd let her, she'd buy the whole shop.'

She added: 'I'm so proud of Eliza in that she has never been afraid to be herself - whatever anyone else thinks,' she explained.

The youngster loves shopping in the boys' section at Zara and can't understand why girls don't model the clothes too

The youngster even posed for photos in her favourite outfits to show how her modelling shots might look

Eliza's mother Jess said her daughter has never liked wearing dresses, and feels like girls are missing out if they're discouraged from wearing boys' clothes

Eliza is hoping to receive a response from the Spanish retailer to her offer to be a model

'And I believe it would be such a brilliant recognition of this if Zara could acknowledge that their boys girls can look just as great on girls.'

In 2016, Zara launched an ungendered line of 16 wardrobe staples for adults in neutral shades of grey, blue and khaki green in small, medium and large.

And in late 2017, it appeared the company was moving towards a more gender neutral stance by featuring both male and female models sporting the same items of clothing on its website for the first time.

Last year, Zara showed the same 159 checked coat from Zara Man on both a male and a female model

In September last year, John Lewis became the first major retailer in the UK to ditch boys and girls labels from its childrens clothing range.

The chain also removed boys and girls signs from its childrenswear departments to avoid reinforcing gender stereotypes.

Instead, new genderless now labels say either Boys & Girls or Girls & Boys, and are on all own-brand clothing from newborn to 14 years. Even floral dresses and skirts have unisex labels.A young mechanic from Bridgend is swapping her oily overalls for glittering ball gowns - to become a top beauty queen.

Petrolhead Elizabeth Jenkins, 19, known as Liz, spends her days taking apart cars, lorries and trucks as she learns her trade and is also one of 32 stunning finalists battling to be crowned Miss Wales 2018.

When she isn't turning heads with her dazzling looks, she's turning screws and getting her hands dirty in dusty garages.

Automative Engineering student Liz said: 'I suppose I am a bit of a petrol head. I've always really liked cars. I customised my own car, I started adding parts to it and I went to car shows.

Elizabeth Jenkins, 19, known as Liz, from Bridgend spends her days taking apart cars, lorries and trucks as she studies automotive engineering, and is also one of 32 finalists battling to be crowned Miss Wales 2018

The student and part-time barmaid is set to compete in the Miss Wales final in April

The aspiring beauty queen is hoping to use her platform to encourage more women to get into engineering

'I thought that I'd love to make my own car look like some of the cars I saw there. I loved the designs.

'I've put on LED lights inside my car and bought some splitters and side skirts. I've added bits to make it look sicker and better.'

The aspiring beauty queen passed her driving test in October 2016 and cruises in her red Vauxhall Corsa - with personalised number plate 'LI7 JNK'.

Liz, who studies Automative Engineering at Bridgend College in south Wales, is now encouraging women to get into engineering.

Liz studies Automative Engineering at Bridgend College in south Wales and is also an aspiring beauty queen

The pretty teenager will take part in an empowerment day, followed by a catwalk and an interview in front of judges

Liz spends her days taking apart cars, lorries and trucks as she learns her trade

She said: 'When I applied for the course I saw that it was all about working under the bonnets. I thought it sounded really interesting so I gave it a go and I love it.

'I'm one of only two girls out of almost 300 people on the course, but it shouldn't be like that and I'd love to see more women going into engineering.

'We study three days a week, theory and practical, working on not just cars but also heavy vehicles like trucks, lorries and diggers.

'I've always loved fast cars, like the ones in the Fast & Furious films. My dream car would be a Ford Mustang - I love the way the look and how powerful they are.'

If Liz is successful, she will represent Wales at the Miss World final in the Philippines later this year

Liz is one of two girls on her engineering course with 300 people studying in total

Liz was worried her braces would be a problem, but they haven't been an obstacle to competing as a beauty queen

The youngster is swapping her oily overalls for glittering ball gowns as she aims to compete in the Miss World final

Liz, who is also a part time barmaid, is now set to compete in the Miss Wales final in April.

Contestants take part in an empowerment day, followed by a catwalk and an interview in front of judges.

The winner will represent their country at the Miss World final in the Philippines later this year.

Liz said: 'I've got braces so I thought that would be a problem because I have some gaps in my teeth.

'I thought there was no way I was going to get through. It's good to just give it a go and take a bit of a step into the unknown.'Since confirming her pregnancy via a string of Instagram photos earlier this year, Michaella McCollum appears to be blooming in new photographs.

Photographed in Spain, the 24-year-old first hit the headlines in 2013 after she was arrested for smuggling drugs and served time in a Peruvian prison.

McCollum, from Northern Ireland, is remaining tight-lipped about who the baby's father is but she clearly isn't compromising on glamour.

That's a bump! Michaella McCollum, who was arrested in 2013 for drug smuggling - and subsequently served time in a Peru jail - looked deep in thought as she strolled around during a trip to Spain

Clutching a Louis Vuitton purse and wearing a lycra camouflague dress, McCollum appeared pensive as she made her way to a restaurant

With her long blonde hair loose, McCollum wore a close-fitting camouflage dress above the knee matched with a pair of beige lace-up suede boots with a towering stiletto heel.

On her latest Spanish sojourn she appeared deep in thought as she strolled alone in the early Spring sunshine.

Clutching a Louis Vuitton purse, McCollum ventured to a restaurant where she appeared fixated with her phone.

News of McCollum's pregnancy first officially broke when she posted a photograph of her rounded stomach alongside the caption: 'Wow had some crazy dreams... guess that's what happens when your dreaming for more than one.'

The 24-year-old wore her blonde hair loose and donned a khaki coat as she strode through Spanish streets. Right: McCollum has been sharing images of her pregnancy's progress on Instagram

Strolling past a harbour, McCollum looked comfortable in spite of her rather daring high heels

Freedom: McCollum was convicg six years and eight months inside a grim jail in Lima, Peru, after they were caught trying to smuggle the huge quantity of cocaine.

McCollum served time in a Peru prison for her crimes - and plans to release a documentary about her prison sentence this summer

McCollum's agent has since confirmed the pregnancy revealing that she was looking forward to motherhood.

Speaking to the MailOnline they said: 'Michaella is pleased to announce her pregnancy, her journey since being back home has been life changing experience.

'Michaella is looking forward to her journey into motherhood. Couple this with the excitement of her book release and 2018 is set to be an amazing year for Michaella.'

As one half of the Peru Two, the 24-year-old shot to fame for the wrong reasons...and has now penned a book, due out later this year, about her conviction

Appearing to wait for another guest, McCollum stuck to Sprite while dining out

She repeatedly checked her phone as she took a seat in the empty restaurant

McCollum has been accused of capitalising on her notoriety; in May last year it emerged she has signed with a talent agency

While McCollum's co-defendant has opted for a quieter life; Melissa Reid applied for a job at the charity after she was released from the South American jail.

Michaella, by contrast, has been accused of capitalising on her notoriety, and in May last year it emerged she has signed with a talent agency.

The two were sentenced to spend six years and eight months inside a grim jail in Lima, Peru, after they were caught trying to smuggle the huge quantity of cocaine.

The ex-convict was released on parole last March after serving less than half of her sentence but initially had to stay in Peru, where she carried out voluntary work until August when she flew back to Belfast.A 12-year-old boy has spoken of his gratitude to his two fathers who adopted him after he was rescued from his neglectful home.

Thomas*, from Colchester, Essex, was removed from his home by police when he was just a toddler after they received reports that he was being left alone.

Essex police discovered Thomas locked in an upstairs room of his home in 'very poor' conditions and he was put into foster care.

Thomas* was adopted by Steve* and Paul* after he was rescued from his biological parents who had locked him in an upstairs room as a toddler

Eventually Thomas was adopted by Steve* and Paul* and the 12-year-old says that he now has the 'perfect' family.

Speaking to East Anglian Daily Times, Thomas said: 'I was a bit nervous at first and sad to be leaving my foster family, but I was fine after that and thought my dads were awesome.

'They couldn't be better parents and everything works perfectly.'

The child went on to encourage potential adoptive parents in the lead up to LGBT Adoption and Fostering week saying it makes a 'huge difference'.

Thomas's fathers admit that they were initially concerned that having homosexual parents might expose their son to bullying, but were pleasantly surprised by the positive experience.

Now 12, Thomas has described his situation as 'perfect' and is encouraging others to adopt

They added: 'Adoption is a wonderful journey and needs to be shared by so many more people.'

Last year it was revealed that gay adoption was at an all-time high with one in seven couples approved by social workers being the same sex.

Gay adoption has steadily risen since Labours 2002 Adoption Act made it for possible gay people to adopt as a couple for the first time. Numbers have increased further since same-sex marriage was introduced three years ago.

LGBT Adoption & Fostering Week is run by New Family Social, the UK support group for LGBT adopters and foster carers.

Each spring, agencies across the UK hold events specifically for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender prospective parents. For more information click here.

*Names have been changed.An artist has painstakingly recreated the Queen's natural labour with her fourth child, Prince Edward, in 1964 to highlight the rarity of home births in the royal family - and show how the monarch broke with royal traditions.

As part of a series entitled Birth Undisturbed, British fine art photographer Natalie Lennard used a period set and actors to re-enact how the Queen insisted on being awake during the birth of Edward, unlike her previous three labours.

The controversial footage graphically depicts the Queen during the final stages of labour and - in the accompanying narration - asks the question whether a royal home birth might happen again for the first time in 54 years when the Duchess of Cambridge gives birth to her third child this summer.

British artist Natalie Lennard has recreated on film the moment the Queen gave birth to her fourth child, Prince Edward, to highlight home births

The film used Belvoir Castle in Lincolnshire to re-create Buckingham Palace... and aspects of the birth were painstakingly re-created, using era-specific clothes and equipment

It's now 54 years since a royal - the Queen no less - gave birth at home but that could change this summer when the Duchess of Cambridge gives birth to her third child - which many have suggested may be at Kensington Palace

Prince Philip attended only the last birth of his four children and is depicted in Lennard's film wearing casual attire

The Queen gave birth in the Belgian Suite at Buckingham Palace and refused to move rooms when she was advised there was a gathering crowd that could be heard through the windows.

The monarch, now 91, is said to have famously uttered the phrase: 'I want my baby to be born in my own room, amongst the things I know.'

Prince Edward's birth was also the only time Prince Philip was in attendance, and the Queen insisted on shunning the drugs that had rendered her unconscious while giving birth to Prince Charles, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew.

The administration of drugs prompted what became known as the 'twilight sleep', with many women being asleep during the birth of their babies in the first half of the 20th century.

In 1948, the Queen already banished one tradition, the concept of 'royal observation' - when a group of mid-wives, servants, doctors and nurses would crowd the room during a royal birth.

Lennard says re-enacting the scene took months.

She explains to MailOnline: 'First I needed to find a room that looked like the Belgian Suite where the Queen actually birthed - a similar bed with wall-mounted canopy and green tones.

'I chose the Chinese Dressing Room of Belvoir Castle in Lincolnshire. We have previously shot here for glamorous fashion shoots, and this room perfectly fit the bill, but with more elaborate decor.'

Lennard spent months planning the photos and enlisted the help of a stylist and special effects person to recreate baby Edward

The artist, from Worthing, says she hopes the images will spark a conversation about home births

Creative licence: The Queen may well have been in more surgical attire in 1964 but Lennard says she wants modern women to be able to relate to them

Much of the surgical equipment was bought at flea markets up and down the country ahead of the shoot at Belvoir Castle

The shoot used a stylist, Sophie Bugneaud, who sought 'era-specific clothes' for the midwife and doctor and a pink, ribboned nightie that resembled what the Queen wore in the post-birth photos issued in 1964.

The artist gathered vintage props from flea markets including a stainless steel trolley, forceps, first aid tins and the midwife's Gladstone bag and used terry towel nappies, towels and flannels to re-create the scene accurately.

And a high-tech baby played Prince Edward. Lennard says: 'We used a prosthetic silicone baby commissioned especially for this series, by Emmy Award-winning, SFX artist Davy Jones who has previously worked for Coronation Street, Casualty and Doctor Who. I used houmous for a vernix look!'

Lennard says there was a little gentle teasing of history as the scene was made to look less surgical than it might have been.

She says: 'I went against some of the historical expert advice - in reality the scene would have had more of a surgical, medical props and atmosphere - but I didn't think it was so appropriate for a modern audience's associations with homebirth, and what homebirth would look like for Kate Middleton today, should she or future Royal mothers choose to revert to the tradition.'Emma Stone is facing backlash for 'white feminism' after she referred to the Oscar nominees for Best Director as 'four men and Greta Gerwig' at Sunday night's awards show.

The 90th Academy Awards were filled with references to the Time's Up movement, but many people felt Stone's jab about gender disparity in Hollywood missed the mark because it dismissed the accomplishments of two men of color.

Critics took to Twitter to accuse the 29-year-old actress of minimizing the achievements of Best Director nominees Guillermo del Toro, a Mexican immigrant, and Jordan Peele, a black man, in her controversial introduction.

Backlash: Emma Stone has been accused of 'white feminism' after she referred to the Oscar nominees for Best Director as 'four men and Greta Gerwig'

Not a fan: Many people felt Stone's jab about gender disparity in Hollywood missed the mark because it dismissed the accomplishments of two men of color

Under fire: Critics said Stone's comment was a prime example of 'peak white feminism'

Calling her out: Teresa Dowell-Vest was one of the many people who pointed out the category included Guillermo del Toro, a Mexican immigrant, and Jordan Peele, a black man

'It is the director whose indelible touch is reflected on every frame,' Stone started her speech. 'It is the director who, shot by shot, scene by scene, day by day, works with every member of the crew to further the story.

'And it is the vision of the director that takes an ordinary movie and turns it into a work of art,' she continued. 'These four men, and Greta Gerwig, created their own masterpieces this year.'

Although Stone's comment was met with laughter and shouts at the awards show, it caused quite a stir on Twitter as people debated whether it was an appropriate comment about the lack of female representation in the category or simply dismissive of the hardworking male nominees.

Many people noted that Peele was only the fifth black person to be nominated in the category and the only one in the running for the award that night. Meanwhile, Best Director winner del Toro spoke candidly about being a Mexican immigrant during his acceptance speech.

'TBH I wasn't a fan of Emma Stone presenting Best Director at the #Oscars by saying "The men nominated and Greta Gerwig,"' the Women Film Directors Twitter account commented. 'Gerwig is only the 5th white woman to be nominated but Jordan Peele is only the 5th black man. How many Mexican directors are nominated?'

Wins: Guillermo del Toro (L) was the winner of Best Director and Best Picture for Shape of Water, while Jordan Peele (R) made history by winning Best Original Screenplay for Get Out

Sharing his story: Del Toro spoke candidly about being a Mexican immigrant during his acceptance speech for Best Director

Teresa Dowell-Vest added: '"These four men and Greta Gerwig." Nevermind that one of those men is Black and one of those men is Latino but ok...you go right on ahead, Emma Stone. I say ALL of OUR names.'

Some accused Emma of 'white feminism,' a brand of feminism that focuses on the ideal and struggles of white women while failing to address the oppression of ethnic minorities.

'Peak white feminism from Emma Stone,' Nik Reed tweeted. 'Pointing out that 4 of the nominees are men while ignoring that 2 of those men are minorities.'

'I understand what #EmmaStone was trying to illustrated last night but to shun an African American, and Mexican immigrant, directors who also are underrepresented is just classless and disrespectful,' Sergio Serna commented.

Others called to attention to the fact that Emma played a Allison Ng, a character who was a quarter Chinese and quarter Hawaiian, in the 2015 film Aloha and has appeared in films by Woody Allen, a filmmaker accused of sexually abusing his daughter.

Hmm: While criticizing Stone, some called attention to her role in the 2015 film Aloha. She played Allison Ng (pictured), a character who was a quarter Chinese and quarter Hawaiian

Creative: One woman created a multiple choice question to hit back at Stone

Getting woke: Walter Chaw sarcastically called her a 'noted Chinese actress' because of her role in Aloha

Just wondering: A woman named April asked if Stone was the same actress who played a whitewashed character in Aloha

Just saying: April noted that Stone has also appeared in films by Woody Allen, a filmmaker accused of sexually abusing his daughter

Nope: Shannon O'Neill argued that the Best Director category 'didn't need a burn'

'This is the same Emma Stone who played a whitewashed character in Aloha, right? Or am I remembering wrong. NARRATOR: She wasn't remembering wrong. #OscarsSoWhite,' a woman named April tweeted.

'I'm not here for the participation trophies & partial credit some are so eager to give out,' she added. 'Emma Stone made a movie with Woody Allen, played a whitewashed character, and erased the importance of two men of color in a category. But she identified a woman, so.... yay?'

Walter Chaw added: 'Noted Chinese actress Emma Stone gets woke all of a sudden.'

Of course, Stone wasn't the only actress who focused on the achievements of the female nominees that evening.

Rachel Morrison made history by becoming the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, and when Sandra Bullock introduced the category, she said: 'Here are the four men, and the one trailblazing woman, who are nominated for achievements in cinematography.'

Missing the mark: Sergio Serna said he understood what Stone was trying to illustrate, but he found it disrespectful of her to shun the other underrepresented directors

Not quite right: Rachel Leishman pointed out that she stole the idea from Natalie Portman, who made a similar comment while presenting at the Golden Globes this year

Fire: There were also plenty of fans of Stone's not-so-subtle shade on Sunday evening

Fan club: Mackenzi Lee called it the 'most iconic awards show shade' since Portman's jab at the Golden Globes

However, Stone's comment was more reminiscent of Natalia Portman's dig at this year's Golden Globes.

Like Stone, Portman was presenting the best director category when she bluntly said: 'Here are the all-male nominees.'

Some people pointed out that Stone 'stole' the idea from Portman, but she failed to realize that she was being dismissive of the other nominees by only highlighting Gerwig's accomplishments.

'She stole the idea but even Natalie didn't dismiss the nominees, more the nominating committee,' Rachel Leishman tweeted. 'She simply said "the all male nominees" so Emma's was more a dismissal of the other nominees by highlighting Greta (who I love) when it isn't exactly fair to Peele or Del Toro.

Despite the controversy, there were plenty of fans of Stone's not-so-subtle shade.

'"These four men and Greta Gerwig..." [fire emoji] Emma Stone presenting the best director category. Greta didn't win but I love that heat Emma just brought,' Shannon Coulter tweeted.

And Mackenzi Lee called it the 'most iconic awards show shade' since Portman's jab at the Golden Globes.Ivanka Trump cut a somber silhouette as she stepped out in an all-black outfit on Monday morning, not long after it was revealed her father is considering pushing her and Jared Kushner out of the White House.

The first daughter, 36, was spotted heading to work a little before 8, bundled up in a black turtleneck.

She paired the sweater with a matching black jacket as well as coordinated tailored pants, and kept a black purse slung over her left shoulder as she left her house in the luxurious neighborhood of Kalorama in Washington, D.C.

Dress code: Ivanka Trump cut a somber silhouette as she stepped out in an all-black outfit on Monday morning

Keeping warm: The first daughter, 36, was spotted heading to work a little before 8, bundled up in a black turtleneck

Sartorial: She paired the sweater with a matching black jacket and coordinated tailored pants

Belongings: Ivanka kept a black purse slung over her left shoulder as she left her house in the luxurious neighborhood of Kalorama in Washington, D.C.

Finishing touches: As for accessories, she opted for a pair of discreet pearl earrings

Ivanka finished off her outfit with pointy, striped black and white shoes with a low heel.

As for accessories, she opted for a pair of discreet pearl earrings and kept her eyes shielded behind a pair of large black sunglasses, with her hair in a simple blowout.

Her husband Jared, 37, was also seen heading out to work this morning, leaving a little before 7 and flashing a bright smile at the cameras.

The couple's departures on Monday came a few days after it was initially revealed that Ivanka and Jared, who are both senior White House advisers, might be at risk of losing their jobs.

Some White House aides have become frustrated that Jared and Ivanka have been able to stay at the White House, even though the president, Ivanka's father, has said they should leave and should never have been hired in the first place, the New York Times reported on Friday.

Footwear: Ivanka finished off her outfit with pointy, black and white shoes with a low heel

Going incognito? The first daughter kept her eyes shielded behind a pair of black sunglasses

Greeting the day: Ivanka walked from the gate of her family home to the parked vehicle waiting to whisk her away to work

Office politics: Her departure on Monday came a few days after it was initially revealed that she and Jared, who are both senior White House advisers, might be at risk of losing their jobs

Ousted? Ivanka's week started as it was reported that some presidential aides have become frustrated that Jared and Ivanka have been able to stay at the White House

Holding on: She secured her purse safely at her side as she walked to her parked car

Time to go: Ivanka's husband Jared, 37, was also seen heading out to work this morning, leaving a little before 7 and flashing a bright smile at the cameras

President Trump has told his daughter and son-in-law that they should remain at their current jobs, but he has also asked chief of staff John F. Kelly to help oust them, aides told the newspaper.

Jared has been stripped of his top security clearance and has been downgraded to a secret level.

This has prompted questions on how he can successfully advance his ambitious agendaincluding achieving Mideast peace, a goal that has eluded presidents for generations.

Meanwhile, the president's son-in-law remains under the shadow of the Russia probe and has seen his business dealings come under renewed scrutiny.

Thus, a frustrated Trump has griped about the wave of bad headlines generated by probes into Jared's business dealings and the status of his security clearance, according to two people familiar with the president's thinking but not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations.

The president also has wondered aloud if the couple would be better off returning home to New York.

Mother-daughter: In spite of these developments, Ivanka seemed in high spirits this weekend as she got ready for the Gridiron dinner with her six-year-old daughter Arabella

Glamorous outing: Jared and Ivanka arrived together to the Gridiron Dinner on Saturday night

Look: Ivanka wore a gown made by the Venezuelan-American designer who has also dressed First Ladies such as Michelle Obama, Melania trump and Jacqueline Onassis

In spite of these developments, Ivanka seemed in high spirits this weekend as she got ready for the Gridiron dinner.

She took to social media to share a photo of her six-year-old daughter Arabella crawling underneath her $7,990 black and white Carolina Herrera gown before the event.

Ivanka captioned the picture: 'My pre-game partner in crime!'

Both she and Jared attended the 133rd Gridiron Club and Foundation dinner on Saturday.

President Trump and his family accepted an invitation to the event after he first declined to attend last year. Every president since Grover Cleveland has come to at least one Gridiron.

The Gridiron Club and Foundation dinner is an annual bipartisan dinner with members of the press.

Ivanka was part of Trump's entourage for the dinner, which also included Melania Trump, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, and his wife Louise Linton. All were part of the 660 guests in attendance at the dinner.

President Trump used the current news cycle to crack a joke about his son-in-laws security clearance.

'We were late tonight because Jared could not get through security,' the president said during the event.

Duo: Ivanka and Jared were among the 660 in attendance at the dinner on Saturday nightIncredible photos have captured the extraordinary 'bubble birth' of a baby girl who was born with her head encased in her amniotic sac.

Rachael, 23, and Nate Burow, 29, from Buffalo, New York, were stunned when their daughter Annabelle was born with the fluid-filled bag that enclosed her in the womb still in tact.

Typically this sac, which is connected to the placenta and provides infants with oxygen, bursts on its own, which is known as 'waters breaking'.

Yet, the sac that surrounded Annabelle's head did not rupture, even after doctors made an incision into the membrane as they delivered the infant via c-section.

Mr Burow captured the one-in-80,000 moment on camera moments after Annabelle was born healthy, weighing 8lbs 5oz, on February 21.

The couple, who are celebrating Annabelle's arrival, say her dramatic entrance is 'the cherry on top'.

Scroll down for video

Incredible photos capture the extraordinary 'bubble birth' of a baby girl named Annabelle, who was born with her head encased in her amniotic sac on February 21 this year

Born healthy and weighing 8lbs 5oz, Annabelle's arrival was a one-in-80,000 event

Annabelle's parents Rachael, 23, and Nate Burow, 29 (pictured with their 17-month-old son Isaiah) were unsure what was happening when amazed doctors delivered their daughter

WHAT IS BEING BORN 'EN CAUL'? Being born 'en caul' means a portion of the amniotic sac or membrane remains intact during birth. It affects less than one-in-80,000 newborn humans. A caul is a thin, filmy membrane that may be attached to the head, face and ears or could drape over the head and cover part of the torso. The caul is harmless and can be removed by experts. Often, incisions are made at the nostrils to allow the baby to breathe. The loops can then be carefully removed. Advertisement

'That was just the cherry on top'

Mr Burow, a digital optimization specialist, said: 'Everything happened so fast.

'Rachael couldn't see what was going on because she was behind a curtain and a little drugged up, but I was on the other side watching the operation.

'As they started pulling things out of her stomach this bubble comes out and at first I thought it was part of her insides.

'I knew it was weird because I had watched the c-section for my son 17 months earlier and I didn't see that.

'All of the nurses that were around helping the doctor were getting excited and pointing at it, but I was confused and I didn't know what I was looking at.'

Worried about the nurses' reactions, Mr Burow said: 'I got a little scared, so I looked over and was like, "oh my God, is everything okay?"

He said: 'The nurse didn't even answer she just said, "Quick, take a picture", so I pulled out the camera and snapped a few photos.

'After that I went back with Rachael. I could tell she was out of it and [I] wanted to reassure her.

'There was a lot of pushing and tugging and the she was out, just like that. I'm not sure if they sliced it open or pulled it over her.

'I'm so happy that I got the moment on camera. We are so happy to have her with her now and that was just the cherry on top.'

Typically the sac enclosing her head bursts on its own, which is known as 'waters breaking'

Yet, the sac that surrounded Annabelle's head failed to rupture, even after doctors made an incision into the membrane as they delivered the youngster via Caesarean section

Mr Burow first thought his wife's insides were coming out when a bubble-like head emerged

Ms Burow was dazed during the procedure and was reassured all was fine by her husband

Ms Burow was amazed when she saw the pictures of her daughter's extraordinary birth

'It was definitely a surprise for us'

Ms Burow, a full-time mother, added: 'My doctor said this is super rare and it was definitely a surprise for us.

'I was taken aback when I saw the photos. It is completely amazing.'

Ms Burow shared Annabelle's arrival on her Instagram account @astoldbymama_, where she documents her journey through motherhood with her daughter and 17-month-old son Isaiah.

The caul is a thin membrane, known as the amnion, that can cover a newborn's head and face immediately after birth.

Babies can also be born 'en caul', where they emerge fully encased within the amniotic sac, which is filled with fluid in which unborn babies float and move.

This fluid protects against infection and cushions the baby from bumps and injury, as well as providing them with fluids that they can breathe and swallow.

Superstition surrounds the rare phenomenon of en caul births, with some cultures believing it is a mark of good luck.

Despite her dramatic arrival, Annabelle is not thought to have suffered any complications

Her entrance has been documented on her mother's popular Instagram accountA pioneering treatment that uses microwaves could one day be used to combat human papillomavirus (HPV) - the most common STI.

Scottish scientists hope the treatment will kill precancerous cells in the cervix and genital warts caused by the deadly virus.

The device, designed by microwave manufacturer Emblation, emits a low dose of energy - sparking an aggressive immune response.

Trials have already proven the innovative method works in the treatment of verrucas, which can also be caused by HPV.

It is hoped the new microwave treatment, which produces heat up to 50C (122F) that is applied directly to skin, would be non-invasive to women.

The device, designed by microwave manufacturer Emblation, emits a low dose of energy - sparking an aggressive immune response

Current treatment for cervical precancerous cells can be painful and involves laser surgical removal of diseased tissue. There is also a risk this can be missed.

Laboratory tests, in collaboration with experts at Glasgow Universitys MRC-Centre for Virus Research, are now underway to study the effect of microwaves.

If proven successful, the research could also combat bovine papillomavirus - a cause of equine euthanasia that strikes seven per cent of horses in Europe.

Professor Sheila Graham, from Glasgow University, said: 'We are delighted to be working with Emblation to test their microwave device.

'We plan to assess if the device can disrupt HPV and whether there is an effect on HPV-infected pre-cancerous and cancerous tissues.

'The project will validate the microwave devices clinical potential but will also shed new light on how HPV-associated diseases arise.

Scottish scientists hope the 'exciting' treatment will kill precancerous cells in the cervix and genital warts caused by HPV

Microwave treatments were used more than 10,000 times across the UK last year to treat verrucas, figures show.

Dr Matt Kidd, director of research and development at Emblation, added the new project is an 'exciting opportunity' to test microwave treatment on HPV.

Our device has the potential to address the challenges associated with the treatment of precancerous conditions of the cervix Dr Matt Kidd, director of research and development at Emblation

He said: 'Our device has the potential to address the challenges associated with the treatment of precancerous conditions of the cervix.

'This research is a decisive next step in the evolution of our microwave technology platform.'

Dr Kidd praised the 'crucial' funding from Innovate UK - a Government agency that dishes out cash - that allowed the project to go ahead.

In Scotland alone, in 27 colposcopy clinics in 2016, 13,536 new patients were seen, most of whom required treatment.

This translates to around 150,000 cervical precancerous cells patients in the UK whose treatment could be improved by this new device.

Figures show each year in the UK more than one million people are infected with HPV, which can be passed through sex.

Some types of the virus can cause cervical lesions, which over time can develop into cancer if left untreated.

It is estimated there are 3,100 new cases of cervical cancer in the UK each year, of which nearly all are related to HPV.

Smear tests aim to spot pre-cancerous cells - but thousands of women are ignoring their invitations to attend.

Uptake of the English cervical screening programme - credited with halving cervical cancer rates - is at its lowest level for 20 years, figures showed in November.

HPV is currently at the centre of a heated gender debate in England because boys aren't given a life-saving vaccine to protect them against HPV.

However, for the past decade, teenage girls have been inoculated against HPV for free on the NHS.

But furious campaigners argue it also kills 650 men each year, and due to changing sexual behaviour, the number is rising fast.

Government advisers state that vaccinating only girls is the best approach as this protects most males by default.It's a parent's worst nightmare.

Just a few months before Rowan Neumann turned two in 2012, a doctor confirmed his distinct bruises were a symptom of a rare type of leukemia.

Hearing the news, his mother Emily and father Ben couldn't imagine feeling more heartache.

Tragically, that was merely the start of five painful years.

Rowan, their second-born, relapsed twice. When he was declared in remission a third time in late 2016, the couple had a baby girl, Winnie - who was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma, cancer of the nerve cells, at just three months old. Months after Winnie's surgery, Rowan's cancer came back.

Finally, in November 2017, doctors informed the family from Clio, Michigan, that both Rowan and Winnie are now completely cancer-free after a lifetime of grueling treatments.

The battle to reach that point has been agonizing for the entire family, Emily told Daily Mail Online - not least for their oldest son, 11-year-old Tristan.

'This journey has been emotionally exhausting,' Emily, 34, said. 'A rollercoaster.'

Rowan was diagnosed with leukemia just before his second birthday. Pictured: Tristan, far right, Ben, center, Rowan, second from right, and Emily, far right, in January 2015, nearly a year after Rowan relapsed and went into remission the second time

Winnie, one, was diagnosed with neuroblastoma in February 2017, when she was just three months old

The family's ordeal began shortly after Rowan was born in May 2010.

Everything seemed to be going well until, within a few months, they started to notice unusual bruising on his body.

'We noticed he bruised easily,' Emily told Daily Mail Online. 'Whenever we went to hold his hand, his hand became bruised.'

The couple monitored it and mentioned it in passing at doctors' appointments but at first it didn't seem pressing.

'Leukemia wasn't even in our thought process when we thought of all the things that could be wrong with him,' Emily said.

By the time he was nearing his second birthday, however, the bruising was getting even more pronounced, and they decided to take Rowan to a local hospital for blood work in March 2012.

'When the results came back I got a call from the doctors saying [Rowan] needed more testing and [he] needed it right away,' said Emily, who was then referred to Hurley Children's Hospital, a children's hospital in Flint, Michigan.

At Hurley's, more blood tests were performed and it was revealed that Rowan's white blood cells were 'through the roof, four times what they should've been.'

Within days, Rowan was diagnosed with mixed lineage leukemia, a very aggressive cancer found in the blood and bone marrow that predominantly occurs in pediatric patients.

Rowan's leukemia returned in April 2014 but he went into remission within six months of radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Pictured: Rowan, left, with his mother Emily, right, in February 2016

Rowan playing with his older brother Tristan in May 2017, just months before his cancer relapsed

Emily and Ben were devastated and overwhelmed by the journey of treatments ahead to cure their baby boy.

To their relief, Rowan went into remission that summer, within six months of his chemotherapy treatment.

He was in remission for nearly two years until a month before his fourth birthday, in April 2014, when a routine checkup, which included a spinal fluid biopsy, revealed his cancer had returned.

This journey has been emotionally exhausting... A rollercoaster

'It seemed less and less fair each time,' Emily said.

'The first time around was scary, but not as bad as the follow-up diagnosis,' she added.

This time, Rowan was prescribed chemotherapy for another two years as well as brain radiation.

Within six months, scans revealed Rowan was in remission again - but he saw out the entire 24 months of treatment to make sure.

By spring 2016, they felt the relief they had been waiting for. Rowan had been cancer-free for years, and was finally coming to the end of his chemo and radiation therapy. That fall, Emily and Ben had the third baby they'd been dreaming of: Winnie, a girl, born in November 2016.

'We noticed from Winnie's birth that something was wrong,' Emily said.

Their newborn daughter had a distended belly, didn't sleep well and couldn't keep any food down.

'We took her to a lot of doctor appointments,' Emily said. 'They missed the signs for a couple of months.'

Winnie has been in remission since June 2017. Pictured: Winnie spending quality time with her father in March 2018

Emily and Ben said Rowan and Emily are in remission but they're not 'out of the woods yet.' Pictured: Ben, far left, and Emily, second to left, have three children - Winnie, center, Rowan, second to right, and Tristan, far right, in July 2017

But finally one doctor noticed that Winnie's liver was triple the size it should have been.

'Her liver was eating up the real estate in her stomach,' Emily explained. It turned out that was the reason Winnie couldn't keep any food down or sleep at night.

'But at that moment, I was not thinking cancer. There wasn't really a sense of urgency,' she said.

It wasn't until Winnie's doctors learned about Rowan's leukemia that they recommended that Winnie also go to Hurley's Medical Center for scans.

Explained: The two cancers Rowan and Winnie had MIXED LINEAGE LEUKEMIA Rowan was diagnosed with mixed lineage leukemia, a very aggressive blood cancer that predominantly occurs in pediatric patients. Children diagnosed with this disease have a poor treatment outlook because they do not respond well to standard therapies for other types of leukemia, and they often suffer from early relapse after chemotherapy. Symptoms of mixed lineage leukemia include easy bruising, trouble breathing, fever and cough. NEUROBLASTOMA Winnie was diagnosed with stage four neuroblastoma when she was just three months old. The disease, which develops from nerve cells in the fetus called neuroblasts, is rare, accounting for 7 to 10 percent of childhood cancers However, it is responsible for 50 percent of all cancers in infants, making it the most common tumor in infants younger than one years old. Symptoms of neuroblastoma include stomach pain, feeling irritable, decreased appetite and weakness in the legs. The five-year survival rate for neuroblastoma in the US is 80 percent Advertisement

After running a few tests, doctors diagnosed three-month-old Winnie with stage 4 neuroblastoma, a type of cancer that forms in certain types of nerve tissue.

The tumor was sitting right above her kidneys and had spread to her liver and bones.

As Emily and Ben already knew by that point, once a cancer had metastasized it is incredibly difficult to treat.

'[Ben and I] had a very hard time processing that,' Emily said.

'This little baby... we barely got enough time to know her and now we find out she could be taken away from us.'

Doctors started Winnie on treatment right away. After just three months of chemotherapy, the tumor shrunk to a point where they were able to remove it surgically in June 2017.

'She did really well and required no follow-up treatment,' Emily said.

'Rowan was in the clear, so thankfully we were able to focus on Winnie and her treatment,' she added.

At seven years old, Rowan was leading a normal life - he spent a lot of his time reading, playing Legos and baking.

'He loves to bake. He's the official birthday cake baker in our house and his favorite bake is bread - any kind,' Emily said.

However in July 2017, just one month after Winnie underwent her life-saving surgery, Rowan's vision became blurry and he started seeing stars.

After getting routine blood work done, doctors realized his platelet count, a very small cell in the blood that assists in blood clotting, was dropping.

At the end of July, Rowan underwent a bone marrow biopsy that revealed his cancer had returned.

'That was a blur,' Emily explained. '[Ben and I] sat in the car and cried together for a half hour because we knew what this meant for his treatment.'

Rowan's only treatment option was a bone marrow transplant.

It took just two weeks for doctors to find a match for him, and he received a bone marrow transplant in November 2017.

For Emily and Ben, those 14 days felt like a lifetime.

Rowan was in the hospital for nearly three months - from before Thanksgiving to after New Year's Eve, Emily said.

'Looking back, everything turned out fine,' she said. 'The donor gave Rowan his second chance at life.'

Winnie celebrated her first birthday in November 2017, just months after being in remission for neuroblastoma

Rowan made a cake for Winnie's first birthday in November 2017, weeks before his bone marrow transplant

Emily said both Rowan and Winnie are doing well.

However, she emphasized that Rowan is 'not out of the woods yet.'

'He's doing great and he's in remission,' Emily said.

The one thing that has never failed to pull us up from the depths is the kindness and generosity of friends, family, and strangers

'But we're just watching, and waiting and holding our breath,' she added.

After all Emily and Ben has been through, their neighbors came forward in February to help them renovate their home.

'The one thing that has never failed to pull us up from the depths is the kindness and generosity of friends, family, and strangers,' Emily told Daily Mail Online.

It took three weeks, more than 25 contractors and 5,000 hours of work to create their new modern and clean home, which was necessary to help maintain Rowan's health.

'Having our house become a home is a gift we could not have given ourselves after the trials 2017 sent our way,' Emily said. 'The heart, time, money, and talent that was invested is incredible. We're unworthy of such a gift. We are forever thankful.'

A nine-year-old hospitalized with flu symptoms has been on life support for three weeks after tests revealed he has contracted a rare and deadly rat disease.

Fernando Hernandez - nicknamed Ferni - was taken to hospital near his home in Bloomfield, New Mexico, in late January, vomiting and lethargic.

After weeks of inconclusive tests and near-heart failure, he was diagnosed with Hantavirus, a disease spread through rodent droppings that kills more than a third of those infected.

He is the second person to contract the rare virus in the same part of New Mexico in less than a month, and doctors it could be tied to inhaling fumes from the soil.

Fernando 'Ferni' Hernandez, nine, has been diagnosed with Hantavirus, a deadly rodent-carried disease. He is currently on life support at a hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado

Ferni began vomiting at the end of January. His parents George Hernandez and Anna Granados assumed he had come down with this season's aggressive flu and kept him home from school for a day.

He went back to school the following day because he was feeling better, but by the end of the day his flu-like symptoms had worsened.

Ferni was rushed to a hospital in Farmington, New Mexico, where doctors kept him for 10 days after an X-ray revealed spots in his lungs.

The doctors ran multiple tests but none were conclusive, so they sent him home with antibiotics and oxygen tanks, telling the parents that their son's lungs would clear up.

But after a few days, Ferni's condition deteriorated to the point that he couldn't breathe on his own and had to be airlifted to a hospital in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Doctors in Colorado Springs ran another set of tests but were still unable to come back with a diagnosis.

'They didn't know what the hell was going on,' George told Fox News. 'They were like a mechanic, picking at things here and there.'

The doctors suggested that mold might be the cause, so George had an expert inspect the family's home in Farmington, but the results came back clean.

As they searched for the underlying cause, Ferni's heart began to fail and he underwent several surgeries before he was hooked up to an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) machine, which takes over the duties of the heart and lungs by pumping and oxygenating a person's blood.

Finally after nearly a month of tests, Ferni was diagnosed with Hantavirus.

The nine-year-old from Farmington, New Mexico, was hospitalized in late January with what his parents thought was the flu

Hantavirus is carried by deer mice (pictured). It typically enters the body when dust containing particles of the rodents' saliva, feces or urine is inhaled

What is Hantavirus? Hantavirus is carried by deer mice, a type of rodent that can be found across the country, from the subway tracks in New York City to woodlands in California. Humans can contract the virus by inhaling dust with particles of the mice' saliva, feces, or urine. The virus can lead to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), a condition that infects the heart, lungs and other organs by weakening blood vessels and causing them to leak. The body attempts to fight the virus by creating inflammation, which combines with the organ infections and leads to intense damage throughout the body. In the lungs, leaky blood vessels cause flooding in the air sacs, making it difficult for patients to breathe. When the virus infects the heart, the damage reduces its ability to circulate blood through the body, causing critically low blood pressure and a lack of oxygen throughout the body, which can quickly lead to organ failure and death. Advertisement

The rare virus is caused by contact with infected deer mice, typically by inhaling dust that has mixed with the rodent's saliva, feces or urine.

It is difficult to diagnose because the early symptoms, including fatigue, fever and vomiting, are often misattributed to the flu.

The virus can lead to a severe lung infection called hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS), which can lead to respiratory failure and death.

The virus is fatal in 36 percent of cases.

Fewer than 700 cases of the virus have been reported across 36 states since it was identified in 1993, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The majority of cases were reported in states west of the Mississippi River.

Ferni has now been on life support for nearly four weeks. A GoFundMe page to support his family has raised more than $5,500 as of Monday morning.

George wrote on the page on Sunday that he is in stable condition but has yet to show signs of improvement.

'There's no cure. It all just depends on the person's body, but my son's immune system for some reason is not fighting it at all,' George said. 'It's chaos right now.'

The deadly virus cannot be transmitted from person to person, but doctors have told George that the deadly virus can be found in the farming community's soil.

'I had my son help me clean the backyard two months ago  I just really hope it wasn't that,' he said.

Ferni's dad George wrote on Ferni's GoFundMe page on Sunday that he is stable but not showing any signs of improvement

Kiley Lane, 27, went to the hospital in Farmington, New Mexico, for what she thought was the flu but was diagnosed with a rare rodent-carried Hantavirus on February 5. She is pictured right with her daughter

Kiley Lane, 27, was also diagnosed with Hantavirus on February 5 and was initially treated at the same hospital as Ferni in Farmington.

She, too, has been on life support for over a month, according to her mother Julie Barron.

The two families have been in contact and plan to work together to spread the word about the difficult-to-diagnose and deadly disease.

'I'd never heard of this virus until my son and [Barron's] daughter,' Hernandez said. 'We need to get it out there. There are people like me who didn't even know. People need to know it exists.'

Barron added: 'It's not like [Kiley] was digging through a dumpster or around infected rodents. She was doing her normal, everyday routine  sweeping the porch, wiping off a box with a paper towel.'

'Everyone has the impression: "That's never going to happen to me".'Elderly people who avoid dementia despite having high cholesterol may hold the key to finding a cure, say scientists.

Researchers at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, found over-85s with good brain function whose cholesterol had increased since middle age were a 32 percent less likely to suffer mental decline.

Scientists admit they were left perplexed by the paradox, since cholesterol is known to be bad for cognition in old age.

Discovering the secret may lead to the development of the world's first 'dementia drug', experts claim.

Researchers found over-85s with good brain function whose cholesterol had increased since middle age were a 32 percent less likely to suffer mental decline (file image)

'We hope to identify genes or other protective factors for cogitive decline by focusing on cognitively healthy very old people who are more likely to carry protective factors,' said lead author Professor Jeremy Silverman.

'Long-lived individuals who are cognitively intact despite high risk should be targeted in research studies seeking protective factors - which could help identify future drugs and therapies to treat dementia and Alzheimer's disease.'

Medications that target the cause are desperately being sought with the number of patients set to reach one million by 2025 and two million by 2050.

Researchers used data collected across seven decades to study a link between cholesterol and a decline in cognitive function.

Professor Silverman, a psychiatrist at Icahn, said: 'Our results have important implications for researching genetic and other factors associated with successful cognitive ageing.

'The data are consistent with our protected survivor model, among individuals who survive to very old age with intact cognition, those with high risk factor levels are more likely to possess protective factors than those with lower risk factor levels.'

He underlined the results do not imply the elderly should increase their cholesterol.

'We don't think high cholesterol is good for cognition at 85 but its presence might help us identify those who are less affected by it,' Professor Silverman said.

The study found 85- to 94-year-olds with good mental faculties even though their cholesterol had increased since they were 40 had a 32 percent reduced risk for marked cognitive decline over the next decade.

This was compared with those aged 75 to 84 who were at 50 percent more risk even though they were younger.

Professor Silverman, whose findings are published in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, said it suggests the older group may have a protective factor that could be identified and studied.

His team analyzed data from the original Framingham Heart Study which has been following the cardiovascular health of thousands of residents of the town in Massachusetts for 70 years.

It began in 1948 with 5,209 adult subjects and is now on its third generation of participants.

The researchers looked at rising cholesterol and substantial decline in mental function - called marked cognitive decline - at five different time points in life.

Generally there was a link. However as the age of surviving participants increased some associations were reduced or even reversed - in particular in the subgroup of cognitively healthy 85- to 94-year-olds with high cholesterol.

This contrasts with samples in other studies that have focused on elderly subjects primarily below age 75, where midlife cholesterol was associated with increased risk of cognitive decline.

Professor Silverman and colleagues are now studying other risk factors for cognitive decline - including body mass index and blood pressure.

He said: 'We hope to identify genes or other protective factors for cogitive decline by focusing on cognitively healthy very old people who are more likely to carry protective factors.'Tony Harrison was so close to his only child, Vicky, he describes her as a soul mate.

From when she was a little girl, we were on the same wavelength, he says. If Vicky needed help with her homework or advice about a problem, shed say: Ill talk to my dad.

She was a normal, 21-year-old young lady  her relationship with her boyfriend was a bit on-off and shed been job hunting for a while, but there had never been a problem in the past that I couldnt help her with.

Shocking stats: Samaritans reports 6,639 suicides in the UK and Republic of Ireland in 2015

If only shed come and talked to me, wed have sorted this one out, too.

On the evening of Monday, March 30, 2010, Tony, 61, a retired civil engineer, took Vicky to Asda near their home in Darwen, Lancashire.

I bought her a burger and a DVD then dropped her at her mums, where she was going to stay over, says Tony.

I said: Night love, I love you, as usual. And she said: Love you, Dad. Ive racked my brains to think of something different in her mood or behaviour, but there was nothing.

The next morning, when Tony let himself into his ex-wifes house to take Vicky shopping, he found her dead on the settee, having taken an overdose.

Initially I presumed she must be sleeping, so I stroked her arm. Then I shook her shoulder. It must have been seconds before I screamed to her mum to call an ambulance but time seemed to slow down. I remember thinking: this cant be real.'

A week before she died, Vicky had confided to Tony that shed been feeling low.

Hed taken her to the GP, who had prescribed an antidepressant. She didnt say she was depressed, and in no way did I imagine she might take her own life, he says.

The charity, Samaritans, reports that there were 6,639 suicides in the UK and Republic of Ireland in 2015. While male suicide accounts for three-quarters of cases, the suicide rate for women is rising and is at the highest rate in a decade.

Male-dominated: While male suicide accounts for three-quarters of cases, the suicide rate for women is at the highest rate in a decade

Earlier this year, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt described the suicide rate as a litmus test for healthcare quality.

Now campaigners hope that a new initiative, called Zero Suicide, could help reduce that rate. An approach that originated in the U.S., its central premise is that suicide is wholly avoidable and preventable.

It calls for fundamental changes to the structure of mental health services  and the way we all think, talk about and share concerns about mental health.

This includes talking openly with those who are depressed about whether they have suicidal feelings  rather than avoiding the subject for fear it will plant a seed of the idea.

In Detroit, where Zero Suicide was conceived, the number of people taking their lives has been dramatically reduced.

The citys health system screens all patients for risk of suicide, not just those with known mental health problems. Information is then shared between hospitals and GP surgeries via a centralised IT system.

Communication with teachers, college departments, social workers, employers and family members has also been vital in identifying people at risk and getting them medical help.

The results have been staggering. In 1999, the annual suicide rate for mental health patients was 110 per 100,000. In the past two and a half years, not a single patient has been lost to suicide.

There is a huge amount of clinical evidence to suggest that discussing suicide does not cause people to become suicidal. On the contrary, encouraging people to share feelings and talk openly is the first step to recovery. Steve Mallen

Now a grieving British father is leading efforts to introduce a similar approach here in the UK.

Three years ago, Steve Mallen, a commercial property developer from Cambridge, made a promise to his son, Edward, as he stood beside his coffin at his funeral. I promised him there and then, on behalf of his generation, that I would use all my powers to make sure that other young lives are not lost in the same way, he says.

On February 9, 2015, Edward, then 18, the eldest of three, was hit by a train at the station he used to travel to sixth-form college every morning.

He was a gifted student and musician with a happy home life and a place at the University of Cambridge to study geography. My son had a disease  depression  which is eminently treatable and which he should have survived, says Steve.

Last November, Steve, with Joe Rafferty, the chief executive of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, the first UK trust to adopt the Zero Suicide approach, and Geraldine Strathdee, the former national clinical director for mental health at NHS England, launched the Zero Suicide Alliance at the House of Commons at an event attended by Jeremy Hunt.

The alliance aims to provide suicide prevention training for each member of every organisation signed up to it, including hospitals, schools, and workplaces.

It has pledged a reduction in waiting times and access to mental health care, and crucially, to involve families in the care and treatment of patients, abolishing patient confidentiality when lives are at risk.

It has also produced a free, 20-minute online training video that explains how to respond should people come across a relative, friend, colleague or stranger giving cause for concern. Theyre encouraged to ask directly: Are you thinking about suicide?

Progress: In Detroit, where Zero Suicide was conceived, the number of people taking their lives has been dramatically reduced

We need to normalise that conversation, explains Ged Flynn, the CEO of Papyrus, a charity dedicated to the prevention of young suicide. By saying the word, you create a safe place to discuss it.

Steve says: I think the majority of people are afraid to mention the word suicide in case they plant the idea in someones head. But there is a huge amount of clinical evidence to suggest that discussing suicide does not cause people to become suicidal. On the contrary, encouraging people to share feelings and talk openly is the first step to recovery.

It crossed my mind at the time that Edward might have thought of suicide, of course it did. We talked about how he felt but I didnt want to trigger something by mentioning that word.

There is no history of mental illness in the Mallen family and Steve says Edward was consummately happy and content in every area.

But in the three months before he died, Edward wasnt sleeping well, hed lost interest in playing the piano, which hed loved from the age of nine, and had become withdrawn, says Steve. Youve no idea how that feels as a parent. Ive laid awake hundreds of nights, staring into the darkness, trying to explain this.

The only conclusion I can draw is that he developed a disease, a disease from which nobody, regardless of how strong, resilient, healthy, affluent or educated they are, is immune.

If Id known 10 per cent of what I know now, Edward would still be alive. My son was dying in front of my eyes and I was too ignorant to see it.

Its a brutal conclusion and doesnt take into account the creaking inadequacies in the system that allowed Edward to fall through the cracks.

Edward had in fact spoken of suicidal thoughts to his GP and was referred to mental health services as an emergency acute 24-hour risk, but his case was downgraded to routine by a triage nurse who asked his GP to prescribe the antidepressant citalopram.

Loss: Tony Harrison (right) has talked about his daughter Vicky (left) who killed herself at the age of 21 on 31st March 2010

Although hed given consent for his parents to be informed, they were not. Edwards mood deteriorated and he died 19 days later.

Like Steve, Tony Harrison desperately wishes hed known to ask his daughter about suicidal thoughts. I have a saying now: Dont be scared, say the word. We have to start bringing suicide into the open without fear or shame.

When Mersey Care, in Liverpool, launched the Zero Suicide initiative, it fully integrated all the services involved in caring for someone with mental health problems  not just GPs and hospitals but emergency services, police and schools.

While its too early to see measurable results  the trust began to make changes in 2013  it seems the approach has already made a difference. Weve seen far fewer people returning to A&E in crisis, says Mersey Cares medical director Dr David Fearnley.

Greater public awareness must also play its part: three quarters of people who take their own lives are not known to mental health services in the year before they die. But there are warning characteristics that crop up again and again, in people of all ages, says the charity Papyrus.

They include extreme sensitivity, an inability to cope with criticism or disappointment and being poor at finding solutions to problems.

Other symptoms of depression are being tearful, irritable, withdrawn, unable to sleep at night but cant get out of bed during the day. A key symptom is loss of interest in activities that previously gave them happiness.

Already about 100 NHS Trusts and clinical commissioning groups have signed up to the Zero Suicide initiative, including Cambridge and Peterborough who were responsible for Edwards care.

Its a huge achievement, but all Steve feels the most devastating loss. Its a loss most people never imagine and a lonely journey because I hold myself responsible for the death of my son, he says.

He doesnt know if Zero Suicide is achievable, but believes we shouldnt settle for less. I made a promise to my son that I would do everything in my power to help  and I will not let him down twice.

For confidential suicide prevention advice contact Papyrus Hopeline 0800 068 41 041, text 07786 209 697, emailpat@papyrus-uk.org; zerosuicidealliance.comFemale pain is one of the most poorly-understood phenomena in medicine.

At least 30 percent of women suffer pain during sex, and one in five have menstrual cramps as agonizing as heart attacks - and yet, there is no solution beyond popping some more Advil.

Now, a team at the University of Texas at Dallas has found the clearest evidence that pain manifests itself differently in the cells of women than it does in those of men.

In other words, we do not know much about women's pain because, until now, our pain research has been done on male cells, with the assumption that their 'extraordinarily specific' results are applicable to females too.

The finding adds to a growing body of research that certain drugs may work for men and not for women, and vice versa.

Unfortunately, the researchers lament, in making this discovery they have found a novel way to treat male pain - but we are still in the dark when it comes to a cure for women, who suffer more chronic pain.

Most scientific studies only used male models to avoid fluctuating hormones tarring results, until the NIH made a mandate to test both genders. Now researchers at the University of Texas at Dallas have found the latest evidence that female cells react differently to male cells

The new study began in 2014, after the National Institutes of Health ordered all pre-clinical trials to include both male and female data.

Prior to that, scientists tended to avoid tests on female models, since the menstrual cycle and fluctuating hormones made for less consistent results.

'We've been overlooking a key variable for a long time, and I'm as guilty as everyone else,' lead author Dr Ted Price, of the Pain Neurobiology Research Group, admitted.

'Professionally, we saw no reason to do it until 2014. But we're discovering that the NIH's decision was the right thing. Everyone I know doing these studies is finding new and interesting mechanisms that we've simply overlooked.'

He added: '[I]t's another very clear indication that there are extraordinarily strong mechanistic sex differences in how pain becomes chronic.

'When you take what everybody has done in the field, that theme is really something that we have to pay very close attention to, and I feel like it's going to lead to the breakthrough we all really want.'

To assess the differences, Dr Price and his colleague Dr Salim Megat manipulated the receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine in both male and female mice.

Dopamine is a type of molecule which is released from nerve cells to signal to other nerves. It can induce a wave of happiness, and is generally held to offer an antidote to pain.

However, Drs Price and Megat found that manipulating these receptors only impaired chronic pain in male mice, yet had no effect on females.

'It leads me to believe that it's fairly likely we'll want to make male- and female-specific drugs for chronic pain,' Dr Price said.

'If not that, we may need to develop diagnostics to look at an individual's cell types that are prolonging pain, so we can tailor the therapeutic based on the underlying mechanism. We just don't do that right now.'

To his disappointment, we are no closer to a gender-specific drug for women, only for men.

'Discovering D5 receptors as a pain relief target upsets me in a way,' he said.

'Most chronic pain patients are women, not men, so I would prefer to develop something that was certain to work in females.'

The findings could explain why scores of scientists have found their preclinical results on (all male) lab mice completely contradict their results among (mainly female) human participants.

'Those running clinical trials for the last five years have been frustrated because the preclinical results don't come through in the clinical studies,' Dr Price explained.

'The cause of this problem, potentially, is that up until recently, many of the preclinical investigators were just using males.

'Then, in the clinical trials, human participants are primarily female, because more women suffer chronic pain than men.'Nouakchott, Feb 27, 2018 (SPS) - The Special Envoy of the President of the Republic, Mr. Abdelkader Taleb Omar, received on Tuesday morning BY the Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz at the Presidential Palace in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott.

The Special Envoy of the President of the Republic made the following statement: "The reception by the President of the Republic, Mr. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, was an opportunity for us to express our satisfaction with this reception and to convey a message from Mr. Brahim Gali, as an expression of the excellent relationship between them and the Sahrawi and Mauritanian peoples and the important role played by Mauritania in the region and the continent. "

"The meeting was an opportunity to extend congratulations to the Mauritanian president and Mauritania in general on the confidence that Mauritania received to host the next African summit," said Abdelkader Taleb Omar.

The message of Mr. Gali to his Mauritanian counterpart, Mr. Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, focuses on the latest developments of the Sahrawi issue, the peace process and the importance of assistance to advance this process and achieve concrete results on the ground to put an end to the stalemate and obstruction that has characterized this process for a long time and to avoid any future tensions in this region, which cannot bear more tensions.SPS

125/090/TRAToyota is to stop selling diesel-powered passenger cars in Britain and Europe by the end of this year, company bosses have announced.

The Japanese car giant revealed the change in strategy at a briefing on the eve of the Geneva Motor Show in Switzerland.

Fewer than 7 per cent of Toyota's UK sales were diesel last year, dropping to just 4.5 per cent in January, with the rest being petrol and hybrid.

Toyota is to stop selling diesel-powered passenger cars in the UK and Europe by the end of the year and focus on petrol-electric hybrid offering such as its popular Prius model (pictured)

Johan van Zyl, president and chief executive officer of Toyota Motor Europe told journalists: 'Toyota will stop selling diesel passenger cars in all European markets by the end of this year.

'In some markets they will be phased out even faster- some by the end of this quarter.'

Toyota will continue to offer diesel engines for its Land Cruiser 4x4 as well as for commercial vehicles such as the Hilux and Proace.

The manufacturer is to boost further sales of petrol-electric hybrid cars which already account for nearly half (45 per cent) of sales in the UK last year, rising to 48 per cent in January.

Toyota's C-HR model was launched in late 2016 without a diesel, but with a popular hybrid accounting for 78 per of sales.

Toyota will continue to offer diesel engines for its Land Cruiser 4x4 as well as for commercial vehicles- such as the Hilux (pictured) and Proace

Mr van Zyl added: 'Toyota has been pioneering hybrid electric vehicle technology for more than 20 years. For several years, hybrid versions dominated.

'In our latest new model, the Toyota C-HR, hybrids accounted for 78% of sales last year'.

Last week it was reported that Fiat Chrysler - which also owns Jeep, Maserati and Alfa Romeo - would be ditching the under-fire fuel type from 2022.

In February, Porsche announced that it would axe all diesel engine options from its range of cars with immediate effect, claiming there had been a 'cultural shift' among customers.

The landmark decision marks the latest nail in the coffin for what has been dubbed 'dirty diesel' in the wake of the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal and the so-called demonisation of diesel by politicians and environmentalists who actively encouraged motorists to switch to the fuel type  because its lower CO2 emissions helps reduce global warming and save the planet  before doing a u-turn over harmful particulates in older models to which they'd previously turned a blind eye.

Currently more than 60 per cent of Toyota UK's production at Burnaston is hybrid.

Diesels will be phased out across the board so that by the end of this year customers of passenger cars will no longer be able to specify a diesel.

New line: Toyota's C-HR model was launched in late 2016 without a diesel, but with a popular hybrid accounting for 78 per of sales

In a statement later, Toyota confirmed: 'At an executive meeting with media on the eve of the Geneva Motor Show, Toyota shared the next step of its powertrain strategy in Europe.

'Strong customer demand for hybrid electricity versions on its core models means Toyota will phase out diesel engines from all its passenger cars in 2018.'

'The new generation Auris  to be produced in Burnaston next year  will come with three powertrains, including two petrol-electric hybrids.

It added: ' Similar to the decision taken in 2016, to introduce Toyota C-HR without a diesel version, the new generation Auris will only be offered with petrol and hybrid powertrains.'

The car firm said that 2017 hybrids represented 41 percent of Toyota Motor Europe total sales. That was a rise of 38 per cent year-on-year to 406,000 vehicles: 'In contrast, Toyota's diesel mix on passenger cars was less than 10 per cent in 2017'

It added: 'Toyota will continue to offer diesel engines in commercial vehicles- such as Hilux, Proace and Land Cruiser - to meet customer needs.

Toyota bosses also called on the EU  as well as the UK government- to come to a sensible agreement over Brexit that would guarantee frictionless tariff free trade.

This is the new 2018 Toyota Auris that will be built in the UK

Toyota reveals Brexit-boosting new Auris

Toyota said last week that the next generation Toyota Auris will to be built at the firm's Burnaston factory in the UK as part of a major 240million investment.

The confirmation is a huge Brexit boost for Britain and a vote of confidence in UK manufacturing.

The car itself remained under wraps at the time, but the covers have since come off at the Geneva Motor Show on Tuesday morning.

Toyota said last week that the next generation Auris will to be built at the firm's Burnaston factory in the UK as part of a major 240million investment

The design is more an evolution of what we know rather than a dramatic evolution

In keeping with its vow to ditch diesel, there won't be an oil burner available, though two hybrids will be on offer and just the one conventional petrol.

While the tried and tested 1.8-litre hybrid - the same used in the Prius and C-HR producing 120bhp - will remain, there will be a new 2.0-litre option with a more potent 177bhp output.

The design is very much an evolution of the Auris on sale today, though the 2018 model does get the latest Toyota headlight and front bumper design to match the existing Yaris.

The rival to the Ford Focus and VW Golf should be slightly roomier than before with 4cm of extra length added to the practical family choice.

The new Auris will be available to buy at the end of 2018 with a starting price of around 20,000.Women's pensions crisis: As triple-lock promise is broken, millions are left reliant on the state in retirement And are being forced to fight for every pennyJimmy Kimmel returned to the stage as he hosted the Oscars for the second year in a row on Sunday.

But after a tense year in show business, the late night host found himself walking a delicate line.

Kimmel went in on the #MeToo movement, joking about the many men in Hollywood accused of sexual misconduct since Harvey Weinstein, using the Oscar statue.

'Oscar is a very respected man in Hollywood, just look at him. Keeps his hands where you can see them, never says a rude word, and most importantly no penis,' he said, adding, 'He is truly a statue of limitations.'

Kimmel joked about the many men in Hollywood accused of sexual misconduct since Harvey Weinstein, by joking about the Oscar statue: 'Keeps his hands where you can see them, never says a rude word, and most importantly no penis'

Kimmel also marked the incredible rise seen recently by women in the industry, referencing minority actress Gal Gadot in the title role of 'Wonder Woman'

Kimmel also marked the incredible rise seen recently by women in the industry.

'I remember a time when the major studios didn't believe a woman or a minority could open a super hero movie,' he said - referencing Israeli actress Gal Gadot who played the title role in 'Wonder Woman' - 'and the reason I remember that time is because it was March of last year.'

He discussed disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and demanded that Hollywood stamp out bad behavior.

Kimmel discussed disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and demanded that Hollywood stamp out bad behavior

'If we can work together to stop sexual harassment in the workplace. If we can do that, women will only have to deal with that every other place they go,' Kimmel said, joking

'If we can work together to stop sexual harassment in the workplace. If we can do that, women will only have to deal with harassment all the time in every other place they go.'

The late night host also took a swipe at Vice President Mike Pence, who is known for his anti-gay views.

Kimmel discussed how the gay romance film 'Call Me by Your Name', despite being an Oscar-nominated feature, did not score big at the box office.

'We don't make films like 'Call Me by Your Name' to make money. We make them to upset Mike Pence,' Kimmel said.

Addressing first-time nominee, 'Get Out' director Jordan Peele, Kimmel said, "None other than President Trump called 'Get Out' the best three-quarters of a movie he had seen this year.'

He took another zing at the White House following the resignation of White House communications director Hope Hicks.

'If the last two years have taught us anything, it's that reality can be depressing. But tonight's nominated documentaries show us that were there is darkness, there's also hope. Except at the White House. Hope quit on Wednesday.'

Not everyone was fan of the jokes. Some said that despite calling for a show filled with positivity, the host took deliberate jabs at the GOP.

Kimmel also made a crack about the mix-up last year that saw Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty accidentally announce 'La La Land' instead of 'Moonlight' as Best Picture.

'Some of you will be going home tonight with an Academy Award. This year, when you hear your name called. Don't get up right away,' he joked.

'What happened last year was unfortunate,' Kimmel continued, explaining that last year, the Oscar producers wanted him to do a comedy bit with the Price Waterhouse accountants. 'I said, "No, I don't want to do comedy with the accountants." And then the accountants went and did comedy on their own.'

Kimmel previously confirmed there would be no jokes about the #MeToo at this year's show.

Kimmel (center) also joked about the mix-up last year that saw Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty (right) accidentally announce 'La La Land' instead of 'Moonlight' as Best Picture

Jimmy Kimmel's opening jokes at the 90th Academy Awards The 'ideal man' , Oscar and #TimesUp 'Oscar is the most respected man in Hollywood - he keeps his hands where you can see them, never says a rude word and, most importantly, no penis at all. 'He is literally a statute of limitations, and that's the kind of men we need more of in this town.' 'Oscar is 90 years old... he is probably at home right now watching Fox News.' On Harvey Weinstein, who was expelled from the Academy: 'What happened with Harvey and whats happening all over is long overdue... If we can work together to stop sexual harassment in the workplace, if we can do that, women will only have to deal with that every other place they go.' On the Shape of Water Best Picture nomination: 'The year men screwed up so baldly women starting dating fish.' President Trump 'None other than President Trump called Get Out the best first three-quarters of a movie this year.' 'I want to say thank you to President Trump. Remember last year when it seemed like the Oscars were racist? Its gone, thanks to him!' Mike Pence 'We don't make films like Call Me by Your Name to make money... we make them to upset Mike Pence.' Hope Hicks 'If the last two years have taught us anything, it's that reality can be depressing, but tonight's nominated documentaries show us that were there is darkness, there's also hope. Except at the White House. Hope quit on Wednesday.' Women in Hollywood On Meryl Streep not receiving an Oscar nomination between 1992-1995: 'The only reason was that she was in prison.' On I, Tonya dream cast: 'Whose knee caps did Tonya Harding have to break to get this?' 'Here's how clueless Hollywood is about women... We made a movie called What Women Want, and it starred Mel Gibson.' On acceptance speeches 'This is a really long show... so whoever gives the shortest speech tonight ... will go home with... *a brand new jet ski!* (Price is Right scene) 'Some of you will be going home tonight with an Academy Award. This year, when you hear your name called. Don't get up right away. Give us a minute.' Price Waterhouse (Last year's Best Picture blunder) 'What happened last year was unfortunate... I said, "No, I don't want to do comedy with the accountants." And then the accountants went and did comedy on their own.' Advertisement

Speaking on ABC's 'Good Morning America', he explained that the evening was about making the night memorable for all the people who've been 'dreaming about... winning an Oscar for their whole lives.'

He added: 'I'm not going tostop any bad behavior with my jokes.'

Kimmel did admit, however, that he wasn't pulling any punches when it came to politics.

That is to be expected - he has been a vocal critic of the POTUS and has used his show to discuss health care, immigration reform, and other serious matters several times in past months on his own show.

The late night host also took a swipe at Vice President Mike Pence, who is known for his anti-gay views. 'We don't make films like 'Call Me by Your Name' to make money. We make them to upset Mike Pence,' Kimmel (left and right) saidPresident Donald Trump says it's Democrats fault that legislation extending protections for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children that he tried to end has not been approved in Congress, leaving the youth in limbo.

'It's March 5th and the Democrats are nowhere to be found on DACA. Gave them 6 months, they just don't care,' he said in a Monday afternoon tweet. 'Where are they? We are ready to make a deal!'

Trump announced last year he was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program after his administration deemed the Obama-initiated program unconstitutional but asked Congress to come up with a legislative fix in six months.

He then insisted that any legislation saving program be coupled with funding for his border wall and an overhaul of the legal immigration system.

President Donald Trump says it's Democrats fault that legislation extending protections for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children that he tried to end has not been approved in Congress, leaving the youth in limbo

Trump announced last year he was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program after his administration deemed the Obama-initiated program unconstitutional but asked Congress to come up with a legislative fix in six months

Protesters were out in droves in front of the U.S. Capitol on Monday demonstrating against President Trump's decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that President Obama put in place to give legal status to the so-called 'Dreamers'

U.S. Capitol Police use bolt cutters to break chains locking together supporters of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, as the protesters cheer in support of DACA, Monday, March 5, 2018, on Capitol Hill in Washington

Democrats and some Republicans balked at those demands, and the immigration battle faded from blistering to back-burner.

Lawmakers now seem likely to do little or nothing this election year on an effort that's been eclipsed by Congress' new focus on guns, bloodied by Senate defeats and relegated to B-level urgency by a Supreme Court ruling.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders blamed both parties for the failure just prior to Trump's tweet, saying it's 'absolutely terrible that Congress has failed to act.'

Talks have gone dormant that sought a broad bipartisan package offering a chance for citizenship to young immigrants brought to the country illegally, as part of a package handing President Donald Trump $25 billion to erect his treasured wall with Mexico.

Even a proposal dangling modest wins for both sides, a three-year renewal of a program protecting hundreds of thousands of those young immigrants from deportation in exchange for a $7.6 billion down payment for the wall, seems a longshot.

'The prospects for immigration legislation, big or small, are very, very bleak,' concedes Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, an immigrants' rights group.

DACA - the program that temporarily shields hundreds of thousands of young people from deportation - was scheduled to end Monday by order of President Donald Trump but court orders have forced the administration to keep issuing renewals

Immigration activists chain themselves up as they stage a civil disobedience protest to shut down Independence Avenue today on Capitol Hill

Distrust between the two parties has intensified, with each suspecting the other of weaponizing the impasse to rouse loyal voters for November's contest for congressional control.

There are also tactical rifts between Democrats and the coalition of liberal and immigrants' rights organizations over how aggressively to force the issue, and differences between conservative organizations and some Republicans over the wisdom of even a narrow accord.

Looking to furnish political cover to rank-and-file Republicans, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell only want to consider immigration bills that have Trump's support.

Democrats say Trump's portrayal of immigrants as threats who commit crimes and steal jobs, plus his vulgar references to their countries, shows he's not serious about compromise - yet leaves him pivotal for any deal.

'There are certain people and certain countries that Donald Trump does not envision as part of America's future,' said No. 2 Senate Democratic leader Richard Durbin of Illinois. 'Until the president and the Republicans in Congress believe that deporting the Dreamers is so much of a political negative that they must do something, I think it's unlikely that we'll move forward.'

Lupita Nyong'o (left) and Kumail Nanjiani (right) used their time on stage at the Oscars to express their support for the 'Dreamers' who face the possibility of deportation

Rather than making new offers, Trump is blaming Democrats for the stalemate.

'I'm the one that's pushing DACA and the Democrats are nowhere to be found,' he tweeted days ago, referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

He sent out a similar tweet on Monday as the issue came front and center on his administration's self-imposed deadline of March 5 to end it.

Hoping to recapture attention, immigrant and civil rights groups carried out demonstrations in Washington and elsewhere on Monday.

The program, which President Barack Obama created administratively without enactment of a law, lets immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children get jobs for renewable two-year periods. It's currently protecting 680,000 of them.

The Supreme Court this week erased that deadline's impact with a ruling that requires the administration to renew DACA permits while lower court challenges to Trump's action continue. Those lawsuits could drag on for months, easing pressure on Congress to act quickly.

Lawmakers are now fixated on last month's shooting deaths of 17 students and faculty members at a high school in Parkland, Florida. The shift accentuates how rapidly priorities shift in Congress, fueled by today's hyper speed news cycles and a president whose tweets and utterances add additional volatility.

Last month, the Senate rejected a Trump proposal offering citizenship to people protected by DACA, fully financing his wall, cutting legal immigration and ending a visa lottery for people from countries with low U.S. immigration rates.

A bipartisan plan backed by nearly all Democrats included potential citizenship for DACA recipients and money for Trump's wall, barred the young immigrants from sponsoring their parents and left the visa lottery intact.

Lawmakers are now fixated on last month's shooting deaths of 17 students and faculty members at a high school in Parkland, Florida. The shift accentuates how rapidly priorities shift in Congress, fueled by today's hyper speed news cycles and a president whose tweets and utterances add additional volatility

Neither side is showing any indication of sweetening its offer.

'We've offered the sun and the moon and that wasn't enough,' said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the second-ranking GOP leader. 'I guess we'll see what happens.'

Democrats face pressure from liberal groups like Indivisible and United We Dream to use coming budget legislation to crimp money for immigration enforcement programs. But with several Senate Democrats facing tough re-election fights in Trump-friendly states leery of that stance, the party has little leverage.

Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona who's joined bipartisan efforts to forge compromise, says he'll try forcing a vote next week on his plan to extend DACA for three years and supplying three years of financing for Trump's wall.

But many Democrats oppose it, saying they abhor financing the wall in exchange for merely a temporary DACA extension. Groups like the Center for Immigration Studies that favor tight restrictions are also opposed, saying it would inscribe DACA into law, and conservatives such as Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, seem certain to block Flake.

'I'll bring it up again,' Flake said of how he'll respond. 'At some point we're going to want to put this behind us, even if there's no deadline. I don't think this plays into our favor in the midterms.'

In the House, Republicans are hunting votes for a conservative package that cuts legal immigration, requires employers to verify workers' citizenship and makes it easier to deport immigrants who are drunk drivers or gang members.

Facing solid Democratic opposition, GOP leaders remain short and it's unlikely they'd consider more moderate alternatives that lack majority Republican support.A Florida man who made headlines last year after he and his then-girlfriend bought a pet fox for $600 is now accused of beating the animal and stuffing it into a garbage can.

Brandon Race, 32, and his former girlfriend, Jessi Ladd, bought the Russian red fox from a breeder in Indiana last year and raised it in their Palm Beach, Florida, home.

But it was revealed during a domestic violence arrest last month that he was accused of kicking the 11-month-old pet fox and throwing its dead body away, police say.

Race was arrested on February 20, a day after officials received a call from his current girlfriend claiming he had hit and choked her, according to a police report.

Brandon Race, 32, allegedly beat his pet fox to death in Palm Beach Shores, Florida, last month. Race and his ex-girlfriend bought the Russian red fox from a breeder in Indiana last year

Race was arrested on February 20, a day after officials received a call from his current girlfriend claiming he had hit and choked her, according to a police report. Race's girlfriend told police they were fighting after Race told her the pet fox was dead

The woman told police that the couple had gotten into an argument after Race called her to tell her that their pet fox, named Swyper, had died.

The police report states that the girlfriend told officers that Race 'kicked the fox and hit her multiply [sic] times' because the animal was 'running around the house'.

Race told his girlfriend that he had buried the fox, but when police arrived, they noticed a strong odor coming from the side of the building, arrest documents say.

It was there that officers found the dead fox in a bag inside the garbage can. Race admitted to police that he had thrown the fox into the bin.

Race was charged with domestic battery by strangulation in connection to an altercation with his girlfriend but faces no charges in the death of the fox, according to the police report.

The fox's death is still under investigation by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The police report states that the girlfriend told offers that Race 'kicked the fox and hit her multiply [sic] times' because the animal was 'running around the house'. Race is pictured above with his ex-girlfriend shortly after they bought the fox

Race and his ex-girlfriend Ladd bought the fox for $600 last May from a breeder in Indiana. Swyper's parents were freed from a fur farm when it closed, and gave birth to her shortly after.

The former couple fed the fox puppy food or their own leftovers, while chicken hearts, beef, eggs and Quorn were reserved as special treats.

When MailOnline interviewed Race and Ladd last year, Race said the fox had 'free roam' of their 900-square-foot house and was very friendly with several of the couple's friends who come to visit, including one who regularly brings along two pit bulls.

The waste management worker said: 'Swyper sleeps in the bed with me and my girlfriend and, if not there, the highest place she can find for her naps.

'If I'm coming to bed Swyper usually follows and settles down at the end of the bed, although when she was younger she would sleep on my head.

'I would compare her behaviour as similar to that of a 'cat on drugs' due to the hyperactivity throughout the day.'

Race said at the time that Swyper could be very destructive, forcing him to tape up kitchen cabinets to keep her from getting in.

Race told his girlfriend that he had buried the fox, but when police arrived, they noticed a strong odor coming from the side of the building, arrest documents say. After the fox was found in a nearby bin, Race told police he had put it there

Race and his ex-girlfriend Ladd bought the fox for $600 last May from a breeder in Indiana. Swyper's parents were freed from a fur farm when it closed, and gave birth to her shortly after

The couple kept Swyper healthy by taking her to the vet for canine vaccinations and regularly going out on walks.

Mr Race said: 'I take her outside in the fresh air, she loves the outdoors and rolling in the grass. I have to keep her on a lead, as that's Florida.

'All my friends come over and play with her. Her birthday is on April 24, so we might do a little birthday thing for her and invite other people in the neighborhood.'

Ladd said the fox required 'more attention and activity' than any pet she'd had previously.

Animal charities advise against keeping naturally wild animals as pets, and advise anyone planning to do so to conduct thorough research.

A spokesman for the Animal Welfare Institute said: 'As intriguing as it may seem to own a fox, we strongly discourage the public from acquiring wild species to keep as pets.

'Dogs and cats have been domesticated for thousands of years; not so with wild species such as foxes.

'Their needs are complex, they still maintain many of their wild characteristics, and they pose a potential threat to people and other animals due to the risk of bites, scratches, and disease transmission.

'It is inhumane and unsafe to keep a wild animal in a home, and so we encourage the public not to engage in this latest fad.'More than 100,000 people are demanding an Oklahoma judge step down after he spared a child rapist jail.

The push comes amid revelations the judge had allowed convicted child rapists or pedophiles to avoid jail on at least seven previous occasions.

Marshall County District Judge Wallace Coppedge sentenced Benjamin Lawrence Petty to just 15 years of probation after he pleaded guilty to raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old at a church camp in 2016.

Petty, 36, a cook at the Falls Creek camp, had asked the girl to his cabin, telling her he wanted to show her something.

When she got to the cabin, he pulled her into the bedroom and shut the door, according to a lawsuit.

Marshall County District Judge Wallace Coppedge (left) is under fire after he sentenced Benjamin Lawrence Petty (right) to just 15 years of probation after he pleaded guilty to raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old at a church camp in 2016

He then warned her not to tell anyone, or he would hurt her, the Washington Post reports.

The prosecutor, David Pyle, put together a plea deal, negotiated with the victim's parents' permission, that only sought probation because he felt that the suspect's disability - Petty is legally blind - meant he shouldn't go to jail.

Petty must also wear an ankle monitor for two years and will spend a lifetime on the sex offender registry.

Pyle resigned last month amid the furor over Petty's lenient sentence.

Now the public's anger has focused on Coppedge who had the discretion to reject the plea deal.

Petty, a cook at the Falls Creek camp, had asked the girl to his cabin, telling her he wanted to show her something. But when she got there, he tied her up and raped her

During the sentencing hearing, Coppedge explained that he would approve the plea deal because the victim's parents consented to the deal.

But the victim's attorney, Bruce Robertson, said the family only agreed to the deal because they were told their daughter's rapist 'would not serve any meaningful prison time due to his medical conditions.'

'The family was not provided any other alternative,' he told The Oklahoman.

More than 100,000 people have since signed a petition calling for the judge to be removed from the bench.

'Even though the plea was negotiated with the victim's parents' permission, the terms of the sentence are absolutely ridiculous,' the petition states.

'The fact that Petty was legally blind does not bar him from being able to serve prison time for his heinous crimes.'

Coppedge (pictured in court in an undated photo) explained that he would approve the plea deal because the victim's parents consented to the deal

More than 100,000 people have since signed a petition calling for the judge to be removed from the bench

Now it has emerged that Coppedge, who was first elected in 2010, and reelected in 2014, has allowed convicted child rapists or pedophiles to avoid jail on at least seven previous occasions, according to a review by The Oklahoman.

In the case, a father who raped by instrumentation four girls he's recently adopted, received just 20 years probation.

In another, a Kingston man received just 10 years probation for molesting his stepson and daughter.

The local district attorney said that the Coppedge had handed out such lenient sentences because of witness issues and lack of evidence.

However, in the case of Petty, they said they 'strongly disagreed with the lenient manner' in which Petty was prosecuted.

Coppedge's current term ends in 2019 but in Oklahoma, judges are automatically reelected if unopposed.

Petty was sentenced to 15 years of probation and must also wear an ankle monitor for two years and will spend a lifetime on the sex offender registry

The online petition is directed at the Oklahoma Council on Judicial Complaints, which can recommend that the state's Court of the Judiciary remove a judge.

An Oklahoma lawmaker has also filed a resolution seeking to remove Coppedge.

The victim and her family have filed a lawsuit against the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, which runs the camp, and Country Estates Baptist Church, which was responsible for hiring the cook, and First Baptist Church of Terrell, the church through which she was first introduced to the camp.

They are seeking $75,000 in damages against the churches who they accuse of negligence for failing to carry out background checks on Petty, and allowing him unsupervised time alone with the victim.

Coppedge did not respond to Washington Post reporter's requests for comment.An Indian student allegedly raped a women in his car after he offered to drive her home from work.

Police say the 26-year-old reportedly attacked a 20-year-old woman as he kissed her and pinned her to the back seat of his car in the Gold Coast, Queensland.

The woman told police she screamed and yelled 'get off me' and tried to push him as he continued to rape her, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported.

A 20-year-old woman was allegedly pinned down and raped by a man she met at work

The publication reports the man denied raping the woman in a phone call recorded by police and said the sex was consensual because they had both been drinking.

'He is strongly denying the charge and his version of events is that it was consensual sex,' his defence lawyer said.

The co-workers shared a drink in his car at The Southport Spit before the man allegedly attempted to kiss his victim seven times and said 'we're friends, just let this happen'.

He then flipped her over, pinned her down and anally raped her for 5-10 minutes until she said she would finish her drink, the court heard.

A 26-year-old man denied the charges and was granted bail in the Southport Court on the Gold Coast

The woman then managed to escape the car as the man followed her down Sea World Drive begging her to get back in the car because 'it was raining' police allege.

She received bruising on her rectum according to a forensic examination conducted after police seized the car.

The man's defence lawyer told the court the man was willing to stay in Australia until the case has concluded and stay in touch with police.

Magistrate Andrew Sinclair reflected on the lack of witnesses and it being a case of 'the woman's word against the man.

The woman allegedly screamed as the man continued to rape her until she escaped the car

'It is impossible to assess the Crown's case as being strong or weak at this point in time,' he reportedly said in court.

He granted bail on the condition he return his passport, report to police and stay at least 500m away from an international airport.

The matter will return to court on March 20.A daycare teacher in Houston is adjusting to normal life again after losing his foot to a flesh-eating bacteria that threatened his life.

Raul Reyes, 26, was treated at a clinic for a blister on his foot. Further tests revealed that the blister was in fact flesh-eating bacteria.

Because the infection was life threatening and could have killed Reyes if it got into his bloodstream.

Doctors had to make a quick decision and determined amputating the foot was the only way to go.

Raul Reyes, 26, went to a clinic in Houston for a 'blister' on his foot that turned out to be deadly bacteria

'Raul hurt his foot at work, so he thought the swollenness was due to the injury. After a few days, it was still swollen and he has a blister on his foot, which he thought was caused by his shoe,' Reyes' wife Joseline told the Houston Chronicle.

'He woke up the next day and the blister was covering his entire foot so he went to the clinic, where they told him to get to the emergency room immediately.'

Doctors suspect the infection got into Reyes' foot through an open wound or ingrown toenail.

Flesh eating bacteria usually live in brackish or salt water, but Reyes and his wife are unsure of exactly where he could have picked up the parasite.

Doctors had to act quickly to amputate Reyes' foot - if they had waited any longer, he could have died from the bacterial infection

Despite the unusual situation, Reyes is looking forward to doing rehab with a prosthetic foot and getting back to teaching and his normal life - however he's without insurance.

In light of his lack of coverage, his family has set up a GoFundMe to pay for medical costs.

Doctors suspect Reyes' infection got into his foot through an open wound or an ingrown toenail (seen here with wife Joseline at their wedding)

He's currently using a walker to move around.

'Sometimes I send him videos of the kids saying hi to him, and it just raises his spirits,' Joseline told KTXS.

'And he wants to go back to work already and be with the kids.'

Reyes (pictured here with wife Joseline) will use a prosthetic foot, but without insurance, his family has organized a GoFundMe to help pay for medical costsSen. Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut, said Sunday he thought President Trump was 'trying to have it both ways' on guns.

'I think he knows that the mood of the country has shifted such that he and his party are going to pay a huge price in the polls in 2018 and 2020 if they don't start supporting things like universal background checks,' Murphy said on ABC's This Week.

Murphy noted how Trump, a Republican, still has to answer to the National Rifle Association, who backed him as a presidential candidate early on, as he was heading into the general election against Hillary Clinton.

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, said Sunday on ABC's This Week that he thought President Trump was 'trying to have it both ways' on guns

Murphy sat down with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos (pictured) as the senator discussed President Trump's wavering on supporting gun control measures

'The president has the potential to move mountains here,' said Murphy, whose state experienced one of the worst school shootings, that at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012.

'The fact of the matter is, his instincts in that meeting are not wrong,' Murphy continued. 'And if he and the Republicans don't start showing some movement in the wake of Parkland, there aren't going to be as many Republicans around for him come 2019.'

'And for his entire agenda, and perhaps for his political salvation, that's not good news for him,' Murphy added.

The meeting Murphy was referencing was one held at the White House by Trump on Wednesday.

There, Trump surveyed lawmakers of both parties and asked them for their ideas on how to prevent future school shootings and what gun laws could be changed.

At the meeting, the president said he supported universal background checks, keeping guns away from mentally ill people and hardening schools, with more armed security.

Murphy, one of the first senators to speak, touted how 'there is no issue out there with the American public like background checks.'

'Ninety-seven per cent of Americans want universal background checks. And yet we can't get it done, there's nothing else like that,' the Connecticut Democrat pointed out. 'Where it works, people want it and we can't do it.'

Trump interjected.

'But you have a different president now,' he said, touting his unique position of being a Republican politician who's more amenable to toughening gun laws.

Murphy still cautioned that the NRA would be hard to beat.

'Well, listen in the ends Mr. President the reason that nothing has gotten done here is because the gun lobby has had veto power over any legislation that comes before Congress,' Murphy said. 'I wish that wasn't the case, but it is.'

'If all we end up doing is stuff the gun industry supports than this just isn't worth it, we're not going to make a difference,' he said.

Several days after the meeting, after Trump had again met with the NRA, the president seemed to be back pedaling from what he told lawmakers then.

At the meeting, the president seemed happy to take on the gun lobby.

'I take that responsibility, Chris, I really do,' the president said. 'I think it's time, it's time that a president stepped up. I'm talking Democrat and Republicans, they haven't stepped up.'

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders explained that Trump wants to see what the background legislation looks like, suggesting that 'universal' was the problematic word.

'Universal means something different to a lot of people,' she said. 'He certainly wants to focus and improve on the background check system.'A fundraising campaign in honor of a man shot and killed by a police officer in Minnesota in 2016 has raised enough money to pay off lunch debt in his entire former school district.

The campaign, called Philando Feeds the Children, went live on August 26 and has since raised more than $140,000 in online donations.

Part of that money has now been used to pay off the cafeteria debt for all 56 schools in the Saint Paul Public Schools district where Philando Castile worked up until his death.

'That means that no parent of the 37,000 kids who eat meals at [one of those] schoolp[s] need worry about how to pay that overdue debt,' an update from the donation campaign website read.

Warning: Graphic Content! Scroll down for video

A fundraising campaign in honor of Philando Castile has raised enough money to pay off all lunch debt in his entire Minnesota school district; He was fatally shot by an officer in July 2016

'Philando is still reaching into his pocket, and helping a kid out. One by one. With your help.'

Castile, 32, was a nutrition services supervisor at JJ Hill Montessori Magnet School, which is an elementary school for pre-Kindergarten students through Grade 5.

He was known for his generosity, and never hesitating to open his own wallet to buy a student lunch if that child didn't have enough money to eat.

He was simply a 'kind and caring' person, Stacey Koppen, director of Nutrition Services at Saint Paul Public Schools and a coworker of Castile's, told NBC News.

'This fundraiser honoring him and his memory couldn't be more perfect,' Koppen said. 'This is what he did. He did so without question or praise.'

The campaign, called Philando Feeds the Children, went live on August 26 and has since raised more than $140,000 in online donations, plus mailed in donations; the logo image for the donation campaign is seen here

Castile, who the students at the JJ Hill Montessori Magnet school fondly referred to as 'Mr Phil,' starting working at the elementary school when he was 19

The campaign was started by college students at Metropolitan State University students as part of a class project for professor Pamela Fergus.

Now, the project will take steps to officially achieve non-profit organization status in the state of Minnesota.

The remaining funds will be used to help more students in the future, Fergus said, in hopes of carrying on Castile's spirit.

Castile, who the students at JJ Hill fondly referred to as 'Mr Phil,' starting working at the elementary school when he was 19.

Protesters gather outside the 1st Precinct Police Department on July 17 in Minneapolis, Minnesota; Demonstrations had taken place each day up until this time since a jury acquitted Officer Jeronimo Yanez in the shooting death of Philando Castile

People gather at JJ Hill Montessori school, where Philando Castile worked, on November 16, 2016 in St. Paul, Minnesota, the same day charges were filed against the officer who shot him

He was promoted to nutrition services supervisor in 2014. Those he worked with and watched over have said they remember him as a cheerful presence in the cafeteria, who was close with staff, students and colleagues.

Castile's untimely death sparked nationwide demonstrations against police brutality. He was shot five times in his car by a police officer during a traffic stop.

His girlfriend live streamed the incident after Castile was shot, while she and their 4-year-old daughter sat beside him in the car as he died.

The officer who shot Castile, Jeronimo Yanez of the St Anthony Police Department, was acquitted on charges of manslaughter and reckless discharge of a firearm in June.

Donations may be made to Philando Feeds the Children through its youcaring site.

Donors may also mail contributions in the form of a check made out to 'Philando Feeds the Children' to: P. Fergus, 2323-ILION Av N, Minneapolis, MN, 55411.There are no major changes in the foreign policy and the statements of Azerbaijan.

March 5, 2018, 12:17 Armenia army chief scorns Azerbaijan authorities

STEPANAKERT, MARCH 5, ARTSAKHPRESS:Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Armenia, Movses Hakobyan, on Monday told the aforesaid to reporters at Yerablur Military Pantheon in capital city Yerevan.

He noted this commenting on the Azerbaijani presidents recent statement that they will return to Yerevan and Armenias Zangezur.

There are no major changes in Azerbaijans foreign policy, statements, Hakobyan said when asked whether such statements are calls for starting a large-scale war. Since 1995, they [Azerbaijanis] drank tea in Shushi, fished in Sevan; they had the wish, but it doesnt mean anything.Qantas even offering Perth to London discounts on its new 787 Dreamliner

Melbourne with Emirates is $1263, and Perth on board Qatar airways is $1120

Travellers looking for the best deal to fly to Europe can stop searching as aviation insiders have revealed the best time to book flights is now.

Qantas, Qatar Airways, Eithad Airways and Emirates are all offering their cheapest fares yet - but you might not want to hang around.

Qantas are offering Sydney to London for as little as $1,271 return.

Qantas (pictured) are offering discount Perth to London fares on its new 787 Dreamliner

Experts say now is the time to book plane tickets if you want the best deal to go to London

Discount fares for their new 787 Dreamliner are also available. The 17-hour non-stop flight from Perth to the UK capital is currently on sale for $1,291.

For the same but non-direct route, Qatar airways are selling tickets with a layover in Doha for $1,120, and just over $1,200 from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.

The UAE's second largest airline Etihad Airways are offering Sydney flights for $1,266, and Perth for $1,115.

The UAE's second largest airline Etihad Airways (pictured) are offering Sydney flights for $1266

Emirates has return flights to Melbourne for $1,263.

The best day to book a flight to Europe is a Saturday, and the cheapest day to travel is usually a Thursday.

Quentin Long, from Australian Traveller Media, told 9News travellers are benefiting from the fiercely competitive landscape.

'Everyone's competing for those travellers dollars and putting out incredible airfares,' he said.

Emirates (pictured) are offering return flights from Melbourne to London for as little as $1263

He reminded travellers their cash can go further if they can be flexible with their routes.

'If you are flying to Europe, even cheaper fares can be to the secondary destinations. So instead of say flying to Rome, think about flying to Florence or Milan, you can actually save a few bucks that way.'

Lisa Perkovic from Expedia.com.au said destinations a little closer to home shouldn't be forgotten.

'Places like Bali, Malaysia even Hawaii, just last week Jetstar had a great deal where they had one way flights for under 250 dollars. It's a really great time for Aussie travellers this year,' she said.

But Ms Perkovic advised travellers not to wait long: 'If you've got your heart set on Europe this year, book it in,' she said.Advertisement

Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel led a group of stars to a nearby theater to surprise movie-goers in a hilarious stunt for the 90th Academy Awards.

Margot Robbie, Lupita Nyong'o, and Gal Gadot were among the Hollywood A-listers who handed out candy to the audience at the TCL Chinese Theater and shot hot dogs out of a hot dog cannon.

Kimmel then selected movie-goer Mike Young to announce the next presenters, Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph.

The late night personality announced to the celebrity crowd at the Oscars that a hidden camera had been placed in the theater where an audience was watching a preview of 'A Wrinkle in Time'.

They were soon surprised when Kimmel led in Ansel Elgort, Mark Hamill, Emily Blunt, Lin Manuel Miranda, Guillermo del Toro, Armie Hammer, Gadot, Nyong'o, Robbie and 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' co-star Guillermo into the theater.

'This is better than the Oscars!' Gadot declared to the cheering crowd.

Guillermo del Toro's 'The Shape of Water' took home the top award of the night for Best Picture and del Toro also took the Best Director statue.

Scroll down for video

Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel led a group of stars to a nearby theater to surprise movie-goers in a hilarious stunt for the 90th Academy Awards

Margot Robbie (second from left), Lupita Nyong'o (center), and Gal Gadot (far right) were among the A-listers who accompanied the host to the TCL Chinese Theater

The complete list of stars were: Gadot, Robbie, Nyong'o, Ansel Elgort, Mark Hamill, Emily Blunt, Lin Manuel Miranda, Guillermo del Toro, Armie Hammer, and 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' co-star Guillermo Rodriguez

The late night personality announced to the Oscars audience that a hidden camera had been placed in the theater where an audience was watching a preview of 'A Wrinkle in Time'

'This is better than the Oscars!' Gadot (right, with Kimmel) declared to the cheering crowd

The stars handed out snacks and candy to the audience and shot hot dogs out of a hot dog cannon

Kimmel then selected movie-goer Mike Young to announce the next presenters, Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph

Among the big winners of the night were Frances McDormand and Gary Oldman for Best Actress in a Leading Role and Best Actor in a Leading Role, respectively.

Oldman won his first Oscar on Sunday for his performance as British wartime leader Winston Churchill in 'Darkest Hour'. The 59-year-old was the front-runner for the best actor Oscar after sweeping awards season with prizes at the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and from numerous film critics groups.

McDormand took home her second Oscar for her performance in 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri'. During her speech, she placed her golden statue on the floor of the stage and invited all the female nominees in every category to stand.

'The filmmakers, the producers, the directors, the writers, the cinemotographers, the composers, the songwriters, the designers, come on,' McDormand called out. 'Look around, look around...because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed.'

Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney also took home awards for Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively.

After a 30-year acting career, Rockwell won his first Academy Award for 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri', which he dedicated to 'my old buddy Phil Hoffman'.

Veteran actress Janney aIso won her first award in a huge win for the star, who was recognized for her work as LaVona Fay Golden, ice skater Tonya Harding's mother,in 'I, Tonya'.

Allison showed off her amazing sense of humor as the first thing she said when approaching the podium was: 'I did it all by myself.'

During her speech, Frances McDormand placed her golden statue that she won for 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' on the floor of the stage and invited all the female nominees in every category to stand to show 'we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed'

Gary Oldman won his first Oscar on Sunday for his performance as British wartime leader Winston Churchill in 'Darkest Hour'

After a 30-year acting career, Sam Rockwell won his first Academy Award for 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri', which he dedicated to 'my old buddy Phil Hoffman'

Veteran actress Allison Janney aIso won her first award in a huge win for the star, who was recognized for her work as LaVona Fay Golden, ice skater Tonya Harding's mother, in 'I, Tonya'

The night kicked off with late night personality Jimmy Kimmel, who was back hosting for the second year in a row, taking swings at disgraced move mogul Harvey Weinstein, President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence.

'If we can work together to stop sexual harassment in the workplace. If we can do that, women will only have to deal with that every other place they go,' he continued, joking.

His zingers next hit at Vice President Pence, who is known for his anti-gay views.

Kimmel discussed how the coming-of-age gay romance drama 'Call Me by Your Name' had not raked a lot of money at the box office.

'We don't make films like 'Call Me by Your Name' to make money. We make them to upset Mike Pence,' Kimmel said.

Addressing first-time nominee, 'Get Out' director Jordan Peele, Kimmel said, "None other than President Trump called 'Get Out' the best 3/4 of a movie he had seen this year.'

Kimmel previously confirmed there would be no jokes about the #MeToo at this year's show.

Kimmel joked about the many men in Hollywood accused of sexual misconduct since Harvey Weinstein, by joking about the Oscar statue: 'Keeps his hands where you can see them and most importantly no penis'

Kimmel discussed how disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and demanded that Hollywood stamp out bad behavior

'If we can work together to stop sexual harassment in the workplace. If we can do that, women will only have to deal with that every other place they go,' Kimmel said, joking

Later in the evening, Time's Up pioneers Ashley Judd, Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek proudly took the stage.

The Harvey Weinstein accusers looked vibrant and donned purple as they spoke on behalf of women and men all over the world who came forward within the past year to share their stories of sexual harassment and assault.

'This year, many spoke their truth. The journey ahead is long, but slowly, a new path has emerged,' Sciora started out in the speech.

'The changes we are witnessing are being driven by the powerful sound of new voices, of different voices, of our voices. Joining together in a mighty chorus that is finally saying times up,' Judd went on to say.

Hayek then added: 'We salute those unstoppable spirits who kicked a** and broke through the biased perceptions against their gender, race and ethnicity to tell their stories.'

And Judd concluded: 'We look forward to make sure that the next 90 years empower these limitless possibilities of equality, diversity, inclusion, intersectionality...Thats what this year has promised us.'

Later in the evening, Time's Up pioneers Ashley Judd (left), Annabella Sciorra (center)and Salma Hayek (right) proudly took the stage. The Harvey Weinstein accusers looked vibrant and donned purple as they spoke on behalf of women and men all over the world who came forward within the past year to share their stories of sexual harassment and assault

'The changes we are witnessing are being driven by the powerful sound of new voices, of different voices, of our voices. Joining together in a mighty chorus that is finally saying times up,' Judd said (Pictured, left to right: Judd, Sciora and Hayek)

Actors and actresses in snazzy tuxedos and beautiful evening gowns arrived on the red carpet when the awards show kicked off on Sunday afternoon.

Several of Hollywood's female stars glittered in metallic dresses as they stepped onto the red carpet.

Channeling her inner bombshell, Jennifer Lawrence stepped onto the runway outside the Dolby Theater in a stunning gilded gown, kicking off a dazzling metallic dress trend.

Fellow movie stars Sandra Bullock, Lupita Nyong'o and Gal Gadot also all arrived in gold and silver dresses, making sure they stood out at this year's show.

Many celebrities showed their support for Time's Up and the #metoo movement by wearing buttons. Elisabeth Moss from 'The Handmaid's Tale' was seen wearing a small Time's Up button on the belt of her dress.

Jane Fonda, Patrick Stewart and wife Sunny Ozell, and Sam Rockwell were a few of the stars also seen sporting the button.

Celebrities have registered their support for Time's Up against sexual harassment campaign and the fight to end gun violence at various awards events in the last few months. At the Golden Globes in January, several stars wore black while others carried white roses.

What an arrival: Jennifer Lawrence (far left), Sandra Bullock (second from the left), Lupita Nyong'o (second from the right) and Gal Gadot (far right) arrived in metallic dresses for the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood

Ashley Judd (left) and Mira Sorvino (right) arrived in eye-catching looks for the Academy Awards; the duo posed up a storm together on the red carpet

Allison Janney looked incredible in her low-cut red gown featuring draped sleeves. The actress donned a diamond choker with a matching ring and bracelets; she carried a coordinating clutch

Elisabeth Moss and Jane Fonda were seen on the red carpet both wearing 'Time's Up' buttons. Fonda wore the button on her chest while Moss sported hers on her belt

Also wearing Time's Up buttons were Patrick Stewart and his wife Suzy Ornell

Oscar nominee Australian actress Margot Robbie, 27, looked gorgeous in her strapless white gown, which included textured draping and a layered skirt.

Her 'I, Tonya' co-star Allison Janney looked incredible in her low-cut red gown featuring draped sleeves. The actress donned a diamond choker with a matching ring and bracelets; she carried a coordinating clutch.

Jennifer Garner made a statement on the red carpet in her electric blue dress. The 45-year-old movie star showed off her sculpted arms in her ruched number, complete with a cap and a form-fitting torso.

Nicole Kidman also chose blue, but opted for a darker version; she sported a strapless version with a textured midsection and a thigh-slit.

Several E! News hosts made their appearances on the red carpet as well including Kristin Cavallari, Giuliana Rancic, Maria Menounos and Ryan Seacrest made their appearances on the red carpet.

E! announced it was planning to run a delay on its coverage of the red carpet surrounding allegations of sexual misconduct against host Seacrest.

The network dismissed the news of the 30-second tape delay as part of its standard practice.

'As always, we tape multiple sources of content simultaneously to deliver the best possible show, and there are often brief delays between interviews,' an E! spokesperson told Variety.

Seacrest, 43, has been embroiled in scandal ever since he was accused of sexual harassment by his ex-stylist, Suzie Hardy.

Australian actress Margot Robbie, 27, looked gorgeous in her strapless white gown, which included textured draping and a layered skirt

'Jane The Virgin' actress Gina Rodriguez chose a low-cut tan and silver number; the full skirt began at her hips with the remainder of the dress showing off her svelte figure

Jennifer Garner made a statement on the red carpet in her electric blue dress. The 45-year-old movie star showed off her sculpted arms in her ruched number, complete with a cap and a form-fitting torso

Leggy day: Nicole Kidman also chose blue, but opted for a darker version; she sported a strapless version with a textured midsection and a thigh-slit

E! has announced it is planning to run a delay on it coverage of the red carpet surrounding allegations of sexual misconduct against host Ryan Seacrest (pictured) but claimed it was just part of standard coverage

But while the red carpet looked as glitzy as ever, beneath the surface the Oscars has changed to reflect a changed Hollywood.

And that was shown in this year's most recognized films - with the Academy Awards showering outsiders, on screen and off, with milestone-setting nominations that celebrated Guillermo del Toros full-hearted ode to outcasts in 'The Shape of Water', embraced first-time filmmakers like Greta Gerwig and Jordan Peele, and made 'Mudbound' director of photography Rachel Morrison the first woman ever nominated for best cinematography.

With a diverse selection of nominations that spanned young and old, studio blockbusters and passion-fueled indies, the 90th annual Academy Awards gave many who have long been shunned by the movie business - women directors, transgender filmmakers, minority actors, even Netflix - something to cheer about.

Leading all nominees with 13 nods, including Best Picture, was 'The Shape of Water', by veteran Mexican filmmaker del Toro, whose Cold War-era fantasy is about a mute office cleaner (Sally Hawkins) who falls in love with an amphibious creature.

But the nominations also carried forward some of the ongoing reckoning of the #MeToo movement that has been felt especially acutely in Hollywood, where male filmmakers outnumber women by a ratio of approximately 12-to-1.

Gerwig, the writer-director of the nuanced coming-of-age tale 'Lady Bird', was just the fifth woman nominated for best director, following Lina Wertmuller, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola and Kathryn Bigelow, the sole woman to win, for 'The Hurt Locker'.

Dame Helen Mirren, Emily Blunt, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman were among the presenters, along with Dave Chappelle, Eugenio Derbez, Ansel Elgort, Jane Fonda, Jodie Foster, Eiza Gonzalez, Ashley Judd, Matthew McConaughey, Rita Moreno, Lupita Nyongo and Christopher Walken.

Judd and Nyongo are among the high-profile actresses who have accused disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment.

Ready: Brad Goreski (left) wore a brown velvet smoking jacket with dark slacks and dress shoes; Michael Strahan (center) donned a gray suit with his bow tie and Feras Fayyad (right) chose classic black

And now for the chocolates: Chef Wolfgang Puck of Spago fame (second from right) with fellow pastry chefs; he creates the dishes for the Governors Ball

It is customary for the previous winners to present to the new winner at the subsequent ceremony.

However, the last winner of the best actor award, Casey Affleck, did not attend attending the ceremony this year.

The 'Manchester By The Sea' star would have been expected to present the best actress award, according to the shows tradition, but in January he withdrew from the hosting role.

In 2010, Affleck was sued by two women for alleged sexual harassment before the lawsuits were settled out of court.

He has vehemently denied the sexual harassment claims which were alleged to have happened during the making of the film 'Im Still Here'.

The nominations for the Oscars were led by Guillermo Del Toro's 'The Shape Of Water', which has 13 nods, while 'Dunkirk', directed by Christopher Nolan, had eight.She's the Australian swimming hall of famer known for her outstanding technique and ability in the pool but now Susie O'Neill is making waves with her first pop song.

The Olympic champion swimmer has released 'My Heart Goes Boom', a track first penned for her husband of 20 years, Cliff Fairley, as a surprise Valentines Day present.

Mr Fairley is an ophthalmologist and all proceeds from the single will go towards helping to restore sight to those who are needlessly blind.

Swimming champion Susie O'Neil (pictured) has released her first pop single on iTunes

The song was initially penned as a surprise for her husband Craig (right) on Valentines Day, with the lyrics sharing the couple's love story from their first meeting at her brother's 21st

Mr Fairley is an ophthalmologist and all proceeds from the single will go towards helping to restore sight to those who are needlessly blind

'It's just taken off, all money goes to the Fred Hallows Foundation if you buy it, and the competitive instinct has taken off now and we want to try and get it to number one. It's been good fun,' O'Neil told Sunrise on Monday morning.

Lyrics tell the couple's love story, from their first meeting at her brother's 21st when O'Neil saw her future life partner from 'across the room'.

'And my heart went boom, the stars were flying across the room. And I knew from the very start, that we would never part... cos my heart went boom.'

The two minute and 14 second-long track was written and mixed by two Nova's breakfast team, Ben Davies and Josh Burton.

It is currently available iTunes for $1.69 and has been rated 2.9 stars out of five from 15 ratings.

The former Olympic swimmer won a record eight medals and was nicknamed Madame Butterfly for her skills in the pool

'Great song. Very catchy and love that all proceeds go to charity,' wrote one impressed reviewer who gave O'Neil five stars.

Another wondered if there would be a follow up citing: 'Can we get the rap version too please?'

O'Neil was so dominant in the pool she was nicknamed Madame Butterfly and currently holds the Australian womens record for Olympic medals.

An Australian man visiting Israel has confronted Jewish people in a controversial video which was posted online.

The 94 second video was posted to video sharing site Live Leak.

The video has heated moments throughout including when the Australian man shouts in the face of an Israeli citizen after calling them 'racists' and 'animals'

An Australian man visiting Israel has confronted Jewish people in a controversial video which was posted online, the 94 second video was posted to sharing site Live Leak

The video opens with the man approaching some Jewish Israelis who are just standing on the street asking if he could ask them a few questions.

'About why the Palestinians can't walk down here,'' he said.

The man at first seems unsure about the motives behind being approached.

'I know as much as you do,'' he responds calmly.

'So you use ignorance, you should be ashamed of yourselves,' the Australian man responds angrily.

'Why don't you tell everyone why you are living here, occupying someone else's land.'

The Australian man then makes reference to a 2016 incident that left 28 Palestinian youth's with gunshot wounds after hundreds of them clashed with Israeli troops.

The Palestinian health ministry said 28 people were shot and wounded News 24 reported in 2016.

After clashing with the stone throwing youths the Israeli troops responded by firing rubber ammunition and live rounds.

It's at this point another man comes into the conversation to inform the Australian that this is not someone else's land.

'This is our land,' he said.

Another man comes into the conversation to inform the Australian that this is not someone else's land, 'This is our land,' he said

'It's in the Bible, and is written in very many places.'

The video lasts a little over 90 seconds as the Australian man gets progressively more aggressive in his approach.

The video gained a number of comments from Live Leak users, mostly in protest of the Australian man's approach to a complicated issue.

The video gained a number of comments from Live Leak users, mostly in protest of the Australian man's approach to a complicated issue, 'he needs to keep his fat mouth shut..' one person wrote of the encounter

'Maybe he should stop and think about the Aboriginals before he mouths off about occupying other peoples land,' one wrote

'He needs to keep his fat mouth shut he's a guest in their country,' another wrote.

Few of the comments were in support of the Australian man and the approach shown in the video.People in North Queensland are being told to brace for a 'scary' tropical cyclone.

The warning comes after a severe weather event dumped a month's worth of rain over parts of the state on the weekend.

David Taylor, from East Coast Weather, said there is a 'very high chance' of a cyclone forming in the Coral Sea by Wednesday.

'It's looking pretty scary... One of the outlooks is for it to cross the coast then swing south-east and cross south of Bundaberg,' Mr Taylor told the Townsville Bulletin.

People in North Queensland are being told to brace for a tropical cyclone

Experts said there is a 'very high chance' of a cyclone forming in the Coral Sea by Wednesday. A flooded football ground in Townsville is pictured

The warning comes after a severe weather event dumped a month's worth of rain over the weekend

Mr Taylor has also predicted that Australia could see one of the country's coldest winters on record.

'We've already seen what America's winter was like and Scotland just got hammered,' he said.

'It will be slightly cooler than normal in the north but the real cold will be in the southern states and south-east Queensland.'

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe weather warning for large areas of Queensland's north-west over the weekend, as a slow-moving low-pressure system pushed south.

Winton, Mt Isa, Cloncurry and Julia Creek received a drenching as storms and destructive winds battered the region.

The system that dumped the rain is the same one that left the Townsville region mopping up after falls of about 500mm in some places late last week.

The Bureau of Meteorology issued a severe weather warning for large areas of Queensland's north-west over the weekend

Parts of central and western Queensland received more rain on the weekend than they usually receive for the entire month of March

The Ross River Dam in Townsville swelled from 14 to 80 per cent capacity

Townsville's Ross River Dam swelled from 14 to 80 per cent capacity following huge downpours.

Weather forecasters Higgins Storm Chasing predicted the intense weather event.

'[The rain] could rival anything during the past 44 years. It may even be so significant that nothing has ever been experienced like it in this state,' they said on Facebook.

'All of Western Queensland need to prepare for a potential Major Record Flood which is forecast to impact the area during the next five days.

'It could rival anything during the past 44 years, it may also be so significant that nothing has ever been experienced like it in this state.'

Emergency services advised people to move their cars under cover and away from trees, secure loose outdoor items and to seek shelter indoors as the low makes its way west over QueenslandSchools closed, hospitals nearing their capacity, people stuck at home and thousands sadly dying each day. This was the shocking reality of the global Covid pandemic we faced in 2020. This year, though, is different. Our freedom, our way of life, is being restored. People are slowly and carefully regaining the confidence to reclaim their lives. We are learning to live with Covid. While of course we need to be vigilant, we can start restoring what makes life worth living. Families are once again able to reunite with their loved ones. Weddings, christenings and family celebrations are back on. Businesses can open up again with more confidence. In fact, by some measures, Britain has the fastest economic recovery of all the major Western nations. The reason we can do this and, in truth, the only real difference between this year and last, are the vaccines. Almost 90 per cent of those over 16 have had one dose. More than four in five have had two doses.Internet giants have been accused of profiting from sex trafficking by enabling 'pop-up brothels' in Britain.

Firms such as Google and Facebook were raking in cash from vulnerable young women who are smuggled into the UK and forced to work as prostitutes in temporary sex clubs and massage parlours, said the National Crime Agency (NCA).

Tech companies have become 'key enablers' in the sexual exploitation of women trafficked from abroad, said the organisation.

Ministers are now considering introducing new laws to make the multi-billion-pound businesses liable when smuggling gangs use their websites to 'pimp' their victims to men who pay for sex.

Firms such as Google and Facebook were raking in cash from vulnerable young women who are smuggled into the UK and forced to work as prostitutes, the National Crime Agency said

Organised criminals are running so-called 'pop-up brothels' to move women rapidly from place to place to make it harder to find them. They rent a property and operate prostitutes for a month then move on before anyone notices.

Police have warned of gangs using tourist hotspots to run pop-up brothels in holiday lets, including Newquay in Cornwall, Cumbria's Lake District and Derbyshire's Peak District.

Last year police said up to 30 pop-up brothels were being opened each week in Swindon. Three such clubs were discovered operating last week in luxury flats near Hyde Park, central London.

Prime Minister Theresa May was briefed on the growth of online sex trafficking on Wednesday at a meeting of the modern slavery taskforce which she established as Home Secretary.

Downing Street said Mrs May and Culture Secretary Matt Hancock, whose brief covers the internet, are examining landmark US legislation that will make technology and social media firms responsible if they publish content that leads to trafficking.

Tech companies have become 'key enablers' in the sexual exploitation of women trafficked from abroad, said the organisation

Mrs May said: 'Modern slavery destroys the lives of some of the most vulnerable in our society. All too often we see criminal gangs coerce people with false promises of a better life, only to treat their victims as commodities for sexual exploitation.

'As the hosts of user-generated content, internet companies can and should be doing more to prevent trafficking-related material from appearing on their platforms.'

Will Kerr, the NCA's head of vulnerabilities, said: 'People are using the internet and social media sites to enable sexual exploitation and trafficking. It is clear that the internet platforms which host and make a profit out of this type of material need to do more to identify and stop these forms of exploitation.'

Senior sources in Downing Street and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said they were 'looking at' whether to replicate the legislation being passed in the US.

It means that if people advertise the services of trafficked women and children and clients find them using Google or Facebook, the tech giants could be criminally liable.

It was brought in as a response to Backpage.com, which has been labelled a 'hub of human trafficking, especially the trafficking of minors'. The UK version of the listings site hosts hundreds of explicit postings for sexual services in Britain.

A Downing Street source said: 'We are looking at this. The prime minister has made clear that Brexit gives us opportunities and one of the areas where we might diverge from EU rules is in the digital arena.'

Last May David Archer was jailed for 13 years for running a 16million prostitution empire using an adult website that can be accessed via Google and Facebook.

The Essex property tycoon trafficked vulnerable women into the UK and put them to work in a string of hotels and brothels, with their services advertised on a website called AdultWork.

It is understood that Google does not profit from AdultWork as it has a zero-tolerance policy for adverts that promote escort services and prostitution. Facebook said it welcomed the new US legislation.Dole bludgers in Cairns are rejecting farm work paying $1,000 with free rent as locals desperately search for employees.

The full-time farm-hand job outside of the North Queensland city pays $55,000 a year has attracted no applicants even though its been widely advertised on Seek and in the local newspaper, The Cairns Post.

It comes as Cairns suffers a youth unemployment rate of nearly 15 per cent with at least six per cent of people in the regional city not working.

Dole bludgers in Cairns would prefer to receive Centrelink than apply for a job paying $1,000 with free rent (stock image)

The job advert for a farm hand advertised online - the role involves milking cows and experience working on a farm

Foreigners including people from India, the Middle East and the Philippines have applied for the job but locals are snubbing the position.

Malcolm and Jane McGregor told the Courier Mail they are 'desperate' to hire a local farmhand at their property, 90km from Cairns, but have only received applicants from overseas.

Job duties will involve working as second in-charge to the owner from the early hours of the morning moving herd, operating machinery, milking cows and driving a tractor.

Cairns has a youth unemployment rate of nearly than 15 per cent and 6 per cent of people in the regional city do not work

'It's frustrating and makes you really angry,' Mrs McGregor told the publication.

'Malcolm works seven days a week...he only sees the kids for a couple of hours a week, Mrs McGregor said.

'We just need someone who could be Malcolm's 2IC so we can have a break.'

Free rent and a stable on income of $55,000 is on offer yet youth unemployment continues to rise

The family have had to drag a 72-year-old out of retirement and the children's 83-year-old grandfather back to work.

An honest reliable personality and certificate III in agriculture or two years experience is required as well as a driver's licence.

Federal Member for Leichhardt Warren Enstch told the publication it 'breaks his heart.'

The youth unemployment rate in Cairns as of January 2018 was 14.5 per cent compared to the Queensland rate of 13.3 per cent.

This compares to a youth unemployment rate of just 8.5 per cent in Orange New South Wales.

Applications for the job close on Friday.

A farmer has had to drag a 72-year-old man out of retirement and a 83-year-old grandfather back to work to keep his farm going (stock image)John Worboys will receive round-the-clock protection costing 300,00 a year if he is released from prison

Black cab rapist John Worboys will get round-the-clock protection costing 300,000 a year if he is released from prison.

Probation chiefs have found the 60-year-old predator - Britain's most prolific sex offender - a special hostel to live in amid concerns for his safety.

He will also be assigned two people to guard him 24/7 from possible vigilante attacks if a bid to block his freedom fails.

Victims of the former taxi driver, who is thought to have attacked more than 100 women, last night expressed fury on hearing of his treatment.

One said: 'Worboys' release is a betrayal and an insult to his victims, who all suffered horrendous attacks. We still live with what he has done to us but the Government will pay hundreds of thousands to protect him. How is that justice?' Worboys was jailed indefinitely, with a minimum term of eight years, in 2009 for drugging and sexually assaulting women passengers.

The former stripper was convicted of 19 offences relating to 12 women but police have linked the prolific offender to more than 100 attacks.

Fury erupted in January after the Parole Board ruled that the ex-London cab driver no longer posed a threat to the public and directed that he should be released from top-security HMP Wakefield.

Two of his victims are bringing a judicial review which will decide if the Parole Board was correct to grant his release.

Victims of the former taxi driver, who is thought to have attacked more than 100 women, last night expressed fury on hearing of his treatment

He remains in prison pending the full hearing on March 13 after the High Court ruled a temporary bar on his freedom should be extended.

But the National Probation Service, which monitors the most serious offenders, especially those convicted of the most horrific crimes, had been 'working round the clock' in the expectation that he will walk out of jail.

He will be placed in an approved hostel for serious sexual and violent offenders who are leaving jail.

The rapist would be barred from London, where many of his victims live, and forced to live under the most stringent conditions.

He would not be allowed outside alone and be watched closely after a 'credible threat to his safety' was identified, according to the Sunday Mirror.

Worboys arrives at Sutton Magistrates Court ahead of a preliminary hearing into his rape trial in 2009 (left) and the 'rape kit' he used to drug his victims (right)

His freedoms will be controlled by curfews, regular drug and alcohol testing and room searches.

Anyone breaking the terms of their release or conditions imposed on them while living in a hostel can be recalled to prison.

A National Probation Service source told the Sunday Mirror: 'Officials have been working 24/7 to work out where Worboys will go if he is freed. It has caused a lot of anger.

'There has been so much focus on Worboys that there's a concern staff members haven't been able to pay enough attention to others. The Probation Service has now found a hostel willing to accept him.

'The threat to his safety is so real that two members of staff will monitor him 24/7. This will come at great expense and could cost up to 300,000 a year. He will also be the subject of the strictest licence conditions.' Worboys will be under the strictest licence conditions since the release of Learco Chindamo in 2010, who was just 15 when he knifed headmaster Philip Lawrence to death outside a London school.

He was convicted in 2009 of one rape, five sex assaults, one assault bid and 12 drugging charges.

He used a 'rape kit' complete with spiked champagne to drug his victims in the back of his black cab before he launched his sickening assaults.

Reports suggest he could yet be charged with new offences after a number of women came forward to report attacks.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: 'It is for the independent Parole Board to decide on licence conditions.'Organised criminal gangs are fuelling a huge upsurge in burglary  with offences almost doubling last year in some of the worst hit areas of Britain, the Daily Mail can reveal today.

Police believe that marauding gangs of thieves are spending weeks ransacking an area, before moving on to their next target.

Some of the gangs include suspects from Eastern Europe and even South America.

One senior Scotland Yard officer said that gangs were now sleeping up to 15 to a room in short-term rented homes as they shared details of vulnerable nearby properties in secret text and WhatsApp groups.

Organised criminal gangs are fuelling a huge upsurge in burglary  with offences almost doubling last year in some of the worst hit areas of Britain (file photo)

An analysis of official figures reveals that some of the nations wealthiest areas have been hardest hit by the rise in offences.

In Surrey, residents endured a 78 per cent increase in burglary crimes in the year to the end of September, compared with the previous 12-month period. This was closely followed by Hampshire (74 per cent) and Wiltshire (69 per cent). In Durham, burglaries increased by 61 per cent, with Lincolnshire and Suffolk both suffering a 60 per cent rise.

Supt Sean Wilson, the lead officer for tackling burglary at the Metropolitan Police, said the days of the opportunist burglar were fading. He said organised gangs were far more sophisticated and were using social media to find victims and mobile phones to co-ordinate their crimes.

Every police force in the country is now understood to be drawing up a list of its most prolific suspects in a bid to stem the flood.

In Nottinghamshire, chiefs have declared burglary a priority and set up two dedicated burglary squads for the first time.

But in Derby some homeowners are taking it in turns to stay awake at night to guard their properties after a spate of burglaries. They are also carrying out daytime patrols following 30 raids on homes in the Littleover and Blagreaves areas so far this year. Research by the Mail lays bare for the first time the full scale of how the burglary crime wave is causing misery across the nation. The latest official figures showed there were almost 262,000 domestic burglaries last year, a rate of one every other minute.

But a breakdown reveals some of the hardest hit areas include some of the wealthiest towns, suburbs and villages.

Among them are Durham, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, South Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire where thousands of extra offences took place. In recent weeks police have also warned of burglary spates in Portsmouth, Newquay, Batley in West Yorkshire, Chester, Winchester and south Wales.

Organised criminal gangs, some using high performance cars with false plates, have been blamed for raids in Derbyshire, Wales, London, and East Anglia. The statistics were backed by a separate recent analysis by an insurance company which found the GU3 postcode in Guildford, Surrey, topped burglary claim hotspots.

Mr Wilson said thieves were taking cash, jewellery, prestige vehicles, phones and laptops, moving much of it abroad within days.

Some police forces have faced criticism in recent years for their response, or lack of a response, to crimes of burglary. Guidelines issued by the Metropolitan Police last year appeared to suggest that burglaries should only be looked into if the thieves used violence to gain entry or tricked their way in.

Leicestershire Police sparked a row after announcing they would only send forensics teams to probe attempted burglaries at homes with even, but not odd, numbers.

Police stress that although burglary rates have risen over the last 18 months, they remain far below those seen in the mid-1990s. And they insist they are now arresting suspects in record numbers as they use extra patrols, specialist detectives and undercover operations to track them down.

25k raid... right by police station Caithy Walker, 34, said her digital marketing company faced losing vital business when thieves made off with six computers, a 52in TV, cameras and jewellery A company boss says detectives showed little interest in a 25,000 burglary from her business  even though its right opposite their police station. Caithy Walker, 34, said her digital marketing company faced losing vital business when thieves made off with six computers, a 52in TV, cameras and jewellery after forcing shutters and smashing a window at the firm in Bury. It was said to be one of at least three similar raids in the area that night. But Mrs Walker, who also writes a blog for runners, said she was still waiting to speak to an officer ten days after the break-in on February 22. We have not had any contact from police. Whitefield Police Station is opposite. I could throw the brick that went through our window over there. She said the burglary made her feel anxious, adding: It feels like we have been violated. It could have been worse  no one has been injured. Advertisement

Senior officers insist they investigate every crime. They also blamed part of the increase on a change to how crimes are counted, with shed, garage and outhouses included in domestic burglaries from April 2017.

But Mr Wilson said the overall increase is not down to the change. And he said victims may attract criminals by showing off their possessions on social media.

He added that burglars, who are generally young men, know how technology can be exploited and said owners of top-end cars should consider keeping remote key fobs in tinfoil-lined cups to stop their signal being jammed or misused.

Amanda Blakeman, who is the national lead on tackling acquisitive crime, insisted opportunists are still responsible for the majority of burglaries. The West Mercia deputy chief constable said the increase is partly driven by the change in how crimes are counted and should also be put in the context of massive reductions over the past two decades.

She urged householders to help themselves by following crime prevention advice, including marking and photographing their property. It is a small proportion of people who are committing these offences, she said. We know there are individuals who are prolific and commit many offences when the opportunity arises.The citizens of Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea will be able to visit Armenia without a visa, the draft decision is included in the Armenian governments March 6 session agenda.

March 5, 2018, 15:08 Armenia liberalizes visa regime for citizens of Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea

STEPANAKERT, MARCH 5, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS:According to the explanation, the adoption of the decision will enable the citizens of the aforementioned countries to visit and stay in Armenia for a maximum of 180 days within a year, freeing them from the visa requirement. According to the Armenian government, this will not only contribute to boosting tourism, but also will be a new beginning for the mutual recognition of spiritual and historical-cultural values of the peoples, outlining and developing a number of new spheres for bilateral cooperation.

The draft decision aims at liberalizing the visa-related relations with Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea, contributing to the increase of visits of these countries citizens to Armenia.Florida teacher Dayanna Volitich, 25, has been 'removed from the classroom' pending an investigation into a white nationalist podcast called 'Unapologetic' that she is accused of hosting under the pseudonym 'Tiana Dalichov'

A Florida public school teacher has been 'removed from the classroom' after she was reportedly unmasked as the voice of a white nationalist podcast.

Dayanna Volitich, 25, was identified as the voice of the white nationalist blog called 'Unapologetic' on Saturday by HuffPost.

On the show, it is believed the Crystal River Middle School teacher boasts about spreading her right wing views in the classroom under the pseudonym 'Tiana Dalichov.'

Under 'Tiana,' Volitich is reported as running a Twitter account and hosting a podcast which is available on iTunes.

In her most recent episode, the 'Tiana' character discusses her white nationalist views and how she was careful about spreading them among the children she was teaching.

On social media, 'Tiani' tweeted that institutional racism and white privilege were 'bull****' concepts.

The School District said in its statement that it was 'made aware of a concerning podcast by a Huffington Post reporter' on Friday, March 2.

Scroll down for video

Though Tiana deleted all of her social media accounts, her podcast is still live on iTunes

'The Human Resources department was notified and an investigation was initiated immediately,' the statement continued.

'The teacher has been removed from the classroom and the investigation is ongoing. Pursuant to Florida Statute an open investigation and materials related to it are exempt from public record and cannot be discussed until the investigation is complete.'

The 'Tiana' Twitter account has supported tweets about white supremacists including KKK figurehead David Duke, and is gushing in her praise of authors who others have been deemed anti-Semitic.

Volitich was linked to the podcast this week by The Huffington Post which published her tweets and social media photographs on Saturday before she deleted her Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Pictures which came from those accounts match her profile on the Crystal River Middle School Website.

The last 'Unapologetic' podcast featured guest subject Lana Lokteff, the host of Red Ice TV, a white nationalist internet YouTube channel based in Sweden.

In the podcast, 'Tiani' says she is 'getting more underhanded' in how she espouses her views to the children she teaches.

Regarding white supremacists becoming teachers in public schools, a guest said on the 'Unapologetic' show:

'They don't have to be vocal about their views, but get in there. Be more covert and just start taking over those places.'

To that, 'Tiana' replied: 'Right, Im absolutely one of them.'

On Twitter, 'Tiana ' spreads her views including her belief that institutional racism is 'not real'

Another tweet says, 'It isn't supremacist or hateful to prefer your own people over others'

She also references to the 'JQ,' an abbreviation for the anti-Semitic term, 'Jewish Question'

She has also argued with others who tried to separate Islam from terror

The 'Tiana' account asked Twitter user to 'prove to me that white privilege exists'

'Tiana' goaded Twitter about suspending her account for violating its terms of service

'Tiana' has praised author Kevin McDonald who has been widely criticized as anti-Semitic

The woman has also shared support for the KKK figurehead David Duke

Volitch is shown above in a photograph from one of the 'Tiana' social media accounts; She has not spoken out on these allegations

On social media, 'Tiana' had also referred to the 'JQ', a casual abbreviation for 'the Jewish Question' which refers to treatment of Jews in the 19th and 20th Century.

It's an anti-Semitic concept, used to refer to the 'issue' of Jewish people in society.

'Tiana' admitted during the podcast that one parent emailed the principal of the school where she worked, which was not named, to express concern about her political views.

'She emailed the principal over my head and basically told her: "I'm worried that your teacher is injecting her political bias into her teaching,"' the voice said.

'She came to me and said, "I'm not worried, should I be worried?". I was like "no" and she believed me and she backed off.

'I get it. If it were the other way around with leftists, I would be paranoid.'

Lokteff suggested they should start a private network of right-wing schools where they could teach children about Slavic traditions and Pagan and Christian beliefs.

'That's a good idea! Hit me up!' 'Tiana' replied.

They then discussed whether two children from Sweden and Nigeria would achieve the same IQ or grades.

Lokteff led that strand of conversation, saying:

'Grades are also tanking with our super diverse all inclusive society where the kid from Nigeria and the kid who came from Sweden are supposed to learn exactly the same and have exactly the same IQ because equality!

Florida's Crystal River Middle School where Volitich teaches said it was reviewing the material

'There's no differences at all between the ethnicity or the races, right? They're all expected to get the same grades and do the same but that's not the reality.'

The teacher replied: 'Oh it's not!'

On Saturday, after the woman's alias was unveiled and she deleted her accounts, Lokteff defended her online.

She said the teacher had been 'slandered' and that she was targeted by a 'leftist rag' which has 'never wanted diversity of thought/opinion.'

Crystal River School said it was investigating the tweets and the podcast on Saturday. They said the opinions expressed on the podcast and social media were not theirs.

Dayanna did not reply to DailyMail.com's request for comment.The Crown star Claire Foy has complained that women are judged if they do not have children  but face incredible difficulty returning to work if they do start a family

The Crown star Claire Foy has complained that women are judged if they do not have children  but face incredible difficulty returning to work if they do start a family.

The 33-year-old actress, who plays the Queen in the hit Netflix drama, said she had insisted on having her baby daughter on set while filming so that she could breastfeed her between takes.

When a woman gets to childbearing age, she has to disappear or not have children and then be judged  its really weird. Women find it incredibly difficult to go back to work after children, she said.

Its not encouraged, especially in the UK. Its just not the norm.

Miss Foy auditioned for The Crown when she was five months pregnant.

Filming started four months after she gave birth, and she brought Ivy Rose  now two  on to set to breastfeed.

The actress admitted she was very fortunate [the production] supported me in doing that.

But Miss Foy  who recently separated from her husband of three years, Stephen Campbell Moore  said juggling her flourishing career with motherhood had been physically quite hard.

She told Sunday Times Culture: Ive had to take care of myself, after a baby and working those hours, then feeling bad about working, so waking up early to see my child.

Just being a mess in every single place I was in. But everything is hard. Everything is a challenge.

'You have a really amazing day, then an armpit of the world day, but the next [day], you know, youre still here.Skills minister, Anne Milton, said top-performing youngsters must avoid going to university to simply tick a box

The brightest straight A* pupils should throw off their intellectual snobbery and consider shunning Oxbridge for an apprenticeship, the skills minister has said.

Anne Milton said top-performing youngsters must avoid going to university simply to tick a box because it does not necessarily give you skills or a guaranteed job.

She urged them to apply for one of the Governments new degree apprenticeships which were launched two years ago and are designed for the countrys most able pupils.

Entry is extremely competitive, with applicants needing a string of A grades in many cases, but those accepted are paid a salary, graduate with a degree and have no student debt.

Mrs Milton revealed even the most elite private schools now see these schemes as a viable alternative to Oxford and Cambridge  a trend which was confirmed yesterday by the sectors leaders.

She told the Daily Mail: Intellectual snobbery should not get in the way. You might feel that youve ticked a box with your child going off to university, but if they havent got a job at the end of it theyre going to be back home in three years time.

If you want to advise your child well, tell them about the other opportunities that are out there rather than going blindly towards the light at the end of the tunnel which has previously been UCAS (the university application system).

Mrs Milton revealed even the most elite private schools now see these schemes as a viable alternative to Oxford and Cambridge (pictured)

Mrs Milton, who was a nurse for 25 years, said that while university might be right for some students who have a particular passion for a subject, others are more career-focused and simply want to get stuck in. She added that someone with a string of A* grades should definitely not feel under pressure to go to university if they would prefer to go straight into industry. To that person, I say go and be an engineer, she said.

For the bright students who are really up there, go and do an engineering degree apprenticeship because it is one of the most highly-paid jobs.

Degree apprenticeship roles currently available include aerospace engineer, chartered legal executive, chartered surveyor, civil engineer, licensed conveyancer, nuclear scientist, manufacturing engineer and product designer.

Mrs Milton said she recently gave a talk to children at a top fee-paying school where the head mistress had urged her to try to persuade the children that there is something more to life than just Oxford, Cambridge or Warwick. Pictured: Oxford Univeristy

They typically involve working full-time at a top firm on real projects for several years while also receiving free teaching  with a degree awarded at the end and often a guaranteed job with that company.

Speaking ahead of National Apprenticeship Week, Mrs Milton said skills as well as knowledge are needed to compete around the world. University gives you knowledge, it doesnt necessarily give you skills, she said.

Mrs Milton said she recently gave a talk to children at a top fee-paying school where the head mistress had urged her to try to persuade the children that there is something more to life than just Oxford, Cambridge or Warwick. Yesterday Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council, which represents most independent schools, confirmed private heads were slowly coming round to degree apprenticeships.

He said: It would be a mistake for schools and parents to be snobbish about this. Because what matters at the end of the whole process is that their child ends up with a really good job in a firm they are happy with.

Mrs Milton was keen to point out there are apprenticeship opportunities for everyone  including those who dont enjoy school and want to leave at 16Centrelink customers have been left outraged after they were put on hold for up to five hours after a spate of job cuts.

In the last year Centrelink have missed more than 33 million calls to the government organisation.

The savage cuts have seen residents on government funding wait hours in areas like Townsville.

'In human services when people are ringing up and reporting to Centrelink, waiting times for calls have been as long as five hours,' Herbert MP Cathy OToole told the Townsville Bulletin.

Centrelink customers are waiting up to five hours on the phone to get in contact with someone from the department

The average wait time is around 30 minutes nation wide but varies on the call inquiry.

Calls about disability, sickness or carers payments on average waited 28 minutes and 17 seconds.

For employment hotlines, customers were left on hold for typically 30 minutes and 21 seconds.

Young people and students were waiting the longest at 31 minutes and 15 seconds.

The wait times have all increased from three to six minutes longer than wait times from 2016

The wait times have all increased from three to six minutes longer since 2014.

One woman told the Daily Mail Australia she waited 'three hours' to get in contact with the department.

'I got through for them just to tell me to do it online,' student, Waihanea Kelly said.

She said: 'They put me on hold to a point it felt like they wanted me to hang up.'

'It was so f***ed I cried,' she said.

More than 5000 jobs have been lost at the Department of Human Services since 2011.

But Human Services said the waiting times aren't related to the cuts in staff.

Despite the loss of more than 5000 jobs the department claims the wait times aren't down to staff cuts

'The idea that this is occurring because we are reducing staff on the phones is not accurate,' Department of Human Services secretary Renee Leon said.

Centrelink waiting times are a constant debate on social media with one person posting,

'I've waited more than 2hrs to speak to a robot' and another saying 'what the f*** does this Government think it is doing.'

The 2016/17 financial year saw 55 million callers reach an engaged signal.A New York City Fire Department medic was arrested and charged after he allegedly strangled and raped a child.

Police have identified Frantz Petion, 25, as the medic who allegedly attacked on a 10-year-old girl in Queens Sunday morning while off-duty, the New York Daily News reported.

According to the report, Petion was a family friend who was in the home located on 202nd Street at the time of the alleged attack.

Frantz Petion, 25, is the off-duty FDNY medic who is accused of strangling and raping a 10-year-old girl in Queens

The FDNY medic allegedly attacked the child in her sleep at 202nd Street in Queens early Sunday

The child had been sleeping in the attic at the time he 'grabbed her by the throat and raped her,' the Daily News reported.

The child called police to report the alleged attack around 3:15am. Petion was arrested immediately after.

Petion has been charged with strangulation and child endangerment.

A new statement released by the medic's mother, Sarah Petion, 55, suggests her son was 'set up' by a group of men.

Police arrested Petion on rape, strangulation and child endangerment charges

The mother said her son had been partying with friends when he went upstairs at the home to use the restroom. That's when he allegedly saw the sobbing child.

'A whole bunch of guys came in and attacked him,' his mother said in a statement, according to the Daily News.

'He said he didn't do anything to the girl... he looked at her and asked her if she's all right. They didn't want to hear nothing. They just attacked him.'

Further investigation is currently underway.An unidentified man has been shot and killed at a party after he put on a bulletproof vest to prove he wouldn't get hurt, police say.

There was a party of six-to-eight people in the backyard of a Houston, Texas, home when the shooting occurred.

Police were called to the scene at 1.30am Sunday after one partygoer shot the host when they put on a bulletproof vest.

A forensic team has yet to confirm if the bullet passed through the vest or if the shooter was accidentally shot outside of the area.

Scroll down for video

An unidentified man was shot at a house party in Houston, Texas, early Sunday morning

The man put on a bulletproof vest to prove he wouldn't get hurt but the bullet killed him, police say. Pictured is where the home is located in Houston

'It is unusual that people would put on bulletproof vest and play with guns at a party, but these things happen sometimes,' HPD Homicide Sgt. Mark Hollbrook said to ABC13 News.

Investigators are trying to locate two white males who might know more about what occurred at the party early Sunday morning.

One person is described to be wearing glasses while the other partygoer is described as heavyset.

Investigators said one of the males is suspected to be the shooter while the other one witnessed the interaction.

They have yet to release the name of the victim.Theresa May will today launch a major push to restore the dream of home ownership in Britain.

The Prime Minister will say she wants to encourage not only new houses but also more storeys on existing buildings.

She will announce plans to relax planning rules so people can add two more floors to many properties, and she will condemn the 'perverse incentive' which links bonus payments of developers to profits and share price  not the number of homes built.

Theresa May will today launch a major push to restore the dream of home ownership in Britain

Builders who sit on land and wait for its value to rise could be punished by having future planning applications refused, she will say. In a major speech, Mrs May will also:

Threaten to strip planning powers from councils which fail to meet house building targets and hand them to officials;

Announce plans to build up to five new garden towns in the corridor between Oxford and Cambridge;

Pledge to maintain the green belt and protect ancient woodlands and historic coastlines;

Argue that the security of home ownership also gives people 'a stake in your community and its future'.

More than 217,000 new homes were built last year, the second highest rate since 1992.

Addressing a planning conference in London, Mrs May will warn the lack of supply is pushing up prices for buyers and renters  and becoming a barrier to social mobility.

'In much of the country, housing is so unaffordable that millions of people who would reasonably expect to buy their own home are unable to do so.

The result is a vicious circle from which most people can only escape with help from the Bank of Mum and Dad.

'If you're not lucky enough to have such support, the door to home ownership is all too often locked and barred.' Housing secretary Sajid Javid confirmed yesterday rules would be relaxed for homeowners who wanted to add storeys to their houses.

Mr Javid said 'the density of London is less than half that of Paris. We don't want London to end up like Hong Kong'.

But he called for more 'mansion blocks, the kind you might see in Kensington and Chelsea'.

'It will be quite surprising how easy we want to make it for people who want to build upwards,' he said.

Rounding on builders who 'bank' land and wait for its price to rise to maximise profits, Mrs May will urge them to 'step up'.

Bonus payments to big developers are based not on how many homes they build but profits or share price, she will say.

'In a market where lower supply equals higher prices, that creates a perverse incentive, one that does not encourage them to build the homes we need.'

In future, ministers could 'allow councils to take a developer's previous rate of build-out into account when deciding whether to grant planning permission', Mrs May will say.

The Prime Minister will say she wants to encourage not only new houses but also more storeys on existing buildings. File photo

'I want to see planning permissions going to people who are actually going to build houses, not just sit on land and watch its value rise. I expect developers to do their duty to Britain and build the homes our country needs.'

Earlier this year the Mail revealed how one of Britain's biggest builders is in line to collect a bonus of 131million on the back of soaring profits.

Jeff Fairburn, chief executive of Persimmon, was nicknamed 'Mr 100million' after details of the bonus payment emerged. He subsequently said he would give a 'substantial' part of the bonus to charity.

Mrs May will insist the 'answer to our housing crisis does not lie in tearing up the green belt'.

Maintaining existing protections will mean councils 'can only amend green belt boundaries if they can prove they have fully explored every other reasonable option'.

Labour housing spokesman John Healey said: 'The Prime Minister should be embarrassed to be fronting up these feeble measures first announced a year ago. After eight years of failure on housing it's clear her Government has got no plan to fix the housing crisis.

'Since 2010, home-ownership has fallen to a 30-year low, rough sleeping has more than doubled, and deep cuts to housing investment have led to the lowest number of new social rented homes built since records began.'Ten gender neutral toilets have been introduced at the Home Office headquarters, costing the taxpayer more than 36,000.

Where five men's and five women's toilets once stood are 10 unisex spaces each containing three cubicles. Converting them cost 28,892.50 and the signs alone cost 8,070.70

The total spend of 36,963.20 was part of the department's promise to create a 'more inclusive place to work'.

The Westminster HQ has spend more than 36,000 converting its toilets into gender-neutral facilities in a move that angered the TaxPayers' Alliance (stock image)

The cost for the toilets was revealed after The Sun submitted a Freedom of Information request.

Campaigners at the TaxPayers Alliance said the Home Office 'should focus more time and money on matters of immigration and security'.

The Home Office's HQ in Westminster has revamped its toilets in order to make them gender-neutral

Christian Concern's head of public policy, Tim Dieppe, branded the move 'something introduced purely to tick a box'.

But the Stonewall charity, which campaigns on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, said: 'Having facilities everyone can use is sensible.'

A Home Office spokesman said: 'We are committed to being an inclusive employer and creating an environment where staff feel comfortable.'The NRA has seen a huge surge in membership interest in recent weeks, after drawing noisy backlash over the shooting in Parkland, Florida.

Google searches for 'NRA membership' have risen roughly 4,900 per cent since the week before the February 14 shooting, with new members flocking to support the gun owners' rights group.

NRA President Wayne LaPierre announced last May that national membership had reached five million, but the group has not commented on the recent surge and didn't immediately reply to calls from DailyMail.com on Sunday.

Though high-profile mass shootings often spur an increase in gun sales over fear of a crackdown, the Parkland shooting was different in the focus of vitriol that was directed at the NRA.

Some otherwise casual gun rights supporters said that the loud attacks on the NRA in the media by young Parkland survivors such as David Hogg drove them to sign up.

'Thank you David Hogg for inspiring me,' one Twitter user wrote. 'I gifted my husband with an NRA membership. I felt now was an important time to support them,' she continued, adding a screenshot of the membership confirmation email.

NRA President Wayne LaPierre (pictured) announced last May that national membership had reached five million, but the group has not commented on the recent surge

Some new NRA members have said that noisy attacks on the gun owners' rights group by Parkland survivors such as David Hogg (pictured) prompted them to join

Other new NRA members said they were pushed to join because of perceived media bias and the rush to condemn gun rights in the wake of the shooting, in which 17 died.

'After ten minutes of CNN's town hall "debate" I had already searched for gun safes, the closest firearms dealer near me, classes on gun safety, and an NRA membership,' wrote Robert Norman in a column for the Federalist.

NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch appeared at the CNN town hall just a week after the shooting, receiving boos and curses from the packed arena.

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel piled on, drawing cheers from the crowd when he berated Loesch - days before information about critical law enforcement failures in Israel's own department came to light.

'The town hall was a display of tyranny,' wrote Norman, on why it prompted him to join the NRA.

'For tyranny has never come from a single person, but rather from a mob cheering for the destruction of liberty and rights from those with whom they disagree.'

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel drew cheers at this CNN Town Hall when he berated NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch. One new NRA member called the event 'a display of tyranny'

Google searches for 'NRA membership' have risen roughly 4900 per cent since the week before the February 14 shooting, according to this Google Trends report

After the CNN town hall, several national brands withdrew from partnerships to offer discounts to NRA members - companies including MetLife, Enterprise car rental, and Norton AntiVirus.

A new Morning Consult survey conducted last week found that net favorability ratings for those brands plunged when consumers learned of their moves to cut ties with the NRA - though the results were sharply split along partisan lines.

'There is no one. NO ONE. Who joins the NRA for a discount on a rental car,' Cleta Mitchell, an NRA member and former Oklahoma state lawmaker who sat on the NRA's board from 2002 to 2013, said in an email to Time.

'You can rest assured that the NRA will not lose a single member as a result of this,' Mitchell said.

'If anything, it should spur people to join the NRA as a means of demonstrating that we who believe in the Second Amendment will not be bullied by these left wing multi-billion dollar corporations.'A gay man broke down and cried uncontrollably after visiting the police cell where he was brutally bashed after marching in Sydney's first ever Mardi Gras.

In June 1978, Peter Murphy was one of 53 people who were arrested and thrown in the back of paddy wagons as police violently clashed with gay rights demonstrators on Oxford Street.

For the first time in almost 40 years, he visited the Darlinghurst police station holding cell where a police officer assaulted him when he was 25.

Scroll down for video

A gay man broke down and cried uncontrollably after visiting the police cell where he was brutally bashed after marching in Sydney's first ever Mardi Gras in June 1978

'I remember walking in through the door and the guy just turned me around and started punching me in the head,' he told an SBS camera crew.

'He punched me in the head all the way around the wall 'til the other wall and I collapsed and by the end my body was convulsing.'

Mr Murphy, who is regarded as a founder of Sydney's annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, recalled how a constable watched as a more senior officer brutally bashed him.

'He's still alive,' he said.

The assault in Sydney's eastern suburbs occurred in an era when homosexuality was still illegal in New South Wales, along with four other states, and carried a maximum jail term of 14 years.

The premier at the time, Neville Wran, gave a robust defence of the police in the aftermath of the violent arrests, despite being a founder and former president of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties before going into Labor politics.

While NSW police have marched in the Mardi Gras since 1998 and have recruited specialist gay and lesbian liaison officers, Mr Murphy wished there was a formal apology from them over the 1978 arrests.

No charges were even laid against the protesters but many of them lost their jobs and family ties after The Sydney Morning Herald published their names and addresses.

The arrests at the 1978 Mardi Gras in Sydney occurred in an era when homosexuality was still illegal in New South Wales and carried a maximum jail term of 14 years

For the first time in almost 40 years, Mr Murphy visited the Darlinghurst police station holding cell where a police officer assaulted him when he was 25.

While NSW police have marched in the Mardi Gras since 1998, Mr Murphy wished there was a formal apology from them over the 1978 arrests

'If we could only get the police to admit that they made a big mistake and that they appreciate now what we achieved in 1978, that would make a huge, huge, huge difference,' he said.

Mr Murphy's visit to the police cells was broadcast on Sunday night as part of SBS's coverage of Saturday night's 2018 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which featured an interview with international popstar Cher.

The annual parade attracted 300,000 spectators, who turned out in fine weather to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Mardi Gras, and was the first since Australia legalised same-sex marriage in December.

It was also attended by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who had power of attorney over Neville Wran before he died in 2014.Agreement on promotion and mutual protection of investments is expected to be signed between the governments of Armenia and the United Mexican States.

March 5, 2018, 18:04 Armenia, Mexico to sign investment promotion agreement

STEPANAKERT, MARCH 5, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS:The issue on approving the proposal of signing this agreement is included in the Armenian governments March 6 session agenda.

The draft agreement has set the common principles of investment activity between Armenia and Mexico. The agreement provides an opportunity to create favorable conditions for investors of the two countries contributing to promoting the business initiatives in the two countries. The agreement guarantees protection and safety to the investor of each side.

Based on the aforementioned, Armenias ministry of economic development and investments considers appropriate the signing of the agreement by Armenia.A birthday lunch was brought to a supposedly lavish end after a diner says she was charged $72 dollars at an upmarket winery to have a BYO passion fruit sponge cake cut and served.

The customer, known only as Sue, had brought the cake for $10 from a Mornington bakery.

And she was horrified that staff at Stillwater in Crittenden, Victoria, had charged her $12 per person to have the cake cut, according to 3AW.

But the restaurant told Daily Mail Australia that they charge only $6 to cut cakes and said it was a fair price considering the cost of running the popular restaurant.

'This is a fine dining restaurant not McDonalds, we do pay our staff properly and wed like people to enjoy their time here,' Jacqui Poulier who started the restaurant with her husband, told the Herald Sun.

The restaurants proprietor, Zac Poulier has hit back at the claim that they charged a customer, known only as Sue, a lavish $72 to cut a cake

Sue had bought the cake for $10 at a bakery before heading to the restaurant to celebrate her friends birthday

Sue was there to celebrate one of her friend's birthday. When the group arrived she asked the wait staff if they would place the sponge in their fridge.

She said they offered to cut it up and bring it out on little plates.

'We sang happy birthday and everything ... they charged me $72 for the cake to be cut. If we'd have known we'd have literally cut it with a butter knife,' she said.

The restaurants proprietor, Zac Poulier said whilst he was not aware of the incident, the restaurant charged only $6 per person for cake cutting.

'$6, not $12. We plate and then serve it with creme and berries,' he said.

'We're losing out on a desert  it costs money to cut it, to bring it out, to wash it, we're paying penalty rates on the weekend and we have a fixed menu then It's the same as corkage.'

She said they offered to put it in the fridge and bring it out but at the end of the meal, she was charged a $72 for the service

But the restaurant has hit back at the claim saying they only charge $6 for cake cutting, a reasonable fee, considering it costs them money

Mr Poulier said customers were always told about the $6 fee as soon as the restaurant knew about the cake

Rates for corkage in Australia vary widely from $1.50 per person to $10.00 per bottle.

'It's factually incorrect on all levels. We have not and never would charge $12 per person,' said Jacqui, backing up her husband's claim.

'None of our staff remember this person and we have been through all bills for the last fortnight and not one has 'cake cutting' on it. I think she is confused.'

The online menu makes no mention of the potentially hefty cake carving fee but Mr Poulier said that diners were informed about the cake cutting price.

'I had no idea that it had even occurred, but when people bring in a cake they're always told, always told.'

'If I had a date and name of the booking I could retrieve the guests' bill from our POS,' he said.The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race kicked offed in the shadow of a recent doping scandal that has mired the sport since last year.

For mushers and the Iditarod Trail Committee, which governs the competition, it is the first race to be launched since doping questions arose about four-time champion Dallas Seavey and his dog-sled team.

In October, four of Seavey's dogs tested positive for a banned painkiller called opioid tramadol.

Dallas Seavey (Pictured) sits under the burled arch in Nome, Alaska to win the 2014 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race

The mushing world is facing a potentially devastating crisis after a banned substance found in four dogs from a top team

Seavey adamantly denies administering any banned substances, telling Alaska Public Media that he would never do anything harmful to his beloved animals.

'I am probably the only person on the planet who can say one hundred percent definitively that I did not give this to my dogs,' Seavey said in a recent interview.

The Iditarod is an annual long-distance sled dog race that runs in early March from Willow to Nome. The race began in 1973 as an event to test the best sled dog mushers and teams but evolved into today's highly competitive race.

The race runs along two routes spanning 352 miles. The northern route is run on even-numbered years, and the south route is ran on odd numbered years.

The 'ceremonial start' of this year's race was launched on Saturday with the streets of downtown Anchorage being bombarded with sled dogs and spectators.

Feinix from Joar Leifseth Ulsom's team during preparations for the ceremonial start of the Iditarod dog sled race in Anchorage, Alaska, U.S. March 3

The race arrives at the end of the city's annual Fur Rondy, according to NPR, a week of festivities that traces its origins back to a yearly rendezvous among fur trappers when their goods were sold on the open streets.

Seavey, 30, admitted that the timing of the controversy was not ideal, but places the blame for the positive drug tests on the Iditarod's board of directors.

In a 17-minute video posted online just as the scandal was breaking, Seavey lashed out at the governing body for bungling the investigation and hurting his reputation in the process.

Seavey, however, doesn't dispute that his animals tested positive for the tramadol, only that he was not the one who administered the drug.

'I want to find out, and I think this is the type of stuff the Iditarod should be looking into,' Seavey said.

The long-time musher notes that he has not been reprimanded by the Iditarod Trail Committee. He has not been asked to return any of his prize money nor had any of his finishing times vacated from the record books and is presumed innocent of breaking any rules.

At the center of the storm is four-time champion Dallas Seavey, whose dogs tested positive for a banned painkiller called opioid tramadol

Seavey also says that as an experienced competitor, never in his wildest imagination would he give his dogs a drug that could be so easily detectable.

'I believe this was given to my dogs maliciously,' Seavey says. 'I think that's the most likely option.'

'The Iditarod can try to run me over, they can try to throw me under the bus,' he added.

The saboteur's theory is not unheard of in the sport, according to APM, which notes that mushers can imagine a competitor, disgruntled handler, rival fan or an anti-mushing animal-rights group being behind a plot.

In the wake of the controversy, Seavey said that he was skipping this year's Iditarod and competing in a Norwegian race taking place at the same time.

'I will not subjugate myself to this board, the only authority they have over me is when I choose to compete in this race,' Seavey explained.

'The feeling from the board is that they can do whatever they want. The mushers will kick and scream, but come March we will be at the start. So I'm saying 'no,' I will not be at the start.'

In the wake of the controversy, Seavey said that he is skipping this year's Iditarod and competing in a Norwegian race taking place at the same time (Pictured: Seavey responding to doping allegations in home video)

Iditarod musher Dallas Seavey, from Willow, Alaska, races from Safety to Nome and the finish line of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Compounding the Iditarod's challenges is also a push by former finishers of the race to oust ITC's current leadership, saying the competition needs major reforms if companies are to remain comfortable financing it.

Earlier this year, members of the Iditarod Official Finisher's Club sent a letter to the board accusing ITC President Andy Baker of mismanagement and conflicts of interest they claim are jeopardizing the whole sport.

Alaskan musher Jim Lanier's dog team is all smiles during the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, Saturday, March 3, 2018

Baker was recently voted to stay in charge of the race in an unanimous decision, securing his position for the time being.

'Everybody wants the race to do better,' Baker told reporters after the ITC board vote.

'Our whole focus is we want to have a safe race. We want dogs to be safe, we want mushers to be safe, and we want a successful race that's good for Alaska.'

Activists are also taking issue with the competition's treatment of animals participating in the event.

Leading the charge is People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, better known as PETA, who claim that the race is inherently abusive and cites past incidents where dogs have died while running in the competition.

'One of the biggest lies that the Iditarod community has tried to sell the public is that these dogs aren't like the dogs we share our homes with, and it's not true,' said PETA spokesperson Colleen O'Brien.John McDonnell was facing a furious backlash last night over a plaque paying tribute to IRA prisoners who died on hunger strike that is hanging in his office.

The memorial is to ten Republican terrorists  including Bobby Sands and convicted murderer Francis Hughes.

It lists the names of the so-called H-Block Martyrs, who died while on hunger strike in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles in 1981.

John McDonnell was presented with the Hunger Strike commemorative plaque by former IRA terrorist Gerry Kelly in 2004

Mr McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor, was presented with the plaque in 2004 by former IRA terrorist Gerry Kelly. A picture emerged yesterday of Mr McDonnell receiving the plaque from Kelly.

Tory MP Andrew Percy said that the decision to display the plaque was typical of a man who chose to side with IRA terrorists over British soldiers during the Troubles.

He added: It shows his casual approach to violence. It is worrying to think that this is the man who wants to occupy the second highest office in the land.

Former Cabinet minister Lord Tebbit, whose wife was permanently paralysed in the 1984 Brighton bomb, said Mr McDonnell had been caught out again.

He said: It only confirms the closeness of IRA killers with some parts of the Labour Party. He has been a regular one being caught out with friendly gestures of one kind or another to IRA killers.

Asked if Mr McDonnell should remove the plaque, Lord Tebbit said: I think I know where I would like to put it up.

The fact that the plaque hangs in Mr McDonnells office emerged from an interview with the Financial Times. Kelly was given two life sentences plus 20 years for bomb attacks on the Old Bailey and Whitehall that killed one and injured 200.

The shadow chancellor has the memorial to the 'H-Block Martyrs 1981'. It remembers the names of 10 IRA and IRNLA terrorists who died while in prison, including Bobby Sands

Other terrorists named on the list included Francis Hughes, who was jailed for murdering a 23-year-old British paratrooper and seriously wounding another, and was suspected of involvement in 11 other killings.

The plaque will reinforce criticisms of the hard-Left Shadow Chancellor  who lists fermenting (sic) the overthrow of capitalism in his Whos Who entry  and his close ties with Republican terrorists. Mr McDonnell told the paper: Ive always honestly and openly said I believe in a united Ireland, but the point was to try and get to a united Ireland without the violence.

He has faced repeated demands to apologise for praising Republican movements since being promoted to the front bench under Jeremy Corbyn.

Speaking in 2003 he said: Its about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. In 2015 he apologised from the bottom of my heart for his remarks  but added that he wanted the terrorists to stand down with dignity.

Among the 10 prisoners commemorated by the plaque is Bobby Sands (left). People on the board were responsible for the Whitehall bomb (pictured in 1973)

He told Channel 4 News: Some of us had to go out there  I might not have chosen the right words  and actually explain to them [IRA terrorists] they could stand down with dignity.

Sands, an IRA member jailed for firearms possession, was the first to go on hunger strike and died in May 1981. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused to compromise over the terrorists demands and became the IRAs top assassination target.

A spokesman for Mr McDonnell said: This was a gift to John for his work in promoting peaceful protests aimed at bringing both sides together during the troubles. It merely commemorates the peaceful protest in prison, not the prior actions of those involved.Rhea the pomsky puppy isn't your conventional dog - unlike most canines, she absolutely loves having her teeth brushed, as her owner recently caught on camera.

The video shows the young dog with her paws perched on the sink, reaching for the brush rather than pulling away as many dogs do when they have their teeth brushed.

The pup's owner Alexa Schmidtlein of Topeka, Kansas said that the eight-month-old puppy would hang around in the bathroom when she got ready in the morning and prepped for bed.

'Rhea enjoys being a part of our daily and night routines. Each night she would be in the bathroom while we would brush our teeth,' she said.

Rhea the pomsky watched her owners getting ready for bed each night, and eventually wanted in on the nightly routine

The pomsky (a mix between a husky and a pomeranian) eventually wanted in on the fun.

'Every night while I'm brushing my teeth, she will hop up and rest her paws on the counter while I prepare her toothbrush and there she will wait for me to brush her teeth,' Schmidtlein said.

Unlike the other pomsky dogs she was raised with, Rhea reportedly loves having her teeth brushed - even going as far as to prop herself up on the counter

Schmidtlein, who raises pomsky dogs, has had Rhea since birth, but says that her behavior isn't typical.

'We have several dogs and none of them look forward to it at all. I'm lucky if they even cooperate at all, but Rhea actually looks forward to it every night,' she said.

Not only does Rhea have an atypical habit - she's also got brand loyalty. Her owner said that she prefers Young Living Thieves brand toothpaste.

Alexa Schmidtlein, pictured her with her husband JP, said that her dog Rhea even has brand loyalty in toothpaste - she prefers Young Living Thieves brand toothpaste



Gloomy Treasury forecasts that predict Brexit will be an economic disaster are flawed, Cambridge researchers warn today.

A study by the universitys Centre for Business Research raises serious questions over predictions by government officials, academic bodies, the IMF and the OECD.

They say most estimates of the economic impact of the Leave vote are based on modelling that exaggerates the negative effects. The study, published today, is titled How the Economics Profession Got it Wrong on Brexit and says Treasury forecasts before and after the referendum were too pessimistic.

Researchers say the assumption about the degree of uncertainty caused by the Brexit vote was arbitrary and wrong.

Gloomy Treasury forecasts that predict Brexit will be an economic disaster are flawed, Cambridge researchers warn today

Conclusions were likely to be the result of unconscious bias, political expectations and group think among the authors, they claim. And they say the Treasurys failure to discuss its work  and subject it to outside scrutiny  is unacceptable.

The report also challenges the claim that membership of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, was good for economic growth. It says GDP per person has been slower since 1972 than in the previous decades.

Before the vote, George Osborne published controversial Treasury analysis claiming that quitting the EU would leave every family 4,300 worse off along with an immediate recession and half a million people out of work.

But Cambridge Professor Graham Gudgin, who launched a website last month intended to counter Remain propaganda, said: The short-term forecasts of the Treasury and OECD, which have turned out to be wrong, have further damaged the already weak public confidence in economists contributions to public debate.

Before the vote, George Osborne published controversial Treasury analysis

'Our paper is not necessarily an argument in favour of Brexit. But it will cast doubt on traditional economic modelling and it does question the ability of the economics profession to provide high quality policy analysis on issues of national importance.

His co-author, Ken Coutts, said the academic profession needs to reconsider... the relevance of its current attachment to theory based on unrealistic assumptions. The Civil Service should also consider, when undertaking technical economic research, that it has a duty to be transparent in the methods it uses and to discuss with outside economists the strengths and weaknesses of the analysis as is customary in academic debate, he writes.

The report says predictions from bodies such as the OECD and IMF suffer from similar flaws which exaggerate the negative impact of Brexit. Since the referendum, the economy has confounded the critics by continuing to grow strongly. Employment has soared to a record high while joblessness has hit a 42-year low.

At the end of October the jobless rate stood at 4.3 per cent  less than half the figure in the eurozone, which has been blighted by high unemployment.A British boy is flying to the US to undergo an experimental treatment for cerebral palsy - using stem cells taken from his younger brother.

Jay Shetty, 7, suffered brain damage caused by a collapsed lung when he was born.

The disability means he cannot sit upright, feed himself or walk unaided.

Now his parents Shilpa and Raj hope that he could be the first British child to benefit from the treatment which is not available in the UK.

The new therapy involves being injected with umbilical cord blood taken from his sibling.

Jay Shetty (right), 7, suffered brain damage caused when he was born, but now his parents Shilpa (left) and Raj hope he could be the first British child to benefit from new treatment

Jay was born two weeks prematurely - at 36 weeks - and had suffered a collapsed lung.

The lack of oxygen left him with brain damage - and he has since been diagnosed with severe cerebral palsy.

Hope of reversing Jays symptoms seemed forlorn - until she got pregnant and gave birth to her second son, Kairus, two-and-half-years ago - Mrs Shetty said: We were researching stem cell therapies on the internet - and she learnt that researchers in the US were pioneering using blood transfusions of stem cells.

We wanted to store Kairus cord blood, and thought we can probably use Jays own siblings umbilical cord blood. Kairus umbilical cord blood with a company called Cells4Life at the cost of around 2,300.

She got in touch with Duke University, who have carried out pioneering trials of reversing cerebral palsy symptoms.

Now they are paying around 10,000 ($15,000) to take part in the trial conducted at Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina.

A study published last year involving 63 children with cerebral palsy, found those who received injections of cord blood saw improvements in their movement a year later.

The researchers believe it is not necessary for the cord blood stem cells to come from the recipient - which means that stem cells taken from a siblings cord could have the same effect.

Raj Shetty pictured holding Jay while Shilpa holds his brother Kairus, whose stem cells are a 100 per cent match for his brother

Kairuss stem cells are a 100 per cent match for his brother.

Mrs Shetty said that she did not fear anything can go wrong - and any improvement would be welcomed.

He cant sit up. If at the age of seven he sits up on his own, it will be a huge step forward.

Any percentage of improvement will be great. We are not hoping he is going to walk and run and have a full life, like everybody else.

The doctors have said they cannot guarantee any improvement.

We just want him to have as full a life as possible. We just want him to sit on his own and feed himself.

We dont expect him to become a doctor or an engineer.

We just want him to be independent and not dependent on anybody. Jays treatment involves receiving a blood transfusion using the stored cord blood, which will contain around 280-300 million stem cells.

Mrs Shetty said: It is hoped that millions of stem cells from his sibllngs cord blood will find their way into Jays brain where they will help to regenerate damaged areas.

Mrs Shetty said the neurologist who treats Jay at St Thomass hospital in London is open to the idea - while some other doctors say that theres not enough research on it. They say dont do it. Everybody has their own view.

The family, from Wimbledon, travel out on March 11, and return on March 18.

The case is understood to be the first time sibling cord blood has been used for a patient from the UK.

Cord blood stem cells were introduced in therapy in 1988 - and are being suggested as potential treatments for a range of hitherto incurable conditions, although the therapies are in their very early stages.

The family have spent around 100,000 over the past seven years on private treatments for Jay - putting a huge strain on the familys finances.

Because of the shortage of facilities in the UK, they attending a clinic near Poznan, Poland where Jay gets regular physiotherapy, as well as hydrotherapy and hippotherapy - horse riding.

The family have raised around 26,000 in donations on the website just4children.

https://just4children.org/children-helped2016/help-jay/The Home Office has lost track of hundreds of dangerous foreign criminals awaiting deportation from Britain.

Instead of being locked up until they are thrown out of the UK, the offenders, including rapists, robbers and paedophiles, vanished after being let out of prison.

Immigration chiefs lost track of the foreign national offenders (FNOs) after they completed their sentences and were released into the community  meaning they could still pose a threat.

Figures obtained using freedom of information laws revealed that 494 criminals absconded between January 2014 and March 2016.

As of last month, 211 were still missing  up to four years after contact with officials ceased.

The Home Office has lost track of hundreds of dangerous foreign criminals awaiting deportation from Britain (pictured, Home Secretary Amber Rudd outside No10)

However, the numbers could be even higher.

In November, a report by David Bolt, chief inspector of borders and immigration, found that in April last year 753 FNOs were missing after being freed from jail.

Guidelines say offenders who complete sentences should be detained only if there is a realistic prospect of deporting them immediately.

It means that thousands of criminals are placed back in the community with a request to keep in touch with immigration officials but many slip off the radar.

Offenders are recorded as absconders if their whereabouts are unknown and attempts to re-establish contact have failed.

Figures just released by the Home Office  after it spent nearly two years trying to wriggle out of publishing them  revealed that 169 FNOs absconded in 2014, followed by 250 in 2015, and 75 in the first three months of 2016.

Of the total, 196 men and at least 15 women had not been found by February 9 this year.

Foreign criminals with convictions for violence, rape and other sexual crimes, fraud, money laundering, possession of weapons, burglary and forgery were among those missing.

Tory MP Tim Loughton, a member of the Commons home affairs committee, said: There should be a fast-track deportation system from the prison to the plane with clear information sharing to make sure they do not gain entry again.

The Home Office refused to provide details of the nationalities of those on the run, claiming it could undermine agreements with other countries and hamper the operation of immigration controls.

Mr Bolts report warned that there was little evidence effective action was being taken to find the vast bulk of absconders  FNOs can fail to attend meetings up to 19 times before the alarm is raised.

A third of planned removals of criminals failed  7,772 out of 24,289 dating back to 2014-15.

A team set up to cut immigration abuse by finding missing FNOs had only 11 staff.

Tory MP Tim Loughton, a member of the Commons home affairs committee, said: It is extraordinary that the Home Office has allowed so many convicted foreign offenders who clearly have no place to remain in the UK to roam free to do as they wish whilst paperwork for their deportation is being sorted.

There should be a fast-track deportation system from the prison to the plane with clear information sharing to make sure they do not gain entry again.

The Home Office said more than 41,000 foreign offenders have been removed from the UK since 2010, including a record 6,346 in 2016-17.

A spokesman said: This week, like every week, more than 100 foreign criminals will be removed from the UK.

'We never give up trying to locate absconders and we are overhauling the reporting system.

She said measures introduced in the Immigration Act 2016 meant that in the future all non-detained foreign nationals subject to deportation proceedings would be fitted with an electronic tag and monitored.Sperm extracted from the body of murdered former bikie boss Mahmoud "Mick" Hawi is being stored at an IVF facility until a court rules on his widow's pending application to use it, a Sydney judge has been told.

The former Comanchero Motorcycle Club president was gunned down outside a Rockdale gym in Sydney's south on February 15. No one has been arrested over the crime.

A urologist was authorised to perform a "posthumous sperm retrieval" after Hawi's wife Carolina Gonzales made an urgent application in the NSW Supreme Court the day after he was killed.

Sperm extracted from the body of murdered former bikie boss "Mick" Hawi (left) is being stored at an IVF facility until a court rules on his widow's (right) pending application to use it

In a directions hearing on Monday, Justice Peter Johnson was told the sample had been obtained, was being stored at an IVF facility and had not been used.

Ms Gonzales' barrister said his client would be making an application to use the sample.

The judge directed that certain material be provided including an affidavit from the doctor involved in the sperm extraction setting out what happened to the sample including its present location and storage.

The case will be mentioned again on Thursday.

Last month detectives watched as the former bikie kingpin's bullet-riddled body was removed from a 'locked, zipped bag' for a doctor to extract his sperm.

New details emerged of widow Carolina Gonzelez's last ditch effort to fulfil her desire to have a baby with her late childhood sweetheart.

Ms Gonzalez urgently applied to court for the procedure to be performed after her husband was gunned down outside a gym in Sydney's south.

He was buried at a traditional Islamic ceremony on Thursday afternoon - with tensions flaring between police and limousine-riding funeral guests, and Ms Gonzalez herself finding herself locked in an angry confrontation with online trolls.

Mick Hawi's burial: Mourners held an empty coffin over their heads after piling dirt on the former Comanchero president's bare body at Rookwood necropolis on Thursday

Hundreds of people gathered in the Islamic section of the graveyard to bury Hawi, the 37-year-old former national president of the Comanchero

One of the at least 200 mourners to attend Hawi's funeral service bore a large tattoo reading 'Infidel' on his left forearm

Hawi's family arrived and left the service in a fleet of Rolls Royces, Bentleys and a lone Porsche

A sheikh is pictured arriving at the mosque for the funeral service on Thursday

Court documents obtained by Daily Mail Australia revealed the sperm procedure could only be performed with investigators examining his murder present.

'The Coroner... advised ... that the deceased is situated in a locked zipped bag and that the bag cannot be unzipped without the presence of detectives,' said affidavit written by Ms Gonzalez's lawyer.

Gang squad detectives had no objection to the procedure being performed.

The court approved the operation - but Ms Gonzalez will need the court's sign off to use the sperm to get pregnant via IVF.

Hawi's funeral service was monitored by a small army of police.

A large crowd of men who arrived at the service in three white limousines were stopped on the way to Hawi's burial by bikie-busting Strike Force Raptor.

One officer, Raptor 13 - Senior Constable Andrew Murphy - drew his Taser and shouted 'you're going to get searched' as tensions flared between the groups.

Police were seen on every corner of the block near the funeral service on Thursday. It was a little more awkward for the Gangs Squad detectives who had to supervise his body

A brigade of guests at the service arrived in three white limousines. They were later stopped by Strike Force Raptor officers while on their way to the burial

A considerable group of men walked together down the street towards the Arncliffe mosque where Hawi was buried, with a man in a grew suit carrying a framed photograph of Hawi

About 20 men, dressed head-to-toe in black, walked the street together following the funeral service

Family members had requested funeral attendees leave their motorbikes at home - but this man clearly missed the memo

Mourners embraced outside the mosque after the conclusion of the service

'Brother, there's 30 of us (and) there's two of you... show some respect' one of the men said as Raptor 13 pushes the surging group out of his face.

'I don't care, you're going to be searched, stand against the fence all of you... you're all being searched for firearms and drugs,' he responded.

And just hours after her husband's body was covered with earth at Rookwood cemetery, a furious Ms Gonzalez fired up at trolls online.

The bereaved widow was furious after a woman claimed Hawi's children were suffering because of their dad had been 'involved in things that cost him his life'.

Furious: Carolina Gonzalez hit out at trolls on Facebook in the hours after her husband's funeral

'Before you speak you should have some facts!' she fumed. 'My husband did not do this to his children!

'If you only knew the truth, you would hide in a cave from embarrassment from what you have just written.

'My husband left that life a long time ago! How dare you write something like that?

'What you have done is worse to my kids - planting this seed in their head is not nice of you.'

Police are still hunting for the man's killers.The former Archbishop of Canterbury could face a police probe over claims the Church covered up the activities of a sex abuse bishop, it was reported last night.

George Carey was last year accused in a report of colluding with senior clergy to protect Bishop Peter Ball.

Ball, who groomed and abused 18 vulnerable men from 1977 and 1992, was allegedly not added to a list of questionable ministers in 1993 that enabled him to carry on working.

The former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey could reportedly face a police probe over claims the Church covered up the activities of a sex abuse bishop

Bishop Peter Ball, who groomed and abused 18 vulnerable men from 1977 and 1992, was allegedly not added to a list of questionable ministers in 1993 that enabled him to carry on working

Even though the Metropolitan Police has not started a criminal investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is discussing whether to press charges against Lord Carey, according to the Daily Telegraph.

Prosecutors are said to be reading a 70-page report by Dame Moira Gibb, which was released last summer, in order to decide whether to prosecute.

A spokesman for Operation Hydrant  the investigation into historical allegations of child abuse  said: The matters under consideration are complex, and advice is currently being sought from CPS to understand whether anything contained within the report suggests criminal offences have been committed.

This does not equate to a criminal investigation being underway. Solicitor David Greenwood, who has represented several of Balls victims, criticised the length of time prosecutors were taking.

He said: Whats taking the CPS so long? Its a 70-page report which was published nine months ago. Ball, a former suffragan bishop of Lewes, was let off with a caution for molesting a teenage novice monk in 1993. Although the Church knew of other allegations against him, it was not until 2015 that Ball was finally prosecuted and jailed.

He admitted abusing 18 teenagers and young men who had sought spiritual guidance from him between 1977 and 1992. Last summer the report into the scandal by Dame Moira, titled Abuse of Faith, described the Churchs handling of the scandal as lamentable.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is said to be discussing whether to press charges against Lord Carey. Pictured: Peter Ball meeting Prince Charles

It found Mr Carey colluded with senior clergy to protect Ball. The independent inquiry into the scandal found that the Church of England knew of a string of allegations against Ball, then bishop of Gloucester, but failed to alert the police.

Justin Welby, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, urged his predecessor to step down from his role as an assistant bishop after the report covering his time as head of the Church of England.

Some of Balls victims called for a criminal investigation into senior clergy after the report found that the Church was more interested in protecting itself than helping those he had abused, and that at least nine bishops knew allegations had been made against him.

In a Christmas letter last year, Lord Carey attacked his successor Mr Welby for commenting on his handling of allegations against Ball. The 82-year-old lashed out at the unjust request for him to step down over his supposed failings 24 years ago.

The news comes as the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse prepares to begin today. The inquiry will spend three weeks analysing the actions of the Anglican Church, and is expected to hear from Mr Welby. A spokesman for the Church of England said it would always cooperate with police, but declined to comment.

A spokesman for the Carey family also declined to comment.One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson has branded Barnaby Joyce a 'bloody fool' a day after he revealed that the paternity of his new partner Vikki Campion's child is a 'grey area.'

On Monday Ms Hanson accused the former deputy prime minister of not only destroying his own political career but trying to take the National Party down with him.

'What a bloody fool he is!' Senator Hanson told the Seven Network.

Scroll down for video

'He has destroyed his life as far as I am concerned. He had a great future in politics, he just destroyed it,' Senator Hanson said of Mr Joyce

Mr Joyce, with his now estranged wife, were in Europe from June 23, 2017 for a total of 10 days making the paternity of Vikki Campion's child a 'gray area' he said

'He has destroyed his life as far as I am concerned. He had a great future in politics, he just destroyed it.'

Senator Hanson said she wasn't able to believe how the situation has played out and said she wished Mr Joyce would just 'shut up and go away.'

The politician also said she felt that Mr Joyce was attempting to bring he National Party down with him.

'I would say Barnaby is pretty angry in every direction, particularly with the National Party,' she told Sunrise.

'It is causing them more and more damage all the time.'

In recent days questions have been raised about Mr Joyce and Ms Campion's conflicting travel schedules at the time of conception.

Mt Joyce has expressed concern that the new baby boy would be subject to unfair scrutiny throughout his life after the Campion scandal broke

The Australia reported that three months ago Mr Joyce told National Party officials he was unsure whether he was the father of the child as he was overseas around the time his former media adviser fell pregnant.

On Sunday, Mr Joyce admitted to Fairfax Media the paternity of Ms Campion's unborn child was a 'grey area'.

The Age earlier reported that Mr Joyce's travel schedule could indeed throw doubt over the paternity of the baby.

Barnaby Joyce stormed out of a recent press conference saying he would not partake in a discussion abut Vikki Campion

Mr Joyce was in Europe from June 23, 2017 for a total of 10 days with his estranged wife.

At the same time Ms Campion was in far north Queensland.

'One thing I am going to say is anything that is personal in nature is nobody elses business but my and Vikki Campions,' he said after he cut a recent press conference short.

For Senator Hanson the comments made by Mr Joyce were simply a ploy to sabotage the government by suggesting the paternity of the baby was in dispute.

'One thing I am going to say is anything that is personal in nature is nobody elses business but my and Vikki Campions,' Joyce said

Mt Joyce has expressed concern that the new baby boy would be subject to unfair scrutiny throughout his life, thanks to the circumstances surrounding his conception and upcoming birth.

'I dont want our child to grow up as some sort of public display,' he said.

This latest layer to the ongoing scandal would have done little to relieve Mr Joyce's concerns.

The Joyce scandal has also had an impact on polling with the most recent Newspoll showing a 37-35 preference for Malcolm Turnbull.Leaders are not just those elected to Parliament or those employed into a position of power or authority.

You have to ask yourself if you are a leader.

It's leadership today, during these hard times, that will determine our tomorrows prosperity.

We all have tribes and we all have families. We all have children. They all expect leadership.

So look around you today. Does Papua New Guinea look like it has a bright future?

ORO - The decisions we make in our todays will determine our children's tomorrows. That's a fact.

Leaders are also people who have a family and are in a position to influence others - that makes you a leader.

Then you must ask yourself, what am I doing about the state of our nation?

So what are you doing about correcting the path PNG has taken towards a dark and bleak future?

Today we are under siege. We are under attack by a small group of evil and selfish criminals who have plundered the past and are plundering the present.

Having had much experience and gained confidence from our inaction and a weak enforcement and justice system, these people have become emboldened to continue plundering an entire country.

Are you waiting for others to act? Are you waiting for something to happen before you act?

Is this not your also country?

Are you also not responsible for your children's tomorrows, for their opportunities, for where they will be?

Can you truly let their fate hang on the decisions made by others while you look away and fold your arms?

How can you live with yourself and look your kids in the eye and admit you failed to act because you wanted someone else to do it?

They will surely ask, "But didn't you love us enough to fight for our tomorrows?"

Remember this when you answer, that if you remained silent about the destruction by political criminals of your nations economy, resources and opportunities, you are an accomplice  a co-conspirer against a good future for your children and grandchildren. The opposite of a leader.

That is the truth. So will you be an accomplice or a good father, mother, brother and sister, a patriot, a leader who will rise up and fight today for your children's tomorrow?

Its your choice  you can be an accomplice or a leader.

Its a choice that will determine their fate and the fate of our country.The trailer has just been released for Disney's Mary Poppins Returns, right in the middle of Oscars Sunday.

In it, we see the first glimpses of the the namesake character working her magic to help the Banks family 'rediscover the joy and wonder missing in their lives,' Disney writes in the description on IMDB.

The film is set after Jane and Michael Banks have long-since grown up, in Depression-era London.

In just the first minute-and-a-half sneak peek, most social media users chimed in that the movie looks like it will be delightfully magical.

Scroll down for video

The trailer has just been released for Disney's Mary Poppins Returns, right in the middle of Oscars Sunday, with Emily Blunt playing the namesake character

Mary Poppins, played by Emily Blunt, visits the brother and sister, played by Emily Mortimer and Ben Whishaw, after they've experienced a personal loss.

The magical nanny uses her unique skills, with a bit of help from her friend Jack, played by Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame, to give the Banks children, and now Michael's three little ones of his own, exactly what they need.

The video opens with a sweeping view of foggy London town, on a dreary day.

The magical nanny visits the now grown-up brother and sister, 'Jane and Michael Banks,' played by Emily Mortimer and Ben Whishaw, after they've experienced a personal loss

The teaser video opens with a sweeping view of foggy London town, on a dreary day

Almost right away, we see the mended kite from the original 1964 version of the Mary Poppins movie, looking lonely in an outdoor crate filled with discarded paper.

But then, the wind picks it up and it takes flight, first past a man on a bicycle and then swooping by another man seated on a bench, reading the newspaper.

A blonde-haired little boy then chases after it, through the brush, and emerges on the other side, with the kite in his hand.

The spirited child with the favorite toy of his father and aunt in hand is 'Georgie Banks,' played by Joel Dawson.

Almost right away, we see the mended kite from the original 1964 version of the Mary Poppins movie, looking lonely in an outdoor crate filled with discarded paper

The wind picks it up and the kite takes flight, first past a man on a bicycle and then swooping by another man seated on a bench, reading the newspaper

At first, he's got things under control. But then, we see him trying to keep it from getting away, with the help of the grown man we saw earlier on the bicycle, who turns out to be Mary Poppins' helpful friend, Jack.

As the other two children of Michael Banks run up on the scene, the camera cuts back to the sky and we see Mary Poppins, herself, floating down from above with the kite in hand.

These youngsters are none other than 'John Banks, ' played by Nathanael Saleh, and 'Anabel Banks,' played by Pixie Davies.

This is just the beginning of the story, as we soon here an adult Michael say, 'Mary Poppins, it is wonderful to see you.'

Joel Dawson's 'Georgie Banks' has things under control until the kite starts to get away from

'I just got goose bumps from the Mary Poppins trailer,' a Twitter user wrote

Nathanael Saleh (left) plays 'John Banks' and Pixie Davies (right) plays 'Anabel Banks'

'Not to be dramatic but I literally lost my breath during the TWO SECOND teaser trailer of Mary Poppins returns in which Lin didnt even SPEAK,' wrote a Lin-Manuel Miranda fan account

'Yes, it is, isn't it?' she replies, while looking at her reflection in the mirror. She walks away, off camera, but her reflection remains with a knowing eye squinting every so slightly and peering around the corner.

Many people on social media were incredibly excited not only at the new story line, but also by the casting.

An Emily Blunt fan account wrote: 'EMILY BLUNT AS MARY POPPINS BREATHE IF YOU AGREE.'

An account similarly devoted to Miranda tweeted:

'Not to be dramatic but I literally lost my breath during the TWO SECOND teaser trailer of Mary Poppins returns in which Lin didnt even SPEAK how tf am I supposed to make it through the entire film?'

Associate Editor at Vulture, Jackson McHenry, chimed in about grown-up Michael Banks' mustache: 'I know the Oscars are happening but we need to check in with Ben Whishaw's Mary Poppins mustache'

LIn-Manuel Miranda, of Hamilton fame, plays 'Jack' in Mary Poppins Returns, and Joel Dawson plays 'Georgie Banks'

As the other two children of Michael Banks run up on the scene, the camera cuts back to the sky and we see Mary Poppins, herself, floating down from above with the kite in hand

On the flip side, some people were apparently confused at this release by Disney, like the wife of senior film critic from Indiewire, David Ehrlich, at least according to him

Associate Editor at Vulture, Jackson McHenry, chimed in about grown-up Michael Banks' mustache.

'I know the Oscars are happening but we need to check in with Ben Whishaw's Mary Poppins mustache,' he wrote.

More generally, people were just excited this sequel was coming into existence.

'I just got goose bumps from the Mary Poppins trailer,' wrote a user identified as Peter.

The trailer seemed to be anxiety inducing for Twitter's Lady Mimo, who wrote, 'Disney, don't ruin Mary Poppins. Please'

On the flip side, others were confused, like the wife of senior film critic from Indiewire, David Ehrlich, at least according to him.

'"But why?"' he tweeted, adding that was 'the entirety of my wifes reaction to the MARY POPPINS RETURNS trailer.'

The trailer seemed to be anxiety inducing for Twitter's Lady Mimo, who wrote, 'Disney, don't ruin Mary Poppins. Please.'

But user Melanie Dawn sentiments seemed to echo what most were tweeting about the surprise teaser drop.

She tweeted a gif of Oprah with arms outstretched and a wide smile, along with the caption, 'Me seeing the Mary Poppins sequel trailer.'

The all-star cast includes Meryl Streep, Colin Firth, Julie Waters and Dick Van Dyke.

Mary Poppins Returns is scheduled to open in theaters near Christmas.

Mary Poppins Returns is scheduled to open in theaters near Christmas timeA young man has been jailed for organising three armed heists across Melbourne, promising the teenage robbers 'hotels and girls' as a reward.

Mahmoud Taha, 21, masterminded the armed hold-up of a courier and directed youths to rob two jewellery stores, armed with hammers, in 2016.

County Court of Victoria sentencing judge Wendy Wilmoth on Monday noted Taha had previously been linked to the infamous Apex street gang but added there was no evidence to suggest a connection.

Mahmoud Taha, 21, has been jailed for organising three armed robberies across Melbourne, promising the thieves 'hotels and girls' as a reward

In March 2016 when he was 19, Taha - then a cocaine and ice addict - began driving a stolen Mercedes Benz with false number plates.

On May 2 the same year, Taha organised the robbery of a courier at Broadmeadows shopping centre, with one of the young men pointing a silver pistol in the victim's face and demanding he drop his backpack.

The youths fled in Taha's stolen Mercedes with the backpack, containing $236,000.

'With the cash, you bought cocaine and designer shoes and clothing,' Judge Wilmoth said.

Police later searched Taha's home, but he denied any involvement and wiped his phone.

Police then tapped his phone and were able to intercept conversations of him organising the jewellery store robberies.

CCTV footage shows a group of alleged Apex gang members on a crime spree in Melbourne. In once scene two men are seen carjacking a driver at a petrol station in Cremorne (pictured)

On July 7, Taha organised a group of teenagers to break into two jewellery shops - Citizen Victorian Watch Repair in Melbourne's CBD and Farah Jewellery at Coburg - with hammers.

He promised them 'hotels and girls' as a reward after they committed the robberies.

The groups caused $75,000 worth of damage and stock loss at the city store, and $128,700 at the Coburg shop.

Members of the public held the doors closed at the Coburg store in an attempt to keep the offenders inside.

Although two of the youths smashed their way out through the front doors with hammers, the other two thieves were held down and captured with their bags full of gold jewellery.

Taha paid three teenage boys to carry out the raids on jewellery stores in Melbourne, which they did armed with sledgehammers

'You told them you would organise hotels and girls for them after the armed robberies (pictured),' Judge Wilmoth said

Meanwhile, Taha was conducting internet searches for gold buyers in Melbourne.

He was arrested on July 27 and denied any involvement in the robberies but later pleaded guilty to the crimes.

'You left a trail of destruction,' Judge Wilmoth told Taha.

'No one was harmed but the emotional impact has been severe.

'For such a young man, you already have quite a significant criminal history.'

Taha was sentenced to five years and nine months' jail with a non-parole period of three years.

He has already served 465 days in pre-sentence detention.A religious studies teacher who planned to target gay clubs in terror attacks searched the web for transsexual prostitutes.

Umar Haque listed gay clubs among 30 targets, but the 25-year-old was questioned over his sleazy searches when he was arrested in May.

He had planned attacks with a squad of brainwashed youngsters and blasted 'mass fornication and illicit behaviour' when questioned by police.

Umar Haque (pictured) trawled the internet for transsexual prostitutes and discussed marrying girls as young as 15 years old

But a source told The Sun he was shown to be a hypocrite when his computer search history was exposed.

'He was shaken to the core by the questions around transsexual prostitutes,' the source said. 'It appears to show him as a complete hypocrite.

He was convicted of preparing terror attacks at the Old Bailey on Friday and is set to be sentenced later this month.

Officers think the Westminster Bridge attack in London inspired his plans to terrorise innocents.

The teacher was in contact with more than 100 children and showed some of them Islamic State videos. Several of the children were left in need of deradicalisation.

He jotted down Tower Bridge and Heathrow among other potential targets in an orange exercise book. Haque told police 'gay clubs' were 'definitely' on his list.

Haque bragged to police that his list of targets would definitely include gay clubs and slammed 'fornication'

He told them 'I dont like Britain' and bemoaned 'mass fornication, mass illicit behaviour'.

Haque said the videos he showed children at the Barking mosque in East London were 'better than the nonsense you guys are teaching children'.

An MI5 listening device recorded Haque speaking about marrying girls aged 15 or 16, the paper also revealed.Costco has its sights set on expansion in Australia with the construction of a $77million depot that will serve as a distribution centre for all warehouses in Australia.

The American giant was given the green light by the New South Wales government to build the centre on a whopping 14 hectares property in western Sydney.

It is intended as an investment into Costco's future into the Australian market as the company plans to open a new warehouse every year.

An architects rendering of the new Costco depot that will serve as the distribution centre for Australia

The site is located in western Sydney and will cost $77million to build and create close to 1000 jobs

Costco has nine warehouses across Australia and is in the process of building three more

The depot will have the capability to distribute to 30 warehouses.

There are currently nine across New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia with three more warehouses in development in Western Australia, Victoria and Queensland.

The distribution centre will create close to 1000 new jobs, including 730 jobs in construction and 211 office-style roles.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian was on site today and spoke about the benefits it will bring the local community

This will be the company's biggest facility in Australia.

Costco Managing Director Patrick Noone said: 'As we expand our business, we require a larger facility to serve the needs of our members here in Australia. This location is ideal for housing our depot and providing hundreds of jobs in Sydneys booming west.'

Mr Noone also said that Costco looks forward to making economic contributions, particularly to the western Sydney area.

Inside Costco: The depot will serve as the distribution for all stores, holding thousands of products before they are delivered

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said: 'This new employment hub will also provide people living in western Sydney the chance to work locally so they can spend less time commuting and more time with their families.'

The first phase of development is expected to be completed at the beginning of 2019.

The second phase is expected to be complete within five years.

Costco first came to Australia in 2009.Questions are mounting about Jared Kushner's alleged family financial dealings

A high-ranking Democrat senator has called for Jared Kushner's ouster from the White House if troubling reports about the President's son-in-law are true.

Senator Chris Murphy, of Connecticut, spoke out on Sunday about the mounting allegations about Kushner's family financial dealings in the Middle East, and implications that he used US foreign policy as a tool of personal retaliation.

'If it's true, it's damning,' Murphy told ABC News. 'If it's true he's got to go.'

The allegations date back to April of 2017, when Kushner's father Charles met with Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi, according to a new report from the Intercept.

At the meeting in the St. Regis Hotel in New York, Charles sought a cash infusion from Qatar's sovereign wealth fund for the Kushner family's 666 Fifth Avenue property in Manhattan but was rebuffed, two sources told the publication.

The Kushner Companies' Fifth Avenue property is reportedly facing some $1.4billion in debt that is due in 2019.

'If it's true, it's damning,' Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on Sunday of an alleged meeting Kushner's father had with the Qatari Finance Minister in May

Jared Kushner's father Charles (with him left) reportedly met with Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi (right) seeking a cash infusion for the family's 666 Fifth Avenue property

The following month, in May 2017, Kushner accompanied Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia in his first foreign trip as president.

On the trip, the White House strongly backed Saudi Arabia in a blockade against regional rival Qatar, convincing other Gulf states to join the sanctions and sealing a $350billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

'For many of us that follow the Middle East closely, we could not understand why the Trump administration was so firmly taking the Saudis' side in this dispute between the Saudis, the Emiratis and the Qataris, because the United States has very important interests in Qatar,' Murphy said on Sunday.

The US maintains a key airbase in Qatar with over 11,000 personnel.

'If the reason that this administration put US troops at risk in Qatar was to protect the Kushners' financial interests, then that's all the evidence you need to make some big changes in the White House,' Murphy said.

In May 2017, Kushner accompanied Donald Trump to Saudi Arabia in his first foreign trip as president. He is pictured center on the trip with wife Ivanka and a Saudi

Meanwhile, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has asked witnesses about Kushner's attempts to secure financing for his family's real estate ventures, focusing specifically on his talks with people from Qatar and Turkey, as well as Russia, China and the United Arab Emirates, according to NBC News.

Qatari government officials who visited the United States earlier this year considered turning over information to Mueller that they believed demonstrated their neighbors in the Gulf were coordinating with Kushner to hurt Qatar, NBC News said, citing four people familiar with the matter.

The Qatari officials decided against cooperating with Mueller for now out of fear it would further strain the country's relations with the White House, the individuals said.

A spokesman for Mueller's office, Peter Carr, declined to comment on the report.

A spokesman for Kushner attorney Abbe Lowell said the report was the 'mischief' of unnamed sources conducting a 'misinformation campaign' to mislead the news media.

Jared Kushner (center) sits alongside Trump and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross they prepare to meet with Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on the May trip

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that officials from the UAE, China, Israel and Mexico have talked privately about ways to manipulate Kushner using his business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience.

The Post report quoted unnamed U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the issue.

Kushner has lost his access to top-secret US intelligence information in recent weeks because of his inability to obtain a security clearance at that level.

Kushner, who has divested from parts of the family real estate company, has denied any wrongdoing in a statement to ABC.

Kushner Cos. also said in a statement obtained by ABC News that his role in the White House has had no impact on their business dealings.

'To suggest that Jared, when taking on his role in the White House, has suddenly affected our long-standing relationships or that we do business differently than we have in the past is made up and without substantiation,' the statement read.Hero neighbours have described the moment they saved a ten-year-old girl who was 'thrown around like a rag doll' as she was viciously mauled by her own dog.

The child was left with shocking injuries after the South African Boerboel attacked her in the Melbourne suburb of Berwick on Sunday.

The City of Casey was called to the same home late last year after the family's other dog, a Bull Mastiff, acted aggressively towards a passer-by.

But the incident wasn't considered severe enough to seize the dog from its owners, who were slapped with a fine.

The council on Monday revealed they have previously issued four infringements to the dogs' owner.

Owners of the South African Boerboel (similar to the one pictured) that mauled a 10-year-old girl must 'seriously consider' putting it down, according to the RSPCA

The dog attacked the child in the Melbourne suburb of Berwick on Sunday night. A 'beware of the dog' sign is seen at the home

Dr Liz Walker, Chief Executive of the RSPCA, described the attack as a 'tragic and devastating event', but urged the family to consider having the dog euthanised.

'This is a discussion for the family and the council. But It would have to be something they would seriously consider,' Dr Walker told the broadcaster.

The girl remains in hospital and is lucky to be alive, according to neighbours who helped saved her.

Jimmy Baird was at home watching television with his wife when they heard screaming from a nearby house.

'A young girl came out saying her sister was being attacked by the dog,' he said.

Mr Baird and another neighbour ran to the home where they found the terrified girl banging on a door trying to get away from the dog.

Dr Liz Walker, Chief Executive of the RSPCA, described the attack as a 'tragic and devastating event', but urged the family to consider having the dog euthanised (stock image)

'I tried to open the door, when I opened the door the young girl was banging on the door and screaming, and the dog was trying to get through the door,' a neighbour said

'We tried to get the door open. As I opened the door, this massive head was coming through the door frothing at the mouth. It was obviously going to go us,' Mr Baird told Nine Network on Monday.

The men went around to the side of the house and distracted the dog, allowing the girl to escape.

'I'm glad we were there because the young girl probably wouldn't have survived,' Mr Baird said.

Another neighbour told 3AW their parents were at the gym when the dog attacked.

The girl and her seven-year-old sister were believed to be home alone at the time of the attack (family home in Berwick pictured)

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said dog owners need to take responsibility for their animals.

'If you own an animal then it is your primary responsibility to make sure that you have control of that animal and that it doesn't pose a risk to others,' Andrews said.

Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said the matter would be handled by the local council but added the incident served as a reminder for people to keep control of their dogs.

'Whether they're in your backyard or out on the street, it doesn't absolve your responsibility of keeping your animals under control,' Mr Ashton said.

Bullmastiffs are a large breed of dog and their ancestry can be traced back to the English mastiff and the English bulldog.Jesse Osborne, a 14-year-old who carried out a shooting in South Carolina, aspired to be the most prolific school shooter of all time - desiring to kill more people than the Sandy Hook Shooter, Columbine shooters, and Virginia Tech shooters combined.

'I HAVE TO BEAT ADAM LANZA', he wrote in a message just nine days before the shooting, expressing his desire to kill in large numbers.

'I think ill probably most likely kill around 50 or 60,' Jesse wrote. 'If I get lucky maybe 150.'

The then eighth-grader used an Instagram group chat to discuss the specific plans for aspirations, according to a report by the Washington Post.

Jesse Osborne, now 15, sought to kill dozens in his preparation for a shooting that left two people, including his own father and a six-year-old dead

'My plan is shooting my dad getting his keys getting in his truck, driving to the elementary school 4 mins away, once there gear up, shoot out the bottom school class room windows, enter the building, shoot the first class which will be the 2d grade, grab teachers keys so I don't have to hasle to get through any doors,' the now 15-year-old wrote in a message about his strategy.

On September 28, 2016, Osborne shot and killed his father, then went to an elementary school in Townville, South Carolina, where he shot three students and a teacher - killing six-year-old Jacob Hall.

Osborne's 'manifesto' and desires to kill dozens drew inspiration from other school shooters like those at Columbine and Sandy Hook (investigators at the scene of the shooting, above)

Osborne decided on a local elementary school rather than his own due to a lack of security and as he put it in a message, kill people 'before they bullie the nobodys'.

In the wake of his crimes, Osborne wanted to be tried as a minor, even researching symptoms related to autism and mental illness. He even talked about hallucinations - however, psychiatric evaluators determined that he was lying.

Prosecutors argued that Osborne's obsession with violence never went away, and the evaluators agreed.

'My observations of him in this courtroom over the last few days have been that he is still 100 percent in that mind-set,' psychiatrist James Ballenger testified, saying he'd seen Osborne crack a smile in court when his acts were brought up. 'He's very comfortable.'

On February 16, a South Carolina court determined Osborne will be tried as an adult for his crimes. He faces life in prison.Barnaby Joyce stormed out of a media conference after being asked why he suggested he may not be the father of his pregnant former adviser's unborn child.

The former deputy prime minister became testy with reporters when he was asked about an interview he gave with Fairfax Media where he described the paternity of Vikki Campion's baby boy as a 'grey area'.

'One thing I'm going to say is anything that's personal in nature is nobody else's business but mine and Vikki's. Nobody else's business,' he said.

Barnaby Joyce stormed out of a media conference after being asked why he suggested he may not be the father of his pregnant former adviser's unborn child

'So we're not here to be part of some ongoing litany of discussion about this.

'It's nobody else's business. It's personal and that's the last question I am going to answer.'

Tensions heightened when a reporter asked him why he kept talking about his private life, causing the 50-year-old former Nationals leader to storm off.

'That's the last question,' he said.

Mr Joyce's political opponents have used the affair with his 33-year-old former staffer to reflect on his character.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has branded him a 'bloody fool'for questioning the baby's paternity.

The former deputy PM became testy when asked about a Fairfax Media interview where he described the paternity of Vikki Campion's baby boy as a 'grey area'

Barnaby Joyce (pictured, right, with Vikki Campion) has revealed he can't be certain he is the father of his pregnant staffer's baby

'What a bloody fool he is,' Senator Hanson told the Seven Network.

'He has destroyed his life as far as I am concerned. He had a great future in politics, he just destroyed it.'

Tony Windsor, who the former deputy PM thrashed in his former northern New South Wales seat of New England at the 2016 election, said he had no sympathy for his long-time nemesis.

'No. He's brought everything upon himself. Everything,' he told Daily Mail Australia.

One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has branded him a 'bloody fool'for questioning the baby's paternity

'All of the women issues that he's going to be confronted with have all been brought on by himself.'

Mr Windsor, a former independent MP, also suggested Mr Joyce would continue as the backbench member for New England rather than quit politics and spark a by-election.

'He wouldn't get a job anywhere else. He'll stay. I can guarantee that,' he said, adding he wouldn't speak to the former deputy PM.

'I don't think I'd bother wasting oxygen on him.'

Mr Joyce was also slammed online and labelled 'a grub' for suggesting to Fairfax Media the paternity of his girlfriend's baby, due in April, was a 'grey area' because the child may have been conceived when he was in Europe with his wife.

The former deputy prime minister claimed he was never asked by the media if Vikki Campion's baby was his when news of the scandal broke (pictured are Barnaby and Natalie Joyce)

'What's the point of him telling us this? Is he sacrificing Vikki in an attempt to look noble?' asked one woman.

'Yes, just when you think old mate has hit rock bottom and there's only one way to go from there. He's proven that he can go lower! Some of your best work Barnaby! NOT!' another tweeter said.

'If I could give Vikki Campion just two words of advice it would be these: LEAVE. NOW,' another tweet read.

He has also been slammed by News Corp journalist Sharri Markson for claiming the question about the child's paternity was never asked.

'I directly ask Barnaby Joyce, before publication, if the baby is his and ask him to confirm he had already told his wife and daughters,' Ms Markson tweeted.

The journalist included a screenshot of the email sent to Joyce which shows the matter of paternity was her first question.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has deflected attempts to question him about the latest revelation in the Joyce affair.

'The matters that are in the papers today relating to Barnaby and Ms [Vikki] Campion are matters for them to resolve,' Mr Turnbull told reporters in Sydney.

'I don't have any comments to make on it at all.'

Joyce, who recently quit as leader of the Nationals said he plans to raise the child as his own, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

News Corp journalist Sharri Markson slammed Mr Joyce for claiming the question about the child's paternity was never asked

News of the scandal broke earlier this year eventually leading to Mr Joyce being forced to resign (pictured are Mr Joyce and Ms Campion at a bar in Sydney)

'It's mine, on the record, there it is. And can I say, even if it wasn't, I wouldn't care, I'd still go through this, I'd still love him,' Mr Joyce (pictured) said

'It's mine, on the record, there it is. And can I say, even if it wasn't, I wouldn't care, I'd still go through this, I'd still love him,' Mr Joyce said.

But he did admit there was a close relationship developing on a 'sporadic basis' around the time with his former staffer.

In the interview with Fairfax Media, Mr Joyce called initial coverage of his affair 'outrageous', and said neither he nor Ms Campion were asked about paternity.

'How could they know? They never even asked if it was 'Joyce's bundle',' Mr Joyce said, referring to a headline which read 'Bundle of Joyce'.

Vikki Campion, the former media advisor to Mr Joyce, is now pregnant with a son

Mr Joyce, 50, said he does not plan to take a paternity test in the Saturday interview, during which Ms Campion, 33, was also present for some periods.

The backbencher said he was in Europe on an official visit with his wife Natalie for the ten days after June 23, 2017, while Ms Campion was in north Queensland.

The former deputy prime minister was forced to quit as the country's number two in the wake of the scandal on February 22.

Pressure was rising on Mr Joyce ahead of his resignation from the frontbench when allegations of sexual harassment surfaced - which has completely denied.

Mr Joyce, 50, said he does not plan to take a paternity test in the Saturday interview, during which Ms Campion, 33, was also present for some periods (pictured are Barnaby and Natalie Joyce)

The former deputy prime minister (pictured) said he was never asked if Vikki Campion's baby is his

When he announced the end of his term as deputy PM, Mr Joyce called for his decision to be 'a circuit breaker' for media coverage about his relationship and his unborn son.

'This has got to stop. It's not fair on them. It's just completely and utterly unwarranted, the sort of observation that's happened,' he said.

Ms Campion was Mr Joyce's former media advisor. She left his office in April 2017 and moved to another government department.

The pair were pictured in a Sydney bar in February 2017 months before news became public about their relationship.

Mr Joyce quit as deputy PM on February 22 and has now said the question of his paternity was a 'grey area'

Mr Joyce and Ms Campion worked together between May 2016 and April 2017, and again briefly in August last year.

During this time, the pair racked up a total expenses bill of $43,446 - including more than $25,000 for six VIP flights funded by the taxpayer.

Daily Mail Australia is not claiming Mr Joyce used public funding inappropriately during this time.

The couple travelled together throughout the east coast for 2,000km on a holiday together in December and January.

Barnaby Joyce told parliament of his separation from his wife in a same sex marriage debate in December

They travelled from near Grafton in northern New South Wales, to north Queensland with a stop in Townsville - after Mr Joyce told parliament he was separated from his wife, Natalie.

The road to the affair started back in May 2016, when Ms Campion, a former journalist, joined Mr Joyce's election campaign.

In April 2017, after a reported confrontation with the former deputy PM's estranged wife Natalie Joyce, Ms Campion moved to Nationals minister Matt Canavan's office as an adviser.

Just a few months later, Malcolm Turnbull was reportedly told by Joyce that his relationship with Ms Campion was over.

Mr Joyce, an outspoken social conservative, separated from Natalie, the mother of his four daughters, after 24 years of marriage.Advertisement

The grandson of Westfield Corp founder Frank Lowy has married his partner in an extravagant multi-million dollar wedding.

Josh Lowy married Britt Friede in the lavish wedding in Sydney's Centennial Park on Sunday, in what is believed to be one of the city's most expensive weddings.

Photos snapped at the reception show exquisitely-dressed guests arriving to celebrate the nuptials, including Sir Frank Lowy, 87, the former Chairman of Westfield Corporation.

Josh Lowy married Britt Friede (pictured) in a lavish wedding understood to cost a whopping $3 million in Sydney's Centennial Park on Sunday

Josh (with his bride) once interned at the family's Westfield empire, but went on to run his own technology start-up

Photos snapped at the multi-million-dollar reception show exquisitely-dressed guests arriving to celebrate the nuptials, including Sir Frank Lowy (centre back), the former Chairman of Westfield Corporation

Sir Lowy (centre back) has an estimated net worth of more than eight billion and is ranked as the fourth richest Australian

Sir Lowy was worth an estimated $8 billion in 2017 and is ranked as the fourth richest Australian.

The opulent wedding involved four marquees and dozens of dark-suited security officers with earpieces ensuring the event ran smoothly.

There were also about 450 guests invited to the celebration.

The Westfield tycoon was not the only well-known guest, with the groom's uncle David Lowy of American band Dead Daisies fame also in attendance.

Josh is one of Steven and Judy Lowy's four children.

The couple returned to Sydney at the weekend from their San Francisco home, where they both boast successful careers.

Josh once interned at the family's Westfield empire, but went on to run his own technology start-up, Hugo.

His new wife is a product designer at Facebook.

The couple (pictured) returned to Sydney at the weekend from their San Francisco home, where they both boast successful careers

Britt's bridesmaids wore stunning light pink silk dresses, paired with white bouquets and silver high-heels

Britt's bridesmaids are pictured with their bouquets, as they celebrate the Sydney wedding in style

Dozens of staff were hired for the extravagant wedding, waiting on the guests hand and foot

Britt had a swarm of bridesmaids for her big day, all in matching silk gowns and white bouquets

Australian shopping giant Westfield was taken over by a European corporation in a deal worth $32.8 billion in December.

Westfield, owned by businessman Sir Frank Lowy, accepted the multi-billion dollar bid from French retail group Unibail-Rodamco 64 years after it was founded in Sydney.

Unibail-Rodamco will take over ASX-listed Westfield and transform it into an international property giant with 104 centres across 27 retail markets around the globe, Nine News reports.

'What a privilege it has been to lead this great Australian company,' an 87-year-old Sir Lowy said in a video statement.

'We started small, but we took Westfield to the world.'

Sir Lowy and his sons intend to maintain a financial stake in the newly combined entity.

Tables inside the marquee at Sydney's Centennial Park were decorated with beautiful white bouquets, with chandeliers hanging from above

A convoy of European vehicles lined the road at Sydney's Centennial Park outside the sought-after wedding venue

The bridal party mingles with guests as they celebrate the event at Sydney's Centennial Park near the city centre on Sunday

There were about 450 guests invited to the extravagant wedding, all seen impeccably dressed as they waited outside the venue

The bride is accompanied by her new husband as she makes her way to the celebration

The bride is forced to carry the train of her dress, revealing her stunning block heels beneath

The grandson of Westfield Corp founder Frank Lowy has married his partner in an extravagant multi-million dollar wedding (stock image)

Sir Frank Lowy, chairman of the Westfield Corporation, after receiving his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth

The former Chairman of Westfield Corp, Sir Frank Lowy, has attended his grandson's wedding in Sydney (Westfield Sydney shopping centre in Sydney pictured)

The Slovakia-born businessman said it made sense to sell now because it was a 'very good price' for shareholders, but acknowledged that the sale partly reflected the global trend of consolidation and the pressures on retailers.

'It seems like a good strategic rationale, given the synergies, and it will create the leading mall operator globally,' said Sydney CLSA analyst Sholto Maconochie.

The deal came only days after Sir Lowy received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth at Windsor Castle.

Frank Lowy and his business partner John Saunders founded Westfield in Sydney in 1953.

Sir Lowy will retire as chairman of Westfield but will chair the advisory board of the new company, while his sons will remain in leadership roles.A former Bandido's boast about sharing sexual partners with the man at the heart of the Gold Coast bikie brawl has led to him being jailed for perjury.

Peter Mauric, 48, was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment at the Southport District Court on Monday.

The sentence will be suspended after nine months.

While giving evidence in the Southport Magistrates Court in 2015 Mauric (pictured) said he'd known Trouchet for 20 years and they 'used to bed girls together'

Mauric told an October 2013 Crime and Corruption Commission hearing he did not know Jason Trouchet (pictured)

Mauric had been found guilty of one count of perjury in February following a three-day trial.

During the trial, the court heard Mauric had provided conflicting statements about his relationship to Jason Trouchet, the man seemingly targeted by a group of Bandidos at Broadbeach's Aura restaurant in September 2013.

Mauric told an October 2013 Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC) hearing he did not know the man confronted by fellow Bandido Jacques Teamo at the restaurant.

Giving evidence in the Southport Magistrates Court in 2015, he said he'd known Trouchet for 20 years and they 'used to bed girls together,' Gold Coast Bulletin reported.

Crown prosecutor Michael Connelly told court Thursday Muric told the CMC he hadn't met Trouchet prior to the night of the brawl.

'No, I have never seen him in my life until that night,' Mr Connelly said Mauric told the CMC.

Peter Mauric's boast about sharing sexual partners with the man at the heart of the Gold Coast bikie brawl has led to him being jailed for perjury (pictured: Mauric leaving court in January)

On his May 2015 appearance however, Mauric allegedly contradicted himself by saying he had known Trouchet for two decades and shared a close relationship.

'We used to bed girls together,' Mr Connelly said Mauric told the hearing.

'I would have her one week, the next week he would. That's how close we were.'

The crown played to the court conversations between the two former bikies recorded by an electronic listening device inside Trouchet's home.Jacqui Lambie opens up on her date with politician Nick Xenophon as she claims she is finding the single life tough.

The former senator said the pair didn't get to 'first base' as he had failed to impress her at dinner.

It comes as the Tasmanian politician said it was turning '50 shades of parly' in Australian politics and she 'is out [of parliament] at the wrong time.'

'I can't win with this single stuff,' she told Hit 105's Stav, Abby and Matt.

Jacqui Lambie(left) revealed her and Nick Xenophon(right) went on a cheap date in the past

She said that the fellow politician could have made it to 'first base' is he hadn't taken her to KFC

Ms Lambie revealed she had a bad date with a politician before 'I did try with Nick Xenophon once, but he took me on a cheap date to Kentucky Fried Chicken so that was it,' she said

The 47-year-old said that the Mr Xenophon could have made it to 'first base' if he had treated her to a nicer dinner and not to KFC.

The founder of JLN said there are often rumours in parliament and she isn't interested in them.

'If they want to go out there and go bonking then be my guest I'm happy for you - at least somebody is getting some,' she said.

Ms Lambie said Barnaby Joyce should step down all the way after his affair with former staffer Vikki Campion.Time's Up pioneers Ashley Judd, Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek proudly took the stage Sunday evening to present during the 90th Academy Awards.

The Harvey Weinstein accusers looked vibrant while they donned variations of purple and spoke on behalf of women and men around the world who came forward this past year to share their stories of sexual harassment and assault.

'This year, many spoke their truth. The journey ahead is long, but slowly, a new path has emerged,' Sciorra started out by saying in the speech.

'The changes we are witnessing are being driven by the powerful sound of new voices, of different voices, of our voices. Joining together in a mighty chorus that is finally saying times up,' Judd added.

Hayek included: 'We salute those unstoppable spirits who kicked ass and broke through the biased perceptions against their gender, race and ethnicity to tell their stories.'

Ashley Judd (L), Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek (rear) take the stage to present together at the 90th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California on March 4, 2018

The Harvey Weinstein accusers each donned some form of purple as they spoke about Time's Up

'We salute those unstoppable spirits who kicked ass and told their stories,' Hayek said. The women suggested the movement is only just beginning

And Judd concluded: 'We look forward to make sure that the next 90 years empower these limitless possibilities of equality, diversity, inclusion, intersectionality... Thats what this year has promised us.'

Judd's accusations against the Hollywood mogul helped form the basis for The New York Times' bombshell investigation into the decades of alleged sexual harassment against Weinstein.

She said a bathrobe-clad Weinstein met her in his hotel room and tried to pressure her into giving him a massage and watching him shower.

Her claims sparked a tide of women to come forward with further sexual harassment allegations.

Hayek then revealed in December she was harassed and propositioned by Harvey Weinstein for close to a decade. She claimed in a Times report she was forced to do a nude lesbian sex scene after refusing his advances.

Sciorra also claimed that Weinstein violently raped her in the 1990s, and sexually harassed her for years following, according to the New Yorker.

Judd and Mira Sorvino speak about the Time's Up movement during the ABC Red Carpet

Actress Sorvino joins several women who accused Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment

Earlier Sunday, Judd stood alongside friend and another fellow Weinstein accuser, Mira Sorvino, to speak further about the powerful movement that shook Hollywood.

The acclaimed actresses stood proudly with their arms around one another on Hollywood's big night.

Judd shared details about the movement and what it stands for.

'Those of us who have come forward, we've often been disbelieved, shamed,' Judd said on the red carpet.

'The movement is about externalizing that shame and putting it where it belongs, which is with the perpetrator.'

Fellow actress Sorvino added: 'I want people to know that this movement isn't stopping. We're going forward until we have an equitable and safe world for women.'

Jane Fonda is seen wearing a Time's Up pin while posing on the red carpet for the 90th Annual Academy Awards Sunday

Sam Rockwell poses with his pin on in the press room during the awards show after he received an Oscar

Steven Spielberg (R) and Kate Capshaw arrive for the 90th annual Academy Awards ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. Spielberg is seen wearing a Time's Up pin

Bryan Fogel is pictured with a Time's Up pin while in attendance to the 90th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center

Sorvino came forward with her own accusations that Weinstein harassed her back in 1995 in Toronto.

The daughter of veteran actor Paul Sorvino said that the Miramax founder also asked her to massage him and chased her around his hotel room.

After she refused his advances, Sorvino said Weinstein had her 'blacklisted' by telling other filmmakers that she was difficult to work with - likely costing her movie roles.

A dress code wasn't needed for Oscars night - as numerous actors and actresses continued to show support for Time's Up by wearing the black pin on their suits and gowns.

The black pin was spotted on stars like Jane Fonda, Elizabeth Moss, Sam Rockwell, Brian Fogel and Steven Spielberg, to name a few.A Michigan couple are taking Summit Township, Michigan to federal court after the municipality has thrown legal obstacles in the way of opening a swingers club in the small town.

The couple, Kent and Angie Tyler, 58 and 42 respectively, contend that Summit Township is violating their constitutional rights by blocking the opening of their business, called 'Epicurean Developments' at 4200 Spring Arbor Road in Summit. They call their establishment a 'private membership adult couples social club'. They wanted to open the club - which they would have called The 4200 - for three years.

The Tylers took their case to United States District Court in Detroit seeking monetary damages after giving up on opening their club. Their lawyer, Fred Lucas, said that if they ever tried to open the club, the couple knew there would be opposition from the powers that be in Summit Township.

Kent and Angie Tyler wanted to open a swingers club in Summit, Michigan and tried for three years - they're now suing the town in federal court, claiming Summit conspired against them to prevent their club (shot of the building it would have inhabited above) from opening

'Our concern is, if they ever try to open it, there'll be problems,' Lucas said to the Detroit Free Press.

One of the members of the Summit Township Board of Trustees said that opposition was unanimous.

'Our building inspector told us, 'You don't want this.' We found out it was going to be a place for males and females to meet each other, and they'd have rooms where I guess they'd make a night of it, and we don't want any part of that,' said Bob DuBois, 79, a retired school superintendent and board member.

The community's legal defense was that their definition of a 'club or lodge' didn't match what the Tylers wanted to open.

All told, the Tylers spent about $240,000 on their prospective business.

'Everything was fine  everything was approved  until March of 2015 when the township issued a stop-work order,' Lucas said.

Their suit says that Summit Township 'conspired to concoct a plan to shut plaintiffs down and prevent them from ever opening'.

Kent Tyler is in the construction business, and Angie Tyler is a former deputy clerk of Liberty Township, Michigan.Jimmy Kimmel has done it yet again, giving an everyday man his shot of fame at the 90th Academy Awards ceremony.

Last year Kimmel surprised a bus of Hollywood tourists when he invited them to walk through the Oscars ceremony where 'Gary from Chicago' stole the show as he incredulously filmed the star-studded theater on his phone, hugged Denzel Washington and kissed Nicole Kidman's hand.

This year host Kimmel took the stars to the fans, leading an entourage of Gal Gadot, Margot Robbie and Lupita Nyong'o to a nearby theater to surprise fans with candy, hot dogs, and five minutes of fame.

That's where audience member Mike Young was hand-picked from the crowd to announce the show's next presenters on national television.

In the spotlight: Kimmel shocked a theater movie-goers with a surprise visit where he asked Mike Young (right) to announce the subsequent Oscars ceremony presenters

Mike Young said he was from Lake Elsinore in California then read off the note cards to announce the following Oscar presenters Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph on live television

Kimmel surprised the movie theater audience with an entourage of celebrities such as Gal Gadot, Margot Robbie and Armie Hammer, pictured above leaving the Dolby Theater

Say cheese! The movie-goers shrieked with excitement when Kimmel walked in with the celebrities handing out candy and tossing hot dogs and sub sandwiches into the crowd

Young took the microphone where he slightly stumbled on his words as he introduced Tiffany Haddish - which he mispronounced as 'Hatson...Hatshich' - and Maya Rudolph to the stage at Dolby Theatre.

Young told the host he hailed from Lake Elsinore, which ignited a social media storm of pride for the California hometown.

'Shout out to Mike Young who just inserted Lake Elsinore into the #Oscars,' one Twitter user wrote.

'You GO, Mike Young!! The first person from LAKE ELSINORE ever to be on the #Oscars,' another fan added.

'Okay Mike Young from Lake Elsinore!!! Repping the hometown!' a proud Lake Elsinore resident said.

Young was attending a preview of 'A Wrinkle in Time' at TCL Chinese Theatres where he was shocked to see Kimmel stride in with Ansel Elgort, Mark Hamill, Emily Blunt, Lin Manuel Miranda, Guillermo del Toro, and Armie Hammer in tow. Jimmy Kimmel Live's co-star Guillermo was there to join the fun as well.

Kimmel hosted the Oscar awards last year where he also integrated fans into the program by inviting a bus full of tourists to the show, where 'Gary from Chicago' found viral fame

Fans took to Twitter to cheer on Mike Young who represented their hometown

Lake Elsinore in a small town in California whose residents were quick to praise Young for bringing their town into the spotlight

Mike Young's Oscar fame echoes that of 'Gary from Chicago' from last year's award ceremony

As Gal Gadot entered the theater greeting the shocked movie-goers she gushed 'This is better than the Oscars!'

Last year Gary Alan Coe delighted the audience as he walked through the Oscar ceremony with absolute wonder.

He recorded every moment on his phone and was asked by Jimmy to introduce himself, to which he answered 'Gary from Chicago' creating a nickname that would win him viral fame.

However Coe shared that the fame was not all it's cracked up to be.

The media attention shed light on his criminal history revealing he was just three days out of jail - where he served a 20 year sentence - when he walked onto the Oscars floor.

'It was horrible,' Coe told Hollywood Reporter. 'I didn't ask to be put on the Oscars. I was minding my own business, walking down the street.'

He'd been sentenced as part of the three-strikes law in California, with one of his arrests for an alleged attempted rape.

Gary (left) delighted the crowd last year as he walked into the theater with an astounded expression and announced himself as 'Gary Alan Coe from Chicago'

Coe and his former fiancee (left) were overjoyed to meet their favorite actor Denzel Washington (center)

Coe made a scene when he filmed every moment in the theater and then graciously took Nicole Kidman's hand and offered a kiss while her husband Keith Urban taped the momentForeign workers have seized on a job opportunity that no Australians want offering free accommodation, electricity and $1,000 per week.

Immigrants from the Philippines, Middle East and India have applied for the role that dole-bludgers in the city of Cairns are not interested in taking up.

The family run farm has had to drag a 72-year-old out of retirement and an 83-year-old grandfather back to work.

But locals failing to take up the opportunity has led to questions being raised about the Turnbull administration's 457 visa policy for skilled foreign workers.

The job advert for a farm hand advertised online - the role involves milking cows and experience working on a farm

One possible applicant reportedly said they would rather stay on the dole for $200-a-week less than work, local MP Warren Entsch told Daily Mail Australia.

An ad appearing on Seek and multiple news websites requests applicants for a Senior Diary Farm Hand at a farm in Malanda, a short 90 minute drive from Cairns, North Queensland.

The full-time job pays $50,000 a year and does not require a degree or Diploma qualification but just a Certificate III in agriculture or two years experience in a 'similar role'.

A reliable, honest and positive attitude, self-motivation and passion for the dairy industry are other attributes required.

Duties would including an early start, managing stock, driving a tractor and milking cows on the cattle farm with a 300-strong herd.

But Cairns locals have turned down the opportunities as backpackers and travellers from abroad snapped up the opportunity.

Dole bludgers in Cairns would prefer to receive Centrelink than apply for a job paying $1,000 with free rent (stock image)

It has attracted no Australian applicants even though its been widely advertised on Seek and in the local newspaper, The Cairns Post.

It comes as the city continues to suffer a youth unemployment rate of nearly 15 per cent with at least six per cent of people in the regional city not working.

Cairns has a youth unemployment rate of nearly than 15 per cent and 6 per cent of people in the regional city do not work

Foreigners including people from India, the Middle East and the Philippines have applied for the job but locals are snubbing the position.

Malcolm and Jane McGregor told the Courier Mail they are 'desperate' to hire a local farmhand at their property, 90km from Cairns, but have only received applicants from overseas.

Job duties will involve working as second in-charge to the owner from the early hours of the morning moving herd, operating machinery, milking cows and driving a tractor.

'It's frustrating and makes you really angry,' Mrs McGregor told the publication.

'Malcolm works seven days a week...he only sees the kids for a couple of hours a week, Mrs McGregor said.

'We just need someone who could be Malcolm's 2IC so we can have a break.'

Free rent and a stable on income of $55,000 is on offer yet youth unemployment continues to rise

An honest reliable personality and certificate III in agriculture or two years experience is required as well as a driver's licence.

Local MP Warren Entsch said backpackers would have filled this job a long time ago.

He said he knows someone who applied for the job who rejected it because the person was only getting $200 more than he was receiving on the dole.

'It's all very well for Australians to complain, but the reality is, Australian's have got to do the work,' he said.

'Social security is not meant to be life support.'

A farmer has had to drag a 72-year-old man out of retirement and a 83-year-old grandfather back to work to keep his farm going (stock image)

Maverick independent MP Bob Katter is demanding the government stop allowing foreign workers to take the jobs of Australians, arguing the 457 skilled visa program was making it hard for hundreds of thousands of locals who cant find work.

Its got to stop, he told Daily Mail Australia on Monday.

I am very angry with the Prime Minister about the 457s brought down.

Mr Turnbull announced last year the 457 visa will be scrapped and replaced with a new Temporary Skill Shortage visa allowing business to recruit staff for direct skill shortages.

Mr Entsch said he started off cleaning toilets in a railway station and ended up becoming an MP.

It may not be the job you want but youve got to start somewhere,' he said.

The youth unemployment rate in Cairns as of January 2018 was 14.5 per cent compared to the Queensland rate of 13.3 per cent.

This compares to a youth unemployment rate of just 8.5 per cent in Orange New South Wales.

Applications for the job close on Friday.As Gary Oldman won Best Actor at the 90th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday, social media users quickly reminded everyone of the domestic violence allegations lodged against him by his third ex-wife in 2001.

Oldman's then-wife, Donya Fiorentino, alleged in court documents filed in Los Angeles that year that the 59-year-old beat her over the head with a telephone in front of their two young children, according to the New York Daily News.

Oldman's win for his portrayal of the late Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour caused controversy as this year's Oscars ceremony was dedicated to the #MeToo movement.

As Gary Oldman won Best Actor at the Academy Awards on Sunday, social media users quickly reminded everyone of the domestic violence allegations lodged against him by his ex in 2001

The public also responded with outrage for Kobe Bryant's win in the category of Best Animated Short Film, after he settled a civil lawsuit over a rape allegation in 2005

Some felt his win marked another dark hour - in this case for the Academy Awards, given the current climate of making men in power reckon with past transgressions but seemingly letting Oldman's accused violence against a woman slide.

Oldman has denied these allegations, calling them 'lies, innuendoes and half-truths.'

Fiorentino, 50, spoke to DailyMail.com early in this year's awards season about what she called a nightmare of her four-year marriage to Oldman.

He stole my children and ruined my life, she told DailyMail.com in an interview published on February 3, with tears rolling down her cheeks.

The truth needs to be told. I would like Gary to stand up and take responsibility for his actions. Will he? Who knows? He has always denied everything.

Oldman's then-wife, Donya Fiorentino, alleged in court documents filed in Los Angeles that year that Oldman beat her in the head with a telephone in front of their two young children; Fiorentino is seen here in Los Angeles in 2013

Emboldened by the #MeToo movement, Donya Fiorentino said of Oldman, He is a great actor. Was he a great husband? No.'

Oldman is seen here after winning the Oscar for Best Actor on Sunday in Hollywood

Oldman won the Oscar for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in The Darkest Hour

Social media users were not happy with Oldman's win, based on domestic violence claims

Emboldened by the #MeToo movement, Fiorentino said, He is a great actor. Was he a great husband? No.'

Our marriage was a giant car crash in which demented things happened. I lost my self-esteem, I was broken,' she added.

Ive been empowered by hearing other women speak up. When a woman gets her voice back, she gets her power back.

I want our sons and the world to know the truth. I would rather get eaten by a great white shark than go through that marriage again,' she said.

I have $20 in my purse. Ive got nothing else he can take from me. Im not speaking out to hurt Gary. In fact, I wish him well. Hes a brilliant actor and he fully deserves his Oscar. But when you are nominated for an Academy Award you have to be held to a higher standard.

Fiorentino added: The kids were held hostage in the war between us.

'I eventually ran out of money and was representing myself in court. Money, power and fame won. I will take blame, I played a big part in destroying my life and that is something I have to live with. I am sorry I was not the mother I should have been.

I dont blame Gary for everything. But it takes two to destroy something. The perpetrators of domestic abuse have to live with it too.

One Twitter user called out the Academy for giving the award of Best Actor to an accused perpetrator of domestic violence after giving it to Casey Affleck in 2016, who has been accused of sexual harassment in lawsuits that have since been settled

Oldman is seen here posing with his Academy Award for Best Actor on Sunday in Hollywood

Amid ongoing references at the Oscars to the #MeToo movement which Fiorentino mentioned, as well as the 'Time's Up' movement that has gripped Hollywood over the past several months, social media users were outspoken about disagreeing with the Academy's choice for Best Actor.

The Time's Up movement, and a legal defense fund by the same name, was created in response to the public outing of men in media for their alleged acts of sexual harassment, assault, abuse of power and unequal treatment of women in the workplace.

The founders of the Time's Up movement have made it clear that although their cause was inspired by allegations against the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, Louis CK, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin and William Morris Endeavor's Adam Venit, and even before them, Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly, the fund exists for the benefit of all people, across all industries, who have experience lack of parity in their places of business.

It was accusations against Weinstein, however, that broke in October, that preceded a social media campaign using the hashtag #MeToo, which due to its widespread adoption gave people courage to share their own stories of sexual harassment and assault.

Before that, the 'Me Too' movement was initiated offline by Tarana Burke a New York City-based civil rights activist who first used the term in 2006 in her work to raise awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and assault in society.

Amid ongoing references at the Oscars to the #MeToo movement which Fiorentino mentioned, as well as the 'Time's Up' movement that has gripped Hollywood over the past several months, social media users were outspoken about disagreeing with the Academy's choice for Best Actor

Oldman has denied any allegations of domestic violence lodged against him by his ex

Oldman beat out the other contenders for Best Actor this year, which included Denzel Washington for Roman J Israel, Esq., Timothee Chalamet for Call Me By Your Name, Daniel Kaluuya for Get Out, and Daniel Day-Lewis for Phantom Thread

The 2001 documents cited by the Daily News that included domestic violence claims against Oldman were part of a messy divorce filing with his third ex-wife, Fiorentino, where lots of nasty allegations were made, back and forth.

Fiorentino's filing stated, that on May 19, 2001, the following occurred:

'As I picked up the phone to call the police, Gary put his hand on my neck and squeezed. I backed away, with the phone receiver in my hand. I tried to dial 911. Gary grabbed the phone receiver from my hand, and hit me in the face with the telephone receiver three or four times. Both of the children were crying.'

At the time, Oldman's manager, Douglas Urbanksi, told the Daily News:

'Donya's claims were completely investigated by police and the district attorney's offices. No charges were ever filed.'

Oldman stated in his filings with the court that the two met at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in Beverly Hills in 1996, that she told him she was sober, but then overdosed and was found by her daughter with director David Fincher in January of 2001.

Fiorentino's attorney did not respond to those allegations at the time.

Fiorentino's filing stated, that on May 19, 2001, Oldman beat her in the head with a telephone in front of their two young children

Oldman, who played Churchill in 2017's The Darkest Hour, was eventually awarded custody of his children with Fiorentino in their divorce

Oldman was eventually awarded custody of their children in the divorce.

Before he married Fiorentino, Oldman had two previous wives. He was married to Lesley Manville from 1987 to 1990, and to Uma Thurman from 1990 to 1992.

After his marriage to Fiorentino ended, Oldman wed Alexandra Edenborough in 2008, who he divorced in 2015. He married his current wife, Gisele Schmidt, in 2017.

Oldman beat out the other contenders for Best Actor this year, which included Denzel Washington for Roman J Israel, Esq., Timothee Chalamet for Call Me By Your Name, Daniel Kaluuya for Get Out, and Daniel Day-Lewis for Phantom Thread.

Oldman also won Best Actor for his role as Churchill at the Screen Actors Guild awards in January.

The public also responded with outrage for Kobe Bryant's win in the category of Best Animated Short Film, after he settled a civil lawsuit over a rape allegation in 2005.Lupita Nyong'o and Kumail Nanjiani used their stage time at the 90th Annual Academy Awards to send a powerful message that they stand with the 'Dreamers' who face the possibility of deportation.

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program (DACA) is comprised of more than 800,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the United States when they were children.

Nyong'o and Najiania announced their support for the program after acknowledging they too are immigrants who have achieved their dreams while living in the United States.

'Like everyone in this room and everyone watching at home, we are dreamers,' Nyong'o said. 'We grew up dreaming of one day working in the movies. Dreams are the foundation of Hollywood, and dreams are the foundation of America.'

'To all the Dreamers out there, we stand with you,' Nanjiani added.

Scroll down for video

Lupita Nyong'o (left) and Kumail Nanjiani (right) used their time on stage at the Oscars to express their support for the 'Dreamers' who face the possibility of deportation

The actress and comedian both explained that they too are immigrants who achieved their dreams while living in the United States

The future of the program, which protects young immigrants from deportation, remains uncertain after President Donald Trump controversially ended it in September.

The presenters explained that actress Nyong'o is Kenyan-Mexican while comedian Nanjiani is a Pakistani-American from Iowa.

'Two places that nobody in Hollywood can find on a map,' the comedian joked.

Nyong'o was born in Mexico City before she moved to Kenya at the age of one.

The 35-year-old Oscar-winning actress moved to the US to attend Hampshire College where she earned degrees in film and theatre studies.

Nanjiani is also an immigrant who was born in Karachi, Pakistan. At 18-years-old, he moved to the US and attended college in Iowa before becoming a stand-up comedian.

In September, President Trump ended the DACA program but gave Congress a six-month window to save it.

He wanted this decision to encourage the Democrats to agree to funding his border wall between the US and Mexico.

Last month, the Democrats and Republicans were unable to reach an agreement about border security funding in both the Senate and the House.

Nyong'o is a Kenyan-Mexican who moved to the US to attend college for film and theatre studies. Nanjiani was born in Pakistan and moved to the US when he was 18-years-old

The Trump administration gave Congress until March 5 to reach a compromise about DACA. The Supreme Court ruled last week that this deadline needed to be extended

But a Supreme Court ruling last week extended the deadline to reach an agreement about the program for another few months. This extension has the potential to survive until midterm elections.

The ruling was enforced after the Trump administration went to the high courts in January to argue that recipients should not be able to apply for renewals of their DACA applications.

A San Francisco judge denied their argument and said the administration failed to justify why they wanted to end the program.

DACA was first introduced in June 2012 under the Obama administration.

In order to qualify, young immigrants had to arrive to the United States before their sixteenth birthday, have a clean record, and completed high school or served in the military.

Now the Supreme Court's ruling gives Congress more time to come up with a solution without having to deport the recipients yet.Advertisement

For the first time since the Vietnam War, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier is paying a visit to a Vietnamese port, dramatically underscoring the growing strategic ties between the former foes at a time when China's regional influence is rising.

The imposing grey silhouette of the USS Carl Vinson could be seen from the cliff tops just outside the central Vietnamese city of Danang, where the 103,000-tonne carrier and two other U.S. ships begin a five-day visit.

The USS Carl Vinson, with more than 5,000 crewmembers on board, is visiting as China increases its military buildup in the South China Sea, a maritime territory also partly claimed by Vietnam.

Newcomer: The US aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson arrives in Da Nang, Vietnam, with a 5,000 crew and accompanied by a cruiser and a destroyer

'The visit marks an enormously significant milestone in our bilateral relations and demonstrates U.S. support for a strong, prosperous and independent Vietnam,' Daniel Kritenbrink, the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, said in a statement.

'Through hard work, mutual respect, and by continuing to address the past while we work toward a better future, we have gone from former enemies to close partners.'

The arrival of the Vinson marks the biggest U.S. military presence in Vietnam since 1975 - but it also illustrates Hanoi's complex and evolving relationship with Beijing over the disputed South China Sea as China announced its largest rise in defence spending in three years.

Vietnamese envoys had been working for months to ease the concerns of their giant Chinese neighbour over the visit and the prospect of broader security cooperation between Hanoi and Washington, according to diplomats and others familiar with the talks.

U.S. carriers frequently cross the South China Sea in a rising pattern of naval deployments, and are now routinely shadowed by Chinese naval vessels, naval officers in the region say.

A return: The arrival of the USS Carl Vinson marks the first time a United States navy aircraft carrier has visited Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War

Diplomatic visit: The USS Carl Vinson will make a four-day port call to the central city of Danang as the U.S. and Vietnam bolster military ties in the face of Beijing's build-up in the disputed South China Sea

Statement: The arrival of the Vinson marks the biggest U.S. military presence in Vietnam since 1975

'We've met with numerous international entities. We've seen several, so yes, we've seen Chinese ships,' Rear Admiral John Fuller, Commander, Carrier Strike Group 1, told reporters in Danang. 'We've seen other ships out there, so nothing extraordinary. It's been a routine deployment and everything we've seen has been exceptionally professional.'

China's rapid construction and build-up of the land it holds in the disputed Spratly islands group has alarmed Vietnam and other regional governments as it seeks to enforce its claims to much of the disputed waterway, through which some $3 trillion in trade passes each year.

While some Chinese commentators have used the Vinson's presence to demand an even greater Chinese military build-up in the South China Sea, official reaction from Beijing has been relatively muted since the stop was announced in January.

That announcement came during a two-day visit to Hanoi by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and followed months of backroom military diplomacy between Hanoi and the Pentagon.

Although no U.S. aircraft carrier has been to Vietnam since the end of the war, other, smaller U.S. warships have made high-level visits.

Those include a 2016 visit by submarine tender USS Frank Cable and guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain to Cam Ranh Bay, a crucial logistics complex during the Vietnam War.

A U.S. Navy band will play a concert in Danang during the Vinson's visit, and sailors from the carrier are to spend time at a treatment centre for people who were exposed to Agent Orange chemicals during the war. (Writing by James Pearson; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Nick Macfie)A passenger jet was forced to carry out an emergency landing after one of its engines exploded just half an hour after takeoff.

In shocking footage, part of the broken engine is seen hanging loose and there were claims smoke had been seen by worried passengers soon after take off from Bishkek.

The Tez Jet airline service returned to Manas International Airport in the capital of the ex-Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan after the alarming incident.

The pilot had requested the emergency landing.

A video by a passenger shows the breakdown of one of the four engines on the British Aerospace RJ-85.

Passengers remained calm and some clapped as the plane made a successful landing some 30 minutes after takeoff in the 1 March incident.

Fire appliances were waiting at the airport but not needed.

There were no reports of injuries.

Tez Jet declined to comment on the incident which is being probed by the country's Civil Aviation Agency.

Passengers cheered as the plane touched down and fire services rushed to assess the damage

The turbofan engine, pictured, had become partially unattached just half an hour after take off

The so-called Whisperjet plane had been due to fly from Bishkek to Batken, a city in the south of Kyrgyzstan.

The BAe 146/Avro RJ is a high-wing cantilever monoplane.

The four turbofan engines mounted on pylons under the wings.Italy's voters have spoken, and the populists ruled the day.

But whether these eurosceptics can put aside their distrust and rivalries to rule together was the big question as the nation embarked on a new era following a quarter-century of largely predictable coalition-formula politics.

Emerging on top - and the pick of nearly a third of those who cast ballots - was the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, founded in 2009 by comic Beppe Grillo and the largest opposition force in the just-ended legislature.

The other main player in maneuvers to try to form a government is the anti-immigrant League, led by Matteo Salvini, which expanded beyond its northern base to outpoll the conservative Forza Italia, the party created in the mid-1990s by Silvio Berlusconi.

In his first comments on Monday, Salvini repeated his stance that the euro was bad for Italy, insisting that 'it's a wrong currency and a wrong choice'.

Scroll down for video

A centre-right coalition including Silvio Berlusconi's (pictured) Forza Italia and far-right League party won about 37 per cent of the parliamentary vote, according to preliminary results

In an upset, the partial results showed the right-wing, anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic League party of Matteo Salvini (pictured, today) surpassing its coalition partner, the establishment Forza Italia party of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi

But because no party or coalition captured enough seats to rule alone, and because the populists went into the election as sharp rivals despite their similar 'Italy, first,' stances, it was unclear if a government with the potential to last could be forged to tackle Italy's pressing economic and social problems.

No one seemed to have the answer Monday.

Despite the League's gains, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement has become Italy's single biggest party after taking about 31 per cent.

Leader Luigi Di Maio, 31, immediately asserted his right to govern Italy after the party's strong showing.

Former premier Matteo Renzi, head of Italy's Democratic Party, which suffered significant losses, decided to resign.

'The (next) government is an enigma,' read the front-page headline of the daily Corriere della Sera.

'March 4's vote represents a watershed, with the maximum affirmation of anti-establishment parties in the Western Europe panorama, from the post war to today,' said Rome's LUISS university's center for Italian electoral studies.

The Five Star Movement, under Luigi Di Maio (pictured, right and left, celebrating overnight) has become Italy's single biggest party after taking about 31 per cent

Three billboards were seen being driven around Rome this morning, saying 'If you Bunga Bunga with extremists, you don't win. Capiche, Berlusconi?'

For roughly a quarter-century following the political upheaval in Europe set in motion by the demise of Eastern bloc communism, Italy's elections had largely alternated power between a center-right coalition headed by Berlusconi, who served three terms as premier, and a center-left bloc built around the Democratic Party, many of them former communists.

That system had been dubbed the 'second republic.'

It followed the so-called `'first republic' of the post-war generation, in which Christian Democrats anchored government after short-lived coalitions, cobbled together with the aim of keeping what was then Western Europe's largest communist party out of power.

That system crumbled in the early 1990s amid corruption scandals that swept away virtually an entire political class.

'Today for us is the start of the third republic. And the third will finally be the republic of the citizens,' exulted Luigi Di Maio, the Five Star Movement's 31-year-old candidate for premier.

But how that new era will take shape is very unclear.

Despite the League's gains, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement has become Italy's single biggest party after taking about 31 per cent. Leader Luigi Di Maio (pictured today), 31, said today the strong showing means that it should run the next government

In his first comments today, Salvini (pictured talking at a press conference in Milan this morning) repeated his stance that the euro was bad for Italy, insisting that 'it's a wrong currency and a wrong choice.'

The largest share went to the alliance including the League and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy!) - but for the first time the League emerged as the senior partner

Berlusconi, sidelined from holding office due to a tax fraud conviction and relishing the prospect of playing kingmaker after Sunday's vote, suffered what could be a definitive blow for the 81-year-old media mogul.

Berlusconi's Forza Italia captured only 14 percent of the vote, compared to 18 percent for coalition partner Salvini's League, which achieved virtual dominance in Italy's prosperous northern regions, where Berlusconi made much of his immense wealth.

The League's votes, along with Forza Italia and those of a smaller partner, the far-right Brothers of Italy, totaled 37 percent of ballots cast - nowhere near the absolute majority needed to win the confidence votes in each chamber of Parliament required under Italy's system for governing.

Top German MEP urges Berlin to 'get out of the euro' after Italy election German MEP Hans-Olaf Henkel has urged his country to 'get out of the euro' in the wake of the Italian election. Henkel told Express.co.uk that the 'majority' of Italy's election results were 'critical towards the EU' and that politicians had all 'promised the moon' to the Italian voters. He added: 'The results will mean even higher debts than those 130 per cent of state debt today, further deterioration of competitiveness of Italian industry and more unemployment. 'But Italian president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, will print even more money. 'In the end, the eurozone will be the ideal transfer mechanism from the north to the south. That's why Germany must get out of the euro now!' Advertisement

The 5-Stars Movement's better-than-expected 32 percent showing was boosted by its dominance of the south, where Forza Italia had long held sway.

This north-south divide is a new element that could complicate any power-sharing, political analyst Angelo Panebianco said.

'Government formation will take longer because of this division' as leaders adjust to new territorial equilibriums, he said on Sky TG24.

Further complicating the path toward a new government are campaign vows by the Five Star Movement to never to govern in a coalition.

Savoring the center-right's performance, Salvini vowed that the bloc had won 'the right and the duty to govern.'

Berlusconi and Salvini huddled on Monday at the mogul's estate on Milan's outskirts, but there were no indications what strategy the two leaders might chart.

'I am and I will remain a populist,' Salvini told reporters.

He sought to assure financial markets that his leadership wouldn't be anything to fear, even as he reaffirmed his belief that Italy's membership in the euro common currency was a mistake.

Asked about the possibility of joining forces with the Five Star Movement to govern, Salvini replied: 'No, no, no.'

For its part, the Five Star Movement has insisted it would never dirty itself by joining a government alliance.

But as the first results were trickling in early Monday, its leaders started sending another message, saying they expected Italy's parties will have to come to them to work out a deal for government.

The anti-establishment Five Star Movement, led by 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio (pictured), has taken about 31 per cent, with the centre-left coalition far behind with 23 per cent

Widow of man killed by mafia is elected to the Italian parliament The widow of a man killed by the Sicilian mafia who has to live under armed protection after turning state witness has been elected to the Italian parliament, official results showed. Piera Aiello, 51, had to do her campaigning as candidate of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement behind closed doors as her face cannot be shown in public for fear of mafia reprisals. She won almost 53 percent of the vote in her constituency in Marsala in western Sicily, far ahead of her centre-right rival with 26 percent. Aiello witnessed two mafia hitmen kill her husband, the son of Sicilian mafia boss Vito Atria, in 1991. A mafia supergrass who turned informant after her husband was killed by the Sicilian mob has won a seat in the Italian government - despite not being allowed to show her face in public. Piera Aiello won almost 53 per cent of the vote in her constituency in Marsala in western Sicily (pictured) Atria was shot dead in 1985 and his son, Nicolo', had spoken publicly about wreaking revenge. That was enough for a rival mafia clan to kill him too. She turned in the killers and provided evidence against dozens of mafia members to crusading prosecutor Paolo Borsellino, who was himself killed in a car bomb attack just months later in 1992. Aiello has said she decided to run because of the movement's commitment to tackle social inequality and because she wanted her identity back after being forced to move to a different part of Italy. 'If I am elected to parliament, I will finally re-appear in public and I will no longer be the woman who was 'deported' 26 years ago,' she was quoted as saying in an interview with Sicilia Oggi Notizie. Advertisement

Shaping up to be the largest opposition party in Parliament was the Democrats of former Premier Matteo Renzi, which had been the main coalition partner in government since 2013.

Splintered and squabbling under what was seen by critics as a heavy-handed leadership, the Democratic Party plunged to 23 percent.

Renzi vowed to stay on as party leader until a new government is formed to ensure the Democrats don't lend support to any 'extremist' force.

He described both the League and the 5-Stars as embodying an anti-Europe spirit he couldn't embrace.

He also noted that during the campaign both Salvini and Di Maio had branded Democratic lawmakers as Mafiosi and corrupt.

'If that's who we are, govern without us,' Renzi said, declaring that his party's place in the new legislature was in the opposition.

The virulently anti-immigrant League's big jump in popularity came through a remarkable transformation.

'The European Union is having a bad evening,' French far-right leader Marine Le Pen tweeted

For this election, Salvini shed the name 'Northern' from the party's label, seeking to expand influence beyond its geographic stronghold.

In the south, where it made virtually no impact at all in the 2013 election, it polled 6.7 percent, a respectable showing he can use to strengthen his hand in maneuvering to create a government.

Salvini also cozied up with like-minded Europeans.

He met privately with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in 2014 in Milan, has aligned himself with France's populist leader Marine Le Pen and praised Hungary's leader Viktor Orban, who similarly took a hard stand on migrants.

While the League and Five Star are rivals, a coalition with both has been seen as the key barometer to gauge Italy's relations with Brussels, and a 'nightmare scenario' for the European Union and markets if they were to form an unlikely alliance.

French far right leader Marine Le Pen tweeted last night: 'The European Union is having a bad evening.'

Meanwhile, France's president Emmanuel Macron this morning cited migration as key factor in Italy election result.

Macron said he was 'cautious at this stage' about the results of the election, but that the country has clearly suffered from the migrant crisis, pointing to the 'brutality of the context' in Italy.

With votes counted from more than 75 per cent of polling stations, it looked almost certain that none of the three main factions would be able to govern alone and there was little prospect of a return to mainstream government, creating a dilemma for the European Union.

What next? Post-election scenarios Italy's election appears to leave a hung parliament in which no single party or coalition commands an overall majority according to preliminary results, leaving few options for any new government. The prospect of a grand coalition between Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy) party and the ruling centre-left Democratic Party against the surging populists and far-right appears no longer feasible. Here are some possible scenarios: Populist, far-right alliance Both the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the far-right League party have ruled out the possibility of a post-election pact but this is currently the only option that looks like it would command a majority. According to the latest projections, the two parties together would hold 355 seats in the 630-seat lower house of parliament and 168 seats in the 315-seat upper house. Both parties are heavily eurosceptic and League leader Matteo Salvini has been accused of stirring up racial tensions. A tie-up could cause shockwaves around Europe. Right-wing coalition Preliminary results make this remote as the coalition looks set to win only 37 per cent of the vote, including 18 per cent for the League and 14 per cent for Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy) party. The final result of the vote in terms of seats is hard to predict, however, as Italy is using a new electoral law for the first time that combines proportional representation with a first-past-the post system. If the coalition does win a majority and the League comes in ahead of Forza Italia, this would open the prospect of far-right Salvini being nominated as Italy's next prime minister. Stalemate If there is no clear majority, President Sergio Mattarella could choose to leave in place the current centre-left government of Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni. This would allow time to set up a temporary government to reform the electoral law and organise new elections. But the process would take time as consultations could only start after parliament's newly-elected lawmakers meet for the first time on March 23 to elect speakers. After a stalemate following Italy's last election in 2013, it took more than two months to form a government. Five-star government Another scenario would be a minority Five Star government, which could prove highly unstable after it secured only 31 per cent of the vote . Advertisement

Who's who in the Italian election Five Star Movement The populist party, led by 31-year-old telegenic young gun Luigi Di Maio, has risen from populist insurgency to become Italy's largest single party by far after winning 31 per cent of the vote. Its vote share in the election was second only to a main right-wing coalition of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia and its far right partner the League which together took 37 per cent. Five Star was founded in 2009 by burly comedian Beppe Grillo feeding off public fury over institutional corruption and economic hardship. However, Di Maio's appointment as leader now symbolises a strategic shift for the anti-establishment party. The populist party, led by 31-year-old telegenic young gun Luigi Di Maio (centre), has risen from populist insurgency to become Italy's largest single party by far after winning 31 per cent of the vote He has been criticised for his poor command of grammar but waged an exhausting campaign around the country, capturing new voters in economically disaffected regions of southern Italy. The party has used its newly 'mature' image to capture voters from the traditional parties that 69-year-old Grillo long railed against. Instead of the expletive-filled rants of his shaggy-haired former boss, Di Maio offers calmer, considered political reflections and the party now says the time for quitting the EU has passed. Its flagship proposal in the election campaign was a minimum monthly income of up to 780 euros ($963) for the poor, helping it draw massive support in the underdeveloped south. 'We do not want a populist, extremist or anti-European Italy,' Di Maio has said. Forza Italia Veteran Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi returned to lead his centre-right Forza Italia - but the come back appears to have suffered a humiliating setback. A coalition involving the far-right League party, looks to have taken about 37 per cent of the vote. But Forza Italia (Go Italy) won less than 14 per cent while its anti-immigrant partner, under Matteo Salvini, captured around 18 per cent. Veteran Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (right) returned to lead his centre-right Forza Italia - but the come back appears to have suffered a humiliating setback Berlusconi, the flamboyant three-time former prime minister, cannot hold elected office because of a fraud conviction but has put forward European Parliament President Antonio Tajani as his prime ministerial nominee. The billionaire, who won his first election in 1994, has returned to the limelight at the age of 81 despite a career overshadowed by sex scandals and legal woes. He was ambushed as he cast his vote in Milan by a topless woman from the Femen activist group who had 'Berlusconi, you have expired' scrawled across her torso. The League In an upset, the partial results showed the right-wing, anti-immigrant and Eurosceptic League party of Matteo Salvini surpassing its coalition partner, the establishment Forza Italia party of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi. According to the partial results, the League captured around 18 per cent of the vote, while Forza Italia had less than 14 per cent. With the anti-establishment Five Star the highest vote-getter of any single party, the results confirm the defeat of the two main political forces that have dominated Italian politics for decades - Forza Italia and the centre-left - and the surging of populist and right-wing, Eurosceptic forces. The League was particularly strong in the north, its traditional base. In Veneto, where it won 11 per cent of the vote in the last elections in 2013, it captured around 48 per cent this time around. In an upset, the partial results showed the right-wing, anti-immigrant and eurosceptic League party of Matteo Salvini (pictured) surpassing its coalition partner, the establishment Forza Italia party of media mogul and ex-Premier Berlusconi, 81 The strong showing raises the prospect of League leader Matteo Salvini, who has promised to shut down Roma camps, deport hundreds of thousands of migrants and tackle the 'danger' of Islam, becoming Italy's next prime minister. 'The March 4 vote yielded a result that Europe was afraid of and Italy perhaps did not expect on this scale,' columnist Marcello Sorgi wrote in La Stampa daily. 'Defeated everywhere else in Europe, populism won here. Either it can govern or it will block the system.' He tweeted 'Thanks!' to his supporters as the results came in. Claudio Borghi of the League told Sky that the election results send a clear message to Brussels. 'I think the will of the Italian people is very clear. The forces in favour of what Europe has done have been redimensioned,' Borghi told Sky TG24. 'It's a very strong message.' The boost for far-right and populist parties has drawn comparisons to Britain's vote to leave the European Union and the rise of US President Donald Trump. Democratic Party Matteo Renzi, Italy's outspoken former premier looks on his way out after leading his party to election disaster, an alarming change in fortune for a man who just a few years ago was considered the darling of Italian politics. The centre-left coalition led by Renzi's Democratic Party (PD), in power going into the elections, looked set to pick up 23.6 per cent of the vote, down on the last polling figures allowed before the election and a huge blow to the PD's chances of being part of the next government. With over two-thirds of the vote counted, the PD itself has under 20 per cent, the red line figure that has Italian media speculating that the usually bullish Tuscan could step down as leader, despite having only won the party's primaries in a landslide in April. Matteo Renzi (right), Italy's outspoken former premier looks on his way out after leading his party to election disaster, an alarming change in fortune for a man who just a few years ago was considered the darling of Italian politics The result will be particularly humiliating for a man whose party clinched 40 per cent of the vote in the 2014 European elections. In 2012, with his sights set on party leadership, he vowed to make Italy the country 'where you get a job because of what you know and not who you know,' said L'Espresso. But today he is often accused of surrounding himself with his chosen few, frequently fellow Tuscans, who have done little to boost his reputation. Renzi became the country's youngest prime minister in 2014, at the age of just 39. Showing a tireless work ethic while his wife, Agnese, and three children stayed home in Tuscany, the former boy scout came to office with a vow to revive Italy's lethargic economy. He managed to deliver his flagship labour market reforms and modest growth, while overseeing the granting of legal recognition to gay relationships for the first time. But the recovery was not strong enough to generate any real political dividends, and Renzi's domestic fall from grace came in December 2016, when Italians rejected his proposal for constitutional reform in a referendum. His dream of a 'simpler, more competitive and more courageous' Italy lay in tatters and Renzi resigned as premier. Advertisement



A benefit dinner for the San Pedro Sister Community Project will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday, March 17, at the Sommer Center in Smith Hall of Wells College, 170 Main St., Aurora.

The evening will also include music. Proceeds will support high school and college scholarships for students in the mountainous Central American community of San Pedro, El Salvador. They will also support nutrition, health and marketing initiatives directed by the community.

Organizers of the project will also talk about their next trip there July 10-17.

Admission to the dinner is a suggested donation of $25 for adults, $10 for Wells students and children 6 to 12, and free for children younger than 5.

For more information, visit sanpedrosistercommunity.blogspot.com.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0Downing Street insisted today Theresa May remains confident she can strike a US trade deal despite Donald Trump's threats of massive new steel tariffs.

The US President has rocked hopes of a major post-Brexit deal by launching salvos of rhetoric against trade deals he says undermine American jobs.

Mrs May spoke to Mr Trump last night to express grave concern at the threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on steel imported to America.

If imposed Europe would be forced to respond in kind, launching a transatlantic trade war just as Britain leaves the EU to embrace a global free trade future.

President Donald Trump has doubled down on trade pressure, but Mrs May (pictured right in London today) urged him to think again about steel tariffs

Following the renewed tensions, Mrs May's spokesman today said: 'I think both the prime minister and the president have been clear on the importance of reaching a bilateral, post-Brexit trade deal.

'The USA is our biggest trade partner, we invest over 500bn in each other's economies and over 1million Americans work for UK companies, so you would expect us to remain close partners and continue to work at the highest levels to make the case for UK industry to the US government.'

The tit-for-tat began last week when Mr Trump called for 25 per cent tariffs on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminium to protect domestic producers.

The EU then hit back by suggesting it would hike duty on Harley-Davidson motorbikes, bourbon and American blue jeans.

That in turn prompted Mr President to up the ante by threatening to pump up taxes on car imports from Europe.

The row has raised fresh fears about a major international meltdown over trade, as Mr Trump follows through on his pledge to stop America being exploited by other countries.

In a phone call with the US leader last night, Mrs May urged him to cool the row and back down on the steel tariffs.

'The Prime Minister raised our deep concern at the President's forthcoming announcement on steel and aluminium tariffs, noting that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity in all parties' interests,' a No10 spokeswoman said.

But soon afterwards Mr Trump tweeted: 'We are on the losing side of almost all trade deals. Our friends and enemies have taken advantage of the US for many years.

'Our Steel and Aluminum industries are dead. Sorry, it's time for a change! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!'

On the BBC's Sunday Politics show yesterday, Cabinet Office minister David Lidington branded the threats 'inadvisable', saying: 'Trade wars don't do anybody any good.'

The US president reiterated his determination to act overnight saying America had been 'taken advantage of' for 'many years' and it had to stop

In a series of tweets over the weekend, Mr Trump stoked the row by warning that the EU was taking the US 'for fools'.

'If the EU wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on US companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the US,' he said.

'They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!' he continued.

Last year, the US ran a $151billion trade deficit with the EU, accounting for about one-fifth of America's $796billion global trade deficit.

'The United States has an $800 Billion Dollar Yearly Trade Deficit because of our 'very stupid' trade deals and policies,' Mr Trump said.

'Our jobs and wealth are being given to other countries that have taken advantage of us for years. They laugh at what fools our leaders have been. No more!'

In a series of tweets over the weekend, Mr Trump stoked the row by warning that the EU was taking the US 'for fools'

The latest escalation in tensions came after the EU announced plans on Friday to target key imports from the US.

It was responding to Mr Trump's threat of 25 per cent tariffs on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminium to protect domestic producers.

The move could be potentially devastating for UK and EU exporters.

Asked about the US move, European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker told German TV: 'We will put tariffs on Harley-Davidson, on bourbon and on blue jeans - Levis.

'We are here and they will get to know us.'

A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said US steel tariffs would hurt international commerce.

'The German government will look very closely at this decision and then assess the impact on the German and European economies,' the spokesman said.

'We will put tariffs on Harley-Davidson, on bourbon and on blue jeans - Levis,' said European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (pictured)

Figures from European steel association Eurofer show the US was the destination of about 15 percent of Europe's steel exports in 2017.

Trade association UK Steel said the proposed measures would be an 'extremely blunt' reaction to a complex global problem.

Unite union national officer for steel Tony Brady said if the tariffs applied to the UK, they would be 'devastating'.

Cabinet Office minister David Lidington yesterday rebuked the US, saying a trade war was in nobody's interests.

Mr Lidington suggested the American authorities could overrule any tariffs, as they did in the case of aircraft manufacturer Bombardier when Mr Trump's administration threatened huge duties on its C-wing planes.

The minister said: 'We'll have to see what happens, I mean there was a lot of concerns recently about something comparable with regards aviation and the aircraft that were being produced in part by Bombardier in Belfast in Northern Ireland, and the American authorities at the end of the day struck that down, they said no that is not the way that we should be going.'

And he warned Mr Trump that Britain's experience showed his plan would not work.

'We tried in Britain in the 60s and 70s protecting our car industry from competition,' Mr Lidington said.

'It actually didn't work, it protected inefficiencies, we lost all our export markets because our competitors who were more competitive went out and gobbled those up from us, and the car industry had to go through a very, very painful restructuring to get to the success story it is now.'

A Downing Street spokesman said last week: 'We are engaging with the US on what this announcement means in practice.

'We are particularly concerned by any measures which would impact the UK steel and aluminium industries.

Downing Street said last week that Theresa May is 'concerned' by Mr Trump's threats about the steel industry

'Over-capacity remains a significant global issue and we believe multi-lateral action is the only way to resolve it in all parties' interests.'

The issue is particularly sensitive given the UK's hopes of striking a post-Brexit trade deal with Mr Trump's USA.

China has made clear it is ready to hit back if economic sanctions are brought forward against its interests.

'China doesn't want a trade war with the United States,' said a spokesman for the National People's Congress.

'But if the US takes actions that hurt Chinese interests, China will not sit idly by and will take necessary measures.'

Canada also has said it will retaliate against any US tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Australia's trade minister has spoken with his US counterpart to seek an exemption to Trump administration tariffs on steel and aluminium exports.

'Unfortunately, at this stage, it is not clear to me or to Australia whether or not we will be captured by the president's announcement,' Steve Ciobo told Sky News on Sunday, after speaking with US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross on Saturday.

Trump officially has until April 11 to announce his final decision on a steel tariff.

An analyst at Jefferies said they expected the final policy to be more nuanced than a blanket tariff, due to a mounting pushback from domestic steel consumers and foreign steel suppliers.Two men accused of beating a tradesman to within an inch of his life in a horrifying road rage attack left court today in sunglasses and sandals after being granted bail.

Ryan Hallifax, Jordan Baklas and Jonathan Lawrence allegedly bashed Brock Prime with a concrete scraper and left him for dead on the side of M1 motorway on the night of February 24.

Mr Prime, 29, remains in a coma with a suspected fractured skull and broken leg.

Hallifax and Baklas were today granted bail at Beenleigh Magistrates Court while Lawrence did not apply.

Ryan Hallifax (left) and Jordan Baklas (right) were today granted bail at Beenleigh Magistrates Court while Jonathan Lawrence did not apply

Brock Prime, 29, (pictured) is said to have been attacked by a group of people who were travelling in a white van at Yatala about 9.30pm on Saturday 24 February

In opposing the bail, police prosecutor sergeant Ellen French argued the pair had displayed an inability to maintain self-control and 'had chosen to take matters into their own hands'.

But she also said the 29-year-old victim had produced the weapon, believed to be a concrete scraper, that was eventually taken from him and used in the attack.

Last week, the court heard Mr Prime may die from his injuries, with the prosecution warning that the charges could be upgraded once more is known of his condition.

But in a combined hearing, lawyers for Ryan Hallifax and Jordan Baklas argued the evidence and witness statements indicated their clients had played a limited role in the assault, with no proof they had ever held the weapon.

Representing Baklas, a 27-year-old cabinet maker, Jon Ide said he would contest the charge of grievous bodily harm.

Jonathan Lawrence, 26, is accused of being part of a group that bashed Brock Prime and last year called for tougher sentences on violent offenders after the murder of his daughter

Jordan Baklas, 27 (pictured), was granted bail today after being charged with grievous bodily harm

'It's good for him that he's been granted bail but it's only the first step,' Mr Ide said outside court.

'Of course they are (remorseful); they're very upset at what's happened and they've found themselves in this situation.'

Truck driver Hallifax, who spent seven years in the army, will return to live with his mother after recently hearing his father had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

His lawyer, David Gilmore, argued Hallifax had played the 'least role of anyone involved' and it was clear the complainant started the violence and his client also never held the weapon.

'He might have punched the complainant once at most,' Mr Gilmore said in court.

Mr Gilmore also said a covert police officer had heard Hallifax's side of the story while undercover and that it correlated with other separate reports.

Mr Prime (right) suffered a skull fracture and a broken leg in the assault and has been placed in a medically-induced coma

Mr Prime (pictured) had recently survived a stabbing, and his father Darren died six weeks ago

Police say the incident began when a van, carrying up to 13 people, and Mr Prime's black Subaru Forester came close to colliding on the M1 around Coomera

A 'cat and mouse game' then began, with the two vehicles ducking and weaving through traffic in wet conditions on the motorway before they both finally pulled over

The duo's bail conditions include an alcohol ban, curfew, tri-weekly reports to the police station and an order to cease contact with an extensive list of people implicated in the incident.

The pair will reappear along with Jonathan Lawrence, 26, on May 2.

Detective Inspector Mark Thompson said the incident began when the van and Mr Prime's black Subaru Forester came close to colliding on the M1 around Coomera.

A 'cat and mouse game' then began, with the two vehicles ducking and weaving through traffic in wet conditions on the motorway before they both finally pulled over.

Five centimetres of Brock's skull (right) was crushed into his brain with dirt and concrete



A schoolgirl claims she was banned from a once-in-a-lifetime trip at the last minute, because of long-standing mental health issues.

Becca Erskine, 15, says she had her bags packed for a science-themed trip to Disneyland Paris with her school Bede Academy in Blyth at half term.

But just three days before she was due to leave, her mother Mandy Allison received a call to say her daughter could not attend the trip.

Scroll down for video

Becca Erskine, 15, expressed dismay after she was prevented from travelling with her classmates by school authorities because of long-standing mental health issues

Ms Erskine said she was looking forward to the trip to Disneyland Paris with her friends, file pic

She says she was told that a risk assessment had concluded that it wasn't safe for Becca to go and the family would receive a full refund.

Ms Allison, 45, said: 'I understand the risk assessment, however telling a teenager three days before she's due to leave for Disneyland Paris that she can no longer go is absolutely disgraceful.

'It's the timing that is wrong - if they'd said this six weeks ago I could have understood.

'Her bag was packed, her group of friends had made arrangements for the whole trip.

Ms Erskine, pictured, has been treated for depression following the death of her father

'Becca was devastated beyond words, this trip had been something she was looking forward to, something positive.

'Now she feels she's being punished for being poorly.'

Ms Allison claims the school knew about her daughter's issues 'from day one' and that the sudden change of plans was unfair on the teenager.

'The handling of this situation is diabolical, and not something a 15-year-old with mental health issues should be subject to,' she said.

Becca has been unable to attend school for several months after suffering from a number of personal tragedies, including the death of her father.

The teenager was later diagnosed with depression and anxiety.

She is still registered as a student at Bede Academy but had to have work sent home to help her keep up with studying for her GCSEs.

Becca, from Blyth, said: 'It was quite sad, because all my friends were going, I was really looking forward to it.'

A spokesperson for Bede Academy said: 'The academy does not comment publicly on matters of a personal nature involving students.'Former NHS manager Deborah Hancox, 48, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, and her partner John Leigh, 57, were involved in a five-year conspiracy supplying IT equipment and services to the NHS at inflated prices

A woman who swindled 1million from the NHS to fund her luxury lifestyle before fleeing the country, being extradited and eventually jailed has returned to work - at the health service.

Former NHS manager Deborah Hancox, 48, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, and her partner John Leigh, 57, were involved in a five-year conspiracy supplying IT equipment and services to the NHS at inflated prices.

It is believed the value of the fraud totalled more than 1million, with the couple pocketing about 300,000 which they used to buy holiday homes in Cyprus, Dubai and the Lake District.

They were both eventually jailed for a total of five and a half years but it has now emerged that Hancox, after leaving prison and going under the new name of Deborah Moshin, has been working as an Effective Use of Resources Officer at the NHS.

The Mirror reports Hancox worked for Greater Manchester Shared Services, which gives advice to clinical commissioners across the region, but asked her to leave her post last month.

She and Leigh sparked a five-year manhunt after going on the run and fleeing to the Turkish part of Cyprus after being interviewed by police about the fraud in 2008.

They also bought a brand new Jaguar convertible and a Mercedes from the profits of the scam.

It was only when they moved to the south part of the island, the Republic of Cyprus, that the couple were brought back to Britain to face justice.

Hancox and Leigh, pictured, were jailed for 24 months and 44 months respectively

Hancox and Leigh (both pictured) sparked a five-year manhunt after going on the run and fleeing to the Turkish part of Cyprus after being interviewed by police about the fraud in 2008

The couple are believed to have started their scam back in 2003. Leigh worked for the NHS in purchasing and was responsible for buying mostly computers and other office equipment for various NHS departments. Hancox also worked for the NHS.

Despite being jailed for defrauding the health service, Hancox, pictured, has been re-employed by the NHS

For more than seven years, Leigh used a company called Action Direct Technology Ltd - of which his partner Hancox was the owner, sole shareholder and company director - to buy overpriced goods and defraud his employer the NHS.

The pair also used Bibi's IT Solutions Ltd and Wiscom Technology Ltd as a front to disguise their ongoing fraud between January 2001 and October 2008.

The couple tricked the NHS into buying goods from their own companies  marking up prices by 30 per cent on average - and up to 60 per cent in other cases.

In 2014 the couple were jailed at Manchester Crown Court after pleading guilty to conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to conceal criminal property at an earlier hearing.

Leigh was sentenced to 44 months and Hancox was given 24 months in prison.

Sgt Laura Walters, of GMP, said at the time: 'This couple were involved in an well-orchestrated and meticulously planned conspiracy to defraud the NHS out of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

'This was not a get-rich-quick scheme - this was a sustained criminal enterprise stretching over seven years. Seven years is a long time to see the error of your ways but these individuals showed no remorse for their actions.'

MailOnline has approached NHS England for a comment.Cardinal George Pell's lawyers have been challenged by a judge after they questioned the need for complainants to access a support dog while giving evidence.

The comments come as Australia's most senior Catholic faced the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday to fight historic sexual offence charges.

Pell experienced intense media glare and heavy police presence as he began a month long committal hearing which will decide if there is enough evidence for him to stand trial.

In court, Cardinal Pell's barrister Robert Richter QC took issue with an initiative that allows a trained Labrador to comfort those giving evidence during the hearing.

Cardinal George Pell's barrister questioned the need for support dogs to be present as complainants give evidence during the pre-trial hearing

The initiative allows three-year-old Labrador, Coop, to comfort people while they give evidence in remote witness facilities

In response to the prosecution's request to use the dog, Mr Richter asked: 'I always thought dogs were there for children and very old people, but if they want a dog '

Magistrate Belinda Wallington was quick to rebut the query, saying: 'No they're (dogs) also for very vulnerable and traumatised people.'

The use of dogs in criminal proceedings is part of new program run by Victoria's Office of Public Prosecutions which sees three-year-old black Labrador, Coop comfort alleged victims as they testify.

While Coop is not allowed to enter the courtroom she is there for comfort and regularly sits with alleged victims as they give evidence via video link.

Cardinal George Pell will face court under an intense international media glare as a hearing begins that will decide if he stands trial on historical sexual offence charges

Pell attended a hearing on Monday to determine whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to try him on sexual abuse charges

Pell, 76, denies the unrelated historical sexual offence charges involving multiple complainants

Pell, 76, denies the historical sexual offence charges involving multiple complainants.

Prosecutors on Friday withdrew one of the charges, relating to a complainant who died after the criminal proceedings began in 2017.

The committal hearing will initially be open to the public as the defence and prosecution finalise further administrative matters, but will quickly move behind closed doors as accusers begin their evidence.

The hearing will be closed to the public and media for two weeks while the complainants give their evidence, as required by law in sexual offence cases.

At the end of the four-week proceeding, it will be up to Magistrate Belinda Wallington to decide if there is enough evidence for the case to go to trial in the Victorian County Court.

The hearing will be closed to the public and media for two weeks while the complainants give their evidence, as required by law in sexual offence cases

George Pell is pictured arriving at the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday

Dozens of Australian and international journalists are expected to cover the court case, with foreign interest from the BBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Swedish National Radio.

Pell will not have to enter a formal plea unless committed to stand trial, but his barrister Robert Richter QC told the Vatican treasurer's first court appearance last July that Pell will plead not guilty to all charges.

The former Sydney and Melbourne archbishop and Ballarat priest has taken leave from his position as Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy to fight the charges.

Pell (pictured on Monday) will not have to enter a formal plea unless committed to stand trial

His barrister Robert Richter QC told the Vatican treasurer's first court appearance last July that Pell will plead not guilty to all chargesTheresa May has told MPs the US-Canada border could be copied in Ireland after Brexit despite warnings it uses check points and armed guards.

Briefing the Commons on her Mansion House speech last week, the Prime Minister said different examples from around the world on how to solve the Irish border were being considered.

She specifically cited the US-Canada frontier as one such example - despite Irish premier Leo Varadkar ruling it out as unacceptable months ago.

In her statement to MPs, Mrs May said her keynote speech on Friday - which set out Britain's Brexit hopes was the basis for a deal and repeated her call for Brussels to 'get on with it'.

The Prime Minister (pictured briefing MPs on her speech today) spent much of her first year in No10 dismantling key parts of her predecessor's legacy

Mrs May used an appearance in the Commons today (pictured) to brief MPs on the content of her major Brexit speech

Asked about the thorny issue of the Irish border Mrs May said: 'There are many examples of different arrangements for customs around the rest of the world.

'Indeed we are looking at those, including for example the border between the United States and Canada.'

When it was pointed out to the PM that there were 'armed customs guards' between Canada and the US, Mrs May said the Government was looking at arrangements 'in a number of countries'.

Addressing the Commons today, Mrs May said Britain had now set out its demands and shown it understands the EU principles.

She said: 'Let's get on with it.'

WHEN WILL BRITAIN BE OUT OF THE EU? Britain triggered Article 50 on March 29, 2017, starting a two year process for leaving the EU: March 2018: Outline transition deal agreed, running for about two years June 2018: EU summit that Brussels says should consider broad principles of a future trade deal. October 2018: Political agreement on the future partnership due to be reached Early 2019: Major votes in Westminster and Brussels to ratify the deal March 29, 2019: Article 50 expires, Britain leaves the EU. Transition is expected to keep everything the same for about two years December 31, 2020: Transition expected to come to an end and the new relationship - if it has been agreed - should kick in Advertisement

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn hit back to claim Mrs May had proven she was 'nowhere near' getting a Brexit deal.

Briefing MPs, the Prime Minister said: 'We cannot escape the complexity of the task ahead.

'We must build a new and lasting relationship while preparing for every scenario. But with pragmatism, calm and patient discussion, I am confident we can set an example to the world.

'Yes, there will be ups and downs over the months ahead, but we will not be buffeted by the demands to talk tough or threaten or walk out - and we will not give in to the counsels of despair that this simply cannot be done, for this is in both the UK's and EU's interests.'

The PM added: 'My message to our friends in Europe is clear: you asked us to set out what we want in more detail, we have done that; we have shown we understand your principles; we have a shared interest in getting this right, so let's get on with it.'

Mr Corbyn claimed there have been '20 wasted months' since the EU referendum in which the 'arrogance' of some of the Cabinet who said it would be the 'easiest deal in history' has turned into 'debilitating infighting'.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (pictured in the Commons today) hit back to claim Mrs May had proven she was 'nowhere near' getting a Brexit deal

He said: 'We've seen set piece speech after set piece speech and yet the Prime Minister still cannot bring clarity to these negotiations and still cannot bring certainty to British businesses or workers.

'The Prime Minister's speech on Friday promised to unite the nation, but it barely papered over the cracks in her own party.'

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith congratulated Mrs May on her 'excellent' speech, saying it gave the EU 'a very clear sense of direction'.

He asked: 'When she gets into negotiations with her European counterparts about trade arrangements, could she remind them that cake exists to be eaten and cherries exist to be picked?'

Tory Remainer and former minister Anna Soubry said no-one could doubt Mrs May's 'determination' to get the 'very best deal for our country in these most difficult of negotiations'.

Ms Soubry asked: 'It is undoubtedly the case that any deal will bear considerable administrative costs.

'Will the Prime Minister undertake to keep this House and therefore our constituents fully appraised of those administrative costs of our eventual relationship and deal with the European Union?'

Mrs May used her long-awaited 'road to Brexit' speech on Friday (pictured) to set out a blueprint for the UK to align with EU rules to secure free flowing trade

Mrs May's speech at the Mansion House seems to have succeeded in securing a fragile truce between Tory Remainer and Brexiteer factions - although the response from the EU has been less enthusiastic

Mrs May's appearance in the Commons today after it emerged she buried the hatchet with David Cameron to ask for his advice before making the speech.

The Prime Minister spent much of her first year in Downing Street dismantling key parts of her predecessor's legacy.

But a former key aide to Mr Cameron has revealed that Mrs May sought out his opinion before setting out her vision of future relations with the EU.

WHAT WERE THE KEY POINTS OF MAY'S MANSION HOUSE SPEECH Theresa May set out her vision for the future of the UK-EU relationship last week. She said: There are five tests for the success of the deal - implementing the referendum, creating an enduring deal, protecting security, a deal that is consistent with the kind of country Britain wants to be and strengthening the United Kingdom

The UK-EU free trade agreement should be biggest and most ambitious ever struck

May said the deal should be the first one ever to cover services, the lynchpin of the British economy

But she accepted publicly that the City of London would not get 'passporting rights' that allow financial services companies to trade directly in Europe

But the deal will also require cherry picking, in defiance of the EU's refusal to consider it. May said every trade deal amounts to cherry picking

The PM said 'life is going to be different' after Brexit and there were 'hard choices' on both sides - and neither the UK or EU will get everything they want

Trade across the Irish border should be a 'frictionless as possible' to avoid a hard border

A border down the Irish Sea would be just as bad as a hard border on the island of Ireland

Britain will not slash and burn regulations and hopes for 'mutual recognition' in many areas

The UK is prepared to pay for access to and follow the rules of European agencies covering medicine, chemicals and flights Advertisement

The overture underlines the efforts the premier has been making to hold the Conservatives together as negotiations with Brussels reach a crunch point.

Mrs May used her long-awaited 'road to Brexit' speech on Friday to set out a blueprint for the UK to align with EU rules to secure free flowing trade.

She made clear that Britain must retain the scope to diverge from Brussels regulations in future - but admitted there would be costs if it does.

The speech seems to have succeeded in securing a fragile truce between Tory Remainer and Brexiteer factions - although the response from the EU has been less enthusiastic.

Conservative Remainers Nicky Morgan and Sarah Wollaston both signalled over the weekend that they were supportive of the PM's stance - lessening the prospects of a potentially catastrophic rebellion over the issue of staying in a customs union.

Baroness Bertin, who was a close aide to Mr Cameron in No10, revealed his role as she appeared on the BBC's Westminster Hour last night.

'She did speak to him before this speech. So they're on pretty good terms,' Lady Bertin said.

'I wasn't privy to the conversation.

'But they were in contact over the speech, you know, a couple of days before.'

The peer said her former boss had 'no plans' to make his own intervention on Brexit and believes May is 'making absolutely the right decision in the way that she's going'.

Mr Cameron has gone through a fairly dramatic shift in his attitude to Brexit since losing the referendum in 2016 and being unceremoniously ejected from No10.

During the campaign he had overseen the notorious 'Project Fear' warnings about the dire consequences of deciding to leave the bloc.

He suggested Brexit could lead to war and genocide in Europe, 'put a bomb under the economy', destroy funding for public services and lead to cuts in pensions.

But his views were somewhat softer when he was caught on camera at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos in January.

During a conversation with the billionaire steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, he admitted leaving the EU had not proved 'a disaster' and had 'turned out less badly than we first thought'.

'Yes, well I know. It's frustrating. As I keep saying it's a mistake not a disaster. It's turned out less badly than we had thought but it's still going to be difficult.'

May buried the hatchet with David Cameron to ask for his advice before crucial Brexit speech

Theresa May buried the hatchet with David Cameron to ask for his advice before making her crucial Brexit speech, it was revealed today.

The Prime Minister spent much of her first year in Downing Street dismantling key parts of her predecessor's legacy.

But a former key aide to Mr Cameron has revealed that Mrs May sought out his opinion before setting out her vision of future relations with the EU.

The overture underlines the efforts the premier has been making to hold the Conservatives together as negotiations with Brussels reach a crunch point.

Mr Cameron was caught on camera at the Davos summit admitting that Brexit had not been as bad as he thought

Baroness Bertin, who was a close aide to Mr Cameron in No10, revealed his role as she appeared on the BBC's Westminster Hour last night.

'She did speak to him before this speech. So they're on pretty good terms,' Lady Bertin said.

'I wasn't privy to the conversation.

'But they were in contact over the speech, you know, a couple of days before.'

The peer said her former boss had 'no plans' to make his own intervention on Brexit and believes May is 'making absolutely the right decision in the way that she's going'.A passenger on a flight from Malaysia has been arrested after reportedly stripping naked to watch porn before attacking a stewardess.

Shortly after the Malindo Air flight departed from Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, the 20-year-old Bangladeshi took his clothes off and started watching pornography on his laptop, local media reported.

The man, a student at a Malaysian university, initially put his clothes back on at the request of cabin crew, the New Straits Times newspaper reported.

Shortly after the Malindo Air flight departed from Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, the 20-year-old Bangladeshi took his clothes off and started watching pornography on his laptop, local media reported. Pictured: Photographs that circulated online after the incident

But he then tried to hug female crew members while on his way to the toilet, and when his advances were rejected he became aggressive and attacked a stewardess, the paper said.

The cabin crew and passengers reportedly managed to subdue him and his hands were tied up with a piece of cloth for the rest of the flight.

According to Malaysian website Star Online, the man also masturbated and urinated on his seat.

There was no indication as to why he was acting strangely.

The airline, a Malaysian subsidiary of an Indonesian company, declined to confirm all the details but said in a statement that a 'disruptive passenger' was tied up on the flight to Dhaka, and was arrested on arrival.

It explained: 'The crew on board has followed the standard operating procedure in restraining the passenger from causing further disruption onboard the flight.

'The disruptive passenger was accompanied by Dhaka security team upon arrival and he has been put to jail by the authorities there.

The cabin crew and passengers reportedly managed to subdue him and his hands were tied up with a piece of cloth for the rest of the flight

'The airline will continue to stay vigilant to ensure passengers travel soundly.'

The Sun Daily, meanwhile, quoted a man claiming to be a passenger on the plane.

He explained that the Bangladeshi man stripped naked and watched porn while 'ignoring all those around him'.

'The cabin crew approached him and politely asked him to put on his clothes,' he added.

'He complied with their request. A short while later there was some commotion at the toilet area and it turned out that he was harassing a stewardess.'A Russian 'witch' has been jailed for 12 years after she convinced a former policeman to murder six homeless men who she intended to resurrect as zombie slaves.

Russian judicial authorities named the so-called sorceress as Tatyana Solovyeva but gave no further details.

The woman, who is described simply as young, was convicted in a trial in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, a town near Yekaterinburg, without media coverage even though she had earlier escaped from the police and was on the run for six months, trying to flee abroad.

Tatyana Solovyeva convinced ex-cop Arsen Bayrambekov, 39, to murder sacrifice homeless men at a forest altar in a ritual including 'raw meat and liquor'

Solovyeva allegedly beguiled ex-cop Arsen Bayrambekov, 39, finding homeless men to sacrifice before a forest alter in occult rituals involving their blood.

The murders were committed by campfire at night in a forest close to where the Bolsheviks dumped the bodies of the Russian royal family including former tsar Nicholas II in 1918.

The satanic victims were murdered by Bayrambekov under Solovyeva's guidance in a circle made of stones, after which they would recite prayers and incantations.

Their aim was to create a 'zombie army'.

'He tried to bring the dead back to life and turn them into zombies. However, all his attempts were futile,' said a Russian state investigator.

The corpses were wrapped in sticky tape before being buried in makeshift graves.

'Dark gods need a blood sacrifice, raw meat or liquor,' he told investigators.

Arsen Bayrambekov was handed a 13 year jail sentence last year for killing six homeless men

Bayrambekov murdered countless men at the forest altar (pictured) in occult rituals he believed would earn him a 'zombie army'

He was forced to return to the site (pictured) where he answered investigator's questions

He 'sacrificed' chickens, goats and sheep before moving onto humans, he said.

He was taken to the crime scene and showed investigators how he conducted the killings.

She 'convinced him to make human sacrifices' with a ritual knife, said a law enforcement source.

'This witch helped him identify the male victims', said another.

She was convicted as an accessory to multiple murders, said the Russian Prosecutor General's Office's website.

He slughtered chickens, goats and sheep as well as humans at the whim of Tatyana Solovyeva

Arsen Bayrambekov (pictured in court last year) slit his victim's throats, a court in Verkhnyaya Pyshma, a town near Yekaterinburg, heard

The devil-worshipping former policeman, who described himself as a Satanist, was jailed last year for 13 years for killing six homeless men.

'With his female friend he drove around Yekaterinburg streets searching for victims,' said one account.

'After the approval from his [female] companion, he would befriend the victim, offer a drink and then drive them to the woods, where he built an altar, at which he would slit the victim's throat.'

Irina Musina, the mother of Denis Musin, who was one of the Russian witch's victims

Tamara Bannikova (left) and Irina Musina (right), mothers of the victims, attended court to face the woman that orchestrated their sons' murders

At Bayrambekov's trial, it was said the woman - then unnamed - had no romantic relationship with him.

They chose their first victim - a 20-year-old boy who washed his cars windows when he stopped at an intersection.

'She gave instructions on whether a person was suitable for the ritual of sacrifice, brought Bayrambekov and the victims to the scene of the crime by car, observed the surroundings during preparations before the murders, during their commission and when the traces of the crimes were concealed,' said a law enforcement source earlier.

The reason for the secrecy over her recent trial remains unclearThe father of one of the victims of the Parkland school shooting has said efforts to change U.S. gun laws is 'not achievable'.

Andrew Pollack's daughter Meadow, 18, was 'stalked and shot nine times' by Nikolas Cruz, 19, a former student of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine's Day.

The horrific shooting, which saw Cruz murder 17 people, has sparked a debate on U.S. gun laws and nationwide protests against the lenient regulations around semi-automatic weapons and background checks.

Campaigning: Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow, pictured, was killed in the Parkland school shooting has warned against focusing only on gun laws, and not overall school safety

Caveat: Mr Pollack, pictured with his daughter Meadow, said he does not think changing gun laws is 'achievable'

However, Pollack warned against focusing only on gun laws, and not overall school safety in an interview this weekend.

'Gun laws right now are not achievable. My daughter was murdered by a gun. She should have been safe in the school, he told CBS News' Face the Nation on Sunday.

'I'm not saying don't go after gun laws. I'm not a gun expert. I'm saying that's the problem.'

He added that school shootings 'always getting twisted into gun laws and gun control. If we all focus together, one nation, no political affiliation, we could work together and make the schools safe, and then go fight it out.'

Victim: Meadow Pollack was shot nine times by mass murdered Nikolas Cruz at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Valentine's Day

Andrew Pollack (center) described how his daughter Meadow Pollack was shot nine at last week's deadly shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He was joined by his son's at Wednesday's White House event

Killer: Nikolas Cruz killed 14 students and three members of staff on Valentine's Day

His comments came after the Florida state senate briefly approved a two-year freeze on the sale of AR-15 rifles on Saturday, before overturning the measure 15 minutes after the initial vote.

The vote to pass the bill came on an unrecorded voice vote, in which lawmakers shouted 'yea' or 'nay'.

The measure then failed 21-17 on a recorded vote minutes later.

The no votes were all cast by Republicans, while two Republicans joined 15 Democrats on the yea votes.

Mr Pollack was one of the attendees of Donald Trump's listening session at the White House in the wake of the shooting, where he had some stern words for the President.

'I'm very angry that this happened, because it keeps happening,' the bereaved father said, declaring that 9/11 'happened once, and they fixed everything.

Students are evacuated from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School during the shooting

Pollack told Trump: 'How many schools, how many children have to get shot?

'It stops here with this administration and me. I'm not going to sleep until it's fixed. And Mr. President, we're going to fix it. Because I'm going to fix it. I'm not going to rest.'

'Fix it! It should have been one school shooting and we should have fixed it! And I'm pissed!

'Because my daughter I'm not going to see again. She's not here. She's not here. She's at, in North Lauderdale, in King David Cemetery. That's where I go to see my kid now.'A teenager allegedly broke a policeman's nose in a brutal mass brawl at a shopping centre.

The fight between 20 teenagers broke out at Melbourne's Melton West shopping centre at 4.30pm today.

Police were forced to use pepper spray to break it up as one officer was struck in the face.

A teenager allegedly broke a policeman's nose in a brutal mass brawl at a shopping centre

The teenager suspected of hitting him is now being interviewed in custody.

A police spokesman said: 'A number of youths have been arrested following an affray outside a shopping centre in Melton West just after 4pm.

'Approximately 20 males and females were involved in a brawl just off High Street before police intervened and were forced to deploy OC spray.

'The crowd was dispersed. A number of people are being interviewed in relation to the incident, one male is being interviewed for assaulting police after a member was treated for a suspected broken nose after being struck in the face.

'The exact cause of the affray is yet to be determined. Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 180 333 000.'

The fight between 20 teenagers broke out at Melbourne's Melton West shopping centre at 4.30pm todayThe first step in obtaining energy conservation services through the Weatherization Assistance Program or Empower NY Program is to call for information regarding the application. The Weatherization Assistance Program has a waiting list. Once your name comes up on the waiting list, you will be sent an application that needs to be completely filled out and submitted with all required documentation. At that time, staff will determine eligibility for energy services. If eligibility is determined, a whole house assessment will be completed by a Building Performance Institute-certified building analyst. The building analyst will conduct a comprehensive energy audit and provide the homeowner with an outline of the prescribed work plan.A supermarket has been slammed by customers for forcing customers to pay 3 for a loaf of bread as the nation was ravaged by snow.

Shoppers at a Londis shop in Newport, Wales are now demanding a boycott of the store after it charged double for the family staple.

They branded it 'unbelievably disgusting behaviour' and 'daylight robbery' as they took to social media to blast the sky high prices.

The Londis Store in Bassaleg Road, Newport, Wales which charged 3 for a loaf of bread

One tweet showed a copy of a receipt from the shop, which reveals how the customer paid 6 for two loaves of Hovis.

But the shop, On Bassaleg Road, defended its actions by saying it had to cover costs after paying extra to suppliers, and said it stayed open for 17 hours during the bad weather that wreaked havoc across Britain.

Writing on the shop's Facebook page, Sarah Lewis said: 'Three pound for one loaf of bread, talk about kicking people when they are down and lining your pockets.

'There are people out there trying to help others doing good deeds for people in need and you think of your bank balance. Certainly won't use your store ever again.'

Paul Jones added: 'Charging 3 for a loaf of bread. What an absolute liberty.

A receipt from the shop posted by a local councillor that showed how one customer was charged 6 for two loaves of bread

'You are praying on the vulnerable who can't get out. Absolute joke of a shop.'

Sarah Nurden wrote: 'If I could score zero then that's what you would get. Hang your head in shame, the price is why you still have bread when every other shop has sold out.

'Hope it doesn't get sold and you're left with it. Shame on you.'

And Kelly Jones said: 'I have never used your shop and never will. Absolute daylight robbery charging 3 for a loaf of bread.

'You have every day people out there going above and beyond for workers and the vulnerable people of our communities then there are people like you taking full advantage of your community by charging ridiculous prices for items people have struggled to get.

'You should be ashamed of yourselves.'

Newport councillor Stephen Marshall said he had been told by locals that the store was charging 3 for a loaf.

He said: 'Looking at the situation as a ward representative, I am looking to seek clarification from Londis that they accept this and at a time of need for their customers.'

A spokesman for the Londis management told The South Wales Argus that their usual delivery had not shown up, and in an effort to provide customers with bread they had gone to another supplier who had charged them more.

The spokesman told the paper: 'They didn't charge us a regular price because we are not one of their regular customers.

'So we had to sell it for more than we normally would because we paid more than we normally would.'

He added: 'We don't want to upset our customers so we put it down to 2.

'If you're not happy with the price you don't have to pay it.

'We are a business, not a charity. We didn't do it to rip people off or con them.'This little chimp's attempt to branch out into new climbing skills certainly didn't go to plan - as it stumbled and fell crossing between trees.

The one-year-old gorilla was practising its climbing skills at the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in the Rushaga region of Uganda when it took a tumble.

Attempting to climb across a forest thick with trees, the baby creature was caught on video reaching for a branch to hold itself up, not realising it was too thin to take its weight.

With its mother looking on from below, the little gorilla lurches forward and falls to the forest floor.

The one-year-old gorilla was practicing its climbing skills at the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in the Rushaga region of Uganda when it took a tumble

The video was taken by Cathie Parker, 60, a Canadian who currently lives with her husband in Luxembourg.

Cathie said: 'To be honest at the time I was trying desperately to stay upright on a very steep slope so my main concerns were for my own safety. There were a lot of brambles under me, which I'd already found out, much to my discomfort.

'We weren't sure what this little one was up to at the time, she just seemed intent on walking across the limb and I just quickly put up my phone, not sure what she'd do.

'If you look closely below her you'll see her mother in the bush, eating and watching her and when she falls, the mother reaches out to her. It's very sweet.

Attempting to climb across a forest thick with trees, the baby creature was caught on video reaching for a branch to hold itself up, not realising it was too thin to take its weight

'And don't worry, she fell into a very soft bush and was unhurt.

'I suppose she was either trying to get to her mother or she was just intent on trying to learn something she has seen her elders do, much like our toddlers like to do.

'I am fairly well travelled and this was the sixth time that I've been to Africa and I can honestly say that visiting the mountain gorillas in the wild was one of the most amazing experience I've ever had, even if the walk to see them and back was extremely challenging.

'Let's just say my husband and I are both glad we didn't wait until our 70th to try and do this!

'I hope this will in some small way help Uganda tourism. It's a beautiful country, especially the Bwindi area. And the local people were wonderful and very welcoming and kind.'A woman whose own mother set her up to be raped as a teenager says she can still remember the smell of her abuser and feel his stubble more than a decade on.

Peta Butler was just 16 years old when she suffered the abuse in a motel room in Toowoomba, east of Brisbane, in 2005 - orchestrated by her own sick mum.

She says she was tricked by her mum after she took her away on 'a girls trip' on a Friday night.





Peta Butler was just 16 years old when she was raped in a Toowoomba motel room in 2005

After plying her with drinks Therese Butler left her daughter (pictured) to be raped by her boyfriend

Therese Butler was jailed in January but is due to be released in October after serving 12 months of her four year sentence

Police have now released a computer image of a suspect based on the description of Thommo

But all along it was a plan for Therese's internet boyfriend 'Thommo' to have sex with Peta, who she described as 'a younger version of herself'.

After plying her with drinks - four vodka cruisers and a bourbon mix - Therese Butler left her daughter alone in the hotel room.

Five minutes later Thommo arrived and opened the door.

But when Peta stood up to walk out of the bedroom, he blocked her getting out.

'He raped me,' she told Tracy Grimshaw on Monday night's A Current Affair.

'It only lasted for a couple of minutes. But while he was raping me I had my head turned to the side and eyes closed while crying.

'I felt his face stubble against my face. I still remember feeling that and I still remember the smell of him.'

'I felt his face stubble against my face. I still remember feeling that and I still remember the smell of him,' Peta (pictured) said

Peta describes how her hands were held down and she could not move because the man was so big

Therese Butler was jailed in January as Peta opens up to Tracy Grimshaw on A Current Affair

Peta described how her hands were held down and she could not move because Thommo was 'very big' and was on top of her.

Her mother was just a few metres away outside the door.

'I hoped she was going to come in and stop it,' Peta, who is now 27, said. 'She didn't once try, she sat outside smoking.

'She knew what was happening. She might as well have murdered me on that day. She took me to that place and premeditated the whole thing. That's not a mother.'

Immediately after she was raped Peta walked out of the bedroom and was hugged by her mum telling her everything was going to be okay.

It was at that moment, Peta said she knew her mother was aware of what happened.

As if things could not get worse for the 16-year-old girl, Peta had to share the same motel room as her rapist and her mother that night.

They drove to the bus station the next morning all together in Thommo's car which Peta recalls was completely silent.

The vile mother, now aged 47, was sent to prison in January for four years and suspended after 12 months.

It took Peta, now a mother herself, nearly 10 years to muster the courage to come forward to police after suffering depression and dropping out of school less than a week after her rape.

Her mother is due to be released in October after Peta reported the crime just two years ago.

Therese confessed during a 30-minute phonecall to her daughter which was recorded and handed to police.

During the call, Therese attempts to defend what she had done saying: 'It was still rape but you were 16. I wouldn't let him touch you under 16, no way.'

Peta (pictured) said her mother just sat outside the bedroom smoking while she was raped

But while her mother is behind bars, Thommo has never been caught.

Police have renewed the appeal to catch the man responsible for raping Peta.

A new image of has been released as part of the appeal by Queensland Police into the rape.

In a statement, the force said: 'The man is described as being in his mid-to-late 40s at the time, extremely obese, around 175 centimetres tall with a shaved head, stubble and distinctive bulging blue eyes.

'He was wearing an expensive suit and drove a car with cream coloured leather seats.

'He is known only as 'Thommo' and would now be aged in his 50s.

'It is believed the man also used an email address similar to thommo_thommo_thommo@hotmail.com.

'Anyone who may recognise him, has knowledge of his movements or knows anything that may help identify him is urged to contact Policelink, Crime Stoppers or their local police station.

'Police also believe it is likely the man has hurt other girls and women.

Police have now renewed an appeal to catch Peta's rapist, known only to officers as Thommo

Peta previously said she feared for her and her family's life after her mother and her new boyfriend threatened Peta as her mother was sentenced in court.

She told Daily Mail Australia: 'He's told me before he could have someone pulled in a heartbeat.

'She was threatening to kill my father and myself,' she said.

'I've got to protect myself, my partner and my children.'

While she's never been convinced of his alleged outlaw ties, Peta said she's not willing to take any risks and planned to ask authorities for 'massive protection'.Fourteen cases of proven sexual misconduct in the government's aid department have been dealt with since 1995, an internal review has found.

Officials are also dealing with a number of current cases in the Department for International Development, but have refused to say exactly how many.

They are refusing to give details claiming that it could lead to the identification of those involved.

Penny Mordaunt is calling for action from aid charities (Nick Ansell/PA)

The figures were revealed as 26 aid organisations admitted reports of 80 new cases as the charity sex scandal deepened.

The DfID report said most of the closed cases relate to sexual harassment between staff, and none include allegations of workers paying for sex.

It also found no information to suggest DfiD staff had abused children or exploited people in exchange for aid.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said: 'I think it was vital that we went back through every record we have, since they began, to check action has been taken.

'And if any new information comes to light through our continued efforts we will ensure appropriate action is taken on this.'

DfID said action was taken in each of the 14 cases, which involve staff in the UK and abroad, that was in line with its policies at the time and insisted it does not hold any information that should have passed on to prosecuting authorities.

The findings of the review, which stretch back to the time when aid was dealt with by a unit in the Foreign Office, were announced to a London summit on safeguarding by the department's permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft.

He said: 'We are determined to hold ourselves to the high standards we expect of the sector. As part of that determination, we have conducted an internal review into sexual harassment and misconduct allegations involving DfID staff.'

Ms Mordaunt said the reports were a 'wake up call' for the sector, which has been reeling since the Oxfam sex scandal erupted

'Since a number of these cases occurred, some of DfID's procedures have been tightened up and strengthened,' he added.

'I continue to encourage all staff to report any concerns historic or present to our confidential whistle blowing hotline.

'If any new information comes to light through our continued efforts we will ensure appropriate action is taken.

'We can go further. I want us to seize this moment to ensure a shift in culture across our whole sector. That is the way to ensure we bring some lasting good out of this crisis. '

Earlier at the summit of aid charities in London today Ms Mourdant revealed the alarming figures revealing the 80 historic cases spanning 26 charities.

She said the cases cover the 'full spectrum' of safeguarding incidents.

Seven of the organisations came forward with cases that have been reported within the current financial year.

Ms Mordaunt said it was a 'wake up call' for the sector, which has been reeling since the Oxfam sex scandal erupted.

Standards have now come into force that aid organisations must meet to be eligible for Government money, Ms Mordaunt said

Speaking to delegates, Ms Mordaunt told charities to take action to restore trust and improve standards following the sex scandal which engulfed the sector.

She said: 'Only by reporting can we identify and bring to justice predatory individuals.

'And it is those predatory individuals who concern me most.

'My message to those who have sought to exploit this sector and the human tragedy in which it operates, is this  we will all share information we have with law enforcement.

'We will find you. We will bring you to justice. Your time is up.'

Ms Mordaunt wrote to 179 aid charities and organisations after it emerged there were widespread concerns about the behaviour of aid workers and the way they were being dealt with.

All have responded and given statements of assurance about the way they operate, but 37 still have questions to answer, the summit heard.

NGOs and charities at the summit will sign a joint statement setting out the key principles they will follow and the action they will take next to restore trust in the sector.Jailed tax fraudster Mohammed Suleman Khan (pictured) hid his wealth in the UK while building an estate in Pakistan modelled on Buckingham Palace

These are the first pictures of the sprawling estate in Pakistan, based on designs of Buckingham Palace, belonging to the UK fraudster dubbed 'The General'.

Birmingham-based Mohammed Suleman Khan was jailed in April 2014 for four years over a tax fraud of 450,000 - and now the site lies abandoned.

He was sentenced to a further ten years in 2016 for refusing to pay back 2.2million.

Along with his brother and entourage, he has been ordered to pay back 13million gained from a mortgage scam or face more jail time.

The businessman avoided paying tax and national insurance for a decade.

Two of his brothers, a sister-in-law and two other associates were also jailed after using forged financial documents to obtain mortgages for properties they then rented, allowing them to earn huge amounts of money.

More than 4,000 miles away in the Pakistani town of Ghorgushti, 50 miles from the capital Islamabad, Khan's 'palace' lies empty.

The two-acre site houses a vast mansion replete with imposing turrets and formidable walls.

According to locals in the town, known as 'mini London' because of its strong links to the UK, Khan allegedly bought the site eight years ago.

But since he was jailed the compound has sat empty and unfinished - surrounded by armed guards.

Khan reportedly purchased the plot of land in the Pakistani town of Ghorgushti for 2.3million more than eight years ago

His plans for the site included 30 to 40 bedrooms, a cinema, swimming pool and servants' quarters

Now it lies empty, only half built, and surrounded by armed guards day and night - while Khan serves jail time in the UK

British police discovered the building when they uncovered blueprints among Khan's possessions.

The plans reportedly showed a cinema, library, servants' quarters, and private security accommodation.

It was estimated the construction would have cost 2.3million, although there was no official record of ownership.

One neighbor said: 'If you try to get into or jump from the wall they will shoot you, they often do aerial firing at night too.'

The compound's front gate has been sealed with wooden panels while minaret security towers stand at each corner.

There is no official record of ownership for the site, which British police discovered the existence of when they found blueprints

At each corner of the compound is a minaret guard tower - which are commonplace in large properties in Pakistan

Much of the site lies incomplete, including an extensive front law (pictured)

Neighbors estimated there are around 30 to 40 rooms inside with unfinished lawns and a swimming pool in the backyard.

Villagers claimed Khan got approval from local government to name the palace and surrounding area after himself.

A sign with 'Suleman Abad' in Urdu lies on the unfinished lawn of the huge compound.

Abad means a place or locality, so it is also thought local government approved the outskirts of his property to be named after him.

In Birmingham. Khan earned himself the moniker 'the General'. But in Ghorgushti Khan is known locally as 'the Don'.

One villager, who asked not to be named, said: 'The Don used to come here off and on.

Khan is well known in the town, which has been dubbed 'mini London' for its strong links to the UK

Scaffolding lies abandoned on the vast estate. Khan's finances were cut off in the wake of his arrest by UK police, causing construction to grind to a halt

'Even children of the village were calling him 'Don' and know this huge palace as Don's house'.

Villagers said when Khan visited he would arrive in a 4X4 with tinted windows, followed by armed guards.

Another local resident added: 'He always helped people in the village.

Now following an investigation by the Royal Asset Recovery Team, a court has ordered one of his brothers, Shokut Zuman, and two of his entourage, Arshid Khan and Mohammed Mughal, to pay back 13m.

Birmingham Crown Court heard the gang - which also included Khan's brother Shahalam Khan and Zuman's wife Samiah Hanna - built up a valuable property portfolio by 'taking advantage of a buoyant property market' between 2003 and 2010.

They made false declarations to obtain mortgages that they otherwise would have been refused.

Khan built himself a vast estate in Pakistan, left, inspired by Buckingham Palace, right

Khan's brother Shokut Zuman has been ordered to pay back money gained from a mortgage scam or face more time behind bars

Cheat spent tax on home the size of Buckingham Palace Mohammed Suleman Khan was originally sentenced to four years in April 2013 after defrauding the taxman of 450,000 in an unrelated case. His nine-year scam was exposed after police raided his Moseley home and discovered plans for his own 'Buckingham Palace' in Pakistan, complete with a library, cinema and servant quarters. Khan, 45, later faced a proceeds of crime hearing but was hit with an extra ten-year sentence after failing to pay 2,209,090. Advertisement

Shahalam Khan, 47, received a five-year term after also being convicted of benefit fraud while Zuman, 43, received a four-and-half-year sentence and Hanna, 46, received a two-year suspended sentence.

Arshid Khan, 47, was jailed for five years while Mughal, 67, was jailed for four and a half years.

The gang used forged financial documents to obtain mortgages on 21 properties in the Bournville, Selly Oak and Moseley areas.

The houses were renovated then rented, mainly to students, allowing the gang to earn huge amounts in rent.

At a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing at Birmingham Crown Court on January 4, Arshid Khan was ordered to repay 8,010,881 within three months or face a further 10 years in jail.

Mohammed Mughal, 67, (left) was ordered to hand over 1,385,775 within three months or face an extra seven years in prison. Shahalam Khan, 47, (right) received a five-year term after also being convicted of benefit fraud

Mohammed Suleman Khan's brother Zuman was told to repay 4,058,852 within three months or face another nine years behind bars while Mughal, 67, was ordered to hand over 1,385,775 within three months or face an extra seven years in prison.

Detective Inspector Jonathan Jones, head of the Regional Asset Recovery Team, said: 'The trio were ordered to pay back more than 13million.

'This represents one of the team's best ever confiscation results and the conclusion of almost seven years hard work.

'Whilst a significant element of this represents hidden assets, we still expect to enforce the sale of a large number of properties restrained in the UK and raise around 4.5 million.

'Additionally, lengthy sentences were imposed on Khan, Zuman and Mughal, which will further persuade them to pay up any hidden assets.

'This has been a hard-fought Operation which has ended with a spectacular result.'Northamptonshire Police and Crime Commissioner Stephen Mold

A police chief has been blasted after a fire engine was sent to his house to fix a broken patio during heavy snow.

Northamptonshire Police and Crime Commissioner Stephen Mold texted a fire service boss for 'advice' following the incident.

The car, believed to have been driven by a relative, skidded into his home on icy roads as temperatures plunged.

After contacting Chief Fire Officer Darren Dovey, a fire engine was sent to his house in Hartwell to 'secure' the patio.

But one resident, who asked to remain anonymous, said: 'You would think, during some of the worst weather Britain has seen in years, the fire service would have better things to do than secure Mr Mold's patio.

'Is this the best use of their time?

One angry tweet slamming Mr Mold after a fire engine was sent to his home to fix his patio

'It's not public property. It seems like a job for Mr Mold's insurers, or a builder.'

Peter Mills said on Twitter: 'Nice to invite the Fire Service to your patio party. Cmon Stephen! Appropriate use of resources please.'

Snow and ice caused traffic chaos across Northamptonshire last week.

Some villages were left without gas heating in the arctic conditions as the Beast from the East swept in.

Temperatures in the county dipped to -3 during the day with the region's fire service called to 19 incidents on March 1 alone.

Chief Fire Officer for the county Darren Dovey who was texted by Mr Mold about his patio

A spokesman for Mr Mold said the decision was made to attend his home to 'secure damage and prevent injury.'

He said: "Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service visited the residence of PCC Stephen Mold on Tuesday evening around 23.30hrs following a road traffic collision that caused structural damage to Mr Molds property.

"Due to the level of damage and out-of-hours nature of the incident, Commissioner Mold texted Chief Fire Officer Darren Dovey for advice on the matter.

'The decision was made to attend the property, to secure damage and prevent injury.

'This approach is common practice for the Fire and Rescue service, who due to adverse weather conditions this week, have prioritised securing potential hazards.'

It is understood the damage was accidentally caused by a member of Mr Mold's family.

A spokesperson from Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue said: Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service routinely attends incidents where there is suspected structural damage, whether this is following a collision or through other causes such as wind damage. This is so we can ensure the scene is safe and does not present a risk of injury to anyone within the affected property or to the wider community.

On this occasion, the information received from Mr Mold was reported by Mr Dovey to the NFRS control room, where it was assessed and deployed to in the same way as any other call for assistance from a member of the public.Dr Milind Mehta, 48, asked the woman into his office at Dr Gray's Hospital in Elgin, Scotland, on the pretext of showing her medical slides - only to them press himself against her chest before kissing her repeatedly around the neck and shoulder

An orthopaedic surgeon, who forced himself on a junior doctor, has avoided punishment after organising Powerpoint presentations using himself as the example to stop other doctors harassing colleagues.

Dr Milind Mehta, 48, asked the woman into his office at Dr Gray's Hospital in Elgin, Scotland, on the pretext of showing her medical slides - only to press himself against her chest before kissing her repeatedly around the neck and shoulder.

Afterwards the colleague - known as Dr D - asked Mehta if he had tricked her into going in to his office to which he laughed and replied: 'I hope you did not get the wrong idea.'

The woman was said to have felt 'uncomfortable' during the encounter, complained to senior colleagues and during an investigation into Mehta, a patient's mother and a NHS manageress also claimed he had behaved inappropriately towards them.

At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, Mehta was found guilty of sexually motivated misconduct towards Dr D.

But a disciplinary panel imposed no sanction upon him after learning the surgeon was so remorseful he arranged presentations for up to 75 colleagues at a time in which he used himself as a case study and spoke openly about his misdemeanours and urged fellow doctors to learn from his mistakes.

The Manchester hearing was told the incident occurred on February 26, 2015 whilst Mehta was working at Dr Grays Hospital.

Dr D was a FY1 doctor completing a year in anaesthetics but had become upset at learning her boyfriend who lived in Glasgow had been diagnosed with cancer and confided in Mehta whilst they were having a coffee break.

Two days later Mehta asked her to assist him in a surgery he was performing that afternoon then asked her if she would like to see a presentation he had on orthopaedic topics.

Chloe Blinding counsel for the General Medical Council said: 'She accepted the offer and went into his office. They were both sat quite close at the desk but the computer was not turned on at any stage. She said that the conversation began to be of a more personal nature and Dr Mehta made comments about her partner's illness.

'He said it wasn't cheating if she confided in someone who wasn't her boyfriend and that moving to Glasgow was a nightmare. He said that if she went she would have to look after her partner and if she did that then she should have fun while she was still in Elgin.

'Dr D was very uncomfortable at that time. Dr Mehta hugged her repeatedly and pushed their chests together. She was looking around the room avoiding eye contact trying to get away.

'Dr Mehta put his head on her shoulder to rest and then she felt him kiss her neck and down to her shoulder and the base of her neck. She made to leave and asked him if there were ever any presentations. Dr Mehta laughed and said 'no' and she asked if he had tricked her into coming into his office and he laughed again and replied I hope you didn't get the wrong idea. '

In statements to the Grampian NHS Trust Dr D said at the time of the incident she was wearing a wide necked top which exposed part of her shoulder and said there were 'four to five kisses of one or two seconds each.'

At the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service, Mehta was found guilty of sexually motivated misconduct towards Dr D

She added 'He told me I should enjoy my final few months in Elgin with my friends because moving to Glasgow would be more stressful with being in a new place having my boyfriend depend on me all the time.

'He pulled me in tighter to his chest and lowered his head onto my shoulder so his lips were touching my skin, and he kissed my shoulder repeatedly for a few seconds, edging slightly closer to my neck each time. He kind of pulled me real close and then bent his head down over my shoulder and put his lips on my neck and started kissing it.'

Mehta initially denied kissing Dr D and claimed the only physical contact was a handshake. However he later admitted kissing her saying it was 'to comfort her in the same empathetic manner he would to his son's girlfriend, niece or daughter.' he claiemd his admision came after 'deep ruthlessly honest introspection.'

The hearing was told Mehta had also kissed a senior manageress 'near her mouth' following a meeting at the hospital in 2012 and had telephoned another woman at her home in 2013 after he treated her son and asked if she was married.

In imposing no sanction chairman Stuart McLeese said: 'Since these events you have undertaken extensive remediation, including a number of courses on respecting professional and personal boundaries. It is clear that you have been extremely open with colleagues, sharing your experiences and what you have learned from them.

'The tribunal has been provided with a significant number of testimonials from professional colleagues who attest to the fact that you are a respected and valued clinician. You are clearly remorseful for your behaviour and the tribunal is satisfied that you are highly unlikely to repeat.'

The Manchester hearing was told the incident occurred on February 26, 2015 whilst Mehta was working at Dr Grays Hospital (pictured)

He added: 'Your case is an exceptional one. Foremost is that you have, over a lengthy period of time since the incident in question, publicly involved yourself in presentations and discussions that were specifically based upon your own inappropriate behaviour and shortcomings, and at least one of which was attended by more than 75 colleagues.

'For a doctor who has behaved in a number of inappropriate ways, to open himself up to public scrutiny in the way in which you have done demonstrates a degree of insight, remorse, willingness to improve yourself and concern for your profession that is exceptional.

'In giving the presentations and involving yourself in discussions you have not just remediated your own practice but proactively sought to engage in restorative work which helps to reduce the risk that other doctors may act inappropriately.

'Your desire to assist in upholding the standards of the profession and reduce the chances that others will act in such a way as to damage the public's confidence in the profession is genuine and exceptional. Many of your colleagues speak of your presentations and your openness with regard to your misconduct and it is clear you have gone far beyond the basic reporting requirements placed upon you.

'It noted that, following the previous part heard listing of this hearing, you even took the time to amend your PowerPoint presentation to set out the tribunal's findings of sexual motivation on your part and held another 'Schwartz round' discussion with colleagues using the amended slides.

'In terms of the learning you have undertaken and your efforts to remediate you have shown exceptional candour and openness. Whilst it is not uncommon for doctors to show personal reflection and remediation, it is very unusual for a doctor to use their reflection to the extent which you have in order to assist colleagues.'

Earlier Mehta's counsel Alan Jenkins said: 'He held himself out as an example from which other doctors and colleagues could learn.Whilst he was obliged to tell any employer about the allegations against him, he did not have to tell the world.'

NHS director David Wilkinson who attended one of the presentations said in a statement. 'He is someone that had truly learnt from his experiences and putting into practice his learning. By sharing his story in such an open and honest way, he was helping to support the development of an open, transparent, learning culture where colleagues are supported to learn and improve.'The head of the Queen's household has banned royal servants from bringing their dogs into work due to fears over 'security'.

The Lord Chamberlain has ended the tradition, thought to be hundreds of years old, across all of the monarch's official residences over concerns of safety and 'hygiene'.

Staff at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Sandringham House in Norfolk, have all been told their beloved pooches will no longer be welcome in the office.

The head of the Queen's household has banned royal servants from bringing their dogs into work due to fears over 'security'. Pictured, the Monarch walking one of her Corgis at Windsor

A source told the Express: 'Palace staff are up in arms about it.

'It's an odd decision considering the Queen and her family are such dog lovers. Obviously it doesn't affect the royal corgis.'

It is not clear whether Clarence House or Kensington Palace has adopted the ban.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge live with their family's beloved cocker spaniel Lupo at the palace.

While Prince Harry and fiance Meghan Markle live in Nottingham Cottage in the palace grounds with American actress's beagle, Guy.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said: 'Decisions on allowing staff to bring dogs are taken on a case by case basis, taking into account all practicalities, the potential impact on the fabric of buildings and the owner's individual circumstances.'

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge live with their family's beloved cocker spaniel Lupo at Kensington Palace (pictured, William and Kate with their dog)

Meghan Markle with her beagle Guy, who now lives with her in Nottinham Cottage, and Labrador-shepherd cross Bogart, who she was forced to leave in Canada

The queen currently has two corgis and two corgi-dachshund crosses, after stepping in to take care of her gamekeeper's dog when he passed away.

Her Majesty looked after the Corgi and Bichon Frise belonging to former Sandringham gamekeeper Bill Fenwick as he became too ill to walk them.

But in January 2017, Mr Fenwick died aged 95, two years after his wife Nancy, who was known as the 'Keeper of the Queen's Corgis'.A 19-year-old man accused of the terrifying knife-point abduction of his girlfriend on the Gold Coast failed to appear in court for his bail hearing.

Connor Heidke has been accused by police of holding his 20-year-old girlfriend captive inside his white van on Saturday night.

Mr Heidke has been charged with making threats, deprivation of liberty and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle when he allegedly rammed the car and forced the woman back inside at knife-point.

Scroll down for video

A 19-year-old man accused of the terrifying knife-point abduction of his girlfriend on the Gold Coast has been remanded in custody and is expected to apply for bail

Mr Heidke (pictured) has been charged with making threats, deprivation of liberty and dangerous operation of a motor vehicle

Witnesses filmed the moment Mr Heidke allegedly dragged the woman back into the van, reporting chilling screams heard coming from the vehicle.

In the confronting footage obtained by 9 News, the woman, 20, can be heard screaming at the man as he allegedly forced her back into his car.

'Don't, just stop it, stop it stop it,' the woman can be heard screaming.

The woman allegedly jumped out of the white E-series van from the passenger side on Pappas Way in Nerang about 6pm and flagged down a black car in a bid to escape.

The woman allegedly jumped out of the van (pictured) from the passenger side on Pappas Way in Nerang about 6pm and flagged down a black car in a bid to escape

Mr Heidke then allegedly rammed the black van from behind several times, forcing it into the gutter.

Mr Heidke then allegedly stepped out of his Mazda van and forced the woman at knife-point to get out of the black van and dragged her back into his vehicle.

7 News reported that Mr Heidke allegedly threatened the 40-year-old female motorist who came to his partner's aid and had her young son in the back seat.

A six-hour manhunt ensued, with the pair eventually found at their home on Paddington Drive in Carrara shortly before midnight after a resident raised the alarm.

The incident sparked a six-hour manhunt by police across the Gold Coast until the van was found in Carrara (pictured) at the pair's home on Paddington Drive shortly before midnight

The woman allegedly jumped out of the van on Pappas Way in Nerang (pictured) about 6pm and flagged down a black car in a bid to escape

'You never know where the maniacs are,' one shocked local told 9 News.

'What leads them to doing things like that?'

The alleged victim was uninjured, however her family has yet to hear from her, desperate to know if she is safe, according to 7 News.

'This young man is one of the worst people you will come across, he has threatened her whole family,' they said.

'We still haven't had contact with her, but her family is worried sick and are beside themselves.'

Mr Heidke's matter was mentioned in the Southport Magistrates Court on the Gold Coast today.

He did not appear in person but was represented in court. The 19-year-old is currently remanded in custody in the Southport Watchouse until tomorrow and is expected to apply for bail.Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating text messages, emails from President Donald Trump and several senior members of his campaign staff.

A subpoena seen by several U.S. news outlets orders a witness to release all communication between themselves and the president as well as a number of others.

The demand has come from a gran jury for Special Counsel Mueller's investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump election campaign and Russia.

Hand it over: The subpoena by Special Counsel Mueller's probe into the Trump campaign and alleged collusion with Russia covers communication with the President and others

It demands all emails, text messages, phone logs and papers from November 1, 2015, to the present, according to Axios.com

The unnamed witness must hand over any and all communication with President Trump, former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks, Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen, Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon as well as Roger Stone, Carter Page, Corey Lewandowski, Keith Schiller and Rick Gates.

This comes after Former Attorney General Eric Holder predicted that Special Counsel Mueller will charge Trump with obstruction of justice.

In an interview with HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher over the weekend, Holder said there is an 'obstruction of justice case that already exists'.

'I've known Bob Mueller for 20, 30 years; my guess is he's just trying to make the case as good as he possibly can. So, I think that we have to be patient in that regard,' Holder said.

Spill it: The unnamed witness must hand over communication between themselves and a number of Trump staffers - most of them former - including Hope Hicks and Steve Bannon

Investigating: Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, special counsel on the Russian investigation, continues his work

An obstruction of justice charge has long been speculated ever since Trump fired FBI Director James Comey in the midst of an investigation into potential ties between Trump's presidential campaign and Russia.

Today, the President is due to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet at the White House for a 'working lunch'.

Trump's push to change or scrap Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and concerns over Tehran's foothold in Syria are expected to top the agenda of his talks with Netanyahu, U.S. and Israeli officials said.

Both leaders have long railed against the deal, citing its limited duration and the fact it does not cover Iran's ballistic missile program or its support for anti-Israel militants in the region.

Trump has threatened to pull out of the agreement unless European allies help 'fix' it with a follow-up accord. An Israeli official said Netanyahu and Trump were likely to talk about how to overcome European resistance on the matter.

'I intend to discuss a series of issues with (Trump), but foremost Iran, its aggression, nuclear ambitions and aggressive actions in the Middle East, including along our very border,' Netanyahu told reporters on his departure from Israel.Elizabeth is aware that DACA can be taken away from her at any moment, and she expressed that she just wants to be here with her kids. Ideally she would love to be a citizen, but "it's just too big, it's too hard to get citizenship," she said.

Another immigrant at the forum, Arely, is also a member of the center, and her husband was recently detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One day in December, he returned to their apartment to find ICE cars waiting for him. He was detained at once, and was unable to spend the holidays with Arely and their three kids. He was released on Feb. 20, and the family had to pay $5,000 in bail.

Back in 2013, Arely was also detained by immigration control for nine days. She then had to go in for regular check-ins at the immigration office, and starting in 2017 she had to go in once a month or even more frequently at times.

"Since then I've been fighting really hard to stay here with my family," Arely said with translation help from Valdez.

While her husband is still waiting on a court date, Arely has her own scheduled for the end of March.Watch an incredible sky high proposal, as a pilot asks his girlfriend to marry him at 8,500 feet.

Cody Benham, 24, popped the question to his 20-year-old girlfriend Brielle Moon as they flew across Northern Utah.

The daring romantic received his Private Pilot Certificate earlier this year, and took his soon-to-be wife, who looked a little nervous, out for a spin.

Pilot Cody Benham proposed to his girlfriend Brielle Moon, 20, while flying across Northern Utah together

About 30 minutes into the scenic flight, Cody tells Brielle he is going to show her a 45 degree turn.

After the steep turns, Cody asks Brielle if she trusts him, to which she replies, 'I trusted you before'.

The couple then say they love each other, and Cody diverts her attention and pulls out an engagement ring he had hidden onboard.

At the beginning of the clip, Brielle is visibly nervous during the flight in the DiamondStar DA-40, and she really had no idea Cody was about to propose

Mid-flight kiss: The delighted couple shared a smooch after Brielle agreed to marry 24-year-old Cody

An emotional Brielle fights back the tears as she agrees to marry him and they give each other a mid-flight kiss before showing off the stunning ring to the camera.

Cody said: 'About a month ago I was discussing how I should propose to Brielle with my roommate.

'I wanted to do something original, creative, sentimental, and be sure Brielle wouldn't be suspicious about the activity leading up to it.

'I jokingly talked about taking her for a flight and proposing. Over the next few weeks that idea stayed on my mind, and the more I thought I of it, the more I realized it was the idea I wanted.

Shocked Brielle said: 'I was so shocked when he proposed I seriously didn't believe him. It still doesn't feel real that I get to marry my very best friend'

Newly-qualified pilot Cody said: 'I wanted to do something original, creative, sentimental, and be sure Brielle wouldn't be suspicious'

'I then had to decide how I would 'pop the question' in the middle of the flight. I decided I would show her somewhat scary maneuvers in the airplane, in this case 'steep turns' or 45 degree turns.

'Then I would ask her if she trusted me, if she loved me, and then I would ask her to marry me.'

In the video Brielle is visibly nervous during the flight in the DiamondStar DA-40, and she really had no idea Cody was about to propose.

She said: 'Initially I was scared and concerned as I think the beginning of the video shows - but once we got off the ground it wasn't so bad until he was trying to show me some 'tricks'.

An emotional Brielle fights back the tears as she agrees to marry him and they give each other a mid-flight kiss before showing off the stunning ring to the camera

'Usually I hate surprises and like to be in the loop but I really had no idea.

'I was so shocked when he proposed I seriously didn't believe him. It still doesn't feel real that I get to marry my very best friend.

'I've gotten so many messages from friends and family saying how they love the video and it made them cry and even my dad said he loved it.'

Cody has wanted to become a pilot ever since he was about 14 and at age 22 he started the Aviation Program and Utah Valley University. He added: 'I began taking instruction on flying in August 2017. I passed the check ride and received my Private Pilot Certificate on January 4th, 2018.

'It's always been my dream to fly commercially. When the idea came to me that I could propose by taking Brielle on a flight I seized the opportunity given I was now licensed to do so.'Frederick Douglass escaped slavery in Maryland aged 20 and became a powerful orator in the battle to abolish slavery including a two-year trip , arriving in Liverpool on August 16, 1845 having been advised to leave the US following the publication of his autobiography - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'

A new book on Frederick Douglass, the runaway slave who became a highly influential abolitionist, about his two-year tour of Britain and Ireland has been published.

In the summer of 1845 Douglass published the first of three autobiographies chronicling his amazing life.

After publishing Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave in 1845, he was advised to leave the United States. The book caused a sensation and led to fears for his safety as it provided a first-person perspective on the evils of slavery.

Arriving in Liverpool at the start of a two-year tour of Victorian Britain, Douglass was feted as a hero.

The new book, 'I Was Transformed' Frederick Douglass An American Slave in Victorian Britain, was written by Irish academic Laurence Fenton.

His trans-Atlantic trip was funded by supporters in Britain and Ireland, who had earlier raised funds to buy his freedom.

During his tour, he addressed huge crowds in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Bath, Ayr, Kilmarnock, Preston, Darlington, Swansea, Exeter and Norwich.

In Dublin, The Great Liberator Daniel O'Connell described Douglass as 'The Black O'Connell'.

Douglass was astounded by O'Connell's ability to address a crowd of tens of thousands of people.

During his trip to London, he met with Danish author Hans Christian Andersen.

Douglass wrote about the encounter at the home of two English authors: 'William and Mary Howitt were among the kindliest people I ever met. Their interest in America, and their well-known testimonies against slavery, made me feel much at home with them at their house in that part of London known as Clapton. Whilst stopping here, I met the Swedish poet and author  Hans Christian Andersen. He, like myself, was a guest, spending a few days.

I saw but little of him, though under the same roof. He was singular in his appearance, and equally singular in his silence possibly his bad English and my destitution of Swedish, may account for the fact of our mutual silence, and yet I observed he was much the same towards everyone.

During his two-year tour, Douglass met with Danish author Hans Christian Andersen at the London home of English authors William and Mary Howitt. Douglass described the meeting: 'He was singular in his appearance, and equally singular in his silence possibly his bad English and my destitution of Swedish, may account for the fact of our mutual silence'

Three British anti-slave activists, Eliza Wigham, left, Mary Estlin, centre and Jane Wigham, right, worked with the American Anti-Slavery Society and funded Douglass's tour of Britain, having first paid for his freedom. The Wighams were based in Edinburgh while Ms Estlin was in Bristol

Douglass described his trip to Britain as a 'liberating sojourn'.

He has been described as 'the most influential African American of the nineteenth century' and was in favour of many human rights causes in addition to the abolition of slavery.

He was a supporter of women's rights, temperance, peace, land reform, free public education and the abolition of capital punishment.

According to Laurence Fenton, who relied on sources from both sides of the Atlantic researching his latest book: 'Tall, strong and - most importantly - black, Frederick Douglass, the twenty-seven-year-old runaway slave recently catapulted to fame by the publication of his incendiary autobiography stood out among the crowd of passengers pressed against the railings of the Cambria on the afternoon of Saturday, 16 August 1845.

'He was sailing from Boston to Liverpool, having been advised to leave the country until the furore over his book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, died down.'

At the end of his tour, a party was held for Douglass in London - with Charles Dickens sending his regrets.

Charles Dickens, pictured, was invited to attend a final celebration of Douglass shortly before his return to the United States. Dickens wrote a letter expressing his regret that he could not attend, but said: 'I trust I need hardly say that I feel a warm interest in any occasion designed as a denunciation of slavery and mark of sympathy with anyone who has escaped from its tremendous wrongs and horrors

Charles Dickens wrote: I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your obliging letter and to express my regret that a particular engagement will prevent me attending the Soiree in honour of Mr Douglass.

I esteem the invitation of the Committee as an honour; and I trust I need hardly say that I feel a warm interest in any occasion designed as a denunciation of slavery and mark of sympathy with anyone who has escaped from its tremendous wrongs and horrors.

Following the party, Douglass returned to Boston.

According to Mr Fenton: 'The large number of supporters gathered to see him off singing and cheering until the sound of the ship's bell rang out loud across the harbour, the good spirits giving way to tears and a final frantic clasping of hands.

'Britain, indeed, held a special place in the minds of American abolitionists, having long led the way in the movement to abolish the international slave trade, one of the first great milestones of which was the passage of legislation banning British vessels from the trade in 1807, the result of a decades-long campaign headed by storied figures like William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson.

'In what was seen as another mighty moral gesture - one that placed the iniquity of America's continued slaveholding in ever-starker relief - it had also abolished slavery in the British West Indies in 1833, a move that freed more than 800,000 slaves.'

The book is available from Amberley Publishing.A schoolteacher allegedly grabbed a child by the neck and slammed her against a closet before locking the entire class in her classroom.

Melissa Blank was arrested and faced multiple charges but the school district moved her to another school instead of firing her.

The 37-year-old was teaching her math class at Brusly Elementary School outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana, about 9.45am on February 7 at the time.

Melissa Blank, 37, allegedly grabbed a child by the neck and slammed her against a closet before locking the entire class in her classroom

The teacher yelled at the student because she wasn't paying attention to a math problem she was teaching, according to an arrest warrant seen by The Advocate.

This made the little girl upset so she knocked Ms Blank's teaching materials, an adult witness who was in the classroom at the time told police.

Ms Bank then allegedly stormed over to the student, swung them around to face her, and pushed her against a closet door by her face and neck.

'You aren't going to touch my things, you aren't going to act like this!' she yelled, according to the witness.

The teacher was arrested and faced multiple charges but the school district moved her to another school instead of firing her

Ms Blank was teaching her math class at Brusly Elementary School (pictured) outside Baton Rouge, Louisiana, about 9.45am on February 7 at the time

The child continued to disobey her so she pinched her shoulder so hard she left bruises.

The witness said when she tried to intervene, Ms Blank told her: 'She needs to learn she can't act like this and she's not going to touch my things!'

Ms Blank then used three chairs to block the classroom door from being opened, locking the whole class of 15 students inside, though for how long wasn't stated.

The teacher was arrested two weeks later and charged with 15 counts of false imprisonment, and one count of cruelty to juveniles and simple battery.

West Baton Rouge Parish Schools Superintendent Wesley Watts said Ms Blank was still employed but was moved to Lukeville Upper Elementary School a few blocks away.An award-winning detective has been found guilty of drink-drinking after downing vodka while travelling to the station where he worked for a misconduct meeting.

Detective Constable Robert Hunt, 48, says he drank an almost half-full plastic bottle of vodka in 'two to three gulps' to give him some 'Dutch courage' when he arrived at the station.

The detective had been summoned for a meeting with Detective Chief Inspector Jade Brice to discuss misconduct proceedings being brought against him on a separate matter.

Mr Hunt - who won South Yorkshire Police Detective of the Year Award in 2016 - looked 'glazed' during the 20-minute meeting, a misconduct hearing heard.

DCI Brice also told a hearing that she detected the smell of alcohol in the room during the meeting at Rossington Police Station in Doncaster, South Yorkshire.

Detective Constable Robert Hunt was found guilty of drink driving after he downed half a bottle of vodka on his way to a misconduct hearing

Mr Hunt was arrested on suspicion of driving with excess alcohol and was asked to take a breath test where he tested positive.

During a second test at Doncaster Police Station, he was found to have 50 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath - the legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

Following the breath test, Hunt, who has worked for the police for almost 25 years, was remanded into custody at Doncaster Police Station.

He was hauled before Doncaster Magistrates' where he was found guilty of driving with excess alcohol last week.

The lead magistrate told him they had reached this decision because they found it 'difficult to believe' he would have been able to consume the volume of alcohol he specified at the speed he said.

Following the trial, a spokesman for South Yorkshire Police confirmed Hunt has been suspended from duties, pending the outcome of an internal disciplinary hearing.

Prosecuting, Richard Davies told the court that Hunt's offending came to light when DCI Brice detected a smell of alcohol in the room during the meeting.

Hunt brought his 'acquaintance', West Yorkshire Police Inspector David Westwood, to the meeting with him in his capacity as a representative for the Police Federation.

The detective, who won the South Yorkshire Police Detective of the Year Award in 2016, was disqualified from driving for 12 months after looking 'glazed' at Doncaster Police Station

Mr Davies said: 'Detective Brice believed she could detect intoxicants and said: "Which one of you has been drinking?"'

Insp Westwood told DCI Brice he had drunk a shandy earlier that day.

Hunt provided a prepared statement in which he said he had consumed alcohol in his car after arriving at, but before entering, the police station.

Hunt said he consumed the alcohol after Insp Westwood had exited the vehicle and gone to the boot to pick up and look through his notes.

Hunt said he threw the bottle 'over his shoulder' into the back of his car after finishing all of the vodka.

Hunt was disqualified from driving for 12 months and was ordered to pay a fine of 738, costs of 620 and a victim surcharge of 73.

Hunt's solicitor, Gwyn Lewis, lodged an appeal against the magistrates' findings at the conclusion of the trial, which was accepted.

The magistrates agreed that Hunt's driving ban would be on hold until the conclusion of his appeal, which is due to be heard at Sheffield Crown Court at a date yet to be fixed.

Following the trial, Head of Professional Standards for South Yorkshire Police, Detective Superintendent Dave Barraclough said: 'DC Hunt's behaviour falls well below the high standards expected of our officers and he will be considered for internal disciplinary action.'The Irish PM today rejected Theresa May's call for three-way talks between the UK, EU and Dublin on Brexit and the Irish border.

Leo Varadkar said there 'wont be tripartite talks' amid fears the suggestion was a bid by No10 to drive a wedge between Ireland and the rest of the Brussels bloc.

It comes as the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier holds talks with Sinn Fein in Brussels today amid fears a row over the border threatens to hold up a Brexit deal.

Mr Varadkar said: 'There won't be tripartite or three-way talks.

'What will happen is that there will be talks between the EU 27, and the UK and Ireland is part of the UK 27, and we're much stronger, by the way, as one of 27.'

Leo Varadkar said there 'wont be tripartite talks' amid fears the suggestion was a bid by No10 to drive a wedge between Ireland and the rest of the Brussels bloc (file pic)

He added: 'We will, of course, have negotiations about what could be done to avoid a hard border but what we won't be getting into is a negotiation with the UK, or a three-way negotiation.

'That's not in our interest and not the way that this can be concluded.'

Mrs May suggested the three governments should sit down for separate talks to thrash out a plan to avoid a hard border during her Mansion House Brexit speech on Friday.

But as well as rejecting the proposal, Mr Varakdar told RTE's Morning Ireland programme that Mrs May needs to come up with more details Brexit plans.

He said: 'What we want is not so much principles and aspirations and red lines.

'What we want is detail, written down in black and white that can be codified into law and that is what is required.'

Meanwhile, Mr Barnier sat down for talks with Sinn Fein leaders in Brussels to talk about how a hard Irish border can be avoided after Brexit.

He met with Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O'Neill, the party's leader in Northern Ireland.

Michel Barnier holds talks with Sinn Fein in Brussels today amid fears a row over the border threatens to hold up a Brexit deal.

Michel Barnier sat down for talks with Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O'Neill, the party's leader in Northern Ireland

Britain, Brussels and Ireland have all pledged to avoid a hard border fearing a return to check posts and border guards could reignite sectarian violence between Catholic republicans and unionists.

But Mrs May has also promised to take the UK out of the EU customs union - meaning that the Irish border will be the only land crossing between Britain and the EU.

Downing Street wants to avoid a hard border by exempting small and medium businesses - the overwhelming majority of trade between the republic and northern Ireland - from customs tariffs.

And it wants to carry out most of the other customs checks digitally and using technology - avoiding the need for a hard border.

But the EU has been accused of trying to bully the UK by proposing that Northern Ireland stays in the customs union and single market if the issue cannot be resolved.

Mrs May has ruled this out as it would effectively set up a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK - an outcome she said no British Prime Minister could support.Sarvenaz Fouladi, 38, pictured outside Central London County Court, said she had faced a constant bombardment of noise

A banker who sued her upstairs neighbours over the 'intolerable' noise of their young family on wooden floors has won more than 100,000 in damages.

Sarvenaz Fouladi, 38, said she had faced a constant bombardment of noise from the family-of-five above her 2.6million apartment in Kensington, West London.

She claimed that the sound of everyday activity - from children playing to dishes being washed - ruins her peace during the day and keeps her up at night.

Miss Fouladi, who lives with her mother in the 1920s mansion block, said her neighbours' children treat their flat like a 'playground' and run around at all hours.

She sued the couple above, Sarah and Ahmed El Kerrami, who live on the top floor of the block, for 'noise nuisance' and won compensation of 107,397 at Central London County Court.

Judge Nicholas Parfitt said it was the noise of simple 'day-to-day living' which had caused the problems.

But the El Kerramis and the family company which owns their flat should have had carpets on the wooden floors in living areas, he said. And, when the floor was replaced before they moved in, nothing was done to limit noise transmission between the flats.

'I find that the noises are the noises associated with everyday living,' he told the court. 'I find also that those noises include, on occasion, late night parties, but that such parties - even if they do include singing and drumming - are not frequent.

Miss Fouladi sued the couple above, Sarah (let) and Ahmed El Kerrami (right), for 'noise nuisance' and won compensation of 107,397 at Central London County Court

'I find that the noises include those of children playing and running around, including late at night. The impact of the noise is sufficiently loud to be invasive and disturbing to an objective standard.'

He added: 'I am satisfied that, but for the new floor being as it is, the noise disturbance that I have referred to as present would not have been so.'

During the case, the banker told the court she had lived happily in the block, which has 24-hour porters, for years without noise from above.

It was only when work was done prior to the El Kerramis' arrival in 2010 that her life and that of her mother, Fereshant Salamat, began to be blighted.

Sounds from the boiler, a fridge, taps and the fireplace above began to disturb her sleep at night and relaxation during the day.

The mother and daughter kept a diary, noting down noises they objected to, including the sounds of dishes being washed, kids' voices and 'angry breathing'.

The children ran around for hours on end, dropping toys and making a racket, she said in her evidence.

'They used it like a playground, kids running and dropping things for seven hours non-stop,' she told the judge.

Miss Fouladi, who lives with her mother in the 1920s mansion block in Kensington (pictured), said her neighbours' children treat their flat like a 'playground' and run around at all hours

'Before the flat was renovated and all the walls were demolished and the floors were taken out, there was no noise heard from the flat above ours.'

Miss Fouladi, who is single, was accused by her neighbours' barrister, Gordon Wignall, of being 'hypersensitive' to the activity of a normal family.

The sounds of the children playing upstairs were simply 'ordinary domestic child noises from time to time', he told the court.

The El Kerramis 'have only ever lived a sober and normal lifestyle', he said.

How am I supposed to unwind in my home when I am not able to do so? The noises that come down are intolerable Sarvenaz Fouladi

Denying she is obsessed, Miss Fouladi told the judge: 'I just want to live my life in peace. It's my home. It's where people go for peace and quiet.

'How am I supposed to unwind in my home when I am not able to do so? The noises that come down are intolerable.'

Miss Fouladi claimed against the couple and an offshore company, which was described by Mr El Kerrami as a 'family asset holding vehicle', which owns the flat.

She claimed the lease on their flat was breached in that changes to the flooring had not been authorised and much of it was not carpeted.

And she said the company and the El Kerramis had caused her 'nuisance' by allowing their day-to-day noise to affect her property.

Giving judgment, Judge Parfitt rejected any suggestion that the El Kerramis had created noise deliberately to annoy Miss Fouladi.

And he said the noise diary kept by Miss Fouladi and her mother was 'exaggerated' in places.

However, Kensington and Chelsea Council officers had visited and heard excessive and disturbing noise at times, he said.

'I conclude that everyday noises of the type described by the officers could be heard to a disturbing level... and such noises, even at midnight for example, could include children playing,' he continued.

He added: 'I find that no steps were taken to either design or implement a flooring solution which would mitigate noise transfer.'

The noise had been a 'real interference' with Miss Faloudi's life at home, he said, adding: 'This has been a real and constant presence for her and her mother.'

The judge said the lease was breached by the installation of new floors in the El Kerramis' flat without authorisation and by the failure to use carpets in living areas.

And he accepted Miss Fouladi's claim that the El Kerramis and the company had caused her noise 'nuisance'.

He issued an injunction, ordering the company to do work on the floors in the flat to significantly reduce noise levels.

And he ordered that Miss Fouladi be paid compensation of 107,397.37, rising by 40-a-day until the work is done.

Claims of nuisance and breach of contract made against the freeholder of the block were rejected by the judge.A Chinese blogger caused chaos in a Chinese city after telling people she would have sex with them for free on social media.

There were claims that around 3,000 people flocked to the hotel the woman said she was staying at in southern China.

The woman, identified as 19-year-old Miss Ye, has been arrested by local police on suspicion of advertising about prostitution, according to a police statement.

The incident is said to have happened in Haitang Bay, Sanya, on Hainan island of southern China, according to Chinese news site ifeng.com.

Police launched an investigation upon receiving reports from Double Tree by Hilton, said ifeng.com.

Apparently, Miss Ye uploaded a post at 8pm on March 1 to advertise for her 'free sex service'.

The post, which has been deleted, read: 'Who's coming to get me...to have sex...for free.'

Then she left a room number 6316 in the post.

Miss Ye is said to have arrived at Sanya, a popular tourist destination in China, on February 26 from Shanghai, east China.

Double Tree by Hilton confirmed that the suspect had checked in at the hotel around 3pm and stayed in room 6316, according to ifeng.com.

After she uploaded the post, she was forced to checkout her room at 10pm as numerous people knocked on her door, said the ifeng.com report.

The hotel's concierge also received phone calls asking for the details of the guest staying at room 6316.

Pictured: Chinese blogger, Ms Ye, wrote a post to ask people to look for her at room 6316 of Double Tree by Hilton hotel as she claimed to offer free sex

Double Tree by Hilton receive calls that people are asking for details of the guest staying at room 6316 (left). Some web users film as they are looking at the room in the hotel (right)

The young blogger, feeling scared, replied under her post and said she was just joking and begged web users to stop looking for her at the hotel.

Videos emerged online as some men film themselves going to the hotel and looking for Miss Ye.

'I'm on my way to room 6316, hahahahhaha, and here I am!' said one man who was filming his journey.

Other web users posted pictures of the door sign on WeChat, a Chinese instant messaging app, and said they were queuing outside the room.

Police reportedly arrested Miss Ye at a hotel at Sanya Phoenix International Airport on suspicion of advertising about prostitution.

Ms Ye is seen leaving the hotel with the help of a hotel staff member on March 1 night (left). She then posts online to beg web users to stop sharing her post and said it was just a joke (right)

Double Tree by Hilton at Haitang Bay, Sanya, reported the incident to local police

According to a statement issued during a press conference on March 3, Miss Ye requested hotel staff to escort her out of her room and put her on a taxi.

The statement also said Miss Ye admitted to the police that she had intentionally posted the message online to attract followers.

Her social media account on Weibo has been taken down.

MailOnline has contacted Double Tree by Hilton at Sanya for comments. One public relations officer said the hotel is looking into the matters.

The woman has been given a 15-day detention and a 500 yuan (57) fine in accordance with the criminal law of the People's Republic of China.Sergei Skripal is fighting for his life after being exposed to an unknown substance

A Russian colonel who spied for MI6 is critically ill in a British hospital amid fears of a poison plot.

Sergei Skripal, 66, who had recently told police he feared for his life, was rushed to hospital after collapsing on a bench outside a shopping centre in Salisbury on Sunday.

He was found with a 33-year-old woman, who is also fighting for her life. She is thought to be a family member. Health chiefs said the pair had been exposed to an 'unknown substance'.

Officials said anyone who feels ill should contact 111 as they desperately worked to identify the mystery substance.

Last night, police shut down a branch of the Italian restaurant chain Zizzi in the city 'as a precaution' in connection with the incident, suggesting one or both of them may have dined there before.

They also closed Salisbury Hospital's A&E unit to protect other patients and sealed off part of the city centre.

Skripal, who lives in a 350,000 house in Salisbury, is thought to have suffered a double family tragedy after his son was killed in a car crash in Russia last year - five years after his wife suffered the same fate in 2012 and was buried in Britain.

Skripal (pictured), a former colonel of Russia's military intelligence, was convicted in Russia in 2006 on charges of espionage for Britain's MI6 intelligence agency

Last night police shut down a Zizzi Restaurant in Salisbury 'as a precaution' in connection with the incident

The area outside Maltings shopping centre where Mr Skripal and the unknown woman were found (highlighted top) is less than a 150-yard walk from Zizzi restaurant (highlighted bottom) where police were conducting searches last night

Wiltshire Police said: 'Public Health England are aware of this and have reiterated that, based on the evidence to date, there is no known risk to the public's health.

'However, as a precaution they have advised that if you feel ill contact NHS on 111. If you feel your own or another's health is significantly deteriorating, ring 999.'

It was suggested last night that Vladimir Putin would never have forgiven Mr Skripal following his treason conviction. The Russian president once said: 'Traitors always end in a bad way. Usually from a drinking habit, or from drugs, right in the street.'

It is thought that Mr Skripal, who unmasked dozens of Russian agents, may have been the target of a revenge 'hit' by former colleagues. Police said it not been declared a terrorist incident.

However, friends of Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned at a London hotel in 2006 with polonium-210, said it had the hallmarks of a Kremlin-backed attack.

Last night Litvinenko's widow Marina told the Telegraph: 'It looks similar to what happened to my husband but we need more information. We need to know the substance. Was it radioactive?'

A decade ago, Mr Skripal was accused of passing secrets to MI6 officers through a James Bond-style fake rock hidden in a Moscow park.

Russian secret services exposed the rock in 2006, revealing how agents walked past it and transmitting data to the rock via a hidden handheld device.

Police sealed off the restaurant in relation to the suspected poisoning of a former Russian spy

While officials said there was 'no known risk' to public health from the incident, if anyone feels ill they should contact 111. Pictured, police inside the Zizzi restaurant

He was sentenced to 13 years in a high-security prison in August 2006 before being freed in a 2010 deal which saw 10 Russian sleeper agents expelled from the United States.

'Poisoned spy case' echoes fate of Alexander Litvinenko - Putin critic killed by polonium-laced tea Relations between Britain and Russia have been strained since the murder of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, a killing which a judge said was probably approved by President Vladimir Putin. The defector died after two agents slipped radioactive polonium 210 into his tea pot at a Mayfair hotel in central London, according to an inquiry headed by former high court judge Sir Robert Owen. The inquiry found two Russian men - Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun - had deliberately poisoned Litvinenko by putting polonium-210 into his drink at a London hotel, leading to an agonising death. Alexander Litvinenko died after two agents slipped radioactive polonium 210 into his tea It said the use of the radioactive substance - which could only have come from a nuclear reactor - was a 'strong indicator' of state involvement and that the two men had probably been acting under the direction of the FSB. Possible motives included Litvinenko's work for British intelligence agencies, his criticism of the FSB, and his association with other Russian dissidents, while it said there was also a 'personal dimension' to the antagonism between him and Putin. International arrest warrants issued for Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun remain in force although Russia continues to refuse their extradition. The Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, where he is said to have been poisoned In a statement to mark the 10th anniversary of his death, Marina Litvinenko said her husband - who she called Sasha - had been an 'extraordinary man' whose courage in speaking out against the Russian security service, the FSB, had left an enduring legacy. While she acknowledged Mr Putin had refused to accept the inquiry's findings, she said it remained open for other world leaders to take action against the Russian state and that she hoped her struggle to find the truth had not been in vain. 'It has taken 10 long years for the truth to be established and for Sasha's dying words that President Putin was responsible for his death to be proved to be true,' she said. 'I know that Mr Putin's Russia does not accept the findings of the British public inquiry and will continue to deny the truth in the face of overwhelming evidence. 'But those findings are now part of history and the rest of the world understands the difference between truth and propaganda. And that is what matters to me. 'What action world leaders will take against the ever vengeful Russian state in these dramatic times remains to be seen. I hope and pray that my struggle has not been in vain.' Last year the scandal took a new twist when Scotland Yard detectives who investigated the Litvinenko case revealed they too had been poisoned by the Russians in an extraordinary attempt to thwart the inquiry. The inquiry found Andrei Lugovoi (left, in 2007) and Dmitri Kovtun (right, in 2006) - had deliberately poisoned Litvinenko Detective Inspector Brian Tarpey, who flew to Moscow to investigate, says: I remember one evening my officer [a colleague who travelled with him] was complaining of stomach cramp and not being very well. Next morning I accompanied him to the general prosecutors office. We were offered tea. I had no hesitation in accepting. After we left, I started to feel a little bit uncomfortable. Not wanting to put too fine a point on it, I had the s***s. I have no doubt in my mind that someone poisoned us with something like gastroenteritis. Advertisement

Among the Russian agents deported from the US as part of the largest spy swap since the Cold War was Anna Chapman. The socialite and diplomat's daughter was married to a Briton and lived in London for several years.

Mr Skripal and his unidentified relative were found barely conscious in The Maltings shopping centre shortly after 4pm on Sunday.

Emergency services initially believed the pair may have taken fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is up to 100 times more potent than herion that has caused thousands of deaths among drug addicts worldwide.

A tiny dose of the synthetic opioid, which can be purchased online via the dark web, would prove fatal.

Health officials said there was no known risk to public health 'based on evidence to date' but advised anyone feeling ill to seek help.

Freya Church, who saw the couple on the bench, said they 'looked so out of it', adding the younger woman was leaning on the man.

She told the BBC: 'On the bench there was a couple, an older guy and a younger girl. She was sort of leaned in on him. It looked like she had passed out, maybe,' Freya Church told the

'He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky,' she said.

'I felt anxious, I felt like I should step in, but to be honest they looked so out of it that I thought even if I did step in, I wasn't sure how I could help.

'So I just left them. But it looked like they'd been taking something quite strong.'

Georgia Pridham, 25, also saw the couple slumped on the bench.

She told The Telegraph: 'He was quite smartly dressed. He had his palms up to the sky as if he was shrugging and was staring at the building in front of him.

'He had a woman sat next to him on the bench who was slumped on his shoulder.'

She added: 'He was staring dead straight. He was conscious but it was like he was frozen and slightly rocking back and forward'.

Igor Sutyagin, who was part of the same spy swap as Skripal and now is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said he is not worried for his safety.

'I feel OK, I am not concerned,' he told The Times.

'We have saying in Russian that if you keep thinking one day [something bad might happen] then that day will come.'

He also said there was not enough evidence to point fingers in any direction.

'There are lots of former security officers that deserted to the West,' he said, urging caution until more is known. 'It is necessary to balance this information.'

But Keir Giles, the director of the Conflict Studies Research Center in Cambridge said he 'would be surprised if this were not linked back to Russia in some direct way.'

He said he could not rule out an overdose or some other kind of accidental poisoning - but found it hard to picture such a scenario 'that would lead to a full-scale decontamination of the street and the hospital.'

Giles also invoked a string of suspicious deaths of Russian government opponents in Britain since Litvinenko's slaying.

'It's not just Litvinenko,' he said. 'It's hard not to see a pattern of the attacks becoming more and more brazen.'

Neighbours at Skripal's 350,000 neat semi-detached home in Salisbury say police arrived at the property at around 5pm on Sunday and have remained stationed there since.

He bought the property in 2011, a year before his wife Liudmila died.

'He lived there with his Russian son and his son's partner,' said Blake Stephens, a 24-year-old neighbour.

'We didn't speak to them much, I'm not sure what the family he did. He used to live with his wife but unfortunately she died in a car accident a while ago.'

Mark Medhurst, 43, said the former spy drove a BMW and kept the house lights off, adding: 'He lived there with his son and a younger dark-haired girl.'

Mr Goldfarb said: 'Any reasonable person would think immediately that Russia had the opportunity, motive and a prior history of this kind of crime so it is reasonable to think it was involved in this attack. This is the Kremlin's modus operandi. There are plenty of precedents.

'What's interesting now is that this happens just before Russia's presidential election. Putin awarded Lugovoi a state honour and made him a national hero. He apparently sees positive electoral gain from this kind of activity.

The pair were taken to hospital after they collapsed inside The Maltings shopping centre after coming into contact with an unknown substance. Pictured, emergency crews at the centre

Police arrived at Skripal's home in Salisbury (pictured) on Sunday evening and have remained there since

'Russia is a nationalistic country where state-run propaganda portrays the UK as the enemy and people like Skripal as traitors.'

Putin has 'hostile intent' towards Britain, warns Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson Vladimir Putin has 'hostile intent' towards Britain, the Defence Secretary said yesterday. Gavin Williamson called for the UK to wake up to the threat posed by Russia. He warned that the Kremlin had developed a much more aggressive posture towards the UK in the past 12 months and the country should not sit submissively by. With relations between Britain and Russia believed to be at an all-time low, Mr Williamson told MPs that the country needed to 'match what Putin is doing with Russian forces'. During defence questions in the Commons, he said: 'Putin has made it quite clear that he has hostile intent towards this country. 'We've been seeing the build-up of his forces across the Eastern Front and in terms of what they're doing over many years now  we have to wake up to that threat and we have to respond to it. 'And it is not just through nuclear weapons  our continuous at-sea nuclear deterrent is absolutely integral to maintaining the peace, but it is also through conventional armed forces. We have to match what Putin is doing with Russian forces.' His comments came after he was asked by Labour's Barry Sheerman about comments the Russian president had made in a state-of-the-nation speech last week. Mr Sheerman pointed out that Mr Putin had basically announced 'a new Cold War'. Mr Putin boasted in his speech that Russia had developed an arsenal of invincible nuclear weapons that are immune to enemy detection. Advertisement

Another neighbour, James Puttock, 47, said that he didn't think Skripal looked like a spy, but could tell that he was Russian and that he stood out.

When he moved into the property on Christie Miller Road, he invited his neighbours over for a housewarming party, he said.

'He said hello if he walked passed, and seemed like a nice chap,' Mr Puttock said.

'When he moved in he invited us all over for a housewarming party - I imagine he invited the whole street, as my neighbour told me about it. But I didn't go.'

He added: 'He had been here for quite a while, five years I should think.

'People came and went from the house you know but I didn't pay much attention.

'He was always walking past, but he did sometimes drive his BMW three series.

'He looked foreign but other than that, no, he didn't look like a spy. He never really looked smart, he looked very casual, he stood out because of that, it's hard to remember anything special about him.

'There were always people coming and going, there was definitely a younger boy living there, but I really didn't pay that much attention, you don't until something like this happens.

'It's crazy nothing ever happens here, it is always so quiet.'

Officers were called to The Maltings by a member of the public on Sunday shortly after 4pm.

A major incident was declared at Salisbury District Hospital, but patients have been advised to attend appointments as normal unless advised otherwise.

The case is not being treated as terrorism, but officers have an open mind about its cause, Wiltshire police's Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden told reporters on Monday.

Emergency services found Sergei Skripal and a woman slumped over a bench at The Maltings shopping centre before they were transported to Salisbury District Hospital, where a major incident was declared on Monday

An eyewitness said Skripal and the younger woman seemed 'out of it' after she came across the pair slumped on the bench at the shopping centre

'This has not been declared as a counter-terrorism incident and we would urge people not to speculate,' he said.

'However, I must emphasise that we retain an open mind, and that we continue to review this position.'

Wiltshire Police said because the investigation was in the early stages officers are 'unable to ascertain' whether the pair have been victims of a crime and have reassured people there is no risk to the wider public.

'Because we are still at the very early stages of the investigation, we are unable to ascertain whether or not a crime has taken place,' Constable Holden said.

The force said a number of areas in Salisbury had been cordoned off in relation to their investigation.

On Sunday, emergency services had said they suspected fentanyl, a synthetic opiate up to 100 times more potent than heroin, may have been involved, the Salisbury Journal reports.

A spokesman for Public Health England (PHE) said anyone exposed to the unknown substance had been decontaminated 'as is standard practice in situations like this'.

He added: 'Scientists from PHE's Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, will continue to assist the response and review information as it becomes available.'

The woman, who was unconscious, was airlifted to hospital while Skripal was taken by ambulance

Police and paramedics discovered a man and woman in a critical condition on Sunday

Yesterday, Constable Holden said: 'Yesterday afternoon, at approximately 4.15pm, Wiltshire Police received a call from a member of the public who was concerned for the welfare of two people.

'The two people - a man aged in his 60s and a woman aged in her 30s - were found unconscious on a bench in The Maltings in Salisbury.

'Police officers, as well as colleagues from the ambulance and fire services, attended the scene and cordons were put in place.

'The pair, who we believe are known to each other, did not have any visible injuries and were taken to Salisbury District Hospital.

'They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance. Both are currently in a critical condition in intensive care.

'Because we are still at the very early stages of the investigation, we are unable to ascertain whether or not a crime has taken place.

'A major incident has been declared today and a multi-agency response has been co-ordinated.

'Alongside our partner agencies, we are conducting some extensive inquiries to determine exactly what led to these two people falling unconscious and clarify whether or not any criminal activity has happened.

Salisbury District Hospital said it was dealing with a 'major incident' on Monday morning and called in the fire service and Incident Response team to decontaminate the area

Wiltshire Police confirmed the incident at the shopping centre and the hospital were linked, saying the man and woman had been 'exposed to an unknown substance'

Firefighters and police attended The Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury at around 4.15pm on Sunday afternoon

'We would continue to appeal to any members of the public who may have information in relation to this incident to contact us immediately via 999.

'We would like to reassure members of the public that incidents of this nature are taken extremely seriously and we currently do not believe there is any risk to the wider public.

'We would like to take this opportunity to thank members of the public who have assisted us so far and respected the cordons which remain in place.'

Meanwhile, a patient who came to the A&E department said the incident had caused 'chaos'.

The man, in his mid-20s who did not want to be named, said he had been taken to a boardroom in the hospital while the fire service decontaminated the scene.

He said: 'I had gone to the A&E department because I had busted two of my knuckles. The staff said something to me about chemicals and that it had all happened in front of the A&E entrance.

'It caused chaos inside the A&E department - I was taken to a boardroom where I had to wait while they dealt with it. There was a green tent set up in the drop-off area and people in forensics clothes were all walking around.

'From what I was told, the fire engine got to the hospital about 15 minutes before I arrived at 10.30am.'

Salisbury District Hospital, Wiltshire, declared the 'major incident' this morning, which involved a 'small number of casualties

Mr Skripal lives at a 350,000 home in Salisbury. His wife is thought to have died in 2012

Cara Charles-Barks, chief executive of Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust said: 'I can confirm that they are currently being treated here at Salisbury District Hospital and their condition does remain critical'.

One of the Russian spies exchanged for Skripal was Anna Chapman (pictured), who was greeted as a hero by the Kremlin

'We have declared a major incident today in response to the incident that took place yesterday.

'We have been advising people to continue to attend for their routine operations and routine appointments and we will continue to advise them to do so. We will contact any patients if we require them not to attend.'

Officers taped off an area around a bench where one of the pair had been sick after arriving at The Maltings shopping centre on Sunday.

A specialist chemical response unit removed the unknown substance from the area, wrapping it in several protective layers.

Police said the substance would be destroyed, along with the protective suits.

Dr Andrew Foxall, of the Henry Jackson Society security think-tank, said: 'MI5 believes that there are now more Russian spies in Britain than during the height of the Cold War.

'They will likely be experienced in all manner of activities. While it is too soon to attribute responsibility, it would be foolhardy if the authorities were not to explore the Russia connection in relation to Mr Skripal's illness.'

Mr Putin boasted yesterday that Moscow thwarted more than 400 foreign spies last year.

He also called on Russia's FSB spy agency to block further foreign attempts to obtain political, economic and military information.

A Russian Embassy spokesman said last night: 'Neither relatives nor legal representatives of the said person, nor the British authorities have addressed the embassy in this regard.'

The circumstances surrounding yesterday's incident were still murky but the case had immediate resonance in Britain; former Russian agent Alexander Litvenko died after drinking radioactive tea in a swanky London hotel.

The ex-KGB agent died after two agents slipped radioactive polonium 210 into his tea pot at a Mayfair hotel in 2006.

Russian spy Anna Chapman pictured on May 21, 2011

Litvinenko, 43, an outspoken critic of Putin who fled Russia for Britain six years to the day before he was poisoned, died after drinking green tea laced with the rare and very potent radioactive isotope at the Millennium Hotel.

A public inquiry concluded in 2016 that the killing of Litvinenko, who previously worked for the FSB, had 'probably' been carried out with the approval of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

And Russian loathing for Skripal is highlighted by claims from Russian secret services historian Nikolai Luzan.

Luzan says Skripal was responsible for disclosing to MI6 the names of around 300 GRU staff members and other 'agents' including those working abroad.

Some of these military intelligence assets were 'secretly arrested' and others 'vanished', he said.

Mr Luzan referred to Skripal in a 2014 interview as 'this b*****d - I'm not scared to use this word'.

'Just imagine what muck this man did to other people - due to his treachery.'

There has been no official confirmation of the 300 figure from the GRU.

Two Incident Response Unit ambulances and the fire service were called to the hospital, to treat the patients and decontaminate the A&E department

Police closed a road near The Maltings shopping centre, where a yellow and white forensics tent can be seen

Skripal served with Russia's military intelligence, often known by its Russian-language acronym GRU, and retired in 1999. He then worked at the Foreign Ministry until 2003 and later became involved in business.

After his 2004 arrest in Moscow, he confessed to having been recruited by British intelligence in 1995 and said he provided information about GRU agents in Europe, receiving over $100,000 in return.

Among the Russian agents deported from the US as part of the largest spy swap since the Cold War was Anna Chapman (pictured)

The Russian domestic security agency (FSB) alleged Skripal began to sell information in the 1990s right up until 1999 - when he left the special services.

The FSB caught him passing his intelligence to the infamous MI6 James Bond-style 'spy rock' - a fake stone packed with receiving equipment - in a Moscow park.

At the time of Skripal's trial, the Russian media quoted the FSB as saying that the damage from his activities could be compared to harm inflicted by Oleg Penkovsky, a GRU colonel who spied for the United States and Britain. Penkovsky was executed in 1963.

The spy swap, one of the biggest since the Cold War ended in 1991, took place on the tarmac of Vienna airport where a Russian and a US jet parked side by side before the agents were exchanged.

One of the Russian spies exchanged for Skripal was Anna Chapman, who was greeted as a hero by the Kremlin.

She was one of 10 spies who tried to blend in to American society in an apparent bid to get close to power brokers and learn secrets. They were arrested by the FBI in 2010.

Putin, himself a former KGB officer, sang patriotic songs with the returned spies.

The Spy with the Louis Vuitton bag: How Sergei Skripal narrowly avoided execution after betraying his Russian military bosses by selling secrets to MI6 only to be given a new life in the UK

Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russian military intelligence, was considered by the Kremlin to be one of the most damaging spies of his generation.

He was responsible for unmasking dozens of secret agents threatening Western interests by operating undercover in Europe.

Col Skripal, 66, allegedly received 78,000 in exchange for taking huge risks to pass classified information to MI6.

He was jailed for passing on the identities of Russian secret agents in Europe to MI6

In 2006, he was sentenced to 13 years in a Russian labour camp after being convicted of passing invaluable Russian secrets to the UK.

A senior source in Moscow said at the time: 'This man is a big hero for MI6.'

After being convicted of 'high treason in the form of espionage' by Moscow's military court, Col Skripal was stripped of his rank, medals and state awards.

He was alleged by Russia's security service, the FSB, to have begun working for the British secret services while serving in the army in the 1990s.

In Moscow at the time of his arrest he was mocked as 'the spy with the Louis Vuitton bag' after grainy pictures showed him at an airport on route on one meeting with his handlers

He passed information classified as state secrets and was paid for the work by MI6, the FSB claimed.

Col Skripal pleaded guilty at the trial and co-operated with investigators, reports said at the time. He admitted his activities and gave a full account of his spying, which led to a reduced sentence.

In July 2010, he was pardoned by then Russian president Dmitry Medvedev and was one of four spies exchanged for ten Russian agents deported from the US in an historic swap involving red-headed 'femme fatale' Anna Chapman.

Mrs Chapman, then 28, was a Manhattan socialite and diplomat's daughter, who had lived and worked in London during a four-year marriage to British public schoolboy Alex Chapman.

The Russian security service (FSB) allege that Col Skripal began to sell information in 1990's right up until 1999 - when he left the special services

After the swap at Vienna airport, Col Skripal was one of two spies who came to Britain and he has kept a low profile for the past eight years.

He is understood to have been debriefed for months before being given a home and a pension.

Col Skripal was turned by MI6 when he was posted abroad as a GRU military intelligence agent in Europe in the mid-1990s.

During his years working for MI6, the balding spy unmasked dozens of agents threatening Western interests.

Col Skripal was so well-connected that even after his retirement from his spy service in 1999 he continued to pass exceptional secrets to London by staying in touch with his former colleagues as a reservist officer.

Following his release Col Skripal underwent a debriefing in London following his exchange in the historic spy swap involving femme fatale Anna Chapman

Col Skripal was nicknamed 'the spy with the Louis Vuitton bag' after grainy pictures showed him carrying a bag at an airport en route to a meeting with his handlers.

He may finally have been snared by the FSB after passing his intelligence to MI6's infamous James Bond-style 'spy rock'  a fake stone packed with receiving equipment in a Moscow park.

Russian secret services exposed the ploy in 2006, revealing how British agents transmitted their data to the rock via a hidden hand-held device while walking past it.

After Col Skripal's conviction, one official said: 'His activities caused a significant blow to Russia's external security.'

Chief military prosecutor Sergei Fridinsky said: 'It is impossible to measure in roubles or anything else the amount of harm caused by Skripal.'

State-run TV in Russia even compared him to the legendary Soviet double agent Oleg Penkovsky, who spied for Britain and the US during the height of the Cold War.

Penkovsky was shot by a firing squad in 1963 and is regarded as one of the most effective spies of all time.

A poisoned umbrella tip and radioactive tea: How Russian spies have died in the UK It was one of the most audacious acts of the Cold War which could have come straight from the pages of a spy novel. In 1978, Georgi Markov was jabbed with an umbrella which fired a poison pellet into his leg as he crossed Waterloo Bridge in London while he waited for a bus. He died three days later  and for almost 40 years, mystery has surrounded the whereabouts of his killer. Georgi Markov was jabbed with an umbrella which fired a poison pellet into his leg A replica of the umbrella that a KGB agent used in 1978 to kill the Bulgarian dissident Ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London in 2006, a killing which a judge said was probably approved by President Vladimir Putin. The defector died after two agents slipped radioactive polonium 210 into his tea pot at a Mayfair hotel in central London. The 43-year-old had been an officer with the Federal Security Service (FSB), but he fled to Britain where he became a fierce critic of the Kremlin. He died after an agonising six-day battle in hospital. Ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London in 2006 when a radioactive substance was poured into his tea pot at a Mayfair hotel Alexander Perepilichnyy, a key witness in a 140million tax fraud investigation, collapsed while jogging outside his 3million mansion in Weybridge, Surrey, in November 2012. The Russian had ingested gelsemium  a very rare toxic plant found only in China, a coroner heard. Tests carried out by leading botanist Professor Monique Simmonds of Kew Gardens found a chemical in Mr Perepilichnyys stomach that could come only from a variety of gelsemium  a known method of assassination by Chinese and Russian contract killers. Alexander Perepilichnyy collapsed while jogging outside his 3million mansion in Weybridge, Surrey, in November 2012 A radiation expert who investigated the 'assassination' of Alexander Litvinenko was found dead in a mysterious suicide five months after a trip to Russia. Matthew Puncher, 46, bled to death at his home from multiple stab wounds inflicted by two knives in his home in Drayton, Oxfordshire in May 2016. A pathologist said he could not 'exclude' the possibility that someone else was involved in the death - but concluded the injuries were self-inflicted. Radiation expert Matthew Puncher, who investigated the 'assassination' of Alexander Litvinenko, was found dead in a mysterious suicide in May 2016 Boris Berezovsky, was found dead in his in Berkshire bathroom with a ligature round his neck in March 2013. His friends in the secret service say he planned to give Putin evidence of a plot involving oligarchs to topple the strongman in a coup. Theory has it that the exiled Russian tycoon was slain by Western secret services linked to the plan to overthrow the Kremlin leader. A coroner recorded an open verdict saying he either took his own life or he was killed and the scene was staged to look self-inflicted. Boris Berezovsky, was found dead in his in Berkshire bathroom with a ligature round his neck in March 2013 but the coroner recorded an open verdict Bankrupt property tycoon Scot Young was the fifth member of a close circle of friends to die in unusual circumstances. The 52-year-old suffered fatal injuries after falling from a window on to railings after being hounded over debts by Russian mafia members. They had previously dangled him out of a window at the Dorchester Hotel, in Park Lane, threatening to drop him next time if he did not pay up, his close friend alleged. Mr Young, who was once worth an estimated 400m, claimed to have lost his fortune when a vast Russian property deal, known as Project Moscow, collapsed in 2006. Bankrupt property tycoon Scot Young (pictured right) suffered fatal injuries after falling from a window on to railings after being hounded over debts by Russian mafia members Meanwhile in 2012, German Gorbuntsov survived despite being shot several times with a sub-machine gun on the Isle of Dogs in East London. The Russian banker allegedly had evidence relevant to the attempted murder of Russian billionaire Alexander Antonov. In 2016, former Russian double agent Colonel Alexander Poteyev, who exposed glamour spy Anna Chapman, died in the US. Mr Poteyev had overseen the Russian sleeper agents in the US as a deputy head of the 'S' department of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service. Advertisement

'I felt anxious, I felt like I should step in, but to be honest they looked so out of it that I thought even if I did step in, I wasn't sure how I could help.

'So I just left them. But it looked like they'd been taking something quite strong.'

Georgia Pridham, 25, also saw the couple slumped on the bench.

She told The Telegraph: 'He was quite smartly dressed. He had his palms up to the sky as if he was shrugging and was staring at the building in front of him.

'He had a woman sat next to him on the bench who was slumped on his shoulder.'

She added: 'He was staring dead straight. He was conscious but it was like he was frozen and slightly rocking back and forward'.

Igor Sutyagin, who was part of the same spy swap as Skripal and now is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said he is not worried for his safety.

'I feel OK, I am not concerned,' he told The Times.

'We have saying in Russian that if you keep thinking one day [something bad might happen] then that day will come.'

He also said there was not enough evidence to point fingers in any direction.

'There are lots of former security officers that deserted to the West,' he said, urging caution until more is known. 'It is necessary to balance this information.'Advertisement

A stunning collection of rare images of Captain Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica have been rediscovered after spending decades hidden in a photo archive.

The 131 photos were taken by Herbert Ponting, the official photographer for the historic quest to become the first humans to reach the South Pole.

The fascinating snaps capture a happier time before the expedition descended into tragedy when Captain Robert Scott and four colleagues died on the perilous return leg from the Pole.

One candid photo shows Captain Scott sat on the deck of the Terra Nova ship smoking a pipe surrounded by other members of the crew en route to Antarctica in December 1910.

A stunning collection of rare images of Captain Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica are up for sale after being rediscovered. This photo shows the expedition's cook Thomas Clissold attempting to capture an Emperor Penguin in April 1911

Captain Robert Scott and four colleagues died on the perilous return leg from the Pole. This candid shot shows Captain Scott (left) smoking his pipe on the deck as Lieutenant Henry Rennick and other members of the expedition crew sit around reading in December 1910

The Terra Nova expedition took place between June 1910 and February 1912. Here Frederick Hooper, one of the crew domestic stewards, is pictured eating a can of beans while sat on top of a Heinz box in January 1912

Another shows meteorologist Sir George Simpson conducting balloon experiments to test the atmosphere and determine how altitude affected temperature in April 1911.

He recorded the temperature and wind observations at the base camp at Cape Evans in Antarctica.

Ponting worked in a tiny photographic darkroom there processing high-quality images taken on glass plates.

He was one of the first men to use a portable movie camera in Antarctica, watching on as scientists studied the behaviour of the native killer whales, seals and penguins.

The collection is now up for sale for 8,000 after being hidden away in a photo archive at an estate in the Midlands for many decades.

The support party had 65 members. Herbert Ponting, the historic quest's official photographer, was caught on camera photographing the Terra Nova in ice in December 1910

The team of five men who set off for the Pole in November 1911 consisted of Captain Scott, Lawrence Oates, Edward Wilson, Edgar Evans and Henry Bowers. This snap shows meteorologist Dr George Simpson inflating one of his weather balloons he used to test the atmosphere and determine how altitude affected temperature in April 1911

The reached the Pole on January 17, 1912, only to discover Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it by 34 days. This shot shows Cecil Meares cutting up seal meat for the dogs with an axe

Ponting's photos show many members of the 65-strong support party for the Terra Nova expedition from June 1910 to February 1912.

The team of five men who set off for the Pole in November 1911 consisted of Captain Scott, Lawrence Oates, Edward Wilson, Edgar Evans and Henry Bowers.

The reached the Pole on January 17, 1912, only to discover Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it by 34 days.

Ponting tried to get as close as possible to animals he encountered, both on the Terra Nova in the sea ice and later on Ross Island. Here is a photo Ponting took of a penguin next to tins of Lyle's golden syrup for an advertisement

Ponting worked in a tiny photographic darkroom at the base camp at Cape Evans in Antarctica processing high-quality images taken on glass plates. This photo shows Lieutenant Henry Rinnick leading one of the ponies out onto sea ice in January 1911

Ponting was a celebrated photographer at the time and his images were to later be used by Captain Scott for university talks about the expedition. Here the expedition's cook Thomas Clissold (right) and Anton Omelchenko are seen attempting to capture an emperor penguin in April 1911

On one occasion, he escaped death when a pod of eight killer whales broke up the ice floe he was standing on in McMurdo Sound.

During the winter of 1911, Ponting took many photos of Captain Scott and the other members of the expedition in their Cape Evans hut.

Ponting boarded the Terra Nova for its returned to Britain in February 1912 with an inventory of more than 1,700 photographic plates.

Chris Albury, a specialist at Dominic Winter in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, who are selling the archive, said: 'Ponting was a celebrated photographer of his time and there is a great interest in Captain Scott's expedition particularly because of its tragic denouement.

'These photos which have been hidden away in a picture archive provide a fantastic flavour of the expedition and have such good variety.

'We don't think they were printed by Ponting himself and it is possible they may have been printed from negatives following Ponting's death.'

The auction takes place on March 9.

What went wrong during Captain Scott's expedition to the South Pole? Captain Scott and his crew of 65 set off from Cardiff, Wales, in June 1910. In November 1911 Captain Scott, Lawrence Oates, Edward Wilson, Edgar Evans and Henry Bowers set off for the pole and reached it on January 17, 1912. They quickly discovered the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it by just 34 days. On their return journey the group endured dreadful conditions and died. Evans died after getting a concussion after falling at the base of the Beardmore Glacier and then Captain Lawrence Oates sacrificed himself after realising his slow pace, caused by frostbite, was threatening the others by walking out into a blizzard saying 'I am just going outside and may be some time'. Later the three men left were pinned down by a nine-day blizzard with limited fuel and food. They died around 29 March 1912, 150 days out from base and just 18 km (11 miles) from the nearest depot. Their deaths are blamed on poor planning by Scott, bad food supplies and unfortunate weather. He decided against using dogs to speed up his journey after a bad experience, and relied heavily on ponies, many of which died from exhaustion or being underfed. Scott also only planned to take three men with him on the final journey to the Pole, meaning he did not have enough food for the trip. Advertisement

On one occasion, Ponting narrowly escaped death when a pod of eight killer whales broke up the ice floe he was standing on in McMurdo Sound. Here he is posed up for a self portrait on board the Terra Nova

The 131 photo collection is being sold by an auction house in Cirencester, Gloucestershire. This picture shows the ill-fated Terra Nova in December 1910US lobbyists have demanded the right to make their own versions of iconic British foods such as Cornish pasties or Cumberland sausages after Brexit.

American officials have long been critical of EU rules that protect makers of geographically-linked products.

They want the planned US-UK trade deal after Brexit to scrap the rules and open up the products to American manufacturers.

Downing Street today declined to comment on the reports, insisting the issues would all be subject to future negotiations.

The claims have prompted an angry backlash from defenders of the British food institutions and fears that important heritage could be eroded.

US lobbyists have demanded the right to make their own versions of iconic British foods such as Cornish pasties (file image in Callington, Cornwall) or Cumberland sausages after Brexit

Melton Mowbray pork pies (file picture) at the Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe are protected by EU rules that could be scrapped after Brexit

US lobbyists want American manufacturers to be able to make 'Made in America' versions of iconic products such as Scotch whisky (file image)

Protected statuses, known as Geographical Indications (GIs, or PDOs), have been granted by the EU to thousands of food and drink products across EU nations.

Shawna Morris, of the US Dairy Export Council - which has been lobbying the US government on UK trade deals post-Brexit said the current arrangements were 'preposterous' and should be reconsidered.

She said: 'We think the ability to take a fresh look at UK regulation through the Brexit process provides the UK with a great opportunity for taking a much more reasonable approach to what's been a very controversial issue over the years.

'So, for instance, there's West Country Farmhouse Cheddar on the books, but any time I've ever asked anyone from the UK if they have any intentions to try to claw back Cheddar, the response has been, ''Of course not, that would be preposterous''.

'We think it's just as preposterous for the Greeks to reclaim Feta.'

While many of the products US businesses hope to export to the UK would be copies of European goods, perhaps including Parma ham and Cognac, others could be replicas from the UK.

One of the arguments for dropping geographical protections is that copies could be cheaper, without necessarily lowering standards.

The Cornish Pasty Association's said it had also been lobbying the government - but they were adamant it was vital to maintain the status quo affer Brexit.

A spokesman said: 'The Cornish Pasty Association has lobbied for the current protection of food names to continue after Brexit and is of the view that a domestic regulation that mirrors the EU scheme is the best solution.'

Environment Secretary Michael Gove (left take smoked salmon) has refused to rule out relaxing the rules on geographically protected products

But Marion Symonds, 50, owner of Portreath Bakery and a long term campaigner of the Cornish Pasty, said she was worried about the impact on local heritage.

She said: 'For me, even if they brought a Cornish pasty into Cornwall the locals wouldn't buy it.

'But when they bring it into the UK you have to be really careful, we've fought so hard.

'We don't want to jeopardise the hard work people have done to protect the status of the heritage and the PGI status of the Cornish Pasty.

'To make it a geographically protected pasty it has to be made in Cornwall by a producer registered to make them.

'These guys coming in will wreck all the hard work being done in Cornwall to keep our heritage safe.'

The EU Commission set out a position paper for Brexit negotiations insisting the UK must put in place domestic law enforcing existing GI rules, including granting 'automatic recognition' to all GIs created after Brexit.

A spokesman for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: 'Leaving the EU gives us a golden opportunity to secure ambitious free-trade deals while supporting farmers and producers to grow and sell more great British food.

'We will ensure consumers continue to have a range of high-quality food products.'COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)  Gun store owners called it the "Trump slump." Sales of firearms slowed dramatically after the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016 allayed fears of a Democratic crackdown on gun owners.

That trend has continued in recent weeks even with talk of gun control in Congress and among business leaders following the Feb. 14 massacre of 17 people at a Florida high school.

In the past, gun massacres generally led to an uptick in sales as people worried about the government restricting access. But with Parkland, things are different.

"The day after the election, it's just like somebody turned a faucet off," said David Dobransky, 67, who owns Dobransky Firearms, a small gun shop in North Canton, Ohio. Since then, sales there have been cut in half, and nothing the president or Congress has done or said following the Florida shooting has improved business.

Gun owners apparently have faith that Trump won't impose more restrictions, gun show owners say. That's even with the confusing messages Trump has sent in the past week.Amber Tamblyn is under fire after she spoke negatively on Twitter about New York City's Hasidic Jewish community.

The actress took to Twitter on Sunday, after she was allegedly nearly hit by a Hasidic man driving a grey van in Brooklyn while she was out walking her one-year-old daughter.

'If anyone in Brooklyn near the intersection of Washington Ave and Atlantic Ave just saw a Hasidic man in a grey van try to hit a woman and her baby in a stroller as she crossed a crosswalk, honking and touching the stroller with the cars bumper, please DM me. That woman was me,' Tamblyn said.

Close call: Amber Tamblyn and her one-year-old daughter Marlow were nearly struck by a van while on a Stroll in New York City on Sunday

The 34-year-old actress finished her statement with a shocking twist: 'That woman was me'

She later returned to Twitter to claim that it wasn't the first time she was victimized by a man form the Hasidic Jewish community

A few hours later, the 34-year-old returned to Twitter and said that it wasn't the first time she had been victimized by a man in the Orthodox Jewish community.

'Thank you everyone for your kind words of support today. We are fine. But this is not the first time a man from the Hasidic community in NYC has attempted to harm me or other women I know. Any woman riding a bike through South Williamsburg can attest. I hope this guy is caught,' Tamblyn wrote.

Many took issue with Tamblyn's second tweet, some going so far as to call her a bigot.

'Wow. thanks for vilifying an entire religious group. Imagine if you replaced the word Hassidic [sic] with Muslim or Hindu,' one Twitter user responded.

Many on Twitter took issue with Tamblyn's second tweet complaining about Hasidic Jews

Others found it hypocritical that Tamblyn would speak about an entire religious group negatively when she's outspoken on other social issues - including the #MeToo movement.

'You can't be both "woke" and a bigot. Choose one,' another Twitter user said.

Tamblyn has yet to respond to the criticism.

Amber has not filed a police report with the New York Police Department, according to TMZ.

Amber's daughter, Marlow Alice, is her first child with husband David Cross, 53. The girl was born in February 2017.

David and Amber married in 2012 after getting engaged in 2011. They had been together three years prior to their engagement.A man who brutally murdered his 12-year-old stepdaughter in front of her sister with bed slats and belts has been jailed for 37 years for his horrific three-day long crime.

But before the man was jailed on Monday, the court heard the African migrant wrote a letter to his lawyers two days before his trial quoting a bible passage cursing the day he was born.

The 33-year-old, identified only as JK for legal reasons, referred to himself as 'all things evil' in a letter the judge described as unprecedented and 'rather extraordinary'.

The passage from Jeremiah 20:14 says: 'Cursed be the day I was born. May the day my mother bore me not be blessed.'

The 12-year-old girl (pictured, but can't be identified for legal reasons) was killed by her stepfather at their home in New South Wales in 2015

The judge, Justice Peter Hamill said it was an example of 'heinous acts of cruelty' towards the girl

In his summary, judge Peter Hamill said the defendant 'made a passing reference to' the passage without quoting it in full.

The letter was written by the man to his legal team in November 2017, just before his trial was due to start, telling them he wanted to change his plea to guilty, Justice Hamill said.

'The offender described his actions as a 'monstrosity' and eschewed any attempt to explain or justify it by 'medical/clinical terminology',' Justice Hamill said.

'He said he was 'all things evil', that 'something did not sit right in my heart'.

'While it does not explain how and why the offender came to act as he did, it demonstrates a degree of insight and contrition.'

The sick attack which left the girl, known as CN, with more than 50 injuries happened in 2015 at a house in New South Wales.

He subjected the little girl to a prolonged attack over three days when her 'little body gave up' after years of abuse, Justice Hamill said.

The little girl was subjected to prolonged period of abuse over four years which escalated and grew more violent, the judge said

Justice Peter Hamill delivered his sentence at the New South Wales Supreme Court for what he said were 'heinous acts of cruelty' and said he was shocked by crime scene photographs.

He said: 'After being tied to a bed intermittently and beaten over three days by a man who should have been protecting her, her little body gave up and she died.

'The photographs of the injuries to CN are shocking. I do not have the words to describe them.

'The offence was committed on a vulnerable victim in her own home and perpetrated by an offender who abused his position of trust, in the presence of another child.

'The loss of CN has had a lasting and devastating impact on all of the members of her family who are left behind to grieve and to try to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. The pain is raw and deep and it will not go away.'

The man was born in Africa and moved to Australia in the early 2000s.

Police were called after the body of the girl was discovered by the girl's mother in the early hours of September 23, 2015

He started a relationship with the girls' mother in 2009 - two years before the abuse started on her two daughters.

In 2010, they moved to a suburb in Newcastle before moving out to a new house elsewhere in NSW after having two more children together.

He was jailed for 37-and-a-half years and will be eligible for parole in September 2043.

She was found dead by her mother - who is due to stand trial for manslaughter in Newcastle - in the early hours of the morning September 23, 2015 after she had returned home from playing the pokies.

The court heard he had been responsible for carrying out abuse in the family home from 2011 - four years before the little girl died and attacks were also carried out on her sister.

But it was the 12-year-old girl's extreme abuse which ultimately led to her death, the judge said.

'The nature and extent of the violence directed towards CN escalated,' Justice Hamill said.

'In July 2015 the offender slapped CN with such force that she suffered a fractured jaw and lost a tooth.

'At one stage she was tied up in the garage with her hands secured to a beam in the garage roof.

'Her feet were also tied and the offender struck her across the back and legs with an electrical cord causing bruises to her legs and other parts of her body.

'This outrage was far from being an isolated incident. The assaults became more regular and more violent.

'In the last week of CN's life the offender assaulted her repeatedly by slapping her face and punching her in the ribs.'

The full extent of the abuse carried on as the girl's sister, identified as NZ, was ordered to 'untie her sister and she observed the extent of her sister's injuries'.

'CN was tied facedown to a bed, a sock was placed in her mouth to muffle her screams, and she was struck with various weapons including wooden bed slats and belts,' Justice Hamill said.

He added that instead of taking them for medical treatment, both girls were kept out of school to allow their injuries to heal.

A post-mortem revealed CN died as a result of 'a blunt force trauma' to her head as well as injuries to her torso and limbs.A French couple face being banned from naming their daughter Liam over concerns it would lead to gender confusion.

Prosecutors in France have a history of vetoing newborns' names, and the latest parents to feel their wrath are a pair from Morbihan in Brittany.

They tried to give their girl the traditionally male name in English-speaking countries, but a prosecutor argued it was contrary to the interest of the child.

As part of their case, prosecutors pointed to high-profile Liams such as former Oasis frontman Liam Gallagher and decorated actor Liam Neeson to support their argument.

A French couple face being banned from naming their daughter Liam over concerns it would lead to gender confusion (file photo)

The prosecutor said the name 'would be likely to create a risk of gender confusion' and would be 'therefore contrary to the interest of the child and could harm him in his social relations,' according to The Local.

Having already been warned about their choice of middle name, the prosecutor has asked the judge to ban them from calling their third child Liam, demanding she is given a different one or one that is chosen by the judge.

A trial date has yet to be set, but it follows a long line of parents being reported to the so-called 'name police' over their choices.

Among those to have already been banned are Nutella, Fraise (Strawberry) and even Derc'hen and Fanch, simply because of the apostrophe and accent.

While in many Western countries, especially the UK and US, unisex names are becoming increasingly popular, with names such as Elliott and Jordan used for both boys and girls.

But in France, many first names have both male and female equivalents, such as Francois and Francoise, Jean and Jeanne and Frederic and Frederique.

Prosecutors in France have a history of vetoing newborns' names, and the latest parents to feel their wrath are a pair from Morbihan in Brittany (pictured)

Before 1993, parents in France had to choose their baby's name from a list drawn up by the authorities.

President Francois Mitterand lifted this restriction giving French parents license to get inventive.

But a rule remained in place which gave courts the power to ban names if they believed it was in the child's best interest to do so.Three taxi drivers used as couriers by a Vietnamese businessman have been jailed for their role in a 9.1 million drug smuggling empire.

Sunder Ahuja, Amrik Lamba and Abdul Shirzad ferried nearly a ton of cannabis to Plymouth, Devon, from West London.

Kingpin Tam Tran made a total of 89 trips to the town, hiring the trio to drive him there and back.

Police in Plymouth snared the smuggling gang when a Ford Galaxy, being driven by Lamba and transporting Tran, was stopped and 52,600 in cash was found.

Amrik Lamba (left) one of the taxi drivers jailed today and Tam Tran (right) who was found in a car carrying more than 50,000 in cash

The Vietnamese had just handed over 9.8kg of cannabis to Plymouth ringleader Nicholas Doyle.

After seizing the cash, they also raided a Vauxhall Zafira driven by another member of the ring, Peter Stewart, 40, of Efford, Plymouth, who told police there was 'sh**loads' of cannabis in his car.

Prosecutors said that they believed roughly 910kg of cannabis was transported by the gang, with a street value of around 9.1million.

Judge Ian Lawrie said drivers Ahuja, Lamba and Shirzad 'chose money over the fact that they were participants in a serious crime.'

The drugs ring were jailed for smuggling nearly a ton of cannabis from London to Plymouth

He added: 'Their clear good qualities and responsibilities did not inhibit their offending.

'These are men with children and responsibilities as parents and they therefore should have known better than involve themselves in a drug supply arrangement whereby drugs and all their attendant misery were being shipped to Plymouth.'

Judge Lawrie ordered that 64,460 seized from the smuggling operation will be donated to local charities.

Ahuja, 48, of Southall - who made 48 trips with Tran to Devon - and Shirzad, of Hounslow - who made five runs - both pleaded not guilty of conspiracy to supply a Class B drug but were convicted in November.

They were both jailed for six years at Plymouth Crown Court. Lamba, of West Drayton, who made a total of 38 trips to Plymouth, was jailed for two years and four months after admitting his part in the plot.

The court heard Lamba has two disabled children, at least one of whom will have to go in to care during his prison stint.

His lawyer Nick Hewin, said: 'This is undoubtedly involvement through naivety to make like more bearable for a family struggling on so many levels.'

Ahuja, a married father of three, told the court he grew up in Afghanistan and was kidnapped in his 20s, and a ransom had to be paid for his release. He sought political asylum in Britain in 1995.

His barrister Andrew Lloyd-Eley, submitted 22 pages of character references to the sentencing hearing and called two live witnesses, including his 17-year-old daughter, to speak on the defendant's behalf.

He added: 'He is a man who has dedicated himself to helping others almost his entire life.'

Francesca Whebell, representing Shirzad, who made just five drugs runs, said he 'never questioned' Tran about his long trips. He to had fled Afghanistan to Britain.

He said he was the carer for a baby and an older child because his wife was suffering from post natal depression.

'These are men with children and responsibilities as parents and they therefore should have known better Judge Ian Lawrie during sentencing

Tran, who refused to give his age to the court and was said to be living in rented accommodation in Paddington, west London, was jailed for six years.

Doyle, of Efford, was given a five year and six month sentence. Stewart was jailed for two years and four months, while 30-year-old accomplice Paul Marr, of Mutley, was given a 15 month term, suspended for two years. He will also have to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work and pay 1,000 costs.

Det Sgt Jason Kelly, the officer in charge of the investigation, said: 'It is only a matter of time before most people are caught and ore likely than not you are going to get a prison sentence.

'This was a large scale conspiracy. There may be a lot of cash involved but if you get a prison sentence, it is difficult to buy that time back.

'I think this sentence sends a message in that anyone who contemplates getting involved in a conspiracy of that sizes faces at least two years in custody.

'Police get comments that we are wasting their time looking at a Class B drug but we see with organised crime gangs when this amount of money is involved is that there is not a single strand of criminality.'This is the shocking moment a man beat a seagull with a wooden club at a popular scenic spot in south-west China.

The 28-year-old tourist, surnamed Peng, claimed a child had asked him to hit the seabird and he agreed to do so.

Mr Peng has been arrested for hunting wildlife without permission.

Mr Peng, who was wearing a patterned top, hits the seagulls with a wooden club in China

Video, posted by The Paper, captures the sickening moment the man held a long wooden club and aimed at a flock of seagulls at Erhai Lake in Yunnan Province on March 4.

Mr Peng waited and flashed the bat towards a seagull as a child and a few onlookers stood by.

One seagull can be seen being knocked down and fell near the rocks.

Dali Forestry Police received report from members of public and arrested Mr Peng two hours after the incident, according to The Paper.

Mr Peng, from Hubei Province in central China, told the police that he was driving his friends to visit the scenic Erhai Lake.

Footage shows him swinging the bat in the air and knocking down one seagull

The man said a child asked him to hit the seagull and he grabbed the bat from the child to hit

Upon a child's request, he beat a seagull with a wooden club.

The seagull was wounded as it got hit, according to The Paper.

Mr Peng was given a 1,500 yuan (171) fine and had his hunting equipment confiscated as he violated article 46 of China's wildlife protection law.

Web users believed the punishment was not enough and urged the forestry department to toughen the regulations.

'A little fine won't teach him a lesson, he might do it again if someone asks,' wrote 'chenggongdichuntian'.

'Zhouyin' agreed and said offenders should face charges.Longtime Netanyahu family spokesman Nir Hefetz (pictured in court) agreed to testify in return for a more lenient punishment

A third former aide of Benjamin Netanyahu has agreed to turn state witness and testify against the prime minister, who faces a wave of corruption allegations.

Various outlets say longtime Netanyahu family spokesman Nir Hefetz agreed to testify in return for a more lenient punishment. He joins Shlomo Filber, another long-time aide, enmeshed in scandal.

News of the agreement broke ahead of Netanyahu's meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House today.

The widely reported agreement between Israeli authorities and Nir Hefetz, a former spokesman for the Netanyahu family, comes as corruption investigations into the prime minister intensify.

Israeli police provided no details on the reported agreement.

An aide to Netanyahu immediately denounced the reports and proclaimed the long-serving prime minister's innocence.

'When there's something there, it doesn't take even one state witness,' the aide said.

'And now, even a thousand state witnesses will not help.'

On Sunday, an Israeli court released Hefetz and telecoms mogul Shaul Elovitch and put them under house arrest after 14 days in custody.

Hefetz is alleged to have acted as a messenger between Netanyahu, Elovitch's telecoms group Bezeq and news website Walla!, media reports say.

Hefetz arrives to a Magistrate court in Tel Aviv, Israel. He is believed to have turned confidante

Police suspect Bezeq was given regulatory breaks in return for Netanyahu receiving positive coverage on Walla!, a news website owned by the telecoms group.

Hefetz is also suspected of trying to bribe a retired judge to block a probe into the prime minister's wife, Sara Netanyahu, over alleged misuse of public funds, according to the reports.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Hefetz had agreed to hand over recordings of Netanyahu and his wife as part of the state witness deal.

Last month, Israeli police recommended Netanyahu's indictment on two other cases of alleged bribery. The attorney general is now considering how to move forward in those cases.

In one case, Netanyahu and family members are suspected of receiving one million shekels ($285,000) in gifts, including luxury cigars, champagne and jewellery, from wealthy figures in exchange for financial or personal favours.

In the other case, investigators suspect the premier of trying to reach an agreement with the owner of Yediot Aharonot newspaper for more favourable coverage.

Israeli media reported that Hefetz could also provide testimony in those two investigations.

Last month, Israeli police recommended Netanyahu's indictment on two other cases of alleged bribery

Hefetz has appeared in court as part of one of the graft probes threatening the Israeli PM

The building investigations into Netanyahu's affairs have raised questions over whether the 68-year-old will eventually have to step down.

He has been prime minister for a total of around 12 years.

The probes have also led to speculation in the Israeli media that he may opt for early elections in the coming months in a bid to bolster his standing before a decision on indictments is made.

Polls have suggested Netanyahu could remain prime minister in fresh elections despite the corruption investigations hanging over him.

He is also set to reap further political benefits in May when the United States relocates its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem, a move popular among Israelis even though it has been denounced across the world.

Before boarding the plane for the United States on Saturday night, Netanyahu said he did not want to call early elections and hoped his right-wing coalition would survive its entire mandate, which expires in November 2019.

However, politicians across the board sense elections may be on the horizon and have hardened their approach.

A dispute that has arisen within the coalition in recent days could prove to be its undoing.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties want a law passed to allow religious students to continue to be exempted from military conscription.

Other members of the coalition oppose such a law, but the ultra-Orthodox have threatened to block a 2019 budget that Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon wants to see approved this month.Advertisement

A young boy has been photographed kissing his wounded sister on the cheek after she was hurt during government shelling in Syria's besieged rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta.

The poignant moment was captured in the radiography room of a hospital in Douma, the main town in the area defying President Bashar al-Assad's vicious assault.

It was taken as an aid convoy began to cross into the enclave, bringing the first relief since one of the deadliest government assaults of the seven-year war began two weeks ago.

The poignant moment was captured in the radiography room of a hospital in Douma, the main town in the area defying President Bashar al-Assad's vicious assault

The snap was taken as an aid convoy began to cross into the enclave, bringing the first relief since one of the deadliest government assaults of the seven-year war began two weeks ago. Pictured: Syrian government forces direct Syrian Arab Reb Crescent trucks carrying aid at the al-Wafideen checkpoint on the outskirts of Damascus neighbouring the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta

A senior UN official accompanying the convoy said he was 'not happy' to hear loud shelling near the crossing point into Eastern Ghouta despite an agreement that the aid would be delivered under peaceful conditions. Pictured: A member of the Syrian government forces looks at destruction in al-Shifoniya as they advance in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta

President Bashar al-Assad vowed yesterday to continue a military push into the biggest remaining opposition stronghold near Damascus, saying the offensive did not contradict five-hour ceasefires arranged each day by his main supporter Russia. Pictured: Red Cross aid trucks driving into Eastern Ghouta

A Syrian soldier stands guard as Syrian Arab Red Crescent vehicles carrying aid wait at the al-Wafideen checkpoint on the outskirts of Damascus neighbouring the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta region before delivering aid to the rebel-held enclave earlier today

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the death toll from the offensive had exceeded 700 people in two weeks of intense bombardment on the densely populated region of farmland and towns. Pictured: Red Cross supplies heading into the besieged enclave

The convoy, however, was stripped of vital medical supplies.

More than two weeks of air strikes, artillery and rocket fire on the last major rebel-held enclave near Damascus have left more than 700 civilians dead and three quarters of homes damaged in the area.

More explosives, including barrel bombs, were dropped in overnight raids today, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, as aid convoys desperately attempt to get into the area.

A senior UN official accompanying the convoy said he was 'not happy' to hear loud shelling near the crossing point into Eastern Ghouta despite an agreement that the aid would be delivered under peaceful conditions.

'We need to be assured that we will be able to deliver the humanitarian assistance under good conditions,' Ali al-Za'tari told Reuters at the crossing point.

A World Health Organization (WHO) official said government authorities had removed most medical material from UN vehicles, preventing surgical kits, insulin, dialysis equipment and other supplies from reaching the enclave of 400,000 people.

Za'tari said the convoy had been scaled back from providing food for 70,000 people to providing for 27,500. The United Nations says Syria has agreed to let it bring the rest of the food for the full 70,000 in a second convoy in three days.

'The convoy is not sufficient,' Za'tari said.

More than two weeks of air strikes, artillery and rocket fire on the last major rebel-held enclave near Damascus have left more than 700 civilians dead and three quarters of homes damaged in the area

Syrian government forces flash the sign for victory while sitting in a truck after entering al-Shifoniya as they advance in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta yesterday

A member of the Syrian government walks along a destroyed street in al-Shifoniya during the advance on the rebel-held enclave yesterday

Syrian army and Russian soldiers stood on the government-held side of the crossing point, and empty buses waited to evacuate any civilians who might leave Eastern Ghouta. Pictured: A Syrian government military vehicle advancing into Eastern Ghouta yesterday

President Bashar al-Assad vowed yesterday to continue a military push into the biggest remaining opposition stronghold near Damascus, saying the offensive did not contradict five-hour ceasefires arranged each day by his main supporter Russia.

A wider, full ceasefire backed by the UN Security Council has not come into effect during the campaign, which began with massive government air strikes two weeks ago and has continued in recent days with a ground assault.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the death toll from the offensive had exceeded 700 people in two weeks of intense bombardment on the densely populated region of farmland and towns.

Pro-Assad forces have made sudden advances into Eastern Ghouta in recent days, capturing a third of the area, the Observatory said, and bringing them close to cutting it in two. Late on Sunday, a rebel official said factions in Eastern Ghouta were working together to prepare to retake lost ground.

A severely wounded Syrian child is seen at a hospital in Afrin today. Turkish-led Syrian opposition fighters have advanced steadily since January 20, when they launched an assault on Afrin, controlled by the Kurdish People's Protection Units

Wounded Syrian children are seen at a hospital in Afrin, a city in northwestern Syria where a separate offensive is leading to deaths and injuries among civilians

Syrian state television broadcast this morning from al-Shifouniyeh, one of the villages captured by the government, showing collapsed concrete buildings, rubble-strewn streets and bullet-pocked walls.

The area has been under siege by government forces since 2013, and the United Nations had feared that people inside were running out of food and medicine even before the major assault began two weeks ago. Only one convoy of aid has reached the area so far in 2018, on February 14.

In comments broadcast by state television today, Assad dismissed Western statements about the humanitarian situation in Eastern Ghouta as 'a ridiculous lie'.

Moscow made a similar case at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva: 'The media atmosphere is saturated with lies,' Russian diplomat Alexei Goltyaev said.

A wounded Syrian man waits to receive treatment at a make-shift hospital in Douma following Syrian government bombardments on the besieged rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta yesterday

Syrian children sit in the back of a truck driven by White Helmets, as they flee their homes in the town of Beit Sawa in Syria's besieged enclave

A child injured in shelling cries during treatment in a hospital in Douma, Eastern Ghouta on Saturday

'As a result we see debates and votes that are entirely removed from the actual situation on the ground.'

Today's convoy of trucks sent by the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent passed the last Syrian government checkpoint and began to drive into the rebel-held area, a Reuters witness said.

The UN's Za'tari said it would take 'many hours' to offload the aid and it might be 'well after nightfall' before it could return.

Syrian army and Russian soldiers stood on the government-held side of the crossing point, and empty buses waited to evacuate any civilians who might leave Eastern Ghouta.

Syrians sit in the back of a truck ,driven by White Helmets, as they try to flee their homes in the town of Hamouria in Syria's besieged Eastern Ghouta region

Syrians flee their homes in the town of Beit Sawa in Syria's besieged Eastern Ghouta. In comments broadcast by state television today, Assad dismissed Western statements about the humanitarian situation in Eastern Ghouta as 'a ridiculous lie'

The UN's aid agency OCHA said yesterday it aimed to deliver a convoy with 46 truckloads of health, food and nutrition supplies to Eastern Ghouta.

A WHO official told Reuters that Syrian government officials had rejected 70 per cent of the supplies it had prepared for today's convoy, including 'all trauma (kits), surgical, dialysis sessions and insulin'.

Russia's military said the rebels which control Eastern Ghouta had agreed to let civilians leave in return for aid.

Assad and Russia have both repeatedly accused the rebels of stopping civilians fleeing Eastern Ghouta, a charge denied by the insurgents, who say people there fear arrest, torture or forcible conscription if they cross into government areas.

Concern for civilians in Eastern Ghouta helped prompt a UN Security Council resolution a week ago demanding a full ceasefire across all of Syria.

Veto-wielding member Russia accepted the resolution, but says it does not apply to the rebel groups in Eastern Ghouta, which Moscow regards as members of terrorist groups banned by the United Nations.

Moscow has instead established daily humanitarian pauses from 9am to 2pm.Andrew Amdur, pictured, is alleged to have cheated Elizabeth Shaheen out of more than 80,000 after visiting her home in Maida Vale, north west London

A world-class tenor cheated a vulnerable woman out of more than 100,000 when he offered to perform and donate funds to charity, a court heard.

Andrew Amdur, 47, allegedly fleeced Elizabeth Shaheen after attending her home in Maida Vale, northwest London.

Amdur is said to have made a series of false representations including transferring 80,000 from her bank account to the London Black Cabs Charity for underprivileged children.

Amdur allegedly told Ms Shaheen he needed 10,000 to perform at LEscargot Restaurant in Soho, central London.

When Ms Shaheen arrived for the performance she was told there was no such event by the restaurant owner, the court heard.

He lives in a million pound home in north London and has performed in Europes most prestigious opera halls, as well as singing the national anthem at Twickenham.

Amdur, of Golders Green, north London appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court wearing a colourful scarf and purple sweater.

He shook his head as the charges were read out and pleaded not guilty to three counts of fraud by false representation.

One of the charges states he dishonestly made a false representation to Ms Shaheen, that he would provide her with a new kitchen, intending to make a gain, namely 25,000 for yourself or another.

He was granted conditional bail, not to contact Ms Shaheen and not to go to her home, and will next appear at Southwark Crown Court for a preliminary hearing on April, 3.A 15-year-old student was arrested on Sunday after making a threat on social media that he would 'shoot up' a Texas high school.

A number of people ended up reporting the threat on Sunday to the Parker County Sheriff's Office near Dallas.

The student is accused of threatening on Snapchat to open fire Monday at Crosstimbers Academy in Weatherford, officials said.

A 15-year-old student was arrested on Sunday after making a threat on social media that he would 'shoot up' Crosstimbers Academy, pictured, close to Fort Worth, Texas

After deputies contacted the student and his parents, the student ended up implicating himself and admitted to posting a selfie with the hashtag '#schoolshootingchallengemonday.'

The student, who has not been named, told investigators that the threat was posted as a 'joke,' the sheriff's office said.

He was taken to a juvenile detention facility and faces a charge of aterroristic threat.

'We will always take the appropriate actions to ensure the safety of every student and faculty member,' Sheriff Larry Fowler said in a statement. 'Each report of a school threat will be investigated immediately, thoroughly and accurately.'

The high school is just outside of Fort Worth, Texas in Parker County

The sheriff's office said it has been working with school administrators to implement student and school safety measures.

The response by officials is not all that surprising after Nikolas Cruz, 19, was found to have posted numerous warnings about his impending school shooting on social media in the months leading up to February's Valentine's Day massacre.

Cruz ended up killing 17 people including 3 teachers at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.Jason Griffin, 39, has been arrested after he fatally shot another man at a party on Sunday

A 39-year-old man has been arrested after he allegedly fatally shot another man at a party on Sunday.

Jason Griffin was charged with manslaughter, felon in possession of a weapon and unlawful possession of body armor, in connection with the shooting.

The incident occurred around 1.30am which is when Houston police arrived at a home near West 23rd and Rutland streets in The Heights.

They said they found up to eight people in the garage, according to Click 2 Houston.

Authorities say one man decided to put on a bulletproof vest while one of the party-goers fired a shot at him.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

'It is unusual that people would put on bulletproof vest and play with guns at a party, but these things happen sometimes,' HPD Homicide Sgt. Mark Hollbrook said.

Scroll down for video

The incident occurred around 1.30am which is when Houston police arrived at a home near West 23rd and Rutland streets in The Heights

Police said they found as many eight people in the garage when they arrived at the home

Griffin's girlfriend said he didn't mean to kill his friend and he didn't even know his gun was loaded, ABC 13 reported.

'He goes "shoot me." Well, he didn't think there was nothing in it, and he did. And the dude went 'f*** that hurt' and then he dropped. And then Jason ripped the vest off of him and tried to help him,'' said Mary Warstler.

Warstler said Griffin was suicidal after the shooting and had to be treated for seizures before he was arrested.

Authorities say one man decided to put on a bulletproof vest while one of the party-goers fired a shot at him

Griffin, who fled the scene, has been hospitalized for a medical issue

Griffin, who fled the scene, has been hospitalized for a medical issue, police said.

A report from the Texas Department of Public Safety showed Griffin's criminal record includes charges of driving while intoxicated, burglary, robbery and interference with an emergency request for assistance.

The identity of the victim is currently unknown.Both candidates in a March 13 House election in Pennsylvania have embraced the president's plans for tariffs. They addressed the topic Saturday in a debate that aired on WTAE in Pittsburgh.

"For too long, China has been making cheap steel and they've been flooding the market with it. It's not fair and it's not right. So I actually think this is long overdue," said Democratic candidate Conor Lamb.

"Unfortunately, many of our competitors around the world have slanted the playing field, and their thumb has been on the scale, and I think President Trump is trying to even that scale back out," said Republican candidate Rick Saccone.

But Trump's GOP allies on Capitol Hill have little use for the tariff approach. They argue that other industries that rely on steel and aluminum products will suffer. The cost of new appliances, cars and buildings will rise if the president follows through, they warn, and other nations could retaliate. The end result could erode the president's base of support with rural America and even the blue-collar workers the president says he trying to help.

"There is always retaliation, and typically a lot of these countries single out agriculture when they do that. So, we're very concerned," said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D.This is the terrifying moment a gang of masked armed robbers were caught on camera raiding a jewellery store in a popular seaside resort.

The dramatic incident was filmed in the city of Puerto Vallarta in the western Mexican state of Jalisco.

The group of around five masked and armed men pulled up outside the jewellers' in a people carrier and burst into the shop.

Gunshots rang out as one of the men attacked a security guard outside of the store, kicking him to the ground and then hitting him with the butt of his handgun.

This is the terrifying moment when a gang of armed robbers were caught on camera raiding a jewellery store. One of the men attacked a security guard outside of the store, kicking him to the ground and then hitting him with the butt of his handgun

Cashiers and shoppers inside the premises were also threatened by the men who scooped armfuls of valuables into bags in the raid.

The robbers then fled from the property, piled into the people carrier and sped off with their haul.

Police have launched an investigation and say they have already arrested three of the gang members.

The robbers reportedly stopped in a nearby street to dump their vehicle, weapons and the clothes they were wearing in a bid to avoid being recognised.

Police have not revealed the total value of the haul but said they had recovered a quantity of watches, along with the robbers' weapons and car. Their investigation continues.The brother of a 19-year-old who shot and killed his parents in a Central Michigan University dorm room on Friday says his brother is no 'villain'.

Russell Matthew Davis, 27, took to Facebook on Saturday and confirmed that his parents, James Eric Davis Sr, 48, and Diva Davis, 47, had been killed by his younger brother James Jr. on Friday.

Davis shot his parents in his dorm room in Mt Pleasant, Michigan Friday morning before leading police on an hours-long chase through the town.

He was eventually taken into custody in the early hours of Saturday morning and has since been charged with two counts of murder.

He used his cop father's gun in the shootings.

James Eric Davis Jr, 19, and his older brother Russell Matthew Davis, 27, who says his younger sibling is not a 'villain' for killing their parents on Friday

Russell took to Facebook on Saturday, saying he still loves his brother

His older brother, a doctoral divinity student and a member of the Church of God in Christ denomination, announced his parents' death on Facebook and said that he still loved his brother, despite the tragedy.

'Never thought Id have to post this type of post... but unfortunately the news is true. My mom and dad both rest from their life of labor and stress in a very tragic event. Its so surreal, Im in shock and even in denial... its a hard pill to swallow, a heavy load to bear,' Russell wrote.

Russell went on to say that he still loved his brother.

'I want him safe, supported and prayed for just like my sister Alexis Davis and I,' Russell said.

It's still unclear why Davis killed his parents James Eric Davis Sr, left, and Diva Davis, right

The couple were killed about 9am at this dorm on the Central Michigan University campus in Mt Pleasant

He had a special message to 'the media and opinionated people': 'Please don't make a villain out of my brother...that is NOT who he is... and despite the circumstances, he also lost a mother and father...And I LOVE him. Consider that!'.

It's still unclear what caused Davis to kill his parents but campus police revealed at a Friday press conference that they had taken him to the hospital the night before the murders for an 'overdose or bad reaction' to drugs.

He was discharged from the hospital Friday morning, just half an hour before his parents were killed.

Davis' father worked as a police officer in Bellwood, Illinois, just west of Chicago.

Authorities say Davis Jr (left) used his father's gun to kill his parents. Davis Sr (right) was a police officer in Bellwood, Illinois

Davis allegedly got the gun from his father when they returned to the dorm from the hospital, according to NBC News.

News of the shooting has shocked the college student's friends and neighbors, who have have told the Chicago Tribune Davis Jr was a quiet and polite kid from a good and loving family.

'Junior was a very respectful man, raised by upstanding parents, who would do anything to protect him and his siblings,' longtime family friend Jordan Murphy said.

'This is an incredibly tragic event, and I pray for Eric's other children. This is so incredibly out of character, something went wrong somewhere.'

Murphy also said the slain couple, who had another son and a daughter, were 'ever-present parents who doted on their children'.

Police believed the suspect had an 'overdose or bad reaction' and took him to McLaren Central Michigan hospital in Mount Pleasant (pictured) the night before the murders

Davis ran north away from the apartment buildings after the shooting before police arrested him early Saturday morning after a 12-hour manhunt

Friday's shooting caused chaos at the small college town in Michigan.

The school posted to their Facebook on Friday morning about 9.30am, telling students to shelter in place and avoid the area around Campbell Hall while classes were cancelled for the day.

An automated phone message from the school also was sent to students Friday morning.

Surrounding schools, hospitals and offices were placed on lockdown.

Friday was the last day of classes for Spring Break, so many parents were headed to the campus to pick students up.

Central Michigan University has about 23,000 students in Mount Pleasant, which is about 70 miles north of Lansing.The father of a young girl said his pain is 'unimaginable' after he lost his two-year-old daughter in a freak accident at a Payless store in Georgia over the weekend.

Ifrah Siddique was severely injured when a mounted full-length mirror fell off of a wall and smashed over her head just after 8pm.

She was rushed to the Southern Regional Medical Center in Riverdale, Georgia, where she was pronounced dead.

'They don't understand what kind of pain I feel,' her grieving father, Moshin Siddique said. 'I just want my daughter back.'

Scroll down for video

Moshin Siddique (pictured), the father of two-year-old Ifrah Siddique, said his pain is 'unimaginable' after he lost his daughter in a freak accident at a Payless store in Georgia over the weekend

Two-year-old Ifrah Siddique (pictured) was severely injured when a mounted full-length mirror fell off of a wall and smashed over her head just after 8pm

She was rushed to the Southern Regional Medical Center in Riverdale, Georgia, where she was pronounced dead

'They don't understand what kind of pain I feel,' her grieving father, Siddique said through tears. 'I just want my daughter back'

The accident happened on Friday night as the toddler was trying on shoes.

Mohsin Siddique told WSBTV that his wife, daughter and son were shopping at the Payless Shoe Source on the 7100 block of Georgia Highway 85 Friday night when the accident occurred.

The toddler was trying on shoes in front of the mirror when it came crashing down on her.

Police said the child's death appears to be an accident, adding that the mirror at the Payless wasn't secured.

'The mirror just fell down,' Siddique said. 'It only had one or two screws and it's not secure. It just fell down.'

'We're pulling through,' Ifrah's cousin Aquib Iftkhar told WTSP. 'Everybody is still grieving and it's really hard. We're in a state of shock.'

The toddler was trying on shoes when the mirror fell, and was pronounced dead at the hospital. The accident occurred at the Payless Shoe Source (pictured) on the 7100 block of Georgia Highway 85 Friday night

Police said the child's death appears to be an accident, adding that the mirror (pictured) at the Payless wasn't secured

'The mirror just fell down,' Siddique (pictured with Ifrah) said. 'It only had one or two screws and it's not secure. It just fell down'

The Siddique family has asked that the store ensure shelves and mirrors are secure and in place to prevent another tragedy like this one.

Payless said the company is 'devastated' about the girl's death in a statement to Fox 5.

'Our deepest sympathies go out to the family of Ifrah Siddique during this time of incredible loss,' the statement read.

'We are devastated by this tragic event and are fully cooperating with authorities to reach and understand the nature of this accident. Out of respect for the family, no further information will be provided at this time.'

Payless corporate officials said they are cooperating with authorities in the investigation.

The Siddique family has asked that the store ensure shelves and mirrors are secure and in place to prevent another tragedy like this one. The mirror was hanging on the end of the shelf directly in front of the blue shoe boxes (pictured)

Payless corporate officials said they are cooperating with authorities in the investigation. But Siddique said he isn't concerned with a lawsuit. 'I don't need money. I need my daughter,' he said

But Siddique said he isn't concerned with a lawsuit.

'I don't want any money. People say, "Lawsuit, money, money," I don't need money. I need my daughter, and [whoever] did this, they have to have consequences,' he said.

Latisha Culpatrick who works at the store next to Payless said she knew something serious happened when she heard a crash and a woman's scream.

'I could hear the crash and the mom screaming,' she told Fox.

'Everybody was crowded around the door. It was just tragic. I'm sure the mom didn't think when she was coming in to go shopping she wouldn't come out with her child. That's bad. Really bad.'

Culpatrick, who is a mother herself, said she saw blood and assumed the child had a seizure.

'I didn't know it was that bad,' she explained.Jorge Dominguez, a prominent professor in Harvard's international relations department, has been placed on leave after decades of sexual harassment allegations were unveiled

A prominent professor in Harvard's international relations department has been placed on leave after decades of sexual harassment allegations were unveiled.

Jorge Dominguez cultivated a 'creepy older man' reputation for himself during his time working as a government professor at Harvard. The 72-year-old is married and has two daughters.

In 1983 he was found guilty of 'serious misconduct' by the ivy-league university after Terry Karl, a junior professor in the department, alleged he repeatedly groped, kissed and propositioned her.

Now, in light of the #metoo movement, Dr Karl recalled the harassment she suffered to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

After her story was published last month, 17 additional women have come forward with similar stories about Domingez - claiming he touched them inappropriately and that they even dropped classes and abandoned projects to avoid being around him.

When Karl first reported Dominguez to Harvard she said she had never heard of the term 'sexual harassment'.

But she still knew the actions were inappropriate, and wrote to administrators, met with her higher-ups, called for better reporting practices and filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

In 1983, Dominguez was found guilty of 'serious misconduct' by the ivy-league university after Terry Karl (pictured), a junior professor in the department, alleged he repeatedly groped, kissed and propositioned her

After her story was first reported by the Chronicle, 17 additional women came forward with similar stories about Domingez - claiming he touched them inappropriately and that they even dropped classes and abandoned projects to avoid being around him

The alleged harassment began in 1981 when she arrived at the university and was paired with Dominguez, who initially was 'friendly and available'.

But after her first semester things changed, and over the summer she said he wrapped her in his arms and attempted to kiss her. Karl said she pulled away but didn't make a scene, to avoid offending him.

That fall, at a dinner hosted by Harvard, Karl said Dominguez made a comment about her to then-president of Venezuela Rafael Caldera, referring to her as his 'slave.' She said Caldera later warned her to stay away from Dominguez.

Karl gave Dominguez a ride home that night at his request, and while in the car says he attempted to kiss her and slid his hand up her skirt. She says he told her he would be the next department chairman, he would decide her promotion and he would review her book.

Eventually she sought advice from Harvard and then hired a lawyer, going to the EEOC about Dominguez's alleged behavior. She also wrote to the dean, Rosovsky, and described his behavior as 'erratic' and 'an expression of deep hostility'

That was the first time she said she felt she was being propositioned for sexual favors in return for a good review. But after, it continued to happen, and eventually she felt like she was actually in danger when he was around him.

Once, she alleges he made a comment while they were walking outside that 'this would be a nice place for a rape.'

Eventually she sought advice from Harvard and then hired a lawyer, going to the EEOC about Dominguez's alleged behavior. She also wrote to the dean, Rosovsky, and described his behavior as 'erratic' and 'an expression of deep hostility.'

Dominguez was disciplined and removed from administrative conduct for three years, but was allowed to stay on the faculty. In 2006, he was even promoted to vice provost of International Affairs.

Ultimately Karl left the university because she couldn't handle working and learning in his presence. At the time she said she was worried this would permanently stain her academic career, because rumors started to spread about an affair gone wrong or other scandal.

Though numerous women claim similar experiences to what Karl described, many did not feel comfortable filing a complaint because of the way hers had been dealt with.

Dominguez was disciplined and removed from administrative conduct for three years, but was allowed to stay on the faculty. In 2006, he was even promoted to vice provost of International Affairs

The #MeToo movement helped these woman connect and bring their stories to the forefront.

In November 2017 Karl got an email from Nienke Grossman, who she did not know, who told a similar story to what she had experienced. Another woman, Suzanna Challen, also told her story.

Karl said she remembers thinking: 'Oh my god, I knew he was going to keep doing it.'

Grossman, who first reached out to Karl, said Dominguez first made her uncomfortable in fall 1998 when they were at his office discussing a class she'd missed due to a Jewish holiday. She said he touched her arm and back and eventually grabbed her thigh.

Grossman never filed a formal complaint and instead dropped his class, deciding not to pursue a PhD in government.

Suzanna Challen wrote about a similar incident that occurred to her in 2006 with the #MeToo on her Facebook page.

She was a graduate student in Harvard's government department when she said Dominguez asked for a hug and then slid his hand down her back and rested it on her butt.

Nienke Grossman and Suzanna Challen reached out to Karl with their stories in November 2017 after the #MeToo movement gained momentum

Challen wrote about an incident that occurred to her in 2006 with the #MeToo on her Facebook page, alleging Dominguez grabbed her behind in his office while she was a PhD student

Challen said she read about Karl's case, but decided not to pursue a complaint of her own because she didn't want to put herself in that situation again. Instead she avoided him during the rest of her time at Harvard, eventually earning her PhD in 2011.

Ten women, including Karl, initially told the Chronicle they had experiences with Dominguez in which he made them feel uncomfortable. Since the first report that number has increased to 18 women, including students, graduate students, professors and fellow staff members.

The first allegation is from as early as 1979, and the most recent from 2015.

The Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Michael D Smith, announced in an email Sunday that Dominguez was placed 'on administrative leave, pending a full and fair review of the facts and circumstances of the allegations that have come to light.'

All of the women have similar allegations, and say that Dominguez first presents himself like a mentor and then eventually the relationship grows inappropriate.

18 women, including , including students, graduate students, professors and fellow staff members, have now come forward with similar allegations of sexual harassment against Dominguez. The first allegation is from as early as 1979, and the most recent from 2015

The Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Michael D Smith, announced in an email Sunday that Dominguez was placed 'on administrative leave, pending a full and fair review of the facts and circumstances of the allegations that have come to light'

One of the women who came forward, Rebekah, worked as an international-advancement coordinator supporting administrators, such as Dominguez, and faculty members with their relationships with donors around the world.

She said while she was working there he made a point to show he appreciated her work and wrote her a 'glowing' recommendation when she applied to Harvard's Graduate School of Education.

'If there was a Jorge Dominguez fan club, I would have been president from 2012 to 2015,' she said.

But when she graduated in May 2015 she said he asked her for a post-work drink to celebrate. Rebekah said as they had a glass of wine he told her he was worried about her because she'd gained weight; a comment that, understandably, infuriated her.

He noticed she was angry and tried to hug her. 'I was trying to pull away and then he cupped my ass,' she told a colleague in an online chat.

The next day Rebekah recounted the evening to a supervisor, who confirmed their conversation to the Chronicle and said he accompanied her to speak to the HR department. She said she was told to file a formal complaint, but said the process was clunky and intimidating and made her worry about retaliation.

Rebekah warned a colleague Kathryn about him, because she regularly worked with Dominguez.

She said she was already wary of him, having learned about his past in Harvard Crimson articles from the 1980s. She expressed that she thought it was odd when he asked her to sit next to him during meetings and thought his emails were inappropriately flirtatious.

Kathryn said she heard another colleague, Alice, was invited to have a glass of wine with Dominguez but she warned her not to, citing Rebekah's alleged experience.

She and Alice then went to HR, but ultimately decided not to file a complaint for fear of the retaliations that could come with alienating a powerful administrator.

Because he is tenured the government department does not have the authority to dismiss Dominguez. He can only be removed from his position at the call of the Harvard Corporation

Another woman spoke to the Chronicle on the condition of anonymity and had a similar story. She also saw him as a mentor when they first met, but was eventually put off by his inappropriate touches and hugs.

Then, at a reception in 2008 he slapped her butt in front of other scholars at a reception. She told at least two people who confirmed her account.

She said she decided not to report his inappropriate behavior after reading Karl's case and realizing he was still widely respected and celebrated at Harvard.

'I'd be perceived as a troublemaker within the department,' she said.

Charna Sherman said in 1979 she thought of him as a mentor and hoped he would read her honors thesis. She was a junior and majoring in government and history at Harvard and was taking one of his classes.

She said he patted her on the butt and touched her 'in an overly friendly manner,' but she was most put off when one day in his office he kissed her on the lips. Sherman told her boyfriend and another friend, who recalled the incident.

Sharna also told her mentor so they could ensure he wouldn't be a reader on her thesis, and the tutor 'assured me it was taken care of,' which she understood to mean he informed the department.

Other women who had similar experiences include a former undergraduate who said he once grabbed her from behind and a former professor who was made uneasy by his comments and long hugs. Another student said he once hugged her and reached inside her jacket, to rub her lower back.

Dominguez did not comment on Karl's allegations, but also did not deny any of the women's claims. He told the Chronicle he 'has sought to behave honorably in all my relationships.'

'I try to communicate both respectfully and effectively,' he told the paper.

'I do not go around making sexual advances. Any behavior like that I would regret it under any circumstances. There may have been a terrible misinterpretation of whatever I might have been doing.

'I can't imagine trying to hurt or injure someone I might have been helping.'

Harvard provost Alan M Garber directly addressed the allegations made in Chronicle article in an email to students and staff members on Friday.

He said it was 'heartbreaking to read the accounts of former students and faculty who report having suffered inappropriate and unwelcome behavior.'

'Harvard takes seriously the concerns recently brought to our attention by former students,' he wrote in the email.

'This is a difficult moment for our community, above all for the individuals who have experienced sexual or gender-based harassment or sexual assault. Within this complexity, working conditions and the frequent power asymmetries in working relationships can make it hard for people to know when and how to speak up.

'And worries that speaking up might have negative repercussions within one's community or field, in the years to come, can also prevent individuals from making a formal complaint, or speaking at all.'

He said the Faculty of Arts and Sciences began contacting students and postdoctoral students in Dominguez's department immediately to ask about their experiences with the professor.

Because he is tenured the government department does not have the authority to dismiss Dominguez.

He can only be removed from his position at the call of the Harvard Corporation if it cited 'grave misconduct or neglect of duty', according to the Harvard Crimson.A sickening ISIS video showing young children savagely murdering three prisoners in a derelict play park has re-emerged.

In the disgusting footage, first released in 2017, a boy no bigger than a four-year-old can be seen wading through colourful plastic balls before shooting a man in the head with a small pistol.

The same boy - who is dressed in all-black ISIS clothing - is then shown giving the order to an older child to cut off the head of another prisoner.

In the disgusting footage, a boy no bigger than a four-year-old can be seen wading through colourful plastic balls before shooting a man in the head with a small pistol

The young boy is shown firing the small pistol after being handed it by a man dressed all in black

After committing his own murder with the pistol, he is shown raising the gun in the air and screaming 'Allahu akbar'

The same boy - who is dressed in all-black ISIS clothing - is then shown giving the order to an older child to saw off the head of another prisoner

The other boy, who is no bigger than a ten-year-old, kicks the man to the ground before he is killed on the orders of the smaller boy

He is shown slowly dragging his right hand across his throat before the other boy, who is no bigger than a ten-year-old, begins beheading the man with a knife.

After committing his own murder with the pistol, he is shown raising the gun in the air and screaming 'Allahu Akbar'.

The video begins with a shot of a disused children's park, complete with merry-go-round, Ferris wheel and the usual jihadi chanting.

The first murder is committed by a boy who appears no bigger than a seven-year-old.

The first murder is committed by a boy who appears no bigger than a seven-year-old. He is shown picking up a large knife in slow motion before climbing into a merry-go-round

There he walks up to a bound prisoner whose head is resting on a seat. He then beheads the man as blood pours into the children's ride

He is shown picking up a large knife in slow motion before climbing into a merry-go-round.

There he walks up to a bound prisoner whose head is resting on a seat.

He then beheads the man as blood pours into the children's ride.Australian universities are too dependent on Chinese students and risk having to dumb down their curriculum or lose their independence, academics warn.

International student numbers at Sydney universities jumped an unprecedented 50 per cent in the past two years, bringing a financial bonanza with them.

Rising student numbers were a huge boon to universities but academics and the NSW Auditor-General worried it could be a house of cards.

Australian universities are too dependent on Chinese students and risk having to dumb down their curriculum or lose their independence, academics warn

International student numbers at Sydney universities jumped an unprecedented 50 per cent in the past two years, bringing a financial bonanza with them

The Auditor-General's June report said universities were 'vulnerable' to fluctuations in China from putting too many eggs in one basket.

'There are associated risks, including pressure on capacity constraints and the need to maintain teaching quality,' it said.

'There is also a concentration risk from reliance on overseas students from the same geographical location in the event of an economic downturn from that region.'

Even Sydney University Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence admitted in 2014 that they were 'over-dependent' on international students.

Some academics were more concerned about universities being undermined by foreign influence with so many Chinese studying there.

Charles Sturt University public ethics professor Clive Hamilton said Australia should admit many fewer Chinese students

Overseas student fees at Sydney University rose 92 per cent in three years from $391 million in 2014 to $752 million last year and 26 per cent to $560 million at UNSW

Some academics were more concerned about universities being undermined by foreign influence with so many Chinese studying there

The author of Silent Invasion: China's Influence in Australia said over-reliance on Chinese students was were 'corroding the soul of our universities'.

'University administrators walk on eggshells afraid to do anything that might antagonise the Chinese authorities. I find this deeply disturbing,' he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

La Trobe University China specialist James Leibold said universities were now also at the mercy of Chinese government political whims.

He said the Chinese Communist Party could easily respond to tension with Australia by discouraging its students from studying there.

'An obsession with growing the international student market risks turning our universities into diploma mills,' he said.

But researchers like Andrew Norton from the Grattan Institute said university bosses saw growing demand as an opportunity too good to miss.

'The universities are taking the calculated risk that, even if it doesn't last, the benefits are so great while it does last, that you should not forgo them,' he said.

A third of Australian international students were from China, but that figure was doubled at both Sydney University and UNSW

Overseas student fees at Sydney University rose 92 per cent in three years from $391 million in 2014 to $752 million last year and 26 per cent to $560 million at UNSW.

One in four Sydney University students now hail from China and international students now make up a quarter of its total revenue.

Across the state, universities now get more fees from overseas students than Australian ones - $2.27 billion to $1.99 billion.

A third of Australian international students were from China, but that figure was doubled at both Sydney University and UNSW.Drug dealers will be banned from living in social housing in central Sydney as part of a major new crackdown.

Anyone charged with or convicted of supplying drugs will have their application for a house rejected, according to the new policy by the New South Wales Department of Family and Community Services.

The policy is called Local Allocation Strategy and applies to housing estates in Surry Hills, Glebe, Waterloo and Redfern.

One of the buildings on the list is the notorious Northcott building in Surry Hills, which has been dubbed suicide towers due to residents jumping off the roof amid reports of grizzly murders and rampant drug use inside.

Drug dealers will soon be banned from living in social housing in central Sydney

Residents of one horror housing commission block said they are living in fear, terrorised daily by violent neighbours and visitors (pictured is blood in one of the lifts and syringes on the floor)

Constant crime has left them feeling like prisoners in their unit, and police can take hours to arrive despite being called to the building almost every day (pictured are broken windows in the hallways)

A spokesman for the Department of Family and Community Services told The Daily Telegraph it aimed to make the estates 'safe places where people behave as good neighbours.'

Labour opponents have criticised the policy, saying it merely shifts the problem outside the city and risks turning the western suburbs into a 'dumping ground' for dealers.

But New South Wales Minister for Social Housing Pru Goward defended the policy, insisting it will reduce drug use.

She said: 'We know that people with a history of drug dependency are more likely to fall back into dependency if there is a ready supply of drugs.'

'What we're doing with this strategy is removing any temptation which will also reduce anti-social behaviour.'

It comes after residents of a drug-affected housing block in Melbourne told how they were living in fear, terrorised daily by violent neighbours and visitors.

One of the buildings on the list is the notorious Northcott building (pictured) in Surry Hills, which has been dubbed suicide towers due to residents jumping off the roof

Park Towers (pictured), located on Park Street in South Melbourne, was built for the Housing Commission of Victoria in 1968

Two men named Eddy and Dave describe their time at Park Towers in South Melbourne as a 'living nightmare'.

Constant crime has left them feeling like prisoners in their unit, and police can take hours to arrive despite being called to the building almost every day.

Images from inside the aging 31-storey tower block show blood splattered on lifts and along corridors, broken windows and shards of glass on the floors.

Criminals deal drugs in the building's units and stairwells, domestic violence is rampant and ice-addicted residents stalk the hallways screaming and lashing out.

Images from inside a Melbourne 31-storey tower block show blood splattered on lifts and through corridors, broken windows (pictured) and shards of glass on the floors

Blood-filled syringes litter stairwells and common areas, people urinate in the lifts and photos even show faeces sprayed and smeared on hallway walls.

'You can walk up to almost any resident at any time and they can tell you who can get you any drug under the sun,' said one resident named Dave.

'I'd say 70 per cent of the residents are either drug users or dealers, but the rest of us are good people.'

'There are decent people here, we're not all junkies, and the rest of us can't live like this.

'There are lots of elderly Russians in the building and they just keep to themselves, they don't use the common areas, they are probably too scared.'

Letters and calls to the housing commission have gone unanswered, and when they wrote to Housing Minister Martin Foley they got a generic reply from an assistant.

Criminals deal drugs in the building's units and stairwells, domestic violence is rampant and ice-addicted residents stalk the hallways screaming and lashing out (pictured is blood in a stairwell)Donald Trump said Monday on Twitter that his predecessor in the Oval Office tried to sabotage his 2016 hopes by launching an investigation into his presidential campaign.

Barack Obama, he claimed on Twitter, wanted to help Hillary Clinton along her path to the White House and created a pretext to hunt for Trumpworld collusion with Russia.

'Why did the Obama Administration start an investigation into the Trump Campaign (with zero proof of wrongdoing) long before the Election in November?' Trump asked.

'Wanted to discredit [me] so Crooked H[illary] would win. Unprecedented. Bigger than Watergate! Plus, Obama did NOTHING about Russian meddling.'

Still frustrated by a lengthy investigation into Russian election meddling, President Donald Trump said Monday that the Obama administration set it into motion in order to sabotage his White House hopes

Trump tweeted that Barack Obama wanted to 'discredit' him to make sure 'Crooked H[illary Clinton]' would win in 2016

Obama did complain three weeks before Election Day that Trump was 'whining' too much about election rigging, even though he had known for months that Moscow was trying to interfere

The Obama administration has been accused of surveillance abuses in the final months of the campaign season, obtaining a series of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants covering former Trump adviser Carter Page.

While the initial FISA application was filed before the election, it came long after Carter and the Trump campaign had parted ways.

The president has complained before that Obama didn't intervene to stop Moscow from sowing chaos as Americans watched the White House race unfold.

As with Monday's tweet, Trump claimed the Democratic president stayed on the sidelines because he assumed Clinton would prevail.

'[H]e thought Crooked Hillary was going to win and he didn't want to "rock the boat," Trump tweeted last month.

'When I easily won the Electoral College, the whole game changed and the Russian excuse became the narrative of the Dems.'

Trump made a habit on the campaign trail of warning that his Oval Office hopes could be derailed by a crooked process, but didn't specifically cite Russia

Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election in a stunner after riding a wave of media optimism about her chance to become America's first female president

Obama indeed downplayed the possibility of the Kremlin intervening to impact Americans' Election Day choices.

'There is no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America's elections, there's no evidence that that has happened in the past or that it will happen this time,' he said at the White House three weeks before Trump's stunning upset.

'And so I'd invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and make his case to get votes,' the former president said then.

The Washington Post reported in June 2017 that the CIA had top-level intelligence in August 2016, three months before the election, that Russian President Vladimir Putin personally ordered an operation to help Trump win the White House.

Of election meddling, Obama said in December 2016 that he had told Russian President Vladimir Putin to 'cut it out,' a soft-glove line that drew howls from Republicans

But Trump now says Obama sat on his hands, reasoning that Clinton's rise to power wouldn't be affected  only for the Democrats to cry foul after history took an unexpected turn.

A month after Trump's victory, a lame-duck Obama revealed that he had told Putin to 'cut it out.'

He insisted at the time that his administration was 'playing this thing straight. We weren't trying to advantage one side or the other.'

'Imagine if we had done the opposite. It would have become one more political scrum.'Ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele wrote in a 2016 memo that the Kremlin moved to spike Mitt Romney as President Trump's secretary of state  according to the latest claim linked to the 'dirty dossier' author.

Steele, who penned the collection of memos that contained the salacious and unverified 'golden showers' claim about President Trump, has come under fire from Republican investigators for his memos compiling compromising material the Russians were said to hold on Trump.

In addition to drafting what is known as the dossier, Steele wrote an additional memo in November 2016.

The New Yorker reported that Steele wrote, citing a 'senior Russian official,' that Moscow blackballed Romney's nomination  something that would be an astonishing intervention in its rival's affairs.

The Kremlin moved to spike Mitt Romney as President Trump's secretary of state, Christopher Steele wrote in a November 2016 memo based on a senior Russian official

The dossier itself consists of a series of memos that Steele, who was working on contract for political intelligence firm Fusion GPS, drafted during the presidential campaign. It was first published by Buzzfeed, and has become the source of fierce partisan battles on the House Intelligence Committee.

Fusion's work was being funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party.

Steel passed on in the November memo that 'people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trumps initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney,' according to the magazine's account.

Instead, the Kremlin had asked for someone who would be prepared to lift sanctions the West imposed on Moscow following the invasion of Ukraine, while cooperating on Syria and other matters.

Fusion GPS officials have testified that Steele had his own FBI contacts, although the New Yorker did not report on to whom he sent the material, if to anyone.

JUMP START: President-elect Donald Trump and Mitt Romney dine at Jean Georges restaurant, where frog legs were on the menu. Trump did not nominate Romney to join his administration, however

Vice president-elect Mike Pence, President-elect Donald Trump and Mitt Romney leave the clubhouse after their meeting at Trump International Golf Club, November 19, 2016 in Bedminster Township, New Jersey

Steele, who was stationed in Moscow as a British intelligence officer and later ran the service's Russia desk, spoke to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators in September.

Romney was floated as a serious candidate to be Trump's secretary of state during the transition, despite his fierce criticism of Trump about the 'Access Hollywood' tape and other matters  and despite Trump saying Romney 'choked like a dog' in the 2012 elections.

Romney was also a strong Russia hawk, famously calling it the nation's chief foreign policy threat in a 2012 debate.

Ex-British intelligence officer Christopher Steele wrote about what a source told him about Romney

Russian President, Vladimir Putin (R) and Rex Tillerson (L), Chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil during a signing ceremony for an arctic oil exploration deal between Exxon Mobil and Rosneft on August, 30, 2011 in Sochi, Russia. Trump selected Tillerson as his nominee to be secretary of state

The two former rivals (Trump also had endorsed Romney in 2012, though he claimed Romney begged him for it) met at Trump's club in Bedminster, New Jersey on Nov. 19.

They then famously dined together on November 29, dining on frog's legs at a three-star French restaurant, only to have the potential nomination crumble.

Trump instead picked as his nominee Rex Tillerson, the former head of Exxon Mobil who had done major deals with Russia.

The White House declined to comment for the story and said Romney had never been a first choice. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had also been considered before a focus on his own potential nomination blew up.A young boy allegedly raped several times by a Christian Brother was reprimanded and told by senior school staff he was 'going to hell', a Melbourne court has heard.

John Francis Tyrrell also on occasion beat his victim with a leather strap after the assaults, the Crown has told his trial.

Former brother Tyrrell, now 79, has denied 14 historical charges including indecent assault and buggery from his time teaching at Geelong's St Joseph's College in 1965 and 1966.

The boy was aged between 10 and 12 at the time of the alleged assaults, which according to the victim happened on 140 occasions over that two-year period.

A young boy was allegedly raped 140 times over two years at an exclusive Geelong Catholic school (pictured) six decades ago

Crown prosecutor Joanne Piggott told the County Court of Victoria on Monday that when the boy alerted senior members of staff to the alleged abuse, he was told he was 'going to hell' and would be expelled.

The boy's mother had organised special classes with Tyrrell for her son, who she felt needed extra help at school, the prosecutor said.

However, the private after-school meetings turned abusive when Tyrrell assaulted the boy in a room near his classroom, in a science storage room and in the school hall, Ms Piggott claimed.

On one occasion the boy vomited after the abuse, with Tyrrell beating him with a leather strap for getting vomit on his clothes, she said.

If the boy turned up for the meetings after Tyrrell had already arrived, the child would receive a beating, sometimes with a pair of dirty socks shoved in his mouth, the prosecutor continued.

It is also alleged Tyrrell would squeeze one of the boy's testicles while he was abusing him, so hard the child 'would see bright lights or pass out from the pain'.

Ms Piggott said the boy was abused extensively.

Crown prosecutor Joanne Piggott told the County Court of Victoria (pictured) on Monday that when the boy alerted senior members of staff to the alleged abuse, he was told he was 'going to hell' and would be expelled

'He counted 140 occasions over that two-year period,' she said.

'He can recall the number of times... because he kept thinking that one day it would have to end.'

She said the boy had an 'outburst' after missing school one day, and told senior staff he 'wasn't going to cop Brother Tyrrell f****** him every day' but was reprimanded and told he was going to hell.

'(The alleged victim) walked out of the school and never went back,' Ms Piggott said.

Defence lawyer George Georgiou said his client denied 'anything of a sexual nature occurred' and that the complainant was 'not being truthful'.

The trial continues.UTICA, N.Y. (AP)  Students locked themselves in classrooms and hid under desks at a college in upstate New York on Monday after the school received a threatening message about someone armed with a weapon.

The lockdown at Utica College in central New York ended after about six hours, with authorities saying there were no reports of shots or injuries.

The college sent messages on social media late Monday morning asking students to shelter in place after the school "received threats from an individual who stated that he was armed with a weapon," according to Utica police.

By late Monday afternoon, campus officials said all buildings had been searched and students and staff had been escorted to the student center or athletic center. The lockdown was lifted around 5 p.m. and students were allowed to leave campus or return to their dorms.

"They told us to leave everything in the class. ... They were going to clear all bags and pat each student down," student Noah Britt told the Observer-Dispatch of Utica via text message. "Six officers all with rifles walked us to (another building) ... a secure place for everyone on campus."

Britt said he was locked in a classroom for about two hours.Frances McDormands performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri scored her a second Oscar, and on the night, the actress referenced the Grenfell Tower fire protest inspired by the film.

In a powerful speech, the two-time Oscar winner asked all women nominated at the Oscars 2018 to stand with me in this room tonight.

'Look around ladies and gentlemen because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed.'

Frances McDormand referenced the Grenfell Tower tragedy after Justice4Grenfell's protest

'Don't talk to us about it at the parties, invite us into your office in a couple days or you can come to ours, whichever suits you best, and we will tell you all about them.'

On the night, McDormand also referenced Three Billboards surprising role as a political protest inspiration.

In Martin McDonaghs film, McDormand plays a furious mother who rents three billboards in Ebbing, Missouri drawing attention to the unsolved rape and murder of her daughter.

This protest struck a chord with a lot of people and in February 2018, Grenfell campaigners hired three billboards that look identical to the films and drove them past the Houses of Parliament calling for justice in the Grenfell Tower inquiry.

The billboards say: '71 dead, And still no arrests, How come?'

In Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Frances McDormand plays a mother who puts up three billboards drawing attention to the unsolved rape and murder of her daughter.

In her Oscars speech, McDormand threw her support behind such forms of protest: I think the idea that activists are taking that kind of statement and putting it out there. Billboards still work, so I think that its really exciting.

It started actually with the Grenfell Tower fire investigation then it leap-frogged to (the) Miami gun control situation, it was outside the UN thats the kind of power that an image can have and thats what were making, were making powerful images.

Justice 4 Grenfell, the community campaign group who set up the protest, said the billboards were there 'to keep this tragedy in the national conscience, to make sure that the voices of those no longer with us are heard'.

The group wanted to draw attention to the lack of progress that has been made since the 2017 blaze. It said that issues were being downplayed or ignored.

What is the Grenfell Tower fire?

Frances McDormand was referencing the three billboards that were driven past the Houses of Parliament in London to draw attention to the Grenfell Tower fire that ravaged a 27-storey block of flats in north Kensington and in which 71 people were killed.

Justice4Grenfell campaign group drove three billboards past the Houses of Parliament in 2018

The fire is believed to have started before 1am on June 14, 2017 with the first fire call being made at 12.54am. Although firefighters arrived just six minutes later, Grenfell residents say it took just 15 minutes for the tower to become consumed by flames. They said it went up like tissue paper. It is believed the blaze started on the fourth floor.

The final death toll is recorded as 71 and the Met Police said on November 16 that everyone who died in the fire has now been identified.

The Government has been criticized for its response to the Grenfell tragedy.

During a performance at the Brit Awards 2018, the grime artist Stormzy castigated Theresa May for the apparent lack of progress made since the fire: Yo Theresa May, where's the money for Grenfell? Do you think we've just forgotten about Grenfell? You criminals!

'You got the cheek to call us savages, you should do some jail time, you should pay some damages!' he added.

A public inquiry into the fire is currently underway and is being chaired by a former judge, Sir Martin Moore-Bick.

Who is Frances McDormand?

Frances McDormand is an American actress that has now won two Oscars, two Emmys and a Tony Award.

Frances McDormand won the Best Actress Oscar for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

McDormand won her first Oscar for her role as Marge Gunderson in the Coen brothers 1996 film Fargo.

She has starred in many Joel and Ethan Coen brothers films including Fargo, Raising Arizona, Burn After Reading and Hail, Caesar!.

McDormand has been married to Joel Ethan since 1984.A petition is underway in southern France to have English films shown undubbed.

English teacher Delphine Tabaries-Poncet has launched a petition calling for an end to the dubbing of foreign programmes and television series.

The 33-year-old, who works at a lycee in the town of Beziers, launched the petition on Change.org.

English teacher Delphine Tabaries-Poncet is calling for an end to the dubbing of foreign programmes and television series (stock image)

Dubbed films, she claims, stop her students from developing strong English.

'It is high time to evolve and give up the dubbing of foreign films,' she said.

'People say the French have a problem with foreign languages but it is because we do not have the opportunity to hear them regularly enough.'

'There are many countries where films are not translated and broadcast in their original version with subtitles - and their language level is much higher than ours.

'When is our turn?'

The French practice of dubbing foreign films has been the source of international ridicule, she claims.

France's aversion to undubbed English programmes is seen as a major reason behind the nation's poor grasp of the language, relative to their European neighbors.

Tabaries-Poncet noticed the effect dubbed films had on her pupils after a Romanian boy joined.

His grasp of English was better than his French classmates - which she put down to his exposure to English language films and TV.

'Films are the best way to learn a foreign language,' she told MailOnline.

'The fact is dubbing erases a huge amount of the performance of the actor. Children aren't just losing out on learning but on great acting.

'I understand French is important and many people want to protect it but these films are not French. These are Italian, English, American films.

'My children do not watch a lot of movies. They watch series, like Game of Throne and The Walking Dead. If they could watch those in ENglish it would help them so much.

A survey by international education company Education First ranks France as the European country with the worst level of English.

Its authors pointed to exposure to English language films as important to language development.

Nenad Djokic, France's Country Manager at Education First said: 'France could really learn from the Nordics, a region that is consistently at the top of the rankings, when it comes to leaving films to their original languages.'

However, any reform faces push back from groups who believe the French language is under threat.

France's aversion to learning foreign languages is seen as a major reason behind the nation's poor grasp of English (stock image)

There is currently a quota for French songs on the radio and French films shown in cinemas. For some, Tabaries-Poncet's petition may be step too far.

But she says this stance in regressive.

French publishers distinguish between the 'version originale' and 'version francaise', with many younger people in the country now preferring the former - much to their parent's distaste.

This is especially true in metropolitan areas where English is often a requirement of getting a job.

France's protective attitude towards its own language may be unfounded. There is very little chance of the language dying out.

A study by investment bank Natixis revealed French will soon be the most common language.

While the top languages in the world today are Mandarin, English, Spanish, and Arabic, Natixis has produced figures that show French will be number one in 35 years time.

The latest projection is that French will be spoken by 750 million people by 2050, compared to 220 million people in 2010.

According to the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED), Africa, parts of which are dominated by French speakers, will see its population grow from 800 million to 4.5 billion in 2100.British driving licences could be invalid in the EU after Brexit - forcing drivers to buy a new international permit.

European Commission documents revealed that the UK's departure from Brussels could see the end to the 'mutual recognition' of driving licences.

The papers, which were used 'for presentational and information processes only' said that 'all current EU law-based rights, obligations and benefits cease' if the UK becomes a non-EU nation.

Currently UK licences, which are one of the most powerful in the world, have the European Union flag on the top-left of the cards.

British driving licences could be invalid in the EU after Brexit - forcing drivers to buy a new international permit

This could force Britons to rely on the 1949 Geneva Convention on Road Traffic, which allows International Driving Permit holders (IDP) to drive in Europe.

IDPs cost 5.50 and are valid for one year. They can be bought at Post Offices and some motoring firms' branches.

But five EU countries - including Germany - are not signed up to the 1949 Convention.

A spokesman for the Department for Transport told Auto Express: 'Our aim is to reach an agreement with the EU for mutual licence recognition after Brexit.

Such a deal is in the interests of both sides and we remain confident of reaching such an agreement.

IDPs cost 5.50 and are valid for one year. They can be bought at Post Offices and some motoring firms' branches. Pictured is an American IDP

'However, it is only sensible that we put contingency measures in place for all scenarios.

'Ratifying the Vienna Convention (which the UK abides by but has not ratified) will guarantee that UK driving licences will be acceptable throughout the EU when held with the relevant supporting International Driving Permit.'

A interactive map created by Compare The Market, in 2016, looked at the amount of freedom awarded to driving licences in other countries - with British and French ones coming out on top.A Florida man has been charged with manslaughter in connection to the death of his 19-year-old diabetic girlfriend, whom he allegedly left home alone for hours without medication while he was out selling drugs.

Yeshua Ramirez was arrested last months on multiple felony counts, including premeditated murder, negligent manslaughter other than by vehicle, carrying a concealed firearm and driving without a license.

The murder counts stems from a drive-by shooting that authorities in Osceola County say Ramirez had carried out on December 3, 2017, with his ailing girlfriend, 19-year-old Fabiola Cosme-Feliciano, in the car.

Yeshua Ramirez, 19 (left), has been charged with manslaughter in connection to the death of his 19-year-old diabetic girlfriend Fabiola Cosme-Feliciano (right)

Cosme-Feliciano died on December 4, 2017, after likely going into diabetic shock

Authorities say Ramirez left his dying girlfriend (pictured together) for 3-4 hours and went out to deal drugs

Cosme-Feliciano was suffering from Type 1 diabetes and likely went into diabetic shock the day after the shooting, but Ramirez was not there to help her because he went out to sell drugs, according to Osceola County Sheriff Major Jacob Ruiz.

An arrest affidavit, cited by Orlando Sentinel, states that Ramirez left his dying girlfriend unattended in his home for three to four hours on December 4 and when he returned, she was dead.

He had knowledge of her deteriorating condition, Ruiz said. Her life depended on [getting care] and he did nothing about it.

Ramirez, who lives in Orlando and has a young son from a previous relationship, was initially arrested on February 15 in Cosme-Feliciano's death.

The 19-year-old was also charged a week later with murder in connection to the drive-by shooting.

When questioned by investigators, Ramirez allegedly blamed his dead girlfriend for the shooting, but they believe that based on his lengthy criminal history, he was the gunman and not Cosme-Feliciano, who had no criminal record.

Ramirez and Cosme-Feliciano were involved in a drive-by shooting the day before her death

The 19-year-old had been living with Type 1 diabetes from the time she was two years old

Ramirez told the cops that he looked on as Cosme-Feliciano's condition worsened over the course of several days but he could not afford to buy her diabetes medications, according to the sherrifs office.

A day after her death, Ramirez took to Facebook and posted a rambling tribute to his 'babygirl' and 'angel'.

'I love you and cant believe what I came home too [sic],' he wrote. 'My heart is broken and my eyes are stained but my love will never end shorty i swear...'

According to Cosme-Feliciano's mother, Lilly, Fabiola was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of two, while the family were still living in their native Puerto Rico.

When Fabiola turned seven, the family relocated to Florida so the girl could receive treatment at Nemours Children's Hospital.

Despite her condition, she lifted weights and was on the cheer squad at Poinciana High School in Kissimmee, Florida.

After graduating in 2016, Cosme-Feliciano enrolled at Valencia College to study nursing, but her mother acknowledged that in recent years her daughter had been keeping bad company.

Still, she says, Fabiola did not deserve to die the way she did.

I just cannot understand why someone left my baby like that, Lilly Feliciano said. That was cruel.

Jail records indicate that Ramirez had been arrested at least four times prior to February 2017.

His previous charges include probation violations, marijuana and drug paraphernalia possession, obstructing a police officer and driving with a suspended license.Crammed in a tiny cell smelling of urine and covered in slime with 146 other prisoners sleeping inches from each other.

These are the hellish conditions Australian filmmaker James Ricketson has endured since he was arrested as a spy in Cambodia nine months ago.

The 68-year-old is trapped in the notorious Prey Sar jail with no end in sight after his request for bail was denied by a Phnom Penh court.

Australian filmmaker James Ricketson endures hellish conditions in a Cambodian prison with 147 inmates locked in one tiny cell next to a disgusting bathroom

In the notorious Prey Sar jail he is crammed into a tiny cell smelling of urine and covered in slime with 146 other prisoners sleeping inches from each other

His 16-by-6 metre cell is so overcrowded he can only sleep in his tiny space on the floor, softened only by two towels and a thin blanket, from 6pm to 6.30am.

'Men must sleep with their arms around each other like lovers, legs over torsos, heads within inches of each other,' he wrote in a harrowing account for the Sydney Morning Herald.

The four-by-two metre bathroom is considerably worse, shared between all 147 men, crudely constructed and poorly maintained.

A trench serves as urinal and there are just three squat toilets that often have no water to flush them, with just thin, mouldy curtains that don't stay up for privacy.

The disgusting bathroom doubles as the place to wash pots and pans and the floor is so slimy it's dangerous to walk across.

'It is not at all unusual to find, in horror, 10 men bathing themselves with ladles of water while others wash dishes or pee in the crude trench urinal, or use the squat toilet,' he wrote.

Ricketson was arrested in June for flying a drone over an opposition political rally and accused of espionage, facing 10 year in jail

The award-winning documentary maker said the charges were trumped-up and accused the Australian Government of doing little to help him

As he sleeps only inches from the cell door and four metres from the filthy bathroom he is kept awake by the overpowering smell of urine.

Ricketson was arrested in June for flying a drone over an opposition political rally and accused of espionage, facing 10 years in jail for 'collecting information prejudicial to national security'.

Prosecutors linked him to the now banned opposition Cambodian National Rescue Party amid a crackdown on dissent in the Southeast Asian country.

The award-winning documentary maker said the charges were trumped-up and accused the Australian Government of doing little to help him.

'Without the media putting pressure on the government and helping to share public opinion I suspect that the (Australian) government would do nothing,' he wrote.

The 68-year-old is trapped in the notorious Prey Sar jail with no end in sight after his request for bail was denied by a Phnom Penh court

This was despite Foreign Minister Julie Bishop making formal diplomatic representations to her Cambodian counterpart Prak Sokhonn on his behalf.

Ricketson said he had to abandon his plan to buy 18 houses for impoverished families $140,000 because of his legal expenses.

His son Jesse and his girlfriend Alex were also in 'financial chaos' from moving to Cambodia to help him, bring fresh fruit to the prison twice a week.

But Ricketson said the mostly poor 146 other men had it worse than him because they didn't have Western friends to help them or media to highlight his case.

'I am very lucky indeed,' he concluded.Alfie Evans has a 'relentless and progressive' neurological condition

The family of Alfie Evans have released footage of him in a desperate eleventh hour bid to persuade doctors and judges to continue his life support.

Alfie has a 'relentless and progressive' neurological condition which has destroyed part of his brain, and he is unable to breathe or swallow on his own.

Specialists at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool said continuing to provide treatment was 'unkind, unfair and inhumane' and have asked judges to rule that his life-support could stop.

His embattled parents Tom Evans, 21, and Kate James, 20, claim their son has been 'sentenced to the death penalty' and took their fight to the High Court.

Ahead of a Court of Appeal hearing tomorrow which will decide on whether doctors can stop Alfie's treatment, his aunt Sarah Evans posted videos of the 21-month-old in his hospital bed, labelling him a 'truly special miracle'.

In the clips she claims he is responsive to his mother's touch and is able to suck a dummy and chew her finger.

Sarah Evans also claims Alfie is able to move his stomach muscles as she says she is 'praying for justice'.

Specialists at Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool said continuing to provide life-support treatment was 'unkind, unfair and inhumane' and have asked judges to rule that life-support treatment could stop

Alfie's parents Tom Evans, 21, and Kate James, 20, claim their son has been 'sentenced to the death penalty'

Last week a High Court judge ruled that doctors can stop treating Alfie, against the wishes of his parents.

Mr Justice Hayden, who analysed the case at hearings in the Family Division of the High Court in London and Liverpool, said he accepted medical evidence which showed further treatment was futile.

Alfie's parents challenged Mr Justice Hayden's ruling and asked the Court of Appeal to consider the case.

Three appeal judges began analysing issues at a hearing in London on Thursday.

A video released by Alfie's aunt appears to show him responding to his mother

TIMELINE OF SERIOUSLY ILL ALFIE EVANS WHOSE PARENTS ARE BATTLING THE NHS TO KEEP HIM ALIVE Miss James (pictured with Alfie) and Mr Evans want to move their son to Rome for treatment Last week a High Court judge ruled that doctors can stop treating Alfie, against the wishes of his parents May 2016: Alfie Evans is born apparently perfectly healthy, but misses numerous developmental milestones in his first seven months December 2016: Alfie catches a chest infection causing seizures, and is taken to Alder Hey Children's Hospital in Liverpool where he is put on life support. He has been there ever since July 2017: Father Tom Evans says he is seeking US treatment for his son and hopes Charlie Gard's supporters will help after he claimed doctors want to turn off Alfie's life support. December 17: Alfie's parents say they will begin mediation with the hospital in a bid to find a way forward without legal action December 19: Mr Evans claims the toddler is letting them know he wants to live February 1: The case goes to the High Court in Liverpool, where the hospital reveal the parents smuggled a German doctor into hospital in a bid to stop the life support from being switched off February 2: Consultant tells High Court that the child is unresponsive, not conscious of his surroundings and cannot be cured February 5: Parents are told by doctors there is 'no hope for recovery' for their boy who has suffered 'catastrophic degradation' to his brain from a 'relentless' condition February 7: Miss James tells a newspaper that she feels 'physical' pain at the thought of her son's death February 20: Mr Justice Hayden rules that doctors can stop providing treatment to Alfie. February 22: Alfie's father, Tom, 21, said he would appeal against the decision, saying 'doctors should take a step back.' March 1: Three appeal judges began analysing issues at a hearing in London. March 6: Court of Appeal hearing tomorrow will decide on whether doctors can stop Alfie's treatment. Advertisement

Alfie's parents, who believe that the little boy responds to them, wanted treatment to continue. His father is pictured here arriving at the Royal Courts of Justice

Barrister Stephen Knafler QC, who is leading Alfie's parents' legal team, told the appeal that he wanted to raise 'various points of law'.

Alfie's parents, who believe that he responds to them, want treatment to continue and hope to fly their son to the Vatican-linked Bambino Gesu Paediatric Hospital in Rome for treatment.

If that proved unsuccessful they hoped he could be taken for treatment in Hamburg before eventually being permitted to die at home.

Alfie's neurological condition is so rare that doctors have never seen it before. One even suggested it may eventually be named 'Alfie's Disease'.He is used to receiving a warm welcome wherever he goes in the world.

But none quite like the one he is he set to experience when he visits the remote Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu next month.

For Prince Charles is to be welcomed with open arms and given a special communication to take home to London for his father, Prince Philip, who is, bizarrely, worshipped there as a god.

Prince Charles, pictured with his father Prince Philip, right, will travel to Vanuatu in the south Pacific where the Duke of Edinburgh is revered as a God by tribal leaders

Village chief Jack Malia would like to see Prince Philip return one day to Vanuatu

The island's late leader Chief Jack Naiva paddled out in his canoe to meet the Queen and Prince Philip as they anchored in the Royal Yacht Britannia in 1974

Tribal elders in Yaohnanen, a jungle village on the remote island of Tanna - part of more than 80 islands that make up Vanuatu  have told Mail Online how thrilled they are at the news that a big man Royal will come to the region.

And they have revealed that they plan to meet soon to agree on a special message they want to give the British heir to the throne to take home to their true Messiah, his father.

It was their late leader Chief Jack Naiva, who was the inspiration for Prince Philip worship amongst the tribe when he paddled out on his war canoe to greet the Royal Yacht Britannia when the Queen and her husband visited in 1974.

When Chief Jack saw Philip standing on the deck in his white uniform, he was shaken to his core.

The chief admitted shortly afterwards seeing Prince Philip in his naval uniform convinced him that the Duke of Edinburgh was 'the true Messiah'

As a result of that first encounter, Prince Philip is still considered as a deity to this day

Princess Anne, pictured centre, visited the island in October 2014

Prince Charles, pictured last month, will travel to Vanuatu on his way to Australia

I knew then that he was the true Messiah, he later revealed to the Mail.

To see him in the flesh like that took my breath away, even though I knew that deep inside he was more than flesh and bones.

Chief Jack was referring to a legend that started when Americans fighting in the Pacific war dropped boxes of food, refrigerators and even cars by parachute to the islanders.

They saw this as the fulfilling of a promise that a curious white man Jon Frum - John from America - had made, telling them that a towering volcano would open up and gifts would be showered upon them.

Prince Charles is due to visit the island's captial Port Vila on April 7 ahead of the opening of the Commonwealth Games

It was also said that a deity living in the volcano near the Yaohnanen village 'became a white man who went away to Britain to marry the Queen there'.

So when Prince Philip arrived in all his regal glory, their prophecy seemed to have been fulfilled. Later the villagers sent Philip a war club and, in return, received a photo of him holding the weapon, remarkably, in the grounds of Buckingham Palace.

Chief Jack received a further two photos from the prince over the years, which still hold price of place in their jungle home.

Now Charles is due to pay a one-day visit to the archipelagos capital, Port Vila, on April 7, as part of a visit to Australia to open the Commonwealth Games.

He plans to view first-hand the work done to repair the damage left by Cyclone Pam in 2015, one of the worst natural disasters in the history of Vanuatu, and the effects of global warming.

And while the few dozen villagers of Yaohnanen realise that Philip is now too old to travel across the world to visit them, they are thrilled that his eldest son will be so close.

Its only now that Ive learned that Prince Charles is coming to our country and Im going to let the village know immediately, Noam Siaka, the university student great-great-grandson of the late village chief told Mail Online.

They are going to be thrilled about Prince Charles coming to Vanuatu and I can assure you that they will now call a meeting in the nakamal (a village meeting house) to decide on a special message for Prince Charles to take back to his father.

We believe we have a very strong link with the royal family in England because of the photos of Prince Philip that he sent out to us personally. I dont think there is any other tribe in the world who has that kind of connection.

A group of villagers from Tanna will travel to the capital to greet Prince Charles next month

He added: I think the elders would like to write something to say that they still love Prince Philip and that they hope he will never forget them.

Another islander, Jackson George, added: Those of us from Tanna who will be in Port Vila when Prince Charles arrives will make sure we give him a special welcome.

It would make us all very happy if Prince Philip learns through his son that we are all thinking about him and that we wish him well.

Tanna hotel receptionist Eileen Patick added: 'It's the talk of the island. We all love Prince Philip, even though he has never actually come to Yaohnanen village, so everyone is very happy that his son finally arriving here.

Before his own death, Chief Jack issued an open invitation to their deity to return.

Islanders said they would build Prince Philip a nice house if he ever wanted to move to the island, and as a guest of honour, they will 'roast pigs and bullocks' for him

Speaking to the Daily Mail in 2006, after the newspaper revealed the amazing story of Prince Philips links with the island, he said: We'll build him a nice little house, he can have all the servants he wants and every day we will come to kneel at his feet because he is our true leader.. He will be guest of honour and we'll roast pigs and bullocks for him. We'll cook him yams and celebrate with coconut shells filled with kava. All the girls will dance for him.

'We want him to spend the last years of his life here, because we believe that when he returns as our god, his powers will make our wrinkles disappear and we will have many wives to attend to our every need. He won't have to hunt for pigs or anything. He can just sit in the sun and have a nice time.'

A tempting offer - but one, given that he is 95 and now retired from official duties, is unlikely to ever happen.

But Tanna islander Mr George is pragmatic.

It would have been a privilege to have welcomed Prince Philips son to Tanna, but we understand that hes a very busy man and cant be everywhere, he said.

In any case, there may be other opportunities - and there are other young members of the Royal Family who might be able to pay a visit. Well roast a pig for them, put on special dances and leave them with memories theyll never forget.A Russian man who bragged about his Popeye-like arms after injecting himself with dangerous chemicals to make them appear bigger now says he wants to look like a woman.

Kirill Tereshin, 21, from the city of Pyatigorsk in the south western Russia, has revealed he intends to get breast implants.

Posing topless and covered in glitter wearing a blonde wig and make-up, the ex-soldier said he aimed to buy himself a pair of D-cup breasts.

Posing topless and covered in glitter wearing a blonde wig and make-up, Kirill Tereshin (pictured) revealed his plans to become a woman

After that, Tereshin plans to have surgery on his face.

He also admitted he plans to use his growing notoriety to run for President, saying: 'I will double the size of my arms, get D-cup boobs, and as soon as I am done with the upper body, I will go to a plastic surgeon to change my face.'

In an interview with YouTube gaming channel, Hard Play, he also revealed he had grown disillusioned with going to the gym as it failed to produce rapid results.

Since leaving the army this summer, Mr Tereshin has embarked on a synthol programme which saw his biceps grow 10 inches in just 10 days.

He began by injecting 250 ml into his biceps but found that would make them grow by no more than an inch.

Mr Tereshin said: 'In order to reach such a size, you need to inject litres into your arms.

was dying, but then it all turned out fine.'

He added that his body weight had increased from 9st 11lbs to 10st 10lbs since he started the injections.

However, while the oil increases the size of Mr Tereshin's arms, it gives him no extra strength as the muscles are not really as developed as they appear.

The Russian man shot to fame for his Popeye-like arms which he gained after injecting himself with dangerous chemicals

Synthol is injected into muscles to change their shape, and is sometimes used by bodybuilders ahead of a competition to enhance their bodyparts.

The substance, which is not illegal and available in many forms online, is made up of 85 per cent oil, 7.5 per cent lidocaine, and 7.5 per cent alcohol.

Doctors warn that synthol can cause pulmonary embolisms, nerve damage, infections, sclerosing lipogranuloma, stroke and oil-filled cysts or ulcers in the muscle.

Mr Tereshin has posted several disturbing images on his Instagram, showing his biceps with a shocking red and purple discolouring.

He has previously been warned that there is a risk of paralysis but a top Russian medic says the threat is graver.

Professor Evgeny Lilin, said: 'Not immediately but he very likely faces amputation in the future.

'One day abscesses will develop, then inflammation and he (will be at risk of) a stroke.

Now the 21-year-old from the city of Pyatigorsk in the south western Stavrolol Krai region, has revealed he intends to get breast implants

Tereshin wore make-up and a wig for the photo he shared on the Russian equivalent of Facebook

The man's body weight has increased from 9st 11lbs to 10st 10lbs since he began treatment

'I was doing it and getting a fever of up to 40 degrees, I was lying in bed, feeling like I

'The bad thing is that already-injected Synthol or its equivalent will remain in his muscles for the next five to seven years, even if he stops adding more now.'

He has already injected himself with six litres of this 'dangerous liquid' and increased the size of his biceps to 23 inches.

Tereshin had made clear he plans to stop at 27 inches, say reports.

He then plans to 'improve' his back, chest and shoulders.

'I would like to get more than one million subscribers on Instagram and to stop working,' he said, adding that he was considering an offer to become a porn star.

Another doctor said: 'Inside the arms of this man there are already pathologically changed tissues that looks like jelly with insertions.

'They are aseptic or inflammatory so far but these are abscesses.

'They consist either of oil or blood from the damaged vessels.

'They can't be removed.'Joseph Mackey, 45, a former doctor and Boy Scout leader, who was convicted of sexually abusing a teen boy, will be released from prison on Tuesday

A former Missouri doctor and Boy Scout leader, who was convicted of sexually abusing a teen boy, will be released from prison after serving only four months behind bars.

Joseph Mackey, 45, will be released on probation on Tuesday after completing a 120-day sex offender assessment program in prison, according to an order from Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Marco Roldan.

He pleaded guilty in November to one count of statutory sodomy in the sexual assault of a teen boy he met through scouting activities, according to the Kansas City Star.

But his sentence was lessened after he completed the sex offender assessment program.

Mackey, who worked as a Family Medicine doctor, lost his medical license and was forced to stop volunteering at two high schools in Blue Springs, Missouri, after he was given a five-year sentence last year.

Three male victims raised allegations against Mackey in 2011, two years before the Missouri Board of Registration for the Healing Arts informed police they were investigating him. Two of the accounts have not led to charges.

According to court records, obtained by the Star, the first victim met Mackey through a scouting activity when he was 11 years old.

The victim told authorities that he was also Mackey's patient at his Blue Springs medical office, Advanced Family Care.

In November, during Mackey's sentencing, the victim said Mackey had brainwashed him and sexually abused him 150 or 200 times, according to court documents.

Mackey (pictured) completed a 120-day sex offender assessment program in prison. The program determined whether Mackey is suited for treatment and supervision in the community or if he should serve out their full term in prison

The first victim met Mackey through a scouting activity when he was 11. In November, during Mackey's sentencing, the victim said Mackey had sexually abused him 150 or 200 times

The victim was also Mackey's patient at his Blue Springs medical office, Advanced Family Care (pictured)

'As a seemingly trusted medical professional, Scout and community leader, he knew what I needed as a young child and chose to take whatever he wanted of me,' the statement read. 'I was robbed of normalcy and a normal adolescence.

'It is my firm belief that if this man is left unsupervised, he will try in some way to manipulate people again,' the statement continued.

The victim, who is now in his 30s, won a $120 million lawsuit against Mackey last October.

When Mackey was initially accused of misconduct in 2011, the Kansas City area's Heart of America Council of Boy Scouts severed ties with him.

Mackey had volunteered with the Boy Scouts for more than 10 years, and was a leader for Troop 42 in Jackson County, according to the Star.

That same year, Mackey was also forced to stop volunteering as a team doctor for Blue Springs High School and Blue Springs South High School.

If Mackey would have been convicted on the eight counts of second-degree statutory sodomy that prosecutors filed against him in 2015, Mackey could've faced a stiffer sentence.

Mike Mansur, a spokesman for the Jackson County prosecutor's office, told the Star that the case would have been difficult for prosecutors to win at trial.

The victim, who is now in his 30s, won a $120 million lawsuit against Mackey (left and right) last October. Mackey must also successfully complete a sex offender treatment program and register as a sex offender. He is not allowed to have contact with the victim

Mansur said the victim agreed to accept a guilty plea on the single count.

'These cases are often difficult cases but this one was a good outcome that the victim agreed to and allowed us to get some justice.'

According to the Star, the 120-day program that Mackey participated in evaluates convicted sex offenders for potential risks.

The program basically determines whether someone is suited for treatment and supervision in the community or if they should serve out their full term in prison.

In February, Mackey and his attorney tried to modify the conditions of his probation to allow him to live at home with his wife and two sons, aged 9 and 11.

Though Mackey will be freed, he will not be able to live with his children, who are minors.

Mackey must also successfully complete a sex offender treatment program and register as a sex offender. He is not allowed to have contact with the victim.A judge has slammed prosecutors as she was forced to delay the sentencing of an acid attacker because of a 'lack of paperwork'.

John Tomlin, 25, who threw acid over an aspiring model and her cousin as she celebrated her 21st birthday, is facing years behind bars.

Resham Khan and cousin Jameel Muhktar, 37, were covered in acid as they sat in their car at a red traffic light in Beckton, east London.

They were both in court today with members of their family only to see Tomlin's sentence put off until next month.

Tomlin admitted two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent more than three months ago at Snaresbrook Crown Court.

To add to the victims' outrage Tomlin, who has six teardrops tattooed on his face, taunted them from the dock during the brief hearing.

Resham Khan (left), 21, was with her cousin Jameel Muhktar (right), 37, when the pair were doused with a corrosive liquid in June in East London

He smiled at Mukthar and started to laugh at him from the dock.

The enraged victim told the judge: 'He is sitting there laughing at me.'

Tomlin waved to his family and spoke to them before Judge Canavan warned: 'I will throw out anyone who interrupts the court.'

Outside court Mr Mukthar said: 'Well, I am glad at least someone is laughing.'

Judge Sandy Canavan had asked the prosecution to provide medical reports for Ms Khan and Mr Mukhtar along with victim impact statements.

She had also ordered psychiatric reports to assess the level of danger Tomlin poses to the public.

Judge Canavan said: 'I am very sorry that the defendant cannot be sentenced today. You are going to receive a custodial sentence of many years.

'I can not sentence you today because I do not have the information before me. So, I will have to adjourn sentencing to the 20th of April.

'I am also ordering that the head of CPS London North write to me within seven days explaining the defects of this case.

'The Crown Prosecution Service have done precisely nothing. Under what circumstances do the CPS think it is right to upload documents on the morning of sentence.'

'Both victims are in court today. I wanted psychiatric reports, medical evidence and impact statements.

'Imagine my surprise that yet again, apart from some evidence from Miss Khan The crown had failed to comply with my orders.'

Miss Khan shared these photos last month of her recovery, saying it's 'time to stop hiding'

Student Miss Khan, suffered severe life changing facial scarring following the unprovoked attack at 9:13am on Tollgate Road, Beckton, on June 21 last year

Student Miss Khan, suffered severe life changing facial scarring following the unprovoked attack at 9:13am on Tollgate Road, Beckton, on June 21 last year.

Tomlin targeted Miss Khan through the passenger window before moving round to the driver's side.

He then threw more of the acid at Mr Muhktar.

The two victims tried to drive off, pursued by the attacker before their car crashed into a fence and the man fled the scene.

Mr Muhktar was also badly burned as the liquid was hurled through the car windows left open on a warm summer's day.

The cousins were left with horrific neck and face injuries and were treated in hospital.

Tomlin targeted Miss Khan through the passenger window before moving round to the driver's side

Miss Khan, who studies at Manchester Met university, had a skin graft and her eyesight is permanently damaged.

She had just returned from an exchange year to Cyprus when the attack happened.

Miss Khan has shared her journey to recovery on a blog, and last month shared a new picture on Twitter.

In one blog post she comments on how she had been 'too petrified to walk to my local shop'.

She said she has suffered from breakdowns in her road to recovery, adding her voice to petition to strengthen sentences of acid attacker.

'Not victims, but survivors, gave me so much determination and strength. These women took on the world and its fate, and tackle each day like any other,' she said.

'My respect for these women fuelled anger and disgust. I don't understand why attackers use acid, but what I do know is that it deserves the harshest punishment.'

Mr Muhktar was so badly burnt he was put in an induced coma.

He was left deaf in one ear, damage to his right eye and extensive burns to his upper body, arms, legs, back, neck and face.

Mr Mukhtar gave an interview to Channel 4 after the attack and similarly said how he 'couldn't be around anybody'.

He said: 'I'm embarrassed to even talk to people. I don't go outside anymore I can't even look at myself in the mirror.'

Mr Muhktar displays his injuries after the incident which happened when he was in his car

Police have previously said there is 'nothing to suggest the attack was racially motivated'.

A motive for the attack is yet to be given in court but Tomlin has been previously sectioned under the Mental Health Act and has been prescribed anti-psychotic medication.

Tomlin, of Colman Road, Canning Town, has admitted two counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

Judge Canavan previously ordered psychiatric reports be prepared after Tomlin's 'somewhat random targeting' of Ms Khan and Mr Muhktar left them with life changing injuries.

The court heard Tomlin has previous convictions for violent crime.

He was convicted of common assault in 2007, robbery in 2008 and assaults on police officers in 2014 and 2016.

Tomlin is thought to have been sectioned several times under the Mental Health Act.

Sentencing was adjourned until April 20.A pro boxer lost a bag filled with $155,000 in cash and jewelry after agreeing to fight a man he got into a row with at a club owned by Jay-Z.

Jermall Charlo, 27, was out partying with his assistant and a group of women when he got into what is described as a 'physical altercation' with someone at 3am on Sunday at the 40/40 club in Manhattan.

The pair squared off, but not before the former IBF light middleweight champion handed his assistant the bag which contained $40,000 in bills and 115,000 worth of jewelry.

As fists flew, the assistant offloaded the bag to one of the women, who scarpered along with her friends.

Jermall Charlo, 27, from Richmond, Texas, had his bag stolen from Jay-Z's 40/40 club in Manhattan

Jermall Charlo throws a left at Austin Trout at The Cosmopolitan, Las Vegas, back in May 2016

Police are appealing for information about five women, one of which is understood to be a nurse from Boston, Massachusetts, according toNBC.

It is not clear why the fighter was carrying such a huge amount of cash, though the altercation happened hours after he appeared at Brooklyns Barclays Center for a bout.

His fight got cancelled due an opponent's injured rib, therefore he could have received a cash payout as part of his contract.

It's not thought the brawl and the theft are related, but rather the women took advantage of the fact Charlo was distracted to make of with their loot.

The boxer, who holds an impressive 26-0 record in the ring, didn't realize his bag was gone until he sat back down after the brawl in the early hours, the New York Post reported.

All five women said to be involved were captured on CCTV leaving the club.

One of the women, thought to be the nurse, was seen getting into a car with Massachusetts plates, it has been claimed.

Although there is a dispute over the exact version of events, Charlo is still out of pocket to the tune of around $155,000 and police are investigating.

Charlo, from Richmond, Texas, has an identical twin brother called Jermell.

Jermell has held the WBC light middleweight title since 2016.Traci Kegley disappeared in 1998. He car was found abandoned with her two-year-old daughter still inside

Authorities say a new search has turned up potential evidence in the case of an Alabama woman who disappeared three decades ago.

Elmore County District Attorney Randall Houston says searchers found the potential evidence connected to the disappearance of Traci Pittman Kegley in a pond within a 300-acre search area. The material will be sent for forensic review.

Authorities wouldn't say what evidence the divers found in a pond on the property, WSFA-TV reported. It was sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences lab for testing.

However, things are clearly moving fast. Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Capt. Joe Herman says authorities have developed suspects and will be ready to make arrests if the evidence points to it being connected to Kegley,

'If they don't come see us, we're going to go see them,' Elmore County District Attorney Randall Houston said, according to the station.

Kegley was 30 years old when she was last seen at a gas station before being reported missing in April 1988.

Her car was found the next day. It had been abandoned with her two-year-old daughter inside and unharmed, around 20 miles from this week's search area.

The 'potential evidence' in the search for Traci Kegley is now in the hands of the Alabama Dept. of Forensic Sciences

Foul play is suspected in Kegley's disappearance.

The search warrant was based on information a tipster called in to a Crime Stoppers hotline after WSFA ran a report on Kegley's disappearance in 2015 but authorities said it took them until now to verify the tip.

Kegley's mother, Linda Pitman, said she was surprised to hear that authorities had come up with a lead in the case.

'I knew they had been working on this since Traci disappeared and of course it's been 20 years or will be this April, so I was really surprised, as long as it's been, that they would come up with something that might lead us to her,' she said to the Tallassee Tribune.

There's a $25,000 reward still available to anyone with information that leads to an arrest and conviction for those responsible for Kegley's death.Advertisement

Spring might be just around the corner, but winter hasn't finished pummeling the Northeast just yet.

The first week of March will see snow, strong winds and disruptive blizzard conditions across the north-central and northeastern United States.

For the second time in a week a storm is brewing out west and heading towards the east coast, and will likely bring snow to New York and pound coastal towns still cleaning up from last week's nor'easter.

The storm is forming out of a winter system coming across the Great Plains Monday and prompting blizzard warnings from North Dakota to Nebraska.

Scroll down for video

A storm is brewing in the west and preparing to head across the country. Later in the week it will beat down on the east coast, which is still recovering from damage caused by last week's nor'easter

The first week of March will see snow, strong winds and disruptive blizzard conditions across the north-central and northeastern United States

For the second time in a week a storm is brewing out west and heading towards the east coast, and will likely bring snow to New York and pound coastal towns still cleaning up from last week's nor'easter

This will be the second major storm to his the east coast this week. Pictured Kaylee Collin and Spencer Stone walk through flood water in Maine on Sunday after a nor'easter that hit over the weekend

The storm left more than 2million homes and businesses without power at one point and caused at least nine deaths on the east coast

'For most people in the Northeast, especially in New England and the coastal mid-Atlantic, this will be a more typical winter storm or nor'easter,' AccuWeather Senior meteorologist Alex Sosnowski said Monday.

Between six and nine inches of snow are expected to fall starting Tuesday night in New York, New Jersey and southern Connecticut, according to the National Weather Service.

And some areas in western and northern New England could receive between one and two feet of snow.

But wrinkles in the forecast show it could just be rain in some parts of the northeast.

Meteorologist Biran Cimnecki said the NWS issued a winter storm watch because there is a 50 percent of at least six inches of snow.

'It doesn't mean we're going to get six inches,' he clarified.

If the storm tracks closer to the coast it could mean more rain for New York and other coastal areas, but less snow in all.

The storm is currently making its way across the Great Plains, and has raised the chances of wildfires in Colorado, Kansas and Oklahoma due to strong winds and dry air.

It it expected to hit western states much harder, with a potential for many areas to get a foot of snow early this week. The worst of the blizzard is expected in the Dakotas from Minot and Bismarck, North Dakota to Pierre, South Dakota.

The storm is forming out of a winter system coming across the Great Plains Monday and prompting blizzard warnings from North Dakota to Nebraska

Between six and nine inches of snow are expected to fall starting Tuesday night in New York, New Jersey and southern Connecticut, according to the National Weather Service

If the storm tracks closer to the coast it could mean more rain for New York and other coastal areas, but less snow in all

Flights could be cancelled and delayed in the midwest to the east coast as the storm continues to move

'Bismarck has only received around 18 inches of snow so far this season and could receive around a foot or more from this event alone,' according to AccuWeather meteorologist Brett Rathbun.

Flights could be cancelled and delayed in the midwest to the east coast as the storm continues to move.

'Anyone with plans later than Monday should prepare for postponements,' AccuWeather Senior meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski said.

Monday night and Tuesday the band of snow will continue sweeping eastward through Michigan, grazing Detroit and eventually Chicago.

The worst should be over by Tuesday in the west, but a pocket of heavier snow could cause travel disruptions in the north-central US.

The storm is then expected to strengthen along the Northeast coast, causing residents there to face potential power outages and travel disruptions.

The east coast is still recovering from being pummeled by a nor'easter Friday and Saturday. The storm has been blamed for at least nine deaths, including two children who were struck by trees. But officials warn that severe weather is still to come in areas along the East Coast this week

About 1million people from Virginia to Massachusetts were still without power Sunday, two days after a destructive nor'easter swept the East Coast. Pictured is the Orleans, Massachusetts Natural Resource manager Nate Sears with Ed Hathorne keeping an eye n the high tide surf at Nauset Beach on Saturday

Skies were clear Sunday over much of the Northeast hit by the storm, but many are still unsure whether they can return home and schools aren't sure if they will reopen Monday morning. Pictured is a woman who had to abandon her car Saturday due to the high floods in Winthrop, Massachusetts

'The big problem is that the storm this week is coming so soon after the destructive storm from last Friday,' Sosnowski said

A large wave crashes over the seawall in Winthrop, Massachusetts, on Saturday at high tide

The east coast is still recovering from being pummeled by a nor'easter Friday and Saturday.

'The big problem is that the storm this week is coming so soon after the destructive storm from last Friday,' Sosnowski said.

'It will disrupt cleanup and restoration operations and is likely to cause a new but less extreme round of travel delays, power outages and damage from fallen trees.'

The storm left roughly 2million homes and businesses without power at its peak, grounded thousands of flights, stopped Amtrak trains and caused extensive flooding. It also caused at least nine deaths on the east coast, including two children who were crushed by trees.

States of emergency were declared in parts of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Maryland on Saturday, and Sunday New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency in Westchester, Putnam, Dutchess and Sullivan counties.

In New Jersey, officials said some areas might not have their electricity restored until Tuesday or Wednesday.

The heaviest snowfall is expected in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. It will likely be dry and powdery, therefore subject to blowing and drifting.

'Airline passengers should expect a new round of flight delays and cancellations in the Northeast with some ripple-effect delays elsewhere in the nation,' Sosnowski said.

This is the joyful moment when students yell as their new books get blown away by strong winds at their first school day in southeast China.

Students from Jiangxi Institute of Fashion Technology were screaming with joy as the weather turned bad all of a sudden when teachers were about to hand out their textbooks.

The unpredictable weather had ruined hundreds of books as it got carried away by strong gust of winds and heavy showers.

Pictured: Hundreds of new books are blown into the air in a fashion college as strong gust of winds attacks Jiangsxi Province, southeast China on Sunday.

The clip, shared by Pear Video, shows hundreds of textbooks flying in the air being swept away by gale-force winds on March 4.

Plastic buckets and packaging papers were blown away from the corridor. Students and teachers were trying to hide behind the pillars.

One student, surnamed Yao, explained the teacher was preparing to distribute the new books to the students at the corridor on the first day of school.

'Some of the classmates were sent to 798 Arts Centre to get their new books. The weather was perfect on the day but it turned bad suddenly. It was really windy, no one can battle against the strong force,' said Yao.

Students are laughing and screaming as they try to hide behind the pillars at the corridor

The gale-force winds and strong showers destroy hundreds of new textbooks in minutes

On the same day, the strong winds had torn off an airport's departure hall soffit in the same Province.

The power of nature ripped away masonry piece by piece, causing debris to collapse onto the pavement outside the pick-up area.

Wind speeds of over 30 metres per second were recorded when the accident happened, reports added.Angela Merkel has rejected a proposal to make Germany's national anthem more 'gender neutral' by ditching words such as 'fatherland' and 'brotherly'.

The SPD's Kristin Rose-Moehring, equality commissioner for Germany since 2001, wrote to family ministry staff to suggest removing male-specific references in the 'Song of Germany'.

It has been Germany's national anthem since 1922.

Under her proposals, the word 'Vaterland', which appears in the first and last lines of the current anthem, would be replaced by 'Heimatland', meaning homeland.

Merkel has deemed any such tweaks unnecessary. 'The chancellor is very happy with our nice national anthem as it is in its traditional form and doesn't see any need for change,' spokesman Steffen Seibert said today'

The SPD's Kristin Rose-Moehring, equality commissioner for Germany since 2001, wrote to family ministry staff to suggest striking male-specific references in the 'Song of Germany'

She suggested making the change on March 8, International Women's Day, according to the Bild am Sonntag.

But Merkel has deemed any such tweaks unnecessary.

'The chancellor is very happy with our nice national anthem as it is in its traditional form and doesn't see any need for change,' spokesman Steffen Seibert said today.

A spokesman for the family ministry said Rose-Moehring's letter had been a personal proposal and he could not comment on it, especially as it was an internal letter to employees at the family ministry.

The reports surfaced shortly before the SPD announced that two-thirds of its members had voted in favour of joining an alliance with Merkel's conservatives, with whom they have been in power since 2013.

That paves the way for a new government under Merkel to start work in mid-March.

Rose-Moehring proposed replacing 'brotherly with heart and hand' with 'courageously with heart and hand'.

The first stanza of the anthem, which declares 'Germany, Germany above all else' - reflecting efforts to unify Germany in the 19th century - and the second, with its refrain of 'German women, German loyalty, German wine and German song' were officially dropped in 1991 following reunification.

The now-disused first verse also describes Germany as extending to territory which now belongs to France, the Netherlands and countries in Eastern Europe.

The third stanza, which is now in use, begins: 'Unity, justice and freedom for the German fatherland.'

'Why don't we make our national anthem gender sensitive,' Rose-Mohring said when proposing her changes.

'It wouldn't hurt, would it?'

Austria and Canada have both removed gender-specific terms from their anthems in recent years, with Canada recently changing the words 'in all thy sons' command' to 'in all of us command'.

Germany officially cut its national anthem to only the third stanza in 1991, shortly after reunification. Pictured: A German flag next to the Reichstag dome in Berlin

However, the proposal triggered a scornful reaction from the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

'Completely over the top, and not even an April Fool's joke,' tweeted a branch of the AfD in the southern state of Baden-Wurttemberg.

The anthem's melody was written by Austrian composer Joseph Haydn in 1797.

It was also used by West Germany during the Cold War, while Soviet-backed East Germany used the song 'Risen from Ruins'.

Equality commissioner Rose-Mohring successfully sued her own ministry in 2012 after three top ministry posts were given to male candidates without consulting her.Gavin Williamson said Russia has made its 'hostile intent' towards the UK known

Gavin Williamson today vowed that Britain would not stand 'submissively' by and allow Russia to 'bully' the world after they announced tests for a fleet of unstoppable nuclear missiles.

The Defence Secretary said the UK must 'wake up to the threat' posed by Vladimir Putin and his arsenal of nuclear weapons.

He said the Russian leader has made his 'hostile intent' towards the UK crystal clear - and Britain will see down the threat.

His tough words in the House of Commons today came as other MPs warned the world is slipping into a new Cold War with the eastern power.

Gavin Williamson (pictured in Parliament today) vowed that Britain would not stand 'submissively' by and allow Russia to 'bully' the world after they announced tests for a fleet of unstoppable nuclear missiles

Launch: President Putin also showed the crowd video footage of a test of the new Sarmat missile, carried out last year

A frame grab take from a handout video footage provided by official website of Russian President kremlin.ru shows a submarine launching an unmanned submersible with an innovative nuclear engine demonstrated on displays during Russian President Vladimir Putin's address to the Federal Assembly

Politicians demanded to know what the Government is doing to stave off the Russian threat after Putin announced he is testing nuclear weapons 'invulnerable to enemy interception'.

Mr Putin said the weapons include a nuclear-powered cruise missile, a nuclear-powered underwater drone and new hypersonic missile.

The new breed of lethal weapon would render NATO's US-led missile defense 'useless' leaving the West vulnerable to attack.

Mr Williamson said: 'Let's be really clear: President Putin has been developing a much more hostile and aggressive posture towards the United Kingdom, towards the United States, towards our allies, for an awful lot longer than the last 12 months.

'They want to assert their rights... we've seen an increased Russian activity in the North Atlantic, a 10-fold increase over the last few years.

Bragging: Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted that Russia had made a cruise missile 'able to reach almost any point in the world' that could penetrate any missile defence

'And do we sit submissively by, do we just accept that President Putin can do whatever he wishes to do or do we have to look at how we respond and make it clear that we're not willing to stand up to bullying - the fact that nations are being subjected to attacks by Russia.

'We need to deal with that, that's what we will do and that's why I am proud we have a continuous at sea nuclear deterrent.'

The Defence Secretary said Russia has been building up its forces along the Eastern Front of Europe for many years and warned: 'We have to wake up to that threat and we have to respond to it.'

He said the UK must keep its Trident nuclear deterrent and look at new military technology to take on the threat.

Labour MP Barry Sheerman was among a number of MPs who raised concerns about Russia's latest announcement.

The MP for Huddersfield warned that Mr Putin has fired the opening salvos in a 'new Cold War'.

Announcing his new breed of weapons in his state of the nation address in Moscow last week, Mr Putin said: 'I want to tell all those who have fueled the arms race over the last 15 years, sought to win unilateral advantages over Russia, introduced unlawful sanctions aimed to contain our country's development: all what you wanted to impede with your policies have already happened.

'You have failed to contain Russia.'

He said that the nuclear-powered cruise missile tested last fall has an unlimited range and high speed and maneuverability allowing it to pierce any missile defense.

The Russian leader said the high-speed underwater drone also has an 'intercontinental' range and is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead that could target both aircraft carriers and coastal facilities.Lashauna Hooker Beachum, 32, of Charlotte was arrested Sunday and charged with making false reports about mass violence on school property

A school bus driver in North Carolina has been arrested after investigators say she posted threats on social media targeting a school.

The Union County Sheriff's Office said 32-year-old Lashauna Hooker Beachum of Charlotte was arrested Sunday and charged with making false reports about mass violence on school property.

Deputies said the threat was aimed at Porter Ridge Middle School in Indian Trail and criticized several school employees and immigrants in general.

Investigators said the threat showed up on Facebook early Friday morning, disappeared for several hours and reappeared.

Deputies went to the school Friday and eventually traced the threats to Beachum's home.

'F*** Ms. Holomon, f*** Ms. Irvin, f*** Ms. Mathis and especially f*** Mr. Patience! I'm sick of this school, these f***king teachers and the immigrants in Suburban Estates trying to take over the school. You all won't be satisfied until trump send all you f***ers out of here. I'm just going to shoot up the school to help him out,' the message wrote.

A number of people reported the bus driver to the police after reading the threats online

The motive behind the two messages remains unclear, but deputies said they do not think Beachum had the means to carry out the threats. She was later fired by the school district.

It was not known if Beachum has an attorney.

'Any comment, rumor or social media post mentioning violence on school property is unacceptable and will not be tolerated,' said Union County Sheriff Eddie Cathey in a statement.

The response by officials is not all that surprising after Nikolas Cruz, 19, was found to have posted numerous warnings about his impending school shooting on social media in the months leading up to February's Valentine's Day massacre.

Cruz ended up killing 17 people including 3 teachers at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.An explosion which killed five in Leicester was caused by petrol, a court has heard.

Fire tore through the Zabka grocery shop in the city after an explosion on February 25 killed five people in flats above.

The shop's owner Aram Kurd, 33, and co-defendants Hawkar Hassan, 32, and Arkan Ali, 37, appeared at the city's magistrates court today each charged with five counts of manslaughter and one count of arson with intent to endanger life.

Prosecutor Zoe Lee told the court: 'It has been established that the explosion was caused by petrol.'

Aram Kurd is one of three men charged over an explosion which killed five people last month

The blast tore through the shop and flat above it, which was demolished by the resulting fire

During the 20 minute hearing this afternoon the accused appeared wearing grey tracksuits and flanked by three guards.

They remained quiet throughout the hearing and spoke only to confirm their names and ages and occasionally to speak a Kurdish interpreter.

The three were remanded in custody and will appear by video link at Leicester Crown Court for their pre-trial review.

The explosion killed at least two members of the family that lived in the flat, brothers Shane Ragoobeer, 18, and Sean Ragoobeer, 17.

Their mother Mary Ragoobeer, 46, is still missing and is believed to be another victim, though this is yet to be formally confirmed.

Shane's girlfriend Leah Reek, 18, and Zabka worker Viktorija Ijevleva, 22, also died in the explosion. Five other people were injured, one critically.

Shane and Sean Ragoobar were among those killed. Their mother Mary (centre) is also feared to be among those killedMacaulay Culkin may not have got an invite to the Oscars last night but that didn't stop him having fun at the awards ceremony's expense.

The Home Alone star went on a hilarious five-hour Twitter binge, taking swipes at the nominees and movies - despite the fact that he wasn't watching the coverage.

'I will be live tweeting the Oscars tonight, but I won't be watching them,' he tweeted last night, 'WHA!?! That's crazy!

Macaulay Culkin spent the night of the Oscars posting hilarious tweets about the nominees and winners.

The Home Alone star went on a hilarious five-hour Twitter binge, taking a swipes at the nominees and movies - despite the fact that he wasn't watching the coverage

'Question: Do you guys have any suggestions for what I should be doing instead of watching the show?'

He then shared photos of himself, dressed up to the nines in a tuxedo, hanging out at home and catching up with his hobbies; which included playing the guitar, watching cartoons and painting his toenails.

When he wasn't making ramen in his suit, or 'playing with myself' - playing with children's toys on his own - he was tweeting jokes about the movies and the stars being celebrated at the glamorous Oscars ceremony.

Here are some of his best:

'Water takes the shape of whatever container it is in, this entire movie is horse s**t. #Oscars,' he wrote about the best picture winner, The Shape of Water.

'The Disaster Artist was the worst harry potter movie this year #Oscars,' he added.

'I firmly believe that @carlyraejepsen 's "Call Me By Your Name" should win Best Picture #Oscars,' he added.

Meanwhile, Culkin had a clear favorite movie of the night - Boss Baby.

'Please be Boss Baby, Please be Boss Baby, Please be Boss Baby, Please be Boss Baby #Oscars.'

The movie was nominated in the animated movie category but lost out to Coco.

The former child star also joked that I, Tonya star Magot Robbie may have taken a little too much inspiration from her character.

'BREAKING NEWS: Oh snap, @MargotRobbie just kneecapped all four other Best Actress nominees #Oscars #ITonya,' he tweeted.

He also had praise for Mother! star Jennifer Lawrence, writing: 'What CAN'T Jennifer Lawrence do? Return my calls for starters...'

Culkin added that Daniel Day Lewis, famed for going to extreme lengths for his roles, 'was great as Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out #Method.'

He also had a few zingers for some of the stars and executives who most certainly did not get an invite to this year's awards, such as Harvey Weinstein, accused of raping and harassing scores of actresses while one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood, and actor Kevin Spacey, accused of molesting a teenage boy.

'EXCLUSIVE: I heard Kevin Spacey and Harvey Weinstein were going to come disguised as a very tall man in a long trench coat but they got busted by security. #Oscars,' he tweeted.

'Casey Affleck couldn't make it cause he was stuck in the 1950s,' he added of the actor, who previously faced two sexual harassment lawsuits.

But Culkin saved plenty of self-deprecating humor for himself.

The 37-year-old, who revealed in a recent interview with Jimmy Fallon that the most frequent rumor he heard about himself was that he died, said: 'I'm bummed this is the FOURTH year in a row I was left out of the In Memoriam #Oscars #NotDeadYet.'

Culkin has been spotted looking happy and healthy in recent months with new girlfriend Brenda Song, 29.

Macaulay and Brenda struck up their relationship earlier this year when they were introduced to one another while shooting former Austin Powers star Seth Green's directorial debut, Changeland, in Thailand.

Home Alone's debuted in 1990 became the highest-grossing live action comedy film of all time in the United States, propelling Macaulay to super-stardom

Culkin at his lowest point, in 2012, left when pictures of him looking gaunt set the tabloids alight with rumors of drug abuse, which he denied; he is also pictured in May this year, before he began dating Brenda

Macaulay and Brenda (pictured) struck up their relationship earlier this year when they were introduced to one another while shooting Changeland

Since then, they've been seen dining at high-end restaurants and even took a trip to Paris - where Culkin has had a house since 2013 following his split from Jordan Lane Price.

But back in 2012 it was a different story - with pictures of Culkin looking skinny and haggard setting the tabloids aflame with rumors of drug abuse, something he has denied.

Culkin, since starring in the iconic Home Alone films, has portrayed legendary New York City 'club kid' Michael Alig (Party Monster) and has a starring role in his friend Green's Changeland.

Culkin legally separated from his parents in 1994 after claiming his father Kit was 'abusive' and 'jealous' of his success.

He took a long break from the limelight but now appears ready for a tentative return.

He has also runs 'lifestyle brand' Bunny Ears.

Home Alone debuted in 1990 and became the highest-grossing live action comedy film of all time in the United States, propelling Macaulay to super-stardom.

Culkin asked if there is anything Jennifer Lawrence (pictured climbing over seats at the Oscars with a glass of wine in hand) couldn't do aside from returning his callsA Mexican national has been deported to his native country after he was reported to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by his girlfriend, who allegedly stalked and harassed him for months when started dating another woman.

Serafin Alegria-Zamora, 37, who has been detained for nearly a year, was deported on Friday, according to his attorney Rekha Sharma-Crawford.

His attorney filed an emergency complaint in US District Court in Kansas, but that was unsuccessful in preventing Alegria-Zamora's deportation.

Mexican national, Serafin Alegria-Zamora, 37, has been deported to his native country after he was reported to ICE (file image) by his girlfriend, who allegedly stalked him for months when started dating another woman

Sharma-Crawford told the Kansas City Star that the girlfriend committed a 'final act of terror' against Alegria-Zamora, who was forced to leave his wife and five-month-old daughter in the US.

After his girlfriend reported him to ICE, Alegria-Zamora was convicted of unlawfully re-entering the US after being deported the first time, two counts of misusing a Social Security number in Whichita, Kansas.

Sharma-Crawford the conviction was his 'only criminal history'.

Alegria-Zamora who has been detained for nearly a year, was deported on Friday, according to his attorney Rekha Sharma-Crawford (pictured)

According to the complaint, filed by his attorney, Alegria-Zamora was terrorized by his ex-girlfriend, who had a 'dark obsession' with him.

The attorney alleged that the harassment started when he began seeing a new woman.

Sharma-Crawford told the Star that her client should have been granted a special visa for crime victims.

Because he was the alleged victim of stalking by his ex-girlfriend, the crime qualified him for the special visa, known as a 'U' visa.

Alegria-Zamora's application for the visa had been pending for about four months when he was deported.

According to his lawyer, Alegria-Zamora was tormented by his unidentified ex-girlfriend for several months.

She sent a photo of the new woman with a bull's-eye in the middle of her forehead and photos of dead children.

When Alegria-Zamora's wife became pregnant, the couple received a package containing a doll 'drenched in red paint with a note that said, "back off b**ch, Serafin is mine,"' according the Star.

Alegria-Zamora has never seen his newborn daughter because he has been detained since her birth.Former Tory peer Lord Ashcroft (file image) said the traditional Conservative advantages in local elections were slipping away

Just a third of people in Tory-run areas link the party to low council tax, a new poll has found as Theresa May faces heavy defeats in local elections.

Former Tory peer Lord Ashcroft said the traditional Conservative advantages in local elections were slipping away.

His survey offered little hope to Tory strategists fighting to avoid the loss of flagship boroughs at the polls on May 3.

Mrs May could see defeat in flagship boroughs of Westminster, Wandsworth and Barnet if there is no turn around in the party's fortunes.

In the poll, revealed in today's Evening Standard, Lord Ashcroft looked to see if the traditional reasons for Tory support still apply.

He said: 'Whatever else is going on, surely Londoners associate the Tories with good services and value for money?

'Well, up to a point. Even in Conservative authorities, I found only a third of voters, and less than half of 2017 Tories, associating the party with lower council tax; fewer than one in five, and one in three Tories, think of them as offering both.

'People in Tory council areas were more likely than those in Labour areas to think their council was well-run  but fewer than half thought it made much difference which party ran the council when it came to the quality of its services or the amount it charged in council tax.'

Lord Ashcroft's poll found that some Tory voters believe there had been a 'price to pay' for years of frozen council tax bills.

Theresa May (pictured in the Commons today) could see defeat in flagship boroughs of Westminster, Wandsworth and Barnet if there is no turn around in the party's fortunes

He said: 'Since austerity played a big part in driving many away from the Tories nationally, they were often alert to its effects in their neighbourhoods.

'If a modest rise in council tax under Labour would mean more social housing and better services for people in need, some argued, then maybe it was about time.'

Last month a shock poll shows the Conservatives could be stripped of key strongholds in the capital on May 3, with Labour ahead by 54 per cent to 28 per cent.

A result as bad as the figures imply would be a devastating blow and reignite speculation about the Prime Minister's future.

The YouGov research for Queen Mary University found there had been a swing of 13.4 per cent in inner London, where Labour has traditionally been strongest, since the council seats were last contested in 2014.Daniel Creagh (pictured) is alleged to have downloaded a terror manual on his phone

A Muslim convert caught with a bomb-making manual claimed he downloaded it while researching crystal meth after watching the hit show Breaking Bad, a court heard today.

Daniel Creagh, 27, said he was inspired by the Netflix series and wanted to learn more about the drug.

He told police his online research caused him to 'accidentally' download the Anarchy Cookbook Version 2000, which details how to produce explosives, fuses, victim-operated switches, mines and booby traps.

But hours before saving the manual he had researched convicted terrorists and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad on 'killings', and had searched 'Is the Anarchy Cookbook illegal, a jury was told.

He came across the cookbook through a link on a Wikipedia page for the US group 'Revolution Muslim', the Old Bailey heard.

When interviewed, Creagh told police he didn't realise he downloaded the document and had only been curiously researching crystal meth after watching Breaking Bad.

The father-of-one, who lives in Edmonton, north London, lost his job as a bus driver as a result of the case.

His Sony Xperia phone revealed he had downloaded the manual on the morning of February 26 last year, the jury heard.

Prosecutor Kelly Brocklehurst said: 'He admitted having opened and read some of the Anarchy Cookbook document online.

'He stated that he had been watching a series on Netflix called 'Breaking Bad' and that this had got him interested in learning about the drug crystal meth.

'He used the internet to search for information about this drug which in turn led him to click on a link which opened the Anarchy Cookbook as a pdf on his phone.

'Mr Creagh stated that whilst he opened this document, he didn't intentionally save it on to his phone.

It is alleged Creagh had a copy of the infamous Anarchist Cookbook (pictured). The manual reportedly contains instructions on how to build a bomb, the court heard

'He agreed that after he read the book he did a search to see if it was illegal.'

When police searched Creagh's house on 3 March they found 560 in counterfeit 10 notes, which all had the same serial number, the court heard.

Creagh runs an Islamic stall which seeks to convert people to the religion, and said he came up with the idea of printing fake money and throwing it into the air as a way to get people to talk to him.

The first chapter of the Anarchy Cookbook Version 2000 details how to make counterfeit currency, the court heard.

Mr Brocklehurst said: 'He had seen a video of a man giving a homeless person some money.

'And because of the reaction, he said he came up with the idea of printing fake money and throwing it into the air. This he said would have been a way to get people to talk him.

'He found an image on Google and printed the 10 notes but never actually used them in the way he said he had intended to.'

PC Matthew Hamilton conducted a review which concluded Creagh must have taken 'positive steps' to downloading the cookbook and it was 'highly unlikely' he saved it by accident, jurors heard.

His web searches shortly before the download were contrary to his claim he 'stumbled across the document whilst searching for how to make crystal meth', he added.

These included searches for 'Hadiths on killing', the anarchist cookbook, 'is the anarchy cookbook illegal', and 'forbidden knowledge', the court heard.

During a raid of Creagh's house, police found 560 in counterfeit 10 notes, which all had the same serial number, the Old Bailey (pictured) heard

Hadiths are the reported teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, and the collections of these sayings 'represent the second most important source of Islamic law after the Quran', the court was told.

He also allegedly searched for 'Terence Brown', who was convicted of collecting information useful to terrorists, and distributing it including CD copies of the Anarchy Cookbook.

Mr Brocklehurst said: 'Mr Creagh coming across the Anarchist Cookbook had nothing to do with Breaking Bad or crystal meth.

'It was a result of having seen mention of the cookbook on the Revolution Muslim Wikipedia page.'

The document contains guidance on how to make 'explosives and bombs, hack computers, and cause cyber terrorism.'

This included home-made pipe bombs, victim-operated triggers for mines and booby traps, and advice on counterfeit currency, he said.

Although it can be downloaded for free or bought online, it is illegal to possess, and some of the recipes were capable of producing 'viable explosives', the court was told.

Mr Brocklehurst said: 'At the end of the day, outside of possibly the security forces, what other class of person has a need to learn about home-made explosives?'

Creagh denies possessing a document containing information useful for terrorist purposes, and control of counterfeit currency.

The trial continues.The founders of Ethiopia's Spice Girls have admitted the band is getting on just fine without UK aid money.

The girl band Yegna received 4million of British taxpayers' money as part of a wider programme aimed at empowering women in Ethiopia.

But they had their funding stopped last year following a public outcry as ministers admitted the money could be better spent elsewhere.

And in an interview a year later the pop group's founders have admitted the band has carried on despite the funding cut.

The band has got funding from anonymous charitable givers and is exploring sponsorship deals according to reports..

The founders of Ethiopia's Spice Girls (pictured) have admitted the band is getting on just fine without UK aid money

While members of the pop group said they have played to 10,000-strong crowds of fans.

Zebiba Girma, one of the band members, told The Guardian: 'There were over 10,000 spectators, it was amazing.

'Some women, who looked like us, came to the back of the stage and told us their life stories.'

Gayathri Butler, country director for Girl Effect - the project which covers the band - attacked the backlash the funding encountered in the UK.

She said: 'And also a reduction of what we actually do. The representation of the Spice Girls, it was just taking what they had seen as a reduction of the brand, because that was what's facing the international audience.

Priti Patel (pictured outside No10 last year) announced she was axing the funding last year, saying British aid money could be spent in better ways

'We're a brand created by Ethiopians and for Ethiopians.'

Brand director Bemnet Yemesgen said: 'We have created music that people want to buy, so we're considering commercialising some of the products we own.'

Priti Patel announced she was axing the funding last year, saying: We have taken the decision to end our partnership following a review of the programme.

Empowering women and girls around the world remains a priority, but we judge there are more effective ways to invest UK aid and to deliver even better results for the worlds poorest and value for taxpayers money.Two roommates of a Georgia woman reported missing in December face charges of concealing a death after a body was found in a shed behind their home last month.

Authorities are still working to identify the body and the cause of death, so Peach County Sheriff Terry Deese said he can't say if it's a homicide case.

But he told The Telegraph of Macon that he's '99.9 per cent' sure the body found in Byron on January 23 is missing 37-year-old Amanda Peeples.

Sixty-year-old David Earl Arrington and 35-year-old Lee Michael Rodriquez are also charged with evidence tampering and providing false statements to police.

David Earl Arrington, 60, (left) and Lee Michael Rodriquez, 35, were charged with concealing a death, evidence tampering and lying to police after a body was found in a shed in their home

Peach County Sheriff Terry Deese told The Telegraph of Macon that he's '99.9 per cent' sure the body found in Byron on January 23 is the missing 37-year-old Amanda Peeples (pictured)

Arrington was the one to report Peeple missing on December 19.

The decomposing body was found after the property owner smelled an odor and went inside the shed, which is only few feet from the main house.

It's not known how long it had been there, but Deese has said it looked like it had 'been there for some time'.

It is currently undergoing forensic tests at a crime lab where experts will use DNA and dental records to make a positive identification.

'It's just sad to believe that we've got people out there willing to dispose of a human body like you would a bag of trash and then sleep within matters of feet of where they disposed of the body,' Deese told local news outlet.

The decomposing body was found underneath multiple things after the property owner smelled an odor and went inside the shed, which is only few feet away from the main house

According to Arrington's statements to authorities, Peeples, who also went by the last name Burnam, was last seen on December 16, two days before her roommate reported her missing

Arrington and Rodriguez have not admitted to anything, but there is evidence that lead investigators to believe they were involved with concealing the body, the Sheriff added.

People who had been inside the shed since Peeples' disappearance gave statements saying they never noticed a body or foul smell.

According to Arrington's statements to authorities, Peeples, who also went by the last name Burnam, was last seen on December 16, two days before her roommate reported her missing.

Arrington said he last saw her wearing a T-shirt, jeans and multicolored shoes as she waited outside their home for a ride to go to Macon. She left home with nothing but the clothes she had on - no cellphone, phone, or purse.

He claims she was 'very intoxicated' on alcohol and Xanax and 'not acting herself', according to a police report cited by The Telegraph of Macon.

The roommates were being held without bond as of Friday.Escorted by police officers and a Panamanian judicial official, the majority owner of the Trump Panama City hotel has taken control of the property.

A team of Trump Organization security officials abandoned the area on Monday. Video footage circulated on Twitter showed a shoving match between the security guards and one of the owners' lawyers.

The action by Panama's government resolves a 12-day standoff between President Donald Trump's family hotel business and Orestes Fintiklis, a private equity investor who sought to drop Trump's management company and brand.

Though Fintiklis and other owners tried to fire Trump's company last year, the Trump Organization had refused to surrender physical possession of the hotel.

An employee wasted no time in physically removing the metallic name 'Trump' from the building's stone marquee.

Speaking from the hotel's administrative offices Monday, Fintiklis called the fight a commercial matter that had spun out of control and praised Panamanian authorities.

President Donald Trump's family hotel business appears to have lost a bitter fight over the company's contract to manage a 70-story luxury high-rise on Panama's waterfront

Now you see it, now you don't: The 'TRUMP' name was removed from the hotel's main sign just hours after the Trump Organization's security guards were driven off the property

Trump has ceded control of his hotel management business to his adult sons, but Orestes Fintiklis (right), managing partner of Ithaca Capital Partners, technically owns the building in Panama City that the Trump Organization was contracted to operate

Rival teams of security guards grappled in a stairwell last week and then clashed again Monday with police as the business dispute for control over the Trump luxury hotel continued

A group of Panamanian police officers stood inside the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower on Monday as authorities escorted Fintiklis to the management offices and Trump security officials left the property

A representative of the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But Fintiklis, for now the apparent victor in the skirmish, sat in the hotel lobby and played a Greek folk song on the piano in celebration. The tune was 'Accordeon,' an anthem about fighting fascism.

The hotel remained open for business this week against a backdrop of power and water interruptions, bad press and a fight over the Trump Organization's management contract that ended in fisticuffs and repeated police calls last week before being resolved on Monday.

'This isn't what you expect from a luxury hotel,' one guest was heard fuming

Fintiklis, who manages the Miami-based private equity fund Ithaca Capital, has alleged financial misconduct by Trump Hotels dating back years and has said Donald Trump's statements on immigration have destroyed his brand in Latin America.

Fintiklis is waging a bitter battle to oust the Trump team from the hotel.

In a letter marked 'Private & Confidential' to the hotel's other owners, Fintiklis, compared the Trumps to leeches attached to the building and were 'draining our last drops of blood.'

The New York Times obtained a copy of the letter.

The dispute has left hotel employees not knowing from one day to the next who they should take orders from or whether they will have jobs when the dust settles.

A man removes the word Trump, off a marquee outside the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama City on Monday

Police and a judicial official swarmed into the hotel, ending a commercial dispute that had turned violent

The Panama City hotel had remained open for business despite service interruptions, bad press and a public fight over the Trump management contract

LAST WEEK: Panama City police responded to a scuffle that took place in an area belonging to a condo association that operates independently of the hotel but shares the building

BRAWL: The clash was at least the fourth time the police had been called to the property on Panama's waterfront in a week

'Many of us came to work at the hotel precisely because of the Trump brand - it meant quality' said one bellhop, who did not want his name used for fear of reprisals. 'Now, we don't know. We just want to work.'

Anibal Herrera, a lawyer for Fintiklis, said that while 10 Trump management employees had been fired  though they refused to leave the property or attend labor hearings  none of the 230 other employees has anything to fear.

Representatives at Trump Hotels dispute the firings' validity.

Herrera did say that Fintiklis had control of the hotel's finances and would stop paying bills incurred by the Trump management team.

Under a decade-old agreement with the property's original developer, Trump Hotels was supposed to manage the property until at least 2031.

As part of a deal to sell 202 of the hotel's 369 condo units last year, the Trump team attempted to extract an ironclad concession from the buyer, Fintiklis, not to challenge that management contract.

That is precisely what Fintiklis is now doing. Whether the Trump business got a legally binding commitment is a matter of contention.

Trump Hotels maintains that the company will not give in to 'mob style tactics' intended to remove it from the property until courts or arbitrators have settled the contractual matter.

'To be clear, Trump Hotels is highly confident that it will prevail in these proceedings,' the company said in a statement released last week.

'Rather than abide by the clear terms of the agreement he had signed, Mr. Fintiklis had been conspiring with others to remove Trump Hotels as manager and fire most, if not all, of its loyal and dedicated employees.'

Orestes Fintiklis, manager of the Miami-based private equity fund Ithaca Capital, played a Greek folk song on a piano in the lobby of the hotel

'Looking back, it is now apparent that Mr. Fintiklis, in flagrant violation of the commitments he had made, never had any intention of keeping his word and had been plotting a takeover and termination of Trump Hotels all along.,' the company's statement added.

According to emails sent by Fintiklis to fellow owners of the hotel condo units, his units alone are running a six-figure monthly deficit.

'Our investment has no future so long as the hotel is managed by an incompetent operator whose brand has been tarnished beyond repair,' Fintiklis wrote the owners in January.

During that month, supposedly the peak of Panama's high season, occupancy ran around 30 percent and hotel unit owners didn't make enough to cover their maintenance fees, he said.

Donald Trump's June 2017 financial disclosure shows his company earned a little over $800,000 from the property during the previous 15 months - a paltry amount compared with the payout of between $32 million and $55 million that the company was on track to receive, according to a deal that emerged from the property's 2013 bankruptcy.Carlos, real name Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, denies throwing grenade that killed two and injured 34 in Paris, 1974

Venezuelan extremist Carlos the Jackal went back on trial today after appealing the life sentence handed to him last year for a deadly 1974 bombing in Paris.

Carlos, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, is already serving two life sentences for organising murders and attacks in the 1970s and 1980s during his pro-Palestinian campaign of terror.

Once the world's most-wanted terrorist, Carlos, now 68, has long denied involvement in the attack on the Drugstore Publicis shopping center in the French capital's Latin Quarter.

The attack killed two people and injured 34 when a grenade was thrown from the mezzanine restaurant into the crowded gallery below.

The case was initially dismissed for lack of evidence but Carlos, the only defendant in the original trial, was found guilty even though no DNA or fingerprints were found.

Lawyer Francis Vuillemin said the defense team will plead for acquittal.

'It's a very tough fight but the hardest battles are sometimes the most beautiful,' he said.

'Ilich Ramirez Sanchez is still his old self, in great shape, despite being 68 years old. He is going to fight like he always does, at each trial.'

At the time of the Paris attack, Carlos was a 24-year-old volunteer with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), but hadn't achieved worldwide notoriety yet.

When police arrived at the Publicis pharmacy, they found devastation with all the windows shattered, multiple bloodstains and a hole in the marble slab of the floor where the grenade fell.

Carlos, now 68, has long denied involvement in the attack on the Drugstore Publicis shopping center in the French capital's Latin Quarter

The two men who died were struck by metal shards that perforated vital organs and caused internal bleeding, according to court documents.

As arguably the most notorious international terrorist of his generation, Carlos was responsible for a series of atrocities across France in the 1970s and 80s, slaughtering victims including police officers.

Mass murder: Carlos, pictured, was already serving two life terms for terror offences. He was convicted in 1997 of murdering two French police officers and an informant in 1975 in Paris. In 2011 he was found guilty of masterminding attacks on two trains, a train station and a Paris street that killed 11 people and wounded about 150 more

Bomb blast: Police officers are pictured working at the scene after a bomb attack at a Paris pharmacy on September 15, 1974 for which terror chief Carlos was given a third life term

He was the world's most wanted fugitive during this period and has been in prison in France since his arrest in the Sudanese capital Khartoum in 1994 by French elite police.

Carlos was convicted in 1997 of murdering two French police officers and an informant in 1975 in Paris and in 2011 of masterminding attacks on two trains, a train station and a Paris street that killed 11 people and wounded about 150 more.

He sealed his notoriety in 1975 with the hostage-taking of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna in the name of the Palestinian struggle, and went on to become an international gun-for-hire with Soviet bloc protectors.

In the 1970s and '80s, the Marxist militant and self-dubbed 'elite gunman' became a symbol of Cold War anti-imperialism and public enemy number one for Western governments.

Carlos was finally arrested in Sudan by the French intelligence services in 1994, 20 years after his first mission on French soil.A 34-year-old man has been arrested for strangling his fiancee's sister while having sex in a motel room.

Jason Farmer told police that he was having sex with Angela Montante at the Americas Inn in Houston, Texas on Thursday when he started choking her.

Farmer said he stopped choking her as soon as she started panicking but he wasn't quick enough.

Scroll down for video

James Farmer (pictured) was arrested for strangling his fiancee's sister to death on Thursday

Farmer told police that he was having sex with Angela Montante at this Houston motel on Thursday when he started to choke her and she started panicking

'He then sat by the bed as she continued to, as he described it, "freak out," for approximately three to five minutes before her body went limp and she was unresponsive,' prosecutors said.

Instead of calling 911, Farmer left Montante's body wrapped in a blanket in the room for more than a day.

He paid for another day in cash, so the room couldn't be tracked back to him.

He allegedly confessed the killing to his fiancee's first before going to police on Friday and leading them to the body.

Farmer says he stopped choking her as soon as she started to panic but that her body went limp a few minutes later and she died

A view inside the hotel room shows two bottles of beer and baby oil on the desk

Farmer has been charged with manslaughter and is being held without bond.

An autopsy has been ordered.

According to public records, Farmer is a registered sex offender who has been arrested multiple times in the past few years.

In 2015, he was charged with continuous sexual abuse of a child and indecency with a child.

In 2008, he was also convicted of aggravated sexual assault.'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli will have to forfeit more than $7.3 million in assets - including his one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album - as part of his punishment in his securities fraud case, a judge ruled Monday.

U.S. District Judge Kiyo Matsumoto issued the order against the jailed Shkreli four days before he is to face sentencing for his conviction last year on charges he cheated wealthy investors in two failed hedge funds he was managing.

Along with the Wu-Tang Clan 'Once Upon a Time in Shaolin' album that Shkreli has boasted he bought for $2 million, he would have to give up $5 million in cash in a brokerage account. He also would be forced to forfeit other valuables including a Picasso painting and another unreleased recording that he claims he owns, 'Tha Carter V' by Lil Wayne.

A judge today ordered Martin Shkreli (pictured at federal court in New York in August) will have to forfeit more than $7.3 million in assets - including his one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang Clan album

The judge ordered that Shkreli must hand over his two unreleased rap albums - Wu Tang Clan's Once Upon a Time in Shaolin (left) and Lil Wayne's Tha Carter V (right)

The judge said the assets won't be seized until Shkreli has a chance to appeal. His lawyer didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

The defense had argued that Shkreli shouldn't have to forfeit anything because the hedge fund investors actually ended up making a profit from drug company stock he gave them.

After today's ruling, Shkreli, who made a fortune as a hedge fund manager before opening Turing, must hand over the Wu-Tang Clan album which he bought in 2015.

Only one copy was produced, and sold at auction to Shkreli for $2 million on the auction website Paddle8.

Under the terms of the purchase, it couldn't be released commercially until 2103, but can be played for free or at parties.

The 34-year-old Shkreli is perhaps best known for jacking up the price of a life-saving drug and for his snarky online antics using the 'Pharma Bro' moniker.

In a recent letter to the judge asking for leniency, Shkreli wrote, 'I was wrong. I was a fool. I should have known better.'

Clanned goods: Only one copy of the album was produced, and came in a metal case with a bound book (being held by, l-r, Wu-Tang members Cilvaringz and RZA; with Alexander Gilkes, founder of Paddle8, which auctioned the album in 2015)

Locked up: Shkreli was not allowed to release the album commercially for 88 years, but could play it for free-

It was an abrupt change in tone for Shkreli from the defiant attitude on display during the trial and even after his conviction when he was still out on bail.

The judge revoked the bail and jailed him in September when he posted he would pay a $5,000 bounty to anyone who could get a lock of Hillary Clinton's hair while the prominent Democrat was on a book tour.

The defense has asked for leniency in his upcoming sentencing, telling a judge that he 'learned a very painful lesson' and used his 'fame and achievements' to help others while incarcerated, court documents reveal.

They want a sentence of no more than 18 months behind bars, followed by court-mandated therapy and 2,000 hours of community service. A recommendation from prosecutors is pending.

Shkreli's lawyers argued that the disgraced pharmaceutical executive is a 'kind person' who helped an 11-month-old baby get medicine, comforted a rape victim, and educated fellow inmates in jail, according to a memorandum obtained by DailyMail.com.

The 34-year-old faces up to 20 years in prison on March 9 after being convicted of defrauding investors in two hedge funds he ran - MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare - and of securities fraud in connection with his drug company, Retrophin.

Shkreli, 34, faces up to 20 years in prison after being convicted of defrauding investors in two hedge funds he ran - MSMB Capital and MSMB Healthcare - and of securities fraud in connection with a drug company he founded, Retrophin

His family members, colleagues, friends and people he met on the internet all wrote Judge Matsumoto asking for a light prison term.

Friends and relatives describe Shkreli - who was dubbed by many as the 'Most Hated Man in America before his arrest - as a 'caring intellectual' who was a 'sparkle of a smile' and an 'inspiration' to fellow inmates.

His lawyers argue that Shkreli has 'worked tirelessly' to ensure investors received positive returns on investments and that if he's released, he could continue developing 'treatments to horrific diseases that have been overlooked by larger companies'.

Attached to the memorandum are more than 50 letters from friends, relatives and colleagues wishing for Shkreli's release. Also attached is a letter from Shkreli himself, asking the judge for a shortened incarceration at the sentencing.

'I maintain that I never intended to actually harm anyone,' he wrote to the judge. 'I am not trying to be defiant or obstinate. I accept the fact that I made serious mistakes, but I still believe that I am a good person with much potential.'

He said that prison was 'the most frightening experience' he had ever faced, but it also gave him the opportunity 'to see a side of the world seldom seen or discussed'.

Shkreli has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since December after violating bail conditions.

He wrote in his letter: 'I try my best to set a good example for these individuals too, knowing my fame and achievements were something they might know of, and I try my best to explain that in order to have a chance to succeed, they had to make a serious commitment to lifelong education and move far away from poisonous surroundings and attitudes that lead to a temptation to cut corners and commit crimes.'

Shkreli was out on bail during his trial last year.

In a memorandum filed on Tuesday, Shkreli's layers asked for a much shorter sentence of 12 to 18 months, followed by court-mandated therapy and 2,000 hours of community service

Shkreli's lawyers argued that the disgraced pharmaceutical executive was a 'kind person' who helped an 11-month-old baby get medicine, comforted a rape victim, according to a memorandum exclusively obtained by DailyMail.com

But he was jailed in December for violating his bail conditions sharing a post on Facebook in which he offered a $5,000 bounty to anyone who could get a lock of Hillary Clinton's hair while she was on a book tour.

'The Clinton Foundation is willing to KILL to protect its secrets. So on HRC's book tour, try to grab a hair from her... Will pay $5,000 per hair obtained,' the Facebook post said.

Ahead of his bail violation, Shkreli was notorious for his outspoken personality and often clashed with his critics on Twitter.

Prosecutors pointed to several Twitter and Facebook postings by Shkreli that they said were harassing to women.

Twitter banned him from its platform in January 2017 for harassing a female journalist, another incident prosecutors cited in their motion to revoke his bail.

In his letter to the judge ahead of his sentencing, Shkreli said he is an 'irreverent and free-wheeling individual' who is willing to speak his mind.

'I am an individual who prizes equal rights, scholastic achievement and individuality,' he wrote. 'Please understand that when I get into a public war of words with someone, my comments do not always reflect my true nature.

'Sadly, when I get dragged into a mud fight, I often dive in, head first.'

He added that he 'regrets' that his temper rises when he gets 'angry or betrayed'.

Friends described him as a businessman who takes time to care for people facing health crises and an educator who spends hours teaching investment and chemistry courses online and in jail.

'I can undoubtedly say that Martin has been the most positive and influential part of my experience here thus far,' inmate Lamark Mulligan said of his time with Shkreli in jail.

People who befriended Shkreli on the internet claim he helped them research medications for rare diseases and gave them 'a sense of hope'.

In his letter to the judge ahead of his sentencing, Shkreli said he is a 'good person with much potential'

He says in the letter that he is an 'irreverent and free-wheeling individual' who is willing to speak his mind. He also claims, however, that he has been 'characterized totally incorrectly at trial by some who are biased'

Shkreli said that prison was 'the most frightening experience' he had ever faced, but it also gave him the opportunity 'to see a side of the world seldom seen or discussed'

The court memorandum reads: 'From helping an 11-month baby getting medicine in a foreign country, to comforting a rape victim, to helping educate prisoners so they have a better life upon release, these letters replete with personal vignettes demonstrating that Martin is comprised of more than his criminal conduct: specifically, he is a kind, caring and generous person who uses his time and effort to help those in need.

'If not warehoused in a prison, Martin could literally save lives.'

Many of the people Shkreli has helped over the years are people he has met online, his lawyers claim.

One woman - who Shkreli met on a community-based website called 'Blab' - said Shkreli was the only person who picked up his phone when she was looking to talk to someone about being raped.

'We talked for what felt like hours,' the woman wrote in a letter to the judge. 'He listened to me, calmed me down, helped me think and see straight, guided me toward what my next steps should be, encouraged me to call the police. An, he let me cry.'

The 11-month baby he saved was in Venezuela waiting on a liver transplant, Shkreli's lawyers write. Shkreli sent his family one year worth of life-saving medicine for the child.

'Due to protests in Venezuela, the boy's father had been unable to secure crucial medicine the boy needed to survive until the transplant,' Shkreli's lawyers wrote.

The documents continued: 'The father was forced to travel through security checkpoints in the mountainous border region dividing Venezuela from the Colombia border town of Cucuta - where he paid five times the price to secure his son's medicine.

'Martin heard about this and used his company's resources to provide aid.'

Shkreli, pictured in a court sketch with his lawyer, Ben Brafman, was jailed in December for violating his bail conditions sharing a post on Facebook in which he offered a $5,000 bounty to anyone who could get a lock of Hillary Clinton's hair while she was on a book tour

In the post, he said that the Clinton Foundation was 'willing to KILL to protect its secrets' and that he wanted strands of Hillary Clinton's hair

On other occasions, he gave a homeless man - nicknamed JP Morgan - a job interview after he beat the pharmaceutical executive at chess, donated $1million to his New York high school, and supported LGBT charitable missions, Shkreli's lawyers said.

Shkreli's younger brother, Mark, writes that he has always dreamed of being just like Shkreli, calling him an 'aspiration' who is 'very giving and kind'.

In a letter to the sentencing judge, Mark fondly remembered a trip he made to Miami with Shkreli, where they attended Wrestlemania.

'Martin is misunderstood because I almost feel like Martin is sometimes playing a character as wrestlers do, but at the same time Martin is an immensely gifted, intense individual, who is very dedicated to discovering new drugs and treatments for rare diseases,' Mark Shkreli writes.

He also argues that Shkreli 'made mistakes' when he was arrested after he entering the spotlight for raising the price of he life-saving AIDs medication Daraprim.

'Who wouldn't make mistakes if they were young, wealthy, and successful, and suddenly had their life put under a microscope?' he writes.

A doctor who worked with Shkreli before his arrest argued that the 34-year-old 'has a lot to give to our society, and in particular patients suffering with rare diseases'.

Another friend recalled a time when Shkreli defended a teen with autism after 50 Cent made comments about him on social media.

'Martin started a crowdfunding campaign, donating thousands of dollars of his own money and inspiring others to do the same,' the friend wrote.

Another pal commented on Shkreli's 'complex' personality.

Shkreli is best known for jacking up the price of the life-saving medication Daraprim - used by AIDS patients, pregnant women and others with compromised immune systems - from $13.50 a tablet to $750

Longtime friend Gary Mohamed, who has known Shkreli for more than 15 years, wrote: 'Equal parts brilliant and impossible, and always struggling with personal demons hell bent on self-destruction.

'In fact, Martin's lifelong dream of running a publicly traded pharmaceutical company was derailed pre-maturely by this compulsion for self destruction.'

Shkreli - also known as the 'Pharma Bro' - is best known for jacking up the price of the life-saving medication Daraprim - used by AIDS patients, pregnant women and others with compromised immune systems - from $13.50 a tablet to $750.

The former pharmaceutical CEO argued that he rose the price of the drug to provide funding for research toward a better form of Daraprim that would eventually be more accessible to all.

A judge ruled on February 26 that Shkreli was responsible for nearly $10.5million in losses in his securities fraud case.

The amount set by Judge Kiyo Matsumoto could result in a harsher punishment for Shkreli, 34, at his March 9 sentencing.

The judge rejected arguments by lawyers for the former pharmaceutical CEO that investors in his failed hedge funds didn't suffer actual losses because he paid them back with drug company stock.

She found Shkreli should be penalized for the losses because he made risky transactions with investors' millions without their permission.The Chancellor tonight warned a failure to strike a deal on the Brexit transition in two weeks would airlines unable to schedule flights for spring 2019.

Philip Hammond said it was in the interests of both sides for an implementation period to be agreed at the March summit of EU leaders.

But the talks are bogged down in divorce issues again after a draft treaty enraged many in Britain by suggesting an attempt to keep Northern Ireland inside EU rules.

The transition period is expected to run from March 29, 2019, for around two years - probably the end of 2020.

Chancellor Philip Hammond (pictured in Parliament today) tonight warned a failure to strike a deal on the Brexit transition in two weeks would airlines unable to schedule flights for spring 2019

In evidence to MPs on the European Scrutiny Committee today, Mr Hammond said 700million had already been spent planning for a no deal exit from the EU next spring.

He said contingency planning for the no deal scenario could be suspended if a transition deal is struck.

Asked about the importance of a transition deal, Mr Hammond said: 'An implementation period is very much in the interests of both sides, to create some certainty, to allow business to plan.

'Airlines need to know on April 1 whether they can safely schedule flights in April 2019.

'There are lots of practical issues that are going to become very problematic across the continent of Europe unless we agree this implementation deal.

'I believe it will happen for the simple reason that it is in everyone's interests it happens.'

Mr Hammond said he hoped the transition agreement and divorce treaty would be well supported both in Westminster and the European Parliament.

In evidence to MPs on the European Scrutiny Committee today (chaired by Bill Cash, pictured), Mr Hammond said 700million had already been spent planning for a no deal exit from the EU next spring

He said strong votes in favour would demonstrate commitment to ratifying the agreements.

WHEN WILL BRITAIN BE OUT OF THE EU? Britain triggered Article 50 on March 29, 2017, starting a two year process for leaving the EU: March 2018: Outline transition deal agreed, running for about two years June 2018: EU summit that Brussels says should consider broad principles of a future trade deal. October 2018: Political agreement on the future partnership due to be reached Early 2019: Major votes in Westminster and Brussels to ratify the deal March 29, 2019: Article 50 expires, Britain leaves the EU. Transition is expected to keep everything the same for about two years December 31, 2020: Transition expected to come to an end and the new relationship - if it has been agreed - should kick in Advertisement

Asked about money spent so far on contingency planning, Mr Hammond told the committee: 'To date, we have spent about 700 million.

'The 3 billion was for 2018/19 and 2019/20 and I expect to announce shortly the allocation of funding for the 2018/19 share of that amount.

'It's being spent on ensuring that we are prepared for a full range of outcomes. Some of it is being spent on preparations for a 'no deal' exit in March 2019.'

Mr Hammond said that once agreement is reached on a transition deal, it will be possible to 'stand down' preparations for 'no deal' on the date of Brexit, but will probably then be necessary to prepare for the risk of withdrawal without a deal at the end of the transition period.

He added: 'In terms of the contingency planning that is being done, it is to cover all possible eventualities.

'One possible, although perhaps rather unlikely, eventuality is that we reach agreement on an implementation period but then fail to reach agreement on a long-term partnership agreement.

'I hope that won't be the case, but it would be right that we covered that as one of the potential outcomes.'And the loser is the Oscars!

The Academy Awards tanked in the ratings last night, with the audience dropping by 16%.

If the numbers firm up, then it will be officially the least watched Oscars in televised history.

As Hollywood wonders how the hell this happened, I offer my own theories, as somebody who loves movies and many of those who make them.

1) It was too long  waaaaayyyyyyy too bloody long. Weve had raging debates for years about the Oscars being too white, too straight and too male, but the real problem is that it now drones on for an interminably dull length of time. Nobody has the patience for a movie lasting even two hours these days, let alone an awards show about movies that lasted 3hrs 48 minutes. My wife, who endured the whole thing in the early hours of the morning in Britain, looked like a flesh-eaten zombie by the end. If you want to get big Oscars ratings back then cut the night in half. No viewer will complain.

The show is TOO LONG. Speeches are too long and too dull. Oldman banged on for three minutes - despite the running offer of a free jet ski to whoever made the shortest speech

2) The speeches were also way too long and often excruciatingly dull. The stats dont lie: in the early 1950s, the average length of an Oscars speech was 29 words; now its 174 words. Best Actor winner Gary Oldman banged on last night for nearly three minutes! This despite host Jimmy Kimmel offering a free $17,000 jet-ski to whoever made the shortest speech. Ive said it to actors before and I will keep saying it: nobody wants to hear your laborious thank you laundry lists. Thank your parents, your partner, your kids, your agent and the people who actually paid for tickets to see your films (Jordan Peele was the only one I heard do this with any sincerity)  and then shut up. You can always tweet your unctuous gratitude to the other 100 names of people weve never heard of. Imagine how much more fun the speeches would be if every winner just said something similar to the brilliant Allison Janneys opening words: I did it all myself!

3) For the love of God, can you all shut up about Meryl Streep? The constant Groundhog Day name-checks and references to her genius were particularly grating this year given her very close association to disgraced Harvey Weinstein, her shockingly hypocritical support for Roman Polanski and her constant anti-Trump political outpourings that have turned her from the beloved Queen of Hollywood into a reviled figure in much of America. A period of dignified silence from Ms Streep, and those who queue up to gush about her, is long overdue. Enough already!

For the love of God let's shut up about Meryl Streep? The name-checks and references to her genius were particularly grating this year. A period of dignified silence from Ms Streep, and those who gush about her, is long overdue

4) Slash the musical performances in half and get rid of the Best Song Category. This isnt the Grammys and as we learned to the cost of our ears last night, a lot of actors just cant sing. When Gael Garcia Bernal painfully rasped his way through sing Remember Me  the smash hit from Coco  my mind drifted back to when I was a judge on Americas Got Talent and I longed for that red buzzer to cut him short and get him off stage. As someone put it on Twitter: Someone give Gael Garcia Bernal a bucket because he needs some serious help carrying that tune Exactly.

5) Remove the 10 most boring awards, like Sound Editing or Lighting Design. No offence to any of the talented and invaluable people who work in these departments, but theyre not stars so nobody at home either knows them or cares. When an emotional Kazuhiro Tsuji (who?) thanked his cats after winning Best Makeup and Hairstyling, I felt myself slip into a mind-numbing coma. These categories slow the pace of the show to that of a terminally ill snail. Same rule should apply to the In Memoriam section. This should only feature big stars, not the people who sat behind studio desks writing cheques.

Slash the musical performances in half and get rid of the Best Song Category. This isnt the Grammys and - as Gael Garcia Bernal reminded us - a lot of actors just cant sing. And dump the 10 most boring awards. When an emotional Kazuhiro Tsuji (who?) thanked his cats after winning Best Makeup and Hairstyling, I felt myself slip into a mind-numbing coma

6) Mash the montages. There were so many of the damn things, Im only surprised there wasnt a special extended montage devoted purely to this years montages. Why do need to see a montage of previous winners before a montage of this years nominees? Its just more dead air time devoted to self-congratulatory bullsh*t. The montage celebrating 90 years of the Oscars felt like it lasted 90 years. And dont get me started on the shameless Isnt warfare terrible/wonderful? virtue-signalling in the military one.

7) Ban all politics. Just make it a contract rider that if any winner or presenter mentions anything political, they get a lifetime ban from attending the Oscars again. This may sound a bit draconian but its so incredibly tedious watching rich, privileged actors bang on about their causes and issues. When Jennifer Lawrence announced last week she was taking a year off to educate young people about politics, the worlds collective groan could be heard from Tipperary to Timbucktoo, and I realised Tinsel Towns pulpit preaching had officially jumped the shark. I love Jennifer as an actress and personality, but nobody wants or needs her to educate anyone on politics. Just make great movies, give fun interviews and bite your pontificating lip at awards shows.

8) Hire a host who can prick the pompous, self-adoring ego balloons lurking in every row of the theatre, with biting sarcasm and razor-sharp takedowns. They not only deserve it, they desperately need it. Movie stars spend the entire year being told how wonderful they are by myriad sycophants. For one night only, lets see the spotlight fall on some of their imperfections, in a jocular way. And let it fall from the spike-tongued mouth of someone who truly doesnt give a damn who he offends in the worlds epicenter of political correctness. No offence to Kimmel, who did a perfectly competent job last night, but you know who I mean its time for Ricky Gervais to host the Oscars. I guarantee ratings would leap by 30% just on that announcement alone.

Hire a host who can prick the pompous, self-adoring ego balloons lurking in every row of the theatre, with biting sarcasm and razor-sharp takedowns. No offence to Jimmy Kimmel, who did a perfectly competent job last night, but its time for Ricky Gervais to host

9) More icons on stage, less B-list celebrities. The public wants to see Brad and Angelina, preferably minutes after theyve had a massive backstage bust-up after the latest twist in their divorce battle. Or Tom Cruise jumping off Oprahs sofa again like some unhinged whackjob. It all felt so tame, lame and risk averse last night - everything scripted to within one inch of its life.

10) Last but by no means least stop giving the Best Picture award to obscure films very few non-movie people actually see, like or understand. The winner this year was The Shape of Water. Not seen it? The plot stars a mute orphan named Elisa who lives alone and has only two friends; a gay neighbour and African-American co-worker. She works as a cleaner at a secret government laboratory that receives a humanoid amphibian creature in a tank captured from a South American river. She then has sex with it. Yes folks, in the year of #MeToo and #TimesUP campaigns driven in the main by revulsion at disgusting monsters like Harvey Weinstein the movie industrys most prestigious body gave its most coveted trophy to a film about a woman who has sex with a disgusting monster! Irony is dead, and they wonder why Middle America isnt tuning in any more?

An STOP giving the Best Picture award to obscure films very few non-movie people actually see, like or understand. The winner this year was The Shape of Water, about a mute orphan named Elisa who works as a cleaner at a secret government lab that receives a humanoid amphibian creature in a tank. She then has sex with itChangan president proposes to promote China auto brands, intelligentize auto products to 13th NPC

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Zhu Huarong, President of Changan Automobile Co., Ltd (Changan Auto) will deliver his proposal focusing on the image promotion of China's auto brands and intelligentization for auto industry at the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) where he was elected to be a delegate for the first time, according to local media.

With the development of the auto industry in China, Chinese automakers awareness of brand construction is heightened day by day. Zhu Huarong reveals that Changan Auto will make a substantial adjustment in the first half of this year to boost its brand image and build itself into a world-class automaker.

In addition, Zhu appeals to the government to strengthen the governance of intelligent-connect vehicle (ICV) industry and accelerate the establishment of the law and regulation system.

This proposal coincides with the current trends that local governments are promoting the release and implementation of autonomous vehicle-related laws and regulations. In December last year, Beijing released two documents saying that the qualified companies are allowed to test their autonomous vehicles on approved roads. On March 1st this year, Shanghai authorities issued a regulation about ICV test in Shanghai and announced that SAIC Motor and NIO have got China's first batch of plates for the public road test of ICVs. Additionally, Zhu also advocates Chongqing ICV manufacturing innovation center to be upgraded into a national level center.

Changan Auto has deepened its layout in auto intelligentization. As early as April 2016, the automaker completed a 2000km autonomous trip from Chongqing to Beijing, at a maximum speed of 120km/h. This is China's first long-distance autonomous driving test. In November last year, the automaker received its autonomous vehicle testing permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles. Besides, Zhu Huarong revealed that the company is expected to sell its autonomous vehicles in 2025.

As to new energy vehicle (NEV), Zhu said that Changan Auto aims to catch up with the world-class peers with heavy investments in this area.

Changan Auto initiated its Mission Shangri-La new energy strategy to accomplish three major NEV platforms by the end of 2020. Besides, the company plans to ban the sale of conventional fossil fuel-powered vehicles in 2025 and achieve the electrification of its whole full spectrum products.As ex-spy Sergei Skripal fights for life, one of the spies he was swapped with in 2010 - flame-haired Russian agent Anna Chapman - shows off her figure on a beach in Thailand.

Since the exchange, while the ex-GRU colonel sought obscurity in Wiltshire, glamour SVR spy has become a multi-millionaire with her business ventures including her own fashion line and work as a TV presenter.

Undaunted by being stripped of her British passport by then Home Secretary Theresa May, Chapman's Instagram is currently boasting pictures of her relaxing on Phuket at Nai Harn Baan-Bua - a sumptuous jacuzzi villa complex where a minimum three night stay costs around 600.

Anna Chapman shows off her figure on a beach in Thailand amid the poisoning scandal embroiling the GRU spy she was swapped for

Chapman's Instagram is currently boasting pictures of her relaxing and posing in Phuket

Her latest manoeuvres including lazing on the Thai island's tropical Rawai Beach.

But she still found time to heap praise on Vladimir Putin, Russia's ex-spy president, who eight years ago welcomed her back home with a patriotic singsong when she was thrown out of the USA after being unmasked as a spy by the FBI.

'It is surely a sensation,' she wrote of the strongman's recent state of the nation speech in which he told the world he had new hypersonic nuclear weapons capable of dodging missile defences.

'The world has changed,' she announced.

'It won't be possible anymore to thumb your nose at Russia without punishment.'

Once married to a British former public schoolboy, the seductive spy is now a propagandist for the Kremlin and has her own fashion line

The glamour SVR spy has become a multi-millionaire with her business ventures including her own fashion line and TV presenter work

Seductive: Ms Chapman, who kept her married name, is seen posing on a beach in Thailand

Russian celebrity: Ms Chapman has some 108,000 followers on Instagram

Once married to a British former public schoolboy, the seductive spy is now a propagandist for the Kremlin.

She has yet to comment specifically on the alleged poisoning of Skripal, a man who has been branded a 'traitor' and a 'bastard' on state TV in Russia.

He was blamed for handing over some 300 names of Russian GRU agents or intelligence assets to MI6 for whom he worked as a double agent before his 2004 arrest in Moscow.

In one recent blast, she said on her social media: 'Sergey Lavrov (foreign minister) has declared that USA was getting ready for a nuclear war with Russia.

'And just the day after, the president announced our modern strategic weapon  it means that our leadership is particularly serious about the threat of war with the USA.

Chapman, pictured taking a selfie on Instagram, has yet to comment specifically on the alleged poisoning of Skripal

Chapman stayed at Nai Harn Baan-Bua - a sumptuous jacuzzi villa complex where a minimum three night stay costs around 600

Another image posted on her social media account shows her stretching into a yoga pose

'Putin warned about what we have for a response.

'Cruise missiles and torpedoes with nuclear engines, supersonic and laser weapons  it is a true 'weapon of the future' which became modern thanks to our scientists.'

She warned her 108,000 followers: 'The USA in their new doctrine imply that nuclear weapons can be used in respond to any kind of threat.

'In Syria they are behaving with more and more cynicism and toughness, they started supplying flying weapons to Ukraine, and they plan to terminate the agreement on average and short distance missiles.

'In my opinion, comparing with nowadays situation, the Cold War of the 20th century was a child's game in the sandbox.'

She urged her followers to join the contest to name Putin's new nuke.

'Internet users are already voting for the variants. The top ones are: Givi, Silence, Ash, Cheburashka, American Dream, Muromets, Surprise, Orphan.

'How would you call this supermodern Russian weapon?'

Russia's super weapon: The former agent poses with a Kalashnikov

Ms Chapman is seen at a gathering of Vladimir Putin's youth army - YunArmia - which has been compared to Hilter Jugend by critics

Fame: Ms Chapman is seen writing her autograph on footballs

The swap included Anna Chapman, who had worked several years in London including for Barclays Bank

In another picture back home in Russia, Chapman - who still uses her British ex-husband's surname - is seen at a gathering of Vladimir Putin's youth army or YunArmia.

This has been compared by critics to the Hitler Youth, while supporters insist it is nothing more than a a means of giving schoolchildren military training to keep them out of trouble.

The force has grown to almost 200,000 strong since starting from scratch in May 2016.

Chapman is a mother of one, giving birth to a son in summer 2015.

She has not disclosed the identity of the child's father.

Chapman has worked as a TV presenter on a show called Mysteries of the World for Ren-TV, a channel owned by National Media Group, headed by ex-Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, 34, rumoured to be Putin's secret girlfriend.

Chapman - who also runs her own label fashion boutiques in Moscow - is seen as having made a fortune since she was caught red handed operating as a spy in New York in 2010.

The Vienna spy swap which saw MI6 spy handed over to the UK by Putin's intelligence men in return for Anna Chapman and nine other Russian secret agents

Anna Chapman and nine other Russian secret agents were returned to Russia in exchange for four Western spies in a dramatic swap in 2010.

The exchange, described as the biggest spy swap since the Cold War and which saw Sergei Skripal returned to the West, saw two aircraft parked next to each other in Vienna as the 14 agents involved in the deal swapped planes.

The ten Russian 'sleeper' agents had been arrested in the United States, after pleading guilty to 'conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country'.

It was claimed they had lived double lives in the US, with fake passports and false identities, with some of them leaving families behind amid the swap.

Anna Chapman (pictured) and nine other Russian secret agents were returned to Russia in exchange for four Western spies in a dramatic swap in 2010

The exchange, described as the biggest spy swap since the Cold War and which saw Sergei Skripal returned to the West, saw two aircraft parked next to each other in Vienna

They included Anna Chapman, who had worked several years in London including for Barclays Bank, according to The Guardian.

The swap also included Sergei Skripal, who was granted refuge in Britain in the spy swap, the BBC reported.

Skripal received a jail term of 13 years for spying for Britain in 2006, as Russian authorities accused him of paying $100,000 (72,300 at today's rate) for intelligence.

The swap took place after US officials determined there was 'no significant national security benefit' in imprisoning the ten Russian agents.

In 2016 she appeared to back then-candidate Donald Trump for the White House, suggesting the tycoon would warm icy relations between the Cold War superpowers

The former Russian spy, the daughter of a senior KGB agent, also gave birth to her first child in 2015, it was reported

The Vienna exchange was carried out in July 2010, a month after then-President Barack Obama had been informed of the matter, it was reported, with planes sitting on the tarmac for over an hour.

None of the ten Russian spies had succeeded in passing on classified information and so were not charged with espionage, CNN reported at the time.

The other three spies handed over by Russia were Alexander Zaporozhsky, Igor Sutyagin and Gennady Vasilenko.

Sutgayin was a nuclear scientist who spied for the CIA, while Zaporozhsky worked for the foreign intelligence service and Vasilenko was jailed over illegal weapons.

The other three spies handed over by Russia were Alexander Zaporozhsky (left), Igor Sutyagin (right) and Gennady Vasilenko

Gennady Vasilenko, the fourth of the spies handed over by Russia in the 2010 swap deal

The swap took place after US officials determined there was 'no significant national security benefit' in imprisoning the ten Russian agents

The Vienna exchange was carried out in July 2010, a month after then-President Barack Obama had been informed of the matter, it was reported

They and Skripal four were allowed to go in the exchange after admitting crimes against the Russian state, a Russian official said.

Reports surfaced in 2014 alleging that Chapman had tried to seduce whistleblower Edward Snowden on orders from the Kremlin, according to a defector Boris Karpichkov, a former KGB agent.

The former Russian spy, the daughter of a senior KGB agent, also gave birth to her first child in 2015, it was reported.

The ex-spy was reportedly running an antique shop in a trendy district of Moscow and working as a TV host after her return to Russia.

In 2016 she appeared to back then-candidate Donald Trump for the White House, suggesting the tycoon would warm icy relations between the Cold War superpowers.Investigators have determined that an old wooden wreck found on the Alabama Gulf Coast isn't the last slave ship to land in the United States, the Alabama Historical Commission said Monday.

A statement released by the state agency said the ship remains found north of Mobile are too large and new to be those of the Clotilda, which was burned nearly 160 years ago after delivering captives from what's now the west African nation of Benin to Mobile in 1860.

A reporter found ship remains on a river bottom during an unusually low tide in January and published an article, prompting a historical review.

The investigation of the shipwreck remains discovered in January 2018 in the Mobile Delta in Alabama has concluded that it was not that of the last slave ship Clotilda

Investigators worked for weeks to determine whether the ship was the Clotilda by analyzing where it was found, the way it was built and its measurements, among other facets

The missing ship set sail for Africa in 1859 and returned to Alabama in 1860 with around 100 slaves. Pictured is the ship's starboard (although it is not the Clotilda's)

Even though the remains are not the Clotilda, the discovery shows the need for a wider study of shipwrecks on the coast, said James P. Delgado, a senior vice president of SEARCH, Inc., which participated in the examination.

'We believe that a comprehensive survey of the area with a range of modern technology, followed by an examination of each wreck encountered by knowledgeable professionals will be the best means to find the physical remains of Clotilda,' Delgado said in the statement.

'Further historical research and field investigation we have done suggests that many wrecks lie in this part of the Mobile River,' said Delgado. 'We believe that a comprehensive survey of the area with a range of modern technology, followed by an examination of each wreck encountered by knowledgeable professionals will be the best means to find the physical remains of Clotilda. The archaeological team will continue to make ourselves available to answer questions from the community of Africatown and the citizens of Alabama.'

The slave trade was abolished in the United States in 1807, by a decree from Thomas Jefferson. Slavery was abolished in the United States - not including the Confederacy - but Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. Pictured is a close-up of the mystery ship's bow

The mystery ship was found in the lower Mobile-Tensaw Delta near Mobile, Alabama and was exposed due to unusually low tides brought on by the Bomb Cyclone

State and federal experts who examined the wreck recently said the ship in the mud was about 160 feet long, while the Clotilda was 86 feet long. Also, the wreck had three masts, while the Clotilda had two.

The wreck in the Mobile-Tensaw Delta had what appeared to be marks indicating fire damage, but the review showed those marks actually were caused by wood-eating marine organisms, the statement said.

Also, the construction methods used on the wreck didn't become common until after the Clotilda was built, and the wreck didn't appear to include oak, which was used on the slave ship.

The Clotilda sailed to Africa on a bet by an Alabama steamboat captain and plantation owner who wanted to show he could sneak slaves into the country despite federal troops stationed at forts that guarded the mouth of Mobile Bay.

The ship delivered 110 captives to Mobile in the last known instance of a slave ship landing in the United States.

The captain took the ship up the delta and burned it; the people became slaves, and they and their descendants lived after the Civil War in an area near Mobile known as Africatown.

The human cargo brought over became slaves and, after being freed, appealed unsuccessfully to the United States government for funds to return to Africa. When that failed, they set up a community in Africatown (pictured), outside of Mobile

Africatown (pictured) had its own school system and was put on the National Historic Register in 2012

THE CLOTILDA, ALSO KNOWN AS THE CLOTILDE: A BRIEF HISTORY The Clotilda, a two-masted schooner, set out for Africa in 1859 on a bet by an Alabama steamboat captain and plantation owner, Timothy Meaher. He wanted to show he could sneak slaves into the country despite federal troops stationed at two forts that guarded the mouth of Mobile Bay. The ship's captain, William Foster, was armed with $9,000 in gold to purchase around 100 slaves and ended up delivering 110 captives to Mobile in 1860 - one year before the outbreak of the Civil War. The Clotilda's voyage was planned by Timothy Meaher, a steamboat captain and plantation owner who wanted to show he could sneak slaves into the country The ship was believed to be 23 feet wide and 86 feet long, though contemporary investigations assert the ship could be much longer. The slave trade was abolished in 1807 by Thomas Jefferson, but continued illegally up until the abolition of slavery - in the North in 1863 and in the South in 1865. The journey was the last known instance of a slave ship landing in the United States. The captain took the ship up the delta and burned it. Historian Sylvianne Diouf notes that the ship was burned in an effort to destroy all evidence of its slaving history. The pair decided to burn the ship in an effort to conceal the crime they had committed Neither Meaher nor Foster were convicted of a crime, though they could have faced death if their plot had been uncovered by the US government. Captain Foster hid the slaves in part by picking up lumber at multiple stops on his route. Spellings of the ship are alternately Clotilda and Clotilde. It is not exactly clear how the ship got its name, but there is a 'Saint Clotilde' who is also known as Clotilda. She was a Frankish queen in the 6th Century who is credited with helping spread Catholicism. The ploy occurred the year before the outbreak of the Civil War. Pictured is Abraham Lincoln with General George B McClellan at his headquarters in October 1862 AdvertisementThe case of a former Russian spy who is critically ill after being exposed to an unknown substance will invite comparisons to the fate of Alexander Litvinenko - a Putin critic who was killed by polonium-laced tea in a Mayfair hotel

Sergei Skripal, who was granted refuge in Britain eight years ago after a spy swap between the United States and Russia, is thought to have been exposed to the powerful synthetic drug, Fentanyl, and is in hospital with a woman in her 30s.

Former KGB agent Litvinenko was poisoned after radioactive polonium 210 was slipped into his tea pot in 2006, a killing which a judge said was probably approved by President Vladimir Putin.

Alexander Litvinenko died after two agents slipped radioactive polonium 210 into his tea pot at a Mayfair hotel in central London. This photo, taken on November 20, 2006, shows Litvinenko three days before his death and was released by his family

An inquiry found two Russian men - Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun - had deliberately poisoned Litvinenko by putting polonium-210 into his drink at a London hotel, leading to an agonising death.

It said the use of the radioactive substance - which could only have come from a nuclear reactor - was a 'strong indicator' of state involvement and that the two men had probably been acting under the direction of the FSB.

Possible motives included Litvinenko's work for British intelligence agencies, his criticism of the FSB, and his association with other Russian dissidents, while it said there was also a 'personal dimension' to the antagonism between him and Putin.

International arrest warrants issued for Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun remain in force although Russia continues to refuse their extradition.

The Millennium Hotel, Grovsvenor Square, London, where Litvinenko is though to have been poisoned. It is pictured in a file photo

In a statement to mark the 10th anniversary of his death, Marina Litvinenko said her husband - who she called Sasha - had been an 'extraordinary man' whose courage in speaking out against the Russian security service, the FSB, had left an enduring legacy.

While she acknowledged Mr Putin had refused to accept the inquiry's findings, she said it remained open for other world leaders to take action against the Russian state and that she hoped her struggle to find the truth had not been in vain.

'It has taken 10 long years for the truth to be established and for Sasha's dying words that President Putin was responsible for his death to be proved to be true,' she said.

'I know that Mr Putin's Russia does not accept the findings of the British public inquiry and will continue to deny the truth in the face of overwhelming evidence.

'But those findings are now part of history and the rest of the world understands the difference between truth and propaganda. And that is what matters to me.

'What action world leaders will take against the ever vengeful Russian state in these dramatic times remains to be seen. I hope and pray that my struggle has not been in vain.'

Last year the scandal took a new twist when Scotland Yard detectives who investigated the Litvinenko case revealed they too had been poisoned by the Russians in an extraordinary attempt to thwart the inquiry.

The inquiry found two Russian men - Andrei Lugovoi (pictured left at a Moscow press conference 2007) and Dmitri Kovtun (right, in Moscow, 2006) - had deliberately poisoned Litvinenko

Detective Inspector Brian Tarpey, who flew to Moscow to investigate, says: I remember one evening my officer [a colleague who travelled with him] was complaining of stomach cramp and not being very well.

Next morning I accompanied him to the general prosecutors office. We were offered tea. I had no hesitation in accepting.

After we left, I started to feel a little bit uncomfortable. Not wanting to put too fine a point on it, I had the s***s.

I have no doubt in my mind that someone poisoned us with something like gastroenteritis.The University of Colorado Springs has found themselves in a bit of a pickle after the school mistakenly sent out welcome emails to the parents of 11,000 prospective students.

Last Thursday, applicants received an email from the university implying that they had been accepted.

'Welcome to the UCCS Mountain Lion Family,' the email read.

The University of Colorado Springs has found themselves in a bit of a pickle after the school mistakenly sent out welcome emails (pictured) to the parents of 11,000 prospective students

Last Thursday, prospective students received an email from the university (pictured) implying that they had been accepted

Connor Ireland (pictured), a senior at Vista PEAK Preparatory School said he was excited to learn that he was accepted to the university last week, until his parents received a follow-up email telling them to disregard the first one

In the email, the 'next steps' for accepted students are outlined and include 'register for orientation, apply for financial aid and 'apply for housing'.

Connor Ireland, a senior at Vista PEAK Preparatory School, told CBS 4 that he was excited to learn that he was accepted to the university last week.

'I applied for UCCS and a couple other places. And UCCS was probably the main one, because I love Colorado Springs to begin with,' Ireland said.

But a few hours later, a follow-up email was sent out apologizing to those who received the initial email in error.

'My mom texted me, and said it was a mess up,' Ireland told the station.

The mishap not only affected applicants who are still waiting on the school's decision, but it also went out to those who had already been denied.

Senior Executive Director of Enrollment Mathew Cox sent a follow-up email to parents and students after his department received reports of the initial email 'within about 15 minutes' after it was sent

Cox (pictured) said the university believes the error occurred as they were uploading parent emails to their file system

According to CBS, the university said the acceptance letters also went to more than 500 people who had already been denied acceptance to the college.

Senior Executive Director of Enrollment Mathew Cox told CBS that they received reports of the emails 'within about 15 minutes' after it was sent.

He said several departments on campus had received phone calls from parents asking about the email.

'We obviously regret the miscommunication,' Cox said.

The university said they believed the error occurred as they were uploading parent emails to their file system.

University officials said they are currently in the process of trying to make changes to that system to prevent future mishaps.The man who is thought to have been poisoned with an unknown substance in Salisbury is retired Russian military intelligence colonel Sergei Skripal. He was brought to Britain in a spy-swap after he was jailed in Russia for spying for MI6

The man fighting for his life in a Wiltshire hospital is a former Russian colonel who was dramatically exposed as having spied for the British in one of the biggest East-West scandals since the end of the Cold War.

Sergei Skripal rose to rank of colonel in the Russian military before becoming a top intelligence officer in the chaotic days after the fall of communism.

But his reputation came crashing down in 2004 when he was accused of passing on the identities of Russian secret agents in Europe to MI6.

By this time he had retired from the military but was said to have used his old contacts to spy for the West.

He was jailed for 13 years in 2006 and was only released in the high-profile spy-swap which involved glamourous Russian agent Anna Chapman, who had been caught spying in the US.

After being debriefed by British security services, he was given a new life living in a 340,000 house in Wiltshire.

At the time of his arrest he was mocked as 'the spy with the Louis Vuitton bag' after grainy pictures showed him with an expensive looking bag at an airport en route on one meeting with his handlers.

Colonel Skripal was accused of spying for Britain and sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006

Sergei Skripal is believed to have been living at this address on Christie Miller Road in Salisbury since he moved to the UK

After his release Col Skripal was given refuge in the UK following his exchange in the historic spy swap involving femme fatale Anna Chapman (pictured)

The Russian security service (FSB) alleged that Col Skripal began to sell information in 1990's right up until 1999 - when he left the special services. They say he was paid around $100,000 for his services into his secret account in Spain.

Col Skripal was turned by British special service until when he was detained for giving the UK top secret information.

The former intelligence officer, now believed to be 66, was convicted of 'high treason in the form of espionage' for his crimes.

Col Skripal pleaded guilty at his trial and co-operated with investigators, reports said at the time.

He was stripped of his rank of colonel and his state medals and ordered to spend his prison term in a high-security penal camp.

He was jailed for passing on the identities of Russian secret agents in Europe to MI6

He was sentenced in 2006 and was later pardoned in 2010 when he was one of four prisoners Moscow swapped for spies in the US.

He was released together with the three other individuals serving time in Russian prisons in exchange for ten Russian spies arrested by the FBI.

A year after his release he is believed to have bought a house in Sailsbury, Wiltshire.

In Moscow at the time of his arrest he was mocked as 'the spy with the Louis Vuitton bag' after grainy pictures showed him at an airport on route on one meeting with his handlers

Following his release Col Skripal underwent a debriefing in London following his exchange in the historic spy swap involving femme fatale Anna Chapman

Ms Chapman was arrested at a New York police department precinct when she turned in a fake passport an undercover FBI agent had given to her.

As the daughter of a Russian diplomat, she became the most recognisable of the ten agents.

Nicknamed 'the spy with the Louis Vuitton bag', Skripal exposed a huge network of Russian military spies working across Europe taking extraordinary risks to pass secrets to MI6.

The Russian security service (FSB) allege that Col Skripal began to sell information in 1990's right up until 1999 - when he left the special services. This image shows him being arrested

The FSB caught him passing his intelligence to the infamous MI6 James Bond-style 'spy rock' - a fake stone packed with receiving equipment - in a Moscow park.

Russian secret services exposed the rock in 2006, revealing how agents walked past it transmitting their data to the rock via a hidden hand held device.

One official said after his conviction: 'His activities caused a significant blow to Russia's external security.'

Russian loathing for Skripal is highlighted by claims from Russian secret services historian Nikolai Luzan that the double was responsible for disclosing to MI6 the names of around 300 GRU staff members and other 'agents' including those working abroad.

Some of these military intelligence assets were 'secretly arrested' and others 'vanished', said Luzan.

Luzan referred to him Skripal in a 2014 interview as 'this bastard - I'm not scared to use this word'.

'Just imagine what muck this man did to other people' - due to his treachery.

There has been no official confirmation of the 300 figure from the GRU.

Skripal had been living at the address with his wife Liudmila until she died in recent years

Police at Skripal's property today following the incident at a busy shopping centre in Salisbury

State-run TV in Russia even compared him to the legendary Cold War agent Soviet double agent Oleg Penkovsky, who spied for Britain and the United States during the height of the Cold War.

Penvosky was shot by a firing squad in 1963 and is regarded as one of the most effective spies of all time.

Col Skripal and a woman were found slumped on a bench in a busy shopping centre in Salisbury on Sunday.

He is critically ill along with the woman, 33, after they were both found at The Maltings shopping centre in a case that immediately drew parallels to the poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Before this he was believed to be living at an address on Christie Miller Road in Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Skripal had been living at the address with his wife Liudmila until she died in recent years.

Russian agent Anna Chapman poses in swimwear in Thailand as she enjoys new life running fashion line while MI6 spy she was swapped for fights for his life after being 'poisoned'

By Charlotte Dean for MailOnline

As ex-spy Sergei Skripal fights for life, one of the spies he was swapped with in 2010 - flame-haired Russian agent Anna Chapman - shows off her figure on a beach in Thailand.

Since the exchange, while the ex-GRU colonel sought obscurity in Wiltshire, glamour SVR spy has become a multi-millionaire with her business ventures including her own fashion line and work as a TV presenter.

Undaunted by being stripped of her British passport by then Home Secretary Theresa May, Chapman's Instagram is currently boasting pictures of her relaxing on Phuket at Nai Harn Baan-Bua - a sumptuous jacuzzi villa complex where a minimum three night stay costs around 600.

Anna Chapman shows off her figure on a beach in Thailand amid the poisoning scandal embroiling the GRU spy she was swapped for

Chapman's Instagram is currently boasting pictures of her relaxing and posing in Phuket

Her latest manoeuvres including lazing on the Thai island's tropical Rawai Beach.

But she still found time to heap praise on Vladimir Putin, Russia's ex-spy president, who eight years ago welcomed her back home with a patriotic singsong when she was thrown out of the USA after being unmasked as a spy by the FBI.

'It is surely a sensation,' she wrote of the strongman's recent state of the nation speech in which he told the world he had new hypersonic nuclear weapons capable of dodging missile defences.

'The world has changed,' she announced.

'It won't be possible anymore to thumb your nose at Russia without punishment.'

Once married to a British former public schoolboy, the seductive spy is now a propagandist for the Kremlin

The glamour SVR spy has become a multi-millionaire with her business ventures including her own fashion line and TV presenter work

Once married to a British former public schoolboy, the seductive spy is now a propagandist for the Kremlin.

She has yet to comment specifically on the alleged poisoning of Skripal, a man who has been branded a 'traitor' and a 'bastard' on state TV in Russia.

He was blamed for handing over some 300 names of Russian GRU agents or intelligence assets to MI6 for whom he worked as a double agent before his 2004 arrest in Moscow.

In one recent blast, she said on her social media: 'Sergey Lavrov (foreign minister) has declared that USA was getting ready for a nuclear war with Russia.

'And just the day after, the president announced our modern strategic weapon  it means that our leadership is particularly serious about the threat of war with the USA.

Chapman, pictured taking a selfie on Instagram, has yet to comment specifically on the alleged poisoning of Skripal

Chapman stayed at Nai Harn Baan-Bua - a sumptuous jacuzzi villa complex where a minimum three night stay costs around 600

'Putin warned about what we have for a response.

'Cruise missiles and torpedoes with nuclear engines, supersonic and laser weapons  it is a true 'weapon of the future' which became modern thanks to our scientists.'

She warned her 108,000 followers: 'The USA in their new doctrine imply that nuclear weapons can be used in respond to any kind of threat.

'In Syria they are behaving with more and more cynicism and toughness, they started supplying flying weapons to Ukraine, and they plan to terminate the agreement on average and short distance missiles.

'In my opinion, comparing with nowadays situation, the Cold War of the 20th century was a child's game in the sandbox.'

She urged her followers to join the contest to name Putin's new nuke.

'Internet users are already voting for the variants. The top ones are: Givi, Silence, Ash, Cheburashka, American Dream, Muromets, Surprise, Orphan.

'How would you call this supermodern Russian weapon?'

The swap included Anna Chapman, who had worked several years in London including for Barclays Bank

In another picture back home in Russia, Chapman - who still uses her British ex-husband's surname - is seen at a gathering of Vladimir Putin's youth army or YunArmia.

This has been compared by critics to the Hitler Youth, while supporters insist it is nothing more than a a means of giving schoolchildren military training to keep them out of trouble.

The force has grown to almost 200,000 strong since starting from scratch in May 2016.

Chapman is a mother of one, giving birth to a son in summer 2015.

She has not disclosed the identity of the child's father.

Chapman has worked as a TV presenter on a show called Mysteries of the World for Ren-TV, a channel owned by National Media Group, headed by ex-Olympic gymnast Alina Kabaeva, 34, rumoured to be Putin's secret girlfriend.

Chapman - who also runs her own label fashion boutiques in Moscow - is seen as having made a fortune since she was caught red handed operating as a spy in New York in 2010.

The Vienna spy swap which saw MI6 spy handed over to the UK by Putin's intelligence men in return for Anna Chapman and nine other Russian secret agents

Anna Chapman and nine other Russian secret agents were returned to Russia in exchange for four Western spies in a dramatic swap in 2010.

The exchange, described as the biggest spy swap since the Cold War and which saw Sergei Skripal returned to the West, saw two aircraft parked next to each other in Vienna as the 14 agents involved in the deal swapped planes.

The ten Russian 'sleeper' agents had been arrested in the United States, after pleading guilty to 'conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign country'.

It was claimed they had lived double lives in the US, with fake passports and false identities, with some of them leaving families behind amid the swap.

Anna Chapman (pictured) and nine other Russian secret agents were returned to Russia in exchange for four Western spies in a dramatic swap in 2010

The exchange, described as the biggest spy swap since the Cold War and which saw Sergei Skripal returned to the West, saw two aircraft parked next to each other in Vienna

They included Anna Chapman, who had worked several years in London including for Barclays Bank, according to The Guardian.

The swap also included Sergei Skripal, who was granted refuge in Britain in the spy swap, the BBC reported.

Skripal received a jail term of 13 years for spying for Britain in 2006, as Russian authorities accused him of paying $100,000 (72,300 at today's rate) for intelligence.

The swap took place after US officials determined there was 'no significant national security benefit' in imprisoning the ten Russian agents.

In 2016 she appeared to back then-candidate Donald Trump for the White House, suggesting the tycoon would warm icy relations between the Cold War superpowers

The former Russian spy, the daughter of a senior KGB agent, also gave birth to her first child in 2015, it was reported

The Vienna exchange was carried out in July 2010, a month after then-President Barack Obama had been informed of the matter, it was reported, with planes sitting on the tarmac for over an hour.

None of the ten Russian spies had succeeded in passing on classified information and so were not charged with espionage, CNN reported at the time.

The other three spies handed over by Russia were Alexander Zaporozhsky, Igor Sutyagin and Gennady Vasilenko.

Sutgayin was a nuclear scientist who spied for the CIA, while Zaporozhsky worked for the foreign intelligence service and Vasilenko was jailed over illegal weapons.

The other three spies handed over by Russia were Alexander Zaporozhsky (left), Igor Sutyagin (right) and Gennady Vasilenko

Gennady Vasilenko, the fourth of the spies handed over by Russia in the 2010 swap deal

The swap took place after US officials determined there was 'no significant national security benefit' in imprisoning the ten Russian agents

The Vienna exchange was carried out in July 2010, a month after then-President Barack Obama had been informed of the matter, it was reported

They and Skripal four were allowed to go in the exchange after admitting crimes against the Russian state, a Russian official said.

Reports surfaced in 2014 alleging that Chapman had tried to seduce whistleblower Edward Snowden on orders from the Kremlin, according to a defector Boris Karpichkov, a former KGB agent.

The former Russian spy, the daughter of a senior KGB agent, also gave birth to her first child in 2015, it was reported.

The ex-spy was reportedly running an antique shop in a trendy district of Moscow and working as a TV host after her return to Russia.

In 2016 she appeared to back then-candidate Donald Trump for the White House, suggesting the tycoon would warm icy relations between the Cold War superpowers.A 19-year-old woman found dead in the Cape Fear River in North Carolina last summer was naked with a zip tie around her wrist, an autopsy has found.

Kristen Stone's severely decomposed body was recovered from the river by a fisherman on August 9, 2017.

The pathologist couldnt give an exact cause of death but the autopsy suggests it could be 'drowning, smothering, suffocation and other asphyxial means of death'.

'Based on autopsy and investigative findings, as currently understood, it is my opinion that the cause of death is undetermined homicidal violence,' the report said.

Charles Cottingham, 33, was arrested in September and charged with first-degree murder.

He was previously charged with sexually assaulting her in 2016 after meeting her through a sex ad.

Scroll down for video

Us Air Force veteran Charles Cottingham, 33 (left), has been charged with first-degree murder in the August 2017 death of 19-year-old Kristen Stone (right)

A fisherman recovered Stone's naked body with zip-ties on hr wrists from the Cape Fear River in North Carolina in August 2017

Court records indicate Cottingham, a US Air Force veteran with a history of violence against women, first met her in Hoke County through an ad offering sex in exchange for money on Backpage,com.

Cottingham held a gun to Stone's head and made her perform a sex act on him inside a parked car in 2016 attack, according to investigators.

Jail records show that Cottingham has been jailed without bond since September 28, 2017, on a charge of first-degree murder.

He is due back in court on March 27, reported WNCN.

Stone had been reported missing by her parents on August 8.

Her body was found tangled in trees in the waters of the Cape Fear River the following day, but she was not positively identified until August 18.

Cottingham was arrested in late September after police were able to track him down through DMV records

In 2016, Cottingham held a gun to Stone's head and made her perform a sex act on him inside a parked car after answering her escort ad online

Using Stone's phone and text message records, investigators learned that the 19-year-old had put up another ad on Backpage.com offering escort services in Greenville.

Police then obtained surveillance footage from a motel where Stone was staying around the time of her death that showed her talking on her cellphone and getting into a 2010 Nissan Maxima, reported The Fayatteville Observer.

According to court documents, police searched Cottingham's name through the Division of Motor Vehicles' database and found that he owned a car matching the one seen in the motel video, leading to his arrest.

In the previous incident involving Cottingham and Stone, the Air Force veteran was charged with first-degree sexual offense, kidnapping and solicitation, and barred from making contact with Stone.

His criminal record also includes a 2005 conviction for assault by strangulation in Alaska.

Cottingham was sentenced to 13 years in prison, seven of them suspended, for choking a sex worker until she blacked out. He was released on parole in 2009.Three teachers have been arrested at a suburban Chicago day care center after allegedly giving a class of toddlers gummy bears with melatonin to calm them down for nap time.

Authorities were called to the Kiddie Junction Daycare Center in Des Plaines on Friday afternoon for has been described as a 'suspicious incident'.

Three teachers admitted to distributing gummy bears with melatonin to 12 children aged between two and three-years-old.

Ashley Helfenbein, 25, left, of Chicago and Jessica Heyse, 19, of Des Plaines were each charged with two counts of endangering the life or health of a child and two counts of battery

Kristen Lauletta, 32, of Niles, said she did not the melatonin g gummies were inappropriate because it was an over-the-counter sleep aid

The use of the substance had not been approved by parents.

'Allegedly, this was done in an effort to calm the kids down before nap time,' a release from Des Plaines police read.

The teachers each told authorities they didn't think giving the children melatonin-laced gummy bears was inappropriate because it is available over-the-counter.

Parents with children attending the day care were contacted and told what happened, according to authorities.

Kristen Lauletta, 32, of Niles; Jessica Heyse, 19, of Des Plaines; and Ashley Helfenbein, 25, of Chicago, have each been charged with two counts of endangering the life or health of a child and two counts of battery.

The three teachers were found out after a fellow employee of the daycare called police with concerns about their co-workers' actions.

It is unclear how long the children had been given the gummies, but it appears none were harmed.

The three teachers were found out after a fellow employee of the daycare called police with concerns about their co-workers' actions

'We spoke with every single parent that had a child in the day care, and only one could recall their child being groggy after being picked up,' Police Cmdr. Christopher Mierzwa said.

Police have said that additional charges are still possible and the Department of Children and Family Services will also conduct an investigation.

All three are expected to appear in court in Skokie, Illinois next month.

Kiddie Junction did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The four-year-old daughter of Tony-winning actress Ruthie Ann Miles and a one-year-old boy have been identified as the children hit and killed by a woman who ran a red light in Brooklyn on Monday.

At around 12:40pm on Monday, 44-year-old Dorothy Bruns of Staten Island was driving in Park Slope, Brooklyn when she ran a red light and hit and killed one-year-old Josh Lew and four-year-old Abigail Blumenstein.

The deceased little girl is the daughter of Ruth Blumenstein, the theater actress known as Ruthie Ann Miles, who won a Tony Award in 2015 for her role in 'The King and I.'

Both the Tony winner and Lauren Lew, the mother of the boy who died, sustained injuries. A fifth victim was also taken with the mothers to the New York Presbyterian Methodist Brooklyn Hospital for treatment.

Blumenstein and Lew appear to be friends. In her acceptance speech for the Tony three years ago, Blumenstein gave a shoutout to 'the Lews'.

'I could fall and never hit the ground because of the amazing women who are my friends behind me,' she added.

Scroll down for video

The 4-year-old daughter of Tony-winning actress Ruthie Ann Miles and a 1-year-old boy have been identified as the children hit and killed by a woman who ran a red light in Brooklyn on Monday; Ruthie Ann Miles is seen here with her daughter in New York City in 2017

Lauren Lew is shown above, holding her one-year-old son Josh

Dorothy Bruns, 44 (pictured), of Staten Island ran a red light in Brooklyn, New York, hitting and killing the little girl, Abigail Blumenstein, and the boy, Josh Lew

At least one of the adults was described by a witness as being a pregnant woman who sustained critical injuries.

One witness described to the New York Post how Lew tried to save her son immediately after the tragedy unfolded, but it was too late.

'The mom was sitting there next to him screaming,' said Andrew Macaluso, 26, who is a fourth-year medical student.

Ruthie Ann Miles and the cast of 'The King and I' perform onstage at the 2015 Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall on June 7, 2015 in New York City

Ruthie Ann miles also appeared on the last season of the FX show The Americans. Pictured on the right with co-star Keri Russell

Dorothy Bruns, 44, of Staten Island who police say ran a red light in Brooklyn, New York and killed two children is seen here being attended to by EMT personnel on Monday

'She was just kind of [saying], "Oh, God, this cant be happening. Tell me this isnt happening. Whats going on?"' Macaluso said.

'I said, "Are you the mom?" and she said, "Yeah,"' he continued.

He went on to detail their efforts over the next several minutes, as they tried to revive her little boy.

'The child had blood on his face,' Macaluso said. 'She wipes off his face and gives him air while Im giving him chest compression.'

Then paramedics arrived and took the victims away.

The white Volvo is seen here approaching the crosswalk without decreasing in speed, in a slowed down version of surveillance footage that captured the moments before impact

Ruthie Ann Miles pose backstage with her award for the best featured actress in a musical for her performance in 'The King and I' during the American Theatre Wing's 69th Annual Tony Awards at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City on June 7, 2015

Phillip Boykin, Ruthie Ann Miles and David Turner during the opening night performance curtain call bows for 'Sunday in the Park with George' at the Hudson Theatre on February 23, 2017 in New York City

Moments before, the two kids and their mothers had just gotten off the bus and were crossing the street when a woman driving a white Volvo sped through the intersection at 9th Street and Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, striking the families.

At first, the driver tried to speed away, dragging the stroller that the boy was being pushed in behind her for half a block, until she crashed into some parked cars on the opposite side of the street and came to a stop.

'The kids were run straight over, and the driver tried to get away and hit a car,' one anonymous witness told the Post.

'I dont even want to think about this.  Just to know those kids were ran down like a dog.'

Lauren Lew and her husband Charles are pictured with their two sons above on a recent vacation to Hawaii. Baby Josh is being held by his father. Josh passed away on Monday in the accident

Above, another picture of Lauren Lew with one of her sons. The photo was shared to GoFundMe

Dorothy Bruns of Staten Island, 44, hit and killed a one-year-old Josh Lew and four-year-old Abigail Blumenstein at 12:40pm, in the neighborhood of Park Slope, police say

The driver of the white Volvo told officers she has medical issues; Above, Bruns is put on a stretcher near where the car came to a stop

The children were pronounced dead at the scene while their mothers and a fifth unidentified victim were taken to the hospital.

The driver, identified as Bruns, told police that she had medical issues and was taken from the scene to undergo toxicology tests.

Witness Jennifer Muniz, 28, told the New York Daily News that the driver seemed unaffected by the deaths and injuries she had just caused, when EMTs removed her from her vehicle.

The stroller that was carrying the now deceased Josh Lew is seen here, pinned under the wheel of the Volvo that police say was driven by Dorothy Bruns, 44, of Staten Island

Emergency responders are seen here at the site of the crash that killed two children

'When they took her out she was just standing there, like nothing,' Muniz said. 'No emotion. Not sad. Not crying. Not asking questions: "Is everybody alright?" Not shaking. Nothing.'

After she was set on a stretcher, the first responder checked Bruns' vision, and then gave her telephone and handbag to her.

'She was texting on her cell phone like nothing happened,' Muniz said. 'Like she had just parked the car.'

Firefighters hose down the pavement where two children were killed in a car crash in Brooklyn

At first, the driver tried to get away, but she eventually came to a stop when she crossed into oncoming traffic and cars parked cars

The mothers of the children and one other individual were taken to the hospital with injuries

Mayor Bill de Blasio said a full investigation was underway regarding the tragedy.

'For [my wife] Chirlane and I obviously this is very personal. It occurred in our neighborhood, very, very close to our home,' de Blasio said, at City Hall.

'This loss of life is tragic and painful for all of us, particularly those of us who are parents.'

He added: 'Its another reminder of why we have to double our efforts on Vision Zero, to work for a day when this never happens to any family. This is an intersection that we happen to know very very well. We have crossed it many times with [our children] Dante and Chiara when they were kids, so this is personal. And we are praying for the families who have gone through this tragedy and we will do everything we can to help them.'

Vision Zero is a New York City initiative that aims to achieve zero fatalities on city streets due to traffic crashes.

A GoFundMe set up for Miles has raised over $103,000 as of Tuesday morning. One for Lauren Lew has raised more than $20,000.

According to the fund for the Lews, the couple were living in Brooklyn while Charles Lew finished his residency.

'They do not have family in the area. They were in the process of looking for an apartment prior to the accident, as their current lease is up. It is our hope that these funds can help alleviate their financial burdens as they prepare to lay their son to rest.

'While there is nothing we can do or say to bring their boy back, we hope these funds will serve as an expression of the community supporting them during this time,' friends say on the fund's website.

The damage to the white Volvo can be seen here, as the car rests on a flatbed truckJodi Arias lawyers have missed the deadline to appeal her murder conviction.

The defense team for Arias, who was convicted of murdering her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander in 2013, had until Wednesday to file a new legal brief.

The attorneys filed a three-month extension the following day, blaming staff shortages, system issues and the failing health of a court reporter for the needing more time.

The appeal had already been delayed by almost a year over problems in her trial transcripts, AZ Central reports.

Lawyers for convicted killer Jodi Arias (left in her mugshot, and right in court in 2015) have missed the deadline to appeal her murder conviction

The state Court of Appeals has ordered dozens of court transcripts to be destroyed and redone because they were riddled with errors.

The court is still waiting for the trial's court reporters to finish the final transcripts.

The court reporter responsible for most of the transcripts said he had suffered a computer issue, and his work had been delayed by his cancer treatment.

Other court reporters said they had too much work to do.

They were finally completed in April 2017, which gave prosecution and defense until last month to file their legal briefs.

The appeal will focus on Arias' two previous trials, and will almost certainly allege misconduct by prosecutor Juan Martinez.

If the extension is granted, a three-judge panel will hear the arguments before deciding if the appeal can go ahead.

Arias was 30 when she met Alexander and the two embarked on a whirlwind romance

Alexander (right) was found stabbed to death inside his home with his throat sliced and a bullet wound to the head

An ethics investigation was launched against Deputy Maricopa County Attorney Juan Martinez last year over allegations he had an affair with Jen Wood, one of two of the Trial Divas who spoke about the Arias case on TV and online, according to12 News.

A judge dismissed the five ethics violations against Martinez in September, but the State Bar of Arizona has filed an appeal with the Arizona Supreme Court to overturn the dismissal.

The complaint was filed with the State Bar of Arizona on behalf of Arias, who is currently serving a life sentence for the 2008 brutal murder of her ex-boyfriend, Travis Alexander.

Martinez's lawyer Scott Rhodes said in a statement to 12 News that his client 'prosecuted Jodi Arias in compliance with lawyers' rules of professional conduct'.

'The Arias allegations consist of rumor and innuendo spread by a convicted murderer trying to seek revenge against the public servant who put her behind bars for the rest of her natural life. They do not warrant any attention at all,' the statement read.

Martinez formally denied any professional misconduct in the Arias matter, according to the station.

Jodi Arias' high-profile prosecutor, Juan Martinez (left), was accused of having an affair with television contributor, Jen Wood (right), who also blogged for the Trial Divas website

Clark acted as Arias' attorney last year in an ethics complaint against Arias' defense attorney Kirk Nurmi.

That complaint led to Nurmi's voluntary disbarment, according to 12 News.

The Arizona Republic reported that a lawsuit claimed Nurmi unjustly enriched himself by publishing a book about the case before Arias has been able to appeal her conviction and life sentence.

Nurmi said in an emailed statement that when Arias failed at controlling the case, she tried to ruin his career and his reputation.

Nurmi surrendered his license to practice law in November 2016 after a Bar complaint was filed on Arias' behalf because of the book, which Nurmi titled 'Trapped with Ms. Arias'.

Nurmi, the law suit claims, wrote the book in order to 'redeem his public image as a lawyer, which he claims was tarnished by his representation of Plaintiff'.

It also accuses Nurmi of having a 'preoccupation with the sexual nature of the case' and claims that the former attorney has an 'utter hatred' for Arias.

'There's no reason why. There's no reason I would ever want to hurt him,' Arias told police on her arrest. She initially denied any involvement in the murder. She later said it was self defense

'Nurmi had a disturbing, sexual fascination with the case and with Plaintiff and demonstrated a sexist, chauvinistic, domineering, disparaging, demeaning and belittling way of dealing with Plaintiff,' according to the lawsuit.

'In many references in his book, both overt and implied, Nurmi asserts that Plaintiff flirted with him and actually perceived him as 'her boyfriend.' This is false.'

Arias, now 37, was found guilty of murdering Alexander after friends found his body, stabbed and slashed almost 30 times and shot in the forehead, and left in the shower of his Phoenix home.

International media attention soon followed after she did two television interviews in which she told a bizarre story of masked intruders breaking into the home and killing Alexander while she cowered in fear.

She subsequently changed her story and said it was self-defense after Alexander attacked her on the day he died.

The police evidence file showed how Travis Alexander's blood was left in the bathroom of the home he shared with Jodie Arias

Police crime scene pictures showed the aftermath of Travis Alexander's murder

Her 2013 trial became a media circus as details of their kinky relationship and the violent crime scene emerged in court and were broadcast live.

Spectators traveled to Phoenix and lined up in the middle of the night to get a seat in the courtroom to catch a glimpse of what had become to many a real-life soap opera.

The original jury was deadlocked on whether to sentence her to death, setting up another penalty phase trial that began last year.

After months of testimony and efforts by Arias' lawyers to portray Alexander as a sexual deviant who physically and emotionally abused her, the second jury also failed to reach a unanimous decision  this time 11-1 in favor of death.

The 11 jurors who wanted the death penalty said the holdout juror had an agenda and was sympathetic to Arias.

The 36-year-old killer has been Skyping from her prison cell following her conviction for murder

The romance only lasted a few months but continued after with numerous sexual encounters in 2006

The prosecutor in the trial, Juan Martinez, later wrote that the juror had fallen in love with Jodi Arias in spite of the gruesome evidence that convicted her.

Sheila Isenberg, author of 'Women Who Love Men Who Kill,' says that people who start relationships with notorious, tabloid-headlining murderers are drawn to the spotlight.

Others may believe that they are the only ones who see the 'true' good side of the killer.

Martinez added that Arias was able to turn on the charm to manipulate those around her.

'She's very gifted at being deceitful,' he remarked.

While her own defense lawyer, L. Kirk Nurmi, said his client would 'get what she wants by using her sexuality' as he revealed she had tried to flirt and charm him to manipulate him into doing what she wanted.

The family of the victim, who described the killer as 'evil', will likely be furious that the woman who murdered their son gets to move on with her life.

She is serving the life sentence at the Perryville state prison near Phoenix.



A 53-year-old man was arrested and charged with raping his daughter and impregnating her twice.

The victim was allegedly raped from the age of 10 until she was 25 and has two children, ages two and seven, court documents obtained by Cincinnati.com revealed.

Genetic testing confirmed the father, from South Fairmont, Ohio, was also the grandfather of the two children.

A 53-year-old man was arrested and charged with raping his daughter and impregnating her twice. He was indicted on 43 counts of felony rape, sexual battery and child endangerment. His wife was also arrested and charged with two counts of felony complicity

Police learned about the alleged abuse after an investigation was launched into the well-being of the victim's two children.

He was indicted Friday on 43 counts of felonies, including 23 counts of rape, 17 counts of sexual battery and two counts of endangering children.

His wife has also been charged with two counts of felony complicity.

DailyMail.com is not naming the couple to protect the identity of the victim and her children.

The alleged sexual assaults began when the victim was 10 and happened several times a month, according to police.

She claims when she turned 13 he started raping her two to three times a month until she left home at 25.

The alleged rapist's address is listed in Fairmont, but police say the assaults happened at two different homes in Whitewater Township and one home in Riverside.

He was arested on February 20, and his wife was arested on March 2. They are both being held a the Hamilton County Justice Center.

The man is set to be arraigned March 9 in Hamilton County Pleas Court, according to Cincinnati.com. It's not clear when his wife will be arraigned.Changan reported to release new brand

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Changan Automobile is working on new brands strategy, which is to be unveiled in the second quarter, a Chinas local media cited the automakers president Zhu Huarong as saying recently.

The first product under the new brand is reported to be a crossover SUV while the second one is a coupe. Both models will be targeted at the consumer group who can afford vehicles of RMB 200,000.

The other two brands of the group, Changan and Oushang, will also step up efforts to promote sales in 2018. This year, Oushang will launch a large-size MPV product while Changan will better its SUV product portfolio.

This is the latest news on the automakers progress after it released the Shangri-La Plan. With the introduction of several Chinese premium auto brands, such as WEY and Lynk&Co, the quality and image of Chinese auto brands has been elevated a lot in the past several years. The new brand of Changan is also expected to be another premium brand.Lauren Cox, 27, from Surrey, had an affair with a 16-year-old schoolboy

A record number of women are being convicted of sex crimes, with many of their attacks carried out on children.

Some 142 were guilty of sex offences in 2016  almost double the 74 convicted two years earlier and more than triple the number at the start of the decade.

Among them was married geography teacher Lauren Cox, 27, who was jailed for 12 months following an affair with a 16-year-old pupil. Cox, of Croydon, south London, admitted five counts of sex with a child in her charge.

Experts said the Ministry of Justice figures for 2016, the most recent available, reflected a change in attitudes towards women engaging in sexual contact with adolescent males  depicted as a rite of passage in films such as The Graduate.

Most sexual offences are carried out by men but in recent years there has been a sharp rise in women being hauled into court for these crimes, which include grooming schoolboys.

Steve Lowe, director of Phoenix Forensic Consultants which treats and assesses child sex abusers, said: The rise has occurred because we are more prepared as a society to accept that women can be sexual predators and we are beginning to change our perception of the idea that a young male having sex with an adult woman is a rite of passage.

Now we would question a 13-year-old boy having sex with a 28-year-old woman. In the past that was more likely to have been accepted. But if you reverse that, it is obvious that a 28-year-old man having sex with a 13-year-old girl is abusive.

Historically, sex with an older woman was routinely seen as a positive thing for young males. Its possible that films such as The Graduate reinforce this view. But I would never accept that. These are distorted relationships and connections.

It is also likely that greater education of young males allows them to talk about having been sexually abused. Dr Kieran McCartan, associate professor of criminology at the University of the West of England in Bristol, said: We are seeing an increase in the reporting, recording and sentencing of female perpetrators of sexual harm, nationally and internationally.

This is down to a number of factors, including increased numbers of victims coming forward, more attuned police investigations, more cases being referred to the courts and more cases being successful.

Cox, who pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual activity with a boy aged 13 to 17, was jailed for 12 months for her crimes

The police and the Crown Prosecution Service are being more proactive on these cases than ever before.

The tally of 142 female sex offenders includes 16 women convicted of sexually assaulting males and 21 guilty of the same offence against women and girls.

Six were convicted of rape, 37 of sexual activity with or involving a child, one of sexual grooming, 35 for internet child pornography offences and four for exposure and voyeurism.

Women were also convicted of abusing their position of trust to commit sexual offences, which can be brought against teachers and carers assaulting children in their charge. Other offences included causing sexual activity without consent and gross indecency with a child.

Men were guilty of the vast majority of sex offences involving children, a total of 10,911.Two Minnesota fisherman were out ice fishing on a frozen lake when they spotted the majestic bald eagle.

The men then placed a fish on the frozen lake and caught the moment the predator swooped down to grab its prey.

'This is my friend Frank. I enjoy fishing with Frank except when you're not looking he steals your fish,' the fishermen wrote in the caption of their video.

In the video, the large bird is seen flying overhead as he prepares to circle back to snatch the fish

Moments later, the beautiful creature is seen swooping down to grab the fish with its talons

'He can be a real jerk sometimes,' they joked.

In the video, the large bird is seen flying overhead as he prepares to circle back to snatch the fish.

Moments later, the beautiful creature is seen swooping down to grab the fish with its talons.

Without delay, the bald eagle picks up speed and flies off into the woods.

The video was posted to the YouTube account of Della Bay, a rod building company based in Minnesota.

Della Bay is owned by fisherman Nate Parenteau and Sam Guidarelli.

Without delay, the bald eagle picks up speed and flies off into the woodsA North Carolina man originally charged with sex crimes against a four-year-old more than a year ago now faces 37 charges relating to crimes against six children going back decades.

Pender County authorities have told local news outlets that 70-year-old Haywood Elwood Garner Jr, of Hampstead, was charged again on Friday with statutory rape of a child.

He was first arrested in 2016 on charges involving the four-year-old.

Pender County sheriffs Lt. James Rowell said five more women came forward while Garner was still in custody accusing him of molesting them as children.

Haywood Elwood Garner Jr, 70 (pictured in mugshots) has been charged with 37 counts for allegedly molesting a half-dozen children since 1979

Some of the allegations against Garner date as far back as 1979, reported Port City Daily last winter.

Sgt. John Leatherwood said one woman was now in her 50s and told investigators that she was abused from the ages of 8 to 15.

Garner, who is divorced and has grandchildren, was first arrested in 2016 on charges involving a four-year-old victim

The other allegations stem from alleged incidents that took place in 2000, and between 2003 and 2006.

Garner was arrested in October 2016 for allegedly molesting the four-year-old between September 2015 and September 2016.

The girl's mother told the authorities that the suspect, who is divorced and has adult children of his own and grandchildren, inappropriately touched her daughter and gave her back rubs.

When deputies executed a search warrant at the man's Peanut Road home in Hampstead, they reportedly seized massage oils, among other pieces of evidence.

While he was jailed, Garner was hit with additional charges in March 2017 for allegedly molesting a seven-year-old between 2001 and 2002.

Garner is being held behind bars with bail set at $4.6 million.Passengers on a flight from Dallas to Los Angeles lost their cool and missed their connection and flew into a rage.

A shocking Snapchat video shows the moment fists go flying in the Southwest Airlines flight as chaos takes over.

Passengers can be heard yelling and seen arguing all throughout the plane.

Rowdy crowd: It appears a missed flight connection caused chaos on a flight to Los Angeles

A man in a gray hoodie who appears to be the main aggressor is seen punching a man, who then falls back into his seat

A man in a grey hoodie seems to be the main assessor, punching a man who then falls back into his seat.

Things seem to be calming down for a second, before the man in the hoodie starts throwing punches again.

The video ends when someone tries to stop him by grabbing him.

Southwest Airlines said about the incident: 'On March 2, Southwest Airlines flight #8 scheduled Dallas Love to Los Angeles was delayed departing due to an altercation between two passengers. The passengers involved were deplaned and local law enforcement took over from there. The safety and comfort of our Employees and passengers is our top priority.'

All against all: Passengers seemed to be arguing with each other throughout the planeA drunk personal trainer who one-punched a man after trying to chat up the victim's girlfriend has been ordered to pay him compensation.

Sunshine Coast man Adam Paul McGough pleaded guilty in the Maroochydore Magistrates Court to one count of assault occasioning bodily harm, public nuisance and two counts of stealing, the Sunshine Coast Daily reported.

McGough had been out drinking at the Coolum Beach Surf Club on November 10 when he exited the pub through the back entrance and walked through the carpark.

Sunshine Coast man Adam Paul McGough (pictured) pleaded guilty to a number of charges including assault occasioning bodily harm

He has been ordered to pay his one-punch victim compensation after the shocking attack

A woman caught his eye and he attempted to make small talk with her but was interrupted by her boyfriend.

Taking exception to the interruption McGough punched the woman's boyfriend in the face.

Staff and the pub's security tried to intervene but McGough was able to flee before the police arrived at the scene.

Police later executed a search warrant at McGough's premises after assessing the CCTV and identifying the outfit he was wearing and proceeded to arrest him.

A statement written by the victim said he suffered a bruised zygoma (the bony arch below the orbit of the skull) and had trouble eating for days after the incident.

After exiting the club (pictured) through the back entrance he came across a woman outside

Magistrate Matthew McLaughlin said McGough gave the victim no time to defend himself and his actions fit the description of a coward punch.

'It's just a roll of the dice whether you kill someone,' he said.

Mr McLaughlin ordered McGough to pay $500 compensation to the victim, fined him $200 for the minor stealing offences and ordered he pay $63 restitution.

He was also ordered to complete 120 hours of community service in six months.Water firms were accused last night of leaving customers high and dry by failing to prevent a surge of burst pipes.

Tens of thousands of families were left without water after parts of the mains network collapsed.

Ofwat, which regulates the industry, said some companies had fallen well short in planning for the icy Beast from the East. As the crisis continued:

Dozens of schools were closed because they had no water supply;

Jaguar Land Rover halted production to conserve supplies to homes and families;

Cadbury also shut down its Birmingham factory when its taps ran dry;

In London, customers queued for bottled water at emergency distribution centres;

Water bowsers were stationed at sites in the South-West, Wales and Manchester;

Suppliers repeated a call for customers to ration their consumption.

Meanwhile it was revealed that some utility chiefs enjoy pay deals of more than 2million a year while thousands of consumers suffer.

Water firms were accused last night of leaving customers high and dry by failing to prevent a surge of burst pipes. Pictured: A volunteer from South East Water in Lenham, Kent

Rachel Fletcher, who heads Ofwat, said firms should have been prepared because the extreme weather had been forecast.

A number of water companies appear to have fallen well short on their forward planning and the quality of support and communication theyve been providing, leaving some customers high and dry, she added.

Everyones number one priority must be getting the water flowing as quickly as possible and ensuring that all customers  in particular those in vulnerable circumstances  get the support they need.

When the taps are back on, we will take a long, hard look at what has happened here. We wont hesitate to intervene if we find that companies have not had the right structures and mechanisms in place to be resilient.

Customers of Britains biggest supplier, Thames Water, were among the worst affected. It was already being investigated by Ofwat over allegations it had not done enough to safeguard water supplies and tackle leaks.

A hospital in South London was so desperate that it asked the firm for 500 bottles of water for patients on Sunday.

Twitter was full of complaints. One user said: 48 hours without a proper wash now and no clean shirts for work tomorrow! Worst customer services I have experienced in a long time! Another said: Theres no water in North London and Thames Water is handing out bottles like its a Third World country.

Tens of thousands of families were left without water after parts of the mains network collapsed. Pictured: A water station set up by Thames Water in Streatham Vale, South London

Customers reported that bottled water stations set up in South London ran out of supplies. One tweeted: Shocking. You ran out of water at SW12 station a while ago and my elderly father is among many waiting in a queue for another delivery.

Severn Trent, which serves the Midlands and west of England, said it had seen a 4,000 per cent increase in burst pipe call-outs. In an attempt to stop household taps running dry, it asked Jaguar Land Rover to halt production at its factory in Solihull.

Severn Trent said: Due to the recent thaw weve experienced, our teams are dealing with a huge number of burst pipes across our region which is putting pressure on our network. Weve worked closely with Jaguar Land Rover which has agreed to stop production to help us target our supply.

Water companies serving millions of customers in the south of England have asked customers to ration water use. They called on families to take short showers rather than baths and only to run washing machines and dishwashers when they are full. At one point, 20,000 homes in the Thames Water area were cut off.

The figure was down to 10,000 by yesterday lunchtime as mains pipes were repaired and the company pumped an extra 500million litres of water into the network.

In a statement Thames said: Were sorry to all those customers who are without water. We know how infuriating this is and want to assure them that the whole company is working flat out to fix the problems.

A woman collects bottled water from Exwick, Exeter, after homes in the area were affected by mains water supply issues

Southern Water said it was working to restore supplies to up to 5,000 homes in Kent. It urged customers to only use the water you absolutely must.

Welsh Water said that around 4,500 properties were without water at Monday lunchtime.

In Rotherfield, East Sussex, residents queued for water and one of them, Ed Patterson, even took some from a stream to flush his lavatory.

South West Water sent in bowsers to five locations in North Devon where households had been left without water since Friday morning. Several schools in Cornwall closed because of burst pipes, and hundreds of homes in Stockport were left without water due to a burst main.

Affinity Water said 1,000 households it serves in the Barnet area of London were without water yesterday morning. Scottish Water said it had not yet seen the same rapid thaw that caused problems elsewhere.

A Cadbury spokesman said: While we have no water supply to our manufacturing site in Bournville, our supply of chocolate is not immediately impacted as we have sufficient stock available to manage through this hopefully short disruption.

Michael Roberts, of the industry body Water UK, said: We are sorry that the effects of the extreme weather are causing many customers serious difficulties. We want to let those customers know that water companies are working as hard as they can to stabilise the situation.

Families left without water may wonder whether cash that could have upgraded the network has gone to chief executives instead. Here are the big earners:

Liv Garfield (2.45m)

SEVERN TRENT

Miss Garfield, a 42-year-old mother of two, is one of only eight chief executives at FTSE 100 firms. A Yorkshire-born Cambridge graduate, she previously worked at BT Openreach in charge of rolling out super-fast fibre broadband. She is understood to have a 5,500,000 London home.

Steve Mogford of United Utilities (pictured), who previously worked at BAE Systems, is on a 2.3million deal

Steve Mogford (2.3m)

UNITED UTILITIES

Before joining United, the 61-year-old spent 30 years at BAE Systems overseeing the controversial Al Yamamah programme, an arms-for-oil deal with Saudi Arabia. In 2017, United was fined 300,000 for contaminating supplies to more than 700,000 people. Lancashire residents had to boil their water when cryptosporidium was discovered.

Steve Robertson (up to 2.1m)

THAMES WATER

Mr Robertson, 59, has been tasked with cleaning up Thames Waters image following criticism about it paying no corporate tax since 2006 while handing large dividends to shareholders. The company has pledged to close down its subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands, which it insists serve no tax benefit. Thames is owned by a group of funds including one for Canadian public servants.

Peter Simpson (1.5m)

ANGLIAN WATER

Mr Simpson, 51, was paid 1.5million during 2016/17, including a 533,328 bonus and 480,000 salary. He earned 2.3million the year before. Anglian Water is owned by a consortium of investors including institutions in Australia and Canada. It has a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands.

Richard Flint (1.32M)

YORKSHIRE WATER

Mr Flint, 49, joined Yorkshire Water as a graduate trainee after studying politics at York University. His firm has also come under fire for Cayman Island subsidiaries, which it plans to close. The company serves 2.3million households in Yorkshire and Derbyshire.

Christopher Loughlin (1.3m)

PENNON GROUP

Mr Loughlin was chief executive of South West Water before being appointed boss of Pennon, its parent company, in 2015. A former senior diplomat in the British embassy in Tokyo, the 65-year-old is also chairman of trade body British Water.

Colin Skellett (911,000)

WESSEX WATER

Mr Skellett has headed Wessex since 1989 and was arrested in 2002 on suspicion of having taken a bribe. He was cleared six months later. The son of an electricity board meter reader, he started working at a sewage plant before going to university and securing a job as a chemist with Bath City Council. The 72-year-old lives in a house on the outskirts of the city where it is thought properties can fetch around 2million

Heidi Mottram of Northumbrian Water (pictured) was paid 734,000 in 2017

Heidi Mottram (734,000)

NORTHUMBRIAN WATER

Miss Mottram, 52, spent most of her career in rail before joining Northumbrian in April 2010. She was paid 734,000 in 2017 including a salary of 350,000 and bonus of 210,000. She lives in a 1,260,000 house in York.

Paul Butler (418,000)

SOUTH EAST WATER

Mr Butler, 56, was paid 418,000 in 2017, including salary of 240,000 and bonus of 115,000. The firm also has a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands.

Mel Karam (230,000)

BRISTOL WATER

The former KMPG consultancy employee was appointed in mid-2017 on a base salary of 230,000. The 55-year-old is married and loves scuba-diving and motorsports. Bristol Water serves 1.1million customers.

Ian McAulay (203,000)

SOUTHERN WATER

Mr McAulay, 52, joined Southern as chief executive in January 2017 and was paid 202,900 including a bonus of 68,200 uo to April. His predecessor, Matthew Wright, 53, was paid 873,000 for 2016/17. The firm serves 4.6million customers across the South East.Former soldiers will get 40,000 bursaries to retrain as teachers in a drive to restore discipline in the classroom (above: education secretary Damian Hinds)

Former soldiers will get 40,000 bursaries to retrain as teachers in a drive to restore discipline in the classroom, the Government has announced.

From September, all ex-servicemen and women will be able to apply for the money to do a teaching degree as long as they have the relevant A-levels.

The Department of Education hopes the veterans will bring a fresh perspective to their schools.

It means children could be taught by heroes from some of our most gruelling recent conflicts, including Afghanistan and Iraq.

The bursaries will be available for those who want to teach biology, chemistry, computing, maths or modern languages  subjects with teacher shortages.

Education secretary Damian Hinds said: Our ex-servicemen and women  have a wealth of experience and expertise that can be shared in the classroom, teaching pupils the knowledge they need to succeed alongside vital skills, such as leadership and self-discipline.

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson added: Through leadership, teamwork and problem-solving, veterans are ideally suited for a career in teaching once they leave the Armed Forces.

The programme is open to veterans who have left full-time employment in the British Army, Royal Air Force or Royal Navy in the past five years who do not already have a degree.

Applicants will be able to apply for three-year bachelors degrees at UK universities and use the bursaries to pay for living costs.

The programme is open to veterans who have left full-time employment in the British Army, Royal Air Force or Royal Navy in the past five years who do not already have a degree (above: British soldiers at ceremony marking end of combat operations in Afghanistan)

The cash is paid in instalments during the second and third years, so anyone on the scheme has to undertake at least a year of training before they receive anything.

Officials hope this will put off timewasters.

Trainees on bursaries will also be able to take out student loans to cover fees.

The scheme replaces the current two-year Troops to Teachers programme, run by the University of Brighton.

Former banker Alexander Mansfield, 31, spent more than five years in the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment before returning to his old school, Gunnersbury Catholic School in Brentford, west London, to teach under Troops to Teachers.

He is now on a two-year course with Brighton University training as a modern foreign languages teacher.

It involves learning on the job four days a week while earning around 17,000 a year.

From September, someone in a similar situation would be eligible for one of the new 40,000 bursaries.

Mr Mansfield said: Discipline is a key skill I can transfer from the Army. It is not about shouting  it is about maintaining a relationship with people.Relations between Britain and Russia have been strained since the murder of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, a killing which a judge said was probably approved by President Vladimir Putin.

The defector died after two agents slipped radioactive polonium 210 into his tea pot at a Mayfair hotel in central London, according to an inquiry headed by former high court judge Sir Robert Owen.

The inquiry found two Russian men - Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun - had deliberately poisoned Litvinenko by putting polonium-210 into his drink at a London hotel, leading to an agonising death.

Alexander Litvinenko died after two agents slipped radioactive polonium 210 into his tea

It said the use of the radioactive substance - which could only have come from a nuclear reactor - was a 'strong indicator' of state involvement and that the two men had probably been acting under the direction of the FSB.

Possible motives included Litvinenko's work for British intelligence agencies, his criticism of the FSB, and his association with other Russian dissidents, while it said there was also a 'personal dimension' to the antagonism between him and Putin.

International arrest warrants issued for Mr Lugovoi and Mr Kovtun remain in force although Russia continues to refuse their extradition.

The Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, where he is said to have been poisoned

In a statement to mark the 10th anniversary of his death, Marina Litvinenko said her husband - who she called Sasha - had been an 'extraordinary man' whose courage in speaking out against the Russian security service, the FSB, had left an enduring legacy.

While she acknowledged Mr Putin had refused to accept the inquiry's findings, she said it remained open for other world leaders to take action against the Russian state and that she hoped her struggle to find the truth had not been in vain.

'It has taken 10 long years for the truth to be established and for Sasha's dying words that President Putin was responsible for his death to be proved to be true,' she said.

'I know that Mr Putin's Russia does not accept the findings of the British public inquiry and will continue to deny the truth in the face of overwhelming evidence.

'But those findings are now part of history and the rest of the world understands the difference between truth and propaganda. And that is what matters to me.

'What action world leaders will take against the ever vengeful Russian state in these dramatic times remains to be seen. I hope and pray that my struggle has not been in vain.'

Last year the scandal took a new twist when Scotland Yard detectives who investigated the Litvinenko case revealed they too had been poisoned by the Russians in an extraordinary attempt to thwart the inquiry.

The inquiry found Andrei Lugovoi (left, in 2007) and Dmitri Kovtun (right, in 2006) - had deliberately poisoned Litvinenko

Detective Inspector Brian Tarpey, who flew to Moscow to investigate, says: I remember one evening my officer [a colleague who travelled with him] was complaining of stomach cramp and not being very well.

Next morning I accompanied him to the general prosecutors office. We were offered tea. I had no hesitation in accepting.

After we left, I started to feel a little bit uncomfortable. Not wanting to put too fine a point on it, I had the s***s.

I have no doubt in my mind that someone poisoned us with something like gastroenteritis.Evidence of life on Mars is being covered up by Nasa, according to a researcher Barry DiGregorio at a Buckingham University.

The agencys space explorer, the Curiosity rover, has snapped what may be trace fossils created by soft-bodied creatures on the red planet, he says.

An upcoming 'bombshell' report will reveal how Nasa is aware of the find and has chosen to keep it hidden from the public, the scientist claims.

The controversial scientist believes the space agency could be ignoring the find because of its plans for a manned mission in the 2030s, when astronauts will explore Mars in more depth.

However, according to Nasa, the shapes captured in images from Mars are simply rock crystals that are currently undergoing analysis.

Scroll down for video

Evidence of life on Mars is being covered up by Nasa, according to a researcher at a Buckingham University. The agencys space explorer, the Curiosity rover, has snapped what may be trace fossils on the red planet, he says. Pictured are the alleged trace fossils

The findings were made by Barry DiGregorio, an honorary research fellow at the University of Buckingham who specialises in studies of microscopic life found in the soil of our planet.

Images beamed back from Mars by Curiosity appear to show patterns similar to Ordovician trace fossils Dr DiGregorio has photographed here on Earth, he says.

Trace fossils are made by animals going about their lives, like footprints, burrows and waste matter, rather than the remains of the creatures themselves.

Ordovician fossils are found in a geological layer spanning 41.2 million years from the end of the Cambrian Period 485.4 million years ago to the start of the Silurian Period 443.8 million years ago.

Dr DiGregorio says fossils on Mars represent signs of soft bodied creatures which once roamed its surface.

Speaking to the Daily Express, he said: 'If not trace fossils, what other geological explanations will Nasa come up with?

Trace fossils are made by animals going about their lives, like footprints, burrows and waste matter, rather than the remains of the creatures themselves. This image shows a trace fossil from the Logan Formation, found in east-central Ohio and parts of western West Virginia

Dr DiGregorio says fossils on Mars represent signs of soft bodied creatures which once roamed its surface. This image shows trackways from a slug-like animal, from the Cambrian, found in Blackberry Hill, central Wisconsin

This image shows burrows produced by crustaceans from the Middle Jurassic, found in Makhtesh Qatan, southern Israel

This image shows Ophiomorpha and Thalassinoides trace fossils produced by crustaceans from the Late Miocene, found at Camacho formatio in Colonia Department, Uruguay.

'Nasa has turned its back on trying to get the data on this. The order came down from HQ that they should move the rover on to the next point.

'They didn't feel it was important enough to look at, I thought that was very odd, despite the fact Gale Crater was host to probably a series of lakes for billions and billions of years.

'We're talking about something that might have been equivalent to the Ordovician period on Earth.'

The findings were made by Barry DiGregorio, an honorary research fellow at the University of Buckingham. This image shows Dr DiGregorio (right) with Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong (left)

Dr DiGregorio is not alone in his belief of evidence of life on Mars.

In recent weeks, a European space probe swung into position around Mars in preparation to analyse its atmosphere for possible signs of life.

The European Space Agency said on Wednesday, February 21, its Trace Gas Orbiter successfully performed a delicate manoeuvre known as aerobraking that involved dipping into the red planet's upper atmosphere to slow the probe.

The agency says the orbiter will start looking for trace gases such as methane, which can result from biological or geological activity, in April.

It will also search for ice that could help future Mars landings.

A Nasa-made radio on board will also help relay signals from US rovers on the surface back to Earth.

Europe plans to land its own rover on Mars in 2021. A European test lander crashed on the surface of Mars in 2016.

Dr DiGregorio says the agencys space explorer, the Curiosity rover, has snapped what may be trace fossils on the red planet

In January 2018, Nasa announced that its Curiosity rover had spotted a set of mysterious stick-like figures on the red planet. The surface of the Martian rock target in this stereo, close-up image includes small hollows with a 'swallowtail' shape characteristic of gypsum crystals

The shapes left behind will be familiar to geologists who have studied gypsum crystals formed in drying lakes on Earth. This image shows a mineral vein with bright and dark portions that distinguishes this Martian rock investigated near the upper edge of Vera Rubin Ridge

WHAT ARE THE TINY CRYSTAL SHAPES FOUND ON MARS? In January 2018, Nasa announced that its Curiosity rover had spotted a set of mysterious stick-like figures on the red planet. In a photo shared to the rovers Twitter account that week, the space agency gave its followers a look at the unusual formations found on the face of a Martian rock. The images were captured during the rovers working holiday at the end of December 2017. On New Years Eve, Curiosity revisited an interesting site as part of its activity plan, to get a closer look what Nasa says are some very peculiar targets. Its unclear what exactly created the quarter-inch-long stick-figures, though the space agency says they could be crystals or minerals left in the gaps where crystals dissolved. The shapes left behind will be familiar to geologists who have studied gypsum crystals formed in drying lakes on Earth. Further inspection of similar features by the rover elsewhere on Mars may resolve the timing of when the crystal-shaped features formed, relative to when layers of sediment accumulated around them. Another uncertainty is whether the original mineral that crystallised into these shapes remains in them or was subsequently dissolved away and replaced by something else. Answers may point to evidence of a drying lake or to groundwater that flowed through the sediment after it became cemented into rock. Advertisement

The Trace Gas Orbiter launched in March 2016 with the ill-fated Shiaparelli Demonstrator Module aboard a Proton rocket.

The pair arrived at the red planet in October of that year  but, just days before reaching the atmosphere, Shiaparelli was ejected toward Mars, ESA says.

The test lander entered Mars atmosphere at 21,000 km/h, and began to decelerate using aerobraking and a parachute.

But, due to technical problems, Shiaparellis braking thrusters and on-ground systems activated early, as though it had already landed, despite still being 3.7 kilometers above the surface.

The Trace Gas Orbiter, however, managed to successfully make it to its destination.

Dr DiGregorio is not alone in his belief of evidence of life on Mars. In recent weeks, a European space probe swung into position around Mars in preparation to analyse its atmosphere for possible signs of life

The craft was inserted into an elliptical orbit around Mars in October 2016, and performed a series of maneuvers in January 2017 to shift its angle of travel so it can get the best view of Mars.

It then began its aerobraking phase in March 2017, to slowly bring it down to a 400-km altitude orbit so it can begin its scientific mission in April of this year.

According to ESA, the Trace Gas Orbiters mission will run for roughly two years, during which it will observe the Martian atmosphere in search of gases that could be of biological importance.

And, its instruments will gather measurements to gain better understanding of the location and nature of these sources.

The craft will continue to relay information for the 2020 ExoMars rover mission until the end of 2022, ESA says.A diver has captured incredible footage of a delicate marine predator that may have kicked off the human race 600 million years ago.

The 'comb jelly' is one of the world's oldest sea creatures, and is made up of 97 per cent water.

Jorge Moreno Mendoza, 20, was diving at a marine reserve in the Canary Islands when he captured footage of the animal, which shrinks itself in fear.

Comb jellies are related to all other animal species in the world, sharing so many similarities that some scientists believe they are one of our first ancestors.

Mr Mendoza, studying a degree in Biology, said: 'Ctenophores are one of the oldest animals on earth. They are pretty similar to the jellyfishes, but they do not sting.

'You can see how the divemaster points at the strange creature, so I approached to record it up close.

'This animal adopts a defensive position, shrinking itself in a possibly dangerous situation, like being touched.'

Mr Mendoza said the video got a strange reaction from those he has shown it to.

He said: 'Many people asked me what the hell it was, most of them thought it was a jellyfish and I can't blame them.

'Many people asked me is it dangerous or if it's a jellyfish. My family freaked out because it seemed so strange.'

A diver has captured incredible footage (pictured) of a delicate marine predator that may have kicked off the human race 600 million years ago. The 'comb jelly' is one of the world's oldest sea creatures, and is made up of 97 per cent water

Jorge Moreno Mendoza, 20, was diving at a marine reserve in the Canary Islands when he captured footage of the animal, which shrinks itself in fear

WHAT IS A COMB JELLY? The Ctenophores, commonly known as comb jellies, are invertebrate animals that live in marine waters. Comb jellies have oval-shaped transparent bodies, with four rows of 'combs' that run along the body vertically and glow blue-green when disturbed. These groups of 'cilia' are used by the creatures to propel themselves through the water. Comb jellies have oval-shaped transparent bodies, with four rows of 'combs' that run along the body vertically and glow blue-green when disturbed Comb jellies look similar to jellyfish, and their bodies are made up of 97 per cent water, but do not sting. They only grow between three and fives inches long and have a one-inch diameter. Comb jellies are related to all other animal species in the world, sharing so many similarities that scientists believe they are one of our first ancestors. Advertisement

The Ctenophores, commonly known as comb jellies, are invertebrate animals that live in marine waters and are notable for the groups of cilia they use for swimming.

Comb jellies have oval-shaped transparent bodies, with four rows of 'combs' that run along the body vertically and glow blue-green when disturbed.

They look similar to jellyfish, and like their ancestors their bodies are made up almost entirely water, but do not sting.

They only grow between three and fives inches (7-12cm) long and have a one-inch (2.5cm) diameter.

Comb jellies are related to all other animal species in the world, sharing so many similarities that some scientists believe they are one of our first ancestors

It's long been thought we evolved from sea sponges, but recent genetic research suggests comb jellies may have kicked off the human race instead.

While trying to fill the gaps in the genome sequence of the comb jelly in 2013, researchers discovered it was related to all other animal species in the world.

The spread of its DNA through these other species suggests it may have been the starting point for all modern animal species.

More than half a billion years ago, a single line of species separated from all other animals and scientists traditionally believed this originated with sea sponges.

But according to the findings, from the University of Miami and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) in Maryland, the comb jelly may be 'the earliest branch of the animal tree and the sister lineage to that of all other animals'.Lexus China sales grow 9.3% YoY to 9,943 units in February

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Lexus, the Japanese automaker Toyota Motor's luxury vehicle brand, delivered 9,943 vehicles in China last month, increasing 9.3% year on year. The monthly deliveries of its hybrid series reached 3,429 units, accounting for 34.5% of Lexus' total sales in China last month.

Thanks to the effective management practice and the image promotion, Lexus has kept a stable growth in China sales. Including 13,677 vehicles it sold in China in January, Lexus's cumulative sales in the first two months this year have already exceeded 23,000 units.

Two flagship models of Lexus, the all-new LS and all-new LC, went on sale on January 11, 2018, with prices ranging from RMB 888,000 to RMB 1,288,000 and from RMB1,268,000 to RMB1,386,000 respectively. Currently, the two models have already received a total of 1,247 orders which are expected to boost Lexus's sales in China's market.Conspiracy theorists who claim to have spotted a 'crash-landed spaceship' could be left disappointed, according to an expert on glaciers.

Alien hunters are convinced the mysterious object, spotted on Google Earth, is of extra terrestrial origin but the truth would seem to lie closer to home.

Rather than evidence of little green men, it is the result of a large avalanche from a nearby mountain depositing a rock or large chunk of ice onto a glacier below.

Scroll down for video

Alien hunters are convinced a mysterious object spotted on Google Earth (above) is a crash-landed spaceship, but Dr Richard Waller, a senior lecturer in physical geography at Keele University, is not convinced

Dr Richard Waller, senior lecturer in physical geography at Keele University, is behind the claim.

The unidentified mass was discovered near Antarctica on the remote South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, where just 20 people live.

The avalanche is located in the upper part, known as the accumulation area, of the Novosilski Glacier, he says.

Speaking to MailOnline, Dr Waller added: 'It looks to me as though this feature is related to a large avalanche from a nearby mountain.

'Part of a hanging glacier appears to have collapsed, you can see the avalanche debris at the foot of the slope, and this could be a large block of ice that has travelled further as a consequence.

'The track shows that it's sliding over a snow-covered glacier before it comes to a rest.'

Web theorists at well-known alien site Secureteam10 used satellite mapping to zoom in and get a closer look at the alleged spaceship near the 10,000ft tall Mount Paget.

Dr Waller says the avalanche is located in the upper part, known as the accumulation area, of the Novosilski Glacier. The track, which can be seen travelling from a mountain in the background, shows that the rock or ice was sliding over the snow-covered glacier below

The unidentified mass was discovered near Antarctica on the remote South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, where just 20 people live. This image shows a close-up of the avalanche meeting with the glacier

Bizarre tracks can be seen running up behind the object, suggesting it slid through the snow for some distance before coming to a halt.

Footage of the strange mass published on YouTube on Saturday has been viewed more than 150,000 times.

While some believe it is the work of extra-terrestrials, others suggested similar theories to Dr Waller's.

Other YouTubers didn't appear to take the sighting very seriously.

Web theorists at well-known alien site Secureteam10 used satellite mapping to zoom in and get a closer look at the alleged spaceship near the 10,000ft tall Mount Paget

The site of the mysterious object is located in the upper part, known as the accumulation area, of the Novosilski Glacier on South Georgia

'Umm thats when Superman crashed into that mountain in the 1st Snyder Superman movie,' wrote one.

'It's Santa's sleigh,' said another.

Secureteam10 describe themselves as 'the fastest growing research outlet and source for data' on aliens and UFOs.

Their Facebook page is followed and liked by nearly 165,000 people.

The team say their mission is 'exposing the alien cover up, one leak at a time'.

Footage of the strange mass published on YouTube on Saturday has been viewed more than 150,000 times. This image shows the outline of South Georgia, where the objected was foundApple could release a more affordable 13-inch MacBook Air as early as next month.

That's according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities who released some investor notes over the weekend predicting a cheaper model.

Kuo claims the new MacBook Air will be released some time during the second quarter of 2018, ahead of Apples keynote launch event in September.

Currently, the cheapest Apple MacBook Air is 949 in the UK and $999 in the US.

It's been ten years since Apple first released the MacBook Air and many believe a redesign is long overdue.

Scroll down for video

Apple could release a more affordable 13-inch MacBook Air as early as next month. That's according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities who released some investor notes over the weekend predicting a cheaper model

Ming-Chi Kuo from Bangkok-based firm KGI Securities told 9to5Mac the company would be releasing a MacBook Air 'with a lower price tag'.

Shipments of MacBook Airs have stalled in recent years as the company looks to focus on the 12-inch MacBook and MacBook pro.

However, currently starting at the 13-inch MacBook Air remains a popular choice with students.

The ultraportable laptop made a lot of waves when it was first introduced, thanks to its sleek design.

But even though the MacBook Air may look great, it has a 5th generation Intel processor that lags behind those found in other laptops on the market.

It's been ten years since Apple first released the MacBook Air and many believe a redesign is long overdue. Pictured, the MacBook Air was dubbed the 'world's thinnest laptop' when it was first introduced in 2008

This is not the first source to suggest the company is releasing a new 13-inch laptop.

Earlier this year it was revealed Apple might be planning to kill off the MacBook Air as we currently know it.

Taiwanese touch screen supplier General Interface Solution is expected to receive a big order from Apple for LCD displays, according to Digitimes.

Apple may use the displays to introduce a totally new 13-inch MacBook toward the end of 2018, Digitimes noted.

Apple's prior moves may also indicate why the MacBook Air might be on its last legs.

The iPhone maker discreetly discontinued the 11-inch version of the MacBook Air in 2016, as it announced two new, 13-inch MacBook Pro models.

Apple has chosen to revamp other models instead, updating the processors in its 12-inch MacBook and MacBook Pro models at its Worldwide Developers Conference in 2017.

The MacBook Air was first introduced in 2008 by late Apple founder Steve Jobs.

At the time, it was dubbed the 'world's thinnest laptop,' with Jobs boasting that it was so slim that it could fit into a manila envelope.

The $1,799 device was also Apple's first laptop to ditch the CD/DVD drive, in addition to getting rid of useful ports like an HDMI input.

Much about Apple has changed since then.

The Silicon Valley giant has expanded into totally new product areas, including the Apple Watch wearable and, most recently, the HomePod smart home speaker.

Mr Kuo also revealed he is feeling 'positive' on shipments of AirPods, and says a refreshed model will be released in the second half of this year.

Although demand for the HomePod has been 'mediocre' up until now, the analyst says he holds a 'neutral' view of demand and doesn't offer additional insight on future shipments.Self-driving cars could soon 'see' dangers before they come into view.

Researchers are working on laser technology that, when combined with an algorithm, can create images of objects that are hidden around a corner.

The system could also be used to see through foliage from aerial vehicles or to give rescue teams the ability to find people blocked from view by walls and rubble.

Scroll down for video

Researchers are working on extremely sensitive lasers that reflect off nearby objects meaning driverless cars of the future may know what is around a sharp bend before reaching it. Pictured is an illustration of the non-line-of-sight imaging system

'There is this preconceived notion that you can't image objects that aren't already directly visible to the camera  and we have found ways to get around these types of limiting situations,' said Dr Matthew O'Toole, a coauthor of the research from Stanford University told the Guardian.

Their approach builds on LiDAR technology, which is most commonly used in archaeological mapping.

LiDAR (a portmanteau of light and radar) measures distance by shooting a laser at a target and analysing the light that is reflected back.

LiDAR uses ultraviolet, visible, or near infrared light to image objects. It can be used with a wide range of targets, including non-metallic objects, rocks, rain, chemical compounds, aerosols, clouds and even single molecules.

This allows scientists to build a 3D image of something.

This new technology works in a similar way but relies on lasers to look around corners.

Instead of collecting light that bounced back of the wall - like normal LiDAR systems - researchers wanted to collect the light that was scattered by the wall.

'We are looking for the second, and third and fourth bounces  they encode the objects that are hidden,' said Dr O'Toole.

To develop their system, researchers explained that they set a laser next to a highly sensitive photon detector, which can record even a single particle of light.

A narrow laser beam can be used to map physical features with very high resolution.

Pictured is a fleet of Uber's Ford Fusion autonomous cars. Autonomous cars such as these could soon be outfitted with systems that shoot pulses of laser light at a wall which bounce off objects around the corner, allowing the car to detect objects around corners

They shoot pulses of laser light at a wall and, invisible to the human eye, those pulses bounce off objects around the corner, which bounce back to the wall and to the detector.

At the moment, this scan can take from two minutes to an hour, depending on conditions such as lighting and the reflectivity of the hidden object.

After the scan is finished, the algorithm untangles the paths of the captured photons and the blurry blob takes a much sharper form.

The algorithm does this in less than a second and is so efficient that it can run on a regular laptop.

Before the system is ready to be used on roads, it will also have to work better in daylight and with moving objects, such as a bouncing ball or running child, developers say.

The researchers think they could speed it up so that it's nearly instantaneous once the scan is complete.

The team says it's continuing to work on the system so it can better handle the variability of the real world and complete the scan more rapidly.

For example, factors such as the distance to the object and amount of ambient light can make it difficult for their technology to see the light particles it needs in order to resolve out-of-sight objects.

Graduate student David Lindell (left) and Matthew O'Toole (right), a post-doctoral scholar, work in the lab. To develop their system, they set a laser next to a highly sensitive photon detector, which can record even a single particle of light

The Stanford University group isn't the only one developing methods for bouncing lasers around corners to capture images of objects.

Researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh are developing a similar laser-based camera technology to visualise objects hidden behind corners.

The Stanford researchers tested their technique successfully outdoors, but it only worked with indirect light.

Their technology performed particularly well when picking out retroreflective objects, such as safety vests or road markers, although it might struggle with a person wearing non-reflective clothing.

'This is a big step forward for our field that will hopefully benefit all of us,' said Dr Wetzstein.

'In the future, we want to make it even more practical in the 'wild.''Footage of a terrifying 'headless' toad found in a forest in Connecticut has left scientists baffled.

The adult toad has a healthy-looking body and legs, but instead of a face, it has a stump covered in smooth tissue.

It lacks eyes, a nose, jaws and a tongue and only has a small hole where its mouth should be.

Scientists recently took to Twitter to discuss the strange creature - and they have no idea what caused it to lose its face.

Theories range from its face being eaten by rats to it being a victim of flesh-eating toad fly larvae.

The toad was discovered by Jill Fleming, a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

She recently tweeted a photo of the faceless toad and invited scientists to put forward their theories as to why it had a stump instead of a head.

'Kept hopping into things,' she tweeted.

'Had a small mouth hole- maybe esphogus/glottis (no maxilla or mandible, I think)?

'It was early spring so I think it must have come out of brumation like this. Any thoughts herp Twitter?'

The headless animal confounded both the experts and members of the general public.

Footage of the toad shows it walking around the forest floor.

Fleming told LiveScience she doesn't think its facelessness is the result of genetic mutation.

The toad didn't have a mouth to feed, and yet had a healthy body, which suggests it lost its face recently.

Twitter users suggests it may have been was injured and then healed while it was hibernating, perhaps by a predator.

Flesh-eating toad fly larvae may could have eaten its face Lydia Franklinos suggested in a tweet.

A bizarre headless toad was seen hopping around woodland in North America. The animal was missing its entire head but was miraculously still alive. With no eyes, jaw, mouth or tongue it remains a mystery as to how the animal survived

After taking to social media last week to ask 'Herp Twitter' - fellow amphibian experts - for their help in identifying what had happened to the toad. Bemusement and amazement followed as the headless animal confounded both the experts and members of the general public

Toad fly is are parasitic flies which lay their larvae in the soft tissue of toads.

When the larvae hatch, they devour the flesh of the host animal.

Ms Franklinos told Live Science: 'You will see extensive damage to the toad's face 48 to 72 hours after the eggs have hatched.'

One Twitter user, Lydia Franklinos, speculated that the injury could be a severe case of 'toadfly'. Toadfly is a parasitic fly which lays its larvae in the soft tissue of toads. When the larvae hatch, they devour the flesh of the host animal

HOW DO ANIMALS SURVIVE WITHOUT A HEAD? Although it is rare, it is not unheard of for animals to survive with parts of their brain missing. Mike the chicken lived in 1945 on a Colorado farm and was beheaded to be sold for meat. Unlike the rest of his chickens, the farmer noted that the animal was still alive and running around, despite missing its head. As well as giving birth to the saying 'running around like a headless chicken' the unfortunate event also proved that a lot of essential functions for survival are conducted in the brain-stem. The brain-stem is the core of neurological functions and is responsible for such activities as breathing and movement. This can allow the animals to survive despite missing most of its brain. A similar trend has been seen before in humans. Although our brains are comparatively much larger, certain areas can be removed without fatal consequences. The famous case of railroad worker Phineas Cage speaks of a man in 19th Century America who has an unfortunate accident where he had an iron pole through his skull. The iron rod was 1 14 inches (3.2 cm) in diameter, three feet seven inches (1.1 m) long, and weighed 13 14 pounds (6.0 kg). It went through his skull and he survived for 12 years after the event. Although he experienced significant difficulties afterwards with reported personality changes he lived without a sizeable portion of his brain. Advertisement

The animal (pictured) is believed to be an American toad. Twitter users believe the animal was infected with toad-fly or was attacked by rats when in its state of hibernation. It is thought the animal has enough brain-stem to maintain basic functions such as movement and breathing

Twitter user David Syzdek believes rats could be the culprit.

This is not the first time an animal has been known to survive after losing the majority of its functional brain.

A chicken in Colorado in 1945 was beheaded by a farmer for meat, even without its head the animal continued to run around.

It survived for 18 months afterwards, with only a brain-stem.

The brain-stem can be heavily involved in movement and other activities involve with the central nervous system such as breathing and essential bodily functions.

The chicken from over 70 years ago was kept alive with liquid food and the farmer kept its airways clear with a siphon.

Twitter user David Syzdek believes rats could be the culprit. This is not the first time an animal has been known to survive after losing the majority of its functional brainUber isn't the only ride-sharing startup that wants to take a crack at the healthcare industry.

Lyft on Monday announced that it's adding another healthcare provider to its growing roster of partnerships that aims to help doctors hail a ride for patients who may have trouble getting to and from appointments.

The firm is integrating its ride-hailing platform into Allscripts' open health and electronic health record service platforms so that doctors can easily order a Lyft for patients.

The move follows the launch of Uber Health late last week, which is a service that lets doctors hail a ride for patients, even if they don't have a smartphone.

Scroll down for video

Lyft on Monday expanded its partnerships with healthcare providers, adding Allscripts to its roster. Lyft integrates its ride-hailing API into healthcare platforms so that doctors can call a car for their patients. The move follows a similar announcement by ride-hail competitor Uber

But Lyft stressed that non-emergency medical transport is an area that the firm has been exploring for several years now.

In a blog post, Lyft's chief business officer, David Baga, wrote how the company discovered in 2015 that ridesharing services could be used to help people who may have trouble getting access to healthcare.

'Weve partnered with some of the biggest players throughout the healthcare ecosystem  from care providers and healthcare systems to insurers, transportation brokers, and technology companies,' Baga explained.

'Together, were working to build a future where no one misses out on the care they need because they cant find a ride,' he added.

Each year, more than 3.5 million Americans can't get the care they need because they're unable to secure transportation to or from the doctor's office, Baga said.

The problem predominantly affects senior citizens and lower-income patients.

Of those demographics, one in four lower-income people miss or reschedule their appointments due to lack of transportation.

Baga said Lyft is taking on an ambitious goal of reducing the healthcare transportation gap by 50% by 2020.

Lyft integrates its rideshare API into healthcare providers' systems, either via a desktop or mobile app. The CareLinx app (right) connects caregivers and clients with an Lyft ride. OneCall (left) helps patients who might not have access to transportation secure a Lyft driver

Pictured is Lyft's business-to-business ride-hailing platform, called Concierge. The platform helps healthcare providers book non-emergency medical transportation for patients

The firm hopes to do this by adding more partners and evolving its services 'until no one in this country ever misses out on critical care because they can't get a ride,' Baga explained.

As part of its partnership with Allscripts, Lyft wants to integrate its business-to-business API with Allscripts' electronic health care records to create a 'first-of-its-kind' service that can automatically detect patients with special transportation needs and schedule transportation for that patient.

In addition to Allscripts, Lyft has partnered with Blue Cross Blue Shield, Sutter, CareLinx, as well as GoGoGrandparent, all of which aim to help patients secure Lyft rides for medical care.

Uber also wants to make it easier for people to get to and from doctors appointments.

Depending on the patient's needs, an Uber can be called immediately, within a few hours or with 30 days' notice.

The car can either be sent to the patient's house, or it can pick patients up at a medical facility and take them home.

Uber on Thursday announced a service that's meant to help ferry passengers to and from hospitals, doctor appointments, rehab clinics, senior care facilities and other places

Uber has partnered with more than 100 healthcare organizations in the U.S. to launch the service, including hospitals, clinics, rehab centers, senior care facilities, home care centers and physical therapy centers.

The ride-hailing firm has been testing Uber Health with a beta group of hospitals and doctors since July, but the service is officially launching starting on Thursday.

Uber Health can be accessed either as an online dashboard or as an application programming interface (API) that software developers can integrate into their own healthcare systems.

The company stressed that Uber Health complies with HIPAA patient privacy laws.

Passengers don't need a smartphone or the Uber app in order to use the service because Uber Health sends riders notifications about their car via text message.

The dashboard also comes with a printable sheet allowing the doctor to circle the incoming Uber's car color and write down the license plate number.

Uber partnered with over 100 health organizations to beta test its new service, called Uber Health. The company stressed that it complies with HIPAA patient privacy laws (file photo)

Uber wants to expand the service so that passengers with landlines can get trip details that way, the Verge noted.

This would be especially helpful for senior citizens who primarily use a landline to make and receive phone calls.

Additionally, the passenger isn't billed for the ride because the providers will cover the cost.

Ultimately, the goal with Uber Health is to hopefully reduce the number of no-show appointments -- something that's exacerbated by people who can't get a ride to the doctor, the firm says.

Uber said 3.6 million people miss or delay appointments due to a lack of reliable transportation.

This ends up costing the health care system about $150 billion each year.

HOW DOES UBER HEALTH WORK? Uber is rolling out a new service catered to helping patients get to and from medical facilities. Dubbed Uber Health, the firm has been beta testing the service with more than 100 health organizations. The service is officially launching on Thursday. Doctors can call an Uber to pick up a patient at their home or to drive a patient back to their house. Riders don't need the Uber app or a smartphone, as the platform notifies them of their Uber via text message. Uber said 3.6 million people miss or delay appointments due to a lack of reliable transportation. Uber Health is meant to reduce the frequency of no-shows Doctors can also print out a form with information about the car's color, make and license plate. Here's where Uber Health picks up and drops off patients: Hospitals

Clinics

Rehab centers

Senior care facilities

Home care centers

Physical therapy centers

Blood donation centers

Cancer treatment centers Advertisement

'While transportation barriers are common across the general population, these barriers are greatest for vulnerable populations, including patients with the highest burden of chronic disease,' Uber explained in a blog post.

Patients also noted that Uber Health made getting to and from their appointments much easier.

'My health crisis was a lot to manage,' a patient from San Diego said, according to Uber.

'Knowing I had reliable and comfortable transportation to and from my oncology appointments was one less burden on a very long list,' they added.

While Uber Health seems like a positive service in several aspects, privacy experts were quick to point out that Uber's past data breaches might present some concerns in the near term.

Last November, Uber admitted that data from as many as 57 million customers had been compromised as part of a system-wide data breach.

Uber employees have also been accused of abusing customer data.

However, Jay Holley, head of partnerships at Uber Health, told the Atlantic that this shouldn't be a problem.

Uber Health's data is 'cordoned off' from Uber's other data and only a select number of employees are given access to it, he said.

Passengers don't need a smartphone or the Uber app in order to use the service because Uber Health sends riders notifications about their car via text message (file photo)

Aside from customer privacy, experts cautioned that Ubers should not be treated like ambulances.

It's been previously reported that some people often use Uber as a replacement for calling an ambulance, perhaps because they're cheaper than emergency transport.

With Uber Health, there may be a grey area concerning liability if, for example, a patient faints in the backseat of an Uber.

'The burden on the platform and the health-care provider to ensure against something going wrong with the patient is a lot higher if the patient is calling the car themselves,' Arun Sundararajan, a professor at New York University, told the Atlantic.

'The fact that they are only launching this service now and not in the past is because it's likely taken a while to work out the details,' he added.

In most cases, it'll be up to the doctors discretion to decide whether a patient is well enough to take an Uber or if they should call an ambulance instead.

Additionally, if a patient experiences some kind of medical emergency in an Uber, the company says the driver is encouraged to call 911.Its been a successful few months for Elon Musk and his many business ventures  and, the latest accomplishment might just prove too much for the CEO to handle.

The billionaire shared a chuckle-worthy post on Instagram this weekend from inside a hole dug by his boring machine.

Musk, pictured alongside the massive machinery, can be seen resting his hand upon the metal grating, with the caption, Sometimes when we touch, the honestys too much.

Scroll down for video

Its been a successful few months for Elon Musk and his many business ventures  and, the latest accomplishment might just prove too much for the CEO to handle. Musk shared a photo this weekend, captioning it with lyrics from Dan Hill's 1977 ballad

The Boring Company boss shared a glimpse at the companys progress on social media over the weekend, referencing Dan Hills 1977 ballad in the hilariously intimate post.

Along with the lyrics, Musk also wrote, Deep in the hole with my boring machine.

Despite the ambitious nature of the plan, Elon Musk's Boring Company has made major strides toward the development of traffic-beating tunnel systems in the US in recent months.

The firm was recently granted a permit by Washington DC's Department of Transportation that will allow digging to begin within a designated area in the district.

While the permit is so far considered to be early and vague, the firm says the site could one day be used as a station in the larger network, according to the Washington Post.

The permit comes just months after Elon Musk claimed he had received verbal government approval to build a Hyperloop connecting New York to Washington, with stops in Philadelphia and Baltimore.

And, last month, DC Mayor Muriel E Bowser visited the tunneling firm in California to get a first-hand look at what the Boring Company is all about.

Washington DCs Department of Transportation has issued a permit to Elon Musks Boring Company that will allow the firm to begin digging within a designated area in the district. The Boring Company's tunnel digging machine is pictured

With permission from the DC government, the Boring Company can now do work within an abandoned parking lot at 53 New York Avenue NE, near the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, according to The Post.

Musk has also received support from the White House Office of American Innovation, which is headed by White House aide and President Trumps son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the Post notes.

The firm already had backing from the state of Maryland, after it was revealed this past October that the administration had granted Elon Musk permission to begin tunneling beneath Baltimore.

At the time, Maryland governor Larry Hogan revealed on Twitter that the administration supports the construction of a line that would connect Baltimore City to D.C, and said he thinks the Hyperloop is coming to Maryland.

Elon Musk has revealed a plan to build an underground tunnel to transport passengers between New York and Washington DC in just 29 minutes

The state has issued a conditional utility permit for the project, allowing the firm to dig a 10.3 mile tunnel under part of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, according to LA Times.

Musk first revealed his plan for a system that could ferry passengers from NY to DC in just 29 minutes back in July, when he tweeted that hed been given verbal government approval for the underground tunnel.

At the time, he said it will run via Philadelphia and Baltimore, and use his Hyperloop technology.

If completed, it would become the world's longest tunnel.

With Maryland's approval, the CEO secured permission for the first section of the system.

There will undoubtedly be many other hurdles before the tunnel comes to life, including environmental reviews and obtaining approval from other administrations.

But, Governor Hogans support marks the first step in the process.

Our administration is proud to support The Boring Company to bring rapid electric transportation to MD  connecting Baltimore City to DC, the Maryland governor tweeted.

And, in a video accompanying a second post, in which he wrote, Get Hyped, the governor can be heard responding to a question about the Boring Companys Hyperloop, saying, I think its coming to Maryland, and its going to go from Baltimore to Washington, so get ready.

Maryland has issued a conditional utility permit for the project, allowing the firm to dig a 10.3 mile tunnel under part of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, according to LA Times

WHAT IS THE HYPERLOOP? Hyperloop is a proposed method of travel that would transport people at roughly 700mph between distant locations. It was unveiled by Elon Musk in 2013, who at the time said it could take passengers the 380 miles (610km) from LA to San Francisco in 30 minutes - half the time it takes a plane. It is essentially a long tube that has had the air removed to create a vacuum. For safety reasons, Hyperloop tunnels need escape hatches in case of fire. The tube is suspended off the ground to protect against weather and earthquakes. There are now a number of firms vying to bring the technology to life, including Elon Musk himself, Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, and Virgin Hyperloop One. As several firms vie to create the first operational Hyperloop, Elon Musks vision of a radical transport system that could ferry passengers above land at 760 miles per hour continues to inch closer to reality Advertisement

The governor also shared photos of himself alongside SpaceX and Boring Company execs, at the site where the tunneling is set to begin.

The system, which will begin with two 35-mile tubes between Baltimore and Washington, will be treated like a utility, officials told the LA Times, and will largely run beneath existing state highways.

While it remains unclear what other steps have been taken ahead of the digging, officials say it will be done in an environmentally sound and safe fashion, LA Times reports.

If the plan comes to life, Musk's East Coast Hyperloop tunnel would be far longer than the current record holder, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, a railway line that runs through the Swiss Alps and opened in 2016, measuring 35.5 miles.After several months of testing, the burger-flipping robot Flippy has been given a full-time job at a CaliBurger restaurant in Pasadena.

The California chain began testing the machine, which is fitted with a 6-axis robotic arm equipped with a spatula, earlier this year.

Starting today, the artificial intelligence-driven robot that can 'cook the perfect burger every time' has joined his human co-workers during the lunch shift.

Flippy uses its arm to flip burgers and place them on buns and could spell the beginning of the end for fast food chefs.

Scroll down for video

Flippy, the artificial intelligence-equipped robot that can 'cook the perfect burger every time,' has been hired full time at a CaliBurger in Pasadena. Flippy uses its arm (picture) to flip burgers and place them on buns and could spell the beginning of the end for fast food chefs

CaliBurger began testing the machine in some of its restaurants in March, but later said Flippy would work at one of its restaurants thanks to the success of the trials.

The company has plans to bring Flippy to 50 of the chain's international locations, according to TechCrunch.

Flippy is likely to raise concerns among those who fear we're all doomed to have our jobs replaced by robots.

But fortunately Flippy does require some human assistance in order to get started.

Before Flippy begins flipping burgers, a human places raw meat patties on the grill.

Flippy's creators argue that the robot will bring some consistency to an industry that grapples with high turnover rates.

'The kitchen of the future will always have people in it, but we see that kitchen as having people and robots,' David Zito, CEO of Miso Robotics, told KTLA in Los Angeles.

HOW DOES THE 'FLIPPY' BURGER BOT WORK? Flippy is an artificial intelligence-driven robot that can flip burgers on a grill and then place them on a bung once they are done cooking. It is designed with a 6-axis robotic arm and cameras and sensors to see its environment. The robots arm is fitted with a spatula tool, allowing it to slide under the patty on the grill and flip it over. Flippy also alerts human workers when it is time to add the cheese or other toppings. Its software lets it distinguish between different meats on the grill and when they are done cooking. Advertisement

'This technology is not about replacing jobs -- we see Flippy as a third hand,' he added.

Zito has said that the robot will likely push workers out of their current jobs.

Flippy costs at least $60,000 to install at each Caliburger location, KTLA noted.

Flippy was developed by robotics firm Miso Robotics and publicly debuted at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference in San Francisco last September.

Flippy has sensors and cameras that it uses to see its environment  it can also distinguish between different meats, buns and which patties are done cooking using its AI-powered software

The update includes more accurate tracking software and the replacement of the robot's original burger-flipping claw with a more traditional spatula.

This was done to avoid burger meat getting into joints in the hand, making the robot easier to clean.

Caliburger has a six-month exclusive period with the $60,000 (45,000) robots before other chains are allowed to purchase them.

Flippy is the brainchild of Miso Robotics and can assist human workers in the kitchen.

'Flippy is an AI-powered robot that works in tandem with kitchen staff,' Zito told DailyMail.com in March, when the company began testing the robot at a CaliBurger in Pasadena.

CaliBurger began testing the machine in some of its restaurants in March, but has announced a Flippy robot is now working full-time in one of its restaurants thanks to the success of these initial trials. Pictured is a test kitchen where Miso Robotics demoed Flippy

An artificial intelligence-driven robot is said to 'cook the perfect burger, every time.' Called Flippy, the machine is fitted with a 6-axis robotic arm, which it uses to flip burgers. Pictured is an older model of the robot, which used a claw instead of a spatula

'It functions as an assistant and intuitively knows when to flip burgers and then places them on buns when ready.

'Flippy is the first in our series of adaptive robots that will create smarter, safer and more efficient commercial kitchens.'

It was originally expected that Flippy would be hired in the 50 CaliBurger locations for 2019, but a large round of funding made it possible to move up the start date.

In July, Miso Robotics received $3.1 million (2.3 million) in funding from strategic investors, including Acacia Research and Match Robotics VC.

It was originally expected that Flippy would be hired in the 50 CaliBurger locations for 2019, but a large round of funding made it possible to move up the start date

'While the biggest companies in the world are focused on using computer vision and artificial intelligence to drive cars and manage the home, Cali Group will facilitate and lead the adoption of these emerging technologies in the restaurant and retail industries,' said John Miller, Chairman and CEO of Cali Group, at the time of the funding announcement.

According to the National Association of Restaurants, consumers are spending more on food outside the home than ever before.

Yet despite rapid growth, the restaurant industry is plagued with inefficiencies.

In 2016, turnover of restaurant workers reached an all-time high at 113 percent.

Miso Robotics shared that it takes less than five minutes to install Flippy. It is attached to a cart that is easily rolled around from place to place

However, the integration of Miso Robotics into CaliBurger's kitchens will allow the chain to redeploy some of its staff to the dining room to engage more with customers.

CaliBurger will also collaborate with Miso Robotics to retrain certain staff to operate Flippy.

'The application of artificial intelligence to robotic systems that work next to our employees in CaliBurger restaurants will allow us to make food faster, safer and with fewer errors,' said John Miller, Chairman of Cali Group.From Notre-Dame and the ground-breaking Eiffel Tower to buildings by architects such as Le Corbusier, and from flea markets to world-famous interiors brands, Paris oozes great design. We tell you where to find the best architecture, interiors stores, cafes and hotels.

Glass pyramide in courtyard of the Louvre, designed by IM Pei

Shopping

The big hitters when it comes to high-end design include Ligne Roset and Roche Bobois, both with a number of stores in the city. On a smaller-scale, the inspirational Merci store in a former wallpaper factory in the Marais will seriously stress your baggage allowance with its vast offering of interiors and fashion, including Isabel Marant clothing, classy linen and cotton bedding. Check out the table settings and room sets for ideas for your own home. Theres also a restaurant and two cafes.

Dont miss the quirky, creative and colourful furniture, lighting and homewares by trend-setter Sentou, which has a dedicated showroom for architects and interior designers, as well as three shops in Paris.

And then theres Paris famous flea markets in which to rummage for something unique to take home with you. The main one is the vast Marche aux Puces de St-Ouen at Clignancourt; Montreuil flea market is less commercial.

For cookware, go where the chefs shop to stock their restaurants. Drool over large copper pans, no-nonsense white china and utensils you never dreamt existed at A.Simon on Rue Montmartre and E Dehillerin on Rue Coquilliere.

Metro: Filles du Calvaire (Merci), Mairie de Saint-Ouen (Marche aux Puces de St-Ouen), Porte de Montreuil (Marche aux Puces de la Porte de Montreuil), Sentier (A Simon), Les Halles (E Dehillerin)

Architecture

Visit one of the various Paris buildings designed by Swiss-born, France-based architect Le Corbusier to see in the flesh his pioneering early-20th-century open-plan designs complete with clerestory windows and piloti (stilts). Theyre only open at certain times of year and need booking. Visits to the main one, Villa La Roche in the 16th arrondissement, can be arranged via the Fondation Corbusier.

Italian architect Renzo Piano and Italian-born British architect Richard Rogers blew apart building-design conventions when they created the Pompidou Centre in the heart of Paris. In 2017, the Renzo Piano Building Workshop completed another building, the 525ft (160m) stack of glass boxes forming the Tribunal de Paris law complex; like the Pompidou, it wears some of its structural elements on its skin, including lifts, solar panels and rainwater collectors. Piano has also created the Pathe Foundation for the Fondation Jerome Seydoux-Pathe, within a 19th-century theatre on the Left Bank.

Other architectural gems to seek out in Paris are the Fondation Cartier Pour lArt Contemporain and the Philharmonie de Paris by Jean Nouvel, the Fondation Louis Vuitton art museum and cultural centre and the Cinematheque Francaise by Frank Gehry, Oscar Niemeyers Communist Party Headquarters, and IM Peis Louvre pyramid, winner of a 25-year prize from the American Institute of Architects.

Metros: Jasmin (Villa La Roche), Rambuteau (Centre Pompidou), Porte de Clichy (Tribunal de Paris), Les Gobelins (Pathe Foundation), Raspail (Fondation Cartier pour lArt Contemporain), Porte de Pantin (Philharmonie de Paris), Colonel Fabien (Siege du Parti Communiste Francais), Palais Royal Louvre (Pyramide du Louvre)

The Marais is home to cutting-edge shops like Merci store

Where to eat

A cafe in a fashion store, The Broken Arm (the name referencing a quote by artist Marcel Duchamp) offers contemporary dishes often featuring beetroot, feta, squash and pistachios in a setting of white and ethnic tiles, open shelves and bare lightbulbs.

Les Chouettes Paris is the perfect place for seeing and being seen while you enjoy creative, globally inspired dishes. This former jewellery workshop in the Marais was redesigned by architect Lazaro Rosa-Violan and has a soaring ceiling, metal columns, wooden tables and upholstered chairs.

Metro: Temple (both)

The unconventional Pompidou Centre, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano and Italian-born British architect Richard Rogers

Where to stay

French designer Patrick Norguets latest Okko hotel is in Porte de Versailles outside the city centre. Expect his trademark pops of colour against a pared backdrop of greys and white  think red and blue chairs beneath yellow ceilings. Bedrooms themselves are calm, with eco-friendly natural bedlinen.

Or try funky, good-value Mama Shelter Paris near Pere Lachaise cemetery, with decor by French design guru Philippe Starck. Compact rooms have bare concrete, black walls with yellow and pink recesses, and huge mirrors.

Metro: Balard (Okko), Gambetta (Mama Shelter)There has been plenty of controversy on Married At First Sight this season.

And now Dean Wells has revealed there's set to be more drama on the show.

The wannabe rapper revealed that the husbands land in hot water after they talk about 'wife swapping' during a wild boys night.

Scroll down for video

What will Tracey say? Married At First Sight's Dean Wells reveals the husbands land in hot water as they talk about 'wife swapping' on a wild boys night

'The boys got together; we had a few beers and started talking out of school - a bit risque,' Dean told TV Week.

'We discussed swapping wives - but that's what happens on boys' nights.'

Dean also slammed co-star Patrick after he told his 'wife' Charlene about what was said on the night.

What will she think? Pictured is Dean's 'wife' Tracey Jewel

Unimpressed: Dean meanwhile slammed co-star Patrick, after he told his 'wife' Charlene about what was said on the night

Dean said it broke the 'boy code' and Charlene confronted the men at a dinner party about the comments.

'All the boys were disgusted with Patrick after that - not just me,' Dean said.

He said that a lot of the men fancy each other's wives and there is plenty of drama 'between different partners' that fans don't know about.

Last season on the show Andrew Jones came under fire after talking badly about his 'wife,' Cheryl.

He joked about having a threesome with Cheryl and Lauren during a wild boys night.

Repeat? Last season on the show, Andrew Jones came under fire after talking badly about his 'wife,' Cheryl (seen together)

Scandals: He added that a lot of the men fancy each other's wives, and added there is plenty of drama 'between different partners' that fans don't know about

Dean has been one of the most controversial contestants on the show to date.

He had an 'affair' with contestant and bikini model Davina Rankin, who has since left the show after the scandal.

Davina was married to Ryan on the show, but the pair went their separate ways after the cheating drama.

Drama: Dean meanwhile, is one of the most controversial contestants on the show this season. He had an 'affair' with contestant and bikini model Davina Rankin (seen)

According to NW, the 26-year-old will return at an upcoming dinner party to 'say her piece' and 'settle her score' following the affair.

'Not one person at that dinner table would be expecting to see Davina again - especially after she burnt her relationship with Ryan (Gallagher) to the ground,' a source told the magazine.

'She never really got to say her piece. During that commitment ceremony (in which her affair with Dean was exposed), she felt so overwhelmed and betrayed that she could barely string two real thoughts together.'She's previously compared her losing her hair at age 11 from alopecia to like 'losing a limb'.

And although her Married At First Sight husband Nasser Sultan appeared to be accepting of her condition after she unveiled it during their honeymoon, according to Gabrielle 'Gab' Barlett, that was all for cameras only.

Speaking to NW on Monday, the 44-year-old revealed once the film crew packed up, Nasser tried to leave her and made her feel 'shame' for having alopecia.

Scroll down for video

Shock revelation: On Monday, Married At First Sight's Gabrielle Bartlett revealed her husband Nasser Sultan was only accepting of her alopecia for TV and was completely different when the cameras were off

'There were two reactions from Nasser - the initial one [on camera] and then another one the next morning - and they were quite in contrast which was really upsetting,' she said.

'The on-and-off camera Nasser are very different. As soon as the crew packs up for the day, Nasser stops being affectionate. It's very lonely.'

Opening up further about her 'lonely' experience, Gab said she did wonder if the 50-year-old senior fitness trainer was only there for fame as he always talked about his 'public profile'.

Completely different: 'There were two reactions from Nasser (pictured) - the initial one [on camera] and then another one the next morning - and they were quite in contrast which was really upsetting'

But according to Nasser, Gab's statement couldn't be further from the truth.

'It's totally bullsh*t,' he defended himself to Daily Mail Australia.

There for fame? 'Opening up further about her 'lonely' experience, Gab said she did wonder if the 50-year-old senior fitness trainer was only there for fame as he always talked about his 'public profile'

Not interested: 'We'd walk into a room together and he'd be arms out, walking ahead of me at all times, yelling and hugging and kissing everyone, and I'd be behind him feeling like the quiet librarian! He just loves to be the centre of attention constantly,' added Gab

'The hair loss. Not once I mentioned it.'

But it's not the first time Gab has revealed Nasser's behaviour was very different off camera, causing her to raise doubts about their future.

'He really wasn't there when the camera's weren't there,' she told The Fix last week.

Daily Mail has reached out to Network Nine and Gab for further comment.He's recently addressed rumours he's set to be the next Bachelor, saying he's unsure if he would do it.

But Perth-based firefighter Cameron Cranley continues to set tongues wagging that he is indeed prepping for the role.

In pictures published in New Idea this week, Cameron was seen trying on suits and and reportedly renewing his passport.

Scroll down for video

It's official? Cameron Cranley is spotted getting a suit fitted and renewing his passport as rumours swirl he will be the next Bachelor

Cameron recently revealed that he turned down a chance to join Bachelor In Paradise as he thought his chances of finding love were slim.

He also hinted that The Bachelor wasn't on his radar either.

He told The Daily Telegraph: 'It's really flattering that people think it's going to be me... I don't know if I'd do it.'

Saying no: Cameron recently revealed that he turned down a chance to join Bachelor In Paradise as he thought his chances of finding love were slim

However, when pressed on whether he would take the opportunity if presented to him, the recently single charmer said he was unsure of putting himself out there in that way.

The reality show heartthrob cited his family as his biggest hurdle, saying: 'There is no guarantee if you go back into that world that you will come out the same.'

Cameron rose to fame after appearing on The Bachelorette with Georgia Love in 2016.

Familiar face: Cameron rose to fame after appearing on The Bachelorette with Georgia Love in 2016

What's the go? The reality show heartthrob cited his family as his biggest hurdle saying: 'There is no guarantee if you go back into that world that you will come out the same'

Meanwhile, another contender for the role of The Bachelor is Married At First Sight's Ryan Gallagher.

A network representative told Daily Mail Australia that contestants from other dating shows are always considered.

'The Bachelor franchise has had proven success with several lasting relationships, and this is not the first contestant from a different dating show who has put themselves forward,' a statement read.

'Casting is underway, and in the coming weeks we will announce Australia's next Bachelor.'

A source told NW that he would be perfect for the Channel Ten dating show.

'Ryan is relevant, he's hot and he's honest when he says he's looking for love,' an 'insider' told the publication.She's enjoyed plenty of travel trips after rising to fame as a contestant on Richie Strahan's season of The Bachelor in 2016.

And Megan Marx's newfound stardom appears to have contributed to her enviable jet setting lifestyle.

According to Woman's Day, the 28-year-old was overheard bragging about a taking luxe getaways for free due to her TV star status at Stan's Sydney event last week.

Living the life! Former Bachelor star Megan Marx busted bragging about her 'free' luxury holiday to The Maldives at Sydney event

A source told the publication she boasted about scoring freebies due to her large social media following, which consists of more than 138k followers on Instagram.

'I got a free holiday to The Maldives because of how many people follow me on Instagram,' the former Bachelor star apparently gushed to fellow guests.

Megan's two-week trip to The Maldives was well documented in February, as she posted in numerous scantily-clad bikinis in the idyllic locale.

'I got a free holiday to The Maldives because of how many people follow me on Instagram': A source claimed the former Bachelor star gushed to fellow guests at Stan's Sydney event earlier this month about her luxe two-week trip

Fun in the sun! Megan's February getaway to The Maldives was well documented, as she posted in numerous scantily-clad bikinis in the idyllic island location

Staying in the luxe Anantara Kihavah Maldives Villas and Kandima Resort, she shared photos from within her pricey villas and within each separate resort complex.

During her holiday, she was flown around in a private seaplane, kayaked, SUPed and freedived.

She soaked up the the sunshine and enjoyed the crystal clear waters, but never once tagged a post with 'sponsored' or 'ad'.

Megan Marx told Daily Mail Australia on Monday: 'The last 18 months Ive been working with resorts/ hotels and tourism boards - some are modeling jobs and others are free flights/ accom/ food in exchange for posts. The Thailand trip I have coming up in April is fully sponsored. Lucky enough to have lots of travel blogging friends that help me with contacts.'

Was it free? She soaked up the the sunshine and enjoyed the crystal clear waters, but never once tagged a post with 'sponsored' or 'ad'

Travel bug! On her Instagram bio, she also had a call-out for 'Collabs and enquiries' next to her future travel dates, 'Thailand April 17-May 15th' and 'NZ July/Aug'

Megan has also taken numerous overseas trips since appearing on The Bachelor, including multiple rips to Indonesia, a visit to Denmark and a trip to America.

On her Instagram bio, she also had a call-out for 'Collabs and enquiries' next to her future travel dates, 'Thailand April 17-May 15th' and 'NZ July/Aug'.

She is also due to appear on screens for Channel Ten's Bachelor in Paradise, but the series air date has yet to be announced.

The Bachelor spin-off was filmed in Fiji.Last month, Married At First Sight star Dean Wells was allegedly spotted flirting with co-star Justin Fischer's 'real-life ex-wife,' Natalie.

'Soft-serve millionaire' Justin reportedly arrived with Natalia at a MAFS cast gathering that began at The Westin hotel on Martin Place, but left alone.

'Natalia's so hot, it's ridiculous, and Dean was hypnotised by her!' a club attendee allegedly told Woman's Day on Monday.

MAFS' Dean Wells enjoys a 'nightlong flirt-fest' with co-star Justin Fischer's 'real-life ex-wife' Natalia (pictured) at Sydney's Ivy nightclub... after originally arriving with her 'millionaire' ex-husband

According to Natalia's Instagram, the model and her ex-husband Justin met MAFS cast members Sean T, Gabrielle Bartlett, Troy Delmege and Tracey Jewel at The Westin on Friday February 23.

The group reportedly enjoyed a night of heavy drinking, collectively deciding to keep the good times rolling at the nearby Ivy nightclub on George Street.

When they arrived, they had a chance meeting with co-star Dean, who immediately had eyes for Natalia, it's alleged.

'Natalia was introduced to Dean - and so began the nightlong flirtfest!' Woman's Day's source claimed.

Just the beginning! According to Natalia's Instagram, the model and her ex-husband Justin met MAFS cast members Sean T, Gabrielle Bartlett, Troy Delmege and Tracey Jewel at The Westin on Friday February 23

'Dean has no boundaries when it comes to women,' the source reasoned.

Two images on Natalia's Instagram confirm she was at The Westin with MAFS stars, and at The Ivy with Dean on Friday the 23rd.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Natalia, Dean and Justin for comment.

Kick-on! The group reportedly enjoyed a night of heavy drinking, deciding to keep the good times rolling at nearby Ivy on George Street, where they had a chance meeting with Dean

'Flirtfest!' 'Natalia was introduced to Dean - and so began the nightlong flirtfest!' Woman's Day's source claimed

In the image with Dean, Natalia geo-tagged 'The Ivy VIP Pool Bar' and posed with her arms around the controversial reality star.

She wrote in the caption: 'About last night,' adding the hashtags '#badboy of #mafs #teamtracey #myfave'.

'About last night': Images on the model's Instagram prove she was there, writing in one caption: 'About last night,' adding the hashtags '#badboy of #mafs #teamtracey #myfave'

On currently airing episodes of Married At First Sight, Dean is 'married' to Tracey, and has already 'cheated' on her with Davina Rankin.

Meanwhile, Justin was paired with Carly Bowyer - both couples are still 'together' on the show, which was filmed several months ago.

Last month, Troy and Carly were pictured making out in a public park.She's the former Home And Away star making waves in Hollywood.

And Samara Weaving certainly turned heads on the Academy Awards red carpet in a Grecian-goddess inspired gown.

Attending her first Oscars ceremony, the 26-year-old looked simply flawless in her coral chiffon dress featuring a plunging neckline.

Scroll down for video

Taking the plunge! Former Home And Away star Samara Weaving turned heads on the Oscars red carpet in a low-cut, Grecian-goddess inspired gown

Samara's floor-length gown by Schiaparelli, which was cinched at the waist with a sparkling criss-cross band that highlighted her slender figure.

For accessories, she opted for a statement ring, drop earrings and a clutch purse by Valextra that matched her dress.

Her makeup look consisted of a bold smokey eye with kohl rimmed eyes, and lashings of mascara to contrast her peach flushed cheeks and nude pout.

Elegant: Samara's floor-length gown was cinched at the waist with a sparkling criss-cross band that highlighted her slender figure

Stunning: For accessories, she opted for a statement ring, drop earrings and a clutch purse that matched her dress

Red carpet ready! Samara has a minor role in the Oscar-nominated film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which stars Frances McDormand

The Out of the Blue star's luscious blonde locks were styled in waves and held up in a chic low bun.

Samara has a minor role in the Oscar-nominated film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which stars Frances McDormand.

She has two small scenes in the movie, playing the younger girlfriend of Frances McDormand's character's ex-husband.

Glamorous: Her makeup look consisted of a bold smokey eye with kohl rimmed eyes, and lashings of mascara to contrast her peach flushed cheeks and nude pout

The details: Samara's luscious blonde locks were styled in waves and held up in a chic low bun

Making waves: Samara has two small scenes in Three Billboards, playing the younger girlfriend of Frances McDormand's character's ex-husband

'We're always aware of our family being creative': Samara recently said that having a famous uncle, Hugo Weaving (pictured), did not influence her decision to become actor

Samara recently said that having a famous uncle, Hugo Weaving, did not influence her decision to become actor.

'We're always aware of our family being creative but it wasn't like, "My uncle is an amazing actor, I want to be like that",' she told Women's Health magazine.

'I was living overseas and was a bit too young when The Matrix came out, so I didn't realise what an iconic Australian actor he was. I just started doing little plays and theatre stuff.'

Samara is set to appear in Foxtel's mini-series Picnic At Hanging Rock.Advertisement

Emily Blunt, Dame Helen Mirren and Sally Hawkins led the British glamour as they stepped out in style for the 90th annual Academy Awards on Sunday evening.

The actresses stayed true to their impeccable red carpet style, each turning heads as they arrived at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre in a selection of breathtaking gowns which showed their sartorial prowess.

Leading the pack was 35-year-old Emily, who looked sensational in a high-neckline Victorian-inspired duck egg blue gown with tulle shoulders, frilly white bodice detailing and a dramatic train.

Glam: (L-R) Emily Blunt, Dame Helen Mirren and Sally Hawkins stepped out in breathtakingly elegant style at the 90th annual Academy Awards, held at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre on Sunday evening

With her golden locks styled into a lustrous chignon, the Devil Wears Prada star, who is married to actor John Krasinski, complemented her flattering ensemble with glittering raindrop earrings.

Toting a white pillbox clutch, the mother-of-two - who will present at the awards show - teamed her earrings with a selection of sparkling rings, while she highlighted her natural beauty with a dusting of flattering makeup.

She scooped a coveted Best Actress Academy Award back in 2007 for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the critically-acclaimed film The Queen.

And Dame Helen - who has also signed up to present at the awards gala - proved herself worthy of taking on the regal role, when she stepped out in looking sensational for the star-studded celebratory gathering.

Leading the pack was 35-year-old Emily, who looked sensational in a high-neckline Victorian-inspired duck egg blue gown with tulle shoulders and frilly white bodice detailing

Dramatic: Her dress descended into a dramatic train, which gave her gown a head-turning touch as she posed on the carpet

A touch of sparkle: Toting a white pillbox clutch, the mother-of-two teamed her earrings with a selection of sparkling rings

The 72-year-old actress wowed as she hit the Dolby Theatre's red carpet in an elegant, form-fitting blue gown, which featured long sleeves, a high neckline and fishtail silhouette.

Adding an extra touch of sparkle to her simple-yet-chic gown, the screen star dazzled in a diamond and sapphire statement necklace, which was teamed with a pair of matching earrings.

Helen, who is set to serve as one of the presenters at the glittering awards gala, stood tall in a pair of black open-toe heels, while a blue pillbox clutch remained in her hand as she posed for photographers.

As she made her way down the red carpet, she was seen striking a pose with 61-year-old songwriter Diane Warren, with the pair plucking out their smartphones to snap a series of selfies.

Wow: She wowed as she hit the red carpet in an elegant, form-fitting blue gown, which featured long sleeves, a high neckline

Shine bright like a diamond: Adding an extra touch of sparkle to her simple-yet-chic gown, the screen star dazzled in a diamond and sapphire statement necklace, which was teamed with a pair of matching earrings

Hair we go: Her 72-year-old actress' silver tresses were styled in a flattering bob, while her makeup included pink lipstick

A snap decision: As she made her way down the red carpet, she whipped out her iPhone to pose for selfies with Diane Warren

Meanwhile, Sally Hawkins arrived in award-winning style as she prepared to battle it out with Meryl Streep, Frances McDormand, Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie for Best Actress for her efforts in The Shape Of Water.

The 41-year-old looked stunning as she stepped out in a glittering champagne pink Armani Prive gown, which blended into a midnight blue embellished hemline and featured prominent shoulder pads.

Cinching her dress at the waist with a black sash belt, the brunette wore her raven tresses in an elegant bun as she posed for red carpet photographers.

She was also seen catching up with her The Shape Of Water co-star Octavia Spencer, 45, who also arrived contending for a trophy, as she's been nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category.

Award-winning style: Sally Hawkins arrived in award-winning style in an Armani Prive gown as she prepared to battle it out with Meryl Streep, Frances McDormand, Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie for Best Actress for her efforts in The Shape Of Water

Co-star: She was also seen catching up with her The Shape Of Water co-star Octavia Spencer, 45, who also arrived contending for a trophy, as she's been nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category

A Brit of alright: Actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge was also among the British stars who hit the Oscars red carpet on Sunday

Cream of the crop: The 32-year-old writer and director swanned her way down the red carpet in a stylish spoored cream dress

A natural: Scooping her wavy raven locks back into a bun, she highlighted her natural beauty with a light during of makeup

Dame Helen Mirren, Emily Blunt, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman will be among the presenters at the Oscars.

Others stars due to take to the stage to present include Dave Chappelle, Eugenio Derbez, Ansel Elgort, Jane Fonda, Jodie Foster, Eiza Gonzalez, Ashley Judd, Matthew McConaughey, Rita Moreno, Lupita Nyongo and Christopher Walken.

Judd and Nyongo are among the high-profile actresses who have accused disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment.

However host Jimmy Kimmel has said he will not focus on the scandal when he opens the ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

Arm-in-arm: Patrick Stewart and his wife Sunny Ozell walked arm-in-arm as they hit the red carpet at the starry awards gala

Protest: In keeping with this year's awards season, the couple wore Time's Up badges in protest against sexual harassment

Dapper gent: The 77-year-old actor looked dapper in a classic black tuxedo, while his wife dazzled in a glittering red gown

Interview: Andy Serkis, left, was spotted getting interviewed by regular red carpet host Ryan Seacrest as he made his arrival

Husband and wife: Looking sharp in a classic black tuxedo, the star posed alongside his wife of 16 years, Lorraine Ashbourne

Good spirits: The couple appeared to be in decidedly good spirits as they prepared to make their way into the famous theatre

Other presenters already announced for the ceremony include Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot and Mark Hamill, as well as last years winners Mahershala Ali, Emma Stone and Viola Davis.

It is customary for the previous winners to present to the new winner at the subsequent ceremony.

However, the last winner of the best actor award, Casey Affleck, will not be attending the ceremony this year.

The Manchester By The Sea star would have been expected to present the best actress award, according to the shows tradition, but in January he withdrew from the hosting role.

Trio: Rachel Shenton and her fiancee Chris Overton arrived with Maisie Sly, who appeared in their film The Silent Child

Nod: Their film, which was well received by critics, was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Live Action Short Film category

This Morning: Chris flashed the inside of his bespoke tuxedo jacket, which was stitched with the logo from ITV's This Morning

In 2010 Affleck was sued by two women for alleged sexual harassment before the lawsuits were settled out of court.

He has vehemently denied the sexual harassment claims which were alleged to have happened during the making of the film Im Still Here.

The nominations for the Oscars are led by Guillermo Del Toros The Shape Of Water, which has 13 nods, while Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan, has eight.

Look sharp: British actor Daniel Kaluuya pulled out all the sartorial stops, looking dapper in a terracotta velvet dinner jacket

Nominated: The 29-year-old Black Panther star was nominated in the Best Actor category for his efforts in hit movie Get Out

Jet ski: At the start of the show, host Jimmy Kimmel joked that he'd be awarding a jet ski to whoever gives the shortest speech

Vessel: Dame Helen Mirren then swanned her way onto the stage Price Is Right-style to pose around the powerful vessel

Silver: For her segment at the top of the show, the British beauty switched out her red carpet dress for a white and silver oneHe is an Academy Award-winning actor.

And though he is not nominated at this Sunday's ceremony at Los Angeles' Dolby Theatre, Matthew McConaughey still dripped glamour at the red carpet.

The 48-year-old, who will present, was joined by his model wife Camila Alves, 36, who stunned in a massive white gown reminiscent of a wedding dress.

All right, all right, all right: Oscar-winning movie star Matthew McConaughey posed at this year's red carpet at Los Angeles' Dolby Theatre with his model wife Camila Alves

Her busty ensemble featured a layer of off-white fabric over more layers of heavily pleated sheer white mesh.

Camila, who married her movie star husband in 2012 and has three children by him, jazzed up the look with an opulent necklace from Chopard.

Meanwhile, Matthew clove to a classically glamorous look, wearing a black suit with a burgundy bow-tie and a pristine white dress shirt.

In a dapper flourish, he occasionally modeled a pair of Persol Tailoring Edition Sunglasses.

He won his Oscar for his performance as an AIDS sufferer in the 2013 drama Dallas Buyers Club, which also earned a gong for his supporting co-star Jared Leto.

Accessorizing; Camila, who married her movie star husband in 2012 and has three children by him, jazzed up the look with an opulent necklace from Chopard

Back to basics: Meanwhile, Matthew clove to a classically glamorous look, wearing a black suit with a burgundy bow-tie and a pristine white dress shirt

Shielding his peepers: In a dapper flourish, he occasionally modeled a pair of sunglasses from Persol

While on this Sunday's red carpet, Matthew and Camila also got in a bit of mingling with Timothee Chalamet, who is nominated for Best Lead Actor this year.

Timothee, who wore an off-white tuxedo with a white shirt and bow-tie but black dress shoes, got his nod via Call Me By Your Name.

Sunday night's Academy Awards are being hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, who also served as compere for the ceremony last year.

The nominees for Best Picture include Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape Of Water.

Later that evening Matthew McConaughey, wife Camila attended The Third Annual City Gala red carpet event. Matthew was the keynote speaker of the event and received the 2018 Inspiration Honoree for his work with charitable foundation just keep living.

Trio: While on this Sunday's red carpet, Matthew and Camila also got in a bit of mingling with Timothee Chalamet, who is nominated for Best Lead Actor this year

Honoree: Matthew McConaughey, wife Camila attended The Third Annual City Gala red carpet event. Matthew was the keynote speaker of the event and received the 2018 Inspiration Honoree for his work with charitable foundation just keep livin.

The event took place at Universal Studios Hollywood, where celebrities and philanthropists also enjoyed a poker tournament and live auction.

Its name stems from his struggle with grief following the 2002 death of his father, James, during which the words Just keep living, helped him carry on and became his life motto.

'It was something that came to me a few days after my father passed away in '92 and I was working on my first film, Dazed and Confused,' McConaughey told ET in November.

'It was something that came to me in trying to cope with him no longer being there, then I started applying "just keep living" to anything I could in life and I couldn't find anywhere that it didn't fit.'

Jordan Peele's acclaimed Get Out, Joe Wright's Winston Churchill biopic Darkest Hour and Greta Gerwig's directorial debut Lady Bird also have Best Picture nods.

Showstopper: Black Lightning actress Skye P. Marshall attended the event

Starlet: Actress Skye P. Marshall turned heads on the red carpet in a teal dress

Suited and booted: Guests at the event included Actor Juan Antonio (L) and Superbowl champ Ray Lewis (R)

So too does Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name, which has a screenplay by A Room With A View director James Ivory of Merchant Ivory fame.

Paul Thomas Anderson's historical romance drama Phantom Thread is also up for Best Picture nod, as does Steven Spielberg's Pentagon Papers film The Post.

Meanwhile, other notable guests at the event included Skye P. Marshall, who stars in 'Black Lightning' and arrived in a sexy teal dress with matching color chandelier earrings a rose gold stilettos that definitely turned heads.

The guest list also included actor Juan Antonio and Superbowl champ Ray Lewis, who both put on a very dapper display in traditional tuxedos.Advertisement

Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty have redeemed themselves from the epic Best Picture controversy from last year.

The two Hollywood legends correctly announced the Shape Of Water as the winner of top honors at the 90th Annual Academy Awards held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on Sunday evening.

Director of the film Guillermo del Toro had a hilarious moment ahead of accepting the shiny new prize as he double checked the card and smiled into the camera after he had confirmed the win for himself.

In his acceptance speech the 53-year-old Mexican director dedicated the award to young filmmakers as he said: 'This is a door, kick it open, and come in.'

Scroll down for video

They're back! Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty have redeemed themselves from the epic Best Picture controversy from last year

Good spirits: Director of the film Guillermo del Toro had a hilarious moment ahead of accepting the shiny new prize as he double checked the card and smiled into the camera after he had confirmed the win for himself

Last year it was a much different story as the Bonnie And Clyde actors were at the center of an envelope mishap involving Academy Awards agency PricewaterhouseCoopers which counts the votes.

Faye, 77, and Warren, 80, had announced La Land as Best Picture, the pair had been given the wrong envelope to announce the prize, leading Oscar producers to run onto the stage midway-through the acceptance speeches to unveil Moonlight as the real winner.

Despite the infamous incident The Academy has decided to retain accounting firm PwC despite the now infamous Best Picture flub.

Cream of the crop: Gary Oldman posed with (L-R) Best Supporting Actor Sam Rockwell, Best Actress Frances McDormand and Best Supporting Actress Allison Janney in the press room

Redemption: The 77-year-old actress and 80-year-old actor were brought back despite the flub involving PricewaterhouseCoopers last year

Callback: As if the iconic duo presenting wasn't already enough of a tie-in to last year's ceremony Dunaway wore the exact same black dress to present on Sunday (left) as she did on the red carpet of the 2017 Academy Awards (pictured right)

Happy times: The cast, crew, and producers of Shape Of Water looked overjoyed as they embraced at the conclusion of the event

Inspiring: In his acceptance speech the 53-year-old Mexican director dedicated the award to young filmmakers as he said: 'This is a door, kick it open, and come in'

Finally! Guillermo del Toro also took home his first ever Oscar in the Best Director category for The Shape Of Water earlier in the night

Love story: The Shape Of Water earned four Oscars as the film led the night with 13 nominations

Infamous: Last year it was a much different story as the Bonnie And Clyde actors were at the center of an envelope mishap involving agency PricewaterhouseCoopers

Ultimately it was decided that the accounting firm of PwC - short for PricewaterhouseCoopers - will be kept on board for the 90th ceremony next year with a few new precautions to prevent the same blunder from happening again.

PwC accountants won't be allowed to have their cellphones backstage during future Oscar telecasts.

As if the iconic duo presenting wasn't already enough of a tie-in to last year's ceremony Dunaway wore the exact same black dress to present as she did on the red carpet of the 2017 Academy Awards.

Earlier in the night talented filmmaker Del Toro won his first ever Best Director award.

The Shape Of Water had four wins which was good for most on the night as coming into the event it had the most nominations with 13.

The big win came just after Frances McDormand was given the Best Actress gong for her work on Three Billboards in Ebbing, Missouri but moved the spotlight onto all the other female nominees as she had them all stand up.

At the end of the empowering speech, the 60-year-old now two-time Oscar winner left one final message to those in attendance: 'I have two words to leave with you tonight: inclusion rider.'

Legend: Frances McDormand won top honor of Best Actress for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Girl power: Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie, Sally Hawkins and Meryl Streep shared a big hug as they missed out in the Best Actress category

Transcendent performance: The 60-year-old actress played Mildred in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Veteran: Gary Oldman won Best Actor for his work on Darkest Hour

Mr. Prime Minister: Oldman ended his speech by thanking Winston Churchill who he had portrayed in the film

Lady love: Oldman pictured with his wife Gisele Schmidt after winning the top honor

An inclusion rider is a clause in the contract of the top line talent on a film that requires a diverse crew to be hired around them.

It was also a big night for Gary Oldman as he won Best Actor for his work on Darkest Hour.

The 59-year-old veteran British actor had won his first ever Oscar but did not want the honor to be all about him as he dedicated the win to his elderly mother Kathleen, 98.

What a debut! Jordan Peele made history as he is the first black screenwriter to win Best Original Screenplay for Get Out

'Impossible': The 39-year-old talented star looked in disbelief as he walked onto the stage to accept his award

Honored: Peele gave his acceptance speech as presenter Nicole Kidman looked on

Disbelief: Clearly still shocked from his win, Jordan tweeted afterwards, 'I just won an Oscar. WTF?!?'

Eerie: Get Out (pictured: lead actor Daniel Kaluuya) was both a critical and box office success and was even among the favorites to win Best Picture which would have been quite the feat for a horror film

'I would like to thank my mother - she is older than the Oscar, she will be 99 years young next birthday,' Oldman said.

'Thank you for your love and support,' he told her as he clutched his gold statuette. 'Put the kettle on, I'm bringing Oscar home!'

He then ended his speech by thanking Winston Churchill who he had portrayed in the film.

One of the top moments from the gala came when Jordan Peele won Best Original Screenplay for Get Out

Ravishing in red: Allison Janney was honored with the coveted Best Supporting Actor prize at the 90th Annual Academy Award

Aww: Her I, Tonya co-star Margot Robbie looked emotional as she congratulated Allison after her name was called

Enchanting: She looked stunning in a flowy red maxi dress

Hilarious: The 58-year-old veteran actress showed off her amazing sense of humor as the first thing she said when approaching the podium was: 'I did it all by myself'

Support system: Margot could be seen wiping away her tears as she watched Allison accept the gong

All eyes on her: Allison had the full attention of the star-studded crowd

The honor makes the 39-year-old star the first black screenwriter to ever win the award as he gave one of the best speeches of the night as he admitted he thought writing the film was 'impossible.'

'This means so much to me,' he said. 'I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible.

'I thought it wasnt gonna work, I thought no one would ever make this movie, but I kept coming back to it because I knew if someone let me make this movie, then people would hear it and people would see it.'

Jordan then issued a string of thank yous, including to those who worked on the movie, cinemagoers, and his beloved wife Chelsea Peretti.

He said: 'To the cast and crew, I love you, thank you so much. My wife, who supported me through this whole process. My mother, who taught me to love even in the face of hate.

'And to everybody who went and saw this movie. Everybody who bought a ticket, told somebody to buy a ticket, thank you. I love you for shouting out at the theatre, for shouting out at the screen. I love all, thank you so much goodnight.'

Shining moment: Sam Rockwell won the first gong in the Best Supporting Actor category

Sweet smooch: The 49-year-old actor planted a kiss on wife Leslie Bibb when his name was announced

In memory: He ended his speech on a touching note as he dedicated the win the fellow actor Philip Seymour Hoffman who died in 2014. Rockwell said: 'This is for my old buddy Phil Hoffman.'

Clearly still shocked from his win, Jordan tweeted afterwards, 'I just won an Oscar. WTF?!?'

Allison Janney, 58, took home the coveted Best Supporting Actress prize for I, Tonya earlier in the night.

It was a huge win for the star who was recognized for her work as LaVona in I, Tonya.

Allison showed off her amazing sense of humor as the first thing she said when approaching the podium was: 'I did it all by myself.'

Mamba mentality: NBA legend Kobe Bryant accepted the Best Animated Short Film gong for Dear Basketball

Big win: Eva Marie Saint gave the Costume Design award to Mark Bridges who was accepting on behalf of Phantom Thread

Music to their ears: Alex Gibson and Richard King won the Sound Editing award for Dunkirk

Tremendous trio: Lucy Sibbick, Kazuhiro Tsuji and David Malinowski accepted the Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for their work in Darkest Hour

Remember Me: Another big winner on the night was Disney animated film Coco which earned wins in Best Song and Best Animated Feature Film

The star went on to thank everyone who worked on the film as well as her friends and family who had supported her.

'This is for Hal. You're always in my heart,' she said. Her brother Henry 'Hal' Janney committed suicide on February 14 2011.

There was plenty of love in the building as her co-star and producer of the film Margot Robbie could be seen tearing up during Allison's acceptance speech.

Shimmering: Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence presented the Best Actress award

Legends: Jane Fonda and Helen Mirren presented Best Actor

Golden girl: Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock stunned in a gold gown as she presented the Best Cinematography gong

Pretty in pink: Viola Davis presented the first award of the night

Egg-cellent: Greta Gerwig stunned in yellow as Laura Dern rocked a white plunging number

Sheer daring: Taraji P. Henson slayed in a black lace number as she introduced Mary J. Blige

Hilarious: Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph walked out with their heels in hand for a hilarious segment while presenting

This comes just after Sam Rockwell accepted the first award of the night in the Best Supporting Actor category.

No doubt the 49-year-old actor was excited to take home the coveted, shiny gold Oscar statue for his role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri which was presented by Viola Davis at the gala event.

Sam definitely seemed to be surprised by the win as he said: 'I'd like to thank the Academy. I never thought I'd say those words.'

Good looking couple: Armie Hammer and Gal Gadot looked dapper as they strutted on stage

Hello sunshine: Eiza Gonzalez looked gorgeous while arm-in-arm with Ansel Elgort

Legend: Eva Marie Saint presented at the gala as she dedicated her appearance to her recently deceased husband

Onward and upward: Christopher Nolan's war epic Dunkirk won three awards in the Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Film Editing categories

He ended his speech on a touching note as he dedicated the win the fellow actor Philip Seymour Hoffman who died in 2014.

Before walking off stage Rockwell said: 'This is for my old buddy Phil Hoffman.'

Another big winner on the night was Disney animated film Coco which earned wins in Best Song and Best Animated Feature Film.

Beautiful in burgundy: Mary J. Blige performed a track from her film Mudbound

Standing room only: Mary received a standing ovation at the end of it

In tune: Miguel and Natalia LaFourcade performed Coco hit Remember Me which went on to win the coveted Best Song

Stunning: The Disney performance may have been the most colorful and jovial of the night

Strumming his stuff: Sufjan Stevens performed his Best Song nominee song Mystery Of Love from Call Me By Your Name

Talented: Keala Settle received a standing ovation as she put her impressive singing range on display while performing This Is Me from The Greatest Showman

Haunting: Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder performed a song from the late Tom Petty for the In Memoriam segment

Christopher Nolan's war epic Dunkirk won three awards in the Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Film Editing categories.

Jimmy Kimmel was the host with the most at the event as he was praised for a hilarious monologue as well as several gags throughout the night.

At one point her recruited Margot Robbie, Lupita Nyong'o, Gal Gadot, Ansel Elgort, and Guillermo del Toro among many other A-listers to surprise a theater full of Wrinkle In Time patrons at the TCL Chinese Theater.

In his second year as host, Kimmel took shots at Harvey Weinstein, Vice President and Mike Pence and President Donald Trump during his monologue.

He also had a running gag in which he said he would reward the person with the shortest speech with a $17,900 jet ski which was presented by Dame Helen Mirren and was ultimately given to Phantom Thread costume designer Mark Bridges at the very end of the night.

Funnyman: Jimmy Kimmel had the audience laughing as he shed some light on the Harvey Weinstein scandal during his monologue

Host with the most: Kimmel was host of the event for the second year in a row

Get Out! Lakeith Stanfield came out during a funny gag in which he reprised his role as Andre Logan King in Get Out

Surprise of a lifetime: Oscars host Kimmel's most talked about gag will no doubt be when he led a group of stars to a nearby theater to surprise movie-goers in a hilarious stunt

Squad goals: Margot Robbie (second from left), Lupita Nyong'o (center), and Gal Gadot (far right) were among the A-listers who accompanied the host to the TCL Chinese Theater

Funnyman: In his second year as host, Kimmel took shots at Harvey Weinstein, Vice President and Mike Pence and President Donald Trump during his monologue

The pay off: He also had a running gag in which he said he would reward the person with the shortest speech with a $17,900 jet ski which was presented by Dame Helen Mirren and was ultimately given to Phantom Thread costume designer Mark Bridges at the very end of the night

Controversial: Casey Affleck (pictured last year) did not attend the gala this year despite it being customary for previous Oscar winners to present new winners with awards

It was quite the star-studded affair as Dame Helen Mirren, Emily Blunt, Sandra Bullock, Viola Davis and Nicole Kidman had all presented.

Others stars who hit the stage to present also included Dave Chappelle, Eugenio Derbez, Ansel Elgort, Jane Fonda, Jodie Foster, Eiza Gonzalez, Ashley Judd, Matthew McConaughey, Rita Moreno, Lupita Nyongo and Christopher Walken.

Judd and Nyong'o were among the high-profile actresses who have accused disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment.

It is customary for the previous winners to present to the new winner at the subsequent ceremony

However, the last winner of the best actor award, Casey Affleck, did not attend the ceremony this year.

The Manchester By The Sea star would have been expected to present the best actress award, according to the shows tradition, but in January he withdrew from the hosting role.

In 2010 Affleck was sued by two women for alleged sexual harassment before the lawsuits were settled out of court.

He has vehemently denied the sexual harassment claims which were alleged to have happened during the making of the film Im Still Here.

Not in the sunken place: Allison Williams looked cheery as she greeted fellow audience members

No frills: Frances McDormand skipped the red carpet but she sat front and center at the event

All eyes on them: It was definitely a grandiose star-studded affair

Happy times: Taraji P. Henson could be seen congratulating Sam Rockwell backstage as the Amphibian Man from The Shape Of Water could be seen passing throughHe walked away with the coveted Best Actor Oscar for his stunning portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, having already bagged BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors' Guild gongs.

And Gary Oldman looked excited for the evening ahead as he arrived at the 90th Academy Awards on Sunday with his glamorous wife Gisele Schmidt on his arm.

Cracking a broad smile the British actor, 59, put on a dapper display at the event, clad in a classic black suit and bow tie as he wrapped an affectionate arm around his beautiful wife.

His Finest Hour! Best Actor winner Gary Oldman looked excited for the evening ahead as he arrived at the 90th Academy Awards on Sunday with his glamorous wife Gisele Schmidt on his arm

Gisele, who wed the Batman star in 2017, was every inch the proud wife as she dazzled in a black dress, which cinched in at the waist and flowed into an elegant skirt.

She added height with bejewelled court shoes and wore her hair in a stylish chignon.

Darkest Hour charts the British Prime Minister's torment when he is faced with the decision to either negotiate with Hitler or to wage war against all odds during the early days of World War II.

Kristin Scott Thomas plays opposite Gary as his on-screen wife Clemmie Churchill in the critically-acclaimed film.

In it to win it: Cracking a broad smile the British actor, 59, put on a dapper display at the event, clad in a classic black suit and bow tie as he wrapped an affectionate arm around his beautiful wife

Proud: Gisele, who wed the Batman star in 2017, was every inch the proud wife as she dazzled in a black dress, which cinched in at the waist and flowed into an elegant skirt

Gary also rubbed shoulders with his first wife Lesley Manville at the Oscars following her nomination in the cate as best supporting actress.

Their 12-year-old son Alfie was said to be delighted that both of his parents were nominated for the glitzy awards.

Dame Helen Mirren, Emily Blunt, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman were among the presenters on the night.

Others stars who took to the stage to present included Dave Chappelle, Eugenio Derbez, Ansel Elgort, Jane Fonda, Jodie Foster, Eiza Gonzalez, Ashley Judd, Matthew McConaughey, Rita Moreno, Lupita Nyongo and Christopher Walken.

Happy couple: Gary waved at his fans as he arrived at the glittering event

Big night: Gary won the Best Actor Oscar for his stunning portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour

Judd and Nyongo are among the high-profile actresses who have accused disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment.

Other presenters included Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot and Mark Hamill, as well as last years winners Mahershala Ali, Emma Stone and Viola Davis.

It is customary for the previous winners to present to the new winner at the subsequent ceremony.

Cute couple: Gary and Gisele looked over the moon as they sweetly held hands on the red carpet

Radiant: The acclaimed actor added to his already brimming trophy cabinet on Sunday evening

Transformation: Gary has already bagged BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors' Guild gongs for the role

However, the last winner of the Best Actor award, Casey Affleck, did not attend this year's ceremony.

The Manchester By The Sea star would ordinarily have been expected to present the Best Actress award, according to the shows tradition, but in January he withdrew from the hosting role.

In 2010 Affleck was sued by two women for alleged sexual harassment before the lawsuits were settled out of court.

He has vehemently denied the sexual harassment claims which were alleged to have happened during the making of the film Im Still Here.

Guillermo Del Toros The Shape Of Water won Best Film on the night, beating hot favoutrite Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.She shot to stardom last year in the smash hit comedy Girls Trip.

But Tiffany Haddish's dress had a solemn significance when she attended the Oscars red carpet at Los Angeles' Dolby Theatre on Sunday.

The 38-year-old's traditional Eritrean gown - with its complementary wrap - was a nod to her late father Tsehaye Haddish, who was from the African nation, she told ABC.

Scroll down for video

Tribute: Tiffany Haddish's dress had a solemn significance when she attended the Oscars red carpet at Los Angeles' Dolby Theatre on Sunday

She said to the news network, according to People: 'He said one day I would end up here and if I ever ended up at the Oscars to honor my people so Im honoring my fellow Eritreans.'

Tiffany visited Eritrea in January after her father's death and told the local TesfaNews: 'By the time I walked in the shores of the Red Sea, I got emotional.'

The stand-up comic, who for much of her life had a troubled relationship with her father, said: 'I finally felt at home. I told myself that this is where I should have been a long time ago. The Red Sea water made me feel great.'

Family matters: The 38-year-old's Eritrean gown - with its complementary wrap - was a nod to her late father Tsehaye Haddish, who was from the African nation, she told ABC

'It felt like my heart was being healed. I have been through so much, and for long, I have been trying to figure out who I am. Now I have a better understanding of why I am on this earth and what my purpose is.'

Sunday night's Academy Awards are being hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, who also served as compere for the ceremony last year.

The nominees for Best Picture include Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape Of Water.

Rise of an icon: She shot to stardom last year in the smash hit comedy Girls Trip

Jordan Peele's acclaimed Get Out, Joe Wright's Winston Churchill biopic Darkest Hour and Greta Gerwig's directorial debut Lady Bird also have Best Picture nods.

So too does Luca Guadagnino's Call Me By Your Name, which has a screenplay by A Room With A View director James Ivory of Merchant Ivory fame.

Paul Thomas Anderson's historical romance drama Phantom Thread is also up for Best Picture nod, as does Steven Spielberg's Pentagon Papers film The Post.China Accused of Arresting Dozens of Muslim Women Married to Pakistani Men

China has allegedly detained dozens of Muslim women in its restive Xinjiang province for marrying men in a northern border region of neighboring Pakistan.

The issue was addressed in a unanimously passed resolution of the legislative assembly of the Gilgit-Baltistan region, known as GB, that was revealed by the Pakistani lawmakers Sunday.

The resolution demands the Pakistani government take urgent steps to secure the release of more than 50 Chinese wives, who it says were taken into custody last year while they were visiting relatives in their native towns in Xinjiang.

The deputy speaker of the assembly was quoted as saying the women were rounded up during a Chinese anti-terrorism crackdown on the ethnic Uighur Muslin community in Xinjiang.

The detainees are married to GB men who are mostly associated with trading activity through the Khunjerab Pass, the only land route linking Pakistan and China, about 4,500 meters above sea level.

Regional lawmakers insisted the history of intermarriages between GB and Xinjiang is decades old, and both the border regions share deep cultural ties. They asserted the detained Chinese women were innocent and had no links to any radical elements.

Chinese and Pakistani federal officials have not immediately offered any reaction to the allegations leveled in the resolution.

Religiously-motivated violence in Xinjiang has been a cause of concern for Chinese officials. They blame the outlawed East Turkestan Islamic Movement, or ETIM, for plotting the terrorist attacks in and beyond the province.

The separatist group was founded by militant Uighurs apparently in response to alleged government restrictions on religious and cultural expression, charges Beijing denies as baseless.

ETIM is believed to have ties with militants operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Gilgit-Baltistan region is the gateway to a massive economic cooperation deal, called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

The project is a combination of building roads, rails, economic free zones and power plants in Pakistan with an estimated $62 billion Chinese investment. Thousands of Chinese are currently in Pakistan, working on CPEC-related projects.



The corridor aims to link the Arabian Sea, Pakistani port of Gwadar to Xinjiang through Khunjerab Pass, giving Beijing a secure and shortest trade access to international markets.

https://www.voanews.com/a/china-accused-of-arresting-dozens-of-muslim-women-married-to-pakistani-men/4279839.htmlThey welcomed their third child, a daughter called Charlotte, back in December.

But James Corden and his wife Julia enjoyed a date night away from their kids on Sunday, at the famous Vanity Fair Oscars Party in Beverly Hills.

The comedian, 39, and his glamorous wife looked more loved-up than ever as they laughed and joked together on the red carpet, at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.

Quality time: James Corden and his wife Julia enjoyed a date night away from their kids on Sunday, at the famous Vanity Fair Oscars Party in Beverly Hills

The actor looked typically slick in a textured suit jacket and bow tie as he beamed for cameras at the star-studded event.

However it was his TV producer wife, 37, who stole the show in a glamorous black gown, complete with statement ruffled neckline of semi-sheer mesh.

Cinching in at her waist with a glittering jewelled belt, the frock then cascaded into a chiffon pleated skirt all the way to the floor.

Having a ball: The comedian, 39, and his glamorous wife looked more loved-up than ever as they laughed and joked together on the red carpet

Leading lady: However it was his TV producer wife, 37, who stole the show in a glamorous black gown, complete with statement ruffled neckline of semi-sheer mesh

Stunning: Cinching in at her waist with a glittering jewelled belt, the frock then cascaded into a chiffon pleated skirt all the way to the floor

Keeping co-ordinated from head to toe, Julia accessorised with a sleek leather clutch bag and delicate drop earrings.

She swept her hair into a sophisticated up-do to draw attention to her naturally striking features, accentuated by a subtle smoky eye and simple nude lip.

The couple put on a giddy display for cameras - two months after welcoming their third child into the world.

James and Julia have been married for five years, and were already parents to son Max, six, and daughter Carey three.

Smart: Meanwhile actor looked typically slick in a textured suit jacket and bow tie as he beamed for cameras at the star-studded event

Happy family: James and Julia welcomed their daughter Charlotte in December - who joins son Max, six and daughter Carey, three

Loved-up: Julia couldn't resist planting a saucy kiss on James' neck

Keeping it cool: James forewent his slick blazer as he headed home with Julia

Julia gave birth to their second daughter in December, and James joked on his US chat show that Charlotte was very nearly named Beyonce.

He said: 'After the baby was born, anyone who's been in this situation will know, we were both crying, I was crying my eyes out, my wife's crying her eyes out, the baby's crying.

'The doctor asked about her name and I don't know why I said it and I looked at the doctor and said, "We're going to call her Beyonce". My wife did not think that was funny.'

James bagged an invite to the famous Oscars bash as the host of popular chat series The Late Late Show - a role he took on after Craig Ferguson's departure in 2015.

However, the comedian has more humble beginnings, having risen to fame in British television shows Fat Friends and most notably, Gavin and Stacey.She was a Best Supporting Actress nominee back in 2010.

And Taraji P. Henson was back for the 90th Academy Awards on Sunday night, as the Empire star posed on the red carpet outside the Dolby Theater in Hollywood.

The 47-year-old actress wound back the clock, looking effortlessly youthful in a sheer black gown.

Scroll down for video

Legs 11! Taraji P. Henson was back for the 90th Academy Awards on Sunday night, as the Empire star posed on the red carpet outside the Dolby Theater in Holywood

The actress, who was once nominated for her role in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, showed plenty of her gorgeous gams in the elegant dress.

Indeed, Taraji went to great lengths to ensure that her limbs looked in tip top shape on the red carpet, with celebrity makeup artist Ashunta Sheriff revealing that she applied Vaseline Intensive Care Cocoa Radiant Lotion to her skin before she headed out to the event in order to ensure a healthy glow.

'Because Taraji's dress was Grecian and flowy, and showed lots of skin, I wanted to make sure she was glowing and moisturized from head to toe! I used Vaseline Intensive Care Cocoa Radiant Lotion  made with deep healing moisturizers and Vaseline jelly, it was the perfect choice to show off her healthy, luminous skin.'

Taraji certainly took every available opportunity to show off her glowing limbs; her garment featured a high split, which the Empire starlet used to full effect, poking out one of her toned pins as she posed on the carpet.

The sheer material on the dress' upper half gave an unfettered view of Taraji's brassiere underneath, as well as showcasing her cleavage.

Turning back the clock: The 47-year-old actress wound back the clock, looking effortlessly youthful in a sheer black gown

Legs for days: The actress, who was once nominated for her role in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, showed plenty of her gorgeous gams in the elegant dress

Accessorize this: Henson kept her accessories to a minimum for the evening, wearing only her rings and a simple pair of gold, geometric dangle earrings

Henson kept her accessories to a minimum for the evening, wearing only her rings and a simple pair of gold, geometric dangle earrings.

While on the carpet Taraji appeared to throw shade at Ryan Seacrest during their interview on Sunday.

'The universe has a way of taking care of taking care of good people,' said the unsmiling actress, touching his chin. 'You know what I mean?'

While it could be argued that she was offering her support - he replied earnestly 'I agree' - Twitter blew up, with fans claiming she had 'thrown shade' at Seacrest, who has denied sexual harassment allegations from his ex-stylist, Suzie Hardy.

E! backed their star presenter, saying an investigation had found no evidence of wrong-doing by the 43-year-old, but many stars still shunned Seacrest during the red carpet interviews.

Leggy beauty: The garment featured a high split, which the Empire starlet used to full effect, poking out one of her toned pins as she posed on the carpet

Sheer madness: The sheer material on the dress' upper half gave an unfettered view of Taraji's brassiere underneath, as well as showcasing her cleavage

Good hair: The Boston Legal actress wore her straight raven locks in an elegant bob and with an off-center part

Dame Helen Mirren, Emily Blunt, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman will be among the presenters at the Oscars.

Others stars due to take to the stage to present include Dave Chappelle, Eugenio Derbez, Ansel Elgort, Jane Fonda, Jodie Foster, Eiza Gonzalez, Ashley Judd, Matthew McConaughey, Rita Moreno, Lupita Nyongo and Christopher Walken.

Judd and Nyongo are among the high-profile actresses who have accused disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment.

However host Jimmy Kimmel has said he will not focus on the scandal when he opens the ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

Giving them lip: The mother-of-one's lips were highlighted with a slash of deep purple lip liner

Lauded: She was a Best Supporting Actress nominee back in 2010

Other presenters already announced for the ceremony include Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot and Mark Hamill, as well as last years winners Mahershala Ali, Emma Stone and Viola Davis.

It is customary for the previous winners to present to the new winner at the subsequent ceremony.

However, the last winner of the best actor award, Casey Affleck, will not be attending the ceremony this year.

The Manchester By The Sea star would have been expected to present the best actress award, according to the shows tradition, but in January he withdrew from the hosting role.

In 2010 Affleck was sued by two women for alleged sexual harassment before the lawsuits were settled out of court.

He has vehemently denied the sexual harassment claims which were alleged to have happened during the making of the film Im Still Here.

The nominations for the Oscars are led by Guillermo Del Toros The Shape Of Water, which has 13 nods, while Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan, has eight.

Girl power: Dame Helen Mirren, Emily Blunt, Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman will be among the presenters at the Oscars

Her moment: Taraji was on hand to introduce Best Song and Best Supporting Actress nominee Mary J. Blige

All star cast: Others stars due to take to the stage to present include Dave Chappelle, Eugenio Derbez, Ansel Elgort, Jane Fonda, Jodie Foster, Eiza Gonzalez and Ashley Judd

Leader of the pack: The nominations for the Oscars are led by Guillermo Del Toros The Shape Of Water, which has 13 nods, while Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan, has eightFarrah Abraham channeled Jessica Rabbit as she attended Elton John's AIDS Foundation Oscar viewing party on Sunday.

The Teen Mom looked fantastic in a glistening floor length sequinned scarlet gown that hugged to perfection her fabulous curves.

Like Roger's animated wife, her vibrant long red hair matched her dress.

Scroll down for video

She's just drawn that way! Farrah Abraham channeled Jessica Rabbit as she attended Elton John's AIDS Foundation Oscar viewing party on Sunday

The 26-year-old finished the sexy ensemble in a cute black clutch.

The shindig was a celeb-packed affair, with the likes of Heidi Klum, Jane Seymour, Sofia Richie, Busy Philipps, Seth Green and wife Clare Grant, and Eric McCormack and his wife Janet Holden.

Host Elton John was, of course, also there with husband David Furnish.

Hot: The Teen Mom looked fantastic in a glistening floor length sequinned scarlet gown that hugged to perfection her fabulous curves

Red alert: Like like Roger's animated wife, her vibrant long red hair matched her dress

Farrah appeared to attend solo, despite unveiling an Instagram-official boyfriend last weekend.

The reality star shared a sweet selfie with new beau, stuntman Aden Stay, 40, on her social media account on Saturday.

She captioned the snap: '#regram #datenight best date ever this one knows how to order @adenstaykauai'.

Iconic: There was no doubt where the reality star drew her inspiration from

Host with the most: The shindig was a celeb-packed affair; Host Elton John of course was also there with husband David Furnish

Aden also shared the same photo, alongside the caption: 'Had the best date ever with this stunning woman. Cant wait for the next one. @farrah__abraham'

Farrah confirmed to UsWeekly that the two are an item.

'Aden is amazing,' she told the magazine. 'Im a lucky woman and feel blessed. We have just started our relationship and I feel like I met someone who is amazing.'Advertisement

They are the Queensland couple who tried their luck on season nine of The Block.

And as Michael and Carlene Duffy settle in to their new role hosting Open Homes Australia on 9Life, they have shared photos of the stunning renovation of their own property.

The property, located in Tallebudgera on the Gold Coast, was purchased by the couple seven years ago.

Home sweet home! As The Block's Michael and Carlene Duffy settle in to their new role hosting Open Homes Australia on 9Life, they have shared photos of the stunning renovation of their own property

Documenting the renovation on their blog Cedar + Suede, Michael and Carlene said it was their most personal project to date.

'Our Tallebudgera renovation is our most special project yet, not only because it's our own home, but because it's our forever home and it was seven years coming,' they wrote.

'A labour of love, this home is an example of how a home can draw from multiple different design styles to be an original and accurate reflection of the people who live there.'

Labour of love: The property, located in Tallebudgera on the Gold Coast, was purchased by the couple seven years ago.

Passion: 'Our Tallebudgera renovation is our most special project yet, not only because it's our own home, but because it's our forever home and it was seven years coming,' the couple explained in their blog Cedar + Suede

Big task: The renovation saw a three-bedroom, two bathroom extension added to the existing house, with the two being linked via a light and airy breezeway

They added that the interiors take inspiration from 'classical' design features to create 'softness and character'.

The renovation saw a three-bedroom, two bathroom extension added to the existing house, with the two being linked via a light and airy breezeway.

Eclectic textures are the order of the day, and this theme is on display in the breezeway that mixes crisp whites with exposed brick.

Eclectic: Textures are the order of the day, and this is on display in the breezeway that mixes crisp whites with exposed brick

Chic: Elsewhere in the house, Michael and Carlene used hardwoods and various shades of wood paneling to create a dramatic sense of light and shade throughout

The outdoor passage opens to an exquisite wooden deck, complete with sunbeds and an inviting in-ground pool.

Elsewhere in the house, Michael and Carlene used hardwoods and various shades of wood paneling to create a dramatic sense of light and shade throughout.

Michael and Carlene - who share their house with children Paddy, six, and Stella, three - came fourth on season nine of The Block.

Open Homes Australia airs Saturdays at 6.30pm on 9Life

Form and function: The breezeway opens to an exquisite wooden deck, complete with sunbeds and an inviting in-ground poolShe is a Dame and a world renowned actress.

But Helen Mirren proved to a worldwide audience her wide range of skills as she took to the stage for the 90th Academy Awards on Sunday evening.

The Brit legend, 72, was enlisted by show host Jimmy Kimmel for his opening , monologue at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles to model a flash jet ski.

Scroll down for video

Game for a laugh: Helen Mirren proved to a worldwide audience her wide range of skills as she took to the 90th Academy Awards stage on Sunday evening

Kimmel, returning for his second year as host, encouraged nominees to give passionate speeches should they win at Sunday's ceremony.

But he had a plan to keep to notoriously long speeches short, offering a $17,999 jet ski to the briefest speaker.

Dame Helen soon appeared on stage, demonstrating her best Price Is Right style poses to model the enviable prize.

Having changed out of her elegant, form-fitting blue gown from the red carpet, Helen literally dazzled in a sparkly number.

Nice prize! The Brit legend, 72, was enlisted by show host Jimmy Kimmel for his opening, monologue at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles to model a flash jet ski

In the event of a tie, Kimmel said he'll simply award the jet ski to Christopher Plummer.

Earlier on the red carpet, game for a laugh Helen was photographed knocking back a shot of tequila.

Helen Mirren takes a shot of tequila on the #Oscars carpet https://t.co/2xFYHDkscT pic.twitter.com/zTH83fxLov  Variety (@Variety) March 5, 2018

Kimmel had the star crowd and millions watching at home laughing with his anticipated opening monologue.

The chat show king used his platform to joke about the many men in Hollywood accused of sexual misconduct since Harvey Weinstein, by quipping about the Oscar statue: 'He keeps his hands where you can see them and most importantly no penis.'

He added: 'He is truly a statue of limitations.'

Strike a pose! Kimmel, returning for his second year as host, encouraged nominees to give passionate speeches should they win at Sunday's ceremony

Stellar job! Dame Helen soon appeared on stage, demonstrating her best Price Is Right style poses to model the enviable prize

Winner! In the event of a tie, Kimmel said he'll simply award the jet ski to Christopher Plummer

Kimmel also marked the incredible rise seen recently by women in the industry.

'I remember a time when the major studios didn't believe a woman or a minority could open a super hero movie,' he said - referencing Israeli actress Gal Gadot who played the title role in 'Wonder Woman' - 'and the reason I remember that time is because it was March of last year.'

'The Academy as you know took lengths to expel Harvey Weinstein from their ranks,' he said. 'what happened with Harvey and what's happening all over is long overdue ... if we can work together to stop sexual harassment in the workplace. If we can do that, women will only have to deal with that every other place they go,' he continued, joking.

Wow factor: Having changed out of her elegant, form-fitting blue gown from the red carpet, Helen literally dazzled in a sparkly gold leaf detail number

The late night host also took a swipe at Vice President Mike Pence, who is known for his anti-gay views.

'We don't make films like 'Call Me by Your Name' to make money. We make them to upset Mike Pence,' Kimmel said.

Kimmel also joked about the mix-up last year that saw Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty accidentally announced 'La La Land' instead of 'Moonlight' as Best Picture.

Some of you will be going home tonight with an Academy Award. This year, when you hear your name called. Don't get up right away,' he joked.

'What happened last year was unfortunate,' Kimmel continued, explaining that last year, the Oscar producers wanted him to do a comedy bit with the Price Waterhouse accountants. 'I said, 'No, I don't want to do comedy with the accountants.' And then the accountants went and did comedy on their own.'

Host: Kimmel had the star crowd and millions watching at home laughing with his anticipated opening monologueHe's one of Hollywood's most successful filmmakers and outspoken voices.

Judd Apatow, 50, and wife Leslie Mann, 45, beamed as they walked the red carpet of the 90th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles Sunday.

The producer of the The Big Sick, which is up for Best Original Screenplay, wore a black tuxedo with a bow tie while Mann was outfitted in a red Guipure Lace gown with floral embroidery by famed designer Zac Posen. Mann rounded out her ensemble with multiple rings and silver hoop earrings, carrying a dark red clutch.

Scroll below for video

Glamorous: Judd Apatow, 50, and wife Leslie Mann, 45, beamed as they walked the red carpet of the 90th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles

Apatow and Mann last year celebrated their 20th anniversary, as they met in 1995 while working on The Cable Guy, which Apatow produced and Mann starred in alongside Jim Carrey, Matthew Broderick and Jack Black.

She's been a creative muse of the comic mastermind over the years, as he's put her in hits including The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and This Is 40.

Apatow has been among the most outspoken voices amid the tsunami of sexual harassment and misconduct scandals that have enveloped his industry the past six months, kickstarted in October as a number of women claimed that producer Harvey Weinstein had subjected them to both. (Weinstein has denied all accusations of non-consensual sex.)

He spoke with ex-U.S. attorney Preet Bharara in November about the complicated politics of show business, and how Weinstein's purported abuse went on for decades.

Longtime loves: The Hollywood producer-director and actress celebrated their 20th anniversary last year

Stylish: Mann was outfitted in a red Guipure Lace gown with floral embroidery by famed designer Zac Posen

Rooting interest: Judd produced The Big Sick, which is up for Best Original Screenplay Sunday

Fighting the good fight: The successful filmmaker has been an outspoken voice against sexual harassment in his industry

'The problem with our industry' Apatow explained, 'is that those people are worried theyll never work again if theyre the person who calls a prosecutor or the head of an agency or studio and says, "Hes harassing all these people."

'Thats what we have to change.'

Bright eyes: The actress waved at a nearby friend as the celeb couple made their way to the building

Extras: Mann rounded out her ensemble with multiple rings and silver hoop earrings.

'We have to find a way to get the business manager who writes the check to the woman that Harvey Weinstein harassed or raped to say, "I wont write that check. Im not going to do that."'

He cited Wonder Woman star Gal Gadot's reported refusal to go on with the lucrative film series if it were to stay affiliated with Brett Ratner, another producer facing accusations spanning the gamut from sexual harassment to rape. (Ratner has denied all of the accusations against him.)

'Thats really what it takes to take to change this business: People to say "I will not work with that person."'

Lustrous: Mann's silky smooth red mane was down and parted at the lavish gathering

Life in the limelight: The duo embraced amid the chaotic atmosphere outside the venue

Sharing his knowledge: Apatow this week revealed he's going to be teaching an online comedy course

Multi-talented: Apatow has received rave reviews for his Netflix stand-up special, Judd Apatow: The ReturnMeryl Streep holds the record for the actor or actress with the most Academy Award nominations in the show's 90 years.

And on Sunday, the 68-year-old arrived at the awards show at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood in an eye-catching scarlet gown by Christian Dior.

Streep received her 21st nomination this year for her leading role in Steven Spielberg's The Post.

Scroll down for video

Queen of the oscars: Meryl Streep, 68, arrived at the 90th Academy Awards in Hollywood on Sunday wearing an eye-catching scarlet gown by Christian Dior

The veteran star, who has won three Academy Awards during her long career, wore her hair in an elegant updo to go with her fabulous dress.

The gown had a plunging neckline and was tied at the waist with a narrow belt.

Streep added drop earrings and a matching bracelet and clutch purse.

Most nominated in history: The actress, 68, who has won three Academy Awards, received her 21st nomination this year for her leading role in Steven Spielberg's The Post

Stunning in scarlet: The gown had a plunging neckline and was tied at the waist with a narrow belt. She wore her hair in an elegant updo to go with her fabulous dress

Streep was accompanied on the red carpet by her husband Don Gummer, whom she wed in 1978.

She won her first Oscar in 1980 for her supporting role opposite Dustin Hoffman in the drama Kramer vs. Kramer.

She won a best actress Academy Award three years later for sophie's Choice.

Her third win was in 2012 for her portrayal of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady.

Couple goals: Streep was accompanied on the red carpet by her husband Don Gummer, whom she wed in 1978She's the feisty cook known for clashing with the judges on My Kitchen Rules.

But Roula Kfoury revealed another side to her personality on Monday, telling TV Week she plans to have two children with her boyfriend Michael.

The 34-year-old, from Melbourne, said that taking on a step-mother role to Michael's son from a previous relationship has made her want to have babies of her own.

Our baby joy! MKR 'villain' Roula Kfoury revealed another side to her personality on Monday, telling TV Week she plans to have two children with her boyfriend Michael (right)

'I'm hoping to squeeze them in before 40,' she said of her family plans, but admitted her battle with multiple sclerosis made having children more complicated.

'If I want to get pregnant, I have to stop all my medication for at least six months, because I take a cocktail of things every day,' said.

It comes after Roula admitted she and Michael would be getting engaged this year.

Pregnancy plans! Roula said taking on a step-mother role to Michael's son from a previous relationship has made her want to have babies of her own. Pictured with MKR partner Rachael

Speaking of her boyfriend's future proposal, Roula said: 'He's a very big romantic, and he always organises surprises for me.

'So knowing him, he'll probably do something out of this world.'

Roula has been in a long-distance relationship with Michael for the past two years.

Long-distance: Roula is based in Melbourne but her boyfriend has a son in Mildura, which means the couple have been going back and forth for the past year. Pictured with Rachael

Roula is based in Melbourne but her boyfriend has a son in Mildura, which means the couple have been going back and forth for the past year.

Portrayed as one of the most opinionated contestants on My Kitchen Rules, Roula recently spoke about her personal struggles outside the show.

Breaking down during a recent interview with New Idea, Roula revealed that she is suffering from Multiple Sclerosis (MS).

Multiple Sclerosis battle: Portrayed as one of the most opinionated contestants on My Kitchen Rules, Roula recently spoke about her personal struggles outside the show

Roula explained she now has 90 lesions on her brain and has suffered from kidney failure, hair loss, and blindness during her 11-year battle with the disease.

'When I was first diagnosed I had 20 lesions in my brain at the age of 23. Now I have got 90 - that freaks me out,' she told the magazine.

'I've had some very dark days. I had optic neuritis in my left eye - which is when you completely lose vision - when I was 23 and again when I was 25. I lost feeling in my right legs a couple of times.'Her remarkable transition from modest soap success to Hollywood stardom was secured with a stunning win at the 90th annual Academy Awards on Sunday evening.

But Rachel Shenton admits she enjoyed a low key celebration at a local fast food restaurant after leaving the star-studded ceremony with the award Best Live Action short for her film The Silent Child, which tell the story of a deaf child born into a hearing family.

Speaking to This Morning with fiance and former Hollyoaks co-star Chris Overton just hours after her win, the actress, 30, revealed her-post ceremony revelry was spent over greasy takeaway  and resulted in her Oscar getting messy.

Low key: Rachel Shenton admits she enjoyed a low key celebration at a local fast food restaurant with fiance Cris Overton after leaving the 90th annual Academy Awards with the award Best Live Action short for her film The Silent Child

We did go to a party, we did a few interviews, went in, had an In-N-Out Burger and then went back to the flat, where our crew were, and had a cup of tea and a celebration with them, she told hosts Philip Schofield and Holly Willoughby, adding: Chris got a bit of burger on his Oscar.

While the pair - who both found fame on Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks - didn't leave Los Angeles' Dolby Theatre empty-handed, they did manage to leave without a goody bag.

She added: We didn't get one - I don't know how we did this, but we left with the Oscars, and we felt in a bit of a whirlwind, met our parents, met (co-star) Maisie.

Good times: Speaking to This Morning with fiance and former Hollyoaks co-star Chris Overton just hours after her win, the actress, 30, revealed her-post ceremony revelry was spent over greasy takeaway

We went to the Governors Ball to get our Oscars engraved and we left, and it was only when we were back at the flat and we were talking to everyone we noticed we didn't get a goody bag. I actually don't know how we've done it.

Rachel made her acceptance speech in sign language after promising her six-year-old co-star Maisie Sly - who plays deaf child Libby in the film - that she would do so, and she can't wait to go home to show her family and friends the award.

She added: 'We're just dying to go home... there's loads of crew that can't be here that helped us with the movie, so it will be really nice to go home and show them. They were a huge part of why it was successful.

'We've said all along if it ends at the nomination stage we're so happy with that and then they read The Silent Child. It's just so crazy, we still can't believe it now.

'We would love to extend this story, even a feature film or a longer drama, so hopefully it will help with that because it's a pretty decent concept I'd say.'

Opening up: We did go to a party, we did a few interviews, went in, had an In-N-Out Burger and then went back to the flat, where our crew were, and had a cup of tea and a celebration with them, she told This Morning

Earlier that night Rachel dazzled as she joined Maisie and Chris at the star-studded annual event.

The talented actress, who wrote and starred in the film, looked sensational in a Suzanne Neville gown as she and Chris, who directed the flick, sweetly held hands with Silent Child star, Maisie, six on the red carpet.

Rachel, who played Mitzeee Minniver in the Channel 4 soap, wowed in her dress, which featured elegant straps around the neckline and flowed into a figure-hugging silhouette.

Stateside glory: Rachel dazzled as she joined co-star Maisie Sly and her fiance Chris at the 90th Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday

Wow factor: The talented actress, 30, who wrote and starred in the film, looked sensational in a Suzanne Neville gown as she and Chris, who directed the film, sweetly held hands with Silent Child star, Maisie, six on the red carpet

Her brunette tresses were styled in a vintage-inspired side-part while her glamorous make-up look featured smoky eyeshadow, fluttery lashes and a bold red lip.

Little Maisie, who hails from Swindon, Wiltshire and is profoundly deaf, looked adorable in a navy blue dress paired with a cute bow hairband as she held hands with Rachel and Chris.

This Morning paid for Rachel to get a bespoke Suzanne Neville dress made, with Chris proudly showing off a handstitched This Morning logo inside his suit jacket.

Talented trio: Rachel, who played Mitzeee Minniver in the Channel 4 soap, wowed in her dress, which featured elegant straps around the neckline and flowed into a figure-hugging silhouette

As she took to the stage to give her acceptance speech, Rachel signed for the hard-of-hearing audience members and for Maisie.

'I made a promise to our six-year-old lead actress that I'd sign this speech and my hands are shaking a bit so I apologize,' she told the audience.

'Our movie is about a deaf child being born into a world of silence. It's not exaggerated or sensationalized for the movie. This is happening. Millions of children from all over the world live in silence and face communication barriers and particularly barriers to education,' she continued.

'Deafness is a silent disability. You can't see it and it's not life threatening so I want to say the biggest of thank yous to the Academy for allowing us to put this in front of a mainstream audience.'

Happy days: Maisie is pictured with her parents Elizabeth and Gilson Sly before she made her red carpet appearance at the Oscars

Sweet: The little star made her big screen debut in the movie after winning the lead role

Rachel previously revealed the emotional motivation behind writing the critically acclaimed film came from her late father Geoff after he had become suddenly profoundly deaf.

She said: 'I dont class myself as a writer so I felt grossly under qualified doing this.

'I havent thought about the dress for the Oscars,' she admitted. 'I havent even got my head around the fact that I am nominated.'

Adorable: Little Maisie, who hails from Swindon, Wiltshire and is profoundly deaf, looked adorable in a navy blue dress paired with a cute bow hairband as she held hands with Rachel and Chris

Inspirational: The Silent Child tells the tale of a deaf four-year-old girl (played by Maisie) who lives in a world of silence until a social worker teaches her how to communicateWhile she wasn't nominated for an award, Lupita Nyong'o still ruled the red carpet at Sunday's Academy Awards in Hollywood.

The Black Panther beauty looked jaw-droppingly gorgeous in a one-shouldered gold Atelier Versace frock during the event held at the Dolby Theater.

The Mexican-born Kenyan talent, 35, radiated goddess-like grace as a beaded black detail traveled from her shoulder to hip while a dramatic slit climbed up her thigh to showcase her shapely legs.

Scroll down for video

Precious metal! Lupita Nyong'o looked jaw-droppingly gorgeous in a one-shouldered gold Atelier Versace frock during Sunday's Academy Awards in Hollywood

The starlet added simple black stilettos on foot and carried a geometric gold clutch in her hand.

Lupita wove a strand of gold thread through her braided updo and adorned her ears with glimmering spirals.

Dialing up the drama, she framed her eyes with smoky shadow while also flaunting sharp eyebrows and an all-around glow.

The look was created by makeup artist Nick Barose for Lancome - a brand for which Lupita serves as an ambassadress.

Christening the beauty aesthetic 'Egyptian Blue', Nick revealed that he 'wanted to keep the theme of her dress which was reminiscent of an ancient Egyptian goddess'.

'Keeping true to the Egyptians, I wanted to draw attention to the eye with accents of Egyptian blue with subtle bronze tones on cheeks and lips,' he added, explaining that he used a mix of Lancome Aquatique in Sienne and the Lancome Drama Liqui-Pencil in Bleu Magique to create the blue eye look.

Leg's get going! The Mexican-Kenyan talent's dress featured a beaded black detail which traveled from her shoulder to hip as well as a dramatic thigh-high slit

Pretty pals! The Star Wars: The Force Awakens actress teamed up with her Black Panther castmate and close friend Danai Gurira at the event

But while Lupita certainly dazzled on the carpet, she was not the only star to make a mark at the event.

Indeed, The Star Wars: The Force Awakens actress teamed up with her Black Panther castmate and close friend Danai Gurira at the awards.

There, the The Walking Dead beauty smoldered in strapless cream Gabriela Hearst silk with glam train.

She glitzed things up with a diamond choker and a shimmering silver design in her buzzed locks.

They also shared a photo with their handsome co-star Winston Duke, who paired a dapper tux with an embroidered scarf and shiny dress shoes.

She sparkles: She glitzed things up with a diamond choker and a shimmering silver design in her buzzed locks

Train in vain! There, the The Walking Dead beauty smoldered in a strapless cream look with glam train

Elsewhere fellow Black Panther talent Chadwick Boseman took a style note from his character T'Challa's native Wakanda as he charmed in a long embroidered Givenchy coat which fell to knee-length.

Daniel Kaluuya looked sharp in a camel colored velvet jacket by designer Brunello Cucinelli.

As one of the evening's nominees for Best Actor, he was facing off against Timothee Chalamet (Call Me By Your Name), Daniel Day-Lewis (Phantom Thread), Gary OIdman (Darkest Hour), and Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel, Esq.)

Guy style: Elsewhere fellow Black Panther talent Chadwick Boseman took a style note from his character T'Challa's native Wakanda as he charmed in a long embroidered coat which fell to knee-length while Daniel Kaluuya looked sharp in sepia-toned velvet

Cute cast! They also shared a photo with their handsome co-star Winston Duke, who paired a dapper tux with an embroidered scarf and shiny dress shoes

Inside the awards Lupita presented the best production Design honor with comedian and The Big Sick tar/screenwriter Kumail Nanjiani.

The Oscar went to The Shape Of Water.

Before presenting the award, the duo talked about their experience as immigrants and told DACA recipients, also known as The Dreamers, saying: 'We support you.'

Presenting the best! Inside the awards Lupita presented the best production Design honor with comedian and The Big Sick tar/screenwriter Kumail Nanjiani

Voice for change: Before presenting the award, the duo talked about their experience as immigrants and told DACA recipients, also known as The Dreamers, saying: 'We support you'

At the top of the awards host Jimmy Kimmel opening things with an uplifting monologue that mixed Harvey Weinstein punchlines with earnest comments about reforming gender equality in Hollywood.

Kimmel, returning to the scene of the famous flub, dove straight into material about last year's infamous best-picture mistake.

"I do want to mention, this year, when you hear your name called, don't get up right away," said Kimmel. "Give us a minute.

The nominations for the Oscars are led by Guillermo Del Toros The Shape Of Water, which has 13 nods, while Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan, has eight.

Meet and greet: Above Lupita's seen shaking hands with Hollywood veteran Donald SutherlandShe returned to Australia in May 2017 after almost a decade behind bars and three years on parole for attempting to smuggle drugs into Indonesia.

And Schapelle Corby looked right at home in sunny Queensland on Friday, as she enjoyed a day at the beach with family and friends.

The former beauty student, 40, flaunted her curvy figure in a low-cut swimsuit as she carried her beloved pet dog Lucille.

Scroll down for video

Freedom looks good on her! Schapelle Corby looked right at home in sunny Queensland on Friday, as she enjoyed a day at the beach with family and friends

Schapelle looked particularly busty as she showed off her hourglass frame in a plunging one-piece.

She tied a patterned sarong around her waist and appeared to be keeping a low profile in a straw hat and dark sunglasses.

The Gold Coast native looked happy and carefree as she strolled down the beach with her pint-sized puppy.

Anything to declare? Schapelle looked particularly busty as she showed off her hourglass frame in a plunging one-piece

Nice puppies! The Gold Coast native looked happy and carefree as she strolled down the beach with her pint-sized dog Lucille

Who's that girl? She tied a patterned sarong around her waist and appeared to be keeping a low profile in a straw hat and dark sunglasses

Schapelle spoke candidly about her past weight struggles in her interview with Woman's Day on Monday, admitting she was 'huge' while taking medication for mental illness.

'If I'm active I have a fit body, but if I'm not active I have the body type that gets fat overnight,' she explained.

'When I was mentally ill and on anti-psychotic (medication), I was huge,' she added.

Schapelle was accompanied at the beach by her half-sister Meleane Kisina and a small group of family and friends.

Brave: Schapelle spoke candidly about her past weight struggles in her interview with Woman's Day on Monday, admitting she was 'huge' while taking medication for mental illness

Body type: 'If I'm active I have a fit body, but if I'm not active I have the body type that gets fat overnight,' Schapelle told Woman's Day in her first interview since returning to Australia

Loyal family: Schapelle was accompanied at the beach by her half-sister Meleane Kisina (right) and a small group of family and friends

Schapelle was convicted in May 2005 for importing of 4.1kg of marijuana into Bali and was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Denpasar District Court.

In March 2010, she petitioned Indonesia's President for clemency on the grounds of mental illness, and in May 2012 she was granted a five-year sentence reduction.

In February 2014, she was released on parole after serving nine years in prison. She left Bali in May last year and returned home to Australia for the first time in 12 years.

Ordeal: Schapelle was convicted in May 2005 for importing of 4.1kg of marijuana into Bali and was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the Denpasar District CourtThey've been going strong for two years now.

And Sarah Paulson and her girlfriend Holland Taylor looked every inch the happy couple as they held hands at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Beverly Hills on Sunday.

Sarah, 43, and Holland, 75, could not stop smiling as they enjoyed a date night on one of Hollywood's biggest evenings.

Scroll down for video

Hello sunshine! Sarah Paulson and her girlfriend Holland Taylor looked every inch the happy couple as they held hands at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in Los Angeles on Sunday

Though Holland cut an effortlessly chic figure in her sophisticated all-black look, her girlfriend nearly stole the show in her bold and bright canary yellow dress.

Sarah brought the razzle dazzle in her floor length number that was adorned with playful trinkets, a vibrant flower on her shoulder, and long black gloves.

She added another pop of color with her bold red lipstick.

Holland looked stunning as well in her sleek look that highlighted her toned torso and was glammed up with her heels and clutch.

Lean on me! The actress and her girlfriend had some fun goofing around on the red carpet

Mellow yellow! Though Holland cut an effortlessly chic figure in her sophisticated all-black look, her girlfriend nearly stole the show in her bold and bright canary yellow dress

Date night! The ladies truly looked over the moon not only to be attending one of the biggest parties of the evening, but also to be spending time with each other

Happy couple: The pair looked close as they posed for photos on the red carpet after making an entrance at the event

Tactile: Sarah held Holland's hand as they made their way into the Wallis Annenberg Centre for the Performing Arts

Her light blonde hair was styled into a sleek and chic bob.

The ladies truly looked over the moon not only to be attending one of the biggest parties of the evening, but also to be spending time with each other.

Sarah and Holland have been dating for two years now and clearly couldn't be happier.

Earlier this year Sarah opened up about her 'brave' two-year relationship with Holland in a cover feature for the February 2018 issue of Town & Country magazine, shot by Victor Demarchelier.

Long term: Sarah and Holland have been dating for two years

Candid: Earlier this year Sarah opened up about her 'brave' two-year relationship with Holland in a cover feature for the February 2018 issue of Town & Country magazine

Say cheese: The couple were joined by guests including Dame Joan Collins

Star power! Sarah made time to pose up with Amy Adams

The American Horror Story star explained the couple's union 'represents hope and risk', as she detailed her fears about starting a family and being too 'selfish' to ever be a mother.

'I do not want to be defined by who I share my bed, my home, my soul with,' she said. 'My choices in life have been unconventional, and that's my business.

'But I do want to live responsibly and truthfully without hiding. Its complicated, because there is a lot of hate in this world, and a lot of good can come from quote-unquote normalizing something for people who dont see it as normal.

'Our relationship represents a certain amount of hope and risk. Maybe theres something brave in it. Maybe it encourages others to make brave choices. What else can I say? We love each other.'

In good company: Sarah was also joined by fellow actress Tracee Ellis Ross, the daughter of Motown legend Diana RossThey're the latest batch of reality stars who have found fame by marrying strangers.

And while the Married At First Sight social experiment continues to play out, on Monday some of the grooms were seen out solo as they enjoyed the perks of their new stardom.

Attending Nine's 90th Academy Awards Industry Lunch at The Hilton in Sydney, Troy Delmege, Ryan Gallagher and Patrick Miller were all spotted together.

Single and ready to mingle? Married At First Sight grooms Troy Delmege and Ryan Gallagher step out SOLO at Nine's 90th Academy Awards lunch

Opting for a light grey suit, Troy was all smiles as he graced the media wall without his 'TV wife' Ashley Irvine by his side.

Dressing down slightly, he kept his top buttons open and chose to avoid both a tie or bow-tie.

He completed his look with black shoes and a matching coloured belt.

Where's your wife? Opting for a light grey suit, Troy was all smiles as he graced the media wall without his 'TV wife' Ashley Irvine by his side

Enjoying his new status: Meanwhile, single Tradie Ryan also appeared at the event following his split with Davina Rankin

With wife Ashley not in attendance, it's unclear whether or not she approved of Troy's side-swept do.

Meanwhile, single Tradie Ryan also appeared at the event following his split with Davina Rankin.

Covering his various tattoos, he looked dapper in his black suit.

That's a different look! Covering his various tattoos, he looked dapper in his black suit

Husband and wife! While Ryan and Troy posed together, Patrick was however photographed alongside his lady-love Charlene Perera

Buttoning up the top button, he completed his ensemble with a bow-tie.

The Maroubra Beach native also styled up his hair to ensure it remained of his face.

While Ryan and Troy posed together, Patrick was however photographed alongside his lady-love Charlene Perera.

Hollywood glam! Charlene also stunned in black, dazzling in a floor-length number that drew attention to her ample cleavage

Lady in red! And while the boys, besides Patrick, were there without their wives, Gab Barlett also made heads turn in red as she too appeared solo without husband Nasser Sultan

Matching with his wife, Patrick donned a black velvet suit jacket and tan shoes.

Charlene also stunned in black, dazzling in a floor-length number that drew attention to her ample cleavage.

Her makeup was kept incredibly luminous and was complete with a red lip.

And while the boys, besides Patrick, were there without their wives, Gab Barlett also made heads turn in red as she too appeared solo without husband Nasser Sultan.

With gal pal Charlene there to keep her company, no-one was left out as the brood lunched together.Kim Kardashian introduced her pregnancy surrogate to her family during Sunday's season finale of Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

'This has been such a long journey for us and something I have wanted for so long,' Kim, 37, told the cameras before introducing the surrogate to the family.

The surrogate revealed that she liked being pregnant and that the 'baby looked fantastic' and that everything was going smooth.

Season finale: Kim Kardashian introduced her pregnancy surrogate to her family during Sunday's season finale of Keeping Up With The Kardashians

She met with pregnant Khloe and Kylie and discussed with the family how she felt being pregnant with Kim's baby.

The surrogate told them she was happy that she could help Kim and her husband Kanye West achieve their dream of another child.

'This experience going into it I did not know what to expect. It was definitely not as easy as I thought it would be emotionally, but it is so worth it and our surrogate is such a nice person, my family loves her and I am so grateful,' said Kim.

'I am so glad that we are all doing this together, my family and my kids mean everything to me,' she added.

Expectant: Pregnant sisters Kylie Jenner and Khloe Kardashian bonded with Kim's surrogate

Family meeting: Kris Jenner, Kylie, Kendall Jenner and Khloe met Kim's surrogate

Khloe also told the cameras that her life would never be the same.

'I have been waiting for this for so long and it is finally happening and I am so excited for what the next six months will bring,' she said.

Kourtney admitted she did not know what the next year held for 'which is kind of scary' as she continued her 'journey' of self discovery.

New chapter: Khloe was excited about her future and becoming a mother as season 14 ended

'So much happens within our family you never know what will happen next and I feel like next year is going to be really good,' she said.

Khloe Kardashian during the one-hour episode also learned the gender of her first baby with boyfriend Tristan Thompson.

She got the news from sister Kylie who called her over the phone to give her the results from her doctor as she took a trip with Kim and Kourtney to San Francisco.

Gender reveal: The gender reveal came from Kylie who got the results from Khloe's doctor

Girl power: Kourtney was excited to learn that Khloe was having a baby girl

But the news stunned Khloe who did not even try to hide her disappointment.

'Shut up, you're lying,' a surprised Khloe told her.

'Why would I lie about this? I am so excited,' Kylie told her.

Openly disappointed: Khloe could not hide her disappointment after believing she was going to have a boy

But Khloe was completely underwhelmed by the news.

'I don't feel like I am having a girl at all. I am in a state of shock,' she said as she pulled a face.

'When you have your mind made up as to what you are having, and everyone told me that I would know what I was having, and then find out it is the complete opposite it is just a shock,' Khloe told the cameras.

Mind made: The 33-year-old reality star said she had her mind made up that she was having a boy

'I was convinced I was having a boy, so to be having a girl, it is like OK that is not what I thought was going on.'

Khloe then called her mom and broke the news to her.

'I am really hoping Kylie is going to say she is lying and that I am really having a boy,' she told Kris.

Mother and daughter: Khloe broke the news to her mother who revealed she was also hoping for boys each time she had three girls

Her mom told her she had wanted a boy every time she was pregnant with girls, which did not encourage her daughter.

Kris then told Khloe that her daughter would be the love of dad Tristan's life.

'Well then I am going to get jealous, I am jealous,' Khloe admitted.

Getting jealous: The reality star joked about being jealous of a baby girl

'You probably will,' Kris told her.

'Well then I don't like that, I don't like her,' Khloe told her.

'Don't be a b****,' her mom told her sharply.

The show started with Kim complaining that a magazine was about to publish a picture of her 'amazing' baby surrogate and talking through logistics.

'It has been such a crazy year but our surrogate has been amazing,' said Kim as she complained about media leaks.

Crazy year: The one-hour episode opened with Kim worrying about the identity of her surrogate in the media

Kim told the cameras that the surrogate was also having placenta issues to deal with before the baby was born.

'It just feels weird that my family has no idea what my experience has been like, ' said Kim.

The sisters then drove into Los Angeles and Khloe poked fun at Kourtney speaking on the phone to boyfriend, Younes Bendjima.

Driving together: Khloe poked fun at Kourtney for speaking sweetly to her boyfriend Younes Bendjima on the phone

'You are so nice to him and you are like the biggest bitch to us,' said Khloe as she mocked her sister.

Kim told the girls over dinner how Jennifer Lawrence had been texting her and the sisters got pumped up for their pre-baby trip to San Francisco.

At Khloe's house she discussed with Kim working out while pregnant, and Kim warned her she would eventually give it up.

Pregnancy tips: Khloe warned Khloe that she would eventually give up working out while pregnant

Khloe then told them she was planning on having the baby in Cleveland and not in Los Angeles.

Kim and Kourtney visited a baby supply store to buy items for Kim's new baby.

But Kim told the cameras that with her third child being carried by a surrogate she felt differently than in her previous pregnancies and found 'it harder for me to get into it.'

Shopping trip: Kim and Kourtney visited a baby supply store to get items for Kim's new baby

The sisters then boarded a private jet for their San Francisco trip.

Kourtney told them that she had 'loved' her therapy session and now felt it was inappropriate for Scott Disick to be in her bedroom and closet.

'I want Scott to see the kids but I feel that he has been coming over unannounced and there needs to be some sort of boundaries and I have to figure out a way to talk to him about this kind of stuff,' said Kourtney.

Boundary setting: Kourtney was considering implementing boundaries for ex Scott Disick

Candid conversation: Scott and Kourtney talked about him walking around her house like he still lives there

Later, Khloe and Kim were forced to wait to go out by tardy Kourtney.

'I am being serious you need to figure out your life. You are always like this and we are just waiting and waiting for you,' grumbled Khloe.

'I don't have time to wait for you, I don't want to go on trips with you if this is how you are every f***ing time. You don't care how selfish that is?,' Khloe said.

Fed up: Khloe was getting fed up with Kourtney being tardy all the time

Over dinner Khloe asked Kim what she felt the new baby's personality would be like after a surrogate.

'I know Kim is not having a baby in the traditional way but I hope she will start to open up a bit more about the process,' Khloe told the cameras.

'I am super excited for her and I want her to be excited about it and I think the more she talks about it the more excited she will get,' Khloe added.

Baby talk: The sisters talked about babies over dinner together

Back at the hotel Khloe again complained about Kourtney's time-keeping as the girls headed out for a private boat trip to Alcatraz.

Tensions again ran high over Kourtney's phone habits.

'She is never present, she is literally always on the phone. She can't even live in the moment as she has whatever drama is going on, I assume it is Scott and Younes. She really needs to figure out what these boundaries are as it is getting messy and annoying and it is taking away time from our sister time,' Kim complained to the cameras.

Never present: Kourtney was criticized by her sisters for never being present with them

'You are like a waste of space. You are annoying as f*** now, this is what you do, you are on your phone the whole time and just not present,' Khloe told her.

'I am not doing this today as I am the one who looks crazy trying to get you guys to have fun. I'm not going to look crazy,' Khloe said.

The pair then traded mock insults with Kourtney calling her sister a f***ing whore.'

Insults hurled: Khloe hurled insults at Kourtney who fired back at her with taunts of her own

The sisters then toured Alcatraz as the squabbling continued.

'I feel I have been distracted by this boundary issue with Scott and maybe I just need to deal with this when I get back to LA, so from now on I am going to be totally present in this trip and have an amazing time with my sisters,' admitted Kourtney.

When they were shown Al Capone's cell, Khloe asked Kourtney if she even knew who he was.

'Yeah, I do, you f***ing whore. Guess what, I've seen Scarface,' she joked back.

Common knowledge: Kourtney told Khloe that she knew who Al Capone was

Over Chinese food Kourtney used a ring and a piece of hair to try and work out the sex of Khloe's baby and first predicted a girl for her before changing to a boy.

When it came to Kim, she confidently predicted a girl for her and when they did it for Kourtney they predicted she was done having children.

Back in Los Angeles, Kourtney sat down with Scott to discuss and set new boundaries between them.

Child games: It was predicted that Kourtney would not have additional children

Kourtney admitted she was nervous to have the conversation and worried how Scott may react.

She then told him that because it used to be his house he walked around like it still was.

'It has to make sense for my relationship too,' she told him as she recalled him going to look for sunglasses in her bedroom.

New rules: Scott was open to working with Kourtney on setting new boundaries

He told her had been looking for his sunglasses but that he understood the need for boundaries.

'There are obviously boundaries that we need to respect and I don't want you to be uncomfortable,' he told her as Kourtney assured him she did not feel uncomfortable.

'Next time I will go up there naked,' laughed Scott.

'Great, I will call the police,' Kourtney shot back.

Scott said he understood while also revealing he no longer wanted to hug her.

No hugs: The father of three revealed that he no longer wanted to hug his ex Kourtney

Later, Kim asked Khloe about how Tristan reacted to the news of a baby girl.

Khloe told her that she had decorated their bedroom room with pink balloons and flowers and that he had been thrilled about it.

Khloe told Kim that she now 'felt so bad' about how she had reacted to the news in San Francisco.

Felt bad: Khloe told Kim that she felt bad about her initial reaction to being pregnant with a girl

'It's just how I felt. I am getting more excited,' she admitted over the phone to Kim.

'I was looking at nurseries for boys. You just need a day or two to let it sink in and then you get over it and girls stuff is so much cuter anyways,' she said.

Kourtney then threw a party for her Pretty Little Thing collection where she was surprised by Younex and kissed him publicly for the cameras.

The episode wrapped season 14 of the E! show that premiered on October 1, 2017.

Party host: Kourtney hosted a party to celebrate her Pretty Little Thing collectionShe'll be playing the magical nanny Mary Poppins as she returns to help the Banks family in the upcoming sequel.

And Emily Blunt looked simply spellbinding as she hit the red carpet for the 90th Academy Awards in Hollywood on Sunday.

The actress, 35, looked simply stunning in the floorlength dress with white lace accents.

Scroll down for video

Magical! Emily Blunt looked simply spellbinding as she hit the red carpet for the 90th Academy Awards in Hollywood on Sunday

She had her blonde locks scraped back into a chic style and rocked a pair of chandelier style earrings and carried a white clutch.

The Devil Wears Prada actress was perfectly made up with smoky eye shadow, peach blush, and pink lipstick.

Emily looked every inch the fashionista as she posed up a storm at the celeb packed event.

But the evening was also big one for Emily for another reason.

Simply stunning: The Devil Wears Prada actress was perfectly made up with smoky eye shadow, peach blush, and pink lipstick

Ruling the red carpet: Blunt's stunning dress trailer on the carpet

Fans were given their very first look of her in Mary Poppins Returns, following the release of the film's teaser trailer during the 90th Academy Awards on Sunday evening.

The film is set years after the original Mary Poppins film, and the trailer begins on a windy day in London as Georgie Banks (played by Joel Dawson) cheerfully chases after his kite.

He's helped out by Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda), who helps pull his kite in after it's blown high into the sky.

She's back! Blunt transformed into the magical nanny for the upcoming movie Mary Poppins Returns

Up, up, and away! Mary Poppins descended from the sky with the help of a kite

However their faces drop after they realize none other than Mary Poppins is attached to the kite.

Mary reunites with the siblings she once watched over, Michael and Jane Banks, who are now fully grown.

'Mary Poppins!' exclaims Michael (played by Ben Whishaw) and his sister (Emily Mortimer).

Child's play: The film is set ten years after the original Mary Poppins film, and the trailer begins on a windy day in London as Georgie Banks (played by Joel Dawson) cheerfully chases after his kite

Helping out: Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda), helps Georgia pull his kite in after it's blown high into the sky

What's in the sky!? Their faces fall when they see a woman attached to the kite

'It is wonderful to see you,' Michael says as Jane gazes in awe at Mary.

'Yes it is, isn't it?' Mary replies, admiring her reflection in the mirror.

Though she walks away, Mary's reflection remains in the mirror, keeping a careful eye on her surroundings.

The upcoming film will follow Mary as she returns to help the Banks rediscover joy after the family suffer from a personal loss.

Mary Poppins Returns will premiere in the U.S. on Christmas Day 2018.

Can't believe their eyes: Mary reunites with the siblings she once watched over, Michael and Jane Banks, who are now fully grownHe was the heartbroken Bachelor who was won over by Bondi beauty Laura Byrne last year.

But Matty J was flanked by two other ladies during a work event on Monday.

The 30-year-old attended the launch of Logies voting, held at Burleigh Heads in Queensland.

What would Laura say? Matty J cuts a dapper figure in a tuxedo as two glamorous women cling to the former Bachelor at the TV Week Logies voting launch

Looking suave! The reality star cut a handsome figure in a blue velvet tuxedo jacket that showcased his broad and muscular shoulders, teamed with trousers

The reality star cut a handsome figure in a blue velvet tuxedo jacket that showcased his broad and muscular shoulders, teamed with trousers.

While the reality star turned Living Room presenter brought dapper to the seaside event, actress Jenni Baird brought the glam.

The blonde beauty, who stars in Foxtel drama A Place To Call Home, wrapped her arm around Matty J in a friendly manner.

Glammed up: Meanwhile Neighbour starlet Scarlet Vas (right) flanked Matty's other side posing in a muted pink lace, off-the-shoulder lace dress

Dressed in a polka dot ruffle frock, she looked elegant in the gown.

Meanwhile, Neighbour starlet Scarlet Vas flanked Matty's other side, posing in a muted pink lace, off-the-shoulder lace dress.

Her frock featured thigh high split that allowed her to show off her strappy heels.

Glam: Channel Nine Journalist Leila McKinnon was also all smiles at the event, flaunting her slender physique in a shimmery dark purple dress

Glow: The reporter also added a hint of shimmer to her makeup with glowy highlights on her the high points of her cheeks

But later at the event she took off her stilettos to slip into a pair of comfy sneakers.

Channel Nine journalist Leila McKinnon was also all smiles at the event, flaunting her slender physique in a shimmery dark purple dress.

The reporter also added a hint of shimmer to her makeup with highlights on her the high points of her cheeks.

Former Bachelor star turned breakfast radio personality Heather Maltman hosted the show and went for a very under-dressed ensemble for the event.

From reality to radio: Former Bachelor star turned breakfast radio personality Heather Maltman hosted the show and went for a very under-dressed ensemble for the event

Dressed for radio: The 31-year-old reality TV starlet dressed in a beige tank top, denim daisy dukes and flip flops

The 31-year-old reality TV starlet dressed in a beige tank top, denim daisy dukes and flip flops.

Meanwhile Wentworth actress Kate Jenkinson stunned everyone in an extravagantly elegant gown with sparkles and plunging neckline.

The 36-year-old had dramatic and bold eye makeup with defined eyes and lashings of mascara to contrast her lightly flushed cheeks and nude pink lips.

House Rules winners Aaron and Danielle Winter were the event's golden couple.

Red carpet ready: Meanwhile Wentworth actress Kate Jenkinson stunned everyone in an extravagantly elegant gown with sparkles and plunging neckline

Bold: The 36-year-old had dramatic and bold eye makeup with defined eyes and lashings of mascara to contrast her lightly flushed cheeks and nude pink lips

Loved up: House Rules winners Aaron cut a strapping figure in his blue suit and tie ensemble, while his wife Danielle was a vision in white lace in a shoulder-less crop top and matching maxi skirt

He was all smiles in a blue suit and tie ensemble while his wife was a vision in white lace in a shoulder-less crop top and matching maxi skirt.

TV host and former pro-surfer Liz Cantor also attended the event looking fabulous in a fuchsia frock.

Fab in fuchsia: TV host and former pro-surfer Liz Cantor also attended the event looking fabulous in a fuchsia frock

Retired NRL star Ben Hannant stripped bravely stripped down to a pair of sequined trunks as the party's human Logie award.

The former Cowboys star proudly showed off his body as the posing on a brick platform for everyone to see.She's competing for the reality show's major prize with her high school friend Suong.

And My Kitchen Rules star Kim has revealed the reason behind her shock absence from the cooking show on Monday's episode.

The 38-year-old spoke with New Idea about the heartbreaking personal tragedy that lead her to temporarily leave the popular television series.

Scroll down for video

My Kitchen Rules star Kim has revealed the reason behind her shock absence from the cooking show on Monday's episode

During filming Kim received a 'devastating' call from her mother about her terminally ill sister, Lan, with doctors advising the family they should say their final goodbyes.

'I had to leave MKR. I had to go, I couldnt live with myself if I didnt see Lan,' she told the magazine.

'If she passed away and I hadnt said goodbye, then I wouldve lived with that guilt for the rest of my life. I wouldnt wish that situation on anyone,' she continued.

'I had to leave MKR. I had to go, I couldnt live with myself if I didnt see Lan,' she told the magazine

Kim's sister Lan was diagnosed with inoperable brain and lung cancer in 2009.

Kim explained how prior to the show, Lan's tumour in her lung 'had gone down in size' but while taping the show her brain tumour had 'basically grown overnight'.

My mum said, "This is your dream to be on MKR, your big opportunity, but the guilt was too much, she reflected.

My mum said, "This is your dream to be on MKR, your big opportunity, but the guilt was too much, she reflected

The Melbourne-based mother said she also felt bad leaving her partner Suong, fearing the show's producers wouldn't let her continue to compete on the show.

After series executives relieved her worries and found a way for Suong to stay on during her absence, a 'grateful' Kim went home to spend time with her sister.

After a four-day vigil with Lan who is now 'living day by day', Kim returned to the show and is again competing for this season's title with partner Suong.She's one of Australia's most praised journalists and familiar television faces.

And Leila McKinnon dazzled in a daring velour dress when she showed face at the TV Week Logies promotion event in Queensland on Monday.

Looking good in a sparkling sun-reflective fabric in a deep purple hue, the 45-year-old opted for a flared long-sleeve and mini-length conservative number for the occasion.

Golden girl! Nine newsreader Leila McKinnon dazzles in a daring velour dress and sparkly gold heels at the TV Week Logies event in Queensland

Leaving her sun-kissed blonde locks down, the Channel Nine newsreader kept her hair authentically signature, opting for straight strands with a slight right part.

As to not overpower her already bold dress, Leila kept her accessories to a bare minimum, showcasing nothing more than her wedding ring.

Adding a pop metallic to her toes, the former Weekend Today co-host slipped on a pair of pointed gold shoes, perfectly complementing the overall look.

Gorgeous: Looking good in a sparkling sun-reflective fabric in a deep purple hue, the 45-year-old opted for a flared long-sleeve and mini-length conservative number for the occasion

Keeping in line with her overall aesthetic, the blonde beauty kept her eyes as the focus of her makeup.

Applying a dark and sultry smokey eye, her look was made joyful with a touch of glitter swept in the corners of her eyes.

Keeping the rest of her makeup minimalist, Leila added subtle pinches of pink to both her cheek and lip area.

Letting her dress do the talking: As to not overpower her already bold dress, Leila kept her accessories to a bare minimum, showcasing nothing more than her wedding ringShe was excited to be in town for the Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras over the weekend.

And on Saturday, Tziporah Malkah was spotted in the crowd on Oxford Street to watch the parade, surrounded by party goers.

The former fiancee of James Packer appeared flustered at times as she consistently checked her iPhone.

Everything alright? Tziporah Malkah appears flustered in the crowd at Sydney's Mardi Gras parade

Clutching on to the device, the I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! star appeared to need a bit of air from crowd.

Taking some time out, she appeared to relax after she walked to a less crowded area and started texting a friend on her phone.

The brunette, who has long been an advocate for LGBTI+ people, seemed excited to be celebrating the 40th anniversary of the event.

Flustered? Clutching on to her iPhone, the former 'I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! camp mate appeared to need a bit of air from crowd

Earlier, she had posted a number of snaps to her Instagram account with Sydney socialite Christa Billich, and a number for the parade.

For the event, the former reality star opted for a loose-fitting floral top and a black miniskirt.

Her sighting comes after a tumultuous start to the year.

Tziporah appeared in court last month after an incident with South Australian police left her with bruised arms.

Police were called during an altercation she had with ex-partner Guy Vasey.

Tough times: Tziporah has had a rough start to the year, after she had to face charges in South Australia for a domestic incident with ex-partner Guy Vasey

Lending her support: The ex-fiancee of James Packer has been a vocal advocate of LGBT+ people over the years

The 44-year-old told reporters she refuses to be 'bullied' as she faced charges at Victor Harbor Magistrates Court, south of Adelaide.

'What I can say is that I'm a woman who stands up for herself these days,' she said outside court. 'I've been bullied a lot.'

'Instead, I'm a woman who chooses to fight back. I don't deny fighting for myself, and I don't deny standing up for myself.'

Party time: For the event, the former reality star opted for a loose-fitting floral top and a black miniskirt

Bit of time to yourself? Her sighting comes after a tumultuous start to the year. Tziporah appeared in court last month after an incident with South Australian police left her with bruised arms

At the time, the former model had yet to plead to one basic count of assault and one count of resisting police.

This comes after her NSW Liberal MP mother Pru Goward recently revealed she hopes her daughter can get her life on track.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph's Miranda Live radio show the Member for Goulburn said: 'I love my daughter and I want her to have as happy a chance in life as she can.'

But when asked about how Tziporah was holding up after the recent arrest, she responded: 'I'm not going to answer that question.'Advertisement

Frances McDormand capped an awards season of accolades with a rousing speech about diversity as she accepted an Oscar for best actress on Sunday night.

The 60-year-old called for more funding for female driven films in Hollywood as she asked all her fellow women who were nominated in all categories to stand with her in solidarity at the Dolby Theatre for the 90th Academy Awards.

'I want to get some perspective,' she declared. 'If I may be so honored as to have all the female nominees nominated in every category stand with me in this room tonight.'

Scroll for video

Winner: Frances McDormand capped an awards season of accolades with the biggest one of all: an Oscar for best actress on Sunday night at the 90th Academy Awards

Frances then asked all the female nominees of the night to stand with her in solidarity; She went on to add humorously, 'Meryl, if you do, everyone else will'

She went on to add humorously, 'Meryl, if you do, everyone else will.'

All the female nominees got to their feet at various points around the room, as the audience broke into a round of applause.

All the Best Actress nominees - Margot Robbie (I, Tonya), Sally Hawkins (The Shape Of Water), Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird) and Streep (The Post) - embraced warmly as they all stood up at winner McDormand's request.

'Look around ladies and gentlemen,' McDormand said powerfully after Meryl Streep helped inspire her fellow female nominees by standing up, 'because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed.'

'Don't talk to us about it at the parties, invite us into your office in a couple days or you can come to ours, whichever suits you best, and we will tell you all about them.'

McDormand closed with a message clearly directed to industry insiders, 'I have two words to leave with you tonight: inclusion rider.'

An inclusion rider is a contractual clause requiring racial and gender diversity when hiring at workplaces. It is popular among those who believe there should be required diversity on film sets.

Sisterhood: All four Best Actress nominees (L-R) Sally Hawkins, Saoirse Ronan, Meryl Streep and Margot Robbie embraced as Frances urged them to get to their feet with her rousing speech

Doing her bidding: Meryl Streep, who was also nominated, looked bewildered as she got to her feet after McDormand's command

Not bitter: Saoirse Ronan, who was also nominated for the role in Lady Bird got up and clapped after the rousing speech

Tearful: Alison Janney and Margot Robbie, (also nominated, left) got up and looked emotional

Cream of the crop: Oldman posed with (L-R) Best Supporting Actor Sam Rockwell, Best Actress Frances McDormand and Best Supporting Actress Allison Janney in the press room

She's ready: The 21-time nominee got to her feet and helped rouse everyone to attention

The phrase was coined by Dr Stacy Smith of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative of Californian university USC Annenberg in a 2016 TED talk she gave titled 'The data behind Hollywood's sexism'.

Between 2007 and 2015, Dr Smith said she analysed more than 800 films and catalogued every speaking character by their gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and disabilities.

'We actually have the ability to change the world on this one,' she said. 'The US and its content, films in particular, have captured the imaginations of audiences worldwide.

So many stars: Meryl and her husband were front and center at the Oscars

So much expression: Stone made a crazy face as she sat next to Jennifer Lawrence; Sandra Bullock was with her veteran publicist Cheryl Maisel instead of beau Bryan Randall

'So that means that the film industry has unprecedented access to be able to distribute stories about equality all around the world.'

After sweeping trophies at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, Independent Spirit and BAFTA ceremonies, McDormand won for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri she now took home the biggest one of all.

In the film, she played Mildred Hayes, a hardened woman seeking justice for her daughter's murder in the crime drama.

McDormand, 60, rarely does anything A-list actresses are known to do: wear designer gowns, walk red carpets or politic during awards season and yet she collected all the biggest trophies this season.

Best Actress winner Frances McDormand rallies the crowd. Presented by @ATT. #Oscars pic.twitter.com/6loAtYheKZ  The Academy (@TheAcademy) March 5, 2018

Rousing message: Women got up out of their seats to join Frances as she told executives and producers to start financing films written and produced by women

Standing up: Laurie Metcalf stood up after losing out on Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Lady Bird

'Look around ladies and gentlemen,' McDormand said powerfully, 'because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed'

Heartfelt: The actress was genuine and unfiltered in her speech

Stand up! Dozens of women got to their feet during the speech

'I'm hyperventilating a little bit,' McDormand said getting onstage after her name was announced. 'If I fall over, pick me up because I've got some things to say.'

McDormand closed with a message clearly directed to industry insiders, 'I have two words to leave with you tonight: inclusion rider.'

Sisterhood: Janney congratulated McDormand after her powerful speech

'I'm hyperventilating a little bit,' McDormand said when she first got onstage after her name was announced. 'If I fall over, pick me up because I've got some things to say.'

'I think is what Chloe Kim must have felt like after doing back-to-back 1080s in the Olympic half-pipe,' the actress joked.

She went on to thank her sister, her husband Joel Coen and his brother Ethan while also sending gratitude to her director Martin McDonagh.

'I want to thank Martin McDonagh, look what you did. We are a bunch of hooligans and anarchists but we do clean up nice. I want to thank every single person in this building.'

'And my sister Dorothy. I love you, Dot. And I especially want to thank my clan, Joel and Pedro 'McCoen.' These two stalwart individuals were well-raised by their feminist mother.

'They value themselves, each other and those around them. I know you are proud of me and that fills me with everlasting joy.'

Hugging it out: Saoirse Ronan hugged Robbie as Meryl chatted with other actresses

McDormand bested Margot Robbie of I, Tonya, Saoirse Ronan of Lady Bird, Sally Hawkins of The Shape of Water, and 21-time nominee Streep of The Post.

It was the second Oscar win for McDormand. Her first came in 1997 for Fargo, directed by her husband Joel Coen and his brother Ethan.

At a time when feminist campaigns like Me Too and Time's Up are dominating the conversation around Hollywood, McDormand left no question about the direction she wants to see her industry take.

Less than a third of all speaking roles are given to girls or women, Dr Stacy Smith said, despite women making up half of the population. When it came to other demographics, the numbers were even more unbalanced.

'Across the top 100 films of just last year, 48 films didn't feature one black or African-American speaking character, not one,' she explained.

'Seventy films were devoid of Asian or Asian-American speaking characters that were girls or women.'

What a gent! Oldman helped fix Janney's dress as they prepared to pose with their awards

Jokester: Frances posed with her Oscar upside down as she played around with Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence who presented her with the award

What is an 'Inclusion Rider'? Frances McDormand's Oscars Speech Explained Best Actress winner Frances McDormand brought her rousing Oscars speech about diversity on Sunday night to a close with two words: 'inclusion rider'. The term puzzled many viewers as the now two-time Academy Award winner left the stage after uttering the phrase without explanation. An inclusion rider is a contractual clause requiring racial and gender diversity when hiring at workplaces. It is popular among those who believe there should be required diversity on film sets. The phrase was coined by Dr Stacy Smith of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative of Californian university USC Annenberg in a 2016 TED talk she gave titled 'The data behind Hollywood's sexism'. Between 2007 and 2015, Dr Smith said she analysed more than 800 films and catalogued every speaking character by their gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and disabilities. Less than a third of all speaking roles are given to girls or women, she said, despite women making up half of the population. When it came to other demographics, the numbers were even more unbalanced. 'Across the top 100 films of just last year, 48 films didn't feature one black or African-American speaking character, not one,' she said. 'Seventy films were devoid of Asian or Asian-American speaking characters that were girls or women.' The lack of representation among women and minorities amounted to 'erasure', she continued, in which women are overly sexualised. So she suggested a number of solutions to address the imbalance, including for the most in-demand female stars of the day to demand the realistic representation of women and minorities in their contracts. 'A-listers, as we all know, can make demands in their contracts, particularly the ones that work on the biggest Hollywood films. What if those A-listers simply added an equity clause or an inclusion rider into their contract?' In an ideal world the clause would mean speaking roles in the film would reflect the demographics of the region where the film was set, giving a realistic representation of the world. 'We actually have the ability to change the world on this one,' she said. 'The US and its content, films in particular, have captured the imaginations of audiences worldwide. 'So that means that the film industry has unprecedented access to be able to distribute stories about equality all around the world.' At a time when feminist campaigns like Me Too and Time's Up are dominating the conversation around Hollywood, McDormand left no question about the direction she wants to see her industry take. The call for more diversity came after McDormand asked all her fellow women who were nominated in all categories to stand with her in solidarity at the Dolby Theatre for the 90th Academy Awards. She then delivered a speech calling for more films written, directed, and produced by women to be financed in Hollywood. Advertisement

The lack of representation among women and minorities amounted to 'erasure', she continued, in which women are overly sexualised.

So she suggested a number of solutions to address the imbalance, including for the most in-demand female stars of the day to demand the realistic representation of women and minorities in their contracts.

'A-listers, as we all know, can make demands in their contracts, particularly the ones that work on the biggest Hollywood films. What if those A-listers simply added an equity clause or an inclusion rider into their contract?'

'In an ideal world the clause would mean speaking roles in the film would reflect the demographics of the region where the film was set, giving a realistic representation of the world.'

Comedian and writer Whitney Cummings tweeted an explanation immediately afterwards on Sunday night, 'an inclusion rider is something actors put into their contracts to ensure gender and racial equality in hiring on movie sets. We should support this for a billion reasons, but if you can't find a reason to, here's one: it will make movies better.'

Already on their feet: The winner was applauded with a standing ovationShe's married to one of Hollywood's finest stars, actor Channing Tatum.

But Jenna Dewan Tatum held her own on Sunday night, heating up the Vanity Fair Oscar party red carpet in Beverly Hills in a red gown that showed plenty of the mother-of-one's skin.

The 37-year-old actress/dancer's toned limbs were on full display in the garment.

Scroll down for video

Skin to spare: Jenna Dewan Tatum heated up the Vanity Fair Oscar party red carpet in Beverly Hills in a red gown that showed plenty of the mother-of-one's skin

The Step Up actress' wine colored gown featured a high split and a low neckline that showed plenty of her cleavage.

Jenna added inches to her petite 5'3" frame with a pair of towering gold heels.

The Witches Of East End actress perfectly matched her lipstick to her gown and completed the look with a razor sharp bob.

Eye-popping: The Step Up actress' wine colored gown featured a high split and a low neckline that showed plenty of her cleavage

Legs for miles: The 37-year-old actress/dancer's toned pins were on full display in the garment

Well heeled: Jenna added inches to her petite 5'3" frame with a pair of towering gold heels

The brunette beauty was joined on the red carpet by Entourage actress Emmanuelle Chriqui.

The 42-year-old flaunted her incredible physique in a yellow corset with a peach tulle skirt.

The Canadian actress kept her makeup simple for the red carpet jaunt, pairing minimal blush with a slash of soft pink lip liner.

Brunette beauties: The Witches Of East End actress perfectly matched her lipstick to her gown and completed the look with a razor sharp bob

Her Entourage: The brunette beauty was joined on the red carpet by actress Emmanuelle Chriqui

Peachy: The 42-year-old flaunted her incredible physique in a yellow corset with a peach tulle skirt

Jenna met her now-husband, 21 Jump Street actor Channing, on the set of their film Step Up in 2006. They began dating shortly after filming for the movie wrapped and became engaged in Maui September 2008.

They got married on July 11, 2009, at Church Estates Vineyards in Malibu, California.

Dewan gave birth to their only daughter, Everly, a few years later in London during May 2013.

Back to basics: The Canadian actress kept her makeup simple for the red carpet jaunt, pairing minimal blush with a slash of soft pink lip linerTeresa Palmer and her actor-director husband, Mark Webber welcomed their first son, Bodhi Rain Palmer into the world in February 2014.

And on Monday, the Hollywood couple threw an E.T. themed party in honour of his fourth birthday.

The 32-year-old shared Instagram snaps, documenting the adorable affair, which included a two-tier cake and face painting.

Scroll down for video

Birthday boy': Teresa Palmer and her actor-director husband, Mark Webber, threw an ET themed birthday party for their four-year-old son Bodhi this week

Modern family: The actress is also stepmother to Mark's son Isaac, who he shares with ex-partner actress Frankie Shaw

The kids were also treated to plush E.T. toys, bicycle-in-the-moon cupcakes and other tasty treats.

Teresa gushed about the 'magic' of childhood in the caption.

'Remembering the magic of childhood through these guys. Happy LA birthday party Bodhi and Forest there really is no place like Home.'

Nice touch: Just like the Spielberg flick, the bike's white basket contained a plush alien toy covered with a fleece blanket, and was set against the classic E.T. backdrop of a dark sky and a full moon rising

She accompanied the post with two witty hashtags, including 'Bodhi and ET in love forever,' and 'throwing OTT parties since 2014.'

In the first snap of the gallery, the birthday boy donned a red hoodie jumper and was seen riding a crimson makeshift E.T. bicycle, fitted out with a rectangle laundry basket.

Just like the Spielberg flick, the bike's white basket contained a plush alien toy covered with a fleece blanket, and was set against the classic E.T. backdrop of a dark sky and full moon rising.

The Palmer clan looked on in awe at the impressive birthday cake, as Bodhi's gaze was fixated on the E.T. figure centerpiece atop the mouth-watering cake

In the second happy snap, the American actor was seen presenting his son with a decadent two-tier candy-covered cake, smothered with orange frosting.

The Palmer clan looked on in awe at the impressive birthday cake, as Bodhi's gaze was fixated on the E.T. figure centerpiece atop the mouth-watering cake.

As the day progressed, Teresa posted more highlights of her son's birthday party to her 673,000 Instagram followers, including a snap of her E.T.- inspired cupcakes, which were decorated with the beloved bicycle-in-the-moon scene, in mind.

Face-painting fun: Furthermore the 'Warm Bodies' actor posted a snap of her son enjoying a face-painting session with a fairy tale performer

Furthermore the 'Warm Bodies' actor posted a snap of her son enjoying a face-painting session with a fairy tale performer.

Teresa, who shares her two children with husband Mark Webber, has made no secret of her desire to have a third baby, having recently shared a blog post about her motherhood 'fantasy.'

Teresa posted more highlights of the birthday party to her 673,000 Instagram followers, including a snap of her E.T.-inspired cupcakes, which featured the beloved bicycle-in-the-moon design

Adding to her brood? Teresa, who shares her two children with husband Mark Webber, has made no secret of her desire to have a third baby, having recently shared a blog post about her motherhood 'fantasy'

'I've been fantasising about baby number three (insert massive eye roll from Mark here!),' wrote the Warm Bodies star in a post shared to Your Zen Mama last September.

'I'm not there yet, just the curiosity seeds have been planted.'

Teresa then reached out to readers by asking if they had any advice on increasing fertility during breastfeeding.

The actress is also stepmother to Mark's son Isaac, who he shares with ex-partner actress Frankie Shaw.

The couple met over Twitter in 2012 after the she tweeted her support for his movie End Of Love after watching the trailer.

Spending the next few months writing love letters to each other via email, the couple eventually tied the knot in Mexico in 2013.

They welcomed their first child, Bodhi, shortly after.Ansel Elgort's longtime girlfriend Violetta Komyshan had an unfortunate wardrobe malfunction at Sunday's 90th Academy Awards.

The pretty brunette wore a tight strapless dress which became see-through under the harsh lights of the red carpet and camera flashes.

Going bra-less meant the 22-year-old dancer was showing a little more than intended as the couple arrived at the Hollywood & Highland Center in Los Angeles.

Scroll down for video

Oops! Ansel Elgort's girlfriend Violetta Komyshan suffered a wardrobe malfunction at Sunday's 90th Annual Academy Awards

Violetta teamed the ruched dress with a diamond choker and glittering clutch and wore her hair straight in a center parting.

Her beau wore a stylish green velour tuxedo jacket with dark pants.

The couple put on an affectionate display with Ansel kissing Violetta's forehead as they walked through the venue.

The duo have been dating for six years after meeting at New Yorks Laguardia High School in 2012.

And despite Violetta's unfortunate wardrobe malfunction, the ballerina looked every inch the red carpet icon otherwise, modeling a stunning beauty look created by Charlotte Tilbury's lead makeup artist Barri King.

Exposed: Under the harsh lights of the red carpet Violetta's dress became rather sheer

Kisses: The couple shared a tender moment on the red carpet

Using an array of products from the British brand, which boasts a slew of A-list fans, from Kate Moss to Emma Roberts, Barri pulled together an incredibly sultry look that focused on a 'sexy, smoked-up eye' created with the brand's Rock N Kohl Eyeliner in Bedroom Black.

During the ceremony Ansel, 23, took to the stage with Eiza Gonzala to present the awards for sound mixing and editing.

Meanwhile Ansel is filming the big screen adaptation of the popular novel The Goldfinch.

The film plot follows Theo, who's mother was killed during a terrorist bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when he was only 13.

He escaped the blast, but decided to take his mother's favorite painting The Goldfinch.

The film, which opens on October 11, co-stars Luke Wilson, Nicole Kidman, Finn Wolfhard, Jeffrey Wright, Sarah Paulson and Denis O'Hare.

During the ceremony Ansel, 23, took to the stage with Eiza Gonzala to present the awards for sound mixing and editingHer name was not among the nominees at the 90th annual Academy Awards on Sunday evening.

But on a stellar night Kate Beckinsale ensured she commanded her fair share of attention after making a typically glamorous entrance at the star-studded Vanity Fair Oscar party, held at the Wallis Annenberg Centre for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles.

The British actress, 44, proved to be an engaging sight courtesy of her sweeping black evening gown, an extravagant new design from Reem Acra Resort 2018.

Stunning: Kate Beckinsale ensured she commanded her fair share of attention after making a typically glamorous entrance at the star-studded Vanity Fair Oscar party in Los Angeles on Sunday evening

With a bold plunging front, the dress fully exposed Kates cleavage as she posed for photos before making her way inside.

It's form-fitting design drew further attention to the actress's lithe physique, while two embellished cut-out panels on either hip gave the look a distinctive flourish.

Famed for creating a unique range of wedding and red carpet gowns, Reem Acra Resort gave the look a bridal flourish by virtue of its subtle train.

Bold look: The British actress, 44, proved to be an engaging sight courtesy of her sweeping black evening gown, an extravagant new design from Reem Acra Resort 2018

Focal point: With a bold plunging front, the dress fully exposed Kates cleavage as she posed for photos before making her way inside

Tasteful: It's form-fitting design drew further attention to the actress's lithe physique, while two embellished cut-out panels on either hip gave the look a distinctive flourish

Deft touches of make-up served to accentuate Kate's delicately proportioned features, while her brunette locks were effortlessly styled with a simple centre parting.

Absent on the night was Kate's 22-year-old toyboy, TRL host Matt Rife, who was also missing during her appearance at the Women in Film cocktail party on Friday evening.

On a night when the historic Time's Up campaign sweeping across this year's awards season dominated, the actress ensured her look was tasteful and understated.

Ravishing: deft touches of make-up accentuated Kate's delicately proportioned features

Finishing touches: Famed for creating a unique range of wedding and red carpet gowns, Reem Acra Resort gave the look a bridal flourish by virtue of its subtle train

ACADEMY AWARDS WINNERS 2018 BEST PICTURE Call Me By Your Name Darkest Hour Dunkirk Get Out Lady Bird Phantom Thread The Post The Shape of Water - WINNER Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Sally Hawkins in The Shape Of Water; Best Picture winner BEST ACTOR Timothee Chalamet - Call Me By Your Name Daniel Day-Lewis - Phantom Thread Daniel Kaluuya - Get Out Gary OIdman - Darkest Hour - WINNER Denzel Washington - Roman J. Israel, Esq BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Mary J Blige - Mudbound Alison Janney - I, Tonya - WINNER Lesley Manville - Phanton Thread Laurie Metcalf - Ladybird Octavia Spencer - The Shape Of Water Alison Janney was named Best Supporting Actress for I, Tonya BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM A Fantastic Woman - WINNER The Insult Loveless On Body and Soul The Square BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT Edith + Eddie Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 - WINNER Heroin(e) Knife Skills Traffic Stop BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Abacus: Small Enough to Jail Faces Places Icarus - WINNER Last Men in Aleppo Strong Island Icarus, named Best Documentary Feature BEST ORIGINAL SONG Mighty River - Mudbound Mystery Of Love - Call Me by Your Name Remember Me - Coco - WINNER Stand Up For Something - Marshall This Is Me - The Greatest Showman BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM The Boss Baby The Breadwinner Coco - WINNER Ferdinand Loving Vincent Coco; Winner of Best Animated Feature Film BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Call Me By Your Name - James Ivory - WINNER The Disaster Artist - Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber Logan - Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green Molly's Game - Aaron Sorkin Mudbound - Virgil Williams and Dee Rees BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY The Big Sick - Emily V Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani Get Out - Jordan Peele - WINNER Lady Bird - Greta Gerwig The Shape of Water - Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor (story by Guillermo del Toro) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - Martin McDonagh BEST ORIGINAL SCORE Dunkirk Phantom Thread The Shape of Water - WINNER Star Wars: The Last Jedi Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri BEST DIRECTOR Christopher Nolan - Dunkirk Jordan Peele - Get Out Greta Gerwig - Lady Bird Paul Thomas Anderson - Phantom Thread Guillermo del Toro - The Shape of Water - WINNER BEST ACTRESS Sally Hawkins - The Shape of Water Frances McDormand - Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri - WINNER Margot Robbie - I, Tonya Saoirse Ronan - Lady Bird Meryl Streep - The Post Best Actress winner Frances McDormand in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Willem Dafoe - The Florida Project Woody Harrelson - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Richard Jenkins - The Shape of Water Christopher Plummer - All the Money in the World Sam Rockwell - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - WINNER BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Bladerunner 2049 - WINNER Darkest Hour Dunkirk Mudbound Shape of Water BEST COSTUME DESIGN Beauty and the Beast Darkest Hour Phantom Thread - WINNER The Shape of Water Victoria and Abdul BEST SOUND EDITING Baby Driver Blade Runner Dunkirk - WINNER The Shape of Water Star Wars: The Last Jedi Dunkirk was named the winner for Best Sound Editing BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM Dear Basketball - WINNER Garden Party Lou Negative Space Revolting Rhymes BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM DeKalb Elementary The Eleven O'Clock My Nephew Emmet The Silent Child - WINNER Watu Wota / All of Us Maisie Sly is seen in The Silent Child, which won Best Live Action Short Film BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Blade Runner 2049 - WINNER Guardian of the Galaxy vol. 2 Kong: Skull Island Star Wars: The Last Jedi War for the Planet of the Apes BEST FILM EDITING Baby Driver I,Tonya Dunkirk - WINNER The Shape of Water Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri BEST SOUND MIXING Baby Driver Blade Runner Dunkirk - WINNER The Shape of Water Star Wars: The Last Jedi BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN Beauty and the Beast Blade Runner 2049 Darkest Hour Dunkirk The Shape of Water - WINNER BEST MAKE UP AND HAIR STYLING Darkest Hour - WINNER Victoria & Abdul Wonder Advertisement

Say cheese: The actress greeted onlookers as she made her entrance at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

She was on had to see The Shape Of Water win best film, while fellow Brit Gary Oldman won Best Actor for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour.

On February 17, Kate gave her 2.3M social media followers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at her bubble-bath on the set of Amazon and ITV's upcoming eight-episode thriller The Widow.

According to Deadline, the Love & Friendship actress portrays Georgia Wells, a woman who returns to the African Congo and her old life when she sees her 'late' husband on the news.It is the night when every star in Hollywood comes out to shine.

And Caitlyn Jenner wasted no time joining her fellow celebs as she hit TWO of the biggest Oscar bashes in town.

The 68-year-old was first spotted at Elton John's 26th annual AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party in West Hollywood.

Scroll down for video

Girl about town: Caitlyn Jenner hit TWO Oscar parties on Sunday night, including Elton John's 26th annual AIDS Foundation viewing shindig in West Hollywood

After watching the statuettes get handed out she made the short hop across to Beverly Hills where the Vanity Fair post ceremony shindig was being hosted.

The reality star looked fabulous in a short red dress cut just above the knee, which boasted flared sleeves.

She paired it with black heels, and a cute personalized silver clutch that read 'Caitlyn'.

Wrecking balls: She posed with fellow guest Miley Cyrus, who looked amazing in a gown that was half glistening silver, half silky pink

My friend: While at Elton's gig, she made sure to grab a photo with the host

Smile: She also grabbed a pic with Elton's husband David Furnish

Plenty to talk about: The I Am Cait star crossed paths too with Judith Light, who plays the wife of Jeffrey Tambor's transgender character Maura on Transparent

While at Elton's gig, she made sure to grab a photo with the host, as well as his husband David Furnish.

She also posed with fellow guest Miley Cyrus, who looked amazing in a gown that was half glistening silver, half silky pink

The I Am Cait star crossed paths too with Judith Light, who plays the wife of Jeffrey Tambor's transgender character Maura on Transparent.

Stylish: The reality star looked fabulous in a short red dress cut just above the knee, which boasted flared sleeves

Mine: She paired it with black heels, and a cute personalized silver clutch that read 'Caitlyn'

Going strong: The 68-year-old looked pretty fresh despite the long night

Moving on: After watching the statuettes get handed out she made the short hop across to Beverly Hills where the Vanity Fair post ceremony shindig was being hosted

Also at the Vanity Fair party was Caitlyn's eldest daughter Kendall, who put on a stunning display in a tiny cleavage and leg baring little black dress, equipped with enormous shoulder ruffles.

Not present was Caitlyn's other daughter, who was likely at home caring for new daughter Stormi, or was after she got home from her lunch date with boyfriend Travis Scott in Miami.

The new parents shared the first ever pic of the now-one-month-old tot they day before via Snapchat.

Gorgeous: Also at the Vanity Fair party was Caitlyn's eldest daughter Kendall, who put on a stunning display in a tiny cleavage and leg baring little black dress, equipped with enormous shoulder rufflesShe had the best seat in the house for Sunday night's Oscars  her house, that is.

Katie Holmes watched the ceremony from the comfort of her living room with her daughter Suri.

The actress shared a brace of rare black and white photos of the 11-year-old as she watched the action unfold on TV.

Cosy: Katie Holmes watched the ceremony from the comfort of her living room with her daughter Suri

'Congratulations to all of the nominees and winners!!!!!!!' the 39-year-old caption one cute shot of the youngster applauding the screen from the floor, with her puppy sat beside her.

In another, the mom smothered her little girl in kisses as they cosied up on the sofa, captioning it with just as many loveheart emojis.

As usual, Suri's face was obscured in each shot.

Meanwhile Katie's boyfriend Jamie Foxx preferred a bit of a closer vantage point on the action.

Congrats: The actress shared a brace of rare black and white photos of the 11-year-old as she watched the action unfold on TV

He was spotted tuxedoed up at the Mercedes-Benz USA Official Awards Viewing Party at the Four Seasons, in Beverly Hills.

There he posed with a variety of famous faces, including fellow actor David Alan Grier.

At one stage the 50-year-old was seen recruiting the help of two women to help fix his bow tie, including Uber Brand Manager Bozoma Saint John.

Party: Meanwhile Katie's boyfriend Jamie Foxx preferred a bit of a closer vantage point on the action

Suited and booted: He was spotted tuxedoed up at the Mercedes-Benz USA Official Awards Viewing Party at the Four Seasons, in Beverly Hills

This guy: There he posed with a variety of famous faces, including fellow actor David Alan Grier

Three man job: At one stage the 50-year-old was seen recruiting the help of two women to help fix his bow tie, including Uber Brand Manager Bozoma Saint John

Jamie is no stranger to the Oscars, having won one for Best Actor in 2004 for his title performance as Ray Charles in Ray.

He made history that year becoming only the second actor to be nominated for Lead and Supporting actor for two different films in the same year, after Al Pacino.

His supporting role was opposite Katie's ex-husband Tom Cruise, in Collateral.They've been clashing constantly for the last two weeks.

And on Monday's Married At First Sight, Nasser Sultan and Gabrielle Bartlett were back at it again after their friends and family joined them for a tense dinner.

The drama reached boiling point after Nasser and Gab's sister Kerrie butted heads.

The claws are out! On Monday's Married At First Sight, Nasser Sultan and Gabrielle Bartlett were back at it again after their friends and family joined them for a VERY tense dinner

'It would've meant the world to Gab for you to continue on with the experiment,' said Kerrie.

'Is this all you've had to offer for this entire experiment?' continued Kerrie, after accusing of Nasser of not giving '100%' to the marriage.

Nasser responded by saying he gave '110%' to the 'friendship,' but explained that the romance had died for him due to all the pressure he was under.

'It would've meant the world to Gab for you to continue on with the experiment,' said Kerrie

'Gab's under the same pressure, but she's given 100%,' explained Kerrie. 'So I can imagine Gab's feeling quite ripped off.'

The conversation started getting heated all over, with Gab snapping after disliking the way Nasser was addressing Kerrie.

'Gee Nas, my sister's talking! If you talk over me that's one thing, but DON'T talk over my sister,' she yelled.

'Gab's under the same pressure, but she's given 100%,' explained Kerrie. 'So I can imagine Gab's feeling quite ripped off'

'Gee Nas, my sister's talking! If you talk over me that's one thing, but DON'T talk over my sister,' she yelled

'It's disrespectful!' she continued, as Kerrie got up and left the table.

Nasser and Kerrie later met up alone outside to resolve their differences, with Nasser explaining his side of the story.

He then revealed that he's learned to be more 'flexible' in the experiment, before promising that he's going to 'work hard' on his relationship with Gab for the rest of the week.She's the former Geordie Shore star who has traded parties for life in the South African jungle.

And I'm A Celebrity fans praised Vicky Pattison on Twitter during Monday night's episode, with one in particular commenting '[she's] such a legend!'

The 30-year-old seemed unfazed by having chocolate cake smeared on her face, when being hurled down a hill in a steel cage.

Scroll down for video

'She's such a legend!' I'm A Celebrity fans praised Vicky Pattison, 30, on Twitter during Monday night's episode, as the reality star appeared unfazed by having chocolate cake smeared on her face when hurled down a hill

Appeal: One fan commented 'Vicky's such a legend!'

A group challenge saw the contestants being hurled down a hill while encased in a steel cage.

Vicky was required to hold onto a chocolate cake and deliver it in tact, to co-hosts Julia Morris and Dr Chris Brown.

However the brunette couldn't resist indulging in the sweet treat, seen tucking into the cake while being hurled down a hill.

With ganache and sponge smeared all over her face, Vicky said to camera: 'This is what I always look like after a meal.'

Holding on for dear life: A group challenge saw the contestants being hurled down a hill while encased in a steel cage. Vicky was required to hold onto a chocolate cake and deliver it in tact, to co-hosts Julia Morris and Dr Chris Brown

Tasty? However the brunette couldn't resist indulging in the sweet treat, seen tucking into the cake while being hurled down a hill

Viewers flocked to Twitter, praising the British lass for her hilarious antics.

One in particular commented 'Vicky's such a legend!' while another followed suit with 'I love Vicky. She's such a character.'

Clearly in awe of the media personality, one also wrote: 'Vicky is legit the best I want to be her when I grow up.'

Vicky became a household name in the UK with her debut on reality series Geordie Shore.

She's gone on to become a brand ambassador and television personality.

'I love Vicky. She's a character,' wrote another

Role model? 'I want to be her when I grow up' one shared to TwitterShe's been taking over the fashion world one catwalk at a time.

And Hailey Baldwin proved her model prowess as she took the red carpet by storm at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills on Sunday night.

The runway queen, 21, poured her incredible figure into an glittering chain-mail gown, adorned with intricate detailing and sweeping halter neckline.

Dripping in gold: Hailey Baldwin took the red carpet by storm at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills on Sunday night

The daughter of actor Stephen Baldwin flaunted her long legs in the metallic ensemble, with a thigh-skimming slit ramping up the ultra-glamorous look.

The in-demand model added height to her statuesque figure in a matching golden platform heels as she took over the red carpet.

Hailey let the shimmering gown grab all the attention as she played down her accessories, with only diamond stud earrings and a flashy ring for extra shine.

Golden girl: The runway queen, 21, poured her incredible figure into an glittering chain-mail gown, adorned with intricate detailing and sweeping halter neckline

Shimmering style: While dripping in glitter, Hailey muted her make-up, with a nude palette to offset her eye-catching sartorial choice

Working her best angles, the beauty styled her cropped blonde tresses in a chic half-updo.

While dripping in glitter, Hailey muted her make-up, with a nude palette to offset her eye-catching sartorial choice.

Hailey has been busy storming the catwalks in recent weeks for Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce & Gabbana and Zadig & Voltaire, but her love life has garnered much attention.

In more recent months, Hailey was romantically linked to a number of other men, including Memphis Grizzlies player Chandler Parsons, model Cameron Dallas and musician Shawn Mendes, who she was seen holding hands with over Halloween.

ACADEMY AWARDS WINNERS 2018 BEST PICTURE Call Me By Your Name Darkest Hour Dunkirk Get Out Lady Bird Phantom Thread The Post The Shape of Water - WINNER Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Sally Hawkins in The Shape Of Water; Best Picture winner BEST ACTOR Timothee Chalamet - Call Me By Your Name Daniel Day-Lewis - Phantom Thread Daniel Kaluuya - Get Out Gary OIdman - Darkest Hour - WINNER Denzel Washington - Roman J. Israel, Esq BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Mary J Blige - Mudbound Alison Janney - I, Tonya - WINNER Lesley Manville - Phanton Thread Laurie Metcalf - Ladybird Octavia Spencer - The Shape Of Water Alison Janney was named Best Supporting Actress for I, Tonya BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM A Fantastic Woman - WINNER The Insult Loveless On Body and Soul The Square BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT Edith + Eddie Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 - WINNER Heroin(e) Knife Skills Traffic Stop BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Abacus: Small Enough to Jail Faces Places Icarus - WINNER Last Men in Aleppo Strong Island Icarus, named Best Documentary Feature BEST ORIGINAL SONG Mighty River - Mudbound Mystery Of Love - Call Me by Your Name Remember Me - Coco - WINNER Stand Up For Something - Marshall This Is Me - The Greatest Showman BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM The Boss Baby The Breadwinner Coco - WINNER Ferdinand Loving Vincent Coco; Winner of Best Animated Feature Film BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Call Me By Your Name - James Ivory - WINNER The Disaster Artist - Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber Logan - Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green Molly's Game - Aaron Sorkin Mudbound - Virgil Williams and Dee Rees BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY The Big Sick - Emily V Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani Get Out - Jordan Peele - WINNER Lady Bird - Greta Gerwig The Shape of Water - Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor (story by Guillermo del Toro) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - Martin McDonagh BEST ORIGINAL SCORE Dunkirk Phantom Thread The Shape of Water - WINNER Star Wars: The Last Jedi Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri BEST DIRECTOR Christopher Nolan - Dunkirk Jordan Peele - Get Out Greta Gerwig - Lady Bird Paul Thomas Anderson - Phantom Thread Guillermo del Toro - The Shape of Water - WINNER BEST ACTRESS Sally Hawkins - The Shape of Water Frances McDormand - Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri - WINNER Margot Robbie - I, Tonya Saoirse Ronan - Lady Bird Meryl Streep - The Post Best Actress winner Frances McDormand in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Willem Dafoe - The Florida Project Woody Harrelson - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Richard Jenkins - The Shape of Water Christopher Plummer - All the Money in the World Sam Rockwell - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - WINNER BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Bladerunner 2049 - WINNER Darkest Hour Dunkirk Mudbound Shape of Water BEST COSTUME DESIGN Beauty and the Beast Darkest Hour Phantom Thread - WINNER The Shape of Water Victoria and Abdul BEST SOUND EDITING Baby Driver Blade Runner Dunkirk - WINNER The Shape of Water Star Wars: The Last Jedi Dunkirk was named the winner for Best Sound Editing BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM Dear Basketball - WINNER Garden Party Lou Negative Space Revolting Rhymes BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM DeKalb Elementary The Eleven O'Clock My Nephew Emmet The Silent Child - WINNER Watu Wota / All of Us Maisie Sly is seen in The Silent Child, which won Best Live Action Short Film BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Blade Runner 2049 - WINNER Guardian of the Galaxy vol. 2 Kong: Skull Island Star Wars: The Last Jedi War for the Planet of the Apes BEST FILM EDITING Baby Driver I,Tonya Dunkirk - WINNER The Shape of Water Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri BEST SOUND MIXING Baby Driver Blade Runner Dunkirk - WINNER The Shape of Water Star Wars: The Last Jedi BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN Beauty and the Beast Blade Runner 2049 Darkest Hour Dunkirk The Shape of Water - WINNER BEST MAKE UP AND HAIR STYLING Darkest Hour - WINNER Victoria & Abdul Wonder Advertisement

She also famously dated Justin Beiber last year, and opened up after their split about how tough it can be to date someone as high-profile as the Canadian star.

Speaking to Marie Claire for its May 'Fresh Faces 2016' issue, she said: 'I don't want attention out of dating somebody.

'Texts started coming through, crazy phone calls... it's hard to date somebody in this industry. You have to have really thick skin and be very strong. You have to focus on the person and nothing else.'

The fashionista has been photographed for Vogue, Teen Vogue, Marie Claire and Harper's Bazaar and has walked for top designers including Ralph Lauren, Moschino and Dolce & Gabbana.

She also topped the Maxim magazine list of the most beautiful women in the world.Advertisement

It may be the biggest night in cinema of the year.

Yet, Victoria's Secret Angel Stella Maxwell was sure to turn the attention of the night onto her as she stunned in a flesh-flashing gown alongside model pals Elsa Hosk, Joan Smalls and Jasmine Tookes while attending the Vanity Fair Oscars Party on Sunday.

The blonde bombshell dazzled in the halterneck look by Julien Macdonald which boasted an eye-catching plunging neckline which grazed her navel while she walked the carpet.

Absolutely heavenly: Victoria's Secret Angel Stella Maxwell was sure to turn the attention of the night onto her as she stunned in a flesh-flashing gown alongside model pals Elsa Hosk, Joan Smalls and Jasmine Tookes while attending the Vanity Fair Oscars Party on Sunday (Pictured L-R)

The supermodel's pulse-racing dress featured a daring hip high slit which highlighted her slender pins to perfection as she posed up a storm on the star-studded carpet.

Managing to avoid a wardrobe malfunction, Stella's haute couture design boasted a daring low-back which made sure to highlight her enviable model frame.

Standing at 5ft 8', the runway star added inches to her statuesque height with a pair of strappy black heels and a complementing statement floral fascinator.

Looking radiant while strutting her way inside the venue, she complemented her racy gown with a glamorous beauty look as worked her golden locks into a centre parting and styled her mane into a soft wave which cascaded down her back.

Stella's head-turning display comes as The Daily Telegraph has reported that the Victoria's Secret model will front a new collaboration between Model Co and fashion legend Karl Lagerfeld.

Pulse-racing: The blonde bombshell dazzled in the halterneck look by Julien Macdonald which boasted an eye-catching plunging neckline which grazed her navel while she walked the carpet

Sealed with a kiss: Looking radiant while strutting her way inside the venue, she complemented her racy gown with a glamorous beauty look as worked her golden locks into a centre parting and styled her mane into a soft wave which cascaded down her back

Thigh's the limit: The supermodel's pulse-racing dress featured a daring hip high slit which highlighted her slender pins to perfection as she posed up a storm on the star-studded carpet

Launching mid-year, the model will front a 'collectable' range of beauty products that Model Co founder Shelly Sullivan said will 'push beauty industry boundaries.'

'The campaign is a cutting edge technology, digitally focused art piece that will push beauty industry boundaries and play out in a modern sphere,' she told the publication.

Meanwhile, the model's relationship with Twilight star Kristen Stewart has gone from strength to strength.

Rumours started swirling that the gorgeous duo were lovers back in 2016 but they weren't officially public until pictures of them kissing were published in 2017.

Meanwhile, Stella's glamorous appearance was complemented by fellow VS Angel Elsa, 29, who highlighted her svelte figure in a sheer black gown with crystal embellishment.

The Swedish fashion star's donned a sequin clad strapless bar and high-waisted underwear which were on full view underneath her sheer floor-length number.

Model behaviour: Managing to avoid a wardrobe malfunction, Stella's haute couture design boasted a daring low-back which made sure to highlight her enviable model frame

New heights: Standing at 5ft 8', the runway star added inches to her statuesque height with a pair of strappy black heels and a complementing statement floral fascinator

Jaw-dropping: Meanwhile, Stella's glamorous appearance was complemented by fellow VS Angel Elsa, 29, who highlighted her svelte figure in a sheer black gown with crystal embellishment

Sheer bliss: The Swedish fashion star's donned a sequin clad strapless bar and high-waisted underwear which were on full view underneath her sheer floor-length number

Picture perfect: She posed up a storm as she worked her way up the carpet

Old Hollywood glamour: The beauty, who got her wings for the lingerie giant in 2015, showcased her incredible figure with ease as she offset the flesh-flashing look with an old Hollywood 'do and vibrant red lip

Making a statement: Joan, 29, looked incredible in her Roberto Cavalli sequin dress which boasted a slashed neckline that teased at her decolletage and ample cleavage

Party people: Joan caught up with pal and fellow model Kendall Jenner, 22, inside the star-studded bash

The beauty, who got her wings for the lingerie giant in 2015, showcased her incredible figure with ease as she offset the flesh-flashing look with an old Hollywood 'do and vibrant red lip.

Making sure to make a statement on the carpet, Joan, 29, looked incredible in her Roberto Cavalli sequin dress which boasted a slashed neckline that teased at her decolletage and ample cleavage.

The haute couture number's colourful embellishment accentuated the gown's sheer panelling on the bodice and her narrow waist while the thigh-high slit teased at her toned legs.

Joan, who has walked in the VS annual runway show six times, complemented her glamorous display with a dark smokey eye and slicked back her tresses off her face in a wet look.

Turning heads, Jasmine Tookes, 27, stunned in a metallic one-shouldered gold gown by Jean-Louis Sabaji as she arrived to the stylish party.

Her designer number hugged her slender torso to perfection as she worked her raven-coloured tresses into a sleek ponytail which highlighted her drop-earrings.

Golden gal: Turning heads, Jasmine Tookes, 27, stunned in a metallic one-shouldered gold gown by Jean-Louis Sabaji as she arrived to the stylish party

Flawless: Her designer number hugged her slender torso to perfection as she worked her raven-coloured tresses into a sleek ponytail which highlighted her drop-earrings

Golden girl: Lily Alridge, 32, looked breathtaking in a gold metallic Versace gown for the party

Getting chic done: Her sequin floor-length garment featured a slit at the back which teased at her pins and complementing golden strappy heels

Model behaviour: She teamed her jaw-dropping ensemble with a number of stacked bracelets while she worked her brunette tresses into a soft wave

Flawless: She accentuated her brown eyes with a feline flick while her statement diamond earrings peered through her tresses alongside fellow model Chantel Jeffries

Glittering: The Wilhemina signed model stunned in her crystal embellished sheer fishtail dress

Hitting the right notes: The fashion was linked with Justin Bieber and has since pursued a career in music as a DJ

Changing it up: Supermodel Martha Hunt swapped her usual skin-flashing looks for a Marina Moscone look

Yellow there! She draped a one-shouldered dress over a pair of palazzo trousers

Style: Martha worked her golden locks off her face in a tousled style

Beaming: Martha couldn't her smile as she walked up the star-studded carpet in her gold platforms, accessorising her look with Jill Heller bracelets

Sensational: Romee Strijd looked sensatinal in her sequin Jenny Packham gown

Eye-catching: The model's choice of gown featured a perilous neckline with eye-catching detailing

Battle of the babes: Kendall Jenner put on a busty display in a black mini dress as she joined (L-R) Alessandra Ambrosio and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley at the bash

All in the details: Kendall completed her look with a pair of Christian Louboutin red-sole heels and wore a pair of green chandelier earrings

She's mastered the pose: Mother-of-one Rosie perfected her look when she posed with one hand on her hip

All that glitters: Alessandra looked perfect in her nude gown which had glitter running through it

The California native became a Victoria's Secret Angel in 2015. She was chosen to wear the coveted $3 million Fantasy bra during the 2016 fashion show that was held in Paris.

That same year, Tookes landed the #17 spot on the Forbes 'The World's Highest Paid Models' list with estimated earnings of $4 million.

Lily Alridge, 32, looked breathtaking in a gold metallic Versace gown for the party. Her sequin floor-length garment featured a slit at the back which teased at her pins and complementing golden strappy heels.

The VS model teamed her jaw-dropping ensemble with a number of stacked bracelets while she worked her brunette tresses into a soft wave.

Following suit: Taylor Hill sizzled in her red gown with backless detail

Dramatic: She went for a dramatic winged linger which complemented her natural lip

Peek-a-boo: Her striking look featured keyhole detail in the midst of her midriff

Pin-credible: Model Karolina Kurkova highlighted her slender pins in a thigh-grazing Balmain look

Dripping in gold: Hailey Baldwin took the red carpet by storm in Versace at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party

While she accentuated her brown eyes with a feline flick while her statement diamond earrings peered through her tresses.

Sports Illustrated model Nina, 25, was sure to up the fashion ante for the post-Oscars festivities in a simple yet chic black gown.

The scoop neckline number teased at the Danish beauty's ample cleavage while she effortlessly posed on the carpet.

Nina, who has previously modelled for Victoria's Secret, shared a glimpse at her toned pins as she smiled for the waiting cameras.

Style savvy: Petra Nemcova donned a daring one-shouldered gown with hip-high slit

Fashion fiend: She worked her hair into a soft wave which cascaded over her shoulder

Dazzling: Sports Illustrated model Nina, 25, was sure to up the fashion ante for the post-Oscars festivities in a simple yet chic black gown

Camera ready: Nina, who has previously modelled for Victoria's Secret, shared a glimpse at her toned pins as she smiled for the waiting cameras

Simply the breast: The scoop neckline number teased at the Danish beauty's ample cleavage while she effortlessly posed on the carpet

Simple but chic: Nina worked her locks into a sleek straight styleThey seldom keep their romance under wraps, with endless PDAs and loving looks.

And Paris Hilton proved she is as enamoured as ever with fiance Chris Zylka as they put on an extremely steamy display during Byron Allen's Oscar Gala Viewing Party in Los Angeles on Sunday evening.

The 37-year-old model and socialite, who became engaged to the actor last year, looked sensational in a plunging gown which displayed her eye-popping cleavage while her beau, 32, opted for a sleek all-black look.

Look away now! Paris Hilton proved she is as enamoured as ever with fiance Chris Zylka as they put on an extremely steamy display during Byron Allen's Oscar Gala Viewing Party in Los Angeles on Sunday evening

Seemingly lost in one another, Paris allowed the camera to capture an incredibly intimate moment as they locked lips while he grappled her derriere.

As ever, the blonde beauty made the most of her sizzling physique with the assistance of her flawlessly cut and undoubtedly couture gown.

The V-neckline made the most of her bust, which she previously denied was in anyway surgically-enhanced, while a lengthy string down the centre drew the eye further to her generous assets.

Preened to perfection, Paris' tresses were coiffed into an elegant blowdry with curls tucking in to frame her flawlessly made-up face, complete with a bronze eye-shadow and a nude lipstick - however her endless kisses meant the hue did not last long.

Up close and personal: The 37-year-old model and socialite, who became engaged to the actor last year, looked sensational in a plunging gown which displayed her eye-popping cleavage while her beau, 32, opted for a sleek all-black look

Sizzling: The V neckline made the most of her bust, which she previously denied was in anyway surgically-enhanced, while a lengthy string down the centre drew the eye further to her generous assets

Handsome Chris showed exactly what Paris sees in him as he wore head-to-toe black with a sharp black shirt worn beneath a tuxedo jacket with silk lapels.

The former The Simple Life star got engaged to The Leftovers actor at the end of 2017. Chris popped the question in Aspen, Colorado, during a ski trip, with a $2 million, 20-carat diamond engagement ring.

The impressive rock can be seen sparkling in her I Need You music video while she was also doing everything to display the ring at Sunday's bash.

The look of love: In a nod to her moneyed upbringing, Paris was dripping in other jewels she wowed with a pair of stunning diamond earrings and a dazzling watch

Cheeky! As ever, the blonde beauty made the most of her sizzling physique with the assistance of her flawlessly cut and undoubtedly couture gown

In a nod to her moneyed upbringing, Paris was dripping in other jewels she wowed with a pair of stunning diamond earrings and a dazzling watch.

Upon announcing her engagement, Paris said: 'I am so excited to be engaged to the love of my life and my best friend.

'I have never felt so happy, safe and loved. He is perfect for me in every way and showed me that fairytales really do exist!' she gushed.

The #1 movie website in the world, IMDb, hosted second-annual IMDb LIVE Viewing Party. Guests included Issa Rae, Lea Thompson, Tatum O'Neal, Colin Egglesfield, Peter Fonda, Ashey Iaconetti, Jared Haibon, Chad Johnson, Olivia Jordan, Naomi Grossman, Denzel Whitaker, Joy Corrigan, Marlon Wayans,Tamara Taylor and more.

Aisha Tyler attends the IMDb LIVE Viewing Party

The live companion show to the Academy Awards was hosted by Dave Karger (IMDb Correspondent) Tim Kash and Kerri Doherty (hosts of The IMDb Show) at Neuehouse in Hollywood.

Guests sipped on signature And The Winner Is cocktails while they watched the live companion show in-between the Oscars broadcast.

Issa Rae attends the IMDb LIVE Viewing Party

Tamara Taylor teared up on stage while watching Mary J. Bliges stunning performance of Mighty River.

Bachelor alum Ashley Iaconetti and Jared Haibon arrived together and met up with Bachelor bad boy Chad Johnson who was flying solo for the night. While Issa Rae enjoyed watching the show with her friends!She stunned in a cobalt blue sleeveless Versace gown at the Academy Awards on Sunday night.

But it wasn't Jennifer Garner's dress that was the main focus of attention at the glitzy award ceremony in Los Angeles.

The actress, 45, sent social media into meltdown when cameras caught her pulling a bewildered facial expression in what appeared to be an epiphany moment.

Meme queen: Jennifer Garner sent social media into meltdown when cameras caught her pulling a bewildered facial expression at the Academy Awards on Sunday night

The American beauty, who was sitting beside actor Chris Messina, was applauding with the rest of the crowd when she suddenly stopped and her facial expression transitioned to one of pure shock.

And while no-one knows why the star wore such a startled expression, viewers took to Twitter in their droves to guess what the Pearl Harbor star was thinking.

One wrote: 'What realisation did Jennifer Garner just come to?', while another added 'Jennifer Garner just realised she forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer'.

Shocked: The American beauty was applauding with the rest of the crowd when she suddenly stopped and her facial expression transitioned to one of pure shock

Viral sensation: And while no-one knows why the star wore such a startled expression, viewers took to Twitter in their droves to guess what the Pearl Harbor star was thinking

Star power: Jennifer went for old time glamour in a cobalt blue sleeveless gown with a long train

Some fans joked she had left the straighteners on, while others suggested that she came to the realisation that 'Michael Keaton was the best Batman.'

Despite her Oscar-stealing scene, the brunette beauty also took to the stage to introduce Eddie Vedders performance.

The mother-of-three showcased her gym-honed figure in her designer dress that was cinched at the waist.

Oscar-stealing scene: Some fans joked she had left the straighteners on, while others suggested that she came to the realisation that 'Michael Keaton was the best Batman'

The bodice clung to her curves while the floaty skirt fell in relaxed pleats to the ground.

She wore her long brunette hair blown out with a far side parting and added 18-carat white gold earrings set with diamonds and blue sapphires worth, according to PageSix.com, a staggering $605,000.

Jennifer has taken the meme crown from Nicole Kidman, who stole the show at the Oscars last year when eagle-eyed viewers caught the actress clapping in a somewhat unusual manner.

Picture perfect: Jennifer wore her long brunette hair blown out with a far side parting and dripped diamonds from her ears

Role to play: Jennifer was one of the presenters who took the stage during the live telecast that aired on ABC

The 50-year-old later explained her 'seal clap' was to protect her expensive rings.

'It was really difficult because I had a huge ring on that was not my own but was absolutely gorgeous,' Kidman told Australian radio station Kiss FM.

'And I was terrified of damaging it.'She's the niece of Hollywood royalty in the form of former Oscar winner Julia Roberts.

And Emma Roberts looked the picture of old school glamour as she attended the Vanity Fair Oscars Party at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills on Sunday night with her beau Evan Peters.

The actress, 27, dazzled in a lime sequin gown and dramatic feather boa as the couple worked their magic on the red carpet.

Date night: Emma Roberts looked the picture of glamour at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party at the Wallis Annenberg Center for Performing Arts in Beverly Hills on Sunday with Evan Peters

The Scream Queens star looked sensational in the low cut dress, which featured intricate silver beading.

Emma's short blonde locks sat in loose waves, and her fringe was styled to the side so that it framed her petite face.

The American Horror Story actress brushed on low-key make-up with a stunning look created by celebrity artist Charlotte Tilbury, which served to highlight her naturally beautiful features.

Glamorous: The actress, 27, dazzled in a lime sequin gown and dramatic feather boa as the couple worked their magic on the red carpet

Classic look: The Scream Queens star looked sensational in the low cut dress, which featured intricate silver beading

The A-list make-up guru used an array of her own products on the starlet, including her Hollywood Flawless Filter, which helped to give her the perfect glow on the red carpet.

Speaking about the inspiration behind the look, Charlotte said: 'I just adore having Emma in my make-up chair! She is such a beauty who looks good in literally everything, and we have the most fun time getting ready.

'Emma wore a mesmerizing, Prada, yellow-sequined gown this evening, styled by the genius Elkin sisters, and so I wanted to give her a fresh, dreamy, Hollywood goddess makeup look.

'Perfect skin, soft, smoky, rose-gold creme wash of light on the eyes, and a fuller wider sumptuous pillowy-pink pout using my K.I.S.S.I.N.G Lipstick in The Duchess.'

Emma completed her glamorous ensemble with a beige feather boa, which worked well in contrast to her dress.

Evan, 31, looked dapper in his black tux, lace-up shoes and crisp white shirt.

Suited and booted: Evan, 31, looked dapper in his black tux, lace-up shoes and crisp white shirt

Pretty as a picture: Emma's short blonde locks sat in loose waves, and her fringe was styled to the side so that it framed her petite face

Finishing touches: The American Horror Story actress brushed on low-key make-up, which served to highlight her naturally beautiful features

The American Horror Story actor sported his signature tousled locks, and he was beaming as he stood next to his girlfriend.

Emma has had quite the tumultuous on-again-off-again relationship with the X-Men: Apocalypse star, going all the way back to 2012.

The couple were even engaged at one point, and recently Emma has been spotted on occasion with the engagement ring on.

Back in 2013, the Scream Queens actress was arrested for alleged domestic abuse in Canada after officers responded to a report of a fight in a hotel room.

Emma was taken into custody after they allegedly found One Tree Hill star Evan with a bloody nose and a bite mark.

He declined to press charges and she was released several hours later, with the couple saying in a joint statement that it was 'an unfortunate incident and misunderstanding.'

Hard times: Emma and Evan have had quite the tumultuous on-again-off-again relationship, going all the way back to 2012

Past mistake: Back in 2013, the Scream Queens actress was memorably arrested for alleged domestic abuse in Canada after officers responded to a report of a fight in a hotel room

Emma has four film projects in the works including the fantasy movie Paradise Hills, comedy-drama Little Italy, drama Billionaire Boys Club, and the romance In A Relationship.

Paradise Hills is in pre-production while the rest are in post-production. No release dates have been set for the four films.

Evan later this year will reprise his role as Peter Maximoff and his alter ego Quicksilver in X-Men: Dark Phoenix due out on November 2.

The talented actor will also return to American Horror Story to take on a new character for its eighth season, which will air in September.They were Married At First Sight's golden couple.

But in a preview for Tuesday's episode of the show, Sarah Roza and Telv Williams can be seen fighting to save their 'marriage' following a string of explosive fights that aired on Monday's installment.

'I'd rather be single than feel like this,' says Sarah in front of a shocked Telv as the pair engage in what appears to be a couples counselling session.

Is this the end? In a preview for Tuesday's episode of MAFS, Sarah Roza and Telv Williams can be seen fighting to save their 'marriage' following a string of explosive fights

'If you wanna walk out the door I'll hold it open for you,' she continued.

The twosome clashed multiple timed on Monday's episode of MAFS, with their first fight starting over the social media app Snapchat.

'We were in the Taxi and I was trying to tell you what's wrong and you were paying attention to Snapchat,' Sarah said through tears.

'I'd rather be single than feel like this,' says Sarah in front of a shocked Telv as the pair engage in what appears to be a couples counselling session.

'If you wanna walk out the door I'll hold it open for you,' spat Sarah as Telv looked on in shock

A defensive Telv shot back: 'You said something to me and I didn't hear what you said because I was laughing out loud.'

'I was telling you about how I feel!' cried Sarah. 'And instead of being attentive to me you thought it was more important to have a laugh and watch funny videos.'

The pair continued to bicker back and forth until Sarah snapped and said: 'You're so engrossed in what you're doing, you're not engrossed in what's happening with us!'

'We were in the Taxi and I was trying to tell you what's wrong and you were paying attention to Snapchat,' Sarah screamed through tears on Monday's episode

Later that episode, the pair had another fight in the bathroom after Sarah stormed off from dinner because Telv didn't want to discuss their problems in front of their family members.

'I feel so far away from you now,' she sobbed as she sat on the toilet.

'I feel the same,' responded Telv. 'We haven't talked for 24 hours.'

'I was telling you about how I feel!' cried Sarah. 'And instead of being attentive to me you thought it was more important to have a laugh and watch funny videos'

Sarah then expressed that she was annoyed that Telv was still going to the gym when they were supposed to be doing an 'experiment' and spending all their time together.

'I don't understand how me going to the gym is a problem,' said a frustrated Telv. 'It's an hour of the day.'

'It's not just about how you feel,' he continued. 'It's also about how I feel.'

Nagging? Sarah expressed that she was annoyed that Telv was still going to the gym when they were supposed to be doing an 'experiment' and spending all their time togetherShe's no stranger to flaunting her surgically-enhanced assets wherever she goes.

And Courtney Stodden ensured all eyes were well and truly on her as she attended the Roger Neal Style Hollywood Oscar Viewing Dinner at The Hollywood Museum in Los Angeles on Sunday.

The reality star, 23, flashed major side-boob in a very daring black gown, featuring a plunging neckline that could barely contain her eye-popping cleavage.

Turning heads: Courtney Stodden ensured all eyes were on her as she attended the Roger Neal Style Hollywood Oscar Viewing Dinner at The Hollywood Museum in Los Angeles on Sunday

The show-stopping starlet poured her curvaceous figure into the cross-back dress as she saucily blew kisses at the flashing cameras.

Knowing how to work her best angles, Courtney's bombshell figure was on full display as she posed with her signature sultry pout.

The Couple's Therapy beauty amplified her sex kitten appeal with her blonde tresses in a sleek straight style.

Pucker up: The reality star, 23, flashed major side-boob in a very daring black gown, featuring a plunging neckline that could barely contain her eye-popping cleavage

Woah! The show-stopping starlet poured her curvaceous figure into the cross-back dress as she saucily blew kisses at the flashing cameras

Letting her head turning outfit do all the talking, Courtney played down her accessories with a silver charm necklace giving a touch of sparkle.

An electric pink manicure offset her sartorial choice, while a glamorous nude make-up palette accentuated her striking looks.

Courtney rose to fame after her controversial relationship with ex-husband, Green Mile actor Doug Hutchison.

They formed a romantic bond in 2011, when then-16-year-old Courtney signed up for online acting classes with the former X-Files star, who was 50 at the time.

ACADEMY AWARDS WINNERS 2018 BEST PICTURE Call Me By Your Name Darkest Hour Dunkirk Get Out Lady Bird Phantom Thread The Post The Shape of Water - WINNER Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Sally Hawkins in The Shape Of Water; Best Picture winner BEST ACTOR Timothee Chalamet - Call Me By Your Name Daniel Day-Lewis - Phantom Thread Daniel Kaluuya - Get Out Gary OIdman - Darkest Hour - WINNER Denzel Washington - Roman J. Israel, Esq BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Mary J Blige - Mudbound Alison Janney - I, Tonya - WINNER Lesley Manville - Phanton Thread Laurie Metcalf - Ladybird Octavia Spencer - The Shape Of Water Alison Janney was named Best Supporting Actress for I, Tonya BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM A Fantastic Woman - WINNER The Insult Loveless On Body and Soul The Square BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT Edith + Eddie Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 - WINNER Heroin(e) Knife Skills Traffic Stop BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE Abacus: Small Enough to Jail Faces Places Icarus - WINNER Last Men in Aleppo Strong Island Icarus, named Best Documentary Feature BEST ORIGINAL SONG Mighty River - Mudbound Mystery Of Love - Call Me by Your Name Remember Me - Coco - WINNER Stand Up For Something - Marshall This Is Me - The Greatest Showman BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM The Boss Baby The Breadwinner Coco - WINNER Ferdinand Loving Vincent Coco; Winner of Best Animated Feature Film BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY Call Me By Your Name - James Ivory - WINNER The Disaster Artist - Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber Logan - Scott Frank, James Mangold and Michael Green Molly's Game - Aaron Sorkin Mudbound - Virgil Williams and Dee Rees BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY The Big Sick - Emily V Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani Get Out - Jordan Peele - WINNER Lady Bird - Greta Gerwig The Shape of Water - Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor (story by Guillermo del Toro) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - Martin McDonagh BEST ORIGINAL SCORE Dunkirk Phantom Thread The Shape of Water - WINNER Star Wars: The Last Jedi Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri BEST DIRECTOR Christopher Nolan - Dunkirk Jordan Peele - Get Out Greta Gerwig - Lady Bird Paul Thomas Anderson - Phantom Thread Guillermo del Toro - The Shape of Water - WINNER BEST ACTRESS Sally Hawkins - The Shape of Water Frances McDormand - Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri - WINNER Margot Robbie - I, Tonya Saoirse Ronan - Lady Bird Meryl Streep - The Post Best Actress winner Frances McDormand in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Willem Dafoe - The Florida Project Woody Harrelson - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Richard Jenkins - The Shape of Water Christopher Plummer - All the Money in the World Sam Rockwell - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - WINNER BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY Bladerunner 2049 - WINNER Darkest Hour Dunkirk Mudbound Shape of Water BEST COSTUME DESIGN Beauty and the Beast Darkest Hour Phantom Thread - WINNER The Shape of Water Victoria and Abdul BEST SOUND EDITING Baby Driver Blade Runner Dunkirk - WINNER The Shape of Water Star Wars: The Last Jedi Dunkirk was named the winner for Best Sound Editing BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM Dear Basketball - WINNER Garden Party Lou Negative Space Revolting Rhymes BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM DeKalb Elementary The Eleven O'Clock My Nephew Emmet The Silent Child - WINNER Watu Wota / All of Us Maisie Sly is seen in The Silent Child, which won Best Live Action Short Film BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Blade Runner 2049 - WINNER Guardian of the Galaxy vol. 2 Kong: Skull Island Star Wars: The Last Jedi War for the Planet of the Apes BEST FILM EDITING Baby Driver I,Tonya Dunkirk - WINNER The Shape of Water Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri BEST SOUND MIXING Baby Driver Blade Runner Dunkirk - WINNER The Shape of Water Star Wars: The Last Jedi BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN Beauty and the Beast Blade Runner 2049 Darkest Hour Dunkirk The Shape of Water - WINNER BEST MAKE UP AND HAIR STYLING Darkest Hour - WINNER Victoria & Abdul Wonder Advertisement

Sultry: The Couple's Therapy beauty amplified her sex kitten appeal with her blonde tresses in a sleek straight style

The pair decided to split in 2017, but the blonde bombshell took to her social media account in January in a bid to win Doug back into her life.

Sharing a host of impassioned posts, Courtney wrote: 'I need this man back in my life. I need him to come help me.

'I need him to want our marriage to work. Hes been my only solid rock. Doug, if you read this  this is a public cry for your undying love. I need you.'

Proving to overcome her emotional plea, Courtney moved into her new boyfriend Chris Sheng's $3million home in Beverly Hills earlier this month, but revealed she moved out of the mansion on Sunday.

Working her angles: Letting her head turning outfit do all the talking, Courtney played down her accessories with a silver charm necklace giving a touch of sparkle

Work it! Knowing how to work her best angles, Courtney's bombshell figure was on full display as she posed with her signature sultry pout

Stodden's estranged husband opened up about the beauty earlier this month in an exclusive chat with DailyMail TV, telling the show that she's 'addicted to fame' and only using Sheng for his money.

'The thing is she doesn't have any money, and he started paying her rent, and she really wants to stay in Hollywood. She is addicted to fame,' Doug explained.

Doug continued explaining he'll always care for Courtney: 'Ultimately I want her to be happy first and foremost. I love her with all my heart, we are soulmates and I will always love her.'He hasn't been on screen since Jonah From Tonga aired in 2014.

But now comedian Chris Lilley is set to return to the spotlight with a new 10-episode series for Netflix.

According to The Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, the funnyman has been scouting talent on the Gold Coast, where the series will be filmed.

Comeback: Chris Lilley is set to return to the spotlight with a new 10-episode series for Netflix

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is expecting production to inject up to $6.35 million into the local economy.

'The series will employ up to 250 cast and extras plus about 100 crew,' she revealed.

Ten episodes will be filmed between March and June this year, after the Queensland government acquired the series through its strategy to attract more films and productions to the state.

Cash: Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is expecting production to inject up to $6.35 million into the local economy

Jonah From Tonga was axed from New Zealand indigenous broadcaster Maori Television last year after the board deemed it to be culturally inappropriate.

Chair of the Maori Television board, Georgina te Heuheu, said in a statement that once the full board became aware that the show was screening on Thursday, a decision was made to pull the show off the airwaves.

'We are a Maori media outlet with our own standards, and a mandate to protect and promote the Maori language and culture,' she said.

Controversial: Jonah From Tonga was axed from New Zealand indigenous broadcaster Maori Television last year after the board deemed it to be culturally inappropriate

New Zealand's Minister for Pacific Peoples, Alfred Ngaro, had earlier said the series perpetuates negative stereotypes of Pacific people.

Announcing the decision Georgina te Heuheu said 'as a leading indigenous broadcaster we have a responsibility to present all cultures with a degree of respect and aroha [love] not least those of our Pacific whanaunga [relatives].

Jonah From Tonga was replaced by Te Taumata Kapahaka.Hes hoping its third time lucky when he finally marries fiancee Vicky Burton, his childrens former nanny.

But twice-married Jeremy Kyle admits his proposal to Vicky, 36, got off to a less than auspicious start during a romantic trip to the Caribbean and his favourite holiday destination, Barbados.

Speaking to Loose Women on Monday afternoon, the divisive presenter, 52, admits his meticulous planning was almost ruined by a stray piece of glass after he produced the ring from his bag.

Calamity: Jeremy Kyle admits his proposal to fiancee Vicky Burton got off to a less than auspicious start during a romantic trip to the Caribbean and his favourite holiday destination, Barbados

Reflecting on the incident, he said: It was in the Caribbean, I had been carrying the bag around on the boat to the island.

It started to rain. I found a shack. I went down on one knee; there was glass on the floor. The ring was upside down. She said just get up will you!

Despite the rather stilted proposal, father-of-four Jeremy admitted he was couldn't wait to exchange vows with Vicky, but drew the line at having more children.

Looking ahead: The divisive presenter is poised to marry Vicky, his childrens former nanny

Opening up: Speaking to Loose Women on Monday afternoon, Kyle admitted his meticulous planning was almost ruined by a stray piece of glass after he produced the ring from his bag

Excited: Despite the rather stilted proposal, father-of-four Jeremy admitted he was couldn't wait to exchange vows with Vicky, but drew the line at having more children

Touching on oldest daughter Harriet's recent pregnancy announcement, he added: 'I am just going to be a granddad for now.'

Harriet is the only child Jeremy shares with his first wife Kirsty, who the ITV host married in 1989 before divorcing the following year.

A source told The Sun: 'Jeremy is over the moon at Harriet's news. It's a very exciting time for the whole family. Jeremy can't wait to meet the little one.'

Proud: Touching on oldest daughter Harriet's recent pregnancy announcement, he added, 'I am just going to be a granddad for now

Family man: Harriet is the only child Jeremy shares with his first wife Kirsty, who the ITV host married in 1989 before divorcing the following year. He later welcomed children Alice, 14, Ava, 12, and Henry, eight, with his second wife Carla Germaine (pictured)

A spokesperson confirmed the news to the publication in February, adding: 'Jeremy's daughter is pregnant, and he is very excited about being a grandfather.

'She is expecting the baby later this year.'

Jeremy is also a father to children Alice, 14, Ava, 12, and Henry, eight, with his second wife Carla Germaine, who he divorced in 2016 after 14 years of marriage, citing that they had 'sadly grown apart over the years'.

Let's talk: Jeremy chatted about his imminent marriage during his latest appearance on ITV

Upbeat: The presenter was in high spirits as he exited the studio later that dayThey have 21 years between them.

But on Sunday evening Big Little Lies actress Zoe Kravtiz and her The Cosby Show actress mother Lisa Bonet, 50, looked like they could sisters.

The mother-daughter duo was seen outside the annual Vanity Fair Oscar bash in Beverly Hills.

Scroll down for video

Easy on the eyes: Big Little Lies actress Zoe Kravtiz and her The Cosby Show actress mother Lisa Bonet, 50, looked like they could sisters when they hit the Vanity Fair Oscar bash on Sunday

Cute look: Zoe showed off her legs in a flirty little cocktail dress with feathers. She added strapped heels too

Both ladies wore black dresses.

Zoe showed off her legs in a flirty little cocktail dress with feathers. She added strapped heels too.

And her mom - who is married to Aquaman star Jason Momoa - had on a longer dress.

This comes after Zoe wore a see through top on Tuesday night for the Saint Laurent show in Paris.

The actress and model was in the front row for the Fall/Winter 2018 collection, unveiled as part of Paris Fashion Week.

No-e bra-vitz! Zoe Kravitz who wore a COMPLETELY see-through top to the Saint Laurent show in the French capital

The 29-year-old rocked a sheer lace crop top that concealed absolutely nothing, bar her forearms beneath the silky long sleeves.

The short-haired stunner finished her look in fitted black skinny jeans teamed with platform heel boots.

Zoe showed off her outfit before the show via Instagram, posting a trio of photos of herself scoffing down a burger.

On show: The 29-year-old rocked a sheer lace crop top that concealed absolutely nothing, bar her forearms beneath the silky long sleeves

Gorgeous: The short-haired stunner finished her look in fitted black skinny jeans teamed with platform heel boots

Earlier this month, the daughter of The Cosby Show alum Lisa Bonet and rocker Lenny Kravitz spoke Fashion Magazine as part of her March cover story about why it was important for her voice to be counted as part of the Time's Up movement.

'It is happening in every industry,' Kravitz told the glossy. 'Women are being sexually harassed and being forced to take it because they are, say, single moms or immigrants.'

She continued, 'There are so many different kinds of situations where women are being forced to be quiet.

'For me, the idea of wearing black was to give a voice to those who didn't have one at that moment. It was just a dress, but it represented more.'

And while she is confident that their joint voices could help incite change, she remains cautious.

'I guess we'll have to wait and see if things kind of stick,' she explained. 'I think it takes a lot of time and concentration to start a movement.'Ryan Seacrest was up early on Monday morning to co-host Live with Kelly Ripa.

But the location was different. Instead of hosting the show from New York, the team took the stage at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, where the Academy Awards took place the night before.

And it wasn't exactly a smooth night for Ryan. The big celebrities seemed to stay clear of his during his E!'s Oscars red carpet coverage because he has been accused of his former makeup artist of sexual harassment.

Scroll down for video

He took the stage: Ryan Seacrest was up early on Monday morning to co-host Live with Kelly Ripa. But the location was different. Instead of hosting the show from New York, the team took the stage at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, where the Academy Awards took place the night before

Not his pals? Just 12 hours earlier, those seats were filled by Hollywood's finest including Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster. But Ryan did not get to talk to any of them while on the red carpet outside

Ryan wore a white tux and Kelly had on a tight black dress as they posed on the stage with thousands of fans in their seats.

Just 12 hours earlier, those seats were filled by Hollywood's finest including Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster.

But Ryan did not get to talk to any of them while on the red carpet outside.

And the one star that did talk to him - Taraji P Henson - was forced to deny throwing shade at the 43-year-old following their red carpet chat on Sunday.

'The universe has a way of taking care of taking care of good people,' said the unsmiling actress during the interview, touching his chin. 'You know what I mean?'

'Nothing but love': Seacrest interviewed his 'friend' Taraji P Henson on the red carpet, but her comments led to accusations she had shaded him, which she later denied

Shunned: Of the acting nominees, only 4 of the 20 found time for Ryan

He obviously felt she was offering her support - replying earnestly 'I agree'. However Twitter blew up, with fans claiming Taraji had 'thrown shade' at Seacrest, who has denied sexual harassment allegations from his ex-stylist, Suzie Hardy.

Taraji had to deny this, telling People she 'absolutely' offered him her support.

'I did it to keep his chin up. It's an awkward position to be in. He's been cleared but anyone can say anything,' she said.

Did Taraji shade Ryan Seacrest? Henson told the E! host the universe looks after 'good people'... later explaining she did not mean this as a dig and was offering support

Got him: While it could be argued that she was offering her support - he replied earnestly 'I agree' - Twitter blew up, with fans claiming she had 'thrown shade' at Seacrest, who has denied sexual harassment allegations from his ex-stylist, Suzie Hardy

Hold on: If indeed the interaction was meant as a dig at Seacrest, it slipped past E!, who had a 30-second delay in screening, which should have prevented any such controversy

Many on Twitter had pointed out that after talking to Seacrest Taraji pointedly told ABCs Wendi Mclendon-Covey, who had inquired as to her mood: 'Im great now that Im in your company.'

Had the interaction been meant as a dig at Seacrest, it slipped past E!, who had a 30-second delay in screening to prevent any such controversy.

'SHE DID!' There was no doubt on Twitter that Taraji had shaded Seacrest

Queen: 'The universe has a way of taking care of taking care of good people,' said an unsmiling Taraji, touching Seacrest's chin. 'You know what I mean?'

While the delay helpfully gave the network time to cut any negative comments, they insisted it was completely standard.

'As always, we tape multiple sources of content simultaneously to deliver the best possible show, and there are often brief delays between interviews,' an E! spokesperson told Variety ahead of the show.

Meanwhile Ryan's co-host Giuliana Rancic was relegated elsewhere by E! - broadcasting down the street beside the pool at the Roosevelt Hotel.

Filling dead air: Experienced Giuliana Rancic was relegated down the street to the Roosevelt Hotel, a four-minute walk and a long way from the hustle and bustle of the red carpet

What are friends for: Kelly Ripa swoops in to support Seacrest after other stars avoided him on red carpet amid harassment scandal

Kissing friends: Kelly has publicly defended Ryan on their show

Who talked to Seacrest? Sofia Carson Diane Warren, nominee for Best Original Song for Stand Up for Something from Marshall Miguel Gael Garcia Bernal Kelly Ripa and her husband Mark Consuelos Allison Janney, nominee Best Supporting Actress for I, Tonya Christopher Plummer, nominee for Best Supporting Actor for All the Money in the World Andy Serkis Richard Jenkins, nominee for Best Supporting Actor for The Shape of Water Bradley Whitford, Lil Rel Howery, Betty Gabriel from Best Picture nominee Get Out Donald Sutherland, honorary Oscar winner Rita Moren Eiza Gonzalez Mary J. Blige, nominated Best Supporting Actress for Mudbound Andra Day and Common, nominate for Best Original Song for Stand Up for Something from Marshall Taraji P Henson, presenter Whoopi Goldberg Tiffany Haddish Advertisement

While it was an idyllic setting (and indeed the scene of the first Oscars, 90 years ago), it was far from the hustle and bustle of the star-studded carpet, a four-minute walk away across the busy Hollywood Boulevard.

The set-up appeared to be E!'s solution to the difficulties, giving the network an easy way for Seacrest to hand off.

However it left the ever-professional Giuliana filling dead air as Ryan struggled to land his usual stream of A-list interviews - with all five of the Best Actress nominees avoiding him.

Luckily his Live co-star Kelly Ripa was there to save him, swooping in for a chat after he spent the first hour interviewing the occasional musician or Disney star.

Her support is no surprise. 'I cannot wait to see you there [at the Oscars],' she told him on their show Thursday.

'I am very excited. And I just want you to know, you are a privilege to work with and I adore you.

'I know what a professional, great person you are, and I feel very, very blessed to work with you each and every day.'

While Ryan has strongly defended himself against the accusations - no evidence was found of wrong-doing by an internal investigation - publicists were understandably keen to avoid any association with the claims.

Given the current climate and the Me Too campaign to end assault in showbiz, many stars took the safe option and opted not to be interviewed by the usually popular presenter.

Indeed during the first hour of the network's normally star-studded coverage, Ryan only managed to bag two interviews - with 24-year-old Disney star Sofia Carson and veteran song-writer Diane Warren.

Kept his top spot: But Ryan failed to secure his usual A-list interview subjects

Standing by their man: E! kept Ryan, despite the allegations against him

Sharing a moment: Andy Serkis was one of those to stop for Seacrest

Far from a household name, Sofia stopped to chat a few minutes into the show, then it took more than 30 minutes for Ryan to get his moment with Diane.

Normally Ryan finds himself fending off the A-listers, who will patiently line up and await their moment with the star presenter.

In total 22 people stopped to talk to Ryan, during 18 separate interviews. But many were old friends - with just four of the 20 acting nominees giving Seacrest a red carpet chat.

To fill time between his sparser than usual schedule he sportscasted, providing rolling coverage of what was happening behind him on the carpet, but his microphone was noticeably quieter to usual.

'Thanks for crashing!' Ryan even posted an image of himself with Kelly; he is relying on old friends to fill his interview slots this year

A-list: Allison Janey made time for Seacrest, although many of the bigger stars gave him a miss

The old ones are the best: Seacrest shared a picture with Rita Moreno, including the fact that she had recycled her Oscars gown

'Huge congrats': Seacrest has plenty of high profile friends, and clearly likes Mary J Blige

Sharing a picture to Instagram before the show, Ryan had appeared defiant, smiling and captioning the shot: 'Almost showtime.'

Meanwhile the beleaguered presenter looked less than happy in a candid shot taken as he left theAmerican Idol studios in Hollywood the previous night.

NBCUniversal confirmed Wednesday that Ryan would not be replaced despite the sexual harassment allegations.

The media giant has said an internal probe failed to find sufficient evidence to support them.

Spot on: Fans pointed out that Giuliana was the one to be relegated, while Ryan kept his top spot on the carpet

'TimesUp': Giuliana was relocated to a hotel down the street, giving E! an easy get out

Making a point: Fans picked up on the fact the Giuliana was the one to be sent away

Not the top spot: Ryan was broadcasting from behind a rope to the side of the carpet

'What are you wearing?' Film fans did not ignore the accusations

'Where'd our momentum go?' Twitter was abuzz about Seacrest

Ryan Seacrest secures only TWO celebrity interviews in first hour of E! coverage amid harassment scandal... he posted this defiant picture before the show

Going ahead as normal: The popular 43-year-old presenter posted this Instagram snap on Sunday captioned, 'Pre #Oscars huddle for the #ERedCarpet. 12th year with this team'

Suzie described the network's investigation as a whitewash in an interview with Variety.

She also detailed his behavior claiming he placed his erect penis against her while wearing only his underwear, groped her and slapped her rear.

Ryan categorically denies her allegations and has accused her of trying to extort money from him.

Worried man: Ryan Seacrest looked less than happy when he left the American Idol studios in Hollywood on Saturday ahead of his gig on the Oscars red carpet after assault allegations

Her story: Ryan's former stylist Suzie Hardy accused him of sexual harassment but an internal probe by NBCUniversal cleared him after failing to find sufficient evidenceAnother Duggar has become engaged.

On Monday Counting On star Josiah Duggar announced he has proposed to girlfriend Lauren Swanson. The reality TV star is 21 years old and his new love is 18 years old.

Though they have been friends for several years, they only started courting in late January.

Ready to say I do: Another Duggar has become engaged. On Monday Counting On star Josiah Duggar announced he has proposed to girlfriend Lauren Swanson

'This is an exciting, big step in our lives, and the whole thing was very meaningful,' he told UsWeekly.

'The place where I proposed to Lauren is the exact spot where her parents were engaged. Theres a lot of family history on this property, making it a special place for Lauren.'

His fiancee also talked to the site.

Happy man: 'This is an exciting, big step in our lives, and the whole thing was very meaningful,' he told UsWeekly

'Im really excited to be getting married to Josiah,' she said.

'Everything about the engagement was such a special moment for me. Im especially looking forward to spending the rest of my life with him!'

And they are thrilled to be joining their families.

'Its going to be neat to see two great families come together in this union,' Duggar said.

More: He added, 'The place where I proposed to Lauren is the exact spot where her parents were engaged. Theres a lot of family history on this property, making it a special place for Lauren'

'Itll take a lot of planning since we have big families on both sides, but were very excited to get started and so thankful for how God has brought our lives together.'

In January she said she was 'totally shocked' that he asked her for a courtship.

She also said they were still 'learning about each other' and were 'putting God first and ourselves second.'

Counting On airs on TLC Mondays at 9 p.m. ET.

This comes after Joy-Anna Duggar and her husband Austin Forsyth debuted their baby boy.

It's love: 'Im really excited to be getting married to Josiah,' she said. 'Everything about the engagement was such a special moment for me. Im especially looking forward to spending the rest of my life with him!'

Last week the couple shared a first photo of the child, named Gideon, as they posed at home.

Their caption read, 'We are so blessed by the arrival of our son, Gideon Martyn Forsyth! He was born on 02/23/18 @ 3:39pm, weighing 10lbs. 3oz. and was 22 inches long!'

Joy-Anna is in a peach colored short-sleeved shirt and her spouse has on a black shirt with jeans.

They are seated near their kitchen.

The two coo over the little boy who wears a light blue and white top and is bundled up in a fake fur blue blanket.

His famous folks: Jim Bob Duggar and his wife Michelle have 20 children

Just three years ago: He was only 17 when this image was taken in 2015

The Counting On star gave birth to son Gideon on Friday.

'We are blessed beyond measure with the arrival of our son, Gideon Martyn Forsyth. Looking at our child for the first time was such an incredible moment! God is so good, and we are so thankful,' the couple told People.

It is likely that she may have gotten pregnant on her wedding night, which was 36 weeks and five days ago. A full term pregnancy is 40 weeks.

Pride and joy: This news comes after Joy-Anna Duggar and her husband Austin Forsyth debuted their baby boy

Their caption read, 'We are so blessed by the arrival of our son, Gideon Martyn Forsyth!;

RadarOnline claimed last year that she was pregnant before she was married, breaking the courtship principles the family holds so dear.

Eyebrows were also raised when Joy-Anna moved up her wedding date by several months. It was speculated she had to get married quickly before she started showing.

Joy-Anna, 20, and Austin, 24, wed in May 2017 at Cross Church in Rogers, Arkansas.

They announced their pregnancy in August.

'Were so happy and thankful to announce that were expecting a baby!' Joy-Anna told People at the time. 'Every child is such a precious gift from God.'

The Counting On star added: 'Im most looking forward to watching Austin as a dad and raising children together with him.'

The Duggar family also shared the exciting news on their website, writing: 'We are so blessed to share that Joy and Austin are expecting!

'We know they will be such wonderful parents! We can't wait to meet this little one!'

Joy-Anna met Austin when he moved to Arkansas and started attending the same church as her family.

Happy guy: The two coo over the little boy who wears a light blue and white top and is bundled up in a fake fur blue blanket

Hello world: The Counting On star gave birth to son Gideon on Friday which makes him only four days old

Like his wife, Austin was raised in a strict Christian home, and the two were expected to abstain from sex before marriage and wait until their wedding day for their first kiss.

And Joy-Anna isn't the only Duggar who has a growing family.

Young newlyweds: Joy-Anna and Austin wed at Cross Church in Rogers, Arkansas, in May after a three-month engagement

Joy-Anna's older brother Josh Duggar and his wife Anna had their fifth child after a series of scandals, including serial infidelity and a stint in faith-based rehab.

Meanwhile, their sister Jill Duggar, 26, and her husband, Derick Dillard, welcomed their son Samuel Scott Dillard in 2017. He is the second child for the couple, who also has a two-year-old son named Israel.

Jessa Duggar, 24, shares two sons, Spurgeon and Henry, with her husband Ben Seewald, and Jinger Duggar, 23, tied the knot with Jeremy Vuolo last November.

Joy-Anna famously has 18 siblings, but when it comes to the size of her own family, she told People: 'We want as many [children] as the Lord thinks we can handle'.He recently marked his 30th birthday in style with a surprise bash thrown by his fiancee Becky Miesner.

And Mario Falcone continued to celebrate his milestone year as he delighted on the picturesque Barbados beach with his partner on Monday afternoon.

The former TOWIE star looked every inch the hunk as he flaunted his toned body in a pair of neon yellow shorts.

Living it up! Mario Falcone continued to celebrate his milestone year as he delighted on the picturesque Barbados beach with his fiancee Becky Miesner on Monday afternoon

The television personality blocked his eyes from the sunlight in a black cap and put on a loved-up display with his stunning wife-to-be.

Becky cut a racy figure as she slipped her envy-inducing frame into a barely-there bikini, giving a glimpse of her busty cleavage.

The brunette beauty swept her tresses into an effortless ponytail and showcased her fresh-faced appearance as she went make-up free.

In shape: The former TOWIE star looked every inch the hunk as he flaunted his toned body in a pair of neon yellow shorts

Smitten: The television personality blocked his eyes from the sunlight in a black cap as he put on a loved-up display with his stunning wife-to-be

This sizzling display comes after Mario revealed he has had 'enough of partying' and is 'ready to settle down' with the Essex make-up artist in a candid interview with OK! Magazine.

He gushed: 'The next ten years are going to be so exciting. Im getting married, then were going to have babies.'

'Im excited about going for weekends away with our families and our children. I had enough of partying in my twenties; Im ready to settle down.

Sweet: This sizzling display comes after Mario revealed he has had 'enough of partying' and is 'ready to settle down' with the Essex make-up artist in a candid interview with OK! Magazine

The couple have been busy planning their wedding since getting engaged last summer, with reports they are set to have two ceremonies- one in Italy and one in London.

However, Mario has kept coy over the rumours, and told the publication: 'I said at the start that Becky gets the final decision on everything  I want her to have everything she wants. As long as shes happy, Im happy.

The pair have reportedly budgeted for 50,000 for a London wedding, likely to take place at the Savoy, while sources say they've put 30,000 away for the Italian shindig.

MailOnline have contacted Mario's representatives for comment.

Despite having previously proposed to ex-girlfriend Lucy Mecklenburgh, Mario has been keen to make the point that his engagement to Becky is for real this time.

The Essex lad told The Sun: 'This engagement is real  the other one wasn't. It was on national TV and planned. This one is the One.

'I love this girl and I want to spend the rest of my life with her'They fell in love on the set of drama Chien.

And Vanessa Paradis was joined by her partner Samuel Benchetrit at the Paris premiere of the film, hosted at the Mk2 Bibliotheque on Monday night.

The 45-year-old actress and the filmmaker's outing comes amid speculation in the French-speaking media that the pair are secretly engaged.

Wedding bells? Vanessa Paradis was joined by her partner Samuel Benchetrit at the Paris premiere of their film Chien on Monday night, amid reports in the French media that the pair are secretly engaged

Vanessa and Samuel - who have been an item since late 2016 - have yet to address the reports, but certainly looked smitten as they posed on the red carpet together.

The Joe Le Taxi hitmaker looked effortlessly chic in a tweed jacket, worn with a cream chiffon blouse and skinny jeans.

Dapper Samuel dressed to impress in suit as he stood alongside the French model and actress.

Loved up: Vanessa and Samuel - who have been an item since late 2016 - have yet to address the reports, but certainly looked smitten as they posed on the red carpet together

Intimate ceremony: According to VSD , Vanessa and Samuel are set to marry on the ile de Re this summer in front of close friends and family

In the flick, which co-stars Bouli Lanners, Vanessa plays the wife of a man who loses everything including his home and his job.

He alienates himself from the world around him until the owner of a pet shop takes him in.

According to VSD, Vanessa and Samuel are set to marry on the ile de Re this summer in front of close friends and family.

Classic look: The Joe Le Taxi hitmaker looked effortlessly chic in a tweed jacket, worn with a cream chiffon blouse

Change of heart? She previously said she had no interest in tying the knot in a 2011 interview - before she met Samuel

Vanessa - who was in a 14-relationship with Johnny Depp, with whom she raises children Lily-Rose and Jack - has never been married before.

She previously said she had no interest in tying the knot in a 2011 interview - before she met Samuel.

The star explained: 'It's romantic and the party part is fun, but it's a bit like the idea of a soulmate: I can't picture it for me.

'I know so many married people who tear each other apart. Ceremonies don't matter to me, love is all I need.'

The star previously said: 'Ceremonies don't matter to me, love is all I need'

Famous ex: Vanessa - who was in a 14-relationship with Johnny Depp, with whom she raises children Lily-Rose and Jack - has never been married before

Vanessa never wed ong-term partner Depp, who she parted ways from in 2012.

The Hollywood actor discussed their split with Rolling Stone magazine at the time, explaining: 'Relationships are very difficult. Especially in the racket that I'm in because you're constantly away or they're away and so it's hard. It wasn't easy on her.

'It wasn't easy on me. It wasn't easy on the kids. So, yeah. The trajectory of that relationship - you play it out until it goes, one thing leads to another. '

Samuel, a director and screenwriter, was previously married to late actress Marie Trintignant, with whom he shared son Jules, 19.

He also has daughter Saul, 10, from his relationship with ex Anna Mouglalis.

MailOnline has contacted Vanessa's representatives for comment.Katherine Heigl has shed her baby weight after giving birth roughly a year ago to her son Joshua Jr.



While vacationing in Mexico with her family, the 39-year-old actress took to social media to share a few snapshots of herself in a sexy red bikini and Tolani patterned skirt.

The mom-of-three looked strong and confident as she flaunted her post-baby bod.

Mom-of-three! Katherine Heigl showed off her post-baby bod in a sexy red bikini and a Tolani patterned skirt while vacationing with her family in Mexico

Back in shape! Katherine Heigl has shed her baby weight after giving birth roughly a year ago

Katherine opened up about her weight loss struggles back in February when she posted a trio of underwear-clad selfies that showed the star's post-pregnancy body transformation.

In the lengthy caption, the model-turned-actress explained how she's been motivated by a 'deep desire to feel fit, strong, and sexy.'

Heigl credits the 'a** kicking' workouts from the Bikini Body Guide for her progress.

Confessions: Katherine opened up about her weight loss struggles back in February when she posted a trio of underwear-clad selfies

Basking in the sun! The Washington D.C. native wanted to lose weight for her upcoming role on USA's Suits

Bounce back! She was also motivated by a 'deep desire to feel fit, strong, and sexy'

The Washington D.C. native also wanted to lose weight for her upcoming role on USA's Suits.

Filming for Season 8 begins in April in Toronto for the actress who has three young children with her husband Josh Kelley, 38.



In addition to their now 14-month-old son Joshua Jr., Katherine and Josh share their two older adopted daughtersNancy, nine, from South Korea, and Adalaide, five, from Louisiana.

One big family! Katherine shares her 14-month-old son Joshua Jr. with husband Josh Kelly

Welcome home! The couple also share their two older adopted daughtersNancy, nine, from South Korea, and Adalaide, five, from Louisiana

In an interview with Michael Strahan on GMA, the 27 Dresses star talked about feeling 'selfish' when it comes to her work/life balance.

'It's been a whirlwind year,' she said. 'It's especially complicated right now because the girls are in school but the baby needs me to survive so he comes with me [to work].

'I think with every mother it's just this perpetual mommy guilt that somehow you're not nailing it,' she added. 'I'm doing my very best.'

'I think with every mother it's just this perpetual mommy guilt that somehow you're not nailing it,' she told Michael Strahan in a GMA interview when asked about her work/life balance. 'I'm doing my very best'



It's the Channel Nine dating show that Australian viewers can't stop watching.

And now, the audition tapes of this year's Married At First Sight contestants have seen the light of day.

On Tuesday's Today show, hosts Karl Stefanovic and Georgie Gardner introduced the footage, where candid confessions and eye-opening statements were made by the unlucky-in-love stars before the series kicked off.

Scroll down for video

Eye opening! The candid confessions of this year's crop of Married At First Sight stars, including Dean Wells (pictured) have been revealed as the Today show aired the contestants' audition tapes on Tuesday

Self-described 'alpha male' Dean Wells didn't hold back in describing what he was really looking for in a partner.

'I want to be the alpha male and she needs to - not obey me - but she needs to respect me as the man,' he admitted in his now-infamous confession.

'I like a girl that is girly and knows that I'm the man and that I'm in charge.'

Meanwhile, Nasser Sultan had a very specific - albeit bizarre - request about who he wanted to be matched with.

'She has to like the beach and wear a bikini,' he told producers. 'And painted toenails, did I mention that she has to have painted toenails?'

'Did I mention that she has to have painted toenails?' Nasser Sultan (pictured) had a bizarre and specific request for his match

'I'm very picky' Davina Rankin (pictured) admitted she had high standards

Dreaming of kids: Davina's eventual 'husband' Ryan Gallagher (pictured) said he had aspirations of starting a family

Controversial contestant Davina Rankin confessed she liked the idea of becoming someone's girlfriend but added: 'I'm very picky when it comes to who I date.'

Her on-screen match Ryan Gallagher, who described himself as 'reliable' and 'extremely loyal' spilled about his family-minded aspirations.

'I want a girl to have a big family. I've always wanted kids,' the popular tradie explained.

Emotional! With tears in her eyes, Sarah Roza (pictured) admitted: 'I'd be so distraught if I wasn't able to have a kid. At least one.'

More emotional in her audition tapes was Telv Williams' eventual 'wife' Sarah Roza, who divulged: 'I'm petrified of people abandoning me.'

With tears in her eyes, she also explained: 'I'd be so distraught if I wasn't able to have a kid. At least one. So I'd be upset.'

Meanwhile, token 'oddball' Troy Delmege had his audition interrupted by the sound of a Tinder match while Alycia Galbraith disclosed she had resorted to 'lame' things 'like going to a coffee shop with a book' in her pursuit of love.

Elsewhere, millionaire Justin Fischer claimed he 'had no problem' getting dates and a then brunette Jo Mcpharlin explained she was excited about leaving behind her 'dirty thirties' to 'roll into her naughty forties'.Most stars picking up their first Oscar would be preparing to celebrate in lavish style.

But Gary Oldman was looking forward to a simpler pleasure as he finally got his hands on a precious golden statuette  a nice cup of tea with his mum.

The British actor used his speech at the 90th Oscars ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood to tell his 98-year-old mother hed be round soon with the award so put the kettle on.

'She was my first champion': Gary Oldman thanked his mother Kathleen, 99, for her 'love and support' following big Oscar win on Sunday night

Oldman, 59, was named best actor for his sublime portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, beating fellow Britons Daniel Day-Lewis and Daniel Kaluuya.

The evening was dominated by The Shape Of Water, which won four Oscars including best film and best director. Frances McDormand was best actress and Sam Rockwell best supporting actor for their roles in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, while best supporting actress went to Allison Janney for I, Tonya.

As well as Oldman, British winners included The Silent Child, for best short film, and cameraman Roger Deakins, 68, for cinematography on Blade Runner 2049.

Main man: Oldman, 59, was named best actor for his sublime portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour, beating fellow Britons Daniel Day-Lewis and Daniel Kaluuya

In his speech to the star-studded audience, Oldman thanked America, but not his native Britain  although he did give a tender acknowledgement of his roots. He said he wanted to thank his mother Kathleen, a retired cafe owner who is older than Oscar and who has lived with him in Los Angeles for 20 years since he moved her out of the familys home in South East London.

He added: She is 99 years young next birthday. And she is watching this from the comfort of her sofa. I say to my mother, thank you for your love and support. Put the kettle on, Im bringing Oscar home.

Afterwards Oldman told the Daily Mail his mother was his champion  she raised him and his two sisters alone after her husband walked out when Oldman was seven, and encouraged her son to take up acting.

Proud: In his speech Gary thanked his mother Kathleen, who is older than Oscar and who has lived with him in LA for 20 years since he moved her out of the family home in London

She would have laughed at the cuppa quip, he said. I was parched and hadnt had a sip or a cup of anything since 11 oclock in the morning  well, you cant when you go to one of those things because youre in your seat for hours  and I knew mum was sitting on the couch at home with my sister watching the Oscars. She would have had a laugh about it.

Gesturing around the Dolby ballroom where the where the post-awards Governors Ball is held, he said: She cant see very well, her hearing is not as good as it was and, all this would be madness. She uses a stick and wouldnt be able to navigate the tables and chairs. She was watching on television and I know she was happy for me.

Oldman, who battled alcoholism for years, said that he and his mother have always been close.

I can remember holding her hand as she walked me to school. You have to imagine the postwar years of the early 1960s when there were still bomb sites in parts of South London.

Close: Afterwards Oldman told the Daily Mail his mother was his champion  she raised him and his two sisters alone after her husband walked out, and encouraged Gary to pursue acting

She was my first champion and always encouraged me back in those early days of trying to work out if I could make a go of this acting thing. I would see Albert Finney and the others on the cinema screen and they were the ones I looked up to, and she encouraged me to go for it. And I did.

As he spoke, he spooned one of celebrity chef Wolfgang Pucks red fruit sorbet desserts into his mouth. Not sure what it is, looks like something out of Game Of Thrones, he laughed.

Ill leave the tea and have it tomorrow morning. PG Tips. Ill make it in the pot and put the milk in the cup first. Thats the way I was taught, thats how Ive always liked it.

Oldman was surrounded by family  two of his three sons, Gulliver, 20 and Charlie, 19, sat with his fifth wife, Gisele Schmidt.

His first wife Lesley Manville, who had been nominated for best supporting actress for Phantom Thread, was at the ceremony with their son Alfie, 29.

'I can remember holding her hand as she walked me to school': Oldman, who battled alcoholism for years, said that he and his mother have always been close

Supportive: He revealed she inspired him to act, recalling: I would see others on the cinema screen and they were the ones I looked up to, and she encouraged me to go for it. And I did'

It was wonderful to see Lesley here, it was really lovely, Oldman said. And it was wonderful to see all the boys together. Were divorced but we go over there [London] for dinner, he said, adding that he will see Miss Manville on stage when she and Jeremy Irons bring the West End production of Long Days Journey Into Night to Los Angeles.

Oldman revealed that Miss Manville made it to the Oscars having performed two shows at Wyndhams Theatre on Saturday.

She was on an early flight to Amsterdam on Sunday morning and caught a flight from there to here, just amazing. He looked at his Oscar and at the inscription.

Its got my name on it, he said. Its the ultimate accolade and, to be honest, Im a little shell-shocked. But, in the words of John Lennon, its the toppermost of the poppermost.

He praise Darkest Hour director Joe Wright and the team of artists who helped transform him into Churchill  Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski and Lucy Sibbick took home the best make-up Oscar.

Family affair: Oldman was surrounded by family at the awards  two of his three sons, Gulliver, 20 and Charlie, 19, sat with his fifth wife, Gisele Schmidt (above)

The whole experience was so unique that to get something like this, he said, pointing to his statuette, at the end of it feels a bit obscene. I mean, I loved Churchill. I loved playing him. I loved that he wasnt a saint but the life achievement of the man was extraordinary.

People ask me if Churchill was an alcoholic. Im not by any strength of the imagination an expert on Churchill but I used to drink  and I know that if you have a bottle and a half of wine at lunch then youre done in the afternoon and you basically want to go and have a lie down.

The energy that he had to do what he did, was extraordinary. So, no, I couldnt say if he was an alcoholic, he was a hugely gifted but complex man. We tend to want our gifted people nowadays to be bland and a bit beige. I think wed have been in trouble if Churchill had been beige.

With that, Oldman departed for the after-party at Vanity Fair.

I wont get my PG Tips there, either, he said with a chuckle.He was voted out of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! on Monday night.

And former AFL star Josh Gibson has celebrated his departure from the South African jungle with a well-deserved shower.

The 33-year-old showed off his impressively toned physique while enjoying his first taste of modern luxury in several weeks.

'Out of the jungle, into the shower': Josh Gibson has celebrated his exit from I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! with a well-deserved shower

On Tuesday, the Ten Insider Instagram page shared a snap of Josh wearing just a towel around his waist before hopping in the shower.

The accompanying caption read, 'Out of the jungle, into the shower,' and was accompanied by the snake emoji.

That same day, two photos of Josh tucking into his first post-jungle meal were posted to the I'm A Celebrity Instagram account.

Let's eat! Two photos of Josh tucking into his first post-jungle meal were posted to the I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Instagram account on Tuesday

'It wouldn't be a jungle meal with your shirt on': The ex-footy star was pictured eating shirtless

In the first image, Josh poses next to his burger and chips dinner. In the second, he is shown shirtless while taking a bite out of the sandwich.

The caption stated: 'Dig in, Josh Gibson! But first, it wouldn't be a jungle meal with your shirt on.'

During his exit interview on Monday's I'm A Celebrity, Josh brushed off rumours of a romance with fellow contestant Simone Holtznagel.

'No babies, no relationship': During his exit interview on Monday's I'm A Celebrity, Josh brushed off rumours of a romance with fellow contestant Simone Holtznagel (right)

He said: 'We'll both be single, you heard it here. We're like brother and sister, she's the younger sister.'

When quizzed further by hosts Julia Morris and Dr. Chris Brown, Josh made it clear they won't be taking their friendship to the next level.

'There's no (possibility). No babies, no relationship. She's going to go back to LA, I'm going to move to Sydney.'

I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! continues Tuesday at 7.30pm on TenOne of the most critically-acclaimed actresses of the moment, Frances McDormand has won some of the most prestigious awards in film, TV and stage acting.

Fresh off her second Oscar for Best Actress at the 90th Academy Awards, shes again drawn the attention of both the media and moviegoers for her impassioned acceptance speech best-known for introducing the term inclusion riders to the general public.

But just who is Frances McDormand? What movies has she starred in over the years? Heres all you need to know about who she is, what her net worth is, how shes made her money, her family, movies and famous Oscars speech at the 2018 Academy Awards.

Frances McDormand has won Oscars, Emmy Awards and Tony Awards during her career

Who is Frances McDormand?

Frances McDormand is a critically-acclaimed actress known for her roles in films like Fargo, Almost Famous and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. She is one of the few actresses to have captured the Triple Crown of Acting, having won at least one Oscar, Emmy and Tony Award during the course of her career.

McDormand was born in Gibson City, Illinois on June 23, 1957.

She started her career in stage acting before landing her professional film debut in 1984 with Blood Simple. Her career took off in the late 1980s when she was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film Mississippi Burning. She later starred in and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in 1996s Fargo.

In the ensuing years, McDormands career saw much critical success with Best Supporting Actress nominations for her roles in Almost Famous and North Country. She also won a Tony Award in 2011 for her role in Good People and a Primetime Emmy Award in 2015 for her role in Olive Kitteridge, making her one of the few actresses to win the most coveted awards in film, TV and stage.

At the 90th Academy Awards on March 4, 2018, McDormand also won another Oscar for her role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Her speech drew media attention from around the world for imploring Hollywood to embrace diversity in its roles.

What is Frances McDormands net worth?

Per Celebrity Net Worth, Frances McDormands net worth is approximately $30 million (21.6 million).

How does Frances McDormand make her money?

McDormand draws her wealth from her successful career as a film, TV and stage actress.

Shes appeared in a number of popular and critically-acclaimed movies and TV series over the years, including Raising Arizona, Fargo, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and the 1980s revival of The Twilight Zone.

Who is Frances McDormands husband?

Frances McDormand is married to filmmaker Joel Coen.

The couple have been married since 1984 and have one adopted son, Pedro McDormand Coen.

Frances McDormand movies

McDormand has had roles in many well-known movies during her career.

She made her film debut in 1984 with Blood Simple and went on to appear in a number of other hit films in the following years, including 1996s Fargo, 2000s Almost Famous, 2011s Transformers: Dark of the Moon and 2012s Madagascar 3: Europes Most Wanted.

Her starring role in the 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri proved to be one her most critically-acclaimed yet, as she won an Oscar for Best Actress, a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture  Drama.

Frances McDormand Oscar's speech

Frances McDormand drew international attention for her 2018 Oscars acceptance speech for Best Actress in which she ended with: I have two words to leave you with tonight, ladies and gentleman: inclusion rider.

The phrase puzzled many viewers and quickly set off much media attention. McDormand later explained backstage that inclusion riders are clauses in A-list actors' contracts that can ask for and/or demand at least 50 per cent diversity in not only the casting but also the crew for films theyre scheduled to star in.KEY SA ELECTION PROMISES SO FAR:

Labor:

* A 75 per cent renewable energy target and a 25 per cent renewable storage target by 2025.

* A $2 billion infrastructure fund including money for new road works, extensions to the city's tram lines as well as support for a deep water port in Spencer Gulf.

* A $692 million program to upgrade more than 90 public schools.

* Major upgrades to Adelaide's metropolitan hospitals and a $140 million plan to also upgrade country hospitals.

* Continuation of the government's $200 million future jobs fund.

Liberal:

* Major cuts to payroll tax to aid small businesses and cuts to the Emergency Services Levy for both households and businesses.

* A promise of $100 million over four years for more trainee and apprenticeships.

* A pledge to develop a plan for a freight airport at Murray Bridge and a new road corridor.

* A move to reopen operating theatres at the mothballed Repatriation Hospital.

* A decision to transition year 7 into high school.

SA-BEST:

* Establishment of a royal commission into the state's health system.

* A move to set up a community energy retailer to cut power costs for low-income families and small businesses.

* A 50 per cent cut in the number of poker machines and the introduction of maximum $1 bets.

* The introduction of free public transport for seniors.

* An independent inquiry into TAFE SA after the failure of some courses.Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop will head to the United States next week to sign a historic maritime boundary agreement with Timor-Leste.

Last week the two nations finalised a treaty on their long-running border dispute in the Timor Sea and on the future carve-up of revenue from the giant Greater Sunrise oil and gas reserve.

"This marks a new chapter in our relationship with Timor-Leste, bringing us together as neighbours sharing a boundary, and as partners and friends," Ms Bishop said on Sunday.

She'll sign the treaty in New York on Tuesday at the United Nations Headquarters before Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

Under the deal, the share of revenue from the offshore gas field will differ depending on downstream benefits that arise from "different development concepts", the Permanent Court of Arbitration said last Monday.

The fields are estimated to hold gas worth about $56 billion - around 30 times East Timor's annual national income.

Relations between the countries became strained in 2017 as Australia sought a boundary aligned with its continental shelf, but East Timor argued the border should lie half way between them - placing much of the gas field under its control.

Ms Bishop will also attend a meeting for the Kimberley Process, a global diamond watchdog which imposes strict controls to prevent illicitly-acquired and so-called blood diamonds from filtering into the global market.

"Australia's final role as chair of the Kimberley Process will be to guide the adoption of a UN General Assembly Resolution on the role of diamonds in fuelling conflict," she said.

Ms Bishop will also spruik Australia to US government and business leaders and mark International Women's Day during her visit.Cardinal George Pell will face court in Melbourne under an intense international media glare as a hearing begins that will decide if he stands trial on historical sexual offence charges.

The highest-ranking Catholic official to be charged with sexual abuse will return to the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday to fight the charges at a month-long preliminary hearing.

Pell, 76, denies the multiple historical sexual offence charges involving multiple complainants.

Prosecutors on Friday withdrew one of the charges, relating to a complainant who died after the criminal proceedings began in 2017.

The committal hearing will initially be open to the public as the defence and prosecution finalise further administrative matters, but will quickly move behind closed doors as accusers begin their evidence.

The hearing will be closed to the public and media for two weeks while the complainants give their evidence, as required by law in sexual offence cases.

At the end of the four-week proceeding, it will be up to Magistrate Belinda Wallington to decide if there is enough evidence for the case to go to trial in the Victorian County Court.

Dozens of Australian and international journalists are expected to cover the court case, with foreign interest from the BBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Swedish National Radio.

Pell will not have to enter a formal plea unless committed to stand trial, but his barrister Robert Richter QC told the Vatican treasurer's first court appearance last July that Pell will plead not guilty to all charges.

The former Sydney and Melbourne archbishop and Ballarat priest has taken leave from his position as Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy to fight the charges.Veteran forward Simon Mannering will miss the Warriors' opening match of the NRL season against South Sydney in Perth.

Mannering wasn't on the plane out of Auckland on Monday, having failed to shake off the shoulder injury picked up in last week's pre-season win over the Gold Coast.

Some reports said the 31-year-old could be on the sidelines for up to a month, in what would be an enormous early-season blow for Stephen Kearney's side.

Possible replacements in the No.13 jersey for Saturday's match are Ligi Sao and young forwards Isaiah Papali'i and Bunty Afoa.A string of north Queensland towns will given disaster assistance funding to help with the recovery effort following last week's floods.

Burdekin, Charters Towers, Etheridge, Palm Island Aboriginal Shire and Townsville local government areas will be eligible for state and federal government funds after flash flooding swept through the region.

Queensland Emergency Services Craig Crawford says crews are continuing to assess the damage, with more rain predicted in the coming days after falls of about 500mm in some places late last week.Tasmania have made a solid start in their Sheffield Shield match against South Australia in Hobart, with the Tigers boosted by the return of fast bowler Jackson Bird.

Knowing a win would keep them in the hunt for the Shield final, Tasmania began cautiously under sunny skies at Bellerive Oval on Monday.

Tasmania, having won the toss and electing to bat, had reached 2-73 at lunch.

In-form opener Beau Webster is on 30 and Jake Doran is on three.

Opener Alex Doolan was dismissed early on for seven and Jordan Silk soon followed for 19.

Bird has returned for the Tigers after injury ruled out the paceman from Australia's Test tour of South Africa.

Tasmania began the second-last-round match in third, while bottom-placed South Australia are still in the hunt for a top-two finish amid a congested Shield ladder.Two of the men charged over the brutal road rage incident that left a Gold Coast man fighting for his life in a coma have been released on bail.

Jordan Baklas and Ryan Hallifax are both set to be released from Beenleigh Police Station on Monday afternoon as Prime remains in hospital in a stable condition with a suspected fractured scull.

The prosecution opposed bail, but Beenleigh Magistrate Brian Kucks allowed it on strict conditions after both men's lawyers argued they had played relatively minor roles in the incident on the M1 on February 24.One NSW police officer has been punched in the face and another attacked by a dog while trying to restrain a man who also allegedly spat blood at them.

The pair were responding to a domestic incident at a house in Macquarie Fields in Sydney's south west, about 2.20 am on Monday morning.

Police allege a 51-year-old turned and hit one officer in the face as they tried to remove him from the property.

The officers, who were attempting to restrain the man on the ground, were then approached by two dogs in the front yard. One was bitten on the bottom, arm and foot.

The officer was forced to use pepper spray on the dog to stop the attack.

The injured officers were assessed by paramedics but did not need further treatment.

The man was taken to Campbelltown Hospital with minor head injuries.

He was later released and charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, four counts of assaulting police, and resisting arrest.

He was refused bail to appear before Campbelltown Local Court on Monday.Federal frontbencher Christopher Pyne has weighed into the South Australian election campaign, accusing Labor of trying to "smear and distract".

Mr Pyne's comments come as Opposition Leader Steven Marshall faced continued questions over a possible $1.2 million donation to the Liberals from Chinese businesswoman Sally Zou.

While Ms Zou tweeted out a picture of a cheque made out to the party on Friday, Mr Marshall said no such donation had yet been received and Mr Pyne said the businesswoman was not the focus of the campaign.Almost 400 people have been arrested and charged in a month-long police operation targeting the drug trade in north Queensland.

Operation Quebec Ironside targeted crime hotspots around Townsville in February, resulting in 394 people charged with 839 offences, including property and traffic offences as well drugs.

Along with the arrests, police also conducted a series of community-based crime prevention workshops and engagements.

Officers from the Tactical Crime Squad, Rapid Action Patrols and District Crime Prevention Unit collaborated on the operation.

Queensland Police said the the multi-pronged approach of focusing on the causes of crime had been very successful.An axe, a hunting knife and a myriad of drugs have been found on visitors to a prison in the NSW Hunter Valley.

The contraband was found during a blitz by Corrective Services NSW and police at Cessnock Correctional Centre on the weekend.

Officers, with the help of detection dogs, allegedly found an axe, hunting knife, two pocket knives, 21 syringes and a glass smoking implement during searches of visitors' vehicles.

They also found 54 grams of cannabis, two grams of methamphetamine and 11.5 grams of tobacco.

Five people were charged and seven were stopped from entering the prison.

Corrective Services NSW Assistant Commissioner Mark Wilson warned that everything - from handbags to prams - are carefully inspected for contraband.

"We make sure no stone is left unturned," he said in a statement on Monday.

"Visitors need to use some common sense and ensure that they are not driving into a correctional facility with a boot full of hunting knives or anything else that is considered contraband in the custodial setting such as tobacco."More than 40 dockless share bicycles have been impounded by a council in Sydney's east after it lost patience with operators leaving them abandoned on roads and footpaths.

Waverley Council last week warned companies it would start impounding abandoned or unattended bikes left on streets, parks and beaches unless they cleaned up their act.

In three hours on Monday morning, 42 bikes were collected from Bondi, with Mayor John Wakefield expecting up to 60 to be removed by the end of the day.Australians struggling with skyrocketing power bills are constantly told to shop around, but that's not an option for 200,000 customers trapped in embedded networks.

Apartment developers are increasingly signing up buyers to embedded networks, originally designed for caravan parks, locking residents into deals they can't switch from unless they pay hundreds of dollars to get a new meter.

The networks involve one company controlling the power supply to a building, and residents have no option but to pay them for electricity.

Melbourne's Ed Giles bought off the plan in Collingwood only to find the meter he paid for was now owned by an energy company he was required to buy power from.

"The developer of our building chose to have an embedded network installed so we are stuck on it," he told AAP.

"These uncompetitive electricity monopolies are trapping regular people like us into power supply agreements that don't give us access to the open market."

Australian Energy Regulator chair Paula Conboy agreed it can be "difficult" for customers on embedded networks to get better deals as prices rise.

"There's around 200,000 Australians in embedded networks and that number is growing," she told AAP.

"Customers in embedded networks have the same right to choose their energy retailer as any other Australian household or business.

"But we recognise that changing retailers when you are in an embedded network, like an apartment building or a caravan park, can be difficult."

Rules were changed in December to make sure customers on the networks can get access to competitive energy markets, but residents say the process is unclear and expensive.

Melbourne's Jason Bond was told it would cost as much as $500 to get a new meter installed, and he would still have to pay network charges to the original company he was forced to go with.

"I am being told that if I pursue this option, I will wear the extra additional cost to switch over," he told AAP.

"We're meant to be in a competitive market but this seems anything but."

The regulator now requires power companies to employ a manager to help customers switch over, but it's understood some retailers often consider the process more trouble than it's worth.

Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg was asked what the government was doing to help customers stuck on the networks as prices shoot up, but his office directed questions to the regulator.The federal work health and safety watchdog has been criticised for dragging its heels on addressing a mould scandal at the Nauru immigration detention centre.

At least 20 former detention centre staff have become seriously ill from mould exposure, including an Australian teacher who now has a cognitive disability.

Comcare started "monitoring compliance activity" at the Nauru detention centre on February 12 and is "examining a number of allegations concerning unsafe conditions caused by mould", according to leaked emails obtained by AAP.

The move came days after AAP revealed mould and construction problems at Nauru and Manus Island detention centres.

Australian Lawyers Alliance spokesman Greg Barns said Comcare was late to the party.

His organisation had been pushing the agency to exercise its powers on Nauru since June 2016 after releasing a report raising concerns the Commonwealth was failing in its duty of care.

"It's too little too late," Mr Barns told AAP.

"If this was Parliament House, Canberra, with a mould problem, you wouldn't have to rely on media stories to get it fixed."

He said the agency should be investigating the matter formally and considering criminal and civil charges.

A top-secret report from December 2014 warned Australia's immigration department (now Home Affairs) and then-detention centre operator Transfield (now Broadspectrum) of mould health risks.

Comcare has previously admitted it received a complaint in 2016 from a worker employed by a contractor, who had been diagnosed with a respiratory condition after living at the Nauru detention centre.

However, the agency said last month it was satisfied that reasonably practicable steps were taken to address problems with mould at the centre, and that the most recent site inspection in August 2017 found no significant issues.

Further comment has been sought from Comcare.

Last week, it emerged the Home Affairs department wasted $50,000 of taxpayer money on an industrial steam cleaner, but the machine was too dangerous to use and not appropriate for cleaning tents.Melbourne's Crown Casino has been warned it may be in breach of the gambling act by "blanking buttons", or removing options, on poker machines.

The Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation says Crown should have sought approval before conducting a three-week trial involving 17 of its machines, Crown wrote in a statement to the stockmarket on Monday.

The company maintains it did not need approval for the trial, conducted between March and April 2017, and did not breach the Gambling Regulation Act.Australian running legend John Landy wasn't bothered at coming second to Roger Bannister.

Landy came second to the British great in the race to become the first man to break the four-minute mile.

And he also came second to Bannister in what was billed as "The Mile of the Century" at the Empire Games in 1954.

Bannister, who died aged 88 in Oxford on Saturday, became the first man to run a mile in under four minutes in Oxford on May 6, 1954.

And while Landy wasn't running, he beat the Australian to the landmark.

"It never really bothered me," Landy said in 2004, at a function in London commemorating the 50-year anniversary of Bannister's world-first.

Six weeks after Bannister's feat - and feet - entered sporting immortality, Landy ran a mile faster than the Brit.

The Australian not only finally broke the four-minute mark in Turku, he set a world-record time of three minutes 57.9 seconds.

"I really wanted to run the fastest time in the world, which I did do," Landy said in 2004.

"If it was a four-minute mile, that was a bonus.

"But I was not aggrieved at all by the fact that I missed the first one.

"I was amazed that Bannister had done it quite when he did. I thought it was a few months away or even a year away."

While the race to break the four-minute mile captivated the sporting world, it didn't captivate Landy.

"I was never really concerned about the four minutes," he said.

"A tremendous amount was made of it."

Landy rejected talk of Bannister breaking not only a time barrier but a psychological barrier.

"It wasn't psychological at all," Landy said.

"It was a matter of getting the right set of circumstances. He got them, then eventually I got them.

"I make a very strong point, people constantly say it was a psychological barrier - it was not. It was just a physical barrier."

But Landy admitted having plans for Bannister in their famed race at the Empire Games in Vancouver in August 1954.

"I intended to run him into the ground," he said.

Landy led his rival late in the race.

Then he famously peered over his left shoulder - and Bannister swept past his right and won gold.

Both athletes, as Landy predicted, ran sub-four minute miles.Co-operation with countries in the region such as Indonesia will be crucial to tackling terrorists returning from the Middle East, Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton says.

Mr Dutton met on Monday with Indonesian President Joko Widodo and security minister Wiranto in Jakarta, to discuss issues including people-smuggling and the foreign fighter threat.

"Many of these battled-hardened terrorists will no doubt seek to return to their home countries and we must be ready to deal with them. Regional co-operation will be vital to the possible threats they pose," Mr Dutton said in a statement after the meeting.A booming Liberal primary vote in Tasmania might offer hope to Malcolm Turnbull, but experts say the result was almost entirely down to state issues.

Will Hodgman's Liberal government was returned on Saturday with a primary vote of just over 50 per cent, but coalition sources don't believe the result is a pointer to the next federal election.

Instead they expect the strong Liberal performance will help recruit candidates and volunteers for the next poll.

"This is a vote very, very much about state issues and probably less contaminated by federal factors than just about any other state election I've seen," Tasmanian election expert Kevin Bonham told AAP.

Dr Bonham said the Turnbull government's poor position in the polls would ordinarily be a drag on an incumbent state government.

"Yet there hasn't been a swing against the state government to speak of at all," he said.

University of Tasmania politics lecturer Richard Herr said the result could help the Liberals recruit well to win federal seats.

"Success breeds success," he told AAP.

It might also help the coalition decide to push Labor's Justine Keay over her citizenship, as the Liberal vote was especially strong in her electorate of Braddon.

The Liberals won Braddon, Bass and Lyons in 2013 but lost them all in 2016, meaning they hold no federal lower house seats in Tasmania.

The Greens could drop from three members to just one, and Dr Bonham says they have problems with candidate choice and no galvanising issues.

"The Greens are suffering from a lack of political oxygen and a lack of novelty factor, a lack of anything that inspires voters to vote for them," he said.

But party founder Bob Brown said Labor had pinched the Greens' policy on poker machines, and the Liberals flooded the state with advertising.

"I've never seen an election like it," he told Sky News.

He said there are environmental issues resonating with Tasmanians, including fish farming concerns and the privatisation of national parks.

Dr Herr said the Greens had to refresh their party and agenda if they were to find a second generation of voters.

The Jacqui Lambie Network polled poorly and Dr Bonham said the former senator, who didn't run herself, will find it difficult to get a quota at the next half-senate election.

Ms Lambie said she could not have properly committed to a state seat, given her federal ambitions.

"I more than likely would have won a seat ... but then I would have brought instability to Tasmania because my dream is to get back into the Senate," Ms Lambie told Sky News.Candidates contesting the Batman federal by-election and perceived as climate change deniers have been shunned from an inner Melbourne community meeting.

Only five of the 10 contenders for the March 17 poll have been invited to a forum at Northcote Town Hall on Tuesday to discuss the hot topics of climate action, fossil fuels, forests, refugees, Queensland's proposed Adani coal mine and other issues.

Darebin Climate Action Now convener Jane Morton said candidates with "no policy or poor policies" on climate change had not been invited.Taxpayers may have to fork out tens of millions of dollars to pay for perks and allowances in a new workplace deal for Metropolitan Fire Brigade staff to be voted on in the next week.

Firefighters could take up to 196 days a year off work on full pay, get a $3000 sign-on bonus and a language allowance of $1215.58, as part of the enterprise bargaining agreement, the Herald Sun reports.

The perks also include an "availability allowance" for commanders and above worth 5.5 per cent of their salary, a 19 per cent wage increase, a drone operator allowance of $2.70 an hour to no email monitoring or surveillance by MFB on staff.

The package would replace the 2010 EBA if approved.Today's Birthday, March 6: Lara Cox, Australian actor, (1978 - ).

One-half of Heartbreak High's most popular romance, Lara Cox, who played Anita Scheppers, and on-screen boyfriend Bogdan 'Drazic' are considered in the esteemed realm of 'Australia's favourite couples'.

Almost two decades ago the pair sealed the deal on the fictional quadrangle of Hartley High, when they got engaged in the final season of the popular teen drama.

But after four years Cox felt it was time to swap the quad for the sand appearing in another much-loved Aussie soap, Home and Away.

After leaving Summer Bay in 1999, last year it was revealed Cox would be taking on the role of Quinn Jackson, the illegitimate American daughter of Alf Stewart. taking over the role originally played by Danielle Spencer in 1995.

Cox was born in Canberra and attended Daramalan and Menai College. At a young age, she signed with a modelling agency who put her forward for Heartbreak High auditions.

The show became an instant hit in Australia and grew a steady following internationally in more than twenty countries. In 2007 Cox said she received photos from a viewer in France of she and her on-screen boyfriend 'Drazic' - played by Callan Mulvey, sent via Myspace.

"We must've been like, 18, 19, 20, and it was such a trip to see them because it was so long ago. But to this guy, it's still screening. He said it's still really popular over there, which is funny because we were such babies," Cox told TV Week .

After four years on Heartbreak High Cox left in 1999 and worked on local productions including Home and Away, All Saints and Above the Law.

She then moved to Los Angeles where she stuck out the audition round and completed a pilot by powerhouse writer and producer David E Kelley (Ally McBeal, Big Little Lies).

She's appeared in several films including 2003's Kangaroo Jack, Voodoo Lagoon in 2006 and The Makeover in 2009.

In between acting work she completed a Bachelor of Counselling and Human Change degree in 2010.

In 2017 she returned to Home and Away for seven episodes.A report into Victoria's troubled youth justice centres is due to be tabled in parliament.

A parliamentary inquiry into the Parkville and Malmsbury centres has been probing the riots, as well as security and safety at the facilities, for more than a year.

The final report was originally due in August 2017, but was delayed into the new year because evidence requested from the justice and health departments had not been received.

A further extension to February was pushed back a week because parliament was not sitting.

An interim report was released in December.Half the candidates running in the federal Melbourne seat of Batman will share their policies on climate change at a community forum while the other half have been left off the invite list.

Darebin Climate Action Now convener Jane Morton says candidates with "no policy or poor policies" on climate change weren't included in the discussion at Northcote Town Hall on Tuesday night.

"If you (candidates) have no policy or deny if climate change is happening, we did not invite you," Ms Morton said.

Climate action, fossil fuels, forests, refugees, and Queensland's proposed Adani coalmine will be discussed at the meeting.

Australian Conservatives candidate Kevin Bailey said if he'd been invited he would have spoken in favour of the quarter of the electorate wanting the Adani coalmine to go ahead.

"We are talking about a coalmine on the other side of the country. We have to grow the economy, increase jobs and reduce the cost of living," Mr Bailey said.

Independent candidate Teresa van Lieshout said she should have been invited as she was "quite a big environmentalist".

Labor's Ged Kearney and the Greens' Alex Bhathal are expected to attend with Save the Planet candidate Adrian Whitehead, Animal Justice Party's Miranda Smith and Sustainable Australia's Mark McDonald.

Australian Liberty Alliance's Debbie Robinson and Australian People's Party representative Tegan Burns were also left off the invite list.Craig Bellamy has moved to downplay concerns over Billy Slater's shoulder after the star fullback suffered his third consecutive injury-affected start to a season.

Slater was on Monday ruled out of Melbourne's season-opener against Canterbury in Perth, after he jarred his shoulder in the Storm's World Club Challenge win over Leeds last month.

It marks Slater's third left shoulder injury since 2015. He played just one game in 20 months between June of that year and March 2017 as he underwent two separate reconstructions.

Slater's latest setback at age 34 has prompted fears he could struggle through a one-year deal before deciding whether to play on in 2019.

But Bellamy told Fox League's NRL 360 he was confident the injury wouldn't be an ongoing concern.

"He had a terrible run with that shoulder so he's obviously a little bit more concerned about it than a guy who might have been out for four weeks," Bellamy said.

"We saw last year he worked really hard on his fitness and strength but also getting that shoulder back to as good as it can be.

"I don't think the shoulder injury is going to stop him playing at the end of this year.

"It will be when he is ready to retire on his own teams, when he's not prepared to put the hard work in he's always put in his whole career to play the best footy he can."

Slater got through his first contact session last Friday but pulled up sore, delaying what will be his 300th appearance in the NRL.

But Bellamy said the club were just taking a cautious approach with the veteran.

"They're saying there's not any permanent damage or too bad damage," Bellamy said.

"He jarred it up pretty well apparently.

"We just thought it was better for the team not to take him over there and not guess all week and wait until captain's run. Just make the call now and give him a bit more time to recover."At first, alarm bells were ringing for Cate Campbell.

After making her long awaited return to the pool, a sluggish Campbell suddenly thought taking a 2017 sabbatical wasn't such a good idea.

But after bouncing back to dominate the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games swimming trials, a revitalised Campbell is now targeting Tokyo 2020 - and beyond.

A 25, Campbell hopes she can now extend her career for as long as she can after the successful break.

"It's allowed me to see the future, to see at least until 2020," she said.

"I am not going to put a cap on that because I know I can take breaks and time away from the pool to refresh myself physically and mentally which is really important."

Former world champion Campbell surprised even herself with her stunning comeback.

She broke the 50m butterfly and 50m freestyle Australian records and took a dominant 100m freestyle gold to announce herself again on the world stage.

However, Campbell admitted the early signs weren't good when she finally returned after her Rio Olympic disappointment.

"I was expecting to need a lot more time to get back into it - to be honest in the first couple of weeks I was a little worried," Campbell said.

"But after a while your body remembers and I have been doing this a long time and I have lots of default fitness to fall back on.

"After the first couple of weeks I really started to find my groove."

Campbell believed she had also started exorcising her Rio demons after soaking up the "electric" atmosphere of the Gold Coast Aquatic Centre and performing under pressure at the trials.

She found most comfort in claiming 100m freestyle gold in a blistering 52.37 seconds, setting the scene for an epic Games stoush with reigning co-Olympic champion Penny Oleksiak of Canada.

Campbell's time was almost a second faster than the unbackable favourite's sixth in the Rio 100m final, an effort she described as "the greatest choke in Olympic history".

More importantly her trials winning time was 0.33 of a second faster than the effort that earned Oleksiak and American Simone Manuel a stunning tie for Rio gold.

"Behind the blocks I was kind of shaking," Campbell said.

"It is a big weight off my shoulders knowing I can perform when I am supposed to and under pressure and that I can improve from heats to finals.

"Keeping your head under pressure in an atmosphere, that can be challenging.

"But I feel I am in a much better place to cope with all that."Laws to ban developer donations to politicians will be introduced to Queensland parliament on Tuesday.

The measure was one of the key recommendations from the Crime and Corruption Commission's Operation Belcarra, which found widespread flouting of political donation rules in the 2016 local government elections.

The government introduced the laws late last year, however the bill lapsed when the election was called and now has to be reintroduced.

The Liberal National Party opposition has flagged a potential legal challenge to the changes.

Queensland LNP President Gary Spence would have to resign under the laws which lapsed last year, because under the legislation he would be classed as a developer.

The ban will be introduced on the first of Queensland parliament's new "family-friendly" sitting days, with shorter hours and a slightly rejigged schedule to allow MPs to get home to their families.

Also the week the state government will introduce amendments to ensure transgender Queenslanders don't have to get a divorce so they can change the gender on their birth certificate.

The measure used to be required to ensure no breach of marriage laws which strictly defined marriage as between a man and a woman, however after the introduction of same-sex marriage it's no longer needed.

Parliament will also debate laws to crack down on dodgy tow truck drivers and legislation to give police greater access to biometric data ahead of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in April.A man has been charged after he was found with a replica pistol and other prohibited items in Canley Vale.

Police on patrol had stopped to speak to two men in a car park in the southwestern Sydney suburb before they searched their vehicle.

They found a satchel bag containing what appeared to be a loaded pistol, later found to be a replica; a silencer; a knife hidden in the tube of a pen; and a small amount of drugs.

The man was charged and released on conditional bail to appear in Fairfield Local Court on March 26. His companion was released without charge.East Timor and Australia will sign a deal ending a long-running maritime boundary dispute.

It will also carve up the Greater Sunrise oil and gas reserve estimated to be worth upwards of $56 billion.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and East Timor leaders have travelled to New York for the treaty signing ceremony at the United Nations on Tuesday, US time.

The agreement establishes a maritime boundary in the Timor Sea for the first time.

Australia had sought a boundary along the continental shelf, but East Timor argued the border should lie halfway between the two countries - placing much of the oil and gas fields in its territory.

Development could be at least a decade away, with Woodside looking at the latter half of the next decade.

It could also be a while before the agreement is ratified.

East Timor's President Francisco 'Lu-Olo' Guterres dissolved the country's parliament in January to call fresh elections to end a domestic political stand-off.Another three men have been charged over the alleged kidnapping and serious assault of a man at a western Sydney restaurant two years ago, as part of an investigation into the activities of the Rebels bikie gang's Burwood chapter.

Police on Monday arrested three men at prisons across NSW.

Two 29-year-olds and a 24-year-old were charged with multiple offences, including causing grievous bodily harm to a person with intent and kidnap in company.

Police allege the trio was among a group of people who detained and assaulted a man at the rear of a St Mary's restaurant in March 2016.

Two other men previously charged over the attack are before the courts.

One of the 29-year-old men is also accused of being involved in a car crash in June 2016 and submitting a fraudulent insurance claim.

He remains in custody and is due to appear at Parramatta Local Court on Tuesday.

The two others remain behind bars after facing court on Monday.Detectives are determined to find a fat man with bulging blue eyes who raped a Queensland teenager with the help of her mother more than a decade ago.

Peta Butler was 15 or 16 when she was taken from her Brisbane home to Toowoomba where her mother had arranged for the obese, well-dressed man to rape her. Ms Butler, who is now 27, has given police permission to publish her identity.

Ms Butler's mother is in jail after recently admitting her role in the crime but 12-13 years later, police are still hunting for the man and have now released a computer-generated image of a person they wish to question.Excluding people convicted of serious crimes from the national child abuse redress scheme effectively amounts to systemic racism, an indigenous agency says.

Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency representative Megan Van Den Berg criticised the move to exclude survivors who have committed serious crimes and thereby judge who is deserving or undeserving.

"These exclusions will disproportionately exclude Aboriginal victims due to the over-representation of Aboriginal people in the justice and criminal systems, therefore amounting to systemic racism and a breach of Australia's human rights obligations," she told a Senate inquiry on Tuesday.People with a history of serious drug offences will be banned from living in some inner-Sydney social housing buildings.

But the NSW government denies it will push the problem into the city's suburbs.

In a one-year trial, anyone charged or convicted of drug dealing or manufacturing in the past five years won't be allowed to reside in public estates in Surry Hills, Glebe, Waterloo and Redfern.

"These particular sites we know have become honeypots for drug dealers," Social Housing Minister Pru Goward told 2GB radio on Tuesday.

"What we're trying to do is to break those down."

The policy is aimed at removing temptation for drug users and reducing instances of anti-social behaviour, she said.

"If our tenants are going to have a good shot at getting their lives back on track, we need to remove the temptation to go back onto drugs."

The state opposition, however, fears the move will simply turn Sydney's western suburbs into a "dumping ground for drug dealers".

Ms Goward denied it was a matter of exporting the problem, saying there was more public housing in the inner-city than anywhere else in NSW and other options were available in places like Pyrmont and Moore Park.

To date, 46 tenancies have been terminated for drug dealing or manufacture in Redfern and Waterloo since 2014, a department spokesman said.

Another 32 people who don't live in the area have also been banned from going there for drug-related activity.

"The new inner city allocations policy aims to further improve the safety of these communities by not introducing new tenants with a recent history of drug manufacture or serious drug supply and who are at high risk of reoffending," a Family and Community Services spokesman said.A stash of drugs and more than $100,000 in cash have been found inside a car in NSW, which only came to the attention of police when they saw a wallet fall from its roof.

Officers spotted the wallet and cash spill as the car turned onto the Pacific Highway in Karuah on Monday night.

They stopped to pick it up before catching up with the 26-year-old driver, who they say appeared to be under the influence.

Police then searched his Holden Calais and allegedly discovered the hefty sum of cash, a knife, cannabis and 'ice' inside his car.

The Lismore man has been charged with a string of offences including possessing prohibited drugs and dealing with proceeds of crime.Three of Australia's largest unions will combine to form a super-union after the Fair Work Commission approved their merger.

The Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union, the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union of Australia, and the Maritime Union of Australia will become one union when they formally amalgamate.

"It's time for big business to stop riding on the coat-tails of everyday working Australians, time the banks stopped ripping people off, and time for every business in this country to pay tax," CFMEU secretary Michael O'Connor said on Tuesday.Australia has been shocked by the Indian government's decision to slap a 60 per cent tariff on chickpea imports.

The move comes while Australia is in the midst of negotiating a free-trade agreement with India and is the second time since late last year the tariff has been raised.

"We're obviously disappointed with the Indian minister's decision. I've written to the minister in India asking them for some explanation," Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said on Tuesday, adding other markets meant producers haven't been hit as badly as they could have been.Composer Philip Glass, seen here at a New York gala last March to mark his 80th birthday, will be playing some of his own music this month at the Kennedy Center in Washington

After a prolific half-century in music that has earned him the unofficial title of America's foremost living composer, Philip Glass could be forgiven if he were to decide to slow down.

But the 81-year-old not only remains active, he is determined to challenge himself. Far better known as a composer, Glass believes it is crucial also to be a performer.

Glass this month is making his long-awaited performance debut at the Kennedy Center, the national monument to the performing arts in Washington, which has long showcased his work but where he has yet to play.

He will take to the piano and keyboard for two of his works, including the soundtrack to the experimental film "Koyaanisqatsi" as part of Direct Current, an inaugural festival at the Kennedy Center exploring contemporary music.

"I actually like playing," Glass told AFP, adding that he feels fortunate not to have become afflicted by arthritis or other scourges of age.

"I think it's a very good reality check for composers to play your own music in front of all kinds of publics."

Glass said that performing at top venues such as the Kennedy Center or Carnegie Hall in his home of New York amounted to a kind of acceptance.

- 'I don't have to explain' -

"I don't have to explain myself to anybody anymore. I don't have to apologize for my music, which I never did anyway," he said.

"I got my first big music prize when I was 75 -- I'm talking 75 YEARS OLD!" he said with a laugh. "I never got a Guggenheim, I never got a MacArthur, the Pulitzer -- nothing."

"But what I did do is I went and played in important places and that for me was very satisfying. I never cared about the prizes, anyway. I was looking more for the kind of prestige that comes from playing in important venues."

The Direct Current festival, which runs from March 5 to 19, will also feature works by fellow leading composer John Adams, drag cabaret innovator Taylor Mac and electronic fusionist Mason Bates, who will deejay classical music at Washington's celebrated 9:30 Club.

At the Kennedy Center, Glass will play from his "20 Etudes," solo piano pieces completed in 2012.

Known for his quick-moving arpeggios and a focus on rhythm, Glass found that the deceptively old-fashioned "20 Etudes" amounted to exercises he himself could benefit from.

- 'I can play Glass' -

"When I played them, I got to be a better piano player," he said.

"I said, Wow, I don't have to play Hanon anymore; I can play Glass," he said, referring to the 19th-century French piano pedagogue Charles-Louis Hanon.

Glass will only perform four of the 20 "Etudes" at the Kennedy Center, with other pianists, including indie pop artist Blood Orange, playing the rest.

With his busy schedule and the challenging level of the "20 Etudes," Glass said he was unable to play all of them.

For "Koyaanisqatsi," one of the composer's better-known works, his Philip Glass Ensemble will perform to a screening of the movie of the same name in a reunion with its director, Godfrey Reggio.

The film, whose title means a "world out of balance" in the American indigenous Hopi language, weaves together wordless footage, from traffic jams to atomic explosions to a space rocket.

Glass, who composed the minimalist score for "Koyaanisqatsi" in 1979, said he was struck by how the film has become a cult classic.

"Why are young people looking at it and thinking it's about the world they live in?" Glass asked rhetorically.

- Sea changes in music -

Director Godfrey Reggio, right, seen here at a 2013 Toronto film festival with fellow director Steven Soderbergh, has 'an amazing vision,' said composer Philip Glass, whose score to Reggio movie 'Koyaanisqatsi' will be played at Washington's Kennedy Center

"There is no question that Godfrey Reggio had an amazing vision. If you asked him what the movie was about, he would say it's about the impact of technology on the way we live," Glass said.

Technology does have its upsides. Glass recalled how he used to travel with hulking masses of equipment, which now can quickly be assembled through rentals in each city.

Reflecting on shifts he has seen, Glass also witnessed a sea change in the embrace of non-Western music.

Glass is heavily influenced by Indian form. After meeting sitar legend Ravi Shankar in Paris in 1965, a fascinated young Glass took on the task of transcribing traditional Indian music into notation that Westerners could play.

Glass, who regularly performs with international artists including Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso, said that musicians have learned how to bridge what once seemed impossibly wide divides.

"The major thing that's happened is we've gotten used to tuning together. That sounds like a very technical thing, but without that you can't play together," he said.

Glass, who premiered his Symphony No. 11 last year at Carnegie Hall to mark his 80th birthday, said he still felt an itch to compose and he may have more "Etudes" in store.

"It's what I like to do. And what I probably do best is just writing music."US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau, pictured here shaking hands at Davos January 25, 2018, are meeting again in Washington

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to meet his "true friend" Donald Trump in Washington on Monday during a visit that will take him away from swirling accusations of personal corruption and a government crisis roiling the Israeli scene.

On Friday, police questioned Netanyahu for five hours over a bribery scandal that some commentators say could spell his political doom. In two separate cases, the police last month recommended that he be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of public trust.

At the same time, Netanyahu is grappling with a spreading governmental crisis that could lead to early elections.

But he will find a warm welcome at the White House from a president who has pursued a policy of unswerving support for Israel and its government.

The two leaders are not only friendly, they use some of the same populist arguments and appeals.

Netanyahu has embraced the Trumpian tactic of denouncing as "fake news" the corruption allegations hanging over his head, while insisting he is the target of a politically motivated smear campaign.

"I think they are partners in ideology, and the ideology is a populist, conservative ideology which says that the old liberal elites are against us," said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Jerusalem's Hebrew University.

- 'A boost' for Netanyahu -

Palestinian students at a West Bank refugee camp protesting in January against US President Donald Trump's decision to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority

"I think from that perspective it is a boost" for Netanyahu.

Netanyahu will also take part, during his four-day visit, in the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the influential pro-Israeli lobbying group.

The two leaders are certain to discuss Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital -- a move warmly embraced by Netanyahu though widely denounced in most capitals -- as well as the struggle to curb Iran's regional influence.

Breaking with his predecessors and defying warnings, Trump on December 6 announced his intention to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The White House plans to open the new facility on May 14, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of Israel's creation.

Netanyahu said late Saturday as he was preparing to leave for the US that he hoped Trump could attend the ceremony.

"I'm very grateful to him for this historic decision," he said.

In another move strongly supported by Netanyahu, Trump froze tens of millions of dollars in aid payments to the Palestinian Authority.

- Countering Iran -

Those two actions drew an angry response from Palestinian leaders, who accused Trump of blatantly favoring Israel and said the United States had lost the ability to serve as an honest broker in any Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

The peace process grew even more complicated recently after Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and one of his senior advisers, lost his top-secret security clearance.

That will greatly complicate Kushner's efforts to negotiate an "ultimate" peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, as Trump commissioned him to do.

That task has eluded far more experienced diplomats in previous administrations.

Analysts say it is hard to see how progress can be made when the Palestinians feel abandoned by the United States and Netanyahu faces pressure from hard-liners in his coalition to accelerate settlement construction in -- even the annexation of -- the occupied West Bank.

Meantime, a deep divide over Israel and the Palestinians has emerged in the US. Poll results early this year from the Pew Research Center show 79 percent of Republicans sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians, while only 27 percent of Democrats say the same.

But Netanyahu is not thought to be overly concerned about any delay in restarting the peace talks.

In his encounters with Trump and at the AIPAC conference, he is expected to focus mainly on Iran as Israel's greatest enemy, and one he says seeks a permanent military presence in neighboring Syria.

The prime minister is also expected to call again for changes to, or the cancellation of, the nuclear accord between world powers and Iran, said Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington.

"Israel, I think, is hoping that there will be a more active American role in trying to block, trying to stem, the Iranian advances in Syria," where Tehran backs the Assad government, he said.

Beyond its political support, the United States provides Israel, its key regional ally, with more than $3 billion in annual military aid.Actress Allison Janney -- a favorite to win the Oscar for best supporting actress for "I, Tonya" -- wore show-stopping red

After a Hollywood awards season of statement red carpets including "blackouts" at the Golden Globes and Baftas, the movie industry's finest embraced a rainbow of color Sunday at the Oscars.

From classic white to fire engine red, with shades of teal, fuchsia, powder blue and lavender mixed in, here are some highlights of the style parade on Tinseltown's biggest night:

- White-hot -

White is associated with the suffragette movement, and on Sunday, many of Hollywood's top stars embraced it.

"Get Out" star Allison Williams was one of the first stars on the red carpet and her look was killer -- a cream beaded Armani princess gown with sheer cap sleeves that earned raves in the Twitterverse.

Actress Jane Fonda -- a two-time Oscar winner -- arrives on the red carpet in a stunning white Balmain gown

Jane Fonda also embraced the ice princess look, looking fabulous at age 80 -- !! -- in a sculpted white Balmain gown with a geometric neckline.

Laura Dern -- who joined the "Star Wars" family last year in "The Last Jedi" and presented an award on Sunday -- wowed red carpet watchers in a Calvin Klein gown with a large tie draped over one shoulder.

And Mary J. Blige -- the first person to be nominated for acting and song writing for the same film, "Mudbound" -- wore a white Versace gown with a glittering bodice and an asymmetrical neckline. She performed her song "Mighty River" during the gala.

- Ladies in Red -

Allison Janney -- who took home the Oscar as expected for best supporting actress for her searing portrayal of figure skater Tonya Harding's mom LaVona in the biopic "I, Tonya" -- looked ready for her close-up.

Actress Meryl Streep rocked the red at the Oscars

The statuesque actress was red-hot in a show-stopping fire engine red Reem Acra gown with flowing sleeves, a plunging neckline -- and plenty of diamonds to fill the gap.

"This is my first time at the Oscars," she told E! television on the red carpet. "It's pretty overwhelming."

Three-time winner Meryl Streep also wore red -- a simple Christian Dior gown with a deep-V neckline and three-quarter-length sleeves. She was again a nominee this year, for Pentagon Papers drama "The Post."

- Best vintage -

Actress Rita Moreno -- on stage presenting the Oscar for best foreign language film -- did not check in with a stylist; she recycled her dress from the 1962 Oscars

That honor easily went to Rita Moreno, who wore the gown she wore in 1962 to accept her best supporting Oscar for her turn as Anita in "West Side Story."

The 86-year-old Moreno is one of only a handful of Hollywood heavyweights with the coveted EGOT -- she has won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony in her decades-long career.

She is currently starring on the Netflix reboot of sitcom "One Day at a Time."

- US Olympic medalists kick back -

US Olympic figure skaters Mirai Nagasu (L) and Adam Rippon hit the Oscars red carpet

Some of America's top Olympians graced the red carpet, including bronze medalist figure skaters Mirai Nagasu -- in an ethereal powder blue Tadashi Shoji gown -- and Adam Rippon, sporting a curious black bondage-inspired harness jacket.

Skier Lindsey Vonn, who earned bronze in the downhill competition, bared some skin in a sheer black sequined lace gown with flapper fringe.

- Classy with a twist -

Hollywood's men tried to look classic and make a statement at the same time.

"Get Out" Director Jordan Peele went for a white dinner jacket on Sunday -- and the smart look paid off when he took the stage to accept the Oscar for best original screenplay.

The star of his film -- Britain's Daniel Kaluuya, also a nominee -- wore a striking brown jacket with black lapels.

"Call Me By Your Name" screenwriter James Ivory paid respect to the film's star Timothee Chalamet -- by wearing a shirt with his face on it

Chadwick Boseman, the star of the massive box office hit "Black Panther," looked every bit the king of Wakanda in a long black jacket with silver embellishments.

"Call Me By Your Name" star and Oscar nominee Timothee Chalamet went for an all-white suit and the best accessory -- his mom. His co-star Armie Hammer opted for a burgundy velvet tux.

And "Call Me" screenwriter James Ivory -- who won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay -- paid Chalamet the ultimate compliment by wearing a shirt with the actor's face on it.China's neighbours and the United States have watched warily as Beijing has modernised its military

China announced on Monday an 8.1 percent defence budget increase for 2018, giving a boost to the modernisation of the world's largest military after spending slowed in the previous two years.

Beijing will splash out 1.11 trillion yuan ($175 billion) on its military, according to a budget report presented before the opening session of the annual National People's Congress.

"We will stick to the Chinese path in strengthening our armed forces, advance all aspects of military training and war preparedness, and firmly and resolvedly safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests," Premier Li Keqiang said in a report to the legislature.

China's neighbours and the United States have watched warily as Beijing has modernised its military, reducing its ground troops while spending on state-of-the-art hardware and weapons.

Li said the military had completed its goal of slashing troop numbers by 300,000, leaving the People's Liberation Army with a two-million-strong force.

At the same time, Beijing has imposed increasingly assertive claims to vast expanses of the contested South China Sea, while engaging in confrontations with Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea and with India over Himalayan border regions.

The 2018 outlay compares with a seven percent increase last year and 7.6 percent in 2016, which marked the first time in six years that spending growth was not in double figures.

China spent $151 billion on the PLA last year, the second largest defence budget in the world but still four times less than the $603 billion US outlay, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank.

The defence budget increase has roughly kept pace with China's national economic output in recent years. The economy grew by 6.9 percent in 2017 and the government said Monday it will target growth of around 6.5 percent in 2018.

"We can expect that China's defence budget will continue to be subordinated to, and coordinated with, China's economic performance. It will likely not be over-militarised," said James Char, a military expert at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.

- 'World-class' army -

Chinese President Xi Jinping has vowed to build a "world-class" fighting force by 2050

As the PLA marked its 90th anniversary in August, Xi warned that China will protect its sovereignty against "any people, organisation or political party".

Since coming to power in 2012, the president has trumpeted the need to build a stronger combat-ready military, while cementing his leadership over the army, which was ordered to pledge absolute loyalty to him last year.

At a major Communist Party congress in October, Xi vowed to build a "world-class" fighting force by 2050.

The PLA has stocked up on stealth fighter jets, warships and high-tech weaponry over the years.

"Technologically speaking, the PLA has progressed markedly in recent years, with its own research and development in military hardware and growing professionalism reducing the gap with its US counterpart," Char said.

Last year, China unveiled its first domestically-built aircraft carrier, which will carry J-15 fighters that will take off from a raised "ski jump" platform. It also launched a new class of destroyer.

Its military has one operational carrier -- the Liaoning -- a Soviet-era vessel bought from Ukraine that was refitted and commissioned in 2012.

The chairman of the Dalian Shipbuilding Industry, which worked on both ships, said the company was "ready to build larger" carriers after gaining the experience to make more, the state-run China Daily newspaper said Friday.

China has also opened its first overseas military base in the Horn of Africa country of Djibouti.

Since 2008, its navy has participated in anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden.

Closer to home, China has in recent years built artificial islands -- some with airstrips -- capable of hosting military installations in the South China Sea, inflaming tensions with its Southeast Asian neighbours.

US warships, meanwhile, regularly conduct "freedom of navigation" operations near the islands to challenge China's territorial claims.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan have contested China's claims to the sea.

China's military budget is "disproportional in the sense that the economies of Southeast Asia do not have the resources to keep pace" and Japan's constitution restricts military spending, said Matthew Funaiole, a fellow with the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

"Whether or not this is a 'threat' depends on how China utilises its capabilities. That said, its maritime presence is certainly growing."Xi Jinping is the Chinese Communist Party's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong

Thousands of Chinese legislators erupted into enthusiastic applause on Monday over plans to give President Xi Jinping a lifetime mandate to mould the Asian giant into a global superpower.

China's rubber-stamp parliament met in the imposing Great Hall of the People for an annual session that will make Xi the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, concentrating the growing might of the military, economy and state in the hands of one man.

As Xi looked on from a stage dominated by mostly male party leaders in dark suits, a constitutional amendment to scrap the two-term limit for the presidency was read out to the chamber, prompting fervent applause.

The legislators are all but certain to approve the amendment this Sunday, as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership sets the agenda for the National People's Congress (NPC).

The text says the change "will be conducive to safeguarding the authority and the unified leadership of the CCP Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core and to strengthening and perfecting the national leadership system".

Sitting room only: the very orderly National People's Congress takes place in Beijing's imposing Great Hall of the People

The amendment was presented after Premier Li Keqiang delivered a report warning that the country is fighting "three critical battles" against financial risk, poverty and pollution.

The government set an economic growth target of around 6.5 percent for 2018, in line with expectations but lower than the 6.9 percent GDP increase in 2017.

It announced an 8.1 percent increase for the defence budget to 1.11 trillion yuan ($175 billion) this year, giving the world's largest armed forces a boost after spending growth slowed in the previous two years.

The report also warned Taiwan that China "will never tolerate any separatist schemes" amid tensions between the mainland and the self-ruled island.

But the spotlight was squarely on the party's most powerful leader in more than four decades.

- 'Unify leadership' -

Lifting term limits would allow the 64-year-old leader to stay on as party chief, head of the military and president beyond 2023, when his second term is due to end.

"I support Xi Jinping. I support the constitution change," Zhou Feng, a delegate from Shanghai, told AFP.

Another delegate from central Henan province said "Xi Jinping is great", but several other legislators refused to answer questions about the amendment.

It's mostly men in dark suits, but there are also peopole wearing clothes associated with some of China's many ethnic minorities

Censors have worked furiously to stamp out dissenting voices on social media, blocking dozens of words from "disagree" to "emperor" on the Twitter-like Weibo website in recent days.

On Monday, some Weibo users defied censors to post comments such as "shall we say, long live the king?" or "history will judge him harshly".

State media outlets masked the comments sections on the stories they posted about the amendment on Weibo on Monday.

Analysts have warned that the move carries risks as it ends a "collective" model of leadership that maintained stability after Mao's chaotic reign from 1949 to his death in 1976.

NPC spokesman Zhang Yesui has downplayed its significance, saying on Sunday it would merely align the presidency with the titles of Communist Party general secretary and Military Commission chairman, which do not have term limits.

The amendment says that opinions had been sought at the "grassroots level" and that "the masses, party members and cadres in many regions" had "unanimously called" for the revision of term limits.

The parliament will also vote on constitutional amendments that will inscribe Xi's name in the state constitution and create a new national anti-corruption agency.

- 'Right successor' -

Xi will get a second five-year term during the session. Remaining in power beyond 2023 gives him a chance to push through his vision of a rejuvenated China with global clout, a prosperous society and a powerful military.

China's leaders

He has also pursued a relentless but popular campaign against corruption that has punished more than a million party officials.

Hua Po, a Beijing-based political commentator, said Xi was handed "a mess" when he took office five years ago and needs more time to finish the job.

"One of the greatest tasks after he took office was to remove all threats to the party and state. To do this, it is not enough for him to serve only two terms," Hua told AFP.

"The Chinese system is a system that requires strong leaders, but it's not easy to train a strongman. Xi needs more time to find and train the right successors," he said.

China military budget

"If Xi transfers power on time, it is likely that the power will be returned to the hands of the corrupt groups and the elite class and all his efforts in the recent years will be wasted."

While the NPC is expected to approve the amendment, analysts say legislators could voice their displeasure by abstaining or voting against the appointments of certain Xi allies to top posts.

"We don't hear about opposition to his life tenure because of censorship," said Willy Lam, politics professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"But there is opposition within the regime from people who think that this is outrageous, that he is going too far, that he has launched a coup against the party."Comedian Jimmy Kimmel delivers his opening monologue at the Oscars -- which was full of jokes about Harvey Weinstein

Hollywood was sprinkled with stardust Sunday as the film industry's A-listers came out for the Oscars, hosted by late night funnyman Jimmy Kimmel, who opening monologue targeted disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein.

Dark comedy "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" is in pole position for the most prestigious prizes, although fairy tale romance "The Shape of Water" leads the overall charge with 13 nominations on a night expected to highlight Tinseltown's campaigns against sexual misconduct and gender inequality.

Kimmel said Weinstein's downfall following dozens of allegations of sexual misconduct "was long overdue," along with the demise of numerous other Tinseltown figures caught up in the scandal.

"We can't let bad behavior slide anymore. The world is watching us. We need to set an example," he said.

"And the truth is, if we are successful here, if we can work together to stop sexual harassment in the workplace, if we can do that, women will only have to deal with harassment all the time at every other place they go."

Kimmel highlighted a number of milestones, including the oldest acting nominee, 88-year-old Christopher Plummer ("All the Money in the World") and the debut film of Jordan Peele, who was nominated for best directing, producing and writing for his hit racial satire "Get Out."

"If you are a nominee tonight who isn't making history, shame on you," he joked.

But the host highlighted the work of the #MeToo and Time's Up campaigns against sexual misconduct and gender inequality, pointing out that only 11 percent of movies are made by women.

"We will always remember this year as the year men screwed up so badly, women started dating fish," he joked, in a reference to the plot of Guillermo del Toro's "The Shape of Water."

The first Oscar of the night went to Sam Rockwell for his acclaimed turn as a racist, drunk police officer in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."Eni and Shell stand accused of handing out bribes during the 2011 purchase of an offshore oil block estimated to hold 9 billion barrels of crude, for $1.3 billion

A trial for oil giants Eni and Shell over bribery and corruption allegations in the purchase of an offshore oilfield in Nigeria was delayed for two months on Monday.

The trial had been set to start in a Milan court, but the judge said that, due to a high number of cases, it would be transferred to another chamber to avoid further delays.

The trial is now set to begin on May 14.

Eni chief executive Claudio Descalzi, his predecessor Paolo Scaroni and several managers from Eni and Shell are among those to on trial, as is ex-Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete.

Eni -- also charged with corruption in Algeria in a separate trial -- and Shell stand accused of handing out bribes during the 2011 purchase of OPL245, an offshore oil block estimated to hold nine billion barrels of crude, for $1.3 billion (1.06 billion euros).

Both companies deny the charges against them.

"Eni expresses its full confidence in the judicial process and that the trial will ascertain and confirm the correctness and integrity of its conduct," the Italian firm said in a statement.

The agreement allegedly saw Nigeria's former president Goodluck Jonathan and his oil minister Etete pocket bribes, according to corruption watchdog Global Witness.

"Eni and Shell closed the deal with the government without the involvement of an intermediary. The money... was deposited into an account owned by the Nigerian government," said Eni, which has regularly reaffirmed its trust in Descalzi.

- Major litigation -

Descalzi made it clear last year that Shell and Eni had not been "involved in the government's decision on how to use the money".

Shell also said it believed the judges would conclude there was no case against them, adding "there is no place for bribery or corruption in our company."

The 2011 deal with the Nigerian government aimed to end years of litigation over the OPL245 block between Shell and Etete's Oil and Gas Malabu company.

A former oil minister under the dictator Sani Abacha, Etete appropriated the block in 1998, selling it to Malabu, a company he secretly owned.

The licence was subsequently revoked by the government and then transferred to Shell and then again to Malabu, resulting in major litigation.

After taking office as president in 2010, Jonathan resumed negotiations on the highly coveted block.

According to Global Witness, the deal resulted in $1.1 billion being paid into an account in London opened by Nigerian government officials that went directly to Etete. The Nigerian government received only $210 million.

- 'Cancer of corruption' -

Email exchanges between Shell management cited by Global Witness, and seen by AFP, suggest that Shell was aware the money was likely to be funnelled to individuals, including Etete and Jonathan.

"Etete can smell the money," a Shell official wrote in 2010, while another said, "the President (Jonathan) is motivated to see 245 closed quickly -- driven by expectations about the proceeds that Malabu will receive and political contributions that will flow as a consequence."

Nigeria's anti-graft agency, the EFCC, filed corruption charges against Shell and Eni in March 2017, accusing 11 defendants, including Etete, of "official corruption" in connection with the deal.

The current president, Muhammadu Buhari, has pledged to fight relentlessly against the "cancer of corruption" that plagues Africa's largest oil producer.

But in a letter leaked in February from Justice Minister Abubakar Malami to Buhari dating from September, the minister asked the president to interrupt the EFCC investigation.

In the letter Malami expressed concern that the case did not contain enough evidence to bring the main defendants to justice and that a trial would be an embarrassment for the country and could put off potential investors.

Global Witness called for justice, saying that "$1.1 billion can help a lot of people in a country like Nigeria" where "80 percent of citizens live on less than two dollars a day".Chinese authorities have long linked their crackdown on Uighur Muslims to international counter-terrorism efforts

When American journalist Gulchehra Hoja and her colleagues first began exposing a secretive network of reeducation centres in China's far west, they never imagined that their families might one day end up in one.

But when calls to relatives went unanswered, they realised that something had gone terribly wrong in Xinjiang, home to China's Uighur Muslim minority.

"It was like a bomb going off in my head," said Hoja, a reporter at the US government-funded Radio Free Asia (RFA) news service, describing how she felt when she learned that as many as 20 of her relatives had disappeared.

She and her colleagues fear Chinese authorities snatched their family members as punishment for their reports on the mass detention of Uighurs in "political reeducation centres" across Xinjiang.

The authorities are "using my brother as a kind of hostage to pressure me to quit", said Mamatjan Juma, an RFA reporter who believes two of his brothers have been detained since May.

In recent months, Chinese authorities have cracked down hard on Xinjiang's 10 million Uighurs, placing draconian restrictions on their daily lives in the name of combating terror.

Hoja is one of six Uighur reporters whose families are believed to have been detained by Chinese authorities, according to RFA spokesman Rohit Mahajan, who said the company has discussed the cases with the US State Department and members of Congress.

"We urge the Chinese government to provide information about the health of the missing relatives and to return them safely to their homes post-haste," Libby Liu, RFA's president, said in a statement.

US embassy Beijing spokeswoman Jinnie Lee told AFP Washington is "concerned" by the detentions and "deeply troubled by reports of an ongoing and deepening crackdown on Uighurs and other Muslims in China".

The Chinese foreign ministry declined to comment.

Some of the reporters have waited almost a year for movement on the cases, but decided to make their stories public after seeing no progress.

- 'Political reeducation' -

RFA's Uighur service was launched in December 1998 to broadcast Uighur language news into China, part of the company's mandate to provide news to Asian countries "whose governments prohibit access to a free press".

The journalists began reporting about the mass disappearances late last spring.

People of all ages were being swept up by the police, often for seemingly trivial offences related to religion, from sending Ramadan greetings to friends on social media to growing a "strange" beard.

By following official social media accounts and calling local police, the reporters learned that tens of thousands were being sent to detention centres for months at a time and subjected to intense political indoctrination.

Chinese authorities have long linked their crackdown on Uighur Muslims to international counter-terrorism efforts, arguing that separatists are bent on joining foreign extremists like Al-Qaeda.

Uighurs have been tied to mass stabbings and bombings that left dozens dead in recent years across the country. Riots and clashes with the government killed hundreds more.

Chinese authorities have denied the detention centres exist.

But regulations aimed at curbing religious extremism adopted by Xinjiang's government last March clearly call for authorities to step up the use of political reeducation.

An AFP review of state media reports and government documents verified the existence of at least 30 such centres and almost 4,000 cases of people being sent to them.

Shortly after RFA began posting its first reports on the centres, information about them began to disappear from Chinese websites.

- 'Voice of the voiceless' -

Hoja started a career in local television at the age of 11 and had become a popular television host in Xinjiang.

But a radio broadcast from RFA changed her life: "It was so powerful. I'd never heard that kind of voice. It completely changed me."

She joined RFA in 2001.

When Chinese authorities realised she had fled the country, they began pressuring her parents into making her come back, promising a high-paying job and luxury housing.

During her 17 years at RFA, none of her relatives had been detained -- until last spring.

When she heard the news through friends with relatives living in the US, she frantically tried to contact her family members, but no one answered, she said.

She finally reached an aunt: "She said 'don't call me. Don't call anybody. Just hang up'."

Despite concerns for their families, the reporters vow to continue their work.

"This is the only voice for my voiceless people," Hoja said.

"Other listeners just give their time to listen to the radio. Uighurs give their lives."President Rodrigo Duterte was elected in 2016 on a promise to eradicate drugs

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is skipping a regional summit in Australia this month, his spokesman said Monday, as he faces international censure for Manila's deadly drug war.

Duterte's decision to snub the meeting comes after he said he would not cooperate with United Nations investigators looking into alleged extrajudicial killings during the narcotics crackdown, which has left thousands dead.

His spokesman Harry Roque confirmed that the outspoken leader would not join fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders for the March 17-18 summit in Sydney.

"Developments at home continue to require the president's presence in the Philippines," Roque told reporters.

Australia was among several countries to raise concern about the Philippine anti-drug war's death toll at a UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva last year.

Duterte was elected in 2016 on a promise to eradicate drugs and launched an unprecedented campaign in which police say they have killed more than 4,100 drug suspects who resisted arrest.

However rights groups estimate there have been more than 12,000 deaths in all, including people murdered by shadowy vigilante groups.

Duterte, who last week told police and soldiers not to cooperate with any probe, is also facing a preliminary examination by the International Criminal Court over alleged extrajudicial killings.

Roque said Duterte would send Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano as his representative to the summit, while the president attends the graduation ceremony of the Philippine Military Academy.

Duterte plans to use the event to speak to young officers about the fight against "modern-day terrorism" among other topics, Roque added.

Duterte is not the only ASEAN leader feeling the heat over his rights record.

Last month, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen threatened to "shame" Australia and block the release of a joint statement at the March summit if he faces pressure over a political crackdown at home.

The strongman has been chastised by Western countries for taking a hammer to Cambodia's democracy in recent months by dissolving the main opposition party, shuttering independent news outlets and pursuing critics in the courts.

Australia is a dialogue partner of ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif hit out at the "error" by European nations including France and Britain of backing Saudi Arabia as it heads a coalition fighting rebels in Yemen

Iran's foreign minister slammed the European Union for "extremism" in relationship to Tehran in an interview published Monday ahead of a meeting with his French counterpart.

"In order to keep the United States in the Iran nuclear deal, European countries are suffering from extremism and this will ultimately undermine Europe's policy," Mohammad Javad Zarif told reformist newspaper Etemad.

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived in Tehran early Monday for talks, with Europe pushing for pledges over Iran's ballistic missile programme.

It is the first visit by one of the European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal since US President Donald Trump set an ultimatum that he would abandon it if it was not "improved".

But Zarif warned in the interview that "any action to satisfy the party that has most violated the nuclear agreement is useless".

"At present, two groups have violated the nuclear deal: the United States and the Europeans. The Americans because of Washington's policy and the Europeans because of the US policy," he said.

"The Europeans, because of the policy of the US could not meet their commitments, especially in the banking sector. Therefore these two groups are not in a position to set conditions for the country that has fully implemented its commitments," the minister added.

Zarif also hit out at the "error" by European nations including France and the United Kingdom of backing regional rival Saudi Arabia as it heads a coalition fighting rebels in Yemen.

Le Drian's team has made it clear to Tehran that he is no "emissary of Donald Trump", and wants to preserve the nuclear deal.

But France's top diplomat has said that without an end to ballistic missile tests by Iran, it will "always be suspected, with reason, of wanting to develop nuclear weapons".

Tehran denies seeking nuclear arms and says its missiles are purely defensive and not up for discussion.

sgh-mj/delZabid is located just southeast of the Red Sea rebel-held port of Hodeida which the Yemeni government, backed by a Saudi-led military coalition, is fighting to retake

Once Yemen's capital and famed as an architectural marvel of early Islam, the town of Zabid is fighting to survive as a brutal war closes in on its fortified walls.

The sand-coloured town overlooking the country's west coast was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993 for its centuries-old urban planning and architecture, including the world's fifth oldest mosque.

Riven by neglect and poverty, it was placed on the UNESCO list of World Heritage in Danger seven years later.

Yemen's three-year war, which has killed nearly 10,000 people and pushed the country to the brink of famine, is now threatening the fate of Zabid.

So far the town has been spared in the battle between Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels and a government allied with a military coalition, led by Saudi Arabia.

The facade of an old building in the Yemeni town of Zabid, a UNESCO World Heritage Site famed for its centuries-old urban planning and architecture which sits on the fault lines of Yemen's war

But a fight for nearby Hodeida, home to Yemen's most vital port, has raised fears the violence is closing in on Zabid.

Ahmed Hussein Ahmed says his home was damaged last month, as government forces clashed with Huthi rebels nearby.

Like other residents, he fears for both his family and his town, where homes built from baked bricks give the centuries-old skyline its trademark sandy hue against the bright blue Yemeni sky but offer little protection.

"Our homes are built of local mud," Ahmed told AFP, seated near one of the old wooden windows carved into the wall of his brick home.

"Another blow and the roof will cave in on us".

- 'Belongs to the world' -

From the 13th to 15th centuries, Zabid was the capital of Yemen before being dethroned by Sanaa.

The town predates the foundation of Islam but is an architectural marvel of the faith: four gates surround the city, where a web of narrow cobblestone streets links a souk with quieter residential areas.

The buildings in Zabid, which was Yemen's capital between the 13th and 15th centuries, were built with baked bricks

It also features the highest concentration of mosques in Yemen, one of the world's first Islamic universities and canals to supply water to residents.

Experts have warned Zabid may not be able to withstand more blows, even if fighting remains confined to its outskirts.

"These are centuries-old buildings. They cannot bear shelling or even the vibrations of missiles," said Yemeni restoration specialist Hussein Abdulrahman.

"The world should be fighting to preserve this."

Zabid features the highest concentration of mosques in Yemen and is surrounded by four gates

In Zabid, shops that resemble little castles are still open and traffic flows through the streets.

Also open is the Zabid Public Library, a tiny gem hidden in the basement of a old house, with 10 arched and engraved windows to allow daylight in.

Mukhtar Abdulsamad, head of the general authority for historic preservation in Zabid, fears one of the last pillars of his country's heritage may soon be demolished.

"We appeal to international organisations, and UNESCO, to prioritise the protection of Zabid," Abdulsamad said.

"This town belongs to the world and not to Yemen alone."

- 'At the gates' -

Residents and international organisations fear the Saudi-led coalition's warplanes may hit the town itself, as it is still under the control of the Huthi rebels.

The coalition did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"The fighting in Hodeida governorate is at the gates of the historic city of Zabid, fanning fears for the fate of its cultural heritage," said Alexandre Faite, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross's delegation in Yemen.

"The world should be fighting to preserve" Zabid, says Yemeni restoration specialist Hussein Abdulrahman warning that the centuries-old building in the historic city cannot bear shelling or even the vibrations of missiles

Zabid overlooks a river 75 kilometres (50 miles) southeast of Hodeida, the rebel-held Red Sea port city which faces a naval blockade by the Saudi-backed government.

Hodeida is the main conduit for aid into the nation of 28 million people, 70 percent of whom face starvation as poverty, violence and cholera stalk the country.

In 2014, the Huthi rebels seized the port in a takeover of territory that included the Yemeni capital.

The government has pushed to recapture Hodeida in recent months.

In November, the Saudi-led coalition imposed a total blockade on the Hodeida port, as well as the country's main international airport, in retaliation for missiles launched by the rebels towards Riyadh.

The blockade sparked harsh condemnation by the UN and has since been partially lifted.Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik (R) looks out from a police vehicle after being detained while leading a protest march against the March 4 Shopian killings

Police fired tear gas when thousands defied a curfew in Indian Kashmir and took to the streets Monday in protest at the killing by soldiers of six people including four alleged civilians.

Indian authorities had shut schools and suspended internet services as tension mounted over the shooting of apparent civilians at a military checkpoint in southern Kashmir.

But thousands of demonstrators still clashed with police and troops across the territory, one police officer told AFP.

Tear gas was fired to disperse crowds who defied an official order to stay indoors, he added. There were no initial reports of injuries.

The unrest was triggered by the shooting of four people in Shopian district on Sunday evening when soldiers exchanged gunfire with a suspected militant at a checkpoint.

The alleged shooter was killed and a weapon found at the scene, army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia told AFP.

Three others were found dead in a car some distance away. The army described them as accomplices but police were investigating this claim.

Police later found another apparent civilian dead in a separate car.

A sixth victim found Monday was identified by police as a suspected militant but no weapon was found on his person.

The shootings sparked an outpouring of anger among locals, who said the civilians were non-combatants. An alliance of separatist groups resisting Indian rule called for widespread protests.

Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufi said she was "deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire" as demonstrators took to the streets.

Civilians often break curfews to rally whenever militants are killed, hurling stones and chanting anti-India slogans.

Kashmir has been divided since the end of British colonial rule in 1947. India and Pakistan each administer part of the territory but claim it in full.

Rebel groups demanding independence for all of Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan have been fighting Indian troops since 1989, leaving tens of thousands -- mostly civilians -- dead.

About half a million Indian soldiers are deployed in the Muslim-majority state, where more than 200 suspected militants and roughly 60 civilians were killed in 2017.Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales told a cheering crowd at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, DC, that his country recognizes "Jerusalem as the capital of Israel"

Guatemala will relocate its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem this May, two days after the United States shifts its mission, the Latin American country's president has announced.

Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales told a cheering crowd on Sunday that "as a sovereign decision, we recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel."

Speaking at the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an influential pro-Israeli lobbying group, he said: "Under my instructions, two days after the United States moves its embassy, Guatemala will return and permanently move its embassy to Jerusalem.

"I would like to thank President Trump for leading the way."

Trump's decision in December to transfer the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem has drawn widespread condemnation, with critics saying it damages hopes for a negotiated Middle East peace.

Morales nevertheless soon followed Trump, making Guatemala the first country to do so.

"This decision strongly evidences Guatemala's continued support and solidarity with the people of Israel," Morales told AIPAC.

"We are sure that many other countries will follow in our steps."

Only seven small countries -- including Guatemala and Honduras -- sided with the United States and Israel on a non-binding December 21 UN General Assembly resolution rejecting Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The White House plans to open its new facility in Jerusalem on May 14, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of Israel's creation.

Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, while the Palestinians see the eastern sector as the capital of their future state.

There had long been international consensus that the city's status should be settled as part of a two-state peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.Iraq has ordered the seizure of assets that belonged to executed dictator Saddam Hussein and more than 4,200 officials from his former regime

Iraq has ordered the seizure of assets that belonged to executed dictator Saddam Hussein and more than 4,200 officials from his former regime, an official statement said Monday.

The list of ex-regime bosses was drawn up by the Iraqi agency charged with tracking down former officials from Saddam's Baath Party, and includes their relatives.

Saddam's name appeared at the top of the list and it also said it included "his children, grandchildren, relatives".

After the fall of the Saddam regime following the 2003 US invasion, property belonging to the former ruler and his cronies was snaffled up by Iraq's new leaders, armed forces and multiple militias.

This new order now seeks to put an official stamp on the confiscation of the assets.

The list of names includes Saddam-era government ministers, security bosses and officials from the Baath Party, including some who are in prison, who have been executed or have died.

Among those named is Ali Hassan al-Majid, a cousin of Saddam better known as "Chemical Ali", who was hanged in 2010 for ordering the 1988 gassing of thousands of Kurds.

Tareq Aziz, a veteran foreign minister who held the post of deputy prime minister before Saddam was ousted in the US-led invasion, is also on the list.

Sentenced to death in 2013, Aziz, the only Christian in Saddam's inner circle, died two years later in prison.

His son Ziad, who lives in Jordan, has condemned the list as nothing more than "a stunt to win votes" in Iraq's May 12 legislative election.

"We've been subjected to pressure and injustice for 15 years, it's enough," he told AFP ahead of the official announcement Sunday."When will the spite of this so-called government end?"

Ziad Aziz denied his family had any assets, saying his father's house in Baghdad had already been seized by prominent Shiite politician Ammar al-Hakim.K2, in northern Pakistan on the border with China, remains the only peak in the world above 8,000 metres that has never been climbed in winter

A team of Polish mountaineers attempting the first winter summit of K2, the world's second highest peak, have called off their bid citing bad weather, after a drama-filled expedition which made international headlines.

The decision means that K2, in northern Pakistan on the border with China, remains the only peak in the world above 8,000 metres that has never been climbed in winter.

"Based on a deep analysis of the situation in agreement with the team I decided today to end the mountain action on K2," wrote the team leader Krzysztof Wielicki on their Facebook page.

The expedition spokesman confirmed to AFP that the bid has been called off due to bad weather.

The announcement comes days after one expedition member, a Russian-Polish climber called Denis Urubko, broke away from the team after a dispute and launched what others called a "suicidal" bid to make the climb solo.

The high-altitude drama put the team in the international spotlight. Within days Urubko had also called off his attempt, and is currently en route to the capital Islamabad.

The Polish team arrived at the K2 base camp late last year, enduring sub-zero temperatures and gale-force winds.

But Urubko had become increasingly frustrated with their pace after a series of delays, including the night-time rescue of French mountaineer Elisabeth Revol on another Pakistani mountain, Nanga Parbat, in January.

Urubko had volunteered to go to Nanga Parbat as part of that rescue team, which saved Revol but left another climber, fellow Pole Tomasz Mackiewicz, on the mountain.

The K2 team's part in that high-profile rescue also drew attention to their winter summit bid.

Everest has been summited by thousands of climbers young and old, but K2 is a much lonelier place. Around 300 have made it to the top since the first ascent 60 years ago. Many climbers have died trying, and on the descent.

Northern Pakistan is home to some of the world's tallest mountains, including K2 in the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan.

Nestled between the western end of the Himalayas, the Hindu Kush mountains and the Karakoram range, Gilgit-Baltistan has 18 of the world's 50 highest peaks.Villagers in a remote Indonesian community disemboweled a critically endangered Sumatran tiger and then hung the big cat from a ceiling.

The animal killers from Hatupangan village in North Sumatra thought the tiger was a supernatural creature and a group followed it into its jungle lair.

Unsurprisingly, the big cat attacked the trespassers, which led to the group hatching a plan to slaughter the animal in retaliation.

They impaled the tiger with a spear before ripping out its insides and hanging it up as a public display.

The tiger was speared to death and had its insides removed before locals put it on display

Two men stand on an overhead beam as they hoist the big cat up to be displayed in Indonesia

A man holds one of the tiger's paws as it is lifted to the beam above. Locals killed it after they followed the wild animal into its jungle lair

The tiger unsurprisingly attacked the trespassers, which prompted the villagers to hatch a plan to kill the big cat

The tiger - which had been seen around the village since last month - attacked the curious group Sunday, leaving two seriously injured.

They later announced plans to kill the animal, despite warnings by conservation officials not to hurt the endangered cat.

Local conservation agency head Hotmauli Sianturi said a conservation officer was blocked from preventing the death, and added: 'Unfortunately they would not listen. They insisted on killing the tiger.

'After killing the animal, the locals hung up its body for display. It's very regrettable.'

Some internal organs were missing from the tiger's body, said authorities, who are investigating the killing.

Sumatran tigers are considered critically endangered by protection group the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with 400 to 500 remaining in the wild.

Human-animal conflicts are rampant in the vast Southeast Asian archipelago, especially in areas where the clearing of rainforest to make way for palm oil plantations is destroying animals' habitats and bringing them into closer contact with people.Thailand had 35 million visitors last year

A Thai court has sentenced five Cambodian fishermen to 50 years each for a violent 2016 attack on French tourists in which two women were raped, an official said Monday.

The men were given the maximum allowable sentence on a raft of charges, including rape, following their arrest more than two years ago for the attack on the Thai island Koh Kut, also known as Koh Kood.

"All five defendants were found guilty of rape, light assault and serious assault," a court official in Thailand's Trat province told AFP, adding that they were also fined.

One was also convicted of attempted murder, said the official, who did not identify the defendants by name.

The secluded and underdeveloped island of Koh Kut is close to Thailand's eastern border with Cambodia, and police say the men swam to the beach to attack the group of four French holidaygoers at knifepoint in February 2016.

Two injured men escaped to alert authorities and the fishermen were arrested shortly afterwards.

While Thailand remains a safe destination with 35 million visitors last year, a number of gruesome, headline-grabbing crimes against foreigners have hurt the country's reputation as a tourist haven.

In 2015 two Myanmar migrant workers were sentenced to death for the 2014 murder of two British backpackers, one of whom was raped, on the diving island of Koh Tao after an investigation and trial that was widely criticised as unfair.Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R) shakes hands with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian as they meet in the capital Tehran on March 5, 2018.

Iran rebuffed French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian's calls to curb its missile programme after a day of tense discussions in Tehran on Monday aimed at salvaging its historic nuclear deal.

Le Drian said there was "still a lot of work to do" on Iran's missile programme after meeting with top officials, including President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Zarif countered that Europe needed to "play a more constructive role to preserve" the nuclear deal.

"And above all to put pressure on the United States to meet its commitments under the deal and not to allow it to present illogical and illegal demands," Zarif added, according to an account by the foreign ministry.

The visit comes in the midst of a scramble by European governments to salvage the 2015 deal after US President Donald Trump threatened he would abandon it unless tough new restrictions were placed on Iran before May 12.

Rouhani issued a statement after meeting Le Drian, saying: "Preserving the nuclear accord will prove to the world that negotiation and diplomacy are the best option for solving problems, while its collapse will signify that political negotiations are a waste of time."

The Iranian nuclear agreement

Le Drian has insisted he is not "an emissary of Trump", but he has taken a firm line on Iran's missile programme and regional interventions that mirrors the rhetoric from Washington.

"There are programmes for missiles with ranges of several thousand kilometres which are not in line with UN Security Council resolutions and go beyond what is needed to secure Iran's borders," Le Drian told Le Journal du Dimanche on the eve of his visit.

France has ballistic missiles with ranges of more than 6,000 kilometres, which can be launched from submarines, but Le Drian said Iran was risking fresh sanctions if it did not curb its missile programme, which is currently limited to 2,000 kilometres.

His statements have not been warmly received in Iran, with Zarif telling Monday's reformist Etemad newspaper: "In order to keep the United States in the Iran nuclear deal, European countries are suffering from extremism and this will ultimately undermine Europe's policy."

The hardline Javan newspaper welcomed Le Drian with the headline: "Trump's Parisian lackey in Tehran".

- 'Heavy concerns on Syria' -

A handout picture released on March 8, 2016 by Sepah News, the online news site and public relations arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard, shows a ballistic missile being launched during a test at an undisclosed location

Le Drian also pressed Iran on the activities of its ally, the Syrian government, amid the ongoing bombardment of civilians in the rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.

"The Iranian authorities told me of their heavy concerns on the humanitarian situation in Syria and their desire to see an end to this catastrophe," Le Drian told reporters.

Rouhani re-emphasised Iran's position that the only way to resolve the Syrian crisis was to "support its central government".

But the key focus has been the 120-day deadline set by Trump in January for US lawmakers and European allies to "fix" the nuclear deal, removing "sunset clauses" that mean it expires in 2026 and reining in Iran's missile programme and regional activities.

Iran has refused any re-negotiation or additional clauses, arguing that the US has already failed to keep up its end of the bargain on the existing accord.

Despite Le Drian's tough talk on missiles, France remains firmly behind the agreement.

"We want to preserve the nuclear deal because it is working, it's robust and because the Iranians are respecting it," his team told AFP ahead of the visit.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly found Iran is abiding by its commitments, which curbs its nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions.

IAEA director general Yukiya Amano said on Monday that losing the nuclear deal "would be a great loss for nuclear verification and for multilateralism".

- France's re-engagement -

If the political track looks tricky, France is hoping its cultural diplomacy can offer a more positive flavour to the trip.

"Relations between France and Iran are old and profound because France was a pioneer of archaeological exploration" in Iran, says Jean-Luc Martinez, president of the Louvre which is holding an unprecedented show of artwork at Tehran's National Museum

On Monday Le Drian inaugurated an "unprecedented" show of items from the Louvre in Paris at Tehran's National Museum.

"Relations between France and Iran are old and profound because France was a pioneer of archaeological exploration here," said Jean-Luc Martinez, president of the Louvre.

Despite their differences, Iran has broadly welcomed France's efforts to re-engage with the country.

Last year's $5 billion gas exploration deal with French energy giant Total was the biggest in Iran since the nuclear accord, and showed French firms were willing to stand up to pressure from Washington.At least 10 people died in several days of clashese between herdsmen and farmers in eastern Nigeria, police said Monday, but the cattle drivers gave a higher toll

At least 10 people were killed in several days of violence between herdsmen and farmers in eastern Nigeria, police said on Monday, but the cattle drivers gave a higher toll.

Clashes broke out in a number of remote herding villages in the Mambilla district of Taraba state last Thursday and continued throughout the weekend.

The violence is part of a wider series of clashes between largely nomadic cattle herders and farmers in central and southern Nigeria that has put pressure on the government to act.

"So far we have established the deaths of 10 people in the violence between herders and farmers in the Mambilla area," said state police spokesman David Misal.

"Security personnel have succeeded in restoring normalcy in the area and there is ongoing security operation to consolidate peace."

According to herders, Mambilla militia armed with machetes and spears stormed five herding settlements of Nyiwa, Yerimaru, Wuro-Mogoggo, Leme and Gagarum between Thursday and Saturday.

"From our records, 19 people have been killed and 23 injured in the unprovoked attacks in these five villages by armed Mambilla tribe militia," said the head of the Nigerian herders union MACBAN, Mohammed Keruwa.

Nyiwa was worst hit with nine herders killed by the attackers who also "killed 318 cows, stole 38 cows, 158 sheep and 308 fowls," he added.

Mambilla lies on Nigeria's border with Cameroon and is a herding and farming hub reputed for fertile land, lush vegetation and abundant water.

Tensions have been running high for many years between herders and farmers over land and water rights.

The herders are Muslim and the farmers are largely Christian, which adds an ethnic and religious dimension to the tensions. Many herders have fled to northern Cameroon.

In January 2002, more than 20,000 herders fled the Mambilla plateau area into Cameroon following violence with farmers which MACBAN said at the time left 50 herders dead.

In June last year deadly clashes again broke out in the area. MACBAN claimed more than 700 herders were killed in the violence but the authorities gave a much lower toll.

The southern state of Benue has been a flashpoint in recent months after resistance to a new law banning open grazing for cattle.

In January, 73 people from the ethnic Tiv farming communities were buried at a mass funeral after a series of attacks blamed on Fulani herders.At least 68 civilians were killed in ongoing strikes Monday, a monitor said, while dozens of United Nations trucks carrying aid reached the main town of Douma

An international convoy has cut short its mission to Syria's rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta after delivering desperately needed aid as the regime pounded the region, killing dozens as it seized more ground.

At least 68 civilians were killed Monday, a monitor said, while dozens of United Nations trucks reached the main town of Douma, the first aid convoy to arrive since a bloody Russian-backed assault began more than two weeks ago.

The government blocked medical supplies from the enclave rocked by an ongoing bombardment that has sparked outrage but little action from the West.

The 46 aid trucks arrived after fresh air strikes hit the shrinking rebel-held zone and regime troops rapidly advanced, leaving them in control of 40 percent of the region.

An AFP reporter in Douma said warplanes were flying overhead and explosions could be heard even as the aid was being unloaded.

The UN's refugee agency UNHCR said the convoy was in the town of Douma for nearly nine hours before it cut short its mission.

"We delivered as much as we could amidst shelling," UNHCR's Syria representative Sajjad Malik tweeted. "Civilians are caught in a tragic situation."

Syrian regime advances in rebel enclave

Linda Tom, spokesperson for the UN's humanitarian coordination office OCHA in Syria, told AFP fighting and air strikes had continued during the convoy's deployment, "including on Douma city while the convoy was offloading".

Air strikes, and artillery and rocket fire on the last major rebel-held enclave near the capital Damascus have killed hundreds and devastated residential areas since they began on February 18.

The latest toll released by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights brings to around 760 the number of civilians killed since the assault began, including at least 170 children.

At least 19 people were killed in the town of Hammuriyeh on Monday, the Observatory said. Another 49 died elsewhere in the enclave, it added.

In the town of Kafr Batna, 15 civilians were killed and 70 wounded in strikes "believed to be Russian", said the Britain-based monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

Later it reported 18 people suffered breathing difficulties following a strike by a military aircraft in Hammuriyeh, without being able to specify the cause of the illnesses.

- Rapid regime advances -

More than two weeks of air strikes, artillery and rocket fire on the last major rebel-held enclave near Damascus have killed hundreds and devastated residential areas

The UN Human Rights Council on Monday ordered investigators to examine the latest violence and condemned "the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons and aerial bombardments against civilians, and the alleged use of chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta".

Regime troops and allied forces have advanced rapidly across farmland in the east of the enclave in recent days, the Observatory said.

By Monday evening they had retaken 40 percent of the enclave, it added.

Armed groups there, one of them made up of fighters from Al-Qaeda's ex-affiliate, have been firing mortar rounds and rockets on adjacent neighbourhoods of Damascus, killing around 20 civilians in two weeks.

The offensive has sent hundreds of civilians fleeing from their homes away from the moving front line, compounding a humanitarian crisis and echoing the regime's devastating 2016 assault to retake second city Aleppo.

A stifling, years-long government siege has forced Eastern Ghouta's estimated 400,000 inhabitants to scrape by on smuggled goods, produce from local farms and rare aid deliveries.

- Missing trauma kits -

The offensive has sent hundreds of civilians fleeing from their homes away from the moving front line

Monday's convoy was delivering "health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people in need," OCHA said.

Save the Children said the regime had removed surgical kits and insulin, exacerbating the acute lack of medical care in the enclave.

"Doctors say they have to reuse bandages and needles on multiple patients as there simply aren't enough to go round," it said.

"Some 400,000 innocent civilians are trapped with no food, water or medicine. They must be protected," said Sonia Khush, the group's Syria director.

"The items (removed) included trauma kits and other life-saving supplies," Linda Tom told AFP, calling for a solution ahead of a planned Thursday aid delivery.

The United States on Sunday condemned the assault, accusing Moscow of killing "innocent civilians" and ignoring a UN resolution calling for a 30-day cessation of hostilities.

- Evacuation deal -

The UN and aid groups said the Syrian government had blocked medical supplies from being delivered

Moscow has offered safe passage to non-combatants wishing to leave Eastern Ghouta during daily "humanitarian pauses", but the UN and the Observatory say no Syrian civilians have left the enclave since the first break in fighting took effect last week.

Damascus and Moscow have accused rebels of preventing civilians from leaving in order to use them as human shields.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday urged his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to "take real and concrete steps" to push Damascus to accept a truce.

In remarks broadcast on state television on Sunday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said his forces would push on.

"The majority (of people) in Eastern Ghouta want to escape the embrace of terrorism. The operation must continue," he said.

Observers have said advances on the ground might spark fresh efforts to negotiate an evacuation to Idlib, a northern province now hosting defeated anti-regime forces from across Syria.

The rebels "saw what happened in Aleppo, they don't stand a chance," said Fabrice Balanche, a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. "I doubt they can hold out several months."Syrian regime advances in rebel enclave

Syria's army unleashed daily air strikes on Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus on February 18 in a bid to root out Islamist rebels and jihadists but killing more than 700 civilians.

As the regime was reported to have retaken a third of the enclave Monday, a UN convoy entered in the first aid delivery since the start of the devastating assault two weeks ago.

Here is a summary of events:

- New round of rockets, raids -

Government forces open their latest military campaign against Eastern Ghouta with more than 260 rockets and intense air raids.

The strikes continue on February 19 when 127 civilians are killed in the highest death toll over a single day there since 2013, when it was besieged by regime forces.

On February 20 Russian air strikes reportedly target Eastern Ghouta for the first time in three months, hitting the key regional Arbin hospital.

Six other hospitals are also hit in the bombardments over a 48-hour period, putting three out of service, according to the United Nations.

- 'Hell on Earth' -

On February 21 raids target several areas and planes drop barrel bombs -- crude, improvised munitions that cause indiscriminate damage.

The Kremlin denies involvement in the air strikes as "groundless accusations".

UN chief Antonio Guterres calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying the region's 400,000 residents "live in hell on Earth".

- 'Another Aleppo' -

The chaos deepens on February 22 as the Syrian regime rains rockets and bombs on the enclave, killing at least 19 people.

At the United Nations, key regime-backer Russia is pressing for a negotiated withdrawal of rebel fighters and their families, like the one that saw the government retake full control of Aleppo in December 2016.

"Yes, Eastern Ghouta will become another Aleppo," says Syria's UN representative Bashar al-Jaafari.

- Ceasefire agreed -

On February 23 US President Donald Trump slams the actions of the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian backers.

"What those three countries have done to those people is a disgrace," he says.

In February 24 the UN Security Council finally gets unanimous backing for a 30-day ceasefire to allow for aid deliveries and medical evacuations.

But there are new air strikes the following day and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor reports Syrian forces engaged in heavy fighting with rebels, with many dead.

- Daily 'pause' ordered -

On February 26 the regime carries out more bombings, in spite of the UN-agreed truce, killing at least 22 civilians.

Frustrated, the UN and European Union demand the immediate implementation of the ceasefire.

Moscow then announces President Vladimir Putin has ordered a daily five-hour "humanitarian pause" from February 27 and the opening of protected corridors to allow people to leave.

Hours after the truce is meant to come into effect, the United Nations says fighting continues, making relief operations impossible.

Not one of the battered region's residents board buses provided by the regime to leave. Trucks loaded with aid are blocked.

- First aid delivery -

The Syrian regime again pounds the area on March 4, killing more than 30 civilians, as President Bashar al-Assad says his forces will continue their push.

"The majority (of people) in Eastern Ghouta want to escape the embrace of terrorism. The operation must continue," Assad tells journalists.

On March 5, 14 more civilians are reported killed overnight.

The UN announces that dozens of trucks of emergency relief have entered the enclave, the first aid delivery since the start of the assault.

The aid arrives after the Observatory says that regime troops have retaken a third of the enclave.Russian soldiers stand guard as Syrian Arab Reb Crescent trucks carrying aid drive at the al-Wafideen checkpoint on the outskirts of Damascus neighbouring the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta

The UN Human Rights Council on Monday ordered an immediate probe into the situation in Syria's besieged rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta, as aid arrived there for the first time in weeks.

The council approved a resolution calling on war crimes investigators to "urgently conduct a comprehensive and independent inquiry into recent events in Eastern Ghouta."

With 29 votes in favour, 14 abstentions and four opposed, the UN's top rights body instructed the UN-backed Commission of Inquiry for Syria to probe alleged atrocities in the area, battered by a Russia-backed regime assault that began on February 18.

The resolution, tabled by Britain, specifically condemned "the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons and aerial bombardments against civilians, and the alleged use of chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta".

But the commission of inquiry, set up in 2011 shortly after the Syrian conflict began, must first survive a vote later this month on extending its mandate.

If the probe goes ahead, the commission was asked to report back on its findings during the next council session in June.

The resolution, first tabled by Britain during an emergency council session last Friday, initially met with so much opposition that the final vote needed to be postponed until Monday.

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein had warned Friday of "likely war crimes, and potentially crimes against humanity" in the enclave, and insisted that the perpetrators would not "get away with this."

- 'Saturated with lies' -

Russia does not currently hold a seat on the council -- which has 47 members rotating on three-year terms -- but it took the floor Friday as an observer state to condemn the text, as did the Damascus government, and proposed multiple amendments.

Those amendments, slammed by the US as "an attempt to divert the council's attention," were all rejected by the rights body.

In an attempt to address some of the criticism, text authors removed references to "war crimes and crimes against humanity", and added a mention of the "growing number of civilian casualties in Damascus", from missiles lobbed by rebels in Eastern Ghouta.

The Syrian envoy said the adopted text was full of lies

Russia's representative Aleksei Goltiaev nonetheless slammed the text as being based on media reports "saturated with lies," and said it was "entirely removed from the situation on the ground".

Syrian ambassador Hussam Edin Aala described the adopted text as "subjective and politicised".

Monday's resolution also demanded immediate humanitarian access to the area where 400,000 residents have lived under siege from the regime since 2013 and face severe food and medicine shortages.

That appeared to have been granted instantaneously, with the UN and the Red Cross saying that a convoy had finally made it into the enclave on Monday, despite continued violence on the ground.

More than two weeks of air strikes, artillery and rocket fire have left more than 700 civilians dead and three quarters of housing damaged in the enclave.Investigators suspect the attackers had inside information from within the armed forces

Burkina Faso and French investigators on Monday pushed ahead with a probe into deadly jihadist attacks last week suspected to have targeted a major anti-terror meeting.

Forensic teams were at work at the scenes of last Friday's twin attack in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, and two suspects were being questioned, sources said.

The operation, using guns and a car bomb, struck the country's military headquarters and the French embassy.

Nine assailants and seven soldiers were killed and at least 80 people were injured, according to a government toll. The operation was claimed by the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM), led by the Malian jihadist Iyad Ag Ghaly.

One of the two suspects is believed to have played a key role in the operation, Burkinabe investigators said, adding that clues the attackers had information from within the armed forces "are starting to be confirmed".

The attack on the military headquarters appears to have been aimed at a scheduled meeting of the so-called G5 Sahel -- a French-backed group of five countries fighting jihadism in the volatile Saharan region.

The room in the complex where the meeting was to have taken place was wrecked by the car bomb -- however, the venue of the meeting was swapped at the last minute, which prevented carnage.

A team of 10 French experts have arrived to support the inquiry, according to French police and judicial sources.

President Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger and Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe visited briefly on Monday, meeting with Burkinabe counterpart Roch Marc Christian Kabore and visiting the sites of the attacks.

Issoufou is current head of the G5 Sahel, which comprises Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger, while Gnassingbe is current chairman of the West African regional bloc ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States.

' Allied forces' -

Issoufou paid tribute to "our allies, who are paying a heavy price in the fight that we are leading, side by side, against terrorism."

"We know that the terrorists and their accomplices are seeking to undo our alliance," Issoufou said.

"We often hear them calling our allies 'foreign forces.' For us, they are not foreign forces but allied forces who are fighting in the same cause as we are."

Gnassingbe, for his part, urged the G5 Sahel force, pooling 5,000 men, to become operational "swiftly".

The force is intended to become fully operational in mid-2018, and operate alongside France's 4,000 troops in the area as well as the UN's 12,000-strong MINUSMA peacekeeping operation in Mali.

Burkina Faso has been the target of jihadist attacks since 2015.

On August 13 last year, two assailants opened fire on a restaurant on the capital's main avenue, killing 19 people and wounding 21. No one has so far claimed responsibility for it.

On January 15, 2016, 30 people -- including six Canadians and five Europeans -- were killed in a jihadist attack on a hotel and restaurant in the city centre.

GSIM also claimed responsibility for a February 21 attack near the border with Niger which left two French soldiers dead and a third injured in an area which is believed to shelter jihadists.Turkey has asked German authorities to detain and extradite prominent Syrian Kurdish leader Saleh Muslim who was briefly arrested in the Czech Republic last month

Turkey has asked German authorities to detain and extradite a prominent Syrian Kurdish leader who was briefly arrested in the Czech Republic last month, state media reported on Monday.

Saleh Muslim, the former co-chair of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), was detained late on February 24 at an upmarket Prague hotel before a court released him last week.

Turkey says the PYD and its People's Protection Units (YPG) militia are linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has been waging an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.

The PKK is blacklisted as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

Turkish officials demanded the temporary arrest and extradition in connection with an attack in 2016, state news agency Anadolu reported.

An Ankara court last week issued an arrest warrant for Muslim after 36 people were killed on March 13, 2016, in a suicide car bombing in Ankara claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), seen as a radical PKK offshoot.

Muslim has also been indicted in Turkey over a February 2016 bombing in Ankara that killed 29 people, and he faces up to Syrian Kurdi30 life sentences if convicted.

The Kurdish leader appeared at a demonstration in Berlin on Saturday against Turkey's offensive launched on January 20 and dubbed "Olive Branch" in the border region of Afrin in northern Syria targeting the YPG.

Turkish media published images of the demonstration in the German capital where there were flags with images of the jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and the YPG militia's female branch, the Kurdish Women's Protection Units (YPJ).

Muslim's release on Tuesday by the Czech court caused immediate anger in Ankara, which said the move was "unacceptable" and showed "support for terrorism".

The Czech foreign ministry hit back saying it rejected allegations that the court's move "runs counter to the Czech Republic's pledge to fight international terrorism".

During the protest, Muslim told supporters he believed in Europe's justice system despite Turkey's actions.

"I would like to say we believe in the judges in Europe and this... Turkish game will never work in Europe.

"I am now free and I will be free until we get the victory in Syria and Afrin," Muslim said, according to a video shared on Facebook by the PYD.A handout picture released by the Egyptian Presidency on March 4, 2018 shows Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (R) welcoming Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman upon his arrival in Cairo

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have set up a $10 billion joint fund to develop a mega city, a Saudi government source said Monday, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visits Cairo.

The deal is aimed at developing the Egyptian side of NEOM, the futuristic project straddling Saudi Arabia and Jordan which was unveiled by Prince Mohammed last October as part of plans to diversify the kingdom's oil-dependent economy.

"Saudi Arabia signed (an) investment agreement with Egypt to develop Egyptian lands in the south of Sinai to be part of the NEOM Project," the government source told AFP.

"Saudi Arabia and Egypt have set up a joint fund of equal shares valued at more than $10 billion. The Egyptians' share comprises a leased land for (the) long term."

Prince Mohammed's visit to Cairo is the first leg of his maiden foreign tour as heir to the Saudi throne.

The NEOM deal underscores growing strategic ties between the Arab world's richest and the most populous states -- Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- who are both opposed to Iran's influence in the region.

Egypt is nominally part of a Saudi-led military coalition which intervened in Yemen in March 2015 to fight Iran-backed Huthi rebels.

The two allies are also part of a bloc of nations that has boycotted Qatar since June over alleged ties to Islamic extremists and Iran.

Prince Mohammed's visit comes ahead of Egypt's presidential polls, scheduled for late March, with incumbent Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expected to win a second four-year term.

The powerful crown prince is expected in Britain on Wednesday for talks with Prime Minister Theresa May and in the United States from March 19 to 22.

He is also expected to visit France in the coming weeks.

The $500-billion NEOM, meaning "new future" in a combination of English and Arabic abbreviations, is planned to be a biotech and digital hub spread over 26,500 square kilometres (10,000 sq miles) in an area facing Jordan and Egypt.Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman arrives in Cairo on March 4, 2018

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman continued a visit to Egypt on Monday focused on economic cooperation, with Riyadh agreeing a $10 billion investment with Cairo for a futuristic mega city project.

Prince Mohammed accompanied Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to review construction projects near the Suez Canal before boarding a boat with the president to tour the waterway.

A Saudi government source said the two countries had agreed to set up a joint $10 billion fund to develop areas of Egypt linked to the NEOM project.

The $500 billion NEOM mega city, unveiled by Prince Mohammed last year, is planned to be a biotech and digital hub spread over 26,500 square kilometres (10,000 square miles) in an area facing Jordan and Egypt.

The Saudi government source said the joint fund, which involves leased land for the Egyptian share, would be used to develop lands in the south of the Sinai Peninsula as part of NEOM.

Prince Mohammed, who landed in Cairo on Sunday, is to fly to Britain on Wednesday and later this month to the United States, in his first forays abroad as crown prince.

His visit to Egypt deals with "economic and investment cooperation," Egyptian presidency spokesman Bassam Radi told state television.

Prince Mohammed and Sisi agreed in talks to bolster economic ties and launch joint projects, "particularly in the tourism sector on the Red Sea," Radi said.

Later on Monday Prince Mohammed met Egypt's top cleric Ahmed al-Tayeb of the Al-Azhar institution, whose historic mosque in Cairo is being renovated with Saudi funding.

He will also meet Coptic Pope Tawadros II.

- -

Saudi Arabia views Egypt as a cornerstone of regional stability, after former army chief Sisi overthrew his Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Riyadh viewed Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood with suspicion and at one point briefly recalled its ambassador from Cairo during his turbulent year in power.

It has since showered Cairo with aid to prop up the country's economy, in a relationship that has led to some controversy in Egypt.

In 2015, during a visit by King Salman to Cairo, the two countries agreed on the transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia, sparking protests in Egypt.

Sisi ratified the deal last year, and Egypt's top court annulled lower court rulings for and against the treaty on the eve of the crown prince's arrival.

Prince Mohammed's visit comes ahead of Egypt's presidential polls in late March, with Sisi expected to win a second four-year term.

The visit would be "interpreted as proof of Saudi support for Sisi to remain as the president of Egypt," Mostafa Kamel al-Sayed, a political science professor at Cairo University, told AFP.

Cairo and Riyadh have maintained close ties, although Egypt has signalled a lack of enthusiasm for Saudi regional policy, both on the Yemen war and a potential escalation with Iran.

But it is among a bloc of Arab nations that joined a Saudi-led boycott since June of Qatar.

The crown prince's tour also aims to court investors and comes after a tumultuous period that has seen a military shake-up and a royal purge in Saudi Arabia.

Prince Mohammed is already seen as the country's de facto ruler controlling the major levers of government.Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari, under fire because of mounting security threats, including Boko Haram, is to tour states worst-hit by the violence

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari, under fire because of mounting security threats, including Boko Haram, is to tour states worst-hit by the violence, his office said Monday.

"From today, March 5, he will visit Taraba, and subsequently Benue, Yobe, Zamfara and Rivers states," the presidency said in an emailed statement.

Yobe, in northeast Nigeria, is where Boko Haram abducted 110 schoolgirls in the town of Dapchi on February 19, nearly four years after a similar abduction caused global outrage.

Then, more than 200 girls were seized from their boarding school in the remote town of Chibok in Borno state, bringing world-wide attention on the insurgency.

The then-president, Goodluck Jonathan, was heavily criticised for his slow response to the kidnapping.

Last weekend, Buhari, who has called the abduction from Dapchi a "national disaster", was criticised for attending a society wedding in the northern city of Kano.

His political opponents have said he should have visited Dapchi instead. It was not immediately clear whether Buhari's Yobe itinerary included a trip to the town.

The 75-year-old Buhari was elected in 2015 on a pledge to defeat Boko Haram.

But the Dapchi attack and others have raised questions about the extent of repeated government claims to have virtually defeated the Islamist militants.

Buhari's spokesman, Femi Adesina, said he would be making an "on-the-spot assessment" of "recent terrorist attacks, criminal activities and communal clashes" on his visits.

He would also "meet and console the communities affected".

The central state of Benue and Zamfara in the northwest have both been hit by renewed clashes between farmers and nomadic herdsmen over access to resources.

Last month, extra troops were sent to try to quell violence in Benue, as well as neighbouring Taraba and Nasarawa.

Buhari, who also doubles up as oil minister, has yet to visit the strategic southern state of Rivers, which is the hub of Nigeria's oil and gas sector.

The state has long been hit by political violence.

Adesina sought to play down allegations that Buhari is out of touch with the security situation, saying he had received daily briefings and been "in constant touch" with governors.US President Donald Trump, pictured with First Lady Melania Trump, has sparked fears of a trade war

The German government warned Monday that a transatlantic trade war would harm both Europe and the US, urging Washington not to take a "wrong path" after a weekend of aggressive rhetoric.

"A trade war would not be in German, European or American interests," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin after President Donald Trump at the weekend threatened to impose tariffs on car imports from the European Union.

"Closing oneself off and protectionism are the wrong path," Seibert said.

"Such measures would inflict pain on international trade flows and our industry, but above all hurt workers and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic."

Last week, Brussels raised the spectre of a tit-for-tat trade war with the US, saying it would slap a border tax on items like motorcycles, orange juice and jeans if Trump went ahead with a promised tariff on steel and aluminium imports into the US.

EU Budget Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told news agency DPA the bloc would take "proportionate measures" in response to US tariffs.

"The measures must have an impact on the American market without provoking an excessive reaction and thereby an escalation," he said.

Brussels' proposed response matches similar moves during a 2003 "steel war" unleashed by George W. Bush's administration -- which prompted the US to back down before the EU carried out its threat.

- 'Losers on all sides' -

This time, if the EU implements the plans "we will simply apply a tax on their cars which freely pour into the US," Trump tweeted Saturday.

That new threat followed a declaration by the president on Friday that "trade wars are good, and easy to win" in response to the initial uproar at his plans for a metals tariff.

Along with close partner France, other EU capitals and the Commission, Berlin will "watch very closely what the US government implements this week and then evaluate the correct reaction," Seibert said.

"We will defend open markets, free markets," he added.

The automobile industry is Germany's largest sector, employing roughly 800,000 people across the country and many thousands more around the world.

Tariffs could cost big groups like Daimler, BMW or the world's largest carmaker Volkswagen up to 10 percent of their annual profits, analyst Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer of Germany's CAR research centre estimated.

"In such a trade war, there would only be losers on all sides," said Bernhard Mattes, president of Germany's VDA auto industry federation, in a statement.

The VDA noted that while German manufacturers exported almost 500,000 cars to the US last year, they also built 804,000 on US soil, exporting around half of them back out of the country.

German carmakers employ 36,500 people in the US and component makers a further 80,000.

"This offers advantages to both sides that should not be gambled with," Mattes said.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on February 25, 2018

An ex-aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signed a state witness deal in a corruption probe linked to his former boss, Israeli media reported Monday, dealing a new setback to the premier.

News of the agreement broke ahead of Netanyahu's meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House later Monday.

The widely reported agreement between Israeli authorities and Nir Hefetz, a former spokesman for the Netanyahu family, comes as corruption investigations into the prime minister intensify.

Israeli police provided no details on the reported agreement. Hefetz would be the third Netanyahu associate to sign a state witness deal in recent months.

State-run Israeli TV channel Kan 11 on Monday night cited sources close to Hefetz as saying he told them he agreed to testify out of concern for his country's security.

Hefetz told his confidants Netanyahu "took decisions on security matters under the significant influence of members of his family and others close to him, primarily his son Yair," the TV said.

A statement from a Netanyahu spokesman dismissed the report, which said that Hefetz would give evidence of corruption against Netanyahu and his wife Sara.

"The comments attributed to Nir Hefetz regarding Sara and Yair are nonsense," it said.

"For more than seven years Nir Hefetz has not been privy to any intelligence, political or security information whatever."

"Therefore, the comments attributed to him are baseless," the Hebrew language statement said.

On Sunday, an Israeli court released Hefetz and telecoms mogul Shaul Elovitch and put them under house arrest after 14 days in custody.

Hefetz is alleged to have acted as a messenger between Netanyahu, Elovitch's telecoms group Bezeq and news website Walla!, media reports say.

Police suspect Bezeq was given regulatory breaks in return for Netanyahu receiving positive coverage on Walla!, a news website owned by the telecoms group.

Hefetz is also suspected of trying to bribe a retired judge to block a probe into the prime minister's wife, Sara Netanyahu, over alleged misuse of public funds, according to the reports.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Hefetz had agreed to hand over recordings of Netanyahu and his wife as part of the state witness deal.

- Early elections? -

Nir Hefetz appears at the Israeli Justice Court in Tel Aviv on February 22, 2018 over a graft probe threatening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Last month, Israeli police recommended Netanyahu's indictment on two other cases of alleged bribery. The attorney general is now considering how to move forward in those cases.

In one case, Netanyahu and family members are suspected of receiving one million shekels ($285,000, 230,000 euros) in gifts, including luxury cigars, champagne and jewellery, from wealthy figures in exchange for financial or personal favours.

In the other case, investigators suspect the premier of trying to reach an agreement with the owner of Yediot Aharonot newspaper for more favourable coverage.

Israeli media reported that Hefetz could also provide testimony in those two investigations.

The investigations into Netanyahu's affairs have raised questions over whether the 68-year-old will eventually have to step down.

He has been prime minister for a total of around 12 years.

The probes have also led to speculation in the Israeli media that he may opt for early elections in the coming months in a bid to bolster his standing before a decision on indictments is made.

Polls have suggested Netanyahu could remain prime minister in fresh elections despite the corruption investigations hanging over him.

He is also set to reap further political benefits in May when the United States relocates its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem, a move popular among Israelis even though it has been denounced across the world.

Before boarding the plane for the United States on Saturday night, Netanyahu said he did not want to call early elections and hoped his right-wing coalition would survive its entire mandate, which expires in November 2019.

However, politicians across the board sense elections may be on the horizon and have hardened their approach.

A dispute that has arisen within the coalition in recent days could prove to be its undoing.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties want a law passed to allow religious students to continue to be exempted from military conscription.

Other members of the coalition oppose such a law, but the ultra-Orthodox have threatened to block a 2019 budget that Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon wants to see approved this month.US President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu where he doubled down on his threats to keep tariffs steel and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico unless he gets a NAFTA deal that is to his liking

US President Donald Trump vowed Monday not to exempt Mexico and Canada from new steel tariffs without a "fair" trade deal, but his chief negotiator warned the trio's talks were not living up to expectations.

Speaking as US, Mexican and Canadian trade officials gathered in Mexico City to wrap up the seventh round of talks aimed at revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Trump doubled down on threats he made on Twitter early Monday.

"No, we're not backing down," he told reporters after an Oval Office meeting with embattled Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. "There will be tariffs on steel for Canada and for Mexico."

The US leader, who prides himself on his ability to negotiate business deals -- and who said last week trade wars were "good, and easy to win" -- linked his planned steel and aluminum tariffs to the ongoing talks with Mexico and Canada in his latest anti-NAFTA rampage on Twitter.

"Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed," he said in one of a series of morning tweets.

Hours later, his top negotiator, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, warned in Mexico City that the latest talks had been disappointing.

"In spite of (our) hard work, we have not made the progress that many had hoped in this round. We have closed out only three additional chapters," Lighthizer told a press conference.

"To complete NAFTA 2.0, we will need agreement on roughly 30 chapters. So far, after seven months we have completed just six."

Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland for her part vowed to fight fire with fire if Trump went ahead with his tariff plans.

"Canada will take appropriate, responsive measures to defend our trade interests and our workers," she said.

Canada, which has the most to lose as the top source of US steel to the US market, has called the tariffs "unacceptable."

- Twitter bluff? -

Trump's surprise announcement last week that he plans to impose tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum sparked a fierce global response.

Canadian and Mexican officials had raised the possibility the neighboring nations could be exempt, but Trump rejected that possibility and raised the stakes by holding the NAFTA talks hostage to the tariffs.

Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo suggested Trump may not follow through.

"With this (US) administration, it's important to wait for them to go from tweets to action. There's still no presidential decree," he said.

The United States in fact maintains a trade surplus with Canada that amounted to nearly $8 billion in 2016, and nearly $3 billion in the first nine months of 2017.

The US has a deficit with Mexico that was $63 billion in 2016, and $52 billion in the first three quarters of last year.

Trump administration officials frequently refer to the deficit in goods alone, excluding the offset from dominant US services exports such as banking and insurance.

- Retaliation -

Map showing the top 10 steelmakers and top 20 steel-producing countries

Trump also criticized the European Union for trade barriers on US companies and repeated his threat to slap tariffs on European car imports if Brussels retaliates against the steel tariffs.

"People have to understand, our country on trade has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world," even by "people that we think are wonderful," Trump said.

Repeating his concern about the US trade deficit of $800 billion last year, he said "the biggest problem is China."

While Trump said he did not think there would be a trade war, US trading partners already are preparing to retaliate, and have pledged to file a dispute at the World Trade Organization.

French President Emmanuel Macron said the European Union must "react quickly" to US plans that clearly breached WTO rules.

Germany and Britain both sounded the alarm over damage to their trade relationships with the US.

The European Union has said it is drawing up measures against leading US brands like Harley-Davidson motorcycles and Levi's jeans.

Trump said the EU has "trade barriers far worse than tariffs," and again threatened to "tax their cars" if they go through with their response.

That is just the kind of tit-for-tat reaction that economists warn could spark a trade war at a time when the US and global economies have only recently returned to firmer footing.Deputy Permanent Representative Ambassador Wu Haitao of China speaks after a United Nations Security Council vote to impose new sanctions on North Korea in December 2017 in New York City

China has put a hold on a US request at the United Nations to ban 33 ships from ports worldwide and blacklist 27 shipping firms for helping North Korea circumvent sanctions, according to a document seen by AFP on Monday.

The United States presented the request on February 23 to a UN sanctions committee as part of a crackdown on smuggling of North Korean commodities, in violation of UN sanctions resolutions.

China on Friday "placed a hold on the proposals" from the United States, said the Dutch chair of the sanctions committee in a letter seen by AFP.

US diplomats said they were waiting for a further explanation from China and the rest of the sanctions committee before considering the next steps.

The US request at the United Nations coincides with President Donald Trump's announcement last month of the "heaviest sanctions ever" on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

The request lists 33 vessels - 19 of which are from North Korea-- that would be barred from entering all ports worldwide.

Japan joined the United States in supporting the request concerning three of the 33 vessels for carrying out ship-to-ship transfers of oil destined for North Korea.

The three tankers are the Dominica-flagged Yuk Tung, Belize's Wan Heng 11 and the North Korean tanker Yu Jong 2.

The US request also targets a national from Taiwan, Tsang Yung Yuan, who is said to be coordinating illegal North Korean coal exports with a North Korean broker in Russia.

Of the 27 shipping and trading firms facing a UN assets freeze, five are based in Hong Kong including Huaxin Shipping, which has allegedly used its vessel to deliver North Korean coal to Vietnam.

Two other companies -- Shanghai Dongfeng Shipping and Weihai World Shipping Freight -- also based in China, are cited for carrying North Korean coal on their vessels.

Last year, the Security Council adopted a series of resolutions to ban North Korean exports of commodities in a bid to cut off revenue to North Korea's military programs.

The United States and Japan are strong backers of sanctions as a way to pressure Pyongyang to come to the negotiating table and end its drive to develop nuclear weapons.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, praised President Donald Trump's highly contentious decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, during a meeting at the White House

Donald Trump floated a fraught trip to open the new American embassy in Jerusalem, as the US president hosted Israel's equally embattled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House Monday.

The two leaders -- both under career-threatening legal investigations -- tried to cast their domestic problems aside, putting on a show of bonhomie and mutual appreciation in sunny Washington.

In the Oval Office, Netanyahu waxed lyrical, painting Trump as the heir to a pantheon of historical figures, and hailed the president's "bold" decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem.

Netanyahu likened the US leader to the ancient Persian king Cyrus the Great, who freed the Jews from captivity in Babylon; to Lord Balfour, who a century ago affirmed the rights of the Jewish people in Palestine; and president Harry Truman, who recognized the Jewish state.

"I want to thank you for your extraordinary friendship," said the Israeli premier.

The 71-year-old president responded with some lyrical waxing of his own, saying he would consider a trip to open the controversial embassy this May, when Israel celebrates 70 years since its declaration of independence.

"We're looking at coming. If I can, I will," Trump said. "I may. We will be talking about that and other things.

"Israel is very special to me. Special country, special people, and I look forward to being there, and I'm very proud of that decision," he added.

The trip would be political catnip for Trump and Netanyahu, appealing to supporters who see good US-Israel ties as a strategic and even religious imperative.

But the trip would also be a major security and diplomatic challenge, one that risks further infuriating Arab allies and scuttling US claims to be an independent broker for peace.

Both Israel and the Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital.

The embassy move prompted deadly protests and 128 states condemned it in a United Nations General Assembly vote in December. Only seven smaller countries aligned themselves with the United States and Israel.

Nikky Haley, the US envoy to the UN, got sustained applause at the annual conference of the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) lobby group, when she announced she would attend the inauguration.

"At the UN and throughout the UN agencies, Israel does get bullied," she said, vowing to end such treatment.

The Jerusalem decision has complicated Trump's already ambitious promise to reach the "ultimate deal" between Israelis and Palestinians.

US peace proposals are said to be close to conclusion, but have suffered amid Palestinian anger and as Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and pointman for peace, lost his top-secret security clearance.

- 'Partners in ideology' -

Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, welcomed Netanyahu and his wife Sara in the White House Rose Garden

Despite Trump and Netanyahu's warmth, their domestic problems were never far away from the surface.

Hours before Netanyahu arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it was confirmed that an ex-aide agreed to become a state witness in a corruption probe that has imperiled his premiership.

The Israeli leader has embraced the Trumpian tactic of denouncing corruption allegations as "fake news," the same term Trump has used to describe his campaign team's alleged collusion with Russia during the 2016 US elections.

Several of Trump's campaign aides are already facing charges or have pled guilty to lying to FBI investigators.

"I think they are partners in ideology, and the ideology is a populist, conservative ideology which says that the old liberal elites are against us," said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Jerusalem's Hebrew University.

As with his Oval Office meeting, Netanyahu during an appearance at AIPAC on Tuesday was expected to focus mainly on Iran as Israel's greatest enemy, and one he says seeks a permanent military presence in neighboring Syria.

The prime minister is also expected to call again for changes to, or the cancellation of, the nuclear accord between world powers and Iran, said Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington.

"Iran has not given up its nuclear ambitions. It came out of this nuclear deal emboldened, enriched," Netanyahu said at the White House.

At AIPAC, Vice President Mike Pence noted that Washington has vowed to pull out of the nuclear deal if European countries can't come up with an accord to make it tougher.

"The United States of America will never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons," he added.

Calling Trump "the most pro-Israel president in American history," Pence added: "I stand before you today on his behalf to convey a simple message: America stands with Israel today tomorrow and always."Broadcom submitted its initial takeover offer the day after a White House meeting between US President Donald Trump and Broadcom CEO Hock Tan

US chipmaker Qualcomm postponed its annual shareholders' meeting after secretly requesting a national security review of Broadcom's bid to take over the company, the Singapore-based Broadcom announced Monday.

Qualcomm shareholders were due to meet Tuesday, but Broadcom said it was informed Sunday night that Qualcomm secretly filed a voluntary request on January 29 for US regulators to investigate the deal, and was ordered to postpone the meeting for 30 days.

"It should be clear to everyone that this is part of an unprecedented effort by Qualcomm to disenfranchise its own stockholders," Broadcom said in a statement.

Qualcomm fired back in a statement, accusing Broadcom of trying to mislead shareholders and 'trivialize' US regulatory and national security issues.

"Broadcom's dismissive rhetoric notwithstanding, this is a very serious matter for both Qualcomm and Broadcom," the US chipmaker said.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) can review any acquisition by a foreign corporation of a US firm that may have an impact on national security, and can recommend the president block the deal. CFIUS has blocked some transactions, but frequently foreign companies withdraw once it appears a transaction will be prohibited.

CFIUS issued an interim order to Qualcomm for the shareholder meeting to be delayed for 30 days to allow time to fully investigate the proposed acquisition by Broadcom, according to a US Department of Treasury.

Broadcom said it will fully cooperate with the review, but rejected any national security concerns since it is a US-controlled company, and is in the process of relocating its headquarters back to the United States.

- Board battle -

If finalized, the Broadcom-Qualcomm tie-up, estimated at $117 billion, would be the largest merger in a sector awash with consolidation amid the development of technologies for autonomous vehicles and 5G mobile services.

Qualcomm has repeatedly rejected multiple Broadcom offers that it says undervalue the company.

Qualcomm shareholders at an annual gathering were to vote whether to replace six of the California company's 11 board members with candidates backed by Broadcom, essentially endorsing the deal.

Weeks of thrust and parry, along with tactical public statements, have left the companies' boards at odds over the unsolicited offer.

Qualcomm, which is the dominant maker of microprocessors for smartphones, says it has a bright future on its own, especially ahead of a transition to fifth-generation (5G) wireless communications networks.

The Qualcomm board has also expressed concern that any deal with Broadcom could be delayed or blocked by antitrust regulators around the world.

Broadcom has urged Qualcomm shareholders to elect all six of its nominees to the board, sending "a clear signal" supporting the takeover bid which would provide a handsome gain to shareholders of the US firm.

"This was a blatant, desperate act by Qualcomm to entrench its incumbent board of directors and prevent its own stockholders from voting for Broadcom's independent director nominees," Broadcom said of the delaying development.

- Coveted chip tech -

CFIUS last year opposed the takeover of US semiconductor manufacturer Lattice by a Chinese state group backed by a US investment fund, and President Donald Trump then blocked the deal.

In the semiconductor sector, the committee -- whose deliberations are secret -- in 2016 recommended that then-President Barack Obama oppose a deal between the German group Aixtron and Chinese fund Grand Chip because there was a US subsidiary of the German group.

Broadcom's initial offer was already tinged by politics, coming the day after a White House meeting between Trump and Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, who promised to repatriate the company's headquarters.

Any tie-up of the two giants could reshape the fast-evolving sector of chips for smartphones and connected devices. But it would have to pass regulatory muster in several countries.

Analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy questioned the wisdom of Broadcom buying Qualcomm.

The rival chip companies are very different in their approaches to the market, Noorhead said, comparing the tie-up to mixing "oil and water."

And, a merger would likely get tied up by regulators for a long time, he added.

Qualcomm, one of Apple's main suppliers, is currently engaged in the acquisition of the Dutch group NXP and has indicated the operation will proceed regardless of the outcome of discussions with Broadcom.

Broadcom shares lost 0.3 percent in mid-day trading, while Qualcomm was down 1.3 percent.A Syrian man carries a child injured in government bombing in the besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus, on February 19, 2018

On February 18, 2018, Syrian regime forces intensified their bombardment of Eastern Ghouta, an area home to almost 400,000 people that has escaped government control since 2012, been besieged almost ever since and is controlled by mostly Islamist and jihadist groups.

So far the assault has killed more than 700 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

The bombardment was widely considered to be preparation for a government ground assault to retake an area which lies within mortar range of central Damascus. Pro-government forces have now seized about a third of the enclave.

Here are a few days of the assault as seen by Abdulmonam Eassa, a local photographer whose images for AFP of the death and destruction there you may have seen.

Monday, February 19

Strikes on Eastern Ghouta leave at least 127 dead.

A strike hits very close today. I go to take a look. The whole area seems to have been burned. During the first few seconds, you think no one is dead, you just see ashes and destruction. That's because people hide as soon as they hear the sound of a rocket or a plane. But after a few seconds you see signs of life.

I see a woman coming out from a destroyed building with four children. They are screaming. One of the kids is carrying a notepad or a book, maybe a Koran, I can't remember.

The Syria Civil Defence volunteers known as the "White Helmets" arrive and begin to dig through the rubble. I see one of them carrying an infant. I am shocked that someone so young has been hurt.

I keep taking pictures and look at the back of my camera to see how they came out. Suddenly I see one my brothers-in-law staring at me from one of the images. He is standing next to a door of a building, screaming for help. He is injured. I didn't even realise it was him when I was shooting the scene, only after, when I quickly checked the photos. What should I do? Should I help him or continue to take pictures? It's a question that I constantly ask myself.

Syrian children stand amidst debris in the rebel-held besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus on February 22, 2018

I'm about to leave when I see a White Helmet carrying a child. I realise it's the son of a friend. I hurry and take him and rush to the hospital. The boy holds on tight to me, he doesn't want to let me go. When we get inside, I want to take a picture of him, but he doesn't want to let go of my hand. I manage to free my hand, but he keeps holding his hand towards me. I can feel myself crying.

I leave a half hour later, heading home, which is about 700 meters away. After about 200 meters, I see that the area where I live has been shelled. I suddenly panic. My family lives there! What if one of them is dead?!

It's a friend of mine. He has a head injury. He is dead. But we have to just leave his body there because there are wounded children and they have to be taken to the hospital.

I hurry along and see that the building where my sisters and other relatives live has been hit. It's covered in dust and I can't see anything. Fear spreads through me as I get closer. I leave my motorbike in the middle of the street and run into our house. I see one of my brothers. "Is Mum ok?" I ask. "Yes," he answers. "Is everyone else all right?" "Yes," he says. I am about to breathe a sigh of relief when I catch a figure lying on the ground out of the corner of my eye. It's a friend of mine. He has a head injury. He is dead. But we have to just leave his body there because there are wounded children and they have to be taken to the hospital. I can't take pictures of scenes like this.

I take a look at the other side of the street. I see a woman wearing a prayer outfit. Her face is bleeding. I suddenly realise that it's one of my sisters. Two other female relatives are standing next to her, also injured. I try to calm my sister down. She has no shoes, so I want to carry her, but she tells me not to worry, she will walk barefoot. I take her and the others to the hospital, then drop off my mother and other siblings in Daraya. Then I go back to take a look at our house.

The doors and windows are completely smashed. I take a look around and realise that I no longer care about death. There is a plane in the sky again, a strike can come at any moment, but I am not scared. I have been hurt to the point where I can hurt no more.

My family spends the night in another house. No one really sleeps. As I record these words, I can hear planes in the sky. The building is shaking. Thoughts keep shooting through my mind. What if my loved ones die and I live? How will I bear the pain? I leave.

Tuesday, February 20

The attacks on Eastern Ghouta kill at least 128 civilians, including 29 children. Another hospital, Arbin, has been taken out of action.

The UN children's agency UNICEF issues a blank statement. "No words will do justice to the children killed, their mothers, their fathers and their loved ones," it says.

I go to the hospital because I know the situation there is terrible. No one has eaten for a day. I walk into one room, it's full of dead bodies. Some died yesterday, some died before that, but haven't been buried yet.

I manage to sleep for a few hours at the hospital. I know in a few hours it's going to be the same routine -- planes, strikes, barrel bombs, wounded civilians, horror, recognising loved ones wounded or dead. But I am still strong. I can still go out and take pictures. I don't know how... But I can.

Wednesday, February 21

UN chief Antonio Guterres describes what's happening in Eastern Ghouta as "hell on earth." Barrel bombs are dropped on the area.

We go into the Saqba neighbourhood after a barrel bomb strike. A woman and her children are crying. A man is stuck between two walls of a destroyed building. While we're here, a second barrel bomb hits, two streets away. I can't focus. It feels like there is a huge cloud above my head...

After a while, I head back to my neighbourhood. A Russian plane had hit it. People are screaming. People don't know how to deal with a situation like this. I know a little because I follow death and destruction for my work. I get closer to a building. A boy and a girl are stuck between two walls of a collapsed building. I see their legs dangling. I inspect the area to make sure it's safe. Then I pull out the boy. Then the girl.

I climb to the rooftop to get a better view. Everything is burning. It seems like everywhere was shelled -- Saqba, Misraba, Douma, Kafr Batna... it seems like the whole area is burning.

My neighbours scream that there are more children under the rubble. I put away my camera and head to where they're pointing. Sometimes I take pictures and sometimes I help pull people out. I don't have a set formula for when I do what. I just go with my gut. The Civil Defence volunteers say there is one child still stuck, but we find a child and a father. The father has suffocated to death, the child has survived.

Thursday, February 22

German Chancellor Angela Merkel calls for an end to "massacre" in Syria. The UN Security Council fails to adopt a resolution on a ceasefire over objections from Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been helping him militarily.

I wake up at 6:00 am. It's quiet. There is destruction everywhere. People start to emerge, to check the damage and to try to get some food. A half hour later there is that dreaded sound -- a plane in the sky. It starts shelling. People run back to their shelters. It's been four days now that the bombing hasnt stopped. Everyone is scared.

Later I see White Helmets giving first aid to a man. "Where is my bag of flour?! I need it!" he keeps crying. Seems he was wounded getting food.

There are many people missing. Everyone seems to be searching for their relatives. Some are dead, some are just hiding, but communication is hard.

I don't have any electricity. I worry about being able to recharge my cameras and my computer. I need them, I can't work without them.

The number of dead has now risen to more than 300. Hospitals can't count the number of dead and injured. Some people are still stuck under the rubble. The Civil Defence volunteers are trying their best, but they just can't reach some areas because of the bombardment. The situation is so bad. God help us.

It's 3:00 pm as I record this and the planes haven't stopped bombing. Not one area has been spared. The White Helmets are really struggling. Many of their vehicles are damaged. It's very difficult.

Friday, February 23

The UN Security Council postpones a vote on a truce in Eastern Ghouta.

People are cowering in shelters. Everyone is in shock. We can't understand anything. Everything is out of service. I can't believe the difference four days of bombardment has made. The whole area has been changed, erased. The streets aren't there anymore. They're full of dust, rubble. Only ambulances use them.

A Syrian man checks the site of Syrian government bombardments in the besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascus on February 22, 2018

Maybe crying doesn't help, but today I cry. I can't say anything else. Please, someone stop the carnage. Please, someone has to stop what is happening here!

But life goes on. Today we take out four children from underneath a fully destroyed building. The things that I have witnessed here, I will never forget. If I remain alive.

The things that I have witnessed here, I will never forget. If I remain alive.

On Saturday, February 24, the UN Security Council approved a ceasefire resolution, which called for a ceasefire "without delay" to allow aid into the area. But air strikes continued and claimed more lives. On February 26 the regime carried out more bombings, in spite of the UN-agreed truce.

Frustrated, the UN and European Union demanded the immediate implementation of the ceasefire.

Moscow then announced President Vladimir Putin had ordered a daily five-hour "humanitarian pause" from February 27 and the opening of protected corridors to allow people to leave. The first pause took effect the next day but no civilians have since left. The Syrian regime continued to pound the area and by Monday had seized control of a third of the enclave.

For more about Abdulmonam's work, including some of his pictures, follow this link to AFP's Correspondent blog: http://https://correspondent.afp.com/if-i-remain-alive-ghouta-diariesFrances McDormand, 60, won best actress for her role as a rage-filled mother seeking justice for her murdered daughter in Martin McDonagh's "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri"

Oscar-winner Frances McDormand had her statuette stolen at a post-show party by a man who allegedly snatched it from her table before he was arrested, witnesses and police said Monday.

McDormand, 60, won best actress for her role as a rage-filled mother seeking justice for her murdered daughter in Martin McDonagh's "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."

"Security at the Governors Ball are looking for this guy, who grabbed Frances McDormand's Oscar and ran out with it," said New York Times writer Cara Buckley, who was at the event and live-tweeted the drama.

She said a photographer working for celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck -- who was providing the catering -- stopped the man and seized the Oscar, before the thief disappeared back into the ball.

The actress "had set it down and was chatting" when it disappeared, according to Buckley, who added that the actress had said to "let him go."

"We can confirm that an incident occurred at the Governor's event. There was an arrest made of a Terry Bryant for grand theft," a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department told AFP.

She wasn't able to give further details, except to confirm that the suspect had a ticket for the party.

McDormand was seen "crying emotionally outside the Governors Awards ball after giving up the search for the statuette on the premises," USA Today reported.

It was the second time she had bagged the best actress statuette following her win for "Fargo" 21 years earlier.

McDormand's acceptance speech was one of the most memorable moments of a relatively uneventful telecast.

She delivered a rallying cry for the #MeToo movement, which seeks to end harassment and gender double-standards, as she accepted her Oscar.

Placing her statuette on the stage, an animated McDormand asked all women nominated across categories to stand up and be counted.

"Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed," McDormand said.

"Don't talk to us about it at the parties tonight. Invite us into your office in a couple days, or you can come to ours -- whichever suits you best -- and we'll tell you all about them," she added.

Also nominated in the best actress category were Saoirse Ronan ("Lady Bird"), Sally Hawkins ("The Shape Of Water"), Meryl Streep ("The Post") and Margot Robbie ("I, Tonya").

McDormand's representatives didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg says tells AFP in Baghdad during an interview on March 5, 2018 that alliance troops are staying in Iraq at the request of the country

NATO forces are staying in Iraq at the country's request, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said during a rare visit Monday to Baghdad after parliament called for a foreign troop pullout.

"We are here because Iraq wants us to be here, we are not here without the consent and without an invitation from Iraq," Stoltenberg told AFP.

"We should not stay longer than necessary, we will train the trainers as long as necessary to make sure IS does not reemerge," he said of the jihadist Islamic State group.

His comments come days after the Iraqi parliament called for the government to draw up a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.

"The Iraqi parliament expresses its gratitude to all countries which have supported Iraq in its fight against Daesh (IS) and calls for the government to draw up a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops," it said in a statement.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared in December the end of the war to expel IS jihadists from the country, three years after they seized a third of Iraq, sweeping aside security forces.

Stoltenberg said NATO received a "written request" from Abadi to keep its troops in the country.

He said troops from 19 member countries have stepped up training Iraqi forces in several fields.

NATO "is scaling up its training, like countering IEDs (improvised explosive devices), military medicine, maintenance of equipment and in some other areas", he said.

"We are also planning to help Iraqis to establish military schools and academies to educate their trainers to improve its capacity to form its own trainers," Stoltenberg said.

In addition, NATO will work with Iraq "on institutional reform, including fighting corruption", he added.

He also praised the "enormous transformation" of Iraqi forces since 2014, when IS launched its lightening offensive and seized swathes of territory.

"The Iraqi forces in 2014 are totally different from the Iraqi forces in 2018, there was an enormous transformation," the NATO chief said.Asma Jahangir, who was the top UN expert on the rights situation in Iran before dying of cardiac arrest at the age of 66 last month, had drafted a new UN report

Detainees in Iran appear to be systematically subjected to torture and abuse, including sexual violence, a UN report published Monday found, also condemning the denial of medical treatment to prisoners.

"Consistent reports received suggest a pattern of physical or mental pressure applied upon prisoners to coerce confessions, some of which are broadcast," the report said.

The report, which was drafted by Asma Jahangir, who was the top UN expert on the rights situation in Iran before dying of cardiac arrest at the age of 66 last month, is set to be debated before the UN Human Rights Council next week.

In the report, the leading Pakistani human rights advocate voiced deep concern over the recent harsh crackdown on protests in Iran, with more than 20 people killed and at least 1,000 arrested in a matter of days at the turn of the year.

She said she was "dismayed at the reports quoting members of the judiciary (saying) the protesters will be awarded the harshest of punishments," expressing concern over "the fate and conditions under which those arrested are being held".

Jahangir also voiced alarm over the general conditions of detention in Iran.

Although she was never permitted to visit Iran, she said in recent months she had met with at least six people who had fled the country "who still bore marks of torture" suffered in detention.

Jahangir also pointed to recent findings by the Freedom from Torture organisation of widespread torture during interrogations of detainees, either to extract information about them or their family and friends, and to force confessions.

- Electric shocks, amputations -

The torture methods documented included rape and other sexual violence, electric shocks, and amputations, she wrote, urging Tehran to stop such practices and hold perpetrators to account.

She suggested the government should "consider the use of modern technology to monitor detention centres to deter... torture."

Jahangir also voiced "grave concern (over) a pattern of denial of medical treatment to certain categories of detainees, especially prisoners of conscience, political prisoners and human rights defenders."

Pointing to a number of cases where there is an "imminent threat to life", she called on Tehran to urgently "investigate, address, and remedy such allegations".

She also said she remained troubled by the continuing large number of executions in Iran, with 482 executions reported in the country last year, including five juvenile offenders.

That number is down from 530 in 2016 and 969 in 2015, but the UN expert said she remained "alarmed", pointing to the "consistently reported pattern of serious violations of the right to fair trial and denial of due process" in the country.

Jahangir also urged Tehran to halt the use of harsh corporal punishment, pointing out that 50 flogging sentences and five amputation sentences were reportedly carried out in the country last year.Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, pictured in February 2018, denied claims that she presided over corruption when she ran Sonangol

Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, daughter of former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, on Monday denied claims that she presided over corruption when she ran state oil giant Sonangol.

Prosecutors opened an investigation on Friday into possible graft at Sonangol and will probe "irregular financial transfers" reported by the company's new management.

"I can only share my total indignation at the serious accusations and innuendoes made against me," she said in a statement.

Sonangol's new chief executive Carlos Saturnino angrily criticised the financial management of his predecessor Isabel during a results briefing last week, alleging that $38 million had been suspiciously transferred to a company in Dubai.

But Isabel hit back Monday, insisting that it was "wrong to claim that the transfer of $38.18 million was executed after the previous management team had stood down".

"Saturnino tries deliberately to mislead public opinion to suggest there was impropriety."

In an interview with Portuguese newspaper Jornal de Negocios, Isabel went further, accusing Sonangol's new chief executive of being "a liar" and making "shocking" statements.

She went on to accuse her successor of a crusade encouraged by opposition parties with the goal of "sullying her name" as part of a "major political campaign targeting the previous government".

Isabel said however that she welcomed the opening of an investigation as it would allow her to argue her case before the courts and to counter Saturnino's "defamatory statements".

Isabel was appointed to run Sonangol in June 2016 by her father and was removed from the job in November last year by Lourenco who has reversed several of his predecessor's appointments.

Sonangol announced last December that it had opened an internal inquiry after discovering suspicious financial transfers worth tens of millions of dollars.

Isabel is reported by Forbes to be the richest woman in Africa and has been dubbed "the princess" by critics of alleged corruption under her father.

Her appointment to Sonangol was also seen as a symbol of the nepotism that characterised Dos Santos' 38-year rule.

Oil provides 70 percent of Angola's revenues and almost all of its hard currency, but many of the country's citizens live in abject poverty.Congolese protesters are calling for President Joseph Kabila to quit power

Civil opposition groups in Democratic Republic of Congo called for a general strike on Friday in protest at the killing of activists during anti-government demonstrations.

Gloria Senga, an activist of the Struggle For Change movement, called at a news conference for a stoppage "in memory of our brothers and sisters whom the enemy has killed in cowardice".

Anti-government protests in the vast central African country have turned deadly in recent months. The Catholic church and UN peacekeepers say 17 people have been killed overall.

President Joseph Kabila has refused to state whether he will step aside even though his term ended in December 2016.

In a statement read out by Senga on Monday, 14 civil groups called on the international community to help "push the dictator to leave power."

Two people were killed in Kinshasa on February 25, including a prominent opposition activist who was shot by security forces, according to witnesses.

There is growing international concern that the DR Congo could slide into all-out violence as it heads to elections on December 23.Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, the former Bolivian president, is the first former head of state to face trial in the US for human rights abuses

Jury selection began Monday in the civil trial of former Bolivian president Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada over his alleged role in the killing of more than 50 civilians during disturbances in 2003.

It is the first time a former head of state will face trial in the US for alleged human rights abuses, under a law that permits civil suits in US courts related to extrajudicial killings.

Federal Judge James Cohn said that it would last between four and five weeks.

The judge as well as lawyers from both the prosecution and defense quizzed potential jurors about their knowledge of the case Monday.

The defense team asked would-be jurors if they had participated in protests and whether they considered themselves activists, warning that the statements of the victims would be emotional.

Several potential jurors asked to be excused on the basis that it would be difficult to maintain impartiality in the face of harrowing testimonies.

The suit alleges that Sanchez de Lozada and his defense minister, Carlos Sanchez Berzain, planned the extra-judicial killings by Bolivian security forces.

"We look forward to this historic opportunity to have our day in court," Teofilo Baltazar Cero, whose pregnant wife was among those killed, had previously said.

Known as the "October massacre," the deaths came after La Paz was cut off by massive protests led by Evo Morales, now the country's president.

Armed government troops were deployed on October 11, 2003 to open a route through blockaded roads for diesel and gasoline shipments into the Bolivian capital. Witnesses say they opened fire on civilians.

The deaths and ensuing crisis forced Sanchez de Lozada's resignation on October 17, and he fled the country the same day for the United States.

The lawsuit alleges that he and Sanchez Berzain had planned for months to crush the political opposition through the use of deadly force.The charges relate to a story Rafael Marques, seen here last year, wrote in 2016 about the country's former attorney general's purchase of rural land designated for urban development

Angolan prosecutors appeared to waver on Monday in their pursuit of prominent human rights activist and journalist Rafael Marques de Morais who faces charges of subversion, defence sources said.

The charges relate to a story Marques, 46, wrote in 2016 about the country's former attorney general's purchase of rural land designated for urban development.

A court in Luanda postponed the case indefinitely, De Morais's lawyer Horacio Junjuvili told AFP by telephone.

De Morais was charged with insulting public authority after alleging that the attorney general exploited the country's weak land rights laws by paying the price of rural land for what would later become prime beach-front real estate.

"They are grappling with it. They are not accusing him under the media laws, but with a criminal charge against state security," said a source close to the defence side.

The story also accused former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos of effectively protecting corrupt individuals because he did not take action to stop graft.

It has been suggested that for a successful prosecution, senior former regime officials -- possibly including Dos Santos -- could be required to disprove De Morais' claims in open court.

In September, President Joao Lourenco succeeded Dos Santos who had ruled the country with an iron fist for 38 years.

De Morais was convicted in 2015 of defaming military generals in a book he wrote and was handed a six-month suspended prison sentence.

He has also documented human rights abuses in Angola and campaigned for greater official transparency and accountability.US military officials have been openly discussing the fate of Islamic State group detainees, mainly foreign fighters, held by US-backed militias in northern Syria

The Guantanamo Bay detention center could easily accommodate "a couple dozen" more inmates should the Trump administration decide to send new prisoners to the much-maligned facility, a top US officer said Monday.

Admiral Kurt Tidd, who oversees the military's Southern Command that includes Guantanamo, told Pentagon reporters there is enough staffing and infrastructure in place to increase the prison population from its current number of 41.

"Without any additional resources, probably a couple dozen, but beyond that we would need to increase the size of the guard force," he said, noting that no decision had been made to send more detainees.

President Donald Trump in January signed an executive order reversing his predecessor Barack Obama's ultimately fruitless 2009 directive to shutter the US prison center.

Guantanamo has not received any new inmates since 2008 but on the campaign trail, Trump vowed to load the facility with "bad dudes," and said it would be "fine" if US terror suspects were sent there for trial.

During his State of the Union speech in January, Trump said Islamic State captives would in "many cases" end up at Guantanamo.

US military officials have been openly discussing the fate of IS detainees, mainly foreign fighters, held by US-backed militias in northern Syria.Animals such as ball pythons are popular in the Asian pet trade because of their docile nature and low space requirements, especially in crowded metropolises such as Hong Kong and Singapore

Shipments of protected African species including tortoises, pythons and parrots to Asia have soared since 2006 as demand grows in the Far East for exotic pets, meats and other animal products, a new study warned Tuesday.

Wildlife imports of leopard tortoises, African spurred tortoises and ball pythons into Asia increased nearly tenfold in a decade, the report by monitoring network Traffic said, while trade in animal skins including seals also rose.

Although much of the trade is legal, all of the species in the study are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

"Until now the legal wildlife trade between Africa and Asia has been largely overlooked," said Willow Outhwaite, co-author of the "Eastward Bound" study, adding that the report aims to "fill in some of the blanks in our understanding of this vast, complex" trade.

Using import and export databases, the report found more than 1.3 million live animals and plants, 1.5 million skins and 2,000 tonnes of meat from CITES-listed species have been exported from Africa to East and Southeast Asia since 2006.

Animals such as ball pythons and tortoises are popular in the Asian pet trade because of their docile nature and low space requirements, especially in crowded metropolises such as Hong Kong and Singapore.

Trade in the three reptile species from Africa to Asia rose from 8,488 creatures in 2006 to 78,295 in 2015, the study found.

But the trade may be having an impact in Africa, with reports of population declines of leopard tortoises due to unsustainable harvesting, the study said.

Commercial exports of wild African spurred tortoises -- the world's third-largest tortoise -- have been banned since 2000, according to CITES.

The study also reported nearly 100,000 grey parrots were exported between the continents over that period, before the central African bird -- prized for its ability to mimic human speech -- was reclassified as endangered in 2016, all but outlawing the trade.

The trade also raises concerns of animal cruelty in Asia, campaigners say.

"The lack of adequate animal protection laws and education, especially in China, is resulting in out-of-control animal abuse," said Jason Baker of the US-based animal rights group PETA.

"If consumers had any idea what was happening, they'd be outraged."

- Animal skins -

The report also found an increase in mammal skins shipped from Africa to Asia, especially Hong Kong and mainland China.

The trade -- mostly Cape fur seals hunted in Namibia -- grew from 1,972 skins in 2007 to a peak of 20,651 in 2012.

Namibia issues seal hunting permits each year, despite outcry from conservation groups that brand its annual cull a massacre for trade purposes.

Authorities in the southern African country maintain that what they call seal harvesting is meant to control the burgeoning population which threatens the fishing industry.

But activists slam these reasons as hypocritical, saying the hunts are carried out for commercial gain.

The animals are harvested for their pelts, fat -- which is used in beauty products -- and male sexual organs, believed to have aphrodisiac properties in Asia.

The majority of animal skins imported from Africa to Asia are crocodile, used particularly in Japan and Singapore for luxury leather goods such as handbags, belts, shoes, wallets and briefcases, the study said.Samura Kamara (L), the ruling party candidate to succeed Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma (R), told AFP he would focus on infrastructure, agriculture and education if he is elected

The ruling party candidate seeking to succeed President Ernest Bai Koroma as Sierra Leone's president claimed Monday he was his boss's "biggest legacy" to the country as election campaigning wrapped up.

The ruling All Peoples Congress (APC) held a rally attended by thousands in the northern city of Makeni while the opposition Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) gathered crowds in its southern stronghold of Bo ahead of Wednesday's general election.

APC candidate Samura Kamara told AFP he was the one to carry on Koroma's work after 10 years in power -- though the president has tried to distance himself from accusations his former foreign minister was a personal choice rather than a party decision.

"I am his biggest legacy. I need to sustain what he has achieved... and build on it," Kamara said.

He promised to focus on infrastructure, agriculture and education if he is elected to lead the small West African nation.

Sierra Leone's economy is in a poor state following the twin shocks of the 2014-16 Ebola crisis and a drop in commodity prices on its highly export-dependent economy.

Kamara has also earned the nickname "Mr 10 percent" from critics who accuse him of skimming money off government contracts, amid wider corruption allegations against his party.

The APC faces competition from the SLPP but also from the upstart National Grand Coalition (NGC), headed by former UN diplomat Kandeh Yumkella.

More than 3.1 million are registered to vote on Wednesday.South Korean President Moon Jae-in, right, has prodded US President Donald Trump toward negotiations, and has met North Korean officials himself

The White House said Monday that Donald Trump had been referring to a call with South Korea's leader when he appeared to suggest a landmark direct contact with the nuclear North.

Trump raised eyebrows at a Washington media dinner on Saturday when he said "they, by the way, called up a couple of days ago and said 'we would like to talk.'

"And I said, 'so would we, but you have to de-nuke, you have to de-nuke,'" Trump added.

A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Trump had in fact been referencing a call he had on Thursday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

Pyongyang is the Korean peninsula's only nuclear-armed power, prompting speculation of rare direct contact between US and North Korean officials.

Moon has prodded Trump toward negotiations, and has met North Korean officials himself.

Trump has taken a more bellicose position, suggesting military action is possible if North Korea does not stop efforts to develop a nuclear armed missile capable of hitting the continental United States.Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and other leaders at the second Kabul Process conference at the Presidential Palace in Kabul on February 28, 2018

The United States on Monday called on the Taliban to consider an offer for peace talks extended by Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Ghani at an international conference in Kabul last week unveiled a plan to open talks with the Taliban, including eventually recognizing them as a political party.

In return, Ghani said the militants should officially recognize the Afghan government and constitution, a perennial sticking point in past attempts to open talks.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid has maligned the Kabul Process, tweeting that the conference sought the Taliban's "surrender."

Alice Wells, the principal deputy assistant secretary for the State Department's Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, told reporters she had been struck by Ghani's proposal.

"I heard him offering a dignified process," she said.

"This is not a surrender that's being offered to the Taliban, but a dignified process for reaching a political framework," she added, noting that the Kabul conference was "really a historic benchmark event."

Wells said the Afghan government had "listened carefully" to the Taliban and was responsive to a number of their requests.

Ghani's offer was "quite forward-leaning and frankly I think probably caught the Taliban by surprise," Wells said. "This was quite a courageous offer."

"We certainly encourage the Taliban to take this offer seriously. It does put the onus on the Taliban to respond," she added.

Last week, the Taliban said it was prepared to enter direct talks with the US to find a "peaceful solution" to more than 16 years of war.

That statement however made no mention of negotiating with the Afghan government -- a condition which the US has long stated is vital to any peace process.DURBAN, South Africa (AP) - Australia was forced to wait for the one wicket it needs to confirm a commanding win over South Africa in the first test after a strange end to the fourth day on Sunday. The tourists were left on the brink of victory, and fast bowler Mitchell Starc still has the chance of a hat trick and 10 wickets in the match.

Australia was frustrated as the umpires first ruled the light wasn't good enough for quick bowler Starc to continue bowling and then called stumps for bad light with South Africa 293-9 in its second innings, still 124 runs from victory.

Starc set up Australia's likely win and a 1-0 lead in the four-test series with five wickets in the first innings. He tore through South Africa's lower order for his 4-74 in the second, only to be stopped from delivering the final blow.

South Africa's batsman Kagiso Rabada is bowled by Australia's bowler Mitchell Starc, for a duck on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

"Well, he gets a chance tomorrow now," Australia wicketkeeper Tim Paine said with the teams due to return for a fifth day at Kingsmead that could potentially last just one ball.

Starc removed three batsmen in an over in what appeared to be the final push. He got Vernon Philander out on the second delivery of that over and was on his hat trick after sending the ball crashing into the stumps of Keshav Maharaj and Kagiso Rabada off the fifth and sixth deliveries.

But umpires Kumar Dharmasena and Sundaram Ravi told Australia it had to bowl spin after that if it wanted to stay out there and Starc had to watch as slow bowlers Nathan Lyon and Steve Smith bowled the day's last nine overs in search of the victory-clinching wicket.

It didn't come, with Quinton de Kock on 81 not out for South Africa and last-man Morne Morkel seeing off 27 balls for his 0 not out.

"It was just getting darker and darker. Even the spinners were becoming harder to see," Australia's Paine said, accepting the decision of the umpires.

Australia's likely victory was also held up by South Africa opener Aiden Markram, who gritted it out for 5 1/2 hours for his 143. Markram batted for almost the entire day, only falling late on to a catch up at the stumps by Paine off Mitchell Marsh.

The breakthrough ended Markram's 147-run partnership with de Kock for the sixth wicket and set up the late surge from Starc.

Markram hit 19 fours in the best innings of his career, battling a pitch where the ball was turning and reverse swinging and also a pumped-up Australian team that was in typically aggressive mood in the field.

Markram was a target for the verbals when he was involved in a mix-up that led to the run out of AB de Villiers, South Africa's best batsman, for a duck. Starc also had a series of exchanges in the middle with South Africa's Theunis de Bruyn.

"Obviously it's natural when you play against the Australians that there's a lot of chat on the field," Markram said. "That's something I certainly don't mind. ... It never really gets out of line, either. There's not a lot of swearing or things like that. There are a few here and there but it's not the end of the world."

Australia was in position for a big victory most of the day after South Africa's top order fell apart under pressure in the first session, epitomized by de Villiers' chaotic run out. Australia's quick bowlers sliced through with three other wickets in the 22 overs they delivered before lunch.

Starc removed Dean Elgar (9) caught behind with a fizzing short ball, Josh Hazelwood had Hashim Amla out lbw for 8, and Pat Cummins ripped out captain Faf du Plessis' off stump to put Australia well on course for victory.

De Villiers thought about a quick single with Markram on strike, but was sent back as David Warner swooped from backward square leg to run de Villiers out at the non-striker's end with the help of bowler Lyon.

De Villiers was short of his crease, and left sprawled on the ground, provoking a loud, taunting celebration from Warner and the Aussies, who are well on top at the start of a series billed as a battle between two closely-matched teams.

In reality, Australia has been clearly superior in the first four days of the contest, boosted by a 4-0 Ashes rout of England and the fact that it hasn't lost a series in South Africa since 1970.

South Africa's batsman Morne Morkel' right, watches Australia's Cameron Bancroft, bottom left, attempts a catch on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Australia's bowler Mitchell Starc celebrates after bowling South Africa's batsman Kagiso Rabada, for a duck on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Australia's bowler Nathan Lyon, right, reacts after running out South Africa's batsman AB de Villiers, for a duck on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Australia's bowler Nathan Lyon, far left, and teammates celebrate after running out South Africa's batsman AB de Villiers for a duck on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

South Africa's batsman Theunis de Bruyn plays a shot on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Australia's bowler Mitchell Starc, left, exchanges word with South Africa's batsman Theunis de Bruyn, after his delivery on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

South Africa's batsman Aiden Markram plays a side shot on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

South Africa's batsman Theunis de Bruyn, left, exchanges word with Australia's bowler Mitchell Starc, on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Australia's bowler Nathan Lyon, middle, reacts after running out South Africa's batsman AB de Villiers, left, for a duck on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

South Africa's batsman AB de Villiers leaves the field after being run out for a duck on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Australia's bowler Nathan Lyon, right, removes the bails to run out South Africa's batsman AB de Villiers, for a duck on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Australia's bowler Josh Hazlewood, left, successfully appeals for LBW against South Africa's batsman Hashim Amla' for a duck on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Australia's bowler Josh Hazlewood, left, celebrates with teammate Cameron Bancroft, middle, after dismissing South Africa's batsman Hashim Amla' for a duck on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Australia's bowler Mitchell Starc, middle, celebrates with teammates after dismissing South Africa's batsman Dean Elgar, on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

South Africa's batsman Dean Elgar leaves the field after being dismissed by Australia's bowler Mitchell Starc, for 9 runs on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)

Australia's batsman Josh Hazlewood takes action against a bouncer on day four of the first cricket test match between South Africa and Australia at Kingsmead stadium in Durban, South Africa, Sunday, March 4, 2018. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)SAO PAULO (AP) - The Brazilian army general in charge of public security in Rio de Janeiro said in an interview published Sunday that social and economic plans are needed to address the causes of rising crime in the city.

Gen. Richard Fernandez Nunes was named Public Security Secretary last month after the federal government put the military in charge of Rio's security forces amid a spike in violent crime.

In an interview with Rio's O Globo newspaper, Nunes said the reduction of armed confrontations is one of his main goals, and he plans to end the "intensifying violence" that plagues the city. But he warned that army troops alone will not bring peace to violence-ridden communities where police and drug traffickers clash almost daily. He said a dialogue must also be created.

"Society resorts to absurd violence to resolve small problems," Nunes said. "There is a climate of intolerance in which minor issues are dealt with violently, often with tragic consequences."Looks in neutrals, reds and purples brought the drama Sunday on the Oscars carpet, along with a healthy dose of shiny gold, but Nicole Kidman stood out in stunning cobalt blue at Hollywood's biggest fashion show.

Kidman, a presenter, was among the last to walk in Los Angeles when she showed up with a wave to the cameras in her power look, a strapless gown with a huge bow in front. Sandra Bullock brought the strength in a gold Louis Vuitton custom halter dress that draped at the waist and went black at the hem.

Salma Hayek looked like exotic royalty in a custom Gucci gown in lilac. It was heavily jeweled and had a busy, ruffled tiered skirt. Rita Moreno, meanwhile, honored Academy Awards history by donning the same gown (with a bold-pattern full skirt) she wore in 1962, when she won an Oscar for "West Side Story."

Nicole Kidman arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

"It's been hanging in my closet this whole time," Moreno told The Associated Press.

A few recently returned Olympians showed up on the red carpet, including skier Lindsey Vonn in a fringed black gown and diamond choker with statement red stones. Figure skaters Adam Rippon and Mirai Nagasu walked together. He wore belt-leather straps that crossed his chest and she chose a sheer, long-sleeve gown in soft blue.

Allison Williams of "Get Out" went for neutral. So did Gina Rodriguez in a nude sheath with silver embellishment, a plunging neckline and full princess skirt, courtesy of Zuhair Murad.

But those princess moments were at a minimum, in favor of reasonably safe and easy looks.

"It wasn't about elaborate or embellished tonight. The winners in the fashion stakes kept to the simple, sleek and gorgeous, and still packed the wow factor," said Avril Graham, executive fashion and beauty editor for Harper's Bazaar U.S.

Among those who said it in red was Allison Janney of "I, Tonya," with long sleeves that fell to the ground. Sofia Carson wore a red cape gown with 26.10 carats of diamonds in her Chopard choker. Meryl Streep also wore red, a Dior with a deep plunge at the neck. Last year's best actress Emma Stone chose skinny trousers and a pink-belted, red tuxedo jacket.

The purple peeps also included presenter Ashley Judd, who went strapless in a dark shade by Badgley Mischka, accompanied by diamond strands.

There was an abundance of white, including fitted looks worn by Margot Robbie (in Chanel Haute Couture), Jane Fonda (in Balmain), Laura Dern (in Calvin Klein) and Mary J. Blige. One actress, Taraji P. Henson, was all leg in ethereal black with a high slit.

"In general, as we typically see with the Oscars, women played it safe in beautiful styles that are a little less risky," said Rachel Torgerson, fashion editor for Cosmopolitan.com. "

She counted Stone among those who went outside the box.

"Those pants were amazing and such a departure from the typical floor-length gown," she said. "You hardly ever see that."

Among the standout guys: "Get Out" writer-director Jordan Peele, in a creamy white tuxedo jacket, and Chadwick Boseman, who honored his kingly T'Challa character in "Black Panther" with a long embellished coat.

Boseman's co-star, Lupita Nyong'o, repped Wakanda in royal, one-sleeved gold with a studded sash element that had black detailing.

One of the evening's brightest pops of color came on Viola Davis in electric pink from the Michael Kors Collection, hoops in her ears and a clutch to match. "Lady Bird" star Saoirse Ronan wore soft pink from Calvin Klein, while Greta Gerwig, who wrote and directed the coming of age film, offered another bright pop - hers in marigold yellow.

In beauty, a side-part trend took hold, both in updos and loose.

___

For full coverage of awards season, visit: https://apnews.com/tag/AwardsSeason

Mira Sorvino, from left, Ashley Judd and Salma Hayek arrive at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Rita Moreno arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Lindsey Vonn arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Mirai Nagasu, left, and Adam Rippon arrive at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Allison Janney arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Gina Rodriguez arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Sofia Carson arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Margot Robbie arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Jennifer Lawrence poses at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Emily Blunt arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Jennifer Lawrence arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Emily Blunt arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Taraji P. Henson arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Tiffany Haddish arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Viola Davis arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Chadwick Boseman arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Lupita Nyong'o arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Greta Gerwig arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Saoirse Ronan arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Chelsea Peretti, left, and Jordan Peele arrive at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Jane Fonda arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Eric Jamison/Invision/AP)

Laura Dern arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Emma Stone arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)BOSTON (AP) - From Virginia to Massachusetts, about 1 million homes and businesses remained without power Sunday, two days after a destructive nor'easter, leaving some residents unsure when they could return home and schools questioning if they would be able to open Monday morning.

Skies were clear Sunday over much of the Northeast hit by the storm, which was blamed for nine deaths, including two children struck by trees. But many communities faced major challenges restoring power and cleaning up debris.

In Scituate, Massachusetts, a hard-hit coastal town near Boston, heavy construction vehicles worked to clear away several feet of sand that had covered roads near Peggotty Beach. Town officials planned to deploy a drone to help assess coastal damage.

A bus is covered by a tree that collapsed onto power lines due to a storm last Friday in Bryan Mawr, Pa., Sunday, March 4, 2018. The road is closed until crews can clean the mess. (Michael Bryant/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

Further north, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker inspected storm damage in other battered coastal communities. While perched on a sea wall in Gloucester - something officials have urged people not to do - the Republican got soaked by a strong wave, WBZ-AM reported.

"People should not stand on sea walls, correct," Baker said sheepishly. "However, I did want to get a look at what things were like on the other side, which I did get a look at before I got hit by the wave."

As of mid-afternoon Sunday, more than 180,000 customers remained without power in Massachusetts. More than 230,000 were in the dark in Pennsylvania, and large-scale outages also continued in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Maryland.

In New Jersey, officials said some areas might not have their electricity restored until Tuesday or Wednesday. Among those affected was John Thompson, of Morris Township, whose family has been staying with in-laws.

"We have two young girls, so staying in a home without electricity wasn't an option," Thompson said Sunday while having breakfast with his family. "I know (the utility crews) are working as hard and fast as they can, but it's still frustrating that it's taking so long."

In the Philadelphia suburbs, the Lower Merion School District said one high school and one elementary school remained without power and would not open Monday unless it was restored. At one of its high schools with power, the district invited residents to charge their phones and take hot showers.

"Dress warmly," Superintendent Robert Copeland advised. "Many of our buildings have been without power for several days and it will take time for them to warm up."

New Hampshire was spared extensive power outages, but its short stretch of coastline was littered with debris.

"We saw some of the worst coastal flooding since the 'Perfect Storm' back in 1991," said David Cropper, owner of the Cinnamon Rainbows surf shop in Hampton.

The surf remained high Sunday but there was no surfing because of strong winds.

The Coast Guard warned of navigational hazards off Oregon Inlet in North Carolina's Outer Banks after high winds and heavy seas swept about 70 containers off the cargo ship Maersk Shanghai late Saturday. The Liberian-registered ship had departed from Norfolk, Virginia, earlier in the day.

The transportation disruptions caused by the storm were mostly resolved by Sunday. But North Carolina's Highway 12 was closed in both directions along a section on Hatteras Island in the Outer Banks. As a result, the state transportation department said Hatteras and Ocracoke islands were temporarily inaccessible by land transport.

___

Crary reported from New York. Associated Press writers Martha Waggoner in Raleigh, North Carolina, Bruce Shipkowski in Jackson, New Jersey, and David Sharp in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

An electrical worker for INTREN, a electric company from Chicago that drove two days to get to Philadelphia to help PECO restore power, walks by a damaged vehicle on in Bryn Mawr, Pa., on Sunday, March 4 2018, that was crushed by a falling tree on Friday. The driver was able to climb out the window and received several stitches for his injuries. (Michael Bryant/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

An electrical worker from INTREN, a Chicago based electric company, works on power lines in Bryn Mawr, Pa., Sunday March 4, 2018, in the hopes of restoring power to the area. (Michael Bryant/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

Heavy equipment operators works to clear away several feet of sand that had covered Central Avenue in Scituate, Mass., on Sunday, March 4, 2018. Skies were clear Sunday over much of the Northeast hit by the storm but many communities faced major challenges restoring power and cleaning up debris. (Greg Derr/The Quincy Patriot Ledger via AP)

A sign near the entrance to the town of Scituate, Mass. indicates almost the entire town is without power after after a destructive nor'easter, on Sunday, March 4, 2018. (Greg Derr/The Quincy Patriot Ledger via AP)

Workers clean up a tree that fell and blocked all lanes of City Avenue at Henley Road in Philadelphia on Saturday, March 3, 2018. (Tim Tai/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker gets an up close look at the remnants of a powerful winter storm with Republican state Sen. Bruce Tarr while surveying coastal damage in Gloucester, Mass., Sunday, March 4, 2018. (Nancy Lane/The Boston Herald via AP)

Noah Casey of Cranberry Landscape & Design of Cape Cod works with an excavator to move around pieces of a large tree that fell in this cemetery in Brewster, Mass. Some of the headstones were damaged, Casey said. The landscape company, Casey said, is based in Brewster and maintains the grounds of the cemetery. (Merrily Cassidy/Cape Cod Times via AP)

Shellfisherman Arthur Martinez of Truro walks along the breakwater and past the 42-foot vessel Artemis Sunday, March 4, 2018 in Provincetown, Mass. The boat was moored near MacMillan Pier and broke away Friday morning during the nor'easter. It moved westward in the harbor and eventually pushed against the breakwater, according to Coast Guard officials. The vessel has not been actively used for commercial fishing and had been stripped of all gear. No fuel was onboard. (Merrily Cassidy/Cape Cod Times via AP)

Waves crash against Minot Light off the Scituate coast off Massachusetts, Sunday, March 4, 2018 as a large nor'easter that hit over the weekend continues to batter the coast. The 89-foot-tall lighthouse was built in 1855. (Greg Derr/The Quincy Patriot Ledger via AP)LOS ANGELES (AP) - Allison Janney even thanked the bird.

After winning the best supporting actress Oscar on Sunday for her turn as the hard-as-nails, chain-smoking mother of Tonya Harding in "I, Tonya," Janney began her speech by joking that she "did it all by myself."

After the raucous laughs died down, she said there could be "nothing further from the truth."

Allison Janney, winner of the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya", poses in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Janney then credited her co-stars, the others who worked on the film, her family, and yes, the bird that nearly stole the show from its perch on Janney's shoulder in the movie.

The ear-nibbling parakeet named Little Man "elevated my work," Janney said.

The 58-year-old Janney was considered all but a lock for her performance in "I, Tonya," a dark comedy that follows Tonya Harding's life leading up to the 1994 attack of rival Nancy Kerrigan. Janney won nearly every major award she'd been nominated for leading up to the Oscars, including a BAFTA, a Screen Actors Guild award, a Golden Globe and a Critics' Choice prize.

Janney plays LaVona Golden based mostly on watching documentary footage of Harding's acerbic mother. The role saw the statuesque, glamorous Janney wearing a ratty fur coat, an oxygen mask and oversized glasses, much of it while Little Man sat on her shoulder, sometimes pecking her ear - details based on an actual interview with Golden.

"It's like the bird heard me and said, 'Oh yeah?' Let's see if you can ignore me when I'm putting my head in your ear,'" Janney told The Associated Press last month. "I thought this is exactly the kind of humor that is perfect for this movie. I kind of loved it; as much as it was irritating me, it was also fueling me as I was trying to get my side of the story across."

At the end of Janney's charming acceptance speech, the actress turned serious.

"This is for Hal," she said. "You're always in my heart."

Janney's brother, Henry "Hal" Janney, committed suicide in 2011 after battling addiction.

After her speech, Janney returned to the theater where she was immediately swamped during the next commercial break by people wanting to take selfies with her.

When Janney arrived backstage to an interview room to talk with reporters, she promptly removed her shoes.

Then she quickly put them back on to show everyone that "usually the dress looks like this."

She threw them off again. "My feet are bleeding," she deadpanned.

Asked if her day-to-day life might change now that she's an Oscar winner, Janney said she had to go right back to work at 10 a.m. Monday for a table read for her CBS sitcom "Mom."

"I am so happy that I have a job to go to after something like this because it can go to your head," she said. "I'm going to have a big crash-down after this so I'm happy that I have 'Mom' and the people at 'Mom' to lift me up."

Earlier in the week, Janney said on "Jimmy Kimmel Live" that she had never been to the Oscars, even though she had been invited before. She didn't want to go until she was nominated.

Backstage, Janney said she "didn't dare to dream of things like this because I didn't want to be disappointed."

"And I think at a certain point I had given up thinking of this happening for me because I wasn't getting the kinds of roles in film that would give me attention like this," she said.

Luckily for Janney, her good friend Steven Rogers wrote LaVona Golden's role specifically for Janney, "to show what I could do," she said.

"I will never be able to repay him," she said. "I think I'm going to get him a Rolex."

For the Oscar, Janney beat out Laurie Metcalf ("Lady Bird"), Lesley Manville ("Phantom Thread"), Octavia Spencer ("The Shape of Water") and Mary J. Blige ("Mudbound").

___

For full coverage of awards season, visit: https://apnews.com/tag/AwardsSeason

Allison Janney, winner of the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya", poses in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Allison Janney accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Margot Robbie, left, reacts as Allison Janney wins the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Margot Robbie, left, congratulates Allison Janney, winner of the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Allison Janney accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Sam Rockwell, from left, winner of the award for best performance by an actor in a supporting role for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri", Frances McDormand, winner of the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri", Allison Janney, winner of the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya", and Gary Oldman, winner of the award for best performance by an actor in a leading role for "Darkest Hour", pose in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Allison Janney accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Allison Janney accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Allison Janney accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Allison Janney arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)SRINAGAR, India (AP) - Tens of thousands of angry protesters poured into the streets more than a dozen times in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Monday, hurling rocks and shouting anti-India slogans after soldiers killed four civilians and two suspected militants. Government forces responded with tear gas.

The overnight shooting at a military checkpoint threatened to spark even more unrest in a region that in recent years has seen renewed rebel attacks and repeated public protests against Indian rule.

The authorities had put parts of the highly militarized region under lockdown after the late Sunday night shooting, deploying soldiers and riot police, shutting schools and internet service and ordering people off the streets in some places in an attempt to derail protests.

A Kashmiri man weeps as villagers attend the funeral of civilian Suhail Ahmad at Pinjura village 52 kilometers (33 miles) south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday, March 5, 2018. More than a dozen protests erupted across Kashmir on Monday, with government forces firing tear gas and demonstrators hurling rocks as tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of the disputed Himalayan region after soldiers killed four civilians and two suspected militants. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

But widespread anger, along with funerals for the six victims and separatist calls for a business shutdown, helped ignite angry demonstrations.

Many protests centered around the town of Shopian, where the shooting occurred, a region of mountain forests and apple orchards.

There were no immediate reports of injuries from the protests.

The trouble began late Sunday night, when officials say a car refused to stop at a checkpoint outside a Shopian military base and militants inside fired at the soldiers.

Indian army spokesman Col. Rajesh Kalia said a rebel and three civilians were killed when soldiers fired back. A fourth civilian's body was recovered from a nearby car, officials said, and the body of another rebel was found a few kilometers (miles) away. Authorities said he was injured in the shooting and died later.

Kalia called the slain civilians "over-ground workers," a term that Indian security forces use for people who give support to the rebels.

Police, though, were careful not to use that term, calling them simply "young men" and saying they were investigating the incident. However, Kashmir's top elected official, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, termed them "civilians." In a tweet, Mufti said she was "deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire in Shopian."

But across the region, most people believed all were killed in cold blood. The soldiers "shoot even at shadows, and they're employing every tactic to suppress people," said Bashir Ahmed, a Shopian resident.

Separatists challenging Indian sovereignty over Kashmir called for a strike after the shooting, and shops and businesses slammed shut across the region.

Top separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq called the army's version "propaganda and lies" and said the soldiers had "let loose mayhem" at Shopian.

Authorities cut cellphone internet service in the most restive towns, and reduced connection speeds in other parts of the Kashmir Valley, a common government practice to calm tensions and prevent anti-India demonstrations from being organized.

Officials also ordered schools and colleges closed until Wednesday and suspended rail service in the region.

At one of the funerals for the dead rebels, soldiers fired in the air to disperse thousands of mourners in a village in the Shopian area. No one was reported injured.

In January, anti-India protests erupted across Kashmir after soldiers killed three civilians during clashes in the same area.

Indian troops are covered by controversial powers that shield them from prosecution while serving in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, army and paramilitary officers can search homes and make arrests without warrants, shoot at people suspected of being separatists and blow up buildings or homes on suspicion that insurgents are using them.

Rights activists accuse Indian troops in Kashmir of routinely misusing their power, killing civilians in staged confrontations for promotions or rewards and to suppress public sentiment against Indian rule.

Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India, with both nations claiming the entire region.

Rebels have been fighting Indian rule since 1989, demanding Kashmir be made part of Pakistan or become an independent country. India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, a charge Pakistan denies. Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.

___

Follow Aijaz Hussain on Twitter at twitter.com/hussain_aijaz

Kashmiri village women react as they watch from a distance the funeral of civilian Suhail Ahmad at Pinjura village 52 kilometers (33 miles) south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday, March 5, 2018. More than a dozen protests erupted across Kashmir on Monday, with government forces firing tear gas and demonstrators hurling rocks as tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of the disputed Himalayan region after soldiers killed four civilians and two suspected militants. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

Kashmiri villagers shout slogans as they carry the body of a civilian Suhail Ahmad during his funeral at Pinjura village 52 kilometers (33 miles) south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday, March 5, 2018. More than a dozen protests erupted across Kashmir on Monday, with government forces firing tear gas and demonstrators hurling rocks as tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of the disputed Himalayan region after soldiers killed four civilians and two suspected militants. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

Kashmiri villagers carry the body of a civilian Suhail Ahmad during his funeral at Pinjura village 52 kilometers (33 miles) south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday, March 5, 2018. More than a dozen protests erupted across Kashmir on Monday, with government forces firing tear gas and demonstrators hurling rocks as tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of the disputed Himalayan region after soldiers killed four civilians and two suspected militants. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)

A Kashmiri man weeps over the body of civilian Suhail Ahmad during his funeral at Pinjura village 52 kilometers (33 miles) south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Monday, March 5, 2018. More than a dozen protests erupted across Kashmir on Monday, with government forces firing tear gas and demonstrators hurling rocks as tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of the disputed Himalayan region after soldiers killed four civilians and two suspected militants. (AP Photo/Mukhtar Khan)BOSTON (AP) - U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren is hoping to defuse an issue that has dogged her for years, her claims of Native American heritage, ahead of a possible run for president in 2020.

Last month, Warren addressed the National Congress of American Indians, trying to cast her family's story in the larger context of challenges facing native peoples. The prominent Democrat has also met with tribal leaders, signed on to legislation supported by Native American activists, and called on Republican President Donald Trump to nominate a director for the Indian Health Service.

The push is in part a rebuttal to Trump, who has repeatedly referred to Warren as "Pocahontas" to try to discredit a potential rival by calling into question her claims of heritage.

FILE - In this July 24, 2017 file photo, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., speaks in a park in Berryville, Va., where Congressional Democrats unveiled their new agenda. Warren is working to defuse an issue that has dogged her for years, her claims of Native American heritage, ahead of a possible run for president in 2020. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

"Every time someone brings up my family's story, I'm going to use it to lift up the story of your families and your communities," Warren told those gathered for the Washington event.

For her critics, Warren's speech did little to quell suspicions she used claims of Native American heritage to give herself a leg up early in her academic career.

The story is largely consistent with what the Oklahoma native has said for years, including during a 2012 interview with The Associated Press, when she said she and her brothers were told her paternal grandparents didn't want her father to marry her mother because she "was part Cherokee and part Delaware."

In the speech, Warren, who doesn't claim citizenship in a tribe, said, "My mother's family was part Native American. And my daddy's parents were bitterly opposed to their relationship. So, in 1932, when Mother was 19 and Daddy had just turned 20, they eloped."

Warren also said that she respects the distinction between heritage and citizenship and "that tribal membership is determined by tribes - and only by tribes."

"But I want to make something else clear, too: My parents were real people," she said. "My mother's family was part Native American."

Cheryl Andrews-Maltais, chairwoman of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), introduced Warren at the gathering as "a formidable force and an Indian country ally."

"She truly understands Indian country and what sovereignty really means," Andrews-Maltais said.

Cedric Cromwell is tribal council chairman for the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, which has tried for years to persuade federal officials that it qualifies to have more than 300 acres of land in Massachusetts taken into trust.

"We especially appreciate her remarks about how this government owes its native citizens 'a fighting chance to build stronger communities and a brighter future - starting with a more prosperous economic future on tribal lands,'" Cromwell said.

But Rebecca Nagle, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation living in Oklahoma, has said Warren needs to apologize for her "false claims," saying there's no evidence the former Harvard Law School faculty member has Native American heritage.

"How can a former law professor at the most prestigious university in the country examine the mountain of evidence about her own family and not come to the only logical conclusion?" Nagle wrote in an opinion piece in The Boston Globe following Warren's speech.

Warren has yet to fully answer whether she used a claim of Native American heritage to help her academic career, said Beth Lindstrom, a Republican hoping to unseat her.

"Only Elizabeth Warren can answer why she assumed a Native American identity as she was climbing the career ladder in academia," Lindstrom said.

Warren's public embrace of her family story could carry political risks - but not necessarily from Trump. Rob Gray, a Republican political analyst, said the criticism could hurt Warren more if it came from a rival Democrat.

"Her Indian heritage claims have the potential to be a wildfire, but it will take one of her primary opponents raising it to strike the match," Gray said. "It comes down to authenticity and whether she's believable and trustworthy."

Warren has been discussed as a possible 2020 presidential candidate but has said she is focused on winning re-election in November.

But she is also maintaining a national profile, butting heads with Trump on issues from health care to immigration, while stockpiling more than $14 million in her campaign account and donating hundreds of thousands to Democratic state committees and candidates through her PAC for a Level Playing Field.

Warren's playbook has precedent. Think Mitt Romney's 2007 speech to quell concerns about his Mormon faith or Obama's 2008 address about race.

Warren has acknowledged telling Harvard and her previous employer, the University of Pennsylvania, of her Native American heritage, but only after she had been hired.

"I never used my family tree to get a break or get ahead," she said. "I never used it to advance my career."

Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried, who helped recruit Warren, has called any suggestion she enjoyed an affirmative-action benefit "nonsense."

Jeffrey Berry, a professor of American politics and political behavior at Tufts University, said no speech will make the narrative go away, in part because conservative groups and Trump enjoy taunting her.

In the end, he said, voters are more interested in fundamentals like the economy.

"Side issues may be fun to talk about for ideologues, but by and large the public isn't paying attention," he said.

Gabby Archilla, a 26-year-old law student in Boston, said taking a DNA test might help Warren but probably wouldn't silence her critics.

"It could maybe put that issue to rest," Archilla said, "but I think a lot of people just have issues with Elizabeth Warren in general."Ex-Trump aide plans to defy Mueller, says 'arrest me'

WASHINGTON (AP) - A former Trump campaign aide promised to defy a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller and unloaded on President Donald Trump and his campaign, throwing down the challenge, "Arrest me."

"Why do I have to do it?" Sam Nunberg told CNN of Mueller's request to have him appear in front of a grand jury and turn over thousands of emails and other communications with other ex-officials, among them his mentor Roger Stone.

"I'm not cooperating," Nunberg said later as he challenged officials to charge him.

Nunberg said he thinks Mueller may already have incriminating evidence on Trump directly, although he would not say what that evidence might be.

"I think he may have done something during the election," Nunberg told MSNBC of the president, "but I don't know that for sure." He later told CNN that Mueller "thinks Trump is the Manchurian candidate." A reference drawn from a Cold War novel and film, a "Manchurian candidate" is an American brainwashed or otherwise compromised to work on behalf of an adversarial government.

___

Trump, Ryan face off in rare public GOP clash over tariffs

WASHINGTON (AP) - In a remarkably public confrontation, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican allies of President Donald Trump pleaded with him Monday to back away from his threatened international tariffs, which they fear could spark a dangerous trade war. Trump retorted: "We're not backing down."

The president said U.S. neighbors Canada and Mexico would not be spared from his plans for special import taxes on steel and aluminum, but he held out the possibility of later exempting the longstanding friends if they agree to better terms for the U.S. in talks aimed at revising the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"We've had a very bad deal with Mexico; we've had a very bad deal with Canada. It's called NAFTA," he declared.

Trump spoke shortly after a spokeswoman for Ryan, a Trump ally, said the GOP leader was "extremely worried" that the proposed tariffs would set off a trade war and urged the White House "to not advance with this plan."

Likewise, Republican leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee circulated a letter opposing Trump's plan, and GOP congressional leaders suggested they may attempt to prevent the tariffs if the president moves forward.

___

10 Things to Know for Tuesday

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Tuesday:

1. TRUMP'S TARIFF VOW ROILS GOP

The president insists "we're not backing down" on his pledge to slap stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum, despite strong opposition from congressional Republicans.

2. KOREANS HOLD 'OPENHEARTED' TALKS

Kim Jong Un meets with envoys for South Korea's president, the North says. It's the first time officials from Seoul have met with the young North Korean leader since he took power in 2011.

___

Freed Russian spy reportedly sickened after mystery exposure

SALISBURY, England (AP) - A former Russian spy was critically ill after exposure to an "unknown substance," British media reported in a case that immediately drew parallels to the poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.

National and local authorities said only that a man and a woman were found unconscious Sunday afternoon on a bench in a shopping mall in Salisbury, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) west of London.

British media identified him as Sergei Skripal, 66, who was convicted in Russia on charges of spying for Britain and sentenced in 2006 to 13 years in prison. Skripal was freed in 2010 as part of a U.S.-Russian spy swap.

Wiltshire Police, which is responsible for the Salisbury area, said the man and woman appeared to know one another and had no visible injuries. "They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance. Both are currently in a critical condition in intensive care," the police department said in a statement.

The discovery led to a dramatic decontamination effort. Crews in billowing yellow moon suits worked into the night spraying down the street, and the Salisbury hospital's emergency room was closed.

___

West Virginia teacher strike headed for a 9th day

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Striking teachers in West Virginia delivered yet another message to lawmakers Monday by packing the state Capitol to capacity, the eighth school day of the walkout.

The show of support by thousands didn't immediately sway the lawmakers, who failed to agree on a 5 percent pay raise that would end the strike, forcing districts to cancel school again Tuesday. The governor, union leaders and the House of Delegates agreed to the pay raise for the teachers, among the lowest paid in the nation, but the Senate offered only a 4 percent increase.

A conference committee of House and Senate members met for more than an hour Monday but adjourned without an agreement, drawing the ire of teachers. Another meeting was planned later Monday night.

Senate Finance Chairman Craig Blair, R-Berkeley, and Senate Majority Leader Ryan Ferns, R-Ohio, said they remained skeptical that revised, higher revenue figures from Gov. Jim Justice to support the higher pay raises were legitimate. Blair suggested that schools reopen while the Legislature tries to work on the bills, prompting groans from the audience.

Ghent Elementary second grade teacher April Smith attended the meeting and was disheartened.

___

AP NewsBreak: Miss. Sen. Thad Cochran resigning April 1

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Longtime Republican Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi said Monday he will resign because of health problems - triggering what could be a chaotic special election to fill the seat he has held for a generation.

Cochran, who turned 80 in December and has been in poor health, has been a sporadic presence on Capitol Hill in recent months. He stayed home for a month last fall, returning to Washington in October to give Republicans the majority they needed to pass a budget plan. He has since kept a low profile and an aide ever present at his side.

"I regret my health has become an ongoing challenge," Cochran said in a statement. "It has been a great honor to serve the people of Mississippi and our country. I've done my best to make decisions in the best interests of our nation, and my beloved state. ... My hope is by making this announcement now, a smooth transition can be ensured so their voice will continue to be heard in Washington, D.C."

Cochran said his resignation is effective April 1, allowing Republican Gov. Phil Bryant to appoint a temporary replacement to fill the seat until a special election Nov. 6. The winner would serve until the end of Cochran's term in January 2021.

Cochran's departure sets off a scramble within a state Republican Party already struggling to manage a disaffected conservative faction. The special election is expected to attract several candidates, including the outspoken, tea party-backed state senator who came close to defeating Cochran in a bitter 2014 Republican primary. Republican Chris McDaniel, who said last week he would challenge Mississippi's other GOP senator, Roger Wicker, said Monday it is "premature" to say whether he will run for the newly open seat.

___

N. Korean dictator, Seoul envoys have 'openhearted talk'

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has held an "openhearted talk" in Pyongyang with envoys for South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the North said Tuesday.

It's the first time South Korean officials have met with the young North Korean leader in person since he took power after his dictator father's death in late 2011 - and the latest sign that the Koreas are trying to mend ties after a year of repeated North Korean weapons tests and threats of nuclear war.

North Korea's state media said Kim expressed his desire to "write a new history of national reunification" during a dinner Monday night that Seoul said lasted about four hours.

Given the robust history of bloodshed, threats and animosity on the Korean Peninsula, there is considerable skepticism over whether the Koreas' apparent warming relations will lead to lasting peace.

North Korea, some believe, is trying to use improved ties with the South to weaken U.S.-led international sanctions and pressure, and to provide domestic propaganda fodder for Kim Jong Un.

___

Trump dangles Israel trip for new embassy; mum on peace plan

WASHINGTON (AP) - Under twin clouds of legal investigation, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a united front on Monday, Trump announcing he might travel to Jerusalem to preside over the opening of the new U.S. Embassy Netanyahu had wanted, and the Israeli lavishing praise on the American leader.

In a show of strong support for Netanyahu, who faces corruption allegations at home, Trump dangled the possibility of his second visit to Israel as president. However, he said nothing about whether he would use the trip to unveil his much-vaunted but still mysterious peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.

The president said his controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city had improved chances for ending the conflict, despite Palestinians' insistence otherwise. The two steps enraged the Palestinians, who claim part of Jerusalem for the capital of an eventual state and accuse Trump of abandoning the U.S. role of honest broker.

Trump and his wife, Melania, welcomed Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, to the White House just hours after Israeli police announced that a third confidant of the prime minister had agreed to turn state's witness in the burgeoning corruption case. Netanyahu and his wife were questioned separately by police for hours on Friday before their departure for Washington.

Monday's meeting also came amid the continuing U.S. investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign, a probe that may have implications for the president's Mideast peace point man, son-in-law Jared Kushner, who recently lost his top secret security clearance. And, it took place as profound turmoil in the Middle East threatens hopes of a resumption in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and attempts to restore stability in the volatile region more broadly.

___

Italy's populist parties rule the day, but will they rule?

ROME (AP) - Italy's voters have spoken, and the populists ruled the day. But whether these euroskeptics can put aside their distrust and rivalries to rule together was the big question Monday as the nation embarked on a new era following a quarter-century of largely predictable coalition-formula politics.

More than half the ballots cast Sunday went to two populist forces that knew how to read the angry mood in a country where the brightest youths must go abroad to find decent careers and where hundreds of thousands of migrants were essentially marooned when many European Union partners slammed the door on these asylum-seekers rescued at sea.

The math added up to big dilemma, though. Because no party or coalition captured enough seats to rule alone, and because the populists went into the election as sharp rivals despite their similar "Italy, first," stances, it was unclear if a government with the potential to last could be forged to tackle Italy's pressing economic and social problems.

No one seemed to have the answer Monday.

"The (next) government is an enigma," read the front-page headline of the daily Corriere della Sera.

___

Roles reduced, Kushner and Ivanka Trump's fate uncertain

WASHINGTON (AP) - They spent their first year in Washington as an untouchable White House power couple, commanding expansive portfolios, outlasting rivals and enjoying unmatched access to the president. But Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have undergone a swift and stunning reckoning of late, their powers restricted, their enemies emboldened and their future in the West Wing uncertain.

Kushner, long the second-most powerful man in the West Wing, is under siege. President Donald Trump's son-in-law has lost influential White House allies. He remains under the shadow of the Russia probe and has seen his business dealings come under renewed scrutiny. He has been stripped of his top security clearance, raising questions how he can successfully advance his ambitious agenda - including achieving Mideast peace, a goal that has eluded presidents for generations.

Kushner's most powerful patron, the president himself, has wavered recently on whether his daughter and son-in-law belong in the White House anymore.

A frustrated Trump has griped about the wave of bad headlines generated by probes into Kushner's business dealings and the status of his security clearance, according to two people familiar with the president's thinking but not authorized to publicly discuss private conversations. The president also has wondered aloud if the couple would be better off returning home to New York.

At the same time, though, Trump has said he believes many of the attacks against Kushner are unfair and has lamented that the couple is going through such a turbulent time, according to the two people close to the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly about Trump's private comments.SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The Latest on a South Korean delegation visiting North Korea for talks (all times local):

7:20 a.m.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has held an "open-hearted talk" with envoys for South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

In this Feb. 21, 2018, photo, South Korea's national security director Chung Eui-yong speaks at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea. President Moon Jae-in will send a delegation led by Chung to North Korea on Monday, March 5, 2018, for talks on how to ease nuclear tensions and help arrange the restart of dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington, officials said Sunday. (Hong Hyo-shick/Newsis via AP)

It marks the first time South Korean officials have met with the North Korean leader in person since he took power after his dictator father's death in late 2011.

North Korea's state media said in a dispatch Tuesday that Kim expressed his desire to "write a new history of national reunification" during a dinner Monday.

Given past bloodshed, North Korean weapons tests and threats of war, there's considerable skepticism over what might come of the Koreas' warming ties. But there's also hope they might be able to ease a standoff over North Korea's nuclear ambitions and restart talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

The North Korean dispatch sought to make Kim look statesmanlike as he welcomed the visiting South Koreans.

___

6:20 p.m.

China, North Korea's closest thing to an ally, is applauding a visit by a South Korean delegation to the North's capital.

"We believe it is a good thing, and look forward to a positive outcome of the meeting," foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said at a regularly scheduled news conference Monday.

The South Korean presidential office announced that the envoys will meet Monday evening with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

China has long called for a resumption of talks between North Korea and other countries embroiled in tensions over the North's nuclear and missile programs.

China has signed on to tough new United Nations economic sanctions against North Korea, but says those measures should be carefully targeted and serve only as an inducement for negotiations.

"We hope all sides will bear in mind the larger picture of peninsular peace and stability ... and make joint efforts not only for better ties between the North and South but for the early accomplishment of denuclearization and lasting peace and stability on the peninsula," Geng said.

___

6:05 p.m.

Envoys for the South Korean president are to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a dinner in the North's capital.

The announcement was made by President Moon Jae-in's office shortly after the 10-member South Korean delegation landed in Pyongyang and met with North Korean officials.

The South Korean envoys are to meet with Kim on Monday evening. It isn't immediately clear what they will discuss or what else is on the itinerary for their two-day visit. Hopes are high that the Koreas can extend the good feelings created by North Korea's participation in the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

___

5:45 p.m.

Yonhap news agency says a high-level South Korean delegation has arrived in North Korea's capital for a two-day visit expected to focus on improved relations and how to resolve the standoff over the North's nuclear program.

Yonhap cited North Korean state radio as saying the 10-member South Korean delegation had arrived at Pyongyang's airport.

The South Korean delegation, led by presidential national security director Chung Eui-yong , may meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Before leaving for North Korea, Chung told reporters that he will convey the South Korean president's hopes for North Korean nuclear disarmament and permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula.

___

2:10 p.m.

A group of high-level South Korean officials has left for North Korea for talks on North Korea's nuclear program and ways to help resume talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

Chung Eui-yong, a special envoy for South Korean President Moon Jae-in, said before his departure Monday that he'll relay Moon's hopes for North Korean nuclear disarmament and a permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Chung heads a 10-member delegation that includes intelligence chief Suh Hoon.

Media footage showed Chung and other officials posing for a group photo before boarding a plane at a military airport near Seoul on Monday afternoon.

Chung's two-day trip may include talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. If Kim or other North Korean officials show a willingness to disarm, it could indicate a restart of dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington to defuse the North Korean nuclear standoff.

South Korea's national flag flutters in the wind at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, Monday, March 5, 2018. South Korea's president will send a delegation led by his national security director to North Korea this week for talks on how to ease nuclear tensions and help arrange the restart of dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington, officials said Sunday. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A man walks near the wire fence decorated with ribbons carrying messages wishing the reunification and peace of the two Koreas at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, Monday, March 5, 2018. South Korea's president will send a delegation led by his national security director to North Korea this week for talks on how to ease nuclear tensions and help arrange the restart of dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington, officials said Sunday. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A man walks near the wire fence decorated with ribbons carrying messages wishing the reunification and peace of the two Koreas at the Imjingak Pavilion in Paju, South Korea, Monday, March 5, 2018. South Korea's president will send a delegation led by his national security director to North Korea this week for talks on how to ease nuclear tensions and help arrange the restart of dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington, officials said Sunday. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) - Ibrahim Alhasbani is like generations of Middle Eastern immigrants in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn: he fled war, came with dreams and worked for others until he could strike out on his own.

Now, like an increasing number of people from Yemen who have come to the United States, he sees a long-term future outside the country he left and seeks to bring aspects of his native country into America.

"Here you build; over there you have memories," said Alhasbani, owner of Qahwah House, a cafe that serves coffee made from beans harvested on his family's farm in Yemen's mountains. "I live here, so this is the main thing. This is what's going to help first build my career, build my business ... and help the people over there."

In the Jan. 9, 2018, photo, Rasheed Alnozili, publisher of The Yemeni American News, is interviewed in Dearborn, Mich. People from Yemen have recently begun to see long-term futures in the U.S. and are making their culture part of their businesses. "We're not going back to Yemen like we did before," said Alnozili. "We learn from Lebanese. They built here then they built there. We made a mistake: We built there, now we built here. ... We learned late, but we're still in process." (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

Yemenis have been coming to the U.S. for more than a century - especially since the 1960s - but in recent years they have been planting stronger roots, raising their profile and looking outward - opening upscale restaurants and cafes and running for political office.

And, in cases like Alhasbani, they are making Yemeni culture a key part of the business proposition.

It's a path that's not unusual for first- and second-generation immigrants in the U.S. For Yemenis, the shift is also a reaction to chaos in their homeland, where a devastating civil war has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced 2 million.

"People are coming here and bringing their resources here," said Sally Howell, an author and associate professor of Arab American Studies at University of Michigan-Dearborn. "In the past, they weren't really committed to here. Now the situation has been so bad in Yemen for so long, they're doing what other refugees and exiles do: they're acknowledging their future is here."

The highest U.S. population of Yemenis is in the Detroit area, where Syrian and Lebanese immigrants had already settled and became more prominent in business. Unlike their Arab neighbors, many Yemeni men came alone and didn't have relatives follow them, so they were more likely to go back and forth between the U.S. and their homeland.

"We're not going back to Yemen like we did before," said Rasheed Alnozili, publisher of The Yemeni American News. "We learn from Lebanese. They built here then they built there. We made a mistake: we built there, now we built here. ... We learned late, but we're still in process."

The New York City, San Francisco, Chicago and Buffalo, New York, areas also have Yemeni communities. About 43,000 people of Yemeni ancestry are in the U.S. according to a 2015 census survey. However, advocates say the number is much higher because of historical undercounting, and has significantly increased since that last survey because of deteriorating conditions in Yemen, which fell into chaos following its 2011 Arab Spring uprising that removed longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Then, in September 2014, Shiite rebels known as Houthis seized the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, after driving out the internationally backed government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-led coalition backing Hadi has been fighting to defeat the Iran-backed Houthis since March 2015.

Dearborn and the Detroit enclave of Hamtramck have several sit-down restaurants specializing in Yemeni cuisine. In Hamtramck, where a Yemeni serves on the majority-Muslim City Council, there are also shops devoted to Yemeni sweets and sub sandwiches.

"The real difference today is that Yemeni are representing Yemen to the public, not just having ethnic Yemeni restaurants in tightly knit Yemeni enclaves," Howell said.

At Qahwah House, the goal is not only to serve Yemeni-style coffee, with its alluring tastes of cardamom and ginger, but also to impart information about Yemen's history and culture. The country is, as the National Coffee Association notes, where coffee cultivation and trade began, though Ethiopia boasts being the birthplace of the discovery of coffee.

"That's why I want to ... be like a messenger for my country - give the right picture about the people over there, and the coffee," said Alhasbani, whose brother was blinded after a bomb exploded near his family's home several years ago.

In Hamtramck, Abraham Aiyash, a first-generation Yemeni who is running as a Democrat for state Senate, is inspired by those who have struggled and recalls an uncle who died last year in Yemen after an airstrike.

"I'll always remember that in the work that I do. ... I'll be reminded that people before me kind of had to toil and sweat to make this possible."

___

Jeff Karoub is a member of AP's Race and Ethnicity Team. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jeffkaroub and find more of his work at https://apnews.com/search/jeff%20karoub .

In this Jan. 9, 2018, photo, Ibrahim Alhasbani, owner of Qahwah House, a cafe that serves coffee made from beans harvested on his family's farm in Yemen's mountains, measures coffee beans in Dearborn, Mich. Yemeni have been coming to the U.S. for more than a century _ especially since the 1960s _ but in recent years they have been planting stronger roots, raising their profile and looking outward _ opening upscale restaurants and cafes and running for political office. And, in cases like Alhasbani, they are making Yemeni culture a key part of the business proposition. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)

In this Jan. 9, 2018, photo, Rasheed Alnozili, publisher of The Yemeni American News, is interviewed in Dearborn, Mich. Yemeni have been coming to the U.S. for more than a century, especially since the 1960s, but in recent years they have been planting stronger roots, raising their profile and looking outward, opening upscale restaurants and cafes and running for political office. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)NEW YORK (AP) - They crowded around the White House conference table this past week, lawmakers from California, Connecticut, Texas and Florida, eager to share their state's painful experience with gun violence.

One key state was not represented. No one from Nevada, home to the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history just five months ago, attended the televised discussion with the president.

But in the politics of gun control, even those who say the least have considerable sway. Despite a clamor for action in the wake of the Florida school shooting, a powerful group of vulnerable lawmakers - both Republicans and Democrats - have pointedly avoided the national conversation about guns.

FILE - In this Jan. 30, 2018 file photo, Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., asks a question of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. The silent majority may stop Congress from doing anything to address gun violence. They include most Republicans and some vulnerable Democrats who would rather avoid the gun debate altogether than risk drawing unwanted attention from the NRA on the right or the growing movement of gun control advocates on the left. The elected officials ran from the gun debate in recent days, and when forced to talk about the issue, offered only murky answers that left unclear their positions on key proposals. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

They often choose strategic silence rather than get crosswise with the National Rifle Association's die-hard supporters on the right or the growing movement of passionate gun control advocates on the left.

The office of Nevada's senior senator, Republican Dean Heller, would not say why did he did not attend the White House meeting. Heller, who is facing a tough re-election fight, has avoided the spotlight in the subsequent days as well, declining to address specifics about his positions on gun legislation.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment about whether Heller was invited to the event. The state's Democratic senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, and its three Democratic representatives also did not attend.

Heller spokeswoman Megan Taylor declined to say whether the senator supported universal background checks, raising the age for gun purchases to 21, or provisions to ban high-capacity magazines and assault rifles, all ideas tossed out by lawmakers or President Donald Trump in recent days.

"He looks forward to continuing discussions with his colleagues as Congress explores ways to enhance compliance with existing law and keep our communities safe," Taylor said.

Heller has signed on to legislation known as "Fix NICS," a modest measure supported by the NRA and intended to encourage better participation in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. It was one of the few gun bills to find bipartisan support and appeared poised to move ahead, only to be sidelined.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who has said little about the gun debate in recent days, said Thursday that no gun-related legislation would be heard in the coming week.

Without this silent majority's support, there is little chance for significant gun control legislation to become federal law, no matter how loud the outcry from high school students and others who are pushing for action.

The stalemate infuriates Ryan Works, a 40-year-old father of two, who hid under a table at an October concert in Las Vegas as a gunman shot and killed 58 and wounded more than 800. A Republican, Works offered an emotional message to Heller and elected officials in both parties who are reluctant to take on gun violence.

"Step up and do something," he said in an interview, almost shouting as he described shopping for bullet-proof backpacks for his 5- and 8-year-old children. "Show us that you care and you're going to protect us."

Heller's muted response at an extraordinary moment highlights the weight of his political predicament.

Running for re-election in a state Trump lost, he must win over a significant number of independents and moderate Democrats in November's general election to earn a second term. But first, he must survive a primary challenge from a conservative firebrand in a state where GOP primary voters value gun rights above almost all else.

The challenge is easy to see in recent polls. Two out of three adults in the United States want stricter gun laws, CBS found in a poll conducted a week after the Feb. 14 shooting in Parkland, Florida. But among Republicans, 54 percent want gun laws left alone or made less strict.

That's likely why the most politically vulnerable elected officials have kept their heads down, leaving the heavy lifting to elected officials facing less political risk this fall.

On the Senate floor this week, blue-state senators such as Vermont's Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts' Ed Markey and New Jersey's Cory Booker offered fiery speeches about gun violence. Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, a swing-state Republican whose current term ends in 2022, re-emerged as the face of the push to expand background checks. Arizona Sen. Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican who is retiring at the end of this year, was partnering with California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein on legislation to move the age to buy long guns to 21.

Those Democrats running in Republican-leaning states this fall were far less conspicuous.

North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp and Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly, both Democrats running for re-election in states Trump won handily, have said nothing about gun violence from the Senate floor in recent days, but made statements honoring constituents who had recently passed away.

Heitkamp supports the "Fix NICS" plan and co-sponsored a bill that would prevent those on the terrorist watch list from buying guns, her spokeswoman said. The senator has previously opposed so-called bump stocks, which the Las Vegas shooter used to increase the firing speed of his semi-automatic rifle. But the spokeswoman did not clarify whether she would support universal background checks, higher age limits, or provisions to ban high-capacity magazines and assault rifles.

In a statement, Heitkamp decried "horrific mass shootings" and called for "a bipartisan conversation in Congress about long-term solutions to gun violence."

Similarly, Donnelly, who previously voted for universal background checks and backs "Fix NICS," said little more about the issue when pressed for specifics.

"I believe that Congress should take steps to reduce gun violence, while protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens," he said in a statement.

At the White House meeting, the Democratic Party's most vulnerable 2018 class was represented only by Sen. Joe Manchin, a former West Virginia governor, who encouraged the president to help promote the so-called Toomey-Manchin plan to expand background checks.

Trump seemed to embrace the proposal during the Wednesday meeting, but he hasn't mentioned it since a Thursday night meeting with the NRA, which opposes the plan.

Don't expect Heller to mention it either.

Should he win his primary, he will likely face Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen, who isn't shy about her support for virtually every gun control measure on the table. She was quick to note Heller's low profile in the debate.

"His silence speaks volumes," Rosen said. "How can you have tragedy in your own state, like the massive one we had here, and not have it forever change you, and not speak out, and not respond to these families?"

___

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Jill Colvin in Washington contributed to this report.WASHINGTON (AP) - Under twin clouds of legal investigation, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a united front on Monday, Trump announcing he might travel to Jerusalem to preside over the opening of the new U.S. Embassy Netanyahu had wanted, and the Israeli lavishing praise on the American leader.

In a show of strong support for Netanyahu, who faces corruption allegations at home, Trump dangled the possibility of his second visit to Israel as president. However, he said nothing about whether he would use the trip to unveil his much-vaunted but still mysterious peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.

The president said his controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city had improved chances for ending the conflict, despite Palestinians' insistence otherwise. The two steps enraged the Palestinians, who claim part of Jerusalem for the capital of an eventual state and accuse Trump of abandoning the U.S. role of honest broker.

President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, March 5, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Trump and his wife, Melania, welcomed Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, to the White House just hours after Israeli police announced that a third confidant of the prime minister had agreed to turn state's witness in the burgeoning corruption case. Netanyahu and his wife were questioned separately by police for hours on Friday before their departure for Washington.

Monday's meeting also came amid the continuing U.S. investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign, a probe that may have implications for the president's Mideast peace point man, son-in-law Jared Kushner, who recently lost his top secret security clearance. And, it took place as profound turmoil in the Middle East threatens hopes of a resumption in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and attempts to restore stability in the volatile region more broadly.

Trump said his Mideast team, led by Kushner, was hard at work on a peace proposal that is nearing completion, but he offered no details on the plan that the Palestinians say will be dead on arrival and not worth discussing.

He said that despite their anger, "the Palestinians, I think, are wanting to come back to the table." There was no apparent evidence for the assertion.

But, Trump said he had actually given peace a chance by removing Jerusalem as an obstacle in long-stalled negotiations that have collapsed under successive U.S. administrations of both political parties. "Nobody could get past, No. 1 Jerusalem," he said. "We've taken it off the table. So this gives us a real opportunity for peace."

Trump said he was looking into the possibility of traveling to Jerusalem in mid-May, when the embassy is slated to move into a temporary location that is now an annex of the U.S. consulate. "We're looking at coming," he said. "If I can, I will."

With Netanyahu looking on, Trump said he had rejected a $1 billion plan for a new embassy in favor of the temporary facility, which would cost only $250,000. Eventually, however, that embassy would have to be expanded to accommodate more than a handful of diplomats. The cost of an expansion likely would run in the hundreds of millions of dollars, based on construction costs for U.S. embassies around the world.

For his part, Netanyahu lavished praise on Trump for the Jerusalem recognition and the embassy move, comparing him with the Persian King Cyrus, who allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem from Babylon 2,500 years ago; former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, who signed a declaration in 1917 supporting the creation of a Jewish state in what was then the British mandate of Palestine; and President Harry Truman, the first world leader to recognize Israel in 1948.

"Mr. President, this will be remembered by our people throughout the ages," Netanyahu said. He added that the U.S.-Israel relationship had never been closer than since Trump took office.

For all the warmth and bonhomie, misgivings are percolating under the surface over Iran, where Israel sees Trump's efforts to crack down on the Jewish state's archenemy as lacking.

Iran and its activities in Syria and Lebanon are a profound concern to Israel, and Netanyahu made clear Iran is his highest priority.

Trump has vowed to pull out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in mid-May unless the U.S. and Europe agree on sanctions that would punish Iran for activity not covered by the accord or, in some cases, that would be eventually permitted under its terms.

Israeli officials are concerned Trump may not demand enough, particularly on Iran's ballistic missile program, and are wary the administration may be acquiescing to Iran's growing presence in Syria and influence in Lebanon - two Israeli neighbors.

"Iran has not given up its nuclear ambitions," Netanyahu said. "It came out of this nuclear deal emboldened and enriched."

"Iran must be stopped," he said.

Vice President Mike Pence, though, sought to assure Israel that the administration would not back down on Iran.

"Unless the Iran nuclear deal is fixed in the coming months, the United States of America will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal immediately," he told the annual pro-Israel AIPAC policy conference that Netanyahu will address on Tuesday. "The United States of America will never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon."

___

Josh Lederman contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump greet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara Netanyahu at the White House, Monday, March 5, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)Last night, Coco joined the elite group of animated films to win a grand slam: the Golden Globe, BAFTA, the Annie Award, and an Oscar. Neither of the victories at last nights 90th annual Academy Awards came as a surprise  fans have dubbed the Best Animated Feature Film category the Pixar award  but the blockbusters plot touches on how the free market rewards or rebuffs unethical practices, how technological progress brings justice, and the eternal significance of vocation and memory.

The movie continues Pixars winning formula of mixing magical wonder and cutting-edge animation with a family-centric leitmotif that will tug at adult viewers heartstrings. Much like Monsters Inc., a child accidentally gets trapped in an alternate universe profoundly affected by this world.

Coco centers around young Miguel, a 12-year-old musical prodigy who lives in a multigenerational home in Mexico. Because his great-great-grandfather abandoned his daughter (the titular Coco) to pursue a musical career, Miguels family forbids him from pursuing his all-consuming passion. Running away from home during the annual Day of the Dead (Dia de Los Muertos) festivities, he finds himself transported to the land of dead spirits. To escape alive, he must get a relatives blessing within 24 hours  but every one he encounters would force him to give up music as a condition.

Instead, he seeks out the offending relative, Western star and crooner Ernesto de la Cruz, whose status as a cinematic legend continues to provide him with an opulent lifestyle. Even in the afterlife, material goods continue to pour in: copious amounts of food, alcohol, guitars  think of them as spiritual royalties. However, not all is as it seems. (Warning: spoilers.)

De la Cruz became famous by plagiarizing his songs from his partner, then murdering him. Young Miguel must decide whether he will keep silent about the powerful gatekeepers sins or defy him  and possibly see his own dreams disappear forever. In light of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, that question must have resonated deeply at last nights ceremonies.

Before the closing credits, as Julian of Norwich said, All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Miguels family reconciles itself to his undeniable talent. A secret stash of letters proves de la Cruzs plagiarism and triggers a national backlash that assures his memory will disappear. The scales of justice have aligned; self-seeking has proven self-defeating; and true talent has been recognized, rewarded, and remembered.

Coco has much to teach viewers of all ages, aside from its meticulous cultural authenticity which made it the highest-grossing movie in Mexican history.

Miguels story shows the impact of every persons secular work or vocation. Ultimately, it is his musical gift (singing the lachrymose Remember Me, which won Best Original Song) that unlocks his great-grandmothers memory and saves the day. A world in which the allocation of resources  like human labor  are made collectively instead of by individual choice will result in a worse world for everyone  with no one ever knowing the riches they missed.

Those most hurt are the stymied workers, barred from their chosen vocation. It is fair to say that when a man works he not only alters things and society, he develops himself, as well. This is the most important kind of enrichment, since a man is more precious for what he is than for what he has. Any obstacle to pursuing ones chosen vocation  whether unnecessary occupational licensing laws, compulsory union dues, or laws violating freedom of conscience  incalculably impoverishes that person and all humanity. Roadblocks to progress impede workers across the transatlantic sphere, from U.S. government employees to Scandinavian midwives.

The example of Ernesto de la Cruz teaches another lesson: The free market rewards service and punishes exploitation. The market may temporarily reward bad behavior. But once people have accurate information, a market correction ensues. Even an industrial star or king, Ludwig von Mises once lectured, must stay in the good graces of his subjects, the consumers; he loses his kingdom as soon as he is no longer held in their esteem.

Coco demonstrates how technological progress and innovation speeds this process along. In the days when the singing cowboys reigned, a woman taking on a celebrity with a stack of letters would have little hope of getting a hearing. The studio may economically pressure the few national media outlets to bury the story. Should an enterprising journalist take it up, she would have to wait as the news crept from front page to front page, region to region, stalling or evaporating in the process. Today, a single social media post can go viral globally in real time. The only hindrance is the occasional tweak of the algorithms.

The story puts family at the center of everything, serving as a critique of absentee fathers  a growing problem with profound economic and social consequences.

Finally, the key spiritual element to Coco is the longing for remembrance. At face value, the movie has a dubious theology, so Christians must explain biblical remembrance: The Good Thief asked Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom. Jesus replied, Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise. The prior evening, Jesus concluded the Last Supper by commanding, Do this in remembrance of Me. This reciprocal remembrance  an anamnesis of agape  binds us to one another and forms the heart of the Christian life. To be remembered by Christ is to be present in His Kingdom and to enjoy everlasting salvation. Christians, in turn, remember God by a worship that leads them to live a moral and ethical life in every facet, including conducting our business affairs ethically and in a spirit of service to others.

Coco tells us that our lifes work may be stolen, forgotten, or never noticed in the first place. We must order all of our lives, including our work lives, so that we will be remembered in the kingdom of Heaven.

(Photo credit: Public domain.)TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - France's foreign minister traveled to Tehran on Monday promising tough talk on Iran's ballistic missile program but was met with stiff resistance from his Iranian counterpart, who said Western arms deals had turned the Middle East into a "gunpowder depot."

From his first meeting with a military uniform-clad official, Jean-Yves Le Drian's one-day trip highlighted the challenge Paris faces in challenging Iran while at the same time trying to keep the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers intact.

While French leaders, including President Emmanuel Macron, have criticized Iran's missile program, French companies like oil giant Total SA, carmaker Renault and airplane manufacturer Airbus have bullishly entered the Iranian market after the atomic accord, complicating any possible sanctions.

In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, President Hassan Rouhani, right, welcomes French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at the start of their meeting, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 5, 2018. Le Drian met stiff resistance from his Iranian counterpart, who said Western arms deals had turned the Middle East into a "gunpowder depot." His one-day trip Monday highlighted the challenge Paris faces in challenging Iran while at the same time trying to keep the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers intact. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also made a point to mention France armed dictator Saddam Hussein during the bloody 1980s Iran-Iraq war.

"The United States and other countries that have turned our region into a gunpowder depot by selling arms must stop such actions," Zarif said, according to a report by the semi-official ISNA news agency.

Iran insists its ballistic missile program is for purely defensive purposes, and has denied accusations by the U.S., France and the United Nations of supplying missile technology to Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have fired ballistic missiles into Saudi Arabia.

"Iran has learned to rely on its deterrent power," Zarif said.

Le Drian also met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. The presidency had yet to issue a statement on the meeting hours after it was held.

Ahead of Le Drian's trip, the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying he would pursue "a frank and demanding dialogue with Iran."

Iran's ballistic missile capacity and position "worries us enormously," Le Drian said last week at a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. "Having such tools is not uniquely defensive, given the distance they can reach."

Le Drian faced immediate pushback over French concerns about Iran's ballistic missiles, starting with Iranian students waving signs at Iran's Mehrabad International Airport protesting his comments.

That continued with Iran's armed forces spokesman, Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, who this weekend said over the weekend that Tehran would only give up its missiles when the West abandons nuclear arms.

"The country's defense capabilities will continue non-stop and foreigners do not have the right to enter this field," Jazayeri said Monday, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Le Drian first met Monday with Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council. Shamkhani, a former chief of Iran's navy, made a point to wear his military uniform to the meeting.

Le Drian had been scheduled to visit Tehran earlier but postponed his trip after protests across Iran in late December and early January that saw at least 21 people killed.

Macron praised the demonstrations as "the free expression of the Iranian people," but did not match President Donald Trump's full-throated encouragement of them.

Macron also has said he wants to see the emergence of an accord limiting Iran's regional presence. The Iranian-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah is fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces.

It's unclear how much of an effect Le Drian's talks will have in Iran, especially as newspapers greeted him Monday with headlines calling him an "impudent guest" and "Trump's Parisian servant."

Le Drian did not meet with anyone from Iran's Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary force that answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and runs the ballistic missile program.

During his visit, Le Drian also inaugurated an exhibition called "The Louvre in Tehran" at the Iranian National Museum.

___

Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, President Hassan Rouhani, right, meets with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at the start of their meeting, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 5, 2018. Le Drian met stiff resistance from his Iranian counterpart, who said Western arms deals had turned the Middle East into a "gunpowder depot." His one-day trip Monday highlighted the challenge Paris faces in challenging Iran while at the same time trying to keep the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers intact. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, President Hassan Rouhani, right, greets French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at the start of their meeting, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 5, 2018. Le Drian met stiff resistance from his Iranian counterpart, who said Western arms deals had turned the Middle East into a "gunpowder depot." His one-day trip Monday highlighted the challenge Paris faces in challenging Iran while at the same time trying to keep the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers intact. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian Presidency, President Hassan Rouhani, right, greets French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian at the start of their meeting, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 5, 2018. Le Drian met stiff resistance from his Iranian counterpart, who said Western arms deals had turned the Middle East into a "gunpowder depot." His one-day trip Monday highlighted the challenge Paris faces in challenging Iran while at the same time trying to keep the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers intact. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, third left, and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, second right, and their delegations meet in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 5, 2018. Le Drian arrived in Tehran amid French criticism of Tehran's ballistic missile program. His one-day trip highlights the balancing act Paris finds itself in after Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrives for a meeting with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 5, 2018. Le Drian arrived in Tehran amid French criticism of Tehran's ballistic missile program. His one-day trip highlights the balancing act Paris finds itself in after Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, right, and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, shake hands for journalists at the start of their meeting in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 5, 2018. Le Drian arrived in Tehran amid French criticism of Tehran's ballistic missile program. His one-day trip highlights the balancing act Paris finds itself in after Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, right, and his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian, pose for journalists at the start of their meeting in Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 5, 2018. Le Drian arrived in Tehran amid French criticism of Tehran's ballistic missile program. His one-day trip highlights the balancing act Paris finds itself in after Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)WASHINGTON (AP) - In a remarkably public confrontation, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican allies of President Donald Trump pleaded with him Monday to back away from his threatened international tariffs, which they fear could spark a dangerous trade war. Trump retorted: "We're not backing down."

The president said U.S. neighbors Canada and Mexico would not be spared from his plans for special import taxes on steel and aluminum, but he held out the possibility of later exempting the longstanding friends if they agree to better terms for the U.S. in talks aimed at revising the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"We've had a very bad deal with Mexico; we've had a very bad deal with Canada. It's called NAFTA," he declared.

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, March 5, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Trump spoke shortly after a spokeswoman for Ryan, a Trump ally, said the GOP leader was "extremely worried" that the proposed tariffs would set off a trade war and urged the White House "to not advance with this plan."

Likewise, Republican leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee circulated a letter opposing Trump's plan, and GOP congressional leaders suggested they may attempt to prevent the tariffs if the president moves forward.

Trump's pledge to implement tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum imports has roiled financial markets, angered foreign allies and created unusual alliances for a president who blasted unfavorable trade deals during his 2016 campaign. Union leaders and Democratic lawmakers from Rust Belt states have praised the planned tariffs, joining with advocates within the administration including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.

But the president has been opposed internally by Defense Secretary James Mattis and White House economic adviser Gary Cohn, who warned against penalizing U.S. allies and undercutting the economic benefits of the president's sweeping tax overhaul.

Likewise, the statement from Ryan's office said, "The new tax reform law has boosted the economy, and we certainly don't want to jeopardize those gains."

Asked about that public rebuke, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "Look, we have a great relationship with Speaker Ryan. We're going to continue to have one, but that doesn't mean we have to agree on everything."

Canada is the United States' No. 1 foreign supplier of both steel and aluminum. Mexico is the No. 4 supplier of steel and No. 7 for aluminum.

Congressional Republicans say any tariffs should be narrow in scope, and they privately warned that Trump's effort could hurt the party's hopes to preserve its majority in the fall elections.

As the president dug in on his position, any potential compromise with foreign trading partners and Republican lawmakers was expected to still include some form of tariffs.

"Trump is not someone who retreats," said Stephen Moore, an economist with the conservative Heritage Foundation and a former campaign adviser. "He's going to need to be able to declare some victory here."

The tariffs will be made official in the next two weeks, White House officials said.

"Twenty-five percent on steel, and the 10 percent on aluminum, no country exclusions - firm line in the sand," said Navarro, speaking on "Fox and Friends."

Republican critics on Capitol Hill and within the administration argue that industries and their workers that rely on steel and aluminum for their products will suffer. The cost of new appliances, cars and buildings will rise for Americans if the president follows through, they warn, and other nations could retaliate.

Two dozen conservative groups, including the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the National Taxpayers Union, urged Trump to reconsider, writing in a letter that the tariffs would be "a tax on the middle class with everything from cars to baseball bats to even beer."

The Trade Partnership, a consulting firm, said the tariffs would increase U.S. employment in the steel and aluminum sector by about 33,000 jobs but would cost 179,000 jobs in the rest of the economy.

The end result could erode the president's base of support with rural America and even the blue-collar workers the president says he's trying to help.

"These are people that voted for him and supported him in these auto-producing states," said Cody Lusk, president of the American International Automobile Dealers Association. Lusk noted that of the 16 states with auto plants, Trump won all but two.

The administration has argued the tariffs are necessary to preserve the American aluminum and steel industries and protect national security. But Trump's comments and tweets early Monday suggested he was also using them as leverage in the current talks to revise NAFTA. The latest round of a nearly yearlong renegotiation effort is concluding this week in Mexico City.

At those talks, U.S Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Monday that progress has been less than many had hoped and "our time is running short."

"I fear the longer we proceed, the more political headwinds we will feel," he said. And he added that if three-way negotiations don't work, "we are prepared to move on a bilateral basis."

More upbeat about progress until now, Dan Ujczo, a trade attorney with Dickinson Wright PLLC in Columbus, Ohio, said, "We were moving toward the finish line in NAFTA." But he added, "This has the potential to throw the NAFTA talks off track."

He said neither Canada nor Mexico will want to be seen as giving in to U.S. pressure. Indeed, he said, Canada is probably already drawing up lists of U.S. products to tax in retaliation.

Separately, Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo tweeted: "Mexico shouldn't be included in steel & aluminum tariffs. It's the wrong way to incentivize the creation of a new & modern #NAFTA."

The president opened the door to exempting Canada and Mexico from the tariffs, saying, "That would be, I would imagine, one of the points that we'll negotiate." But he added, "If they aren't going to make a fair NAFTA deal, we're just going to leave it this way."

Trump has long threatened to pull out of the 24-year-old trade pact if it can't be overhauled and encourage manufacturers to bring factory jobs back the United States.

But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called the tariff plan "absolutely unacceptable."

Trudeau's office said he "registered his serious concern" about the tariffs in a conversation with Trump Monday, saying they "would not be helpful to reaching a deal on NAFTA."

And overseas, Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, said the European Union could respond by taxing American goods including bourbon, blue jeans and Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Trump threatened to tax European cars if the EU boosts tariffs on American products in response to his plan.

"If they want to do something, we'll just tax their cars that they send in here like water," Trump has said, lamenting European "trade barriers that are worse than tariffs."

For congressional leaders, those products hit close to home. The iconic motorcycles are produced in Ryan's home state of Wisconsin, and Kentucky, the home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is well-known for its bourbon.

___

Associated Press writers Paul Wiseman, Josh Boak, Zeke Miller and Kevin Freking in Washington and Mark Stevenson and Peter Orsi in Mexico City contributed to this report.

___

Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter at https://twitter.com/KThomasDC

President Donald Trump listens during a meeting with steel and aluminum executives in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Thursday, March 1, 2018, in Washington. Trump's announcement that he will impose stiff tariffs on imported steel and aluminum has upended political alliances on Capitol Hill. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Mexico's Secretary of Economy Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal speaks during a press conference regarding the seventh round of NAFTA renegotiations in Mexico City, Monday, March 5, 2018. (AP Photo / Marco Ugarte)

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer adjusts his headsead during a press conference regarding the seventh round of NAFTA renegotiations in Mexico City, Monday, March 5, 2018. (AP Photo / Marco Ugarte)

A welder fabricates a steel structure at an iron works facility in Ottawa, Ontario, Monday, March 5, 2018. President Donald Trump insisted Monday that he's "not backing down" on his plan to impose stiff tariffs on imported steel and aluminum despite anxious warnings from House Speaker Paul Ryan and other congressional Republicans of a possible trade war. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP)WILLARD, N.C. (AP) - Terry "Pap" Adams says he was out in the backyard, tinkering on one of his car projects, when another cloud of noxious pinkish-brown mist drifted overhead. The droplets hit his wife's black car, leaving blotches with greasy little dots in the center.

"You can feel it on your clothes," he said as he stood outside his home in rural Willard, about 70 miles (113 km) southeast of Fayetteville. "You could feel it, like a misting rain. But it wasn't misting rain. It was that stuff."

The nose-curling mist was wastewater - pumped from a pond where his neighbor stores the urine and feces from thousands of hogs, and sprayed onto the fields just across a narrow ditch from Adam's property line.

In this photo taken Friday, July 21, 2017 young hogs gather around the water source at Everette Murphrey Farm in Farmville, N.C. All waste from the hogs is stored in open-air lagoons and sprayed onto fields as fertilizer. Rural residents say some of that waste gets onto and into their homes. Civil trials begin April 2018, against a subsidiary of the world's largest pork producer, and people are watching to see whether things will change and impact places such as the Everette Murphrey Farm in the country's No. 2 hog state. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

"When the wind is right, you get it - ain't nothing you can do about it," the 60-year-old man said, twisting his mouth in an expression of disgust.

For decades, people like Adams say they have felt powerless against the economic and political influence of the commercial hog farming industry. In early December, a federal judge scheduled the first of what could be dozens of trials in a group of nuisance lawsuits filed against Murphy-Brown LLC, a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods - the world's largest pork processor and hog producer.

The first two test cases are set to be tried in April.

Iowa is by far the nation's leading hog producer, but recent events in No. 2 North Carolina have triggered concern at the industry's trade group in Washington, according to lobbying disclosures.

After a series of major spills from hog lagoons caused fish kills and contaminated rivers, pork producers here shifted two decades ago to disposing of their swine waste by spraying it across farm fields. But there are no easy solutions to the challenges caused by the massive amounts of animal waste that are byproducts of the world's demand for pork and other protein. In this corner of rural North Carolina, the response to the problem of hog waste spilling into rivers has spawned a new kind of environmental concern.

Residents' lawyers plan to present DNA testing evidence at the upcoming trials they say shows that tiny particles of hog feces are settling over their clients' properties.

A former environmental engineer for the Environmental Protection Agency, Shane Rogers, swabbed the outsides of homes near several hog farms in southeast North Carolina. He said 14 of the 17 homes - including those belonging to two of Adams' neighbors - tested positive for pig2bac - a genetic marker linked to the presence of hog feces.

When Rogers visited the Rose Hill home of 80-year-old Mary Tatum in November 2016, he was "met at the road in front of her house with exceptionally malodorous air," he wrote in his report. The hog lagoon is less than 500 feet from the Tatum's house, separated from the spray field by a narrow buffer of trees.

Swabs tested positive for pig2bac inside Tatum's home - from a stovetop, a range hood and the top of her refrigerator, where she keeps her bread and her cereal, he testified in a February 2017 deposition.

In a response filed with the court, an expert hired by the pork company said Rogers' methods were shoddy and violated fundamental pillars of sample-collection reliability. Jennifer Clancy, a microbiologist who has also consulted with the EPA, said the study of pig2bac is far from conclusive, and that Rogers "turns a blind eye to the scientific caveats in testing."

Meanwhile, the state Department of Environmental Quality is negotiating with three watchdog groups to resolve complaints of environmental racism in the administration of North Carolina's swine-waste permitting. In a letter to the state agency last January, EPA's civil rights office said it had "deep concern" that African-American, Latino and American Indian communities have been subjected to discrimination in the location of operations that produce a lot of waste.

Lobbying reports show the National Pork Producers Council has been meeting with EPA officials and Congress recently to discuss federal regulations for reporting air emissions from livestock farms and the environmental justice petition in North Carolina.

The industry has also backed a House bill, co-sponsored by two North Carolina Republicans, that seeks to limit the ability of neighbors to sue hog farmers who are "diligently seeking compliance" with state and federal regulations.

A spokesman for the trade group said its farmers have been interested and concerned about environmental justice. "If neighbors have concerns with odor or manure management, hog farmers in North Carolina or anywhere will work and have worked to address and mitigate them," said Dave Warner, the council's communications director.

Virginia-based Smithfield - which was purchased in 2013 by China-based WH Group - disputed that race played any role where it locates its company-owned or contract operations. The company has called the lawsuits a "cash grab" and maintains that the current permitting system works well.

"It protects the environment and the neighbors of farms," said Joyce Fitzpatrick, Smithfield's spokeswoman. "More than 80 percent of hog farms are family farms. These farmers care deeply about their communities. They wouldn't do anything to hurt the places where they and their families live."

Last spring, the state's Republican-controlled legislature passed a law to protect hog and other agricultural operations against lawsuits like those pending in federal court. The new law limited a producer's liability to the lost property value plaintiffs can prove as a result of nuisance, a move critics said was the latest legislative gift to the hog industry at the expense of the poor.

Pork is a $2.3 billion industry in the Tar Heel State, home to roughly 9.3 million hogs. The state's human population is around 10.2 million.

It is the intersection of those two populations that has generated much of the friction.

In North Carolina, as in all the leading pork-producing states, most hogs are raised in airplane hangar-like barns, some holding hundreds of animals each. The difference is how the waste is stored and disposed.

Among the top hog states, North Carolina and, to a lesser extent, Illinois are alone in allowing the widespread use of open-air waste-storage lagoons and fertilizer spray fields. Here, spraying often uses large sprinkler guns that can aerosolize waste into tiny droplets.

Farmers in Iowa - with more than 20 million head and over $7.5 billion in annual sales - and the other large Midwestern pork states store the manure and urine in deep concrete pits beneath the hog houses. The resulting "slurry" is then pumped or trucked to the fields, where it is injected or disked directly into the soil as fertilizer.

An analysis by the Environmental Working Group and Waterkeeper Alliance, two environmental groups, in 2016 estimated that North Carolina's hog operations generate more than 9.5 billion gallons (35.96 billion liters) of fecal waste a year.

Hog farms here tend to be much smaller than their Midwest counterparts. But they're clustered in low-lying, flood-prone counties with sandy soils and shallow aquifers.

There are strict rules about not spraying when rain or high winds are forecast, and to stop before the water begins ponding. But the state has just 14 inspectors to make annually required visits to the roughly 2,100 hog operations.

Plaintiff Elsie Herring, who lives about 7 miles (11 km) south of Tatum in the town of Wallace, said she feels like a prisoner in her own home.

"We don't open our windows or doors," said Herring, who is black. "We don't sit out. We don't cook out. We don't do anything."

Her simple frame home is one of several on 15 acres that has been in the family since the 1890s. Her grandfather, Immanuel Stallings, an ex-slave, bought the property from his former mistress.

"My mother had all 15 of us on this land," said Herring, a community organizer with the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, an environmental group.

Growing up, Herring said there was always farming going on all around. Her family even kept a few hogs.

But, she said: "These mega-farms are something that's new."

Dr. James A. Merchant, former dean of the University of Iowa College of Public Health, said people like Herring have a "reasonable basis to be fearful and concerned" for their health. He cited conclusions of scientific studies he said clearly establish public health risks from commercial hog farms. One study, which he co-authored, found that a 2,000-head operation can produce as much waste as a small city.

Smithfield has fought unsuccessfully to have Merchant's report and testimony blocked.

During its civil rights investigation, initiated under the Obama administration following a 2014 complaint, the EPA said it heard descriptions of health impacts, but also "retaliation, threats, intimidation and harassment by swine facility operators and pork industry representatives."

Even on a 90-degree day, the smell from two hog houses and a waste lagoon was almost negligible on Everette Murphrey's 172-acre operation in the town of Farmville. Inside the houses, huge fans kept the temperature a good 10 degrees cooler than outside.

"It's not bad on the hogs," Murphrey said as pigs skittered away before him. "It's not bad on the humans that are working in there."

Murphrey uses a center pivot system to irrigate crops of hay, feed corn and soybeans. Resembling the skeleton of some metal dinosaur, the machine can be swung into place over different parts of the field as dangling nozzles spray the wastewater downward - minimizing wind drift.

"If the wind's blowing in the direction of where some houses are, that day we won't pump," he said. "I've never had a complaint from a neighbor. Never."

Fitzpatrick, the Smithfield spokesperson, said the company has no qualms about severing ties with scofflaws.

Just before Labor Day, state officials responded to a spill at a Smithfield contract farm near Croatan National Forest, not far from the Bogue Banks. Inspectors found pinkish waste flowing from a hydrant and into a ditch leading to the Trent River.

"The flow was so good, it looked like there could have been a pipe there," one of the inspectors reported.

An investigation later showed nearly 1 million gallons of wastewater from the lagoon were illegally drained into a nearby wooded area. The state levied a $64,072 fine against Lanier Farms TCB Inc., citing, in part, violations dating back to 2010.

Smithfield said it placed the grower on probation in August. Fitzpatrick said all animals have been removed, and the farm has been empty since December.

Under a 2000 agreement with the state, Smithfield has spent $15 million to research alternatives to lagoons and spray fields. Fitzpatrick told AP that, "No alternative technology has been identified that is both economically feasible and that is as environmentally effective as the current system."

Despite incentives, only two North Carolina swine operations have adopted the "environmentally superior technologies" that might produce renewable energy, while reducing odors. Using numbers from North Carolina State University, the North Carolina Pork Council has estimated it would cost $5.4 billion over 10 years to retrofit all of the state's hog farms.

Dwight Strickland, who owns the farm beside Elsie Herring's property, told AP that all his spraying is done according to state regulations, and that he strives to be a good neighbor.

Some plaintiffs said things have improved since the lawsuit was filed. Herring noticed that Strickland doesn't use the spray field closest to her property line as often.

If the legal challenges fail, Herring worries things will go right back to the way they were. She says she owes it to her ancestors to keep fighting.

"This is my connection to them," she said. "This is my birthright. Absolutely sacred."

___

Biesecker reported from Washington.

__

Follow Biesecker at http://twitter.com/mbieseck

In this photo taken Friday, July 21, 2017, hog farmer Everette Murphrey walks through one of his hog houses in Farmville, N.C. Murphrey uses a center pivot system to irrigate crops of hay, feed corn and soybeans. "If the wind's blowing in the direction of where some houses are, that day we won't pump," he said. "I've never had a complaint from a neighbor. Never." (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

In this photo taken Friday, July 21, 2017, hog waste flows into the waste pond at Everette Murphrey Farm in Farmville, N.C. The waste is used to spray onto nearby crops instead of using commercial fertilizers. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

In this photo taken Friday, July 21, 2017, a hog waste pond is seen adjacent to hog houses as the midday sun bears down at Everette Murphrey Farm in Farmville, N.C. All the waste from hogs are stored in open-air lagoons and sprayed onto fields as fertilizer. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

This undated satellite photo provided by DigitalGlobe shows Mary Tatum's house, bottom right, in Rose Hill, N.C. Swabs tested positive for pig2bac, an indicator of fecal matter, inside Tatum's home, from a stovetop, a range hood and the top of her refrigerator, where she keeps her bread and her cereal. (DigitalGlobe via AP)

In this Thursday, Jan. 11, 2018 photo, Terry "Pap" Adams stands beside the entrance to a hog farm next door to his home in Willard, N.C. The farm, which grows hogs for Smithfield Foods, sprays liquified waste on its fields as fertilizer. "You can feel it on your clothes," Adams said. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed)

In this Friday, July 21, 2017, a hog house is reflected in an adjacent waste pond at Everette Murphrey Farm in Farmville, N.C. Civil trials over swine waste management begin April 2018 against a subsidiary of the world's largest pork producer, and people are watching to see whether things will change and impact places such as the Everette Murphrey Farm in the country's No. 2 hog state. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

This photo taken Friday, July 21, 2017 shows an irrigation system at Everette Murphrey Farm in Farmville, N.C. The system is used to spray hog waste onto nearby crops instead of using commercial fertilizers. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

In this photo taken Friday, July 21, 2017, hog farmer Everette Murphrey stands in one of his hog houses in Farmville, N.C. Murphrey uses a center pivot system to irrigate crops of hay, feed corn and soybeans. "If the wind's blowing in the direction of where some houses are, that day we won't pump," he said. "I've never had a complaint from a neighbor. Never." (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

In this photo taken Friday, July 21, 2017, an irrigation system is seen in front of a home across the road from the Everette Murphrey Farm in Farmville, N.C. The system is used to spray hog waste onto nearby crops instead of using commercial fertilizers. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)Skunks are overrunning a small town as the stinky animals come out of hibernation early and pollute the air to worrying levels.

Residents of Hagerman, New Mexico, and surrounding areas are desperately trying to control the problem before it gets out of hand.

Police and shelters will set up traps with cages usually used on feral cats to capture the critters and move them away.

Skunks are overrunning a small town as the stinky animals come out of hibernation early and pollute the air to worrying levels (stock image)

'If they are healthy skunks they will be relocated on the east side of town, out past the river where hopefully they will stay and not find their way back,' patrolman Adam Chavez told KRQE TV.

The skunks were forced out of their hibernation early because of New Mexico's mild winter this year.

Viola Badcock, the owner of Hagerman Township Animal Shelter, said many of the skunks in town were not healthy and posed a risk to pets.

She said the traps she and town authorities used wouldn't harm pet cats and dogs that might wander into them.

Police and shelters set up traps using cages (pictured) used to catch feral cats to capture the critters and move them away

Officer Chavez said pets caught in traps would be brought to shelters and owners would have to pay a fine to retrieve them.

'If someone's pet is caught, it's considered having the animals running at large. There is citations involved, they will be cited into court,' he said.

Police hoped the minimum fine of $54 would prevent owners from letting their pets roam free and also protected them from catching diseases from skunks.BERLIN (AP) - A 51-year-old German has been severely injured after two men threw acid at him as he left his home near the western city of Duesseldorf.

German daily Bild on Monday identified the victim as Bernhard Guenther, an executive with innogy SE, a subsidiary of German electric utilities company RWE.

Police said in a statement the man was attacked Sunday morning after he left his home to buy breakfast at a nearby bakery. Two unknown men aged between 20 and 30 poured the toxic liquid over his head and then ran away. The victim managed to get back to his home where he made an emergency call and subsequently was taken to a special clinic by helicopter.

In this March 4, 2018 photo police with a sniffer dog investigate in Haan, Germany. A 51-year-old German has been severely injured after two men threw acid at him as he left his home near the western city of Duesseldorf. German daily Bild on Monday identified the victim as Bernhard Guenther, an executive with innogy SE, a subsidiary of German electric utilities company RWE. (Bernd Thissen/dpa via AP)

Police said a homicide division is investigating.

A policeman on a motorbike passes a sidewalk in a park in Haan, Germany, Monday, March 5, 2018. A 51-year-old German has been severely injured when he used the sidewalk after two men threw acid at him as he left his home near the western city of Duesseldorf on Sunday. German daily Bild on Monday identified the victim as Bernhard Guenther, an executive with innogy SE, a subsidiary of German electric utilities company RWE. (Bernd Thissen/dpa via AP)

In this March 4, 2018 photo police guard a park in Haan, Germany. A 51-year-old German has been severely injured after two men threw acid at him as he left his home near the western city of Duesseldorf. German daily Bild on Monday identified the victim as Bernhard Guenther, an executive with innogy SE, a subsidiary of German electric utilities company RWE. (Bernd Thissen/dpa via AP)ROME (AP) - The Latest on Italy's parliamentary election (all times local):

6:50 p.m.

Italy's ex-Premier Matteo Renzi says his center-left party will not join any government led by the anti-immigrant League party or the populist 5-Star Movement, the two victorious forces in Italy's election.

Democratic Party leader Matteo Renzi holds a press conference on the election results, in Rome, Monday, March 5, 2018. With the anti-establishment 5-Stars the highest vote-getter of any single party, the results confirmed the defeat of the two main political forces that have dominated Italian politics for decades - Forza Italia and the center-left Democrats - and the surging of populist and right-wing, euroskeptic forces that have burst onto the European scene. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Renzi said both those parties represent an anti-Europeanism that he would not support and said they had had used "verbal hatred" on his Democratic Party lawmakers. He said Matteo Salvini of the League and Luigi Di Maio of the 5-Stars had called his lawmakers mafiosi, labeled them corrupt and said they had blood on their hands.

Renzi says "if this is who we are, govern without us. Know that our place in this legislation is in the opposition."

Renzi acknowledged that his party suffered a "total defeat" in Sunday's general election and said he would resign as party leader after a new government has been sworn in.

___

5:30 p.m.

A League politician who sparked outrage with remarks defending "our white race" against immigrants has won the presidency of the northern Lombardy region.

Preliminary results Monday showed Atilio Fontana with 54 percent of the vote, riding the League's popular surge in Sunday's Italian elections to an insurmountable lead over the second-place candidate from the center-left.

Fontana blamed the remark on a lapse. But it apparently didn't dent his popularity with voters in the wealthy northern state and League stronghold.

In January, Fontana told Radio Padania, the mouthpiece of his anti-migrant League party, that being unwilling to "accept all" immigrants isn't "xenophobic or racist," but logical. He said Italy needs to decide "if our white race, our society, must continue to exist or be canceled out."

___

2:00 p.m.

A top aide for German Chancellor Angela Merkel says that despite Italy's election showing no faction winning a clear majority, she hopes "Italy will manage to build a stable government and especially a government in the spirit of Europe."

The general-secretary of Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, said Monday in Berlin, "the view across the Alps to Italy today is not an easy one, because it's not foreseeable after this difficult result ... how long it will take to get a government, whether there will be one at all, and who will lead such a government."

Kramp-Karrenbauer says Italy's election result also raises more general questions about what's needed to keep together society, what unites it and how to secure wealth -- not just in Italy, but also in Germany.

____

1:55 p.m.

Political analyst Wolfango Piccoli says that the Italian election "has radically transformed Italy's political landscape and its repercussions will be long-lasting."

Piccoli, co-founder of the Teneo Intelligence consultancy, says that negotiations to form a new government will be "prolonged and the outcome uncertain."

Piccoli said Monday that the center-right is best positioned to form a government, expected to secure 250-260 seats in the 630-member lower house. Still it will fall short of the 316 needed to control a majority.

The 5-Stars are expected to get 230 seats.

Roberto D'Alimonte, a political scientist at Rome's LUISS University, says it will be difficult to form a government that doesn't include the 5-Star Movement, given their result as the No. 1 party. He suggests they could form a minority government with support from outside the party -- but that it is not clear whether that support could come from the left or the right.

____

1:40 p.m.

French President Emmanuel Macron says he is "cautious at this stage" about the results of Italy's election, but says the country has clearly suffered from the migrant crisis.

In a news conference Monday at the Elysee Palace, Macron referred to the "brutality of the context" in Italy and said the country has been under "heavy migratory pressure" for months, in an implicit reference to the strong showing of the anti-immigrant, euroskeptic League party.

He says, "We must keep that in mind" as a backdrop to the election.

Macron says France will keep advocating for strong pro-European views in the coming years.

____

1:15 p.m.

Germany hopes Italy will get a stable government despite Sunday's elections showing no faction winning a clear majority.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert says that while the final election results aren't known yet "we wish those in positions of responsibility there success in forming a stable government, both for the good of Italy as well as the good of our common Europe."

Seibert told reporters Monday that Berlin will reach out to the new government, whoever leads it, because "Italy is one of our most important European partners and a country we have a deep friendship with."

Asked whether Merkel had any tips for Italy on forming a government under difficult circumstances, he said: "In principle one would wish everyone that it takes less than six months."

____

1 p.m.

The leader of the 5-Star Movement, Luigi Di Maio, says the party's strong showing throughout Italy means that it should run the next government.

Di Maio spoke less than an hour after the head of the League made the same claim on the part of the center-right coalition, which collectively has more votes than the 5-Stars. The assertions underline the difficulties that President Sergio Mattarella will have in tapping someone to form a government, as neither of the blocs has enough to govern alone.

Di Maio said that "we are a political force that represents the entire nation. We represent the whole boot, from Val D'aosta to Sicily." He said the successes of the other groups were more regional.

He called the vote "post-ideological. It goes beyond the left and the right," and instead turned on themes like immigration and work.

The 5-Star movement tripled the number of parliamentarians over the last election in 2013, when it was also the first party but only by a hair's breadth and the government went to the Democratic Party.

____

12:30 p.m.

The leader of Italy's right-wing euroskeptic League says his party's surge at the voting booths was due to its economic proposals - not its anti-immigration stance.

Matteo Salvini said Monday that the migrant issue was just "one problem" facing Italy and that the League has clear ideas on how to resolve that.

Salvini said voters were attracted by "the idea that Italy recovers, works, that every once in a while stays home on Sunday to enjoy its own children, have grandparents who don't die in assembly lines."

Salvini also cited his party's proposals to overturn pension reforms, introduce a flat tax and cut bureaucracy.

His group captured nearly 18 percent of the Italian national vote on Sunday, and the right-wing bloc of parties allied with the League won 37 percent overall.

___

12:20 p.m.

A German trade lobby group is urging Italy's next government to be "constructive" about the European Union's future course to ensure the two countries' economies continue to thrive.

The Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry says it is "of great importance for the German economy whether Italy can form a stable government and continue following the path of reform it has set out on."

In a statement Monday, the group's managing director Martin Wansleben noted Italy is Germany's sixth-biggest trading partner, with a 2017 bilateral trade volume of 121 billion euros ($149 billion). Germany is Italy's biggest export market.

Wansleben said both countries have traditionally shaped the European single market and "that must not change with the new government, despite all tendencies in Italy to criticize the EU."

___

12:10 p.m.

The head of Italy's anti-migrant, euroskeptic League party says the shared European euro currency is "wrong" and is ultimately destined to end.

In Italy's national election on Sunday, Matteo Salvini's right-wing League party did better than expected - getting nearly 18 percent of the vote - to take the reins of the center-right bloc, which captured about 37 percent of the total vote.

That is not enough to govern Italy alone, however, and Salvini says he will now begin talks with possible partners to secure a parliamentary majority.

In his first comments Monday, Salvini repeated his stance that the euro was bad for Italy. He says "it's a wrong currency and a wrong choice."

Salvini has acknowledged previously, however, that the Italian constitution bars holding a referendum on leaving the shared currency.

___

11:55 a.m.

Italy's stock market is down after populist and stridently anti-European Union political forces did well in Sunday's parliamentary election, though no single group got enough support to govern alone.

The FTSE MIB index in Milan was down 1.2 percent, on a day when global markets were trading higher.

Analysts say the strong showing by the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement and the right-wing League party means it's less likely the next Italian government will try to make the economy more pro-business. It is more likely to increase government spending, which could help growth but could also add to public debt, which is already above a worryingly high 130 percent of GDP.

Jane Foley, head of foreign exchange strategy at Rabobank International, said Monday "there are clear negative implications for the eurozone from the election result. At the very least, the political environment suggests that the progress of any structural reform in Italy will be difficult."

___

11:40 a.m.

Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy's anti-migrant euroskeptic League party, says the center-right bloc has won "the right and the duty to govern" Italy.

Salvini said Monday the result indicates a center-right bloc will lead the next government and that his party had would lead the center-right, after eclipsing center-right ally partner Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia in the vote.

The League jumped from 4 percent of the vote five years ago to nearly 18 percent in Sunday's vote, ahead of Forza Italia, which had nearly 14 percent.

Salvini also indicated he was not interested in what he called "strange coalitions," such as having the League join in a government with the populist 5-Star Movement.

___

9:25 a.m.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen is celebrating the strong showing of the anti-immigrant, euroskeptic League party in Italy's election.

Le Pen, the runnerup in last year's French presidential election and a loud critic of the European Union, tweeted Monday: "The spectacular advance and top showing of the League coalition led by our ally and friend Matteo Salvini is a new stage in the awakening of the people!" Le Pen didn't mention the strong showing of the League's rival, the 5-Star movement.

As the initial results came in, Le Pen also tweeted, "The European Union is having a bad evening...."

Le Pen's National Front party has lost steam and been in crisis since her crushing presidential defeat by pro-European centrist Emmanuel Macron.

Macron didn't immediately comment on the Italian result.

Alexis Corbiere of the far-left Defiant France party said Monday on BFM television, "There is a deep wish for change in Europe. If a progressive, civic-minded force doesn't take the lead, you will manufacture monsters."

___

8:20 a.m.

Preliminary results released by Italy's interior ministry show the center-right coalition winning about 37 percent of the parliamentary vote and the 5-Star Movement getting about 31 percent, with the center-left coalition far behind with 23 percent.

With no faction winning a clear majority, the results early Monday confirm that negotiations to form a government that can win a confidence vote in Parliament will likely be long and fraught.

The partial results show the right-wing, anti-immigrant and euroskeptic League party of Matteo Salvini surpassing the establishment Forza Italia party of ex-Premier Silvio Berlusconi. The League captured around 18 percent, while Forza Italia had less than 14 percent.

The results confirm the defeat of the two main political forces that have dominated Italian politics - Forza Italia and the center-left.

Right-wing, anti-immigrant and euroskeptic League's Matteo Salvini gives a press conference on the preliminary election results, in Milan, Monday, March 5, 2018. Leader of euroskeptic League party Salvini says the center-right coalition has won 'the right and duty to govern' Italy. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Scrutineers count votes in a polling station in Rome, Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the end of the general election day in Italy. The campaign was marked by the prime-time airing of neofascist rhetoric and anti-migrant violence that culminated in a shooting spree last month against six Africans. While the center-right coalition that capitalized on the anti-migrant sentiment led the polls, analysts predict the likeliest outcome is a hung parliament. (Giuseppe Lami/ANSA via AP)

The League Giancarlo Giorgetti arrives at the party headquarters in Milan to comment first electoral results, Monday night, March 5, 2018. More than 46 million Italians were voting Sunday in a general election that is being closely watched to determine if Italy would succumb to the populist, anti-establishment and far-right sentiment that has swept through much of Europe in recent years. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

The League's Giancarlo Giorgetti speaks during a press conference at the party's headquarters in Milan, Italy, Monday, March 5, 2018, at the end of the Italian general election day. Analysts say early projections from Italy's election indicate that a hung parliament is the most likely outcome and that the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement's strong showing may send a negative signal to financial markets.(AP Photo/Antonio Calanni)

M5S Paola Taverna speaks after polling stations closure at the electoral headquarters of Five-Star Movement (M5S) in Rome, in the early hours of Monday, March 5, 2018. More than 46 million Italians were voting Sunday in a general election that is being closely watched to determine if Italy would succumb to the populist, anti-establishment and far-right sentiment that has swept through much of Europe in recent years. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Microphones are set up at the the Democratic Party headquarters, in Rome, Sunday, March 4, 2018. Analysts say early projections from Italy's election indicate that a hung parliament is the most likely outcome and that the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement's strong showing may send a negative signal to financial markets. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Riccardo Fraccaro of Five-Star Movement (M5S) speaks from the party headquarters in Rome, in the early hours of Monday, March 5, 2018. More than 46 million Italians were voting Sunday in a general election that is being closely watched to determine if Italy would succumb to the populist, anti-establishment and far-right sentiment that has swept through much of Europe in recent years. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

In this frame taken from a video provided by the Five-Star Movement, movement 's Leader Luigi Di Maio, right, and member Alfonso Bonafede, center, celebrate with other movement's members as they look at the first results of the Italian general elections in Rome, Monday, March 5, 2018. Sunday's vote is one being watched to see if Italy will succumb to the populist, euroskeptic and far-right sentiment that has swept through Europe in recent years. (Five-Star Movement via AP)

In this frame taken from a video provided by the Five-Star Movement, movement 's Leader Luigi Di Maio, right, and other movement's members react as they look at the first results of the Italian general elections in Rome, Monday, March 5, 2018. Sunday's vote is one being watched to see if Italy will succumb to the populist, euroskeptic and far-right sentiment that has swept through Europe in recent years. (Five-Star Movement via AP)

Democratic Party lawmaker Maurizio Martina, left, and President Matteo Orfini talk to journalists in the party's headquarters, in Rome, Sunday, March 4, 2018. Analysts say early projections from Italy's election indicate that a hung parliament is the most likely outcome and that the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement's strong showing may send a negative signal to financial markets. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Democratic Party lawmaker Maurizio Martina talks to journalists in the party's headquarters, in Rome, Monday, March 5, 2018. Analysts say early projections from Italy's election indicate that a hung parliament is the most likely outcome and that the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement's strong showing may send a negative signal to financial markets. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Democratic Party lawmakers, from left, Maurizio Martina, Matteo Orfini and Lorenzo Guerini talk to journalists in the party's headquarters, in Rome, Sunday, March 4, 2018. More than 46 million Italians voted Sunday in a general election that is being closely watched to determine if Italy would succumb to the populist, anti-establishment and far-right sentiment that has swept through much of Europe in recent years. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Democratic Party lawmaker Maurizio Martina, left, and President Matteo Orfini talk to journalists in the party's headquarters, in Rome, Sunday, March 4, 2018. Analysts say early projections from Italy's election indicate that a hung parliament is the most likely outcome and that the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement's strong showing may send a negative signal to financial markets. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Scrutineers count votes in a polling station in Rome, Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the end of Italy's election day. The campaign was marked by the prime-time airing of neofascist rhetoric and anti-migrant violence that culminated in a shooting spree last month against six Africans. While the center-right coalition that capitalized on the anti-migrant sentiment led the polls, analysts predict the likeliest outcome is a hung parliament. (Giuseppe Lami/ANSA via AP)

Scrutineers start counting votes in the Italian general elections in Rome, Sunday, March 4, 2018. More than 46 million Italians were voting Sunday in a general election that is being closely watched to determine if Italy would succumb to the populist, anti-establishment and far-right sentiment that has swept through much of Europe in recent years. (Giuseppe Lami/ANSA via AP)

Democratic Party leader Matteo Renzi speaks during a press conference on the election results, in Rome, Monday, March 5, 2018. With the anti-establishment 5-Stars the highest vote-getter of any single party, the results confirmed the defeat of the two main political forces that have dominated Italian politics for decades - Forza Italia and the center-left Democrats - and the surging of populist and right-wing, euroskeptic forces that have burst onto the European scene. (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)

Democratic Party leader Matteo Renzi leaves at the end of a press conference on the election results, in Rome, Monday, March 5, 2018. With the anti-establishment 5-Stars the highest vote-getter of any single party, the results confirmed the defeat of the two main political forces that have dominated Italian politics for decades - Forza Italia and the center-left Democrats - and the surging of populist and right-wing, euroskeptic forces that have burst onto the European scene. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)"Look around, ladies and gentlemen," Frances McDormand said during her best actress acceptance speech. "We all have stories to tell." She was referring to the female Oscar nominees in the Dolby Theatre, all of whom she'd asked to stand in unison. But it felt like she was also addressing the evening's broader vibe: Change, of many kinds, at the first post-Harvey Weinstein Academy Awards.

There were, of course, plenty of #MeToo moments in Sunday night's ceremony, including an emotional appearance by three of Weinstein's most prominent Hollywood accusers. But there were storylines, too, about different kinds of diversity: racial, geographic, generational.

"This is a door. Kick it open and come in," said Mexican director Guillermo del Toro in the evening's final speech, accepting the best picture award for his warm-hearted fantasy "The Shape of Water." His remarks, too, could be seen in a broader context: Hollywood is ready for something new. At least, that's what this Oscar evening felt like. Here are a few notable moments, both serious and lighthearted:

Frances McDormand accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

___

KIMMEL GETS RIGHT TO IT

There had been some question as to whether Jimmy Kimmel would address the elephant in the room, and how soon. Well, he got right to it in his opening monologue, evoking the now-disgraced name of Weinstein, only months ago one of the Oscars' biggest players, now banished from the academy. Kimmel also turned serious, addressing not only sexual misconduct but the gender pay gap. And he told the assembled Hollywood elite: "The world is watching us. We need to set a good example."

___

NO MORE DRESS CODE

At the Golden Globes, women wore black. At the Grammys, they carried white flowers. By the time Sunday's Oscars rolled around, the dress code was finished, and talk was of moving ahead to a new phase of #MeToo and Time's Up. "We did the dress code thing," Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement, told The Associated Press, "and now we're doing the work. The plan is to continue to do this work to give people resources." She said that millions of people had used the famous hashtag, and they all had stories and needs that must be addressed.

___

SOMEONE REALLY GOT THE SKI

In a humorous bit that began early and wore well, Kimmel promised a jet ski to the winner with the most concise speech. He even had Helen Mirren pose with the ski, a la "Let's Make A Deal." Then he let the winners riff on it all night. "Obviously I'm not going to win the ski," quipped best-actor winner Gary Oldman ("Darkest Hour") as he dug deeper into his list of thank-yous. The winner: "Phantom Thread" costume designer Mark Bridges, who rode onstage triumphantly in the vehicle at the end of the show - accompanied by Mirren, of course.

___

HERE'S TO THE ONES THAT DREAM

Although President Donald Trump was barely mentioned during the evening, his policies were referred to in various ways. Presenting an award, Pakistani-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani and Kenyan-born Lupita Nyong'o saluted the so-called Dreamers - immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children and here without permanent protection from deportation. "Like everyone in this room and everyone watching at home, we are dreamers," Nyong'o said. "We grew up dreaming of one day working in the movies. Dreams are the foundation of Hollywood and dreams are the foundation of America." Nanjiani added: "And, so, to all the Dreamers out there, we stand with you."

___

WEINSTEIN ACCUSERS HAVE THEIR MOMENT

It was the most emotional #MeToo moment of the evening: Three actresses who were instrumental in the breaking and unfolding of the Weinstein story, emerging to push for diversity of all kinds in filmmaking.

Ashley Judd, whose accusations appeared in the first New York Times article breaking the story last October, spoke of "the powerful sound of new voices, of different voices, of OUR voices, joining together in a mighty chorus that is finally saying, 'Time's Up!'" Annabella Sciorra, who told The New Yorker magazine in a searing interview that Weinstein had raped her, noted that "the journey ahead is long. But slowly a new path has emerged." And Hayek, who wrote a first-person piece calling Weinstein "my monster too," saluted "those unstoppable spirits who kicked ass and broke through the ... biased perceptions against their gender, race and ethnicity to tell their stories."

___

MIXED RESULTS FOR WOMEN

Though women were a prime focus of the evening, a few potential milestones were missed. Greta Gerwig, the "Lady Bird" director seeking to become only the second woman to win the category, was passed over for del Toro - as expected. And Rachel Morrison ("Mudbound"), the first woman nominated in cinematography, lost to Roger Deakins ("Blade Runner 2049"), winning on his 14th try. The official winner's list showed only six female winners in 24 categories, compared to 33 men.

___

PEELE MAKES HISTORY

If you ever wanted inspiration to keep plugging away at something, listen to Jordan Peele, who made history as the first African-American to win best original screenplay, for his groundbreaking horror film, "Get Out." (It was also his big-screen directorial debut.) Peele told the crowd: "I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible. I thought it wasn't going to work." But he kept trying, he said, "because I knew if someone let me make this movie, that people would hear it and people would see it."

____

THANKS MOM - AGAIN

Every Oscar ceremony has its poignant shoutouts to Mom. This year, Oldman saluted his almost "99-years-young" mother back at home with the words: "Put the kettle on, I'm bringing Oscar home." And Gerwig, who created such an evocative mother-daughter relationship in "Lady Bird," surely endeared herself even more to the world's mothers when, asked what she would say to her 17-year-old self, she said: "Be nicer to you mother."

___

MERYL IN THE MIDDLE

Meryl Streep always seems to be in the middle of the discussion at the Oscars, onstage or not. The actress, nominated yet again for "The Post," didn't win, but people referred to her constantly. Kimmel quipped that she didn't get nominated for a stretch in the '90s, but "that's only because she was in prison." Tiffany Haddish curtsied to Streep on the carpet, then gushed about her onstage. And Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence did a comedy routine about the venerated actress. Foster explained that she was on crutches because Streep "I, Tonya'd me." Lawrence commiserated that Streep had tripped her once.

___

McDORMAND HAS SOMETHING TO SAY

She said she had something to say, and she did: McDormand enthusiastically exhorted all the women nominees in the room (especially Streep!) to stand up with her, "the actors, the filmmakers, the producers, the director, the writers, the cinematographer, the composers, the songwriters, the designers...." After urging Hollywood to tell their stories, she ended with a two-word message to fellow women in Hollywood: "Inclusion Rider" - referring to a star's ability to demand in their contract a level of diversity in the staffing of a film, both in front of and behind the camera.

___

I'D LIKE TO THANK MYSELF

Some Oscar winners can't help it: They thank everyone in the phone book. Allison Janney took a different tack. The supporting actress winner ("I, Tonya") took the stage and declared: "I did it all by myself." After a sweet smile, she explained that "nothing is farther from the truth" - and gave her thank-yous.

___

Associated Press writer Nicole Evatt contributed to this report.

Jimmy Kimmel speaks at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Kaia Burke, left, and Tarana Burke arrive at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Ashley Judd, from left, Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek speak at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Jordan Peele, winner of the award for best original screenplay for "Get Out," arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Sunday, March 4, 2018, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Meryl Streep arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Eric Jamison/Invision/AP)

Sam Rockwell, from left, winner of the award for best performance by an actor in a supporting role for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri", Frances McDormand, winner of the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri", Allison Janney, winner of the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya", and Gary Oldman, winner of the award for best performance by an actor in a leading role for "Darkest Hour", pose in the press room at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Lin-Manuel Miranda, from left, Lupita Nyong'o lead other celebrities out of the Dolby Theatre at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, in Los Angeles. The group visited a movie theater across the street to surprise movie-goers. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Helen Mirren, left, accompanies Mark Bridges, winner for the award for best costume design for "Phantom Thread," as he wins a jet ski for having the shortest acceptance speech at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)GENEVA (AP) - Global automakers are rolling out more electric vehicles at the Geneva International Motor Show as they try to challenge Tesla and get ahead of a disruptive shift in transportation toward lower-emission and autonomous vehicles.

For the European carmakers, the mood at the event could be unsettled by U.S. President Donald Trump's threat this weekend to slap tariffs on the region's manufacturers in a potential trade war.

And the three big German manufacturers - Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW - will grasp the opportunity to highlight their high-tech creations amid their continued trouble with diesel technology, such as legal attempts to ban diesel in German cities and the scandal over exposing monkeys to exhaust in lab tests.

The undated image provided via the Jaguar Newsroom shows the Jaguar I-PACE electric vehicle which premiered on March 1, 2018. Global automakers are rolling out more production-ready electric vehicles at the Geneva International Motor Show as they try to challenge Tesla and get ahead of looming disruptive shifts in transportation toward lower-emission and autonomous vehicles. The carmakers will show off their wares during press days Monday evening through Wednesday; the show opens to the public on Thursday and runs through March 18. (Jaguar via AP)

The show opens to the public Thursday and runs through March 18.FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - A former president of Bolivia and his defense minister are going on trial in a U.S. court over a lawsuit in which eight Bolivians claim their family members were killed in government slayings that left dozens of people dead in 2003.

Jury selection begins Monday in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in the case against former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, and his former defense minister, Jose Carlos Sanchez Berzain, both of whom live in the U.S.

In the lawsuit, the families of eight Bolivians who were killed claim the two officials planned to kill thousands of civilians to crush political opposition. The lawsuit was filed under the Torture Victim Protection Act, which authorizes suits in the U.S. for extrajudicial killings.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.BLOOMFIELD, N.J. (AP) - A man who allegedly tied up a New Jersey woman and two girls and robbed them during a Christmas night home invasion has been convicted on numerous charges, including aggravated assault and weapons offenses.

Essex County prosecutors say Roberson Burney faces a life term when he's sentenced April 6 due to his extensive criminal record. They also say he was on federal parole for a carjacking when the home invasion occurred in 2015.

The 60-year-old Newark man had worked for a contractor that did work at the Bloomfield home in the fall of 2015. Prosecutors say he returned there Christmas night with what appeared to be a shotgun and stole electronic equipment, credit cards and jewelry.

A jury convicted Burney on robbery, burglary, aggravated assault, criminal restraint and weapons counts.Soon after Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the church door at Wittenberg (if he even did), Protestants began to be blamed for unleashing many of the destructive influences of Western Civilization.

As a Baptist, I think the criticisms are overstated (and that the good of the Reformation far outweighs the bad) but they arent wholly without merit. There is more than a grain of truth that an unintended effect of the Protestant Reformation was to increase the rapid expansion of secularization.

For example, a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic research finds that the Reformation lead to the reallocation of resources from religious uses to secular ones. From the abstract:

Using novel microdata, we document an unintended, first-order consequence of the Protestant Reformation: a massive reallocation of resources from religious to secular purposes. To understand this process, we propose a conceptual framework in which the introduction of religious competition shifts political markets where religious authorities provide legitimacy to rulers in exchange for control over resources. Consistent with our framework, religious competition changed the balance of power between secular and religious elites: secular authorities acquired enormous amounts of wealth from monasteries closed during the Reformation, particularly in Protestant regions. This transfer of resources had important consequences. First, it shifted the allocation of upper-tail human capital. Graduates of Protestant universities increasingly took secular, especially administrative, occupations. Protestant university students increasingly studied secular subjects, especially degrees that prepared students for public sector jobs, rather than church sector-specific theology. Second, it affected the sectoral composition of fixed investment. Particularly in Protestant regions, new construction from religious toward secular purposes, especially the building of palaces and administrative buildings, which reflected the increased wealth and power of secular lords. Reallocation was not driven by pre-existing economic or cultural differences. Our findings indicate that the Reformation played an important causal role in the secularization of the West.

Read more . . .PARIS (AP) - The Venezuelan extremist known as Carlos the Jackal went back on trial Monday for a deadly 1974 grenade attack on a Paris shopping arcade.

A Paris court convicted Carlos, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, last year and handed him a life sentence.

He appealed - even though he's already serving two life sentences for murders and attacks he was convicted of perpetrating or organizing in the 1970s and 1980s on behalf of the Palestinian cause, or of communist revolution.

FILE - In this Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2000 file photo, Venezuelan international terrorist Carlos the Jackal whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez is seated in a Paris courtroom. The Venezuelan extremist known as "Carlos the Jackal" is back on trial for a deadly 1974 attack on a Paris shopping arcade. (AP Photo/Michel Lipchitz, File)

One of his lawyers, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, said Carlos hadn't been able to see the case dossier for the appeals trial, and might ask for a delay in Monday's opening proceedings.

Carlos, now 68, has long denied involvement in the attack on the Drugstore Publicis shopping center in the French capital's Latin Quarter, which killed two people and injured 34.

The case was initially dismissed for lack of evidence. Carlos, the only defendant in the original trial, was found guilty of throwing the grenade.

Lawyer Francis Vuillemin said the defense team will plead for acquittal.

"It's a very tough fight but the hardest battles are sometimes the most beautiful," he said. "Ilich Ramirez Sanchez is still his old self, in great shape, despite being 68 years old. He is going to fight like he always does, at each trial."

Ramirez Sanchez was once the world's most-wanted fugitive, before intelligence agents captured him in Sudan in 1994 and smuggled him to France in a sack.

In one of his most dramatic operations, he led a commando that attacked a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna, Austria, in late 1975. He took more than 60 hostages, including 11 OPEC ministers, and three people were killed.

Carlos the Jackal's lawyer Isabelle Coutant-Peyre arrives at the Paris court, France, Monday, March 5, 2018. The Venezuelan extremist known as "Carlos the Jackal" is back on trial for a deadly 1974 attack on a Paris shopping arcade. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

FILE - This Monday, March 13, 2017 file picture shows files, bearing the name of Ramirez Sanchez known as Carlos, displayed ahead of his trial at the Paris court, France. The Venezuelan extremist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez known as "Carlos the Jackal" is back on trial for a deadly 1974 attack on a Paris shopping arcade. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)BERLIN (AP) - Germany says a hike in U.S. import duties for European-made products would hurt both sides.

U.S. President Donald Trump has backed tariffs on foreign-made aluminum and steel and warned European cars might be taxed more, too.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert says such measures "would sorely affect international trade flows," European industries and in particular "workers and consumers on both sides of the Atlantic."

Seibert told reporters Monday that in Berlin's view comparing individual tariffs was misleading because each side sets import duties across a range of sectors.

He said Germany would consult with European partners about what steps to take next. But he added: "It's clear we don't want things to get worse, and we certainly don't want anything like a trade war. That can't be in anyone's interest."RANKIN, Pa. (AP) - Finding fresh food in this tiny riverside community that was hit hard by the steel industry's decline has always been a challenge. Then, seven years ago, Carl's Cafe opened.

The grocery store, near new government housing, offers cooking classes and a source of fresh, healthy food. Proprietor Carl Lewis even has customers sign a pledge: If he provides fresh produce, they'll buy it. Five such purchases, and they get their sixth free.

About half his customers pay with benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, so the government's proposal to replace the debit card-type program with a pre-assembled box of shelf-stable goods delivered to recipients worries him and other grocery operators in poor areas about their patrons' nutrition, and their own bottom line.

In this Feb. 26, 2018 photo, Carl Lewis talks in his market in Rankin, Pa. About half of Lewis' customers pay with benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, so the government's proposal to replace the debit card-type program with a pre-assembled box of shelf-stable goods delivered to recipients worries him and other grocery operators in poor areas. "If half your business goes away, it's going to hurt," Lewis said. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

"If half of your business goes away, it's going to hurt," Lewis said, noting that if SNAP spending benefits are taken away, so will recipients' ability to participate in programs at his store.

"I see kids educating parents on fresh food choices," he said. "To see them reach for an apple before they reach for a Snickers bar, it's fantastic. But if people are too worried about where their next meal is coming from, it's going to be hard to teach them how to cook an eggplant."

The idea called "America's Harvest Box" was floated in February in the Trump administration's 2019 budget proposal, tucked inside a plan to slash SNAP by roughly $213 billion, or 30 percent, over the next 10 years. Households that receive more than $90 in SNAP benefits each month - roughly 81 percent of households in the program, or about 16.4 million - would be affected.

The plan immediately raised concerns, and details were sparse.

Grocery store trade associations, as well as nonprofits like The Food Trust, argue that removing food stamp recipients' ability to buy their own provisions could undermine recent successes in eliminating "food deserts."

"This notion that they need to be told what to buy is not borne out the by the data," said Alex Baloga, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Food Merchants Association. "We want to provide healthy, affordable products to everybody, and we want to give customers a choice to take these dollars and make the best decision for their families."

Cache Flanagan, a shopper at Carl's Cafe who has two children ages 6 years and 10 months, wondered: "What will be in it? What about food allergies? Do we get options to pick from? Whatever they decide to put in that Harvest Box isn't going to be fresh."

Shaker Ehmedi, who manages a Cousin's Supermarket location in Philadelphia, observed: "We have a hard time delivering mail in this country. How would we ever deliver these boxes?"

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Feb. 22 acknowledged the idea took congressional members by surprise but said his staff consulted with experts.

Brandon Lipps, administrator for the Agriculture Department's food and nutrition service, told The Associated Press in an interview last week that he wants retailers to play a role, and stressed that SNAP recipients would still receive 60 percent of their benefits in cash to spend at grocery stores.

Small stores in rural communities could also benefit, Lipps said, arguing that recipients who typically travel long distances to large supermarkets for groceries would get shelf-stable goods in their box and be able to shop at their local grocer for produce.

"The market is changing in how people get their food," Lipps said. "I think we in the government have a duty to be changing with that market."

The Harvest Box model would have the federal Agriculture Department procuring foods, Lipps acknowledged, but it would also rely heavily on states.

"We left the distribution to states, and there are a lot of models in that," Lipps said. "That could include distribution through a grocery store, or a grocery store participating in distribution."

A few miles down the Monongahela River from Rankin, Dylamatos Market in Pittsburgh is its neighborhood's only source of fresh food, where about a quarter of the customers pay with SNAP, owner Dianne Shenk said. The program's biggest benefit is choice, she said.

"These boxes will be full of shelf-stable items, the same things we're being told not to eat," she said.

Some grocers worried about their revenues simply fear communities could lose an institution.

"A lot of people appreciate the in-store experience down here," said Todd Vowell, president of a company that operates supermarkets in Alabama and Mississippi bearing his family's name. "It's still a community gathering place where customers make friends and see old friends, and they would miss out on that if they aren't coming to a grocery store."

___

De Groot reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writer Juliet Linderman in Washington contributed to this report.

ADDS THAT HAZELWOOD IS A NEIGHBORHOOD OF PITTSBURGH - In this Feb. 26, 2018 photo Dianne Shenk, left, helps a customer Terry Warby in Dylamatos Market in the Hazelwood neighborhood of Pittsburgh. About a quarter of Shenk's customers pay with benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, so the government's proposal to replace the debit card-type program with a pre-assembled box of shelf-stable goods delivered to recipients concerns her and other grocery operators in poor areas. "These boxes will be full of shelf-stable items, the same things we're being told not to eat," she said. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

ADDS THAT HAZELWOOD IS A NEIGHBORHOOD OF PITTSBURGH - In this Feb. 26, 2018 photo, Dianne Shenk talks to a customer in her Dylamatos Market in the Hazelwood neighborhood of Pittsburgh. About a quarter of Shenk's customers pay with benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, so the government's proposal to replace the debit card-type program with a pre-assembled box of shelf-stable goods delivered to recipients concerns her and other grocery operators in poor areas. "These boxes will be full of shelf-stable items, the same things we're being told not to eat," she said. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

ADDS THAT HAZELWOOD IS A NEIGHBORHOOD OF PITTSBURGH - In this March 1, 2018 photo, a customer leaves Dylamatos Market owned by Dianne Shenk in the Hazelwood neighborhood of Pittsburgh. About a quarter of Shenk's customers pay with benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, so the government's proposal to replace the debit card-type program with a pre-assembled box of shelf-stable goods delivered to recipients worries her and other grocery operators in poor areas. "These boxes will be full of shelf-stable items, the same things we're being told not to eat," she said. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - For Florida's Republican governor, the path to victory in two close statewide elections over the past eight years was simple: "Jobs, jobs, jobs."

That may have all changed more than two weeks ago when 17 people were shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Suddenly Rick Scott, who is expected to mount a campaign to oust incumbent Democrat U.S. Bill Nelson, is embroiled in a fierce debate over gun control that has seen the governor split with President Donald Trump and some members of his own party over what should be done to prevent another mass shooting.

FILE- In this Feb. 21, 2018 file photo, Sen. Bill Nelson speaks during a CNN town hall meeting in Sunrise, Fla. The mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has put guns at the forefront, for now, in the U.S. Senate campaign in Florida. Republican Gov. Rick Scott, is expected to mount a campaign to oust incumbent Democrat U.S. Bill Nelson from his Senate seat. CNN host Jake Tapper, left, and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) are seen in the background. (Michael Laughlin/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)

The escalated sniping between Nelson and Scott may presage a heated campaign in a swing state that twice supported President Barack Obama but then backed Trump.

Nelson mocked Scott, saying he lacked "guts" for skipping an emotionally charged town hall forum attended by survivors and family members of those killed at the Parkland school. He also criticized Scott because the state had offered financial incentives to gun manufacturers.

Scott snapped back at Nelson, saying he had failed to pass any substantial gun measures during his three terms in office.

"Bill Nelson is a career politician; he talks a lot and does nothing," Scott said last week. "He's never done anything on gun safety, or school safety and he's done nothing on gun control."

Scott made those remarks the same day he came out with a $500 million proposal to bolster school-safety programs, primarily through the use of school resource officers who work for local law-enforcement agencies. The governor, who in the past has gotten top marks from the National Rifle Association for supporting a long line of gun-rights measures, also called for raising the minimum age to purchase any type of gun.

Nelson has lambasted Scott's proposal, saying it doesn't include "commonsense" changes such as universal background checks or a ban of the types of assault rifles used in the Parkland shooting.

"He's afraid of the NRA," Nelson said. "The commonsense solution is universal background checks. He won't touch that. The commonsense solution is to get the assault rifles off the streets. He won't touch that."

Right now polls suggest voters in Florida are on Nelson's side. A poll by Quinnipiac University, which was done more than a week after the shootings in Parkland, said 62 percent support a nationwide ban on "assault weapons" and 96 percent support background checks on all gun buyers. Voters were nearly evenly split on Scott's handling of the issue of gun violence. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

The question is whether that will change by November.

"Getting guns out of the hands of people who should not have them in the first place is always going to be an issue in any election," said Republican Party of Florida chairman and state legislator Blaise Ingoglia. "What I can say is that I do not know how the electorate is going to respond to that nine months from now."

Nelson said that in the past he would have predicted that public interest would subside by election day, but this time, he predicts the "determination" of students agitating for change is "going to spill over."

In each of his two elections for governor, Scott, a businessman before he became governor, spent millions of his own money and still barely edged out Democratic candidates. Trump has urged him to challenge Nelson, but so far, he hasn't said whether he'll run.

In 2010, he ran as part of the tea party movement, espousing a hard line on immigration in the GOP primary while touting his plans to turn around the state's economy. Four years later Scott won again, but ahead of his re-election he supported measures opposed by some conservatives, including extending in-state tuition rates to the children of immigrants living illegally in the country. And he expressed last-minute support for expanding Medicaid under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul - something he previously had opposed.

Before the shootings at Parkland, Scott had not been in favor of any gun-purchase restrictions. Democrats contend his change of heart has been spurred by the election. His supporters say not so fast.

"Not every decision is determined by whether you are running for office; the guy does have principles," said Brian Ballard, a lobbyist who has been an ally of both Scott and Trump.

Ahead of any election, Scott has a more immediate problem: Persuading the GOP-controlled Legislature to back his proposals with just days left in the annual session.

Despite Scott's opposition, House and Senate Republicans are backing a "marshal" plan that calls for trained teachers to be armed. Some Democrats are threatening to vote against the bills because of the proposal. That could doom its passage, because some Republicans are opposed to a few of the measures' proposed gun restrictions, such as raising the minimum purchasing age.

Scott won't say whether he'll veto the bill if it includes the plan.

"They know my position," he said. "I don't believe we should be arming teachers."BRATISLAVA, Slovakia (AP) - The Latest on the killing of a Slovak investigative journalist (all times local):

5.30 p.m.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has accused the country's president of destabilizing the situation in Slovakia in the wake of the slayings of an investigative journalist and his fiancee.

Relatives and friends attend the funeral of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak in Stiavnik, Slovakia on Saturday, March 3, 2018. Kuciak an investigative journalist shot dead in Slovakia last week was working on a story about the activities of Italian mafia in his country and their links to people close to Prime Minister Robert Fico. (AP Photo/Bundas Engler)

In a televised statement, Fico said "there's no doubt" that President Andrej Kiska had over-stepped the mark when calling for changes to the government and for early elections to resolve the "serious political crisis" in the country following the shooting of 27-year-old Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova. Their bodies were found Feb. 25.

In his last unfinished story, Kuciak reported on the influence of the Italian mafia in Slovakia and its possible ties to people close to Fico.

Fico also suggested that Hungarian-American billionaire and philanthropist George Soros might be somehow involved in the destabilization that he accuses the president of pursuing.

Kiska beat Fico to the presidency in 2014.

___

2:10 p.m.

Slovak protesters are planning to take to the streets again to demand a thorough investigation into the slayings of an investigative journalist and his fiancee as well as changes in government.

More than a week after the bodies of 27-year-old Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova were found in their house, President Andrej Kiska says Slovakia faces a "serious political crisis" due to a drop in public trust in the state.

In his last unfinished story, Kuciak reported on the influence of the Italian mafia in Slovakia and its ties to people close to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.

After tens of thousands of protesters marched on Friday to honor Kuciak, more demonstrations - this time directly aimed at the government - are planned this week, including a rally in Bratislava.

The cross over the grave before the funeral of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak in Stiavnik, Slovakia, on Saturday, March 3, 2018. Kuciak an investigative journalist shot dead in Slovakia last week was working on a story about the activities of Italian mafia in his country and their links to people close to Prime Minister Robert Fico. (AP Photo/Bundas Engler)OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - Berkshire Hathaway's real estate brokerage is expanding overseas with a new franchisee in Germany.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices said Monday it is adding Berlin-based Rubina Real Estate to its network.

Financial terms weren't disclosed.

The deal gives Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate another affiliate in Germany and helps raise the Omaha, Nebraska-based company's profile in Europe.

Buffett is searching for sizeable acquisitions to invest Berkshire's more than $116 billion cash into.

Gino Blefari is CEO of the real estate network. He says more international franchises are likely.

Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices is based in Irvine, California. It includes over 45,000 agents and 1,400 offices in America.

Rubina Real Estate focuses on helping international investors buy German property. It will become Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Rubina Real Estate next month.JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - The University of Mississippi is acknowledging its historical connections to slave labor, slave owners and officials who set policies that stripped African-Americans of voting rights after the Civil War.

The university on Friday unveiled six plaques on its main campus in Oxford to provide information about the history of the school that was founded in 1848.

"These plaques are daily reminders of our obligation to learn from the past and commit to an inclusive future," Ole Miss Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter said in a statement.

FILE- This March 12, 2017, file photo shows a statue of a Confederate soldier on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Miss. The University of Mississippi is acknowledging its historical connections to slave labor, slave owners and officials who set policies that stripped African-Americans of voting rights after the Civil War. In 2016, the school added a plaque to provide information about slavery and the Civil War to the Confederate soldier statue that has been on campus since 1906. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz, File)

One plaque says 10 of the university's original buildings were constructed with the labor of enslaved African-Americans. Three of the buildings, including the university's main administrative center, the Lyceum, are still in use. The plaque also says that "a large number of slaves" were used to cut through hills near campus in 1856 and 1857 to make way for a railroad line, and that the slave owners received railroad company stock.

"Slavery was a system underpinned by exploitation and violence, and slaves also suffered beatings and other abuses documented in University records," the plaque says. "The University of Mississippi today honors the legacy of these enslaved individuals and acknowledges the injustices under which they lived and labored."

George Hall, which now houses a speech and hearing center, was named in 1920 for James Zachariah George, who served in the U.S. Senate from Mississippi from 1890 until his death in 1897. A new plaque notes that George served as a delegate to Mississippi's Secession Convention before the Civil War and that as state Democratic Party executive committee chairman in 1875-76, he was responsible for "a program of voter intimidation, violent repression, and riot aimed at returning his state to white Democratic rule."

Mississippi's population is about 38 percent black, and black students made up about 13 percent of the Ole Miss enrollment in 2015, the most recent year for which detailed figures were immediately available.

Vitter's predecessor, Dan Jones, announced in 2014 that the university would provide historical context for Old South symbols as a way to acknowledge its complex history and to make a diverse student body feel more welcome. Race has been a constant theme at Ole Miss for many years. In 1962, the campus that was rocked by violence after court-ordered integration.

In 2016, the school added a plaque to provide information about slavery and the Civil War to a Confederate soldier statue that has been on campus since 1906.

Debate has been taking place in many parts of the U.S. about how to deal with the public display of symbols and monuments tied to slavery and the Confederacy. New Orleans is among the places that have removed Confederate monuments in the past year. Harvard University last year acknowledged its ties to colonial-era slavery, and Yale University rebranded a residential college that had been named for a 19th century U.S. vice president who supported slavery.

All eight of Mississippi's public universities have stopped flying the state flag because it includes the Confederate battle emblem - a red field topped by a blue tilted cross dotted by 13 white stars. Adopted in 1894 and reconfirmed by voters in 2001, it is the last state flag in the nation with the emblem that critics view as racist.

____

Follow Emily Wagster Pettus on Twitter: http://twitter.com/EWagsterPettus .UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The U.N.'s new envoy for climate action, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Monday that President Donald Trump can become "a great leader" if he changes his mind about global warming and keeps the United States in the Paris climate agreement.

The billionaire media mogul expressed hope that Trump will listen to his advisers, look at the data on climate change, and support the 2015 Paris accord aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Bloomberg spoke during a ceremony at which U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gave him the new title of U.N. special envoy for climate action, handing him the job of spurring international action to help curb global warming.

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, left, meets with Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, Monday, March 5, 2018, at U.N. headquarters. Bloomberg has been named Special Envoy for Climate Action. (Eskinder Debebe/U.N. via AP)

A longtime activist for clean energy and a green economy, Bloomberg was appointed U.N. special envoy on cities and climate change by then U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon in January 2014. Since then, he has been traveling around the United States and the world campaigning for a reduction in carbon emissions.

Guterres announced that Bloomberg will help support a U.N. Climate Summit that he is planning at U.N. headquarters in 2019 to mobilize more ambitious action and start implementing the Paris climate agreement now.

Countries agreed in the Paris accord to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and do their best to keep it below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with pre-industrial times. But the agreement starts after 2020 - and at U.N. climate talks in November over 170 countries stressed the importance of implementing ambitious climate actions before 2020.

Trump announced last June that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris agreement, fulfilling a campaign pledge to quit the world's chief effort to slow planetary warming.

He framed his decision as "a reassertion of America's sovereignty" and argued that the agreement had disadvantaged the U.S. "to the exclusive benefit of other countries," leaving American businesses and taxpayers to absorb the cost.

Under terms of the agreement, the U.S. cannot officially pull out until 2020.

Bloomberg has urged world leaders not to follow Trump, and has pledged to save the Paris agreement.

Last October, for example, his foundation donated $64 million to a Sierra Club program seeking to phase out coal-fired power plants and reduce planet-warming carbon emissions.

Bloomberg said Monday that his foundation is interested "in spending a lot of money in helping us understand that climate change is real and it's measurable."

As examples, he said that for the first time the North Pole in the middle of the winter had temperatures above melting, oceans over the last 20 or so years have risen, and there are more frequent and powerful storms. In addition, Bloomberg said, there are floods where there used to be droughts - and droughts where there used to be floods.

He said the solution is for people everywhere to get together and change the way they live, "and we have to be a little smarter about how we generate energy."

Guterres said last July that Bloomberg is convinced the United States will reach the Paris goals - despite Trump's decision to abandon the Paris agreement.

Bloomberg expressed hope that Trump will change his mind.

"And if that's the case, that shows a great leader who when facts change, and they recognize something different, they're not bound to what they did before, they're willing to change," Bloomberg said. "And I think it's fair to say this president does change his views - generally it's one day to the next, but over a longer period of time."

Guterres also stressed the evidence of global warming.

He said temperatures in the atmosphere and at sea level are rising faster than expected, glaciers are receding more quickly, and the Arctic ice cap is "shrinking much more quickly and dramatically than in the past - so climate change is running faster than we are."

But the U.N. chief said there are two pieces of "very good news," the secretary-general said: "Today, the cheapest energy is green energy" and the "green economy" is the economy of the future. And there is "enormous capacity" to mobilize civil society, the business community and cities.

Guterres pointed to the work Bloomberg has done in all those areas, saying: "I am very confident that this battle will be won, because the realities of today's economy are such that the wise decision is the green decision."BALTIMORE (AP) - In the nearly four months since Baltimore Detective Sean Suiter was shot in the head with his own gun the day before he was to testify for a grand jury investigating police corruption, his killing has become a baffling whodunit - a real-life version of the winding TV sagas that chronicle the city's cops, crooks and corruption.

The detective's death while investigating a 2016 triple murder in gritty West Baltimore has been the subject of numerous TV and radio broadcasts, detailed written accounts, an aggressive manhunt and a $215,000 reward, but nobody has been charged.

With investigators led by city police coming up empty-handed, authorities say a fresh perspective is necessary as the force grapples with the fallout of an explosive federal corruption probe into a rogue unit of Baltimore detectives.

FILE - In this Nov. 27, 2017, file photo, a makeshift memorial sits in an alley where Baltimore Police Detective Sean Suiter was shot while investigating a 2016 triple homicide in Baltimore. The unsolved slaying of a homicide detective haunts the Baltimore Police Department. More than three months have passed since an on-duty attack killed Suiter a day before he was set to testify before a grand jury investigating dirty cops. Investigators have come up empty-handed. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File)

Commissioner Darryl DeSousa, who was confirmed as the city's top police official Feb. 26, is bringing in an independent review board to examine the sensitive case in hopes outsiders can shed light on the Nov. 15 attack by an unidentified suspect.

"I just think we need a fresh set of eyes on it," DeSousa said in a phone interview. "I think everybody just wants answers, one way or another. It's a tragedy that this happened, and people just want some type of closure."

Authorities have said there's no evidence to suggest that Suiter's scheduled testimony in the federal investigation led to his killing.

But Frank Serpico, the country's most famous police whistle-blower - portrayed by Al Pacino in the 1973 movie named for him - sees parallels between what happened to him decades ago and what happened to the Baltimore law enforcer last year.

As a New York City plainclothes officer, Serpico was labeled a traitor for refusing payoffs and reporting corruption. In 1971, he was shot in the face during a drug raid; he and others say police colleagues purposely failed to back him up. In a phone call with The Associated Press, Serpico, now in his 80s, asserts that authorities in Baltimore have no interest in cracking the case.

"If a whole fleet of detectives can't find the murderer of one of their own, that in and of itself speaks volumes," Serpico said.

Allegations surfacing about Suiter's past have created new discrepancies and fresh suspicions, fueling the murder mystery.

During a recent federal racketeering trial for two detectives in a wildly corrupt Baltimore police unit called the Gun Trace Task Force, an indicted officer asserted that he started stealing money with Suiter and other sworn protectors about a decade ago. The ex-detective, Momodu Gondo, made the allegations during cross-examination months after he provided information to federal investigators.

The disgraced detective's testimony wasn't the first time since Suiter's killing that people have insinuated the 18-year police veteran was once involved in shady dealings.

Attorney Steven Silverman, who represents a man whose federal drug conviction was vacated in December after he spent years in prison based on corrupt police work, alleged that Suiter was among a group of officers dressed in black, wearing face masks and showing no visible badges during the lead-up to the April 2010 incident. He alleged Suiter rammed client Umar Burley's car from behind.

Suiter, 43, was apparently going to testify about this 2010 case, which involved Gun Trace Task Force leader Sgt. Wayne Jenkins, one of eight detectives nabbed in the federal investigation. Court records show that Suiter also worked a number of other cases with Gondo and ex-Detective Maurice Ward a decade ago, years before the pair made it on the rogue gun squad and pleaded guilty to corruption charges.

Stephen Schenning, the acting U.S. attorney for Maryland whose office successfully prosecuted eight Gun Trace Task Force members, said people had suggested Suiter was once complicit in misconduct but "we'll never know what he knew because he's not here to speak to the circumstances."

In the latest bizarre event, the brother of convicted Detective Daniel Hersl asserted that the truth behind Suiter's killing is known by various police insiders but being kept under wraps.

"Is there an unsolved murder of a police officer? They know what the hell happened ... My brother Danny Hersl knows what happened. .... And he's going to do some talking," Steve Hersl told reporters outside a federal courthouse after his brother's racketeering and robbery conviction.

From the start, there's been widespread skepticism about the police version of events: Suiter approached a suspicious man in a vacant lot between row houses, leading to a violent confrontation in which he was shot at close range with his own gun. Police say private surveillance video shows Suiter's partner taking cover across the street.

Conspiracy theories have flourished, but Suiter's grieving wife has stayed quiet since his death. Sherman Basil, an elderly uncle who helped raise him in Washington, says the family is fed up.

"They need to find out what happened to Sean," he said. "They need to find out."

___

David McFadden on Twitter: https://twitter.com/dmcfaddDETROIT (AP) - A couple has filed a federal lawsuit against a southern Michigan township for preventing the launch of their swingers club.

Kent and Angie Tyler's lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit last week alleges Summit Township officials have used legal barriers to stop their business from opening, the Detroit Free Press reported . The couple describes the proposed spot as a "private membership adult couples social club."

Township officials wrote a letter to the Tylers saying their business doesn't meet the community's definition of a club or lodge. The Board of Trustees is unanimously against the proposed business, said Trustee Bob DuBois.

"Our building inspector told us, 'You don't want this.' We found out it was going to be a place for males and females to meet each other, and they'd have rooms where I guess they'd make a night of it, and we don't want any part of that," said DuBois, 79, a retired school superintendent.

Sex wouldn't have been allowed at the club, said Fred Lucas, the couple's lawyer. The club would've been a place for adults to mingle, he said. The couple argued against being labeled a swingers club because plans called for members to be shuttled to and from area hotels, according to the Jackson Citizen Patriot .

But the Michigan Court of Appeals deemed the swingers club designation appropriate.

The Tylers spent about $100,000 to buy a vacant commercial building in 2014 and another $140,000 in improvements. The township then issued a stop-work order in March 2015 and withdrew permits that had previously been issued, Lucas said.

The Tylers decided to seek monetary damages in district court after losing at township hearings and in other courts.

The township has already spent about $80,000 in attorney's fees to block the club's opening, DuBois said.

___

Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.comIn a recent Acton lecture, Greg Forster highlights the work of Whittaker Chambers, the former Soviet spy who converted to Christianity and became one of the most influential public voices in the fight against Communism.

Chambers most famous and enduring work, Witness, is an astounding personal memoir and a literary treasure. It transcends genres, mixing the thrills of espionage and political intrigue with quiet spiritual reflections and jaw-dropping forays into moral philosophy, all in the service of a simple but profound goal: to bear witness to the truth about God and man in the context of a modern age.

We find ourselves facing a basic question, God or man? Forster says, reflecting on the book. Do we believe that the human mind is the highest thing there is? That the solution to our problems is the almighty mind of man, remaking the world to eliminate war, poverty, and injustice? Or do we believe there is a power higher than the human mind? That the destiny of man is not in the hands of man?

Watch the full lecture here:

I first encountered Witness just a year after graduating college and it completely transformed my perspective, connecting innumerable dots between history, economics, ethics, and theology. At the time, a friend had promised that if I would simply read Chambers 20-page foreword, A Letter to My Children, it would be enough to entice me for the remaining 800 pages. He was correct.

Thus, as a complement to Forsters lecture, I offer the following key quotes from that same foreword, in hopes of it having a similar effect.

On Witness as a book of hope:

Crime, violence, infamy are not tragedy. Tragedy occurs when a human soul awakes and seeks, in suffering and pain, to free itself from crime, violence, infamy, even at the cost of life. The struggle is the tragedynot defeat or death. That is why the spectacle of tragedy has always filled men, not with despair, but with a sense of hope and exaltation. That is why this terrible book is also a book of hope. For it is about the struggle of the human soulof more than one human soul.

On the rational faith of Communism:

Communists are that part of mankind which has recovered the power to live or dieto bear witnessfor its faith. And it is a simple, rational faith that inspires men to live or die for it. It is not new. It is, in fact, mans second oldest faith. Its promise was whispered in the first days of the Creation under the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: Ye shall be as gods. It is the great alternative faith of mankind. Like all great faiths, its force derives from a simple visionOther ages have had great visions. They have always been different versions of the same vision: the vision of God and mans relationship to God. The Communist vision is the vision of Man without God. It is the vision of mans mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of mans liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting mans destiny and reorganizing mans life and the world. It is the vision of man, once more the central figure of the Creation, not because God made man in His image, but because mans mind makes him the most intelligent of the animals. Copernicus and his successors displaced man as the central fact of the universe by proving that the earth was not the central star of the universe. Communism restores man to his sovereignty by the simple method of denying God.

On how design presupposes God:

My daughter was in her high chair. I was watching her eat. She was the most miraculous thing that had ever happened in my life. I liked to watch her even when she smeared porridge on her face or dropped it meditatively on the floor. My eye came to rest on the delicate convolutions of her earthose intricate perfect ears. The though passed through my mind: No, those ears were not created by any chance coming together of atoms in nature (the Communist view). They could have been created only by immense design. The thought was involuntary and unwanted. I crowded it out of my mind. But I never wholly forgot it or the occasionIf I had completed it, I should have had to say: Design presupposes God. I did not then know that, at at that moment, the finger of God was first laid upon my forehead.

On what Communism is not:

[Communism] is not simply a vicious plot hatched by wicked men in a sub-cellar. It is not just the writings of Marx and Lenin, dialectical materialism, the Politburo, the labor theory of value, the theory of the general strike, the Red Army, the secret police, labor camps, underground conspiracy, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the technique of the coup detat. It is not even those chanting, bannered millions that stream periodically, like disorganized armies, through the heart of the worlds capitals: These are expressions of Communism, but they are not what Communism is about The revolutionary heart of Communism is not the theatrical appeal: Workers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains. You have a world to gain. It is a simple statement of Karl Marx, further simplified for handy use: Philosophers have explained the world; it is necessary to change the world. The tie that binds them across the frontiers of nations, across barriers of language and differences of class and education, in defiance of religion, morality, truth, law, honor, the weaknesses of the body and the irresolutions of the mind, even unto death, is a simple conviction: It is necessary to change the world.

On the power of the logic of the soul:

There is one experience which most sincere ex-Communists share, whether or not they go only part way to the end of the question it poses. The daughter of a former German diplomat in Moscow was trying to explain to me why her father, who, as an enlightened modern man, had been extremely pro-Communist, had become an implacable anti-Communist. It was hard for her because, as an enlightened modern girl, she shared the Communist vision without being a Communist. But she loved her father and the irrationality of his defection embarrassed her. He was immensely pro-Soviet, she said, and then  you will laugh at me  but you must not laugh at my father  and then  one night  in Moscow  he heard screams. Thats all. Simply one night he heard screams. A child of Reason and the 20th century, she knew that there is a logic of the mind. She did not know that the soul has a logic that may be more compelling than the minds. She did not know at all that she had swept away the logic of the mind, the logic of history, the logic of politics, the myth of the 20th century, with five annihilating words: one night he heard screams.

On freedom:

One thing most ex-Communists could agree upon: they broke because they wanted to be free. Freedom is a need of the soul, and nothing else. It is in striving toward God that the soul strives continually after a condition of freedom. God alone is the inciter and guarantor of freedom. He is the only guarantor. External freedom is only an aspect of interior freedom. Political freedom, as the western world has known it, is only a political reading of the Bible. Religion and freedom are indivisible. Without freedom the soul dies. Without the soul, there is no justification for freedom. Necessity is the only ultimate justification known to the mind. Hence every sincere break with Communism is a religious experience, though the Communist fail to identify its true nature, though he fail to go to the end of the experience.A Communist breaks because he must choose at last between irreconcilable oppositesGod or Man, Soul or Mind, Freedom or Communism.

Image: Fred Palumbo, Public DomainSALISBURY, England (AP) - A former Russian spy was critically ill after exposure to an "unknown substance," British media reported in a case that immediately drew parallels to the poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.

National and local authorities said only that a man and a woman were found unconscious Sunday afternoon on a bench in a shopping mall in Salisbury, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) west of London.

British media identified him as Sergei Skripal, 66, who was convicted in Russia on charges of spying for Britain and sentenced in 2006 to 13 years in prison. Skripal was freed in 2010 as part of a U.S.-Russian spy swap.

FILE - In this Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2006 file photo, Sergei Skripal speaks to his lawyer from behind bars seen on a screen of a monitor outside a courtroom in Moscow. It has been reported on Monday, March 5, 2018 by the British media that Skripal is in critical condition after exposure to 'unknown substance' in English city of Salisbury. (AP Photo/Misha Japaridze, File)

Wiltshire Police, which is responsible for the Salisbury area, said the man and woman appeared to know one another and had no visible injuries. "They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance. Both are currently in a critical condition in intensive care," the police department said in a statement.

The discovery led to a dramatic decontamination effort. Crews in billowing yellow moon suits worked into the night spraying down the street, and the Salisbury hospital's emergency room was closed.

The BBC, which first identified Skripal as one of the victims, quoted eyewitness Freya Church as saying it looked like the woman and man had taken "something quite strong."

"On the bench there was a couple, an older guy and a younger girl. She was sort of leaned in on him. It looked like she had passed out, maybe," Church said.

"He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky," she said.

Public Health England said it had only limited information about the patients, but there "doesn't appear to be any further immediate risk to public health."

"PHE understands that those exposed to the substances have been decontaminated," the health agency said in a statement.

Public records list Skripal as having an address in Salisbury.

Skripal served with Russia's military intelligence, often known by its Russian-language acronym GRU, and retired in 1999. He then worked at the Foreign Ministry until 2003 and later became involved in business.

After his 2004 arrest in Moscow, he confessed to having been recruited by British intelligence in 1995 and said he provided information about GRU agents in Europe, receiving over $100,000 in return.

At the time of Skripal's trial, the Russian media quoted the FSB domestic security agency as saying that the damage from his activities could be compared to harm inflicted by Oleg Penkovsky, a GRU colonel who spied for the United States and Britain. Penkovsky was executed in 1963.

Skripal was pardoned and released from custody in July 2010 as part of a U.S.-Russian-spy swap, which followed the exposure of a ring of Russian sleeper agents in the United States.

The circumstances surrounding Sunday's incident were still murky and police urged the public not to speculate. But few could avoid invoking the name of Litvinenko - the former Russian agent who died after drinking polonium-210-laced tea in a swanky London hotel in 2006.

His illness was initially treated as unexplained; evidence eventually emerged indicating he had been deliberately poisoned with the radioactive material.

A British judge wrote in a 2016 report that Litvinenko's death was an assassination carried out by Russia's security services - with the likely approval of President Vladimir Putin. The Russian government has denied any responsibility.

Keir Giles, the director of the Conflict Studies Research Center in Cambridge, England, said he "would be surprised if this were not linked back to Russia in some direct way."

He said he could not rule out an overdose or some other kind of accidental poisoning - but found it hard to picture such a scenario "that would lead to a full-scale decontamination of the street and the hospital."

Giles also invoked a string of suspicious deaths of Russian government opponents in Britain since Litvinenko's slaying.

"It's not just Litvinenko," he said. "It's hard not to see a pattern of the attacks becoming more and more brazen."

Igor Sutyagin, who was part of the same spy swap as Skripal and now is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said there was not enough evidence to point fingers in any direction.

"There are lots of former security officers that deserted to the West," he said, urging caution until more is known. "It is necessary to balance this information."

___

Satter reported from London. Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Danica Kirka in London and Jo Kearney in Salisbury contributed to this report.

FILE - This is a Aug. 16, 2005 file photo of the main entrance of Salisbury District Hospital, in Salisbury, England. British media say a former Russian spy is in critical condition after coming into contact with an "unknown substance." Authorities did not identify the man, but the Press Association and other British media identified him Monday, March 5, 2018 as Sergei Skripal who was convicted in 2006 on charges of spying for Britain and sentenced to 13 years but was freed in 2010 in a U.S.-Russian spy swap. (Tim Ockenden/PA via AP, File)

Police cordon off the area near the Maltings in Salisbury, England, where British media reported Monday, March 5, 2018 that a former Russian spy was in critical condition after coming into contact with an "unknown substance" on Sunday. British media identified him as Sergei Skripal, 66, who was convicted in Russia on charges of spying for Britain and sentenced in 2006 to 13 years in prison. Skripal was freed in 2010 as part of a U.S.-Russian spy swap. (Steve Parsons/PA via AP)WASHINGTON (AP) - A former Trump campaign aide promised to defy a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller and unloaded on President Donald Trump and his campaign in a series of stunning interviews Monday.

Sam Nunberg said he thinks Mueller may already have incriminating evidence on Trump directly, although he would not say what that evidence might be. He also said the president probably knew about the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting between his top campaign staff and a team of Russians.

Shortly after he lobbed that allegation, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders rebuffed him during the White House press briefing.

"I definitely think he doesn't know that for sure because he's incorrect. As we've said many times before, there was no collusion with the Trump campaign," Sanders said. "He hasn't worked at the White House, so I certainly can't speak to him or the lack of knowledge that he clearly has."

Nunbert also said he thinks former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page worked with the Kremlin. "I believe that Carter Page was colluding with the Russians," Nunberg said on CNN. "That Carter Page is a weird dude."

Page called Nunberg's accusations "laughable" in a comment to The Associated Press.

Page also has figured in the Russia investigation. The Justice Department and FBI obtained a secret warrant in October 2016 to monitor his communications. His activities during the presidential campaign that raised concerns included a July 2016 trip to Moscow.

Nunberg did not respond to requests for comment from the AP. A spokesman for the special counsel's office declined comment.

During his afternoon tirades, Nunberg detailed his interview with Mueller's investigators, mocking them for asking questions like if he had heard Russian being spoken in Trump Tower. He then said he would reject a sweeping demand from Mueller for communications between him and top Trump advisers.

"I think it would be funny if they arrested me," Nunberg said on MSNBC.

He later added on CNN: "I'm not going to the grand jury. I'm not going to spend 30 hours going over my emails. I'm not doing it. Why do I have to do it? ... I'm not cooperating. Arrest me."

Nunberg is the first witness in the ongoing federal Russia investigation to openly promise to defy a subpoena. But he's not the first to challenge Mueller: Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort filed a lawsuit in January challenging Mueller's authority to indict him.

It's unclear how much Nunberg would know about the inner workings of the Trump campaign or the White House. He never worked at the White House and was jettisoned from the Trump campaign early on, in August 2015. Trump filed a $10 million lawsuit against Nunberg in July 2016, accusing him of violating a non-disclosure agreement, but they settled the suit one month later.

John Dean, a former White House counsel to Richard Nixon during Watergate, tweeted Monday that Nunberg can't flatly refuse to comply with a grand jury subpoena:

"This is not Mr. Nunberg's decision, and he will be in criminal contempt for refusing to show up. He can take the Fifth Amendment. But he can't tell the grand Jury to get lost. He's going to lose this fight."MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Wisconsin voters, especially those outside of the Milwaukee area, are skeptical the Foxconn Technology Group project is worth the $3 billion in state incentives promised to the Taiwanese company if it meets employment and investment targets, a poll released Monday shows.

That could be trouble for Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who has touted the potentially $10 billion project 30 miles south of Milwaukee as transformational for the state as he runs for re-election this year. Even so, the Marquette University Law School poll found Walker's approval rating to be holding steady from nine months ago, just before the Foxconn deal was announced.

The poll also found that the nine top-tier Democrats running against Walker haven't made much of an impression on voters five months before the Aug. 14 primary. A majority of respondents said they didn't have enough information yet about each of the nine to form an opinion, or they had no opinion.

State Superintendent Tony Evers was the best known, but still 66 percent hadn't heard enough to have an opinion. Former state Rep. Kelda Roys was the most unknown, with 92 percent saying they didn't have an opinion.

The same was true for the two Republicans running in the GOP primary for U.S. Senate against Democratic incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin. More than 80 percent didn't know enough to have an opinion of Delafield businessman Kevin Nicholson or state Sen. Leah Vukmir. Baldwin's approval rating was 37 percent, steady from nine months ago, while her disapproval was 39 percent.

Baldwin's numbers didn't move much even though $3.1 million has been spent against her in television ads by conservative groups so far. And Nicholson didn't seem to benefit much from more than $3.1 million that's been spent on ads meant to increase his name ID across the state.

In the governor's race, Walker's approval rating was 47 percent, the same as his disapproval. His approval rating is the same now as it was in March 2014, when he was heading into his first re-election.

With the election so far away, and a wide majority of voters saying they don't know enough about the candidates running against Walker and Baldwin, "it's premature to be concerned" about anything the numbers show, said pollster Charles Franklin.

However, Franklin emphasized the Foxconn findings, saying they show a continued divide between people in more rural parts of the state and those in the urban center around Milwaukee most likely to benefit from the project.

The poll found that statewide 49 percent of respondents think the $3 billion in state incentives is more than the project is worth, while 38 percent say Foxconn will be worth the cost.

While a majority of voters statewide said they thought the plant would substantially improve the economy of the greater Milwaukee area, only 25 percent statewide said they thought businesses where they live would directly benefit from the plant.

The poll surveyed 800 registered voters between Feb. 25 and Thursday and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

On other topics, the poll found:

- support for tighter gun control laws remained high after the shooting at Parkland High School in Florida that left 17 dead. Similar to past polls, 81 percent support background checks on private gun sales, including at gun shows, and 56 percent support a ban on assault-style weapons. However, 43 percent said they thought new gun control laws would have no effect on reducing mass shootings. Twelve percent said new laws would reduce mass shootings a great deal, while 22 percent said the reduction would be moderate.

- President Donald Trump's approval rating was 43 percent with 50 percent disapproving. That's little changed from June when it was 41-51. There's a sharp partisan divide, with 89 percent of Republicans approving of Trump's performance and 89 percent of Democrats disapproving.

- more than 75 percent of respondents were unable to rate Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates Rebecca Dallet, a Milwaukee County judge, and Michael Screnock, a Sauk County judge.

- 71 percent support a path for citizenship for immigrants living in the United States illegally and 86 percent said children of immigrants here illegally should be able to stay and apply for citizenship.

___

Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sbauerAPST. LOUIS (AP) - A Harvard Law School professor whose past clients include the family of the 18-year-old fatally shot in 2014 by a policeman in Ferguson, Missouri, has joined the prosecution team in the criminal case against Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Circuit Judge Rex Burlison on Monday approved Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner's motion to have Ronald S. Sullivan join the prosecution.

Greitens was indicted in February on felony invasion of privacy. He is accused of taking a compromising photo of a woman with whom he was having an affair without her permission in 2015, before he was elected.

Greitens has denied criminal wrongdoing.

Sullivan was the attorney for the family of Michael Brown, whose death set off months of protests in and around the St. Louis suburb.Longtime Republican Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, told The Associated Press on Monday that he will resign April 1 because of health problems.

Cochran, who turned 80 in December, stayed home for a month last fall with urinary tract infections, returning to Washington in October to give Republicans the majority they needed to pass a budget plan.

'I regret my health has become an ongoing challenge,' Cochran said in a statement. 'I intend to fulfill my responsibilities and commitments to the people of Mississippi and the Senate, through the completion of the 2018 appropriations cycle, after which I will formally retire from the U.S. Senate.'

Sen. Thad Cochran says he will resign April 1 because of health problems. The 80-year-old Republican stayed home for a month last fall with urinary tract infections, returning to Washington in October to give the GOP the majority they needed to pass a budget plan

He was first elected to the Senate in 1978 after serving six years in the House.

'It has been a great honor to serve the people of Mississippi and our country. I've done my best to make decisions in the best interests of our nation, and my beloved state,' Cochran said.

'My top concern has always been my constituents in Mississippi. My hope is by making this announcement now, a smooth transition can be ensured so their voice will continue to be heard in Washington, D.C. My efforts, and those of my staff, to assist them will continue and transfer to my successor,' he added.

Republican Gov. Phil Bryant will appoint a temporary replacement.

Then a special election will be held to fill the rest of the term, through January 2021.

Cochran won a bitter Republican primary runoff in 2014 over state Sen. Chris McDaniel, who had support from tea party groups.

That race grabbed national attention after a McDaniel supporter entered a nursing home without permission and photographed Cochran's wife, Rose, who was bedridden with dementia.

Images of her appeared briefly online.

McDaniel said he had no connection to the incident.

Rose Cochran died in December 2014.

McDaniel announced last week that he will run this year against Mississippi's other Republican senator, Roger Wicker.

But moments after making that announcement at a rally in his hometown of Ellisville, McDaniel said he could drop out of the Wicker race and run in the special election if Cochran resigns.JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - Alaska Gov. Bill Walker on Monday announced details of a spring trade mission to China that aims to build off existing relationships between the state and the Asian country.

The announcement comes amid mounting trade tensions between the U.S. and China. The trip, which Walker first mentioned in his State of the State speech in January, is set for May.

China has been a top export market for Alaska goods, and the state has been working to strengthen ties with the country as it pursues potential partnerships for a natural gas line project. Walker, an independent, played host to China's president in Anchorage last April.

FILE - In this April 7, 2017 file photo, Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Alaska Gov. Bill Walker greet each other at a meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. Walker announced Monday, March 5, 2018, a spring trade mission to China that aims to build off existing relationships between the state and the Asian country. (AP Photo/Michael Dinneen, File)

In November, Walker and Keith Meyer, president of the state-sponsored Alaska Gasline Development Corp., signed an agreement with leaders of China Investment Corp., the Bank of China and Sinopec, a major oil and gas company.

The agreement calls for the parties to explore the feasibility of investing in the gas project, which proposes to move gas from Alaska's North Slope to Asian markets, and pursue terms to advance the project, including the potential for Sinopec to be involved in engineering, construction and other aspects. The agreement does not obligate any party.

Meyer downplayed the trade tensions between the U.S. and China and the pushback against China by President Donald Trump.

"Really, the pushback is a message to buy more stuff from the United States. And, again, that's where I think Alaska has the stuff that China wants," Meyer told reporters from Anchorage Monday. "So I think the message is quite harmonious with our mission."

Walker's office said the governor, his international trade director and Alaska's commerce commissioner will travel with business representatives. The state plans a competitive application process for participants, who must pay their way.

Alaska Senate Majority Leader Peter Micciche, a Republican, said lawmakers need a lot more information about the gas project before deciding whether they can support it.LOS ANGELES (AP) - Middleweight boxer Canelo Alvarez has tested positive for a banned drug, and his promoters blame contaminated meat.

A voluntary test showed Alvarez had traces of clenbuterol. A statement from Golden Boy Promotions said the amount was consistent with meat contamination that has impacted athletes in Mexico and China.

Daniel Eichner, director of the World Anti-Doping Agency-accredited laboratory that conducted the test, wrote Monday: "These values are all within the range of what is expected from meat contamination."

Alvarez is scheduled for a rematch with middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin on May 5 in Las Vegas, a highly anticipated fight after their draw last year.

Alvarez will move his training camp from Mexico to the United States and submit to additional tests, Golden Boy said.ATLANTA (AP) - In a story March 5 story, The Associated Press reported erroneously that the California Democratic Party endorsed Sen. Dianne Feinstein's primary opponent. Feinstein's opponent received a majority of votes from party officials but needed 60 percent to win an endorsement.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Dems head into primaries with a bumper crop of candidates

Democrats across the country are enjoying a bumper crop of candidates

By BILL BARROW

Associated Press

ATLANTA (AP) - Two years ago, just one Texas Democrat volunteered to run against Republican Rep. John Culberson in a metro Houston congressional district. This year, not even that failed challenger's double-digit loss could scare seven Democrats away from jumping in the race.

As primary season opens on Tuesday with the Texas vote, Democrats across the country are enjoying a bumper crop of candidates. It's the latest sign of enthusiasm - like massive women's marches and victories in state races around the country - heading into midterm elections that look increasingly hopeful for the opposition party.

But the abundance of volunteers also comes with a reality check: The crowded primaries are giving the party's ideological divide a full public airing and could give party leaders less control over who carries the mantle in November.

Conversations with more than a dozen Democratic candidates, party officials and strategists found confidence that a glut of crowded primaries won't damage the party's overall prospects for a big November. Yet Democrats acknowledged the lively nomination fights could result in victories for candidates with little experience, scant scrutiny or political views that are out of step with general electorate.

That's largely because it's the party's left flank that has provided much of the enthusiasm since President Donald Trump's election capped nearly a decade of Democrats' losing more than 1,000 federal and state offices.

"Just any blue won't do," says Nina Tuner, a former Ohio legislator who leads Our Revolution, the spinoff of Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. Like Sanders, the group calls for a $15 minimum wage, free public university tuition and a national health insurance plan.

"People are not just voting for people because they are Democrats," Turner adds. "They want to vote for people who are fighting for their values."

In Washington, though, there's a hint of worry about what kinds of candidates can win in Republican-leaning areas Democrats may need to regain majorities on Capitol Hill and dent GOP advantages in some statehouses. Even in Democratic strongholds, where partisan control isn't at play, the battles will help determine the direction of the party.

The tensions will get their next test in Texas with primaries Tuesday.

The party has candidates in every Texas congressional district - 36 of them - for the first time in 24 years. There are 25 contested Democratic primaries, including in each of the five districts that appear on national Democrats' target list of 98 GOP-held seats. Democrats need to flip 24 seats to win control of the House.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised eyebrows in Culberson's district when it publicly released a memo calling one of its seven candidates, Laura Moser, a "Washington insider" who'd once declared she'd "rather have my teeth pulled out without anesthesia" than live in Paris, Texas.

Meredith Kelly, a party spokeswoman, explained the move saying the committee wants to "ensure that there's a competitive Democrat on the ballot" in November, the implication being that Culberson and Republicans would use the same material to make Moser unelectable.

Local members of Our Revolution, Sanders' political organization, endorsed Moser soon after the party memo surfaced.

For her part, Moser turned the flap into a television ad blasting Washington for meddling.

Meanwhile, in California, the state Democratic Committee ensured an internal fight when it snubbed Sen. Dianne Feinstein after 26 years in office and denied her an endorsement. Party officials favored state Senate leader Kevin de Leon 54 percent to 37, though 60 percent was needed for the party's official blessing.

Feinstein still leads in the polls and may not be seriously threatened in California's so-called jungle primary system, which places all candidates, regardless of party, on the same first ballot, with the top two vote-getters advancing to a second round of voting. But the environment within the party still forces Feinstein to withstand a challenge from the left.

The same system that may help Feinstein, however, means a free-for-all among Democrats running for California congressional seats. The party is seriously targeting about a half-dozen Republican-held seats, with multiple Democrats running for each. Five signed up for retiring Republican Rep. Darrell Issa's seat in San Diego County. Seven are taking on Rep. Mimi Walters in Orange County, while eight want to unseat Republican Dana Rohrbacher in a nearby district.

The same party committee that endorsed Feinstein's Democratic challenger opted mostly to stay out of the crowded House races.

Tom Perriello, who ran for Virginia governor in 2017 with backing from party liberals, says intense primaries, crowded or otherwise, don't have to spell doom the winner. "I think people try to impose the 2016 Bernie-Hillary divide" on every matchup, he said, referring to the presidential nominating fight between Hillary Clinton and Sanders.

It's rarely that simple. Perriello lost the Democratic nomination to Ralph Northam, viewed as the more moderate choice.

"We agreed on 90 percent of things," Perriello says, remembering "a respectful primary based on ideas." Afterward, Perriello campaigned for Northam and Virginia legislative hopefuls. Northam won by 9 percentage points, while a slate of liberal nominees changed the direction of the Virginia Assembly.

Periello says the Virginia results show there's room in the party - even in the same primary - for a range of philosophies and styles.

In the Texas 7th, one of Moser's opponents agrees.

"Even though it's a crowded Democratic primary field, I think the upside of that is a lot of people working to turn out the vote and telling people this is a district where people can win," says Lizzie Pannill Fletcher. "We all agree that our opponent is John Culberson."

___

Follow Bill Barrow on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP.In a March 5 item highlighting Democratic Party primaries around the country, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Bernie Sanders has endorsed a candidate in the Illinois governor's race. The candidate, Daniel Biss, has been endorsed by Our Revolution, the political organization spun off of Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. The senator has made no endorsement individually.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Hot spots as Democrats contest primaries around the nation

Hot spots as Democrats contest primaries around the nation

By The Associated Press

Ahead of the fall midterm elections, Democrats have contested primaries around the country that will help shape their general election matchups against Republicans this fall.

A look at some of the hot spots:

TEXAS: MARCH 6

Democrats have candidates running in every congressional district for the first time since the Republican wave of 1994. But there are contested primaries in every Republican-held House district that national Democrats are targeting.

A Houston-area congressional seat, now held by Republican John Culberson, pits national liberal groups against Democrats' House campaign arm in Washington. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released a memo blasting one candidate, Laura Moser, as a "Washington insider" and a carpetbagger. Moser, who has the backing of Our Revolution, Sen. Bernie Sanders' political organization, is angling for a spot in an almost certain runoff. Since the national party's move, some polls show her surging - just what DCCC leaders wanted to prevent.

Other Texas Democrats, including Moser's opponents, say national players should stay out. "We can't have national Democrats in here attacking our own candidates," says Texas party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa. "That's just dumb."

ILLINOIS: MARCH 20

Rep. Dan Lipinski has never been popular among many party activists because of his opposition to abortion rights and same-sex marriage. He also voted against the Affordable Care Act in 2010. Now he has primary opposition in the district that reaches from the edge of Chicago southwest into downstate Illinois. Marie Newman supports abortion rights and has endorsements from the women's group Emily's List, unions and other influential groups on the left. In a neighboring Chicago district, Jesus "Chuy" Garcia is trying for another promotion after losing the 2015 mayor's race against Rahm Emanuel. Sanders has campaign for Garcia, a Cook County commissioner.

Separately, Our Revolution, the offshoot of Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign, has endorsed a state senator, Daniel Biss, in a crowded gubernatorial primary. Democrats are trying to unseat Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, one of several Republicans who claimed governor's offices in Democratic-leaning states in 2014.

OHIO: MAY 8

Ohio voters have since the 1982 midterms elected governors from the party that lost the White House two years earlier. But they've got a long list of Democratic candidates. Former presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich sets the left flank with his calls for universal health care. One establishment favorite is Richard Cordray, who ran the federal consumer protection agency launched under President Barack Obama. Party leaders are hoping for a strong contrast to a Republican primary that has been a race to right. Republican Gov. John Kasich is term limited.

GEORGIA: MAY 22

Georgia Democrats will nominate a woman for governor for the first time. Two former state lawmakers - Stacey Abrams and Stacey Evans - aren't that far apart ideologically, but they have obviously different campaign approaches that reflects the national party's internal debate over identity and strategy.

Abrams, an African-American lawyer from Atlanta, says it's a fool's errand for Democrats to keep trying to win elections in Georgia by going after white voters who've abandoned Democrats in recent decades. The only path, she says, is to grow the Democratic base, concentrating on nonwhites, young voters and other liberal-leaning Georgians who haven't been voting. Evans, a white attorney who lives in the Atlanta suburbs, says she can eat into Republican advantages in the suburbs and even small towns. Abrams has support from liberals nationally, including an Our Revolution endorsement. Evans is drawing key support from Georgia Democrats' old guard, including former Gov. Roy Barnes.

CALIFORNIA: JUNE 5

Sen. Dianne Feinstein's re-election attempt has stirred passions in California, with rank-and-file party liberals assailing the 26-year incumbent as too moderate. The state Democratic Party last month endorsed her more liberal opponent, state Senate leader Kevin de Leon. Feinstein still holds a wide leads in polls, however, and should benefit from California's so-called jungle primary system, which that places every candidate, regardless of party, on the same ballot. The top two vote-getters advance to the general election.

The senator's name strength with independents and even moderate Republicans should ensure at least a runoff spot - though that could still set up a two-candidate battle with de Leon.

While the jungle primary format could benefit Feinstein, it's not so clear cut for Democrats in several House races. Democrats are trying to flip a gaggle of Republican-held districts, particularly in southern California, where Reps. Darrell Issa and Ed Royce are retiring, while Reps. Dana Rohrabacher and Mimi Walters, among others, must defend themselves in districts that President Donald Trump lost in 2016. The risk for Democrats is dividing their votes among so many candidates that a weaker Democrat manages to qualify for a runoff against a Republican. The worst-case scenario for Democrats is that two Republican candidates qualify for a runoff, shutting them out completely.As the big freeze starts to thaw, the Sunday papers turn their attention to other matters  including the fallout from Theresa Mays Brexit speech.

The Mail on Sunday reports that the fragile Cabinet truce was blown apart as one of Boris Johnsons allies mounted an astonishing attack on the Prime Minister.

The paper says the senior MP accused one of Mrs Mays most trusted aides of leaking a letter by the Foreign Secretary in a revenge attack for Brexit.

What the papers say -March 4

Tomorrow's Mail On Sunday pic.twitter.com/5HARHpjn0U  Daily Mail U.K. (@DailyMailUK) March 3, 2018

Political tensions also appear on the front of the Independent, which reports that ministers were accused of breaking a promise to introduce a reform to cut the number of benefit sanctions.

The paper says the plans were quietly shelved by the Tories.

The Sunday Telegraph leads on what it describes as a tax stitch-up at the BBC, reporting that the corporation faced a revolt by presenters being pursued by HM Revenue and Customs.

The paper also features a photo of actor Gary Oldman, one of the British contenders at Sunday nights Oscars.

The front page of Sunday's Daily Telegraph: Stars turn on BBC over tax 'stitch-up' #TomorrowsPaperToday pic.twitter.com/gna81kS5Ir  The Telegraph (@Telegraph) March 3, 2018

Oldman also appears on the front of the Sunday Times, which suggests his nomination for playing Winston Churchill in the film Darkest Hour could prove his Oscar dawn.

The paper leads on a story about internet giants being accused of profiting from sex trafficking as a new wave of pop-up brothels swept the country.

Tomorrow's front page: Internet giants profit from pop-up brothels #tomorrowspapertoday pic.twitter.com/rgywkTdtKz  The Sunday Times (@thesundaytimes) March 3, 2018

Weather does make the front of one paper  the Observer.

The paper suggests the big freeze cost the UK 1 billion a day, and could halve GDP growth in the first three months of the year.

OBSERVER: Big Freeze costs UK 1bn a day #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/GBefQWYYlP  Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) March 3, 2018

Elsewhere, the Sunday Mirror claims taxi rapist John Worboys will get 24-hour protection, costing 300,000 a year, if he is released.

The Sunday People reports that Meghan and Harry will have an armed protection officer in their carriage for their wedding, while the Sunday Express says GPs are to offer genetics tests to patients for the first time.The Alabama Historical Commission (AHC), in coordination with the National Park Service (NPS), the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, (NMAAHC), and SEARCH, Inc., has completed the investigation of the shipwreck remains discovered in January 2018 in Baldwin County, Alabama.

In collaboration with the Washington-DC based Slave Wrecks Project, (SWP), one goal of the study was to determine if the vessel is, in fact, the Clotilda, the last known ship to bring enslaved Africans to the United States.

The team, composed of experts from SEARCH, NPS, SWP, and the University of West Florida, examined and documented the Twelvemile Island Wreck Site on March 1-2, 2018 at the request of and under the supervision of the Alabama Historical Commission.

This team of experts employed high precision GPS, total station, photodocumentation, and measured drawings as well as field observations. The work was done through scuba diving, limited hand excavation and shallow water archaeological inspection. Wood samples were collected from a variety of exposed areas on the wreck. This work was completed under a permit from the Alabama Historical Commission and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Before the team deployed, detailed historical and archival research into the construction and history of the Clotilda. Based on this research the wreck of the Clotilda is in this area of the Mobile River.

Based on preliminary research and two days of field work, we are confident that this wreck is not the Clotilda for the following reasons:



* Clotilda was 86 feet long while the length of the Twelvemile Island Wreck is 158 feet, 5 inches

* The interior "depth" inside Clotilda was 6 feet, 11 inches while the interior depth of the Twelvemile Island Wreck is too deeply buried in the mud to measure completely but is at least 10 feet deep based on the amount of the bow structure remaining onsite.

* The size of timbers on the wreck is larger than those that were used to build a vessel the size of Clotilda. For example, the frames, or "ribs," are 10 by 10 inches and the hull planks are 2 inches thick. Clotilda would have frames 2 inches smaller and planks 1/2 inch thinner.

* Clotilda had 2 masts. The size of the Twelvemile Island Wreck is too large for a 2 masted rig, which originally had 3 masts.

* The Twelvemile Island Wreck has flat iron reinforcing the hull, which is commonly found on larger wooden vessels built from the 1850s through the early 1920s. This timeframe is after the construction of Clotilda.

* While the wood samples have not yet been analyzed, all of the wood observed on the Twelvemile Island Wreck appears to be soft wood such as pine. Clotilda was built with oak and yellow pine. There was no oak observed on the Twelvemile Island Wreck.

* A large portion of the upper bow of the Twelvemile Island Wreck is buried in mud on the shoreline. The condition of the wood indicates this wreck was largely an intact vessel that was abandoned on the shore. It slowly deteriorated with marine organisms eating the wood above the mud until heavier parts of the hull collapsed.

* Clotilda was burned and then sank. There is no definitive evidence of burning on the Twelvemile Island Wreck. The damage from small marine organisms that eat wood can look similar to fire damage. Our team excavated part of the site to expose areas of the ship to examine the damage. Undamaged sections of the wreck show the damage was confined to the waterline area only, whereas a fire would have damaged or destroyed the hull above the waterline.

In summary, the Twelvemile Island Wreck is too long, the timbers are too large, timber known to have been used to build Clotilda was not seen, and the there is no definitive evidence for burning.

"The discovery and first examination of the wreck by Ben Raines and our colleagues at the University of West Florida and the media stories that followed have powerfully reconnected the story of Clotilda to a national and international audience," said Lisa D. Jones, Executive Director of the AHC. "It shares a story with profound meaning in Alabama, and especially to the descendant community of Africatown. While the follow up investigation of the Twelvemile Island Wreck has found that this wreck is not Clotilda, its discovery and the attention paid to it will be the start of a renewed effort to find Clotilda."

"Further historical research and field investigation we have done suggest that many wrecks lie in this part of the Mobile River," said James P. Delgado, PhD, Senior Vice President, SEARCH, Inc. "We believe that a comprehensive survey of the area with a range of modern technology, followed by an examination of each wreck encountered by knowledgeable professionals will be the best means to find the physical remains of Clotilda. The archaeological team will continue to make ourselves available to answer questions from the community of Africatown and the citizens of Alabama."

"We would like to express our deep appreciation to the Alabama Historical Commission, the community of Africatown and the many individuals and groups who made it possible for our team to work on this important project, said David L. Conlin, PhD, National Park Service, Submerged Resources. "Finally, we would like to acknowledge the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Slave Wrecks Project for their support of this work."

There is an informational meeting scheduled for Monday, March 5 at 10:00am at the Community Meeting at the James L. Hope Community Center (850 Edwards Street, Mobile, AL).

Images are available at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12NQXGYMZtd8p4A1fWIwP_6-C_nLb14DE?usp=sharing. Please credit the images to the Alabama Historical Commission.



About the Alabama Historical Commission

Located in historic downtown Montgomery at 468 S. Perry Street, the Alabama Historical Commission is the state historic preservation agency for Alabama. The agency was created by an act of the state legislature in 1966 with a mission to protect, preserve and interpret Alabama's historic places. AHC works to accomplish its mission through two fields of endeavor: Preservation and promotion of state-owned historic sites as public attractions; and, statewide programs to assist people, groups, towns, and cities with local preservation activities. For a complete list of programs and properties owned and operated by the AHC, hours of operation, and admission fees please visit ahc.alabama.gov



###A former boss at Innocent Drinks is risking another financial hit to his soup and salad start-up by ditching dairy from the product range.

BOL Foods founder Paul Brown said his ethically-inspired move had proved a tough sell to investors because a similar decision to remove meat and fish had dealt a near 3 million blow to sales.

The 38-year-old, who set up BOL in 2015 following a 14-year stint at smoothie-maker Innocent, said he felt compelled to produce purely plant-based ready meals following concerns over the environmental damage of intensive animal farming.

Paul Brown, founder of salad and soup brand BOL, which removing dairy from its products (PA)

It has been widely claimed that meat and dairy farming is exacerbating global warming by filling the atmosphere with dangerous levels of carbon dioxide.

Despite the ingredient shake-up, BOL is still on track to more than double sales to 10 million this year, as the firm eyes an international push into Ireland and France.

Speaking to the Press Association, Mr Brown said the financial impact of his decision to cut out dairy would not be as drastic because existing products were being redeveloped.

He said: When we dropped meat and fish it was a case of dropping the recipes from market, so going to our customers and saying these recipes will no longer be available.

This is why the sales dropped so drastically.

Because we have had more time to plan this change, which we will be making at the start of the summer, all being well we wont lose the space and lose the sales.

I cant afford to make another decision that halves the size of the business.

BOL  pronounced bowl  employs 41 full and part-time workers and manufacturers its salads, vegetable pots and soups at sites in Leicestershire and Merseyside.

The decision to remove meat and fish from its product range caused sales to slump 23% to 4.8 million in 2017.

However, sales for the first quarter of this year are already three times higher than the year before, putting the firm in line to boost revenues by 110% in 2018.

The London-based firm is backed by more than 20 investors, including Innocent founders Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright through their start-up fund JamJar Investments.

Mr Brown said his backers needed a lot of persuasion before agreeing that a dairy-free future was the right direction for the business.

He said: In year two we were getting up to 6 million in retail sales and we won National New Business of the Year  things were going pretty good.

So for me to then tear up the rule book and say Sorry, guys, I dont want to part of this massive problem for our generation, there is going to be some bold moves, short-term risk, and a massive downturn in sales, but we can rise out and make ourselves stronger for the future

In the end everyone has backed it, but it has not been complete plain sailing.

He said the brand would roll out at least 11 new recipes across its product range this year, as he looks to make significant inroads into the UKs 3.9 billion ready-meals market.

Mr Brown was food commercial director of Innocent, until the firm called time on its veg and noodle pot range in March 2015.Deontay Wilder declared he was ready for Anthony Joshua after coming through his toughest test yet to successfully defend his WBC heavyweight title with a 10th-round knockout of Cubas Luis Ortiz.

The unbeaten American survived a brutal onslaught in the seventh round on his way to a 40th career victory and seventh title defence at New Yorks Barclays Centre.

IBF and WBA champion Joshua faces New Zealands WBO champion Joseph Parker in Cardiff on March 31 and Wilder said he was fed up of just talking about the prospect of facing the Briton.

Deontay Wilder, left, survived a major scare before defeating Luis Ortiz (Frank Franklin II/AP)

The 32-year-old said at his post-fight press conference: How many times do I have to call him out? Ive done enough, Ive spoken enough. Im the baddest man on the planet and whenever theyre ready Im going to be ready.

My goal and my mission is to unify the division. I want to prove to the world I am the best.

Wilder also claimed his victory over the previously unbeaten Ortiz was more impressive than Joshuas defeat of Wladimir Klitschko.

Wladimir wasnt the king, he was already dethroned, he said. And really Joshua didnt win that fight, Wladimir lost.

Wilder certainly had to dig deep to see off Ortiz.

The challenger looked to be in control in the opening round, twice catching the champion with his left hand, but Wilder responded with a jab in the second before being forced into a corner.

From there, the crowd began to grow restless and jeered as Wilder struggled to land his punches in what was a slow start for both fighters.

This fight will do for Wilder what the Klitschko fight did for AJ.He showed heart and composure at the brink of defeat. It only makes me want to see Wilder and Joshua that much more.. but AJ has his own business to take care of. #wilderortiz  Lennox Lewis, CBE, CM (@LennoxLewis) March 4, 2018

By the fifth, Wilder finally found Ortiz with a right hand across the face which sent the Cuban to the canvas just before the end of the round.

But the seventh round almost proved to be the turning point as Ortiz retaliated with massive left hands, putting his opponent on the ropes and continuing the attack into the eighth.

He had me in a whirlwind and I had to get out of there, Wilder said afterwards.

The late thriller continued into the next rounds when a knockout seemed to be Wilders only chance of taking the bout, and a huge right uppercut ensured he produced it in the 10th, sending Ortiz to the floor as the referee waved for the fight to stop.Theresa Mays plan to ensure the continuation of a soft border between Northern Ireland and the Republic could be rejected by the European Union, Irelands foreign minister has suggested.

The Prime Minister has committed to leaving the EU customs union which guarantees tariff-free trade, but insists a hard border can be avoided through technological solutions and placing no new restrictions on the 80% of cross-frontier trade carried out by smaller businesses.

But Irish Tanaiste Simon Coveney told BBC Ones The Andrew Marr Show he was not sure that the European Union will be able to support the plan, as it would be worried about protecting the integrity of the single market.

The Irish border near Newry, Co Down. (David Young/PA)

"It is a very complex thing for Britain to leave the EU... when you add in a fragile peace process this is a significant responsibility for the British government and I'm glad the PM made that clear in her speech" - says @simoncoveney #marr pic.twitter.com/rkf9K5MHNI  The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) March 4, 2018

While of course we will explore and look at all of the proposed British solutions, they are essentially a starting point in negotiations as opposed to an end point, he said.

Mr Coveney said if agreement cannot be reached during tri-partite talks between the UK, Ireland and the European Commission, the backstop plan of full British alignment with customs union and single market rules that Mrs May committed clearly to in December would have to be put in place.

In a major speech on Friday, Mrs May rejected unacceptable EU proposals to retain customs union arrangements in Northern Ireland, but accepted the UKs responsibility to help maintain a soft border with the Republic  spelling out in detail how she believed this could be achieved by technological means or through a broader trade agreement.

But Mr Coveney said: This isnt a question of either side wanting to put up borders, but if you have to protect a functioning single market, just the same way Britain wants to protect its own single market, well then you have to understand that if goods move from one customs union to another then there needs to be some checks unless there is some mechanism that is negotiated and put in place that prevents that.

"It's raised a whole series of questions about how she's going to arrive at the destination she's described" says Lord Mandelson on PM's #Brexit speech



But admits "she has described a destination better than she's ever done before" #marr pic.twitter.com/Z7HDYxVZ0h  The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) March 4, 2018

Mrs May said she was pleased that Irish PM Leo Varadkar had agreed to form the three-way talks to look at her proposals.

And she declined to defend Boris Johnsons comparison of the border to crossing between London congestion zones in Camden and Islington, but insisted both of them are absolutely clear that there will not be a hard border.

Weve got proposals as to how were going to achieve that, now were going to be able to sit down and talk with others about how were going to do that, Mrs May told Marr.

It comes after Downing Street and Mr Johnson denied reports that Mrs Mays chief of staff Gavin Barwell was behind a leak of a memo from the Foreign Secretary in which he said the Government should focus on stopping the Irish border becoming significantly harder, reigniting a row over the issue.

Meanwhile, Labour former cabinet minister Lord Mandelson dismissed Mrs Mays Brexit plan.

He told Marr: What Theresa May is doing is trying to dance on the head of a pin that simply doesnt exist.

He added: It will be painful for the country as a result.Womens rights campaigners have marched in London at a time of heightened focus on gender rights worldwide.

With the 100th anniversary of some women getting the vote and the emergence of the Times Up and #MeToo movements in reaction to a spate of scandals prompted by the Harvey Weinstein revelations, sympathetic men joined women to draw attention to the issues.

Bianca Jagger, Justine Greening, Natalie Imbruglia, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Sandi Toksvig were among the marchers (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

One marcher channelled the spirit of the suffragettes, sporting the colours and style of the Votes For Women movement (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

The march set off outside the Palace of Westminster (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Marchers including Mr Khan, Toksvig, Michael Sheen and Helen Pankhurst, wearing a purple scarf, gather outside the Palace of Westminster (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

The march was supported by all ages (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Marchers in Trafalgar Square (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Thousands turned up for the rally (Dominic Lipinski/PA)Bernardo Silva scored the only goal as Manchester City took another stride towards the Premier League title with a 1-0 victory over lacklustre Chelsea.

The scoreline did not reflect Citys dominance of a one-sided contest at the Etihad Stadium, with fading champions Chelsea offering little as they slipped to a fourth defeat in five league games.

The visitors did at least make City dig deep for their victory as, playing without a recognised striker they sat back, but Silvas 46th-minute breakthrough was no less than the hosts deserved.

Bernardo Silva scored Citys winner against Chelsea (Nick Potts/PA)

It extended Citys lead at the top of the table to 18 points and left them only four wins from the title, while Chelsea were cut five points adrift of the top four in fifth place.

It was an emotional occasion for Chelsea boss Antonio Conte following the sudden death of his former Italy international player Davide Astori. The Italian wore a black armband in tribute.

Tactically, his approach was limited with Eden Hazard playing up front as a false nine and Alvaro Morata on the bench. Chelsea were also without their midfield talisman NGolo Kante through illness and his absence showed as City completely dominated possession in the first half.

City boss Pep Guardiola, his yellow ribbon again briefly visible before covering it up with a scarf, watched as City controlled possession and Chelsea struggled to cross the halfway line.

Sergio Aguero, chasing his 200th City goal, had the hosts first attempt on goal but Antonio Rudiger blocked his shot.

Aguero then teed up Silva after one of several mazy runs by the impressive Leroy Sane but the Portuguese curled just over the bar.

Another moment of magic from Sane almost yielded a goal as he showed equisite control to bring down a Kevin De Bruyne free-kick but Cesar Azpilicueta blocked on the line.

City did get the ball in the net before the break but Nicolas Otamendis tap-in was ruled out for offside against Aguero.

Chelsea showed little ambition and they threatened just once in the first half.

Referee Michael Oliver played advantage after a Oleksandr Zinchenko caught Victor Moses with a late tackle and Willian forced Ederson to save with his feet. Zinchenko was eventually booked for the challenge but some may argue that was lenient and, after a number of other rash challenges, he was perhaps fortunate not to see a red card.

City were rewarded for their superiority within a minute of the restart. Aguero regained possession on the edge of the box and found the outstanding David Silva on the left. The Spaniards cross was turned in by his namesake Bernardo at the far post.

That finally stirred Chelsea into action and a Cesc Fabregas break created an opening for Moses but he shot into the side-netting.

City upped the tempo and David Silva twice tried his luck, first forcing a save from Thibaut Courtois and then seeing an effort deflected for a corner.

Conte finally decided to introduce a striker after 78 minutes, but it was Olivier Giroud, and not Morata, that initially got the call. Morata entered the fray in the last minute but Chelseas last chance came and went as Marcos Alonso sliced wide.A sixth man has been arrested in connection with the explosion in Leicester that killed five people.

The blast on February 25 destroyed a supermarket on Hinckley Road and a two storey flat above.

Three men are due in court on Monday accused of causing the explosion that killed five people in Leicester.

Two other men from East Anglia were arrested in connection with the incident on Friday but have since been released under investigation.

Leicestershire Police said they were detained on suspicion of conspiracy to cause an explosion and for offences under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

The sixth man, in his 40s, is also from East Anglia and was arrested on Sunday on suspicion of manslaughter.

The force said the suspect is currently in custody where he will be questioned by detectives.

Sean Rajoobeer, 17, (left) Shane Rajoobeer, 18, victims of the Hinckley Road explosion in Leicester, and and their mother Mary, who is also believed to have died in the blast (Leicestershire Police/ PA)

On Saturday, police charged Arkan Ali, 37, Hawkar Hassan, 32, and Aram Kurd, 33, with manslaughter and arson with intent to endanger life.

Ali, of Drake Close, Oldham, Hassan, of Eld Road, Coventry, and Kurd, of Hillary Place, Leicester, are due to appear in custody at Leicester Magistrates Court on Monday.

Four of the people killed in the blast have been named as Shane, 18, and Sean Rajoobeer, 17, Leah Beth Reek, 18, who was Shanes girlfriend, and Viktorija Ljevleva, 22.

The fifth victim killed in the explosion on Hinckley Road on February 25 is believed to be Shane and Seans 46-year-old mother Mary.

Leicestershire Police have refused to comment on media reports which said the Hinckley Road explosion may have been caused by an illegal alcohol distillery.A 25-year-old man has been charged with murdering his grandmother after she was found stabbed to death at her home.

Anne James, 74, was discovered by a neighbour at the address in the Highgate area of Walsall at around 6pm on Wednesday.

West Midlands Police have now charged her grandson Greg Irvin, from Walsall Wood, with the killing following his arrest on Thursday  the day after Mrs James body was discovered.

Police have charged Greg Irvin, 25, with murder after his grandmother Ann James was found stabbed to death at her home in Walsall.

Unemployed Irvin is due to appear at Wolverhampton Magistrates Court on Monday.

Detective Inspector Harry Harrison from West Midlands Polices Homicide Team, said: This is a murder that has really shocked the local community and we have been working flat-out on the investigation to find the person responsible.

Clearly bringing this murder charge is a significant step towards securing justice for Mrs James many friends and family.

MURDER: We've charged a #Walsall man with murdering his own grandmother. Greg Irvin is accused of stabbing Anne James (74) to death at her home in #Highgate, Walsall. The 25-year-old will appear in court tomorrow. Full story: https://t.co/JWwigaPNEn pic.twitter.com/q79DRpWS3Q  West Midlands Police (@WMPolice) March 4, 2018

Mrs James was pronounced dead at the property in Doveridge Place when emergency services arrived.

A statement from Mrs Jamess family said: We are all devastated at the loss of a loving wife, mum, grandma and great grandma.

She was an amazing, generous, kind and much-loved part of our family; she will be very sadly missed.Russian presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchaks campaign office says she was doused with water and knocked to the ground in an assault on Sunday.

The incident came several days after Ms Sobchak threw water on nationalist presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky during a televised debate.

According to a statement on Ms Sobchaks campaign website, the man who threw water on her at the entrance of a Moscow hotel said This is for Zhirinovsky. The statement said the man was detained by police and identified him as a staff member of the Moscow city council.

Kesnia Sobchak is running for Russias presidency (Pavel Golovkin/AP

Ms Sobchak, who rose to fame hosting a TV reality show, casts herself as the candidate for Russians fed up with current politics but has largely avoided personal criticism of President Vladimir Putin.

Mr Zhirinovsky, the 71-year-old leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party, has won notoriety for his xenophobic statements. This will be the sixth time he has run for president.

Eight candidates are registered for Russias March 18 presidential election, including Mr Putin.

With his approval ratings topping 80% and rivals trailing far behind, Mr Putin is set to easily win a fourth term. Mr Putins most vocal critic, the 41-year-old opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has been barred from the race due to a criminal conviction that he calls politically motivated.Theresa Mays new Brexit offer will be put to the test this week as negotiations between British and European Union officials resume in Brussels.

The Prime Minister on Friday set out her strategy for negotiations on the UKs future relationship with the EU in a high-profile speech which earned her breathing space from warring Remain and Leave factions in the Conservative Party.

But Mrs Mays plans for maintaining a soft Irish border while leaving the customs union were thrown into doubt after Irelands foreign minister Simon Coveney said the EU may not accept her proposals.

We welcome her commitment to Good Friday Agreement... but beyond that she hasn't gone into detail about how shell solve the border problem" - Deputy Prime Minister of Ireland @simoncoveney tells #marr pic.twitter.com/CxeU9Dff9s  The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) March 4, 2018

The technical negotiations from Monday to Wednesday will focus on the issue alongside a proposed transition period and other withdrawal issues including the financial settlement and citizens rights, on which disagreements still need to be ironed out.

Amid the ongoing row over the Irish border, Sinn Fein leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle ONeill will also travel to Brussels on Monday to meet EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

Mrs May is hoping to get a post-Brexit transition period signed off at the European Council summit of EU leaders on March 22-23, clearing the way for exploratory talks on trade.

But tensions over the Irish border issue remain and could hold up agreement, although tripartite talks between the UK, Ireland and the European Commission have been set up to analyse options.

Countdown to Brexit: key events. (PA Graphics)

Mrs May has rejected Brussels proposals that would see Northern Ireland kept in an effective customs union with the EU as a fallback in case other solutions cannot be found.

She has proposed technological solutions and an exemption from new restrictions on the 80% of cross-frontier trade carried out by smaller businesses.

But on Sunday, Irish Tanaiste Mr Coveney told BBC Ones The Andrew Marr Show he was not sure that the European Union will be able to support the plan, as it would be worried about protecting the integrity of the single market.

While of course we will explore and look at all of the proposed British solutions, they are essentially a starting point in negotiations as opposed to an end point, he said.

Mrs Mays de facto deputy, Cabinet Office minister David Lidington, said her high-profile Friday speech was an ambitious opening bid and suggested the border proposals could be tweaked.

Asked if the fallback option proposed by the EU was inevitable, Mr Lidington told ITVs Peston on Sunday: Im much less pessimistic than you are, clearly we are at the start of a negotiating period and will want to sit down with our EU partners and work through where their concerns, whether legal or technical, are, and see how we might together address this.

Nigel Dodds, deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party which props up Mrs Mays minority Government, pressured Ireland to take her proposals seriously.

The DUP MP said: It is in the Republic of Irelands economic interests to have a sensible agreement between the United Kingdom and the European Union. A no deal Brexit would be catastrophic for the Republic.

Despite this fact, the Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has thrown his weight behind Brussels. The Irish governments current approach defies logic.

He added: Even Michel Barnier has recognised the solution cannot be based on a precedent.

Rather than vent outrage about the United Kingdoms democratic decision to leave the European Union, the Irish government should be seriously considering innovative solutions. A good deal for the United Kingdom will mean a good deal for the Republic of Ireland.

Meanwhile Baroness Bertin, a former aide to David Cameron, said Mrs May was in touch with her predecessor before Fridays speech.

She told Westminster Hour: They have spoken actually and she did speak to him before this speech, so they are on pretty good terms.

The Tory peer added: I wasnt sort of privy to the conversation, but yes they were in contact before the speech, a couple of days before.Maghaberry Prison is changing.

In the narrow corridors of one of the old blocks, the sight lines were poor. It felt labyrinthine, confined, confusing.

Gates checked movements at regular intervals, keys hung from warders belts.

Quoile House, Maghaberry Prison (Michael Cooper/PA)

In this 30-plus-year-old building the surroundings were clinical, with pale green painted corridors and rows of cells with observation shutters for guards on patrol to peer through.

The older houses close in June next year; at the other side of the prison construction was ongoing on a brand new unit.

Its cell blocks were named after rivers that flow through Northern Ireland, such as the Quoile, Erne, Bann and Bush.

Maghaberry holds more than 800 prisoners and faces unusual challenges.

Within its walls and barbed wire fences live republican and loyalist paramilitary inmates, where tensions have boiled over in the past, as well as those convicted of serious non-terrorist offences.

Its warders have been targeted by dissident republicans: David Black, 52, died in a motorway shooting as he drove to work there, and prison officer trainer Adrian Ismay, 52, died from bomb injuries in 2016.

The jail also houses trusted prisoners who perform a variety of roles within the jail and some are preparing for release back into the community.

Previous scrutiny reports have highlighted the challenges of housing ordinary and paramilitary prisoners within the same complex.

The Prison Service has taken steps to address that, including moving female inmates to a separate centre at Hydebank.

A recent report acknowledged that significant improvements had been made at Maghaberry and the banter exchanged between officers and inmates was easy.

In one of the veteran houses newly admitted inmates were milling around, not yet part of the structure of prison life but generally busy cleaning, tidying, or training at a gym.

One new prisoner was preparing to change cells, packing his stuff on his bed.

He was effusive in his praise for arrangements which allowed him contact with his family.

The inmate said: We are just so grateful.

The physical contrast with the new buildings was marked.

One featured a spacious hub from which the wings radiated out. Prison officers shared the landings with inmates.

Governor David Kennedy said: You can see and hear everything going on and staff are very easily accessible.

More vulnerable prisoners were held upstairs, in a dedicated area.

There was a restorative justice landing where victims and their assailants were brought together behind bars, a mechanism for dealing with conflict and low-level issues in the prison.

Mr Kennedy added: Just because two people dont get on because of what happened previously, it is important that we get them working together.Huntsville, Ala. - The Huntsville Museum of Art (HMA) proudly presents its 31st celebration of Youth Art Month (YAM) with the YAM 2018: Exhibition for Youth Art Month on display from March 11 through April 29. Congressman Mo Brooks, Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle, and others are expected to attend an awards ceremony held at the Museum on Sunday, March 11.

"The YAM 2018: Exhibition for Youth Art Month demonstrates the creativity and collaboration of the talented youth whose artwork emphasizes the quality arts in education programs in North Alabama," said Laura E. Smith, Director of Education/Museum Academy at HMA. "Join us as we celebrate the month of March as Youth Art Month - Museum visitors will have the opportunity to view portraits, landscapes and still-lifes done in a variety of media from drawing, painting, ceramics and mixed media."

On view in the Guild Gallery at HMA from March 11 through April 29 will be the Congressional Art Competition's winning piece that will be chosen from Congressman Mo Brooks' 5th District. At the end of its display at HMA, the piece will be sent to Washington, D.C. for a year-long display at the U.S. Capitol. During the opening ceremonies on Sunday, March 11, awards will be presented to students from Huntsville City, Madison City, Madison County, Athens City, Limestone County, Decatur City and Scottsboro City.

In addition to the students' works being showcased in the galleries during the ribbon cutting, HMA will also present the 17 Blue Ribbon Finalists' artworks from the Visual Arts Achievement (VAA) Program. HMA is the local VAA District V sponsor for this ASCA program. The selected VAA works, which were created by local middle and high school students, will be sent to Montgomery to be displayed alongside other regional winners' pieces in the Georgine Clarke Alabama Artists Gallery at ASCA.

The Opening Reception and Awards Ceremony will be from 1:00-3:00 p.m. on March 11. Award presentations for VAA Blue Ribbon Finalists and the Congressional Art Competition will be at 2:00 pm in the Great Hall. Artist demonstrations will take place in the galleries. General admission to the Museum will be waived on March 11.

About Youth Art Month

Youth Art Month is observed nationally each March to emphasize the value of art education for children and to encourage public support for quality school art programs. Major support for the 2018 YAM: Exhibition for Youth Art Month at HMA provided by Presenting Sponsor: Toyota Motor Manufacturing Alabama, Inc. Additional sponsors: Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, Joyce Griffin and Walmart. Additional support was given by The Alabama State Council on the Arts, Alabama Arts Alliance and the Huntsville Museum of Art Guild.

Youth Art Month is endorsed by The National Art Education Association, Alabama Art Education Association, Alabama State Department of Education, Alabama Arts Alliance and locally by the Huntsville-Madison County Art Education Association.Record numbers of young people taking up apprenticeships in Scotland have benefited from a changing attitude, according to a financial adviser.

Data from Skills Development Scotland reveals the number of Modern Apprenticeship starts in 2016/17 hit a record 26,262  beating the 26,000 national target.

Financial adviser Grant Thornton UK LLP has said the study reveals a more positive perception of the traineeships.

A survey has found an improved attitude towards apprenticeships (Rui Vieira/PA)

Andrew Howie, managing partner in Scotland, said: This changing attitude represents an evolution in the expectations of young people and parents when it comes to learning beyond school.

Add in rising living costs and it becomes clear why those looking at higher education options are increasingly seeing apprenticeships and other earn as you learn routes, as a positive route in to a successful career.

In our blueprint for the UK, Shaping a Vibrant Economy, we suggested that there is a need to incentivise collaboration between employers and education providers.

This includes creating a new school performance measure for every pupil to have at least one interaction with an employer every year, and encouraging universities and business schools to offer graduate level apprenticeships.

The report surveyed 1,000 people aged between 16 and 25 as well as 1,000 parents of under-18s.

It found 70% of young people and 79% of parents think that apprenticeships offer good career prospects, with 42% of young people believing they have the same value as a university degree.

Almost half of surveyed parents said they think a university degree delivers less value than it used to, while two thirds of young people said they think university is not necessary to get a well-paid job.

The report also investigated the attitudes of 500 UK employers and showed a similarly positive sentiment about hiring apprentices.

Half of the employers surveyed said they plan to recruit more apprentices than they do now in the next five years.The UKs biggest pension funds are being asked how they are protecting peoples savings from the risks of climate change.

The chairwoman of the parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), Mary Creagh, has written to the top 25 pension funds in the UK to ask how they manage the risks that global warming poses to pension savings.

It comes after an admission from the Government that a lack of attention and outright misunderstanding remain widespread among fund trustees on their duty to take environment risks into account.

Fossil fuel companies could lose value and energy companies be `left behind by move to low carbon (John Giles/PA)

Climate risks posed to investments include increasing claims for insurance firms related to extreme weather, fossil fuel companies losing value and energy businesses being left behind by the shift to a low carbon world, Ms Creagh said.

The climate change risks of tomorrow should be considered by pension funds today.

A young person auto-enrolled on a pension today may be 45 years away from retirement.

Over that timescale these climate change risks will inevitably grow.

We are examining whether pension funds are starting to take these risks into account in their financial decision making, she said.

Asset owners, such as pension funds have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of their beneficiaries.

But the EAC said it had heard evidence during its enquiry into green finance that the duty is sometimes misinterpreted as a duty to maximise short-term returns, leading to the neglect of longer-term issues such as climate change.

A letter from the Department for Work and Pensions which the committee has published said it was hoped that the publication of guidance on considering environmental concerns where financially material by the Pensions Regulator would have addressed the confusion.

However, recent research has suggested that a lack of attention and outright misunderstanding remain widespread among trustees, the letter said.

As part of its work on green finance, the committee is examining how the largest 25 pension funds, which manage assets totalling around 555 billion, are managing environmental risks such as climate change.

The committee has also requested the same information from the MPs Pension Fund.The public is being asked to share knowledge of Englands forgotten, secret or little-known memorials, from murals and shrines to statues and inscriptions on benches and trees.

The hunt for information about local monuments, street shrines and community tributes is part of a project, called Immortalised, by heritage body Historic England looking at who is remembered and how.

It comes as challenges to memorials of figures such as imperialist Cecil Rhodes and slave-trader Edward Colston, and the absence of representations of women and ethnic minorities in English cities puts the subject under the spotlight.

Students have called for the statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford, to be taken down (Steve Parsons/PA)

A survey for Historic England found a majority of the public (70%) believed the people represented by public monuments reflect those who have made a significant contribution to English history, but young people are less likely to think so than the older generation.

The survey also revealed the ways people would like to be remembered after they die, finding four in 10 want a tree planted in their memory, 16% a bench in a special place and 11% a plaque and a third do not want to be commemorated.

Historic England is asking for photographs and information from the public about lesser-known memorials or those well-loved by communities but unknown on a national level, and about rituals and activities linked with them.

The stories and pictures will be recorded to be included in an exhibition as part of the Immortalised project which will also feature a debate, events and a design competition.

Four in 10 people said they would like to have a tree planted in their memory (Chris Ison/PA)

The best examples of community memorials may be listed by Historic England.

Memorials around the country include one in Southampton to engineers who died on the Titanic, and to Grace Darling, who famously rescued survivors of a shipwreck off the Northumberland coast, in a churchyard in Bamburgh.

In London a mural commemorates the Battle of Cable Street against fascists in 1936, while the Women of Steel statue in Sheffield remembers women who took jobs in factories and mills during the two world wars.

A memorial to engineers who died on the Titanic stands in Southampton (Chris Ison/PA)

Some statues and memorials have regular rituals, with flowers left at the Alan Turing statue in Manchester on his birthday and an annual service on the pavement beneath Oliver Cromwells statue in Westminster.

Historic England is particularly interested in finding out about how people create unofficial memorials in their community, such as the commemoration of heroin users made of spoons, placed high on a wall in a public place near Mount Pleasant in London, with each spoon said to represent a lost soul.

Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England, said: We are creatures of memory, and every generation has commemorated people in the built environment.

Their stories may involve episodes of heroism or generosity and be inspirational, or they may involve episodes which are shameful by todays standards. They all tell us something about the lives of our ancestors.

He said one of Historic Englands most important jobs was to identify and share information about what is embedded in Englands public areas to help people understand and value their local historic environment.

Exploring the stories and histories of less well-known people and groups is an important part of this, and thats what todays call out to the public is all about.Allison Janney, Christopher Plummer and Jordan Peele are among the first stars to arrive at the 90th Oscars, as Rita Moreno chose to wear the same dress she wore in 1962 when she won an Oscar for West Side Story.

Janney, who is nominated in the supporting actress category for her role in I, Tonya, opted for a dramatic red dress with long flowing sleeves.

Allison Janney (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Peele, who is nominated in the best director and best original screenplay category for Get Out, which also got a best picture nod, arrived dressed in a white tuxedo with wife and Brooklyn Nine-Nine star Chelsea Peretti.

Chelsea Peretti, left, and Jordan Peele (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Moreno opted to wear the same lampshade dress with a black and gold skirt that she wore to the ceremony the year she won the best supporting actress prize 56 years ago.

Rita Moreno (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Plummer is nominated for best supporting actor for his role in All The Money In The World after he replaced Kevin Spacey in last minute re-shoots.

He told US network ABC: In the theatre, this happens all the time, Ive spent my life on stage so its not a strange coincidence to replace someone and only have nine days to get ready, it was like old times.

Christopher Plummer (Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Sometimes its great to have that little space, you dont talk about it, you dont indulge yourself, theres no time, you give a more accurate and hopefully more vulnerable performance.

The actor, who won a gong in 2012 for Beginners, said of returning to the ceremony: Its always different because times change all the time.

Now there are so many young people, all my old friends are dead, they have either drunk themselves to death or they have naturally popped off the vine, so I dont know all the young actors.

The Shape Of Water leads the nominations at the ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles with 13 nods.The most senior Vatican official ever charged in the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis has appeared in an Australian court.

Wearing his clerical collar, George Pell attended a hearing at Melbourne Magistrates Court to determine whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to put him on trial.

The cardinals committal hearing before Magistrate Belinda Wallington is scheduled to take up to a month, with testimony of alleged victims to be suppressed from publication.

Cardinal George Pell is the most senior member of the Catholic Church to be charged as part of the child abuse crisi (AP/Asanka Brendon Ratnayake)

Pell arrived by car and was flanked by police and one of his lawyers, Paul Galbally, as he walked through a large group of media and into the court security screening area.

He remained silent as he entered.

He emptied his pockets before walking through a security metal detector and a security guarded frisked him in a routine procedure.

Other security guards ensured the public kept their distance from the 76-year-old cleric in the foyers of the seven-floor downtown court house in Australias second-largest city where he was once archbishop.

Pope Francis former finance minister was charged in June of last year with sexually abusing multiple people in his Australian home state of Victoria.

The details of the allegations against the cardinal have yet to be released to the public, though police have described the charges as historical sexual assault offences  meaning the crimes that are alleged to have occurred decades ago.

The case places both the cardinal and the Pope in potentially perilous territory.

For Pell, the charges are a threat to his freedom, his reputation and his career.

For Francis, they are a threat to his credibility, given that he famously promised a zero tolerance policy for sex abuse in the church.

Advocates for abuse victims have long railed against Francis decision to appoint Pell to the high-ranking position in the first place.

When Pell was promoted in 2014, he was already facing allegations that he had mishandled cases of clergy abuse during his time as archbishop of Melbourne and, later, Sydney.

Pell has not yet entered a plea. But his lawyers have told the court that the cardinal plans to formally plead not guilty if he is ordered to stand trial.

One of the charges was withdrawn last week because the accuser had recently died.

Pell was silent throughout a 25-minute hearing that began with Prosecutor Mark Gibson amending dates and wording of charges.

The cardinal sat in the first of two rows of public seating behind his four lawyers in a cramped, wood-panelled courtroom in which reporters far outnumbered members of the public.

Gibson told Ms Wallington that complainants would give evidence by a video link. Defence lawyer Robert Richter said he did not object to the complainants not attending court in person.

Their testimony beginning in the afternoon is not open to the public or media.

Richter told Ms Wallington that given Pells age and medical condition, it was important that he be allowed to be accompanied in court by a supporter. Mr Richter did not detail Pells health.

Pells lawyers told the court last month that the allegations stemmed from publicity surrounding a national inquiry into child abuse three years ago.

His lawyer, Ruth Shann, said the first complainant approached police in 2015, 40 years after the alleged crimes, in response to media reports about Australias Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Australias longest-running royal commission  which is the countrys highest form of inquiry  had been investigating since 2012 how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over 90 years. The inquiry issued its final report in December.

Pell testified to the inquiry in a video link from the Vatican in 2016 about his time as a priest and bishop in Australia. He did not attend in person because of medical problems.

Shann said the first complaint set off a chain of events with others making allegations against Pell. None had previously complained to anyone, Ms Shann said.

After years of alleged cover-ups and silence from the church over its paedophilia scandal, abuse survivors and their advocates have hailed the prosecution of Pell as a monumental shift in the way society is responding to the crisis.

So far, Francis has withheld judgment of Pell, saying he wants to wait for Australian justice to run its course.

And he did not force the cardinal to resign. Pell said he intends to continue his work as a prefect of the churchs economy ministry once the case is resolved.A man who murdered a 16-year-old girl, stabbing her 28 times, is due to be sentenced.

Leonne Weekss body was found hidden under a sofa on a pathway in Dinnington, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, in January last year.

She had died from multiple stab wounds to her head and upper body, police said.

Shea Peter Heeley who has pleaded guilty to the murder of 16 year old Leonne Weeks in Dinnington, South Yorkshire (South Yorkshire Police/PA)

Shea Peter Heeley, 19, of Doe Quarry Lane, Dinnington, was charged with murder and admitted the offence last month.

After that hearing, Detective Chief Inspector Martin Tate, the senior investigating officer, said: Leonne was a young girl who had her whole life ahead of her.

Heeley selfishly and violently took that away, leaving a family without a daughter, a sister and a friend.

Im pleased that the family have not had to endure a trial and that he has today admitted his guilt.

Mr Tate added: My thoughts are with Leonnes family and friends at this incredibly difficult time and Id like to praise them for the strength they have shown and continue to show throughout this process.

After Leonnes murder, her family released a statement which said: We are devastated at the loss of our beautiful daughter and sister Leonne.

She was very much loved and will be missed by all of us.

Heeley, who is in custody, will be sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court by Judge Paul Watson QC.Gary Oldman has told his 99-year-old mother: Put the kettle on  Im bringing Oscar home, as he was crowned best actor at the Academy Awards, where The Shape Of Water was named best picture.

Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway returned to the Oscars stage to present the final award of the night a year after the best picture fiasco when they mistakenly announced La La Land as the winner rather than Moonlight.

Faye Dunaway, left, and Warren Beatty (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Host Jimmy Kimmel introduced the pair saying: This is the home stretch, nothing could possibly go wrong.

Oldman appeared emotional as he accepted his award for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour and in a lengthy speech, he thanked the Academy and its members for this glorious prize as well as his colleagues, his wife and family.

(PA Graphics)

He thanked America for the many wonderful gifts it has given me  my home, my livelihood, my family and now Oscar.

Jane Fonda, right, presents Gary Oldman with the award (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

The actor also sent out a special thank you to his mother.

He said: I would like to thank my mother, who is older than the Oscars, she is 99 years young next birthday and shes watching the ceremony from the comfort of her sofa.

I say to my mother, thank you for your love and support, put the kettle on  Im bringing Oscar home.

The Shape Of Water won four of the 13 Oscars it was nominated for, including best director for Guillermo del Toro.

Guillermo del Toro (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Frances McDormand won the best actress prize for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and gave an energetic speech in which she encouraged all the female nominees from the night to stand up with her.

She said: Meryl (Streep), if you do it, everyone else will.

McDormand continued: Look around ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed.

Dont talk to us about it at the parties tonight, invite us into your office, well tell you all about them.

I have two words to leave you with tonight  inclusion rider.

Frances McDormand (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

McDormands co-star Sam Rockwell was named best supporting actor at the ceremony, while Allison Janney won best supporting actress for I, Tonya.

British cinematographer Roger Deakins finally clinched a gold statue for his work on Blade Runner 2049 on his 14th nomination, while Jordan Peele won the best original screenplay gong for Get Out.

Roger Deakins (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Kimmel addressed the Harvey Weinstein scandal as he opened the 90th Academy Awards.

He said: The Academy, as you are no doubt aware, took action last year to expel Harvey Weinstein from their ranks.

There were a lot of great nominees but Harvey deserved it the most.

The Academy kicked him out and after they did I was curious so I looked it up, the only other person to be expelled was a character actor called Carmine Caridi, in 2004, who was kicked out for sharing screeners.

Carmine Caridi got the same punishment as Harvey Weinstein for giving his neighbour a copy of Seabiscuit on VHS.

Jimmy Kimmel (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

What happened with Harvey and what is happening all over was long overdue.

We cant let bad behaviour slide anymore, the world is watching us and we need to set an example and the truth is if we are successful and if we can work together to stop sexual harassment in the workplace, if we can do that, women will only have to deal with harassment all the time at every other place they go.

The scandal was also given the spotlight during a moving segment about the Times Up and Me Too movements, while Salma Hayek, Ashley Judd and Annabella Sciorra, who are all Weinstein accusers, appeared on stage together.

Ashley Judd, from left, Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Weinstein has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by scores of actresses. He denies all allegations of non-consensual sex.Hollywood legends Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway returned for take two of presenting the best picture Oscar. But what happened during last years fiasco?

The contenders had their fingers crossed and viewers eagerly waited to learn which of the two front-runners, La La Land or Moonlight, would be presented with the highest honour.

It was La La Land at least according to the contents of the envelope read out to nearly 33 million viewers in the US alone by Dunaway after a baffled pause from her Bonnie And Clyde partner.

Star Emma Stone rejoiced with the rest of the cast, hugs were shared, and they took to the stage where producer Jordan Horowitz read an emotional acceptance speech.

Then there was shuffling on stage and frantic checking of the now infamous envelope.

Horowitz returned to the microphone and said: Theres a mistake. Moonlight, you guys won best picture.

Chaos. Host Jimmy Kimmel explained it was all real.

The flabbergasted Moonlight cast took to the stage as Beatty explained that the wrong envelope had been handed to them. The contents, he said, read Emma Stone  La La Land, which explained his confused pause.

The rightful victors were then allowed to thank the academy and revel in their victory.

Shape Of Waters Guillermo Del Toro celebrates his best director win (Chris Pizzello/AP)

The accountancy firm which oversaw the envelopes, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), took responsibility for the biggest blunder in the awards 89-year-history.

One of its accountants, Brian Cullinan, was caught posting a photo of Stone to Twitter moments before handing over the wrong envelope.

After barring envelope handlers from using mobile phones, the academy welcomed back PwC for the 90th Oscars on Sunday, and Dunaway and Beatty were given an opportunity to be exonerated.

Its so nice seeing you again, Beatty said with a smile as he took to the stage.

Dunaway added: As they say, presenting is lovelier the second time around.

Beatty announced The Shape Of Water as the winner.

So far, no errors have been reported.The Grenfell Tower fire was mentioned by best actress winner Frances McDormand at the Oscars after campaigners were inspired by Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

A series of billboards were paraded through central London last month to highlight the lack of progress made since the fire, saying 71 dead, And still no arrests?, How Come?.

McDormand, who won the best actress gong for her role in Three Billboards, referenced the Grenfell tragedy as she spoke about the power and relevance of billboards.

Three billboards outside the Houses of Parliament (Jeff Moore/Justice4Grenfell/PA)

She said: I think the idea that activists are taking that kind of statement and putting it out there. Billboards still work, so I think that its really exciting.

It started actually with the Grenfell Tower fire investigation then it leap-frogged to (the) Miami gun control situation, it was outside the UN thats the kind of power that an image can have and thats what were making, were making powerful images.

In Three Billboards, McDormand plays a mother who challenges authorities over finding the culprit for the rape and murder of her daughter.Taxi firm Addison Lee swung to a loss last year after it was stung by investment and acquisition costs.

The group posted a pre-tax loss of 20.8 million in the year to August 2017, compared to a profit of 10.5 million the year before.

Addison put the fall down to intense long-term investment, acquisition integration and reorganisation, which culminated in 18.6 million exceptionals.

Andy Boland, CEO of minicab company Addison Lee (PA)

However, revenue rose by 31% to 345.8 million in the period, with the firm on track to post over 400 million in sales this year.

Sales were helped by a return to growth in London, which helped drive up UK revenues 11%.

The taxi firm has been looking to keep pace with the astronomical rise of Uber, which has radically shaken up the industry with its ride-hailing smartphone app.

As part of these efforts, Addison has expanded rapidly into the US, snapping up rival Flyte Tyme as well as boosting its global footprint by buying Tristar Worldwide, which has operations in 80 countries.

Boss Andy Boland said: For Addison Lee Group, 2017 was the year our London business returned decisively to growth and our focus became investing in and building the worlds leading managed ground transportation business.

Weve made a strong start to the new financial year, with first quarter revenues up 23% and set to top 400 million for the current financial year.

At the current rate of growth, we expect to double the size of Addison Lee Group in the next three years.

The group is also leading a consortium in London to evaluate the impact of new vehicle technology, including the introduction of autonomous vehicles, into the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

With the backing of Government funding from Innovate UK, Addison is partnering with autonomous vehicle technology firms to test inclusion of autonomous vehicles into its operating model.

Addison Lee, which is owned by US private equity firm Carlyle Group, was founded in Battersea in 1975 and has grown to become Europes largest private hire car service company, carrying out 10 million journeys per year.Rival populist and stridently anti-European Union political forces have surged in Italys parliamentary election, but neither gained enough support to govern the country alone, preliminary results showed on Monday.

With no faction winning a clear majority, the results confirmed that negotiations to form a new government that could win a confidence vote in parliament would be fraught.

Ungovernable Italy headlined daily newspaper La Stampa as the early numbers rolled in.

The European Union is having a bad evening, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen tweeted.

Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage also congratulated the 5-Stars.

The League was particularly strong in the north, its traditional base.

In Veneto, where it won 11% of the vote in the last elections in 2013, it captured around 48% this time around.

The 5-Stars had a remarkably strong showing in the south, which has long been a stronghold of the centre-right and Forza Italia.

The partial results showed that the two parties with the most Eurosceptic platforms  the 5-Stars and the League  together topped the 50% needed to rule Italy.

While the two are rivals, that scenario has been seen as the key barometer to watch to gauge Italys relations with Brussels, and a nightmare scenario for the European Union and markets if they were to form an unlikely alliance.

Claudio Borghi of the League told Sky that the election results sent a clear message to Brussels.

I think the will of the Italian people is very clear. The forces in favour of what Europe has done have been redimensioned, Borghi told Sky TG24.

Its a very strong message.

The Leagues Salvini, who never has held public office in Italy, fed public anger at the EUs inability to help handle hundreds of thousands of migrants who flooded the country in recent years after being rescued while crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

He tweeted Thanks! to his supporters as the results came in.Competitors took to the snowy trail as the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race kicked off in Alaska following a trying year for the annual event.

Musher Cody Strathe of Fairbanks and his 16-dog team were the first to take off across frozen Willow Lake, about 75 miles north of Anchorage.

Before taking off on the trail, Mr Strathe said he was excited to be the first to leave. He said he had a harmonica in his pocket and he plans to teach himself to play during the race.

I have plenty of time while Im out there, he said, adding he will play bad harmonica music to his dogs along the way.

Sixty-seven teams are signed up for the 1,000-mile trek over mountain ranges, frozen rivers and other dangerous terrain. The winner is expected to reach the finish in the old Gold Rush town of Nome in about nine days.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals campaigner Tricia Lebkuecher speaks to a reporter prior to the ceremonial start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race (Michael Dinneen/AP)

The race is taking place after organisers spent much of the year dealing with multiple problems, including a champions dog doping scandal, the loss of a major sponsor and escalating pressure from animal rights activists.

On Sunday, it was all about the race ahead.

Anja Radano of Talkeetna, Alaska, said she was excited to run her first Iditarod with her team, including two dogs named after carnival rides, Skeeball and Tilt-A-Whirl.

My mind, personally, is just that I get out on the trail and hopefully, I dont forget anything important, said Ms Radano, who is originally from Germany.

The race had its traditional ceremonial start on Saturday with a short sprint through Anchorage that gave fans a chance to get up close to the teams.

A dog on the team of Norwegian musher Lars Monsen got loose and bolted from his trailer kennel before Saturdays event. The dog, Hudson, was later found and was securely leashed in Willow as Mr Monsen geared up, with just one thing on his mind heading into his third Iditarod.The gruelling Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race is under way in a challenge which is expected to last nine days for the winner.

Mushers from all over the world are in Alaska for the race in inhospitable conditions which have angered animal rights activists and following a year when doping allegations overshadowed the event.

The race takes dogs and mushers from Lake Willow, north of Anchorage, nearly 1,000 miles to the Bering Coast former gold rush town of Nome.

Rookie musher Matt Failor, of Willow, Alaska, gets friendly with Pantera, a female dog in his team (Michael Dinneen/AP)

Lead dogs on Ryan Redingtons team howl before the start of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race (Mark Thiessen/AP)

Ryan Redington leaves the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race starting chute (Rachel DOro/AP)

Alaskan musher Jim Laniers dog team is all smiles during the ceremonial start (Michael Dinneen/AP)

Pete Radano attends to Skeeball, a dog on his wife Anjas sled dog team ahead of the official start (Mark Thiessen/AP)

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals campaigner Tricia Lebkuecher speaks to a reporter in Anchorage (Michael Dinneen/AP)

Dogs on Ryan Redingtons team (Mark Thiessen/AP)

Handler Elin Bentsen poses with Hudson before the start of the race (Mark Thiessen/AP)

Musher Scott Janssen, left, and his wife, Debbie, pack his sled ahead of the official start (Mark Thiessen/AP)

Musher Anja Radano, of Talkeetna, Alaska, a native of Germany, prepares her sled (Mark Thiessen/AP)Cambodias prime minister Hun Sen has rejected a request from opposition leader Sam Rainsy for talks about the countrys political problems, denigrating his arch-rival as a traitor and a convict.

Hun Sen was responding on Monday to a message posted on Sunday on Twitter by Sam Rainsy, a founder of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which called for negotiations to end a political crisis that has quashed many aspects of democracy, with the opposition party dissolved and its members thrown out of parliament.

Cambodian courts, generally considered to be under ruling party influence, last November sustained a government claim that the opposition party had conspired with foreigners to overthrow the ruling party.

A general election is scheduled for July, but with the absence of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, Hun Sens Cambodia Peoples Party faces no credible challengers.

A Cambodian woman voting during a senate election last month (Heng Sinith/AP)

I am always open to meeting with Hun Sens government in order to find a peaceful solution to this unprecedented crisis, a solution that would be acceptable to both sides, with international guarantees, Sam Rainsy tweeted on Sunday.

Hun Sen said he was open to talks, but not with Sam Rainsy and his group.

Speaking at a Buddhist ceremony on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh, Hun Sen said he has spent more than half of his life negotiating for an end to conflict, an evident reference to his role in ending the threat posed by the communist Khmer Rouge, who after being ousted from power in the late 1970s carried out a guerrilla war.

He said he was willing to hold talks for the sake of the countrys peace and stability, but not with convicts and traitors.

Hun Sen also denounced foreign countries promoting talks with Sam Rainsy, accusing them of interference in Cambodias internal affairs.

In recent years the opposition party has faced an onslaught of legal challenges from Hun Sens government. Court rulings forced Sam Rainsy to remain in exile and pressured him into resigning from his party.

Sam Rainsy has been in self-imposed exile since late 2015 to avoid being jailed in one defamation case, and was convicted again in December in connection with a Facebook post in which he accused Hun Sen of offering one million US dollars to a political operative to assail the opposition.

The attacks on the opposition culminated last November, when the Supreme Court ordered the Cambodia National Rescue Party to be dissolved for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government. Independent media have also been forced to shut down.

Kem Sokha, Sam Rainsys successor as opposition leader, has been charged with treason for allegedly conspiring with the United States to topple the government, and now faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted.

He was arrested on the basis of videos from several years ago showing him at a seminar where he spoke about receiving advice from US pro-democracy groups. The opposition party denied the treason allegation, saying it was politically motivated.

Hun Sen said on Monday he will not ask King Norodom Sihamoni to grant an amnesty to Kem Sokha, who is in detention awaiting trial.Fans have been given a glimpse of the new Mary Poppins film ahead of the magical nannys comeback next Christmas.

Walt Disney Studios have released the trailer for Mary Poppins Returns, which sees Emily Blunt replacing Julie Andrews in the title role.

The film  based on P. L. Travers character  tells the story of an older Jane and Michael Banks, and Michaels three children, who are visited by Poppins after a personal loss in depression-hit London.

This Christmas, a new story begins. Heres your first look at Mary Poppins Returns. #MaryPoppinsReturns pic.twitter.com/nDAnFVUBCU  Walt Disney Studios (@DisneyStudios) March 5, 2018

The trailer features a street which resembles the original films Cherry Tree Lane, and begins with a kite being blown out of a bin on a grey blustery day.

A little boy chases the kite and soon appears to be flying it himself, when he and a man who is helping him then spot a figure in the sky.

The next scene shows a couple and the man says: Mary Poppins, it is wonderful to see you.

Emily Blunt is Mary Poppins in the upcoming sequel, #MaryPoppinsReturns. The brand new film opens in theatres December 2018. #D23Expo pic.twitter.com/egxozrpRbr  Walt Disney Studios (@DisneyStudios) July 15, 2017

Making her first appearance in the trailer, Blunts Poppins replies: Yes it is, isnt it?

Mary Poppins Returns will also star Meryl Streep and Colin Firth, and is due in cinemas at Christmas.

Dick Van Dyke, who starred as chimney sweep Bert in the original movie, has confirmed he will appear in the sequel.

The 92-year-old actor previously said he had agreed to join the cast of the new movie, which also stars Angela Lansbury.

The films director is Rob Marshall, whose previous work includes Chicago and Into The Woods, while the script is being written by Finding Neverland writer David Magee.A hard Brexit could cost an average worker in Scotland 116 by 2020, new research has indicated.

The study claims income losses following a no deal Brexit could hit more than 1,010 by 2027 and forecasts a cumulative drop of more than 15,615 by 2034.

Campaign organisation Open Britain carried out the research for Labour MP Ian Murray, co-founder of the Scottish Labour for the Single Market group with former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale which wants to stay in the customs union and single market after leaving the EU.

Ian Murray is co-founder of Scottish Labour for the Single Market (Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA)

A hard Brexit under the Tories could immediately cost an average worker in Scotland 116-a-year, new research has revealed. https://t.co/bUzFl3dFfX  Scottish Labour for the Single Market (@SL4SingleMarket) March 5, 2018

The calculations are based on a no deal Brexit leading to an estimated drop in the UKs average annual economic growth by 1%, against 1.5% for staying in the EU and 1.1% for remaining in the single market and customs union.

The income loss is based on a median Scottish wage of 23,150.

Mr Murray said: This reveals that any sort of Brexit will leave families across Scotland worse off and a no deal Brexit could cost the average worker 116-a-year in 2020.

Brexit has the potential to hit everyone in work. Already we have seen how Brexit has forced prices up in the shops and the pound has taken a beating. The pain of Brexit could stretch on for years.

Papers leaked last month from the UK Governments Department for Exiting the EU forecast a 9% drop in economic growth in Scotland following a no deal Brexit, worse than Scottish Government predictions of an 8.5% drop by 2030.

The UK Government said the leaked papers were draft documents which do not represent the governments policy.

Earlier, Mr Murray said the Prime Minister and Jeremy Corbyn want to have their cake and eat it on Brexit.

Speaking on the BBCs Good Morning Scotland programme, he said: Its very difficult, as the EU keeps saying, to have your cake and eat it, and thats what the Prime Minster and the Leader of the Opposition seem to want to do.

He said Mr Corbyn was further ahead of Theresa May in his Brexit position and welcomed the recent announcement that Labour would seek to form a new UK-EU customs union to ensure tariff-free trade after Brexit, but stressed the EU has said it will not negotiate a bespoke deal for the customs union.

We owe it to the people our party represents to fight for jobs and workers' rights, which is why I support remaining in the Single Market. https://t.co/d9bZwLtiKQ  Kezia Dugdale (@kezdugdale) March 4, 2018

Questioned if the formation of the new group is a bid to upstage Ms Dugdales successor Richard Leonard at the Scottish Labour conference this weekend, Mr Murray said: Its got absolutely nothing to do with the leadership of the UK or the Scottish Labour parties  Its an attempt by the grassroots of the Labour Party to come together and tell the leadership of the Labour Party that the least worst option for the country of leaving the European Union is to stay in the single market and the customs union.

Scottish Conservative deputy leader Jackson Carlaw said: This campaign group, set up by Kezia Dugdale, is more about Scottish Labours internal splits than it is about facing up to the challenges and opportunities of Brexit.

Scottish Labour Brexit spokesman Neil Findlay said: Labour does not support a no deal Brexit.

We want a deal which retains the benefits of the Single Market and will not support a deal which does not.The leader of the 5-Star Movement, Luigi Di Maio, has said the partys strong showing throughout Italy means that it should run the next government.

Mr Di Maio spoke less than an hour after the head of the League made the same claim on the part of the centre-right coalition, which collectively has more votes than the 5-Stars.

The assertions underline the difficulties that President Sergio Mattarella will have in choosing someone to form a government, as neither of the blocs has enough to govern alone.

Mr Di Maio said that we are a political force that represents the entire nation. We represent the whole boot, from Val DAosta to Sicily. He said the successes of the other groups were more regional.

Matteo Salvinis party ran on an anti-migrant platform (Luca Bruno/AP)

He called the vote post-ideological. It goes beyond the left and the right, and instead turned on themes like immigration and work.

The 5-Star movement tripled the number of parliamentarians over the last election in 2013, when it was also the first party but only by a hairs breadth and the government went to the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, the leader of Italys right-wing eurosceptic League said his partys surge at the voting booths was due to its economic proposals, not its anti-immigration stance.

Matteo Salvini said the migrant issue was just one problem facing Italy and that the League has clear ideas on how to resolve that.

Mr Salvini said voters were attracted by the idea that Italy recovers, works, that every once in a while stays home on Sunday to enjoy its own children, have grandparents who dont die in assembly lines.

Mr Salvini also cited his partys proposals to overturn pension reforms, introduce a flat tax and cut bureaucracy.

His group captured nearly 18% of the Italian national vote on Sunday, and the right-wing bloc of parties allied with the League won 37% overall.

With no faction winning a clear majority, the results confirmed that negotiations to form a new government that could win a confidence vote in parliament would be fraught.

Ungovernable Italy headlined daily newspaper La Stampa as the early numbers rolled in.

Mr Salvinis party appeared to be surpassing its coalition partner, the establishment Forza Italia party of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi.

According to the partial results, the League captured around 18% of the vote, while Forza Italia had less than 14%.The Scottish Governments target to deliver 27,000 new modern apprenticeship opportunities in 2017/18 is on track, the First Minister has said.

New figures show that by the end of December more than 18,700 apprentices had started their training across Scotland.

The statistics were highlighted to mark the launch of Scottish Apprenticeship Week.

Nicola Sturgeon (second right) meets apprentices at the Lothian Bus central garage in Edinburgh (Andy Buchanan/PA)

The target will be increased to 28,000 in 2018/19 and for the first time will include graduate apprenticeships.

The move will mean people can study for university-level qualifications while in paid full-time employment.

Speaking as she met with modern apprentices at Lothian Buses in Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon said: Skills investment is a key contributor to our economic growth.

That is why we have increased Skills Development Scotlands (SDS) funding by 7% to 193 million next year.

We recognise the vital role skills can play in helping individuals realise their potential allowing our businesses to maximise growth opportunities both now and in future.

It's Scottish Apprenticeship Week!  Tons of activities this week and we want to hear your #Apprenticeship stories too. #ScotAppWeek18 #MyApprenticeStory https://t.co/MGQ1SHQMZY pic.twitter.com/IyJhxnnRNA  Skills Development Scotland  (@skillsdevscot) March 5, 2018

Skills Development Scotland exists to create the conditions for businesses to increase productivity and growth, thereby helping deliver the skills that our people and economy need.

Ms Sturgeon has also confirmed that the skills body is planning a national apprenticeship conference.

SDS chief executive Damien Yeates said: The Year of Young People is the ideal time to hold Scotlands first apprenticeship conference by apprentices for young people.

The event will be Scotlands biggest celebration of apprentices, showcasing the talent and achievements of young people who choose to work, learn and earn.Three men have appeared in court charged with the manslaughter of five people after allegedly starting a fire at a shop using petrol.

Arkan Ali, 37, Hawkar Hassan, 32, and Aram Kurd, 33, were arrested after an explosion destroyed a Polish supermarket and two-storey flat on February 25.

Four of the people killed in the blast have been named as Shane Rajoobeer, 18, Sean Rajoobeer, 17, Leah Beth Reek, 18, who was Shanes girlfriend, and Viktorija Ljevleva, 22.

The fifth victim killed in the explosion on Hinckley Road, Leicester, is believed to be Shane and Seans 46-year-old mother Mary.

Brothers Sean (left) and Shane Rajoobeer, victims of the Hinckley Road explosion in Leicester, and their mother Mary, who is also believed to have died in the blast (Leicestrshire Police/PA)

The trio appeared at Leicester Magistrates Court to face a separate count of arson with intent to endanger life and were not required to enter any pleas.

Ali and Hassan, wearing grey sweatshirts and Kurd wearing a black hooded top, looked straight ahead as they followed proceedings through a Kurdish interpreter.

Another man in his 40s from East Anglia was arrested on Sunday also on suspicion of manslaughter.

Two men, also from East Anglia, were arrested in connection with the incident on Friday but have since been released under investigation.

On Monday, Ali, of Drake Close, Oldham, Hassan, of no fixed abode and Kurd, of Hillary Place, Leicester, spoke only to confirm their name, age and address during a 30-minute hearing.

The three men were remanded into custody by magistrates until a further hearing on April 3 at the citys crown court.Police have described a paramilitary attack on a man in his 30s as barbaric and horrific.

Four masked men forced their way into a house in The Crescent area of Ballymoney, Co Antrim at about 7.45pm on Sunday.

He was taken to hospital for treatment to injuries which were not believed to be life-threatening.

The PSNI are investigating a paramilitary style attack in Ballymoney, Co Antrim (PA)

A Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) spokesman said: Whilst these injuries are not life threatening, this was a brutal and horrific attack. It is yet another example of how criminal groups seek to control communities through fear and violence.

Detectives appeal for information and witnesses following a report of a paramilitary style assault in The Crescent area of Ballymoney yesterday, Sunday, 4 March. Information to 101 quoting reference 1051 04/03/18 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.  Police Causeway Coast and Glens (@PSNICCGDistrict) March 5, 2018

Another man and woman, who were also in the house, were forced into the kitchen of the property while the assault was carried out. They were not injured, however they were left very badly shaken.

North Antrim DUP MLA Mervyn Storey condemned the attack.

He said: Clearly those involved in this horrendous attack were intent on not just inflicting fear, but serious injury.

Fortunately the police are not investigating a murder, as that could have been the case.

I would appeal to anyone who may have seen or heard anything, no matter how insignificant they may think it is to contact the police.

It is imperative that those responsible for this despicable attack are soon apprehended and their reign of terror brought to an end.A Turkish court has rejected lawyers requests for two Greek soldiers arrested in Turkey to be released from custody.

The two were arrested last week for allegedly entering a Turkish military zone and on suspicion of attempted espionage. Greece said the two soldiers, a lieutenant and a sergeant, accidentally strayed into Turkey due to bad weather during a patrol of the Greek-Turkish border.

The development has added further tensions to already strained ties between the Nato allies.

Lawyers for the two Greek soldiers filed a demand on Monday for their release at the court in the northwestern Turkish city of Edirne.

The court however, ruled that they must remain in custody on grounds that they did not have permanent residence in Turkey and because the court was still examining the digital data seized from them, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Family members of the two soldiers were able to visit them in jail on Monday.

Turkish paramilitary police officers escort the Greek soldiers (DHA-Depo Photos/AP)

Earlier in Athens, Greek foreign minister Nikos Kotzias renewed a demand for their swift release.

Turkey must observe procedures prescribed by international law, and not turn a routine incident into a big political and legal issue, he said.

A river marks most of the Greek-Turkish border, while a fence runs along much of the land section. However, some parts arent clearly marked.

Relations between neighbours Greece and Turkey have soured in recent weeks over longstanding disputes about boundaries in the Aegean Sea and natural gas drilling rights off the coast of war-divided Cyprus.

Last month, a Greek coast guard vessel was rammed by a Turkish patrol boat off disputed islets in the east Aegean, and Turkish warships prevented an exploratory gas rig from drilling near Cyprus.

Turkey meanwhile, is angered by court decisions in Greece rejecting the extradition of eight Turkish servicemen wanted by Ankara for their alleged involvement in a failed military coup in 2016. The eight deny any involvement in the failed coup, and Greek courts have ruled they would be at risk of not receiving a fair trial if returned to Turkey.

Turkish deputy prime minister Bekir Bozdag rejected speculation that Ankara could use the Greek soldiers arrest to secure the extradition of the eight Turkish soldiers.

The arrest of the two soldiers in Turkey is not the subject of a swap, Mr Bozdag said. Neither the Greek government nor the Turkish government have made a request for a swap.Benjamin Mendy has stepped up his recovery from a long-term knee injury by returning to training with Manchester City.

The Premier League leaders released photographs of the France left-back participating in a session with his team-mates on Monday.

Mendy, 23, has been out since suffering ligament damage in Citys Premier League clash with Crystal Palace in September and subsequently undergoing surgery.

Benjamin Mendy has been out of action since September (Steven Paston/PA)

The developments follow an interview Mendy gave last week suggesting he was close to a return.

Mendy told the club website, mancity.com: When I started my recovery, I had in mind the semi-finals of the Champions League.

That was my goal, but I am coming back a bit quicker than expected originally so maybe it will be possible for me to return sooner than that. I believe in this.

I think its possible for me to come back within four weeks. Its not a good thing to come back too soon and you have to take your time.

Mendy made an impressive start at City following his 49.1million move from Monaco last summer but made only five appearances before being sidelined.

Raheem Sterling was also involved in training after four games out with a muscular injury.Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has ruled out formal three-way talks between the UK, Ireland and the EU to look at Theresa Mays Brexit offer.

Updating MPs on her plans, Mrs May said the UK and Irish governments and the European Commission will be working together to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

But Mr Varadkar said it was not in Irelands interests to take part in formal three-way talks regarding the wider Brexit issues, and that what was needed was for Downing Street to produce more detailed proposals.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has ruled our three-way talks on Brexit (Niall Carson/PA)

I have an ambition for our future with the EU - the right Brexit deal for Britain. Now let's get on with it. pic.twitter.com/zRCJzbWfyK  Theresa May (@theresa_may) March 4, 2018

He said talks would be limited to issues unique to Ireland.

Mrs May set out her position in the Commons following last weeks major speech on Brexit.

She told MPs: We will not go back to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Neither will we break up the UKs own common market with a border down the Irish Sea.

As Prime Minister I am not going to let our departure from the EU do anything to set back the historic progress made in Northern Ireland, nor will I allow anything that would damage the integrity of our precious union.

The UK and Irish governments and the European Commission will be working together to ensure that we fulfil these commitments.

But before Mrs Mays statement, the Irish PM said: There wont be tripartite or three-way talks.

What will happen is that there will be talks between the EU 27 and the UK, and Ireland is part of the EU 27 and were much stronger by the way as one of 27.

Mr Varadkar added consultations could take place between the two governments about issues that are unique to Ireland.

We will of course have negotiations about what could be done to avoid a hard border, but what we wont be getting into is a negotiation with the UK, or a three-way negotiation, Mr Varadkar said.

Thats not in our interest and not the way that this can be concluded.

The Taoiseach told RTEs Morning Ireland programme that he gave Mrs Mays Brexit speech on Friday a guarded welcome, but that detail was now needed from the UK Government.

What we want is not so much principles and aspirations and red lines, Mr Varadkar said.

What we want is detail, written down in black and white that can be codified into law and that is what is required.

Mrs Mays speech earned her breathing space from warring Remain and Leave factions in the Conservative Party, but her plans for maintaining a soft Irish border while leaving the customs union were thrown into doubt when Irish Tanaiste and foreign minister Simon Coveney said the EU may not accept her proposals.

Amid the ongoing row over the border, Sinn Fein leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle ONeill travelled to Brussels on Monday to meet EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

Just arrived in Brussels with @MaryLouMcDonald for meeting with @MichelBarnier to discuss case for special arrangements on the island of Ireland & protection of the Good Friday Agreement #NoBorder  Michelle ONeill (@moneillsf) March 5, 2018

After what she described as a frank, productive and positive meeting with Mr Barnier, Mrs McDonald voiced support for the Taoiseachs stance.

The Taoiseach is absolutely correct to say that the substantive negotiation is between the British government on one hand and the EU member states collectively on the other and in our view it is important to maintain that dynamic, she said.

The Sinn Fein president added: The ball is now in Mrs Mays court, the ball is now in the court of the British, who say they dont like what they have seen, they dont like the solution advanced by Europe, if they dont like that we would like to know what is their solution.

Mrs McDonald said Mr Barnier understood the importance of resolving the border problem.

I am happy to say we have a shared understanding that there cannot be a withdrawal agreement, much less an agreement on any future relationship between Britain and the European Union, in the absence of an answer to the Irish question, she said.

Mr Barnier, who is due to meet DUP leader Arlene Foster and deputy leader Nigel Dodds in Brussels on Tuesday, said his discussions with Sinn Fein had been positive.

Good meeting this morning with @MaryLouMcDonald and @moneillsf @sinnfeinireland - essential to listen to all voices in Northern Ireland. Meeting @DUPleader tomorrow. Working to ensure the #UKs orderly withdrawal #Brexit pic.twitter.com/ckNDwO1eeS  Michel Barnier (@MichelBarnier) March 5, 2018

He tweeted: Essential to listen to all voices in Northern Ireland.

Mrs May has rejected Brussels proposals that would see Northern Ireland kept in an effective customs union with the EU as a fallback in case other solutions cannot be found.

She has proposed technological solutions and an exemption from new restrictions on the 80% of cross-frontier trade carried out by smaller businesses.

Mrs May told MPs: We cannot escape the complexity of the task ahead.

We must build a new and lasting relationship while preparing for every scenario.

But with pragmatism, calm and patient discussion, I am confident we can set an example to the world.Democratic Unionist leader Arlene Foster has denied Sinn Fein claims that she personally handed over a draft deal to restore powersharing in Northern Ireland just days before pulling the plug on talks.

Mrs Foster moved to counter an assertion by Sinn Fein Stormont leader Michelle ONeill that her unionist counterpart gave her a hard copy of a proposed agreement on Friday February 9, five days before the DUPs Valentines Day walkout.

Mrs ONeills account came after a leaked email between senior DUP and Sinn Fein aides suggested Mrs Foster passed her such a document.

The email exchange, published last week by news website EamonnMallie.com, challenged the DUPs ongoing insistence that it had not agreed the framework of a deal with Sinn Fein that would have seen devolution return to Stormont.

The assertion over the alleged draft deal was made by Sinn Feins Michelle ONeill (Kirsty OConnor/PA)

The party has been accused of getting cold feet in the face of an internal revolt from grassroots members angry about potential concessions to Sinn Fein on the vexed dispute over the Irish language.

Mrs Foster said she exchanged numerous papers with Mrs ONeill during the negotiation process but none amounted to a draft agreement.

During the course of those negotiations, draft papers were exchanged between Michelle ONeill and I on an almost daily basis, she said.

I have a lever arch folder containing them. Some related to the Irish language, others related to treatment of innocent victims and others to how Sinn Fein Ministers would implement the military covenant.

None of those draft papers had any standing. They were an exchange of ideas between negotiating teams.

I can categorically state there was never any agreement reached. Even the documentation selectively leaked by Sinn Fein shows square brackets thus demonstrating there was no agreement.

Even commentators have recognised the document in circulation was not agreed. Indeed, on the Friday in question, I released a statement saying good progress made but more work still to do.

Neither was any draft agreement handed over by me to Sinn Fein. Given the state of play, it is highly surprising that such a statement should be made.

Mrs Foster said arguing on the negotiation scraps meant serious issues facing the region in the absence of devolution were being ignored.

Earlier on Monday, Mrs ONeill was asked about the contents of the leaked email after holding talks with EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels.

I can confirm that Arlene Foster did hand me a hard copy of a document which was then subsequently emailed to Stephen McGlade who works with me in the office, she said.

She added: It was a culmination of a lot of work, it was the outworking of all the negotiation which we participated in in good faith and to me when she handed me the document that was in fact the draft agreement in which we were working on.

We know where we had got to, we had after 14 months found a way forward, there was a basis to restore the institutions.

So only the DUP leadership, and whoever is in charge of the DUP, can talk about who actually and why they failed to close the deal.

I am 100% sure, I am crystal clear that we had a draft agreement and had found a way forward.

Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley declined to comment on the issue (PA)

Northern Ireland Secretary Karen Bradley declined to be drawn on the ongoing round of claim and counter claim around the existence of a draft deal.

Mrs Bradley was questioned about Mrs ONeills assertion during a visit to Londonderry.

It wouldnt be fair for me to comment or speculate on what happened, said the Secretary of State.

All I know is there was never a final agreement.

But what I do want to see is those parties come together to get back round the table and lets get devolved government back up and running at Stormont.

In the ongoing absence of a deal to resurrect the coalition executive, Mrs Bradley is preparing to step in to pass a budget for the regions rudderless public services later this week.

She is also due to make an announcement on whether the pay of Assembly members will be reduced.

The Conservative MP said the issue of MLA pay was raised repeatedly with her on her trip to Derry.

It was an issue that was raised with me on a number of occasions by a number of people, she said.

During her visit to the north west, Mrs Bradley met students from Thornhill college  the school that provided the inspiration for the hit Channel Four comedy Derry Girls.A man has been arrested for stealing Frances McDormands Best Actress Oscar after Sunday nights Academy Awards.

The star, 60, picked up the coveted gong for her towering performance as a grieving mother in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

But the statuette was allegedly stolen during the glitzy Governors Ball after party.

Frances McDormand won the award for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (Ian West/PA)

Officer Rosario Herrera, a spokeswoman for Los Angeles police, said 47-year-old Terry Bryant was arrested on Sunday night on suspicion of felony grand theft.

She said Bryant was being held on 20,000 dollars (14,500) bail on Monday morning.

The officer said Bryant had a ticket for the event.

McDormand dazzled the Oscar audience at the star-studded ceremony when she gave a powerful acceptance speech for her award.

The actress called on all the female winners and nominees to stand with her as she claimed the prize for her role.

McDormands publicist Simon Halls told the Associated Press: After some brief time apart, Frances and her Oscar were happily reunited. They celebrated the reunion with a double cheeseburger from In-N-Out Burger.A man in hospital after he was believed to have been exposed to an unknown substance is a former Russian spy, it is understood.

The BBC reported Sergei Skripal, 66, is critically ill along with a woman, believed to be known to him, after they were found unconscious on a bench in a shopping centre in Salisbury, Wiltshire.

Skripal was convicted of passing state secrets to Britain in 2006 before being given refuge in the UK as part of a spy swap.

The pair are being treated at Salisbury District Hospital (Tim Ockenden/PA)

The former colonel in the Russian military intelligence, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006, was among four other convicts who were given pardons and one of two sent to Britain in 2010 in a deal that was said at the time to be the largest spy swap since the Cold War.

Among the Russian agents deported from America as part of the deal was Manhattan socialite and diplomats daughter Anna Chapman, who was married to a British man and lived in London for several years.

Wiltshire Police said because the investigation was in the early stages officers are unable to ascertain whether the pair have been victims of a crime and have reassured people there is no risk to the wider public.

This has not been declared as a CT incident and we would urge people not to speculate. However, we emphasise that we retain an open mind & we will continue to review this position. #Salisbury https://t.co/0Lc4EQQw5c  Wiltshire Police (@wiltshirepolice) March 5, 2018

A major incident has been declared at Salisbury District Hospital but patients have been advised to attend appointments as normal unless advised otherwise.

Officers were called to The Maltings by a member of the public on Sunday shortly after 4pm.

Freya Church, who saw the couple on the bench, told the BBC they looked so out of it.

She said: On the bench there was a couple, an older guy and a younger girl. She was sort of leant in on him, it looked like she had passed out maybe.

He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky.

It looked like they had been taking something quite strong.

Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden said: The pair, who we believe are known to each other, did not have any visible injuries and were taken to Salisbury District Hospital.

They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance. Both are currently in a critical condition in intensive care.

Because we are still at the very early stages of the investigation, we are unable to ascertain whether or not a crime has taken place.

@SalisburyNHS is currently dealing with a major incident involving a small number of casualties, with a multi-agency response. We are not asking additional staff to come to site unless contacted directly.  Salisbury Hospital (@SalisburyNHS) March 5, 2018

The force said a number of areas in Salisbury had been cordoned off in relation to their investigation.

A spokesman for Public Health England (PHE) said anyone exposed to the unknown substance had been decontaminated as is standard practice in situations like this.

He added: Scientists from PHEs Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, will continue to assist the response and review information as it becomes available.

In 2006, Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko died after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210.

The last photo taken of poisoned spy Alexander Litvinenko alive (Litvinenko Inquiry/PA)

A public inquiry concluded in 2016 that the killing of Mr Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin, had probably been carried out with the approval of the Russian president.A trade agreement with the EU which excluded the UKs financial services sector from single market access would not be credible, Chancellor Philip Hammond has told MPs.

Brussels chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier has previously played down the prospect of financial services being included in a free trade agreement of the type being sought by the UK, saying such an arrangement doesnt exist.

But Mr Hammond told the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee that excluding UK-based finance firms would have significant costs for businesses across continental Europe, and that the EU would find it impossible to relocate or replicate the facilities of the City of London elsewhere.

Asked about suggestions that the UK would be treated like any other non-EU country in terms of access for financial services after Brexit, the Chancellor said: I dont think it is credible. I dont think it reflects the real world in which we live.

Chancellor Philip Hammond told MPs a trade deal which excluded the City was not `credible (www.parliamentlive.tv)

(Given) the scale of the UK-based financial services sector and the deep involvement it has in the operation of the real economy in the EU, I dont think it is in anybodys interest to sever that link in key areas.

The UK financial services infrastructure, the critical mass that we have in several key areas, simply cant be relocated or replicated. It is a very complex eco-system, it has grown up rather than being created, and it would be a very, very bold move indeed to fragment it.

That would undoubtedly have very significant costs to all the clients and users of these services. I dont think it is a credible scenario.

He added: Any deal has to be fair and attractive to both sides. Given the shape of the UK economy, so heavily biased towards services, I find it difficult to envisage what a deal would look like that was fair and attractive to the UK that didnt involve access for services.

Mr Hammond told the committee the Government has so far spent around 700 million on preparations for Brexit, from a 3 billion pot announced in last years Budget.

Once agreement is reached on a transition deal, it may be possible to stand down preparations currently being undertaken for a possible no-deal Brexit in 2019, he said.

But he added it will probably then be necessary to prepare for the risk of withdrawal without a deal at the end of the transition period in 2020 or 2021.

Mr Hammond said the draft legal text for the withdrawal agreement published by the European Commission last week went beyond the terms of Decembers deal between Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker by setting out unacceptable proposals for EU customs control in Northern Ireland.

The Chancellor said Britain had no current plans to produce its own legal text, but hoped to make progress in the coming weeks and months towards the kind of trade agreement with the EU which would reduce the salience of the issue.

However, he acknowledged that the creation of a customs border on the island of Ireland when the UK leaves the EU will create new challenges.

And he said that being outside the customs union and single market will represent an additional cost to business, theres no two ways about it.

The Chancellor rejected suggestions that Dublin was stoking up a row over the border.

He told the cross-party committee: I dont think the Irish Republic could be more helpful than it is already being, given the constraints that it has of being a continuing member of the EU and having to respect the competences of member states and the Commission.

In practice we have a very pragmatic working relationship between the UK, the Republic of Ireland and the Commission in trying to move this forward.A former Russian double agent is critically ill following his suspected exposure to an unknown substance.

A pizza restaurant in Salisbury was closed by police late on Monday night as Sergei Skripal, 66, fought for his life in hospital a day after he was found unconscious in the city.

The BBC named Skripal as the man who was found along with a woman in her 30s, believed to be known to him, on a bench in a shopping centre on Sunday.

Skripal was convicted in 2006 of passing state secrets to MI6 before being given refuge in the UK as part of a spy swap.

The former colonel in the Russian military intelligence, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison, was among four other convicts who were given pardons and one of two sent to Britain in 2010 in a deal that was said at the time to be the largest exchange since the Cold War.

Wiltshire Police said officers were as yet unable to ascertain whether the pair have been victims of a crime and the force reassured people there is no risk to the wider public.

The Castle Street branch of the chain restaurant Zizzi was secured as a precaution, the force said, adding Public Health England believed there was no risk to the public.

This has not been declared as a CT incident and we would urge people not to speculate. However, we emphasise that we retain an open mind & we will continue to review this position. #Salisbury https://t.co/0Lc4EQQw5c  Wiltshire Police (@wiltshirepolice) March 5, 2018

Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden said: The pair, who we believe are known to each other, did not have any visible injuries and were taken to Salisbury District Hospital.

They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance. Both are currently in a critical condition in intensive care.

This has not been declared as a counter terrorism incident and we would urge people not to speculate. However, I must emphasise that we retain an open mind and we will continue to review this position.

Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion and critic of Vladimir Putin, was among those who drew comparisons with the death of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.

A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in the UK, when asked for comment on the incident, said: Neither relatives nor legal representatives of the said person, nor the British authorities have addressed the embassy in this regard.

A major incident was declared at Salisbury District Hospital, where the two people are being treated (Tim Ockenden/PA)

Salisbury District Hospital declared a major incident but told patients to attend appointments as normal unless advised otherwise.

Officers were called to The Maltings by a member of the public on Sunday shortly after 4pm.

Freya Church, who saw the couple on the bench, told the BBC they looked so out of it.

She said: On the bench there was a couple, an older guy and a younger girl. She was sort of leant in on him, it looked like she had passed out maybe.

He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky.

It looked like they had been taking something quite strong.

The force said a number of areas in Salisbury had been cordoned off in relation to their investigation.

A spokesman for Public Health England (PHE) said anyone exposed to the unknown substance had been decontaminated as is standard practice in situations like this.

He added: Scientists from PHEs Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, will continue to assist the response and review information as it becomes available.

@SalisburyNHS is currently dealing with a major incident involving a small number of casualties, with a multi-agency response. We are not asking additional staff to come to site unless contacted directly.  Salisbury Hospital (@SalisburyNHS) March 5, 2018

Among the Russian agents deported from America as part of the deal was Manhattan socialite and diplomats daughter Anna Chapman, who was married to a British man and lived in London for several years.

The incident comes at a delicate time for UK-Russia relations, with a report from the Commons Foreign Affairs committee last year describing the relationship between the two countries as being at its most strained point since the end of the Cold War.

In a speech in October, MI5 Director General Andrew Parker said the agency is working against espionage and other clandestine activity by Russia and other foreign states who seek to do Britain harm.

In evidence to the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee, MI6 described the Russian state as formidable adversaries.

In a heavily redacted passage of its annual report for 2016-17, the committee, which has access to highly classified material, concluded: The events of the past decade or so show that the threat from Russia remains significant. The Agencies focus on Russia must be maintained.

In 2006, Mr Litvinenko died in London after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210.

A public inquiry concluded in 2016 that the killing of Mr Litvinenko, an outspoken critic of Vladimir Putin, had probably been carried out with the approval of the Russian president.Sri Lanka Air Forces (SLAF) military proficiency and her capabilities to handle its role in the national and regional landscape was showcased at the 67th Anniversary Air Tattoo held on Saturday (3) at the SLAF Station in Ampara. The air show and the educational exhibition was declared open by the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence Kapila Waidyaratne on the invitation of Air Force Commander Air Marshal Kapila Jayampathy. Pics courtesy- SLAF MediaThe staff of the Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) including the engineers staged a protest in front of the Colombo Town Hall today against the removal of Commissioner V. K. Anura by the Western Province Governor. Pix by Nisal BadugeCakebread Cellars possesses one of the country's most recognizable labels, a Napa Valley winery founded by Jack and Dolores Cakebread in 1973 that today is run by sons Dennis and Bruce.

Cakebread has accumulated prime vineyards in 13 different sites, all but one in Napa Valley, amounting to 584 acres. Since 1995, the winery has added to its vineyard holdings in Napa Valley as well as Mendocino County's cooler-climate Anderson Valley where its Pinot Noir is sourced, amounting to 109 acres.

You can read its long and storied timeline at this link.

Stephanie Jacobs has been with Cakebread Cellars since 2004.

While best known for its Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc wines, but over the past 17 years also has made an earnest commitment to its Pinot Noir.

Per its website: "Over the past decade, Cakebread Cellars has expanded its interest in Pinot Noir. In 2001, we developed what is now a 46-acre Pinot Noir vineyard in Mendocino County's Anderson Valley, which we today call Apple Barn. It's planted to six distinguished clones of the variety and has produced outstanding Pinot Noirs since 2004. In 2011, we acquired the highly regarded Annahala Vineyard, just a half-mile west of Apple Barn. Annahala contains 60 acres and eight high-quality clones of Pinot Noir. As a result, we soon will be offering three Anderson Valley Pinot Noirs, one from each of our Mendocino vineyards and a blend of fruit from the two."

Here's a link to Cakebread's lineup of wines and to its wine club.

Stephanie Jacobs is a University of California at Davis graduate who began her winemaking career working at a small winery in the Sierra Foothills. In 2001, she went to work for Bogle Vineyards as its enologist before moving over in a similar role to Cakebread in 2004. Promoted to assistant winemaker in 2008. four years later she was promoted to Pinot Noir Project Leader, which is her favorite varietal of Cakebread Cellars wines, per the website.

In 2017 she became Cakebread Cellars' fourth-ever winemaker in its more than 40-year history.

Jacobs answered some questions about Cakebread and her work as a winemaker, the latest in a series of interviews with winery owners and winemakers outside the East Coast.

Q., Did you grow up in California? Can you tell me a bit about the trip to France that first drew your attention to winemaking?

A, I grew up on the beach in Newport Beach, CA, and as much as I loved being close to the water, when an opportunity to study abroad in France came up, I had to say "oui!" The exchange program was a summerlong intensive language program with several students across the United States. We traveled from Nice, in southern France, to Paris, focusing on honing language skills and learning the culture along the way, including the French love of wine.

However, it wasn't until my college days at UC Davis that I realized my professional wine calling. I first enrolled in the Davis Fermentation Science program with the intent to study beer-making. I ended up completely falling for winemaking during some of my pre-requisite courses.

Q, So is it the art or science that most attracted you to making this a full-time career?

A, A bit of both, as I was drawn to wine's ever-changing variables. It's constantly changing, always depending on that vintage's various factors. Being a winemaker allows you to be creative, as well as practice science and adapt along the way.

Q, Are there certain grapes or wine you like to drink, besides Pinot Noir?

A, It's really hard to say--I love all varietals. Pinot Noir did steal my heart back in 2012 when I was asked to spearhead Cakebread Cellars' Pinot Noir program. However, I love a nice glass of Cabernet or Reserve Chardonnay in the winter months, and a refreshing glass of Sauvignon Blanc in the spring and summer time.

Q, So, what about Pinot Noir? Why do you like it so? Has it always been that way? And tell me a little about the Project you were part of.

A, Many people don't know that Cakebread makes Pinot Noir, but in actuality, we've been producing Pinot for 20 years now. While all of our other Cakebread Cellars wines are made from Napa Valley grapes, our Pinot Noir offerings come from Anderson Valley, where we have two family-owned estate vineyards, with nine different clones of Pinot Noir grapes planted.

Pinot Noir has a mysterious personality about it. It's naturally lighter than other reds, but by no means weak. It's concentrated in aromas, flavors, and structure. There are many unique styles allowing a lot of creativity to capture a style that represents the individual vineyard sites.

Over the years, our Pinot Noir project has included experimentations with native yeast and grape stem fermentations, which have helped us increase the level of wine complexity. Though our winemaking philosophy has always focused on producing food-friendly and balanced wines, this has allowed us to add some nice spicy and earthy notes to the wine.

Q, In a place so well-established like Cakebread, will you still get to experiment at all? I would assume that's part of the fun, to try new things.

Absolutely, and that's one of the greatest aspects of the winery. We're encouraged to explore and experiment with different techniques, technology and equipment. Many of us on the production team are UC-Davis alums, so we enjoy collaborating and looking into new innovations. And sometimes, innovation doesn't necessarily mean what's new -- it could also mean revisiting older techniques. For example, we've incorporated concrete egg fermentation tanks into some of our winemaking processes.

Q, You're far enough along in your career now ... with a deep resume .. that you have changed jobs a couple times. This isn't anything new. So I just wondered what the first few months were like, starting out in a place so well established and where you have so few predecessors?

A, The Cakebread team is so welcoming, and you immediately feel like part of their extended family. Not only did I have the benefit of learning from my talented predecessor, Julianne Lakes, who recently retired after 31 years at the winery, but I've also benefited from learning under Bruce Cakebread. Bruce served as the lead winemaker from 1979 to 2002, when he took over the job of President and COO, and he still shares his winemaking expertise, his passion for quality and his willingness to try new practices. This culture of quality and innovation continue to inspire me as a winemaker.

Q, What was the appeal to taking the job at Cakebread?

I've now been at Cakebread Cellars for nearly 15 years, and one of the primary reasons I've fallen in love with making wine here is because of the family-owned and led structure it's based off of. Everyone's role is critical to the winery's success, and one truly feels like they are part of a larger family. The family's dedication to quality has also made this an ideal place from a winemaking perspective. Having the best grapes, equipment, team and support allows me to make the best wines.

Q, Finally, female winemakers are still rare on this side of the country. There are a handful. But I wondered if you're seeing more interest from women in winemaking as a career in your neck of the woods?

A, Women in the wine industry have increased over the last 10 - 15 years, however, when I was in school, it felt like a balanced class and whether I was a woman or not wasn't a focus. My parents stressed that "a successful career started with a good college education" and passion. First and foremost, it's important to be passionate and interested in what you do. To see my classmates pursue their dreams, it's incredibly inspiring and I'm proud--it's no wonder they are well respected winemakers, consultants, and other industry professionals.The financial results of global tobacco companies highlight the shift towards a next generation products (NGPs), Fitch

Ratings says.



This shift will help cushion the industry from weaker organic revenue growth from cigarettes, but will increase risk and uncertainty as cash flow generation becomes

less predictable.



British American Tobacco PLC said it expected NGP-generated revenue to double this year to GBP1 billion (almost 5 percent of 2017 BAT revenues), and to increase to more than GBP5 billion in 2022.



BAT and Reynolds American, which it acquired in July, have invested approximately US $ 2.5 billion in NGPs since 2012, the company said.



BAT and, more recently, Imperial Brands PLC have both adjusted their strategies to complement tobacco products with various NGPs.



BAT is focusing on both e-vapour and heat-not-burn technology. Imperial is planning to launch several new products in 2018, leveraging on its blu e-vapour platform and testing heat-not-burn.

Philip Morris International, Inc. (PMI) benefits from first-mover advantage in heat-not-burn, which may enjoy high consumer acceptance as the NGP that most closely resembles cigarette smoking.



Its sales of HeatSticks and of IQOS devices grew to US $3.6 billion in 2017, of which Asia accounted for US $ 3.2 billion, up from US $ 0.7 billion in 2016, according to the companys most recent results.



NGPs represented almost 13 percent of PMIs net revenues, excluding excise taxes, in 2017, up from 3 percent in 2016.



Fitch said the shift towards NGPs increases overall risks and uncertainties for tobacco companies.



The rating agency noted that the potential for obsolescence and possible shifts in consumer preferences will be hard to control, and NGPs have cannibalised sales of combustible tobacco products.



It is even possible that the industry will be transformed by NGPs or by regulatory changes.

Philip Morris International, Inc. (PMI) benefits from first-mover advantage in heat-not-burn, which may enjoy high consumer acceptance as the NGP that most closely resembles cigarette smoking.



Its sales of HeatSticks and of IQOS devices grew to US $3.6 billion in 2017, of which Asia accounted for US $ 3.2 billion, up from US $ 0.7 billion in 2016, according to the companys most recent results.



NGPs represented almost 13 percent of PMIs net revenues, excluding excise taxes, in 2017, up from 3 percent in 2016.



Fitch said the shift towards NGPs increases overall risks and uncertainties for tobacco companies.



The rating agency noted that the potential for obsolescence and possible shifts in consumer preferences will be hard to control, and NGPs have cannibalised sales of combustible tobacco products.



It is even possible that the industry will be transformed by NGPs or by regulatory changes.



While tobacco companies generally exhibit solid credit metrics, against this backdrop, financial flexibility has a value over the long-term.



The suspension of PMIs share buyback since 2015, accompanied by slower dividend increases, indicates a willingness to protect the companys credit metrics and prioritise the allocation of cash flow towards growing the NGP business.



We expect that this approach will also be taken by the other tobacco players as they focus on NGPs, and we do not expect BAT or Imperial Brands to restart share buybacks this year, or to accelerate dividend growth, Fitch said.From Left to Right: Ms. Selvarani Nicholas Pillai, Director of Planning, Eng. E. Jegatheesan, Regional Manager, NWSDB - Jaffna, Mr. Jeyald Antony Rasaratnam, Project Manager, CS-WASH, Mr. N. Vethanayahan, District Secretary, District Secretariat, Jaffna, Dr. Dhanan Senathirajah, National Director, World Vision Lanka (WVL), Mr. Clarence Sutharsan, Director-Corporate Partnerships, innovations and Public Engagement of WVL, Mr. Jeyald Rasaratnam, Project Manager CS-WASH.

The Jaffna District Secretariat, the National Water Supply and Drainage Board (NWSDB) - Jaffna and World Vision Lanka (WVL) recently signed a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on a pipe-borne water provision project in Jaffna.



The project will provide household level pipe-borne water to Sarasalai North  the Grama Niladhari (GN) division in Chavakachcheri, an area which has serious water-related concerns. The project will provide 88 households (nearly 350 individuals including 110 children) with water connections.



This endeavour is an extension of the already-existing initiative called the Civil Society-Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Project (CS WASH), which World Vision Lanka has been implementing since July 2014 in the Jaffna District. The project, which targets those who are facing difficulties to access these basic needs, is funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Australia. The project so far has given access to safe drinking water and sanitation, and promoted hygiene practices among rural folks in the two DS divisions, namely Chavakachcheri and Chankanai.



The signatories to this MoU were N. Vethanayahan, District Secretary, District Secretariat Jaffna, Eng. E. Jegatheesan, Regional Manager, NWSDB - Jaffna and Dr. Dhanan Senathirajah, National Director, World Vision Lanka. The event was also attended by Selvarani Nicholas Pillai, Director of Planning, Jaffna District Secretariat, Clarence Sutharsan, Director-Corporate Partnerships, Innovations and Public Engagement of WVL and members of WVL management. Commenting on this programme, Mr. Vethanayahan said, World Vision is a good partner for us for development, rehabilitation and emergency response intervention. We are very happy about this partnership with World Vision and NWSDB  Jaffna.



Meanwhile, Dr. Senathirajah said, I am glad to note that this initiative is focused on an area which we term most vulnerable to water and sanitation needs. Sarasalai North GN is an area that has many water quality issues including salinity and contamination. Most of the people use common, unprotected wells. We are happy to be a part of a project that will bring pipe-borne water to their homes.



The total funding for this initiative is over Rs. 13 million, of which 75% will be from government agencies (District Secretariat  Jaffna and NWSDB - Jaffna) and the remainder from DFAT funding through World Vision Lanka. This signifies a joint implementation partnership between the Jaffna District Secretariat, the NWSDB - Jaffna and World Vision Lanka (WVL). WVL will play a facilitation and coordination role and work with the government agencies and WASH CBO to ensure fair beneficiary selection. It will also work directly with the Water Board on the execution of excavation and pipe-laying work and construction of champers. World Vision is a Christian, relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice.The Government strongly and unequivocally condemns the recent sporadic incident of violence that had sparked off in Ampara and Digana, creating communal disharmony, where some places of worship, residences and businesses have been damaged, the Government Information Department said in a statement this evening.

It also said;

"The Government also condemned the hate and mischievous targeting the Muslim community in particular and another as well, with the clear objective of creating among communities and inciting violence.

The Government urges every citizen of Sri Lanka to desist from falling prey to such hate and misinformation campaigns. As a country that had suffered by acts of violence for nearly three decades, we as a nation should desist from the repetition of such.

At the National Security Council Meeting held yesterday, the President has ordered the Security Forces and the police to enforce the Law and Order and to take immediate action to counter any acts of violence affecting any community, in liaison with the Government Agents/Divisional Secretaries and District Administrative Authorities. Already they are working in unity to ensure the full and impartial enforcement of the law to protest all communities against any attack that create communal/ religious disharmony.

The government will not hesitate to take firm and stern action against perpetrators of crimes and violate law and order. The Government urged for total co-operation from all citizens irrespective of any communal, religious differences to build a Nation that is stable, peaceful and the progressive where diversity is respected; and, where every individual has the opportunity to enjoy all freedom that are the rights of equal citizenship. Every Sri Lankan citizen inclusive of the clergy, politicians, social leaders, civil societies and media must deplore and violence and must co-operate to bring peace and harmony to achieve reconciliation"Im not a fan of Maithripala, he was used by the west and Indians against the Rajapaksas

We asked GL, Dulles and Wimal to form a new party without contesting under the UPFA ticket for General Elections. But they didnt listen to us. They contested under the UPFA (betel leaf)

The Joint Opposition now wants the SLFP MPs in the Government to withdraw. This is wrong as there are no SLFP MPs in parliament

The Joint Opposition cant muster two-thirds for dissolution. They are only marking time till 2019/2020

It isnt clear what this National Government is. The Prime Minister is also not clear about it

Dr. Nalin de Silva during an interview with the Daily mirror spoke about the current political situation in the country. Dr. de Silva has been a leading proponent of the Sinhala nationalist movement since the 1980s and been a critique of Western science and culture. Dr. de Silva has been noted for his strong push for the military defeat of the LTTE through his regular articles to the Sinhala and English newspapers through the 1990s till the ultimate ending of the war in 2009. In recent times and particularly after the defeat of President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2015,



Dr. de Silva in his almost daily writings on social media and the website kalaya.org has been one of the first to advocate the return of Mahinda Rajapaksa to national politics and the formation of a new party as early as April 2015. Most recently he was vocal that President Maitripala Sirisena and the Political camp led by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa should come together to remove Ranil Wickremesinghe from the Premiership. Excerpts of the interview follow:

Q : Why have you been advocating for a long time that former President Mahinda Rajapaksa should be brought back to politics?



Soon after the defeat of Mahinda, I knew that he should be brought back. He is the most suitable person to lead the country during this period. We organized a conference to advocate that position. Unfortunately, nobody took us seriously at that time. At that time, the 19th Amendment wasnt there. We said that if Ranil Wickremesinghe was made the Prime Minister with 40 odd members, we should be able to bring back Mahinda. Even at that time, Mahinda had the majority in Parliament. He had the required majority. If they had moved a vote of no confidence, they could have won.



Even at that time, the Rajapaksas had different ideas. I am fed up with this type of politics. Even at that time, the Rajapaksas did not want to remove Ranil. They were interested in removing President Maithripala Sirisena. The Rajapaksa rule, in the opinion of westerners and Indians, was against their views. They wanted a new constitution giving more powers to Tamil racist elements. They really wanted a confederation here. They wanted to remove Rajapaksa and bring Ranil. Maithripala was a puppet. People, including me, say that Maithripala should not have defected from the then Government. What made him to defect?



It was Basil Rajapaksa who was behind this. Most ministers were not in favour of Mahinda Rajapaksa because of Basil Rajapaksa. If anybody is responsible for the defection, it is Basil. Ask Maithripala. People do not understand this. I wanted to bring back Mahinda. I knew that it was possible. Also in my opinion Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is not just a representative of the English, Anglican Christian culture. He is one of them. Even DOyly spoke Sinhala.



Q : In the run up to the last General Elections too, you asked for the formation of a new party under the leadership of Mahinda Rajapaksa. Why did you do it at that time?



I knew at that time that Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) was a dead party. So, I wanted them to form a new party. They did not listen to me at that time. In fact, I, along with a few others, went to meet Prof. G.L. Peiris at his residence. I met him, Dulles Alhapperuma, Wimal Weerawansa and a few others. We asked them to form a new party without contesting under the UPFA ticket. They did not listen to us. They contested under the UPFA (betel leaf) ticket. What happened? If they had contested under a different party, Mahinda Rajapaksa could have even become the Prime Minister. If not, he could have become the Leader of the Opposition at least. Today, they cannot do anything. They are MPs as members of the UPFA. The Joint Opposition is not a recognized political party. They have 51 or more members. The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) has only 16 members. Even then the Joint Opposition cant stake a claim for the post of Opposition Leader because they are UPFA MPs. Then, they are virtually members of the Government though they do not realize it. The speaker knows this.



When the Prime Minister got the Secretary General of Parliament to read a resolution passed in September 2015, it said that the UNP, having obtained the majority of votes, had formed a National Government. The resolution said that Parliament could approve 48 Ministers and other numbers of non-Cabinet Ministers.

The resolution said the UNP had formed the National Government as the party with the biggest majority. The problem is that the UNP is not represented in this Parliament. It is the United National Front (UNF) that is represented in Parliament. As far as Parliament and the Speaker are concerned, the UNP is not represented in Parliament. However, they continue to ignore that.



Q : Yet, they all contested under the elephant symbol of the UNP. Then, how can you say that it is not recognized?



The elephant is the symbol of the UNF. The symbol does not matter. It does not matter as long as the Elections Commission recognizes it. They contested as the UNF. Then, the UNP, even as a party, though not represented in the parliament, does not have a majority. It has only 82 members. If that is the case, the Prime Minister cannot say his party has the largest number of seats. This National Government has been illegal from the day it was formed. The opposition claims that there was an agreement between the UNP and the UPFA or SLFP. That is not clear. We do not still know whether the UNF (UNP) formed a so called National Government with the UPFA or the SLFP. The so called agreement is immaterial. The Constitution does not say there should be an agreement between the two or more parties concerned. Then, the argument of the Joint Opposition is also invalid. The Constitution only defines a National Government and states that such a National Government could have a cabinet consisting of more than 30 MPs with the approval of Parliament. The above mentioned resolution read by the Secretary of the Parliament received the approval of the Parliament to appoint a cabinet of 48 members.



If it is a National Government comprising the UNP as the resolution says claiming that UNP has the most number of MPs then such a claim is wrong on many counts. The so called joint opposition does not speak about it as they also want to be recognized as a party. The UNP and SLFP may be recognized parties by the Elections Commission, but they are not represented in the Parliament. Whether they like it or not, the Joint Opposition is also part of this Government if the so called National Government is formed with the UPFA. If it is formed with the SLFP then there are other problems as the SLFP is not represented in the Parliament.

If the so called National Government has been formed by the UNF with the UPFA then there is some sense in asking the UPFA to withdraw from the Government, but in that case the joint opposition should realise that they are also withdrawing from the Government. More than that by asking the UPFA MPs to withdraw from the Government they are strengthening the hand of Wickremesinghe. Maithripala, if not impeached, will be a prisoner of Ranil.

There was a talk by the joint opposition about a vote of no confidence against the Prime Minister over the Central Bank bond fraud. What has happened about it? Nobody is talking about it. Instead of that, they now want to support Range Bandara if and when he moves a vote of no confidence. It is the Joint Opposition as a group of MPs that should take the leadership in bringing a motion of no confidence. They now want an election.

How can you hold an election? The President cannot dissolve Parliament until February, 2020. By that time, he would not be in presidency, most probably. There would be a different President at that time. I do not want to speculate on it.

The only way to dissolve Parliament today is by bringing a resolution in Parliament to the effect that the House declares that it should be dissolved. For that, they need a two-thirds majority. The Joint Opposition talks about it without talking about the no-confidence motion against the Prime Minister that can be passed with a simple majority. This is nothing, but humbug. The Joint Opposition cannot muster two-thirds for dissolution.



Q : What do you think of the formation of Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) since you have been advocating the formation of a new party ?



The Party should have been formed before the 2015 General Elections. In February, it was able to get only 44.6 percent of votes with all these problems the country was facing. They claim it as a huge victory, though it is not. The Government is so unpopular. The cost of living is so high. There is the bond scam. With all that, the SLPP could not get more than 45 percent of votes. In the 2015 Presidential Elections Mahinda secured 48% of the vote. It has to be emphasized that I never advocated that the SLPP should form an alliance with Maithripala at the Local Government Elections. I am more concerned with the removal of Ranil as Prime Minister rather than capturing power of the local bodies.



Having said that, one has to remember that President Sirisena got 13 percent. Of that, I would say three percent were from the UNP vote base. Some people who are disappointed with the UNP would have voted for him. The remaining ten percent is from the Sinhala nationalist camp. Some supporters of Mahinda/Basil want to believe that these votes are from Thondaman without realizing the latter contested separately. From Mahindas 45 percent, at least 40 are from the nationalist camp. The nationalists have at least 50 percent together. That is more than enough to form a Government on their own. Even if the joint opposition does not want to accept ministerial posts they can still be in the Government. As UPFA members they have no alternative. Why are they (Maithripala, Basil and Mahinda) ignoring the Sinhala nationalist camp? Are they under foreign influence?



The Tamil parties are now in shambles. They did not get the necessary votes. There are problems. If the Sinhala people are united, the Tamil racist elements cannot do anything. They understand it more than the Sinhala people. In this game, Tamil racist elements have no say if 50 percent of the Sinhala nationalist votes remain intact. They realize it more than the Rajapaksas and Sirisena.

How can you hold an election? The President cannot dissolve Parliament until February, 2020. By that time, he would not be in presidency, most probably. There would be a different President at that time. I do not want to speculate on it



Q : In your view what should be done in the future under these circumstances?



Get President Sirisena to talk with Basil Rajapaksa or Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and reach some agreement. They need to sign a document. That has to be done within the next few days. If they do not do it, that will be the end of the nationalist movement for some time. The Prime Minister will be powerful. Already, he is the Law and Order Minister, either for a temporary period or on a long term basis. Giving it to Minister Sarath Fonseka is equally harmful. They would destroy the Sinhala nationalist movement. Mr. Fonseka was the Army Commander. But, he is against the Rajapaksas. As a result, he is also against the nationalist movement. In a way he had betrayed the country on the white flag incident.



Q : If that is the case who should take over as Prime Minister?



I would go for former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Different Rajapaksas have different mindsets. I am for Mahinda because he is the best person. If it is not Mahinda, somebody from the Joint Opposition should be appointed. If they are not ready for it, somebody from the Maithripala faction in the Government should be chosen. It could be anybody like Ministers Dayasiri Jayasekara, Susil Premajayantha or S.B. Dissanayake. Definitely, it should not be Minister Duminda Dissanayake.



Q : On the other hand there is an opinion that the stance taken by you is being racist and excludes the minorities. Your view?



I am not a racist. I recognize that the Sinhala Buddhist culture should be given its due place. If that is racism all the western countries are racist. They have dominant Christian cultures in their countries. Please remember that I am not asking for a dominant place for the Sinhala Buddhiist culture. The Christian culture especially in its Anglican form is the dominant culture in the rest of the world as well. Our education is Christian. The Judiciary system, the Parliament and almost all the others are Christian. What is the place given for traditional (paramparika) medicine in Sri Lanka. There is not even a Vaidya Sabha even in the western format for traditional medicine. The list is long, and I have written on these during the past thirty five years or so. The English wanted to destroy the Sinhala Buddhist culture, but they failed. However, they have succeeded in weakening the Sinhala Buddhist culture. The English created Tamil racism and baptized it in 1833, which I have explained in An Analysis of Tamil Racism, in order to weaken if not destroy the Sinhala Buddhist culture. With Nandikadal, Tamil racism was defeated. A military solution is also a political solution. The Tamil racist problem created by the English has been solved. There is no need for further talks on this matter. Would Churchill have spoken to the Nazis after the so called second world war? The Sinhala people are still fighting, albeit without the support of the politicians, to win back their lost rights. If you call it racism, then what do you call Christian hegemony throughout the world? Please remember that it was the Sinhala people who protected the Muslims from the Portuguese Catholics, and settled them in the present Eastern Province, and protected the Catholics from the Dutch Reformists.



Q : How do you see the present Constitution making process and where it is heading?

If the present Prime Minister is allowed to get himself established by the Rajapaksas, he will get the new Constitution that would pave the way for a confederation hook or by crook. The Constitutional Assembly is a dangerous instrument that Ranil could make use of to establish the new constitution without presenting it to the Parliament citing the 1972 constitution as an example. He could even claim to be a follower of Bandaranaike policies by extending the Parliament for another five years. If that happens those who are preparing for 2019/2020 without removing Ranil Wickremesinghe from the Prime Minister post in 2018 will see the end of their politics.The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) is reportedly divided on three l ines of thinking with a dozen of MPs toughening their position that they should team-up with former President Mahinda Rajapaksa and another similar number wanting to proceeds with the unity government with some internal adjustments, it is learnt.

In the third category, there are seven SLFPers trying to join the United National Party (UNP) for their future political activities.

The SLFPers, who want to quit the government, have already indicated their position to President Maithripala Sirisena about their position. There are 43 SLFP MPs serving in the government as Cabinet, State and Deputy Ministers currently.

The President has asked them to stay for one month. Meanwhile, Mr. Rajapaksa met with the President last week. According to sources, Presidents brother Dudley Sirisena has reportedly arranged the meeting for the two leaders to meet.

It has been done in an effort to build confidence between the two leaders. (Kelum Bandara)Steelcase, the global leader in office furniture and innovative workspace solutions, today announced the opening of its first dealer showroom in Sri Lanka. Developed in partnership with Widac Commercial Interiors, the new showroom in downtown Colombo further strengthens the presence of Steelcase in the Asia-Pacific region, adding to a comprehensive network of showrooms in major cities and markets throughout the region, including India, China, Singapore, Japan and Australia.

The showroom opening highlights the companys commitment to supporting local and international clients in markets around the world, and the growth in business opportunities it sees in the Sri Lanka market. It is a strong indicator of the countrys growing importance as an economic hub in the region, attracting investments from global brands.

The new showroom gives local and international businesses in Sri Lanka access to the latest Steelcase workplace research, knowledge and solutions from around the world, as well as a comprehensive range of workplace furniture to meet the needs of growing businesses. Steelcase is at the forefront of research about the ways people actually work in todays fast-paced business world, applying decades of knowledge and experience to help businesses to drive innovation and boost employee productivity and wellness.

Through its architecture, furniture and technology solutions, Steelcase helps organizations create workplaces that support a great work experience and evolve the way they work, while optimizing the use of space. In Sri Lanka, it will initially engage in different industries.

Commenting on Steelcases entry into Sri Lanka, Uli Gwinner  President, Steelcase Asia Pacific said:We are pleased to receive such a warm welcome into Sri Lanka. I am confident Steelcase can help businesses in Sri Lanka boost the performance of its people and organizations. We look forward to working with Widac Commercial Interiors to share our deep knowledge and expertise in work and workplaces, to boost productivity, efficiency and employee wellbeing. There is a strong awareness in Sri Lanka of the need to utilize the workplace to support individuals, teams and organizations to thrive and grow, and to retain talent. Steelcase can help play a vital role in this, and we look forward to a rewarding relationship with retail and corporate clients in Sri Lanka.

A recent 14-country Gallup Study conducted in collaboration with the global market research firm IPSOS, found nearly a quarter of the worlds 1.3 billion full-time employees are actively disengaged in their work, outnumbering their engaged colleagues by nearly 1:2. The study revealed there is a direct correlation between employee engagement and work environment. The more satisfied an employee is, the more likely he or she is to be highly engaged.

Uli Gwinner explains: In an interconnected business world that is undergoing constant change, with the ability for individuals and teams to work anywhere, anytime, around the world, the ways people work and the workplace they need to support them to be their most productive and successful is rapidly evolving. We are happy to work with Widac, who has valuable experience in designing workplaces in Sri Lanka, to provide the optimum workplace solutions and furniture to our customers.

Welcoming the partnership with Steelcase, Primal Wijayanayake  Chairman, Widac Commercial Interiors said: We are delighted to partner with Steelcase, a world leader in the design and manufacture of furniture for commercial workplaces. Our joint synergies will contribute to new designs and enhance productivity in Sri Lankan workplaces. Widac is already deeply engaged in designing commercial interiors, and I believe this partnership will add immense value to workplaces in the country. Employee engagement and wellbeing are issues of growing importance for companies, and we look forward to offering them our expert solutions to address their needs.A tense situation was reported today in Teldeniya after a death of a 41-year-old man due to an attack by a group of people who had come in a three-wheeler.

The man who was receiving treatment at the Kandy Teaching Hospital for a week had succumbed to his injuries last Saturday.

The victim, M.G. Kumarasinghe, a resident of Ambala in Medamahanuwara had been attacked by a group of people in Teldeniya Town over an incident involving two vehicles.

The assailants who were residents of Ambagahalanda, Digana were arrested by the police and a three-wheeler was taken into custody.

It was reported that the people in Digana, Teldeniya, Udispattuwa and Medamahanuwara had launched a Hartal in protest of the attack.

Angry crowds had set two shops on fire in Moragahamula and police and STF teams had been deployed in the area to bring the situation under control.

Twenty-four people who had resorted to violence had been arrested by the Teldeniya police. (J.A.L. Jayasinghe)

Video by Chamil RupasingheFifty-one suspects arrested in connection with the Thambuththegma incident were granted bail by Thambuththegma Magistrate Ramila Nideeshani today.

They were arrested on February 28 following a protest carried out by a group of farmers against a move to use water from the Rajanganaya Tank for a water supply project.

They were released with a surety of Rs. 100,000 each by the magistrate. (Saman Kumara)Perhaps a once in a life time opportunity will come across for those who admire western classical music when the Midori Violin Studio Project comes to Sri Lanka.Led by Midori, one of the worlds foremost violinists, this pioneering ten-day project around Sri Lanka will include masterclasses, string workshops and concerts.

The project is brought to you by the Premier Sponsor, Fairway Holdings, a leading patron of art and culture, and the Chamber Music Society of Colombo, (CMSC) celebrating its 10th anniversary.

A leading concert violinist for over 30 years, Midori regularly transfixes audiences around the world, bringing together graceful precision and intimate expression that allows the listening public to not just hear music but to be personally moved by it. She has performed with the worlds top orchestras including the London Symphony, Staatskapelle Dresden, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Cincinnati Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony and Czech Philharmonic. In addition, she has collaborated recently with leading musicians such as Mariss Jansons, Peter Eotvos, Christoph Eschenbach, Daniele Gatti, Alan Gilbert, Susanna Malkki, Kent Nagano, Robert Spano, James Conlon, Omer Meir Wellber and Paavo Jarvi, among others.



Midori debuted at the young age of 11 with the New York Philharmonic. Three years later she landed a front-page story in The New York Timeswhich helped in the formation of a major international career. Her most recent recordings include a Grammy-winning CD, featuring her performance of the Hindemith Violin Concerto, with the NDR Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach, a CD of Bloch, Janacek and Shostakovich Sonatas, and a new recording of the complete Bach Sonatas and Partitas For Solo Violin.Performing as Midorifirst name onlyshe has spent her decades before the public in virtually every major international capital and cultural center, performing in a wide range of the greatest musical venues.

Midori has built upon her fame by founding a series of successful not-for-profit organizations and other ongoing youth-directed projects. Midori & Friends, created in New York City in 1992, brings musical education to underprivileged children, in partnership with the citys public schools. Partners in Performance, based in the U.S., and Music Sharing, formed in Japan, bring deeply committed music-making into smaller communities, those typically underserved by live arts presented at the highest levels. In recognition of such activities, the U.N. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, named Midori a Messenger of Peace in 2007.

In Sri Lanka, Midori, together with her nine-member team of musicians, will conduct workshops focusing on music students and teachers. It will commence with an orchestral workshop for the string section of Sri Lankan Youth orchestras.

The Project will also visit numerous institutions for charity performances, with the aim of taking their music to those who normally would never have the opportunity to listen to world class music. The Project also envisages Midori and her team traveling to the North and South of the island and conducting workshops with young musicians of those regions.

A special recital by Midoris students will be presented at the Goethe-Institute on the 15th, and the Project will conclude with a concert at Lionel Wendt Theatre on the 17th March 2018, where all the musicians along with members of the CMSC will perform some outstanding repertoire such as the brilliant Octet for Violins, Gran Turismo composed by Andrew Norman, and music by Ravel, Respighi, Chausson, Dvorak, Kreisler, Massenet, Liszt, Vivaldi and Corigliano.In his expanding war over global trade, President Donald Trump has aimed his harshest rhetoric at an unlikely target - the closest U.S. allies.



In Twitter posts while at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday, Trump vowed to strike back at European leaders who said they would retaliate for his promised tariffs on aluminum and steel.

Bring it on, Trump warned.



If the EU wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S. They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance! he tweeted.



Instead, the biggest burden of Trumps new tariffs would be borne by Canada, the largest trading partner with the United States. The United States runs a trade surplus with Canada The president is going to quickly find out that you cant start a trade war with your allies and expect them to work with you on other issues, said Jamie Fly, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. The administration is squandering the little credibility they had with transatlantic partners at a time when theyre asking them to help fix the Iran deal, fight terrorism and increase defence spending. It will not work.

By Steven Mufson, Damian Paletta (c) 2018,

The Washington Post   Mar 04, 2018 -Academics: leave your ivory towers and pitch your work to the media

Publishing in academic journals is prestigious, but sharing your ideas with a wider audience is exciting and full of unexpected rewards

By Kristal Brent Zook 23 Sep 2015

https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/sep/23/academics-leave-your-ivory-towers-and-pitch-your-work-to-the-media

You may have seen the recent headlines screaming Spicy foods could help you live longer! But have you heard of Lu Qi, the associate professor at the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health who co-authored the study?

Qis findings appeared exactly as expected according to academic protocol  first in the British Medical Journal, a respected, refereed academic publication, before being picked up by mainstream outlets including The New York Times, Time and the Washington Post.

But Qi, an expert in nutrition, obesity and diabetes, remained in the shadows. And whats wrong with that? The system works for researchers and scholars who dont have enough time (or interest) to write for non-academic audiences.

How big data has transformed research Read more

As both a veteran journalist and a scholar, Ive often wondered why academics dont make more of an effort to publish for general audiences. Why dont we hear more from the doctors behind the data? I put the question to a few academics and their answers surprised me.

One of the things we professors could use is a little journalism 101, says Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, a professor of pediatrics at Stanford University and a co-author of a study on adolescents and e-cigarettes that trended widely over the summer. People always say Im a good writer, but Im shy sometimes.

She told me about a live radio talk show shed appeared on to discuss the drawbacks of e-cigarettes.

I immediately got a stern email from somebody who thought I was wrong, she says. I knew for a fact that I was not wrong, but you can undermine everything with one wrong statement.

I even brought a cheat sheet with me so I had the facts ready. Its hard when you take your data and you want to make a statement about it. That part is scary.

So could the issue simply boil down to professors being afraid of speaking to the public? Yes, says Kim Yi Dionne, an assistant professor of government at Smith College in Massachusetts and a blogger for the Washington Post. For many scholars, she explains, writing for the public really is a fear of the unknown.

Stephanie Coontz, a faculty member at the Evergreen State College in Washington state and a frequent contributor to publications including the New York Times, agrees, saying that writing for the public forces researchers to work in unfamiliar ways.

Academics love big words. It's not until you ask them to explain in plain English that you realise they dont understand

You talk to academics who love these big words  they nod and agree and recapitulate the same three- and four-syllable words and very abstract, complicated phrases, she says. Its not until you force them to explain it in plain English that you realise they dont even understand it.

Its hard to make a complicated idea simple. Im sympathetic to academics that are nervous about it.

And if publishing research is hard, the leap to first-person writing can be even more intimidating. Deirdre Egan-Ryan, an associate professor of English at St Norbert College in Wisconsin, is working on an essay about the difficulties of addressing race in the classroom as a white professor discussing literature from the Harlem renaissance. Shes considering including anecdotes and conversations with her sons. Its terrifying when I think about revealing personal information, she admits. I keep looking for a study.

It doesnt help that academics and journalists often treat each other as enemies, displaying what author Jeffrey Scheuer calls a mutual wariness, if not outright hostility.

I experienced this first-hand when a physician and public health expert who initially agreed to an on-the-record interview asked not to be included once our conversation was over. Perhaps she realised that her position was contradictory. Writing for the public wasnt a priority for her, she said, and yet shed encouraged two of her student researchers to write about medical research for a popular blog as part of their training. Why? To help them get experience translating scientific research for the public, she explained, and develop an important skill.

Last summer, Kim Yi Dionne found herself panicking as she worked on a 2,500-word piece about Ebola for the Washington Posts Monkey Cage blog. I had to wrestle with it because it was taking me away from an academic book about HIV and Aids in Africa, she recalls.

Her mindset quickly shifted though, when another of her posts went viral. Scholars around the world told me that they were going to use it in their syllabuses, she says. That one blogpost generated academic opportunities, an academic article, a scholarly book chapter and, indirectly, an National Science Foundation grant. It was such a catalyst.

But writing for the public is not always easy, even for those willing to make the leap. My first instinct is still too abstract, too convoluted, Coontz admits. Its a painful process, it does not come easy. It takes me so many drafts.

Most academics need to unlearn everything they know about writing, she adds, such as backing into a thesis, footnoting, using a passive voice, and so on.

I spent 13 years writing my first book, she says. I was so concerned about impressing other academics, I never used a dime word if I had a dollar one in my pocket.

But Kim Yi Dionne says that her writing has vastly improved since she began blogging for the public.

Its not giving me the crutch of using these big words that only a handful of people understand. I cant hide behind the jargon. I have to cut through the bullshit and just say what I really mean.

I was so concerned about impressing other academics; I never used a dime word if I had a dollar one in my pocket

It also helps when scholars can appreciate the value of an editor, she adds. Line editing can feel intrusive to some people, but not to me. Im not offended by it at all.

Mohammed Ademo, an opinion editor at Al Jazeera America, has experienced this issue. Some academics dont understand the editing process and feel that getting edited makes their voice disappear. These are very accomplished people and theyve never seen so much red ink on their copy.

And yet Ademo says he would welcome more submissions from scholars. Theres a lot of research that goes unnoticed, he says. It would be great if more academics didnt shy away from writing for the media and communicating with average people. It would be great if the information came from the source directly.

His advice? Pitch. Reach out to editors. Build relationships with them.

Many say its well worth the effort  and writing for the public can be rewarding in unexpected ways.

I have friends on Facebook who are reading my work, Dionne says. Theyre not reading my academic articles. I like that. I didnt get into this business to only talk to other people with PhDs.

Join the higher education network for more comment, analysis and job opportunities, direct to your inbox. Follow us on Twitter @gdnhighered.The United National Party (UNP) has reportedly decided to re-nominate Regional Development Minister Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka as Law and Order Minister, it is learnt.

When the UNP nominated him to the post the first time it was turned down by President Maithripala Sirisena. Thereafter, the UNP sought to assign the subject to another member of the party but no one was ready to accept it.

Against this backdrop, the party had taken a decision to re-submit his name to the President. Already, SLFP ministers had been against appointing Mr. Fonseka to this post a sentiment shared by many senior police officers.(Kelum Bandara)Admit it: When you think about politics these days, youre often wondering whether Republicans will keep control of both the House and Senate after this years elections. Its okay; we have the same thoughts. So we thought wed try to find out which lawmakers who focus on K-12 might lose their jobs in November.

To do that, we used a pretty straightforward method. We looked at the members of the House and Senate education committees, and then compared it to the Cook Political Reports recent analysis of House and Senate lawmakers who have the toughest reelection campaigns in 2018.

Heres the gist: If you like how the current crop of lawmakers who deal a lot with education are handling their business, youll probably like what we found. It seems that most of them are likely to stick around. Of course, how important that is might depend on whether are big changes at the ballot box later this year.

Senate

Only new Democratic Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota is on the committee and in a race rated as a toss up. Its not particularly surprising that she will likely have to work hard to keep her seat as a rookie lawmaker from a relatively purple state.



Further down the list, Democratic Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania are in seats likely to stay in the Democrats column. Both their states went for President Donald Trump in the 2016 election, so theres some cause concern among Democrats, but no ones hitting the panic button just yet, it seems. Baldwin is an advocate for LGBT rights, while Casey is an advocate for people with disabilities and survivors of sexual assault on college campuses.

Lawmakers in solid seats for Democratsthose not considered competitiveinclude Sens. Tim Kaine of Virginia, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is also listed here; hes an independent but caucuses with Democrats. Of those four, Kaine might have the most work to do to get re-elected.

Kaine has an interest in career and technical education issues, Murphy supports strong federal oversight when it comes to school accountability, and Warren voted against the Senate version of what became the Every Student Succeeds Act (she did vote for the final version of ESSA, however). Meanwhile, Sanders was no fan of the Obama administrations Race to the Top grants.

Looking for very vulnerable Republicans in 2018 who serve on the Senate education committee? Youre out of luck, because there arent any, at least according to Cook.

Bonus: We took a look at the Senate appropriations subcommittee that deals with education spending. Its chairman, Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, isnt up for reelection until 2022. The chairman of the Senate appropriations committee, Mississippi Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, isnt up again until 2020, although health concerns may lead him to leave the Senate before then.

House

By definition, there are more House members, and more House members on the chambers education committee. So perhaps there are more vulnerable lawmakers there come November than in the Senate?

Not really. The only House lawmaker in a toss-up race whos also on the education committee is Republican Rep. Jason Lewis of Minnesota. Further down the list, in a lean Republican seat, is Republican Rep. Karen Handel of Georgia.

Lewis has supported an increase to federal career and technical education grants. Handel has backed a bill to allow 529 college savings accounts to be used for homeschooling, a proposal that nearly made it into the GOPs overhaul of the tax code .

Both Handel and Lewis are in their first terms in Congress. (Handel won a 2017 special election to take over for former GOP Georgia Rep. Tom Price, who left his seat to become Secretary of Health and Human Services, a job Price no longer holds.)

Meanwhile, committee member Michigan GOP Rep. Tim Walberg is in a seat likely to stay Republican.

Bonus: The chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee dealing with education, Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole, is in a safe seat.

Of course, education in Congress could really get shaken up if the Democrats take over the House or Senate after the elections, regardless of whether those vulnerable lawmakers we highlighted win or lose in November. In those scenarios, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state or Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the top Democrats on the Senate and House education committees respectively, would get control of their committee gavels. If Democrats do take one or both chambers, expect either or both of them to spend a lot of time exercising aggressive oversight on how the Trump administration handles civil rights, the Every Student Succeeds Act, and more.

Photo: Vice President Mike Pence, right, administers the Senate oath of office during a mock swearing in ceremony in the Old Senate Chamber to Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., left, with her husband Archie Smith, center, on Jan. 3 in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .Back in early January, I wrote a commentary for Education Week (read it here ) that focused on ways that those of us who care about SEL can get critics to understand why its important that schools focus on SEL. If you read the blog, and scrolled down to the comments, you saw that I did not win everyone over. I actually had some people e-mail me to send support because they were appalled by the comments.

Unfortunately, I was not surprised by those comments. I was actually expecting them because I have heard those same arguments before. Unfortunately for the naysayers, they dont understand what schools are actually experiencing with their student populations.

To the naysayers I ask, If schools could just focus on academics, dont you think they would? Given the fact that they have standards and curriculum that they are struggling to find the time during the day to cover, dont you think that they would prefer that all students come to school healthy and ready to learn?

Lets begin with some staggering statistics from the American Psychiatric Association, National Institute of Mental Health, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.



1 in 4 people are diagnosed with mental illness over the course of a year in the U.S.

Half of all chronic mental health conditions begin by age 14.

Half of all lifetime cases of anxiety disorders begin as early as age 8.

More than 60 percent of young adults with a mental illness were unable to complete high school

Young people ages 16-24 with mental illness are four times less likely to be involved in gainful activities, like employment, college or trade school.

Those with a psychiatric disability are three times more likely to be involved in criminal justice activities.

Each year, 157,000 children and young adults, ages 10-24, are treated at emergency departments for self-inflicted injuries.

One in 12 high school students have attempted suicide.

Its very difficult to solely focus on academics when students entering school are experiencing issues from the list above. Should we throw them out of school? Would that make the critics happier? Perhaps we should build a wall so they cant get in? That should work, right?

Adverse Childhood Experiences

Besides students with mental health issues, we have students who are suffering from trauma, also known as Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE), which actually cause some of the issues from above. According to the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS), trauma is used to describe negative events that are emotionally painful and that overwhelm a persons ability to cope. Examples that inspire trauma include experiencing an earthquake or hurricane, industrial accident or vehicular accident, physical or sexual assault, and various forms of abuse experienced during childhood.

These Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) are divided into three types, which are Abuse (physical, emotional, sexual), Neglect (physical, emotional), and Household Dysfunction (incarcerated relative, mental illness, domestic violence, substance abuse, divorce, deployed family member and loss of a parent). Its sad that we have to add school shootings to that list.

Perhaps the critics of SEL have insight into how to help students that experience trauma or ACE? Perhaps behind the anonymous names and posting lies an expert on how to end the need for SEL?

What Can Schools Do?

While we wait for people to provide their solution that will end all traumatic experiences for students, many schools are moving forward with interventions. Many school leaders have gained new flexibility due to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA. For information read CASELs guidance here ), which allows states and local districts to create school improvement plans that will fund social-emotional programs.

According to the Massachusetts Advocates for Children, and the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, trauma informed schools do the following:

School Wide Policies & Practices - Schools need to have districtwide health and wellness policies that they put into place every day.

Classroom Strategies and Techniques - Strategies that are created in partnership with school counselors and psychologists that focus on the social-emotional growth as well as the academic growth of students.

Collaboration & Links to Mental Health - Policies describe how, when, and where to refer families for mental health supports; and staff actively facilitate and follow through in supporting families access to trauma-competent mental health services.

Family Partnerships - Ways to communicate with families that encourage inclusion rather than exclusion.

Community Linkages - Schools maintain relationships with state mental health organizations that understand the context of schools. Teachers and leaders cannot do it all, and outside organizations can offer the expertise that school personnel may not have.

In the End

We can continue to argue whether schools should be exploring SEL or we can understand the sad reality that students are suffering from trauma and mental health issues, and do something about it. We can argue about politics, or realize that our schools are not supposed to be war zones.

Students who suffer from trauma, and those with mental health issues are not throw away kids that we toss to the side. They are children who have the potential to do great things in life. That is not a political argument...it is a reality.

In order to have a stronger education system and help students meet their potential, we need to work together as a school community with families and outside organization. We need to stop blaming and starting acting. We need to stop burying our heads in the sand that all of this will go away when we start focusing solely on academics. SEL is not a fad, nor is it less important than other things we have to teach. SEL and academic learning are equally as important and we need to find a better balance on how to do both.

Some suggestions on how to change our language are below. Please feel free to add to the list in the comment section, through Tweets or add the pic and the list to your own Facebook page. And as always, thank you for reading.

Peter DeWitt, Ed.D. is the author of several books including Collaborative Leadership: 6 Influences That Matter Most (Corwin Press. 2016), School Climate: Leading with Collective Efficacy (Corwin Press. 2017). Connect with him on Twitter .



Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.Teachers in West Virginia and Oklahoma are among the worst paid in the nation . Now West Virginia is in the midst of an eight-day walkout to demand higher wages and Oklahoma appears poised to follow.

The push for a walkout in Oklahoma has gained momentum recently after a Facebook group dedicated to drumming up support for a statewide walkout reached 30,000 followers in 48 hours. The page, created last week by Stillwater teacher Alberto Morejon, currently has 36,400 followers.

Two weeks ago, 3rd grade teacher Teresa Danks, who last year panhandled for school supplies , started a walkout petition on change.org that has more than 25,592 signatures so far.

The final straw for teachers was the legislative defeat in February of the Step Up Oklahoma plan , reports news9.com . The measure aimed to raise more than $700 million by imposing additional taxes on cigarettes, diesel fuel, and wind energy, as well as raise the gross production tax on oil wells from 2 percent to 4 percent. Some of that money would have been used to give teachers a $5,000 annual pay raise.

We really are at a tipping point, Bartlesville superintendent Chuck McCauley told Tulsa World after the Step Up plans collapse. In addition to the five teachers we lost to Kansas last year, we have 12 teachers who are emergency certified. We are hiring people we wouldnt have even interviewed just a few years ago because there arent more qualified applicants. Bottom line, thats impacting kids, and its below the standard of whats expected in our community.

Some have hope that a walkout could work as it did nearly two decades ago. Teachers held a strike for four days in April 1990 to press for a bill that included pay increases , and won.

Meanwhile, in West Virginia, teachers are also calling for higher wages and better benefits , Madeline Will reports in Teacher Beat. Theyre in the midst of a massive eight-day strike that has shut down schools across the state. Teachers had reached a tentative agreement with the governor for a 5 percent pay raise, but when the West Virginia Senate trimmed it to 4 percent, union officials declared the strike would continue indefinitely.

Will Oklahoma teachers follow suit? We may soon know. The Oklahoma Education Association will today release the results of a survey of its members gauging support. Stay tuned for an update on this developing story.

See also:Posted 3/5/18

The Missouri Horse Shows Association and University of Missouri Extension in Boone County hosted a Horse Bowl competition in Columbia at the Stephens College campus Jan. 27. The event included Fair The Church urges us to Convert our Actions throught Fasting

Author: Hannah Brockhaus | Source: CNA

According to Pope Francis, faith and religion are not a show, but a way of converting our thoughts to the ways of Christ. Delivering a homily at his morning Mass on Monday at the Vaticans Casa Santa Marta chapel, Pope Francis said that through the readings of the day, the Church wants us to reflect on the conversion of our thoughts, way of thinking, as well as our actions and feeling in conformity with Christ.

The first reading narrates the healing of the leprosy of Naaman the Syrian by the Prophet Elisha and Lukes Gospel shows Jesus not accepted by his own people who want to kill him.

Converting our way of thinking



Pope Francis said that the Church urges us to convert our actions through fasting, almsgiving and penance. Our actions, he said must be like Christ, in the spirit of the Beatitudes.

The Pope said the Church especially speaks to us about converting our sentiments and feelings - converting ourselves to compassion like the Good Samaritan. Its not just what we think, but also how we think , the style of thinking. Whether we think a Christian or like a pagan.

No show with God



The Pope also urged Christians not to expect a show from God like Naaman expected from Elisha. On being asked to bathe himself 7 times in the River Jordan, he gets angry saying the rivers of Damascus are better, and he wants to return home. Pope Francis said Naaman was expecting a show, but Gods style is something else. He heals in another way".

Commenting on the Gospel, the Pope noted that the people were initially amazed with Jesus, the son of Joseph the carpenter. But gossip soon changed their attitude. After their admiration and amazement they turned out to kill Him. They too wanted a spectacle, a show. The Pope said we resist any one among us correcting us. We expect someone with show to do it.

The grace of conversion



Pope Francis said one can recite the entire Creed or the dogmas of the Church but unless one does it with a Christian spirit, it means nothing. The Pope thus asked Christians to pray for the grace of discernment and conversion of thought.Proactively From the Sea; an agent of change leveraging the littoral best practices for a paradigm breaking six-sigma best business case to synergize a consistent design in the global commons, rightsizing the core values supporting our mission statement via the 5-vector model through cultural diversity.announced on Monday that

will provide nonstop service from Chattanooga to New York-LaGuardia Airport

July 9

.

Officials for the Chattanooga AirportDelta Air Lines

New York continues to be the top destination for our travelers, and we are proud to be able to service this region from two airports: first Newark and now LaGuardia, said Terry Hart, president of the Chattanooga Airport. We appreciate Delta Air Lines continued confidence and support, and this will take us to new heights over and above the 16 percent record-breaking growth we had last year.

Service will be operated by Delta Connection partner Endeavor Air on a CRJ-900 with 12 First Class, 20 Comfort+ and 44 main cabin seats.

The flights will be scheduled for the following days and times:

Departs CHA 7:05 a.m. / Arrives LGA 9:30 a.m. on weekdays and Saturday

Departs LGA 8:20 p.m. / Arrives CHA 10:55 p.m. on weekdays and Sunday

On behalf of the board of directors, we are grateful for Deltas commitment to Chattanooga, said the Airport Authoritys chairman, Dan Jacobson. Seventy five percent of traffic from the Chattanooga Airport is business-related, with travelers needing to fly out and return on the same day. We would like to thank all of the loyal customers who consistently fly out of Chattanooga. We believe the growth we have seen over the last couple of years has definitely translated into new service opportunities and that can only continue as we move forward.Internal Medicine physician Nathan E. Hartgrove, DO, will join Parkridge Medical Group-East Ridge medical practice March 19.Dr. Hartgrove previously practiced for Parkridge Diagnostic Center for over two and a half years before relocating to Parkridge Medical Group-East Ridge, which allows him to fulfill a desire to practice nearer to the community in which he resides.Dr. Hartgrove graduated from Lincoln Memorial University  DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2012. He completed his residency at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine at Chattanooga, where he served as internal medicine chief resident. He is a member of the American College of Physicians, the Tennessee Osteopathic Medical Association and the American Osteopathic Association.Dr.Hartgrove enjoys teaching medical students and mentoring pre-med students. He has participated in mentoring programs, such as the FutureDocs Program, which enables area high school and college students to experience a day in the life of a training physician. Dr. Hartgrove says he is passionate about preventative healthcare and resides in East Ridge with his wife and three sons.For more information about Parkridge Health System or Parkridge Medical Group-East Ridge, 961 Spring Creek Road, Suite 300 in East Ridge, call 423-622-6848.



Georgia Northwestern Technical College has named Dr. Elizabeth Anderson of Rockmart the vice president of Academic Affairs. She will fill the role previously held by Dr. Mindy McCannon, who retired in February.Dr. Anderson brings more than 16 years of educational leadership experience to her position at GNTC. Prior to her new role, she served as the dean of Arts and Sciences at Chattahoochee Technical College.As vice president of Academic Affairs at GNTC, Dr. Anderson is responsible for the administration and evaluation of instructional services at all six GNTC campuses, off-site locations and online education.She also is responsible for new program development and implementation, library services, disability services, tutoring and apprenticeships.Dr. Anderson is a member of the Georgia Mathematics Advisory Council with the Department of Education as the Technical College System of Georgia representative of higher education.We are very proud to have Dr. Elizabeth Anderson join the staff of GNTC as our new vice president of Academic Affairs, said Pete McDonald, president of GNTC. She brings many years of higher education experience to benefit the students of GNTC, having served as a faculty member and academic dean at Chattahoochee Technical College.Dr. Anderson began her educational career as a mathematics teacher at Summerville Middle School, 2002-03, mathematics teacher at Cedartown High School, 2003-08, and a learning support mathematics instructor at Kennesaw State University, 2009-11.At Chattahoochee Technical College, Dr. Anderson served as an instructor of mathematics, 2008-11, associate dean of mathematics, 2011-15, and dean of arts and sciences, 2015-18. She also served as the TCSG math representative for the Georgia Department of Educations committee for developing effective assessment in K-12 education.Additional higher education academic leadership duties at CTC included serving as program director for interdisciplinary studies, presenter for CTCs Learning Support Redesign at the SACSCOC annual meeting, 2013, advisor of the National Technical Honor Society, 2013-16; CTC Council on Advisement, 2015-16; Quality Enhancement Plan Committee, 2013; GOAL student interview panel, 2012; and Innovative Advisory Committee, 2011.I am truly excited to be here and be a part of the GNTC team, said Dr. Anderson. I am confident we will do great things for our students and community.Dr. Anderson earned a bachelors degree in secondary mathematics education from Jacksonville State University, masters degree from JSU in secondary mathematics education, and a doctoral degree in higher education leadership from Mercer University. She received magna cum laude honors as an undergraduate and was a member of Phi Kappa Phi at MU.This item is available in full to subscribers.

Attention subscribers

We have recently launched a new and improved website. To continue reading, you will need to either log into your subscriber account, or purchase a new subscription.

If you are a digital subscriber with an active subscription, then you already have an account here. Just reset your password if you've not yet logged in to your account on this new site.

If you are a current print subscriber, you can set up a free website account by clicking here.

Otherwise, click here to view your options for subscribing.Posted Thursday, March 15, 2018 1:00 pm

Vincent R. McClatchey, 49, Independence, was arrested Feb. 14 on a failure to appear warrant with an original felony charge of non-support.

Bond was set at $525.

Christopher Bauer, 33, Sedalia, was arrested on a failure to appear warrant with an original felony charge of passing bad check.

Bond was set at $500.

Marlena G. Campbell, 26, Windsor, was arrested Feb. 15 on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of failure to drive on right half of road.

Bond was set at $200 with a court date of March 15.

Lynn A. Atherley, 47, 403 Sunset, Knob Noster, was arrested on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of driving while revoked/suspended.

Bond was set at $400 with a court date of March 8.

Caleb L. Frey, 21, Pleasant Hill, was arrested Feb. 16 on a failure to appear warrant with an original felony charge of possession of controlled substance; and charges of possession of marijuana, unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia, driving while revoked/suspended and failure to maintain financial responsibility.

Bond was set at $3,500.

Jakob L. Rohn, 17, 604 S. Vine St., Holden, was arrested Feb. 16 on three failure to appear warrants with original charges of stealing and two counts of assault.

Total bond was set at $600 .

Gavin D. Syring, 20, 504 S. Vine St., Holden, was arrested Feb. 16 on seven failure to appear warrants with original charges of shoplifting, stealing, possessing marijuana, operating a motor vehicle without a valid license, resisting arrest and two counts of possessing drug paraphernalia.

Total bond was set at $700.

Scotty W. Smith, 44, 501 S. Niagara, Holden, was arrested Feb. 16 on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of disorderly conduct.

Bond was set at $250.

Anthony M. Page, 31, 1486 N.W. 325th Road, Holden, was arrested Feb. 16 on three failure to appear warrants with original charges of driving while driver license suspended, failure to register motor vehicle and failure to maintain financial responsibility.

Total bond was set at $300.

Tyson J. Battles, 34, 409 E. Lucas, Knob Noster, was arrested Feb. 19 on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of violation of order of protection for adult.

Bond was set at $1,000.

Olen L. Stephens III, 22, 341 Christopher St., was arrested Feb. 19 on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of failure to wear proper headgear on a motorcycle that is in motion.

Bond was set at $150 with a court date of March 15.

Alexus I. Jackson, 21, Pleasant Hill, was arrested on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of failure to maintain financial responsibility of vehicle.

Bond was set at $250 with a court date of March 15.

Erica M. Hart, 39, 205 N. Madison Avenue, Knob Noster, was arrested on two failure to appear warrants with original charges of driving while intoxicated-alcohol, domestic assault and a felony charge of damage to jail/jail property.

Total bond was set at $50,000.

Gabriela A. Zapata, 22, Kansas City, was arrested Feb. 21 on two failure to appear warrants with original charges of speeding and driving while revoked/suspended.

Total bond was set at $500.

Dillon G. Werntz, 28, 431 N.E. 550th Road, was arrested on a probation violation warrant on felony charges of assault and resisting/interfering with arrest for a felony.

Bond was set at $25,000.

Anthony F. Wendt, 39, 514 N. Holden St., was arrested Feb. 13 on a probation violation warrant on a charge of tampering with motor vehicle.

Bond was set at $10,000.

Patrick E. Mullen, 30, 320 Broad St., was arrested Feb. 16 on a probation violation warrant with a charge of possession of marijuana.

Bond was set at $25,000.

Austin L. Schumacher, 22, 202 N. Main, Holden, was arrested Feb. 14 on a warrant with a felony charge of possession of a controlled substance.

Bond was set at $4,500.

Angela Blankenship, 39, Harrisonville, was arrested on a warrant with a felony charge of stealing.

Bond was set at $50,000.

Michael E. Labine, 51, Albuquerque, New Mexico, was arrested on a warrant with a felony charge of fugitive from out of state.

Bond was set at $50,000.

Joshua Collins, 20, 821 E. Prairie Hill Drive, was arrested Feb. 20 on a warrant with a felony charge of delivery of marijuana and a charge of unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia.

Bond was set at $5,000.

Billie J. Winchel, 30, 27 S.W. 250th Road, was arrested Feb. 20 on a warrant with a felony charge of possession of a controlled substance and on a charge of unlawful possession of drug

paraphernalia.

Bond was set at $3,500.

William K. Stringer, 23, 109 N. Waters St., was arrested Feb. 22 on a warrant with felony charges of two counts of possession of a controlled substance.

Bond was set at $6,000.

James C. Bryant, 34, 1457 S.W. 800th Road, Holden, was arrested on two warrants with felony charges of two counts of stalking and on a charge of unlawful possession, transport, manufacture, repair or sale of illegal weapon.

Total bond was set at $150,000.

Shae M. Buckner, 23, Sedalia, was arrested Feb. 8 on a charge of stealing when deputies responded to the report of stealing in the 600 block of Northwest U.S. 50 Highway, Centerview.

Deputies responded Feb. 8 to the report of a possible burglary in the 300 block of Southeast DD Highway.

Deputies responded Feb. 10 to the report of a stolen dog in the 300 block of Northwest 121st Road.

Deputies responded Feb. 12 to the report of stealing in the 300 block of Northwest U.S. 50 Highway.

Deputies responded Feb. 14 to the report of a stolen truck from the 1100 block of Northeast U.S. 50 Highway, Knob Noster. The report states Independence police officer located the vehicle.

Deputies responded Feb. 16 to the report of theft in the 0 block of Southeast 190th Road.

Deputies responded Feb. 17 to the report of property damage in the 600 block of Southeast 125th Road.

Deputies responded Feb. 21 to the report of tampering in the 300 block of Northwest U.S. 50 Highway. Deputies recover skimming strips from the credit card readers.

Kasey L. McKay, 29, Lincoln, was arrested Feb. 23 on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of pursue/take/kill/possess or dispose of wildlife illegally.

Bond was set at $200.

Joseph C. Dean-Buchanan, 33, 80 S.W. U Highway, Holden, was arrested Feb. 24 on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of driving while revoked/suspended.

Bond was set at $250.

Maria M. Ponder, 28, 619 W. Clark St., was arrested Feb. 25 on two failure to appear warrants with original charges of failure to properly secure child in vehicle and failure to register motor vehicle.

Total bond was set at $150 with a court date of March 30.

Johnathan F. Cota, 29, Sedalia, was arrested Feb. 25 on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of speeding.

Bond was set at $200.

Martin L. Crowley, 35, 10 S.W. 11, was arrested Feb. 6 on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of failure to register vehicle.

Bond was set at $200.

Wesley P. Powell, 31, 348 S.W. 1171st Road, Holden, was arrested on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of non-support.

Bond was set at $1,963.59.

Tony L. Everts, 37, 10837 Crystal Springs Road, Knob Noster, was arrested Feb. 27 on four failure to appear warrants with original charges of defective equipment, stealing and two counts of illegal burning.

Total bond was set at $800.

Jennifer M. Murrow, 33, 744 S.W. T Highway, Holden, was arrested Feb. 23 on a probation violation warrant on a felony charge of burglary and a charge of stealing.

Bond was set at $10,000.

Matthew P. Dempsey, 37, 210 S. Main, Centerview, was arrested Feb. 25 on a probation violation warrant felony charges of two counts of domestic assault.

Bond was set at $25,000.

Heather M. Miller, 39, Sedalia, was arrested on a probation violation warrant on a felony charge of possession of controlled substance.

Bond was set at $25,000.

Ryan C. Fletcher, 39, Independence, was arrested on a probation violation warrant for a felony charge of possession of a controlled substance.

Bond was set at $25,000.

Wesley J. Romans, 23, 1205 S. Holden St., was arrested Feb. 23 on a two warrants with felony charges of three counts of unlawful use of a weapon and five counts of domestic assault.

Total bond was set at $35,000.

Deputies responded Feb. 23 to the report of a burglary in the 0 block of Northeast 1221st Road, Knob Noster.

Deputies responded Feb. 23 to the report of theft in the 1300 block of Southwest 125th Road, Holden. While on the scene, deputies arrested Michael J. Mullens, 38, 1314 S.W. 125th Road, Holden, was arrested on two warrants in another jurisdiction while Renee L. Houk, 38, 1314 S.W. 125th Road, Holden, was also arrested on two warrants in another jurisdiction.

Steven S. Maxwell, 31, Pleasant Hill, was arrested Feb. 27 on charges of driving while revoked/suspended and possession of marijuana when deputies conducted a traffic stop at Northwest 1391st Road and U.S. 50 Highway, Holden.

He was transported to the Johnson County Sheriffs Department.

Joshua B. Sones, 32, Carriere, Mississippi, was arrested Feb. 27 on a felony warrant in another jurisdiction.

He was transported to the Johnson County Jail and placed on a 24-hour hold while deputies awaited a warrant with a felony charge of fugitive from out of state.

He was then arrested on a warrant Feb. 28 on a warrant with a felony charge of fugitive from out of state.

The bond was set at $100,000.

Ryan P. Howes, 24, 309 S.W. 901st Road, Centerview, was arrested March 6 on five failure to appear warrants with original charges of possession of drug paraphernalia, speeding, failure to register vehicle and two counts of possession of marijuana.

Total bond was set at $1,250.

Dwayne A. Gregory, 38, 205 E. Bridges St., Knob Noster, was arrested on a failure to appear warrant with an original charge of possession of marijuana and felony charges of possession with the possible intent to distribute a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance.

Bond was set at $25,000.Sheriff Jim Hammond and the Command Staff of the Hamilton County Sheriffs Office releasee the 2018 Command Staff Profiles highlighting the distinctive roles that the Command Staff members fulfill on a daily basis.



Officials said, "In todays world, more than ever, it is important for law enforcement agencies to be transparent with the public they serve. Each of these video profiles are designed to offer the citizens of Hamilton County a behind the scenes look at how their HCSO is working for them on a daily basis.



"The videos highlight the daily activities and responsibilities of each member of the Command Staff and various supporting roles. They showcase each individuals work history and daily interactions with their staff and the public.



Sheriff Hammond said, I am very proud to offer these unique video profiles to the citizens of Hamilton County in an effort to give them greater insight into the daily activities of their Sheriffs Office. It is important to me that our citizens understand what it takes to lead an agency our size and the many duties our unique and highly skilled leadership team assume on a daily basis.



Each of these quality videos were produced in-house by Jimi Hammond, one of the department's Information Systems personnel.

The following links will take you to the entire group of profiles:

https://www.youtube.com/playli st?list=PLFqUAZ3nxYBKKfyqWg0Pg Q0FMiB2W1bCy

Or each profile can be viewed individually at the following links:

Sheriff Jim Hammond

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=gIGS5M44FJY&list=PLFqUAZ3nxY BKKfyqWg0PgQ0FMiB2W1bCy

Chief Deputy Allen Branum

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=CfNrlpbpo0M&index=2&list=PLF qUAZ3nxYBKKfyqWg0PgQ0FMiB2W1bC y

Deputy Chief Charles Lowery, Jr.

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=C_H-r2jbdCc&index=4&list=PLF qUAZ3nxYBKKfyqWg0PgQ0FMiB2W1bC y

Deputy Chief Joe Fowler

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=qGe_8jfp_R4&list=PLFqUAZ3nxY BKKfyqWg0PgQ0FMiB2W1bCy&index= 5

Director of Administration Don Gorman

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=0YaoLifoXuA&index=6&list=PLF qUAZ3nxYBKKfyqWg0PgQ0FMiB2W1bC y

Director of Support Services Gino Bennett

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=lstl2E9dDlM&list=PLFqUAZ3nxY BKKfyqWg0PgQ0FMiB2W1bCy&index= 7

Uniformed Services Captain Mark King

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=xIwkTXKylN0&list=PLFqUAZ3nxY BKKfyqWg0PgQ0FMiB2W1bCy&index= 10

Criminal Investigations Captain Chuck Gaston

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=lrxLHwvuRDU&index=11&list=PL FqUAZ3nxYBKKfyqWg0PgQ0FMiB2W1b Cy

Corrections Captain Gene Coppinger

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=2OEDVRKlTKA&list=PLFqUAZ3nxY BKKfyqWg0PgQ0FMiB2W1bCy&index= 13

Corrections Captain Byron Knight

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=4txC3dvhgxI&list=PLFqUAZ3nxY BKKfyqWg0PgQ0FMiB2W1bCy&index= 12

Information Systems Manager Ron Bernard

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=X70LiI-3aA4&index=9&list=PLF qUAZ3nxYBKKfyqWg0PgQ0FMiB2W1bC y

Sheriffs Administrative Assistant Kacey Picou

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=6Y4NFcmfxPs&list=PLFqUAZ3nxY BKKfyqWg0PgQ0FMiB2W1bCy&index= 3

Public Information Officer Matt LeaThe Group Real Estate Brokerage announced that Charlie and Nathan Walldorf are joining the agency.

Herman Walldorf founded Herman Walldorf and Company in 1926. In 2011, Charlie and brother Rudy separated the commercial and residential sides of their business into two separate firms -- Herman Walldorf & Co. Realtors, Inc. and Herman Walldorf Commercial, Inc. Rudy Walldorf will continue to operate Herman Walldorf Commercial, Inc. In 2011, Charlie and brother Rudy separated the commercial and residential sides of their business into two separate firms --Herman Walldorf & Co. Realtors, Inc. and Herman Walldorf Commercial, Inc. Rudy Walldorf will continue to operate Herman Walldorf Commercial, Inc.

 We are thrilled to have Charlie and Nathan Walldorf join our team, said Jason Farmer, principal broker and co-owner of The Group Real Estate Brokerage. Their institutional knowledge coupled with their talent and customer focused values will be valuable additions to The Group.





Charlie Walldorf said,  My father taught me to always operate under the Golden Rule and that is how my son (Nathan) and I have conducted business over the years. The Group shares these values and thats why we feel its a perfect fit.



Nathan Walldorf said,  With The Groups extensive technology platforms, service packages, and unique approach, my father and I are confident that we will be in a better position to focus directly on our clients needs.

Rudy Walldorf said, While Im sorry to see Charlie and Nathan leave the physical location which we have shared all of our respective careers, I am very happy that they choose to affiliate with Jason Farmer and Kadi Brown. Residential and commercial real estate brokerages are totally different specialties. The fact was a major reason for my forming Herman Walldorf Commercial, Inc. several years ago. Im sure Charlie and Nathan will continue to provide their clients with superior service with The Group.New Delhi: The recent move by the US to tighten H-1B visa approval is unlikely to have any significant impact on Indian IT companies compliant with laws, but could "hurt" bodyshops that misuse the system, industry veteran T V Mohandas Pai on Sundaysaid.

Under the new policy, a company will have to go an extra mile to prove that its H-1B employee at a third-party worksite has specific and non-qualifying speculative assignments in speciality occupation.

The new move announced recently through a seven-page policy empowers the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to issue H-1B visas to an employee only for the period for which he/she has work at a third-party worksite.

The guidance says in order for an H-1B petition involving a third-party worksite to be approved, the petitioner must show by a preponderance of evidence that the beneficiary will be employed in a speciality occupation and the employer will maintain an employer-employee relationship with the beneficiary for the duration of the requested validity period.

"...larger companies are working within the law...There are some bodyshops which misuse the law, they will be hurt," Pai told PTI.

Besides, large established companies, even the smaller players who are compliant with law will not feel any adverse impact, he noted. He added that the visa process has already been tightened and hence no significant impact is expected to be seen on account of the new guidance.

The new guidance comes weeks ahead of the beginning of the H-1B visas filing season, which is expected to be April 2, for the fiscal year 2019 beginning October 1, 2018.

The H-1B programme offers temporary US visas that allow companies to hire highly skilled foreign professionals working in areas with shortages of qualified American workers. Indian IT companies, which are among the major beneficiaries of H-1B visas, has a significant number of its employees deployed at third-party worksites.

A significant number of American banking, travel and commercial services depend on on-site IT workers from India to get their job done.

The US, which has taken a number of steps to tighten visa processes, accounts for over 60 per cent of India's IT export revenues.Hyderabad: Demonetisation and the currency shortage it brought in its wake did force many in the country to adopt digital payments options. Over time, supply of currency notes improved and the need for digital transactions decreased gradually. Today, cash is back in business.

Cash indeed has re-emerged as the king and primary payment method back again. A startup in Bengaluru, however, plans to keep digital payments in fashion. The company, uniquely named ToneTag, uses sound waves to enable digital transaction and removes the hassles of OTPs. With just a tap on a ToneTag-enabled PoS terminal, a consumer can make transactions. With two leading PoS terminal makers -- Ingenico and VeriFone -- already in its clients list, the company expects that sound will soon become a standard for digital payments.

Why should people have to wait for so long to make a simple transaction. Thats the prime reason behind cash making a comeback, said CEO & co-founder Kumar Abhishek.

He said that the companys approach to digital payments is different. We arent an application that customers need to download on their phones. Our software enables the ecosystem to accept digital payments using sound.

Inspiration for an entrepreneur can come from the most banal of situations. For Bokaro-born Mr Abhishek, it was at the lunch table when a colleague joked about getting candies instead of change that rung a bell in his mind and set the ball rolling.

However, the company founders admitted that the idea to use sound was only by accident. While researching for the business, we stumbled upon the idea to use sound. There was no technology per se to integrate feature phone users into the digital ecosystem. Everyone is chasing the 200 million-plus smartphone users while ignoring the massive 600 million feature phone user base.

The 36-year-old, however, claimed it was never his ambition to become an entrepreneur, rather while working in a MNC he saw a problem that needed to be addressed.

Before launching my startup, I was working on integrating mobile banking solutions. The aim was to make payments via phone and not take out the card every time. I had two ways to proceed to solve this problem. I opted to start my own business, he said.

With friend and legal advisor Vivek Kumar Singh (30), the duo set out to change the payment landscape in late 2013. Like every B2B startup, the first customer and his demands is always a difficult challenge. Later on, our links with Infosys Financle helped opened the doors to many customers, he said.

Mr Abhishek, while discussing the challenges, cited the timing of demonetisation playing spoilsport to their plans.

The company, according to its founder, is optimistic about 2018 as it hopes it to be the breakout year. Clients, hopefully, will start their advertising campaign to spread the use of technology. Since there was hardly any such technology before, customers will take a bit of time to accept such an easy way of making payments, he said.Sridevi had met Kangana Ranaut at an event just few days before her death.

Mumbai: Sridevi was not just a beautiful woman and a powerhouse performer on screen, but was also an inspiration to most actresses of this generation.

Be it Priyanka Chopra, Sushmita Sen, Vidya Balan, Katrina Kaif, most of them expressed how much of an impact Sridevi had on their lives after she passed away in Dubai on February 24. And its not very different for Kangana Ranaut either.

The actress got emotional about the legends untimely demise, during a recent interview to a tabloid.

I was her fan since I saw a tubelight ad of hers as a child, and wanted to break the TV screen to bring her into our home. When Id dress up for cultural shows, my great grandmother would fondly call me Sridevi. Years later, when I returned home exhausted after a long day, Id watch her Charlie Chaplin sequence and the 'Kaatey Nahin Katate song from 'Mr India' and marvel that it was the same woman in both. She was such a childlike soul whose loss I feel deeply, Kangana told Mumbai Mirror.

The actress also revealed that Sridevi would call her if she and her daughter Janhvi liked her performance in a film.

Also read: Boney Kapoor opens up on his last moments with Sridevi and the exact happenings

Kangana had been busy shooting for her upcoming film Manikarnika and couldnt make it for Sridevis last rites or to pay her last respects before her funeral.

However, she was one of the celebrities along with Aamir Khan, Virat Kohli and Anushka Sharma who visited her residence on Sunday to pay her condolences to the grieving family.

Also read: Aamir, Virat and Anushka, Kangana pay their visit to late Sridevi's home

Kangana was one of those present at the event where Sridevi's last controversy before her death, her lip job, had made headlines.India may not have grieved like this for anyone since the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi and, maybe, Indira Gandhi. Maybe, the passage of time is the medium that crated this sense of national loss at the passing away, at a relatively young age of 54, of Sridevi. It was her untimely demise in a foreign land that seemed to trigger this mass outpouring of grief without parallel in India as it took place in the era of media saturation of the visual and print variety and the social media to boot, which is the great collective of fake news and false news in the post-modern era.

Of course, the death did lead to the crossing of all limits of salaciousness as rumour followed speculation followed Chinese whisper. The great TRP war led to each television channel trying to outdo the other and many went to the extent of suggesting murder. Not to speak of Indias supreme conspiracy theorist who also spouted the opinion that Sridevi was done away with by Dawood & company, since the location, so very conveniently, was Dubai in the UAE. There was even a mention of injuries on her body by a TV channel, a headline that died instantly never to come up again.

Sridevi.

From the time she died and India started getting calls early on a Sunday morning to the moment she was cremated, there was media coverage the likes of a Mandela, South Africas Gandhi, were not honoured with. There were also the reports linking her health, her looks and her figure to a premature death with several inspired guesses about her penchant for cosmetic procedures being the cause. A very informed source did, however, link her death to a possible stroke caused by a fat-burning procedure one of whose side effects could be a stroke.

It is sad but that was a choice she made and she had every right to make those choices in leading her life the way she wanted to. It was her life and its cumulative happiness versus the sum of its sadness is something no one could have known but herself. The cause of death may have been a stroke triggering her death by accidental drowning while she was in the bath. Any traces of alcohol in her blood could have been there from a drink which may have been sipped at a wedding event just hours earlier, or from medicines for cough and cold even.

Again, it was her choice and her right to drink or not. What right did anyone else have to be judgmental about this? And who has the right to vilify women who drink as if we are living back in the era of the Ramayana where virtuousness in women was the sole defining quality of life? This wave of holier than thou attitude seemed to grip the nation to the very end, including in condemning those who got dressed up in white for the funeral. They did so because Sridevi had written down her wish that white should be the dominant colour at her funeral.

Why should we be judgmental about women wishing to look good in public? Its no crime and they are all in the movie business, which means the way they present themselves is an ingrained part of their lives. And we would like to remember what an actress Sridevi was in her career and not what they had to do with her mortal remains in embalming after her post-mortem and death.

The memories of the roles she played, the characters she portrayed will stay in memory for longer than even the massive sense of loss at her passing, exacerbated by the suddenness of it. Her pairing with Kamal Haasan - another child star like her who made his debut at an impossibly young age before graduating into bigger roles and then making it as lead too - made for the best movies in which they stood out as actors portraying tender emotions in a most natural way. Sridevi was simply brilliant in front of a camera. Only those who knew her well could attest to her basic shyness, but in her public persona she was the bubbly effervescent actress who could instantly transform herself into her characters.

There were many from the South who went to Bollywood - Waheeda Rahman, Vyjayantimala, Padmini who was the leader among the three Travancore sisters, Rekha, Hema Malini - all of them stunningly beautiful women who were expressive as actresses and many were great danseuses too. But quite no one was in the same thespian class as Sridevi whose talent unfolded in front of the camera like a free-flowing river bursting out of a dam. The equally brilliant Kamal Haasan made it a thespian double in movies we cherished in our youth.Mumbai: The world was glued on their Television screens on the morning of March 5 as Oscars awards 2018, also the 90th Academy Film Award was held on a grand scale, and not only did the deserving bag the awards, but Indian icons Sridevi and Shashi Kapoor were also honoured at it.

However, before the actual event, a pre-Oscars party was attended by Indian couple Ali Fazal and Richa Chadha, who wanted to capture a moment through one selfie.

Little would either of them know that they were going to get photobombed by Leonardo Di Caprio himself!

Ali took to Instagram to share, Ok i swear i didnt plan this photo... hahahahahahahahah... but Jack Dawson aka Leo seems to have photobombed this selfie.. spot if you can.. but besides the little crowd, it was an honour to be present at the WME Party last night.. with greats in the room.. congratulated Mr Adrian brody on his wonderful performance in PeakyBlinders, Stared back at Drake because , arey woh richa ko taak raha thha.. toh maine bhi ghoora. And i guess the reason i was so phaila hua was because it was home territory - my agency throwing the pre oscar party last night. I think all the hip hop crowd was there fo sure. Wait, pharrel was missing .. he got to play holi elsewhere. Heres the post:

Richa and Ali have been painting the town red since they made their relationship official during Fukrey Returns shooting.Mumbai: Aanand L Rai believes Shah Rukh Khan may have become a superstar but the actor still is the same Delhi boy at heart with humble beginnings and it was this quality that made him even more endearing for the filmmaker's next 'Zero'.

In 'Zero', the 52-year-old actor, popular for portraying characters in love stories set abroad, plays a vertically challenged man who travels from Meerut to New York.

"I always felt he is a very basic Delhi boy. Whenever I saw him in those valleys of Switzerland, I felt 'Oh Delhi boy wahan tak pahuch gaya' (the Delhi boy has achieved great heights). I never felt he didn't belong there.

"That is the reason why I think he has a great connect in our country because he represents a basic middle class boy who has achieved it," Aanand told PTI when asked how does he see this transformation of the actor.

The movie reunites the cast of 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan' with SRK, Anushka Sharma and Katrina Kaif featuring in the film.

For the first time, Aanand has teamed up with a star like Shah Rukh. Asked if the stakes have become higher, the 46-year-old director says, "There were bright chances."

He is, however, relieved to have SRK on board.

"Shah Rukh makes me feel so comfortable and makes you feel like he is the most obedient actor you have ever worked with. I have found a friend, a big brother in him. I am enjoying the process and he is letting me fly," he says.

As of now, Aanand is gearing up for the Christmas release of the film which, he says, is "shaping up great" and is a "lifetime of experiences".

Besides direction, Aanand is backing a string of new films under his company Colour Yellow Productions - from the sequel of 'Happy Bhaag Jayegi', Anurag Kashyap's next 'Manmarziyan' to a project helmed by Rajkumar Santoshi.

Talking about his production spree, he says, "I will never do a film just for the sake of it. If I have nothing to contribute, I won't do it. If I don't have anything to bring on the table something which will make it easier for the director or the team, there is no reason to make it."

"I am not doing films to make money. If you make a good film, you will make money but that is not the prime reason to go for a film. My prime reason is what am I bringing new for my audience," he adds.

For the 'Raanjhanaa' director, the success or failure of a film does not account to much, but what matters is the intention with which it was made.

Aanand's turn as a producer happened with the hit 'Tanu Weds Manu' and he says the decision was largely driven by the idea to back the content he believes in.

"Producing a film was not to make money but only to get the freedom to make the kind of films I want to. I don't look at my bank (balance) in terms of what I am getting or not getting," he says.

"I am just enjoying the process of telling the stories I always wanted to be a part of. As a director I know I can do very few, but as a production house, I can tell more stories, which is fun," he says.It was fashion that added some ebullience to what seemed like a remarkably restrained telecast of the Oscars from the Dolby Theatre, Hollywood on Monday morning Indian time. After an all-black dress code at the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs to support the Me Too and Times Up campaigns, Hollywood celebrated the evening in a kaleidoscope of vivid colours, flattering silhouettes and uncontrived make-up.

Nicole Kidman

RED CARPET RULES

Celebrated actors Meryl Streep, Emma Stone and Best Supporting Actress winner Allison Janney paved the way for the colour of the evening  red. Streep was dressed in a flattering V-necked gown with a cinched waist by French house Dior while Stone was both daring and elegant in her red jacket and black trousers. With her statuesque 6-foot frame Janney was the perfect model for the plunging neckline and floor-length sleeves of her Reem Acra gown.

Other beauties who were resplendent in bright hues included Nicole Kidman in a show-stopping blue Armani, Viola Davis in Indian-pink sequins from Michael Kors and presenter Elza Gomez in a banana yellow Ralph Lauran dress. Special mention must be made of 86-year old Rita Morenos beautiful black gown  the same gown she wore to the Oscars in 1962 where she won!

Meryl Streep

CRITICS CHOICE

Film stylist and designer Chaitanya Rao applauded the bright colours of the evening wear but lamented on most of them being safe choices. He said I really like Saoirse Ronans pink dress from Calvin Klein. Very modern. While the Oscars will always be one of the most fashionable events of the year, I think most actresses dress for comfort these days! Obviously, the show goes on for three hours and what if they have to run up and accept an award?

What if indeed. A few years ago a flustered Jennifer Lawrence tripped on the way to the stage. Another fashion favourite Tina Vincent loved the red on the red carpet  I love red! So I think Allison Janneys gown was the best look for me. I also loved the unique look of Lupita Nyongos chain mail Versace gown.

Allison Janney

THE INDIA CONNECT

Whilst red-carpet favourite Priyanka Chopra was notably absent  she posted that she was unwell on her Instagram account India was not forgotten at yesterdays ceremony. The Oscars In Memoriam section paid homage to recently departed Sridevi and the legendary Shashi Kapoor. Indian-origin comedienne Mindy Kaling looked fantastic at the Vanity Fairs party in a form-fitting black dress from Prabal Gurung and shoes from Roger Vivier.

Another touching India connect was when acclaimed filmmaker James Ivory paid tribute to the late Ismail Merchant  his romantic and film-making partner of 44 years. Ivory (89) won an Oscar for screenwriting the coming-of-age romance Call Me By Your Name and acknowledged his partners Merchant and writer Ruth Pravar Jhabvala in his speech.Puck walked the red carpet with a chocolate tower and a few of his edible statuettes. (Photo: AP)

Washington DC: Awards season draws to an end with the Oscars and the attendees are definitely in for a treat!

Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck and his team prepared a scrumptious menu for the stars attending the 2018 Oscars Governors Ball at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood for the 24th consecutive year.

The A-listers attending the post-Oscars event such as host Jimmy Kimmel, Nicole Kidman and Armie Hammer will be feasting on dishes like chicken pot pie, macaroni and cheese with truffles, eggplant confit with salsa verde, ravioli and risotto with shrimp.

The 68-year-old chef revealed, "You won't go home hungry! We have 300 people in the kitchen. Thank God I am not alone! 900 waiters in the dining room. They make 7,000 mini chocolate Oscars," Us Magazine reported.

So, what is the cost of the wide-ranging menu? "We'll find out tomorrow," the restauranteur quipped.

Puck, who walked the red carpet with a chocolate tower and a few of his edible statuettes, also explained that any leftovers will be donated to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

"People who don't really get anything, they're going to have a meal just like the biggest stars in the world," he said.Some people are addicted to coffee. They drink it in the morning, afternoon and even before going to bed. But how far will you go to taste a good cup of coffee? Meet Binny Varghese, a 28-year-old Malayalee coffee lover. He has made it his lifes mission to have coffee from all over the country! Given that there are thousands of coffee shops in India, he has set himself quite a goal!

On his RE Himalayan, the divine mount of a riding enthusiast, he is travelling across India to taste some of the finest coffees that the country has to offer. You wonder what motivates a man  apart from a taste for coffee  to embark on such a unique mission. Binny says, My original motivation was simply to accomplish something singularly unique. However, since that time, I have discovered the many joys of traveling and photography. Coffee has always been a part of my life. So I have decided to go on a journey, for coffee.

Binny is not just travelling and drinking coffee. He is talking to people that he meets at every coffee joint. He wants to know their coffee stories. He believes coffee is about the experience. If you are a coffee lover, he wants to know why you love it and vice versa. He loves to have discussions about the coffee he is having and documents it, sometimes in short videos and sometimes as photographs or notes.

So far, he has completed half his journey. He started from Gujarat, then continued through different coffee joints in Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Nepal, Bihar, Jharkand, West Bengal, Odisha, Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

The coffee scene in India is very diverse. That diversity induced me to travel and taste it. Here, most people do not know what coffee really is. They are surprised when they come to know that this cute little bean is essentially a seed of a cherry from the coffee shrub, he opens up on his knowledge about coffee.

During his unusual journey, he has tasted some of the best coffees in the country. One of the best coffees I have had in my life is from a small coffee joint in Sangla, Himachal Pradesh. An elderly woman who was at a small joint by herself made me a coffee with a little bit of cardamom and milk (made from milk powder, as they dont have a lot of fresh milk supplies over there). The thing I liked about it was, it was just the right amount of everything, he says.

Since he has been travelling from his academic years, he was lucky to taste some of the finest coffees around the world. I have had the most expensive coffee in the world, Kopi Luwak, which is made from the poop of the Indonesian Sumatran Civet, the Turkey coffee from Saudi Arabia, Vietnamese coffee made with Milkmaid, Thai elephant coffee and many more. Some of them are made in a very unusual way, he says.

Binny also works for a company that has a chain of coffee bars across the country. So, his colleagues were also very supportive about this journey. We have other cafes. I thought of covering those, so as to also understand the psychology of baristas (people who make your coffee). To see what they think and know about coffee, he says.

According to Binny, there is one myth in India that if you are a real coffee lover you should have it black. But he tries it with and without sugar and milk. Its all about personal preference, he feels. And he wants to make more people aware about the coffee culture around the world.

Here in India, most people in small cities order cappuccino because that's the only one they know about, maybe through cinema or TV or because the person sitting in front of them ordered the same, he says. He wishes to start a new coffee culture in the country and make people aware of the drink.

So far, I have been stopping at places during the trip to have my coffee. Ive had 353 coffees from different joints! My favorite coffee at the moment is bulletproof coffee, which is black coffee with a spoon full of butter. It gives an interesting, velvety and creamy texture, he says.

He will end his journey in Baroda where he lives right now. He calls himself a barista on bike. He is also planning to write a book on his quest for coffee. Best to be read with a cup of coffee in hand!Some veterans suffering from PTSD are so fearful that they rarely leave their homes. (Photo: Pixabay)

Therapeutic horseback riding may ease symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in combat veterans, a new study finds.

After three weekly riding sessions, 32 participating veterans lowered their scores for symptoms of the disorder, known as PTSD, researchers report in Military Medical Research.

Moreover, after six weeks, participants experienced a clinically significant reduction in their symptom scores. In other words, they were capable of doing things - such as going to a supermarket - that they might have been unable to do when they started the program.

It was delightful to find out our intervention helped the way we hoped it would, said lead author Rebecca A. Johnson, a professor of nursing and veterinary medicine at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

As many as one in five recent combat veterans develops PTSD, an overactive fear memory that triggers disturbing thoughts, feelings and dreams, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Some veterans suffering from PTSD are so fearful that they rarely leave their homes, Johnson said in a phone interview.

Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder have high anxiety, and to have (them) focus on learning a skill is diverting. Theyre very focused, she said. Riders are mastering horsemanship skills. Its not a pony ride.

During the therapeutic horseback riding sessions in Missouri, veterans learned and practiced grooming, interacting with the animals and riding them with a leader and two side walkers. Most of the participants were men, and they ranged in age from 29 to 73.

Many were veterans of the Vietnam War who had been experiencing posttraumatic-stress symptoms for decades, Johnson said.

Johnson estimated a similar program would cost $300 to $400 per person in Missouri, though it could cost substantially more in other parts of the country, and in some cases, riding centers might provide scholarships or reduced rates for veterans, she said.

Some of these military veterans had been experiencing PTSD symptoms for 40 or 50 years, she said. It may be important for healthcare systems to support therapeutic horseback riding as a viable complimentary therapy.

Dr. Gary Wynn, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, said hewould be reticent for a broad recommendation, especially if it involves mobilizing resources from healthcare organizations.

Wynn, who was not involved with the study, said he would want to see evidence that the improvements last long after the treatment is done.

A prior recent study of yoga in people suffering from PTSD showed that one of the key determinants of long-term benefits was continued yoga practice, he said.

The benefit of some complementary and alternative-medicine treatments has been likened to the vacation effect, he said by email. One receives the majority of the benefit while on vacation, and that quickly dissipates after the vacation is over.

Previous studies have shown that alternative treatments  from yoga to fly-fishing, to acupuncture and meditation  have been shown to be of some benefit to veterans with PTSD while they are getting treatment, Wynn said.

Though he knows little about the cost of therapeutic horseback riding, Wynn said the costcould be significant and difficult to scale.

I could see this as a part of a specialty program, a referral program for those that have failed other treatment modalities, like the 30-day or 60-day programs out in some idyllic nature setting where there were a series of therapeutic modalities combined to address treatment-resistant PTSD, he said. Therapeutic riding for everyone probably isnt an option.TWRA is once again happy to partner with the Tennessee Fur Harvesters for the 2018 free trapper training camp to be held at the Hiwassee Refuge March 23-25. This three day camp is packed full of great information for those interested in learning about the craft of fur taking. Participants will utilize live trap lines and learn about trap modification, set making, snaring and fur handling skills.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be provided Saturday and camping is available. Participants must register and all ages are welcome.

John Daniel, the event coordinator, said, Weve had a packed house in years past. We really enjoy the weekend and look forward to another great year.

The Tennessee Fur Harvesters is dedicated to preserving the heritage of trapping and the management of Tennessees furbearers. They have several events throughout the year, including a fur sale.

Contact Mr. Daniel to register for the training camp or for more information on fur trapping 423 595-0986 or johndanielgc@gmail.com.Sumatran tigers are considered critically endangered with 400 to 500 remaining in the wild. (Photo: Pixabay)

Villagers in a remote Indonesian community disemboweled a critically endangered Sumatran tiger and then hung the big cat from a ceiling after it attacked a pair of locals, a conservation official said Monday.

Human-animal conflicts are rampant in the vast Southeast Asian archipelago, especially in areas where the clearing of rainforest to make way for palm oil plantations is destroying animals' habitats and bringing them into closer contact with people.

Locals from Hatupangan village in North Sumatra had initially suspected the tiger was a supernatural creature so they followed it to its jungle lair, the official said.

The tiger -- which has been seen around the village since last month -- attacked the curious group Sunday, leaving two villagers seriously injured.

They later announced plans to kill the animal, despite warnings by conservation officials not to hurt the endangered cat.

"Unfortunately they would not listen. They insisted on killing the tiger," said local conservation agency head Hotmauli Sianturi, adding that a conservation officer was blocked from preventing the death.

"After killing the animal, the locals hung up its body for display. It's very regrettable."

Some internal organs were missing from the tiger's body, said authorities, who are investigating the killing.

Sumatran tigers are considered critically endangered by protection group the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with 400 to 500 remaining in the wild.Jimmy Kimmel started off by saying that the Oscar trophy was Hollywoods most beloved and respected man because he keeps his hands where you can see them, never says a rude word and, most importantly, he has no penis. (Photo: AP)

Jimmy Kimmel hosted the Academy Awards for the second year running and kicked off the presentation ceremony with a monologue poked fun at Harvey Weinstein and Mike Pence while paying homage to #MeToo and Time's Up.

He started off by saying that the Oscar trophy was Hollywoods most beloved and respected man because he keeps his hands where you can see them, never says a rude word and, most importantly, he has no penis.

Below are some of the most memorable lines from Kimmel's monologue and other quotes from Oscar 2018.

Host Jimmy Kimmel speaks at the Oscars . (Photo: AP)

Jimmy Kimmel: Here's how clueless Hollywood is about women: We made a movie called What Women Want, and it starred Mel Gibson.

Frances McDormand accepts award for best actress in a leading role. (Photo: AP)

Frances McDormand: If I fall over during my speech, someone should pick me up because Ive got some things to say. She went on to ask all of the women nominees on the evening to stand up, in a gesture that chimed with the theme of inclusion and diversity that ran through the evening.

Gary Oldman, winner of the award for best performance by an actor in a leading role for Darkest Hour. (Photo: AP)

Gary Oldman: Actor paid tribute to his 98-year-old mother in his acceptance speech for best actor, telling her: Thank you for your love and your support. Put the kettle on. Im bringing Oscar home.

Sam Rockwell, winner of the award for best performance by an actor in a supporting role. (Photo: AP)

Sam Rockwell: Actor dedicated his best supporting actor award to my old buddy  the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Later on in the evening, Rockwell explained that they were very close  He inspired me and I could go on for an hour about Phil Hoffman.

Tiffany Haddish (Photo: AP)

Tiffany Haddish: On her Oscar gown inspired by her late father: "My father passed away this year and he's from Eritrea." She recalled her father telling her, "'One day you're going to end up at the Oscars and when you go, you have to honor your people.' So I'm wearing an Eritrean, authentic princess dress. And I'm proud of it."

Jimmy Kimmel: I remember a time when the major studios didn't believe a woman or a minority could open a superhero movie - and the reason I remember that time is because it was March of last year.

Allison Janney, winner of the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for I, Tonya. (Photo: AP)

Allison Janney (On her best friends surprising her before the Academy Award nominations were announced last month): "I could not have been happier, I've never beenI'm not someone who's easy to surprise, I've never been surprised and that morning at 5 a.m. friends flew in from New York and Washington, D.C., busted through my bedroom and jumped on my bedI thought I was gonna be abducted, I didn't know what was happening. It was just the best morning."

Rita Moreno presents the award for best foreign language film at the Oscars. (Photo: AP)

Rita Moreno: On wearing the same dress she wore to 1962 Oscars: "You would think it would tarnish, it's been hanging in my closet."

Chris Overton, left, and Rachel Shenton, winners of the award for best live action short. (Photo: AP)

Rachel Shenton: I made a promise to our six-year-old lead actress that Id sign this speech. My hands are shaking so I apologise. Our movie is about a deaf child being born into a world of silence. This is happening, millions of children all over the world live in silence.

Jimmy Kimmel: This year, when you hear your name called, don't get up right away. Give us a minute.Vega's movie went on to win the prestigious 'Best Foreign Film' Oscar award Sunday night in the category of best foreign film, representing Chile. (Photo: AP)

The 90th Academy Awards made history when Daniela Vega became the first transgender presenter at the Oscars.

Vega got the opportunity to participate in the Oscars after starring in Sebastian Lelios Oscar nominated film A Fantastic Woman.

The movie went on to win the prestigious 'Best Foreign Film' Oscar award Sunday night in the category of best foreign film, representing Chile.

However, Vegas moment of glory came when she was given the task to introduce a performance by Sufjan Stevens, whose song Mystery of Love from 'Call Me By Your Name' was nominated for best original song.

Vegas own film 'A Fantastic Woman,' based in Santiago, is a drama about a transgender woman who battles her lover's family after he dies.

'Thank you so much for this moment'. she said, before introducing Stevens.The survey revealed that one in five children is vulnerable to sexual harassment and it has also been reported that one in every four families did not complain about sexual abuse that they suffered.

Hyderabad: Chocolates and candies, the main delectables favoured by kids, are being used by elderly men to lure the minors into sexual assaults. The city has seen many such cases in the recent past, the latest one being the incident which came into light last week of a 13-year-old girl who was seven-months pregnant, after being raped by a 76-year-old man.

Every second child between 12 to 18 years suffers some sort of sexual harassment in India, revealed a survey this year. An alarming figure has surfaced in a survey conducted by 'World Vision India', an organisation working for human rights, which was responded by 45,844 children from different parts of the country.

The survey revealed that one in five children is vulnerable to sexual harassment and it has also been reported that one in every four families did not complain about sexual abuse that they suffered.

An increasing number of cases were registered in the state under different sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (PoCSO) Act, and pertains to sexual assault and sexual harassment of children.

Telangana state alone noticed a total of 1,159 cases under PoSCO, 690 cases of child rape and 189 cases of sexual assault against children in 2016. More disturbing is the fact that these figures might not be revealing the actual situation, since many cases go unreported, an official said, adding that agonised child victims are exposed to public while questioning at the police stations, extending their mental trauma.

On November 22, N. Satyanarayana Rao, an 85-year-old retired railway employee was arrested by Kushaiguda police for sexually assaulting and raping a 12-year-old Class VII student by luring her with chocolates. Police said that the man had raped six girls over a year by luring them into his house by giving chocolates and some cash. The incident came to light when the girls complained to their parents about his actions, who in turn approached the police.

He first talks to them softly and gives them chocolates and money and slowly invites the children to his house where he sexually assaults and rapes them. He even threatened the girls to prevent them from talking or revealing about his heinous acts outside. The man has been doing this to the minor girls of the area since an year now, Additional DCP of She Team, Rachakonda, said.

Out of the six, four have confessed that he had physically harmed them when they refused and later gave them chocolates to calm them down, Alwal ACP said.

Such pedophiles exploit a child as they can silence them by giving them chocolates and gifts. They groom the kids by smiling at them and making them feel loved and choose victims carefully as not every child falls prey to such men, psychiatrist, Purnima Nagaraja said.Prasar Bharati Chairman A Surya Prakash had earlier said that the public broadcaster had to pay staff salaries for January and February out of its contingency funds as the ministry led by Smriti Irani had not released the funds. (Photo: AP)

New Delhi: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry released Rs 208 crore for the salaries of the employees of Doordarshan and All India Radio (AIR) on February 28, Prasar Bharati CEO SS Vempati said on Sunday.

Vempati's remarks came two days after news website The Wire quoted Prasar Bharati Chairman A Surya Prakash as saying that the public broadcaster had to pay staff salaries for January and February out of its contingency funds as the ministry led by Smriti Irani had not released the funds.

The Wire had claimed that the delay in release of funds was due to alleged standoff between the Prasar Bharati and the I&B ministry.

Reacting to the news report, the I&B ministry had issued a statement saying that the Prasar Bharati had not signed an MoU with it as required by autonomous bodies getting grants-in-aid by the government.

Vempati on Sunday tweeted, "Noticed reports in sections of media on non-disbursal of salaries to DD & AIR staff. Rs 208 cr towards salaries were released on the 28th Feb 2018. Attempts to create panic malafide. PB has so far received Rs 1989 crores from MIB as grants-in-aid for salaries during FY2017-18".

However, the tweet did not specify the month for which the funds meant for salaries was disbursed by the government.

The Prasar Bharati is an autonomous body that runs Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR) but receives grant from the Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry.New Delhi: Amid a fresh unity bid by the Opposition to take on the BJP, the Trinamool Congress on Monday said its chief Mamata Banerjee had reached out to DMK working president MK Stalin for coordination in and outside Parliament.

Banerjee has taken a lead in defeating the BJP by talking to 'federal' parties.

"We are on track", TMC Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien said.

After calling up TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, Banerjee held telephonic conversation with Stalin, O'Brien said, adding there was "good coordination" between TRS, TDP, SP, BSP, TMC and DMK in Parliament on various issues on Monday.

His remarks came in the backdrop of Banerjee again pitching for regional parties to come together to take on the BJP after the results of assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

Responding to a question, O'Brien rejected the suggestion that the Congress has been "excluded" from the grouping Mamata Banerjee is working on.

He said the West Bengal chief minister also spoke with Shiv Sena Uddhav Thackeray. The two leaders had been in touch with each other. Though it is part of the governments in Maharashtra and at the Centre, Sena has been critical of the BJP and its leadership.

The Lok Sabha saw frequent disruptions on Monday following vociferous protests by opposition members over the Punjab National Bank fraud and other issues while MPs of NDA ally TDP continued to raise their demand for a special package to Andhra Pradesh.

Soon after Speaker Sumitra Mahajan made obituary references, members from the Congress, TRS and other parties as well as from the TDP trooped into the Well raising various issues.

O' Brien said that during her nearly 12-minute conversation, Banerjee told Stalin that a good show by the TMC and the DMK in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu respectively would mean a block of nearly 75 MPs in Parliament.

A day after he announced his entry into national politics, Telangana Rashtra Samiti supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao had received support from various political leaders, including Banerjee.

"From morning, I have been receiving many calls from various places in India. This afternoon West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee called me and said that I have taken the right decision and she will be supporting me and that we will go forward together," Rao had said a couple of days ago.Congress communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala said Surjewala said every discordant party that fought BJP and each other, 'ideologically-politically-electorally', is sewn up to form the government at any cost -- NPP+UDP+PDF+HSDP+BJP+Ind. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Spotlighting the differences between the BJP and its coalition partners in the Northeast, the Congress on Monday accused the party of playing a "dangerous game of destabilising the region through its blind quest for power at any cost.

The differences are on key issues such as the bifurcation of Tripura and Meghalaya, Congress communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala said in a series of tweets as the BJP was set to form government with its partners in the northeast states of Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

BJP is following a dangerous game of destabilisation, subversion and usurpation of power in Northeast, unmindful of the stability, security, peace and progress.

"Hope Modiji had cared to learn from Rajivji who put nation first and brought peace to the region by Assam and Mizo accords," he said.

Every Indian, he added, is concerned that assumption of power at any cost and by any means by the BJP doesn't blind it into destabilising the entire region.

Tell tale signs of BJPs blind quest for power superseding the stability of the region, propagation of democracy, nipping of separatist tendencies and ignoring core issues of region are already visible, Surjewala said.

In Tripura, the Congress leader said, BJP has aligned with the IPFT, a party with division of the state as its election plank which is now demanding a tribal chief minister.

"(It is) time for Modi Government/BJP to address both issues. Does it stand for demand for division of State of Tripura? Would it reject the demand for a tribal CM?," Surjewala asked.

In Nagaland, the BJP is in government with the NPF and yet fought elections in alliance with opposition party NDPP, the Congress leader said.

The NPF won 26 seats and the NDPP won 18 seats. With both NPF and NDPP staking claim to form the government, Is Nagaland headed for another round of instability like in last 5 years? And Naga Accord? he asked.

In Manipur, the Congress leader said the BJPs coalition survives with the support of three NPF MLAs.

"Would the formation of a govt in Nagaland by BJP with NDPP (18 MLAs) ignoring the NPF (26 MLAs), only in the effort of a larger share of pie of power, not put the stability of government in Manipur under a cloud?" he asked.

Moving on to Meghalaya, Surjewala said every discordant party that fought BJP and each other, "ideologically-politically-electorally", is sewn up to form the government at any cost -- NPP+UDP+PDF+HSDP+BJP+Ind.

"Is this the answer to Meghalaya's aspirations and a stable government? "The chief ministerial candidate Conrad Sangma and his party NPP have promised division of Meghalaya and a separate state of Garoland, he said, asking if other parties agreed to this.

"Does Mr Sangma propose to carry out the promise on becoming CM? And what is Modijis/BJPs take on it? Surjewala tweeted.

He, however, gave his partys best wishes to the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, praying that peace, progress, cohabitation and development would be on the agendas of the new governments.It was a bench headed by Justice Joseph that in 2016 had quashed the imposition of Presidents Rule by the BJP government in Uttarakhand.

Hyderabad: The confrontationist approach of the Central government towards the Supreme Court Collegium has slowed down the process of filling vacancies of judges in the Supreme Court and High Courts across the country.

According to the department of justice, 406 posts of judges, including seven in the Supreme Court, were not filled till March 1, 2018.

The Centre did not accept the recommendations of the Collegium for the appointments of Justice K.M. Joseph to the Supreme Court, and of Justice Surya Kant as Chief Justice of the Himachal Pradesh High Court. Both recommendations were made on January 10, 2018.

Sources in the Union Law ministry are indicating that the Centre has reservations about the appointments, particularly the elevation of Justice K.M. Joseph, Chief Justice of the Uttarakhand High Court.

It was a bench headed by Justice Joseph that in 2016 had quashed the imposition of Presidents Rule by the BJP government in Uttarakhand.

The Centre has raked up the issue of seniority of judges to hold back Justice Josephs appointment.

Sources revealed that Justice Joseph was the 12th in the list of seniority of Chief Justices of 24 High Courts and at the 45th position in the all-India judges seniority list.

The Supreme Court in the judges case in 1998 held that when a judge had outstanding merit he deserves to be appointed regardless of the fact that he may not stand high in the all India seniority list or in his own High Court.

According to legal experts, the contention of the Centre is not valid and it cannot withhold the recommendation for a long period of time.

They said that as per Memorandum of Procedure (MoP) the Union Law Ministry, after receiving the final recommendation of the Chief Justice of India, will put up the recommendation to the Prime Minister who will put up the recommendation to the President.

They also said that the Centre can return the recommendation to the collegium for reconsideration, but if the Collegium reiterates its recommendation, the Centre has no option but to accept it. As of now, the Centre is simply sitting on the recommendations without expressing any view.Rahul Gandhi's reaction came two days after results for assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland were declared on Saturday. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: Breaking his silence on the party's defeat in three northeast states, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday said he respected the mandate of people in the region and was committed to winning back their trust.

Gandhi's reaction came two days after results for assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland were declared on Saturday.

The Congress lost Meghalaya and failed to score a single seat in Tripura and Nagaland. The party won 21 seats in Meghalaya, where it was in power, and could not garner the support of regional outfits to cobble together a coalition government.

Top party leaders Ahmed Patel and Kamal Nath rushed to Shillong to talk to regional parties but to no avail.

"The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people. My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party," Gandhi said on Twitter.

Gandhi had announced on Thursday that he would visit his 93-year-old grandmother in Italy over the Holi weekend. Top party leaders had refrained from making any comment on the results.National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah on Sunday blamed the countrys first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, Maulana Azad and Sardar Patel for 'division' of united India. (Photo: PTI)

Jammu: Kicking off a fresh controversy, National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah on Sunday blamed the countrys first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru, Maulana Azad and Sardar Patel for division of united India.

Speaking at an event in Jammu, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir absolved Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah of partition.

We still have the record of a commission that came in. In the commission, it was decided that we will not divide India, and that we will have a special representation for Muslims and other minorities like Sikhs, but the nation would not be divided, he said.

Jinnah agreed to this, but Nehru, Azad and Patel did not listen. This led to the foundation of Pakistan by Jinnah," Abdullah alleged.

The comments drew strong reaction from Union minister Jitender Singh, who asked the NC chief to re-read the history of the sub-continent, whereas state unit of BJP accused Abdullah of using selective quotes from history to rouse communal passions.

Jitender Singh said a large majority of Muslim community was not in favour of partition of the country.

"Let us not forget that a committee was constituted by some Muslim intellectuals who had vehemently opposed the idea of partition, he told reporters on the sidelines of a function.

Taking serious exception to the NC presidents statement, state BJP spokesperson Anil Gupta said through selective quoting from history, Abdullah was not only trying to please his vote bank but also triggering communal passions.

Abdullah referred to the Cabinet Mission which visited India in 1946, but conveniently ignored to tell his audience that the demand for Pakistan was made by Jinnah much earlier in 1940 at the Lahore Resolution, he said.The search is on for Chattanoogas best local act in the 8th annual Road to Nightfall. Over the course of six nights, more than 150 musicians from 30 local bands will compete for more than $10,000 in cash, and the chance to be a headlining act in this years Nightfall Concert Series which runs from May 4-Aug. 31 every Friday night at Miller Plaza. Additional prizes include everything from recording studio time, music videos, custom instruments, printing, and cash.

The Road to Nightfall will be held at the Granfalloon, 400 East Main St. Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show begins at 8 p.m. Admission is $10 at the door. Audience members will be exposed to new, local bands cultivating Chattanoogas music market and vote for their favorites via text message to determine the winners of each night.

This years shows will be as follows:

Friday, March 9: Tim Hughes Quartet, Over Easy, Backwater Still, Lenox Hills, IronChief, and the Silver Tongued Devilz

Saturday, March 10: Jordan Hallquist & The Outfit, The Foothills, Dream Collective, Hush Money, Webb Barringer, and Subkonscious

Thursday, March 15: Dirty Blonde, Hive Theory, 3s Company, Endelouz, Iron Fez, and Dr. B and the Ease

Friday, March 16: Derek Wayne Martin, Danimal Planet, The Afternooners, The Fridge, Ashes Fall, SunSap

Saturday, March 17: The Band Antle, Caney Creek Company, Midnight Promise, Connection27, Kindora, Stagger Moon

The finale competition, the winner getting the headline gig at Nightfall, will be Saturday, March 24, at The Signal.

Last year, 20,000 text votes were submitted from more than 1,000 fans who wanted to know who is Chattanoogas most promising local act. Past winners have used this experience to widen their fan base and further their musical careers. The competition offers a chance for these artists to meet, network and help develop Chattanoogas music scene.

Past winners include: Ryan Oyer Band, Function, Amber Fults and the Ambivalent Lovers, Strung Like A Horse, Nick Lutsko, Monday Night Social & WTM Blues Band.

"Road to Nightfall has opened up so many opportunities for Monday Night Social over the last year- we have been hired for many gigs, met tons of fans and gotten to know a bunch of musicians and music professionals, said Janet McGarity of Monday Night Social.

The Road to Nightfall 2018 is sponsored by Tennessee Valley Federal Credit Union, SongBirds, SoundCorps Take Note, Chattanooga Presents, MetroTone, The Soundry, Dagan Beckett Films, EPB City Stream, The Signal and Wonder Press.

For more information, check out http://www.gigcityproductions.com/road-to-nightfall-2018/.





Six soldiers and a civilian were killed and 10 people were injured in the Sunjuwan Army Camp attack. (Photo: File/PTI)

Srinagar: A top Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) commander Mufti Waqas allegedly involved in the recent terror attack at Sunjuwan Army Station in Jammu was killed in a brief firefight with the security forces in Awantipore area of Jammu and Kashmirs Pulwama district on Monday evening.

The officials said that gunfight erupted during an operation launched jointly by the Armys 50 Rashtriya Rifles, the J&K polices counterinsurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) at Hatwar outside the highway town of Awantipore and about 35 kilometers south of summer capital Srinagar.

Defence spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said that the security forces laid siege to Hatwar following specific intelligence input about the presence of the JeM commander Waqas in the village. Waqas, a Pakistani national, was working as the outfits Operational Commander in the Valley.

The Army and police officials said that the slain JeM commander was involved in the recent terror attacks at the Sunjuwan Army Station in winter capital Jammu and a CRPF training centre in Lethpora area of Pulwama.

During the three day armed standoff at Sunjuwan which had started on February 10, six soldiers, a civilian and all the three assailants were killed. In the January 31 fidayeen attack on the CRPF centre at Lethpora and subsequent encounter, an officer and four jawans and three militants were killed.

Also read: Army camp siege: 5 jawans killed, 4 terrorists shot dead; NIA takes stock

Col Kalia said that an AK -47 rifle was found with the slain militant commander.

He said, During the surgical operation, the mastermind of the Sunjuwan and Lethpora terrorist attacks and Jaish-e-Muhammed operational commander Mufti Waqas was eliminated. He was a Category A++ terrorist.

The spokesman added that there were no civilian casualties or collateral damage during the operation and that the killing of the JeM commander has resulted in a major dent to the designs of JeM as after elimination of their earlier operational commander Noor Muhammad Tantray in the same area on December 17, his successor too has been killed.

A statement issued by the police in Srinagar said that JeM commander Mufti Waqas alias Abu Arsalan was the chief architect of several terror attacks including on the District Police Lines Pulwama (August 26, 2017), Lethpora CRPF camp (December 31, 2017) and Sunjawan Military Station (February 10, 2018).Kochi: A 'pet cat' almost gave a sleepless night to the customs sleuths at Kochi airport the other day! A childless couple hailing from Alappuzha and currently settled in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia brought along with them their 'pet cat' when they came for a short vacation on Friday morning as they couldn't think of leaving it behind. However, they were shocked when the customs officials 'seized' and 'detained' the cat as pet import is not permitted at Kochi airport. The couple were misled by the Saudi Airlines by which they had arrived with the pet.

After the cat was seized, the customs sleuths allowed the couple to leave, but they were in no mood to part with their 'dear one.' "The man said the cat will not sleep without him and that he wanted to stay back with it in our office. We too couldn't take much risk because if anything happens to it, we will be answerable. Further, it was an expensive pet. Though his wife left, the man spent the whole night at the airport and left only after the cat was sent back to Jeddah the next day," customs sources said.

Since the mistake was on the part of the Saudi Airlines, the customs asked the airlines to bear the cost of the pet's 'return journey.' The man's brother received the cat at the Jeddah airport on Saturday itself. However, the couple had to spend Rs 5000 towards fine. "The import of pets is only allowed after production of required health certificate from the country of origin and examination by the animal quarantine office at the arrival airport. However, the Kochi airport does not have a quarantine office. The import of pets is allowed only at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad airports," said customs commissioner Sumit Kumar.TDP members protested in the Well demanding special package for Andhra Pradesh while those from the TRS sought increase in reservation quota in Telangana. (Photo: ANI | Twitter)

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day on Monday after unrelenting protests by the opposition Congress over the Rs 12,700 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam, and demands by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) for a special package for Andhra Pradesh.

On the first day of the second-leg of the Budget session, the House witnessed uproar as Congress, TDP, TRS as well as AIADMK members trooped into the Well.

Noisy protests disrupted the Question Hour which led to Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourning the House till 12 noon.

As the House reassembled, Congress members trooped into the Well with placards demanding a reply from the Prime Minister on diamantaire Nirav Modi's whereabouts.

Trinamool Congress members too were seeking to raise the same matter Nirav Modi is the alleged kingpin of the Rs 12,700-crore fraud at Punjab National Bank. The fraud came to light in February after the country's second largest state-run lender PNB reported that it has detected fraud in award of letter of understanding (LoUs) to the designer diamond jewellery maker.

Also Read: Oppn to corner Govt over bank frauds, 'personal vendetta' as parl resumes

TDP members protested in the Well demanding special package for Andhra Pradesh while those from the TRS sought increase in reservation quota in Telangana.

Amid vociferous opposition protest, Mahajan said she had received the resignation letter of Neiphiu Rio from the Lok Sabha following the Nagaland Assembly election results.

"I have accepted his resignation with effect from February 22," Mahajan said.

Three-time chief minister of Nagaland, Rio won unopposed in the recent assembly election in the state. He is likely to become the chief minister again.

Before the beginning of the proceedings of the House, BJP members were seen clapping when Prime Minister Narendra Modi walked into the House. With folded hands, Modi greeted the members as well as those in the Opposition benches.

As the BJP and its allies captured power in the three North Eastern states, many of the saffron party MPs were seen wearing Assamese 'gamosa'.

Obituary references were made for four former members -- Rudolph Rodrigues, Kamla Prasad Singh, Khagen Das and Kumari Farida Topno.The Supreme Court was hearing the plea of Lt Col (retd) Karamveer Singh seeking to quash the FIR against his son Major Aditya. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Jammu and Kashmir government on Monday apprised the Supreme Court that Major Aditya Kumars name was not there in the accused column of the FIR filed against Army personnel in Shopian firing.

The apex court also stayed the investigation into the Shopian firing, and said that no probe would be initiated against Major Aditya till the next date of hearing on April 24.

The top court was hearing the plea of Lt Col (retd) Karamveer Singh seeking to quash the FIR against his son Major Aditya.

The J&K government in its status report submitted to the court said the Army officer had not been named when the police lodged an FIR to investigate the firing incident, rendering the cause for Singh's petition moot.

"Major Aditya is an Army officer and cannot be treated like ordinary criminals by the J&K police," a three-judge bench said.

The court also said that even though the FIR does not name Major Aditya as an accused, he could be roped in at any time as his name is mentioned in the narrative of the FIR.

In February, the top court had restricted the Mehbooba Mufti-led government from taking any "coercive steps" against Army officers, including Major Aditya Kumar, in the case.

Also read: SC stays FIR against Major Aditya, asks govt to not take any 'coercive' action

The bench, comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, had asked Lt Col Singh's counsel to share the copies of his petition with the office of attorney general KK Venugopal and the J&K government.

In his plea, Singh stated his son, a Major in 10 Garhwal Rifles, was "wrongly and arbitrarily" named in the FIR. He said the incident relates to an Army convoy that was on bona fide military duty in an area under the AFSPA and was isolated by an "unruly and deranged" mob pelting stones, causing damage to military vehicles.

Also read: Father of Army officer accused of Shopian firing moves SC, seeks quashing of FIR

Two civilians were killed when Army personnel fired at a stone-pelting mob in Ganovpora village in Shopian, prompting the chief minister to order an inquiry into the incident.

(With inputs from agencies)Misa Bharti and husband has been directed not to leave the country without prior permission of the court. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: A special court in Delhi granted bail to RJD chief Lalu Prasad's daughter Misa Bharti and her husband on Monday in a money laundering case.

Special Judge Arvind Kumar granted the relief to Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar, who appeared before the court in pursuance to summons issued against them, on a personal bond of Rs 2 lakh with a surety of a like amount each and directed them not to leave the country without prior permission of the court.

The two had moved bail applications.

During the hearing, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) opposed the bail plea of the accused, saying they indulged in a "very serious" economic offence.

"Persons on such a post are committing such kind of activities which are totally against the nation," ED counsel Atul Tripathi said.

The court asked if the probe agency had arrested the couple during the case investigation to which the ED replied in the negative. This prompted the court to ask ED, "Why do you now want the court to take them in custody?"

The court had on February 8 issued summonses against Bharti, her husband and her firm Mishail Packers and Printers as accused in the case after taking cognizance of the charge sheet filed by the ED.

The ED had on December 23 filed its final report against Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar. The agency had earlier attached a Delhi farmhouse of the couple in connection with its money-laundering probe.

The farmhouse, located at 26, Palam Farms in south Delhi's Bijwasan area, was attached provisionally under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). It belonged to Bharti and Kumar and was "held in the name of M/s Mishail Packers and Printers Private Limited", the central probe agency had said. "It was purchased in 2008-09, using Rs 1.2 crore involved in money laundering," it had alleged.

The agency had raided the farmhouse and a few other locations in July, 2017 as part of its probe against two brothers -- Surendra Kumar Jain and Virendra Jain -- and others, who were alleged to have laundered several crores of rupees using shell companies.

The Jain brothers, currently on bail, were arrested by the ED under the PMLA. The ED had also arrested Rajesh Agrawal, a chartered accountant who had allegedly mediated and provided a cash amount of "Rs 90 lakh to the Jain brothers in advance so as to invest in M/s Mishail Packers and Printers Pvt Ltd as share premium".

One of the firms that the arrested duo dealt with was Mishail Printers and Packers Pvt Ltd, according to the ED. Bharti and her husband are alleged to have been directors in this firm in the past.

"The company, M/s Mishail Packers and Printers, was registered at 25, Tughlak Road, New Delhi till the shares were bought by Bharti. "It was only during 2009-10 that the address was changed to Farm no. 26, Palam Farms, VPO Bijwasan, New Delhi.

Bharti and Kumar were the directors of the company during the relevant period," the ED had said.

The ED had alleged that the Jain brothers, Agrawal and the daughter and son-in-law of the former Bihar chief minister were the "key persons behind the laundering of Rs 1.2 crore".Opposition parties aim to seek answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on how the multi-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud and other banking scams took place under his watch and how the government failed to stop them. (Photo: PTI | File)

New Delhi: The second part of Parliament's Budget Session is likely to begin on a stormy note with the Congress and other opposition parties set to raise the issue of multi-crore financial scams involving public-sector banks in both the Houses.

The Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha met on Monday after a month-long recess in the session.

Opposition parties would seek answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on how the multi-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud and other banking scams took place under his watch and how the government failed to stop them.

The government, on its part, is seeking to counter the opposition's offensive by bringing the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill.

The legislation, once passed, will grant powers to the government to attach assets of persons declared fugitive. This will include benami assets too.

While the opposition has not planned any joint strategy so far, it is likely to meet in a day or two to chalk out a plan for the Parliament session.

Sources said that while the financial sector and banking scams would dominate the proceedings in both Houses, issues related to crime against Dalits and women, farmers, the economy and unemployment would also be raised by the opposition benches.

The Congress will also raise the issue of "vendetta" at the hands of the BJP-led government aimed at targeting its political opponents.

Read: Congress calls arrest a diversion

This comes in the wake of the CBI arresting Karti Chidambaram, the son of former Union finance minister and Congress leader, P Chidambaram, in connection with the INX Media case.

He is currently in custody of the probe agency for five days till March 6.

The second part of the session would primarily see discussions on the demand for grants for various ministries.

The Opposition would also press for a debate on a number of contentious matters and important issues confronting the country.

The government has listed a few bills for consideration and passage in both Houses.

In the Lok Sabha, it intends to bring The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, 2017, and The Specific Relief (Amendment) Bill, 2017, today, and The Dentists (Amendment) Bill, 2017, on Tuesday.

In the Rajya Sabha, the government has listed The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2017, and The State Banks (Repeal and Amendment) Bill, 2017, for the first day of the session.

The government also is likely to press for the passage of a bill to ban instant triple talaq.

Congress leaders said that they would soon be holding a meeting with other opposition parties to chalk out a joint strategy for the session.

The aim is to corner the government unitedly and demand answers from it on various issues which it has evaded in the past, a leader from the party said.

Congress deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Anand Sharma, has given a notice for a discussion under Rule 267 of the House on the bank fraud issue.

"We will demand answers from the government on the bank fraud scam. We will also demand answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the scam happened right under his watch," he said.

Sharma said the party is also set to raise the issue of "selective vendetta" at the hands of investigative agencies by the BJP-led government to target key political opponents.

CPI leader D Raja said the issue of PNB fraud will be taken up and the new bills that the government proposes to bring would also be discussed.

"We will demand answers from the government on how the fraud happened. The banking sector is in a deep crisis and its credibility is under stake," he said.

Raja also said that issues pertaining to atrocities and crimes against Dalits and women would also be taken up.

The Left leader claimed that such crimes were on the rise.

He, however, said the financial crimes would be the highlight of the session.

TMC leader Derek O'Brien said his party is for a debate and a discussion in Parliament, and would evolve a joint opposition strategy soon.

"We will coordinate with other opposition parties to expose this BJP government that has not delivered on their promises. I don't want to name any particular issue as there are many. We have issues for every day in Parliament," he said.

O'Brien also claimed that the BJP had gone "overboard" with its victory in Tripura.

"If you look at the bypoll results of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Odisha, it is very clear that their tally will come down," he said.

The TMC leader claimed that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not deliver his address from the Red Fort in 2019.

Also Read: Modi will address nation from Lal Qila last time this year: TMC MP Derek O'Brien

"If their target is West Bengal our target is Red Fort. BJP did not win Tripura, the Left surrendered it," he said.'Import of pets is only allowed after production of required health certificate from the country of origin and examination by our animal quarantine office,' Customs Commissioner Sumit Kumar said. (Photo: PTI)

Kochi: A pet cat brought from a Gulf country was detained at the International Airport in Kochi as it was not the recommended route for it to travel, a top Customs official said on Sunday.

An Indian couple travelling from Jeddah on March 2 on Saudia Airlines had brought the cat along with them.

The animal was seized and detained by the Customs sleuths as it was not a recognised route for importing pets, Customs Commissioner Sumit Kumar said in Kochi.

The official said Saudia Airlines was asked to send the cat back to Jeddah as the couple had not carried documents necessary for bringing a pet to India.

"Import of pets is only allowed after production of required health certificate from the country of origin and examination by our animal quarantine office," he said.

Besides, Kochi International Airport is not a route for bringing pets as it does not have a quarantine facility, the official said.

"Import of pets is allowed only at Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad Airports which have animal quarantine facility," Kumar said.

The seizure was subject to adjudication, payment of fine and penalty, he added.Actor-turned-politician Rajinikanth addressed the public for the first time after announcing his entry into politics. (Photo: ANI)

Chennai: Superstar Rajinikanth delivered his first public address on Monday since his political entry in December last year. He also unveiled a statue of former chief minister and his super-senior in the film industry, MG Ramachandran, at the Dr MGR Educational and Research Institute in Chennai.

Addressing the gathering, Rajinikanth expressed confidence that he can fill the void created after former Chief Minister and AIADMK chief J Jayalalithaas demise and DMK chief Karunanidhi's poor health.

Jayalalithaa is no more and Karunanidhi is ill. Tamil Nadu needs a leader. I will come and fill that vacuum. God is in my side," he said.

Criticising the present political establishment for not dispensing its duties, Rajinikanth said, The present government and politicians are asking why are actors leaving their makeup and coming to take over their jobs as politicians. I am 67 years now, since you are not doing your duty I am stepping in.

I didn't expect the present political parties to welcome me. But why are you discouraging me and others? the actor-turned-politician asked.

The superstar also said, I know the political journey is not easy. It is a journey through struggles and hurdles but I can give governance which they (MGR) gave to common people and I trust I can do that too.

Rajinikanth further added that he has learnt a lot about politics following his close relationship with M Karunanidhi, GK Moopanar and others.

Politics is a way where there are snakes, thorns and difficulties, he said.

Rajinikanth also urged his fans to not keep banners.

"I think my fans have erected banners, disturbing free flow of public movement is violation of High Court orders. I request the fans not to indulge in such activities," he said.

Rajinikanth had on 31 December last year announced that he would launch a party and contest all 234 assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu in the next elections due in 2021.

Recently, his friend and contemporary Kamal Haasan also launched his political party Makkal Needhi Maiam in Madurai. When asked about the possibility of alliance between the two stars, Rajinikanth said, "Only time will tell."CHENNAI: Amity between Tamil Nadus ruling and the principal opposition party descended into acrimony on Sunday with DMK Working President M.K. Stalin accusing the AIADMK Government of being timid and subservient towards the NDA dispensation, thereby compromising the states rights on sensitive Cauvery issue.

Dismissing the charge, Fisheries Minister D Jayakumar tore into Stalin accusing the DMK of concentrating all its energy only on grabbing money-minting portfolios when the party was a constituent of NDA and later UPA-1 and 2 at the Centre for 13 years without even bothering about the states water issues.

Speaking to party workers at a marriage ceremony, Stalin said Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and his cabinet colleagues showed little interest in two proposals made by him during a meeting on Saturday  mass resignation of MPs from the state and passing a resolution in the state Assembly condemning the delay in constitution of Cauvery Management Board  and were non-committal.

I suggested that we can send a message to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that all 54 MPs from Tamil Nadu  50 from AIADMK and 4 from DMK  will resign their posts if he refuses to meet us. They (the CM and colleagues) were scared. And I know they cannot agree to such a suggestion. If they had any semblance of courage, they would have never allowed Neet. If they had courage, they would have never reduced themselves to slaves (to the Centre), Stalin said.

When the Chief Minister expressed apprehension to the proposal, Stalin said, DMK suggested that the state government could convene the Assembly and pass a resolution condemning the Centre for the inordinate delay in constitution of the CMB.

Even while accepting the proposal, the CM and his colleagues suggested that the resolution should not be strongly-worded and they wanted it to be drafted in softer language. At this, I told them that the DMK would never be subservient towards anyone and that their members should be given enough time to air their views during the debate, Stalin said.

Only on Saturday, DMK and AIADMK seemed on the same page on Cauvery issue as Stalin drove to the Secretariat to meet Palaniswami at his chamber  a rare sight in personality-driven Tamil Nadu politics. The bonhomie did not even last for 24 hours as Stalin launched an all-out attack against AIADMK, drawing sharp reaction from Jayakumar.

Responding to Stalins suggestion that all MPs can resign, Jayakumar wanted to know why the Opposition Leader never put forth the suggestion before his party forum in the past.

He can say that easily. What did the DMK achieve when it shared power at the Centre for 13 years? They fought to snatch money-minting portfolios only to further the business interests of the first family. Stalin has no locus standi to criticise AIADMK, he said.After TDP members claimed that no development took place in the town during Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's regime, YSRCP workers got angered and the two sides clashed with each other. (Photo: ANI)

Kadapa (Andhra Pradesh): The town of Pulivendula in Kadapa district witnessed a huge friction between Telugu Desam Party and YSR Congress Party workers on Sunday when they clashed in the area after engaging in a war of words over "lack" of development in the area.

The intensity of the clash was such that one policeman was injured, in addition to some vehicles being torched.

According to reports, hundreds of workers from both the parties also pelted stones at each other, after TDP members claimed that no development took place in the town during Y S Rajasekhara Reddy's regime.

This angered the YSRCP workers and the two sides clashed with each other.

The clash created a chaos in the circle, which turned worse when the police tried to intervene, which is when their vehicles were torched.Dr. Luis Almeida, associate professor of communications at Lee University, had his book, TechnoModeration: Our Only Means of Survival, published by Break Free Press.

The book is currently ranked number nine in an engineering research category, 39 in a computer science category, and 137 in artificial intelligence on Amazons kindle, and has been endorsed by Michal Michalko, creative expert and author of the best-seller Thinkertoys.

Need is what led me to write this book, said Dr. Almeida. I am afraid that we, as a society, have gone out of control in terms of technology use. Most folks dont realize that technology causes severe side effects on us and our living systems.

Dr. Almeidas book is a collection of his articles written for the Cleveland Daily Banner and includes his model, the Human Robot Cycle, on how a persons technological equilibrium is affected by technology use.

Becoming a Brand: The Rise of TechnoModeration and From the Mind of Dr. A are two of Dr. Almeidas books that precede this newest one on the subject of limiting ones technological usage. Dr. Almeida has also published a book on photography, Visual Mississippi, and two educational books with Pearson Education.

Dr. Almeida joined Lees Communication Arts faculty fall 2017. Prior to Lee, he was an associate professor at Jackson State University, where he also served as the interim department chair.

Dr. Almeida has been a critic of technology and leadership contributor in a number of national outlets including ABC-Jackson, NPR, TEDxPhoenixville, and the Wall Street Journal. He has presented at more than 70 conferences and published articles in three continents.

He earned his doctorate from the Pennsylvania State University, his masters from Clarion University of Pennsylvania, and his bachelors from Slippery Rock University.

TechnoModeration: Our Only Means of Survival is available on Amazon.This is 26 less than the number of fatalities during the same period last year.

Chennai: Effective enforcement by the City Traffic police has resulted in reduction of fatal accidents in the city for the first two months this year compared to last year during the same period.

Police said 191 persons have died in road accidents in the city until February this year. This is 26 less than the number of fatalities during the same period last year. In January 2017, 114 were killed in road accidents while in February, 103 persons were killed. In 2018, 103 persons were killed in January and 88 persons in February, a senior police officer said.

This, police officials said is possible due to the effective traffic enforcement practices adopted by the City police from the beginning of this year. For instance, along Ennore highway which sees heavy container traffic, separate lanes were allotted for container trucks and the roads were barricaded from Ennore east point until Form 13 and from MFL junction until Sathangadu, police said.

While roads were barricaded on accident-prone roads, barricades erected unnecessarily were identified and removed, police said. Fifty-six such barricades were identified from across city roads and removed, a police officer said. A hundred new bus bays were erected exclusively for MTC buses in the bus stops.

Further, in co-ordination with the Chennai Corporation, garbage trucks were told to not venture onto arterial roads during peak hour traffic and visible markers were erected at accident prone zones, police said.

Speed breakers were repainted at 160 locations in the city. Traffic signals were erected and traffic diversions were effected at a few places in the city, the official added. City police officials said that enforcement will continue and police strive to reduce the fatalities in the coming months.Jaipur: Students in Rajasthan colleges may be barred from wearing jeans and t-shirts from the next academic session.

The department of higher education is considering uniform for the college students. The state has 148 government colleges, including 15 law colleges.

The department of higher education says that colour of the uniform should be decided by the college administration in association with students unions. After feedback from each college a final decision on the colour code would be taken. Dress code for boys include shirt, trousers, sweater (winters), shoes, socks and belt. Dress code for girls includes salwar suit, dupatta, sweater or cardigan (winters), saree, shoes, sandals and socks

Kiran Maheshwari, higher education minister, said, The move intends to bring uniformity in colleges. A dress code will bring a sense of togetherness, discipline and identification in a student.

Pointing to engineering and management college students and private university students who follow a dress code, she said the government college students too must follow the same. However, the move has triggered a political controversy as the Opposition Congress has accused BJP government of working for the ideology of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh.

However, the minister for higher education defended the move claiming that the demand for a dress code came from students. Many college students have requested their teachers for a dress code. Its being implemented keeping the sentiments of students in mind, said Maheshwari.

The colleges in Alwar were told to have a dress code from January 1, but none of them implemented it yet.Thiruvananthapuram: The Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Bureau (VACB) has stated that there is no fresh evidence against former finance minister K.M. Mani in connection with the bar bribery case. In a further investigation report filed at the inquiry commissioner and special court (Vigilance) here, the VACB maintained that there was no fresh evidence for demand or acceptance of bribe by Mr Mani. Though bar owner Biju Ramesh had submitted a CD containing the audio conversation of bar owners regarding the payment of bribe, it could not be considered as evidence as it was found to be edited.

Mr. K.E. Baiju, superintendent of police, Vigilance Special Investigation UnitI, submitted the report after it was cleared by Vigilance director N.C. Asthana. The court would consider the report soon. According to sources, the Vigilance had again quizzed many bar owners. But no one had given any evidence regarding the payment of bribe to Mr Mani. Only Mr Biju Ramesh's driver Ambili gave a statement in support of the allegation that bribe was handed over to Mr Mani. But the mobile phone locations and call details records did not substantiate his statement.

The further investigation was ordered by the court in August 2016 as per a request by the VACB soon after the LDF came to power. Mr Jacob Thomas was heading the VACB at that time. Then SIU-I head R. Sukesan had sought permission for further investigation citing that the earlier probes could not be fully completed due to the imposition of timeframe and also due to foreclosure of investigation without obtaining expert scientific analysis of the materials collected. He also stated that the Vigilance now had noticed new facts touching the allegations involved in the case which were not considered earlier.

The fresh stand of the Vigilance would be a reprieve to former Vigilance director R. Shanker Reddy also as he was accused of sabotaging the case. Mr Shanker Reddy, who is now serving as State Crime Records Bureau director, was Vigilance director while the Vigilance filed a report in the court in 2016 stating that there was no evidence against Mr Mani.

VS SEEKS CBI PROBE

Administrative reforms commission chairman V.S. Achuthanandan demanded a CBI probe into the bar bribery allegations against Mr Mani. He said in a statement that the Vigilance teams that probed the case had faced adverse remarks from the court on many occasions. KPCC president M.M. Hassan said that it was once again proved that the bar bribery allegation was a conspiracy by the CPM leaders to sabotage the then UDF government.Opposition members protest during the ongoing Budget Session of Parliament at the Lok Sabha in New Delhi on Monday. (Photo: PTI)

Hyderabad: Both Houses of Parliament adjourned without transacting any business on Monday as Members of Parliament of both Telugu states raised slogans, rushed to the well of the House and stalled proceedings.

Telugu Desam MPs from AP demanded that the Centre do justice to AP, while Telangana Rashtra Samiti MPs were rooting for reservations for minorities and Scheduled Tribes in TS.

Telugu Desam MPs distributed a note to all Opposition MPs written by Andhra Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu requesting their support for the agitation.

In the Lok Sabha, Telugu Desam MPs continued to demand implementation of the assurances given in the AP Reorganisation Act, namely special status.

They were joined by TRS MPs. Trinamul Congress MPs also supported this demand of the TD and TRS MPs.

The TD wants the Central government to give a categorical statement that it will honour the assurances given to Andhra Pradesh at the time of state bifurcation.Leaders, particularly ministers, are prone to their own idiosyncrasies. But Prakash Javadekar is certainly an exception. When he meets reporters for an interview, he pulls up the chair, holds the recorder and shows his humane side. When Deccan Chronicle caught up with the Union HRD minister, he was reading a piece on the late Sridevi. Later analysing the article, he showered praise on the author. As the interview progressed, he displayed the depth of his understanding of Karnataka politics. He exuded confidence that the Bharatiya Janata Party will win Karnataka hands down. Here are the excerpts.

You have toured Karnataka and what is your feedback?

In the last six months, I toured 17 districts, and I strongly feel there is an anti-incumbency factor. People want to throw out this inept government. They want to see the good governance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and see B.S. Yeddyurappa as the next chief minister. Time is ripe for a change.

Unlike the public, a politician uses his own yardstick to gauge the mood of the people. What is your assessment?

People have become aspirational now. There is a positive wave for the BJP and a negative one for the Congress. There was a time when the Congress won Chikkamagaluru. Now, we won all the five seats in that district. Congress is entitlement (privilege) politics, while ours is development politics. Congress gives alms and tries to get votes, while we try to empower people and make them self-reliant. That is the difference between the Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party.

More specifically, the impression about rural Karnataka...

Over 3,800 farmers have committed suicide in the last four-and-a-half years. In Hassan, potato-growers have suffered a lot, but this government has not compensated them. Last year, the government distributed seeds produced in their labs, but they failed. In Tumakuru, 24 tmcft of water was promised, but people got only 4 tmcft. The farmers are now cursing this government. Davanagere city that has 6.5 lakh population does not get water even once in 10 days. They have to spend nearly Rs 2,000 a month to get water from private tankers. Look at what we do. We give soil health cards, which explain what a farmer should and should not do. We have overcome urea shortage, and as a result, there is no diversion of urea fertiliser. Over 500 APMCs have been networked. Blue and dairy revolutions have helped farmers get better remuneration. The Swaminathan Commission report has been implemented and 50 percent more remuneration over the cost of production has been ensured to farmers. Even Fasal Bima Yojana has been successful. Under crop insurance, of the Rs 1,100 crore insured, Rs 1,050 crore has been disbursed. Maharashtra (which is ruled by a BJP coalition government) has waived of loans of farmers availed through nationalised banks. You see what happened in North Eastern states. We will cross 150 seats in Karnataka.

NE states are different from Karnataka...

(Smiles) From Jammu and Kashmir to Gujarat to Jharkhand, I can go on. People are showing whose rule they prefer. This government has been involved in so many scams, including the one in sand dealing.

But, many feel, as an opposition party, the BJP has failed. It has failed to take issues to their logical end...

As an opposition party, we raised issues, and fought inside and outside the legislature.

Interestingly, both AICC president Rahul Gandhi and Chief Minister Siddaramaiah target Narendra Modi. Does it mean the fight is between the PM and CM?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is very popular. No, the fight is not between the Prime Minister and chief minister.

But Mr Gandhi and Mr Siddaramaiah attack BJP leaders who went to jail. That has the potential to swing voters...

(Laughs) Mr Gandhi who is involved in a fraud case is on bail. Who will trust him? Mr Gandhi raised the Rafale deal issue. Where is corruption in it? Let him show it. Mere criticism will not stick. The more Rahul Gandhi campaigns, the better it is for the BJP in Karnataka. After the polls, you see where these leaders will be who got watches and indulged in scams. They criticise us on the Lokpal issue. The government asked Khargeji to participate in the Lokpal selection meet as a special invitee. But he stayed away

He had a point because his views would not have been taken into account...

No, we invited him with the same status, but he stayed away. It is an excuse. The Congress party does not want Lokpal. They did not constitute a Lokpal in the past. Even now, they do not want an ombudsman.

The caste is a reality in Karnataka politics. So, Siddaramaiahs caste would help him get more votes

It is the Congress partys politics to divide the castes. Ours is to unite and prosper.

But Karnataka elections have a caste link. So, you chose B.S.Yeddyurappa, who is a Lingayat. Mr Siddaramaiah, who is a Kuruba, has nearly 65 percent votes of minorities and Kurubas. The BJP has a real problem. Isnt it?

Congress does this. (Laughs) Calculation of caste is fine, but it will not come to the ballot box. Congress will lose and then it will become Congress (P). Congress (P) means Punjab and Puducherry.

But, Karnataka can be a Bihar for the Bharatiya Janata Party...

You take it from me, Karnatka will become like Uttar Pradesh elections. SP, BSP will fight. The three-way fight will help us.Kumta/Honnavar: While the BJP launched Save Bengaluru in the capital to woo voters, the party has stressed on Hindutva-related issues, like attack on Hindu activists, withdrawal of cases against Muslims, taking up of administration of mutts and temples and fall in the law and order situation to attract the electorate in the coastal districts, which are Hindutva stronghold.

The campaign, Jana Suraksha Yatra with the slogan Mangaluru Chalo, was launched simultaneously in Kushalnagar and Ankola on Saturday. The two teams will converge in Mangaluru on March 6. Though BJP has been attacking Congress on several issues, the Yatra saw Union Minister Anant Kumar Hegde targeting the state government on Hindutva issues and the fall of law and order. People are fed up with this government. We will not rest until the Siddaramaiah government is removed. Let Siddaramaiah get down before our tsunami hits Bengaluru, he said.

23 Hindu workers were killed only because they were BJP or Sangh Parivar workers. The government has tried to cover up every case," he alleged and gave details of the murders of Hindu workers in the past three years, including that of Paresh Mesta of Kumta.

Congress leaders, meanwhile, questioned the BJP yatra. Who were the people who took law into their hands? Who started attacking youths? Who were those who broke law and order by violating Section 144, MLC Ivan D'Souza said.In a tweet, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said that there is no 'Modi wave' in state. (Photo: PTI/File)

Bengaluru: Tripura poll results will have no impact in Karnataka, where Assembly elections are expected to be held in a few months time, as there is no "Modi wave" in this state, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has said.

He also said the state BJP should worry about how BS Yeddyurappa, who was imprisoned in an illegal land denotification case and "presided over mining loot", would convince voters of providing stable, corruption-free governance in case the saffron party wins the Karnataka polls.

"Post #Tripura results there is excitement in media about the results' implications for Karnataka. Since 2014 Lok Sabha results #BJP has lost Assembly segments in over 50 Lok Sabha Seats & has won only about 2 LS seats. So let us not lose perspective: there is no Modi wave here (sic)," Siddaramaiah tweeted on Sunday.

Post #Tripura results there is excitement in media about the results implications for Karnataka.



Since 2014 Lok Sabha results #BJP has lost Assembly segments in over 50 Lok Sabha Seats & has won only about 2 LS seats.



So let us not lose perspective: there is no Modi wave here  Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) March 4, 2018

While the BJP wrested the Left bastion of Tripura and received an invitation to be a part of the government in Nagaland, it was a hung Assembly in Meghalaya. Congress emerged as the single largest party in Meghalaya with 21 seats.

"@BJP4Karnataka has to worry about convincing voters here how former #JailBird @BSYBJP who presided over mining loot, illegal denotification of Bengaluru lands & cash-for-MLA scam called OperationKamala, can provide stable corruption free governance (sic)," the chief minister said in another tweet.

. @BJP4Karnataka has to worry about convincing voters here how former #JailBird @BSYBJP who presided over mining loot, illegal denotification of Bengaluru lands & cash-for-MLA scam called OperationKamala, can provide stable corruption free governance.  Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) March 4, 2018

Earlier, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, who was slated to visit poll-bound Karnataka on March 6, had said the lotus would bloom in Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal and Odisha.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah are the architects for the historic performance of the party in the northeast. Adityanath also praised Modi for drafting development policies and Shah, for his organisational skills.Hyderabad: Emboldened by the response he has received from several political leaders and from his own party cadres, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao has chalked out a plan to take his Third Front proposal to the national level by organising meetings in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Bengaluru.

The former Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, Ajit Jogi, telephoned Mr Rao on Monday to express his support for the non-BJP, non-Congress Third Front mooted by Mr Rao two days ago.

Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal and Asaddin Owaisi of the AIMIM had extended their support on Sunday. Mr Jogi is the leader of the Janata Congress Chhattisgarh.

Mr Rao has announced that he is ready to take on the mantle of leading a political front.Hyderabad: Both Houses of Parliament adjourned without transacting any business on Monday as Members of Parliament of both Telugu states raised slogans, rushed to the well of the House and stalled proceedings.

The TRS main agenda is getting the Central government to accept the reservation Bills it has sent to enhance the quota for Muslims and Scheduled Tribes. With the MPs raising slogans in the well of the lower house, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House for 10 minutes. But as the same situation prevailed after the house was reconvened, the Speaker adjourned the house for the day.

In the Rajya Sabha, TD MPs continued their agitation with support from the TRS and Trinamul Congress. Congress MP KVP Ramachandra Rao, also protested with a placard demanding special category status for AP. Chairman of the Rajya Sabha M. Venkaiah Naidu adjourned the House twice, but as the protests continued, in the afternoon too, the deputy chairman P.J. Kurien adjourned it for the day.Lucknow: The thawing of relations between SP and BSP in Uttar Pradesh has apparently not gone down well with the rank and file of the BSP which sees the move as suicidal.

With hours of BSP president Mayawati announcing support to SP for the Lok Sabha bypoll, a virtual revolt is building up in the BSP.

A number of party leaders, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that the decision to support the SP was nothing short of blasphemy.

More than the political animosity between the two parties, it is the social hostilities between the two social groups  Dalit and Yadavs  that will prove detrimental to the BSP. For decades, we have told voters not to befriend SP and now we are doing the opposite. This move will push Dalits away from the party, said a senior party MLA.



Crown Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram partnered with Loftis Middle School on Feb. 13 to raise $600 during the Chrysler Cars 4 Classrooms fundraising initiative. Through Chryslers Cars for Classrooms fundraiser, the Chrysler brand makes a $10 contribution, up to $2,000, toward the school on behalf of every test drive participant.The Crown Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram enjoyed raising funds for a great cause with families and the local community. We always look forward to giving back to the community and the Chrysler Cars 4 Classrooms initiative is a great way to do it, said Carlos Jimenez, Southeast Business Center regional director. On behalf of the Chrysler brand and the dealership, I would like to personally thank everyone who took the time to participate in this test drive to help us raise money for such a deserving group of students."In 2017, the Chrysler brand celebrates 25 years of supporting schools and families.Since 1993, the brand had helped to raise over 7 million dollars through fundraising test drives," officials said.Americas President Donald Trump announced import duties of 25 per cent and 10 per cent on steel and aluminium respectively on February 2. The New York Times noted that Mr Trump has been spoiling for a trade war since he began electioneering. The announcement nevertheless took both Americas allies and other countries by surprise. A Trump soundbite, disparagingly recounting Prime Minister Narendra Modi telling him about reducing Indian import duties on Harley Davidson motorcycles from 100 per cent to 50 per cent, went viral. Should the US be thanking India for that, President Trump asked sarcastically.

The rationale for the US decision defies logic. For starters, the decision uses national security grounds, a rarely used World Trade Organisation (WTO) rule which is difficult to review. President George W. Bush had similarly imposed duties on steel imports in 2002, for three years, that was subsequently held to be infringing WTOs global trade rules. Next arises the question of whether it covers countries like Canada, Mexico and South Korea, with which the US has trade agreements that should preclude such action.

The US trade deficit in 2017 in goods and services was $566 billion, though this balloons to $810 billion if you exclude services. Of this, the deficit with China alone is $342 billion. However, the duties on steel and aluminium are unlikely to affect China much as it is not even in the top 10 countries exporting these products to the US. Chinas strength is in manufactured goods, which may have steel or aluminium content, but would not be affected. But the argument runs that President Trump has just begun his protectionist war, and more duties on more products may follow. The likelihood of a trade war spinning out of control has rattled stock markets across the world.

The leaders of the G-20 economies have strongly condemned the US move, ranging from Canada to the European Union and Australia. The Chinese reaction, however, remained muted. After all, with Mr Trump sometimes the bark has been worse than his bite, and his policy tweaks are often campaign promises fulfilled, mostly in a pro forma manner. Interestingly the announcement, by design or coincidence, came on the very day that Liu He, Chinese politburo member and economic adviser to Chinese President Xi Jinping, began his talks with the US. This was reminiscent of Mr Trump sanctioning a punitive missile attack on Syria as he hosted Mr Xi at his Mar-e-Lago resort in Florida last year.

The larger question is whether Mr Trump had weighed all factors before announcing the move, from which the advantages may be lopsided domestically. While some benefit may go to 200,000 jobs in US smelting industries producing those two items, the negative impact on those using those products in their manufacturing may impact 6.5 million jobs. For instance, aluminium goes into production of cans which are increasingly vital for the beer and soft drinks industry. Other big groups that consume them are manufacturers of aircraft and cars, thus affecting behemoths like Boeing and General Motors, whose cost of inputs may rise.

The linkages of supply chains among the three-member North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), comprising Canada, the US and Mexico, are problematic. Car manufacture demonstrates this dilemma, as the chassis may be made in the US but the engine and wiring may come from Mexico while the electronics could be from Canada or South Korea. Canada in fact buys half of Americas steel exports. Thus, it was not surprising that leaders of these countries warned of retaliatory duties on US products. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the move absolutely unacceptable. The three US products that may straightaway face wrath abroad are Harley Davidson motorcycles, manufactured in the constituency of Speaker Paul Ryan, Kentucky bourbon and blue jeans, with similarly sensitive political implications. Thus, it was not surprising that Mr Trump chose motorbike exports from India having lesser duty in the US than Harleys coming to India even though out of Indias over $1 billion two-wheelers export only $11 million or so go to the US.

As they say, it takes two to tango, and Mr Trump may be about to discover that fundamental reality. Canada and Mexico are the first and third largest agricultural markets for the US. South Korea imports US beef, corn, pork, etc. Turkey imports US cotton and Brazil wheat and dairy. Agriculture can be a vote-sensitive sector, particularly in regions in the US Midwest where support for Mr Trump is strong. Moreover, all steel jobs lost are unlikely to reappear in the US as automation and changes in steel production technology would condition that. Mr Trump hectored after a crescendo of EU threats that he would impose duties on European cars if it persisted. While it is true that the EU imposes 10 per cent duty on car imports while the US duty is just 2.5 per cent, the the preference for European, Japanese or Korean cars is based on value for money or simply value for quality. Moreover, many foreign car manufacturers have set up American plants for indigenous production.

Mr Trump may well believe, as his tweet declared, that trade wars are good and easy to win, but the reality can be grey and troublesome with no clear winners. George W. Bush had to withdraw similar duties that he imposed in 2002. The real issue is whether it is in the interests of the US to undermine the global trade regime that it had helped to construct, culminating in the setting up of WTO. The national security exception can become more widely misused by other nations, seeing Americas behaviour. India has been resisting US attacks on its food procurement programme as non-compliant with WTO rules. Protectionism ill suits the evangelical erstwhile supporters of free trade. When rule-makers turn rule-breakers, the world is bound to be a less stable place.Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and his deputy witnessing party MLAs physically assaulting the chief secretary at the CMs official residence appears a bizarre story. While the CM and his MLAs deny the entire incident, the CS and the advisor to the CM assert it did happen. The matter is under investigation. Meanwhile, the IAS officers attached to the Delhi government have refused to work till the CM tenders an apology. (The CM could have resorted to such a civilised course had he isolated himself in time from the ugly incident by naming the erring MLAs). Result: the Delhi government is in limbo  the continuing tirades and jibes by the CM and his deputy only add fuel to fire.

The Central government can dismiss the Delhi government by imposing Presidents rule but it is desisting from taking such a step as it would present Mr Kejriwal a victim card that may sell during the next election though Mr Kejriwal seems to be in a hurry to snatch such a card. So, the question is not whether Presidents rule will happen in Delhi, but when will it happen?

It is, therefore, not too early to examine the legal position relating to the imposition of the first-ever Presidents rule in Delhi NCT  though the rest of India had it ad-nauseam.

Article 356 of the Constitution says that if the President, on receipt of report from the governor of the state or otherwise, is satisfied that a situation has arisen in which the government of the state cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution, the President, by proclamation, may assume to himself, all or any of the functions of the state government. This is popularly known as the imposition of Presidents Rule.

Since 1950, Presidents Rule has been imposed 115 times till date in India  Uttarakhand (2016) being the last one. Presidents rule was imposed in 12 states in 1977 after the Janata alliance came to power, the record for a single year till date. Second in the list is 1980 when Presidents rule was imposed in nine different states after Indira Gandhi came back to power  her score between 1971 and 1977 was 49. Other notable years include 1992 when it was used in six different states.

Almost on all occasions, such proclamations were unsuccessfully challenged before the high courts or the Supreme Court the consistent view was that a proclamation under Article 356 was outside the purview of courts. The last of such pronouncement by the Supreme Court was in the case of State of Rajasthan vs UOI (1977).

This case arose after the Janata government, headed by Morarji Desai, recommended the dissolution of nine state Assemblies. The justification for imposition of Presidents rule was that the governments in these states had lost the confidence of the people as revealed by the results of the March 1977 parliamentary elections.

However, what brought about a revolution in the matter of judicial intervention in the issue of imposition of Presidents rule was a ruling by a seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Bommai case (1994) that held that matters connected with the Presidents decision to invoke Article 356 could be examined by the courts under certain circumstances. And that the court can set aside the proclamation and re-instate a dismissed government in appropriate cases  the case of Uttarakhand is a recent example. The frequency of imposition of Presidents rule drastically declined after this case.

The Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi was created and is governed by Article 239AA. Article 356 is not applicable to Delhi because that provision applies to only states and NCT Delhi is not a state. The pending decision of the Supreme Court on the constitutional status of Delhi may be of no consequence to this discussion.

Instead, Article 239AB  enacted along with the creation of NCT Delhi  makes provision for the imposition of Presidents rule in Delhi, including for dissolution of the Assembly on the ground that the administration of the NCT Delhi cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of Article 239AA or any law made in pursuance thereof  in this case the Government of NCT Delhi Act 1991 is the relevant law. In addition, this article gives a blanket power to the President to dismiss a government if for the proper administration of the NCT, it is necessary or expedient to do so. This provision is a clear departure from Article 356.

What has been said about the justiciability of a proclamation under Article 356 will generally apply to a proclamation under Article 239AB. The difference will be the import and effect of the additional clause permitting dismissal of the government to ensure the proper administration of the territory. This clause has not come up for consideration so far. In a majority of cases that have come up before the courts so far, including the Bommai case, the question before the courts was whether the governors conclusion that the government has lost the support of the majority of members in the House was tenable or not  it was more a question of arithmetic. Up to and including in the case of Bommai, the governor used to count the heads on his own and often ran into controversy  particularly when the Aaya Ram-Gaya Ram practice was in vogue. In the Bommai case the governor, based on an unverified communication allegedly by a few MLAs, recommended dismissal of the government of Karnataka. The Supreme Court then declared that only a test of strength on the floor of the House was legal mode of counting heads.

The pending police investigation would hopefully bring out acceptable proof of assault on the chief secretary. That instance, coupled with the continuing stalemate in the administration, would justify the conclusion that Presidents rule alone is the remedy.Besides the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii, GOES-S also will keep watch over Mexico and Central America. (Representative Image)

NASA launched another of the world's most advanced weather satellites on Thursday, this time to safeguard the western US.

The GOES-S satellite thundered toward orbit aboard an Atlas V rocket, slicing through a hazy late afternoon sky. Dozens of meteorologists gathered for the launch, including TV crews from the Weather Channel and WeatherNation.

GOES-S is the second satellite in an approximately $11 billion effort that's already revolutionising forecasting with astonishingly fast, crisp images of hurricanes, wildfires, floods, mudslides and other natural calamities.

The first spacecraft in the series, GOES-16, has been monitoring the Atlantic and East Coast for the past year for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . The same first-class service is now coming to the Pacific region.

Besides the West Coast, Alaska and Hawaii, GOES-S also will keep watch over Mexico and Central America. It will become GOES-17 once it reaches its intended 22,000-mile-high orbit over the equator in a few weeks, and should be officially operational by year's end.

"We can't wait!" tweeted the National Weather Service in Anchorage just before the rocket soared from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The weather service's Jim Yoe said on NASA TV that he was "really excited" to see his first launch in person.

"I'm even more excited about the work that's coming up for me and my colleagues, putting these new data to work for better forecasts and warnings for the American public," said Yoe, an official at the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation.

With these two new satellites, NOAA's high-definition coverage will stretch from the Atlantic near West Africa, a hotbed for hurricane formation, all the way across the US and the Pacific out to New Zealand.

It's the third weather tracker launched by NASA in just over a year: "three brilliant eyes in the sky," as NOAA satellite director Stephen Volz puts it. GOES-16 launched in late 2016 and an environmental satellite rocketed into a polar orbit from California last November.

These next-generation Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites, or GOES, are "a quantum leap above" the federal agency's previous weather sentinels, Volz said. This is the 18th launch of a GOES since 1975; one was lost in an explosion during liftoff and all but three of the satellites already up there are retired. Rockets by United Launch Alliance, a venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing, carried all those GOES.

Even as it was still being checked in orbit, GOES-16 provided invaluable data to firefighters battling blazes in Texas, Oklahoma and elsewhere last March and to Houston-area rescue teams in the flooded aftermath of Hurricane Harvey last August, according to officials. GOES-16 also observed the uncertain path of Hurricanes Irma and the rapidly intensifying Hurricane Maria in September.

GOES-16 "turned out to be better than we expected it to be," said National Weather Service director Louis Uccellini, on hand for Thursday's launch. The satellite wasn't officially on duty yet, "and we were just standing there gawking at the imagery,"

As Hurricane Harvey approached the Texas coast, the satellite revealed the clouds sinking in the eye and the eye expanding as the storm morphed from a category 2 to 4, Uccellini said. Those images helped determine when it was safe for rescue teams to go out and save stranded residents, he added.

The satellite also alerted authorities in Texas and Oklahoma to the eruption of new blazes even before the 911 calls came in, Uccellini said. He said the satellite also tracked the direction of the fires like never before, prompting first responders to later tell NOAA: "You saved lives."

Two more are planned in this four-satellite series: GOES-T in 2020 and GOES-U in 2024. The $10.8 billion cost includes the development, launch and operation of all four satellites as well as ground systems through 2036.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.The Haryana government will soon enact a stringent law to punish those found guilty of abandoning their cows, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said here on Sunday.



Khattar said his government had already enacted the 'Gauvansh Sanrakshan and Gausamvardhan' Act to protect cows.

"Also, the government has tagged cattle in gaushalas. Similarly, tagging of cattle kept by people in their houses would be carried out so that these are not abandoned in any situation. A fine of Rs 5,000 would be imposed on those found abandoning their cattle," he told reporters here.

The chief minister appealed to people not to abandon their cattle and keep them in their houses, saying it was not easy for the government alone to protect them.

Earlier in March 2015, for the "protection and upkeep" of cows, Haryana enacted a law which clamps a complete ban on cow slaughter in the state and provides for a rigorous imprisonment ranging from three to 10 years for killing the animal.The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a fresh plea by Karti Chidambaram on March 6 for quashing of the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) summons against him in the INX Media corruption case.

A three-judge bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud put the writ petition for consideration on Tuesday, on a plea for urgent hearing made by advocate Vikas Mehta on behalf of Karti.

"Let the matter be listed tomorrow, the 06th March 2018 before appropriate bench as per roster, subject to removal of defects, if any, along with the connected matter, if any," the bench ordered.

In his fresh writ petition, Karti challenged the summons on the ground that the ED has no jurisdiction to issue such notices based on the FIR lodged by the CBI.

The top court had on February 23 refused to stay the summons issued by the ED against Karti -who is presently in CBI custody in the INX Media money laundering case- after the CBI said he was "not a common criminal" and his plea for quashing the notice was "a guise for an anticipatory bail plea".

However, the top court had asked Karti to request the competent authority to postpone the ED summons seeking his appearance.

The ED had registered a case against him and others in May last year.

It registered an Enforcement Case Information Report (ECIR), the ED's equivalent of a police FIR, against the accused named in a CBI complaint.

These included Karti Chidambaram, INX Media and its directors, Peter and Indrani Mukerjea.

An FIR, filed on May 15 last year, had claimed irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media for receiving Rs 305 crore in overseas funds in 2007 when P Chidambaram was the Union finance minister.The Jammu and Kashmir government has ordered closure of all educational institutions in Kashmir till Wednesday after the firing incident in Shopian district, an official said today.



The state Board of School Education (BOSE) has postponed all the exams scheduled for March 6 and 7.

All the schools and colleges in the valley will remain closed tomorrow and day after as a precautionary measure, an official of the Education Department said.

The schools and colleges, which were to open today after two-month-long winter break, were closed today due to separatists-sponsored strike against the killings.

The Kashmir University has suspended all class-work for tomorrow and postponed examinations scheduled for tomorrow and day after.

"In view of concerns expressed by students and consequent upon the prevailing circumstances, the class-work at University of Kashmir shall remain suspended on March 6," a spokesman of the university said.

He said all examinations scheduled to be held on March 6 and 7 have been postponed.

"Fresh dates for the deferred examinations shall be notified later," he added.

Six people, including two militants, were killed in the last night's shootout in Shopian's Pahnoo area."Are we in Parliament or somewhere else," an upset Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu asked on Monday as Opposition MPs forced a washout of the Upper House's morning session over a series of issues, including the PNB scam involving Nirav Modi scam and Cauvery issue.



MPs from the Trinamool Congress (TMC), AIADMK, DMK, TDP Congress and the AAP were in the Well soon after the Rajya Sabha was convened on the first day of Budget Session's second leg, forcing two adjournments in the morning.

While the TMC was protesting against the Rs 12,717 Punjab National Bank scam, AIADMK MPs and DMK's Kanimozhi were in the Well protesting against the delay in constituting Cauvery Tribunal Board.

TDP MPs, an ally of the ruling NDA, and Congress MP K V P Ramachandra Rao were protesting against the government not giving special category status for Andhra Pradesh.

The first adjournment came nine minutes into the session soon after an oath-taking ceremony of a Sikkim MP, obituary references and laying of official papers.

When the House reconvened at 11.20 am, the scene was no different, forcing Naidu to quip, "Are we in Parliament or somewhere else?...we are in Parliament. Don't create hungama (pandemonium). This is not the way."

He said he has received notices from Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, Congress deputy leader Anand Sharma, Congress MP Pramod Tiwari, Samajwadi Party's Naresh Agarwal, Trinamool's Sukhendu Shekhar Roy and CPI's D Raja to suspend the business of the House to discuss the PNB scam.

Naidu has also received notices on the Cauvery Board issue from the AIADMK, the Andhra issue from the TDP as well as a notice from BJP's Vinay Sahasrabuddhe on the corrupt practices of relatives of a former mnister.

The chairman said he could not accept any of these and asked them to submit requests citing other rules.

On the PNB scam, he said, "It is a very important issue. House needs to discuss this. It is agitating the minds of the people. I will consider the notice after discussing with the Leader of House, if you give the notice under some other rule."

His reasoning for other issues were also the same. However, Opposition MPs were not satisfied ad he adjourned the House till 2 pm.Effective Monday (today), the Supreme Court of Tennessee reinstated Lisa Zarzour Bowman to the practice of law.

Ms. Bowman was suspended by the Supreme Court of Tennessee on Jan. 22 for a period of one year with a minimum active suspension of 30 days and the remainder served on probation.

Ms. Bowman filed a Petition for Reinstatement to the practice of law on Feb. 8 pursuant to Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 9, Section 30.4(c).

The Board determined Ms. Bowman satisfactorily complied with the terms and conditions of her suspension and submitted an Order of Reinstatement to the Court.Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Monday said she is deeply distressed by the killing of civilians in "crossfire" in Shopian district here.



Six people, including two militants, were killed in a firing incident on Sunday night in south Kashmir's Shopian district after the ultras fired upon a joint check point of the security forces.



"Deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire in Shopian. My heartfelt condolences to the deceased's families," Mehbooba said in a tweet.



After the incident, schools and educational institutes, which were to open on Monday after two-month-long winter break, were closed as a precautionary measure in the Valley.Spotlighting the differences between the BJP and its coalition partners in the northeast, the Congress today accused the party of playing a "dangerous game of destabilising the region through its blind quest for power at any cost.



The differences are on key issues such as the bifurcation of Tripura and Meghalaya, Congress communications in-charge Randeep Surjewala said in a series of tweets as the BJP was set to form a government with its partners in the northeast states of Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

BJP is following a dangerous game of destabilisation, subversion and usurpation of power in North East, unmindful of the stability, security, peace and progress. Hope Modiji had cared to learn from Rajivji who put Nation First and brought peace to the region by Assam and Mizo accords, he said.





1/2

Our best wishes to people of Tripura,Nagaland & Meghalaya.



We sincerely pray & hope that peace,progress,cohabitation & development will be the agendas pursued by new governments.



We also hope that peoples issues, particularly youth, would be addressed as first priority.  Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) March 5, 2018





Every Indian, he added, is concerned that assumption of power at any cost and by any means by the BJP doesn't blind it into destabilising the entire region.

Telltale signs of BJPs blind quest for power superseding the stability of the region, propagation of democracy, nipping the separatist tendencies and ignoring core issues of the region are already visible, Surjewala said.

In Tripura, the Congress leader said, BJP has aligned with the IPFT, a party with the division of the state as its election plank which is now demanding a tribal chief minister.

(It is) Time for Modi Government/BJP to address both issues. Does it stand for demand for division of State of Tripura? Would it reject the demand for a tribal CM? he asked.

In Nagaland, the BJP is in government with the NPF and yet fought an election in alliance with opposition party NDPP, the Congress leader said. The NPF won 26 seats and the NDPP won 18 seats.

With both NPF and NDPP staking claim to form the Government, Is Nagaland headed for another round of instability like in last 5 years? And Naga Accord? he asked.

In Manipur, the Congress leader said the BJPs coalition survives with the support of three NPF MLAs.

"Would the formation of a govt in Nagaland by BJP with NDPP (18 MLAs) ignoring the NPF (26 MLAs), only in the effort of a larger share of the pie of power, not put the stability of Government in Manipur under a cloud?" he asked.

Moving on to Meghalaya, Surjewala said every discordant party that fought BJP and each other, "ideologically-politically-electorally", is sewn up to form the government at any cost -- NPP+UDP+PDF+HSDP+BJP+Ind.

"Is this the answer to Meghalaya's aspirations and a stable Government?"

The chief ministerial candidate Conrad Sangma and his party NPP have promised division of Meghalaya and a separate state of Garoland, he said, asking if other parties agreed to this.

"Does Mr Sangma propose to carry out the promise on becoming CM? And what is Modijis/BJP take on it? Surjewala tweeted.

He, however, gave his party's best wishes to the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, praying that peace, progress, cohabitation and development would be on the agendas of the new governments.A minor girl (14) who was being pestered by a teenage boy (17) by forcing her to fall in love him, committed suicide by hanging in her house around midnight on Sunday. The incident occurred in Bagepalli taluk.



According to the complaint given by the girl's father, the boy was pestering his daughter to fall in love with him for the last 15 days. He would stalk her wherever she went and badger her.

"When I was away from home for some work on Sunday, my daughter had refused lunch and gone to sleep. The boy was seen around our house then. My daughter took her life because of him," the father has accused.

When the news of the girl's death spread in the village, the accused was tied to a pole and lynched by an angry mob.

The girl's body was handed over to the family after a postmortem at the government hospital.

Currently the police have custody of the teenage boy who is the prime accused in the case.A US aircraft carrier arrived in Vietnam on Monday for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War, dramatically underscoring the growing strategic ties between the former foes at a time when China's regional influence is rising.



The grey and imposing silhouette of the USS Carl Vinson could be seen on Monday morning from the cliff tops just outside the central Vietnamese city of Danang, where the 103,000-tonne carrier and two other US ships begin a five-day visit.

"The visit marks an enormously significant milestone in our bilateral relations and demonstrates US support for a strong, prosperous, and independent Vietnam," Daniel Kritenbrink, the US ambassador to Vietnam, said in a statement.

"Through hard work, mutual respect, and by continuing to address the past while we work toward a better future, we have gone from former enemies to close partners," he added.

The arrival of the Vinson marks the biggest US military presence in Vietnam since 1975 - but it also illustrates Hanoi's complex and evolving relationship with Beijing over the disputed South China Sea.

Vietnamese envoys had been working for months to ease the concerns of their giant Chinese neighbour over the visit and the prospect of broader security cooperation between Hanoi and Washington, according to diplomats and others familiar with the talks.

US carriers frequently ply the South China Sea in a rising pattern of naval deployments, and are now routinely shadowed by Chinese naval vessels, naval officers in the region say.

China's rapid construction and build-up of the land it holds in the disputed Spratly islands group has alarmed Vietnam and other regional governments as it seeks to enforce its claims to much of the disputed waterway, through which some $3 trillion in trade passes each year.

While some Chinese commentators have used the Vinson's presence to demand an even greater Chinese military build-up in the South China Sea, official reaction from Beijing has been relatively muted since the stop was announced in January.

That announcement came during a two-day visit to Hanoi by US Defence Secretary James Mattis and followed months of backroom military diplomacy between Hanoi and the Pentagon.

Although no US aircraft carrier has been to Vietnam since the end of the war, other, smaller US warships have made high-level visits as ties improved in recent years.

That includes a 2016 visit by submarine tender USS Frank Cable and guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain to Cam Ranh Bay, a crucial logistics complex during the Vietnam War.

A US Navy band will play a concert in Danang during the Vinson's visit, and sailors from the carrier are scheduled to spend time at a treatment centre for people who were exposed to Agent Orange chemicals during the war.Mounting pressure on its electoral ally BJP, the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) on Monday said that it would support the new government from outside if it was not given "respectable" positions in the ministry.



Clarifying the meaning of "respectable" positions, IPFT president N C Debbarma said it meant proportionate representation of IPFT MLAs in the Cabinet and allocation of major departments to them.

He said that the IPFT would also seek a separate block for its MLAs in the Assembly unless it was given "respectable" positions in the state Cabinet.

The BJP and IPFT combine had swept to power in the state winning 43 out of the 59 seats for which elections were held.

The BJP had won 35 and IPFT 8 seats.

The election for the Charilam ST reserve constituency was countermanded due to the death of a CPM candidate before the elections.

"There is an apprehension that we may not be given proper representation in the Cabinet and important portfolios would not be allocated to us as the BJP, the major constituent, alone secured 35 seats," said Debbarma.

He also said that the BJP and IPFT had fought the elections in alliance with the sole target of defeating the CPM and it was achieved.

"Now if we are not given respectable positions, we would support the government from outside," he said.

Debbarma also demanded that the chief minister should be from among the indigenous MLAs and said it was the tradition of the Northeast that a chief minister is selected from the indigenous community.

The BJP leadership did not make any comment on the IPFT's demand.

State BJP president Biplab Deb said that a joint meeting of 43 BJP and IPFT MLAs will be held here on Tuesday in which Union minister Nitin Gadkari will be present.

The IPFT came into being in the late 90s and had campaigned for a separate state for tribals by carving out the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) on the plea that the indigenous people had become marginalised due to the huge migration of people to this state after partition of the country in 1947.

The tribal council area comprises two-third of the state's territory and the tribals form one-third of the population.

The IPFT had forged an alliance with the BJP before the elections on the basis of a common minimum agenda, which included formation of a high-power committee with representations from the central and state governments and the indigenous community to address the problems of the tribals.The saying "there is always light at the end of the tunnel" seems to be coming true for Om Paithane.

Om used to drive an Ola taxi in Pune. Now, he is all set to become an officer of the Indian Army.

The son of a security guard-cum-watchman, Om will be passing out on March 10 from the Chennai-based Officers' Training Academy (OTA).

"I am very happy, elated, overwhelmed," Om told DH over phone from Chennai, on Monday. Om is all set to join the Infantry.

He said that his father Uttam Paithane was his "source of inspiration".

"He has been a pillar of strength. He used to work as a driver. However, he required a knee-replacement surgery. After that, he started working as a security guard and watchman in Pune," he said.

Om's mother, Sushila, is a homemaker, while his brother, Adinath, works in Pune. His sister is married.

"My friend Rahul Bhalerao owned a car and I started driving it for Ola," said Om

"It was during one of the trips that I came across an army colonel, who told me about the Combined Defence Services (CDS) exam.

"In fact, the colonel referred me to Lt Col Ganesh Babu, Director, Armed Forces Officers' Selection Orientation Programme (AFOSOP), who guides the youth for joining armed forces," he added.

Om then appeared for the Service Selection Board (SSB) examination and cracked it at one shot after which he joined the OTA in Chennai

"The training has changed me completely. My outlook has changed," he said.China will abolish domestic data roaming fees to cut cost for increasingly digital Chinese consumers, a government work report said Monday.



People visit the stand of China Mobile during an exhibition in Nanjing city, east China's Jiangsu Province. [File photo: IC]

Rates for mobile internet services will be cut by at least 30 percent this year, according to the report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang Monday morning at the opening of the first session of the 13th National People's Congress, China's top legislature.



China scrapped domestic roaming fees for long-distance calls last year as telecom operators turn to mobile Internet services for business growth.

"China will do more to speed up broadband and bring down Internet rates, achieve high-speed broadband access in both urban and rural areas, and make free Internet access available in more public places," said the document.

The country will significantly lower the rates of home broadband, and corporate broadband and dedicated Internet access services, it said.

These steps will bring tangible benefits to people and businesses, and boost the development of a Digital China, the report added.

China had over 753 million mobile Internet users by the end of 2017, the largest in the world and lending steam to a booming digital economy.

China's digital economy totaled 26 trillion yuan (about 4.1 trillion U.S. dollars) in 2017, accounting for around 32 percent of national GDP, according to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology.A critically endangered Sumatran tiger was brutally killed in Indonesia on Sunday, the latest victim of a killing spree targeting near-extinct species that has alarmed conservationists.



Authorities have in recent months found a number of killed animals, including endangered Borneo orangutans, after conflicts with farmers or plantation workers.

Activists said the tiger had been roaming Mandailing Natal village in North Sumatra for over a month and had injured one person, prompting residents to call on rangers to kill it.

"We explained to the villagers that the tiger is an endangered animal...but they didn't like our way of handling this situation," said Hotmauli Sianturi, of the Natural Resources Conservation Agency, adding a trap had been used to try to capture the cat.

"We regret that they killed the tiger. We will prove that its body parts are being traded," she added.

An investigation showed it had several parts missing, including its canine teeth, claws, and skin off its face and tail. These body parts can be used in traditional medicines or sold as artifacts.

A representative of the village community was not immediately available for comment.

There are only around 400 Sumatran tigers left in the world, meaning it is on the brink of extinction, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Police on Borneo island arrested at least two people in two separate incidents this year in which an orangutan had been decapitated and another had been shot more than 130 times with an air rifle.The German government warned Monday that a transatlantic trade war would harm both Europe and the US, urging Washington not to take a "wrong path" after a weekend of aggressive trade rhetoric.



"I don't want to judge how close to or far from a trade war we are. Such a trade war would not be in German, European or American interests," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin.

However, "closing oneself off and protectionism are the wrong path," Seibert added, after President Donald Trump at the weekend threatened to impose tariffs on car imports from the European Union.

Last week Brussels raised the spectre of a tit-for-tat trade war with the US, saying it would slap a border tax on items like motorcycles, orange juice and jeans if Trump went ahead with a promised tariff on steel and aluminium imports into the US.

If the European Commission implements the plans, "we will simply apply a tax on their cars which freely pour into the US," Trump tweeted Saturday.

The fresh threat followed the president's Friday declaration that "trade wars are good, and easy to win" in response to the initial uproar at his plans for a metals tariff.

Along with close partner France, other EU capitals and the Commission, Berlin will "watch very closely what the US government implements this week and then evaluate the correct reaction," Seibert said.

"We will defend open markets, free markets," he added.

Cars are Germany's largest industrial sector, employing roughly 800,000 people across the country and many thousands more around the world -- including at major factories on US soil, where many vehicles for the American market are produced.The apex consumer commission has dismissed the plea of Directorate of Prosecution of Uttar Pradesh against a state commission order directing it to pay its physically disabled retired employee a gratuity of Rs 6.50 lakh, saying there was an inordinate delay of 700 days in filing the revision petition.



The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC), which upheld the order of the state commission on a complaint lodged by an Agra resident alleging non-payment of gratuity on retirement, also noted that the directorate's appeal was drafted in a "casual and negligent manner" and no explanation was given on filing the late plea.

"It is apparent from a reading of the application and the reasons given, that the application has been drafted in a most casual and negligent manner.

"No dates have been given for this inordinate delay in filing the revision petition. Even after the matter was dismissed for non-prosecution before the State Commission, the petitioner failed to file the revision petition on time.

"The petitioner has failed to explain their repeated absence before the State Commission as also the inordinate delay of 700 days in filing the revision petition," NCDRC bench headed by Presiding Member Rekha Gupta said.

Complainant Vikram Singh, who worked with Assistant Prosecution Office for 32-and-a-half years and retired in 2009, had alleged that on retirement he had received the provident fund, group insurance and earned leave amount, but was denied the gratuity amount of Rs 6.50 lakh.

He had alleged that the organization on August 22, 2009, had stopped the gratuity on the grounds that departmental proceedings had been initiated against him for the alleged misappropriation of Rs 50,000.

Being aggrieved by the non-payment of gratuity, he had filed a complaint before a district forum which decided the complaint in his favour. The district forum's order was challenged by the Directorate before the state commission which upheld the decision on September 5, 2014, after which the NCDRC was moved.

During the proceedings, the UP Directorate of Prosecution defended itself over the delay in filing the revision plea contending that its counsel did not follow the case diligently and also did not inform it about the progress.

It had also contended that the delay took place due to the correspondence between various departments for filing the revision petition.Outgoing Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has blamed the ''unimaginable money power'' and ''continuous onslaught of media'' as the reason behind the party's debacle in the just-concluded Assembly polls in the state.



The poll result was ''unexpected'' and people of the state and the country have noticed how the BJP used its all-out effort to oust the Left Front government, Sarkar said in an interview to Ganashakti, the party's mouthpiece in West Bengal on Sunday.

The Centre, he said, had in fact created an ''economic blockade'' against the government by reducing the central allocations in MGNREGA and housing schemes, among others.

In the interview, which was also published in the CPI-M mouth piece Daily Desherkatha here on Monday, Sarkar - a CPI-M Politburo member- said ''The Left parties had fought the elections with all their might and the people were their main force to fight against the unimaginable money power and continuous onslaught of media''.

He said the CPI-M will review the causes of its debacle after all the information is made available.

''It is observed that the BJP-Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) (alliance) could manage to win the major portion of the anti-Left forces into their fold.

''We (Left Front) have secured 45%. It is also a fact that a portion of votes that we secured earlier has also gone in favour of the (BJP-IPFT) alliance. We will review why it had happened,'' Sarkar said.

He said, the CPI-M's movement for ideology and alternative principle will continue and never stop.

Sarkar claimed that the incidents of attack on Left workers and setting fire to the party offices has started coming in and added that the people who had voted for the BJP responding to their call for change perhaps did not want such atmosphere after the elections.

"I think these should be stopped henceforth. We hope their (BJP-IPFT) party leadership will take a positive step to stop these," he added.Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today inaugurated a new programme for the rural people on the occasion of Panchayati Raj Divas in the state and sanctioned development projects worth Rs 2 crore.



As part of the "Ama Gaon, Ama Vikas' (our village, our development) programme, Patnaik will be interacting with the panchayat representatives and common people twice a week through video conferencing, an official said.

"We have initiated a new programme called 'Ama Gaon, Ama Bikas' to hear the demands and address the grievances of people. I will be directly speaking to the people twice a week. Today, I sanctioned the projects worth Rs 2 crore for the development of four panchayats," Patnaik told reporters after the meeting.

The CM today held an online meeting with the people of Sambalpur, Ganjam, Koraput and Jajpur districts and assured them to look into their grievances, Panchayati Raj Minister Pradeep Maharathy said.

The village heads of the four-gram panchayats aired their grievances in the presence of respective collectors, the minister said.

"The CM sanctioned the projects 10 minutes into the programme and assured to review the projects from time to time," he said.

The development projects, such as the construction of ponds and temples and mosques, will be in the range of Rs 1 lakh to Rs 10 lakh, he added.

The state observes Panchayati Raj Divas on March 5 every year to mark the birth anniversary of former Chief Minister Biju Patnaik.The Reserve Bank today said it has imposed a penalty of Rs 3 crore on Axis Bank for violation of NPA classification norms, and Rs 2 crore on Indian Overseas Bank for not complying with the KYC regulations.



RBI said it had carried out a statutory inspection of private sector player Axis Bank with reference to its financial position as on March 31, 2016.

The inspection, inter alia, revealed "violations of various regulations issued by RBI in the assessment of non-performing assets (NPA)", the central bank said in a statement.

"The RBI has imposed, on February 27, 2018, a monetary penalty of Rs 30 million on Axis Bank Limited for non-compliance with the directions issued by RBI on Income Recognition and Asset Classification (IRAC) norms," it said.

Regarding the state-owned Indian Overseas Bank, the regulator said in a separate release that a "fraud was detected" in one of the branches of the bank.

"The examination of the documents, including the banks' internal inspection report, revealed, inter alia, non-compliance with the directions issued by RBI on Know Your Customer (KYC) norms", RBI said, while imposing the Rs 2 crore penalty on IOB.

RBI said the action on the two banks is based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and "is not intended' to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the bank with its customers.Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday said that the results of Assembly elections in North Eastern states will have no impact on state election.

Speaking to reporters at Mysore Airport, at Mandakalli, near here, the CM said, Congress emerged as the largest party in Meghalaya and BJP had an alliance with the regional parties. It is a setback for the CPM in Tripura as the party, which was ruling there for 25 years, lost the election. The Congress party did not suffer any setback in North Eastern states and the results would not have any impact on the Karnataka elections, he said.

When reporters asked about the Congress party's alliance with JD(S) in the upcoming elections to the Rajya Sabha, the CM said, the Congress party would not join hands with the JD(S).

JD(S) state unit president H D Kumaraswamy did not contact him in connection with this, he said. "Congress party does not need the support of any party support in Karnataka, but we need people's support," Siddaramaiah said.

He said the candidates for the Rajya Sabha elections will be finalised soon. "I am visiting Delhi to discuss about the candidates with the party high command," Siddaramaiah said.

To a query, the chief minister said the Congress party had good hold in urban regions. Of the 28 Assembly segments in Bengaluru city, Congress will win 25, Siddaramaiah said.

Siddaramaiah said secular parties need to joining hands to defeat the communal party, BJP.

"I support secular parties coming together at the national level. Our target is communal parties and the people of the state will never vote for those who disturb harmony and divide the nation on the basic of community and caste," Siddaramaiah said.

Rahul's tour

All India Congress Committee (AICC) president Rahul Gandhi will tour the Mysuru region for four days. Rahul will tour the region on March 21, 22, 24 and 25. He will address a mega public conference in Mysuru on March 25, the chief minister said.

No opposition for Kheny

When reporters asked about the opposition from a few Congress party leaders to MLA Ashok Kheny joining the party, Siddaramaiah said no leader had opposed Kheny, who joined the party in Bengaluru on Monday.The bodies of nine Maoists who were among those killed in the encounter in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district last week were handed over to their relatives this afternoon, Telangana police said.



Ten Maoists including seven women were killed in the encounter with Greyhounds, the special anti-Naxal force of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, near Pujari Kanker in Bijapur district on March 2.

One Greyhounds personnel was also killed in the encounter.

Nine unclaimed bodies had been kept in the mortuary at Government Area Hospital in Bhadrachalam in Telangana.

Dadaboina Swamy alias Prabhakar, a divisional committee member of the banned CPI (Maoist) and a native of Warangal district, was among the dead Maoists. His family took possession of the body yesterday, police said.

Besides Prabhakar, other Maoists belonged to Chhattisgarh, and Telangana police had shared their photographs with local police of that state.

"Family members of the (remaining nine) Maoists reached the hospital this afternoon. After due identification, all nine bodies were handed over to the kin," Assistant Superintendent of Police (Bhadrachalam) Sunil Dutt told PTI over phone.

"Post-mortem was already done and the bodies were kept at the mortuary," he said.

Telangana police also arranged ambulances to transport the bodies upto the Chhattisgarh border, the ASP said.China will open doors wider to foreign investors this year by completely opening up its general manufacturing sector and expand access to a number of other sectors, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said Monday.

Foreign investors will have wider access to sectors like telecommunications, medical services, education, elderly care and new energy vehicles, said Li when delivering a government work report to the first session of the 13th National People's Congress.

"We will make market entry standards the same for both Chinese and foreign banks," he said.

Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone in Shanghai [File photo: Chinanews.com]

To open up the financial sector, China will phase in an opening up of bank card clearing and other markets, lift restrictions on the scope of operations of foreign-invested insurance agent companies, and ease or lift restrictions on the share of foreign-owned equity in companies in sectors including banking and securities.

Overseas investors will be granted tax deferral for the reinvestment of profit made in China, while procedures for setting up foreign-invested enterprises will be simplified, and business filing and business registration will be processed together in one go.

The government will also spread the use of practices developed in existing free trade zones all over the country, and explore opening free trade ports, he said.Attempting to bring non-Congress parties under one umbrella in the fight against BJP, Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee is working phones and reaching out to regional satraps, the latest being DMK's M K Stalin.



After a telephonic convesation with TRS chief and Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, who spoke about a non-BJP, non-Congress front, Banerjee also spoke to Stalin and they agreed that they should keep in touch.

Banerjee and Stalin spoke for about 12 minutes on Sunday night, a day before the second leg of Budget Session began, and emphasised the need for coordination inside and outside Parliament. She has also spoken to Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, who recently announced that his party will go it alone in the Lok Sabha polls and not in alliance with BJP.

Sources said Banerjee believes that a block of parties like TMC, DMK, TRS, Samajwadi Party and BSP can win at least 75 seats.

However, Banerjee's outreach programme has raised questions about TMC's relationship with Congress and whether it was planning a non-Congress front. Senior Trinamool Congress leaders do not encourage such propositions and said that they would talk to Congress.

Sources said TDP MPs had a meeting with TMC's Sudip Bandhopadhyay and Derek O'Brien ahead of Parliament session to impress upon them their demand for special status for Andhra Pradesh. Similarly, sources said, the TMC leadership is now planning to have a meeting with TRS MPs, especially against the backdrop of the conversation between Rao and Banerjee.

Focus on BJP's defeat

When asked about Banerjee's efforts, O'Brien said, his party chief has taken a lead in defeating the BJP by talking to 'federal' parties. "We are on track," he said.

Banerjee's efforts coincide with BSP's announcement that it will support the Samajwadi Party candidate in UP's Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls to defeat BJP, though BSP chief Mayawati did not call it an alliance.

Senior BJP leader and Law Minister Ravishankar Prasad said all parties are free to do whatever they want in a democracy. "But let us see how much progress they will make," he added.A top commander of the Jaish-e-Muhammad militant outfit, involved in last month's fidayeen (suicide) attack on an army installation in Sunjwan, was killed in an encounter with the security forces in Awantipora area of south Kashmir's Pulwama district on Monday.



"Based on specific intelligence about the presence of a militant in Hatwar, Awantipur, a joint operation was launched today (Monday) by the Jammu and Kashmir Police, army's 50 Rashtriya Rifles and CRPF," defence spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said.

"During the operation, the mastermind of Sunjawan attack and Letapore attack, Jaish-e-Mohammed operational commander Mufti Waqas, a category A++, was eliminated in a surgical operation," he said.

Kalia claimed the killing of Waqas is the first major dent to the designs of the Jaish after the elimination of their earlier operational commander Noor Mohammad Tantrey in the same area on December 17.

State police chief Shesh Pal Vaid said besides Sunjuwan attack, Waqas was also involved in attacks on Pulwama district police lines and the BSF camp near Srinagar airport.

The killing of the top militant commander comes in the wake of a string of high-profile counter-insurgency operations that dealt blows to Jaish-e-Mohammad, Laskhar-e-Toiba and Hizbul Mujahideen outfits in 2017.

Security forces killed around 220 militants in Kashmir last year.

On February 10, three heavily armed Jaish militants, all of them Pakistan nationals, stormed an army camp in Sunjwan area of Jammu after hurling grenades and using automatic gunfire.

Six soldiers and a civilian were killed in the attack which lasted nearly 60 hours. All the three attackers were killed in the retaliatory action by the army.

The killing of Waqas came barely a day after four civilians and two militants were killed in army firing in neighbouring Shopian district.

Reports said militants on Monday offered a gun salute to their slain colleague during his funeral in Shopian.After failing to win over allies to form a government in Meghalaya, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Monday hit out at the BJP for "usurping" power through "proxy" by using "big money" to create an opportunistic alliance.



Gandhi's remarks on the election results in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya came soon after his return from a weekend trip to Italy to meet his grandmother.

"With just 2 seats, the BJP has usurped power in Meghalaya through proxy," the Congress President said on Twitter after Governor Ganga Prasad formally invited National People's Party leader Conrad Sangma to form the government.

Helped by the BJP, NDA constituent NPP, the second largest party in Meghalaya with 19 seats, managed to rope in regional parties to form a coalition government.

After Congress emerged as the single largest party, top leaders Ahmed Patel, Kamal Nath, Mukul Wasnik and C P Joshi had approached the regional parties for support. However, the regional outfits rebuffed the proposal contending that they had contested the assembly elections on an anti-Congress plank.

"Like in Manipur & Goa, showing utter disregard for the mandate of the people. Obsessed instead with grabbing power, using big money to create an opportunistic alliance," Gandhi said.

He said the Congress respected the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya.

"We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people," Gandhi said.

Dangerous game

Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala accused the BJP of following a dangerous game of destabilisation, subversion and usurpation of power in the north-eastern region.

"Tell-tale signs of BJP's blind quest for power superseding the stability of the region, propagation of democracy, nipping the separatist tendencies and ignoring core issues of region are already visible," Surjewala said.

He pointed out that BJP allies in Tripura and Meghalaya a the IPFT and NPP respectively a favoured division of the two states. Surjewala wanted the BJP to clarify whether it shared the views of its alliance partners.Indian Navy for the first time has conducted a "two-front war" scenario mock war drill in which the maritime force practised its manoeuvres to tackle such a pincer attack.



Back-to-back exercises by the Eastern and Western naval commands were the first of its kind to indicate Navy's threat perception of a two front war, said a Navy official.

The gruelling two-month long war game took place ahead of a congregation of 23 naval forces in Andaman later this month, where naval heads from these nations are expected to take stock of growing Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean region and its implications.

The two war games- named ENCORE (Eastern Naval Command Operational Readiness Exercise) on the eastern side and Paschim Lehar on the western sea board- also saw large scale participation of the Army, Air Force and Coast Guard assets.

The operational area was huge- from the northern Arabian Sea off the coast of Gujarat to the southern Indian Ocean off the Sunda Straits near Indonesia.

Naval warships and submarines, aircraft from IAF, Navy and Coast Guard as well as men and equipment from the Army were deployed in a net-centric warfare scenario to simulate real life crisis situation and get trained to meet such crises.

With a steady increase of Chinese naval ships and submarines in the Indian Ocean since 2008, the Navy last year overhauled its exercise patterns. It cut the flabs to focus on the core area of "conflict readiness at sea."

"The focus is on realistic scenarios like terrorist attacks from the sea on critical infrastructure and populated areas (like 26/11), defence of the offshore oil resources and protection of the large seaborne trade," said the officer.

The rising presence of PLA Navy's warships and submarines is a matter of concern.

At any given point of time there are at least 7-8 PLA Navy ships in the high seas, which include the surface and under-water vessels that Beijing sent for anti-piracy patrol in the Gulf of Aden.

Since July 2017, mission ready ships were forward deployed in critical areas of the Indian Ocean region in order to respond to emerging threats.

"The Navy has already reaped rich dividends from this concept," he said, without disclosing the details.The killing of four civilians, whom the army claimed were over-ground workers (OGWs) of militants, in Kashmir's Shopian district on Sunday evening has put the Valley on the boil.



The authorities have imposed restrictions and the separatists have called for strike on Monday.

Army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said two militants, one at the site of the shootout and another in an orchard, and four civilians were killed around 8 pm on Sunday "when a mobile vehicle check-post near Pohan in Shopian signalled a car to stop but the driver refused to comply".

He said the armymen were fired upon and they retaliated. While the bodies of three civilians and one militant were recovered on Sunday evening, two bodies, one of a militant and other of a civilian, were recovered on Monday morning.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti contradicted the army's version, saying the civilians killed in Shopian were caught in a "crossfire"

"Deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire in Shopian. My heartfelt condolences to the deceased's families," she tweeted.

The army said an investigation will ascertain the level of cooperation of slain civilians with the militants killed.

"No doubt they were civilians but investigations will reveal their role with the militants," said a senior army official.

Malik detained

As the news about the civilian killings spread, protests erupted in various areas of Kashmir on Monday with people alleging that the army killed civilians "intentionally".

Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chairman was detained when he staged a protest against the killing of civilians.

Malik, along with his supporters, reached Budshah bridge here and tried to march towards Lal Chowk, officials said.

They were stopped and taken into preventive custody, the officials said.

Waheed Ahmad, a resident of Shopian, said, "The army's claim that the four civilians were accomplices or had anything to do with militancy is a blatant lie. First they said the militants had come to attack their party and now they have changed their statement saying army signalled the car to stop, but the driver refused. Will militants try and attack the army along with four civilians?"

"We know that army has protection under the draconian AFSPA and even if they kill everybody here, they can't be held accountable. The statements of politicians to condemn these killings are nothing but drama," he said.

As separatists called for a strike against the killings, authorities imposed strict restrictions to prevent the escalation of tensions.

The 4G internet services were suspended across Kashmir, while all the examinations scheduled for the day were postponed.

Authorities also ordered the closure of all educational institutions in the Valley till Thursday. The schools were scheduled to reopen in the Valley on Monday after three months.

On January 27, three civilians were killed when the army had fired on protesters.

(with inputs from PTI)The National People's Congress, China's top legislature opens its annual session on March 5, 2018. [Photo: VCG]

The National People's Congress (NPC), China's top legislature, opens() its annual session() in Beijing on Monday, March 5, 2018.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivers a government work report() during the opening session.

Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) walk to the Great Hall of the People for the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th NPC in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2018. (Xinhua)

Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) walk to the Great Hall of the People for the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th NPC in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2018. (Xinhua)

Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) walk to the Great Hall of the People for the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th NPC in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2018. (Xinhua)

Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) walk to the Great Hall of the People for the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th NPC in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2018. (Xinhua)

Chen Hong, Wang Jianqing and Guo Rui, deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), receive an interview before the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th NPC in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2018. (Xinhua)

Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) receive an interview before the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th NPC in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2018. (Xinhua)

 Words:

[hui yi ]  session

[kai mu]  open

[zheng fu]  government

[gong zuo]  work

[bao gao]  report

 Key word:

The CBI is likely to seek further custody of former finance minister P Chidambaram's son Karti in connection with the INX Media case, citing non-cooperation with investigators, sources said on Monday.



Karti, who was arrested on February 28, will be produced before the special CBI court on Tuesday when his custody ends. On March 1, he was sent to custody for five days.

CBI sources claimed that Karti was evasive and at times defiant during questioning when he was in its custody. He was also taken to Mumbai where he was confronted with Indrani Mukerjea, another accused in the case.

Karti is claimed to have accepted money from the then INX Media promoters Indrani and husband for government approval for foreign direct investment in their firm fraudulently.

Sources said the CBI would impress upon the court about the joint interrogation of Indrani and Karti at Mumbai's Byculla prison on Sunday. While Indrani has repeated the claims she recorded before a magistrate, Karti has denied it.

In the statement she recorded under Section 164 of the CrPC, which could be treated as evidence in court, Indrani claimed that she and her husband Peter met Chidambaram, who asked them to help Karti in his business. During their meeting with Karti, Indrani claimed he asked them to pay $1 million for arranging approval for FDI.

Sources said the CBI is also likely to tell the court that it needs him for further interrogation as well as its plans to confront him with other accused like Peter Mukerjea and his chartered accountant Bhaskaraman in the case.

The CBI also plans to question officials of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board under the Ministry of Finance, who cleared the FDI proposal of INX Media.Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron will this week give shape to a new framework for bilateral strategic cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.



Macron is set to commence his four-day visit to India on Friday. He will meet President Ram Nath Kovind, apart from holding bilateral talks with the Prime Minister. He will also join Modi and other foreign leaders at the founding ceremony of the International Solar Alliance in New Delhi on Sunday.

Modi and Macron will explore ways to step up defence and security partnership in Indo-Pacific and are likely to endorse a framework for bilateral cooperation in the region, sources told DH.

France is keen to play a role in the regional security architecture in Indo-Pacific, but is reluctant to join the quad, which India, United States, Japan and Australia re-launched in November 2017 to counter hegemonic aspirations of China in the region. Though Japan extended an invitation to France and the United Kingdom to join the quad, none of them have so far shown interest in joining the plurilateral initiative.

Paris, however, has substantial geopolitical interests in western Indian Ocean and southern Pacific, with a large number of its military personnel deployed in the region. France has territorial control over RAunion and Mayotte islands in the Indian Ocean and New Caledonia and French Polynesia in the Pacific. While over 60% of its vast Exclusive Economic Zone is in the Pacific, over 20% is in the Indian Ocean. Djibouti on the Horn of Africa has a base of French Army.

Bilateral defence

France was not interested in joining the quad as it was not keen on earning the ire of China. It, however, did not have any hesitation to step up bilateral defence and security cooperation with India, with particular focus on Indo-Pacific.

Macron is likely to join Modi to reaffirm the commitment of France and India to a "free, open, transparent, inclusive and rules-based architecture in Indo-Pacific".

Modi's meeting with the French President is likely to focus on securing the sea-lanes for trade and communications, countering the threat of piracy and maritime terrorism, maritime domain awareness as well as fostering trade and economic links in Indo-Pacific, the sources said.The burnt body of a Dalit boy was found in Bhiwadi in Rajasthan's Alwar district on Monday. This is the second death in the Jatav basti (a settlement of schedule caste people) in last four days.



Alwar Superintendent of Police Rahul Prakash said, "Prima facie it appears a suicide. We are investigating."



Post mortem report is awaited for clarity on the cause of death



The incident comes two days after a Dalit teenager was beaten to death in the same area while playing Holi, allegedly by a group of people.



According to police, the victim Neeraj Jatav, 16, was playing Holi with members of another community when clashes broke out between the two sides at Bhiwadi town.In purely diplomatic terms, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent three-nation visit to the Gulf and West Asia was path-breaking, exceptional and highly symbolic.



It was path-breaking since it was the first visit of an Indian Prime Minister to Palestine, despite our traditional goodwill for the Palestinian people since 1938 and Gandhiji's remarks in The Harijan that Palestine belonged to the Arabs "in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French". But Modi also succeeded in "de-hyphenating" our traditional policy of "balancing" the relationships with Israel and Palestine and allowing it to flow on parallel tracks.

It was exceptional since King Abdullah II of Jordan extended the courtesy of elevating Modi's transit visit to high-level talks. It was also symbolic to his home constituency as he could visit the 125-year-old Shiva temple in Oman, besides witnessing the foundation stone-laying ceremony of the first Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi.

Yet the question is, did the visit help in finding a solution to the grave problems now being faced by millions of Indian workers in the region? The huge crowd of Indians at the Sultan Qaboos Stadium or at Dubai Opera House would have liked Modi to detail his government's steps to ensure better job security for them in host countries or setting up a Philippines model of insurance for migrant workers, rather than hurling accusations against the previous Congress regime.

The World Migration Report, 2018, by the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) says that the Indian diaspora (15.6 million) is the largest in the world. India tops the world in home remittances from overseas workers. This is much more than the foreign direct investment (FDI) that flows into India. In 2013, the diaspora remitted $69.9 billion. In 2014, it rose to $70.3 billion, but dipped to $68.9 billion in 2015 and $62.7 billion in 2016 due to loss of employment caused by falling oil prices.

For 2017, it is expected to be $65.3 billion. This is 2.8% of our GDP in 2016, according to the Financial Times. As against this, FDI in India was $35 billion in 2014 and $44 billion in 2015, according to the UNCTAD World Investment Report, 2016. As the Financial Times noted, 36% of Kerala's economy was hit by low remittances. And Kerala has the third highest unemployment rate in India.

The World Bank (WB) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) always look at the migration-development linkage, as they feel that foreign remittances from migrants are "more resilient than FDI or portfolio investments".

A May 2016 survey by The Guardian revealed that UNDP's 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) would not be sustainable merely with aid from the developed world. Thus, the African Union (AU) has designated diaspora remittances as the "6th Development Zone" in addition to West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, Southern Africa and North Africa.

Yet, we consider foreign investors as VIPs and spend crores on trade fairs like "Magnetic Maharashtra". But we treat our less educated overseas wage earners, especially illegal emigrants, as undesirables. It was only in 2004 that this thinking changed when the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs (MOIA) was created to specifically deal with their problems.

The MOIA did good work. Unfortunately, the first act of the Modi government in June 2014 was to abolish MOIA and merge it with the Ministry of External Affairs. This was a retrograde step as a single point concentration on overseas wage-earners was lost. The confusion over our 39 missing Indian workers in Mosul since June 2014 would not have been there had we dealt with overseas Indians with assiduous attention.

'Forced labour'

Further, is it correct to treat some of our own people as illegals and exclude them from compensation and embassy services? ILO reports raise a human rights angle. Some 15% of Indians in the Gulf are "forced labour". Gulf employers render them virtually Stateless by confiscating their passports. Since labourers move from country to country in search of better jobs through irregular channels, they do not report at Indian embassies.

Even those who want to return to attend to domestic emergencies are forced to approach touts who give them bogus documents. Which was how 12 of the 158 dead on the ill-fated Air India Dubai-Mangalore flight on May 22, 2010, had bogus passports. Our embassies are least helpful as they treat such migrants as criminals.

But this is not the case, say, in the Philippines, which encourages labour emigration as a national policy to obtain the "demographic dividend" and to offset unemployment. Recognising the significant contribution of migrant Filipino workers to the national exchequer through their foreign exchange remittances, the Philippines enacted the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Act in 1995.

The law protects both legal and illegal workers, ensuring adequate social, economic and legal support to them. Amendments in 2016 provided regulation of recruitment fees, compulsory insurance for workers and families by recruitment agencies. Their 10.5 million overseas workers, including 1.074 million "irregulars", remitted $26 billion during 2016. This is 11.17% of the country's gross national product (GNP).

There is a security dimension, too. Law and order will be in jeopardy if employment avenues are not found for our youth, who form one-third of the population. Experts like Prof KN Bhatt of GB Pant University have recommended that by "leveraging the demographic dividend" of the 21st century, we can increase our GDP by a third. Otherwise, it will result in a "demographic nightmare". This writer has long argued that Kerala state, which was rocked by repeated "Naxalite" attacks between 1968 and 1976, was saved only by the "Gulf boom" between 1972 and 1983.

(The writer is a former Special Secretary, Cabinet Secretariat)

(The Billion Press)The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the murder of Gauri Lankesh has said that there was no conclusive evidence as of now to prove that K T Naveen Kumar (37), arrested in an arms case, was involved in the killing of senior journalist.



Speaking to DH, M N Anucheth, Deputy Commissioner of Police (West Division) and investigating officer, SIT, however, said that the arrested man, whom the SIT is probing was leading them to killers.

Anucheth denied reports in a section of media that Kumar had confessed to have trained several right wing ideologues and even had supplied arms and ammunition to them.

"Neither did he bring the killers to Gauri's house in Rajarajeshwarinagar in west Bengaluru nor did he conduct any recee before Gauri's murder. Kumar's physical description does not match with that of the man who actually conducted the recee," said the officer adding that he is definitely leading them to the killers.

"Moreover, an operational detail leak on a vernacular television news channel on February 22 on the movement of Gauri's killers did damage the police investigations," Anucheth said.

"The channel aired a news item stating two of Gauri's killers were coming to attend a marriage ceremony in Mangaluru, even as the policemen in mufti were waiting there to arrest them. As the news spread, the killers did not turn up at that marriage," he added.

Who is Kumar?

Kumar was arrested by the Central Crime Branch (CCB) on February 18 in Upparpet based on tip-off that he was into arms dealing. He had come to meet one his contacts near Kempegowda Bus Station to hand over a few rounds of ammunition, the police said. The CCB seized 15 cartridges of 0.32 calibre from him.

He is in SIT custody since March 2 and is being interrogated continuously for 18 hours in three 6-hour shifts, and is forthcoming with information which is helping SIT sleuths to inch closer to Gauri's killers, the police said.

A resident of Birur in Chikkamagaluru district, Kumar is a SSLC pass. Interrogation so far has revealed that Kumar has close to 300 followers in Maddur in Mandya district. He also heads a fringe group under the name 'Hindu Yuva Sena,' which the police say is basically into extortion and blackmailing. His outfit also received funding from the garment factories in Maddur. Kumar is also into money lending, the police said.The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear on March 12 a plea opposing a proposed steel flyover at Sivananda Circle, Bengaluru.



A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud put the petition filed by city resident B P Mahesh and others for consideration on Monday.

"Let the matter be listed on Monday, the 12th March 2018 before the appropriate bench as per roster," the court ordered, on an urgent hearing plea made by advocate Balaji Srinivasan, on behalf of Mahesh and other residents.

The petitioners challenged the Karnataka High Court's order, dismissing his PIL.

They claimed that the proposed flyover on Hare Krishna Road was in violation of the guidelines and the specifications prepared by the Indian Roads Congress with regard to vertical height and ramp gradient.

The Karnataka High Court had, however, concluded that any order interjecting the progress in construction of the flyover would defeat public interest. It found that the balance tilted in favour of the construction of the flyover.

The high court had also noted that the BBMP, during the pendency of the matter, had modified the design and made a sincere attempt to bring the technical specifications as near to the norms prescribed by the IRC.

This has resulted in maintaining the vertical clearance of 4.50 metres and reducing the ramp gradients to 3.50% and 5.60%.

Noting that the BBMP has taken sufficient care with regard to the public safety, the court had said it can only examine the decision-making process under the writ jurisdiction as development of infrastructure and providing civic amenities are the duties of the civic bodies and the same are undertaken according to policies framed by the executive from time to time.Said to be depressed after his wife divorced him, a 54-year-old former serviceman shot himself dead in East Bengaluru on Sunday, the Hennur police said.



Anil Ahuja, a native of Uttar Pradesh, had moved to Bengaluru three years ago after taking voluntary retirement. He lived with his wife and children at an apartment in Papaiah Layout, Horamavu, and ran an automobile business.

Trouble began when his wife divorced him five months ago and he suffered losses in business. He was unable to repay loans taken from friends and relatives. He opened up to a relative on Sunday.

Around 9.30 pm on Sunday, he shot himself in the head with a licensed revolver. Hearing the gunshot, neighbours rushed to his flat only to find him dead. They called the police.

According to police, it was not the first time that Ahuja had tried to end his life. Just six months ago, he had attempted suicide three to four times but his children restrained him.

Police have registered a case and sent the body for post-mortem.Japan Backs Out of Plan to Develop Fighter Jet on Its Own (excerpt)

(Source: Asahi Shimbun; published March 5, 2018)

By Ryo Aibara

Faced with the high cost of developing a new fighter to replace its F-2 fighters, Japan has opted to instead look for a partnership with an American aerospace company, which could well spell the end of an ongoing cooperation with Britain. (Wikipedia photo)India rising: Opportunities for Taiwan

The Indian handset market has experienced drastic changes in the past two years. Xiaomi has dethroned Samsung, whose six-year development in India ha allowed it to remain the only non-China brand among the top five vendors there. The third, fourth and fifth largest vendors are respectively Lenovo, Oppo and Vivo.

Amid the pressure of heightened import duty on handsets, Taiwan OEMs have no choice but to begin to set up production bases in India. Taiwan vendors dominating upstream manufacturing are still seen as bellwethers. But for the vendors, India is such a big country that attempts to grab market shares by funneling tremendous resources in a short period of time will only see short-term benefits. It is reported that Oppo's market share in India showed a significant decline in January due to a conflict of interest with distributors. The Indian market looks tempting but businesses may end up walking on thin ice. India's local brand Micromax used to enjoy a 20% market share but now it is down to 3%. According to Pankaj Mohindroo, president of Indian Cellular Association (ICA), local brands lack the ability to innovate and that is the key reason why they are losing market shares. However, there is more to the story.

Rajeev Bajpai, president for WPG India, noted that Micromax was selling three million handsets per month at its peak. The other leading local brands including Lava, Kanbborn and Intex were also also to ship 2 million phones each monthly. However, monthly sales by the four local leaders have dropped from nine million to two million handsets amid growing competition in the market, which still has a large space for feature phones despite their shrinking share. Old and low-cost feature phone models from China are still widespread on the market, and the presence of Bird and Moto phones has worsened the competition.

Policy blind spots

India's policy formation has blind spots. The government's bold decisions have created uncertainties, such as the case of the rupee note change. India's new import duty will take effect in the fiscal year commencing on April 1, 2018. Indian officials have vowed that global businesses eyeing the Indian market will have to set up factories in the country to prevent higher taxes from eroding their market shares. However, the problem is that India lacks even the most fundamental PCB manufacturing. The hiked taxes will definitely result in rising costs of handsets and other products that local consumers may not be able to afford.

For example, 80% of the medical equipment in India is imported. It is said that Taiwan manufacturers supplying disability aids have been making good profits in India as it has a larger population of people with disabilities than Taiwan's total population. The Indian government actually offers appealing incentives to attract foreign investments, including support for startups. India claims it has an innovation cluster of 4,700 high-tech startups, the third largest in the world behind China and the US. According to KPMG, the Indian government offers a US$2.5 million grant for a US$10 million investment. However, people all know very well that the amounts of government subsidies are hardly enough to go around for domestic Indian companies, not to mention foreign or Taiwan businesses.

In fact, most Taiwan manufacturers come to India because of OEM orders from Oppo, Apple or other top-tier brands - a bracket of vendors that local Indian brands are finding themselves being excluded. Rajoo Goel, secretary general of Electronic Industries Association of India, pointed out Indian big players have been unable to develop more appealing products or business models and thus are seeing their market shares on the decline in recent years. However, I think the underlying reason is that China's advantages from its industrial structure has enabled it to dominate the low-end and mid-range market segments in emerging countries.

Indians think the country's demand for electronic products will top US$400 billion by 2020. Without a local electronics manufacturing industry, electronics imports to India will exceed oil imports at that time. India is heavily reliant on imported energy with at least 80% of its oil demand met by imports. People in India are now more concerned about growing demand for imported electronics brought by the rise in living standards. The Indian government is attempting to increase import duty as a way to foster local manufacturing. On the one hand, it is trying to improve investment conditions; but on the other hand, it has put up many barriers to investments, leaving foreign businesses confused and not knowing what to do.

It is not the case that India has made no efforts on developing the display and semiconductor sectors. In the 1970s, India already had a semiconductor fabrication plant which was much like an experimental line at Taiwan's ITRI with no economy of scale. It was later destroyed by fire. Since then, there have been talks every year about imminent construction of a semiconductor plant but it has remained a far-fetched dream.

A big country like India should have an independent semiconductor manufacturing industry whether making general-purpose ICs for commercial use or special-purpose chips for military or satellite applications. Its 2012 ICT industry development plan made it a government policy goal to build India's own semiconductor production facilities as well as display manufacturing plants. However, the plan is still on the drawing board to this day. Taiwan is India's best choice for partnerships in building up such manufacturing industries, but India has yet to realize this.

Taiwan and India reprotedly are trying to forge some form of partnership, which is believed to be making good progress. However, India knows that there's no point offending China for the sake of Taiwan despite the rough India-China ties. Indian institutions often boast about their collaborations or MOU agreements with Taiwan's III, ITRI or Taipei Computer Association, but the problem is that these "collaborations" are all empty talks. The benefits of forming partnerships between Taiwan and India are apparent, but no substantial steps have been taken.

Is India making progress?

According to CounterPoint Research, handset makers worldwide enjoyed a 13% growth in profits in the third quarter of 2017. Samsung, having survived the Note 7 crisis, saw its share of profits increase from 0% to 25.9% while Apple's share exhibited a decline from 85.9% to 59.9%. China-based smartphone manufacturers' combined profits exceeded US$1.5 billion for the first time ever in the third quarter of 2017 mainly thanks to Huawei's Mate series featuring artificial intelligence (AI) chips successfully grabbing shares of the high-end segment from Apple and Samsung. Apple made a profit of US$151 per phone, far surpassing Samsung's US$31 and the US$13-US$15 profit per unit made by Huawei, Vivo and Oppo. Despite only earning a US$2 profit per phone, Xiaomi places more emphasis on building a loyal Xiaomi customer base, which has begun to threaten the market presence of the leading American and Korean brands.

It is critical for businesses venturing into India to set clear market positioning and medium-to-long term strategies according to their own circumstances. Although India has a large market, the people's spending power is still limited and businesses have to find the pricing sweet spot for every product. For example, display panels priced under US$200 may be the best choice to win a sizable market.

With respect to India's memory market, Samsung chose not to run its plants at full capacity such that the market stays hungry. It also runs its distribution channels only in a few places including Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Singapore to maintain market order and high prices. Semiconductor products contributed 70% of Samsung's profits in 2017, facilitating its overall strategic planning for brand marketing. We can all learn from Samsung's operations in the Indian market.

With the rapid increase in data usage, India will have soaring demand for datacenters and servers. Perhaps server makers such as Quanta Computer and Wistron should lead other Taiwan manufacturers in the venture into India.

India offers immense opportunities on market segmentation, for example, traffic planning and electricity meter programs across 100 cities. Representatives from Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India pointed out that the Indian government is rolling out Wi-Fi networks in 20 cities but there is practically no Taiwan business putting in a bid. India is no doubt a huge market and success there will not come overnight. WPG has been doing business in India for over a decade. Lite-on is making chargers in India while targeting emerging opportunities in automotive electronics.

In regard to handset production, manufacturing is fundamental to all industries. Indians should allow local companies taking part in manufacturing to build sustainable competitive advantages. However, the upcoming icnreases in tariffs will target display industry, PCBs and other products to force the construction of manufacturing plants in India. But India is missing the point. For the display sector, India actually is not expecting to venture into the capital-intensive LCD panel sector, but rather the lower-level manufacturing of LCD modules (LCMs). Manufacturing is instrumental to creating brand value. Although software has a high value, customer requirements are wide-ranging and a lot of changing factors may influence the continuing operation of a business model. On the contrary, hardware may have lower added value but the business model stands a better chance of sustaining operation. Taiwan and India complement each other very well. It's unfortunate that they have different agendas and cannot find ways to work together to promote mutual benefits.

Indian businesses have to know where they stand and build sustainable operation and competitive advantages. The Indian market can be divided into high-end, mid-tier and low-cost segments. Businesses may find huge opportunities in the low-cost market segment, but the country's business development must not be dictated by the low-cost segment. It's like the overall development of a country - the middle class is the most important asset of the country. India with a growing population of young people holds demographic advantages.

The US$200 segment seems to be the sweet spot for the Indian market today. Businesses able to capture opportunities in the mid-tier US$200 segment - whether it's TV or handsets - will enjoy great success.

Representatives from Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India also warned businesses of the financial risks associated with investment in India. With the New Southbound Policy, the Taiwan government provides businesses with high coverage investment insurance and large loans. However, both businesses and government have not comprehensively assessed the details and feasibility of these plans. And there is the China factor. Desptie its vows of a "peaceful rise," China's dominance in the world is a growing threat in many aspects. Taiwan's capabilities in electronics are well-known to the world. The Taiwan industry is generally of the opinion that the government's New Southbound Policy leaves a lot to be desired in terms of scope, planning and action.

(This is the last installment of an article about India's IT industry and market written by Colley Hwang, president of Digitimes.)

The low-end market segment offers huge business opporunties, but it should not dictate the development of India's economy

Photo: Colley Hwang, Digitimes, February 2018Save my User ID and Password

Some subscribers prefer to save their log-in information so they do not have to enter their User ID and Password each time they visit the site. To activate this function, check the 'Save my User ID and Password' box in the log-in section. This will save the password on the computer you're using to access the site.

Note: If you choose to use the log-out feature, you will lose your saved information. This means you will be required to log-in the next time you visit our site.Design of 44-story tower reflects a recent deal by its future neighbor

Gensler is designing both complexes for two different developers.





Journal Staff Reporter By BRIAN MILLER Journal Staff Reporter

Renderings by Gensler [enlarge] Miami-based developer Crescent Heights has proposed two 40-story towers with an eight-story podium at 1901 Minor. The developer is buying more land on the block, allowing more space between the towers  and improving the views at 1916 Boren.





[enlarge] Chinese developer Onelin Investment is planning this 44-story hotel/apartment tower at 1916 Boren.





Two big high-rise projects are planned for the Denny Triangle block bounded by Virginia and Stewart streets and Boren and Minor avenues.

They have separate developers but the same architect, Gensler, making it easier to coordinate their projects.

On the east side of the block, at 1901 Minor, Miami-based developer Crescent Heights successfully went through design review in 2015 and 2016. Its apartment plan has two 40-story towers with an eight-story podium. About 941 units are planned, plus retail and underground parking.

The project has been delayed, because the site hadn't been fully assembled. But after lengthy deliberation, the city of Seattle agreed late last month to sell a surplus former fire station on the northeast corner of the block, usually called the Comm Shop, to Crescent Heights for $13 million.

The Comm Shop turns out to be the linchpin for both projects.

1916 Boren

On the west side of the block, at 1916 Boren, Chinese developer Onelin Investment has its first design review Tuesday for its 44-story apartment tower and hotel. That meeting is set for 7 p.m. at City Hall, 600 Fifth Ave., Room L2-80.

MZA Architecture submitted early plans for 1916 Boren, but has now been replaced by Gensler.

The owner is GZI Boren LLC, an entity of GZI, a Hong Kong-based REIT. Onelin is a GZI affiliate. GZI recently paid $30 million to assemble the 27,969-square-foot site.

The basic program is for 524 apartments: 490 of them in the taller north tower and 34 loft units in the podium. Average unit size would be 651 square feet.

A separate sidecar hotel tower to the south would rise eight stories above the podium. The hotel would have a total of 270 rooms within the tower and podium.

Gensler's preferred Carve 2 design has the main tower gradually expanding it floorplates to overhang slightly above the hotel and podium.

The inspiration, says Gensler, comes from the historical context of the site and its proximity to the Denny Regrade. Specifically, the image of the Spite Mound' drove the concept of the project. The architectural expression of carving and excavating away at the base of the project to reveal the main tower forms the basis of our massing concept.

The eight-story podium would have residential and guest amenity spaces, and about 6,000 square feet of retail. It would also contain the hotel lobby, with an atrium extending up to the podium roof, plus back-of-house and loading areas.

Photo by Brian Miller [enlarge] The city recently agreed to sell this site on the northeast corner of the block to Crescent Heights for $13 million.





A circular drop-off area for vehicles is planned within the alley, inset into the podium. On top of the podium would be more amenity areas and terraces.

Gensler and Onelin submitted their plan before the city voted to sell the Comm Shop to Crescent Heights. That sale, which has been in the works for at least three years, hasn't closed yet.

But Gensler writes, Once the Crescent Heights decision is known, and if it is to develop the larger site, we will explore ways to  increase our overall developable tower area.

That additional floor area is reflected in the Carve 2 design, which gains units on the east side of the residential tower, facing the alley and 1901 Minor. If 1901 Minor had a smaller site and closer towers, Carve 1 would have yielded 510 units. Carve 2 has 524.

Gensler also says it seeks to align the podium amenity levels and outdoor space with the project at 1901 Minor.

In essence, by gaining the full separation of about 142 feet between 1901 Minor's two towers, that gap aligns nicely with the residential tower at 1916 Boren. The 1916 Boren tower's profile is about 120 feet wide at its narrowest, just above the podium, but gradually expands on the upper floors to about 150 feet.

At the same time, the upper floors of 1916 Boren would gradually twist. Gensler says the residential tower floorplates go from 10,560 square feet on the lower floors, up to 11,500 square feet on floors 42 and 43, then back down to 9,000 square feet at the top.

Seven levels of underground parking would have about 367 stalls. Total project size, including the parking, is about 692,000 square feet.

Berger Partnership is the landscape architect

1901 Minor

Over at 1901 Minor, Crescent Heights had always wanted to buy the Department of Information Technology Communications Shop at 1933 Minor. Fire Station No. 15 was there from 1903 to 1972. The small one-story 1951 building sits on a 14,400-square-foot site. The pending sale will be worth about $903 per square foot.

In 2014, Crescent Heights paid $18.5 million to acquire the south end of the half block, at $660 per square foot. Once the Comm Shop sale closes, it will have the entire 42,417 square feet east of the alley.

Six and one-half levels of underground parking will be accessed from the alley, with 661 stalls, and about 14,400 square feet of ground floor retail and commercial space are planned. The towers and podium will have landscaped roof decks and amenity areas. Distinctive inset notches in both tower facades will provide more terraces and amenity areas.

Total project size, including the parking, is about 1.2 million square feet.

The 1901 Minor team also includes MKA, structural and civil engineer; CP Engineering, MEP engineer; and Site Workshop, landscape architect.

Crescent Heights' land cost of $31.5 million isn't its largest investment in Seattle. In 2015, it paid $49 million for a half-block at 704 Fourth Ave., where it has proposed a 101-story mixed-use tower that would go directly west of Columbia Center.

Crescent Heights Inspirational Living is privately held. It has built or redeveloped hotels, offices, condominiums and apartments in New York, Los Angeles, Hawaii and San Francisco  in addition to its home base in Florida.

Comm Shop sale

Meanwhile, the city hopes to use most of the proceeds from the Comm Shop sale to acquire property for a new South Lake Union Fire Station. It wants a waterfront location where a fire boat could be berthed. The Comm Shop will be relocated to another city building.

The sale agreement says that $2 million of the $13 million price will be counted toward the Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) fee for the 1901 Minor project.

Mayor Jenny Durkan announced her support of the Comm Shop sale in January. The council passed the bill to authorize the sale on Friday, Feb. 23, when the mayor also signed it.





Brian Miller can be reached by email at brian.miller@djc.com or by phone at (206) 219-6517.



Subscriber content preview

OregonSaves is designed for the one million Oregonians who don't have a retirement savings plan at work.



By KRISTIAN FODEN-VENCIL

Oregon Public Broadcasting

PORTLAND  Over the years, Oregon has been both lauded and lambasted for new ideas, whether it be doctor-assisted suicide, public beaches or its bottle bill.

Now, it's breaking ground again. Oregon is the first state in the nation to help people save for retirement. If you plan ahead, you're just going to be set up for the future, said Ulises Orozco, a 19-year-old sous chef at Thunder Island Brewery in Cascade Locks, Oregon. He makes about $20,000 a year.





. . .Subscriber content preview

SWF Constructors, which lists just one employee in its Omaha office, won the $11 million federal contract in November.



By MARGERY A. BECK

Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb.  A tiny Nebraska startup awarded the first border wall construction project under President Donald Trump is the offshoot of a construction firm that was sued repeatedly for failing to pay subcontractors and accused in a 2016 government audit of shady billing practices.

SWF Constructors, which lists just one employee in its Omaha office, won the $11 million federal contract in November as part of a project to replace a little more than 2 miles of a current fence with post-style barriers 30 feet high in Calexico, California. The project represents a sliver of the president's plan that was central to his presidential campaign promise for a wall at the border with Mexico.





. . .Subscriber content preview

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP)  Alaska residents are better off addressing smoke pollution at the local level, state and federal officials said.

Representatives from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hosted a town hall on Wednesday to talk about air-quality programs in Fairbanks and North Pole, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported .





. . .Space donated to build tiny houses

SEATTLE  King County is donating space in the former Old Flour Warehouse on Harbor Island to programs that assist the homeless.

The county is working with two partners, the Block Project and Humble Design. The county is donating space to the Block Project to build and store backyard cottages.

Humble Design collects donated furniture, dishes and other household supplies to furnish homes for people currently living on the streets.

Both projects will spend the next several weeks moving into the warehouse and gearing up operations.

The Block Project concept was created in 2016 by Block Architects, which designs, permits and manages construction.

Facing Homelessness, which focuses on building community understanding and awareness about homelessness, oversees the Block Project.

The programs both rely on community involvement and welcome volunteers, including help to build, assemble or landscape Block homes, or donations of furniture and other household goods. See http://www.the-block-project.com or http://www.humbledesign.org for more information.



Sting leads to probe of veterans' housing

KENNEWICK (AP)  Disabled military veterans in Washington state who use vouchers to pay rent will find it easier to lease homes thanks to a sting operation by the state attorney general's office.

The Tri-City Herald reported Wednesday that 10 property managers across the state initially declined to rent to investigators who posed as veterans using Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing vouchers to pay rent.

Attorney General Bob Ferguson ordered the Wing Luke Civil Rights Unit to investigate discrimination against veterans after his office regularly fielded complaints that some were being denied housing. Of the 50 landlords contacted by investigators, 10 said they wouldn't rent to voucher users.

Ferguson called the voucher program a key tool in the fight to house homeless veterans.



Country

United States of America US Virgin Islands United States Minor Outlying Islands Canada Mexico, United Mexican States Bahamas, Commonwealth of the Cuba, Republic of Dominican Republic Haiti, Republic of Jamaica Afghanistan Albania, People's Socialist Republic of Algeria, People's Democratic Republic of American Samoa Andorra, Principality of Angola, Republic of Anguilla Antarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S) Antigua and Barbuda Argentina, Argentine Republic Armenia Aruba Australia, Commonwealth of Austria, Republic of Azerbaijan, Republic of Bahrain, Kingdom of Bangladesh, People's Republic of Barbados Belarus Belgium, Kingdom of Belize Benin, People's Republic of Bermuda Bhutan, Kingdom of Bolivia, Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana, Republic of Bouvet Island (Bouvetoya) Brazil, Federative Republic of British Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago) British Virgin Islands Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria, People's Republic of Burkina Faso Burundi, Republic of Cambodia, Kingdom of Cameroon, United Republic of Cape Verde, Republic of Cayman Islands Central African Republic Chad, Republic of Chile, Republic of China, People's Republic of Christmas Island Cocos (Keeling) Islands Colombia, Republic of Comoros, Union of the Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, People's Republic of Cook Islands Costa Rica, Republic of Cote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of the Cyprus, Republic of Czech Republic Denmark, Kingdom of Djibouti, Republic of Dominica, Commonwealth of Ecuador, Republic of Egypt, Arab Republic of El Salvador, Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Republic of Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Faeroe Islands Falkland Islands (Malvinas) Fiji, Republic of the Fiji Islands Finland, Republic of France, French Republic French Guiana French Polynesia French Southern Territories Gabon, Gabonese Republic Gambia, Republic of the Georgia Germany Ghana, Republic of Gibraltar Greece, Hellenic Republic Greenland Grenada Guadaloupe Guam Guatemala, Republic of Guinea, Revolutionary People's Rep'c of Guinea-Bissau, Republic of Guyana, Republic of Heard and McDonald Islands Holy See (Vatican City State) Honduras, Republic of Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China Hrvatska (Croatia) Hungary, Hungarian People's Republic Iceland, Republic of India, Republic of Indonesia, Republic of Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq, Republic of Ireland Israel, State of Italy, Italian Republic Japan Jordan, Hashemite Kingdom of Kazakhstan, Republic of Kenya, Republic of Kiribati, Republic of Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait, State of Kyrgyz Republic Lao People's Democratic Republic Latvia Lebanon, Lebanese Republic Lesotho, Kingdom of Liberia, Republic of Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Liechtenstein, Principality of Lithuania Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Macao, Special Administrative Region of China Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Madagascar, Republic of Malawi, Republic of Malaysia Maldives, Republic of Mali, Republic of Malta, Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine 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Promoting Learning Disability Nursing (LDN) at every opportunity is just one of the reasons Katie Siddall has been shortlisted for a prestigious Student Nursing Times Award.

Throughout her three years at De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) Katie's caring attitude and positive interactions with placement staff, service users and their families have been noted.

Katie with her boyfriend and fellow graduate Tom Stewart-Williams

As a result, the "outstanding student ambassador" received the Philip Hammersley Award at her graduation ceremony in January.

Now she is in the running for the title of Student Nurse of the Year: Learning Disabilities - recognition of her achievements on a national level.

Katie said: "I was nominated for the DMU award by my personal tutor, Senior Lecturer Jillian Pawlyn. I was shocked and proud.

"She suggested I should apply for the Nursing Times award because of all I have done. It was hard, as I had to submit a 1,500-word essay. I spoke about my role as a Brand Ambassador - representing the course at Open Days and external recruitment events - as well as my job and supporting my peers.

"It's great being shortlisted. I can include it in my personal statement and professional portfolio and it could help going for a more specialist role. It's also good to engage with your professional world."

RELATED NEWS

Ten-minute tip helps Lisa land first nursing role

Find out more about our Nursing courses at a DMU Open Day

Student's near-fatal sepsis experience inspires first awareness day

Katie, who graduated with a First, has been working as a LDN on the Children's Intensive Care Unit at Leicester Royal Infirmary since November.

"I love it," she said. "It's a clinical role so different to what I've done but I am very well supported.

"I find myself working with a lot of children with learning disabilities and I can supply that support for them and their families."

It is the very fact that this role is out of her comfort zone that led Katie to choose it, as she was offered all six jobs she applied for.

Employability was among the reasons Katie decided to train as a nurse at DMU. Having originally wanted to be a teacher, she changed her mind after a trip to Nepal to teach schoolchildren English.

Having also volunteered at a special school while studying A-levels in her home town of Mansfield, Katie decided she could go into something like LDN.

"I applied to various universities and nursing courses but I hated all of the interviews apart from DMU," she said. "Richard Postance interviewed me and was just so nice and I could tell he had taken the time to read my personal statement.

"That was the big difference and what I always say to prospective students."

Katie in New York with #DMUglobal

In addition to her academic studies and placements, Katie spent her time at DMU helping others. She became a Dementia Friend, volunteered with healthy eating initiative Fridge Raiders, joined the Contemporary Health Society and, in her final year, acted as a peer mentor.

The 21-year-old also flew to New York with #DMUglobal to help with her dissertation on supporting people with learning difficulties to have a positive self-identity with sexuality.

Having formed lifelong friendships with classmates, Katie is still in touch with the staff she worked with during placements as well as her DMU tutors and continues to support at Open Days.

"I feel close to DMU because I have all these relationships," she added.

Katie will head to London next month for an interview with the awards judging panel, finding out if she has won at a ceremony on 26 April. Joining her will be DMU's Katie Dutton and Jon Bousie, who have been shortlisted in the Inspirational Student and Mental Health Nursing categories respectively.I never wanted to be a teacher.

Last months article detailed my development as a teacher and as a person during my first 10 years of teaching in Mackay.

This first 10 years was the development of my teaching philosophy and practice. The principal, Craig Murison, along with two senior teachers, Paul Truasheim and John Saunders, sorted me out in that first term of failure. They allowed me to fail, but also transformed me from being the students mate, to the students mentor, teacher and father figure. The Head of Secondary, Lesley Tunnah, instilled in me a simple leadership, teaching and behaviour management strategy I have countlessly retold and used to help many a young teacher or preservice teacher - BE FIRM, FAIR and FRIENDLY.

I knew I had to leave Mackay.

I loved teaching there. I was established and the job was fulfilling everything I had hoped for - particularly for someone who never wanted to teach. I experienced the seven year itch many teachers experience. At that time, I was disgruntled and not happy in Mackay. I turned down a teaching position on the Sunshine Coast, despite it being a desire of mine to move to the coast. Despite logic, I stayed in Mackay and the last 3 years there were amazing.

But I felt like a fraud.

I thought I was stuck. Unable to get a job anywhere else. Even though I had an impressive resume, I felt like no other school would want me. I had proven to myself I could teach, but why would another school want me? I had built a little world for me that I could excel in, but also hide. Was I just a good bloke rather than a good teacher?

The death of two ex-students in Mackay rocked this confidence. Twice towards the end of my time in Mackay I received late night calls to go to Mackay Base Hospital to see ex-students, two ex-students I had mentored and invested in, two ex-students who were mates, lying in a hospital bed hooked up to life support. One died in a motorbike accident, the other, suicide. I had only just played Aussie Rules against his team 1 week prior to him taking his life.

Belinda and I still had our son.

We lost a baby to miscarriage.

We needed to move.

My time in Mackay had to be over. I needed to move on and get out of the comfort zone I had created. Instead of doing one more year and taking a term off for long service leave, I took the money and this paid for the move to Brisbane with Belinda and my first-born son.

The job in Brisbane fell in my lap. I cant even recall applying for a particular job. Someone rung me up about the job. I must have sent my resume and before long I was sitting in front of a panel of 4 teachers, meeting the principal, Murray Averill, and being offered a job. It was that simple.

Northside Christian College was sold to me by one of my new colleagues as, The best school you will ever work in. And on reflection, this is not far from the truth. An enrolment policy that bases enrolment on the church attendance of the parents gives a small insight into the type of students and parents I encountered. Any of my ex-students or parents from there know with certainty that this did not make them or their kids perfect, but this gave an incredible amount of freedom for me as a teacher to express my faith without any fear.

There were a few incidents and interactions in the five years I was there that could have soured my time, but they were few and far between. I often joked with Belinda about my discipline and behaviour management.

I told a kid to stop chewing gum today.

I told a kid to stop talking today, and then I found out they were talking about their assignment/their youth group camp/organising chapel music.

Each year of teaching in Brisbane was a different year for me. I am so thankful that I see it that way. Years ago, I felt it on my heart that God wanted to use me to make a difference in peoples lives - and Northside allowed me to make a difference.

My time at Northside never ended; it was always a beginning. Dealing with mostly Christian kids from Christian homes is not easy. I prayed more. My prayer life changed. I took 3 groups of students to the Torres Strait. I am not even sure I could get away with a trip like that now. No risk assessment, no plans and no real idea.

We rocked up on Horn Island with the first group I took not really knowing who we were going to meet, where we were going to stay and what we were going to eat. Some nights we prayed, went out on the island, came back, and food appeared in our fridge. We ate dugong, turtle, crayfish, fish and more fish till we could eat no more. Many times we had no idea who delivered it to us or where it came from. We ran church meetings with 50-100 people, yet it felt like the whole island was there. They could hear us from their houses.

Preparing to go to Torres Strait and developing relationships with the students consumed much of my time and prayer life in Brisbane. The teaching, on reflection, was secondary. The students and their results took care of themselves. I was confident in my ability as a teacher to teach, and for my students to get great results, but I was more concerned with the content of their character.

The closer I seemed to be getting to God while I was there, the more circumstances and events that came to try and destroy what was being built up, individually and as a school. At times, the five years there were challenging, deflating and frustrating.

Many students from Northside are my adopted sons and daughters. Many are my adopted brothers and sisters. I developed lifetime friendships. I found it hard to be a teacher to many of them. Many were and still are my friends, confidantes and my academic equal or superior. Their lives, desires and now their work, families and relationships have challenged me to my core. I am a better person for having taught them.

The teachers at Northside, many who were long term teachers when I arrived, are still there today. Whenever I see them, we pick up where we left off. They encouraged me, mentored me and filled me with a confidence that remains with me some 10 years later after I left. Some used this school as a platform for better and greater things. Gary Hine, Lynn Smith-Cottrell, Linda George and June Vanderham were spiritual leaders to me. They challenged and uplifted my faith. I am a better man because I was under their leadership.

My time in Brisbane made me confront the sins of my youth. I met long-time friends in my church who are still my spiritual brothers and sisters today - when we catch up! (hint hint those who are reading this!!). My time in Brisbane made me not afraid to appeal to God and to never give up appealing to others for His mercy, love, goodness, uprightness, faithfulness and grace. Not so that I would be raised up and glorified, but so my family, friends, the disadvantaged and our God will be raised up and that Jesus will be reflected in who I am.

I had to leave Brisbane because of these sentiments. I had to take my wife, and now two sons to Alice Springs. We sold most of our possessions in a Garage Sale, including all the baby gear. We were only going to take the basics. Belinda turned to me 2 or 3 days after the sale and said, Im pregnant.

I was going to Alice Springs because I did not want to die without seeing if I can handle it and do something for my family and my God. I was going to Alice Springs to follow Gods leading.

Next month, PART 3- The Alice Springs Years.

Russell Modlin teaches English and Physical Education at a Christian School on the Sunshine Coast. He is married to Belinda and they have three children.

Russell Modlins archive of previous article can be found at

www.pressserviceinternational.org/russell-modlin.htmlAirAsia to connect more small towns, fly abroad by early 2019

Budget carrier AirAsia India has charted out expansion plans, which include flights to overseas destinations by January 2019 and connecting more tier-II and III cities, its managing director and chief executive Amar Abrol said on Saturday.

The airline last week inducted its 16th aircraft and announced the addition of Nagpur and Indore to its list of destinations.

''Our strategy is that once we get to 20 planes (in domestic operations) we will start flying international. Mostly, it will be to Southeast Asian countries,'' he told PTI in Chennai.

He said 27 per cent of the people who fly with AirAsia are flying for the first time. ''So we are opening up the Indian skies. And we are getting lot many more Indians to fly for the first time.''

The plan is to connect an increasing number of small Indian cities and towns - tier II and tier III in Indian marketing speak - wherever the Airbus A320 can go.

He said internationally, the company would serve those markets which were already connected by the airline's group entities - AirAsia Malaysia, AirAsia Indonesia, AirAsia Thailand. ''We will be flying mostly to Malaysia, Indonesia and neighbouring SAARC countries as well. Bangladesh, Nepal and so on and so forth,'' he said.

Asked whether there would be any competition within the AirAsia Group, as AirAsia Malaysia and AirAsia Thailand operate, he replied in the affirmative, saying it will be healthy competition between the airlines.

''That is not a problem. I think there is enough demand for AirAsia Malaysia to grow and AirAsia India to grow.'' He said the customer would decide the flight to a destination, whether AirAsia Malaysia or AirAsia India. ''For the customer there will not be any difference. It will be an AirAsia plane, AirAsia service. There will not be any difference. Probably there may be (some difference) in the cabin crew,'' he said.

On pricing, he said, ''AirAsia Malaysia is an independent entity, AirAsia India is an independent entity. We will price according to what we feel is right. But ultimately, it is the consumers who will decide which flight they want to take.''

Referring to the Centre's ambitious UDAAN scheme which aims to connect under-served cities, Abrol said the airliner was not participating in the scheme because the planes owned by them were Airbus A320s.

The government's ambitious UDAN (Ude Desh Ke Aam Naagrik) scheme caps fares at Rs2,500 for a one-hour flight. It aims at boosting air connectivity to and from unserved and under-served airports and making flying more affordable.

''UDAAN scheme is typically meant for 10-seater or 15- seater ATRs. We have big planes. Hence we are not participating in the UDAN Scheme per se,'' Abrol said.

''Our focus has been on tier II and III cities. Because, we believe that is where quite a lot of demand is,'' he said. The company recently introduced flights on the Bhubaneswar-Chennai route. ''We are connecting Chennai to Bhubaneswar and we are not necessarily connecting Chennai to New Delhi, because that is a market which is already served very well,'' he said.

AirAsia India is a joint venture between Tata Sons Limited and AirAsia, with AirAsia Investment Limited. It commenced operations in June 2014 and currently flies to 17 destinations with its hubs in Bengaluru, New Delhi and Kolkata.In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!Metro Manila (CNN Philippines)  A Filipino-American Marvel artist made the undaunted female warriors of Wakanda look good while they go at lengths to protect fictional superhero Black Panther.

Anthony Francisco, Marvel's senior visual development illustrator, conceptualized the look of the soldiers in the top-grossing film "Black Panther."

"I've been really lucky. I helped visualize the look and costumes of the characters, while staying true to the Marvel Universe," he told CNN Philippines on Monday via Skype.

He started as a costume designer before he became a visual development illustrator.

He shared how he bagged the coveted job.

"The head of visual development, a good friend of mine also, decided to give me that task. I was up for it because I didn't design any women characters yet and with this one I really wanted to make it special. It was a challenge but I was ready for it," he said.

Growing up in the Philippines has served as Francisco's inspiration for the costume of the fearsome warriors that guard Wakanda's King T'Challa.

"I remember beading when I was younger, I remember the friendship bracelets we used to make as kids. Just the little projects at school that feels tribal, local. The ideas really help me tell the story," he said.

He added, "It's not just visual when you get inspiration. I get inspiration (from) just the memory of touching the material, the beading."

He revealed which local ethnic group gave him the most inspiration for the Dora Milaje warriors.

"I grew up in the Philippines and went to school there. I learned a lot of the tribal stuff. The Igorot always stuck in my mind for some reason," he said.

The Igorots are indigenous people living in the Cordillera Region located in the Northern Philippines.

"There's some hints of that in there, but mostly for inspiration, but still trying to focus on keeping it looking African," Francsico said.

He said Filipino culture was added as one detail to the costumes of the warriors.

He said a detail added to the costume of the warriors was inspired by amulets believed to give the wearer protection, strength, and prosperity.

"The little trinkets on the side of their skirts, thinking it's like an anting-anting. I don't know how anting-anting looks like but I know there's such a thing as that and I grew up with all those stories," he said.

Aside from the "Black Panther," we're sure his other work elicited an "awww" from you. Francisco also designed the adorable Baby Groot from 2017 film "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2."Manila (CNN Philippines Life)  For the 9 to 5 employees whose weekdays are dedicated to work, weekend travels serve as a breath of fresh air, and quite literally so. For the entrepreneurs and freelancers who have more flexible schedules, quick excursions provide that mental reset that allow them to perform better afterwards. With the advent of social media came a booming tourism industry, resulting in travel destinations climbing everyones bucket lists. Travelling is at the tip of everyones tongues lately, and has even become part and parcel of restoring ones mental health.

But when youre in Manila, you don't need to look far beyond the island of Luzon for that wondrous getaway, may it be a vast mountain range, a pristine beach, or a charming historical spot. There is a whole world out there waiting to be discovered, and from the swarming city of Manila, many of these locations are accessible via short bus rides or quick road trips.

Here are some noteworthy locations that are well worth spending a day trip at.

Mt. Balagbag, Rizal

Conquering mountains is a daunting task undertaken by many in exchange for spectacular views. Fortunately for fledgling trekkers, Mt. Balagbags peak offers a landscape so glorious its as if a long, grueling hike was needed to reach it. One of the easiest trails in Rizals mountain range, Mt. Balagbag is highly recommended for novice hikers and those looking to immerse in nature without the commitment of a difficult journey. The peak of Mt. Balagbag boasts a stunning landscape of Sierra Madres mountain range, and if you decide to camp out at night, you can marvel at a starry view and stunning perspective of scenic city lights. Since its trail doesnt provide any shade from towering trees, be prepared for when the heat is scorching.

Travel travel time from Manila: 2 hours

How to get there: To commute, go to Cubao and take a bus to Tungko. From Tungko, take a jeep to Licao-Licao then ride a tricycle or walk by foot going to Barangay Balagbag. To travel there using private transportation, head to Rodriguez, Rizal using Payatas Road. Once youve reached Barangay Macabud, take the uphill road leading to Licao-Licao. If your vehicle can handle rough roads, drive to Barangay Balagbag and if not, walk or ride a tricycle there instead.

With its silent atmosphere, delicious selection of organic food, and spaces for recreational activities and contemplation, Prado Farms allows guests to experience the slow-paced lifestyle thats highly sought-after in this day and age. Photos by DANNA PENA

Prado Farms, Pampanga

If youre looking to unwind and eat healthy while youre at it, Prado Farms is right up your alley. Located in the province of Lubao, Pampanga, Prado Farms is an eco-resort that instills mindfulness and eco-friendliness to its guests. Five hectares of its family-owned land is home to an organic farm, an eco-lodge, a church venue, a retreat center, a swimming pool, a repurposed art installation, and a spacious area for biking and strolling. Uniquely known for its charming and laid-back setting lined up with colorful Hispanic-inspired houses, the rustic location has been a favorite for prenuptial shoots, banquets, and company retreats. Most notably, spending a day trip or an overnight trip allows you to grab a taste of Prado Farms delicious, organically-grown Kapampangan food. The farm is also a pet-friendly space with limited wifi-covered areas.

Travel time from Manila: 2 hours

How to get there: To commute, go to Cubao or Pasay and take a bus bound for Mariveles, Bataan. Ask to be dropped off along Lubao Highway across Pradera Wake Park, where Prado Farms is located. To travel there using a private vehicle, drive to the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX), take the San Fernando exit, and keep going straight in Jose Abad Santos Avenue until you reach Prado Farms.

Hulugan Falls monumental size and relatively cool temperature give visitors an invigorating excursion. Photo by DANNA PENA

Hulugan Falls, Laguna

Laguna is well-known for its many hidden waterfalls and springs that are great alternatives to longer drives to the beach. A favorite of weekend warriors, its one of the nearest provinces from Manila that provides quick and refreshing getaways. One of its many treasures is Hulugan Falls, an immense waterfall that was opened to the public in late 2016. Although it is still less popular than the famous Pagsanjan Falls and Taytay Falls, it has been steadily gaining traction because of its formidable beauty and accessibility.

Since its townsfolk saw Hulugan Falls potential as a popular tourist spot, a road has been paved to get to its jump-off point, a system for tourists has been set in place, and jobs have been created for the waterfalls custodians. After conquering the 30 to 40-minute hike to the waterfall, take a dip in its chilly waters while admiring the spectacular view.

Travel time from Manila: 3 hours

How to get there: To commute, go to Cubao or Taft and ride a bus to Sta. Cruz, Laguna. From Sta. Cruz, Laguna, ride a jeepney going to Lucena or Lucban and tell the driver to drop you off at San Salvador, where you will find a sign of Hulugan Falls. To travel there using private transportation, take the South-Luzon Expressway (SLEX), exit in Calamba, keep going straight on the highway, turn right to Cavinti-Luisiana Road, and look out for a San Salvador/Hulugan Falls signage at your right side.

Every corner of Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar is laced with romance, charm, and a nostalgic aura that conjures vivid backstories. Photos by DANNA PENA

Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, Bataan

Immerse in Old Manilas charm by visiting Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, the only heritage site and resort destination in Bataan. From the charming architecture of the restored Spanish-Filipino houses to the vintage-inspired uniforms of its accommodating staff, stepping foot in Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar instantly transports you back to pre-20th century Philippines. Take their heritage tour that allows you to explore the casas and unravel the stories behind each of them. Leisurely stroll the brick pavements of its vast area and behold a view of horse-drawn carriages, an infinity pool, and a selection of quaint restaurants you can dine in. Indeed, Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar is an ardent homage to the rich Filipino heritage of the past for future generations to appreciate and learn from.

Travel time from Manila: 3.5 to 4 hours

How to get there: To commute, take a bus from Cubao to Balanga, Bataan. From the Bataan Transport Terminal, transfer to a bus bound for Bagac and then ride a tricycle to Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar. By private vehicle, take the North Luzon Expressway (NLEX), exit at San Fernando, and take the westbound side of Jose Abad Santos Avenue. Once you reach Dinalupihan, turn left at Roman Superhighway. Upon reaching Balanga City, turn right at Gov. J.J. Linao National Road and keep driving straight until you reach the town of Bagac. Follow the signs that point to Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar.

Chieftain Erese, the leader of the Aeta community of Sitio Yangil in Zambales, freshens up the carabao in the grueling heat. Carabaos are well taken care of and are considered blessings by the tribe as they help in transporting goods and resources. Photo by DANNA PENA

Tribes & Treks Tour, Zambales

Zambales is known for its pristine beaches and surf spots, but its also home to a different kind of travel experience that aims to make a difference to its Aeta community in Sitio Yangil. This socially responsible travel tour was made into existence by MAD Travel, a local social enterprise that creates socially impactful and eco-friendly travel tours in different parts of the Philippines. Take part of their Tribes & Treks tour in San Felipe, Zambales, where you can immerse in Aeta culture for a day or two and help them live sustainably by engaging in their reforestation projects and cultural activities. Some of the tours activities include trekking, swimming, tree-planting, archery lessons, singing, dancing, and eating homegrown organic food. Not only will you be surrounded by a bucolic setting, but you can also help the Aeta community in need, gain new friends, and expose yourself to eye-opening perspectives.

Travel time from Manila: 4 to 5 hours

How to get there: To join the Tribes & Treks Tour in Zambales, reserve a slot from MAD Travels official website. Coordinate your mode of transportation with MAD Travel.

Sepoc Beach is more secluded than your typical well-known beach in Batangas. Its rich marine life makes it a favored destination of divers. Photo courtesy of THE POOR TRAVELER BLOG

Sepoc Beach, Batangas

Although the Philippines weather can be unpredictable, one thing is certain: In the Philippines, its always summer somewhere. For those looking for a tropical paradise just a few hours away from Manila, the beaches in Batangas are a crowd favorite. Sepoc Beach, accessible by means of a short 15 to 20-minute boat ride from Eagle Point Resort in Batangas, is a less-crowded and equally stunning beach as its nearby counterparts like Sombrero Island and Masasa Beach. A top pick for team buildings and company outings, its also perfect for divers, snorkeling enthusiasts, and those who simply enjoy basking by the sea. While exploring the beach, make sure to climb its small hill to gaze at the panoramic view of Tingloys vast seascape.

Travel time from Manila: 3.5 to 4 hours

How to get there: Take a bus to Batangas from Buendia or Kamias. From the Batangas Grand Terminal, take a jeepney to Anilao, then ride a tricycle to Eagle Point Resort. From there, board a boat to Sepoc Beach. Advance reservations are required for boat transfers from Eagle Point Resort.

***

Photo of Sepoc Beach courtesy of The Poor Traveler Blog.Latest News

British Council invites applications from Indian education institutions for Going Global Partnerships grants The partnership is aimed to create joint bachelors, masters, diploma or certificate courses on themes of

Alert: REET admit card released; check details here REET 2021 recruitment is conducted to fulfil the requirement of 32000 Grade 3 teacher posts

UPSC CISF Interview Schedule 2020 released A total of 85 candidates have been selected to appear for the interview round(CNN)  Editor's Note: CNN is committed to covering gender inequality wherever it occurs in the world. This story is part of As Equals, a year-long series.

Lilongwe, Malawi  "I am strong," the girls chanted, their voices filling a classroom in the outskirts of Lilongwe, Malawi's capital. "I can use my voice. I can use my body!"

The group of about 50 schoolgirls, dressed in indigo uniforms, were being taught to fight off sexual assault. In front of them, Simang'aliso Domoya paced up and down, calling on the pupils to repeat her mantra: "I am beautiful, but I am dangerous!"

The girls, ages 11 to 16, looked at the instructor wide-eyed. Outside the classroom, other students gathered to peer through the windows.

Domoya is a coordinator for the Malawian non-governmental organization Ujamaa-Pamodzi, which teaches self-empowerment and self-defense in classrooms across the country.

The team uses vocal exercises and physical activities to teach girls how to speak out against assault, harassment, abuse, and -- if necessary -- how to physically fight off attackers.

It's a critical skill in the country, where one in five girls, and one in seven boys, are sexually abused before the age of 18, according to the 2014 Violence Against Children and Young Women in Malawi report.

The Ujamaa-Pamodzi course was adopted from the No Means No Worldwide program, an initiative to reduce sexual violence and assault in Kenya's capital. One study found that out of 522 girls, ages 14 to 21, who took the "consent classes" in Nairobi's Kaariobangi and Korogocho neighborhoods, more than half reported using the self-defense skills to avert sexual assault in the year after training.

Since the organization first began, Ujamaa-Pamodzi has taught around 25,000 girls and 12,000 boys.

Domoya said they split their instruction into verbal and physical -- and both play an important role.

"We encourage the girls to use their spirit to believe in themselves, and to know how defend themselves from assault," Domoya said. "We also have a safety goal: We encourage girls to get away in each and every situation -- not to fight, but to get away and use their voice to shout, yell and speak out."

Many of the girls CNN spoke with said the workshop has had a real-life impact. They asked that their names not be used in case of repercussions from their families.

One 15-year-old student told CNN that her sister's husband tried to rape her while she was living in the couple's home. "I used the verbal skills I learned from their workshop to end the assault, such as warning him I'd tell my sister," she said.

Later, she contacted one of the Ujamaa facilitators, who advised her to warn her brother-in-law that she would report him to a local child protection organization.

"They [Ujamaa] helped me speak out and use my voice," she said. "I learned how to help protect myself."

Harassment is normalized in Malawi, the girls say. A 12-year-old participant of the workshop said the skills she learned have given her confidence to act.

"When I'm walking home from school, sometimes men will try and stop me and touch me," she said. "And now ever since, I have pushed them off me, or I run away. I don't freeze up anymore."

The organization says the majority of cases can be stopped verbally. Their training focuses on self-defense tactics that target an attacker's eyes, back, groin and knees.

"Some people think at first, 'Oh, it's just about martial arts!' But it's more than that. It's helping to teach them to believe in themselves," Domoya said.

"The way they'll react to their father is different to how they will react to a stranger ... Their response will also differ depending on the attacker's height, weight, environment. We encourage them to speak to someone they trust, and to not give up hope -- to keep talking."

Beyond the practical life skills, the group also identifies survivors of sexual abuse and harassment in their sessions. So far, the staff have identified and supported more than 400 girls and boys.

They said the abuse of children is increasingly coming from teachers -- an issue they're tackling head-on in their workshops. Lessons involve a role-playing scenario in which a teacher harasses a pupil.

The group runs classes for boys, too, teaching them about everything from sexual health to healthy relationships, consent and peer pressure. They say the responsibility to end harassment and abuse is up to boys, too.

"To end abuse and gender-based violence, it's critical to include boys and men," Martin Ndirangu, the director of the group's operations in Malawi, said.

The organization also encourages boys to consider "what it means to be a man."

"We ask them: 'What does it mean to be a man?' What should they do?"

"We tell boys there are two moments -- one is ordinary moments, the other is moments of truth -- where they are put to the test to understand their values. We encourage them to be courageous about what they care about: their future, their family, whatever it means to them," Ndirangu added.

The response to the program from students is positive: Boys who had said they often feared peer pressure say they now understand the importance of having their own voice. Girls who were previously introverted and shy report a new level of confidence and ambition.

"If a man touches me, then I know no, that's not right," one girl said at the end of their session.

Ndirangu cited anecdotal evidence that the program has helped prevent cases of child marriages and teen pregnancies. But he said "raising awareness" isn't enough to help protect girls and boys in Malawi.

"We think awareness is one thing, but we don't really see change. It's not enough just going on radio talking about these things; we need to teach real-life skills. We know we are helping -- and we are seeing how they're using the skills in situations across Malawi every day."

This story was first published on CNN.com, Im beautiful, but I'm dangerous': Consent classes teach children no means no."



ADM, Cargill to launch soybean joint venture in Egypt





Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) and Cargill have reached an agreement to launch a joint venture which will provide soybean meal and oil for customers in Egypt.



The joint venture would own and operate the National Vegetable Oil Company soy crush facility in Borg Al-Arab along with related commercial and functional activities, including a separate Switzerland-based merchandising operation that would supply soybeans to the crush plant. Cargill is currently expanding the plant from 3,000 tonnes to 6,000 tonnes of daily crush capacity. The plant will be able to produce higher-protein soybean meal while reducing the need for soybean meal imports into Egypt .



"The joint venture brings together Cargill and ADM's operational and commercial expertise to meet growing local demand for higher-quality feed ingredients," said Roger Janson, head of Cargill's grain and oilseed business in EMEA. "This deal is part of our strategy to grow Cargill's business across Egypt and the North Africa region and helps us better serve customers in the market with safe, affordable and nutritious food."



"ADM is adding to its geographic footprint in regions of expanding growth, and we're particularly pleased to continue to enhance our capabilities in Egypt," said John Grossmann, ADM's president for EMEA (oilseeds crush). "Egypt is an important market where demand for high-quality soybean meal and oil is outpacing the rest of the world. By bringing together expertise and resources from two great companies, and by utilising an existing facility and infrastructure, this joint venture would be perfectly positioned to efficiently meet growing Egyptian demand."



The joint venture will be managed as a standalone entity consisting of equal ownership by ADM and Cargill, with a management team reporting to a board of directors appointed by the two parent companies. The joint venture's assets will not include Cargill's grain business and port terminal in Dekheila, or the ADM-Medsofts joint venture at the Port of Alexandria. Each company will continue its separate business activities in the country and region.



The deal, which is not yet complete, is subject to regulatory review. The companies hope to formally launch the joint venture in mid-2018.



South Africa grains sector seeks to stop 'anti-farmer' soy levy

South Africa's oil and protein seed industry has petitioned the court to prevent Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Senzeni Zokwana from enforcing a levy for breeding and technology on soybeans that would allegedly deprive farmers of benefits.

The industry in fact applied for such levy in December 2016 to remunerate local and international seed breeders for new cultivars and seed technology. Farmers hoped to get higher-yielding cultivars once this levy was in place.

In late February, Zokwana approved the levy, but directed that the Agricultural Research Council (and not seed companies) should be the preferred beneficiary of the entire levy. "This is basically hijacking our funds", complained Jannie de Villiers, CEO of Grain SA.

De Villiers claimed that there was no consultation with industry in making the change. "It negates the whole purpose of the levy", he said.

The industry, despite seeking the interdect, expressed its willingness to engage in a dialogue with Zokwana to find a better solution.

"This is a very unfortunate situation given the millions of rands (1 million rands=US$83,406) that the Department of Trade and Industry and the Department of Science and Technology have invested in the soy industry the past five years. The levy application was an integral part of the plan to grow the soy industry in South Africa", said Grain SA, which comprises South African grain producers.

By Fox News , Mar. 03, 2018





Something rare is happening ahead of the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries: There are no Clintons or Obamas running, or waiting in the wings.





It really is the first time since 1992 there isnt sort of an 800-pound gorilla, said Ray Buckley, chairman of the Democratic Party in New Hampshire, which hosts the first-in-the-nation primary.

Read More:



Join us - become an Elderado today at: LarryElder.com

Follow Larry Elder on Follow Larry Elder on Twitter

"Like" Larry Elder on Facebook



Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 4) - The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) said Saturday the government will dismantle more structures on Boracay if the proposed 60-day "tourist holiday" pushes through.

Speaking at a forum, DILG Assistant Secretary for Plans and Programs Epimaco Densing III said it would be better to temporarily stop tourists from entering Boracay as the government will have to demolish structures first.

"'Wag muna tayo magpapasok ng turista whether local or international o foreign para maayos talaga kasi maraming babakbakin (Let's not let foreign or local tourists enter first because we have to demolish a lot of structures)," he said. "Maraming babakbakin (We'll be demolishing a lot of things). I tell you there will be a lot of structures which will be dismantled and destroyed."

Densing issued the statement amid the government's proposal to close the island and rehabilitate it for a 60-day period.

The proposal was opposed by Boracay stakeholders and business owners, and they asked the government to shut down only the erring establishments.

READ: Duterte orders DENR to clean up Boracay in 6 months

The stakeholders said the temporary closure would affect those depending on the island for livelihood.

Boracay earned P56 billion in revenues in 2017 alone. According to the DILG, more than 17,000 workers are stationed on the island.

However, Densing also appealed to businessmen to cooperate with the government as it aims to fix the world-famous tourist destination.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), in cooperation with other agencies, is looking to solve sewage disposal issues, in addition to zoning violations by some establishments.

"To the businessmen in Boracay, nakikiusap na kami sa inyo. Milyon at bilyon na ang kinita niyo [we're asking for your understanding. You've earned millions, billions]....This may sound corny but we appeal to your love of country," he said.

Densing also slammed businessmen who only seek profit.

"Kaya nagkaganyan sa Boracay because you're very greedy and the businessmen are bullying government officials," said Densing.

[Translation:Boracay has turned into this because you're greedy and you are bullying government officials.]

He called on them to stop harassing government officials.

"Ano ba naman ang 60 days....Di naman mauubos pero niyo eh. Nandiyan na, kumita na kayo," he added.

[Translation: What's 60 days. Your money won't go away. It's there, you already earned.]

The DILG reported on Friday more than 800 establishments on Boracay island are facing various violations.

Meanwhile, the DENR said Friday it will reclaim four wetlands occupied by business establishments and illegal settlers on the island.

The island is one of the country's top tourist destinations. More than two million tourists visited it in 2017, according to the Malay Municipal Tourism office.

Its environmental issues were thrust into the limelight after President Rodrigo Duterte called it a "cesspool" and ordered the Environment Department to fix it within six months.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 5)  President Rodrigo Duterte will not attend the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit next week, his spokesperson said on Monday.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said Duterte considered the summit important, but had to attend to "developments at home."

He said some events, such as the Philippine Military Academy graduation on March 18, required the President's presence.

Duterte designated Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano as his "special personal representative" to the summit on March 17 to 18, Roque said.The 90th Annual Academy Awards was apparently a wild night for Jennifer Lawrence.

The actress was seen in not-so-rare form posing on the red carpet, laughing it up with Emma Stone, and hilariously climbing over chairs with a glass of wine in her hand.

J. Law Rules

The 27-year-old actress was the life of the party, from the red carpet arrivals to the very last minute of the show. Although Lawrence wasn't nominated for any awards this year, the actress was still the talk of the night.

The Red Sparrow actress wore a metallic Dior gown, which she showed off on the red carpet. During commercial breaks, the actress was captured climbing over multiple seats to get to back to her own with a glass of white wine in her hands.



Lawrence was also seen poking fun at her friend Emma Stone after Jimmy Kimmel jokingly referenced the Oscars "envelope gate" controversy that went down last year. The film LaLa Land mistakenly won Best Picture in 2017 but it was revealed a bit later that Moonlight was the real winner. Stone starred in Lala Land opposite Ryan Gosling.

pic.twitter.com/wMEkJUUFjB  best of emma stone (@picsofstone) March 5, 2018 jennifer lawrence laughing at emma when jimmy kimmel mentioned the la la land/moonlight gaffe in last year's #Oscars

Lastly, Lawrence was joined by veteran actress Jodie Foster on stage to present the award for Best Actress in a leading role. Foster used the opportunity to take a jab at Meryl Streep. The Silence of the Lambs actress came onstage using a pair of crutches, which led Lawrence to ask what happened to her. Foster the replied she was "I,Tonya'd" by Streep.

Originally, actor Casy Affleck was scheduled to present the prestigious honor but he backed out due to sexual assault allegations.

Lawrence is scheduled to reprise her role as Mystique in the upcoming X-Men film The Dark Phoenix. Her latest film Red Sparrow, which premiered on Mar. 2, tell the story of a Russian spy who fell in love with a CIA agent (Joel Edgerton). The film also stars Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Mary-Louise Parker, and Jeremy Irons.Meghan Markle's upcoming baptism is probably one of her biggest decisions yet, and the men in her life  dad Thomas Markle and soon-to-be husband Prince Harry  are not missing it for anything.

One of her preparations prior to her May wedding is to be baptized as an Anglican, as Meghan was raised as a Protestant and previously married to a Jewish, Trevor Engelson. An important decision the 36-year-made was reportedly not because of a request of her royal boyfriend, but as she thought it would be a sign of respect to Queen Elizabeth.

The event would not only mean so much for the Hollywood actress and her beau. It would also be meaningful for Meghan as, interestingly, this will be the first time the patriarch is going to meet Prince Harry, his near future son-in-law.

During their interview after their announcement of their engagement, Meghan admitted Prince Harry and Thomas have already talked, may be via phone or other means, but not in person. Now, fans would have to wait until the baptism to know the details of what the son-in-law and the bride's dad talked about.

Of course, her mom, Doria Ragland, will also attend the event, which is expected anytime this March. Unlike Meghan's dad, the matriarch had already met with Prince Harry in 2017, when she traveled to London to have some quality time with her daughter and the 33-year-old fifth to the throne.

Divorce

Thomas will be traveling from Mexico, while Ragland from California. Meghan's parents have divorced when she was just 6. Even so, the Suits actress and her mom remained close. So much so that a source revealed that the bride-to-be is thinking about her mom walking her to the altar.

When news about Prince Harry and Meghan's engagement erupted, Ragland and Thomas released a joint statement expressing their happiness for the couple.

"Our daughter has always been a kind and loving person. To see her union with Harry, who shares the same qualities, is a source of great joy for us as parents," the statement read.

Officiator

Meghan is set to be baptized and confirmed by Archbishop Justin Welby of Canterbury, also the same official to conduct their marriage, in Kensington Palace's chapel. She and Prince Harry will be tying the knot on May 19 at the Windsor Castle.

"She and Harry have been doing wedding prep with him," a source said referring to Meghan's choice of the archbishop officiating her baptism and confirmation.Academy-Award winning actress Nicole Kidman surely knows how to surprise fans every once in a while. While heading out to prepare for Oscars 2018, the Big Little Lies star greeted a couple of fans aboard a bus for the Access Hollywood tour.

As posted on Instagram, Kidman was seen in the most natural look on her way to Dolby Theater for the 90th Academy Awards. She rolled out her car window and slightly leaned forward, which was an absolute surprise to the people on the bus.

"Hi everyone," Kidman greeted, which was followed by gushes and squeals from the fans who then recognized her.

One of the fans complimented Kidman for being beautiful, to which the 50-year-old actress replied she is yet to do her hair and makeup. Kidman, who was seated in the backseat with a female companion, was visibly having a good time as they drove past the tour bus.

The Famous Oscar Clap

In 2017, Kidman made headlines for clapping weirdly during the 89th Oscar Awards. In a video clip that made rounds on Twitter, Kidman as seen clapping only with the bottom part of her palms. Fans thought it was funny, but the actress' explanation was perceived as even more hilarious.

In an interview with the Australian radio show Kyle and Jackie O, host Kyle Sandilands had a theory on Kidman's famous clap.

"I believe you were clapping like that because you had the rings on and you didn't want to damage the rings," Sandilands said.

Kidman responded in complete agreement, saying that she was more concerned about the ring being damaged, but she still wanted to applaud the winner.

"I'm so glad you clarified that because it was really awkward! I was like gosh, I want to clap, I don't want to not be clapping, which would be worse, right? 'Why isn't Nicole clapping?'" Kidman explained.

The ring Kidman was referring to is a 13.58-carat Harry Winston pear-shaped diamond ring. Each stone assembled together totaled 119 carats of expensive stones.

Big Little Lies

Although the Cold Mountain star was not nominated for an Oscars this year, Kidman has received multiple recognitions for the HBO miniseries Big Little Lies.

Kidman won the Emmy and Golden Globe awards for best actress for his performance of Celeste Wright for David E. Kelley's TV drama. The actress also snatched the award for the Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie by the Screen Actors Guild.

Kidman will instead present Academy awards together with co-Hollywood stars Emily Blunt, Sandra Bullock, Jane Fonda, Dave Chappelle, Jodie Foster, Ashley Judd, and Helen Mirren among others.The original ending to the horror-comedy masterpiece Get Out is an honest reflection of true-to-life events, but ultimately too dark to leave the audience with.

Get Out, which is applauded as much for its social commentary on racism as it is for its taut storytelling and direction, features a very satisfying conclusion for all the characters.

A Haunting End To Chris

In the final scenes of the movie, Daniel Kaluuya's Chris gets away with the murder of the Armitage family, just after stopping himself from strangling his girlfriend Rose. A police car approaches the carnage, but after a beat of fear for Chris, it ends up to be his friend Rod's TSA vehicle instead.

The original ending is much darker, though, with a realistic yet somber conclusion that has the protagonist incarcerated for the crime. Instead of Rod showing up in the thrilling end, it was the actual police who pulled up. With a glimpse of innocent Chris in handcuffs, likely to face the rest of his life behind bars, the events hit far too close to home.

"I'm good, I stopped them," a stone-faced Chris tells Rod when the TSA agent visits him in jail.

This ending, which producer Sean McKittrick calls the "sad truth" ending, was tested on an actual audience, who loved the movie but became visibly uncomfortable as the film wrapped with the bleak outcome.

While Kaluuya praises the new ending for staying honest, the Black Panther actor finds himself relating to the original as well.

"It was great because of what it said about life - there's this black guy who's really cool and went through this trauma, got through all this racism, and in fighting for himself he gets incarcerated," he says in an interview with Vulture. "That really resonated with me, because it showed me how unfair the system is."

A 'Victory' In The New Ending

Director and writer Jordan Peele, who earned countless of accolades for his first-time solo directing gig, opted instead for a more cathartic conclusion that leaves Chris a free man after escaping the clutches of the creepy Armitages.

"[The original] was a beautifully performed scene, a sad scene and very poignant and honest about what happens to so many people who find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time," writer-director Jordan Peele explains to Los Angeles Times. "But I realized I had asked the audience to sit through so much tension and claustrophobia, and to deny them that victory, it didn't make sense."

Peele points out that moment that the audience believes a police car approaches  a moment where one can easily see how bad things could go for Chris as a black man who just killed an entire family  hints at the message he wanted to achieve with the original ending.

"The audience gets that whole original ending in that moment," he says. "That's more powerful than if I'd told them what happened."Rising star Tiffany Haddish has never been one to follow the crowd. The actress-comedian proves her worth yet again at the Oscars.

Making A Statement

Girls Trip star Haddish made a couple pretty courageous fashion choices on the biggest night of the showbiz calendar. First and foremost, she swapped her Jimmy Choo stilettos for super comfy Ugg slippers to present an award.

Haddish was presenting alongside fellow comedian and actress Maya Rudolph who took off her heels to go barefoot. The two gave out the awards for Best Documentary Short Subject and Best Live Action Short Film.

Breakout star Haddish is having a massive year following the release of the hit comedy movie, in which she stole the show. She put on a suede and shearling style called the Coquette for a funny skit with Rudolph on the night.

Haddish also made waves for dusting off her by-now iconic white Alexander McQueen for the 2018 Oscars, her third time wearing it in public, which is unheard of in Hollywood.

Haddish previously wore the form-fitting gown while hosting Saturday Night Live in November of last year as well as to the Girls Trip premiere back then. It makes sense that the actress would want to get as much use out of the dress as possible, considering it reportedly cost a whopping $4,000.

Also, Haddish previously vowed to wear the dress to her grave and even took aim at critics during her opening SNL monologue.

"I feel like I should be able to wear what I want, when I want, however many times I want - as long as I Febreez it," Haddish joked at the time.

A Personal Choice

Haddish didn't wear it the entire evening, however, choosing to walk the red carpet in a traditional Eritrean dress as a tribute to the heritage of her late father who was from Eritrea.

The black, gold, and white dress and shawl inspired by Tsihaye Haddish, who died in 2017, caused quite a stir on the red carpet.

"He said one day I would end up here and if I ever ended up at the Oscars to honor my people so I'm honoring my fellow Eritreans," Haddish explained to reporters on the night.

The Girls Trip star felt unsure about what to wear to the 90th Academy Awards up until three days before Sunday. She did have her handbag ready to go, however.

"The one thing I have to have in my purse on Oscar Sunday is some breath mints because I'm definitely going to be eating," Haddish told PEOPLE.

Haddish misplaced her Fendi makeup bag at the Essence Black Women event last Thursday but assured her social media followers of its safe return.In a move to delight both those in attendance and at home, a jet ski is offered as a prize for the shortest Oscar speech.

The 'Biggest Award' Of The Night

Host Jimmy Kimmel, perhaps cognizant of how lengthy and drawn out the ceremony tends to be, made the pronouncement early at this year's biggest show in Hollywood.

Kimmel even joked during the opening monologue that the first ever Oscars show only lasted 15 minutes, but there were still complaints afterward.

"Why waste precious time thanking your mom when you could be taking her for the ride of her life: on a brand new jet ski! This is not a joke. I will be timing you. I have a stopwatch," he advised.

In a move meant to honor that super brief ceremony, Kimmel announced that a brand new jet ski would be awarded to the Oscar winner who could give the shortest acceptance speech on the night.

In case of a tie-breaker, however, Christopher Plummer, up for All the Money in the World after taking over at the last minute from disgraced actor Kevin Spacey, would win the jet ski instead.

The host kept the star-studded audience up to date about the contest throughout the night. Following Sam Rockwell's speech for Best Supporting Actor in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, he revealed that one minute and 29 seconds was the time to beat.

At one point, Kimmel even sweetened the pot by offering a stay at the Days Inn in Arizona due to what he felt was a lack of interest in the competition.

Taking It Seriously

Get Out writer-director Jordan Peele, accepting his award for Best Original Screenplay, tried to shush those cheering him. Peele noted that he would lose out on the jet ski if they wasted any more of his precious time onstage.

On the opposite end of the spectrum was legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins. Winning for Blade Runner 2049 for the very first time following a whopping 14 nominations, Deakins quipped he wasn't too pushed on winning the jet ski.

"I better say something or they're going to give me a jet ski. And I don't see myself on a jet ski," he joked.

Likewise, Best Actor winner Gary Oldman complained he wouldn't get to win if he didn't wrap up his lengthy acceptance speech soon.

Once all was said and done, Kimmel announced that Phantom Thread costume designer Mark Bridges won the Oscar's shortest acceptance speech and would be taking home the jet ski.

The audience then applauded as Bridges, clad in a life jacket and flanked by Dame Helen Mirren, "rode" off the Dolby Theater stage into the night.

Mirren appeared earlier to show off the prize in The Price Is Right fashion clad in a sparkly number and sashaying on the stage in what was one of the funniest moments of the night. Bridges's speech reportedly clocked in at a paltry 36 seconds total.Actress Olivia Munn dishes on some interesting advice she received from her gal pal, Kim Kardashian.

Munn wasn't shy when she spoke highly of her friendship with Kardashian star and that the reality star is the best person to get advice from.The Ride Along 2 actress revealed that she and Kardashian have been friends for a long time.

When she decided to freeze her eggs, it washer BFF Kim K who advised her to do so and gave her all the information she needs to know. Munn even went to the same doctors her close friend had gone to in the past.

"I was like, 'Well, there's no reason to, but I wanted to.' I think every woman should, honestly. Later on, when women are going through in vitro it's hard because you are just scrambling to get some eggs. I was able to just store a ton," the actress stated.

Munn went on to gush about being friends with the beauty mogul and mom of three.

"Kim and I have been friends for a long time. A really long time. I'm so proud of everything that's she's done. She's a really, really good human being. Honestly, out of all of my girlfriends, she is the most knowledgeable. If you want to know about anything, she's the girl. Truly," Munn added.

Flashback to @theellenshow 's birthday party with @oliviamunn A post shared by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Feb 19, 2018 at 10:14am PST Feb 19, 2018 at 10:14am PST

The two gal pals were together at Ellen DeGeneres's epic 60th birthday bash. Kardashian's husband Kanye West, a hip-hop mogul and artist, was also in attendance.

Kardashian recently welcomed her third child and second daughter, Chicago West, via surrogacy on Jan. 15, 2018. The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star has a son, Saint and another daughter, North. The new mom chose surrogacy to bring her next child to the world after having difficult pregnancies with both of her older children.

The reality star was open about her issues in the past with infertility, which led to her freezing her own eggs but Kardashian also suffered from placenta accreta during her pregnancies. Placenta accreta is a rare but serious condition where the placenta grows so deeply into the uterus that it cannot be separated after delivery.

Kardashian stated that she experienced a painful delivery with both her children and that if she wanted more, it would be too risky for her to carry them.While everyone was in Los Angeles for the 90th Academy Awards, Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott decided to get away for a quick "baecation."

On Sunday, March 4, the new parents were spotted out in Miami, Florida, for what seems to have been a parents-only date as their baby daughter, Stormi Webster, wasn't present.

TMZ caught the couple snuggled up as they arrived at Seaspice in Miami on hospitality guru David Grutman's SS Groot boat.

This was a rare public appearance for the two as they have not been spotted out together since their lunch date at Nobu restaurant in Malibu, California, on Feb. 24.

For this latest outing, Jenner opted for a black hoodie with black shorts and Scott sported a white t-shirt with black pants. According to People, the pair held hands as they snuck past guests to get to the private terrace, AIR.

Jenner and Scott were also joined by a group of friends as they all enjoyed the seafood tower, pasta, and sipped on Rose Piscine and champagne, while Kylie drank a sparkling water.

Stormi Continues To Make An Apperance

Before getting away with her baby daddy, Kylie showed off her baby girl on Snapchat on Saturday, March 3.

The first-time mom shared the first close-up video of Stormi on her social media accounts. In the video, Stormi could be seen with Snapchat's fire filter as she sucks on a purple pacifier. She is wearing a white onesie top that covers her hands and head.

"My pretty girl," Jenner captioned the video.

Scott took to his Instagram account to share a screenshot of the video.

"Our little rager !!!!" the rapper wrote.

This was Stormi's third debut this month as both Kylie and Scott celebrated the newborn on March 1 as she turned one month.

Kylie posted two photos of herself cradling Stormi and Scott shared a photo of her in a cozy pink sweater that had a red heart on it which read "DADDY."

Kylie Gives Birth To Stormi

Kylie gave birth to Stormi on Feb. 1 but did not confirm her arrival until Feb. 4.

The cosmetics mogul took to Instagram to express her excitement about welcoming her first child.

"My beautiful and healthy baby girl arrived February 1st and I just couldn't wait to share this blessing. I've never felt love and happiness like this I could burst!" the 20-year-old wrote.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 5)  The Palace expressed its gratitude to the European Union (EU) after it offered 243.35 million (3.8 million) to fund drug rehabilitation centers.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said President Rodrigo Duterte is amenable to accepting any aid but without any conditions.

The EU said there is no condition attached to the aid.

"The President will not compromise the nation's dignity over an amount of foreign aid," Roque said. "He will reject, as he did in previous occasions, offers of assistance with any condition that would interfere with our domestic policies," he added.

Roque said the EU's donation is in line with the Duterte administration's "holistic approach" in addressing the drug problem.

The administration, he said, is treating the drug problem "not just as a national security issue but a public health concern as well, including rehabilitation and reintegration of the drug dependents.

The Palace spokesperson said the donation will be given to the Department of Health.

European Commission's Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development Stefano Manservisi said on Friday, the 243.35 million aid is only part of the 10.6 billion the union is planning to donate for more development projects in the Philippines until 2020.

READ: EU to provide 240M for PH drug rehabilitation program

Duterte has criticized the EU since the body took a strong stance against the administration's war on drugs.

READ: Duterte to EU: Stop meddling in Philippine affairs

Duterte announced in May 2017 it would no longer accept EU aid, as the President claimed it comes with conditions for the Philippines, particularly on human rights and the rule of law.

In December 2017, the country formally rejected 6.1 million (382.45 million) in aid from the EU.

READ: PH rejects 6.1 million in EU aid

CNN Philippines' Ina Andolong contributed to this report.GOP avoids becoming pinata through no fault of its own By Michael R. Shannon

The stubborn intransigence of the Partido Democrata de los Estados Unidos may have just cost it the 2018 midterm election. Ill admit Im in awe of the influence a large group of entitled, ungrateful and antiAmerican illegals has over Democratas, but this time the slavish devotion leftist politicians have to these invaders backfired. (Which brings to mind a related point. Shouldnt the Partido Democrata be required to register as a foreign agent? If Paul Manafort can be indicted by Robert Ahab Mueller for failing to register in connection with work for the Ukraine  a nation with zero influence in Congress  it seems only fair that a political party which spends most of its time representing noncitizen lawbreakers should be forced to register, too. Besides, its becoming obvious there was no significant Russian 2016 election meddling or collusion. While evidence of the influence Mexico has on elections goes completely uninvestigated.) It would have been easy enough for Democratas to agree to partial funding for Trumps wall  AKA the Muro de Humillacion and then conveniently forget about it just as they did after Reagans onetimeonly amnesty. This strategy would have had two advantages. It would have cleared Democratas offices of the screaming, aggressive moochers known as  Sonadores, while almost guaranteeing a midterm Republican wipeout. The promise of a wall in the future would not have been enough to overcome an amnesty in the present for conservatives. While energized leftists descended on the polls, enervated conservatives wouldve stayed home. Passiveaggressive Curator of the Senate Mitch McConnell would have returned to minority status, along with Paul Rino. That didnt happen. Not because crony conservatives decided to represent citizens instead of the Chamber of Commerce and the Kochs. The GOP wasnt opposed to the citizenship giveaway. McConnell and Ryan wouldve been happy to simultaneously display their compassion and political death wish by passing a DACA/Sonadores amnesty. What prevented amnesty was Trumps promise to veto any bill that didnt contain funding for the wall. The GOP Jellyfish caucus didnt suddenly become immigration hardliners who believe citizenship is more than a cheap geography prize that can be traded for votes. Republicans didnt want to be embarrassed by a Trump veto. In turn, Trump was saved from betraying his base by Democratas  anticitizen fanaticism. Even though the DACA amnistia was temporarily defeated, the existing political situation for conservatives remains unchanged. Country club Republicans running the House and Senate continue to view the conservative base the same way arrogant explorers viewed natives in Africa: Conservatives are dangerous savages useful for toting ballot boxes on their head while the master is in the bush, but they must be thoroughly housebroken before being allowed into polite society. Conservatives are stuck in a situation thats worse than the French in 1942. Were ruled by a Vichy government filled with accommodationist weaklings and our DDay reinforced the enemy instead of providing victory. The only way the political situation will change is if conservatives act unilaterally to change it. And this brings us back to my Lose the House to Win the Future strategy. The cocktail conservatives of the GOP establishment must be sent a message that will smash the impervious barrier of complacency and arrogance that surrounds their Capitol Hill offices. Conservatives must change their voting behavior in November 2018. Instead of holding your nose and voting for some caretaker conservative, I want you to cast a writein ballot for Mark Meadows, chairman of the genuinely conservative House Freedom Caucus. Resist the temptation to write in Mickey Mouse or some other cartoon character. Thats a mistake that will result in your vote being dismissed as a frivolous vote. A nationwide writein campaign where conservatives write Meadows name on the Congressional ballot will be a message thats impossible for even the congenitally oblivious McConnell to ignore. Losing the House will also help. Let me stress House votes are the only change for conservatives. Votes for Senate GOP candidates remain unchanged, even if your only choice is a media parasite like Lindsey Graham (RAmnesty). It simply takes too long to regain control of the Senate. I know newly empowered House Democratas will pass gun confiscation bills, grant illegal aliens citizenship and demand Baptists dance at samesex weddings, but it wont matter. The bills will die in the Senate or Trump will veto. What will matter is seatwarming Republicans will see what their future holds if they continue to alienate conservatives. If the GOP proves theyve embraced RINO Reform, then go back to voting as usual in 2020. Trump will win and for the first time hell have a genuinely conservative and motivated congressional majority with which to work. Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at mandate.mmpr (at) gmail.com. He is also the author of Conservative Christian's Guidebook for Living in Secular Times (Now with added humor!). HomeWill Congress finally get tough on junk science? By Paul Driessen

A growing problem for modern industrialized Western societies is the legion of government agencies and unelected bureaucrats and allied nongovernmental organizations that seem impervious to transparency, accountability or reform. Their expansive power often controls public perceptions and public policies. Prominent among them are those involved in climate change research and energy policy. In recent years, they have adjusted data to fit the dangerous manmade climate chaos narrative, while doling out billions of taxpayer dollars for research that supports this perspective, and basing dire predictions and policy demands primarily on climate models that assume carbon dioxide now drives climate and weather (and the sun, water vapor, ocean currents and other powerful natural forces have been relegated to minor roles). Reform is essential. Meanwhile, another troubling example underscores the scope of the problem and the difficulties Congress and other government administrators face when they try to rein in rogue agencies. In November 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology sent the UNs International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) a letter raising questions about scientific bias, secrecy and corruption at the agency. When IARC obfuscated the issues, the committee sent a second letter, seeking answers within a week. Otherwise, the Committee said, it would consider whether the values of scientific integrity and transparency are reflected in IARC monographs and if future expenditures of federal taxpayer dollars need to continue. The United States is the IARC monograph programs biggest contributor, having given it nearly $50 million to date. Agency director Dr. Christopher Wild bided his time four weeks before replying (many would say rather testily and condescendingly) and concluding: IARC would be grateful if the House Science Committee would take all necessary measures to ensure that the immunity of the Organization, its officials and experts, as well as the inviolability of its archives and documents, are fully respected. [emphasis added] Refusing to be cowed, on February 6 the committee held a hearing, In Defense of Scientific Integrity: Examining the IARC Monograph Programme and Glyphosate Review. Evidence presented revealed that the monograph program is an antiquated approach that simply tries to determine from laboratory studies whether a particular chemical might cause cancer in test animals, even if only at ridiculously high levels that no human would or could ever be exposed to in the real world. IARC performs no actual risk assessments that examine the potency of a substance to humans or the level of exposure at which the substance might actually have an adverse effect on people. It thus places bacon, sausage, plutonium and sunlight together in Group 1, its highest risk category: definitely carcinogenic. This provides no useful information from a public health perspective, but does give ammunition to activists who want to stoke fear and get chemicals they dislike banned. IARCs Group 2B carcinogens include caffeic acid, which is found in coffee, tea, and numerous healthy, must-eat fruits and vegetables, including apples, blueberries, broccoli, kale and onions. This group also includes acetaldehyde, which is found in bread, ginkgo balboa and aloe vera, lead Science Committee witness Dr. Timothy Pastoor noted in his testimony. As Pastor also pointed out during the hearing, countless chemicals could theoretically cause cancer in humans at extremely high doses  but are completely harmless at levels encountered in our daily lives. But its not just IARCs overall approach that raises questions. As investigative journalists David Zaruk and Kate Kelland discovered, serious allegations have also been raised regarding the integrity of IARCs review process. These include evidence that IARC deleted or manipulated data  and covered up major conflicts of interest by agency panel members who were employed by environmental activists and mass tort plaintiff attorneys who are targeting the very chemicals the panelists were reviewing and judging. IARCs latest quarry is glyphosate, the worlds most widely used herbicide. The principal ingredient in the weed killer RoundUp, glyphosate is vital in modern agriculture, especially no-till farming. The European Food Safety Authority, European Chemicals Agency, German Institute for Risk Assessment, US Environmental Protection Agency and other experts all found that glyphosate is safe and non-carcinogenic. So did the 25-year, multi-agency US Agricultural Health Study (AHS), which analyzed data on more than 89,000 farmers, commercial applicators, other glyphosate users and their spouses. IARC alone says glyphosate is likely a cancer-causing agent  contradicting every other regulatory and reputable scientific body around the world. How could it possibly reach such a different conclusion? According to Zaruk, Kelland and committee members, IARC deliberately ignored the AHS analysis. The chairman of the IARC working group on glyphosate later admitted in a sworn deposition that this study would have altered IARCs analysis. When an animal pathology report clearly said researchers unanimously agreed glyphosate had not caused abnormal growths in mice they had studied, IARC deleted the problematical sentence. In other cases, IARC panelists inserted new statistical analyses that effectively reversed a studys original finding, or quietly changed critical language exonerating the herbicide. Meanwhile, Dr. Christopher Portier, the consulting expert for the working group that labeled glyphosate as probably cancer-causing, admitted in his own sworn testimony that  just a few days after IARC announced its guilty verdict  he signed a contract to serve as consultant to a law firm that is suing the chemicals manufacturer (Monsanto) based on that verdict. Portier collected at least $160,000 just for his initial preparatory work. Adding to the confusion and collusion, say Committee members, Linda Birnbaums $690-million-per-year National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences (in the National Institutes of Health) has been collaborating with the same government agencies, pressure groups, trial lawyers and yet another anti-chemical activist organization, the Ramazzini Institute in Italy. This is not science. It is corruption distortion and fraud  supported by our tax dollars and used to get important chemicals off the market. The end result, if not the goal, is to undermine public confidence in science-based risk assessments, lend credibility to activist campaigns claiming numerous chemicals contaminate our foods and poison our bodies, and enable predatory tort lawyers to get rich suing manufacturers and driving them into bankruptcy. Dr. Wilds letters clearly suggest that IARC views the Science Committees concerns about the agencys lack of scientific integrity and transparency as irrelevant  as a mere irritant, a minor threat to his agencys unbridled power  and something the US government will ultimately do nothing to correct. We will soon find out whether IARC is right  or if Congress is finally ready to play hardball with this unethical UN agency. Its also an important test for congressional oversight, spine and intestinal fortitude on holding other deep state agencies accountable for how they spend our money, what kind of science or pseudo-science they support and conduct, and how they will affect or even determine the public policies that in so many ways are the foundation of our economy, livelihoods and living standards. PS: The Science Committee has also discovered that Vladimir Putins Internet Research Agency engaged in significant hacking, to inflame social media and instigate discord over US energy development and climate change policies  while Putin cronies laundered millions to fund radical green organizations. That too must be addressed by Congress and administrative agencies, including the Justice Department. Paul Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org) and author of books and articles on energy and environmental policy. HomeOn the 170th anniversary of Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto  can Marx be re-interpreted as a critic of late modernity? (Part Two) By Mark Wegierski

Given the apparent irrelevance of "classical Marxism" by the 1960s -- especially in regard to such areas as its underdeveloped theories of psychology, art, religion, and literature, and its thin materialism -- there arose varieties of "neo-Marxism." The presence of "neo-Marxism" allowed for the countering of the more common criticisms of earlier Marxist thought, which were now simply categorized as describing a "vulgar Marxism" that the new Marxist theorists did not themselves hold. In the attempt to "rescue" a more subtle Marx, great attention was paid to Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844  which were fully published in English only in 1959. There were also, among the leading innovations of neo-Marxism -- especially as seen in the thought of Frantz Fanon  the embrace of social outcasts, racial and sexual minorities, and the Third World, in the face of what were characterized as the "embourgeoified" white working classes. What classical Marxism had disparagingly termed "the lumpenproletariat" now became to a large extent the focus of revolutionary energies for the neo-Marxist theorists. Also important for neo-Marxism was Antonio Gramsci, whose claim to fame was the idea -- in contrast to classical Marxism -- that the "ideological superstructure" would actually bring into being the social and economic facts of "the base" -- hence the need for "an intellectual war of position" and "the march through the institutions" in order "to capture the culture." The existence of, and need to engage in, cultural warfare -- can be seen as an idea with great cachet in virtually every part of today's political spectrum. While remaining within the broad confines of Marxist class categories, it is possible to argue that what was actually happening in the 1960s revolutions in America was the creation by the now-deracinated haute-bourgeoisie of new ideological structures that would allow it to re-establish its dominance over the working majority. The triumph of the working majority in America -- when a factory-worker was able, by his own labor, to earn enough to support his wife and family -- was to be short-lived. These new ideologies combined counter-cultural lifestyles, mass media saturation, juridical and administrative social engineering, consumerism, and corporate capitalism, which led to ensuring again the dominance of a narrow ruling group. Policies such as mass, dissimilar immigration and (what is now called) outsourcing were driven by the impulse to strengthen the consumerist-capitalist system -- a system which was, of course, much different from nineteenth-century bourgeois capitalism. Paul Edward Gottfried, a leading American paleoconservative theorist, has argued that the Communists in the Soviet Union and East-Central Europe, as well as Communist party members in Western Europe, were, to a large extent, socially-conservative. Indeed, the Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) (as the Communist party was formally called in Poland) after 1956 had certain nationalist elements. It may be remembered that the quasi-"Trotskyite" opposition to the PZPR in the 1960s, characterized the PZPR as "too nationalist", "too traditionalist" and "too conservative" -- in fact, they openly called it "fascist." Indeed, it could be argued that the main thrust of the Mensheviks, Trotsky and his disciples, and such figures as Rosa Luxembourg has been to be more consistently anti-nationalist, anti-traditionalist, and anti-conservative than "mainline" Communism. Gottfried's central argument is that, as the Communist and former Communist Parties in Western and East-Central Europe mostly embraced capitalism, consumerism, multiculturalism, and anti-national high immigration policies, they objectively became less, not more "conservative". The East-Central European Communist Parties' embrace of capitalism also appears to have been characterized by the phenomenon of what is called the empropertyment of the former nomenklatura (in Polish: uwlaszczenie nomenklatury)  which was mainly achieved through the sell-out of state industries to former Communist party insiders and foreign companies at ridiculously low prices. So the former Communist party insiders have in many cases become fabulously wealthy, capitalist bosses. It had also been argued in the 1970s and 1980s that the Soviet and Eastern European Communist regimes -- with their "ruling Party caste" (nomenklatura) were ripe for a "true Communist revolution." Indeed, in many Western countries -- though probably to a lesser extent in Poland -- much of the rhetorical appeal of the Solidarity independent trade-union movement (which was said to be truly representing the Polish working class) was based on echoes of Marxist thought. However, what can be said of the situation today, when the economic "shock-therapy" which supposedly represents capitalism, has bitten hard, especially in Poland? The contrasts of wealth and poverty in Poland have arguably increased beyond anything seen during the Peoples Republic of Poland (PRL). It could be rhetorically asked, is now actually the time for a "true Communist revolution" in Poland? One of the most interesting interpreters of Marxism of Polish background -- who moved intellectually through various Marxist phases, but embraced elements of moderate conservatism towards the end of his life -- was Leszek Kolakowski. To be continued. Mark Wegierski is a Canadian writer and historical researcher. HomeOil market fears: War, default and nuclear weapons



By Nick Cunningham

The U.S. is one of the few areas of the world in which there is an energy investment boom underway, a development that could smooth out the uncertainties of geopolitical events around the world. At the same time, outside of the U.S., there is a deterioration of stability in many oil-producing regions, aggravating risks for both oil companies and the oil market, according to a new report.



Financial risk firm Verisk Maplecroft explores these two trends as they play out simultaneously. The U.S. shale sector has emerged from years of low oil prices, damaged but still intact. Importantly, the shale industry "can ride out price dips and respond quickly to upticks, weakening OPEC in the process," James Lockhart-Smith, director of financial sector risk at Verisk Maplecroft, wrote in the report. Combined with deregulation at the federal level, the oil industry is in the midst of an investment boom in the U.S.



Meanwhile, things are not so rosy elsewhere. Verisk Maplecroft surveyed a long list of countries, and produced its Government Stability Index (GSI), which uses some predictive data and analysts forecasts to take stock of geopolitical risk in various countries over the next few years.



The results are not encouraging. The number of countries expected to see a deterioration of stability "significantly outnumber those we see becoming more stable," the firm said. The reasons are multiple, including low oil prices, but also the erosion of democratic institutions.



"We don't see increasing instability necessarily ending in coups or significant political upheaval, but a less predictable above-ground-risk environment is likely to emerge," Verisk Maplecrofts Lockhart-Smith said. "Arbitrary decision making, possible measures to buy off key stakeholders or an inability to pass regulatory reforms will be the main risks to projects in these countries, as their governments seek to stabilize and maintain their influence."



Not all of the countries expected to suffer from a decline in stability are that important for the oil market, such as Romania or Kenya. Also, some countries might be on an improving path, but at the same time present a downside risk that, while unlikely, could be huge.



In this case, Iraq stands out. Verisk Maplecroft says that Iraq "has a business-friendly upstream environment" and the forecast is for stability to improve. However, even if it seems somewhat reasonable that things could trend in the right direction, the downside risk is massive. And there are is no shortage of potential catalysts: The report points to elections in May, plus the "deep ethno-sectarian divisions and weak institutions."



Venezuela is another obvious flashpoint. The deterioration of the countrys economy and oil sector have been profound. But Venezuela also illustrates a different problem  that disruption need not come from a coup, a civil war or some other obvious geopolitical development. Verisk Maplecroft points to the purge of state-owned PDVSA following the unsuccessful coup in 2002 as a poignant example. The countrys oil production has steadily eroded over the past decade and a half since the Venezuelan state sacked experienced professionals at PDVSA and used revenues for other purposes while failing to invest in existing oil assets.



Verisk Maplecroft argues that Egypt is a potential contemporary example of that phenomenon. The increasingly authoritarian government in Cairo could roll back the policies that attracted investment from oil and gas companies in the first place over fears of a popular uprising.



Finally, one of the more intriguing cases is that of Russia, the largest oil producer in the world. Verisk Maplecroft sees little risk of political upheaval as Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks another six-year term in March, but a battle could ensue in the upcoming years over his succession when his term is up in 2024, and "factional struggles between liberals and statist former security officials are already ramping up in anticipation of his exit," the report says.



Verisk Maplecroft puts the odds of a general deterioration of political stability in Russia through 2021 at 90 percent, and the "oil sector will be a strategic prize in this battle, not least because Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin is a central protagonist."



In the near-term, there are two huge geopolitical threats to the oil market, but neither seem all that likely. Verisk Maplecroft says a potential war on the Korean Peninsula or a war between Iran and Saudi Arabia are the largest threats to the oil market, but both situations, while tense, will probably stop short of outright military conflict. Still, the mere threat of conflict, could add to the risk premium for crude oil prices.



Nick Cunningham is a writer for Oilprice.com where this originally appeared. HomeWritten by ACM





*Strasbourg/Angelo Marcopolo/- Shortly before Important CoE's PanEuropean Political Meetings in Paris, where Syria, including the Turkish Military Invasion at its Kurdish Region of Afrin, is due to be discussed, (See: ....), UN Security Council's Unanimous recent Resolution for a Cease-Fire in that Country is Repeatedly Violated by Turkey's Military Invasion, which is more and more Violently Aggressing, Occupying, Bombing, Selling and Killing both pro-Syrian Government Forces and Kurds at the Region of Afrin, despite several Top Political Calls (including by France and the UN) to Respect International Law, (See Infra).



---------------------------------



- The Unanimously Adopted UN SC Resolution, of 24 February 2018, "reaffirms" a "Strong Commitment to the Sovereignity, Independence, Unity and Territorial Integrity of Syria", "recalls the Legal Obligations ... to Cease all Attacks against Civilians", and clearly "Demands that All parties Cease Hostilities, withOut Delay", "for at least 30 consecutive Days, Throughout Syria" (1st Article).



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

+ UN SC Resolution also asks for "Negotiations" between the "Parties" involved in the Syrian Conflicts, and this Includes practically Anyone with the Sole Exception of ISIL, Al-Queda and other Terrorist Organisations officially Declared by the UNO as such.



I.e. something which Excludes an important Part of Eastern Ghouta's various (even Foreign) Jihadists, but, on the Contrary, should, normaly, Include Syrian Kurds of YPD/SDF, as those who Face Turkish Attacks in Afrin's area, and notoriously are the Best Allies of the USA-led International Coalition against ISIL's Deadly Islamist Terrorists cowardly Targetting Civilian People.

But Turkey still persists to Refuse any Peaceful Negotiation with the Syrian Kurds, who did Not Attack Turkey, but, on the Contrary, Helped to Fight against ISIS' Horrible Terrorism. And Now, Ankara also Refused, de facto, any Negotiation even with the Syrian Government on Afrin, Despite crystal-clear Condemnations, by Damascus, of the Turkish Military Invasion still going on inside Syria, blatantly Violating its Sovereignity, Territorial Integrity, and International Law.



On the Contrary, the Turkish Military has even Started to Target pro-Syrian Goverment Forces, as reveals also the latest WarPlane Bombings of a former Russian Base in Afrin, where it has just Killed about 40 Persons after more than 5 Hours of Deadly Aerial Attacks, (See Infra).



----------------------------------------------

UN SC CEASE-FIRE VIOLATIONS

BY TURKEY's SYRIA INVADING TROOPS, GO CRESCENDO...

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Already while UNO's Top Political Body was discussing Cease Fire in Syria at New York, during February 24, the Turkish Military Invades and Occupies 2 Syrian Kurdish Villages at Afrin Region : Hecilere and Abu Kab, adding even Deadly Air Strikes which killed Syrian Pro-Government Fighters in Raju's area.



=> And, Scandalously, the only thing that Turkey did, just 1 Day AFTER that important UN SC Resolution (on 25 February) was, on the Contrary, to ... Attack, Invade and Occupy Seven (7 !) Villages in the Syria's Kurdish Region of Afrin : "Samalik, Sheykh Muhhamadli, Welikli, Dudah, Kavanda, Maydan Ikbis" and, later, even "Umranli" !....



Such an Exceptionaly Big Push for Violent Army Attacks and extended Military Invasion and Occupation of 7 More Villages in just 2 Days, as that of Turkish Military inside the Syrian Kurdish Region of Afrin; was Not Observed at Any Other Area of Syria, by Anybody Else then, as, f.ex., a relevant, Chronological MAP of the Syrian Conflict clearly revealed, (See, f.ex., relevant Screenshot of the "SyrianCivilWarMap"'s Data, taken by "Eurofora" then).



----------------------



>>> So that French President, Emmanuel Macron, was obliged, on February 26, to call Turkish President Tayip Erdogan by Phone, in order to "underline that UNO's Security Council decided, as a matter of Absolute Necessity, to Cease Fire", and that this "must be, Immediately and Fully, Respected, in order to put a Stop to Indiscriminate Bombing", as an Official Press Communique of Elysee Palace, stressed that Day.



+ Macron also "stressed", speaking to Erdogan, that "the Humanitarian Truce applied throughout All the Territory of Syria, INCLUDING AFRIN" Kurdish region, as the French Presidential Palace made it Clear.



-------------------------------------------------------------



=> But the Only "Reply" is, in Fact, Later that Same Day : February 26, for Ankara's Troops to Attack and Add +2 More Syrian Kurdish Villages of Afrin Region under Turkish Military Occupation : Anqalah and Sinnarch... While, on February 28, the Turkish Army launches an Attack against Badinli Village, which is, reportedly, "repelled" by the Syrian Kurds at the last minute.



+ Moreover, in Parallel, Turkish-Backed Islamist Armed Gangs, such as "Jabhat Tahrir Souriya (Ahrar al-Sham and Nour al-Din al-Zinki)", apparently coming from Nearby Idlib Region, (the Notorious "Snake-Pit" of Islamist Extremists and Al-Queda-like Terrorists, over-Concentrated near Turkey's Borders, since the Beginning of the Syrian Conflict, and even More After ISIL's Brutal Jihadists were Recently Defeated almost Everywhere Else throughout Syria), reportedly "Captured" the Kurdish Villages of Qah and Darat, (which had Already been Occupied, Earlier, by the Turkish Army, all along the Borderline between Idlib and Afrin Regions)...



Ankara's Military which currently Invades and Occupies the Syrian Region of Afrin, is, indeed, notoriously escorted by various Islamist Armed Gangs, (that Turkey and its Cronies call "Rebels"), while Turkish President Erdogan has, reportedly, already Declared his Intention to, in Fact, Replace the original, Ancestral Kurdish Inhabitants of such Regions, around the Syrian-Turkish Borders, by anOther, Different kind of Population, chosen by Turkey, (i.e. a kind of "War Crime", f.ex. according to the Statute of the International Criminal Court).



=> Indeed, as it was earlier Denounced by the Top-Selling, Mainstream French Newspaper "Figaro" : - At this "Bataille of Akrin", in Fact, "Erdogan is Setting up (Islamist) Jihadist Sanctuaries, accross his doorsteps" :



- "The beginning of the End for (ISIL Terrorists' Chief) El Bagdadi's Troops, ... Reveals, to the World, the Hypocritical Game of the Turkish Army:" Indeed, "Since the (ISIL's) Caliphate collapsed", Turkey has again returned Back to its Worse Policies : After having Occupied Jarabulus and Al Bab (at the adjacent Kurdish Regions of Syria, near the Turkish Borders), it's, Now, for the Kurdish area of Afrin to Suffer by a kind of (Military) Siege: The Turks attack the Syrian Kurds with the Help of Jihadists Katibas, sometimes Called "Moderate Rebels" (sic !) or "Free Syrian Army"... I.e., "as if Erdogan wanted to become a Caliphe, at the place of (other) Caliphes"...



- Because, "these Milicias reveal the profoundly Destablizing role of the Turkish Diplomacy in that Area, particularly at (Nearby) Idlib" : "Under the Disguise (Pretext) of ensuring a Borderline Free of Any Kurdish presence", in fact, "Ankara has Set up Jihadist Sanctuaries at its own Doorsteps", Top French Newspaper "Figaro" Denounced meanwhile.



----------------



UNO's CeaseFire seems to be Respected in All Other Areas of Syria, except from the Kurdish Region of Afrin and (at a lesser degree) Eastern Ghouta, a Part of Damascus' Capital City, (where Russians observe Regularly a Curfew during at least 5 Hours Each Day, and establish Humanitarian Corridors - Rejected and even Attacked by Islamist Jihadists).



But, while Eastern Ghouta's Jihadists (including Al Queda-like Gangs) are obviously enDangering the Capital City of Syria, near Damascus' Center, (See MAP), particularly with Shelling, as also these Last Days when at least 17 Civilian People were Hit, (in addition to Rockets against the Russian Embassy),



on the Contrary, Turkey has Failed to prove in what way Syria's most Peaceful Area, (as USA's Defence Secretary, Mattis, has Recently ReMinded) : that of the Borderline Kurdish Region of Afrin might, perhaps, endanger the Turkish Capital City, Ankara, which notoriously is located Far Away, at a big Distance of Hundreds of kms...



And, at any case, obviously, for any Country, Protecting its own Capital City, is Not at all the Same as Invading anOther, Foreign Country.



-------------------



=> In Consequence, to French President MACRON's above-mentioned Call upon Turkish President Erdogan, on February 26, against extending even further Ankara's Military Invasion in Syria's Kurdish Region of Afrin, (Comp. Supra), is Added, soon Afterwards, on February 28, even UNO's Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Jeffrey FELTMAN's (USA) Official Statements to the UN Securiy Council in New York, who Strongly Criticized the fact that even that "Brief Respite that (UNO's SC) Unanimously Demanded, only Days Ago, in Resolution 2401, has Not Materialized" everywhere in Syria, since, at least in certain areas, "The AirStrikes, shelling, and ground offensives continue" : "We (UNO) Need Implementation", But "that is Not Happening", as he Denounced.



>>> In particular, concerning mainly the Syrian Kurdish Region of Asrin, Feltman stressed that "we (UN) canNot Forget that (UNSC's Unanimous) Resolution 2401 Demands a Cessation of hostilities Throughout (all) Syria".



=> But, Nevertheless, "Violence Continues in AFRIN", (that UNSG significantly Chose to Cite 1st), Idlib", etc, he Denounced. The First Area ("Afrin"), obviously concerns Directly Turkey's Military Attacks against Syrian Kurds and Pro-Government Syrian Forces, but Also the Second ("Idlib") involves, indirectly but surely, Turkey, since it concerns various Islamist Jihadists and outright Terrorists, who have been Concentrated and Piled up there, by Gathering the Remnants of Al-Quaida-like and/or ISIL's collapse, elsewhere in Syria, who have all been, in one way or another, notoriously tolerated and even Supported also by the Turkish Government...



- UNO's Political USG Denounced, for those Areas, (i.e. "Afrin" at First), "the Humanitarian challenges and Suffering of the People", and, even, went as far as to "Emphasize that Developments in these Areas will undoubtedly render the situation in Syria even more Complex", as he Warned.



=> Therefore, "there will be No sustainable Solution (in the Syrian Conflict) if the (UNO) Councils Resolutions are Not Implemented", Feltman stressed, Urging "all" UN Security Council's "Member States, to Use their Influence" in order "to Ensure Implementation of the Cessation of Hostilities", and "Fulfill their Obligations to End the Fighting in Syria", as well as to make a "Serious Investment in a Political Solution". That's why, UNO's SC "Calls for a ReNewed Commitment, by ALL Concerned Member States to Seriously Work to Implement this Cessation of Hostilities", he pointed out, (as far as Also Turkey's Militarily Aggression in Afrin is concerned).



------------------------



What was Turkey's immediate reaction, at Afrin's Battlefield ?



- After the above-mentioned Turkish Army's "Attack on Badinli" Village, that Same Day of February 28, (reportedly "Repelled" by YPG Syrian Kurds),



+ "Turkish Air Strikes in Afrin", "Killed 13 Pro-(Syrian) Government Fighters" the Next Day, 1st of March, while "Heavy Clashes", with "Many Casualties on Both Sides", were also observed "in Balai Kuy" Village, "between YPG (Syrian Kurds) and the Turkish Army", which also "strongly Shelled ... with Artillery", again, the "Badinli" village, at the Same Time thay Ankara was "Sending New Military Convoys to the Afrin canton", (etc. : See also Infra)...



Such Facts were Reported by various Converging Sources, and particularly by Specialized Web-Media "SyrianCivilWarMap" (SCWM), a Team of Freelance Reporters systematically Publishing (in 3 Coordinated Internet Platforms) relevant Factual Informations, that they claim to gather directly from original sources on the spot, (and which has already been used by Mainstream Medias, including, f.ex., Germany's ARD TV, etc). Its Credibility has been, until now, proven several Times, to be quite Resilient, (as, f.ex., on the Recent "Breaking News" about Pro-Governemental Syrian Popular Forces coming to Join Syrian Kurds' Defensive Fight against the Foreign Military Invasion and Occupation by Turkey's Army, etc).



+ Thus, in Addition, from the 2nd of March 2018, the Turkish Army reportedly "re-Captured" the Villages of Adah Manli and Ali Bakki, "Captured", for the 1st Time, the Villages of Maskanli and Mamali, and "Reached" the important "Raju Town".



- And, this Saturday, 3 of March, the Turkish Military and its Cronies re-Captured Umranli Village, and reportedly Invaded and Occupied, for the 1st Time, the Syrian Kurdish Villages of Bafliyun, Jamelka, Ramadiyah and Shamanli.



- "SCWM"'s anouncement about also "Raju Town" being Occupied by the Turkish Army, was Not yet Totally Confirmed by Other Sources, until now : London-Based NGO the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" ("SOHR") said that Turkish Military had Seized a Majority of that Key Town's Setltlements, but Not All, while Syrian Kurdish Forces-led "SFD" Alliance, (the main Ally of the USA-led International Coalition against ISIS), reportedly said that Turkish Army and its Cronies had "Infiltrated" Rajo Town, But "Clashes were (still) Continuing" between SDF and the Intruders.



+ The Worse and most Deadly Hit, was, however, that of Long and Heavy Air-Strikes by Turkish WarPlanes, during more than 5 Hours (from 05 up to 10 a.m.), against a Group of Pro-Syrian Government Forces, located at a former Russian Base in Afrin's Kafr Jina Village, which seems to have Massacrated more than 36 People, (withOut any Fight, since the Syrian Kurdish Region of Afrin is notoriously Deprived, not only of any real Tanks (Unlike ISIL's Islamist Terrorists, who had even Heavy "Abraham" Tanks), and mainly Airplanes, but also from any kind of Air Defence, resulting into a too Easy Pray for Turkey's Military Invasion's WarPlanes.

At least as long as there is Not Yet any kind of Air Blockade, or "No - Fly Zone" protecting Afrin, Contrary to what France, the UK and USA had done in the Recent Past in Libya, (See, f.ex.: ... + ..., etc), as well as Russia, for 2 Days over Afrin, just After the Recent Downing even of a 3rd Russian Airplane and the Death of its Pilot while Crossing over Nearby Idlib Region, (notoriously Full of Armed Islamist Extremists and Terrorists, Gathered there, Near Turkey's Borders, particularly after the Failure of Al-Queda-like and ISIL's atrocious Terror regime, almost Everywhere else around Syria and Iraq, since the New US Administration of President Don Trump).



------------------



- Meanwhile, various alleged "War Crimes" were Reportedly and apparently Documented :



Including, f.ex., (after an Earlier Atrocious Mutilation of a Syrian Kurdish Woman's Body, who had been Killed, and Afterwards Sullied in Public, and Video-Taped by a Band of Coawards Islamist Extremists, Cronies of the Turkish Army : See : ...+ ..., etc), Brutal Killings of Defenseless Prisoners of War (POWs), earlier Arrested and Investigated by Turkish Soldiers, as Revealed by several Videos, (Combined Together), published and debated also by "SCWM" and Others, (See: ... + ....), etc.



+Added to Deadly Humanitarian Law Breaches against Civilian People at Afrin's Syrian Kurdish Region, such as, those already Attested by "AMNESTY" International, "HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH", etc, as they've announced Recently :



- Including"Indiscriminate Shelling of Civilian People in Afrin", by the Turkish Military, (i.e. "use of Artillery in Civilian Areas", Prohibited by International Law), regarding which, AMNESTY "Verified Witness Testimony from ... Afrin, that "painted a Grim Picture", resulting from "15 People's Intervews", whose "accounts had been Corroborated by Video Analysis", revealing "Indiscriminate ShellFire", according to BBC, (published on February 28) :



- F.ex., at Maabatli Village, a Shell hit a House Killing 5 of the 6 People inside : "The Attack Destroyed the House completely, Killing the Father, Mother and three Children younger than 15. A fourth child... is in Critical condition". But, "there are No Military headquarters next to the house The closest frontline is 41 km Away, at the (Syrian-Turkish) Border", a Resident witnessed.

- And, according to "Human Rights' Watch", "the Turkish Military .... Failed to ...Avoid Harming Civilians in 3 Attacks", earlier "in Afrin", which "Killed 26 Civilians, including 17 Children", (etc).



+ In General, During all this Period of Time of 1,5 Month, since the Beginning of the Turkish Military Invasion at Afrin's Syrian Kurdish Area, there is Not yet any systematic Independent Observers' Access to all those Villages which were Attacked and are now Occupied by the Turkish Army and its Jihadist Armed Gangs.



Given Turkey's notoriously Bad Record in Dealing with Kurdish People, and Ankara Government's recent Threats to practically "Replace" the genuine Population of the Occupied Afrin's Syrian Kurdish area by some Other People, Chosen and Transfered there by the Invading Turkish Army, obviously, the Worst Abuses can be Expected, (particularly in the Absence of real External, Independent OverSight)...



In such a Context, Ankara's Prime Minister Yildirim's latest Boasting that the Invading Turkish Military would be, Now, "Surrounding" Afrin's Capital City, (that they seem to have Approached at a Distance of about 20 Kms), located right in the Middle of the synonumous Syrian Kurdish District, appears naturally Alarming, (and having Obviously ByPassed, Far Too Long, the Limits set up, Earlier, inter alia, also by French President Macron and others, between a so-called "Border Security" Operation (as Ankara Claims) and a Blatantly illegal Military Invasion and Occupation of an Independent Country, in gross Violation of International Law...



-----------------------



- Naturally, Syrian Kurdish People, and their Pro-Syrian Government Allies, also Fought Back, during these Clashes, strongly Resisting to Turkey's Military Invasion, and sometimes even ReGaining Ground :



F.ex., in Addition to Earlier Events, also on February 27, YPG reportedly Succeeded to Liberate the Syrian Kurdish Village of Umranli from the Turkish Army, and on February 28, they managed to "Repel an Attack on Badinli" Village by the Turkish Military. While on the 1st of March, it was reported that YPG "shot down a Turkish Military Helicopter, near the (Syria - Turkey) Border", that, during Ankara's Military Invasion, 8 Turkish Soldiers were Killed in "Clashes" Facing Syrian Kurds and Pro-Syrian Government Forces, (who Lost, however, also 13 among them, that Same Day, "by Turkish AirStrikes" : Comp. Supra), as well as that Afrin's Defenders "Destroyed a Turkish Tank" when it Attacked "Raju District", (etc).



And it's More than a Month and a Half now, that Turkey's Army has proven Unable yet to Reach Afrin City, even so Near to the Turkish Borders and practically Surrounded by Idlib's numerous Armed Islamist Extremist Jihadists, Deprived of Regular Army to Defend it, withOut real Tanks, Neither Airplanes or Helicopters, Not even Air-Defense, and particularly Difficult to Communicate with Bigger Syrian Kurdish Regions, much Further at the East, as well as very Far Away from the main bulk of Syrian Government's Army...



On the Contrary, Turkey's Military has reportedly Lost at least 1 Military Airplane, 2 or 3 Army Helicopters, several Tanks and various Other Vehicles, a Growing Number of Killed or Wounded Soldiers, (and Much More among its Islamist Extremist Jihadists' cronies), during this Longer than expected Invasion and Occupation of Syria's most Peaceful Kurdish Region, (as USA's Defence Secretary Mattis has already observed, right from the Start).



Foreign Observers, in Europe and elsewhere, found Now an Occasion to Remark the Fact that the Turkish Army, (Contrary to Most Other Countries in Europe and accross the World), has ..."Not Fought in Any real War", since the Foundation of the Turkish Republic, all the Way Long Between 1923 - 2018, i.e. almost during a Century ! Turkish Soldiers, indeed, have Only Bullied, from Times to Times, a Few very much Weaker and/or practically UnArmed Targets, (as, f.ex. Cyprus, etc), and/or Massively Oppressed Internal Political Dissidents, (as f.ex. the Turkish Kurds, and/or various Other Opponents in case of Military "Putsch", as Back in the 1980ies, etc), but they DidN't even Fought during the 2nd World War, nor at Any Other Real, fully-fledged Clash, Anywhere Else... And having, Now, to Face even Syrian Kurdish ... Women and Young Girls, notoriously Defending their Homeland, (as they have also just done, Earlier, quite Efficiently, even against ISIS' Brutal Islamist Terrorists, cowardsly Targetting Civilian People), could Not really make anyone feel really "Proud" at all...



To this Exceptional InExperience, was Recently Added also the UnPrecedented Incident of Massive "Cleansing" and "Witch-Hunt" even Inside the Turkish Military, which has notoriously Affected a Large Number of Top Officers and numerous Soldiers since that Strange, 6 Hours-Long, alleged "Coup" Attempt of July 2016, after which, even Experienced Top Army Leaders, as well as Thousands of Turkish Soldiers, have been Exceptionally Dismissed, Persecuted, Arrested and Jailed, (if not Brutally Lynched by Violent Mobs), often ill-treated in Inhuman/Degraded ways. So that Many Dozens of Turkish Army Officers have recently Asked for Political Asylum throughout Europe and elsewhere, (including, f.ex., a Dozen of Turkish Dissidents Refugees, together with their Families, who reportedly asked Asylum in Neigbouring Greece after arriving by Boat at Rhodes' Island, just a few Days ago, but also Earlier, around NATO's Headquarters in Mittel-Europa, f.ex. Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc). In Addition, the "Purges" inside the Turkish Army seem to Persist even Nowadays, as, f.ex., the Latest Dismissals and Arrests of another Group of 178 Officers and Soldiers in Turkey, have just Reminded.



Politically Worse : Ankara has, Unwillingly, provoked an UnPrecedented Alliance between Syrian Kurds and the National Syrian Government's Forces, who have Started, for the 1st Time, to Fight Together against the Turkish Military Attacks and UnProvoked Invasion inside an Independent Country, which has Loudly Denounced such a Brutal Violation of International Law.



In Addition, about a Thousand more of various Critics inside Turkey have been recently Prosecuted, Arrested and even Jailed, just for Calling for Peace and Criticizing the Military Invasion of Syria's Kurdish Region of Afrin, (including Academicians, the National Leadership of Medical Doctors, simple Social Medias users, etc). This has Trggered several clear "Condamnations" of Ankara's Oppressive practices even there, included by EU Parliament's latest Resolution on Turkey, thanks to a Last-Minute Amendment supported and Voted by All Political Groups on February in Strasbourg, (See : ...).



Last, but not least, even Morally, the Horrible recent Spectacle of Turkey-backed Islamist Gangs, Cowardly Sully the Body of a Mutilated and Killed Syrian Kurdish Woman, (See Video, already Published at: ...), or Brutally Kill a Defenseless Prisoner earlier Arrested and Questioned by Turkish Soldiers, (as 2 Other, more Recent Videos apparently Reveal, taken Combined Together : Comp. Supra), and/or Shamelessly ... Take a Selfie on the Background of an Atrociously Burned Alive and Calcinated Corpse of a Killed Man, (as the Latest Photo surfaced on the Web, allegedly from Afrin, seems to reveal), etc., obviously will Not Fix the ambient Feeling of participating in a Dirty War...



But, probably Most of All : The very Idea that Europeans, including Russians, Americans and Other influential People accross the World, who could and should have ReActed Efficiently Earlier to Turkey's Deadly Military Invasion and Occupation of Syria's Kurdish Areas, with clearly UnProvoked but Destructive Turkish Army Attacks, against, precisely, those Brave Syrian Kurdish People who notoriously Dared and Succeeded to Help Efficiently Face the Worse Islamist Terrorist of ISIL's Coward Killers Targetting innocent Civilian People even throughout all Europe, the USA, and various Other Countries accross the World, might, perhaps, Totally Abandon them withOut any Real and Timely Help for Peace, obviously Risks to Hurt Europe, America and Every Honest Country much Worse, Deep inside its own Conscience, Values, History and Identity, than Anything Else...



(../..)





-------------------------------------





Innovation said: save your self money , the procedure is simple . tell some relatives the right procedure of doing it , or choose consultants . Click to expand...

Have no relatives in all cities. I need to get it from Pilani, Kolkata, Lucknow and Dehradun. So, have to take help from some agencies like thisSent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using TapatalkHi,

I am trying to get better scores in IELTS while I have already submitted EOI and did all the formalities.

I have given IELTS once before and my scores were - L,R and W as 7.5 and Speak alone is 6. Overall score is 7.

My total points currently are 379 and need to score around 70 more points to qualify for Express Entry.



I am studying again for IELTS, however I am bit hesitant as I am consistently scoring less than 7 in the practice Listening test.

Also, however cautious and careful I am for reading, I am not able to solve at least 3 to 4 questions in last passage correctly.

A lot depends on luck on that day to score high in IELTS.



So I am looking for help/resources to boost my confidence and score high in IELTS.

Appreciate your help and responses!



Thanks and Regards,

KedarMetro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 5)  The government is preparing to impose stricter rules and penalties against those behind 'nakaw load' or the so-called "disappearing cellphone loads."

During Monday's Senate hearing, National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Deputy Commissioner Edgardo Cabarios admitted there are erring value-added service (VAS) providers that eat up a certain amount of prepaid load or credit without notifying the cellphone user.

VAS groups other telecommunication services beyond standard voice calls and text messaging.

Cabarios made it clear that these are unwanted or spam messages. He said a consumer should not receive messages if not registered with the VAS providers.

And if a message to stop the subscription is sent, he added the message has to stop right away.

Cabarios said the NTC can suspend the registration of VAS providers, while Trade Undersecretary Ruth Castelo said the Department of Trade and Industry can file criminal charges against VAS providers and telecommunication companies found to have violated the rules.

This came in the wake of consumer complaints of phone credits eaten up by VAS providers.

Gigi Lapid is among them. She was invited at the Senate hearing to share her experience.

"The CSR (Customer Service Representative of Globe) advised me that sometimes, when I'm surfing on my phone, 'pag may nakikita akong mga ads daw dapat hindi ko kini-click yung 'X' kase by clicking the 'X' daw, it will automatically subscribe me and she told me to press the back button on my phone which I found really strange," she said.

[Translation: The CSR advised me that sometimes, when I'm surfing on my phone and I see ads, I should not click the 'X' because doing so will automatically subscribe me and she told me to press the back button on my phone, which I found really strange.]

Froilan Castelo, senior vice president for Globe Telecom, was quick to respond.

"That should not happen I think if our CSR made that statement to our customer then that's a wrong statement," he told the committee. "That should not have happened because there is an opt-in procedure as required by the NTC in which Globe follows."

He said Globe suspended its VAS provider 'Got Deals' and its contract will not be renewed "because it's been involved in the erroneous billing of our customers and I believe that once we got to know about this problem we have reimbursed our customers of the prepaid load. We also recompense them for whatever anxiety or loss or trouble they got into."

Globe also made a system refresh which opts out all its customers from VAS providers. As of March 5, all customers will have to opt in again if they wish to register with a certain VAS provider.

For Smart, Public Affairs Group Head Mon Isberto said they have their subscribers explicitly agree to sign up for services if they wish to be sent messages and will be asked for confirmation.

Both telcos committed to implement beginning July 2018 the one-year validity for phone credits P300 and below.

Aside from the experience with VAS providers, the "disappearance of load" also happens in the standard call or text.

Sen. Bam Aquino, Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, hopes to find solutions to this long time consumer problem.

He said, "Ang maganda ho sa hearing, there was a very clear solution na na-present and by the next hearing, we hope that the telcos will be able to mention na sumusunod na sila dito sa solusyon na 'to at 'yun yung bawat load na ibabawas sa atin, kelangan po meron tayong notification. Ipakita ho natin na hindi tama ito. Meron tayong oras para i-complain ito at ibalik yung pera po sa atin."

[Translation: The good thing about the hearing, there was a very clear solution that was presented and by the next hearing, we hope that the telcos will be able to mention that they are following this solution and that is for every peso of load that is deducted, there must be a notification. Let us show them that this phenomenon is not right. We have time to complain about this and get our money back.]After following a long and winding road, Fairmont native Ann Erdmann now helps Faribault County and Martin County residents cope with the loss of their loved ones.

Starting her new job in August of last year, Erdmann, along with funeral directors Robert Broderick and Dominic Krezowski, rotate responsibilities between Spencer-Owen Funeral Home in Winnebago, Patton Funeral Home in Blue Earth, and Zaharia Family Funeral and Cremation Service in Truman. However, Erdmann primarily handles matters in the Truman area.

Once having dreams of becoming a veterinarian, Erdmanns role as funeral director is a far cry from her originally intended career path. Interestingly enough, Erdmann says there are some similar aspects between the two professions.

Even though its dealing with different anatomy, the science and technology involved in both jobs are pretty similar, she explains. Everything from viewing preparation, to embalming, to cosmetics and body restoration, all of those things deal with the science side of things.

Erdmann says she first became intrigued with the idea of becoming a funeral director after experiencing a death in her family. At 15 years old, Erdmanns grandfather had passed away.

Afterwards, funeral director Taya Schutt had the difficult assignment of guiding Erdmann and her three siblings through the grieving process. Schutts professionalism during this turbulent circumstance created a lasting impact on Erdmann.

She was just so compassionate and caring, Erdmann recalls. It was the first time we had ever gone through something like that and she showed us what was going to happen and explained things on our level. I quickly realized I wanted to be a part of helping people like she was.

Armed with a new purpose, Erdmann eventually enrolled in the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science in Pennsylvania. The 12-month program consisted of 20 credit trimesters. After completing her course work, as well as an internship, Erdmann received her mortuary license and went to work in the Twin Cities in 2008.

As an employee of Service Corporation International, a company which operates more than 1,500 funeral homes in 43 states, the young practitioner chose to make two stops in Texas, and one in Washington D.C., before returning to Minnesota. Erdmann says the passing of her mother Lynn three years ago, was a motivating factor in returning to the North Star State.

Its been good to get back to family and slow down, Erdmann says. When my mom passed away, I really realized how important family is, so I started to try and get back home.

This industry is emotionally taxing, so to find people to support you is so important. You can do any job anywhere, but if you dont have the support, it can be difficult, she adds.

Erdmann admits the time demands of her job can pose some challenges. For instance, taking phone calls regarding a death in the middle of the night is a regular occurrence for the busy funeral director. However, Erdmann takes pride in approaching each situation in a professional manner.

I take those disruptions as a great honor to be there for someone at 3 a.m. or whatever the case is, Erdmann explains.

With family spread out across Fairmont, Truman and Winnebago, Erdmann continues to build her career, while also enjoying the comfort of familiar surroundings. She says her ability to make a difference in the community makes all the sacrifices of her profession worthwhile.

I think the most rewarding thing is walking into Walmart and people see you from across the aisle and say Hey I remember you. The hugs you get from people and the instant relationships you build in a short period of time are very special to me.It was big news on the front page of the Faribault County Register last week.

The new Chamber of Commerce building, which will house their office, a gift shop, the Giant Museum and the Tourist Information Center, is a go.

You maybe thought it already was. But, when the bids came in much higher than originally thought, its future was somewhat in doubt.

Despite doing quite a few cuts from the original estimated costs, the total package still came in very darn close to $1 million. And that is a pretty serious chunk of change in most peoples books.

However, the Blue Earth City Council stepped in to do what they could to make this happen, and make it a reality not a year or two from now, but this year.

The city had been saying all along that when the time came, they would help out with what they could.

In this case however, they stepped up in a big, big way. Some might say in a giant way.if you know what I mean.

The city offered to make a $200,000 donation to the Giant Building Fund, which would come from the liquor store funds. But beyond that, they voted to sell a general revenue bond, up to $500,000, to finance the rest of the building.

That means it would happen right away, with construction starting this spring.

The city would lease the building to the Chamber, at an amount that would cover the annual bond payment over the next 20 years.

And, as an added bonus, the city wants their economic development authority (EDA) to buy the land the building will be constructed on. You see, the Chamber bought the property by using a loan from the EDA. They recently paid that loan back to the EDA using monies meant for the new building.

The city wants to basically give that $50,000 back to the Chamber, so that the city will technically own the land and building and lease it all to the Chamber.

Now, after the Chamber has paid lease payments to the city for 20 years to pay off the bond, the city plans to turn around and sell it to the Chamber for $1.

There are some big plusses to this plan. First off the building gets built, right now, not later. Secondly, the Chamber has raised some monies to pay for the building and plans to continue to raise money for the next few years, to help pay off the bond.

And, another big plus is the community of Blue Earth gets a fabulous new welcome center. A welcome center complete with a Giant Museum and gift store and a whole lot more.

Is that an important deal, some may ask? Well, Blue Earth mayor Rick Scholtes thinks so. This new building will be a place where visitors will be welcomed and the city and community of Blue Earth can promote the town. And that is huge.

At last Januarys Minnesota Newspaper Associations Annual Convention, one of the speakers was a man named Doug Griffiths from Canada.

His seminar was based on his book entitled 13 Ways to Kill Your Community. He was pretty witty, pretending that we were all there to learn the best ways to kill our towns if that is what you want to happen. But his message was clear. Do these 13 things and your town will die.

Some of the 13 were pretty interesting and some were obvious. If you always talk about how your town is dying, then that is just what will happen.

But, I digress

One of his points was that if you have something unique about your town, dont promote it. Keep your town just like every other town your size. Dont make it special.

Of course, he meant we should do the opposite if we didnt want to kill our community.

Tout what is different about your town, he meant. Promote your uniqueness as much as you can. Give people a reason to come visit, live, work, go to school in your town.

We can thank KBEWs Paul Hedberg for giving us something original and really different a 60 foot tall statue of the Green Giant. It makes Blue Earth unique, and thousands of people have stopped here to have their picture taken with the big guy.

Never mind there is no Green Giant Canning Plant here anymore, but there is still one in operation with a different name.

Everyone knows the Green Giant. And a lot of folks know he lives in Blue Earth, Minnesota. And those that dont will find out all about the Giant and the city of Blue Earth when they stop at the new Giant Welcome Center, Visitors Center and Giant Museum.

That kind of community promotion is almost priceless. Maybe you could even call it Giant.The trip enabled producers and customers to meet in person

By Diego Flammini

News Reporter

Farms.com

South Dakota soybean growers met with Mexican processors, importers and farmers during a weeklong trade mission in late February.

The See for Yourself program provided 10 soybean farmers with the opportunity to learn where a portion of South Dakotas soybeans end up when they leave the field.

It was an opportunity for farmers to meet the buyers, Tim Ostrem, a producer from Centerville, S.D., told Farms.com today.







The American visitors went to the Port of Progreso on the Yucatan Peninsula, which imported more than 2 million tons of grain from the U.S. in 2016.

They also visited the Port of Vera Cruz, which is under an expansion. When complete, the port will enable Mexican grain importers to increase their 500,000 metric tonne annual U.S. soybean inventory by 25 percent.



The See For Yourself Mexico group visited Protenias Yoleicos, the largest soybean processing plant in Mexico. The Merida plant crushes 2,000 metric tons (73,480 bu) of soybeans per day.

Photo: South Dakota Soybean Association

The expansion is an indication that the Mexican government is supportive of the agricultural industry as a whole and supportive of U.S. soybeans, Ostrem, who participated in the See for Yourself program, said.

Part of the trade mission included a visit to a major Mexican chicken and egg producer.

Crio, based in Merida, Mexico, produces 14 million broilers and 1.5 billion eggs each year. The company only uses U.S. soybean meal to feed its chickens.

They buy 85,000 metric tonnes of exclusively U.S. soybeans because we produce high quality crops, Ostrem said.

And Granjas Carrol De Mexico, a company that produces 1.4 million hogs each year, uses 7,000 metric tonnes of U.S. soybean meal per month.

Discussions about trade relationships also took place during the trip.

As NAFTA negotiations continue, the Mexican and American partners expressed the importance of trade.

Were both in a good (trade) situation right now, Ostrem said. If everything stays relatively the same, we expect to remain in a positive situation.JOSH Carrs films from Carr and Drone superbly capture the picturesque beauty of Western Australias Wheatbelt.

Growing up in Merredin, rural WA has always been close to Joshs heart, and after purchasing a drone about two years ago, he has found a way to creatively express his passion through videography and photography.

Over the past year and a half, he has produced various films across the Wheatbelt, featuring shires such as Goomalling, Mukinbudin, Wongan Hills and his home-town Merredin.

Joshs films all have a focus in portraying the spectacular natural and man-made features of the country, while telling a simple story through a seamless sequence of video shots and music.

His most recent film Harvest in Australia was filmed in the Goomalling Shire over the course of a day.

Josh said he had always wanted to make a harvest film and when one of his Facebook followers from his page Carr and Drone contacted him, he jumped on the opportunity.

The film, which goes for two and a half minutes, follows the story of harvesting in the Wheatbelt, with various video shots of headers, chaser bins, tractors, truck and follows the journey of the trucks through the Goomalling townsite to the CBH Group receival site where the grain is delivered.

Considering Joshs impressive skills in capturing exceptional shots of landscapes and harvesting, you might be surprised to learn that he had no photography or videography experience prior to buying his drone.

Even more so, Josh never even had the slightest interest in such projects.

Prior to this, I had never been interested in photography or videography at all, Josh said.

I bought the drone and thought it was really cool and it intrigued me to learn more through YouTube tutorials and I basically spent all my spare time getting better.

Before he embarks on a new project, Josh usually has an idea of what shots he plans to film, which he then tailors according to the clients requests.

Josh said filming usually takes him about four to five hours, depending on the client, but Harvest in Australia was one of Joshs more timely films to shoot which took about eight hours.

After downloading the files onto his computer and compressing them, Josh edits the footage using Adobe Premiere Pro, first by looking through each shot and cutting them down to the most interesting parts or the sections he wants to use and then he finds a song to sequence all the shots together.

Josh said the editing process was by far the lengthiest task of the production process but it allowed him to experiment with new ideas and skills.

Editing Harvest in Australia took Josh at about 15 hours.

Over the past two years Josh has developed a portfolio of short films that all showcase country WA, with natural beauties such as Eaglestone Rock, an old mine site west of Mukinbudin, Lake Ninan Nature Reserve, Lake Hinds Nature Reserve, Mt OBrien, Mt Matilda, Reynoldson Reserve and a dust and lightning storm.

For now drone videography and photography is just a hobby for Josh which he fits in between his full-time job as a storeman at Westonia, but he has seen a steady increase of interest which he hopes will enable him to grow his hobby into a business.

Joshs films can be found on YouTube and Facebook under Carr and Drone or on Instagram through carranddrone.MORE cereals seed testing and plant sample pot trials are needed to monitor herbicide resistance and maintain cost-effective management of cropping weed pests, such as wild radish and annual ryegrass.

That was the message for about 120 agronomists, researchers and agriculture advisors attending the Bayer Crop Science Innovation Update at Optus Stadium, Burswood, on Sunday.

It was delivered by Peter Boutsalis, an Adelaide University researcher monitoring herbicide resistance and investigating new mode of action (MoA) herbicides.

From the outset Dr Boutsalis acknowledged a vested interest in promoting more testing  he also runs Plant Science Consulting (PSC) specialising in commercial herbicide resistance testing and herbicide and weed trials covering all of Australia.

In the 1990s, Dr Boutsalis developed a-four week Quick-test to check herbicide resistance of grass and weed samples, which is used by PSC as part of its commercial testing.

He also said Bayer sponsored hundreds of tests a year to make the data available to farmers.

The baseline information gathered from seed and plant resistance testing was critical, Dr Boutsalis said, for agronomists and farmers to make informed decisions on what combinations of herbicides to use, under what conditions and at what application rates to control weed pests and, importantly, slow the development of genetic and mutational resistance.

There are already concerns about resistance in wild radish to Group A chemicals  different brand-name herbicides with the same active ingredients are grouped by their MoA  and in WA current testing showed glyphosate (Group M) resistance in annual ryegrass at 31 per cent and needing to be watched, Dr Boutsalis said.

We need to be proactive and try to combat resistance before it gets to significant levels, he said.

Why resistance test?

Because it makes your job a lot easier, when you sit around the table at this time of year with your clients you can make suggestions a lot easier than when you are guessing, he told attendees.

Its so you know which herbicides are going to work.

Only 1-2pc of cropping paddocks have actually had a (resistance) test, so theres a lot of unknowns out there and a lot of guessing games.

Dr Boutsalis pointed out factors, including environmental and application timing and rate, could affect performance of particular groups of herbicides against specific weed targets and create perceptions of their effectiveness that were not entirely accurate.

Because there is a very low or no resistance to new pre-emergent herbicides  farmers are relying on Sakura, Boxer Gold and others, which is great  but we are starting to see unnecessary selection pressure through overuse of them, he said.

We shouldnt be seeing that if they are rotated more (with herbicides from different MoA groups to knock down individual plants which survive an initial herbicide spray).

We are missing out on the opportunity to use some older chemistry which are excellent herbicides that still work, for example the Group As - particularly in southern regions where Group As work quite well - and in WA, the Group Es.

Weed seeds taken from plant survivors, misses or delayed germination samples, or separated out of soil and grain samples, across paddocks could be tested for resistance to provide an accurate picture of what was happening and help to develop a management strategy for properties.

Reports on the results of testing are generated through plantscienceconsulting.com.au Dr Boutsalis said, which provided information on a variety of weed pests across Australia.

The weedresistance.com.au website, compiled from data collected from PSC and Charles Sturt University, also enabled agronomists and farmers to identify what weed species have been identified near their towns or postcodes and to evaluate the latest weed management strategies, he said.

You have to assume your worst patch (of pest weeds) is the whole paddock and treat accordingly  more aggressively, Dr Boutsalis said.

With low level resistance, sometimes increasing the rate (of application) can be the solution.

Are you gambling on a litre or do you want to go up  spend a little bit more money, a few more dollars per hectare  and make sure you do the job right?

In some cases however, increasing the rate doesnt help.

This is where a pot test can help determine where you are in the spectrum, not only for glyphosate, but also for trifluralin.

Dr Boutsalis said multiple resistance in wild radish had been detected in WA and other States by testing.

It was relatively difficult to combat without increasing the risk of resistance because, like ryegrass, it was genetically diverse and cross pollinates so resistance genes are transferred.

Also, only half its seeds germinate every year and it had a seedbank life of six to eight or more years when exposed to the same MoA chemicals.

Thats very important to remember, Dr Boutsalis said.

The seeds last for a long time and if you are rotating herbicides every year you may still be exposing the original populations to the same MoA.

Bromoxynil worked effectively against wild radish, atrazine still worked as dis glyphosate and Velocity, he said.

Using full application rates, rotating MoA groups B, C, F, H and I herbicides even if cheaper herbicides are working and spraying early produced best results.

Some individual resistant weeds can be killed at early growth stages  an extra couple of weeks and theyre invincible, Dr Boutsalis said.

Against ryegrass, atrazine worked with some low-level resistance and trifluralin also worked in WA but was less effective in South Australia because of resistance, he said.

Test samples had shown ryegrass had least resistance to prosulfocarb and Boxer Gold, Sakura and Paraquat.

Dr Boutsalis said testing had shown emerging trends of resistance detected in fleabane to glyphosate, an 80-90pc resistance in south-east Australia in sowthistle to Group B herbicides and to a lesser extent to groups I and M, very strong multiple resistance in mustards to groups B, I, F and C and some resistance in Rhodes grass to Group M herbicides.

The update also heard from Alan McKay, South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) principal scientist, who had a similar message on increased testing to manage root diseases in cereal crops.

Dr McKay advocated the use of Predicta B, a DNA-based soil testing service available through SARDI accredited agronomists, prior to seeding to identify which soil-borne pathogens pose most risk to their crops.

Bayer Germanys head of product and project support, research and disease control Friedrich Kerz-Moehlendick also gave an overview of herbicide use and resistance development in Europe.A new $26,000 record Cherylton stud price headlined a solid inaugural combined sale for the Cherylton Farms and Black Market Angus studs at Boyanup last week.

The combined offering of 62 Angus bulls featured elite Australian and international genetics from the studs embryo transfer and artificial insemination programs along with their own breeding that attracted a widespread buyer register of 49 stud and commercial producers.

It made for a successful auction debut for the Torrisi familys Black Market stud, Donnybrook, who cleared 16 of their 20 bulls under the hammer topping at $9000 and averaging $5969.

Two of their overlooked bulls sold soon after the sale.

The Walter family and the Cherylton team, Donnybrook and Kojonup, sold 29 of their 42 catalogued bulls at auction to average a rock solid $7431 and set the studs new record price.

This was a significantly larger sale team offered by Cherylton compared to the studs sale last year where they recorded a total clearance of 25 bulls to average $8220.

Some bulls attracted extremely strong interest to sell from $8000 to $15,500 while selective bidding throughout the sale saw the balance sell from $4000 to $7000 meaning buyers of all budgets walked away happy with their new sires.

This also meant several bulls were overlooked at auction but negotiations following the sale resulted in some of these bulls finding new homes.

Cherylton Farms eclipsed the studs previous $14,500 record top price on three occasions at the sale with prices of $15,000, $15,500 and the new record price of $26,000 paid for Cherylton Klooney M62.

Klooney was the third Cherylton bull to enter the ring and had bidders vying for his services before being knocked down to the Paterson family, Heart Angus stud, Tamworth, New South Wales.

The 778 kilogram AI bred, mid-July 2016-drop bull was among the first crop of Millah Murrah Klooney K42 (sold for $80,000 at the 2015 Millah Murrah sale) sons to be offered and out of a Coonamble Elevator E11 daughter Cherylton Pride J55.

Heart Angus stud was established in 2011 and held its first on-property sale last year.

Chris Paterson said they have a fair bit of Millah Murrah blood in their 120 registered breeders and share a couple of Millah Murrah donor cows with Cherylton.

He said Klooney will go well with their cow herd to help keep producing good types.

It has real sirey appeal, good outlook, weight for age and moves well and its dams sire goes back to an outcross for our stud, Chris said.

p Black Market

The Black Market team kicked the sale off with its first run of 11 bulls.

Rohan Toovey, LT Toovey & Sons, Cranbrook, took a liking to lot three containing Black Market Reserve M31 and paid the studs $9000 top price.

The 808kg bull was an ET-bred, mid-April 2016 born son of United States sire VAR Reserve 1111 and Allegria Park donor female and Booroomooka Warwick daughter Queenie F28.

Reserve was below breed average for birthweight and still in the top one per cent for eye muscle area (EMA) and retail beef yield (RBY).

Rohan, whose family runs the Boyacup Angus stud and a commercial Angus herd, said it was the second Black Market bull they had purchased and considered it good value for money at that price.

Its loaded with good pedigree on the dams side and VAR Reserve is an outcross to anything we have so its a bit of new blood to splash around either in the stud or commercial cows, he said.

He is a neat and tidy bull and they are hard to breed with that pedigree.

Its deep, well-balanced with volume and thickness and its puppy dog quiet.

Landmark Bridgetown agent Ben Cooper purchased two Black Market bulls paying to the studs $8000 second top price for Black Market Equator M43 which was penned in the second run of Black Market bulls that rounded out the sale.

The 774kg ET bred son of Ardrossan Equator A241 and Bangadang Lowan A65, born early June 2016, was an average birthweight bull with solid spread of EBVs in the top 5pc for carcase weight (CW), top 15-20pc for all growth intervals, top 10pc for RBY, top 15pc for days to calving (DTC) and EMA and top 10-15pc for all indexes.

The sales volume buyer, Landmark southern livestock manager Bob Pumphrey collected a total of seven Cherylton and Black Market bulls for two new buyers to the sale.

Mr Pumphreys haul included four bulls for Jerdecuttup producers RN & BE Fletcher, three of which were Black Market bulls from $4000 to $7000 with the top bid going to the 794kg high milk (top 5pc) and strong growth and carcase trait bull in lot three, an ET bred son of US sire Sitz Upward 307R and JRA Sexy Z10.

Wilga graziers RF & RE Walker also paid $7000 for their single Black Market selection, a 786kg ET-bred son of Te Mania Emperor E343 and another Queenie donor, displaying solid growth and indexes in its data.

Prenton Park Pastoral Company, Capel, secured two new Black Market bulls at the sale for $6000 and $6500 as did Harbour Downs Pastoral Company, Denmark, for $5000 and $6000.

p Cherylton

Following Black Markets first run of bulls, Cherylton offered its team of 42 bulls in one continuous section.

Landmark Capel agent Chris Waddingham was the losing bidder on the top-priced bull before going on to pay the sales $15,500 second top price two bulls later for Cherylton Klooney M9, on behalf of S Camarri & Co, Nannup.

M9 was by the same Millah Murrah AI sire as the top-priced bull Klooney K42 and out of Cherylton cow Wellington K103.

The 788kg bull recorded a strong set of above breed average EBVs with positive fats, top 15-25pc for all growth markers and top 15-20pc for most indexes.

The Burrow familys Mason Valley Angus stud, Albany, collected a new Cherylton stud sire for the sales $15,000 third top price.

Cherylton Highlander M49 was an ET-bred, early August 2016 born son of Millah Murrah parents Highlander G18 and Abigail J138.

The 756kg bull displayed good calving traits in the top 10pc for DTC and gestation length to go with strong growth top 10-15pc for 200, 400 and 600-day weights, positive fats, trait leader for scrotal size, top 10pc for RBY and all indexes in the top 5-15pc.

Other top-end values paid for Cherylton bulls included Treeton Lake, Busselton, who paid $7000 and $13,500 for their two selections.

Treeton Lakes top bid went to Cherylton Jester M136, an ET-bred, late August 2016 born son of Coonamble Jester J268 and Millah Murrah J29.

The 712kg easy fleshing bull had a top set of figures placing him in the top 5pc for 400 and 600-day weight, SS and CW, top 10pc for 200-day and mature cow weight, top 10-15pc for all indexes, top 20pc for NFI-F and milk and positive fats.

Kojonup graziers NW Knowles & Co paid $12,000 for Cheryltons second bull offered named Klooney M64.

The 654kg, mid-July 2016 born bull was another Klooney M42 AI son and out of homebred cow Lady J8 that display an even set of above average EBVs and ranked highly in both feed efficiency traits.

Bob Pumphrey added two Cherylton bulls and one Black Market to his account for the other new buyer Tomlinson Ag, Kalgan.

Lilyvale Grazing, Pinjarra, took a liking to the Cherylton line-up and finished with an account of four bulls costing from $4000-$6500.

Chris Waddingham was kept busy through the sale with several orders to fill.

In addition to a Black Market bull he added a further two Cherylton bulls paying to $6500 for Tasca Holdings, Boyanup and collected two bulls for $5500 each for two other clients.

Other multiple Cherylton bull buyers were Callanish Grazing, Donnybrook, with two bulls for $7000 each and Rayview Park, Kalgun, two bulls for $4500 and $5000.VICTORIAN manufacturer Goldacres heralded its 40th year in the farm mechanisation industry at its Ballarat, Victoria, factory last week.

It was a significant event to mark the success of an Australian manufacturer punching above its weight in a highly competitive boomsprayer market, dominated mainly by corporate players.

One of the few family-owned companies remaining in the market, Goldacres has earned a reputation for quality, reliability and innovation.

All of that was on show last week to its dealers and customers, with more than 400 people involved in factory tours, ride and drive events and assessing the companys product range and history at static displays.

For WA farmers, particular attention was paid to the companys new flagship model, the G8 8000L Super Cruiser, available on wheels or tracks (four independent Soucy tracks), with a new 48 metre (158 foot) tri-fold boom.

A tracked model already has been sold to an Esperance farmer and was delivered earlier this month.

According to Goldacres sales and marketing manager Stephen Richards, the boom had been under development for about 18 months.

Its an all new design with three bi-folding spray widths of 20, 36 and 48 metres (66ft, 120ft, 158ft), Mr Richards said.

The 8000 litre G8 boasts a Cummins engine linked to a 2500 series Allison transmission with the 6.7 litre QSB power plant tuned to produce 194 kiloWatt (260 horsepower).

The hydraulic system is driven directly from the transmission to provide plenty of oil flow without the engine working at high RPM, keeping fuel use to a minimum and providing better hydraulic performance.

The Super Cruiser also has a fixed, 3m (10ft) axle with constant four-wheel drive, transfer case lock and rear diff lock.

Goldacres also has a 42m (138ft) Tri Tech Penta Boom, to herald the start of a new series of large width booms to take multiple plumbing options and folding widths.

Gone the trademark cable fold which has been replaced with hydraulic cylinders, giving a secondary breakaway capability at the outer fold point in addition to Goldacres 3D breakaway at the boom tip.

A great feature on the Goldacres Super Cruisers is the ISO-compatibility, allowing any guidance system to steer the unit as well as make use of the VT screen as a product controller.

The VT screen also displays the new Norac ISO auto-height control which is an option on all Goldacres sprayers.

Mr Richards said the company had expanded to 10 dealer outlets in WA with seven re-sellers for parts and service.

We also make to order, he said.

Actually its pretty rare we sell a stock machine because every customer has something they would like to add or replace to suit their particular requirements.

We encourage that because we know there are different needs and wants on every farm.

Mr Richards said the tracked G8 was a big capacity machine that weighed in at about 20 tonnes loaded.

So to have it on tracks with twice the contact area makes sense, he said.

There is a lot of interest in the extra flotation it provides, particularly if youre farming in wetter areas.

The Goldacres-designed undercarriage allows for fitting a the Soucy S-Tech 7016 track system.

The system has a 406 millimetre (16 inch)-wide belt with a contact length of 2150mm (7ft).

This will provide twice the ground contact area compared to a 520/85R46 tyre, Mr Richards said.

The track width is 3000mm (10ft) and ground clearance of the prototype is 940mm (3ft).

Mr Richards said the G8 could travel up to 40 kilometres an hour, though like all track systems, operators would need to manage potential overheating and wear.

Goldacres has a four model SP range with tanks sizes ranging from 3000 litres to 8000L.

The latest G4V was unveiled last week, designed specifically for the horticulture market.

Our aim was to supply the horticulture market with a light weight, self-propelled sprayer that was four-wheel steer, four-wheel drive with a narrow track width, Mr Richards said.

The sprayer needed to be the most efficient spraying at typically lower speed ranges, with higher capacity hydraulics to operate a large spray pump for high flow rates.

The design team came up with a unique hydro-mechanical drive system which we think provides the basis of the ultimate horticultural self-propelled boomsprayer.

The company also has a trailed Prairie range with tanks sizes from 1500L to 8500L and a compact range, including models for ATVs (all-terrain vehicles).

p Ken Wilson attended the expo as a guest of Goldacres.NEARLY 250 registered buyers last week took a trip down memory lane at the Katanning clearing of Geoffrey Beeck & Co.

While the top price of $110,000 was secured for a modern 2008 model Case IH WD 2303 SP swather with a 10.9 metre (36 foot) Honeybee front, more attention was paid to vintage items among the 324 lots offered, keeping selling Westcoast Wool and Livestock auctioneers Chris Hartley and Brad Preston on their toes.

The swather was sold to Brendan Van Beek, Moora.

Later negotiations saw a prime mover sell for $85,000 along with a triple-axle lead end tipper ($30,000), both going to RL & CM Weise, Narrogin.

A six-axle dog and trailer went to a Hyden buyer at $42,500.

Other items offered which did not sell at auction were a 2006 New Holland TJ 450 4WD tractor; a 2012 New Holland CR8090 header and front and a 2016 Hardi Saritor boomsprayer with a 42m (140ft) boom.

Although these three larger items have not yet been negotiated, Geoff Beeck said he was pleased with the result in general and was appreciative of the interest shown in the sale and the manner in which it was conducted by Westcoast Wool and Livestock staff.

The vintage items kicked off with the sale of an old complete binder ($900), sold to a Broomehill collector who said he will get it up and running again.

An old horse-drawn 10 disc plough went at $500 and another old Shearer seeder made $800.

Also keenly sort were two cross-cut saws along with a double handle scythe which went at $200, while the next lot of one saw and one scythe made $340 and an old tin trunk full of old newspapers and copies of Elders Weekly would have been good reading at $120.

There were numerous items of sheep handling and associated equipment and among the more keenly sought were a roller wool table which went at $400.

Other higher-priced items in good condition saw a Prattley three-way draft with Tru Test SR 3000 scales sell at $4200 and a TPW wool press went at $10,500.

Two older type trailing sheep feeders made $160 and $550 respectively.

What might have been good buying but needed a large truck to move it was a 16,000 litre steel water carting tank which went at just $700.

Items that drew competitive bidding included a Trenchmaster 150 digger ($1100); a 75 litre (20 gallons) Sandblaster in very good condition ($280) and an Acufire Firelighter in good condition ($1250).

A mobile workshop unit with 48 CFM air compressor with fuel pump and tool box area sold at $3000 and a 2800 litre nurse trailer with Honda Davey pump was very good buying at just $1000.

A John Shearer 28T scarifier and hydraulic rotary harrows went at $2200 and three field bins offered saw two 26 tonne Sherwells go at $3600 and $2600 respectively, while a 33 tonne DE went at $5000. A Farm King 841 auger also was sold at $5800.

Of smaller older tractors a Case 2670 appeared good buying at just $1400 while a 1979 model John Deere 4430 is staying locally at $6000.

An unusual clearing sale item, a Toyota Fork lift, drew spirited bidding before a Broomehill buyer held on at $3000.

One of the many larger items was a 1985 Custom Carrier CAT V8 6WD tipper with a 7000 litre Flexi-N tank and firefighting pump and sides.

It was knocked down at $23,000 to a Woodanilling buyer.

A 12.7m (42ft) Flexi-Coil 820 bar and Morris 8370 triple tank air seeder failed to reach the reserve price but a Norrish 5m (16.5ft) seed bin and 4.3m (14ft) fertiliser bin along with a 5000 litre liquid fertiliser tank on tri-axle flat top trailer was secured by a Jerramungup buyer for $48,000.

And a Kulin buyer picked up a 30 tonne Trufab Grain King chaser bin for $37,000.

A bid of $33,000 secured a 2003 Ford F250 XLT4 7.3L litre four-door ute (219,000km) while a 2008 Volvo FH500 prime mover (350,000km) and Evertrans triple-axle lead end tipper and Evertrans six-axle dog and trailer, were initially put up as one unit, then individually, but were passed-in.

The clearing sale just north of Katanning, was the finishing flourish to a 126-year history of the farming property known as Summerfield.

Principal Geoffrey Beeck said his grandfather and seven sons came by ship from Adelaide to Albany and then by train to Katanning, taking up seven farms in 1892.

Somewhat expanded since then, the familys holdings have been sold, hence the clearing sale last week and among the lots offered were some items which would date back to the very early days of the farms establishment.The Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike.

We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 5)  With a looming impeachment trial and an ouster petition before the Supreme Court (SC), House Justice Committee chair Reynaldo Umali said Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno has nowhere else to run.

"Hindi ko naintindihan where the Chief Justice is coming from, fighting it out when this is already the end of the road for her. She's just making things difficult for the country to bear," Umali said Monday.

Umali said he believes the consensus among 13 SC justices to ask Sereno to take an indefinite leave shows how the high court will act on the quo warranto petition.

"The En Banc unanimously voted to force her to go on leave...it's end of the road for her because of that resolution signed unanimously by the 13 justices. Magbabago pa ba ng isip yun, palagay ko hindi," Umali added.

Solicitor General Jose Calida asked the SC through the petition to declare Sereno's appointment invalid over an alleged failure to fully disclose her wealth.

A quo warranto is an extraordinary legal proceeding where an individual's right to hold office is challenged.

On the other hand, the impeachment process is a way to remove impeachable officers for culpable violation of Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, and betrayal of public trust.

Sereno's spokesperson lawyer Jojo Lacanilao said a sitting justice can only be removed through impeachment, citing a 1988 case against then Justice Marcelo Fernan.

Just the beginning  Lagman

Speaking to CNN Philippines Monday, Albay Representative Edcel Lagman said, it was the beginning for Sereno to defend herself before the Senate in the impeachment trial.

Lagman said there's no sufficient vote to convict the Chief Justice, adding there would not be enough to secure the two-thirds vote needed to oust Sereno

"Our political mapping is that there would be about eight or more members of the Senate which will vote for her acquittal. So that would be short of the 16 votes required for conviction," he said.

Unlike the case of former Chief Justice Renato Corona, Lagman said there's no allegation of corruption and dishonesty in Sereno's missing Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net worth (SALN).

"The case of the late CJ Corona, there was this...not only omission, but a dishonest submission of SALN because he did not include or disclose all of his properties or assets. SC decisions would say that this is a grave offense," Lagman said.

The only similarity, Lagman added, was the current scenario.

"This is a repetition of the same scenario where the arsenal of the government and of the administration is against a sitting or incumbent Chief Justice," he told CNN Philippines.

Lagman advised Sereno to "fight it out."

Support for Sereno

For Ako Bicol Party-list Representative Rodel Batocabe, however, Sereno's appointment is valid.

He cited the basic qualifications under the Constitution for Chief Justice: a candidate must be a natural-born citizen of the Philippines, at least 40 years old, and has 15 years of law practice in the country.

"The Constitution provided for the basic qualification and we cannot add or delete any of the qualifications. And I don't want to open the floodgates for quo warranto proceedings against impeachable officers, thereby diluting the power of Congress to impeach officials which are categorically expressed by the constitution to be impeachable," Batocabe said.

He added the SC may instead impose disciplinary action on Sereno, through suspension, a reprimand, censure, or warning.

Ifugao Representative Teddy Baguilat, meanwhile, said the administration is trying to remove the Chief Justice through what he called unconstitutional means, because he believes the complaint does not have enough votes in the Senate, which would sit as impeachment court.

"The administration doubts it can swing enough votes to oust Sereno in the Senate and is now resorting to this dubious quo warranto petition," Baguilat said in a statement.

Baguilat said he believes the House Justice Committee failed to build up a case against Sereno, and that the hearings failed to provoke strong public sentiment, which can help the Senate decide on Sereno's conviction.

Senate President Kiko Pimentel said the Chief Justice could only be removed from office through impeachment.

"Under the Constitution, the meaning of the provision literally is that once in position, the following high-ranking government officials can only be removed from their positions through impeachment, so if you invent some other proceeding which will result in the removal from office then that should violate that provision in the Constitution," Pimentel said.

The Chief Justice in a speech on Friday called for respect for the impeachment process "by allowing it to take the only allowed course under the Constitution."

She urged Congress to finally begin an impeachment trial and hit her critics for resorting to various actions to malign her.

Once the panel finds probable cause to impeach her, the House plenary will vote. If at least one-third of the members of the House of Representatives vote to impeach Sereno, the complaint would go to trial at the Senate.

Sereno is accused of violating the Constitution, corruption, betrayal of public trust, and other high crimes which are grounds for impeachment under the Constitution. She repeatedly denied the allegations and asked for the complaint to be junked.The European Investment Bank recently published its updated Exclusion Policy. The Policy reflects the EIBs zero tolerance to fraud and corruption thats set out in the Banks Anti-Fraud Policy.

In addition to the prohibited practices sanctioned by other international financial institutions such as fraud, corruption, collusion and coercion, EIBs policy will also permit the Bank to exclude companies found to have engaged in money laundering and financing of terrorism.

The possibility to exclude entities, referred to as debarment by other international financial institutions, builds on existing EIB prevention and deterrence measures.

Originally approved in 2011, the revised policy is now publicly available, along with a list of current excluded entities and settlements already entered into by EIB, on a single dedicated webpage.

Scope  An exclusion proceeding may be commenced against any individual or entity (borrower, contractor, supplier etc.) found to have engaged in Prohibited Conduct in an EIB operation. This is consistent with the EIBs Anti-Fraud Policy, covering all EIB activities, counterparts and other relevant entities.

Process  To ensure an independent process, an Exclusion Committee comprising both internal and external appointees with high-level legal, banking and procurement relevant backgrounds, will review material submitted by the Inspector General and Respondents, and issue a recommended sanction, with the final decision taken by the EIB Management Committee.

Synergies with other debarment systems  EIBs exclusion framework builds on EU and the MDBs debarment systems by putting in place a consistent system of procedures, due process rights and types of exclusion/remedial measures. Proceedings are mainly intended to be started based on findings by the EIBs independent Fraud Investigations Division, however the Policy also builds on potential overlaps with co-financers by allowing the Banks Inspector General to start proceedings on the basis of exclusion or debarment by either the EU or other international financial institutions.

Negotiated settlements  The Policy also contains provisions in Art XII enabling the EIB to enter into negotiated settlements  such settlements have been used successfully since 2013 and a list is available on the Banks webpage.

Publication  In line with the EUs approach, the Exclusion Policy allows for publication of exclusion decisions on a case-by-case basis to enhance the deterrent effect of the decision.

____

Duncan Smith is Deputy Head of Fraud Investigations at EIB, responsible for a range of policy, training, outreach, prevention and deterrence issues. After being called to the Bar, he spent 10 years prosecuting at the UKs DTI and Serious Fraud Office. He joined World Banks Investigation Unit as Team Leader then policy/debarment adviser, moving to EIB in 2007. Hes co-author of the IFI Task Forces Uniform Framework Agreement (2006) that harmonized the definitions of fraud and corruption across the multilateral development banks.

Sabrina Mancini is an Investigator at EIBs Fraud Investigations Division with ten years experience in compliance and investigations. After graduating from Sciences Po Paris, her work as a Compliance Officer focused on integrity due diligence and EIBs whistleblowing policy. In her present role, she investigates allegations of fraud & corruption and develops EIBs anti-fraud policy framework.Frances McDormand had her Oscar swiped from her.

Frances McDormand at the Oscars

The 60-year-old actress won the coveted golden statuette for Actress in a Leading Role at this year's Academy Awards on Sunday (04.03.18) for her role as Mildred Hayes in 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri'.

However, after winning the accolade she placed the golden statuette down for a moment and a man grabbed it and ran for the door, USA Today reported.

Apparently McDormand was seen crying at the Governors Awards Ball after-party she gave up looking for her statue and left with her husband Joel Coen.

Security were searching for the accolade which luckily already had her name engraved on it and hours later McDormand's representative Simon Halls confirmed the Academy Award winner had been reunited with the accolade.

Hall said in an email: "Fran and Oscar are happily reunited and are enjoying an In-N-Out Burger together."

At the time, New York Times reporter Cara Buckley tweeted a picture of a man who allegedly swiped the prize, saying: "Security at the Governors Ball are looking for this guy, who grabbed Frances McDormand's Oscar and ran out with it. Wolfgang Puck's photographer stopped him, got the Oscar back, and the guy disappeared back into the ball.

"Apparently Frances has said to let him go. #Oscars #Drama (sic)"

When accepting her Oscar, Frances used her time in the spotlight to ask all the female nominees in the room at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles to stand.

She said: "And now, I want to get some perspective. If I may be so honoured to have all the female nominees stand with me in this room tonight. Filmmakers, producers, directors, writers, cinematographers, the composers, the songwriters, the designers, come on."

As they rose to their feet amid cheers, she said: "Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed. Don't talk to us about it at the parties tonight. Invite us into our office in a couple of days - or you can come to ours, whichever suits you best - and we'll tell you all about them ... I have two words for you: Inclusion rider."

An inclusion rider is a clause in a contract that would provide for gender and racial diversity.Whoopi Goldberg says she opted for comfort over style at this year's Academy Awards.

Whoopi Goldberg

The 62-year-old actress wore an unconventional outfit for the annual awards bash in Los Angeles on Sunday (04.03.18), pairing her bold Christian Siriano dress with comfy combat boots.

Explaining the thinking behind her red-carpet look, Whoopi - who won a Best supporting Actress gong in 1991 for her performance in 'Ghost' - said: "Christian Siriano made this for me and he said I'm gonna make it so you will be comfortable, so it has pockets."

The green floral patterned dress had a full skirt, which was long enough to cover the grey Timberland-style boots, but daring enough to compliment the 'Sister Act' star's bold footwear choice.

She kept her accessories to a minimum, letting her dress take centre stage, by wearing a small silver pendant and a red bow pin in support of The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.

The designer Whoopi worked with on the dress shared a photo of her look on his Instagram page.

Siriano captioned the image: "Whoopi I love you so much! So amazing in custom Siriano tonight at the #Oscars, It was an honor. #oscars2018 (sic)"

Siriano, 32, has had his work cut out during awards season, dressing three stars at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and 11 women at the Golden Globe Awards. Speaking before the Oscars about his jam-packed working schedule, he told People: "It's been hard. It's been a really rough one."

And Siriano admitted that much of his success is dependent on other people.

He explained: "It's not just about showcasing the actors. The designers are being showcased. The hair and make-up teams are being showcased.

"We're all in the industry together. Actually, none of us can survive without the other, which I think sometimes people forget."Our pick of the news from Fethiye and around Turkey over the last week.

News

Road between Antalya and Kumluca closed due to a landslide

A stretch of road between Kumluca and Antalya is closed after a landslide on Monday.

According to information received from the authorities, the repair work will cost 2 trillion TL (yes trillion!) and the road will remain closed for three months.

Vehicles travelling between Kumluca and Antalya are being diverted through Yazr Mahallesi. Heavy and long vehicles are diverted via Elmal and Korkuteli.

Heyelan nedeniyle trafige kapanan yolun yeniden trafige aclmas icin 3 ay gecmesi gerektigi, yaklask 2 trilyon maliyeti oldugu bildirildi.Ewet yanls okumadinz 2 tirilyonPeki bu sorumsuzluk kimin mutait gelisi guzel yol mu yapt yllardr Antalya kumluca aras suruculer zorluklar cekti simdi tekrar Zorluklar m olucak Posted by Knk Haber Ajans on Monday, February 26, 2018

Source: Knk Haber Ajansi

12 suspects detained in connection with alleged prostitution

12 suspects were detained in an operation carried out by Fethiye Security Directorate of Combatting Smuggling and Organised Crimes and Combatting Migrant and Human Trafficking Group under the coordination of the Provincial Security Directorate

Four of the 12 suspects detained in connection with the alleged prostitution of foreign nationals in Muglas province of Fethiye were arrested.

Eight of the 12 suspects, who were referred to the judiciary following the court proceedings, were released without charge.

Source: SonDakika

Boat disappears between Fethiye and Bodrum

A boat disappeared whilst sailing from Fethiye to Bodrum on Friday.

Shortly before the boat disappeared, the Coast Guard received a distress call saying We are sinking

The owner, Ismail Murat Edirnecik along with Atilla Dundar left for Bodrum on the Fethiye registered boat, experiencing difficulties approximately 3.5 miles from Sargerme.

The Coast Guard and gendarmerie who received the distress call were immediately dispatched to the scene, however, were unable to locate the boat.

The search for the two missing persons along with the 7.5-meter long boat continues.

Source: SonDakika

27 percent of Turkeys population live in high-risk earthquake areas

27 percent of Turkeys population live in areas that carry the highest earthquake risk, Deputy Prime Minister Recep Akdag said during a symposium organized by the Prime Ministry Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD) in Ankara on Thursday.

Akdag said 26 percent of all buildings were also situated in these areas but not all were at risk. Houses built before 1990 are particularly at risk, Akdag said.

The focus should be on improving existing buildings. Turkey has upgraded its risk map and developed a software program that helps authorities assess potential risks in almost every land plot, information that helps to build safer buildings, he said.

The minister also called on people to take out catastrophe insurance (DASK), noting that only 48 percent of houses are currently covered by the insurance scheme.

Akdag reiterated that Istanbul had the highest risk.

Areas that facilitate a faster response to earthquakes will be created and the number of response teams will increase, Akdag said, noting that the first 72 hours is crucial after disaster strikes and that proper logistics infrastructure should be in place for an effective response.

The AFAD currently has well-trained 2,000 rescue personnel but this is not enough. Between 2018 and 2019 some 20,000 firefighters across the country will receive training to respond to natural disasters and other crises besides fires, the minister said.

Akdag mentioned efforts by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization and the Housing Development Administration (TOKI) aimed at improving risk-prone buildings and called on citizens to support and take part in those efforts.

In November 2017, Environment and Urbanization Minister Mehmet Ozhaseki warned of the danger of mass casualties in the event of a strong earthquake in Istanbul.

Scientists say a massive earthquake will hit Istanbul at some point between 2030 and 2040. They say a 7.0 magnitude earthquake will strike Istanbul,

Source: Hurriyet Daily News

Turkish Airlines flights to and from London, Dublin, Edinburgh cancelled due to heavy snowfall

Turkish Airlines cancelled its London, Edinburgh and Dublin-bound flights out of Istanbul due to heavy snowfall in the destinations on Thursday.

Persistent snow and freezing conditions from a Siberian cold snap caused a handful of deaths across a swathe of Europe from Britain to the Balkans, the Associated Press reported.

The worst weather since 1991, it trapped several hundred motorists on roads in Scotland, closing thousands of schools and grounding planes.

With up to 90 cm of snow and temperatures as low as minus 10.3 Celsius, Scotland, Britain and Ireland issued their most severe red warnings advising people to stay at home as travel is too dangerous.

Source: Hurriyet Daily News

Sport

Fethiyespor

Thank you to Brian Lloyd for the Fethiyespor updates.

Fethiyespor drew their home match against Altay yesterday. The final score was 1-1.

After yesterdays match, Fethiyespor stay at 15th position on the league table.

The next league matches are:

Saturday 10th March away against Ottocool Karagumruk. Kick off is at 15:00.

Saturday 17th March at home against Konya Anadolu Selcukspor. Kick off is at 15:00.

For more information about Fethiyespor please visit Fethiyespor Yabancilar on Facebook.

Turkish Money

Turkish Lira (TL) exchange rates:

The British Pound bought 5.25 TL by the close of business on Friday. The week before it was selling for 5.29 TL.

The US Dollar bought 3.80 TL by the close of business on Friday. The week before it was selling for 3.79 TL.

The Euro bought 4.68 TL by the close of business on Friday. The week before it was selling for 4.66 TL.

Weather Forecast

Heres your weather forecast for the week ahead.Category Select Category Apparel/Garments Textiles Fashion Technical Textiles Information Technology E-commerce Retail Corporate Association Press Release

SubCategory Select Sub-CategoryMetro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 5)  The government's top lawyer wants the Supreme Court to void the appointment of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno.

Solicitor General Jose Calida said Sereno is not qualified to hold the position of Chief Justice due to her alleged failure to fully reveal her wealth, according to the quo warranto petition he filed before the Supreme Court.

"The blatant disregard by respondent Sereno to comply with the requirements of the law and Constitution proves her lack of integrity, hence she is unlawfully holding the position as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court," Calida said in a press briefing on Monday.

In a statement, Sereno's camp said the Supreme Court should not entertain the petition.

"It has absolutely no basis in law and in the Constitution. The high tribunal should dismiss the petition outright on the basis that quo warranto is not a proper remedy. Under the 1987 Constitution, the Chief Justice may only be removed from office upon impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate, sitting as an impeachment court," Sereno's spokespersons said.

Calida clarified it is different from the impeachment proceedings at the House of Representatives.

A quo warranto is an extraordinary legal proceeding where an individual's right to hold office is challenged.

On the other hand, the impeachment proceedings is a way to remove impeachable officers due to culpable violation of Constitution, treason, bribery, graft and corruption, other high crimes, and betrayal of public trust.

"The unwritten assumption here is the officer was eligible and that his assumption of office was valid," Calida said, referring to impeachment.

Calida cited Sereno's failure to submit her statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth (SALN) for the past 10 years when she applied for Chief Justice.

"Unfortunately for respondent Sereno, she flunked the test of integrity when she failed to file more or less 10 SALNs," Calida said.

The issue of Sereno's SALN surfaced during one of the House Justice Committee impeachment proceedings.

Judicial and Bar Council (JBC) Executive Director Annaliza Ty-Capacite said Sereno submitted only three SALNs, covering 2009, 2010, and 2011.

Prior to holding a post at the judiciary, Sereno taught at the University of the Philippines (UP) College of Law, a state university, from 1986 to 2006.

Applicants to the post are required to submit their SALN for the past decade, in this case from 2002 to 2011.

In a statement, Sereno's camp said Calida's move is just part of the "grand plan to harass, malign and humiliate the Chief Justice to force her to resign."

"Her detractors know that the impeachment case, which was built on lies, won't stand a chance in the Senate," it said.

'An act of kindness'

Calida said filing the quo warranto is "an act of kindness to a fellow lawyer."

"The Office of the Solicitor General will not allow you to undergo the indignity that the late Chief Justice Renato Corona suffered at the hands of politicians who unjustly convicted him. You do not deserve that," Calida said.

Through the quo warranto proceedings, Calida said Sereno will be judged by her peers who know her and the Constitution better.

However, Sereno's spokesperson lawyer Jojo Lacanilao insisted, a sitting justice can only be removed through impeachment, citing a 1988 case against Justice Marcelo Fernan.

The Court dismissed the disbarment complaint against Fernan, saying to do so will "run afoul of the constitutional mandate that members of the Court may be removed from office only by impeachment."

Sereno's camp said the impeachment case should be brought immediately to the Senate instead.

"The best act of kindness to the Chief Justice is to transmit to the Senate the articles of impeachment expeditiously if they find probable cause in the committee and vote for impeachment in the plenary. The most cruel act they can inflict on the Filipino nation is to pressure the Supreme Court to substitute impeachment with quo warranto. Why are they afraid of a Senate trial?" the Chief Justice's camp said.

The House Justice Committee is set to vote this week on whether there is probable cause to impeach the Chief Justice. A vote of at least one-third of the members of the House of Representatives would trigger an impeachment trial at the Senate.

Impeachment or quo warranto? Palace has 'no preference'

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, who earlier called for the Chief Justice to resign, said the Palace had no preference on how the Chief Justice should be judged.

"We have no preference. Either way, we will enforce whatever decision the Supreme Court or the Senate may have, sitting as an impeachment court," Roque said in a press briefing.

He said the Supreme Court justices' call for Sereno to take a break sends a message and proves the justice system in the country is working.

"The justice system is well, and healthy, and alive in the Philippines," Roque said.

CNN Philippines' digital producers Yvette Morales, Ver Marcelo, and correspondent Anjo Alimario contributed to this report.Regulatory News:

As previously described in the press release issued by AP Alternative Assets, L.P. ("AAA"; Euronext Amsterdam: AAA) on March 1, 2018, the Board of Directors of AAA Guernsey Limited (the "Board"), the general partner of AAA, and the Board of Directors of AAA MIP Limited, the general partner of AAA Associates, L.P. ("AAA Associates"), as general partner of AAA Investments, L.P. ("AAA Investments"), approved the distribution of 26,025,200 common shares of Athene ("Athene Shares") or 97.73% of the total 26,630,755 Athene Shares beneficially owned by AAA, including 22,507,327 Athene Shares to be distributed by AAA to AAA unitholders and 3,517,873 Athene Shares to be distributed by AAA Investments to AAA Associates, its general partner, in respect of its carried interest and general partnership interest in AAA Investments in connection with this distribution (the "AAA Distribution"), in connection with AAA's equity investment in Athene Holding Ltd. ("Athene").

AAA Associates is the general partner of AAA Investments, a subsidiary of AAA that indirectly holds Athene Shares on behalf of AAA. Any carried interest that may be payable to AAA Associates is not subject to an obligation to reinvest in AAA units.

The ex price for AAA units on Euronext Amsterdam will be calculated excluding the 22,507,327 Athene Shares distributed to AAA unitholders by AAA in connection with the AAA Distribution per AAA unit, multiplied by the closing price of Athene Shares on the New York Stock Exchange on March 2, 2018. The AAA Distribution is based on a ratio of 0.29487274 Athene Shares per each AAA unit outstanding as of March 2, 2018, rounded down to the nearest whole Athene Share. As this calculation will lead to a negative figure, the opening price for AAA units on Euronext Amsterdam will be rounded up and AAA units will commence trading on March 5, 2018 at USD 0.01 per unit. This price may not necessarily reflect the value of AAA based on its assets and liabilities.

The 605,555 Athene Shares held by AAA that are not being distributed in connection with the AAA Distribution will be sold from time to time as needed to pay certain expenses of AAA. If it is determined that any such Athene Shares are no longer required for such expenses, including if and when it is finally determined to wind up AAA, the remaining Athene Shares at such time will be distributed to AAA unitholders unless the number of such Athene Shares is de minimis, in which case they will be given to charity.

Apollo Global Management, LLC ("AGM", NYSE: APO) and its affiliates (collectively, "Apollo") will be restricted from selling or transferring any Athene Shares received by them in their capacity as AAA unitholders in connection with the AAA Distribution until two years following the effective date of Athene's initial public offering of Athene Shares (the "IPO") (except for (x) any investment funds or accounts for which AGM or its subsidiaries acts as the general partner and/or manager, but a majority of the capital is provided by non-affiliates of AGM or (y) any transfer by AGM or its affiliates to an affiliate of AGM). These restrictions will not apply with respect to any Athene Shares being sold or transferred by Apollo or any investment funds or accounts for which Apollo acts as the general partner and/or manager in connection with the payment of carried interest, incentive allocations, expenses and/or management fees to Apollo or one or more of such investment funds or accounts. The restrictions on sales or transfers of Athene Shares by Apollo's directors, officers and employees described in the press release issued by AAA on December 8, 2017 expired on the 450th day following the effective date of the IPO.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the 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 offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

About AP Alternative Assets, L.P.

AP Alternative Assets, L.P. was established by AGM and its subsidiaries ("APO") and is a closed-end limited partnership established under the laws of Guernsey. APO is a leading global alternative investment manager with 27 years of experience investing across the capital structure of leveraged companies. AAA is managed by Apollo Alternative Assets, L.P. For more information about AAA, please visit www.apolloalternativeassets.com.

This announcement does not constitute or form part of an offer to sell or solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for securities in the United States or in any other jurisdiction.

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties because they relate to future events and circumstances. Such statements are based on currently available operating, financial and competitive information and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from the historical experience and expressed or implied expectations of AAA. Factors that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements contained in this press release are set forth in AAA's Financial Report for the year ended December 31, 2017 and its subsequent Financial Reports, each of which is available at www.apolloalternativeassets.com Undue reliance should not be placed on such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and AAA does not undertake to update its forward-looking statements unless required by law.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180304005085/en/

Contacts:

AP Alternative Assets, L.P.

Gary Stein (New York), +1 212-822-0467The nationwide deployment of AirMap UTM in Switzerland will advance the development of U-space infrastructure across Europe

MADRID, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --World ATM Congress - Today, skyguide, the Swiss air navigation service provider, and AirMap, the leading global airspace management platform for drones, announced that they will develop and deploy the first national drone traffic management system in Europe.

The system will be the first national deployment of U-space, Europe's vision for the digital infrastructure that will support safe and secure access to European skies for millions of drones. Much like the U.S. "Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM)" initiative, U-space is a collaborative effort to enable situational awareness, data exchange, and digital communication for the European drone ecosystem.

In a pilot phase starting in June 2018, skyguide and AirMap plan to integrate the AirMap UTM platform with skyguide's infrastructure and introduce automated flight authorization in a single airspace environment. Skyguide and AirMap will also develop a roadmap for Swiss U-space that will set the stage for the deployment of a fully operational drone traffic management system in 2019 and beyond.

Swiss U-space will ensure that all categories of drones and all types of missions can safely take flight in Switzerland's airspace. Swiss U-space will include features such as:

Blockchain-based registration for users and drones;

Dynamic geofencing and instant digital airspace authorization;

Real-time traffic alerts for drone pilots and live drone telemetry for airspace managers;

Connectivity and communication between drone pilots and airspace administrators;

Other services to enable simultaneous flights in shared airspace.

"After a year of successful collaboration with AirMap, we expect that the AirMap UTM platform meets the highest standards required for a Swiss U-space," says Klaus Meier, Chief Information Officer of skyguide. "We're looking forward to bringing U-space capabilities to Switzerland and we are excited to drive this innovation together with AirMap."

"With Swiss U-space, Switzerland aims to safely open the skies for drone commerce," said Ben Marcus, CEO of AirMap. "We're proud to work with skyguide to bring AirMap UTM to Switzerland and make it possible for more pilots, more drones, and more missions to take flight in Europe."

"The establishment of a U-space is the key to improve drone operations' safety and to satisfy the security and privacy concerns of our citizens. In order to achieve these objectives, a seamless cooperation between all the partners involved is crucial. I am glad to see that a further important step to tackle this challenge was taken today." said Christian Hegner, Director General of Switzerland's Federal Office of Civil Aviation.

Swiss U-space will be a powerful catalyst for Switzerland's drone economy. Since 2013, drone flight requests at skyguide have multiplied tenfold. Switzerland is home to a thriving community of drone companies and the world's first autonomous drone delivery network, located in Zurich.

The partnership follows the success of skyguide's 2017 Swiss U-space trial, the first live demonstration of sophisticated U-space services in Europe. Together, skyguide, AirMap, and SITAONAIR exhibited fully operational U-space capabilities - including registration and identification, geofencing, and flight authorization - during live drone missions performed by senseFly and PX4 in Geneva.

With deployments in Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States, AirMap UTM is the most comprehensive and connected platform of its kind. The platform offers up-to-date airspace information for every country in the world, national airspace rules for more than 20 countries, and the largest network of drone operators, manufacturers, and airspace managers in the drone ecosystem, reaching more than 85% of the world's drones.

About skyguide

Skyguide provides air navigation services for Switzerland and certain adjacent airspaces of neighbouring countries. With its 1500 employees at 14 locations in Switzerland, the company guides some 1.2 million civil and military flights a year safely and efficiently through Europe's busiest airspace.

Skyguide also operates drones for maintenance purposes. Example: by calibrating the ILS via drones instead of planes, skyguide will achieve significant reductions in costs (-360'000 CHF) and CO2 emissions (- 94 tons) by 2020. Several more applications are being developed.

Learn more about Swiss U-space at: www.skyguide.ch/u-space

About AirMap

AirMap is the world's leading airspace management platform for drones. Millions of drones, hundreds of industry developers, and hundreds of airspace managers and stakeholders rely on AirMap's airspace intelligence and services to fly safely and communicate with others in low- altitude airspace. AirMap powers more than 85% of the world's drones through integrations with major drone manufacturers such as DJI, Intel, senseFly, Kespry, and Aeryon Labs. With deployments in Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, and the United States, AirMap leads the industry in delivering technology solutions for Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) that help drones safely share the skies.

Learn more about the AirMap UTM platform at www.airmap.com/UTM.

CONTACT: Megan Anderson, 1-626-243-3194, megan@mightypr.com

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/288580/airmap_logo.jpg

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/649417/Skyguide_RBG_Logo.jpgBRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - At 3:45 am ET Monday, IHS Markit is slated to release PMI data of Italy. Final PMI data is due from France and Germany at 3.50 am ET, and 3.55 am ET, respectively. At 4.00 am ET, IHS Markit releases Eurozone composite PMI data. Ahead of the data, the euro declined against its major rivals. The euro was worth 1.2309 against the greenback, 129.81 against the yen, 1.1538 against the franc and 0.8930 against the pound as of 3:40 am ET. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.Frankfurt am Main (ots) -- WIBank links its commercial promotional products to KfW's digital platform - Costumers and financing partners benefit from improved - The goal is to build a digital promotion platform that incorporates institutions across GermanyKfW and WIBank, the promotional institution of the German state of Hesse, have agreed to integrate WIBank's commercial promotional products into KfW's online promotional funding platform. As a result, small and medium-sized companies, the self-employed, and business owners in Hesse will be able to apply online for WIBank and KfW promotional funds via their financing partners in future. Their applications will be automatically checked, meaning a decision can be made in a matter of minutes. The pilot partnership between the two promotional institutions is geared towards developing the current platform into a sales and service platform, which will allow all of Germany's state-level promotional institutions to offer their own products independently and in a customer-oriented manner. In addition to WIBank, KfW has another pilot partner in the form of L-Bank, the promotional institution of the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg.Launched in 2014 under the name "On-Lending Online 2.0 (BDO 2.0)", KfW's promotional platform built the technical foundations needed to ensure simple and swift digital access to promotional funds in Germany. Financing partners can apply for funding online on behalf of their clients. Applications can then be checked automatically with a binding financing decision made within just a few minutes. Financing partners and borrowers benefit from improved transparency, speed and funding security in equal measure.KfW issued its first digital approval back in 2014 as part of a financing programme in the housing sector. KfW has been gradually integrating commercial financing and automatic approvals into its promotional funding platform since 2016. Housing grants are now also processed online on KfW's grant portal.The aim of transforming BDO 2.0 into a sales and service platform (SSP) is to create a digital ecosystem for promotional funding in Germany. As strong, regionally active providers of promotional funding, the promotional institutions of the federal states play a central role in this process. And the plan is to expand digitalisation of promotional business even further than just the cooperation between KfW and the promotional institutions of the federal states. The aim is to create a multi-bank, online system that connects funding providers, banks, credit unions, savings banks, financial brokers, experts and borrowers and enables them all to cooperate.While WIBank may be KfW's pilot partner on the one hand, it is also a pilot institution in a consortium of nine state promotional institutions (a banking cooperative) on the other. The goal of this cooperative is to improve the efficiency of the promotional funding process and make it more customer-friendly. As a result of this move, the SSP will enable national and state promotional institutions in Germany to establish a broad cooperation where all partners are on equal footing. The new digital ecosystem will also help to achieve an unprecedented level of transparency and effectiveness in the field of promotional funding in Germany."Digitalisation is not an end in itself. It's about quicker, easier and more transparent processes for everyone involved, and thus also for the people in Germany and our local businesses. The pilot partnership with KfW and the plans to build a digital ecosystem for promotional funding are not just a vision; they are essential if we are to play an active role in shaping the digital future in line with our owners' social and economic goals," said Gottfried Milde, Chairman of the Executive Board at WIBank.With their pilot partnership, both KfW and WIBank are moving forward with their digital transformation. "In WIBank, we have gained a strong partner for the digitalisation of the promotional sector and the transformation of our sales and service platform BDO 2.0. Together, we are paving the way for private and commercial investors in Hesse and a number of other German states to enjoy even quicker and simpler financing decisions for their projects. This partnership is an important step towards improving digital ties within Germany's promotional landscape for the benefit of costumers," said Dr Ingrid Hengster, the member of the KfW Executive Board responsible for domestic promotional business.Further information on the digitalisation of the application and approval process for promotional loans at KfW is available at (only in German): http://ots.de/RU9ge8OTS: KfW newsroom: http://www.presseportal.de/nr/41193 newsroom via RSS: http://www.presseportal.de/rss/pm_41193.rss2Pressekontakt: KfW, Palmengartenstr. 5 - 9, 60325 Frankfurt Kommunikation (KOM), Christine Volk, Tel. +49 (0)69 7431 3867, Fax: +49 (0)69 7431 3266, E-Mail: Christine.Volk@kfw.de, Internet: www.kfw.dePress Office WIBank: Claudia Ungeheuer, Phone: +49 69 91323716, E-Mail: claudia.ungeheuer@wibank.deSANTA MONICA, CA / ACCESSWIRE / March 5, 2018 / Millennials are defined generationally as the group of children born between the years of 1981 and 2000. This generation is unfairly characterized as lazy and entitled, and as likely to live at home with parents well into adulthood. However, this group accounts for half of homeowners under 36 and half of sellers under 41 according to Zillow. Zillow executives insist that this points to an active force in the real estate market.

As they become thirty-somethings, they largely decide to become homeowners. Because this generations does live at home longer than previous generations, they are normally more stable and have higher incomes when they enter the market. It also means they have more money saved to purchase these homes, and it is an emerging trend that because of these factors, they are skipping the traditional starter hones for more expensive models, according to Neil Shekhter, founder, and CEO of Santa Monica-based NMS Properties.

Slightly more than a third of millennials are estimated to be homeowners with a vast majority buying in suburbs and rural areas. Interestingly, the amount of millennials choosing to buy in small towns mirrors the number buying in urban areas at around 15 percent. The vast majority of millennials purchasing homes are married with only slightly more than 10 percent of millennial singles purchasing, and this is mostly comprised of millennial women.

Initially, this group entered the market buying urban real estate, but now, approximately 50 percent live in suburban areas. Millennials are also more apt to purchase stand alone homes rather than apartments and multifamily dwellings. They are also choosing what are termed secondary markets. These are mid sized to small cities that are experiencing rapid growth like Austin and Seattle with these two cities being the most sought after markets.

That this group is highly nomadic is really anecdotal because the data does not reveal that this is the case. With this generation as with prior generations, as they age and become parents with families, purchasing homes begins to become more necessary. This makes this behavior a significant driver in the housing market currently. Some forecasts missed this because they assumed participation in the sharing economy meant this group would shun home ownership.

Millennials also prioritize the quality of their neighborhoods as well as their neighborhood's proximity to workplaces and resale value, and they require these in suburban and rural spaces. Other significant selling points are school quality, and proximity to family and friends, Neil Shekhter notes. This behavior is different than prior generations who were more apt to move to where jobs were regardless of that location's ability to deliver a quality lifestyle. Millennials know that employers will relocate to exploit their work base.

Millennials also find their homes differently than any previous generation, Neil Shekhter points out. Practically all millennials employ online real estate resources not only in finding an actual home but also in navigating the loan process. Almost three quarters of those that originate their efforts online eventually utilize the services of a real agent. They have more choices than previous generations because the market is willing to cater to their needs unlike previous generations who expected a choice from what was available.

Launching NMS Properties in 1988, Neil Shekhter assumed the role of CEO in January 1995. The real estate management company focuses on multi-family and mixed-use properties in the Greater Los Angeles area and in Santa Monica. At present, NMS properties manage more than 70 properties.

Over the course of 2017, NMS deployed 40 furnished units in Los Angeles, and Neil Shekhter plans to triple that number in 2018. The company currently manages some of its properties while testing a pilot with MY SUITE.

Neil Shekhter - Founder and CEO of NMS Properties

Apartments For Rent In Los Angeles NMS Residential: http://www.nmsresidential.com

NMS Properties - Real Estate Management Firm: http://www.nmsproperties.com

Contact Information: info@NeilShekhter.com

SOURCE: NMS Properties, Inc.LONDON, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

INSPIRING study results contribute to the extensive body of evidence for dolutegravir, the leading integrase strand transfer inhibitor, in diverse and hard to treat patient populations

ViiV Healthcare, the global specialist HIV company, majority owned by GlaxoSmithKline, with Pfizer Inc. and Shionogi Limited as shareholders, today announced interim (Week 24) study results from INSPIRING, a phase IIIb study evaluating the safety and efficacy of dolutegravir in antiretroviral treatment-naive (ART-naive) adults with HIV, co-infected with tuberculosis (TB). Results presented today at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Boston, show that dolutegravir when administered at 50mg twice-daily with dual nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI), was effective and well-tolerated in HIV/TB co-infected adults receiving rifampin-based TB therapy.[1]

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/647881/ViiV_Healthcare_Logo.jpg )

John C Pottage, Jr, MD, Chief Scientific and Medical Officer, ViiV Healthcare, said, "Tuberculosis remains the leading cause of death among people living with HIV, accounting for around one in three AIDS-related deaths. Concurrent treatment of TB and HIV remains a challenge as it is compounded by drug interactions, overlapping toxicities and immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome. This is why the INSPIRING study is so important, as we look to provide this underserved population with as many effective treatment options as possible. The INSPIRING results add to the breadth and depth of data available for dolutegravir and support its use in the treatment of people living with HIV co-infected with TB."

INSPIRING is a phase IIIb, non-comparative, active control, randomised, open-label study in HIV-1 infected ART-naive adults with drug-sensitive TB. Of the 113 enrolled participants on a rifampin-based TB treatment for up to 8 weeks, 69 were randomised to receive dolutegravir (50mg twice-daily during and for two weeks after TB therapy followed by 50mg once-daily) with two NRTIs and 44 to receive efavirenz (600mg once-daily) with two NRTIs. The primary endpoint of the study is the proportion of dolutegravir patients with HIV-1 RNA <50 copies per mL at week 48.[1] The study, being conducted in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Russia, South Africa and Thailand, was not powered to show a difference between study arms and no formal statistical hypothesis was tested.

An interim analysis conducted at 24 weeks showed that the proportion of patients who maintained viral suppression (HIV-1 RNA less than 50 copies per ml) in the dolutegravir arm was 56/69 (81%) (95% confidence interval CI: 72%, 90%).[1] In the efavirenz arm, 39/44 patients (89%) (95% CI: 79%, 98%) maintained viral suppression. No patients in the dolutegravir arm and two patients in the efavirenz arm discontinued due to adverse events, while five participants (7%) in the dolutegravir arm and none in the efavirenz arm discontinued due to non-treatment related reasons (loss to follow-up/protocol deviations).[1] TB-associated immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) rates were low in both arms (dolutegravir, n=4; efavirenz n=4) with no patients discontinuing due to IRIS or liver events.[1] The INSPIRING study is ongoing and 48-week data will be presented at a future scientific meeting.

In 2016, there were an estimated 10.4 million cases of TB globally, including 1.2 million (11%) among people living with HIV (PLHIV).[2] Although TB-related deaths among PLHIV have been steadily declining (33% decrease between 2005 and 2015), almost 60% of TB cases among PLHIV were not diagnosed or treated, resulting in 390,000 tuberculosis-related deaths among PLHIV in 2015.[2]

Notes to editors

About HIV

HIV stands for the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Unlike some other viruses, the human body cannot get rid of HIV, so once someone has HIV they have it for life. There is no cure for HIV, but effective treatment can control the virus so that people with HIV can enjoy healthy and productive lives.

HIV has largely become a chronic treatable disease, with improved access to antiretroviral treatment leading to a 22% drop in global HIV mortality between 2009 and 2013, but more can be done for the estimated 36.7 million people living with HIV and 1.8 million individuals newly infected each year worldwide.[3]

About INSPIRING

INSPIRING is a phase IIIb, randomised, open-label, multicentre, parallel-group study to assess the antiviral activity of dolutegravir or efavirenz-containing regimens in HIV/TB co-infected patients undergoing rifampin-based TB therapy. The study includes a screening period, a randomised phase (Day 1 to 48 weeks plus a 4-week extension) and a dolutegravir open-label extension. During the dolutegravir open-label extension, patients were provided with dolutegravir until it is locally approved and commercially available, the patient no longer derives clinical benefit, or the patient meets a protocol-defined reason for discontinuation, whichever comes first.

The primary endpoint is the proportion of dolutegravir patients with plasma HIV-1 RNA <50 copies per millilitre (c/mL) at Week 48. Key secondary endpoints include the proportion of efavirenz patients with plasma HIV-1 RNA <50 c/mL at Week 48 and evaluation of both study arms at Week 24. Additional secondary endpoints include evaluation of the development of viral resistance, measurements of safety, tolerability and changes from baseline CD4+ counts.

About Tivicay (dolutegravir)

Dolutegravir (Tivicay) is an integrase strand transfer inhibitor (INSTI) for use in combination with other antiretroviral agents for the treatment of HIV. Integrase inhibitors block HIV replication by preventing the viral DNA from integrating into the genetic material of human immune cells (T-cells). This step is essential in the HIV replication cycle and is also responsible for establishing chronic infection. Tivicay is approved in over 100 countries across North America, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa and Latin America.

TIVICAY (dolutegravir) tablets

Professional Indication(s) and Important Safety Information

Indications and Usage

TIVICAY is a human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) integrase strand transfer inhibitor (INSTI) indicated in combination with:

other antiretroviral agents for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in adults and pediatric patients weighing at least 30 kg

rilpivirine as a complete regimen for the treatment of HIV-1 infection in adults to replace the current antiretroviral regimen in those who are virologically suppressed (HIV-1 RNA < 50 copies per mL) on a stable antiretroviral regimen for 6 months with no history of treatment failure or known substitutions associated with resistance to either antiretroviral agent

Important Safety Information

CONTRAINDICATIONS:

TIVICAY is contraindicated in patients:

with previous hypersensitivity reaction to dolutegravir

receiving dofetilide (antiarrhythmic)

WARNINGS AND PRECAUTIONS:

Hypersensitivity Reactions:

Hypersensitivity reactions have been reported and were characterized by rash, constitutional findings, and sometimes organ dysfunction, including liver injury. The events were reported in <1% of subjects receiving TIVICAY in Phase 3 clinical trials

Discontinue TIVICAY and other suspect agents immediately if signs or symptoms of hypersensitivity reactions develop, as a delay in stopping treatment may result in a life-threatening reaction. Monitor clinical status, including liver aminotransferases, and initiate appropriate therapy if hypersensitivity reaction is suspected

Hepatotoxicity:

Patients with underlying hepatitis B or C may be at increased risk for worsening or development of transaminase elevations with use of TIVICAY. In some cases the elevations in transaminases were consistent with immune reconstitution syndrome or hepatitis B reactivation, particularly in the setting where anti-hepatitis therapy was withdrawn

Cases of hepatic toxicity, including elevated serum liver biochemistries, hepatitis, and acute liver failure, have also been reported in patients receiving a dolutegravir-containing regimen who had no pre-existing hepatic disease or other identifiable risk factors. Drug-induced liver injury leading to liver transplant has been reported with TRIUMEQ (abacavir, dolutegravir, and lamivudine)

Monitoring for hepatotoxicity is recommended

Risk of Adverse Reactions or Loss of Virologic Response Due to Drug Interactions:

The concomitant use of TIVICAY and other drugs may result in known or potentially significant drug interactions (see Contraindications or Drug Interactions).

Immune Reconstitution Syndrome, including the occurrence of autoimmune disorders with variable time to onset, has been reported.

ADVERSE REACTIONS:

The most commonly reported (2%) adverse reactions of moderate to severe intensity in treatment-naive adult subjects in any one trial receiving TIVICAY in a combination regimen were insomnia (3%), fatigue (2%), and headache (2%).

DRUG INTERACTIONS:

Coadministration of TIVICAY with certain inducers of UGT1A and/or CYP3A may reduce plasma concentrations of dolutegravir and require dose adjustments of TIVICAY

Administer TIVICAY 2 hours before or 6 hours after taking polyvalent cation-containing antacids or laxatives, sucralfate, oral supplements containing iron or calcium, or buffered medications. Alternatively, TIVICAY and supplements containing calcium or iron can be taken with food

Consult the full Prescribing Information for TIVICAY for more information on potentially significant drug interactions, including clinical comments

USE IN SPECIFIC POPULATIONS:

Pregnancy:

There are insufficient human data on the use of TIVICAY during pregnancy to inform a drug-associated risk of birth defects and miscarriage. An Antiretroviral Pregnancy Registry has been established.

Lactation:

Breastfeeding is not recommended due to the potential for HIV transmission and developing viral resistance in HIV-positive infants.

Paediatric Use:

Safety and efficacy of TIVICAY have not been established in paediatric patients weighing less than 30 kg or in any paediatric patients who are INSTI-experienced.

About ViiV Healthcare

ViiV Healthcare is a global specialist HIV company established in November 2009 by GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) dedicated to delivering advances in treatment and care for people living with HIV and for people who are at risk of becoming infected with HIV. Shionogi joined in October 2012. The company's aim is to take a deeper and broader interest in HIV/AIDS than any company has done before and take a new approach to deliver effective and innovative medicines for HIV treatment and prevention, as well as support communities affected by HIV.

For more information on the company, its management, portfolio, pipeline, and commitment, please visit http://www.viivhealthcare.com.

About GSK

GSK - one of the world's leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies - is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer. For further information please visit http://www.gsk.com.

Cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements

GSK cautions investors that any forward-looking statements or projections made by GSK, including those made in this announcement, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Such factors include, but are not limited to, those described under Item 3.D 'Principal risks and uncertainties' in the company's Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2016.

References

1. Dooley KE, et al. Safety and efficacy of dolutegravir-based ART in TB/HIV co-infected adults at week 24. Presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, 2018. Boston, MA

2. World Health Organization. Global Tuberculosis Report. 2017

3. World Health Organization. HIV/AIDS Fact Sheet. Available at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs360/en/ . Last accessed November 2017.BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Swiss stock market ended the first trading day of the new week with a strong increase, following the heavy losses of the prior week. Despite the strong gain, investors remain cautious due to political uncertainty in Italy and concerns over a potential trade war. The prospect of a hung Parliament in Italy looks increasingly likely after nearly half of the votes in Sunday's Italian general election went to populist parties. Concerns about a global trade war continue to weigh on sentiment, as President Donald Trump plans to implement tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Trump has also threatened to tax imports of European automobiles. The Swiss Market Index increased by 2.08 percent Monday and finished at 8,808.38. The Swiss Leader Index climbed 1.92 percent and the Swiss Performance Index added 2.02 percent. LafargeHolcim jumped 3.3 percent. The cement giant dropped by over 8 percent after it posted full year results last week. Logitech advanced 2.9 percent, Aryzta rose 2.6 percent and Geberit added 2.5 percent. Givaudan and Vifor Pharma finished higher by 2.4 percent each. Richemont climbed 2.1 percent and Swatch gained 2.5 percent. The index heavyweights all finished solidly in positive territory. Roche increased 3.0 percent, while Nestle advanced 2.2 percent and Novartis rose 2.0 percent. Adecco declined 1.4 percent Monday. The stock tumbled over 9 percent during the prior trading week. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 5)  Ten justices on Monday attended the Supreme Court's first flag-raising ceremony after Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno went on leave, with some of them wearing red.

Supreme Court officials and employees applauded Associate Justices Teresita de Castro, Diosdado Peralta, Lucas Bersamin, Mariano del Castillo, Marvic Leonen, Francis Jardeleza, Samuel Martires, Noel Tijam, Andres Reyes, and Alexander Gesmundo when they emerged from the court.

It was the first time in five years senior justices showed up during a flag-raising ceremony. The last was in 2012 when Sereno was out on an official overseas trip.

The 10 justices also pushed for the Chief Justice to go on leave.

During the event, Peralta, Bersamin, Martires, and Reyes wore red ties, while Justice de Castro was in a floral dress with red accent. A number of officials and employees were also in red.

Sources said red symbolized support for the 13 justices who called on Sereno to take an indefinite leave.

Meanwhile, outside the Supreme Court, at least 10 protesters wore black to show support for Sereno.

This day marks the first week of the embattled Chief Justice's leave. She filed an indefinite leave on February 28 to prepare for her upcoming impeachment trial at the Senate.

Meanwhile, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) filed Monday a legal proceeding to challenge Sereno's right to hold office.

Suspended lawyer Eligio Mallari filed a petition asking the OSG to look into the validity of Sereno's appointment. He said Sereno repeatedly failed to file her Statements of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth, which is one of the requirements for those applying for the Chief Justice post.Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 5, 2018) - Alliance Growers Corp. (CSE: ACG) (FSE: 1LA) (WKN: A2DFYX) ("Alliance Growers" or the "Company is pleased to announce the addition of state-of-the-art greenhouses for year-round nurseries of cannabis plants for the production of a propriety CBD strain at the Company's Cannabis Botany Centre. The initial roll out plans for up to 200,000 square feet of automated glass greenhouses with P.L. high-end horticultural lighting. The Alliance Growers' greenhouses will be capable of producing over 300,000 grams per week or 15,600 kilograms per year of dried CBD cannabis.

In a news release dated December 30, 2017, Alliance Growers announced that it has entered into a binding Letter of Intent ("LOI") with WFS Pharmagreen Inc. ("Pharmagreen"), and its proposed subsidiary BC New Co, to create a strategic relationship, together with equity participation by Alliance and Pharmagreen, whereby Alliance will acquire a 30% equity interest in Pharmagreen's subsidiary BC New Co. The execution of this LOI initiated the development of the Cannabis Botany Centre that Alliance and Pharmagreen have been working on for the past year.

The state-of-the-art greenhouses will be a new addition to the Cannabis Botany Centre in Deroche, B.C. (located an hour and a half East of Vancouver) (the "Land"). The Land is a 25-acre property, where the 40,000 square foot plus Cannabis Botany Centre is being built to permit the growth and sale of tissue culture plantlets, and storage of strains and nursery plants to wholesale, retail and medical markets. The Land will now include the state-of-the-art greenhouses for year-round nurseries of cannabis plants as well as to produce its propriety CBD strain, named "CBD DANA". With a tested content of 10% plus CBD, and THC of less than .3%; CBD DANA is a unique strain with its high CBD and low THC content. This makes it ideal for cultivation as an "Industrial Hemp Plant" label, and therefore an optimal strain for Industrial Hemp farming. This strain will be one of the flagship strains for CBD Hemp farming and the female plantlets produced in the Tissue Culture Lab within the Cannabis Botany Center will be available for hemp farmers on a global scale. Providing Hemp farmers all female, fully rooted plantlets, of "CBD DANA" will provide a significant yield in CBD production for hemp farmers. This is because the content is 1000 times or higher than traditional Hemp strains with 1% CBD content. Additional increase in the CBD yields is achieved when no males are present to pollinate the females which increases the flower content by an additional 80%. The Cannabinoids are mainly produced in the flower portion of the female plant, therefore planting female plantlets instead of planting from seed eliminates the males and keeps the flower production at maximum.

Commenting on the addition of the state-of-the-art greenhouses and the production of the proprietary CBD strain Dennis Petke, Alliance Growers' President and CEO, trumpeted, "We are fortunate to be associated with Pharmagreen to benefit from this opportunity with the addition of the state-of-the-art greenhouses that will provide the flower to make it possible to produce a proprietary CBD strain as we forge ahead with the rapid development and continuing expansion of the Cannabis Botany Centre. These developments will add both breadth and depth to Alliance Grower's global diversification and complement the Company's strategy of building a global cannabis company for where the market is going not where the market is today."

About Alliance Grower's

Alliance Growers Corp is a diversified cannabis company driven by the Company's 'Four Pillars' Organization Plan - Cannabis Botany Centre, Strategic ACMPR Investments, CBD Oil Supply and Distribution, and Research and Development.

Alliance Growers has finalized its a new business partnership with WFS Pharmagreen Inc., to jointly develop and operate a 40,000-square foot facility to be the first of its kind in Western Canada to house a DNA Botany lab, extraction facility and Tissue Culture Plantlet Production facility to service the Cannabis market and agriculture market in general. The proposed Cannabis Botany Centre will grow Cannabis plantlets using proprietary tissue culture propagation, specifically the "Chibafreen Invitro Plant Production System", which assures consistent composition and purity of each plantlet for the growers.

Alliance Growers has entered into an exclusive agreement to acquire a late stage licensed producer applicant, Biocannatech, to become a licensed producer under Health Canada's access to cannabis for medical purposes regulations ("ACMPR") in Quebec. Alliance Growers will supply financing and resources to build out the medical marijuana facility in preparation for the inspection required to obtain a growing license. Once Health Canada is satisfied with a successful crop, Alliance Growers will be granted its distribution license.

This acquisition allows the Company an opportunity to become a licensed producer in the Province of Quebec and gain an in-road to provide tissue culture plantlets to all licensed producers in Quebec.

Further, Alliance Growers has been negotiating to obtain other exclusive Canadian distribution agreements for certain proprietary products for support of the Cannabis growing industry in addition to possible partnerships with Licensed Producer Applicants at various stages in the Health Canada License process.

For further information, please visit the Company's website at www.alliancegrowers.com or the Company's profile at www.sedar.com.

If you would like to be added to Alliance Growers' news distribution list, please send your email address to newsletter@alliancegrowers.com

On behalf of the board of directors of

ALLIANCE GROWERS CORP.

"Dennis Petke"

Dennis Petke

President and CEO

For more information contact:

Dennis Petke

Tel: 778-331-4266

DennisPetke@alliancegrowers.com

Rob Grace

Communications Consultant

Tel: 778-998-5431

RobDGrace@gmail.com

THE CANADIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACCURACY OR ADEQUACY OF THIS RELEASE.

FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION

This news release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking statements or information. More particularly and without limitation, the news release contains forward-looking statements and information relating to Company's corporate strategy. The forward-looking statements and information are based on certain key expectations and assumptions made by management of the Company, including, without limitation, the Company's ability to carry out its business plan. Although management of the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information since no assurance can be given that they will prove to be correct.

Forward-looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about the current expectations and plans of management of the Company relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that reliance on such statements and information may not be appropriate for other purposes, such as making investment decisions. Since forward-looking statements and information address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. These include, but are not limited to, the Company's ability to identify and complete additional suitable acquisitions to further the Company's growth as well as risks associated with the medical marijuana industry in general, such as operational risks in development and production delays or changes in plans with respect to development projects or capital expenditures; the uncertainty of the capital markets; the uncertainty of receiving the required licenses, production, costs and expenses; health, safety and environmental risks; marketing and transportation; loss of markets; environmental risks; competition; incorrect assessment of the value of the potential market; ability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources; failure to obtain required regulatory and other approvals and changes in legislation, including but not limited to tax laws and regulated regulations. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements, timelines and information contained in this news release. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive.

The forward-looking statements and information contained in this news release are made as of the date hereof and no undertaking is given to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws or the Canadian Securities Exchange. The forward-looking statements or information contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement.Washington, DC--(Newsfile Corp. - March 5, 2018) - The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a New York-based company with illegally brokering dozens of investments by foreign nationals seeking U.S. residency.

Between April 2014 and March 2017, Edwin Shaw LLC solicited foreign nationals to invest in securities issued by a taxi and limousine company based in Queens, New York. The investments were marketed to investors interested in applying for legal residency through the federal government's EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program, which provides a path to legal residency for foreigners who invest directly in a U.S. business or private "regional centers" that promote economic development in specific areas and industries.

According to the SEC's order, Edwin Shaw was not registered with the SEC as a broker or dealer when it engaged in the solicitations and otherwise effectuated these securities transactions, thereby violating Section 15(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. For each successful investment, Edwin Shaw received a fee ranging from $5,000 to $50,000. More than 30 foreigners invested in the program after solicitations by Edwin Shaw, which improperly used approximately $400,000 of the investor fees on its own expenses and personal expenses of Edwin Shaw's principal.

"While raising money for an EB-5 project in the U.S., Edwin Shaw was not registered to legally operate as a securities broker," said Marc P. Berger, Director of the SEC's New York Regional Office. "The registration requirements are crucial to investor protection and we will continue to vigorously enforce them."

Without admitting or denying the allegations in the order, Edwin Shaw agreed to a cease-and-desist order and agreed to pay disgorgement of $400,000 plus prejudgment interest of $54,209.20 and a penalty of $90,535.

The SEC's investigation was conducted by Phil Fortino and Thomas P. Smith Jr. and was supervised by Lara S. Mehraban. The SEC appreciates the assistance of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - March 5, 2018) - Oracle Energy Corp. (TSXV: OEC) (FSE: O2E) ("Oracle" or the "Company") announces that it is in the process of evaluating various opportunities to acquire oil and gas leases in the Eagle Ford district of South Texas which, since its discovery in 2008, has been one of the most drilled shale formations in the United States.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS.

Darrell McKenna, Director

About Oracle Energy Corp.

Oracle Energy Corp. (TSXV: OEC) (FSE: O2E) is an international oil and gas exploration and development company.

For more information on Oracle Energy visit www.OracleEnergy.com





Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-looking statements in this release are made pursuant to the 'safe harbour' provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties.LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / March 5, 2018 / Spectrum Global Solutions, Inc. (OTC PINK: SGSI) is a leading provider of telecommunications engineering and infrastructure services, professional staffing and solutions across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Guam and Caribbean today announced that it will be presenting at the inaugural LD Micro Virtual Conference on Tuesday, March 6th at 2.30PM PST / 5.30PM EST. Keith W. Hayter President of Spectrum Global Solutions will be giving the presentation and answering questions from investors.

You can access the presentation at the following link: http://www.investorcalendar.com/console/conference/?id=26662

"We are delighted to finally be hosting a virtual event, to support our in-person conferences," stated Chris Lahiji, President of LD Micro. "There are a great number of people and companies who are unable to come to our live events, due to a multitude of reasons (mostly related to having kids), so we are happy to offer an additional outlet where companies can present to investors without taking a lot of time out of their day-to-day operations. While virtual events will never supplant the experience of sitting in the same room as someone or eating artery clogging pastries at 3 PM, it is a great format for updating the investor community and getting increased exposure."

The conference will be held via webcast and will feature over 60 companies in the small / micro-cap space.

View Spectrum Global Solutions, Inc. profile here: https://www.ldmicro.com/profile/SGSI

Profiles powered by LD Micro - News Compliments of ACCESSWIRE.

About Spectrum Global Solutions

Spectrum Global Solutions, Inc. (SGSI) operates through its AW Solutions, ADEX Corporation and Mantra Energy Alternatives subsidiaries.

AW Solutions (AWS), ADEX Corp (ADEX) are leading providers of telecommunications engineering and infrastructure services and professional staffing solutions across the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Caribbean. The Company's subsidiary, Mantra Energy Alternatives, is developing electrochemical technologies designed to make reducing greenhouse gas emissions profitable. For more information about the Company and its technologies, visit the Company's public filings at SEC.gov.

About LD Micro

LD Micro was founded in 2006 with the sole purpose of being an independent resource in the microcap space. What started out as a newsletter highlighting unique companies has transformed into an event platform hosting several influential conferences annually (Invitational, Summit, and Main Event).

In 2015, LDM launched the first pure microcap index (the LDMi) to exclusively provide intraday information on the entire sector. LD will continue to provide valuable tools for the benefit of everyone in the small and microcap universe.

For those interested in attending, please contact David Scher at david@ldmicro.com or visit www.ldmicro.com for more information.

Contact:

Name: Investor Relations

Phone: 561-672-7068

Email: Inquires@SpectrumGS.com

SOURCE: Spectrum Global Solutions, Inc.SYDNEY, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --United Franchise Group (UFG) is pleased to announce two decades of evolution and growth, as they celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the first Signarama location opening in Australia. Signarama is the world's largest full-service sign company, approaching 900 locations around the world.

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/649799/Signarama_1998_Penrose_Opening.jpg

After launching in the U.S. more than 30 years ago, Signarama first expanded into Australia 20 years ago. Today there are 105 locations there with proven successes that include 22 Australian stores achieving "Million Dollar Circle" status in 2017.

"There have been many positive changes in the sign industry in the last 20 years that have helped our franchise locations succeed," said Evan Foster, National Director for Signarama Australia. "The future promises to be even more exciting as we embrace new technologies and product lines to strengthen our network even more across the country."

Franchisees who started twenty years ago say their success has less to do with simply making and selling signs and more to do with building strong relationships with their valuable customers to help meet their needs.

"I opened my store in 1998 and we've gone from focusing on installers and simple signs to today's world of multi-million dollar locations with experts in all fields of signage within our ranks," said Ross Wade, Signarama Dandenong, Vic franchisee.

The same milestone is also being celebrated in New Zealand, where Master License partner, Grant Archibald now has 25 locations under the "Speedy Signs" name. Grant and his wife, Sarah were privileged to be able to meet with Prime Minster, Jacinda Ardern on the actual 20th anniversary date. Ms Ardern congratulated them on their success in creating the country's largest network of sign companies.

"While the 20 years have passed quickly, I still remember the day we opened in Penrose, Auckland," said Archibald. "Our eldest son was only a baby in our grand opening photos, and now, in a few more months, he's getting married. The Penrose business as well as our other New Zealand locations continue to perform strongly -with no signs of stopping. We are now planning on opening another half dozen franchised locations in some of the smaller provincial centres like Gisborne, Napier, Wanganui and Timaru."

The Signarama brand continues to grow worldwide with locations now in more than 60 countries and hundreds of new locations slated for opening in 2018 worldwide. Signarama consults with business owners to develop impactful signs, messaging, and marketing tactics that result in higher sales and increased business. To learn more about Signarama's products, services and locations, go to signaramafranchise.com.au.

About Signarama

Signarama, the world's largest sign franchise, offers branding and messaging solutions in addition to comprehensive sign and graphic services to consumers and commercial customers - from business signs, vehicle wraps, and digital signs, to advertising and marketing services. Signarama is part of a successful system of business-to-business franchise brands and development services under the United Franchise Group (UFG). As part of the $49-billion-plus worldwide sign market, Signarama has been at the forefront of the sign industry for more than two decades. Signarama was ranked Number 35 on Entrepreneur Magazine's Top Global Franchises list in 2016. With over 800 locations in 60 countries, the company expects to have more than 1,500 locations worldwide by the end of 2020. For more information, visit SignaramaFranchise.com.au.

About UFG

Led by CEO Ray Titus, United Franchise Group is home to a variety of internationally recognized brands including Signarama, Fully Promoted, Experimac, Jon Smith Subs, Venture X, SuperGreen Solutions, Transworld Business Advisors and Paramount Tax & Accounting CPAs.With over three decades in the franchising industry and more than 1400 franchisees throughout the world, United Franchise Group offers unprecedented leadership and solid business opportunities for entrepreneurs.

CONTACT: Ashley Soto, 305-631-2283 x1005, Ashley@inklinkmarketing.comSoftware and Device Technologies for Remote Patient Monitoring Were Met With Great Interest

Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - March 5, 2018) - CardioComm Solutions, Inc. (TSXV: EKG) ("CardioComm" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it held business meetings with 25 technology companies during an Ontario Trade Delegation visit to Japan and Korea from February 20 to 27. The meetings were arranged through the assistance of the Ontario Ministry of International Trade with Global Affairs Canada representatives in Japan and Korea, the Osaka Prefecture Government, Economic Affairs Government of Ontario at the Embassy of Canada to Korea, Intralink Limited and direct marketing efforts by CardioComm. The Company confirmed the likelihood of letters of intent and cooperation agreements to result over the next few months.

CardioComm used this Trade Mission to: (1) meet with regional device manufacturers interested in HeartCheck compatibility certification; (2) pursue telemedicine partnership opportunities at a time when Japan is implementing new telemedicine initiatives; and, (3) demonstrate near-real-time remote patient monitoring using the Company's SMART Monitoring ECG reading telemedicine technology and its newest wireless consumer and hospital use ECG /arrhythmia monitoring Bluetooth connected devices.

The Company provided attendees at the Japan Medical 2018 exhibition a preview of the Company's pipeline of up and coming wirelessly connected devices which includes 12 lead ECG SMART shirts, ECG sensing fitness bands, handheld devices and a 12 lead ECG chest band. These devices are already pre-qualified as HeartCheck compatible and have connectivity to CardioComm's GEMS Mobile Smartphone ECG management app and to its GEMS software platform which is currently utilized by hospitals across the USA and Canada.

The Company also demonstrated its GEMS Mobile Rx app intended for use by physicians on Android and iOS based Smartphones and tablets. GEMS Mobile Rx enables healthcare professionals to now use ECG interrogation tools previously available only on the server based GEMS WIN hospital software on their own Smartphone without the need for accessing CardioComm's cloud based SMART Monitoring ECG service. If a second opinion is required, an ECG review through SMART Monitoring is available. For Windows based Smartphones and computers the Company will release GEMS Home Rx.

CardioComm continued discussions with Intralink Limited who assisted in coordinating many of the business-to-business meetings during the Japanese leg of the Trade Mission. Intralink offers a range of pre- and post-market entry services, including market research and strategy development, partner search and selection, and local representation. Intralink works with clients to commercialize technology, secure foreign direct investment, and source capital from strategic investors. The medical market in Japan provides a large opportunity to introduce North American standards for cardiac outpatient monitoring. In Japan there are approximately 100,955 medical clinics and 1.5 million hospital beds in 8,480 hospitals (2015 statistics, www.mhlw.go.jp). Directives issued under the Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry are introducing new medical fee reimbursements related to the implementation of telemedicine platforms with an effective date of April 1, 2018. The new reimbursement fees will support Japan's efforts to encourage doctors to offer medical counseling over the internet. Of specific relevance to CardioComm is the implementation of a new telemedicine fee for mobile ECG monitoring at a value of 1500 JPY per ECG (approximately Cdn$18.29).

The Company will provide further updates as they are realized.

To learn more about the CardioComm Solutions' products, please see the Company's websites www.theheartcheck.com and www.cardiocommsolutions.com.

About CardioComm Solutions

CardioComm Solutions' patented and proprietary technology is used in products for recording, viewing, analyzing and storing electrocardiograms for diagnosis and management of cardiac patients. Products are sold worldwide through a combination of an external distribution network and a North American-based sales team. CardioComm Solutions has earned the ISO 13485 certification, is HIPAA compliant and holds clearances from the European Union (CE Mark), the USA (FDA) and Canada (Health Canada).

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Etienne Grima, Chief Executive Officer

1-877-977-9425 x227

egrima@cardiocommsolutions.com

investor.relations@cardiocommsolutions.com

www.cardiocommsolutions.com

Forward-looking statements

This release may contain certain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information with respect to the financial condition, results of operations and business of CardioComm Solutions and certain of the plans and objectives of CardioComm Solutions with respect to these items. Such statements and information reflect management's current beliefs and are based on information currently available to management. By their nature, forward-looking statements and forward-looking information involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future and there are many factors that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements and forward-looking information.

In evaluating these statements, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward-looking information. The Company does not assume any obligation to update the forward-looking statements and forward-looking information contained in this release other than as required by applicable laws, including without limitation, Section 5.8(2) of National Instrument 51-102 (Continuous Disclosure Obligations).

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.Palma Ceia SemiDesign (PCS), a Mountain View, CA-based fabless semiconductor company, closed a Series B funding of undisclosed amount.

The round was led by Global Connective LP, a U.S. subsidiary fund of Inspiration China Ltd Pty, based in Adelaide, Australia.

The company intends to use the funds to broaden its market footprint.

Led by Roy E. Jewell, co-founder and chief executive officer, Palma Ceia SemiDesign is a fabless semiconductor company offering wireless chips, modules, systems and IP supporting emerging Machine-to-Machine (M2M) WiFi and cellular standards for the Internet of Things (IoT).

Target IoT markets include:

 Smart City

 Smart Home

 Smart Factory

 Healthcare

 Wearables

 Transportation

 Agriculture

Palma Ceia, which already has design operations in McKinney, Texas, and sales and support activities in Israel, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, is also establishing a wholly owned subsidiary in Tianjin, China. This facility will enable the company to accelerate expansion into the China market and to establish IC and software design and IoT application support teams in Tianjin and Shanghai.

FInSMEs

05/03/2018What happened to Aircel was neither sudden nor unexpected; the rapid and unprecedented market consolidation is changing the workings of the telecom market like never before

New Delhi: By late 2016, Aircel was gearing up to become one half of a merged telecom company which would be number four in the Indian market in terms of subscribers as well as revenues. Not only was the merged entity expected to have scale to take on the incumbent biggies, it was also seen as the resolution for promoters of the two companies to partially tackle their respective debt pile and avoid insolvency. Had the proposed 50:50 merger between Aircel and Reliance Communications (RCom) happened, the telecom industry contours would have been quite different today.

The respective debt piles of RCom and Aircel would have diminished by Rs 20,000 crore and Rs 4,000 crore respectively, according to a statement announcing the merger in September 2016. The merged entity would have had a considerable subscriber base and net worth to become a strong player in the market, which saw the arrival of Reliance Jio Infocomm armed with freebies and disruptive strategies in the same month. But that was not to be, as the merger was called off by RCom in October 2017 due to regulatory and legal hurdles. And one after the other, both the prospective partners have had to virtually shut shop.

RCom shut down its voice business a month after calling off the merger and has agreed to sell off wireless assets to RJio. And now Aircel has filed for bankruptcy under the Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process  the first such case where the company itself has come forward to start bankruptcy proceedings.

In a statement, Aircel said it has been facing troubled times in a highly financially stressed industry, owing to intense competition following the disruptive entry of a new player, legal and regulatory challenges, high level of unsustainable debt and increased losses. Post detailed discussions with the financial lenders and shareholders, the company could not reach consensus with respect to restructuring of its debt and funding. Under current circumstances, especially after the 12 February 2018 RBI guideline, the company believes resolution process under the Code is an appropriate recourse.

Aircel has a little over 7 percent share of Indias telecom subscribers at 8.5 crore, 3.7 percent revenue market share and operations in 16 circles. Some months back, it shut operations in six other circles. An analysis by Emkay stockbroking shows Aircels rapid decline in adjusted gross revenue since 2016: In the Jan-Mar quarter of 2015-16, the telco declared adjusted gross revenue (AGR) of Rs 1961.9 crore, which declined to Rs 1763.9 crore in the same quarter of 2016-17. By Jan-March of 2017-18, the AGR had dipped to Rs 1011.7 crore or about half of what it was two years back.

Declining revenues, no fresh investments from promoters and a mounting debt pile were the undoing of Aircel. Now, as it tries a resolution under NCLT, it is crucial that operations continue optimally.Which is perhaps why it has been sounding out competitors for keeping its network up and running.

Aircels move puts at stake the livelihoods of an estimated 30,000 employees, who have begun a campaign on twiter over the weekend to get their jobs back.

#Aircel files for bankruptcy at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT). It has almost 18 working circles. Fate of 30,000 Employees at stake. Hundreds of Employees are tagging Govt Twitter handle for help.

This thread speaks of how the employees are petitioning Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other influencers to retain their livelihoods. Last month, subscribers across some circles had complained of getting no services after a dispute with the tower firm allegedly lead Aircel to suspend services in circles such as Tamil Nadu.

It is pertinent to note here that what happened to Aircel was neither sudden nor unexpected. The rapid and unprecedented market consolidation is changing the workings of the telecom market like never before. In fact, what has happened in the last 12-18 months is an apt business school case study. From under a dozen operators, the market seems to be consolidating to perhaps just four by the time the current shakeout is over. Data prices have crashed as data demand scales new highs, voice is now being offered virtually for free and this, in a market which already had some of the worlds cheapest mobile tariffs. All this has happened after RJio came into the market with freebies and offered high speed data with voice bundled for free.

The breakneck speed with which this change has come about has already claimed several small telecom companies even as it has considerable revenue implications for the biggies. So Bharti Airtel has acquired Telenor and Tata Teleservices. RCom has agreed to sell its wireless assets to RJio while shutting down the 2G/3G business. And Vodafone and Idea are in the process of a merger which will create a sizeable telecom giant, with money and spectrum assets. All but RJio are shrinking in revenue shares. Aircel remained the only large operator with no fresh investments, a debt pile and an uncertain future. It was only a matter of time before it filed for bankruptcy.

Remember, the failed merger with RCom is not the only setback for Aircel  it has had its fair share of controversies earlier too. Promoter C Sivasankaran had earlier cried foul alleging that he was forced to sell 74 percent stake to Malaysian company Maxis under duress by the then government.

And since last week, former Finance Minister -s son Karti is being probed for alleged irregularities in the Aircel Maxis deal, among other charges.

Today, the situation for Aircel looks rather chaotic. But make no mistake, a shakeout in Indias telecom industry would be good for it in the long-term. In no market across the globe are there so many players  the optimum number is three or four. This is what India is aiming to achieve too, albeit with some pain.Masti ki Paathshala operates in the problem-solving mode where real life problems are posed to children.

Gautam Khandelwal, a former teacher and a qualified Chartered Account and MBA from Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA), Anand, Gujarat, threw up his mundane existence to start up a learning centre for fun which he calls, Masti ka Paathshala. Khandelwal taught in mainstream schools in Gurgaon and Jaipur before founding Masti Ki Paathshala, a democratic learning centre in rural Rajasthan. Funded by friends and others, the learning centre opened in the leopard-infested village Agar, in the Alwar District of Rajasthan in April 2017. Khandelwal is dipping into his savings to run the learning centre and has his family in Jaipur supporting him through and through, though he says his relatives wonder at his lack of a steady paying job that can take care of his wife and two kids. I have now set out on a very interesting journey. Let us see what the future holds for me. He also intends to work on healthcare and livelihoods.

After 7 years of teaching, I finally decided to drop out. The journey was both enjoyable and painful. Enjoyable because I got to meet with some very bright young souls who are going to, as Michael Jackson sang, Heal the world. It was painful because I saw suffering all along the way. I saw young children being bullied by adults. I saw confusion. I saw this yearning to play but alas the course had to be completed. I saw this deep desire to learn and go beyond the prescribed curriculum. However, in most cases, the career teachers of today vis a vis the gurus of yesteryears, did not know anything besides the prescribed text. I saw children begging for marks. I saw children cheating for marks. Those who scored a 100 were heroes and those who failed were considered scums of the planet.

Schools go against the very nature of the child. Children by nature are playful. They want to play, explore their surroundings, spend time socializing, rather than spend half the day in the classroom and the remaining half in tuition centres and at home doing homework. The child is the key stakeholder in the education process. However, the irony is that the child has no say in how things happen at school. At best, their opinion is sought on certain matters.

Having seen schooling from close quarters and after reading a lot on education, I was convinced that children had the capacity to meet their own learning needs. All that was required was to present them with a safe environment where they could live life their way. A place that has all the ingredients for a good education so that each one could then cook their own recipe. More so, I always wanted to go work in the poorest and the most underdeveloped areas. This led to the birth of Masti ki Paathshala (School of Fun), a democratic learning centre where the children call the shots. There are no tests, no marks and no curriculum. What we do have is a lot of talking and a lot of play. We have laptops, tablets, a small library, a small science lab, board games and a lot of junk that is used to do all sorts of things.

After visiting villages in five different districts of Rajasthan, I finally settled on this village called Agar, in the Alwar District, not very far from the Sariska Tiger Reserve. Masti ki Paathshala 001 was set up in Agar in April 2017. While it is a challenge for educational institutions to enrol children, we never did and will never solicit children. I did initially harbour doubts on how and whether children would come to Masti ki Paathshala. I still remember vividly on the first day, 6 boys came out of nowhere, enquiring what this place was all about. Since then, we have never looked back. In fact, the moment they realised that this was their space, they have come in droves.

Masti ki Paathshala operates in the problem-solving mode. We pose real life problems to children. For instance, we are presently working on the Swach Agar Mission, a cleanliness campaign. The children have been cleaning open drains that had not been cleaned for the last 6 months. We will further set up dustbins and also run a drive to eliminate polythene from the village. In order to get a buy-in from the community, the children will also run a communication campaign. For this purpose, we recently did a workshop on Photoshop and Coral Draw. The children should now be able to make posters which could be stuck in and around the village. We are also trying to do a puppetry workshop which could then be used in the communication campaign.

In this manner, not only have children found a solution to a problem that the adults could not solve, they are also picking up important life skills. Thanks to their new-found enthusiasm, children have now decided to engage in all sorts of problems that beset the village - water shortage, lack of street lights, poverty, etc. I believe that this child-led model of education is far more empowering than the teacher-dictated model. Besides, it involves no violence which continues in conventional schools.

Unlike in conventional schools, we do not have any tangible benchmark to measure progress. In fact, I believe that if the children are allowed to pursue their passions, there is no need to measure their progress. Therefore, I do not have anything tangible to show on that score. However, I can assure you that there is a lot of learning that is going on here. The most important learning is self-esteem and the self-confidence effects that this model generates. Children now feel confident that they are capable of solving any challenges that life throws at them.

Parents often complain that children are only seen to be playing at our learning centre, which in a sense is true. Our validation simply comes from what the children have to say.

This region became infamous a few months back due to the presence of man-eating leopards, who claimed about 10 lives in the region, including 2 from our village. So while there is no timings in the centre as such, we prefer the younger children to leave before dark. However, they just refuse and often have to be thrown out. I am made to feel as if I am the Pied Piper in the village. Parents have told me many a times that while their children may not obey their instructions, they dont go against what we ask of them at the Centre. I guess that is simply because they feel respected here, that they have a say in how things are done, that they are treated as equals.

The journey until now has been very meaningful albeit not without challenges. As said earlier, this area is notorious for man-eating leopards, who almost made Kaluram, our colleague its victim. We are faced with a financial crunch on a regular basis. We have a very unconventional learning model, which will take time for acceptance from the adult community (by the way, the children love it, which I think is the best validation).

There is a financial crunch that we have to deal with on a regular basis. I have been working without pay for more than a year now, drawing on my savings at a very rapid pace. Until now, my friends have funded our operations. My deep gratitude to all my friends who have never let me down. The Centre for Health and Education Reform, our legal entity, will also work in the healthcare and livelihoods domain.

On the healthcare side, the idea is to set up nature cure hospitals. Nature cure mainly requires mitti (Earth), hawa (air) and paani (water), which is found abundantly in rural areas. More so, there is no reliance on external factors such as doctors and expensive medicines. Most importantly, it is extremely low-cost and highly effective. In my opinion, nature cure appears to be the perfect model for rural health.

On the livelihood side, the long-term goal is to ensure that no one from the villages has to migrate in search of work. This will solve the twin problems of infrastructure bottlenecks in urban areas and that of forced migration in rural areas. Besides, it will generate employment here in the rural areas and diversify the employment basket away from agriculture, which is a highly unpredictable activity. Our work on livelihoods is also very important since it will help us fund our learning centres and the nature-cure hospitals. At the moment, we are experimenting with stitching cotton bags and wallets and food processing.

My goal is to set up at least 500 Masti ki Paathshalas and nature cure hospitals before I die. All this will of course require extensive funding. Therefore, we are looking for funding. We have sent applications for funding to the CSR wing of some organisations but have yet to hear from them.

(The writer is Founder, Masti ki Paathshala. Khandelwal can be contacted at: gautam@mastikipaathshala.org)Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, March 6)  Senators said on Monday that the only way to remove a sitting Chief Justice is to follow the impeachment procedure stated in the Constitution.

"Under the Constitution, the meaning of the provision literally is that once in position, the following high-ranking government officials can only be removed from their positions through impeachment, so if you invent some other proceeding which will result in the removal from office then that should violate that provision in the Constitution," Senate President Koko Pimentel said.

Pimentel's statement came after Solicitor General Jose Calida filed on Monday a quo warranto petition at the Supreme Court, seeking to void the appointment of Maria Lourdes Sereno as Chief Justice.

A quo warranto is a legal proceeding where an individual's right to hold office is challenged.

Read: SolGen questions Sereno's qualifications as chief justice

Calida said Sereno repeatedly failed to file her Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, which is one of the requirements for those applying for the Chief Justice post.

The petition was filed as the House Justice Committee is expected to determine this week whether or not the impeachment complaint filed against Sereno has probable cause.

Sereno faces removal from office for allegedly violating the Constitution, corruption, betrayal of public trust and other high crimes, which are grounds for impeachment under the Constitution.

She repeatedly denied the allegations and asked for the complaint to be junked.

Under the Constitution, if one-third of the House agrees with the articles of impeachment, the case would be elevated to the Senate, standing as an impeachment court.

Slippery slope

The Supreme Court (SC) is expected to deliberate on Calida's petition on Tuesday.

But Senate Minority Leader Frank Drilon said if the high court agrees to using other means to remove the Chief Justice, these could apply to other high officials.

"Let me express the apprehension that the moment the SC entertains and gives rules on this, that it has the power to in effect to dismiss their Chief Justice, that same rule applies to them and that same rule will apply to all heads of the various constitutional bodies: COA, COMELEC, etc., and to the Vice President and to the President," he said. "These are all impeachable officers."

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV agreed with Drilon's argument.

"Ang quo warranto proceedings na 'yan, bawal 'yan," he said. "Kaya ako, 'pag inaksyunan yan ng Korte Suprema ay sila ay in-expose nila ang sarili nila ng sariling impeachment dahil pwedeng gawing basis 'yan because it's unconstitutional."

[Translation: Those quo warranto proceedings are not allowed. For me, if the Supreme Court acts the petition, they are exposing themselves to a possible impeachment because that can be used as basis because it's unconstitutional.]

Meanwhile, Sen. Bam Aquino said he is likewise not in favor of removing Sereno through means other than what is stated in the Constitution.

"As far as I am concerned and as far as I think a number of us are concerned, ang proseso po ng pagtanggal sa isang chief justice ay isang proseso na nakasaad na impeachment po 'yan," he said. "So ito pong pagbabago ng proseso, labag po 'yan sa ating konstitusyon at kelangan tignan natin kung ano yung tamang proseso dito po sa isyu na ito."

[Translation: As far as I am concerned and as far as I think a number of us are concerned, the process of removing a Chief Justice is through impeachment. So this revision of the process is a violation of the Constitution and we need to look at the right process for this issue.]

Take it to the Senate

Meanwhile, Sereno's spokespersons said in a Monday press statement that lawmakers should quickly take the case to the Senate.

Related: Sereno asks Congress to speed up impeachment case

"The Chief Justice is ready to face trial and disprove all allegations against her before the Senate, which is the only body or institution that can remove her from office via two-thirds vote of all its members," they said. "She will not back down in her fight for truth and justice.

"The most cruel act they can inflict on the Filipino nation is to pressure the Supreme Court to substitute impeachment with quo warranto," they added. "Why are they afraid of a Senate trial?"

They added that Calida's petition is part of a "grand plan" to malign and harrass Sereno and force her to resign.While the laws empower RBI to adopt formal, legal means to establish rules and enforce them, the central bank often uses informal means.

The recent fraud at Punjab National Bank (PNB) highlights the lacunae in banking regulation and its enforcement. As the banking regulator, the Reserve Bank of India has been vested with powers of the State through acts of Parliament to discharge certain duties. It can not only advise or issue warnings to banks, but also has coercive power over banks. It can use its coercive powers through formal, legal means to ensure that an individual episode like the PNB or an overall collapse of the banking system does not take place. If the RBI continues to fail at regulating banks, is it time for a system overhaul?

A regulator writes subordinate legislation in the form of regulations and enforces the same. Apart from legislative power, it also has executive and quasi-judicial authority over the regulated entities. The RBI drafts regulations and it has the power to conduct investigations such that the regulations are effectively implemented. When the regulated entities, in this case banks, violate the regulations, RBI has the power to punish them. That is the job of a regulator and that is how a regulated system operates. This is so designed in order to prevent market failures.

Sound banking is the RBIs responsibility. Despite there being a banking regulator, Indias banking system gets mired in one crisis after another. Among other factors, lacklustre enforcement of regulations has resulted in a prolonged collapse of the Indian banking system. This brings us to the question as to why the RBI performs poorly as a banking regulator? One of the reasons for its failure is the poorly designed process of making regulations and enforcing them.

Regulators in countries where rule of law prevails are supposed to use legal instruments to discharge their duties. This places an obligation on the regulated to comply with the instructions. It also protects the rights of the regulated because they can challenge such instructions in the appropriate court of law. For example, a speech in Parliament does not become a law. It has to be introduced as a Bill, passed by a majority of legislators, and then receive the assent of the President. Only then are citizens expected to comply with them. This ensures that the checks, balances and formality of a legal system are maintained. Legal systems ensure that there are consequences for violation as they usually provide penalties for non-compliance.

While the laws empower RBI to adopt formal, legal means to establish rules and enforce them, the RBI often uses informal means. This dilutes the sanctity of the regulatory process with the regulated entities picking and choosing what to comply with, depending on the situation at hand. Use of informal and extra-legal means to exercise powers come in the way of effective enforcement of banking regulation.

For example, in the aftermath of the PNB episode, RBI has now directed banks to connect their core-banking systems (CBS) to the SWIFT system by 30 April. This is the second such informal communication between the regulator, and the regulated. The RBI claims it had previously warned banks through letters and speeches about the problems in SWIFT.

Back in 2015, Union Bank had a similar problem regarding the reconciliation of SWIFT and CBS systems and a deputy governor of the RBI mentioned this in a speech. The RBI did not issue any mandate to the banks to compulsorily implement this reconciliation. There is no explanation as to why the RBI did not use its coercive powers through formal, legal means in 2015 to bring about this change in the banking system.

The RBI has powers under the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 (Section 35A) to give directions to banks. Violations of such directions are punishable by monetary fines imposed on the bank and officers responsible for the violation. The RBI frequently uses this power to issue formal directions. For example, on 12 February, the RBI published formal directions on the resolution of stressed assets. The directions clearly stated the legal authority under which the RBI was issuing them and were publicly available. Any bank violating these directions can now be penalised under the law.

On the contrary, for the instructions on connecting SWIFT to CBS, we have to depend on second-hand information. The RBI has not provided any update on its website. It is not clear if any legal instrument has been used to enforce the 30 April deadline. What happens if a bank does not comply with the 30 April deadline? Will penalties be imposed? Will there be any consequence? We do not know.

Correcting this anomaly requires two steps. First, the RBI and all other regulators adopting a similar approach, need to rework their internal systems in order to cease using informal methods of regulation. This can be done without any changes to the existing regulations.

Regulatory work should be carried out using powers bestowed upon the regulator in legislation, using processes and systems mandated in the legislation. Second, the legislation governing regulators, should be reworked to bring in a modern regulation-making system which involves identification of market failures, a cost-benefit analysis of the intervention, invitation of public comments, regulatory response to comments, and oversight of the Parliament.

Violation of regulations should always be punished by proportional penalties once an adjudication process has taken place and should be reported to the public.

The draft Indian Financial Code as recommended by the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission, embodies these principles. A legislative change is not needed for the regulators, including the RBI, to voluntarily adopt these recommendations. The Department of Economic Affairs in late 2013 had formulated a handbook to help all regulators implement such Governance Enhancing Recommendations of FSLRC. In 2014, all the financial sector regulators had agreed to implement these recommendations.

The change in the internal processes of the regulators, including the RBI, has been slow. An overhaul of the process of issuing and enforcing regulations to better discipline the banks is the need of the hour if recurrent crises in the banking sector are to be prevented.

(Sengupta is a researcher at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR); Roy is a legal consultant at National Institute of Public Finance and Policy (NIPFP))The way the CBI and ED have been pursuing cases of alleged irregularities in the banking and finance sector is bound to send a chill down banking and corporate sectors and make them common hate figures.

In 1985, as a reporter of a national daily in Lucknow, I had an opportunity to cover a lecture by Nani Palkhivala, one of India's greatest legal minds, at an event organised by an industry association. In those days, VP Singh as finance minister was on a warpath to unearth black money. He unleashed tax and investigative authorities on corporate houses indiscriminately. Even the most respected corporate houses and their owners, irrespective of their age, were hauled over the coals in a frenzied manner by income-tax sleuths and officials of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), directorate of revenue intelligence (DRI) and customs. It was as if the finance minister was hunting prey cornered by his troops. All this to the eager and unquestioning drum-beating by the media.

In those maddening times, Palkhivala stood out as a lone voice that rubbished the finance ministrys campaign an immoral witch-hunt which would have far-reaching and deleterious consequences for the country. He questioned the need to knock the doors of a highly respected and aged industrialist such as SL Kirloskar at the dead of night as if he was a petty criminal. What exactly are you trying to convey? Palkhivala had asked.

Palkhivalas logic and arguments left no doubt about the futility of VP Singhs endeavours. Yet VP Singhs drum-beaters, including the mainstream media, continued the hunt and created a scare in India Inc. This continued till Rajiv Gandhi cut Singh's wings and shifted him from finance to defence. By then, however, the damage was done. Singh came to don the mantle of a "Mr Clean" who would be satisfied with nothing less than an oral overhaul of the system. He was seen as anti-rich, a credential powerful enough to endear him to the toiling masses.

Making good use of this newly acquired image, Singh parted company with the Congress and forged a coalition against Rajiv Gandhi who had meanwhile got embroiled in a series of payoff controversies in defence deals. Singh's victory in the Lok Sabha elections of 1989 gave us a short-lived government as he proved to be clever only by half. Much of his talk of probity in public life turned out to be hogwash and he soon perished. But the country paid a heavy price  on the political, social as well as economic fronts. Indeed, his becoming prime minister was an extraordinary event that put India on a nearly irreversible path of political instability, chaos and moral turpitude. It also hurt the economy to the point of India having to mortgage its gold reserves.

More than 30 years later that atmosphere of fear seems to have made a comeback. Tax and enforcement sleuths are being unleashed on businessmen. The way the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and ED have been pursuing cases of alleged irregularities in the banking and finance sector is bound to send a chill down banking and corporate sectors and make them common hate figures. Coming as it does towards the end of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tenure, it would seem like the government is, willy-nilly, giving us a glimpse of the raid raj of VP Singh.

If one looks at the manner in which these so-called scams are handled, it appears more like a witch-hunt than pursuing any real objective of correcting the financial system giving rise to a serious doubt: Is this a deep-seated conspiracy to cripple the banking system and unsettle the government?

It is instructive to note here that in the initial stages of the investigation of Vijay Mallyas loan default, the CBI and ED were not on the same page. Quite strangely, the CBIs assessment was that Mallyas case did not fall into the category of fraud as he had merely taken loans and defaulted on repayment. The critical perusal of his financial transactions did not indicate any diversion of funds. It was a case of default, not fraud, an investigating officer told me. But ED insisted on filing a case of diversion of funds. Later, the CBI changed the investigators and fell in line to frame Mallyas case as a fraud.

It is nobodys argument that Mallyas case should not be probed. But are we not missing the woods for the trees? Mallyas case belonged to the genre of an outrageous profligacy indulged in by a group of bankers, politicians and corporate houses. The real question is: How did Mallya secure loans when there were clear signs of his civil aviation business failing? The answer lies in the conduct of those manning the finance ministry in those days  Pranab Mukherjee and P Chidambaram.

There are certain instances that need to be highlighted to understand the manner in which the finance ministry was run under the stewardship of Mukherjee and Chidambaram. A Bihar-cadre IAS officer posted as joint secretary in the department of financial services, Amitabh Verma, became so influential that once Mallya created a stir in Patna by flying in his private jet from Bangalore to meet Verma in the early years of UPA-1 with Chidambaram as FM. We thought he had come to meet the chief minister, said a local officer who came to know about Mallyas presence in Patna. Mallya drove straight to Vermas residence and flew back after meeting Verma.

Verma was not alone in displaying this kind of disproportionate clout with business leaders. A woman officer considered very influential in Mukherjees office held the same clout when Mukherjee was the FM. There is enough evidence to prove that banks were arm-twisted into giving loans to a group of profligate corporate houses irrespective of their financial conditions. The result was obvious: Debtors continued to default on loans.

Laffaire Sahara is another example of how authorities and institutions  in this case, Sebi and the Supreme Court  hound business houses and in the process grind business to a halt while we continue to wait for justice. The fact remains that no criminal case has been made out against the Sahara group or its chief so far. Yet, he was sent to jail  with the inadvertent effect that he continued with his affluent lifestyle in Tihar jail, subverting the prison system, as well.

The sum total of what has been achieved by the hyperactivity of CBI and ED is that it has struck fear in banking and business circles at a critical time for the Modi government and the country when the economy is showing signs of shaking off its sluggishness of the last eight quarters. Of course, it has created the right electoral optics for the government by creating an impression that the high and mighty will not be spared. But that is like cutting your nose to spite your face.

At the first instance, cases like Mallya, Nirav Modi and Vikram Kothari, are striking examples of the complete failure of the internal operational risk audit and external regulatory mechanisms, especially by the Reserve Bank of India and the Department of Banking and Financial Services in the Finance Ministry. We are yet to hear a word on what is being done to ensure accountability of these preventive systems which have obviously been in deep slumber.

Instead, we have the overenthusiastic CBI and ED, which are hardly equipped to decipher the fine print of financial transactions almost trying to decide who is a legitimate borrower and who is not. CBI and ED can look into the criminal aspects of a loan gone bad, but it would be absurd to expect them to ascertain the eligibility criteria of a loan, a senior government officer told me.

The overenthusiasm displayed by CBI and ED has created a scare in the banking industry which was already battling record levels of non-performing assets (NPAs). The CBI is getting flooded with requests to take up probes of cases that are patently bad and immoral banking rather than serious fraud. Anybody with even a little understanding of governance would know that it would be a grave error to entrust the responsibility of reinforcing moral and ethical values in the financial system to police agencies. That is the job of the political establishment and the regulators. The CBI and ED should not be allowed to appropriate that role.

A version of this article first appeared in the March 1-15 edition of Governance NowNirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, who are said to have left the country before criminal cases were registered, had failed to appear before the ED, promoting the agency to move the PMLA court for issuance of NBWs against them

After explaining his inability to attend three summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), the noose is tightening around diamantaire Nirav Modi. The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) will initiate proceedings against Modi and his companies -- Firestar Diamond International, Firestar International Pvt Ltd., and Radhashir Jewellery Co Ltd. -- for a case registered against them in 2015, according to media reports.

The 2014-15 case against the diamantaire and his firms is for importing diamonds into the country availing of duty-free sanctions and is being alleged of using low quality diamonds to make jewellery for exports, the Mint reported. For the 2015 case, Modi will be prosecuted under the Customs Act and the Indian Penal Code, the Mint report said.

An Indian Express report mentions that it was able to access documents on the case which shows Modi had paid Rs 48 crore as a settlement. Irrespective of the settlement, sources told IE that the official settlement order left open option of initiating prosecution openings.

On 27 February, the ED had moved the court seeking an non-bailable warrat (NBW) against Modi. The agency had told the court that it had issued three summons to Modi to appear before it. "We issued three summonses to Choksi. He neither responded to those summonses nor appeared before the agency," special ED prosecutor Hiten Venegaonkar had told the special court presided over by Judge M S Azmi here on 1 March, a PTI report said.

A special court issued on Saturday non-bailable warrants (NBWs) against diamond traders Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi in the alleged Rs 12,700 crore Punjab National Bank scam. The court, set up under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), issued the NBWs on applications filed by the Enforcement Directorate (ED), one of the agencies probing the bank fraud cases registered last month.

The ED had earlier issued summonses to Modi and Choksi, both key accused in the scam cases, asking them to appear before the central agency. However, the two diamond traders, who are said to have left the country before criminal cases were registered, had failed to appear before the ED, promoting the agency to move the PMLA court for issuance of NBWs against them, the PTI report said.

Modi is reportedly said to be hiding in Hong Kong, according to a report in the Times of India. The ED said this in a special PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court on Saturday, the report said.The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has passed the directions against Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, the alleged main perpetrators of the fraud, as well as their firms and relatives, among other entities, as per a public announcement by the corporate affairs ministry

Amid the ongoing multi-agency probe into the Rs 12,700 crore Punjab National Bank scam, the NCLT has restrained more than 60 entities, including Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, various individuals, companies and limited liability partnership firms, from selling their assets.

The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has passed the directions against Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, the alleged main perpetrators of the fraud, as well as their firms and relatives, among other entities, as per a public announcement by the corporate affairs ministry.

The ex-parte order was passed on a petition filed by the ministry under various sections of the Companies Act, 2013.

The ministry moved the petition under various provisions such as section 221, which pertains to freezing of assets of company on inquiry and investigation, and section 222 that relates to imposition of restrictions upon securities.

It has been passed against 64 entities that includes Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, few individuals related to the Punjab National Bank, various companies and limited liability partnerships.

Gitanjali Gems, Gilli India, Nakshatra Brands and Firestar Diamond are among the barred companies, while partnership firms include Solar Exports and Stellar Diamond.

According to the ministry, the petition came up for urgent hearing before the Mumbai bench of the NCLT on February 23 and that an ex-parte order was passed. There is an injunction against these entities from removal, transfer or disposal of funds, assets and properties till further order, according to the announcement.

Apart from the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) under the ministry is also probing the matter. Last month, sources had said the ministry has ordered the SFIO to investigate around 110 companies, including some listed ones, and about 10 LLPs linked to Modi and Choksi. The estimated 12,700 crore fraud was perpetrated by way of fraudulent Letter of Undertakings (LoU) in connivance with some bank employees.Nirmohi Akhara denied Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's statement that they had met him for peaceful negotiations on the Ram Mandir issue.

Nirmohi Akhara on Monday denied Art of Living (AoL) founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's statement that they had met him for peaceful negotiations on the Ram Mandir issue, media reports said. On Monday morning, Sri Sri said: "Nirmohi Akhada were the first people to approach me, they are with me. I have tremendous support from the people of Ayodhya. I am not looking for any credit. I have enough from the world," CNN-News 18 reported.

On Monday afternoon, Sri Sri was seen appealing that the country should not be in a state like Syria. The AoL founder even said that he does not need politics to resolve the Ayodhya issue.

.@SriSri speaks exclusively to CNN-News18 on the ongoing Ayodhya dispute. Sri Sri says that Nirmohi Akhara approached him for peaceful negotiations and CNN-News18 also accessed exclusive images of Nirmohi Akhara leaders meeting the spiritual leader #SriSriSolution #SriSriOnNews18 pic.twitter.com/5CpDsEGMl8  News18 (@CNNnews18) March 5, 2018

Is desh ke bhavishya ko aise chand log jo sangarsh par hi apna astitva samajhte hain, unke hawale mat kariye. Yahan shanti rehne dijiye. Hamare desh ko Syria jaise nahi banana chahiye. Aisi harkat yahan ho jaaye to satyanash ho jaayega: Sri Sri Ravishankar #Ayodhya pic.twitter.com/kTrsbbXt54  ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2018

Earlier, on 1 March, Sri Sri had said that they "have been getting good responses from every side" and are talking about harmonious co-existence of both communities and construction of grand Ram temple. "There is a lot of goodwill and cooperation from Muslim community," Sri Sri was quoted as saying by ANI.

In the past one year, Sri Sri has interacted with more than 500 leaders in Ayodhya, Bangalore, Lucknow, Delhi, Hyderabad, and Chennai personally or through video conferencing. Recently, he met expelled AIMPLB member Salman Nadvi and has plans for a meeting Muslim scholars and Ulemas in Lucknow on 28 March.

After meeting Nadvi last week, he had said, "Our efforts are on... towards success and the response from all sides is very good. We will continue (our) efforts. We are talking about maintaining love and harmony between two communities and for a grand Ram temple."

The AoL founder said the effort was to bring in a consensus on the issue.

With inputs from PTIThe second half of the Budget Session of Parliament will commence on Monday with the government seeking to push its legislative agenda, including the bill for confiscation of properties of fugitives, and the opposition likely to target it on a range of issues including the multi-crore bank frauds.

Auto refresh feeds

Amid the outrage over the Nirav Modi scam and Karti Chidambaram's arrest in the INX Media case, the NDA government is possibly staring at a stormy second half of Budget Session which begins from Monday. The first part of the budget session was held from 29 January to 9 February, while second half of the session will come to a close on 9 April.

The Congress is also likely to denounce the government over the arrest of former Union finance minister P Chidambaram's son Karti by the CBI in the INX Media alleged bribery case. The Congress has termed the CBI action "political vendetta".

The Opposition is also likely to corner the government over the tussle between Prasar Bharti and the Information and Broadcasting ministry. It is likely to raise issues concerning farmers, the Rafale deal, Staff Selection Commission "job scam", loss of life and property due to ceasefire violations on the LoC and increase in cost of petroleum products.

Meanwhile, YSRCP MPs from Andhra Pradesh are likely to hold a dharna against the Centre in the Parliament premises. The party is also expected to initiate a no-confidence motion in Lok Sabha on 21 March, reported Livemint.

BJP MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe calls for suspension of today's session under rule 267 of the Parliament in order to discuss allegations of corruption indulged by family members of former ministers under the tacit protection of ministers.

D Raja of the CPI too has issued an adjournment notice in the Rajya Sabha in order to discuss the Punjab National Bank scam. This is the third adjournment motion on the issue.

CNN-News18 is reporting that the BJP president will be meeting a delegation from the TDP to discuss the issue of special status to the state of Andhra Pradesh. According to the report, TDP is currently adamant on the 19 demands for the state. On the other hand, the YSRCP is also pressurizing the government over the same issue.

The bill to target economic offenders was approved by the government following the escape of diamond merchant Nirav Modi and other accused in the over Rs 12,700-crore Punjab National Bank scam.

The passage of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, which seeks confiscation of assets of absconding fraudsters and loan defaulters, and the triple talaq bill will be high on the government's agenda.

The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill 2017 and The Specific Relief (Amendment) Bill 2017 will be tabled in the Lower House of the Parliament, reported PTI.

TDP MPs prtoest outside the Parliament over the issue of special status for Andhra Pradesh

Today has been the day of adjournment motions. A notice for an adjournment motion can be issued under rule 267 of the Parliament. It is generally utilised by an MP to discuss a matter of public importance. Three of the adjournment motions have been issued to discuss the Nirav Modi scam, while Pappu Yadav has issued an adjournment motion to discuss the alleged scam in the SSC exams. On the other hand, BJP MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe has issued an adjournment notice to discuss the allegations of corruption by relatives of former ministers.

While the Opposition is expected to target the government over financial scams in the recent past, the BJP is likely to pin the blame on the Congress-led UPA regime. The BJP has already claimed that the PNB scam had begun when the UPA was in power and its government has acted with alacrity after the fraud came out in the open. The party, energised by the win in Tripura and impressive performance in Nagaland and Meghalaya elections, is likely to be aggressive in Parliament and rake up scams that happened on the Congress watch to pin it down, party sources said.

However, Opposition created a ruckus in the House as soon as the session began.

Chairman of the Rajya Sabha Venkaiah Naidu is saying that everyone who issued an adjournment notices under rule 267 will get a chance once he holds a discussion with Arun Jaitley, the Leader of Rajya Sabha. He added that many of the members have to look at some other rule in the Parliament rule book to talk in the Parliament. On the issue of Cauvery water, Naidu said that the adjournment notice issued by AIADMK MP Navneethakrishnan will be discussed in Zero Hour.

According to Financial Express, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and BJP president Amit Shah are scheduled to meet a TDP delegation, and more importantly the Andhra Pradesh finance minister, over the issue of granting Andhra Pradesh with special category status.

"Don't create hungama," said Venkaiah Naidu as Opposition continued to create ruckus over PNB scam, 'Special Category Status' to Andhra Pradesh and other issues. This forced Naidu to adjourn the Upper House of the Parliament till 2 pm.

However, the Opposition continues to create ruckus. The Opposition has also walked into the Well of the House to protest against the government.

The resignation of Neiphiu Rio, who was elected to the Nagaland Assembly unopposed, and who is likely to be the next Chief Minister of Nagaland, has been accepted by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.

The Rajya Sabha has resumed operations, with PJ Kurien seated at the Chair. However, MP's continued there agitation even as the Speaker took his seat. Slogans of "Nirav Modi vapas lao" raged in the Parliament while Kurien urged the MPs to maintain decorum of the House.

PJ Kuries, in an attempt to calm down the agitated members, acknowledged that the issues raised by them were important and agreed to allow discussion on them one by one. For today, he granted permission to conduct a debate on the frauds in public sector banks. However, Opposition MPs refused to vacate the Well and continued raising slogans. There demand was that the prime minister must explain why he could not keep his promise to bring back Nirav Modi and other people alleged scamsters.

In the Rajya Sabha, ministers are laying the papers on the table

Members of the Opposition come to the Well of the House to protest against Nirav Modi. Slogans of "Nirav Modi ko wapas lao" are being heard. Meanwhile, Venkaiah Naidu has adjourned Rajya Sabha till 11.30 am.

Times Now is reporting that Lok Sabha will be holding a marathon four-hour-long discussion on the issue, starting at noon.

The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved the much talked about Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEO) Bill, 2018 which will be tabled in the remaining Budget session in Parliament. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said that the government has also decided to set up an independent body NFRA (National Financial Reporting Authority) to crackdown on big scams and avoid Nirav Modi-like situation in future. For the purpose the government will amend Companies Act.

While the ministers have tabled their papers, the Opposition continue raise slogans against the government. The Opposition is raising slogans like "Chota Modi, bada Modi Murdabad".

"The second half of the Budget Session is important for passing financial bills. I request the Congress, TDP, TRS and other parties to calm down and let the Hosue continue its work," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said.

While speaking in the Parliament, Union Minister Ananth Kumar said that Arun Jaitley will be making a statement on the issue. However, he also took the opportunity to target the Congress and the previous UPA government. "No one involved in the Congress-led UPA era corruption scandals will be spared," he said.

According to News18, MPs from four parties storming the Well to protest for different demands. While the Congress and the Trinamool Congress want debate on the PNB scam, the AIADMK is protesting over the Cauvery issue. The TRS wants the Constitution amended to skirt the 50% ceiling for reservation in jobs and education, while the TDP wants special status for Andhra Pradesh.

"We have to look at the importance of passing the women's reservation bill," Kanimozhi said.

"Families want to abort and kill the girl child. There are so many dowry deaths. Domestic violence is on the rise. When is all this going to stop?" she further said.

"Men are celebrating us today as mothers, sisters, daughter. I think it's time for women to say, 'enough of that'. We don't want to be celebrated for our sacrifices. We want to be celebrated for our identity," Kanimozhi said in the Rajya Sabha.

Women don't want to be celebrated for their sacrifices, they want to be celebrated for their identities: Kanimozhi

"I find it strange that we celebrate Women's Day. But men don't celebrate any particular day. I am not in favour of this tokenism. I request all the men to stop throwing crumbs at us and treat us with respect throughout the year," Anu Aga said in the Rajya Sabha.

"Earlier, people used to say, 'behing every successful man, there is a woman'. But now, the saying has become 'behind every successful man, there is a nationalised bank," said Derek O'Brien in the Rajya Sabha, clearly taking a dig at the Modi government over the PNB scam.

"Everyone should promise that the restrictions imposed on women by men will be abolished. On Valentine's Day, girls and couples should not be beaten up. In the name of anti-Romeo squad, women were beaten up in UP," AAP's Sanjay Singh said in the Rajya Sabha.

"On other hand, there are crimes against women which bring about shame to us. Which is why this day is one on which we should take a pledge to end such crimes," Swaraj said. "This should be a movement," she added.

"India is a country where a woman became president, prime minister, twice became the Speaker of a House," she said. "Today, women are doing combat duty in the army, flying planes in the air force," she added.

"International Women's Day gives us an opportunity to look at the requirements for gender equality," Sushma Swaraj said in the Rajya Sabha. "Women's reservation bill is important. But there are achievements by women even without reservation," she said.

We should take a pledge this day to end crimes against women: Sushma Swaraj

The Opposition parties protested against the passage of the budget without debate, as the session is slated to continue till 6 April.

The Finance Bill as well as the Appropriation Bill were passed in a matter of 25 minutes during which Opposition parties and ruling NDA ally TDP shouted slogans and created a din. The Lower House was adjourned for the day immediately thereafter.

The Lok Sabha on Wednesday passed the crucial Finance Bill 2018 and a Rs 89.25 lakh crore spending plan for the next fiscal year without discussion amid ruckus, which led to the adjournment of both the Houses of Parliament for the eighth day.

The Rajya Sabha began Thursday's session with an obituary of former MP Hamida Habibullah. The members observed a minute of silence for the same.

Lok Sabha MPs could be heard protesting in the background even as Speaker Sumitra Mahajan tries to conduct the Thursday's session. Congress and other Opposition party members stormed the Well. Ministers speaking can hardly be heard over the din.

Even as Opposition party members stormed the Well in the Lok Sabha, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the Centre is willing to discuss the Cauvery issue and special package to Andhra Pradesh but it cannot be done so with protests in the Well.

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan was forced to adjourn the Lower House till 12 pm on Thursday within less than 10 minutes of the session's beginning.

Former Union minister and TDP MP YS Chowdary speaks on why he resigned from the BJP-led Centre in Rajya Sabha

Speaking in the Rajya Sabha, former Union MoS for Science and Technology YS Chowdary said that the Andhra Pradesh bifurcation was done unjustly and unscientifically. "The division could have been done after taking care of employment potential, development in both states. Both states must have been developed equally for 10 years by the government in power at the time," he said. Following his opening remarks, other members of the House began to clamour and protest, creating a din.

Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu was forced to adjourn the House due to loud protests over former Union minister and TDP MP YS Chowdary's remarks on why he resigned from the Council of Ministers of the Narendra Modi-led NDA government.

Opposition MPs continued to storm the Well of the House even as Speaker Sumitra Mahajan resumed the session.

The Rajya Sabha was earlier adjourned till 2 pm on Thursday amid sharp exchanges between former Union minister from the TDP, YS Chowdary, and the Congress members over the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh in 2014 under the UPA government.

If accepted, it will be the first no-confidence motion moved against the Modi-government.

The motion can be accepted only if it has the support of at least 50 members in the House. YSR Congress has nine MPs in the Lok Sabha.

The YSR Congress's MP YV Subba Reddy gave the notice to the Lok Sabha secretariat for including the motion in Friday's list of business, his office said.

The YSR Congress on Thursday gave a notice for moving a no-confidence motion against the BJP-led NDA government following the Centre's refusal to grant special category status to Andhra Pradesh and found unlikely support from its arch-rival Telugu Desam Party (TDP).

YSR Congress Party MP YV Subba Reddy submitted a notice to the Lok Sabha Secretary-General Snehalata Shrivastava for moving a motion on 'No-Confidence in the Council of Ministers' in the house.

The Telugu Desam Party (TDP) has become the first BJP ally to break away from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Follow LIVE updates on the same here.

After announcing the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) pulls out of the NDA, party MP Thota Narasimhan told ANI that the TDP will be moving a no-confidence motion on Friday. "We have decided... we are out of the NDA," he added.

"TDP withdrew support from the NDA, which did injustice to Andhra Pradesh. TDP president Chandrababu Naidu took this decision in an emergency teleconference with party politburo members and MPs, which was unanimously supported. TDP to also introduce no-confidence motion against NDA government," ANI quoted the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister's Office as saying.

"TDP's decision to quit was inevitable after its mischievous propaganda against Centre. People of Andhra Pradesh have now realised that TDP is resorting to lies to cover up its inert governance. TDP's exit is a timely opportunity for the BJP to grow in Andhra Pradesh," BJP national spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao tweeted.

Speaking to ANI , BJP MP Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi commented on the TDP-NDA break up saying that every year before actual elections, there is always a rehearsal in Parliament. "We will see what happens in Parliament, which party chooses to go which way. In a way it is election year, and every state has demands and issues. It is not right for us to comment on it. It is a custom, before actual elections there is always a rehearsal in Parliament," he said.

Sarfaraz Alam (Araria, Bihar), Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel (Phulpur, Uttar Pradesh), Pravin Kumar Nishad (Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh), who won the recent bypolls held in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, took their oath as Lok Sabha MPs on Friday.

Supporting the no-confidence motion against the NDA government, CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury tweeted: "Its (BJP's) betrayal of the promise of special status for Andhra Pradesh is inexcuseable. Its all-round failure and evasion of parliamentary accountability needs to be highlighted."

After the obituary references were read out, Opposition parties' MPs created a ruckus over the no-confidence motion against the NDA government. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House till 12 pm.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi said his party will support the no-confidence motion against the NDA government in the Lok Sabha. "MIM party will support the no confidence motion in Lok Sabha, not only for failure of Modi government to implement State Reorganisation Act but their failure to fulfill their promise to provide employment to youth ans for injustice to Muslim women and minorities," CNN-News18 quoted him as saying.

"We have no confidence in their no-confidence motion, so we have decided to go on our own," he said. - PTI

TDP MP CM Ramesh added that YSR Congress MP Vijaysai Reddy was seen making attempts to meet the prime minister and this hinted at a nexus between both parties.

Andhra Pradesh's ruling party had on Thursday offered to back the YSR Congress' no-confidence motion but has now said it withdraws the support as it smells a nexus between it and the BJP.

TDP decided to move its own no-confidence motion after suspecting nexus between YSRCP and BJP

Speaking to ANI , BJP national spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao claimed that the Andhra Pradesh government and TDP are wary of the BJP's rise in the state. "The state government and TDP are feeling the pinch of the public opinion going against them and BJP will use this as an opportunity to grow as a political party and emerge as a dominant political force in Andhra Pradesh. For us it will prove to be the next Tripura," Rao said.

Even as Opposition MPs continued to chant slogans in the House, with TRS, TDP MPs storming the Well of the House, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan began with business for the day. She also said that she is duty-bound to introduce the two no-confidence motions but asked protesting MPs to sit in their places. As she said this, Opposition protests began to get louder.

The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day after Telagana Rashra Samithi (TRS) MPs stormed the Well. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said she cannot introduce the two no confidence motions by YSRCP and TDP if House members continued to disrupt proceedings as she needed to check if there are 50 members to support each motion. Protesting MPs created more ruckus in response, forcing her to adjourn Lok Sabha till Monday.

The NDA had stormed to power with 336 seats in 2014, of which the BJP alone claimed 282 seats. However, a series of bypolls that went against the saffron party meant that its tally in the Lok Sabha currently stands at 273 seats. When one adds the allies the BJP does have by its side  Shiv Sena, JD(U), Apna Dal, LJP, SAD, RLSP, PDP  the tally rises to 312. If the TDP can be persuaded to come around once again, this could rise to 328, a comfortable majority.

The TDP has 16 MPs, and it said it would move a no-confidence motion against the Central government. In doing so, it would be following in the footsteps of rival Andhra Pradesh party, the YSR Congress, which has also said it would be moving a no-confidence motion against the Centre. The two Andhra parties have been miffed with the BJP following the latter's inability to grant special status for the state.

As some other Congress members were on their feet trying to join the issue simultaneously, Naidu adjourned the House till 2.30 PM.

"Do you want this sort of a thing to continue? ... Is that your suggestion. This is your party view," he said.

To this, Naidu asked if somebody committed a mistake in the past, does it mean that he should also do the same.

As he was making the appeal, Congress member Satyabrat Chaturvedi stood up and said he agreed with the Chair, but sought to know whether it was for the first time that he is witnessing such a scenario in Parliament.

"I am very much pained that the Upper House of Parliament is not able to transact its business for last two weeks. Dont't test my patience...We are meeting, greeting and not doing anything and adjourning," the Chairman said.

Before adjourning the House till 2.30 PM, Naidu said there were larger issues like banking scam, Cauvery river water sharing, demand for a special package to Andhra Pradesh and sealing in the national capital, which were agitating the minds of people and needed to be discussed.

After tabling of the listed papers, Naidu expressed his anguish saying the House has not functioned ever since it resumed on March 5 after recess during the Budget session.

The Rajya Sabha today witnessed an abrupt adjournment following a brief argument between Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu and some Congress members soon after the House assembled for the day.

Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha told Chowsary to resume his speech from yesterday, which was interrupted due to the disruption of the House. He, however, added that Chowdary must stick to the speech approved by the Chairman and resist making any allegations.

Chowdary said that the former prime minister Manmohan Singh has promised that Centre's hand-holing to Andhra. He then added that both the national parties were responsible for the secession of Andhra Pradesh and a certain help was promised to us at the time. Chowdary further said that the new constitutional restriction being cited by the Centre should not be applicable retrospectively to what was promised to Andhra.

The deputy chairman, however, expunged those remarks as he said the Chairman had seen and vetted the speech but Chowdary had deviated from the approved version.

In the course of his speech, Chowdary quoted the Opposition MP Venkaiah Naidu requesting special status for Andhra for at least 10 years. This elicited an objection from Railway Minister Piyush Goyal who said that Chowdary was trying to cast aspersions on the Chair (Venkaiah Naidu). This was met with sharp opposition from the Congress members who requested the quotes to be repeated.

It is expected to be a stormy day in the Parliament on Monday, especially for the Lok Sabha where the two no-confidence motions against the Narendra Modi-led NDA government by the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and YSR Congress Party are likely to be taken up.

However, equations with the existing allies aren't particularly rosy. In particular with Shiv Sena, the largest non-BJP constituent of the NDA. If the Sena follows TDP by backing out, the figure of 314 will go down to 296, just 23 more than the magic figure of 273, and the BJP can no longer be certain of its future.

The NDA had stormed to power with 336 seats in 2014, of which the BJP alone claimed 282 seats. However, a series of bypolls that went against the saffron party meant that its tally in the Lok Sabha currently stands at 274 seats. When one adds the 11 allies the BJP still has by its side  Shiv Sena, JD(U), Apna Dal, LJP, SAD, RLSP, PDP, PMK, SWP, NPP and AINR Congress  the tally rises to 314 . If the TDP can be persuaded to come around once again, this could rise to 330, a comfortable majority.

RECAP: With TDP quitting NDA, Centre's strength comes down to 314 from 336 in Lok Sabha

RJD's JP Yadav gave an adjournment motion notice in Lok Sabha on Monday over the recent "communal incidents of violence in Araria, Bhagalpur and Darbhanga", reported ANI .

Speaking to ANI, Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut said the party will "wait and watch" what happens in the Parliament on Monday. He said: "We will also have to see if the Speaker allows the no confidence motion or rejects it. TDP has its own state issues and we welcome them. As of now we have not decided yet on no confidence motion. Uddhav ji (Thackeray) will take a call."

The Parliament secretariat received three separate notices for a no-confidence motion against the BJP government on Monday, two of which were from TDP and one from the YSR Congress, reported ANI . Lok Sabha Sumitra Mahajan is likely to take up the notices after Question Hour if the House is in order.

CPI leader Duraisamy Raja said that the Left parties will be supporting the no-confidence motion in the Parliament on Monday. "People have started expressing their no confidence in the Modi government, it is time the Parliament does it too," ANI quoted him as saying.

He had earlier also said the BJP enjoys support "inside and outside" the Parliament, according to Business Standard . "I want to tell the Congress and other Opposition members that there is confidence inside and outside the House. That's why the BJP is ready to face the no-confidence motion," said Kumar.

Ahead of Monday's Parliament session, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said that the saffron party was ready to face the no-confidence motion as it is sure it has the necessary support.

In less than two minutes of being in session, the Lok Sabha was adjourned till 12 pm. As soon as Speaker Sumitra Mahajan entered the House, loud protests and sloganeering dominated the scene, making it impossible for any business to be conducted amid the din.

Slogans of "We want justice" could be heard as Chairman Venkaiah Naidu said, "This is not in the interest of the country, and Parliament. I am willing to allow also these discussions. How long should we continue like this?"

The Upper House of the Parliament was adjourned till tomorrow after TDP and AIADMK MPs began protesting in the Rajya Sabha.

He also said that the TDP also increased the state's budget by Rs 1100 crores. "We will strive to do the same in future. We are moving to work to move forward in skill development to help the people of Andhra Pradesh," he said.

He also claimed that the YSR Congress Party is only 'playing politics' and has no interest in the state's welfare. Trying to assuage people's sentiments, Naidu said that the "TDP government is undertaking multiple irrigation projects to ensure the state's development is not stalled amid all this."

Andhra Pradesh chief minister and TDP president N Chandrababu Naidu on Monday said that the state is being cheated by the Central government. "We are being cheated by the government. The BJP is making false allegations against me," he said.

Shiv Sena MP Arvind Sawant told ANI that the party will abstain from the no-confidence motion. "We will neither support the government nor the Opposition. We will abstain," he said.

As soon as Speaker Sumitra Mahajan took up the Question Hour, members from these parties trooped into the Well holding placards. While members from the TDP, YSR Congress, TRS and AIADMK were in the Well raising slogans and holding placards, MPs from the TMC and Congress were seen standing at their seats. This forced the House to be adjourned till 12 pm.

The Lok Sabha proceedings were disrupted for the 11th day on Monday as the TDP, YSR Congress, TRS and AIADMK continued their noisy protests over various issues, including the banking scam and special status for Andhra Pradesh.

Even as the Lower House resumed its proceedings, sloganeering dominated the scene as TDP, AIADMK MPs could be heard shouting "We want justice". However, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan began with day's business, asking ministers to lay their papers on the table.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said: "We want discussion on the no-confidence motion. I request all MPs to maintain decorum so that we can discuss it. We are ready to discuss any issue with any member."

Following continuous uproar in the Lok Sabha, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House till Tuesday. TSR, YSRCP MPs trooped into the Well, while chanting slogans such as "We want justice". Mahajan tried to introduce the no-confidence motion notices but requested all MPs to sit at their designated spots so that a quorum could be established. Opposition members and other parties' MPs continued to create a ruckus, forcing the House to be adjourned for the day.

The Samajwadi Party on Monday accused the government of egging AIADMK to stage protests in the Lok Sabha to avoid a no-confidence motion even as Tamil Nadu's ruling party warned that it would not allow business in both the Houses of Parliament till the Centre gives an assurance on the constitution of the Cauvery River Management Board.

MoS Parliamentary Affairs Vijay Goel said the government is ready discuss all issues. However protests cause Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu to adjourn the Rajya Sabha till 21 March.

Sushma Swaraj starts speaking about the Indians in Mosul. She had spoken about the issue in the Rajya Sabha earlier.

The Bills have already been passed in the Lok Sabha

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to move Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill in Lok Sabha on Wednesday. The Bill gives the government power to confiscate the assets of such defaulters.

"Let us all protest and, if required, sit on hunger strike at every place, sport black badges during working hours in offices. Let us awaken the people," party chief N Chandrababu Naidu said at a meeting of women self-help groups.

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) held protests in Vijayawada on Thursday about the Andhra Pradesh special status row, reported CNN-News18. The TDP had decided to extend support to the National Highways blockade programme called by the Opposition parties in Andhra Pradesh seeking special category status to the state.

As the deadlock in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha continued on Wednesday, here is a look at how both the Houses spent their time while in session ( as per PRS ):

What has the Parliament been spending its time on?

Protests and sloganeering marked the day's proceedings in the Lok Sabha as it began on Thursday. Opposition MPs could be heard chanting "We want justice" in the background, even as Speaker Sumitra Mahajan tried to conduct the day's business. As the protests grew louder, she said, "Nobody wants to listen, nobody wants to run the House." She then adjourned the Lok Sabha till 12 pm.

"At the time of passing the AP Reorganisation Act, they (government) gave some provisions under it. People are suffering in Andhra Pradesh," said TDP's CM Ramesh.

Chairman Venkaiah Naidu said that several leaders had approached him personally and let the the amendment Bill be passed.

MoS Parliamentary Affairs Vijay Goel said, "The government wants to discuss everyone's issues. I request we discuss and pass other Bills."

Just as the House passed the Gratuity Bill, AIADMK and TDP MPs trooped into the Well of the House holding placards and created ruckus. To this, Chairman Venkaiah Naidu said " People want to know why the Chairman is adjourning the House? I would like to tell the people that I don't want these ugly scenes to be seen by them. Each day, some or the other party troops into the Well." Nearly 20 MPs stood in the Well surrounding Naidu, and chanting loud slogans.

As the Opposition refused to back down, Chairman Venkaiah Naidu adjourned Rajya Sabha for the day.

"I would like to request all the MPs to go back to their places and let the House function. We are ready to talk about all issues, including the no-confidence motion notices that are being brought to the House," said Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, even as AIADMK and TDP MPs continued their sloganeering near the Well of the House.

Speaker Sumitra Mahajan said she cannot act upon the no-confidence motion notices until there is order in the House. "I can't see anybody. I need to count heads (to establish a quorum of 50 members)," she said.

After 14 days of low productivity in the second edition of the Budget Session of the Parliament, the Centre is likely to make a fresh push to pass pending bills even as the Opposition remain vehement to corner the government over issues like the Punjab National Bank scam, the murder of 39 Indians in Iraq by Islamic State among others.

The Congress has issued a three-line whip to all its MPs in the Rajya Sabha asking them to be present in the House at 11 am in full strength on Friday and support the party's stand, PTI reported.

The Parliament is lagging behind in terms of finishing scheduled tasks with productivity level really low. The Budget Session of Parliament, which reconvened after a brief break on 5 March, has been marred with protests, with the daily functioning in both Lok Sabha and Rajya well below 0.1 hours (six minutes), according to PRS data.

With TDP's no-confidence motion notice still pending before the Lok Sabha, Chandrababu Naidu's party, which recently exited the NDA alliance, has appealed to Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to hold an all-party meeting on special status to Andhra Pradesh as well, reports said.

"I request the leaders of the parties to come to the chamber of the chairman," Naidu also said.

"This is totally undemocratic, totally unbecoming of Members of Parliament. You are weaking your cause. Please, you are all members. You must uphold the dignity of the House," Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu said before adjourning the House for 15 minutes.

"Madame Speaker, you have always asked the House to be conducted in order. The government is ready for a discussion...Congress has become a marginal party," said Union minister Ananth Kumar in response.

"There are more than 50 members here who want to move a no-confidence motion," said Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Mallikarjun Kharge.

As the ruckus in the Lower House continued, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourned the House for the day.

Narendra Modi to retiring Rajya Sabha MPs: I am sorry Parliament failed you in this last session

Modi also said that the doors of Parliament and his Prime Minister's Office (PMO) will always remain open to them, and they are welcome to visit him whenever they like.

While bidding the departing MPs goodbye, Modi also took a sarcastic jibe at protesting Opposition MPs, saying they nearly ensured this Session didn't take place and nearly denied this vote of thanks.

Opposition ensured this Sesssion didn't take place and nearly denied this vote of thanks: Narendra Modi

Narendra Modi also added that it was unfortunate that they didn't get a chance to pass important legislations in their final session, but may look back at their tenure gladly given the passing of landmark bills like the Triple Talaq bill.

Unfortunate that you didn't get chance to pass important legislations in their final session: Narendra Modi

"People have been agitating for special status, for their water, for their poor farmers and labourers. The MPs have been fighting on their behalf. If the people get what is rightfully theirs, it's not their parliamentarians who will stand to benefit," Azad said.

He added that it's unfair to say MPs have been fighting and disrupting Parliament, because they are sent to Parliament to represent the needs of the people.

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad, meanwhile, said the Central Hall of Parliament is full of former MPs and he looks forward to seeing many of the retiring MPs at the same place in the future.

Unfair to say MPs have been disrupting Parliament, because they are sent to Parliament to represent needs of the people: Ghulam Nabi Azad

The second part of this session has 22 sittings, and is scheduled to conclude on 6 April. Five more sittings are slated.

This is the final week that the Houses are functioning in the Budget Session

Members from the Congress, the Left, the TDP and some other parties stood up holding the blue placards, apparently to show her that there were 80 members supporting the no-confidence motion

After a brief discussion on scams in public-sector banks, Bills such as the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill and the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill to be tabled in Rajya Sabha today

Arun Jaitley to move Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill in the Lok Sabha today, which is a Bill to deal with economic offenders who leave the country

"Most MPs are already seated. If everyone stops shouting and goes back to their seat, I can see how many support for the no-confidence motion. the House must be in order," Sumitra Mahajan said.

Day 19 of Parliament's Budget Session is likely to get underway shortly, but MPs from various Opposition parties have already begun protesting inside Parliament premises, drawing attention to various causes.

With Opposition parties slamming the central government over atrocities being committed on Dalits, Union minister Ananth Kumar has said the government is "committed" towards protecting the rights of Dalits. "Whenever Congress is in power, they are responsible for inciting people and spreading violence," Ananth Kumar said.

Lok Sabha was adjourned till noon within six minutes of starting proceedings, with Tamil Nadu MPs launching their demand the formation of a Cauvery Management Board.

Congress MPs from Punjab have climbed on to the roof of Parliament

When Lok Sabha reconvenes at noon, Home Minister Rajnath Singh is likely to address the House. Rajnath is expected to talk about the violence that singed large parts of the country of Monday.

As Opposition MPs kept up noisy protests, Home Minister Rajnath Singh addresses Lok Sabha over violence that singed large parts of the country on Monday. "The government has not diluted the provisions of the SC/ST Atrocities Act. In fact, we have strengthened the act. We have introduced provisions for the protection of victims, who are already suffered enough. Moreover, if officials are found lacking in their response to a complaint filed by anybody, we want action initiated against them as well," Rajnath Singh said.

Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan tried to address Lok Sabha on Tuesday, but noisy protests kept her from speaking. She was responding to Home Minister Rajnath Singh's speech earlier in the day. Faced with unrelenting Opposition protests, Mahajan adjourned Lok Sabha for the day.

Within minutes of proceedings beginning, Lok Sabha was adjourned till 12 pm after MPs raised slogans of 'We want justice, we want Cauvery board'

Amid loud protests, Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien adjourned the Rajya Sabha for 30 minutes, after having pleaded with protesting MPs to go back to their seats.

New members who took oath on Wednesday, have not been given division: Anand Sharma

Announcing the decision, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said it has been decided that the NDA MPs would be giving up their salary and other allowances for 23 days "for which parliament was not allowed to function by the Congress".

BJP and NDA party MPs announced on Wednesday night that they will take a pay cut for the 23 days wasted in the second phase of the Budget Session as they accused the Congress party of playing negative politics.

Congress issues three-line whip to its Rajya Sabha MPs asking them to be present in Upper House, reports ANI

Over a dozen Opposition parties had appealed to Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Rajya Sabha chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Wednesday for holding discussion on key matters like the SC/ST Act, PNB bank fraud, CBSE paper leak and Cauvery issue. Opposition leaders, including from the Congress, BSP, SP, DMK, NCP, TMC and the Left parties, had met in Parliament to discuss the lack of debate.

Leaders of several Opposition parties are holding a demonstration inside the Parliament premises over various issues.

Congress had said on Wednesday that it would not mind if Parliament session was extended by a day or two, but a debate on key issues should take place. "We want to hold discussions on key issues of national importance and we also want to pass legislation. The government should take the lead in doing so. We are not averse even if the session is extended by a day or two," Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad had told reporters.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi and UPA chief Sonia Gandhi have joined the Opposition protest in New Delhi against the Centre.

Asserting that he attended the House proceedings daily, Subramanian Swamy said that it isn't his fault if the Parliament didn't function. "Anyhow, I'm the president's representative. Until he says so, how can I say I'll not take my salary?" ANI quoted him as saying.

Both the Houses of the Parliament were adjourned within minutes of reconvening on Thursday amid protests by the Opposition parties.

Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge urged Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan to take up the no-confidence motion as the AIADMK continued protesting in the Lower House.

Kurien went on to read the rules of the Rajya Sabha. "You are all eligible for suspension," he said.

Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien said that he has an alternative to deal with the protests in the Upper House. "As per rule. I will see that a motion is moved to expel all protesting members. Thereby, you will lose all your voting right," he told the protesting MPs.

LS Speaker reminded the MPs that today was the last day of the second leg of the Budget Session, even though the MPs continued shouting.

"This Sabha is for a platform the raise issues for the welfare of the people. I understand that MPs have several issues they want to raise but they should keep in mind that the country has a variety of issues which need to be focused on," said Speaker Sumitra Mahajan.

"I make an appeal to all of you to appear here next time to do what we were given to do at the time of Independence," said Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu.

BJP works for connecting people, Congress works for dividing people. Congress indulges in divisive, negative politics. It didn't let the House function. We'll sit in protest against the negative attitude of Congress during last 23 days: Ananth Kumar,Parliamentary Affairs Minister pic.twitter.com/T710ENwveX

BJP MPs to observe fast on 12 April to protest the impasse in Parliament caused by Congress: Union minister Ananth Kumar | PTI

"Congress has become a marginal party, even in the Parliament," he said. "They don't have their own parliamentary strategy for both the Houses. They don't have parliamentary logic," he added.

"From 5 March to 27 March, why did the Congress not allow business to happen?" said Union minister Ananth Kumar. "On 15 and 16 March, the YSRCP and TDP motions of no-confidence were brought up. Congress brought it up on 27 March? Why did they bring it up so late?" he added.

Latest updates: Both Houses of the Parliament were adjourned following Opposition ruckus on the Punjab National Bank scam, and the alleged fraudulent transactions in other public sector bank. The Opposition remained unrelenting even as the Chair tried to conduct a debate on the issue in Rajya Sabha. Meanwhile, BJP chief Amit Shah and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley are expected to meet a delegation of TDP leaders over the issue of granting special status to the state of Andhra Pradesh. The development comes at a time when the government has already been cornered by the YSRCP over the issue.

Both Houses of the Parliament have reconvened. However, ruckus by Opposition parties has led to the Lok Sabha being adjourned till 12 pm. Meanwhile, Rajya Sabha too has been adjourned till 2 pm. Meanwhile, JP Yadav of the RJD and Naresh Agarwal of the SP have issued adjournment notices to discuss the Punjab National Bank scam. BJP MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe has issued an adjournment notice to discuss corruption among relatives of former ministers.

The second half of the Budget Session of Parliament will commence on Monday with the government seeking to push its legislative agenda, including the bill for confiscation of properties of fugitives, and the opposition likely to target it on a range of issues including the multi-crore bank frauds.

The session begins two days after the election results in the northeast were announced that saw the BJP triumphing in Tripura and improving its performance in Nagaland and Meghalaya.

The BJP is expected to be in high spirits to take on a combative opposition that has been seeking to pin down the government over the Rs 12,600 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam involving diamantaire Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi.

The government and the Congress are also likely to cross swords over the arrest of former Union finance minister P Chidambaram's son Karti by the CBI in the INX Media alleged bribery case. The Congress has termed the CBI action "political vendetta".

Though the government has taken several steps in the light of the massive bank fraud  the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill; the directive to public sector banks to identify and report NPAs over Rs 50 crore to the CBI; nod to set up an authority to oversee auditing standards of large companies besides swift action by the CBI and the ED in the Nirav Modi case  the opposition is likely to keep up its offensive and seek a response from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, 2018, which will be introduced during the session, provides for confiscation of properties of people who flee the country after committing huge financial frauds.

It provides for giving an application before the Special Court for a declaration that an individual is a fugitive economic offender, attachment and confiscation of his property resulting from the proceeds of crime as also his other property in India and abroad, including benami properties.

The Finance Ministry on 27 February directed public-sector banks to scan their Non-performing Asset (NPA) accounts above Rs 50 crore for possible fraud and refer any such fraud cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The Ministry has also given these banks a 15-day window to identify gaps and brace for increasing operational and technical risks to the banking system.

The BJP, on its part, has been stating that the multi-crore PNB fraud has its genesis in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government's tenure.

A relief for the government is that the opposition is divided over suggestions for a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the PNB fraud.

The Trinamool Congress does not appear favourably disposed to the idea, having said that previous JPCs have not yielded results.

The opposition is also likely to corner the government over the tussle between Prasar Bharti and the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

It is likely to raise issues concerning farmers, the Rafale deal, Staff Selection Commission "job scam", loss of life and property due to ceasefire violations on the LoC and increase in cost of petroleum products.

Apart from the finance bill, the government may also push for passage of the pending triple talaq bill during the session that ends on 6 April.

With inputs from IANSThe Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were adjourned on Monday as soon as they met for the second part of the budget session of Parliament amid opposition protests over the Punjab National Bank fraud and special status to Andhra Pradesh.

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha were adjourned on Monday as soon as they met for the second part of the budget session of Parliament amid opposition protests over the Punjab National Bank fraud and special status to Andhra Pradesh.

The Lok Sabha was adjourned till 12 noon after Trinamool Congress and Left party MPs started shouting slogans in protest against the alleged bank fraud amounting to over Rs 12,600 crore by jewellery designer Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi who have fled the country.

TDP MPs also protested seeking special category status to Andhra Pradesh. The Andhra issue also let to adjournment of the Rajya Sabha.Rahul Gandhi, commenting on the results of the Assembly elections in the North East, said the Congress is committed to winning back the trust of the people.

Three days after election results in three North East states of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday took to social media, and said that the party is committed to win back the trust of the people.

The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people. My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party.  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 5, 2018

The Congress put up a dismal show in Tripura and Nagaland, securing merely 2.1 percent and 1.8 percent of the vote share respectively. In Meghalaya, although it won the most number of seats (21), it fell short of the majority mark. The state is likely to have a non-Congress government, as the UDP extended its support the National People's Party (NPP).

Top party leaders Ahmed Patel and Kamal Nath rushed to Shillong to hold discussions with regional parties but to no avail. Rahul was in Italy on the day of the results, due to which he faced widespread criticism and barbs.

In a press conference after the outcome of the elections become broadly clear, BJP president Amit Shah remarked, "I received a message on WhatsApp that elections are being held in Italy." Italians voted in their general elections on Sunday.

Union minister Giriraj Singh also lambasted the Congress president, and was reported in DNA as saying, "A leader does not leave his people at such times. He is a non-serious president of the Congress."

Rahul stated that he was visiting Italy to meet his 93-year-old grandmother on Holi.Delhi HC has agreed to hear a plea by Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash, challenging a notice issued against him by the Delhi Assembly for his non-appearance before them.

The Delhi High Court has agreed to hear a plea by Delhi chief secretary Anshu Prakash, challenging a notice issued against him by the Delhi Assembly for his non-appearance before the Questions and Reference Committee, which is examining an alleged Rs 100 crore scam in the Delhi Nagrik Sahkari Bank Ltd (DNSBL) among other things, CNN-News18 reported.

#BREAKING -- Delhi HC agrees to hear the plea of Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash today. He has challenged notice issued against him for his non-appearance before questions and reference committee and other things by Delhi assembly pic.twitter.com/kJ7dcotp0d  News18 (@CNNnews18) March 5, 2018

The Assembly had asked the Delhi chief secretary to appear before it on 21 February (a day after Delhi bureaucrats announced their boycott of all meetings called by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his ministers) with regards to investigations into the DNSBL fraud cases. However, Prakash had failed to turn up for the meeting.

The meeting was scheduled just a day after Prakash filed a police complaint against two AAP MLAs for allegedly physically assaulting him during a meeting at Kejriwal's residence. The incident had soured the already bitter relations between the Delhi govt and the officials.

On Sunday, AAP spokesperson, Bharadwaj, who is heading the Assembly committee, alleged that the chief secretary was using the "police complaint" which the latter filed on 20 February against the two AAP MLAs, as a shield to divert attention from the (DNSBL) scam.

Bharadwaj also accused Prakash of distorting facts in "his latest petition filed in the Delhi High Court challenging a breach of privilege notice served on him".

What is the DNSBL fraud case?

According to an Indian Express report, DNSBL is accused of issuing fraudulent loans worth Rs 100 crore through forged documents and spending lakhs on 'laddoos' during Diwali. The case of fraudulent loans first came to light in 2013, when members of the bank reportedly filed a complaint with the Registrar of Cooperative Societies alleging fraudulent loans in connivance with the directors.

The matter was then investigated by the Reserve Bank of India, which confirmed fraudulent loans in the Lajpat Nagar branch of the bank.

A 2015 inquiry by PC Jain, Special Secretary, General Administrative Department, as reported by The Indian Express, had found that "NPAs of three branches  Lajpat Nagar, Badarpur and Karawal Nagar  were 'abnormally high'."

The matter came to light in the Assembly in January 2017 when an AAP MLA raised the question in the House. The matter was then referred to the Questions and Reference Committee and to an Assembly committee headed by Bharadwaj for further investigation.

How is Prakash connected to the fraud case

In 2017, the committee had reportedly notified then Delhi chief secretary MM Kutty to appear before it in order to answer some questions in the matter and action taken in the case. Kutty, however, had evaded appearing before the committee by seeking a stay from the Delhi High Court.

Prakash succeeded Kutty as the Delhi Chief Secretary in December 2017, but it seems things haven't changed much between Delhi government and the bureaucrats. Turns out, similar proceedings were also initiated against Kutty in the same matter.

With inputs from agenciesThe hearing in a fourth multi-million rupee fodder scam involving former Bihar Chief Minister and RJD Chief Lalu Prasad Yadav concluded in Ranchi on Monday in a special CBI court, which fixed 15 March as the date for delivering its judgment

Ranchi: The judgement in the fourth fodder scam case involving former Bihar Chief Minister Lalu Prasad will be delivered on Thursday by a special CBI court in Ranchi.

The hearing in the fodder case  relating to fraudulent withdrawals of Rs 3.13 crore from December 1995 to January 1996 from the Dumka treasury  was completed on 5 March.

Besides Lalu Prasad, another former Chief Minister Jagannath Mishra and 30 others are accused in this case.

Lalu Prasad was convicted in the first fodder scam case in 2013 and awarded five years in jail.

The Rashtriya Janata Dal chief was convicted by a special CBI court in the second case on 23 December, 2017, and awarded three-and-half years' imprisonment on 6 January.

He was convicted in the third case on 24 January, related to fraudulent withdrawals from the Chaibasa treasury, and awarded a five-year jail term.

He now faces two other cases  one in Ranchi and one in Patna.

The multi-million-rupee fodder scam surfaced in the 1990s when Lalu Yadav was Chief Minister of undivided Bihar. The probe was handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation on Patna High Court's order.

The bulk of the cases were transferred to Ranchi after Jharkhand was carved out of Bihar in 2000.(CNN)  ISIS' former minister for health Kefah Basheer Hussein is calm and collected, almost too composed and smug for a captured man. A corner of his mouth twitches in what appears to be an attempt to hide a smirk. He answers "no comment" to yet another CNN question about the murky years when al Qaeda in Iraq went underground only to reemerge as ISIS.

Hussein says he was a high-level ISIS operative  not a fighter on the battlefield but someone who formed the backbone of the terror group. An intellect in the shadows, he helped ISIS to survive and morph over the years.

CNN exclusively interviewed Hussein after he was apprehended last month by Turkish security forces. The former ISIS minister, who claims that he left the terror group six months ago, is currently in Turkish custody awaiting trial on charges that have yet to be announced.

A rheumatology doctor by training, Hussein, 39, served ISIS and its previous incarnations for over a decade and a half. For the bulk of that time, he remained largely unknown to intelligence agencies, the U.S. military, and the Iraqi government.

Former Iraqi childhood acquaintances, professional contacts, and others connected to Hussein requested to remain anonymous before speaking to CNN about a man whose terrorist affiliations still haunt and threaten them. His story serves as a time capsule of the rise and fall of the radical jihadi agenda that swept through the region.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq

Hussein was raised in Tal Afar, a predominantly Turkmen city in Iraq, situated on one of the main roads between Mosul and the Iraqi-Syrian border. People acquainted with him in high school describe him as "ambitious," "smart," and "very competitive." Like any teenager with big hopes, Hussein set out for the big city when he graduated.

Hussein was training as a doctor in Mosul when the U.S. invasion of Iraq began in 2003. Seeing a foreign occupying army in his country burned him to the core. His family were zealous converts. In the 1970s, their family broke away from the Shia faith of their tribe to Sunni Islam, according to a neighbor from Tal Afar. Adherents of Salafism, a strict and puritanical interpretation of Sunni Islam, their anger was primed as they watched events unfold in Afghanistan and witnessed the fall of Saddam Hussein. The more raids the U.S. military carried out in their hunt for Saddam Hussein's henchmen and, later, in their targeting of the then-nascent insurgency, the angrier Hussein appeared to grow.

"The whole family had a violent reaction," the neighbor says. "When they (Americans) came to Tal Afar, Kefah was part of the first group that was fighting the Americans  their house was one of the houses that was used for planning operations against the Americans," the neighbor said.

By his own account, Hussein joined Tawhid wal-Jihad in 2004. The group, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was the ideological precursor to al Qaeda in Iraq. Hussein embraced Zarqawi's ideology.

"We saw many things that happened in front of us, rapes, killings, corruption, the Americans stealing money," Hussein tells CNN.

Hussein says he helped the radical jihadist group by managing health services. It was a role he would play for the better part of a decade across Iraq and Syria as Tawhid wal-Jihad slowly morphed into the so-called Islamic State.

At the height of the tribal awakening of 2007-2008, when Iraq's Sunni tribes fought against al Qaeda, Hussein had his one and only run in with the authorities.

He was detained briefly in Mosul, according to one ISIS expert. Hussein was accused of being a member of al Qaeda but was released after a short stint in jail and was not mistreated.

Hussein himself was evasive on the subject. "At that time, I had security issues but they didn't know anything about me and I changed my address," he says. Asked if he was in U.S. custody, he responded: "maybe."

A U.S. troops surge prompted by the awakening fighters forced ISIS underground, and Hussein continued his day job at the Ibn Sina Hospital in Mosul. One doctor who worked with him describes him as a "strange" and "distant" figure.

When the ISIS offensive to take over Mosul began in 2014, Hussein emerged from the shadows.

"We weren't sleeper cells, but we weren't participating in the battles for security reasons," Hussein says.

Organ trafficking and blood removal

As ISIS took over the city, a doctor at the hospital recalled Hussein saying: "If any doctors run away, we will execute them."

Hisham al-Hashimi, a leading expert on ISIS in Iraq, told CNN that in Hussein's position, he would have overseen some of ISIS' most horrific activities.

To bolster their blood bank, individuals slated for execution would have their blood removed, in some cases even a kidney extracted. Al-Hashimi said he learned this from his sources as well as people he spoke to who were in ISIS detention.

"It was for their (ISIS') own use, they needed blood. And if they take blood from a prisoner over the course of weeks up until the execution, it would weaken them, make them less likely to struggle. The kidneys, they were for sale," al-Hashimi says.

CNN sources say that they heard about these practices, but had no concrete evidence of it taking place. One former senior official in Iraq's Nineveh province, where ISIS controlled large swathes of land, said that some of the bodies they had recovered from a morgue appeared to have had a kidney removed.

CNN was not aware of the allegation at the time of the interview with Hussein and was not permitted access to Hussein to seek comment on these allegations.

Links to ISIS leadership

Two months after ISIS took control of the city, Hussein's first wife left him, fleeing for the relative safety of Baghdad, according to an acquaintance in Mosul. He pursued his wife relentlessly, sending her threats of abduction, according to the acquaintance who delivered messages between Hussein and his wife.

Hussein took a second wife. It was a marriage of ISIS' top brass. She was the daughter of an influential female doctor, who was prominent within the ISIS cadres. The doctor is believed to be part of the main group that was dispatched to treat ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after he was injured in 2015.

While Hussein confirmed that he is married and has children, he declined to answer any detailed questions about his family from CNN, saying only, "they exist."

Hussein didn't have a direct relationship with al-Baghdadi, but his second wife did, according to al-Hashimi.

"But these people like him, I call them the black box of ISIS because they have ties to the top tier and to the local leaders. He may not have a direct tie, but he knows important information. And they are trained to be killed and not confess all they know," al-Hashimi says.

"These individuals are fundamental for three main reasons... they are not on any of the terror watch lists, they have charisma and the ability to charm people, and they have complete loyalty to the principles of the caliphate."

A doctor from Deir Ezzor says he met Hussein in the late spring of 2016. He says Hussein was the head of a committee selected by al-Baghdadi, tasked with setting up a hospital in a small village in Syrian between Raqqa  the ISIS stronghold  and Deir Ezzor. "I think they picked al-Kasrah [the city between Raqqa and Deir Ezzor] because they wanted to make that they have the capacity to receive high level ISIS members for treatment. I heard that they also improved the equipment there and provided the facility with the best assistance."

An unapologetic view

Throughout our interview, it is clear that Hussein is careful about what he discloses, unwilling to let information slip, but at the same time wanting to appear cooperative. He is oddly apologetic about refraining from answering certain questions. After a string of "no comments" he adds: "I have a trial you know."

Hussein took over the post of ISIS minister of health after his predecessor was killed by a bomb in Mosul, he said. When ISIS began losing control of the city, Hussein moved his base of operations into Syria like many other high-ranking ISIS operatives and began shuttling between Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. "We weren't only serving militants, we were also serving the civilians, people are poor in those areas," he said defending his position.

He is unapologetic in his belief in the Zarqawi doctrine, in ISIS' brutal version of Sharia, or Islamic law. Still he says he was propelled to leave the group after ISIS veered off what he saw as the "righteous path."

"It is a right way of asking people to adhere to Sharia, of course I believe in it... many stuff happened that misdirected the caliphate from its righteous path," he says. "But I always thought about the medical help that I can provide, especially the administrative stuff, so I was a bit late when I left them."

A Syrian who identified Hussein through a photograph knew him as Dr. Omar in the town of al Mayadeen in Deir Ezzor province in June 2017. By Hussein's own account given to Turkish authorities, he left al Mayadeen when fighting intensified. He illegally entered Turkey through the YPG-held town of Tal Abyad.

When pressed by CNN, Hussein is vague about how he left Syria. "Don't ask me how. Don't ask me the route."

After a month in Turkey, he said he secured a fake Syrian refugee ID, but was stopped at a checkpoint while en route to Istanbul.

Alongside him was another Iraqi man who Turkish authorities identified as being one of the men under his command. On that same day, Turkish authorities detained half a dozen foreign ISIS members, including a Dutch and a British national who were on a red notice alert, essentially an international arrest warrant.

Security forces routinely round up hundreds of suspected ISIS members  ranging from the lowly fighters to logistics organizers to men like Hussein who make up the terror group's brain trust.

Hussein says he did not expect ISIS to lose its so-called "caliphate."

"The caliphate is not just in Iraq and Syria. It is in Khorasan (a historic region in central Asia), Libya and the Philippines currently and also in Africa."

Asked if he wants ISIS to survive, Hussein again answers "no comment."

The U.S. military has long said that an organization can only be eliminated when its middle leadership is destroyed. But when it comes to ISIS, al-Hashimi estimates that only about 30% of the dozens that make up this vital cornerstone are known. And that is precisely what makes it so dangerous.

"We have defeated ISIS militarily, but only in the sense that there are no ISIS flags, no buildings that they can openly claim as their own," al-Hashimi adds. "But ISIS is everywhere in Iraq and Syria."

Hussein likely won't have a role in the next ISIS incarnation.

But when it comes to this deadly, radical ideology, it's not a matter of if but when its other ghosts emerge from the shadows.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "The rheumatology doctor who helped terror group morph into ISIS."The dilemma New Delhi faces is not simply how it should respond to the challenge, but how the Maldives slipped away from its hug.

By Amit Dasgupta

Idyllic Maldives faces a serious constitutional crisis and there are no indications that President Abdullah Yameen is willing to soften his position. On the contrary, all indications are that Yameen would ruthlessly incarcerate the opposition and even prevent the forthcoming presidential elections from taking place.

Like his predecessor, he has assiduously cultivated relations with Beijing. The extension of the emergency, especially after New Delhi expressed its misgivings and concerns, demonstrates how confident he is of China's support. This is India's backyard and the dilemma New Delhi faces is not simply how it should respond to the challenge, but how the Maldives slipped away from its hug.

For India, this is a seriously worrying development, especially since it has long considered the Maldives as among its few friends in the region.

Even more worrying is the manner in which the Maldives has allowed China to make strategic inroads, much to New Delhi's discomfiture and disadvantage. The first real evidence was the arbitrary manner in which the airport project was handed over to the Chinese, even though the contract had been won by an Indian company. This was followed by the opening of a Chinese embassy, the signing of an FTA and rumours that Beijing might be given the right to set up a naval base in one of the islands. What is more disturbing is that increased Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean would mean that Beijing would control yet another important shipping lane.

Anticipating that New Delhi might be provoked into intervening militarily, Beijing followed its stern warning with the dispatch of naval ships. A military intervention, while it is a preferred Chinese strategy, however, comes with serious drawbacks. For one, it is not clear as to who would replace President Yameen. Nor indeed is it clear that it would be swift, successful and bloodless. Further, whether there would be international support in case there is a confrontation with the Chinese navy is a matter of surmise.

More importantly, if it fails in achieving its desired objective, it would damage India irrevocably in the eyes of its domestic constituency, the regional audience and the world at large. Added to this is the disturbing manner in which the Maldives, under President Yameen, has emerged as an incubation hub for Islamic fundamentalists with the credible possibility that a military intervention might provoke retaliatory terror attacks in India.

Nevertheless, an urgent and unambiguous response from New Delhi is warranted. It knows that if the Maldives is lost, a domino effect would follow. There is, of course, every danger that whatever action New Delhi adopts would draw the Maldives even closer to China. Furthermore, what has already been lost to the Chinese is least likely to be reversed.

A measured but tough response appears to be the only option that India has. While military intervention is not the preferred option, it is an available one that the Maldives needs to be made aware of. Sustained financial sanctions and a travel ban would cripple the tourism industry and strengthen opposition from rich Maldivians against Yameen. Simultaneously, back channel communications need to be opened with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, the US and the opposition to isolate Yameen and reduce him to a national liability.

More importantly, India needs to focus more consistently on the neighbourhood to avoid moving from one crisis to another.

Amit Dasgupta is a former Indian diplomat.The ED has said that Karti Chidambaram, arrested in INX Media case, transferred Rs 1.8 crore into bank account of an influential political figure

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday said that Karti Chidambaram, arrested in the INX Media case, transferred Rs 1.8 crore into the bank account of an influential political figure, said a media report. The ED, however, restrained from disclosing the identity of the political figure on the grounds that doing so could hamper the investigation.

According to The Times of India report, Karti, the son of senior Congress leader and former Union minister P Chidambaram, transferred the money from his account in the Chennai branch of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

The anonymous political leader has discharged "very important responsibilities at the Centre in a career spanning decades", The Times of India quoted ED officials as saying.

In the latest development in the case, Karti moved Supreme Court seeking quashing of summons issued by the ED. The Supreme Court will now hear a fresh plea on Tuesday from Karti.

In his fresh writ petition, Karti has challenged the summons on the ground that the ED has no jurisdiction to issue such notices based on the FIR lodged by the CBI.

The plea was mentioned on Monday by his counsel before a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, which agreed to hear it along with related pending matters scheduled for hearing on Tuesday.

The apex court is also likely to hear the anticipatory bail plea of Karti.

Karti, meanwhile, on Sunday dubbed the allegation against him in the INX Media case as "politically motivated."

"All allegations against me are false and politically motivated," Karti was quoted as saying by ANI when he was being brought back to Delhi from Mumbai by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Karti was brought to the Byculla prison in Mumabi and confronted with Indrani Mukerjea as part of the CBI's probe into the matter. Karti and Indrani were brought face-to-face and questioned by the CBI team for about four hours.

Indrani, according to News18, told the CBI that Karti had demanded $1 million for Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance to INX Media, but she had paid only $7,00,000.

Indrani, a former director of INX Media (P) Ltd, is lodged in the jail in connection with the Sheena Bora murder case.

Karti was arrested by the CBI on 28 February after a confessional statement was given by Mukerjea before a magistrate. He was sent in a five-day CBI custody on 1 March.

Karti will be in CBI's custody till 6 March, when he will be produce in court again.

The CBI alleged that Karti also received money from INX media to scuttle a tax probe. The firm was owned at the time by former media baron Peter Mukerjea and Indrani.

With inputs from PTIJammu and Kashmir Director General of Police SP Vaid said on Monday they were investigating the firing incident in which six people, including two terrorists, were killed by the army in Shopian district.

Jammu: Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police SP Vaid said on Monday they were investigating the firing incident in which six people, including two terrorists, were killed by the army in Shopian district.

Vaid said the situation was under control and appealed to the people of Kashmir to maintain peace.

Two weapons, along with other arms and ammunition, were seized from the possession of the militants, who fired upon a joint check-point of the security forces last night, the DGP told reporters on the sidelines of a function in Jammu.

The troops retaliated after they were attacked and bodies of two terrorists and four others were recovered, Vaid said, adding that the matter is being investigated.

Asked whether the deceased were overground workers, he said that is what the army is saying. "We will see what their affiliation was," he added.

On the return of a youth from militant ranks to his family, the DGP expressed hope that more women would make an appeal for their sons' return.

"You have seen six bodies are lying (in Shopian). Taking up arms or joining terrorism only lead to loss of life and nothing can be achieved," he said.

On recent advertisements in newspapers seeking deportation of Rohingya Muslims, the DGP said the Union government would take a call on the issue.

"It is a matter involving two nations and very soon the Centre will address the issue," he said.

Later, launching a website and mobile application of a non-governmental organisation, the DGP said the essential part of parenting is to hold dialogue with children and engage them so that they do not go astray and take to petty crimes.Tamil Nadu chief minister K Palaniswamy on Monday described extremism, communalism and left-wing terrorism as 'very big threats' to the society.

Chennai: Tamil Nadu chief minister K Palaniswamy on Monday described extremism, communalism and left-wing terrorism as "very big threats" to the society, and called for strengthening intelligence mechanisms to tackle anti-social elements.

Addressing a conference of collectors and district police heads, he said efforts should be made to ensure that such elements do not take rise at all.

"Extremism, communalism and left-wing terrorism are very big threats to the society. To efficiently handle such challenges, intelligence organisations should be strengthened and they (anti-social elements) should be nipped in the bud," Palaniswamy said.

The chief minister urged the collectors and district police heads to ensure that "destructive forces" are kept under control and ensure the state progressed on the growth path.

All-round peace is the hallmark of the AIADMK government, he said, adding people and groups acting against the interest of national security should be dealt with strictly under the National Security Act.

Palaniswamy also urged the officials to ensure that there was no caste-related tensions and asked them to hold regular conciliatory meetings to ensure amity between different groups.

Elements trying to foment caste-related tensions should be identified and action should be initiated against them. On the safety front, authorities must employ "visible policing" to prevent instances of robbery and chain-snatching, he said.

There should be no delay in acting on complaints of economic offences, crimes against women and children, and honour killings, the chief minister said, adding, the perpetrators should be brought to the book swiftly.

Referring to the blaze at the famous Meenakshi Amman Temple in Madurai recently, Palaniswamy said authorities concerned should take all steps to prevent recurrence of such incident.

Deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam, Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan, Additional Chief Secretary (Home), Niranjan Mardi and DGP TK Rajendiran, among others, attended the conference. The three-day conference will go on till 7 March, with the chief minister scheduled to hold discussions with collectors and police officials separately also.The Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear a fresh plea from Karti Chidambaram, seeking quashing of the ED's summons against him in the INX Media case.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear a fresh plea from Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union minister P Chidambaram, seeking quashing of the Enforcement Directorate's summons against him in the INX Media case.

In his fresh writ petition, Karti Chidambaram has challenged the summons on the ground that the ED has no jurisdiction to issue such notices based on the FIR lodged by the CBI.

The plea was mentioned on Monday by his counsel before a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud, which agreed to hear it along with related pending matters scheduled for hearing on Tuesday.

The apex court is likely to hear on Tuesday the anticipatory bail plea of Karti Chidambaram, who is presently in CBI custody in the case.

The top court had earlier refused to stay the summons issued by the ED, saying he could make a request in this regard to the competent authority. It had posted the matter for hearing on Monday after senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Karti Chidambaram, had sought time to file a proper application to challenge the ED proceedings.

An FIR, filed on 15 May, 2017 , had alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when P Chidambaram was Union finance minister.

The apex court was hearing pleas, including the CBI's appeal, challenging the Madras High Court order staying a lookout circular (LOC) issued against Karti. The CBI had on 1 September, 2017 said there were "good, cogent" reasons for issuing the LOC. The Chidambarams, however, have denied all the charges made against them.

Earlier, a single judge bench of the Madras High Court had stayed the LOC issued against Karti Chidambaram and others in the graft case. Later, the apex court considered the CBI appeal and stayed the operation of the high court order staying the LOC.

The Supreme Court, however, has kept to itself another batch of petitions related to registration of FIR in the corruption case.BJP members were detained by the Hyderabad Police on Monday, ahead of the saffron outfit's planned protest march against Telangana CM K Chandrasekhar Rao.

Bharatiya Janata Party MLC Ramchander Rao was taken into preventive custody while several other party members were detained by the Hyderabad Police on Monday, ahead of the saffron party's planned protest march against Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, ANI reported.

BJP members detained by the #Hyderabad Police during party's protest march against #Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Rao over his alleged abusive comments against PM Modi pic.twitter.com/J2L3qRWtXL  ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2018

Rao had sparked controversy by his alleged "abusive" comment against Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a recent public meeting in Karimnagar. The BJP leaders took strong exception to the remarks made by Rao. Meanwhile, Rao, on Saturday, strongly condemned the charges levelled by the BJP and asserted that he had not abused the prime minister by calling him 'Modi gadu' (considered to be an abuse in Telugu). He claimed that the BJP had intentionally misquoted him to skirt away from serious issues.

BJP MLC Ramchander Rao taken into preventive custody by the #Hyderabad Police ahead of BJP's protest march against #Telangana CM KC Rao over his alleged abusive comments against PM Modi pic.twitter.com/UmjpZh0XVv  ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2018

"This is BJP's creation. I only said Modi Garu. But they deliberately made it as 'Modi gadu' with the malicious intention of sidelining serious national issues that I raised in the public meeting with regard to agriculture and farmers. I have utmost respect and regard for Modiji. If their party men themselves want to insult the prime minister by misquoting me, there is little I can do. I am helpless," Rao reportedly said.

Exploring the possible reason behind the BJP misquoting him, Rao told Deccan Chronicle: "I raised a national issue of distress among farmers and warned that a national-level agitation will soon come up if the prime minister fails to address the agricultural issues. I also talked about Cauvery-Godavari river interlinking saying that its the drama enacted by the BJP for ensuing Karnataka polls. To sideline these issues, they created this fake controversy."

Interestingly, in 2016 Modi had tweeted to KCR and used the expression Garu. Abuse or not, at least Rao's claim that he, and Modi, have used the word Garu to address each other appears to be true.

KCR Garu and I met & extensively reviewed the drought & water scarcity situation in Telangana. @TelanganaCMO pic.twitter.com/TWTM0zFoSH  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) May 10, 2016

'Rao acting like a despot'

Reacting to the comments, BJP Warangal urban district president Rao Padma had led a large number of workers and staged a demonstration at Hanamkonda chowrastha on Thursday. As a mark of protest, they burnt an effigy of Rao though the police tried to stop them, The Hindu reported.

Speaking to the media, Padma strongly condemned Rao's remarks and demanded an unconditional apology from him. "While the whole world praised Modi for his initiatives, the Telangana chief minister was acting like a despot and launching a false propaganda against the Opposition parties. Rao still dreams that he can cast a spell on people by his caustic remarks and bitter attack on other leaders. People are vexed with his rhetoric and want him to deliver on promises rather than making speeches," she said, as per the report.

The BJP Telangana has also demanded that Rao withdraw his words against Modi. Dr K Laxman, Telangana BJP president was quoted by ANI as saying: "Today, we have called for 'gherao' of Pragati Bhawan. Police in Hyderabad has house arrested me. My fundamental rights have been curtailed by this government."

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday promised support to her Telangana counterpart, a day after he expressed keenness to participate in national politics to bring about a "qualitative change", according to The Indian Express. She had telephoned the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief and supported his plan of forming a third front. The move takes significance as it comes amidst the controversy over his remarks.

According to a report by IANS, Banerjee had said that she fully agrees with Rao and is ready to work with him. "Ham aapse ek mat hain. Aap ke saath rahengey (I am in agreement with you. I will work with you)".Maharashtra Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education denied that two minor girl students appearing for Class 12 examinations were 'strip searched'

Pune: The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education on Sunday denied that two minor girl students appearing for Class 12 examinations were "strip searched" by two women guards at a school near Pune to deter copying.

The alleged incident, which occurred during the exams held between 21-28 February at the Gurukul School of the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT), had caused an outrage among parents.

Following the incident, police had filed a case under various sections of the IPC and under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) against the two

guards.

Citing preliminary inquiry, a board official said the girls were not "strip-searched" by the guards.

"We had formed a two-member team of officials of the Pune division of State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education. The team visited the school and recorded the statements of the centre head, school management and the woman staffers," said BK Dahiphale, Secretary of Pune division of the State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education.

He said though the woman staffers did check all the girls for chits to deter copying during exams, the two girls were "not undressed or strip-searched".

Dahiphale, however, said the committee is yet to talk to the girls concerned and their statements are yet to be recorded.

Refuting the allegations against their staffers, the MIT on Sunday claimed one of the girls and her parents filed a bogus case against the school management as the girl was not allowed to copy during the examination.

"The charges levelled against our two staffers are baseless, false and defamatory towards our institution," said a release by MIT.

The MIT has also approached the police with a complaint application against some parents for "trying to intimidate and threaten" the security guards at the exam centre.Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar will be shifted to a Mumbai hospital once again and could travel overseas for further treatment, a statement issued by the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said on Monday.

Panaji: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar will be shifted to a Mumbai hospital once again and could travel overseas for further treatment, a statement issued by the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said on Monday.

"Today, the chief minister is travelling to Mumbai for further medical check-up, and based on his doctor's advice, may travel overseas for further treatment," the statement said.

Party sources have said that Parrikar's family was already in touch with a health facility in the United States, where he will proceed to after treatment at Mumbai's Lilavati Hospital.

Parrikar was rushed to the Lilavati Hospital on 15 February, where according to the CMO, he was diagnosed with "mild pancreatitis".

The chief minister returned to Goa on 22 February to deliver a truncated budget speech, two days after which he was shifted to the Goa Medical College and Hospital, near Panaji, for dehydration and low blood pressure. Parrikar was discharged from the hospital on 1 March and has been recuperating at his private residence near Panaji.Misa Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar were granted bail on Monday after appearing before a special CBI court in a money laundering case.

Misa Bharti and her husband Shailesh Kumar were granted bail on Monday by a special CBI court in a money laundering case. They, however, may not be able to leave the country without the court's permission.

Delhi: RJD MP Misa Bharti and her husband granted bail, they had appeared before the special CBI court in connection with a money laundering case. (File Pic) pic.twitter.com/6zJdk7U7Ge  ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2018

On Sunday, it was reported that Bharti had shrugged off her responsibility, and put the onus of running a company being probed for money laundering on her husband and a dead CA, even though the Enforcement Directorate (ED) said that the duo "actively conspired" to launder Rs 1.2 crore using shell firms.

The agency, in its chargesheet, filed against the couple in December, had said they were "party and actively connected with proceeds of crime including its concealment, possession, acquisition or use and projecting or claiming it as untainted property, and thus are guilty of money laundering".

A special court in Delhi had taken cognisance of the chargesheet  also known a the prosecution complaint under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act  and summoned the couple as accused in the case. The case is related to the purchase of a farmhouse in Delhi by Misa Bharti and her husband in the name of their company  M/S Mishail Packers and Printers Pvt Ltd  "using Rs 1.2 crore involved in money laundering in the year 2008-09".

Misa has been questioned by ED in connection with the case. She had given brief replies and told the agency that the day-to-day business activities of the firm were "looked after by her husband Shailesh Kumar and the financial records of this company were maintained by the CA of the company, late Sandeep Sharma".

Hence, she had said, her husband and the deceased CA "would be in a better position" to answer questions about the company and the farmhouse purchased by it.

The ED had been seeking information with related to investments made by four companies in 2008, in Mishail Packers and Printers Pvt Ltd. The four companies had bought shares of Mishail Packers and Printers Pvt Ltd at Rs 100 per share with a share premium of Rs 90 per share.

The agency had recorded Misa's statement under the PMLA.

Misa had reiterated the answer and put the responsibility of taking care of business and financial activities of the firm on her husband and the CA when she was questioned by the Investigating Officer of the case about the shares of the company in 2009, purchased by her at a nominal value of Rs 12 per share.

Shailesh Kumar, in his statement to the ED, had said he, as one of the directors of the firm, "supervised the day-to-day functioning of the company, guiding his manager and other employees". He, however, had told the ED that the "financial matters" of the company were handled by the CA and his company was "investing in purchasing agricultural land in anticipation of the proposed new master plan of Delhi".

The ED, in the chargesheet, had said that Misa and Kumar have "actively connived and conspired with Rajesh Kumar Agarwal (another accused in the case) and late Sandeep Sharma for laundering Rs 1.20 crore through the shell companies controlled by Jain brothers and Santosh Kumar Shah (alleged hawala and shell company operatives)". The couple is charged with providing funds in advance to the hawala operatives for making investments in their company and thus "knowingly were party and actively connected with proceeds of crime including concealment, possession, acquisition or use and projecting or claiming it as untainted property".

The chargesheet also said that, based on these pieces of evidence, the couple is "guilty of the offence of money laundering". It added that the two were the directors of the firm and were "in-charge and responsible for the conduct of the business of their company".

"They have failed to provide the source of unaccounted money provided to Jain brothers and others for making an investment in their company," the chargesheet had said. It also said that the couple, as well as the company, "have committed an offence of money laundering".

The ED is probing Bharti and her husband as part of its criminal probe in a Rs 8,000 crore money laundering case involving shell companies and the Jain brothers. The Jains were arrested by the ED in March 2017.

The ED had conducted raids at the farmhouse and few other places linked to Misa Bharti, her husband and others in July last year.

With inputs from PTIThe mastermind of Sunjuwan terror attack JeM terrorist Mufti Waqas was killed while a policeman was injured in an encounter by 50 RR and SOG Awantipora in Lethpora area of Jammu and Kashmir, media reports said.

Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist Mufti Waqas, said to be the mastermind of the Sunjuwan terror attack, was on Monday killed in an encounter, said reports.

Waqas was shot when he was trying to flee during a two-hour gunfight. There have been no civilian casualties or collateral damage, the army said. However, The Times of India reported that one policeman was injured.

The encounter was carried out on the basis of specific intelligence of his presence at Hatwar area of Awantipora, Hindustan Times reported. Apart from Sunjuwan, Waqas was involved in attacks in Pulwama district police lines, Lethpora and the BSF camp at Srinagar airport.

Waqas, operation commander of JeM, eliminated in Awantipora. He was mastermind behind several terrorist attacks on security forces including Sunjuwan attack. Weapons & incriminating materials like IED preparation material recovered. He is a foreign terrorist: SP Pani, IG Kashmir pic.twitter.com/obVOuXHMGE  ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2018

According to The Times of India, Jammu and Kashmir IG SP Pani said weapons and incriminating materials like IED preparation material have been recovered. The policeman who sustained minor injuries was shifted to a hospital.

On 10 February, five army personnel, including two junior commissioned officers (JCOs), and the father of a soldier was killed in an attack by terrorists. The militants had struck at the sprawling Sunjuwan camp of the 36 Brigade of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry (JAKLI). Soon after, the army had launched a "clearing" operation, firing mortar shells at the vacated residential quarters of the Sunjuwan military camp.

Waqas's killing comes after the elimination of the terror group's operational commander Noor Mohammed Tantrey in the same area on 17 December.

According to officials, Waqas, a Pakistani national who had infiltrated into the Kashmir Valley in 2017, was functioning as the operational commander of the terror outfit and had sent 'fidayeens' (suicide attackers) from Tral in South Kashmir to Jammu where they had carried out the strike on the army camp on 10 February.

Waqas was also responsible for radicalising locals Fardeen Khandey and Manzoor Baba who had carried out a suicide attack on a CRPF camp in South Kashmir's Lethpora on the intervening night of 30 December and 31 December last year.

With inputs from PTI(CNN)  North Korea says the United States "should not misjudge" its intention for dialogue following President Donald Trump's comments Saturday night that Pyongyang had recently reached out about possible talks.

In a statement released Sunday from North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, the country accused the US of "taking preposterous action by continuing to trumpet an insistence that it will not have dialogue unless a right condition is met and that it will keep watching if we have intention to abandon nuclear weapons and missiles and so on."

On Saturday, Trump said in a mostly joke-filled speech at the Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington that North Korea "called up a couple of days ago and said, 'We would like to talk.' And I said, 'So would we, but you have to de-nuke. You have to de-nuke.' So let's see what happens. Let's see what happens."

North Korea's statement added that it is "really more than ridiculous" that the US "insists that it will have dialogue only for making the DPRK abandon nuclear weapons and persist in "maximum pressure" until complete denuclearization is realized."

The US has said it would be willing to meet with North Korea but has always insisted that Pyongyang eventually abandon its nuclear weapons program as part of any talks.

The North Korean statement added that the DPRK has "clarified our position that a dialogue with the US will be possible."

"The US attitude shown after we clarified our intention in resuming the DPRK-US dialogue compels us to only think that the US is not interested in resuming the DPRK-US dialogue," the statement continued.

Pyongyang's statement also said it "depends entirely on the attitude of the US" whether "a situation that no one desires is developed in the vicious cycle of confrontation" or "whether peace desired by our nation and the rest of the world settles on the Korean peninsula."

Trump said later in his remarks on Saturday that "maybe positive things are happening. I hope that's true. ... I say that in all seriousness. I hope that's true. And we're soon going to know. We will be meeting, and we will see if anything positive happens. It's been a long time. It's a problem that should have been fixed a long time ago, not now."

White House officials did not respond to a request for clarification. Trump made the remarks while delivering a series of jokes poking fun at himself, his administration and others at the annual dinner.

Last month, it was revealed Vice President Mike Pence was set to meet with North Korean officials, including Kim Jong Un's sister, during their visits to the Winter Olympics in South Korea. But the North Koreans pulled out of the planned session before it could happen. Pence's office said it believed the abrupt cancellation was a sign that US attempts to exert pressure on the regime were working.

"North Korea dangled a meeting in hopes of the vice president softening his message, which could have ceded the world stage for their propaganda during the Olympics," said Nick Ayers, Pence's chief of staff.

Trump had signed off on the decision to meet, with the caveat that the United States wouldn't back off its stated demand that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons.

In late February, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said the US should ease its position on preconditions for talks.

"There is a need for the United States to lower the threshold for talks and North Korea should show its willingness to denuclearize," Moon said in a statement.

The latest US intelligence assessment about North Korea's nuclear ballistic missile program judges that Kim's regime has continued to make progress during the last few months on improving guidance of their missiles, an administration official with knowledge of the information told CNN's Barbara Starr. The official did point out that the regime is still struggling with the technical challenge of ensuring a warhead can re-enter the earth's atmosphere.

This story was first published on CNN.com, NK says US 'should not misjudge' its intention after Trump's Gridiron remarks."According to sources, Nirav Modi who defrauded Punjab National Bank (PNB) of over Rs 12,000 crore, siphoned off a major chunk of the ill-gotten money into two Belgium-based companies  Nirav Modi Limited (formed on 11 October, 2017) and Nirav Modi Jewels BVBA (formed in 2013)

New Delhi: Just months before diamond merchant Nirav Modi planned a safe exit from India, he floated a subsidiary of his flagship company Nirav Modi Limited in Belgium. According to sources, the diamond merchant who allegedly defrauded Punjab National Bank (PNB) of over Rs 12,000 crore, siphoned off a major chunk of the ill-gotten money into two Belgium-based companies  Nirav Modi Limited (formed on 11 October, 2017) and Nirav Modi Jewels BVBA (floated in Antwerp, Belgium, in 2013).

Its going to be an uphill task for the Indian investigating agencies to obtain information and evidence related to the assets of these two companies from the Belgian authorities for forfeiting and confiscating the proceeds and instruments of crime because India has not signed Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) with Belgium, and accessing information through Letter Rogatory (LR) will take at least three-four years. Nirav grew up in Antwerp also known as worlds diamond capital where his father Deepak Modi had set up a shop in the 1960s.

"On an average, it takes 1,334 days (around four years) to obtain full information, obtaining production of judicial or official records for investigation and prosecution of criminal offences. India has signed MLAT with 39 countries and all hopes are on countries like US, Switzerland, Hong Kong, UAE, and UK, to access overseas financial holdings of Nirav and his uncle Mehul Choksi and move ahead for confiscating them if found to have been obtained using proceeds from the alleged loan fraud. It takes between five-six months under MLAT to execute the necessary paperwork," Sources said.

Two months after floating a new company in Belgium, shelved the business of Firestar International Private Limited in Hong Kong on 12 December, 2017, just seven months after it started operating in April 2017.

Sources also pointed out that information obtained, particularly from the Hong Kong and UK authorities, would be crucial in investigating Nirav's overseas assets. The fugitive billionaire jeweller had floated Nirav Modi Limited in the UK in November 2014 for the retail sale of watches and jewellery in specialised stores. He had made Himanshu Trivedi as one of the directors of the UK-based company. Trivedi is, interestingly, one of the directors of at least five suspected mailbox companies linked to Niravs brother Neeshal Modi  Anantnath Valuers Private Limited, Samkit Valuers Private Limited, Sambhavnath Valuers Private Limited, Moon Valuers Private Limited and Vashupujya Valuers Private Limited. The majority shareholding in the UK company was invested with Firestar Holdings Limited Hong Kong, another Nirav Modis entity housed at 70 Queens Road Central Hong Kong.

Subsequently, in September 2016, Ajay Gandhi and Mihir Bhansali were appointed as directors in Nirav Modi Limited. Gandhi is the chief financial officer of Firestar Diamond Inc USA while Bhansali is the chief executive officer of Firestar Diamond. Bhansali is also the chief executive officer of Nirav Modi Inc located at 592 Fifth Avenue in New York.

The company was founded in September 2013 as a foreign business corporation with Firestar Jewelry Inc as the principal executive office.

Firestar Diamond Inc on Monday filed for bankruptcy at New York Southern Bankruptcy Court, however, Nirav Modi Inc, Firestar Diamond International Inc (floated in 2011) and Firestar Precious Inc (formed in 2015) continues to operate from the same office premises.

On 30 May, 2017, Trivedis appointment as the director of the UK company was terminated and Angelina Nguyen, a French national based in Hong Kong was appointed as the director of Nirav Modi Limited. Before her appointment in the UK, Nguyen was introduced as a director in two firms operating in India  Firestar International Limited and Firestar International Private Limited. Besides getting information on mysterious Nguyen from the Hong Kong authorities, the Indian investigators might be able to harvest critical inputs and assets of Nirav Modi (Hong Kong) Limited that was incorporated in July 2017, just six months before the planned escape. Another Hong Kong-based company Nirav Modi Limited has been operating since August 2014 even before the company with the similar name came up in the UK.

Sources said that the enforcement sleuths are also seeking information on Mehul Choksis companies Gitanjali USA Inc, which now operates under Tri-Star Worldwide Inc from Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, and Samuels Jewelers Inc. Choksi also has huge business interests in Antwerp and PNB had issued Letter of Credits (LCs) to his three companies Gitanjali Gems, Gili India and Nakshatra Diamonds through Bank of India (BoI) Antwerp branch.

At least five LCs worth Rs 78 Crore were issued on the same day and reflected in PNBs Nostro account on 15 March, 2017 in Antwerp. The next day two LCs each were issued to Choksis Gili India and the Nakshtra brands worth Rs 65.22 crore. Choksi's investigators suspect that he may have directly moved over Rs 685 crore to Belgium.

"Choksi was also operating several mailbox companies in Singapore, Hong Kong, Mauritius and the British Virgin Islands. Funds wired into these companies were camouflaged as genuine business deals, the sources remarked.

On Friday, the Enforcement Directorate attached 41 properties worth Rs 1,217.20 crore belonging to Mehul Choksi and companies controlled by him. The assets include 15 flats and 17 office premises in Mumbai, M/S Hyderabad Gems SEZ in Andhra Pradesh, a shopping mall in Kolkata, a farmhouse in Alibaug and 231 acres land in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.The Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP on Monday demanded a probe into alleged frisking of girl students at a school run by a Pune-based institute, while they had come there to appear for Class XII examinations.

Mumbai: The Shiv Sena, Congress and NCP on Monday demanded a probe into alleged frisking of girl students at a school run by a Pune-based institute, while they had come there to appear for Class XII examinations.

"Around 30 girl students from a school had come to take an examination in a school run by MIT in Loni Kalbhor. The girls complained that they were asked to remove their clothes for search in name of preventing cheating," Shiv Sena MLC Neelam Gorhe told reporters outside the Legislative Assembly.

"But I am told by the state Education Minister Vinod Tawde that there is no such provision allowing frisking of girl students like this," Gorhe claimed.

"I am surprised to find out that all the girl students who were frisked by MIT guards belong to a particular school. The girl students from other schools who had their centre in MIT were not treated in this way. The matter should be probed," said Gorhe.

BJP MLA Medha Kulkarni said that she has personally raised the issue with Vinod Tawde, who assured her that the matter would be probed.

"It is a completely unacceptable behaviour of the guards towards the girl students," she said.

Leader of Opposition and senior Congress leader Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil and NCP leader Ajit Pawar also sought an action against the school administration and the guards who "frisked the girls".

"The centre should be changed immediately as those girl students would be uncomfortable in attending the exam. It could affect their results as there are 2-3 exam papers still to be attended," said Vikhe Patil.

"There should be a thorough probe in this matter. The women guards who frisked the girls in this manner should face some kind of action," he added.

"Such treatment to girls is shocking and it has never happened in our state. The government needs to step up and conduct an inquiry," said Ajit Pawar.

On Sunday, the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education had denied allegations that two girls appearing for Class XII examinations were "strip searched" by two women guards at the school.

The alleged incident, which occurred during the exams held between 21-28 February at the Gurukul School of the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT), had caused an outrage among parents.

Meanwhile, refuting the allegations, MIT has said, "The charges levelled against our two staffers are baseless, false and defamatory towards our institution."Amid the outrage over the Nirav Modi scam and Karti Chidambaram's arrest in the INX Media case, the NDA government looks set to face a stormy second half of Budget Session which begins from Monday.

Amid the outrage over the Nirav Modi scam and Karti Chidambaram's arrest in the INX Media case, the NDA government is possibly staring at a stormy second half of Budget Session which begins from Monday. The first part of the budget session was held from 29 January to 9 February, while second half of the session will come to a close on 9 April.

The session begins two days after the election results in the northeast were announced that saw the BJP winning in Tripura and improving its performance in Nagaland and Meghalaya.

The BJP is expected to be in high spirits to take on a combative opposition that has been seeking to pin down the government over the Rs. 12,600 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam involving diamantaire Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi. According to the report, the deadlock between the government and the Opposition may continue if Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not agree to explain how Nirav escaped India after duping Punjab National Bank of over Rs 12,000 crores.

The Congress is also likely to denounce the government over the arrest of former Union finance minister P Chidambaram's son Karti by the CBI in the INX Media alleged bribery case. The Congress has termed the CBI action "political vendetta".

The Opposition is also likely to corner the government over the tussle between Prasar Bharti and the Information and Broadcasting ministry.

It is likely to raise issues concerning farmers, the Rafale deal, Staff Selection Commission "job scam", loss of life and property due to ceasefire violations on the LoC and increase in cost of petroleum products.

Meanwhile, YSRCP MPs from Andhra Pradesh are likely to hold a dharna against the Centre in the Parliament premises. The party is also expected to initiate a no-confidence motion in Lok Sabha on 21 March, reported Livemint.

The government, on the other hand, will continue to push its economic and social agenda in both the Houses of Parliament.

The passage of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, which seeks confiscation of assets of absconding fraudsters and loan defaulters, and the triple talaq bill will be high on the government's agenda.

The bill to target economic offenders was approved by the government following the escape of diamond merchant Nirav Modi and other accused in the over Rs 12,700-crore Punjab National Bank scam.

The triple talaq bill, which seeks jail term for Muslim men practising instant divorce, is another contentious issue.

The BJP has made it clear that it will seek its passage in Parliament despite a strong Opposition to it from parties like the Congress and the Left among others.

The passage of the OBC bill, which envisages constitutional status for the OBC commission, is another item on the government's agenda.

Parliament will also take up a discussion on the Union budget, which was tabled in the first half of the session, and pass it.

According to Doordarshan, the government will table The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, 2017, and The Specific Relief (Amendment) Bill, 2017, on Thursday. On 6 March, The Dentists (Amendment) Bill, 2017 will be tabled, the report said. In the Rajya Sabha, the government is likely to table The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2017, and The State Banks (Repeal and Amendment) Bill, 2017 on Thursday.

While the Opposition is expected to target the government over financial scams in the recent past, the BJP is likely to pin the blame on the Congress-led UPA regime. The BJP has already claimed that the PNB scam had begun when the UPA was in power and its government has acted with alacrity after the fraud came out in the open.

The party, energised by the win in Tripura and impressive performance in Nagaland and Meghalaya elections, is likely to be aggressive in Parliament and rake up scams that happened on the Congress watch to pin it down, party sources said.

With inputs from agenciesJammu and Kashmir govt told the Supreme Court that Major Aditya Kumar was not named as an accused in the FIR of the 27 January Shopian firing incident.

New Delhi: The Jammu and Kashmir government on Monday told the Supreme Court that Major Aditya Kumar was not named as an accused in the FIR of the 27 January Shopian firing incident in which three civilians were killed.

Taking on record the statement of the state government, the apex court said there should be no investigation till 24 April in the case.

"Let the matter be listed for final disposal on 24 April. In the meantime, there shall be no investigation on the basis of FIR till then," a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud said.

The apex court had on 12 February restrained the Jammu and Kashmir police from taking any "coercive steps" against army officers, including Major Aditya Kumar, who was earlier reportedly named as accused in the case.

Three civilians were killed when army personnel fired at a stone-pelting mob in Ganovpora village of Shopian on 27 January 27 this year, prompting the chief minister to order an inquiry into the incident.

The FIR was registered against personnel of 10 Garhwal Rifles under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Ranbir Penal Code (the penal code applicable in Jammu and Kashmir).

The apex court was hearing the plea of Lieutenant Colonel Karamveer Singh, the father of Major Aditya Kumar, seeking to quash the FIR against his son.

Singh had said in his petition that his son, a major in 10 Garhwal Rifles, was "wrongly and arbitrarily" named in the FIR as the incident relates to an army convoy that was on bona fide military duty in an area under AFSPA and was isolated by an "unruly and deranged" mob pelting stones, causing damage to military vehicles.

During the hearing on Monday, the counsel representing Jammu and Kashmir told the bench that Major Aditya was not named as accused anywhere in the FIR.The Supreme Court has restrained the Jammu and Kashmir Police from imitating probe against Major Aditya Kumar till 24 April in the Shopian firing incident

The Supreme Court on Monday restrained the Jammu and Kashmir Police from initiating probe against Major Aditya Kumar till 24 April in the Shopian firing incident, according to several media reports.

Shopian firing incident case: Supreme Court says no probe would be initiated against Major Aditya till the next date of hearing, April 24. pic.twitter.com/32K23b1k7A  ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2018

The Jammu and Kashmir government, however, in a big U-turn told the apex court that Major Aditya's name was not in the FIR filed against army personnel involved in the Shopian firing, The Times of India reported.

The court was hearing Lt Col (retd) Karamveer Singh's plea seeking to quash the FIR against his son Major Aditya.

According to a report in India Today, the accused column in the FIR was left blank. However, Major Aditya's name was mentioned as the commanding officer in subsequent paragraphs.

When the apex court asked if this implied that Major Aditya would not be named as an accused in future, the state government indicated it could not commit so.

"It depends on investigation," the Jammu and Kashmir government told the Supreme Court, according to NDTV.

On 27 January, three civilians were killed when army personnel fired at a stone-pelting mob in Ganovpora village in Shopian, prompting Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti to order an inquiry into the incident.

The FIR was registered against personnel of 10 Garhwal Rifles, including Major Aditya, under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Ranbir Penal Code.

According to the army's version of events, submitted on 30 January, the force's convoy was attacked by a group of stone pelters and its personnel resorted to firing to save themselves.

The army claimed that it opened firing in self-defence after seven of its personnel were injured. The army also submitted photographs of the vehicles damaged in the stone pelting.

In February, several retired armed forces officers staged a protest in Mumbai against "coercive steps" against army officers, including Major Aditya Kumar.

With inputs from PTIThe Staff Selection Commission (SSC), which conducts the examination for subordinate services, on Sunday, decided to recommend a CBI inquiry into the alleged paper leak in one of its tests, which was held on 21 February.

New Delhi: The Staff Selection Commission (SSC), which conducts the examination for subordinate services, on Sunday, decided to recommend a CBI inquiry into the alleged paper leak in one of its tests, which was held on 21 February.

In a statement, SSC chairman Ashim Khurana said that a delegation of candidates, who were protesting against the alleged paper leaks, met him along with BJP Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari and handed over a memorandum. They demanded a CBI enquiry into the allegations of leak of questions of the Combined Graduate Level (Tier-II) Examination 2017 held from 17 to 22 February.

"The commission agreed to recommend to the Department of Personnel and Training to request the government to conduct a CBI enquiry into the allegations of leak of questions of Paper-I on 21 February, and other related issues," the statement said.

Earlier Tiwari, along with the protesting students, met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and apprised him of the concerns raised by the protesting SSC aspirants. The students have been protesting outside the SSC office at CGO complex in New Delhi since February 27, seeking a CBI probe into the alleged paper leak in the Combined Graduate-Level (CGL) exam. The SSC conducts examinations for recruitment to lower categories of posts in the central government.The Supreme Court, on Monday, agreed to hear a plea demanding an investigation into the alleged SSC paper leak scam on 12 March.

In a latest development in the Staff Selection Commission paper leak case, the Supreme Court on Monday decided to hear a plea demanding Central Bureau of Investigation to probe into the alleged scam on 12 March. "CBI order has been issued in the SSC paper leak issue...detailed probe will be conducted in this matter," Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh was quoted as saying by India Today.

Students have been protesting outside the SSC office at CGO complex in New Delhi since 27 February, seeking a CBI probe into the alleged paper leak in the Combined Graduate-Level (CGL) exam. The SSC conducts examinations for recruitment to lower categories of posts in the central government.

Earlier, the SSC, which conducts the examination for subordinate services, on Sunday, decided to recommend a CBI inquiry into the alleged paper leak in one of its tests, which was held on 21 February.

Minister of State in Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh also agreed to a CBI probe into the alleged question paper leak, irregularities and mass cheating in the combined graduate level exam of the SSC. "Spoke to (Jitendra Singh) in Parliament today. He has agreed to a CBI inquiry on all the issues raised by the students protesting the SSC-CGL Mains papers 'leak, conduct of exams'. I thank him for his willingness to listen to these legitimate demands (with) an open mind," Shashi Tharoor tweeted.

In a statement, SSC chairman Ashim Khurana said that a delegation of candidates, who were protesting against the alleged paper leaks, met him along with BJP Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari and handed over a memorandum. They demanded a CBI enquiry into the allegations of leak of questions of the CGL (Tier-II) Examination 2017 held from 17 to 22 February.

"The commission agreed to recommend to the Department of Personnel and Training to request the government to conduct a CBI enquiry into the allegations of leak of questions of Paper-I on 21 February, and other related issues," the statement said.

Tiwari, who led a delegation of SSC aspirants, urged the home minister to look into the allegations of irregularities and mass cheating in the Combined Graduate Level-Test Tier II examination held in February.

The home minister assured the delegation that the government would not allow any injustice and order an appropriate inquiry in the matter, said a statement issued by the Delhi BJP unit. Earlier Tiwari, along with the protesting students, met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and apprised him of the concerns raised by the protesting SSC aspirants.

The SSC, which conducts examination for subordinate services, on Sunday said it would recommend a CBI inquiry into the allegations. Nearly 190,000 candidates appeared for SSC CGL Tier II exam. The examination on 17 February had be to cancelled after malpractices were reported at a Delhi exam centre where paper chits with answers were found in a toilet.

In Bhopal also, the SSC had to cancel the exam after candidates found out that several questions were already marked with answers.

Aspirants have been holding protests outside the SSC's office at CGO Complex here for the last six days, demanding a CBI investigation into the matter. The Congress, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the BJP have come out in support of the candidates.

With inputs from PTITerje Abusdal's 'Slash & Burn', which was on display at JaipurPhoto this year, presented a view of the Forest Finns, their slash-and-burn farming technique, and their world of rituals and magic spells | #FirstCulture

In the early 1600s, farming families from Finland settled in a contiguous forest belt along the Norwegian-Swedish border. Over the decades, these immigrant slash-and-burn farmers  the Forest Finns  spread across Scandinavia.

Today, the Forest Finns are one of the national minorities in Norway, and their culture of four centuries ago no longer exists. However, it was their past understanding of nature, rooted deeply in a shamanistic tradition, and their association with magic and mystery, that intrigued the Oslo-based artist, Terje Abusdal, who, about four years ago, set out to investigate what it meant to be, and to feel like a Forest Finn in todays world.

I think the spiritual aspect attracted me the most, this shamanistic understanding of nature that the Forest Finns brought with them when they migrated. Their use of the magic, the rituals and the spells in everyday life  this world which doesnt exist today, of course. But this world that they had with them when they arrived, I find it very fascinating. I tried to choose an aesthetic that would portray this world. In a way, to try and create a magical world, a magical land, said Abusdal, while talking about his project Slash & Burn, which was exhibited at an 18th-century royal palace, the Hawa Mahal, as part of the 2018 edition of the JaipurPhoto festival in India.

Abusdal describes how the project initially started off as a straightforward documentary project, with landscapes, portraits and interiors photography. But as he learnt more about his subjects and their culture, it evolved, quite organically, into how it looks today  a surreal blend of facts and fiction.

It evolved during this project, because, how was I going to tell the story of something that really doesnt exist anymore? And thats when I had to get creative with my methods and also in constructing this magical world. In trying to make the magical world, I had to add fiction. The methods Abusdal is referring to here are the use of fire and smoke bombs in his photography, burning (and subsequently scanning) his photographs to get desired effects, among other things.

The Forest Finns were identified by their farming techniques  slash and burn. So I used fire and smoke as recurring elements. And the burning of the images is to sort of put the Forest Finns physically into the image, he adds. Abusdal also believes that as long as he is honest with his methods and his storytelling, and doesnt present his work as pure facts, he can do this without a problem.

Speaking about his time working on the project, Abusdal mentions how open and welcoming the community was towards him and his work. Actually, out of all the people I photographed or ask to be photographed, only one person said no. It's a very little-known part of Norwegian history, and its something thats connected today with pride. So people are more than willing to share and talk about it. And I think they liked that someone else took interest in their cultural heritage.

Having worked on the project for this long, he now feels quite responsible towards the community or how they are represented through his work. Yes, definitely [feel responsible]. Because for a lot of people, their meetings with the Forest Finns will be through my pictures, he says.

But he is confident about how his final project portrays the community. Ive shown it to quite a lot [of people] in the Forest of the Finns, and they all responded really well to it. And Im working with a historian so that the facts that I present, the texts, are very accurate. So I think as long as Im true to the history, then I can take liberties visually, in the storytelling. Because if I were to stay true to journalistic dogmas, it would have been a very boring project, I think. Nobody would want to see it.

What Abusdal does seem a little concerned about is the potential loss of the Forest Finn culture in the future. I think what will make the culture disappear is not so much the government policy of the 1800s and the 1900s, but the centralisation, the fact that everybody moves from the countryside into cities. Little by little it is [the area] being depopulated. But this is how the world is. I mean, this is all over the world basically, he says.

Recently, Slash & Burn won the 2017 Leica Oskar Barnack Award, the Nordic Dummy Award, and has been received well across Europe, where it has been mostly been showcased. So what is it about the work that draws such a response from people? According to Abusdal, although people make their own stories about the images and might feel connected to the work for different reasons, he does believe that the photographs have a certain element of mystery to them, and that this mystery is perhaps something that intrigues them.

Also, in an ideal world, Abusdal says he would like people to stop and think about how we are more related as humans then what all of us would like to believe.

Meanwhile, as he puts some finishing touches to the project, the artist is also working on several other projects. One is in the north of Norway, in a region which was devastated during the World War II, forcing people to leave. Three years ago, 5,000 refugees came on bikes across the border from Russia into Norway into this very region. So, from being a place that you fled from, it has become a place that you flee to. Im trying to connect the story of these modern migrants to the war history of World War II, as a reminder of how things change, he says, describing the project.

The Slash & Burn book, published by Kehrer Verlag, is set to release in July 2018.

The third edition of JaipurPhoto was held across six venues  Hawa Mahal, Former Police Headquarters, City Palace, The Albert Hall Museum, Jantar Mantar and Jawahar Kala Kendra  in the city of Jaipur.The idea has been vehemently opposed by the party's Kerala unit along with Politburo member Prakash Karat, who is known as a hardliner in the CPM.

Kolkata: CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Monday said the country was passing through "challenging period" and that there was a need to form the "broadest platform" of secular and democratic forces to defeat the BJP-RSS's "communal juggernaut".

His comment comes in the backdrop of the party's humiliating defeat in Tripura, where the BJP-IPFT combine scripted history by winning two-third majority and ending 25 years of uninterrupted rule of the CPM-led Left Front.

"The country is passing through a challenging period as the ruling BJP-RSS combine is trying to divide the nation on the basis of religion, caste and creed," he said at the inaugural session of the 25th state conference of the party.

Yechury advocated alternative policies to counter the BJP government at the Centre.

The idea is to form the "broadest platform" of secular and democratic forces with alternative policies to defeat the BJP-RSS "communal juggernaut", he said.

Only alternative policies, not alternative political leader, can fight the 'neo-liberal and communal onslaught'' of the BJP, he said.

Alleging that the Narendra Modi government at the Centre was aggressively collaborating with the mechanism of profit maximisation, Yechury said the erstwhile Congress government had started it, but the NDA government was doing it "greater aggression".

"Demonetisation, introduction of GST and master planning FRDI bill have been executed to bail in the ruling class to serve the interests of international finance capital," the CPM general secretary said.

He said an aggressive communal strategy was replacing the study of Indian history with the study of Hindu mythology. Parliament and its bodies are being undermined, he added.

The CPM West Bengal unit began its four-day state conference during the day to discuss the organisational aspects and the political-tactical line to be adopted at the party's Congress next month.

The state conference is all set to witness heated arguments and debates over the political-tactical line as a majority of leaders from West Bengal is in favour of adjustment with Congress in order to stop BJP.

This has been vehemently opposed by the party's Kerala unit along with Politburo member Prakash Karat, who is known as a hardliner in the CPM.

The entire top leadership of CPM, including Karat and Brinda Karat, were present in the meeting besides Yechury.

According to CPM sources, the party leadership will present its organisational report and discuss the draft political resolution that was adopted at the last central committee during the meeting.

The CPM central committee had on 21 January voted against the draft political resolution put forward by Yechury proposing an alliance with the Congress, thus ruling out any form of electoral alliance or adjustment.(CNN)  South Korean President Moon Jae-in is sending a high-level delegation Monday that includes his spy chief and top security adviser for talks in North Korea's capital of Pyongyang.

The 10-member group will focus on inter-Korean relations and establishing conditions for a US-North Korean dialogue on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, South Korea's Blue House said in a statement.

National Security Chief Chung Eui-yong will lead the 10-member delegation, spokesman Yoon Young-chan said.

The delegation includes national intelligence service chief, Suh Hoon; vice minister of unification, Chun Hae-sung; deputy director of the national intelligence service, Kim Sang-gyun; and deputy director of the Blue House, Yun Gyeong-young.

The delegation will fly into Pyongyang on a special flight Monday afternoon, and stay for one night.

After returning to Seoul for a debriefing, the delegation will travel to the United States to advise on the outcome of their visit to Pyongyang, Yoon said.

Pyongyang tested a new missile on November 28 that flew higher and farther than any previous launch, and bragged afterward that its new Hwasong-15 could deliver nuclear warheads anywhere in the US.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo recently noted that North Korea could be just a few months away from achieving the goal of putting a warhead on a missile that could reach the US.

The US has said it would be willing to meet with North Korea but has always insisted that Pyongyang eventually abandon its nuclear weapons program as part of any talks.

Last Thursday, US President Donald Trump spoke with President Moon, according to a White House readout of the call. It stated that the two leaders "noted their firm position that any dialogue with North Korea must be conducted with the explicit and unwavering goal of complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization."

In a speech at the Gridiron Club Dinner on Saturday night, Trump said North Korea recently reached out about possible talks.

"They called up a couple of days ago and said, 'We would like to talk,'" Trump said. "And I said, 'So would we, but you have to de-nuke. You have to de-nuke.' So let's see what happens. Let's see what happens."

This story was first published on CNN.com, South Korea sending high-level delegation to Pyongyang."He said he was campaigning for the party candidates in Uttar Pradesh for the bypolls and dismissed reports of any poll-pact with the Samajwadi Party and BSP

New Delhi: Amid reports of an "understanding" between arch-rivals Bahujan Samaj Party and Samajwadi Party in Uttar Pradesh bypolls, the Congress on Monday made it clear that it will not tie up with any party and asserted that its candidates will contest the elections.

"The Congress has already declared its candidates for the by-elections to Phulpur and Gorakhpur Parliamentary seats and will contest independent of any understanding or tie-up that other parties have," Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Raj Babbar told PTI.

He said he was campaigning for the party candidates in Uttar Pradesh for the bypolls and dismissed reports of any poll-pact with the Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party.

"The Congress is raising the voice of the poor and will continue to do so in Uttar Pradesh and elsewhere. Whenever the Congress is weakened, the voice of the poor has been weakened," he said.

Babbar said the Congress wants peace, stability and brotherhood in Uttar Pradesh and will continue to support the oppressed and the poor.

Sources said the Congress is under pressure to come together and unitedly contest the bye-elections for the Phulpur and Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seats.

They said Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav is trying to rope in the Congress by bringing together all secular forces under one common platform to defeat the BJP.

He is also seeking to reach out to Rahul Gandhi for arriving at such an understanding, the sources said.

The Samajwadi Party and BSP, traditional arch-rivals in the state, have reached a broad understanding for the bypolls in Uttar Pradesh, which has created a stir in political circles.

The Samajwadi Party is hopeful of a possible alliance in the future and the BJP dubbed the move as "compulsion". Though BSP chief Mayawati on Sunday ruled out an alliance with the Samajwadi Party, she said her party's workers would work for a candidate that could defeat the BJP. Local BSP leaders in Gorakhpur and Phulpur have also formally announced their support for Samajwadi Party candidates.A toothless Congress tried its best to bite the Narendra Modi-led NDA government hard inside the Parliament on Monday. Other Opposition parties also staged vociferous protests.

After losing Tripura and Nagaland, and failing to form the government in Meghalaya despite emerging as the single largest party, a toothless Congress tried its best to bite the Narendra Modi-led NDA government hard inside the Parliament on Monday.

Apart from the Congress, other Opposition parties including NDA constituent Telugu Desam Party (TDP) launched a forceful attack on the government. The attack, which was centred on the alleged PNB fraud, ultimately led to the adjournment of both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha.

The opposition parties and the TDP had been waiting for the Parliament to begin so that they could launch an offensive against the BJP. Indications of this were clear much before the second phase of the Budget Session began on Monday.

Right from the morning, MPs from the TDP and Trinamool Congress (TMC) staged demonstrations by holding placards and raising slogans near the Gandhi statue outside Parliament. Inside, both Houses of the Parliament witnessed stormy sessions.

Congress strategy

Much before the announcement of the election results, the principal Opposition party Congress had planned to launch a scathing attack on the BJP government on the issue of corruption. So had the other Opposition parties who had separately decided to take the government head on in Parliament.

Not deterred by its dismal electoral performance in the North Eastern states, the Congress decided to go ahead with the strategy it chalked out during its steering committee meeting.

During a meeting of the Congress highest decision-making body the steering committee  the party had decided to attack the Modi government inside and outside the Parliament in a big way by raising the PNB scam. The grand old party of India decided to try and rope in other like-minded political parties to form a joint action committee and pressurise the government. Senior leaders Ghulam Nabi Azad and Mallikarjun Kharge were assigned the task of speaking with other parties and thereafter demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe into the Rs 11,400 crore PNB scam.

Besides raising the issue inside Parliament, the Congress decided to stage demonstrations, rallies and press briefings across the country.

Following the party's plan to launch a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rajya Sabha members Ghulam Nabi Azad and Anand Sharma along with other members in the Upper House questioned his silence over the alleged scam.

We had already decided to take up corruption issues, including the bank scam related to Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi and we did it. Well intensify our agitation and also garner support from other Opposition parties on the corruption issue. We will take it up in both the Houses. The prime minister has to tell the nation who is responsible for Indias biggest bank scam, a senior Congress leader told Firstpost.

Besides raising the PNB scam, the Congress leaders also took up the black money issue

Public money deposited in a nationalised bank has been looted. Why is the prime minister quiet? Anand Sharma questioned.

Other opposition parties

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), with three MPs, wasnt to be left behind. It raised concerns related to the Delhi government.

Before the Parliament started functioning, the TDP MPs gave adjournment notices in both the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha demanding a discussion on the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act. As the session began, the TDP MPs went to the Well of both the Houses and staged protests with placards saying, We want justice.

The Left, despite getting routed in the Tripura election, sought to join in the protests.

The PNB scam was the biggest loot and fraud in the country. The Left will be at the forefront of this agitation, whether its on the floor of the Parliament or outside. Inside the Parliament, well take it up through floor coordination, Communist Party of India (CPI) Rajya Sabha member D Raja told Firstpost.

Meanwhile, theres a buzz regarding the formation of a non-BJP, non-Congress third front. The TMC is well aware of the BJP-RSS challenge, especially after the BJP dismantled the Manik Sarkar-led CPM government in Tripura. After the results, the BJP president Amit Shah had said that the partys next target was the Mamata Banerjee-led TMC government in Bengal and the CPM-led government in Kerala.

The K Chandrasekhar Rao-led Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) party members demanded an increase in the reservation quota in Telangana.

Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has claimed that besides a few political leaders from regional parties, West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee had called him seeking an alternative front.

The TMC is looking at the possibility of forming a third front. Its at a nascent stage and talks are going on with other non-BJP, non-Congress parties to chalk out a strategy, a TMC leader told Firstpost on the condition of anonymity.

Outside Parliament, it was the Jagan Mohan Reddy-led YSR Congress Party that staged a large demonstration at the Parliament Street demanding special category status for Andhra Pradesh.

If Mamata (Banerjee) and (Asaduddin) Owaisi are calling for a third front to form a non-BJP and non-Congress government, the YSR Congress party will support them. However, this is provided they meet our demands for special category status and assistance to Andhra Pradesh for growth. The final call will be taken by our president Jagan Mohan Reddy, YSR Congress partys MP Vijay Sai Reddy said.

Challenge ahead

Despite high-decibel sloganeering and demonstrations, it needs to be seen whether the Congress is able to garner support from other like-minded parties through floor-coordination and demand a JPC probe in the PNB scam. It also needs to be seen whether the Opposition parties are able to unite to stop the Modi juggernaut.A Congress MLA on Monday raised a banner of revolt against a legislature party leader, less than a week after the party suffered a split in the Bihar Legislative Council.

Patna: A Congress MLA on Monday raised a banner of revolt against the legislature party leader, less than a week after the party suffered a split in the Bihar Legislative Council.

Accusing CLP leader Sadanand Singh of "weakening" the party in the state, Congress MLA Sanjay Kumar Tiwari alias Munna Tiwari said he will be visiting Delhi after the conclusion of the Assembly session next month to apprise the high command of the situation in the state unit.

"Singh has been taking steps that are weakening the party in the state. The Bhabhua Assembly by-poll is a case in point where he lobbied hard and secured the party ticket for one Shambhu Patel, who has not been a long-time Congress worker," the Buxar MLA said.

"I suspect that personal consideration was behind the choice of the candidate and the CLP leader paid no heed to the social and political realities of the assembly segment. Otherwise what was the point in fielding an OBC candidate from a Brahmin-dominated seat," he asked.

By-polls will be held for Bhabhua and Jahanabad Assembly seats as well as Araria Lok Sabha constituency on 11 March.

The Congress, however, is only contesting from the Bhabhua constituency, where the by-election was necessitated following the death of sitting BJP MLA Anand Bhushan Pandey.

The BJP has fielded the deceased MLA's wife Rinky Pandey from the seat.

The grand old party suffered a split in the Legislative Council recently, after former Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ashok Choudhary and three other members of the Congress Legislature Party in the Upper House quit the Congress to join the ruling Janata Dal (United).

Tiwari, who is considered to be close to Choudhary, said, "I am with the Congress and have no plans to switch sides. But I will be failing my moral obligations if I remain quiet in the face of what is happening in the state unit."

There are many other MLAs who feel likewise, the MLA said.

"Those that agree with what I feel may accompany me when I will place the facts before the high command. But even if no one else musters the courage, I will be doing it alone," Tiwari claimed.

The Congress has 27 MLAs in the 243-member Bihar Vidhan Sabha.The Tripura Police said it has received four complaints of 'post-poll' violence from various parts of the state since Sunday night

Agartala: The Tripura Police on Monday said it has received four complaints of "post-poll" violence from various parts of the state since Sunday night.

The state witnessed a change in rule after 25 years in the recently concluded Assembly elections. The BJP demolished the Left citadel in Tripura, winning a two-thirds majority with its ally, the IPFT.

"The cases include arson at two CPM offices in the Sidhai area in West Tripura district, 25 km from Agartala, and clashes between CPM and BJP supporters at Kadamtala in North Tripura district, 140km from Agartala," Superintendent of Police (Control) Pradip De said, adding that no one had been arrested so far.

The BJP has warned its leaders and supporters of "stern" action if they indulged in "post-poll violence" in Tripura.

A section of unidentified BJP supporters, who migrated from the CPM, were creating unrest in parts of the state, BJP vice-president Subal Bhowmick said at a press meet on Monday.

"Anyone found to be involved in post-poll violence would be immediately expelled and legal action will be initiated against them," he said.

The CPM alleged that the supporters and activists of the BJP-Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) alliance were terrorizing its workers and burning party offices since the announcement of poll results on 3 March.

CPM office secretary Haripada Das said over 240 people were injured in attacks on party offices, offices of Left trade unions and homes of prominent leaders in the last 48 hours.

Bhowmick said the situation was being closely monitored by the party and no one would be spared if they were found creating tension in the state.

He alleged that the CPM activists, too, "assaulted" 49 of its party supporters, 17 of whom had to be hospitalized.Telangana chief minister and TRS President K Chandrashekhar Rao, who has mooted the idea of a third front and offered to lead it, on Monday unveiled plans to conduct a series of meetings across the country to prepare a national agenda.

Hyderabad: Telangana chief minister and TRS President K Chandrashekhar Rao, who has mooted the idea of a Third Front and offered to lead it, on Monday unveiled plans to conduct a series of meetings across the country to prepare a national agenda. Rao is chalking out a programme to hold meetings with organisations, associations and retired bureaucrats.

According to the Chief Minister's Office, he will first meet the retired All India Service Officers like IAS, IPS, IFS and IRS.

As these retired officers have seen political developments closely at state and all India level, meeting with them will be highly useful, the office said.

Rao is also expected to meet retired defence personnel and officers; legal luminaries; farmers' associations and employees' associations of all states; and economists and retired finance secretaries.

"These meetings will be followed with meetings with media houses, journalists, industrial houses, labour organizations and so on one after another," the office said.

These meetings will be organised in Hyderabad, New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Calcutta and Bangalore.

Rao's idea of a front to provide an alternative to both the BJP and Congress, has already received support from West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren, Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi and actor-politician Pawan Kalyan.

The TRS leader claimed that six to seven MPs from Maharashtra also telephoned him to convey their support.

Stating that both the BJP and Congress failed the people, he said there was a need for qualitative change in Indian politics.

Calling for amendments to the Constitution to facilitate higher economic growth, he demanded that the Centre should transfer subjects like education, health, urban development, rural roads, reservation to the states.Asaduddin Owaisi could provide the Deve Gowda-led Third Front in Karnataka a strong Muslim face and prevent the 13 percent Muslim votes from falling in Congress' kitty

A few weeks ago in the run-up to the elections in Tripura, a group of Bengali Muslims met Asaduddin Owaisi, requesting him to contest in a few constituencies that have a Muslim voter population. When he refused, they asked him to mark his presence by putting up a candidate in at least one seat. Realising Owaisi was stubborn about not having a footprint in the North East, they requested him to at least address a few public meetings.

The response remained negative and Owaisi's party, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) stayed away. Or else, Congress and CPM, which were defeated in the elections, would have accused Owaisi of being BJP's agent, out to split the minority vote. Just like it accused AIMIM of doing BJP's bidding in the elections in Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

But if there is a state Owaisi is keen to contest in, it is Karnataka. He has his eyes set on a few seats in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region and possibly even in Bengaluru. A significant portion of the Hyderabad-Karnataka region was part of the erstwhile kingdom of Hyderabad under the Nizam rule. Not only is it home to a sizeable Muslim population, but the language spoken here is Deccani Urdu along with Kannada.

Sources close to the Hyderabad MP say that Congress is already nervous about AIMIM's electoral foray into Karnataka. They claim feelers were sent to Owaisi through non-politicians close to Congress, asking him to desist from contesting in Karnataka. The Congress, however, dismisses Owaisi as a force of no consequence pointing to his party's performance in the Bengaluru civic polls in 2015 where it came a cropper, not winning even a single ward in the 198-member civic body.

Owaisi is only too aware that his decision to contest will provoke Congress to accuse him of being a BJP agent. But relations between Owaisi and Congress have hit rock bottom because the Siddaramaiah government on several occasions has refused the AIMIM leader permission to address public meetings in Karnataka.

Owaisi's Plan A is to be part of the Deve Gowda-led alliance of JD(S)-BSP-NCP that has announced it will fight the elections together in Karnataka. The JD(S) has allotted 20 seats to Mayawati's BSP to contest while seven seats will be given to Sharad Pawar's party in the Belagavi district, where there is a significant Marathi-speaking population.

A preliminary discussion between the JD(S) leadership and Owaisi has already taken place and the ball is in Deve Gowda's court. Owaisi has reportedly conveyed to them that in an election that is going to be fought on caste and communal lines, the alliance needs a strong Muslim leader who is a good communicator. The JD(S) after the exit of Zameer Ahmed does not have too many Muslim leaders who command a significant following.

It is here that Owaisi, with his strong oratory skills, could be a good fit for the Third Front in Karnataka. With Congress leadership engaged in a temple run, just like it was in Gujarat and adopting what is seen as a soft Hindutva line, the JD(S) feels its alliance can attract the Muslim vote if it fields the right candidates. But in the absence of a strong Muslim face, the entire 13 percent Muslim vote in Karnataka could go into Congress' kitty. This vote share is the bedrock of the AHINDA slogan of Siddaramaiah, that targets the minorities (alpasankhyataru), backward classes (Hindulidavaru) and Dalits (Dalitaru).

Gowda acknowledges the advantage that Owaisi will bring to the table but is reportedly worried about his firebrand image and the impact it could have on the Hindu vote. The Hyderabad MP has left it to the father-son combine of Gowda and HD Kumaraswamy to take a final decision. Gowda's main objective is to emerge as a kingmaker in a hung Karnataka Assembly which explains why he is taking his time to decide on Owaisi. If Gowda does not play ball, Owaisi plans to contest a few seats on his own.

The JD(S) strength lies only in the old Mysuru belt. In the past, it has won a few seats in the Hyderabad-Karnataka region but that has been more on the back of individual candidates. Many of those MLAs have now switched sides. In such a scenario, Owaisi, even with the attendant risk, may seem like the best bet for Gowda.Bidar South MLA and businessman Ashok Kheny joined the ruling Congress ahead of the Assembly elections in Karnataka, amidst opposition from within the party.

Bengaluru: Bidar South MLA and businessman Ashok Kheny joined the ruling Congress ahead of the Assembly elections in Karnataka, amidst opposition from within the party.

Kheny is the Managing Director of Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise Limited (NICE), the implementing agency of the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project that is facing allegations of irregularities. He joined the party in the presence of Karnataka Pradesh Congress President G Parameshwara and campaign Committee Chief DK Shivakumar, by merging his Karnataka Makkala Paksha with the Congress.

Kheny had also met Chief Minister Siddaramaiah before joining the party.

Welcoming Kheny, Parameshwara said he was joining Congress without any preconditions, and accepting it's principles. "His joining Congress will help strengthen the party in Bidar district and thereby ensure the party's victory in all six assembly constituencies there," he said. However, several Congress MLAs in Bengaluru and a section within Bidar Congress expressed opposition to Kheny's induction.

A group of party workers also staged a protest in Bidar, on Monday. Yeshwantpur MLA ST Somashekar said he is opposed to Kheny's induction, when the House committee report on the alleged irregularities in the BMIC project is still pending before the government for action.

"A few MLAs have also contacted me regarding this. We will inform the chief minister and the KPPC president regarding the allegation against him and about the House Committee report that is pending before the government for action," he said. In its report tabled in the Assembly in December 2016,the 11-member committee,headed by Law Minister Jayachandra to look into the alleged violations, concluded that 16 of 22 articles in the framework agreement had been violated by the private partner NICE.

It had also recommended an inquiry by CBI, ED, the vigilance commission or an investigative agency of equal standing.

NICE is the implementing agency of the BMIC project, which includes developing the 111-km four-lane expressway, five townships and supporting infrastructure.

However, ruling out any differences within Congress over the issue, Shivakumar said all party leaders, specifically from Bidar district, had been consulted before induction.

To a question on NICE, he said "His business has nothing to do with the politics or the Congress....he may be director at NICE, but NICE has nothing to do with the politics."

Speaking to reporters, Kheny said he has joined Congress for the development of his constituency. Claiming that most Congress leaders are with him and one

or two may be opposing him because of "selfish reasons", he however, did not comment on the House committee report.

Meanwhile, opposition BJP and JDS hit out at Congress for inducting Kheny into the party with "hunger for power." Former Prime Minister and JDS supremo H D Deve Gowda said Congress was doing everything to win the elections, and raised questions on the future of the House committee report.

BJP leader Suresh Kumar said Congress would have to bear the "curse" of the common people and farmers who suffered because of illegalities in the BMIC project. "Congress has shown its true colours," he said.Amid a fresh unity bid by the Opposition to take on the BJP, the Trinamool Congress on Monday said its chief Mamata Banerjee had reached out to DMK working president M K Stalin for co-ordination in and outside Parliament.

New Delhi: Amid a fresh unity bid by the Opposition to take on the BJP, the Trinamool Congress on Monday said its chief Mamata Banerjee had reached out to DMK working president M K Stalin for co-ordination in and outside Parliament.

Banerjee has taken a lead in defeating the BJP by talking to 'federal' parties. "We are on track", TMC Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien said.

After calling up TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, Banerjee held a telephonic conversation with Stalin, O'Brien said, adding there was "good coordination" between TRS, TDP, SP, BSP, TMC and DMK in Parliament on various issues on Monday.

His remarks came in the backdrop of Banerjee again pitching for regional parties to come together to take on the BJP after the results of Assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

Responding to a question, O'Brien rejected the suggestion that the Congress has been "excluded" from the grouping Mamata Banerjee is working on.

He said the West Bengal chief minister also spoke with Shiv Sena Uddhav Thackeray. The two leaders had been in touch with each other. Though it is part of the governments in Maharashtra and at the Centre, Sena has been critical of the BJP and its leadership.

The Lok Sabha saw frequent disruptions today following vociferous protests by opposition members over the Punjab National Bank fraud and other issues while MPs of NDA ally TDP continued to raise their demand for a special package to Andhra Pradesh.

Soon after Speaker Sumitra Mahajan made obituary references, members from the Congress, TRS and other parties as well as from the TDP trooped into the Well raising various

issues.

O' Brien said that during her nearly 12-minute conversation, Banerjee told Stalin that a good show by the TMC and the DMK in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu respectively would mean a block of nearly 75 MPs in Parliament.

A day after he announced his entry into national politics, Telangana Rashtra Samiti supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao had received support from various political leaders, including Banerjee.

"From morning, I have been receiving many calls from various places in India. This afternoon West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee called me and said that I have taken the right decision and she will be supporting me and that we will go forward together," Rao had said a couple of days ago.In the backdrop of efforts by her to unite regional parties to take on the BJP, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said their target was Delhi and the Red Fort, and asserted that the saffron party will never succeed in efforts to win West Bengal.

Purulia: In the backdrop of efforts by her to unite regional parties to take on the BJP, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday said their target was Delhi and the Red Fort, and asserted that the saffron party will never succeed in efforts to win West Bengal.

BJP president Amit Shah had said after the party's win in Tripura that its golden era would be when it wrests West Bengal, Odisha and Karnataka from rival parties.

"Some are saying that the BJP's next target is Bengal. But for the sake of the country we have set our target on Delhi, on Lal Quila (Red Fort)," she told a public meeting here, indicating that Trinamool Congress would play a major role in national politics.. "Delhi Chalo... Lal Qila Chalo... We believe in Netaji (Subhas Chandra Bose's) slogan. Bengal will not bow down to anyone", she said.

Curtailing her speech due to heavy showers, she said, "Bengal has always shown people the way".

"Bengal does not want anything and also does not support violence. It does not allow people to indulge in violence. Bengal wants the country and its people to stay well," Banerjee said.

She had earlier downplayed the BJP's victory in Tripura and said it would never win in West Bengal and Odisha.

Banerjee, who is also the Trinamool Congress chief, had described the poll outcome in Tripura as CPM's "surrender" and the "failure" of the Congress to agree to an alliance with her party.

She also accused the BJP-led government at the Centre of looting the poor people's money from their bank accounts and "using them to win the elections in Tripura".

"Our job is to protect the poor and not to loot their money from their bank account and then use them in winning elections. The two things cannot run simultaneously," she said.

During the programme, the chief minister inaugurated a cluster of projects.NDPP chief Neiphiu Rio said he is confident of forming the government in Nagaland and would request Modi to attend the swearing-in ceremony

Kohima: Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) chief Neiphiu Rio on Sunday said he is confident of forming the government in Nagaland and would request Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the swearing-in ceremony which is likely to be held on 7 or 8 March.

He thanked the prime minister for campaigning in the state.

"We are confident of forming the government. We are requesting the prime minister to attend the swearing-in ceremony. It is likely to be held on 7 or 8 March," Rio told reporters.

He said discussions are being held to hold the swearing-in ceremony in the open at the Local Ground in Kohima.

Rio, a three-time chief minister and a senior leader of the NDPP, an ally of the BJP, staked claim earlier in the day to form a coalition government in Nagaland saying he has the support of 32 MLAs.

Outgoing chief minister TR Zeliang of the NPF also staked claim to form government and Governor PB Acharya gave both of them 48 hours to submit signatures of the MLAs supporting them.

The NDPP contested 40 seats and secured second position with 18. The ruling Nagaland People's Front (NPF) bagged 27 seats to emerge as the single largest party.

"I am happy but I am not satisfied. It is much below our expectation," the three-time chief minister said while replying to a query by reporters.

Rio said he was grateful to the people of Nagaland and his party colleagues.

"With the support of an Independent and the JD(U) member, we have crossed the halfway mark (in the 60-member House). We now have a comfortable majority and staked claim to form the government," he said.

Rio said the National People's Party's Nagaland president Ato Yepthomi expressed willingness to extend support to the NDPP-BJP alliance in the formation of the government.

The NPP, an ally of the BJP at the Centre and in Manipur, contested the Nagaland elections for the first time and won two seats.

Yepthomi was seen with NDPP leaders during the day but he refused to comment on this.

Rio said the new coalition would possibly be named the People's Democratic Alliance (PDA) and a final decision would be taken after BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma's arrival in Kohima on Monday.

On the Supreme Court judgement banning appointment of parliamentary secretaries and advisers, Rio said, "We will go by the rules."

Several Northeastern states had the practice of appointing MLAs as parliamentary secretaries.

To a question, he said he did not think NDPP MLAs could shift their allegiance to any other party.

Asked whether he would accept NPF legislators in the coalition, if approached, said, "I don't see that situation.

It is also very good to have a very strong opposition in a healthy democracy."YouTube-Google now mirroring the Communist Chinese govt. by censoring ALL content that goes against the state

The budding Marxists on American college campuses who are being propagandized by Alt-Left professors into believing that the First Amendment should not apply to speech they dislike have no idea what real state-mandated censorship really is.

Few, if any, of them have ever lived in a true authoritarian country like China or Cuba or Venezuela where freedom of speech does not exist because it is heavily regulated (and censored) by the government.

In recent days, for example, The New York Times and other American media reported that the Communist Chinese government banned Winnie the Pooh  no, thats not a misprint  and, for a time, the English letter N because party officials deemed them offensive or threatening to the countrys new dictator, President Xi Jinping.

Not even kidding. The Times noted the censors struck after the Chinese Communist Party announced it would seek changes to the countrys constitution that scrapped the existing limit for presidents of two five-year terms:

Anxious to suppress criticism, and maintain an appearance of mass support, the Communist Partys censors have scoured the internet and social media for content deemed subversive. The sanitizing has included many images of Winnie the Pooh  Mr. Xi is sometimes likened to the cartoon bear  and search terms like my emperor, lifelong and shameless.

For a short time, even the English letter N was censored, according to Victor Mair, a University of Pennsylvania professor, apparently to pre-empt social scientists from expressing dissent mathematically: N > 2, with N being the number of Mr. Xis terms in office.

Well, theres a new effort to do the very same thing to content posted on YouTube, Facebook, and Google by American users, and the purpose is exactly the same as it is in China: To quash dissent and help spread propaganda.

As noted by Natural News and NewsTarget founder and editor Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, YouTube censors contacted him this week over a video he posted in 2012 in which they threatened to censor his content. (Related: Censorship: Google to start flagging offensive content as another form of censorship.)

Mere hours after I publicly called for the regulation of Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, YouTube issued a strike against my account for a 2012 interview with a controversial book author named Jim Fetzer. That interview, which has now been banned by YouTube, focused on why Amazon.com banned Fetzers book, he wrote, adding: Yes, YouTube bans an interview about a book being banned by Amazon. This is the new Orwellian tyranny put in place by the tech giants you cant even talk about censorship without being censored.

Keep in mind that Amazon.com sells books that claim the Earth is flat. They also sell books that promote Adolf Hitlers genocidal philosophy. But when someone questions the official story on Sandy Hook, they get blacklisted. Thats news! Adams continued.

Earlier, in calling for regulation of the social media behemoths to prevent them from arbitrarily censoring only certain voices, he wrote:

The focus of this regulation is not to order tech giants what content they must allow, but rather to enforce a level content playing field so that a free society can engage in debate, discussion and independent journalism without the constant threat of being bullied, blacklisted or shadow banned by the internets wildly biased, left-wing gatekeepers.

Right now that clearly is no longer a level content playing field. There have been numerous documented examples now of social media censorship  so much so that one organization, PragerU, has filed a lawsuit against Google regarding YouTube censorship (Googles parent company, Alphabet, owns YouTube).

Google dominates Internet search with over 75 percent of the market. If you disappear on Google, your ability to voice your opinion disappears too. You will be silenced, says StopOnlineCensorship.com, a legal effort sponsored by PragerU.com which has seen more than 40 of its educational videos suppressed by Google.

Just like China.

Todays college kids who think speech they dont like ought to be censored have no idea what true censorship looks like. If things with the social media giants dont change, theyll soon experience it.

Read more of J.D. Heyes work at The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

NaturalNews.com

NYTimes.comFor Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stopping his speech at BJP headquarters on Saturday  on the party's performance in North East polls  for a few minutes so that azaan (prayers) from a nearby mosque could be completed, didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary.

For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, stopping his speech on the BJP's performance in North East polls at party headquarters for a few minutes so that azaan (prayers) from a nearby mosque could be completed, didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. Some of his party workers, who were in a jubilant mood  saffron had splashed across three North East states and red faded into virtual oblivion  could not grasp why their leader had stopped speaking.

Modi, indicating the importance of azaan, waved at them and asked for complete silence. For three minutes, the only thing that was heard at the venue and through the live TV broadcast was the sound of azaan. This is the third time Modi has abruptly stopped his speech at a public meeting on hearing azaan. The first was in 2016, during an election rally at Kharagpur in West Bengal. Modi stopped his speech for around four minutes. Then, in November 2017, at a Navsari rally, Modi once again paused on hearing azaan.

His action on Saturday evening attracted greater attention for two reasons: First, it occurred when the entire party and Sangh Parivar was in a celebratory mood after pulling off a major victory. The results extended Holi festivity for the BJP and Sangh Parivar's rank and file. Second, the speech was telecast live to supporters, sympathisers, rivals and detractors. But the significance of what Modi did lay elsewhere, possibly with a far-reaching political impact.

Apart from the fact that BJP just achieved what was considered impossible: It vanquished CPMs 25-year rule in Tripura with over two-thirds majority, from zero seats in last polls to 43 seats (including 8 seats for ally Indigenous People's Front of Tripura) in 60-member Assembly, increasing its vote percentage from around 1.3 percent in 2013 to 43 percent (50.5 percent including ally IPFT).

In Nagaland, where BJP contested only 20 seats and its ally Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) contested 40 seats, the party delivered a striking performance by winning 12 seats (NDPP won 17 seats). Remember, Nagaland is a Christian-dominated state (as per 2011 census, Christians comprise 87.93 percent of population and Hindus make up only 8.75 percent). In both Tripura and Nagaland, the BJP rose from scratch, more impressive because in the latter, the Church openly and aggressively came out against BJP. But the results make it clear that people didnt adhere to the diktat of Church leaders and favoured BJP. The Naga People's Front, which won 27 seats and emerged as the single largest party in Nagaland, is a BJP ally at the Centre.

In Meghalaya, another Christian-majority state, BJP is set to form government with allies NPP, UDF and PDF. Christians make up 75 percent of the populace and Hindus account for merely 11.53 percent. The Congress, playing the Christian card, ruled the state for past 10 years. Much like in Nagaland, the Church aggressively campaigned against BJP.

These poll results allow BJP to counter its critics' charge that it is a Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan party. The Congress and its sympathisers have been making this charge against the BJP in Karnataka where elections are due in the next two months. Modi and Amit Shah both mentioned in their speeches the challenges that lie ahead for the party in Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal and Odisha and the confidence these victories give them to overcome any hurdles.

And herein lies the significance of Modi pausing for azaan: He is conveying to the Muslim population that he respects their religion and practices. As prime minister, Modi has to oversee that Muslims are party to development as much any other community. Modi was criticised by detractors, political rivals and Muslim community leaders for refusing to wear a skull cap given to him by a cleric during his sadbhawana fast in Ahmedabad in 2011. That controversy was kept alive even in the run up to 2014 parliamentary elections.

Ahead of that election, Modi clarified in an interview: "If by wearing a cap, one becomes a symbol of unity then nobody has ever seen Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru wearing this kind of a cap. Actually, a kind of deformity has come in Indian politics where anything can be done for appeasement. My job is to respect all communities, respect the values of all communities but I have to accept my own values. I live with my values. Hence, I don't bluff people by wearing a cap, or getting clicked. But I believe that if somebody shows disrespect to another person then he should be given the strictest punishment."

In that interview, he added that his vision of a Muslim is that he may be wearing a cap and have a Quran in one hand, but there should be a computer in his other hand. Modi made headlines a few days ago when he reiterated that position at an official function in New Delhi in the presence of King Abdullah II of Jordan.

With his Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojna (supply of LPG gas cylinders) to poor and his stand on triple talaq, Modi has already entered into minds of a substantive section of Muslim women. There have been instances of sections of Muslim women voting for BJP in Uttar Pradesh. With his Quran and computer statement, Modi is trying to enter minds of progressive Muslim youth. By pausing for aazan he is trying to convey a message to the larger Muslim population that they should give him a chance, judge him on merit and open a dialogue.The National Peoples Party (NPP) led by Conrad Sangma, who is set to head the new coalition government in Meghalaya, has scripted a fairy tale rise from a little-known party in Manipur to a cynosure of electoral politics in North East.

The National Peoples Party (NPP) led by Conrad Sangma, set to head the new coalition government in Meghalaya, has scripted a fairy tale rise from a little-known party in Manipur to a cynosure of electoral politics in North East.

From just two seats in 2013 polls in 60-member Meghalaya Assembly, its tally has gone up to 19 and the party has emerged as the major constituent of a new non-Congress coalition government in the hill state. It has also opened its account in Nagaland by winning two seats but it is not clear if it is set to become part of the Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party-Bharatiya Janata Party ruling coalition.

In 2017, NPP won four seats in Manipur Assembly polls and became part of the ruling coalition headed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The credit for spectacular rise of NPP can be attributed to political vision of Conrad Sangmas late father and former chief minister and Lok Sabha speaker Purno Agitok Sangma. The NPP originated in Manipur and was recognised by the Election Commission as a state party till 2012 Assembly polls. It was Purno who launched NPP nationally on 5 June, 2013 following his expulsion from Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) in 2012 when he refused to quit presidential elections.

The NPP, under the leadership of Purno, joined the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). However, Purnos daughter and former Union minister Agatha Sangma, who was a sitting Member of Parliament from Meghalaya's Tura constituency, continued to be an NCP member to evade anti-defection law. Agatha has now been elected to Meghalaya Assembly on an NPP ticket.

Purno, who was a Congress veteran for major part of his political career, foresaw that while the influence of regional parties in North East was declining, fresh hope to counter the Congress could only be generated through an alternative national party focussed on regional issues. It is with this vision, and in a bid to provide an alternative to the Congress, that he launched the NPP nationally.

In 2014, Purno contested from Tura constituency on NPP ticket and was elected to Parliament for his ninth term. In 2015, he steered NPP to a huge victory in election to the Garo Hills Autonomous District Council. His party won 10 seats in the tribal autonomous council and pushed Congress to second position (7 seats).

The NPPs win spree continued. After Purno passed away in March 2016, Conrad was elected as NPP president. Conrad contested from Tura constituency in 2016 by-election and won by a huge margin of 1,92,212 votes. He polled 3,29,497 votes while his rival Dikanchi D Shira, the wife of outgoing Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma polled 1,37,285 votes.

The NPP polled more votes in 23 of the 24 Assembly segments in Tura. This was a spectacular gain for the NPP from 2013 Assembly polls  when it managed to win only two seats in 60-member Assembly and polled 8.81 percent votes, both victories coming from Garo Hills  and signalled the growing popularity of NPP in Garo Hills.

However, in Meghalaya, its image continued to be that of a party having its influence limited to Garo Hills. However, NPPs victory in four seats of the 60-member Manipur Assembly in 2017 and the party becoming a partner of the BJP-led ruling coalition in Manipur bolstered the partys confidence. Conrad declared the party would have its own chief minister in Meghalaya.

In this Assembly polls, the partys vote share went up to 20.6 percent. The party won 11 out of 24 seats in Garo Hills and pushed Congress to second place. NPP also won eight seats in Khasi Hills, which reflected its expanding influence.

Ever since Meghalaya was created in 1972, Congress always emerged as the single largest party in all Assembly polls. This time was no different. However, for the electorate, the NPP succeeded in creating a new narrative: Of another national party to take on Congress and which may soon replace the Grand Old Party.

Conrad, who has a background in finance and management from Wharton Business School in United States, steered the party to this influential position in Meghalaya and Manipur in bid to realise the dreams of his father. In Nagaland, the party reiterated its commitment to an alliance with Naga Peoples Front (NPF) which won 27 out of 59 seats. Nagaland governor PB Acharya has given time to both NPF and the BJP-National Democratic Peoples Party alliance led by former chief minister Neiphiu Rio to prove majority after both staked their claim to form a new government.

The NPP is a member of the North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), formed at the behest of BJP, and is therefore sharing power with the BJP and its allies in Meghalaya and Manipur. With its wings spreading to three North East states, the NPP has emerged as a major constituent of the NEDA. And if it keeps expanding its sphere of influence, it won't be surprising if it replaces BJP as the dominant constituent of NEDA.

The author is a senior journalist and editor of NEZINE.Congress President Rahul Gandhi accused the BJP of 'usurping' power through proxy in Meghalaya and using 'big money' to create an 'opportunistic alliance' in the state

New Delhi: Breaking his silence on the defeat in three North East states, Rahul Gandhi on Monday said the Congress was committed to winning back the people's trust and hit out at the BJP, accusing it of "usurping" power through proxy in Meghalaya and using "big money" to create an "opportunistic alliance".

"The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya," Gandhi said on Twitter two days after results of assembly elections were declared. The Congress lost Meghalaya, though it emerged as the single largest party, and failed to open its account in Tripura and Nagaland.

The Congress chief alleged that the BJP is "obsessed" with "grabbing" power and has shown "utter disregard" to the mandate of people in Meghalaya.

Top party leaders Ahmed Patel and Kamal Nath were rushed to Shillong to talk to regional parties in a bid to form a government but to no avail.

"We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people.

"My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party," the Congress president tweeted after his return from Italy, where he had gone to meet his 93-year-old grandmother.

The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people. My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party.  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 5, 2018

The Congress emerged as the single-largest party in the state winning 21 seats, but failed to cobble up a coalition with other regional outfits. Meghalaya had been under Congress rule and after losing the state, the party is now in power in three other states, including Karnataka where elections are slated next month, and Puducherry. "With just 2 seats, the BJP has usurped power in Meghalaya, through a proxy.

With just 2 seats, the BJP has usurped power in Meghalaya, through a proxy. Like in Manipur & Goa, showing utter disregard for the mandate of the people. Obsessed instead with grabbing power, using big money to create an opportunistic alliance.#DemocracyDemonetised  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 5, 2018

"Like in Manipur and Goa, showing utter disregard for the mandate of the people. Obsessed instead with grabbing power, using big money to create an opportunistic alliance," Gandhi tweeted.

He also used the hashtag "DemocracyDemonetised" with his tweet to target the BJP.Rahul Gandhi cut a sorry figure as a Congress president who was busy vacationing abroad just when his party required him to be present.

On 1 March, Rahul Gandhi informed us that hes flying away to Italy for the weekend to play Holi with his 93-year-old granny. Thats a step up for someone who goes abroad unannounced. Charming though the gesture was, it catches in a nutshell why the BJP wins and the Congress seemingly cant. Its about hunger.

Leadership isnt just holding rallies, running to temples, taking Twitter potshots or giving sound bites to the media. It is equally about facing the camera in defeats, owning up to losses, explaining the mandate and prepping up the party rank and file for the next challenge. Theres always a next battle to be won. Defeat not only tests the mettle of a leader, it makes the leader.

Rahul cut a sorry figure as a Congress president who was busy vacationing abroad just when his party required him to be present. Congress has received a drubbing in the North East  a traditional sphere of influence  and Rahul left it for his colleagues to do all the answering.

The party has just been wiped out of Tripura and Nagaland where it had a legacy, presence and vote bank. It was unable to form a government in Meghalaya despite emerging as the single largest party. Instead of facing the questions, Rahul opted to stay back in the cool climes of Europe in company of friends and family, away from the heat and grime of electoral politics.

Rahul seems unable to process the fact that it is no longer his prerogative alone to shape the trajectory of his political career. A party president cannot pretend to be a freelancer. Rahuls actions, therefore, send a message that he is an escapist, unwilling to confront the realities and incapable of bearing the burden of his responsibilities. As someone who covets the prime ministers chair, his conduct doesnt inspire confidence.

The reaction to the North East debacle finally came on Monday afternoon, nearly 48 hours later.

The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people. My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party.  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 5, 2018

Rahuls boilerplate response contrasts sharply with the reaction from West Bengal, where doughty chief minister Mamata Banerjee dismissed the BJPs wins as inconsequential and blamed Tripuras Manik Sarkar government for failing to put up a fight. Faced with the BJPs advances in its backyard, Mamata vowed to target the Red Fort and oust Narendra Modi in 2019.

Mamatas words might appear as posturing, and that is the whole point. BJPs acquiring of Tripura, which houses a sizeable Bengali population, gives a new dimension to the challenge posed by the BJP to the TMC in Bengal, where it has slowly emerged as the chief Opposition. Mamatas attempt, therefore, was to simultaneously deny the BJP the psychological advantage of an important victory and instill confidence among her party workers. Faced with a challenge from the saffron juggernaut, the West Bengal chief minister is telling BJP that she wont yield an inch of space. This hunger defines Mamata. It has made her the BJPs toughest rival.

Congresss lack of hunger was evident in the way it sought to pick and choose its battles. Even as the bugle sounded in the North East, Rahul kept Karnataka in his crosshairs. The party president was conspicuous by his absence, except one Burberry-fashioned show in Meghalaya. Assembly polls arent due in Karnataka until April-May, but instead of focusing on the three north eastern states (especially Tripura where it had a sizeable base), Rahul was visiting temples or holding rallies in Karnataka.

This created an impression that for the Congress, Karnataka was more important than the North East. It not only spoke of misplaced priorities but may also be perceived as a slight to the North East  a communication blunder. It also indicated that even under a new president, the Congresss culture of not taking every election seriously and not according the same importance to all states continues. The Congress paid a heavy price for indifference. It wasnt just about the zeroes that it harvested in Nagaland and Tripura. It managed to hand the momentum back to the BJP which had been discomfited with a sub-par performance in Gujarat and a string of by-election defeats.

Momentum matters in politics. For a behemoth like the BJP, even more so. The wins in the North East, where the party tread into uncharted territories is likely to energise the rank and file ahead of sterner tests in Karnataka, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. It also gives the NDA a chance to counter the narrative that the Modi magic is fading. The wins also project the BJP as a pan-Indian party that now straddles the length and breadth of India, striking partnerships with unlikely allies and drawing votes from communities and faiths among which it had no presence before.

The BJP can now legitimately claim the mantle of Indias default ruling force that not only manages to capture, but stay in power against severe headwinds. It can do so because Narendra Modi and his lieutenant Amit Shah have instilled a hunger that was earlier missing in its ranks.

In Tripura, for instance, the BJP and RSS had to patiently build the party block by block from scratch. It fought a bloody battle to capture the political space against a Left that uses violence to curb ideological and political opposition. The BJP was able to do it because of a hunger that rages in its belly despite being in power in 21 states.

It is this hunger that drove the BJP to a win in Gujarat where the party had to fight bitter odds of anti-incumbency, trader backlash, farmer discontent and caste uprising. The merit of that win hasnt yet been fully understood. This hunger enables the BJP to fight every election as if its entire existence depends on it. In this hunger game, Rahuls Congress is no match.Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad launched a scathing attack against Congress, accusing them of indulging in the 'politics of confusion and fear' since the past four years of the NDA government

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday launched a scathing attack on the Congress, accusing it of indulging in "politics of confusion and fear."

Prasad also questioned the role of former finance minister P Chidambaram in the contentious 80:20 gold import scheme and alleged that the scheme was passed to benefit companies like the Gitanjali group.

Stressed assets

Prasad spoke at the outset about stressed assets. "Time and again, we have stated that not a single loan given under our government is an NPA (non-performing asset)," Prasad said.

"In 2008, the total advances to people given by the banks were to the tune of Rs 18.06 lakh crores. By March 2014, the amount went up to Rs 52.15 lakh crores. The stressed assets identified out of this were only 36 percent...now it has risen to 82 percent due to advances given by the UPA govt," he added. "This means that on more than one occasion, the correct data could not make it to the records of the banks under the UPA govt," Prasad said.

Prasad asserted that the banking system was derailed under Manmohan Singh. "Under the so-called economist, Manmohan Singh, the entire banking system went haywire due to all kinds of interference with it," Prasad said, slamming the former prime minister.

North East election results

Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the BJP's performance in Tripura and Nagaland marked a "tectonic shift in politics". He said that the Congress had been defeated in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand and Kashmir, so the BJP expected that maybe they had a standing in the North East. "However the Congress was zero in Tripura and Nagaland," Prasad quipped.

He also lauded the Bharatiya Janata Party in Nagaland for winning in 12 constituencies even though they just fielded 20 candidates. "This happened in a state with an 88 percent Christian majority," he remarked.

80:20 scheme

The union minister also fired a salvo against the Grand Old party and former finance minister P Chidambaram for the controversial 80:20 scheme, and linked the scheme's passing to the PNB scam. He said that the scheme, which was introduced in August 2013 and then repealed in November 2014, was passed on 16 May 2014, for the "benefit of seven companies."

"The then finance minister gave aashirwaad to 7 private companies under the 80:20 scheme. One of those companies was Gitanjali," Prasad asserted. "P Chidambaram and Rahul Gandhi must answer why this was passed on the day of the results to benefit these seven private companies." he added.

"The Congress needs to give an answer. Who was lobbying for benefits of the 80-20 scheme to be given to Gitanjali, and how much of a cut did they get from it?," he added.

Rafale deal

The law minister also responded to criticism over the Rafale deal. He said that it is very surprising that the Congress, which is "drowning in corruption in Bofors", is raising questions on the deal.

"Congress could not execute the Rafale deal for 10 years," Prasad alleged, saying, "The NDA government under Narendra Modi has got the best deal in terms of price, effectiveness and weapon systems," Prasad asserted.

Prasad also attacked Congress for "spreading lies and misinformation" about the Aadhaar scheme and the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017. He also lashed out at Rahul Gandhi for meeting with Chinese Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui when the Doka La standoff was happening.

"I have a clear accusation...the Congress is anti-reform, because whenever there is reform, there is transparency and accountability," Prasad said at the press conference.

He concluded by saying that the Congress has planted so many "landmines" that they blow up every now and again, and then they question the government over it. "Rahul Gandhi does not do his homework before making such accusations, he should do his homework before tweeting," the BJP leader said in another jab at the Congress president.

With inputs from agenciesDisgruntled BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha on Monday attacked the Narendra Modi government over issues such as demonetisation, the PNB scam and the escape of its key accused to foreign countries.

Patna: Disgruntled BJP MP Shatrughan Sinha on Monday attacked the Narendra Modi government over issues such as demonetisation, the PNB scam and the escape of its key accused to foreign countries.

The Patna Sahib MP, who has been critical of his party as well as the government at the Centre for some time, also took a jibe at the prime minister's "pakoda" remark and borrowers defaulting on huge loans.

"The government made sure that every poor and middle class Indian stood in long queues, went to the bank, deposited money and gave details of their 'janam kundli'. It also made sure that the poor Indians' money was safely transported abroad," the actor-turned-politician tweeted.

The remarks were an obvious reference to the ban on old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes imposed in November 2016, through which the Modi government claimed to have brought the circulation of black money under control.

The tweet was also critical of the Centre for its inability to capture Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, key accused in the Rs 12,000 crore PNB fraud case, who have reportedly fled the country.

In another tweet, Sinha, who is also a member of the BJP national executive, said "The rate at which big businesses are shutting or fleeing, only the honest pakoda sellers will be left behind. Advice: Never take small loans. Always take thousands of crores."

That way a lot of powerful people would protect the loan taker, he sarcastically said.

Sinha has been taking digs at Modi's recent statement wherein he had said a man selling pakodas for a living should be considered employed.Sitaram Yechury said the country needs strong ideals instead of leaders and urged party activists to create an alternative force on the basis of these principles to dethrone the BJP government at the Centre

Kolkata: CPM General Secretary Sitaram Yechury on Monday said the country needs strong ideals instead of leaders and urged party activists to create an alternative force on the basis of these principles to dethrone the BJP government at the Centre.

He also urged the activists to reinforce the people's movement across the country for freedom from the ongoing oppression by the ruling party.

"We need ideals for the development of the country, not leaders. We have to create an alternative to the current government at the Centre on the basis of alternative policies in order to remove them from power," Yechury said after inaugurating the party's 25th state conference in Kolkata.

"If we do not work towards strengthening the people's movement against the rulers of this country, we would neither be able to free ourselves from the ongoing oppression nor provide a better way of life to our present and future generations," he pointed out.

Claiming that the economic and social oppression is on the rise in the country, Yechury said the current government must stop the looting of assets to address the issues of unemployment, need for agricultural reforms and the development of infrastructure.

"There is no dearth of resources in the country at present. But the resources are being looted. The poor is being made poorer while the rich is being made even richer. The economic and social oppression is growing in the country every day," Yechury alleged.

"If the government stops these resources from getting looted and use it for the betterment of people, then it would be able to solve the problems in the agricultural sector, provide employment to the unemployed youths and develop the necessary infrastructure within the country," he said.

Hailing Bengal's contribution in the country's communist movement, the left leader said the onus on the left leaders and activists in the state is to strengthen its ground and find a way to take the movement forward as the communist movement cannot go ahead in the country without Bengal's participation.

"It is going to be the 22nd party congress in the country this year but in Bengal it is the 25th state conference of CPM. This shows that the communist movement started in Bengal earlier than it started in the country.

"It has been proven that without Bengal's participation, the leftist movement cannot go ahead in this country. It is time for all of us get united to reinforce that fact once again that the leftist leadership is needed in the country," he added.There is no doubt that Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are fighting with their back to the wall. Divided, they realised it rather late in the day that they would be facing a virtual extinction if not political obliteration altogether.

Political seismology is an inexact science. In the underneath of social sea, tectonic shifts happen as silently and stealthily as you can get. And any effort for its prediction often brings grief to Mr Know-all of politics.

The scenario unfolding in Uttar Pradesh conforms to this thesis. The coming together of the SP-BSP in two by-elections for Lok Sabha seats  Phulpur and Gorakhpur  is not an ordinary event that can be brushed aside. The coming together of the parties, which represent separate social combinations, is expected to have a cataclysmic impact on the politics of the state.

Now the question is : would it or won't it? There is no doubt that Samajwadi Party's Akhilesh Yadav and Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are fighting with their back to the wall. Divided, they realised it rather late in the day that they would be facing a virtual extinction if not political obliteration altogether. But it would be equally wrong to assume that their coming together would consolidate the social bases they represent.

Historically the SP symbolised the state's OBC politics in the context of the Mandal commission report in nineties. Mulayam Singh Yadav was then the tallest state leader of the OBCs whose personal charm was enough to seduce non-Yadav OBCs to the SPs fold. An astute Mulayam was gifted with enough political cunning to realise that he would be decimated after the demolition of the Babri mosque after 6 December, 1992. He forged an alliance with Kanshi Rams BSP which captured the imagination of Dalits which constitute around 22 percent of the electorate.

Even then the SP-BSP alliance was seen by a large section of media with a certain amount of cynicism. In 1993 Assembly elections, this alliance was pitted not only against the BJP but also against the Janata Dal of VP Singh and the Congress. On the other hand, the BJP displayed so much irrational exuberance after the demolition of the mosque that its chief ministerial candidate Kalyan Singh declared in one of the press conferences that he would relinquish politics if the BJP could not register convincing majority. In the results, Kalyan Singh proved to be miserably wrong as the SP-BSP emerged a single largest group which claimed its right to form the government.

There is no doubt that Mulayam-Kanshi Ram combination was quite formidable. Mulayam, then, had an image, reservoir of stamina and enough sagacity to adapt to the changing scenario. On the other hand, Kanshi was a highly efficient organiser who held together his partys social base despite many electoral setbacks in the past. His frontal organisations like BAMCEF and DS 4 acted as bulwark against any possible erosion in the Dalitss vote share. Despite the BJPs aggressive Hindutva campaign after demolition of the Babri mosque, the SP-BSP retained their support bases.

Contrast this with the political situation of today. Akhilesh is yet to emerge as a leader worth reckoning. His politics essentially thrives on the base provided by Mulayam.. While Mulayam was perceived to be a leader having appeal all across the state from Ghaziabad (western Uttar Pradesh) to Ghazipur (eastern Uttar Pradesh), Akhilesh has not grown in political stature despite his five-year stint as chief minister. The running family feud within the Yadav clan has substantially squandered the SPs political capital. Similarly, scandals during Mayawatis stints as chief minister have alienated a large section of the BSPs Dalit support base which was assiduously built by Kanshi Ram.

On the face of it , the possibility of Akhilesh-Mayawati combination seems quite distant to take on a resurgent BJP which has expanded its base among non-Yadav OBCs and non-Jatav Dalits. As compared the SP and the BSP, the BJP efforts at social engineering backed by robust organisational structure is guided more by pragmatism than irrational exuberance of Kalyan Singh era.

As it appears today, much will depend on the outcome of by-elections in Gorakhpur and Phulpur. If the social bases of the SP-BSP indicate a sign of seamless merger against the Hindutva forces, it may encourage Akhilesh and Mayawati to undertake a new political experiment in a manner as Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav did in Bihar. Significantly, the alliance in Bihar between the JD(U) and the RJD happened only after the combination defeated the BJP in a series of by-elections before 2015. Hence the by-elections in two Lok Sabha seats could be precursor to a new political experiment in the offing in Uttar Pradesh.

Given the temperamental nature of Mayawati and cavalier political conduct of Akhilesh, it appears next to impossible if the social coalition will take off the ground. Will Mayawati play second fiddle to Akhilesh? It is highly unlikely that the BSP chief would let Akhilesh take primacy in the states politics. Of course given the history of hostility between both the camps, it appears quite difficult to forge a coalition of mutually acrimonious social groups and channelise them into a anti-BJP political platform. But politics often defy predictable course. And there is little doubt if the by-elections outcome pave the way for a coalition, it will indeed pose a formidable challenge to the rise of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.Sunil Deodhar, an RSS pracharak who is being considered as the architect of the BJP's good showing in the Assembly polls in the three northeast states, on Sunday said targeting the youth and tribal communities there helped the party.

Mumbai: Sunil Deodhar, an RSS pracharak who is being considered as the architect of the BJP's good showing in the Assembly polls in the three North East states, on Sunday said targeting the youth and tribal communities in Tripura helped the party.

He said that his maiden visit to Meghalaya was as a pracharak and it lasted eight years and in November 2014, he was made incharge of Tripura.

"I was completely unaware of the language, culture and attitudes of the people when I first went there. I continued working there in different capacities and was made incharge of Tripura in November 2014. This is because I could speak the tribal launguages of the state as well as Bengali and Odiya spoken by a large section of the people there," he said.

"We targeted the youth of the region, and with diligent effort, got connected with several local tribes and migrant communities. We ensured that these youth visited cities across the country as part of the "Bharat Mera Ghar" initiative. It created a social bridge between the North East and the rest of the country," he added.

He claimed that the RSS managed to break the stranglehold of the Communists in Tripura because the Left cadre had got disillusioned with the rampant corruption within the Left parties there.

"The last few years, it was getting increasingly visible that the new Communist cadre were getting fed up with crony capitalism and corruption in the Tripura government. A major chunk of these cadre joined BJP which, in turn, pulled in the votes," Deodhar said.

He said that special sessions were held for these new entrants into the party fold in which the concepts of cultural nationalism as well as the core ideology of the BJP-RSS was taught.

"Similar was the case with the Congress and Trinamool Congress party workers who too joined us and helped increase our votes," he added.

Replying to a query on how he got assigned to the North East in the first place, Deodhar said, "I was given two options, to work in Maharashtra or work in the North East. I decided to take up the challenge and went to Shillong (Meghalaya)."

Deodhar had also worked as a national coordinator of the North East India Communication Cell set up by Nitin Gadkari, when the latter was the BJP's national president.

Prior to that, Deodhar was made incharge of Dahod district in Gujarat for the 2012 Assembly polls and managed to up the tally of the party from the Adivasi-dominated region from one seat to three.

Unmarried, the former teacher from suburban Andheri in Mumbai runs an initiative called 'My Home India' which aims to establish a communication channel between communities and tribes of the North East.

He said that he would not be associated with the government-elect as his job was to help the party win the polls.

Deodhar's work has received praise from the Shiv Sena whose spokesperson, Sanjay Raut, said that he had emerged as the third person in the BJP, after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, who could win elections.

"The poll result from the North East for the BJP is like cultivating "kesar" (saffron) in the desert," Raut said.

He said that the BJP's victory in the region would bring it into the mainstream. Raut added that the victory might not have an impact on the national mood, but was important from the point of national security.Mamata Banerjee on Sunday telephoned her Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao to extend her support to his plan to cobble up a third front.

Hyderabad: West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday telephoned her Telangana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao to extend her support to his plan to cobble up a third front as an alternative to both the BJP and the Congress.

The Trinamool Congress leader spoke to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief to convey that she is with him in bringing like-minded parties together.

According to the Chief Minister's Office, Mamata told him that she fully agrees with him and is ready to work with him. "Ham aap se ek mat hain. Aap ke saath rahengey" (I am in agreement with you. I will work with you)," the CMO quoted her as saying.

KCR, as the TRS chief is popularly known, said on Saturday that there is a need for a qualitative change in the Indian politics and declared that he is ready to bring together like minded parties.

Former Jharkhand chief minister Hemanth Soren also telephoned KCR and expressed his solidarity. He welcomed KCR's decision to play a key role in national politics. Two MPs from Maharashtra and prominent persons from different walks of life also spoke to KCR over the phone and expressed their support.

The TRS chief has been receiving support from people belonging to different walks of life. People from all parts of Telangana are reaching Pragathi Bhavan, the official residence of the Chief Minister, to express their support.

Pundits from different temples, representatives of the Brahmin community, maulvis from different mosques, representatives of Muslim organisations, Fathers from churches, Christian religious representatives, Sikh religious representatives, employees from RTC, Singareni, electricity department, Banjaras, tribals, backward classes representatives and others are reaching Pragathi Bhavan in large numbers to express solidarity with KCR.



1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien said it would not be possible for BJP to win the Lok Sabha elections in 2019

Kolkata: Not wanting to read too much into the BJP's triumph in Tripura, Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien on Sunday said it would not be possible for the ruling party at the Centre to win the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.

O'Brien, who is also the Trinamool parliamentary party leader in the Rajya Sabha, added that the BJP should first think about winning the Lok Sabha elections and then think about capturing Bengal.

"They (BJP) are rejoicing too much since Saturday. There are only two Lok Sabha seats in Tripura. What will happen in the rest 543 seats?" O'Brien said at a press meet in Kolkata.

"They should first tackle 2019 (elections) and then think of taking over Bengal. This is our clear message to the BJP. If their target is Bengal then our target is Lal Qila. I make it clear that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not deliver his address from Lal Qila on the Independence Day in 2019," O'Brien added.

He went to the extent of saying that Modi will dish out his Independence Day address for the last time this year.

"He will deliver his address from the Lal Qila (Red Fort) in August this year for the last time. It is our challenge to the BJP.

"The results of the by-polls in Rajasthan came out only 15 days ago. It included Alwar seat where the BJP won by a margin of 2.80 lakh votes in 2014. But this time the BJP's margin of 2.80 lakh votes has gone down to minus 1.50 lakhs," he said.The BJP has done it in abundance in Tripura - be it the number of seats or the number of candidates with serious criminal cases and the worth of assets

New Delhi: The BJP has done it in abundance in Tripura - be it the number of seats or the number of candidates with serious criminal cases and the worth of assets, an analysis of the self-sworn affidavits of the newly-elected legislators showed on Sunday.

As many as 10 (29 percent) out of 35 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs face criminal charges. Of these 10, eight face serious criminal cases such as attempt to murder or causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty, among other charges.

In comparison, one out of 16 MLAs of CPM (6 percent) and one out of eight MLAs of Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (13 percent) have declared serious criminal cases against them, an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) showed.

Overall, there has been a 100 percent rise in the number of legislators with criminal cases as compared to 2013 assembly elections.

In 2013, six out of 60 MLAs (10 percent) had declared criminal cases against them. In 2018, the percentage has risen to 20 percent (12 out of 59 MLAs). Also, there were five out of 60 (8 percent) MLAs with serious criminal charges against them in 2013, which has now risen to 10 MLAs out of 59 or 17 per cent.

In terms of wealth, 15 out of the 59 newly-elected MLAs are crorepaties (those with declared assets worth one crore rupees or more). In 2013, the number of crorepati (multi-millionaire) candidates was eight or 13 percent.

Also, 13 of the 35 BJP MLAs (37 percent), one out of 16 (6 percent) from Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) and one out of eight (13 percent) MLAs from IPFT have declared assets valued more than one crore rupees.

The top three MLAs with highest assets are from the BJP. They are Biplab Kumar Ghosh, Pranajit Singha Roy (both have total assets worth more than Rs 5 crore) and Dilip Sarkar (assets worth more than Rs 4 crore).Outgoing Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has blamed the ''unimaginable money power'' and ''continuous onslaught of media'' as the reason behind the party's debacle in the just-concluded Assembly polls in the state

Agartala: Outgoing Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has blamed the ''unimaginable money power'' and ''continuous onslaught of media'' as the reason behind the party's debacle in the just-concluded Assembly polls in the state.

The poll result was ''unexpected'' and people of the state and the country has noticed how the BJP used its all-out effort to oust the Left Front government, Sarkar said in an interview to 'Ganashakti', the party's mouthpiece in West Bengal on Sunday.

The Centre, he said, had, in fact, created an ''economic blockade'' against the government by reducing the central allocations in MGNREGA and housing schemes, among others.

In the interview, which was also published in the CPM mouthpiece 'Daily Desherkatha' in Agartala on Monday, Sarkar, also a CPM politburo member, said ''The Left parties had fought the elections with all their might and the people were their main force to fight against the unimaginable money power and continuous onslaught of media''.

He said that the CPM would review the causes of its debacle in the just-concluded Assembly elections in the state after all the information are made available.

''It is observed that the BJP-Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT) (alliance) could manage to win the major portion of the anti-Left forces into their fold.

''We (Left Front) have secured 45 percent votes. It is also a fact that a portion of votes that we secured earlier has also gone in favour of the (BJP-IPFT) alliance. We will review why it had happened,'' Sarkar said.

He said the CPM's movement for ideology and alternative principle would continue and never stop.

Sarkar claimed that the incidents of attack on Left workers and setting fire to the party offices have started coming in and added that the people who had voted for the BJP responding to their call for a change perhaps did not want such atmosphere after the elections.

"I think these should be stopped henceforth. We hope their (BJP-IPFT) party leadership will take a positive step to stop these," he added.Tripura poll results will have no impact in Karnataka, where Assembly elections are expected to be held in a few months time, as there is no 'Modi wave' in this state, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said

Bengaluru: Tripura poll results will have no impact in Karnataka, where Assembly elections are expected to be held in a few months time, as there is no "Modi wave" in this state, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said.

He also said the state BJP should worry about how BS Yeddyurappa, who was imprisoned in an illegal land denotification case and "presided over mining loot", would convince voters of providing stable, corruption-free governance in case the saffron party wins the Karnataka polls.

"Post #Tripura results there is excitement in media about the results' implications for Karnataka. Since 2014 Lok Sabha results #BJP has lost Assembly segments in over 50 Lok Sabha Seats & has won only about 2 LS seats. So let us not lose perspective: there is no Modi wave here (sic)," Siddaramaiah tweeted on Sunday.

While the BJP wrested the Left bastion of Tripura and received an invitation to be a part of the government in Nagaland, it was a hung Assembly in Meghalaya.

Congress emerged as the single largest party in Meghalaya with 21 seats.

. @BJP4Karnataka has to worry about convincing voters here how former #JailBird @BSYBJP who presided over mining loot, illegal denotification of Bengaluru lands & cash-for-MLA scam called OperationKamala, can provide stable corruption free governance.  Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) March 4, 2018

Earlier, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who is slated to visit poll-bound Karnataka on 6 March, had said the lotus would bloom in Karnataka, Kerala, West Bengal and Odisha.

He said Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah are the architects for the historic performance of the party in the Northeast.

Adityanath also praised Modi for drafting development policies and Shah, for his organisational skills.Vaishali Lavekar

Indian researchers have found buried archeological features at Dholavira, one of the important sites of Harappan civilisation in India. A team of archeologists at Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, conducted a survey of an unexplored area of around 12,276 square meter at Dholavira using Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) technique which helps scanning of the ground and reveals objects buried underground.

The GPR data suggests existence of a set of small and shallow reservoirs possibly connected with the existing Eastern Reservoir. The depth of these reservoirs has been estimated to be around 2.5 meter below the present ground level. In addition, some structures have been found containing rubble with some features. These findings suggest the possible existence of check dams in the past, which may have collapsed due to flash floods in Manhar river.

The studied area is surrounded by Manhar river flowing from east to west. The overall site is gently sloping towards west, thus during floods the overflow water could have only flowed towards the area which may have caused damage in some of the structures, researchers have pointed out.

The presence of the grand East Reservoir and a series of reservoirs excavated earlier suggests that the Harappans had a good water-harvesting system.The studied area is expected to have similar kinds of reservoirs, bunds, check dams, channels, drains and water tanks, the study has noted. Moreover, the observed features in the GPR data are of large dimension and resemble reservoir-type of structures, unlike residential structures of smaller size.

The present study provides evidence that the Harappans had an excellent knowledge of hydraulic engineering. Check dams were built to control flow of water during floods while small reservoirs protected the East Reservoir.

This investigation suggests that check dams and small reservoirs may have sustained partial damage due to a major flood at some point of time, but most of the East reservoir could still survive. Therefore, the study says, the purpose of engineering design behind these structures was well served under extreme conditions too.

Dholavira is one of the largest and the most prominent archaeological sites of Harappan civilization in India situated at Khadirbet in Bhachau taluka, Kutch district, Gujarat. The site is surrounded by salt pans of the Great Rann of Kutch and consists of the ruins of an ancient Indus Valley Civilization.

The city existed from about 3000 to 1700 BCE, in an area of around 100 ha with 48 ha under fortification. There were several unexplored areas inside the city space which may contain ruins of the ancient city.

The buried structures in Dholavira are probably made of stones and bricks, which is why there is low contrast between objects and medium. Such weak radar signals were analyzed using special processing tool developed by us. This tool can pinpoint objects better by magnifying the signals at local level by looking at it in time-frequency domain.

The structures are mostly broken and therefore resulted into indistinct or uncommon reflection patterns. We then correlated our findings with the structures seen in exposed part of the site," Dr. Amit Prashant, who led the study team, told India Science Wire.

The radar data will assist archaeologists to plan further excavations without damaging the underground structures. The study has been published in journal Current Science. The research team included Silky Agrawal, Mantu Majumder, Ravindra Singh Bisht and Amit Prashanttech2 News Staff

With just a day to spare before the launch of the Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus in India, Samsung has just announced Amazon Pay cashback offers up to Rs 8,000 on the Amazon India website. Called Samsung Carnival the cashback offers will be available only till Thursday 8 March 2018, and valid only on certain Samsung mobile phones.

Samsung is offering a maximum cashback of Rs 8,000 for buyers of its older flagship, the Galaxy Note 8. Launched at a price of Rs 67,900 in September 2017, the Note 8 features a huge 6.3-inch Super AMOLED display, an Exynos 8895 SoC and 6 GB of RAM, has been priced at Rs 59,900.

The Galaxy A8 Plus which launched earlier this year at a price of Rs 32,990 can also be bought at a price of Rs 28,990 after a Rs 4,000 cashback.

Samsung's budget smartphone, the Galaxy On7 Prime also receives a Rs 2,000 cashback on both its 32 GB and 64 GB variants. The On7 Prime will now cost Rs 12,990 for the 64 GB variant and Rs 10,990 for the 32 GB variant. Apart from cashback offers, the company is also offering the Galaxy On7 and On5 Pro models at a discounted price of Rs 6,990 and Rs 6,490 respectively.

The Korean electronics giant is also offering exchange discounts and no cost EMIs on a select range of smartphones including the Galaxy J7 Prime, J7 Pro and the J5 Pro. The Samsung Carnival also includes discounts up to 35 percent on TVs and up to 25 percent off on large appliances including refrigerators, washing machines, ACs and microwave ovens.tech2 News Staff

Though Xiaomi has established a very strong presence in India and China, it is still to make an entry into the US. However, the Chinese smartphone giant has reportedly said that it has plans to enter the US smartphone market by late 2018 or early 2019.

Xiaomi recently opened its first store in the Spanish capital, Madrid, thereby inserting its first official presence in Western Europe. The company's flagship Mi Mix 2 and its Android One offering Mi A1 were at the helm of this opening. As per a report by The Verge, Xiaomi said that it had seen a great fan following of its products in Spain, which made the country a gateway of sorts to the rest of the European markets.

As per The Wall Street Journal, Xiaomi Chairman Lei Jun said that Weve always been considering entering the US market. We plan to start entering the market by end 2018, or by early 2019. Xiaomi has been selling a number of products in the US including Mi TV, Mi Headphone and its Android TV set-top box via various WalMart outlets throughout the country, says the report.

However, since the maximum purchase of smartphones happens via mobile carriers in the US, Xiaomi will have to partner up with them to sell more devices. The Verge says that Chinese smartphone maker ZTE has already got a market share in the country after striking a deal with major US carriers.

Huawei, on the other hand, has gotten off to a rocky start in the US after AT&T canceled its partnership with the company at the last minute. Though reasons are still unclear, the fall out was largely due to security concerns by the FBI, NSA, and CIA over user data being exposed to the Chinese government. Huawei has repeatedly denied the allegations and Huaweis CEO Richard Yu also gave vent via an unscripted criticism of the US carriers at CES 2018. In any case, it will be an uphill task for Xiaomi to convince US carriers to sell its products.Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said, on Sunday, that allegations against the Syrian government of carrying out chemical attacks are part of the Western 'dictionary of lies', state news agency SANA reported.

Damascus: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said, on Sunday, that allegations against the Syrian government of carrying out chemical attacks are part of the Western "dictionary of lies", state news agency SANA reported.

Assad made the remarks after his meeting with Hussein Jabri Ansari, Iran's Foreign Minister's Special Assistant for Political Affairs, in the capital Damascus. The allegations of use of chemical weapons are "mere blackmail" that the West has resorted to in order to strike the Syrian Army, he noted.

The western countries recently accused the Syrian Army, again, of using chemical weapons in attacks against rebels, most recently in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus.

Assad also said the Western media and political campaign against Syria under humanitarian titles primarily aims to "revive terrorism and terrorists after the heavy blows they suffered."

"The talk about humanity according to the Western logic means one thing, that is the Syrian Army is advancing," Assad said, referring to the recent crescendo of international condemnation of the Syrian government over the worsening humanitarian situation in the country.

In fact, the US-led anti-terror coalition is supporting the Islamic State (IS) and the Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front "with no shame," the Syrian president noted.China will never tolerate any separatist schemes for self-ruled Taiwan, and will safeguard Chinas territorial integrity, Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday

Beijing: China will never tolerate any separatist schemes for self-ruled Taiwan, and will safeguard Chinas territorial integrity, Premier Li Keqiang said on Monday, issuing a renewed warning to an island China considers its sacred territory.

China has been infuriated over a US bill that seeks to raise official contacts between Washington and Taipei, telling Taiwan on Friday it would only get burnt if it sought to rely on foreigners, adding to the warnings from state media about the risk of war.

The legislation, which only needs President Donald Trumps signature to become law, says it should be US policy to allow officials at all levels to travel to Taiwan to meet their Taiwanese counterparts, permit high-level Taiwanese officials to enter the United Statesunder respectful conditions and meet with US officials.

Addressing the opening of the annual session of the countrys largely rubber stamp parliament, Premier Li said China would promote the peaceful growth of relations across the Taiwan Strait andadvance Chinas peaceful reunification.

We will remain firm in safeguarding Chinas sovereignty and territorial integrity and will never tolerate any separatist schemes or activities for Taiwan independence, Li said.

Taiwans China policy-making Mainland Affairs Council said it could not immediately comment.

Separately, the Chinese government said defence spending for 2018 would rise 8.1 percent compared to the previous year, a number that will likely add to Taiwans concerns about Chinas intentions amid a stepped up Chinese military presence near the island.

Chinas hostility towards Taiwan has risen since the election to president of Tsai Ing-wen from the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party in 2016.

China suspects Tsai wants to push for formal independence, which would cross a red line for Communist Party leaders in Beijing, though Tsai has said she wants to maintain the status quo and is committed to ensuring peace.

Beijing considers democratic Taiwan to be a wayward province and integral part ofone China, ineligible for state-to-state relations, and has never renounced the use of force to bring the island under its control.

Hong Kong has been another troublesome area for Chinas leadership, especially after students organised weeks of protests in late 2014 to push for full democracy.

China will also continue to implement to the letter and in spirit theone country, two systems method of rule for the Chinese territories of Hong Kong and Macau, Li said.Taliban insurgents show no sign of shifting from their demand that talks for a conflict-ending compromise take place with Washington, not Kabul.

Washington: Despite US support, the Afghan government's surprising new peace offer to the Taliban is immediately running into a wall. The insurgents show no sign of shifting from their demand that talks for a conflict-ending compromise take place with Washington, not Kabul.

The impasse is blocking a diplomatic path out of America's longest-running war and could prove as fateful as fortunes on the battlefield.

The Donald Trump administration says it's escalating pressure on the Taliban to advance a negotiated solution to the fighting. But diplomacy is a distant second to military efforts right now, and the US isn't offering carrots of its own to persuade the insurgents to lay down their arms.

Laurel Miller, who until last June was a senior American diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the US should be clearer about what it's willing to negotiate on, including when it might start pulling forces from Afghanistan. "That could set the stage for talks," she said.

Such a timetable seems a remote prospect, and Trump has consistently railed against the idea of telling the enemy when the US might leave. The US involvement in the Afghan conflict is now in its 17th year, and 10,000 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in 2017 alone. All sides are hung up on even the format for potential negotiations. The Barrack Obama administration's peace push, which relied heavily on Afghanistan's neighbour Pakistan, floundered in 2015.

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani's new effort, announced at an international conference in Kabul this past week, includes incentives for insurgents that join negotiations and enter the political mainstream. The government would provide passports and visas to Taliban members and their families, and work to remove sanctions against Taliban leaders, he said. The Islamist group could set up an office.

Alice Wells, America's top diplomat for South Asia, endorsed the overture and said the "onus" was on the Taliban to demonstrate they're ready to talk, "not to me or the United States, but to the sovereign and legitimate government and people of Afghanistan."

With wounds and emotions still raw in Kabul after a wave of brutal Taliban attacks in Kabul in late January, Ghani's offer was a significant olive branch. Still, it's one unlikely to change the calculus of hard-line insurgents, said Michael Kugelman, senior associate for South Asia at the Wilson Center think tank.

And Barnett Rubin, a New York University expert on Afghanistan who advised the Obama administration, said: "The trouble is that the major issue the Taliban is interested in talking about is the one he has no control over  the presence of American troops in Afghanistan."

Top Afghan security officials maintain back-channel discussions with Taliban, The Associated Press has learned, but the officials' efforts are not coordinated and more formal talks are impeded by the Taliban's insistence that its "Islamic Emirate," ousted in a US-led invasion in 2001 for hosting Al-Qaeda, remains Afghanistan's legitimate government.

"America must end her occupation and must accept all our legitimate rights including the right to form a government consistent with the beliefs of our people," the militant group said in a rambling 14 February letter addressed to the American people and "peace-loving congressmen." It sought "peaceful dialogue" with Washington.

Events on the ground are moving in the opposite direction.

Since August, when Trump recommitted America to an indefinite military presence in the country, the US has sent in thousands of additional forces to train Afghans, bringing the total US troop figure to more than 14,000. The US has intensified airstrikes, though there has been no significant dent on the Taliban, which control or contest nearly half the country.

Shortly after a Taliban suicide bomb using an ambulance that killed more than 100 people in Kabul, Trump declared on 29 January: "We don't want to talk with the Taliban. There may be a time, but it's going to be a long time."

US officials have conveyed messages to Taliban political representatives in Qatar, urging the group to join talks with the Afghan government. Neighbouring countries are doubtful about America's commitment to a political resolution. Pakistan, Iran and Russia are thought to maintain ties to militant proxies inside Afghanistan in case the war-ravaged country collapses.

Miller, now a senior foreign policy expert at Rand Corporation, said peace would require heavy lifting by the Trump administration, which has yet to appoint a top diplomat for the region. The war might need international mediation.

"It's not enough to say the door is open, let's have a peace process," she said. "You have to make it happen."In a statement by its official news agency Amaq, the Islamic State said that its fighters assassinated 'two apostate soldiers in Aden's neighbourhood of Mansourah', Xinhua reported.

Aden, Yemen: The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a drive-by shooting that killed two security personnel in Yemen's southern port city of Aden on Sunday.

In a statement by its official news agency Amaq, the IS said that its fighters assassinated "two apostate soldiers in Aden's neighbourhood of Mansourah", Xinhua reported. The terror group also posted four pictures showing two of its fighters launching the attack in Aden.

Meanwhile, a local security source also confirmed the assassination. "Two security guards at Aden's port were killed by terrorists while they were heading to the workplace," he told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Last month, the IS claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings that struck the headquarters of the counter-terrorism forces backed by the United Arab Emirates in Aden. Medical sources said the bombings killed 6 soldiers and injured 53 others, mostly civilians.

Aden is considered Yemen's temporary capital, as the Saudi-backed Yemeni government has based itself there since 2015. During the last two years, terrorist groups such as the Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and the IS, had an active presence in the southern part of Yemen. The impoverished Arab country has been locked in a civil war since 2014, when the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is leading an Arab military coalition which intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Iran-backed Houthi rebels forced him into exile. The UN has listed Yemen as the country facing the world's top humanitarian crisis, with seven million Yemenis on the brink of famine and cholera causing more than 2,000 deaths.A surge for populist and far-right parties in Italy's election could result in a hung Parliament with a right-wing alliance likely to win the most votes but no majority.

Rome: A surge for populist and far-right parties in Italy's election could result in a hung Parliament with a right-wing alliance likely to win the most votes but no majority after a campaign dominated by anger against immigration.

With over half the ballots from Sunday's vote counted, the right-wing coalition was at 37 percent, including the far-right, eurosceptic League party with 18 percent and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy) party with 14 percent.

That raises the prospect of League leader, who has promised to shut down Roma camps, deport hundreds of thousands of migrants and tackle the "danger" of Islam, becoming Italy's next prime minister.

The anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which has drawn support from Italians fed up with traditional parties and a lack of economic opportunity, was second with 31 percent.

"The March 4 vote yielded a result that Europe was afraid of and Italy perhaps did not expect on this scale," columnist Marcello Sorgi wrote in La Stampa daily. "Defeated everywhere else in Europe, populism won here. Either it can govern or it will block the system."

'Bad night' for EU

The boost for far-right and populist parties has drawn comparisons to Britain's vote to leave the European Union and the rise of US president Donald Trump.

"The European Union is going to have a bad night," Marine Le Pen, leader of France's National Front, tweeted. Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage congratulated the Five Star Movement, his allies in the European Parliament, "for topping the poll" as by far Italy's biggest single party.

The absence of an overall majority could mean weeks or months of negotiations to form a new government, however. "A Parliament without a majority," wrote business daily Il Sole 24 Ore.

Resentment at the hundreds of thousands of migrant arrivals in Italy in recent years fired up the campaign, along with frustration about social inequalities. "These are historic results," Giancarlo Giorgetti, deputy head of the League, told reporters in Milan. Alessandro Di Battista of the Five Star Movement, said: "Everyone is going to have to come and speak to us".

The ruling centre-left Democratic Party, which has struggled to get across its pro-European message of gradual economic recovery, was left trailing with only 24 percent for its coalition. "This is a very clear defeat for us," Michele Martina, a minister in the outgoing government, told reporters.

Andrea Marcucci, one of the party's lawmakers, said: "The populists have won and the Democratic Party has lost".

'Everything will change'

If no party or coalition wins an overall majority, the results will leave Italy with few options.

One is a an "anti-system" post-election pact between the Five Star Movement and the League  a prospect that has spooked foreign investors and European capitals. Projected results would give such an alliance 355 seats in the 630-seat lower house of Parliament and 168 seats in the 315-seat upper house.

The other would be a minority Five Star government, which could prove highly unstable. A third option would be a temporary government and eventually new elections.

In L'Espresso weekly's online edition Marco Damilano wrote: "On the night of March 4, the winners are (Five Star Movement leader Luigi) Di Maio and Salvini". "And there are two catastrophic losers: Berlusconi, the old man on his last lap, and his young heir (Democratic Party leader) Matteo Renzi."

Il Fatto Quotidiano ran a front-page headline saying simply: "Everything will change".

'Constant instability'

Berlusconi, a flamboyant three-time former prime minister, cannot hold elected office because of a fraud conviction but has put forward European Parliament President Antonio Tajani as his prime ministerial nominee.

The billionaire, who won his first election in 1994, has returned to the limelight at the age of 81 despite a career overshadowed by sex scandals and legal woes. He was ambushed as he cast his vote in Milan by a topless woman from the Femen activist group who had "Berlusconi, you have expired" scrawled across her torso.

The election campaign was a gloomy one marred by clashes between far-right and anti-fascist activists, as well as a racist shooting spree by an extreme right sympathiser in February.

Former White House adviser Steve Bannon  the man who helped Trump ride a populist wave to power  characterised the election as "pure populism". "The Italian people have gone farther, in a shorter period of time, than the British did for Brexit and the Americans did for Trump," Bannon, who was visiting Italy for the election, told The New York Times. Bannon called a possible post-election deal between the Five Star Movement and the League "the ultimate dream".

In the event of a stalemate, President Sergio Mattarella will have the key role of choosing a prime ministerial nominee who could command a majority in Parliament but negotiations could take weeks or even months.

"The verdict in Italy is always the same: the country is in constant instability. Being ungovernable has become endemic," said Claudio Tito, columnist for La Repubblica.Newly-elected members of Nepal's Parliament were sworn-in in Kathmandu, following historic provincial and parliamentary polls in 2017 in the Himalayan nation.

Kathmandu: Newly-elected members of Nepal's Parliament were sworn-in in Kathmandu on Sunday, following historic provincial and parliamentary polls in 2017 in the Himalayan nation.

Senior-most member of the House of Representatives Mahantha Thakur administered the oath of office and secrecy to the new members of the House of Representatives.

Earlier on Sunday, President Bidya Devi Bhandari administered the oath of office and secrecy to Thakur.

There are 275 members in the House of Representatives including 165 members elected under the first-past-the-post category or direct election and 110 under proportional representation basis. The CPN-UML has 121 members, NC has 63, and CPN-MC has 53 while Federal Socialist Forum Nepal has 17 and Rastriya Janata Party Nepal has 16 members. Likewise, the Naya Shakti Party, Rastriya Prajatantra Party, Rastriya Janamorcha and Nepal Majdoor Kissan Party has one member each and one HoR member is an independent member.

Bhandari, on the recommendation of the government, has summoned the first meeting of federal Parliament. It will be the first joint meeting of both the House of Representatives and the National Assembly (NA).

The members took their oath of office and secrecy in their respective mother tongues including Bhojpuri, Maithali, Awadhi, Tamang, Tharu, Magar and Hindi. Similarly, 55 members elected to the National Assembly, the upper house of Nepal's bicameral federal parliament, also took oath of office and secrecy.

Senior-most NA member Tara Devi Bhatta administered the oath of office and secrecy to them.

In the 59-member NA, there is representation of eight members including (at least) three women, one Dalit and one person with disability or minority group from each seven provinces. The CPN-UML has 27 members, the Nepali Congress has 13 and the CPN-Maoist Centre has 12 members in the Upper House.

Two members each from Rastriya Janata Party and Federal Socialist Forum also took oath of office.

However, the swearing-in ceremony of three National Assembly members, nominated by the president, was not held on Sunday, as the Supreme Court had earlier issued an order staying their oath of office. This is for the first time that the National Assembly was formed under the new Constitution.A South Korean delegation left for North Korea on Monday, a presidential official said, aiming to bring the North and the United States together for talks in a bid to rein in the Norths nuclear and missile programmes.

Seoul: A South Korean delegation left for North Korea on Monday, a presidential official said, aiming to bring the North and the United States together for talks in a bid to rein in the Norths nuclear and missile programmes.

Both North Korea and the United States have expressed willingness to talk, but US president Donald Trump demands the North "denuke" first.

The North, which has vowed never to give up its nuclear deterrent against US hostility, says it will not sit down to talks under preconditions.

Reclusive North Korea, which has made no secret of its pursuit of a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the mainland United States in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, is also concerned over a joint US-South Korea military exercise, which it sees as a preparation for war.

South Korean officials have said the drill will start next month as planned, after being postponed for the Winter Olympics held last month in the South.

The 10-member South Korean delegation, headed by National Security Office head Chung Eui-yong, left from Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, near the capital, the official said, on condition of anonymity.

"We will deliver President Moon Jae-in's wish to bring about denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and permanent peace by extending the goodwill and better inter-Korean relations created by the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics," Chung said at the presidential Blue House before he left.

The delegation hopes to speak with North Korean officials on starting dialogue between the North and the United States as well as other countries, he added.

The delegation includes National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon and Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung.

The delegation is expected to attend a dinner with North Korean officials on Monday, with another meeting set for early Tuesday, said another administration official, who sought anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Officials at the Blue House said they were unsure whether or when the Norths leader, Kim Jong Un, would meet the delegation.

The government hopes the visit will create "a positive atmosphere", unification ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun told a regular briefing.

Thawing relations between the neighbours have prompted speculation of future direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang after months of tension and exchanges of bellicose insults between Trump and Kim Jong Un fuelled fears of war.

North Korea has not carried out any weapons tests since late November, when it tested its largest intercontinental ballistic missile. Inter-Korean talks began after Kim Jong Un said in his New Year's address that he wanted to engage the South.

Pyongyang has since sent athletes to participate in the Olympics, as well as a high-ranking delegation that included Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong.

Impoverished North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

The North regularly threatens to destroy the South and its main ally, the United States, which stations 28,500 troops in the South, a legacy of the Korean War, and carries out regular joint military exercises.

"Neither sanctions nor provocations nor threats can ever undermine our position of a nuclear weapons state," the North's Rodong Sinmun newspaper said recently.

"Hoping that the DPRK would abandon its nuclear programmes is as foolish an act as trying to wish seas to get dried up," it said, referring to itself by its official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.Syrian regime air strikes on the besieged rebel stronghold of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus killed more than 30 civilians including children

Beirut: Syrian regime air strikes on the besieged rebel stronghold of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus killed more than 30 civilians including children, a monitoring group said.

"Thirty-four civilians were killed in regime strikes and rockets on Eastern Ghouta," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that 11 of the victims were children.

Rahman also said 26 of the people killed were in Ghouta's main town of Douma and its eastern suburb.

The regime's air strikes, artillery fire and rocket attacks on Ghouta over the past 15 days have left more than 690 civilians dead, according to SOHR.

Syrian president Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday that his forces must push on with their campaign to retake Eastern Ghouta from rebels, despite mounting international calls to end the bloodshed.

Assad's forces have seized over a quarter of the enclave on Damascus's eastern edges after two weeks of devastating bombardment, according to SOHR.

As the United States, Britain and France stepped up pressure on Damascus and Moscow to call off the assault, the United Nations said it plans to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid to Eastern Ghouta's residents.Syrian Army and its allies have captured more than a third of the rebel enclave in eastern Ghouta near Damascus since starting a ground offensive there a week ago

Beirut: The Syrian Army and its allies have captured more than a third of the rebel enclave in eastern Ghouta near Damascus since starting a ground offensive there a week ago, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Monday.

The Britain-based war monitor said more than 700 people have been killed in eastern Ghouta in the past two weeks, since the government and its allies began a massive bombardment of the area on 18 February in preparation for the attack.Aid convoys reached a crossing point into Syrias eastern Ghouta on Monday, a witness said, bringing the first relief to the besieged enclave since one of the deadliest government assaults of the seven-year war began two weeks ago.

Beirut/Geneva: Aid convoys reached a crossing point into Syrias eastern Ghouta on Monday, a witness said, bringing the first relief to the besieged enclave since one of the deadliest government assaults of the seven-year war began two weeks ago.

A World Health Organization (WHO) official said government authorities had stripped most medical material from UN vehicles, preventing surgical kits, insulin, dialysis equipment and other supplies from reaching the enclave of 400,000 people.

President Bashar al-Assad vowed on Sunday to continue a military push into the biggest remaining opposition stronghold near Damascus, saying the offensive did not contradict five-hour ceasefires arranged each day by his main ally Russia.

A wider, full ceasefire backed by the UN Security Council has not come into effect during the campaign, which began with massive government air strikes two weeks ago and has continued in recent days with a ground assault.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the death toll from the offensive had exceeded 700 people in two weeks of intense bombardment on the densely populated region of farmland and towns.

Pro-Assad forces have made sudden advances into eastern Ghouta in recent days, capturing a third of the area, the Observatory said, and bringing them close to cutting it in two, in what a rebel official called ascorched earth attack.

Syrian state television broadcast on Monday morning from al-Shifouniyeh, one of the villages captured by the government, showing collapsed concrete buildings, rubble-strewn streets and bullet-pocked walls.

The area has been under siege by government forces since 2013, and the United Nations had feared that people inside were running out of food and medicine even before the major assault began two weeks ago. Only one convoy of aid has reached the area so far in 2018, on 14 February.

In comments broadcast by state television on Sunday, Assad dismissed Western statements about the humanitarian situation in eastern Ghouta asa ridiculous lie.

A convoy sent by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent reached the crossing point into eastern Ghouta early on Monday along with empty buses sent by the government to evacuate civilians who might come out of the enclave, a Reuters witness said.

The first vehicles from a second convoy sent by the United Nations arrived soon after, the witness said. The UNs aid agency OCHA said on Sunday it aimed to deliver a convoy with 46 truckloads of health, food and nutrition supplies to eastern Ghouta on Monday.

A WHO official told Reuters that Syrian government officials had rejected 70 percent of the supplies it had prepared for Mondays convoy, includingall trauma (kits), surgical, dialysis sessions and insulin.

Russias military said the rebels which control eastern Ghouta had agreed to let civilians leave in return for aid.

Assad and Russia have both repeatedly accused the rebels of stopping civilians fleeing eastern Ghouta, a charge denied by the insurgents, who say people there fear arrest, torture or forcible conscription if they cross into government areas.

Concern for civilians in eastern Ghouta helped prompt a UN Security Council resolution a week ago demanding a full ceasefire across all of Syria.

Russia, a veto-wielding member which accepted the resolution, says it does not apply to the rebel groups in eastern Ghouta, which Moscow regards as members of terrorist groups banned by the United Nations. Moscow has instead established daily humanitarian pauses in the assault each day from 9 am to 2 pm.The UN Human Rights Council on Monday ordered an urgent investigation into the situation in Syria's besieged rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta and demanded immediate humanitarian access to the area.

Geneva: The UN Human Rights Council on Monday ordered an urgent investigation into the situation in Syria's besieged rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta and demanded immediate humanitarian access to the area.

The council voted in favour of a resolution calling on rights investigators to "urgently conduct a comprehensive and independent inquiry into recent events in Eastern Ghouta."

With 29 votes in favour, 14 abstentions and four opposed, the UN's top rights body also demanded immediate humanitarian access to the area where 400,000 residents have lived under siege from the regime since 2013 and face severe food and medicine shortages.

The United Nations said Sunday it planned to deliver desperately needed humanitarian assistance to the enclave on Monday with a convoy of "46 truckloads of health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people in need".

But fresh violence could jeopardise the deliveries after fresh air raids by the Syrian regime killed at least 14 civilians overnight in the enclave.

"The UN and partners are ready to go as soon as all the necessarily elements are in place for us to do so," Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, told AFP Monday.

He added, however, that he did not yet have confirmation that that was the case.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said barrel bombs  crude, improvised munitions that cause indiscriminate damage  were used, including on the town of Hammuriyeh, where 10 people were killed.

The latest deaths brought to 709 the number of civilians killed since regime and allied Russian forces intensified their campaign against Eastern Ghouta in February.

According to Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Observatory, at least 166 were children.The European elections are just around the corner and the European political parties are energetically preparing their campaigns. At EuroPCom, they will share insights, discuss their strategies and guide us through their approaches to coordinating communication efforts with the national and regional levels. Attend this workshop to find out what to expect from the EU parties campaigns for May 2019 and  with a bit of luck  youll also get the latest information about this terms lead candidates.

Speakers:

Utta Tuttlies, Head of Communications at S&D Group in the European Parliament @UTuttlies

Thomas Hermans, Board member Campaigns & Communication at D66, The Netherlands  liaising with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group (ALDE) in the European Parliament @Thom_her

Richard Milsom, Chief Executive, Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE)

Gunther Dauwen, Director, European Free Alliance (EFA) @GDauwen

Moderator:

Jennifer Baker, EU Policy Correspondent, Belgium.       06:30 .  19.09.2021 . .  :   ,    -    -.      13  18.    ,          -       ,      .   ...Actress Amber Tamblyn on Twitter said that a van driver attempted to drive into her and her baby as she crossed a street in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Sunday and asked followers to help track him down.

If anyone in Brooklyn near the intersection of Washington Ave and Atlantic Ave just saw a Hasidic man in a grey van try to hit a woman and her baby in a stroller a (sic) she crossed a crosswalk, honking and touching the stroller with the cars bumper, please DM me, she wrote. That woman was me.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants star added in follow-up tweets that she and her child are fine, although very shaken up. She said she has experienced similar situations in the past.

But this is not the first time a man from the Hasidic community in NYC has attempted to harm me or other women I know, the actress tweeted. Any woman riding a bike through South Williamsburg can attest.

I hope this guy is caught, the 34-year-old said.

Tamblyn, a prominent advocate of the Times Up movement, welcomed her daughter, Marlow, with husband David Cross in February of last year.

Tamblyn, TMZ reported, has not yet reported the incident to the New York Police Department.Frances McDormand commanded attention as she placed her golden statue on the floor of the stage during her Best Actress speech Sunday night.

"If I fall over pick me up because I've got some things to say," said McDormand, accepting the award for her portrayal of Mildred Hayes -- a mother seeking justice for her murdered daughter in "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."

She thanked her family and then turned to directly address the audience.

"If I may be so honored to have all the female nominees in every category stand with me in this room tonight," she said. "Meryl [Streep] if you do it, everybody else will, come on."

Streep was quick to jump out of her seat, raising her arms and giving a thumbs up for others in the room to join her.

"The filmmakers, the producers, the directors, the writers, the cinemotographers, the composers, the songwriters, the designers, come on," McDormand called out. "Look around, look around...because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed."

McDormand looked joyous as she looked out on the women.

"I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentleman: inclusion rider," said McDormand, curtseying as she exited the stage.

McDormand's win is her second Oscar and is for her blistering turn in "Three Billboards" as a mother who feels authorities haven't done enough to investigate her daughter's rape and murder.

McDormand won a best supporting actress award in 1996 for her role as a police officer in "Fargo." Her win Sunday was not a surprise  she has swept the major awards this year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Wes Studi, the first Native-American to present at the Oscars, introduced a segment paying tribute to the military.

Studi spoke about his time serving in the army during the Vietnam War before a video montage of military films played.

While Studi's introduction was heartfelt, viewers on social media pointed out that the reactions from the A-listers in the audience were lackluster.

Earlier in the night, host Jimmy Kimmel kicked off the night encouraging positivity, before quickly taking jabs at President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and even Fox News viewers.As celebrities began arriving at the Dolby Theater for the 90th Annual Academy Awards, many were wondering whether or not the sexual harassment accusations against E!'s Ryan Seacrest would impact his evening as red carpet host for the network. But once the big pre-show began, huge star after huge star chose to ignore the charges leveled against Seacrest, and lined up to speak to the embattled Hollywood heavyweight.

Nominees Allison Janney and Christopher Plummer stopped by Seacrest's spot on the carpet early-on in the night and chatted with the host about being nominated.

Later on, Richard Jenkins, who was wearing a Time's Up pin, spoke to Seacrest. The pin is meant to show support for the movement that aims to put a stop to the mistreatment of women. "Empire" star Taraji P. Henson even tickled Seacrest's chin and told him she'd see him in New York.

Seacrest, 43, a long-time host for E!, which is owned by NBCUniversal, has in recent months been facing accusations of sexual misconduct from his former stylist  all of which hes denied. Suzie Hardy told Variety she was fired in 2013 after she made graphic complaints of harassment against Seacrest to Es human resources department. Hardy accused the E! and ABC star of grinding his erect penis against her while he was only wearing underwear, groping her vagina and slapping her so hard on her bottom that she suffered for hours from a large, visible welt.

Despite the allegations, E! has stood by Seacrest, stating on Feb. 1 that an investigation found there was insufficient evidence to support the claims made against him.

Critics have slammed the network for letting the Live with Kelly and Ryan co-host continue his hosting duties Sunday in Hollywood as the #MeToo movement picks up steam.

On Sunday, Kelly Ripa stopped by Seacrest's post on the carpet to publicly wish him well.

Youre doing a great job, she reassured him.

Meanwhile, on ABC, the focus of the red carpet was the Times Up movement.

Michael Strahan, who was hosting the red carpet pre-show for ABC, talked to Salma Hayek about deciding to speak out against disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein. Strahan also interviewed Vanity Fairs Krista Smith and asked her to explain Times Up and detail the movements goals.

The founder of the female empowerment and anti-sexual harassment campaign, Tarana Burke, told Variety she thought E! really shouldnt send Seacrest to Sunday nights big event, adding that It will let us know where [the network] stands in terms of how respectful E! News is of this issue  and of women.

And despite E! execs saying they completely trust our investigation the network may be sheltering its biggest news host from any controversy on the carpet.

WHY STARS ARE WEARING ORANGE PINS AND RIBBONS TO THE OSCARS THIS YEAR

Deadline reported that the network was considering running the show on a significant delay so that it could avoid broadcasting any moments that hang a lantern on the allegations against Seacrest and distract from the larger red carpet coverage.

E! denied that anything unusual is being done to protect Seacrest, however it didn't deny there would be delay on the live show.

Its business as usual, an E! spokesperson told Fox News in a statement. As always, we tape multiple sources of content simultaneously to deliver the best possible show, and there are often brief delays between interviews.Actress Amber Tamblyn was slammed on social media for tweeting that Hasidic Jewish men in New York attempted to harm her after she claimed she and her baby were almost hit by a van in Brooklyn, NY, on Sunday.

Tamblyn tweeted asking for the publics help to track the driver, she described as a Hasidic man, after she and her infant child were almost hit.

If anyone in Brooklyn near the intersection of Washington Ave and Atlantic Ave just saw a Hasidic man in a grey van try to hit a woman and her baby in a stroller a (sic) she crossed a crosswalk, honking and touching the stroller with the cars bumper, please DM me, the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants star wrote. That woman was me.

In her following tweet, Tamblyn wrote Hasidic men in NYC have attempted to harm her and other women she knows in the past.

But this is not the first time a man from the Hasidic community in NYC has attempted to harm me or other women I know, Tamblyn tweeted. Any woman riding a bike through South Williamsburg can attest. I hope this guy is caught.

Social media users criticized Tamblyns tweets that appeared to target members of the religious Jewish sect. Some of her followers said she was making generalizations about a large community of orthodox Jews.

I dont understand your tweets. For someone who is so politically woke, I dont understand your generalizations of the Hasidic Jewish community. It sounds racist, one person tweeted.

Lets be rational here, Amber Tamblyn. Firstly, I am so glad you and baby are ok! But to target the Hasidic community like that  especially given the real antisemitism out there  is generally irresponsible, a social media user tweeted.

You cant be both woke and a bigot. Choose one, another person tweeted.

Well, I am a proud Hasidic Jew. I never hit you with my car. I never attacked you. Why are you attacking me?! a person tweeted.

Tamblyn, 34, a prominent advocate of the Times Up movement, did not appear to call the police following the incident, TMZ reported. She has not immediately commented on the backlash.

Fox News' Nicole Darrah contributed to this report.Frances McDormand has been reunited with her best actress Academy Award after it was snatched during a post-Oscar party Sunday.

McDormand, 60, fresh off her Oscar win for her portrayal of Mildred Hayes in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, was upset after her award was snatched from her table while celebrating at the Governors Ball on Sunday night, TMZ reported.

TMZ reported the man who allegedly stole the award was arrested. Security was dispatched to find the Academy Award, which had McDormands named engraved on it, after it went missing. Winning recipients of the award get their names engraved on it at the Governors Ball.

The New York Times reported security at the ball were looking for a man who was photographed with the statuette. Wolfgang Puck's photographer was reportedly able to stop the man before he left with the Oscar. McDormand allegedly said to let the thief go but security turned him in to Los Angeles police.

Police identified the suspect as Terry Bryant, 47. He was arrested on suspicion of felony grand theft and is being held on $20,000 bail.

As noted by ABC News, Bryant posted a video to Facebook Sunday night -- with the caption "My Oscar baby" -- in which he proudly holds the Oscar in his hand, kisses it and claims his "team got this tonight. This is mine. We got it tonight, baby."

"I can't believe I got this," Bryant said of the award, which he seemed to say he won for "best producer" in "music."

As he asks what parties everyone is attending next, Bryant appears to boast of the Oscar  "You know what, I can't believe I got this"  and asks who wants to congratulate him. Partygoers then give him praise and ask to touch the award.

FRANCES MCDORMAND INVITES ALL FEMALE OSCARS NOMINEES TO STAND DURING BEST ACTRESS SPEECH

The Fargo stars representative, Simon Halls, confirmed the trophy was returned to McDormand.

"Fran and Oscar are happily reunited and are enjoying an In-N-Out burger together," Halls said in a statement to USA Today.

EVERYTHING TO KNOW ABOUT THE OSCARS

McDormand won her best actress Academy Award Sunday for her portrayal of grieving mother Mildred Hayes in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. McDormand won her first best actress Oscar in 1997 for the film Fargo. She was also nominated for her roles in Mississippi Burning, Almost Famous and North Country.

During her acceptance speech, McDormand asked all the female Oscar nominees to stand with her.

"The filmmakers, the producers, the directors, the writers, the cinematographers, the composers, the songwriters, the designers, come on," McDormand called out. "Look around, look around...because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Gary Oldmans role as Winston Churchill in "Darkest Hour" earned the best actor Oscar on Sunday, capping the actor's triumphant awards season that included a Golden Globe, BAFTA and other trophies for the role. But some were disturbed to see Oldman win the award on a night that celebrated the empowerment of women with the Times Up and #MeToo movements taking center stage.

According to the Daily Beast, Oldman was accused of assault in 2001 by his then-wife Donya Fiorentino, who said the actor beat her with a telephone while their children were present. He denies her claims.

The New York Daily News reported Fiorentino filed paperwork with the Los Angeles Superior Court at the time that stated, As I picked up the phone to call the police, Gary put his hand on my neck and squeezed. I backed away, with the phone receiver in my hand. I tried to dial 911. Gary grabbed the phone receiver from my hand, and hit me in the face with the telephone receiver three or four times. Both of the children were crying.

The pair split in 2001 and Oldman married Alexandra Edenborough in 2008 until 2015 and then Gisele Schmidt in 2017. Oldman was also married to Uma Thurman and Lesley Manville.

Oldman, 59, was also caught making controversial comments defending accused abusers Mel Gibson and Alec Baldwin in a 2014 Playboy interview.

On Sunday, the English-born Oldman graciously thanked the country that he's made his home.

"I've lived in America for the longest time and I am deeply grateful to her for the loves and the friendships I have made and the many wonderful gifts it has given me. My home, my livelihood, my family and my Oscar," he said. "The movies .... captivated a young man from South London and gave him a dream."

Oldman saluted "Sir Winston Churchill, who has been marvelous company on what can be described as an incredible journey," and thanked his wife and his 98-year-old mom.

"She is watching this ceremony from the comfort of her sofa. I say to my mother, 'Thank you for your love and support, put the kettle on. I am bringing Oscar home,'" he said.

However, some social media users wrote they were disturbed to see Oldman up on stage. Kobe Bryant also won an Oscar on Sunday for best animated short and his win earned similar backlash due to his past sexual assault allegations.

Last year, best actor winner Casey Affleck was plagued with negative feedback after sexual assault allegations against him resurfaced. The controversy led to Affleck skipping this year's show.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Moviegoers waiting to see A Wrinkle in Time got a bigger bang for their buck Sunday night  meeting Jimmy Kimmel and a host of Hollywood stars while snacks shot at them with huge, hot dog guns.

Kimmel took a break during the Oscars telecast and walked across the street to the TCL Chinese Theatre to thank the audience in a movie theater for supporting the industry.

Gal Gadot, Lupita Nyongo, Armie Hammer, Ansel Elgort, Margot Robbie, Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Mark Hamill and Guillermo del Toro joined the Oscars host to say thanks and hand out the treats that included candy and hot dogs.

You know, a lot of people have been thanked tonight. Producers, directors, Mexico got a thanks. And deservedly so. Many of you would not be here without the people you're thanking, Kimmel said. But there's another group that deserves our thanks even more, because without them, none of us would be here, so I want to take a moment to thank the people who actually go to see the movies you make.

Tonight, we thank the movie-going public.

Kimmel was met with screams and applause when he entered the theater with Gadot holding a basket of snacks.

Were sorry we interrupted the movie, Kimmel told the audience.

Gadot said, This is so much better than the Oscars!

The host joked about a strong aroma of marijuana before telling the audience they were live at the Academy Awards.

We were talking about our appreciation for people who go to the movies, and that is you guys. And we have a surprise for you as well: I noticed you dont have any snacks, Kimmel said.

The other celebrities entered the theater and began tossing snacks, handing out sandwiches and shooting hot dogs to surprised moviegoers.

Kimmel ended the stunt by asking a moviegoer named Mike to introduce the next presenters, Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph.

Kimmel pulled a similar stunt at last years Academy Awards when he invited a tour bus group into the Dolby Theater to meet celebrities and stars. The star-struck tourists even took several memorable selfies with stars.Believe it or not, theres a right and wrong way for storing wine at home. Wine is a delicate thing. Even though we may slosh it around our glasses while were enjoying a weeknight dinner, while its in the bottle, plenty of things can go amiss and change your delicious vino into vinegar. No thanks. Want the most out of your wine but not planning on drinking it right away? Then do yourself a favor and store it the proper way. Here are the dos and dont-you-dares of storing wine at home.

1. Chill out.

Temperature fluctuations are wines greatest nemesis. At the correct temp, you can leave your wine to slumber for ages until youre ready to drink it. But if left for extended periods of time in too hot or too cold a room, or worse, left at the mercy of constantly fluctuating temperatures, youll be left sipping a glass of disappointment rather than delicious Cabernet (or whatever your wine of choice).

When the mercury creeps up, it can cause anarchy in your carefully curated collection, leading your wine to become cooked. Warmer storage temperatures will also speed up the aging process in a pretty dramatic way. So chill out and keep things on the cooler side. At the ideal cool but not too cold temperature, your wine will become more complex, if you choose to age it. Better still, itll not go off, if youre hanging on to it for a later date.

Aim for 50 to 58 degrees Fahrenheit in your wine nook. If youll be enjoying a glass of white or rose with say, a fresh salad, just stick it in the fridge for about twenty minutes prior to serving.

2. Save the sun for picnics.

Keep your wine away from the sun. While a healthy dose of sunshine is a must for grapes while theyre on the vine, after wine has been bottled, UV light, like that found in the suns rays can cause faults, make it to prematurely age and fade labels (in case you ever want to sell a bottle down the line). Save the sun for picnics and keep your wine in the dark.

3. Stash your wine properly.

If you dont have a wine cooler or temperature controlled storage space where you can stow your wine, a cool cupboard (not in the kitchen) is a great way to make do. If your basement is free of dampness and mold, it can also serve as a makeshift wine cellar. Attics, hot garages, the top of your fridge or the cabinet above the washing machine are all off limits. In fact, dont keep your wine in the kitchen unless you do decide to invest in a wine fridge (just keep it away from the dishwasher).

Store bottles on their sides. This keeps the liquid contents in contact with the cork and prevents the cork from drying out and letting in too much air which can lead to oxidation. And once a wine oxidizes, theres really nothing you can do to save it. Have a few bottles under screw cap? Then no worries, this rule doesnt apply and you can feel free to store them sideways, upright, whatever you see fit.

4. Keep an eye on the humidity.

Speaking of stopping corks from drying out, I cant stress the importance of a humid environment enough. If the air in your wine cellar (or fridge, cupboard, closet, etc.) lacks sufficient moisture it, too can cause corks to dry out and wines to oxidize. Pop a humidifier in the room if youre worried about moisture levels or you can put a small bowl of water in the cupboard with your winesjust dont forget to refill it from time to time.

5. A final word of advice.

One last thing to add to your checklist: make sure to protect your wine from vibrations. Like light, any kind of prolonged jostling or regular shaking can lead to your wine aging before its time.

If youre serious about starting up a wine collection, you can look into a proper storage system. But in my honest opinion, most of us average wine drinkers dont need one. A dark, cool (again, thats about 50 to 58 degrees) closet or cupboard kitted out with some racks and stays safe from major temperature swings will do just fine.

Follow these tips and youll never have to worry about your wine falling flat, whether youre opening a bottle for tonights casserole, next week, or a few years down the line.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

At the gym, Sunday morning, CNN was on, and that bald guy was struggling with ways to interpret Donald Trump's "moods."

It was fantastic and hilarious: talking about "moods" and interpreting jokes, once again, as serious pronouncements.

It was like watching someone trying to describe their drug trip -- but no one else took the same drug.

I get it: Trump worries, concerns and scares the media. But rather than step out of this hyperbolic world of pain, they continue to indulge their panic until they're left in comical exasperation.

So what's the remedy?

First of all, once you accept that Trump is unique (for better or worse - this is no judgment on greatness or incompetence - just that he's unique) -- then you have three options:

1. Spend a lot of time operating with anguished tone and posture, responding to every single thing Trump says as if it's proof of madness or meanness. I've been that guy. So I can see it in others.

2. Spend a lot of time explaining everything he does as a defensive yes-man. I know some of those folks (still do, and can feel the sympathetic pull when you see the president under regular attack by the media).

3. Step back and assess with bemusement this tug of war between both opinions. Give your emotions a rest, and note the unhelpful patterns on either side.

You can guess that this third group is the healthier option. I choose it, based on my own experience in the first set, and being around people in the second set. The third set can understand both the first and second, and find some reasonable healthy perspective that isn't going to leave you exasperated on either extreme. The first group makes you crazy, the second one simply exhausts you.

Headless-chicken dancing only helps the Russians, and others who wish to take advantage of emotional distractions.

Lets choose an example that employs choosing one of three groups:

Recently, at a dinner, Trump said how great it is that the Chinese president can become president for life.

1. The first group would see Trump as seriously and dangerously complimenting a tyrant for cementing his power. Then this group will laud itself for predicting that Trump will no doubt pursue the same goals as his Chinese peer. It's just more proof for the anti-Trumpers, that they were right all along about Trump, the autocrat.

2. The second group would offer a two-step Trumpsplain about the comment:

- He's joking! Of course he's joking! Lighten up, Francis. It was at a lighthearted dinner -- where such things are said!

- And he's joking, also, just to rile up all those humorless folks in group one! And their hysterics prove his point!

(I found myself landing in this group, often, after breaking free from the first group).

3. The third group avoids the impulse of the first - because having been there before, an observer realizes it's too emotional and unnecessary (Much like that cliched notion of swatting a fly with a sledgehammer). And he may view group 2 as closer to reality  however he notes that Trump's loose verbosity is "not helpful" to future discourse among quarreling groups. It creates more chaos, less order. In sum, because you can fart in church doesn't mean you should. But Trump might just keep farting, so hold your nose. And you know what: a lot of the stuff he's actually doing, as opposed to farting -- is pretty good for the country.

So, I find myself floating in and out of group 2 and group 3 -- and I think that's the healthiest way to preserve your sanity, and your country's strength. Headless-chicken dancing (group 1) only helps the Russians, and others who wish to take advantage of emotional distractions.

All of this is based on one key point: you don't need to  and shouldn't have to  sit so close to the political stage.

Do not turn your life into some interior play-by-play of political events.

There is a better way. It's called life.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

The tiny Persian Gulf nation of Qatar  one of the wealthiest countries in the world on a per capita basis, thanks to enormous oil and natural gas reserves  has become one of the most harmful influences in the Middle East and a key supporter of terrorist groups.

No one expects Qatar to launch a military attack of its own on any country. Located on a peninsula jutting out of Saudi Arabia, it is slightly smaller than Connecticut and has a population of only about 2.3 million.

But Qatar is endangering Americas Arab allies and our ally Israel by bankrolling terrorists, inciting violence and hatred through its state-funded Al Jazeera TV network, and collaborating with the far more powerful and virulently anti-American Islamic Republic of Iran.

Because Qatar poses such a danger to the region, Saudi Araba and its Persian Gulf allies have blockaded the country since June. They have closed Qatars border with Saudi Arabia and prevented many planes and cargo ships from landing and docking in Qatar.

Bizarrely, the United States maintains a military base in Qatar so we can fight against Muslim extremists. But at the same time, the Qataris are providing support to Muslim extremists fighting against Americas allies in the region.

Unfortunately, the Trump administration, like the Obama administration, prefers to look the other way at Qatars dangerous behavior. This is because the U.S. Central Command operates the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The base houses some 10,000 U.S., British and other allied troops. It plays a key role in American air operations in war-torn Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan.

Rather than using the base as an excuse for inaction against Qatar, we should be using it to leverage changes in Qatari behavior. The Trump administration needs to make clear to Qatar that its current conduct is unacceptable and will not be tolerated by the United States.

In addition to supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar is the principal financier of Hamas, which wants to eliminate the Jewish state of Israel and replace it with an Arab state of Palestine.

President Trump previously expressed support for the Saudi position that Qatar end its support for terrorists, shut down Al Jazeera and sever ties with Iran. To protect our interests and the security of our allies, he should now threaten to move our military base if the Qataris do not do these things.

Moving our base would be costly, but we did it before when the Saudis asked us to leave. Now that were on better terms with the Saudis, they might even welcome us back. Better still, the Qataris could accede to our demands and benefit from ending their isolation and allying with those opposing terrorism and the Iranian menace.

Qatar wants to present itself as moderate and helpful to the U.S. Yet the government and individual Qataris have given financial and political support to two terrorist groups  the Muslim Brotherhood and its Palestinian offshoot, Hamas.

Qatars support for the Brotherhood stems from its need to demonstrate its commitment to Islam to avoid becoming a target of extremists, especially given its Western orientation and willingness to host the U.S. military. But in siding with the Brotherhood, Qatar is at odds with other countries  particularly Egypt  that see the group as a threat to their regimes.

In addition to supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar is the principal financier of Hamas, which wants to eliminate the Jewish state of Israel and replace it with an Arab state of Palestine. Qatar claims it only supports economic projects in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by Hamas. But even if that were true, the money Qatar funnels to Hamas frees up money that the terrorist group can use to build rockets and terrorist tunnels to threaten Israel.

Moreover, individual Qataris may be providing direct assistance to Hamas. Qatar also has served as a haven for Hamas terrorists such as Khaled Mashaal.

On top of this, Qatar has made no secret of its hostile feelings toward Israel. Its leaders have called on the world to shun Israel, condemned Israel for destroying terrorist tunnels, and accused Israel during its military operations in Gaza of war crimes.

Al Jazeera is the propaganda arm of the Qatari government and regularly broadcasts reports critical of Qatars neighbors and Israel. The TV network is also used to demonstrate Qatars loyalty to radical Islamists.

In addition, Qatar promotes terrorism through its broadcasts of sermons by the Muslim Brotherhoods Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He has a history of defending suicide bombings in Israel, condoning violence against U.S. troops and agitating against other Arab states. Al-Qaradawi was recently sentenced in absentia to life in prison in Egypt after being convicted of incitement to murder and other charges. He lives in exile in Qatar.

Al Jazeera has also targeted American Jews by sending a spy to infiltrate pro-Israel organizations to try to gather dirt on them. The goal of Al Jazeera is to present viewers with anti-Semitic propaganda falsely claiming there is evidence of an all-powerful Jewish cabal controlling U.S. policy.

Finally, at a time when the Trump administration seeks to isolate Iran, Qatar has strengthened its ties with the Islamic Republic. Qatar claims it has no choice but to deal with Iran given the blockade, but one of the main reasons the Saudis imposed the blockade was Qatars refusal to sever ties with Iran.

Irans anti-American policies, support for terrorists, fighting on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, and repeated pledges to wipe Israel off the map have not deterred Qatar from drawing closer to its dangerous neighbor.

Yet despite its strong support of Israels enemies, Qatar has mounted a charm offensive by inviting American Jewish leaders and others to the capital of Doha s and pledging counterterrorism cooperation.

The emir who rules Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has even asked American Jewish leaders to lobby U.S. government officials on Qatars behalf. Presumably, he believes they can influence President Trump and Congress to pressure Qatars Gulf rivals to end their blockade.

But even as it woos Americans, Qatar has continued its harmful and hostile activities.

Qatar, like other Arab nations, has long enjoyed a democracy exception from American administrations  an understanding that, unlike other countries around the world, we will not pressure them to democratize  as long as we have access to their oil and they support our regional interests.

In Qatars case, we silently tolerate an autocratic ruler whose family has been in power for more than 100 years, bans organized political parties, restricts civil liberties  including freedoms of speech, press, and assembly  and permits human trafficking. Nevertheless, no U.S. administration has been sufficiently disturbed by Qatars domestic policy to exert any pressure for change.

President Trump has often said he is a skilled dealmaker and criticized agreements made by past U.S. administrations. In the case of Qatar, America is tolerating too much and paying too high a price to keep the Al Udeid Air Base in a nation that is undermining our interests and the interests of our allies. If Qatar refuses to change its behavior, we should pull our air base out of the country to send a clear message that Qatars actions are intolerable.Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill., described his personal relationship with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan in an interview Sunday -- saying, in his own words, The world is so much bigger than Farrakhan and the Jewish question and his position on that and so forth.

Im a pretty global individual. So I know Farrakhan, I know the Middle East question, I know the Jews and Farrakhan  I know all that, but thats not what I spend all my time focused on, Davis told The Daily Caller. I know Farrakhan, been knowing him for years and years and years and years and years, and every once in a while some writer or somebody will I guess try to think of something to say about Farrakhan, but nah, my world is so much bigger than any of that. I dont have time for that. I deal with it, you know, when it comes but nah, thats not a real part of my focus.

Davis had told The Daily Caller last month he was unbothered by Farrakhans inflammatory views, calling him an outstanding human being.

Thats just one segment of what goes on in our world. The world is so much bigger than Farrakhan and the Jewish question and his position on that and so forth. For those heavy into it, thats their thing, but it aint my thing, Davis said on Sunday.

The Jewish question refers to the debate that unfolded in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries regarding the status of Jewish people as a minority; the phrase is also commonly associated with the extermination policies of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler, who believed the extermination of the Jewish people as the final solution to the Jewish question, as The Washington Examiner noted.

Davis, who has represented the 7th Congressional District since 1997 and is a former Chicago alderman, did not immediately reply to Fox News request for further comment.George Nader is in the spotlight after a New York Times report said special counsel Robert Muellers investigators have questioned the Lebanese-American businessman.

Muellers team reportedly is looking into whether the United Arab Emirates (UAE), perhaps with help from Nader, tried to gain political influence by putting money into President Trumps 2016 campaign -- a move that would indicate Muellers investigation continues to expand beyond whether campaign officials colluded with Russia.

Nader, 58, purportedly has been an adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. Read on for a look at his career.

MUELLER TEAM LOOKING INTO POSSIBLE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES MONEY INTO TRUMP CAMPGAIN: REPORT

What do we know about Naders life?

Nader ran the magazine Middle East Insight in the 1990s, with then-Rep. Nick Rahall paying tribute to him in 1996, the Times reports.

Because of his reputation for fairness and his remarkable access to key political and business leaders throughout the region, Nader has produced a magazine of distinction and high quality, Rahall, D-W.Va., said on Capitol Hill at the time.

Nader also attempted to arrange an Israel-Syria peace deal during the Clinton administration, the newspaper reported.

In the 1990s, George was a very effective under-the-radar operator in the peace process, former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin S. Indyk told the Times. Then, he disappeared.

The paper added that Nader effectively vanished from the capitals policy scene, and his magazine ceased publication in 2002.

What else is there?

During the middle part of the last decade, Mr. Nader appears to have spent most of his time in the Middle East, especially in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, the Times report said. He developed close ties to national security officials in the Bush White House.

Nader had been hired by Blackwater USA founder Erik Prince at one point to help create deals in Iraq for the business, the Times reported, but Prince told the paper that Nader failed to get contracts with the Iraqi government.

At the beginning of the Obama era, Mr. Nader tried to parlay his ties to the Syrian government into access to senior members of President Barack Obamas foreign policy team, while also seeking to advance business deals with former advisers to President George W. Bush, according to the Times.

What about the Trump administration?

Nader has been a frequent visitor to the Trump White House. And, the president has praised the UAE for the Persian Gulf nations efforts to work with the United States on economic issues and squashing terrorism in the region, thanking Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed for his efforts just last week, according to the White House.

Nader reportedly was close to former Trump strategist Steve Bannon, who stepped down from the White House in August.

The Times reported it had a copy of a memo Nader received about a private Oval Office meeting between Trump and GOP fund-raiser Elliott Broidy, who purportedly has millions worth of private-security contracts with the UAE.

FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS, FROM COMEY TO MCCABE

Whats going on with the Mueller investigation?

Muellers investigators in recent weeks have questioned Nader and asked witnesses for information about whether the UAE tried to buy political influence by giving money to the Trump campaign, according to the Times.

The story also stated that Muellers team was interested in how much influence Nader might have had on White House policymaking and whether foreign money has flowed into the U.S. recently to affect Washington policy.The White House condemned Russias involvement in Syria's slaughter inside Eastern Ghouta, saying in a statement Sunday that the Syrian campaign backed by Russia and Iran is killing innocent civilians under the false auspices of counterterrorism operations.

After repeatedly delaying the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2401, which demanded a 30-day cessation of hostilities across Syria, Russia has gone on to ignore its terms and to kill innocent civilians under the false auspices of counterterrorism operations. This is the same combination of lies and indiscriminate force that Russia and the Syrian regime used to isolate and destroy Aleppo in 2016, where thousands of civilians were killed, the U.S. statement said.

Eastern Ghouta, home to some 400,000 people, has been under a crippling siege and daily bombardment for months. More than 600 civilians have been killed in the last two weeks alone.

The U.N. said 15,000 people reportedly have been driven from their homes in January, the majority staying in shelters and basements around Ghouta.

The Syrian government and its backer Russia appear determined to seize the region, adding it to the latest series of victories that have consolidated President Bashar Assads hold on power seven years into the conflict.

The civilized world must not tolerate the Assad regimes continued use of chemical weapons, the U.S. statement said, referring to recent reports that the Assad government has used chemical weapons against the rebel-held areas; Assad has denied the allegations, according to The Hill.

Russia has accused the rebels of preventing civilians from leaving, which insurgents have denied. The rebels say the humanitarian corridor is part of government efforts to forcibly displace the population, and have called on government forces to implement a full cease-fire adopted by the U.N. Security Council.

Eastern Ghouta has been besieged by government forces since 2013. The last aid delivery to Ghouta was on Feb. 14, when help was sent to around 7,000 people in Nashabiyah, now under government control.

In a statement Sunday, the U.N. said it plans to deliver aid to Douma, the largest town in eastern Ghouta, with its partners on the ground. An aid convoy consisting of 46 truckloads will be allowed in Monday with health and nutrition supplies and food for 27,500. The convoy will be led by Ali al-Zatari, the U.N. resident humanitarian coordinator in Syria.

We hope that the convoy may proceed as planned and will be followed by other convoys, al-Zatari said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A Democrat in New York looking to challenge the party's incumbent reportedly wrote "creepy" comments on social media in 2012 about his meeting with gold-medal gymnast McKayla Maroney when she was 16 years old.

Suraj Patel is a hotel executive trying to unseat Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney in the New York primary. He posted a series of comments on Facebook appearing to show his fondness to Maroney, who was 16 at the time, The New York Post reported.

I told her she should come to New York because we have a top shop there on Broadway, haha, that may have crossed the creepy line by a little, Patel reportedly wrote to a girlfriend on Facebook in August 2012. He reportedly captioned the picture with, We went to Top Shop. I bought a promise ring. Then they tried to arrest me.

If this happens with McKayla Maroney  you cant fault me, you know? Sorry  you knew the deal, he added.

Maroney has been in the news recently after she testified about being sexually assaulted by Larry Nassar. The disgraced former USA Gymnastics doctor pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting young female athletes and was sentenced in January to 40 to 175 years in prison.

Patels comments reportedly prompted a response from the friend, who wrote: Shes only 16!

Patel also reportedly said Maroney was so jacked, btw in a separate Facebook post.

In another unearthed social media post in 2010, Patel defended actor John Stamos, who was accused of having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, according to The Post. Dude, she was 17  thats not that bad. Have mercy! the aspiring Congressman said at the time.

Patels campaign dismissed the comments as out-of-context private jokes, adding that the comment about Stamos was merely a reference to his catch phrase from Full House.

Hes an outspoken supporter of the national dialogue we are having about sexual abuse and harassment, Lis Smith, the campaign spokeswoman, told The Post. These efforts to tie years-old comments to it do a great disservice to women. Dredging up one-off old social media posts is a typical establishment politicians way to discredit newcomers.

Maloneys campaign, in response to The Posts report, said, [Rep. Carolyn Maloneys] record of empowering women and girls speaks for itself.Congressional Republicans are renewing calls for a second special counsel this week, with some suggesting the move may become unavoidable, amid new revelations related to the end of the Hillary Clinton email probe and the beginning of the investigation into Russian meddling and potential collusion with Trump campaign associates during the 2016 presidential election.

Over the last year, Justice Department inspector general Michael Horowitz has been conducting a review of the FBI and DOJs actions related to the investigation into Clintons use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. A final report on the investigation is expected within several months.

But despite Horowitzs reputation as a fair guy, according to House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., GOP lawmakers are leaning toward a second special counsel to find the facts.

I think were trending perhaps towards another special counsel, Gowdy said on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo. Im reluctant to call for a second special counsel, but I think it might be unavoidable in this fact pattern.

Gowdy added: You need an independent arbiter. And the Justice Department cannot investigate itself. Horowitz can, fair guy, but someone else has to do it. Gowdy noted there were witnesses outside the reach of the IG.

Last week, 13 House Republicans, not including Gowdy, penned a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions saying the appointment of another special counsel was of the utmost importance.

As you know, evidence has come to light that raises serious concerns about decisions and activities by leadership at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding how and why the Clinton probe ended and how and why the Trump-Russia probe began, the letter stated, adding important questions regarding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants.

We acknowledge with immense gratitude that nearly every single man and woman in the DOJ and FBI conducts themselves daily with integrity, independence, patriotism, objectivity, and commitment to the rule of law, the letter said. That is why this Special Counsel is of the utmost importance to ensure that these historic, legendary and necessary agencies move forward more respected and effective than ever before.

The letter came after Sessions announced Horowitz would investigate allegations of government surveillance abuse, in light of the memos released on Capitol Hill about FBI and DOJ efforts to obtain FISA warrants to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

President Trump blasted Sessions for the move, bringing him back into his political crosshairs, for tapping an Obama guy to investigate allegations of government surveillance abuse.

Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isnt the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not just Justice Department layers? DISGRACEFUL! Trump tweeted last week after Sessions announcement.

TRUMP SLAMS SESSIONS FOR USING 'OBAMA GUY' TO INVESTIGATE 'MASSIVE FISA ABUSE'

In response to Trumps tweet, Sessions said his DOJ had initiated the appropriate process that will ensure complaints against the Department will be fully and fairly acted upon if necessary.

Sessions added in a statement last week, As long as I am the Attorney General, I will continue to discharge my duties with integrity and honor, and this Department will continue to do its work in a fair and impartial manner according to the law and Constitution.

Horowitz was confirmed to his post in 2012 during the Obama administration. But he also served as commissioner on the U.S. Sentencing Commission during the George W. Bush administration.

Horowitz is also investigating former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and whether he wanted to avoid taking action on new Clinton emails found on disgraced New York Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiners laptop, reports said. According to records, McCabe knew about the new emails at the end of September 2016, but chose not to brief former Director James Comey until Oct. 26, 2016  prompting the re-opening of the Clinton email investigation just one week before the presidential election.

We have called for a second special counsel  even though I dont like special counsels  I see no other way to get answers to those key questions, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said on Fox News' Your World on Monday. I dont like them but I dont see any other remedy.

Jordan said that the FBI cant investigate themselves, and suggested appointing some retired federal judge to the potential post.

Dont pick someone from the swamp, Jordan said. Let that individual put out a team and get answers to these questions that we all want to know [the answers to].

Sessions has been heading calls for a second special counsel since last summer. Only in November 2017 did he seem to consider the option, when he directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate certain issues related to the Clinton Foundation and the sale of Uranium One.

These senior prosecutors will report directly to the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General [Rod Rosenstein], as appropriate, and will make recommendations as to whether any matters not currently under investigation should be opened, whether any matters currently under investigation require further resources, or whether any matters merit the appointment of a special counsel, Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd wrote in a letter obtained by Fox News.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., who signed on to the letter for a second special counsel last week, blasted Sessions for not taking action.

On Outnumbered Overtime Monday, Gaetz said: If Jeff Sessions doesnt want to do the job of attorney general, he should step aside and we should get someone who wants to do that job.

Fox News' Judson Berger and Alex Pappas contributed to this report.Luigi Di Maio announced triumphantly on Monday that the Citizens Republic starts right now.

The only thing ishe is not Prime Minister. He came out No. 1 in Sundays election, but Italys vote has resulted in a hung Parliament. Di Maios Five Star Movement got 32 percent of the vote. But that is not enough to form a government.

You need 40 percent. The center-right coalition that revolved around comeback elder Silvio Berlusconi was thrown a curveball. That coalition of parties got 37 percent of votes. Not enough to govern, either, but more when put all together than Five Star took by itself. But unexpectedly, upstart far-right leader Matteo Salvini and his party got more votes than Berlusconis did. Berlusconi, though prevented by a tax-fraud conviction from holding political office, had been expected to be the kingmaker of a center-right coalition that in some polls was favored to run the country next.

That wont happen now.

As Alberto Castelvecchi of LUISS University in Rome put it: Berlusconis comeback was very strong in the media, in the TV, in the magazines, in the newspapers, but not so strong to beat the younger and much more vocal Matteo Salvini.

Salvini campaigned on Italy First, is eurosceptic and unabashedly anti-migration. The other day he said: We are under attackour culture, society, traditions and way of life are at risk.

Former Chief White House Strategist Steve Bannon was in Rome over the weekend drinking in the populist fervor.

I think if they create a coalition among the populists, it would be fantastic, he told a local newspaper, It would terrify Brussels, pierce it in its heart.

But such a dream team probably wont become a reality. Salvini said his League party wont join forces with the other populist powerhouse, Five Star. But still, he believes Brussels is on edge.

I was reading that in Brussels there are some who are worried. They are wrong, he said. The European people with the Italian vote have taken a step closer to freedom from the constraints and cages that are bring Europe back to hunger, instability, and insecurity.

The incumbent Democrats took just 18 percent of votes. They didnt rate on the big issues of migration and economy even though Italy has returned to growth under their stewardship, and they have cracked down on illegal migration.

There is a strong anti-establishment mood in Italy right now and the old traditional parties of Berlusconi and the Democrats apparently did not excite or inspire trust in voters.

And in terms of Russian interferencethe jury is out on that loaded topic. But one common line of argument in Italy is that the Russians wouldnt have needed to do a thing. Five Star was on its own web-based fast track trajectory. And Salvini is friends with President Vladimir Putin, never hiding his support for the Russian strongman.

Berlusconi and Putin have always gotten along. Finally, Italy is not giving Russia much trouble. It is one of the most pro-Russian countries in Europe when it comes to desire to do business with Moscow.

Now, the horse-trading begins. Someone is going to have to form a government. And they are going to need to convince Italys President Sergio Mattarella that they have what it takes to cobble together a grouping that can easily win majorities in Parliament.Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg vowed Monday to refuse a subpoena from Special Counsel Robert Muellers team to appear before a grand jury this week as part of the Russia probe, defiantly claiming: Let him arrest me.

Mr. Mueller should understand I am not going in on Friday, Nunberg told the Washington Post.

Nunberg told the outlet on Monday that Muellers team requested records from him of conversations he had with outgoing White House communications director Hope Hicks, former White House strategist Steve Bannon, Trump attorney Michael Cohen, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and adviser Roger Stone. All worked with Nunberg on the campaign.

TRUMP ACCUSES DOJ UNDER OBAMA OF LAUNCHING PROBE TO 'DISCREDIT' HIM

Im not spending 80 hours going over my emails with Roger Stone and Steve Bannon and producing them, Nunberg said. Donald Trump won this election on his own. He campaigned his ass off. And there is nobody who hates him more than me.

A source close to the Trump campaign told Fox News that Nunberg was fired twice for good reason and known to be erratic, referring to his media appearances Monday.

Nunberg has had a long and colorful history with Trump. He was one of Trumps earliest political advisers, helping him connect with conservative audiences ahead of his 2016 presidential run.

Nunberg, though, was fired in 2014 after an unflattering piece about Trump ran in BuzzFeed. A communications aide who helped arrange the interview with BuzzFeed to take place, Nunberg was blamed by Trump for the bad press.

Nunberg was rehired for the campaign, but was fired again by Trump in 2015, after past racially-charged Facebook posts surfaced.

Later during the campaign, Trump sued Nunberg for $10 million, accusing him of breaching a confidentiality agreement. The lawsuit was settled later on.

Nunberg was featured in the recent Michael Wolff book Fire and Fury and recently sat for a voluntary interview with Mueller.

I was briefly part of the Trump campaign and have been the President's friend and adviser for decades; and would expect that Mueller's team would at some point ask for any documents or emails sent or written by me. But let me reiterate, I have no knowledge or involvement in Russian Collusion or any other inappropriate act, Stone told Fox News.

Fox News' Serafin Gomez and Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted one another warmly Monday at the White House, touting U.S.-Israeli relations as the best they have ever been, in a sharp departure from the famously strained relations the Jewish States leader had with former President Barack Obama.

Trump hosted Netanyahu in the Oval Office in what was their first meeting since the U.S. announced its commitment to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

We have the best relationship right now with Israel that weve ever had."  President Trump

We have the best relationship right now with Israel that weve ever had, Trump said.

During President Obama's two terms, he and Netanyahu had a tense relationship characterized by stiff body language and terse remarks when they met before the press. Obama's White House even sent out a press photo of the then-commander-in-chief on the Oval Office phone with Netanyahu in September, 2013, with his feet on the desk in what some saw as an intentional show of disrespect.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz fumed over the image.

The president is seen with his legs up on the table, his face stern and his fist clenched, as though he were dictating to Netanyahu, Ha'aretz wrote. As an enthusiast of Muslim culture, Obama surely knows there is no greater insult in the Middle East than pointing the soles of ones shoes at another person. Indeed, photos of other presidential phone calls depict Obama leaning on his desk, with his feet on the floor.

Trump and Netanyahus friendship is a major shift from the chilly relations between the Israeli prime minister and Obama  who was even accused of helping to fund opposition to oust Netanyahu during his re-election bid in 2015.

The relationship was further strained during the Obama administrations decision to move forward with the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu and Obama also were at odds towards the end of the Obama administrationwhen the U.S. allowed for the passage of a resolution condemning Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank.

On Monday, Trump noted his intent to attend the opening of the embassy at the newly-recognized capital in mid-May. Israel is very special to mespecial country, special people, and I look forward to being there.

What better to make peace between Israel and the Palestinians, Trump said, noting the embassy move gives a real opportunity for peace. Well see how it works out. The Palestinians are wanting to come back to the table. Very badly.

Trump added: If they dont, you dont have peace. And thats a possibility also.

Netanyahu praised Trump's leadership and friendship, noting that under your leadership, [U.S.-Israeli relations] have never been stronger.

Neither addressed the swirling corruption scandal engulfing Netanyahu's administration, or the ongoing Russia probe that has hindered Trump's time in the White House.

President Trump underscored his goal of countering Iran's malign influence. The President also emphasized his commitment to achieving a lasting peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, the White House said.Republican congressional candidate Rick Saccone conceded the special election to Democrat Conor Lamb more than a week after the close election ended.

Lamb, who had already declared victory in the race, revealed Saccones call in a tweet on March 21. Lamb offered congratulations to his opponent for a close, hard-fought race and said he wished him the best.

Lamb won the seat by a margin of about 750 votes. Republicans considered seeking a recount request or a lawsuit to contest the result, even as vote-counting over the past week continued to pad Lamb's lead. But officials said those efforts have been dropped since Saccone conceded.

Ahead of the election, Democrats had hoped to stir up enough enthusiasm  especially among union members  to increase voter turnout and change the party representing a district that has recently been red.

The one fact that has remained the same this year  whether Democrats have won or lost [recent special elections]  is Democrats are doing better in terms of turnout and enthusiasm, Kevan Yenerall, a social sciences professor at Clarion University, told Fox News before the election.

The congressional seat opened after Republican Rep. Tim Murphy, who in public was staunchly anti-abortion, resigned in 2017 amid reports that he asked his mistress to get an abortion when he believed she was pregnant.

Here's a look at the candidates and what is unique about Pennsylvania's 18th district.

Conor Lamb

A Marine Corps captain, Conor Lamb, 33, said on his campaign website the biggest issues facing the 18th congressional district arent partisan.

My only bias is the one they taught us in the Marines: a bias for action, Lamb said on his website.

His congressional to-do list includes: battling the nations heroin epidemic, modern energy development and creating jobs.

In Pennsylvania, Lamb already worked towards ending the growing heroin crisis; as an assistant U.S. attorney, Lamb worked to make the Justice Departments Pittsburgh office a national leader in the fight, according to his campaign website.

Lamb has advocated for new leadership in the House and said he would not vote for Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as Minority Leader again  a politically astute move that could garner him the support of more moderate or independent voters, said Yenerall.

Most Democrats in the district may not dislike Pelosi, per se, but would like to shake up the status quo, Yenerall explained.

He added that Lambs background as a veteran and U.S. attorney as well as his temperament does fit the district more so than other Democrats have.

Lamb spoke out about gun control in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., high school massacre. He said he doesnt believe additional gun laws are needed to prevent mass shootings.

"The broad agreement already is that we're not doing a good enough job keeping guns out of the hands of people with mental health conditions and with criminals," Lamb said at a campaign event.

He told the Weekly Standard he would not have voted for legislation that would have prohibited abortions after 20 weeks, adding that he doesnt label himself as pro-life because its a political term.

Former Vice President Joe Biden campaigned for Lamb a week ahead of the election, comparing the candidate to his late son Beau and praising him for his dedication to unions.

Lamb will never ever stop, will never ever play a game, Biden said, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Thats this guy. This guy gets it.

Rick Saccone

A longtime state representative, Rick Saccone, 60, is a conservative Republican who more embodies the policies of President Trump.

Saccone is more known for his religious conservatism as opposed to Murphy, who is a more mainstream Republican, Robert Speel, an associate professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University in Erie, told Fox News.

He was one of the lawmakers who championed Pennsylvanias Castle Doctrine, or stand your ground law, which allows law-abiding people to protect themselves, their families and others from intruders and attackers without fear of prosecution or civil action for acting in defense of themselves and others.

Saccone also sponsored a bill that would require public school buildings to bear the motto In God We Trust. Additionally, he pushed for a National Fast Day in the state to mirror President Lincolns proclamation of a national day of humiliation, fasting and prayer.

PARTY LEADERS SENDING BIG MONEY, TOP STARS TO RIGHT PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE RACE

Saccone is a retired Air Force officer with vast experience in counter-terrorism efforts, including working on task forces for two Olympic Games, according to his campaign website.

Ive got a resume that my opponent doesnt have, Saccone told Fox News.

Trump often tweeted his support of Saccone, including ahead of a January visit to the Keystone state.

Rick is a great guy. We need more Republicans to continue our already successful agenda, the president said.

Trump again traveled to western Pennsylvania the weekend before the election, urging voters to elect Saccone to advance the White House agenda.

We need our Congressman Saccone, Trump said.

Aside from Trump, Saccone also received support from Vice President Mike Pence and Ivanka, the president's daughter and adviser.

But not all Republicans were happy with Saccone, Politico reported just before the election. Strategists and national GOP officials described Saccone to the publication as deeply underwhelming as a candidate and complained about his fundraising ability. Saccone told Fox News the reported friction was nonsense peddled by his opponents.

Saccone is married with two sons. He studied in Africa, visited 75 countries, authored multiple books on North Korea and earned a Ph.D. in international affairs.

The district

Pennsylvanias 18th congressional district is located in the western part of the state near Pittsburgh. It includes parts of Allegheny, Greene, Washington and Westmoreland Counties and is made up of many rural, blue-collar voters.

There are actually more registered Democrats than Republicans in the district  a result of strong organized labor in the area.

Union workers are a key demographic for the special election, although Trump made inroads with the more than 80,000 members in the district with his candidacy, Yenerall said.

But Saccones anti-union voting record in the state legislature ultimately hurt him.

Due to redistricting in the state, both Lamb and Saccone are expected to run again later this year  in what will now be separate districts.

What shaped the election

Bellwether election: Pennsylvanias 18th district overwhelmingly voted for Trump over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. The election shaped up as the next test of Democrats enthusiasm and GOP resilience in the Trump era and an early indicator of whether a midterm wave could be coming later this year.

Political activists are certainly looking at this race as an indicator of Pennsylvania and national trends, Speel said.

Lambs win could spell major trouble for Republicans in similar districts across the country, Yenerall said ahead of the election.

Both parties have a great deal at stake here. If a Democrat can win this type of district with the right type of candidate  it would mean the Democrats would do better than expected in the midterms," he had predicted.

Spending: This race was expensive. Lamb raised more than $3.3 million this year, compared to just $703,000 for Saccone, according to FEC records.

Ending Spending Inc., a super PAC founded by billionaire Joe Ricketts, was the first to hit the airwaves with a $1 million ad buy in support of Saccone.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, announced earlier this year that it would open two field offices in the district with 50 full-time canvassers.

In Lambs first television spot, he noted that he has refused corporate PAC money.

Tim Murphy fallout: The reasoning behind Murphys decision to leave office could have an effect on voters, some politicos in the state warned ahead of election night.

Itll be interesting to see if voters turn against the Republican Party, seeing them as hypocritical, Speel said.

Lamb has already painted Republicans as the party of hypocrisy. When he was selected as the Democrats nominee, Lamb said he planned to expose Republicans public hypocrisy fully equal to the private hypocrisy of Tim Murphy, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in November.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A new bill aims to charge Rhode Island residents a one-off $20 fee to access sexually explicit content online and impose stringent rules on Internet providers that do not comply with the law.

Two state Democrats, Sen. Frank Ciccone and Sen. Hanna Gallo introduced a bill on Thursday that would mandate Internet providers to block sexual content and patently offensive material, The Providence Journal reported.

Consumers will be able to lift the block but only if they pay a fee of $20.

The fees would be collected by the state government and go to the states treasurer and fund the operations of the Council on Human Trafficking.

Some people expressed opposition to the bill, criticizing the lawmakers for conflating sex work with human trafficking.

Want to propose action adverse to #sexwork or #sexworkers? Conflate human trafficking into discussion, wrote on Twitter user.

Sex work is not trafficking. I produce my content, I book my sessions, I make money from my sexwork. Nobody is forcing me into this, I enjoy this line of work, tweeted another woman who claims to be a sex worker.

Under the new measure, if it passes the General Assembly, Internet providers would also face consequences if they do not comply with the law, according to the bills text.

The bill asks the providers to establish a reporting mechanism, such as a website or call center, to allow a consumer to report unblocked sexual content or potentially offensive material or report blocked material that is not sexual content or potentially offensive.

The text of the initiative does not specify what constitutes offensive material online.

But the companies could face monetary damages if they do not create effective reporting systems, allowing consumers and the states attorney general to sue for leaving offensive and sexually explicit content accessible with a block.

For every piece of content reported  but still accessible to the consumers  the attorney general or a consumer may file a civil suit against a provider and seek damages up to $500. The winning party may also ask the losing party to cover the legal fees.Former Trump aide Sam Nunberg said he would not comply with Special Counsel Robert Muellers investigation into Russian meddling, and he wants the public to know it.

He told The Washington Post on Monday that he would ignore a subpoena calling him to testify before a federal grand jury Friday regarding Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and potential collusion with President Trump or his associates.

Let him arrest me, Nunberg told the newspaper, adding that he plans to physically tear up the documents live on Bloomberg TV. Mr. Mueller should understand I am not going in on Friday.

Nunberg forwarded an email to The Washington Post that appeared to be from Mueller's team requesting records of any kind between himself and Trump, as well as a handful of former White House staffers, including his personal friend and former Trump adviser Roger Stone.

Im not spending 80 hours going over my emails with Roger Stone and Stephen K. Bannon and producing them, Nunberg told the newspaper. Donald Trump won this election on his own. He campaigned his ass off. And there is nobody who hates him more than me.

Preet Bharara, a former U.S. attorney fired by Trump, said he predicts Mueller's team already has all the emails they need from Nunberg.

Even if you have someone's emails from other parties to them or from the service provider, you ask for them anyway, Bharara tweeted Monday afternoon. Among other things you learn a lot when people selectively disclose.

It's unclear what would happen if Nunberg doesn't comply with Mueller's request, but the former Trump employee doesn't seem too concerned with any repercussions.

Here's are some things you should know about Nunberg, and his colorful history with Trump.

He was fired from Trumps campaign (twice)

Nunberg was fired in 2014 after an unflattering piece about Trump ran in BuzzFeed. Nunberg was blamed by Trump for the bad press.

Nunberg was rehired for the campaign, but was fired again by Trump in August 2015, after past racially-charged Facebook posts dating back to 2007 were discovered.

According to The New York Times, Nunberg degraded Rev. Al Sharptons daughter and former President Obama with racial slurs on the social media site. He denied writing the posts, The Times reported.

Trump sued Nunberg

Trump sued his former aide in July 2016 alleging that he violated a confidentiality agreement, according to The Hill. Trump sought $10 million in damages.

The dispute was settled about a month later, and Nunbergs attorney told Reuters that it was resolved amicably.

He admitted to making up a story about Chris Christie

Nunberg admitted to making up a story about then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fetching McDonalds for Trump.

A 2016 New Yorker piece by Ryan Lizza said Christie, a Republican, had transformed himself into a sort of manservant.

One Republican told me that a friend of his on the Trump campaign used Snapchat to send him a video of Christie fetching Trumps McDonalds order, the piece said.

Nunberg told Politico he made up the story in order to embarrass Christie. However, Lizza denied Nunberg was the source for his article.

He called Trump an "idiot"

Nunberg sat down for an interview with Michael Wolff for his book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, an expose Trump has called a work of fiction.

Ran for president one time and won. And then I hear this guy who doesn't know me at all, didn't interview me for three hours, his imagination, Trump told reporters at Camp David on Jan. 4, a day after the book was officially released, adding that Wolff's purported hours-long interviews with him never took place.

Unlike Trump, Nunberg did not deny quotes in Wolff's book, though he did say at least one may have been taken out of context.

Leaked passages revealed Nunberg reportedly called Trump an idiot during a conversation with then-chief strategist Steve Bannon.

If you can get this idiot elected twice... you would achieve something like immortality in politics, Wolff attributed the quote to Nunberg, who was referring to Trump.

Nunberg said the comment was meant to be sarcastic.

Im from New York and Im very sarcastic, he told ABC News in January. I certainly probably said that but hes by no means an idiot, at all.

He continued, Im sure hes used very colorful words about me in the past.



Fox News' Jennifer Earl and Alex Pappas contributed to this report.President Trump signaled Monday that the only way he wont slap new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports is if a new and fair North American Free Trade Agreement is signed.

Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed, Trump tweeted.

Said Trump: We have large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada. NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs.

Trump announced Thursday he plans to institute tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum this week, arguing it will level the playing field for American companies and help them expand after plant closings in recent years. The president said he decided on tariffs of 25 percent for steel and 10 percent for aluminum.

AS TARIFF BATTLE HEATS UP, TRUMP SAYS US STEEL, ALUMINUM INDUSTRIES 'DEAD'

Amid criticism from usual Republican allies, Trump has also rebuffed U.S. allies who have pushed to be exempted from the stiff duties. While his rhetoric has been focused on China, the duties will also cover significant imports from Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Japan and the European Union.

The stock market dipped 600 points in the hours following Trumps announcement, and businesses -- including auto and boat manufacturers, the beer industry and machinery companies -- were quick to denounce the move.

Business Roundtable strongly disagrees with todays announcement because it will hurt the U.S. economy and American companies, workers and consumers by raising prices and resulting in foreign retaliation against U.S. exporters," Joshua Bolten, president of the influential Business Roundtable, said in a statement.

Also, Canada must treat our farmers much better, Trump tweeted Monday. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying.

Trumps protectionist policy will be made official in the next two weeks, White House officials said Sunday, as the administration defended the decision from critics in Washington and overseas.

Trump appeared unbowed Sunday, as he tweeted that American "Steel and Aluminum industries are dead. Sorry, it's time for a change!"

During the presidential campaign, Trump promised to renegotiate NAFTA with Canada and Mexico, saying it has killed jobs in the United States.

Representatives from the United States, Canada and Mexico are meeting Monday for more NAFTA negotiations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.President Trump on Monday accused the Department of Justice and FBI under former President Barack Obama of launching an investigation into his campaign in an effort to discredit him and help Democrat Hillary Clinton win the presidency, calling those efforts unprecedented and bigger than Watergate.

Why did the Obama Administration start an investigation into the Trump Campaign (with zero proof of wrongdoing) long before the Election in November? Trump asked. Wanted to discredit so Crooked H would win.

Trump tweeted: Unprecedented. Bigger than Watergate! Plus, Obama did NOTHING about Russian meddling.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating ties between the Trump campaign and the Russians during the 2016 election. Trump has repeatedly said there is no collusion and has accused top officials at the Justice Department of being politically biased against him.

Its since been revealed that during the campaign, the FBI began probing Trump campaign aides, including Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.

According to the recently released memo from House Intelligence Committee Republicans, the Justice Department and the FBI sought and received a probable cause order authorizing electronic surveillance of Page, a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser.

The memo asserts the infamous, anti-Trump dossier was critical in obtaining the Page warrant.

The FBI also began investigating Trump campaign adviser Papadopoulos relationships with Russians in 2016. Papadopoulos in October pleaded guilty to making false statements to FBI agents about his contacts with people close to the Russian government, but has not been charged with anything else.

The court filings say the 30-year-old Papadopoulos was not truthful during a FBI interview just days after the presidents inauguration in January 2017 about his relationship with an overseas professor who had substantial connections to Russian government officials.

The professor, according to prosecutors, told Papadopoulos the Russians had dirt on Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails.

TRUMP QUESTIONS WHY SESSIONS ISNT PROBING DEM CRIMES AMID RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

Frustrated over the investigation, the president also been dinging his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, recently asking on Twitter why the Democrats in the Obama administration arent being investigated as part of the probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Question: If all of the Russian meddling took place during the Obama Administration, right up to January 20th, why arent they the subject of the investigation? Trump tweeted.

Trump added: Why didnt Obama do something about the meddling? Why arent Dem crimes under investigation? Ask Jeff Sessions!President Trump said Democrats are "nowhere to be found" on Monday--the deadline he imposed on Congress to propose a permanent fix to the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that shields hundreds of thousands of undocumented "dreamers" from deportation.

Its March 5th and Democrats are nowhere to be found on DACA, Trump tweeted Monday afternoon. Gave them 6 months, they just dont care. Where are they? We are ready to make a deal!

Trump announced in September 2017 that he would end DACA by March 5Mondayarguing Congress must craft legislation for a more permanent, legally-sound program than former President Barack Obamas executive order.

DACA protects from deportation an estimated 700,000 illegal immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as minors by their parents.

Despite Trumps imposed deadline, court orders have postponed the end of the program, and have left Congress lacking a sense of urgency to come up with a solution.

TRUMP'S DACA DEADLINE PASSES UNDER LEGAL CLOUD, WITH URGENCY DWINDLING IN CONGRESS

A nationwide injunction in January by a federal judge in San Francisco requires the Trump administration to resume renewing the legal status of the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants protected under DACA. The order, though, does not apply to first-time DACA applicants, and DACA recipients whose applications are pending remain at risk until their petitions are granted.

The White House and Republican lawmakers have attempted to push through proposals, often including billions in funding for Trumps campaign promise of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Congressional Democrats have blocked the proposals, and even forced a three-day government shutdown over DACA in January.

Another shutdown looms, though, with March 23 being the deadline for Congress to pass another spending bill.

Currently, the House Republican leadership is backing a bill by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., which appears to meet the presidents standards. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has said he will consider all proposals, but wont hold a vote on an immigration reform bill that the president could reject.

Earlier this year, Trump released his four pillars of immigration reform, which included a provision for legal status for DACA recipients and others who would be eligible for DACA status. The White House estimated the total to be 1.8 million people. The Senate, though, rejected the plan, as it included $25 billion in funding for the wall.

Fox News' Joseph Weber contributed to this report.Court orders have postponed President Trumps Monday deadline to end an Obama-era program that protects an estimated 700,000 illegal immigrants, leaving Congress with less sense of urgency to find a permanent solution to keep these immigrants legally employed and protected from deportation.

Trump announced this past fall that he would end the roughly six-year-old Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program by March 5, arguing Congress must provide the U.S. with a more permanent, legally-sound program than an Obama-era executive order.

However, a nationwide injunction in January by a federal judge in San Francisco requires the Trump administration to resume renewing the legal status of the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants -- brought to the U.S. by their parents and protected under DACA.

But the order does not apply to first-time applicants. And Congress has had roughly five months to find a solution -- amid vows by Democratic and Republican leaders that protecting so-called Dreamers is a top priority.

Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, a member of the GOP House leadership team, said last week that members continue to move forward on a comprehensive immigration plan that would address DACA and the presidents other priorities of building a U.S.-Mexico border wall, ending so-called chain migration and changing a federal immigration program from a lottery to a merit-based system.

We are continuing to fix the DACA problem that was left on our doorstep when Barack Obama created a program that had no resolution, said Scalise, the House majority whip. Now is the time to solve that problem. And were working to get that consensus.

The House Republican leadership is behind a bill by Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte, chairman of the chambers judiciary committee, that has support from the Houses conservative wing and that appears to meet Trumps approval. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has said hes open to all proposals but wont hold a vote on an immigration reform bill that the president would reject.

The House is continuing to pursue support for the Goodlatte bill. That's the focus now, a spokeswoman for Ryan told Fox News.

Capitol Hill Democrats have made several bold but ultimately unsuccessful efforts in recent weeks to force the Republican-controlled Congress to address the DACA-dreamer issue -- in a congressional election year when winning the Latino vote will be critical in Democrats efforts to retake the House.

Senate Democrats in January forced a three-day government shutdown over the issue -- refusing to pass a temporary spending bill because Congress had failed to act on immigration. However, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was slammed by his liberal base for ultimately providing the votes in exchange for a vow by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to allow an open process on immigration reform.

In January, Trump proposed a path to citizenship for 1.8 million young immigrants as part of an immigration package that included $25 billion for a wall and other border enforcement measures and sharp cuts to legal immigration. The Senate rejected it and considered a more narrow plan of essentially border security and a DACA fix.

Still, Republican leaders of the chamber have set wrestling with a handful of nominations and a banking reform package as a priority this week.

Meanwhile, the Houses legislative agenda for this week, put out Monday by the office of California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the chambers No. 2 Republican, includes no official efforts on immigration reform.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has also made a grand play, talking last month on the chamber floor for eight straight hours, in an attempt to get Ryan to give her the same offer McConnell gave Schumer.

However, another shutdown looms on March 23, the deadline for Congress to pass another spending bill to keep the government running.

Rallies are being held across the country Monday, including one on Capitol Hill, to call attentions to Dreamers concerns.

Im here to represent all of the dreamers -- my family, my friends, everybody who needs support right now, said 16-year-old Blanca Collazo, who came to Capitol Hill with dozens of others from Arizona to draw attention to the issue. I want to create a sense of urgency.

I want Congress to see how many people support  a Dream Act, she told Fox News.

The ACLU said Sunday that it launched "multiple six-figure advertising buys" with United We Dream and MoveOn.org, focusing on Trump.

Though the courts have removed much of the urgency, DACA recipients whose applications are pending are at risk until their petitions are granted.

Former Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, now Trump's chief of staff, last year scrapped the Obama administration's policy of limiting deportations to people who pose a public safety threat, convicted criminals and those who have crossed the border recently, effectively making anyone in the country illegally vulnerable. Deportation arrests have increased by more than 40 percent under Trump.

There were nearly 14,000 people with expired permits who applied for renewals but hadn't received them at the end of January. There were also nearly 22,000 whose initial applications had yet to be decided.

Donald Trumps decision to end DACA created an unnecessary crisis that has left hundreds of thousands of Dreamers uncertain about their future," Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said Monday. "And now his arbitrary deadline has passed without any action from the president or Republicans in Congress."

Fox News Peter Doocy, Chad Pergram and The Associated Press contributed to this report.The Trump administration announced last year its plan to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (DACA)  which provides a level of amnesty to certain undocumented immigrants, many of whom came to the U.S. as children  with a six-month delay for recipients. But a federal appeals court ruled against the proposal in early November, declaring the government couldn't immediately end the program.

The Executive wields awesome power in the enforcement of our nations immigration laws, the ruling said. Our decision today does not curb that power, but rather enables its exercise in a manner that is free from legal misconceptions and is democratically accountable to the public.

Trump had initially set a March 5 deadline for the program and called on Congress to pass legislation pertaining to the young immigrants. But the deadline came and went, with no congressional action but several lawsuits challenging the administration's decision to end the program.

FEDERAL APPEALS COURT RULES AGAINST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ON DACA

Federal judges in New York and Washington also have ruled against President Trump on DACA.

President Trump has repeatedly blamed Democrats for inaction.

Heres a look at the DACA program and why the Trump administration wants to dismantle it.

What is the DACA program?

The DACA program was formed through executive action by former President Barack Obama in 2012 and allowed certain people who came to the U.S. illegally as minors to be protected from immediate deportation. Recipients, called Dreamers, were able to request consideration of deferred action for a period of two years, which was subject to renewal.

Deferred action is a use of prosecutorial discretion to defer removal action against an individual for a certain period of time, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services stated. Deferred action does not provide lawful status.

Individuals were able to request DACA status if they were under the age of 31 on June 15, 2012, came to the U.S. before turning 16 and continuously lived in the country since June 15, 2007.

Individuals also had to have a high school diploma, GED certification, been honorably discharged from the military or still be in school. Recipients could not have a criminal record.

It did not provide legal status.

How many people are affected by DACA?

Nearly 800,000 youth, called Dreamers, are under the program's umbrella.

Daniel Garza, president of the conservative immigration nonprofit Libre Initiative, told Fox News that DACA offers a reprieve from a life of uncertainty for innocent kids who didnt break the law.

Its rather disappointing to think they could return to a state of anxiety and fear, he said.

What did the Trump administration do?

The Trump administration announced in September 2017 that it planned to phase out DACA for current recipients, and no new requests would be granted. But a lower court order required the administration to continue accepting renewal applications for those under the DACA program, and the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's request to intervene.

Since the announcement, Trump had offered to work with lawmakers on a solution for the hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. who fell under DACAs umbrella of protections. But at the same time, he has repeatedly blamed Democrats on social media for lack of a solution.

Earlier this year, Trump released his four pillars of immigration reform, which included a provision for legal status for DACA recipients and others who would be eligible for DACA status. The White House estimated that total to be 1.8 million people. The Senate rejected the plan.

Republicans  and some Democrats  opposed Obamas directive establishing DACA from the start as a perceived overreach of executive power.

Obama spoke out on social media after the Trump administration announced a plan to dismantle the program, stating that it's "self-defeating ... and it is cruel" to end DACA and questioned the motive behind the decision.

Do any DACA recipients serve in the military?

Despite some rumors circulating online to the contrary, Dreamers were eligible to serve in the U.S. military since 2014 when the Pentagon adopted a policy to allow a certain amount of illegal immigrants to join.

In fiscal year 2016, 359 DACA recipients had enlisted in the Army  which is the only branch to accept immigrants of this category.

Fox News' John Roberts and The Associated Press contributed to this report.Nearly a decade after retiring from Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, Christopher Steele stepped into the world of politics  and what an entrance he made.

The ex-spy, who spent two decades working as an agent in various countries overseas, is now best known in the U.S. for compiling a dossier on President Trump.

Here's what you need to know about Steele, the infamous Trump dossier and a recently released GOP memo that mentions Steele several times by name.

Who is Christopher Steele?

Christopher Steele served as an intelligence officer with MI6, Britains equivalent to the CIA, for more than two decades. He joined as soon as he graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1986.

He had a variety of roles within M16. He worked as a field agent and the head of M16s Russia desk in Moscow in the early '90s, spent four years in Paris and transitioned to adviser to the British Special Forces on capture-or-kill ops in Afghanistan," Variety reported.

After his retirement from M16 in 2009, Steele moved to Farnham, England, and co-founded Orbis Business Intelligence, a London-based corporate intelligence consultancy, with other retired colleagues. According to a profile of Steele in The New Yorker, the company "grossed approximately $20 million in its first nine years."

"The team...draws on extensive experience at boardroom level in government, multilateral diplomacy and international business to develop bespoke solutions for clients," according to a description on the company's website.

He has not been back to Russia  or any other Soviet States  since his retirement, The New Yorker reports.

Steele may have had an extensive career, but these days, the former spy is best known for compiling a dossier on Trump for private Washington research firm, Fusion GPS.

What is his connection to Fusion GPS?

Fusion GPS was hired in 2015 by an anti-Trump Republican donor to research then-presidential hopeful Donald Trump.

But as Trump continued to climb the political ladder, winning the Republican nomination, the donor told the firm to drop the project, according to a report from The New York Times.

A year later, in the spring of 2016, Fusion GPS convinced Democrats to invest in the project. Fox News learned in the fall of 2017 that the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee (DNC) paid for Steele's research through the law firm Perkins Coie.

Fusion GPS hired Steele to investigate allegations that Trump had ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign. Steele drafted a memo, now known as the infamous Trump dossier, that was published by BuzzFeed News in January 2017, and quickly made its way into the hands of FBI officials.

Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson told the House Intelligence Committee in a private interview in November that his firm asked Steele "to figure out what Trump's been up to" in Russia "because he's gone over a bunch of times" and "said some weird things about [Russian President Vladimir] Putin."

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., strongly implied to Fox News on Feb. 6 that Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime associate of the Clintons, leaked information to Steele that helped create the controversial dossier.

"When you hear who...one of the sources of that information is, you're going to think, 'Oh my gosh, I've heard that name somewhere before,'" Gowdy said in an interview with Fox News' "The Story."

When asked if he was referring to Blumenthal, Gowdy answered, "That'd be really warm. You're warm, yeah."

What did we learn about Steele in memos released by the House Intelligence Committee?

A memo released by the House Intelligence Committee on Feb. 2 says the dossier "formed an essential part" of applications by the FBI and DOJ to spy on onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The memo claims then-FBI director Andrew McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISA court without the Steele dossier information.

On Oct. 30, 2016, Steele was cut off as a source for the FBI for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations  an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI," the memo states, mentioning an interview with Mother Jones.

"Steele should have been terminated for his previous undisclosed contacts with Yahoo and other outlets in September  before the Page application was submitted to the FISC in October  but Steele improperly concealed from and lied to the FBI about those contacts," the memo states.

But even after his termination from the FBI, Steele remained in close contact with then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, a senior DOJ official. Ohrs wife Nellie began working for Fusion GPS, the firm behind the dossier, as early as May 2016.

"While the FISA application relied on Steele's past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters, it ignored or concealed his anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations."  - FISA memo

According to the memo, Steele told Ohr he was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president.

Steele's conversations revealed "clear evidence of Steele's bias," the memo says, but they were not disclosed in any of the Page FISA applications.

"While the FISA application relied on Steele's past record of credible reporting on other unrelated matters, it ignored or concealed his anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations," the memo continues.

The House Intelligence Committee later released the Democrats' 10-page rebuttal memo  with heavy redactions  that outlined alleged government surveillance abuses during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The memo redacts information related to compensation that the FBI considered giving to Steele. And outlines additional information obtained through multiple independent sources" that corroborated Steeles reporting. It then provides three bullet-pointed paragraphs, almost all of which are redacted.

The application to warrant Carter Page was not based on the Steele dossier, Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes, the second-ranking Democrat on the committee, told Fox News Sunday. The dossier was just a small part of the application.

Himes also argued that Steele was unaware of who was paying for the opposition research he was compiling.

Fox News' Adam Shaw, Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.According to new research, global sea level isn't rising steadily  it's getting faster every year.

The findings, which came from an analysis of 25 years' worth of satellite data, are bad news for all low-lying regions threatened by the encroaching ocean: It may rise twice as high by 2100 as previously estimated.

The study, published on Feb. 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that in the next 80 years, the sea level may rise by up to 26 inches (65 centimeters) as a result of climate change, cutting much larger chunks from the coastal areas than previously estimated. [Which Melting Glacier Threatens Your City the Most? NASA Tool Can Tell You]

"This is almost certainly a conservative estimate," said Steve Nerem, a professor of Aerospace Engineering Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, who led the NASA Sea Level Change team that conducted the study.

"Our extrapolation assumes that sea level continues to change in the future as it has over the last 25 years," Nerem said in a statement. "Given the large changes we are seeing in the ice sheets today, that's not likely."

The study incorporates data from the Topex/Poseidon and Jason-1, Jason-2 and Jason-3 satellite missions, managed jointly by NASA, the French space agency CNES, the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The researchers' analysis revealed that while in the 1990s, the sea level was rising by approximately 0.1 inch (2.5 millimeters) per year, today it rises by 0.13 inches (3.4mm) per year.

"The Topex/Poseidon/Jason altimetry missions have been essentially providing the equivalent of a global network of nearly half a million accurate tide gauges, providing sea surface height information every 10 days for over 25 years," said paper co-author Brian Beckley, a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said in the statement.

According to the researchers, the sea level rise is caused by two phenomena  the thermal expansion of water and the melting of glaciers, including glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica.

The thermal expansion is a natural result of the massive body of water that is the global ocean being exposed to increasing ambient temperatures. The study found that thermal expansion alone had driven the sea level up by 2.8 inches (7cm) over the past 25 years.

The main contributor to the accelerating pace, however, is the fast melting of the Greenland and Antarctic glaciers, the study concluded.

"As this climate data record approaches three decades, the fingerprints of Greenland and Antarctic land-based ice loss are now being revealed in the global and regional mean sea level estimates," Beckley said.

The researchers said that the speed of the acceleration is not consistent and can be affected by geological events such as volcanic eruptions or by climate patterns such as El Nino and La Nina.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.Jeff Bezos is slowly but surely pushing Amazon into an ever-more diverse range of business sectors. The latest of those being through the acquisition of Whole Foods. But it seems the next target isn't about selling goods, it's about handling the money customers use to pay for things.

As The Wall Street Journal reports, Amazon is thought to be in talks with a number of the large banks, including JPMorgan Chase, regarding offering Amazon-branded checking accounts. The focus is apparently on younger customers; Amazon wants to target them specifically with these accounts. For now, these are early stage talks as Amazon explores what's possible.

Amazon already offers a Prime Rewards Visa card in conjunction with Chase Bank USA. Using one to pay for purchases nets the customer up to 5 percent back in rewards, which can then be used for more purchases on Amazon. The rewards were recently extended to Whole Foods store purchases in a bid to get more Prime customers into the stores.

It's easy to see how a similar rewards scheme could be offered for a checking account, and Amazon would link the best rewards to being a Prime member and spending money in its stores. Targeting young customers increases the chance of loyalty in the long term as not many of us take the time to look for a better bank once we are setup with one. It also means more potential for a steady flow of new, young Prime subscribers.

The WSJ makes it clear Amazon isn't considering becoming a bank itself due to the capital rules and regulations that come with it. This would purely be a partnership, and one just like selecting a new headquarters. Amazon will ultimately choose to partner with a bank that makes it the most enticing offer.

This article originally appeared on PCMag.com.Singapore-based Broadcoms attempt to acquire U.S. chipmaker Qualcomm poses a serious threat to U.S. national security, warn politicians, amid escalating tensions over the controversial takeover bid.

Broadcoms proposed $117 billion deal for Qualcomm is attracting the attention of U.S. lawmakers. San Diego-based Qualcomm makes the Snapdragon chips used in smartphones and tablets.

With concerns about the acquisition attempt mounting, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), has ordered Qualcomm to postpone its annual shareholders meeting and election of directors by 30 days. At the meeting, originally scheduled for Tuesday March 6, Qualcomm shareholders were set to vote on replacing six of the companys 11 directors with Broadcom nominees, The Wall Street Journal reports.

This measure will afford CFIUS the ability to investigate fully Broadcoms proposed acquisition of Qualcomm, explained a Treasury Department spokesperson, in a statement released Sunday.

WHY THE BID TO BUY QUALCOMM POSES A DIRE THREAT TO US NATIONAL SECURITY

CFIUS is an inter-agency organization that weighs the national security impact of foreign transactions on U.S. national security.

In a statement released Monday, Broadcom slammed Qualcomm, which it said had instigated the delay.

Broadcom was informed on Sunday night that on January 29, 2018, Qualcomm secretly filed a voluntary request with CFIUS to initiate an investigation, resulting in a delay of Qualcomm's Annual Meeting 48 hours before it was to take place, it said. This was a blatant, desperate act by Qualcomm to entrench its incumbent board of directors and prevent its own stockholders from voting for Broadcom's independent director nominees.

Qualcomm has not yet responded to a request for comment on this story from Fox News. Broadcom did not respond to request for additional comment from Fox News.

QUALCOMM EYES FUTURE FULL OF CONNECTED CARS AND SMART ROUTERS

Politicians have been voicing their concern about the national security implications of a tie-up between Qualcomm and Broadcom.

Qualcomms acquisition by Broadcom at any price would damage American security and endanger the creative team of San Diegans who have made this company a technology jewel for the U.S, wrote California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter, in an op-ed for the San Diego Tribune that was published March 3.

During World War II, it would have been unthinkable to allow foreign acquisition of Americas steel industry, Hunter, who represents San Diego county, added. In todays precarious security environment, where adversaries like China are actively stealing technology and intellectual property, the high-speed communications industry is equally as important.

California Democratic Rep. Scott Peters, who represents San Diego county as well, also penned an op-ed for the San Diego Tribune, noting that Qualcomms research into next-generation 5G wireless communication is critical to U.S. national security. The technology, he explained, is crucial to the U.S. military, NASA, and the country's energy grid. [Qualcomm's] continued development of 5G wireless, artificial intelligence and other technologies that will underpin nearly every internet-connected device in the country, also makes Qualcomm a target for foreign intelligence agencies, he added

In the column, published March 2, Peters explained that he has asked CFIUS to review the potential transaction.

Broadcom is planning to move its legal headquarters back to the U.S. this year, a process which it expects to complete no later than May 6. Broadcom continues to pursue the redomiciliation process as expeditiously as possible, it explained, in its statement released on Monday. Upon completion of the redomiciliation, Broadcom's proposed acquisition of Qualcomm will not be a CFIUS covered transaction.

The company added that it is "fully committed" to cooperating with CFIUS in any review, as it did during its successful acquisition of Brocade in 2017.

The Associated Press contributed to this article. Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogersThis is a rush transcript from "The Story," March 2, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

MARTHA MACCALLUM, "THE STORY" HOST: Good to see you, Bret. Breaking tonight on "The Story," the Andrew McCabe news that triggered his removal from the FBI and the leaks that have been such a part of this story from the White House, to the FBI, to the DOJ, now coming a bit more into focus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to find the leakers. We're going to find the leakers. They're going to pay a big price for leaking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: Tonight, a scathing new report from the Justice Department points to McCabe as one of those who was willing to share information with the press. McCabe, of course, was often blasted by President Trump because his wife had ties to Hillary Clinton. About $700,000 for her local campaign from Terry McAuliffe. He abruptly resigned back in January as you may remember as this scandal continued to grow, over the FISA abuse of members of the Trump administration. So, now, he's been revealed as one of the people inside the FBI who authorized the release of sensitive information. In this case, tied to an ongoing investigation into Bill and Hillary Clinton. Fox News Chief National Correspondent Ed Henry unravels it all for us tonight, live from Washington. Hi, Ed.

ED HENRY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Martha, great to see you. Andrew McCabe was put on leave last month within hours of the FBI Director Christopher Wray examining that Republican memo behind closed doors about FISA abuse during the Obama days. But as you noted, tonight's development shows McCabe and other former top FBI officials like James Comey may face far more trouble from this blockbuster new investigative report that's about to come out.

Fox confirming tonight, the man writing that report, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, is planning to be sharply critical of McCabe's actions in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, and has uncovered information that McCabe was behind improper media leaks of sensitive information. McCabe was overseeing the FBI probe of Hillary Clinton's handling of classified information even though, as you noted back in 2015, his wife had run for state office in Virginia and received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign money from allies of Clinton.

In the final weeks of the 2016 campaign, classified e-mails were found on a laptop shared by Anthony Weiner's estranged wife Clinton Aide, Huma Abedin. And yet, McCabe did not move forward on checking them out. In some of their text messages backs and forth, FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page suggested those e-mails were found in September 2016, but nothing was done for almost a month. After McCabe sat on those new e-mails, Comey was then forced to deal with the e-mails days before the election, infuriating the Clinton Camp because it put the e-mails front and center, yet again.

Now, the New York Times is suggesting McCabe will also be sanctioned by the inspector general for leaking sensitive details about the Clinton probe to the Wall Street Journal, even though Comey testified to a senate panel last year he and his top aides never leaked this kind of info.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK GRASSLEY, R-IOWA: Director Comey, have you ever been an anonymous source in the news reports about matters relating to the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?

JAMES COMEY, FORMER DIRECTOR OF THE FBI: Never.

GRASSLEY: Have you ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source news reports about the Trump investigation or the Clinton investigation?

COMEY: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENRY: Well, that might not be true. There's a big twist on this story, though. The Times says, McCabe's leaks about the Clinton Foundation involved giving out information that actually hurt Clinton politically, not help her. So, we're all waiting for this new report to come out as early as this month to explain whether McCabe just acted improperly for some other reason beyond helping Clinton, which has been the sort of suspected motive all along. There may be a whole lot more here, Martha.

MACCALLUM: Yes, there is. It's so clear that this is all just starting to unravel, and we're picking up all the pieces and putting them together. Ed, thank you very much.

HENRY: Good to see you.

MACCALLUM: Great report. So, joining me now: Mollie Hemingway, Senior Editor at The Federalist and a Fox News Contributor; Chris Stirewalt, Fox News Politics Editor; Basin Smikle, a Democrat Strategist and Former Aide to Hillary Clinton. So, good to have all of you here tonight. Chris, let me start with you. What did you make of this report?

CHRIS STIREWALT, FOX NEWS POLITICS EDITOR: Well, I make of it that Andrew McCabe is going to have an unfun 2018. We know -- it was being quite fair. We don't know exactly what his motives are, but it's pretty clear based on what he and Comey were doing. In the closing weeks of the election, they were afraid it was going to look like they were too far in the tank for Clinton, they wanted to get out. Because they figured she'd win, the Republicans would be mad, and they'd be in big trouble. So, they dumped this stuff on her. They put out the letter about the e-mail. All the yadda-dada-dada, and obviously leaking now too because they were trying to clean up from what they had done before. It worked only too well, she lost the election, and Andrew McCabe is out of a job. Funny how it works.

MACCALLUM: So, Chris, your suggestion is that the part of this New York Times story that basically says that he was the one who was dogged on the Clinton Foundation. That he thought that the DOJ was softening on the whole thing, and he wanted to make sure that that investigation was not dropped. Are you suggesting that he leaked that about himself to make himself look better?

STIREWALT: I'm not saying that. I'm saying that there's -- evident on Comey, evident on prima facie with Comey that that dump at the end was designed to try to do a make good on what they had done in the beginning when he said he wasn't going to bring any charges. So, they did this thing at the end. And here's the point, for the FBI: stay out of politics. Doesn't work. Doesn't help. Don't do it.

MACCALLUM: Mollie, your take.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR AND SENIOR EDITOR AT THE FEDERALIST: Yes. Well, this story in the New York Times is so favorable to McCabe, even though it's about him leaking that you have to imagine that he either himself leaked this to the New York Times and tried to position it as something that isn't as bad as it is, or the FBI itself is leaking it because they know it looks bad about the culture of the FBI. It's worth remembering that it is a felony to leak classified information, and this is something that this agency has had tremendous problems with.

I mean, James Comey admitted under oath that he leaked out of vengeance, to seek vengeance against President Trump. You have this now McCabe situation. You also have Andrew Weissmann under investigation for his meetings, and the FBI is stonewalling congressional inquiries into that. We also have Strzok meeting with reporters. So, it's a real culture of leaking here that needs to be dealt with, and it needs to be taken seriously -- not just internal reports but actual action taken.

MACCALLUM: Yes. I mean, the big picture, Basil, is that appears to be coming together, is an FBI/DOJ leadership who were doing what they could to undermine the Trump Campaign and to support the Hillary Clinton Campaign. That's the worst of the charges. It's bad, that would be -- you know, that would be what would come to light. Michael Horowitz was about to drop this report. We're going to learn a lot, obviously, when that happens. You know, what's your response to this piece today into how this looks like it might be coming together?

BASIL SMIKLE, DEMOCRAT STRATEGIST AND FORMER AIDE TO HILLARY CLINTON: Well, as a person on the panel that was deeply hurt by the -- by what happened with Comey at the end of 2016 and the effect of that, I don't know if it was trying to make up for actions taken previously because a lot had to have been done then to actually wind up losing the campaign for her. So, I don't think it was so much that. I do think, however, only to all of the points that may be surprised to believe that I actually agree with a lot of what was said. That there seemed to be a lot of politics infused in what happened throughout 2016 and the part of 2017. I don't know if it still continues.

I don't know if it's the deep state that the president likes to talk about. Because, I think he is not being disadvantaged by it as he himself would think. But I do believe that there has been part of the political culture of leaking in Washington, D.C. I think it is particularly problematic when the FBI does it and certainly did it in the context of our presidential election. So, there needs to be -- I don't want to say an overhaul, but I do think there needs to be some real sort of investigation into how the FBI is operating notwithstanding the good work that all of them are doing down there.

MACCALLUM: So, you know, sort of stepping back for a moment, for the next round of questions here for you guys. John Brennan today was on another network, and he was speaking with Nicolle Wallace. And here's what he said about President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BRENNAN, FORMER ADMINISTRATOR OF CIA: We have somebody in the oval office who is unstable, inept, inexperienced and also unethical. We really have rough waters ahead.

MACCALLUM: Chris, you know -- I mean, that is not entirely a new language coming from John Brennan.

STIREWALT: No.

MACCALLUM: You know, what do you make of that when you look at what's going on here and look at his leadership at that time. He was both in the Obama Administration and in the Bush Administration prior to that. So, you know, he's clearly infuriated by this president. But he is not without his own faults in this whole game as well.

STIREWALT: Look, Brennan -- we know what Brennan is, and he's a partisan, right? And that's -- CIA directors are supposed to rise above partisanship. I don't know if there's any reason to believe that he didn't do that as CIA director. You know, the current CIA director is a Republican chosen by a Republican, he's a former member of congress. I assume he has opinions of Hillary Clinton. The question is: did it interfere with doing his job? Did it interfere, by the way, in the way he handled the Russia stuff and whether or not they announced or alerted or what the president's thinking was. I don't know all of that stuff. But making those kinds of statements in public, by the way, for Brennan all the time. Like, all over and over, and over he'd like says all that kind of stuff. It does not do much to diminish the thought that partisanship was at play.

MACCALLUM: Yes, let's play Brennan with Trey Gowdy, talking about whether or not Brennan knew that the dossier was funded in part or in whole, at that point, by the supporters of the Hillary Clinton Campaign.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TREY GOWDY, R-SC, CHAIRMAN OF THE HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Well, Director Brennan, do you know who commissioned this Steele dossier?

BRENNAN: I don't.

GOWDY: Do you know if the bureau ever relied on the Steele dossier as part of any court filings, applications, petitions, meetings?

BRENNAN: I have no awareness.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: Mollie, the Nunes project, which is ongoing, is looking at John Brennan. I mean, they want to know what John Brennan understood about this dossier, about who was being unmasked. All of it, right?

HEMINGWAY: Right. So, Chris said we know that he's a partisan. We also know that he is a liar. This is a guy who perjured himself under oath before Congress claiming that his agency was not spying on the Senate when it was. So, I don't think that because he said something, you can take it to the bank. When he says that he doesn't know who was funding the dossier, at the same time, he's playing around with the dossier and have good reason to believe he did know precisely that it was funded, and bought and paid for by the Hillary Clinton Campaign and the DNC. That's bad if he's lying about it. But it's also bad if he doesn't know about it and he's supposed to be some top intel chief. But this is -- he's just got problems all around.

MACCALLUM: I'm going to give you last thought there, Basil, before we go.

SMIKLE: Yes, I know, I actually -- I tend to agree with a lot of that, actually. Though, I agree with Mr. Brennan's statements about the president. I don't necessarily believe that that he is -- that he did his job in such a -- at a particularly partisan manner, though. I don't think that there is tremendous evidence of that. But, you know, I'm not going to argue with his assessment of the president.

MACCALLUM: Thanks, guys. Great to see all of you. Thanks for your opinions and your insight tonight. Good to see you, all. Have a great weekend.

STIREWALT: All right. You bet.

MACCALLUM: So, music and movie stars love to promote inclusiveness and tolerance. But what happened when Former Governor Mike Huckabee joined the board of the CMAS? He says, that hate won and he is here with a very strong message for the folks who forced him out. And Republicans, Democrats, global leaders, all shocked when President Trump announced his plan to impose tariffs on imports from countries like China. Tom Rogan, says it's a terrible idea. But hasn't this been Donald Trump's message all along?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They come over here, they sell their cars, their VCRS, they knock the hell out of our companies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The rise of China economically was, if you look at it, directly equal to the date of the opening of the World Trade Organization. It has great for China and terrible for the United States. It will be imposing tariffs on steel imports and tariffs on aluminum imports, and you're going to see a lot of good things happen. You're going to see expansion of the companies.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: Only one day after President Trump announced high tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, the markets continued to not like it so much. They liked it a little better than they did initially; down 75 points for today. It was off quite a bit more than that at one point, but you got four days of losses this week. It was pretty ugly for those -- for the stocks. So, as most of the so-called experts agree, that this is not a good idea for the U.S. economy, including some people in the White House. But my next guest says that there is one saving grace that he found to write something nice about in this. He says, it will actually upset China and that may be the goal. So, here now, Tom Rogan, Commentary Writer at the Washington Examiner. Tom, good to see you tonight. You basically hate everything about this except that right?

TOM ROGAN, COMMENTARY WRITER AT THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Correct. Yes, good to be with you, Martha. That's the basic gist, yes.

MACCALLUM: So, tell me why.

ROGAN: Yes. Well, so, the basic premise of my argument -- apologies -- here is that with China being the key, as I see it, mechanism towards getting North Korea to the table diplomatically in a serious way on the North Korean nuclear crisis. But President Trump taking this action out of the blue, surprisingly, in a way that actually hurts China to some degree, that's a positive step. Because I think following the Olympics, the Chinese had basically come to the conclusion that there was going to be no more negative pressure from the United States and they could essentially play out the clock with North Korea, and I think that shakes this up.

MACCALLUM: I mean, we talk often about China and its desire to become the world dominant country, the world dominant power, and they're trying to do it on every front -- and we're going to show in a moment. But this is something that has been, you know, sort of in Donald Trump's crawl when he was not president for decades. I mean, this might be actually the thing that drove him to run for president in the first place. He has been very unhappy about this trade imbalances for a long time. His people claim that it's going to make such a miniscule change in the price of things. That's their argument. Are they right or wrong, Tom?

ROGAN: Well, I think they're probably wrong in the sense that, yes, it will be marginal in terms of basic canned goods. I mean, we saw Wilbur Ross talking about that today. But the problem is for poor families, that marginal cost has a disproportionate impact. But when you get to the higher end stuff, building high-end parts, the comparative advantage the United States has, for example, building airplanes. That's a problem when you build up that marginal cost. And ultimately, the people who will benefit, yes, President Trump did promise this. I don't think he can be criticized for delivering on what he promised in that regard. But at the policy level, the hundreds of millions of Americans will feel a marginal difference of different degrees, and hundreds of thousands of Americans will feel a marginal gain, and those in the steel and aluminum or aluminum as we say in the U.K.

MACCALLUM: Aluminum -- Stuart Varney says it that way, too. All right. Tom, thank you. Good to see you tonight.

ROGAN: Thank you.

MACCALLUM: So, why was there shock and surprise at this announcement? Remember that this is what President Trump has been promising the American people he wanted to do and wanted to change since the early 80's.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's a shame what's happening. Japan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, everybody is taking advantage of the United States.

I think a lot of people are tired of watching other countries ripping off the United States. It's very important that you have free trade. But we don't have free trade right now. Because if you want to go to Japan or if you want to go to Saudi Arabia or various other countries, it's virtually impossible for an American to do business in those countries.

You ever go to Japan right now, and try to sell something? Forget about it. They come over here and they sell their cars, their VCRS. They knock the hell out of our country. Kuwait, they live like kings. We make it possible for them to sell their oil. Why aren't they paying us 25 percent of what they're making. It's a joke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: Some things never change, right? I mean, those are exactly the words with, perhaps, some different countries. He's more upset about China now than he was. Japan was really the country that he was upset about back then. But Guy, you know, this is the disrupter. You know, I'm going to introduce you guys. Oh my, God! Guy, Political Editor at Townhall.com; Jessica Tarlov, Senior Director of Research at Bustle.com. Everybody knows that you guys are both Fox News.

Guy, you know, he's the disrupter, he wants to throw the chessboard up in the whole trade environment. He wants to come in like a bowl in the China shop and then start working on the perimeters of the deal. Maybe it's a nicer situation with Canada, maybe not so bad with the U.K. That's what we've learned about this president, right?

GUY BENSON, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR AND POLITICAL EDITOR AT TOWNHALL.COM: Yes. I mean, I think is a terrible policy. I think trade wars are lose, lose propositions. But to your point, if he wants to be disrupter, and he did talk about this on the campaign trail. He was tipping his hand that he's more protectionist than most Republicans have been in the past. I think the least he could've done is inform his own team that he's going to do it, so they were prepared to roll out what is, in my view, a bad policy, at least they would've done it one voice with preparation. But he didn't do that he caught everyone off guard and blindsided his own policy and communications staff which is stupid politics on top of stupid policy.

MACCALLUM: And this surprises you?

JESSICA TARLOV, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR AND HEAD OF RESEARCH AT BUSTLE.COM: No. If you were asking me.

MACCALLUM: All right. Go ahead, Jessica. This is what we see time and time again, right? The president goes, you know what? Today is the day. I'm going to talk about trade.

TARLOV: And he also had incredibly stressful weeks on other fronts, which I'm sure contributed to this, with Hope Hicks' resignation, which has been described as President Trump actually losing a limb. That attacking Jeff Sessions and Jeff Sessions pushing back, and then the meeting, the bipartisan meeting on gun control where he said, eh, due process out the window, just take the guns and then we'll talk about it. Which obviously his own party was not going to be thrilled about whatsoever, including many of us on the left who do respect due process anyway.

So, I think that contributed to this a lot. But I mean, he's put people like Gary Cohn in an incredibly difficult position, someone who has been vocally against this even on the campaign trail when Donald Trump started talking about this. So, it may be consistent but I agree with Guy it's bad policy, and its bad policy for inside that White House, which I think that it's, you know, I want to say increasingly chaotic, but I think it's just kind of the norm now.

MACCALLUM: So, I mean, you know, just to play devil's advocate. You look at the trade imbalance, $800 billion, I believe. You know, that we do have deals with countries that are not pair. And that's the reason why you've seen President Obama input tariffs at times, President Bush did it at times, because they wanted him to stop dumping, he said, steel and to even out the market so the steel companies in America had a better shot at it, Guy.

BENSON: Yes, the problem is, and I get that, right, this is something that looks unfair. And I'm not just opposing this because I want to oppose Trump. I think it -- the evidence, the economic evidence shows that tariffs and trade wars don't improve the situation for either side. American workers and consumers, and the economy will be harmed by a trade war. And so, politically speaking, one of my concerns is Trump has done an excellent job on the economy. Look at the booming Trump economy because of pro-growth policies that he has implemented. That's one of the biggest things to commend his presidency. This is anti-growth policy that can blunt some of that progress and that, to me, is also a political loss, potentially.

MACCALLUM: It's a great point.

TARLOV: Can I just payback off of that and say, with the midterms approaching and with the increasingly high approval ratings for the GOP tax reform policy, that marginal difference that your previous guest, Tom Rogan, was discussing for poor families and middle-income families could hurt them.

MACCALLUM: It looks like it's going to hurt him on the economy. He's going to probably to change his tune around the edges here.

TARLOV: Maybe by Monday.

MACCALLUM: Good to see you both.

TARLOV: Happy weekend.

MACCALLUM: You too.

BENSON: Bye, Martha. You, too.

MACCALLUM: Students revolt after their popular high school teacher is alleged placed on leave for warning them that a school shooting could happen even in their school in the wake of the Parkland massacre. Some of these students here with their plea to bring him back. And music and movie stars love to promote inclusiveness and tolerance except sometimes. Mike Huckabee, after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM: So, we have all seen music and movie stars join their voices in support of inclusiveness and tolerance. But it often doesn't extend to include tolerance of real political or social diversity of thought. This week, Governor Mike Huckabee, never shy about his Christian and conservative beliefs earned a spot on Country Music Associations' Foundation board -- a nonprofit organization that helps to support music in schools.

But within hours, the uproar began. Music Executive, Jason Owen, led the charge telling the CMA, "Huckabee uses language that has a profoundly negative impact upon young people all across this country, not to mention how harmful and damaging his deep involvement with the NRA is. What a shameful choice," he said. The governor resigned from the board to avoid causing "unnecessary distraction to their work." And now, he is speaking out in a new piece today that is titled "Hate Wins". Governor Huckabee joins me now. Good to see you, governor. You know --

MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER GOVERNOR OF ARKANSAS: Thank you, Martha.

MACCALLUM: -- you write beautifully in this letter about the impact of music on your life, and I would imagine that that was what led you to want to be part of this organization that helped to spread the art to children who maybe wouldn't be able to enjoy them otherwise.

HUCKABEE: Absolutely, Martha. Without music as a child, I wouldn't be talking to you today. I'd be eking out a living trying to pay rent on the little rent house in Southern Arkansas. For me, this was about continuing something that I've been doing for decades, and that's using every means available to try to put musical instruments in the hands of kids in public schools. I did that as a governor. We created mandates for music and art education for every student K through 12.

That's why I was invited on the board. It had nothing to do with my politics or my faith, and I didn't bring either one of those to the board. But obviously, it made some people unhappy. This is the world we live in today. And it's unfortunate, but I don't want to be a distraction for the CMA foundation. I'm going to continue to do everything I can to see that kids get musical instruments and that public schools offer music and the arts for every student in America because it's life-changing.

MACCALLUM: You know, Mr. Owen, who is a music executive, basically took a lot of issue with your views on same sex marriage and said that you had said hateful things about his same sex marriage by saying negative things about same sex marriage in general, and the family that he is building. Do you have anything that you would want to say to him tonight about that?

HUCKABEE: He might be very surprised to know me. He doesn't know me. And I don't know him. And I don't have any hate or animosity toward him. Why would I? I don't know him. And I'm sorry he feels that way. But I'm also sorry that our country is at a place where on the one arena where people ought to be able to get together, putting aside anything from race, or ethnicity, or religion, or politics, or heritage or anything that we could come together and celebrate that one part of life that's civilizes us, which is the arts. And when we can't have that then I fear that our civilization may not be long for this earth if that doesn't even civilize us a little more.

MACCALLUM: You know, I agree. I think that when single issues divide people, where it becomes a blockade to working together on any project, you know, I think that that's a sad state of affairs. I think that there are sort of hot button issues and if you don't line up with people on them or some people on them, they're going to drive you out of town, essentially.

And that's exactly what happened to you. But there are people, I would imagine, who will be on your side of this equation since a lot of people do agree with you about traditional marriage. And they may be less likely to support this foundation because of what happened.

HUCKABEE: And that would be the real tragedy. This shouldn't be about my views on marriage, which are biblical and traditional. It shouldn't be about my politics, which are conservative. It should be about kids getting musical instruments. That's all this was ever about for me. And that's why it's just painful to me. But there's a new maximum today, Martha, that if you want to disagree with someone, rather than respectfully disagreeing, sitting down having a conversation. Maybe not walking away with a different view, but at least on an understanding, today it's let's go after that person personally.

Let's try to destroy their livelihood. If they own a store, let's shut them down. And that's not how we make progress in America. There are people who very strongly disagree with positions I have. Fine, this is America. They're welcome to do it. But, I don't want to hate anybody over this. I don't want to hurt anybody over this. And I'm sorry that some people feel that those are the weapons of choice when it comes to how to have a disagreement with someone on anything.

MACCALLUM: Yeah. I mean, you've got to have people with truly diverse views especially on boards, because then you get a lot of different thinking that goes into the decisions that are made and all of that. So I think it's too bad for this foundation. Governor Huckabee, good to see you tonight. Thanks for sharing your story with us. We appreciate it.

HUCKABEE: Thanks, Martha, great to talk to you.

MACCALLUM: Up next, students fight back after a popular high school teacher is allegedly placed on leave for warning his class about the reality of school shootings. Two of the students protesting his punishment have a strong story and they join us next. Plus, the parent of Timothy Piazza joining with forces of other families who are affected by the deadly side of college hazing, what they want to see happen at campuses bonding with others across this country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)



UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: We want this for Max. We want it for the Piazza's who wanted for everybody that's been affected, and we just don't want it to happen again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM: This story developing tonight. Students are fighting back after their popular high school teacher was placed on leave for warning them about a school shooting in the wake of the Parkland tragedy. Trace Gallagher lays this out for us with the back story tonight. Good evening, Trace.

TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Good evening, Martha. Even students who love 59-year-old history teacher, Timothy Locke, acknowledged his style is unconventional. For example on the website, rate my teacher, Locke gets 4.8 out of 5 stars with students saying he gets off topic easy but is an awesome teacher and guy. And there's really no dispute about what Mr. Locke said in class last Thursday.

Everyone, including Locke, agrees that he was voicing concerns about security at Cherry Hill High School East saying a situation similar to the Florida shooting could happen there because campus police are not armed. Locke then reportedly agreed with President Trump that teachers should be armed, saying he be the one with the gun. Most students were fine with the comments. But at least one, who spoke anonymously to local media, said the remarks verged on reckless. Quoting, we were shocked and taken aback but brushed it off as something he would say. Before, it had never been anything related to him. It was just general commentary.

After the principal was told about the comments, Timothy Locke told Philly.com that he was called into the office, placed on paid leave, had his belongings searched and was ordered to undergo a physical and mental health exam. When asked about his conversation in class, Locke told the website, quote, I was adamantly concerned with the welfare of my students. And his students are clearly concerned about him. His suspension triggered two days of demonstration and a firestorm of criticism from both students and their parents who say they have long appreciated Mr. Locke's candor. Even concerning things like his tour of combat in Iraq, and battle with post-traumatic stress disorder.

A dad whose son was in Locke's class last year said he's baffled at the outcome, quoting, the students love him unequivocally. After the events in Parkland, there was no mention in the schools, there was no addressing the issue with students, and the one teacher that brings up the concerns is suspended. The school district won't talk about Locke because it's a personnel matter, but the district is suddenly implementing a series of school security measures that begin on Monday. Martha.

MACCALLUM: Very interesting, Trace. Thank you so much. So joining me now, two students who are pushing for school officials to reinstate Mr. Locke. Cade Zaris and Justin Prechooko, join me now. Justin, he's your favorite teacher, right? And do you think this is unfair?

JUSTIN PRECHOOKO, STUDENT: Yeah. He's always been my favorite teacher. I've had him since the beginning of the year. And I definitely feel like it's unfair what happened to him.

MACCALLUM: Cade, do you think that teachers in your school should be armed if they're trained, obviously, he's an Iraq war veteran, so I would imagine that's why he said, you know, it'd probably be me because I have experience and I've been trained with a gun. Are you OK with that?

CADE ZARIS, STUDENT: Yeah. Well, I feel if the teachers and campus police are properly trained with a gun and with a firearm, then they should definitely be able to be there with a rifle or with a pistol or whatever in case the school shooting does happen because the way it's been looking, our demographics are very similar to Parkland, so it's very possible that a shooting could happen at our school. And we would feel a lot safer if the teachers and campus police were armed.

MACCALLUM: You know, Justin, originally, when this started, the principal said that anyone who marched or protested was in danger of losing their privilege to, I believe, to attend the prom and to walk in graduation, is that right? And what happened after that?

PRECHOOKO: Yes, ma'am, that's correct. To be honest with you, I kind of just brushed those comments off. I was willing to take a big enough risk like that to -- for my favorite teacher. Like I said, he's my favorite teacher, bar none. So after that, we basically had a couple of -- we had the walk-out, and then after that we had like -- kind of like an open forum in the auditorium led by the principal of our school. And it was basically just a big cycle of question being what happened to Mr. Locke, and the principal saying I can't answer that right now. So it was definitely a lot of secrecy and just a lot of the same thing over and over again. And we, as the student body, definitely started to get frustrated and me, personally, because at the end of the day I just want my teacher back.

MACCALLUM: Yeah. Cade, you know, how do you think your school has handled this whole thing? And do you feel like they're taking the issue that he raised seriously? I know that even some of the leadership in the town has said that they would like to put some armed police officers on your campus.

ZARIS: Yeah. Well, the district did implement a few new safety procedures for our school with people entering and exiting the building. So I feel like they're hearing our voice and are taking action. As for our teacher, Mr. Locke, unfortunately, they have not said anything whether or not he'll be coming back in a soon period of time. So that's a little disappointing. But, the school safety procedures and everything are improving which is very nice to see.

MACCALLUM: You guys, thank you very much. Keep us posted on your story. And we would love to talk to Mr. Locke and have him on as well to kind of get his perspective on what's going on here. But a lot of schools are going through the conversations that you are. And that's why we wanted to share what's going on with your story with everybody else in the country who's watching. Thank you very much, fine young men. Good to see you tonight.

ZARIS: Thank you.

MACCALLUM: You bet, take care. All right. So still ahead this evening, the parents of two young men, both killed in separate college hazing incidents, uniting around something that drives them every single day of their lives. Their powerful story when we come back.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)



UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: I saw my son in a coffin, and now I'm saying something about it. He shouldn't have been in that coffin. That shouldn't have happened. And we're going to do everything we can to change how that-- why that happened.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM: Developing tonight, Louisiana State University announcing that they will enact zero tolerance policy for hazing. It comes after the death of Maxwell Gruver, the 18-year-old freshman, was on the Baton Rouge campus just 29 days before he died while he was pledging Pia Delta Theta. Max's parents Steve and Rae Ann, this is them at his high school graduation with him. They spoke to him before he left about the dangers of hazing.

They even warned him about what had happened to young Timothy Piazza, the Penn State sophomore who died in February 2017 after being left unresponsive for 12 hours at his fraternity house before any of his so- called brothers picked up the phone to call for help. So now, the Gruver's and the Piazza's are joining forces together with other parents of hazing victims to make their voices heard to college leadership and to students across this country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)



UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: Max was a gentle giant. He had an infectious laugh that, you know, he shook with his shoulders every time he laughed and gave the biggest hugs. And he was a goof ball. He loved LSU. He couldn't wait to get there, and he was ready. And we were ready to let him go and experience that part of his life. We never expected what happened to him to happen.

UNINDENTIFIED MALE: They had him in a room that was black, dark, with strobe lights going on, loud music, and they would ask him questions about the fraternity or recite the Greek alphabet, and if he got it wrong then they would have you just basically take, I guess, the handle or the bottle of alcohol and just turn it up and continue to drink until they called it a pool, until they told you to stop. His blood alcohol content was .496 the following day. So that night it had to be a lot higher.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm here because we keep saying you need to see something. If you see something, say something. And I saw my son in a coffin, and now I'm saying something about it. He shouldn't have been in that coffin. It shouldn't have happened. And we're going to do everything we can to change why that happened.

UNINDENTIFIED MALE: I am here because we need to make a change. We need to stop hazing all together in fraternities, sororities, and other walks of life.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm here because there's strength in numbers. And I think together we can be a powerful force. Nobody is wearing a toga and swallowing a gold fish. This is hard alcohol. This is handles. This is crushing glass and doing planks on broken glass. This is getting branded. This is fighting each other like a fight club. This is wrong. This is not bonding. This is not tradition.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: When Tim's story came out and it's such a horrific story, it got people talking.

UNINDENTIFIED MALE: Piazza died in the hospital on February 4th from a traumatic brain injury and a shattered spleen. Prosecutors believe he could have survived had authorities been called sooner.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: And then, seven months later, Max happened and it kept people talking.

UNINDENTIFIED MALE: Eighteen-year-old, Maxwell Gruver, an LSU freshman from Roswell, Georgia, was rushed from the fraternity house and died at the hospital.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: And, you know, unfortunately, seven weeks later was another boy, Andrew Coffey, is seven weeks later it kept people talking.

MACCALLUM: Nine men are now facing charges in connection to the hazing death of a Florida State fraternity pledge. Twenty-year-old, Andrew Coffey, died in November. His blood alcohol level was reportedly more than five times the legal limit to drive.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've been thrust into this position not by our choice, but it is our choice to be here because we feel obligated to prevent this from happening to other people. And when this happened to the Gruver's, and to the Coffey's, and the Ellis', it was like a knife through the heart that were we not speaking out loud enough, were people not listening? We need to speak out more because we have to stop it.

UNINDENTIFIED MALE: If Tim saw what developed from his story, he would have looked at it and he would have been appalled at how he was treated.

He would have been appalled at the indifference to his life that the members of the Beta Feta Pi fraternity showed towards him. And, I think, frankly, I would have a discussion with him and I would said, Tim, that's not you. You don't need to be joining a fraternity. And I think he would have gotten it pretty easily because that's not who he was. That's just not what he did.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think he'd say he was sorry. I think he'd feel bad that this happened, that he would think that he let us down.

UNINDENTIFIED MALE: But he didn't let us down. The people that killed him let us down. I think he'd be looking down on us and he'd be proud of the fact that we're carrying this torch and hopefully saving other people in the future. People are listening and the difference is being made. And I think Tim would look down and he'd be happy and say keep going. There's more work to do.

UNINDENTIFIED MALE: We found a passage that Max had written in a journal that said God works in funny ways. He sometimes does bad to ultimately create good. And we felt that spreading the word is how we're going to create that good from Max's passing.

UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think he would give me one of his big hugs and he'd be like mom, I love you so much. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: We're going to stay on this story. We talk about students being killed in schools. These are students who are being killed on campuses by, in part, by the acts of the people who are supposed to be their friends around them. So, this is a very important topic and we're going to stay on it. Quick break here. We'll be right back with more of The Story.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MACCALLUM: Finally tonight, more than 2,000 people gathered in Charlotte today to say goodbye to Reverend Billy Graham. And while attendees included some of those powerful people in the world, perhaps the service would be best remembered for its simplicity. For the wooden casket that was crafted by prisoners in Louisiana, specifically, for him. To remarks by those who knew him and loved him best.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)



UNINDENTIFIED FEMALE: I will preach the word. I will do the work of an evangelist. I will share the gospel. And I will run my race and live my life so that five minutes before I see Jesus I have no regrets. I will live my life to exalt and glorify the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So I love you, daddy.

UNINDENTIFIED MALE: My father preached on heaven, told millions how to find heaven, he wrote a book on heaven. And today, he's in heaven. His journey is complete.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: From the words of his children to his own, he once said, some day you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don't you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now, I will have just changed my address. I have gone into the presence of God. Rest in peace, Billy Graham. That's our story for tonight. We'll see you back here on Monday at 7:00. Tucker Carlson is up next.

END

Content and Programming Copyright 2018 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2018 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.The co-founder of Ben & Jerry's ice cream knew he was disturbing the peace with a noisy demonstration against fighter jets.

Ben Cohen told the Burlington Free Press that's exactly the point.

Cohen was one of three activists arrested for disorderly conduct Saturday after blasting jet noise from a mobile public address system in Burlington, Vermont.

He said the goal was to simulate what it might be like for residents living under the flight path of Vermont National Guard F-35 fighters. He tweeted that if he violated the city noise ordinance then the fighter jets will, too.

Burlington voters will weigh in Tuesday on whether city officials should oppose F-35s at the Burlington International Airport. Critics say the F-35s are noisier than fighters currently used by the Vermont National Guard.A father and daughter were arrested Tuesday in Florida after allegedly being caught having sex in their backyard, according to reports.

Justin Bunn, 39, and his 19-year-old daughter, Taylor Bunn, were taken into custody after witnesses told Panama City police they spotted them having sexual intercourse in a backyard, the Northwest Florida Daily News reported.

Both father and daughter confessed to having consensual sex but claimed it was an isolated incident, police said.

NORTH CAROLINA FATHER-DAUGHTER COUPLE ARRESTED FOR INCEST AFTER HAVING LOVE CHILD

The Bunns appeared in court on incest charges Wednesday. The judge ordered them to stay away from each other, according to the Miami Herald.

Justins bail was set at $5,000, while Taylors bail was set at $1,000, the reports said.Video emerged showing three Florida men captured on Interstate 95 near Palm City hours before they were going to kill an armored trucks guards and steal $4 million in cash, according to The Palm Beach Post.

The video, recorded Feb. 20 and released late last week, showed officers swarming down on the suspects, identified as Daryl Canady, Alger Ellison and Martiavius Williams. The man allegedly had planned to rob an armored truck at a PNC Bank in Port St. Lucie, Fox 4 Now reported.

After that heist, investigators said the suspects planned to carry out a second robbery targeting another armored bank car.

To me, as I look back on the video, it almost looks like a TV production, Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said during a press conference Friday, according to WPTV. We had a heads up, quite a bit in advance, we were intimately involved in planning for the arrest.

Canady, according to WPTV, was the alleged mastermind who unknowingly had worked with a tipster who secretly was working with the FBI.

In my decades of law enforcement I cant remember a single case where we had such good (intelligence), Snyder told WPTV.

The rush-hour joint takedown of the two-year plot involved the Martin County Sheriffs Office, Palm Beach County Sheriffs Office, St. Lucie County Sheriffs Office and the FBI, according to WPLG.

It was our swat team, our special operators, Snyder told WPTV. I will tell you this in todays day and age, with so much criticism of law enforcement, there were several dozen people with tactical rifles and their fingers on the trigger  and nobody pulled the trigger.

The suspects were arrested the morning of Feb. 20, and remain in federal custody.Police divers have discovered potential evidence that could lead to a breakthrough in the cold case disappearance of a 30-year-old mother in Alabama two decades ago.

Traci Pittman Kegley was last seen at a gas station in Elmore County on April 26, 1998. Her car was found the next day with her 2-year-old daughter inside. The baby had been left unattended. Foul play is suspected in Kegley's disappearance.

Last week authorities searched a 300-acre property in Elmore County for her body pursuant to a search warrant. Cadaver dogs assisted in the search.

Authorities wouldnt say what evidence the divers found in a pond on the property, WSFA-TV reported. It was sent to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences lab for testing.

If the testing shows it is connected to Kegley, authorities say they will make arrests in the case, the station reported.

Suspects in Kegleys disappearance have reportedly been identified.

"If they don't come see us, we're going to go see them," Elmore County District Attorney Randall Houston said, according to the station.

The owner of the property is not a suspect, the Montgomery Advertiser reported.

The search warrant was based on information a tipster called in to a Crime Stoppers hotline after WSFA ran a report on Kegleys disappearance in 2015.

Authorities said it took them until now to verify the tip.

According to various reports, Kegley was working as a trained phlebotomist in Montgomery, Ala., and had just been granted a divorce when she disappeared.

Her parents Steven and Linda Pitman spoke to reporters when they visited the search site Wednesday.

Linda Pitman said she was surprised when she heard about the search, the Tallassee Tribune reported.

I knew they had been working on this since Traci disappeared and of course its been 20 years or will be this April, so I was really surprised, as long as its been, that they would come up with something that might lead us to her, she said.Authorities in South Carolina say a SWAT team rescued a 3-year-old girl from her father's car by distracting the man just long enough to break a window and pull out the child before he shot himself.

The girl was not hurt, but her father remained hospitalized on Monday.

Dorchester County Sheriff's Maj. Tony Phinney said the SWAT team approached the car at a truck stop while the man was talking to a hostage negotiator around 6:30 p.m. Sunday along Interstate 95 near Harleyville.

Phinney said the man and his wife had an argument earlier in the day. He did not know the man's condition, and his name has not been released.

Phinney said officers did not fire their weapons.Welcome to Fox News First. Not signed up yet? Click here.

Developing now, Monday, March 5, 2018

'The Shape of Water' wins the Oscar for best picture as host Jimmy Kimmel and other stars take shots at President Trump, Vice President Pence and the Fox News audience

Trump defends plan to slap tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, tweeting that America's friends and foes have taken advantage of the U.S. for years

Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are scheduled to meet Monday with a Middle East peace deal at the top of their agenda

Vladimir Putin says Russia will never extradite any of the Russians indicted for alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election

Special Counsel Robert Mueller continues expands his Russia probe to the United Arab Emirates as he reportedly subpoenas witness for documents tied to Trump and various campaign associates

DACA was set to expire Monday, but court orders have prevented the Trump administration from ending the Obama-era program

THE LEAD STORY - THE 'SHAPE' OF A POSITIVELY POLITICAL OSCARS: "The Shape of Water" took home the award for best picture at the 2018 Academy Awards on Sunday as host Jimmy Kimmel and some stars brought things to a political place during Hollywood's biggest award show of the year with jabs at President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and even Fox News viewers ... Despite calling for a show filled with positivity, both the host and stars like Common, Kumail Nanjiani and Lupita Nyong'o made the show political. Kimmel began with an old-timey announcement in which he listed the stars in attendance, making his first political jab with Black Panther actress Lupita Nyongo. The stunning Lupita Nyongo, she was born in Mexico and raised in Kenya, Kimmel said at the top of the show. Let the tweetstorm from the president's toilet begin!

From there, the host launched into a positive monologue that poked fun at the whirlwind year in Hollywood, which saw the #MeToo and Times Up movements dominate the headlines and previous award shows. However, other stars took up Kimmel's political mantel. Kumail Nanjiani and Nyong'o shared a message of support to Dreamers ahead of announcing "Shape of Water" as the winner of best production design. Common and Andra Day performed Stand Up for Something as an ode to American activism with politically charged lyrics about topics like the NRA, the Parkland shooting, immigration, feminism and Puerto Rico.

TRUMP TARIFF BATTLE LINES DRAWN: President Trump added more fuel to a brewing global trade battle Sunday, defending his planned import tariffs on steel and aluminum to help U.S. industries ... We are on the losing side of almost all trade deals. Our friends and enemies have taken advantage of the U.S. for many years. Our Steel and Aluminum industries are dead. Sorry, its time for a change! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Trump tweeted. Trump last week said he would impose tariffs on imported steel to protect a U.S. industry that employs about 140,000 Americans. Still, some analysts say that by raising the price of steel, those same tariffs stand to hurt a far larger group of U.S. workers: the 6.5 million who work in industries that buy steel  from automakers to aircraft manufacturers to suppliers of building materials.

A BONDING EXPERIENCE FOR TWO EMBATTLED LEADERS: President Trump will meet Monday in Washington with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with hopes of soon reaching a long-sought Mideast peace agreement, as both world leaders try to make international progress amid the strains of domestic investigations into each of their governments ... Trump and Netanyahu, who have met several times before, are expected to discuss a range of issues beyond Israeli-Palestinian peace, with Iran, Syria and now North Korea topping their list. Trump is attempting to act on international issues and negotiate with world leaders amid ongoing federal probes into whether anybody on his 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia to win the White House race, while Netanyahu is facing allegations of corruption that have resulted in calls for his resignation.

PUTIN THUMBS NOSE AT U.S.: Russia will "never" extradite any of the 13 Russians indicted by the United States for alleged election-meddling, Russian President Vladimir Putin said, even as he insisted they didnt act on behalf of his government ... Putin's comments in an NBC News interview illustrated the long odds that the Russian operatives will ever appear in U.S. court to answer charges of running a massive, secret social media trolling and targeted messaging operation to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. The United States has no extradition treaty with Moscow and cant compel it to hand over citizens, and a provision in Russias constitution prohibits extraditing its citizens to foreign countries. The detailed, 37-page indictment from special counsel Robert Mueller last month alleges Russian operatives working for the Internet Research Agency used fake social media accounts and on-the-ground political organizing to interfere the election.

MUELLER PROBE'S WIDE NET CONTINUES EXPANDING: Special Counsel Robert Muellers team is now purportedly looking into whether the United Arab Emirates sought political influence by pouring money into Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign as he reportedly subpoenas witness to get documents tied to Trump and various associates ... Muellers investigators in recent weeks have questioned the adviser, Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, and asked witnesses for information about whether the UAE tried to buy political influence by giving money to the Trump campaign, according to The New York Times. Nader has been a frequent visitor to the Trump White House. Mueller's tactic suggests his investigation continues to expand beyond whether campaign officials colluded with Russia.

Meanwhile, Mueller has reportedly subpoenaed a witness to provide emails, work documents, text messages, telephone logs and other records detailing communications with Trump and a list of aides. Mueller reportedly wants records of communication between the witness and Hope Hicks, Stephen Bannon, Roger Stone, Carter Page, Michael Cohen, Keith Schiller, Rick Gates, Corey Lewandowski and Paul Manafort.

DACA LIMBO: The Obama-era DACA program that temporarily shields hundreds of thousands of young Dreamer immigrants from deportation was scheduled to end Monday but court orders have prevented the Trump administration from pulling the plug, easing the sense of urgency ... Last week, the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's bid to bypass a federal appeals court and get the justices to intervene in the fate of the DACA program. The courts decision meant an injunction preventing the Trump administration from ending the program would remain in place as the case works its way through the lower courts. It also nullified the March 5 deadline President Trump set for Congress to take action on immigration reform.

DCA 101: Everything you need to know

AS SEEN ON FOX NEWS WEEKEND

SENDING A MESSAGE TO DELTA AND BEYOND: "Conservatives are tired of being kicked around."  Georgia Lieutenant Gov. Casey Cagle, on "Cavuto Live," defending his push to halt consideration of a sizeable tax cut for Delta Airlines in wake of the company's decision to cut ties with the NRA after the Parkland school shooting massacre. WATCH

HILLARY HYPOCRISY: "I got an idea Hillary, since you're so good at selling uranium to foreigners, maybe you can buddy up with your Clinton Foundation friends to sell the rest of our uranium to the Russians. On second thought-- just get back into the woods."  Judge Jeanine Pirro, in her "Opening Statement" on "Justice with Judge Jeanine," blasting Hillary Clinton for accusing Trump of 'surrendering' to Russia's threat. WATCH

THE SWAMP

'Sunday Morning Futures' Exclusive: Trey Gowdy: Im reluctant to call for special counsel for Clinton email probe.

Lindsey Graham: Both parties will suffer if Congress doesn't act on new gun bill.

Dem Congress hopeful posted 'creepy' comments about teen gymnast.

ACROSS THE NATION

Illegal immigrant from Mexico pleads guilty to using fake identity to steal $361,000 in government benefits.

Tree believed to be planted by George Washington 227 years ago is knocked down by nor'easter.

Iditarod sled dog race kicks off in Alaska, in shadow of doping scandal.

MINDING YOUR BUSINESS

Geneva Motor Show: Supercars and luxury SUVs in the spotlight.

Insurer AXA agrees to buy XL Group for around $15 billion.

Ex-Food Network star says delivery apps killing restaurants.



FOX NEWS OPINION

Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech as prophetic -- and chilling -- today as it was 72 years ago.

Michael Goodwin: Media continue to ignore Trump's presidential leadership.

I swore off my cell phone for 6 days -- and survived! Here's how you can, too.

HOLLYWOOD SQUARED

'Black Panther' dominates for third straight week.

'The Walking Dead' Season 8, Episode 10 recap: A new villain emerges.

Amber Tamblyn says driver tried to hit her, baby, in Brooklyn, NY.

DID YOU HEAR ABOUT THIS?

Orphaned baby chimp rescued from poacher, snuggles with pilot on rescue flight.

WATCH: High school senior makes 70-foot buzzer-beater in championship.

World's oldest figurative tattoos found on 5,000-year-old Egyptian mummies.

STAY TUNED

On Fox News:

Fox & Friends, 6 a.m. ET: Mike Huckabee explains why he quit the Country Music Association Foundation Board; Michelle Malkin and Mark Steyn take on the Oscars and President Trump's tariff plan; former education secretary Bill Bennett on Trump's scheduled meeting with Netanyahu.

The Story with Martha MacCallum, 7 p.m. ET: After losing his daughter in the Florida massacre, Andrew Pollack discusses what needs to be done to protect students.

Hannity, 9 p.m. ET: Was the FBIs surveillance of Carter Page a criminal offense? The former Trump campaign aide speaks out.

Fox News @ Night, 11 p.m. ET: The DACA deadline is here. Can Congress ever find a solution? Sen. Lindsey Graham details the next steps.

On Fox Business:

Mornings with Maria, 6 a.m. ET: Guests include: Ed Rensi, FAT Brands International chairman; Roger Ferguson, TIAA CEO and president.

Varney & Co., 9 a.m. ET: Andy Puzder, policy adviser for America First Policies; Andrew Pollack, father of Parkland shooting victim; David Rubin, former Mayor of Shiloh, Israel.

Cavuto: Coast to Coast, Noon ET: Rep. Matt Gaetz.

On Fox News Radio:

The Fox News Rundown podcast: Civilians are fleeing Eastern Ghouta as the Syrian civil war rages on. Fox News' Eric Shawn speaks with Bassam Rifai, political adviser of the Syrian American Council about what can be done to stop what some are calling hell on Earth." Plus, commentary from Josh Holmes, former chief of staff and campaign manager to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Want the Fox News Rundown sent straight to your mobile device? Subscribe through Apple Podcasts, Google Play, and Stitcher.

The Brian Kilmeade Show, 9 a.m. ET: Blackwater founder Erik Prince discusses the gun debate and school safety; Jonathan Swan on the week ahead in Washington; Brad Meltzer gives the inside story on his new book, "The Escape Artist."

#OnThisDay

1982: Comedian John Belushi, 33, is found dead of a drug overdose in a rented bungalow in Hollywood.

1868: The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson begins in the U.S. Senate, with Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase presiding. Johnson, the first U.S. president to be impeached, is accused of "high crimes and misdemeanors" stemming from his attempt to fire Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton. (The trial would end on May 26 with Johnson's acquittal.)

1770: The Boston Massacre takes place as British soldiers who'd been taunted by a crowd of colonists open fire, killing five people.

Fox News First is compiled by Fox News' Bryan Robinson. Thank you for joining us! Enjoy your Monday! We'll see you in your inbox first thing Tuesday morning.Authorities in Georgia had to rescue a suspected drug dealer from a drainage ditch after he ran away during a traffic stop and got stuck on Thursday.

The Conyers Police Department said in a Facebook post that officers pulled over Joe Hobson Jr. on Interstate 20 about 20 miles east of Atlanta after he was suspected of trafficking narcotics from a city neighborhood.

During the traffic stop, police said Hobson ran off onto a nearby property, prompting a nearly two-hour search.

Officials eventually caught up to Hobson, after deputies found his feet sticking out of a muddy drainage creek "where he had buried himself and become stuck," according to police.

Rescue workers from Rockdale Fire Rescue were able to pull Hobson from his hiding spot.

NAKED MAN ON ATV LEADS MISSOURI POLICE ON WILD, HOUR-LONG CHASE

"Rockdale Fire Rescue did a fantastic job safely extracting Hobson from an extremely dangerous predicament," police said. "He was transported by National EMS to the hospital and confined to Rockdale County Jail before the night was over."

Hobson, a convicted felon, is now facing several charges related to drug and weapons possession, including having a stolen handgun, according to police.If you cant beat them, eat them?

Wildlife officials in California are asking residents to report any sightings of nutria  an invasive rodent that threatens wetlands-- and at least one report raises the question of whether or not the rodents should be eaten.

There is no indication that the rodent is anywhere close to being on the menus at Craigs or the Polo Lounge, but The Verges report said other states that have grappled with nutria have turned to eating them.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said Thursday it is trying to eradicate the rodents from the state because once established, nutria could cause loss of wetlands, damage to agricultural crops and levees, dikes and roadbeds.

It says more than 20 nutria have been found in wetlands, rivers and canals and in Merced, Fresno and Stanislaus counties. The Verge reported that they were eradicated in the state in the 1970s. The worry is that they are prolific reproducers.

A female nutria can give birth to more than 200 offspring within a year of reaching reproductive maturity. They are found in 18 U.S. states, including Louisiana. The Verges report links out to the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries website that offers recipes for soups and salads. They apparently taste great in jambalaya.

Native to South America, nutria can reach up to 2.5 feet in body length and 20 pounds in weight. It is considered healthier than turkey and has a similar taste to wild rabbit. The Verges report pointed out that on nutria comes with four drumsticks.

Nutria were introduced to the U.S. in 1937 by an entrepreneur hoping to raise them for their fur. But some escaped from captivity and began to thrive in the Louisiana wetlands. By 1955, there were an estimated 20 million wild nutria in the state, devouring the grasses that kept coastal marshes from becoming free water. They were kept in check only by a flourishing trade in their pelts.

But by the 1990s the fur market dried up, and the nutria multiplied.

The Associated Press contributed to this reportJodi Arias lawyers say they need more time to appeal her 2013 murder conviction after missing the deadline last week to file their legal brief.

The deadline came and went Wednesday for the brief. The next day lawyers filed a request for a three-month extension to submit the written document on behalf of Arias, who is in prison for the brutal slaying of her former boyfriend Travis Alexander.

Arias defense team cited a computer problem, staff shortages and the chronic health issues of one of the lawyers in justifying their extension request, the Arizona Republic reported Sunday.

If the extension is granted by the Arizona Court of Appeals, the appeal will be heard by a three-judge panel after briefs are submitted by the defense and the prosecution.

'JODI ARIAS: AN AMERICAN MURDER MYSTERY': FORMER DETECTIVE CALLS CASE 'A TRAVESTY,' REVEALS AWFUL DETAILS IN TV SPECIAL

The appeal had already been delayed by about a year after problems were discovered in transcripts of Arias' trial.



In Arias' case, the state Court of Appeals had to repeatedly ask some of the trial's 22 court reporters to finish transcripts, and at one point even ordered that dozens of transcripts be destroyed and redone because of errors and omissions.

The court reporter responsible for most of the transcripts told the court his production was hindered by a computer malfunction, his own cancer treatment and the amount of work involved in Arias' case and others, while others cited workload issues.

Arias, now 37, was found guilty of attacking Travis Alexander in 2008 at his suburban Phoenix home. Arias stabbed and slashed Alexander nearly 30 times, slit his throat so deeply that she nearly decapitated him, and shot him in the forehead.

She left his body in his shower at his suburban Phoenix home where friends found him about five days later.

Arias initially denied having anything to do with the killing. She later admitted that she killed Alexander but claimed it was self-defense after he attacked her.

Prosecutors said it was premeditated murder carried out in a jealous rage after he wanted to end their affair and planned a trip to Mexico with another woman.

JODI ARIAS SUES EX-DEFENSE ATTORNEY OVER TELL-ALL BOOK

The guilt phase of Arias' trial ended in 2013 with jurors convicting her but deadlocking on punishment. A second sentencing trial began in late 2014 and stretched into early 2015, also resulting in a jury deadlock. That required the judge to impose a prison sentence of life without parole.

She now is serving the life sentence at the Perryville state prison near Phoenix.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A man was shot and killed early Sunday morning at a Texas house party after he put on a bulletproof vest and said to his friend, shoot me, according to reports.

About six to eight people were at the house party in Houston just after 1 a.m. when the man put on a bulletproof vest, FOX26 Houston reported. The gunman, identified as Jason Griffin, 39, allegedly shot the man and fled the scene, according to police.

Griffins girlfriend, Mary Warstler, told KTRK her boyfriend didnt intend to kill his friend, identified Monday as Daniel Barber.

"[Barber] goes 'shoot me.' Well, [Griffin] didn't think there was nothing in it, and he did. And the dude went '[expletive] that hurt' and then he dropped. And then Jason ripped the vest off of him and tried to help him,'" Warstler told KTRK.

Warstler told the news station Griffin was at the party to sell his friend a flak jacket.

Barber was struck in the chest and pronounced dead at the scene when paramedics arrived. Its unclear if the bullet went through the vest or it struck an area that the body was not covered.

Griffin was found at a nearby hospital and was being treated for a medical issue, according to FOX26. He was arrested and charged with manslaughter, felon in possession of a weapon and unlawful possession of body armor.A couple has filed a federal lawsuit against a southern Michigan township for preventing the launch of their swingers club.

Kent and Angie Tyler's lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit last week alleges Summit Township officials have used legal barriers to stop their business from opening, the Detroit Free Press reported . The couple describes the proposed spot as a "private membership adult couples social club."

Township officials wrote a letter to the Tylers saying their business doesn't meet the community's definition of a club or lodge. The Board of Trustees is unanimously against the proposed business, said Trustee Bob DuBois.

"Our building inspector told us, 'You don't want this.' We found out it was going to be a place for males and females to meet each other, and they'd have rooms where I guess they'd make a night of it, and we don't want any part of that," said DuBois, 79, a retired school superintendent.

Sex wouldn't have been allowed at the club, said Fred Lucas, the couple's lawyer. The club would've been a place for adults to mingle, he said. The couple argued against being labeled a swingers club because plans called for members to be shuttled to and from area hotels, according to the Jackson Citizen Patriot .

But the Michigan Court of Appeals deemed the swingers club designation appropriate.

The Tylers spent about $100,000 to buy a vacant commercial building in 2014 and another $140,000 in improvements. The township then issued a stop-work order in March 2015 and withdrew permits that had previously been issued, Lucas said.

The Tylers decided to seek monetary damages in district court after losing at township hearings and in other courts.

The township has already spent about $80,000 in attorney's fees to block the club's opening, DuBois said.

___

Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.comWhen news of the Parkland school shooting first broke, it resonated with 17-year-old Naomi Giancola.

A junior at Midwood High School in Brooklyn, New York  some 1,200 miles away from Marjory Stoneman Douglas, the Florida high school where a gunman murdered 17 students and faculty on Feb. 14  Giancola immediately thought the tragedy could have easily happened at her own school.

It really hit home because Im in high school. That could have been my school, that could have been my friends, that could have been me that was shot or running away, Giancola told Fox News.

So along with 16-year-old Madeline Paterna, Giancola arranged for her school to participate in the National School Walkout, a protest led by students demanding action against gun violence, on March 14  one month after the Parkland school shooting.

It was really scary to think that could have been us, and I just wanted to do something because I dont want it to happen again," Giancola said.

What is the National School Walkout?

For at least 17 minutes at 10 a.m. across each time zone on March 14, students, school faculty and supporters around the world will walk out of their schools to honor those killed in the massacre at the Parkland high school earlier this year and to protest gun violence.

Those participating are encouraged to wear orange  the color used by many who support gun control. And some schools will even have featured speakers who are calling on Congress to pass gun control measures.

Those at Midwood High will gather at a nearby park to have a moment of silence as the names of the 17 Parkland victims are read aloud. There will also be an opportunity for those to share a poem, song or words of encouragement.

"All we want to do is honor these peoples lives."  Naomi Giancola

Its important for everyone to realize that although it is about guns and its political, its more to commemorate the lives lost, Giancola said. At this point  all we want to do is honor these peoples lives.

Paterna added that she wanted to speak out for all the people who died in the shooting.

Us as students have to speak out about it and try to get our voices heard because I personally cant imagine losing 17 people that I know in a school community, Paterna told Fox News.

Students at Midwood High School and Packer Collegiate Institute, also in Brooklyn, have expressed concern that a gunman could enter a school at any time. And those students have also lamented a lack of protection.

As school shootings have become more common, if a shooter, God forbid, got into the school, theres really no protection for students, Sarah Desouza, a 17-year-old senior at Packer Collegiate, told Fox News.

Her peer, Drew Myers, noted that the school has lockdown drills about three times a semester. And its in those drills that he said he feels helpless.

Theres really nothing we can do if a shooter enters the building, he told Fox News. I find that the most chilling aspect of the whole thing: Theres really nothing you can do.

Seeing school shootings happen over and over again just really drives home the point that it seems so easy for these people to commit these acts, and you feel helpless in the drills because theres nothing you can do, Myers said, adding that he does not support arming teachers, a proposal put forth by the White House.

Who organized the walkout?

Womens March Youth EMPOWER, the organizers of the March 14 demonstration, say the walkout is to protest Congress inaction to do more than tweet thoughts and prayers in response to the gun violence plaguing our schools and neighborhoods.

Students and staff have the right to teach and learn in an environment free from the worry of being gunned down in their classrooms or on their way home from school, the event page said.

Cate Whitman, a 17-year-old student at New York Citys LaGuardia High School, partnered with the Womens March to help plan the walkout. She said she hopes the protest will shed light on the issue of gun violence in general.

Im hoping it will bring more focus to the larger issue of gun violence as a whole because gun violence is something that affects people from all walks of life, all over the country, and disproportionately black and brown communities," Whitman told Fox News. These things happen all the time in tons of communities, and Im hoping that people start talking about it in an intersectional way.

The Womens March has asked that all actions be inclusive & non-violent during the walkouts.

How many schools are participating?

More than 185,000 students are expected to participate in the walkout, according to the latest numbers provided by a Womens March spokesperson. And a map of participating schools on the events website shows the walkout has gone international  with schools in Ireland, Israel and Mexico participating.

Multiple colleges and universities have said they will not reject students who participate in the protests and walkouts, Reuters reported.

Yale will NOT be rescinding anyones admission decision for participating in peaceful walkouts for this or other causes, regardless of any high schools disciplinary policy, Hannah Mendlowitz, the senior assistant director of admissions and director of recruitment for Yale University, said in a blog post. I, for one, will be cheering these students on from New Haven.

Students at Packer Collegiate Institute, an independent college preparatory school in Brooklyn Heights, credited the survivors of the Parkland shooting for their own activism and involvement in the walkout.

Myers said the survivors immediate advocacy, including meeting face-to-face with lawmakers and participating in town halls, was truly inspirational.

Its really inspiring that theyre taking action especially after something so tragic happened, Desouza added. It makes me want to contribute any way I can.

College students at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., also plan to participate in the walkout. Additionally, Students of Georgetown Inc. ("The Corp"), a student-run non-profit, will close its businesses for 17 minutes, Ricardo Mondolfi, a junior international politics major and chairman of "The Corp," told Fox News.

But some students dont plan to participate in the walkout. Will Walker, a 16-year-old sophomore at Cadillac High School in Michigan, told HuffPost he will continue with his school work  even if the teacher leaves the classroom.

I dont think were going to solve anything by walking out of the classroom, Walker told HuffPost. I am in full support of stopping school shootings, but thats not what the people are going out there [for]  Theyre trying to stop people from being able to have guns.

How are non-students showing support?

Congressional leaders and pastors are among those who will participate or show solidarity with students during the walkout.

Pastor Toure Roberts of The Potters House plans to join students at East High School in Denver for a moment of silence. He is also dedicating a Palm Sunday service to hear from students and give them an opportunity to speak to law enforcement personnel, local politicians and public school officials.

We want to encourage them and let them know we hear them. We dont want them to live in fear and literally be terrorized, Roberts told Fox News. We want [students] to know that they matter.

Additionally, congressional Democrats  including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California  plan to gather in front of the Capitol to join students rallying for more gun control.

MTV also plans to go dark for 17 minutes on March 14 at 10 am to pay tribute to the 17 lives lost in the Parkland shooting and honor young victims of gun violence, the station said in a statement to Fox News. Between March 14 and March 24, when the "March For Our Lives" rallies will be held, MTV also plans to change its logos across its platforms to orange.

How do I know if my school is participating?

To find out if your school is participating, plug in your zip code and check out the map on the Womens March website.

Another nationwide school walkout is scheduled for April 20, the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School massacre. A spokesperson for this walkout confirmed to Fox News that it is not directly affiliated with the March event.

And on March 24, "March for Our Lives" rallies are scheduled nationwide for demonstrators to protest gun violence.Four men, including firefighters, were arrested Saturday following a huge brawl at a Long Island wedding hall that injured a groom and two police officers.

Thomas Dunham, 55, the first assistant chief of Hagerman Fire Department and his two sons, Andrew, 29, and Brendan, 21, were arrested and charged. Corey Citarella, 29, the first lieutenant of the Hagerman Fire Department of East Patchogue, was also arrested, Newsday reported.

Thomas Dunham was charged with second-degree obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest after he went after a [Riverhead police] sergeant, officials told Newsday.

UTICA COLLEGE ON LOCKDOWN DUE TO CREDIBLE THREAT, OFFICIALS SAY

Andrew Dunham was charged with third-degree assault, second-degree harassment, and resisting arrest in connection with harassing a police officer, authorities said.

Brendan Dunham was hit with a third-degree assault charge. Citarella was also charged with third-degree assault.

Officials said the brawl involved about 40 to 50 mostly intoxicated people at the East Wind Caterers in Wading River, N.Y. The fight allegedly broke out between members of the Hagerman Fire Department and wedding guests.

WOMAN DUMPED POPCORN ON 2-YEAR-OLD GIRL DURING MOVIE, POLICE SAY

Numerous subjects, mainly intoxicated, started pushing, cursing and hitting one another, Riverhead Police Department said in a statement.

Police said numerous agencies responded to the quarrel.

The groom suffered injuries to his face and upper body. Police said the man, who was not identified, was punched by three people. Two police officers sustained injuries to their hands.

The four men pleaded not guilty Sunday during their arraignments. Andrew Dunham posted bail while Citarella, Brendan and Thomas Dunham were released on their own recognizance.

It was not immediately clear why the fight broke out.A NJ Transit rail conductor has been suspended after allegedly falsely claiming agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Department of Homeland Security were searching for illegal immigrants aboard a train out of Bayhead to New York early Monday.

Passengers began to tweet at the transportation company, along with New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, Sen. Cory Booker, and other state officials, asking why ICE agents were riding the train to find illegals and criminals.

NJ Transit asked riders for more details, and seemingly concluded the agency employee was on a Coast Line Train #3326 out of Bayhead in Ocean County, just before 7 a.m.

In a statement, NJ Transit said it has taken swift action by immediately suspending, without pay, the crew member who made the alleged train announcement pending the outcome of a full investigation.

The agency did not identify the conductor but said the employee has been with NJ Transit for more than 30 years.

NJ Transit will not tolerate such reprehensible conduct which stands in direct contrast with our agencys culture, the statement said.

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., wrote that if ICE agents were actually searching the train, it would be outrageous racial profiling that is un-American and makes us less safe, noting that his office is looking into it.

The ICE office in Newark confirmed to The Associated Press that no ICE agents were on the train Monday. The spokesperson said agents conduct targeted enforcement of criminals and would have had to have been in pursuit of such a person to board public transportation.

Fox News' Shira Bush and The Associated Press contributed to this report.A new controversial Florida billboard is targeting the National Rifle Association as a terrorist organization.

The anti-NRA billboard is funded by Claude Taylor, a former White House staffer for President Bill Clinton, through MAD DOG PAC, a political action committee that also erected billboards calling for President Trumps impeachment in states across the country.

The Pensacola billboard plainly states: The NRA is a terrorist organization.

The PAC's website sells a March For Our Lives Rally Pack for $50 that includes an NRA Terror T-shirt and rally signs with Impeachment Now buttons and bumper stickers ahead of the gun-control rally on March 24 following the Florida school shooting that killed 17 people.

Taylor plans to put up more anti-NRA billboards in red states across the nation.

"With the GOP majority in the House and in the Senate, the NRA makes impossible any meaningful, common-sense gun reform," Taylor told the Pensacola News Journal.

The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

'KILL THE NRA' VANDALIZED BILLBOARD POPS UP IN WAKE OF FLORIDA HIGH SCHOOL SHOOTING

Folks in the area are not fans of the billboard calling the NRA a terrorist organization.

"It's a freedom of speech thing, but it kind of borders on slander," Patrick Eakins, an auto shop worker, told Pensacola News. "A lot of people here count on hunting and harvesting wild game and stuff like that for food. There's a lot of gun owners here that are going to have a negative reaction to (the sign). Personally, I don't agree with what it's saying.

Recently, anti-gun activists altered a billboard advertisement to read Shoot A School Kid Only $29 outside of Las Vegas, where a shooter killed 58 people during a country music concert and injured hundreds more.

Last month, a billboard was vandalized to read Kill The NRA along a major highway in Kentucky.

ANTI-GUN ACTIVISTS ALTER BILLBOARD AD TO READ, 'SHOOT A SCHOOL KID'

Taylor told the local news he plans to put up another NRA terror billboard in Oklahoma and two in Texas.

"The NRA is helping facilitate the introduction to the civilian marketplace of a broad range of military grade weaponry that is inappropriate, unsafe and unwise to have in civilian hands," he said. "And legislatively, the NRA owns the GOP."An Oklahoma judge who faced widespread criticism for letting a church camp rapist walk away with only probation earlier this year has let other child rapists avoid prison as well, according to a new report.

Marshall County District Judge Wallace Coppedge has agreed seven other times to send sex offenders home without prison sentences during his seven years behind the bench, The Oklahoman reported, citing court records.

The newspaper said most of the cases involved child rapes and the outcomes were linked to problems that appeared after the cases were filed in court.

"The simple explanations are that often cases change over time," Oklahoma Criminal Defense Lawyers Association President Al Hoch told The Oklahoman last month.

Hoch added that prosecutors may strike the deals because witnesses would refuse to testify or "additional evidence becomes available and renders a case less appealing to a jury."

But judges dont always have to approve the plea deals and several have told The Oklahoman that they would never consider only probation for an admitted child rapist.

In multiple other cases decided by a jury, a plea agreement or by choosing the punishment himself, Coppedge has sent sex offenders to prison, records viewed by the newspaper showed.

Coppedge, who hears cases from five different counties, did not respond to numerous requests for comment from the newspaper.

Benjamin L. Petty, a Falls Creek camp cook, pleaded guilty to raping and sodomizing a 13-year-old girl in 2016 and was sentenced by Coppedge in January to 15 years of probation. Petty also is required to register as an aggravated sex offender and will have to wear an ankle monitor for two years, KFOR reported.

The victim's attorney said the family was comfortable with the plea, according to a court transcript viewed by the station.

"The family consented to the plea agreement based on the representation by [David] Pyle that Petty would not serve meaningful time in prison due to his medical conditions," Bruce Robertson, the victim's attorney, told KFOR. "The family was not provided any other alternative.

But Pyle, the prosecutor who reached that deal, was forced to quit because he did not consult with his boss beforehand, The Oklahoman reported.

"I want it to be known that I strongly disagree with the lenient manner in which the Benjamin Petty case in Murray County was prosecuted in many respects," it quoted District Attorney Craig Ladd as saying in late January.

"Had I been kept apprised, I certainly would have had authority to stop the offer from being extended and would have done so," Ladd also told KFOR.

Since then, more than 100,000 people have signed an online petition demanding Coppedges ouster, with one commenter calling the verdict sheer insanity.

Coppedge used to represent defendants as an attorney before he started his career as a judge.More than 100 protestors with masks and signs clashed with scores of police in riot gear armed with pepper spray Monday outside Michigan State University, where avowed white nationalist Richard Spencer planned to speak, postponing the address until later in the afternoon over safety concerns.

MSU Police Captain Doug Monette confirmed to Fox News that 24 people were arrested in the parking lot of the schools agriculture and livestock education pavilion, where Spencer was scheduled to speak.

Fox 17 reported other protests and peaceful marches have been taking place in East Lansing.

Activists were reported chanting No Nazis, no KKK, no fascist USA as well as Punch a Nazi.

Spencers Monday visit comes while MSU students are on spring break.

In response to a question, the school told The Associated Press that Spencers appearance isnt a school-sponsored event and MSU is simply the venue.

Michigan State said all appropriate security measures would be taken with the Spencer appearance, which was scheduled in settlement of a lawsuit. An MSU spokesman said in statement that the school rejects divisive and racist messages.

Spencer, who is leader of the National Policy Institute think-tank, has helped popularize the term alt-right to refer to a fringe movement thats a mix of white nationalist, white supremacist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant beliefs. Spencer has rejected being labeled a Nazi, racist or white supremacist, saying he prefers to be called an identitarian.

Spencer was a scheduled speaker at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last August that led to deadly violence when a man struck and killed a protester with his car. For a subsequent Oct. 19 appearance at the University of Florida, officials estimated security costs at $600,000.

The University of Cincinnati last October agreed to allow Spencer to speak, with its board of trustees publicly condemning hate while citing the fundamental right to free speech at a public university. His attorney sued in January after the school demanded nearly $11,000 for a security fee, which it later said was a mere fraction of expected costs. The case is pending before a federal judge.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Chicago-area officials trying to prevent funerals for gang members from turning into shootouts say the issue has gotten so far out of control that one cemetery has started hiring off-duty police officers.

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart met Thursday with political, religious and funeral industry leaders to discuss the problem following a funeral procession in December that was marred by gunfire.

"It's getting out of control, it really is, Hillside Police Chief Joseph Lukaszek told FOX 32. The gangs just think that it's a safe haven for them and they do whatever they want to do.

Dart  who hopes to come up with proposals ready to be put into action by May  says the shootings have been escalating over the last ten to 15 years from where it was not much of a problem to now it occurs more frequently.

"It's getting out of control, it really is. The gangs just think that it's a safe haven for them and they do whatever they want to do."  Hillside Police Chief Joseph Lukaszek

He told FOX 32 that at least one cemetery has been hiring off-duty cops whenever a gang member is set to be buried.

SUSPECT IN CHICAGO COP'S DEATH GOT OFF EASY FOR MAJOR PAROLE VIOLATIONS, RECORDS SUGGEST

John McCall, a local funeral director, said he's increasingly worried about the safety of his employees.

"It is dramatic for the families and very dramatic even for the funeral directors, the violence that's going on and all the things that's happening. Guns and knives, he said.

In December, Lukaszek himself rammed his squad car into a vehicle carrying three people suspected of firing at a funeral procession that was heading to Oakridge Cemetery.

Police wrestled the cars four occupants to the ground and found guns on three of them.

"We were able to identify the car, and we started following the car after it left the cemetery so it wouldn't create any more problems there, Lukaszek said.Richard and Christine Taras knew their soft-spoken son had been picked on by a school bus bully. But they were unaware of the more extensive torment Jacobe endured in school hallways until the day the 12-year-old middle schooler killed himself with his father's shotgun.

"Dear Mom and Dad, I'm sorry but I can not live anymore," Jacobe wrote on a sheet of lined notebook paper in 2015. "I just can't deal with all the bullies, being called gay ... being told to go kill myself. I'm also done with being pushed, punched, tripped." He signed off, "I LOVE YOU."

"We had no idea of the extent or the seriousness of what was going on," Richard Taras said. "My son didn't tell me and the school didn't pass along the information they had."

Nearly three years later, Richard and Christine Taras of Moreau, 40 miles north of Albany, are pushing for a New York law that would require schools to notify parents if their child is being bullied. Known as "Jacobe's Law," the measure unanimously passed the state Senate last week but has an uncertain fate in the Assembly.

At least eight states currently have laws requiring that schools notify parents when their child is being bullied or is bullying other kids. But such policies have come under attack from LGBT advocates who argue that schools officials could inadvertently be put in the position of outing gay, lesbian or transgender pupils to their parents. And such students may avoid reporting bullying to officials for fear of having their parents told.

"While it's important for parents to be aware if their children are being bullied in school, it's also imperative to remember that LGBTQ students may not be out to their family or may not have supportive families," said Ikaika Regidor, director of education and youth programs for GLSEN, a national organization focused on safe schools for LGBTQ students.

Civil rights groups say it is a violation of students' privacy rights when authorities disclose their sexual orientation to their parents.

In 2001, a successful wrongful death lawsuit was filed after a Pennsylvania high school football player committed suicide when police officers threatened to tell his family he was gay. A federal court in Philadelphia ruled that the U.S. Constitution prohibits governments from delving into the sexual orientation of Americans.

Those concerns have at least one state rethinking its law.

In New Jersey, known for having some of the strictest anti-bullying statutes in the nation, state education department officials have suggested stepping back from automatic notification and instead requiring schools to consider incidents on a case-by-case basis before contacting parents.

"There are laws that restrict what school officials can tell a parent about anything the official has discovered about the student's sexual orientation or gender identification," said Bob Farrace, spokesman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals. "Where notification might lead into that conversation puts the official into a very difficult spot. We just need to make sure laws are reconciled."

The Education Commission of the States says many states require that school districts develop policies around parental notification of bullying, but only a few explicitly outline those requirements at the state level.

Connecticut, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Virginia and Wisconsin have statewide requirements for parental notification of bullying, although timing of notification varies. In Louisiana, a parent must be notified before any student under 18 is interviewed about a report of bullying. In Connecticut, parents must be notified within 48 hours after an investigation of bullying is completed.

Other states require schools to develop local policies on parental notification. They include Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

In New York, every school district is required to develop a code of conduct addressing bullying and discrimination. It must include provisions setting circumstances and procedures for notifying parents of code violations.

Cynthia Gallagher, an official with the School Administrators Association of New York, said the organization hasn't taken a position on the proposed parental notification law. "It might seem like an area that should be clear cut, but it's not for us," she said, citing the quandary an official faces when bullying is related to sexual orientation.

Richard and Christine Taras contend that the rural South Glens Falls School District failed to protect their son from bullies who made fun of him for being a Boy Scout, among other things. A year after he died, they filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the district in state Supreme Court in Saratoga County. Since it's still pending, school officials declined to comment on his case.

Jacobe's bedroom remains as he left it, filled with things showing his love for the outdoors  a mounted deer head, a tree painted on the wall above the bed, a miniature canoe on the dresser.

"Jacobe was the kindest soul you could meet, with extremely good manners, empathy and people skills," Richard Taras said. "For someone like that to decide to take his own life, it's hard on so many levels. You feel like you didn't protect them."A Tennessee grandmother was arrested after she brought a Doritos bag full of drugs to a prison, but told police her grandson had tricked her into bringing the banned items.

Sarah Griffin, 68, was visiting her grandson Cody Clements, an inmate at Shelby County Division of Corrections, on Saturday when she slipped him a bag of Doritos, FOX13 reported. An officer went over to the duo and asked Clements to hand the bag over.

Clements allegedly grabbed a black object wrapped with electrical tape out of the bag before handing it over.

The officer took the object, unwrapped it and found 28.5 grams of methamphetamine, 11.4 grams of marijuana, 40 bars of prescription Xanax pills, 1.7 grams of Ecstasy and 1.1 grams of heroin, according to WREG.

FLORIDA FATHER, DAUGHTER CAUGHT HAVING SEX IN THEIR BACKYARD, REPORTS SAY

Griffin told police she didnt know about the drugs inside the Doritos bag. The 68-year-old added that she picked up the chips bag from an unidentified girl earlier in the week and believed she was giving her grandson a cellphone.

She was arrested and was charged with taking contraband into a penal facility. Its unclear if Clements will face further punishment.A lockdown at Utica College was lifted Monday evening after police received a real, credible threat from someone who claimed to have a gun on campus, school officials said.

The campus in upstate New York, located about 52 miles east of Syracuse, was placed on a shelter in place order just before 12 p.m. and law enforcement agencies swept the campus through the afternoon. Armed police officers were called to the campus to evacuate students and faculty from the buildings.

"Effective immediately, the lockdown on campus has been lifted," the college tweeted just after 5 p.m. "Residential students can return to their residence halls. Commuters, faculty and staff can collect their belongings. Law enforcement will remain on campus this evening and continue the investigation."

Police told Fox News they received a call about an individual with a gun on campus, but said no shots were fired.

The Tangerine, the campus student-run newspaper, provided updates throughout the day on Twitter. The paper said students received an email saying a veiled threat was made about a person in the Gordon Science Center. The message reportedly stated come get me.

The newspaper also tweeted a photo of students sheltered in place hiding under tables. In another update, students were seen standing in groups at the schools Strebel Lounge.

Fox News' Nicole Darrah contributed to this report.A statewide teacher strike in West Virginia entered its eighth day Monday without a clear resolution in sightkeeping 277,000 students away and particularly hurting those who rely on school-provided free meals in a state where the poverty rate is 17.9 percent.

Although teachers have said they want to return to the classroom, and continued to press lawmakers to come up with a solution, those on strike have said their backs are against the wall.

We feel like we're under attack constantly, Cody Thompson, a social studies and civics teacher at Elkins High School, told the Associated Press. Eventually whenever you're pushed into a corner, you've got to push back.

The walkout, which has garnered increasing support on social media, is the first teacher strike since 1990 in West Virginia, which ranks 48th in teacher pay in the country with average starting salaries of about $33,000. Educators in the state have gone four years without any pay increase.

Teachers and other public employees have also faced increased premiums and higher deductibles for the last three years under West Virginia's beleagured Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA).

[People] see us out here and think its moneythey think its only about the pay raise. It is so not about the pay raise, Annette Jordan, a teacher at Hedgesville High in Berkeley County, told the Atlantic while holding a sign that read, Id take a bullet for YOUR child but PEIA WONT cover it.

Jordan explained that because of structural changes to the health-insurance system, her familys monthly premiums would more than double starting July 1.

What we're seeing is a movement in the U.S. Not just a labor movement. It's a class of people rising up, said Sam Brunett, an art teacher at Morgantown High School.

First, Republican Gov. Jim Justice signed a two percent pay raise for next year; the House of Delegates later approved a five percent increase, negotiated between Justice and the unions last week. But on Saturday, the state Senate approved a lower four percent increase, which prompted union leaders to vow to stay out of classrooms.

WEST VIRGINIA TEACHERS STRIKE CONTINUES AFTER SENATE CUTS THEIR PAY INCREASE

However, the House wouldnt agree to the Senates move, sending the bill to the conference committee. A legislative conference committee appointed to resolve differences between the state Senate and House is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. on Monday.

Some teachers in the state have taken side jobs in order to make ends meet.

Gov. Justice took to Twitter late Saturday to implore both sides to do whats best for West Virginias teachers and students, saying: The bottom line is we have to be able to fill teacher classroom vacancies and we MUST get our kids back in the classroom.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Italys national elections Sunday looked set to result in strong support for right-wing and populist parties, according to initial exit polls, but not enough to crown a clear winner -- suggesting that a hung parliament and lengthy negotiations are the most likely immediate outcome.

An exit poll by RAI state television found that a right-wing coalition, consisting of former premier Silvio Berlusconi's center-right Forza Italia party along with the anti-migration League and Brothers of Italy, would have the most votes with 33-36 percent in the lower house, but were unlikely to turn that into a working majority.

The RAI poll, reported by Italian news wire ANSA, found that Forza Italia was running neck-and-neck with the League, led by firebrand Matteo Salvini. Salvini and Berlusconi had agreed that if their coalition took power, then whichever party had the most votes would be prime minister. Berlusconi has tipped European Parliament President Antonio Tajani as his pick should Forza Italia be the largest party in the coalition.

Berlusconi can't run for office because of a tax fraud conviction.

The populist 5-Star Movement looked to be the biggest single party overall, predicted to gain approximately 30 percent of the vote in both the lower house and the Senate.

5-Stars leaders repeatedly have ruled out forming coalitions with traditional Italian parties, but its 31-year-old candidate for prime minister, Luigi Di Maio, has hinted at at openness at potential coalitions, and may find himself under pressure to turn a number of electoral wins into actual governing power.

The first figures, if confirmed, would be extraordinary. I would say historic, Alfonso Bonafede, a 5-Star lawmaker, told Politico. That would mean that the 5-Star Movement will be the pillar of the next legislature.

ITALIAN ELECTION COULD SEE RIGHT-WING, POPULISTS RISE TO POWER

Should the polls turn out to be accurate, the election likely would be only the first step in what could turn out to be lengthy coalition negotiations as parties try making deals to put themselves on a path to power.

Italian President Sergio Mattarella could play an increasingly important role in the next few weeks as he monitors the negotiations and looks to work out who has the best chance of being able to form a government.

Ahead of the election, experts predicting a hung parliament said that once negotiations got under way, all bets were off as to how any coalition could appear.

The only one who has a chance [for an absolute majority] is Berlusconi the immortal and his coalition, Franco Pavoncello, professor of political science at Romes John Cabot University, told Fox News. If you dont get that you must start talking to the other groups and see if you can put together some strange bedfellows in a rather strange bed.

However, there is a good chance that a governing coalition could end up leaning significantly to the right of the current Democratic Partys leadership under Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

The Democratic Party's center-left coalition, led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, looked to have a disappointing night, with the RAI poll predicting a result of between 24.5 percent and 27.5 percent.

But Renzi could still find himself back in office should his party end up in a coalition either with 5-Star, or even in a grand coalition with Berlusconis Forza Italia. At the other end of the spectrum, a populist coalition of 5-Star, the League and the Brothers of Italy would send shivers through the spines of many E.U. leaders.

The Leagues Salvini appeared delighted by the initial projections, some which suggested the League may outperform Forza Italia in the Senate, tweeting out a message of thanks to supporters.

Other populists also watched the election with interest. Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon was in Rome for the election, while right-wing former French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen gleefully predicted that the European Union "is going to have a bad evening" with a smiley face emoji.

The likelihood of a right-wing coalition was boosted after Democratic politicians continued to rule out a possible coalition with 5-Star, even after the exit poll was announced.

"We are alternative to [5-Star]," Democratic whip Ettore Rosato said, according to ANSA. "If they have the numbers, they should govern. We'll be in the opposition."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.British media say a former Russian spy is in critical condition after coming into contact with an "unknown substance."

Authorities did not identify the man, but the Press Association and other British media identified him Monday as Sergei Skripal, 66, who was convicted in 2006 on charges of spying for Britain and sentenced to 13 years but was freed in 2010 in a U.S.-Russian spy swap.

His identity was first disclosed by the BBC.

Following his arrest in Moscow in December 2004, Skripal confessed to having been recruited by British special services in 1995 and was feeding them information about Russian agents in Europe, receiving over $100,000 for his services.A former Russian spy is believed to be in critical condition after he was exposed to an unknown substance, British media reported.

Sergei Skripal, 66, and a woman who was only described as being in her 30s, fell critically ill after being exposed to the substance, the BBC reported. The two were transported to Salisbury District Hospital, Sky News reported.

Skripal was convicted in 2006 in Russia on charges of spying for Britain and sentenced to 13 years but was freed in 2010 in a U.S.-Russian spy swap.

PUTIN: RUSSIA WILL NEVER EXTRADITE CITIZENS ACCUSED BY US

Following his arrest in Moscow in December 2004, Skripal confessed to having been recruited by British special services in 1995 and feeding them information about Russian agents in Europe, receiving more than $100,000 for his services.

Skripal and the woman are being treated at Salisbury District Hospital after police responded to a call at Maltins shopping center on Sunday. The two were reportedly discovered unconscious on a bench at the shopping center. Police said it did not appear Skripal or the woman had any visible injuries.

WHITE HOUSE CONDEMNS SYRIA SLAUGHTER BACKED BY RUSSIA, IRAN

A few areas in Salisbury have been enclosed by police.

"At this stage it is not yet clear if a crime has been committed and a multi-agency response has been coordinated," Wiltshire Police said. "Police are carrying out a full investigation and working with partner agencies, to clarify the exact circumstances.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency is reporting that France's foreign minister has arrived in Tehran amid French criticism of Tehran's ballistic missile program.

The Monday report said Jean-Yves Le Drian will hold meetings with Iran's President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Le Drian's office says a key part of the trip will be diplomacy over the war in Syria and trying to get Iran to use its influence on Syrian President Bashar Assad to agree to a cease-fire.

This is the third time that a high-ranking French official visits Iran after the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. France increasingly has criticized Iran's ballistic missile program since the deal.

Le Drian also will inaugurate an exhibition called "The Louvre in Tehran" at the Iranian National Museum.Guatemala plans to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in May, just two days after the U.S. embassy makes the same move from Tel Aviv, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales announced Sunday.

I would like to thank President Trump for leading the way, Morales, who enjoys support from a base of conservative Christians, said during his speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committees annual pro-Israel policy conference. His courageous decision has encouraged us to do what is right.

Monday, just one day after the announcement, a Guatemalan ambassador was on the streets of Jerusalem, aided by an Israeli diplomat, looking at properties for their embassy.

Later in the day, Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House amid growing uncertainty on a Middle East peace deal, heightened by the status of Jerusalem.

Palestinians were angered at the American and Guatemalan governments embassy announcements, given the Palestinians want East Jerusalem as their capital.

Guatemala, one of the first countries to recognize Israel after the proclamation of the Jewish State in 1948, was also one of a few countries that backed Trumps Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital.

It became the first country after the United States to set a date for moving its embassy there from Tel Aviv.

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organizations executive committee, blasted the move in a statement to Reuters.

He said Netanyahu, Trump and Morales make for a combination of lethal factors and illegal policies that will destroy the changes of peace, especially when you add the evangelical Christian extremism and literalism into the mix.

In 1959, Guatemala was the first country to open an embassy in Jerusalem, but moved after Israel passed a law proclaiming Jerusalem its indivisible and eternal capital in 1980, which led to a U.N. Security Council resolution that called on countries to move their embassies to Tel Aviv.

Morales said his decision to return the Guatemalan embassy to Jerusalem strongly evidences Guatemalas continued support and solidarity with the people of Israel.Remote Indonesian villagers who were becoming increasingly fearful that a shapeshifter was hiding out in their community killed and disemboweled a rare Sumatran tiger on Sunday because they thought it harnessed supernatural powers, conservation officials say.

The bloodied carcass of the critically endangered big cat was photographed Sunday hanging from beams covering a public gathering space in Hatupangan in north Sumatra.

"Unfortunately they would not listen. They insisted on killing the tiger," Hotmauli Sianturi, the regional head of Indonesias Natural Resources Conservation Agency, told Sky News. "After killing the animal, the locals hung up its body for display. It's very regrettable."

Authorities investigating the killing have discovered that the tiger is missing canine teeth, claws and skin off its face and tail  all body parts that can be used in medicine or sold in the black market, according to Reuters.

Activists said the tiger had been prowling in the area for more than a month and injured one person before it was tracked down and executed, the news agency added.

"The tiger was sleeping under a resident's stilt house when the people struck him repeatedly in the abdomen with a spear," Lion Muslim Nasution, an official in the Batang Natal subdistrict where the village is located  told the Jakarta Post.

MEXICAN OFFICIALS FIND TIGER CUB IN MAIL PACKAGE

The attack on Sunday reportedly left two villagers seriously injured and happened despite repeated warnings from conservation officials to leave the tiger alone.

Nasution said the locals were aware of the tigers endangered status but were overcome by rumors and fears that a shapeshifter was lurking in the village.

It was not immediately clear why the villagers believed the tiger was anything more than an animal. Only around 400 of the big cats are estimated to be left in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

"In Indonesia, anyone caught hunting tigers could face jail time and steep fines," the organization says in a section of its website devoted to the animal. But despite increased efforts in tiger conservationincluding strengthening law enforcement and anti-poaching capacitya substantial market remains in Sumatra and the rest of Asia for tiger parts and products.

REMARKABLE VIDEO SHOWS TIGER AND BEAR LOCKED IN FEROCIOUS FIGHT

Sianturi was quoted by Reuters as saying that officials will prove that its body parts are being traded.

We explained to the villagers that the tiger is an endangered animal, she said, noting that conservation officials had set up a trap for it, but they didnt like our way of handling this situation.

Police in the leafy Southeast Asian country have found a number of other killed animals in recent months following conflicts with farmers and plantation workers, Reuters reported.

On Borneo, officers have arrested at least two people for two separate incidents in which orangutans were decapitated and shot more than 130 times with an air rifle.NEWS

Pentagon transforms Campia Turzii unit into a NATO air hub at the Black Sea A former Soviet airbase in central Romania could become a hub for US Air Force operations in south-eastern Europe, where the Pentagon is seeking to Mai mult

Nuclearelectrica shareholders approved to terminate negotiations with Chinese for building reactors 3 and 4 from Cernavoda Nuclearelectrica's Board of Directors has been mandated to initiate proceedings to terminate negotiations with China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN), as well as legal effects Mai mult

Renault holds expansion of its plant in Romania, 15,000 jobs cancelled at global level "Putting capacity growth projects planned in Morocco and Romania on hold" - is one of the measures included in the draft plan of Renault Group Mai mult

Romania is a net importer of electricity in 2020 as well Romania imported an amount of electricity of almost 796 GWh in the first month of this year, by more than 36% above what it exported Mai mult

Shareholders of Galati steel plant promise investments of one billion euros GFG Alliance has committed to invest one billion euros to upgrade Galati steel plant in order to reduce emissions and increase production. Another EUR 1 Mai mult

Top 3 reasons why young people leave Romania Lack of trust in authorities, corruption and low living standards are the main reasons why young people leave Romania. The data is part of a Mai mult

IMM Invest Romania  program implementing rules have been published The Ministry of Public Finance announces that it has issued the methodological norms for the implementation of the Program for supporting small and medium-sized enterprises Mai mult

Pollution import and car park expansion: comparisons with the other EU states Romania is the EU country with the fewest cars in terms of the number of inhabitants, according to data recently published by Eurostat. We appear Mai mult

Laura Codruta Kovesi remains alone in the race for European Chief Prosecutor French Prosecutor Jean-Francois Bohnert will be appointed as head of the European Financial Prosecutor's Office, a position for which he was heard on Thursday, 11 Mai multFour Islamic State terror group suspects were detained on Monday after the U.S. Embassy in Turkey was shut down due to a security threat, reports said.

The four Iraqi nationals were arrested during an investigation into a possible attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkish state media reported. Two of the suspects were detained on a bus while traveling on a highway linking the Black Sea city of Samsun to Ankara. They were taken into custody at a security check.

Two others were detained in Samsun.

The arrests came after the U.S. Embassy had shared intelligence with Turkeys intelligence and security authorities, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said. The intelligence, on the possible attacks against the embassy or Americans, led to "important results." He said the U.S. diplomatic missions in Istanbul and the southern city of Adana remained open for business.

The embassy announced on its website the building will be closed Monday and Tuesday due to a security threat, but did not provide further information.

The Embassy will announce its reopening, once it resumes services, the statement read.

Police searched pedestrians passing through the street in front of the embassys main gate.

In 2013, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive in front of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, the Turkish capital. He killed himself and a Turkish guard. Turkish officials blamed the attack on domestic leftists.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Longtime Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not backing down  despite police recommending he be indicted on corruption charges.

Police recommended charges against the prime minister in two separate cases, and he was questioned last week regarding a third case. Netanyahu has maintained his innocence and attributed the accusations to a media witch hunt against him.

Heres what you need to know about the investigation into Netanyahu.

Why is Netanyahu being investigated?

On Feb. 13, Israeli police recommended Netanyahu be indicted on bribery and breach of trust charges in the two corruption cases.

In the first case, called Case 1000, Netanyahu is accused of accepting nearly $300,000 in gifts from Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan, 73, and Australian billionaire James Packer, 50. In exchange, police said Netanyahu operated on Milchans behalf on U.S. visa matters, attempted to legislate tax breaks and sought to promote his interests in the Israeli media market.

After the more than yearlong investigation, police said Netanyahu accepted gifts valued at 750,000 shekels  or $214,000  from Milchan and gifts that included cigars and champagne. He took 250,000 shekels (about $71,000) from Packer, according to police.

Police have not said what Packer allegedly received from Netanyahu.

Police have also recommended charges in another case, called Case 2000, alleging Netanyahu offered to give special treatment to Arnon Mozes, the publisher of the Yediot Ahronot daily, and in return, the newspaper would give him favorable coverage.

The third and latest investigation, called Case 4000, involves a probe into telecommunications tycoon Shaul Elovitch who is accused of using his news site Walla to promote positive coverage of the prime minister in return for financial and regulatory perks, according to The New York Times.

In late February, police arrested seven suspects, including Elovitch, for their alleged involvement in Case 4000. Netanyahu is not directly implicated in this particular probe, but was reportedly questioned by police for five hours on the matter last week.

What has Netanyahu said?

Despite the allegations against him, Netanyahu has remained defiant, the BBC described.

"I will continue to lead the state of Israel responsibly and loyally as long as you, the citizens of Israel, choose me to lead you," Netanyahu said in a televised address on Feb. 13. "I am sure that the truth will come to light. And I am sure that also in the next election that will take place on time I will win your trust again, with God's help."

He has denied any wrongdoing and called the accusations against him a witch hunt by the media.

In a Facebook video posted to his official page last week, Netanyahu announced he would be flying to the U.S. Sunday to meet with a big friend of Israel, a true friend, President Donald Trump," according to a translation by The Jerusalem Post. He continued to say he felt confident about the Case 4000 investigation because there will not be anything," The Jerusalem Post reported.

So what happens next?

Police recommendations were given to Israel Attorney Gen. Avichai Mandelblit, a former aide to Netanyahu, who will review the material and decide if he will file charges. This process is expected to take months.

Nearly all of Netanyahu's Cabinet ministers issued statements of support and his coalition partners all signaled they would stick by him  at least, for now.

Can Netanyahu stay in office?

Yes, Netanyahu is able to remain in office while the attorney general reviews the material, although multiple opposition leaders have called on him to resign.

What else should we know about the prime minister?

Netanyahu, known as Bibi by friends, has served as the Israeli prime minister since 2009.

He was also the minister of communications from 2014 to 2017.

Prior to his leadership of Israel, Netanyahu served in the army for five years, including as captain of the Sayeret Matkal, an elite special forces unit.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Top officials from South Korea met and had dinner with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang Monday. It is the first time officials from Seoul have met with the young leader.

It is significant these talks are happening, Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies told Fox News. Kim Jong Un has hardly met with anyone.

This follows meetings in the South during the recent Winter Olympics between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and officials from the North.

It shows North Koreas intention to initiate talks, Fitzpatrick noted, they are apparently feeling the pinch of economic sanctions.

On the agenda: Improving inter-Korean relations, laying the groundwork for a possible summit between Moon and Kim, as well as talks involving Washington and Pyongyang, and, perhaps most importantly, the denuclearization of North Korea.

Over the weekend, President Trump again said there would be no talks with the North unless getting rid of Pyongyangs nukes was on the table.

In a statement via state media, North Korea called that preposterous, saying Pyongyang agreeing to denuclearization is nothing short of ridiculous.

There is no give on this. North Korea expert Fitzpatrick told Fox News. It is very unlikely that U.S.-North Korea talks will happen.

The South Korean delegation is set to return to Seoul Tuesday. A member will go on to Washington to de-brief officials from the Trump administration.South Korean delegation is set to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at a dinner in Pyongyang on Monday evening, making it the first time South Korean officials meet Kim in person since he took power in 2011 after his fathers death.

The announcement came from President Moon Jae-in's office shortly after a 10-member South Korean delegation consisting of high-level officials landed on Monday in the capital of North Korea to meet its officials.

The envoys are in North Korea for their two-day visit. It remains unclear what will be discussed, but the communist states nuclear and missile program is believed to be the priority.

The hermit kingdom has reiterated its commitment to the nuclear program, claiming it cannot be subject of any negotiations.

China, the closest ally of North Korea, welcomed the visit by the South Korean envoys, expressing hope to see a positive outcome of the meeting, a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry said during a news conference on Monday.

"We hope all sides will bear in mind the larger picture of peninsular peace and stability ... and make joint efforts not only for better ties between the North and South but for the early accomplishment of denuclearization and lasting peace and stability on the peninsula," the spokesman added.

The expectations are high that the two Koreas can resume the talks and reduce the escalation in the region in the wake of North Koreas successful participation in the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Toronto police released a picture of an unidentified deceased man believed to be another victim of alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur while announcing Monday that a seventh set of dismembered remains has been found at a home where he did landscaping work.

Detective Sgt. Hank Idsinga said police have shown the picture of the bearded, darker skinned man to locals and have tried to identify him using their own investigative techniques, but have been unsuccessful.

"I do not want to release this picture and I'm doing so as a last resort," Idsinga told reporters Monday.

"I've never done this and I do it with great hesitation," he added, noting that the man is believed to have been dead at the time the photograph was taken.

Idsinga declined to say how police obtained the picture and its not clear if the remains of the seventh man are of the same man seen in the picture. All of the remains have been found in large planters at a Toronto home McArthur frequented.

Investigators have identified three sets of remains so far  49-year-old Andrew Kinsman, 50-year-old Soroush Mahmudi and 40-year-old Skandaraj Navaratnam.

BRUCE MCARTHUR, 'ALLEGED SERIAL KILLER,' NOW LINKED TO SIXTH TORONTO-AREA DEATH

McArthur is charged with first-degree murder in their deaths, as well as the presumed deaths of 44-year-old Selim Esen; Majeed Kayhan, 58; and Dean Lisowick, either 43 or 44. Police have said they believe there are more victims.

The 66-year-old grandfather and former mall Santa Claus has not entered a plea. His case is due back in court March 14. Edward Royle, a lawyer for McArthur, previously declined to comment on the case and didn't respond to a message from the Associated Press seeking comment on Monday.

"The city of Toronto has never seen anything like this," Idsinga said in late January, following McArthurs arrest on the 18th of that month. "It is unprecedented and draining. He's an alleged serial killer and he's taken some steps to cover his tracks."

"I do not want to release this picture and I'm doing so as a last resort."  Toronto Sgt. Hank Idsinga

Authorities have checked at least 30 other places the landscaper was known to have worked, including some of Toronto's wealthiest neighborhoods, and have collected at least 15 planters.

Investigators say McArthur is believed to have met his victims in Toronto's Gay Village neighborhood and on gay dating apps for older and large men with names such as "SilverDaddies" and "Bear411." Edward Royle, a lawyer for McArthur, has declined comment on the case and McArthur has yet to enter a plea.

GRAD STUDENT CLAIMS SHE TIPPED OFF POLICE TO SERIAL KILLER A YEAR AGO

A suggestion by Toronto's police chief last week that McArthur would have been arrested sooner if the public had been more cooperative with investigators has angered LGBTQ residents and could worsen already strained relations, community leaders told the Associated Press.

Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders said in an interview with the Globe and Mail that "nobody" came to officers with information in 2012 when police launched a special task force called Project Houston to investigate three missing South Asian or Middle Eastern men from the city's gay village.

"I've heard a lot of sources say certain things, and had those sources said those things thing when we had Project Houston, I think there is a very strong potential that the outcome could have been different," Saunders said. "We knew that people were missing and we knew we didn't have the right answers. But nobody was coming to us with anything."

But Haran Vijayanathan, executive director of the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention advocacy group, said Saunders should retract what he said.

"This is actually just going to push that divide a bit further and not allow people to work together," Vijayanathan said. "The chief is creating his own problems now."

BODIES OF 6 VICTIMS FOUND ON TORONTO PROPERTY CONNECTED TO ALLEGED SERIAL KILLER

Toronto city Councilor Kristyn Wong-Tam, whose district includes Toronto's Gay Village, said she was shocked by the comments and called them inaccurate.

"I know for a fact that the community rallied around asking for additional resources and attention to the missing men (as early as 2010 and 2011)," she said.

In addition to working as a self-employed landscaper, McArthur allegedly also worked as a Santa Claus at the Agincourt Mall in Toronto, the Global News reported.

McArthur appears to have run into money problems in the past as he declared bankruptcy in 1999, according to the CBC. He also was handed a two-year conditional sentence for assault in 2003 after attacking a man with a metal pipe in Toronto in 2001, the news agency added.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Turkey's state-run news agency says Turkey has requested that German authorities detain and extradite a Syrian Kurdish politician wanted in the country.

Anadolu Agency reported Monday that Turkey requested that Germany extradite Salih Muslim, the former co-chair of the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, who was spotted in Berlin over the weekend.

Muslim was released from custody in the Czech Republic last week, after being briefly detained on a Turkish arrest warrant. He was requested to remain within European Union territory and to be available for hearings in his extradition case.

Turkey considers the PYD a terrorist group because of its links to outlawed Kurdish insurgents fighting within its own borders. Muslim was put on Turkey's most-wanted list earlier this month, with a $1 million reward for his capture.next Image 1 of 2

prev Image 2 of 2

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gave former New York mayor and billionaire media mogul Michael Bloomberg a new title Monday as U.N. special envoy for climate action, handing him the job of spurring speedy global action to help curb global warming.

A longtime activist for clean energy, Bloomberg was appointed U.N. special envoy on cities and climate change by then U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon in January 2014 and he has been traveling around the United States and the world to campaign for reducing climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Guterres announced that Bloomberg will help support a U.N. Climate Summit that he is planning in 2019 to mobilize more ambitious action and start implementing the landmark 2015 Paris climate agreement now.

Countries agreed in the Paris accord to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and do their best to keep it below 1.5 degrees C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with pre-industrial times. But the agreement starts after 2020  and at U.N. climate talks in November over 170 countries stressed the importance of implementing ambitious climate actions before 2020.

Speaking at a ceremony officially appointing Bloomberg to his new job, Guterres said temperatures in the atmosphere and at sea level are rising faster than expected, glaciers are receding more quickly, and the Arctic ice cap is "shrinking much more quickly and dramatically than in the past  so climate change is running faster than we are."

But there are two pieces of "very good news," the secretary-general said: "Today, the cheapest energy is green energy" and the "green economy" is the economy of the future. And there is "enormous capacity" to mobilize civil society, the business community and cities.

He pointed to the work Bloomberg has done in all those areas, saying: "I am very confident that this battle will be won, because the realities of today's economy are such that the wise decision is the green decision."

Guterres said last July that Bloomberg is "convinced" the United States will reach the Paris goals  despite President Donald Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of the pact in 2020.

The former mayor has urged world leaders not to follow Trump.

"My hope is that President Trump listens to his advisers and looks at the data and changes his mind. And if that's the case, that shows a great leader who when facts change, and they recognize something different, they're not bound to what they did before, they're willing to change," Bloomberg said. "And I think it's fair to say this president does change his views  generally it's one day to the next."

Bloomberg has pledged to help save the Paris agreement. Last October, for example, his foundation donated $64 million to a Sierra Club program seeking to phase out coal-fired power plants and reduce planet-warming carbon emissions.

Bloomberg said Monday that his foundation is interested "in spending a lot of money in helping us understand that climate change is real and it's measurable."

As examples, he said that for the first time the North Pole in the middle of the winter had temperatures above melting, oceans over the last 20 or so years have risen, and there are more frequent and powerful storms. In addition, Bloomberg said, there are floods where there used to be droughts  and droughts where there used to be floods.

He said the solution is for people everywhere to get together and change the way they live, "and we have to be a little smarter about how we generate energy.Theres been a mismatch between our young people and our future economy, she said. I want to work with you on how we change that dynamic on every level  from how were framing what programs we have in colleges and universities to how were building right here a pipeline of students to bring to institutions like this or be the diaspora for institutions in other places.

Setting the stage for a discussion that often turned to themes of partnership and progressing research from the lab to front-line treatments, Fred Hutch Executive Vice President and Deputy Director Dr. Bruce Clurman noted the Hutchs multifaceted work on cancer, public health, infectious diseases, basic sciences and more.



We really pride ourselves in being able to bring together diverse and outstanding researchers and clinicians to discover transformative  and basic  things that we can then bring into lifesaving therapies, he said.

Rebecca Lovell, acting director of Seattles Office of Economic Development, asked participants to share ideas for growing the citys life sciences industry. They ranged from better incentivizing investments in early-stage research, to providing ample lab space and computational support for startups, to uniting local life sciences and tech players around a health issue that can serve as a catalyst for further collaboration and innovation.

If Hutch Vice President for Business Development & Strategy Niki Robinson has her way, the city of Seattle in partnership with the local life sciences community will embrace a full range of ideas to de-risk investments in promising early-stage research, nurture its commercialization potential and foster talent that stays in Seattle working on the next breakthrough. "So the big idea is ... do all of that," Robinson said.

A key challenge, several guests said, is that while Seattle has many components of a thriving life sciences hub  powerhouses in research, education, biotech, bioscience, data science and cloud computing  its Boston, San Francisco and Houston, among others, that have a leg up in attracting startup ideas and dollars and commercializing discoveries.

Durkan says its time Seattle fully embraced the life sciences for what its already brought to the city  including at least 25,000 high-quality jobs and life-improving innovations  and what it will produce in the future.

There is just so much upside potential, concluded Durkan, the first woman mayor of Seattle in nearly 100 years. You hear that same word: vibrancy or cluster  we're talking about our mission-driven ecosystem of innovation happening in our city."Free Freightnet Membership

List your company in the Freightnet directory. It's Free, it's Easy and your company can be displayed in front of potential freight buyers within 24 hours.It's no secret that HackMaster is my game of choice and back in 2008 HackMaster was on it's "4th Edition." It was actually the 1st edition, but it was the spiritual successor to AD&D when the official 3rd Edition came out (and quickly followed by 3.5). HackMaster was a fictional game in the Knights of the Dinner Table (KoDT) comic strip.



NOTE: this is an archived page and the content is likely to be out of date.

Fujitsu has announced that it is today commencing sales of the Fujitsu Managed Infrastructure Service Global On-Site Operations, a service that will provide maintenance for IT devices in about 180 countries. Targeting enterprises in Japan that conduct business globally, this service is provided in coordination with Fujitsu Group companies and service providers outside Japan that operate business locations worldwide.

A single contract with Fujitsu is all that is needed for this service that dispatches engineers to customer locations outside Japan, in almost any part of the world, to provide standardized maintenance operations for IT equipment, such as PCs, network devices, and servers.

This service will enable uniform IT device operations across almost all locations outside Japan, supporting Fujitsu customers in enhancing their global IT governance.

Background

When conducting business at multiple locations outside Japan, companies need to select local service providers in order to procure and keep the IT devices running, with each location signing separate contracts that define the scope of the work. This process is often time-consuming as it is significantly impacted by factors such as differences in language, laws, business culture, or time zones.

Moreover, in conducting support operations in-house, customers would spend time and budget to travel from Japan, meaning enormous costs beyond compare to those operations conducted only at sites in Japan. This has led to a demand for uniform global IT device operations.

Features of This Service

This service supports enhanced global IT governance for customers by providing uniform operations across all their locations based on a single contract with Fujitsu, which handles support operations such as equipment replacement, device deployment or migration, and other activities according to procedure manuals. The service covers IT devices such as PCs, network devices, and servers.

1. Support for IT devices from multiple vendors in almost every part of the world

By coordinating with Fujitsu Group companies outside Japan and with multiple service providers around the world, Fujitsu will provide on-site visits to support IT devices, including third party products, for customer locations in nearly 180 countries.

Also, as an optional add-on, Fujitsu's service managers will provide monthly operations status reports for each location, including incident reports and proposals for improvements, enabling optimal IT device operations with consideration for the customer's business lifecycle.

2. Appropriate operations in light of past incident analyses

Through its globally unified incident management system, Fujitsu can provide appropriate support for all locations in light of past examples by analyzing incident information from each of the engineers and sharing it across the system.

Service Outline

3. Rapid service startup through standardized operations procedures

Based on consultations with the customer upon contract, Fujitsu will share standardized task descriptions and procedures to all engineers, using its locations in Belgium, the Philippines, and Costa Rica as hubs. This will significantly shorten the preparation time previously required for such tasks as preliminary training, enabling the service to start in as little as one month.

Sales Target

Targeting midsize and second-tier companies, and 100 major companies, Fujitsu aims to win contracts with a cumulative total of 200 companies, and achieve annual sales of 2.0 billion yen by the end of fiscal 2020 (Fujitsu's fiscal year runs to the end of March).Scotlands biggest private landowner, the Duke of Buccleuch, has called in a government commissioner to intervene in a row between his estate managers and agricultural tenants.

The dispute began when Buccleuch Estates, which manages 105,423ha of land for the duke, announced plans to turn some of the Eskdale and Liddlesdale Estates in the Borders over to forestry.

It put 11 of the tenanted farms up for sale last summer to raise capital to invest in the forestry projects. A further 13 have since been added to the list of farms for sale.

See also: Buccleuch Estates offers more farms for sale to tenants

Although the existing tenants were told they had a choice to buy their farms or continue with their secure agreements, allegations of bullying and intimidation to force through sales have since emerged.

The allegations were made at a public meeting that attracted almost 200 people to the nearby town of Langholm to discuss the forestry proposals on Tuesday 27 February.

The National newspaper reported two of the farmers affected, Alison and David Telfer of Cleuchfoot Farm, Langholm, claimed to have been bullied by Buccleuch Estates over the ending of their lease.

The Buccleuch Estate said one limited partnership agreement was ended against the tenants wishes, but expressed concern at the allegations that were being made against it.

In a statement, estate chief executive John Glen said he had called in tenant farming commissioner Bob McIntosh to examine the ongoing negotiations.

Mr Glen added: We deeply regret that any tenant feels they have been treated unfairly or have been bullied in any way.

We take our responsibilities very seriously and always try to reach amicable agreements with tenants. However, sometimes that does not happen. Even if there is disagreement, it should not give rise to accusations of bad professional practice.

The move to include the commissioner was welcomed by NFU Scotland president Andrew McCornick.

NFU Scotland has had discussions with both the Buccleuch Estate and some of the tenant farmers.

We welcome the open approach to discussions from Buccleuch, and hope this can continue. I would urge any concerned members to contact NFUS directly to discuss these in confidence.

The Scottish Tenant Farmers Association also backed the move to include the commissioner in dialogue.

Chairman Christopher Nicholson said: STFA would encourage tenants to speak to the commissioner in confidence about their concerns.

However, we would urge [him] not to restrict his investigations to Eskdale and Liddesdale Estate, but to conduct a wider survey of how Buccleuch Estates are managed and its relationships with tenants and communities over its wider landholdings.Sheep farmers are counting the cost of heavy snow  feeding and rescuing buried livestock from deep drifts.

Rising temperatures have seen a thaw set in across much of the country, but farmers in many areas are still trying to locate and rescue livestock.

In the Scottish borders, shepherd and National Sheep Association ambassador Sion Morgan tweeted a picture of his flock at Galashiels.

See also: Snow-stricken farmer ditches 8,000 litres of milk

The Welshman is in charge of 2,100 ewes on the home farm of a large farming enterprise, plus another 800 on a neighbouring hill estate.

This picture sums up today. Team work meant we managed to make sure all stock are safe and fed. Well done to everyone working through #stormemma #farm365 #BeastFromTheEast pic.twitter.com/7dLOv5PGJe  Sion Morgan (@SionMorgan6) March 2, 2018

Farmers wife Elizabeth Gray tweeted photos of sheep being dug out from a snowdrift on the North Yorkshire moors.

Digging her out from a snow drift pic.twitter.com/k8EprBKQl3  Elizabeth. Gray (@Libbyliz56) March 4, 2018

Peter Lane of Channel 5 News ensured more people were aware of the story by digging for sheep with farmer Darren Hough near Oldham.

Were digging for sheep with farmer Darren Hough near Oldham. Checking the #snow for livestock buried by the drifts. @5_News pic.twitter.com/Y0LOWl2yIz  Peter Lane (@peterlane5news) March 2, 2018

In County Durham, snow plough drivers came to the rescue of two sheep buried up to their heads in drifting snow.

Not all heroes wear capes  Ive just snapped these two @DurhamCouncil snow plough drivers who came to the rescue of two sheep buried up to their heads in snow! #TrueGrit #uksnow @UKSnowUpdates @StormHour @SnapYourWorld #northeasthour @CoDurhamWeather pic.twitter.com/luyuR1Yne6  PAUL KINGSTON (@PaulKingstonNNP) March 2, 2018

In Cumbria, the Boustead family battled to rescue sheep buried at Newbiggin on Lune near Kirkby Stephen.

A spare plough from Chris Acaster and AA Farm Services managed to help clear a path to get to sheep for feeding in the Derbyshire Pennines.

Morning from the office today working for the good people of @Derbyshirecc pic.twitter.com/l61L8vf6Ug  Chris Acaster (@AAFarmServices) March 3, 2018

Rhian Hammond of NFU Cymru tweeted this photo of a large drift in mid-Wales.

Snow drifts or not, sheep have to be fed  but wow what a drift this is on our farm lane #BeastFromTheEast #Snowmageddon #sheep365 #BackWelshFarming #StormEmma pic.twitter.com/bnwzpitwFk  Rhian Hammond (@rhianelinor91) March 2, 2018

After a busy few days, Nic Renison managed to find time for some sledging at Cannerheugh Farm, Renwick, Cumbria.Biosecurity staff conduct inspection exercises at the Post Office during which this suspicious mail is found.VANCOUVER, B.C., March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Volcanic Gold Mines Inc. (Volcanic) (TSXV:VG) is pleased to report that it has entered into a binding Memorandum of Understanding (the Agreement) to acquire up to 100% of JOFEMA Mineral Resources SARL (JOFEMA), a private company registered in the Ivory Coast. The assets of JOFEMA under option consist of near-adjacent exploration permits and exploration permit renewals known as La Debo and Soubre (the Properties), which together cover an area in excess of 600 sq km, and fall on a major mineralizing shear zone within one of West Africas fastest developing gold provinces (Fig 1). JOFEMA holds a direct 100% interest in the Properties.



This acquisition will complement Volcanics existing property holdings in the Mandiana district of Guinea, and allow the Company to benefit from a valuable consolidation opportunity in a leading African mining jurisdiction. The Company remains committed to the advancement of its Guinean assets.

JOFEMA has completed over 18,000 m of reverse-circulation and diamond drilling at La Debo, as well as nearly 40,000 m of RAB, air-core and auger drilling at the property. In 2016 an Inferred Mineral Resource1 of 9.5 million tonnes at a grade of 1.3 g/t for 396,000 ounces of gold was defined in two small isolated bodies. This Resource has not been verified by Volcanic and is therefore historic in nature. Over 7,500 surface geochemical samples were collected at La Debo, and on the basis of these data, in combination with limited RAB drilling results, a number of large, consistent targets are observable along strike from the historic Resource, and remain largely untested (Fig 2).

Of particular interest are extensive and continuous soil geochemical anomalies occurring within recognizable and persistent structural zones in proximity to igneous intrusions at La Debo, and Soubre (Fig 3). Importantly, such a combination of circumstances gives rise to gold mineralization of economic proportion elsewhere within the Birimian rocks of the Ivory Coast, a notable example being the nearby Bonikro Mine (Indicated Mineral Resource of 1.3 million ounces at 1.4 g/t Au and Inferred Mineral Resource of 0.77 million ounces at 0.92 g/t Au in 20102). The anomalies at La Debo and La Debo South cover a continuous area of approximately 10 sq km, and have been subject of minimal drill testing, which leave important mineralized structures open laterally and at depth. At La Debo, for example, four consecutive shallow RAB holes at 20 m intervals within the soil anomaly end in >1 g/t Au assays; however, to date no follow-up of this target has occurred, and elsewhere follow-up is minimal. Further extensive gold in soil anomalism is observed at Soubre, where it is similarly juxtaposed to geological structures. Each of these targets provides Volcanic with the opportunity to potentially grow its resource1 base using existing data and low-cost conventional exploration drilling techniques.

The Properties are located in southwestern Ivory Coast, approximately 140 km southwest of the capital, Yamoussoukro, and are accessible via all-weather roads. A power line crosses La Debo in the vicinity of the historic Resource. In 2016 the Fraser Institute ranked the Ivory Coast first in Africa for Investment Attractiveness (https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/survey-of-mining-companies-2016.pdf).

1 The reader is advised that these results are historic in nature and are yet to be verified by Volcanic.

2 http://www.newcrest.com.au/media/resource_reserves/2011/Bonikro_Mineral_Resource_Competent_Persons_Statement_250111.pdf

The Agreement

Subject to Volcanic completing satisfactory due diligence and to stock exchange approval, Volcanic will have the exclusive right to acquire up to 100% of the issued shares of JOFEMA, by incurring exploration expenditures (Expenditures) on the Properties over a period of three years totaling US$5 million, and making cash and share payments to JOFEMA. Within 90 days of the fulfilment of the Expenditures, Volcanic shall have the right to either:

(a) acquire an initial 65% interest in JOFEMA by paying US$2,000,000 in cash and US$2,000,000 in shares of Volcanic to JOFEMA, and thereafter, continuing to fund further exploration of the Properties. The other shareholders (the Minority Shareholders) of JOFEMA may elect to co-fund such exploration pro rata to their own shareholding. Where the Minority Shareholders do not co-fund further exploration, then Volcanic may dilute them to 10% by incurring an additional US$3,750,000 in Expenditures. If the Minority Shareholders are diluted to a holding of less than 10% of the total issued share capital of JOFEMA, then Volcanic may, at any time thereafter, purchase the remaining equity of the Minority Shareholders for US$2,000,000 in cash and US$2,000,000 in shares of Volcanic, or Volcanic must, at the Minority Shareholders election at any time after a period of 6 months from when their shareholding has been diluted, purchase the remaining JOFEMA equity for US$2,000,000 in cash and US$2,000,000 in shares of Volcanic. or: (b) acquire a 100% interest in JOFEMA by paying JOFEMA US$4,000,000 in cash, and US$4,000,000 in shares of Volcanic.

Qualified Person



Mr. Simon Meadows-Smith is Volcanics Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, and has approved the disclosure of the scientific and technical information contained in this news release. Mr. Meadows-Smith holds a BSc degree in geology from Nottingham University, England, and has been involved in mineral exploration since 1988, including 20 years of experience working in West Africa. He is a Fellow in good standing of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining in London.

About Volcanic

Volcanic brings together a deeply experienced and successful mining, exploration and capital markets team focused on building multi-million ounce gold resources in the underexplored West African countries of Guinea, the Ivory Coast and their neighbouring countries. Through the strategic acquisition of mineral properties with demonstrated potential for hosting gold resources, and by undertaking effective exploration and drill programs, Volcanic looks to become a leading junior gold resource company.

For further information, contact Alex Langer, the Companys VP Capital Markets, at 604-765-1604, or visit our website at www.volgold.com.

Volcanic Gold Mines Inc.

Jeremy Crozier, President and CEO

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. All statements included herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and include, without limitation, statements about the Companys possible acquisition of an interest in the Properties. Often, but not always, these forward looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as estimate, estimates, estimated, potential, open, future, assumed, projected, used, detailed, has been, gain, upgraded, offset, limited, contained, reflecting, containing, remaining, to be, periodically, or statements that events, could or should occur or be achieved and similar expressions, including negative variations.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Such uncertainties and factors include, among others, whether the Company will complete the acquisition of an interest in the Properties as planned; changes in general economic conditions and financial markets; the Company or any joint venture partner not having the financial ability to meet its exploration and development goals; risks associated with the results of exploration and development activities, estimation of mineral resources and the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; unanticipated costs and expenses; and such other risks detailed from time to time in the Companys quarterly and annual filings with securities regulators and available under the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended.

Forward-looking statements contained herein are based on the assumptions, beliefs, expectations and opinions of management, including but not limited to: that the Company will complete the acquisition of an interest in the Properties as planned; that the Companys stated goals and planned exploration and development activities will be achieved; that there will be no material adverse change affecting the Company or its properties; and such other assumptions as set out herein. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by law. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

Figure 1: Location of the La Debo and Soubre properties in the Ivory Coast relative to major producing gold mines, and major mineralizing shear zones (represented as broken black lines).

Figure 1 is available at: http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a22541ac-c51b-4a88-b65b-fa663bc15b6c.

1 The reader is advised that these results are historic in nature and are yet to be verified by Volcanic.

3,5 http://www.perseusmining.com/reserves_and_resources.66.html

4 http://www.randgoldresources.com/reserves-and-resources

6 https://www.endeavourmining.com/our-portfolio/reserves-and-resources/default.aspx

7 http://www.newcrest.com.au/media/resource_reserves/2016/December_2016_Resources_and_Reserves_Statement.pdf

Figure 2: Distribution of Historic Mineral Resources, large scale structures and principal targets at La Debo, notably the scale and extent of geochemical feature within the structural zone.



Figure 2 is available at: http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/e40e33b8-8a4f-4730-ad32-fae41c097adc.

Figure 3: Distribution of Historic Mineral Resources, and principal mineralized targets relative to large scale structures and intrusive igneous features at La Debo and Soubre, noting that such a combination of circumstances gives rise to gold mineralization of economic proportion elsewhere within the Birimian rocks of the Ivory Coast.



Figure 3 is available at: http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/aca85825-1fc2-417d-9c6d-1dfb1193ff30.MONTREAL, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Auxico Resources Canada Inc. (CSE:AUAG) is pleased to announce the acquisition of thirteen (13) properties located 75 km southwest of the city of Bogota, Colombia. These properties represent a total of 65,000 hectares with each property averaging approximately 5,000 hectares. This area is known for high-grade gold and cobalt, as well as other base metals.



Joel Scodnick, the Companys consulting professional geologist, visited the properties and validated the metal content from the samples. We are pleased to announce the first results of the Restopo property where volcanic boulders up to 1 ton in size, yielded results of up to 16.3% copper. A certified technician form Symtek, affiliated with SGS Laboratories in Colombia, analyzed the samples.

Further results from all of the properties are expected this week.

Qualified Person

This news release was reviewed and approved by Joel Scodnick, P.Geo., an independent consultant to Auxico, in his capacity as a Qualified Person, as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Mark Billings

President, Auxico Resources Canada Inc.

mb@auxicoresources.com

Cell: +1 514 296 1641

About Auxico Resources Canada Inc.

Auxico Resources Canada Inc. (Auxico) in a Canadian company that was founded in 2014 and based in Montreal. Auxico is engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties in Mexico. The Company has a 100% interest in the Zamora Silver-Gold Property in Sinaloa, Mexico. Auxico will continue to identify and potentially acquire additional property interests and conduct exploration and evaluation of these properties to assess their potential.

The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or the accuracy of the contents of this release.TORONTO, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Montero Mining and Exploration Ltd. (TSX-V:MON) (Montero or the Corporation) has entered into a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Mr Esegiel Xamseb, a Namibian national, to acquire an 80% interest in the wholly-owned Exclusive Prospecting License 6162 (EPL6162 or the Property) for exploration of lithium, base, rare and precious metals in the Omaruru lineament hosted Lithium-Cesium-Tantalum Type (LCT-Type) pegmatites. The agreement provides Montero three months to complete legal and technical due diligence to its satisfaction and is also subject to regulatory approval.



Under the terms of the LOI, Montero immediately earns an 80% interest in the Property by committing to spend C$1 million in 3 years.

Dr. Tony Harwood, President and Chief Executive Officer of Montero commented, The acquisition of a lithium exclusive prospecting license, located on the Omaruru Lineament, has favourable geology to host Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum mineralization. The license has not previously been explored for lithium and is located in close proximity to existing lithium producers. The demand for lithium is being driven by the need for clean energy storage devices in the auto and technology sectors and a focus for Montero.

The Project is located in central Namibia, 20 km north of the town of Karibib, which is 211 km from Walvis Bay, Namibias largest commercial deep-water port and is connected by dirt and asphalt roads to the port.

EPL6162 hosts metasedimentary units of the Damara Mobile Belt, the northeast-trending branch of the Neo-Proterozoic, Pan African Damara Orogen in Namibia. It is located in one of the four belts of LCT-Type pegmatite fields previously mined for lithium-tantalum-tin. The area has never been investigated for lithium and has good potential for LCT-Type pegmatites in favorable Karibib marbles. There is known petalite mineralization in the area and the EPL is located 40 km north of a major lithium producer.

The target lithium mineral is petalite and spodumene and the initial phases of exploration will involve reconnaissance geological mapping and sampling to identify the size and extent of the pegmatite intrusions. More detailed work will follow to delineate and quantify any possible lithium, tantalum and tin mineralization and also any gold or copper mineralization on the license.

Nico Scholtz is currently reviewing available geological information on EPL6162. Recent field investigations revealed the license has lithium, gold and copper potential. The Navachab gold mine located 20km south of EPL6162 was the first gold producer in Namibia. As of 31 December 2012 (AGA, 2012), the Navachab gold mine quoted a total inclusive Mineral Resource of 4.41Moz and a total Ore Reserve of 2.01Moz. The marble-hosted gold skarn mineralization is related to multi-stage mineralization and pink Nosib formation quartzites and arkose occur on the eastern edge of the EPL.

Further confirmatory geological work is planned as part of the due diligence and updates will be provided.

Qualified Person's Statement

This press release was reviewed and approved by Mr. Mike Evans, M.Sc. Pr.Sci.Nat., who is a qualified person for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101 and a Consulting Geologist to Montero. A review was also undertaken by Nico Scholtz, Pr.Sci.Nat., is a qualified person for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101 and is a Namibian based geologist with more than 10 years experience. He has extensive experience in rare metal pegmatite exploration in Namibia having worked on LCT pegmatite intrusions.

About Montero

Montero is a mineral exploration and development company engaged in the identification, acquisition, evaluation and exploration of mineral properties in Africa. Currently these include the Soris lithium project in Namibia, phosphates in South Africa and rare earth elements (REE) in Tanzania. Montero is reviewing and evaluating other opportunities from its operating base in South Africa. Montero trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol MON.

For more information, contact:

Montero Mining and Exploration Ltd.

Dr. Tony Harwood, President and Chief Executive Officer

E-mail: ir@monteromining.com

Tel: +1 416 840 9197 | Fax: +1 866 688 4671

www.monteromining.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements, projections and estimates. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as plans, expects or does not expect, is expected, budget, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, intends, anticipates or does not anticipate, or believes, or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. Such information is based on information currently available to Montero and Montero provides no assurance that actual results will meet management's expectations. Forward-looking information by its very nature involves inherent risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements of Montero to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Actual results relating to, among other things, results of exploration, project development, reclamation and capital costs of Monteros mineral properties, and financial condition and prospects, could differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements for many reasons such as: changes in general economic conditions and conditions in the financial markets; changes in demand and prices for minerals; litigation, legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; technological and operational difficulties encountered in connection with Monteros activities; and other matters discussed in this news release and in filings made with securities regulators. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of Monteros forward-looking statements. These and other factors should be considered carefully and accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Montero does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.Images

Sorry, there are no recent results for popular images.The marine environment is critical to Grenadas economy and closely linked to the islands income generating tourism sector. Grenadas tri-island ocean state is not just a hub of maritime activity, but also home to unique marine biodiversityCalifornias Proposition 13, arguably the most famous and influential ballot measure in the nations history, turns 40 this year. The law cut property taxes by nearly 60 percent, putting the state at the vanguard of an anti-tax movement that quickly spread across the country. Lots of people in California think its long past time to update the law. But theres plenty of disagreement over what to do with Prop. 13 -- as evidenced by two separate ballot measures this year that seek alternatively to weaken the law or to strengthen it.Approved by voters in June 1978, Prop. 13 requires a two-thirds majority to raise state or local taxes and places strict caps on property tax rates. Taxes can be no higher than 1 percent of a propertys cash value and can increase by only 2 percent a year, as long as a homeowner remains in place. Once a property is sold, however, it is reassessed at current values.The law has had profound effects on public finance in California. It has altered funding streams for schools, made fiscal relationships between localities and the state into a complicated mess, and put localities on a never-ending hunt for new taxes and fees. Local governments in California are better off financially if they zone property to attract car dealers, who generate hefty sales tax revenues, rather than homeowners, whose payments are capped and partially diverted to the state.But for most Californians, the law means one thing: a break on property taxes in a state where housing costs are generally a serious burden. Its been characterized as the third rail of California politics, says Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. There are repeated efforts to try to weaken it or repeal it, but thats a ticket to a short political career. (Coupals group is named after Prop. 13s primary sponsor.)Nevertheless, a coalition of liberal nonprofits is currently collecting signatures for a ballot measure to end Prop. 13s protections for commercial and industrial properties. These would be reassessed every three years, with protections for small businesses. The measure would raise an estimated $11.4 billion annually, with roughly half the money going to schools and community colleges. Education has been desperately underfunded since Prop. 13s passage, says Joseph Tomas McKellar, co-director of PICO California, a faith-based group that is cosponsoring the measure. Proposition 13 contributed greatly to the kind of inequality we see in our state, he says. Our economy has grown into an hourglass economy.Polling suggests that voters are open to the idea of raising property taxes on commercial enterprises, but support starts to evaporate when they learn about potential impacts on small businesses. Thats without the millions of dollars that the measures opponents are certain to spend to defeat it. Despite Californias progressive leanings, the state will be rife with anti-tax messages this year, with a separate ballot campaign seeking to repeal a $5 billion gas tax increase that was imposed in 2017.Perhaps that atmosphere will lend some momentum to an effort, sponsored by the California Association of Realtors, to make Prop. 13s property tax breaks even more generous. The groups measure would allow homeowners who are 55 and older, or who are disabled, to keep their low property tax rates intact, even if they move. The associations argument is that this will free up housing by making it financially feasible for older homeowners to move out of their large dwellings, rather than feeling they have to stay in place in order to keep their property taxes low. It would turn part of the original logic behind Prop.13 on its head. Rather than reducing property tax rates to allow seniors to stay in their homes, this would give them a tax break that encourages them to move. But making lower rates portable for older and disabled homeowners could cost counties and schools $2 billion annually, according to the California Legislative Analysts Office.Prop. 13 has already created serious disparities between neighbors property tax bills. If a family has been in its home since 1980, that homes taxable value, on average, is $300,000 less than a recently purchased property on the same block. Sometimes the disparity is far greater.The fact that theres a serious push to convert tax breaks under Prop. 13 into a lifetime guarantee shows as well as anything the enduring potency the law still possesses four decades after its passage.Immediately after Congress repealed the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate in December, a handful of Democratic lawmakers in blue states pledged to enact their own requirements for residents to have health insurance.But three months into most states legislative sessions, those promises have yet to be met.In California and New York, two states widely expected to introduce (and pass) an individual mandate, legislation has yet to be introduced. In most of the six places where it has been brought to the table,bills are either stuck in committee or their passage is uncertain.Health policy experts attribute the waning enthusiasm to the unpopularity of the individual mandate. In November, 55 percent of Americans supported the Republicans' plan to repeal the individual mandate as part of their tax overhaul.The individual mandate provision has been the most unpopular provision of the ACA, even in blue states. So there are political risks to enacting one," says Sabrina Corlette, research professor at Georgetown Universitys Center on Health Insurance Reforms.Without the mandate, the Congressional Budget Officeestimates that, over the next decade, premiums will rise by 10 percent a year in most years and the uninsured population will increase by 13 million.Currently, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, New Jersey, Washington state and Washington, D.C., are considering bills to bring back the mandate.The District of Columbia is the furthest along in the process. Mayor Muriel Bowser established a working group after the tax bill passed to look at the impacts of an individual mandate and whether it would be worth pursuing. The working group -- which included health care stakeholders -- unanimously voted in favor of establishing one, and now the fate rests with the D.C. City Council.Even if it passes in D.C., though, Congress -- which repealed the individual mandate to begin with -- could block the law from taking effect.Three thousand miles away, Washington state passed a bill in the Senate in February -- but with some major caveats. The bill initially required Washington residents to have health insurance, but it now instead instructs the legislature to look into how they could implement an individual mandate in the future. It's now awaiting a vote in the House.The pushback in Olympia is in large part because there is no state income tax in Washington. The federal individual mandate was enforced through federal income taxes, so without a state income tax, it isnt clear how the Washington mandate could be enforced.In Hawaii, two bills introduced last year in the House and Senate to protect the major tenets of the ACA -- including the individual mandate -- have been rolled over into this session but have yet to make it out of committee.Maryland was the first state to file legislation to restore the mandate in January, but it hasn't gotten far: Neither the House nor Senate version has made it out of committee.Marylands bill, however, is unique: It would allow the $700 tax penalty for forgoing coverage to be used as a down payment for a plan on the marketplace. (The most popular marketplace plan in Maryland costs $475 a month.)State Sen. Brian Feldman, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation, said earlier this month that theres a lot of momentum in the Democrat-dominated statehouse. The state has a Republican governor, but Feldman is optimistic that he might sign it if given the chance.The governor has not been critical so far. Hes looking for a bipartisan solution, he says.Gov. Larry Hogan, who is known for his pragmatism, encouraged the legislature to find ways to stabilize the marketplace and keep residents covered. He has stopped short, however, of fully endorsing an individual mandate.New Jersey is perhaps the second-closest to implementing a mandate. A bill made it out of committee and onto the Senate floor, where it's awaiting a vote.The prospects are good, the timing is good. It may well be an apolitical issue because its unclear how strongly Republicans in the legislature will politicize it. Well see, says Ray Castro, director of health policy at the New Jersey Policy Perspective, who testified in favor of a mandate.Castro, however, also suggests that revenues generated from the penalty should be used to make insurance affordable -- similar to Marylands bill. Right now, New Jersey's bill proposes revenues go toward a reinsurance fund, which helps insurance companies pay for the most expensive patients.Connecticut held a hearing on its individual mandate proposal on Thursday, but state Rep. Sean Scanlon -- the bill's sponsor-- says its anyones guess if the bill will pass this session.This is going to be one of the more controversial bills. I would just say that its a vote for increasing premiums if you dont support it, he says.Even if just one or two states end up enacting an individual mandate, thats still impressive for progressive health advocates, says Jason Levitis, who managed ACA implementation for the U.S. Department of Treasury during the Obama administration.But both Levitis and Corlette, from Georgetown, believe the chances for this kind of legislation will improve with time.I think it may be too late to have a mandate operational in time to affect 2019 rates. So if the 2019 window has closed, then the pressure to get something done right away is less," says Corlette.There's reason to believe that the stars will be better aligned next year," says Levitis, "with more time to prepare, the 2018 elections behind us and 2019 premiums making stark the real-world impact of [not having a]mandate."Indeed, officials in Vermont have already said they are open to the conversation for an individual mandate if their insured rate drops dramatically in the coming year.A bill designed to rein in "step therapy," the insurance company practice of requiring patients to try a less expensive medication before using a costlier option, will become law in New Mexico.Gov. Susana Martinez on Wednesday signed Senate Bill 11, sponsored by Sens. Liz Stefanics, D-Cerrillos, and Gay Kernan, R-Hobbs, one of about two dozen bills passed during the 2018 legislative session to which she added her signature.In addition to the legislation she signed, Martinez also made good on her promise to veto a bill that would have given pay raises to a number of elected state officials. Senate Bill 176, sponsored by Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, would have increased by 10 percent the pay of the next governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state treasurer, state auditor, land commissioner, public regulation commissioners and lieutenant governor.Martinez balked, referring in a news release to a budget surplus she said was made possible by "a relentless commitment to responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars. ... I will not waste a dime of it on doling out taxpayer dollars on pay raises for politicians."The bipartisan step therapy bill passed without opposition in the Senate or House.Insurance companies say step therapy, or "fail first treatment," is a necessary way to slow down spiraling drug costs and to curb the influence of drug manufacturers that market pharmaceuticals directly to patients and doctors.But critics contend the practice can cause patients in some cases to suffer with inadequate medications and that it interferes with what doctors consider to be the best care for their patients. Step therapy puts money before medicine, critics say.Referring to patients, Stefanics told The New Mexican last week, "To take them backwards might take them from walking to a wheelchair."Martinez also signed SB 19, sponsored by Sen. Jim White, R-Albuquerque, which would overhaul New Mexico's guardianship and conservator system for the elderly and disabled. The legislation mandates open court records, more oversight and auditing.White told The New Mexican in January that he was approached by constituents who raised concerns about guardianship laws even before recent high-profile criminal investigations disclosed widespread problems with two nonprofit guardianship companies. The owners and managers of the firms in both cases have been charged with stealing millions of dollars from clients, and the need for more protection of vulnerable people in guardianships has drawn national attention.Another bill signed into law Wednesday was SB 46, sponsored by Sen. Bill Tallman, D-Albuquerque. This sets up guidelines for the naming of public buildings, forbidding the naming of any state building for an official who has been convicted of a felony. It also prohibits naming buildings for officials while they are serving in office.The governor signed House Bill 317, sponsored by House Republican Leader Nate Gentry, one of several pieces of legislation passed that deal with a huge brine well cavity below the edge of Carlsbad that was caused by the extraction of a salt formation. Experts expect an impending collapse, which could take with it a highway interchange that leads to two national parks. Gentry's bill gives more power to the Carlsbad Brine Well Remediation Authority to deal with the problem.Martinez last month signed into a law a bill that redirects a portion of the vehicle excise tax to generate $30 million over three years to address the brine well problem near Carlsbad.Martinez also signed HB 38, sponsored by Rep. Jim Smith, R-Sandia Park, which sets out guidelines at the local level for certain wireless communication systems. Backers argued it will allow wireless providers to more easily expand service and improve mobile phone service. But a few lawmakers worried it would strip municipal and county governments of some authority in restricting cell towers.Also signed into law were several noncontroversial bills dealing with the military and veterans.One was HB 67, known as the Stolen Valor Act. It prohibits making false claims of military service for personal gain such as employment or appointment to public office. It was sponsored by Rep. Bob Wooley, R-Roswell, who is a Vietnam veteran.Other military bills included SB 97, sponsored by Bill Burt, R-Alamogordo, which is designed to expedite the process of getting New Mexico teaching licenses for members of the military and their spouses who are from out of state. "This will both allow military families to settle into the community quickly and help schools fill vacancies with quality, licensed teachers," said a statement from the governor.And SB 16, sponsored by Sen. Carlos Cisneros, D-Questa, will increase the rank required to be appointed as adjutant general of the New Mexico National Guard from major to at least colonel. Martinez's office says this will give the adjutant general more federal recognition and increase the credibility of the guard.Steven Long returned from his job cleaning up CenturyLink Field after a Seattle Sounders' game when he discovered that home was gone.He had been living in his 2000 GMC pickup, parked on a side street, but the city of Seattle towed it because Long had violated a city rule that requires vehicles be moved every 72 hours.That impound set up an unusual court ruling Friday that advocates for homeless people and the city both say could have broad implications on the crisis of homelessness.King County Superior Court Judge Catherine Shaffer ruled that the city's impoundment of Long's truck violated the state's homestead act -- a frontier-era law that protects properties from forced sale -- because he was using it as a home. Long's vehicle was slated to be sold had he not entered into a monthly payment plan with the city.Shaffer also ruled the fees the city required Long, 58, to pay to retrieve the truck were too high, violating constitutional protections against excessive fines."We believe this case has a lot of implications for other people using their vehicles as homes," said Ali Bilow, one of Long's attorneys with Columbia Legal Services."I think Seattle municipal judges should follow this ruling and take a hard look when homeless individuals, who are living in their vehicles, are charged these really excessive fees."The decision could impact how cities across the state enforce parking regulations when people are living in cars. It also speaks to the complications people living in vehicles pose for the city as it deals with a growing homelessness crisis.More than 2,300 people were living in their vehicles on the night of King County's 2017 homeless point-in-time count -- 20 percent of the county's homeless population.Police and parking-enforcement officers could now find themselves in a bind if they can't definitively determine whether a vehicle is simply abandoned or is someone's home, said Assistant City Attorney Michael Ryan.By following the logic of Long's legal team, Ryan argued in court Friday, "Someone could park right here in front of the court house on Fifth Avenue, and we couldn't tow them, or if we did tow them, we couldn't put them in impound."We'd have to put them somewhere else and we couldn't charge them at all for it, because if we did, we'd violate the constitution if they were living in that vehicle."The city attorney's office is weighing whether to appeal the case.Long had been homeless since March 2014, when he was evicted from his apartment after the rent got too high and he missed payments. He said he had previously lived out of a camper in the 1980s, traveling through five different states, so he thought he'd try sleeping in his truck.Long said it seemed safer than a shelter, where he feared his personal items could be stolen. And a truck is warmer than sleeping outside, he said.In court on Friday, Judge Shaffer called Long "a poster child ... for a lot of other people who are in this situation.""We are increasingly seeing a crisis of people who are unable to afford not just low-income but middle-income housing, and a shrinkage of the supply of middle-income and low-income housing," Shaffer said before issuing her ruling."So people like Mr. Long, who are now finding that they cannot make rental payments and that they cannot find alternative housing, are unfortunately a growing group in our city and our county generally."In fall 2016, when Long was doing cleanups for the Sounders, he had parked his truck in the 900 block of Poplar Place, near the Interstate 90 and Interstate 5 interchange. "It was out of the way," Long said.According to Friday's court hearing, officers approached him with reports of a man with a knife in the area. When officers saw the truck, which was not operable, they called a city parking enforcement officer, who tagged it and told Long he had to move it within 72 hours.Long claimed he told the officers he was living in the truck; Shaffer said it was unclear if the officers knew it was his home. Nonetheless, Long tore off the impound sticker, Judge Shaffer said Friday, and left the truck in place.The parking officer waited at least four days before having the vehicle towed, giving Long extra time to buy a part needed to get it running. When the enforcement officer returned Oct. 12, the truck was still there but Long was not, and the vehicle was towed.At the impound hearing, Long said the truck was his residence. The city waived the $44 ticket and reduced the towing and impound fees from more than $900 to $557.But his attorneys said this still hurt Long in a number of ways: he had no home for a time; he lost income because work tools he used for daily labor jobs were in the truck, and he struggled to pay the fines because he makes between $300 and $600 a month.Long sued the city but lost in Seattle Municipal Court in May 2017. He filed an appeal, which Judge Shaffer heard on Friday, and she ordered the city to refund Long the money he has so far paid.This is at least the second instance in recent months in which a court ruling has acknowledged the housing rights of homeless people.In October, the Washington Court of Appeals heard a case in which a Vancouver police officer looked inside a man's tent in an unsanctioned tent camp and saw a bag of methamphetamine.The man, William Pippin, was charged with possession of a controlled substance, but appealed. The appeals court ruled that the search, which did not involve a warrant, violated the man's constitutional right to privacy because the tent was his home.The ruling in Long's case sends a clear message about vehicle enforcement laws, which can have a disproportionate impact on the poor and the homeless, said Sara Rankin, of the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project at Seattle University School of Law.The decision also spotlights the city's haphazard way of addressing the large number of homeless people sleeping in their vehicles.There is only one remaining vehicle safe zone in Seattle, at Second Avenue South and South Spokane Street, which the city hopes to shut down by April 30, although that date is not definite. Parking enforcement officials work with the Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness to help verify that people like Long actually live in their vehicles, so they don't face hefty fines.But it is a patchwork approach, Rankin said, that "just hurts people and creates greater resistance to recovering from poverty and homelessness."Today, Long is living in a truck that a friend loaned him, a 1982 Chevy with 487,000 miles. It runs well, so he can move as necessary.The old GMC has been parked the last five weeks on a side street in White Center; he does not have money to get it working again.For now, Long is unsure about his long-term plans. The high cost of living has put him off finding another apartment. "I don't really like to pay rent anymore," he said.It may be hard to remember, but there was a time when the National Rifle Assn. was a bipartisan organization.During the 1992 election cycle, the NRA contributed 37% of its congressional campaign donations to Democrats. Republicans got the lion's share -- 63% of the $1.8 million the group gave that year -- but it was not as if the NRA was a pseudo-wing of the party.By 2016, that had all changed.According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group that tracks money in political campaigns, nearly 99% of the $1 million in NRA contributions to congressional candidates in 2016 went to Republicans. The few Democrats who did get money -- Reps. Sanford D. Bishop Jr. of Georgia, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Collin C. Peterson of Minnesota and Tim Walz of Minnesota -- all have A ratings from the group.What changed? Two things, according to many of those who have followed the group.First, in the fall of 1994, the Democratic-controlled Congress -- with staunch opposition from the NRA -- narrowly passed a 10-year federal ban on assault weapons. In the two-year period leading up to the vote on the issue, the NRA increased its contributions to Republicans by about $675,000 while reducing contributions to Democrats by nearly $200,000. It was the group's largest single-cycle -- or two-year -- dip in donations to Democrats.Second, many who study the issue say, both the NRA and the Republican Party became more implacably opposed to gun regulations, while Democrats mostly favored them."It is all about playing to the arch-conservative base," said Robert Spitzer, chairman of the political science department at the State University of New York at Cortland, who has written extensively on politics and gun control. He said that since the 1994 assault weapons vote, the NRA "locked itself into a pattern of ever more apocalyptic, extremist, uncompromising rhetoric." The progression, he said, coincided with the Republican Party's own shift to the right.Spitzer said Democrats have mostly remained consistent in their positions on gun control, but there "are fewer of those so-called Blue Dog Democrats around who supported less gun control." Indeed, in the early to mid-2000s, moderate Democrats from conservative-leaning states such as Arkansas and Louisiana received NRA support, although not at the levels seen in the early 1990s, according to figures from the Center for Responsive Politics.The NRA did not respond to a request for comment about its political spending.One question now is whether the NRA's shift in contribution patterns poses a long-term threat to the group's power. A change in power in Congress, or defections by Republicans, could leave the group on the outside.The chief executive of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, seemed to be worried about the former scenario when he spoke last month at the Conservative Political Action Conference. "If they seize power ... our American freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed forever," he said. "The first to go will be the 2nd Amendment."LaPierre didn't explicitly identify "they," but the message was clear.In the weeks since a gunman killed 17 people at a South Florida high school, some Republicans -- including, at least briefly, President Trump -- have broken ranks with the gun rights group to support modest gun control legislation, such as raising the age limit for buying assault weapons and banning so-called bump stocks, which turn semiautomatic weapons into something close to machine guns.But despite a surge in mass shootings -- seven of the deadliest in modern U.S. history have happened since 2007 -- the NRA has remained mostly steadfast in its opposition to any gun control legislation.In 2012, after mass shootings at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., various proposals -- such as requiring more thorough background checks -- lost traction in Congress because of a lack of Republican support.But soon after, several blue or purple states, including Colorado, California, Connecticut and Maryland, passed some of the strictest gun laws in the country. In Colorado, the then-Democratic-controlled Legislature passed bills requiring universal background checks to buy guns, and limits on ammunition magazines. Not a single Republican supported the legislation.After Tom Sullivan lost a son, Alex, who was killed on his 27th birthday in the Aurora theater shooting, he gained a singular focus: The country needed stricter gun laws and the NRA was in the way."The NRA is about fear and stifling progress," Sullivan said. "Republicans are so concerned that the NRA will put up money to primary them that the thought of supporting gun control legislation is almost unheard of."If that has changed in recent days, it mirrors a shift in the views of voters.In a CNN/SSRS poll released days after the Florida shooting, 70% of people questioned supported stricter gun laws -- the largest share since 1993. That included 49% of Republicans, up from 30% in October, after the mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas.Since the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., a slew of corporations have rushed to cut ties with the NRA. At the same time, some Republicans have pushed back against the powerful special interest group in ways that, a month ago, seemed unimaginable.Rep. Brian Mast, a Florida Republican who lost his legs while serving in Afghanistan, recently called for a ban on assault weapons. And Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican who has an A rating from the NRA, said he supports raising the minimum age for purchasing semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21. In an extraordinary televised meeting with Republican and Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday, Trump indicated support for such legislation and even suggested he would support taking guns away from citizens, and worry about the legality of such a move later."I like taking guns away early," Trump said. "Take the guns first, go through due process second."Rick Tyler, a longtime Republican political strategist and NRA supporter who has worked on several state-level campaigns, said Trump's comments were concerning."He demonstrated that he is going to sell out every member of the NRA and every law-abiding gun owner in America," Tyler said, adding that the group shouldn't worry about the handful of Republicans rebuking them.Despite declines in gun ownership nationwide, "the NRA will not lose influence," said Tyler. "If anything they will gain it because their members contribute and they vote."On Friday, following a meeting with NRA officials, the White House emphasized that Trump was committed to defending the 2nd Amendment.Still, Nathan Gonzales, editor of Inside Elections, a nonpartisan group that analyzes congressional and gubernatorial races nationwide, said that "it's really unheard of to witness Republicans so vocal in supporting legislation that the NRA opposes.""Is this a breaking point? ... Time will tell, but Republicans and the NRA have gone hand in hand for a long time," Gonzales said.In past years, Republicans have rebuffed the NRA and have faced challenges.In election cycles between 2010 and 2018, the NRA spent nearly $36.4 million in support of Republicans, while also spending about $256,000 to oppose members of the GOP in primaries, general elections and the special Senate election in Alabama last year.Former Indiana Sen. Richard G. Lugar was among the NRA's primary targets. In 2012, the group spent $169,000 in opposition to his reelection. Lugar, a Republican who had served more than three decades in the Senate, often held moderate views on gun legislation, voting in support of the assault weapons ban in 1994. He had an F rating --usually reserved for liberal Democrats -- from the NRA. Lugar lost in a primary to a candidate supported by the NRA.Earlier in the week, during the meeting about school safety and gun control, Trump highlighted the fear that some Republicans -- not himself, he said -- have when dealing with the NRA.During the meeting, Trump, who got nearly $10.6 million in support from the group in 2016, asked Sen. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.) if the bipartisan background-check bill he helped author in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting included a provision to raise the age to buy rifles from 18 to 21. (The gunman in the elementary school shooting was 20.)Toomey said it did not. "You know why?" Trump prodded. "Because you're afraid of the NRA."The Governors Official Program is comprised of a wide range of constitutional and legal duties and ceremonial and community engagements. Each year, the Governor hosts thousands of visitors to Government House to take part in investiture and award ceremonies, Open Days, receptions and meetings, and travels widely throughout Queensland to support the activities of Patron groups. View a chronological record of the Governors daily program below.

On Friday, in the morning, His Excellency the Honourable Paul de Jersey AC and Mrs Kaye de Jersey departed Brisbane for an official visit to Stanthorpe.

Following, in Stanthorpe, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey visited the Stanthorpe State School, where the Governor addressed the students and teachers at Parade and presented certificates.

In the afternoon, at the Southern Downs Regional Council Chambers, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey received a briefing from the Mayor and Councillors.

Following, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey visited the Queensland College of Wine Tourism, where the Governor met the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southern Queensland, Professor Geraldine Mackenzie, the Colleges Chief Executive Officer, Mr Peter OReilly and the Deputy Principal of Stanthorpe State School, Mrs Kath Wenban, then toured the facility and met with staff and students.

Following, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey visited Ridgemill Estate, hosted by Mr Martin Cooper and Ms Michelle Feehan, and toured winemaking operations, accompanied by Chief Winemaker, Mr Peter McGlashan, and Assistant Winemaker, Mr Jacob Veness.

In the evening, at the Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey attended the Apple and Grape Harvest Festival Young Ambassador Cocktail Reception.

Following, at the Stanthorpe Civic Centre, the Governor and Mrs de Jersey attended the Apple and Grape Harvest Festival Gala Ball, where the Governor addressed guests.The Digital Youth Engagement Programme (DYEP) - Coding in Cyber Caravans, funded to the tune of Rs 4.8 million, was launched today at the Highlands Government School. The aim is to trigger the interest of young learners for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects. DYEP will provide introductory courses in Coding to pupils.

In his address at the event, the Minister of Technology, Communication and Innovation, Mr Yogida Sawmynaden, observed that digital technologies and innovations are reshaping our lives with the world already dominated by computer software. The Internet has changed the way we live, study, play and interact with others, and, at the core of this digital world lies programming, in other words, Coding, he pointed out.

According to him, Coding is indeed a new language that of the new digital world. The current generation of children will need to be technology-literate in order to be competitive on the future job market and not knowing how to code will be as challenging as being illiterate today, he remarked.

Referring to worldwide figures, the Minister indicated that over the next ten years there will be more than 1.4 million programming/technology jobs available, and at the same time, the number of available graduates in Computer Science will sum up to only 400 000 leaving an incredible gap of one million jobs to fill.

Government, emphasised Mr Sawmynaden, is fully aware of the importance of Coding for the younger generation and that is why financial provision was made in Budget 2017-2018 for the implementation of the DYEP. The Minister gave the assurance that no stone will be left unturned for the dissemination of Coding training sessions to the community. The Cyber Caravans and IT Support Officers of the National Computer Board (NCB) will be put to contribution to reach out a maximum number of students and youth around the island of Mauritius, he added.

For her part, the Minister of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research, Mrs Leela Devi Dookun-Luchoomun, said that the DYEP is intricately linked with the ongoing reform in the education sector in Mauritius. This proves that education is continuing its digital mutation with ICT gradually making its mark in the school curriculum, she emphasised. Also, by making pupils discover Coding will help in demystifying ICT and broaden learners proficiencies.

The Minister expressed her conviction that with the introduction of an elementary knowledge culture related to computer programming from an early age, learners will be able to demonstrate problem-solving skills and logical reasoning during their future studies. Young people, commonly referred as digital natives, are evolving in a new era and are growing up with technology and using technological tools easily and thus it is our duty to provide them with opportunities and ways and means to hone their skills and to ensure that as they grow up they develop adequate competencies to be able to adapt to this digital era, she added.

DYEP

The NCB, operating under the aegis of the Ministry of Technology, Communication and Innovation, will act as a training service provider to the Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research for the introduction of Coding to pupils in the primary education sub-sector.

It is estimated that some 2 000 pupils in Grades 4 and 5 will be trained during the first year of the project.

A number of coding skills will be imparted to the students via course materials accessible online from an Open Source coding platform (Code.org). The skills to be taught include: Reinforcement of Pre-requisites (Mouse Skills); Sequence; Debugging Codes; Problems solving; Understanding and Devising of Algorithms; Use of loops; and Online Safety.Description

GIS  05 March 2018: Government fully reckons the role and contribution of the cooperative sector in the development of the Mauritian economy for the past 50 years. Cooperation, unity, trust, democracy and good governance are among the key elements that are being endorsed through the ongoing cooperative movement.

The Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit and Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, made this statement on 02 March 2018 at the launching of a National Cooperatives Fair in Montagne Blanche. The Minister of Business, Enterprise and Cooperatives, Mr Soomilduth Bholah, and other eminent personalities were also present.

In his address, the Prime Minister underlined the importance of sensitising the population especially the women and the youth about the relevance of placing cooperative societies at the forefront of the socio-economic activity of the country. He emphasised that even during the pre-Independence period, cooperatives had already started playing an integral role in ensuring food security and alleviating poverty.

Prime Minister Jugnauth pointed out that the cooperative movement has today outreached several sectors including transportation, handicraft, finance, agriculture and fisheries amongst others. He commended the elderly population for their earnest hard work and sacrifices in driving the success of the cooperative sector. On this score, he called for the emancipation of the youth to further consolidate the cooperative sector and bring it to a higher level of success.

Speaking of the development of cooperatives, the Prime Minister emphasised that they should now opt for diversification and new strategies to help stimulate their progress in coming years. He added that the usage of advanced technology and digitalisation will decrease the administrative hassle of cooperative societies and promote enhanced productivity.

For his part, the Minister of Business, Enterprise and Cooperatives, Mr Soomilduth Bholah, highlighted the full commitment of cooperatives in assuring democratic values and principles. He pointed out that since 1913 the cooperative movement in Mauritius has played a significant role in the promotion of socio-economic progress while adding that cooperatives should now be guided towards doing inclusive business and should coordinate their efforts in order to empower the vulnerable groups of the society.

Minister Bholah underlined that the National Cooperative College represents a milestone for the cooperative sector an d is expected to foster entrepreneurial attitudes and innovation at the centre of cooperative societies. As regards the Mauritius Cooperative Alliance Limited (MCA), he said that it is a tertiary cooperative society which regroups secondary and primary cooperative societies. He underpinned that the role of the MCA is to reinforce cooperatives and assist them in their operational activities.

On this occasion, the new Strategic Plan 2018-2020 for the cooperative sector was also launched with a view to urge the potentials of cooperatives in promoting Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Strategic Plan 2018-2020 The Strategic Plan 2018-2020, with the theme "Propelling Cooperatives towards Excellence", is in line with Government's objectives as announced in Budget speech 2017/2018. The Plan has been crafted with the support of cooperators who are the key players of the cooperative movement in Mauritius. It also encapsulates the targets of the SDGs which are in Agenda 2030, achieving sustainable production, food security, poverty alleviation, sustainable development and empowering women amongst others. The objectives of the Plan are to promote the cooperative model of doing business especially among the youth and the women; encourage the formation of cooperatives in poverty regions and in non-traditional and emerging sectors; ensure that cooperative societies are abiding to the new cooperative enactments and facilitate their access to market and finance. It also encourages sustainable agriculture and proper use of the oceans, empowers cooperatives through digitalisation in their development process and enhances the cooperative sector as a whole.Sometimes, the most valuable thing to a tech startup is not a pile of cash to lock down coding talent or nab a new office. Sometimes  especially when the companys main customer is government  the most important thing is finding early customers who can help the startup prove itself.For about five years, a small spinoff of a private equity firm has been quietly building itself up to do just that: Help companies figure out where to start.Now, theyre beginning to poke their heads above ground.The firm, called InState Partners , works on a sweat equity model. Instead of putting money into a startup, it offers it access to a network of people embedded in the cultures of governments across virtually every state in the country. The idea is to offer those companies expertise, credibility and a better path to early customers. In return, they take an equity stake like any venture capitalist would.So far they have three companies in their portfolio: the digital services and payments platform PayIt , the smart highway startup Integrated Roadways and Acivilate, which helps convicts returning to society.I think weve found an exciting place to be right now where technology is helping provide solutions to government in a way it hasnt previously to make their lives more efficient, said Alex Johnson, InStates president.The whole concept revolves around embracing all the things that irritate critics of state and local government. If state and local governments action is glacial, InState wants to take advantage of their slow, unstoppable movement. If state and local government is fragmented, InState wants to find the pieces nobody else is looking at. If state and local government is risk-averse, InState wants to find the ones who need to take on risk.For example, look at the headquarters of the firms first three portfolio companies: two are in Kansas City, Mo., one is in Atlanta.Thats no accident. Though InState works out of Washington, D.C., it was spun out of Advantage Capital , a St. Louis-anchored private equity firm working specifically with companies in low-income and rural areas. Theyre not exclusively middle-America in their approach, but theyre used to looking between the coasts for opportunity.Rachel Stern, InStates senior director of client services and the firms first formal employee, sees some good reasons for that strategy. For starters, rising living costs in the biggest cities are making it even harder for early companies to get a foothold. They also tend to serve as battlegrounds for competing startups, making it harder to stand out.She also sees a lot of unnoticed innovation coming out of those areas.Often they are in the middle of America, there is a really exciting technology boom happening outside of California and New York and Boston, Stern said.Stern and Johnson both come from government affairs backgrounds, and the firm maintains a network of government affairs contacts in most of the states. That means they have the ability to look for governments that are looking to take action on the same problems that InStates portfolio companies want to solve. They also have the ability to work with legislators who can push governments to solve those problems.The firms focus has traditionally been on state government, but as theyve waded into their work theyve found that local government is a crucial piece of the puzzle for gov tech startups.I had a governor look me in the eye once and say Alex, governments arent in the business of taking on risk, so go prove your company and come back to me, and then we can talk, Johnson said.Local governments, by contrast, are more numerous, more spread out and more fragmented in their approach. Which means there are a lot of localities that might, at any given moment, be ideally positioned to jump into a pilot project on a particular problem.Local government is really this petri dish of innovation, Stern said. Theres all this opportunity to experiment.The approach was valuable to Acivilate, which is fresh off its first fundraising round "The first thing it's done for us is it's allowed us to screen out communities that are not working on our issue right now, said Louise Wasilewski, the companys chief executive. One of the challenges of being an early stage company is you've got a big market but you're not sure which places are going to work on it first."Wasilewski found InState through an Amazon Web Services program that matches AWS cloud customers with partners who can help them.A big problem she was running into was that she was offering basically a new solution  its not the kind of thing her customers would put out an RFP for. To investors, that looked like she lacked a clear road to sales.The partnership with InState gave her company more credibility."It gave us a way to answer the concerns of investors around being a company selling to government, Wasilewski said. Most VCs will not touch this space, they will not touch government, and in order to convince a VC who had previously said they would not invest to come in, we had to show them that we had a good grasp on how to sell into the market, and that lobbying relationship made a massive difference."A photo of Saturdays accident at Tebakor which was uploaded on social mediaMicrosoft Teams quickly became the business application of choice as state and local governments raced to equip remote teams and maintain business continuity during the COVID-19 lockdown. But in the rush to deploy Teams, many organizations overlook, ignore or fail to anticipate some of the administrative hurdles to successful adoption. As more organizations have matured their use of Teams, a set of lessons learned has emerged to help agencies ensure a successful Teams rollout  or correct course on existing implementations.(TNS) - It was the last week of March 1950, and South Bend, Ind., Mayor George A. Schock watched as the St. Joseph River rose out of its banks, forced out by heavy rains.Riverside Drive was inundated, the water lapping at the steps of houses perched on the embankment. Floodwaters crept perilously close to houses on Emerson Avenue near Northside Boulevard after filling the avenue and edging over sidewalks. Parks near the river bore the brunt of the overflow, a Tribune article at the time said.Schock said the city had no plans for flood emergencies. South Bend had never faced such a threat from the river, he said.Less than a week later, it happened again. A second, more devastating rise and crest of the river sent floodwaters back into the same areas. Schock said there was little city departments could do to spare the Emerson Avenue residents a second flood in as many weeks.A flood of such proportions was wholly unexpected, Schock said, according to a Tribune report on April 5, 1950. After the river crested last week engineers assured me the channel would be able to hold it.Last month, 68 years later, a strikingly similar scene unfolded.Riverside Drive once again became nearly indistinguishable from the river, aside from homes that were once again waterfront properties. Floodwaters again surrounded homes on Emerson Avenue, prompting firefighters to make boat rescues of stranded residents. Segments of numerous streets closed to traffic as the floodwaters inundated them.Were now at a 500-year flood level and the forecast is suggesting that weve got about another foot to go, Mayor Pete Buttigieg said on Feb. 21 along Michigan Street, near the submerged Leeper Park.The river crested that night at 12.7 feet with an estimated streamflow of 22,700 cubic feet per second, according to the National Weather Service. It is the highest mark ever recorded at the river gauge, located at the city wastewater treatment plant on Riverside Drive. The mark obliterated the previous record of 10.9 feet and 19,500 cubic feet per second set in March 1982 and equaled in January 1993.The scenes that took place last month have happened time and again  Riverside Drive submerged, homes along Emerson Avenue threatened, Leeper Park covered in water. Dramatic images aside, putting this years flood into perspective with the floods of history is not an easy task. Should the definition of a 500-year-flood change? The lack of data is the first problem.For starters, the South Bend river gauge was not installed until the early 1980s. It is also not tied into the U.S. Geological Surveys network of river monitors. That means making accurate comparisons of river crests over decades is a tall order.Elsewhere along area rivers, the gauges have a longer history. Gauges along the St. Joseph River date back to 1930 in Niles and 1947 in Elkhart. The gauge along the Elkhart River in Goshen has been in service since 1931. On the Yellow River in Plymouth, there has been a river gauge since 1948. All are tied into the U.S. Geological Survey.The origin of the proverbial 100-year flood lies with the U.S. Geological Survey. According to a report from the USGS Water Science School, the federal government in the 1960s sought a method for putting context around flooding events knowing that the circumstances that cause floods vary and not all floods are equal in magnitude, duration or effect. The governments solution was to use a 1-percent probability as the basis for the National Flood Insurance Program.The 1-percent annual exceedance probability is the statistical probability that a similar flood event will occur in a given year, said Tom Weaver, with the US. Geological Survey Upper Midwest Water Science Center in Lansing. In essence, it means there is a 1 in 100 chance of a flood meeting or exceeding the 1-percent probability. Similarly, a 500-year flood means there is a 1 in 500 chance of that level being met or exceeded in a given year.Cara Grabowski, director of marketing for South Bends Department of Public Works, said it was this U.S. Geological Survey guidance, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agencys National Flood Hazard maps, that formed the basis of the mayors assertion that South Bend experienced a 500-year flood last month.To the best of our knowledge, this flood is unprecedented in the history of our city. Just anecdotally, I can remember once in a while seeing the river start to jump the banks on Riverside at Leeper Park, Buttigieg said in an interview Friday. I think most of us can remember seeing Howard Park go under once in awhile when theres a spring melt and high water, but this was nearly two feet above the highest level in recorded history.In order to send the St. Joseph River out of its banks at a historic clip, a variety of factors had to come together.First, it was an unusually snowy February. According to forecasters with the National Weather Service northern Indiana office, South Bend saw 29.6 inches of snow during the month  14.6 inches above normal. The largest storm, which came just 10 days before record-breaking rainfall and flooding, left a heavy, wet snowpack of greater than a foot, with an estimated 1.5 to 1.75 inches of liquid in the snowpack.South Bend also obliterated its all-time rainfall record for the month of February with 8.08 inches  6.13 inches above normal. The previous record, set in 1976, was 5.23 inches.The three-day rainfall from Feb. 19-21 that triggered the rapid melt of the snowpack and the intense rise of streams, creeks and rivers set a number of other records. The 3.73 inches that fell on Feb. 20 became the all-time rainiest day in February. In addition, it is the single-rainiest day ever in South Bend between the months of December and May.This was a large frontal system that stalled out in our area, said Geoffrey Heidelberger, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. When it stalled out, it allowed the rain to ... go over the same areas over and over again.Similar scenes played out across the region as the St. Joseph River in Niles, the Elkhart River in Goshen and the Yellow River in Plymouth all broke crest records. There were water rescues in Osceola, Elkhart, and Goshen. Rice Field at Elkhart Central High School was submerged, as it was in 1985.In South Bend, there is a history of large-scale flooding along the St. Joseph River.In Tribune coverage of the 1993 flood, Doris Henderson recounted flooding at her Emerson Avenue home during the floods of 1982 and 1985 and said she wasnt moving.Its not like it was in 1982 or 1985, she said in a story published Jan. 6, 1993. It hadnt come up to the yard yet...but it drives you nuts thinking about it.The February 1985 flood crested at 10.7 feet or 19,100 cubic feet per second, according to the weather service.It was another similar story in early January 2008 when a combination of heavy snow the week before and then heavy rains sent the St. Joseph River out of its banks.The pair of floods that challenged Mayor Schock in March and April 1950 peaked at 19,453 and 25,646 cubic feet per second respectively. Tribune coverage at the time of those floods also noted that the highest recorded streamflow was a March 1908 flood when the rivers streamflow was measured at 27,000 cubic feet per second. All three of those floods, however, were measured from the Twin Branch dam just east of Mishawaka.There are also historical accounts of significant flooding events along the St. Joseph River in the 19th century, pre-dating the citys incorporation in 1865.Travis Childs, director of education at The History Museum in South Bend, said there was a sudden rise on Jan. 15, 1847 from ice flowing down the river. The river backed up from South Bend to Mishawaka and caused the river to rise three feet above flood stage in 15 minutes.Most citizens thought there would be no hope in saving anything in the industrial center of the city, Childs said. Not long afterwards the river surged to 12 feet above flood stage and water rose to the second floor of the buildings along the East and West Races.Residents helped close the head gates of the West Race and held back most of the water.In another instance in June 1855, several inches of rain fell and the river reached a level of two feet above its previous high-water mark.The head-gates of the East Race couldnt take the force and it collapsed sending a torrent of water, trees and debris down the race, Childs said. Eventually the East Race was indiscernible from the rest of the St. Joseph River.Childs said later in the same flood the Colfax bridge had its foundations washed away and plunged into the river.One key issue in the wake of the floods is whether the dynamics have changed enough that scientists and government officials are asking the right questions and using the right statistics. It also raises the question of what action cities can take.The bigger question really is do we have the right statistics around how often these extreme rain and flood events happen, Buttigieg said. Has their frequency fundamentally changed or are we just in an unusually rainy time? I think the more we get our arms around that the more we use it to guide decisions in the future about planning, preparedness, land use and everything else we need to know to get ready.Mishawaka Mayor Dave Wood said the citys long-term planning and strategic investment in infrastructure over several decades helped the city escape serious issues from last weeks flooding, even though some of its parks were swamped.The city has kept its floodplains for city parks, where it builds structures with concrete that can withstand the high water temporarily. He pointed out that the street lamps, built to be waterproof, in Beutter Park stayed on even while the park was flooded. And the Riverwalk is built to shed water quickly, he said.Also, the city doesnt place its own buildings in the floodplain, Wood said, and discourages homes and other development in the floodplain.Buttigieg pointed to the last year and a half in South Bend as evidence that something is changing. In that span, the city has seen a 500-year flood and what the weather service deemed a 1,000-year rain event, when 8.49 inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period between Aug. 15 and 16 of 2016.Were dealing with either a remarkable coincidence statistically or perhaps the beginning of a more permanent change in our vulnerability to flooding, he said.Tribune reporter Joe Dits contributed to this report.2018 the South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Ind.)Visit the South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Ind.) at www.southbendtribune.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.(TNS)  Belleville, Ill.  Unlike some metro east communities, St. Clair County does not have its own system to send emergency alerts to smartphones or landlines, a fact that prompted one former county employee to say leaders aren't doing enough to keep residents safe.The county uses a combination of social media and communication with local municipalities to alert citizens of an emergency, St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) Director Herb Simmons told the Belleville News-Democrat in February In late 2011 into early 2012, the county considered purchasing services from CodeRED , an emergency notification company that offers services to government agencies, Simmons said.Systems like CodeRED can push an emergency alert immediately to a smartphone, landline or email. Alerts can be sent to an entire community, county or a group of specific residents, depending on who is affected. An immediate alert can give residents more time to seek shelter, say, during a tornado warning.But the proposal to adopt the CodeRED system at the county level never made it to the County Board, Simmons said.The county "had no interest in funding it," said Randy Lay, the former EMA director for St. Clair County, even as municipalities like Belleville and O'Fallon adopted it."How can they afford to do this and we can't?" Lay said in a phone interview with the News-Democrat. "Facebook is not an emergency alerting system. It strikes a cord with me that the county could do a lot more and they dont."Simmons said the decision to forgo CodeRED was based on cost, which could have amounted to $50,000 for the first year."We didnt know where that money was going to be coming from," Simmons said.Simmons replaced Lay at the end of 2012 as EMA director after serving a stint as assistant director under Lay.Back in 2012, the county considered opening a contract with CodeRED that would have rolled each municipalities' system into one, county-wide system, but it never became a reality.Lay says having one countywide contract would have saved municipalities money. More communities chipping into one service would have created an "economy of scale," Lay said."Each city could send their own messages and have access to the system and pay for that service," Lay said. "It would have helped fund the county system and it would save money. That's truly good government."With several St. Clair County communities already participating in CodeRED, a future county system would mostly serve unincorporated areas, Simmons said.Though the county didn't finalize a plan back in 2012, Simmons says implementing a system is not "out of sight, out of mind.""We're always looking to improve. I think were doing the best we can, but it can always be better," Simmons said. "The county has looked at (CodeRED) and we continue to look at it, and I think we can if the powers that be would entertain that."As for Lay's opinion on social media not serving as an emergency notification system, Simmons said, "Its another form of it."More than 23,000 people follow the agencys Facebook page , where moderators post real-time information about emergencies.(TNS)  Last month, employees at the Colorado Department of Transportation were greeted by a message on their computer screens similar to this:All your files are encrypted with RSA-2048 encryption.  Its not possible to recover your files without private key.  You must send us 0.7 BitCoin for each affected PC or 3 BitCoins to receive ALL Private Keys for ALL affected PCs.CDOT isnt paying, but others have. In fact, so-called ransomware has become one of the most lucrative criminal enterprises in the U.S. and internationally, with the FBI estimating total payments are nearing $1 billion. Hackers use ransomware to encrypt computer files, making them unreadable without a secret key, and then demand digital currency like bitcoin if victims want the files back  and many victims are falling for that promise.To better understand how ransomware works and how it has spread so effectively, The Denver Post talked with Broomfield anti-malware company Webroot, which got its start in the late 1990s cleansing computer viruses from personal computers.The end goal is just to put ransomware on the computer because right now the most successful way for cybercriminals to make money is with ransoming your files, said Tyler Moffitt, a senior threat research analyst at Webroot.Ransomware infects more than 100,000 computers around the world every day and payments are approaching $1 billion , said U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein during the October 2017 Cambridge Cyber Summit , citing FBI statistics. A study by researchers at Google, Chainalysis, University of California San Diego and NYU Tandon School of Engineering estimated that from 2016 to mid 2017, victims paid $25 million in ransom to get files back.And one out of five businesses that do pay the ransom dont get their data back , according to 2016 report by Kaspersky Labs.Its a growing business for cybercriminals. And whether to pay or not is something each user or company must decide.Last spring, the Erie County Medical Center in New York was attacked by SamSam due to a misconfigured web server, according to The Buffalo News . Because it had backed up its files, the hospital decided not to pay the estimated $44,000 ransom. It took six weeks to get back to normal at a recovery cost of nearly $10 million More recently in January, the new SamSam variant sneaked into Indiana hospital Hancock Health, which decided to pay 4 bitcoin, or about $55,000, in ransom . Attackers gained entry by using a vendors username and password on a Thursday night. The hospital was back online by Monday morning.Colorado security officials are still investigating the CDOT ransomware attack that took 2,000 employee computers offline for more than a week. They dont plan to pay the ransom but offered few details about the attack other than confirming it was a variant of the SamSam ransomware. Security researchers with Ciscos Talos, which shared the SamSam message with The Denver Post, reported in January that the new SamSam variant had so far collected 30.4 bitcoin , or about $325,217.Ransomware typically gets on a computer when someone inadvertently downloads the nasty code. Its not always as blatant as opening an email attachment, though those still exist. One such malware, called NemucodAES, disguised itself as an email from UPS about an undelivered package and instructed recipients to Please check the attachment for details. Security software, such as anti-malware from Emsisoft, stopped the ransomware spread because it detected suspicious behavior. Emsisoft also created a decryptor to help users recover files without paying the ransom.Other times, malware isnt so obvious. Some propagate when user visits infected websites. A trojan named Poweliks injected bad code into vulnerable programs, like an unpatched Internet Explorer. Poweliks crept into the Windows registry to force the computer to do all sorts of nasty things, from demanding a ransom to joining a click-fraud bot network to click ads without the user even realizing it.There also are booby-trapped ads, known as malvertising. They get into computers by, again, targeting flawed software and injecting malicious code. This has targeted programs like unpatched Adobe Flash Player, Java or other runtime software, or software that runs online all the time.Cybercriminals will create fake ad networks or submit legitimate ads for weeks so they can gain a reputation and circulation with ad networks. Once they have the reputation, they make the switch. Instead of pointing you to a legitimate site, they point to a malware page, Moffitt said. He added: They exploit vulnerabilities. Were talking Java, Adobe Flash, Silverlight and all these components that youre required to have to experience the web with your browser. So, when you see constant updates for Adobe or Java, theyre usually to patch stuff like this. The problem is people say, No, I dont want to update, No, leave me alone. What theyre doing is theyre trying to save you from this (malware).Webroots team digitally takes apart ransomware code to learn more. Eric Klonowski, a senior advanced threat research analyst, demonstrated this by using software to dissemble L ocky, ransomware that spread in 2016 because of a feature in Microsoft Office, called a macro, that automates certain functions. Locky tricks users into enabling the macro, which then fetches the last piece of malware and begins encrypting or locking images, videos, Word documents and other files on the computer. On screen, Klonowski finds Locky code that indicates the virus plans to encrypt files.Any sort of encryption is indicative of ransomware, he said.By studying the code, Klonowski can also get a better sense if the hacker plans to return the files intact if a user pays up.As it turns out, I can actually view (within) the ransomware code whether or not you can get your files back, he said. If theres no evidence that theres software, that can decrypt your files then it could be a scam.With a growing number of attacks each year, the security industry has had to rethink how it can stay ahead of attackers to protect customers. Webroot uses a multipronged approach that starts with machine learning to give computers a kind of sixth sense that something new and dangerous is approaching, said David Dufour, Webroots vice president of engineering and cybersecurity.We can take a piece of malware and pull out thousands of features about that malware or a website and train a model. We feed those features into it and itll come back and tell us: Is that a malicious website? Is that a malicious piece of software? Is that a good website that we can let our users go to?  said Dufour, who likened the learning process to humans figuring out if a watermelon is ripe  they thump it, smell it and feel it. It takes all this information and makes these determinations, millions of times per second.Thats faster than a human can do the same job. And thats how a company like Webroot protects its business customers and home users and stays ahead of nasty software. When new malware attacks a system, Webroots software may just see spikes in unknowns, which tips off researchers that something is brewing.The reality is that people need to be smarter about computer security. That means patching software, using anti-malware software, and not sharing passwords and accounts. And not opening files, emails or links from unfamiliar sources  and sometimes familiar sources.Webroot doesnt have an official stance on whether to pay a ransom to get files back, but Dufour says its a personal decision. Cybersecurity companies like Webroot can advise whether the hacker has a reputation for restoring files after payment is received.Paying a ransom to a cybercriminal is an incredibly personal decision. Its easy to say not to negotiate with criminals when its not your family photos or business data that youll never see again. Unfortunately, if you want your data back, paying the ransom is often the only option, Dufour said. However, its important to know that there are some strains of ransomware that have coding and encryption errors. For these cases, even paying the ransom wont decrypt your data. I recommend checking with a computer security expert before paying any ransom.Former F1 engineer Joan Villadelprat wonders if McLaren was right to have dumped Honda.

Already last week, when Honda's new works partner Toro Rosso topped the mileage charts in Barcelona, driver Brendon Hartley said McLaren's decision may have been a "mistake".

And now, Spanish former F1 engineer Villadelprat also doubts the wisdom of McLaren's Honda axe.

"I already had reservations last year and I still do," he told Marca.

"I thought it was a hasty change and that they would miss all the advantages. As a customer you always have limitations, especially it seems when you are with Renault.

"I think French pride will drive them to very much want to beat them (McLaren)," said Villadelprat, who worked for McLaren, Ferrari, Benetton and Prost.

He continued: "I think the McLaren is a very developed car aerodynamically, but as the year progresses, Renault will move ahead.

"They are not investing all of that money from Paris without their own ambitions."

Villadelprat said all McLaren and Fernando Alonso can realistically hope for, therefore, is fourth place behind F1's existing top three teams.

"I do not doubt that Fernando will do podiums, but further than that I think will be very difficult," he added.

And he thinks that with a more reliable and powerful Honda engine, Toro Rosso could be a surprise of 2018.

"I do not rule out that they will be together with Renault and McLaren. I know very well that they fit perfectly with Honda and they want the project to work, as does Red Bull.

"I'm sure they (Red Bull) will take that engine in 2019 and will help in every way to develop it. Honda's potential is enormous if someone helps them to channel it," Villadelprat added.

(GMM)Putin spiked Romney nomination to SOS. (More evidence Trump's his puppet)



The official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what hed heard was astonishing: people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trumps initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney. (During Romneys run for the White House in 2012, he was notably hawkish on Russia, calling it the single greatest threat to the U.S.)

The memo said that the Kremlin, through unspecified channels, had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift Ukraine-related sanctions, and who would cooperate on security issues of interest to Russia, such as the conflict in Syria.

If what the source heard was true, then a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over U.S. foreign policyand an incoming President.

One subject that Steele is believed to have discussed with Muellers investigators is a memo that he wrote in late November, 2016, after his contract with Fusion had ended.This memo, which did not surface publicly with the others, is shorter than the rest, and is based on one source, described as a senior Russian official.Hmmm! I guess it begins with knowing in advance what the turnout is going to be! After all you would not want to go to all that effort and lose anyway...

2 months agomessage passing

Message Passing and the Actor Model

By Nathaniel Dempkowski

This is a description that will be the subtitle. (59 min read)



Introduction

Message passing programming models have essentially been discussed since the beginning of distributed computing and as a result message passing can be taken to mean a lot of things. If you look up a broad definition on Wikipedia, it includes things like Remote Procedure Calls (RPC), and Message Passing Interface (MPI). Additionally, there are popular process-calculi like the pi-calculus and Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP) which have inspired practical message passing systems. For example, Gos channels are based on the idea of first-class communication channels from the pi-calculus and Clojures core.async library is based on CSP. However, when people talk about message passing today they mostly mean the actor model. It is a ubiquitous and general message passing programming model that has been developing since the 1970s and is used today to build massive scalable systems.

In the field of message passing programming models, it is not only important to consider recent state of the art research, but additionally the historic initial papers on message passing and the actor model that are the roots of the programming models described in more recent papers. It is enlightening to see which aspects of the models have stuck around, and many of the more recent papers reference and address deficiencies present in older papers. There have been plenty of programing languages designed around message passing, especially those focused on the actor model of programming and organizing units of computation.

In this chapter I describe the four primary variants of the actor model: classic actors, process-based actors, communicating event-loops, and active objects. I attempt to highlight historic and modern languages that exemplify these models, as well as the philosophies and tradeoffs that programmers need to be aware of to understand and best make use of these models.

Despite the actor models originating as far back as the 1970s, it is still being developed and being incorporated into the programming languages of today, as many recently published papers and systems in the field demonstrate. There are a few robust industrial-strength actor systems that are being used to power massive scalable distributed systems; for example Akka has been used to serve PayPals billions of transactions, (Sucharitakul, 2016) Erlang has been used to send messages for WhatsApps hundreds of millions of users, (Reed, 2012) and Orleans has been used to serve Halo 4s millions of players. (McCaffrey, 2015) There are a couple of different approaches to building industrial actor frameworks around monitoring, handling fault-tolerance, and managing actor lifecycles which are detailed later in the chapter.

An important framing for the actor models presented is in the question Why message passing, and specifically why the actor model? Given the vast number of distributed programming models out there, one might ask, why this one was so important when it was initially proposed? Why has it facilitated advanced languages, systems, and libraries that are widely used today? As well see throughout this chapter, some of the broadest advantages of the actor model include isolation of state managed by the given actor, scalability, and simplifying the programmers ability to reason about their system.

Original proposal of the actor model

The actor model was originally proposed in A Universal Modular ACTOR Formalism for Artificial Intelligence (Hewitt, Bishop, & Steiger, 1973) in 1973 as a method of computation for artificial intelligence research. The original goal of the model was to model parallel computation in communication in a way that could be safely distributed concurrently across workstations. The paper makes few presumptions about implementation details, instead defining the high-level message passing communication model. Gul Agha developed the model further, by focusing on using actors as a basis for concurrent object-oriented programming. This work is collected in Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computation in Distributed Systems. (Agha, 1986)

Actors are defined as independent units of computation with isolated state. These units have two core characteristics:

they can send messages asynchronously to one another, and,

they have a mailbox which contains messages that they have received, allowing messages to be received at any time and then queued for processing.

Messages are of the form:

(request: <message-to-target> reply-to: <reference-to-messenger>)

Actors attempt to process messages from their mailboxes by matching their request field sequentially against patterns or rules which can be specific values or logical statements. When a pattern is matched, computation occurs and the result of that computation is implicitly returned to the reference in the messages reply-to field. This is a type of continuation, where the continuation is the message to another actor. These messages are one-way and, there are no guarantees that a message will ever be received in response. The actor model is so general because it places few restrictions on systems. Asynchrony and the absence of message delivery guarantees enable modeling real distributed systems using the actor model. For example, if message delivery was guaranteed, then the model would be much less general, and only able to model systems which include complex message-delivery protocols. This originally-proposed variant of the actor model is limited compared to many of the others, but the early ideas of taking advantage of distribution of processing power to enable greater parallel computation are there.

Interestingly, the original paper introducing the actor model does so in the context of hardware. They mention actors as almost another machine architecture. This paper describes the concepts of an actor machine and a hardware actor as the context for the actor model, which is totally different from the way we think about modern actors as abstracting away a lot of the hardware details we dont want to deal with. This concept is reminiscent of something like a Lisp machine, though specially built to utilize the actor model of computation for artificial intelligence.

Classic actor model

The classic actor model was formalized as a unit of computation in Aghas Concurrent Object-Oriented Programming. (Agha, 1990) The classic actor expands on the original proposal of actors, keeping the ideas of asynchronous communication through messages between isolated units of computation and state. The classic actor contains the following primitive operations:

create : create an actor from a behavior description and a set of parameters, including other existing actors

: create an actor from a behavior description and a set of parameters, including other existing actors send : send a message to another actor

: send a message to another actor become : have an actor replace their behavior with a new one

As in the original actor model, classic actors communicate by asynchronous message passing. They are a primitive independent unit of computation which can be used to build higher-level abstractions for concurrent programming. Actors are uniquely addressable, and have their own independent mailboxes or message queues. State changes using the classic actor model are specified and aggregated using the become operation. Each time an actor processes a message it computes a behavior in response to the next type of message it expects to process. A become operations argument is a named continuation, b , representing behavior that the actor should be updated with, along with some state that should be passed to b .

This continuation model is flexible. You could create a purely functional actor where the new behavior would be identical to the original and no state would be passed. An example of this is the AddOne actor below, which processes a message according to a single fixed behavior.

(define AddOne [add-one [n] (return (+ n 1))])

The model also enables the creation of stateful actors which change behavior and pass along an object representing some state. This state can be the result of many operations, which enables the aggregation of state changes at a higher level of granularity than something like variable assignment. An example of this is a BankAccount actor given in Concurrent Object-Oriented Programming. (Agha, 1990)

(define BankAccount (mutable [balance] [withdraw-from [amount] (become BankAccount (- balance amount)) (return 'withdrew amount)] [deposit-to [amount] (become BankAccount (+ balance amount)) (return 'deposited amount)] [balance-query (return 'balance-is balance)]))

Stateful continuations enable flexibility in the behavior of an actor over time in response to the actions of other actors in the system. Limiting state and behavior changes to become operations changes the level at which one analyzes a system, freeing the programmer from worrying about interference during state changes. In the example above, the programmer only has to worry about changes to the accounts balance during become statements in response to a sequential queue of well-defined message types.

If you squint a little, this actor definition sounds similar to Alan Kays original definition of Object Oriented programming. This definition describes a system where objects have a behavior, their own memory, and communicate by sending and receiving messages that may contain other objects or simply trigger actions. Kays ideas sound closer to what we consider the actor model today, and less like what we consider object-oriented programming. That is, Kays focus in this description is on designing the messaging and communications that dictate how objects interact.

The big idea is "messaging" -- that is what the kernal [sic] of Smalltalk/Squeak is all about (and it's something that was never quite completed in our Xerox PARC phase). The Japanese have a small word -- ma -- for "that which is in between" -- perhaps the nearest English equivalent is "interstitial". The key in making great and growable systems is much more to design how its modules communicate rather than what their internal properties and behaviors should be. Alan Kay (Kay, 1998)

Concurrent Object-Oriented Programming (1990)

One could say that the renaissance of actor models in mainstream program began with Gul Aghas work. His seminal book Actors: A Model of Concurrent Computation in Distributed Systems (Agha, 1986) and later paper, Concurrent Object-Oriented Programming (Agha, 1990), offer classic actors as a natural solution to solving problems at the intersection of two trends in computing; increased distributed computing resources and the rising popularity of object-oriented programming. The paper defines common patterns of parallelism: pipeline concurrency, divide and conquer, and cooperative problem solving. It then focuses on how the actor model can be used to solve these problems in an object-oriented style, and some of the challenges that arise with distributed actors and objects, as well as strategies and tradeoffs for communication and reasoning about behaviors.

This paper looks at a lot of systems and languages that are implementing solutions in this space, and starts to identify some of the advantages from the perspective of programmers of programming with actors. One of the core languages used for examples in the paper is Rosette (Tomlinson et al., 1988), but the paper largely focuses on the potential and benefits of the model. Agha claims the benefits of using objects stem from a separation of concerns.

By separating the specification of what is done (the abstraction) from how it is done (the implementation), the concept of objects provides modularity necessary for programming in the large. It turns out that concurrency is a natural consequence of the concept of objects. Gul Agha (Agha, 1990)

Splitting concerns into multiple pieces allows for the programmer to have an easier time reasoning about the behavior of the program. It also allows the programmer to use more flexible abstractions in their programs.

It is important to note that the actor languages give special emphasis to developing flexible program structures which simplify reasoning about programs. Gul Agha (Agha, 1990)

This flexibility turns out to be a highly discussed advantage which continues to be touted in modern actor systems.

Rosette

Rosette was both a language for concurrent object-oriented programming of actors, as well as a runtime system for managing the usage of and access to resources by those actors. Rosette (Tomlinson et al., 1988) is mentioned throughout Aghas Concurrent Object-Oriented Programming, (Agha, 1990) and the code examples given in the paper are written in Rosette. Agha is even an author on the Rosette paper, so its clear that Rosette is foundational to the classic actor model. It seems to be a language which almost defines what the classic actor model looks like in the context of concurrent object-oriented programming.

The motivation behind Rosette was to provide strategies for dealing with problems like search, where the programmer needs a means to control how resources are allocated to sub-computations to optimize performance in the face of combinatorial explosion. For example in a search problem, you might first compute an initial set of results that you want to further refine. It would be too computationally expensive to exhaustively refine every result, so you want to choose the best ones based on some metric and only proceed with those. Rosette supports the use of concurrency in solving computationally intensive problems whose structure is not statically defined, but rather depends on some heuristic to return results. Rosette has an architecture which uses actors in two distinct ways. They describe two different layers with different responsibilities:

Interface layer: This implements mechanisms for monitoring and control of resources. The system resources and hardware are viewed as actors.

System environment: This is comprised of actors who actually describe the behavior of concurrent applications and implement resource management policies based on the interface layer.

The Rosette language has a number of object-oriented features, many of which we take for granted in modern object-oriented programming languages. It implements dynamic creation and modification of objects for extensible and reconfigurable systems, supports inheritance, and has objects which can be organized into classes. The more interesting characteristic is that the concurrency in Rosette is inherent and declarative rather than explicit as with many modern object-oriented languages. In Rosette, the concurrency is an inherent property of the program structure and resource allocation. This is different from a language like Java, where all of the concurrency is very explicit. The Java concurrency model is best covered in Java Concurrency in Practice, though Java 8 introduces a few new concurrency techniques that the book does not discuss. (Peierls et al., 2005) The motivation behind this declarative concurrency comes from the heterogeneous nature of distributed concurrent computers. Different computers and architectures have varying concurrency characteristics, and the authors argue that forcing the programmer to tailor their concurrency to the specific machine makes it difficult to re-map a program to another one. This idea of using actors as a more flexible and natural abstraction over concurrency and distribution of resources is an important one which is seen in some form within many actor systems.

Actors in Rosette are organized into three types of classes which describe different aspects of the actors within the system:

Abstract classes specify requests, responses, and actions within the system which can be observed. The idea behind these is to expose the higher-level behaviors of the system, but tailor the actual actor implementations to the resource constraints of the system.

Representation classes specify the resource management characteristics of implementations of abstract classes.

Behavior classes specify the actual implementations of actors in given abstract and representation classes.

These classes represent a concrete object-oriented abstraction to organize actors which handles the practical constraints of a distributed system. It represents a step in the direction of handling not just the information flow and behavior of the system, but the underlying hardware and resources. Rosettes model feels like a direct expression of those concerns which are something every actor system in production inevitably ends up addressing.

Akka

Akka is an effort to bring an industrial-strength actor model to the JVM runtime, which was not explicitly designed to support actors. Akka was developed out of initial efforts of Scala Actors to bring the actor model to the JVM. There are a few notable changes from Scala Actors that make Akka worth mentioning, especially as it is being actively developed while Scala Actors is not. Some important changes are detailed in On the Integration of the Actor Model in Mainstream Technologies: The Scala Perspective. (Haller, 2012)

Akka provides a programming interface with both Java and Scala bindings for actors which looks similar to Scala Actors, but has different semantics in how it processes messages. Akkas receive operation defines a global message handler which doesnt block on the receipt of no matching messages, and is instead only triggered when a matching message can be processed. It also will not leave a message in an actors mailbox if there is no matching pattern to handle the message. The message will simply be discarded and an event will be published to the system. Akkas interface also provides stronger encapsulation to avoid exposing direct references to actors. Akka actors have a limited ActorRef interface which only provides methods to send or forward messages to its actor, additionally checks are done to ensure that no direct reference to an instance of an Actor subclass is accessible after an actor is created. To some degree this fixes problems in Scala Actors where public methods could be called on actors, breaking many of the guarantees programmers expect from message-passing. This system is not perfect, but in most cases it limits the programmer to simply sending messages to an actor using a limited interface.

The Akka runtime also provides performance advantages over Scala Actors. The runtime uses a single continuation closure for many or all messages an actor processes, and provides methods to change this global continuation. This can be implemented more efficiently on the JVM, as opposed to Scala Actors continuation model which uses control-flow exceptions which cause additional overhead. Additionally, nonblocking message insert and task schedule operations are used for extra performance.

Akka is the production-ready result of the classic actor model lineage. It is actively developed and actually used to build scalable systems. The production usage of Akka is detailed later in this chapter. Akka has been successful enough that it has been ported to other languages/runtimes. There is an Akka.NET project which brings the Akka programming model to .NET and Mono using C# and F#. Akka has even been ported to JavaScript as Akka.js, built on top of Scala.js.

Process-based actors

The process-based actor model is essentially an actor modeled as a process that runs from start to completion. This view is broadly similar to the classic actor, but different mechanics exist around managing the lifecycle and behaviors of actors between the models. The first language to explicitly implement this model is Erlang, (Armstrong, 2010) and they even say in a retrospective that their view of computation is broadly similar to the Aghas classic actor model.

Process-based actors are defined as a computation which runs from start to completion, rather than the classic actor model, which defines an actor almost as a state machine of behaviors and the logic to transition between those. Similar state-machine like behavior transitions are possible through recursion with process-based actors, but programming them feels fundamentally different than using the previously described become statement.

These actors use a receive primitive to specify messages that an actor can receive during a given state/point in time. receive statements have some notion of defining acceptable messages, usually based on patterns, conditionals or types. If a message is matched, corresponding code is evaluated, but otherwise the actor simply blocks until it gets a message that it knows how to handle. The semantics of this receive are different than the receive previously described in the section about Akka. Akkas receive is explicitly only triggered when an actor gets a message it knows how to handle. Depending on the language implementation receive might specify an explicit message type or perform some pattern matching on message values.

An example of these core concepts of a process with a defined lifecycle and use of the receive statement to match messages is a simple counter process written in Erlang. (Armstrong, 2010)

counter(N) -> receive tick -> counter(N+1); {From, read} -> From ! {self(), N}, counter(N) end.

This demonstrates the use of receive to match on two different values of messages tick , which increments the counter, and {From, read} where From is a process identifier and read is a literal. In response to another process sending the message tick by doing something like CounterId ! tick. the process calls itself with an incremented value which demonstrates a similarity to the become statement, but using recursion and an argument value instead of a named behavior continuation and some state. If the counter receives a message of the form {<processId>, read} it will then send that process a message with the counters processId and value, and call itself recursively with the same value.

Erlang

Erlangs implementation of process-based actors gets to the core of what it means to be a process-based actor. Erlang was the origin of the process-based actor model. The Ericsson company originally developed this model to program large highly-reliable fault-tolerant telecommunications switching systems. Erlangs development started in 1985, but its model of programming is still used today. The motivations of the Erlang model were around four key properties that were needed to program fault-tolerant operations:

Isolated processes

Pure message passing between processes

Detection of errors in remote processes

The ability to determine what type of error caused a process crash

The Erlang researchers initially believed that shared-memory was preventing fault-tolerance and they saw message-passing of immutable data between processes as the solution to avoiding shared-memory. There was a concern that passing around and copying data would be costly, but the Erlang developers saw fault-tolerance as a more important concern than performance. This model was essentially developed independently from other actor systems and research, especially as its development was started before Aghas classic actor model formalization was even published, but it ends up with a broadly similar view of computation to Aghas classic actor model.

Erlang actors run as lightweight isolated processes. They do not have visibility into one another, and pass around pure messages, which are immutable. These have no dangling pointers or data references between objects, and really enforce the idea of immutable separated data between actors unlike many of the early classic actor implementations in which references to actors and data can be passed around freely.

Erlang implements a blocking receive operation as a means of processing messages from a processes mailbox. They use value matching on message tuples as a means of describing the types of messages a given actor can accept.

Erlang also seeks to build failure into the programming model, as one of the core assumptions of a distributed system is that machines and network connections are going to fail. Erlang provides the ability for processes to monitor one another through two primitives:

monitor : one-way unobtrusive notification of process failure/shutdown

: one-way unobtrusive notification of process failure/shutdown link : two-way notification of process failure/shutdown allowing for coordinated termination

These primitives can be used to construct complex hierarchies of supervision that can be used to handle failure in isolation, rather than failures impacting your entire system. Supervision hierarchies are notably almost the only scheme for fault-tolerance that exists in the world of actors. Almost every actor system that is used to build distributed systems takes a similar approach, and it seems to work. Erlangs philosophies used to build a reliable fault-tolerant telephone exchange seem to be broadly applicable to the fault-tolerance problems of distributed systems.

An example of a process monitor written in Erlang is given below. (Armstrong, 2010)

on_exit(Pid, F) -> spawn(fun() -> monitor(Pid, F) end). monitor(Pid, F) -> process_flag(trap_exit, true), link(Pid), receive {EXIT, Pid, Why} -> F(Why) end.

This defines two processes: on_exit which simply spawns a monitor process to call a given function when a given process id exits, and monitor which uses link to receive a message when the given process id exists, and to call a function with the reason it exited. You could imagine chaining many of these monitor and link operations together to build processes to monitor one another for failure and perform recovery operations depending on the failure behavior.

It is worth mentioning that Erlang achieves all of this through the Erlang Virtual Machine (BEAM), which runs as a single OS process and OS thread per core. These single OS processes then manage many lightweight Erlang processes. The Erlang VM implements all of the concurrency, monitoring, and garbage collection for Erlang processes within this VM, which almost acts like an operating system itself. This is unlike any other language or actor system described here.

Scala Actors

Scala Actors is an example of taking and enhancing the Erlang model while bringing it to a new platform. Scala Actors brings lightweight Erlang-style message-passing concurrency to the JVM and integrates it with the heavyweight thread/process concurrency models. (Haller & Odersky, 2009) This is stated well in the original paper about Scala Actors as an impedance mismatch between message-passing concurrency and virtual machines such as the JVM. VMs usually map threads to heavyweight processes, but that a lightweight process abstraction reduces programmer burden and leads to more natural abstractions. The authors claim that The user experience gained so far indicates that the library makes concurrent programming in a JVM-based system much more accessible than previous techniques.

The realization of this model depends on efficiently multiplexing actors to threads. This technique was originally developed in Scala actors, and later was adopted by Akka. This integration allows for Actors to invoke methods that block the underlying thread in a way that doesnt prevent actors from making process. This is important to consider in an event-driven system where handlers are executed on a thread pool, because the underlying event-handlers cant block threads without risking thread pool starvation. The end result here is that Scala Actors enabled a new lightweight concurrency primitive on the JVM, with enhancements over Erlangs model. The Erlang model was further enhanced with Scalas pattern-matching capabilities which enable more advanced pattern-matching on messages compared to Erlangs tuple value matching. Scala Actors are of the type Any => Unit , which means that they are essentially untyped. They can receive literally any type and match on it with potential side effects. This behavior could be problematic and systems like Cloud Haskell and Akka aim to improve on it. Akka especially directly draws on the work of Scala Actors, and has now become the standard actor framework for Scala programmers.

Cloud Haskell

Cloud Haskell is an extension of Haskell which essentially implements an enhanced version of the computational message-passing model of Erlang in Haskell. (Epstein, Black, & Peyton-Jones, 2011) It enhances Erlangs model with advantages from Haskells model of functional programming in the form of purity, types, and monads. Cloud Haskell enables the use of pure functions for remote computation, which means that these functions are idempotent and can be restarted or run elsewhere in the case of failure without worrying about side-effects or undo mechanisms. This alone isnt so different from Erlang, which operates on immutable data in the context of isolated memory.

One of the largest improvements over Erlang is the introduction of typed channels for sending messages. These provide guarantees to the programmer about the types of messages their actors can handle, which is something Erlang lacks. In Erlang, all you have is dynamic pattern matching based on values patterns, and the hope that the wrong types of message dont get passed around your system. Cloud Haskell processes can also use multiple typed channels to pass messages between actors, rather than Erlangs single untyped channel. Haskells monadic types make it possible for programmers to use a programming style, where they can ensure that pure and effective code are not mixed. This makes reasoning about where side-effects happen in your system easier. Cloud Haskell has shared memory within an actor process, which is useful for certain applications. This might sound like it could cause problems, but shared-memory structures are forbidden by the type system from being shared across actors. Finally, Cloud Haskell allows for the serialization of function closures, which means that higher-order functions can be distributed across actors. This means that as long as a function and its environment are serializable, they can be spun off as a remote computation and seamlessly continued elsewhere. These improvements over Erlang make Cloud Haskell a notable project in the space of process-based actors. Cloud Haskell is currently supported and also has developed the Cloud Haskell Platform, which aims to provide common functionality needed to build and manage a production actor system using Cloud Haskell.

Communicating event-loops

The communicating event-loop model was introduced in the E language, (Miller, Tribble, & Shapiro, 2005) and is one that aims to change the level of granularity at which communication happens within an actor-based system. The previously described actor systems organize communication at the actor level, while the communicating event model puts communication between actors in the context of actions on objects within those actors. The overall messages still reference higher-level actors, but those messages refer to more granular actions within an actors state.

E Language

The E language implements a model which is closer to imperative object-oriented programming. Within a single actor-like node of computation called a vat many objects are contained. This vat contains not just objects, but a mailbox for all of the objects inside, as well as a call stack for methods on those objects. There is a shared message queue and event-loop that acts as one abstraction barrier for computation across actors. The actual references to objects within a vat are used for addressing communication and computation across actors and operate at a different level of abstraction.

This immediately raises other concerns. When handing out references at a different level of granularity than actor-global, how do you ensure the benefits of isolation that the actor model provides? After all, by referencing objects inside of an actor from many places it sounds like were just reinventing shared-memory problems. This is answered by two different modes of execution: immediate and eventual calls.

This diagram shows an E vat, which consists of a heap of objects and a thread of control for executing methods on those objects. The stack and queue represent messages in the two different modes of execution that are used when operating on objects in E. The stack is used for immediate execution, while the queue is used for eventual execution. Immediate calls are processed first, and new immediate calls are added to the top of the stack. Eventual calls are then processed from the queue afterwards. These different modes of message passing are highlighted in communication across vats below.

From this diagram we can see that local calls among objects within a vat are handled on the immediate stack. Then when a call needs to be made across vats, it is handled on the eventual queue, and delivered to the appropriate object within the vat at some point in the future.

Es reference-states define many of the isolation guarantees around computation that we expect from actors. Two different ways to reference objects are defined:

Near reference: This is a reference only possible between two objects in the same vat. These expose both synchronous immediate-calls and asynchronous eventual-sends.

Eventual reference: This is a reference which crosses vat boundaries, and only exposes asynchronous eventual-sends, not synchronous immediate-calls.

The difference in semantics between the two types of references means that only objects within the same vat are granted synchronous access to one another. The most an eventual reference can do is asynchronously send and queue a message for processing at some unspecified point in the future. This means that within the execution of a vat, a degree of temporal isolation can be defined between the objects and communications within the vat, and the communications to and from other vats.

This code example ties into the previous diagrams, and demonstrates the two different types reference semantics. (Miller, Tribble, & Shapiro, 2005)

def makeStatusHolder(var myStatus) { def myListeners := [].diverge() def statusHolder { to addListener(newListener) { myListeners.push(newListener) } to getStatus() { return myStatus } to setStatus(newStatus) { myStatus := newStatus for listener in myListeners { listener <- statusChanged(newStatus) } } } return statusHolder }

This creates an object statusHolder with methods defined by to statements. A method invocation from another vat-local object like statusHolder.setStatus(123) causes a message to be synchronously delivered to this object. Other objects can register as event listeners by calling either statusHolder.addListener() or statusHolder <- addListener() to either synchronously or eventually register as listeners. They will be notified eventually when the value of the statusHolder changes. This is done via <- which is the eventual-send operator.

The motivation for this referencing model comes from wanting to work at a finer-grained level of references than a traditional actor exposes. The simplest example is that you want to ensure that another actor in your system can read a value, but cant write to it. How do you do that within another actor model? You might imagine creating a read-only variant of an actor which doesnt expose a write message type, or proxies only read messages to another actor which supports both read and write operations. In E because you are handing out object references, you would simply only pass around references to a read method, and you dont have to worry about other actors in your system being able to write values. These finer-grained references make reasoning about state guarantees easier because you are no longer exposing references to an entire actor, but instead the granular capabilities of the actor. Finer-grained references also enable partial failures and recoveries within an actor. Individual objects within an actor can fail and be restarted without affecting the health of the entire actor. This is in a way similar to the supervision hierarchies seen in Erlang, and even means that messages to a failed object could be queued for processing while that object is recovering. This is something that could not happen with the same granularity in another actor system, but feels like a natural outcome of object-level references in E.

AmbientTalk/2

AmbientTalk/2 is a modern revival of the communicating event-loops actor model as a distributed programming language with an emphasis on developing mobile peer-to-peer applications. (Cutsem, Mostinckx, Boix, Dedecker, & Meuter, 2007) This idea was originally realized in AmbientTalk/1 (Dedecker, Van Cutsem, Mostinckx, D'Hondt, & De Meuter, 2006) where actors were modelled as ABCL/1-like active objects (Yonezawa, Briot, & Shibayama, 1986), but AmbientTalk/2 models actors similarly to Es vats. The authors of AmbientTalk/2 felt limited by not allowing passive objects within an actor to be referenced by other actors, so they chose to go with the more fine-grained approach which allows for remote interactions between and movement of passive objects.

Actors in AmbientTalk/2 are representations of event loops. The message queue is the event queue, messages are events, asynchronous message sends are event notifications, and object methods are the event handlers. The event loop serially processes messages from the queue to avoid race conditions. Local objects within an actor are owned by that actor, which is the only entity allowed to directly execute methods on them. Like E, objects within an actor can communicate using synchronous or asynchronous methods of communication. Again similar to E, objects that are referenced outside of an actor can only be communicated to asynchronously by sending messages. Objects can additionally declare themselves serializable, which means they can be copied and sent to other actors for use as local objects. When this happens, there is no maintained relationship between the original object and its copy.

AmbientTalk/2 uses the event loop model to enforce three essential concurrency control properties:

Serial execution: Events are processed sequentially from an event queue, so the handling of a single event is atomic with respect to other events.

Non-blocking communication: An event loop doesnt suspend computation to wait for other event loops, instead all communication happens strictly as asynchronous event notifications.

Exclusive state access: Event handlers (object methods) and their associated state belong to a single event loop, which has access to their mutable state. Mutation of other event loop state is only possible indirectly by passing an event notification asking for mutation to occur.

The end result of all this decoupling and isolation of computation is that it is a natural fit for mobile ad hoc networks. In this domain, connections are volatile with limited range and transient failures. Removing coupling based on time or synchronization is a natural fit for the domain, and the communicating event-loop actor model is a natural model for programming these systems. AmbientTalk/2 provides additional features on top of the communicating event-loop model like service discovery. These enable ad hoc network creation as actors near each other can broadcast their existence and advertise common services that can be used for communication.

AmbientTalk/2 is most notable as a reimagining of the communicating event-loops actor model for a modern use case. This again speaks to the broader advantages of actors and their applicability to solving the problems of distributed systems.

Active Objects

Active object actors draw a distinction between two different types of objects: active and passive objects. Every active object has a single entry point defining a fixed set of messages that are understood. Passive objects are the objects that are actually sent between actors, and are copied around to guarantee isolation. This enables a separation of concerns between data that relates to actor communication and data that relates to actor state and behavior.

The active object model as initially described in the ABCL/1 language defines objects with a state and three modes:

dormant : Initial state of no computation, simply waiting for a message to activate the behavior of the actor.

: Initial state of no computation, simply waiting for a message to activate the behavior of the actor. active : A state in which computation is performed that is triggered when a message is received that satisfies the patterns and constraints that the actor has defined it can process.

: A state in which computation is performed that is triggered when a message is received that satisfies the patterns and constraints that the actor has defined it can process. waiting : A state of blocked execution, where the actor is active, but waiting until a certain type or pattern of message arrives to continue computation.

ABCL/1 Language

The ABCL/1 language implements the active object model described above, representing a system as a collection of objects, and the interactions between those objects as concurrent messages being passed around. (Yonezawa, Briot, & Shibayama, 1986) One interesting aspect of ABCL/1 is the idea of explicitly different modes of message passing. Other actor models generally have a notion of priority around the values, types, or patterns of messages they process, usually defined by the ordering of their receive operation, but ABCL/1 implements two different modes of message passing with different semantics. They have standard queued messages in the ordinary mode, but more interestingly they have express priority messages. When an object receives an express message it halts any other processing of ordinary messages it is performing, and processes the express message immediately. This enables an actor to accept high-priority messages while in active mode, and also enables monitoring and interrupting actors.

The language also offers different models of synchronization around message-passing between actors. Three different message-passing models are given that enable different use cases:

past : Requests another actor to perform a task, while simultaneously proceeding with computation without waiting for the task to be completed.

: Requests another actor to perform a task, while simultaneously proceeding with computation without waiting for the task to be completed. now : Waits for a message to be received, and to receive a response. This acts as a basic synchronization barrier across actors.

: Waits for a message to be received, and to receive a response. This acts as a basic synchronization barrier across actors. future : Acts like a typical future, continuing computation until a remote result is needed, and then blocking until that result is received.

It is interesting to note that all of these modes can be expressed by the past style of message-passing, as long as the type of the message and which actor to reply to with results are known.

The key difference here is around how this different style of actors relates to managing their lifecycle. In the active object style, lifecycle is a result of messages or requests to actors, but in other styles we see a more explicit notion of lifecycle and creating/destroying actors.

Orleans

Orleans takes the concept of actors whose lifecycle is dependent on messaging or requests and places them in the context of cloud applications. (Bykov et al., 2011) Orleans does this via actors (called grains) which are isolated units of computation and behavior that can have multiple instantiations (called activations) for scalability. These actors also have persistence, meaning they have a persistent state that is kept in durable storage so that it can be used to manage things like user data.

Orleans uses a different notion of identity than other actor systems. In other systems an actor might refer to a behavior and instances of that actor might refer to identities that the actor represents like individual users. In Orleans, an actor represents that persistent identity, and the actual instantiations are in fact reconcilable copies of that identity.

The programmer essentially assumes that a single entity is handling requests to an actor, but the Orleans runtime actually allows for multiple instantiations for scalability. These instantiations are invoked in response to an RPC-like call from the programmer which immediately returns an asynchronous promise.

In Orleans, declaring an actor just looks like making any other class which implements a specific interface. A simple example here is a PlayerGrain which can join games. All methods of an Orleans actor (grain) interface must return a Task<T> , as they are all asynchronous.

public interface IPlayerGrain : IGrainWithGuidKey { Task<IGameGrain> GetCurrentGame(); Task JoinGame(IGameGrain game); } public class PlayerGrain : Grain, IPlayerGrain { private IGameGrain currentGame public Task<IGameGrain> GetCurrentGame() { return Task.FromResult(currentGame); } public Task JoinGame(IGameGrain game) { currentGame = game; Console.WriteLine("Player {0} joined game {1}", this.GetPrimaryKey(), game.GetPrimaryKey()); return TaskDone.Done; } }

Invoking a method on an actor is done like any other asynchronous call, using the await keyword in C#. This can be done from either a client or inside another actor (grain). In both cases the call looks almost exactly the same, the only different being clients use GrainClient.GrainFactory while actors can use GrainFactory directly.

IPlayerGrain player = GrainClient.GrainFactory.GetGrain<IPlayerGrain>(playerId); Task joinGameTask = player.JoinGame(currentGame); await joinGameTask;

Here a game client gets a reference to a specific player, and has that player join the current game. This code looks like any other asynchronous C# code a developer would be used to writing, but this is really an actor system where the runtime has abstracted away many of the details. The runtime handles all of the actor lifecycle in response to the requests clients and other actors within the system make, as well as persistence of state to long-term storage.

Multiple instances of an actor can be running and modifying the state of that actor at the same time. The immediate question here is how does that actually work? It doesnt intuitively seem like transparently accessing and changing multiple isolated copies of the same state should produce anything but problems when its time to do something with that state.

Orleans solves this problem by providing mechanisms to reconcile conflicting changes. If multiple instances of an actor modify persistent state, they need to be reconciled into a consistent state in some meaningful way. The default here is a last-write-wins strategy, but Orleans also exposes the ability to create fine-grained reconciliation policies, as well as a number of common reconcilable data structures. If an application requires a certain reconciliation algorithm, the developer can implement it using Orleans. These reconciliation mechanisms are built upon Orleans concept of transactions.

Transactions in Orleans are a way to causally reason about the different instances of actors that are involved in a computation. Because in this model computation happens in response to a single outside request, a given actors chain of computation via. associated actors always contains a single instantiation of each actor. These causal chain of instantiations is treated as a single transaction. At reconciliation time Orleans uses these transactions, along with current instantiation state to reconcile to a consistent state.

All of this is a longwinded way of saying that Orleans programmer-centric contributions are that it separates the concerns of running and managing actor lifecycles from the concerns of how data flows throughout your distributed system. It does this is a fault-tolerant way, and for many programming tasks, you likely wouldnt have to worry about scaling and reconciling data in response to requests. It provides the benefits of the actor model through a programming model that attempts to abstract away details that you would otherwise have to worry about when using actors in production.

Why the actor model?

The actor programming model offers benefits to programmers of distributed systems by allowing for easier programmer reasoning about behavior, providing a lightweight concurrency primitive that naturally scales across many machines, and enabling looser coupling among components of a system allowing for change without service disruption. Actors enable a programmer to easier reason about their behavior because they are at a fundamental level isolated from other actors. When programming an actor, the programmer only has to worry about the behavior of that actor and the messages it can send and receive. This alleviates the need for the programmer to reason about an entire system. Instead the programmer has a fixed set of concerns, meaning they can ensure behavioral correctness in isolation, rather than having to worry about an interaction they hadnt anticipated occurring. Actors provide a single means of communication (message-passing), meaning that a lot of concerns a programmer has around concurrent modification of data are alleviated. Data is restricted to the data within a single actor and the messages it has been passed, rather than all of the accessible data in the whole system.

Actors are lightweight, meaning that the programmer usually does not have to worry about how many actors they are creating. This is a contrast to other fundamental units of concurrency like threads or processes, which a programmer has to be acutely aware of, as they incur high costs of creation, and quickly run into machine resource and performance limitations.

Without a lightweight process abstraction, users are often forced to write parts of concurrent applications in an event-driven style which obscures control flow, and increases the burden on the programmer. Philipp Haller (Haller & Odersky, 2009)

Unlike threads and processes, actors can also easily be told to run on other machines as they are functionally isolated. This cannot traditionally be done with threads or processes, as they are unable to be passed over the network to run elsewhere. Messages can be passed over the network, so an actor does not have to care where it is running as long as it can send and receive messages. They are more scalable because of this property, and it means that actors can naturally be distributed across a number of machines to meet the load or availability demands of the system.

Finally, because actors are loosely coupled, only depending on a set of input and output messages to and from other actors, their behavior can be modified and upgraded without changing the entire system. For example, a single actor could be upgraded to use a more performant algorithm to do its work, and as long as it can process the same input and output messages, nothing else in the system has to change. This isolation is a contrast to methods of concurrent programming like remote procedure calls, futures, and promises. These models emphasize a tighter coupling between units of computation, where a process may call a method directly on another process and expect a specific result. This means that both the caller and callee (receiver of the call) need to have knowledge of the code being run, so you lose the ability to upgrade one without impacting the other. This becomes a problem in practice, as it means that as the complexity of your distributed system grows, more and more pieces become linked together.

It is important to note that the actor languages give special emphasis to developing flexible program structures which simplify reasoning about programs. Gul Agha (Agha, 1990)

This is not desirable, as a key characteristic of distributed systems is availability, and the more things are linked together, the more of your system you have to take down or halt to make changes/upgrades. Actors compare favorably to other concurrent programming primitives like threads or remote procedure calls due to their low cost and loosely coupled nature. They are also programmer friendly, and ease the programmer burden of reasoning about a distributed system.

Modern usage in production

It is important when reviewing models of programming distributed systems not to look just to academia, but to see which of these systems are actually used in industry to build things. This can give us insight into which features of actor systems are actually useful, and the trends that exist throughout these systems.

On the Integration of the Actor Model in Mainstream Technologies: The Scala Perspective (Haller, 2012) provides some insight into the requirements of an industrial-strength actor implementation on a mainstream platform. These requirements were drawn out of an initial effort with Scala Actors to bring the actor model to mainstream software engineering, as well as lessons learned from the deployment and advancement of production actors in Akka.

Library-based implementation: It is not obvious which concurrency abstraction wins in real world cases, and different concurrency models might be used to solve different problems, so implementing a concurrency model as a library enables flexibility in usage.

High-level domain-specific language: A domain-specific language or something comparable is a requirement to compete with languages that specialize in concurrency, otherwise your abstractions are lacking in idioms and expressiveness.

Event-driven implementation: Actors need to be lightweight, meaning they cannot be mapped to an entire VM thread or process. For most platforms this means an event-driven model.

High performance: Most industrial applications that use actors are highly performance sensitive, and high performance enables more graceful scalability.

Flexible remote actors: Many applications can benefit from remote actors, which can communicate transparently over the network. Flexibility in deployment mechanisms is also very important.

These attributes give us a good basis for analyzing whether an actor system can be successful in production. These are attributes that are necessary, but not sufficient for an actor system to be useful in production.

Failure handling

One of the most important concepts and reasons people use actor systems in production is their support for failure handling and recovery. The root of this support is the previously mentioned ability for actors to supervise one another, and to have supervisors notified of failures. Designing Reactive Systems: The Role of Actors in Distributed Architecture (McKee, 2016) details four well-known recovery steps that a supervising actor may take when they are notified of a problem with one of their workers.

Ignore the error and let the worker resume processing

Restart the worker and reset their state

Stop the worker entirely

Escalate the problem to the supervisors supervising actor

Based on this scheme, all actors within a system will have a supervisor, which amounts to a large tree of supervision. At the top of the tree is the actor system itself, which may have a default recovery scheme like simply restarting the actor. An interesting note is that this frees up individual actors from handling their failures. The philosophy around failure shifts to actors will fail and that we need other explicit actors and methods for handling failure outside of the business logic of the individual actor.

An actor supervision hierarchy. (McKee, 2016)

Another approach that naturally falls out of supervision heirarchies, is that they can be distributed across machines (nodes) within a cluster of actors for fault tolerance.

Actor supervision across cluster nodes. (McKee, 2016)

Critical actors can be monitored across nodes, which means that failures can be detected across nodes within a cluster. This allows for other actors within the cluster to easily react to the entire state of the system, not just the state of their local machine. This is important for a number of problems that arise in distributed systems like load-balancing and data/request partitioning. This also allows naturally allows for some form of recovery from the other machines within a cluster, such as spinning up another node automatically or restarting the failed machine/node.

Flexibility around failure handling is a key advantage of using actors in production systems. Supervision means that worker actors can focus on business logic, and failure-handling actors can focus on managing and recovering those actors. Actors can also be cluster-aware and have a view into the state of the entire distributed system.

Actors as a framework

One trend that seems common among the actor systems we see in production is extensive environments and tooling. Akka, Erlang, and Orleans are the primary actor systems that see real production use, and the reason for this is that they essentially act as frameworks where many of the common problems of actors are taken care of for you. They offer support for managing and monitoring the deployment of actors as well as patterns or modules to handle problems like fault-tolerance and load balancing which every distributed actor system has to address. This allows the programmer to focus on the problems within their domain, rather than the common problems of monitoring, deployment, and composition.

Akka and Erlang provide modules that you can piece together to build various pieces of functionality into your system. Akka provides a huge number of modules and extensions to configure and monitor a distributed system built using actors. They provide a number of utilities to meet common use-case and deployment scenarios, and these are thoroughly listed and documented. For example Akka includes modules to deal with the following common issues (and more):

Fault Tolerance via supervision hierarchies

Routing to balance load across actors

Persistence to save and recover actor state across failures and restarts

A testing framework specifically for actors

Cluster management to group and distribute actors across physical machines

Additionally they provide support for Akka Extensions, which are a mechanism for adding your own features to Akka. These are powerful enough that some core features of Akka like Typed Actors or Serialization are implemented as Akka Extensions.

Erlang provides the Open Telecom Platform (OTP), which is a framework comprised of a set of modules and standards designed to help build applications. OTP takes the generic patterns and components of Erlang, and provides them as libraries that enable code reuse and best practices when developing new systems. Some examples of OTP libraries are:

A real-time distributed database

An interface to relational databases

A monitoring framework for machine resource usage

Support for interfacing with other communication protocols like SSH

A test framework

Cloud Haskell also provides something analogous to Erlangs OTP called the Cloud Haskell Platform.

Orleans is different from these as it is built from the ground up with a more declarative style and runtime. This does a lot of the work of distributing and scaling actors for you, but it is still definitely a framework which handles a lot of the common problems of distribution so that programmers can focus on building the logic of their system. Orleans takes care of the distribution of actors across machines, as well as creating new actor instances to handle increased load. Additionally, Orleans also deals with reconciliation of consistency issues across actor instantiations, as well as persistence of actor data to durable storage. These are common issues that the other industrial actor frameworks also address in some capacity using modules and extensions.

Module vs. managed runtime approaches

Based on my research there have been two prevalent approaches to frameworks which are actually used to build production actor systems in industry. These are high-level philosophies about the meta-organization of an actor system. They are the design philosophies that arent even directly considered when just looking at the base actor programming and execution models. The easiest way to describe these is are as the module approach and the managed runtime approach. A high-level analogy to describe these is that the module approach is similar to manually managing memory, while the managed runtime approach is similar to garbage collection. In the module approach, you care about the lifecycle and physical allocation of actors within your system, while in the managed runtime approach you care more about the reconciliation behavior and flow of persistent state between automatic instantiations of your actors.

Both Akka and Erlang take a module approach to building their actor systems. This means that when you build a system using these languages/frameworks, you are using smaller composable components as pieces of the larger system you want to build. You are explicitly dealing with the lifecycles and instantiations of actors within your system, where to distribute them across physical machines, and how to balance actors to scale. Some of these problems might be handled by libraries, but at some level you are specifying how all of the organization of your actors is happening. The JVM or Erlang VM isnt doing it for you.

Orleans goes in another direction, which I call the managed runtime approach. Instead of providing small components which let you build your own abstractions, they provide a runtime in the cloud that attempts to abstract away a lot of the details of managing actors. It does this to such an extent that you no longer even directly manage actor lifecycles, where they live on machines, or how they are replicated and scaled. Instead you program with actors in a more declarative style. You never explicitly instantiate actors, instead you assume that the runtime will figure it out for you in response to requests to your system. You program in strategies to deal with problems like domain-specific reconciliation of data across instances, but you generally leave it to the runtime to scale and distribute the actor instances within your system.

Both approaches have been successful in industry. Erlang has the famous use case of a telephone exchange and a successful history since then. Akka has an entire page detailing its usage in giant companies. Orleans has been used as a backend to massive Microsoft-scale games and applications with millions of users. It seems like the module approach is more popular, but theres only really one example of the managed runtime approach out there. Theres no equivalent to Orleans on the JVM or Erlang VM, so realistically it doesnt have as much exposure in the distributed programming community.

Comparison to Communicating Sequential Processes

One popular model of message-passing concurrency that has been getting attention is Communicating Sequential Processes (CSP). The basic idea behind CSP is that concurrent communication between processes is done by passing messages through channels. Arguably the most popular modern implementation of this is Gos channels. A lot of the surface-level discussions of actors simply take them as something that is a lightweight concurrency primitive which passes messages. This zoomed-out view might conflate CSP-style channels and actors, but it misses a lot of subtleties as CSP really cant be considered an actor framework. The core difference is that CSP implements some form of synchronous messaging between processes, while the actor model entirely decouples messaging between a sender and a receiver. Actors are much more independent, meaning its easier to run them in a distributed environment without changing their semantics. Additionally, receiver failures dont affect senders in the actor model. Actors are a more loosely-coupled abstraction across a distributed environment, while CSP embraces tight-coupling as a means of synchronization across processes. To conflate the two misses the point of both, as actors are operating at a fundamentally different level of abstraction from CSP.

References



Haiti - FLASH DR : New military reinforcements, long-range UAVs and cameras on the border !





President Danilo Medina, confirmed at the 174th anniversary of the independence of the Dominican Republic (February 27) the establishment of a new security plan on the border with Haiti, including a set of measures to prevent thge massive entry of illegal Haitians in Dominican territory declaring "Dominicans have their own national project, which is neither better nor worse than those of other countries, but it is ours and our responsibility is to strengthen it and to work for it [...] We understand that to be good neighbors we must respect and even collaborate, but we must also know where a house starts and where the other ends [...]"



He thus indicated that 900 military trained in the academies of the country, will offer a professional monitoring service of the border, both in terms of formal and informal crossing points, will be sent as reinforcement. He also announced the addition of 30 new off-road vehicles [in addition to the 60 already in operation], 1 additional helicopters [in addition to the 2 already in operation] https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22621-haiti-flash-dr-strengthens-and-motorized-troops-at-the-border.html



Medina also mentioned the strengthening of the crossings where there is the greatest flow of people emphasizing "We will coordinate all the institutions that work at the border: brigades of the army, navy and army of CESFRONT and the Directorate General of Migration (DGM) so that they can effectively apply the Dominican law on the border. "



As part of the technological means involved in the surveillance, President Medina said that a fleet of long-range UAVs and infra-red detection systems for night surveillance, will be deployed as well as hundreds cameras that will be added to some 200 surveillance cameras already deployed at the border.



On Friday, March 2, Lieutenant-General Ruben Dario Paulino Sem, Minister of Defense declared "The Dominican Republic has put in place a new security plan on the border with Haiti" explaining that the 900 soldiers announced by President Danilo Medina for control the illegal migration arrived Thursday at the border to be deployed there. Indicating that these reinforcements are in addition to the 4,500 soldiers already deployed along the border, bringing the total number of soldiers to 5,400 military TO which are added the CESRONT men and the Marine and Air Force units as well as the staff of intelligence and migration (DGM)



He also said that the increase in surveillance at the border other than land, will also be provided by air and sea (coastal), including between Montecristi (North-West) and Puerto Plata (North), and Pedernales and Barahona (South West).



With more than 10,000 Haitians in irregular migration, deported from the Dominican territory or returned to the border on average each month, more and more moderate political observers no longer hesitate to qualify the situation of "peaceful invasion". Even the high Dominican religious authorities call on the Medina Government to take control of the situation with respect and transparency...



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23707-haiti-dr-more-than-230-000-haitians-returned-or-deported-since-2015.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23510-haiti-flash-nearly-16-000-haitians-deported-or-expelled-from-the-dominican-territory-in-january.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23365-haiti-flash-increases-in-attempts-dr-send-reinforcements.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-23195-icihaiti-flash-3-200-haitians-deported-to-haiti.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23139-haiti-flash-the-dominican-soldiers-deploy-the-great-means-at-the-border.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22621-haiti-flash-dr-strengthens-and-motorized-troops-at-the-border.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21618-haiti-flash-dominican-army-sends-900-more-troops-to-reinforce-border.html



SL/ HaitiLibre

















(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has announced securities fraud charges against a U.K.-based broker-dealer and its investment manager in connection with manipulative trading in the securities of HD View 360 Inc., a U.S.-based microcap issuer. The SEC also announced charges against HD Views CEO, another individual, and three entities they control for manipulating HD Views securities as well as the securities of another microcap issuer, West Coast Ventures Group Corp. The SEC further announced the institution of an order suspending trading in the securities of HD View.

These charges arise in part from an undercover operation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which also resulted in related criminal prosecutions against these defendants by the Office of the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the SEC alleges that Beaufort Securities Ltd. and Peter Kyriacou, an investment manager at Beaufort, manipulated the market for HD Views common stock. The scheme involved an undercover FBI agent who described his business as manipulating U.S. stocks through pump-and-dump schemes. Kyriacou and the agent discussed depositing large blocks of microcap stock in Beaufort accounts, driving up the price of the stock through promotions, manipulating the stocks price and volume through matched trades, and then selling the shares for a large profit.

The SECs complaint against Beaufort and Kyriacou alleges that they:

opened brokerage accounts for the undercover agent in the names of nominees in order to conceal his identity and his connection to the anticipated trading activity in the accounts

suggested that the undercover agent could create the false appearance that HD Views stock was liquid in advance of a pump-and-dump by gam[ing] the market through matched trades

executed multiple purchase orders of HD View shares with the understanding that Beauforts client had arranged for an associate to simultaneously offer an equivalent number of shares at the same price

A second complaint filed by the SEC in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York alleges that in a series of recorded telephone conversations with the undercover agent, HD View CEO Dennis Mancino and William T. Hirschy agreed to manipulate HD Views common stock by using the agents network of brokers to generate fraudulent retail demand for the stock in exchange for a kickback from the trading proceeds. According to the complaint, the three men agreed that Mancino and Hirschy would manipulate HD View stock to a higher price before using the agents brokers to liquidate their positions at an artificially inflated price. The SECs complaint also alleges that Mancino and Hirschy executed a test trade on Jan. 31, 2018, coordinated by the agent, consisting of a sell order placed by the defendants filled by an opposing purchase order placed by a broker into an account at Beaufort. Unbeknownst to Mancino and Hirschy, the Beaufort account used for this trade was a nominal account that was opened and funded by the agent. The SECs complaint also alleges that, prior to their contact with the undercover agent, Mancino and Hirschy manipulated the market for HD View and for West Coast by using brokerage accounts that they owned, controlled, or were associated with including TJM Investments Inc., DJK Investments 10 Inc., WT Consulting Group LLC  to effect manipulative matched trades.

We allege that Kyriacou engaged in a scheme to manipulate the market of HD View stock by matching trades to create a false appearance of liquidity for unwitting investors. The SEC and its law enforcement partners will continue to aggressively work together to root out such manipulation, wherever the alleged perpetrators and their brokerage firms reside, and despite their best efforts to conceal and disguise their methods, said Marc P. Berger, Regional Director of the SECs New York office.

This action demonstrates that we will continue to be vigilant in policing microcap markets and will continue to take action as appropriate against those that undermine the integrity of the market with manipulative practices, like matched trading, as alleged in our complaint, said Antonia Chion, Associate Director of the SECs Enforcement Division.

The SECs complaint against Beaufort and Kyriacou charges the defendants with violating Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder. The SEC also charged Hirschy, Mancino, and their corporate entities with violating Section 17(a)(1) of the Securities Act of 1933, Sections 9(a)(1), 9(a)(2), and 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rules 10b-5(a) and (c) thereunder. The SEC is seeking injunctions, disgorgement, prejudgment interest, penalties, and penny stock bars from Beaufort and Kyriacou. With respect to Hirschy, Mancino, and their corporate entities, the SEC is seeking injunctions, disgorgement, prejudgment interest, penalties, penny stock bars, and an officer-and-director bar against Mancino.In late February, Venezuela's government began accepting presidential candidate registrations and announced a snap legislative election for April. The country's opposition denounces the process as a sham and Maduro as a dictator, both of which may be true.

Oddly, a third voice -- the US government -- also weighed in. Per US state media outlet Voice of America, "the United States, which under President Donald Trump has been deeply critical of Maduro's leadership in crisis-torn and economically suffering Venezuela, on Saturday rejected the call for an early legislative vote."

Given the perpetual public pearl-clutching over alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election, that's some major league chutzpah.

The US State Department wants "'a free and fair election' involving full participation of all political leaders, the immediate release of all political prisoners, credible international observation, and an independent electoral authority.

Let's take that one at a time.

Participation of all political leaders? In some US states, it's harder for a third party to get on a ballot than in, say, Iran.

The immediate release of all political prisoners? Last I heard, US president Donald Trump hadn't pardoned (among others) Leonard Peltier.

Credible international observation? The US proper committed to admitting international election observers in the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's 1990 Copenhagen Document, but many US states forbid international observers or, for that matter, local observers who aren't affiliated with one of the two ruling parties.

Electoral authorities? The two ruling parties control them all and routinely use them to suppress threatened competition, as do pseudo-private entities like the Commission on Presidential Debates, which makes giant illegal (but government approved) in-kind contributions to the Republican and Democratic candidates in the form of televised candidate beauty pageants which exclude the opposition parties.

Writing in The Atlantic, veteran election meddler Thomas O. Mela -- formerly of the US State Department, the US Agency for International Development, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House -- argues that election meddling is different when the US does it, because ... well, "democracy."

Mela asserts a "difference between programs to strengthen democratic processes in another country (without regard to specific electoral outcomes), versus efforts to manipulate another country's election in order to sow chaos, undermine public confidence in the political system, and diminish a country's social stability."

The US government spends a lot of time and money (USAID's budget alone is about one-tenth the budget of the entire Russian government) on foreign election meddling, and somehow "democracy" always gets interpreted as "whatever outcome the US government prefers at the moment."

Perhaps we should get our own democratic house in order instead of, or at least before, presuming to tell the rest of the world how democracy does or should work.Eero Heinaluoma (SDP) reminded Sipila that the constitution would have to be consulted in the event that the premier handed in his resignation.

Prime Minister Juha Sipilas (Centre) statement that a failure to carry out the social, health care and regional government reform would result in snap elections has elicited a response from members of both ruling and opposition parties.

Prime Minister Sipila is short-cutting the constitution and speaking about new elections. The president makes the decision to dissolve the Parliament. If the government collapsed, you would first determine if a new government can be formed based on the current composition of the Parliament. The parliamentary groups would have their say in this, he reminded.

Sipila spoke about the possibility of snap elections after his government was urged to abandon the massive, long-discussed reform by Elina Lepomaki (NCP).

I think it is high time to recognise that the reform bill will not meet the objectives set for it. The bill would generate no cost savings, and there is no reason to presume that it would improve the quality or accessibility of care services, she stated in a blog post that has since been rejected by the National Coalition Parliamentary Group.

She did receive some support from Jan Vapaavuori (NCP), the Mayor of Helsinki, however.

The government doesnt have to collapse, itd be enough to scrap the regional government reform. Threatening with the governments collapse is a potent way to compel lawmakers to vote against their personal views, tweeted Vapaavuori.

He also made it clear that he is only opposed to the regional government reform, not to the social and health care reform.

Im only part of a single campaign: the campaign against the regional government reform, he added.

Petteri Orpo (NCP), the Minister of Finance, declined to speculate on the likelihood of snap elections and stressed that carrying out the reform must remain the priority of the government. All stakeholders, he also added, must be willing to make compromises.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Roni Rekomaa  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi SuomiBUSINESSES and community groups in Henley are being invited to generate their own power by installing solar panels on their roofs free of charge.

Henley in Transition, an environment and sustainability group, is urging the owners of large buildings to join a new scheme run in partnership with the Reading Community Energy Society.

The society would install up to several dozen solar cells at participating premises and reclaim the cost through Energy4All, a national co-operative of people who want to invest in green projects.

Participants would use energy generated by the panels to supplement their regular supply, which they would automatically switch back to when output drops on cloudy days or at night. They would pay the society for the energy at below the market rate for 20 years after which they would fully own the panels and their output. The panels would be expected to last another two or three decades.

The not-for-profit society, which began in 2015, would supplement its income by selling surplus energy back to the national grid. Money left over after paying the investors returns would go towards community projects with an environmental theme.

Henley in Transition is in talks with about a dozen organisations that have expressed an interest.

The scheme is open to anyone with a roof space of at least 100 square metres, which faces mostly southwards with little shading.

They must have a single occupier and receive all their power through a single meter and, ideally, should have a relatively high daytime usage.

Tony Hoskins, the societys chairman, approached Henley in Transition after moved from Reading to St Marks Road in Henley almost two years ago.

He previously oversaw the installation of about 700 cells on 12 buildings in Reading. These generate a total of 176 kilowatts peak, enough to power more than 35 average households in a year under ideal conditions.

Mr Hoskins said: We were initially confined to central Reading but now were looking to expand within a 10-mile radius, which includes Henley and many of the surrounding villages. Weve spoken to about 15 organisations and will be approaching investors once we have agreement in principle from the owners of the buildings.

People are definitely receptive to the idea, although were finding they have to take a lot of steps internally as its a 20-year commitment and its sometimes hard for them to get their heads around the long-term advantages.

It has been very well-received in Reading and weve already been able to make some small grants with the money weve raised. Over a 20-year period we expect to have a community fund of more than 120,000.

Its worth getting involved as youre generating free renewable energy and ultimately helping the community.

Katrina Judge, who is leading the project for Henley in Transition, said: Were already talking to lots of organisations about this but want to hear from anyone whos interested as theres no limit on how many can take part.

We need to move quite quickly on this as we want everything to come together at the same time, so people need to be willing to commit within the next six months or so.

Were quite far down the line in talks with three or four people and others have expressed an interest so the initial reception has been pretty positive.

Its a great way for people to reduce their energy bills while generating green energy and reducing their carbon footprint. There are also longer-term benefits as they get to keep the panels in the end, which solves the problem many people have of not being able to afford the initial outlay.

According to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, at least 5,000 community energy schemes have been registered in the UK since 2010. There are now enough across England to power 85,500 homes.

For more information, email henley.in.transition

@gmail.comA MILLIONAIRE businessman from Henley who rescued the Flying Scotsman has died.

Sir William McAlpine, who lived at the Fawley Hill estate with his widow Lady Judith McAlpine, passed away yesterday (Sunday, March 4) following a period of illness.

The 82-year-old, a former director of his family's construction company, purchased the famous steam locomotive from America in 1973.

It had been due to spend the rest of its days in a museum but Sir William brought it back to England and pressed it back into service for day trips before selling it in the Nineties.

A keen rail enthusiast, he built a full-sized railway at his estate including the original station from Somersham in Cambridgeshire, which was closed during the Sixties.

Since 2004, Sir William and Lady McAlpine had hosted the Hambleden Valley's annual "railway nativity", a modern take on the story of Jesus' birth featuring children from the village and surrounding area.

The youngsters would arrive at Somersham platform on a full-sized steam train and give readings and sing carols before enjoying festive refreshments.

Sir William was born at the Dorchester Hotel in London, which his family owned, and educated at Charterhouse School before going straight into the family business.

He built his home at Fawley Hill in 1960. The estate also serves as an animal sanctuary housing a range of species including goats, deer, wallabies, reas, emus, peacocks, alpaca, meerkats and capybaras.

Sir William, who inherited his father's baronetcy upon his passing in 1990, was also chief elect of the Clan McAlpine Society and served as High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1999.

A full obituary will appear in this week's Henley Standard.A HENLEY trader is calling for a change in the law to stop the town being swamped by charity shops.

Laurence Morris, who owns Laurence Menswear in Duke Street, says they should no longer receive a discount on their business rates, claiming it gives them an unfair advantage over independent retail businesses such as his.

There are six charity shops in the town, five of which are in Duke Street. These include the Thames Hospice shop which opened at the former No 27 menswear unit, next door to Mr Morriss shop, in November.

Mr Morris spoke out at a meeting of the towns retail and hospitality forum, where representatives of about 20 Henley businesses discussed ways of improving footfall, including the annual regatta window display competition and improvements to commercial waste collections.

He said: The number one issue is the lack of footfall and these initiatives are only touching the surface.

Charity shops are one problem. I know you cant stop landlords renting to whoever they like but we have to canvass at government level as they should definitely be paying business rates. We would see how many could survive then.

They are killing our high street and its happening everywhere.

Another issue is the lack of parking and people not wanting to visit because traffic makes it too hard to get into town. Many of our customers say it is far easier to park in Marlow, which is a shame.

Town manager Helen Barnett, who chaired the meeting, said: We all have to be positive as the more positive we are, the more happy and satisfied our shoppers will be.

I know we have a few more charity shops than we might like but we need to work together on this.If we are constantly negative, it will create the perception that things are bad in Henley and might put shoppers off.

Its about adding value to your customers experiences and giving them something they cant buy online.

Parking is a problem as Henley is a medieval market town but the council is pursuing solutions to get more people out of their cars.

Jessica Hayes, of Fat Face in Bell Street, said good service alone wouldnt solve the problem as her shop scored highly in a recent mystery shopper visit but still experienced a reduction in footfall.

Henleys other charity shops are Sue Ryder, the Oxfam bookshop, Cancer Research UK and Helen and Douglas House, all in Duke Street, and another Oxfam shop in Market Place.

All charity shops are eligible for a discount on their rates, typically 80 per cent, and can apply for a top-up relief of up to 20 per cent from South Oxfordshire District Council, the collecting authority.

Mr Morriss concerns were echoed by Ricky Martin, the owner of the Patisserie Franco-Belge bakery in Duke Street.

He told BBC Radio Oxford that the growth of charity shops and coffee shops in Henley was deterring shoppers.

He said: Its a downward spiral. One retailer will go, which affects footfall, then others follow. It has an impact on the community because the town centre starts dying.

People say we should do something before its too late but in many ways it already is.

Mr Martin has previously warned that his shop could close after 60 years due to less footfall and competition from market traders selling takeaway food.

He said: I want to stay and modernise but we need to know well get the business.

Im not asking for favours and accept the need to be competitive but it has to be on a level playing field.

 What do you think? Write to: Letters, Henley Standard, Caxton House, 1 Station Road, Henley, RG9 1AD or email letters@henleystandard.co.ukTICKETS for Nile Rodgers and Chic at the Henley Festival may already have sold out  but music fans still have a chance to see them live in Oxfordshire this summer.

Supported by Soul II Soul, they are headlining the first of four Nocturne Live 2018 concerts at Blenheim Palace in June.

The concert series runs from Thursday, June 14, to Sunday, June 17, with the other dates being headlined by Noel Gallaghers High Flying Birds, a triple bill of Elvis Costello, the Waterboys and Nick Lowe, and Gary Barlow.

The Take That songwriters Sunday night concert in the 10,000-capacity Great Court has already sold out, but a very special guest is still to be announced in support of Noel Gallagher on the Friday.

Originally conceived as a rock band for the disco movement, Chic have enjoyed huge success since their inception in the late Seventies  with a string of hits including Le Freak, Good Times and Everybody Dance.

The groups co-founder and frontman, Nile Rodgers has produced and played on some of the biggest-selling albums of all time and the Chic live show features all of the bands hits as well as songs from Rodgerss collaborations with the likes of Madonna, David Bowie, Daft Punk and Diana Ross.

Nile Rodgers said: We are really excited to be bringing some Chic magic to Blenheim Palace this summer. Dont forget your dancing shoes and be prepared to Ahh...Freak Out! See you there!

Looking ahead to the Saturday night, a Nocturne Live spokesman said: The Costello/Waterboys/

Nick Lowe triple bill presents an exclusive opportunity to see three of the UKs most revered, idiosyncratic songwriters on the same bill as they perform music from across their extensive back catalogues.

During his time as the guitarist and principal songwriter with Oasis, Gallagher had eight UK number one singles, eight UK number one albums and won six Brit Awards. His concerts with the High Flying Birds touring band feature a mix of solo material and Oasis hits.

Tickets start at 40, with a limited number of VIP packages offering an exclusive opportunity to dine in the state rooms at Blenheim Palace available. For more information and to book, visit www.nocturnelive.comSIX sites in Woodcote where another 67 new houses could be built have been shown to the public for the first time.

About 500 residents attended a consultation on proposals to update the villages neighbourhood plan, which was held at the village hall on Friday and Saturday.

The sites could be developed in addition to the seven plots for 76 homes earmarked in the existing plan, which passed a referendum in 2014.

The document is being updated because South Oxfordshire District Council is revising its own local plan to cover the period until 2033 and housing quotas for most areas are likely to increase.

The council believes Woodcote could take up to 160 additional properties but the parish council insists the villages capacity is much lower.

Its neighbourhood plan advisory group, which consists of volunteers, shortlisted the six new sites from a list of 25 put forward by landowners last year.

They are:

 A one-hectare field off Reading Road, opposite the village hall. This could take 30 houses, of which 12 would be affordable while eight would be sold on the open market and 10 would be retirement properties. A public car park with 40 spaces could go on a 0.16-hectare field next door to alleviate congestion on the main road.

 Two fields immediately east of Greenmore measuring 0.35 hectares and 0.33 hectares respectively. The first could take 11 units and the second could take 10, with four affordable on each. These could include traffic-

calming measures and a car park.

 A 0.28-hectare field behind Yew Tree Farmhouse, off Behoes Lane. This could take three affordable homes and five market homes.

 A 0.15-hectare wedge of land behind the Black Lion in Greenmore, which could take five regular houses.

 The former Woody Nook restaurant in Goring Road, which could be converted into three homes.

This would increase the proportion of three- and four-bedroom properties from 40 and 10 per cent respectively in the old plan to 50 and 15 per cent while reducing the number of two-bedroom homes from 40 per cent to 25.

This is to help tackle the challenges of an aging population as the number of people living in Woodcote has fallen since 1991 due to a drop in the number of those aged 19 and under, meaning the proportion of over-60s has increased. It is thought that building larger homes would attract more families as couples with even one child prefer at least three bedrooms.

However, the advisory group says smaller houses must be of a high quality to encourage downsizing, freeing up existing large properties.

The group could also form a community land trust which could buy plots and build affordable housing, effectively acting as a housing association.

The plan could also include three new employment sites:

 To the rear of the proposed car park in Greenmore (0.07 hectares, enough for two medium-sized units).

 An extension to the Church Farm industrial estate off Reading Road (0.41 hectares).

 Bishops Yard in Greenmore (0.33 hectares).

Most visitors to the exhibitions filled out surveys that will shape the final document.

Charlotte Nash, of Greenmore, said: I know this has divided opinion in the village but we have to agree enough common ground to move forward.

Were stronger working together on an acceptable level of development.

David Self, of Birchen Close, said: Some sites might be okay but theres a lot of development off Greenmore and that road already attracts a lot of speeding and parking by Wards Farm. This would make it worse.

Sinead Archer, of Whitehouse Road, said: Its good that theyve explained the reasoning behind the site selections as the initial leaflet drop started some lively debate. It makes more sense now and generally I think it will work but I still dont understand some choices and think Greenmore is being overdeveloped.

David Athey, of Birchen Close, said: If the district council keeps asking us to take more houses, there will be fewer and fewer people who agree with the proposal so the neighbourhood plan becomes less likely to pass a referendum, meaning the district councils own plan will rule. Its destroying local democracy.

Charlotte Nichol said: Theyre talking about all these extra sites but it seems pointless when so few of the sites from the first plan have been developed yet.

I would also like to know why the public didnt get a say on all the sites that were put forward.

Carol Parson, of Beech Lane, said: We cant avoid taking extra houses and should be grateful that our council is so switched on. Other villages havent been so forward-thinking and theyve had to take loads of housing.

Parish councillor Geoff Botting, who chairs the steering group, said: We havent analysed the questionnaires yet but at first glance theres a lot of support for our initial suggestions.

A couple of sites were less popular and the advisory group will study the responses of those that didnt like them along with other suggestions received to see how, if possible, we can respond.

Overall the spirit was very positive with lots of compliments on the enormous amount of work done and the quality of the displays.

There were a couple of very vocal critics who were landowners presumably disappointed that their land wasnt included in these initial suggestions. This is unsurprising given the difference in value between land with and without planning permission for housing.

Many visitors did not appreciate that the existing plan has secured permission for more than 50 houses but thats as much as we can do. We cant actually build the houses ourselves.

The district council is going to push housing through somehow and you can either ignore it, in which case you have no say and just get built all over, or you can produce a neighbourhood plan and influence development in a way that benefits the community.

He said sites ruled out by the steering group werent included in the consultation as they could not be developed by law.Once Ivanka's job was to shield her idiotic corrupt father ; now she has an added burden: her idiotic corrupt husband. Early Saturday, Virginia Heffernan reported an interesting quote from one of the Putin-Gate hearings, going back half a year, by Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: "Corrupt kleptocrats and international criminals make themselves rich in criminality and corruption. Then at some point they need the legitimate world in order to protect and account for their stolen proceeds." Was he referring to Putin? Or Trump? He was sketching "a new bipolar world order, in which the so-called legitimate world, which includes the United States, is not at war with, but rather deeply enmeshed in, the corrupt one, where governments are built on bribery, kleptocracy, electoral fraud, slush funds, legal plunder and nepotism." Sound familiar?





The witness was William F. Browder, the hedge funder turned global finance reformer and he "didn't mince words. 'The legitimate world, and America in particular, are failing in an absolute way. [The corrupt] steal the money, commit their crimes and kill the people, and then come here in the legitimate world with the rule of law, with the property rights, and with all the protections and keep their money.'" Again, Putin or Trump?

Crooks seeking legitimacy are not fenced out in America. The U.S. is teeming with enablers champing at the bit to serve rich thugs: lawyers, lobbyists, bankers, security firms, consultants and PR people.



The enabler sector now boasts several household names. Among them are the lobbyist and onetime Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who has been indicted for financial crimes; and Trump's favorite child, Ivanka, who holds an indeterminate public-facing position in the White House-- or in real estate, or maybe fashion.



Oh, Ivanka. Her livelihood is as opaque as her full-coverage foundation, but she plays a critical role in her father's administration-- and in the broader danse macabre of corruption and legitimacy.







The so-called first daughter proves that "laundering" applies to more than money. She washes and gilds just about everything she touches. Consider her warehouses upon warehouses of petroleum-based separates, many of them sewn for poverty pay in sweatshops. When you call this schmatte smorgasboard the Ivanka Trump Collection it does brisk business-- if not on Rodeo Drive, then in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.



She has the same magic touch with the multitudes of flesh-and-blood rogues who flock to her for redemption. It's Ivanka who first brought Gen. Michael "Lied to the FBI" Flynn into the administration, according to the New Yorker; she praised him for his "amazing loyalty" and offered him his choice of positions at a transition-team meeting. One person present said, "It was like Princess Ivanka had laid the sword on Flynn's shoulders and said, 'Rise and go forth.'"



The laying on of that princess sword seems to be Ivanka's favorite pastime. In 2006, when she was 25, she toured Moscow with Felix Sater, who in 1998 pleaded guilty to a $40-million stock fraud scheme run by the Russian mafia. She also collaborated with the Soviet-born businessman Tamir Sapir, whose top aide in 2004 pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy with the Gambino crime family.



It's impossible to keep track of all the gangsters Ivanka has palled around with. But what's truly damning are the shady real-estate projects she has made rise and go forth.



In 2006, she oversaw the development of the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama City. The project was connected to a Brazilian money launderer later arrested for fraud and forgery as well as a Russian investor who'd previously been jailed in Israel for kidnapping. On Wednesday, a dispute between Trump's company and the building's owner turned violent. The journalist Marcy Wheeler has suggested the fight concerns records that may show Ivanka knew the property was laundering money. Police in riot gear stormed the hotel that Ivanka once hyped as "exemplary of the grandeur in which we like to enter a market."



Ivanka was also a ranking official on the Trump SoHo, which has since shed the name Trump. In 2010, as ProPublica and WNYC have reported, the Manhattan District Attorney's office began building a criminal case against Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. for using inflated sales figures to defraud prospective buyers. After receiving a visit from Trump family lawyer and campaign donor Marc Kasowitz, then-DA Cyrus Vance Jr. backed off.



Just Thursday, CNN reported that FBI counterintelligence officials are investigating another Trump real-estate deal, the 63-story Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver, which opened after Trump became president.



Ivanka has been described as "point person" on the development, which features an Ivanka Trump-branded spa. No one yet knows why it caught the FBI's eye, but Ivanka's long-awaited top-secret security clearance may turn on what the agents find out.



When an organization exists not to build buildings but to brand them, its business is optics. And Ivanka has long window-dressed the Trump Organization's deals. She was born to make the shoddy look cute, to legitimize corruption.



And if it's the coverup and not the crime that will ultimately bring down the Trump syndicate, Ivanka may turn out to be the point person for its demise.

Wall Street Journal wrote that "[H]e and President Trump would both [be] better off if Mr. Kushner were out of the White House" and fast. Now the Kush is dead meat-- and Ivanka is fighting over what's left with John Kelly, as Senor Trumpanzee whines that his son-in-law is "a high quality person." He isn't-- and never has been. And Ivanka may not have too much time to put into saving her blundering, drowning husband, now that her own shady businesses are being The First Daughter indeed-- and wife of the the putzy little Kushner-in-law, who no longer is allowed to read the President's Daily Brief, looks forever out of his depth. Did you know Ivanka and Jared double-dated with Hope Hicks and Rob Porter? On Thursday, the editorial board of Murdoch'swrote that "[H]e and President Trump would both [be] better off if Mr. Kushner were out of the White House" and fast. Now the Kush is dead meat-- and Ivanka is fighting over what's left with John Kelly, as Senor Trumpanzee whines that his son-in-law is "a high quality person." He isn't-- and never has been. And Ivanka may not have too much time to put into saving her blundering, drowning husband, now that her own shady businesses are being targeted by the FBI . These guys are brave!

US counterintelligence officials are scrutinizing one of Ivanka Trump's international business deals, according to two sources familiar with the matter.



The FBI has been looking into the negotiations and financing surrounding Trump International Hotel and Tower in Vancouver, according to a US official and a former US official. The scrutiny could be a hurdle for the first daughter as she tries to obtain a full security clearance in her role as adviser to President Donald Trump.



It's standard procedure to probe foreign contacts and international business deals as part of a background check investigation. But the complexity of the Trump Organization's business deals, which often rely on international financing and buyers, presents a challenge.



The FBI has been looking closely at the international business entanglements of both Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, to determine whether any of those deals could leave them vulnerable to pressure from foreign agents, including China, according to a US official.



The development-- a 616-foot beacon dotting the Vancouver skyline and featuring a trademarked Ivanka Trump spa-- opened in February 2017, just after Trump took office.



The Trump Organization does not own the building. Instead, like other Trump projects, it receives licensing and marketing fees from the developer, Joo Kim Tiah. A scion of one of Malaysia's wealthiest families, Tiah runs his family's Canada-based development company Holborn Group. President Trump's June financial disclosure form said the Trump Organization made more than $5 million in royalties and $21,500 in management fees from the Vancouver property.



...For the Trumps, deal-making is a family affair. The developer in Vancouver, Tiah, bonded with Donald Trump Jr. But Ivanka Trump played a key role in getting the deal off the ground in 2013, two years before Trump officially launched his presidential bid.



Tiah flew to New York for a meeting at Trump Tower. In the board room featured on The Apprentice, they hammered out the contours of the deal.



"One of the senior vice-presidents pulled me aside and said: 'Joo Kim, it's really important in your presentation that you connect with Ivanka. In other words: no one else is in the room, you have to understand that," Tiah recalled at the October 2015 launch of a "Trump Luxe" VIP service for condo residents. "In that meeting, it was clearly just me and Ivanka talking about the project," he recalled.



After an agreement was reached, Ivanka Trump recalled at the same event that she worked closely with Tiah: "We were working on a lot on the design elements and really forming the vision."



"Ivanka and myself approved everything, everything in this project," Tiah added.

all Trump business partners, the Tiah family reeks of corruption. Tiah's father, the money behind the deal, "has a checkered business history, including securities laws violations and false statements to the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange." Everyone in business with Trump is a criminal; it's always been that way, in country after country. Trump didn't extricate himself from his and Ivanka's Baku deal until the FBI warned him-- then a candidate for president-- that it was, in part, a Just as she had in the Trumpist money laundering operation in Baku , capital of the kleptocracy of Azerbaijan. And, likeTrump business partners, the Tiah familyof corruption. Tiah's father, the money behind the deal, "has a checkered business history, including securities laws violations and false statements to the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange." Everyone in business with Trump is a criminal; it's always been that way, in country after country. Trump didn't extricate himself from his and Ivanka's Baku deal until the FBI warned him-- then a candidate for president-- that it was, in part, a front for weapons smuggling to the Iranian Revolutionary GuardEisenhowers plan to conquer the Mediterranean in 1943 hinged on a bold, unproven strategic bombing campaign.

Its suicide, warned Gen. Harold Alexander when, in May 1943, Allied commander in chief Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower asked him to consider an amphibious landing on the Italian fortress island of Pantelleria. Alexander was not alone in his grim assessment; the majority of Eisenhowers staff feared that such an assault would result in slaughter.

Undeterred, Eisenhower kept pressing them for options. The Allies simply could not afford to bypass the strategically located island. Wedged like a cork in a bottle between Tunisia and Sicily, Pantelleriaand nearby outposts Lampedusa, Linosa, and Lampione, known collectively as the Pelagie Islandscommanded the passage connecting the eastern and western basins of the Mediterranean. Before the Allies could invade Sicily and the Italian mainland, they had to uncork the Axiss southern defenses, but those defenses were formidable.

Finally, Air Marshal Arthur Coningham suggested that strategic bombing alone might do the trick. Eisenhowers heart soared. This was exactly the type of bold idea he was searching for. How long do you think it will take to reduce the island from the air? he asked. Two weeks, was Coninghams confident response.

Alexander bristled at Coninghams prediction. It was a false promise, he said, nothing more than dangerous rhetoric. Eisenhower later said of the heated discussion that followed, Never in my experience, certainly not in the African theater, was there ever a more bitterly fought battle among my advisors.

But Eisenhower embraced Coninghams plan, which offered the best potential for capturing the island without suffering crippling casualties. The aptly named Operation Corkscrew hammered Pantelleria with more than four weeks of continuous bombing in May and June 1943. It was a bold experiment: Could an air force alone dislodge a determined, well-entrenched enemy, making a costly ground assault unnecessary? And if so, could this pattern then be applied to the other island outposts, and to the European invasions to come?

When Allied leaders met at the Casablanca Conference in Morocco in January 1943, victory in North Africa was within grasp. Discussion turned to the next step: invading the European continent. Advocating against a cross-Channel approach, Churchill suggested a thrust into Sicily, up through the Italian mainlandthe soft underbelly of the enemy, as he termed itand into the heart of Germany. They selected Eisenhower, who had successfully directed Operation Torch the previous November, to plan the Sicilian invasion. He scheduled the operation, code-named Husky, for a favorable period of the July moon.

Eisenhowers choice of invasion date was not unanimously popular. Gen. George C. Marshall, the U.S. Army chief of staff and Eisenhowers valued mentor, criticized his slow timetable and sent him a gut-punching message saying that his conservative plan lacked any degree of boldness and daring which have won great victories for Nelson and Grant and Lee.

But Ikes timetable ultimately proved sound. Axis troops in North Africa officially surrendered on May 13, 1943, yielding over 275,000 prisoners, and mop-up operations were slow to conclude. When Marshall realized that aircraft carriers would not be available to support an early Sicilian invasion, he abandoned his push and recommended that the Allies first seize Pantelleria. Marshall knew that Allied fighters flying from airfields in North Africa could not reach Sicily, and Malta and Gozo were inadequate for basing enough short-range fighters. Pantellerias Marghana Airfield could accommodate more than 80 fighters and was only 135 miles from Sicily.

Eisenhower agreed with Marshall, but he knew that conquering Pantelleria was not going to be a cakewalk. The island was a natural fortress. Its irregular coastline and rocky beaches offered few feasible landing areas; the surface of the island lacked vegetation to conceal movement. The shallow, heavily guarded Porto di Pantelleria offered an anchor depth of 26 feet at most, limiting the size of supporting naval vessels, and the high surf, offshore current, and forceful winds made entering the port difficult and dangerous.

In 1937 Benito Mussolini had ordered Italian engineers to strengthen the islands natural defenses and construct naval and air bases. An Allied spy plane managed to sneak past Italian air defenses in 1942 and snapped a photograph that revealed the eight-mile-long, five-mile-wide island was studded with over 100 gun emplacements and supplemented with coastal batteries, mountain strongpoints, and pillboxes embedded in the cliffs. This led some intelligence officers to call Pantelleria the Italian Gibraltar; Churchill, familiar with the island fortress from the siege of Malta, called it the thorn in our side.

But Pantelleria, and the Pelagie Island outposts, had to be taken. As a declassified U.S. Army Air Forces report put it, If left in possession of the enemy, [the islands] would constitute a grave menace. [Pantelleria and Lampedusa] were the seats of Radio Direction Finder stations of sufficient power to detect the movement of aircraft not only over adjacent waters of the central Mediterranean but over the plains of eastern Tunisia as well. Both had observation posts which took note of practically every ship that passed between them and the shores of North Africa.

Perhaps smarting from Marshalls criticism of his conservative Sicilian invasion plan, Eisenhower decided to make the capture of Pantelleria a sort of laboratory to determine the effect of concentrated heavy bombing on defended coastline, as he wrote on May 13, 1943. His goal was to break the resistance of the Italian battalions on the island by air, attaining surrender without a costly ground assault.

He invited Solly Zuckerman, an Oxford scientist and adviser to the British Combined Operations Staff, to head a special group charged with systematically organizing air attacks to maximize impact. Zuckermans academic successes, notably publishing a book about primates called The Social Life of Monkeys and Apes, made him an unlikely contributor to the Allied war effort. Nonetheless, his firm grasp of the scientific method made him a valuable addition to the science of bombing.

Zuckermans initial calculations showed that the only way to effectively destroy the islands formidable defenses was to assemble a massive striking force. Bombing tests showed that a thousand-pound bomb falling eight yards from a target would destroy a circular area of about 200 square yards. Zuckerman estimated that, on average, 400 thousand-pound bombs were needed to wipe out a single Italian gun emplacement.

So he and the other air planners devised a two-phase bombing campaign. In the first phase, a minimum of 50 bombers and 50 fighter-bombers would wreak daily havoc on Italian positions, while a flotilla of British and American warships established a naval blockade. The second phase called for around-the-clock bombing, growing in intensity from 200 to 2,000 sorties on June 10, the apex of the operation.

Eisenhower hoped the aerial bombardment would be enough, but he empowered his joint commandersRear Adm. Rhoderick McGrigor of the Royal Navy; Lt. Gen. Carl Spaatz, commander of the Northwest African Air Forces; and Maj. Gen. Walter Clutterbuck, commander of the 1st British Infantry Divisionto decide whether a landing assault should be carried out on June 11 or abandoned in the face of dangerous opposition. Knowing his plan had been met with resistance by the majority of his staff, he stressed that he would assume full responsibility if the experiment failed.

The attacks commenced on May 18, when 42 American B-25 Mitchells and 44 B-26 Marauders, escorted by 91 P-38 Lightnings and P-40 Warhawks, dropped more than 97 tons of bombs on the islands docks, jetties, and coastal guns. Allied pilots also targeted small craft anchored in the islands harbor and strafed the airdrome, setting administration buildings and barracks afire. The next few missions were less spectacular, but the Allies again ramped up their efforts on May 23, when 72 medium bombers and 10 fighter-bombers showered 76 tons of bombs on the island. The pilots encountered little fighter opposition, though their crews reported heavy antiaircraft fire from well-concealed gun positions on the island.

Early attacks were directed against the airfield and the port to prevent the enemy from replenishing their water, food, and ammunition. Although a few German Ju 53 transport planes had managed to sneak in from Sicily between air attacks, and several boats had avoided the naval blockade to distribute an estimated 630 tons of supplies, by the end of May the Allies had effectively cut off the islands outside access. Pantelleria was, for all practical purposes, isolated.

As the bombing intensified, Eisenhower wanted feedback on how well the enemy was coping. He authorized a surreptitious landing by a team of British commandos. On May 28 their two-hour reconnaissance mission along the beach revealed that the Italians had posted guards every 150 to 200 yards. The commandos captured one sentry, but not before he sounded the alarm. In the struggle, three Italians were killed and one British soldier was so seriously wounded that he was left behind.

On June 1, dozens of heavy bombers entered the fray. The island was also pounded by American B-26s, B-25s, P-40s, P-38s, and A-20 Bostons, as well as Royal Air Force Bostons and Baltimores. The airspace over the island was so crowded that aircraft had to circle warily to avoid collision and wait for their turn in the queue to complete their bombing run. The whole end of the island was going up in one big bang, Sgt. Ray Saulmon, a B-17 Fortress gunner, excitedly exclaimed. We have hit them so hard I wish they would give up for their own sakes.

Surely the 24,000 people on Pantelleria shared Saulmons feelings. After the June 1 raid, seven acres of the town had been destroyed, the port demolished, and the electric plant knocked out. Supplies were nonexistent, and most of the townspeople had been evacuated to underground quarters or sought refuge among the more remote hills. The quality of life on the island was so dismal that a group of Italians were caught trying to escape to Sicily via motor schooner.

Axis airmen did make a desperate attempt to break up the seemingly endless parade of Allied bombers, but it was far too late. Starting on June 5, they launched more than 200 fighters from bases on Sicily. Having given priority to other fronts, the Axis simply didnt have enough flyable planes available locally, and their pilots found themselves outnumbered and outmatched. Their defensive efforts to break up attacking bomber formations proved disappointing as Allied fighters knocked them out of the sky.

On June 7, the British attempted another commando landingthis time on Lampedusa. Like the raid on Pantelleria, this one was repulsed by brisk machine gun fire. Germanys official news agency immediately broadcast reports of the raids failure, boasting that Italian defenders prevented a serious effort by British commandos to conquer the island via a coup de main. In their broadcasts, Axis propagandists bragged that the Allies would never invade Italy. Their chest puffing, however, was short-lived; Corkscrews final phase began the next day.

That day, Eisenhower joined Adm. Andrew Browne Cunningham, naval commander in chief for the Mediterranean, on the bow of the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Aurora. Heavy bombers operating at 20,000 feet started the action, laying down their ordnance with precision. Medium and light bombers followed, skimming the wave tops to clean up what the heavy bombers had missed. They strafed barracks and released leaflets that demanded immediate surrender. The carnage continued for four hours, until the feared Italian coastal batteries fell silent. Clearly elated, Eisenhower turned to Cunningham and remarked, Andrew, if you and I got into a small boat, we could capture the place ourselves.

On June 10, the Allies dropped 1,571 tons of ordnance on the island: more than had been dropped in the entire month of April on all targets in Tunisia, Sicily, Sardinia, and Italy. German and Italian pilots mounted a strong defense, but their efforts again proved futile. Thirteen Macchi 202s tried a slicing attack on the Allied bombers, only to be intercepted by American Spitfire pilots. Six Me 109s and three FW 190s joined the dogfight in an attempt to even the odds, but the Americans managed to quickly shoot down 12 planes. The Italians were being knocked down so fast, said Maj. Frank Hill of Hillsdale, New Jersey, that I saw four enemy parachutes in the air at one time. And down below us, I could see I dont know how many splashes in the Mediterranean where their aircraft were crashing. In total, 42 enemy planes were destroyed.

When the Italians still refused to accept the calls for surrender on June 10, the Allies made final preparations for a ground landing. The British 1st Infantry Division, sailing in three convoys from Sousse and Sfax, arrived outside Pantellerias harbor the morning of June 11.

At 11 that morning, planes attacking installations on Midway Hill caught sight of a white cross on the airfielda symbol of surrender. But the crews of several Italian coast guns, unaware that the islands governor had decided to capitulate, were still firing, and the Allies elected to continue air attacks. B-17s showered bombs on the island, causing a great roar. Smoke and dust billowed high above Montagna Grande, Pantellerias tallest peak at 2,732 feet. At 11:30, the destroyer Nubian reported seeing a white flag flying from the SantElmo semaphore station, silhouetted against the sky on the summit of the first mountain ridge.

Italian resistance ceased at 11:55 a.m., just as the first landing craft reached the harbor area. Shortly after noon, a message forwarded from Malta brought official word that Adm. Gino Pavesi, the military governor of Pantelleria, had capitulated. His note read, Beg surrender through lack of water.

Scarcely more than an hour after Pantellerias surrender, a formation of Marauders swung southeast and made the first large-scale bombing attack on Lampedusa, the next Italian island outpost. Twenty-four B-26s dropped 18 tons of bombs on the island. Night brought no respite as dozens of British Wellingtons skimmed over the island, dropping their heavy bomb loads, including two-ton blockbusters, on its defenses. But a brutal and sustained air attack on Lampedusa turned out to be unnecessary; in a strange turn of events, the island would surrender to a lone, lost British aviator later that day.

Sgt. Sidney Cohen, a 22-year-old orphan from Londons East End, was an unlikely candidate for royalty. But he became known as the King of Lampedusa for his actions that day. While flying a Swordfish biplane on a search-and-rescue mission from Malta, he became lost, and his planes fuel began to run low. Desperate to land, he saw an island through the clouds and asked his two-man crew, Does that look like Malta?

They quickly deduced they were nowhere near the British garrison, but decided to take their chances as prisoners of war rather than ditch their aircraft in the cold sea. As we came down on a ropy landing field, Cohen recalled, we saw burned hangars with burned planes all around them. A group of Italian soldiers rushed towards the plane. Cohens gunner initially swung his Vickers gun toward them, but decided it would be wiser to put up his hands to surrender. It was then the Swordfish crew realized that the Italians were waving white sheets, shouting, No, nowe surrender.

In a show of bravado, Cohen insisted on seeing the Italian commandant of the island and demanded that the entire 4,300- strong garrison surrender to him. While negotiating the islands surrender, Cohen and his crew were caught in an Allied air attack. The commandant reached his breaking point, found a scrap of paper, and signed a surrender note. An entire island surrendered to one lost aviator! When Cohen and his crew emerged from the bunker, they found their Swordfish unscathed. The Italians supplied them with enough fuel to get to Tunis, and told the fliers to hurry and deliver the surrender note.

At 7 p.m., after Cohen arrived in Tunisia, an Allied naval commander observed white flags on the island and sent an officer ashore. The landing party located an Italian junior officer, but he was unsure whether his superiors had authorized surrender and initially refused to sign any document. His intransigence quickly ended when the Allied officer reminded him that they had another 1,000 bombers at our call; then he [promptly] borrowed a pen and signed.

The day after the capture of Lampedusa, the British destroyers Troubridge and Nubian sailed for Linosa. The Italian commander on Linosa, having heard the fate of Pantelleria and Lampedusa, surrendered without resistance. On June 13, when the naval task force reached Lampione, the Allies found no Italians on the tiny island. Every Italian, including the lighthouse keeper, had abandoned his post, fearful of becoming a prisoner of war.

At a press conference on June 17, secretary of war Henry L. Stimson crowed over Corkscrews impressive results, noting that the Allies had captured almost 16,000 Italians while losing only about forty airmen and a few planes. In fact, the only officially recorded ground casualty was a British infantryman, bitten by a cantankerous donkey who did not take kindly to the occupation force that landed on Pantelleria after its surrender. The heavy, continuous air attacks that hit their targets with mathematical precision had made a deep impression on Stimson, who stated that this type of warfare held great promise for the future.

Many Allied military leaders shared Stimsons enthusiasm. Eisenhower, unable to hide his pride, cabled Marshall on July 11 to announce the victorywon, he noted, in the face of contrary advice. Corkscrew reinforced Churchills belief that bombing Germany into submission was worth trying. And Gen. Carl Spaatz trumpeted the operation as proof that victory was simply a matter of determining how much air power was required. Although his assessment can be dismissed as overly optimistic, there is no doubt that Corkscrew influenced his direction of the air strikes against Japan later in the war.

Critics of air power sought to qualify and diminish the historic importance of Operation Corkscrew; reactions ranged from skeptical to outright hostile. A 1943 Time magazine article stated, Soberer heads recognized this as a victory of air power, but a victory won under laboratory conditions. The island fell because it was possible to isolate it completely from the supporting bases on the mainland. This was the decisive factor, not the sheer weight of bombs.

Still, Corkscrew had long-lasting implications. Not only did the operation open a secure channel for the Sicilian invasion, allowing Allied troops to push up into the mainland, but the meager resistance offered by the Italian people proved that air power could deliver a crushing blow to enemy morale. The success of the campaign created a template that the Allied air forces would call upon again and again during the remainder of the war, in both Germany and the Pacific theater, citingas the official U.S. Army Air Forces history put itCorkscrews spectacular illustration of the intense and violent force that the Allies could bring to bear upon the enemy.

Originally published in the September 2009 issue of World War II. To subscribe, click here.UCOM prolongs the unlimited internet offer for the level up 4700 and level up 5500 subscribers

Ucom employees received recognition for their services to the homeland

Karen Vardanyan has allocated 105 million AMD to rescue the Yerevan Botanical Garden.

"The Power of One Dram" to overcome childhood cancer

Google Ad

Generation A 13  your chance to be the change

President of the Artsakh Republic Arayik Harutyunyan met with Russian Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Igor Khovayev

"uDays" special offer at Ucom: discounts for all smartphones and accessories for 2 days only

For more than 3 hours, 50 or more Azerbaijani servicemen have blocked the interstate road

Call on the international community for an adequate response against azerbaijani aggresssion

Transformation and trust are important for success in modern banking. Artak Hanesyan

UCOMS LEVEL UP 1700 REGIONAL TARIFF PLAN USERS TO RECEIVE MORE THAN THOSE IN YEREVAN

Joint statement

Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group

Covid-19: 163 new cases in Armenia

Armenia: Remarks by Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi at the press point with Acting Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan

The United States Welcomes Azerbaijans Release of Armenian Detainees and Armenias Actions to Facilitate Demining

Google Ad

The Coronavirus-Related Situation in Armenia

International aviation: Council greenlights signing of major agreements with four countries

With UCOMs level up tariff plans subscribers have unlimited access to Netflix, Duolingo and Zoom

Armenia: Statement by the Spokesperson on the early parliamentary elections

Armenias Parliamentary Elections PRESS STATEMENT

COVID19:77 new cases

Armenias early parliamentary elections were competitive and well run, but polarized and marred by aggressive rhetoric, international observers say

International election observers to Armenias early parliamentary elections held press conference

Drop Charges Against Rights Defender Sashik Sultanyan

The Coronavirus-Related Situation in Armenia

The European Union in Armenia calls all parties to contribute to a peaceful Election Day to celebrate democracy

22 ventilators to Armenia

PACE to observe the early parliamentary elections in ArmeniaThe best-selling author and campaigner had fought a long battle against cancer. She leaves behind a remarkable legacy...

President Michal D. Higgins has paid tribute to the Irish author Emma Hannigan, who has died as a result of cancer.

It is with great sadness that I have learned of the death of Emma Hannigan  a campaigner to the end, the President said.

"Emma Hannigan leaves a lasting legacy not only through her work as a much appreciated author, but also through her exemplary courage in dealing with terminal illness.

"She will be remembered as a powerful advocate for Breast Cancer Ireland, a great cause worthy of all of our support.

President Higgins wife Sabina Higgins joined him in a final word of condolence to Emma's family.

Advertisement

"To her husband Cian, the President said, "her son Sacha and daughter Kim, and to her wider family and circle of friends, Sabina and I send our deepest sympathies.

A prolific writer, Emma Hannigan wrote 14 books in all, since her debut Designer Genes (2010). Her latest Letters To My Daughters (2018) was a No.1 best-seller.

In 2005, Emma Hannigan discovered that she was carrying the BRCA 1 cancer gene. This meant she had an 85% chance of developing breast cancer; and a 5/50 chance in relation to ovarian cancer.

She decided to take decisive action, to reduce the risk to 5%. Emma opted to have preventative surgery: the following year, she underwent a double mastectomy and had her ovaries and fallopian tubes removed.

However, despite the surgery, in 2007, she was diagnosed with cancer. In the intervening decade she has fought a brave battle against a disease that knows no boundaries.

Today, my Emma found peace, her husband Cian said, in a Facebook post. "She bravely fought a battle against a foe with no mercy. Emma was the epitome of strength, love and generosity, beyond anything I have ever known.

She loved her family, loved her friends, and she left a trail of glitter and joy throughout her life with of course added tinsel at Christmas.

She was my wife and soul mate. Mother of my beautiful children, A friend to many and an inspiration to thousands. A loving daughter. Devoted mother

Best selling Author. Fundraiser. Public speaker. Chef. And Shopaholic...

She was my guiding star and my hug to say everything would be ok, he said. "But mostly she was just my Emma, and I would need her wonderful gift with words to tell you just how much I will miss her.As an existing print subscriber it is easy to get FREE access to all our online content.

When you click get started below it will walk you through creating an online account to attach your print subscription number to.

After your account is created it will ask you to either add a subscription for online access or click on the print subscriber button. Click the print subscriber button header and it will open a dropdown, now click on get started. The page will reload and you will be prompted to enter an account number and a zip code.

IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO USE THE NUMBER OFF OF THE MOST RECENT ISSUE OR ANYTHING AFTER JANUARY 28, 2019 TO GAIN ACCESS!

OLD ACCOUNT NUMBERS WILL NOT WORK

The account number and zip code are easily available on your most recent issue of the High Plains Journal or Midwest Ag Journal in the address fields as is shown here. Sometimes the account number has extra zero's in front of it, just ignore those.Subscribing to our services is a three step process. First you have to create an account and then you have to pick if you want to subscribe to digital and or print.

Some people only want to be a digital subscriber to get access online and others want to also receive the print edition.

If you are already a print subscriber and want online access, it is free, you simply have to create an online account and then attach your print subscription account number to the online account you create.Perhaps the principal of the school is the Snow Maiden out of work - Gevorg Petrosyan (video)

Gevorg Petrosyan, a member of the Tsarukyan faction, is interested in what progressive change the referendum project has in terms of electoral culture. According to him, there are target points in the electoral legislation, and if there is no change in them, the rest is for design. "Particularly, as in the current Electoral Code, in the this draft law as well, it is forbidden to propagandize all kinds of materials in educational institutions and pedagogical staff for fulfilling their duties," Gevorg Petrosyan said. According to Gevorg Petrosyan, during the pre-election campaign, judges, prosecutors or investigators are not the ones who carry out the violations. "The "burden" of basic fraud, unfortunately, is on pedagogical personnel." The next target point, according to NA deputies, is the recognition of election results invalid. He also explained why they did not complain about the results of the elections when they do not agree with them, and do not appeal to the Constitutional Court. "The Constitutional Court records violations, but says that they [violations] cannot affect the outcome of the elections, so the Constitutional Court does not meet the requirement to recognize the election as invalid." A member of the Tsarukyan faction proposed to impose a ban on pedagogues in the pre-election campaign. "During the previous elections, the directors explained that it was out of working time. I'm sorry, me, you, stop being a deputy out of the working hours. Perhaps the principal of the school is the Snow Maiden out of work," said Gevorg Petrosyan. The deputy speaker of the committee, Rustam Makhmudyan, said that when they impose a ban on pedagogues, they deprive them of participation in political life in a certain sense. According to Rustam Makhmudyan, this right should not be restricted. Gevorg Petrosyan's proposal was not accepted.iHeartMedia To Declare Bankruptcy As Early As Today

iHeartMedia is preparing to enter Chapter 11 bankruptcy as early as Monday, according to multiple sources. iHeart owns 855 radio stations in the US, as well as, multiple popular streaming channels.

______________________________________

The fall of iHeartMedia began in 2008 when private equity firms Bain Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners bought what was then Clear Channel and financed the $20 billion deal with loans equal to 9 times the companys pre-tax cash flow. That's 50% higher than the 6X leverage limit set by the federal government in 2013. The Trump administration has said that they will remove all such limits soon.

Since then, iHeart has struggled. In 2016, the company's net loss was about $300 million including $1.8 billion in debt payments. So a managed bankruptcy with lower debt payments could make the media giant a viable company again. That appears to be the goal as major creditors and iHeart execs huddle to prepare to file court papers, likely early this week, according to multiple reports.

SiriusXM To The Rescue?

Last week, Liberty Media and its SiriusXM division offered to infuse $1.158 billion into iHeartMedia to see it through the bankruptcy in exchange for a major stake. Thus far, creditors appear to have rejected the terms of the offer; but talks are reportedly ongoing.

Liberty has also bought a substantial position in iHeart debt and sees synergies between iHeart and SiriusXM radio, according to Bloomberg.

Share on:Net Neutralitys Death Official In April (Cue Lawsuits)

Although net neutrality was sentenced to death some time ago last year, the actual repeal itself won't be going into effect until April, at which time a slew of lawsuits will likely roll in against the FCC.

________________________

By Karl Bode of Techdirt

While the FCC formally voted to kill net neutrality late last year, the actual repeal of the rules doesn't occur until the repeal itself is published in the Federal Register. Sources tell Reuters that with Ajit Pai's agency having completed the finishing touches on its repeal, the publication should finally happen this week. Once that happens, there's a 60 day window before the actual repeal takes effect, meaning the rules will formally end in April:

"The U.S. Federal Communications Commission is expected to publish on Thursday its December order overturning the landmark Obama-era net neutrality rules, two sources briefed on the matter said Tuesday."

Of course that's really just the beginning of an entirely new chapter in the fight to prevent broadband monopolies from abusing a lack of competition in the broadband space (remember: net neutrality violations are just a symptom of a lack of competition, a problem nobody wants to seriously address for fear of upsetting campaign contributors).

The publication in the Federal Register opens the door to the myriad lawsuits that will be filed against the agency. Those lawsuits range from suits by Mozilla and consumer groups, to the 22 state attorneys general who say they're also suing the agency for ignoring the public interest. These lawsuits must be filed within the next 60 days. Expect the court battle to quickly begin heating up in March.

The publication also starts the 60 day shot clock on net neutrality activists' attempts to use the Congressional Review Act to reverse the FCC's repeal. As we've noted that effort needs just one more vote in the Senate, but faces a steep uphill climb in getting approval in the House, where ISP-loyal lawmakers are even more common. It would then require the signature of President Trump, something unlikely to happen. The gambit does have one primary benefit: it will force lawmakers to put their disdain for net neutrality and the will of the public down on paper ahead of the looming midterms.

That said, the lawsuits have a fairly solid shot at reversing the FCC's attack on the rules thanks to numerous missteps by the agency. As we've well documented, the FCC turned a blind eye to identity theft and comment fraud during the repeal by "someone" clearly trying to downplay massive public opposition to the FCC's plan. The FCC also made up a DDOS attack for the same purpose, and used debunked lobbyist data as the cornerstone of the repeal. Expect a lot more data on this behavior to surface during the court challenge.

As we've noted previously, you can expect ISPs to remain on their best behavior for the foreseeable future. Comcast, AT&T and Verizon policy marionettes will be eager to try and suggest that concerns about the repeal were hyperbole. ISP lawyers also won't be keen on providing any ammunition to help opponents in court. And since the next FCC or a future congress could just pass net neutrality rules again  ISP lobbyists and compromised politicians are busy pushing fake net neutrality legislation with only one real purpose: prevent real, tough rules from being passed later.

It's worth reiterating that ISPs aren't just killing net neutrality here. They're actively eroding most meaningful state and federal (FTC and FCC) oversight over a broken, uncompetitive market. And should ISPs successfully navigate all court challenges and pass their desired legislation codifying federal apathy into law, the result won't be subtle. Anybody that thinks otherwise hasn't watched Comcast do business the last few decades.

Share on:Social Media 2018: YouTube Tops Facebook, Snapchat Gains

A new Pew research study shows the latest shifting patterns in social media usage. Unsurprisingly, Facebook and YouTube dominate the landscape, with large majorities of U.S. adults using each site. But younger Americans, particularly those 18 to 24, are embracing a variety of platforms and using them very frequently.

______________________________

The typical American reports using three of the eight major platforms surveyed by Pew Research. Included in the new study were Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, Linkein, Pinterest and WhatsApp.

78% of 18- to 24-year-olds in the U.S. use Snapchat, according to Pew, with 71% visiting the platform multiple times each day. 71% in this age group also use Instagram and 45% frequent Twitter.

Don't Discount Facebook and YouTube

68% of U.S. adults are Facebook users, and roughly 75% them visit Facebook daily. With the exception of those 65 and older, a majority of Americans across a wide range of demographic groups now use Facebook.

But YouTube, which has added many social elements, has even more users. Now, nearly 75% of U.S. adults and 94% of 18- to 24-year-olds use the video platform.

Trouble Ahead?

But for all of the increases in use of social platforms, particularly by younger adults, there are signs of trouble ahead. 59% of social media users say it would not be hard to give up social media, with 29% indicating that it would not be hard at all.

Read the full Pew report here.

Share on:Considering the failed task a victory is wrong - Gevorg Melkonyan (video)

Today, historian Gevorg Melkonyan stated at the meeting with journalists that the cancellation of Armenian-Turkish protocols is not Armenia's victory. "The initiative of the Armenian-Turkish protocols was ours and we saw that it did not work," said Gevorg Melkonyan and added that Considering the failed task a victory is wrong. He noted that despite the failure of the Armenian-Turkish protocols, it is a necessity and should be prepared for the society. The historian believes that the Armenian-Turkish protocols may be put into circulation again because neighboring nations cannot always be in this form of diplomatic relations when they have a trade turnover of about $ 300 million annually. He also recalled that Turkey was the first to recognize the independence of Armenia, and in the 1990s it even sent humanitarian aid to Armenia. According to Gevorg Melkonyan, the establishment of relations with Turkey stems from our own interests.The Estonian government at a sitting on Thursday is planning to endorse a cyber security bill, the aim of which is to strengthen the protection of network and information systems needed when rendering services of decisive importance and the network and information systems of state and local government units, writes LETA/BNS.

The bill to be filed by Minister of Entrepreneurship and Information Technology Urve Palo will take over the European Union Directive on security of network and information systems, with which regulations concerning the implementing of security measures and informing of cyber incidents will be set for providers of important and digital services. In addition, the tasks of the national supervision authority, the Information System Authority, in coordinating the assurance of cyber security and organization of cross-border cooperation will be clarified, government spokespeople said.

Service providers that significantly affect the functioning of the society, like vital services, important infrastructure companies, the Estonian Internet Foundation, as well as larger digital service providers like internet-based trading platforms, search engines or cloud data processors must in the event of the law coming into effect implement risk assessment based organizational, physical and information technological security measures. In addition, there will be the responsibility to inform the Information System Authority of cyber incidents with significant impact.

In the public sector, including the local governments, the responsibility to implement information security measures will also be extended to include e-mail servers, file servers and document management systems. So far, the responsibility to implement security measures based on a legal act has only applied to information systems that are databases in the interpretation of the Public Information Act.

The bill does not stipulate any significant new responsibilities for the public sector. Ensuring the security of information systems has for a long time been part of the development and management of IT systems.

The law is planned to come into force on May 10, 2018. As an exception, the regulations will enter into force for the Estonian Internet Foundation and the state and local government unit on January 1, 2020. The stipulation of the transfer period is first and foremost linked with the rearrangements made with the administrative reform as well as the planning process of the state budget strategy.

Source: http://www.baltic-course.com/eng/Technology/?doc=138156Fire Guts Burke Avenue Home In Pittsfield

The fire spread quickly throughout the duplex.

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  A family of five was displaced Sunday night after a fire gutted their Burke Street home.

Just before 6 p.m. on Sunday, dispatch received multiple calls of flames shooting out of the front of a duplex at 125 Burke Ave. Shortly after firefighters arrived, the windows on the second floor blew out and the fire quickly spread throughout the interior of the home.

"We started deploying hand streams and by the time we were getting in position, the second-floor window in the back of the building, or what we call the C side, blew out and the second floor flashed over," Deputy Fire Chief Matt Noyes said.

"From there, it just kind of took off through the house."

The duplex was occupied by the same family and none of the residents were harmed. At least three were inside the building at the time and were able to escape. However, the family dog died and a cat is still missing.

"It is pretty well gutted. Structurally it is still sound but the contents of the first and second floor are destroyed. They also lost a family dog and we have a cat that is missing," Noyes said.

Two of the family members were transported to Berkshire Medical Center. According to Fire Chief Robert Czerwinski, one woman had a pre-existing medical condition and she was transported for precautionary measures and another family member reported difficulty breathing. Noyes said a firefighter was also transported for a knee injury.

The family is now working with the Red Cross.

Noyes said when Engine 5 first arrived, it found flames spreading quickly on the first floor. When Noyes arrived, he called in a second alarm, bringing all on-duty firefighters to the scene.

"Immediately when I got on scene, I saw the volume of fire and I made it double [alarm] which gives you everybody we have, which is 18 guys," Noyes said.

An engine company from Lenox covered Pittsfield's headquarters, Dalton sent a ladder company to the scene, and Hinsdale provided rehab.

Noyes said the firefighters had a little difficulty getting access to water, running a line a good distance from the hydrant.

Once on scene, a crew took a hand line to the fire while others got into position to attack it from the rear. But, just as the firefighters shut down the front line and prepared to go in the back, the windows blew out.

"We had fire blowing out of the front of the building. We set up to go in the back, there is a sliding door, we wanted to come in and push it out the front of the building. It was growing rapidly and we had an alarm company that was here grab a line and hit it quickly,"

From then on, all on the scene were busy combating a significant amount of flames. Noyes said once the department was able to get in, the fire was knocked down quickly.

"They battled. Once we were able to get in there, they put the fire out quickly. There was so much fire, such a large volume of fire, we had all of our crews working. They worked hard. They battled hard. They put it out quickly but it was going pretty good before we got here," Noyes said.

Fire Inspectors responded to the scene but have not yet determined a cause of the fire.





Quentin Palfrey was one of eight candidates who gave a brief pitch to gain the support of the city's Democrats. Jay Gonzalez speaks with Drew Herzig. City Democratic Committee Chairman Kevin Sherman. Setti Warren. Quentin Palfrey. Josh Zakim. Paul Caccaviello. Palfrey, Gonzalez, and Amatul-Wadud listen to the other candidates speak. City Councilor Helen Moon joined Ward 1 in picking a representative at the state convention. Matthew Russett represented Congressman Richard Neal. Frank Farkas, on the right took charge of Ward 5's voting. Tahira Amatul-Wadud speaks with Mayor Linda Tyer. Marietta Rapeti-Cawse and Helen Moon count the votes in Ward 1. Adam Hinds, Paul Caccaviello, and Steven Como. PreviousNext

Candidates Pitch Pittsfield Democrats at Caucus



State Sen. Adam Hinds talks with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Setti Warren. PITTSFIELD, Mass.  Quentin Palfrey watched the news of what happened in Charlottesville, Va. He watched as a group of students held a sign against racism while hundreds of others carried signs with swastikas. And he wondered what he would tell his children about what he did in a time when his morals were put to the test.

"I want to be able to tell them that I stood up. I fought back. I pounded my fists on the table and I screamed until I was hoarse that this isn't the kind of America we want to live in," Palfrey said.

So he is running for lieutenant governor.

The Democrat had previously worked as a senior adviser for jobs and competitiveness in the White House under former President Barack Obama. He was deputy counsel for strategic initiatives at the U.S. Department of Commerce. He previously worked in the health-care division in the state's attorney general's office.

"We worked hard to build an economy that worked for everyone. Last year, like many of you, I worked hard to try to elect a president who would carry on those values. And I have to admit, I'm devastated by what has come since. There is a cruelty to this administration that seeks to rip apart families, put walls up between us and our neighborhoods, knock tens of millions of people off health insurance. There is also an attack on the fundamental underpinnings of our democracy," he said.

He is trying to take his experience and ideals to Beacon Hill in hopes that Massachusetts, with Democrats in the majority in both houses of the Legislature, will become a national leader.

"If we can take back the governor's office, Massachusetts can do things other states can only dream of. We can raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. We can get paid family leave. We can pass a millionaire's tax and really invest in education and transportation all across the state. We can move toward single-payer health care. We can have real solutions to the opioid crisis. And we can fix our broken criminal justice system," Pelfrey said.

But Palfrey isn't the only Democrat seeking office this upcoming election. Democrats have candidates up and down the ballot, from Congress to the Governor's Council to Berkshire district attorney.

On Sunday, Democrats in Pittsfield caucused to choose their representatives at the state convention. And at that caucus, Palfrey was one of eight candidates to take the microphone and give their elevator pitch to the most active local members of the party.

Of those eight were two of the three Democrats seeking the nomination to take on Gov. Charlie Baker for the state's top executive office. They spent the afternoon talking politics with the local party members.

"With Trump taking us backward every single day, it is more important than ever that we are leading here in Massachusetts. But we're not leading under Charlie Baker. He's a status quo, wait and see governor. And it is not good enough. It is not good enough to simply accept the world the way it is and try to manage it better," said Jay Gonzalez said.

"We need a governor who sees the world the way it should and take us to that place."



Jay Gonzalez is one of three Democrats running for the nomination for governor. Gonzalez has taken to the motto of "aim high" when it comes to the office. His priorities include providing living wages, paid family leave, lowering the cost of housing, debt-free college, transportation, high quality and affordable child care and preschool, and moving to a single-payer health care system.

"This is a former health insurance CEO telling you we need to get rid of health insurance companies. As the only candidate in this race with experience in the health care industry, I will get it done. I will take on the other big challenges we face like climate change and the opioid epidemic, and our broken criminal justice system," Gonzalez said.

"I will stand up for every single person in this state."

His background includes working as a secretary in former Gov. Deval Patrick's office, overseeing the state's budget. He chaired the Life Science Center and the Health Connector. He then went into the health insurance industry to head Celticare.

He also entered the campaign with local support from incumbent state Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, who endorsed Gonzalez earlier this year.

But before he can take on Baker, he'll have to win the primary against Setti Warren and Bob Massie. Massie wasn't present at Sunday's caucus, though he did have a representative there. Warren used his three minutes to hone in on his top priority: income inequality.

"I believe we have to ask people who are doing really well in this economy, particularly those who make over $1 million a year, to contribute more so we can address some things that matter. Education: right now Charlie Baker is underfunding education. There are layoffs occurring all across this state. We've got to re-do Chapter 70, make sure we fully fund K-12, and we need to add to public education after-school enrichment, summer enrichment, early childhood. I believe in lifelong free public college," Warren said.

The two-term Newton mayor and combat veteran said many of the issues holding the state back stem from revenue. He said the state needs to fix the roads and bridges, invest in north and south and east and west rail system and regional transit authorities, tackle the opioid crisis and improve education.

"This is an epidemic in our state. Since 2014, 6,000 people have died of opioid addiction in Massachusetts. Over five people a day are dying of opioid addiction in the state of Massachusetts. Over 70 people a day are becoming addicted to opioids in the state of Massachusetts. We have to provide resources for more beds, more clinicians, and lifelong, community-based, on the ground wraparound services," Warren said.

To fund those, he is backing what is called the "millionaire's tax" that would place an extra tax on those making more than $1 million a year.

"We can longer embrace or accept Charlie Baker's status quo and low expectations when it comes to educating our children. We can no longer embrace Charlie Baker's low expectations and status quo when it comes to transportation in this state. And we can no longer embrace or accept Charlie Baker's status and low expectations when it comes to treating people with addiction. It is wrong," Warren said.

On the federal level, Tahirah Amatul-Wadud is challenging incumbent U.S. Rep. Richard Neal. Amatul-Wadud said she wants to be an inclusive representative who is constantly in contact with her constituents.

"I want to talk about the opioid crisis in a way that is truly meaningful, not just throwing money at it. We need to talk about it and deal with it from a holistic point of view. Not only do we have an opioid crisis, we have crack crisis, a cocaine crisis, and a heroin crisis, and we have vast disparities in how we handle them. We need to move back from a committed model and adopt a clinical and compassionate model. That's the only way we are going to move forward," Amatul-Wadud.

Amatul-Wadud started her career in the legal department at Mass Mutual before moving on to ISO New England. She earned her law degree and then moved on to working family law with Western Mass Legal Services, before starting her own practice.

She supports a "Medicare for all" program, voiced outrage at the lack of economic prosperity in the district, and has made expansion of internet services a priority.

"Many of our neighbors do not even have access to broadband and many more whom it is available but cost prohibited. This is a quality of life issue. It keeps our children and families from advances in economic prosperity," Amatul-Wadud said.

"The status quo is not working. If you believe in the mission I have, which is one of optimism, hope, and motivation, I ask you to follow our campaign."



Tahira Amatul-Wadud is challenging U.S. Rep. Richard Neal. Neal wasn't in attendance but his district aide Matthew Russett represented him. Russett highlighted Neal's work with historic tax credits and new market tax credits that helped with the redevelopment of the Colonial Theater, Beacon Cinema, and Howard building residences. He said Neal will continue a fight for a fair tax structure for the middle class.

"Congressman Neal is the ranking Democrat on the house Ways and Means Committee. It is a very important committee that deals with all of taxes, international trade, tariffs, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and pensions. If we win the house back in 2018, he is eligible to be chairman of that committee," Russett said.

On a more local level, Paul Caccaviello used Sunday's caucus to introduce himself to the local Democrats -- just days after it was announced that he would be taking over the district attorney's office. District Attorney David Capeless is resigning and Caccaviello will be appointed to head that office. In the fall, Caccaviello's name will be on the ballot to replace Capeless.

"I've prosecuted everything from shoplifting to larcenies, to robberies, to narcotic distributions, murder, homicides, and everything in between. I'm honored and humbled to be appointed on March 14 to be the district attorney, to continue the office's mission of holding the guilty accountable and protecting the innocent, and doing so with integrity and honor," Caccaviello said.

The Pittsfield native now living in Dalton was locally educated and has been working as a prosecutor since 1989. He maintained his position through four district attorneys. He was appointed first assistant district attorney by Capeless in 2004 and says he has worked in every courtroom in this county.

"I serve with the Dalton Rotary Club. I've also been a member of the St. Agnes Academy School Committee. I currently serve as the vice chair of the Board of Trustees at Berkshire Community College. I've been a trustee there since 2009," Caccaviello told the crowd about his community engagement outside of the courthouse.

Meanwhile, Boston City Councilor Josh Zakim told the local Democrats why they should choose him to replace William Galvin as secretary of state. Zakim has served on the Boston City Council since 2013, chairs the council's committee on civil rights, and had previously chaired the committee on housing and community development.

He is the author of the Boston Trust Act, which absolved the city's compliance with President Donald Trump's immigration policies.

"That bill and that legislation have made people safer and more welcomed when they live or visit the city of Boston. That is the kind of work we need to continue doing in Massachusetts - standing up for our values that are under attack from a hostile president, a hostile Congress in Washington," Zakim said.

Zakim said his goals are to expand access to voting while at the same time bringing in "innovative ways" to protect election results from hackers.

"We need same day registration in Massachusetts. We need automatic voter registration in Massachusetts. We need to make it easier for people who are at work or school to vote by mail or vote absentee. These are all reforms that are not new, just new in Massachusetts. We can be doing this and we should be pushing for this," Zakim said.

And in the governor's council, Mary Hurley is seeking re-election. She wasn't at the caucus but Ryan Dunn represented her saying that Hurley will continue "to fight for regional equity." He cited a dozen judges appointed from Western Mass as efforts she took to make sure this part of the state is represented.

"Western Massachusetts will not be shortchanged," Dunn said.

There were other candidates represented as well. Incumbents state Sen. Adam Hinds and state Rep. Tricia Farley-Bouvier, who are both seeking re-election, were in attendance but opted not to take part in the speaking portion. Register of Deeds Patsy Harris was there. State Rep. Paul Mark's wife, Cassandra, was there collecting signatures. Former Pittsfield Mayor Gerry Doyle was on hand representing Galvin's office.

Also in attendance were Mayor Linda Tyer, City Councilors Pete White, Helen Moon and Nicholas Caccamo, School Committee member Dennis Powell, and former state Rep. Thomas Wojtkowski. The Pittsfield Democratic City Committee is chaired by former City Council President Kevin Sherman.Adams-Cheshire Changes Retiree Insurance Split

CHESHIRE, Mass.  The Adams-Cheshire Regional School Committee voted last week to change the retiree health insurance split to make it more in line with active employees.

The committee unanimously voted Tuesday to change the retiree health care split from 75/25 to 60/40 for non MedX plan users and 51/49 for MedX plan users.

"We want to make that change. The savings, if we were to do both, would nearly be $300,000 so it is pretty significant," School Committee member Darlene Rodowicz said. "It is also a significant change for our retirees and what they pay out of pocket."

Business Manager Erika Snyder said the committee was unable to change the split, as it did with active employees last year, and this change makes things even across the board.

She added this also puts the district in line with the rest of the state.

"The majority of eastern and central Massachusetts has already brought their retiree rates to 50/50," she said. "As you move toward the Berkshires and Western Mass, still vary but are getting closer."

In other business, the committee heard from educator Dawn Bishop who explained the overhauled book approval process.

"After quite a bit of discussion and research we came up with a process of how teachers need to think about the book before they try to even apply for the approval process," she said. "When they come to us it should pretty much be hands down that this is a pretty good book and it is going to work."

She said teachers will be able to submit possible books for students to read three times a year after filling out an approval form with general information about the book.

The book would be rated by a committee on readability and how appropriate it is for the grade level.

Themes and language will also be considered.

"If there is swearing or profanity in the book and if yes where it is. They have to delineate so I can go in and check it out," she said. "Because sometimes it is benign and other times it is vulgar and offensive."

Bishop said the committee will also take into account items that may be controversial to the community as well as sex and violence.

Superintendent Robert Putnam went on with his report and noted the heat in the Hoosac Valley Elementary School gymnasium is back up and running.

After inconsistent heating, the system was shut down for two weeks to accommodate repairs.

Putnam went on to say the job posting for the superintendent has closed and the district has received 13 applications.

The district is still looking at sharing a superintendent with North Adams, however, will run the two processes congruently.Guatemala to AIPAC: Will Move Embassy to Jerusalem in May

The Fellowship | March 5, 2018 Guatemala to AIPAC: Will Move Embassy to Jerusalem in May

Just two days after the United States moves its embassy from Tel Aviv to the Holy City, another nation will follow suit. The Times of Israels Eric Cortellessa reports that Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales has told AIPAC that Guatemalas embassy will also move to Jerusalem this May:

Guatemalas president told the AIPAC Policy Conference on Sunday night that he will move his countrys embassy to Jerusalem in May, and that the relocation will take place two days after the United States moves its embassy to the holy city, to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Israels founding.

In May of this year, we will celebrate Israels 70th anniversary, and under my instructions two days after the US will move its embassy, Guatemala will return and permanently move its embassy to Jerusalem, President Jimmy Morales told a crowd of more than 18,000 gathered in the nations capital for the annual confab.

This decision strongly evidences Guatemalas continued support of Israel, he went on. And we are sure that many other countries will follow in our steps.

In 1959, Guatemala was the first country to open its embassy in Jerusalem, but later moved it to Tel Aviv following international rejection of Israeli claims to East Jerusalem

Morales said on Sunday night that Trumps decision was an impetus for his. I would like to thank President Trump for leading the way, he said. His courageous decision has encouraged us to do what is rightThey study here in order to teach Armenian in Chine (video)

Shi Khengyun and Hi Young are students of Yerevan State University. Through the Chinese Government Scholarship Program Shi has been studying at the Faculty of Romance and Germanic Studies, and Hi is preparing to study at the Faculty of Armenian Philology from September. For about a year now they are in Armenia to study Armenian, and then teach it in their homeland. The monument of Yeghishe Charents is in their every day way to the university. Girls responded positively when they were asked whether they know whose monument. "Charents, we are familiar with his poetry, we studied his poems in preparatory classes." They especially like the nature of Armenia. "When you live in Armenia, every day you discover a Armenian thing, we walked through Armenia, we were in Tsaghkadzor, Gyumri, we saw the Tatev Monastery, and I like the mountains of Armenia, they are amazing." The girls spend most of their time at Shi's house, which is close to the university. The Chinese girls gave us tea. 23-year-old Shin is a tea business partner in China; here they drink the tea grown by themselves. The first Armenian word that comes to the girls' minds is the tea itself. "We go to tea houses in China, we have different types of tea, I have 3-4 types of tea here in Yerevan." Chinese girls like Armenian cuisine. "I love Armenian barbecue, we have ours [Chinese], but it is different, Armenian is different." Occasionally, they gather with the Chinese living in Yerevan, and recently they celebrated the Chinese New Year at the restaurant, where Armenians were invited, too. "Armenians are very good, kind, friendly, helpful. You ask a different people for help." They will stay in Armenia for 4 years. They are sure that the next interview hey will give in Armenian, but instead they want us to learn them to play checkers.When Nakba Day Meets US Embassy Move Day

The Fellowship | March 5, 2018 Embed from Getty Images

This coming May 14 will be a day of celebration and festivities, as the American embassy in Israel will move from Tel Aviv to the Holy City of Jerusalem. However, The Times of Israels Avi Issacharoff reports, Palestinians are also planning an eventful day  one of massive clashes and violence:

May 14, 2018, will likely go down in history as one of the most festive days that Israel has ever known. At long last, the United States, the worlds greatest superpower, will move its embassy to Jerusalem. The prime minister will give a speech, joined by his ministers and US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, with  just possibly  a guest appearance by US President Donald Trump himself; a real celebration.

But an alternative party is already in the works: enormous Palestinian protest events, with the largest of them planned for the Gaza Strip. Preparations are under way for marches that will set out toward the border fence with Israel. Such a massive event, on the scale of the refugees march to the Israeli-Syrian border on the Golan Heights on Nakba Day in 2011, could become problematic for the State of Israel and for the Israeli army  to put it mildly.

It bears mention that the Palestinians observe Nakba Day (nakba means catastrophe) every year on May 15, the day after the Gregorian date on which the establishment of the State of Israel was declared. All the Palestinian organizations, without exception, mark the event that led to the alleged expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their ancestral territories. Nakba Day has long been a hate festival, including explicit calls for the destruction of the State of Israel and the return of all the refugees to Haifa, Jaffa, and so on.

Still, this year it is is a particularly explosive combination: the seventieth anniversary of the catastrophe alongside the celebrations that Israel and the US are planning regarding Jerusalem and moving the embassy. Thus, on the Palestinian side there could be a surplus of motivation among the public to go out and take part in these events, including marches toward the border fence in Gaza.

The preparations are being made mainly on social networksThe Agreement Abolishing the Requirement for the Legalisation of Foreign Public Documents (Hague Convention on the Apostille ) (Convention) was signed in the Hague, Netherlands, on October 5 1961. The Convention aimed to specify the process for legalising documents through a consulate in one of the contracting states for use in any of the other contracting states.

The Apostille consists of a certificate that both certifies the origin of the document and guarantees the authenticity of the signature of the local official in the country where the document was issued.

Under article 1 of the Convention, the documents eligible for the Apostille certification process are: a) documents emanating from an authority or official and related to the courts or tribunals of the state, including those emanating from the public prosecutor's office, from a clerk of court, or a judicial agent; b) administrative documents; c) notarial acts; and, d) official declarations such as registration confirmations, fixed date visas and signature authentication certificates, inserted in a private document. Excluded are: a) documents executed by diplomatic or consular agents; and, b) administrative documents directly related to commercial or customs operations.

The abolition of the consular or diplomatic legalisation of documents has resulted in saving both time and costs. The process of consular or diplomatic legalisation is quite detailed. It involves making arrangements in the country of origin for the document to be sent to the consulate in the country receiving the document. The document is then sent to the receiving country, and once there, the document must be sent on to the consulate of the country of origin. Finally, the document is sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or its counterpart in that country. Each of these stages involves days of waiting, and the payment of fees for each entity that has had to validate the said document.

In contrast, by adopting the Convention a more efficient and less expensive procedure is offered for validating documents that are to be presented or used in another country, as long as both the countries involved are members of the Convention.

The process of legalisation under the Convention involves obtaining the document in the country of origin, then verifying the authenticity of the document or of the signatures that it contains before a competent authority, after having presented the authenticated document before the Ministry of Relations. The document is then forwarded to the receiving country. Once at its destination, it is only necessary for the document to be presented to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order for the document to become fully valid in the receiving country.

All the member countries of the Convention use the same format for issuance of an Apostille certificate, adding their relevant stamps, stickers and signatures corresponding to each relevant competent authority involved. The purpose of the Apostille is to certify the origin of the public document, the authenticity of the signature of the competent authority in the country of origin, the authenticity of the seal, and the capacity of the official as regards the Apostille certification.

Under Decree 01-2016 of the Congress of the Republic of Guatemala, dated February 15 2016, Guatemala adhered to the Convention, having designated the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as the relevant authority for the State of Guatemala and the competent body for the application of the Convention.

In accordance with this law, Guatemalans and foreigners who wish to validate documents in different territories may do so using this simplified procedure, which is already in force, via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Maria Isabel Briz

 2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQs.

Share this articleIn recent years, international email fraud cases have been occurring all over the world, where persons in the guise of trading partners contact companies by email using email addresses and domain names that closely resemble the official ones of such actual trading partners. Typically, the emails give false notices and instructions stating that the bank accounts for the remittance of purchase prices, for example, have changed. There are some cases where Japanese bank accounts are designated as the new remittance accounts in such notices and instructions.

For this type of email fraud case in Japan, the Act on Payment of Damage Recovery Benefits from Funds in Deposit Accounts Used for Crimes can be a useful tool for companies that have fallen victim to email fraud to attempt to recover their funds. The Act provides procedures for the extinguishment of rights to deposits in bank accounts and for the distribution of such deposits to persons who have suffered damage from criminal acts such as fraud, in order to help them to recover what they have lost.

Under the Act, if the bank considers, based on application by an attorney-at-law, that there is a likelihood that the subject bank account is being used for a criminal purpose, then the bank can freeze the bank account instantly. Since this procedure can be effected without any court judgement or order, victims can cause the banks to freeze bank accounts more expeditiously. If a bank freezes a bank account and, as the next stage, further believes that there is 'probable cause' to deem that the bank account is being used for a criminal purpose, then the bank is required to apply to the Deposit Insurance Corporation (DIC) to make a public notice to extinguish the rights of the account holder to the funds in the bank account. In cases where no-one (including other potential creditors of the account holder) files to exercise rights or enforces its rights against the account holder, for example by way of seizure, then the account holder's rights to the bank account will be extinguished, and the DIC will proceed with distributing the funds in the bank account to victims. Any bank account to which funds are transferred from the initial bank account that was used for criminal purposes is also subject to freezing so long as the other bank account is located in Japan.

Typically, the ill-gotten funds are transferred to another bank account or withdrawn as cash immediately after the receipt of the funds; therefore, it becomes more and more difficult to trace such funds as time advances. Further, to take advantage of the procedures provided under the Act, it is often necessary to cooperate with the Japanese police and prosecutors. Therefore, if any company has suffered damage from a fraud case related to Japan, it is most important to act swiftly and contact a Japanese attorney-at-law who specialises in the Act.

Kunishige Masui

 2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQs.

Share this articleSwitzerland has long established itself as an attractive base for cutting-edge technological innovators, notably in the financial sector and related areas. Among other factors, this development has been supported by the Swiss legal and regulatory landscape. Swiss financial regulation in particular is characteristically principle-based rather than rule-based, allowing it to cope well with new, original business models. Furthermore, the Swiss authorities are welcoming of innovation reinforcing Switzerland's position as a successful financial marketplace.

Given the principle-based approach, there are practically no fintech-specific rules in Swiss financial market laws. The Swiss financial regulator, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (Finma), aims to apply the law in a technology-neutral manner, a concept that also translates into its generally applicable ordinances and circulars. While certain of Finma's circulars do address aspects of technological implementations, they do so mainly to remove barriers and level the playing field between traditional actors and fintechs. An example of this is the 2016 circular on video- and online-identification of counterparties for anti-money laundering purposes.

Addressing the rapid developments in the financial market, the Swiss Federal Council in 2016 proposed certain easements and other changes to Swiss regulatory requirements, primarily with the intention to foster an active and sustainable fintech ecosystem, but in most cases applicable to any business fulfilling the relevant requirements. Some of the proposed new rules were already enacted in 2017, while some are presently still in the process of being turned into law.

Extended holding period of third party monies and sandbox regime

With effect as of August 1 2017, the Swiss Federal Council amended the Banking Ordinance to facilitate business models involving the holding of third party monies. This includes in particular crowdfunding and electronic payment processing services, but also traditional businesses with similar requirements. The rules allow for a broader scope of activities without triggering the requirement for a banking licence, the regulatory and financial burden of which would typically not be bearable for these businesses. Specifically,

the maximum period for a business to hold third-party monies in interest-free settlement accounts without being seen as accepting (bank-type) deposits from the public was lengthened from seven to 60 days; and

a regulatory sandbox regime was created, allowing any business to accept, subject to certain limitations, client deposits in an amount of up to CHF1 million ($1.04 million) without triggering a banking licence requirement.

Fintech licence and amendments to the Consumer Credit Act

As a step-up from the sandbox regime, the Swiss Federal Council proposed to introduce a new licence type below the standard of a fully-fledged banking licence, in particular to address the need of fintechs and other businesses to accept substantial third-party deposits without actually engaging in typical commercial banking. The creation of this new fintech licence (or banking licence 'light') will require an amendment to the Banking Act.

The planned new licence will allow licensed businesses to accept deposits from the public in amounts up to a total of CHF 100 million, with the option for Finma to approve a higher ceiling on a case-by-case basis if the customers are protected by adequate safeguards. The regulatory requirements for obtaining and maintaining a fintech licence, eg organisational, capital and audit requirements, can be expected to be substantially reduced in comparison to a comprehensive banking licence. To account for the lower entry barrier, deposits may not be interest-bearing nor be invested. The holders of a fintech licence have to inform their customers that the deposits are not covered by the Swiss depositor protection scheme.

Separately from the introduction of the Fintech licence, certain amendments to the Consumer Credit Act have been proposed with the aim of ensuring consumer protection in crowdlending situations. The general concept of the planned amendments is based on shifting certain duties that would in a regular consumer credit relationship fall on the bank or other professional lender to the intermediary, ie the professional operator of a crowdlending platform. By contrast, in the prevailing situation, many of the safeguards of the Consumer Credit Act do not come to bear in the crowdlending space because non-professional lenders are typically exempt from the relevant duties and those of intermediaries are limited. With the planned amendments, the crowdlending intermediary will be required to review the credit standing of the consumer to determine his or her eligibility for a (crowdfunded) loan. Furthermore, the crowdlending intermediary will have to report loans granted to the consumer credit information office (and will also have access to the office's database for the purpose of its credit standing reviews).

The new regulations are part of a legislative package together with the proposed new Financial Services Act and Financial Institutions Act, which is still subject to further debate in the Swiss parliament. It is still expected that the bill will be finalised this year, but the new rules might not enter into force until early 2019.

Regulatory initiatives regarding blockchain and initial coin offerings

Despite remarkable technical and commercial developments in the recent past, the area of cryptocurrencies and blockchain-enabled business models in general has so far not been addressed by fintech-related regulation projects in Switzerland.

Finma issued formal guidelines on ICOs on February 16 2018, which it said will create clarity for market paricipants. In this guidance, it formally defines the difference between utility tokens, payment tokens, and asset tokens. though stresses cases will be decided on individual merits. The latest rules complement a previous guidance paper from September 2017, on the regulatory treatment of such alternative fundraising schemes. While the initial Finma guidance 04/2017 didn't attempt to qualify different types of ICOs, it summarisesd the existing core regulatory framework against which any ICO out of or into Switzerland is measured. In particular, Finma referenced Swiss anti-money-laundering, banking and securities dealer regulation, the law on collective investment schemes, as well as the general corporate law prospectus requirements for debt and equity securities. Given the limited guidance until recently, it has become good practice to present business models in the area of cryptocurrencies as well as ICO projects to Finma for no-action confirmation.

The existing procedure is that Swiss Federal Council examines whether further regulatory measures with regard to Fintech are necessary. In this context, the Federal Department of Finance (FDF) together with the State Secretariat for International Financial Matters and Finma have been tasked to work on further defining the legal qualification of cryptocurrencies and regulatory requirements for ICOs.

To accelerate the process, the FDF launched a blockchain task force (in which also the law firm of the authors is represented) to identify the areas to be addressed in future legislative and regulatory projects. The task force will further debate risks and opportunities for Switzerland in this sector.

Separately, professional organisations representing the interests of the blockchain industry are driving self-regulatory initiatives. In particular, the Zug-based Crypto Valley Association recently presented a policy framework including a Code of Conduct for Decentralised Ecosystems outlining best practice guidance for ICOs by its members. In particular, the code emphasises transparency and the requirement to present the business model, token functionality and use of proceeds in a clear and comprehensible format.

The ultimate balance between principle-based and specific governmental regulation and self-regulation in this dynamic market remains to be seen. Given the traditionally restrained approach of Swiss financial regulation, it appears reasonable to expect a balanced mix with a focus on general principles set forth in financial market laws, combined with practical guidance by the regulator and industry self-regulation.

Daniel Fluhmann Peter Hsu

 2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQs.

Share this articleWomans rights in view of Islam and Christianity is the theme of an interfaith dialogue planned to be organized in Ethiopia in cooperation with the Iranian Cultural Center in the African country.

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Womans rights in view of Islam and Christianity is the theme of an interfaith dialogue planned to be organized in Ethiopia in cooperation with the Iranian Cultural Center in the African country.



According to the website of the Islamic Culture and Relations Organization, the organization of the program was discussed in a recent meeting of Seyyed Hassan Heidari, Iranian cultural attache in Addis Ababa, with the president of Makena Yesus University.



Heidari suggested that the second edition of the dialogue be held in late March and that an Iranian female scholar would be invited to present a speech at the forum.



The Ethiopian figure thanked the Iranian representative for cooperation in holding the program and expressed willingness to continue the cooperation with the Iranian Cultural Center in academic and cultural fields.



He also said that the first edition of the dialogue was welcomed by the students and members of the scientific board of the university.



Ethiopia is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Islam in Ethiopia is the second-most widely practiced religion after Christianity.









/129On January 15 2018, the Vietnamese government issued Decree 09/2018/ND-CP which came into force on the same day. Decree 09/2018/ND-CP replaced Decree 23/2007/ND-CP in governing trading goods and other directly related activities by foreign investors and foreign-invested companies in Vietnam. Decree 09/2018/ND-CP sheds light on some issues which were not clear under Decree 23/2007/ND-CP, but on the other hand raises doubts on others. There are five takeaways affecting the retail business sector.

First, as the applicable entities under Decree 09/2018/ND-CP are clearer, foreign investors will find it easier to engage in the retail business by making investments through a Vietnam-domiciled corporate vehicle wherein they do not hold a 51% or more stake (though the foreign investors may still control the business by adopting a flexible structure).

Second, if a domestic retail company is acquired by a foreign investor, it will have to obtain a special retail licence for its existing business and every single retail outlet it has opened in order to continue its operations, regardless of the foreign ownership in the company. This requirement was not so clear under the former decree.

Third, foreign-invested companies may now retail rice, sugar, video records, books, newspapers and magazines, which were not permitted under the former decree, in their own supermarkets, minimarts and convenience stores.

Fourth, the economic needs test (ENT) will now be applicable to the opening of a convenience store or a minimart even if it has an area of less than 500 square metres and is located in a shopping mall.

Fifth, the opening of the first retail outlet of a foreign-invested company will have to pass the ENT if its foreign shareholder already has a retail outlet in Vietnam or it bears the same brand as an existing retail outlet operated by another foreign-invested company in the country.

While some are positive changes, others will force foreign investors to expend more of an effort to be able to set foot in this lucrative market with a 93 million population.

Akira Hiramatsu Truong Huu Ngu

 2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQs.

Share this articleImperial Valley News Center

Private browsing gets more private

Cambridge, Massachusetts - Today, most web browsers have private-browsing modes, in which they temporarily desist from recording the users browsing history.

But data accessed during private browsing sessions can still end up tucked away in a computers memory, where a sufficiently motivated attacker could retrieve it.

This week, at the Network and Distributed Systems Security Symposium, researchers from MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Harvard University presented a paper describing a new system, dubbed Veil, that makes private browsing more private.

Veil would provide added protections to people using shared computers in offices, hotel business centers, or university computing centers, and it can be used in conjunction with existing private-browsing systems and with anonymity networks such as Tor, which was designed to protect the identity of web users living under repressive regimes.

Veil was motivated by all this research that was done previously in the security community that said, Private-browsing modes are leaky  Here are 10 different ways that they leak, says Frank Wang, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science and first author on the paper. We asked, What is the fundamental problem? And the fundamental problem is that [the browser] collects this information, and then the browser does its best effort to fix it. But at the end of the day, no matter what the browsers best effort is, it still collects it. We might as well not collect that information in the first place.

Wang is joined on the paper by his two thesis advisors: Nickolai Zeldovich, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT, and James Mickens, an associate professor of computer science at Harvard.

Shell game

With existing private-browsing sessions, Wang explains, a browser will retrieve data much as it always does and load it into memory. When the session is over, it attempts to erase whatever it retrieved.

But in todays computers, memory management is a complex process, with data continuously moving around between different cores (processing units) and caches (local, high-speed memory banks). When memory banks fill up, the operating system might transfer data to the computers hard drive, where it could remain for days, even after its no longer being used.

Generally, a browser wont know where the data it downloaded has ended up. Even if it did, it wouldnt necessarily have authorization from the operating system to delete it.

Veil gets around this problem by ensuring that any data the browser loads into memory remains encrypted until its actually displayed on-screen. Rather than typing a URL into the browsers address bar, the Veil user goes to the Veil website and enters the URL there. A special server  which the researchers call a blinding server  transmits a version of the requested page thats been translated into the Veil format.

The Veil page looks like an ordinary webpage: Any browser can load it. But embedded in the page is a bit of code  much like the embedded code that would, say, run a video or display a list of recent headlines in an ordinary page  that executes a decryption algorithm. The data associated with the page is unintelligible until it passes through that algorithm.

Decoys

Once the data is decrypted, it will need to be loaded in memory for as long as its displayed on-screen. That type of temporarily stored data is less likely to be traceable after the browser session is over. But to further confound would-be attackers, Veil includes a few other security features.

One is that the blinding servers randomly add a bunch of meaningless code to every page they serve. That code doesnt affect the way a page looks to the user, but it drastically changes the appearance of the underlying source file. No two transmissions of a page served by a blinding sever look alike, and an adversary who managed to recover a few stray snippets of decrypted code after a Veil session probably wouldnt be able to determine what page the user had visited.

If the combination of run-time decryption and code obfuscation doesnt give the user an adequate sense of security, Veil offers an even harder-to-hack option. With this option, the blinding server opens the requested page itself and takes a picture of it. Only the picture is sent to the Veil user, so no executable code ever ends up in the users computer. If the user clicks on some part of the image, the browser records the location of the click and sends it to the blinding server, which processes it and returns an image of the updated page.

The back end

Veil does, of course, require web developers to create Veil versions of their sites. But Wang and his colleagues have designed a compiler that performs this conversion automatically. The prototype of the compiler even uploads the converted site to a blinding server. The developer simply feeds the existing content for his or her site to the compiler.

A slightly more demanding requirement is the maintenance of the blinding servers. These could be hosted by either a network of private volunteers or a for-profit company. But site managers may wish to host Veil-enabled versions of their sites themselves. For web services that already emphasize the privacy protections they afford their customers, the added protections provided by Veil could offer a competitive advantage.

Veil attempts to provide a private browsing mode without relying on browsers, says Taesoo Kim, an assistant professor of computer science at Georgia Tech, who was not involved in the research. Even if end users didn't explicitly enable the private browsing mode, they still can get benefits from Veil-enabled websites. Veil aims to be practical  it doesn't require any modification on the browser side  and to be stronger  taking care of other corner cases that browsers do not have full control of.Imperial Valley News Center

Synthetic biologist hopes to develop treatments for cancer and other diseases

Cambridge, Massachusetts - In high school and college, Timothy Lu spent a lot of time programming computers. But as his college graduation approached, he turned his attention toward programming biological systems. The field of synthetic biology was just beginning to emerge, and he wanted to be part of it.

Since that time, Lu has devoted his career to coming up with novel ways to engineer cells, both bacterial and human, to perform new functions. Using this approach, he hopes to develop new therapies for a range of diseases, from cancer to drug-resistant infections.

Achieving this goal requires overcoming many more challenges than programming computer chips does, he says, because living cells behave in more unpredictable ways and the underlying programming language is not deeply understood.

The advantage of the semiconductor industry is they were able to build individual units and put them together and scale them very efficiently. They werent putting things into an existing system that was already messy and where you didnt know the wiring diagram, says Lu, who recently earned tenure in MITs Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In contrast, were simultaneously trying to figure out how to assemble genetic circuits together and also stick it into this giant mish-mash of what the cell normally does. Thats the key challenge.

Fundamental challenges

Lus early interest in computer programming was inspired by his father, who worked as an electrical engineer at IBM.

My dad brought home some of the early PCs that they were building at IBM, and I spent a lot of time programming computers and making them do very simple things, Lu recalls.

When Lu was 10 years old, his family moved from upstate New York to Taiwan, where his parents had grown up. He returned to the United States to attend MIT, where he majored in electrical engineering and computer science. When he graduated in 2003, Lu realized that he enjoyed programming but wanted to apply this interest to nascent technologies with fundamental challenges that had yet to be solved.

He soon became intrigued by the idea of programming biological systems. Many Boston-area researchers were beginning to work in this field, known as synthetic biology. Lu decided to apply to the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology (HST), and he arranged to do his PhD research in a lab at Boston University headed by synthetic biology pioneer James Collins (who is now a faculty member at MIT).

As part of his HST coursework, Lu saw many patients with antibiotic-resistant infections and became interested in trying to develop new treatments for such infections. In Collins lab, Lu worked on engineering viruses that infect bacteria, also known as bacteriophages. He engineered these bacteriophages to produce enzymes that help to chew up biofilms (layers of bacteria that stick to surfaces), and in 2008, he won the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for this work. In a related project, he engineered bacteria to express factors that make them more susceptible to existing antibiotics.

After finishing his PhD, and an MD as well, Lu pondered a few career paths, including practicing medicine or working at a startup based on his research, but he ended up applying for a faculty position in MITs Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, which was looking for someone interested in programming biological circuits. MIT had recently hired a couple of prominent synthetic biologists to launch the Institutes new Synthetic Biology Center, and Lu was eager to get involved.

At the time, MIT was trying to build up its synthetic biology team. I knew if I joined I would be the most junior member but would be part of something that was going to quickly grow, so it was exciting for me, says Lu, who later received a joint appointment in MITs Department of Biological Engineering.

Disease-fighting circuits

Much of Lus research focuses on designing genetic circuits that can perform computations in living cells, such as counting events or tracking whether a specific event has occurred and then provoking the appropriate response.

My deepest personal interest is in the clinical applications of synthetic biology, Lu says. Can you program cells or viruses to sense and respond to their environment, so that you can try to detect the presence of disease and treat it effectively and safely?

In a recent study, Lu and his colleagues developed a synthetic gene circuit that triggers the bodys immune system to attack cancers when it detects signs of the disease. They are also working on designing more control elements to help them turn such circuits on and off, and developing ways to help circuits change their output in response to different disease biomarkers.

Lus lab also continues to pursue novel antimicrobial treatments, including engineered bacteriophages as well as new types of antimicrobial peptides. By modifying these naturally occurring proteins, Lu hopes to make them more efficient at killing microbes, and potentially to develop them for use against infection in humans.

Such research has become increasingly important, Lu says, as more strains of bacteria become resistant to existing drugs.

When we first started, in the early 2000s, people didnt care about antibiotic resistance that much. Most antibiotics were still working and people didnt think it was a big deal, he says. But over time, resistance has continued to grow, and the antibiotic pipeline has become drier and drier. So we still firmly believe that we need new strategies. The days when you would just go and dig in the dirt and easily find new antibiotics with broad-spectrum activity are over.Imperial Valley News Center

F35B Lands on Wasp, Launching Era of Increased Navy-Marine Corps Sea-based Capabilities

East China Sea - A detachment of F-35B Lightning II's with Fighter Attack Squadron 121 (VMFA-121) arrived aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Wasp (LHD 1) March 5, marking the first time the aircraft has deployed aboard a U.S. Navy ship and with a Marine Expeditionary Unit in the Indo-Pacific.

The F-35B, assigned under the Okinawa-based 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, will provide a robust set of sea-based capabilities that will enhance Navy-Marine Corps expeditionary operations. The aircraft is equally capable of conducting precision strikes inland, supporting Marines inserted ashore or providing air defense for the Expeditionary Strike Group.



"Pairing F-35B Lightning II's with the Wasp represents one of the most significant leaps in warfighting capability for the Navy-Marine Corps team in our lifetime," said Rear Adm. Brad Cooper, commander, Expeditionary Strike Group 7. "This 5th generation stealth jet is extremely versatile and will greatly enhance and expand our operational capabilities."



VMFA-121 Pilots are scheduled to conduct a series of qualification flights on Wasp over a multi-day period. Following qualifications, the F-35B's and 2,300 Marines that make up the 31st MEU will deploy aboard ships of the Wasp Expeditionary Strike Group for follow-on operations in the Indo-Pacific region as part of a routine patrol to strengthen regional alliances, provide rapid-response capability and advance the 'Up-Gunned ESG' concept.



The 'Up-gunned ESG' is a U.S. Pacific-fleet initiated concept that aims to provide lethality and survivability to a traditional three-ship amphibious ready group by integrating multi-mission surface combatants and F-35B into amphibious operations. By adding these enabling capabilities, the amphibious force can more effectively defend against adversarial threats in the undersea, surface and air domains, as well provide offensive firepower to strike from the sea.



The 31st MEU is the only forward-deployed MEU in the region. The F-35B serves as one airframe within a multitude of air capabilities of the MEU's Air Combat Element. Air, ground and logistics forces make up the MEU's Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF), a composite of capabilities that allow the MEU, in partnership with Navy amphibious ships, to conduct a wide-range of missions from crisis response to disaster relief.



"This is a historic deployment," said Col. Tye R. Wallace, 31st MEU Commanding Officer. "The F-35B is the most capable aircraft ever to support a Marine rifleman on the ground. It brings a range of new capabilities to the MEU that make us a more lethal and effective Marine Air-Ground Task Force."



Multi-mission guided-missile destroyers USS Dewey (DDG 105), with embarked Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 35 "Magicians," and USS Sterett (DDG 104), with embarked Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 49 "Scorpions," are scheduled to support a range of operations and training with the Wasp Expeditionary Strike Group for varying stretches during the patrol.



The arrival of the F-35B culminates testing and shipboard structural modifications on Wasp that began in 2013. Wasp completed an overhaul in 2017 and subsequently departed Norfolk to forward-deploy to Sasebo, Japan, as part of a Department of Defense effort to place the most advanced capabilities in the Indo-Pacific.



"Deployment of the versatile F-35B enhances the full range of Expeditionary Strike Group capabilities with one of the world's most technologically-advanced air warfare platforms," said Capt. Colby Howard, Wasp commanding officer. "With the specific upgrades Wasp has received, the Navy Marine Corps team in the Pacific is better positioned than ever before to support our commitment to the security of Japan and the Region."



The Wasp ESG is on a routine patrol in the Indo-Pacific, providing U.S. 7th Fleet a rapid-response capability in the event of a contingency and working with partners and allies to increase combined capacity for regional security.



Seventh Fleet, which celebrates its 75th year in 2018, spans more than 124 million square kilometers--stretching from the International Date Line to the India/Pakistan border and from the Kuril Islands in the North to the Antarctic in the South.



Seventh Fleet's area of operation encompasses 36 maritime countries and 50 percent of the world's population with between 50-70 U.S. ships and submarines, 140 aircraft and approximately 20,000 Sailors in the 7th fleet.Norteno Gang Member Sentenced To 17 Years And Six Months In Prison For RICO Conspiracy And Use Of Firearms

San Jose, California - Julian Ruiz was sentenced today to 210 months in prison for his role in a racketeering conspiracy and for using or possessing firearms in furtherance of a crime of violence, announced United States Attorney Alex G. Tse and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent in Charge John F. Bennett. The sentence was handed down earlier today by the Honorable Lucy H. Koh, U.S. District Judge.

Mr. Ruiz and the East Las Casitas gang have committed horrible acts of violence against the public, said Acting U.S. Attorney Tse. This prosecution and todays appropriate sentence will hopefully provide solace to the victims, their families, and the Salinas community.

This sentencing is a testament to our dedication to get members of violent gangs and criminal organizations off the street and out of our communities," said Special Agent in Charge Bennett of the FBI's San Francisco Division. Those who facilitate violent acts by racketeering and other means cannot and will not be tolerated.

On December 6, 2017, Ruiz, 29, of Salinas, pleaded guilty to two counts of racketeering conspiracy; using or possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  924(c)(1)(A); and aiding and abetting the use or possession of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  924(c)(1)(A) and 2. According to the plea agreement, Ruiz admitted to being a member of the Norteno street gang clique known as East Las Casitas or ELC since at least 2006. Along with other Norteno cliques in Salinas, the ELC committed acts of violence for the benefit of the gang including murder, attempted murder, and robbery. Among other acts of violence, members of ELC sought to attack and kill members of rival Sureno gangs, as well as members of other rival gangs.

The racketeering-related attempted murders to which Ruiz pleaded guilty took place over a one-month period in 2009. On September 15, 2009, Ruiz was in a car hunting for Surenos to shoot, and spotted a suspected Sureno on a bicycle in front of an apartment complex. Ruiz used a handgun to fire multiple shots at the suspected Sureno as he fled on foot. A few weeks later, on October 3, 2009, Ruiz participated in the attempted murder of a rival gang member from the Fremont gang. After learning that an ELC hang out was shot into, and suspecting the shooting was done by Fremont gang members, Ruiz agreed to shoot at and attempted to kill additional Fremont gang members. Ruiz went to the home of a Fremont gang member, kicked the front door open, and opened fire at two Fremont gang members inside. Ruiz shot one victim in the stomach and shoulder and the other victim in the left arm.

On October 28, 2015, a grand jury charged Ruiz with one count of racketeering conspiracy, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  1962(d); one count of conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  1959(a)(5); one count of conspiracy to commit assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  1959(a)(6); and one count of use of firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C.  924(c)(1)(A) and 2. Pursuant to his plea agreement, Ruiz pleaded guilty to one of the racketeering charges and the firearms charge. The investigation leading to the indictment was part of the FBIs crackdown on Norteno gangs in Monterey County.

In addition to the prison term, Judge Koh also sentenced Ruiz to a five-year period of supervised release, to commence after Ruiz completes his prison sentence. Ruiz has been in federal custody since December 1, 2015, and will begin serving his sentence immediately.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kimberly Hopkins, Christiaan Highsmith, and Stephen Meyer are prosecuting the case with the assistance of Nina Burney Williams, Adria Trgovich, and Lance Libatique. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by the FBI and Salinas Police Department.A time of rejuvenation and reinvention, spring offers the perfect opportunity to update your scent, and while the idea of putting on a sundress might seem premature right now, a fresh-smelling fragrance can surely be welcomed with open arms.

As we pack away our chunky knits and winter boots its finally time to slip into something a little lighter, and luckily theres a steady stream of perfumes perfectly suited to spring hitting the shelves of beauty aisles right now. Here are our favourite launches for the new season.

Jo Malone Oat & Cornflower, 47, Jo Malone

Luxury perfumer Jo Malone has launched a harvest of five limited-edition fragrances for spring and our pick goes to Oat & Cornflower. A woody, musk-filled scent thats warm and sensual, it contains notes of hazelnut, sweet tobacco, earthy vetiver and vivid blue cornflower.

If you do prefer something a little lighter though, Primrose & Rye has a powdery finish, while those looking for sweeter scents will enjoy Honey & Crocus or Poppy & Barley.

Chloe Nomade, 42.30, John Lewis

A scent that embraces the spirit of femininity, Chloes Nomade is a woody fragrance with fresh, floral notes. Designed with an intense character, it flourishes with a whiff of oak moss that is lightened by the sweetness of cherry plum and the freshness of freesia. The perfect choice for those who like floral fragrances that arent too sweet.

Marc Jacobs Daisy Twinkle, 55, Superdrug

The latest iteration of Marc Jacobs Daisy range, Twinkle is a bright and playful fragrance that evokes the true scent of spring. Inspired by a shimmering oasis where the sun dazzles and water glistens, its made from an uplifting bouquet of floral and fruity notes including wild berries, violet leaves and creamy, white woods. The dreamy lilac bottle finished with glitter blooms promises to make a welcome addition to any dressing table.

Mugler Alien Flora Futura, 42, The Perfume Shop

A must-have for fans of the supernatural, Muglers newest variation of the infamous scent strikes the perfect balance between sultry and feminine. Fresh and sparkling, it features light notes of Buddhas hand citrus, sweet and floral notes from queen-of-the-night flower and white amber to create a whiff that smells like an enveloping combination of creamy vanilla and springtime blooms.

Proenza Schouler Arizona, 68, Selfridges

The first fragrance from the designers behind Proenza Schouler  Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez  Arizona is a musky scent with flecks of white floral.

Inspired by the vast desert landscapes, colourful sands and sunsets they saw while on their travels to Mexico, the US South-west and Arizona, it contains notes of orris, cactus blossom, jasmine, orange blossom, solar accord, musk and cashmeran. If youre a fan of unique scents no one else will be wearing, this is the one for you.Vivienne Westwood has issued an apology to designers Louise Gray and Rottingdean Bazaar after confessing to using one of their graphics without permission.

The punk British label showcased the offending T-shirt at Paris Fashion Week, which was emblazoned with the slogan We do big sizes! 2XL 2XL 4XL 5XL!!!! We do very small sizes!!.

They posted a side-by-side image on Instagram in which the original garment can be seen next to Westwoods very similar version.

Dear @louisegray__ and @rottingdeanbazaar. We are sorry, the caption reads.

The use of your graphics on our t-shirt was only ever meant to be a celebration of your work.

We got caught up in a last minute frenzy and did not contact you to ask for your permission. We are truly sorry about this mistake and want to make it up to you.

The post has already garnered more than 19,000 likes, with fans of the iconic British brand taking to the comments section to express their disappointment at the apparent lack of originality.

This is horrendously unethical, commented one person.

Youve truly gone down in my estimations. This is a paltry excuse for plagiarism.

However, not everyone took the same critical stance.

Many praised Vivienne Westwood for its honest admission, with some arguing that imitation is the highest form of flattery.

I salute to you for acknowledging, apologising, and crediting the original artist, wrote one commenter.

Now, if only every other big name in the fashion biz would do the same.

At least there is acknowledgement and an apology, Id be honoured to have VW use my work, added another.

Look back at some of the original punk stuff-its remodelled/reworked pieces. At least theyve put their hands up and apologised.

With fashion designers constantly drawing inspiration from other peoples work, accusations of plagiarism are rife within the industry.

From high street giants such as Zara and Forever 21 to established fashion houses like Jeremy Scott and Roberto Cavalli, its not uncommon for labels to face such allegations.

It was only in April 2017 that Guccis creative director Alessandro Michele was forced to refute claims that he had plagiarised the work of a Central Saint Martins BA student in his autumn/winter collection.

The models in Micheles campaign wore alien-like headwear, bearing a striking resemblance to masks worn by models in student Pierre-Louis Auvrays show, who accused the Italian fashion house of copying his idea in an Instagram post.

"Young creatives struggle enough without big companies shamelessly stealing from them," he wrote.

However, Michele fervently denied he had taken any inspiration from the student's subversive designs, telling the Business of Fashion that any similarities between the two collections were merely coincidental and that people build a story around nothing.

The Independent has contacted Vivienne Westwood for commentCoca-Cola is going to stop arranging factory trips for schoolchildren in addition to its annual Real Business Challenge amid a childhood obesity crisis.

Over the past decade, Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP) has hosted more than 110,000 visitors at its six education centres, welcoming more than 15,000 secondary school and university students every year.

390,000 secondary school students have also taken part in the Real Business Challenge, a national competition that aims to help pupils develop useful skills such as teamwork and problem-solving.

CCEP has now announced that it will be shutting down both its educational programme and the Real Business Challenge in order to reassess the way in which the brand works with young people.

"Although we took the difficult decision to close our education programme last summer, this decision was taken internally and was not in response to any external pressures relating to our business or our products," a spokesman from CCEP told The Independent.

"We remain absolutely committed to addressing the barriers that prevent young people from entering the workplace, and we are currently reviewing how we can continue our work with young people in ways that best support their needs in the communities in which we operate.

"We are proud of our education programme and the role it played in helping to improve the employability skills of many thousands of young people for more than a decade.

Children should be discouraged from consuming fizzy drinks with a high-sugar content, campaigners argue (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

"We believe passionately that businesses like ours can play a positive role in enhancing the economic wellbeing of the young people in our communities, whether that is through formal opportunities, such as our popular apprenticeship scheme, or other programmes which give students the skills and confidence they need to succeed in the world of work.

"That's why our education programme was never used to promote our brands. In our last Real Business Challenge, for instance, students were tasked with creating a local marketing campaign to support the Special Olympics. And visitors to our Education Centres were only ever offered water or juices to drink, in line with the school food regulations."

While the spokesman has stressed that the decision to stop the factory visits and Real Business Challenge has not been influenced by external pressures, this news comes following growing opposition over the promotion of drinks with a high sugar content to young children.

We have a childhood obesity crisis, well only tackle it with tough decisive action, tweeted Jonathan Ashworth, Labour MP for Leicester South.

As well as banning junk food advertising on family TV, improving labelling and sugar tax its also time to ban the sale of high-sugar energy drinks to children.

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver retweeted Ashworth in support of his message.

It has recently been revealed that CCEP will be closing a manufacturing site in Milton Keynes and a distribution centre in Northampton, which could lead to the loss of 288 jobs.

However, there are plans in place to create 121 additional jobs at other locations.Hollywood actor Ryan Gosling has become the new face of cryptocurrencies - without knowing anything about it.

The webpage for Miroskii, a Chinese company billing itself as the latest online currency to challenge bitcoin, features one "Kevin Belanger" among its creative team, a man who bears an uncanny resemblance to the star of Drive, La La Land and Blade Runner 2049.

Or who may in fact just be a stock image.

Miroskii is about to undertake an initial coin offering, giving investors a chance to "join the Crypto Revolution" prior to its launch.

But the Gosling gaffe strongly suggests the company is a scam, a suspicion supported by the fact that Miroskii carries no white paper on its website, promising that its business plan is "coming soon".

CNET has since discovered that other members of the company hierarchy are fakes too, their images culled from real-life professional profiles across the web.

Belanger, for his part, is described as an, "Experienced graphic designer with a clear focus on identities and illustration."

Gosling's cover was originally blown by Twitter user @CryptoShillNye, who noticed Belanger's striking similarity to his more famous doppleganger.

"Miroskii Coin is developed and brought to business by the experts from China, Hongkong, Singapore and Japan to ease the crypto revolution in financial products," the company states on the site.

"It is developed under its own highly secure encrypted decentralized blockchain technology."

Despite Miroskii's presumably bogus nature, the company claims to have raised $830,000 (601,330) from investors.

Gadget and tech news: In pictures Show all 25 1 /25 Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gadget and tech news: In pictures Gun-toting humanoid robot sent into space Russia has launched a humanoid robot into space on a rocket bound for the International Space Station (ISS). The robot Fedor will spend 10 days aboard the ISS practising skills such as using tools to fix issues onboard. Russia's deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin has previously shared videos of Fedor handling and shooting guns at a firing range with deadly accuracy. Dmitry Rogozin/Twitter Gadget and tech news: In pictures Google turns 21 Google celebrates its 21st birthday on September 27. The The search engine was founded in September 1998 by two PhD students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, in their dormitories at Californias Stanford University. Page and Brin chose the name google as it recalled the mathematic term 'googol', meaning 10 raised to the power of 100 Google Gadget and tech news: In pictures Hexa drone lifts off Chief engineer of LIFT aircraft Balazs Kerulo demonstrates the company's "Hexa" personal drone craft in Lago Vista, Texas on June 3 2019 Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures Project Scarlett to succeed Xbox One Microsoft announced Project Scarlett, the successor to the Xbox One, at E3 2019. The company said that the new console will be 4 times as powerful as the Xbox One and is slated for a release date of Christmas 2020 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures First new iPod in four years Apple has announced the new iPod Touch, the first new iPod in four years. The device will have the option of adding more storage, up to 256GB Apple Gadget and tech news: In pictures Folding phone may flop Samsung will cancel orders of its Galaxy Fold phone at the end of May if the phone is not then ready for sale. The $2000 folding phone has been found to break easily with review copies being recalled after backlash PA Gadget and tech news: In pictures Charging mat non-starter Apple has cancelled its AirPower wireless charging mat, which was slated as a way to charge numerous apple products at once AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures "Super league" India shoots down satellite India has claimed status as part of a "super league" of nations after shooting down a live satellite in a test of new missile technology EPA Gadget and tech news: In pictures 5G incoming 5G wireless internet is expected to launch in 2019, with the potential to reach speeds of 50mb/s Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Uber halts driverless testing after death Uber has halted testing of driverless vehicles after a woman was killed by one of their cars in Tempe, Arizona. March 19 2018 Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Rex Gadget and tech news: In pictures A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China Reuters Gadget and tech news: In pictures A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London Getty Gadget and tech news: In pictures A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv Getty

This seems unlikely given that it only has seven followers across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram combined but, who knows, perhaps Gosling really is involved and has been using his studio connections to drum up funding on the quiet?

While the illegal use of the star's likeness is both deplorable and hilarious, the serious point here is how cautious cryptocurrency speculators need to be when investing online.

Dubious propositions are not always as easy to spot as this one.Guatemala says it will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem al-Quds, taking the US lead in a controversial decision which has drawn widespread international condemnation.

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Guatemala says it will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem al-Quds, taking the US lead in a controversial decision which has drawn widespread international condemnation.



President Jimmy Morales made the announcement in Washington Sunday in an address to the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), an influential pro-Israeli lobbying group.



"Under my instructions, two days after the United States moves its embassy, Guatemala will return and permanently move its embassy to Jerusalem," he told a cheering crowd.



Washington has set May 14 as the date for the inauguration of the new diplomatic premises. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, currently in Washington, said he would invite US President Donald Trump to attend the opening.



Trump declared Jerusalem al-Quds as the so-called capital of Israel in December and announced plans to relocate the US embassy in Tel Aviv to the occupied holy city.



"I would like to thank President Trump for leading the way," Morales said on Sunday, calling it a "courageous decision" and claiming that he was confident "many other countries will follow in our steps".



Guatemala and Honduras were among the only seven small countries that sided with the US and Israel on a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution in December, which rejected Trump's decision.



The UN assembly overwhelmingly voted in favor of the resolution that called on the US to withdraw the controversial recognition.



US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley had warned before the vote that Washington would be taking names of those voting against Trump's decision.









/129For something so fundamental to our lives, there's a lot that we don't get right about sleep.

Until recently, we didn't even have good answers to the question of "why" we sleep, as UC Berkeley neuroscience and psychology professor Matthew Walker explains in his recent book, "Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams."

We're better at answering that question now. We know that sleep restores the immune system, balances hormone levels, lowers blood pressure, cleanses toxins from the brain, and more.

"[W]e no longer have to ask what sleep is good for," wrote Walker. "Instead, we are now forced to wonder whether there are any biological functions that do not benefit by a good night's sleep. So far, the results of thousands of studies insist that no, there aren't."

But while we know far more about sleep now than we used to, there are a huge number of myths about sleep that persist. Many of these stem from not understanding the full importance of sleep; other myths have been created by people trying to sell products to improve nightly rest.

These are some of the most prominent myths  and the facts.

Myth: You can become a morning person.

Picture: (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Spend enough time online and you'll certainly encounter some version of the "you can accomplish so much if you start waking up a 4:30 a.m. every day" blog post.

But the truth is more complex.

There are a number of factors that influence your chronotype  that is, whether you're a morning person, a night owl, or whether you fall somewhere in between. Your body clock changes throughout life and is influenced by factors like sunlight and genetics.

Researchers say that while most people can regulate their body clock to some degree (if you want to feel awake earlier, try getting morning sunlight), there's a limit to how much it can be changed. And for some people, becoming a morning person (or switching to become a night owl) is basically impossible.

Myth: You can get by on less than seven hours a night

If you need a cup of coffee in the morning to feel awake, you didn't get enough sleep.

Scientists like Walker say that if you want to figure out how much sleep you actually need, you should spend about a week letting yourself fall asleep when you are tired and then waking up naturally, without an alarm.

As it turns out, the vast majority of people need between seven and nine hours of sleep a night. There are a few people out there who for biological reasons either need more sleep or can get by with less, but statistically, you're probably not one of them.

People tend to think they can get by with less sleep because after a few days or weeks of 5 or 6 hours, that just starts to feel like "normal." But even though people assume they've adjusted, tests show that they are performing in an impaired state.

Myth: The only long-term consequence of not getting enough sleep is that you'll be tired.

So you're tired. No big deal, right?

Unfortunately, that's not the case. As Walker wrote, sleep has a huge variety of benefits for your health.

Not getting enough sleep is associated with a laundry list of negative health effects, including memory problems, increased cancer risk, depression and anxiety, heart disease, and Alzheimer's linked buildups in the brain.

Myth: Snoring is annoying but no big deal otherwise.

Picture: (Getty Images/istockphoto)

If you're consistently snoring at night (not just when you have a cold), you should get checked out by a medical professional.

Snoring can be indication that you are dealing with sleep apnea, a sleep disorder that can cause other medical problems over time, according to the Cleveland Clinic. It's caused by decreased airflow that can strain the heart and cause cardiovascular problems and is also linked to weight gain.

Fortunately, sleep apnea is treatable, and people who've been treated say they start feeling better-rested in the mornings.

Myth: You can make up for sleep on the weekend.

(Getty Images (Getty Images)

If you've had a week of late nights and early mornings, you may think you can just make up for it by sleeping until noon on Saturdays and Sundays.

Unfortunately, as chronobiologist Till Roenneberg explains in his book, "Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You're So Tired," it's best for your body to keep a consistent schedule.

You can throw your body off even more by trying to catch up on sleep over the weekends, which can make it harder to sleep during the week (it's like changing time zones).

Still, if you're really sleep-deprived and can catch a few extra hours of shut-eye, go for it. It's not a long-term solution and can't make up for all the effects of sleep deprivation, but some research indicates it's better than stumbling on, bleary-eyed.

Myth: Sleeping pills like Ambien help you sleep.

It's easy to see the appeal of sleeping pill for someone struggling with insomnia.

But sleep experts caution that whatever is happening after you take a sleeping pill, it's not natural sleep  and if you look at the brainwaves of people who have taken pills like Ambien, they aren't getting real sleep.

As Walker puts it in his book, people who have taken sleeping pills aren't awake, but they aren't actually sleeping either. They're sedated.

And there are some indications that medication-induced "sleep" could be harmful. Some research indicates that zolpidem (Ambien) may weaken the brain cell connections associated with learning  it may be causing memory damage over time.

Plus, people who stop taking sleeping pills often experience a "rebound" insomnia afterwards that pushes them back to those same pills.

How sleep can save your life Show all 2 1 /2 How sleep can save your life How sleep can save your life 654082.bin How sleep can save your life 653899.bin Rex

Myth: It's better to get up early to work out than to sleep in.

(Getty Images/iStockphoto (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Getting a workout in is essential for your health. It'll help you sleep better too.

But experts say you shouldn't skip your sleep to do it.

For one thing, you need sufficient sleep to recover and heal your body if you've been exercising. You're only getting stronger when you rest; exercise itself is the process of injuring your body so it can recover stronger.

And even your muscle cells have their own body clock. If you don't feel awake, your muscles probably aren't either  and they aren't going to get the same benefits from exercise.

Myth: You swallow a few spiders every year while asleep.

Eight spiders crawl into your open mouth every year and there's nothing you can do about it, according to the legend.

Fortunately for the arachnaphobics around us, it's extremely unlikely. We make noise and vibrate in our sleep, and thats likely to scare off spiders.

The debunkers over at Snopes traced the claim to a list of "facts" designed to show how gullible people might be.

Myth: Insomnia just means you can't fall asleep.

Difficulty falling asleep is one type of insomnia, according to the National Sleep Foundation, but it's not the only one. Other forms include the inability to fall back asleep after waking early, waking up throughout the night, and even waking up feeling unrefreshed.

Being able to identify sleep problems is the first step towards getting help  and fortunately, there are useful recommendations doctors have for dealing with insomnia.

Myth: If you wake up in the middle of the night, you should just stay in bed.

If you can stay relaxed in bed, experts say that can help you fall back asleep. But if you're starting to feel agitated or simply can't drift back off, sleep experts say you should stop trying so hard.

If it's been longer than 20 minutes, go do something else. Avoid things that'll trigger strong emotional responses and stay away from stimulating screens like your computer, phone, or television. Try and read a book or drink some tea.

Myth: There's no harm in a nightcap.

A nightcap can be appealing and it should help you drift off, right? After all, it's in the name!

Unfortunately, this old tradition goes back to the days before we understood much about sleep. Research shows that having an alcoholic drink right before bed truly can make it slightly easier to fall asleep. But you don't sleep as deeply for the rest of the night.

Most experts say that if you want to sleep well, you should cut yourself off at least a few hours before bed.

Myth: Melatonin supplements will help you sleep better.

If sleeping pills are no good, a "natural" supplement seems fine, right? After all, your body produces melatonin as a cue to tell you that it's time for sleep.

But the research on melatonin supplements isn't encouraging. First of all, they don't really seem to help people fall asleep. Some research has shown that people fall asleep a few minutes faster on supplemental melatonin, but the biggest improvement is probably a placebo, according to Walker.

Supplements in the US are also largely unregulated, and studies have shown that the amount of "melatonin" in supplements could be none at all or could be almost five times what's on the label.

Myth: It's fine to use your phone at night if you eliminate blue light.

(iStock/ ocusfocus (iStock/ ocusfocus)

Most of us have heard by now that the blue light emitted by screens can keep us awake (by blocking the production of melatonin, which our brain produces as a cue that it's time to sleep).

That's led to an explosion in blue-blocking products, including screen covers, glasses, and apps that reduce the amount of blue light emitted by devices.

There are reasons to think that might help, but that's not free license to use your phone. Just checking our phones (and the world they connect us to) before bed is enough to mess with our sleep, experts say.

Myth: Some people don't dream.

You might not remember your dreams, but you definitely have them.

There's a lot we don't know about dreams, but we do know that we all dream throughout the night. Dreams aren't even necessarily limited to REM sleep, though that's when our most vivid dreams occur, according to Walker.

When we dream, we process emotions and experiences that we've had during the day. That seems to be important for both emotional and mental health, according to Walker. Dreams are also connected to problem-solving and creativity.

We may not know exactly what's happening when we dream. But it seems to be something essential to what makes us human  just like sleep.

Read more:

The best 15 countries to live in around the world

 15 Hollywood stars who didn't accept their Oscars

 12 rich, powerful people share their surprising definitions of success

Read the original article on Business Insider UK  2018. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.Google is said to be close to signing a $2.4bn deal to establish an East Coast base in New York City, the latest in a series of moves by tech firms who believe Silicon Valleys best days may be over.

Reports said the multinational tech giant, valued at $133bn, is ready to finalise a deal for a building in the meatpacking district, close to offices it already rents there. The building, a former Nabisco factory, occupies an entire city block and the Associated Press said it would be among the most expensive real estate deals in the citys history.

If it goes ahead, Google would be among a number of tech companies that are looking to expand their New York footprint. Concerns about the soaring cost of living in San Francisco, and worried that innovation may be accelerating faster in other parts fo the country, a number of firms are looking to New York and other cities.

New York recently welcomed an enlarged presence from Facebook and Spotify. Meanwhile, even as New York waits to hear if it is the lucky one among 20 finalists that have applied to be the base for Amazons second headquarters, Jeff Bezos company recently signed a deal to bring 2,000 employees to a property on the citys west side.

Representatives for Google did not respond to requests for comment about the companys New York expansion plans, which was first reported by the real estate publication The Real Deal.

The AP said New York had been pitching itself as an alternative to Silicon Valley for years. While tech may never rival financial services and Wall Street as the most important private-sector employer and economic driver, it has already established a legitimate footprint that goes beyond a handful of giant companies.

 Billionaire investor George Soros calls more stringent regulations for monopolies like Google and Facebook

A report by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found the city had 7,600 tech firms in 2016, an increase of 23 per cent since 2010. The report said the average salary for tech employees in the city was $147,300.

Julie Samuels, executive director of Tech:NYC, a trade association of New York tech companies, said the presence of large companies like Google and Amazon has created a robust ecosystem where young engineers and others move to New York to work for the large companies and then leave after a few years to found startups.

The news comes as a number of other tech giants are looking to find alternative locations for investment opportunities and expansion. The New York Times said Robin Li, an investor with the San Francisco venture capital firm GGV Capital, recently led a three-day bus tour through the Midwest, stopping in Youngstown and Akron in Ohio, Detroit and Flint in Michigan and South Bend in Indiana.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The trip was pitched as an opportunity for Silicon Valley investors to meet local officials and look for promising start-ups in overlooked areas of the country.

Im a little over San Francisco, Patrick McKenna, the founder of High Ridge Venture Partners, told the newspaper. Its so expensive, its so congested, and frankly, you also see opportunities in other places.

Last December, AOL founder Steve Case, pledged to invest mostly in start-ups outside of San Francisco, weve probably hit peak Silicon Valley.

He announced he was establishing a $150m fund, Rise of the Rest, to offer seed money to start-ups in areas not traditionally associated with technology. The fund is being co-managed by investor JD Vance, the author of the recently published Hillbilly Elegy.

It already has the support of a group of three-dozen of the USs best-known business leaders including Jeff Bezos, Sara Blakely, and Howard Schultz.Morrisons is facing a potential 100m compensation claim after being accused of paying female workers less than men doing comparable jobs.

The claimants say that shop-floor workers, about 70 per cent of whom are women, had been paid almost 2 per hour less than distribution centre staff, most of whom are men. They argue that the work should have been paid at the same rate because it is of equal value.

Hundreds of current and former Morrisons employees have signed up to the legal action, according to law firm Roscoe Reid, which is bringing the claim.

Recommended We should buy from retailers that pay female staff fairly

The unequal pay claims go back several years, meaning that employees could be due thousands of pounds each if they are successful.

Roscoe Reid estimates that up to 25,000 Morrisons workers may have a claim. Current employees and those who have left within the last six years may be eligible.

A spokesperson for Morrisons said: We havent received a legal claim on this matter. Our aim is to pay our colleagues fairly and equally for the job that they do, irrespective of their gender.

The employment tribunal will appoint an independent expert to assess whether the work is of equal value, taking into consideration factors such as handling money, customer facing duties and physical activity.

Leigh Day, another law firm, said last month that it was planning what could be the UKs largest ever equal-pay claim against Tesco. More than 200,000 Tesco workers could have been underpaid by as much as 20,000, meaning a bill of as much as 4bn for the supermarket, Leigh Day said.

Asda and Sainsburys are both facing similar legal challenges over equal pay. In the Asda case, it has already been established that shop-floor work and warehouse work can be compared.

The law on equal pay for men and women not only states that men and women should be paid the same for the same job, but also that they should be paid the same for doing jobs of equal value. This applies to pay and to other terms and conditions, such as bonus payments, holidays and sick leave.

Ellie Pinnells, a lawyer at Roscoe Reid, said: We fully expect these claims to succeed and we also expect many more current and former store workers to join our current group of claimants.

The basis for equal pay claims was established almost 50 years ago with the Equal Pay Act 1970. That gender pay discrimination still exists in such a large and successful company such as Morrisons is surprising to say the least.A group of 17 people have volunteered to be infected with parasitic worms as part of a study into a deadly disease called Schistosomiasis.

The schistosoma mansoni parasites cause the illness which can lead to organ damage and even death, by laying eggs in the body.

The volunteers nonetheless allowed researchers to implant 20 of them into their arms.

 What is Schistosomiasis? The dangerous disease spread by parasites

Once the creatures settle into their bodies, researchers led by infectious disease physician Meta Roestenberg, at Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands, will monitor them for 12 weeks.

It is hoped the study will help with the developments of a vaccine for the disease that can cause chronic pain and affect the liver, kidneys and bladder.

Researchers hope it will show it is possible to test vaccines with this method - a faster and more affordable than field research.

The 17 volunteers will have blood taken from them each week to see if the worms are still alive. If a molecule known as CAA is found in their blood, it means they have survived.

Health news in pictures Show all 40 1 /40 Health news in pictures Health news in pictures Coronavirus outbreak The coronavirus Covid-19 has hit the UK leading to the deaths of two people so far and prompting warnings from the Department of Health AFP via Getty Health news in pictures Thousands of emergency patients told to take taxi to hospital Thousands of 999 patients in England are being told to get a taxi to hospital, figures have showed. The number of patients outside London who were refused an ambulance rose by 83 per cent in the past year as demand for services grows Getty Health news in pictures Vape related deaths spike A vaping-related lung disease has claimed the lives of 11 people in the US in recent weeks. The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has more than 100 officials investigating the cause of the mystery illness, and has warned citizens against smoking e-cigarette products until more is known, particularly if modified or bought off the street Getty Health news in pictures Baldness cure looks to be a step closer Researchers in the US claim to have overcome one of the major hurdles to cultivating human follicles from stem cells. The new system allows cells to grow in a structured tuft and emerge from the skin Sanford Burnham Preybs Health news in pictures Two hours a week spent in nature can improve health A study in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that a dose of nature of just two hours a week is associated with better health and psychological wellbeing Shutterstock Health news in pictures Air pollution linked to fertility issues in women Exposure to air from traffic-clogged streets could leave women with fewer years to have children, a study has found. Italian researchers found women living in the most polluted areas were three times more likely to show signs they were running low on eggs than those who lived in cleaner surroundings, potentially triggering an earlier menopause Getty/iStock Health news in pictures Junk food ads could be banned before watershed Junk food adverts on TV and online could be banned before 9pm as part of Government plans to fight the "epidemic" of childhood obesity. Plans for the new watershed have been put out for public consultation in a bid to combat the growing crisis, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said PA Health news in pictures Breeding with neanderthals helped humans fight diseases On migrating from Africa around 70,000 years ago, humans bumped into the neanderthals of Eurasia. While humans were weak to the diseases of the new lands, breeding with the resident neanderthals made for a better equipped immune system PA Health news in pictures Cancer breath test to be trialled in Britain The breath biopsy device is designed to detect cancer hallmarks in molecules exhaled by patients Getty Health news in pictures Average 10 year old has consumed the recommended amount of sugar for an adult By their 10th birthdy, children have on average already eaten more sugar than the recommended amount for an 18 year old. The average 10 year old consumes the equivalent to 13 sugar cubes a day, 8 more than is recommended PA Health news in pictures Child health experts advise switching off screens an hour before bed While there is not enough evidence of harm to recommend UK-wide limits on screen use, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have advised that children should avoid screens for an hour before bed time to avoid disrupting their sleep Getty Health news in pictures Daily aspirin is unnecessary for older people in good health, study finds A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that many elderly people are taking daily aspirin to little or no avail Getty Health news in pictures Vaping could lead to cancer, US study finds A study by the University of Minnesota's Masonic Cancer Centre has found that the carcinogenic chemicals formaldehyde, acrolein, and methylglyoxal are present in the saliva of E-cigarette users Reuters Health news in pictures More children are obese and diabetic There has been a 41% increase in children with type 2 diabetes since 2014, the National Paediatric Diabetes Audit has found. Obesity is a leading cause Reuters Health news in pictures Most child antidepressants are ineffective and can lead to suicidal thoughts The majority of antidepressants are ineffective and may be unsafe, for children and teenager with major depression, experts have warned. In what is the most comprehensive comparison of 14 commonly prescribed antidepressant drugs to date, researchers found that only one brand was more effective at relieving symptoms of depression than a placebo. Another popular drug, venlafaxine, was shown increase the risk users engaging in suicidal thoughts and attempts at suicide Getty Health news in pictures Gay, lesbian and bisexual adults at higher risk of heart disease, study claims Researchers at the Baptist Health South Florida Clinic in Miami focused on seven areas of controllable heart health and found these minority groups were particularly likely to be smokers and to have poorly controlled blood sugar iStock Health news in pictures Breakfast cereals targeted at children contain 'steadily high' sugar levels since 1992 despite producer claims A major pressure group has issued a fresh warning about perilously high amounts of sugar in breakfast cereals, specifically those designed for children, and has said that levels have barely been cut at all in the last two and a half decades Getty Health news in pictures Potholes are making us fat, NHS watchdog warns New guidance by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the body which determines what treatment the NHS should fund, said lax road repairs and car-dominated streets were contributing to the obesity epidemic by preventing members of the public from keeping active PA Health news in pictures New menopause drugs offer women relief from 'debilitating' hot flushes A new class of treatments for women going through the menopause is able to reduce numbers of debilitating hot flushes by as much as three quarters in a matter of days, a trial has found. The drug used in the trial belongs to a group known as NKB antagonists (blockers), which were developed as a treatment for schizophrenia but have been sitting on a shelf unused, according to Professor Waljit Dhillo, a professor of endocrinology and metabolism REX Health news in pictures Doctors should prescribe more antidepressants for people with mental health problems, study finds Research from Oxford University found that more than one million extra people suffering from mental health problems would benefit from being prescribed drugs and criticised ideological reasons doctors use to avoid doing so. Getty Health news in pictures Student dies of flu after NHS advice to stay at home and avoid A&E The family of a teenager who died from flu has urged people not to delay going to A&E if they are worried about their symptoms. Melissa Whiteley, an 18-year-old engineering student from Hanford in Stoke-on-Trent, fell ill at Christmas and died in hospital a month later. Just Giving Health news in pictures Government to review thousands of harmful vaginal mesh implants The Government has pledged to review tens of thousands of cases where women have been given harmful vaginal mesh implants. Getty Health news in pictures Jeremy Hunt announces 'zero suicides ambition' for the NHS The NHS will be asked to go further to prevent the deaths of patients in its care as part of a zero suicide ambition being launched today Getty Health news in pictures Human trials start with cancer treatment that primes immune system to kill off tumours Human trials have begun with a new cancer therapy that can prime the immune system to eradicate tumours. The treatment, that works similarly to a vaccine, is a combination of two existing drugs, of which tiny amounts are injected into the solid bulk of a tumour. Nephron Health news in pictures Babies' health suffers from being born near fracking sites, finds major study Mothers living within a kilometre of a fracking site were 25 per cent more likely to have a child born at low birth weight, which increase their chances of asthma, ADHD and other issues Getty Health news in pictures NHS reviewing thousands of cervical cancer smear tests after women wrongly given all-clear Thousands of cervical cancer screening results are under review after failings at a laboratory meant some women were incorrectly given the all-clear. A number of women have already been told to contact their doctors following the identification of procedural issues in the service provided by Pathology First Laboratory. Rex Health news in pictures Potential key to halting breast cancer's spread discovered by scientists Most breast cancer patients do not die from their initial tumour, but from secondary malignant growths (metastases), where cancer cells are able to enter the blood and survive to invade new sites. Asparagine, a molecule named after asparagus where it was first identified in high quantities, has now been shown to be an essential ingredient for tumour cells to gain these migratory properties. Getty Health news in pictures NHS nursing vacancies at record high with more than 34,000 roles advertised A record number of nursing and midwifery positions are currently being advertised by the NHS, with more than 34,000 positions currently vacant, according to the latest data. Demand for nurses was 19 per cent higher between July and September 2017 than the same period two years ago. REX Health news in pictures Cannabis extract could provide new class of treatment for psychosis CBD has a broadly opposite effect to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main active component in cannabis and the substance that causes paranoia and anxiety. Getty Health news in pictures Over 75,000 sign petition calling for Richard Branson's Virgin Care to hand settlement money back to NHS Mr Bransons company sued the NHS last year after it lost out on an 82m contract to provide childrens health services across Surrey, citing concerns over serious flaws in the way the contract was awarded PA Health news in pictures More than 700 fewer nurses training in England in first year after NHS bursary scrapped The numbers of people accepted to study nursing in England fell 3 per cent in 2017, while the numbers accepted in Wales and Scotland, where the bursaries were kept, increased 8.4 per cent and 8 per cent respectively Getty Health news in pictures Landmark study links Tory austerity to 120,000 deaths The paper found that there were 45,000 more deaths in the first four years of Tory-led efficiencies than would have been expected if funding had stayed at pre-election levels. On this trajectory that could rise to nearly 200,000 excess deaths by the end of 2020, even with the extra funding that has been earmarked for public sector services this year. Reuters Health news in pictures Long commutes carry health risks Hours of commuting may be mind-numbingly dull, but new research shows that it might also be having an adverse effect on both your health and performance at work. Longer commutes also appear to have a significant impact on mental wellbeing, with those commuting longer 33 per cent more likely to suffer from depression Shutterstock Health news in pictures You cannot be fit and fat It is not possible to be overweight and healthy, a major new study has concluded. The study of 3.5 million Britons found that even metabolically healthy obese people are still at a higher risk of heart disease or a stroke than those with a normal weight range Getty Health news in pictures Sleep deprivation When you feel particularly exhausted, it can definitely feel like you are also lacking in brain capacity. Now, a new study has suggested this could be because chronic sleep deprivation can actually cause the brain to eat itself Shutterstock Health news in pictures Exercise classes offering 45 minute naps launch David Lloyd Gyms have launched a new health and fitness class which is essentially a bunch of people taking a nap for 45 minutes. The fitness group was spurred to launch the napercise class after research revealed 86 per cent of parents said they were fatigued. The class is therefore predominantly aimed at parents but you actually do not have to have children to take part Getty Health news in pictures 'Fundamental right to health' to be axed after Brexit, lawyers warn Tobacco and alcohol companies could win more easily in court cases such as the recent battle over plain cigarette packaging if the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is abandoned, a barrister and public health professor have said Getty Health news in pictures 'Thousands dying' due to fear over non-existent statin side-effects A major new study into the side effects of the cholesterol-lowering medicine suggests common symptoms such as muscle pain and weakness are not caused by the drugs themselves Getty Health news in pictures Babies born to fathers aged under 25 have higher risk of autism New research has found that babies born to fathers under the age of 25 or over 51 are at higher risk of developing autism and other social disorders. The study, conducted by the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Mount Sinai, found that these children are actually more advanced than their peers as infants, but then fall behind by the time they hit their teenage years Getty Health news in pictures Cycling to work could halve risk of cancer and heart disease Commuters who swap their car or bus pass for a bike could cut their risk of developing heart disease and cancer by almost half, new research suggests  but campaigners have warned there is still an urgent need to improve road conditions for cyclists. Cycling to work is linked to a lower risk of developing cancer by 45 per cent and cardiovascular disease by 46 per cent, according to a study of a quarter of a million people. Walking to work also brought health benefits, the University of Glasgow researchers found, but not to the same degree as cycling. Getty

Only male worms were used in the study as they will not not able to reproduce or lay eggs, which researchers say will mean there will be no symptoms.

After the 12 weeks are up, a drug called Praziquante will rid their body of the infection and kill any remaining worms.

Some critics have nonetheless questioned the level of risk involved and how effective the drug will be at flushing out all the worms in the end.

I would not volunteer for this study and if I had a son or daughter who wanted to volunteer, I would recommend against it, Daniel Colley a Schistosomiasis researcher at the University of Georgia, told Science magazine.

The experiment was nonetheless approved by a Dutch board of ethics and lead researcher Ms Roestenberg insists that the risk is extremely low .

Also known as bilharzia or snail fever, the condition is widespread in parts of Africa and South America and Asia and no vaccine currently exists.

The patristic flatworms live in fresh water, and can grow inside snail shells. They infect humans by getting inside through skin and move through the blood into organs including the liver and bowels.

They breed and lay eggs inside the body, can live inside a human for years.The Government failed to retrieve more than 360m from Carillion, ignoring advice from accountants.

Accounting firm EY provided proposals where the profitable parts of the company would be sold while the rest would be placed into liquidation.

Estimates from EY suggested this would generate 364m, the majority of which would have been injected into Carillions pension schemes.

The Cabinet Office, which is responsible for government contractors, apparently did not pressure Carillions directors to accept EYs proposals, multiple sources told The Guardian.

They apparently rejected the plans as they believed they could turn the company around.

Two potential scenarios were offered by EY, the break-up plan which would have raised 364m and an involuntary insolvency which would leave little money left over.

I think they [the Government] thought that if they could get to the end of January, they could find new finance and the company would survive, maybe in a different structure, an unnamed source told the Guardian.

I dont think they thought it would go bang.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA UK news in pictures 27 July 2021 A view of one of two areas now being used at a warehouse facility in Dover, Kent, for boats used by people thought to be migrants. PA

Carillion was one of the Government's most important contractors before it collapsed into administration.

Following several days of tense negotiations, the board of construction giant Carillion said that it had no choice but to take steps to enter into compulsory liquidation with immediate effect.

The collapse raised fears about the future of hundreds of major projects at an already challenging time for the British economy.Vulnerable children are being forced into homelessness because local authorities are routinely flouting child protection laws, lawyers and charities have warned.

Families with young children have been denied emergency accommodation by their local council and subsequently forced out onto the streets, spending nights in A&E waiting rooms, night buses and police stations.

Under the laws set out in the Childrens Act, local authorities are legally obliged to provide accommodation for minors, to prevent vulnerable children ending up on the streets.

But London charity Project 17, which works to end destitution among migrant children, said councils were effectively ignoring the law and often complying only after legal action was taken. It claimed that, of the scores of families it had supported that had initially been denied housing in the past year across the capital, around 90 per cent were eventually housed by the council after legal action was taken, citing the Childrens Act.

Lawyers said an increased number of families unable to access support from central government due to changes to immigration laws, coupled with increased financial strain on councils, had led to a growing problem of local authorities claiming children are not in need  despite their families being homeless.

One Jamaican woman and her children, aged 12 and nine and both born in the UK, had to spend nights in A&E waiting rooms and a McDonalds after they were evicted from their home. Lewisham found they were not in need, according to Project 17. A judge later found the decision was irrational.

In another case, a Nigerian family with two children age eight and 11 spent weeks without a home, sleeping on night buses, in hospitals and in bus stations, after Barking and Dagenham refused to grant the children support under Section 17. A judge later found the council had acted unlawfully and ordered that the decision be quashed.

Most families wrongly refused support under Section 17 have no recourse to public funds (NRPF), which can be granted if they are subject to immigration control, and means they have no access to government support such as welfare benefits and public housing.

If a person with NRPF becomes destitute, they can turn to their local authority for support, at which point the council must conduct an assessment of their needs. If it is determined they are eligible for support, such as housing and subsistence, the local authority is required to meet those needs.

One criteria of eligibility comes under Section 17 of the Childrens Act 1989, which states that if there is child in need due to inadequate accommodation or a lack of money for basic living needs, the council has a legal duty to provide assistance and promote the upbringing of such children by their families.

Recommended Homeless mother threatened with having children removed

But Project 17 told The Independent that 79 families they know of were refused this support last year, and that in about 90 per cent of these cases the council either reversed their decision when the case was taken to judicial review or were found to be acting unlawfully by the courts.

The charity referred a total of 180 families to local authorities for support under Section 17 across five different boroughs last year, the majority of whom had previously been refused. Of these, between 55 and 60 per cent were then immediately accommodated by the council, with the remaining referred onto solicitors.

Clare Jennings, a lawyer at Matthew Gold & Co Solicitors, told The Independent she had worked on dozens of cases in the past year in which local authorities initially assessed children not to be in need, despite the fact that they had nowhere to live.

She said in some cases the family have had to leave their home due to domestic abuse. In other cases families fall into rent arrears due to being unable to earn enough to meet accommodation costs and barred from accessing housing support or other benefits.

Its a growing issue. Changes to immigration rules mean more families are being granted leave to remain but with no recourse to public funds. So there are more families needing help from councils, she said.

Other changes  right to rent, government hostile environment  are contributing as well. Essentially, it stems from central government which has created pressures on local authorities, and cut to their budgets are not helping either.

But local authorities are the ones with the legal duty to help children in need. They are frequently not acting lawfully.

Theres a growing trend of local authorities finding child is not in need on basis that they dont believe the parents claim of homeless. Or sometimes its just bold asserted by the local authority that they believe there is support available to the claimant through friends or family.

The consequences of this are that families end up homeless  sometimes street homeless and in very vulnerable situations.

Abi Brunswick, director of Project 17, told The Independent: Over the past 18 months weve seen more and more families left street homeless by local authorities. Families may be forced to sleep in police stations or on night buses because councils are failing to safeguard children.

More migrant families are facing destitution because of the increasingly hostile political environment, and demand for support from social services is increasing.

We understand that local authorities are under huge financial pressure, but their statutory duty is to promote the welfare of children in need, and in our experience, many social services departments are systematically failing to fulfil these duties.

A Lewisham Council spokesperson said: When families approach us who have no recourse to public funds, we do everything we can to support them in line with child protection and immigration laws. We take this responsibility seriously and treat all applicants in a transparent, fair and humane way.

Since the start of our NRPF pilot in 2014 we have helped more than 330 families. Our assessment processes are rigorous and customer focused to ensure that increasingly scarce resources are used to protect children in need and directed at families who are most at risk.

UK news in pictures Show all 49 1 /49 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA

Barking and Dagenham Council had not responded to The Independents request for comment at the time of publication.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: The Children Act places a legal duty on local authorities to safeguard and promote the welfare of children within their area.

We have made 200 million available to councils to help look at new and better ways to deliver excellent social care and protect the most vulnerable. It is for the local authority to determine the level of need faced by children and it is for the courts to determine whether local authorities have met their statutory duties.Hundreds of foreign nationals have disappeared after being released from prison for offences including rape, violence and weapons possession, it has emerged.

Figures show that almost 500 convicts absconded while facing deportation from the UK in little over two years, with more than 200 remaining at large after others were tracked down.

If there is no immediate prospect of removal, foreign nationals who have served jail sentences can be released on probation on the condition that they report to the Home Office at set intervals and agree to any bail conditions and monitoring.

If they fail to attend an appointment and cannot be contacted, they are recorded as absconders and may be searched for by the police.

Tim Loughton, a Conservative member of the Home Affairs Committee, said: It is extraordinary that the Home Office has allowed so many convicted foreign offenders who clearly have no place to remain in the UK to roam free to do as they wish whilst paperwork for their deportation is being sorted.

There should be a fast track deportation system from the prison to the plane with clear information sharing to make sure they do not gain entry again.

Home Office data released through a Freedom of Information request by the Press Association shows that 494 foreign national offenders disappeared while they were subject to deportation action between 2014 and the end of March 2016.

A total of 169 absconded in 2014, followed by 250 in 2015 and 75 in the first three months of 2016.

The statistics show 196 male absconders remained at large as of 9 February, along with around 20 women.

They included people with convictions for rape, sexual offences, violence, robbery, drug-related crime, fraud, money laundering, possession of weapons, burglary, forgery, motoring offences and handling stolen goods.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA

Exact figures were not disclosed for most categories, including rape, as they were not specified when the number was five or lower.

The Home Office said it could not provide data on offenders nationalities because disclosure could undermine agreements with other countries and prejudice the operation of immigration controls.

The figures were revealed months after the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration found that the system for handling foreign offenders was under strain.

David Bolt found that deportation attempts were regularly frustrated by last-minute legal challenges and warned of public protection concerns over monitoring those at large.

Recommended Number of EU nationals being detained increases fivefold

The system is hampered by poor communication and coordination within the Home Office, he said in November.

The inspection found that recording and treatment of non-compliance with reporting restrictions was inconsistent, and there was little evidence of effective action to locate absconders.

Around 80,000 people were being monitored at the time of the inspection, with the caseload at some London reporting centres meaning officers could only speak to each person for two minutes each.

Inspectors found that the way absconders are reported was inconsistent around the country, with some centres waiting several weeks to raise the alarm.

A new prioritisation process for higher-risk cases was introduced in July and a separate review on how the Home Office treats foreign nationals who do not comply with restrictions is under way.

A spokesperson for the Home Office said: We have removed more than 41,000 foreign offenders since 2010. In 2016-17 we removed 6,346 foreign offenders, the highest number of removals ever and this week, like every week, more than 100 foreign criminals will be removed from the UK.

We never give up trying to locate absconders and are overhauling the reporting system. Weve introduced measures in the Immigration Act 2016, which will mean that in the future all non-detained foreign nationals subject to deportation proceedings or a deportation order will be electronically monitored.

Additional reporting by PAFrances McDormand, who won Best Actress for her role in Three Billboards at last night's Oscars ceremony, paid tribute during her acceptance speech to the efforts of Grenfell Tower fire activists for raising awareness of the tragedy.

Campaigners from Justice4Grenfell recreated a scene from the award-winning film last month to expose the "lack of progress" made since the fire.

The series of images were paraded through central London, saying "71 dead", "And still no arrests?", "How Come?".

McDormand paid tribute to the power of the campaign, saying "billboards still work".

"I think the idea that activists are taking that kind of statement and putting it out there. Billboards still work, so I think that it's really exciting," she said.

"It started actually with the Grenfell Tower fire investigation then it leap-frogged to (the) Miami gun control situation, it was outside the UN... that's the kind of power that an image can have and that's what we're making, we're making powerful images."

 Three billboards drive around London with asking 'Why no arrests?' for Grenfell

In Three Billboards, McDormand plays a mother who challenges authorities over finding the culprit for the rape and murder of her daughter.

Additional reporting by PABritish charities are to set out action to prevent the sexual exploitation exposed at Oxfam and other NGOs, in a bid to restore public trust.

Representatives will be attending a summit held by the Department for International Development (Dfid) and the Charity Commission today, alongside regulators and experts.

Penny Mordaunt, the International Development Secretary, said it was a crucial moment to drive up standards across the aid sector.

Now is the time for action, she added. The aid sector needs to ensure it is meeting its duty of care to the worlds most vulnerable people.

It needs to be honest about past mistakes. It must do all it can to win back the trust of the British public.

Today, we begin taking the practical steps to ensure the safety of the people we help is always our first priority and that the British aid sector sets the standard for the rest of the world to follow.

 Oxfam CEO Mark Goldring apologises for comments on murdering babies

Charities will discuss new standards for vetting staff and awarding them references, after it emerged that Oxfams disgraced former country director for Haiti was able to move to Action Against Hunger with glowing recommendations from former colleagues.

Measures are being drawn up that aim to ensure survivors of exploitation and abuse, and whistle-blowers, are given support and counselling.

Recommended Oxfam told of aid workers raping children in Haiti a decade ago

Delegates will also look at changing organisational culture to tackle power imbalances, take allegations seriously and hold people to account.

The end of the summit will see them sign a joint statement setting out key principles and action to be taken, with points to be taken to a global safeguarding conference later this year.

An independent watchdog to promote external scrutiny and enforce new standards across the aid sector is also being formed.

Both Dfid and the Charity Commission were heavily criticised after it emerged Oxfam had informed them of its 2011 investigation, although officials said the full facts regarding the use of prostitutes by staff had not been made known.

UK news in pictures Show all 49 1 /49 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA

Aid workers have told The Independent sexual misconduct is common knowledge within the industry, and affects female staff as well as the vulnerable women and children agencies are supposed to help.

Baroness Stowell, chair of the Charity Commission, said the accounts of sexual exploitation and abuse were deeply distressing.

Not only have some aid workers abused the people they were sent to support, but by not exposing and responding to these serious failings properly at the time, charities have betrayed the publics trust in what the word charity actually means, she added.

However noble the cause, it will never justify means which fall below basic standards of conduct expected of any organisation. And if we are to restore public trust and the nations pride in what charities achieve, we have to show thats what we understand.

Some critics have called for UK aid spending to be reduced, while others have suggested new structures to bypass the centralised bureaucracy of Western NGOs.

The Green Party argued that government should give aid directly to women in developing countries, putting money in the hands of those best equipped to use it.

A woman walks past an Oxfam sign in Corail, a camp for people displaced in the 2010 earthquake, on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, Haiti (Reuters)

Thousands of donors have cancelled direct debits to Oxfam since the scandal emerged last month, sending ripples through the UN, and other charities.

Further revelations led to the resignation of Save the Childrens former chief executive, Justin Forsyth, from his role at Unicef and Brendan Coxs departure from charities set up in his murdered wifes name.

Dfid has established a new safeguarding unit to review practices and written to all charities receiving public funding demanding confirmation that any concerns have been referred to the relevant authorities.

Oxfam has been told not to bid for any further Government money until it can meet the high standards expected, and work is ongoing with the UN on funding agreement clauses to prevent abuse.

Dfid is currently reviewing any allegations of sexual misconduct involving its own staff but has not announced the result of the probe.A major incident has been declared by Wiltshire Police after two people were thought to have been exposed to an unknown substance in Salisbury.

Police received a call around 4.15pm yesterday after a man and woman became unwell at The Maltings shopping area in Salisbury.

They were taken to Salisbury District Hospital, where they were treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance. They are currently in a critical condition.

Wiltshire Police said in a statement: At this stage it is not yet clear if a crime has been committed and a multi-agency response has been co-ordinated.

Police are carrying out a full investigation and working with partner agencies, to clarify the exact circumstances.

Salisbury District Hospital is advising people to still attend routine appointments unless they are contacted.

A number of areas in Salisbury have been cordoned off while police investigate.

UK news in pictures Show all 49 1 /49 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA

A Public Health England (PHE) spokesman said: Based on the limited information available there doesnt appear to be any further immediate risk to public health.

PHE understands that those exposed to the substances have been decontaminated, as is standard practice in situations like this.

Scientists from PHEs Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, will continue to assist the response and review information as it becomes available.What is clear is that the US seeks a long-term stay in Afghanistan. Washington agrees with negotiations that do not make concessions to the Taliban as a rebel group, rather it wants Taliban bow to their demands. The administration of President Donald Trump believes in pressuring the group as a viable path to get it in the peace process and ready to say yes to the US demands.

(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Peace with Taliban has been a perused policy of Afghan government in the past few years. The government of President Ashraf Ghani looks poised to incorporate Taliban in the nations power structure as he had made it clear in various summits. Tripartite meetings first held in Kabul and then in Islamabad all debated this idea, though they were left unconcluded after the death of the insurgent groups leader Mullah Omar.



After some time, the government held talks with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the head of Hizb-e-Islami party. The talks concluded in a peace deal in May last year, allowing the former warlord to return to the capital. The agreement was praised as an achievement by the government and its US backers. They hoped that in next stages they will bring Taliban on the negotiating table. But Taliban attacked Kunduz and captured some districts of the city, telling Americans and Kabul that the faction they struck a deal with was weak to an extent that it could not even save its traditional bastion Kunduz. The capture bore the idea that the accord with Hekmatyar, whose power is hit by disputes inside his party, was not triumphant.



What is clear is that the US seeks a long-term stay in Afghanistan. Washington agrees with negotiations that do not make concessions to the Taliban as a rebel group, rather it wants Taliban bow to their demands. The administration of President Donald Trump believes in pressuring the group as a viable path to get it in the peace process and ready to say yes to the US demands.



However, so far Taliban has declined to recognize the Kabul government, and often accuses it of being a the US pawn with no personal power and will. Taliban insist that they only negotiate with the US because they are the key party that are holding the countrys ground and air. There is a consensus among various Taliban splits on this view, though every now and then some fake statements appear to carry evidence of Taliban factions difference on this stance.



For years, the group clung to the precondition of foreign forces withdrawal from the country before any negotiations for a settlement. However, some relatively dramatic change has happened to that stiff stance. Now they suggest that they are ready to debate peace, but a timetable for the pullout of foreign troops from Afghanistan should also be on the agenda. The new suggestion comes after the militant group in the past two years stressed on the departure of the US and NATO forces, but finally concluded that instant withdrawal is unlikely.



Kabul meeting



In late August last year, the US unveiled its new Afghanistan war strategy, in which it attacked Pakistan as an untrustworthy ally. The US immediately put strains on Islamabad, saying that it will suspend aids to Pakistan until it changes behavior in Afghanistan and halt supporting terrorism in the war-hit nation. After the US pressures mounted on Islamabad, Afghan and Pakistani representatives resumed bilateral talks. Pakistan hosted the first meeting, and the second one was held in Kabul on Wednesday. The Americans did not officially attend the meetings but apparently had a manipulative role in them.



In the recent Kabul meeting, Afghanistans Ghani declared his administrations readiness to engage in negotiations with Taliban. He offered some privileges to the groups as a good faith move: Recognizing Taliban as a political party, allowing the group to take some government posts, bilaterally holding the fire and releasing Talibans prisoners, holding elections, and amending the nations constitution in association with the group. The Afghan leader, however, asserted that the concessions are tied to a reciprocal Taliban decision to recognize the government and the constitution.



But Taliban immediately in a statement dismissed the meeting as a plot and said it will not recognize its outcomes. It stated that with the Americans dominance of the country, massacring the people, and also their backing for terrorism including ISIS terrorist group underway, talk of peace makes no sense.



Americans still hold the idea that Taliban has no other way than acceding to the US conditions. Barnet Rubin, an American expert of Afghanistan affairs, has recently in an open letter called on the militant group to show commitment to peace talks with the government and the independence of the country. He argued that Taliban claim to be holding a rightful cause but simultaneously they are the key factor of insecurity in the country. He insisted that genuine adherence to the peace was needed to be displayed by the insurgents. He also suggested that the US should directly involve in dialogue with Taliban, the only party, according to Rubin, who could put an end to the long-standing war.



Our country has been occupied, which has led to an American-style supposed Afghan government being imposed upon us, the Taliban response said. And your view that we talk to them and accept their legitimacy is the same formula adopted by America to win the war, it said, adding that the Kabul Process was simply aimed at seeking the "surrender of Taliban.



Besides Rubin, the United Nations also welcomed Ghanis initiative, praising it as the best possible way toward peace, urging Taliban to seize the opportunity. The European Union also supported President Ghanis offer. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) also showed support, saying that peace in Afghanistan was feasible only through laying down arms. In addition, Amrullah Saleh, the former head of National Directorate of Security, suggested that the path to peace runs through Kabul and the Cabinet.



Peace hurdles



But Taliban is aware of the split and inconsistency inside the national government. If the administration seeks to press Taliban towards dialogue, it first needs to put aside internal rifts which are causing series divisions. While some parties find Taliban a terrorist group unworthy of trust some others of ethnical commonalities with the militant group, such as the Pashtuns, argue that talks are unavoidable.



Analysts agree that differences inside the Afghan cabinet are the main obstacles ahead of the dialogue and peace. They suggest that under the shadow of lack of balance and national trust, the Kabul peace process can hardly succeed. The negotiations with Taliban have been perused since nearly a decade ago, with many conferences hosted by various countries, only to turn out to be unusual.



Ahmad Wali Masoud, Afghanistans home affairs expert and a former ambassador to Britain, insists that peace in Afghanistan is attainable only if government adopts a single agreed-upon approach towards Taliban and talks.



While some have a tendency to Taliban and even support it, others are opposed to the group because they believe that it is a terrorist organization. Even President Ashraf Ghani supports Taliban and holds secret meetings with them. He is a Pashtun and is interested to get them into the power structure in a bid to jointly marginalize the Tajiks and the Shiites. But the Jamiat-e Islami party, which consists of the Tajiks of the north, will never bow to the idea that Taliban which always conducted terrorist attacks be allowed into the power body. They know that in case of Taliban entry, they will be pushed to the sidelines. A large part of the row between Ghani and Atta Muhammad Nur, the director-general of Jamiat-e Islami, stems from this reality, Mr Masoud said.



In addition to the trouble-making home rows, another problem is Pakistan. As long as Islamabad backs Taliban and its radical splits, the dialogue will go nowhere. The border difference with Afghanistan is one of the drives behind the pro-Taliban supports. None of the Afghan governments so far have recognized the Durand demarcation line on the border with Pakistan. Islamabad leaders have constantly lived with the fear of an anti-Pakistan rise of the Pashtuns on the case. Therefore, Islamabad unwaveringly has the back of Taliban to perpetuate the crisis which can keep the Afghans weak and thus unable to peruse their border demands.



Another problematic issue on the way of peace is the US that wants to establish a long-term presence in resource-rich Afghanistan, something Taliban strongly opposes. Americans have only paid lip service to the pro-peace negotiations, causing experts believe that either Washington is uninterested in talks or only is agree with dialogue under which Taliban submit to the US demands including laying down the guns and quitting demands of foreign forces withdrawal. Taliban reject these conditions naturally, making the nation far away from peace.



The country is set to hold parliamentary elections on July 7. If the process is not hit by fraud, the political parties recognize each others rights, and political excess is avoided, the government could be expected to unify in addressing Taliban case.









/129Households across London and southeast England have been told to ration water after freezing weather caused pipes across the region to burst.

Thames Water said around 12,000 homes were left with no running water as it rushed to deliver emergency water bottles to affected households over the weekend.

Other suppliers also said they were struggling with burst pipes.

Four companies  Thames Water, South East Water, Southern Water and Affinity Water  issued a joint statement urging customers to use running water only where essential.

Where possible, take short showers rather than baths, do not leave taps running unnecessarily and only run washing machines and dishwashers when you have a full load, they said.

This will make a real difference.

A number of schools in London, Oxford and Exeter also said they would close on Monday due to a lack of water.

Dunraven School in Streatham, south London, said in a Twitter post: Wed hoped things would have been resolved by now. No water on either site means we cant open the school. We will update families when we can.

Temperatures rose above freezing over the weekend, giving respite from the widespread disruption inflicted by the so-called "Beast from the East" weather system and Storm Emma over the previous few days.

However, repercussions from the prolonged period of sub-zero temperatures, snow, ice, gales and freezing rain are still being felt across large swathes of the country.

A flood warning was put in place by for parts of Halesworth in Suffolk, with rainfall and melting snow causing danger.

Dozens of alerts telling people to be prepared for the possibility of flooding were also issued, largely concentrated in the west of England and Wales.

On the rail network, there were warnings of disruption to Arriva Trains Wales, as well as cancellations on some Great Yarmouth to Norwich services run by Greater Anglia and early morning Glasgow Central to London Euston services on Virgin Trains.

Weather warnings for snow and ice were still in place for parts of north England, Northern Ireland and Scotland on Monday morning.

Ireland's meteorological agency has yellow and orange alerts in place for snow and ice which last until midday.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA

However it looks as though the worst of the winter weather has now receded for most of the UK, meteorologists say.

Forecaster Mark Wilson said: There will be a noticeable change in the weather, it will be less cold and there will be less snow and ice.

We are now going to see slightly less cold and milder weather, by Monday afternoon the temperature could be in double figures.

There is a snow and ice warning for most of Scotland, through the day the snow will be restricted to the higher ground.

He added: We can get these quite abrupt change in temperatures because of a change in wind direction.

From Monday there will be a more southerly flow with milder conditions.

Press Association contributed to this reportA former Russian colonel who spied for the UK is in a critical condition in hospital after being exposed to an unknown substance in Salisbury.

Sergei Skripal, who was given refuge in the UK after being jailed in his home country for treason, was found unconscious on a bench alongside a woman in a local shopping centre.

The cause of their illness has not yet been confirmed but the case drew immediate comparison to the murder of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko using radioactive polonium-210 believed to have been administered in a cup of tea.

Investigators are understood to be reviewing the death of Litvinenkno to see if there are any similarities between the modus operandi of that case and this incident.

MI6s investigation into his death was led by Christopher Steele, the ex-spy behind a dossier of compromising allegations on Donald Trump. The Independent understands investigators may consult Mr Steele in connection with the current investigation.

Police confirmed that a man in his 60s and a woman in her 30s, who are known to each other, did not have any visible injuries when they were taken to hospital on Sunday afternoon.

They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance, said temporary Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden. Both are currently in a critical condition in intensive care.

Incident Response crew at the scene where Sergei Skripal was found unconscious alongside a woman. (Salisbury Journal/Solent News)

Because we are still at the very early stages of the investigation, we are unable to ascertain whether or not a crime has taken place. A major incident has been declared today and a multi-agency response has been coordinated.

The female casualty has not yet been identified.

 Ambulances attend to two individuals poisoned by opioid substance

Witness Freya Church said: On the bench there was a couple, an older guy and a younger girl. She was sort of leant in on him, it looked like she had passed out maybe. He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky.

Specialists are working to establish what caused the pair to fall unconscious and areas of The Maltings shopping centre and hospital have been closed for decontamination. Police said there was no risk to the wider public and confirmed the incident was not terror-related.

A major incident was declared at Salisbury District Hospital after the patients arrived, with people told not to attend A&E unless it is extremely urgent.

Mr Skripal was first identified as one of the casualties by the BBC, which reported that the former spy had lived in Salisbury with his wife before she passed away.

A colonel in Russian military intelligence until at least 1999, Mr Skripal was arrested in 2004 on suspicion of spying for the British.

Eventually, he admitted to high treason for working for MI6 and providing the identities of active agents in Europe in exchange for payments totalling more than $100,000.

His conviction was considered a major coup for the countrys security services, who likened him to a super spy.

Sergei Skripal was jailed for treason in Russia before being swapped with the UK (AP)

In 2006, Mr Skripal was convicted in a military court, and sentenced to 13 years. He was released early, in 2010, following a high-profile spy swap, with Russian sleeper agents uncovered in the United States.

The former intelligence officer was flown to the UK, alongside Igor Sutyagin, another Russian national convicted of spying. Mr Sutyagin maintained his innocence.

Mr Sutyagin last night told The Independent he only knew Mr Skripal for a few hours during the transfer but he described the former military officer as being relieved to get out of Russia and reunited with his family  not happy, glad.

Mr Sutyagin said it was too early to speculate about the causes of Mr Skripals illness. However, he said it would be a strange time for the Kremlin to conduct such a risky operation on British soil, given the constant stream of bad news stories about Russia in the West. They are mad, but not entirely stupid, he added.

The immediate suspicions of poisoning did speak a bigger truth, he said: There is no smoke without fire, and the Kremlin has a terrible reputation. If not this, we know they have done other terrible things.

Mr Sutyagin said that the Russian leadership had a history of being unstable and out of control under stress. But it is a mistake to assume that they are always in control, he said. Mr Skripals collaboration with British security services will have caused problems all down the hierarchy.

If indeed this is a poisoning, we cannot rule out that this was a local endeavour, not sanctioned by the top, said Mr Sutyagin.

The Kremlin has been implicated in several murders carried out on British soil, with Bulgarian writer Georgi Markov infamously murdered using a poisoned pellet fired from an umbrella on Waterloo Bridge in 1978.

A public inquiry named Russians Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun as the prime suspects for poisoning Mr Litvinenko at a Mayfair hotel in 2006 but attempts to extradite them from Russia failed.

Alexander Litvinenko at the Intensive Care Unit of University College Hospital (Getty)

In a statement dictated from his deathbed, Mr Litvinenko accused Vladimir Putin of ordering his death and a UK inquiry concluded that the Russian president had most likely approved the murder after years of antagonism.

Taking full account of all the evidence and analysis available to me I find that the FSB operation to kill Litvinenko was probably approved by Mr Patrushev and also by President Putin, Sir Robert Owen wrote in 2016.

In the years prior to Litvinenkos death the Russian state may have been involved in the assassination of Mr Putins critics.

Officials in Moscow have always denied involvement in Mr Litvinenkos death, with officials previously claiming he was involved in an illicit trade in polonium and poisoned himself, and there was no immediate comment on the apparent attack on Mr Skripal and his companion.

There are believed to be concerns in the Kremlin that Russian dissidents living abroad could help Western security services probing its alleged interference in foreign elections.

A spokesperson at the Russian Embassy in London told The Independent that neither Mr Skirpals representatives nor British authorities had contacted diplomats over his illness.

Public Health England (PHE) said anyone exposed to the unknown substance had been decontaminated as is standard practice in situations like this.

Scientists from PHEs Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards, will continue to assist the response and review information as it becomes available, a spokesperson added.

Cara Charles-Barks, chief executive of Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust, said patients should attend appointments and routine operations until told otherwise.The European Parliaments Brexit chief will come to London on Monday to warn Theresa May she must move beyond vague aspirations and outline credible proposals for Brexit that solve the Irish border and citizens rights issues.

Guy Verhofstadt will meet with the Prime Minister at Downing Street, where he will also hold talks with Brexit Secretary David Davis, the Home Secretary Amber Rudd, and Cabinet Office minister David Lidingdon.

Mr Verhofstadt, whose visit follows one by Michel Barnier last month, will also be briefed in-depth by UK officials about plans for citizens rights and the Northern Ireland border.

In a meeting with the Home Secretary he is also expected to raise the issue of Home Office failures and errors which have plagued EU nationals worried about their future in the UK.

Speaking ahead of the visit the liberal politician said that the PMs re-confirmation of our December agreement on the Irish border is reassuring and that we need now credible proposals detailing how the UK seeks to achieve this in practice.

He added that the meeting would be a good opportunity to discuss this further with the Prime Minister.

Though the European Parliament is not usually directly involved with negotiations with the UK, the body has a final veto on any deal and the Commission liaises closes with MEPs to make sure any deal they strike would get through.

Talks resumed this week after the Prime Ministers Mansion House speech in London in which she issued a warning to the EU that refusing to include financial services in a trade deal after Brexit would hurt its own economies, but admitted for the first time that the UK would lose some trade access to its biggest market.

The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Show all 8 1 /8 The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Post-Brexit immigration workers sorting radishes on a production line at a farm in Norfolk. One possible post-Brexit immigration scheme could struggle to channel workers towards less attractive roles - while another may heighten the risk of labour exploitation, a new report warns. PA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Customs union A key point in the negotiations remains Britain's access to, or withdrawal from, the EU customs union. Since the referendum there has been hot debate over the meaning of Brexit: would it entail a full withdrawal from the existing agreement, known as hard Brexit, or the soft version in which we would remain part of a common customs area for most goods, as Turkey does? No 10 has so far insisted that Brexit means Brexit and that Britain will be leaving the customs union, but may be inclined to change its position once the potential risks to the UKs economic outlook become clearer. Alamy The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Northern Ireland-Irish border Though progress was made last year, there has still been no solid agreement on whether there should be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. To ensure borderless travel on the island, the countries must be in regulatory alignment and therefore adhere to the same rules as the customs union. In December, the Conservative Partys coalition partners, the DUP, refused a draft agreement that would place the UK/EU border in the Irish Sea due to its potential to undermine the union. May has promised that would not be the case and has suggested that a specific solution would need to be found. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Transition period Despite protests from a small number of Conservative MPs, the Government and the EU are largely in agreement that a transitional period is needed after Brexit. The talks, however, have reached an impasse. Though May has agreed that the UK will continue to contribute to the EU budget until 2021, the PM wants to be able to select which laws made during this time the UK will have to adhere to. Chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said the UK must adopt all of the laws passed during the transition, without any input from British ministers or MEPs. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Rights of EU citizens living the UK The Prime Minister has promised EU citizens already living in the UK the right to live and work here after Brexit, but the rights of those who arrive after Brexit day remains unclear. May insists that those who arrive during the transition period should not be allowed to stay, whereas the EU believe the cut-off point should be later. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreement (with the EU) Despite this being a key issue in negotiations, the Government has yet to lay out exactly what it wants from a trade deal with the EU. Infighting within the Cabinet has prevented a solid position from being reached, with some MPs content that "no deal is better than a bad deal" while others rally behind single market access. The EU has already confirmed that access to the single market would be impossible without the UK remaining in the customs union. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreements (internationally) The Government has already begun trying to woo foreign leaders into prospective trade agreements, with various high profile state visits to China, India and Canada for May, and the now infamous invitation to US President Donald Trump to visit London. However the UK cannot make trade agreements with another country while it is still a member of the EU, and the potential loss of trade with the world's major powers is a source of anxiety for the PM. The EU has said the UK cannot secure trade deals during the transition period. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Financial services Banks in the UK will be hit hard regardless of the Brexit outcome. The EU has refused to give British banks passporting rights to trade within the EU, dashing hopes of a special City deal. However according to new reports Germany has suggested allowing trade on the condition that the UK continues paying into the EU budget even after the transition period. Getty

But on key issues the Prime Minister appeared to dig in her heels, reiterating her suggestion of a technological solution to the Irish border issue and defending cherry picking parts of the single market for the UK to remain in.

The European Commission, which is in charge of day-to-day negotiations with Britain, offered little comment on the speech but said its content would inform the European Council guidelines on the trade negotiations  which are due this weekSinn Fein has called on Theresa May to come up with her own solution to the Irish border issue after its leader met with the EUs chief Brexit negotiator Brussels on Monday.

Mary Lou McDonald and a delegation of Irish republicans travelled to Brussels on Monday to meet with Michel Barnier for what she described as a frank, productive and positive meeting.

The ball is now in Mrs May's court, the ball is now in the court of the British, who say they don't like what they have seen, they don't like the solution advanced by Europe, if they don't like that we would like to know what is their solution, Ms McDonald said.

Giving an account of her meeting with Mr Barnier, she said: I am happy to say we have a shared understanding that there cannot be a withdrawal agreement, much less an agreement on any future relationship between Britain and the European Union, in the absence of an answer to the Irish question.

The meeting comes on the same day as Irish prime minister Leo Varkadar ruled out the possibility of three-way talks with Ireland, the EU and the UK  as Ms May hinted she would like last week.

The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Show all 8 1 /8 The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Post-Brexit immigration workers sorting radishes on a production line at a farm in Norfolk. One possible post-Brexit immigration scheme could struggle to channel workers towards less attractive roles - while another may heighten the risk of labour exploitation, a new report warns. PA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Customs union A key point in the negotiations remains Britain's access to, or withdrawal from, the EU customs union. Since the referendum there has been hot debate over the meaning of Brexit: would it entail a full withdrawal from the existing agreement, known as hard Brexit, or the soft version in which we would remain part of a common customs area for most goods, as Turkey does? No 10 has so far insisted that Brexit means Brexit and that Britain will be leaving the customs union, but may be inclined to change its position once the potential risks to the UKs economic outlook become clearer. Alamy The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Northern Ireland-Irish border Though progress was made last year, there has still been no solid agreement on whether there should be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. To ensure borderless travel on the island, the countries must be in regulatory alignment and therefore adhere to the same rules as the customs union. In December, the Conservative Partys coalition partners, the DUP, refused a draft agreement that would place the UK/EU border in the Irish Sea due to its potential to undermine the union. May has promised that would not be the case and has suggested that a specific solution would need to be found. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Transition period Despite protests from a small number of Conservative MPs, the Government and the EU are largely in agreement that a transitional period is needed after Brexit. The talks, however, have reached an impasse. Though May has agreed that the UK will continue to contribute to the EU budget until 2021, the PM wants to be able to select which laws made during this time the UK will have to adhere to. Chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said the UK must adopt all of the laws passed during the transition, without any input from British ministers or MEPs. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Rights of EU citizens living the UK The Prime Minister has promised EU citizens already living in the UK the right to live and work here after Brexit, but the rights of those who arrive after Brexit day remains unclear. May insists that those who arrive during the transition period should not be allowed to stay, whereas the EU believe the cut-off point should be later. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreement (with the EU) Despite this being a key issue in negotiations, the Government has yet to lay out exactly what it wants from a trade deal with the EU. Infighting within the Cabinet has prevented a solid position from being reached, with some MPs content that "no deal is better than a bad deal" while others rally behind single market access. The EU has already confirmed that access to the single market would be impossible without the UK remaining in the customs union. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreements (internationally) The Government has already begun trying to woo foreign leaders into prospective trade agreements, with various high profile state visits to China, India and Canada for May, and the now infamous invitation to US President Donald Trump to visit London. However the UK cannot make trade agreements with another country while it is still a member of the EU, and the potential loss of trade with the world's major powers is a source of anxiety for the PM. The EU has said the UK cannot secure trade deals during the transition period. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Financial services Banks in the UK will be hit hard regardless of the Brexit outcome. The EU has refused to give British banks passporting rights to trade within the EU, dashing hopes of a special City deal. However according to new reports Germany has suggested allowing trade on the condition that the UK continues paying into the EU budget even after the transition period. Getty

Michel Barnier said he had had a good meeting with Ms McDonald and that it was essential to listen to all voices in Northern Ireland. Sources close to the Commission said the discussion mainly focused on the draft protocol, released last week, which specified keeping Northern Ireland in a common regulatory area with the Republic.

DUP leader Arlene Foster will meet with Mr Barnier tomorrow for a similar discussion.

Arlene Foster of the DUP will meet with Mr Barnier on Tuesday (Getty)

The DUP is understood to have previously blocked a deal on the Irish border that would have effectively kept the province in the EUs single market and customs union. Theresa May has relied on the DUPs votes for a majority in the House of Commons since she blew her overall control of parliament with a snap election last year.

 DUP wont accept Theresa May's Irish border deal if it separates Northern Ireland from rest of UK

Mr Barnier insisted that this proposal respected the constitutional integrity of the UK but Theresa May warned that no UK prime minister could ever agree to such plans, with some Brexiteers characterising the proposal as the EU annexing Northern Ireland.

The EU however insisted that the legal text merely formalised what was agreed by the UK in December.

 Theresa May says 'no Prime Minister would ever agree' to EUs proposal for Northern Ireland to remain aligned with the Republic after Brexit

Speaking on Monday Mr Varadkar said: "There won't be tripartite or three-way talks.

"What will happen is that there will be talks between the EU 27 and the UK, and Ireland is part of the EU 27 and we're much stronger by the way as one of 27."Climate change poses a major risk to peoples pensions, MPs have warned.

The Government has admitted that a lack of attention and outright misunderstanding remain widespread among fund trustees of their duty to take environmental risks into account.

Climate risks posed to investments include increasing numbers of claims made to insurance firms related to extreme weather, fossil fuel companies losing value and energy businesses being left behind by the shift to a low carbon world.

The UKs biggest pension funds are now being asked how they are protecting peoples savings from the risks of climate change.

The chairwoman of the parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), Mary Creagh, has written to the top 25 pension funds in the UK to ask how they manage the risks that global warming poses to pension savings.

The climate change risks of tomorrow should be considered by pension funds today. A young person auto-enrolled on a pension today may be 45 years away from retirement, Ms Creagh said.

Over that timescale these climate change risks will inevitably grow.

We are examining whether pension funds are starting to take these risks into account in their financial decision making, she added.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP UK news in pictures 10 September 2021 People paddle board during a misty morning in Ullswater, the second largest lake in the Lake District, Cumbria PA UK news in pictures 9 September 2021 Troops from Wiltshire based 4 Armoured Close Support Battalion Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers during final inspection at Wellington Barracks in London, ahead of providing troops for the Queens Guard PA UK news in pictures 8 September 2021 Workers cross London Bridge during the morning rush hour in London Reuters UK news in pictures Mixing it up: Painting it up press view in London A gallery employee poses for photographers next to a painting entitled Prairie by British artist, Louise Giovanelli during the exhibition 'Mixing it up: Painting it up' at the Hayward Gallery in London EPA UK news in pictures 6 September 2021 Traders in the Ring at the London Metal Exchange, in the City of London, after open-outcry trading returned for the first time since March 2020, when the Ring was temporarily closed due to the pandemic PA UK news in pictures 5 September 2021 People enjoy the warm weather on Sandbanks beach, Poole PA UK news in pictures 4 September 2021 Demonstrators from Animal Rebellion and Nature Rebellion protest in Trafalgar Square in London. PA UK news in pictures 3 September 2021 South Africa's Ntando Mahlangu (centre) wins the Men's 200 metres T61 Final ahead of second placed Great Britain's Richard Whitehead at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games PA UK news in pictures 2 September 2021 A young common seal on the beach at Horsey Gap in Norfolk, as hundreds of pregnant grey seals come ashore ready for the start of the pupping season. PA UK news in pictures 1 September 2021 Goldfinches fighting over food in a garden in Strensham, Worcestershire PA UK news in pictures 31 August 2021 Gold Medallist Sarah Storey of Britain celebrates on the podium Reuters UK news in pictures 30 August 2021 Extinction Rebellion protesters hold a a tea party on Tower Bridge in London EPA UK news in pictures 29 August 2021 A police office tussles with a demonstrator on Cromwell Road outside the Natural History Museum during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion in London PA UK news in pictures 28 August 2021 Members of the British armed forces 16 Air Assault Brigade walk to the air terminal after disembarking a Royal Airforce Voyager aircraft at Brize Norton, Oxfordshire POOL/AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 27 August 2021 Fabio Quartararo crashes during a MotoGP practice session at the British Grand Prix, Silverstone Circuit Action Images via Reuters UK news in pictures 26 August 2021 An Extinction Rebellion activist holds a placard in a fountain surrounded by police officers, during a protest next to Buckingham Palace in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 August 2021 Gold Medallist Great Britains cyclist, Sarah Storey, celebrates after winning the Womens C5 3000m Individual Pursuit Final at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. It was her 15th Paralympic gold Reuters UK news in pictures 24 August 2021 A demonstrator dressed as bee during a protest by members of Extinction Rebellion on Whitehall, in central London PA UK news in pictures 23 August 2021 Former interpreters for the British forces in Afghanistan demonstrate outside the Home Office in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 22 August 2021 Police officers form a line in front of the entrance to the Guildhall, London, where protesters have climbed onto a ledge above the entrance during an Extinction Rebellion stage a protest PA UK news in pictures 21 August 2021 People take part in a demonstration in solidarity with people of Afghanistan, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 20 August 2021 People zip wire across the sea from Bournemouth pier towards the beach. PA UK news in pictures 19 August 2021 Supporters of Geronimo the alpaca gather outside Shepherds Close Farm in Wooton Under Edge, Gloucestershire PA UK news in pictures 18 August 2021 Former Afghan interpreters and veterans hold a demonstration outside Downing Street, calling for support and protection for Afghan interpreters and their families PA UK news in pictures 17 August 2021 Military personnel board the RAF Airbus A400M at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, where evacuation flights from Afghanistan have been landing Reuters UK news in pictures 16 August 2021 Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer takes part in a minute's silence at Wolverhampton police station for the victims of the Plymouth mass shooting last week PA UK news in pictures 15 August 2021 2Storm, a ten-metre tall puppet of a mythical goddess of the sea created by Edinburgh-based visual theatre company Vision Mechanics, makes its way alongside the seafront at North Berwick, East Lothian, during a performance at the Fringe By The Sea festival PA UK news in pictures 14 August 2021 A woman and two young girls look at floral tributes in Plymouth where six people, including the offender, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident PA UK news in pictures 13 August 2021 Forensic officers in the Keyham area of Plymouth where six people, including the shooter, died of gunshot wounds in a firearms incident on Thursday evening PA UK news in pictures 12 August 2021 Children ride horses in the River Eden in Appleby, Cumbria, during the annual gathering of travellers for the Appleby Horse Fair PA UK news in pictures 11 August 2021 Stella Moris (left) reacts after talking to the media outside the High Court in London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal, n London, following the first hearing in the Julian Assange extradition appeal. The US government has won the latest round in its High Court bid to appeal against the decision not to extradite Julian Assange on espionage charges PA UK news in pictures 10 August 2021 Students react after they receive their A-Level results at the Ark Academy, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 9 August 2021 The final athletes from Great Britain arrive home including Jason Kenny, Laura Kenny and Katie Archibald (front left-right) at Heathrow Airport, London following the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games PA UK news in pictures 8 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny during the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium in Japan PA UK news in pictures 7 August 2021 People from the Glasgow Southside community take part in the Govanhill Carnival, an anti-racist celebration of pride, unity and the contributions immigrants have made to the community in Govanhill, at Queen's Park, Glasgow PA UK news in pictures 6 August 2021 Chijindu Ujah of Britain, Zharnel Hughes of Britain, Richard Kilty of Britain and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake of Britain celebrate winning silver as they pose with Asha Philip of Britain, Imani Lansiquot of Britain, Dina Asher-Smith of Britain and Daryll Neita of Britain after they won bronze in the women's 4 x 100m relay during Olympic Games Day 14 Getty UK news in pictures 5 August 2021 A protester places flowers on a photograph of an executed man during a demonstration organised by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) to protest against the inauguration of Iran's new president Ebrahim Raisi in central London AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 4 August 2021 England's Joe Root looks on as India's KL Rahul doesn't make it to a catch during day one of Cinch First Test match at Trent Bridge, Nottingham PA UK news in pictures 3 August 2021 Great Britain's Laura Kenny and Jason Kenny with their silver medals for the Women's Team Pursuit and Mens Team Sprint during the Track Cycling at the Izu Velodrome on the eleventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 2 August 2021 Great Britains Charlotte Worthington competes during the Womens BMX Freestyle Final at the Tokyo Olympics PA UK news in pictures 1 August 2021 EPA UK news in pictures 31 July 2021 James Guy, Adam Peaty and Kathleen Dawson celebrate winning the gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley relay final at the Tokyo Olympics AP UK news in pictures 30 July 2021 Great Britain's Bethany Shriever and Kye Whyte celebrate their Gold and Silver medals respectively for the Cycling BMX Racing at the Ariake Urban Sports Park on the seventh day of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in Japan PA UK news in pictures 29 July 2021 Team GB's Mallory Franklin during the Womens Canoe Slalom Final on day six of the Tokyo Olympic Games. She went on to win the silver medal Getty UK news in pictures 28 July 2021 Canoers on Llyn Padarn lake in Snowdonia, Gwynedd. It was announced that the north-west Wales slate landscape has been granted UNESCO World Heritage Status PA

Asset owners, such as pension funds have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of their beneficiaries.

But the EAC said it had heard evidence during its inquiry into green finance that the duty is sometimes misinterpreted as a duty to maximise short-term returns, leading to the neglect of longer-term issues such as climate change.Philip Hammond has said the Government could extend contingency planning for a no-deal Brexit until the end of the transition period.

The Chancellor cast doubt over the Governments confidence in securing a favourable agreement with the EU, telling MPs that it would still be necessary to prepare for the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal when the two-year transition period ends, in 2020 or 2021.

If agreement is reached on a transition deal, then the Treasury could stand down its current preparations, which have already cost some 700m, Mr Hammond told a key Commons committee.

He also said that a post-Brexit transition deal needs to be agreed by April, or airlines will not be able to schedule flights for next year.

It comes as Theresa May hopes to get plans for a post-Brexit transition period signed off by EU leaders later this month, despite divisions with Brussels over citizens rights and the issue of the Irish border.

Mr Hammond, who has been condemned by fellow Tories for being too gloomy about Brexit, caved to pressure to open Treasury coffers to prepare for a no-deal scenario, by allocating 3bn from Novembers Budget for contingency planning.

Speaking to the Commons European Scrutiny Committee, Mr Hammond said: Its being spent on ensuring that we are prepared for a full range of outcomes, so some of it is being spent on preparations for a no-deal exit in March 2019.

Clearly we will make this money available to departments on the basis that we will continually review the situation.

He went on to explain: They have to get on with this now because obviously there is limited time, but as and when it becomes clear that we can discount any reasonably likely outcome, any of the options, for example once we reach an implementation period deal, I would expect we would then be able to stand down planning for a no-deal exit in 2019.

We may well have to continue with planning for a no-deal exit at the end of the implementation period as a contingency, but we will make sure that we are not spending money on outcomes which have been effectively ruled out.

His remarks came after Theresa May was told she had barely papered over the cracks in her party, as she appeared in the Commons to reiterate her Brexit vision to MPs.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn warned her that there has been 20 wasted months since the EU referendum, in which the arrogance of some of the Cabinet who said it would be the easiest deal in history has turned into debilitating infighting.

He said: Weve seen set piece speech after set piece speech and yet the Prime Minister still cannot bring clarity to these negotiations, and still cannot bring certainty to British businesses or workers.

The Prime Ministers speech on Friday promised to unite the nation, but it barely papered over the cracks in her own party.

Mr Corbyn said Mrs May offered no real solution over Northern Ireland, and instead rehashed an already discredited government idea to use a mix of technology and goodwill to ensure no hard border.

When grilled by MPs, Ms May indicated she was looking at the customs arrangements between the US and Canada as a way of solving the Irish border issue created by Brexit.

But the Prime Minister, who has insisted she remains committed to avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, was mocked over the comparison  with one MP telling her the US-Canada frontier has armed guards.

The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Show all 8 1 /8 The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Post-Brexit immigration workers sorting radishes on a production line at a farm in Norfolk. One possible post-Brexit immigration scheme could struggle to channel workers towards less attractive roles - while another may heighten the risk of labour exploitation, a new report warns. PA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Customs union A key point in the negotiations remains Britain's access to, or withdrawal from, the EU customs union. Since the referendum there has been hot debate over the meaning of Brexit: would it entail a full withdrawal from the existing agreement, known as hard Brexit, or the soft version in which we would remain part of a common customs area for most goods, as Turkey does? No 10 has so far insisted that Brexit means Brexit and that Britain will be leaving the customs union, but may be inclined to change its position once the potential risks to the UKs economic outlook become clearer. Alamy The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Northern Ireland-Irish border Though progress was made last year, there has still been no solid agreement on whether there should be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. To ensure borderless travel on the island, the countries must be in regulatory alignment and therefore adhere to the same rules as the customs union. In December, the Conservative Partys coalition partners, the DUP, refused a draft agreement that would place the UK/EU border in the Irish Sea due to its potential to undermine the union. May has promised that would not be the case and has suggested that a specific solution would need to be found. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Transition period Despite protests from a small number of Conservative MPs, the Government and the EU are largely in agreement that a transitional period is needed after Brexit. The talks, however, have reached an impasse. Though May has agreed that the UK will continue to contribute to the EU budget until 2021, the PM wants to be able to select which laws made during this time the UK will have to adhere to. Chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said the UK must adopt all of the laws passed during the transition, without any input from British ministers or MEPs. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Rights of EU citizens living the UK The Prime Minister has promised EU citizens already living in the UK the right to live and work here after Brexit, but the rights of those who arrive after Brexit day remains unclear. May insists that those who arrive during the transition period should not be allowed to stay, whereas the EU believe the cut-off point should be later. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreement (with the EU) Despite this being a key issue in negotiations, the Government has yet to lay out exactly what it wants from a trade deal with the EU. Infighting within the Cabinet has prevented a solid position from being reached, with some MPs content that "no deal is better than a bad deal" while others rally behind single market access. The EU has already confirmed that access to the single market would be impossible without the UK remaining in the customs union. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreements (internationally) The Government has already begun trying to woo foreign leaders into prospective trade agreements, with various high profile state visits to China, India and Canada for May, and the now infamous invitation to US President Donald Trump to visit London. However the UK cannot make trade agreements with another country while it is still a member of the EU, and the potential loss of trade with the world's major powers is a source of anxiety for the PM. The EU has said the UK cannot secure trade deals during the transition period. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Financial services Banks in the UK will be hit hard regardless of the Brexit outcome. The EU has refused to give British banks passporting rights to trade within the EU, dashing hopes of a special City deal. However according to new reports Germany has suggested allowing trade on the condition that the UK continues paying into the EU budget even after the transition period. Getty

In her earlier statement, Ms May told MPs: We cannot escape the complexity of the task ahead. We must build a new and lasting relationship while preparing for every scenario.

But with pragmatism, calm and patient discussion, I am confident we can set an example to the world.

Yes, there will be ups and downs over the months ahead, but we will not be buffeted by the demands to talk tough or threaten or walk out  and we will not give in to the counsels of despair that this simply cannot be done, for this is in both the UKs and EUs interests.

Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliaments chief Brexit negotiator, is expected to challenge the Prime Minister to outline credible proposals on the EU divorce when he travels to London on Tuesday for high-level talks.

Ahead of the visit, he welcomed Ms Mays reconfirmation of our December agreement on the Irish border, calling it reassuring, and said that we need now credible proposals detailing how the UK seeks to achieve this in practice.Often, listening to Theresa May feels like sticking your head between two mirrored wardrobe doors and seeing your own reflection self-replicate into infinity.

No Theresa May speech is complete without countless references to previous Theresa May speeches, to the extent where even if you and the Prime Minister are in the same room, you cannot be 100 per cent certain you are not watching some sort of cassetteboy-style Youtube mashup of Theresa May speeches.

At her Mansion House speech on Friday, scarcely a paragraph began in any other fashion than as I said on the steps of 10 Downing Street or as I said in my Lancaster House speech or as I set out in my Florence speech.

It is, arguably, a clever tactic. If you make claims that you have absolutely no evidence for, in public, enough times, then when these claims are raised (rather than having to actually justify them) you can instead refer back with withering resentment to the countless times you have made them.

For example, there must surely be millions of people out there convinced there will be no return to a hard border in northern Ireland for no other reason than Theresa May continually insists there wont be, and for no other reason than she is committed to it not happening.

It is a wonder others havent cottoned on. Imagine if eight-year-olds up and down the land knew that all they had to do was to give a range of set-piece speeches, making clear they are absolutely committed to never stealing biscuits from the tin, then when suddenly eight bourbons have gone missing nobody could possibly suspect them, because they are, after all, absolutely committed to not stealing them.

It is also customary now for Theresa Mays set piece Brexit interventions to occur on a Friday afternoon, after which she reappears on Monday to say the same thing all over again to the House of Commons, and then refuse to give any meaningful answers to questions on the matter.

Monday was no exception to this rule  the only vague difference being that, for reasons best known to her, she had spent the morning stuck in a chimney. Her apparently big speech on housing was entirely overshadowed by the truly mad decision to stand in front of a brick wall backdrop and behind a wonky brick wall lectern, whose bricks were slightly smaller and in no way matched the backdrop.

On television, it lent the Prime Ministers big speech on housing the air of some kind of strange home counties woman on a low budget daytime TV game show. In fact, those who switched on their TVs on Monday morning hoping to watch some kind of strange home counties woman on a low-budget daytime TV game show may not even have known to change the channel.

The housing crisis is arguably the most serious crisis the government faces, with the public justifiably angry about it. But no one, it appears, is angry enough about it to actually listen to anything the Prime Minister had to say on the matter, in favour of firing out snarky observations about the quite ridiculous set. Mainly, the online debate centred on whether she was either poking her head out of a chimney or stuck down a well. Was her commitment to solving the housing shortage so determined that she had built a bungalow around her while she spoke? Was this brick edifice a first look at the prototype for the soft Irish border?

Anyway. By the afternoon she was back in the Commons, safe inside the more familiar setting of crumbling, dilapidated masonry that is shortly to cost the public around 6.6bn to sort out. Still, at least thats two new houses  Commons and Lords  so no one can complain theyre not getting value for money.

Theresa May remains in a tricky position, Brexit-wise. Her troublesome cabal of backbenchers  and indeed frontbenchers  remain adamant that the only acceptable course of action is to quit the customs union to sign free trade deals with other countries. The fact that, over the course of the weekend, the most important country in this regard  the US  is now actively engaged in ramping up a global protectionist trade war, is unfortunate to say the least.

Last Monday, Jeremy Corbyn said he wanted to remain in a customs union, and was promptly savaged by the Brexit Secretary David Davis for throwing away one of the great prizes of Brexit: namely to do trade deals with others.

Even between Fridays speech and Mondays repetition of said speech, we have had a clearer look at what that prize looks like. We found out on Monday afternoon that Trumps officials made it clear in private meetings in January that when British airlines left the EU, they would almost certainly be charged more to operate flights between the UK and the US.

We also know that agriculture would definitely have to play a part in a UK/US trade deal, forcing the UK Government to lower food standards, paving the way for one of the great prizes of Brexit  chlorine-washed chicken. And that too leads directly to another of Brexits great prizes.

The only way to maintain differing agricultural standards on the island of Ireland is with  youve guessed it  with the hard border that Theresa May again ruled out, again without offering any insight whatsoever as to how she is going to do it.

Toward the end, the Labour MP Stephen Doughty asked her the same question she was asked last week and did not answer: Is Brexit worth it?

The parliamentary transcript records she replied with the word yes, though neither the TV cameras nor anyone more than three yards away from her managed to hear it.

Dont be surprised if that particular subaudible speech never quite makes it into the pantheon of Theresa May speeches to be quoted ad infinitum by Theresa May in other Theresa May speeches. I suspect it may not stand the test of time.Senior Tories have poured scorn on Theresa Mays plans to tackle the housing crisis, warning they will fail to give Britain the homes it desperately needs.

A former housing minister and the Tory head of the Local Government Association (LGA) both warned the nonsense will go on and nothing will change unless the proposals are dramatically beefed up.

In a speech today, the Prime Minister, vowed to get tough with property developers who sit on planning permissions, warning they could be penalised in future bids.

But Gary Porter, the LGA chairman, said the only solution was for the Treasury to lift harsh restrictions on borrowing, to allow local authorities to build the homes themselves.

If we want more houses, we have to build them, not plan them. If we want cheaper homes, we have to build them, not plan them, Sir Gary tweeted.

Otherwise, he warned: The nonsense will go on and nothing will change. Less homes built next year than there were this year.

Nick Boles, the housing minister for two years until 2014, praised the post, saying: This is spot on. We cannot wait for our dysfunctional house-building industry to build the homes we need.

Sir Gary then added: Why not let councils build so many houses they don't have to ration them just for the poorest in our society.

Then key workers can have affordable housing where ever they live, until they can afford to buy!

The only time the Governments new target  of 300,000 homes a year  was met, in the 1970s, councils build more than 40 per cent of them, he pointed out.

The criticisms risked holing Ms Mays housebuilding plans below the waterline, even before they were formally delivered at a planning conference in London.

In her speech, the Prime Minister insisted the Government is rewriting the rules on planning to ensure developers and local authorities build more properties and restore the dream of home ownership.

The shake-up will make the system fairer and more effective by streamlining the process, cutting red tape and ending barriers to building, she will say.

And she highlighted the perverse incentive in the bonus structure of some house builders, which fails to encourage them to build home that are affordable.

But, in last years budget, the Chancellor ruled out allowing town halls to borrow billions to build homes  preferring a headline-grabbing cut in stamp duty for first-time buyers of most properties.

The decision to continue relying on private developers  while setting the target of 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s  was a defeat for Sajid Javid, the Housing Secretary.

Last year, housebuilding rose  to 183,000 new builds, or 217,000 homes including conversions  but only after falling sharply after the Conservatives came to power in 2010.

Mr Javid told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: Under successive governments, we have not built enough homes. As a result, prices have risen and risen and so many people are locked out of the market

The only long time answer to this is going to be more supplywe are no longer going to stand by when councils and developers do not do the right thing.Theresa May will announce plans to penalise property developers who do not build homes quickly enough, as she uses a major speech to warn housebuilders they must do their duty to Britain.

The Prime Minister will criticise developers who profit from building expensive properties rather than the quantities of new homes the country needs, telling them it is time to step up do your bit.

She will vow to rewrite the laws on planning in order to help more people get on the housing ladder.

The Government will also adopt a tougher approach to local councils, including setting targets on how many homes each authority needs to plan for.

Key workers such as nurses, teachers and firefighters should be the priority for affordable homes, Ms May will say, and local authorities will be given powers to implement this.

The speech marks another strand of Ms Mays attempt to flesh out a domestic policy agenda that goes beyond Brexit. Last month she delivered a keynote education speech promising to review how universities are funded.

However, opponents said the feeble changes had already been announced in the Governments housing white paper, published last year.

They are also likely to demand the Government make more funding available or allow councils to borrow more to invest in housing. Town halls have long insisted that restrictions on their ability to borrow to fund new homes is the biggest barrier to housebuilding.

Questions are also likely to be raised over the future of Starter Homes  one of the Governments flagship policies for boosting home-ownership. The Independent revealed late last year that not a single one of the properties, which will be sold to first-time buyers at a discount, has yet been built.

Accepting the failings of current housing policy, Ms May will say for decades this country has failed to build enough of the right homes in the right places.

She will once again place housing at the heart of her agenda, saying: We cannot bring about the kind of society I want to see unless we tackle one of the biggest barriers to social mobility we face today: the national housing crisis.

The Prime Minister has previously said she will make tackling the housing crisis her personal mission.

The world's least affordable cities for housing Show all 10 1 /10 The world's least affordable cities for housing The world's least affordable cities for housing Hong Kong The world's least affordable cities for housing Sydney The world's least affordable cities for housing Vancouver The world's least affordable cities for housing Auckland The world's least affordable cities for housing Melbourne The world's least affordable cities for housing San Jose The world's least affordable cities for housing San Francisco The world's least affordable cities for housing London The world's least affordable cities for housing San Diego The world's least affordable cities for housing Los Angeles

Speaking at a planning conference in London, she will argue that in much of the country, housing is so unaffordable that millions of people who would reasonably expect to buy their own home are unable to do so because the failure to match demand with supply really began to push prices upwards, and also drove up rents.

The result is a vicious circle from which most people can only escape with help from the bank of Mum and Dad. If youre not lucky enough to have such support, the door to home-ownership is all too often locked and barred, she will say.

Recounting her own experience of buying a home, she will add: I still vividly remember the first home I shared with my husband, Philip. Not only our pictures on the walls and our books on the shelves, but the security that came from knowing we couldnt be asked to move on at short notice.

And because we had that security, because we had a place to go back to, it was that much easier to play an active role in our community. To share in the common purpose of a free society.

That is what this country should be about  not just having a roof over your head but having a stake in your community and its future.

 Flagship government housing plan fails to deliver a single home in three years

Ms May will take a tougher line against private developers, criticising the perverse incentive that allows property executives to profit from building expensive homes rather than greater numbers of affordable ones.

She will suggest a companys past record of delivering affordable housing should be taken into account when it bids for planning permission for new properties.

She is expected to say: The bonuses paid to the heads of some of our biggest developers are based not on the number of homes they build but on their profits or share price.

In a market where lower supply equals higher prices that creates a perverse incentive, one that does not encourage them to build the homes we need.

I want to see planning permissions going to people who are actually going to build houses, not just sit on land and watch its value rise.

The Prime Minister will also point out that developers have failed to build thousands of homes that have been given planning permission, warning that the gap between permissions granted and homes built is still too large.

Analysis by the Local Government Association (LGA) earlier this year revealed 420,000 homes that received planning permission last year are still waiting to be built.

Calling on private housebuilders to step up and do their bit, Ms May will say: I expect developers to do their duty to Britain and build the homes our country needs.

Sajid Javid, the Housing Secretary, has already hinted the Government is considering giving councils use it or lose it powers to take land away from developers who are refusing to build homes on sites they own.

Ms May will also criticise David Camerons legacy, saying her predecessor had presided over a great and welcome increase in the number of planning permissions granted but not a corresponding rise in the number of homes being built.

 Budget 2017: Hammond commits 44bn to housing and commits to delivering 300,000 net additional homes per year by mid 2020's

Although the Prime Minister will announce that 80 proposals from the Governments housing white paper will be implemented, housing insiders will be watching closely to see what type of housing the Government will prioritise and whether any new funding will be made available.

Since 2012, the Conservatives have prioritised the more expensive affordable housing over social housing, leading to the loss of hundreds of thousands of the cheapest homes.

Ms May is also likely to face calls to reverse some of the provisions of the Housing and Planning Act 2016, which forced councils to sell off social homes and extended the controversial Right to Buy to housing association tenants. The scheme is another leading cause of the fall in the number of low-cost homes.

John Healey, Labours Shadow Housing Secretary, said: The Prime Minister should be embarrassed to be fronting up these feeble measures first announced a year ago. After eight years of failure on housing its clear her Government has got no plan to fix the housing crisis.

Since 2010, home-ownership has fallen to a 30-year low, rough sleeping has more than doubled, and deep cuts to housing investment have led to the lowest number of new social rented homes built since records began.

This housing crisis is made in Downing Street. Its time the Tories changed course, and backed Labours long-term plan to build the genuinely affordable homes the country needs.

The Prime Minister was also warned by Conservative peer Lord Porter, who chairs the LGA, that planning changes would be largely meaningless without new funding.

He wrote on Twitter: If we want more houses, we have to build them, not plan them.

The [Housing Department] need to push back against [the Treasury] or the nonsense will go on and nothing will change. Less homes built next year than there were this year.

Ms May will insist that building on green belt land is not the answer to tackling the housing crisis. She will instead announce new protections for woodland and coastlines. Close Theresa May tells developers to 'do their duty' to the country on home building

Theresa May has defended her Brexit vision in a statement to MPs amid warnings that EU leaders will not accept her plans.

In a major speech at Mansion House in London last week, the Prime Minister told the bloc that refusing to include financial services in a trade deal after Brexit would hurt its own economies.

However European leaders suggested the plan would be difficult to accept because it would undermine the EUs single market.

Earlier, Ms May attempted to shift focus away from Brexit when she announced plans to penalise property developers who do not build homes quickly enough.

The Prime Minister also used the speech to address rising levels of homelessness, adding: "In 2018, in one of the worlds largest, strongest economies, nobody should be without a roof over their head.

"This isn't just a British problem  in recent years homelessness has risen across Europe  but it is source of national shame nonetheless."

See below for the latest updatesTheresa May has invited Conservative MPs who are trying to soften her stance on Brexit into Downing Street for peace talks this evening.

The Independent understands around a dozen backbench MPs including key figures who have sought to change Ms Mays position have been given the opportunity to speak with her.

It comes after a keynote speech last week was publicly welcomed by MPs from both sides of the Brexit debate in the Conservatives, but with underlying tensions continuing to strain party.

Ms May still faces a major challenge to her authority from a rebel amendment which seeks to force her to keep the UK in a customs union with the EU after Brexit.

One backbencher told The Independent: The mutineers have been invited in to have a chat with the Prime Minister.

The speech went some way to lowering the heat for now, but they clearly still have a lot of concerns about what is happening.

Anna Soubrys amendment to the Trade Bill is obviously causing some concern.

 Theresa May calls her Brexit plan 'practically-based' and therefore 'credible'

Broxtowe MP Ms Soubrys amendment could well be supported by the Labour party, raising the prospect of Ms May suffering a major Commons defeat and potentially having her hands tied in negotiations with Brussels.

The next stage of the Bill is yet to be scheduled by the Conservatives, with whips attempting to quell any rebellion ahead of allowing the amendment to go to a vote.

A Downing Street spokesman said they would not comment on private meetings, but underlined that the Prime Minister welcomes the opinion of all her MPs.

She appeared before the Commons on Monday to reiterate Brexit commitments which she outlined in her speech on Friday.

Repeating words from her speech in the chamber, Ms May said: We cannot escape the complexity of the task ahead.

The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Show all 8 1 /8 The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Post-Brexit immigration workers sorting radishes on a production line at a farm in Norfolk. One possible post-Brexit immigration scheme could struggle to channel workers towards less attractive roles - while another may heighten the risk of labour exploitation, a new report warns. PA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Customs union A key point in the negotiations remains Britain's access to, or withdrawal from, the EU customs union. Since the referendum there has been hot debate over the meaning of Brexit: would it entail a full withdrawal from the existing agreement, known as hard Brexit, or the soft version in which we would remain part of a common customs area for most goods, as Turkey does? No 10 has so far insisted that Brexit means Brexit and that Britain will be leaving the customs union, but may be inclined to change its position once the potential risks to the UKs economic outlook become clearer. Alamy The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Northern Ireland-Irish border Though progress was made last year, there has still been no solid agreement on whether there should be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. To ensure borderless travel on the island, the countries must be in regulatory alignment and therefore adhere to the same rules as the customs union. In December, the Conservative Partys coalition partners, the DUP, refused a draft agreement that would place the UK/EU border in the Irish Sea due to its potential to undermine the union. May has promised that would not be the case and has suggested that a specific solution would need to be found. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Transition period Despite protests from a small number of Conservative MPs, the Government and the EU are largely in agreement that a transitional period is needed after Brexit. The talks, however, have reached an impasse. Though May has agreed that the UK will continue to contribute to the EU budget until 2021, the PM wants to be able to select which laws made during this time the UK will have to adhere to. Chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said the UK must adopt all of the laws passed during the transition, without any input from British ministers or MEPs. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Rights of EU citizens living the UK The Prime Minister has promised EU citizens already living in the UK the right to live and work here after Brexit, but the rights of those who arrive after Brexit day remains unclear. May insists that those who arrive during the transition period should not be allowed to stay, whereas the EU believe the cut-off point should be later. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreement (with the EU) Despite this being a key issue in negotiations, the Government has yet to lay out exactly what it wants from a trade deal with the EU. Infighting within the Cabinet has prevented a solid position from being reached, with some MPs content that "no deal is better than a bad deal" while others rally behind single market access. The EU has already confirmed that access to the single market would be impossible without the UK remaining in the customs union. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreements (internationally) The Government has already begun trying to woo foreign leaders into prospective trade agreements, with various high profile state visits to China, India and Canada for May, and the now infamous invitation to US President Donald Trump to visit London. However the UK cannot make trade agreements with another country while it is still a member of the EU, and the potential loss of trade with the world's major powers is a source of anxiety for the PM. The EU has said the UK cannot secure trade deals during the transition period. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Financial services Banks in the UK will be hit hard regardless of the Brexit outcome. The EU has refused to give British banks passporting rights to trade within the EU, dashing hopes of a special City deal. However according to new reports Germany has suggested allowing trade on the condition that the UK continues paying into the EU budget even after the transition period. Getty

She went on: We must build a new and lasting relationship while preparing for every scenario. But with pragmatism, calm and patient discussion, I am confident we can set an example to the world.

Yes, there will be ups and downs over the months ahead, but we will not be buffeted by the demands to talk tough or threaten or walk out  and we will not give in to the counsels of despair that this simply cannot be done, for this is in both the UKs and EUs interests.

The shift in her rhetoric from the days of Brexit means Brexit to a more realistic tone, was welcomed by those MPs on her own benches who feared the UK was veering towards a hard Brexit.

But they continue to harbour concerns that the approach she is setting out may be so complex as to be unfeasible and too costly to achieve, let alone persuade the EU of.

Ex-attorney General Dominic Grieve said afterwards: It highlights the enormous complexity of whats being undertaken even after weve persuaded our EU partners to accept it.Alec Baldwin has hit back at Donald Trump on Saturday Night Live (SNL) after the President tweeted that the actors dying mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation.

Baldwin had initially said that every time he plays Mr Trump it was like agony and that it was time to get rid of him.

The President responded to Baldwins claims on Twitter by saying it was agony for those who were forced to watch the actors impersonation.

The weekends broadcast of SNL did not mention the fued directly but Baldwin was given the opportunity to mock the President in the shows opening sketch.

Paying homage to Hope Hicks, the outgoing White House communications director, Baldwin said: Shes like a daughter to me. So smart, so hot. You know, I hate seeing her go but I love watching her walk away.

With Ms Hicks leaving, Baldwin, playing Mr Trump said: Jared Kushners basically the hottest chick left in the place.

Baldwin also delivered a scathing skit mocking the Presidents response to the Parkland shootings.

Its clear something has to change. We have to take a hard look at mental health, which I have so much of. I have one of the healthiest mental. My mentals are so high, but we have to respect the law, Baldwin said.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Believe me, no one love the Second Amendment and due process more than me, but maybe we just take everyones guns, away, okay? Nobody is allowed to have a gun, not even whites.

The youth of America deserve to feel safe and secure in their schools because, folks, I can only run into so many schools and save everybody.Young children in the United States are overdosing on opioids at an alarmingly rate, a new study shows.

The number of children being admitted into hospitals for the overdoses has nearly doubled since 2004, and many of those cases came after the kids accessed their parents opioid medications.

Researchers, according to the study published Monday in Pediatrics, found that there were 1,504 child patients admitted to paediatric intensive care units between 2012 and 2015, compared to 797 patients between 2004 and 2007.

When they come in, they're going to fall into one of two categories: either they're teenagers with intentional or drug-seeking behaviour because of recreational or self-injurious behaviour, or they're kids who got into their parents' medication, Dr Jason Kane, an associate professor of pediatrics and critical care at Comer Childrens Hospital in Chicago, told CNN.

The thing that was a bit striking is that in the youngest children, those under six years of age, 20 per cent of the ingestions were of methadone. So you sort of have to ask yourself: Where are they getting all this methadone from? Mr Kane, the lead author on the study, continued, referring to a drug used to help treat opioid addiction and sometimes pain.

The study identified 3,647 patients in 31 childrens hospitals across the country who were admitted with opioid-related diagnoses.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

What was really striking to me is just how sick these kids are and that almost half of them end up in the ICU, Mr Kane said. The reason why thats important to recognizer is that nationwide theres only about 4,100 paediatric ICU beds, which is in contact to the number of adult ICU beds, which is closer to 78,000.

The opioid crisis in the US has reached catastrophic levels, with drug overdoses in the country killing more Americans in 2016 than the Vietnam War.

The high number of opioid deaths has led to declining life expectancy in the country for two years in a row, and the deaths are not expected to abate any time soon.A survivor of a shooting at Majory Stoneman Douglas High School has said he hung up on a phone call from the White House.

David Hogg, a 17-year-old student, said he received a call asking if he was planning to attend a discussion with Donald Trump.

But he said he found the call offensive, since the call came during a period of mourning.

Before he hung up, he said he told the White House official: We dont need to listen to President Trump. President Trump needs to listen to the screams of the children and to this nation.

In the aftermath of the shooting in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 students and teachers dead, a group of students including Mr Hogg founded gun control advocacy group Never Again MSD.

During an appearance on HBO talk show Real Time with Bill Mayer, Mr Hogg said: I actually hung up on the White House the other day... They called me the day before the listening session and asked if we were going to come.

And I said Im not coming because we expect President Trump to come to the CNN town hall, which he declined an invitation from.

While fellow Republican Marco Rubio accepted CNNs request to participate in a nationally televised meeting with students and parents at the end of February, Mr Trump turned it down, choosing instead to host his own discussion at the White House.

Mr Hogg added: The fact they called us the day before [the White House meeting] I found very offensive, considering the fact there were funerals the next day  there was mourning we still had to do.

The 17-year-old has previously vowed not to return to school until a new gun control measure is passed.

Mr Trump has responded to the shooting by advocating arming some teachers  an idea rejected by Never Again MSD  and moving to ban devices known as bump stocks that allow semi-automatic rifles to spray bullets.

Florida shooting  in pictures Show all 10 1 /10 Florida shooting  in pictures Florida shooting  in pictures Police arrest a suspect in connection with the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida Reuters Florida shooting  in pictures Parents wait for news after reports of a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida AP Florida shooting  in pictures Anxious family members wait for news of students AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee Florida shooting  in pictures Students being evacuated from the school AP Florida shooting  in pictures Students being evacuated from the school Getty Florida shooting  in pictures People gather waiting for word from students AP Florida shooting  in pictures Parents waiting for news on their children AP Florida shooting  in pictures People gather at a hotel where students were taken after the shooting Getty Florida shooting  in pictures Florida Governor Rick Scott speaks to the media as he visits Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School following the shooting AFP/Getty Florida shooting  in pictures Dr. Igor Nichiporenko, Medical Director Trauma, left, and Dr. Evan Boyer, Medical Director, Emergency Services, speak about treating victims and the suspect at a press conference outside Broward Health North hospital AP

Fellow student and gun control advocate Cameron Kasky said he had been disappointed by the Florida officials response to the shooting.

We met with some of the legislators in Tallahassee and we felt we didnt really get far enough... they wouldnt even discuss assault weapons there.

What they did discuss, though, was porn as a public health emergency... sadly thats the only thing they seem to care about.

A number of students from Stoneman travelled to the state capital to lobby for stronger gun controls at the end of February.

But a motion to consider a bill that would ban assault rifles was rejected.

Less than an hour later, Republicans in the Florida House of Representatives approved a proposal to label pornography a public health risk.Several leading brands have reportedly sought to pull their ads from YouTube channels of the far-right conspiracy site InfoWars.

Ads from a number of major firms and organisations - including Nike, 20th Century Fox, Expedia, the Mormon Church, Alibaba and the National Rifle Association - were being displayed on Infowars' channels on the video sharing platform, according to CNN.

Many of the brands said they were not aware of what was going on and would cancel their ads on the channel after CNN contacted them.

Ad campaigns from YouTube dont necessarily permit firms to know where their commercials will show up but do allow organisations to use exclusion filters to keep their ads from appearing on certain channels.

Several of the firms CNN contacted said they are taking extra measures to make sure their ads do not show up on such content again.

Alex Jones, who has been dubbed Americas leading conspiracy theorist and a prominent voice of the so-called alt-right movement in the US, is the founder of InfoWars.

YouTube reprimanded the far right site which is known for its false and outlandish conspiracy theories earlier this week after it posted a video claiming the student activists from the Florida high school shooting last month that left 17 dead were actors.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

InfoWars' biggest YouTube account, The Alex Jones Channel, received one strike from the video-sharing site for the video.

On Saturday Jones claimed YouTube was going to delete the channel and all of the videos posted to it.

The Alex Jones channel with billions of views is frozen. We have been told it will be deleted tomorrow and all 33 thousand videos will be erased. We just set up this new page subscribe if you want to see what the SPLC wants censored, Jones wrote on Twitter, using an acronym for the Southern Poverty Law Centre, a legal advocacy organisation which monitors hate groups.

But YouTube told CBS News it is not planning on taking down Jones' YouTube channel in spite of his statement. YouTube said some advertisers had asked to be removed from running ads from Jones' channels and YouTube had informed him of that.

The platform said Jones description bears no relation to how the termination process works. YouTubes community guidelines stipulate the account will be shut down altogether if it gets three strikes in the space of three months and it also has an appeals process.

Jones, whose channel has received over a billion views and 2.2 million subscribers, is famed for propagating far-fetched and erroneous conspiracy theories.

He suggested the Sandy Hook school shooting of 20 young children was staged, that the September 11 attacks of 2001 were an inside job and that the baseless reports about Hillary Clinton being part of a Washington pizzeria child sex abuse ring warrant serious investigation.

He has also claimed the US government puts chemicals into the water supply to turn people gay so they do not have children.

The Independent contacted a representative of YouTube for comment.Politicians in Kentucky are stepping up their fight to end child marriage in the state after a planned vote on the matter was postponed because of opposition from a conservative group.

Under current law, 16 and 17-year-olds can marry with their parents permission. Any age under 16 can also get wed, as long as they are pregnant and marrying the father of their child.

A new bill that would prohibit anyone aged 16 or under from marrying and prevent any 17-year old from tying the knot without the approval of a judge, who would have to be convinced that the minor is mature, self-sufficient and not being coerced into marriage.

Recommended This is why New Jersey is protecting child marriage

A 17-year-old would also be prevented from marrying someone who is more than four years their senior.

Nationwide, more than 200,000 children under 18  some as young as 10  were married between 2000 and 2015. In most cases, the minor is a girl and her spouse is an older man.

During that period, 10,618 marriages in Kentucky, 279 of which took place in 2015.

This bill would take Kentucky from behind the national curve to a leadership position in the movement to end child marriage, said Jeanne Smoot, senior counsel at the Tahirh Justice Center, a national organisation that advocates for legal and social justice for girls and women.

In the last two years, four US states  Virginia, Texas, New York and Florida  have passed legislation banning or severely restricting child marriage.

Despite strong support from Whitney Westerfield, Chairman of Kentucky's Senate Judiciary Committee, a vote in the new bill was delayed last week after the conservative Family Foundation of Kentucky expressed concern about the wording.

Although the group does not oppose a minimum age, it wants to see parents retain their rights to give permission for minors to marry.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The legislation explicitly states that the wishes of the parents or legal guardians of the minor are not sufficient evidence to allow a 17-year-old to marry.

For advocates, this clause is a key part of the bill.

Generally speaking, parents are responsible for their children, Mr Westerfield said. However, weve been working on a draft that involves parental consent on the front end but requires judicial oversight in each case to prevent abuse like we heard about during committee testimony.

One such testimony was given by Donna Pollard. She got married at 16 to a man almost twice her age after growing up with a physically and emotionally abusive mother, who encouraged the relationship and consented to the marriage.

Forced to drop out of school, she was soon pregnant. I felt completely and totally trapped, she told Courier Journal newspaper. I had been raised by a very abusive mother who had never wanted me to begin with, and then this person comes into my life and starts paying me attention.

"It was so easy for me to be manipulated at that age.

Recommended New York raises age of consent for marriage from 14 to 18

Ms Pollard now runs Survivors Corner, a national advocacy group for survivors of sexual assault, abuse and exploitation.

Child marriage perpetuates cycles of poverty, interrupted educational opportunities, domestic violence, and sexual assault whether locally or internationally, the group tweeted in support of the bill. Communities cant thrive with these problems.

Kentuckys Attorney General, Andy Beshear, is also a strong supporter of the bill.

The General Assembly must pass SB 48, a bill that would outlaw child marriage in Kentucky, he wrote on Twitter. A parent should not be allowed to consent to their childs rape and survivors of child marriage deserve a unanimous vote.

The vote is likely to be re-scheduled for this week.Police in New York City have regularly been able to avoid getting fired for serious offences that merited that sort of discipline, according to a new investigation by Buzzfeed News.

From 2011 to 2015, at least 319 New York Police Department (NYPD) officers or employees managed to keep their jobs after offences as serious as lying on official reports, stealing, and assaulting residents of the city, according to internal files obtained by the news organisation.

The review revealed startling figures: At least 58 employees were found to have led on official reports, under oath, or during internal investigations; 38 were found guilty by a police tribunal of using excessive force while on duty; 71 were found to have fixed tickets; 58 drove under the influence of an intoxicating substance; and at least one officer sexually harassed and inappropriately touched a fellow officer.

Recommended Court consider giving NYPD Cold War secrecy over alleged surveillance

Some of the cases reviewed by Buzzfeed were for lesser offences.

But, in each case identified, the police commissioner at the time assigned the officers or employees to dismissal probation. That punishment is pretty basic and non-intrusive: Employees continue to do their job with the same salary. They may get fewer overtime hours during probation, and may be passed over for promotions, but the probations usually last a year.

The NYPD has been able to keep these files and histories largely a secret using a law known as Civil Rights Law Section 50-a, which has allowed agencies in New York State to carry out some of the least transparent protocols in the country.

NYPD releases body camera footage of the fatal shooting of Miguel Richards

Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist Show all 26 1 /26 Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-japan-2.jpg A Banksy graffiti piece showing two women in Japanese dress and a Bonsai tree Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-japan.jpg A charming Banksy piece in the Bed-Stuy neighbourhood of New York Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-nyp.jpg The New York Post claims Banksy is being hunted by the authorities Banksy/New York Post Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-mcdonalds.jpg A boy shines Ronald McDonald's shoe in a new live-action Banksy sculpture Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-mcdonalds-2.jpg Banksy has remodeled Ronald McDonald with a sneering face Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-911-2.jpg Though small in size, Banksy's tribute to 9/11 will echo across the world via social media Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-911.jpg Banksy's tribute to 9/11 in Tribeca Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-queens.jpg Banksy appropriates a quote from the film Gladiator in one of his New York pieces Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-stall.jpg Banksy set up a stall in Central Park to flog his works - but just three people took him up on the offer Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-concrete.jpg A religious figure looking pensive in Banksy's concrete confessional in Manhattan Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-sirens-2.jpg Bansky's slaughterhouse delivery truck is touring New York City for the next two weeks Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-sirens.jpg Banksy's Sirens of the Lambs, with close-ups of the screaming animals touring New York Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-beaver-2.jpg Banksy's beaver, which marks the tenth day of the artist's New York residency, gnaws on a felled 'No Parking' sign Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-beaver.jpg A close-up of Bansky's beaver, a new artwork that a group of men are stopping people from seeing unless they pay up Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-5.jpg A dog urinates on a new work by British graffiti artist Banksy on West 24th street in New York City Rex Features Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-4.jpg A dog urinates on a new work by British graffiti artist Banksy on West 24th street in New York City Reuters Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-2.jpg The latest work from street artist Banksy is seen through a chain link fence in the Lower East Side neighborhood of New York City. Banksy is in the midst of creating a month long series of pieces of street art. Getty Images Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy.jpg A woman walks by a defaced street art graffiti by elusive British artist Banksy, as part of his month-long Better Out Than In exhibit, in New York. Banksy will be attempting to host an entire show on the streets of New York during a month residency. Getty Images Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-3.jpg A piece of street art depicting a heart-shaped balloon covered in bandages, allegedly done by the street artist Banksy, is seen on in the Red Hook neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York City. The piece was defaced with red spray paint shortly after being completed Getty Images Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksyheart.jpg Bansky's Brooklyn heart Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksytruck3.jpg Exterior of Banksy's All City delivery truck Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksytruck2.jpg Interior of Banksy's All City delivery truck Banksy Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist Banksy-painted-over.jpg The new Banksy has been painted over a day after it was stencilled @streetartnews/Twitter Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist Banksy-New-York-1.jpg Banksy's 'The street is in play' appears in New York City banksyny Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist Banksy-New-York.jpg Banksy's 'The street is in play' appears in New York City @AndrewBloch Is Banksy being hunted by the NYPD? Police sources at odds over whether to arrest artist banksy-new-zealand.jpg A man from Chicago buys some Banksy originals for an astoundingly low price Banksy/YouTube

The law was passed in 1976, and was promoted by police unions that argued that a truly transparent system would allow unverified and unsubstantiated allegations to surface, as well as confidential information and privileged medical records about officers that could be used against them.

Some of the cases identified by Buzzfeed in their investigation  which only covers those years and is in no way a comprehensive look at NYPD punishment through the years  are striking in that they show repeated violence and disregard for rules for the police force that is tasked with keeping Americas largest city safe.

That includes the case of one officer who was accused of viciously beating an individual, arresting an individual under false pretenses, assaulting a third individual, and for fabricating evidence against another.

Of those, one incident involved a man saying he was thrown to the ground and repeatedly punched in the head. In another, the officer was accused of hitting a detained suspect in the head with a police baton, resulting in 12 staples and a hospital visit to close a gash in their head.

The officer reportedly cost the department roughly $900,000 in settlement fees related to just that one officer.

The NYPD says that every case is analysed differently because each case is different. The department also says that their policy is to not terminate officers when they are not in absolute need of being terminated. When circumstances arise where an officer needs to be fired, a spokesman said, the commissioner and the department have done so.Residents of a Quebec village have defeated an oil-and-gas giant in a fight to protect their water, in a David-and-Goliath-style battle.

After a four-year legal wrangle over a $1m lawsuit, a judge has finally ruled in favour of the town of Ristigouche-Sud-Est and its population of just 157.

Half of the residents' legal fees could be reimbursed by the Montreal-based exploration giant.

Mayor Francois Boulay said: "I can't hide this is a sweet moment."

The wrangle began in 2011 when the province of Quebec granted Gastem drilling permits to search for oil and gas in the eastern region, and construction began on a drilling platform in the township.

But Ristigouche Sud-Est residents worried the drilling would affect their water supplies, and the town council passed a bylaw in 2013 that set out a 2km (1.2-mile) no-drill zone around its water supply.

Gastem issued a lawsuit in August 2013 that claimed the bylaw was illegal. The companys initial C$1.5m (840,000) claim for damages was later reduced to C$984,676  still more than three times the towns annual budget.

In Quebec's Superior Court, Justice Nicole Tremblay ruled the company should have tried to have the bylaw annulled before seeking any compensation.

In her 16-page ruling, she said contrary to what Gastem argued, the council was not pressured into passing this bylaw by environmentalists or forceful residents.

"The town councillors did not act on a whim," she wrote.

The judge said a municipality had the right to protect its territory based on the precautionary principle, and the town was in its rights to apply its own bylaw.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

She ordered Gastem to reimburse half of the legal fees residents had incurred, and an additional $10,000 to cover the fees for the public relations company the town hired.

Mr Boulay said: "Today, we raise our glass of potable water to the health of Quebecs water and to all of those who supported us.The US State Department has yet to spend any of the $120m allocated to counter election meddling by foreign powers since late 2016, according to a report by the New York Times.

Norm Eisen, White House ethics czar under Mr Obama, called the situation a scandal.

It is inexcusable, he wrote on Twitter, like leaving the guardhouses at our (cyber) borders unguarded.

In late 2016, Congress directed the Pentagon to send $60m to the State Department to counter anti-democratic propaganda by China and Russia, with a further $60 million made available in the last few months, according to the report.

But none of it has yet reached the State Department, the NYT alleges, citing department officials who say they expect to receive the first instalment ($40m) in April.

As a result of the lack of funds and a hiring freeze at the State Department, none of the 23 analysts at the Global Engagement Center  tasked with countering disinformation from Moscow  speaks Russian and the necessary computer experts are lacking, the paper says.

The revelation comes just a few days after former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the Russians will try to manipulate US elections in the future.

I say this as a former Secretary of State and as an American: the Russians are still coming, Ms Clinton said. Our intelligence professionals are imploring Trump to act. Will he continue to ignore and surrender, or protect our country?

Ms Clinton was speaking in response to National Security Agency director Michael S Rogers, who admitted that the US is not doing enough to prevent Russian attacks on American electoral systems.

If we dont change the dynamic here, this is going continue, he said.

While Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has acknowledged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election is a serious issue and fairly well-established, he has also voiced scepticism that anything can be done to counter future threats from the country.

If its their intention to interfere, theyre going to find ways to do that, Mr Tillerson said in an interview with Fox News last month.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Donald Trump has also shown little interest in countering any Russian threat, repeatedly claiming that Moscow did not interfere in the election.

Under pressure from Republicans and Democrats, he signed a bill last summer punishing Russia for election meddling and making it harder for him to ease sanctions on Vladimir Putins government.

He criticised the legislation as seriously flawed however and has since missed a deadline to impose additional sanctions.A long-shot Democratic candidate in a Trump-supporting district is gaining on his opponent in the final days of a special election in Pennsylvania.

A new poll shows Conor Lamb, the Democratic candidate for the US House of Representatives in Pennsylvania, is up three percentage points against his Republican competitor, state representative Rick Saccone.

The race seemed like a sure thing for Mr Saccone and the GOP at the outset. Donald Trump won the district by nearly 20 points in 2016, and Republican Tim Murphy represented it since 2003. Following most mainstream predictions, Mr Saccone both outspent and out-polled his Democratic opponent in the first months of the race.

But in February, Mr Lamb reported raising $3.3m in the latest filing period, compared to Mr Saccones $700,000. A poll from that same month showed the Republican up by just three points. Last week, the Cook Political Report changed the seats rating from Leans Republican to Toss Up.

This week, a poll from Emerson College showed Mr Lamb leading Mr Saccone 48-45 per cent among likely voters. Only 33 per cent of voters said they had an unfavourable view of Mr Lamb, compared to 40 per cent who had an unfavourable view of Mr Saccone.

The poll also showed that many voters were excited about the race, with 56 per cent saying they are were very excited to vote, and only 7 per cent saying they were not excited at all.

Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Show all 29 1 /29 Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump acknowledges the audience after taking the oath of office as his wife Melania (L) and daughter Tiffany watch during inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States on the West Front of the US capital in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jim Bourg: "This photo was shot with one of two remote cameras. The cameras were monitored and triggered remotely and the pictures were transmitted to clients worldwide within minutes of being taken." Reuters/Jim Bourg Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Obama farewell address - 10 January 2017 US President Barack Obama wipes away tears as he delivers his farewell address in Chicago on 10 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "In his final days in office, Obama made a visit home to Chicago. As he spoke from the stage to his wife and daughter in the audience, he became emotional when he talked about what they had sacrificed during his time in office. I turned from photographing the Obama women embracing to find him onstage wiping away tears." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 A combination of photos shows the crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies to swear in U.S. President Donald Trump at 12:01pm (left) on January 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama sometime between 12:07pm and 12:26pm on January 20, 2009. Reuters/ Lucas Jackson/Stelios Varias Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Liberty Ball - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the Liberty Ball in honour of his inauguration in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "What I see when I look at this picture is the end of a very long day, not to mention weeks and months of preparation by many photographers, editors and network experts and the beginning of everything since." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception - 22 January 2017 US President Donald Trump greets Director of the FBI James Comey as Director of the Secret Service Joseph Clancy (L), watches during the Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception in the Blue Room of the White House on 22 January, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "I have covered the White House for 16 years and normally either the President or the pool is in position when an event starts. In this case the President was not where anyone expected him to be. In fact, he was almost blocking the door when the pool came in. We had to scramble to find a position without bumping him or the furniture as he greeted and thanked members of law enforcement for their security efforts during the inauguration. Luckily, he greeted FBI Director James Comey a few seconds after the pool had made its way into the room." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Private phone calls to world leaders - 28 January 2017 US President Donald Trump, is joined by his staff, as he speaks by phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office on 28 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Very early in the Trump administration, weekends were as busy as weekdays. On Trump's second Saturday the official schedule said he would be making private phone calls to a number of world leaders including Russia's Vladimir Putin. I arrived early and, before sitting down at my desk walked up to Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office. He, too, was just taking his coat off. I gingerly made the suggestion that previous administrations had sometimes allowed photos of such phone calls through the Oval Office windows on the colonnade. To my mild shock, he didn't even think about it twice. "We'll do it!" he said. In truth, I really only expected the Putin call, but we were outside the windows multiple times throughout the day as the calls went on." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway - 27 February 2017 Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway (L) attends as US President Donald Trump welcomes the leaders of dozens of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) in the Oval Office on 27 February, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "We're often asked how much access we have to the Trump administration, and the answer is we have an awful lot. President Trump himself is very comfortable in the spotlight, and his aides are similarly unfazed by cameras. In this instance, senior advisor Kellyanne Conway was so comfortable in our presence she seemed not to consider the optics of kneeling on a Oval Office sofa to take pictures with her phone." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Angela Merkel heads to Washington - 17 March 2017 Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House on 17 March, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Chancellor Merkel made one of the earliest important visits of any US allies to meet Trump in his first months in office. When world leaders give joint news conferences they don't always tend to give each other their full attention - but Merkel watched Trump intently at several key moments, and here seemed particularly rapt." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump welcomes truckers to the White House - 23 March 2017 President Trump reacts as he sits on a truck while he welcomes truckers and CEOs to attend a meeting regarding healthcare at the White House on 23 March, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "The White House organised a listening session with truckers and CEO's of major American companies, regarding healthcare reform. An 18-wheeler tow truck was parked on the South Lawn of the White House and as Trump welcomed the truckers someone invited the him to come and sit in the driver's seat. Trump jumped into the cab and started yelling and pretending to drive - creating one of the most memorable pictures of the year. A lesson learned, always be prepared for the unexpected." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 6 April 2017 US President Donald Trump talks to journalists members of the travel pool on board the Air Force One during his trip to Palm Beach, Florida on 6 April, 2017. Carlos Barria: "During the many trips to President Trump's residence in Florida it is usual to see the president coming to the back of the plane to chat with journalists. During one of the trips to the so called 'Winter White House', Trump had a long talk with reporters while the Air Force One entertainment system was playing one of the latest Star Wars movies. As I was listening to Trump talk I was also looking at the movie waiting for a part of the movie to frame the mood of the day. Of the many scenes, I choose the one with Darth Vader." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office of the White House on 27 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "A day before President Trump's hundred days in office I was part of the team that interviewed the commander-in-chief in the Oval Office. I was only allowed to photograph Trump during the last five minutes of the interview. The time was very tight so I had to move fast as I had pictures in mind that I wanted to shoot. I walked into the Oval Office and saw that the President had printed maps of the country showing areas in red where he won. I raised my hands holding my camera as high as possible to get the best view of the scene using a 16mm wide angle lens." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump reacts as he arrives at Harrisburg international airport, before attending a rally marking his first 100 days in office in Pennsylvania on 29 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to celebrate his hundred days in office with a victory rally. He was in friendly territory as he won with a big difference over his opponent Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, during the November elections. As usual when the commander-in-chief arrives local residents gather to greet him. This time a small group of military personnel attended the arrival. Surrounded by secret service agents Trump walked from the Air Force One and raised his hand in a sign of victory as the crowd cheered him on." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 2 May 2017 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (L) and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus watch as US President Donald Trump presents the U.S. Air Force Academy football team with the Commander-in-Chief trophy in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on 2 May, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "Covering the White House does not just mean covering the President. White House staffers are an important part of the story and their relationship with the President and each other is an indicator of how things are going in the West Wing. The tendency is to focus exclusively on the President once an event starts but I always try to look around to see how people are reacting as things unfold." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Secret Service - 4 May 2017 Secret Service agents use a presidential limousine as cover from spraying water as US President Donald Trump lands via Marine One helicopter in New York on 4 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "The best part of any trip to New York City with the sitting US President is the helicopter ride into Manhattan. The ride out at night can be stunning. Here, Secret Service agents protect themselves from the spray from the East River as Trump lands on the helipad." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures NATO Summit - 25 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wait the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron (unseen) before a lunch ahead of a NATO Summit in Brussels on 25 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "One of the best parts of travelling overseas for White House coverage is the chance to see the U.S. president in different environments and (literally) a different light. Here, Trump and his wife came out of the shadows to greet France's President Macron." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump meets Putin at G20 summit - 7 July 2017 US President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on 7 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "On July 7, I witnessed one of the most important meetings of President Trump's first year in office. Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Germany. The world's eyes were on these two leaders after speculation about Russian interference during the 2016 US elections. We entered the room for less than two minutes, where I took dozens of pictures. But there was this very interesting moment when Trump extended his hand to Putin for a handshake. Putin paused for a second and looked at Trump's hand. That was the picture that I was looking for, a little moment that seemed to say a lot." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures First lady - 8 July 2017 First lady Melania Trump chats with US President Donald Trump during their return from Germany at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on 8 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "After President Trump's trip to Germany he arrived back at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. First Lady Melania Trump said goodbye to Trump as she was heading off in a different direction that day. While chatting a breeze blew Melania's hair up in the air." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Made in America product showcase - 17 July 2017 Vice President Mike Pence laughs as President Donald Trump holds a baseball bat as they attend a Made in America product showcase event at the White House on 17 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "This summer the White House organized an event to showcase 'Made in America' products. All kinds of exhibitors brought their products as the President and Vice President toured the event. One of the companies was Marucci Sport, a manufacturer of baseball bats based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As Trump approached a table full of baseball bats, photographers at the event, including me, rushed to get a good angle hoping that he would pick up a bat. As we predicted, he did. He took one and joked around as though he was hitting something hard. The only thing closer to him right there, was the media." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 25 July 2017 Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says hello to reporters as he and White House advisors including Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci accompany President Trump for an event celebrating veterans at AMVETS Post 44 in Ohio, July 25, 2017. Jonathan Ernst: "The most visible person in any White House is naturally the President, followed by the press secretary. But there are also the staff who support them. For those of us covering the Trump administration, there seem to be more compelling figures in the West Wing than ever before. It's crucial to know who's who and why they're important. When I raised my camera and back-pedalled ahead of the group to take this image Lewandowski gave me a hello. I liked the photo, but had no idea it would go a little bit viral, especially since Scaramucci, who was the biggest mover and shaker that week, was hidden back in the pack. But I guess the image catches a glimpse of what it's like to be a West Wing staffer on the road." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Campaign rally - 3 August 2017 US President Donald Trump arrives at a rally in West Virginia on 3 August, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Huntington for one of his usual campaign rallies. While members of his family spoke to the crowd he was waiting under a black curtain to be introduced. Suddenly he walked onto the stage, one of the first frames that I took was of his hand. I set my exposure for the light on the stage hoping to create this dark background and it worked." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Staring into the solar eclipse - 21 August 2017 Without his protective glasses on, US President Donald Trump looks up towards the solar eclipse while viewing with his wife Melania and son Barron at the White House on 21 August, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "On a day when everyone, and I mean everyone, was told not to look at the eclipse without protective glasses, Trump, President of the United States, couldn't help himself." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Harvey - 2 September 2017 US President Donald Trump poses for a photo as he and first lady Melania Trump help volunteers hand out meals during a visit with flood survivors of Hurricane Harvey at a relief centre in Houston, Texas on 2 September, 2017. Photohrapher Kevin Lamarque: "Trump, eager to deliver the image of a hands-on response to Hurricane Harvey, made this visit to a relief centre and obliged this woman with a selfie as Melania continued to work." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House - 15 September 2017 Donald Trump welcomes 11-year-old Frank Giaccio as he cuts the Rose Garden grass at the White House on 15 September. Frank, who wrote a letter to Trump offering to mow the lawn, was invited to work for a day at the White House along the National Park Service staff. Frank was so focused on his task that he did not notice the President arrive to surprise him. He took his father jumping in to grab his attention and point Trump out. Photographer Carlos Barria said: The image of Trump shouting at a kid who is mowing his lawn might have many interpretations in today's politically polarized United States. But for me it was just a kid who loved what he was doing, to the point he almost appeared to ignore the President." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Take a knee - 27 September 2017 A man kneels with a folded U.S. flag as the motorcade of U.S. President Donald Trump passes him after an event at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., September 27, 2017. In September, soon after Trump had made comments condemning NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, he made a day trip to a rally in Indianapolis. Jonathan Ernst managed to capture a man on one knee with a tri-folded flag and was able to use a portion of the sign on the building he was kneeling in front of to track the man down and tell his story in full. US Army veteran Marvin Boatright wanted to send a message against social injustice. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Maria - 3 October 2017 President Donald Trump throws rolls of paper towels into a crowd of local residents affected by Hurricane Maria as he visits Calgary Chapel in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 3 October, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "During an afternoon visit to Puerto Rico for President Trump to survey damage from Hurricane Maria and greet some of its victims, Trump made a stop at a church where food and supplies were being distributed. Among the items were paper towels and Trump, apparently caught up in the moment, decided to distribute some of the rolls." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Jared Kushner - 1 November 2017 White House Senior adviser Jared Kushner sits behind President Trump during a cabinet meeting in Washington on 1 November, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "The role of Jared Kushner has gone through a series of changes. He began front and centre as a high profile adviser, but as time has passed and issues surrounding him have surfaced, he has become more of a background figure." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump in China - 9 November 2017 Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands after making joint statements at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 9 November, 2017. Photographer Damir Sagolj: "It's one of those "how to make a better or at least different shot when two presidents shake hands several times a day, several days in row". If I'm not mistaken in calculation, presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump shook their hands at least six times in events I covered during Trump's recent visit to China. I would imagine there were some more handshakes I haven't seen but other photographers did. And they all look similar - two big men, smiling and heartily greeting each other until everyone gets their shot. But then there is always something that can make it special - in this case the background made of US and Chinese flags. The first time it didn't work for me. The second time I positioned myself lower and centrally, and used the longest lens I have to capture only hands reaching for a handshake." Reuters/Damir Sagolj Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 10 November 2017 US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport in Beijing, China, November 10, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "There is a Reuters photographer in the tight pool covering the US president for every appearance he makes 365 days a year. This was just one of 32 images of mine that were transmitted on the Reuters wire of President Trump visiting China and Vietnam that day. You never know when a sudden interaction, a gust of wind or a unique facial expression will lead to a striking image that grabs peoples' attention." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures ASEAN handshake - 13 November 2017 Donald Trump registers his surprise as he realises other leaders, including Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, are crossing their arms for the traditional "ASEAN handshake" as he participates in the opening ceremony of the summit in Manila on 13 November, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Having covered a few ASEAN summits, I knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. Not everyone in the room knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. A lot was written about this unscripted moment, and what deeper meaning it might have. The simple truth is that sometimes in life there are unscripted moments." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

The special election kicked off last year, when Mr Murphy announced that he would resign early following reports that he had pressured a woman with whom he had an extramarital affair to get an abortion.

Mr Lamb emerged as a Democratic candidate with values that could attract some Pennsylvania conservatives. A former federal prosecutor and Marine, Mr Lamb focused on issues like labour and the opioid crisis, and steered clear of things like gun control. He has not advocated her progressive priorities like Medicare for all or a $15-per-hour minimum wage.

Mr Saccone, meanwhile, has centred his campaign around Mr Trumps base, appearing at events with the presidents daughter, Ivanka Trump, and Vice President Mike Pence. The candidate  who is anti-abortion, anti-big-government, and pro-gun  has described himself as Trump before Trump was Trump.

But the president has yet to show up at a fundraiser for Mr Saccone, despite tweeting his support in January. The official announcement for his visit to Pennsylvania on 10 March  just three days before the special election  made no mention of Mr Saccone.US President Donald Trump spoke at the Gridiron Club Dinner, the annual event hosted by the exclusive journalistic organisation in Washington DC.

My staff was concerned that I couldnt do self-deprecating humour, Mr Trump said about the satirical nature of the event. And I told them not to worry, nobody does self-deprecating humour better than I do.

The President included jokes about the high turnover of White House staff during the first 13 months in office, commenting: "Now the question everyone keeps asking is, Whos going to be the next to leave? [White House speechwriter] Steve Miller or [First Lady] Melania? ... That is terrible honey, but you love me, right? ... I won't tell you what she said. ... She said, Behave. ... Is that terrible?"

He even made a joke about impeachment, a topic of discussion among Democrats in Congress for several months.

Mr Trump said: "Lately, [Vice President Mike Pence has been] showing a particularly keen interest in the news these days. He starts out each morning asking everyone, 'Has he been impeached yet?' Mike, you can't be impeached when there's no crime, please remember that."

Par for the course, there were also insults about erstwhile opponent Hillary Clinton and Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren , whom Mr Trump has repeatedly mocked for claiming Native American heritage by calling her 'Pocahontas'.

Mr Trump had previously refused to attend last year's White House Correspondent's dinner , where the President normally gives a funny speech after being roasted by a professional comedian who hosts the event full of members of the media and all manner of celebrities.

You can read Mr Trump's comments in full below:

""Well, thank you very much. It's an honour to be here and, I must tell you, that Melania and I are really thrilled. We really looked forward to this. ... I didn't know what to expect, but it's really quality people ... quality people. So, thank you very much.

Its been really another calm week at the White House. We finally have it running like a fine-tuned machine. Its fine-tuned. Its a beautiful piece of work. ... But before I get started, I wanted to apologise for arriving a little bit late. You know, we were late tonight because Jared could not get through security. ... Ivanka, youve got to do something, ... Jaredbut I will tell you, hes a good guy. He hashe has suffered. He is a great guy he really is.

I know the Gridiron is really an old tradition in Washington, been around a long time, and one thats important to many of you in the media. So, I was very excited to receive this invitation and come here and ruin your evening in person. ... My staff was concerned heading into this dinner that I couldnt do self-deprecating humour. They were worried about it. They said, Can you do this? And I told them not to worry. Nobody does self-deprecating humour better than I do. ... In fact, Orrin Hatch, Orrin said that Donald Trump is the best at self-deprecating in the history of America, better than Washington and better than Lincoln. ... Thank you, Orrin.

They told me my remarks tonight should be something like a late night routine. ... Late nightare they the worst, by the way? Were finally going to get one thats going to come to our side. They will get very big ratings if they do that. ... With all the television talent here, I think ... youd have figured that out. But I have to tell you, in preparation, I did what any good late night comic would do these days. I called Chuck Schumer and I asked him for some talking points. Can you believe this? I also spoke to some of the funniest people around the White House starting with my number two, Mike Pence. ... Love you Mike. ... Some of you may think that Mike is not a comedian, but he is one of the best straight men youre ever going to meet. ... He is straight! ...

I saw him the other day. Were in line shaking hands with men and women. A woman came over to shake his hand and he said, Im sorry. I cant do that. My wife is not here. I never saw anything like it. Hes ... years ahead of his time. ... Mike is doing a fantastic job as our vice president. He really is. Hes doing a fantastic job. Could not have asked for better. I really am very proud to call him, The Apprentice.

But lately what bothers me, I have to tell you, hes showing a particularly keen interest in the news these days. He starts out each morning asking everybody, Has he been impeached yet? .... You cant be impeached when there's no crime! ... Mike, put that down! ... I thought that was going to get a much better  I said to Melania, Do you think I should use that one? I dont know. And then she said, Use it. Its good. ... So much for humour. You never know about humour do you. ...

Steve Mnuchin ... we saw him and his beautiful wife on stage. ... When she asked whether or not she could sign the money also, I said, Steve, youve got a lot to handle. I said, You cant do that Steve!

America has a proud history of Treasury secretaries who sponsor the arts. Alexander Hamilton gave us so much. Andrew Mellon famously gave us the National Gallerytremendous gift. Steve has given us the blockbuster movie Lego Batman. ... See, now that one I didnt think was funny at all. ...

But Attorney General Sessions is here with us tonight. ... I offered him a ride over and he recused himself. ... But thats OK. We also have some of the leading lights of the media here including some folks from the failing New York Times. That sucker is failing! ... I know we have our differences, but I also know that you have a very special place ... in my heart. ... The other day they had five stories on the front page of the New York Times and every one of them was totally different and each one of them was bad.

After all, you the New York Times are an icon. Im a New York icon, youre a New York icon, and the only difference is, I still own my buildings.

I especially have a place in my heart for Arthur Sulzberger. ... Our stories are almost mirror images. I inherited a million dollars from my fatherhad a great fathergave me a million dollars and I turned it into billions. True story. Arthur inherited billions of dollars and he turned his into millions. Hello Arthur.

And its been a very tough year. Jeff Zuckers here. ... CNN, it lost a tremendous amount of credibility this year, but they also lost one of their true stars, the guy who got you the most scoops, inside info ... your really very best reporter. There was nobody like himSteve Bannon. That guy leaked more than the Titanic ...

As Im sure youve seen, were now riding very high in the polls, which is hard to believe considering I never get good press. But I just hit 50 in the Rasmussen poll.

A lot of people said I wouldnt be able to do so with ... losing my so-called chief strategist. ... I just lost my strategist. ... Just lost my strategist. Its pretty bad, but somehow, were still doing great even without Omarosa. ... By the way, I always knew, someday, youre going to fire her. Is that the worst? By the way, Omarosa, youre the worst! ...

So many people have been leaving the White House. Its actually been really exciting and invigorating.  I like turnover. I like chaos. It really is good.

Now the question everyone keeps asking is, Whos going to be the next to leave? Steve Miller or Melania? ... That is terrible honey, but you love me, right? ... I wont tell you what she said. ... She said, Behave. ... Is that terrible?

By the way, she has been an incredible first lady. ... Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and all of them. Theres so many women in that audience. The women with signs, We love our first lady. True, all of them, hundreds and hundreds of them during speeches, We love high heels. We love everything. ... These signs, they have pictures of shoes. ... Remember when she was badly treated about wearing high heels when actually she had the sneakers in her bag? But they love our first lady.

I can tell you, despite what youve reported, weve had a lot of success this year. We really have  tremendous. Our tax plan has been a tremendous victory. ... That is really turning out to be popular. Melania is even getting some major benefits from it. She can finally claim me as an adult dependent. ...

And the White House is actually a warm, loving, and wonderful place. Ive heard its cold. Its not cold. Its warm. Its loving, you meet great people, wonderful people like yourselves. And I just dont understand why everyone on the internet and in the media keeps screaming, Hashtag Free Melania. Free Melania. ... Like a number one hashtag. Free Melania. Shes actually having a great time.

Yes, are you? Oh, good, shes having a great time. Youre doing a good job. You know, you cant do a great job unless you enjoy it. Its true. You people know that as great reporters. You love what you do, and if you didnt love what you do, you wouldnt do it well. ...

Before we go any further, I want to just discuss the big financial story of the week. Ever since we announced our new tariffs, which actually is very popular with people because theyre tired of getting ripped off, many dying American industries have come to the White House asking for protection. They want help. They need protection. Unfortunately, Im sorry, I fear it may be too late for the print media. That was pretty good though wasnt it? ... Thats another bomb that I thought was going to be great.

It might be hard for you to believe, but I do enjoy gatherings like these. They give me a chance to socialize with members of the opposition party. ... Also great to see some Democrats here. ... The opposition party, Ive seen a few of them applauding tonight including Sen. Joe Manchin, whos here.

And dont worry, Joe. ... Hes a good man. There arent any cameras this time Joe. And I wont tell Chuck and Nancy what youre doing. Because boy was he applauding me the other night. Right? At the State of the Union he was up there applauding. I dont know who the hell he was catering to.

I thought my State of the Union address was actually extraordinary. One of the best ever given. in fact, Luis Gutierrez was so overcome with emotion at how good this particular speech was that he had to leave the chamber. He left and wept.

I probably could have found a way to get the Democrats to stand and clap. ... They didnt. They were like frozen. I said black unemployment is at the lowest point in history. No emotion. They sat other than Manchin. He stood up. Thank you, Joe. Hes still paying the price for that. I said Hispanic unemployment is at the lowest level in history, record. There was no emotion. But I decided I wasnt going to change anything. I wasnt going to get them to stand. I didnt know how. ... I was not going to include a salute to Fidel Castro. They would have stood up. They would have cheered. ...

And I know Mayor Mitch Landrieu feels right at home in Washington coming from Louisiana. I love Louisiana. ... Not too bad right? Not bad Mitch! ... Its a beautiful swamp. I like that swamp. ... Thats a much more legitimate swamp. But I have to say, Mitch, that while youre here in Washington, only one request. ... They already hit him on the statues. I was going to say, Dont touch our statues. But theyve already hit you three times on the statues. ... But Mitch you did a good job tonight and honestly, I love the way you finished. ... I really did. I thought it was very appropriate. ... Thank you.

And I never knew Tom Cotton was such a great comedian. We were laughing, the whole place. That was good tom. A rising star. How old are you now Tom? Hes 40. Wow, I better watch my back. You know ... hes a friend of mine, but in politics, you just dont have these guys. ... You were great tonight. I appreciate it.  Thank you Tom Cotton. And he is a rising star in our nation, not our party, in our nation. Hes got a great futuresmart and a great guy.

I was hoping wed also see Adam Schiffwonderful guy.  Leaking Adam!  Hell be in the middle of a meetingwhat is he? In some committee, Congressional committee, Mike what is it? Intelligence? Judiciary? What the hell committee? Thats the only thing, he doesnt know what committee hes on because hes on the phone so much. He doesnt have any time. Hey, lets call these guys.  Is that legal? Are you allowed to go to .. and just every half hour  I got to go break the news.  Adam Schiff  He was going to come tonight and then he heard that this was not a televised event so he stayed home. He stayed home.

But Adam is constantly on television pushing the idea that somehow I would undermine democracy.  Undermine? I love democracy. But he thinks Im going to undermine democracy. So, I have to tell him I have great respect for the various branches of government, the executive, the legislative, the judicialvery importantand last, Fox News. I have a lot of respect for Fox News.  Thank god for Fox News.

I often think that the Democrats would be better off if they learned a thing or two from us. They could learn from us. For instance, you might have noticed that some of the best lines from my campaign followed a certain pattern. Drain the swamp! Remember that?  When I saw that I hated it.  Somebody brought that one down for me, I said, This is so hokey. Drain the swamp.  This massive crowd, 25,000 people, and I said, .. Drain the Swamp! And they went crazy. I said, Whoa. Then, I said It in the next speech, Drain the swamp! And now, I love it. Drain the swamp!

But we had, Drain The Swamp, we had, Lock Her Up, we had, Build The Wall. Build the wall! Nancy Pelosi has been trying to come up with a line thats equal. And her line that she announced last week is, Mow The Grass! It doesnt work. ..

Mow the frickin grass. ... Thats going to stop MS-13. ... Mow that frickin grass! ... Man, shes crazy, but shes a fine woman. She is. I actually like Nancy Pelosi. Can you believe that? Her and Maxine Waters. How about that one? Maxine Waters, He must be impeached! Thats all she knows how to say, He must be impeached! Impeached! ... But hes done nothing wrong. Doesnt matter, they say. What has he done wrong? I dont know! You got to be impeached!  And then I say ... I get in trouble for this, She has to immediately, take an IQ test. And people go crazy. They went crazy/ But Maxine and Nancy and these people, theres a lot of hatred. Theres so much hatred we have to stop Mike. We have to stop the hatred.

And its true ... Nancys worth tens of millions of dollars and shes a populist.  You know, she really considers herself that. And I really try to tell her that you cant be a true populist unless youre worth at least ten billion dollars ... people like you better.

I dont know how the hell they like me, but boy I love those people. I love them. I really do. ... I understand that, in recognition of our massive tax cuts, Nancy suggested thatOh, Im not going to say this. The dessert should be crumb cake. Give me a break. You know, the word crumb is not working out well for Nancy.

On the way in tonight, someone asked me what I think about the Dreamers. I love the Dreamers. I do love the Dreamers. ... Ill be honest. ... I really believe the Republicans want to solve this problem[Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals] DACAmore than the Democrats and certainly faster. So, were all working together and I hope that somethings going to happen. I really do. I hope that somethings going to happen. ...

Were talking about the Dreamers and, quite honestly, Democrats can fantasize all they want about winning in 2020. Those are the Dreamers. ... Im a Dreamer also. ...

Theres talk about Joe Biden, Sleepy Joe, getting into the race. You know what he said, I want to take him behind the barn. ... Just trust me, I would kick his ass. ... Boy, would he be easy. Oh, would he be easy. ... But Joegive me a break. The guy who keeps making outrageous statements thinks he has a shot at being president? Guy makes outrageous statements. ... Hes going to be president? He doesnt have a shot.

And Oprah. Oh ... heres my next one. Oprah, I dont think shes ever been hit verbally yet. Right? Shes led a charmed life. Shes done a great job. ... She used to love me . I was on one of her last shows, The Trump Family. Were going to have to replay that for her. Were going to have to. ... She says shell run only if she gets the go-ahead from the Almighty. All right Oprah, go ahead and run. ...

And then we have Elizabeth Warren. ... I watched her making a speech for Hillary. I said, I think shes losing all of the male vote for Hillary Clinton. It was brutal. It was mean and angry. Elizabeth Warren, who had a rough day last week trying to prove her heritage, She had a rough day. And she had a good suggestion though about easing world tensions. The world is quite tense. Some of this stuff should have happened over the last twenty years, but it didnt. ... But she said that Rex Tillerson and I should sit down with the leaders of Iran and North Korea and smoke a peace pipe. ... I didnt like that Pocahontas.

I won't rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un. I just won't. As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that's his problem, not mine. ... He must be a fine man. Do you think he's a fine man? ... Although, we did save the Olympics. President Moon gave us a lot of credit, said, 'It wasit was President Trump that made the Olympics successful because there were a lot of people that wanted to go into that stadium with the potential of a problema big problemand he gave us all a lot of credit. He said, 'Without President Trump and his strong attitude they would have never called up and said, 'Hey, we'd love to be in the Olympics together.'

And that's true. ... Whether people want to hear it or not, they had a very successful Olympics. That was heading for disaster. They weren't selling tickets. ... It was heading for disaster and now we're talking. And they, by the way, called up a couple of days ago and said, 'We would like to talk.' And I said, 'So would we, but you have to de-nuke, you have to de-nuke.'

So, let's see what happens. Let's see what happens. You know when the media said  and when I said, 'My button is bigger than yours and mine works.' Everyone gave me a hard time, what a terrible thing. They didnt say what he said. He said, 'I have a button on my desk and I am prepared to use it.' Nobody ever said that. So, my statement was in response, but maybe positive things are happening. I hope that's true and I say that in all seriousness. I hope that's true  But we will be meeting and we'll see if anything positive happens. It's been a long time. . It's a problem that should have been fixed a long time ago  very far down the road. ...

I know theres been a lot of talk about Twitter and social media this year. But it really can be an important form of modern day communication. If I didnt have Twitter how would Gen. Kelly and Gen, McMaster know what it is that theyre supposed to say that day. They wouldnt know. Theyd have no idea.

Theres been a lot of criticism of John Kelly in the press, which i think is very very unfair. Hes doing an amazing job. He even told me he would let Ivanka visit the Oval Office when she gets home from representing us in the Olympics and she did so. Ivanka did you enjoy your visit? I hope so. That was very nice and by the way Ivanka did an incredible job representing our country at the Olympics. She did.

Many people have asked me how my time as a reality TV star prepared me for the presidency, the truth is theres very little overlap between the two. Very little. In one job, I had to manage a cutthroat cast of characters desperate for TV time, totally unprepared for their ... jobs, and each week afraid of having their asses fired. In the other job, I was the host of a smash television hit.  Televisions so easy compared to this. ...

I know we all came here tonight to have fun and tell jokes, but I also think we need to discuss the issues. Issues are very important. ... For example, weve got a new plan to tackle global warming, one of my favorite subjects. Were going to reduce the carbon footprint when we travel by shrinking the press pool so that we only have room for Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, and Judge Judy. ...

I better wrap it up. I have to be up early tomorrow morningsix o'clockto be listening to Fox and Friends. ... But I do want to say this is one of the best times I can ever remember having with the media. This might be the most fun Ive had since watching your faces on election night. ... I apologise. Years, years, years taken off your life. Oh, John King, with that beautiful red map. His hand was shaking toward the end. ... I love the way he uses that map. Hes good at it. ... And then it was Michigan. Remember they wouldnt call Pennsylvania? There was one percent of the ... vote to go in Pennsylvania. It was like 11 oclock. One percent of the vote to go, they wouldnt call it. And if i lost even one of the votes, I won by a lot. They wouldnt call it. So instead, they called Wisconsin. And then, John King, remember, The Winner of the great state of Michigan. Hes going Michigan. Hes like, Hey Trump won Michigan, this cant be happening. And that hand was up. ...

Look, whether you like me or not, you have to say that was good. That was exciting. ... Lot of tears were in this room. Youre not supposed to cry. Mike are they supposed to be crying? If somebody wins or somebody ... theyre supposed to be a little impartial. Lets be a little bit more impartial. ...

But you know, Ill tell you what, I do have a lot of respect for a lot of the people in this room. Even people that have been very strong opponents, Ive developed a lot of respect. Fairness is important to me, but you know, youve got your point of view. And a lot of you cover things very squarely and there are few professions that I respect more. And Id like to thank the Gridiron Club and Foundationfoundation does an incredible jobfor this wonderful evening. I want to thank all of the amazing speakers and, really, performers. Some very good performers ... they really are. ...

I want to thank the press for all you do to support and sustain our democracy. I mean that. I mean that. Some incredible people in the press ... brilliant, powerful, smart, and fair people in the press. And I want to thank you. My greatest wish is that we can all work together to make America safe, and just, and free for all Americans. We have a great country and we all, together, will make it even better. Thank you all very much. This is a great honour thank you."President Donald Trump has said his controversial decision last December to recognise Jerusalem as Israels capital was a wonderful thing as he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also presented a united front against Iran.

I think its something thats very much appreciated in Israel, Mr Trump said of his Jerusalem decision during a meeting with Mr Netanyahu, adding that US-Israel relations have never been better.

The president was vague on details of how a peace can be achieved between the Palestinians and Israel - one of the supposed main aims for his administration - but felt more confident that it can be brokered because the issue of Jerusalem and now weve taken it off the table.

Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu using similar rhetoric to that they have used since the Jerusalem decision was made in December, which will likely further aggravate the Palestinians and Arab allies already angered by the twin move to recognise Jerusalem as the capital and relocate the US embassy to the city. Mr Trump also suggested in the Oval Office that he might travel to Israel for the embassy opening, which is planned for May - a move that will not endear him to some in the region either.

Were looking at coming, Mr Trump said.If I can, I will.

Most of the intrigue around the meeting centred around the role played by White House senior adviser and Mr Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner who has been tapped by the president to lead the process,

That move was also nearly universally criticised because Mr Kushner lacked any political or diplomatic experience prior to his appointment. He is, however, family friends with Mr Netanyahu.

Mr Kushner has played a role in Mr Netanyahus visit to Washington  the advisers first high-profile engagement since he lost access to top-secret intelligence amid a crackdown at the White House on interim security clearances. A day before Israeli leaders sat down with the President, Mr Kushner visited Mr Netanyahu at Blair House, the presidential guest quarters across Pennsylvania Avenue.

The White House said the downgrade in the security clearance of Jared Kushner did not affect Mr Kushner's role in Monday's meeting. None at all that I am aware of, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said when asked at a news briefing what effect the security clearance downgrade had on Kushner's position in the meeting. His role wasn't impacted today, she added. He and his wife Sara were welcomed to the White House just hours after Israeli police announced that a third confidant of the prime minister had agreed to turn state's witness in the corruption case. Mr Netanyahu and his wife were questioned separately by police for hours on Friday before their departure for Washington. They have both denied any wrongdoing.

The president and Mr Netanyahu have bonded over their mutual hatred of the Iran nuclear accord, which was brokered by the Obama administration. Under the 2015 agreement with six nations, Iran agreed to restrict its nuclear programme for at least 10 years in exchange for the loosening of economic sanctions that had crippled its economy.

Mr Trump and the Israeli Prime Minister have complained that the deal failed to cover Irans ballistic missile programme or its support for anti-Israel militants in the region.

If I had to say what is our greatest challenge in the Middle East to both our countries, to our Arab neighbours, its encapsulated in one word: Iran, Mr Netanyahu said.Iran must be stopped. That is our common challenge.

 The United Nations General Assembly votes 128-9 to declare the United States' Jerusalem capital recognition 'null and void'

The nuclear deal and Iran's position in the conflict in Syria were the main talking points for Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu, but it was the peace deal that took up much of the public section of the meeting.

Mr Trump said Palestinians appear to want to come to the negotiating table very badly, but commented that peace may not be possible  Im not saying its going to happen, he said.

This is years and years of opposition and, frankly, hatred, Mr Trump said about the peace process and recognition of Jerusalem as a solely Israeli capital.

During his announcement last December, Mr Trump said the decision was long overdue and nothing more or less than recognition of reality. He also said the US embassy in the country would move from Tel Aviv to the holy city which also serves as the home of the Israeli Parliament, the Knesset.

He also had clarified in his announcement that the move is not intended in any way to reflect a departure from a mutually acceptable peace deal and a two-state solution, should both sides agree to it.

Mr Trump had repeatedly promised to be more cognisant of Israeli concerns during the 2016 campaign, painting himself as far more pro-Israel than his predecessor President Barack Obama - who had an openly cold relationship with Mr Netanyahu.

Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Show all 22 1 /22 Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Supporters of Difa-e-Pakistan Council a coalition of right wing Islamic parties, burn an effigy of US President Donald Trump, during a protest in Quetta, Pakistan EPA Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Israeli police scuffle with a Palestinian protester outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City Getty Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian protesters burn pictures of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu following Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Gaza City AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Israeli forces disperse Palestinian protesters outside Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City on 7 December 2017 AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Supporters of the Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC), an Islamic organization, chant slogans as they burn Israeli and US flags during a protest against Donald Trump in Peshawar REUTERS Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinians paint an 'X' over the face of a picture of US president Donald J. Trump which was painted on the Israeli separation wall in Bethlehem EPA Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian protestors burn the Israeli flag and a poster of US President Donald Trump in Gaza City AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Supporters of a Pakistani religious party rally against Donald Trump in Lahore AP Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian protesters burn the US and Israeli flags in Gaza City AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital A poster depicting U.S. President Donald Trump is burnt during a protest against Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in the West Bank city of Ramallah REUTERS Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Israeli forces detain a Palestinian protester during clashes that followed protests against US President Donald Trump recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in Hebron AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian protesters burn an effigy of U.S. President Donald Trump AP Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian protesters shout slogans against Donald Trump EPA Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital A Palestinian protester wears a Guy Fawkes mask used by the anonymous movement during clashes with Israeli troops in Hebron AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian demonstrators clash with Isralei troops during protests AFP/Getty Images Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Supporters of a Pakistani religious party chant anti-American slogans during a rally in Islamabad, Pakistan AP Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Pakistanis burn a representation of the U.S. flag during a protest rally in Hyderabad AP Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Young Palestinian women look on as smoke billows from burning tyres as fellow Palestinian demonstrators clash with Isralei troops AFP/Getty Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Protesters burn a picture of U.S. President Donald Trump at a protest in Islamabad REUTERS Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Protestors shouts slogans against US President Donald Trump as they hold Palestinian and Turkish flags during a protest near the US Embassy in Ankara, Turkey EPA Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Palestinian protestors put their feet over a picture of US president Donald Trump during a protest in the West Bank City of Nablus EPA Protests erupt after Trump recognises Jerusalem as Israel's capital Pakistani protesters burn tires at an anti-Donald Trump rally in Multan AP

At least one Palestinian official, chief representative to Britain Manuel Hassassian, called the Jerusalem decision a kiss of death to the peace process.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defence Secretary James Mattis were among senior officials who reportedly advised Mr Trump against breaking decades of US foreign policy.

They and others feared it would be the beginning of chaos and violence in the region as a Hamas spokesman said it opens the gates of hell and days of rage were called for in the city.

Hamas called the decision about the city  home to holy sites for Jews, Muslims, and Christians  a red line.

The statement was unequivocal: the resistance will not allow any desecration of it.

The decision was nearly universally criticised by world leaders as well. The United Nations declared in a 128 to nine vote that it was null and void and would not be recognised by the world body.

While the vote had little practical impact  it is not legally binding  it was a considerable embarrassment for the US as it reflects global opinion.

As the US licked its wounds, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbass spokesman Nabil Abu Rdainah seized on what he said was a victory for Palestine.

We will continue our efforts in the United Nations and at all international forums to put an end to this occupation, and to establish our Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, Mr Rdainah said.

Thirty-five countries, many in Africa and Latin America, abstained from the vote.

Experts had predicted at least 150 votes in support of the motion. There was speculation that the high number of abstentions was a result of the Trump administrations threat to take names of countries and cut off humanitarian aid funding.

The Associated Press had said UN Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley had written to most of the 193 UN members states warning of possible retaliation ahead of the vote and noted that the President took the matter personally.

In what appeared to be a retaliation for the majority of countries voting openly against the US, the Trump administration announced that it would withhold funding for the UN Works and Relief Agency, which provides educational, social, and health aid to millions of Palestinian refugees in the region and in US ally, Jordan.President Donald Trump has suggested he may exempt Mexico and Canada from his controversial tariff plan if they comply to with his wishes on a major trade agreement.

As negotiators in Mexico City entered their final day of of talks on the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), Mr Trump tweeted: NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs. Tariffs on Steel and Aluminium will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed.

The statement came days after Mr Trump announced he would implement a 25 per cent tariff on steel imports and a 10 per cent tariff on aluminium imports to the US, sending stock markets plummeting. Canada and Mexico are two of the biggest steel importers to the US, making up 16 per cent and 9 per cent of the market share, respectively.

Recommended Trump administration sends mixed signals on possible tariff exemptions

On Monday, Mr Trump suggested a path to renegotiating the tariffs, adding: "Also, Canada must treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying."

Just one day before, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro  a chief advocate for the tariffs  told Fox News that no countries would be excluded from the penalties.

"At this point in time, 25 per cent on steel, 10 percent on aluminium, no country exclusions, firm line in the sand," he said.

Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Show all 29 1 /29 Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump acknowledges the audience after taking the oath of office as his wife Melania (L) and daughter Tiffany watch during inauguration ceremonies swearing in Trump as the 45th president of the United States on the West Front of the US capital in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jim Bourg: "This photo was shot with one of two remote cameras. The cameras were monitored and triggered remotely and the pictures were transmitted to clients worldwide within minutes of being taken." Reuters/Jim Bourg Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Obama farewell address - 10 January 2017 US President Barack Obama wipes away tears as he delivers his farewell address in Chicago on 10 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "In his final days in office, Obama made a visit home to Chicago. As he spoke from the stage to his wife and daughter in the audience, he became emotional when he talked about what they had sacrificed during his time in office. I turned from photographing the Obama women embracing to find him onstage wiping away tears." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inauguration - 20 January 2017 A combination of photos shows the crowds attending the inauguration ceremonies to swear in U.S. President Donald Trump at 12:01pm (left) on January 20, 2017 and President Barack Obama sometime between 12:07pm and 12:26pm on January 20, 2009. Reuters/ Lucas Jackson/Stelios Varias Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Liberty Ball - 20 January 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump attend the Liberty Ball in honour of his inauguration in Washington on 20 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "What I see when I look at this picture is the end of a very long day, not to mention weeks and months of preparation by many photographers, editors and network experts and the beginning of everything since." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception - 22 January 2017 US President Donald Trump greets Director of the FBI James Comey as Director of the Secret Service Joseph Clancy (L), watches during the Inaugural Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders Reception in the Blue Room of the White House on 22 January, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "I have covered the White House for 16 years and normally either the President or the pool is in position when an event starts. In this case the President was not where anyone expected him to be. In fact, he was almost blocking the door when the pool came in. We had to scramble to find a position without bumping him or the furniture as he greeted and thanked members of law enforcement for their security efforts during the inauguration. Luckily, he greeted FBI Director James Comey a few seconds after the pool had made its way into the room." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Private phone calls to world leaders - 28 January 2017 US President Donald Trump, is joined by his staff, as he speaks by phone with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office on 28 January, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Very early in the Trump administration, weekends were as busy as weekdays. On Trump's second Saturday the official schedule said he would be making private phone calls to a number of world leaders including Russia's Vladimir Putin. I arrived early and, before sitting down at my desk walked up to Press Secretary Sean Spicer's office. He, too, was just taking his coat off. I gingerly made the suggestion that previous administrations had sometimes allowed photos of such phone calls through the Oval Office windows on the colonnade. To my mild shock, he didn't even think about it twice. "We'll do it!" he said. In truth, I really only expected the Putin call, but we were outside the windows multiple times throughout the day as the calls went on." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway - 27 February 2017 Senior advisor Kellyanne Conway (L) attends as US President Donald Trump welcomes the leaders of dozens of historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) in the Oval Office on 27 February, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "We're often asked how much access we have to the Trump administration, and the answer is we have an awful lot. President Trump himself is very comfortable in the spotlight, and his aides are similarly unfazed by cameras. In this instance, senior advisor Kellyanne Conway was so comfortable in our presence she seemed not to consider the optics of kneeling on a Oval Office sofa to take pictures with her phone." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Angela Merkel heads to Washington - 17 March 2017 Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Donald Trump hold a joint news conference in the East Room of the White House on 17 March, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Chancellor Merkel made one of the earliest important visits of any US allies to meet Trump in his first months in office. When world leaders give joint news conferences they don't always tend to give each other their full attention - but Merkel watched Trump intently at several key moments, and here seemed particularly rapt." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump welcomes truckers to the White House - 23 March 2017 President Trump reacts as he sits on a truck while he welcomes truckers and CEOs to attend a meeting regarding healthcare at the White House on 23 March, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "The White House organised a listening session with truckers and CEO's of major American companies, regarding healthcare reform. An 18-wheeler tow truck was parked on the South Lawn of the White House and as Trump welcomed the truckers someone invited the him to come and sit in the driver's seat. Trump jumped into the cab and started yelling and pretending to drive - creating one of the most memorable pictures of the year. A lesson learned, always be prepared for the unexpected." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 6 April 2017 US President Donald Trump talks to journalists members of the travel pool on board the Air Force One during his trip to Palm Beach, Florida on 6 April, 2017. Carlos Barria: "During the many trips to President Trump's residence in Florida it is usual to see the president coming to the back of the plane to chat with journalists. During one of the trips to the so called 'Winter White House', Trump had a long talk with reporters while the Air Force One entertainment system was playing one of the latest Star Wars movies. As I was listening to Trump talk I was also looking at the movie waiting for a part of the movie to frame the mood of the day. Of the many scenes, I choose the one with Darth Vader." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump speaks during an interview with Reuters in the Oval Office of the White House on 27 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "A day before President Trump's hundred days in office I was part of the team that interviewed the commander-in-chief in the Oval Office. I was only allowed to photograph Trump during the last five minutes of the interview. The time was very tight so I had to move fast as I had pictures in mind that I wanted to shoot. I walked into the Oval Office and saw that the President had printed maps of the country showing areas in red where he won. I raised my hands holding my camera as high as possible to get the best view of the scene using a 16mm wide angle lens." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures 100 Days - 27 April 2017 US President Donald Trump reacts as he arrives at Harrisburg international airport, before attending a rally marking his first 100 days in office in Pennsylvania on 29 April, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to celebrate his hundred days in office with a victory rally. He was in friendly territory as he won with a big difference over his opponent Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, during the November elections. As usual when the commander-in-chief arrives local residents gather to greet him. This time a small group of military personnel attended the arrival. Surrounded by secret service agents Trump walked from the Air Force One and raised his hand in a sign of victory as the crowd cheered him on." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 2 May 2017 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer (L) and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus watch as US President Donald Trump presents the U.S. Air Force Academy football team with the Commander-in-Chief trophy in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on 2 May, 2017. Photographer Joshua Roberts: "Covering the White House does not just mean covering the President. White House staffers are an important part of the story and their relationship with the President and each other is an indicator of how things are going in the West Wing. The tendency is to focus exclusively on the President once an event starts but I always try to look around to see how people are reacting as things unfold." Reuters/Joshua Roberts Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Secret Service - 4 May 2017 Secret Service agents use a presidential limousine as cover from spraying water as US President Donald Trump lands via Marine One helicopter in New York on 4 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "The best part of any trip to New York City with the sitting US President is the helicopter ride into Manhattan. The ride out at night can be stunning. Here, Secret Service agents protect themselves from the spray from the East River as Trump lands on the helipad." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures NATO Summit - 25 May 2017 US President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump wait the arrival of French President Emmanuel Macron (unseen) before a lunch ahead of a NATO Summit in Brussels on 25 May, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "One of the best parts of travelling overseas for White House coverage is the chance to see the U.S. president in different environments and (literally) a different light. Here, Trump and his wife came out of the shadows to greet France's President Macron." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump meets Putin at G20 summit - 7 July 2017 US President Donald Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany on 7 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "On July 7, I witnessed one of the most important meetings of President Trump's first year in office. Trump met Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Germany. The world's eyes were on these two leaders after speculation about Russian interference during the 2016 US elections. We entered the room for less than two minutes, where I took dozens of pictures. But there was this very interesting moment when Trump extended his hand to Putin for a handshake. Putin paused for a second and looked at Trump's hand. That was the picture that I was looking for, a little moment that seemed to say a lot." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures First lady - 8 July 2017 First lady Melania Trump chats with US President Donald Trump during their return from Germany at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on 8 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "After President Trump's trip to Germany he arrived back at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. First Lady Melania Trump said goodbye to Trump as she was heading off in a different direction that day. While chatting a breeze blew Melania's hair up in the air." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Made in America product showcase - 17 July 2017 Vice President Mike Pence laughs as President Donald Trump holds a baseball bat as they attend a Made in America product showcase event at the White House on 17 July, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "This summer the White House organized an event to showcase 'Made in America' products. All kinds of exhibitors brought their products as the President and Vice President toured the event. One of the companies was Marucci Sport, a manufacturer of baseball bats based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. As Trump approached a table full of baseball bats, photographers at the event, including me, rushed to get a good angle hoping that he would pick up a bat. As we predicted, he did. He took one and joked around as though he was hitting something hard. The only thing closer to him right there, was the media." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House staffers - 25 July 2017 Former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski says hello to reporters as he and White House advisors including Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci accompany President Trump for an event celebrating veterans at AMVETS Post 44 in Ohio, July 25, 2017. Jonathan Ernst: "The most visible person in any White House is naturally the President, followed by the press secretary. But there are also the staff who support them. For those of us covering the Trump administration, there seem to be more compelling figures in the West Wing than ever before. It's crucial to know who's who and why they're important. When I raised my camera and back-pedalled ahead of the group to take this image Lewandowski gave me a hello. I liked the photo, but had no idea it would go a little bit viral, especially since Scaramucci, who was the biggest mover and shaker that week, was hidden back in the pack. But I guess the image catches a glimpse of what it's like to be a West Wing staffer on the road." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Campaign rally - 3 August 2017 US President Donald Trump arrives at a rally in West Virginia on 3 August, 2017. Photographer Carlos Barria: "President Trump travelled to Huntington for one of his usual campaign rallies. While members of his family spoke to the crowd he was waiting under a black curtain to be introduced. Suddenly he walked onto the stage, one of the first frames that I took was of his hand. I set my exposure for the light on the stage hoping to create this dark background and it worked." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Staring into the solar eclipse - 21 August 2017 Without his protective glasses on, US President Donald Trump looks up towards the solar eclipse while viewing with his wife Melania and son Barron at the White House on 21 August, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "On a day when everyone, and I mean everyone, was told not to look at the eclipse without protective glasses, Trump, President of the United States, couldn't help himself." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Harvey - 2 September 2017 US President Donald Trump poses for a photo as he and first lady Melania Trump help volunteers hand out meals during a visit with flood survivors of Hurricane Harvey at a relief centre in Houston, Texas on 2 September, 2017. Photohrapher Kevin Lamarque: "Trump, eager to deliver the image of a hands-on response to Hurricane Harvey, made this visit to a relief centre and obliged this woman with a selfie as Melania continued to work." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures White House - 15 September 2017 Donald Trump welcomes 11-year-old Frank Giaccio as he cuts the Rose Garden grass at the White House on 15 September. Frank, who wrote a letter to Trump offering to mow the lawn, was invited to work for a day at the White House along the National Park Service staff. Frank was so focused on his task that he did not notice the President arrive to surprise him. He took his father jumping in to grab his attention and point Trump out. Photographer Carlos Barria said: The image of Trump shouting at a kid who is mowing his lawn might have many interpretations in today's politically polarized United States. But for me it was just a kid who loved what he was doing, to the point he almost appeared to ignore the President." Reuters/Carlos Barria Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Take a knee - 27 September 2017 A man kneels with a folded U.S. flag as the motorcade of U.S. President Donald Trump passes him after an event at the state fairgrounds in Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S., September 27, 2017. In September, soon after Trump had made comments condemning NFL players who kneel during the national anthem, he made a day trip to a rally in Indianapolis. Jonathan Ernst managed to capture a man on one knee with a tri-folded flag and was able to use a portion of the sign on the building he was kneeling in front of to track the man down and tell his story in full. US Army veteran Marvin Boatright wanted to send a message against social injustice. Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Hurricane Maria - 3 October 2017 President Donald Trump throws rolls of paper towels into a crowd of local residents affected by Hurricane Maria as he visits Calgary Chapel in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 3 October, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "During an afternoon visit to Puerto Rico for President Trump to survey damage from Hurricane Maria and greet some of its victims, Trump made a stop at a church where food and supplies were being distributed. Among the items were paper towels and Trump, apparently caught up in the moment, decided to distribute some of the rolls." Reuters Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Jared Kushner - 1 November 2017 White House Senior adviser Jared Kushner sits behind President Trump during a cabinet meeting in Washington on 1 November, 2017. Photographer Kevin Lamarque: "The role of Jared Kushner has gone through a series of changes. He began front and centre as a high profile adviser, but as time has passed and issues surrounding him have surfaced, he has become more of a background figure." Reuters/Kevin Lamarque Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Trump in China - 9 November 2017 Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping shake hands after making joint statements at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on 9 November, 2017. Photographer Damir Sagolj: "It's one of those "how to make a better or at least different shot when two presidents shake hands several times a day, several days in row". If I'm not mistaken in calculation, presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump shook their hands at least six times in events I covered during Trump's recent visit to China. I would imagine there were some more handshakes I haven't seen but other photographers did. And they all look similar - two big men, smiling and heartily greeting each other until everyone gets their shot. But then there is always something that can make it special - in this case the background made of US and Chinese flags. The first time it didn't work for me. The second time I positioned myself lower and centrally, and used the longest lens I have to capture only hands reaching for a handshake." Reuters/Damir Sagolj Donald Trump's first year: in pictures Air Force One - 10 November 2017 US President Donald Trump boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing Airport in Beijing, China, November 10, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "There is a Reuters photographer in the tight pool covering the US president for every appearance he makes 365 days a year. This was just one of 32 images of mine that were transmitted on the Reuters wire of President Trump visiting China and Vietnam that day. You never know when a sudden interaction, a gust of wind or a unique facial expression will lead to a striking image that grabs peoples' attention." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst Donald Trump's first year: in pictures ASEAN handshake - 13 November 2017 Donald Trump registers his surprise as he realises other leaders, including Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, are crossing their arms for the traditional "ASEAN handshake" as he participates in the opening ceremony of the summit in Manila on 13 November, 2017. Photographer Jonathan Ernst: "Having covered a few ASEAN summits, I knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. Not everyone in the room knew to expect the ASEAN handshake. A lot was written about this unscripted moment, and what deeper meaning it might have. The simple truth is that sometimes in life there are unscripted moments." Reuters/Jonathan Ernst

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, however, left the possibility open, telling NBC's Meet the Press: We shall see.

It is unclear how serious Mr Trump is in his offer to negotiate the tariffs. He has previously called Nafta the worst trade deal in the history of the world and threatened to terminate it altogether.

Negotiators from the US, Mexico and Canada were wrapping up their seventh and final round of Nafta negotiations on Monday, with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer due to meet with Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo and Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland just hours after Mr Trumps tweet.

 Donald Trump unveils new tariffs on steel and aluminium imports to US

The talks have been complicated by Mr Trumps tariff announcement last week, after which both Canada and Mexico  and even the European Union  threatened to retaliate. Experts such as Roberto Azevedo, the director general of the World Trade Organisation, have warned that the tariffs could lead to a global trade war.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham took to the airwaves on Sunday to ask Mr Trump to reconsider the tariffs altogether.

Youre punishing the American taxpayers, and you are making a huge mistake, he said on CBS's Face the Nation.

Mr Trump responded to criticism by tweeting that trade wars are "good" and "easy to win".

"When we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, dont trade anymore-we win big," he tweeted last week. "Its easy!"A news report about Chinese leader Xi Jinping abolishing presidential term limits was blacked out when it aired in the country.

Will Ripley, CNN's international correspondent, was reporting on responses to the leader's plans which could see him stay in power for life under his new ideological guidelines, known as "Xi Jinping Thought".

But mid-report he broke off and told viewers that he was being blacked out right now. A shot of a blank TV screen was shown alongside the broadcast.

The report began with a clip of US President Donald Trump joking about being president for life, following Mr Jinpings announcement which opened up the path for him to lead indefinitely after his second term comes to an end later this year.

The US President said: Dont forget Chinas great and Xi is a great gentleman. Hes now president for life. President for life. No, hes great. And look he was able to do that. I think its great. Maybe well have to give that a shot someday.

The programme then cuts across to Mr Ripley in China, who said while there was no official response from the Chinese government on Mr Trumps comments, they are likely to be encouraging for the communist party.

Describing it as a heavy-handed authoritarian country he said no one would protest the controversial decision because they were brutally cracked down on.

"Even our own CNN feed here in China was blacked out earlier when I was reporting on CNN International by the Chinese censors," he said.

In fact, I am looking and I am blacked out right now as a result of our reporting about this.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

State media is censored; the social media is censored as well. People who post anything that is critical of Chinese government or critical of the abolition of term limits, they are not able to post words such as disagree or emperor, alluding to the fact Xi Jinping could be Chinas next emperor.

He added that the comments would be greatly discouraging for the many people in China who had hoped Xi Jinping would solidify the process of the peaceful transfer of power at the end of his second term.

Instead he said he was poised to grab the power for himself, potentially rule as president for life.

The report comes after a recent announcement by Chinas state media outlet Xinhua which said: The Communist Party of China Central Committee proposed to remove the expression that the President and Vice-President of the Peoples Republic of China shall serve no more than two consecutive terms from the countrys Constitution.

The decision is expected to be waved through by the countrys parliament, the National Peoples Congress.

Backlash to the decision was cracked down upon by the state through further online censorship.

A number of terms were banned  some temporarily  from being posted on popular Chinese social media site Weibo.

Loosely translated, these included words and phrases such as "disagree", "I oppose", "ascend the throne", and various references to an "emperor", according to the China Digital Times, which also reported that mentioning George Orwell novels 1984 and Animal Farm had also been barred.

References to Winnie the Pooh and Disney were also blocked, as these were part of a long-running joke that compared the leader to the fictional bear.

The letter N was also banned for some time, understood to be referring to n terms in office.A South Korean delegation has met with North Koreas leader Kim Jong-un, for the first time since he took power.

Envoys for the South Korean President, Moon Jae-in, arrived in Pyongyang for a two-day visit aimed at easting tensions between the two Koreas, and encouraging the North and the US to enter into talks.

While both North Korea and the US have expressed a willingness to talk, Washington has maintained the North must first give up its nuclear weapons programme, while the North says it will not sit down under preconditions.

Chung Eui-yong (centre), head of the presidential National Security Office, leaves with the delegation for Pyongyang (Getty) (Jung Yeon-Je-Pool/Getty Images)

The reclusive state is also concerned about joint US-South Korea military exercises due to start next month, which it considers a preparation for war.

North Korea has made no secret of its pursuit of a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the continental US.

South Korean officials in the first known high-level visit to North Korea in around a decade ( AP) (South Korea Presidential Blue House/Yonhap via AP)

The 10-member delegation was led by Mr Moons national security director, Chung Eui-yong.

North Korea Military Parade Show all 6 1 /6 North Korea Military Parade North Korea Military Parade AP North Korea Military Parade AFP/Getty Images North Korea Military Parade AP North Korea Military Parade AP North Korea Military Parade AP North Korea Military Parade AFP/Getty Images

It was the first known high-level visit by South Korean officials to the North in around a decade.

Before leaving for Pyongyang, Mr Chung said he would relay Mr Moons hopes for North Korean nuclear disarmament.

I will certainly deliver President Moons firm resolve to achieve a denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and genuine and permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula, Mr Chung said.

He said he would push for indepth talks to find ways to help arrange the restart of dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington.

 Trump announces some of the 'largest sanctions' on North Korea at CPAC 2018

Mr Chungs delegation includes intelligence chief Suh Hoon, and vice-unification minister Chun Hae-sung.

The presidential Blue House said the high-profile delegation was meant to reciprocate the trip by Kim Jong-uns sister, Kim Yo-jong, who became the first member of the Norths ruling family to visit South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce.

Later this week, Mr Chang and Mr Suh are due to fly to Washington to brief US officials on the talks.

Additional reporting by agenciesHuman-rights activists are celebrating after the worlds longest-imprisoned journalist was freed after 19 years in jail in Uzbekistan.

Yusuf Ruzimuradov was tortured and underwent a bogus trial on false political charges, according to the Human Rights Watch group.

But as they breathed a sigh of relief, campaigners called on the countrys President to drop charges against two other journalists who are due in court tomorrow. The pair could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Mr Ruzimuradov, now 64, has reportedly been released with unspecified restrictions.

He was a reporter for opposition newspaper Erk  which means freedom  when he was jailed in 1999 on anti-state charges. He was convicted with his editor, Muhammad Bekjanov, on charges of publishing and distributing a banned newspaper, which was considered part of an attempt to overthrow the government.

After 19 years, the reporter became the longest-imprisoned journalist worldwide, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

Observers said the release of Mr Ruzimuradov was a sign that Uzbekistan was turning a corner in its long-term policies of repression of free speech and freedom of religion.

Nina Ognianova, of CPJs Europe and central Asia programme, said: Today, we can breathe a sigh of relief that Yusuf Ruzimuradov  the longest imprisoned journalist in the world  has finally been released in Uzbekistan, but we remain outraged at the grave injustice that robbed him of 19 years of his life.

Steve Swerdlow, of the New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch said: This is one of the most dramatic stories we have ever documented.

He said that in the mid-1990s, in an atmosphere of censorship under then-president Islam Karimov, Mr Ruzimuradov and Mr Bekjanov sought refuge in Ukraine to avoid arrest, but were hunted down there by security forces and forced onto a plane  where the torture began  and flown back to Uzbekistans capital city.

They had bags placed over their heads, they were beaten on the plane, flown to Tashkent and forced to confess to trying to overthrow the regime and were sentenced to a very long prison term  15 years, said Mr Swerdlow.

The charges were publishing and distributing a banned newspaper, participating in a banned political protest and attempting to overthrow the regime.

Shortly before they were due for release, the pair had their sentences extended. These are some of the most severe abuses you can imagine. Muhammed Bekjanov personally told me what happened: he said, the second we got off the plane they were beating us with plastic batons. They put plastic bags over their heads and they called it the bag of death.

The jail terms were extended on the most farcical, absurd grounds. Imagine serving 15 years of your life in prison and just before you get out  after a bogus trial  having that prolonged. Its a particular form of psychological torture to keep a person in such a form of helplessness and desperation that they cant control their fate, said Mr Swerdlow.

While living in exile in Ukraine, Mr Bekjanov had been the editor of an opposition newspaper and Mr Ruzimuradov reported for it.

Mr Bekjanov was freed last year, under Uzbekistans new President, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Mr Ruzimuradov was released at the end of last month and reunited with his family, CPJ said, but the news has just been made public.

So today for his family, for him and for us its an amazing moment, Mr Swerdlow added. Theres no doubt that on political prisoners, these steps were inconceivable when the former president Karimov was alive. He said he would treasure the Skype message that brought him news of the release.

However, in a separate case, the trial of journalists Bobomurod Abdullaev and Hayot Nasriddinov is due to start in Tashkent this week, members of Mr Abdullaevs family have told CPJ. The pair are charged with conspiracy to overthrow the constitutional regime.

Twelve international press freedom and human rights advocacy groups, including CPJ, have called on Uzbek authorities to investigate allegations of torture and ill-treatment of the two men. They are accused of extremism and conspiracy to overthrow the regime, which rights advocates say are bogus and politically motivated.

Mr Abdullaev is a freelance journalist who has reported for the London-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting among others.

Human Rights Watch believes Uzbekistan may be entering a different era under its new leader, although it says there are still thousands of political prisoners.

Mr Swerdlow said: The government, coming out of the Karimov period, recognised that it was paying a political price and there was a lot of pressure on Uzbekistan. Its image was tarnished by the cruelty and stifling of dissent, systematic police torture in custody. Such torture was even encouraged, he believes.

A new government decree will make confessions extracted under torture inadmissible in court.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

But in the past, anyone practising their religion outside strict controls in the Muslim-majority nation was seen as a potential threat to the regime, and thousands were convicted on vague charges such as extremism, Mr Swerdlow said.

He added that people had even been prevented from getting married because they were suspected of being extremists.

The government, to its credit, is making some moves in the right direction, said Mr Swerdlow said.

The countrys security chief, who for 20 years was a feared senior government figure and presided over torture and plain-clothes informers, quit in January. Mr Swerdlow said he was believed to have been forced out but has been given a senate seat where he is immune from prosecution.

Speaking about the journalists set to stand trial, Ms Ognianova said: If President Shavkat Mirziyoyev is serious about turning a new page in his countrys treatment of the media, restrictions will be dropped against Ruzimuradov, charges will be dropped against Bobomurod Abdullaev and Hayot Nasriddinov, and they too will be freed.The most senior Catholic Church leader to be charged with sexual abuse has appeared in an Australian court for a hearing that will determine whether he will face a full trial by jury.

Cardinal George Pell, 76, faced testimony from his alleged victims, who spoke to the Melbourne court via video link from an undisclosed location.

No details of the complainants or the crimes, described by police as historical sexual assault offences, have yet been released to the public.

Recommended Pope Francis reactivates sex abuse advisory commission

Testimonies given during the course of the hearing will remain secret.

Cardinal Pell, Pope Francis former finance minister and former archbishop of Sydney, was charged last June with sexually abusing multiple people in his home state of Victoria.

They came five years after a royal commission began an investigation into how the Catholic Church and other institutions had responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over a number of decades.

Cardinal Pells lawyers told the court last month that the first complainant approached police in 2015, 40 years after the alleged abuse.

They came forward after seeing media coverage of the commission, they said.

The Cardinal denies all of the allegations and has said that he intends to return to his job at the Vatican once the criminal charges are resolved.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

"I am innocent of these charges," he said last year. "They are false. The whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me."

While Cardinal Pells lawyer did not object to testimony being given via video link at the hearing, he did question why one appeared with what prosecutor Mark Gibson described as a support dog.

"I always thought that dogs were for children and very old people," Robert Richter told the court.

Magistrate Belinda Wallington replied, "No, they're also there for vulnerable and traumatised people."

Cardinal Pell is expected to plead not guilty if the current hearing, which could last a month, finds there is sufficient evidence to warrant a jury trial.

Pope Francis did not force the Cardinal to resign and has so far withheld judgment of his former finance minister, saying he is waiting for Australian justice to run its course.

The pontiffs declared zero tolerance stance for sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has been shaken several times since December, when he came under fire for participating in the funeral of Cardinal Bernard Law.

The former Boston archbishop resigned in disgrace in 2002 after a Boston Globe investigation revealed he and other bishops had covered up child abuse by priests.

Last month, after receiving criticism for supporting a Chilean bishop accused by victims of witnessing and ignoring their abuse, Pope Francis reactivated a sex abuse advisory commission that lapsed in December.

Agencies contributed to this reportThe European Commission has said it hopes a stable government can be formed in Italy after preliminary results saw a collection of right-wing, Eurosceptic and populist parties with a majority in the countrys parliament.

The Eurosceptic, anti-establishment Five Star Movement was the biggest party, with around 32 per cent of the vote, while the far-right League and centre-right Forza Italia took around 17 per cent and 14 per cent respectively.

The centre-left Democratic Party, led by centrist Matteo Renzi, won just around 19 per cent of the vote, down heavily on the previous elections.

A European Commission spokesperson refused to be drawn on the nature of the results, but told reporters in Brussels: On the Italian election, what I can say on behalf of the Commission is that we understand that the official results will not be announced until later today.

We have confidence in President Mattarellas abilities to facilitate the formation of a stable government in Italy.

In the meantime, Italy has a government lead by Prime Minister Gentiloni with whom we are working closely.

Forza Italia, which is led by former PM Silvio Berlusconi, is pro-European, while the Five Star Movement and the League are varying degrees of Eurosceptic.

The mathematics in the Italian parliament suggests that it will be difficult to form a government without the participation of at least one of the two Eurosceptic groups  with coalition negotiations likely to be long and complicated.

 Italian Elections 2018: Democratic Party concedes defeat

As the results rolled in, League leader Matteo Salvini declared that his party had a right and duty to lead a right-wing coalition with the centre-right and stepped up his attack against the EU.

I am someone who keeps my word, and the commitment is for a centre-right coalition which won and can govern, he said on Monday.

Mr Salvini also explicitly attacked European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and repeated that the euro is a failed project destined to end.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

The Italian election follows the Austrian election last year, which landed the Eurosceptic and far-right FPO in a right-wing coalition government with conservatives.

After that contest, the Commission called for a pro-European government. The FPO was made to drop its Eurosceptic policies by its coalition partner as a condition of going into government  where it has relentlessly focused on immigration and Islam.The Italian general election has delivered a puzzling paradox  the country it seems cant have a stable government without populists, or with them.

On Monday the country woke up to a new parliamentary setup that delivered no clear governing majority, but stunning victories for Luigi Di Maios anti-establishment Five Star Movement (MS5), which comes out as Italys biggest party with over 32 per cent of the vote, and Matteo Salvinis populist anti-immigrant League  formally the Northern League  which is now the leading party of the biggest coalition on the right, which boasts 38 per cent between its members.

Matteo Renzis ruling centre-left Democratic Party garnered just 19 per cent, and Mr Renzi paid for that poor performance by announcing his resignation from the partys leadership on Monday. It is obvious that I will leave the helm of [the party], said Mr Renzi, who quit as prime minister when Italians voted against him in a 2016 referendum on constitutional reform. However, he said that the process to choose a new leader would only happen after a new Italian government is appointed.

 Italian Elections 2018: Democratic Party concedes defeat

Despite his decision to stand aside, Mr Renzi said he expected the Democratic Party to shun attempts at coalition talks. He said that it was not an option, even if there is no consensus on the subject within the partys ranks.

The Italian people have asked us to be in opposition and that is where we will go, he said. We will never form a government with extremist parties  this isnt an option for the Democrats, he added.

Final results show the country in deadlock, with the north dominated by the right and the south delivering victory to the Five Star Movement, which describes itself as neither left nor right but post-ideological despite promising better workers rights and a universal basic income, and consequently winning support from many left-wing voters.

The results have seen the centre-right coalition shift to the right and Forza Italia lose impetus as its driving force. The television tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, 81, who was overwhelmed by scandals but passed himself off as the moderate Euro-friendly leader of the coalition, has been overtaken by ally Mr Salvini, of the Eurosceptic, far-right side of the group, by a margin of four percentage points. The League now has about 18 per cent of the coalition, Forza Italia 14 per cent, and others 5 per cent.

As soon as he claimed victory, Mr Salvini explicitly attacked European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker; he also asserted the populist nature of the League, adding the euro is a failed project destined to end.

After a corruption scandal engulfed Umberto Bossi, the Leagues founder, in 2013, Mr Salvini took on the xenophobic anti-southern party, reduced to a vote share of 4 per cent, and transformed it into a nationalist European ally of major far-right parties in France, Germany and Austria: Front National, Alternative fur Deutschland and Freiheitliche Partei Osterreichs. The Leagues declaration is bad news for the pro-EU establishment, but the nightmare scenario for Brussels is a power-sharing agreement between Mr Salvini and Mr Di Maio  a circumstance currently ruled out by Mr Salvini.

No matter what Mr Salvini says, the triumph of the Five Star Movement suggests no future government can afford to ignore Mr Di Maio and its party. The 31-year-old leader gained extraordinary support and become the youngest leader of the most voted-for populist party in Europe. Only Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is of the same age.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

When Beppe Grillo launched the Movement, a referendum about the euro and saying Vaffanculo (F*** off!) to the establishment were the groups leading issues. However, Mr Di Maio is leading the partys transition from harshly eurosceptic to a more institutional and pragmatic party. He has said he is open to talking to every other political group.

However, with the traditional coalition between centre-left and centre-right looking uncertain - the Democratic Party and Forza Italia dont have numbers to guarantee a government  negotiations between the Five Star Movement and the centre-left might be the only option to avoid an unlikely super-populist alliance between Mr Salvini and Mr Di Maio.

The head of state, Sergio Mattarella, is the key player of the next few weeks: the President is going to hold consultations with parties following the convening of the new Parliament on 23 March. Mr Mattarella is expected to take the country (and the populists) out of the impasse.An aid convoy intended to bring food and basic medicines to desperate Syrian civilians in Eastern Ghouta was stripped of vital medical supplies as it entered the besieged rebel-held suburbs.

Syrian government authorities removed most medical supplies from the trucks, preventing trauma kits, surgical supplies, insulin and dialysis equipment from reaching the battered enclave of 400,000 people, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said.

Eastern Ghouta has been under siege by government forces since 2013 and the United Nations feared people inside were running out of food and medicine even before a major assault began two weeks ago.

The health supplies provided by WHO in these convoys are selected after extensive consultations with health partners working in these areas and are desperately needed to save lives and reduce suffering, a WHO spokesperson told The Independent.

The convoy consisted of 46 truckloads of heath and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people, the UNs Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

It is the first aid delivery to reach the region in nearly three weeks.

Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Show all 14 1 /14 Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A Syrian woman and children run for cover amid the rubble of buildings. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Smoke rises from buildings following the attack on the village of Mesraba in the rebel-held besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascu. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Injured children receive medical treatment. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A Syrian man carries a child injured. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures An injured child receives treatment following bombings on several areas of eastern Ghouta. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A child reacts inside a hospital after relatives were injured in the bombing. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian children cry at a make-shift hospital in Douma following air strikes on the Syrian village of Mesraba. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian Civil Defense group extinguishing a store during airstrikes and shelling by Syrian government forces. AP Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A wounded 12-year-old Syrian boy, cries as he receives treatment at a make-shift hospital. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrians carry a wounded man. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures An injured man covered with blood at a medical point. Reuters Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures People sit a medical point in the besieged town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta. Reuters Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian Civil Defense running to help survivors. AP Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Injured children receive medical treatment. EPA

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has vowed to continue his military push into Eastern Ghouta, the biggest opposition stronghold remaining near the capital, Damacus.

He said the offensive did not contravene the five-hour ceasefires arranged each day by his main ally, Russia.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, said over 700 people had died in two weeks of intense bombardment, many of them children.

Pro-Assad forces have made sudden advances into Eastern Ghouta in recent days, capturing a third of the area, the office said, bringing them closer to cutting it in two.

In comments broadcast by state television on Sunday, Mr Assad dismissed Western statements about the humanitarian situation in Eastern Ghouta as a ridiculous lie.

 Boris Johnson suggests the UK could strike Syria in response to Assad's attack on eastern Ghouta

Moscow made a similar case at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The media atmosphere is saturated with lies, Russian diplomat Alexei Goryaev said.

As a result we see debates and votes that are entirely removed from the actual situation on the ground.

A Syrian civil defence volunteer carries children as he helps them try to flee their homes in the town of Hamouria in Syrias besieged Eastern Ghouta (AFP/Getty)

Russias military said the rebels in control of Eastern Ghouta had agreed to let civilians leave in return for aid.

Both Assad and Russia have repeatedly accused the rebels of stopping civilians from fleeing Eastern Ghouta, a charge denied by the insurgents, who say people there fear arrest, torture or forcible conscription if they cross into government areas.

A boy walks near damaged buildings in the besieged town of Douma in Eastern Ghouta in Damascus (Reuters)

Also on Sunday, the United States made its strongest accusation to date about Moscows complicity in civilian deaths in Syria, saying Russian aircraft flew bombing missions over Eastern Ghouta in defiance of a 30-day United Nations ceasefire.

Recommended White House accuses Russia of killing civilians in Syria

Russia has gone on to ignore the UN ceasefires terms and to kill innocent civilians under the false auspices of counter-terrorism operations, the White House said in a statement.

It called on Mr Assad to immediately cease targeting medical infrastructure and civilians.

Russia says the UN ceasefire does not apply to rebel groups in Eastern Ghouta, who Moscow considers members of terrorist groups banned by the UN.

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights said on Friday that Syrian government air strikes on Eastern Ghouta and shelling from the rebel-held zone into Damascus probably constituted war crimes.Sieges are a merciless business, never more so than in Syria. As a UN aid convoy entered Eastern Ghouta, the World Health Organisation said that Syrian government security had forced the removal from its trucks of all trauma kits, surgical, dialysis sessions and insulin. Some 70 per cent of the medical supplies being sent were rejected according to a WHO official.

There is something disgustingly mean and vicious in targeting those who will die without dialysis or insulin. Depriving the sick of their last hope of life illuminates in the grimmest of ways how the siege of Eastern Ghouta, as in the other sieges that have been such a feature of the wars in Syria and Iraq, puts unbearable pressure on the weak and the vulnerable.

The aid convoy had already been cut back in size from food for a month for 70,000 to 27,500 people, though there is meant to be a second convoy in a few days. Even if this is not again depleted by government security forces, it is far too little for the 393,000 people estimated to be in this besieged eastern part of Damascus, though the chaos is such that nobody knows the true figure.

Recommended Assad forces strip trauma kits and surgical supplies from aid convoy

The siege is following much the same course as that of East Aleppo in 2016. The Syrian government is determined to retake the rebel-held zone by indiscriminate shelling and bombing combined with cutting off all supplies of food, fuel and medicine. It is making a ground assault that is crumbling the edges of the beleaguered enclave which is being systematically squeezed to death. The aim of the multiple assaults is to chop the area into smaller pieces that can be dealt with separately.

Sporadic aid convoys in such circumstances are really only a public relations ploy by the Syrian government and the Russians to ease the pressure of outraged international opinion. They do not affect the overall military course of the siege. Five years ago, President Bashar al-Assad held the centre of Damascus which was ringed  though they never quite linked up  by rebel-held districts that were isolated from the rest of the capital by checkpoints and were intermittently bombarded.

Almost all these opposition enclaves have been forced to surrender and the only sizeable one still holding out has been Eastern Ghouta. After 2013 it was loosely blockaded, but access was fairly easy through one main entry and exit point and an elaborate system of tunnels. Both of these were closed in 2017 and the blockade turned into a regular siege conducted very much on the medieval principles of starving and battering those surrounded into submission.

Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Show all 14 1 /14 Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A Syrian woman and children run for cover amid the rubble of buildings. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Smoke rises from buildings following the attack on the village of Mesraba in the rebel-held besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascu. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Injured children receive medical treatment. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A Syrian man carries a child injured. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures An injured child receives treatment following bombings on several areas of eastern Ghouta. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A child reacts inside a hospital after relatives were injured in the bombing. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian children cry at a make-shift hospital in Douma following air strikes on the Syrian village of Mesraba. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian Civil Defense group extinguishing a store during airstrikes and shelling by Syrian government forces. AP Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A wounded 12-year-old Syrian boy, cries as he receives treatment at a make-shift hospital. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrians carry a wounded man. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures An injured man covered with blood at a medical point. Reuters Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures People sit a medical point in the besieged town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta. Reuters Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian Civil Defense running to help survivors. AP Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Injured children receive medical treatment. EPA

The main weapon in all cases is air strikes and artillery because armies know that the only alternative is a ground assault and street fighting in which the attackers will suffer heavy losses. This is as true of the US-led coalitions assault on Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria last year as it is of the Syrian government and Russian assault on East Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta. The US-led air war is supposedly more humane and directed solely at military targets. But I was in Raqqa last Sunday and the overwhelming impression is of universal destruction similar to that of the carpet bombed German cities in the Second World War.

Proof of this is emerging. A detailed study of 150 air strikes by The New York Times last year revealed that, while the US air force claimed that one in 157 of its air strikes led to civilian deaths, the real figure was probably one in five. In the Qaiyara district south of Mosul, the US said its aircraft had killed one civilian, but the real figure was 43 dead, 24 of them women and children. Casualties in the Old City of Mosul were devastating because air strikes were focused on a smaller and smaller area as Isis shot anybody who tried to escape.

 Scenes of devastation in Syria after deadly shelling and airstrikes and eastern Ghouta

What should now be done to limit civilian casualties in Eastern Ghouta? As in East Aleppo, the enclaves fall is inevitable and anything that prolongs the battle there will only lead to more dead and disabled. Humanitarian corridors are needed, but these are not much good without UN monitors ensuring the ceasefire is real. Most of the discussion is about what should happen to the civilians, but the outcome of these sieges is invariably determined negotiations between the besiegers and the armed opposition defenders, who, in the case of Eastern Ghouta, are said to number 10,000 fighters. In past sieges, these have been given the choice of an amnesty of some description or evacuation with light weapons to a rebel stronghold, almost invariably Idlib in the north-west of Syria.

None of these past prescriptions quite fit Eastern Ghouta because of its size and because rebel fighters like the Army of Islam, which controls Douma, the largest population centre under attack, do not have another base to which they can go. But even the most successful evacuations are stories of misery and terror which will continue so long as the war in Syria goes on.

Where foreign powers could do most good is by preventing such sieges starting in the first place. Once besieger and besieged are locked in unequal combat there is little the outside world can do about it, aside from a general wringing of hands.

It so happens that the makings of another Eastern Ghouta is under way in northern Syria, though with little of the publicity given to the situation in Damascus. The Turkish army and its Arab militia allies are surrounding the Kurdish enclave of Afrin, which has much the same population as Eastern Ghouta. A few days ago Turkish shelling and bombing had killed 204 civilians, 61 of them children according to authorities in Afrin.

The Kurds say they will fight to the end and quite certainly mean it. The only outlet from Afrin not held by the Turks or their allies is through a road held by the Syrian government which might be closed at any time. The impending siege of Afrin is likely to be as bad in terms of human suffering as anything we have seen in the Syrian Civil War but, unlike Eastern Ghouta, there may still be time to avert it.The White House has accused Russia of killing Syrian civilians in one of its most direct condemnations of Moscows wartime conduct.

Defying a 30-day United Nations ceasefire agreement, Russia went on to kill innocent civilians under the false auspices of counterterrorism operations, the White House said in a statement.

This is the same combination of lies and indiscriminate force that Russia and the Syrian regime used to isolate and destroy Aleppo in 2016, where thousands of civilians were killed, the statement said.

A government siege of Eastern Ghouta, near regime-controlled Damascus, has left hundreds dead and spurred urgent pleas from world leaders to avert a massacre.

Russian forces carried out at least 20 daily bombing missions in Damascus and Eastern Ghouta over a four-day period in late February, the White House said.

The White House charged Syria and its allies, including Iran, with perpetrating a brutal campaign including chemical weapons attacks and strikes on medical infrastructure.

Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Show all 14 1 /14 Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A Syrian woman and children run for cover amid the rubble of buildings. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Smoke rises from buildings following the attack on the village of Mesraba in the rebel-held besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascu. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Injured children receive medical treatment. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A Syrian man carries a child injured. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures An injured child receives treatment following bombings on several areas of eastern Ghouta. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A child reacts inside a hospital after relatives were injured in the bombing. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian children cry at a make-shift hospital in Douma following air strikes on the Syrian village of Mesraba. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian Civil Defense group extinguishing a store during airstrikes and shelling by Syrian government forces. AP Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A wounded 12-year-old Syrian boy, cries as he receives treatment at a make-shift hospital. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrians carry a wounded man. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures An injured man covered with blood at a medical point. Reuters Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures People sit a medical point in the besieged town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta. Reuters Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian Civil Defense running to help survivors. AP Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Injured children receive medical treatment. EPA

Donald Trump joined with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France this week in calling on Russia to halt its air offensive, according to a readout of their call.

Relations between Russia and the West were already under strain in recent days after Vladimir Putin boasted of powerful new nuclear weapons, illustrating his claim with a depiction of missiles striking Florida.

 This animation of Russian nuclear missiles targeting Florida played as Putin announced the new weapons

American officials previously excoriated Russia for stalling the UN effort to broker a ceasefire, with UN ambassador Nikki Haley singling the nation out as she asked how many more people will die from inaction.

Moscow has repudiated accounts of the bloodshed in Eastern Ghouta as exaggerated, with Russias UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia dismissing other nations as having succumbed to a mass psychosis created by the media.At Cairos Riyadh al Mun station the warm night air is fragrant with diesel particulates. An unruly pack of snorting buses jockey for position. Brakes gasp, lights flash, drivers shout abuse, horns blare. All these buses are shit, announces a distracted Egyptian minding a bemused Japanese woman. This company had so many crashes its license was revoked. Now at least they have two drivers. Anyway, why should I worry? he adds incredulously. This girl is going diving in Dahab, and she cant even swim.

Since a Russian passenger aircraft was bombed in 2015, the UK Government has banned flights to Sinai. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office currently advises against overland travel anywhere in the Sinai Peninsula.

My ticket is for Dahab too  a 350-mile overnight journey. Climbing aboard, the risk of sleep appears slim thanks to the drivers questionable video playlist on repeat. Yasmine, a young Egyptian whose hair is braided with coloured thread, sits next to me. Im going to see friends, to party, to be free, she announces. She hunkers down in her seat, checks social media, wraps a scarf around her head, cuddles a well-loved Winnie the Pooh, and dozes off. After 10 hours, a surfeit of tea stops, two army baggage inspections and more passport checks than I can remember, we arrive in Dahab.

The remote Bedouin fishing village became more widely known during the Israeli occupation of Sinai following the Six Day War of 1967. Israelis fell for the water here, rich in corals and marine fauna, and sites such as the 110m Blue Hole  the worlds most dangerous dive  drew divers from across the globe. In 1982, Sinai was returned to Egypt. Dahabs laid-back, relaxed vibe endured.

Long known as a laid-back backpacker town, Dahab is becoming more developed and tourist-centric (Nick Redmayne)

Walking south along the beach, the wind blows strong and steady. A kite surfer skitters along the waters surface, chasing trails through white-topped waves. Across the Gulf of Aqaba, 15 miles wide, Saudi Arabias Hijaz mountains are picked out in ochre against a brilliant blue sky.

Further down the sand, the Friday market is setting up. A mix of races, languages and religions come together in a colourful crowd. New Agers, entrepreneurs and eccentrics patronise the stalls and preside over them. Connie, a fifty-something German woman wearing a hijab, is doing swift trade in fruit cakes. Dahabs getting by, she says. Theres a few Europeans, not many. Egyptians come for a while, but their prices are low, and they leave a lot of rubbish. Her apple and blueberry pie is excellent.

At a stall selling honey cakes I speak to Mina. If flights restart, it will take a while, but it will be booming. Theres a new generation that hasnt experienced these areas, he says. In 10 years Dahab will be like Sharm El Sheikh. Minas fellow stallholder looks askance.

No it wont, she says emphatically.

Well, anyway the decision on flights is political, says Mina.

Beyond the market, the beachfront is lined with cafes, restaurants, guesthouses and a few modest hotels. Some establishments ready for an unlikely evening rush. Some are closed. Some have been empty for years.

The village is the perfect base to explore the rest of Sinai, including its Bedouin deserts (Nick Redmayne)

The wind drops as the shore path turns the corner. At the Lighthouse  the heart of Dahabs diving industry  pros and first-timers pull on wetsuits and check their tanks and regulators. The Israelis started coming back a year ago, says one dive shop owner, who didnt want to give his name. This place is never going to be Sharm El Sheikh, though theyre trying. But the beach here is Bedouin ownership  there are perhaps 150 different titles. Theyll never agree.

Later, away from the beach, on unpaved streets populated by goats and chickens, I am invited to tea by a Bedouin family. I learnt English selling bracelets on the beach, says Aidah, a forthright thirty-something. Her family made money from letting apartments, she says. We sit on carpets around a small charcoal brazier. Tea is poured into glasses and passed around. Aidahs father stops examining a little bundle of Omani frankincense, takes a glass of tea and lights a cigarette. Dahab is like many places, beautiful from the outside, she continues. But when you live here you see how it really is, you see many difficulties. She pauses. There are two cultures, Bedouin and Egyptian, and they are completely different.

The resort caters to both novice snorkellers and deep technical divers, as well as free divers (Nick Redmayne)

Lonely Planet still calls Dahab the Middle Easts prime beach resort for independent travellers. Following a revolution, a military coup and an airliner bombing, the superlative seems a poor fit. Its true that Dahab remains a Bedouin town first and a resort second. Circumstances have certainly effected a pause in tourism development. How long this hiatus continues and precisely what the future holds are subjects of conjecture. However, change is coming. Its when, not if.

Travel essentials

Getting there

Egypt Air flies from Heathrow to Cairo from 348. From there, you can take an internal flight to Sharm El Sheikh or take the bus (around 6).

Staying there

The three-star Coral Coast Hotel has doubles from 42, B&B.

More information

egypt.travel

The writer flew to Cairo as a guest of the Egyptian State Tourist BoardAfter a week of disruption to travel in Britain and abroad, a leading rail expert has demanded that Europes train operators stop penalising passengers who encounter delays.

Mark Smith founded the Seat61 website, named for his favourite first class seat on Eurostar, and campaigns for travellers to switch from air to rail. But he believes that archaic railway rules comprise a deterrent to passengers planning long-distance journeys.

Europes railways are opening up to competition, with multiple train operators offering cheap fares especially if you book ahead, he told The Independent. This is good news for travellers, bringing more choice, better service and lower fares.

But when things go wrong, Mr Smith believes there is inadequate protection for passengers who put together a sequence of advance purchase fares.

With separate tickets, often tied to a specific train and worthless if you miss it, a missed connection may mean buying new onward tickets at expensive, full-flex prices.

Over the weekend, Eurostar cancelled 10 trains linking London St Pancras with Brussels and Paris because of bad weather. All passengers were rebooked on alternative departures.

Eurostar is part of the Railteam alliance, which operates a hop on the next available train policy, known as HOTNAT. It allows passengers connecting between high-speed trains to transfer without penalty  but only if the first one is late, rather than cancelled. Nor does it apply to ordinary, non-high-speed connections.

Travellers with a cheap advance fare deal to Germany, France, Italy or Spain who missed the connection might have to spend hundreds of pounds on new tickets.

For example, Brussels to Berlin advance tickets can cost under 40 (35) one way; but if the booked train is missed, the walk-up fare on German Railways is 171 (151).

Mr Smith is calling for the treaty governing international rail travel in Europe, the Convention Internationale pour le transport des Voyageurs (CIV), to be brought up to date.

With a through ticket, youve a cast iron legal right to later onward travel at no extra charge under the CIV, he said. But through tickets covering multi-leg journeys are becoming a rarity. The CIV should be revised to cover passengers making a through journey and missing a connection, even if it includes multiple tickets with multiple operators.

If Europes railways are to work as a network, and not become a collection of stand-alone services, this is essential, said Mr Smith.

The CIV treaty was signed in the Swiss capital, Berne, in 1970. It was an era when every European rail network was run by a monolithic national operator. International tickets were invariably written under CIV terms, which meant distressed passengers  those whose connections went awry  were automatically protected. In addition, many young budget travellers used the InterRail scheme, which allowed unlimited travel and therefore made missed trains irrelevant.

All stations: a 1974 InterRail pass, in which the traveller wrote their own ticket (Penny Ritchie Calder) (Penelope Calder)

If we return to those days, this problem goes away, said Mr Smith. But if we want a dynamic rail market with many competing operators, the problem will get bigger. The CIV is no longer fit for purpose in this new world.

Opponents to increased rail passenger protection argue that no such cover exists for multi-airline journeys on separate tickets. But while many longer journeys in Europe are easily accomplished by a single flight, such as Manchester to Malaga or Birmingham to Rome, the equivalent rail journey requires several legs and operators  bringing in a missed connection risk that does not apply to air travel.

Airline passengers with separate budget bookings do not have the same protection as those on through tickets. But new innovations such as the Gatwick Connects scheme eliminates financial risk for passengers who are self-connecting.

Nicky Gardner, co-author of Europe by Rail, said: The CIV regulations were conceived in another age and desperately need updating. In practice, even though passengers rights may be thin, most operators do show some understanding for passengers making international journeys who miss a connection.

Our experience is that a smile usually gets a welcome concession. But where a through ticket is available, our advice is most definitely to get it. Loco2 has been doing a fine job in tackling the while issue of through ticketing.

In June 2017, many national operators signed a voluntary commercial agreement known as the Agreement on Journey Continuation (AJC). But unlike the rights that many European airline passengers enjoy when their flights are disrupted, there is no automatic right which can be readily asserted by rail travellers.One third of Africa's elephants have already been lost, at an average rate of 55 killed a day. New global movement #MarchforGiants will unite people around the world in unique activism to protect elephants and boost support for the fight against poaching.

Starting this Thursday 8 March, the #MarchforGiants virtual herd of elephants will travel across digital billboards and social media to call for urgent action. Anyone can take part by donating 5 at www.marchforgiants.org or texting GIANT plus their name to 70025. Sponsors customise their elephants design and personalise it with a name before it joins the ever-growing herd, and the funds raised protect elephants in the wild.

Every digital elephant in #MarchforGiants represents an individual elephant that has been protected by a person during the campaign. Joanna Lumley has lent her support to the initiative, joining thousands of others around the world.

Joanna Lumley said: March for Giants presents a one-of-a-kind opportunity for people everywhere to make their voice heard. It is a truly transformative moment for the conservation of Africas elephants and their habitats.

Beloved childrens picture book character Elmer the Patchwork Elephant has also joined the March, in trademark colourful style. Creator David McKee said I cant imagine the world without elephants. But it could happen  remember, a huge elephant can be helped with even a little donation."

Elmer the Patchwork elephant is preparing to trek across billboards

The money raised will support Space for Giants, a conservation charity which works on the ground to protect elephants and their habitats in Africa. The Independents owner Evgeny Lebedev is Patron of the charity, and The Independent has its own branded elephant which is part of the globe-trotting herd.

#MarchforGiants will begin on Thursday 8 March on a big screen in Manchester, marching on to Birmingham the next day, then London, Paris, Amsterdam and Melbourne, before arriving in Kasane, Botswana on 16 March at a key conservation Summit being to discuss the protection of elephants.

At the Summit, African Heads of States will meet with financiers, scientists, and influencers to cement the incredible progress already made to end the poaching crisis.

#MarchforGiants will boost that momentum by delivering a powerful visual illustration of global advocacy. It will also stand in support as Africa's leaders lend their names to an Avaaz petition, with more than one million signatures, that demands the European Union end its ivory trade. Now that China has closed its ivory market, the EU is the largest legal ivory exporter.

The herd marches on Manchester's Printworks screen

Max Graham, Space for Giants' CEO, said: There have been a number of huge gains in the fight to protect elephants. China and the US have banned trading in ivory. Poaching is back to pre-crisis levels in East Africa. This is all amazing, and we deserve to be celebrating.

But there's a danger here we could become complacent. Poaching is not over. Elephant habitats are not secure. The job is not finished. Joining the global movement that is the March for Giants is a way loudly to add your voice to thousands of others demanding we all keep the pressure up against poaching.

Seeing that level of global support at their backs as they take the crucial next steps to secure elephant populations forever will be a huge encouragement to Africa's leaders at the Summit.

The Indy's #MarchforGiants elephant

#MarchforGiants is made possible through the generous support of many organisations. The screen space is donated by Ocean who formed The Alliance, a network of like-minded global digital out of home media owners who can offer both full motion imagery and integrated technology in their screens, allowing campaigns such as March for Giants to have global reach.

Oceans expertise has led them to form The Alliance, a network of like-minded global digital out of home media owners who can offer both full motion imagery and integrated technology in their screens, allowing campaigns such as March for Giants to have global reach. The Alliance is unique and gives brands the chance to widen the scope of their messaging to global audiences across these stand out locations.

The original #MarchforGiants concept came from London-based creative agency 18 Feet & Rising. The state-of- the-art technology to create the experience was made by digital studio Popped and DOOH.com provided real-time distribution across the big screens.

HOW TO JOIN #MarchforGiants

Donate 5 at www.marchforgiants.org or text GIANT plus your name to 70025Granddad  Nonno  is back, then. If that was the end of Italys political problems, the resurrection of Silvio Berlusconi might be thought manageable. After all, Italy has lived through his rule before, and, in fact, previous convictions (the criminal rather than political variety) mean that he cannot become prime minister for at least a year. At 81 years of age, even Berlusconi cannot look forward to decades of his authoritarianism being stamped on Italy.

The bad news is that Nonno is not alone. His spiritual grandchildren, the leaders of the two other main anti-EU populist right parties, have also made substantial gains in the Italian elections. Some combination of Berlusconis Forza Italia, the Five Star Movement led by Luigi di Maio and the Lega, a rebranded Northern League, headed by Matteo Salvini, will form the next government and provide a prime minister.

Bad news for Italy, and bad news for Europe too. Italians are understandably frustrated with the European Unions failure to provide support for Italy during the migrant crisis, which has fuelled an unprecedented and particularly virulent form of Euroscepticism in this founding member of the European Union, one previously content to dissolve itself into an EU superstate. Hence the triumph of three parties that, like the Brexit movement in Britain, have shamelessly tapped into the well of economic frustrations and bewilderment at free movement of peoples, and blamed Eurocrats for their woes.

 Italian Elections 2018: Democratic Party concedes defeat

In Italy, no less than in Cornwall, the West Midlands and Sunderland, or West Virginia and Michigan for that matter, too many voters feel left behind, and are receptive to politicians offering them easy solutions to complex problems, promising, in effect, a better yesterday. Unlike in Britain, the Italian Eurosceptics have no wish to turn their backs on the EUs economic advantages; but, perhaps worse, they will make constant trouble from the inside.

For all the rhetoric about solidarity, and indeed despite the shelter for a million or more refugees offered by Germany and Sweden, the southern frontline states of Italy, Malta and Greece bore too much of the burden of trying to cope with the influx, and of patrolling the Mediterranean. It was not the European Unions finest hour, and a political price has been paid in Italy.

There are underlying issues too, which heighten resentment against migrants of all kinds. The economy, despite a recent spurt, remains sluggish, and national income is lower than it was before the financial crisis. Unemployment is at 11 per cent nationally, and much higher in some of the older post-industrial districts. Globalisation has not always served the Italian working class well. Italys banks remain famously weak, and the strains of remaining in the eurozone will never abate.

It is a challenging agenda for any government, and one that the posturing Italian New Right is less equipped to deal with than any of its moderate predecessors. Even if the tripartite coalition that will probably eventually emerge had a secure majority in parliament, which it will not, it has no answers to Italys deep-seated economic and financial malaise. Blaming others is easy; finding answers is the tricky bit, as Italy is about to discover. Again.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Following the victory of Emmanuel Macron in the French presidential elections last year; the re-election of Angela Merkel as Chancellor of Germany; and the defeat, or at least containment, of far right elements in contests in Austria and the Netherlands, there was an easy assumption that the tide had turned against populist, anti-immigrant, anti-EU forces. In fact, in most EU member states, the far right is enjoying levels of popularity that would have been thought unthinkable a few years ago.

In Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary rightist authoritarian parties take delight in defying Brussels over migration, and they are taken for granted as natural parties of government. The more the French, Germans and Brussels chide them, the more popular Mateusz Morawiecki , Andrej Babis, and Viktor Orban become.

The notion that a group such as Alternative fur Deutschland, with its dog-whistle slogans and neo-Nazi features, could almost overtake Germanys social democrats is just one of the many astonishing and dangerous developments to engulf the European political establishment in recent years. In Spain and Belgium, the dissent and collapse in social solidarity has erupted in separatism, threatening the very existence of the state.

Across the continent, in almost every country, and seemingly irrespective of tradition or electoral system, party systems are fragmenting and new populist parties (right, left, separatist and centrist) are intervening to disrupt old orders. All of this has been going on for some years, yet we should not become so inured to the phenomenon that it loses its capacity to shock.

Europes mainstream liberal parties, then, the shrinking establishment, have not been restored to their past dominance in France, Germany and elsewhere, but merely enjoyed some lucky escapes. The lesson of Italy, and the evergreen career of Silvio Berlusconi, albeit more mahogany in skin tone than anything else, is testament to the persistence of the threat posed by the far right, and that they only need to get lucky once. Nonno has fathered some very unpleasant political offspring.Addressing members of the Russian parliament, Vladimir Putin said last week: The missile's test launch and ground trials make it possible to create a brand new weapon, a strategic nuclear missile powered by a nuclear engine. The range is unlimited. It can manoeuvre for an unlimited period of time.

No one in the world has anything similar, he said to applause and concluded: Russia still has the greatest nuclear potential in the world, but nobody listened to us. Listen to us now.

Yes, we should listen to these words, but we should listen to them as to the words of a madman joining the duet of two other madmen.

Remember how, a little while ago, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump competed about buttons to trigger nuclear missiles that they have at their disposal, with Trump claiming his button is bigger than Kims? Now we got Putin joining this obscene competition  which is, we should never forget it, a competition about who can destroy us all more quickly and efficiently  with the claim that his is the biggest in turn.

Lately our media reports on the more and more ridiculous exchange of insults between Kim and Trump. The irony of the situation is that, when we get (what appears to be) two immature men hurling insults at each other, our only hope is that there is some anonymous and invisible institutional constraint preventing their rage from exploding into all-out war. Usually, of course, we tend to complain that in todays alienated and bureaucratised politics, institutional pressures and constraints prevent politicians from expressing their personal visions  now we hope such constraints will prevent the expression of all too crazy personal visions.

 This animation of Russian nuclear missiles targeting Florida played as Putin announced the new weapons

But does the danger really reside in personal pathologies? Each side can, of course, claim that it wants only peace and is only reacting to the threat posed by others  true, but what this means is that the madness is in the whole system itself, in the vicious cycle we are caught in once we participate in the system.

Although the differences between North Korea and the US are obvious, one should nonetheless insist that they both cling to the extreme version of state sovereignty (North Korea first! versus America first!), plus that the obvious madness of North Korea (a small country ready to risk it all and bomb the US) has its counterpart in the US still pretending to play the role of the global policeman, a single state assuming the right to decide which other state should be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.

This global madness becomes visible the moment we ask a simple question: how do the protagonists of nuclear threats (Kim, Trump, Putin) imagine pressing the button? Are they not aware of the almost 100 per cent certainty that their own country will also be destroyed by retaliatory strikes? Well, they are aware and not aware at the same time: although they know they will also perish, they talk as if they somehow stand out of the danger and can strike at the enemy from a safe place.

This schizophrenic position combines the two axioms of nuclear warfare. If the basic underlying axiom of the Cold War was MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), today this axiom is combined with the opposite one, that of NUTS (Nuclear Utilization Target Selection), i.e. the idea that, by means of a surgical strike, one can destroy the enemy's nuclear capacities while the anti-missile shield is protecting us from a counterstrike. The very fact that two directly contradictory strategies are mobilised simultaneously by the same superpower bears witness to the fantastical character of this entire reasoning.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

In December 2016, this inconsistency reached an almost unimaginable ridiculous peak: both Trump and Putin emphasised the chance for new more friendly relations between Russia and the US, and simultaneously asserted their full commitment to the arms race  as if peace among the superpowers can only be provided by a new Cold War. Alain Badiou wrote that the contours of the future war are already drawn: The United States and their Western-Japanese clique on the one side, China and Russia on the other side, atomic arms everywhere. We cannot but recall Lenins statement: Either revolution will prevent the war or the war will trigger revolution.

There is no way to avoid the conclusion that a radical social change  a revolution  is needed to civilise our civilisations. We cannot afford the hope that a new war will lead to a new revolution: a new war would much more probably mean the end of civilisation as we know it, with the survivors (of any) organized in small authoritarian groups. North Korea is not a crazy exception in a sane world but a pure expression of the madness that drives our world.Now what does this remind you of? After an attempt to seize Grozny by land ended in defeat, Yeltsin resorted to ... pounding the city from the air. Thousands of civilians died in the attacks on the capital. Two years of gruesome fighting [in Chechnya] killed tens of thousands of civilians and probably 15,000 Russian soldiers. Putin ... cemented his rise to power by launching a new campaign that would be equally bloody, but would eventually bring the territory back under Moscows control. He filled the airwaves with tough talk, promising to hunt down the Chechen bandits ... The Chechen battle was portrayed as a terrorist struggle against the legitimate Russian state. This was partly true  the Chechens did begin to use terror as a weapon.

Sound familiar? I owe the above quotation to Shaun Walkers new take on the Putin years in his book, The Long Hangover: Putins New Russia and the Ghosts of the Past  and it doesnt stop there.

In early 2000, in one of his first interviews, Putin told the Chechens they were not under attack from Russia  they were being brought under its protection. The Chechens were not a defeated people, Putin announced. They are a liberated people. And all this, according to Walker, while Putins fighter jets were bombing Grozny, raining more misery down on a city that already seemed as though it had reached total devastation.

Walker himself is an old-school reporter, padding the broken pavements and shattered buildings rather than pontificating from Moscow  he wrote for The Independent before moving to what we used to call Another Newspaper  and he assiduously follows through on the Chechen story, observing the rise to power of the faithful Akhmad Kadyrov and then, after the latters assassination, of his equally faithful (and brutal) son Ramzan.

Their enemies were liquidated. By the time Walker arrived in Grozny in 2009, the city was unrecognisable from the eerie photographs of Stalingard-level destruction ... Neat tree-lined avenues, of new apartment blocks and pleasant cafes ... a whole street in which the tree-lined husks of apartment blocks had been replaced with brand-new versions; empty squares filled with white marble-effect ministerial buildings; and to top it all off, Grozny City, a 32-storey skyscraper housing a five-star hotel with a rooftop restaurant, a gym and plush bedrooms with luxury toiletries.

 Scenes of devastation in Syria after deadly shelling and airstrikes and eastern Ghouta

The parallels should not be drawn too closely. Putin was trying to restore Chechnya to Russian sovereignty. In Ghouta  or in Aleppo  he was and is trying to restore sovereignty to Syria. The Chechen bandits and terrorists were real enough. And so, slowly and ponderously, we ourselves are beginning to admit, amid the bloodbath of civilians, that al-Qaeda and fellow Islamists are real enough in Ghouta.

And of course, by restoring eastern Ghouta (or Aleppo) to the Damascus government, Putin is furthering Russian power. Besieged autocrats can count on Moscow. Could Mubarak count on Washington? Or could Ben Ali count on France?

There are, however, other small Chechen ghosts floating over Syria. A large number of Chechen Islamists, fleeing the forests of Chechnya after Russias victory, arrived in Syria to attack the regime.

One of the Syrian armys most devastating setbacks occurred on a mountain top south of the Turkish border, when a Chechen jihadi suicide-bombed a military base by driving a captured armoured car into the compound. He killed every one of the Syrian defenders. The explosion was so vast that an eyewitness on a neighbouring hilltop told me he saw fire reaching into the clouds  and then continuing above the clouds into the empty sky.

The Russians know exactly who they are fighting in Syria, which is why Russian pilot Roman Filipov blew himself up with his own grenade rather than be captured by Islamists. For Putin, those Chechens who resisted his firepower inside Russia are merely continuing their struggle inside a Russian ally further to the south.

Eliminate them, Putin believes, and then make peace with your erstwhile enemies later. Its been a policy maintained, up to a point, by Damascus. The earlier siege of Deraya on the edge of Damascus was ended in a series of reconciliation committees and mutual ceasefire promises.

Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Show all 14 1 /14 Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A Syrian woman and children run for cover amid the rubble of buildings. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Smoke rises from buildings following the attack on the village of Mesraba in the rebel-held besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the capital Damascu. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Injured children receive medical treatment. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A Syrian man carries a child injured. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures An injured child receives treatment following bombings on several areas of eastern Ghouta. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A child reacts inside a hospital after relatives were injured in the bombing. EPA Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian children cry at a make-shift hospital in Douma following air strikes on the Syrian village of Mesraba. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian Civil Defense group extinguishing a store during airstrikes and shelling by Syrian government forces. AP Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures A wounded 12-year-old Syrian boy, cries as he receives treatment at a make-shift hospital. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrians carry a wounded man. AFP/Getty Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures An injured man covered with blood at a medical point. Reuters Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures People sit a medical point in the besieged town of Douma, Eastern Ghouta. Reuters Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Syrian Civil Defense running to help survivors. AP Eastern Ghouta bombings: Syrian war in pictures Injured children receive medical treatment. EPA

The distance between Grozny and Damascus is less than 900 miles. From the Kremlin walls, the minarets of Damascus are not in the Middle East; they are due south. Russian power doesnt end at its own frontiers  nor did it in Stalins day. His Red Army did not halt at the Soviet frontier in 1945. It pursued the fascist beast to its lair in Berlin. And Chechnya remains very much in Putins mind today.

When he chose to call a major Islamic conference inside Russia, he welcomed clerical delegates from Egypt, Syria and other largely Sunni Muslim nations where they excoriated Salafism and its entire works. Saudi Arabia was virtually excommunicated.

The fact that the conference was officially held under the auspices of the awful Ramzan Kadyrov made no difference to the delegates. In any case, most of them live under Kadyrov-like masters. Putin had made his point.

Equally, he has arranged that Chechens should help rebuild  and fund  the 11th century minaret of the great Omayad mosque in Aleppo, brought down in the fighting of 2013 (for which both sides, needless to say, blame each other). Chechen prelates were freighted into Syria to pray at the mosque.

Even in Palmyra, captured by Isis, recovered by the Syrian government, recaptured by Isis  to Putins anger  and then recovered once again, there is a Chechen component to Russias presence. Moscows foot patrols in the city are often made up of Russian soldiers  from Chechnya.

This does not mean that Putin is somehow recreating Russias past struggles inside Syria. What it does means is that Putin has learned from the Chechen war and has not forgotten its lessons  which include both ruthlessness and cunning.

For him, Assads enemies today were Russias enemies in Chechnya  in a few cases, the very same individuals  and, however much horror we express at the outrageous killing of civilians, we should not be surprised. Once superpowers become involved in Middle East wars, terms and conditions do not apply. Until its over. Did anyone mention Iraq?When our Prime Minister and Saudi Arabias Crown Prince meet in London on Wednesday they could make noteworthy progress in the path towards resolving the conflict in Syria.

They both need to prove themselves to an audience that domestically is divided yet enthusiastic, and internationally is unsure or even sceptical.

Between them Theresa May and Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) have the rolodex to reach out to all the major players in Syria.

No one, of course, expects such seismic shifts this week. But there is every chance of them moving beyond the usual formalities of a Saudi visit to the UK: May and Prince Mohammed have a lot in common. They assumed their current positions through a combination of skill and the element of surprise. Both are respectful of their respective old guards whilst being fiercely independent and are ready to upset the status quo as and when needed.

Indeed, the status quo is in dire need of change in both their worlds. May inherited an unexpected and unplanned Brexit. MbS was handed a volatile and violent Middle East. They both live in rough geopolitical environments and they are determined to re-shape them.

The May-Mohammed tag-team may not have the clout of the United States or China, but they certainly have the sway to pull exactly the right levers with each of the major players in Syria, which is the epicentre of a full-fledged regional war.

Saudi Arabia has provided financial backing and logistical assistance to many disparate Syrian rebel groups from day one. It has been the most critical regional player in the international efforts to force the Assad regime to the negotiating table.

Some point towards an ideological affinity between the Saudi religious establishment and many of the rebel groups. If this ever was true, it certainly does not apply to the Saudi kingdom under MbS leadership, which is rapidly embracing a modern understanding of Islam.

Where MbS can influence the rebels, May can leverage Turkey, which has been forced to intervene in Syria to prevent Kurdish groups linked to the PKK terrorist organisation, from establishing a de facto state on Turkeys borders.

The May Government enjoys good relations with the Erdogan government: they negotiated a 100m arms deal last year and are both managing complicated relationships between their own states and the EU.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

In addition, May and many of her Conservative party colleagues do not share the fashionable knee-jerk support of PKK-aligned Kurdish militias in which many of her opponents on the British left indulge. Many of these Kurdish groups pay lip service to Marxism and are involved in human and drug trafficking networks and terror attacks.

London is one of the key bases for Kurdish activism in Europe, giving British security services influence over Kurdish militant networks. London can also adopt a similar attitude towards Hezbollah, without whom Assads forces would likely have lost Damascus long ago. So far, Mays Government has refused to ban Hezbollahs political branch from the UK, which crucially, allows the group to raise funds. London thus enjoys serious leverage over the Hezbollah leadership as well as their sponsors in Tehran.

Mays influence doesnt stop with Tehran. Putin wants EU sanctions against the Kremlin lifted, and she can credibly address Russian issues on a global stage with less baggage than her counterpart in the White House. The amount of Russian money in London could propel her to the role.

Working with MbS, Mays diplomacy can reach beyond Syria to another major regional conflict: Yemen. The British Government can use its influence through the defence industry, as well as the politically active Yemeni diaspora to try and bring an end to hostilities there.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as an honest arbiter between Israel and the Arab world, and Britains historical responsibility for the situation there, coupled with the first ever official royal visit to Israel-Palestine, means greater foreign policy dividends for May.

It might sound ambitious and even fantastical. However, a strong UK-Saudi partnership can be quite transformative for the Middle East. May has nothing to lose. She  and our friends in Saudi  have a lot to gain. It might even be easier than Brexit.

Muddassar Ahmed is a former UK Government AdvisorDr. Dick Litwin, who recently made his annual trip to India to help with providing eye care to the Indian community, is seen here with Dr. Kalpana Narendran, who runs the Aravind-Coimbatore Hospital. (photo provided)Farhad Khan, an Indian American Selectman in Middlebury, Vermont, has said he will seek approval to stay on for three more years. (Farhad Khan/Facebook photo)Jatwinder Singh, a former Flint liquor store employee, says he would be targeted for an honor killing if he were deported back to India. (representational image)According to recent National Science Board data, there was a 19.2 percent drop in Indian students coming to the U.S. specifically for computer science and engineering graduate programs. At the same time, there was an increase in the number of students coming from China. Above, file photo of Indian students at Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in Hyderabad. (Noah Seelam/AFP/Getty Images)Two New Haven, Connecticut, men are awaiting sentencing for the April 2015 murder of Indian American store clerk Sanjay Patel. Jamal Sumler (left) was found guilty of felony murder and robbery, and faces 95 years in prison. Dwayne Sayles (right) was also found guilty of murder, along with several other charges. At the center is Leighton Vanderberg, who took a plea deal and testified against Sayles and Sumler. (New Haven Police Department photos)21st Annual Global Iron Ore & Steel Forecast Conference

OVERVIEW

The event looks set to continue its role as the premier event for the global iron ore and steel industry during this challenging and crucial time as the resources sector considers the outlook for 2018 and beyond. In a time of industry volatility and uncertainty, it is now more important than ever to receive the latest expert analysis and insights into possible market and industry scenarios and network with industry leaders.

The event will provide a strong platform to further communicate your important role in this volatile industry to the global iron ore & steel market and will further build on the highly successful events of the last 20 years.

The event is recognised as the key platform to keep up to speed on the global outlook for iron ore and steel demand / supply balance, where industry leaders comment on their future plans, opportunities, challenges, threats and release new announcements that can shift the balance of the market.

This years event will also be co-located with our annual Mineral Sands Conference and a new conference Lithium & Battery Tech Metals to allow the service/engineering/supply industry, and the investment community to visit all three events under the one roof.

EARLY BIRD RATE - SAVE $300 // EXPIRES 22ND DECEMBER 2017Dear Materials Science Industry Colleagues, Scientists and Friends,

As a Keynote Speaker and member of the Organizing Committee, I am delighted to invite you to attend the 5th World Congress on Smart and Emerging Materials, which is to be held during April 19-20, 2018 at Dubai, UAE. Smart and Emerging Materials Congress 2018 aims to proclaim knowledge and share new ideas amongst the professionals, industrialists and students from research areas of Materials Science, Physics, Chemistry, Nanotechnology, Environmental Science and Biomedicine to share their research experiences and indulge in interactive discussions and technical sessions at the event. The Conference will also have a space for companies and/or institutions to present their services, products, innovations and research results

The 5th World Congress on Smart and Emerging Materials is designed to bring forth the most up to date information for the development of Smart Materials. Key aspects will include Nanotechnology, Chemistry, Physics and marketing considerations, as they relate to what it will take to bring these Materials altering products to the highly regulated Western Markets.

Please join your peers from around the world for this wonderful opportunity to reach the largest assembly of participants from the Materials Science community, meet with thought leadership experts, share your new research, and show off your cutting edge technology at this 2-day event.

We look forward to see you in Dubai, UAE at 5th World Congress on Smart and Emerging Materials Conference.

Your presence and deliberation will make this conference remarkably successful in all aspects of Materials Science and Engineering.

Xiaozhong Zhang

Professor

Tsinghua University, China.Putin Claims Strategic Parity, Respect



Vladimir Putins announcement of new weapons systems to achieve nuclear parity was the result of the erosion of arms control regimes, such as the ill-advised U.S. withdrawal from the ABM treaty in 2002, Ray McGovern explains.



By Ray McGovern

March 05, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - Russian President Vladimir Putins State-of-the-Nation speech Thursday represents a liminal event in the East-West strategic balance  and an ominous one.

That the strategic equation is precarious today comes through clearly in Putins words. The U.S. and Russia have walked backwards over the threshold of sanity first crossed in the right direction by their predecessors in 1972 with the signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Amid the balance of terror that reigned pre-1972, sensible statesmen on both sides concluded and implemented the ABM treaty which, in effect, guaranteed mutual assured destruction  the (altogether fitting) acronym was MAD  if either side attempted a nuclear attack on the other. MAD might not sound much better than balance of terror, but the ABM treaty introduced a significant degree of stability for 30 years.

The treaty itself was the result of painstaking negotiation with considerable understanding and good faith shown by both sides. The formidable task challenging us intelligence specialists was to be able to assure President Nixon that, if he decided to trust, we could monitor Soviet adherence and promptly report any violations. (Incidentally, the Soviets did cheat. In mid-1983 we detected a huge early warning radar installation at Krasnoyarsk in Siberia  a clear violation of the ABM treaty. President Reagan called them on it, and the Soviets eventually tore it down.)

During the U.S.-Soviet negotiations on the ABM treaty, a third of the CIA Soviet Foreign Policy Branch, which I led at the time, was involved in various supporting roles. I was in Moscow on May 26, 1972 for the treaty signing by President Richard Nixon and Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev. I recall not being able to suppress an audible sigh of relief. MAD, I believed, would surely be preferable to the highly precarious strategic situation that preceded it. It was.

Cornerstone of Stability

In his speech on March 1, President Putin included an accurate tutorial on what happened after three decades, noting that Moscow was categorically against the U.S. decision in 2002 to withdraw from the ABM treaty. He described the treaty as the cornerstone of the international security system.

Putin explained that under the treaty, the parties had the right to deploy ballistic missile defense systems in only one of its regions. Russia deployed these systems around Moscow, and the U.S. around its Grand Forks land-based ICBM base [in North Dakota]. (He did not mention the aborted attempt to deploy a second installation at Krasnoyarsk.)

The Russian President explained: The ABM treaty not only created an atmosphere of trust, but also prevented either party from recklessly using nuclear weapons  because the limited number of ballistic missile defense systems made the potential aggressor vulnerable to a response strike.

Putin was saying, in effect, that no matter how bad  even mad  the MAD concept may seem, it played a huge stabilizing role. He added that the U.S. rejected all Russian proposals toward constructive dialogue on the post-ABM treaty situation, and grossly underestimated Russias ability to respond. The Russian President then gave chapter and verse, cum video clips, on an array of new Russian weaponry which, he claimed, rendered missile defense systems useless. The show-and-tell segment of Putins speech has been widely reported .

New York Times Skeptical

David Sanger, the New York Times go-to guy on key issues, who is among the best in the trade on reporting as flat facts things like WMD in Iraq and Russian meddling, wrote the lede on Putins speech in Fridays NY Times together with Neil MacFarquhar. The meme this time is not flat fact, but skepticism : Do these weapons really exist? Or is Putin bluffing?

In support of their skepticism, Sanger and MacFarquhar blithely report that analysts writing on Facebook and elsewhere leaned toward the bluff theory. So, QED!

And echoing former National Intelligence Director James Clappers insight that Russians are typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, Sanger and MacFarquhar remind NYT readers that deception lies at the heart of current Russian military doctrine.

The two NYT journalists did get one thing right at the very end of their article; namely, For years, Mr. Putin has chafed at the perceived disrespect showed to him and Russia by the United States. Nobody listened to Russia, he said near the end of his speech, to huge applause. Well, listen now.

Russians, like all proud and gifted people, resent attempts to demean or marginalize them. Putin may have seen his speech, in part, as a blistering response to former President Barack Obamas dismissive comments that Russia doesnt make anything and is no more than a regional power.

Door Still Open to Talks

It is to be hoped that the Marine generals running U.S. defense policy, rather than calling Putins bluff, will now encourage President Donald Trump to take up Putins latest offer to sit down at the negotiating table and work together  to ensure global security  taking into account that strategic parity is now a reality.

Referring to what he called our duty to inform our partners about Russias claimed ability to render ABM systems useless, Putin added: When the time comes, foreign and defense ministry experts will have many opportunities to discuss all these matters with them, if of course our partners so desire.

Putin also said, We are greatly concerned by certain provisions of the revised Nuclear Posture Review, which envisages a nuclear response to conventional arms attacks and even to a cyber threat.

He described Russias military doctrine, as very clear and specific: Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons solely in response to a nuclear attack, or an attack with other weapons of mass destruction against the country or its allies, or an act of aggression against us with the use of conventional weapons that threatens the very existence of the state.

With burgeoning threats against Iran and Syria, it is to be hoped that someone in Washington thinks to ask Putin which countries he includes among Russias allies.

White Lies Nobody Believes

Dana White, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters Thursday, Our missile defense has never been about Russia. Now, as Harry Truman would have put it, the Russians werent born yesterday. Putin has been extremely derisive toward those promoting the bromide that ABM installations in and around Europe are designed to defend against missiles from Iran  or North Korea.

In an unusually candid remark on missile defense on April 17, 2014, the day before Crimea was annexed, Putin told a national TV audience : Missile defense  is no less, and probably even more important, than NATOs eastward expansion. Incidentally, our decision on Crimea was partially prompted by this. (Emphasis added)

To take some liberties with Shakespeare, The fault is not in our stars, but in our Star Wars. Ever since President Ronald Reagan was sold on the notion that a Star Wars ABM system could provide the U.S. with complete protection from missile attack, exceptional opportunities to restrain  or even put an end to  the nuclear arms race have been squandered. Victory has gone to the arms profiteers  those whom Pope Francis described to Congress as the blood drenched arms merchants.

The ABM project has been called, with justification, the worlds largest corporate welfare program. Jonathan Marshall today explains quite well what should scare us  still more billions likely to be thrown at the makers of systems that, most serious scientists and engineers agree, can always be defeated, and comparatively cheaply, way or another.

Never Miss Another Story Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

Three Decade-Old Conundrum

During the mid-80s, I had a front-row seat watching President Ronald Reagan blow what appeared to be a golden chance for a comprehensive peace. I had spent most of my CIA career focusing on Soviet foreign policy and was able to tell the senior U.S. officials I was briefing that Mikhail Gorbachev, in my view, was the real deal. Even so, I was hardly prepared for how far Gorbachev was willing to go toward disarmament. At the 1986 summit with President Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik, Iceland, Gorbachev proposed that all nuclear weapons be eliminated within ten years.

Reagan reportedly almost rose to the occasion, but was counseled to reject Gorbachevs condition that any research on anti-ballistic missiles be confined to laboratories for that decade. Star Wars, the largest and most wasteful defense-industry program in recent memory, won the day.

I know the characters who, for whatever reason, danced to the tune of Star Wars, Reagans benighted, wistful wish for an airtight defense against strategic missiles.

The naysayers to peace included ideologues like CIA Director William Casey and Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, windsocks like CIA Deputy Director Robert Gates and one of his proteges, Fritz Ermarth, a viscerally anti-Russian functionary and former Northrop Corporation employee, during Reykjavik.

According to author Jim Mann, several years after Reykjavik, Ermarth reflected on how he had been wrong in being overly suspicious of Gorbachev and how the intuition of Ronald Reagan and Secretary of State George Shultz had been more perceptive.

What Now?

By all appearances, President Putin is as interested in stemming the strategic arms race as was Gorbachev. On Thursday, Putin talked about this particular moment being liminal  he called it a turning point for the entire world. Will there be anyone in Washington at the other end of the phone, if Moscow calls? If, in effect, the military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media complex answers, ABM developers will continue to fatten their purses and squander our childrens future.

It may be time to recall the admonition of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in a speech he gave 65 years ago:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. 

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.  This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. [] Is there no other way the world may live?

Nuff said.

Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Savior in inner-city Washington. He served 30 years as an U.S. Army Intelligence and CIA analyst, and in retirement co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

This article was originally published by " Consortiumnews " -

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of Information Clearing House

Join the DiscussionWhy Putins Latest Weapons Claims Should Scare Us



Americans should be very concerned about Russian President Vladimir Putins announcement on Russias breakthroughs in weapons technology  not necessarily because they pose a threat, but because it will mean vast fortunes spent in the U.S. on an arms race, Jonathan Marshall argues.



By Jonathan Marshall



March 05, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - Be afraid. Be very afraid of Russian President Vladimir Putins latest boast to his Federal Assembly that Russian scientists have come up with a breakthrough in developing new models of strategic weapons aimed at the United States.

Dont be afraid that he has any intention of using them. Dont even be afraid that most of the weapons he demonstrated through animated simulations are operational.

Be afraid, rather, that armchair Cold Warriors in the United States will shamelessly exploit Putins speech to justify billionsno, trillionsof dollars in needless spending on a pointless nuclear arms race.

Achieving their agenda was made easier by media coverage of the speech, which reported that Putin  threatened the West  (New York Times) and  represented an escalated level of martial rhetoric even by his pugnacious standards  (Washington Post).

Putin in fact explicitly and repeatedly emphasized that his claimed new weapons are not offensive, but rather designed to maintain Russias nuclear deterrent in the face of growing U.S. anti-missile systems.

Responding to the United States

Back in 2000, the US announced its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, he explained. We saw the Soviet-US ABM Treaty signed in 1972 as the cornerstone of the international security system Together with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, the ABM Treaty not only created an atmosphere of trust but also prevented either party from recklessly using nuclear weapons.

We did our best to dissuade the Americans from withdrawing from the treaty, he continued. All in vain. The US pulled out of the treaty in 2002. Even after that we tried to develop constructive dialogue with the Americans.  All our proposals, absolutely all of them, were rejected.

Putin went on, Despite our numerous protests and pleas  there are new missile defense systems installed in Alaska and California; as a result of NATOs expansion to the east, two new missile defense areas were created in Western Europe  The US global missile defense system also includes five cruisers and 30 destroyers, which  have been deployed to regions in close proximity to Russias borders.

Putin overestimates the potential effectiveness of these U.S. missile defense systems, which have never proven reliable. But Russias generals, like ours, build their careers on exaggerating risks, and Putin, like most Russians, is easily awed by claims for U.S. technology.

As I wrote here in 2016 , The ABM system currently deployed in Europe is admittedly far too small today to threaten Russias nuclear deterrent. In fact, ABM technology is still unreliable, despite Americas investment of more than $100 billion in R&D. Nonetheless, its a threat Russia cannot ignore. No U.S. military strategist would sit still for long if Russia began ringing the United States with such systems.

Dubious Russian Claims

Russia didnt sit still. In response, Putin said that Russia has developed new missiles capable of evading U.S. missile defensesby taking new routes (e.g., over the South Pole), traveling underwater, operating at hypersonic speeds, or maneuvering unpredictably.

Some of his grandiose claims seem aimed less at convincing technical experts than at reassuring a domestic audience that Russia is still a great power and need not cower before superior American might.

For example, reports indicate that a nuclear-powered cruise missile, like one he described, crashed in recent tests , and experts say that the complex and expensive concept is inherently  insane .

Similarly, if you just want to blow up some U.S. ports, it makes no sense to build a new class of nuclear drones capable of traveling thousands of miles underwater, when you could just deploy off-the-shelf nuclear missiles with cheap decoy warheads to foil U.S. defenses.

In an interview with Megyn Kelly on NBC, Putin himself admitted that only one of the weapons he referenceda large but fairly traditional missilewas combat ready.

We are not threatening anyone

For all his boasting, Putin was simply making a point that most arms experts, and even the Pentagon, have long conceded: Russia has the means to defeat U.S. missile defenses, not to prevail in a war.

We are not threatening anyone, not going to attack anyone or take away anything from anyone with the threat of weapons, he said.

In case anyone still misjudged his intent, he added, There is no need to create more threats to the world. Instead, let us sit down at the negotiating table and devise together a new and relevant system of international security and sustainable development for human civilization.

Most of these caveats, of course went unquoted in Western news accounts. Instead, traditionally hostile reporters like Neil MacFarquhar and David Sanger of the New York Times said Putin had essentially declared that Russia had made Americas response obsoleteslippery language suggesting that U.S. security might be at risk.

In fact, nothing in Putins statement even hinted that the U.S. nuclear deterrent, backed up by 4,000 city-busting warheads, was in question.

It takes a lot less than that to deter a nuclear attack. China has just a few hundred warheads, but no one would ever think of messing with it. Indeed, no rational leadera category that may or may not include President Trump would even think of launching a nuclear attack on North Korea, with its few dozen primitive warheads.

The assessment of Lt. General James Kowalski, Vice Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, remains true today as it was in 2013: a Russian nuclear attack on the United States is such a remote possibility that it is hardly worth discussing.

The Militarists Respond

But Americas neo-Cold Warriors instantly seized on Putins speech to whip up anti-Russia frenzy and call for even more military spending .

President Obamas former ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, insisted that President Trump was derelict for not responding forcefully to Putins speech today threatening to attack America in new ways with nuclear weapons. The lack of push back, he said, was Amazing. Disappointing. And scary.

More amazing, disappointing, and scary was the former ambassadors utter mischaracterization of Putins speech. One hopes that his reporting to the State Department was not so casually in error.

And then the was the oft-quoted Adm. James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, who asserted that Putins speech illuminates his go big strategy for dealing with the U.S., including an aggressive stance backed up by destabilizing weapons.

It should spur us to develop counters to what he is describing, he declared. We need to do the research and development, testing, fielding and training to deal with the new battlefield he is describing, with both offensive and defensive capabilities.

Such language reinforces the Pentagons ambitious agenda, outlined in its recent  Nuclear Posture Review , which calls for creating at least two new kinds of nuclear weapons while pursuing a $1.7 trillion program of modernizing Americas nuclear arsenal.

Even more extreme, Rob Dannenberg, former chief of the CIAs Central Eurasia Division, concluded that Putin may have stolen a march on us as we have underinvested in strategic weapons for at least the past decade.

We need to recognize Putin is the arch enemy of the West, Dannenberg stated. We need to recognize there is no negotiating with him. . . Russias behavior will not change until the regime is changed. That should be our focus and strategy.

If anything should keep us up at night worrying about the fate of the world, its nuts like Dannenberg, calling for regime change in Russianot Putins cartoon videos about how Russia plans to maintain a stable nuclear deterrent with the United States.

Jonathan Marshall is the author of many articles on nuclear arms and policy, including  Learning to Love  and Use  the Bomb ,  Dreams of Winning Nuclear War on Russia ,  Obamas Unkept Promise on Nuclear War ,  Endangering a Landmark Nuclear Treaty .

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of Information Clearing House

Join the DiscussionIts Time For AIPAC To Register As A Foreign Agent  The Forward

By M.J. Rosenberg

March 05, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - This weekend, 18,000 Americans from all over the country are coming to Washington to participate in the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference.

AIPAC is one of the leading forces behind the Israel lobby, joined in recent years by the ascending Christians United for Israel. Other Jewish pro-Israel organizations are niche affairs, representing particular constituencies on the left or right. But its AIPAC that is the registered lobby on Capitol Hill, and it is AIPAC whose clout on matters relating to Israel exceeds the clout of the National Rifle Association on matters related to guns; while the NRAs sway is almost entirely over Republicans, AIPAC has historically drawn its support from both parties. Is there any place but AIPAC that not only gets Mike Pence, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi in the same room, but also gets to hear them in near total agreement?

But theres something strange, too, about AIPAC. Consider Vice President Mike Pences remarks at last years conference: Every freedom-loving American stands with Israel  because her cause is our cause, her values are our values and her fight is our fight.

How can Americas representatives declare that any other countrys fight  even one as close to us as Israel is  is our fight, its cause our cause, its values our values?

Its precisely this kind of overidentification that George Washington warned against in his 1796 farewell address. A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils, Washington said. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.

To protect against this kind of passionate attachment, the United States has laws in place that forbid foreign governments from wielding certain kinds of influence or lobbying. Every foreign country represented in Washington by foreign agents must register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Under its terms, the country in question is absolutely banned from participating in or influencing American elections. Every contact the agents have with Congress must be reported to the Department of Justice, along with how and where they spend their resources.

This law applies to Canada as much as it does to Russia (although Russian interference in our political process is now one of the biggest issues in our political life). It also applies to Israel.

But it does not apply to the Israel lobby as represented by AIPAC, which is heavily involved in our political system, funding candidates who are perceived to be good on Israel, and defunding incumbents who fail to subscribe to the favored foreign states agenda.

How does AIPAC get away with it?

It gets away with it because AIPACs founder , I.L. Kenen, came up with a legal loophole by which AIPAC is defined not as a lobby for a foreign state but for Americans who support that state. Its a critical distinction that makes AIPACs dominance over U.S. Middle East policy possible.

Never Miss Another Story Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

I worked at AIPAC directly for Kenen, back in the 1970s before moving on to Capitol Hill. He told me that he came up with the AIPAC formula  AIPAC as an American organization lobbying for Americans  so that AIPAC would be legally permitted to engage in politics and not have to reveal its activities. A devoted American and liberal Democrat, Kenen believed American and Israeli interests and values werent likely to diverge anyway, so whats the problem?

Never Miss Another Story Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

After Kenen retired, Israel and AIPAC took a rightward turn, and he saw the mistake he made. Toward the end of his life, Kenen was outraged by the AIPAC leadership with its unquestioning support of the occupation of the West Bank and the blockade against Gaza, and other right-wing Israeli policies. He hated what he saw as AIPAC using its political power to keep the United States government and other influential Americans and, perhaps most important, the media from straying from the Israeli line.

Not only was AIPAC making it hard for the United States to restrain the Israeli government, but it was also weakening forces inside Israel that were trying to do so. The Israeli peace camp needed the United States on its side, but thanks to AIPAC, the United States could not help our natural Israeli allies. Of course, when Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was actively seeking peace and an end to the occupation, that was the moment AIPAC chose to separate itself from Israel, resulting in Rabins blistering exhortation that it get the hell out of his way. By the time of his death, Kenen was thoroughly alienated from the organization.

Now is the time to undo Kenens mistake. It is time to require AIPAC to register as what it is: a foreign agent. It will still be able to advocate for Israel, but as an Israeli lobby, which admits to getting its marching orders from the Israeli government. What it would not be able to do is direct campaign money to politicians. Lets see how many vice presidents, senators and representatives show up at its conferences then. Lets see how many of its Israel-right-or-wrong resolutions pass the House 435-0. Lets see if presidents are still afraid to say what they think about the occupation and the denial of democratic rights to Palestinians.

I began this piece by referring to AIPAC as the major component of the pro-Israel lobby. Actually, it isnt. It is a lobby for the Israeli right and for a status quo that has turned Israel into an international pariah. That is not the way it has to be.

In 1995, when the peace-seeking Rabin was gunned down by a right-wing Israeli zealot, more foreign leaders attended his funeral than had attended any similar rite since John F. Kennedys. Poll after poll showed Rabin, the man who negotiated honestly and directly with the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, to be among the most admired people in the world.

Today, Netanyahu and AIPAC (which has kept the United States government firmly behind Netanyahus policies) have turned Israel into a source of dissension even among American Jews.

No, AIPAC is not a pro-Israel lobby. Its the Netanyahu lobby and our laws should treat it as such, for Israels sake even more than our own.

As for the thousands of Americans gathered in Washington this weekend, they need to know one thing: They are not supporting the dream of a secure, democratic Israel at peace with its neighbors and the world. They are, unwittingly, supporting a right-wing political agenda that is placing Israel in ever-deeper peril and, frankly, jeopardizing its very existence.

M.J. Rosenberg worked at AIPAC from 1974 to1976 and from 1982 to 1986. He worked on Capitol Hill for 15 years and was a Clinton political appointee at USAID. Find him on Twitter @mjayrosenberg.

This article was originally published by " The Forward " -Home US Seeks to Intentionally Prolong Syrian Bloodshed



A 2012 US policy paper admittedly sought to "bleed" the Syrian government, and with it the Syrian people. Today in Syria, the consequences of America's depraved foreign policy is being blamed by Western special interests on the very victims it targeted.



By Tony Cartalucci March 05, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - From the beginning of Syria's conflict the United States presented to the world its unyielding ultimatum that the government in Damascus be deposed and replaced by a government headed by the armed militants the US cultivated before the conflict and has armed and funded throughout its now seven year course. US demands of regime change in Syria were not exclusive to the current conflict. Syria was upon US President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil" announced after the attacks on September 11, 2001 despite Syria playing no role in the attacks and in fact being one of the principal nations waging war on Al Qaeda and its many affiliates - including its predecessor the Muslim Brotherhood - stretching back to the 1980s when the US itself was arming and funding the terrorist organization's members in Afghanistan.



US Intentionally Fuels Syria's Conflict



Today, regions in Syria under government control now enjoy peace and security unseen since the conflict broke out in 2011. This includes Syria's largest city of Aleppo which was invaded by Al Qaeda-linked militant groups crossing over Syria's border from NATO member Turkey beginning in 2012.



Construction vehicles are replacing tanks in Aleppo. After years of occupation by terrorist groups, Aleppo was finally liberated, with reconstruction now underway. Peace and security was restored to Aleppo not through any initiative led by the United Nations, or Western states like the US, UK, or other NATO members, but instead by joint Syrian-Russian-Iranian military operations conducted in direct defiance of Western demands terrorist enclaves remain intact. Reflecting the security Syria's government still is able to offer the Syrian people versus regions still ravaged by Western-backed militants is the fact that the vast majority of displaced Syrians reside in government-held territory.



This is revealed in a 2017 UN report titled, " UNHCR seeing significant returns of internally displaced amid Syrias continuing conflict ," which states (emphasis added):

Aid agencies estimate that more than 440,000 internally displaced people have returned to their homes in Syria during the first six months of this year. In parallel, UNHCR has monitored over 31,000 Syrian refugees returning from neighbouring countries so far in 2017. Since 2015, some 260,000 refugees have spontaneously returned to Syria, primarily from Turkey into northern Syria. The main factors influencing decisions for refugees to return self-assisted mostly to Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Damascus and to other governorates are primarily linked to seeking out family members, checking on property, and, in some cases, a real or perceived improvement in security conditions in parts of the country. It should be noted that Aleppo, Hama, Homs, and Damascus all fall under the control of the current Syrian government. Regions still occupied by terrorists - particularly Idlib in northern Syria - are omitted from the report.



It's clear that if the United States' agenda in Syria was a humanitarian one, it would be assisting the Syrian government in its efforts to improve security conditions across the country. Instead, the US actively works to undermine such efforts - intentionally creating and perpetuating conditions to jeopardize security and induce continued human suffering. A map of Syria's current conflict reveals that violence continues solely in areas the West and its regional partners remain committed in. This includes NATO-member Turkey whose ongoing invasion and destruction of Syria's northern countryside aimed at Afrin goes unmentioned in UN proceedings. It also includes America's continued, uninvited occupation of eastern Syria.



While the US has claimed its purpose for occupying eastern Syria was to "defeat" the self-proclaimed "Islamic State" (ISIS), Washington's own Defense Intelligence Agency revealed in a leaked memo in 2012 that ISIS' initial creation was specifically desired by the US and its allies as a means of isolating the Syrian government.



The 2012 memo (PDF) would state specifically that: If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran). The DIA memo would also explain who these "supporting powers" are:

The West, Gulf countries, and Turkey support the opposition; while Russia, China, and Iran support the regime. With ISIS now mostly defeated in both Syria and Iraq, the US has used multiple and increasingly strained narratives to explain why it not only remains in Syria illegally, but why it is seeking to even expand its presence there. This includes claims it must "provide a bulwark against Iranian influence," according to the Guardian . Such pretexts stand at face value as contradictory, with Iranian influence having played a central role in America's desire to create ISIS in the first place, and ISIS' defeat at the hands of a Syrian-Russian-Iranian coalition.



Eastern Ghouta, located east of Damascus, also remains as a pocket of enduring violence owed solely to US efforts to impede Syrian efforts to liberate the area from terrorist occupation and restore the same order the rest of Damascus enjoys. Observers of the Syrian conflict can draw identical parallels between US propaganda aimed at impeding Aleppo's liberation in 2016 and current efforts to prolong violence in Eastern Ghouta.



US Policy in Syria: Bleed It



Concluding that Washington's policy in Syria is to intentionally prolong human suffering for as long as possible is not merely a matter of superficially assessing its current actions - it is stated as US policy throughout policy papers for the last several years. Never Miss Another Story Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter As early as 2012 when speedy US-backed regime change had clearly failed and a more protracted conflict had begun, prominent US policy think tank, the Brookings Institution, would publish a policy paper titled, " Saving Syria: Assessing Options for Regime Change ."



The paper would state (emphasis added): The United States might still arm the opposition even knowing they will probably never have sufficient power, on their own, to dislodge the Asad network. Washington might choose to do so simply in the belief that at least providing an oppressed people with some ability to resist their oppressors is better than doing nothing at all, even if the support provided has little chance of turning defeat into victory.



Alternatively, the United States might calculate that it is still worthwhile to pin down the Asad regime and bleed it , keeping a regional adversary weak, while avoiding the costs of direct intervention.

The paper not only openly admits US intervention in Syria has nothing to do with humanitarian concerns but rather "keeping a regional adversary weak," it specifically recommends prolonging the conditions under which a humanitarian crisis will only expand, and for as long as possible.



The US intentionally backing an "opposition" that has no chance of overturning the Syrian government equates to intentionally and maliciously prolonging a deadly conflict and all the horrors that accompany it. The Brookings paper specifically suggesting the US "bleed" the Syrian government is done with full knowledge of the cost in human suffering that "bleeding" would undoubtedly incur. With this poorly hidden reality underpinning America's true intentions in Syria in mind, the US' ongoing charade within the halls of the UN posturing as a champion for human dignity amid a catastrophe of its own intentional, premeditated design reveals both US special interests and the "international order" they preside over as a genuine and unparalleled rogue state.



In essence, US policymakers intend to hold the world hostage by threatening enduring bloodshed until their political demands are met - in Syria's case - the removal of Syria's government and its replacement by suitable US proxies. By very definition this is terrorism - and terrorism that should come as no surprise considering the US' predominant role in funding the terrorist organizations currently ravaging Syria.



While the US leads efforts to isolate and undermine a growing list of nations opposing the increasingly depraved nature of American hegemony, it is incumbent upon the rest of the world to isolate and undermine the special interests driving American hegemony . The notion that the current "international order" is predicated upon the rule of law lacks credibility when Washington can openly create a humanitarian catastrophe like that unfolding in Syria, hold the world hostage to it if its demands are not met, all while posing as a champion for the multiple laws and human values it is blatantly violating in the process.



Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine New Eastern Outlook . The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of Information Clearing House. Join the Discussion It is not necessary for ICH readers to register before placing a comment. This website encourages readers to use the "Report" link found at the base of each comment. When a predetermined number of ICH readers click on the "Report" link, the comment will be automatically sent to "moderation". This would appear to be the most logical way to allow open comments, where you the reader/supporter, can determine what is acceptable speech. Please don't use the report feature simply because you disagree with the author point of view. Treat others with respect, remembering that "A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still."- Benjamin Franklin. Please read our Comment Policy before posting - 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.President Tran Dai Quang receives Bangladeshi Minister of Foreign Affairs Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali (Photo: VNA)



Minister Mahmood Ali recalled the sentiments the Bangladeshi people have always extended to their Vietnamese counterparts, and believed that President Quangs visit will usher in a new chapter in bilateral relations.

President Quang thanked the Bangladeshi State for its solemn welcome for the Vietnamese delegation and congratulated Bangladesh on its recent achievements.

He suggested the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two countries to urge other ministries and sectors to effectively carry out high-level agreements and deploy practical activities celebrating the 45th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties, especially people-to-people exchanges and business networking, in order to deepen the bilateral relationship.

Later on the same day, President Quang, his spouse and entourage visited the Vietnamese embassys staff and representatives of overseas Vietnamese who are living, working and studying in Bangladesh.

After hearing Ambassador Tran Van Khoas report on the situation and activities of the embassy and Vietnamese community, President Quang briefed the participants on the home countrys socio-economic situation and achievements in foreign affairs, specially the successful hosting of the APEC Year 2017.

The President said Vietnam-Bangladesh relations are seeing positive development steps and fruitful cooperation in many fields. This year the two nations are celebrating the 45th establishment anniversary of diplomatic ties, marking an important period in the development of bilateral relations, he noted.

According to the leader, Bangladesh is a potential market with a population of more than 160 million. Last year, more than 30 business delegations of Vietnam came to explore the Bangladeshi market.

President Quang asked the Embassy to develop bilateral relations more practically by increasing the exchange of delegations at all levels as well as trade and investment promotion activities, striving to reach the target of USD2 billion in two-way trade in 2020 and further stepping up cooperation in agriculture, education-training, culture, tourism and people-to-people exchanges.

The President also proposed overseas Vietnamese in Bangladesh to unite together and contribute more to the home country and the bilateral relationship.

The Vietnamese community in Bangladesh comprises some 100 people, mostly Vietnamese women who got married with local and foreign men, along with officials and engineers working for information technology projects and overseas students./.Making Sense of the Russian 5th Generation Fighters in Syria

By The Saker

March 05, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - When I got an email from a friend telling me that a pair of Su-57s was seen landing at the Russian Aerospace Forces base in Kheimim, Syria, I immediately dismissed it as a fake. The list of reasons why this could not be true would run for pages. I knew that, so I simply replied: thats a fake and forgot about it. Over the next couple of days, however, this story was picked up by various websites and bloggers, but it still made no sense. Still, what kept me feeling really puzzled was that the Russian official sources did not dismiss the story, but chose to remain silent. Then another two Su-57s were reported. And then, suddenly, the Russian media was flooded with stories about how the Su-57s were sent to Syria as an act of revenge for the killing of Russian PMCs by the US; that the Su-57s had basically flattened eastern Ghouta while killing about 2000 Americans . This was truly some crazy nonsense so I decided to find out what really happened and, so far, here is what I found out.

First, amazingly enough, the reports of the Su-57 in Syria are true. Some say 2 aircraft, some say 4 (out of a current total of 13). It doesnt really matter, what matters is that the deployment of a few Su-57s in Syria is a fact and that this represents a dramatic departure from normal Russian (and Soviet) practice.

Introducing the Sukhoi 57 5th generation multi-role fighter

The Su-57 (aka PAK-FA aka T-50) is the first real 5th generation multi-role aircraft produced by Russia. All the other Russian multi-role and air superiority aircraft previously deployed in Syria (such as the Su-30SM and the Su-35S) are 4++ aircraft, not true 5th generation. One might be forgiven for thinking that 4++ is awfully close to 5, but it really is not. 4++ generation aircraft are really 4th generation aircraft upgraded with a number of systems and capabilities typically associated with a 5th generation, but they all lack several key components of a true 5th generation aircraft such as:

a low radar cross-section (stealth),

the capability to fly at supersonic speeds without using afterburners,

the ability to carry weapons inside a special weapons bay (as opposed to outside, under its wings or body)

an advanced situational awareness (network-centric) capability (sensor and external data fusion).

To make a long story short, the difference between 4th and 5th generation aircraft is really huge and requires not one, but several very complex technological jumps especially in the integrations of numerous complex systems.

The only country which currently has a deployed real 5th generation fighter is the USA with its F-22. In theory, the USA also has another 5th generation fighter, the F-35, but the latter is such a terrible design and has such immense problems that for our purposes we can pretty much dismiss it. As for now, the F-22 is the only real deal: thoroughly tested and fully deployed in substantial numbers. The Russian Su-57 is still years away from being able to make such a claim as it has not been thoroughly tested or deployed in substantial numbers. That is not to say that the Russians are not catching up really fast, they are, but as of right now, the Su-57 has only completed the first phase of testing. The normal Soviet/Russian procedure should have been at this time to send a few aircraft to the Russian Aerospace Forces (RAF) base in Lipetsk to familiarize the military crews with the aircraft and continue the testing while getting the feedback, not from test pilots but from actual air combat instructors. This second phase of testing could easily last 6 months or more and reveal a very large number of minor problems many of which could actually have very severe consequences in an actual combat deployment. In other words, the Su-57 is still very raw and probably needs a lot of tuning before it can be deployed in combat. How raw? Just one example: as of today, only one of the currently existing Su-57 flies with the new supercruise-capable engines, all the others use a 4th generation type engine. This is no big deal, but it goes to show that a lot of work still needs to be done on this aircraft before it becomes fully operational.

The notion that the Russians sent the Su-57 to Syria to somehow compete with the F-22s or otherwise participate in actual combat is ludicrous. While, on paper, the Su-57 is even more advanced and capable than the F-22, in reality, the Su-57 presents no credible threat to the US forces in Syria (if the Russians really wanted to freak out the Americans, they could have, for example, decided to keep a pair of MiG-31BMs on 24/7 combat air patrol over Syria). The Russian reports about these aircraft flattening Ghouta or killing thousands of Americans are nothing more than cheap and inflammatory propaganda from ignorant Russian nationalists who dont seem to realize that flattening urban centers is not even the theoretical mission of the Su-57. In fact, as soon as these crazy reports surfaced, Russians analysts immediately dismissed them as nonsense.

Utter nonsense is hardly the monopoly of Russian nationalists, however. The folks at the National Interest reposted an article ( initially posted on the blog The War is Boring ) which basically dismissed the Su-57 as a failed and dead project and its deployment in Syria as a farce (I should tip my hat off to the commentators at the National Interest who immediately saw through the total ridiculous nature of this article and wondered if Lockheed had paid for it). On the other hand, in the western insanity spectrum, we have the UKs Daily Express which wrote about Vladimir Putin sending his  fearsome new state-of-the-art Su-57  into the Syrian war zone. Just like with the Kuznetsov, the Ziomedia cant decide if the Russian hardware is an antiquated, useless pile of scrap metal or a terrifying threat which ought to keep the entire world up at night. Maybe both at the same time? With paranoid narcissists, you cant tell. Finally, the notion that Putin (personally?) sent these 4 aircraft to Syria to help him in his re-election campaign ( peddled by the Russophobes at Haaretz) is also devoid of all truth and makes me wonder if those who write that kind of crap are even aware of Putins popularity numbers.

So what is really going on?

Well, frankly, that is hard to say, and Russian officials are being tight-lipped about it. Still, various well informed Russian analysts have offered some educated guesses as to what is taking place. The short version is this: the Su-57s were only sent to Syria to test their avionics in a rich combat-like electromagnetic environment. The more detailed version would be something like this:

Never Miss Another Story Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

The Su-57 features an extremely complex and fully integrated avionics suite which will include three X band active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar ( one main , two side-looking), another two L band active electronically scanned array radars in the wings leading edge extensions , plus an integrated electro-optical system location system (working in infra-red, visible and ultra-violet frequencies). All these sensors are fused (5 radars, 2 bands, plus passive optics) and they are then combined with the data received by the Su-57s advanced electronic warfare suite and a high-speed encrypted datalink, connecting the aircraft to other airborne, space, as well as ground-based sensors. This is not unlike what the USA is trying to achieve with the F-35, but on an even more complex level (even in theory, the F-35 is a comparatively simpler, and much less capable, aircraft). One could see how it would be interesting to test all this gear in a radiation-rich environment like the Syrian skies where the Russians have advanced systems (S-400, A-50U, etc.) and where the USA and Israel also provide a lot of very interesting signals (including US and Israeli AWACS, F-22s and F-35s, etc.). To re-create such a radiation-rich environment in Russia would be very hard and maybe even impossible. The question whether this is worth the risk?

The risks of this deployment in Syria are very real and very serious. As far as I know, there are still no bombproof shelters built (yet) and Russia recently lost a number of aircraft (some not totally, some totally) when the good terrorists used mortars against the Khmeimim base. So now we have FOUR Su-57s (out of how many total, maybe 12 or 13?!), each worth 50-100 million dollars under an open sky in a war zone?! What about operational security? What about base security?

There is also a political risk. It is well known that the USA has been putting an immense political pressure on India to withdraw from the joint development between Russia and India of the Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA) or Perspective Multi-role Fighter (PMF) program . To make things worse, India currently has too many parallel aircraft programs and there are, reportedly, disagreements between the Russians and the Indians on design features. With the apparently never-ending disaster of the F-35, the very last thing the USA needs is a successful Russian 5th generation competitor showing up anywhere on the planet (especially one which has the clear potential to far outclass both the successful F-22 and the disastrous F-35). One can easily imagine what the AngloZionist propaganda machine will do should even a minor problem happen to the Su-57 while in Syria (just read the National Interest article quoted above to see what the mindset is in the West)!

The Su-57 also has formidable competitors inside Russia: the 4++ generation aircraft mentioned above, especially the Su-35S. Here we have a similar dynamic as with the F-22: while on paper the Su-57 is clearly superior to the Su-35S, in the real world the Su-35S is a well tested and deployed system which, unlike the F-22, also happens to be much cheaper than the Su-57 (the F-22 being at least twice as expensive than the Su-57). This issue is especially relevant for the internal, Russian market. So the real question for the RAF is simple: does Russia really need the Su-57 and, if yes, in what numbers?

This is a very complex question, both technically and politically and to even attempt to answer it, a lot of very debatable assumptions have to be made about what kind of threats the RAF will face in the future and what kind of missions it will be given. The biggest problem for the Russians is that they already have an array of extremely successful combat aircraft, especially the Su-35S and the formidable Su-34. Should Russia deploy more of these or should she place huge resources into a new very complex and advanced aircraft? Most Russian analysts would probably agree that Russia needs to be able to deploy some minimal number of real 5th generation combat aircraft, but they would probably disagree on what exactly that minimal number ought to be. The current 4++ generation aircraft are very successful and more than a match for their western counterparts, with the possible exception of the F-22. But how likely is it that Russians and US Americans will really start a shooting war?

Furthermore, the real outcome from a theoretical Su-35S vs F-22 (which so many bloggers love to speculate about) would most likely depend much more on tactics and engagement scenarios than on the actual capabilities of these aircraft. Besides, should the Su-35s and F-22s even be used in anger against each other, a lot would also depend on what else is actually happening around them and where exactly this engagement would take place. Furthermore, to even look at this issue theoretically, we would need to compare not only the actual aircraft but also their weapons. I submit that the outcome of any Su-35S vs F-22 engagement would be impossible to predict (unless you are a flag-waving patriot, in which case you will, of course, be absolutely certain that your side will win). If I am correct, then this means that there is no compelling case to be made that Russia needs to deploy Su-57s in large numbers and that the Su-30SM+Su-35S air superiority combo is more than enough to deter the Americans.

[Sidebar: this is a recurrent problem for Russian weapons and weapon systems: being so good that there is little incentive to produce something new. The best example of that is the famous AK-47 Kalashnikov which was modernized a few times, such as the AKM-74, but which has yet to be replaced with a fundamentally new and truly different assault rifle. There are plenty of good candidates out there, but each time one has to wonder if the difference in price is worth the effort. The original Su-27 (introduced in 1985) was such an immense success that it served as a basis for a long series of immensely successful variants including the ones we now see in Syria, the Su-30SM, the Su-35S and even the amazing Su-34 (which still has no equivalent anywhere in the world). Sometimes a weapon, or weapon system, can be even too successful and create a problem for future modernization efforts.]

Whatever may be the case, the future of the Su-57 is far from being secured and this might also, in part, explain the decision to send a few of them to Syria: not only to test its avionics suite, but also to score a PR success by raising the visibility and, especially, the symbolical role of the aircraft. Russian officials admitted that the deployment to Syria was scheduled to coincide with the celebration of the Defender of the Fatherland day. This kind of move breaks with normal Soviet/Russian procedures and I have to admit that I am most uncomfortable with this development and while I would not go as far as to call it a farce (like the article in the National Interest did), it does look like a PR stunt to me. And I wonder: if the Russians are taking such a risk, what is it that drives such a sense of urgency? I dont believe that anybody in Russia seriously thinks that the US will be deterred, or even be impressed by this, frankly, hasty deployment. So I suspect that this development is linked to the uncertainty of the future of the Su-57 procurement program. Hopefully, the risks will pay-off and the Su-57 will get all the avionics testing it requires and all the funding and export contracts it needs.

Addendum :

Just as I was writing these words, the Russians have announced (see here and here ) that the Israeli satellite images were fakes, that the the Su-57 stayed only two days in Syria and that they have been flown back to Russia. Two days? Frankly, I dont buy it. What this looks like to me is that what looks like a PR stunt has now backfired, including in the Russian social media, and that Russia decided to bring these aircraft back home. Now *that* sounds like a good idea to me.

This article was originally published by " The Saker " -

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of Information Clearing House.

- See Also -

Putins stunning revelations about new Russian weapons systems

Join the DiscussionThe Xi Silk Road is Here to Stay



Xi's extended tenure could embody the guarantee China needs to continue its anti-corruption purge and guide the ongoing economic reorientation



By Pepe Escobar

March 05, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - It took only two sentences for Xinhua to make the historical announcement; the Central Committee of the CCCP proposed to remove the expression that the president and vice-president of the Peoples Republic of China shall serve no more than two consecutive terms from the countrys constitution.

That will be all but confirmed at the end of the annual National Peoples Congress session starting next week in Beijing.

A Made in the West geopolitical storm duly ensued; forceful condemnations of the regime and its authoritarian revival, across-the-spectrum demonization of the dictator for life and the new Mao. Its as if the New Emperor was about to concoct the imminent launch of a Great Famine, Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen combo.

Now compare the hysteria with renowned Renmin University professor of International Relations Shi Yinhong, who attempted to introduce a measure of realpolitik: For a long time into the future, China will continue to move forward according to Xis thoughts, his route, his guiding principles and his absolute leadership.

The global economys captains of industry, old and new, have better shark fin to consume than to be constrained by the lowly Western Politician game of demonizing China. Turbo-capitalism  with or without Chinese characteristics  has absolutely nothing to do with Western liberal democracy. The Little Helmsman Deng Xiaoping introduced a real third way: economic proficiency coupled with political control. Deng, by the way, learned the ropes from Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew  a darling of the West.

Xi may embody the guarantee China needs to carry out, as smoothly as possible, a much-needed anti-corruption purge sidelining the many rotten branches of the CCP while steering a much needed economic reorientation that should benefit, most of all, the rural proletariat.

Besides, Xi is already leading internationally in climate change, nuclear proliferation, not to mention realigning global trade as globalization 2.0.

And that brings us to childish Western attempts to deride the New Silk Roads, known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as overblown, coupled with claims that BRI is facing a global backlash. That barely qualifies as wishful thinking.

Whats happening in the real world is that the Trump administration is trying to engineer an anti-BRI via the Quad (US, Japan, India, Australia)  but without BRIs transnational and transcontinental appeal, not to mention funding.

Never Miss Another Story Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter

Japan is making noises about a $200 billion Afro-Asian counterpunch. India centers its offensive on a deal with Iran to have Chabahar port compete with Gwadar. The Turnbull administration in Australia, in its 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper , bets on engaging the US against China. And Admiral Kurt Titt, the head of Southcom, carps, among other military officers, that BRI is a threat to US influence.

Xi, as well as Russian leader Vladimir Putin, has identified very clearly which way the wind is blowing, with Washington treating both China and Russia as revisionist powers and a certified strategic threat.

The Tang dynasty meets Plato

Xi may now turn into a post-modern version of an enlightened Tang emperor. But he also performs as the embodiment of Plato  a philosopher-king ruling with help of the best and the brightest (think Liu He, director of the Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs and Xis top man on economic policy).

The CCP as Platos Republic has concluded that yes, its all about management. Chinas titanic tweaking of its economic model simply cannot be accomplished at least before 2030. Challenges include managing the transition of state-owned enterprises (SOEs); the move towards added value GDP growth; how to organize China as a major consumer society; and how to contain the spread of financial risks.

For all these, consistency and continuity is key.

Xi has all but announced his major moves. The Chinese Dream  or China as a stable, middle-income nation. BRI as a connectivity vector integrating not only Eurasia but also Africa and Latin America. The increasing influence of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Securing the South China Sea as well as increasing a presence not only across the Indian Ocean but all the way to the Third Island  a matter of protecting Chinas connectivity/supply lines.

And last but not least, China configured as the top power in either Asia-Pacific or Indo-Pacific.

History will judge Xi by his deeds. The rest is mere Sinophobia.

This article was originally published by " Asia Times " -

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of Information Clearing House.

Join the Discussion

Operatives from the Homicide Unit of the Edo State Police Command are trying hard to unravel how three boys who are first children of their respective parents died after attending a birthday party in Benin, Edo State.

The names of the dead cousins have been given as Micheal Osula, Igie Edosomwan and Kelvin Idemudia. Already, there is confusion in the area over the mysterious and questionable manner of their deaths.

A report by NewTelegraph reveals that the three brothers were said to have died on Sunday last week after a birthday ceremony held at Ogida quarters in Egor Local Government Area.

Sources close to them said after they were confirmed dead moments they were rushed to a nearby hospital after complaining of not feeling well. Mother of one of the deceased, Mrs. Comfort Edosomwan, had wailed profusely over the sudden demise of her son.

Edosomwan, who disclosed that her son was about to eat in the house when an unidentified friend of his called him to join him to the birthday party, alleged money ritual in the ugly and dramatic incident.

She also appealed to the police to thoroughly investigate the matter, adding that one of the suspects arrested in connection to the deaths had recently returned from Ghana.

The states Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Chidi Nwabuzor, when contacted, said some suspects were being interrogated over the deaths.Nigerian rapper, actor, and songwriter, Folarin Falana popularly known as Falz is set to release his debut cinematic production Falz Experience: The Movie to the delight of his teeming fans.

The movie premieres in the cinemas nationwide on March 2nd, 2018 and it is a platform to showcase the success of Falzs 2017 end of the year concert, regarded by some as the best music concert in modern Nigerian history. Judging by the movie trailer, the movie promises to deliver an exciting cinematic experience to millions of movie lovers across the country.

The movie is a follow-up to my last concert which was a massive success. It is also the first ever music concert movie adaptation produced in Nigeria where fans get to once again experience all the fun and excitement from the Falz Experience, said Falz, while speaking at the announcement.

In the movie trailer, Falz acts multiple characters, featuring in separate scenes as a preacher, a waiter, a lawyer, and a musician. In each scene, he appears to have run into some kind of trouble through which he provides comic relief to the viewers.

Falz is no stranger to the TV screens. He played the character of Segun in Jenifas Diary; a role for which he won the Best Actor in a Comedy award at the 2016 AMVCA and AFRIMAs Best Male in West Africa Award 2017.

See pictures from the event:

Falz Experience: The movie is written by Damilola Elebe, and distributed by Filmone. The movie features Falz alongside Bisola Aiyeola, Adunni Ade, and Frank Donga among others.

Leave a CommentPunch

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has absolved President Muhammadu Buhari of allegations of nepotism being levelled against him.

Vanguard

ENUGUA chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Chief Anike Nwoga, has filed a suit challenging the bill passed by the National Assembly, NASS, changing the sequence of the 2019 elections as proposed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

The Sun

As Nigeria prepares for the 2019 general election, the United States says its major priority now is to see a peaceful transition, as the country occupies a strategic position in Africa.

Thisday

The senator representing Kaduna Central senatorial district, Shehu Sani, has said President Muhammadu Buhari is the only rallying point for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Daily Times

#2019: Choice of Presidential candidate tears PDP apart

Obasanjo, govs root for Dankwabo *Secondus, in Secret talks with Makarafi, Atiku The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is passing through political furnace following intense pressure from aspirants for the exalted office of the Presidency come 2019.

Guardian

Daily Trust

A former governor of Kaduna State, Senator Ahmed Makarfi on Sunday said he didnt vote the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 general elections as claimed by Alhaji Asari Dokubo.

Leadership

President Muhammadu Buhari will today depart for Accra, Ghana to attend the countrys 61st Independence Anniversary celebrations holding at the Independence Square on Tuesday, March 6.

Tribune

THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has congratulated former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the occasion of his 81st birthday.

The NationPopular Nollywood actor, Ime Bishop Umoh,also known as Okon Lagos, traveled to Germany recently and he took his time to share memories of his trip to the beautiful European country.

The actor revealed that he traveled alongside a group to grace the Nollywood Europe Golden Awards and he lodged in a hotel for about two weeks. He went further to state that he really enjoyed himself in the country.

When he was asked about what he saw in Germany, he said:

I went for a car exhibition where I saw car technologies that will function in the future. I also saw cars that run on water. I saw an electric car for the first time in Germany. I saw cars that park by themselves; cars that are powered by solar energy and lots of incredible machines

Source: NaijaloadedThe operatives of Rapid Response squad of the Lagos State Police Command have arrested father and son for selling Tramadol and other hard drugs to primary and secondary school pupils in Itire, Lagos.

The father, Ibrahim Sheu (40) and Franku Ibrahim (23) were arrested on Friday after officials of the Office of Education and Quality Assurance, Lagos State, alerted the Rapid Response Squad officers about the incident.

The suspects, who are petty traders at a kiosk in Adedeji Bus stop, Itire, Lagos were caught selling the drugs to school pupils. Some of the pupils were later interrogated and released to their parents.



The officials of the Ministry of Education, Lagos State, on routine monitoring of schools around the area had gotten report of strange attitude of some of the school pupils in the area.

The curiosity led to the discovery of the traders selling tramadol and other hard drug to some of the school pupils in the area.

Further investigations by Rapid Response Squad officials led to the confirmation of the report and arrest of both the father and his son.

Recovered from the suspects were 72 pieces of Tramadol capsules, 28 tablets of Tramol and some other capsules.

The father, Ibrahim Sheu, who initially denied selling hard drugs to pupils, stated that it was his son that sold to the pupils whenever he was not around later confessed they both sold to pupils but added that they sold to adults too.

Commenting on the incident, the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Imohimi Edgal advised parents and guardians to always debrief their wards whenever they come back from school to know their activities in schools and the kind of friends they associate with.

Edgal added that the case would be thoroughly investigated and the prosecution monitored.

The suspects are to be transferred to the SCID for further investigation.The delegates at the event (Photo: VNA)

The program was an opportunity to honour Vietnamese women in the Czech Republic for their contributions to family, community and society.

Ms. Truong Kim Anh, Deputy Head of Huong Viet Women Club and Head of the organizing board said that the event aimed to create a new art exchange playground for women on the occasion of the new Spring and International Womens Day.

To have impressive art items at the program, the women of the club had to practice after their working time for many days. Apart from showing their talent, the women hoped that their fathers, husbands and brothers would sympathize with their work to preserve family happiness.

On this occasion, Nguyen Duy Nhien, Chairman of the Overseas Vietnamese Association in the Czech Republic, presented certificates of merit to women, who have made positive contribution to activities of the community over the past time./.March 5, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) The Bank of England governor's comments on the regulation of cryptocurrencies can be expected to help fuel a sustainable recovery of the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and Dash.

This is the prediction of Nigel Green, founder and CEO of deVere Group, one of the world's largest independent financial services organizations, following Mark Carney's declaration that the exchanges that clear cryptocurrencies should come into the "regulatory tent."

Mr Carney noted: "The time has come to hold the crypto asset ecosystem to the same standards as the rest of the financial system. Being part of the financial system brings enormous privileges, but with them great responsibilities...In my view, holding crypto asset exchanges to the same rigorous standards as those that trade securities would address a major underlap in the regulatory approach."

The Governor's announcement came just days after the deVere CEO told the media in a statement: "There is no question that regulation is necessary and is on its way. It is clearly an area in which there is an enormous need for a robust international regulatory framework and strict ongoing supervision. One of the best ways to address the regulatory issues is via the exchanges."

Of this stance now being taken by the Bank of England, Mr Green comments: "The proactive and pragmatic approach now being taken by the BoE should be championed.

"An increasing number of people are becoming aware of and developing an interest in cryptocurrencies. Whether traditionalists like it or not, cryptocurrencies in some form or another are here to stay  and the market is only set to grow.

"Robust regulation will help protect both retail and institutional investors, help combat cryptocurrency criminality, and reduce the potential threat of disrupting global financial stability, as well as offering a possible long-term economic boost to those countries which introduce it."

The deVere CEO goes on to say: "The Bank of England is one of the world's most influential central banks and, as such, its approach is likely to help shape the policies of others.

"Strong regulatory frameworks will give investors even more protection and more confidence in the market and, with this in mind, the comments by the BoE Governor on the regulation of cryptocurrencies can be expected to help fuel a sustainable recovery of the likes of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Litecoin and Dash."

He adds: "Regulation bolsters certainty, credibility and legal assurance. This translates into confidence and, typically, therefore a long-term upward trend. We saw that this was the case for Bitcoin in Japan when Tokyo started regulating the token. The market dropped at first, but eventually it rose. The same thing happened in Australia."

Mr Green concludes: "Cryptocurrency regulation is required and, I believe, now inevitable. The work being done by many international financial watchdogs, lawmakers and central banks, such as the Bank of England, in this area is something I fully support."

e: george@priorconsultancy.co.uk

t: +44 207 1220 925

Twitter: @PriorConsults

deVere Group is one of the world's largest independent advisors of specialist global financial solutions to international, local mass affluent, and high-net-worth clients. It has a network of more than 70 offices across the world, over 80,000 clients and $12bn under advisement.

More Info:

This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders

Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions.

More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com

Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.aspVancouver, British Columbia - March 5, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) Canadian Zinc Corporation (TSX: CZN; OTCQB: CZICF) is pleased to report the remaining results of its 2017 diamond drill exploration program on the Lemarchant zinc-lead-copper-silver-gold volcanogenic massive sulphide deposit and drill results for two priority base metal prospects, all located on the 100%-owned South Tally Pond VMS project in central Newfoundland.

The 2017 drill program at the Lemarchant deposit, totaling 48 drillholes for 12,422 metres, has successfully extended the Lemarchant deposit mineralization. Drilling at the Lemarchant Main Zone has extended the mineralization up-dip, by up to 80 metres over a 250-metre strike length at vertical depths of 120 to 170 metres below surface. Drilling at the Lemarchant Northwest Zone has extended the mineralization by up to 50 metres along strike to the north and south. Results of the 2017 drilling are provided in previous news releases with results from the remaining 8 drillholes provided below.

"We are very pleased and encouraged with the drill results from the 2017 drill program at the South Tally Pond project. Our first priority was to find extensions to the mineralization at the Lemarchant deposit and we have successfully accomplished that goal with the 2017 drill program. In addition, we tested two priority base metal prospects on the South Tally Pond project with encouraging geological results", stated Michael Vande Guchte, VP Exploration NL. "We look forward to an updated Lemarchant Mineral Resource Estimate in 2018 and to begin testing interpretations from the Lemarchant structural study".

The remaining 8 drillholes (3,113 metres) of the 2017 drill program at Lemarchant tested for additional south extensions to the Main Zone and extensions to the Northwest Zone. Results are summarized below.

Drillhole intervals are core length with true thickness estimated to be 80-100% of core length

Three drillholes (618 metres) tested for further south extensions to the Lemarchant Main Zone. Two of the drillholes successfully intersected the mineralized horizon with stringer to massive sulphide base metal mineralization.

Drillhole LM17-160 intersected 3.92% zinc, 0.52% lead, 0.73% copper, 15.4 g/t silver, 0.07 g/t gold over 1.1 metres extending the mineralization 25 metres south of previous drillhole LM17-113, which intersected 10.10% zinc, 4.54% lead, 2.32% copper, 147.9 g/t silver, 0.88 g/t gold over 1.5 metres. The mineralized horizon remains open along strike to the south.

Drillhole LM17-161 extended the mineralization 25 metres up-dip of LM17-113 on section 100+75N with 1.89% zinc, 0.27 lead, 2.36% copper, 23.19 g/t silver, 0.19 g/t gold over 4.25 metres. The mineralized horizon remains open up-dip on this section.

Drillhole LM17-163 tested 25 metres south of LM17-161 where the projected mineralized horizon has been replaced by unmineralized felsic intrusions.

Five drillholes (2,495 metres) tested for additional extensions to the Lemarchant Northwest Zone. Three of the drillhole intersected footwall stringer and disseminated base metal mineralization over 2 to 7 metres widths.

Drillholes LM17-156 and 157 targeted up-dip and north extensions, respectively, to the mineralization intersected in LM17-150 which intersected 3.05% zinc, 1.78% lead, 0.35% copper, 14.6 g/t silver, 0.5 g/t gold over 21.4 metres.

Drillholes LM17-158 tested 50 metres up-dip of LM10-24 where previous drilling intersected 6.60% zinc, 0.68% lead, 0.61% copper, 28.28 g/t silver, 0.46 g/t gold over 6.0 metres. No significant mineralization was intersected.

Drillholes LM17-159 and 162 targeted down-dip extension to the Northwest Zone mineralization. LM17-162 intersected weak base metal mineralization in a strongly sheared interval.

Additional information on the South Tally Pond project along with drillhole location maps and key sections are provided on the Canadian Zinc website (www.canadianzinc.com).

Drill Results  Two Priority Base Metal Prospects

Two priority base metal prospects, the Lost Pond prospect and Lake Ambrose West prospect, both located within 6 km of the Lemarchant deposit, were also drill tested in the final round of the 2017 drill program.

Lost Pond Prospect

Drilling at the Lost Pond prospect, located 6 km north of the Lemarchant deposit, followed up on three drillholes completed in 2011, where 4.0% copper mineralization was intersected over 0.5 metres. No other drilling has been undertaken in this area.

Thirteen drillholes, totaling 3,559 metres were completed in 2017 and intersected a thick sequence of variably altered mafic-felsic volcanic rocks over a 400-metre strike length with thick intervals of pyrite-rich to graphitic mudstone horizons containing anomalous base metal mineralization. The metalliferous mudstone horizons, are geochemically similar to those that overlie the Lemarchant deposit and suggest a favorable hydrothermal depositional environment for massive sulphide development. The drilling results are being assessed for further follow-up exploration.

Lake Ambrose West Prospect

The Lake Ambrose West prospect is located 4.5 km northeast of the Lemarchant deposit and had never been drill tested. Three drillholes, totaling 909 metres, were completed to test priority airborne EM conductors identified from previous surveys and coincident historical ground horizontal loop EM conductors. The drilling intersected felsic to mafic volcanic stratigraphy with a local pyritic, graphitic mudstone horizon intersected in two of the drillholes that explains the EM conductors. The mudstone horizon is associated with elevated base metal mineralization with the lithogeochemistry suggesting a more distal hydrothermal depositional environment. The drill results are being assessed for further follow-up exploration.

Updated NI 43-101 Resource Estimate underway on Lemarchant Deposit

Canadian Zinc has engaged Mercator Geological Services Limited ("Mercator") of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, to complete an updated National Instrument ("NI") 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate of the Lemarchant deposit. The updated Mineral Resource Estimate is scheduled to be completed in Q1 2018.

As part of the Mineral Resource Estimate update, a geological structural study of the Lemarchant deposit was completed by Mercator and Terrane Geoscience Inc. The structural study will be incorporated into the Lemarchant geological model and will be utilized to target other areas of potential mineralization including faulted offsets adjacent to the Lemarchant deposit.

About the South Tally Pond Project

The South Tally Pond project covers approximately 13,700 hectares and is located in a proven mining district in the same productive volcanic belt as the past-producing Duck Pond Cu-Zn Mine, owned by Teck Resources. The Lemarchant deposit is situated 20 km southwest of the former Duck Pond Mine.

Drilling programs in 2013 and 2014 led to the discovery of the Lemarchant Northwest Zone, a new lense of Zn-Pb-Cu-Ag-Au mineralization located 250 metres northwest of the Lemarchant Main Zone.

The drill programs were followed up with a successful metallurgical research program completed in 2016. The metallurgical program was designed to test the technical and economic viability of processing five central Newfoundland base metal deposits including the Company's Lemarchant and Boomerang-Domino deposits at a central milling facility. The metallurgical results demonstrated that the mineralization from the deposits can be successfully processed in a central mill using a sequential flotation flowsheet, and that selective zinc, lead and copper concentrates at marketable grades can be produced from these deposits.

The 2017 drill program successfully extended the Lemarchant Main Zone mineralization up-dip, by up to 80 metres over a 250-metre strike length at vertical depths of 120 to 170 metres below surface. Drilling at the Northwest Zone extended the mineralization by up to 50 metres along strike to the north and south. The Company's exploration strategy in central Newfoundland is to continue to build on its existing polymetallic resource base with the aim of developing either a stand-alone mine, similar to the past-producing base metal mines at Buchans and Duck Pond, or a number of smaller deposits that could be developed simultaneously and processed in a central milling facility.

Since acquiring the South Tally Pond project in September 2012, Canadian Zinc has completed 94 drill holes totaling 28,800 metres at the Lemarchant deposit and 16 drillholes totaling 4,468 metres at 2 priority prospects. Highlights of the Company's exploration work to date includes:

About Canadian Zinc

Canadian Zinc is a TSX-listed exploration and development company trading under the symbol "CZN". The Company's key project is the 100%-owned Prairie Creek Project, a fully permitted, advanced-stage zinc-lead-silver property, located in the Northwest Territories.

The Company also owns an extensive land package in central Newfoundland that it is exploring for zinc-lead-copper-silver-gold deposits including the South Tally Pond project (Lemarchant deposit), Tulks South project (Boomerang-Domino deposit) and Long Lake (Long Lake deposit).

For further information contact:

Alan B. TaylorChief Operating Officer & Vice President Exploration(604) 688-2001Suite 1710650 West Georgia StreetVancouver, BC V6B 4N9Fax: (604) 688-2043Tollfree:1-866-688-2001

Michael J. Vande Guchte

Vice President Exploration NL

(604) 688-2001

Suite 1710

650 West Georgia Street

Vancouver, BC V6B 4N9

Fax: (604) 688-2043

Tollfree:1-866-688-2001

Steve Dawson

Vice President

Corporate Development

(416) 203-1418

Suite 1805

55 University Avenue

Toronto, ON M5J 2H7

Fax: (416) 368-5344

E-mail: invest@canadianzinc.com

Website: www.canadianzinc.com

Quality Assurance and Quality Control

Drillhole intervals are core length with true thickness estimated to be 80-100% of core length. Samples were sawn from NQ-sized core with half core sections sealed in plastic bags and transported by Canadian Zinc personnel to Eastern Analytical Labs in Springdale, Newfoundland. Samples were analyzed for Cu, Pb, Zn, Ag and Au at Eastern Analytical Labs from the sawn NQ-sized half core sections. Data quality is monitored through the insertion of control samples consisting of one prepared base and precious metal standard and one blank sample for every 20 samples of drill core. All control samples conformed to the accepted contained grades of base and precious metals. Select samples pulps were shipped to ALS Minerals in North Vancouver, BC for 33-element ICP analysis for further check assays of significant base and precious metal bearing samples. Historical results were obtained from published reports and news releases available in the public domain.

Michael J. Vande Guchte, P.Geo., VP Exploration NL for Canadian Zinc Corporation is responsible for the Newfoundland exploration programs, and is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 and has reviewed and has approved the contents of this news release.

Cautionary Statement  Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains certain forward-looking information, including, among other things, the expected completion of acquisitions and the advancement of mineral properties. This forward looking information includes, or may be based upon, estimates, forecasts, and statements as to management's expectations with respect to, among other things, the completion of transactions, the issue of permits, the size and quality of mineral resources, future trends for the company, progress in development of mineral properties, future production and sales volumes, capital costs, mine production costs, demand and market outlook for metals, future metal prices and treatment and refining charges, the outcome of legal proceedings, the timing of exploration, development and mining activities, acquisition of shares in other companies and the financial results of the company. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Inferred mineral resources are considered too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves. There is no certainty that mineral resources will be converted into mineral reserves.

More Info:

This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders

Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions.

More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com

Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.aspLONDON/LUXEMBOURG - March 5, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) The Climate Bonds Initiative and KPMG Luxembourg are pleased to announce that KPMG Luxembourg has received the "Approved Verifier" status from the Climate Bonds Initiative, under the Climate Bond Standards and Certification Scheme. The firm can now act as a third-party verifier that assesses whether issuer and bond meet the requirements of the Climate Bonds Standard, and can thereafter provide an assurance report to the issuer.

KPMG Luxembourg chose to become an approved verifier as part of its plans to play an active role in the market of green/social and sustainable bonds, which are rapidly growing in Luxembourg and abroad. 2017 set yet another record with more than $155.5 billion in green bonds issued worldwide.

In Europe, the High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance set up by the European Commission has recently outlined its recommendations for the development of the sustainable finance sector, including the need for establishing European standards and the opportunity to explore the idea of green bonds labels.

The Grand Duchy in particular is the global hub for green bonds. It has long been a pioneer in this field, with the European Investment Bank (EIB) celebrating last year, the ten-year anniversary of its first green bond issuance in 2007.

KPMG Luxembourg believes that transparency and environmental responsibility are the future, as is evidenced by its new status.

Gilles Poncin, Partner and Head of Sustainability at KPMG Luxembourg, explains:

"KPMG Luxembourg is delighted to become an approved verifier of climate bondsas an active player on the sustainable finance market already, we welcome this chance to help create confidence in the market and meet growing demand by investors for third-party verification on accepted standards, with the aim of reducing greenwashing."

Sean Kidney, CEO of Climate Bonds Initiative, adds:

"We welcome KPMG Luxembourg to our Verifiers network, facilitating the Certification of green bonds across Europe. We expect an acceleration of green issuance towards 2020 and KPMG Luxembourg is well placed to be a part of ensuring that this market growth is accompanied by best practice amongst issuers that assists investors increase their capital commitments towards green finance."

Contact:

Andrew Whiley

Head of Communications and Media,

Climate Bonds Initiative, London

+44 (0) 7914 159 838

Notes:

The Climate Bonds Standards and Certification Scheme is used globally by bond issuers, governments, investors, and financial markets to verify and certify investments that address climate change. Labelling green bonds as such is particularly important because it helps investors identify bonds whose proceeds benefit the environment. Investors can thus deploy their capital with the confidence that it will be used to address climate change issues. Find out more at the Climate Bonds Standard page.

KPMG Luxembourg has been very active in sustainable finance, and is pleased to again demonstrate its leadership in this field with its new status. Visit our sustainability webpage for more information.

Disclaimer: The information contained in this communication does not constitute investment advice in any form and the Climate Bonds Initiative is not an investment adviser. Any reference to a financial organisation or debt instrument or investment product is for information purposes only. Links to external websites are for information purposes only. The Climate Bonds Initiative accepts no responsibility for content on external websites.

The Climate Bonds Initiative is not endorsing, recommending or advising on the financial merits or otherwise of any debt instrument or investment product and no information within this communication should be taken as such, nor should any information in this communication be relied upon in making any investment decision.

Certification under the Climate Bond Standard only reflects the climate attributes of the use of proceeds of a designated debt instrument. It does not reflect the credit worthiness of the designated debt instrument, nor its compliance with national or international laws.

A decision to invest in anything is solely yours. The Climate Bonds Initiative accepts no liability of any kind, for any investment an individual or organisation makes, nor for any investment made by third parties on behalf of an individual or organisation, based in whole or in part on any information contained within this, or any other Climate Bonds Initiative public communication.

More Info:

This news is published on the Investorideas.com Newswire - a global digital news source for investors and business leaders

Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. Contact management and IR of each company directly regarding specific questions.

More disclaimer info: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp Learn more about publishing your news release and our other news services on the Investorideas.com newswire https://www.investorideas.com/News-Upload/ and tickertagstocknews.com

Global investors must adhere to regulations of each country. Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: https://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.asp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.It is not a bad thing for us, that the route known as the Goldene Strae or the Golden Road as we will get to know it- has escaped the attention of so many. It has been spared being overrun by hordes of tourists and as you will discoverThe Trump administration planned to end the Obama-era executive order known as DACA on March 5 unless Congress passed more permanent legislation, but the Supreme Court bought more time for DACA.

District courts out of California and New York froze the Trump decision earlier in February saying it was an arbitrary reason for ending the executive order, which under the Administrative Procedures Act disallows any administration from creating or tearing down a policy without sound legal reason.

The White House press secretary Raj Shah said in a statement DACA was clearly unlawful, and the decisions from the lower courts were a usurpation of legislative authority.

We look forward to having this case expeditiously heard by the appeals court and, if necessary, the Supreme Court, where we fully expect to prevail, Shah said.

Following these statements, the Trump administration made a request to the Supreme Court to appeal the California District Courts decision on the grounds that a district court cant make decisions that affect the entire country.

The Supreme Court denied this request effectively allowing the litigation to go through the lower courts first.

The implications of this are still uncertain; DACA will stay intact as long as the lawsuits are being litigated, but after the attorney general announced the deadline, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, stopped accepting new DACA applications.

People who currently have DACA status will still be able to apply for their renewed status because of the injunction.

As the deadline nears, 100 DACA recipients per day have been losing their work permits and deferred status, which only puts more pressure on Congress to act, according to Time Magazine.

Reforms to the immigration system have been a growing concern for Congress over the last thirty years; this is true now more than ever as lawmakers are unable to come to a solution over the fate of over 800,000 Dreamers who could face deportation.

The immigrants in question are here on the basis of the Obama-era policy known as DACA or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. This policy allowed children below the age of 16 who were brought here by their parents before June 15, 2007 to temporarily stay in the U.S. until congress decided what to do with them.

Children who are allowed to stay, often called Dreamers, are unable to apply for permanent residency or citizenship but are able to enroll in college, get jobs and obtain valid identification like driver's licenses. This temporary status means DACA recipients must reapply every two years to renew their status and is why ending the policy would lead to deportations.

Opponents have compared DACA to previous reforms in history like the ones passed by Reagan known as the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

Since its passage, immigration laws have been unchanged despite multiple attempts at new reforms. This is a result of the 1986 changes being seen as ineffective by many and immigration reform slowly becoming a more divisive issue.

Dirk Deam, senior lecturer in political science, said this shift away from bipartisan immigration reform didnt really start until the Bush era and led to a complete lack of action by Congress on the issue.

Obama tried for immigration reform and he hit the Republican wall; so Obama acted unilaterally and passed an executive order, Deam said.

Deam further explained that executive orders are possible because laws and statutes all have room for discretion when interpreting them. With DACA, Obama said current immigration laws should be enforced on a status of priority.

Children who met the criteria under DACA were put as the last priority. This means DACA essentially just pushed back any decision on deportation of an individual with DACA status.

This is where the phrase deferred action comes from in DACA, Deam said.

The recent urgency to have congressional action is due to President Trumps declaration that, without changes made by congress, DACA would be phased out by March 5.

Supporters of DACA find this prospect troubling as many, if not all, of the Dreamers are assimilated into society and deportation would entail tearing apart communities. Dreamers contribute massively to our culture and economy. To deny or deport them would be to call into question all immigration, Deam said.

Since then, two district courts have ruled the March 5 deadline has to be pushed back following judges concerns that Trump undid the Obama policy arbitrarily.

Deam explained any administration, including Trumps, has to follow the Administrative Procedures Act when creating or undoing policy. This act says laws must be done or undone with a comment period, with public hearings and with sound legal reason.

When Obama created DACA he followed the APA and now it is being undone with no respect to the APA or immigration law, Deam said.

Opponents of this decision have argued that Obamas interpretation of the law was outside of the discretion of the law to begin with, and Trump has even said himself, what is done by the pen, can be undone by the pen.

Editor's note: This article has been updated due to an error. Though the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, stopped accepting new DACA applications, people are still able to renew their DACA application. The Daily regrets this error.

RELATED CONTENT:This collection features the arguments in favor of and against the renaming of Catt Hall on Iowa State's campus, which was named in Claire Simpson

It's time to subscribe and see everything

So thats it then. Once the UK leaves the European Union next year we can look forward to a customs border in the Irish Sea, the break-up of the union and certain Irish reunification. Thank g[...]This Week in Review

A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more.BROMLEY: Crime crack down aimed at making Christmas safer

A POLICE operation to crack down on crime in the run-up to Christmas saw 39 suspects arrested in the first week.

The number of arrests, which are part of Bromley police's Operation Nicholas, an intelligence-led campaign aimed at thieves and vandals, has delighted senior officers.

Last year it took police two weeks to arrest 30 people nine less than they did in a week this year.

The operation uses real-time CCTV and other intelligence to enable dedicated officers from Bromley police's pro-active operations unit to respond immediately to crimes on buses and bus routes.

From the 39 arrests, 37 have resulted in judicial disposal either a formal charge, caution or reprimand.

One yob was arrested after causing about 3,000 damage by kicking in a window in Bromley High Street.

An officer in the CCTV control room alerted his colleagues on the ground and the man was arrested before he reached the end of the street.

In another case, six teenagers were arrested for damaging buses, and five were officially reprimanded.

A 30-year-old from Penge was charged with a town-centre robbery and has been bailed to appear in court in the New Year.

Sergeant Darren Williams, the officer in charge of the operation, said: "I'm very pleased to have got this many arrests in the first week and feel it is a reflection of the hard work and dedication of my team.

"Partnerships and tactics we are using have never been this intelligence led, which proves this type of initiative can have a dramatic effect on street crime and the quality of life for people in the borough."

Orpington Buses roadside controller Kurt Wells said: "We are very pleased with how the operation is going so far.

"One of our drivers had a brick thrown through a window on Starts Hill Road, and he was very pleased to have rapid police back-up. It helps drivers and the public feel safer."

l Anyone with information about streetcrime or offences on buses can call the pro-active operations unit in Beckenham on 020 8284 8969 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.

December 10, 2001 18:08

Sarah WardenMason and LTV Drivers Job in Saudi Arabia

Latest Gondal Trade Test & Training Center Driving Posts Saudi Arabia 2021 Mason and LTV Drivers having Valid LTV / HTV Driving License with Driving Experience are required in Saudi Arabia Through Gondal Trade Test & Training Center.

How to Apply on Gondal Trade Test & Training Center Job Advertisement

Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online.

Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If the employer asks you to pay money for any purpose including processing to shortlisting, do not pay at all and report us using our contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs cannot be applied online here. Error & omissions excepted.

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.[JURIST] The UK High Court [judicial website] ruled [judgment] Thursday that those convicted of prostitution do not have to reveal that conviction.

The plaintiffs were three women who were groomed, trafficked, and prostituted as teenagers and were later convicted of loitering or soliciting in a street or public place for the purpose of prostitution multiple times as adults. Although all three of the women stopped participating in sex work, they found it difficult to find employment because of their criminal records.

The court held the disclosures required  were not based on any rational assessment of risk and so failed the test of being necessary in a democratic society, because in this case, the plaintiffs provided a very low, if any, risk to society. The court said a better test was needed to balance public interest with the rights to individuals to be employed and criticized the blanket approach.

In January a US federal court struck down [JURIST report] a challenge to a California prostitution ban. In May 2016 Amnesty International called for [JURIST report] a formal decriminalization of adult sex work. A month before the French Parliament passed [JURIST report] an anti-prostitution bill.Workers watch as the main girder of a new 300-tonne gantry crane is lifted into place at Seaspan Vancouver Shipyards in North Vancouver, B.C., on Wednesday April 2, 2014. The Department of National Defence is hoping to start cutting steel on the navy's new resupply ships early as it seeks to keep the multibillion-dollar project from slipping farther behind schedule. The plan would see work on the two resupply ships begin this year during a lull in the construction of two different coast guard science vessels, rather than after all of the science vessels are done.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl DyckQuebec Premier Philippe Couillard, left, accompanied by French President Emmanuel Macron, walks out of the Elysee palace after their meeting, in Paris, France, March 5, 2018. Couillard has kicked off a trip to France with a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)Avis Glaze, a school administration consultant, releases her report with recommendations to improve Nova Scotia's education administrative system, in Halifax on Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018. A Nova Scotia teacher says there is nothing in proposed legislation containing sweeping education reforms that will improve student achievement. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew VaughanDet. Hank Idsinga, lead investigator in the case against alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur, stands with a photo of an unidentified man, suspected of being another of McArthur's victims, during a news conference at Toronto Police headquarters on Monday, March 5, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris YoungGuillermo del Toro and the cast and crew of "The Shape of Water" accept the award for best picture at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)In this undated file photograph, people walk through the rubble following the April 18, 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. The quake lasted for less than a minute, but the fires burned for three days, roaring across 430 blocks in what was then the 10th largest city in the United States. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday, March 4, 2018, that a long-lost film reel with nine minutes of footage capturing San Francisco two weeks after the deadly 1906 earthquake surfaced at a flea market in the city. The rare find portrays the city's post-quake devastation. (San Francisco Chronicle via AP)This Friday, March 2, 2018 photo shows a statue of a Native American, bottom, with Sir Francis Drake, top left, and Father Junipero Serra in San Francisco. San Francisco's arts commission is considering removing a statue that some say is degrading to Native Americans. The city's arts commission is scheduled to discuss the sculpture Monday and has the final say on its fate. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)CERRO GORDO COUNTY, Iowa  One person has been transported to Mercy Medical Center-North Iowa after a rollover crash Monday afternoon on Interstate-35.

According to the Iowa State Patrol on scene, a Honda Pilot rolled over just south of the Highway 9 exit.

Authorities say the person, who hasnt been identified, suffered minor injuries and that the weather likely played a factor.CHARLES CITY, Iowa  Doug Lindaman is facing a new charge as he awaits his third sexual abuse trial.

Lindaman was arrested Friday for tampering with witnesses or jurors and has since posted $2,000 bond.

Lindamans most recent Floyd County sexual abuse trial ended in a mistrial in Franklin County, and he is now scheduled to stand trial in Cerro Gordo County beginning Monday, April 9.

Lindaman, 62, of Charles City was convicted of sexually abusing a 17-year-old boy, but that conviction was overturned by the Iowa Supreme Court because it said Lindaman should not have been allowed to act as his own attorney.

A second trial was moved to Franklin County but it ended in a mistrial on February 23 when a witness mentioned Lindamans criminal history.ROCHESTER, Minn.  A threat over chicken results in probation.

34-year-old Tyson Darren Leyden of Rochester was arrested in September 2017 after police say he threatened an employee at the Hy-Vee Barlow Plaza. Officers say Leyden got upset when the chicken he came to buy at the deli was no longer available, started swearing at the employee, and said he would get a gun and return to shoot the man.

Leyden pleaded guilty to 5th degree assault and has been sentenced to one year of supervised probation. He must also pay a $300 fine.MASON CITY, Iowa  A 59-year-old Mason City man is facing a felony charge for assault with intent to commit sexual abuse charge after an incident Saturday.

Marlin Nagel is being held in the Cerro Gordo County Jail on $6,300 bond after police say he intended to commit sexual abuse and caused bodily injury to a female victim.

Police say it happened at 404 2nd St. NW when Nagel grabbed the victim by the arm and attempted to push her down on the couch.

He allegedly pulled his genitals out of his boxer shorts and told the victim you want some.

Police say the victim had bruising on her arm and leg from when Nagel grabbed her.

Nagel was also charged with possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, both misdemeanors.ROCHESTER, Minn.  A new Director of Schools has been named for Rochester Catholic Schools.

Mrs. Haidee Todora will take over the position on June 1 after she was selected in a national search.

Todora has been principal of St. Catherine of Sienna Catholic School in Port Arthur, Texas, since 2011 and is a graduate of the University of Dallas.

It is with great excitement and enthusiasm that I accept the position as Director of Rochester Catholic Schools, says Todora. My mission is to teach and model our Catholic faith while mentoring and guiding our youth. I vow to work with parents and staff to guide children on the path to holiness and attain Heaven! I look forward to working with my new RCS family to develop the unique gifts of each and every child. I am truly honored and accepting of Gods plan for me in this next phase of my life.

She received the 2017 National Catholic Education Association Lead, Learn, Proclaim award.

We have every confidence that RCS will thrive under Mrs. Todoras leadership and continue to live out our Christ-centered mission, says Father Peter Schuster, Co-chair for the Rochester Catholic Schools Board of Trustees. In my coming to know Haidee, I could not help but be impressed by her love for the Catholic faith and emphasis on Catholic identity. I am excited to work with Mrs. Todora in her role as Director of Schools and ask everyone to keep her in their prayers.MASON CITY, Iowa  A man pulled over for having a headlight out found himself in more trouble after police say he had fake currency in his pocket.

Nicholas Wilmarth, 29, of Mason City, is facing a felony forgery charge after being pulled over Sunday at 6:53 p.m. in the 00 block of 6th St. NE.

Police say Wilmarth, who was driving while revoked, was found to be in possession of four fake $50 bills.

According to court documents, Wilmarth told the officer that the money was fake and that a friend gave them to him.

He is being held in the Cerro Gordo County Jail on $6,000 bond.NORTHWOOD, Iowa  Three men are facing charges after a weekend burglary.

The Worth County Sheriffs Office says it got a call about a suspicious vehicle and a deputy located the vehicle parked at 460th Street and Ironwood Avenue. It drove away before the deputy could pull up to it but quickly ran out of gas. The deputy says he saw something like a safe and scattered papers in the ditch near where the vehicle was originally parked.



Joshua Teeter Joshua Teeter

Channing Greer Channing Greer

The driver of the vehicle, 20-year-old Joshua Thomas Teeter, of Mason City, was arrested for driving while his license was suspended.

The Sheriffs Office says further investigation traced the safe and papers in the ditch back to a home in the 900 block of Highway 105. A deputy says a door on the west side of the house had been kicked in and three sets of footprints were found. The Sheriffs Office says the tread of one of the prints matches the boots Teeter was wearing when he was arrested.

According to online criminal complaints, Teeter and two passengers in his vehicle, 19-year-old Channing Roger Greer, of Manly, and 37-year-old Jeremy Nicholas Mulford, of Mason City, were then charged with one count of 3rd degree burglary and one count of conspiracy to commit a felony.

The Worth County Sheriffs Office says this investigation is continuing and more charges could be filed.Coming off of 2017, a year in which global diamond supply by volume increased by 11.7% year-over-year, supply is forecast to contract by 3.4% to 147M carats in 2018 (see appendix at bottom for itemized analysis by mine).

Out of the world's top three diamond miners by volume, only De Beers is expected to increase production this year, while diamond output at Russia's ALROSA (MICEX: ALRS) and diversified-major Rio Tinto (LSE: RIO) is estimated to decline, more than offsetting De Beers' increase. Combined, the three companies represent approximately 70% of global diamond supply by volume.



The Catoca mine in Angola. Image source: ALROSA

De Beers

Company-wide, De Beers is estimated to produce 34.6M carats worth $5.7B in 2018 which is enough to maintain its status as industry-leader in terms of value produced. The production volume figure represents a modest 1.2M carat increase year-over-year, with the boost expected to primarily come from the company's Jwaneng mine in Botswana, the richest diamond mine in the world in terms of value produced. In 2018 Jwaneng is estimated to produce 13.5M carats worth $2.7B, which compares to 11.9M carats worth $2.3B in 2017. The mine by itself represents 17% of global diamond supply by value on an annual basis and with an estimated resource of over 350M carats, it has a remaining mine-life of 25 years.

At current estimates, De Beers would be producing at approximately 95% of production capacity in 2018, which compares to 91% last year and only 80% in 2016. De Beers' strategy of "producing to demand" over the past two years has reduced the company's excess inventory to more normal levels. With as much as 12M carats of excess inventory on hand at year-end 2015, the company now only holds 3-4M carats over minimum operating levels, the lowest figure since 2014, according to estimates.

At the moment, De Beers marketshare by value produced and sold is 37%, which is down from 45% a decade ago and down from over 80% in the late-1980's, before the industry structurally changed. With no new advanced-stage kimberlite projects in the works and with production close to capacity, it is unlikely that the company's market share will significantly revert to higher levels in the short-to-medium term without an acquisition, which even then would be limited by antitrust restrictions.

ALROSA

ALROSA is estimated to be the world's largest producer by volume in 2018, with an output of 36.6M carats. However, this would be down from 39.5M carats last year. The year-over-year production decrease can be attributed to lost production at the company's Mir mine following a flooding accident last summer but also a decrease in production at the Jubilee mine, a result of normal depletion.

Mir produced 2.8M carats last year prior to the accident and 3.2M carats in 2016. In an investor presentation from January 2018, ALROSA accounts for zero production from the Mir mine through 2020. Jubilee has been ALROSA's largest producing mine by volume for the last two years, however, production is estimated to decrease from 10.1M carats last year to 8.2M carats this year, and decline further to 5.9M carats in 2019 on decreasing grade.

Offsetting some of the lost production at Mir and Jubilee will be the commencement of production at the company's newest mine, Verkhne-Munskoe, which will begin commissioning later this year, and ramp up to 1.8M carats of commercial production annually by 2020.

Similar to De Beers, ALROSA has reduced excess inventory levels in recent years, and currently sits at its lowest level of inventory since 2014, estimated at approximately 17-18M carats. Compared to the company's minimum operating inventory of approximately 13M carats, ALROSA's current implied excess inventory level is about 4-5M carats. ALROSA has hinted that the company's sales plan in 2018 is 41M carats, which relative to 2018 production guidance of 36.6M carats, implies a flush-out of the remainder of excess inventory this year.

Not included in the production and sales figures above, ALROSA also holds a 41% stake in the Catoca joint-venture. The partnership operates the Catoca mine in Angola, which is estimated to produce 6.7M carats this year, and is also developing the industry's most prospective new project, Luaxe, which is estimated to be a top-5 ranking mine globally (by production volume) when it finally commences full production sometime after 2022. As a note, ALROSA does not receive in-kind production from the Catoca partnership.

Rio Tinto

The industry's third largest producer by volume is diversified mining major Rio Tinto. Rio only has interest in two producing diamond mines, its 100%-owned Argyle mine in Australia and a 60% stake in the Diavik mine in Canada. By volume, 76% of the company's net production is estimated to come from Argyle, which is largest mine in the world in terms of carat volume produced. The majority of the mine's production is low-quality in size and color, and the mine's economics are driven by the occurrence of fancy pink diamonds which fetch a significant premium to white and most other fancy colored stones. In 2018, Argyle's production is expected to decrease by 3M carats year-over-year to 14M carats.



The Argyle mine in Australia. Image source: Rio Tinto Plc

Argyle production commenced in 1983 and at one point the mine produced as much as 40M carats annually, making it arguably the industry's most important mine for a number of years. However, as a result of normal depletion, annual production has since dropped to 14-17M carats in recent years. In 2016, Rio took at $241M impairment charge on Argyle after reassessing mine-life expansion economics, and in March 2018 the company cut the mine's recoverable diamond reserve estimate to 39M carats, thus reducing the remaining life-of-mine to less than three years.

With Argyle production set to cease in 2020, there is an pending a global supply gap until commercial production at Luaxe begins in (or around) 2022, at which time the government of Zimbabwe also expects to significantly ramp up production at its Marange fields with conglomerate mining.

Supply/Demand

With global diamond production expected to decrease in 2018 along with producer inventories at multi-year lows, a demand increase should allow for diamond price upside. A 2-4% increase in diamond demand is quite possible this year given the backdrop of a strong global economy, healthy U.S. consumer sentiment, signs of a stronger Mainland Chinese market, and the Diamond Producers Association increased budget fueling the return of generic diamond marketing. This scenario could translate to a real 3-5% increase in rough and polished prices this year.

Through the end of February, the impact of these fundamentals have already been evident as rough prices are up by approximately 1.0% year-to-date according to the Zimnisky Global Rough Diamond Price Index and surveyed polished prices up 0.5%.

Risks

Looking forward to the remainder of the year, demand estimates could disappoint if tighter-than-expected economic policies in developed economies push interest rates higher than expected, resulting in downward revisions and de-risking of financial markets which could negatively impact consumer sentiment and discretionary purchasing power. More specific to the diamond industry, primary medium and longer-term risks include an acceleration of trends already negatively impacting demand, such as changes in social norms and consumer appetite, for example decreasing marriage rates and changing consumer preferences of younger generations.

More recently, an unfolding story of a banking fraud in India involving at least two large industry players in the manufacturing and retail business will likely have a negative impact all segments of the industry. Concerns range from damaged consumer perception of diamond jewelry, primarily in India, to strained financing availability in the Indian diamond manufacturing industry. The later will likely directly impact demand for rough in the short-term. While at this point the magnitude of the impact is unclear longer-term, there is the potential that the situation is severe enough to offset some or all of the favorable industry dynamics mentioned above this year.

--

Appendix - 2018E Global Diamond Production by Mine

Notes:

1. All figures are estimates based on Paul Zimnisky analysis.

2. (A) denotes alluvial mining operation.

3. OP denotes open-pit mine, UG denotes underground mine.

4. Production value calculated as production volume multiplied by average price per carat produced.

5. LOM is estimated remaining life of mine in years.

6. Catoca figures include 300,000-500,000 carats of production from Endiama alluvial operations, including Luemb, Gango, Quitubia, Vulege, Tchafua, and Luaxe trial mining.

7. Includes Nizhne-Lenskoye placers.

8. MIBA is a commercial alluvial operation 20% owned by London-based Asa Resource Group (formally Mwana Africa) and 80% by the DRC government. In the mid-2000s the mine produced as much as 6M carats annually, but currently produces well under 1M carats, though no official data is released.

9. ITM Mining Ltd is a private company commercially operating alluvial mines in Angola.

10. "All other global artisanal" production coming from nations such as Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Cote D'ivoire, Republic of Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Guyana, Liberia, India, and Togo.

11. Mine ownership (corresponding with ranking number):

1- De Beers (50%), govt. of Botswana (50%)

2- ALROSA (100%)

3- De Beers (50%), govt. of Botswana (50%)

4- Gov't of Angola via Endiama E.P. (41%), ALROSA (41%), LL International Holding B.V. (18%)

5- ALROSA (100%)

6- De Beers (50%), govt. of Namibia (50%)

7- Rio Tinto (60%), Dominion Diamond Mines (40%)

8- De Beers (51%), Mountain Province Diamonds (49%)

9- Dominion Diamond Mines (100% of Buffer Zone, 88.9% of Core Zone), Stewart Blusson (11.1% of Core Zone)

10- De Beers (74%), Ponahalo Investments (26%)

11- ALROSA (100%)

12- ALROSA (100%)

13- Otkritie Holding Group (100%)

14- ALROSA (100%)

15- Rio Tinto (100%)

16- Petra Diamonds Ltd (74%), Kago Diamonds Ltd -of which Petra owns 31.46% of (14%), Itumeleng Petra Employee Trust (12%)

17- Lucara Diamond Corp (100%)

18- Petra Diamonds Ltd (74%), Kago Diamonds Ltd -of which Petra owns 31.46% of (14%),Itumeleng Petra Employee Trust (12%)

19- Gem Diamonds Ltd (70%), govt. of Lesotho (30%)

20- Gov't of Zimbabwe via ZCDC (100%)

21- ALROSA (100%)

22- ALROSA (Severalmaz) (100%)

23- De Beers (100%)

24- Stornoway Diamond Corp (100%)

25- ALROSA (100%)

26- De Beers (50%), govt. of Namibia (50%)

27- RZ Murowa Holdings Ltd (78%), RioZim (22%)

28- ALROSA (100%)

29- ALROSA (100%)

30- ALROSA (100%)

31- Beny Steinmetz Group/OCTEA Ltd (100%)

32- ALROSA (100%)

33- Petra Diamonds Ltd (56%), Ekapa Mining (24%), Itumeleng Petra Employee Trust (12%), Kago Diamonds Ltd -of which Petra owns 31.46% of (8%)

34- De Beers (74%), Ponahalo Investments (26%)

35- Petra Diamonds Ltd (75%), govt. of Tanzania (25%)

36- Firestone Diamonds (75%), govt. of Lesotho (25%)

37- Gov't of Angola via Endiama E.P. (39%), Trans Hex (33%), local investors (28%)

38- Petra Diamonds Ltd (74%), RKago Diamonds Ltd -of which Petra owns 31.46% of (14%), Itumeleng Petra Employee Trust (12%)

39- De Beers (50%), govt. of Botswana (50%)

40- Lipari Mineracao (100%)

41- Namakwa Diamonds (62.5%), govt. of Lesotho (25%), local investors (12.5%)

42- Gov't of Angola via Endiama E.P. (60%), Lucapa Diamond Co (40%)

43- ALROSA (100%)

44- West Coast Resources/Trans Hex (40%), RECM/Calibre Ltd (27.2%), S.A. Gov't (20%), Dinoka Ivn Hlds (8.8%), Nam Dia Fund (4%)

45- De Beers (50%), govt. of Botswana (50%)

46- ALROSA (100%)

47- Trans Hex (100%)

48- Lucapa Diamond Co (70%), govt. of Lesotho (30%)

49- Merlin Diamonds (100%)

50- Diamcor Mining Inc (70%), Nozala Investments (30%)

51- Bluerock Diamonds (100%)

52- ALROSA (100%)

--

De Beers is 85% owned by Anglo American plc (LSE: AAL) and 15% owned by the Government of the Republic of Botswana.

At the time of writing the author held a long position in Lucara Diamond Corp, Stornoway Diamond Corp, Mountain Province Diamonds Inc, Kennady Diamonds Inc, Tsodilo Resources Ltd, North Arrow Minerals Inc, Signet Jewelers Ltd and Peregrine Diamonds Ltd. Please read full disclosure below.

Paul Zimnisky is an independent diamond industry analyst, author of the Zimnisky Global Rough Diamond Price Index and publisher of the subscription-based State of The Diamond Market monthly industry report. On May 9th, 2018 he will be speaking at the Mines and Money investor conference in New York City. Paul can be reached at paul@paulzimnisky.com and followed on Twitter @paulzimnisky.MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Canada and Mexico on Monday pushed back against President Donald Trumps suggestion that steel and aluminum tariffs could be waived if they signed a new andfair NAFTA deal, setting the stage for a tense end to the latest talks to update the trade pact.

The two U.S. trading partners have threatened retaliation unless they are exempted from the planned tariffs, which have rattled financial markets. Both Canada and Mexico send more than 75 percent of their goods exports to the United States.

Mexico shouldnt be included in steel & aluminum tariffs. Its the wrong way to incentivize the creation of a new & modern NAFTA, Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said on Twitter.

Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau, speaking north of Toronto, said Ottawa is now negotiating NAFTA with a partner that haschanged the terms of the discussion, referring to the United States.

Negotiators from the three countries are scheduled to meet later on Monday in Mexico City to wrap up the latest round of talks aimed at modernizing the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.

Trump, who has repeatedly said he will walk away from the trade deal unless major changes are made, had tweeted a few hours earlier thatTariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed.

The U.S. president has proposed a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports, arguing they are needed to protect U.S. industries and jobs. He is expected to reveal more details later this week.

Talks on the $1.2 trillion NAFTA pact are moving slowly, in part because Canada and Mexico are resisting U.S. demands for major changes such as adding a sunset clause and boosting the North American content of autos produced inside NAFTA.

Uncertainty over the talks, and the potential for a wider global trade war, are making investors nervous. Trumps tweet helped push the Canadian dollar down to C$1.2988 to the U.S. dollar, the lowest level since July 7, 2017.

The Mexican peso was down 0.7 percent at 18.94 pesos per dollar.

PROTECTIONIST SHADOW

The Mexico City round of talks is the seventh since last August. Negotiators had hoped to wrap up their work with an eighth and final session by the end of March, but officials say they will not now meet that deadline.

Guajardo, Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer - the three ministers driving the talks - are due to meet on Monday to assess what the Mexico round achieved.

Kevin Brady, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, which oversees U.S. trade policy, on Sunday said he expected the tariffs issueto be front and center at the meeting.

Freeland, Guajardo and Lighthizer are scheduled to address the media at 2:15 p.m. local time (2015 GMT) in Mexico City.

Officials have so far been evasive when asked how the three nations can continue trying to update NAFTA at a time when Trump is about to take a highly protectionist measure.

Trump also said Canada had to treat American farmers better and called on Mexico to stop drugsfrom pouring into the U.S.

A White House representative did not respond to a request for comment on Trumps statement.

Mexicos Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, in a separate tweet, said efforts to combat drug trafficking were a shared responsibility. Canadian officials did not respond to requests for comment.

NAFTA negotiators have successfully concluded discussions on rules governing food safety and animal health, a Mexican source familiar with the matter said on Monday.AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch government said on Monday it would appoint Stef Blok as foreign minister, replacing Halbe Zijlstra, who resigned last month after admitting he had lied about a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Blok, who had intended to leave politics after serving as justice minister in the previous cabinet, is a member of Prime Minister Mark Ruttes governing VVD Party.

Although Blok led the VVDs parliamentary faction from 2012-2015, he is not known to have any international political experience.

Zijlstra resigned on Feb. 13 after acknowledging he had fabricated a tale about having personally overheard Putin outline plans for territorial expansion during a private meeting outside Moscow.SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean delegation met North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday, a South Korean official said, after arriving in the North on a visit aimed at encouraging North Korea and the United States to talk.

Both North Korea and the United States have expressed a willingness to hold talks, but the U.S. position has been that they must be aimed at North Koreas denuclearization, something Pyongyang has rejected.

North Korea, which has been developing nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the United States, has vowed never to give up what it calls an essential deterrent against U.S. hostility.

Pyongyang is also concerned about joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises, which it sees as preparations for war.

South Korean officials have said the drills will restart next month as planned, after being postponed for the Winter Olympics held last month in South Korea.

The Pentagon nevertheless said it wascautiously optimistic about the North-South talks, which resumed in January.

Our job is to make sure that we maintain those military operations to defend the Korean peninsula and we will (stand) shoulder to shoulder with our South Korean partners, Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters.

But we are cautiously optimistic and obviously we encourage the dialogue to take place, Manning added.

The 10-member South Korean delegation, led by National Security Office head Chung Eui-yong, was greeted by North Korean officials after landing in Pyongyang, said Kim Eui-kyeom, a spokesman for South Koreas presidential office.

The welcoming delegation included Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, and Kim Yong Chol, who heads the United Front Department, the North Korean office responsible for handling inter-Korean affairs. Both visited South Korea during the Olympics.

The South Korean delegation was later invited to join Kim Jong Un for dinner, the South Korean spokesman added.

The officials are the most senior South Koreans to meet Kim Jong Un since he took power in late 2011.

We will deliver President Moon Jae-ins wish to bring about denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and permanent peace by extending the goodwill and better inter-Korean relations created by the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Chung said before heading to the North.

Chungs team includes National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon and Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung.

Seoul hopes the visit will createa positive atmosphere, Unification Ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun said.

Chung and Suh are due to fly to Washington later in the week to brief U.S. officials on their discussions in the North. The White House and State Department did not respond to requests for comment.

Thawing relations between the Koreas have prompted speculation about direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang despite months of tension and bellicose insults between U.S. President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un that fueled fears of war.

North Korea has not carried out any weapons tests since late November, when it tested its largest intercontinental ballistic missile. Inter-Korean talks began after Kim Jong Un said in his New Years address that he wanted to engage the South.

North Korea later sent athletes to the Olympics, as well as a high-ranking delegation that included Kims sister, Kim Yo Jong.

Impoverished North Korea and the rich, democratic South and its U.S. ally have remained technically at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

North Korea regularly threatens to destroy South Korea and the United States, which has 28,500 troops in the South, a legacy of the Korean War.

North Koreas official Rodong Sinmun newspaper reiterated last month that the country would never give up its nuclear weapons, in spite of international pressure.

Neither sanctions nor provocations nor threats can ever undermine our position of a nuclear weapons state, it said.

Hoping that the DPRK would abandon its nuclear programs is as foolish an act as trying to wish seas to get dried up, it said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he might travel to Israel for the opening of the U.S. embassy there as he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a united front against Iran in White House talks.

Trumps decision for the United States to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the embassy there from Tel Aviv reversed decades of U.S. policy, aggravated Arab allies and has complicated his administrations attempt to revive long-stalled Middle East peace talks.

Trump, with Netanyahu at his side in the Oval Office, said he was considering making what would be his second visit to Jerusalem as president. The opening of the U.S. embassy is planned for May.

Were looking at coming, Trump said.If I can, I will.

Mired in corruption investigations threatening his political survival, Netanyahu - questioned at his home by police on Friday - stepped into a different spotlight during his five-day U.S. visit.

Trumps push to change or scrap Irans 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and concerns over Tehrans foothold in Syria topped the agenda of his talks with Netanyahu, U.S. and Israeli officials said.

Both leaders have long railed against the deal, citing its limited duration and the fact it does not cover Irans ballistic missile program or its support for anti-Israel militants in the region.

If I had to say what is our greatest challenge in the Middle East to both our countries, to our Arab neighbors, its encapsulated in one word: Iran, Netanyahu said.Iran must be stopped. That is our common challenge.

Trump has threatened to pull out of the agreement unless European allies helpfix it with a follow-up accord. An Israeli official said Netanyahu and Trump were likely to talk about how to overcome European resistance on the matter.

Israel has accused Tehran of seeking a permanent military presence in Syria, where Iranian-backed forces support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war.

Netanyahu has also cautioned that Israel could act against Iran itself after an Iranian drone flew into Israel last month and an Israeli warplane was shot down while bombing air defenses in Syria. He has accused Iran of planning to build precision-guided missile factories in Lebanon, amid tensions along that border. [L8N1Q809R]

Trump suggested that the Palestinians are eager to return to negotiations and said if they do not,you dont have peace.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, angered by Trumps Jerusalem move, has refused to engage with the United States on Middle East peace, prompting Trump to delay the rollout of peace proposals.

Participating in the talks was Trumps senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has been on the defensive amid investigations into alleged meddling by Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Some analysts believe Kushners ability to run the Middle East initiative has been handicapped by his loss of access to certain valued U.S. intelligence because of a White House clampdown on access to such secrets for those without full security clearance.

ROUTINE CHECK-IN

No major announcements or breakthroughs were expected from Trumps talks with Netanyahu, whose relationship with the president has been among the closest of any other world leader.

This is a routine check-in meeting, one U.S. official said of Netanyahus second visit to the Trump White House.

For Netanyahu, however, the Oval Office meeting and address to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC on Tuesday offer a respite from his legal troubles.

Netanyahu awaits a decision by Israels attorney general on whether to indict him, as police have recommended in two bribery cases. Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing.

U.S. officials have said the cases are not expected to affect Netanyahus talks, which include meetings with members of Congress.Rural Health Association of Tennessee to hold Town Hall Forum





GREENVILLE, TN  The Rural Health Association of TN (RHAT) invites residents of local communities to a town hall meeting on rural health issues. The meeting will take place on March 23, 2018 at 1:30 p.m. EST on the Tusculum College Campus in Greeneville, TN.



The town meeting will focus on rural health concerns in East TN and will challenge community members to discuss the issues in our community and how we can work to improve them.



The town hall meeting is part of an ongoing public engagement campaign by RHAT, a state wide organization dedicated to effect a positive change in the health and well-being of all rural Tennesseans. The upcoming town hall forum is the latest in a series of efforts underway to generate meaningful dialogue in our community on what people want and need when it comes to rural healthcare for themselves and their loved ones, said Kathy Atwood, RHAT Past-President. If we can get people talking about healthcare concerns, they will be better prepared to make critical decisions for themselves, their families and friends.



The Rural Health Association of Tennessee is a non-profit organization of more than 600 individuals and organizations committed to improving the health of rural Tennesseans through, advocacy, communication, education and legislation. The organization was formed in 1994 when Tennessees rural health leaders agreed that there was a need to develop a statewide grassroots organization that would give exclusive attention to rural health issues and speak with a strong, unified voice. Published March 5, 2018









Public Lands Alliance honors Friends of the Smokies, GSMA, New Belgium





Friends of the Smokies' Trails Forever program included restoration of the Alum Cave Bluffs trail. Image courtesy of Friends of the Smokies.





Friends of the Smokies' Trails Forever program included restoration of the Chimney Tops trail. Image courtesy of Friends of the Smokies.



KODAK, TN  The Public Lands Alliance (PLA) has announced the recipients of its 2018 Partnership Awards that celebrate the best in public lands partnerships. These awards honor individuals, organizations, publications, products, programs and services that embody leading edge achievements in the preservation of public lands and the enrichment of visitors.

Friends of the Smokies Trails Forever program was nominated for the Outstanding Public Engagement Award which recognizes exemplary programs or services created in partnership by a nonprofit organization and public lands that advance meaningful and sustainable connections between individuals and Americas public lands. The Trails Forever program is a partnership between Friends of the Smokies and Great Smoky Mountains National Park to rehabilitate some of the parks most heavily impacted trails. While the Trails Forever program did not win its category, it was awarded the Partners Choice Award as the most inspiring submission, decided by popular vote. Great Smoky Mountains Association received an honorable mention for Outstanding Public Engagement for the 2017 Solar Eclipse Events in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.



New Belgium Brewing received the Corporate Stewardship Award on behalf of their philanthropic and partnership efforts with Friends of the Smokies. This award recognizes a company that has demonstrated exceptional achievement to enhance the quality of the visitor experience in Americas public lands.



New Belgium has been an important partner of Friends of the Smokies ever since they put down roots in the Asheville area, said Anna Zanetti, Friends of the Smokies North Carolina Director. We were proud to nominate them for their generous support and environmental conservation efforts.



The Public Lands Alliance also recognized 11 nonprofit organizations who have stepped up and have swiftly worked with their land management agency partners to help their public lands recover from recent wildfires, floods, and hurricanes. PLA established the Public Lands Hero Award to celebrate individuals and organizations whose actions exceed the high standards to which all public lands partners aspire. The PLA Board of Directors honored the following nonprofit organizations in recognition of their exemplary responses to natural disasters and crises affecting the public lands and communities that they support:



Friends of the Smokies, Great Smoky Mountains Association, Eastern National, Friends of Virgin Islands National Park, Glacier National Park Conservancy, National Park Foundation, South Florida National Parks Trust, Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods, Student Conservation Association, Timucuan Parks Foundation, and Western National Park Association.



Moments of crisis remind us of the critical importance and value of strong partnerships between land managers and nonprofit partners, said PLA Executive Director Dan Puskar. Hurricanes and wildfires unexpectedly impact many of our public lands, and it is strong partnerships that provide the resiliency needed to bounce back from their destructive impacts.



Friends of the Smokies is an official nonprofit partner of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and has raised more than $60 million to support critical park programs and maintain the Smokies as a crown jewel of the National Park Service. Find your park at FriendsOfTheSmokies.org.



The Public Lands Alliance is a network of more than 130 member organizations that serve more than 600 public lands and contribute over $250 million dollars annually to the preservation and visitor enhancement of those lands. PLA members are found in all states and territories and provide operational and interpretive support to nonprofit organizations and their land management agency partners.Nonghyup Chairman Kim Byeong-won speaks at the briefing commemorating two years since his inauguration at the Agriculture Ministry in Sejong City, Monday. Courtesy of Nonghyup



By Yoon Ja-young



Nonghyup will pour in efforts to pull up the income of the country's farmers. It will reform the distribution channel of agricultural products so that farmers can receive due compensation for their efforts, its chairman said Monday.



"During the past two years, my main concern has been how to increase the income of the 3 million farmers in the country," Nonghyup Chairman Kim Byeong-won said at the meeting with the media, commemorating two years since his inauguration. The National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, called Nonghyup here, has 2.44 million members, and its chairman is elected every four years. Kim was inaugurated as its 23rd chairman in 2016 March.



"Nonghyup had never suggested an income target for farmers during the past 60 years, but we aim to pull it up to 50 million won by 2020," Kim said.



According to Korea Rural Economic Institute, the annual income of farming households stood at 39.7 million won, which is only 63 percent that of urban households. The gap is widening each year. As an interest group for farmers, Nonghyup has an obligation to pull up their income.



Kim's efforts seem to be working, according to Nonghyup, as it contributed to a total of a 1.97 trillion won income increase for farmers last year through diverse programs such as purchasing agricultural products at higher prices than before, enhancing productivity in farming, cost cutting and the development of new income sources for farmers. It thus increased the per-household income by 1.85 million won. It plans to pull up the whole farmers' income by 2.5 trillion won this year.



For this, Nonghyup plans to reform distribution channels.



"Farmers should get due compensation for their produce, and consumers should be supplied with foods they can be sure are safe," Kim said.



To improve the distribution channel of eggs, for instance, Nonghyup will build 10 more regional grading and packing centers by 2020.



Nurturing young farmers is also among the main projects of Nonghyup as the country's rural area is going through an unprecedented aging of population.



For young people planning to dedicate themselves to farming, Nonghyup will provide education, consulting and training.



"I think the rural area is the best blue ocean for job creation. Nonghyup will fully support young farmers with technology and funding so they can succeed as farmers," Kim said.



Nonghyup Foundation will also provide an annual 5 million won scholarship each to 100 college students majoring in agriculture as well as a 1 million won scholarship each to 300 students of agriculture high schools.



It also plans to nurture 3,500 young dairy farmers by 2020, providing up to 3 billion won funding for smart farms.



Kim said that Nonghyup will fulfill its social responsibility. It plans to switch 61.3 percent of its irregular workers to regular jobs. Nonghyup plans to turn all irregular jobs to regular ones by next year.



"Agriculture is public goods which benefits all the people. It needs the government's protection and nurturing. We will enhance people's awareness so that the value of agriculture is reflected in Constitution," he added.



He also said that Nonghyup would introduce new technologies such as big data and IoT.



It plans to open a smart store and introduce chatbot, which helps with farming based on artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

An aircraft carrying President Moon Jae-in's special envoys to North Korea takes off from Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Monday. / Yonhap

South Korea seeks to persuade North Korea to resume denuclearization dialogue with the United States and the international community, the chief of a South Korean delegation to the North said of his mission Monday, hours before the five-member team left for the reclusive state.

"Most of all, I will deliver President Moon Jae-in's sincere and firm resolve to maintain the dialogue and improvement in relations between the South and the North, which were fostered on the occasion of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula," Chung Eui-yong told a press briefing just hours before his departure.

Chung, head of the presidential National Security Office, and four other special envoys left for Pyongyang on a special flight from Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, just south of Seoul. The special envoys include Suh Hoon, head of the National Intelligence Service, and Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung. The 10-member delegation also includes five support staff.

"In addition, I plan to hold in-depth discussions on various ways to continue talks between not only the South and the North, but also the North and the United States and the international community," Chung said.

The scheduled trip marks the first of its kind since Moon took office in May 2017. The two Koreas resumed dialogue in January after a two-year hiatus to discuss the North's participation in the PyeongChang Olympic Games held from Feb. 9-25 in South Korea.











National Security Office chief Chung Eui-yong, left, shakes hands with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at an unidentified location on Monday in this photo released early Tuesday by the Korean Central News Agency.

President Moon Jae-in's special envoys, on the left, talk with North Korean officials about the detailed schedule of their visit to Pyongyang at the Kobangsan Guest House, Monday, upon their arrival in the North Korean capital. They met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un over dinner later in the day. / Courtesy of Cheong Wa Dae



By Kim Rahn

President Moon Jae-in's special envoys had a dinner meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Monday, after arriving in Pyongyang earlier in the day for their two-day mission of persuading North Korea to resume talks with the United States over denuclearization.

This was the first time that the reclusive North Korean head has met South Korean officials since taking office in late 2011.

Details of the meeting have not been disclosed, including the location and the names of other North Korean officials who attended, according to Cheong Wa Dae. National Security Office chief Chung Eui-yong, who is leading the delegation, delivered a personally written letter from Moon to Kim, in which Moon expressed hopes for an improvement in inter-Korean relations and peace on the Korean Peninsula.

The five-member delegation landed at Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang via a West Sea route at around 2:50 p.m., an hour after takeoff. Chung was accompanied by National Intelligence Service (NIS) Director Suh Hoon, Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung, NIS Deputy Director Kim Sang-gyun and senior Cheong Wa Dae official Yun Kun-young, as well as five working-level officials.

They were greeted by Ri Hyon, an official of the Workers' Party of Korea's United Front Department, in the plane. After getting off the plane, Ri Son-gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, and another senior official of the department, Maeng Kyong-il, welcomed the envoys at the airport.

/ Courtesy of the Korean Central News Agency



They moved to their lodging, a resort in Mount Kobang in the North Korean capital, at around 3:40 p.m. and were greeted by Kim Yong-chol, head of the United Front Department who visited the South in February for the closing ceremony of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

"There, the officials from the two sides discussed the detailed schedule of the two-day visit, and the envoys were invited to the dinner meeting with Kim Jong-un at 6 p.m.," presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said.

"The resort is a luxury leisure facility along the Taedong River. Considering the lodging, the officials who greeted the delegation and other things, the envoys said the North seems to have prepared a lot to welcome them," the spokesman said.South Korea and the United States will open negotiations this week to renew their cost-sharing agreement for about 28,500 American troops stationed here, the foreign ministry said Monday.

The first round of meetings will be held in Honolulu, Hawaii, from Wednesday to Friday. The current arrangement signed in 2014 is set to expire on Dec. 31.

The talks will be led by Chang Won-sam, a career diplomat who was appointed in mid-November to head the negotiation team, and Timothy Betts, deputy assistant secretary for plans, programs and operations at the U.S. State Department.

"The two sides will discuss to produce a reasonable pact that can help strengthen the joint defense readiness of South Korea and the U.S. and be accepted by our people," the ministry said.

South Korea has shared the upkeep costs of U.S. Forces Korea since 1991. Its contribution has increased to around 960 billion won ($887.5 million) this year from some 150 billion won in 1991. The U.S. has asked for Seoul to shoulder more. Some speculate that the U.S. will demand that Korea more than double its payment. (Yonhap)By Lee Min-hyung



Korea will start negotiations to renew defense cost-sharing with the United States this week, going all-out to minimize its burden amid growing diplomatic pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump.



Since taking office in January last year, Trump has called on the South to share more of the burden to station 28,500 American troops here, as part of his "America first" policy.



The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday the three-day meeting on renewing the five-year agreement, which expires at the end of this year, starts on Wednesday in Honolulu.



The U.S. is expected to intensify pressure for Korea to take on more costs, citing factors such as maintaining a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system here. Defense Minister Song Young-moo also said recently there was a enough possibility for Washington to ask for Seoul to share the THAAD costs.



Under the recent five-year pact, Seoul pays 960.2 billion won ($887.4 million) for this year's defense cost-sharing. Taking costs for THAAD maintenance and Trump's pressure into account, critics argue Korea may have to pay more than 1 trillion won next year.



"We will do the utmost to bring a reasonable outcome for the public during the upcoming negotiation," the foreign ministry said in a statement.



Twenty high-ranking officials from the foreign and defense ministries  represented by Former Ambassador to Sri Lanka Chang Won-sam  will lead the delegation.



The defense ministry also said it has established a 12-member special task force to handle the issue, pledging to team up with relevant ministries during the negotiations.



Korea has been sharing the defense cost burden of the U.S. Forces Korea (USFK) since 1991, with both sides renewing the agreement every two to five years. The figure reached as high as 960 billion won this year, rising from 150 billion won in 1991.



Last year, Trump said the U.S. wants South Korea to pay $1 billion for cost-sharing at the next renewal.



He also underlined the need for South Korea "to be fairer" in taking responsibility for the costs used to protect the country from continuous military threats from North Korea.



Last month, Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said: "The ministry will do its best to achieve reasonable and mutually beneficial results that can win public support." She also noted the ministry will also focus on building a stable military environment where the USFK can safely deploy soldiers here and enhance joint combat prowess with South Korean troops.

By Kim Se-jeong



A professor at the University of Seoul has been accused of sexually harassing a student, the latest in a series of sexual misconduct allegations sweeping the nation's ivory towers.



The university said Monday it halted all classes of Prof. Park Man-yeop of the College of Liberal Arts and Cross-Disciplinary Studies and will interview him this week.



The allegation was raised by an anonymous female student who posted her experience on the school's intranet.



"A few years ago, he called me out for a drink. He grabbed my hands and attempted to kiss me while his hands groped my body."



She added that she couldn't reject the invitation because he was her teacher and she ran away after the harassment. "At first, I thought everything would be ok as long as I kept things to myself but I began feeling sorry for other potential victims," she wrote, explaining why she decided to share her experience.



The revelation came less than a day after the Ministry of Education's announcement that it would look into Myongji College located in Seoul where four professors from the theater and visual arts department were recently dismissed over sexual harassment allegations.



The college said the four were fired earlier this month which led to the cancellation of classes at the beginning of the school year. The school also recently launched an independent fact-finding mission.









By Jung Min-ho







A Vietnamese woman has been arrested in Korea after helping five Vietnamese women get jobs in illegal "escort bars" in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province.





The immigration office at Incheon International Airport said Monday that the broker, known only as her initial "P," was arrested Friday for her alleged role in bringing them here on false documents.





She is suspected of recruiting Vietnamese women through social media, saying the job pays between $2,000 and 3,000 a month.





The immigration office said the broker received $2,500 from each of the five women as well as part of their salaries.





Investigators have obtained photos and resumes of 20 Vietnamese women from her laptop.





Many owners of such bars hire brokers to supply young women to accompany guests. Their work often involves sexual services, which is illegal in Korea.

President Moon Jae-in and first lady Kim Jung-sook wave before boarding the presidential plane at Seoul Airport in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, for their trip to Russia in this September file photo. The plane is a chartered one from Korean Air, and calls are rising that it is time for Korea to purchase an aircraft solely for presidential use. / Yonhap



By Kim Rahn



A decade-long controversy over whether to purchase a plane for presidential use has re-emerged recently.



Many countries have presidential planes, and some of them have more than one. With the growing frequency of Korean presidents' summit diplomacy and also their growing importance, calls are rising that it is time for Korea to have a dedicated presidential plane rather than a chartered civilian aircraft.



The current plane that President Moon Jae-in uses for his overseas trips is chartered from Korean Air, nicknamed "Code One."



Supporters of a new presidential plane say besides its symbolic meaning of an elevated national status, there is a practical problem with the current one, a B747-400 manufactured in 2001.



The number of aides and staffers accompanying the President is growing because Korea is having more and more talks with various countries on more varied agendas. But the number of seats is only around 200, so on some of Moon's visits, including ones to the U.S. and China last year, some aides and reporters had to take commercial flights to the destinations.



As the contract for the chartered plane expires in March 2020, the nation needs to decide soon whether to purchase one, or extend the charter contract, because, if it buys, it will take about a year of bidding for an aircraft maker and another two to three years to construct the tailored plane.



Rep. Jo Seoung-lae of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea called for the government and the National Assembly to discuss the purchase of a presidential plane. "The lease of the current plane will expire in 2020," he said in a National Assembly session last November. "Considering it may take three to four years to actually be able use a plane after a purchase, we need to make a decision as soon as possible."



Decades-long hesitation





Korea's presidential plane has a meeting room and other spaces where the President and aides can hold talks and even get medical treatment if necessary, as well as satellite communication and anti-missile systems. / Courtesy of Cheong Wa Dae

Both the ruling and opposition blocs have been aware of the need to buy a presidential plane. However, the purchase has not been made for more than a decade  opposition blocs disapproved of a budget for the purchase, but when they became ruling blocs, the then-opposition blocs, which had previously called for the need, changed their position and opposed to it, and so on. Public sentiment was also unfavorable when the economic situation was not good.



In October 2005, then-President Roh Moo-hyun raised the issue.



At that time the country had a B737-3Z8 aircraft introduced in 1985 as a presidential plane. But the plane was not for long-haul flights, so for Roh's trips to the U.S. or Europe, the government chartered an aircraft from Korean Air and Asiana Airlines by turn.



"If we decide to purchase a new one, my successor's successor may be able to use it," Roh once told reporters.



In June 2006, the Roh administration asked the Assembly to approve a 30 billion won budget to start the purchase of such a plane, but the then opposition party  the Grand National Party (GNP), a predecessor of the Liberty Korea Party  cut the whole budget, citing the "poor economic situation."



"If the government has that much money to buy a plane, it has to take care of numerous people in poverty who use candles as they cannot afford 50,000 won in electricity bills," GNP floor leader Lee Jae-oh said at that time.



The Roh administration again requested 15 billion won the next year, which was again cut.



However, after the GNP became the ruling party with the election victory of its candidate Lee Myung-bak, it sought to buy a plane  a plan that met a veto by the then-opposition Democratic Party (DP), which had been for the purchase under Roh.



The GNP apologized for its previous opposition during the Roh administration, and the DP accepted it, and the two sides agreed on the purchase.



However, a deal with Boeing ruptured as the aircraft maker demanded much more than the government's budget of 500 billion won.



The Lee administration signed a five-year charter contract with Korean Air in 2010 for 115.7 billion won. The B747-400 plane, made in 2001, was modified to reduce the number of seats from some 400 to around 200, and installed a meeting room and other spaces where the president and his aides could have talks, rest and even get medical treatment if necessary. It was equipped with a satellite communication and anti-missile systems, for which an additional 30 billion won was spent.



The succeeding Park Geun-hye administration renewed the contract to use the plane until March 2020 for 142.1 billion won.



A presidential plane is categorized as key military equipment for national security because it needs to secure the safety of the president, who is the commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces and is in charge of all state affairs around the clock wherever they are.



When an earthquake took place in Pohang in November, President Moon received reports about it from officials at Cheong Wa Dae and made the necessary recovery orders via satellite telephone on his way home from the APEC and ASEAN meetings.



The Moon administration feels the need to purchase a plane, but is not actively seeking it because of the ongoing economic situation and a possible public backlash. On Rep. Jo's question about adopting a plane at that time, presidential chief of staff Im Jong-seok said the current chartered plane was too old to guarantee sufficient safety and to play the role of a "mobile presidential office."



"But it's not easy for us to mention the issue first. If the Assembly discusses it and agrees on the need (to buy a plane), we'll actively consider it," Im said.



Foreign heads' planes





The Air Force One carrying U.S. President Donald Trump lands at Osan Air Base in Gyeonggi Province, Nov. 7, when Trump visited South Korea. / YonhapPresident Moon Jae-in talks with the leaders of four of the five political parties over tea ahead of their luncheon meeting at Cheong Wa Dae in July last year. / Korea Times photo by Koh Young-kwon



By Choi Ha-young



President Moon Jae-in will hold a meeting with the leaders of the major political parties at Cheong Wa Dae, Wednesday, to discuss pending political and security issues, said Han Byung-do, chief presidential secretary for political affairs.



"Participants will have in-depth talks about inter-Korean relations and peace on the Korean peninsula," Han said in a briefing, Monday. "The meeting aims at bipartisan cooperation over inter-Korean relations, rather than discussing domestic issues such as constitutional revision."



There, Moon is likely to brief them oh the outcome of the special envoys' visit to the North, since the meeting will take place one day after they return to Seoul. The envoys led by Chung Eui-yong, chief of the National Security Office, flew to Pyongyang, Monday, where they are expected to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.



Cheong Wa Dae said last week that it invited leaders of the five political parties  the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), major opposition Liberty Korea Party (LKP), the centrist Bareun Mirae Party (BMP), minor liberal Party for Democracy and Peace (PDP) and the progressive Justice Party.





Co-chairmen of the center-right Bareun Mirae Party Yoo Seong-min, left, and Park Joo-sun speak at a party meeting in Gwangju, Monday. / Yonhap



By Choi Ha-young



The third-largest Bareun Mirae Party (BMP), which was established in February through the merger of the conservative Bareun Party and the liberal People's Party, is reeling from its scanty support rate  6.8 percent.



The rate, issued by local pollster Realmeter Monday, is not so different from the last support rate of the Bareun Party before the merger  5.7 percent  released by the pollster, Feb. 12. In the same poll, the People's Party stood at 4.8 percent.



The latest poll proves that the merger failed to create synergy: 6.8 percent is lower than 10.5 percent  the combination of 5.7 percent of the Bareun Party and 4.8 percent of the People's Party.



The 30-seat BMP gained support of 10.5 percent on Feb. 15, in the first opinion survey conducted after its establishment, but this kept decreasing afterward. The BMP said that the party has yet to be recognized as a merged party.



"To raise awareness of the party, we visited Gwangju today and will head for Busan Friday. On Friday, we will hold an event at Hwagae Market to highlight the party's message of regional integration," BMP spokesman Kim Chul-keun said. The party has emphasized that it will break the regionalism between the western Jeolla area and the eastern Gyeongsang area.



The minor liberal Party for Democracy and Peace (PDP), a splinter group of the People's Party, is in the same boat. The 14-seat party, mainly based in the southern Jeolla area, received a support rate of 3 percent, Monday. Other than in the Jeolla area, it only gained 1 to 2 percent.



"The newly created minor parties haven't made any breakthroughs to gain popularity, which is partly overshadowed by the Winter Olympics," said Yoon Tae-gon, a senior political analyst at The Moa Agenda & Strategy.



Further, divisive issues such as North Korean affairs are generally disadvantageous for minor parties, Yoon noted. "If they succeed in recruiting new figures ahead of the local election in June, they could make a leap forward. Particularly, the BMP can attract conservative voters who are unhappy with the larger conservative Liberty Korea Party," he added.

Kim Ji-eun speaks out during an interview on JTBC on Monday. / Captured from JTBC



By Jung Min-ho











An Hee-jungIf there's any community that can feel the changes that have rocked the American steel industry over the decades, it's Baltimore. What was once the single largest steel factory in the world, the giant Bethlehem Steel plant in Sparrows Point, is completely gone.



Not even a shadow of this former ticket to the middle class for tens of thousands of Baltimoreans remains, and the warehousing, distribution and other businesses that have recently sprung up in its place, while welcome, provide nowhere near the number or quality of jobs steel once did. The loss of that plant leaves a giant void economically, culturally and psychologically on the east side of Baltimore city and county.



No matter what policies President Donald Trump pursues, it's not coming back, and neither are the thousands of jobs lost over the decades at the nation's remaining steel mills.



The competition from overseas producers that is at the heart of Trump's proposed 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent tariff on aluminum is part of the reason for declining steel mill employment, certainly, but the bigger story is technology, innovation, automation and productivity gains.



Just like Trump's promise to bring back the coal industry, his planned steel and aluminum tariffs are based on a naive nostalgia, and they could come at a tremendous cost.



About 80 times more Americans work in industries that rely heavily on steel or materials made of steel than do in steel production, according to researchers from Harvard and the University of California, Davis. Tariffs raise their costs and could consequently cost jobs. How Trump's tariffs will play out in that regard remains to be seen, as he has offered few details.



But previous attempts to address dumping of low-cost foreign steel on the market have had a mixed impact at best; an analysis of President George W. Bush's 2002 targeted steel tariffs found that more people in steel consuming industries lost their jobs (about 200,000) than worked in American steel production altogether (187,500).



Ken Sanchez, president of Baltimore County-based Chesapeake Specialty Products, a supplier high-density materials and other industrial products that uses about 10,000 tons of steel a year, says business has been good under the Trump administration, because of both the Republican tax cuts and general confidence in the business climate.



But if Trump intends to impose steel tariffs across the board (and not just on specific products, as previous presidents have done), it will hurt him, even though he buys most of his steel domestically. Those prices would go up, too.



But the bigger problem is what other countries will do in retaliation. Trump is basing his action on a national security argument.



"The continued rising levels of imports of foreign steel threaten to impair the national security by placing the U.S. steel industry at substantial risk of displacing the basic oxygen furnace and other steelmaking capacity, and the related supply chain needed to produce steel for critical infrastructure and national defense," the Commerce Department recently concluded. That is a complete canard.



Although the Department of Defense officially endorsed the president's action, it also acknowledged that its needs for steel and aluminum amount to approximately 3 percent of domestic production capacity.



Moreover, although President Trump has focused his rhetoric about steel on China, it ranks 11th among nations in steel exports to the U.S. Canada is, by a substantial margin, our largest source of foreign steel, and the top 10 is populated mainly by other close allies, including Mexico, South Korea, Japan and Germany. We are not at risk militarily.



But a unilateral action like this could set off a full-blown trade war. American export industries, from agriculture to aerospace, employ vastly more people and produce far more economic activity than domestic steel manufacturing. Already other nations  not just China but also Canada and the European Union  are threatening retaliation against everything from soybeans to whiskey.



Trump takes a simplistic view of international trade  if we import more from a country than we export to them, we're getting ripped off and have been foolish not to retaliate. "Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, don't trade anymore-we win big," he tweeted Friday morning. "It's easy!"



That has never been the history of trade wars, and it won't be this time, either. Thursday's announcement of the tariffs came after months of back-and-forth within the White House, with rival factions of ideological protectionists and economic realists dueling for Trump's attention. Here's hoping the latter group recaptures it. If not, perhaps the tanking stock markets will.





The above editorial appeared in the Baltimore Sun. It was distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By John Burton





Weeping children. Distraught parents. Those images have played across American cable news channels over the last two weeks following the shooting at a Florida high school that killed 14 students and three teachers. It also brought back memories of the emotional scenes we saw on Korean television in the wake of the sinking of the ferry Sewol in 2014 that killed 304 people, most of them high school students and teachers.



The Sewol sinking was the biggest tragedy in Korea's recent history and it would have profound political ramifications, starting a chain of events that would lead to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye in 2017. The shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school also carries with it possible political consequences, including growing public demand for a clampdown on America's lax gun laws.



The common ingredient that unites both events is that high school students were at the center of both tragedies and that factor may explain why both events have had such a strong emotional impact.



Americans are still puzzled why the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school has triggered such a forceful response against guns when there have been other mass shootings in recent years that have taken higher death tolls. Only last year, a gunman killed 58 people attending a concert in Las Vegas in the biggest mass shooting in U.S. history. In 2016, 49 people were killed at the Pulse nightclub in Florida.



Moreover, it is by no means the only mass shooting that has occurred at a U.S. school. A Korean-American student killed 32 people at Virginia Tech in 2007, while 26 students and staff died at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.



Although all these previous shootings immediately led to demands for tougher gun laws, momentum for reforms soon faded away. The composition of the targets may explain why that happened. The victims of the Las Vegas and Pulse shootings involved a disparate group of people with little connection to each other and thus hampered a united response from survivors.



Although the killing of young children at Sandy Hook was so horrific that it made President Barack Obama publicly weep and led the parents of the victims to mount an anti-gun campaign, the school's small size hindered a sustained effort. On the other hand, the large size of Virginia Tech with more than 30,000 students blunted the long-term impact of the shooting there.



In contrast, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School consists of a close-knit body of around 3,000 students, which appears to be an optimum size to organize the expression of collective rage. It helps that the high school is among Florida's top 10 percent in terms of academic ranking. The student leaders who have organized their anti-gun #NeverAgain movement are articulate and media-savvy, which reflects the legacy of the person after whom the school is named, a pioneering female journalist who campaigned for the preservation of the Florida Everglades.



It was likewise the response of the parents and students at the 1,500-strong Danwon High School in Ansan City, most of whose junior class died in the Sewol sinking, that marked the beginning of the end of the Park administration.



The families of Sewol victims set up protest tents in Gwanghwamun to demand an official investigation into the government's incompetent rescue efforts and called for officials to be held accountable. They also adopted the yellow ribbon as a symbol of remembrance.



Although their persistent campaign to seek justice began to fade from public consciousness as time went on, it took on renewed vigor when the "Choigate" corruption scandal was revealed in October 2016. Their protest site on Gwanghwamun became the center of the Candlelight Revolution against Park and the yellow ribbon was adapted as a sign of government opposition.



Just as American students are complaining that they are fed up with practicing routine active-shooter drills at their schools because the frequency of school shootings has become the norm, Korean students responded angrily to the corruption and ineptitude of their elders that led to the Sewol disaster. They became the "Sewol Generation."



The Sewol tragedy contributed to the political awakening of Korean youth, who had been previously been criticized for being apathetic. Many students would draw link between the Sewol, Choigate and their complaints about "Hell Joseon" and they played a key role in the Candlelight movement,



Whether the #NeverAgain movement will have the same effect remains uncertain. An estimated half a million people are expected to participate in its planned "March for Our Lives" in Washington, D.C. on March 24. The most interesting question may not be whether the students' movement will lead to tougher gun laws, but rather if it will lay the foundation for an even bigger protest movement against the Trump administration which is viewed as being just as incompetent as the Park government once was.





John Burton (johnburtonft@yahoo.com), a former Korea correspondent for the Financial Times, is now a Washington, D.C.-based journalist and consultant.

By Stephen Costello





WASHINGTON, D.C.  "You must satisfy the Japanese about their abducted people, and you must satisfy the Americans about your nuclear weapons program. If you can't do those things, we can't help you. No one can."



It was June 2000 in Pyongyang, and then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung was deep into talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.



The U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework was almost six years old, and the allies were using their overlapping interactions with the North to simultaneously cap its weapons programs and lead it toward slowly-expanding economic interactions with the South and with the international system.



Four months later General Jo Myong-rok visited Washington as Kim Jong-il's special envoy, and the two governments pledged "no hostile intent" and to "make every effort in the future to build a new relationship free from past enmity." At the time, the North possessed zero nuclear weapons, and was under an IAEA inspection regime.



Eighteen years later it's logical that South Korean President Moon Jae-in has sent his special envoy to Pyongyang to explore the possibilities and opportunities that he helped create.



It is not yet clear that Moon can arrange for a meaningful gesture from his DPRK counterpart so that North Korea-U.S. discussions can take a small step forward. And it's not yet clear that Moon knows he must lead both the South-North process and the international coalition-building that will be required to support further rapprochement.



But if he does, he will squeeze himself  finally  into the "driver's seat" regarding Korean Peninsula policy. U.S. President Donald Trump may find himself before long taking Moon's old place in the trunk of the policy car, as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin jockey for the back seat, and Kim Jong-un rides shotgun next to Moon up front. On this ride, they should all buckle their seatbelts.



The most important gesture from the North would be the release of the three American captives still held there. Another possibility would be the announcement that nuclear and missile tests are paused for six months or so.



Such gestures will not change the emptiness of the U.S. position, which focuses exclusively on the nuclear weapons program and ignores the security and development dimensions. But it will provide room for the two Korean leaders to explore what is possible in the next four years.



National Security Office chief Chung Eui-yong has now become more important. Previously the administration's top America-wrangler, he now has the delicate job of exploring the gestures and symbolism that will placate the U.S. and keep it from getting in the way, while Suh Hoon, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), explores the equally delicate task of reconnecting North-South economic and political arrangements that have atrophied under a decade of conservative disinterest.



Although Moon has wanted to be leading policy for 10 months, he cannot do so alone. His two most important partners will be Xi Jinping and Antonio Gutierres, the U.N. secretary-general.



The Xi-Moon relationship has always been a key barometer of how successfully the ROK President can steer diplomacy. Now it will become crucial to back up whatever initiatives emerge from the Pyongyang visit by the Blue House special envoy team this week.



Either the Moon-Gutierres dialogue is missing something, or the two are playing a very dangerous game of assuaging Trump while they operate on more realistic assumptions. Both continue in public to entertain the toxic  and most likely wrong  narrative that "extreme pressure has brought North Korea to the table."



A stronger case can be made that the U.S.'s maximum pressure and its many manifestations have had the opposite effect: They have prevented productive diplomacy for over a decade.



This matters, because it is unlikely that the North Koreans will make meaningful concessions while they are under multiple sanctions and repeated and theatrical military threats from the U.S. Some sanctions will have to be on the table, and early.



In order to put sanctions into play, President Moon will need the help of the U.N., and Secretary-General Gutierres. One hopes that the two discussed this in PyeongChang last month.



The South's timeframe is approximately three years, before the domestic struggle for the next presidency will rival debates over policy. The president is limited to one five-year term.



He will have to assume that he will be dealing with a Trump White House for his entire term. That may not be the case, but he can't afford to expect any changes from the U.S. Moon's former boss, the late President Roh Moo-hyun, was politically weaker, and he faced a far more capable U.S. administration. The combination fatally limited his foreign policy achievements.



The overriding challenge for President Moon's government is to avoid the obstacles that thwarted previous progressive efforts by Seoul and Washington.



Why single out progressive efforts? Because although the linked issues of DPRK denuclearization, security, and development and ROK growing middle power capacity are not fundamentally "left vs. right," history and political expediency have loaded them with ideological and partisan meaning.



In both Seoul and Washington, conservatives have opposed diplomacy and supported coercion. The result has been a generational, multi-level policy disaster. This is true primarily for Northeast Asia, but also for American interests.



A major reason for the politicization of diplomacy in both capitals is that negotiated agreements and the necessity for cooperation with other governments and international institutions threaten the old and simplistic world views of conservative parties.



It is no coincidence that at the same time, those parties have become decoupled from any recognizable coherent or strategic worldviews. Another reason was the decision to ignore expertise, lower ambitions, and prioritize domestic political optics over strategic opportunities, as the Democrat Obama White House demonstrated.



After 17 years of such conceptual confusion, the realistic options that are now available are confounding to most of the mainstream policy community. That community now includes scholars, think tanks, university institutes and the media, both traditional and expanding digital outlets.



It seems almost too much to ask them to disentangle the extreme polarization and breakdown in political and policy systems from the real and ongoing strategic and tactical choices that are available. But of course, that's their job.



Stephen Costello (scost55@gmail.com) is a producer of AsiaEast, a web and broadcast-based policy roundtable focused on security, development and politics in Northeast Asia. He writes from Washington, D.C.





By Jhoo Dong-chan



Criticism is growing over GM Korea calling for the Korea Development Bank (KDB) to start its due diligence on the company as soon as possible. The debt-ridden carmaker's position runs counter to earlier reluctance by GM's Detroit headquarters to disclose sensitive information to the state-run bank.



The KDB said it will look into GM Korea's high production costs that are allegedly caused by technology patent, labor, maintenance and finance costs. But the state-run bank is claiming the carmaker's Detroit headquarters is calling for a limited range of disclosures in the due diligence.



"GM Korea wants the due diligence to be completed within one or two months," said an official.



"In order for the KDB to carry out a thorough inspection of the company's operation, the demanded documents should be submitted to the bank."



The KDB said in mid-February that Samil PricewaterhouseCoopers would start the due diligence of GM Korea by the end of February to finish by the end of April, but the inspection has yet to start as the both sides seem to have failed to narrow the gap in the disclosure of documents.



GM Korea rebutted the bank's allegation, saying that it has and will fully cooperate with the government controlled bank's demands.



"GM Korea does not have the luxury of time," a company official said.



"It is an issue that determines the ultimate fate of the company. If we do not get financial support from the KDB soon, more people will lose their jobs. The Detroit headquarters is also committed to reviving GM Korea, and promised to fully cooperate with the KDB's demands."



He stressed the due diligence is even more essential for the carmaker to clear up other major issues such as wage negotiations and allocating new vehicle models as the company's future growth engines.



"Depending on the progress of the due diligence, the company's talks with its workers are expected to find a middle ground. Once GM Korea manages to reach an agreement on production cost reduction options, including a voluntary retirement program and freezing of wages, the Detroit headquarters will consider allocating new and promising vehicle models to its Korea operation," he said.



"So, there are still a number of hurdles. But they all start with the due diligence. It should start no later than this week."



GM and the government have discussed possible ways to turn around its loss-making affiliate since February, after the Detroit-based carmaker announced the closing of its Gunsan plant, one of its four factories here, by May.



GM, which owns 77 percent of GM Korea, added the remaining three plants would face the same fate unless its Korean operation becomes profitable.



"The government does not have much time either," said Kim Pil-soo, a professor of automotive studies at Daelim University.



"The deal with General Motors is very important for the Moon Jae-in administration and the fate of the ruling party in the June local elections, since about 150,000 jobs are at stake here. Three months may not be enough for full-scale due diligence."



In 2017, GM Korea produced 520,000 vehicles at its car plants, which have a combined capacity of 910,000. It sold 524,547 vehicles last year, down 12 percent from 2016.



GM Korea is estimated to have suffered losses of 900 billion won ($831.4 million) last year, bring its accumulated losses since 2014 to 3 trillion won.



The company announced last week that domestic sales in February dropped by 48.3 percent to 5,804 from the same month last year.

Aekyung Group's new headquarters in Seoul / Courtesy of Aekyung



By Park Hyong-ki



Aekyung Industry, a local household care and cosmetics maker, is expected to be the first company this year to make a debut on the benchmark KOSPI exchange in late March.



However, it remains uncertain whether it will be a successful one as it has been embroiled in a scandal involving the sales of its humidifiers with toxic chemical materials.



Also, its cosmetics business is still exposed to geopolitical risks stemming from a diplomatic row between Korea and China over an anti-missile battery here.



Those two issues caused the company to suspend its initial public offering (IPO) last year and the year before.



Aekyung Industry has indicated the country's disciplinary measures following the scandal will not affect its finances.



However, it would "have a negative impact on its corporate image," which could affect its stock floatation.



The purpose of Aekyung Industry's IPO fundraising is to help improve the finances of Aekyung, the parent company, which is in distress.





Aekyung Group Vice Chairman Chae Hyung-seokBy Nam Hyun-woo



Korea's second- and third-largest chicken franchise chains are locked in an ugly legal tussle, which stems in large part from growing corporate espionage allegations. Each side is asking for compensation, benefiting legal attorneys as the estimated total compensation over lawsuits exceeds 300 billion won ($277 million).



According to industry sources on Monday, No. 2 BHC and No. 3 Genesis BBQ have continued expanding their legal actions since 2013. The total number of lawsuits filed during the period stands at 11 while five are pending.



The most recent one was filed on Feb. 27, in which BHC claimed it suffered losses when BBQ unilaterally canceled a contract on providing logistics service and demanded BBQ compensate some of the losses worth 53.7 billion won.



BBQ claimed, "Adding that, the amount of compensation sought now reaches 300 billion won and this seems to be a strategy to shake BBQ."



"As soon as BHC's sale was completed, it started to challenge the contract, and the relations between the two companies have worsened as much as they can," BBQ said in a statement. "Under such circumstances how can we maintain the contract? And the cause for these litigations seems suspicious."



The saga started in 2013. BHC was a child company of Genesis BBQ. BBQ initially attempted to put BHC up for an initial public offering, but sold it in June 2013 to Rohatyn Group, a U.S.-based investment fund management company, for 113 billion won.



Upon BHC's sale, BBQ included its logistics center in Gwangju and a food factory in Gyeonggi Province in the deal to raise the price. Then, the two signed the contract in which BHC would provide logistics services, sauces and other ingredients to BBQ for 10 years.



A year later, Rohatyn Group filed a complaint with the International Chamber of Commerce claiming BBQ exaggerated the number of BHC franchises in the deal.



After several years, BBQ was ordered to pay 9.6 billion won to Rohatyn Group, but still questions the complaint, on the grounds that "BHC head Park Hyun-jong led the deal for BBQ when he was a senior official at BBQ. How can he question the deal led by himself?"



As BBQ payed only a part of the compensation, BHC filed a lawsuit with the Seoul Eastern District Court and the court ordered a collection on BBQ.



BBQ countered by terminating the contract last April, saying it has to protect the secrets of its new recipes. BHC immediately filed a compensation suit, demanding 13.5 billion won and increasing the amount to 236 billion won in October.



BBQ claims BHC is exaggerating the losses, saying they remain around 20 billion won.



BHC said of these, "the point is BBQ has breached the contract and there would be no reason for us to file litigation."



Along with the two major issues, both BBQ and BHC have exchanged fire over these cases.



In 2014, BHC won a suit after claiming BBQ dumped due compensation to franchise owners after BHC's sale. BBQ also sued a BHC employee citing differences in the inventories on the books and in actual storage.



In 2015, BHC sued a BBQ employee on charges of stealing the secret of its new sauce, while BBQ filed a complaint with the prosecutors.



In July last year, BBQ filed a criminal suit against current and former senior officials at BHC, claiming they made unauthorized access to BBQ's intranet and stole its new menu, business plans and marketing data.



BBQ continued last November, accusing BHC head Park of breach of trust and fraud, claiming Park miscalculated the number of franchises during the acquisition deal but caused BBQ to compensate for the losses.



Gordon Ramsay, right, in his second venture to star in Cass commercials that were released on Mar. 5. / Courtesy of Oriental Brewery



By Ko Dong-hwan



British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, known for his bluntness, has once again returned with commercials for the South Korean lager Cass. His mission is to defend the beer that is widely criticized as too bland. Following last year's endorsement campaign, he is on his second crusade for the Korean lager that is often the butt of jokes among Korean beer drinkers. Would Ramsay's latest endorsement add the flavor this transparent beer lacks?



His latest Cass commercials look something like this. A rookie employee of an unknown company is in trouble. At a restaurant, his superiors tell him to order whatever he likes, and the rookie takes it as a test of his good or bad taste. As the tension builds, Ramsay, who flinches for nothing when it comes to foods and drinks, swoops in and advises the rookie to order the South Korean lager Cass first and brighten up the mood, saying "Cass Monjeo!" "Monjeo" is Korean word for "first." Ramsay's charm saves the day.



In a different scene, a young man and woman torture themselves in an awkward moment on a blind date. Ramsay suggests the pair, with their mouths going dry, break the ice with Cass first. "Cass Monjeo!" exclaims the star giddily.



The beer maker's TV and online video ads released Monday use wordplay to come up with "Ca-Mon"  a play on"come on"  as a catchphrase.



Ramsay stirred the global lager community with his sensational appearance in his previous Cass commercial. Oriental Brewery, owned by Belgium's AB InBev, contacted him again for a second commercial to keep the momentum going but it remains to be seen whether it will offset some of the negative public reviews from the first commercial. Critics previously said his world-class reputation doesn't match his endorsement of what's far from a world-class lager, or that he "sold his soul" for OB's undisclosed but likely extravagant hospitality during his Seoul visit last year from November to December, according to a South Korean critic.





Thumbs down for Ramsay Cass commercial Korea Times poll shows 57% disapprove of Korean beers [POLL] Do you like Korean beer? "Ramsey represents a third person's viewpoint among Koreans in the latest Cass ads," Lee Eun-a, an OB public relations executive, told The Korea Times. "In that way, he can propose an objective, transparent solution to situations that Koreans with little social experience in professional careers or flirtation often encounter."



Ramsay's latest Cass commercials carry the catchphrase "Cass Monjeo," which is abbreviated "Ca-Mon." Sounding similar to "Come on," the commercials encourage diners to order Cass first and break the ice. / Courtesy of Oriental Brewery

OB, let alone its Korean and, if any, global consumers, knows the controversy Ramsay invited in with his first Cass commercial. Although he and OB had shaken hands in promoting the lager as a good pairing with Korean dishes, the message attracted a bombardment of critics.



"Cass makes a poor partner for Korea's pungent cuisine," said Andrew Salmon, a columnist of The Korea Times. "To compliment spice, you need strong flavors. Hence  as a general rule  Gewurztraminer has long been the go-to wine for Asian spices: Its strong, dry, fruity, off-sweet flavor is not overpowered by Indian, Szechuan or Korean cuisine. This may explain why Hoegaarden  brewed under license by the same company that produces Cass, Belgium's AB InBev  has been so successful in Korea: Its dryness matches Korean fire."



Koreans, who increasingly love imported beers over domestic products, were soured by Ramsay's Cass commercial because they knew the lager's unpopularity wasn't worth the star's endorsement and accused OB of paying too much for his endorsement.



OB said despite the mixed reviews of his first Cass commercial, they sweated to re-hire him for the follow-up because, after all, he had stirred up a sensation.



"Ramsay was too busy to come to Seoul so we sent our team to Los Angeles in January to meet him and shoot the commercials there," Lee said.



While Cass's latest campaign commercial that cheers for the rookies of society has a good message, whether the public reviews in South Korea fraught with self-described liquor experts will be as handsome as Ramsay's worldly reception remains questionable.



U.S. President Donald Trump salutes as he and first lady Melania Trump return to the White House in Washington, U.S., from Palm Beach, Florida, Mar. 3. / Reuters-Yonhap



By Wendy Wu





China said on Sunday that it did not want a trade war with the US but would not sit idly by and allow its interests to be hurt, after the two sides agreed to hold further talks on the issue in Beijing soon.

"The right way to handle conflicts is to open markets to both sides, make the pie of cooperation bigger and find solutions acceptable to both sides," Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the first session of the 13th National People's Congress, China's rubber-stamp parliament, said ahead of the annual "Two Sessions" in the Chinese capital.





Liu He / weforum.org

After President Xi Jinping's top economic adviser Liu He wrapped up his five-day visit to Washington, Chinese state media reported on Saturday that the two countries had made some progress on the issue.

The trip was "helpful to mutual understanding and promoting cooperation", Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily said, without giving a time frame for the next round of talks or saying who would be involved.

Liu, who is director of the General Office of the Central Leading Group for the Financial and Economic Affairs, held "candid and constructive" talks with US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House National Economic Council director Gary Cohn and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the report said.

Liu was quoted as saying that it was in the interests of both sides to maintain a stable relationship on trade, which would also benefit the global economy.

He also voiced Beijing's views on issues such as the trade balance and market access, and said China would continue with its policy of reform and opening up.

"The two sides agreed they should take a cooperative rather than confrontational approach to tackling economic and trade conflicts to maintain the healthy development of economic and trade relations," the report said.

"Both countries agreed to continue communication on related issues in the near future in Beijing, to create the conditions for further cooperation."

Liu, who also leads the Chinese side in the Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, was the second member of the Politburo to travel to Washington in less than a month, after Yang Jiechi, the country's top diplomat, visited earlier in February. Neither trip achieved a significant breakthrough on trade tensions, and concerns remain that a trade war could be imminent.

As part of his pledge to revamp US trade policy, President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would impose a 25 per cent tariff on steel and 10 per cent tariff on aluminium product imports from countries including China from next week. The move triggered strong protests from many countries, including members of the European Union and Canada.

Wang Yi, China's foreign affairs minister, said on Saturday that the US' decision to impose tariffs on "reasonable steel and aluminium exports in the name of harming national security is groundless", China Business Journal reported.

Trump is expected in the coming weeks to announce the findings of a Section 301 investigation into China's alleged theft of intellectual property and its broader industrial policy. The findings could result in the US imposing further tariffs and investment access restrictions on China's goods and companies.Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

Except for a few afternoon clouds, mainly sunny. High 86F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 66F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph.A Syrian soldier stands guard in the recently liberated Nashabiyeh town in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta region, eastern countryside of Damascus, capital of Syria, on March 4, 2018. Syria's national TV said Sunday that the rebels in the capital Damascus' Eastern Ghouta area are "collapsing" as a result of the Syrian military offensive in that area. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani)

DAMASCUS, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Sunday that the offensive against the rebels in the capital Damascus' Eastern Ghouta countryside will continue in tandem with allowing civilians to leave toward government-controlled areas in Damascus, as the Syrian army has made significant progress, capturing 36 percent of the areas held by the rebels.

Assad said most of the civilians in Eastern Ghouta want to leave the rebel-held areas toward government areas, noting that there is no contradiction between establishing cease-fire in that area to allow the civilians to leave and the military operation against the "terrorists."

Assad made the remarks as a Russian-backed partial humanitarian pause has been taking place in Eastern Ghouta to allow the civilians to leave that area since last week, while military operations continue after the end of the daily five-hour-long pause.

No civilians have left and no humanitarian convoys entered that area, with the government accusing the rebels of preventing the civilians from leaving.

In his Sunday comments, Assad said the Russian-proposed humanitarian pause balances between giving a space to the humanitarian work and at the same time achieving the goal of striking the "terrorists."

"This is why we must continue in this operation in tandem with giving the civilians the opportunity to leave toward the state areas (government-controlled)," he said.

He hailed the progress made by the Syrian army in that sprawling rebel-held enclave in the eastern countryside of Damascus.

Meanwhile, the War Media, the media wing of the Syrian army, said in a statement late on Sunday that the Syrian forces have made important progress in Eastern Ghouta over the past few days, capturing large swathes of areas in the eastern part of Eastern Ghouta, reaching the central sector of that area.

It said the Syrian army forces have captured 38 square km, or 36 percent of Eastern Ghouta, which is estimated at 105 square km.

The Syrian forces that are advancing from the eastern side are only 3 km from the military units in the western part of that rebel-held enclave.

When the two units meet, Eastern Ghouta would be split in half, the statement said.

As Assad has said that the military operations against the rebels in Eastern Ghouta, mainly the al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee (LLC), otherwise known as the Nusra Front, the humanitarian work, which has been hindered during the past days, is expected to continue as of Monday.

The United Nationssaid in a statement Sunday that it's planning to deliver humanitarian assistance to the rebel-held Douma district in Eastern Ghouta.

In a statement, the UN said the aid convoy will consist of 46 truckloads of health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people in need and will be led by Ali Al-Za'tari, the UN Resident Humanitarian Coordinator.

"We hope that the convoy may proceed as planned and will be followed by other convoys. Our teams on the ground are ready to do all that is needed to make this happen," stated al-Za'tari, according to the statement.

The UN said it had received approval to deliver assistance for 70,000 people in need in Douma, adding that assurances were made that the remaining supplies for all approved people in need will be delivered on March 8.

The only UN delivery of assistance to Eastern Ghouta in 2018 was on Feb. 14, when a convoy with assistance for 7,200 people reached Nashabiyeh, said the statement.

Meanwhile, Syria' Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said the Syrian government is ready to send aid to Eastern Ghouta, noting that the rebels have targeted the crossing point into Eastern Ghouta.

Eastern Ghouta has been the major threat to Damascus since the rebels took hold in that area in 2012, with armed militants keeping launching attacks on the capital with mortar shells and in some instance through implementing incursion attempts.

Four major rebel groups are currently positioned inside Eastern Ghouta, namely the Islam Army, Failaq al-Rahman, Ahrar al-Sham and the LLC.

Eastern Ghouta has grabbed international attention recently since the military showdown started to gain momentum on Feb. 18.

The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2401 on Feb. 24, which requires all parties in Syria to immediately cease clashes and provides a sustained humanitarian break for at least 30 days across Syria.

Two days later, the Russians demanded a daily humanitarian pause for five hours in Eastern Ghouta specifically.

But those initiatives have slightly reduced the number of rebels' mortar shells on the capital and the Syrian airstrikes and bombardment on Eastern Ghouta.

During the five-hour-long truce, the situation becomes calm, but the military confrontation continues right afterward.

The oppositional Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government forces' bombardment and airstrikes on Eastern Ghouta have killed over 600 people since the situation started flaring last month.

7

1

[ Editor: meng ]Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) walk to the Great Hall of the People for the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th NPC in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2018. (Xinhua/Li Gang)

4

1

[ Editor: meng ]WASHINGTON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The annual sessions of China's top and legislative and political advisory bodies would start a historic journey to greater reform and opening-up, said a U.S. scholar.

William Jones, Washington Bureau chief of the U.S. publication Executive Intelligence Review, made the remarks in a recent interview with Xinhua.

Jones said China has vowed to open up more in the future, and the world can be reassured to get more benefits from this commitment.

Jones said China's reform and opening up will be conducted in a steady manner, and "at a pace that is determined by the needs of the Chinese economy."

"There will be more foreign direct investment. There will be more ties between Western and Chinese companies, but it will be done in such a way that the financial system ... would be subordinate to the physical economy," he said.

When asked about topics of the "two sessions" that he felt most interested in, Jones listed poverty elimination, the ongoing structural reform, the anti-corruption drive and China's international role.

The two gatherings of this year are "extremely important," because at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) last year, Beijing reiterated its goal to eliminate poverty in the coming years, said Jones.

"The entire world has been just totally taken aback by the tremendous amount of efforts that have been placed on bringing people out of poverty and with a goal of eliminating poverty entirely by 2020," he said, adding that China's efforts can be a model.

He also said the issue of rural vitalization would be a big part of the discussion during the "two sessions."

There will also be a major discussion at the meetings about the current fight against corruption, said the scholar.

"It's very important because corruption leads to ineffective deployment of economic resources and it also creates a lot of tension within the population as a whole when they see some people becoming richer and other people becoming poor and when they see the public goods are being utilized in a not so good manner," he explained.

As for China's international presence, Jones said the nation "is now playing a global role as well as a regional role," which participants of the meetings are also expected to discuss.

Commenting on the proposed inclusion of "building a community with a shared future for humanity" in the constitution during the "two sessions", he said the notion "means that the world can no longer operate on the basis of geopolitics, on the basis of a zero-sum game, winners and losers, but in terms of mutual interests," he said.

"This has got to become the norm for relationships between countries, both big and small."

And there will be talks about reforms to restructure China's economy, said Jones.

"China has, because of the international economic crisis, now been concentrating on creating a domestic demand through the poverty reduction, through these structural reforms, through the infrastructure investment. This now has become a major driver for the Chinese economy, and that's going to have to continue for a while," he said.

[ Editor: WPY ]The situation in natural gas shipments to Ukraine has stabilized thanks to the increasing quantities of gas delivered from the countries of the European Union, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said on Sunday.

"Today we have a stable situation in gas supplies: we have enough gas in storage facilities, domestically-produced gas and imports. The shipments from the EU, [namely] from Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary have increased. As of now, the shortfall is covered in full," Poroshenko wrote in his Twitter blog.

"The times of Russia's gas blackmailing are already past," he said.

After the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce ruled against it earlier this week Gazprom announced that it was launching a process to terminate its contracts with Naftogaz on the supply and transit of natural gas to and via Ukraine to Europe.

"Stockholm Arbitration, guided by double standards, reached an asymmetric ruling on contracts for the supply and transit of gas with Naftogaz Ukrainy. The arbitration ruling has considerably upset the balance of interests between the parties under these contracts. The arbitrators gave the sharp deterioration of the state of the Ukrainian economy as the argument for their ruling. We are categorically against the economic problems of Ukraine being resolved at our expense. In this situation, continuation of these contracts is not economically advisable or beneficial for Gazprom," Gazprom's chief Alexei Miller told journalists.

The Stockholm arbitration spent over three years considering two disputes between Gazprom and Naftogaz: over gas debt, from June 2014 to December 2017, and over the transit contract, from October 2014 to February 2018.

With the cold weather and resulting increase in gas consumption and prices in Europe Naftogaz urged Ukrainian households and businesses to cut gas consumption until the company has contracted necessary volumes of gas in Europe and the forecasted thaw.

Yuriy Vitrenko, Naftogaz' commercial director, said Ukraine was to receive from Gazprom 18 million cubic meters of gas per day but after the Russian company refused to comply with the agreement, Naftogaz promptly contracted the required quantities of gas in Europe.

According to Ukrtransgaz, natural gas imports to Ukraine on March 1 amounted to 2.836 million cubic meters (Slovakia - 2.539 million cubic meters, Hungary - 0.296 million cubic meters, Poland - 0.001 million cubic meters).

At the same time, if as of March 2, 4.503 million cubic meters were booked (Slovakia - 1.893 million cubic meters, Hungary - 0.549 million cubic meters, Poland - 2.061 million cubic meters) of power at the entrance to the Ukrainian gas transmission system from Europe for gas imports, as of March 3, the "reservation" already amounts to 26.387 million cubic meters (Slovakia - 16.9 million cubic meters, Hungary - 7.425 million cubic meters, Poland - 2.062 million cubic meters).

Last Saturday Poroshenko said that Ukraine had resolved its crisis with gas supplies and covering the resulting shortages. He also thanked Ukrainians for heeding the calls to use less natural gas, thus reducing its consumption by 14%, or 25 million cubic meters, on March 2.The National Reforms Council under the President of Ukraine after discussing a currency bill on March 2 drawn up by the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) has recommended considering the document as urgent, Deputy NBU Governor Oleh Churiy has said.

"The National Reforms Council not only supported this bill, but also recommended considering it as urgent, as the document is extremely important for developing the market and moving Ukraine towards free flow of capital," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Monday.

Churiy said that the bill has been supported by the majority of market players. Lawyers are working on the final document making technical remarks. This document will be submitted to the Verkhovna Rada and the President of Ukraine will speak about it.

The president will be the initiator of this bill.

As reported, the NBU on August 10, 2017 posted the bill on currency, which should become a single legislative act that determines the order of currency regulation and currency supervision in the country, on its website for public discussion.Finland will issue EUR15 mln for education and energy efficiency projects in Ukraine in 2018-2021

Finland will issue EUR15 million for the development of projects in education and energy efficiency in Ukraine in 2018-2021, Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini has said.

"Finland will continue to increase its financial support to Ukraine, which since the start of the conflict has reached EUR 34 million. Today we are ready to provide EUR15 million for projects in the field of education and energy efficiency," he said at a joint press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin in Kyiv.

Soini added he calls on Ukraine to continue reforms, in particular, in the field of fight against corruption.Naftogaz Ukrainy tightens security of gas transportation system amid crisis in relations with Gazprom

The defense and security structures have tightened security at Ukraine's gas transportation system facilities at the request of Naftogaz Ukrainy, Naftogaz Commercial Director Yuriy Vitrenko told a press conference in Kyiv on Monday.

"Security has now been tightened at all critical infrastructure facilities, including by the Ukrainian National Guard," he said.

Vitrenko mentioned a situation that occurred in Turkmenistan, when explosions occurred on Turkmen gas pipelines during a conflict with Gazprom.

According to earlier reports, Gazprom has reported its intention to sever the contracts for the transit and supply of gas with Naftogaz Ukrainy.Transit contract to stay effective until end of 2019 regardless of Gazprom's going to arbitration

The gas transit contract with Gazprom will stay effective until the end of 2019 regardless of the Russian company's plans to sever it through the Stockholm arbitration, a Naftogaz Ukrainy official said.

"If no agreements are reached within 45 days [the time allowed by the contract for pre-trial settlement] and if Gazprom goes to arbitration, the arbitration will last for years. In our view, nothing will happen from a practical point of view, the contract will stay effective until the end of 2019 [until the final date envisaged by the document]," Naftogaz Chief Commercial Officer Yuriy Vitrenko told a press conference in Kyiv on Monday.

The only possible exception is only if Gazprom takes actions outside the legal field, he said.Naftogaz Ukrainy is interested in continuing to transit Russian natural gas via Ukraine and ready to implement the transit contract it signed with Gazprom in 2009, with changes made to it in light of the decisions by the Stockholm arbitration.

"Our position is that we see no grounds yet for terminating our transit contract [with Gazprom]," Naftogaz' chief commercial director Yuriy Vitrenko told a press conference in Kyiv on Monday.

"Moreover, at least from what we are seeing in Gazprom's explanations and proposals they have made for having the contract reviewed and even terminated, they look unacceptable to us," Vitrenko said.

The existing gas supply and transit contracts of 2009 envisage a certain termination procedure: the supply contract requires a 30-day notice, the transit one, a 45-day notice, and if subsequent talks fail, the parties must turn to the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce, Vitrenko said.

As for Gazprom informing of the contracts' termination, so far it has only notified of its intention to bring the matter before the arbitration, he said.Nova Poshta, a leader in express delivery in Ukraine, has opened a first phase of the new parcel sorting center  Kyiv Innovative Terminal (KIT) in Zhuliany district of Kyiv City.

Co-founder of Nova Poshta Volodymyr Popereshniuk said on Friday, March 2, that the terminal can service over 350,000 parcels a day.

The first phase of the center can process only parcels and small parcels (envelops).

The center services the right bank area of Kyiv City and Kyiv region.

Vanderlande supplied sorting equipment. The capacity of the equipment is 8,500 bar-codes per hour (over 200,000 bar-codes a day).

Five faces of parcels are scanned with the speed of 2.3 parcels per second.

Popereshniuk said that in the future it is required to scan all six faces of the parcels for cutting the scanning time.

Another co-founder of Nova Poshta Viacheslav Klymov said that investment in construction of the first phase of the KIT terminal amounted to EUR 15 million. The half of the money is own funds from reinvested profit and the rest are borrowed funds.

"Ukrainian banks helped us a lot. This is a first large loan, as we have been developing for 17 years using own funds," he said.

Popereshniuk said that the first phase is 80% of the readiness of the entire center, and it is likely that $5-10 million will be required to finish the project.

The KIT terminal was built in 2015-2017. Art Bud Service LLC acted as general contractor. The total area for construction is 23,900 square meters. The area of the first phase is 14,800 square meters.

The center processes over 400 trucks a day. A total of 750 employees will work there in four shifts.Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has signed a decree to enact the regulations on the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Relevant presidential decree No. 52/2018 dated March 3, 2018, was posted on the Ukrainian president's website.

"According to the fifth clause of Article 10 of the Law of Ukraine on the Armed Forces of Ukraine, I order to enact the provisions on the Special Operations Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine," the document says.

The content of the regulations is not disclosed as it is classified information.Since the beginning of hostilities in Donbas, 2,378 Ukrainian servicemen have been killed in action, First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine's representative in the Trilateral Contact Group's humanitarian subgroup, Iryna Gerashchenko, has said.

"During the years of the war, 2,378 Ukrainian servicemen, including four women, have been killed. During this time, 138 children have been killed in shelling or by landmines. Some 1,399 women have become widows, 2,217 women have lost their sons," Gerashchenko said at a media briefing in Odesa on Monday, March 5.Sweden is ready to participate in a UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas, Minister of Defense of the Kingdom of Sweden, Peter Hultqvist, has said.

"If there is a decision by the UN Security Council, then Sweden will consider the possibility of participating in such a mission. If this decision is taken, this will have a serious impact on the situation with stability in the Baltic countries, Finland and Sweden," he said after talks with Defense Minister of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak in Kyiv on Monday.

At the same time, the defense minister said: "We support the creation of such a mission, but it must comply with all international agreements."

"We do not want to see 'frozen' conflicts. We are trying to achieve stability and peace, that's why we support this mission," he said.

According to Hultqvist, Sweden supports Ukraine in defending its sovereignty.A meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Interparliamentary Council is taking place in Odesa on Monday, March 5.

"It is symbolic that this dialogue, which has brought together participants from 12 NATO member countries, is taking place on the fourth anniversary of Crimea's annexation and the beginning of the [Russian] occupation of the Ukrainian land, the occupation of Donbas," First Deputy Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, Iryna Gerashchenko, said.

NATO member countries continue expressing their support to Ukraine, she said. Issues and problems that require priority attention and support from the international community are on the agenda of the meeting on Monday.

The agenda, which one of the participants in the meeting shared with Interfax-Ukraine, includes debates on such subjects as the "Development of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Build-up of Russian Military Capabilities in the Black Sea," "Militarization of Crimea and Violation of Human Rights on the Peninsula," "The Economic Situation and Energy Security in the Black Sea Region," "The Humanitarian Situation and the Security Situation in the East of Ukraine."

On March 6, the participants of the event will visit the Ukrainian Navy's Hetman Sahaydachniy frigate and meet with students of Mechnikov Odesa National University.The governments of Ukraine and Sweden plan to draw up and sign an agreement on cooperation in the defense sector, Defense Minister Stepan Poltorak has said.

"We've agreed to review the international protocol our relations are currently built on (signed in 2001). We've come to understanding about the need to draw up an agreement between the governments of Ukraine and Sweden on cooperation in the defense sphere," he said after talks with Minister of Defense of the Kingdom of Sweden Peter Hultqvist in Kyiv on Monday.

According to Poltorak, their dialogue paid much attention to the security situation in the east of Ukraine and in the world, as well as to the possibility of deploying an UN peacekeeping mission to the temporarily occupied areas in Donbas.

"In particular, about the Swedish Armed Forces' possible participation in this mission. We've agreed on all issues. Our decisions are absolutely constructive," the Ukrainian minister said.The Socialist Party of Ukraine (SPU) believes that Ukraine's integration with the European Union (EU) and NATO is one of the priorities of the country's foreign policy, SPU leader Illia Kyva has said on the 112 TV channel.

"The new program of the party contains provisions on the integration of Ukraine with the EU and NATO. This is the program of the renewed Socialist Party. We are no longer nostalgic for the USSR. We are the Socialist Party of Ukraine!" Kyva said.

According to the politician, the focus on European integration helps Ukraine to get rid of corruption.

"Europe is a salvation for our country today. In the truest sense of the word. The European Union controls our power, our officials. NABU, NACP [National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, National Agency on Corruption Prevention] have been created under the program proposed to us by the European Union. An anti-corruption court is also being established at the request of the EU. Yes, we are forced to fight corruption. But it goes for good. If we are able to destroy corruption, we will learn how to effectively control the power. The country will only benefit from this," the politician said.

Earlier, after a working trip to Bulgaria, Kyva announced the intention of the Socialist Party to restore membership in the Socialist International.

"We are raising the party not only within the country, but also at the international level. We are firm in our intention to return to the Socialist International. Yes, we have to go through a number of procedures, carry out many more formalities, but we will definitely do it," he said.

Before the election of Kyva as the SPU head, the program of the party did not contain an idea of the country's integration with Europe. In contrast to it, the SPU proclaimed the intention to "build Europe in Ukraine."Foreign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin has thanked the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies for solving crimes related to arson attacks on the building of the Transcarpathian Hungarian Cultural Association (KMKSZ) in Uzhgorod, saying he doesn't rule out that attempts to destabilize the situation may continue.

"I thank the police for their active work in Zakarpattia. Russian trace is seen everywhere. My 'regards' to all those who have speculated on mystical anti-Hungarian sentiments. I do not rule out that attempts to destabilize the situation may continue," the foreign minister wrote on Twitter.

As reported, a building on Uzhgorod's Pravoslavna Embankment where the KMKSZ office is located saw two arson attacks in February. The first incident occurred on the morning of February 4, when an unknown person threw a Molotov cocktail into the window of the building.

The investigation found that citizens of Poland, Adrian Marglewski and Tomasz Rafal Szymkowiak, could be involved in the crime. Later, Poland's national news agency, Polska Agencja Prasowa, reported that three suspects in the arson attack on the KMKS building in Uzhgorod had been detained in Poland and the court ruled to arrest two of them.

The second arson attack on the same building took place in the early hours of February 27. No casualties were reported, but the fire destroyed about 25 square meters on the first floor. The fire was preceded by an explosion near the building.

Ambassador of Ukraine to Hungary Liubov Nepop was summoned to the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in connection with the attacks on the KMKSZ office. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said that "extremist political ideas are growing in Ukraine," suggesting that "members of the Hungarian ethnic community in Transcarpathia are being intimidated in that way."

First Deputy Head of Ukraine's Zakarpattia Regional Council and Deputy Chairman of the KMKSZ Yosyp Barto said he is convinced that foreign nationals rather than Ukrainians were behind the arson incidents in the KMKSZ office in Uzhgorod.

Chief of the National Police of Ukraine Serhiy Kniazev later announced that five suspects in the case had been detained, while a probable organizer, who is reportedly a foreign citizen, had been put on the wanted list.The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, will visit Ukraine on March 11-12, a diplomatic source told Interfax-Ukraine.

"Mogherini will be in Kyiv on a working visit on March 11-12," the source said on Monday.

In Kyiv she is scheduled to hold several bilateral meetings with senior Ukrainian state officials.According to Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Ha Cong Tuan, Vietnam shipped 861,000 tonnes during the January-February period, bringing in US$419 million, up 17% in volume and 34% in value.

He added that the Philippines remain the largest buyer of Vietnamese rice, accounting for 26.9%, followed by China with 23.5% of the total Vietnamese rice exports.

In addition to selling a greater volume, Vietnamese exporters also saw higher prices at US$475 a tonne, compared with US$435 in 2016 and US$450 in 2017.

The deputy minister attributed the higher export prices to the better quality of rice.

Currently, high-quality rice, including glutinous, fragrant and jasmine varieties, accounts for more than 80% of Vietnams total rice exports.

In 2017, Vietnam shipped 5.8 million tonnes of rice, earning US$2.6 billion.The SMBC, one of the largest and oldest banks in Japan, is pursuing the new Asia-centric strategy which seeks to strengthen its business in Asia and Vietnam is an important part of the strategy, Mori told the Deputy PM.

As the Government of Vietnam has been restructuring the local banking system, the SMBC wants to take part in that process by sustainably developing Eximbank and supporting other local banks reforms in the coming time, he said. As a global bank, the SMBC expects its clients worldwide will invest in Vietnam and the bank hopes to contribute to the development of Vietnams banking industry with its new banking management system, he added.

Deputy PM Hue welcomed the presence of SMBC in Vietnam and the role it is playing to restructure Eximbank. He noted that a new scheme for restructuring credit institutions was adopted to improve capacity of commercial banks and accelerate the resolution of non-performing loans.

Though the restructuring process has harvested some positive outcomes but many challenges are waiting ahead, Deputy PM Hue said. The Government is committed to continue improving local business climate and providing favourable conditions for both domestic and foreign investors, he stated, adding that it will do it best to support SMBC in Vietnam.

The SMBC has made present in Vietnam since 1994 with two branches in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Last year, both of its branches posted no non-performing loans and a total of VND291.6 billion (over US$12.8 million) in net profit. It is also Eximbanks strategic investor who currently holds 15 percent of the Vietnam-based banks charter capital.President Quang and his spouse were greeted by Bangladeshi President Mohammad Abdul Hamid with a 21-gun salute during an official welcome ceremony at the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport.

The staff of the Vietnamese Embassy and Vietnamese businessmen in Bangladesh were also present at the welcome ceremony.

The visit takes place at a time when Vietnam and Bangladesh are celebrating the 45th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties. It affirms Vietnams consistent external policy of independence, self-reliance, and multilateralisation and diversification of foreign relations, including the long-standing friendship and multifaceted cooperation with Bangladesh.

President Tran Dai Quang (left) is greeted by Bangladeshi President Mohammad Abdul Hamid.

The visit is expected to blow a breath of fresh air into bilateral economic and trade relations. With many potential for cooperation in the fields of agriculture, pharmaceuticals and electronics, the two sides are striving to achieve the target of more than US$1 billion in two-way trade.

Earlier the same day, President Tran Dai Quang wrapped up his three-day State visit to India. He sent a message of thanks to Indian President Ram Nath Kovind, appreciating the warm welcome and sentiments the President, senior leaders and people of India extended to him and the Vietnamese delegation.Question: 45 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Bangladesh, the two countries ties have strongly developed in various areas, may you share the biggest achievements that the two sides have made during this period?



Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina: The people of Bangladesh and Vietnam have similarity in their struggle for independence. Founding Father of the Nation of Bangladesh Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Founder of modern Vietnam Ho Chi Minh - both had struggled for long and endured immense sufferings to free their people from subjugation. There are similarities in social and cultural traditions as well. Vietnams epic struggle for independence inspired us in our war of independence in 1971.



During late 1960s, as a student leader, I myself led and participated protest rallies against the Vietnam War. The people of Bangladesh were with the people of Vietnam in their struggle to free their country from occupation forces.



Over the years there has been exchange of high level visits in government level and political level between the two countries. The Bangladeshi people are visiting Vietnam for touristic purpose.

People-to-people contact has thus increased. Bilateral cooperation in other sectors is also expanding.



However, friendship between the people of two countries and political understanding and goodwill generated between the government and leadership of the two countries are the biggest achievements.



Question: Can you point out the advantages and disadvantages of the two countries for further promoting cooperation?



Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina: Both Bangladesh and Vietnam are pursuing for rapid economic growth. Over the recent decades both countries achieved significant success. While we are competing in few areas, we believe there are complimentary between our economies where we could cooperate and further strengthen trade and investment relations.



Scope of cooperation also exists in agriculture, pharmaceutical, small and medium manufacturing sectors. We need to identify the complementarities in these sectors, exchange knowledge and expertise and avail opportunities in the global markets for the benefit of both the countries.



The idea is to complement each other and build synergies between the two countries. There cant be any disadvantage when if the mutual cooperation is on win-win basis.



Question: What do you think about the potentialities that two countries can tap?

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina: We are pursuing rapid economic development. We need to strengthen cooperation in garnering benefits from multilateral trade regimes promoting business and investment in both the countries.

We can also cooperate with each other in small-medium manufacturing sector and ICT. We may also share best practices in attaining the sustainable development goals (SDGs).



Question: Can you point out how two countries can push the cooperation in the coming time, especially to realise the target of US$ one billion?



Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina: Both Bangladesh and Vietnam agreed to intensify trade and investment promotion activities, strengthen cooperation among the private sectors of both countries and strive to achieve the target to increase bilateral trade volume to US$ one billion.



We are happy to see bilateral trade has reached around US$ 900 million in 2017. Removing trade barriers, intensifying contact between business people and investors can be useful for enhancing trade. Entrepreneurs and businessmen of both countries should explore opportunities in each others country.



We are emphasising on connectivity and tourism to increase people-to-people contact. These measures would help realising the target.



Question: What do you think about the significance of the Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quangs visit to the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh?



Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina: Bangladesh maintains warm and friendly relations with Vietnam. We established diplomatic relations immediately after our independence. Over the years, good understanding, cooperation and goodwill developed between the two countries.



This year we are celebrating 45th anniversary of the diplomatic relation. The current visit of the President Tran Dai Quang also marks the occasion. This visit is indicative of Vietnams interest to enhance friendship and cooperation with Bangladesh.



Similarly, Bangladesh is very much eager to further deepen friendship and sectoral cooperation with our close regional neighbor Vietnam. During the visit, a number of MoUs on bilateral cooperation will be concluded.



The visit will help bring the two countries further closer. President Tran Dai Quangs visit will go a long way in taking our relations to a new height.



Minister Mahmood Ali recalled the sentiments that the Bangladeshi people have always extended to their Vietnamese counterparts, and believed that President Quangs visit will usher in a new chapter in relations between the two nations.

President Quang thanked the Bangladeshi State for its solemn welcome for the Vietnamese delegation and congratulated the country on its recent achievements.

He suggested the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two countries to urge other ministries and sectors to effectively carry out high-level agreements and deploy practical activities celebrating the 45th founding anniversary of diplomatic ties, especially people-to-people exchanges and business networking, in order to deepen the bilateral relationship.

Later on the same day, President Quang, his spouse and entourage visited the Vietnamese embassys staff and representatives of overseas Vietnamese who are living, working and studying in Bangladesh.

President Tran Dai Quang talks with the Vietnamese embassys staff and representatives of overseas Vietnamese in Bangladesh. (Credit: VOV)

He highly valued the embassys efforts in implementing the Party's guidlines and State's policies as well as in citizen protection activities.

On the occasion, the President briefed the participants on the home countrys socio-economic and security situation and achievements in foreign affairs, specially the successful hosting of the APEC Year 2017.

President Quang asked overseas Vietnamese in Bangladesh to continue to enhance the solidarity and make practical contributions to their homeland as well as positively contribute to their host country and work to further strengthen the fine relationship between Vietnam and Bangladesh.>>> Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quangs activities in Bangladesh



>>> President arrives in Dhaka, beginning State visit to Bangladesh

The newspaper quoted President Tran Dai Quang as saying, in an interview granted to the Bangladeshi press, that Vietnam and Bangladesh have a time-honoured friendship based on historical similarities and shared values of independence, peace, cooperation and development.

Since the establishment of their diplomatic ties 45 years ago, the leaders and people of the two nations have treasured and preserved this valuable tradition, whilst sparing no effort to further enhance the development of their bilateral relations.

We want and believe that the relevant agencies of both nations will make the most of these potential and advantages to seek suitable measures and develop the bilateral relations more practically and effectively, thereby meeting the aspirations and interests of their people, said the Vietnamese President.

In an earlier article, the newspaper quoted a senior official at the foreign ministry as saying that the two countries want to raise their bilateral trade to US$1 billion.

Bangladesh and Vietnam are currently enjoying economic cooperation, with trade reaching US$609 million in 2016 from only US$93 million in 2009. Bangladesh exports pharmaceuticals, raw materials for garments and machinery to Vietnam, while Vietnam's major exports to Bangladesh include iron, steel, fibre, textiles, plastics, rubber and electronics, the article wrote.

It reported that some 100 business representatives from top Vietnamese companies are accompanying the Vietnamese president on the visit to Bangladesh. They will interact with their Bangladeshi counterparts and explore the trade and investment potential in Bangladesh.

The paper also noted that Dhaka is eager to connect itself with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose members are Vietnam, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.

According to the paper, the diplomatic circle in Dhaka attaches significant importance to the upcoming visit of President Tran Dai Quang, during which the two countries are expected to sign about half a dozen agreements and memorandums of understanding for the promotion of trade, investment, connectivity and cooperation during the visit.

It recalled that several high-ranking officials of Bangladesh have visited in recent years. President Mohammad Abdul Hamid visited Vietnam in August 2015, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in November 2015 and Speaker of the Parliament Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury in July 2017.The event drew the presence of Vo Van Thuong, Politburo member, Secretary of the PCC and head of the PCCs Communication and Education Commission; To Lam, Politburo member and Minister of Public Security; and Nguyen Xuan Thang, Secretary of the PCC and Director of the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics.

Delegates at the seminar discussed the important role of the Vietnam Peoples Police over the past years, praising its absolute loyalty to the country and people, Party and State, as well as its ties to the people and readiness to protect the nation, as well as its courage in fighting enemies and crime.

The police are urged to continue to protect national independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; safeguard the Party, State, people, and socialist state; ensure political security and social safety; and maintain peace for national development.

Every officer and soldier working in the sector should always endeavour to improve their qualifications and promote solidarity, in order to meet the requirements of the current situation.During his visit to the town on March 5, Vice Chairman Hien praised Nghia Los growth in trade and services, as well as its building of a smart town and maintenance of outstanding economic models.

As a cradle of ancient Thai peoples culture, Nghia Lo should step up the promotion of its culture and people, he said, asking the locality to promote agricultural production towards high quality and pay attention to industry-craft industry.

While building the town, Nghia Lo needs to roll out both a master plan and specific planning schemes of residents, embankments and roads, the legislator noted.

He used the occasion to laud Nghia Los performance in poverty reduction and settlement of natural disaster consequences.

At the working session, Nghia Lo leaders proposed the legislature soon ratify the plan on administrative expansion for Nghia Lo in order to turn the town into a centre of culture, services and tourism of Yen Bais western region and a third-tier urban area.

The local leaders also called for the NAs support for the building of resettlement areas for families in natural disaster-prone areas, and the construction of bridges, embankments and roads destroyed by downpours and floods.

Nghia Lo also proposed the NA and the Government invest in the section connecting National Highway 32 in Nghia Lo with the Noi Bai-Lao Cai Highway the IC 14 intersection.* Mexican negotiators taking part in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) talks in Mexico City, Mexico, said on March 4 it is still possible to find a compromise to the automobiles rules of origin dispute, despite planned U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.



* U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold talks on March 5 that offer a chance to project a common front against Iran but are expected to do little to advance seemingly stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace prospects.



* The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has not discussed "at this stage" extending production cuts into next year, the group's president said on March 4, adding that reducing global crude supply inventories remained its focus.



Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouei, the United Arab Emirates oil minister and OPEC's president, said in a brief interview ahead of the CERAWeek energy conference in Houston: "We feel there is still some market overhang."



* The United States has officially declared that it will not allow any military aggression against Qatar, according to a recent report by the Doha-based Arab Centre for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS).Highways to reach all townships in Tibet by 2020

LHASA, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Southwest China's Tibet will strive to make highways reach all townships and administrative villages by 2020 in a bid to boost rural development, said the regional transport authorities.

By 2020, all townships which meet necessary conditions and 80 percent of administrative villages would have access to bus service, said a senior transport official of Tibet Autonomous Region.

Road construction will help the region reduce poverty and increase the income of farmers and herders, according to the official.

This year, the region will launch projects to make 13 townships and more than 1,000 villages connected by asphalt or cement roads.

Rural road mileage in Tibet is currently 60,421 km, compared with 53,244 km in 2012, thanks to heavy investment in this field.DAMASCUS, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Sunday that the offensive against the rebels in the capital Damascus' Eastern Ghouta countryside will continue in tandem with allowing civilians to leave toward government-controlled areas in Damascus, as the Syrian army has made significant progress, capturing 36 percent of the areas held by the rebels.

Assad said most of the civilians in Eastern Ghouta want to leave the rebel-held areas toward government areas, noting that there is no contradiction between establishing cease-fire in that area to allow the civilians to leave and the military operation against the "terrorists."

Assad made the remarks as a Russian-backed partial humanitarian pause has been taking place in Eastern Ghouta to allow the civilians to leave that area since last week, while military operations continue after the end of the daily five-hour-long pause.

No civilians have left and no humanitarian convoys entered that area, with the government accusing the rebels of preventing the civilians from leaving.

In his Sunday comments, Assad said the Russian-proposed humanitarian pause balances between giving a space to the humanitarian work and at the same time achieving the goal of striking the "terrorists."

"This is why we must continue in this operation in tandem with giving the civilians the opportunity to leave toward the state areas (government-controlled)," he said.

He hailed the progress made by the Syrian army in that sprawling rebel-held enclave in the eastern countryside of Damascus.

Meanwhile, the War Media, the media wing of the Syrian army, said in a statement late on Sunday that the Syrian forces have made important progress in Eastern Ghouta over the past few days, capturing large swathes of areas in the eastern part of Eastern Ghouta, reaching the central sector of that area.

It said the Syrian army forces have captured 38 square km, or 36 percent of Eastern Ghouta, which is estimated at 105 square km.

The Syrian forces that are advancing from the eastern side are only 3 km from the military units in the western part of that rebel-held enclave.

When the two units meet, Eastern Ghouta would be split in half, the statement said.

As Assad has said that the military operations against the rebels in Eastern Ghouta, mainly the al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee (LLC), otherwise known as the Nusra Front, the humanitarian work, which has been hindered during the past days, is expected to continue as of Monday.

The United Nations said in a statement Sunday that it's planning to deliver humanitarian assistance to the rebel-held Douma district in Eastern Ghouta.

In a statement, the UN said the aid convoy will consist of 46 truckloads of health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people in need and will be led by Ali Al-Za'tari, the UN Resident Humanitarian Coordinator.

"We hope that the convoy may proceed as planned and will be followed by other convoys. Our teams on the ground are ready to do all that is needed to make this happen," stated al-Za'tari, according to the statement.

The UN said it had received approval to deliver assistance for 70,000 people in need in Douma, adding that assurances were made that the remaining supplies for all approved people in need will be delivered on March 8.

The only UN delivery of assistance to Eastern Ghouta in 2018 was on Feb. 14, when a convoy with assistance for 7,200 people reached Nashabiyeh, said the statement.

Meanwhile, Syria' Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said the Syrian government is ready to send aid to Eastern Ghouta, noting that the rebels have targeted the crossing point into Eastern Ghouta.

Eastern Ghouta has been the major threat to Damascus since the rebels took hold in that area in 2012, with armed militants keeping launching attacks on the capital with mortar shells and in some instance through implementing incursion attempts.

Four major rebel groups are currently positioned inside Eastern Ghouta, namely the Islam Army, Failaq al-Rahman, Ahrar al-Sham and the LLC.

Eastern Ghouta has grabbed international attention recently since the military showdown started to gain momentum on Feb. 18.

The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2401 on Feb. 24, which requires all parties in Syria to immediately cease clashes and provides a sustained humanitarian break for at least 30 days across Syria.

Two days later, the Russians demanded a daily humanitarian pause for five hours in Eastern Ghouta specifically.

But those initiatives have slightly reduced the number of rebels' mortar shells on the capital and the Syrian airstrikes and bombardment on Eastern Ghouta.

During the five-hour-long truce, the situation becomes calm, but the military confrontation continues right afterward.

The oppositional Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the government forces' bombardment and airstrikes on Eastern Ghouta have killed over 600 people since the situation started flaring last month.U.S. embassy to Turkey to close on Monday over security threat

ANKARA, March 4 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. embassy to Turkey said in a statement on Sunday that it will be closed to public on March 5 because of a security threat.

The embassy, however, did not specify what security threat had prompted the closure decision.

It advised U.S. citizens in Turkey to be aware of their own security when visiting popular tourist sites and crowded places.

According to the statement, only emergency services will be provided on Monday, while visa interviews and other routine services will be cancelled.

The U.S. embassy will announce its reopening once it resumes services, the statement added.China to lift over 10 mln people out of poverty in 2018

China will further reduce the poor rural population by over 10 million, including 2.8 million people who are to be relocated from inhospitable areas, Premier Li Keqiang said Monday.

Poverty alleviation efforts will be carried on through the development of local industries, education, and healthcare, Li said when delivering a government work report at the annual parliamentary session.

China will do more to support areas affected by extreme poverty, and the central budget's newly enlarged poverty reduction funds and related transfer payments will be weighted toward these areas.

Li said that China will tailor measures to individuals and individual households to ensure that targeted poor populations, including elderly people, people with disabilities, and people with serious diseases, receive the assistance they need.

Poverty relief policies will remain unchanged for those already lifted out of poverty while the battle goes on, and the newly poor and those who slip back into poverty will receive prompt support, he said.

The premier promised targeted measures against corruption and misconduct in poverty alleviation.

China will continue to apply the current poverty alleviation standards and ensure that poverty reduction progresses as planned and meets all standards, he said.BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The draft amendment to China's Constitution is scheduled to be submitted to the national legislature for deliberation Monday, which is expected to enshrine Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in the fundamental law.

"The constitutional revision is a major move to advance law-based governance and modernize China's system and capacity for governance," read an explanation on the revisions to be delivered to lawmakers Monday morning at the first session of the 13th National People's Congress.

The draft suggests Xi Jinping thought be juxtaposed with Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, and the Theory of Three Represents as a new guiding theory in the preamble of the Constitution.

Scientific Outlook on Development is also proposed to be constitutionalized this time.

"The addition establishes their guiding status in the country's political and social life, reflects common aspirations of people of all ethnic groups, embodies the unity in the Party's advocacy and people's will, and makes clear the common ideological foundation for the entire Party and all the Chinese people to strive for national rejuvenation," read the document.

According to the explanation, a sentence reading "The leadership of the Communist Party of China is the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics" was proposed to be added into the Constitution.

"Adding the constitutional provision on upholding and strengthening overall Party leadership from the perspective of the very nature of China's socialist system is conducive to boosting the awareness of the Party's leadership among all the Chinese people, effectively integrating the Party's leadership with the entire process and all aspects of the country's work, and ensuring the Party and the country's undertakings to always forge ahead in the correct direction," it read.BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China will do more in implementing the innovation-driven development strategy, and keep on making the Chinese economy more innovative and competitive, Premier Li Keqiang said Monday when delivering a government work report at the annual parliamentary session.

The country will empower innovation teams and leaders by seeing that they have more human, financial, and material resources at their disposal and more power to make decisions related to technology roadmaps.

Overseas Chinese students are encouraged to return to China to pursue business and other innovative ventures. The country will also attract more foreign talent, Li said.

Basic research and application-oriented basic research will be strengthened. A number of major science and technology innovation programs will be launched, and top-quality national laboratories will be set up, the premier said.

Enterprises are encouraged to head up major science and technology programs. Collaborative innovation by research institutes, universities, and enterprises are also supported, according to him.

China will establish a state financing guaranty fund, support leading innovative enterprises in going public, and extend nationwide the pilot preferential tax policies for venture capital investment and angel investment, Li said.BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Premier Li Keqiang vowed no tolerance of any separatist scheme or activity for "Taiwan independence" in a government work report to the national legislature.

"We will remain firm in safeguarding China's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Li said when delivering the report to the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) Monday morning.

Upholding the one-China principle, the Chinese mainland will continue to promote peaceful development of cross-Strait relations on the basis of the 1992 Consensus, and advance China's peaceful reunification, he said.

Li promised that the mainland will expand cross-Strait economic and cultural exchanges and cooperation, and ensure that over time, people from Taiwan come to enjoy the same treatment as mainlanders when they pursue study, do business, work or live on the mainland.

"As fellow Chinese living on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, we share a bond of kinship. As long as we go with the tide of history and work together for our nation's greater good, we will together create the future -- a beautiful future of national rejuvenation," he said.BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China will open doors wider to foreign investors this year by completely opening up its general manufacturing sector and expand access to a number of other sectors, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said Monday.

Foreign investors will have wider access to sectors like telecommunications, medical services, education, elderly care and new energy vehicles, said Li when delivering a government work report to the first session of the 13th National People's Congress.

"We will make market entry standards the same for both Chinese and foreign banks," he said.

To open up the financial sector, China will phase in an opening up of bank card clearing and other markets, lift restrictions on the scope of operations of foreign-invested insurance agent companies, and ease or lift restrictions on the share of foreign-owned equity in companies in sectors including banking and securities.

Overseas investors will be granted tax deferral for the reinvestment of profit made in China, while procedures for setting up foreign-invested enterprises will be simplified, and business filing and business registration will be processed together in one go.

The government will also spread the use of practices developed in existing free trade zones all over the country, and explore opening free trade ports, he said.Outbound visits by Chinese residents hit a record high of over 130 million in 2017, making China the world's biggest source of outbound travelers, said an industry report released on Thursday.

Japan embraces huge influx of Chinese tourists during the Spring Festival vacation on February 13, 2018. (Photo: Peoples Daily Online)

Chinas outbound travelers spent $115.29 billion last year, the report released by China Tourism Academy (CTA) and the online travel service Ctrip.

The report found that Chinas outbound tourists now have a higher demand on the quality of tourism products, with more of them preferring premium and customized trips, looking for more foreign experience.

Living conditions and services, rather than shopping and sightseeing, were given more weight by Chinese tourists. The outbound travel has now also grown into a gauge measuring the happiness of Chinese families and the young generations.

Thailand, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, the US, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and Maldives were considered the top-10 favorite destinations of Chinese tourists.

A department store in Jakarta, capital city of Indonesia hangs banner to greet the Chinese New Year. (Photo by Xi Laiwang from Peoples Daily)

A series of measures have been introduced by global tourism destinations to lure Chinese visitors. Indonesia, for example, is planning to develop 10 new islands similar to Bali, while countries in Southeast Asia will invest over $100 billion in airports, railways, hotels, and theme park construction, in a bid to accommodate more Chinese travelers.

Japan has optimized its Chinese language services in major tourist sites and shopping malls by employing Chinese-speaking tour guides and shop assistants. The country has also expanded the access of mobile payment used by Chinese visitors.

In 2017, tens of thousands of merchants across over 30 countries and regions accepted Chinas Alipay and WeChat Pay as payment options.The fifth Chinese peacekeeping police team to Liberia withdrew from the peacekeeping area on Wednesday 28 February this year after finishing their missions, marking the end of Chinas 14-year peacekeeping operations in Liberia.

Liberian President George Weah (second from left) shakes hands with a member of the fifth Chinese peacekeeping police team in Monrovia, capital of Liberia. (Photo by Zhao Xiaoxin from Peoples Daily)

The Chinese police force was presented with the National Award certificate of Liberia by the countrys President George Weah, who also expressed gratitude to the Chinese peacekeepers.

According to United Nations (UN) resolutions, the team shall withdraw from the area as the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) will end its term before March 30, 2018.

China has contributed the most peacekeepers among all permanent members of the UN Security Council. It has sent over 36,000 peacekeepers for 24 UN operations after it was first involved in such missions in 1990. As of now, 2,500 Chinese soldiers are still on peacekeeping fronts.

China remains the second largest contributor regarding financial support on UN peacekeeping undertakings following the US. Its expenditures account for 10.2 percent of the UNs budget on peacekeeping between 2016 and 2018.

Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that China would join the new UN peacekeeping capability readiness system by taking the lead to set up a permanent peacekeeping police squad and building a peacekeeping standby force of 8,000 troops, at the Leaders' Summit on Peacekeeping at the UN headquarters in September 2015.

The Chinese peacekeeping standby force registered at UN in September 2017. In the following month, the Peoples Liberation Army ground force started to set up 19 peacekeeping standby troops of 6 types, including infantry battalions, peacekeeping sapper units, transportation detachments, guard teams, quick response units and helicopter units.China on the way to deeper reforms of Party and state institutions

The 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee issued a communique at the end of its three-day third plenary session, which concluded on Wednesday. According to the communique, the plenary session reviewed and adopted a decision by the CPC Central Committee on deepening reform of Party and state institutions as well as guidelines for the reform.

Deeper reform on Party and state institutions is a profound evolution in modernizing China's system and capacity for governance, the communique said.

The 19th CPC National Congress proposed to move on to all-out efforts to build a great modern socialist country, and made clear that the overall goal of deepening reform in every field is to improve and develop the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and modernize Chinas system and capacity for governance.

The third plenary session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, convened four months after the conclusion of the 19th CPC National Congress, has drawn special attention. Previously, the third plenary sessions, aimed at studying reform agenda, were usually convened in the second half of the year over the past four decades.

The plenary session made clear that the goal of deepening reform of Party and state institutions is to establish a Party and state institutional function system that is well conceived, fully built, procedure based, and efficiently functioning.

Deeper reform will form a CPC leadership system that ensures the Party always provides overall leadership and coordinates the efforts of all involved, a law-based administrative governance system with clear functions and responsibilities, a world-class armed forces system with Chinese characteristics, as well as a sound work system of people's organizations for bridging and serving the general populace.

The reform will also promote coordinated actions and resultant forces among the peoples congresses, governments, political advisory bodies, and supervisory, judicial and prosecutorial organs, people's organizations, enterprises, public institutions, and social organizations under the unified leadership of the CPC.

Deeper reform on the CPC and state institutions will improve China's governance level and capacity, the communique added.

A primary task of deepening reform of the Party and state institutions is to improve the system for upholding overall Party leadership in a bid to strengthen the CPC's leadership in every sector, ensure its all-encompassing coverage and make it more forceful, according to the communique.

The institutional reform is a self-revolution, a profound change on national governance, a necessary requirement to strengthen the Partys long-term governance capacity, and a prerequisite to build a modern socialist country and realize national rejuvenation, Peoples Daily said in a commentary published on Thursday.

The newspaper admitted some existing challenges encountered by the Party and state institutions, such as defects in the structure and allocation of functions in some Party institutions, as well as unscientific duty division, unfulfilled duties and low efficiency of some state organs.

Besides, checks and oversight over the exercise of power in some fields need further optimization, and issues including abuse of power and influence peddling still exist, the paper added.Chinas first self-developed Fuxing bullet train, during the past Spring Festival travel rush, became the first choice for passengers in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing and Guangzhou owing to its fast, smooth and comfortable traveling experience. The secrets behind its outstanding performance are the world-class technologies independently developed by Chinese engineers.

Foreign passengers take photos with the Fuxing bullet train. (Photo by Wang Chu from Peoples Daily Online)

Years ago, it took a whole day to travel from Beijing to Shanghai on a train that runs about 100 kilometers per hour, recalled Kang Shunxing, vice director of ticket office at Beijing South Station. Since the Fuxing and some other high-speed trains started operation, passengers have been able to make a return trip between the two cities within a day, Kang added.

A test made by a passenger on the fast-moving Fuxing train showed that the plastic water bottle placed upside down can stand still though the train runs at the speed of 350 kilometers per hour (kph).

One secret to the fast speed and smooth experience on Fuxing trains lies in the gear case, a core component that can be used for a maximum of 30 years. Each gear in the Fuxing trains can run 24 million kilometers, which equals to the distance of circling around the earth for 600 times.

In a factory located in east Chinas Jiangsu province that produces gear cases for the Fuxing trains, all the manufacturing and assembling processes are under data control so as to guarantee a high-level accuracy regarding the tightness of bolts.

The first batch of passengers get on the Fuxing bullet train on Sept. 21, 2017 when seven pairs of trains start running between Beijing and Shanghai at the speed of 350 kilometers per hour. (Photo by Wang Chu from Peoples Daily Online)

Shaping remains the most important procedure of making a driving wheel, said Lu Yanlong, chief expert of vehicle manufacturing techniques in CRRC Qishuyan Locomotive & Rolling Stock Technology Research Institute.

The surface accuracy of gears is required to reach micron order, as small as one fiftieth of a hair, otherwise the meshing between gear teeth and lifetime of wear and tear will be affected, Lu added.

Fuxing, meaning rejuvenation literally, started operation in June, 2017. Its a flagship China-made product as all the software used in the train was independently developed by Chinese engineers.

The digital screen inside Fuxing shows the train runs at the speed of 350 kilometers per hour. (Photo by Wang Chu from Peoples Daily Online)

Some technologies adopted by Fuxing bullet train have been pace-setter in the world. Among the 254 standards of the core technologies used in the trains, up to 84 percent are Chinese-developed ones that are now followed by other countries.China to do more to improve people's wellbeing: Premier Li

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China will do more to directly benefit the people, address their difficulties, and ensure that their basic living needs are met, Premier Li Keqiang said Monday.

"Our aim is to help people feel more satisfied, happier, and more secure," Li said when delivering a government work report at the opening meeting of the annual parliamentary session.

China will launch a new three-year renovation plan to address housing in rundown urban areas, starting with construction of 5.8 million units this year.

The premier reiterated that "houses are for living in, not for speculation."

"We will support people in buying homes for personal use, and develop the housing rental market and shared ownership housing," he said.

"We will step up efforts to supply public-rental housing so that all eligible low-income families struggling with housing, including eligible houseless first-time workers and migrant workers, are able to access public-rental housing under this scheme," he said.

The government will focus on boosting employment and business startups. China will strengthen employment services, launch a large-scale vocational skills training initiative and use the Internet Plus model to create new kinds of jobs.

With over 8.2 million college students graduating this year, reaching an all-time high again, the country needs to expand the channels for employment and support job creation through business startups, Li said.

Talking about the increase of people's incomes, he said the government will continue raising basic pension payments for retirees and basic pension benefits for rural and non-working urban residents while appropriately adjust minimum wages.

China will develop fair, high-quality education by promoting the integrated development of urban and rural compulsory education, significantly reducing the rural drop-out rate, moving faster to put an end to big class sizes in urban schools, and addressing the problem of heavy extracurricular burdens on primary and secondary school students, Li said.

The government will implement the Healthy China strategy, raise the basic medical insurance and serious disease insurance benefits.

Li said per capita government subsidies for basic health insurance for rural and non-working urban residents will be increased by 40 yuan (about 6.3 U.S. dollars), half of which will be used for the serious disease insurance scheme.

To meet people's basic living needs, China will steadily raise urban and rural subsistence allowances, social assistance benefits, and benefits for entitled groups, according to the report.

The government will take proactive measures to tackle population aging, including developing at-home, community-based, and mutual-aid elderly care, promoting integrated medical and elderly care services, and improving the quality of services at senior care facilities.

"China will develop a new model of social governance based on collaboration, co-governance, and common gains," Li said.China is expected to continue its strong progress toward eliminating extreme poverty, the World Bank said in its latest report, projecting its extreme poverty rate to fall below one percent in 2018, based on the international poverty line of purchasing power parity (PPP) US$1.90 per day.

Sanjiang Dong Autonomous County in Chinas Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region has lifted its villagers out of poverty by developing cultural industry. Such efforts include building cultural bases, staging art exhibition, setting up experience houses and others. (Photo by Peoples Daily Online)

The report, subtitled "Towards a More Inclusive and Sustainable Development" highlighted China's rapid growth has resulted in a decline in poverty "unprecedented in its speed and scale".

In its new Systematic Country Diagnostic for China, the bank believed that the worlds second largest economy can secure more inclusive and sustainable development with coordinated reforms across a broad range of areas that maximize development impact and address its development challenges.

Rapid growth was made possible by a wide range of reforms, which transformed a state-dominated, planned, rural, and closed economy to a more market-based, urbanized, and open economy, the report said.

Chinas transition to more inclusive and sustainable growth, according to the bank, will be underpinned by reforms of the countrys governance and institutions.

Chinas real per capita income increased 16 times between 1978 and 2014, said the report, adding that this enabled its extreme poverty rate, based on the international PPP US$1.90 per day poverty line, to fall from 88.3 percent in 1981 to 1.9 percent in 2013.

Photo taken is the newly-built roads of Nanmen village, Heishan town, Wansheng Economic and Technological Development Zone of Chongqing. The roads, built at an altitude of 1,000 meters, accelerate the pace of the village to get out of poverty. (Photo by Peoples Daily Online)

This implies that Chinas success enabled more than 850 million people to escape poverty, it pointed out.

"China's remarkable progress in reducing extreme poverty has significantly contributed to the decline in global poverty," said Hoon S. Soh, World Bank Program Leader for economic policy for China.

The World Bank will continue to support China in its efforts to eliminate extreme poverty and ensure inclusive and sustainable growth, he vowed.Zhejiang, Chinas eastern province will build the countrys first intelligent super expressway, the Department of Transportation of Zhejiang Province recently said.

A motorist tests the quick-charging service for electric vehicles at an expressway service area in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. The service has nearly achieved full coverage in the province. (Photo by Peoples Daily Online)

The 161-kilometer expressway, which is currently under construction, starts from Hangzhou and goes all the way to Ningbo via Shaoxing.

It was learned that the two-way, six-lane super freeway is designed to enable travel at China's top speed limit of 120 kilometers per hour, and is projected to open to traffic before 2022 when Hangzhou hosts the 19th Asian Games.

Upon completion, it will be a green and safe expressway equipped with smart technology.

Industry insiders pointed out that the new intelligent expressway system will incorporate a comprehensive monitoring system as well as a warning system to maintain the safety of vehicles while increasing the average traffic speed.

The current average expressway traffic speed of Zhejiang is estimated at 90 kilometers per hour. Through the smart system and vehicle management, the intelligent freeway is expected to increase the average traffic speed by 20 to 30 percent.

In addition, the system is projected to support autonomous driving in the future by using Internet and Vehicles technology.

With the high-accuracy positioning, traffic-road synergy, and automatic driving systems, the vision of accident-free is expected to be eventually achieved.

Data shows that the number of new energy automobiles sold in China reached 777,000 in 2017, up 53 percent on a year-to-year basis.

The rapid development of Chinas new energy automobile industry has increased demand for hardware, including charging devices.

The short-term goal of the super expressway is to offer charging services to electric vehicles through solar power and photovoltaic generation, as well as charging piles. Mobile charging will also be made possible on the super expressway in the future.

The freeway will give consideration to both innovation and economic applicability of new materials, making it possible to be duplicated, said Ren Zhong, deputy director of the Provincial Department of Transportation.

The first phase of the project in Ningbo will be started this year.Lighting the passion of Chinese people, the recently screened military blockbuster Operation Red Sea, a film loosely based on the evacuation of hundreds of Chinese citizens and foreign nationals from Yemen's southern port of Aden during the Yemeni Civil War in March 2015, has attracted worldwide attention on Chinas sense of responsibility to safeguard world peace.

Lines in the movies such as The strong are invincible and The Chinese Navy will take you home not only present the confidence of modern Chinese service personnel, but also show the pride of Chinese as citizens of a stronger country.

Even foreigners hailed the movie. Operation Red Sea, which tells the story of how the Chinese Navy's elite special forces saved Chinese and foreign nationals in war and foiled a terrorist plot, is rightly a portrayal of the Chinese armys sense of mission to guard world peace.

China has won a reputation from the whole world with its responsible actions like the escort missions to the Gulf of Aden that started a decade ago, the evacuation of Chinese and foreign nationals from Yemen in 2015, as well as the efforts made by Chinese peace-keeping forces in global destinations.

Confidence comes from Chinas increasing national strength. The country has shaken off the weaknesses and confusion it had 120 years ago as the last century has witnessed how China stood up, grew rich and became strong. China is now marching towards the center of the world stage.

Excellent art reflects the times. Just as Singaporean newspaper Lianhe Zaobao pointed out, Operation Red Sea presents the Chinese Navys image and Chinas national strength to the world.

The real stories behind the film tell more people Chinas sense of duty when people around the world are facing common threats, refuting the China threat theory hyped by some foreign politicians.

The pirates and terrorist threats depicted in the movie are epitome of the security challenges confronted by todays world where hard nuts come one after another. Against such a backdrop, the world needs more efforts from China.

The current world, where regional conflicts and terrorist threats are frequently seen, is not peaceful, said Alastair Reed, acting director of the International Center for Counter-Terrorism-the Hague.

The international community requires more efforts to stop war, and in this regard, the stronger combat capabilities of the Chinese army will contribute to the rise of peaceful forces.

Operation Red Sea is one of the recent military movies screened by China. Striking a chord, those films have not only shown an unwarlike but fearless image of the country, but revealed its confidence in its strength as well as courage to safeguard justice.

Russian news site Rossiya Segodnya commented that China, dreaming of building a strong army, has no intention of undermining interests or interfering in the domestic affairs of other countries.

The world will never forget the grateful tears shed by the Pakistani ambassador after Chinese army evacuated Pakistani citizens from Yemen, or the Chinese angels in white who brought hope to West Africa in the latters battle with the virus Ebola.

The world will never forget the Chinese escort fleets that have protected over 6,000 vessels, over half of which were foreign vessels and World Food Programme ships, in the pirate-infested waters of the Gulf of Aden and Somalia.

All these operations have manifested Chinas sense of responsibility in upholding justice, safeguarding peace and ensuring security.

With stronger national strength, a more modern China is providing the world with more and more security.

As a permanent member of the UN Security Council, China has sent nearly 40,000 peacekeepers in total, outnumbering other members of the council.

China is living up to its promise of always being a builder of world peace by concrete actions. The country, for instance, established the China-UN peace and development fund, joined the UN peacekeeping capability readiness system and supported Africas peacekeeping capacity building.

It also promised to establish an international law enforcement institute under the Ministry of Public Security with the aim of training law enforcement personnel for developing countries.

Im a feather in the big world, but the feather also holds wishes for peace, wrote He Zhihong, a Chinese peacekeeping policewoman who died in a peacekeeping operation in Haiti.

Now hundreds of thousands of feathers like He have united into a pair of strong wings, shouldering responsibilities for the world, and getting ready to embrace the hope for peace.The fight against corruption is among the hottest topics of the upcoming annual sessions of the National Peoples Congress (NPC) and Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), also referred as the two sessions, according to a recent survey by Peoples Daily Online.

The first session of the 13th NPC and the first session of the 13th CPPCC are scheduled to begin on March 5 and 3, respectively, in Beijing. The two conferences are of great sig-nificance for Chinas future reform and development.

The survey launched by Peoples Daily Online ahead of the important political event cov-ered corruption crackdown, social security, reform and opening up, rural vitalization, cul-tural confidence and other topics the Chinese are concerned about for the two ses-sions. The poll, conducted from February 8 to 27, reached over 4.21 million netizens.

Anti-corruption campaign, social security, education reform, medical reform and poverty alleviation were selected as the five topics of most concern, while reform and opening up and rural vitalization were among the hottest emerging topics, the poll found.

It is not the first time for corruption crackdown to be included in the list, as it has dominat-ed seven annual two sessions surveys during the past 16 years.

China maintained a tough stance on fighting corruption over the last year. Among major events of this kind in 2017, the pilot reform of the national supervision system received the most attention from the public, followed by the repatriation of over half of the Red No-tice corruption fugitives.

Another survey done by Peoples Daily Online in 16 provinces and cities revealed that anti-corruption campaigns targeting lower-ranking officials were also of concern. Many of the respondents believe that these campaigns have a closer relationship with peoples lives.

Aside from anti-corruption, national pool of pensions was also a focus of Chinese people. Over 40% of the respondents said that the elderly in empty nests are the most insecure group. They also voiced concerns about the problems of Chinas elderly care industry, such as the short supply of nursing facilities and high service costs.

Education reform came back as one of the top 3 anticipated topics for the two sessions after 13 years. More than half of the respondents believe that the rural-urban education gap has narrowed over the last year.

How to improve education in rural areas, especially remote areas, is also a focus of atten-tion. The netizens called on more efforts to boost rural compulsory education, enhance team building of rural teachers and optimizing school distribution in remote areas.

Reform and opening up, as well as rural vitalization, which were first taken as options in the survey, were 7th and 9th on the list.Chinese New Year is an occasion of sharing, caring and family gathering. It is celebrated in China and abroad. How do overseas Chinese celebrate this special occasion? How do people in San Francisco feel about it? Watch the video to find out.An Egyptian woman who was videotaped assaulting a policeman at Cairo International Airport three years ago was sentenced to a three-and-a-half years in prison on Sunday after being charged of assault and possession of drugs following a retrial.Yasmine El-Narsh was also hit with an EGP 50,000 fine by a Cairo criminal court.The case goes back to April 2015 when a video showing El-Narsh aggressively arguing with a policeman at the airport went viral, after she was told she could not board her plane to Hurghada because she was late.

Shortly after the video made rounds, the interior ministry issued a statement saying that drugs were discovered in El-Narsh's possession when she was searched in the wake of the incident.



However, her lawyer argued that the female airport employee who conducted the search on El-Narsh and found hashish had no legal right to do so since she was not part of the police force.

On February 2017, the Court of Cassation ordered a retrial for El-Narsh, cancelling a previous sentence issued in October 2015 of four years in prison, as well as a fine of EGP 50,000.

In February, El-Narsh was released on bail of EGP 20,000, after almost two years in prison.

Short link:

Cairo prosecutors have ordered the detention of Egyptian TV presenter Khairy Ramadan for four days pending investigations into charges of defaming the police apparatus.

Known as a vocal supporter of the state, Khairy has been accused of publishing and broadcasting fake news and statements against the police force, therefore defaming it.

The allegations follow an episode of his show Masr El-Naharda (Egypt Today) dealing with the issue of humble police salaries.

The detention order followed a complaint against Khairy filed by Egypt's interior ministry following the broadcast on Al-Oula, a state-run television channel that has recently been revamped to ragain its status as Egypt's pioneering channel.

In the episode broadcast on 18 February, Ramadan said he received a message from the wife of a police colonel complaining of low police wages, which she said was an issue faced by all police officers.

During a private meeting with Ramadan, the unidentified woman discussed the hardships faced by her household due to her husbands low salary. Ramadan was outspoken on the issue, showing his support for the wife during the episode.

This is not the first time that one of Ramadans nighttime broadcasts has been widely criticized for the issues discussed. In February 2016, his show Momken (It's Possible) on privately-owned channel CBC was suspended after a guest allegedly "insulted" women from Upper Egypt.

The show hosted Taymour El-Sobky, the then Facebook administrator of Diary of a Suffering Man, a Facebook group with over 1 million followers, who said that Egyptian women  especially from Upper Egypt  have a tendency to cheat on their husbands.



Short link:

Related State TV's Khairy Ramadan detained for four days pending investigations into charges of 'defaming police' A Cairo prosecution office has released Egyptian state TV presenter Khairy Ramadanon on EGP 10,000 bail pending investigations into charges of "defaming police."

Last night Cairo prosecutors ordered Ramadan's detention for four days after an episode of his show Masr El-Naharda (Egypt Today) dealing with the issue of humble police salaries aired on 18 February.

In the episode, Ramadan said he received a message from the wife of a police colonel complaining of low police wages, which she said was an issue faced by all police officers."

Known as a vocal supporter of the government, Khairy is accused of publishing and broadcasting fake news and statements against the police force, therefore defaming it.

The investigation was opened due to a complaint against the host filed by Egypt's Interior Ministry following the episode's broadcast on Al-Oula, a state-run television channel that has recently been revamped to regain its status as Egypt's pioneering channel.

During a private meeting with Ramadan, the unidentified woman discussed the hardships faced by her household due to her husbands low salary. Ramadan was outspoken on the issue, showing his support for the woman during the episode.

This is not the first time that one of Ramadans nighttime broadcasts has been widely criticized for the issues discussed.

In February 2016, his show Momken (It's Possible) on privately-owned channel CBC was suspended after a guest allegedly "insulted" women from Upper Egypt.

The show hosted Taymour El-Sobky, the then-administrator of Diary of a Suffering Man, a Facebook group with over 1 million followers.



El-Sobky claimed on the show that Egyptian women  especially from Upper Egypt  have a tendency to cheat on their husbands.

Short link:

Turkey said on Monday it had issued a second extradition request for Syrian Kurdish leader Saleh Muslim, calling for his temporary detention and extradition from Germany after a Czech court released him last week.

The issue is likely to come up when Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu meets German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel in Berlin on Tuesday. German ministry officials confirmed the planned meeting but gave no further details.

Muslim, who formerly headed the PYD, Syria's main Kurdish party, was detained in Prague last week at Turkey's request.

On Saturday, at a demonstration attended by thousands of Kurds in Berlin, Muslim called for an immediate halt to Turkey's military operation in the Afrin region in northern Syria.

"The situation is very miserable ... hundreds of civilians being killed," Muslim told Reuters TV. "Germany should not support them. Turkey is now attacking, mostly using German weapons ... This is support for state terrorism."

Ankara considers the PYD and its YPG armed group terrorist organisations and says Muslim is linked to two bombings in the capital Ankara that killed dozens. Turkey sees both groups as extensions of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, which has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast.

A Czech court ruled for Muslim's release, a move Turkey described as political, against international law and "clear support for terror". Ankara has said it would pursue Muslim "wherever he goes".

Muslim has said the allegations against him are false. He has also said he will remain in European Union territory and cooperate in any further proceedings.

Ankara requested Muslim's temporary detention and extradition from Germany on Friday but Berlin has yet to comply, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Monday.

"German authorities had to take measures and comply with the law between two countries, but unfortunately they have not complied," Bozdag, the main government spokesman, told a news conference. "We will... continue to invite Germany to act honestly and sincerely."

German officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the extradition request, which could complicate efforts by the two NATO allies to begin repairing their strained diplomatic relations.

Ankara launched a military operation inside Syria six weeks ago to sweep YPG fighters from its southern border.

Relations between Turkey and Europe have soured in the aftermath of a 2016 failed coup, as President Tayyip Erdogan has overseen a sweeping crackdown. More than 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs, and more than 50,000 detained. Turkey says the measures are necessary for its security.

A Turkish court last month freed a German-Turkish journalist pending trial after indicting him for alleged security offences, a move that had been seen as potentially leading to an easing of tensions between the two NATO allies.

Short link:

Related Trump budget proposal lifts spending on Pentagon

China on Monday unveiled its largest rise in defence spending in three years, setting a target of 8.1 percent growth over 2017, fuelling an ambitious military modernisation programme amid rising concerns over its security.

The 2018 defence budget will be 1.11 trillion yuan ($175 billion), according to a report issued at the opening of China's annual meeting of parliament.

The defence spending figure is closely watched around the world for clues to China's strategic intentions as it develops new military capabilities, including stealth fighters, aircraft carriers and anti-satellite missiles.

China will "advance all aspects of military training and war preparedness, and firmly and resolvedly safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests", Premier Li Keqiang told the opening session in an address.

"Faced with profound changes in the national security environment" the absolute leadership of the military by the ruling Communist Party must be observed, and the unity between the government and the military, and the people and the military, must always be "strong as stone", he said.

Li also said China had basically completed efforts to cut back the size of its armed forces by 300,000, a move President Xi Jinping announced in 2015 to improve efficiency that had caused unease in the ranks.

The 2018 defence spending increase comes as China's economic growth expanded 6.9 percent last year, the first acceleration in annual growth since 2010. But China kept its 2018 economic growth target at around 6.5 percent, said Li, the same as in 2017, despite exceeding that year's target.

Last year, defence spending was set to increase by just 7 percent, to 1.044 trillion yuan ($164.60 billion), or about one-quarter of the proposed U.S. defence spending for the year. In 2016, it grew by 7.6 percent.

"The pace and scale of this build-up is really dramatic. It is extremely alarming for Australia and many other countries in the region," said Sam Roggeveen, a visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University in Canberra.

"There is every indication that China wants to expand what it will call defence capabilities in the South China Sea. I expect eventually we will see warships and aircraft there regularly, if not based there permanently. What is unclear, however, is whether the United States will want to rise to that challenge."

Hidden Spending

China does not provide a breakdown of how it allocates its defence budget, leading neighbours and other military powers to complain that Beijing's lack of transparency has added to regional tension.

Diplomats say China's defence numbers probably underestimate true military spending for the People's Liberation Army, the world's largest armed forces, which are in the midst of an impressive modernisation programme overseen by Xi.

One senior Asia diplomat, speaking before the announcement, said the real rise would probably be at least double what China revealed, considering its efforts to build up the industrial military complex and deepen military-civilian integration.

"Some spending will be hidden in civilian spending," said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

China's military build-up has rattled the nerves of its neighbours, particularly because of its increasingly assertive stance in territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas and over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.

"We would like to see China be more transparent about its defence policy, including spending and the direction of its military power," Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular briefing.

With worries about potential disputes with the United States in the region, China's military had mounted what defence sources and diplomats viewed as a lobbying campaign for more spending.

In an article on its website, China's Defence Ministry cited Chen Zhou, a researcher at the Academy of Military Science, as saying the spending increase was "reasonable" and "sustainable", and that there were no "hidden military funds".

US President Donald Trump has proposed a military budget that is the largest since 2011 and focused on beefing up the United States' nuclear defences and countering the growing strength of China and Russia.

The proposal, part of Trump's budget request for the US government, would provide the Pentagon $617 billion and an additional $69 billion to fund ongoing wars in fiscal year 2019. That is $74 billion more than in the previous fiscal year's budget.

Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui on Sunday said China's "moderate" defence spending rises in the past few years were less than other major countries and would not threaten anyone.

Short link:

Eight people were arrested in Brussels following counter-terror raids amid signs of a plot in preparation, a source close to the investigation said.

All eight were arrested Sunday in Molenbeek, an immigrant district linked to the Paris and Brussels terror attacks, following raids in Belgium, the source said.

Short link:

Hundreds of people marched through Myanmar's largest city Yangon on Monday to oppose changes to a protest law being discussed in parliament which activists warn would limit free speech.

Amendments to the 2011 Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law could bring three-year prison terms for those supporting, financially or otherwise, a demonstration that harms "security, rule of law and stability of the state, and the moral interests of the people".

The amendments would also require any protest organisers to provide details of the budget and source of their funds for a demonstration.

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) is backing the changes, which come amid rising concern that her two-year-old administration is failing to protect human rights.

"If they are trying to make it difficult to protest, the authorities that rule the country - the parliament, judiciary and government - cannot hear the true opinions of the people," said Zaw Yan, a farmers' rights activist.

He was one of about 500 farmers, workers and political activists who marched through the former capital's downtown in a protest against the amendment.

Nearly 190 Myanmar civil society groups have signed a petition against the amendment.

NLD spokesman Nyan Win declined to comment. But at least one NLD member of parliament spoke in opposition to the changes in the capital, Naypyitaw, where the parliament's upper house held an initial debate on the proposed amendments.

The broad wording of the amendments - particularly the ill-defined concept of morality - could be used by authorities to block legitimate protests, said Hla Hla Soe, an NLD member of the upper house.

"The freedoms of assembly and expression are fundamental human rights," she told the assembly.

"It's not too long since people got those rights. If we constrict those rights, there will be worries about going back to the previous situation."

After the NLD came to power in 2016 - ending decades of military-led governments that regularly cracked down on protests - the party reduced restrictions on demonstrations, but left criminal punishments in the protest law.

But rights advocates point to worrying signs that gains made since a transition began in 2011 may be going into reverse.

Seven people were shot dead and at least 12 injured during a demonstration in the western state of Rakhine in January.

The amendment, proposed by an NLD-led committee last month, is seen as targeting nationalist protesters the ruling party believes are backed by opponents to reform who want to destabilise the young civilian government.

"It seems like they want to restrict lobbyists who pay money to people to protest, but it's not possible to only restrict one side," said Maung Maung Soe, a political analyst who said he had signed the petition against the amendments.

Short link:

Burkina Faso's President Mark Roch said his country would fight and defeat militants despite being hit by Islamist insurgents in the capital last week in an attack which 8 people were killed and dozens wounded.

Roche was joined by the presidents of neighbouring Togo and Niger in a show of solidarity with each other and with former colonial master France, whose forces intervened five years ago to stop militants taking over neighbouring Mali.

An al Qaeda affiliate claimed responsibility on Saturday for the attacks on the army headquarters and French embassy in Ouagadougou that also killed eight gunmen.

"The fight against terrorism is a long one and in this combat no sacrifice will be too high in the defence of our fatherland," Marc Roch said.

"Recent events have shaken the Burkinabe people, but I assure you they will remain standing and end terrorism no matter what," he added.

The double assault highlighted the growing risk from Islamist militants in the Sahel five years after the French intervention.

France is pinning hopes on the so-called G5 Sahel force -- comprising the armies of Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad -- to enable it to start withdrawing the 4,000 troops it still has stationed in the region.

The G5 permanent council, chaired by Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou, met in Ouagadougou on Monday although Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe was the only other president at the meeting.

"Terrorists ... seek to undo our alliance ... They say our allies are foreign troops. For us they are not foreign troops, they are allies fighting for the same cause," Issoufou said.

Jihadist groups have regrouped since the French intervention in 2013. They have expanded into central Mali, which they have used as a launchpad to hit Burkina Faso, Niger and Ivory Coast.

Short link:

Egypt's parliament  the House of Representatives  finally approved on Sunday several government-drafted amendments to the 1980 law that regulates the performance of the debt-laden Egyptian Railway Authority (ERA), with a view rescuing the vital railways sector.

Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel-Aal described the amended law (Law No 152/1980) as a crucial step to relieving the ERA of its chronic problems.

"We all know that Egypt's railway authority suffers from massive debts, outdated operation systems, and dilapidated train locomotives and wagons," said Abdel-Aal.

"The panacea for all of these chronic illnesses is to allow private investment in a bid to modernise this sector and rid it of its massive debts."

Abdel-Aal, however, argued that "the amendments do not open the door for privatising the national railways."

"This is different, because the amendments simply conform with Article 32 of the Constitution, which allows the private sector to operate public utilities for no more than 15 years," he said.

The amendments, which cover four articles, allow the ERA to give private investors concessions to build, manage, operate and maintain railway utilities through public tender and for no more than 15 years.

Article 4 also grants the ERA the right to establish joint venture companies whose shares can be traded on the stock market.

"Employees affiliated with Egyptian National Railways will be the most favoured to buy these shares," the article states.

However, MPs affiliated with the leftist parliamentary bloc known as the 25-30 Group strongly attacked the amendments, arguing that they represent the first step towards privatising the railways sector.

"This is a very dangerous step because it will lead to liberalising the prices of train transport, ultimately making it very difficult for the majority of Egyptians to travel by train," said MP Haitham El-Hariri.

The approval of the amendments came after Minister of Transport Hesham Arafat delivered a statement on a train accident that left 12 citizens dead in the Nile Delta governorate of El-Beheira on 28 February. Arafat said that outdated train locomotives were to blame for most of the train accidents in Egypt.

"We have locomotives that are 37 years old, while in other countries around the world they should be used for just 12 years," he said, adding that "98 percent of train locomotives owned by Egypt's railway authority go back to 1977, not to mention that maintenance workshops have not been modernised or upgraded since 1965."

Arafat said that these problems are due to a chronic shortage of funding.

"We hope that MPs will press hard to devote more budgetary allocations to the authority in the new fiscal year," said Arafat.

"Egypt's national railways have become burdened with as much as EGP 32 billion in debts," he added.

"In spite of the above problems," he argued, "plans to streamline Egypt's railways are underway. As many as 1,200 train wagons will be in operation in the next few months, with new three ones every month," said the minister.

"The number of VIP trains operating between Cairo and Alexandria will be also increased to serve investors and high-class citizens."

He also said that as many as 100 new train locomotives will be in operation soon, while another 100 are being repaired to join operations.

"I vow that there will be a concrete improvement in the performance of Egypt's national railways by the year 2022, because we are currently implementing a comprehensive reform plan," said Arafat.

Short link:

Egypts President Abdel-Fatah El-Sisi provided Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman with an inspection tour of several national projects on the Suez Canal on Monday, highlighting works completed during the Egyptian leader's four-year tenure.

The two men, accompanied by a number of Egyptian and Saudi ministers, arrived at Ismailia governorate, where they were presented with updates on several national projects in the area, including the new Suez Canal waterway, which was inaugurated in August 2015, and tunnels beneath the East Suez Canal development zone in northern Ismailia.

Mohab Mamish, head of the Suez Canal Authority, provided information on the projects, highlighting investment opportunities in the Suez Canal Special Economic Zone (SCZone).

He also praised the crown princes NEOM project, involving the creation of a huge transnational city and economic zone. Covering 26,500-square kilometres in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, NEOM is the latest and most extraordinary in a slate of privatisation programmes from Saudi Arabia, led by the floating of Aramco.

Adjacent to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba and near maritime trade routes that use the Suez Canal, the zone will serve as a gateway to the proposed King Salman Bridge, which will link Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Mondays visit comes one day after the Saudi crown prince arrived in Egypt for his first foreign visit since assuming his current title.

On Sunday, El-Sisi and Bin Salman witnessed the inking of a number of deals, including the launch of a Saudi-Egyptian investment fund between the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) and the Egyptian Ministry of Investment and International Cooperation.

Sundays meeting also included political discussions, during which the Egyptian president reaffirmed that "the security of the Gulf is an integral part of Egyptian national security, according to Egypts presidency spokesman Bassam Rady.

After his visit to Egypt, Bin Salman will head to the United Kingdom on 7 March and to the United States on 19 March.



Short link:

Japanese ambassador to Egypt Takehiro Kagawa and his accompanying delegation representing the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) visited Borg El-Arab airport on Monday to inspect the new passenger terminal, a statement by Egypt's Civil Aviation Ministry reads.

The new environmentally-friendly, 34-thousand square-foot terminal will expand airport services and traveller capacity, and is being constructed in cooperation with JICA, a Japanese governmental agency that "provides technical cooperation and other forms of aid promoting economic and social development" to advance international development, according to its website.

The new terminal will serve nearly four million passengers a year and will increase the airport's total capacity to six million annual passengers by 2030.

The terminal project also includes establishing a new tarmac that can accomodate 20 new planes.

A new 1,000-car parking area is also part of the development plan, as well as a service court, shops for passengers, sanitation and electricity stations.

JICA is conducting several development projects in Egypt, including the construction of the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM).

Japan is also involved in other projects in Egypt in the fields of education, electricity and transportation.

Short link:

The red-carpet run at the 90th Academy Awards is over, leaving fashion experts to summarize the trends while fashionistas dream of dazzling new outfits.

The fashion world is always on alert at this time of year, with millions anticipating the new chic and classic trends in the dresses, jewelry and footwear on show at the Oscars.

The awards never fail to attract the attention of fashionistas and beauty seekers from around the world, while those attending seek to look their best. And this year was no different, with stars hitting the runway draped in an array of designs that will set trends for the coming year's haute couture.

In general, and unlike the year's previous events, where trends were spotted on the spot and outlined, the Oscars celebrated individual styles and contrasts, devoid of any constraints. The somber black favoured by most of the women in the Golden Globes was shed in favor of a wide array of colours and patterns.

Stars like Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Sofia Carson and Jennifer Garner donned two of the most prevalent colors in the evening: red and royal blue.

Others opted for white or light-coloured sequined numbers, like Janet Mock and Allison Williams.

Powdery shades were present as well, as sported by Emily blunt and Saorise Ronan.

Andra Day and Paz Vega went for flowery patterns, while others sashayed in classic shades of gold and silver, including Lupita, Gal Gadot and Sandra Bullock.

There were plenty of deep-plunging necklines on display too, while simple cuts were favored by most. There were a few halter necks on the red carpet, but they not so many as last year.

#

Lebanese designers like Elie Saab and Zuhair Murad did not disappoint with their designs on Sunday, showing off their two main staples: heavy elegant embellishments, and shades of gold and champagne. Their creations were chosen by Zoe Deutch, Abbie Cornish and Jenna Dewan.





Short link:

Medecins du Monde (MdM) has initiated this month a series of training courses continuing until 29 April for primary health care staff on the basics of mental health and psychosocial services.



The training package includes counseling skills, psychological first aid and the World Health Organization's mental health Gap Action Programme (mhGAP) .



Medecins du Monde (Doctors of the World) provides emergency and long-term medical care to the world's most vulnerable people and aims to end healthcare inequities.



The new training project aims to improve the integration of mental health and psychosocial support services (MHPSS) into primary health care facilities through building the capacities of primary health care staff.



The project will be implemented in 12 primary health care facilities in Cairo and Giza in collaboration with the General Administration of Integrated Health Care.



Selin Bodek, the head of MdM in Egypt, said that the training sessions constitute a major milestone in a three-year project that aims to improve mental health care in the Greater Cairo area.



To assure the efficiency of the services' integration, the training sessions will be followed-up with regular supervisions and on-the-job training.



The ministry aims to include MHPSS because it is a global trend, recommended by the WHO. Therefore, the integration of MHPSS in PHC is imperative," Ministry of Health representative and the Head of Disability Prevention directorate Nahed El-Gharib stated.



"We need to detect mental disorders, since they are associated with physical symptoms. Also the scarcity of psychiatrists, not only in Egypt but also worldwide, necessitates the mainstreaming of MHPSS," she added.



The ultimate aim of the program is to help make MHPSS available to all in Egypt, and to improve rates of early detection, as it increases the likelihood of a patient's positive response to treatment and reduces the average number of days of hospitalization.



The trainings target a wide range of medical staff in the PHC facilities, be they family physicians, general practitioners, nurses, social workers, gynecologists or pediatricians.



It also aims to improve the capacities of PHC staff to identify basic mental health disorders, provide basic interventions and refer complex cases to secondary and tertiary services in attempt to break stigma and discrimination associated mental health.



Medecins du Monde was founded in 1980 by a group of 15 French physicians, including Bernard Kouchner, and works in both the developed and developing world.



Short link:

Yacoub visited the archaeological site in the company of several VIP guests from Britain who had come to see the Aswan Heart Centre, the cornerstone of the Magdy Yacoub Foundation.





On Saturday, Yacoub dismissed rumours of ill-health, speaking on the phone with the Ten O'clock program on Dream TV channel. The internationally renowned cardiac surgeon said he is performing his daily job normally at the Aswan Heart Centre , which he established in 2009.

Yacoub and his VIP guests were escorted around Abu Simbel by Egyptologist Hosam Aboud, who told Ahram Online that the tour group was very pleased with their visit, documenting the event with photographs in front of the temple.



According to Aboud, Yacoub said that he had originally hoped to establish his heart foundation in the town of Abu Simbel due to its calmness, low humidity and pure air, all of which would help with patient recovery.



Regrettably, the plan did not come to fruition due to the remoteness of the location, making it difficult for patients to reach, said Aboud.











Short link:



Egyptian-British cardiothoracic surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub embarked on a tour of Abu Simbel Temple in Upper Egypt on Sunday, further putting paid to rumours concerning his health.Deputy special envoy of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for Syria Ramzy Ezzeldin Ramzy stressed that there is no military solution to the ongoing Syrian crisis and warned that the region and the world "can't afford for the conflict to keep going on any longer" during a lecture at the American University on Cairo on Sunday.

Ramzy warned that the current situation in Syria in unsustainable and that if peaceful solutions are not sought soon, "it will explode in our faces later down the road."

The deputy special envoy made the statements during a lecture called Reflections on the Syrian Crisis hosted by the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the American University in Cairo (AUC).

To demonstrate the complexity of the situation, Ramzy said that the conflict is the greatest crisis that the UN has seen since the Second World War.

While 40 countries were involved in World War I and 102 were involved in World War II, not all of them participated in fighting itself, Ramzy explained.

Syria now has 81 nationalities fighting over its territories, either directly or via a proxy.

The special envoy said that he thinks that the problem started early when both the US and Russia began arming proxy forces.

"While the U.S. previously no interest in Syria, which wasn't on its National Security priority list under Obama, Russia was involved in the Syrian scene and decided to offer political and military aid while reserving the right to directly intervene militarily if necessary, which eventually happened in 2015."

Ramzy asserted the need to keep the political process alive, saying the UN should not abandon its role as mediator and driving force for a politics solution in Syria.

He asserted that the way for the suggested "constitutional committee" must be paved as soon as possible to allow Syrians to decide and design their future.

The special envoy asserted that a cessation of violence must be followed by the drafting of a new constitution, yet he admitted that that suggestion is fraught with problems as "the Syrian government says everything is fine and nothing has to be changed and the opposition says nothing can be changed before removing the government."

He stressed that the only solution to the conflict will be made at the negating table and through committment to the four principles: deescalating violence, new government, new constitution and fighting terrorism.

Ramzy warned that killing the political process would risk reviving ISIS and even allow for the creation of new ISIS-modeled organizations in its wake.

And while he said that ISIS holds only very small pockets of territory in Syria near Aleppo, the Golan Heights and the Iraqi border, he said it is "still dangerous."

He also warned that Syria risks non-mutally exclusive scenarios: First, that proxy war develops into a direct war between involved powers, and second, that some regions territorily separate from Syria.

Ezzeldin called on the international community to prevent these scenarios "as fast as possible."

He also expressed his optimism that Russian-American understanding is possible saying that "The US is no longer concerned only with the military dimension, they are back and willing to engage with the situation there, and while the situation now is horrible if we compare the scene in 2016 with the scene in 2017, I think that the situation has become more ready for an understanding between the parties involved as their priorities have changed."

"Syria is no longer the top priority of Saudi Arabia, and Iran is willing to work with Turkey and Russia in Astana to push the political process. Turkey's priorities have become focused on the Kurds, not Assad, so I think that an understanding now is not impossible," he explained.

The deputy special envoy pointed at the lack of an Arab role in the conflict, and said that "he doesn't see a solution for the crisis without an Arab party involved but that's for the Arab countries to decide."

He said that "the situation would have been much easier if the Arabs had had an understanding with Turkey and Iran."

Describing the Syrian crisis as a "tragic situation," he highlighted the deep humanitarian dimension of the conflict as "half a million have been killed, 7 million have been displaced and 5.5 million became refugees -- meaning that half of the Syrian population is away from their homes, a crisis that has never happened to any other nation."

On the Necessity of Talks with Syrian Government

Ramzy recognized criticism of the idea of talks with the Syrian government. Some observers say that talks "allowed the Syrian regime to continue its policies," he admitted.

But the deputy special envoy said he sees another solution.

"If you deal with the Syrian government you are damned if you do and damned if you don't," he said, adding that this was the only way to keep the aid convoys going to Syria in order to reach the besieged and those in conflict zones.

Ramzy noted that the UN as a great humanitarian role in Syria and it has provided medical aid for 13 million Syrians in conflict areas, and that that would not have been possible if the UN were not in contact with the Syrian government.

He stressed that the "horrendous tragedy we are seeing now would have been much worse if not for UN aid."

"I went to Damascus many times and I have sat with [the Syrian goverment] and heard from them and from other parties and this is the only way to keep the political process going and the aid reaching those who are in need for it."

He also demanded that those who participated in atrocities be brought to justice and that letting war criminals escape justice would be bad for the country's future.

The ambassador admitted that his job as a mediator is "against all odds," and that he must "try to find that silver lining."

Ramzy worked with the UN special envoy since 2014.

He also served as head of the mission of the League of Arab States to Austria and as a permanent observer to the United Nations in Vienna.

Ramzy is also the former Egyptian ambassador to Brazil and to Germany.

Short link:

The USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier will set anchor in Vietnam's coastal city Da Nang on Monday, the first time a US aircraft carrier has visited the country since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

According to Reuters, the four-day visit by the Carl Vinson and its contingent of 5,000 sailors and aviators has been deemed an opportunity to enhance the budding friendship that has emerged between the two former foes.

The 95,000-metric-ton carrier is expected to anchor 2 nautical miles off the port of Da Nang. Cultural exchanges, including culinary and sporting activities, will take place between United States military personnel on board and their Vietnamese counterparts.

The Carl Vinson's visit will mark the biggest US military presence in the country since 1975, Reuters reported.

Ruan Zongze, vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, said the historic visit is a powerful symbol of the growing strategic and military ties between the US and Vietnam.

The Carl Vinson arrives amid repeated signals from the administration of US President Donald Trump that it is keen to further develop security ties with Vietnam as part of a range of political and military relationships to counterbalance China, Ruan said, adding that US has singled out China as its major strategic competitor in its National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy.

Teng Jianqun, a researcher at China Institute of International Studies, said the aim of US sending the aircraft carrier to draw Vietnam to its side precisely meets with Vietnam's strategy to maintain equidistant diplomacy with China, Russia and the US.

US military ties with Vietnam have deepened since 2016, when former president Barack Obama lifted the decades-old embargo on US arms sales to the Southeast Asia country.

According to Xinhua News Agency, Tina Kaidanow, the US State Department official for political-military affairs, said earlier that US warships would maintain their "freedom of navigation" in the South China Sea.

Xinhua said in an editorial that matters concerning the South China Sea should be settled by negotiations among countries in the region, and those outside of it should not meddle in the name of so-called freedom of navigation.Govt forces take towns in Eastern Ghouta as civilians flee, seek shelter

A Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army fighter fires a projectile during fighting around Afrin, Syria, on Saturday.Reuters

DAMASCUS - The Syrian Army advanced on Saturday in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta countryside of the capital Damascus, capturing a number of areas.

A military source said government forces took the towns of Otaya, Nashabiyeh and Herzama following battles with the rebels.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights watchdog said clashes between Syrian forces and an array of rebel groups have been ongoing in the eastern and southeastern parts of Eastern Ghouta, which, it said, is besieged by the Syrian army.

It said that the rebel-held region has been under an intense government offensive since Feb 25, and 65 Syrian soldiers have been killed in the area in the last week.

The watchdog and a local resident said on Sunday that hundreds of people are fleeing the fighting and seeking shelter in areas closer to the center of Eastern Ghouta.

The region has grabbed international attention since the military showdown started to gain momentum on Feb 18.

The United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 2401 on Feb 24, which requires all parties in Syria to immediately cease clashes and provides a sustained humanitarian break for at least 30 days across Syria.

Two days later, the Russians demanded a daily humanitarian pause for five hours in Eastern Ghouta specifically.

Those initiatives have slightly reduced rebels mortar shelling on the capital and the Syrian airstrikes and bombardment of Eastern Ghouta.

During the five-hour-long truce, the situation becomes calm, but the military confrontation continues almost immediately afterward.

Five days into the humanitarian pause, only two children left Eastern Ghouta as well as a Pakistani couple through the designated humanitarian corridor in Wafidin area, adjacent to the city of Douma, which is under the control of the Islam Army rebels.

The Islam Army said the civilians evacuation from Eastern Ghouta wasn't part of the recent UN Security Council resolution, urging instead for the entry of relief aid to the area.

'Urgent debate'

But the Russian-backed Syrian army is apparently determined to recapture the enclave, which constitutes the last remaining threat to the capital after the Syrian forces captured all the surroundings of the capital except Eastern Ghouta.

The United Kingdom formally asking the UN Human Rights Council to hold an "urgent debate" this week on the situation in the area.

Voting on the resolution was postponed until Monday after member states failed to agree on the final text.

Meanwhile, Turkish air strikes killed at least 36 pro-government fighters backing Kurdish militia in Syria's northwestern Kurdish enclave of Afrin on Saturday, a monitoring group said.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces alliance said the Turkish raids targeted pro-government positions, but gave no death toll.

The Observatory for Human Rights said the strikes on Kafr Janna were the third such raid on loyalist fighters in the enclave bordering Turkey in less than 48 hours.

They came after Turkish raids on other parts of the enclave killed 14 pro-regime fighters on Thursday and four more on Friday, the monitor said.

Turkish-led Syrian opposition fighters have advanced since Jan 20, when they launched an assault on Afrin, controlled by the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG.

The Syrian government deployed fighters to the enclave a month later after the Kurds appealed for help.

Ankara says the YPG is a "terrorist" extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.China has increased its defense spending in recent years mostly to upgrade arms and equipment, and the country's defense budget is lower than other major countries, a spokesperson for the annual session of China's top legislature said on Sunday.

Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the first session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), made the comment at a press conference on Sunday.

China's defense budget, in terms of its share of GDP as well as per capita expenditure, is lower than other major countries in the world, Zhang said.

A country's defense budget needs to fit the nation's economic development and national security, Zhang added. He said China has increased its defense expenditure in recent years mostly to update arms and equipment, improve soldiers' living conditions and training environment.

Zhang did not elaborate on how much the defense budget would increase in 2018.

China will pursue a peaceful development path and defensive strategy, and the country's development will not threaten any other country, Zhang noted.

The major concern is the increase in the price of equipment, such as the J-20, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Song predicts that the defense budget would be around 8 to 9 percent higher this year. Even if this year's defense budget increases by 10 percent from the previous year, it would only account for 1.6 percent of GDP, much lower than the widely-expected 2 percent, he noted.

China's 2017 defense budget was set to increase by 7 percent from 2016's actual expense, or 1.04 trillion yuan ($152 billion), with 1.02 trillion yuan from the central budget, Xinhua reported.

China increased its military spending by 7.6 percent in 2016, 10.1 percent in 2015, 12.2 percent in 2014 and 10.7 percent in 2013.

The US announcement of an increase in its defense budget put pressure on countries like China and Russia to change their growth target, Song said.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) rolled out its budget for fiscal year 2019 in mid-February, asking Congress for $716 billion for arms purchases and a staff expansion, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

This marks the first time that the Pentagon base budget has topped $600 billion in recent years, a 10 percent increase from the current spending approved by Congress.

When asked whether China is "exporting" its model to change the international order, Zhang said that China has no intention to change the world order. He said China intends to contribute to a fair and open international order.

There's no one-size-fits-all development pattern in the world. China follows its own path, and will not "import" a foreign model nor will it "export" the Chinese model, he added.Military delegates arrive for a meeting at the Great Hall of the People on Sunday, ahead of Monday's opening session of the National People's Congress in Beijing. Photo: AP

The revision of China's Constitution is an important task for the annual session of the country's top legislature, and the removal of the presidential term limit is an attempt to safeguard the authority and leadership of the Party, a spokesman for the annual session of the country's top legislature said Sunday.

The Constitution has proven a good law that fits China's reality and meets the demand of the times, Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the first annual session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), said at a press conference. It can only ensure its lasting vitality by constantly adapting to new situations, he said.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee in late February proposed changes to the Constitution including removing the expression that the country's president and vice-president "shall serve no more than two consecutive terms."

The removal of the two-term restriction is conducive to safeguarding the authority and the centralized and unified leadership of the Communist Party of China Central Committee with Xi Jinping at the core, and to strengthening and improving China's leadership system, Zhang said.

Upholding the leadership of the CPC and reflecting the will of the people should be the principles for amending the Constitution, he added.

Zhang also stressed at the Sunday press conference that China's defense budget is lower than other major countries.

A country's defense budget needs to fit the nation's economic development and national security, Zhang said. China has increased its defense expenditure in recent years mostly to update arms and equipment, improve soldiers' living conditions and the training environment, he noted.

Zhang did not elaborate on how much the defense budget would increase in 2018, while Chinese experts reached by the Global Times said the growth was not likely to hit double digits.

Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, predicted that the increase was likely to be 8 to 9 percent. The major concern was the increasing price of equipment, such as the J-20 jet fighter, Song said.

Even if this year's defense budget increases 10 percent from the previous year, it would only account for 1.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product, much lower than the widely-expected 2 percent.

Li Daguang, a professor at the PLA National Defense University in Beijing said the growth was likely to remain at 7 percent, or even lower.

The troops have been streamlined, he explained. Even though expenditure on advanced equipment is costly, the total budget was unlikely to surge higher, he believed.

China's 2017 defense budget increased 7 percent from 2016 to a total 1.04 trillion yuan ($152 billion). China increased military spending 7.6 percent in 2016, 10.1 percent in 2015, 12.2 percent in 2014 and 10.7 percent in 2013.

China will pursue a peaceful development path and defensive strategy, Zhang noted. The country's development will not threaten any other country, he said.

No rule-breaker

As China's development attracts world attention, there are also constant concerns about the country's interactions with foreign countries.

When asked whether China was "exporting" its model to change the international order, Zhang said China did not intend to change the world order. China simply wanted a fair and open international order, he said.

There is no one-size-fits-all development pattern for the world and China follows its own path, Zhang said. China would not import a foreign model or export the Chinese model, he noted.A report in the newspaper of the People's Liberation Army of China implied a large reduction in non-battle personnel has been conducted, a move Chinese military experts said would improve combat capability, quality and efficiency.

According to a PLA Daily report on Sunday, during military reform the group armies of the PLA ground force have experienced great changes which would bring new tests to daily management and combat readiness training.

For instance, the number of group armies had been reduced from 18 to 13, according to the article.

The army-division-regiment-battalion hierarchy has been replaced by army-brigade-battalion, simplifying levels and boosting direction, the report said.

By cutting non-battle personnel to the bone, the PLA would be more capable and efficient, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Sunday.

"The whole military can allocate resources more efficiently and form a stronger battle capability. The key point will now be quality instead of quantity," he said.

"A commander will gain more roles in the army and feel pressure to adapt," Song said.

"But that is an inevitable trend and the key to current military reform. The good ones will stay and the unqualified ones will leave," he noted.China hopes that talks between the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the United States would be held "as early as possible" and that the good momentum on the Korean Peninsula would be maintained.

Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the first session of the 13th National People's Congress, made the remarks at a press conference Sunday in Beijing.

He said the situation on the Korean Peninsula is easing as the DPRK and the Republic of Korea (ROK) had been engaged in dialogue and cooperation before and during the PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games.

"China welcomes the positive changes and hopes all parties could seize the opportunity to maintain the good momentum," he said.

Calling the DPRK and the United States the principal parties of the Korean Peninsula issue, Zhang said China expects the DPRK-ROK ties to roll on while the DPRK-U.S. ties will begin to roll as soon as possible.

He said China noticed some positive remarks made by both the DPRK and the United States recently.

China will keep close communications with all concerned parties to push for peace and talks, in order to facilitate the settlement of the Korean Peninsula issue through political and diplomatic means, Zhang said.A visiting senior Chinese official and his U.S. hosts have agreed that the two countries should settle their trade disputes by cooperation rather than confrontation, so as to secure the healthy development of bilateral economic and trade ties.

The two sides also agreed to talk about related issues in Beijing in the near future, in a bid to create conditions for further cooperation.

Liu He, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, director of the General Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs and also the leader of the Chinese side in the bilateral Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, came to the Unites States at the invitation of the U.S. government and has stayed here from Feb. 27 to March 3.

During his visit, Liu discussed the China-U.S. economic and trade cooperation, as well as other important issues of mutual concern with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, and U.S Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.

During the consultations, Liu said that Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump have charted the course of Beijing-Washington ties in their close communications this year through telephone calls and exchanges of letters.

The two countries should work together to implement the consensus of the two leaders, expand pragmatic cooperation in economic and trade exchanges, jointly push for the settlement of the pressing issues, promote balanced development of the China-U.S. economic and trade relationships so as to bring more benefits to the two peoples, said Liu.

China will advance its comprehensive reform and opening up, he said.

He also said that the two countries have complementary economic advantages and huge potentials for cooperation, adding that stable economic and trade ties between them conform to the fundamental interests of the two countries and help global prosperity.

In the consultations with the U.S. side, Liu also delivered China's principled stand on trade balance and market access.

The two sides believed that the consultations in Liu's visit were helpful for both nations to deepen mutual understanding and promote cooperation.

During his visit, Liu also exchanged views with U.S. business leaders and famous experts and scholars, and held meetings with leaders of international organizations.BEIJING, March 5 (ChinaMil) -- The PLA Daily on March 2 published an article titled Enhancing Discourse Power, Shaping the PLA's Sound International Image. The article was written by Senior Colonel Wu Qian, director of the Information Bureau of the Office for International Military Cooperation of Chinas Central Military Commission and spokesperson of the Ministry of National Defense, and Major Deng Mi.

The article proposed that the PLA should establish four images in the international community. Part of it is provided below.

The military image is the general impression left by the military in the minds of the public through their actions, exterior characteristics and inner spirit. It is an important part of the national image and a key element in military soft power. As the international strategic landscape is constantly adjusting, the Chinese military must strive to enhance its discourse power and shape a sound international image.

The Chinese military should update and establish its image in following respects.

The first image is loyalty, meaning the PLA is a loyal force always following the command of the Communist Party of China (CPC).

This is highly consistent with its loyalty to the nation and the people. Loyalty is the spiritual core of the Chinese people's armed force and the fundamental reason why it can always defeat its enemies. We should neither dodge nor be ambiguous about this when establishing the PLA's international image.

The second image is strength, meaning the PLA is a powerful force that dares to fight and is able to win.

The powerful military strength is hard power, while the image of a powerful force is soft power. The strength doesn't just mean advanced weapons and equipment. The soldiers' firm faith and advanced concepts are equally important. Establishing a strong image isn't to flex our muscles or bully the weak, but to safeguard and ensure the peace.

The third image is openness, meaning the PLA opens up to and embraces the world.

Opening up is a long-term guideline for the CPC and the PLA, and establishing the PLA's open image not only showcases the inclusiveness and confidence, but also enables China to improve itself by drawing on others' strengths, so as to create a peaceful world.

The fourth image is responsibility, meaning China will bear the responsibility of a major world power in the military aspect.

A responsible image is a convincing expression of the nation's and the military's credibility. China has honored every commitment it has made to world peace and stability, fully demonstrating its standing as a major world power which matches its words with deeds.

The new era has brought unprecedented conditions and opportunities for the Chinese military to establish its international image.

First of all, the growth of the Chinese military, its growing modernization level and the enhancement of its combat force has laid a solid foundation for establishing its image.

Second, the series of efforts made by China to safeguard world and regional peace and stability and provide international public security products has been recognized by people around the globe, laying the factual foundation for establishing the PLA's image.

Third, the rapid development of new media has broken the monopoly and blockade of public opinion by some western countries and offered a useful platform for the PLA to establish its image.

Of course, opportunities always come side by side with challenges.

Some people still cannot catch up with the advanced ideas and concepts and are unwilling to make moves and take up responsibilities proactively. Some are slow in making emergency responses and airing authoritative opinions, and some have shortcomings in the level of information release and the ability of shifting the discourse system. Moreover, the external opinion of the PLA's image doesn't exactly match the Chinese military's expectation. China should act quickly to solve these problems.

(The Authors are Wu Qian, director of the Information Bureau of the MND, and Deng Mi, staff officer of the Information Bureau of the MND.)VIENNA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, on Monday warned that if the Iranian nuclear deal failed, it could be very negative for the nuclear inspection regime and multilateralism.

Speaking to a board meeting in Vienna, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said Iran is now cooperating with his team monitoring Tehran's implementation of the nuclear deal which was agreed in 2015 summer.

However, the chief of the UN nuclear agency noted if the Iran nuclear deal were to fail, "it would be a great loss for nuclear verification and for multilateralism."

U.S. President Donald Trump has time and again expressed dissatisfaction over the deal made during his predecessor's term, while Iran has shot back, saying it did not want any more changes in the deal.

The historic agreement involved Iran scaling back its nuclear plans to gain sanctions relief from western states.

However, Iranian ballistic missile program, viewed by some western states as connected to Tehran's nuclear capability, was not included in the deal.

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian visited Iran on Monday to affirm European support for the nuclear deal.By Zhang Mimi and Jiang Long

WUHAN, Mar. 5 (ChinaMil) -- Sergeant Major Li Daozhou assigned to a helicopter regiment of an airborne brigade under the PLA Air Force, who was on vacation at home, laid down his life for saving people from the fire on March 3.

An apartment in a residential building on the Liyuan Street, Hongshan District in Wuhan, capital city of Hubei province, caught fire on Saturday afternoon. Living in the apartment are an old couple over 80 and their 51-year-old handicapped daughter incapable of taking care of herself in daily life. The old couple wasn't at home when the fire broke out. When they got home and saw the fire, they called the property management office immediately and went in to look for their daughter, but were trapped inside.

Li Daozhou was waiting for his wife, a property administrator working in the property management office, to get off work when the accident happened. Li picked a fire extinguisher and rush to the fire site together with the working staff in the office.

After getting the old couple out of the burning apartment with the help of others, Li went back again with the mother to fetch the daughter.

According to the old woman, after finding her daughter, she walked in front and turned on the cellphone flashlight to light up the way out, Li followed her carrying her daughter on his back. At that time, the apartment was still giving off thick smoke and there was recurrent fire. Unfortunately, only the mother escaped, Li and the old couple's daughter were trapped inside and failed to survive the fire.

The fire was completely extinguished at wee hours the next day after continuous work of firefighters. At the site, rescuers found the remains of Li Daozhou and the old couple's daughter.

Li was born in July 1988 and joined the PLA Air Force in December 2005.At Monday's White House briefing Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said "denuclearization must be the result of any dialogue with North Korea."

"We'll see what happens," said the president, declaring that something has to be done to eliminate the threat to the United States and its allies from North Korea's weapons of mass destruction.

Trump, speaking Monday to U.S. state governors at the White House, noted North Korea's offer in recent days, relayed through South Korea's President Moon Jae-in that "they want to talk" to the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump is expressing a willingness to talk with North Korea, but "only under the right conditions," while warning that if Pyongyang doesn't abandon its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs there could be a potentially tremendous "loss of lives, numbers that nobody's ever contemplated, never thought of."

 Talk About Talks

"Both Trump and (North Korean General and intelligence chief) Kim Yong-Chul have now indicated a willingness to talk. But there is not yet agreement on what the two sides are willing to talk about," notes Scott Snyder, senior fellow for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

An initial U.S.-North Korea meeting would essentially be "talks about talks and the only 'condition' that should be required is that there be a moratorium on missile and nuclear testing," says Atlantic Council Senior Fellow Robert Manning, noting Pyongyang has not conducted any such tests for nearly four months.

The Trump administration "does not appear to have any diplomatic strategy other than demanding they give up their nukes," Manning tells VOA. "I fear, in regard to diplomacy, the administration is a bit like the dog chasing a car. When they catch it, then what?"

As a precondition for bilateral talks, Research Professor James Przystup at the National Defense University suggests Pyongyang has to declare a moratorium on missile and nuclear tests, commit to denuclearization and implementation of the 1991 South-North Agreement on Reconciliation, Non-Aggression and Exchange.

"Anything less and we'll be getting played," Przystup tells VOA, stressing that the only permanent end-state of negotiations has to be denuclearization. North Korea has repeatedly insisted its nuclear weapons are not a subject for negotiation.

 A "problem" to Solve

According to Trump, other U.S. presidents, over the past quarter of a century "should have solved this problem long before I got here." In his remarks to the governors, Trump specifically criticized the Obama, Clinton and both Bush administrations. All of them "didn't do anything," Trump declared, saying "it would have been much easier in those days then it is now."

The president had kinder words for China, considered North Korea's closest ally. Trump said Beijing has done more on North Korea than at any time previously, and the president credited that to his personal relationship with President Xi Jinping.

However, "Russia is behaving badly" regarding North Korea, "because Russia is sending in what China is taking out," according to Trump. Asked whether there would be any consequences for Russia's action, Sanders replied: "I'm not going to weigh in ahead of time and we certainly have never broadcast what we might do, but it's something the president does take very seriously."

In a meeting Sunday with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, North Korea's intelligence chief, who headed his country's delegation to the Winter Olympics closing ceremony, indicated Pyongyang's willingness to hold talks with Washington. "We hope constructive talks will begin between North Korea and the United States at an appropriate opportunity," said Baik Tae-hyun, spokesman of South Korea's Ministry of Unification on Monday.

General Kim was in the same VIP box for the sporting event's closing ceremony in Pyeongchang with the U.S. official government delegation, led by President Trump's daughter, Ivanka, and which included the uniformed commander of the American and UN forces on the Korean peninsula, U.S. Army General Vincent Brooks.

"There was no interaction with the North Korean delegation. The U.S. presidential delegation's attendance at the closing ceremonies was the culmination of a successful trip where we celebrated the Olympic Games, U.S. athletes and our strong alliance with South Korea," according to a senior U.S. administration official.

Earlier, North Korea's foreign ministry issued a warning about the imposition of the latest announced U.S. sanctions against Pyongyang. "As already proclaimed many times, we will regard all blockades as an act of war against us, and we will never try to stop the United States, if it really has pluck to confront us 'roughly,'" said a foreign ministry spokesman, who was quoted by the Korean Central News Agency.

"In countering precisely this intimidation from the United States, we have possessed nuclear weapons, the treasured sword of justice, to defend ourselves," the statement added.

Trump announced on Friday what he called the "largest ever" set of sanctions against North Korea and threatened a "phase two" if the measures aren't effective. The sanctions target one person, 27 companies and 28 ships registered in China and seven other countries with the intent of eliminating North Korea's illicit shipping and trade. They block assets held by the companies in the United States and prohibit U.S. citizens from interacting with them.

China responded angrily Saturday to the new sanctions, maintaining they are counterproductive to efforts to halt Pyongyang's nuclear and long-range missile development programs. China's foreign ministry also demanded the U.S. immediately lift the sanctions "to avoid harming bilateral cooperation in the relevant area."

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Sanders said "we are watching closely who joins us in fully enforcing United States' and United Nations' sanctions."China delayed a U.S. request for a UN Security Council committee to blacklist 33 ships, 27 shipping companies and a Taiwan man for violating international sanctions on North Korea, diplomats said Friday.

The United States submitted the request a week ago, a move it said was "aimed at shutting down North Korea's illicit maritime smuggling activities to obtain oil and sell coal."

The request coincided with the United States' imposition of its largest package of unilateral sanctions against North Korea, intensifying pressure on Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons and missile programs.

China did not give a reason for placing a hold on the U.S. request. A hold can be lifted and is often used when a Security Council member wants more information, but sometimes it can lead to a permanent blocking of a proposed blacklisting.

The delegation will head to Washington shortly afterward to brief U.S. President Donald Trump. A high-ranking Cheong Wa Dae official said, "Chung is an old hand in U.S. affairs and plays a pivotal role in Korea-U.S. relations, while Suh is an expert who has played a key role in promoting inter-Korean dialogue."

National security adviser Chung Eui-yong, National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon and three others will spend two days in the North and hope to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to deliver a letter from Moon.

President Moon Jae-in is sending a five-member delegation to North Korea on Monday led by two senior security advisers, Cheong Wa Dae said Sunday.

Chung will explain Washington's position to the North Korean leader in hopes of stimulating talks between the two sides, while Suh is expected to lead efforts to bring about cross-border dialogue.

One ruling-party official said they are also on a mission to negotiate the release of three Korean Americans who have been held captive in North Korea for one to three years, which is why they plan to visit the U.S. right after returning to South Korea.

"Even if the U.S. is not interested in talks with North Korea without a pledge to scrap its nuclear weapons, it may be enticed to engage in dialogue if the release of American citizens is involved," one source said.

But the main goal is to meet the North Korean leader and see whether he is willing to engage in talks to discuss scrapping the North's nuclear weapons.

Senior North Korean apparatchik Kim Yong-chol, the head of the United Front Department who visited South Korea last month, said, "The door remains open for dialogue with the U.S." but gave no response to demands for North Korea to scrap its nuclear program.

Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Yoon Young-chan said the visit comes in response to Kim dispatching his sister Yo-jong to South Korea during the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. "The delegation will take part in comprehensive discussions to create an environment for talks with the U.S., stimulate inter-Korean exchanges and improve cross-border relations." Yoon added.

They fly directly to Pyongyang, where they will meet first with titular head of state Kim Yong-nam, Kim Yong-chol and other high-ranking officials who visited the South during the Olympics.

Asked whether they will really meet Kim Jong-un, a high-ranking Cheong Wa Dae official said, "We believe they will achieve results that correspond to President Moon meeting Kim Yo-jong."

But Cheong Wa Dae said nothing has been confirmed. It is typical of North Korea to keep visitors in the dark until the last minute whether they will meet Kim, who has even snubbed senior Chinese officials. But Cheong Wa Dae seems confident that he will meet them since Moon welcomed Kim Yo-jong at Cheong Wa Dae.

One source said, "Kim Jong-un may take radical steps to demonstrate his willingness for talk as a means of overcoming international sanctions."

The North Korean leader has met South Korean officials only once before. In December of 2011, he met with former first lady Lee Hee-ho, the widow of ex-president Kim Dae-jung, and Hyundai Group chairwoman Hyun Jeong-eun, who visited the North to attend former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's funeral. But they only exchanged greetings.

Kim has met only seven times with foreign diplomats, including four meetings with Chinese Communist Party representatives, two meetings with a Cuban envoy and delegation and once with a Syrian delegation. He has not met any foreign diplomats since July 2016.North Korea has been making progress on improving the guidance of missiles even amid a "relative thaw in tensions around the Winter Olympics," CNN reported Friday.

"The U.S. believes the North Koreans have been working to improve their rocket engines, mobile missile launchers, and nuclear warhead production," CNN quoted a U.S. intelligence official as saying. However, "the regime is still struggling with the technical challenge of ensuring a warhead can re-enter the earth's atmosphere," it added.

Meanwhile, Lindsey Graham, a U.S. Republican senator and North Korea hawk, told CNN last Thursday, "All the damage that would come from a war would be worth it in terms of long-term stability and national security."

"I'm completely convinced that President Trump and his team reject the policy of containment," he added. "They've drawn a red line here and it is to never let North Korea build a nuclear tipped missile to hit America."

Brent Park at Oak Ridge National Laboratory told a Senate hearing that the nuclear threat from the North has already crossed the tolerable level, he said. Park has been nominated by Trump as deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration.

On a 1-10 scale, the threat of nuclear proliferation from the North would be 11, he added, saying all kinds of means must be used to deter the regime from further developing nuclear weapons.

Three American citizens and six South Koreans remain detained in North Korea.

The most prominent is Kim Dong-chul, a Korean-American missionary, who was arrested in the Rajin-Sonbong Special Economic Zone on Oct. 2, 2015. He was caught in missionary activities and trade while traveling between the North and China.

The North Korean regime made him appear at a scripted news conference in Pyongyang on March 25, 2016, where he confessed to "espionage activities on South Korea's instructions in systematically collecting secrets of the North Korean party, state, and military and handing them over to the South."

Tony Kim, also known as Kim Sang-duk, was a visiting professor of accounting at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology when he was arrested on April 21 last year for unspecified "hostile acts" against the regime. While teaching earlier at Yanbian University of Science and Technology, Kim was engaged in aid activities. When he was arrested, he had been staying in the North for about a month.

Chinese-born Korean Kim Hak-song was detained in the North on May 7 last year. He studied theology in Los Angeles and obtained American citizenship in 2008. He had worked at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology since 2014 and was also arrested for "hostile acts" in Pyongyang while waiting for a train bound for his hometown of Dandong, China.

The U.S. has tried to negotiate their release, but to no avail.

Six South Koreans are also held in the North, according to the government here. They include evangelical missionaries Kim Jung-wook, Kim Kuk-ki and Choi Chun-gil, who were detained in October 2013, October 2014, and in December 2014. The other three are North Korean defectors who have South Korean citizenship.

President Moon Jae-in is sending a five-member delegation to North Korea who hope to meet leader Kim Jong-un and broker nuclear talks with the U.S. It is headed by national security adviser Chung Eui-yong and National Intelligence Service Director Suh Hoon, who will spend two days in Pyongyang. Chung oversees the Moon administration's diplomacy with the U.S., while Suh was involved in the first and second inter-Korean summits. Yun Kun-young, a Cheong Wa Dae official who is taking a personal letter from Moon to Kim Jong-un, is a key aide to the president. The fact that Moon is sending all three demonstrates he really wants to focus on the North's nuclear weapons program. If Kim clearly states his willingness to get rid of it, the impasse could finally be broken, paving the way not just for an inter-Korean summit but also talks with the U.S.

But the outlook is dim. North Korea's Foreign Ministry said only Saturday, a day before Cheong Wa Dae announced the special delegation, that it will not sit face to face with the U.S. at the negotiating table if any preconditions are attached. In other words, North Korea will not discuss denuclearization. Instead, Pyongyang repeated that it wishes to hold "arms reduction" talks with the U.S. between two nuclear-armed states. Still, Kim Jong-un is cornered. His impoverished regime faces unprecedented international sanctions, and the threat of a U.S. military attack is more real now than ever. Kim will try to engage the Moon administration to help shield him from intensifying sanctions. But to do that, he will try and skirt the issue of denuclearization and urge the special delegation to halt joint military exercises in return for just a moratorium on nuclear tests and missile launches. He may also throw in some carrots in the form of resuming reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War and prod the South for a cross-border summit. But any offer by the North is a delaying tactic as long as it does not include the prospect of denuclearization.

The problem is that the Moon administration will be very tempted by such offers. Already a lot of officials here believe it would be better to give up pushing North Korea to scrap its nuclear weapons and pursue a peace framework while acknowledging the North as a nuclear-armed state. But that would be tantamount to accepting South Korea's fate as a nuclear hostage. Although nobody will say it out loud, the government could start garnering support for such a view once the special delegation returns. The ruling party will demand the South Korean public choose between war or peace, while the left-leaning broadcast news media will most likely side with it.

It will never work. During the first nuclear crisis back in 1994, a surprise visit to North Korea by former U.S. president Jimmy Carter is widely thought as having allowed the nuclear dilemma to fester. It ended up causing the world to underestimate the nuclear weapons threat and gave Pyongyang more time to develop a bomb. After the first historic inter-Korean summit in 2000, North Korea conducted several nuclear tests. Despite that, in the second summit in 2007, then President Roh Moo-hyun did not even mention the nuclear issue to then North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. The South Korean delegation must be on its toes so that these mistakes never happen again.

19,325 new COVID cases in Kerala after 1.21L tests on Saturday

With this, the number of active COVID cases in the state fell to 1,80,842. Of the new cases, 18,114 contracted the virus through contact while 96 came from outside the state.Largo, FL -- (ReleaseWire) -- 03/05/2018 --Founded in 1986, Bayshore Home Care stands upon the mission to provide premium home health care service in and around Florida. They understand how stressful it is to take care of the everyday needs of a loved one who is mentally or physically disabled. Many people in this condition decide to try to do it all themselves but end up relying on other family members to fill in the gaps. Bayshore Home Care employs a home health aide in Tampa and Clearwater, Florida for each of the clients to ensure communication regarding one's loved one's needs is open and organized.



Being in the industry for long, the company has earned the reputation for their excellent work and professionalism. Their good track record and positive client reviews have helped them get new clients, and they have continued to grow strong.



They also partner with senior's family unit and other health care professional to customize a plan of care that works best for the senior.



With Bayshore Home Care around, no one will have to worry about their parents. They will see the aspect of safety which is indeed a concern for many. The clients will benefit from the experts who are skilled and trained in assisting senior members in their daily chores. One can trust the caregiver from Bayshore Home Care at all costs.



The host of services they provide includes exercise planning and assistance, nutritionally based meal planning and preparation, personal hygiene assistance and in-home spa services and more.



Opting for a homemaker in Florida is also a respite for the all-time family caregiver. With Bayshore Home Care in charge, one will be well assured that the safety of their parents is in trusted hands. Moreover, they are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.



To know more about home health care service in in Tampa and Clearwater, Florida, visit http://www.bayshorehomecare.com/.



About Bayshore Home Care

Bayshore Home Care is counted as the most reliable home health agency Clearwater Florida that offers senior care, in house companion care and elder and senior care.We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.Valentin Skurlov is a historian of jewelry art, a candidate of art history, an honorary academician of the Russian Academy of Arts, a scientific secretary and a herald master of the Faberge Memorial Foundation, and a research consultant for the Faberge masterpieces at Christie's Russian Department. He was born and raised in Leningrad, where graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Soviet Trade in 1975, completing a postgraduate course in Economics and Trade Organization in 1978 and still later a postgraduate course at the Department of Art Studies of the Humanitarian University of Trade Unions. Valentin Skurlov is a member of the Russian Genealogical Society since 1992. He is an expert on the assessment of artistic valuables of the Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications (since 2002) and a full Chevalier of the Order of Carl Faberge.

When and how did the Faberge theme come up in your life?

It first arose in the mid-1980s, when I came to work at the Research Institute of Jewelry and was appointed to head the department for the study of demand, assortments and advertising. At that time, I supervised 25 factories operating under Russias Main Administration of the Jewelry Industry, but could not help getting interested in this thing: What was better in our jewelry art than Faberge? In 1989, while studying the archives of Academician Alexander Fersman I found notes on the history of the Faberge firm written by its chief master Franz Birbaum (1872-1947) in 1919. Now these Notes are the "Bible" for any researcher of Faberge's work. I began to study the history of this jewelry house. When the graves with the name of Faberge were found at the Lutheran cemetery in St. Petersburg, I wrote a letter to Carl Faberges great-grand-daughter Tatyana living in Switzerland, and then we met and became friends. Then I had the idea to establish the Memorial Foundation of Carl Faberge, for which I developed its Charter, and in 1996 the Foundation was approved in Moscow, and I became the Academic Secretary of the Foundation, and then its Heroldmeister. Currently, there are 680 people who are the holders of the Faberge Foundation awards  these are jewelers and craftsmen, jewelry art activists, art historians and top managers of jewelry businesses. I am a confidant of Tatiana Faberge with whom we are engaged in promoting the artistic creativity of Carl Faberge and have published 12 books in co-authorship.

What are the goals and objectives of the Faberge Foundation?

The goal of the Memorial Foundation is to preserve the memory about the life and work of Carl Faberge and his firm.

There are many tasks: opening memorial plaques and monuments; taking care for the graves; identifying the best jewelers, who preserve and develop the traditions of Faberge; bestowing them with awards and badges of the Foundation (the latter accounts for 680 chevaliers of such awards); publishing literature on this topic; and creating a database of jewelry artworks by the Faberge firm.

Please, tell us about your scientific work.

In the early 1990s, I found genuine invoices for the Imperial Easter Eggs in the archives, which allowed to establish their exact number - 50 artworks. Also, I was the first to draw attention to the importance of attributing the Faberge goods with the help of scratched inventory numbers and developed an algorithm for reading these numbers. The database of jewelry goods produced by the firm, which in 1999 contained 18,000 items, has now increased to 43,000. This database is used by museums, collectors and auction houses. Actively working in the private archive of Tatyana Faberge and being her literary secretary and co-author, I compiled a list of employees of the firm, which in the early 1990s numbered more than 35 people, and today it is more than 450 people.

I have more than 300 publications, which appeared from 1990 to 2017. In 2012, I defended my Ph.D. thesis on "History and traditions of the Faberge firm in the stone carving art of Russia (late XIX - early XXI centuries)." Every year I deliver about 20-40 lectures on Faberge, also taking part in five or seven scientific conferences.

What is your opinion on the collection of Viktor Vekselberg and the St. Petersburg Faberge Museum?

The question is incorrectly posed: there is no Vekselberg collection. Viktor Vekselberg is the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Link of Times Foundation. There is a jewelry collection of the Link of Times Foundation, some part of which is exhibited in the Faberge Museum opened in late 2013 on the Fontanka embankment. This is the worlds largest and best Faberge Museum in terms of the number of exhibits. Suffice it to say that there are nine Imperial Easter Eggs being displayed in this museum - there are more eggs only in the Armory Chamber of the Moscow Kremlin. The Faberge Museum is now the third by attendance in St. Petersburg after the State Hermitage and the Russian Museum, and it continues to replenish its collection. The Faberge Museum displays more than 600 exhibits of this master, while about 200 to 300 exhibits demonstrate the skills of other firms of Faberges contemporaries: Khlebnikov, Ovchinnikov and Sazikov. A large section (more than 70 works) is dedicated to the Moscow enamel workshop of Fjodor Ruckert, where orders from Faberge accounted for 80 percent of its business. The Faberge Museum has an insufficient number of stone-cutting goods, there are few pieces made from precious stones, first of all belonging to the "diamond group." The firms assortment had no less that 33 percent of jewelry pieces attributed to this group, but its share in the modern antique auction market is no more than 2 or 3 percent.

In what way did Faberge use diamonds in his work?

Faberge, like all court jewelers, actively used diamonds - although, probably, he could use them even more often. Henry C. Bainbridge, Faberges first biographer, writes that he was always amazed at how many new "fancy" models Faberge was developing. According to him, it was enough to take a few models, make them cheaper, and it would be enough for quite a hefty piece of bread and butter, as for example diamond jewelry was in great demand in those years. Bainbridge noticed another distinction of the time: some of Western jewelers often turned into usurers taking diamonds of their high-ranking customers as collateral. Usurious transactions brought even more income than the work to improve the product range. This was the reason why the work of Russian jewelers based on creativity was valued higher.

The 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century was the time of change in artistic styles. How was it reflected in the work of the Faberge craftsmen?

Initially, diamonds and colored gems were used as an addition to gold - that was in the 1860s, and there appeared jewelry pieces made exclusively of diamonds. ... Their favorite motifs were branches of flowers, spikes and artificial bows with flower petals and leaves being forged and fixed by diamonds. That was the best time for diamond artworks. Jewelry pieces were notable for various pulpy patterns clearly read even at a distance  the vogue was for large diadems, egrets, collar shaped necklaces, corsage breastplates, buckles and large bows.

The next period was influenced by the Empire style with its inherent brevity. The strict lines of meanders and volutes prevented the use of reliefs  diamonds, that were in the same plane, lost part of their fire, destroying each other with their brilliance.

At the end of the XIX century there came the era of Art Nouveau, but the enthusiasm for it soon began to fade. Instead, people turned to be fascinated with small ornaments graced with tiny diamonds. Such work is applicable only in small items - in rings, bracelets, brooches and pendants, in which the eye can distinguish and appreciate the richness of drawings, the completeness of details. Most of these jewelry pieces were made from pure platinum or from its alloy with silver - a beautiful gray tint underlined the whiteness of the diamond.

Excessive use of small diamonds was then considered a mistake: jewelry pieces lost their fire, and this is the main advantage of diamonds. In addition, the abundance of small stones reduced the material value of the object, while at the same time increasing the cost of the work. A successful novelty in the jewelry pieces of that time was the use of colored stones of rectangular shape with one facet - with an even selection of stones, these colored strips placed between diamonds made an excellent impression.

Did Faberges products use other precious stones as well?

As for other precious stones, this is too big a topic, which I have not yet studied. But I must note that as early as 1886 the number of employees of the firm was only 28 people, and it was known precisely as a firm producing diamond things. Only in the late 1880's the company expanded its product range, and from the 1890s began to produce stone-cutting goods. In 1887, Faberge opened its branch and jewelry workshop in Moscow (managed by Oscar Pihl, who came from St. Petersburg). In 1890, the firm launched the Moscow Silver Factory. In 1896, the Faberge firm had a staff of 455 workers and 31 apprentices in its units in St. Petersburg and Moscow. The diamond group and the group of precious stones still occupied an important place, but not the leading one - the company turned to be multiproduct.

In addition to Faberge, there were other famous diamond jewelers. According to Franz Birbaum, the jewelry part of the dowry to the members of the imperial family was entrusted to Bolin, and we made the silver part. In 1856, the coronation crown of Empress Maria Alexandrovna was made by jeweler Zeftigen. In 1896, jeweler Gahn created the crown for Empress Alexandra Feodorovna assisted by Carl Blank, Mikhail Anikin and Alexander Wahlberg.

By the way, Faberge often used semi-precious and ornamental stones - even carneols collected by the tsar's children in the Crimea - along with diamonds. In this case, the important thing was the beauty of the drawing pattern - and this was the jewelers work, which brought profit. Incidentally, Bolin used to buy expensive stones and put them into settings, thus earning a profit of 10 percent, while Faberge earned 100-200%.

He was a genius in general - I've been studying him for almost 30 years.

Galina Semyonova for Rough&Polished



The Minerals Marketing Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) said the country is expected to rake in $235 million from the shipment of diamonds this year.

MMCZ acting general manager Masimba Chandavengerwa was quoted by the Herald newspaper as saying at a mining conference in Harare that the projected diamond revenue would contribute towards the $2 billion they are expecting in mineral exports excluding gold in 2018, up from $1,6 billion, a year earlier.

Zimbabwe sold diamonds worth $84,2 million last year, according to the state-owned company.

The Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) conducted a test sale three weeks ago, which earned the country $829,000.

Mines minister Winston Chitando recently told Reuters that the state diamond company would auction 1.56 million carats of diamonds over the next two months, the first time since March 2017 that the country was conducting such sales.

ZCDC was targeting to boost output to 3 million carats this year and 4 million carats next year.

It produced 1,8 million carats of diamonds last year from 961 000 carats in 2016.

Meanwhile, Chandavengerwa said the country had been registering growth in chrome ore and high carbon ferrochrome activities.

We have seen phenomenal growth in those areas and most of the (platinum group of metals) PGMs. We have seen at least a lot of gold there and chrome is coming on board, he said.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished



Platinums rare nature gives it additional value and appeal Huw Daniel is the CEO of Platinum Guild International, overseeing market development activities in China, Japan, India and the USA, on behalf of the platinum producers of South Africa. Before taking up this role in 2015, Huw ran PGI USA for 12 years...

Marco Carniello: We want to continue to be the engine boosting the jewellery industry Italian Exhibition Group (IEG) is a leader in Italy in the organisation of trade fairs and one of the main operators in the trade fair and conference sector at European level, with structures in Rimini and Vicenza, as well as further sites in...

There is a significant need for smart and technological financial solutions in the diamond industry MDPS, the Israeli start-up Fintech company from the Mazalit Group is gearing up to enter the diamond industry soon. Zeev Maimon, the CEO of MDPS is also the Founder / CEO of MAZALIT, a B2B payment platform designed and dedicated to the global diamond...

The future for synthetics lies in that it has become possible to grow a stone you want and make what you want out of it Alex Popov, President of the Moscow Diamond Exchange and head of the Ame jewelry brand, which uses lab-grown diamonds to produce jewelry, sat for an interview with Rough&Polished sharing his views on the coexistence of natural and man-made diamonds in...Washington State Department of Ecology

The Washington Department of Ecology has approved the state's first oil spill response plan for BNSF Railway Company (BNSF), the largest freight railroad company in the state.

The state notes this is a big step forward in its oil spill preparedness efforts.

BNSF owns 1,332 miles of track in the state and delivers oil to refineries at Cherry Point and Ferndale, truck racks in Seattle and Spokane and terminals in Anacortes and Pasco, officials said. With the approved plan, BNSF meets Ecologys more protective requirements.

Dale Jensen, Washington Department of Ecology spills prevention program manager, said the plan is a major step forward for the protection of Washingtons communities and environment.

Oil by rail has expanded significantly in recent years, and its imperative railroad companies are prepared to work with the state to respond to a spill in a rapid, aggressive, and well-coordinated manner, Jensen said.

Railroad companies transported about 2 billion gallons of crude oil through Washington state in 2017, travelling through communities, along major highways, the Columbia River and Puget Sound, officials said. About 25 percent of all crude oil moving through the state was transported by railroads, the Department of Ecology said.

In accordance with the 2015 Oil Transportation Safety Act, the states Department of Ecology mandates that rail lines to have contingency plans guaranteeing they can respond to a spill quickly and effectively. This is the same requirement the state has for vessels, pipelines and oil facilities, the department notes.

Washington joins California as the only two West Coast states to require oil spill contingency plans for railroad operators, the Washington Department of Ecology said. Railroads in most states follow federal regulations that emphasize safety, but do not include requirements for oil spill response readiness.

The plan also includes:

Clarification regarding how notifications are made to ensure a joint response to a spill

Requirements that spill response equipment, a team and resources be pre-positioned statewide

Requirements that teams are ready to respond to oiled wildlife and community air monitoring

Requirements that ongoing annual training for local and tribal first responders is held

Requirements that oil spill drills are created and practiced

The amount of crude oil trains in Washington increased significantly in 2012, officials said, explaining that the Oil Transportation Safety Act recognized new risks in Washington from the rising amount of oil traveling by rail.

The department said it is currently working with eight railroad companies that transport oil in Washington to form oil spill contingency plans. Three of them, including BNSF, transport unrefined crude oil.City of Jerseyville, Ill.

A collaboration between Stonemont Financial Group and the Jerseyville Economic Development Council in Jerseyville, Ill., unveiled plans to build a 1,400-acre, rail-served industrial park.

The Mid-American International Gateway will be served by Kansas City Southern, which stakeholders said played a key role in forging the ongoing collaboration.

Stonemont estimates the $500-million logistics park, which will be located east of the existing KCS rail line that passes through rural Jerseyville, could begin as early as this year, with deliveries possibly rolling through about 12 months later.

Stonemont sees transformational potential in this project and that is why we are committed to investing the appropriate amount of capital to help bring it to life, said Zack Markwell, chief executive officer of Stonemont. While the project is still in its due diligence phase, Stonemont believes the park can address critical logistics needs for a wide variety of rail users in the U.S. and Mexico, as well U.S.-based parts and components manufacturers that ship products down to Mexico for assembly.

Stakeholders held an event to announce the project on March 2, where Jerseyville Mayor William Russell and others expressed optimism about the projects potential to spur economic growth.

We anticipate the project will support new, long-term jobs that could help keep young people working here in in our community until they retire, Mayor Russell stated. We will serve 11 states out of this site, essentially anywhere within reach with one-day trucking. The possibilities for business and job growth are significant.

Mayor Russell chairs the Jerseyville Economic Development Council and has been the projects lead advocate since his pre-mayoral days as one of the citys commissioners. The Mid-American International Gateway project has been the subject of much local and regional discussion for the past three-plus years.

With eventual plans for the city of Jerseyville to annex the development site, Mayor Russell noted that the project will have immediate access to the benefits that come with being a part of the newly-formed enterprise zone that encompasses Jersey, Greene and northern Madison counties, as well as being in a free trade zone thanks to Americas Central Port district, and finally the soon-to-be-created fourth Jerseyville TIF district. These benefits are expected to draw in more large companies and jobs.Quebec, a favorite place for cryptocurrency miners for its cheap power, is not interested in bitcoin mining without any added value to the region, Bloomberg reported, citing the Canadian region's Premier Philippe Couillard.

Cryptocurrency mining procedure consumes enormous power and Quebec is said to have the lowest power costs in North America due to its nearness to dams. Hydro-Quebec, the largest utility in the region, produces excess power than needed.

Couillard said the bitcoin miners planning to move to the region will not get cheap electricity through state utility Hydro-Quebec, as the state may not have enough power to meet the demand.

The government is more open to companies that would help create a real eco-system or a real technological transformation using blockchain. Such companies could even use cryptocurrencies to finance their projects, he noted.

Following crackdown in China's cryptocurrency last year after tightened regulation, people involved in bitcoin mining reportedly considered moving to places like Iceland and Quebec.

In mid February, Iceland's energy company HS Orka had warned that the country runs the risk of exhausting its energy sources this year if consumption for cryptocurrency mining exceeds household power use. Officials from the energy company told the BBC that they would not have sufficient energy to meet the demand from the several Bitcoin mining centers proposed.

Meanwhile, New York State has recently granted permission for a full-scale Bitcoin mining setup, citing the added jobs and economic value it would bring to the region. Cloud mining service Coinmint, with an offer of 150 jobs and $165 million investment, reportedly won approval to take over an abandoned smelter for Bitcoin mining operations.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsThe central bank of Malaysia has introduced a set of guidelines to regulate Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Under the new policy issued by Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), digital currency exchanges will be subject to the Anti-Money-Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act of 2001.

Exchanges will be required to verify their customer's identity, monitor trades and report suspicious activity to regulators.

Cryptocurrency exchanges will be required to publish prices and the methodology used to determine them.

BNM had issued draft regulations in December with the twin aims of preserving a stable financial system while also thwarting criminal activity related to cryptocurrencies.

The new policy was finalized after considering feedback received during the public consultation period on the draft policy.

In the wake of surging crypto craze, Governments around the world are actively looking for ways to regulate Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The Malaysian authorities had expressed concern that digital currencies may be used by criminals or terrorist groups for money-laundering or illicit financing, leading to calls for increased transparency and regulation.

Malaysia's Financial Intelligence Unit had tracked 346 terrorism-related suspicious transactions in the first half of 2017, that showed the use of financial system for terrorism financing was on the rise in the country.

Bank Negara Malaysia had made it clear that cryptocurrencies were not legally accepted payment methods, and hence would not be protected by the country's existing dispute-resolution systems.

At least four cryptocurrency exchanges currently operate in Malaysia.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Economic News

What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.The Shape of Water, a film that tells the story of a woman who falls in love with a sea creature, has won the 2018 Oscar for Best Picture.

The Shape of Water won three more Oscars - for Best Directing (Guillermo del Toro), Music (Original Score) and Production Design.

Frances McDormand won best actress award for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri", and Britain's Gary Oldman was named best actor for playing Winston Churchill in World War Two epic "Darkest Hour".

This was the biggest in a golden run for Frances McDormand this season, having also won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Awards for her role in a drama that depicts the story of a woman seeking justice for her daughter's rape and murder.

In her acceptance speech, the 60-year-old actress put her Oscar on the floor, and called on fellow nominees to stand with her in solidarity. At one of the most powerful and symbolic moments of the night, Frances told the crowd: "Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed."

This is the fifth Academy Award nomination for Frances McDormand, who was an Oscar winner for Actress in a Supporting Role in 1996.

For Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Allison Janney won the award for the portrayal of an abusive, pushy and ambitious mother in "I, Tonya".

James Ivory, screenwriter and co-producer of the drama "Call Me by Your Name," created history as he became the oldest Oscar winner at the age of 89.

Jordan Peele bagged the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for "Get Out", stunning front-runners "The Shape of Water" and "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri".

Jimmy Kimmel hosted Hollywood's biggest night in Los Angeles Sunday.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsPresident Donald Trump has criticized Canada and Mexico, and suggested that the neighboring countries could avoid forthcoming tariffs if they agree to a renegotiated trade deal.

Trump lashed out against two of America's top trading partners in a couple of Monday morning posts on Twitter.

"We have large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada. NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs. Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed," Trump tweeted.

He called on the Canadian Government to treat US farmers "much better" as their policies are "Highly restrictive".

He urged Mexico to do more to stop the cross-border flow of narcotics.

"They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying," he added.

Trump announced Thursday the U.S. will impose new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

He indicated that he plans to impose a 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum.

The tariffs are likely to benefit U.S. steel and aluminum producers, but the European Union and China have warned of retaliation.

Trump shrugged off the concerns by saying that "trade wars are good, and easy to win" when the United States is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does with.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsSaudi aggression media admits three soldiers killed [05/March/2018] br>



SANAA, Mar 5 (Saba) - Artillery force of the army and popular committees hit Saudi mercenaries sites and locations, while the Saudi aggression media admitted the killing of three of its soldiers in an attack in border battle fronts, a military official told Saba on Monday.



The artillery of the army and popular committees targeted troops and sites of the Saudi army artillery in al- Mahtam site and Qazaa Mustahdath in Jizan region, said the official.



Two Saudi Soldiers were sniped north of Wadi al- Maeen and beyond Qamar village.



In Najran province, the artillery force shelled gatherings of Saudi army mercenaries off Alb crossing and in al-Boqaa desert.



Another troops were targeted in al- Ajasher desert with scores of missiles, as well Saudi soldier sniped while protecting al- Hajla site.



Furthermore, the armys artillery force shelled Saudi troops off Alb crossing and the neighboring hills in Asir region.



In Taiz province, the artillery shelled Saudi troops and their vehicles in separate areas in Mawza district, causing casualties in their ranks, while a Saudi military vehicle was bombed by a guided missile north of Medi desert and killing its crew.



Meanwhile, the break-up of large-scale mercenaries of the Saudi army, including Sudanese soldiers continued for hours under intense air cover towards the port of Haradh, resulting in the deaths and injuries in their ranks.



Eman





sabaDear Editor,

I response to Karl Marx, ok lets try and follow your logic:

1) I understand history well and the plight of what you are referring to.

Please tell me: a) take money and the white man out of the equation and what do you have? Lets pretend that it didnt exist and cultures/race were left intact, what do you suppose is the case scenario?

Do you think Christianity brought positive or negative affects? Do you think Samoa was better off before the white man came? Do you know what the true meaning of Sun Tzous divide and conquer strategy is, or Trotskys coinage of the word Racism? Do you understand fully the symbolic meaning of Scriptures Matthew 26:11.?

2) What system do you prefer that Samoa should adopt? Explain to me the system that has existed in the world that takes care of the poor and has done well by it. Since I am a registered conservative Republican, I espouse laboring and getting an education to take care of my family and owning what is rightfully mine through hard work and perseverance. I donate a lot of my hard-earned money that I created from the sweat of my brow. Ive persevered under the free market capitalist system because it has the freedom to apply ones self, and not relying on the government.

3) Do you think that the end-result of this debate will improve the poor and the homeless situation that you cited? Lets say that you repeal the Act, then what? Is your water situation going to improve? If so, how?

Point Being: There is a concerted effort to overthrow Samoas independence and her governing body. This is not an accident because they are funded by SOROS, et al. Since weve tracked the minions that are loud mouths and agitators, they have a pattern of using the poor and working class people to incite revolution and disrupt order.

This is who Karl Marx and Friederich Engels were. They espoused Socialism, Marxism and Communism. Mark my words now that Revolution is upon Samoa, and shell lose everything not because of the outside forces, but simply due to being divided from within, and they are certainly being played as puppets of the global dominance.

By the way, I did not cite my background just to cite it. Your manner of speech tells me exactly what your level of ignorance is about. What you should have done is cite your logic and then well tackle it.

What makes you think that I dont know what is going on in Samoa?

I was reflecting on my genealogical royal lines and the historical suffering, pain and poverty that Samoa witnessed during the pre/post Mau.

Im talking about overcoming hardships and regardless of what situation youre under, you persevere no matter what.

Blaming the white man doesnt do any good.

After all, we are all subject under the white mans SYSTEMS.

Discern if the people of Samoa were better off before the white man entered the scene.

The Samoan culture are warriors; therefore, brutality and warring with each other were some of the norms; they were cannibals; they didnt have the perspective of developing their own minds; hence, the resorting to physical killing and subjecting to cruelty.

The light came through Christianity, and rightly so.

Tell me, were they better off before the encountering with the white man? If so, what are the pros and cons ----before and after?

Ive seen your numerous posts elsewhere and your gathering of minions to disrupt and destroy.

Bottom line is you are playing the PITTING game with SOROS funding the disruption. Hence the articles citation of Karl Marx.

If you think you are going to USE the poor and the working class to incite and overthrow Samoas independence, you have brought WAR on yourself.

Make no mistake about that.

And before you throw out garbage and the usual attacks of a concerted effort to destroy, try to discern what the pre/post Mau was about.

Since your genealogy doesnt have an impact back in the day and to date, dont blame the white man and his systems that has brought numerous changes amongst the people of Samoa. .

You better cut this Socialism/Marxism/Communism BS out of the dialogue. It doesnt belong in Samoa.

Certainly, you are clueless about that. Who are you again?

Nafanua Salamasina Malia Muagututia-HerzThe prayers of Luaipou Talitoelau have been answered.

Tatau Creation and the Federal Pacific Finance have offered to pay for the fare of the 32-year-old for her operation next week.

The companies are among a host of Good Samaritans who offered to help since their story featured in the Samoa Observer. Some of the helpers want to stay anonymous.

The eldest daughter of Tuualuga Faleatua and Faleatua Vaega from Malie were seeking assistance in paying their airfares to New Zealand for Luaipous valve surgery operation. Their story featured last week.

The Owner of Tatau Creation, Siatunuu Suluape and her husband, Suluape Paul said they were touched when they found out about Luaipou and they decided to help.

Looking at the father of Luaipou seeking help for his daughter was like looking at my own, I contacted my husband immediately if there was any chance we could help this family, she said.

We were so overwhelmed with love and wanted to help, it is something that we must do. Whatever that we could offer, but as long as we could help this family in need.

I was flicking through the newspaper and I saw the article about Luaipou Talitoelau seeking help.

I believe that God is good and faithful to us no matter what, having the heart that is willing to help a person is good because at the end of the day we are all Samoans, she added.

She said Tatau Creation offered to pay for Faleatua Vaegas fare while Federal Pacific Finance will pay for the daughters fare.

Mr. Vaega was extremely grateful.

I am lost for words to illustrate the love of God, I am very thankful because it was through Him, He has led people to come our way to help us.

I am thankful to the Samoa Observer since they were the ones that voiced out our cry for help and we wouldnt have met the Tatau Creation and Federal Pacific Finance. So praise God.

He thanked everyone who has shown support to help save their daughters life.

He shared: I am just a trivial man, but yet people have reached out to help us. So for all of those who have supported up with searching for treatment to help our daughter, we are grateful.

Receiving a one tala or even two tala, for us we are thankful. I pray that God will bless each person abundantly.Sharks are friends. They bring balance to the marine life.

This is according to the Director of the Global Shark Conservation - The Pew Charitable Trusts, Jennifer Sawada.

Jennifer was part of the Pacific Ministerial Shark Symposium organized by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme, held in Apia last week.

Growing up next to the beach in Southern California stirred her passion about the ocean and the importance of the marine environment for the survival of mankind.

The more and more that we learn of how important our surrounding is to our survival, there is a need for us to make sure it remains intact for our future generation.

I want my children to go scuba diving and still see that there are sharks underwater. I dont want to tell them like we used to have these like dinosaurs but we dont have them anymore, she said.

Speaking to the Samoa Observer, Jennifer said being underwater with the sharks is an eye opening experience.

So I am a scuba diver and I have been in the water with them, seeing them underwater and how graceful they are, they are almost like puppies.

Sharks are really beautiful and graceful underwater if people could actually experience that, they are not killing machines or vicious or even after you.

They dont really care much about you, they go about their own business that is not what they are out there to do, said Jennifer.

Jennifer explained that sharks are important because they benefit peoples livelihoods.

If you dont have the balance of all the biodiversity and all the species that are maintaining that ecosystem, then things will be unbalanced, they are helpful because they make the fish population stronger, the things that they kill are the weak and sick, they take out the weaklings and keep the strong ones.

The strong ones get to reproduce and that population then gets stronger.

They provide a number of different benefits; ecologically they help maintain healthy oceans and marine ecosystems.

They help maintain the population of healthy fish that are below them in the food web. Some of those fish populations are important either for food security or martially valuable fish species.

Some Pacific countries have shark clans so those are some of the cultural importance and economic importance, not the man fishing and taking it to the market to sell, but more so if you are a country that is willing to invest in sustainable ecotourism like shark diving, which is what divers and snorkelers like to do when they travel.

With the more than 500 known shark species, Jennifer said half of the population is at risk of extinction.

The reason for that is the biological trait that they have, which makes them more similar to mammals and that they live longer, and it takes them a long time to reach maturity to start reproducing.

The only challenge she faces is educating people sharks are not dangerous.

Many Pacific islanders that I have meant are just scared of them. Sharks have an important role in marine life and they are not there to eat you, we need them. People just need to understand.

Jennifer mentioned commercial fishing is the biggest killer for sharks.

Even if the vessel goes out looking for a tuna, sharks are going to inevitably get caught in the lines as well. There are some sharks that could survive on the line, but there are some which die on the line which is where the shark sanctuary comes in, she said.

For example Samoa is a shark sanctuary now and that means they ban commercial fishing for sharks, doesnt mean that the local Samoans cant go out and catch a shark to take home to feed their family.

It is not saying that you cannot use it for food to support your family or village, the sanctuary takes out the incentive to not catch more of them and send them overseas.

Jennifer explained: Not many people are killed by sharks compared to how many people died because they were struck by lightning.

Every year there are more than 100 sharks that are caught by commercial fisheries and that is way too many and too fast, so we are killing them all compared to them coming after us.

According to Jennifer, Samoa has Blue sharks and it is important to conserver those sharks.

She acknowledged all the participants who attended the meeting.

The Pacific region is very powerful because in this region, when these countries all unite and work, they are very successful.

We have seen it many times. They are able to get everyone on board. If the Pacific can do it, then that means other countries can do it as well.The Commissioner of Police opened the second Operational Safety Instructors Training for the Samoa Police Service (S.P.S.) last week.

This training is made possible with the ongoing assistance of the Samoa Australia Police Partnership project.

The training was delivered by the Australia Federal Police and the Royal Solomon Island Police Force.

The training focused on the use of force standards and best practices which are recognised in both Australia and New Zealand.

This approach to delivering trainings in the Pacific helps standardize regional police trainings within the context of local laws and legislations.

Operational Safety Training supports Police officers in the execution of their duties and the legal requirement pertaining to the appropriate use of force.

The S.P.S. recognised the need for all sworn officers to receive this training in our efforts to enhance the standards of our service delivery to the people of Samoa.

S.P.S. would like to acknowledge the Australian Federal Police and also the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force for its continuous support.Women and young people of Samoa are set to benefit from NZ$6.5 million (T$11.05million) in funding for the Samoa Private Sector Development Programme aimed at boosting employment, and helping them get into business.

The funding was announced by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who is in Samoa today.

"Women and young people are strongly represented in the small and medium enterprise sector so this funding will have a direct impact on their ability to establish sustainable businesses and help Samoa achieve sustained and inclusive economic growth," Ms. Ardern says.

The funding will be focussing on improving the performance of Samoa's private sector through direct support for micro, small, and medium enterprises.

"Supporting the development of a vibrant and inclusive private sector in the Pacific is one way we can help our neighbours address youth unemployment, and ensuring women have the opportunity to set up businesses.

"We will partner with the Samoa Small Business Enterprise Centre to provide business development services, mentoring, training, and technical support.

"New Zealand will also work closely with the Samoan Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour to boost export opportunities for smaller and emerging exporters, support the Development Bank of Samoa's programme of small loans to start-ups, and support the development of insurance products for small businesses.

The Prime Minister is currently in Samoa leading the 2018 Pacific Mission.The President of the Land and Titles Court, Fepulea'i Attila Ropati, has taken special leave pending criminal charges filed against him in the Court.

This was confirmed by the Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Justice and Courts Administration (M.J.C.A.), Papalii John Taimalelagi.

The President is accused of assaulting a Security Officer of the M.J.C.A. during a function towards the end of the last year. The Police have charged him with assault, being armed with a dangerous weapon and causing injury.

According to Papalii, Fepuleais special leave became effective last Friday.

The Chief Justice, his Honor Patu Tiavasue Falefatu Sapolu and the Judicial Service Commission accepted the request by the honorable President to take personal leave, pending the criminal case against him, said Papalii.

In his absence, the Chief Justice, His Honour Patu Tiavaasue Falefatu Sapolu, has taken over the role of the President of Land and Titles.

The Chief Justice will play his role in the criminal, civil cases and will also sit on the Land and Titles cases.

Papalii said the added responsibility will be burden to the Chief Justice but he will make the determination on which cases to pass to other Judges and Justices.

Papalii denied that the Fepuleais absence would affect the work of the Land and Titles Court.

There is no impact on the cases scheduled before Fepuleai, he said. "The Court cases will proceed as scheduled.

According to Papalii, more than 300 cases have heard by Fepuleai since his appointment in August 2016.

I am speaking as a Registrar of the Court; Fepuleai is an asset to the Land and Titles Court and the Ministry of Justice.

It is unfortunate what has occurred, however the appointment of Fepuleai couldnt have come at a better time.

There were significant changes that occurred under his tenure as President of the Land and Titles Court.

Since August of 2016, there have been more than 300 cases which Fepuleai presided over and the three hundred plus is quite a significant number, given the limited time hes been with the Land and Titles court.

Regarding decisions on request from members of the public on various issues specifically for Lands and Titles, Fepuleai did not shy away from making hard decisions.

He also played a huge role in making the necessary changes for easier processes for the convenience of the public, within the Land and Titles Court of first instance, Leave to Appeal Court and the Court of Appeal.

Since he was charged, the President has been remanded at liberty until his Court appearance on 13 March 2018.

This was confirmed by the Police Superintendent and Media Spokesperson, Auapaau Logoitino Filipo.

According to sources within the Police, the alleged incident occurred at the compound of the Judiciary during a party for the Judges.

Its alleged that the accused struck the security officer (who works at the judiciary compound) on the head twice with a glass bottle, the source said.

The matter was not reported to the Police immediately and it wasnt until a few days later when the security officer felt pain on his head and was taken to the hospital."

At the hospital, the doctor found bits and pieces of broken glass on his head and thats when the matter was reported to the Police.

Efforts by the Samoa Observer to get a comment from Fepuleai directly have been unsuccessful. Last month the Samoa Observer met with Fepuleai.

When he was asked for a comment, however, he declined.The two prisoners accused of masterminding the failed mass prison break plot last month, Tagaloasa Filipaina and Ovaleni Poli, appeared in Court yesterday.

The men were called before the Chief Justice, His Honour Patu Tiavaasue Falefatu Sapolu.

They were represented by their lawyer, Pau Tafaogalupe Mulitalo, who asked the Court for his clients to be transferred from the Apia Police Station to Tafaigata Prison.

During the hearing, counsel Faalau Lagaia, who is representing the Samoa Prison and Correction Services, asked for an adjournment.

I appear on behalf of the Samoa Prison and Correction Services on this matter and as a second respondent, said Faalau.

We have only been given a copy of the memorandum this morning that was dated to your honor last week Friday."

Therefore, we are seeking a one week adjournment so we can obtain instructions from the Ministry of Prison and also to go through the memorandum because we havent had time to view the memorandum.

Chief Justice Patu granted the application.

This matter is further adjourned to Monday 12th March at 2pm for the second respondent to obtain full instructions and to file and serve a response, and for the first respondent to file and serve their response as well, said Chief Justice.

But Pau was not happy.

He argued that his clients should be released while waiting for the order to be given by the Court.

We acknowledge the order given this morning, but this is a special request for an interim arranged for my clients to be released while we are waiting for the adjournment for the time being, Pau told the Court.

They have been locked up in the Police Station for four weeks now and the nature of criminal charges against them remains unknown.

But Chief Justice Patu said that natural justice applies to the applicants as well as the respondent.

Counsel for the second response has just told the Court that she has just received notice of your motion this morning, Chief Justice Patu said.

But natural justice also requires that adequate time be given to the other party to prepare, so there is no adequate time has been given to the second respondent because they have only received a copy of your memorandum this morning."

So while I can understand your situation but natural justice applies to the applicant as well as the respondent, so the applicants will remain where they are until Monday next week."

And I will expect first and second respondents to be filed.

Last week a copy of the memorandum was obtained by the Sunday Samoan, which shows that Pau is filing it against the Ministry of Police and the Ministry of Prisons and Correction Services.

The lawyer claims that his clients have been kept in Police custody for more than three weeks now without criminal charges laid against them. Whats more, he claims they are being denied legal representation.

Pau is concerned about the way the Police and the Correction Services have approached and handled Tagaloasa and Ovaleni.

It is obvious from the way things have turned out that there is a likelihood of the constitutional rights of the applicants being infringed.

Pau argues that the Police Commissioner should protect human rights, including that of his clients.

However if that is a lawful duty to be undertaken by the Police Commissioner then denying the right of the applicants to have access to legal representation is a breach of section 16 (d) and the rights of the applicants under the Constitution of Samoa.

Pau noted the last time he met Police officials including Commissioner, Fuiavailiili Egon Keil, the Commissioner told the Counsel that the only reason the applicants are kept in Police custody for the time being is because of their safety and the transfer of the applicants back to Tafaigata prison will happen when investigations at Tafaigata prison is completed.

When is the investigation going to conclude remains unknown and it is absolutely unjust and unfair for the applicants to be kept in Police custody with uncertainty and continuous denial to their rights to access what they are entitled to while at Tafaigata prison.

There are other issues that the applicants want to address before your Honor and can only be done so fairly at mentions if the opportunity is so desired by your Honor to be given as part of the rights of the applicants to a fair trial under Article 9 of the Constitution.New Zealand has offered NZ$9.5m (T$17.5 million) funding to help Samoa recover from Cyclone Gita and boost local businesses, as it looks to strengthen its foreign policy focus on the Pacific region.

The assistance was announced yesterday in Apia by the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who kicked off her Pacific tour with a one and a half day stop in Samoa.

Her delegation that includes Foreign Minister, Vaovasamanaia Winston Peters, depart Samoa this morning for the next leg of the trip which includes stops in Tonga, Niue and the Cook Islands.

Prior to their arrival on Sunday evening, the New Zealand government had been talking about re-sharpening their focus on the Pacific amidst concerns about Chinas growing dominance.

The Pacific overall has also become an increasingly contested strategic space, no longer neglected by Great Power ambition. So Pacific Island leaders have more options. This is creating a degree of strategic anxiety, Minister Vaovasa had said.

We need to better pool our energies and resources to maintain our relative influence.

Yesterday on the sunny shores of Samoa where Ms. Ardern and delegation enjoyed a full on day, her government delivered with a financial injection that would be most welcomed by Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaois administration.

First up, Prime Minister Ardern announced a NZ$3 million (T$5.5 m) donation to assist Samoa with recovery work from Cyclone Gita. The cat 2 cyclone hit Samoa last month, with the majority of the damage inflicted by flooding and heavy rain.

The funding announced today (yesterday) will be provided directly to the Samoan Government to support the recovery and building of more resilient infrastructure, Ms. Ardern said.

There is much work to do to recover from this and build resilience to these storms so the people of Samoa can ready themselves for these events as much as possible in the future."

Prior to the announcement of the Cyclone Gita assistance, Ms. Ardern met with Prime Minister Tuilaepa where she was briefed about Samoas recovery efforts so far. Climate change was on the agenda.

We know we need to do our part but collectively I think we have a role to play in advocating on behalf of the Pacific together in an international forum as well, she said.

Cyclone Gita and its reach is an example of deteriorating climate patterns.

The impact of Cyclone Gita has been felt across the region, including in New Zealand, and the Government is committed to helping communities at home and in the Pacific recover as quickly as possible.

Away from Cyclone Gita, the New Zealand government gave women and young people of Samoa something to look forward to thanks to NZ$6.5 million (T$12 million) funding for the Samoa Private Sector Development Programme. The programme aimed at boosting employment, and helping them get into business.

In this region, half of the population could be defined as young people, I think we both collectively are looking to what we can do to support our young people into employment opportunities, she said.

"Women and young people are strongly represented in the small and medium enterprise sector so this funding will have a direct impact on their ability to establish sustainable businesses and help Samoa achieve sustained and inclusive economic growth.

According to a statement issued by the New Zealand government, the funding will be focussing on improving the performance of Samoa's private sector through direct support for micro, small, and medium enterprises.

"Supporting the development of a vibrant and inclusive private sector in the Pacific is one way we can help our neighbours address youth unemployment, and ensuring women have the opportunity to set up businesses, Ms. Ardern said.

"We will partner with the Samoa Small Business Enterprise Centre to provide business development services, mentoring, training, and technical support."

"New Zealand will also work closely with the Samoan Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Labour to boost export opportunities for smaller and emerging exporters, support the Development Bank of Samoa's programme of small loans to start-ups, and support the development of insurance products for small businesses.

Also on the agenda yesterday was the work visas for Samoans, including R.S.E. workers.

Both of us agree that there are these competing interests of, yes the value of remittances and, yes, the value of having that skills exchange, but also ensuring there is the retention and return of skills back to Samoa, said Ms. Ardern.ANZ Bank has announced its support of the Spinal Network of Samoa (S.N.S), a charity providing care to spinal injury sufferers, through a NZ$20,000 (T$36,000) donation and ongoing administrative assistance.

ANZ Samoa Country Head, Bernie Poort, stood alongside New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, to present a cheque to charity representatives.

I feel very inspired by S.N.Ss vision to do more for Samoans with spinal injuries. While there has been continuous improvement in care for people with disabilities in Samoa, there is always more that can be done, Mr. Poort said.

Many young people who sustain spinal injuries hurt themselves when falling out of trees or playing rugby. Due to their injuries, they are unable to work, which causes financial strain on their families. They are also unable to pay for treatment, which can lead to complications, including sepsis and loss of limbs.

We have seen firsthand through ANZ Personal Banker Vern Lusiano, who works right here in Apia, that people with spinal injuries can thrive if given the right support.

With some simple modifications to our office and to Verns desk, we were able to make our workplace more accessible and Vern has helped countless ANZ customers.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was in Samoa as part of a trip to the Pacific, also taking in Tonga, Niue and the Cook Islands, with a focus on recovery efforts.Climate Change was at the forefront of a lunch hosted at the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum at Vailima yesterday.

In attendance was Prime Minister, Jacinda Adern and Deputy Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa.

They were joined by government officials and N.G.Os who shared views and exchanged notes to better understand the impact of climate change and the resources available through climate funding.

Ministry of Natural Resources C.E.O, Ulu Bismark Crawley, said the gathering was an important dialogue featuring presentations from S.P.R.E.P, Conservational International and more.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs C.E.O, Peseta Noumea Simi, outlined the need for Samoa to actively engage in order for Samoa to access climate change funds.

Firstly we need to be engaged at the political level in order to determine our readiness to exceed to and ratify international instruments such as the Paris Agreement."

Being part of the political dialogues and specific targeted resources as initiated under the Paris Agreement provides us with information on how to access such resources."

We need to determine how we could have representation on the governance institutions of such facilities; the good examples the Pacific is benefiting from, is that Samoa represents the Pacific on the Green Climate Fund board."

We need to ensure theres advocacy through the country and original representations that allows consideration of special case adaptation for groups, of countries that have special needs such as Small Island Developing States with low capacity in this regard, we welcome the 2017 launch of the approved simplify proceeds of the green climate fund, as was done C.O.P.23 in 2017, said Peseta.

We have learned from experience that as recipient countries, we should be in a state of readiness to receive funds, managed them well and commit to meet our important obligations.

According to Peseta, such prerequisites for readiness include ensuing country systems and processors.

These must be in place and this has happened for Samoa as a consequence of extensive reforms including reforms in public finance managements."

We have had extensive iterative assessment of our systems by our multiple development partners."

To be an accredited implementing entity we have the option of accreditation for direct access or we may choose to work through other accredited implementing entities or through regional entities such as S.P.R.E.P., A.D.B, World Bank and of course U.N.D.P."

We need to ensure that a requisite policy framework is in place to deity all the stakeholders involved."

There is also a need to develop national adaptation program of action and national appropriate mitigation action.

The C.E.O. noted that in accessing climate funds Samoa has the opportunities whereby special provisions are made for countries of special case status, such as least developing countries.New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern yesterday had a chance to hear from students of the National University of Samoa on issues that matter to them.

She was accompanied by some of her Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament including Vaovasa Winston Peters, James Shaw, Carmel Sepuloni, Aupito William Sio, Fletcher Tabuteau, and National MP's Gerry Brownlee and Alfred Ngaro.

About 300 students gathered at the N.U.S. Fale to welcome the Prime Minister and her entourage in a traditional ava ceremony, followed by a short questions and answers session.

With time constraints and a busy one-day trip schedule for the high-level N.Z. delegation, students could only ask a few questions surrounding climate change and information technology.

My question is in two folds. In terms of I.C.T, we face two challenges, first are the lack of I.C.T. facilities to cater for our young people and second are the lack of young women and girls who engage themselves in I.C.T."

In Samoa we only have one I.C.T.-based facility that is free and youth-oriented, which is funded by NZAid."

My questions are: Can such avenue be expanded to cater for more young people? How can you assist us in creating more I.C.T. awareness? And how would you encourage or ensure more women involve themselves in the I.C.T. sector, a student asked the Prime Minister.

In response, Ms. Ardern said New Zealand also faces the same problem of lack of women in I.C.T. sector and this was an area that needs improvement for both countries and there was room for dialogue on this matter.

She added focusing on education is vital to enhance womens involvement in I.C.T, especially young people and in this visit; she looked forward to hearing from the young people on issues that mattered to them and to encourage the involvement of women in business.

On climate change, two students echoed sentiments on Samoas vulnerability to climate change impacts and New Zealands role in helping minimize the climate change impact.

Climate Change is more relevant to your generation because of its impact. We are here to make sure we address climate change now. What we do together matters, Ms. Ardern responded.

Every time I have a chance to speak in a high level platform or in another country, recently being Vietnam, I talk about climate change every time. My role is to carry your voices as well. I am there to amplify the voice of the Pacific, our voices. So we will do our part because your generation matters to us.La Jollas Vividion Therapeutics will receive $101 million in an upfront cash and equity collaboration with Celgene, the companies announced Monday.

Vividion will help Celgene find new drugs for cancer, inflammation and neurodegenerative diseases. Celgene, a drug company based in Summit, N.J., has a branch in San Diego and collaborations with several companies here.

Privately held Vividion is based on science discovered by a team led by Benjamin Cravatt, Phil Baran and Jin-Quan Yu of The Scripps Research Institute. It launched last year with $50 million from venture capital investors.

Vividions technology identifies potential drugs from small molecules. These are generally easy and inexpensive to make and can be taken orally. While such drugs are attractive for drug companies, finding them for specific diseases has been difficult; many of them have been found through trial and error.

Advertisement

Cravatt, Baran and Yu have identified various methods to track interactions between small molecules and proteins involved in various diseases. Moreover, the methods can find druggable targets in living animals, which makes these methods more pertinent to drug development than just testing in cell cultures.

Essentially they can look at the druggability of any protein in any biological system, Cravatt said. Thats a great platform, but it means youve got to be able to focus it on the right areas of human biology to make a compelling medical impact. I think the partnership with Celgene will help us with that by selecting the best targets.

Diego Miralles, Vividions CEO, said he was attracted to the company because of its vast potential, and the caliber of its founding scientists. He joined the company in August.

Miralles had been president of Adaptive Therapeutics in Seattle and before that as Global Head for Johnson & Johnson Innovation in San Diego. He founded JLABS, a life science incubator with offices in San Diego and several other cities.

Celgene partnered with Vividion in large part because of Cravatts record as a scientist.

He has had a relationship with the key scientific leaders at Celgene for many years, Miralles said. They had an understanding of what Vividion brought to the table.

Cravatt is also a scientific cofounder of Abide Therapeutics, another Scripps Research spinoff that has partnered with Celgene. Abides develops small molecule inhibitors of a class of enzymes called serine hydrolases. It has also partnered with another drug company, Merck.

Last November, Abide reported positive early stage clinical trial results for its drug for Tourettes syndrome, which causes involuntary movements and vocalizations. The trial showed a strong effect in reducing these involuntary actions, the company said.

Advertisement

Vividion opens up small molecule drug development to a vast range of possibilities, Miralles said.

Under the Celgene deal, Vividion initially leads drug discovery and identifies programs to be worked on. Celgene has to right to take control of these programs once an application has been filed to begin clinical testing.

For some of these programs, including the first one, Celgene gets exclusive worldwide rights. Vividion may receive milestone payments in drug development and double-digit royalties. On other programs, Celgene and Vividion will equally share development costs, along with profits and losses from commercialization.

Vividion is developing its own programs and is open to other partnerships, Miralles said.

Advertisement

We could do anything but we cant do everything, he said.

Vividion now has around 40 employees, and will be hiring more Miralles said.

I cant tell you how many, but we will be growing significantly, and that is great news for San Diego, he said.

Related reading

Advertisement

Vividion, a Scripps Research spinoff, raises $50 million

Tourette drug from San Diegos Abide passes early clinical trial

Scripps Ben Cravatt elected to National Academy of Medicine

Celgene to develop Abides neuro drug

Advertisement

Drug search engine improved: Study

Abide, Celgene ink drug development pact

Abide may get up to $430 million in Merck drug pact

Advertisement

Science Playlist  On Now In a first, scientists rid human embryos of a potentially fatal gene mutation by editing their DNA On Now Space station flyovers visible from San Diego this week 0:55 On Now UCSD's 'ghost drivers' begin testing people's reaction seemingly empty cars 1:29 On Now 10 interesting facts about Mars On Now Kids can add years to your life On Now LA 90: SpaceX launches recycled rocket On Now Big passions, big giving: Malin Burnham 2:30 On Now Big passions, big giving: Darlene Shiley 2:40 On Now Big passions, big giving: Joan and Irwin Jacobs 2:45 On Now Ocean temperatures warming at rapid rate, study finds

bradley.fikes@sduniontribune.com

Advertisement

(619) 293-1020The Oakland office of the National Labor Relations Board soon may dismiss former Google engineer James Damores charge that his termination for writing and circulating a provocative memo challenging Googles diversity practices and alleged ideological homogeneity violated federal labor law. Damore asserted that his memo was designed to enlist his fellow employees in improving working conditions at Google, concerted activity protected by the National Labor Relations Act.

The NLRBs Associate General Counsel Jayme Sophir recommended that the head of the agencys Oakland office dismiss Damores charge because, while part of Damores memo probably was protected by federal labor law, part of it wasnt and Google based its decision to fire him solely on the part that wasnt. Googles consistently stated reason for firing Damore was that his memo advanced harmful gender stereotypes, such as suggesting that womens general tendency toward neuroticism . . . may contribute to the lower number of women in high stress jobs.

Sophirs short recommendation memo contains valuable guidance for employers on a handful of important, recurring questions that applies beyond this fascinating dispute.

First, an employer may fire an at-will employee for statements or conduct short of the severe or pervasive behavior that must be shown to establish legally actionable sexual or racial harassment, particularly where it disrupts the workplace. Sophir wrote: [E]mployers have a strong interest in promoting diversity and encouraging employees across diverse demographic groups to thrive in their workplaces. In furtherance of these legitimate interests, employers must be permitted to nip in the bud the kinds of employee conduct that could lead to a hostile workplace, rather than waiting until an actionable hostile workplace has been created before taking action.

Advertisement

Second, an employer should consider writing out its reason for terminating an employee before meeting with the employee. In making her recommendation to dismiss Damores charge, Sophir pointed to the carefully tailored written talking points Googles HR manager and Damores team leader prepared to explain to Damore why he was being fired. The script said the termination was not about you (Damore) expressing yourself on political issues or having political views that are different than others at the company. Having a different political view is absolutely fine. Advancing gender stereotypes is not. A document giving the legitimate reason for termination may bolster the credibility of an employers stated motive if the termination is later challenged.

Third, and related, any communication to other employees about the termination decision must match the message delivered to the discharged employee. Sophir pointed out that Googles message to all employees affirmed their right to engage in protected speech while prohibiting discrimination or harassment.

Fourth, employees who respond inappropriately to the statements or conduct that led to an employees discharge should themselves be disciplined. Sophir noted that an employee who sent Damore an email threatening to hound him until one of them was fired -- punctuating the message with dismissive profanity -- was issued a final warning.

Fifth, it is unlawful to fire an employee for openly criticizing a companys policies and programs that affect working conditions, including its diversity programs. Such statements are not only protected by federal labor law, they also may be covered by California law barring companies from disciplining employees for deviating from a companys political orthodoxy.

But it was because Google discharged Damore only for unprotected conduct while it explicitly affirmed [his] right to engage in protected conduct that Sophir recommended rejection of Damores charge. [W]hile much of [Damores] memorandum was likely protected, the statements regarding biological differences between the sexes were so harmful, discriminatory, and disruptive as to be unprotected.

These are durable lessons from Damores first round loss. Yet this will not be the last word in Damores fight. If the Regional Director follows Sophirs recommendation and dismisses Damores charge, Damore may appeal to the General Counsel of the NLRB, a Trump appointee.

And then there is the separate action Damore filed pending in state court.

This is getting interesting.

Advertisement

Dan Eaton is a partner with the San Diego law firm of Seltzer Caplan McMahon Vitek where his practice focuses on defending and advising employers. He also is an instructor at the San Diego State University Fowler College of Business where he teaches classes in business ethics and employment law. He may be reached at eaton@scmv.com. His Twitter handle is @DanEatonlaw.President Trump threw a wrench Monday into long-stalled regional trade talks, saying that Mexico and Canada could avoid planned new tariffs on aluminum and steel if they agreed to make concessions to Washington in negotiations over the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Trump has frequently threatened to withdraw from NAFTA if its two pact partners dont accede to U.S. demands for a more favorable deal.

But on Monday, the president suggested that Canada and Mexico could avoid the tariffs if they made concessions in negotiations to rewrite the almost quarter-century-old agreement. The three sides wrapped up the seventh round of talks in Mexico City on Monday with little progress on the key sticking points.

Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed, Trump tweeted. Also, Canada must treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying.

Advertisement

Progress in the NAFTA talks has been plodding, negotiators concede, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer warned that time for a deal was waning as elections approach in the three nations.

Now our time is running very short, Lighthizer told reporters Monday at the conclusion of the latest round of talks in Mexico City. The longer we proceed, the more political headwinds we will feel.

Seven months of negotiations have resulted in the closing out of just six of the accords 30 chapters, officials said, and many of the thorniest trade issues remain on the table.

If an agreement proved impossible, Lighthizer warned, Washington was prepared to move on a bilateral basis on trade pacts.

We are at the point where we have very important political decisions to be made, the U.S. trade representative said.

Trumps comments linking the new proposed tariffs to progress on the NAFTA talks threw a fresh factor into the complex, three-nation negotiations. Mexican and Canadian commentators generally viewed Trumps announcement as a gambit to gain favorable terms for the United States in a reshaped trade deal.

Trump said on Thursday, that he would levy tariffs of 25% on imported steel and 10% on aluminum, but he provided few details during what appeared to be off-the-cuff remarks in response to a reporters question near the close of a meeting in the White House with steel and aluminum manufacturing executives.

The presidents announcement surprised much of his own staff and drew immediate fire from Canada and other governments, as well as Republican lawmakers and businesses that use the metals. A formal announcement on the duties was promised for this week.

Advertisement

On Monday, Canadas foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, reiterated her governments opposition to the tariffs and warned that Canada would respond forcefully to such an action. Canada is the No. 1 exporter of steel and aluminum to the United States, and Mexico ranks among the top five. Canada and Mexico are also the top two buyers of American-produced aluminum and steel.

Canada would view any trade restrictions on Canadian steel and aluminum as absolutely unacceptable, Freeland said in Mexico City, where she appeared at the conclusion of the latest round of NAFTA talks. Should restrictions be imposed on Canadian steel and aluminum products, Canada will take appropriate responsive measures to defend our trade interests and workers.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) publicly broke with Trump, fearing the proposed tariffs could set off a trade war.

We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan, said AshLee Strong, Ryans spokeswoman. The new tax reform law has boosted the economy and we certainly dont want to jeopardize those gains.

Advertisement

Trump has responded by brushing aside criticisms of a potential trade war, and on Monday seemed only to stiffen his resolve on the metals tariffs.

No, were not backing down, Trump said in answering a reporters question about tariffs. We had a very bad deal with Mexico, we had a very bad deal with NAFTA.

Right now, 100%, but it could be a part of NAFTA, he said, opening the door to the possibility that Canada and Mexico could be exempted from the tariffs.

Trump said the United States had been ripped off by other countries on trade. We lost $800 billion on trade.  We are going to take care of it.

Advertisement

Over the weekend, the presidents trade advisor, Peter Navarro, who has been the administrations spokesman on the tariffs, told Fox News that Trumps announcement was for across-the-board duties. Thats the direction its heading, he said. And Navarro said on CBS News that we expect probably by the end of the week that these will be signed, after they have been reviewed by legal staff.

The administration is justifying the tariffs on the grounds that a surge of imported steel and aluminum presents a threat to the countrys national security.

Trump has made revamping Americas trade policies a key part of his economic platform, and administration officials have been in talks with their Canadian and Mexican counterparts to revise NAFTA since August in an attempt to reverse merchandise trade deficits with both countries. The three parties have made some progress, although several major issues remain unresolved, including controversial rules on automobile content, government procurement and conflict resolution.

In linking the proposed metals tariffs with NAFTA, Trump apparently meant to apply pressure on negotiators, but analysts said the tactic was likely to be counterproductive.

Advertisement

Its another attempt to bully, said William Reinsch, a veteran trade expert and senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

They wont buy it and it doesnt make any sense, he added. Its two separate things. Theres no conjunction in timing.

The metals tariffs may be imposed this week or next, the White House has indicated, but Reinsch and other analysts expect the NAFTA renegotiations to drag on for some months. Moreover, the talks could get held up for political reasons as the Mexican presidential election approaches this summer, and then the midterm elections in the United States.

Ildefonso Guajardo, Mexicos economic secretary and its chief NAFTA negotiator, responded to Trumps latest pressure with a measured tweet of his own:

Advertisement

Mexico shouldnt be included in steel & aluminum tariffs. Its the wrong way to incentivize the creation of a new & modern NAFTA, he said.

Responding to Trumps Twitter declaration that Mexico must do much more to stop illicit drugs from entering the United States, Mexicos foreign minister, Luis Videgaray, said that drug smuggling was a shared responsibility between the two nations.

This accepted principle guides our cooperation with U.S. agencies, Mexicos top diplomat tweeted. Only working together and addressing supply and demand we can stop the illegal flow of drugs, cash and weapons going both ways.

To read this article in Spanish click here

Advertisement

Lee reported from Washington and McDonnell from Mexico City. Cecilia Sanchez of the Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

UPDATES:

4:40 p.m.: This article was updated with information from a news conference in Mexico and with additional background.

12:20 p.m.: This article was updated with a comment from House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.).

Advertisement

9:40 a.m.: This article was updated with Times staff reporting.

This article was originally published at 8:15 a.m.Qualcomm has been handed a 30-day reprieve from Broadcoms $117 billion hostile takeover bid to allow U.S. regulators to conduct a national security probe of the potential deal.

In an unusual move late Sunday, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States ordered Qualcomm to delay its annual shareholder meeting, which was scheduled for Tuesday.

Several lawmakers last week called for CFIUS to review Broadcoms possible takeover of Qualcomm on national security grounds.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) issued an interim order to Qualcomm directing it to postpone its annual stockholders meeting and election of directors by 30 days, said a statement from the Treasury Department, which heads CFIUS. This measure will afford CFIUS the ability to investigate fully Broadcoms proposed acquisition of Qualcomm.

Advertisement

Broadcom has nominated six alternative candidates to Qualcomms 11-member board of directors in a hostile takeover bid. The results of the voting were expected to be announced at the annual meeting.

Bloomberg News reported Monday that all six of Broadcoms candidates had strong support, citing unnamed sources that had seen early vote totals.

Meanwhile, Qualcomm CEO and board member Steve Mollenkopf had the second lowest vote total of the combined 17 Qualcomm-Broadcom candidates, according to Bloomberg. Chairman Paul Jacobs, son of co-founder Irwin Jacobs, also was in danger of losing his seat.

Bloomberg noted that many of Qualcomms largest shareholders had not cast ballots and that they can change their votes up until the day of the annual meeting.

Late Monday, Qualcomm said the annual meeting was rescheduled for April 5. Stockholders who have previously cast their votes do not need to vote again unless they want to change their vote, Qualcomm said in its statement.

Broadcom remained on the offensive Monday. It accused Qualcomm of secretly seeking a voluntarily CFIUS review in January.

This was a blatant, desperate act by Qualcomm to entrench its incumbent board of directors and prevent its own stockholders from voting for Broadcoms independent director nominees, Broadcom said in a statement.

Qualcomm did not deny seeking a CFIUS review but accused Broadcom of using misleading rhetoric to trivialize and ignore serious regulatory and national security issues.

Advertisement

This is a very serious matter for both Qualcomm and Broadcom, the San Diego-based company said in a statement. Broadcoms claims that the CFIUS inquiry was a surprise to them has no basis in fact. Broadcom has been interacting with CFIUS for weeks and made two written submissions to CFIUS.

Broadcom, based in Singapore, has pledged to move its headquarters to the U.S., which it believes would remove CFIUS jurisdiction. Broadcom shareholders are expected to vote on the move in early May.

In our view, CFIUS investigation could be a moot point considering Broadcom is in the process of becoming a U.S.-based company on May 6, said Kevin Cassidy, a financial analyst with Stifel.

Broadcom noted its board of directors and senior management team consists almost entirely of Americans.

Advertisement

The company added, however, that it recognizes the important role CFIUS plays in protecting our national security, and is fully committed to cooperating with CFIUS in any review.

Broadcoms proposed takeover of Qualcomm would be the largest deal ever in semiconductors, creating a chip juggernaut with a leading market position in many top chips used in smartphones.

The deal was expected to face tough scrutiny from competition regulators. But over the past week there has been an increasing call in Congress for CFIUS to step in as well for security reasons.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, as well as Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, and Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, sent letters to Trump administration officials requesting a CFIUS review.

Advertisement

They were joined late Friday by five other members of Congress, led by Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis

We cannot overstate the likely harm (from a Broadcom hostile takeover) that would result to Qualcomm, the U.S. company leading the development of 5G and other next-generation technologies, as well as to the United States security interests, said the Gallagher letter. A disruption of Qualcomms R&D efforts would in effect hand the growing competition for 5G to China.

Its uncommon for CFIUS to launch a national security probe so early, said UC Berkeley law professor Stavros Gadinis.

CFIUS usually starts to review deals after they are agreed to, he said. It is very rare for CFIUS to review deals still at the proposal stage.

Advertisement

Previously, Broadcom has said it would walk away from its $79 per share offer to acquire Qualcomm should the annual meeting be delayed past March 6. But it now appears willing to continue to pursue its bid for Qualcomm through the CFIUS review, said Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon in a research note.

With CFIUS examining the deal, Qualcomm now can work to close its pending $43 billion of NXP Semiconductors to diversify its business beyond smartphones, attempt to make progress on patent licensing disputes with Apple and try to construct a stronger case to shareholders to remain a stand-alone company, said Rasgon.

Qualcomm is awaiting approval from regulators in China to acquire NXP. On Monday, it extended its $127.50 per share tender offer until Friday.

Qualcomm may have been interested in delaying the shareholder meeting in hopes that it can get the NXP acquisition completed, said Cassidy, the Stifel analyst.

Advertisement

But it may not matter. We are not certain that another 30 days will change (the) shareholders vote, he said.

Qualcomms shares slipped 1.1 percent to close Monday at $64.01. Broadcoms shares were down 1.5 percent at $246.98. Both trade on the Nasdaq.

Advertisement

Business

mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com;

Twitter:@TechDiego

Advertisement

760-529-4973

UPDATES:

This story was updated at 8 a.m. to include a reaction from Qualcomm.La Mesa is on the cusp of having several medical marijuana dispensaries, approved by voters in 2016, so now the city is trying to figure out how it can cash in on what it expects will be some lucrative ventures.

The city held a public cannabis taxation discussion on Feb. 28 hosted by HdL Companies, an outside consultant that will be helping the city make its way with the new type of job growth and tax revenue that dispensaries are expected to bring to La Mesa.

City Finance Director Sarah Bullock said the city will share feedback from that meeting with the City Council, which will hold budget discussions later this month.

The City Council could decide whether to put the tax measure on the ballot to let voters decide how La Mesa should move forward on taxing medical marijuana businesses.

Advertisement

Bullock said there is no way to know how much money could be generated by taxing the businesses, but it could be millions of dollars as it elsewhere in the state.

La Mesas first licensed dispensary for medical marijuana  the only kind the city allows  is expected to open sometime this summer.

The city this Spring will consider ways to tax the dispensaries, including:

By percentage of gross receipts;

By dollars per square foot;

At a flat rate;

By dollars per weight.

We need to tax it, absolutely, Bullock said. But one of the things that is most important, regardless of how we do this, is to keep the rates stable for the first three years. That will provide certainty for the businesses. We also dont want to overtax them; that would be self-defeating.

Not all cities or counties embrace taxing dispensaries, which are all-cash businesses.

Bullock acknowledged the need to be wary of the black market for marijuana. By keeping taxes low, legal businesses have better opportunities to compete with those who supply and sell by illicit means.

La Mesa will also need to plan on how often the taxes should be collected  monthly, quarterly, annually or by an administrative process  and how to make that process safe and secure.

Currently, there are 194 cannabis retail sellers in San Diego County, according to the HdL presentation by David McPherson.

Advertisement

McPherson said San Diego County generated nearly $81 million in cannabis retail sales from the end of 2016 through the middle of 2017. The median cannabis retailer during that time generated $1.5 million in revenues.

California already requires cannabis businesses, including cultivators, processors, manufacturers, retailers and distributors, to get a sellers permit before they can register with the state Department of Food and Agriculture, Department of Consumer Affairs or Department of Public Health.

They also need a commercial cannabis tax permit.

Since Jan. 1, a 15 percent excise tax has been imposed on those who purchase cannabis and cannabis products. Retailers are required to collect the excise tax from the purchaser and pay it to the cannabis distributor.

Advertisement

Commercial growers of cannabis are required to pay a cultivation tax to either a distributor or a manufacturer  depending upon the nature of their transaction.

State cultivation tax rates are $9.25 per dry-weight ounce of cannabis flowers, and $2.75 per dry-weight ounce of cannabis leaves. More categories and rates may be be added in the future.

McPherson also said that the city has several ways to put the measure before voters on how to add a tax on the dispensaries.

A general tax would require a simple majority vote of 50 percent of voters, plus one; a special tax would require two-thirds of the voters and must be used for a specific purpose as would be outlined in a ballot initiative, he said.

Advertisement

In order to make it timely and get a measure on the Nov. 6 ballot, McPherson laid out a potential schedule:

Draft a tax ordinance and conduct a workshop to develop tax rates by March 29;

Read the ordinance at a public hearing by April 24;

Send the ballot measure resolution to the Registrar of Voters by Aug. 10;

Obtain primary arguments in favor by Aug. 22;

Obtain rebuttal arguments and the city attorneys impartial analysis by Aug. 27.

Advertisement

karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.comDressed in black and white striped pants and suspenders, with a cartoon villain mustache drawn above his lip, Derrick Gilday fastened a plunger on his head before a crowd at the Seaport Village Spring Busker Festival on Sunday.

Im letting you know theres no business like show business except plumbing, said Gilday, who appears under the name Dango.

After strapping on the unorthodox headgear Gilday grabbed a plunger in each hand, and enlisted the audience to throw hula hoops at him, acting as a human ring toss. Before starting, he explained his rules for performance.

Rule No. 1, always face the audience, he said. Rule No. 2, make them think you know what youre doing. Rule No. 3, let them know that you know that they know that you have no idea what youre about to do.

Advertisement

With a medley of magic tricks, acrobatic stunts and slapstick humor, the busker festival drew crowds at Seaport Village Saturday and Sunday.

In a subsequent stunt, Gilday climbed atop five stacked chairs to juggle flaming torches and execute handstands.

This is literally burlesque, said Danny Kneer, a San Diego resident who said he has attended the event for three years and has gotten acquainted with Gilday by being called up from the audience as one of the dunces who hands him stuff.

Part of the audience is waiting for the guy to fall off the roof and the other part is clapping, Kneer said. Its genuine vaudeville.

Other performers waltzed on wine bottles, skipped on stilts or swallowed swords while narrating their acts with a mix of kid-friendly humor and off-color jokes. Their quirky skills ranged from tying a tie with one hand to performing contortionist tricks with hula hoops to riding a 10-foot coconut tree unicycle.

Do you have a magic wand? magician Extreme Rahim asked a young volunteer whom he drew from the audience, to help him magically add drawings to a coloring book. No magic wand? Whats wrong with this family?

When Gilday called a girl from the audience to assist in his plunger trick, he told her Stand over there, on that Hep. A smear. If youre from San Diego, youll get that.

Eight of the buskers, including Gilday, were competing for the 2018 Peoples Choice Award. Others showcased specialty skills such as didgeridoo music, rock balancing and performing as a silver statue.

Advertisement

For Gilday, busking is part of a repertoire of off-beat acts that include a show about an absurdist cook, and another about a gay, Buddhist bullfighter. He began performing at the Ocean Beach farmers market, traveled with his act through Mexico and South America and studied at the Sophia Isadora Academy of Circus Arts.

I played all around Europe and told myself I would never get another job, he said.

As a result, he reminded audience members, he relies on their generous appreciation to make ends meet.

Im a grown man, and I would one day like to buy a house, he said. Unfortunately, it will probably have to be in El Centro.

Advertisement

Advertisement

deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennanRob Paine, supervising producer of the Academy Awards, remembers an urgent message  one that no one ever imagined theyd hear  coming over his headset: Its wrong! Its wrong!

Derek McLane, the Oscar telecasts production designer, was seated in the audience at the Dolby Theatre and recalls the murmur of confusion that suddenly swept through the crowd.

Stationed in a production trailer behind the Dolby, the shows announcer, Randy Thomas, remembers simply thinking, What the ?

Few who sat at home watching last years Oscars telecast are likely to soon forget the shows shocking and chaotic final moments, in which La La Land was mistakenly announced as best picture over the actual winner, Moonlight. But for those who worked behind the scenes on the shows production team, that epic snafu wasnt just a crazy TV moment. It was a four-alarm disaster that played out on one of the worlds biggest stages, and, even as they prepare to turn the page with the 90th Oscars telecast next Sunday, it remains indelibly seared into their memory.

Advertisement

The best picture win for Moonlight, a low-budget, poetic indie about a gay black boy growing up in Miami, over the musical juggernaut La La Land was an upset in its own right. But the way in which that win unfolded turned what had otherwise been an amiable if somewhat predictable night into one of the most memorable shows in Oscar history and a reminder that in any live event  the Super Bowl, the presidential election  anything can happen.

For a film academy that had weathered two years of #OscarsSoWhite controversy and now finds itself trying to navigate the #MeToo moment, it was a singular crisis they could never have seen coming.

The shows director, Glenn Weiss, is one of many members of that team returning to work on this years telecast, including producers Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd. For Weiss, who earned a Directors Guild Award earlier this month for his work on last years show, the best-picture fumble and the nonstop coverage that followed dramatically illustrate the high stakes of mounting one of the most-watched live shows on television.

The difference between doing the Oscars and other shows is not the mechanics of the job, its not the functions that you do every day, its the microscope the show is under, said Weiss, who has also directed the Tony Awards and the Emmys, among other live broadcasts. Its scrutinized. Its watched all over the world. Just looking at the red carpet and how many outlets are here, its something that is focused on and paid attention to within and without the industry.

Jordan Horowitz, producer of La La Land, left, shows the envelope revealing Moonlight as the true winner of best picture at the 2017 Oscars. (Chris Pizzello / Associated Press )

Its easy to forget after the most stunning blunder in Oscars history, but as Weiss points out, the show had gone off without a hitch up until that final envelope was opened. Indeed, as the producers of La La Land took the stage to accept what they thought was their best picture award, the production team was preparing to bring the carefully choreographed telecast in for a smooth landing.

I was about to tweet Thats a wrap,  says Thomas, who was the first woman ever hired by the academy to announce the Oscars  and will return this year for her ninth time.

When the shows key stage manager Gary Natoli suddenly announced over the productions internal communications system that a mistake had been made, it took a moment for some on the crew to wrap their heads around what he was saying.

Advertisement

I couldnt figure out what was supposedly wrong, Paine said. I thought Gary had lost his mind. I thought he was upset about the fact that La La Land had won. Then I looked up and I saw him on camera  and, well, I dont think you can print what we all said in the truck at that point.

As the reality quickly sank in, Weiss knew that he had to let the audience see what was happening in real time with complete transparency. No matter how awkward or embarrassing it might be, there would be no cutting to a commercial, no breaking away for technical difficulties.

In the world of live television, mishaps happen, and reflexively, instinctively you go wide, you cut away, you do what you can not to show it, Weiss said. In this case, it had to play the opposite way. I dont care that suddenly theres a guy in a headset onstage now, I dont care that suddenly the accountants are on stage. What we need to do is make sure that were not accused of covering anything up.

When La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz held up the right card showing that Moonlight was indeed the winner, Weiss had a camera ready to zoom in on it, creating an image that became an instant viral meme.

Advertisement

Ive been joking about the fact that Ive spent a whole career staging breathtaking, beautiful moments on television, and the shot that Ill be remembered for is a guy holding a card, Weiss says. But I have to thank Jordan. Not only did he handle this so graciously  and Im not sure everybody would have in this situation  but he gave us the opportunity to get that shot.

Taryn Hurd, who is returning this year for her fifth time as the shows talent producer, was seated next to De Luca and Todd as the shock waves spread backstage. As the person on the production team responsible for booking and taking care of the shows presenters, she felt particularly awful for Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, who had been handed the wrong envelope by a PricewaterhouseCoopers accountant and were left holding the bag.

It broke my heart for them, said Hurd. Obviously, as we all know now, it had absolutely nothing to do with them and was not in any way their fault, but they were the faces of it. Once it all unfolded on stage and everyone came back, there was definitely a feel of, like, OK, lets take stock. All of us were just trying to figure out how that happened so we could get ahead of it because we knew the kind of story it was going to be.

Looking ahead to this years show, the production team is confident that sort of freak bungle wont happen again. New procedures have been put in place to further guard against such a mix-up, and the PricewaterhouseCoopers officials who handled last years envelopes have been replaced. While its safe to predict that returning host Jimmy Kimmel will make a joke or two about it, the hope is that the audience can shift its focus back to the movies.

Advertisement

The most important thing is to remember that its about the movies, said returning head writer Jon Macks, who has worked on 20 previous Oscars telecasts.

At the end of the day we cant control what someone at a microphone is going to say. Our focus is to celebrate 90 years of a great industry. Glenn Weiss

With the show now just days away, the production team is keenly intent on preserving as many surprises as possible. But given that 90th ceremony milestone, you can expect the telecast to be steeped in the history of Hollywood and Oscar shows of the past.

When I grew up watching the show, and in my early days on the show, the musical numbers used to be very large and extravagant, said Paine, who has been a part of the Oscars production team for more than 20 years. I think there will be a few of those moments this year.

Advertisement

We took an extra-careful look at the history of the Oscars as an event, really looking at what its roots were as a show to see if there were any ways to honor that on this occasion, said McLane, who says the driving visual motif of this years set design is light and reflectivity.

There are things that are both reminiscent of some of the shows from the past, but theres also a lot of stuff that I hope will feel very contemporary and modern and forward-thinking.

Of course, this has been no ordinary year in Hollywood, as the industry has been rocked for months by ongoing sexual harassment scandals. Earlier this year, last years lead actor winner Casey Affleck, who has faced allegations of inappropriate behavior toward two women, withdrew from presenting the lead actress award at this years show. (Im not really at liberty to talk about that one, Hurd says.) Beyond that, while theres no doubt the #MeToo movement will be represented in the show, how exactly that unfolds remains to be seen.

At the end of the day we cant control what someone at a microphone is going to say, Weiss said. But our focus is to celebrate 90 years of a great industry, and there is so much to work with with that. We want to keep it positive and stay on that message.

Advertisement

As for last years chaotic conclusion, Weiss can even see the positive in that at this point.

When people come up to me at parties and ask the question, the first thing I say to them is, Can you tell me right now, without taking out your phone, who won best picture three years ago?  he said. And nobody can name it. I think Moonlight will be remembered. I dont wish this on anyone, but the upside for them at least is theres notoriety in some way.

josh.rottenberg@latimes.com

Twitter: @joshrottenbergThe women behind Times Up first made their mission clear to the world at an awards show  wearing black to the Golden Globes on Jan. 7 in solidarity with victims of sexual harassment and assault. But the leaders of the organization say they have made a conscious choice to stand down at this weekends Academy Awards.

We are not an awards show protest group, explained filmmaker Ava DuVernay. So we stand down this time.

Just days before the Oscars, the Wrinkle in Time director and a handful of other Times Up members  Shonda Rhimes, Laura Dern, Tessa Thompson, Bad Robot co-CEO Katie McGrath and attorney Tina Tchen  met with about a dozen members of the media on Thursday to discuss what the group has accomplished in its first 60 days.

The meeting, held at the West Hollywood office of publicity firm Sunshine Sachs, lasted roughly an hour as representatives discussed everything from the Times Up Legal Defense Fund (which has amassed $21 million in donations) to recent allegations of sexual misconduct against Ryan Seacrest.

Advertisement

Yes, the red carpet host was a topic of conversation, with a reporter from Variety  the outlet that published an extensive interview with Seacrests accuser earlier this week  asking whether Times Up members would talk to Seacrest at the Oscars. (Seacrest, who will be on the carpet representing E! News, has strenuously denied all charges made by his former stylist.)

God, Id hate for this whole thing to become a sound bite about Ryan Seacrest, I really would, DuVernay said, shaking her head. Its up to the individuals that are going to be there to do what theyre gonna do. Theres not an official Times Up act about this.  We support people who are bearing witness to what has happened to them, but the bottom line is if youre on the carpet, you make your individual decision about it.

Anyway, insisted Greys Anatomy creator Rhimes, the red carpet doesnt have a whole lot to do with Times Up.

Its really important that you know that Times Up is not about the red carpet, the showrunner told the room. And those women you saw on the red carpet representing Times Up [at the Globes] are now off the red carpet working their butts off being activists.

I think theres really something about the narrative of Times Up that was really important, agreed DuVernay, that this not be just capturing the awards show spotlight. Itll happen again, but not this time.

DuVernay also noted the organization had worked with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and carved out a moment during the Oscars. (Other recent awards shows, including Januarys NAACP Image awards and Februarys British Academy of Film and Television awards, also referenced Times Up from their stages.) The women declined to give further details, though Dern joked, There might be a song.

In a separate interview with The Times, Oscars producer Jennifer Todd said, Were very supportive of Times Up and their efforts to create safety and equality in the workplace. Weve crafted a way to talk about it in a moment in the show. Most of the show will be focused on the 90th anniversary.

McGrath, meanwhile, admitted that it was tempting to stage another massive moment at the telecast  which attracted nearly 33 million eyeballs on ABC last year. A really on-the-nose presence might feel satisfying, but were not sure how much its translating, she continued. And we want to make sure that as we move forward, were being as strategic and thoughtful and authentic in our activations and in our rollout. Again, [weve been around] 60 days  we dont need to fit everything into it. Its more important to do it right.

Advertisement

Were also well aware of how much attention people are able to command at certain times, agreed Rhimes. It feels like some of these amazing women have a superpower. And we like to deploy that superpower usefully in an intelligent way and not just because we can.

Everything else in this town is built on the idea of you with your nose pressed on some glass. This just doesnt work that way. Shonda Rhimes on Times Up

Times Up members Katie McGrath and Ava DuVernay are flanked by directors JJ Abrams and Ryan Coogler at the world premiere of DuVernays A Wrinkle in Time at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood CA on February 26, 2018. (Alberto E. Rodriguez / Getty Images for Disney )

The gathering with the press on Thursday, Rhimes said, was meant to emulate an actual Times Up meeting. Once a month, between 200 and 400 women from the organization converge  typically at a home of one of the members  though sub-committees gather on a weekly basis. And while the group may seem exclusive  A-listers like Reese Witherspoon, Natalie Portman and Jennifer Lawrence are active participants  DuVernay wants to make it clear that anyone is welcome.

Advertisement

Ill say this: As a student of grass-roots movements and a person whos been an activist since I was a 16-year-old in Compton, no one ever knocked on my door and said If you care about this, come do it. You step up and you do it, the director said. Its not hard to find. Its on the website. Especially if youre in this industry. Theres no invitation. I do hear that some people are like You havent invited me, but the spirit of activism and a grass-roots movement is not an invitation-based thing.

Hollywood is a place that breeds a feeling of exclusion for females, and this is very counter to that, added Rhimes. I think that for a lot of people, there is this feeling of it must being something that youre invited to because everything else in this town is built on the idea of you with your nose pressed on some glass. This just doesnt work that way.

Rhimes explained that she typically begins Times Up meetings by reminding the group of its mission: To make lasting change to prevent harassment and abuses in our places of work and to speak with one voice despite coming from different backgrounds.

Then, Rhimes continued, she often gives the members an update on the Legal Defense Fund. Tchen, an attorney who is also Michelle Obamas former chief of staff, has been spearheading the fund. Via speakerphone, Tchen shared that over 1,700 requests for legal assistance have come through the fund  100 of which came in on the night of the Golden Globes. So far, Tchen said, 1,250 callers have been connected with lawyers via the National Womens Law Center.

Advertisement

But it remains to be seen how the $21 million raised will be allocated to these individuals. Roughly 500 attorneys have agreed to offer pro-bono initial consultations with those who contact Times Up, but if further guidance or representation is needed, attorneys will need to apply for funding through the NWLC. And while Rhimes called Times Up a global organization  noting that folks from Kenya, South Korea, Pakistan and Kuwait have contacted the group  the legal fund will only serve those in America due to varying international employment laws.

And dont expect to hear Times Up blasting the names of those whom they receive complaints about.

The very first meeting, people said, Are we gonna make the list of the dudes? McGrath recalled. And we said, Thats not what were here to do. Weve just gotta work on solutions.  Were not a judge and jury. We are gonna stay focused on creating policies and structures that help promote environments that will prevent more people from needing to come out with their own horror stories.

amy.kaufman@latimes.com

Advertisement

Follow me on Twitter @AmyKinLA

UPDATES:

1:45 p.m. March 2: This article was updated with additional details from the Times Up press event and a quote from the Oscars producer.

This article was originally published at 8:05 p.m. March 1.Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconis right-wing coalition was leading the Italian election late Sunday, exit polls indicated, but appeared unlikely to reach a majority in Parliament, suggesting weeks of drawn-out negotiations to find a broader coalition amid growing populist anger over migration and the weak economy.

Surging populist parties looked set to gain over half the votes, indicating that the anti-establishment rage sweeping Europe since the U.K. Brexit vote has found a new home in Italy.



For the record: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified the deputy director of the school of government at LUISS University in Rome as Giuseppe Orsina, He is Giovanni Orsina.

Projections based on 15% of votes counted showed Berlusconis four-party coalition taking 36.8%, shy of the 40% required for a majority in the lower house of the Italian Parliament.

The 81-year-old Berlusconi cannot reclaim his office because of a 2013 tax evasion conviction, but has cast himself as kingmaker in the coalition, which includes the virulently anti-migrant party known as the League and the hard-right Brothers of Italy party, which traces its political heritage to Italys World War II-era fascists.

Advertisement

But projections showed the League taking 17.5% of votes on Sunday, comfortably outpacing Berlusconis Forza Italia party at 14.1%, putting League leader Matteo Salvini in the drivers seat. Italys largest party, the populist Five Star Movement, appeared set to grab just under a third of the votes, comfortably beating preelection polls. Official vote totals were expected Monday.

Five Star will be the pillar of the next legislation  that is the result of all these years of work, said Five Star member of Parliament Alfonso Bonafede after the exit polls were published.

This shows everyone will need to talk to us, said fellow member of Parliament Alessandro Di Battista.

The biggest loser of the night, according to the exit poll, was the governing center left Democratic Party, which was projected to take between 21% and 23% of the vote, far less than the populist coalition.

If things stay like this, we will have the God of all hung parliaments, said Giovanni Orsina, deputy director of the school of government at LUISS University in Rome.

Berlusconis coalition was strongly challenged in southern Italy by Five Star, which has railed against a governing class that is mistrusted by 77% of Italians. Five Star had proposed a living wage to be paid to the regions many unemployed young people.

Salvini, 44, staged 300 rallies in the course of the race and ran a successful social media campaign in which he condemned migrants who came to Italy illegally. As he surged in northern Italy, the ruling Democratic Party  widely blamed by voters for allowing more than 600,000 migrants to head for Italy over the last four years  has struggled to cling to votes in its left-wing heartlands in the central regions of the country.

Berlusconi had called for the expulsion of migrants as he tried to keep up with the anti-migrant crusade mounted by Salvini and the Brothers of Italy party.

Advertisement

Far-right League party leader Matteo Salvini, right, poses for a selfie with a supporter as he arrives to vote for general elections at a polling station in Milan on March 4, 2018. (Miguel Medina / AFP/Getty Images )

The campaign has seen rallies by far-right groups, threats to leave the European Union and promises by politicians to expel hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the country illegally after more than 600,000 sailed to Italy over the last four years.

The populist surge drew a visit to Rome by former White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who told Italys Corriere della Sera newspaper that a possible alliance between the anti-migrant League party and the populist Five Star Movement was the ultimate dream.

The Italian people have gone farther, in a shorter period of time, than the British did for Brexit and the Americans did for Trump, said Bannon.

Advertisement

He said the election was crucial for the global populism movement.

Growing intolerance of migrants in Italy has dominated the election campaign since the shooting last month in central Italy of six African migrants by a neo-Nazi who once stood as a candidate for the League.

A topless Femen activist protests at a Milan polling station where former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was about to vote. (Antonio Calanni / Associated Press )

Voters stood in line for up to an hour Sunday as officials struggled with new anti-voting-fraud measures and took time to explain how to fill in voting slips, which have become more complicated since the introduction of a new voting law that combines first-past-the-post and proportional representation voting.

Advertisement

In Palermo, Sicily, polling stations opened late after a mistake with voting slips forced the reprinting of 200,000 slips at the last minute.

Berlusconi, who resigned in 2011 amid a series of sex scandals, was confronted as he voted in Milan by a topless protester from the group Femen who cried out, Your time is up! before she was led away by police.

To read this article in Spanish click here

ALSO

Advertisement

Germanys Merkel walks away a winner after vote that could have ended her career

Britains Theresa May has a big Brexit headache  and his name is Jeremy Corbyn

Pope Francis sexual abuse commission, hit by resignations and criticism, gets a reboot

Kington is a special correspondent.

Advertisement

UPDATES:

6:20 p.m.: This article has been updated with the latest projections.

5:50 p.m.: This article has been updated with exit poll results.

This article was originally published at 12:20 p.m.Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Monday, March 5, and heres whats happening across California:

TOP STORIES

Bringing an end to one of the most wide-open best picture races in years, The Shape of Water  a fantastical fable about a mute woman who falls in love with an aquatic creature  claimed the top prize Sunday night at the 90th Academy Awards. In contrast to the memory of last years chaos, in which the wrong best picture winner was announced, this years wins proceeded in an orderly fashion, with many awards going to first-timers. Among them: Jordan Peele for Get Outs original screenplay. Los Angeles Times

-- This was Hollywood at its sanitized best. After months of horrifying revelations about widespread sexual harassment and assault in the industry, the 90th Academy Awards presented a toothless, feel-good nod to the scandal, writes columnist Robin Abcarian. Los Angeles Times

Advertisement

-- Watch Frances McDormands speech that fired up the Oscars. Los Angeles Times

-- Plus: What is the inclusion rider McDormand referred to? Los Angeles Times

-- Heres the full list of winners and nominees. Los Angeles Times

-- #MeToo rings hollow amid the red carpet industrial complex, says Maureen Dowd: This is a town built on selling sex, beauty and youth. At the Oscars, actresses who have paid a fortune to dermatologists and surgeons will still vogue on the red carpet as they do the Roger Ailes twirl in gowns and jewels. New York Times

-- The hardest thing is eating alone. Ive lost 11 pounds and Im trying to put some back. Eva Marie Saint lost the love her life. At 93, the screen legend hopes the Oscars can help her healing. She talked to Steve Lopez before the ceremony. Los Angeles Times

-- Oscar winner Olivia de Havillands legal battle feels like it could be a best picture nominee. New York Times

Extreme weather

A week of heavy snow took a dangerous turn with a massive avalanche in Mammoth Lakes, death in the Sierra Nevada and blizzard conditions. Los Angeles Times

Advertisement

Plus: But in Mammoth, the dangers have not deterred the crowds. Los Angeles Times

L.A. STORIES

A real city bank? Los Angeles city leaders have been studying the creation of a bank for a while. But it has faced a variety of hurdles. Los Angeles Times

School safety: L.A. City Atty. Mike Feuer has assembled a blue-ribbon panel to recommend strategies for keeping schools safer. Los Angeles Times

Advertisement

Were  not No. 1: Los Angeles International Airport is not the worst airport in the nation when it comes to transit options, drive time and the cost to get to the terminal  but it is near the bottom of the list, ahead of only Newark Liberty International, Dulles International and JFK International Airport. Los Angeles Times

Inspiration: How a Malibu site for Reform Jewish teen retreats helped launch the 1968 Latino marches. Tablet

And: How those Chicano walkouts were in part about food. L.A. Taco

CRIME AND COURTS

Advertisement

More about that sweep: At least two dozen farmworkers in the Central Valley were arrested in the latest immigration sweep across California. Los Angeles Times

Prop. 57 fallout: Crime and punishment, California-style. Los Angeles Times

Hmmm: Did the San Diego judge President Trump loves to hate put a secret message in his ruling on the border wall? Slate

POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT

Advertisement

Changing times: Northern San Diego County, for so long a GOP bastion, is quickly turning blue. San Diego Union-Tribune

The northern front: The land battle brewing on the California-Oregon border. San Francisco Chronicle

History lesson: Charting how the land of Nixon and Reagan became a place that might too liberal for even Dianne Feinstein. Cal Matters

What a deal: A new Bay Area milestone: The 850-square-foot house that sold for $2 million. Mercury News

Advertisement

Follow the money: So who is bankrolling Rep. Devin Nunes? You might be surprised. Daily Beast

Plus: Nunes says Stephen Colbert poses a danger to the nation. Fresno Bee

CALIFORNIA CULTURE

RIP CD: Thirty-five years after the format was introduced as one of the greatest audio advancements since the birth of recorded music  and unwittingly unleashed digitized music into the wild  the once indestructible compact disc is on life support. And for music lovers, there is a price to be paid. Los Angeles Times

Advertisement

Dude! Endless Summer surfing license plates could be coming to California. Orange County Register

It came from the swamp: Its California latest beloved and hated creature: What to do with the swamp rat? SF Gate

Outcry: The old theater district on San Franciscos Market Street has become so filthy with drugs and needles and human waste that arts leaders are demanding improvements. San Francisco Chronicle

Ruling the roost: The latest Silicon Valley status symbol: chickens. Washington Post

Advertisement

CALIFORNIA ALMANAC

Los Angeles area: sunny and 72. San Diego: mostly sunny and 70. San Francisco area: sunny and 60. Sacramento: sunny and 61. More weather is here.

AND FINALLY

This weeks birthdays for those who made a mark in California:

Board of Equalization member Fiona Ma (March 4, 1966), actor-activist Rob Reiner (March 6, 1947), Rep. Juan Vargas (March 7, 1961) and Rep. Alan Lowenthal (March 8, 1941).

Advertisement

If you have a memory or story about the Golden State, share it with us. Send us an email to let us know what you love or fondly remember about our state. (Please keep your story to 100 words.)

Please let us know what we can do to make this newsletter more useful to you. Send comments, complaints and ideas to Benjamin Oreskes and Shelby Grad. Also follow them on Twitter @boreskes and @shelbygrad.One day after an avalanche roared down Mammoth Mountain, danger was hardly on the mind of snowboarder Caleb Hill as he carved through fresh powder under clear skies Sunday.

Like hordes of other visitors to the Sierra Nevada resort, Hill, 24, was undeterred by avalanches at two of Californias largest ski resorts that closed runs and triggered rescue operations in recent days. The Colorado native was more frustrated by the long lines and lift closures keeping him from the slopes as Mammoth reopened Sunday, saying the risk of an avalanche was a fact of life.

Its a reminder that just because youre at a resort doesnt mean youre safe, Hill said. Powder is forgiving but its also dangerous.

Hill had plenty of company in the snow-blanketed resort, which was busy with skiers and snowboarders eager to hit the slopes after being forced down from the mountain the day before. A storm dumped more than five feet of snow over the area, invigorating what had been a disappointing winter for Californias ski resorts.

Advertisement

Mammoth Mountains parking lots were full before 9 a.m. Sunday, while clusters of skiers and snowboarders waited at bus stops or trekked nearly half a mile with their equipment. At the Eagle Lodge, the line of people waiting to buy lift tickets snaked outside and around the domed building, many discussing the previous days avalanche with curiosity, but not concern.

Forecasters urged skiers to be more cautious than usual. An advisory posted by the Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center in Mammoth Lakes warned that considerable avalanche danger persisted Sunday as the largest storm of the year has come to an end with well over five feet of new snow accumulation in some areas.

The area where the avalanche occurred remained closed to visitors Sunday. A resort spokeswoman also said that the posted advisory was intended for backcountry skiers and snowboarders and does not necessarily apply to resort areas.

Mark Brownlie, president and operations chief of Mammoth Resorts, said a handful of internal investigators inspected the avalanche site Sunday morning. He said its unclear whether the resorts efforts to prevent an avalanche may have led to it.

At 4:30 a.m. Saturday, work crews shot off two rounds from a 105-millimeter howitzer canon at a closed area near the top of the mountain to break up snowy overhangs that could give way, he said. Crews then used explosives to demolish dangerous snow piles when the avalanche hit about 10:15 a.m.

The slide was very large at the top of the mountain but dissipated as it neared the bottom, Brownlie said, creating a powder cloud of a couple feet before it came to a rest at the base of a chairlift called High Five Express.

Though the area where prevention crews were working was closed to skiers, six Mammoth employees at the lift were partially caught, but freed themselves quickly, only suffering minor injuries, a resort official reported Saturday. Two guests were also caught but also managed to free themselves.

All Mammoth personnel were accounted for within 12 minutes of the avalanche report, Brownlie said. Emergency operations were completed at 4:30 p.m.

Advertisement

The last time an avalanche of a similar magnitude occurred at Mammoth was in April 2006, Brownlie said. Three people were buried under snow but rescued without serious injuries. The last avalanche-related death occurred when a man hiked into a closed area of Mammoth Mountain in 1980.

Investigators are expected to wrap up their review in the next few days. It should detail the cause, size of the slide and the path it took, Brownlie said.

The incident at Mammoth Mountain came a day after another avalanche more than 100 miles away at Squaw Valley ensnared five people Friday afternoon, injuring two.

The resort had used explosives to knock down drifts of snow throughout the day Friday in an attempt to prevent a larger avalanche, but heavy snowfall continued, according to a Squaw Valley spokeswoman. She said the cause of the avalanche remains under investigation.

Advertisement

At Mammoth, Saturdays lift closures, explosive booms and emergency operations alarmed some visitors who said they had trouble getting phone calls and texts to go through, and struggled to get information from resort staff on what exactly had happened as rumors swirled that people were trapped under the snow.

It was kind of spooky because we didnt know what was going on, said Lindsay Wroe, 32, of Corona, who was visiting the resort and has skied at Mammoth a few times a year since she was a child. She was relieved when she learned the avalanche may have been triggered by the resorts mitigation efforts rather than by nature.

I know how rare an inbound avalanche really is, Wroe said. The fact that no one was injured made it easier on people, I think.

Experts said the Saturday incident illustrates that avalanche mitigation remains an inexact science, with the explosions used to clear hazards sometimes sending snow running farther downhill than anticipated.

Advertisement

Such events are especially likely to happen after a big storm like the one that hit the Sierra Nevada over the last few days, depositing several feet of new snow on top of an older, icier layer, said Jordy Hendrikx, who directs the Snow & Avalanche Laboratory at Montana State University.

The resort is trying to open as much of their terrain as safely and quickly as they can, Hendrikx said. In doing so, especially with these big events, sometimes things dont go exactly as planned.

Even under the most avalanche-prone conditions its much safer to ski at resorts that manage those hazards than in uncontrolled backcountry terrain, he added. But there are still risks.

Any time you have an avalanche on an open ski area it is a concern because you potentially have people caught in there that may not be wearing an avalanche transceiver, a beacon that can help authorities quickly find people buried under snow, Hendrikx said. Theres only a short window of time; after about 15 minutes of being buried your survival chances are quite slim.

Advertisement

Times staff writer Louis Sahagun contributed to this report.In the weeks and months after Marion Suge Knight barreled a truck into two men outside a famous Compton eatery, leaving one dead, defense attorneys and the rap impresario discussed how much it might cost to find something that would exonerate him on a murder charge, according to court records.

One of Knights attorneys, Matthew Fletcher, found a man who would say there were guns at the crime scene, but the witness would need to be paid, Fletcher allegedly told Knight. In the same conversation, according to prosecutors, Fletcher told Knight that $25,000 was a fair investment to secure his freedom.

The allegations are included in a 13-page indictment unsealed on Monday charging Fletcher and another of Knights attorneys, Thaddeus Culpepper, with conspiracy to commit bribery, conspiracy to commit subornation of perjury, conspiracy to commit obstruction of justice and serving as accessories after the fact to the 2015 murder Knight is accused of.

Culpepper was charged with two additional conspiracy counts, and Fletcher faces an additional charge of perjury, prosecutors said. Both attorneys appeared in a downtown courtroom Monday. Neither man entered a plea, but both have previously denied wrongdoing.

Advertisement

Prosecutors sought to hold both men in lieu of $500,000 bail, but Judge Scott Gordon released them on their own recognizance. An arraignment was scheduled for March 16. If convicted on all counts, both men face up to three years and eight months in prison.

A grand jury returned the indictment against both men on Jan. 24, one day before they were arrested by Los Angeles County sheriffs detectives. Culpepper and Fletcher were released the next day, and law enforcement officials have yet to explain why the men were indicted, arrested and then freed. The Sheriffs Department said in a statement that the men were released Jan. 26 pending further review by prosecutors, even though the grand jury returned its indictment prior to their arrest.

Sheriffs officials would not comment further about the timing of the arrests. The district attorneys office did not respond to questions.

Knight has not denied he was driving the truck that careened through the parking lot of Tams Burgers in January 2015, killing Terry Carter and wounding Cle Bone Sloan. But he has long claimed he acted in self-defense because there were armed men at the scene trying to kill him.

In a court filing made public last year, prosecutors accused Culpepper of agreeing to pay a man for testimony that he was present at the time of the crime and [witnessed] evidence favorable to the defense. The man, who was an informant for the Sheriffs Department, had previously told Culpepper he was not at the crime scene but would testify on Knights behalf, according to court documents.

Fletcher, at one point, also suggested paying off Sloan, according to the indictment.

Culpepper is representing Knight in the pending murder case and an unrelated robbery charge. Fletcher was previously an attorney of record in the murder case.

Knight has remained jailed in downtown Los Angeles since the January 2015 crash, which followed a dispute on the set of the N.W.A. biopic Straight Outta Compton. His attorneys have repeatedly argued that either the victims or someone else at Tams Burgers, where the crash took place, had a gun. Prosecutors say the evidence does not support that claim and a gun was never recovered.

Advertisement

His murder trial is scheduled to begin next month, and the years leading up to it have been marked by legal drama and accusations of misconduct. Knight has cycled through at least five attorneys in connection with the murder case, a 2014 robbery case that also involved comedian Micah Katt Williams and accusations that he threatened to harm F. Gary Gray, the director of Straight Outta Compton.

The move to indict the attorneys is the latest in what some have called a series of troubling steps taken by prosecutors in their pursuit of Knight. Legal experts have said it is unorthodox, but not unheard of, to see defense attorneys arrested during a criminal proceeding.

In recent weeks, law enforcement officials also secured a three-year jail sentence against Knights fiancee, Toi-Lin Kelly, for helping him violate a court order limiting his jail communications by arranging interviews with documentary filmmakers. Investigators later obtained a search warrant to review the contents of one of the filmmakers phones.

In August, prosecutors filed a 22-page motion accusing Knight, his fiancee and several attorneys of discussing potential witness tampering during jailhouse phone calls. A judge had previously signed an order that allowed investigators to listen to the calls, which normally would have been protected by attorney-client privilege, after the Sheriffs Department developed information that Knight might be involved in witness tampering.

Advertisement

Attorney Matthew Fletcher, who previously represented Knight in the murder case, has been accused of misconduct by prosecutors in recent months. (Associated Press )

Speaking outside the courtroom Monday, Culpepper contended that the orders allowing prosecutors and investigators to listen to Knights jailhouse conversations with attorneys were invalid.

We are excited to have the opportunity to prove the district attorneys office has committed fraud upon the court and the grand jury from June 27, 2016, to the present date, Culpepper said, referring to the date prosecutors first obtained a court order to listen to Knights phone calls.

Attorney Mark Geragos, who is representing Fletcher, echoed that sentiment, describing the court orders as fatally flawed.

Advertisement

I think the D.A.s office has made an enormous mistake here, not just legally but factually, he said. We look forward to exposing exactly what we think is going on here.

Geragos declined to elaborate on what he called serious irregularities in the prosecutions conduct. A call to Knights attorney on the murder case seeking comment was not immediately returned.

According to transcripts of the recorded calls, which took place when Fletcher was still the attorney of record in the murder case, Fletcher made references to paying witnesses to say they saw firearms at the scene.

And you all went over there and you saw these guns removed from these two people, Fletcher said, according to the motion. Yes, yes. Fine, dude, youre done. Heres your money.

Advertisement

According to the indictment, during a March 2015 conversation, Fletcher also told Knight about a specific witness who would be paid to say there were firearms at the murder scene.

Kelly also said Fletcher had put bread out to get witnesses to come forward, presumably referring to cash, according to the motion.

The motion filed last year also detailed how a confidential informant working for the Sheriffs Department approached Knight on a prison transport bus in 2016.

Im on my way home, blood. Anything you need, the informant said to Knight, according to the transcript.

Advertisement

Knight instructed the man to get in touch with one of his attorneys. The next day, the informant visited Fletchers offices in Long Beach, and the two later spoke by phone. At one point, Fletcher suggested gaining helpful testimony might cost money, according to the filing.

These  got a price; lets get that ... price paid, Fletcher said, according to the transcript. I told Suge, You can always make some more money, you cant make any more freedom though.

The informant contacted Fletcher a week later, according to the motion, which did not include a transcript of their phone call. Culpepper offered the man money in exchange for his testimony, prosecutors alleged last year. According to the indictment, the informant told Culpepper he was not present at the crime scene, but Culpepper agreed to draft a declaration for him to sign. He also asked the informant to watch surveillance video of the murder, according to the indictment.

Ill do whatever  but you know what, Im gonna need a few dollars  maybe later down the line, the informant told Culpepper, according to the indictment.

Advertisement

Of course, of course, Culpepper responded.

james.queally@latimes.com

Follow @JamesQueallyLAT for crime and police news in California.

Advertisement

UPDATES:

6:25 p.m.: This article was updated with information about the sentencing of Toi-Lin Kelly, Knights fiancee.

2:50 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from an attorney representing Matthew Fletcher.

1:00 p.m.: This article was updated with additional information from prosecutors, comments from Culpepper and details contained in the unsealed indictment.

Advertisement

This article was first published at 11 a.m.Two tunnels, one or none? The question continues to swirl around plans to perform major surgery on the sickly heart of Californias water system.

Confronted with a shortage of funding, state officials announced last month that they would move ahead with the construction of one giant water tunnel under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta rather than two.

But the announcement did little to settle the fate of the project, which Gov. Jerry Browns administration considers vital to sustaining water deliveries to one of the countrys richest agricultural regions and the urban sprawl of Southern California.

Opponents still dont like the so-called WaterFix plan, which despite downsizing is massive. Financing remains an open question. And backers havent given up their dream of two 35-mile tunnels carrying high-quality Sacramento River water under the deltas levee-ringed farm islands to government pumping plants that fill southbound aqueducts.

Advertisement

Were being sent down a lot of rabbit holes, and we dont know which ones got the rabbit, said Jonas Minton, a former state water official who is on the staff of an environmental group.

Money is the key to WaterFix, a priority of Browns administration that has been in the planning stages for more than a decade. Underlying that is the fundamental question of the tunnels value to Californias water supply.

The $17-billion bill for the twin-tunnel version was supposed to be paid by the San Joaquin Valley agricultural districts and Southland urban agencies that rely on water deliveries from the southern part of the delta. But the farm districts have for the most part declined to open their wallets, saying the tunnel water is too expensive for them.

That prompted the Brown administrations decision to press ahead with a less-expensive, one-tunnel project. But as the state continues to try and round up enough financing for the scaled-down proposal, the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California is pondering whether to ride to the rescue of the full project.

Gov. Jerry Brown prepares to announce plans to build a twin tunnel system to move water in 2012. The plan has been scaled back because of a shortage of funding. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press )

There is no formal proposal on the table, but the MWD staff is exploring the possibility of the district picking up WaterFixs unfunded portion and building both tunnels.

If that happened, the water wholesalers tunnels tab would soar to roughly $11 billion, more than double the $4.3 billion the district board approved last fall.

The ever-shifting plans have intensified debate over the size and need for WaterFix.

Advertisement

Environmental groups argue the billions of dollars that will eventually come out of ratepayers pockets would be better spent expanding regional supplies such as recycled water and stormwater capture.

Those projects would actually produce new sources of water, said Brenna Norton, the Southern California organizer for Food and Water Watch.

One tunnel with two river intakes would accomplish much of what water agencies hope to gain with a bigger project, according to Jeffrey Mount, a water policy expert at the Public Policy Institute of California.

Weve said this repeatedly: One tunnel performs almost as well as two tunnels, Mount said. There is a substantial amount of cost associated with the second tunnel, and it is unclear to me that that creates sufficient benefit to warrant it.

Advertisement

State officials say WaterFix is necessary to sustain delta deliveries in the face of tightening environmental restrictions, rising sea level and the potential for a large earthquake that could topple delta levees that keep seawater from contaminating water exports.

Without the project, the state Department of Water Resources predicts delta exports over time will decline by about a fifth, to roughly 1970s levels.

The tunnel project is intended to lessen the ecological impacts of the state and federal pumping operations that draw directly from the deltas southern portion.

The monster pumps are so powerful that they force water channels to run backward, draw the native delta smelt into bad habitat, confuse migrating salmon and upend the natural flow patterns of the estuary system.

Advertisement

Regulators have responded by clamping down on pumping to cap the reverse flows.

By partially supplying the pumps with tunnel water diverted from the Sacramento River in the deltas northern reach, WaterFix is designed to reduce direct withdrawals from the southern delta  and thus head off more pumping restrictions.

People try to catch fish along the Sacramento River in the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, near Courtland, in 2016. (Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press )

But the tunnels wont give the ailing delta and its vanishing native fish what biologists say the estuary system most needs: a lot more fresh water flowing into the delta and out to sea.

Advertisement

I basically accept the fact that the water is going to go south and to the Bay Area no matter what  thats the political reality, said Peter Moyle, a UC Davis fisheries professor emeritus whose research helped put the once-abundant delta smelt on the federal endangered species list more than two decades ago.

Given that Moyle doesnt expect the delta to get the flows it needs, he says WaterFix could alleviate some of the negative pumping effects. When you look at all the alternatives, its the main one thats out there that is a real alternative for management of the system in a way that can benefit fish.

Environmental groups have consistently argued that constructing two tunnels  each taller than a three-story building  would inevitably invite exporters to pull ever more water out of the delta, despite their assurances to the contrary.

Once these are constructed, the operations will be subject to whatever the politics of the day are, said Minton, senior water policy advisor at the Planning and Conservation League. Its like giving a teenager the keys to a 400-horsepower Mustang car and telling them only to drive at 60 miles an hour.

Advertisement

Mintons organization and several other groups previously asked the state to consider paring the project to one river intake and one small tunnel, coupled with substantial investments in developing regional water supplies.

That didnt happen. The two-intake, one-tunnel version the state is now proposing would cost $11 billion, a third less than the twin tunnels, and have a capacity of 6,000 cubic feet per second, also a third less than the two-tunnel proposal.

Because more diversions would have to come directly from the south delta if only one tunnel is constructed, the benefits of the project drop as well, said MWD assistant general manager Roger Patterson.

According to an MWD analysis, overall tunnel supplies would decline by a third; there would be some reduction in water quality improvements; and some increase in harmful reverse flows compared to two tunnels.

Advertisement

Still, one key number would not change. Overall State Water Project deliveries to MWD and other state contractors that invested in WaterFix would be roughly the same whether one or two tunnels are built.

So why would MWD take on billions more in debt to build a bigger project that wouldnt increase deliveries to its urban customers?

MWD officials say the extra capacity could be used to convey water that the agency sometimes purchases in addition to its State Water Project allocation. And it would give water managers more flexibility in how they run the pumping operations.

The agency also assumes that San Joaquin agricultural districts that dont want to invest in upfront tunnel costs would be interested in buying tunnel capacity once the project is up and running.

Advertisement

Will there be buyers in the future that would be willing to pay for that? Patterson asked. Theres a good chance there will be.

If the tunnels arent built and delta exports drop as the state predicts, the San Joaquin Valley growers who are holding out on paying for WaterFix will suffer the most.

Thats because Californias new groundwater law will in coming years force farmers to stop overpumping the valley aquifer  their fallback in times of drought and low allocations from the federal Central Valley Project.

These are very shrewd businessmen and women, Mount said. They also know full well that this is a negotiation thats going on. If you dont have enough money to build the whole project, were going to hold out and see if we can get someone else to pay for it.

Advertisement

bettina.boxall@latimes.com

Twitter: @boxallSan Diego City Councilman Mark Kersey of Black Mountain Ranch announced on Monday that he is ending his campaign for state Senate because of recent family health issues.

Kersey, a Republican who must leave his council seat in 2020 because of term limits, had been running for state Senate in the 38th District.

Recent family health issues have arisen that will prevent me from commuting to and from Sacramento on a regular basis, Kersey said in a post on Twitter about 10 a.m.

He didnt provide any specifics about who in his family is ill or what they are suffering from.

Advertisement

This is a very difficult decision because my broad-based support, our strong fundraising and the polling all indicate that my path to victory in this race was clear, Kersey tweeted. However, family comes before politics, and its extremely tough to provide the support they need from 500 miles away. As the filing deadline for running nears, this reality became undeniable.

Kersey, 41, said he would also be stepping down as vice president of the League of California Cities.

david.garrick@sduniontribune.com (619) 269-8906 Twitter:@UTDavidGarrickA body washed ashore in Ocean Beach early Monday and a city official said it is believed to be a man who had jumped off a nearby pier hours earlier, sparking a search by lifeguards and Coast Guard crews.

San Diego Fire-Rescue spokesman Alec Phillipp said a man in his 40s walked to the midpoint of the pier around midnight, stood on the railing and jumped into the water.

The body of a man washed ashore in Ocean Beach early Monday, hours after lifeguards and Coast Guard crews searched for a man who jumped off a nearby pier.

The man was fully clothed, although he left his boots on the pier.

Advertisement

He started swimming and wasnt calling for help, witnesses said. He was last seen about 30 meters from the pier when he went under water, Phillipp said.

Lifeguards and a Coast Guard search boat immediately began searching in the water near the pier, assisted by a Coast Guard helicopter and a San Diego police helicopter.

Around 3 a.m., a body was found that had washed ashore in Ocean Beach. Officials believe it is the body of the man who jumped off the pier, Phillipp said.

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.comA dog was impounded by La Mesa police Monday morning after it charged at two officers, one of whom fired his gun at it twice but missed.

The incident unfolded around 8 a.m. when officers got a call about a possible domestic disturbance on Grape Street near Maple Avenue. While two officers walked toward the house, a large dog came out of the homes driveway and began charging at the officers, said police Lt. Chad Bell.

One of the officers pulled his gun and fired two shots at the dog, missing the animal and striking the asphalt, Bell said.

A third officer who arrived at the scene was able to grab the dog and get it into a police car. The animal, which lived at the house the officers were going to check, was impounded and taken to an animal shelter in El Cajon. It will remain there while an animal control officer investigates the incident, Bell said.

Advertisement

Bell said he didnt know the breed of the dog but said it was large, unrestrained and acting in an aggressive manner.

He said the dog could be eventually euthanized, but that several people have to evaluate the animal to determine if that is the path the city should take. Obviously thats a long way down the road, if we even chose to go that way, he said, adding that the final decision rests with the police chief.

Officers eventually talked to people inside the home who were having a disturbance and handled the case. No arrests were made.

Police detectives will conduct an investigation into the officers use of deadly force, but the officer will not be put on administrative leave, Bell said.

Advertisement

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.comThe lone candidate for a U.S House seat out of California that the Democrats consider a prime pickup opportunity for the midterms is ending his congressional bid.

The Fresno Bee reported the news Sunday and said Emilio Huerta wrote in an op-ed that he would instead focus on helping other Democrats win election to various levels of government office.

Huerta, a lawyer and son of labor rights icon Dolores Huerta, was attempting to unseat GOP Rep. David Valadao for the second time in November. He lost to Valadao by 13 percentage points in 2016.

Huerta has not responded to requests for comment.

Advertisement

Democrats are not ceding the race, and expect a new candidate to announce before this weeks filing deadline.

Huertas exit has some Democrats who were concerned he was a weak candidate breathing a sigh of relief.

Elected officials and Democratic party operatives in the Central Valley and in Washington had told The Times they felt the candidates mother pressured them to keep other candidates from entering the race.

Valadaos 21st Congressional District in 2016 backed Hillary Clinton for president by a wide margin and Democrats overwhelmingly outnumber Republicans there.

Huerta had just about $100,000 in the bank as of Dec. 31 and did scant campaigning. Valadao has nearly $1 million in his war chest at the end of the year.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Ben Ray Lujan thanked Huerta in a statement.

Emilio Huerta and his family have made immense contributions to the Central Valley and our country as a whole. Every hardworking Californian owes them a debt of gratitude for their advocacy on behalf of families, children and our progressive values nationwide, Lujan said.

Local activists and party strategists in the last week have been floating the names of other potential candidates who could run in the majority Latino district that includes parts of Fresno, Kern, Kings and Tulare counties.

Advertisement

Several Central Valley Democratic Party sources who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media said they expect engineer T.J. Cox to announce a run next week. Cox has been running in a crowded field in the nearby 10th Congressional District, but owns a home and business in Fresno.

Cox had less than $300,000 in cash on hand at the beginning of the year, putting him behind the other Democrats in his race.

Calls to Coxs campaign manager have not been returned.

He already has run for Congress in the area. In 2006, he lost to former Rep. George Radanovich by more than 20 percentage points in what was the 19th Congressional District before district boundaries were redrawn.

Advertisement

Even though only 29% of voters in the district are registered as Republicans, Valadao has easily fended off Democratic challengers since his first election in 2012.

A local dairy farmer, Valadao has focused on bringing more water to the Central Valley, something that plays well in an agricultural district hit hard by drought. Hes also been willing to break with Republican leadership to push for immigration reform, most recently backing Democratic bills to resolve the legal status of people brought to the country illegally.

sarah.wire@latimes.com

Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter

Advertisement

Read more about the 55 members of Californias delegation at latimes.com/politics

ALSO:

California could flip the House in 2018, and these 14 races will make the difference

Updates on California politicsFirefighters doused a blaze Sunday afternoon at a house in East County that caused less than $15,000 in damage.

Firefighters were called about 2:20 p.m.when a passerby saw smoke coming from a garage of a home on Gibson Street near Montana Serena, east of El Cajon, said Stephen Moran, a spokesman with San Miguel Fire & Rescue.

The fire started on the exterior of the homes attached garage, Moran said. The cause of the blaze was under investigation as of Sunday afternoon. It didnt spread to the house.

Residents got out safely, and were able to return to the home once the fire was extinguished, Moran said. Nobody was hurt.

Advertisement

Based on early estimates, it appeared the fire caused less than $15,000 in damage.

Watchdog Videos On Now Sexual misconduct accusers worry deputy is being protected 6:16 On Now City funded $2-million waterfront bathroom 1:26 On Now Public water district charges customer for legal work, response to records request On Now Video: Tiny homes won't be reused amid housing, homeless crisis On Now Attorney General seeks documentation for Miss Middle East On Now Rep. Hunter probe covers possible fraud On Now Video: SDG&E delaying solar credit for some low-income housing tenants On Now Video: Former San Diego Junior Theatre teacher sentenced for sex with teen girl 0:24 On Now Video: Shelter volunteers believe they were fired for finding a dog a home 0:49 On Now McKamey Manor is leaving San Diego 3:35

morgan.cook@sduniontribune.comWhat was once more likely to be happening in the background of an episode of The Jetsons is now happening in California. Flippy, an artificial intelligence-driven robot, is officially at work at the fast food restaurant CaliBurger in Pasadena.

And thats just the beginning. More than 50 CaliBurger restaurants worldwide will be using the burger-flipping robots by the end of 2019, the company says.

Heres what they look like.

Miso Robotics is behind Flippy and the company says its technology can learn to do more than just flip burgers.

"Much like self-driving vehicles, our system continuously learns from its experiences to improve over time," said David Zito, CEO of Miso Robotics. "Though we are starting with the relatively 'simple' task of cooking burgers, our proprietary AI software allows our kitchen assistants to be adaptable and therefore can be trained to help with almost any dull, dirty or dangerous task in a commercial kitchen  whether it's frying chicken, cutting vegetables or final plating."

A restaurant worker puts hamburger patties onto the grill and then the robot uses 3D and thermal scanners to see and flip them and transfer them to waiting buns when theyre ready. Footage of the robot in action shows that a restaurant worker dresses the hamburgers and wraps them up for selling afterward.

Flippy was getting a lot of attention on Monday thanks to news coverage by KTLA, across the pond in BBC News and other news outlets. KTLA reported that the $60,000 robot was officially put to work at the CaliBurger in Pasadena on Monday.

The news of a successful burger flipping-robot raised a lot of questions and discussion about what that might mean for fast food industry workers in the future. Fox News even described Flippy as the job-killing, burger flipping robot.

BBC asked the CEO of Cali Group, which owns CaliBurger, if he thought the typical restaurant in the future might have less human workers.

I think that is very possible, John Miller told BBC.

You can visit Flippy yourself at the CaliBurger location in Pasadena at 245 E. Green St. CaliBurger, which currently has one other California location in Bakersfield, only has a six month exclusivity period for the robot, according to Tech Crunch.

That means other restaurants could have robots at work flipping burgers near you in the very near future.

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin

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.Fighting for the fragile

Nursing associate dean on front line of innovative practice for premature infants

Nursing associate dean Robin Dail is designing studies and technologies to advance premature infant health outcomes.

The tiny babys odds of survival were poor from the start.

Born 14 weeks premature in a small rural hospital, the infant seemed stable to Robin Dail and the neonatal intensive care unit team that touched down by helicopter to transport him to a larger hospital. Although the delivery team was not specially trained to handle such a fragile baby, the staff had followed recommended protocols, placing him on a ventilator to aid his breathing and giving him medication drips to help his underdeveloped organs function outside his mothers protective womb.

But when Dail, then working in a hospital as a neonatal nurse practitioner, picked up the baby, his delicate papery skin was ice cold.

Amid the whirlwind of interventions to save the infants life, the staff had overlooked one critical vital sign: temperature. The NICU transport team warmed the hypothermic baby and rushed him back to the academic medical center for care, but expert interventions couldnt save him.

Two weeks later, the baby died. The experience sparked Dails determination to prevent another baby from the same plight. Her mission was born.

Dail, associate dean for faculty affairs at the College of Nursing, has dedicated her research career to understanding the impact of temperature on premature babies, particularly those extremely fragile infants born at less than 32 weeks gestation or at less than 3.3 pounds. She came to the University of South Carolina in July from Duke University where she served for a decade as a decorated member of the nursing faculty and was chosen as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation nurse faculty scholar and an Amy V. Cockcroft leadership fellow, among other honors.

I love the College of Nursing. The collaboration here is fantastic. Robin Dail, associate dean for faculty affairs at the College of Nursing

At Carolina, Dail is designing studies and technologies to advance premature infant health outcomes, and her work is influencing practice standards for nurses and physicians. Beyond her own extensive research portfolio, she is mentoring faculty and graduate students to develop nurse scholars who can address complex health challenges.

Robin Dails innovative and impactful research is vital to improving outcomes among premature infants and is especially needed in South Carolina, says Jeannette Andrews, dean of the College of Nursing. She has been an outstanding addition to our faculty and a great asset to students who have clinical and research interests in neonatal health.

Dail's work to help premature infants fight hypothermia is influencing practice standards for nurses and physicians.

Each year, more than 63,000 extremely premature babies are born in the U.S., and they face elevated risks of developmental delays and health complications, some of which can lead to death. According to the March of Dimes, 2 percent of babies born in South Carolina in 2016 were classified as very preterm, and the states overall preterm birth rate was 11.2 percent, one of the highest rates nationally.

Very premature infants face a number of obstacles because of their abridged in utero development. Notably, they cannot regulate their own body temperature.

As Dail explains, these infants mimic the temperature-adaptive properties of reptiles. If you were to take a premature infant and put it on the table, it automatically will drop its temperature down to the temperature that its laying on and the surrounding air temperature, which is why they get so cold, she says.

And although delivery room interventions help extremely premature babies retain heat after birth, often their temperatures have fallen by the time they arrive at the NICU. Their temperatures may drop again each time they are removed from the controlled incubator environment or the portholes are opened, Dail says.

Hypothermia taxes the infants underdeveloped organs and can cause other serious complications, such as respiratory problems, infections with lasting consequences and irreversible developmental delays, she says.

Heating up temperature research

When Dail began searching for solutions to prevent thermal loss in premature infants, she came across a small Canadian study in which premature babies were immediately wrapped up to their necks in plastic bags after birth, creating a warm, moist cocoon.

Inspired to test the intervention herself, Dail, still working as a hospital-based nurse practitioner, designed a 100-baby study that explored whether the bagging intervention was more effective for infant temperature control than standard care and found that babies who were bagged avoided hypothermia.

Robin Dails innovative and impactful research is vital to improving outcomes among premature infants and is especially needed in South Carolina. Jeannette Andrews, dean of the College of Nursing

As a graduate student, Dail validated those findings with additional research and found that increasing the delivery room temperature in combination with bagging was the most effective way to help low birth-weight babies maintain their temperature. Along with other experts, she successfully lobbied the American Academy of Pediatrics to change its delivery protocols for extremely premature infants to include bagging. Those recommendations were adopted in 2005.

Temperatures hidden clues

After identifying interventions to reduce hypothermia, Dails quest led her to discover another critical marker: temperature differential.

During her doctoral studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she conducted a research study that collected minute-by-minute temperature data for 10 babies for the first 12 hours of life, gathering more than 720 data points per patient.

To gauge their response to hypothermia, she measured their temperature in two places: their abdomen, the standard site where temperature is checked, and their foot. Dail knew from the literature that foot temperature should be decreased in hypothermic infants in an effort to keep their core body warmer.

She was startled to discover that in some instances, foot temperature was higher than abdominal temperature. Because the abdomen is closer to the heart where blood is pumped, abdominal temperatures should be warmer than foot temperatures. This is important because when core temperature drops, blood flow is reduced to the brain and other organs.

In several published studies analyzing thousands of temperature and blood flow data points, Dails research revealed a critical association between the abdominal and foot temperature differential and infection.

What the data said to me was wow, maybe you can follow those two-point temperatures and actually predict when the baby might be infected so that we can act sooner and prevent the baby from getting so sick by putting them on antibiotics, she says.

Dail is writing a grant proposal for a larger study that would record dual temperature data from more than 500 infants at five hospitals in North Carolina and South Carolina, including Palmetto Health Richland and the Medical University of South Carolina. Her hope is that research will ultimately lead to widespread adoption of dual-temperature monitoring as standard practice, triggering clinicians to more quickly identify and treat infections and reducing infection-related complications.

Advancing infant care practice

Since discovering this association between temperature differential and infection, Dail has also been searching for opportunities to develop technology that would facilitate dual temperature data collection for nurses and physicians.

GE Healthcare awarded the South Carolina Research Foundation a one-year, $143,320 research grant in December 2017. Dail, the grants principal investigator, will lead scientific exploration of thermal management in premature infants, including an observational trial this spring that aims to observe and describe negative temperature differential in newborns and also determine how caregivers utilize temperature measurements in daily patient care.

In addition, shes partnering with professor Abdel-Moez E. Bayoumi in the College of Engineering and Computing and clinical assistant professor Dirk Brown at the McNair Institute for Entrepreneurship to develop other commercial products that would help physicians and nurses monitor dual temperatures, a dream that languished for more than a decade but that has quickly blossomed at Carolina thanks to the collaborative faculty environment.

This is my pie-in-the-sky job, Dail says. I love the College of Nursing. The collaboration here is fantastic.

Share this Story! Let friends in your social network know what you are reading aboutOn the eve of Seatrade Cruise Global 2018, members of Cruise Baltic, Cruise Norway and Stockholm joined together to host cruise line executives and media at a well attended reception Sunday evening at Fort Lauderdales Hilton Marina.

2017 saw the highest ever number of cruise passenger movements in the Baltic amounting to 5,054,849 according to statistics compiled by Cruise Baltic which cover its 29 cruise destination members plus three additional destinations (St Petersburg, Kiel and Riga) to provide a full view of the region.

The record represents an increase of 16.6% in visitors by cruise ship, and a 15.4% jump in ship calls.

Turnarounds also increased by almost 4% and whilst these will likely decrease slightly in 2018, the overall picture is another year of positive growth in the number of guests and calls, noted Cruise Baltic director, Claus Bodker.

In 2018, the region expects passenger numbers to rise by 8.4% and calls to grow by 6.4% resulting in almost 5.5m visitors.

Copenhagen is the top port in terms of passengers with a 14.9% increase to 850,000 last year, followed by Rostock with 641,000 guests a jump of 15.9% and in third position Stockholm which grew by 20% from 500,000 in 2016 to 600,000 in 2017.

St Petersburg recorded 581,422 visitors and Kiel 513,909 and all five are expecting further growth in 2018 with Copenhagen remaining the busiest port in the Baltic with 870,000 guests anticipated.

For some of the regions smaller ports (0-24 calls) strong growth in passengers was also recorded namely: Karlskrona and Elsinore up 300%; Kalundborg from 706 in 2016 to 7,850 last year; Saaremaa from 720 to 1,500 and Kotka received its first calls in several years bringing 8,600 guests.

To meet rising demand Copenhagen and Stockholm are both planning new cruise infrastructure: with the former due to start work on a fourth terminal at Ocean Quay next year. The 10,000 sq mtr building set across two floors should be ready to open in 2020.

In Stockholm, a new berth will open this year providing two quays at Vartan and looking further afield a new berth will be freed up for cruise ship handling at Frihamnen in 2021 when the container terminal is relocated and there are also plans to build a new cruise terminal alongside.

The picture is also bright in Norway where ports are expecting 2,168 calls and 3.6m day visitors in 2018 representing a 14% hike in ships and 20% jump in passengers. Bergen remains the top port with 332 calls and 6660,000 passengers.

Winter calls are steadily increasing with calls rising 21% this year and passengers expected to be up 14%, noted Cruise Norway's managing director, Inge Tangeras.STB and CLIA will tap their complementary strengths to undertake travel agent training, augment destination marketing efforts, spur regional port development and exchange technical and regulatory best practices.

The partnership marks CLIAs first collaboration with a national tourism organisation in the Asia-Pacific region. It comes at a time when cruising in Southeast Asia, home to some of the worlds fastest growing economies, is fast picking up steam. CLIAs most recent Asia Cruise Trends reported Southeast Asia contributed close to 15% of Asias passengers.

In the first year of the partnership, STB and CLIA plan to conduct travel agent training in priority cruise markets such as Indonesia, Malaysia and India. With the majority of cruise bookings made via agents, these training sessions aim to enhance trade sales skills overall and knowledge of Southeast Asia cruises in particular. The partnership will leverage CLIAs professional training capabilities and STBs travel trade networks.

'As Southeast Asias cruise industry is still in a nascent stage of growth, this partnership draws on CLIAs expertise, networks and platforms, as well as STBs strong understanding of regional travel trade and market nuances, to shape and spur growth in this region,' said Lionel Yeo, STBs chief executive.

'The STB has been a valuable partner for CLIA; through this further collaboration we will strengthen and grow the cruise industry in Southeast Asia,' CLIA president and CEO Cindy DAoust said.Among the usual suspects such as Alam Maritim, Icon Offshore, Petra Energy and Perdana Petroleum, only Petra Energy was able to turn in higher revenue on higher utilisation rate for its support vessels. Notably Petra is among the larger players in the segment, with a services arm that has benefitted from work from Petronas exploration and production (E&P) arm Petronas Carigali, as well as a production and development business that is involved in several small field risk service contracts or brownfield projects offshore Malaysia.

A combination of these businesses helped Petra to a 39% rise in revenue to MYR463m ($118.5m) in 2017.

Meanwhile Alam Maritim, Icon Offshore and Perdana Petroleum all turned in lower revenue for the year, with the same refrain of lower utilisation rates coupled with weaker charter rates. Perdana Petroleum noted that fleet utilisation fell to 52% in 2017 from 58% the year before while on average charter rates were about 25% lower than in 2016.

Looking ahead to their prospects for the year, the differentiating factor among the different companies was their relationships with other support services companies as well as the degree to which they had diversified outside the domestic market.

Perdana Petroleum for example expected its utilisation rate to improve this year as a substantial number of its vessels will be set aside for work with its parent Dayang Enterprise, which has offshore maintenance and hook-up contracts with various oil majors who are seen to be ramping up activities.

Icon Offshore meanwhile said it would focus on securing new contracts and maximising utilisation rates through competitive tendering for domestic and regional contracts, as well as leveraging on its expanded presence in Brunei.

All however warned of continued volatility and uncertainty in the domestic market and advised caution, saying they would continue to conserve cash and cut costs while improving efficiency.When Christopher Gergen co-founded Forward Cities in 2014, he had a vision for bringing cities together to tackle the topic of inclusive innovation and economic development. His goal was helping cities think about how they could drive economic growth, while also experiencing economic inclusion and racial equity and integration.

Its a challenge for our times. Wealth inequality in America across racial lines is growing, particularly in cities.

Last summer, Gergen was approached about succeeding outgoing President Lee Fisher of CEOs for Cities, a 20-year old organization which convenes cross-sector business leaders into a national city-learning network. Instead of a new gig, Gergen saw an opportunity to pool the resources of two like-minded organizations for greater impact.

The merger was announced February 8 and will move CEOs for Cities operations from Cleveland, Ohio to Durham, North Carolina. The first national meeting of the newly merged organization will be held in Durham, NC June 4-6, 2018.

Second Waves publishing company Issue Media Group is a media partner of Forward Cities. We had a chance to chat with Gergen via phone to better understand why this merger makes sense and how it will help to better advance the goal of inclusive economic growth.

Issue Media Group: Tell me why it makes sense for these two organizations to join forces.

Forward Cities CEO Christopher GergenChristopher Gergen: I saw an opportunity to bring the two organizations together in a meaningful way.

CEOs for Cities was started 20 years ago by urban leaders when cities were in decline. It was an opportunity to engage mayors and CEOs of companies and city leaders into a conversation about how we think about city vibrancy in a new and meaningful way, and get cross-sector leadership to care and coordinate on intentional strategies to lift up cities.

Over the course of the last 20 years, CEOs for Cities has distinguished itself by assembling a network of mostly mid-sized cities that are important laboratories of innovation. And they've always been able to pull these interesting cross-sector groups of people together around this work. Another major asset theyve developed over the course of their 20 years is significant research on what's working in cities. Through the City Vitals Index, they built a set of indicators that benchmarked cities against one another in terms of city vibrancy. And they built a terrific communications platform through a bi-weekly newsletter and strong social media presence.

Building upon this good work, I thought there was now an opportunity to leverage this platform to deepen our collective impact on a key issue facing all of our cities. In particular, my real interest has been consistently focused on inclusive innovation and economic development. So how do we create true, inclusive, economic prosperity? And so that was one of the things I wanted to push with the board, and say, "If we did this merger, and it was under my leadership, I would want us to be focused on this issue." And they agreed that that was a meaningful topic and something that they were willing to support. They were also willing to take on the brand of Forward Cities and allow me to build up my team in Durham, NC - which contributed to my excitement about the merger.

I reached out to a number of different cities in the network to determine where inclusive economic prosperity fit in their list of priorities. Not surprisingly, I got very positive feedback from the cities, as this was something they really wanted to focus in on. So it gave, I think, new life and new meaning to the work of the CEOs for Cities work. And it enabled us to bring the best of both worlds together.

IMG: What are the challenges facing cities when it comes to inclusive economic development?

Gergen: Wages have gone in different directions for different demographics. The wealth gap continues to increase. Many cities have seen significant economic growth because of new urbanism, and a lot of exciting stuff going on in downtowns, but that is benefiting primarily already-affluent white communities.

So if you look at who is not participating in that conversation, its typically under-connected communities of color. And that is contributing directly to a widening racial wealth gap and inequities of opportunity and ownership.

And it's not just around wages, which is important, it's also around owning your home, owning your own business, earning a livable wage, and thriving within the innovation economy.

We're quickly moving into a totally disruptive economy, where automation and artificial intelligence are going to play a significant role, and the workforce is going to change. The demand for knowledge workers is huge. If one isnt prepared to compete in this new economy, you are at significant risk of getting left farther and farther behind.

So what we're trying to look at is our set of key data points within cities. What is the asset distribution? What's the wealth distribution? How many new businesses are being started in the city and by whom? How much capital has been raised and by whom?

The trifecta for cities is that they're able to continue to see: 1) economic growth; 2) economic inclusion; and 3) racial equity. Because cities need to continue to grow economically but for us to create true shared prosperity we need to a "rising-tide lifts all boats" strategy in which all demographics are included and treated fairly.

IMG: How specifically will Forward Cities work to strengthen inclusive economic development within its member cities?

Gergen: In addition to our national learning platform and bi-annual conferences focused on inclusive innovation and economic development, we are working with a select set of cities to launch Community Innovation Accelerators. Within each participating city, we will employ an Inclusive Innovation Fellow who will work with a cross-sector innovation council that will serve as the local steering committee or advisory committee. The first phase of the work is around systems mapping drawing on a set of tools we have created including an asset-mapping tool, a community survey, and an inclusive competitiveness index looking specifically at 20 key indicators to measure inclusiveness.

Drawing on the collected data, we will then move into a strategic alignment process. Working with our cross-sector innovation council, facilitated by this inclusive innovation fellow, informed by national thought leaders and partners, each city will work to identify what the baseline data tells it about the state of its inclusive economy, where there are gaps, and get in agreement about where they want to try to be in the next 3, 5, and 10 years, and set some target outcomes.

And once a participating city has alignment on those outcomes, they can start to have robust and creative conversations about how to achieve those outcomes, leveraging the local assets in a community. So for example, if there's a really promising incubator that's working with African American enterprises in a particular neighborhood, and it's showing some success in that neighborhood, could you help to give it more support: financial support, social capital support, etc. to be able to take it to more neighborhoods? We will also help cities identify models that are working in other cities (such as Detroits Motor City Match) that can be successfully expanded to other cities.

So there are ways to able to share some best practices that other communities are doing to get ideas investment-ready. And once they're investment-ready, to then allocate the necessary investment.

IMG: How do you solve the challenge of bringing capital into low-income communities?

Gergen: Often cities have the necessary investment capital but its about allocating this to strategies in intentional ways into strategies aligned with target outcomes.

For example, in Columbus, Ohio they have something called the Columbus Way. They're incredibly well-organized, collaborative, and have experienced tremendous economic growth as a result of intentional investment. As they prioritize economic inclusion there is an exciting opportunity to drive a set of strategies and investments focused on increasing employment and ownership opportunities across all communities in the city.

As cities like Columbus set their sites on economic inclusion they have different financing mechanisms. For example, one of the things these communities often face is that many of these initiatives, especially for-profit, early-stage enterprises are pretty risky. To address this challenge, a city can guarantee a loan fund out of a bank or out of a private CDFI thatthat de-risks the capital that's loaned to emerging enterprises.

At the state level, there are also opportunities to leverage public capital to spur inclusive economic development. In North Carolina, for instance, we've drafted a piece of legislation to create something called the North Carolina Community Innovation Fund, which is designed to be a competitive block grant coming out of Commerce for under-connected metro areas and metropolitan and rural communities that cities and communities can apply for to get matching public investment to strengthen their local innovation ecosystems.

And then, of course, there's national philanthropy that can also support this work. So our goal is to help these cities create a pipeline of promising high-impact initiatives that we can then start to leverage public and private dollars to support.

IMG: How are you organizing your work?

Gergen: We have five areas of work that we're focusing on: Communications, Convening, Capacity-building, Research, and Advocacy.

The first is communications. We are about to launch a new website, which will have a robust set of tools, case studies, and stories to be able to lift up some of the most interesting things that are happening across our cities network and nationally. We also have a bi-weekly newsletter focused on trying to tell stories about some of the most interesting and promising practices happening across the country that goes out to 15,000 city leaders . We also want to be able to share stories as much as possible through our Twitter feed, @forwardcities that has 23,000 followers. We hope to use these platforms and channels to amplify promising practices across our network and are encouraging our community to share their stories with us so we can amplify this important work to get others engaged and help to build this movement.

Second is our convening strategies. Our first convening with this merged entity is in Durham, June 4th-6th, which we're excited about. And then we are looking to do our national convening (tentatively) in Miami in fall 2018, which would be a great opportunity for people to plug into all this amazing work.

The third is capacity-building through the Community Innovation Accelerator program which I discussed earlier.

The fourth is research. I mentioned the inclusive competitiveness index - a benchmarking index using the City Vitals model so we can benchmark cities against one another and provide them with baseline data around what it needs to be more inclusively competitive. We've partnered with ScaleUp Partners and Temple University and their Center for Inclusive Competitiveness for that work, and we're also looking to work with other research partners on what's working in communities and why.

Finally, our fifth focus is on advocacy and trying to help more states, like North Carolina, get dollars to help to support inclusive economies. We're also helping cities become smarter about their municipal policy and have launched a municipal policy toolkit on our website (www.forwardcities.org) to help more cities adopt these tools.

In short, we've got a pretty exciting three-year game plan. We're really looking to grow the number of cities in our network and deepen our work with them and, importantly, create more opportunities for economic inclusion across all sectors of our society.Press Release

March 5, 2018 ANGARA FILES BILL SEEKING TO ADDRESS BED OCCUPANCY MISMATCH IN PUBLIC HOSPITALS Senator Sonny Angara has filed a bill that will give the Department of Health (DOH) the authority to increase the bed capacity of all public hospitals to address the mismatch in occupancy and improve the quality of government health services. Under the present set-up, the department can only increase the bed capacity of DOH hospitals and upgrade their service capability through legislation, and this worries Angara because it limits access to medical and health services that every Filipino patient rightfully deserves. "This bill seeks to authorize the Department of Health to administratively determine and approve the bed capacity and service capability of all DOH hospitals as necessary. The DOH has the capacity and expertise to assess gaps in service delivery," Angara said. Currently there are 70 DOH-retained public hospitals, of which 53 are general hospitals, 14 specialty hospitals, two infirmaries and one psychiatric facility which complement the devolved district, provincial and private hospitals in providing health care services. Angara, however, noted that majority of these hospitals had bed occupancy higher than the authorized bed capacity. "The mismatch in bed occupancy, compounded by insufficient manpower, will not be able to sustain the growing health needs of the populace," said Angara, one of the authors of the Universal Health Care Act. Angara cited data by the Philippine Statistics Authority in 2015 which showed that six out of 10 deaths were not medically attended. "Residents from far-flung provinces need to travel for medical treatment purposes because of limited health services in their areas. The influx of patients leads to longer waiting time due to lack of available space in the hospital thus delaying the treatment," he lamented. "Putting these government hospitals under the jurisdiction of the DOH, which manages theses hospitals in the first place, shall increase the efficiency in the delivery of health services to sustain the increasing demands of patients," Angara said.Press Release

March 5, 2018 Sen. Bam to telcos: Establish complete transparency on Nakaw-Load Senator Bam Aquino emphasized that transparency on the part of telecommunications companies is the first step to solving consumer complaints about disappearance of prepaid mobile loads or "nakaw load". During the hearing of the Committee on Science and Technology on the issue, Sen. Bam said that the immediate solution is for telcos to issue notifications to their subscribers when load is credited or deducted to their account. "There was a clear solution presented during the hearing. Sa bawat load na pumasok at ibinawas sa atin, dapat may matatanggap na tayong libreng notification," said Sen. Bam, who led the hearing as chairman of the Committee on Science and Technology. Sen. Bam said the notifications could help subscribers monitor their load spending and will allow them to immediately cancel services they do not wish to avail. "Kapag may notification at nakita natin na hindi tama, may pagkakataon tayong magreklamo agad-agad at muling makuha ang load na ibinawas sa atin," added Sen. Bam. Sen. Bam hopes that telecommunications companies should comply with the proposed solution, saying it's a simple way to solve the long-standing problem of disappearing prepaid load. "It's a good solution at hindi rin iyan malaking gastos. Ang pinakamahalaga, alam natin kung saan napupunta ang ating pera," Sen. Bam said. Sen. Bam also urged telecommunication companies to conduct a complete audit of all their value-added subscriptions (VAS), to protect consumers against unwarranted deductions from their prepaid load. One telco already admitted that they are looking to suspend some 3rd party providers of value-added services (VAS). In the hearing, a resource person testified that clicking "X" on a pop-up resulted in an opt-in to an unwanted VAS. "Mahalagang makasuhan ang VAS providers na nanloloko sa ating mga kababayan sa kanilang mapanlinlang na proseso sa pagpaparehistro," added Sen. Bam. The senator also welcomed one telco's move for a system refresh that will opt-out all of their subscribers to all VAS subscriptions and, thereafter, implement a stricter procedure when availing of these extra services. Another telco promised to consider this move. The lawmaker also called on concerned government agencies, such as the Department of Information and Communications Technology, Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), to get their acts together in addressing consumer complaints. "Madalas nalilito ang ating mga kababayan kung saan napupunta ang kanilang load kaya kailangan nang ipatupad ang load notifications. Mahalaga rin na ibalik sa subscriber within 24 hours ang load deduction na ireklamo nila," said Sen. Bam. The hearing was called on Sen. Bam through Senate Resolution No. 595, directing the committee to determine the capacity and readiness of relevant government agencies and regulators to implement rules that will protect prepaid mobile subscribers.Press Release

March 5, 2018 De Lima seeks Senate probe on private donations for drug rehab center projects Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has called for a Senate inquiry into the private donations for the administration's planned construction of mega drug rehabilitation centers to avoid a repeat of the controversy hounding the rehab center in Nueva Ecija. In filing Senate Resolution No. 630, De Lima said the administration's failure to utilize the mega-drug rehabilitation facility in Fort Magsaysay, Nueva Ecija already raised serious doubts about the effectivity of similar facilities in treating drug addiction. "There is a need to ensure that the government would not be pouring millions of public funds down the drain with nothing to show for it due to a poorly thought-out rehabilitation program that is merely edifice-centric than people- and community-centric," she said. "Without a clear policy behind the utilization of these mega-facilities, we might end up having all these structures that our government maintains without achieving any defined and lasting goals, thereby wasting funds which would have been better appropriated elsewhere," she added. As early as April 2017, questions arose as to the practicality of having mega-drug rehabilitation facilities following the construction of a 10,000-bed mega-drug rehabilitation facility in Nueva Ecija funded by a certain Chinese national Huang Rulun. Health Assistant Secretary Eric Tayag reportedly labelled the project as "impractical" in terms of distance while then Dangerous Drugs Board Chairman Dionisio Santiago called it a "mistake." However, last Jan. 17, Communications Secretary Martin Andanar confirmed that the government is drawing up plans with some philanthropists for the construction of two new mega-drug rehabilitation facilities in Visayas and Mindanao. According to news reports, a billionaire identified as Xu Ming Liang, also known as Jose Kho in the Philippines, already met with Duterte with a pledge to bankroll the costs of the construction of the additional drug rehab centers. "Although on paper it seems that these facilities are purely funded by donations from foreign donors, (but) in reality, the expenses that have to be incurred to operationalize them do not stop at simply building them, as it would require millions of pesos in taxpayers' money to staff, supply, and maintain such facilities every single day thereafter," De Lima pointed out. In her resolution, she also expressed concern over the conflicting opinions of other government officials on how mega-rehabilitation facilities should be used. "It appears to betray a disturbing lack of a clear, nationwide and scientific-based direction on the part of the government as to the health, rehabilitative and social aspects of the ongoing War on Drugs," she noted. Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque agreed with Santiago's pronouncement that smaller rehabilitation centers are more effective in addressing the drug problem, while Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III pitched the idea of coming up with a "mega drug enforcement academy" instead of rehabilitation facilities. According to De Lima, it is the responsibility of the present government to present empirical, scientific and authoritative data to justify the demand for such large and long-term rehabilitation centers in the country.Press Release

March 5, 2018 Drilon: Most Filipinos prefer con-con over con-ass to amend Constitution Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon on Monday said that most Filipinos and legal luminaries, including three former chief justices of the Supreme Court, believed that the best method to amend or revise the constitution is through a constitutional convention (con-con) rather than a constitutional assembly (con-ass). "The emerging consensus among the resource persons during the committee hearings, both in Manila and in the provinces, so far is if the Constitution is to be amended, it must be through constitutional convention," Drilon said. Among them are former Chief Justices Hilario Davide, Reynato Puno and Artemio Panganiban; and former Supreme Court Associate Justices Adolfo Azcuna and Eduardo Nachura, who are of the opinion that a Constitutional Convention should be adopted. Puno heads the consultative body tasked by the President to review the Constitution. Former Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. also stated that he considers a Constitutional Convention as the best mode, but if the President prefers a Constitutional Assembly, he said that he sees no problem as long as public hearings are conducted to ensure participation by the people. The University of the Philippines-National College of Public Administration and Governance and the Philippine Center on Islam and Democracy also favor a Constitutional Convention to ensure wider participation, he noted. "The people's sentiment is that amendments to the Constitutions should be through a con-con. That is on record and Congress should seriously consider our people's view," Drilon said. "We must listen to the growing public preference to Constitutional Convention as the method of amending or revising our Constitution," Drilon said. The minority leader said that such view "reflects the distrust of the people on Congress." "Unfortunately, it appears that our people do not trust their legislators with the revision of the Constitution. It says a lot about the level of trust, or the lack of it, our people have on the legislators," Drilon said. "We could not blame our people if they fear that politicians would only abuse the new Constitution to further their own agendas," he added. Under the Constitution, the Constitution can be amended or revise through a constitutional assembly through a vote of three-fourths of all members and through a constitutional convention where the people elect delegates to propose amendments and revisions to the Constitution.Press Release

March 5, 2018 EXPLANATION OF VOTE/MANIFESTATION

Senate Bill 1537 under Committee Report 145 THE HEALTHY NANAY AND BULILIT ACT

(First 1000 Days) MR. PRESIDENT and distinguished colleagues, This representation's vote to pass on third reading Senate Bill 1537 or the Healthy Nanay and Bulilit Act, is my expression of support to every woman, mother, and child. I believe that this measure will not only strengthen our strategy for maternal, neonatal and child health but more so will shift our the government's priority in crafting its policies in this area. With its subsequent approval by the President, I believe that we are creating a sustainable strategy to address the health problems of young children, pregnant and lactating women and adolescent females, among others. We shall do this through the integration of government efforts and defining the roles of our local government units as well as the private sector. The delivery of the services needed by them will be within reach and available in every local unit through capacitating our barangay health workers and nutrition volunteers. As Chairman of the Senate Committee on Health and Demography, I congratulate our colleagues for our collective effort to pass this measure and most especially Senator Risa Hontiveros, for making the passage of this measure top of her list.Press Release

March 5, 2018 HONTIVEROS: THERE IS A SEXISM OUTBREAK UNDER DUTERTE "Filipino women are facing a new and unparalleled outbreak of sexism under President Duterte." This was the statement issued today by Akbayan Senator Risa Hontiveros warning the public against a fresh outbreak of sexism under President Rodrigo Duterte reinforced by the Chief Executive's numerous anti-women statements. The Senator made the remarks two days before the observance of International Women's Day. "Epidemic of sexism" "We are witnessing an outbreak of sexism and misogyny under this two-year old administration. In all three branches of the government, we are seeing an epidemic of sexism that is state-sponsored, brazen and relentless," Hontiveros said. "This fresh wave of sexism under President Duterte mocks and shames women in general, but it has profound disdain reserved for women in government who dare stand up against abuses," Hontiveros added. Hontiveros, who is the Chair of the Senate Committee on Women, cited 23 instances (see attached list) where Duterte, as President, made remarks against women. This includes his threat to show Senator Leila De Lima's fake sex video, his statement reducing Vice President Leni Robredo to "a pair of nice knees", his rape joke in front of the military, and recently, his order to soldiers to shoot female rebels in the vagina. "One sexist remark per month" The Senator observed that Duterte is averaging one sexist remark per month. She said that this does not include the President's other unmonitored statements. "The President's spin doctors would like the public to believe that his statements are harmless banter by a leader who simply loves to joke. They said that we should judge his actions and not his words. But language is a powerful medium where sexism, gender discrimination and even violence against women are committed and replicated," Hontiveros said. "Duterte's words incited attacks against women" The Senator also said that statements of heads of state have the force of policy, which translate into action by government and different social actors. "President Duterte's sexist comments carry weight. They are not innocent words. His sexist pronouncements have set into motion vicious attacks against women, particularly those perceived to be critics of this administration. The Vice President became the victim of a nasty pregnancy rumor, Senator De Lima was slut-shamed in Congress and unjustly incarcerated, the Supreme Court Chief Justice and Ombudsman are both threatened with impeachment, students from St. Scholastica's College who joined rallies were harassed online, and I, myself, am being legally harassed by the Secretary of Justice," Hontiveros said. "Similar to how President Duterte's words inspired and encouraged the wave of killings in the country, his anti-women statements have propelled unprecedented attacks against women. This sexism outbreak must be contained and stopped. All women need to say 'no' and push back." Hontiveros stressed. A bill to change language habits Hontiveros is pushing for the passage of Senate Bill No. 1326 or the Safe Streets and Public Spaces Act of 2017. The measure aims to prohibit and penalize gender-based harassment in pubic spaces such as catcalling, wolf-whistling, cursing, leering, groping, persistent request for name and contact details, and the use of words tending to ridicule on the basis of actual or perceived sex, gender expression, or sexual orientation and identity, including sexist, homophobic and transphobic slurs. "Through this measure, we hope to progressively change the people's language habits, prevent different forms of gender-based harassment and convince the public of the positive effects of gender-sensitive expression," Hontiveros concluded.Press Release

March 5, 2018 Senate oks bill making General Trias City its own legislative district The Senate approved today on third and final reading two house bills which sought to reapportion certain legislative districts in Cavite province and create a new barangay in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental. Senator Sonny Angara, chairman of the Senate Committee on Local Government, said House Bill No. 5367 sought to reapportion certain legislative districts in Cavite province which, in effect, would make General Trias City its own legislative district. "Our measure is about more than giving General Trias a greater say in its future by making its own legislative district. It is also about deepening democracy by enhancing the ratio of representation afforded to the other Local Government Units in the 6th District," Angara said in his sponsorship speech. Angara said the Constitution allowed a representative for cities with more than 250,000 population. Based on the National Census, he said, more than 350,000 people resided in General Trias by yearend last year. "The Constitution states that legislative districts should be apportioned among the provinces, cities and the Metropolitan Manila area in accordance with the number of their respective inhabitants and on the basis of a uniform and progressive ratio to give equal representation to an equal number of people," Angara explained. Aside from General Trias, Angara said, the city of Trece Martires and municipalities of Tanza and Amadeo currently comprise the 6th District. As of the 2015 census, he said, the 6th district was the 10th most populous in the country with 734,000 residents. He said General Trias had become among the fast-rising centers of growth in the greater Metro Manila area. Many who work in Manila had chosen it as their home. "With such population, it is high time that General Trias be made into its own legislative district," Angara said. The Senate also approved House Bill 1926 which aimed to complete the creation of Barangay Poblacion 2 in Villanueva, Misamis Oriental. Angara said Barangay Poblacion 2 was created in 2006 through a local government unit ordinance. He said the measure also sought to entitle the barangay to its own share of the Internal Revenue Allocation (IRA). Angara explained that the Local Government Code allowed the establishment of a barangay within a municipality if it has reached the minimum number of 2,000 residents. He said that based on the 2015 population census, Barangay Poblacion 2 had met the population requirement with 2,355 residents and a land area of 83.2 hectares. "Since its creation, Barangay Poblacion 2 has not received its share of the IRA despite the law allowing it. Because of lack of funding, the barangay could not stand on its own and its barangay council could not help their constituents implement barangay projects for their development," Angara said. (PM)Press Release

March 5, 2018 Senate concurs with SOLAS '78 and '88, MARPOL conventions, 4 other maritime agreements The Senate adopted today seven maritime treaties, including two resolutions concurring in the ratification to the 1978 and 1988 international protocols relating to transnational maritime safety. Senate Resolutions No. 648, 649, 650, 651, 652, 653, and 654 were sponsored by Senator Loren Legarda, chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and were approved with 19 affirmative votes, zero negative vote and no abstention. Legarda said that the Protocol of 1978, relating to the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS Convention), was adopted by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) to update the safety standards of crude carriers and product carriers by requiring the fitting of inert gas systems as well as radars and steering gear mechanisms in vessels to enhance the safety of navigation. The Protocol 1978, SOLAS Convention, which was signed by President Rodrigo Duterte on August 10, 2017. The Convention requires crude carriers and product carriers of 20,000 deadweight tonnage (DWT) and above to be fitted with an inert gas system. All ships of 1,600-10,000 gross registered tonnage (GRT) and above must have two radars, each capable of operating independently. The Protocol 1988 SOLAS Convention, signed by President Duterte on July 17, 2017, specifies the standards for the construction, equipment and operation of ships compatible with their safety. The 1988 protocol relating to the international convention on load lines, which was adopted in 1966, also aims to address issues on the safety of maritime vessels. The Convention was ratified by the President on August 23, 2017. The Load Lines Convention prescribes the minimum reserve buoyancy and freeboard of ships to ensure their stability by preventing overloading. It likewise prescribes visible special markings amid ships on each side of the ship in order to determine their loading limits under different types of water conditions. "As a nation with a long history of sea tragedies, the Philippines has recognized the important role of the Load Lines Convention as a major pillar of maritime safety by preventing the overloading of ships through the presence of visible load line marks," Legarda explained. "The Philippines' accession to Load Lines Convention will demonstrate our country's commitment in ensuring the safety of ships and preventing accidents that could lead to massive loss of life and serious damage to the marine environment through oil spills," she added. The International Convention on the Control of Harmful Anti-Fouling Systems on Ships, 2001, or the AFS Convention, which was signed by Presidnet Durterte on May 16, 2017, aims to address the risks of the harmful compounds that threaten the sustainability of the marine environment and safety of human health due to the contamination of marine species. It prohibits the use of harmful "organotins" or chemical compounds based on tin and carbon, considered toxic and have long-term adverse effect in the environment. "Scientific studies and investigations by the governments and competent international organizations have shown that certain AFS used on ships pose a substantial risk of toxicity and other chronic impacts to ecologically and economically important maritime organisms, and that human health may be harmed as a result of the consumption of affected seafood," Legarda said. "As an archipelagic country of more than 7,000 islands, it is only logical that safeguarding the state of our marine flora and fauna will be foremost in our agenda as this will be our most important legacy to the next generation of Filipinos--a healthy ocean and a sustainable and robust marine environment," Legarda added. The Protocol of 1997 to Amend the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, 1973, as Modified by the Protocol of 1978 Relating Thereto, or the MARPOL Protocol ratified on August 9, 2017, concurred in the accession to the 1997 protocol amending the international convention for the prevention of pollution from ships (MARPOL), as modified by the 1978 protocol. The 1997 protocol sets limits on the main air pollutants contained in ships' exhaust gas, including sulphur dioxide (SOx) and nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions. It prohibited deliberate emissions of ozone-depleting substances, and required the designation of emission control areas, setting more stringent strategies for SOx, NOx, and particulate matter. "Air pollution from international shipping accounts approximately for 50,000 premature deaths per year in Europe, at an annual cost to society of more than 58 billion according to recent scientific studies," Legarda revealed. "The Protocol requires that ships over 400 gross tonnage (GT) and all platforms and drilling rigs engaged in voyages to ports and waters where the MARPOL convention applies have a valid International Air Pollution Prevention Certificate (IAPPC) confirming compliance with both the equipment and operational requirements of Annex VI," Legarda explained. The Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Conservation and Management Measures by Fishing Vessels on the High Seas, was signed by President Duterte on August 10, 2017. The agreement, Legarda said, applies to all fishing vessels authorized by the state party to fly its flag on the high seas for fishing operations. This likewise establishes flag state responsibility in ensuring that fishing vessels, entitled to fly the flag of a state party, do not engage in activities that undermine the effectiveness of international conservation and management measures. Another maritime convention is the Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing. Under the agreement, foreign vessels intending to enter designated ports were required to provide advance notice to port authorities and request permission for port entry. The Philippines, acting as a Port State, could deny a vessel entry into its ports if it has sufficient proof that the vessel had engaged in IUU fishing or fishing related activities in support of such fishing. "The Philippines may also deny a foreign vessel entry into its designated ports if it is included in a list of vessels engaged in such activities by a relevant regional fisheries management organization in accordance with the rules and procedures of such organization and in conformity with international law," Legarda said. (Yvonne Almiranez)Press Release

March 5, 2018 Senate concurs with Phl, EFTA states free trade deal The Senate adopted today a resolution expressing its concurrence to the ratification of the free trade agreement (FTA) between the Philippines and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states. Senate Resolution No. 647, concurring with the ratification of the free trade agreement between the Philippines and the EFTA states, was sponsored by Senator Loren Legarda, chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, and was approved with 19 affirmative votes, zero negative vote and no abstention. "Entering into an FTA with EFTA is part of the country's strategy to gain a stronger foothold in the European market. Considering that EFTA requires the same standards as the EU, this will allow PH exporters to Europe to gain from economies of scale through improved market access in both EU and EFTA," Legarda said. The agreement was ratified by President Rodrigo Duterte on December 8, 2017. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) led the negotiations on behalf of the Philippines together with other government agencies. Then DTI Secretary Adrian S. Cristobal Jr. signed the agreement in Bern, Switzerland on April 28, 2016. The agreement with the EFTA member states: Republic of Iceland; Principality of Liechtenstein; Kingdom of Norway; and the Swiss Confederation, covers trade in goods, services, investment, government procurement, intellectual property rights, competition and sustainable development, the resolution said. "It incorporates the existing World Trade Organization rules and obligations with respect to areas governing trade in goods and services with additional disciplines agreed upon by both parties," the resolution added. The Agreement allows for a secure market access for Philippine agriculture exports, beyond EFTA commitments in its existing FTAs, which would enable the Philippines to significantly improve the country's market share vis-a-vis the other ASEAN Member States in the EFTA market. According to Legarda, opening markets through Agreements such as the PH-EFTA FTA goes hand-in-hand with all the economic reforms and ease of doing business initiatives of the government to project a clear message that the Philippines is, more than ever, ready and "open for business". The Philippines can also attract investments in services and non-services sectors, particularly those which can benefit from additional capital and/or technology transfer, or spur domestic competition with the view to make the Philippines as EFTA's hub in ASEAN, and obtain market access for trade in services, including opportunities for Filipino professionals and skilled workers while providing enhanced levels of protection as well as service companies in the areas of personal services, air transport, construction and related engineering services, and tourism. "As the President himself mandated, more opportunities abound when we explore and maximize our relations with not only our traditional trading partners, but also our non-traditional and high potential trading partners," Legarda said. Upon entry into the force, the PH-EFTA FTA will provide the Philippines duty-free market access for all industrial and fisheries products to the EFTA member states with the Philippines benefiting from liberal rules of origin requirements to qualify for preferential treatment, the resolution also said. "EFTA's commitments in the cross-border supply of services and movement of natural persons (MNP) present opportunities to Philippine service suppliers, both skilled workers and professionals, particularly for architects and engineers, which are professions where a large number of Filipinos engage in," Legarda said. On the part of the Philippines, market access commitments were undertaken where additional investments and technical expertise are deemed beneficial to the country, such as renewable energy, information technology and business process management, construction, and maritime transport. Both the Philippines and EFTA also shared the commitment to promote and facilitate the inward and outward flow of investments. "The Philippines also provided EFTA zero tariffs on almost all industrial and fishery products, with transitional periods for select tariff lines. In essence, the commitments undertaken for trade in goods will enable Philippine businesses to participate in EFTA's value chains by providing intermediate goods and services. The negotiators also took care to exclude from tariff commitments tariff lines identified as highly sensitive products," Legarda also said. "I am pleased with the fact that the Agreement promotes international trade while contributing to the objective of sustainable development, all the while ensuring that labor rights and environment protection will not be sacrificed in the name of trade and investments," Legarda added. (Yvonne Almiranez)Press Release

March 5, 2018 Explanation of Vote

First 1,000 Days

Senate President Pro-Tempore Ralph G. Recto

05 March 2018 Mr. President: There is a saying that in making laws, it is the politicians who write the bill, but it is the people who foot the bill. Campaign promises are free; redeeming them is what is costly. Lawmakers get the credit, but it is the taxpayers who raise the cash. Yes, the Senate may be a fountainhead of brilliant ideas, but it does not, however, print cash. While our proposals to end the many ills of our nation are infinite, they are limited only by our people's capacity to finance them. It is for this reason, Mr. President, that I am no fan of "Noah's Ark" type of lawmaking: in which we fill a bill to the brim with provisions, in the false belief that many is meritorious, forgetting that bills are like boats, which must be fiscally buoyant, or they sink under the weight of their own unfunded mandates. This bill, Mr. President, in my view, is fiscally responsible. It redeems what we have promised our children, without creating IOUs they will pay. While the list of the programs this bill mandates is long, the cost of doing them is low. Our projection is that on its first year of implementation, this proposed law will require an additional P6 to P7 billion, or about six to seven weeks of soda tax collections. Doon po kasi sa tinatayang P16 to P17 billion na total budget ng 1,000 Days Program, mga P10 billion ay kasalukuyang may pondo na. Ganoon pa man, milyun-milyong mga nanay at bata ang makikinabang. Let me go briefly into what this bill will provide them, which is not even tallied in the fine print of this bill. Bills are like food--to appreciate them, we should read beyond the label. It will provide nutritional supplement to 650,000 high-risk women and 300,000 babies from poor families annually. It will administer Vitamin A drops to almost 3.3 million 6-to- 23-month old infants. It will give iron tablets to 3.8 million pregnant women and half-a-million babies. It will vaccinate 2.7 million one-year-old and below babies against Hepatitis B, Polio, Measles, Mumps and Rubella. It will inoculate 2.7 million pregnant women against Tetanus and Diptheria. It will deworm 3.7 children below 2 years of age, plus girls 10 to 18 years of age. It will provide Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccines to 1.4 million children 1 year old and below. It will nutritionally fortify 4 million metric tons of flour, and ensure that 50 million Filipinos will have access to iodized salt. These are just a few of the commodity deliverables. Equally important are provisions that will train, empower, and orient government agencies on the mainstreaming of the 1,000 Days template in their programs. We are also relaxing procurement rules because it has been proven that underspending by the government leads to undernutrition of children. Pati po promotion of breast-feeding kasama po dito, kasi the best milk comes in natural containers. Subalit ang pinakamahalaga sa lahat, this bill will address the problem of undernutrition, which comes in many forms: stunting, wasting and underweight. While the rest of the world is growing taller, so to speak, the Philippines will remain stunted if we do not act fast to solve undernutrition--which will prove costlier to society in terms of loss of productivity, than the P17 billion budget it will entail to implement this 1,000 days program. On that happy note, Mr. President, let me register my yes vote.Auckland-based Ngati Whatua Orakei has joined with ASX-listed Nib Holdings' New Zealand unit to provide free private health insurance for all its members in a deal that will cost the trust about $3 million a year if everyone joins.

"Maori are over-represented in negative health statistics and on top of that the health system in Auckland is really at breaking point so this is our commitment to our whanau not only to improve their health and well being but also to look to the future around health awareness. We are looking at preventative stuff as well," Ngati Whatua Orakei chair Marama Royal told BusinessDesk.

New Zealand provides free emergency health care and low-cost general coverage. However, data from the Ministry of Health's latest 2016/17 health survey shows 37.5 percent of Maori experienced an unmet need for primary health care in the past 12 months due to cost or transport versus 28 percent of the entire population.

The scheme will be available to the hapus 2,700 registered adult members in New Zealand and their children, or a total of 4,000 people. It will provide base cover for surgical and medical hospitalisation, a specialist option which covers specialist consultations and diagnostic procedures that don't require hospitalization and an everyday option to assist with some day-to-day health costs like GP visits, dental, physiotherapy and optical costs. Most pre-existing conditions will be covered if members join by July 3. Insurance cover will go live from April 4.

Joining the scheme is free for registered members and all their insurance premiums and any payable excess will be paid by Ngati Whatua Orakei. Royal said uptake is expected to be around 70 percent, or 2,800 people and "any more than that would obviously be a great achievement for us," said Royal.

Roadshows are being held to encourage people to sign up. Non hapu family members are also entitled to join the plan at their own expense and receive the added benefit of the pre-existing conditions element.

Nib New Zealand chief executive Rob Hennin told BusinessDesk a personalised plan was developed to meet the needs of the hapu members and "as such the premiums associated with the plan reflect the specific benefits and level of cover offered under each cover, while ensuring it remains value for money."

Hennin said the aim is to extend the scheme to other iwi: "We are excited about the possibility of working with other iwi Maori to deliver similar approaches to managing the future healthcare needs of their people."

The scheme also includes a health management and intervention programme that will let Ngati Whatua Orakei track and manage population health outcomes. The portal will allow identification of health trends to enable relevent and appropriate intervention, it said.

Nib has partnered with high profile Maori health advocate Lance OSullivan and his iMoko service to use modern technology options. According to O'Sullivan, prevention is better than the cure and a partnership with an insurer such as nib has the potential to encourage communities to remain well rather than have to access reactive health services.

In February, Nib Holdings' New Zealand unit said it boosted first-half profit after paying out fewer claims than a year earlier and after a smaller premium payback bill on its product which reimburses policyholders the difference between premiums received and claims paid.

The New Zealand division is the Australian insurer's smallest, accounting for 101,151 policyholders, or 12 percent of the group's 816,676 policyholders.

(BusinessDesk)

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

17th September 2021 Morning Report

NZ Automotive Investments Limited (NZX: NZA) Proposed Sell Down by NZA Founder to Improve Liquidity

16th September 2021 Morning Report

15th September 2021 Morning Report

Seeka Limited (NZX: SEK) Announces Further Kiwifruit Acquisition

Briscoe Group Limited (NZX: BGP) Half Year Results Announcement

14th September 2021 Morning Report

Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) Office Fund Established and Conditional Acquisition

Third Age Health Services Limited (NZX: TAH) Announces Acquisition of Belmont Medical

13th September 2021 Morning Report

Long-serving Fonterra senior executive Philip Turner is leaving the Auckland-based dairy cooperative to become New Zealand's new ambassador in South Korea.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced the appointment today, although Turner's departure as director of global stakeholder affairs had been known in the market for some months.

A Fonterra loyalist, Turner's LinkedIn profile shows he held a string of senior positions at the cooperative from March 2007, starting as general manager for forecasting and strategy, based in Tokyo, before becoming chief operating officer for Fonterra China in Beijing in late 2008, managing director of Fonterra China from 2009 to 2012, a project manager for the cooperative's operating framework based in both New Zealand and Japan, director of business transformation for a year in 2013 and 2014, director of dairy development from September 2014 to September 2015, and taking up the global stakeholder affairs role in October 2015.

Prior to joining Fonterra, Turner held a number of roles in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, including postings to the New Zealand embassies in Tokyo and Brussels.

Since the entry into force of our Free Trade Agreement with Korea in 2015, trade between our two countries has continued to flourish," said Peters in a statement. "There is scope for both sides to grow these benefits."

Turner's role will also involve him in the delicate geo-political machinations concerning North Korea's nuclear programme and ongoing diplomatic isolation from most of the rest of the world.

We work closely with the Republic of Korea on North Korean nuclear issues, and New Zealand continues to support a diplomatic and peaceful resolution to the situation on the Korean Peninsula, Peters said.

(BusinessDesk)

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

17th September 2021 Morning Report

NZ Automotive Investments Limited (NZX: NZA) Proposed Sell Down by NZA Founder to Improve Liquidity

16th September 2021 Morning Report

15th September 2021 Morning Report

Seeka Limited (NZX: SEK) Announces Further Kiwifruit Acquisition

Briscoe Group Limited (NZX: BGP) Half Year Results Announcement

14th September 2021 Morning Report

Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) Office Fund Established and Conditional Acquisition

Third Age Health Services Limited (NZX: TAH) Announces Acquisition of Belmont Medical

13th September 2021 Morning Report

John Wells has retired as chair of Fisher Funds Management after 18 years on its board to focus on his role as chair of CBL Corp, which appointed voluntary administrators last month after the Reserve Bank sought to have the credit surety and financial insurance risk firm liquidated.

Wells said in a statement he was retiring from Fisher Funds with immediate effect, a move that "will enable him to focus on recent developments affecting CBL Insurance Ltd and CBL Corp."

Fisher Fund had no exposure to CBL and would make an announcement shortly on a replacement chair, the statement said.

CBL had had its stock suspended from the NZX on Feb. 8 amid concerns from NZX Regulation about the information it had given the market, following engagement between it, CBL, the Financial Markets Authority (FMA), the Reserve Bank, and a number of overseas regulators with prudential oversight of CBLs international insurance business. On Feb. 20, CBL Insurance told the Reserve Bank it was continuing to operate despite being below the minimum regulatory solvency level.

On March 1, Reserve Bank deputy governor and head of financial stability Geoff Bascand said the bank had told CBL it needed approval to make any significant transactions.

"CBL Insurance did not have our approval but nevertheless paid a total of $55 million to two other entities," Bascand said. "The payments may provide some creditors of CBL Insurance with an advantage over other creditors."

The RBNZ said it believed CBLI has $750 million in assets, mainly in cash and insurance receivables, and there was a serious risk the directors could further dispose of those or that overseas creditors could ask for freezing orders.

The Financial Markets Authority is also looking into CBL.

(BusinessDesk)

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

17th September 2021 Morning Report

NZ Automotive Investments Limited (NZX: NZA) Proposed Sell Down by NZA Founder to Improve Liquidity

16th September 2021 Morning Report

15th September 2021 Morning Report

Seeka Limited (NZX: SEK) Announces Further Kiwifruit Acquisition

Briscoe Group Limited (NZX: BGP) Half Year Results Announcement

14th September 2021 Morning Report

Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) Office Fund Established and Conditional Acquisition

Third Age Health Services Limited (NZX: TAH) Announces Acquisition of Belmont Medical

13th September 2021 Morning Report

Michael Hill International plans to exit 24 of the stores in its unsuccessful Emma & Roe chain at a cost of A$5.8 million to A$7.9 million, repositioning the remaining six stores in the 'demi-fine' jewellery segment.

The Brisbane-based company expects to close the 24 stores by June 30 this year, it said in a statement. The company is negotiating exit terms with landlords and will redeploy staff to its Michael Hill stores where possible and offer impacted employees redundancy and support, it said.

The jewellery manufacturer and retailer launched the Emma & Roe brand in April 2014. In 2016 it said the chain, which sold charm bracelets and accessories, had moved from a trial phase into growth mode and said it was eyeing 200 Australasian store locations for the brand and as many as 100 in Canada. However today the company said a review of the brand had identified an opportunity in the relatively new 'demi-fine' jewellery segment and said a six-store footprint would provide the opportunity to iterate the new model at speed.

"Having identified the opportunity, the company announced it would reposition the Emma & Roe brand into this emerging demi-fine jewellery segment, with the new proposition involving a smaller, concentrated store footprint during an initial test and trial period for the remainder of FY18 and whole of FY19," the company said in its statement announcing the store closures.

Last month, Michael Hill posted a 66 percent drop in first-half profit, mainly reflecting A$19.8 million of provisions to reposition the Emma & Roe chain and to recognise costs of exiting the US market. In the first half, Emma & Roe achieved a 20 percent gain in sales to A$10.5 million but recognised a A$15.2 million charge for impairments and onerous leases, resulting in an A$19.6 million loss in earnings before interest and tax.

The company said today that it is still in negotiations with US landlords regarding its exit from its nine operating US stores as part of its plan to completely exit the US market. In the first half, US revenue fell 15 percent to US$6 million for an ebit loss of US$5.6 million, including a provision for impairment and onerous leases of US$3.5 million.

Michael Hill, named after its founder, has expanded from a single store in Whangarei in 1979. At the end of last year, it had 172 Michael Hill stores in Australia, 53 in New Zealand and 83 in Canada as well as the nine US stores earmarked for closure. Some 29 of its Emma & Roe stores were in Australia, and one in New Zealand.

Its shares last traded at $1.16, having shed 18 percent over the past year.

(BusinessDesk)

Comments from our readers

No comments yet

Add your comment:

Your name: Your email: Not displayed to the public Comment: Comments to Sharechat go through an approval process. Comments which are defamatory, abusive or in some way deemed inappropriate will not be approved. It is allowable to use some form of non-de-plume for your name, however we recommend real email addresses are used. Comments from free email addresses such as Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc may not be approved. Anti-spam verification: Type the text you see in the image into the field below. You are asked to do this in order to verify that this enquiry is not being performed by an automated process.

Related News:

17th September 2021 Morning Report

NZ Automotive Investments Limited (NZX: NZA) Proposed Sell Down by NZA Founder to Improve Liquidity

16th September 2021 Morning Report

15th September 2021 Morning Report

Seeka Limited (NZX: SEK) Announces Further Kiwifruit Acquisition

Briscoe Group Limited (NZX: BGP) Half Year Results Announcement

14th September 2021 Morning Report

Stride Property Ltd & Stride Investment Management Ltd (NZX: SPG) Office Fund Established and Conditional Acquisition

Third Age Health Services Limited (NZX: TAH) Announces Acquisition of Belmont Medical

13th September 2021 Morning Report

Chennai : Superstar Rajinikanth who has announced his intent to contest the assembly polls in the state, unveiled a statue of former chief minister and his super-senior in the film industry, MG Ramachandran, at the Dr MGR Educational and Research Institute in Chennai on Monday.

Unveiling of MGR's statue is the first public function that Rajinikanth has participated after his announcement on his political plunge.

The actor-turned-politician made a massive entry in his swanky Audi SUV. Over 5000-6000 people gathered to welcome and get a glimpse of the superstar. Delivering his first public speech after he announced his decision to enter politics in December, said that there is vacuum in Tamil Nadu politics and hence the superstar has decided to make his entry. "I know the political journey is not easy. It is a journey through struggles and hurdles but I can give governance which they (MGR) gave to common people and I trust I can do that too," he said.

Commenting on the decision of actors entering politics, the actor said non-governance by the current parties have lead to the action. "I am 67 years now, since you are not doing your duty I am stepping in," he added.





He also specified that although he did not expect any political party to welcome him why were they discouraging him and a few others who are ready to venture into politics.





It was only a few days back that Tamil Nadu's other superstar Kamal Haasan announced his party's name and agenda.

Rajinikanth has launched a website to enable people to register themselves as members of his Rajini Mandram (forum). His team is also busy appointing district wise office bearers. This meeting also comes close to the release of his film Kaala next month, the teaser for which was released a few days ago. Meanwhile, his co-star Kamal had in January interacted with students of Sairam Engineering College on the outskirts of the city and took political questions from the students.

The ace actor also travelled all the way to the United States to address the India Conference at the prestigious Harvard University to share his vision for Tamil Nadu.Prime Minister Narendra Modis Muslim outreach program seems to be gathering strength merely a year before the Lok Sabha elections slated to be held next year. His eloquence was on full display when he spoke during a conference on Islamic heritage in New Delhi during Jordanian King Abdullah IIs India visit. The visit of the king from a small and rather insignificant Arab nation was deftly turned into a full-fledged Muslim outreach program.

Muslim intellectuals, politicians, academics and clerics of all hues from the picturesque Kerala to Ajmer constituting Deobandis, Ahle Hadith, Barelwis and Shias including Bohras were handpicked to grace the occasion. Reports suggest that there were around one thousand Muslim leaders who attended the conference titled Islamic Heritage: Promoting Understanding and Moderation.

Modi chose to be seen seated on the stage, sharing space with the likes of Mahmood Madani, Mufti Mukarram and the likes and then warmly shaking their hands and chatting them for a long time while the King waited patiently, made a remarkable change from past.

Modi was on his famed charm offensive when he talked eloquently about the Muslim heritage in the country. Islamic culture is flourishing across India. The influence of Sufism spreads the message of love, peace and brotherhood. The government of India is leaving no stone unturned in empowering the Muslim youth. We want them to have the Quran in one hand and a computer in the other said Prime Minister Modi.

There is no denying that Modi is one of the best political speakers who can make his way into your heart (at least into the heart of people he represents) with minimal efforts. In one single breath he talked about different religions and called India confluence of the world religion including Islam and Hinduism.

Prime Minister said, "Every religion found life here, it grew here. Every Indian is proud of this virtue, no matter what language he speaks, no matter what religion he practices...Be it Buddha or Mahatma Gandhi, the fragrance of peace and love has spread across the world from India. India has given the idea of 'Vasudev Kutumbakam' -- which means that the whole world is our family. India found its identity in considering the people of this world as their family...We will be celebrating Holi tomorrow, there will be a celebration of Buddha Jayanti, that will be followed by the month of Ramzan - a symbol of the country's unity and diversity. It is simply surprising to see the Prime Minister talking equally about Hindu and Muslim religions and not batting an eyelid. He talked about Holi that was to be celebrated merely a day later with Ramadan that is still months away.

Prime Minister has this uncanny habit to stump almost everyone with his very calculated moves. While the meeting was to inaugurate a book written by the Jordanian Kings cousin, it was turned into a show of Prime Minister Modis increasing influence on the Muslims in India or at least on Muslim leaders in the country.

There is no denying that it was a well-crafted move to give a message to the world and the Indian audience too that Muslims stand with Modi. While this may not be true, and Muslims have lots of apprehensions about him, given his past record, and about the designs of the Sangh about Muslims, Modi is giving an impression that his acceptability among the community is on the rise.

Despite initial burst of sporadic support from the community, the apprehensions about true intentions of the Sangh have baffled the community. The Lynching mobs preying on innocent Muslims in North Indian cities have become a commonplace at least in states like Rajasthan and Jharkhand. Both the states are governed by the Prime Ministers own party, the BJP. Muslims have also been badly impacted by beef ban in much of the country. The Quraish, a largely backward Muslim community, dealing in beef products finds its livelihood sources shrunk considerably since the beef ban. This is despite the fact that Quraish communitys top leader claims close association with Modi. There are now indications that the government intends to make some amends, allowing sale of cattle for slaughter in cattle market. This practice was banned by the government around two years ago.

There is one serious flaw with Modis Muslim outreach strategy. It is staggered and comes in small bursts to suit the saffron camp. BJP didnt give any ticket to Muslim candidates in UP assembly election nor in Gujarat to cater to its core vote bank. Nonetheless it gave ticket to a Muslim candidate in the just concluded Tripura assembly election. In Boxanagar constituency of Tripura, BJPs Muslim face Baharul Islam Majumdar secured almost twelve thousand votes. Nonetheless he was easily defeated by Sahid Choudhuri of Communist Party of India (Marxist) who secured 19862 votes.

If Prime Ministers musings are reflection of some sort of metamorphosis taking place in his personality, it is certainly welcome. After lording over 1.25 billion people of the country, the wisdom of Budha and Mahatma Gandhi and the innate communal harmony, a hallmark of the Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb of the country, may be having a profound impact on him. Nonetheless, to many people, this transformation is hard to believe, moreso after his earlier comments pitching shamshans against Qabristans and using puppies while responding to a question about Muslims.

There are telltale signs that following recent electoral reverses in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, the saffron poll strategists might be searching for extra votes to at least maintain its tally in the next Lok Sabha, if not to increase it. The BJP strategists who are well-adept in macro-managing the polls, and possess the best oiled poll machinery, know pretty well as to how a few percent votes can swing the votes in favour of the saffron behemoth. As options are limited after it reached its zenith in the last Lok Sabha election, Muslim votes may help it retain its tally in the next elections. But will Muslims really bite the bait?

More columns by Syed Ubaidur Rahman:

Army Chief's remark on Assam political party unjustifiable

Will Congress return to power in Karnataka?

Muslim Law Board shocked by top cleric's views on Babri

Narendra Modi: Why Muslims are losing hope

Why Muslims are not mourning withdrawal of Haj subsidy

Owaisi expands his appeal thanks to talaq bill

Will Indian Muslims take a break from too much focus on electoral politics?Gandhi's reaction came two days after results for assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland were declared on Saturday. The Congress lost Meghalaya and failed to score a single seat in Tripura and Nagaland.

: Breaking his silence on the party's defeat in three northeast states, Congress president Rahul Gandhi today said he respected the mandate of people in the region and was committed to winning back their trust.

The party won 21 seats in Meghalaya, where it was in power, and could not garner the support of regional outfits to cobble together a coalition government.

Top party leaders Ahmed Patel and Kamal Nath rushed to Shillong to talk to regional parties but to no avail.

"The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. "We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people.

"My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party," Gandhi said on Twitter. Gandhi had announced on Thursday that he would visit his 93-year-old grandmother in Italy over the Holi weekend. Top party leaders had refrained from making any comment on the results.AI can recognize faces through masks

VietNamNet Bridge - Even with face masks or beards, artificial intelligence (AI) can recognize faces at a high accuracy rate of 86 percent, according to a study "Identification of human faces through inadequate information" by Vo Hoang Trong, a Mathematics and Information Technology major from HCMC National University.













When talking to friends, Trong often heard statements identifying features such as the man has big eyes or I guess he is so and so because there is a scar on his forehead. This prompted Trong to think of a biometric face recognition solution to determine the identity of individuals.



FaceID technology on Apple's phones builds a three-dimensional model of human faces based on sensors, which makes it easier to identify different sides and hidden faces.



However, the technology cannot be used for public cameras because it cannot always scan the three-dimensional face of a person in the crowd.



Trong decided to use AI to recognize human faces in different conditions, even when images have low quality.



Trong thinks that if the information about a face is insufficient (there is only information about eyes, nose and forehead), it would be better to identify areas on the face separately to discover typical characters, such as big eyes, or high nose.





Trong thinks that if the information about a face is insufficient (there is only information about eyes, nose and forehead), it would be better to identify areas on the face separately to discover typical characters, such as big eyes, or high nose.

After that, it is necessary to combine different identification results to discover the identity of the person in the image.



Tests show that Trongs identification method has a high accuracy rate of 86 percent if the information about faces is sufficient.



The accuracy rates would be 80.87 percent if there is only information about forehead and eyes (in case person has a face mask), 73 percent if there is only information about nose and cheeks, and 64.87 percent if there is information about mouth and chin. For the images of the faces with only the left or right cheek, the accuracy of the algorithm could be up to 57.5 percent.



Solution for smart city



Trong asserted that the solution can applied to smart cities. Many smart urban areas have used the solution to recognize human faces in the crowd through security cameras, or identify persons going in/out of companies.



He suggested using individuals images on identity cards, student cards and passports to train computers, so that they can recognize faces later.



Those trying to commit illicit behaviors tend to disguise themselves by wearing artificial beards or hair. However, with my solution, AI can find out who they are, he said.



Pham The Bao from the HCMC National University praised the invention, saying that it should be announced in ISI publications.





RELATED NEWS

BKAV runs second successful mask test fooling Apples Face ID

VN student wins US invention prize





Mai ChiPhoto by Kyle OLeary | TKOCreative.nyc

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The boroughs annual flash of green got a rainbow connection Sunday in West Brighton.

The annual "Forest Avenue Mile" run in conjunction with the Staten Island St. Patrick's Parade featured a "Rainbow Run" contingent organized by the Young Democrats of Richmond County as a peaceful protest to the banning of Pride Center of Staten Island from the line of march.

As a queer, Irish Staten Islander, I am so saddened by the Pride Center of Staten Island being denied entry to the St. Patrick's Day Parade, said KC Hankins, vice president of the Young Democrats of Richmond County. I was raised in the Catholic Church and brought up on corned beef and cabbage, and soda bread, and it breaks my heart to see my queer family and friends denied marching under their banner.

So we ran with pride this year to show the organizers we are here, we are proud, and we will march as equal members of the community. I am also so empowered by the many allies in the community that have come forward to say that this is not acceptable and we will, one day, find inclusion in our parade.

The borough's Tompkinsville-based LGBTQ+ community center is consistently barred from having a bannered presence in the enduring march through West Brighton. Parade Director Larry Crimmins said its because "our parade is for Irish heritage and culture. It is not a political or sexual identification parade.

Pride Center Executive Director Carol Bullock countered that Parade leaders are keeping Staten Island behind the times. Equality and inclusion just hasn't prevailed in this borough  It's disheartening, but it's why the Center exists: On a daily basis, we are faced with challenges like this."

Bullock said she remains firm in her belief that LGBTQ+ groups will soon be welcomed.

Among the other community groups and advocates participating: Staten Island Women Who March, Staten Island 4 Change, Stonewall Democrats and Democratic congressional candidate Michael DeVito.

Keep scrolling for scenes from the second annual Rainbow Run in West Brighton.

Don't Edit

Photo by Kyle O'Leary | TKOCreative.com

Scenes from the Rainbow Run on Staten Island

KC Hankins, vice president of Young Democrats of Richmond County, with congressional candidate Michael DeVito at the Rainbow Run.

Don't Edit

Photo by Kyle O'Leary | TKOCreative.com

Scenes from the Rainbow Run on Staten Island

Scenes from the Rainbow Run, March 3, 2018, on Staten Island.

Don't Edit

Angela Medina and her daughter Annabelle at the 2018 St. Patrick's Parade on Forest Avenue Sunday, March 4, 2018 on Forest Avenue. They are there for the race but not the parade. (Staten Island Advance/Bill Lyons)

Don't Edit

Photo courtesy Staten Island Women Who March

Staten Island Women Who March members cheer on "Rainbow Run" participants. Kayla Grieco was in charge of Rainbow Balloons.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Photo by Kyle O'Leary | TKOCreative.com

Scenes from the Rainbow Run on Staten Island

Young Democrats of Richmond County -- and its supporters -- took to the streets as a call for inclusion in public parades on Staten Island.

Don't Edit

Photo courtesy Staten Island Women Who March

Staten Island Women Who March members Lorie Honor and Ronnie Gambon cheer on "Rainbow Run" participants. BTW: Those Pride earrings are available by special order through local jeweler, "Just Lucy." Google her.

Don't Edit

Scenes along the route of the 2018 St. Patrick's Parade on Forest Avenue Sunday, March 4, 2018 on Forest Avenue. (Staten Island Advance/Bill Lyons)

Don't Edit

Photo courtesy Ann Marie Selzer

Apparently even dinosaurs support inclusion at the Staten Island St. Patrick's Parade. Lucy Selzer, 10, is the dino in disguise.

Don't Edit

Selfie courtesy Rose Uscianowski

Scenes from the Rainbow Run on Staten Island

"I couldn't run this year but had to show solidarity with the Pride Center of Staten Island somehow," said Rose Uscianowski.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Photo by Kyle O'Leary | TKOCreative.com

Scenes from the Rainbow Run on Staten Island

A participant in the Rainbow Run on Staten Island March 4, 2018.

Don't Edit

Photo by Kyle O'Leary | TKOCreative.com

Scenes from the Rainbow Run on Staten Island

Scenes from the Rainbow Run, March 3, 2018, on Staten Island.

Don't Edit

Photo by Kyle O'Leary | TKOCreative.com

Scenes from the Rainbow Run on Staten Island

Scenes from the Rainbow Run, March 3, 2018, on Staten Island.

Don't Edit

Photo by Kyle O'Leary | TKOCreative.com

Scenes from the Rainbow Run on Staten Island

Scenes from the Rainbow Run, March 3, 2018, on Staten Island.

Don't Edit

Photo by Kyle O'Leary | TKOCreative.com

Scenes from the Rainbow Run on Staten Island

Scenes from the Rainbow Run, March 3, 2018, on Staten Island.

Don't Edit

Don't Edit

Photo by Kyle O'Leary | TKOCreative.com

Scenes from the Rainbow Run on Staten Island

Scenes from the Rainbow Run, March 3, 2018, on Staten Island.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A squeal of delight shot across the third-grade classroom.

"I found a beak! Mrs. Davies, I found a beak!"

Wearing disposable gloves and safety goggles, James Profeta plunked the specimen into a clear plastic cup.

He was one of 21 students in Molly Davies' science class at St. Joseph-St. Thomas School in Pleasant Plains who were dissecting sterilized barn-owl pellets to learn about the food chain.

Third-grade scientists RayLuca Pannone and Nicholas Correra are eager to see what's inside a barn-owl pellet. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

Pellets are indigestible material such as teeth, skulls, claws and feathers that are too dangerous to pass through the owl's digestive tract. The gizzard compacts it into a tight pellet that the owl regurgitates.

On the other side of the room, Alaniah Iannotta consulted a bone chart and declared, "We found the head, the skull and the jaw. We have a shrew!"

Hands-on learning goes on in every one of the classrooms at St. Joseph-St. Thomas, located on Maguire Avenue in the heart of the South Shore. The parish school, which opened in 1966, operates one class of each grade, from pre-K to grade 8, with an enrollment of 187.

Eighth-graders Peyton Criscione and Vanessa Comitini work on a robotics project. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

Down the hall in Jane Nesci's sixth-grade class, students were busy setting up make-believe restaurants to learn about the decimal system. In small groups, they posed as patrons ordering from menus and waiters serving papier mache sushi and other "entrees." They calculated 15- and 20-percent tips and exchanged play money to settle the bill.

"Students don't use money" outside of school, Mrs. Nesci said, pointing out the era of debit cards and the relevance of the lesson.

TheresaMarie Lisanti, a senior at St. John's University who is pursuing a degree in education with a concentration in math, assisted each restaurant group. She is one of three student teachers in the school, thanks to a partnership called Residency Internship for St. John's Educators, or R.I.S.E.

Jane Nesci is joined by student teacher TheresaMarie Lisanti of St. John's University in their sixth-grade classroom. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

"Our school is the only Catholic school on Staten Island hosting these college students," boasted Mary Ellen Cilento, in her third year as principal of St. Joseph-St. Thomas.

Cilento traveled to Las Vegas last month with Regina Mistretta, professor of education at St. John's, to give a presentation about the partnership to the Association of Teacher Educators.

COZY ATMOSPHERE

From the moment they step through the front doors, St. Joseph-St. Thomas students feel like they are part of a close-knit family.

Kindergarten friends Lucca Signeavsky and Ryan Gonzalez enjoy recess outside their classroom. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

Soft music plays in the hallways and a "fire" crackles on a big-screen TV.

"We are a faith-based family environment," says Principal Cilento.

Two years ago, she introduced an initiative called "Houses," which assigns students to one of 10 different cohorts, each led by a homeroom teacher. The population of each house includes students from pre-K to grade 8.

Kindergarten teacher Diane Muldoon and pre-K teacher Anna Taliercio gather with their students. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

"It creates a sense of belonging," Cilento explains about the concept, which was inspired by the Harry Potter series of fantasy novels. "The older students learn leadership skills and patience, and the younger students look up to their house partners."

Today's families are smaller, she continued, so students enjoy getting close to children of varying ages.

The houses work together on community service projects throughout the school year. A recent "Canstruction" project during Catholic Schools Week generated more than 2,500 canned food items for the food pantry at nearby Mount Loretto.

Leonard Rafano and Nicolas Giambalvo are fourth-grade friends at St. Joseph-St. Thomas School. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

Students also assemble sustainable lunches for Bridges, a not-for-profit agency that delivers ready-to-eat meals to homeless men and women on the streets and in shelters. They donate tuna fish kits, granola bars and juice boxes and write notes of encouragement.

Through these projects in their houses, students learn about the impact they can have on the community, Cilento explains.

WEALTH OF EXPERIENCE

A native Staten Islander, Principal Cilento is a graduate of St. Joseph Hill Academy High School and St. John's University in Queens, where she earned a bachelor's degree in finance and a master's degree in business administration.

Principal Mary Ellen Cilento is joined by eighth-graders Salvatore Mosca and Isabella Panichi, both of whom serve on the Student Council. Salvatore will attend St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School in the fall and Isabella will attend Notre Dame Academy High School. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

She began her career on Wall Street, working four years for the Morgan Guaranty Trust Company.

She taught math in grades 6, 7 and 8 at Notre Dame Academy Elementary School and served as its assistant principal.

After a brief stint with the Staten Island Employment Education Consortium, a non-profit in St. George, Cilento was named principal of St. Joseph-St. Thomas in 2015.

As a former math teacher, she is proud of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) curriculums in her school. Sixth- and seventh-graders learn coding; eighth-graders work on robotics projects.

Third-grade teacher Molly Davies helps Taylor Nork and Sophia Carrion learn about the food chain during an owl-pellet dissection project. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

"These programs help our students develop the higher order thinking skills and strategic thinking they will need to apply in their future studies," she explains.

Eighth-graders also participate in the Archdiocesan News and Views program. They research an issue, write a script and produce a newscast at St. Joseph Seminary in Yonkers. This year's topic is "Climate Change: Myth or Reality?"

Each school day at St. Joseph-St. Thomas begins with prayer, announcements and a rousing performance by the morning choir.

Gracey Love, Adriana Perrette and Vincent Cassieri are pre-K friends at St. Joseph-St. Thomas School. (Staten Island Advance/Claire Regan)

Principal Cilento works with the Rev. Robert Dillon, pastor, to foster a collaborative environment.

"I relate the idea that 'It takes a village to raise a child' to school leadership," she writes in a message to parents. "It takes a group of dedicated, caring educators to administer a school. That is what we have at St. Joseph-St. Thomas.

"Together, we create a dynamic learning environment that continually encourages, motivates and challenges our students."STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- One Staten Island Girl Scout is marking Women in History month by helping a community leader create a new, innovative egg hunt for the visually impaired.



Each spring, organizations across the five boroughs host a variety of Easter egg hunt celebrations. For children and parents with disabilities, actively participating in these fun and festive events is not always possible.

CANY is working to change this.

The agency is hosting the first ever "beeping egg" hunt on Staten Island on April 5 at the Commons Cafe' from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. This free event is an opportunity for both the blind/visually impaired and the sighted community to interact and learn from each other.

The eggs have a small battery mechanism inside them, allowing them to beep, chirp or vibrate so the blind and visually impaired can actively participate.

SILVER AWARD

Garlisi, who is working toward her Silver Award, sought an experience that would help her learn about event planning, social media and public speaking. That's when she asked Bonner, who is a Staten Island Advance Woman of Achievement, Class of 2017, to help with the Beeping Egg Hunt.

"Holly was already planning this event, and I offered to support her efforts. ... A Silver Award project is meant to give you a chance to do big things and make your community better in the process," said Garlisi.

THE PROJECT

As part of her project, Garlisi is stuffing nearly 1,000 eggs provided by City Access New York with treats. The other members of her Girl Scout Troop, as well as members of the St. Joseph by the Sea Pay-It-Forward Club, have volunteered to help with that part of the project.

"In working to support Holly, I've learned about the visually impaired, legally blind and blind community. I've also learned about Holly's story, and Holly is someone who is strong, confident, super smart - and well, unstoppable," she added.

The pair have met in preparation for the event, and in the process, Garlisi says she has come to see Bonner as someone who she can have a life-long relationship with, beyond this project.

"I look up to Holly because she is doing so much for the community. When I visited her home, I met her beautiful daughters, really nice husband and fun cat and service dog. When I talk to her, she takes time to teach me and work with me. I honestly am amazed that she can work and somehow balance motherhood, plan events for our community, and also make time for me," said Garlisi.

Said Bonner: "I'm so thrilled that Katherine has taken such initiative and is so willing to learn more about the blind and visually impaired community. Working with her gives me the opportunity to not only teach her about the blind community; it also helps me teach her about how to implement an accessible activity, since programming for the blind is limited on Staten Island."

FOLLOW TRACEY PORPORA ON FACEBOOKSTATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police arrested a 24-year-old man at Sunday's Staten Island St. Patrick's Parade after he allegedly punch a cop in the face.

Louis Saunders, of St. George, was taken into custody around 4:25 p.m. after he slugged the officer causing a bloody nose, a spokesman for the NYPD said.

The resident of St. Marks Place was allegedly resisting arrest when he got into the altercation with the officer on Forest Avenue near Regan Avenue.

The NYPD spokesman could not say if the officer was transported to a hospital.

Police charged Saunders with assault, resisting arrest, obstructing government administration and harassment.

Saunders had not yet been arraigned Monday morning, according to online court records.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A man from Ohio groped a woman outside the St. George Ferry Terminal on Feb. 22, authorities allege.

Johathon Ford, 39, approached the woman on bus ramp B around 1 a.m., and, according to the criminal complaint, grabbed her buttocks with one hand.

Ford, whose last known address is in Cincinnati, was arrested about 30 minutes after the incident and charged with misdemeanor counts of forcible touching, sexual abuse and harassment.

He was arraigned in Criminal Court in St. George later that day, and released under his own recognizance, according to online court records.

He is due back in court on April 26, according to those records.

His lawyer did not return a request for comment Monday morning.NEW YORK CITY -- He's lied. He's stolen. He's cheated.

Disgraced lobbyist Todd Howe says he's defrauded so many people and entities he can't keep them straight.

So, what do jurors in the New York corruption case do with his sworn testimony on bribery schemes?

Howe's testimony provided explanations for the prosecution's claims that former Huguenot resident and one-time top governor's aide Joseph Percoco accepted payments from Syracuse-based Cor Development, funneled through a shell company set up by Howe, in exchange for influence in state government. Cor principals Steven Aiello and Joseph Gerardi are also standing trial.

Howe was arrested midway through his testimony after he admitted he attempted to defraud his credit card company while he was cooperating with investigators. He's pleaded guilty to eight felonies in connection with the case.

Prosecutors acknowledge Howe is a criminal and a liar. U.S. attorneys told jurors they didn't have to believe Howe to convict the defendants. Emails and the defendants' own words corroborate Howe's story, they said.

The defense argues the entire case hinges on Howe -- and he's a crook. They spent days questioning him about his misdeeds and arguing the government, too, fell victim to his lies.

U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni offered the jurors some guidance, in the form of routine instructions provided to juries when a witness is cooperating with the government.

On the one hand, Caproni said, jurors may convict the defendants based on Howe's testimony alone.

But, "You should examine his testimony with great care and caution," Caproni said.

"You should ask yourselves whether he would benefit more by lying or by telling the truth," Caproni said. "Did Mr. Howe believe that his interests would be best served by testifying truthfully or falsely? If you believe that Mr. Howe was motivated by hope of personal gain, was the motivation one that would cause him to lie, or was it one that would cause him to tell the truth? Did this motivation color his testimony?"

Jurors resume their deliberations this morning beginning at 9 a.m. Syracuse.com is covering the trial from New York City. Stay tuned for updates.STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Rep. Daniel Donovan garnered his third and fourth endorsements as New York's Reform Party and Staten Island's Independence Party announced they were backing the incumbent.

"Dan Donovan is the rare combination of an effective leader who governs with integrity and gets results," said Curtis Silwa, the New York Reform Party's chairman. "Whether it's his work on behalf of law enforcement, our Sandy victims, or the overburdened taxpayer, Dan has distinguished himself as a true representative of our community who stands up and fights for what's right.

Avi Gvili said in a statement that "The Richmond County Independence Party is proud to endorse Dan Donovan as a pragmatic voice in behalf of the people of Staten Island and South Brooklyn."

Donovan was endorsed by the Staten Island GOP on February 21 and the New York State Conservative Party's chairman said the party would support Donovan on February 14.

AND THEN THERE WERE 6

Michael DeCillis announced recently that he was dropping out of the seven-way Democratic primary race for Staten Island and South Brooklyn's congressional seat.

DeCillis, a retired NYPD officer and teacher, said that he's withdrawing his candidacy because of the crowded field of candidates and national Democrats' early interest in the district race.

"The uniqueness of the seven-way primary this year, and early intervention of the DCCC into the race has prevented me from running the campaign I wished to run, and the campaign this district truly deserves," said DeCillis, a Bay Ridge resident, in a statement.

DeCillis cited the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's decision to include Max Rose, a Purple Heart veteran, in its Red-to-Blue program in early January.

In previous years, the DCCC did wait longer to name NY-11 candidates to the program, which provides grassroots, financial, communications, and strategic support.

"It made it difficult and the narrative was that 'this is the candidate,'" DeCillis told the Advance.

After Rose was named to the program, the House Minority Whip, Steny Hoyer, endorsed him. He also entered into a joint fundraising agreement called the "Better Days Fund" with Rep. Joe Crowley, a high-ranking Queens Democrat who chairs the House's Democratic Caucus.

Rose's campaign manager, Kevin Elkins, told the Advance that despite Rose's support from national Democrats, his campaign is focused on local support

"Mike ran a terrific campaign that raised important issues. As Max has said publicly, the DCCC's support and a few bucks will get you on the bus and that's it," said Elkins. "This is a locally run campaign dedicated to defeating the opioid and heroin epidemic, rebuilding our infrastructure, and lowering health care costs.

"That's why Max has built unprecedented support on both sides of the bridge," Elkins continued.

With DeCillis out of the race, six Democrats remain: Michael DeVito Jr., a marine veteran who works with at-risk youth; Zach Emig, a Tompkinsville resident and bond trader; Radhakrishna Mohan, who has been a long-time member of Staten Island community and Democratic groups; Rose, a Saint George resident; Paul Sperling, a 25-year-old Tottenville resident who works in real estate; and Omar Vaid, a former Bay Ridge resident who worked in television and film production.

DeCillis is the second candidate to drop out of the race. Boyd Melson, a professional boxer and Army Reserves captain, dropped out in December and endorsed DeVito Jr.

The Democratic primary is on June 26.

CAMPAIGNING WITH WORKERS

Democratic congressional candidate Omar Vaid will join building trades workers on Thursday to demand that Related Cos. unionize a job site a Hudson Yards, the massive 18-million-square-foot private development on Manhattan's West Side.

"Staten Island has the highest concentration of union workers in the city and many of those men and women earn their living on union job sites in all five boroughs," said Omar Vaid. "When elected, I'll represent the interests of working people at demonstrations just like this one."

Vaid, a member of IATSE Local 52, is one of six Democrats looking to face Donovan after the June 26 primary.Xi power play in focus as China parliament opens



Beijing, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



China's rubber-stamp parliament kicked off its most significant meeting in a generation on Monday, preparing to offer Xi Jinping a lifetime mandate to mould the Asian giant into a global superpower.

Thousands of Chinese legislators gathered in the imposing Great Hall of the People in a session that will make Xi the most powerful leader since Mao Zedong, concentrating the growing might of the military, economy and state in the hands of one man.

As Xi looked on from a stage dominated by mostly male party leaders in dark suits, Premier Li Keqiang delivered a report warning that the country is fighting "three critical battles" against financial risks, poverty and pollution.

The government set an economic growth target of around 6.5 percent for 2018, in line with expectations but lower than the 6.9 percent GDP increase in 2017.

It announced an 8.1 percent increase for the defence budget to 1.11 trillion yuan ($175 billion) this year, giving the world's largest armed forces a boost after spending growth slowed in the previous two years.

The report also warned Taiwan that China "will never tolerate any separatist schemes" amid tensions between the mainland and the self-ruled island.

But the spotlight was squarely on the party's most powerful leader in more than four decades, with legislators due to greenlight major constitutional amendments that will further cement Xi's authority.

- 'Unify leadership' -



The changes drafted by the Communist Party will remove the two-term limit for the presidency, inscribe Xi's name in the state constitution and create a new national anti-corruption agency.

This would allow the 64-year-old leader to stay on as party chief, head of the military and president beyond 2023, when his second term is due to end.

"I support Xi Jinping. I support the constitution change," Zhou Feng, a delegate from Shanghai, told AFP.

Another delegate from central Henan province said "Xi Jinping is great", but several other legislators refused to answer questions about the amendment

Analysts have warned that the move carries risks as it ends a "collective" model of leadership that maintained stability after Mao's chaotic reign from 1949 to his death in 1976.

NPC spokesman Zhang Yesui downplayed its significance, saying Sunday it would merely align the presidency with the titles of Communist Party general secretary and Military Commission chairman, which do not have term limits.

"It is conducive to uphold the authority of the Central Committee of the party with comrade Xi Jinping at the core and also to unify leadership," Zhang said.

Censors have worked furiously to stamp out dissenting voices on social media, blocking dozens of words from "disagree" to "emperor".



- 'Right successor' -



Xi will get a second five-year term during the session. Remaining in power beyond 2023 gives him a chance to push through his vision of a rejuvenated China with global clout, a prosperous society and a powerful military.

He has also pursued a relentless but popular campaign against corruption that has punished more than a million party officials.

Hua Po, a Beijing-based political commentator, said Xi was handed "a mess" when he took office five years ago and needs more time to finish the job.

"One of the greatest tasks after he took office was to remove all threats to the party and state. To do this, it is not enough for him to serve only two terms," Hua told AFP.

"The Chinese system is a system that requires strong leaders, but it's not easy to train a strongman. Xi needs more time to find and train the right successors," he said.

"If Xi transfers power on time, it is likely that the power will be returned to the hands of the corrupt groups and the elite class and all his efforts in the recent years will be wasted."

While there is no doubt that the NPC will approve the amendment, analysts say legislators could voice their displeasure by abstaining or voting against the appointments of certain Xi allies to top posts.

"We don't hear about opposition to his life tenure because of censorship," said Willy Lam, politics professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"But there is opposition within the regime from people who think that this is outrageous, that he is going too far, that he has launched a coup against the party."

For eastern Fujian province delegate Huang Lei, "the most important thing for the congress is to focus on how to improve people's livelihoods".

She said she hopes for new concrete policies including more investment in environmental protection.

"There has already been a lot of progress and this should continue to serve the people," she said.China's defence spending to accelerate in 2018



Beijing, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



China announced on Monday an 8.1 percent defence budget increase for 2018, giving a boost to the modernisation of the world's largest military after spending slowed in the previous two years.

Beijing will splash out 1.11 trillion yuan ($175 billion) on its military, according to a budget report presented before the opening session of the annual National People's Congress.

"We will stick to the Chinese path in strengthening our armed forces, advance all aspects of military training and war preparedness, and firmly and resolvedly safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests," Premier Li Keqiang said in a report to the legislature.

China's neighbours and the United States have watched warily as Beijing has modernised its military, reducing its ground troops while spending on state-of-the-art hardware and weapons.

Li said the military had completed its goal of slashing troop numbers by 300,000, leaving the People's Liberation Army with a two-million-strong force.

At the same time, Beijing has imposed increasingly assertive claims to vast expanses of the contested South China Sea, while engaging in confrontations with Japan over disputed islands in the East China Sea and with India over Himalayan border regions.

The 2018 outlay compares with a seven percent increase last year and 7.6 percent in 2016, which marked the first time in six years that spending growth was not in double figures.

China spent $151 billion on the PLA last year, the second largest defence budget in the world but still four times less than the $603 billion US outlay, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank.

The defence budget increase has roughly kept pace with China's national economic output in recent years. The economy grew by 6.9 percent in 2017 and the government said Monday it will target growth of around 6.5 percent in 2018.

"We can expect that China's defence budget will continue to be subordinated to, and coordinated with, China's economic performance. It will likely not be over-militarised," said James Char, a military expert at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.



- 'World-class' army -



As the PLA marked its 90th anniversary in August, Xi warned that China will protect its sovereignty against "any people, organisation or political party".

Since coming to power in 2012, the president has trumpeted the need to build a stronger combat-ready military, while cementing his leadership over the army, which was ordered to pledge absolute loyalty to him last year.

At a major Communist Party congress in October, Xi vowed to build a "world-class" fighting force by 2050.

The PLA has stocked up on stealth fighter jets, warships and high-tech weaponry over the years.

"Technologically speaking, the PLA has progressed markedly in recent years, with its own research and development in military hardware and growing professionalism reducing the gap with its US counterpart," Char said.

Last year, China unveiled its first domestically-built aircraft carrier, which will carry J-15 fighters that will take off from a raised "ski jump" platform. It also launched a new class of destroyer.

Its military has one operational carrier -- the Liaoning -- a Soviet-era vessel bought from Ukraine that was refitted and commissioned in 2012.

The chairman of the Dalian Shipbuilding Industry, which worked on both ships, said the company was "ready to build larger" carriers after gaining the experience to make more, the state-run China Daily newspaper said Friday.

China has also opened its first overseas military base in the Horn of Africa country of Djibouti.

Since 2008, its navy has participated in anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden.

Closer to home, China has in recent years built artificial islands -- some with airstrips -- capable of hosting military installations in the South China Sea, inflaming tensions with its Southeast Asian neighbours.

US warships, meanwhile, regularly conduct "freedom of navigation" operations near the islands to challenge China's territorial claims.

Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan have contested China's claims to the sea.

China's military budget is "disproportional in the sense that the economies of Southeast Asia do not have the resources to keep pace" and Japan's constitution restricts military spending, said Matthew Funaiole, a fellow with the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington.

"Whether or not this is a 'threat' depends on how China utilises its capabilities. That said, its maritime presence is certainly growing."China signals hardened stance on Hong Kong, Taiwan



Beijing, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



China signalled Monday it was hardening its stance on dissent in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where it faces growing frustration with the increasingly authoritarian government of President Xi Jinping.

In a report to the opening session of the annual National People's Congress in Beijing, Premier Li Keqiang warned China "will never tolerate any separatist schemes" in Taiwan, amid increasing tensions between the mainland and the self-ruled island.

The warning to the almost 3,000 members of the mostly ceremonial legislature followed the omission of language supporting the political autonomy of Hong Kong and Macau that had featured prominently in previous years.

The report said Beijing would continue to uphold its "one China" principle and promote "peaceful growth" relations with Taiwan under the 1992 consensus, which agrees that there is only one China without specifying whether Beijing or Taipei is its rightful representative.

Beijing will also "advance China's peaceful reunification", Li said.

But, he added, it "will never tolerate any separatist schemes or activities for 'Taiwan independence'."

China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification. It has cut off official communications with Taipei because President Tsai Ing-wen refuses to acknowledge the democratic island as part of "one China".

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which handles relations with China, said in response the island wants to "maintain the peaceful and stable status quo in the Taiwan Strait".

"We urge China to adopt forward-looking and innovative positive thinking regarding the development of cross-strait relations," it said in a statement.

China voiced anger last week after the US Senate passed a bill to encourage visits between Washington and Taipei "at all levels".

Washington cut formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979 in favour of Beijing. But it maintains trade relations with the island and sells it weapons, angering China.

- Raising concern -

The report also hinted at a hardening stance towards dissent in the semi-autonomous cities of Hong Kong and Macau, which Beijing rules under the principle of "One country, two systems".

Last year the section of the report on governing the former European colonies said they would be allowed "a high degree of autonomy", a statement in keeping with past years, but this year's report omitted the phrase.

While this year's report referred to the "One country, two systems" concept, it no longer said it would "steadfastly" apply the principle.

The change may seem minor but silence speaks volumes in a system where government documents are edited down to the last comma.

Hong Kong has been governed under a "one country, two systems" deal since 1997, when Britain handed it back to China.

This allows residents rights unseen on the mainland, including freedom of speech and a partially directly elected legislature, as well as an independent judiciary.

But there are fears these freedoms are under threat from Beijing.

Tanya Chan, a pro-democracy lawmaker in the city, said the omission of the mention of Hong Kong people governing themselves was no mistake.

"I don't think any omission is without purpose, especially when Hong Kong people are concerned about autonomy and the whole system," she told AFP.

"I worry about whether the Chinese government still respects these very important promises," Chan added, predicting more "serious and overt" intervention by Beijing.

Claudia Mo, also a pro-democracy legislator, said the "one country, two systems" deal was already dead. "They are just confirming it," she added.Economist: North Bay wildfires should not have long-term effect on local economy

The October wildfires will not cause long-lasting damage to the North Bay economy, which is strong enough to withstand the effects of the worst natural disaster to strike the area in the last 100 years, a top local economist predicted Friday.

Despite the destruction of nearly 5,300 homes in Sonoma County, the region's economy is on track to continue growing this year, said Robert Eyler, director of the Center for Regional Economic Analysis at Sonoma State University.

We have to separate the idea that we have the tragedy we can't forget, but we have to make it more of a memory than an on-the-spot issue, recognizing that it is not as big of an impact on the overall economy, Eyler said.

If every single person who lost a home in the wildfires decided to leave Sonoma County and their homes were never rebuilt - the worst-case scenario, Eyler said - the area would lose $750 million in annual consumer spending and 5,600 jobs, according to his forecast.

While those numbers are large, they amount to a fraction of the county's $24 billion economy and its 220,000 payroll workers. In Napa County, the same scenario would erase $333 million from the county's $9 billion economy and eliminate 2,450 of its 80,000 jobs, Eyler forecast.

The context is really good in terms of supporting what we need to do here - as long as we get off the dime and get it done, Eyler said during the keynote speech at SSU's annual Economic Outlook Conference. The event, held at the DoubleTree Hotel in Rohnert Park, was sponsored by the North Bay Business Journal.

Eyler's conclusion fits with a new study prepared for the county by Los Angeles-based Beacon Economics, whose founder, Christopher Thornberg, frequently speaks at annual economic events in Santa Rosa.

While not minimizing the enormous hardship and suffering caused by the fires, Beacon concluded natural disasters appear to have a limited impact on the county economy in the short run, with presumably limited or no negative impacts on its long-run health.

Beacon based its findings on a review of assessed property valuations, taxable sales and personal income for a variety of wildfires since 1999, including the 2003 Cedar fire in San Diego and the 2015 Valley fire in Lake County.

Efforts to rebuild from the fires can actually help to stoke the region's economic growth, Eyler said.

For instance, every $1 billion spent on rebuilding in Sonoma County translates to 5,270 construction jobs and another 3,930 support jobs. That spending, in turn, provides $536 million in additional business revenue as well as $68 million in additional state and local taxes. In Napa County, $1 billion spent on rebuilding would result in $428 million in additional revenue and 8,190 total jobs.

We have a lot of gains once we ignite all of this, Eyler said.

The industries that stand to benefit the most from the rebuilding will be retail, health care, hotels, restaurants and wholesalers, Eyler said.

Given the enormity of the destruction, the region will be challenged to find enough construction workers to rebuild quickly. Sonoma County will need at least 5,500 workers for rebuilding, Eyler said. If we could train 3,500 workers, it would at least fill some of that needed gap, he said.

While it would be preferable to hire locally, Eyler said the focus has to be getting workers in place as soon as possible, no matter where they come from.

It's all going to depend on the economics of doing it locally versus to just importing the workers and getting it done, he said.

Local officials have conceded some construction workers will likely come from out of state and are grappling on where to house them. Already some local recreational vehicle parks have served as temporary housing for workers in debris removal efforts. Even outside-the-box ideas are being explored.

Do we rent a barge, like they use on oil rigs? said Jennifer Gray Thompson, executive director of Rebuild Northbay Foundation, a new public-private nonprofit group seeking to help guide recovery efforts throughout the region. The group was founded by Sonoma developer Darius Anderson, managing partner of Sonoma Media Investments, which owns The Press Democrat and North Bay Business Journal.

The conference also featured two local business leaders who are rebuilding after the fires.

Sonia Byck-Barwick, co-owner of Paradise Ridge Winery in Santa Rosa, said her family has already hired a local builder and architect with a goal to reopen the winery by the end of 2019. The winery will attempt to hold a fundraiser this summer on its site in Fountaingrove.

We knew we had to come back in some form, Byck-Barwick said.

The Mountain Mike's Pizza near Coffey Park that also burned down is scheduled to reopen by the end of this year, said Sonu Chandi, president of the Chandi Hospitality Group, which owns the restaurant. In fact, Chandi said his family is so bullish on rebuilding it is exploring opening a hotel project within Santa Rosa.

You can reach Staff Writer Bill Swindell at 707-521-5223 or bill.swindell@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @BillSwindell.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been revised to correct a financial figure. Every $1 billion spent on rebuilding is expected to translate into $536 million in additional business revenue in Sonoma County. A previous version of the story said $536 billion.Drunken driver who killed Penngrove mini horses gets jail time

An Oakland man who mowed down two miniature horses during a drunken tear through Penngrove last year has been sentenced to up to 150 days in Sonoma County Jail and given four years probation.

Ronald O. Rennert, 40, pleaded guilty earlier this year to misdemeanor drunken driving and hit and run in a case that provoked outrage among animal lovers around the region. His probation terms include orders he refrain from drinking for four years and pay $7,825 in restitution.

But thats unlikely to assuage the grief of horse owner Juanita Carrillo, whose two beloved companions were deemed mere property under California law. Though aware of the legal constraints under which county court officials were operating, she said she still wishes Rennert had been dealt with more severely.

He brutally killed these horses and took off, said Carrillo, 59. Didnt assist. Didnt do anything. He just took off.

Carrillo was asleep in her rural Minnesota Avenue home as the bars were closing early on the morning of April 15 when she was awakened by the sound of someone crashing into the fenced area of her front yard, where her two mini horses were corralled.

The toll of the crash was devastating: Both of her beloved pets were severely injured and eventually would be euthanized by an on-call veterinarian. The driver had sped off.

Rennert, 40, might never have been identified in the case had he not been arrested for drunken driving a short time later on southbound Highway 101 near Petaluma. His Honda CRV had front-end damage and tufts of animal fur were stuck to the metal, authorities said. Car parts found in the horse corral matched the CRV.

But Rennert, in an interview soon afterward, said he remembered nothing of that morning, not even getting into his car after leaving the bar.

He was charged last May with drunken driving and hit and run, both misdemeanors.

It wasnt until Jan. 8 that he admitted guilt in the case. Rennert sought out and completed a private chemical dependency program on his own and reported volunteering for and fundraising for a nonprofit miniature horse rescue organization called Angels for Minis, according to court records.

He was eligible to serve as much as a year in county jail, Deputy District Attorney Scott Uemura said.

On Thursday, Judge Julie Conger sentenced Rennert to 90 days of jail time - 45 days if his behavior is good - plus another 60 days in jail or on work release, Uemura said.

He also will serve four years of formal probation during which he will be subject to testing to make sure he refrains from drinking alcohol. During the first 30 days hell wear whats called an alcohol bracelet that can sense from his sweat whether he has ingested alcohol, prosecutors said.

District Attorney Jill Ravitch acknowledged the limitations and challenges of prosecuting a case in which there is no evidence Rennert purposely targeted or injured the animals, despite the obvious grief their deaths caused. We are very diligent in our prosecution of cases involving injury or abuse of animals, she said.

Uemura said those factors, the heightened public interest and the totality of the circumstances resulted in a sentence that included jail time.

It was certainly not a run-of-the-mill DUI case, he said.

Carrillo says she forever will be haunted by the violent loss of her horses, and the pain they suffered in their final moments of life. Shes glad to have the criminal case concluded, and grateful for animal lovers who supported her at court proceedings. They included the founder/director of a Walnut Creek-based nonprofit called Voices for Pets, and Rennerts own father and step-mother, who sat with Carrillo during the sentencing.

She said Rennert was given a chance to apologize during the proceedings, but it left her cold.?Im happy with the outcome, I guess, she said. It could have been a little stricter.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.Smaller pot growers in state feel stifled

UKIAH - California is falling short of its mission to bring existing cannabis growers into the legal market. That was the message repeated Thursday night in Ukiah by both government officials and regional marijuana industry leaders alike.

At a first-of-its-kind meeting with the states top cannabis officials and North Coast marijuana industry leaders to discuss the states new regulations for the business sector, Sonoma County Agricultural Commissioner Tony Linegar was unequivocal in his biting analysis that both state and local regulations are prohibitively stringent and have stifled the ability of existing cultivators to legalize their operations.

If the overall goal of the program was to favor a corporate, big dollar, new money industry then we have succeeded, Linegar said. If the goal was to create a workable pathway for existing operators, then I think we have failed.

Linegars statement brought many to their feet - with cheers and applause from those frustrated by the new rules - among about 250 people who filled the room at the Ukiah Valley Conference Center for the event, a joint meeting of the state senate committees on governance, finance, business and professions.

Hosted by State Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, and Assemblyman Jim Wood, D-Healdsburg, the event included a broad discussion lasting more than three hours with the states top cannabis officials, including Lori Ajax, who oversees the California Bureau of Cannabis Control, as well as Richard Parrott, director of the CalCannabis Cultivation Licensing division.

Ajax reported that so far the state has issued 1,307 temporary licenses for cannabis businesses and has begun a proactive effort to contact entities operating outside the legal system.

The state is in a headlong race against the states entrenched and lucrative black market for cannabis. Most of the pot produced in California is shipped out of state.

McGuire said 60 percent of the nations cannabis is grown in Mendocino, Humboldt, Trinity and Lake counties.

Parrott, who oversees the licensing program for cannabis farmers, said the state is aware it needs more compliance in order for the program to meet its goals.

We realize theres a long way to go, Parrott said. The number is lower than what we know is out there.

Steep taxes and high upfront costs for environmental reports and other assessments make it hard for most existing growers to continue.

For farmers, the incentives arent there, said Michael Steinmetz, founder of Flow Kana, which is being built into a cannabis distribution hub in Redwood Valley.

Mendocino County Supervisor Dan Hamburg said although he feels the county is ahead of most others in the state, they have a long way to go toward getting more farmers and other businesses to legalize.

We are struggling, said Hamburg. This is kind of like putting toothpaste back in the tube after 40 years of having a cannabis industry, a cannabis community, a cannabis culture.

Linegar said Sonoma County had an estimated 5,000-to-7,000 cannabis cultivators - but only three have so far received permits to plant.

About a dozen members of the public spoke in an hourlong back-and-forth discussion with state officials.

Cannabis farmer Mark Shaffer, 38, of Comptche spoke of the hurdles local growers face competing with bigger entities - and he gave the example of Santa Barbara County where one entity was said to have nabbed 87 cultivation licenses.

We want to show you we are the people ready to do the right thing and we will pay our taxes, Shaffer said. Please help give us a chance to keep the legacy of Mendocino County sustainable.

Wood, the assemblyman, was incredulous one entity had received so many licenses and asked Parrott to confirm.

I heard 87 licenses went to one person, is that correct? Wood said.

Parrott confirmed it was.

Its a huge loophole in the system thats hurting small farmers, McGuire said.

McGuire had started the night alerting the crowd that Parrott wouldnt be able to address one of the biggest issues facing North Coast growers: the states last-minute move to allow large-scale farms.

The California Growers Association has sued the state for the move, claiming it goes against state laws which were supposed to limit regulated farms to small- and medium-sized ones of no more than 1 acre until 2023.

We are aware of the concerns of many family farmers regarding the subject of an acreage cap, Parrott said.

Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the California Growers Association, spoke of the ingrained stigma of marijuana and urged lawmakers to be vigilant to root out that prejudice from the very core of our governance.

Low numbers of licensed cultivators and manufacturers slows the entire supply chain.

Bill Silver, chief financial officer of Santa Rosa-based CannaCraft, said there arent enough licensed entities to fulfill his companys demands.

Theres no way we can stay in business unless something happens to free up supply, its a chokehold, Silver said.

The lack of inventory is clearest on the shelves of dispensaries.

About 15 miles south of Ukiah in Hopland at Emerald Pharms dispensary, a selection of cannabis-infused foods and candies filled four shelves prior to Jan. 1. Today, three shelves are sparsely packed with infused mints, chocolates, granola, salted caramels and other items, but whats missing are the products from about 12 manufacturers who have stopped bringing their products to the store.

Most cooked their products in home kitchens, and while some are seeking licenses, most have said its too expensive to comply with new rules, dispensary director Chelsea Lucich said.

But business is up. Lucich said about 100 people have walked through the door each day since January, a steady flow for a dispensary down a gravel driveway in the sleepy south Mendocino County town.

Most of their customers are between 50 and 70 years old, a demographic interested in the therapeutic properties of cannabis, whether they have medical recommendations or not.

For many first time customers, theyre coming in after years of stigma has been lifted, she said.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.Soldier killed in Senegal's troubled Casamance region



Dakar, March 4 (AFP) Mar 04, 2018



A Senegalese soldier was killed Sunday and another wounded in a military operation targeting "criminal activities" by rebels in the country's southern Casamance region, the army said.

Also during the operation "two rebels were taken prisoner... three fields of Indian hemp were destroyed," and "weapons of war and munitions seized," the army said in a statement released late Sunday.

Tensions have mounted in Casamance following the massacre of 14 young men in execution-style killings in a protected forest on January 6.

The bloodbath -- which came at a delicate time for peace talks for Casamance -- caused some to blame a group that has led a 35-year armed campaign for the region's independence.

The separatist group itself blames a fight within the illegal logging trade, which it says is run by corrupt officials.

Senegalese authorities say the massacre was carried out by villagers with the support of the rebels.

In late January 24 suspects were arrested and charged in the killings.

The massacre occurred just as the government and the Casamance Movement of Democratic Forces (MFDC) -- which has several internal factions -- sought to relaunch a peace initiative.

The region had been calm in recent years after President Macky Sall came to power.

Peace negotiations restarted in October with the guidance of Rome's Community of Sant'Egidio, a charity with ties to the Vatican specialising in peace mediation.

The MFDC has condemned the massacred and called for renewed dialogue in the peace talks.Syria's Eastern Ghouta: two weeks under attack



Beirut, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



Syria's army unleashed daily air strikes on Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus on February 18 in a bid to root out Islamist rebels and jihadists but killing more than 700 civilians.

As the regime was reported to have retaken a third of the enclave Monday, a UN convoy entered in the first aid delivery since the start of the devastating assault two weeks ago.

Here is a summary of events:



- New round of rockets, raids -



Government forces open their latest military campaign against Eastern Ghouta with more than 260 rockets and intense air raids.

The strikes continue on February 19 when 127 civilians are killed in the highest death toll over a single day there since 2013, when it was besieged by regime forces.

On February 20 Russian air strikes reportedly target Eastern Ghouta for the first time in three months, hitting the key regional Arbin hospital.

Six other hospitals are also hit in the bombardments over a 48-hour period, putting three out of service, according to the United Nations.



- 'Hell on Earth' -



On February 21 raids target several areas and planes drop barrel bombs -- crude, improvised munitions that cause indiscriminate damage.

The Kremlin denies involvement in the air strikes as "groundless accusations".

UN chief Antonio Guterres calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying the region's 400,000 residents "live in hell on Earth".



- 'Another Aleppo' -



The chaos deepens on February 22 as the Syrian regime rains rockets and bombs on the enclave, killing at least 19 people.

At the United Nations, key regime-backer Russia is pressing for a negotiated withdrawal of rebel fighters and their families, like the one that saw the government retake full control of Aleppo in December 2016.

"Yes, Eastern Ghouta will become another Aleppo," says Syria's UN representative Bashar al-Jaafari.



- Ceasefire agreed -



On February 23 US President Donald Trump slams the actions of the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian backers.

"What those three countries have done to those people is a disgrace," he says.

In February 24 the UN Security Council finally gets unanimous backing for a 30-day ceasefire to allow for aid deliveries and medical evacuations.

But there are new air strikes the following day and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor reports Syrian forces engaged in heavy fighting with rebels, with many dead.



- Daily 'pause' ordered -



On February 26 the regime carries out more bombings, in spite of the UN-agreed truce, killing at least 22 civilians.

Frustrated, the UN and European Union demand the immediate implementation of the ceasefire.

Moscow then announces President Vladimir Putin has ordered a daily five-hour "humanitarian pause" from February 27 and the opening of protected corridors to allow people to leave.

Hours after the truce is meant to come into effect, the United Nations says fighting continues, making relief operations impossible.

Not one of the battered region's residents board buses provided by the regime to leave. Trucks loaded with aid are blocked.



- First aid delivery -



The Syrian regime again pounds the area on March 4, killing more than 30 civilians, as President Bashar al-Assad says his forces will continue their push.

"The majority (of people) in Eastern Ghouta want to escape the embrace of terrorism. The operation must continue," Assad tells journalists.

On March 5, 14 more civilians are reported killed overnight.

The UN announces that dozens of trucks of emergency relief have entered the enclave, the first aid delivery since the start of the assault.

The aid arrives after the Observatory says that regime troops have retaken a third of the enclave.Turkey court rejects appeal to free Greek soldiers: report



Ankara, Turkey, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



A Turkish court on Monday rejected a request for the release of two Greek soldiers arrested last week for illegally entering the country, media reported.

The pair were arrested on Friday for entering a prohibited military zone.

Their lawyers appealed the arrests in the northern province of Edirne, Dogan news agency said.

Turkish media initially reported that the two men were arrested for "attempted military espionage", but Greek authorities denied it.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag on Monday said that prosecutors wanted the two soldiers detained for attempted military espionage and entering a forbidden military zone, but the judge only ordered their arrest for the second charge.

The Greek army said the lieutenant and a sergeant lost their way in poor weather while patrolling around the Evros river that divides the two nations.

Relations between Ankara and Athens are tense over multiple issues including the Greek failure to extradite eight Turkish troops who escaped Turkey by helicopter on the night of the July 2016 attempted overthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

But Bozdag told reporters in Ankara "there was no question of an exchange" for the Turkish military personnel, echoing comments made at the weekend by Athens.

"We are not at war with Turkey to conduct an exchange of prisoners," junior foreign minister Yiorgos Katrougalos said Saturday.Niger attack video released by IS shows group's 'depravity': Pentagon



Washington, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



A graphic video apparently captured by the helmet camera of one of the US soldiers killed in an Islamic State ambush in Niger highlights the jihadists' depravity, the Pentagon said Monday after IS released the footage.

The Defense Department "is aware of alleged photos and IS propaganda video from the Oct. 4, 2017 terrorist attack in Niger. The release of these materials demonstrates the depravity of the enemy we are fighting," the Pentagon said in a statement.

The nine-minute video includes a compilation of still and video footage, some of it IS and some American.

The video shows what appears to be the attack itself, which occurred as a unit of 12 American special forces soldiers and 30 Nigerien troops returned from the village of Tongo Tongo, near the border with Mali.

They were attacked by a group of some 50 fighters affiliated with IS and equipped with small arms, grenades and trucks mounted with guns.

The video, set to Islamic chants, shows distressing images of the attack and the soldier wearing the camera being shot to death.

It also depicts the body of at least one other American soldier.Turkey court rejects appeal to free Greek soldiers: report



Ankara, Turkey, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



A Turkish court on Monday rejected a request for the release of two Greek soldiers arrested last week for illegally entering the country, local media reported.

The pair were arrested on Friday for entering a prohibited military zone in the northern province of Edirne.

Turkish media initially reported that the two men were arrested for "attempted military espionage", but Greek authorities denied it.

The soldiers told prosecutors last week that they had erroneously entered through a border crossing after "following footprints in the snow in an attempt to stop migrant smuggling", local media said.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Monday that prosecutors wanted the two soldiers detained for attempted military espionage and entering a forbidden military zone, but the judge ordered their arrest only on the second charge.

The Greek army said the lieutenant and sergeant lost their way in poor weather while patrolling around the Evros river that divides the two nations.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias, speaking before the court's decision, urged its NATO ally Turkey "to apply the provisions of international law and not turn a routine procedure into a major legal and political problem".

Relations between Ankara and Athens are tense over a number of issues including the Greek failure to extradite eight Turkish troops who escaped Turkey by helicopter on the night of the July 2016 attempted overthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

But Bozdag told reporters in Ankara "there was no question of an exchange" for the Turkish military personnel, echoing comments made at the weekend by Athens.

"We are not at war with Turkey to conduct an exchange of prisoners," junior foreign minister Yiorgos Katrougalos said Saturday.

Turkish and Greek vessels have also in the last weeks twice collided off Aegean islets that have been a historic flashpoint in a long-running demarcation dispute.

Tensions are also high over Cyprus as Turkey promises to prevent attempts by the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot government to exploit oil reserves off the Mediterranean island.

The northern part of the island is still occupied by Turkish troops following the 1974 invasion in response to an Athens-inspired coup aimed at uniting it with Greece.Turkey strikes kill 13 civilians in Syria's Afrin: monitor



Beirut, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



Turkish air strikes on Monday killed 13 civilians including two children in northwestern Syria's Kurdish enclave of Afrin, a monitor said.

The deadly air raids hit the town of Jandairis near the Turkish border, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.

They come six weeks into a Turkey-led assault against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia in the enclave.

Jandairis has come under heavy fire since dawn on Monday as Turkish troops and allied rebels on its edges seek to retake the area from Kurdish fighters, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Since the Turkish offensive started on January 20, Turkish bombardment has killed 165 civilians, including 29 children, the Observatory says.

Turkey denies the reports and says it takes the "utmost care" to avoid civilian casualties.

The monitor says 266 pro-Ankara rebels and 302 Kurdish fighters have also lost their lives.

Since pro-regime fighters were deployed to help the Kurds in Afrin last month, some 58 of these "popular forces" have been killed, it said.

Ankara says the YPG is a "terrorist" extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

But the YPG has been a key component of a US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance that has been fighting the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria.

More than 340,000 people have been killed since Syria's war started in 2011. It has since spiralled into a complex conflict involving world powers.IS video of Niger attack highlights US troops' vulnerability



Washington, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



A propaganda video released by the Islamic State group showing the deadly ambush of US troops in Niger raised fresh questions Monday as to the nature of the mission and why the soldiers had been left so vulnerable.

The distressing video, distributed by a pro-IS news agency, includes graphic footage taken by a solder wearing a helmet camera.

It shows the chaos of the attack, including the solider wearing the camera being shot dead, with apparent IS fighters stalking past his body.

The Defense Department "is aware of alleged photos and IS propaganda video from the October 4, 2017 terrorist attack in Niger. The release of these materials demonstrates the depravity of the enemy we are fighting," the Pentagon said in a statement.

The nine-minute video, set to Islamic chanting, includes an image of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and footage of pick-up trucks rolling through a desert landscape.

One of the vehicles is flying an IS flag and other trucks are packed with what appear to be fighters.

The October 4 attack occurred as a unit of 12 American special forces soldiers and 30 Nigerien troops returned from the village of Tongo Tongo, near the border with Mali.

They were attacked by a group of some 50 IS-affiliated fighters equipped with small arms, grenades and trucks mounted with guns.



- Ill-equipped -



The mission was supposed to be a low-risk patrol and the soldiers were clearly ill-equipped for the scale of the attack.

Footage shows the US troops wearing only light body armor, desperately seeking cover behind an unarmored SUV while coming under heavy fire.

In a frantic bid to find some sort of concealment, the troops deployed red smoke grenades but the parched landscape of scrub and dirt provided no effective cover.

At one point in the video, a US soldier is shot and a comrade attempts to pull him to cover behind the SUV.

As their position is about overrun, they have no choice but to try to run away, but there is nowhere to hide.

Four American soldiers were killed along with at least five Nigerien troops. The body of one US soldier, Sergeant La David Johnson, was not recovered until the following day.

"Knowing that they were asked to try and complete and execute this type of mission with that type of equipment, I just could not believe it," Republican Congressman Marc Veasey told CBS news.

Questions remain about what intelligence failures may have occurred that allowed such a large attack, and why the soldiers did not get immediate back up or air support.

The Americans had been on a joint patrol with Nigerien counterparts they were training when they were ambushed by motorcycle-riding and car-driving gunmen in the Tillaberi region in the Niger's southwest.

The Pentagon is set to release the findings of an investigation into the incident in the coming days.French foreign minister holds tense talks in Tehran



Tehran, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian faced a tricky reception in Tehran on Monday as he pushed for curbs to Iran's ballistic missile programme in a bid to preserve its historic nuclear deal.

Le Drian said there was "still a lot of work to do" on Iran's missile programme after meeting with top officials, including President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Zarif countered that Europe needed to "play a more constructive role to preserve" the nuclear deal.

"And above all to put pressure on the United States to meet its commitments under the deal and not to allow it to present illogical and illegal demands," Zarif added, according to an account by the foreign ministry.

The visit comes in the midst of a scramble by European governments to salvage the 2015 deal after US President Donald Trump threatened he would abandon it if it was not "improved" by May 12.

Le Drian has insisted he is not "an emissary of Trump", but he has taken a firm line on Iran's missile programme and regional interventions that mirrors the rhetoric from Washington.

"There are programmes for missiles with ranges of several thousand kilometres which are not in line with UN Security Council resolutions and go beyond what is needed to secure Iran's borders," Le Drian told Le Journal du Dimanche on the eve of his visit.

France has ballistic missiles with ranges of more than 6,000 kilometres, which can be launched from submarines, but Le Drian said Iran was risking fresh sanctions if it did not curb its missile programme, which is currently limited to 2,000 kilometres.

His statements have not been warmly received in Iran, with Zarif telling Monday's reformist Etemad newspaper: "In order to keep the United States in the Iran nuclear deal, European countries are suffering from extremism and this will ultimately undermine Europe's policy."

Iran's conservative Kayhan newspaper responded with a headline saying: "French foreign minister insults people of Iran before visit to Tehran."

The hardline Javan daily was even more blunt: "Trump's Parisian lackey in Tehran".



- 'Heavy concerns on Syria' -



Le Drian also pressed Iran on the activities of its ally, the Syrian government, amid the ongoing bombardment of civilians in the rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.

"The Iranian authorities told me of their heavy concerns on the humanitarian situation in Syria and their desire to see an end to this catastrophe," Le Drian told reporters.

But the key focus has been the 120-day deadline set by Trump in January for US lawmakers and European allies to "fix" the nuclear deal, the top foreign policy achievement of his predecessor Barack Obama.

Iran has refused to re-negotiate the deal or add extra clauses, arguing that the US has already failed to keep up its end of the bargain on the existing accord.

Despite Le Drian's tough talk on missiles, France remains firmly behind the agreement.

"We want to preserve the nuclear deal because it is working, it's robust and because the Iranians are respecting it," his team told AFP ahead of the visit.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly found Iran is abiding by its commitments, which curbs its nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions.

IAEA director general Yukiya Amano said on Monday that losing the nuclear deal "would be a great loss for nuclear verification and for multilateralism".



- France's re-engagement -



If the political track looks tricky, France is hoping its cultural diplomacy can offer a more positive flavour to the trip.

On Monday Le Drian inaugurated an "unprecedented" show of items from the Louvre in Paris at Tehran's National Museum.

"Relations between France and Iran are old and profound because France was a pioneer of archaeological exploration here," said Jean-Luc Martinez, president of the Louvre.

Despite their differences, Iran has broadly welcomed France's efforts to re-engage with the country.

Last year's $5 billion gas exploration deal with French energy giant Total was the biggest in Iran since the nuclear accord, and showed French firms were willing to stand up to pressure from Washington.

vl-er/hkbIran rebuffs French FM demands to curb missiles on Tehran visit



Tehran, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



Iran rebuffed French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian's calls to curb its missile programme after a day of tense discussions in Tehran on Monday aimed at salvaging its historic nuclear deal.

Le Drian said there was "still a lot of work to do" on Iran's missile programme after meeting with top officials, including President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Zarif countered that Europe needed to "play a more constructive role to preserve" the nuclear deal.

"And above all to put pressure on the United States to meet its commitments under the deal and not to allow it to present illogical and illegal demands," Zarif added, according to an account by the foreign ministry.

The visit comes in the midst of a scramble by European governments to salvage the 2015 deal after US President Donald Trump threatened he would abandon it unless tough new restrictions were placed on Iran before May 12.

Rouhani issued a statement after meeting Le Drian, saying: "Preserving the nuclear accord will prove to the world that negotiation and diplomacy are the best option for solving problems, while its collapse will signify that political negotiations are a waste of time."

Le Drian has insisted he is not "an emissary of Trump", but he has taken a firm line on Iran's missile programme and regional interventions that mirrors the rhetoric from Washington.

"There are programmes for missiles with ranges of several thousand kilometres which are not in line with UN Security Council resolutions and go beyond what is needed to secure Iran's borders," Le Drian told Le Journal du Dimanche on the eve of his visit.

France has ballistic missiles with ranges of more than 6,000 kilometres, which can be launched from submarines, but Le Drian said Iran was risking fresh sanctions if it did not curb its missile programme, which is currently limited to 2,000 kilometres.

His statements have not been warmly received in Iran, with Zarif telling Monday's reformist Etemad newspaper: "In order to keep the United States in the Iran nuclear deal, European countries are suffering from extremism and this will ultimately undermine Europe's policy."

The hardline Javan newspaper welcomed Le Drian with the headline: "Trump's Parisian lackey in Tehran".



- 'Heavy concerns on Syria' -



Le Drian also pressed Iran on the activities of its ally, the Syrian government, amid the ongoing bombardment of civilians in the rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus.

"The Iranian authorities told me of their heavy concerns on the humanitarian situation in Syria and their desire to see an end to this catastrophe," Le Drian told reporters.

Rouhani re-emphasised Iran's position that the only way to resolve the Syrian crisis was to "support its central government".

But the key focus has been the 120-day deadline set by Trump in January for US lawmakers and European allies to "fix" the nuclear deal, removing "sunset clauses" that mean it expires in 2026 and reining in Iran's missile programme and regional activities.

Iran has refused any re-negotiation or additional clauses, arguing that the US has already failed to keep up its end of the bargain on the existing accord.

Despite Le Drian's tough talk on missiles, France remains firmly behind the agreement.

"We want to preserve the nuclear deal because it is working, it's robust and because the Iranians are respecting it," his team told AFP ahead of the visit.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has repeatedly found Iran is abiding by its commitments, which curbs its nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of international sanctions.

IAEA director general Yukiya Amano said on Monday that losing the nuclear deal "would be a great loss for nuclear verification and for multilateralism".



- France's re-engagement -



If the political track looks tricky, France is hoping its cultural diplomacy can offer a more positive flavour to the trip.

On Monday Le Drian inaugurated an "unprecedented" show of items from the Louvre in Paris at Tehran's National Museum.

"Relations between France and Iran are old and profound because France was a pioneer of archaeological exploration here," said Jean-Luc Martinez, president of the Louvre.

Despite their differences, Iran has broadly welcomed France's efforts to re-engage with the country.

Last year's $5 billion gas exploration deal with French energy giant Total was the biggest in Iran since the nuclear accord, and showed French firms were willing to stand up to pressure from Washington.

vl-er/hkb/hkbTurkey strikes kill 19 civilians in Syria's Afrin: monitor



Beirut, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



Turkish air strikes on Monday killed 19 civilians including two children in northwestern Syria's Kurdish enclave of Afrin, a monitor said.

The deadly air raids hit the town of Jandairis near the Turkish border, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.

They come six weeks into a Turkey-led assault against the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia in the enclave.

Jandairis has come under heavy fire since dawn on Monday as Turkish troops and allied rebels on its edges seek to retake the area from Kurdish fighters, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Since the Turkish offensive started on January 20, Turkish bombardment has killed more than 170 civilians, including 29 children, the Observatory says.

Turkey denies the reports and says it takes the "utmost care" to avoid civilian casualties.

The monitor says 270 pro-Ankara rebels and nearly 310 Kurdish fighters have also lost their lives.

At least 40 Turkish soldiers have also been killed since the start of the assault, according to Ankara.

Since pro-regime fighters were deployed to help the Kurds in Afrin last month, some 58 of these "popular forces" have been killed, it said.

Ankara says the YPG is a "terrorist" extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

But the YPG has been a key component of a US-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance that has been fighting the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria.

More than 340,000 people have been killed since Syria's war started in 2011. It has since spiralled into a complex conflict involving world powers.IS video of Niger attack highlights US troops' vulnerability



Washington, March 5 (AFP) Mar 05, 2018



A propaganda video released by the Islamic State group that apparently shows the deadly ambush of US troops in Niger raised fresh questions Monday as to the nature of the mission and why the soldiers had been left so vulnerable.

The distressing video, distributed by a pro-IS news agency, includes graphic footage taken by a solder wearing a helmet camera.

It shows the chaos of the attack, including the solider wearing the camera being shot dead, with apparent IS fighters stalking past his body.

The Defense Department "is aware of alleged photos and IS propaganda video from the October 4, 2017 terrorist attack in Niger. The release of these materials demonstrates the depravity of the enemy we are fighting," the Pentagon said in a statement.

The nine-minute video, set to Islamic chanting, includes an image of IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and footage of pick-up trucks rolling through a desert landscape.

One of the vehicles is flying an IS flag and other trucks are packed with what appear to be fighters.

The October 4 attack occurred as a unit of American special forces soldiers together with 30 Nigerien troops returned from the village of Tongo Tongo, near the border with Mali.

They were attacked by a group of some 50 IS-affiliated fighters equipped with small arms, grenades and trucks mounted with guns.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Rob Manning accused news outlets reporting on the video as being "complicit in amplifying ISIS propaganda."

AFP has published a heavily redacted version of the footage.



- Ill-equipped -



The mission was supposed to be a low-risk patrol and the soldiers were clearly ill-equipped for the scale of the attack.

Footage shows the US troops wearing only limited body armor, desperately seeking cover behind an unarmored SUV while coming under heavy fire.

In a frantic bid to find some sort of concealment, the troops deployed red smoke grenades but the parched landscape of scrub and dirt provided no effective cover.

At one point in the video, a US soldier is shot and a comrade attempts to pull him to cover behind the SUV.

As their position is about overrun, they have no choice but to try to run away, but there is nowhere to hide.

Four American soldiers were killed along with at least five Nigerien troops. The body of one US soldier, Sergeant La David Johnson, was not recovered until the following day.

"Knowing that they were asked to try and complete and execute this type of mission with that type of equipment, I just could not believe it," Republican Congressman Marc Veasey told CBS news.

Questions remain about what intelligence failures may have occurred that allowed such a large attack, and why the soldiers did not get immediate back up or air support.

The Americans had been on a joint patrol with Nigerien counterparts they were training when they were ambushed by motorcycle-riding and car-driving gunmen in the Tillaberi region in the Niger's southwest.

Pentagon investigators have completed a probe into the incident, and that report is currently under review by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis.Cyber-Espionage Hits Berlin The Breach from the East

German intelligence officials issued warnings back in 2016 of a cyber-espionage group known as Snake. But the apparently Russian hackers behind the group were able to breach the German government nonetheless. By DER SPIEGEL StaffEnglish04/03/2018

SRNA News Roundup /II/ - March 4, 2018





REPUBLIKA SRPSKA



BELGRADE - Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik voted today in local elections in Belgrade and said that by voting he would like to contribute to Serbia be a democratic and stable and remain a strong stability factor in the region.



ISTOCNO SARAJEVO - Director of the Civil Protection Administration of Republika Srpska, Mile Medjed, told SRNA that, according to this mornings information, there was a slight increase in the water levels of the Sana, Una, Sava and part of the Vrbas rivers, which in this moment can be characterized as insignificant.



BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA



SARAJEVO - BiH presidency member from Republika Srpska, Mladen Ivanic, is in a three-day visit to the monasteries and churches of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo, the BiH Presidency announced.



BANJALUKA - The revenues of indirect taxes in the first two months of 2018 amounted to BAM 1,126 billion, end are higher by BAM 134 million or 13.51 percent compared to the same period in 2017, announced the Management Board of Indirect Taxation Authority /ITA/ of BiH.



SERBIA



BELGRADE - An emergency situation has been declared in Prokuplje due to a sudden rise in the water level of the Toplice river over the rain and sudden melting of snow; several settlements and water intakes have been endangered.



REGION



PODGORICA - An expert associate of the Slavic Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Georgi Engelhardt, has said that relations between Montenegro and Russia have never been worse throughout the history. /end/vosSeptic tanks are very common in rural properties and most homeowners find them a relatively easy solution to the problem of dealing with waste water and sewage where no mains drainage is available  so long as they are regularly emptied and maintained.

However, property and land management specialists Strutt & Parker is reminding rural property owners that the Environmental Permitting (England and Wales) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2014 came into force on 1 January 2015 and created General Binding Rules (GBRs) for septic tanks or small sewage treatment plants for domestic use.

Lucinda Thompson, assistant land agent in the Northallerton office of Strutt & Parker said:

The rules are basically designed to reduce the level of pollution from sewage in the nations watercourses.

As such, the government is seeking to end the practice of septic tanks discharging directly to a local watercourse, such as a river or stream.

This means, anyone with a septic tank discharging into a watercourse must be replace it or upgrade it by 1 January 2020, or sooner if the property is sold before this date. They must also act more quickly if the Environment Agency (EA) finds that it is causing pollution.

Systems can be replaced by:Supported by the National Sheep Association (NSA) and AHDB Beef & Lamb, and sponsored by Randall Parker Foods, the UK competitors were required to demonstrate sheep husbandry and industry knowledge in quizzes and practical tests, including use of electronic identification (EID), sheep movements and finished lamb assessments

Winner of the whole competition was Dafydd Davies, 18, from Bala, Gwynedd, a student at Glynllifon College, North Wales. He qualified for the European competition following success in the NSA Next Generation Shepherds Competition at NSA Welsh Sheep in May 2017, and gets plenty of practice working with more than 1,100 Welsh Mountain ewes on his family farm.

Dafydd comments:

It was a great experience to take part in the Ovinpiades in Paris. The competition was challenging so I was really pleased to win the European section. I am now looking forward to competing in the final of the NSA Next Generation Shepherds Competition at the NSA Sheep Event in Worcestershire in July.

Hot on the heels of Dafydd were two fellow UK competitors. Representing England, 24-year-old Robert Walker of Clitheroe, Lancashire, took second place, and Northern Ireland competitor Iain Wilson, a 21-year-old from Larne, County Antrim, was third. Not content with just taking the gold, silver and bronze places, the entire UK team was placed, with Scottish representative Farquahar Renwick, of Ullapool, Rossshire, coming sixth.Volunteer opportunities at local organizations

Weber Human Services is looking for people who can help Northern Utah nonprofits. For more information on volunteer opportunities or to post an opportunity for your organization, call 801-625-3777 or 801-778-6897. If you are interested in volunteering and do not see what interests you please call us as we have many more opportunities available and will help you find what interests you and best uses your skills. If your organization is in need of volunteers, please give us a call. Catholic Community Services has volunteering opportunities in the food pantry: setting up, distributing ...#K League Jeonbuk narrow gap with K League-leading Ulsan with victory Four-time defending K League 1 champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors closed in on leaders Ulsan Hyundai FC with a narrow victory Saturday. Paik Seung-ho converted a 49th-minute penal...

#BTS BTS heads to New York for U.N. event as special presidential envoy K-pop sensation BTS flew to New York on Saturday to attend a United Nations event as a special presidential envoy. The chart-topping group is scheduled to attend the opening cer...Blog Archive Apr 2010 (22) May 2010 (25) Jun 2010 (8) Jul 2010 (12) Aug 2010 (18) Sep 2010 (19) Oct 2010 (29) Nov 2010 (30) Dec 2010 (18) Jan 2011 (13) Feb 2011 (21) Mar 2011 (23) Apr 2011 (19) May 2011 (31) Jun 2011 (36) Jul 2011 (46) Aug 2011 (26) Sep 2011 (12) Oct 2011 (15) Nov 2011 (17) Dec 2011 (7) Jan 2012 (18) Feb 2012 (4) Mar 2012 (12) Apr 2012 (18) May 2012 (10) Jun 2012 (21) Jul 2012 (8) Aug 2012 (15) Sep 2012 (7) Oct 2012 (17) Nov 2012 (20) Dec 2012 (10) Jan 2013 (58) Feb 2013 (59) Mar 2013 (60) Apr 2013 (98) May 2013 (135) Jun 2013 (204) Jul 2013 (293) Aug 2013 (351) Sep 2013 (363) Oct 2013 (348) Nov 2013 (374) Dec 2013 (442) Jan 2014 (547) Feb 2014 (476) Mar 2014 (526) Apr 2014 (527) May 2014 (469) Jun 2014 (408) Jul 2014 (472) Aug 2014 (522) Sep 2014 (443) Oct 2014 (472) Nov 2014 (497) Dec 2014 (536) Jan 2015 (539) Feb 2015 (520) Mar 2015 (582) Apr 2015 (658) May 2015 (679) Jun 2015 (673) Jul 2015 (728) Aug 2015 (803) Sep 2015 (923) Oct 2015 (924) Nov 2015 (802) Dec 2015 (791) Jan 2016 (782) Feb 2016 (835) Mar 2016 (929) Apr 2016 (866) May 2016 (947) Jun 2016 (1044) Jul 2016 (882) Aug 2016 (1035) Sep 2016 (967) Oct 2016 (918) Nov 2016 (854) Dec 2016 (885) Jan 2017 (880) Feb 2017 (777) Mar 2017 (896) Apr 2017 (872) May 2017 (850) Jun 2017 (851) Jul 2017 (971) Aug 2017 (1040) Sep 2017 (998) Oct 2017 (1144) Nov 2017 (1046) Dec 2017 (838) Jan 2018 (873) Feb 2018 (769) Mar 2018 (885) Apr 2018 (809) May 2018 (827) Jun 2018 (820) Jul 2018 (840) Aug 2018 (854) Sep 2018 (844) Oct 2018 (851) Nov 2018 (870) Dec 2018 (912) Jan 2019 (919) Feb 2019 (827) Mar 2019 (957) Apr 2019 (913) May 2019 (1007) Jun 2019 (935) Jul 2019 (950) Aug 2019 (936) Sep 2019 (910) Oct 2019 (920) Nov 2019 (874) Dec 2019 (908) Jan 2020 (941) Feb 2020 (849) Mar 2020 (898) Apr 2020 (848) May 2020 (822) Jun 2020 (789) Jul 2020 (819) Aug 2020 (858) Sep 2020 (841) Oct 2020 (873) Nov 2020 (812) Dec 2020 (780) Jan 2021 (765) Feb 2021 (716) Mar 2021 (819) Apr 2021 (805) May 2021 (815) Jun 2021 (824) Jul 2021 (830) Aug 2021 (832) Sep 2021 (476)We should stand up and be leaders of the community. We should be at the provincial and national level but we shut up, we box up, because of our [low level of] education. And men say we belong in the kitchen.

These are the words of Katarina, a woman from Kolombangara Island, a small island in the New Georgia Islands group of the Solomon Islands in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Her words though, may be familiar to many women all over the world.

Womens lack of participation in important decision making is noted as an obstacle to global sustainable development. But it is not enough just to get more womens faces in meetings and in parliaments, it is also about making space for them to meaningfully contribute.



In a new study recently published in Ecology & Society, centre researcher Michelle Dyer has looked at why women are not only excluded from several decision-making forums but also why they stay silent when they are finally invited to take part. Dyers research was prompted by her experience with village women in Solomon Islands who often remained silent at mixed gender community meetings while engaging in robust discussions and debate when only women took part.



Her study, part of a special issue on designing transformative spaces for sustainability, fits with ongoing international development measures to improve womens participation in public political processes. Sustainable Development Goal 5 says Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. But gender parity is the most common indicator used to measure gender equality in decision making forums, from national parliaments to village councils.



Basically, Dyer argues, gender parity is not equal to gender equality. For example, Rwanda is the only country worldwide to have more than 60% women in its national parliament (Rwanda and Bolivia are the only countries to have more than 50%) but the country rates 159 out of 188 on the 2016 Human Development Index and still scores low on the UN Gender Inequality Index.Shares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money.

Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists.Bath-related deaths: Accident or murder By Professor Ravindra Fernando View(s): View(s):

Police in Dubai have stated that they closed the case into the death of fifty four year old Bollywood star Sridevi Kapoor after handing over her body to relatives. She had been in the United Arab Emirates to attend the wedding of her nephew. Sridevi died on February 24, due to accidental drowning following loss of consciousness, police said.

It had earlier been reported that Sridevi, whose body was found in a hotel bathtub, died of cardiac arrest. Her body was later flown to India for funeral on Wednesday.Known simply as Sridevi, who appeared in nearly 300 films over five decades, she was considered one of the very few Indian female superstars capable of huge box-office success without the support of a male hero. In 2013, the Indian government awarded her the Padma Shri  the countrys fourth-highest civilian honour.

Baths are considered a mode of relaxation by many people across the world. It is unfortunate that many cases of sudden deaths during bathing have been reported. In most cases, death occurs in a bathtub, and victims are found unresponsive with their faces immersed or completely submerged under water. These deaths are a critical social issue, in some countries especially in Japan, where thousands of sudden bath-related deaths occur annually nationwide.

Most bath-related deaths occur among individuals older than 60 years, and the mortality rates tend to increase with age in both sexes. There is an evident seasonal difference in occurrence dates, with the deaths occurring seven times more frequently in winter than in summer. Bath-related deaths can be attributed to various causes, including natural death (due to disease), accidental drowning, and suicidal death. In general, most of the cases are judged as natural deaths or accidental drowning, and suicidal or homicidal cases are rare.

Studies on past medical histories of bath-related victims have shown that hypertension or high blood pressure was the most common medical complaint among the victims. Other diseases identified are diabetes, cancer, coronary heart disease, strokes, dementia, epilepsy and parkinsonism. Intake of alcohol and psychotropic drugs may induce drowsiness, resulting in drowning in a bathtub. Traumatic lesions including intracranial injuries may also affect the consciousness level during bathing, although the number of such cases is quite small.

Last year a Texas teenager died while using her cellphone in a bathtub. Madison Coe, 14, was electrocuted taking a bath at her fathers home. The accident was caused either when she plugged in her phone while in the bathtub or grabbed the phone as it was being charged.

Several measures can be taken to prevent bath-related deaths. The public should be aware that bathing in a bathtub is potentially hazardous, especially among elderly persons. Family members should take care of elderly people when bathing. Special attention should be paid to people with circulatory diseases and epilepsy. Ill or inebriated people should not bathe without supervision. To prevent fainting due to lowering of blood pressure, it is recommended that elderly people should stand up slowly when they get out of bathtubs.

Studies have indicated that preventive strategies for reducing alcohol-related deaths in bathtubs should target male habitual drinkers (middle-aged to seniors), and especially people who have been diagnosed with alcohol-related diseases. The water temperature and duration of immersion should be monitored. The body temperature of elderly people remained at 38C or lower when they are immersed in 41C water for 10 minutes. Therefore, it is recommended that the temperature of the water used for bathing should be below 41C and the immersion time should be less than 10 minutes.

Statistics show that an American drowns nearly every day in a bathtub, hot tub or spa, and the deaths occur disproportionately in western states, where victims often drink or take drugs while soaking in hot water. Some rural areas, including New Mexico and Wyoming, report these unusual drownings at three times the national average, according to a study of federal mortality records from 1999 to 2003.

This study found 1,676 Americans were reported to have drowned in a tub during this five-year period, an average of 335 a year. Infants, very young children and the elderly are at risk, but more than half of all tub deaths are among able-bodied people between the ages of five and 64.

You get into a hot tub to relax and you drink to relax. When you put those two things together, you get more than you bargain for, said Jonathan Howland, an epidemiologist at Boston University. The heat leads to dilation of the blood vessels, along with the alcohol. People are basically having a drop of blood pressure and having the equivalent of a faint, Howland said.

Tony Gomez, manager of the Injury and Violence Prevention Division at the Seattle Public Health Department, said in some years as many as 70 percent of all adult drownings in tubs and pools investigated by his department involved consumption of alcohol. Some experts warn there could be darker explanations for many tub deaths.

Andrea Zaferes, vice president of Lifeguard Systems Inc. and a homicidal drowning investigation instructor, said police miss many homicides in which water is used as a weapon. Our estimation is that about 20 percent of the drownings are homicides! Zaferes said.

On May 3, 1957, Kenneth Barlow discovered his 30-year-old wife unconscious in the bath at about 11.20 pm. The bath was empty when the police arrived. The post-mortem examination and the findings at the scene where the body was found suggested that prior to her death the woman was unconscious. The absence of common poisons in the tissues of the body and in the urine, the presence of vomited food on the bedclothes and in the bath, the sweat-soaked pyjamas, and the grossly dilated pupils suggested that the woman was hypoglycaemic (had low blood sugar).

The subsequent finding of injection marks on her buttocks led to a search for insulin in the underlying tissues. A large amount of insulin was recovered (84 units), and this is thought to represent about a third of the amount present at the time of her death and an unknown lesser fraction of the amount which was injected. The womans husband, a trained male nurse, was accused and convicted of his wifes murder.

This is the first case of murder in a bathtub with insulin.

George Joseph Smith was an English serial killer and bigamist. In 1915, he was accused of killing three women, the case becoming known as the Brides in the Bath Murders. As well as being widely reported in the media, the case was significant in the history of forensic pathology and detection. It was also one of the first cases in which similarities between connected crimes was used to prove deliberation, a technique used in subsequent prosecutions.

George Smith used to meet wealthy women, marry them within a few weeks, insure their lives and then drown them in the bath.

He was eventually arrested and ultimately hanged for his crimes. In total he had eight wives!

It took the jury about 20 minutes on July 1, 1915 to find him guilty and he was sentenced to death andhanged in Maidstone Prison on August 13, 1915. He protested his innocence to the end taking with him the secret of how he killed three innocent women.

So, bathtub deaths should be properly investigated to detect crime. Sridevis death may still create doubts as to the cause and circumstances.The prehistoric cave of Ardales continues to be full of mysteries, but the scientific community is gradually uncovering more of them. This archaeological site, which was forgotten for centuries and discovered by the first researchers nearly 100 years ago, has been the subject of a new international study and the results have just been published in the prestigious journal, Science.

According to datings from the precise uranium-thorium technique, the wall paintings in the cave are 20,000 years older than the time most historians have believed that prehistoric art began. Together with the caves of Maltravieso (Caceres) and La Pasiega (Puente Viesgo, Cantabria), which were also studied, Ardales was the home of one of the first paintings in humanity. Researchers have concluded that the most ancient art in Europe was not, after all, produced by Homo sapiens, but by the Neanderthals.

The research, which was carried out in different stages by academics and institutions from five countries, used the uranium-thorium method (known in the field of science as U/Th dating). This procedure, as Pedro Cantalejo, who is responsible for heritage in Ardales and for the cave, explains, enables us to date the incrustations and calcitic formations which are in direct contact with the wall paintings. It enables definite dates to be known for the calcitic incrustations associated with figures in paleolithic style, especially those which were not done with organic materials.

Pedro Cantalejo Head of the Ardales Cave Gerd-Christian Weniger Neanderthal Museum We can certify that the origin of cave art dates back at least 65 years, not 40,000 It is the end of a process which will change the way in which we study history in the future

This overcomes the limitations of 14 AMS carbon and the problem of preservation, says Cantalejo, because during this process none of the colouring material of the figure has to be removed. It also avoids possible contamination of the sample, in that the uranium series dates geological processes and does not produce contamination during the collection or subsequent handling in the laboratory.

As the extensive article in Science explained, U/Th dating enabled the researchers to confirm that the wall paintings at Ardales, Maltravieso and La Pasiega are the oldest in the world. It can be certified that the origin of the art goes back at least 65,000 years, not 40,000, concludes the study. The dating shows that a red line in La Pasiega cave was painted at least 64,800 years ago, that a negative red hand in Maltravieso cave was drawn at least 66,700 years ago and a formation of speleothems in Ardales cave was decorated with elongated or pseudo-ellipsoidal red concentrations at least 65,500 years ago.

These results bring a new focus to the scientific debate about the origin of cave art in the world, a conversation which has been heightened in recent years due to new findings. Traditionally, artistic abilities have only been attributed to the first populations of modern humans who arrived in Europe. Despite this, in the past few years several discoveries have been made which suggest that earlier human groups such as the Neanderthals used to paint their bodies red and paint or carve small signs on bones and stones, says Pedro Cantalejo.

In the case of the Ardales Cave - situated in the extreme west of Europe and considered to be a home of the last Neanderthals - chronological research supports the results which are being obtained from the archaeological excavations carried out by the international team from 2011 onwards.

This conclusion shows the great potential of the sites in Malaga, says Cantalejo, for whom it is also a way of validating the efficiency of new technologies applied to methods of archaeological study. The Ardales Cave contains more than 1,000 prehistoric drawings from the paleolithic period. They were studied, catalogued and published in 2006. Since then, these new mechanisms have enabled definite dates to be known and there is no doubt about their previously unsuspected age.

The results of the study in the Science journal were presented by the University of Cadiz, which participated in the project, last week. The presentation was attended by Professor of Prehistory Jose Ramos; the director of the Neanderthal Museum in Germany, Gerd-Christian Weniger; the chancellor of the university, Eduardo Gonzalez Mazo; the Junta de Andalucia's Minister of Culture, Miguel Angel Vazquez; and the mayor of Ardales, Maria del Mar Gonzalez.

International funding

The project was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (UK), National Geographic Society (USA), Max Planck Society (Germany) and the Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award (UK). Ardales council provided support for the field work.

Dr Gerd-Christian Weniger of the Neanderthal Museum is proud of the results of this project. It is the end of a process which has taken many years; we know that this will change the way in which we study history, he said, and it also will put an end to a discussion between experts which has lasted over 25 years.

The mayor of Ardales said she had been excited to form part of the process by providing logistical support for the research. She explained that the cave has always been, and always will be, important for the municipality. We have a great affection for it, she said.

The Ardales cave still has more stories to tell. The gallery over the main chambers has not yet been excavated and experts believe there used to be a connection with the Sima de las Palomas chasm in Teba. The works would be costly and complicated, but they would shed further light on the fascinating history of this small village in Malaga province.BALDWINSVILLE, N.Y. -- The Baldwinsville Police Department is investigating a possible threat made toward Charles W. Baker High School, according to police and school officials.

Baldwinsville School Superintendent Matthew McDonald recorded a 1 1/2-minute audio message about the incident, which families of all students in the district received Sunday night.

"Over the weekend, an incident was reported to the Baldwinsville Police Department by an individual alleging that a student may have made a threat of violence toward Baker High School," McDonald said in the message. "The alleged threat was made two weeks ago, and the Baldwinsville Police Department received the information third or fourth hand Saturday evening."

Police have identified the Baker High School student who allegedly made the threat in school, but no arrests have been made, Baldwinsville Police Chief Michael Lefancheck said.

"We are still investigating what was said and what context it was said in," Lefancheck said.

In his message, McDonald also told families that "law enforcement officials have identified the individual involved, and the student and parents have agreed not to be on school property pending a complete investigation."

Baldwinsville police and school district officials are working together, and the investigation is continuing, both the police chief and superintendent said. Lefancheck said a news conference is expected to take place Monday.

"Please rest assured once the results of the police investigation are known, appropriate disciplinary action will be determined based upon on the district's code of conduct," McDonald said in his message.

Baker High School will be open Monday.

"I don't believe there is a threat to the school at this time," Lefancheck said.

But at the same time, he said the police department is taking the alleged threat seriously.

"Clearly we never know what someone has in their mind," the chief said. "We don't know what they're thinking, but if they're making any kind of statement of violence, it's important to bring it the appropriate authorities' attention."

McDonald agrees. He encouraged family members and students with concerns to contact him or another staff member, and also to report any threats to the authorities.

"I'd like to remind all students and families that if you are a witness to inappropriate behaviors or speech, you should immediately report said behaviors or speech to school administration and law enforcement," he said in the message. "I cannot stress enough the safety and security of our children are at the forefront of everything we do."

Listen to the superintendent's entire message:Courtney DeRosa, left, and Colleen Sliski await news of what happened during reports of a shooting threat at Utica College on Monday. Sliski's daughter, Megan, sheltered in a basement while the campus was locked down.

UTICA, N.Y. -- Courtney DeRosa hadn't heard about the threat at Utica College when she got a text from Megan Sliski, a close family friend and student there.

"In case I don't make it out, I love you and the kids so much," Sliski texted.

DeRosa then rushed to campus, where she met Sliski's mother, Colleen.

There they huddled in the cold along Burrstone Road with about two dozen parents and others with connections to a student or employee at the school.

The group of worried onlookers said they learned students were huddled in a basement in the dark, listening to a police scanner app from someone's cell phone. Sliski was scared and also needed the restroom, DeRosa said.

As of 1:50 p.m., students had been moved out of the basement to another building, parents said based on texts they'd gotten.

The college sent an alert at 1:20 p.m. that there were no reports of shots fired, injuries or a suspect in custody.

Sliski's mother said the movement provided some relief, but she still was anxious.

"This is just horrible," she said.

Other parents said they received messages warning of a "shooter," which made them fear the worst based on recent events. DeRosa listed off the other false alarms and perceived threats in the area and across Central New York in recent days.

David Gresack, the father of Danielle Gresack, 18, said he couldn't help but think of recent school shootings when he got the text from his daughter saying that she was "locked in a classroom in the basement" and "there's a shooter at my school."

"When you get a text like that, you think the worst," he said. "...You can't get crazy. They're doing whatever they can do. All you can do is sit and wait."NORTH GREENBUSH, N.Y. -- State police say a drunk driver hit two troopers and two tow truck operators Sunday morning on Interstate 90.

Troopers Brent Karow and Shane Swartz were seriously injured when the driver of a car rammed into them at 5:16 a.m. as they waited for a car to be removed from the median.

Christopher Neuman

The driver who struck the troopers and tow truck operators failed to move to the right of flares placed on Interstate 90 East near Exit 8 in the town of North Greenbush, Rensselaer County, state police said.

Instead, Christopher Neumann, 26, of Castleton, drove his 2010 Mercury into the troopers' patrol car, then struck both troopers and one of the tow truck operators. Flying debris injured the second tow truck operator.

Trooper Karow was thrown about 70 feet into the median.

Trooper Swartz also was thrown after he was struck. Swartz was trapped underneath the tow truck, state police said.

Karow, Swartz and Jeffrey Waite Sr., the tow truck operator also struck by the car, were taken to Albany Medical Center for treatment.

Neumann also was injured in the crash. He was treated at Albany Medical Center, then arrested.

State police charged Neumann with first-degree vehicular assault, driving while intoxicated and numerous other vehicle and traffic law violations. He was in state police custody Sunday afternoon, waiting to be arraigned.

State police say the troopers were called to a property damage accident on I-90 around 4 a.m. Sunday.

At 4:21 p.m., the troopers called for a tow truck to get a 2011 Subaru out of the median, state police said.

Flares were lit, closing the left lane of the three-lane highway; emergency lights from the state police vehicle and tow truck also remained on.

Then, at 5:16 a.m., multiple people began calling the Rensselaer County 911 to say there had been a crash involving a police vehicle on I-90 East.

When state police dispatch was unable to contact Troopers Karow and Swartz, other officers were sent to the scene to check on them, state police said.

North Greenbush police, state police, ambulances and firefighters rushed to the scene, where they found the injured troopers and tow truck operators.

Several hours after the crash, state police released a statement saying both troopers are in serious, but stable condition after suffering multiple cuts, broken bones and internal injuries.

Trooper Karow needed surgery to control internal bleeding, and he is in the intensive care unit at Albany Medical Center, state police said.

Trooper Swartz was undergoing surgery Sunday afternoon that was expected to take six to seven hours.



Waite, one of the tow truck operators, suffered a cut to his head and was admitted to the hospital.



Neumann, the driver under arrest, suffered a cut on his face and other minor injuries. He was treated and released to police custody.



Trooper Karow, 34, is a six-year veteran of the state police and works out of the state police barracks in Guilderland.



Trooper Swartz, 34, is a four-year veteran of the state police and works out of state police barracks in Brunswick.



State police thanked North Greenbush Police Department, Defreestville Fire Department, New York State Department of Transportation, Albany Medical Center and Albany Police Department for their help at a news conference after the crash.Syracuse has no shortage of great bars to suit anyone's fancy, but sometimes fancy is exactly the opposite of what you're looking for.

Sometimes you just want to find friendly people, cheap drinks and lots of local flavor at at a place where everybody knows your name. And when that's the case, the local dive bar may be just the ticket.

A new 2018 ranking of the best dive bars in Upstate New York will help you find the best spot in town all across the region, and Syracuse is well represented on the list. These are the Syracuse bars that made the list:

3. Shifty's (Syracuse, Onondaga County) - 4 stars, 51 reviews

9. Steve's Restaurant (Syracuse, Onondaga County) - 4 stars, 30 reviews

27. The Penny Pub (Syracuse, Onondaga County) - 4.5 stars, 6 reviews

The full ranking is based on Yelp's "Best" algorithm, which looks at the number of reviews and the star rating to create a master ranking. All the businesses on the list are in the "Dive Bars" category on Yelp.

To see the full ranking of dive bars across Upstate New York, including in Buffalo, Rochester, Binghamton, Albany, Ithaca and more, click the link below.Camillus, N.Y. -- A Binghamton University spinoff may bring the manufacturing of its foot-vibrating device from China to Central New York as sales grow.

Sonostics Inc. Executive Vice President Kyle Washington said the Endicott-based company is making plans to shift the manufacture of its HeartPartner device to Central New York over the next three years. The move would bring up to 135 jobs to the area, most of them three years from now, he said.

Washington spoke about the company's plans at a ribbon cutting for Sonostics' new office at 5016 W. Genesee St. in Camillus.

Sonostics Inc. says its HeartPartner foot vibrator helps improve blood circulation. (Rick Moriarty photo)

HeartPartner is a foot vibrator that Sonostics says helps improve blood circulation by simulating the soleus muscle in the back part of the lower leg. The company says the improved circulation can help a person's cognitive health and is especially helpful to people with low blood pressure and those who sit for long periods.

The device sits on the floor and plugs into an electrical outlet. Users sit in front of it and place the balls of their feet on a rubber pad on the top of the device. The device goes through a constant cycle of vibrating for one minute, stopping for two minutes, then the vibrating again for a minute.

Sonostics says the vibrations trigger nerve endings in the balls of the feet, which in turn stimulate the soleus muscles, which help pump blood back to the heart. The company says the product is an exercise device, not a medical device.

"We're not in the diagnosis business," Washington said. "We're not in the medical business. We're in the circulation business."

Sonostics sells the device for $795, plus $25 for a remote control, through its website, www.sonostics.com. That's a lot more than the many foot massaging devices on the market, some of which look very similar to Sonostics' product. Washington said Sonostics' device only vibrates the balls of a person's feet and does so at a rate specifically designed to stimulate the nerve endings there.

The device was developed at Binghamton University by the company's founder, Kenneth McLeod, a researcher and entrepreneur who holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from MIT and completed post-doctoral studies in anatomy and cell biology at Tufts University, according to Sonostics' website.

Sonostics was founded in 2008 to commercialize biotechnology developed at Binghamton University. In 2013, it "refocused" its commercialization efforts on the device that McLeod and his team of researchers at the Clinical Science and Engineering Research Center at Binghamton University developed, according to the university's website.

Sonostics began selling the device in January of 2016. Washington said the company has 60 investors but is majority owned by McLeod and his wife, Suzanne McLeod, superintendent of the Union-Endicott Central School District.

He said the motor for the company's device is made in Japan and the entire product is assembled in Shanghai, China. The company employs seven people in Endicott and one at its office in Camillus, he said.

Though labor costs are higher in the U.S., the company wants to bring manufacturing here because it would be easier to control quality and manufacturing efficiencies if it is made locally, Washington said.

No manufacturing will be done at the Camillus office. Washington said the office will perform cognitive screening tests free of charge to anyone who requests one. The company will not offer medical diagnoses, but it will advise people on the benefits of exercise, as well as the benefits of using its product, he said.

He said the company has not determined where in Central New York it would manufacture the product.

Contact Rick Moriarty anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Onondaga County legislators on Tuesday will consider two competing laws aimed at punishing people who leave their dogs out in the cold. Legislature Chairman Ryan McMahon said it's possible that both laws will be tabled for further review as legislators try to hammer out a reasonable and enforceable law.

"I don't know if there will be a vote tomorrow,'' McMahon said. "My recommendation will be to take another 30 days.''

Legislator Chris Ryan, D-Geddes, last month proposed ''Adrian's Law.'' The legislation would punish pet owners who tie up an animal outside for more than two hours in temperatures below 32 degrees Fahrenheit, or above 90 degrees. It would apply to all breeds of dogs.

The legislation was named for a pit bull, Adrian, who froze to death in January in Syracuse. Under the proposal, violators could face up to 15 days in jail, fines of up to $250, and seizure of the animal.

Ryan pulled the legislation from consideration last month after his fellow lawmakers expressed concerns. He has since amended the proposal by, among other things, extending the time a dog could be left out in inclement weather from 30 minutes to two hours.

Meanwhile, Legislator Casey Jordan, R-Clay, has proposed an alternative measure that aims to be more flexible.

Jordan's proposal would require dog owners to provide protection from the weather "appropriate to (the dog's) breed, physical condition and the climate.'' The proposal would establish minimum standards for shelters for dogs that are left outside in inclement weather.

It calls for fines of up to $250 for a first offense. A second offense could result in a fine of up to $500 and 15 days in jail. Conviction also could result in seizure of the dog by enforcement officers.

McMahon said it is possible that legislators will refer both proposals to the public safety committee for further review. The Legislature meets at 1 p.m. Tuesday.

Contact reporter Tim Knauss | email | Twitter | 315-470-3023STC musical to be featured at Iowa Thespian Festival

Into the woods, its time, and so I must begin my journey. Into The Woods by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine. And so, the STC Music ...The Samsung Galaxy S9+ has claimed the top spot in the smartphone camera rankings of DxOMark, taking the title from last year's Google Pixel 2.

The Galaxy S9+ was just recently unveiled at this year's Mobile World Congress, alongside the Galaxy S9. The smartphone received remarks for looking too similar to its predecessor, the Galaxy S8, but it is still considered an upgrade as most of the changes were made under the hood.

DxOMark Ranks Galaxy S9+ Camera On Top

In DxOMark's review of the Galaxy S9+, the camera-focused website awarded the smartphone's camera a score of 99 points, beating the Pixel 2's score of 98 points. The iPhone X, meanwhile scored a 97, while the Galaxy Note 8 scored a 94.

It should be noted, however, that the scoring system of DxOMark is not out of 100, which means that the Galaxy S9+ is not just one point away from having the perfect camera. The total score is a combination of two different scores for photo and video, for which the Galaxy S9+ scored 104 and 91, respectively.

The very high score of the Galaxy S9+ were attributed to its zoom capabilities, improved by the addition of a second telephoto lens in the rear camera module, and the lower noise levels in pictures that are taken in different lighting situations, due to the variable aperture feature that allows the Galaxy S9+ camera to adapt "like a human eye."

The DxOMark rankings, however, is just one of many metrics that compare the different smartphones and their cameras. However, it is one of the more popular ones, to the point that manufacturers are specifically trying to outscore their competitors on the DxOMark scale.

What's The Best Smartphone Camera?

The top spot of the DxOMark rankings for best smartphone camera went through a revolving door of changes late last year. In September last year, DxOMark gave the top spot to the iPhone 8 Plus, but less than two weeks later, made it a tie with the Galaxy Note 8.

However, just a day after, DxOMark declared Google's Pixel 2 as the smartphone with the best camera. The Pixel 2 has held the title until now, with the Galaxy S9+ taking over.

The declaration of DxOMark that the Galaxy S9+ has the best smartphone camera follows new rankings published by Consumer Reports that claims that it is the iPhone X camera that is the best among all smartphones. Consumer Reports, however, did not yet consider the Galaxy S9+. It remains to be seen whether Samsung's latest flagship smartphone will overtake the iPhone X in these rankings.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.A Houston daycare teacher loses a foot to flesh-eating bacteria after doctors performed an emergency surgery to save his life.

Despite the ordeal, Raul Reyes remains positive and hopes to get back to living a normal life.

Flesh-Eating Bacteria

Last February, 26-year-old daycare teacher Raul Reyes's foot had become swollen for a few days. However, he believed that it was simply because of a time when he hurt his foot while at work.

He also had a blister on his foot, which he believed to be shoe-related. However, when he had woken up to find that his blister had covered his entire foot, he went to a clinic, where he was told to immediately go to the emergency room.

According to his wife Joseline, doctors determined from X-rays that Raul had a flesh-eating bacterial infection. Because of the infection, he needed to undergo an emergency surgery to save his life.

Further, although there had been a chance that the doctors could amputate his foot, they said they would try their best not to. After the surgery, the surgeon told Joseline that they did try their best to get most of the bacteria out, however, hey had to amputate his foot in order to prevent the spread of the infection and ultimately, save his life.

The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention states that necrotizing fasciitis spreads quickly. Once the toxins made by the bacteria causes the tissue to die, that is when the infected individual can lose limbs or even die.

Where Did He Get The Infection?

Flesh-eating bacteria or necrotizing fasciitis has previously been reported to have come from the most commonplace sources. In fact, people have died from the infection after falling off a bike, eating infected raw oysters, and swimming with a fresh tattoo.

In Raul Reyes's case, doctors believe he may have gotten the infection through an open wound because of an ingrown toenail.

According to the CDC, good wound care is key in preventing a bacterial infection. Whenever one has an open wound, some of the things to do to prevent the spread of infection are keeping the open wounds covered with clean bandages, immediately applying first aid even on minor wounds, washing hands as well as avoiding swimming in whirlpools, hot tubs, natural bodies of water, and swimming pools.

Ready To Get Back On Track

According to family members, Raul is already eager to begin therapy and get his life back on track, especially with the messages he gets from his very young students. He is said to be improving every day and keeps his attitude toward recovery quite positive.

However, he does not have the medical insurance that he needs to get a prosthetic foot, so his family set up a GoFundMe page so he can begin his road to recovery.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.Young Fernando Hernandez was initially believed to be down with the flu but doctors eventually found the real source of his sickness.

Fernando evidently has Hantavirus infection, and he continues to fight for his life against the rare condition.

Flu-Like Symptoms

In late January, the 9-year-old boy lost a day of school after developing flu-like symptoms. He got well enough to go back to school but just ended up getting worse when he came back.

That was when his father George Hernandez decided to bring him to a nearby hospital, where he was confined for 10 days. However, he was released from the hospital without a clear diagnosis. Doctors just said he should rest and that his lungs would eventually clear up.

Days later, Fernando couldn't breathe on his own, so his father rushed him back to a hospital. Due to the seriousness of his condition, he was airlifted to the Children's Hospital Colorado, where doctors ran several more tests which still came back negative. The doctors even considered mold to be the cause of his sickness, but an inspection of their Farmington home still came up negative.

Doctors performed a number of surgeries on him, which did not yield any positive results and Fernando's health just continued to deteriorate. He was then hooked up to an Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation machine that pumps oxygenated blood into the bloodstream with the help of an artificial lung.

Hantavirus Diagnosis

This past week, George Hernandez finally learned his son's illness, which he has fought since January. Doctors revealed his condition as a result of Hantavirus infection, a rare condition that can be contracted through contact with deer mice urine, droppings, or saliva.

He suspects that his son may have contracted the virus when he asked him to help clean the backyard two months prior, although he hopes that it is not the case.

After the diagnosis, George got in touch with Julie Barron, whose daughter was the first case of Hantavirus in Farmington this year. The two aim to spread awareness about the virus, especially since it is so rare that not a lot of people know about it.

The family set up a GoFundMe page to help cover Fernando's medical expenses. So far, he has been on life support for 21 days.

Symptoms Of The Hantavirus Infection

Infection with the hantavirus can lead to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome. Its early symptoms are quite similar to flu symptoms such as fever, muscle ache, headache, nausea, vomiting, and chills. However, the exact incubation period of the virus isn't exactly known because of the rarity of the condition. It is estimated that the early symptoms may appear between one and eight weeks after exposure.

Four to 10 days after the early flu-like symptoms start to show, late symptoms such as coughing and shortness of breath may begin to appear.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.An astrobiologist may have discovered evidence of alien life on Mars after studying images taken by NASA's Curiosity Rover.

Who Is Barry DiGregorio?

Barry DiGregorio, an honorary research fellow at the University of Buckingham, studies gases, rocks, and other materials that serve as indicators of life. The scientist has professional and personal interest in the search for life on planet Mars.

He earlier published a study that revealed rocks on the Red Planet have rock varnish coatings that cover them. He also wrote two books about Mars: Mars The Living Planet (1997) and The Microbes of Mars (2011). The two books concluded that the 1976 Viking Labeled Release experiments found the first evidence of microbial activity on Martian soil.

Now, the scientist claims that images of crystal-shaped features on Mars that NASA shared earlier this year provide evidence of fossilized alien footprints.

Tiny Crystal-Shaped Bumps On Mars

Last month, NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover, which explores the Gale Crater on Mars as part of the U.S. space agency's Mars Science Laboratory mission, found star-shaped and swallowtail-shaped tiny, dark bumps on a Martian ridge.

Scientists said that these features are so tiny they are about the size of a sesame seed. They also look similar to gypsum crystals on Earth.

"These shapes are characteristic of gypsum crystals," said Sanjeev Gupta, Curiosity science team member at Imperial College, London who has studied these crystals in rocks found in Scotland. "These can form when salts become concentrated in water, such as in an evaporating lake."

Indirect Evidence Of Life In The Past

After analyzing these images captured by the Curiosity Rover, DiGregorio thinks that he has discovered trace fossils on Mars that are similar to those found on Earth.

Trace fossils are footprints, tracks, and feces, which were left behind by once-living creatures. They provide indirect evidence of life in the past because these are not the preserved remains of the body of the actual animal.

DiGregorio said that these trace fossils, which date back about 450 million years, offer proof of life on Mars.

Working With Other Experts

DiGregorio said that NASA does not currently see these features as trace fossils. Nonetheless, he said that he will continue to study trace fossils and even plans to present his hypothesis to a conference that will be held in Australia this June. He said that he is currently working with two other experts.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.A host of British talent and UK companies were honoured with gongs at last nights Oscars.

Gary Oldman won his first Oscar for his portrayal of Churchill in Darkest Hour. British special effects make-up artist Lucy Sibbick won in the Best makeup and hair category for the film alongside Kazuhiro Tsuji and David Malinowski.

DoP Roger Deakins also finally won his first Best Cinematography Oscar after having been nominated 14 times in the past. He picked up the award for his stunning work on Blade Runner 2049.

The same film won in the best vfx category. A number of UK vfx houses had a part in the film including Framestore, Double Negative, MPC and Territory Studio.

There was also a win for former Hollyoaks stars Rachel Shenton and Chris Overton who won the live action short category for their film The Silent Child.

Share this storyAs its understood now, stuttering involves a disconnect between the parts of the brain that prepare speech and the parts of the brain that control motor movements, says Geoff Coalson, who established the LSU Stuttering Lab in 2014.A projected budget for the proposed city of St. George in the southeastern part of the parish shows that organizers expect revenue of about $58 million in the first year, and that the incorporation would cut nearly $29 million from the general fund for Baton Rouge's City Hall.

St. George supporters announced Friday that they were launching a new petition drive to create their own city in the southeastern part of East Baton Rouge Parish after an unsuccessful effort two years ago. They submitted their petition with the Louisiana Secretary of State's Office, and now have nine months to collect signatures from 25 percent of registered voters within St. George's proposed boundaries.

St. George map: Get detailed view of adjusted boundaries of proposed new city The new footprint for the proposed city of St. George is much smaller than what was proposed in 2013.

If they collect enough signatures, everyone within the proposed boundaries would have a chance to vote on whether to incorporate the new city. Both proponents and opponents raised many of the same issues as they had in 2015, when St. George supporters fell 71 signatures short of getting the incorporation proposal on the ballot.

On Monday, as they released the 11-page budget on their website, St. George organizers in a statement touted the budget as fiscally responsible.

The report clearly states that the City of St. George would operate with a surplus and would not have to raise taxes, they wrote on their Facebook page. The report also indicates that the impact to the general fund would be manageable and not catastrophic, despite comments made by the mayors office.

M.E. Cormier, one of the leaders of the group Better Together that helped to defeat St. George last time, questioned the group's financials.

Once again, this budgetary report completely excludes any expenditures associated with a new school district  their clearly stated main objective of, and motivation for, forming a new city, Cormier said. Zachary, Baker, and Central have all had tax increases as a result of their incorporations; to assume St. George would have none is absurd.

The new budget and financial analysis performed by Metairie-based Carr, Riggs and Ingram CPAs and Advisers increases the expected hit to the city-parish budget compared to a 2015 study the accounting firm conducted for St. George supporters. The amount of money that St. George now projects taking from city-parish government is twice the amount as two years ago, when a study estimated that East Baton Rouge Parish would only suffer a $14 million loss.

City-parish officials have repeatedly warned that their budget is already stretched thin. The $29 million that St. George could take from the general fund is enough to fund multiple departments, and is more than half the size of the Baton Rouge Fire Departments annual budget.

But the St. George financial report called the 9 percent hit to the city-parishs $319 million general fund manageable and said the city could cut down its workforce over a two to three-year transition period.

The city of St. George would expect to bring in nearly $58.4 million in its first year, with the revenue largely coming from sales taxes. They also expect $33.9 million in expenditures and a $24.4 million surplus.

In addition to sales taxes, the budget shows St. George would also derive revenue from occupational license taxes, gross receipts business taxes, other business taxes and licenses and permits.

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

Metro Council annexes more land into Baton Rouge despite some public safety concerns The Metro Council agreed Wednesday to annex more land into the city, in defiance of St. George firefighters worried about losing property taxes. The land that just joined the city is in and around Siegen Lane Marketplace and within the limits of the once-proposed city of St. George...

The St. George Fire Department would continue to provide fire service in the area, and the East Baton Rouge Sheriffs Department would provide police protection. State law requires municipalities to have a police chief, but the budget does not account for a police department. It also does not mention the potential school system that St. George organizers have emphasized.

The accountant who helped prepare the St. George financial report said he was not available Monday to talk about the report. Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broomes administration said they were still reviewing the budget Monday and formulating a response. Broome has opposed the creation of St. George.

Both the projected budget and footprint for St. George are now smaller than what was proposed in 2013. St. George organizers posted on Facebook that "the decision on what areas to include and not include was based exclusively on the amount of previous support for the effort."

While the original attempt for St. George was 85 square miles, the new proposal is for 60 square miles. The smaller size is in part a result of a successful campaign by former Mayor-President Kip Holden's administration to chip away at the size and tax base of St. George during the initial petition campaign by annexing properties including L'Auberge Hotel and Casino and the Mall of Louisiana into city limits. The new financial report acknowledges that a recent annexation of Siegen Marketplace led them to lower their projected sales tax collections by $4 million.

+3 One year after St. George petition drive fails, organizers look to mount another campaign in 2017 One year after the controversial campaign failed to create the city of St. George, the citys most passionate proponents say they want to star

A state law approved since the previous petition drive prevents the city from annexing more land once the incorporation papers are filed with the state.

Metro Councilman Buddy Amoroso, whose district includes some neighborhoods in the St. George boundaries, said Monday that he would not stand in the way of the St. George incorporation movement. Amoroso said he supports the right of people to vote to create the city, though he also pushed back against calling himself a St. George supporter.

If the people in the parish create a city, then we would have to deal with it, Amoroso said about the effect to the city-parish budget. Its like anything else: we deal with floods, we deal with hurricanes. If a city is created, we would have to deal with it.

St. George's original proposed budget from 2013 was $80.8 million, again largely made up of sales taxes. They also planned back then for $60.3 million in annual St. George expenditures and a $20.5 million surplus in the original budget.

Opponents of St. George during its original petition drive dug into its financials and used its one-page budget to argue that the creation of the city would be financially devastating to Baton Rouge. The Baton Rouge Area Chamber and Baton Rouge Area Foundation commissioned a 2013 financial report from LSU economist Jim Richardson that warned St. George would take away 40 percent of the sales tax revenue funding Baton Rouge's city operations.

School Board approves revised list of $362 million in projects; voters to weigh in on April 28 After months of meetings and debate, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Thursday agreed unanimously to send to voters a 10-year $362 

Another 2014 financial analysis from accounting firm Faulk and Winkler said St. George would have to raise property taxes by 20.5 mills to cover its operations and to build enough schools for all of the students in the area. BRAC and BRAF commissioned the Faulk and Winkler report as well.

BRAC said Monday that they will review the St. George budgetary data and perform an analysis. BRAF declined to comment.Send your questions to Ask The Advocate, 10705 Rieger Road, Baton Rouge, LA 70809; or fax to Ask The Advocate, (225) 388-0371; or email asktheadvocate@theadvocate.com.Purchases made via links on our site may earn us an affiliate commissionNearly three years behind bars has left Baton Rouge automobile dealer Hamid Ghassemi financially unable to hire investigators and experts to help him defend against capital murder charges that he paid $10,000 to have his ex-wife killed in 2015, his attorneys claim.

East Baton Rouge Parish prosecutors announced in January they'll seek the death penalty if Ghassemi, 66, is convicted of first-degree murder in the alleged murder-for-hire of 54-year-old Taherah Ghassemi.

+5 Death penalty to be sought against Baton Rouge auto dealer in alleged murder-for-hire of ex-wife Prosecutors said Tuesday they'll pursue the death penalty against Baton Rouge automobile dealer Hamid Ghassemi if he is found guilty of first-

Now, Hamid Ghassemi's lawyers, who were hired by him, have filed motions asking state District Judge Lou Daniel to declare Ghassemi indigent.

"Hamid Ghassemi is indigent, and therefore his counsel must petition the Court for the funds necessary to obtain the investigative and expert witness assistance required," Brent Stockstill, one of Ghassemi's attorneys, wrote in a motion filed Feb. 14.

Ghassemi, who owned Import One and Import One Elite on Airline Highway at the time of the killing, also is represented by Tommy Damico. Stockstill is Damico's law partner.

Damico said Wednesday that if Daniel finds Ghassemi indigent, the funds for experts would have to come from the Louisiana Public Defender Board.

The "motion to determine indigency status" that Stockstill filed says Ghassemi has been in jail since his May 17, 2015, arrest and made no income in 2016 or 2017.

"Hamid Ghassemi does not have access to funds sufficient to allow him the experts necessary to adequately defend a death penalty case," Stockstill wrote. A mitigation expert and other experts are needed, he said.

Damico said Ghassemi no longer owns Import One and Import One Elite.

"He lost everything when he went to jail," Damico said.

Last year, the son of Hamid and Taherah Ghassemi sued his father and his three alleged accomplices in the slaying. Hamed Ghassemi is seeking damages from his father; Daniel Humberto Richter, 36, of Walker; and Tyler Lee Ashpaugh, 23, and Skyler Williams, 20, both of Denham Springs. Williams was 17 at the time of the incident. Prosecutors have said they will seek a sentence of life without parole for him.

+2 Mother suffered 'torture, unspeakable mental anguish,' son claims in suit vs. father The son of jailed Baton Rouge automobile dealer Hamid Ghassemi, who is charged with three other men in the alleged murder-for-hire of Ghassemi

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

Ashpaugh told detectives he went with Richter, who once worked at one of Hamid Ghassemi's auto dealerships, and Williams to Taherah Ghassemi's North Laurel Creek home and kidnapped her, authorities have said. She was put in the trunk of her car and driven to a heavily wooded area near Pine Grove in St. Helena Parish.

Her body was found May 16, 2015, in a shallow grave in that area. She had been shot in the head. Her burned car was found in Baton Rouge.

Stockstill also has filed a motion asking that Hamid Ghassemi's attorneys be allowed to file all applications for investigative and expert assistance under seal to prevent prosecutors from eavesdropping on the defense.

"Unless such defense motions are filed under seal  the District Attorney, in effect, will be permitted to 'eavesdrop' on the defense preparation of its case and learn the information it would not otherwise be privy to, were the defendant not indigent," Stockstill argued.

In yet another motion, Stockstill wants the judge to order prosecutors to disclose any victim impact evidence it intends to use if the capital case proceeds to a penalty phase.

Stockstill, a former East Baton Rouge Parish prosecutor, cautioned that there is a "dark and distasteful side of this sort of evidence."

"The defense finds all of this quite distasteful but it will be the prosecution's choice to present victim impact evidence," he stated. "If it chooses to do so, it must disclose to the defense any 'degrading evidence' about the victim.

"The defense reiterates that it finds this request to be distasteful, but no more so than the notion that a given capital defendant should live or die based on whether the prosecution views a given murder victim to be more or less 'worthy' than another murder victim," Stockstill wrote.

The East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney's Office has not yet filed its responses to the motions.

Ghassemi and Ashpaugh do not have trial dates. Richter and Williams are scheduled to stand trial June 11 and Aug. 27, respectively. All four men are being held without bond on first-degree murder charges.

So far, prosecutors have announced their intention to seek the death penalty only against Ghassemi.The Louisiana Legislature's revenue-focused special session is teetering on the verge of collapse, and lawmakers ended Sunday with no easy path toward salvaging the session.

The House on Sunday rejected for the second time legislation seen critical to bridging the budget gap the state faces when temporary tax measures expire June 30.

The vote throws the entire 17-day special session into question, with little time for measures to make it through the process before Wednesday's mandatory session end.

The House will return at 4 p.m. Monday, but the timeline doesn't seem promising.

"I think we are at a turning point when it comes to revenue and expenditures," said House Speaker Taylor Barras, R-New Iberia.

Asked if the tax measure's second rejection, on a vote of 33 to 70, was the final nail in the session's coffin, Barras said only "I don't know that for sure."

If the session, which costs taxpayers about $60,000 a day, ends without any successful revenue-raising legislation, lawmakers likely won't have another chance to take up budget-shoring items until after the regular session, which starts March 12 and ends June 4.

+6 House still hammering at compromise after rejecting crucial special session legislation The Louisiana House worked into the evening Friday, trying to reach a compromise on the best way to shore up the state's finances and prevent 

The House has spent the past week locked in a stalemate over tax measures and bitter personal disputes.

The chamber came in for what was seen as a last-ditch attempt at passing two crucial tax measures that the chamber already has rejected in the special session that started Feb. 19.

Without one bill's passage, the other would likely fail.

House Bill 23 would allow the state to continue collecting taxes on some items exempted before temporary changes made in 2016 and to extend a quarter of a penny of sales tax that would otherwise expire June 30. House Bill 8 would cut a state tax break for middle- and upper-income people who itemize deductions on their federal returns when they file their taxes each year  a Democratic priority that many Republicans oppose.

+3 'I'm tired of the blame game,' GOP lawmaker says as La. House rejects key tax proposal The state House shot down a crucial piece of tax legislation Wednesday night after a tense debate and airing of grievances that have mired the

The House voted 38-67 Wednesday to reject Rep. Stephen Dwight's sales tax proposal. It needed 70 votes to pass, but was steadfastly opposed by Democrats and some Republicans. The vote on that bill sent the chamber into a meltdown, with members from all sides publicly airing frustrations with the chamber's leadership.

The House narrowly rejected New Orleans Democratic Rep. Walt Leger's income tax bill Friday in a 50-51 vote. It needed 53 votes to pass.

Both were set to come up for another vote Sunday night, but the order became a point of contention. House Republican leaders brought up Dwight's bill first, but having little trust in the GOP leadership, Democrats rejected the proposal out of fear that the chamber wouldn't pass the income tax changes that they support in exchange for the sales tax bill.

Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, Democrats in the House and some moderate Republicans argue that inaction threatens state government services, including the popular Taylor Opportunity Program for Students scholarships and rural hospitals.

"I'm concerned about what this means," said House Speaker Pro Tempore Walt Leger, D-New Orleans.

When lawmakers return Monday, they would need to make procedural changes to take up the sales tax bill for a third time.

The scoop on state politics in your inbox Get the Louisiana politics insider details once a week from us. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

"It's a high hurdle, but not impossible," Barras said.

The bill would mean about $290 million toward bridging the budget gap.

"This bill is the centerpiece of the special session," Dwight said. "We didn't come here to make easy decisions, we came to make difficult decisions."

As lawmakers returned to the State Capitol on Sunday, several talked of the distrust surrounding the two tax measures  the rejection ultimately coming down to the order that items would be taken up on the floor.

"There is not a lot of trust in the body right now," Leger said. "I think that's clear."

Members of the Legislative Black Caucus, who have opposed relying too heavily on sales taxes to shore up the state's finances, were particularly vocal in their opposition.

After the chamber ended its work for the evening, members stayed on the floor looking for options to salvage the session.

Republicans said that they had removed language from the bill that would have made it contingent upon the passage of House Republican priority legislation that doesn't address the looming fiscal cliff but would put in place some new spending controls.

"I think it's a good bill. It's a good compromise," Dwight said of the change. "We've worked hard on both sides of the aisle. We've done, I think, everything we could do."

Nearly everyone in the chamber had opinions about who was to blame for what increasingly appears to be a slow implosion of the session.

"House Republican leadership did not negotiate in good faith," Edwards said on his official Twitter account. "The uncertainty they are imposing on our state will have a direct impact on our economy."

House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Reynolds, D-Minden, also blamed House Republican leaders for the collapse.

"Our Republican colleagues displayed little interest in actually passing a package to solve our problems tonight when they refused to take up instruments in a bipartisan manner," he said. "Their bad behavior and irresponsibility was rubber stamped by republican leadership as usual. If you don't have leadership, you don't have anything."

Barras said his understanding was that House Democrats would vote in favor of Dwight's bill if language was removed that had made it contingent upon the passage of unrelated legislation that doesn't address the fiscal cliff. The chamber did that before taking the second vote. He denied knowing that the Democrats would vote against the bill if it came up before the income tax legislation.

"The negotiation that has continued for the last 10 days, came to a head this evening," Barras said.

How they voted

Voting for continuing to collect sales taxes on some previously exempted items and for extending a quarter of a penny set to expire (33): Reps. Abraham, Abramson, Anders, Billiot, C. Brown, T. Brown, Carmody, R. Carter, S. Carter, Chaney, Connick, Davis, Dwight, Foil, Gisclair, Guinn, Hazel, Hilferty, Hill, Hoffmann, Jones, LeBas, Magee, Marino, McFarland, G. Miller, Jim Morris, Reynolds, Shadoin, Stagni, Thibaut, Thomas and White.

Voting against HB23 (70): Speaker Barras, Reps. Amedee, Armes, Bacala, Bagley, Bagneris, Berthelot, Bishop, Bouie, Brass, Carpenter, G. Carter, Coussan, Cox, Crews, Cromer, Danahay, DeVillier, Edmonds, Emerson, Falconer, Franklin, Gaines, Garofalo, Glover, Hall, J. Harris, L. Harris, Havard, Henry, Hensgens, Hodges, Hollis, Horton, Howard, Hunter, Huval, Ivey, Jackson, James, Jefferson, Jenkins, Johnson, Jordan, N. Landry, T. Landry, Leger, Leopold, Lyons, Mack, Marcelle, Miguez, D. Miller, Moreno, Jay Morris, Norton, Pearson, Pierre, Pope, Pugh, Pylant, Richard, Schexnayder, Seabaugh, Simon, Smith, Stefanski, Talbot, Wright and Zeringue.

Not Voting (1): Rep. StokesLa. Attorney General Jeff Landry, center, is joined by attorneys Robert Couhig Jr., left, and Jason Cavignac while holding a press conference to announce a state lawsuit against the United States over coastal protection Friday, February 9, 2018, outside the LITE Center in Lafayette, La.St Tammany Fire District No. 1 recognized Christian Ruiz and Bret Gleason as the departments co-recipients for the Firefighter of the Year Award for 2017.

In August, Ruiz and Gleason were off duty working out at a local CrossFit Gym that Ruiz co-owns with his brother. Another gym member, a 55-year-old man, had just finished a workout and laid on the floor to rest. The member soon went into cardiac arrest.

Ruiz immediately began CPR and Gleason activated the 911 system by calling for emergency services. Gleason, along with other gym members, assisted Ruiz with CPR until Fire District No. 1 personnel arrived. The patient was transported to a local hospital where a pulse was regained upon arrival. After a brief stint in the hospital, the patient was discharged.

Ruiz has been on the department for three years and Gleason for two.

Ruiz and Gleason recently were recognized as Firefighters of the Year at different events held by the Slidell Elks Lodge 2321 and American Legion Post 374.

Early voting set to begin

Early voting for the March 24 primary election will begin March 10 and end March 17.

Early voting hours are 8:30 a.m. through 6 p.m. daily, except on Sunday.

Early voting can be completed at 601 N. Jefferson Ave. in Covington; at 520 Old Spanish Trail (Towers Building) IN Slidell, and at St. Tammany Parish Headquarters at 21490 Koop Drive, Building A, in Mandeville.

Elections will be held for Slidell mayor and City Council, Covington City Council District C, Justice of the Peace in Ward 1, and for millages on the St. Tammany Parish Justice Center and jail.

Identification is required to vote. For more information, call (985) 809-5500 or (985) 646-4125.

Coquille complex wins landscaping award

Coquille Parks and Recreation and St. Tammany Parish Recreation District No. 14 was lauded by the Louisiana Chapter American Society of Landscape Architects for "Exceptional Appreciation and Understanding of the Profession of Landscape Architecture."

The award is based on the work that has been accomplished on site since 2008 as part of the park's master plan that was presented by Joseph Furr Design Studios, of Baton Rouge.

The Louisiana Chapter American Society of Landscape Architects recognizes Louisiana landscape architects and affiliated professionals who have demonstrated excellence in their pursuit to lead, educate and participate in the careful stewardship, wise planning and artful design of our cultural and natural environment.

Country star Cole will 'Empower Education'

Mandeville native and country music star Courtney Cole will play a free concert on March 15 at Northshore Technical Community College in Lacombe as part of the Country Music Television statewide Empowering Education tour.

The eight-city tour started March 5 in Bossier City.

The CMT Empowering Education Tour of Louisiana is hosted in partnership with local education and nonprofit groups Louisiana Community and Technical Colleges System and Louisiana Calling. The tour was first announced last fall and is part of a larger initiative that seeks to bring awareness to educational opportunities and increase the number of work-ready residents in the state.

Cole delivers a spirited live show with authentic lyrics and a hint of her New Orleans roots. She has opened for the biggest names in country music, such as Miranda Lambert, Kenny Chesney and Thomas Rhett, and was named an artist to watch by Spotify and Huffington Post.

St. Tammany top stories in your inbox A weekly guide to the biggest news in St. Tammany. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

Tickets for the concert at Northshore Technical Community College are free and available to the general public and can be reserved online at LCTCS.edu.

The CMT Empowering Education Tour of Louisiana is an opportunity to build awareness of educational and workforce training opportunities available at the local level, particularly in rural communities. Each of the selected schools submitted a formal application outlining workforce goals specific to their community. Schools were chosen based on demonstrated need and the potential for how this partnership could make a positive impact in their community.

Interstate 10 work continues

Work on the westbound inside lane and the eastbound inside lane of Interstate 10 near the I-10/ I-59 junction will be closed from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. through March 9.

One lane will remain open at all times, there will be no vehicle restrictions, and emergency vehicles will have access.

Military Road Alliance hosts sales tax forum

The Military Road Alliance, an umbrella organization of a dozen homeowner associations in eastern St. Tammany Parish, will present a forum open to the public on two sales tax issues to be decided by parish voters later this month.

The forum will be held at 7 p.m. March 13 in the Boyet Junior High School cafeteria, 59295 Rebel Drive, just off Pearl St. near Slidell. Please note this change in time and location from standard MRA meetings.

On the March 24 ballot, voters will be asked to consider the continuation of two parishwide taxes to support the parish jail and justice center. The rates and terms of both taxes have been reduced from  cent each to 1/5 cent each, and from the 20-year renewals to 10-year renewals.

St. Tammany Parish President Pat Brister will explain the initiative and discuss reasons to support the St. Tammany Parish Justice Center Complex (which includes the satellite offices in the Towers Building in Slidell.)

Sheriff Randy Smith will explain the jail initiative and discuss the reasons to support the parish jail. While the parish sheriff operates the jail, by state law, the parish government has the actual responsibility for funding the jail complex.

Both Brister and Smith will be allowed 15 minutes for their presentations and a Q and A with guests will follow.

General information about the Military Road Alliance can be found online at www.militaryroadalliance.org.

Active Aging Fair with COAST

The Council on Aging St. Tammany will hold an "Active Aging Fair" on March 15 at the Slidell Senior Center from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

The Slidell Center is located at 610 Cousin St.

Visitors to the free fair will hear presentations and meet presenters who will share information on how a healthy lifestyle that includes fitness and nutrition can help one achieve greater happiness and enjoyment of their golden years. Other topics will help participants become tech savvy communicators and shoppers, and presenters will offer tips on downsizing and de-cluttering to reduce stress.

We invite the entire community to celebrate COASTs banner 50th anniversary year with our seniors and presenters at this event, as we celebrate the Year of the Senior in St. Tammany Parish.

In addition, there will be eye screenings, an introduction to Yoga, blood pressure screenings, opportunities to volunteer, nutritional information and much more.

To learn more about COAST and their services, call (985) 892-0377 or go online to www.coastseniors.org.The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics has elected the associate dean for research at the LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine as its next leader.

Wayne Backes is also a professor of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at the school. He will begin his term as president-elect in July and then become president of the society in 2019.

The American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics has 5,000 members who conduct basic and clinical pharmacological research and work for academia, government, companies and nonprofit organizations.

Backes joined the LSU Health New Orleans faculty as an assistant professor in 1984 after three years on the faculty at the University of Connecticut Health Center. He earned a doctorate in biochemistry from West Virginia University in 1979.

He has coordinated a number of national and international symposia and conferences on drug metabolism.

Backes is also an associate editor for Drug Metabolism and Disposition and Frontiers in Pharmacology, where he is a member of the editorial board. He has served as a reviewer for many other journals.

His research interest is drug metabolism, and he has been awarded about $30 million in grant funding over his career.

Loyola gets $1 million for trial curriculum

Loyola University's College of Law has received a $1 million gift that will endow and transform the law schools trial advocacy curriculum, school officials announced.

The gift puts Loyolas Faith in the Future campaign at $85 million of its $100 million goal. It is the most ambitious and successful fundraising campaign in the university's history.

The gift was bestowed by Loyola College of Law alumni Daniel Becnel Jr., a 1969 graduate, and retired Judge Mary Hotard Becnel, a 1980 graduate, both of LaPlace.

It will create the Danny and Mary Becnel Trial Advocacy Program. The program will be one of four critical pieces of the law school's newly envisioned Advocacy Center, which serves as an umbrella for programs including legal research and writing, arbitration and mediation, and moot court.

Top stories in New Orleans in your inbox Twice daily we'll send you the day's biggest headlines. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

The unit is designed to prepare students for every type and phase of advocacy, officials said.

The Loyola College of Law created the Trial Advocacy Program in 1982 to prepare students for a smooth transition from the study of law to the practice of law by developing basic litigation skills that serve any area of legal practice.

The program focuses on learning by doing with practical instruction, demonstrations, mock clients, feedback and critiques. Students also have the opportunity to develop their skills in regional, state and national competitions.

Mary Hotard Becnel served 23 years as a trial judge in the state's 40th Judicial District Court, which comprises St. John the Baptist Parish, before retiring in 2016.

Danny Becnel, a high-profile trial attorney, recently retired from the Becnel Law Firm, which he founded.

Tulane professor gets $6M award

Jay Kolls, a professor of medicine and pediatrics and the John W. Deming Endowed Chair in Internal Medicine at the Tulane University School of Medicine, was recently awarded a seven-year, $6 million Outstanding Investigator Award from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to research how lungs fight deadly diseases.

The award will fund an entire research program. Kolls believes his team can make a number of discoveries in coming years.

He is looking for new ways to trigger an immune response in the lungs. His previous research focused on the role of T-helper cells in lung immunity, and now he is working on developing vaccines that could elicit a response from both T- and B-cells to fight lung infections.

One of the goals is to see if vaccines can be developed that stimulate the immune system without damaging the lung. He also wants to learn more about how T-cells work and if they communicate with other cells in the lung.

Knowing more about the vaccine response could help prevent infections like pneumonia in people whose immune systems are compromised.

The Outstanding Investigator Award allows investigators to conduct research that breaks new ground or extends previous discoveries in new directions.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Hendarsyah Tarmizi (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 09:33 1294 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c856e6d 1 Opinion demographic-bonus,demography,population,Youth,economic-growth,economic-outlook,#EconomicGrowth Free

Indonesia is entering the initial stage of the much-vaunted demographic dividend, which is expected to peak within 12 years. However, as the economy has been stagnating in the last few years, there is growing concern that the so-called demographic bonus could instead turn into a disaster.



The manufacturing industry and service sector, which are expected to absorb the largest part of the labor force, are shrouded in uncertainties, while efforts to help young people enhance their skills, so as to fill the growing job market, remain slow.



Indonesia is expected to reap from its huge working age group, which will reach 70 percent of the total population by 2030. Theoretically, the demographic structure will provide a window of opportunity for Indonesian people to live happier and more prosperously because most of them will earn quality jobs with fewer financial burdens.



However, with no solid economic recovery in sight, Indonesia may be unable to fully tap into the benefits of a demographic dividend. As growth hovers at around just 5 percent, Indonesia will find it difficult to provide the gigantic labor force with enough jobs.



To achieve the bonus, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) notes, Indonesia will have to accelerate job creation for the working age population (15-64 years) and lower youth unemployment, which is significantly higher than other age groups, likely because of stringent labor regulations, low education quality and skill mismatches.



In its latest annual policy review on Indonesia, the IMF says addressing youth unemployment and reaping the benefits of the demographic dividend will require implementing structural reforms to accelerate growth and diversify the economy away from agriculture and toward industry and services that offer higher employment elasticity.



The key is in how Indonesia revitalizes the manufacturing sector, which has traditionally absorbed most of the workforce. Many, however, are skeptical over the labor-intensive sector playing its part, given the fact that its contribution to the countrys economy has declined in the last few years.



In the post-New Order era, the manufacturing industry (excluding oil and gas) contributed a record high 29 percent to gross domestic product (GDP) in 2001. Although it remained the main driver of the economy, its contribution to GDP fell to little more than 24 percent in 2011 and it further dropped to an average of 18 percent between 2012 and 2014. The downward trend reversed during the 2015-2017 period, when it rose to between 20 and 21 percent, although the growth rate stagnated at about 4 percent.



Apart from the positive trend in the role of the manufacturing sector in the economy over the last three years, the latest data on the amount of realized direct investment, especially in the industrial sector, is encouraging.



The latest data from the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) found that realized investment increased by 13 percent to Rp 692.8 trillion (US$53.5 billion), far exceeding the target. The significant jump occurred partly because of a series of economic packages issued by President Joko Jokowi Widodo last year as part of his bid to improve ease of doing business in the country.



The countrys exports and imports are also growing. In 2017, the 16 percent increase in non-oil exports and the 14.70 percent rise in the import of capital goods and raw materials indicate that the countrys manufacturing industry is on track to further strengthen its dominating role in the economy.



The upward trends continued in January of this year and the recovery is expected to accelerate in subsequent months as the government has pledged to not only perfect the ease of doing business but also provide more tax incentives, such as a tax holiday for labor intensive industries.



If the government fulfills its promise, there is no reason to doubt our ability to harvest the demographic bonus. The lingering question is whether we have prepared our huge labor force to take full advantage of the demographic dividend.



As the IMF has suggested, the government should invest in vocational education and training now, rather than later, to provide younger generations with the skills demanded by the labor market. The skills will help them take advantage of the increase in job opportunities.



The Industry Ministry has for years been involved in providing vocational education through a link and match program in cooperation with industry players and vocational schools. However, only a small number of students can benefit from this educational concept. University graduates are also unable to fill the vacant jobs because their skills do not meet the requirements.



A mismatch between the demand from the businesses and the pool of talent available in the market will stand between the country and its demographic bonus. We need an immediate breakthrough to solve the problem, or else the projected demographic dividend will instead be a devastating disaster.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin EDITORIAL (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 08:13 1294 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c8543c7 4 Editorial #Editorial,#2018RegionalElections,2018-regional-election,Indonesian-politics,democracy Free

That next years simultaneous legislative and presidential elections have attracted much more attention from all segments of society than the forthcoming simultaneous regional elections is obvious. Such a short interval between the organization of the June 27 regional elections and that of the April 17, 2019 legislative and presidential elections, is probably why the regional elections have failed to steal the show.



The fact that the June 27 polls will involve elections in several big provinces that are home to some 70 percent of the total of voters nationwide does not alter the fact that the political scene has been dominated by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggles (PDI-P) renomination of Joko Jokowi Widodo to run for a second term in the 2019 presidential election. Earlier the Golkar Party, NasDem Party, Hanura Party and United Development Party (PPP) declared their support for Jokowis reelection. As the ticket for presidency is already in Jokowis hands, heated discussions have immediately shifted to who will be his running mate.



Election for regional heads will be held across 17 provinces, 39 cities and 115 regencies. As the Special Report in todays paper reveals, however, its weight cannot overcome the magnitude of the national political event, particularly the 2019 presidential election, due to the latters utmost significance as the democratic mechanism to elect the countrys highest government executive post.



Nevertheless, to completely underestimate or even ignore the importance of the regional elections is also a mistake. There are various motivations for candidates aiming for elected office, including building a career in the government bureaucracy, starting from the lowest at village level up to a Cabinet post and even the presidency.



There have been numerous government executives who have excelled in building their careers in the government bureaucracy. Perhaps, we might still remember the achievement made by Ryaas Rasyid, state minister for regional autonomy under the presidency of Abdurrahman Gus Dur Wahid. Starting his career as a village head in Makassar, South Sulawesi, Ryaas nurtured his career as a civil servant in various positions before he was appointed minister by Gus Dur.



Another perfect example is President Jokowi himself. Although starting his career as a furniture businessman, he jumped into politics and was elected the mayor of Surakarta, Central Java, in 2005. While serving his second term as mayor, Jokowi ran for the Jakarta governorship only to claim the number-one position in the countrys capital city in 2012 before he was nominated by the PDI-P to contest and eventually win the 2014 presidential election.



Regional elections may be less prestigious than presidential elections, but local political events should be watched out as they could give birth to a future Ryaas or Jokowi on June 27.



Regional elections should serve as stepping stones for and produce a pool of the countrys future leaders. As the old wisdom goes, whoever can be trusted in small matters will be faithful in large ones.Rock legend Lou Reed rarely spoke of the year after he left The Velvet Underground to live with his parents. But he was writing poetry, which will soon be published as a book.

On what would have been the rocker's 76th birthday on Friday, the Lou Reed Archive announced the publication of its first book, "Do Angels Need Haircuts?", compiling his unpublished poems from 1970-71.

The book, to come out in April, offers "a window to a little-known chapter in the life of one of the most uncompromising voices in American popular culture," publishing house Anthology said in its announcement.

The poetry collection will come with a seven-inch record of Reed reciting his verse at St. Mark's Church in New York's East Village.

Starting with its 1967 debut album produced by Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground shook up the music scene by bringing a new artistic sensibility to rock and lyrically exploring topics then unthinkable for pop songs such as drug highs and deviant sex.

Read also: Spotify launches special playlist for David Bowie

But Reed left as The Velvet Underground's frontman shortly before the release of the group's fourth studio album, Loaded, in 1970.

Tensions had been mounting between Reed and bassist Doug Yule, who assisted and eventually replaced him on lead vocals, and The Velvet Underground's new mainstream label was pushing the band to produce more radio-friendly songs.

Reed, who had so far earned underground fame but limited money, returned in 1970 to his parents' home on Long Island and worked as a typist in his father's lucrative tax accounting firm.

Reed's suburban idyll was short-lived and in 1972 he launched his successful solo career, recording in London with the encouragement of David Bowie.

"Do Angels Need Haircuts?" is the first publication of its sort from Reed, although his lyrics have previously been released in book form, notably 2001's illustrated "The Raven", which brought together the words of Reed and Edgar Allan Poe.

Reed died of liver disease in 2013 at age 71.Thousands of participants from 12 districts and 110 villages across Central Lombok regency joined the Mandalika Fashion Carnival on Monday afternoon in the city of Praya, Central Lombok.

The cultural parade served as the opening event for the 2018 Festival Pesona Bau Nyale (Bau Nyale Charms Festival).

Other than showcasing cultures, fashion and art performances, the parade also featured "Gendang Beleg" (a dance and music performance) performed by personnel of Central Lombok precinct police (Polres).

"This event shows how Central Lombok is home to cultural richness," said Central Lombok Regent official Fathul Bahri during the opening ceremony, which was also attended by West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Tourism Agency head Lalu Mohammad Faozal and several Chinese tourists.

Participants of the parade walk down the street in Central Lombok. (JP/Panca Nugraha)

The parade reportedly passed through a 2-kilometer route in Praya.

The 2018 Festival Pesona Bau Nyale itself will have its peak event on March 6-7. It has also been included as one of the 100 Wonderful Indonesia Event 2018 national tourism calendar event.

Lalu said at least 12 unique tourism events would be held as part of the Bau Nyale festival, which aims to increase the number of tourists to the province, with this year's target at 4 million visitors.

Read also: Five must-visit destinations on Lombok

Members of the Central Lombok precinct police join the parade by playing "Gendang Beleq" on Monday, March 5. (JP/Panca Nugraha)

The Bau Nyale festival is said to be a unique activity that only exists in Central Lombok. "This phenomenon of the appearance of sea worms also exists in other regions and has been used as a tourism event. But the phenomenon in Central Lombok is special and has its own uniqueness as it is strongly related to the legend of Princess Mandalika," said Fathul.

According to Central Lombok Tourism Agency head Lalu Putria, Princess Mandalika was a very beautiful princess from Tunjung Beru Kingdom who had attracted many princes from other kingdoms to marry her. Due to the many suitors who came to the kingdom, King Sed, Mandalika's father, held a contest where the winner would get the opportunity to marry her. However, since Mandalika didn't want any casualties, she decided to throw herself into the sea.

In the legend, Princess Mandalika left a message to the people who missed her, saying she would reappear every year on the 20th day on the 10th month according to the Sasak calendar at Seger Beach in Central Lombok. This year, the date falls on March 6-7.

This promise of her reappearance became the tradition of bau nyale, where people go to look and hunt for nyale, a wawo-type of sea worm that is believed to be the incarnation of Princess Mandalika.

"Interestingly, this tradition involves many people, even reaching tens of thousands. The philosophical meaning behind it is also very good, which is that Princess Mandalika was willing to sacrifice herself to avoid [casualties]," said Lalu Putria. (kes)UNESCO declared Feb. 21 International Mother Language Day in 1999 to bring value and respect to linguistic diversity.

Concomitant to this years 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, UNESCO has reasserted the significance of being faithful to using ones mother tongue and clinging to the no discrimination can be made on the basis of language dictum.

The cause of concern undergirded in this declaration is the very reality that most local languages in the world are facing a serious threat of endangerment and even extinction. These indigenous languages are often suppressed in their use, as their speakers abandon them, dont pass them to their offspring or shift to other languages they consider more prestigious and modern.

In Indonesia, for example, and as in other multilingual countries in the world, many of these languages are on the brink of extinction or in a moribund state, at best. It is feared that many more local languages are no longer spoken by the people, and will become extinct in the years to come.

Responding to the threat of linguistic diversity, Audrey Azoulay, UNESCO director general, recently pointed out that A language is far more than a means of communication; it is the very condition of our humanity. Our values, our beliefs and our identity are embedded within it. It is through language that we transmit our experiences, our traditions and our knowledge. The diversity of languages reflects the incontestable wealth of our imaginations and ways of life.

Language then goes beyond the idea of a medium of interaction. It is not simply a tool with which we communicate both orally and in written form. Rather, it is an ideological entity or construct  the constellation of beliefs and traditions held by the individual speaker. It is loaded with values and interests, and therefore isnt value-free. So to speak, the claim of language neutrality becomes a moot point.

Nevertheless, reality speaks louder than lofty ideals. The phenomenon of language contact facilitated by the rapid flows of people, goods and technology always implies language contestation, eventually leading to the perception of superiority, dominance and even language hegemony.

Amid the other flows mentioned above, the techno-space (to borrow anthropologist Arjun Appadurais coinage) has ineluctably powerfully shaped the way people use language, which leads either to language denigration or language resistance, depending on their attitudes toward the language used.

Positive attitudes toward a language can make people valorize and admire it. By a stark contrast, negative attitudes tend to render a language less prestigious, uneducated, primitive, obsolete and nonstandard.

I had the chance to meet a colleague who lamented that most of his students no longer wanted to speak their native languages in their hometowns, and shift to either Indonesian or English, which they perceived higher in status than their own home languages.

This is just a handful of instances of how language users valorize one language over another. Another example can be seen from the influx of foreign language terminologies, like those in English, flooding social media. Indeed, using English-sounding words on such a site may bring intellectual satisfaction to the users, as people associated with this language will be perceived as more educated and modern.

From the language ecology perspective, the unbridled use of English and other dominating languages have the potential to disrupt the ecology of other languages. As such, language protection is felt necessary to safeguard certain languages from this disruption.

Amid the threats to linguistic diversity, UNESCO has also endorsed the so-called the mother tongue-based education, the goal of which is to protect peoples mother tongues from the disruption of dominating languages. The idea is to raise peoples awareness of the importance of preserving and maintaining their own languages as one of their cultural heritages.

The anachronistic perspective of the notion of globalization, however, demands that the linguistic flow find its epicenter in the West, thus rendering English as the worlds powerful lingua franca.

It may seem natural to witness the rapid spread of English like a wildfire in almost all life domains, because this language has served not only as a lingua franca but also as a lingua cultura and a lingua academica. The language has seeped easily into local cultural products and education domain, for the West is still the locus of globalization.

Consider, for example, our fetish about aping foreign brand products in such domains as food, fashion, advertisement and beauty products. Further, our scholars heavily rely intellectually on the production of knowledge from Western countries. All these apparently wield significant influence of English as the hegemonizing language.

Language conservation through mother tongue-based education should by no means fall into the trap of conservatism or the ideology of purism, with monolingualism being the eventual goal. It should not aim to instill into students a hawkish attitude toward the teaching of English in school.

Rather, such education needs to equip students with the ability to dexterously shuttle among languages at their disposal. Multilingual education ought to raise students awareness of their rich linguistics repertoires, agency and identity; more importantly, it must empower students with communicative strategies that can help them appropriate other languages to suit their communicative purposes.

To respect linguistic diversity, it seems that saving and protecting students mother tongues should not necessarily imply cutting the foreign tongue students are speaking.

 The writer teaches at the Graduate School of Applied English Linguistics, School of Education and Language, Atma Jaya Catholic University, Jakarta.A very long time ago, when I first met Jean Couteau, I was kind of wondering what to think of him: was he some sort of Indian guru? His outfit of white pants and white long-sleeved shirt could make one think so, while his ponytail was something peculiar.

Then I was told he was a Frenchman who settled in Bali in 1975, an anthropologist and alumnus of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, who had made insightful studies of Balinese culture and traditions. In 1986, he obtained a doctoral degree for his thesis of art history and iconographic art of Bali.

But apart from Bali on which his many books focus  like Time Rites and Festivals in Bali Today I, Bali Today II, Bali Inspires and Lempad ( 2014 )  he has written numerous books on Indonesian artists, such as Affandi, Arifien Neif, Srihadi Sudarsono, Walter Spies, Made Wiante and many more.

He is indeed a learned man. But his demeanor displays a humility that can be too much, even for his close Indonesian friends. They say he is more Javanese than the Javanese. He would never stand up, for instance, to demand his due, leaving himself victim to peoples manipulative tendencies.

Yet he is held in high respect. So much so that he has been accorded titles he says he does not deserve. While he feels flattered, he admits to feeling uncomfortable.

At first, he was addressed as Pak Jean, but soon he became Pak Prof. I am not a professor, he laughs, But well, what can one do. They also describe him as tokoh (public figure) and budayawan (art observer).

But in self-critique he admits, I am pleased anyway, and wonders whether hes becoming overbearing now.

Laughing at himself, he makes fun of the new title professor, but adds that unfortunately it pressured him into acts that his inner self would renounce. For instance, because a professor needed to live up to that title (in society), he changed his old car to a new one. Though I had to pay in installments.

In Indonesia, this is the way one is trapped into a system of kindness (and prestige), he sighed. He admits that at first, he thought this happened to him because he was a bule (westerner), but he says now he realizes it is exactly because he was becoming Indonesian.

The story Terjebak Sebagai Tokoh (Trapped as a Community Figure) appears in the recently launched compilation of his stories that appear in his Udar Rasa column in Kompas dailys Sunday edition. Couteau translates udar rasa as hodge podge.

Through his 49 stories in the book, titled Indonesiaku: Suara Dari Tepi Sungai Ayung (My Indonesia: Voice from Ayung Riverbank), Couteau intellectually blends his wide knowledge of cultural and socio-political Europe and the West with his in-depth study of culture and traditions in Indonesia, particularly Bali.

Renowned art critic, curator and author Jean Couteau is a master of mocking without evoking the wrath of those being mocked. (Jean Couteau/File)

His commentaries usually start with everyday issues, which are built up to reveal a critique underneath. He does so with a lot of humor in a would-be self-criticizing manner.

The casual tone and the almost colloquial nature of his language draws one into his storytelling, and one becomes lulled by his entertaining humor, in which he blames himself as a bule, so that one is often unaware of the inherent critique.

This is the case in his story about Siti, his servant, who died in an accident on her way to her hometown to celebrate Idul Fitri.

As one follows his account of remorse of never having taken any notice of her when alive, except for her serving him coffee and ironing his pants, and how he never asked for her forgiveness as is customarily done during the Idul Fitri celebration in Indonesia, his sting came almost unnoticed.

Siti died because the doctors in the hospital were so busy in the ceremony of forgiving each other during the festive moment that they had no time to attend to the patient. In Nantes, France, where he had been treated for months, he said the doctors were so busy helping the patients that they did not have time even to smile.

When it is about his experiences in relation to Indonesia, Couteau is soft and full of humor. But talking about hot international issues, he is surprisingly direct, what matters is the universal good.

In the case of Aung San Suu Kyi, for instance, his commentary follows the Western international outcry without any consideration of an alternative view.

In another story about racism, his comment is mild. Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa Claus, and his assistant Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), are descending from the sky when Nelson Mandela, the antiapartheid revolutionary leader dies and rises to the heavens. Expected to meet on their way up and down, Couteau calls on Mandela to ask the white Sinterklaas to come down from his arrogance and learn to be an assistant, while urging Zwarte Piet to insist on equal rights.

The book of 49 short stories was published in 2017 by Kompas. A delightful read, an English version is to be desired.

_______________________________

Indonesiaku: Suara Dari Tepi Sungai Ayung

By Jean Couteau

Published: PT Kompas Media Nusantara, 2017

192 pagesComedian-turned-director Jordan Peele capped what he has described as the "best year of my life" with an Oscar for best original screenplay on Sunday for his critically-acclaimed horror-comedy "Get Out."

Peele's feature directorial debut -- a dark satire of the African American experience and liberal white guilt -- follows a young black man (Daniel Kaluuya), who meets the family of his white girlfriend (Allison Williams), only to discover the murderous menace lurking at their mansion.

"I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible. I thought it wasn't going to work. I thought no one would ever make this movie," the 38-year-old New Yorker told the audience.

"But I kept coming back to it because I knew if someone let me make this movie, that people would hear it and people would see it."

Peele's victory was the only win for his film, which was also nominated for best picture, best actor and best director.

Despite a $4.5 million budget, the critically acclaimed tale earned $176 million -- with takings of $255 million globally.

Before "Get Out," he was best known as one half of the Comedy Central duo "Key and Peele" alongside Keegan-Michael Key, with whom he produced the 2016 comedy "Keanu."

He was also a cast member on Mad TV and had a recurring role in the first season of FX anthology series "Fargo."

Raised by his single mother on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Peele has an eight-month-old son of his own with the comedian Chelsea Peretti, whom he married in 2016.

"Get Out" started the awards season with little momentum but Peele saw the film's odds shorten as he walked away with a medallion for best first-time feature at the Directors Guild Awards, where he enthused that he'd just enjoyed "the best year of my life, hands down."

Read also: 'Get Out' tops Spirit Awards ahead of Oscars

- 'Cry for justice' -

"The fact that I had never seen a film that addresses the fears of the modern African American experience was a signal to me that the conversation about race was broken," he said.

"It felt related to the fact that our fears, our experiences, our screams for justice were still not being heard... So we have a lot of work to do to break out but I think the fact that this cry for justice has been heard is at the very least a step in the right direction."

Peele described directing "Get Out" as "one of the greatest privileges and experiences and responsibilities" of his life and put up a stout defense of horror, which often finds itself taken less seriously than other genres.

"Horror is a genre that gives us a way to deal with our fears collectively. When a bunch of strangers go into a theater to laugh, cry, scream together something cathartic happens, something important happens," he said.

"After a great film that audience leaves with a sense of community, so when that film explores our truest fears, I think they leave with a primal commonality and a new context for addressing those fears together."

The director revealed at a recent screenwriters' Q&A in Beverly Hills that he broke down in tears as he was writing an intense scene in which his protagonist is hypnotized into believing he is trapped in a mind state called "the sunken place" as memories of his mother's death come back to him.

"It was a cathartic thing, I wouldn't describe it as fun," said Peele.

"But the thing that stops so much of my art, if I let it, is when I lose track of why I want to tell the story -- what the most fun thing can be."On Friday, people of Chinese descent mark Cap Go Meh festival. The celebration, also known as the happy day, closes the 15 days of Chinese New Year festivities, as cap go meh means the fifteenth night.

On the full moon of the first lunar month, ethnic Chinese families enjoy their culinary specialties at home. In Indonesia, later spreading to Southeast Asia, the popular dish for this celebration is lontong cap go meh  rice cake in banana leaves served with vegetables in coconut-milk soup containing fried entrails, boiled eggs and chicken curry.

Painters such as Basoeki Abdullah, Lee Man Fong, Amrus Natalsya, Hardi, Robby Lulianto and Lim Hui Yung have tried to capture the merry celebration of Cap Go Meh in Indonesia, but the work of late painter S. Sudjojono (1913-1986) leaves the most memorable impression.

Sudjojonos Cap Go Meh painting, created in 1940 or around five years before Indonesia gained independence, is famous because it contains social criticism. It is seen by cultural observers as Indonesias first modern painting reflecting tolerance among different ethnic, racial, religious and traditional groups. It is also considered social criticism, especially concerning elder people who were preparing themselves to embrace a new chapter in the countrys history.

Cap Go Meh by S. Sudjojono (JP/Agus Dermawan T.)

The painting, which is currently part of the Indonesian National Gallerys collection, presents a comic style by ignoring correct anatomical proportions and realistic depiction. The figures therefore appear cartoon-like, and are even as flat as leather puppets.

Cap Go Meh was later hailed as one of Indonesias most distinctive and phenomenal pre-independence paintings. As a narrative canvas, this work is sometimes discussed in terms of its thematic aspect and visual manifestation. But its hidden traditional meaning has not yet been thoroughly exposed.

By tradition, during the full moon on Cap Go Meh, young people would go out to find their marriage partners. In order to caution youngsters caught up in this festive momentum, a saying was made popular: Hao ni pu yu chuen  hao nan pu khan ten (nice ladies wont seek pleasure in spring  nice men wont be tempted by lanterns). Spring and lanterns respectively symbolize the celebration and women. Back then, Cap Go Meh was already celebrated throughout Indonesia.

Cap Go Meh Celebration Preparation by Lee Man Fong (JP/Agus Dermawan T.)

I know, Cap Go was most joyfully observed in Pontianak, Semarang and Tangerang. But it was no less enthusiastically marked in Batavia or Jakarta, because of Jakartas fairly big Chinese community with its subsisting and growing culture, Sudjojono once said.

During the festivities, Sudjojono observed teenage girls and boys in their best makeup and attire, flocking the yard of a temple or the town square to enjoy traditional puppet or musical shows. While reveling in the art performances, these youngsters were eyeing up suitable matches. Interestingly, indigenous residents also joined the celebration.

Nevertheless, Sudjojonos Cap Go Meh isnt just about the festive atmosphere but also includes what was behind the scene. What can be noticed in the partner-seeking arena turns out to be married men and women instead of single young people. The main figure of the painting is an aged man hiding his face behind a mask and dancing with a middle-aged woman.

Consequently, this picture of an event supposedly for the youth only slightly represents the youth, containing just a few glimpses of them merely to indicate their presence. The painting also exposes an old man dancing while holding a book on grabbing youngsters future under the arm.

Close to the old man with the book is another man carrying a violin. This guy has a crocodile head, which by the painter is likened to not only a music enthusiast but also a womanizer taking pleasure in whatever he desires. Sudjojonos humorous Cap Go Meh has thus fulfilled its intended meaning.

Barong Cap Go Meh by Amrus Natalsya (JP/Agus Dermawan T.)

In Chinese cosmology, old men are supposed to stay at home [during the celebration] while absorbed in a handkerchief bearing an image of the goddess Magu holding peaches. This deity is a symbol of retirement and gratefulness for senior citizens, said a sinologist at the University of Indonesia, CM Hsu.

In 1974, when Pertempuran Sultan Agung dan Pieterszooncoen (The Battle of Sultan Agung and Pieterszooncoen) by Sudjojono was launched at the Jakarta History Museum, historian Onghokham pointed out, Sudjojonos Cap Go Mehserves as a document of the absurd behavior of a group of people during a period.

Sudjojono had observed the countrys penchant for playing with fire, taking delight in everything beyond propriety. The absurdity of the elder people in the Cap Go Meh painting is still relevant today, even 78 years after it was painted.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Marlowe Hood (Agence France-Presse) Paris, France  Mon, March 5, 2018 20:25 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c883e86 2 World tobacco,bloomberg,health,interview Free

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who made his fortune selling financial data, has given more than a billion dollars since 2007 to curb global tobacco use, which claims nearly seven million lives every year.

Along with World Health Organization (WHO) director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and South African health minister Aaron Motsoaledi, Bloomberg will launch the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Cape Town on March 7.

Question: What is your long-term vision for the global fight against tobacco?

Answer: If we could completely eliminate tobacco use today, it would prevent nearly one billion early deaths this century.

Ten years ago, one billion people were covered by a high-quality tobacco law, such as graphic health warnings and bans on indoor smoking. Today, five billion people are. That progress has saved an estimated 35 million lives.

The bad news is, as more cities and countries pass these laws, tobacco companies are working even harder to get new customers hooked  especially young people. They are marketing more in low and middle income countries, including in Africa, where smoking rates are lower and there tend to be less tobacco laws in place.

What is the single-most effective measure that governments can take to reduce the number of tobacco deaths?

Raising taxes on tobacco is the most effective way to drive down smoking rates, particularly among young people. It is also the least widespread of all the proven tobacco control policies.

Many countries collect huge amounts of money from tobacco tax revenues. China, for example, collects a trillion yuan (about $150 billion, 120 billion euros) annually. Does this not create a perverse incentive to maintain tobacco sales, even in the face of tobacco's terrible health toll -- a million deaths a year in China?

The revenues that countries collect from tobacco taxes pale in comparison to the costs imposed on society by smoking.

Something like one in every three men in China will die from smoking at current rates. Millions more will suffer from preventable, debilitating illnesses. That imposes a huge burden on society, in health costs and lives lost.

Philip Morris International, the makers of Marlboro, has recently set up a the grant-giving Foundation for a Smoke-Free World? Is it credible?

The tobacco industry has one goal, and that is to make profits. When a company says it is supporting an effort to drive itself out of business, you have to ask: what is really going on here?

The fact is that Philip Morris International continues to aggressively market tobacco to children. They are fighting back against policies aimed at fighting smoking, including suing countries when they pass measures warning people about the dangers of tobacco.

What do you say to the argument that tobacco users in 2018 know the dangers of lighting up, so government and civil society should not be trying to police their behavior?

I've always supported the right to use tobacco. I think you're making a mistake, but you have the right. But you don't have the right to expose others to second-hand smoke.

Nor is the cost of smoking limited to smokers: governments spend trillions of dollars each year treating preventable illnesses caused by smoking, not to mention lost productivity when people get sick or die.

Consumers are being bombarded with billions in ads to use these addictive products. We are working to hold the industry accountable and shine a light on its deceptive practices.

Climate change is also one of your major preoccupations. Do you see any parallel between the tobacco and coal industries?

Both the coal industry and the tobacco industry have misled the public about the dangers of their products. Both have put profits above people's health. Both have lobbied politicians to protect their interests.

The good news is: both are losing ground. The more people know about the health impacts of coal and tobacco, the less people support their use.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Nurni Sulaiman (The Jakarta Post) Medan, North Sumatra  Mon, March 5, 2018 11:42 1294 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c864ccd 1 National Holi-Festival,Hindu-festival,hindu,Festival-of-Color,India,color,Medan,North-Sumatra Free

Dozens of Indian nationals and people of Indian descent in Medan, North Sumatra, on Sunday celebrated Holi, or the Hindu "festival of colors", which marks the arrival of spring.

Held at the Indian Consulate General in Medan, the festival celebrates fertility and love, and also marks the triumph of good over evil.

The revelers threw colorful powders on each other, leaving them coated in color for the day. The festivalgoers also enjoyed Indian foods and song and dance performances at the event, which was organized by the Indonesia Expatriates Association Medan (IEAM).

Im really happy that I could join this celebration, where I could meet many friends. Everybody was happy with the colors. Everybody shared their happiness here, Ranggini Triyono, an Indian Malaysian, told The Jakarta Post.

Shared joy: Festivalgoers throw colorful powder at each other during the Hindu festival of Holi on Mar. 4 in Medan, North Sumatra. (JP/Nurni Sulaiman)

Hindu Indians celebrate Holi at the beginning of spring, which is expected to bring fertile soil and good crops. Hindus believe that spring is the time to enjoy a variety of colors that reflect joy and hope. The celebration also marks hopes for a smooth year ahead.

IEAM president Ashish Sharma said Holi was celebrated by Indian and Hindu people in countries across the world. Festivalgoers expressed their happiness by throwing colorful powder and water balloons at each other.

We want to convey our thanks to the Indian Consulate General, which has given us the space to organize the festival, as well as all IEAM members who have supported this event. We also thank all Medan residents, said Ashish. (ebf)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 16:45 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c87ca52 1 Business kppu,selection-committee,explanation Free

The selection committee appointed by President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to select candidates for commissioners for the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) claims to be independent in selecting the prospective individuals.

Committee chairwoman Hendri Saparini said in Jakarta on Monday the committee involved PT Quantum HRM Internasional, an independent consultant, in holding a competency and psychological test for the candidates.

She said the consultant, who won the tender held by the Cabinet Secretariat, had also been involved in the selection of commissioner candidates of Ombudsman Indonesia and the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) by other selection teams.

We told the consultant about the criteria of the candidates, including integrity and maturity, Hendri said during a press conference.

She explained the consultant only nominated 26 candidates after the test, and the names were announced on Oct 24, 2017.

After an open interview by members of selection committee, 18 names were nominated as the final candidates, which were submitted by Jokowi to the House of Representatives.

Committee member Rhenald Kasali said even if the selection process was repeated as demanded by the House, the result would be the same, unless the test parameters were modified drastically.

Houses Commission VI, overseeing trade and investment, among other things, rejected carrying out fit and proper tests to the selected candidates, saying many selection committee members had conflicts of interests regarding the KPPU.

Jokowi had extended the office term of the current commissioners twice because their term had originally expired on Dec. 27, 2017. (bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Fachrul Sidiq (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 21:45 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c888be1 1 City foreigners,Tangerang,riverbank Free

A 50-year-old Englishman, identified as Ian Whiteley, has reportedly been staying for months on the Angke riverbank in Tangerang, Banten, while waiting to meet his Indonesian wife.

For the last four months Ian had been trying to seek his wife, who worked in Tangerang, Central Jakarta Immigration Office's enforcement division head Muhammad Deny Firmansyah said on Monday evening.

"We have sent a letter to his wife, inviting her to come to our office tomorrow at 10 a.m. and meet her husband," Deny told The Jakarta Post.

Deny said he expected the meeting would help them settle their private matters.

Ian has been reportedly living on the riverbank following a dispute with his wife, who lives in Central Jakarta and works in Tangerang. Ian attempted to seek his wife in Tangerang and was eventually sent to the Central Jakarta Immigration Office on Sunday by officials from the Tangerang Immigration Office.

Deny said Ian was a documented foreigner and had no records of having violated Indonesian law.

Media reported that Ian was kicked out by his wife. He also claimed that he should have received monthly pension funds from his country. However, the money was sent to his wife's bank account.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 17:00 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c87d10a 1 City foreigners,expatriate,taxi,Dispute Free

A foreigner was reportedly involved in a quarrel with a taxi driver after refusing to pay the Rp 35,000 (US$2.5) taxi fare. The incident took place in front of Pullman Hotel in Menteng, Central Jakarta, on Sunday.

"The foreigner refused to pay because he felt the driver took a roundabout route [to charge a higher fare]," said Menteng Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Agus Rizal as reported by kompas.com.

The foreigner, who traveled without identity documents along with his friend, reportedly got into the taxi in Setiabudi, South Jakarta, and asked to be driven to Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital in Central Jakarta.

However, he felt that the driver was not taking him directly to his destination, and asked to stop at Jl. MH Thamrin.

"That was when the quarrel occurred, until a security officer and several Jakarta Police patrol officers came over and asked them to calm down," he said.

The police officers then took the foreigner to the Menteng Police office. After discovering that he failed to show any legal documents, the police then transferred him to the custody of the Jakarta Police. (vla)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (Vietnam News/ANN) Hanoi  Mon, March 5, 2018 18:15 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c8812cd 2 Business #automotive,#Vietnam,#Thailand,#ASEAN,#FTA,#Honda,#Toyota Free

Over 2,000 Honda cars from Thailand  the first batches of cars to enjoy zero percent import duty under the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA)  have been imported to Vietnam.

Under the AFTA commitments, a zero percent tax is applicable to cars imported from the bloc, with a localisation rate of 40 percent or more in the country of origin, starting Jan. 1 this year.

The current batch has Jazz, Accord, CR-V and Civic models.

A representative of Honda Vietnam said that to import the autos to Vietnam, the firm had completed procedures to meet the requirements of Vietnams Decree 116 on the conditions for production, assembly, import, business of warranty service, car maintenance and particularly the Vehicle Type Approval certificate granted by the Thailand Department of Land Transport.

A consulting staff member at Hondas My inh agent told Viet Nam News that the new vehicles would be rolled out to the market in May or early June, as it will take one or two months to complete checks on emission, quality and technical safety at ports.

The price of each car is expected to fall by more than 200 million Vietnamese Dong (US$8,800). This will be a turning point in the Vietnamese automobile market, said the staff member.

Earlier, the insiders calculated that with the zero percent import tax, the price of imported cars from ASEAN countries to Vietnam would fall by 20-25 percent.

Toyota Motor Vietnam and Ford Viet Nam are completing procedures to meet the requirements of the Decree 116 to import cars which are favourites in Vietnam, such as the Ford Explorer, Everest, Ranger, Toyota Fortuner and Yaris.

Topics :

This article appeared on the Vientiane Times newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta PostShare this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Viriya P. Singgih (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 17:18 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c87f44e 1 Business mining-sites,tender-offer,regional-administrations,company Free

The government has allowed foreign investors to bid for mining concessions with a total area of more than 500 hectares, while smaller areas will be prioritized for regional administration-owned enterprises (BUMD) operating in their regions.

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry recently issued Regulation No. 11/2018 through which it introduced detailed stipulations regarding the auction of expired mining areas previously operated by various mining permit holders in the country.

Under the regulation, mining concessions with areas less than 500 ha will be offered through a tender process to BUMD first, before being offered to national private companies, cooperatives and individuals as the least priority option.

The auction of metal mineral and coal mining concessions with areas of more than 500 ha can be attended by business entities, namely state-owned enterprises [BUMN], BUMD, national private companies or foreign companies, the regulation states.

Indonesian Mining Institute chairman Irwandy Arif said the new stipulations were quite fair, although he questioned the ministrys basis of determining the 500-ha figure.

The figure is debatable, especially considering the limited mining areas in Indonesia, he added. (bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Cirebon, West Java  Mon, March 5, 2018 16:36 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c87bfda 4 Business link-and-match,SMK,industry,Airlangga-Hartarto Free

The Industry Ministry has said it had linked 143 companies in Jakarta and Banten with 292 vocational schools (SMKs) to educate students to become skilled workers needed by the relevant industries.

"A total of 612 cooperation deals were signed today between schools and industries, said Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto on Monday when launching the ministrys fifth link and match program in Cilegon, Banten, on Monday.

Currently, 1,537 vocational schools have been linked to 568 industries in East Java, Central Java, West Java, Aceh, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, Riau, Riau Islands, Jakarta and Banten.

Under the link and match program, schools cooperate with industries to provide students with working experience based on the programs studied in their schools, said Airlangga, adding that the program was an implementation of Presidential Instruction No. 9/2016 on SMK revitalization.

Airlangga said the ministry was looking forward to link and match programs in Southern Sumatra provinces  Jambi, Bengkulu, South Sumatra, Bangka Belitung, and Lampung  as well as in South Sulawesi.

He added that the ministry aimed to link 1,795 SMKs all over the country to the relevant industries by 2019. (ami/bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5 2018

After canceling the controversial plan to fine motorists listening to music or smoking while driving, the Jakarta Polices traffic division chief, Sr. Comr. Halim Pagarra, said on Sunday the police would instead crack down on drivers using their cell phones.



Halim said the practice violated Article 106 of the Traffic Law, which says anyone driving a motorized vehicle must do so with full care and concentration. He said, as quoted by kompas.com, that enforcement would apply to online ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers who often use cell phones while driving to check their maps.



Halims subordinate, Adj. Sr. Comr. Budiyanto said last week that a survey showed listening to music and smoking a cigarette could break concentration and said the Jakarta Police would start disseminating information about fining those listening to music. His statement caused uproar among...Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5 2018

Jakarta Polices traffic division chief Sr. Comr. Halim Pagarra said on Sunday that he welcomed the city administrations plan to reopen traffic on Jl. Jatibaru in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta.



The administration closed the street, which passes a busy market district and a major train station, late last year to make way for street vendors to sell their wares. It only allowed Transjakarta buses to use the street. Its good. It means that [the administration] has followed my recommendation, he said as quoted by wartakota.tribunnews.com.



The closure of the street has caused controversy for months. While Tanah Abang market customers supported the new traffic arrangement, motorists complained about worsening congestion in the area. Public minivan drivers staged protests demanding the reopening of the street, claiming they had experienced declining revenu...Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 17:50 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c87fa07 1 National phone-registration Free

Three civil society organizations (CSO) have announced plans to legally challenge the governments mandatory phone registration policy, arguing that it compromised the safety of private data.

The Legal Aid Institute for the Press (LBH Pers), the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) and the Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet) said they have compiled reports from mobile phone users who claimed their personal information had been stolen because of the program.

One user, for example, reported that despite having only one phone number, his family card (KK) and citizenship identity (NIK) numbers had been registered under 50 different SIM cards.

Forcing or requiring [mobile phone users] to submit their personal data to their mobile provider, which is a third and a private party, without any [security] guarantee is terrible, PBHI program coordinator Julius Ibrani told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

He added that a lawsuit against the program would seek to protect the personal data of mobile phone users.

Giving our personal data to the government is all right because it has the responsibility to guarantee its security [] But the government cant force us to give our personal data to a third private party, he said.

He also highlighted the fact that the parties authorized to block unregistered prepaid mobile numbers were telecommunication providers, instead of the government.

The Communications and Information Ministry kicked off its registration program in October 2017, requiring all mobile phone users to register their phone numbers along with their KK and NIK by Feb. 28.

Users could either submit their data via text or at their respective mobile providers.

The Ministry announced on Wednesday that starting on March 1, providers will block unregistered mobile numbers.

Users will still be able to receive calls and text messages during a grace period until March 31, after which incoming calls and texts will also be blocked.

Should they fail to comply by May 1, all services on their phone will be blocked.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin (Bloomberg) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 18:45 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c881c7d 2 Business Indonesia,bank,CEO Free

Oki Ramadhana, who heads Morgan Stanleys Indonesian operations, will be leaving to join HSBC Holdings in a senior investment banking role in the country, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

He is expected to start in his new job at HSBC as soon as next month, pending approval from the Indonesian financial regulator, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isnt public. Ramadhana has worked at Morgan Stanley in the country for more than six years, his LinkedIn profile shows. His most recent title was president director of the investment banks local unit.

HSBC has been seeking to expand its operations in Indonesia, where it first established a branch in 1884 and initially helped finance the sugar trade. It bought PT Bank Ekonomi Raharja in 2009 and recently rebranded it PT Bank HSBC Indonesia, according to the lenders website.

Morgan Stanley ranked fourth among advisers on acquisitions involving Indonesian firms over the last five years, while HSBC was 24th, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The U.S. bank was seventh among equity underwriters operating in the country over the same period, compared with HSBCs rank of 27th, the data show.

HSBC and Morgan Stanley declined to comment in emailed statements.The person running Lidl Ireland's Twitter account deserves an award - or at least a hearty slap on the back - for their sense of humour in the face of adversity.

As you may have heard, the company had a rough time over the weekend when one of its stores in south Dublin was looted and pretty much destroyed in the snow on Friday night.

Presumably taking the theme 'If you don't laugh, you'll cry' and running with it, they took to social media to ask an important and fairly tongue-in-cheek question...

So err... anyone do anything nice over the weekend?  Lidl Ireland (@lidl_ireland) March 5, 2018

Fair play to them for keeping a smile on their face despite a pretty crap weekend.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 17:53 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c880422 1 Politics Jokowi,Joko-Widodo,Criminal-Code,Criminal-Code-amendment,KUHP,house-of-representatives Free

The National Alliance for Criminal Code Reforms has called on President Joko Jokowi Widodo to open talks with experts from various fields to discuss the Criminal Code bill currently being deliberated at the House of Representatives.

The Alliance said Jokowis recent meeting with four legal experts, namely Mahfud MD, Luhut Pangaribuan, Maruarar Siahaan and Edward Omar Sharif Hiariej, sent a signal that the bill was discussed with only a few legal experts despite the fact that it would have wide-ranging impacts once it was passed into law.

The bill may have a broad range of impacts on all aspects of human life, such as health, womens empowerment and child protection issues, said Erasmus Napitupulu, the managing director of the Alliance, in a statement made available to The Jakarta Post on Monday.

Erasmus said the Alliance was of the opinion that it was unnecessary for the House and the government to pass the bill on April 19 as expected, because there had not yet been enough preparations for its immediate ratification.

The Alliance perceived the current pressure for the immediate ratification of the Criminal Code bill to be only aimed at appeasing the romantic sentiment of certain parties, who wanted to get rid of Dutch colonialist elements in the current law.

There is no country in this world that has claimed originality of their laws. Our current Criminal Code draft revision has been composed mainly with that kind of romanticism as its basis, Erasmus said.

The President should hold a multidimensional dialogue and consultation to protect, respect and improve political and civil freedoms in society." (gis/ebf)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Kanga Kong (Bloomberg) Seoul  Mon, March 5, 2018 20:51 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c88643f 2 World #NorthKorea,#SouthKorea,#NorthKoreaNuclear,#USA,#KimJongUn Free

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held talks with top aides to South Koreas Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang on Monday, the presidents office said, in the first meeting between the leader of the isolated nation and officials from Seoul since he took power in 2011.

National Security Office head Chung Eui-yong and National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon were in the North Korean capital to persuade Kim to start talks with the US on denuclearization and stave off a potential conflict over his nuclear program. The envoys also planned to discuss with Pyongyang officials the release of three Korean-Americans detained in North Korea.

Kim hosted the envoys for a dinner that started at 6 p.m. Seoul time, a spokesman for Moon told a briefing. The delegation arrived around 2:50 p.m.

The South Korean envoys are due to travel to Washington later this week to discuss the results of their discussions with the Trump administration. Their two-day trip follows a visit by Kims sister to South Korea last month, when she invited Moon to North Korea to meet her brother for what would be the first inter-Korean summit for 11 years.

The Winter Olympics  including the Paralympics that run March 9-18  have provided a window to rebuild diplomatic ties after an escalating series of North Korean weapons tests last year prompted United Nations sanctions and threats of military action by US President Donald Trump. While both the US and North Korea say theyre open to talks, its unclear how much either side is willing to concede.

The meeting "shows Kim Jong-un wants to achieve his inter-Korean objectives laid out in his New Years Day address," said Duyeon Kim, visiting senior research fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum in Seoul. "It places much importance on the envoys visit while continuing his peace offensive tactics toward the South and portraying his country as normal, modern, and peace-loving."

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono told reporters in Tokyo that its important for efforts to be made in the talks toward denuclearization, Kyodo News reported.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters in a regular briefing in Beijing earlier Monday that China hopes the interaction between the two Koreas could bring about talks between North Korea and US. He added that China stands ready to play a positive role to realize denuclearization and achieve lasting peace on the peninsula.

Trump and Moon spoke about the situation in a 30-minute phone call last week. The White House said the leaders noted their firm position that any dialogue with North Korea must be conducted with the explicit and unwavering goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization.

Kims government says nuclear weapons are necessary to deter any US-led military action. A North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson told the official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday that the country wouldnt accept US preconditions.

We have intention to resolve issues in a diplomatic and peaceful way through dialogue and negotiation, but we will neither beg for dialogue nor evade the military option claimed by the US, the spokesperson said.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 11:02 1294 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c8610fe 4 Business Krakatau-Steel,US,steel,import-duties Free

Steel manufacturer PT Krakatau Steel has expressed its concerns over the United States' new steel and aluminum import policy, saying that the Indonesian market may be flooded by an influx of steel products from other countries.

Krakatau Steel president director Purwono Widodo said on Sunday in Jakarta that although the company did not export its steel products to the US, the new 25 percent import tax on steel products would cause a domino effect in the world market.

He said he was concerned about the entry of Chinese steel products into the Indonesian market, particularly if the products were prevented from entering the US market, according to the kontan.co.id report.

There is a possibility that China would shift its steel exports to Southeast Asian countries, Including Indonesia, Purwono said.

He added that export tax-free Chinese steel might flood the Indonesian steel market to create unfair competition with local steel products.

He expressed the hope that the government would introduce measures to protect the local steel industry, such as through regulations on the use of local products or local content requirements for steel products.

There could also be a requirement to use local products that are produced in Indonesia, Purwono added. (bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 14:17 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c875647 4 Business fintech,registration,OJK Free

From about 120 financial technology (fintech) companies currently operating in Indonesia, only 36 have registered with the Financial Services Authority (OJK).

Of the 36 companies, 34 operate in Greater Jakarta, while the remaining two are situated in Surabaya, East Java, and Ternate in North Maluku, according to the acting commissioner of OJKs non-bank financial industry supervisory department, M. Ihsanuddin as reported by kompas.com.

He added that 21 companies were supported by domestic investors, while 15 companies sourced their capital from foreign investors.

Another 42 fintech companies have expressed interest in registering with the OJK.

Ihsanuddin conceded that it was difficult for the OJK to identify the exact number of fintech companies operating in the country.

So, Indonesia could have more fintech companies, he said, adding that the amount of loans disbursed by these firms reached Rp 3 trillion (US$218.1 million) as of January, a 17 percent increase from the same period last year. (bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 11:45 1294 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c865659 4 Business offshore-airport,bali,Budi-Karya-Sumadi,comments Free

The central government will not prioritize the development of an offshore airport in northern Bali as proposed by the local government, saying that such a project was not urgent, according to Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi.

He stressed, however, that the central government was prepared to develop a second runway at I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport in the southern part of the resort island.

We prefer to empower the existing I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport, Budi said in Jakarta on Sunday as reported kompas.com.

Previously, he said that the ministry was carrying out a study on the proposal made by the Bali administration through PT Pandara International Bali Utara (BIBU) Panji Sakti, which has received support from a Canadian investor.

BIBU president director I Made Mangku said the company preferred to develop an offshore airport because the initial plan of an onshore airport would have sacrificed 33 Hindu temples, 121 historical sites, roads, residences and productive rice fields.

Made further explained that Bali Governor Mangku Pastika had prohibited the use of productive land, Hindu temples or historical sites for the development of a new airport. (bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani and Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5 2018

After his public defeat in last years Jakarta gubernatorial elections, Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono swiftly returned to the political arena with a bigger goal: to escalate the Democratic Partys position nationwide for the 2019 legislative and presidential elections.



The eldest son of former president and chairman of the Democratic Party Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Agus had continued his political safari after the party appointed him as the head of the partys campaign team

last month.



He met over coffee with newly appointed Golkar Party chairman Airlangga Hartarto on Wednesday. As a newcomer in politics, he made the visit representing his fathers party to meet Golkar, the countrys oldest political party and the second-largest in the House of Representatives.



Democratic Party executive Rachland Nashidik had previously said the party was open to any poss...Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Arya Dipa (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Bandung  Mon, March 5 2018

Hundreds of women and men marched on the streets of at least seven cities in Indonesia over the weekend in the Womens March, which carried messages protesting violence against women but also voicing diverse issues beyond gender equality.



Staying true to the global Womens March, which began last year, Indonesias march also addressed discrimination and human rights issues related to women, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, the disabl...Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Aman Rochman (The Jakarta Post) Malang, East Java  Mon, March 5, 2018 19:15 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c882878 1 National 2018-Women-March,International-Women-Day,international-womens-day,Malang,East-Java,sexual-abuse,sexual-harassment,sexual-violence Free

A lack of safe public spaces for women was among issues highlighted by dozens of womens rights activists taking part in a march held to mark International Womens Day at the Malang Monument Square in East Java on Monday.

Rally coordinator Maryam Jameelah said that during the event, activists had called on local administrations to play greater roles to ensure the safety and security of women who used public facilities.

Public areas must be supported by adequate street lighting for the sake of womens safety, she said.

Maryam said marches were held in 12 cities across Indonesia to mark Womens Day.

They were Bandung in West Java, Denpasar in Bali, Kupang in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), Lampung, Malang in East Java, Pontianak in West Kalimantan, Salatiga in East Java, Serang in Banteng, Sumba in NTT, Surabaya in East Java, Tondano in North Sulawesi and Yogyakarta.

Policies on womens protection are different in each area, said Maryam.

Seeking safer places: Women's rights activists call on the government to ensure women's safety and security in public spaces during the 2018 Women's March in Malang, East Java, on March 5. (JP/Aman Rochman)

Malang Women Crisis Center (WCC) coordinator Sri Wahyuni said the prevalence of sexual harassment and violence against women in Malang was high.

From January to March, the WCC Malang received 21 reports of sexual harassment and violence against women, which occurred both in domestic and public spheres.

Public spaces are not safe for women. Local administrations must improve facilities so women can be more comfortable and safer in carrying out activities in public, said Sri. (ebf)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Ganug Nugroho Adi (The Jakarta Post) Surakarta, Central Java  Mon, March 5, 2018 14:25 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c876414 1 National pilgrimage,umrah,umrah-pilgrims,Abu-Tours-and-Travel,surakarta,Central-Java,police Free

Hundreds of people who had paid to go on umrah (minor Islamic pilgrimage) have reported travel agency PT Amanah Bersama Umat Abu Tours and Travel to the Surakarta Police on Saturday in Central Java, accusing the travel agent of defrauding them for failing to send them to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

The customers hail from several areas in and around Surakarta, consisting of the city of Surakarta and the regencies of Boyolali, Karanganyar, Klaten, Sragen, Sukoharjo and Wonogiri.

Abu Tours and Travel had been reported earlier to the police by thousands of would-be pilgrims from several cities around Indonesia, including Majene in West Sulawesi, Makassar in South Sulawesi and Malang in East Java.

As of today, 205 would-be pilgrims have reported [the travel agency]. They should have departed in January, said First Insp. Sudarmiyanto of the Surakarta Polices Criminal Investigation Unit.

Seeking justice: Customers who purchased 'umrah' pilgrimage packages from PT Amanah Bersama Umat Abu Tours and Travel report the travel agency to the Surakarta Police on Mar. 3. (JP/Ganug Nugroho Adi)

Sudarmiyanto said most of the victims had fully paid the umrah costs of Rp 16 million (US$1,163.20) per person. Abu Tours had given them a discount on the normal price of Rp 21 million per person.

Such a large discount had lured many people to purchase the umrah pilgrimage [package] from Abu Tours. They were even willing to spend hours queuing at the agencys office on Jl. Adi Sucipto in Karangasem, Surakarta, to get a seat on the umrah pilgrimage, said Sudarmiyanto.

Sri Syamsiah, 48, said she and three members of her family should have departed in the middle of January. [The trip] has been delayed three times and there is no certainty on whether we will depart. Thats why I filed a police report, she said. (ebf)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Rome, Italy  Mon, March 5, 2018 12:35 1294 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c86d023 2 World Italy,election,Far-Right Free

Italy's election appears to leave a hung parliament in which no single party or coalition commands an overall majority according to projections based on preliminary results, leaving few options for any new government.

The prospect of a grand coalition between Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy) party and the ruling centre-left Democratic Party against the surging populists and far-right appears no longer feasible.

Here are three main possible scenarios:

Populist, far-right alliance

Both the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the far-right League party have ruled out the possibility of a post-election pact but this is currently the only option that looks like it would command a majority.

According to the latest projections, the two parties together would hold 355 seats in the 630-seat lower house of parliament and 168 seats in the 315-seat upper house.

Both parties are heavily eurosceptic and League leader Matteo Salvini has been accused of stirring up racial tensions. A tie-up could cause shockwaves around Europe.

Right-wing coalition

Preliminary results make this remote as the coalition is predicted to win only 37 percent of the vote, including 18 percent for the League and 14 percent for Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy) party.

The final result of the vote in terms of seats is hard to predict, however, as Italy is using a new electoral law for the first time that combines proportional representation with a first-past-the post system.

If the coalition does win a majority and the League comes in ahead of Forza Italia, this would open the prospect of far-right Salvini being nominated as Italy's next prime minister.

Stalemate

If there is no clear majority, President Sergio Mattarella could choose to leave in place the current centre-left government of Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

This would allow time to set up a temporary government to reform the electoral law and organise new elections.

But the process would take time as consultations could only start after parliament's newly-elected lawmakers meet for the first time on March 23 to elect speakers.

After a stalemate following Italy's last election in 2013, it took more than two months to form a government.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Mon, March 5, 2018 15:44 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c87a232 1 City umrah,umrah-pilgrims,pilgrimage,First-Travel,Fraud,fraud-suspect Free

A follow-up hearing of an umrah (minor haj) travel scam involving tours and travel company First Travel was held on Monday at the Depok District Court in West Java.

Five witnesses, comprising four agents and one would-be umrah pilgrim, conveyed their testimonies against three defendants, namely Andika Surachman, Anniesa Hasibuan and Siti Nuraidah Kiki Hasibuan, in the hearing.

Seven witnesses were summoned to give their testimonies in todays hearing, but only five of them were ready to attend the hearing, prosecutor Heri Jerman told journalists as quoted by tribunnews.com in Depok on Monday.

Personnel from the women's police corps (Polwan) were seen on guard in and around the courtroom when the hearing kicked off at 10 a.m. local time. A number of victims of the umrah scam case attended the hearing.

As reported earlier, Andika, Anniesa and Kiki Hasibuan were accused of having committed fraud against 63,310 customers who had bought umrah travel packages from their company.

The three defendants were also charged with having misused Rp 905 billion (US$63.35 million) worth umrah funds paid by the would-be pilgrims. (gis/ebf)Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Kharishar Kahfi and Marguerite Afra Sapiie (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Tue, March 6 2018

People on social media and mobile messaging platforms were stunned over the weekend when news broke that former president Burhanuddin Jusuf Habibie was hospitalized in Munich, Germany.



His personal assistant, Rubijanto, said Indonesias third president was admitted to a clinic due to a heart problem. His wife, Hasri Ainun Habibie, died of heart complications in 2010.



I heard it from him myself, Rubijanto said on Monday.



It all started last Tuesday when Habibie complained of shortness of breath. He was later taken to a clinic, where doctors found a leaky heart valve.



Despite the initial finding, Rubijanto added that Habibie had yet to receive any surgery. Habibie is still staying in the hospital as doctors still need to make...Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Bangkok, Thailand  Mon, March 5, 2018 17:20 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c87f60c 2 SE Asia Thailand,Cambodia,Tourist,attack Free

A Thai court has sentenced five Cambodian fishermen to 50 years each for a violent 2016 attack on French tourists in which two women were raped, an official said Monday.

The men were given the maximum allowable sentence on a raft of charges, including rape, following their arrest more than two years ago for the attack on the Thai island Koh Kut, also known as Koh Kood.

"All five defendants were found guilty of rape, light assault and serious assault," a court official in Thailand's Trat province told AFP, adding that they were also fined.

One was also convicted of attempted murder, said the official, who did not identify the defendants by name.

The secluded and underdeveloped island of Koh Kut is close to Thailand's eastern border with Cambodia, and police say the men swam to the beach to attack the group of four French holidaygoers at knifepoint in February 2016.

Two injured men escaped to alert authorities and the fishermen were arrested shortly afterwards.

While Thailand remains a safe destination with 35 million visitors last year, a number of gruesome, headline-grabbing crimes against foreigners have hurt the country's reputation as a tourist haven.

In 2015 two Myanmar migrant workers were sentenced to death for the 2014 murder of two British backpackers, one of whom was raped, on the diving island of Koh Tao after an investigation and trial that was widely criticized as unfair.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin (Agence France-Presse) Manila, Philippines  Mon, March 5, 2018 14:10 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c874157 2 SE Asia ASEAN,Philippines,duterte,summit Free

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is skipping a regional summit in Australia this month, his spokesman said Monday, as he faces international censure for Manila's deadly drug war.

Duterte's decision to snub the meeting comes after he said he would not cooperate with United Nations investigators looking into alleged extrajudicial killings during the narcotics crackdown, which has left thousands dead.

His spokesman Harry Roque confirmed that the outspoken leader would not join fellow Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders for the March 17-18 summit in Sydney.

"Developments at home continue to require the president's presence in the Philippines," Roque told reporters.

Australia was among several countries to raise concern about the Philippine anti-drug war's death toll at a UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva last year.

Duterte was elected in 2016 on a promise to eradicate drugs and launched an unprecedented campaign in which police say they have killed more than 4,100 drug suspects who resisted arrest.

However rights groups estimate there have been more than 12,000 deaths in all, including people murdered by shadowy vigilante groups.

Duterte, who last week told police and soldiers not to cooperate with any probe, is also facing a preliminary examination by the International Criminal Court over alleged extrajudicial killings.

Roque said Duterte would send Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano as his representative to the summit, while the president attends the graduation ceremony of the Philippine Military Academy.

Duterte plans to use the event to speak to young officers about the fight against "modern-day terrorism" among other topics, Roque added.

Duterte is not the only ASEAN leader feeling the heat over his rights record.

Last month, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen threatened to "shame" Australia and block the release of a joint statement at the March summit if he faces pressure over a political crackdown at home.

The strongman has been chastised by Western countries for taking a hammer to Cambodia's democracy in recent months by dissolving the main opposition party, shuttering independent news outlets and pursuing critics in the courts.

Australia is a dialogue partner of ASEAN, which groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.Share this article Whatsapp

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin Supalak Ganjanakhundee (The Nation/ANN) Bangkok  Mon, March 5, 2018 14:30 1293 2c798a31c212039f000dc5df9c876bbc 2 SE Asia #Rohingya,#RohingyaCrisis,#Myanmar,#MyanmarRohingya,#RefugeeCrisis,#refugees,#ASEAN,#ASEANCommunity Free

Sultana Razia, a Rohingya teacher from Chittagong, exposed such atrocities perpetrated against her Muslim minority group during a conference on Myanmar genocide held in Berlin last Monday.

Systematic rape is a weapon of war used by Myanmar armed forces in its clearance operation to force Muslim Rohingya to vacate Rakhine state, according to experts attending the conference.

Arson, torture, rape, murder and massacres have been reported by international organisations, rights defenders and media. The United Nations used the term ethnic cleansing, but many Rohingya and experts have referred to the campaign in recent months not as ethnic cleansing, but as genocide.

Yanghee Lee, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar, said recently the military operation against Rohingya bore the hallmarks of genocide.

Genocide, by definition under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, is killing; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

The Myanmar authority has systematically and intentionally denied the existence and identity of Rohingya, said Ro Tun Khin, president of Burmese Rohingya Organisation in the United Kingdom, adding that the state of affairs had persisted since his childhood.

Born and growing up in Rakhine state, which was formerly known as Arakan, Ro Tun Khin said he moved to the UK 16 years ago when he was 17 years old, but kept in touch with Rohingya in his home country and in Bangladesh where nearly one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar have taken shelter. Violence against Rohingya has recurred over the past decades, which culminated in the exodus of about 700,000 Rohingya refugees after the Arakan Rohingya Solidarity Army (ARSA) militant group attacked Myanmar security officials last August.

The attack prompted a so-called clearance operation by the Tatmadaw, as Myanmars military is known, which killed thousands of people and displaced hundreds of thousands. Many Rohingya told The Nation that the operation was a part of a comprehensive plan to evict the stigmatized ethnic minority from the country.

The clearance operation is still ongoing with hundreds of Rohingya continuing to flee from Rakhine on a daily basis, said both Ro Tun Khin and Siyeed Alam, chairman of Rohingya Association in Thailand.

When I met victims in the last two weeks, they told me they had been threatened by Rakhine extremists who are forcing Rohingya into starvation because they cannot go to the market for food, they cannot go to the rice fields and they cannot go fishing, Ro Tun Khin said.

Perhaps only some 70,000 people remain in Buthidaung, which used to be crowded, Siyeed said.

They intentionally destroyed the whole Rohingya community. From my point of view as a legal expert, if they did this intentionally, it is genocide, Ro Tun Khin said in a phone interview from Europe.

The allegation was serious but the international community is unlikely to take concrete action to stop the atrocities, Ro Tun Khin said.

Rohingya communities in the United States, Europe and Southeast Asia have called for the international community, the United Nations and notably ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member, to take urgent action to stop the genocide.

This is the 21st century, and the population should not be treated in that way. Mass rape, mass killing and even taking a baby from a mother and throwing it into a fire are unspeakable and unimaginable, he said.

ASEAN should call an immediate meeting to discuss how to stop the genocide and Myanmar should be excluded from ASEAN if the military continued to act in this way, Ro Tun Khin said.

While Western countries such as the US and members of the EU have denounced the atrocities and pressured Myanmar, Anusorn Chaiaksornwet, a Thai scholar at Walailak University, has called on ASEAN, its current chair Singapore and neighboring Thailand to play constructive roles to end the crisis.

Singapore could lead ASEAN to address the Rohingya issue this year and I hope Thailand will do a good job on that issue when it takes the chairmanship next year. We should have a clear policy to focus on human rights issues in the region, as the country previously did, he said.

Singapores Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who has held office long enough to understand ASEAN very well, should lead the group to tackle problems in Myanmar, Anusorn said.

Thailand should play a role in bridging Myanmar and ASEAN and the international community, if the Kingdom wanted to resume its leadership role, he said. But there is no sign to indicate the country will do the job, so far, he added.

Rohingya including Ro Tun Khin have said an advisory board headed by former Thai foreign minister Surakiart Sathirathai will not fix the problem but merely whitewash the image of Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

However, ASEAN jointly has welcomed Surakiarts role to help implement recommendations made by a panel on Rakhine led by former UN chief Kofi Annan.

An immediate concern for the Rohingya community around the world is the bilateral deal between Dhaka and Nay Pyi Taw to repatriate the refugees to what they consider to be prison camps in Rakhine state.

The two countries reached an agreement in November to send refugees back to Myanmar within two years, but the process has been delayed since late January because of a lack of readiness and safety concerns.

Violence is still going on with houses being burned, lands taken and at least 55 communities being bulldozed, reportedly to make way for new economic zones.

From the Myanmar government side, the attitude toward Rohingya has not changed, said Ro Tun Khin, We belong to Myanmar. We are not asking for a separate state. We want our rights and we want a protected return to a protected homeland.

Topics :

This article appeared on The Nation newspaper website, which is a member of Asia News Network and a media partner of The Jakarta PostPosted Sunday, March 4, 2018 11:00 pm

In the 1850s, hundreds of thousands of people descended on the western United States in search of their fortune in the California Gold Rush. In 2018, the most precious commodity to a small town, not unlike those that exploded more than 160 years ago, is innovation and it looks like Hillsboro may have struck gold.

Following the lead of others who are trying to better their community, Hillsboro native Devin Moroney and friends Brian Lee and Matt Sands have launched a new side project called The Gold Pan, which will bring two fairly rare commodities, a recording studio and a record store, to the county seat.

"I was living in Denver for about five or six years, but I was born and raised here. I just started thinking about what it would be like to move home," Moroney said of how The Gold Pan came about. "If I was going to do it, I had to have something that I could really look forward to. I started thinking that it would be cool to own a building downtown and make it a house and a studio. Once I had that idea, I was pretty excited and I kind of had to do it."

Moroney and his wife Emilie, also a Hillsboro grad, purchased the building that sits at 309 South Main and had the second floor renovated to become a home for the family, which also includes their son Andre. That's where Brian Lee enters the picture.

"I was the carpenter for Devin's house upstairs and we were talking about how he wanted his studio to feel connected to the street," said Lee.

He is 50/50 partner with Sands in the record shop while Moroney will run the studio. "My friend Matt and I had been collecting records for a while and I think there was just a click at some point."

"We always talked about how if we had the chance, it would be cool to open a store," said Sands, who became friends with Lee after shopping in his previous record store in Greenville. "Before, you had to drive an hour in any direction to find a record store. Now we have one in town, which is awesome. If this was here five years ago and I wasn't a part of it, I would have shopped here all the time. It's awesome to have one local and have it be stocked with neat stuff."

The passion for The Gold Pan is evident when talking to the trio. All three have other jobs (Moroney works remotely from Hillsboro for the same television station he worked for in Denver, while Lee is a contractor and Sands works at the Waggoner Post Office), so the limited scope of their product is less of a worry financially.

"It's definitely a side business," Lee said. "Devin's not like, 'I think we're going to make a million bucks at this.' He's like, 'I don't care. I want to do it, because I like it,' and I'm the same way."

In addition to just taking their hobby and, as Sands put it, "cranking it to 11," Moroney said that the opportunity to give something back to his community is something that drew him back home and to build the studio.

He said that the idea occurred to him on a trip to Italy with his wife and how it seemed that Americans sometimes look for more opportunities to leave home as they grow up.

" This guy at this awesome pizza joint that I stumbled into on a side street in Italy was probably born and raised there," Moroney said. "I started thinking about that a little bit and Imagine Hillsboro was just getting started."

Moroney drew some inspiration from some of the things that the group and other businesses were doing to keep Hillsboro vibrant and alive, planting the seed for what would eventually become The Gold Pan.

"It wasn't necessarily a place that I would have wanted to come back to before I started seeing a little bit of hope and promise and people imagining," Moroney said of Hillsboro. "Once that started happening, I started imagining how I could contribute. How could I bring my passion to Hillsboro and have that better the community in some way, or at least contribute to it."

Moroney hopes that the recording studio will give area musicians an affordable opportunity to record their music, even if they had never thought about doing so or thought that it would be too expensive.

In time, he wants to host a podcast that will bring in songwriters, who will not only perform their songs, but also talk about the stories and ideas that inspired those songs. The conversations wouldn't just be for the podcast though.

"I want to invite the community in. They'll get to see this conversation with a neat songwriter and hear some really good songs," Moroney said of the podcast/intimate concert idea.

And even though The Gold Pan is still in its infancy (the record store opened for the first time on March 2, while Moroney is hoping the studio will be ready in late April or early May), the community has already shown its love for this new project.

Dozens of individuals have shared their talents in making the dream come to life, from Jeff Dunn donating antique wood panels that make up part of the wall dividing the studio and the record store to a custom sign created by Tony Marcolini and designed by Blake Holderread to three large prints by local photographer Josh Randle that hang on the wall of the record store. There is also a logo designed by Isaac Reynolds and a fake warhead donated by Dennis Carlock, better known as Rotten Rod.

"It's like we took everyone that was good at something from around here, took their best and blended it together," Lee said of the collective effort that The Gold Pan has become. "It has to fit really within our exact tastes, but everything that does, I feel like it builds a really cool story."

Moroney also set up a Kickstarter crowd-funding site for the project after using most of his own funds to renovate the living area of the building. He set a goal of $3,000 to help him purchase the essentials for the recording studio and through the generosity of friends and family, hit that mark in two days.

The way Kickstarter works, you only get the funds if you meet your goal, but once you do, everything extra is just icing on the cake.

"The more successful the Kickstarter is, the better equipment I can get, the better artists I can bring in and the more people will want to come here," Moroney said of the Kickstarter, which ends on March 17. "With the podcast idea, I'll be able to get better artists to come in, which will be beneficial to the community and to people who want to see good art."

In return for the financial support, backers of the Kickstarter can choose from rewards offered by The Gold Pan, which include a coffee mug (at the $15-plus level), T-shirts ($25-plus), hats ($30-plus) and even time in the recording studio, ranging from a single to a full 10 song album.

While the Kickstarter is helping ensure the success of the studio, music fans will hold the success of the record store in their hands.

"For this business to work, the record side of it, we have to buy tons of used records. I would put out a sign that says "We Buy Records!" but it would remind me too much of the "We Buy Gold" signs. That's our main goal," Lee said of the store, which will be open from noon until 4:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. "We cover a lot of styles, but mostly soul, blues, psychedelic music, straight up classic rock, rock, 50's rock, all that stuff. We especially want anything super weird or unusual. We do not sell much big band. We have a little bit of country, but it's more bluegrass than country."

While how much money the businesses earn won't be known for a while, the fact that they are in Hillsboro in the first place makes them a success.

"Just seeing Devin in here listening to music today, I was like, 'Dang, this is in Hillsboro!'" Lee said. "It doesn't even matter what the money situation is, it's just awesome to be here."

The origin of the name of the business comes in part from Moroney's love affair with music and the overall goal of the studio.

"I have a cheesy romantic idea of songwriting and trying to capture the little nuggets," he explained. "And that's what I'm trying to do here."

Congrats, Hillsboro. You struck gold.

For more on The Gold Pan Recording Studio and Record Store, visit their Kickstarter at http://kck.st/2EW6bm6 or by searching "The Gold Pan: Recording Studio" on kickstarter.com. You can also find them on Facebook at www.facebook.com/thegoldpan.Posted Sunday, March 4, 2018 11:00 pm

Montgomery County property owners are warned to disregard letters they may receive in the mail from two companies, the "Local Records Office" from Pekin and the "Records Recovery Services" from Naperville, advising them to buy a copy of the deed to their property and a "property profile" for a cost of $87 to $89. County Clerk/Recorder Sandy Leitheiser has received more reports from constituents about this consumer rip-off, which looks official because it includes public information, such as the owner's name, the property's address, tax property I.D. number and assessment data. She wants to pass along a warning to residents to not pay for this unneeded service.

"If you have the original recorded deed to your home, you don't need another copy," said Leitheiser. "Additionally, if you ever need a copy or a certified copy, we at your County Recorder's Office will always have it for you in most instances at a very low, reasonable cost."

The County Recorder's Office on the first floor of the Historic Courthouse in Hillsboro has copies of all land deeds in Montgomery County and has every deed recorded from 1822 to the present, and will for the future. The cost of a copy of a non-certified deed in Montgomery County is 25 cents a page if the customer copies it and 50 cents a page if recorder's office staff provides a copy, with the highest charge not to exceed $2.

Leitheiser notes that sadly, the elderly are particular targets of this scam, as the letter scares them into paying for something they usually already have or don't need.

Those with questions regarding recorded Montgomery County land records are encouraged to contact Leitheiser or her office's recording department staff at the Montgomery County Clerk/Recorder's Office at 217-532-9535.In the past couple of months, David Santiago, Sr. had a lot to celebrate. Fifty years after his family was forced from their Lower East Side home in the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, he had just moved into a new apartment at Essex Crossing. This morning, unfortunately, we have some heartbreaking news to report. Over the weekend, Santiago was found dead in his apartment of an apparent heart attack. He was only 57.

Santiago was featured in the New York Times and on television when the first Essex Crossing building, a senior rental property at 175 Delancey St., officially opened Jan. 29. The California-based chef had moved back to New York to help care for his mother, who lives in the Grand Street Guild apartments. As a former Seward Park site tenant, he had priority status in an affordable housing lottery for the new rental units. Santiago was one of six former residents of the urban renewal area who moved into the building.

Family and friends had been invited to a house-warming party at Santiagos apartment on Saturday. One of the guests, local resident Dashia Imperiale, said there was no answer when they knocked at the door. Another longtime friend, Daisy Paez, called over to the 7th Precinct for help getting into the apartment. Officers found Santiagos body in his bedroom.

Two of Santiagos sons, David, Jr. and Dominic, talked with us by telephone early yesterday evening. Speaking of his dad, David, Jr. said, hell be remembered for his food and his personality. He was a tough guy, but also a teddy bear. Santiago was a chef in Los Angeles for many years. On the Lower East Side, he was involved in Suba, a Ludlow Street restaurant that closed in 2009. Santiago learned to cook in his uncles pizza restaurant on Delancey Street.

Santiagos sons told us their dad had been battling health issues. He suffered two previous heart attacks, but was trying to live a healthier lifestyle. When we visited his apartment a few weeks ago, Santiago said he was cooking nutritious meals almost every night (his Instagram feed is full of beautiful home-cooked dishes). He was a doting grandfather of four (Victoria Dominique, Nicholas, Samantha and Gisselle). In posing for photos on his living room sofa, Santiago insisted on holding a picture of Victoria, who was just born 18 months ago.

His sons told us Santiago was a big supporter of LGBT rights and that theyll always remember him as, an outspoken person in our community, a good person and a great grandfather.

Funeral arrangements are being made for later this week. We will update this story with details when we receive them.

UPDATE 3/7 The viewing for David Santiago, Sr. will take place Friday, March 9 from 4-8 p.m. at Provenzano Lanza Funeral Home, 42 Second Avenue. A fundraising campaign has been set up on behalf of the family to help pay funeral expenses. Heres the link.There were some changes to this years Oscars, but are they enough?

Image courtesy of Disney/ABC

In light of the accusations levelled against Casey Affleck, best actress was announced not by the previous winner of best actor, but by Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster. Rachel Morrison became the first woman to be nominated for best cinematography. The talking point of the evening was Best Actress Winner Frances McDormands speech, which encouraged all female nominees to stand together and celebrate. It felt like quite a different ceremony.



Yet, dig a little deeper, and things dont seem quite so rosy. Two winners, Gary Oldman (Best Actor) and Kobe Bryant (Best Animated Short), have caused eyebrows to raise in light of their pasts. Bryant was charged with sexual assaulting a waitress in 2003, a case which never came to court, but which he later settled in a civil case. Oldman was accused of assaulting his ex-wife in 2001, although no charges were ever brought. Despite the lack of convictions, the privileged position these two men were given at last nights awards has to make us wonder how seriously the Academy is taking their commitment to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

And its not just the Academy whose involvement has made me uncomfortable. Seeing the pride with which guests at the 2018 Golden Globes and Grammys wore black outfits and white flowers left me wondering what they were hoping to achieve. Following Frances McDormands rejection of a similar dress code at the BAFTAs because she "[has] a little trouble with compliance," she received widespread adulation both in the auditorium and online. In contrast, the Duchess of Cambridges non-black dress was the subject of attention in mainstream and social media, despite the Royal Family rarely engaging in political movements in public. These divergent perceptions of McDormand (a hero) and the Duchess (unsupportive) seem to act against the point of #MeToo, which encourages female solidarity and cohesion.

Besides which, choosing a glamorous black gown which guarantees media coverage isn't a hardship for the Hollywood elite  its not as if they wouldnt have had their pick of the finest and freshest couture. Given that a little black dress is most womens go-to outfit for a formal event, its not even as if the colour was especially significant. As the colour of mourning, one has to question exactly what they were grieving for: The lost innocence? The women who have been affected? Or the old way of doing things?

Of course, wearing symbolic items didnt start and end with the #TimesUp movement. From poppies to ribbons to wristbands, charities have employed the tactic for many years, whilst most of us can remember school non-uniform days which asked us to wear silly socks, pink tops or crazy hats for a specific cause. The difference here is that the main reason for wearing these items was to encourage us to donate money. With #TimesUp, wearing the items seems to be the main event.

Thats not to say that 2018 hasnt seen some changes. This year, only two of the Oscar Best Picture nominations didnt pass the Bechdel test, in itself an outdated measure used to analyse how woman-friendly a film is. To pass, a film needs to have two women who talk to each other about something (anything!) other than men. This year, only Dunkirk and Darkest Hour failed to meet this quite basic benchmark, which is a step up on last year when more than half the nominated films failed, including the winner, Moonlight. Still, can we really call it progress when only half the Oscar winning Best Pictures of the past decade have passed the test, in comparison with 70% during the 1990s?

Lets go deeper still, past the headlines and speeches. Of the nine nominated Best Pictures this year, only three had women listed as directors or writers. The rest were all-round male projects. The significance of this is debatable, but it seems impossible that so few women are creating and telling stories of consequence and quality. That its taken until 2018 for a woman to even be nominated for best cinematographer should ring alarm bells, especially as Rachel Morrisons standing within the industry is such that she was chosen to work on Marvels Black Panther. How has she gone unrecognised for so long by the Academy?

And then we come to money. A dirty word, maybe, but even dirtier are the kinds of inequality that still exist within the film industry, even at the very highest level. According to Forbes, of the top thirty highest-earning actors between June 2016 and June 2017, the top fourteen were all male. Only ten women were even named on the list, whilst the top man, Mark Wahlberg, received over twice as much as the top woman, Emma Stone. Its worth noting that Wahlberg, despite being nominated, has never won an Oscar or a Golden Globe; Stone has won both.

You might argue that the #TimesUp and #MeToo movements real effects are yet to be felt, with the changes weve seen at this years awards ceremonies just a stepping stone to better things. But #MeToo is over a decade old now, having been started on MySpace in 2006 by civil rights activist Tarana Burke. Her purpose was to raise awareness of the pervasiveness of sexual assault and abuse in womens everyday lives, a purpose still relevant today, where 1 in 5 women have been sexually assaulted and between 20 and 53 per cent of women report having been sexually harassed at work. Yet it took 11 years for #MeToo to reach the mainstream, only being picked up by Hollywood following the Harvey Weinstein scandal.

This reactivity instead of proactivity is something which needs to change going forwards, and thats going to be the interesting thing to see. That were now talking about the issue and statistics like those above are so prevalent in the media is in part due to these campaigns, but theres a long way to go. Dress codes and rhetoric only go so far, because this issue is bigger than wearing black dresses or white roses, rewarding women writers or actresses. Its bigger than the Academy or Hollywood, and its time that the film industry recognised that.

Its time #TimesUp worked for the rest of us too.Nineteen-year-old Anok Yai is a Sudanese model, in 2000 her family sought asylum in America after they fled the Sudanese Genocide. Raised in the US, Yai is studying biochemistry in the hope of becoming a doctor. She signed a major modelling agency after a photographer shared a picture of her taken at Howard University's homecoming weekend in October 2017. Yai announced that she had been signed by Next Models, nine days after the photograph went viral.Howard graduate Steve Hall took the photograph after he spotted other people taking pictures of Yai on their phones. In January, she made her runway debut at Prada's menswear and was featured in the PRADA S/S 2018 campaign.In an interview with Vogue, Yai reminisces over childhood memories, watching America's Next Top Model with her sister. "When I was younger, I was insecure about my skin because I looked up to people in the Imdeia and, though I looked up to black women, I never saw black women that were as dark as me," she said. "I definitely want to be a role model for young dark-skinned girls and girls in general. I want to bring to light ideas of self-love and self-confidence."The University of Cambridge is considering implementing its own specific pension schemes after students expressed anxiety over the strikes.

Cambridge staff are in the middle of a 14 days strike, set to take place over four weeks as they protest changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), which would see staff lose an average of 10,000 a year in pensions. However, UUK maintains that the current pension scheme is operating at a 6 billion deficit.

The strikes, which began on Thursday 22nd February, are the largest in the history of the UCU.

Cambridges Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stephen Toope, said that the university might consider introducing its own pension schemes. He published a statement urging the unions to end the dispute, adding that a compromise is needed to avoid further disruption for students.

"The current situation cannot go on. It has, understandably, led to anger from staff and anxiety from students," he wrote.

"I, therefore, urge the parties to agree to a pragmatic solution to bring to an end the current dispute. Once this has been achieved we can focus on a long-term, sustainable solution which is in the best interests of the sector, the university and individual members of the USS."

Acas mediated talks between union representatives and employers are scheduled to take place today.

Professor Toope stressed that there would be "serious obstacles" to introducing this scheme as it would involve trade-offs and cuts in other parts of the university.

Featured article image courtesy of Robert LiowUnfortunately, The Content Is Not Here

You have arrived at this page because the page or post you were looking for no longer exists. Please check our main navigation pages for other content: 

Home PageThis Account has been suspended.

Contact Our Office for reconnections.Moustapha Sene

Two limitless local resourcesenergy from the sun and local confidence that's what it takes to win, asserts CEO of Energy Resources Senegal, Moustapha Sene

DAKAR, Senegal, February 28, 2018/ -- Moustapha Sene is soft-spoken, but he is sure of what he's doing and has proved a rare knack for seeing the obvious. A company his family started 25 years ago, Sahel Gaz, has been transforming free air from the atmosphere to produce oxygen for local hospitals. The idea of converting nature into revenue while building communities has become a passion.



One afternoon in 2015 while the sun beat down on his SUV in Dakar traffic, Sene, whose family-owned cluster of companies including edible oil, metallic construction, and industrial and medical gases, was struck again by the obvious. Widely available technology, dropping the cost of solar panels, and free, unlimited sunshine, he reasoned. What business person would not see the value of acquiring your primary ingredient as a gift from Nature? The value-proposition for Sene was secured with imagination and confidence.



Three years later, Senegal's first indigenous solar power station has begun to produce 20 megawatts of electricity which Sene's company Energy Resources Senegal (ERS) (www.ERSenegal.com) sells back to the state-owned power company Senelec as part of a well-structured power purchase agreement.



Beyond the free sunlight  his 40-hectare solar farm in the Koalack region 200 kilometers from Dakar receives 3000 hours of direct sunlight a year  Sene woke up to another truth: Senegal's priority for quality education produces great local technical talent and highly skilled labor. Why should we think we need to import brains? he asks. His entire team is Senegalese and locally educated from the electrical engineers to his financial advisors. ERS employs 15 people and is growing.



Senegalese President Macky Sall has placed renewable energy high on his list of national goals, and four solar plants have come online in the last 18 months with the percentage of citizens using clean energy in this West African nation of 15 million, rising at an astounding pace from about 10% to over 21% in less than two years. President Macky Sall predicts the rate will rise to over 30% in the near future. At this rate, solar and wind energy will entirely drive Senegal's power needs sooner than we anticipated, Sene adds.



The Kahone solar plant is already bringing electricity to over 150 000 households in this central region of the country where everyone feels the need for electricity. One local tailor remembers the days he was unable to work at all because the current was cut. We were at a standstill until the juice for our sewing machines came back. Those days are over.



Energy Resources Senegal is helping to keep local businesses in business and is now even able to help provide basic services to communities that have been socially off-the-grid as well. One of Sene's personal goals is to renovate and upgrade the often decrepit structures used for community schools.



Moustapha Sene who was educated in Dakar and in Canada could have opted for a corporate position in Europe or North America, but his respect for his father, Alla Sene, who started the first family business in the streets of Dakar back in the 50s with no education and no cash, combined with his hope for his children to believe in a truly emerging Africa has kept him invested in a Senegal that he has helped evolve. His 22-year-old daughter finishes an MBA at NYU this semester in energy and the environment and plans to bring her knowledge back home too.



What we have done in Koalack with the Kahone solar plant we can share with local entrepreneurs across West Africa and beyond, he told a group of regional investors. We have the local know-how and engineering, we have the local financial talent to provide and structure economic models for the Industry. And of course, there is no shortage of sun. We have to learn how to master technologies on our own and start to invest more in our own confidence to produce local wealth, he says.



The Senegalese Ministry of Energy and the pro-active Senelec, with its Plan Yeesal (meaning renewal in Wolof), is proving to be among Africa's most ambitious players in the renewables sector. Power Purchase Agreements, the kind that Energy Resources Senegal has signed  a 25-year engagement  is proving that as long as the sunlight is free, native solutions to old problems in the energy sector have arrived.



Curiously, Sene adds the greatest challenge to creating new wealth is not the cost of innovation as many think; it is the work to get beyond our traditional reflexes.



If Sene keeps seizing the obvious ERSs ambition to develop and build a total of 500MW solar and wind projects on the African continent before the end of 2025, just may happen.



Source: Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Energy Resources Senegal (ERS).No Deja Vu for Watertown: Andrew Czech's late field goal, stopped Hail Mary lift Arrows past Huron

HURON  For the second time in three weeks, a Watertown High School football game came down to a Hail Mary pass.Recover your password.

A password will be e-mailed to you.Organization: Peter C. Alderman Foundation (PCAF)

Duty Station: Uganda

About US:

The Peter C. Alderman Foundation (PCAF) is an international NGO

operating in Uganda since 2006, offering services in mental health care for

post-conflict populations specifically to refugees and host populations.

Through its clinic and community-based programming, PCAF brings novel

approaches to treatment of tens of thousands of patients each year. Working

closely with government and other partners in mental health PCAF is positioning

itself to increase its impact through building community-based mental health

treatment and other models of care.

Job Summary: The social

worker will be responsible for the social and welfare needs of patients and

relatives at the health facility and in the community. The person(s) be

responsible for identifying patients with social needs, offer psycho-social

support. Social care and emotional therapy to patients and their relatives/

families. They will be expected to carry out home visits to patients and impart

coping skills to both the patients and their family members or relatives, will

diagnose and treat mental, behavioral, and emotional disorders, including

anxiety and depression. He(She) will be tasked to refer clients to other relevant

services, such as provider NGOs, support groups or professionals.











Experience: Qualifications, Skills andExperience:

The applicants must hold Bachelors

Degrees in Social Work and Social Administration or related field.

Two years of experience.

Knowledge in social models and livelihoods

is an added advantage

Proficiency in the local language and Juba

Arabic is an added advantage.

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified and interested candidates should send in their

applications to the Country Director Dr. Dorothy Kizza dkizza@pcaf.org and

lnakanjako.@pcaf.org or hand delivered to Plot 855, Mawanda Road at the Peter

C. Alderman Foundation Kampala office Headquarters at Amber House, P.O. Box

36316, Kampala, Uganda

Deadline: 15th March 2018







Job Title: Economic Strengthening

Officer

Organization: Mercy Corps

Funding Source: United

States Agency for International Development (USAID)

Duty

Station: Jinja, Uganda

About US:

Mercy Corps is an international non-profit organization which

implements high-quality, analytical development programmes in very difficult

places. Mercy Corps has been operating in Uganda since 2006. It has and

continues to implement programs in Acholi and Karamoja sub regions. Mercy Corps

is taking a community-led, market driven approach to address poverty and food

insecurity needs through interventions that get to the root causes and

contributing factors of economic vulnerability. Donors include the United

States Agency for International Development (USAID), DFID, Mastercard

Foundation, WALMART Foundation, Coca Cola Africa Foundation, US Depart of State

(DOS) /PEPFAR, ECHO and Nike Foundation.

About USAID Project:

Mercy Corps is implementing the USAID funded five-year program on

Better Outcomes for Children and Youth in Eastern and Northern Uganda ending in

2020. Better Outcomes is led by World Education, Inc./Bantwana with Mercy Corps

as an implementing partner. The program goal is to improve the wellbeing of

children and youth orphaned by HIV and other adversities in Uganda. It mainly

focuses on orphaned and vulnerable children, youth and their caregivers to have

improved access and utilization of health, nutrition, education, and

psychosocial wellbeing and reducing abuse, exploitation and neglect. The sector

priorities include meeting immediate economic needs of the most vulnerable

target groups though temporary interventions to uplift and integrate them in to

market systems; increased savings and access to credit opportunities; increased

opportunities for income growth and building assets; and better access to group

based education and support programming. The program is implemented in Northern

and Eastern Uganda.

Job Summary: The Economic

Strengthening Officer will responsible for theday-to-day implementation of the

economic empowerment component of the program in Eastern Uganda. S/he will be

responsible for activity planning and implementation to improve the economic

conditions of target groups through improved access and utilization of services

and products and better access to markets. Reporting to the Economic

Strengthening Technical Lead, the Officer will work with a consortium of

agencies under the leadership of WEI/Bantwana.



Key Duties and Responsibilities:

With guidance from the technical lead, the

officer will be responsible for program planning and implementation in the

areas of economic strengthening.

Work closely with other component field

teams in the consortium to ensure integrated approach to program

implementation.

Build and maintain productive working

relationships with local government officials and line departments,

soliciting their participation in all activities where appropriate.

Responsible for the day to day

implementation of activities at field level, in line with Mercy Corps

finance, operations and other policies.

Ensure proper logistics, administration,

human resources and transport needs of the program are conducted within

Mercy Corps policy and with the maximum benefit to the program.

Work with the economic strengthening team

for the development of and continual revision of a dynamic, program-wide

monitoring and evaluation system linked to program strategies, indicators,

and information management tools, which supports program management,

accountability and learning.

Continual gathering and sharing of data

specific to the sector.

Prepare written reports on the program

capturing impacts related to all activities.

Ensure establishment and maintenance of

relationships with communities, consortium partners and other CSOs in

target operation areas.









Qualifications, Skills and Experience:

The ideal candidate for the Mercy Corps Economic

Strengthening Officer job placement should hold a Degree, preferably

graduate level, in economics development, development studies, social

sciences or social work, or a closely related field

A minimum of three years of works

experience in economic strengthening initiatives that target vulnerable

communities mainly orphan and vulnerable children and households.

Experience in working with private sector

partners.

Previous experience on market based

solutions to addressing poverty.

Excellent interpersonal, writing and oral

presentation skills in English are also required.

Keen attention to detail, ability to

follow procedures, meet deadlines and work independently and cooperatively

with team members.

Strong computer literacy with a full

knowledge of office applications.

Ability to focus on day-to-day tasks at

hand while also working towards longer-term objectives with an

understanding that these will change continuously;

Willingness to spend much time in the

field and work closely with program target groups and partners.

The successful Economic Strengthening

Officer will have the ability and curiosity to work effectively with local

government, civil society and community based organizations.

The successful candidate will have solid

background in economic and market development.

How to Apply:

All suitably qualified and interested candidates should send their

E-mail applications including a cover letter clearly stating the salary

requirements, updated CV (with three professional referees), and copies of

academic qualifications/certificates addressed to the Senior HR and Legal

Manager, Mercy Corps Uganda to: ug-mcjobs@mercycorps.org

Deadline: 6th March 2018Organization: United

Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) UnitedNations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF)

Duty Station: Kampala,

Uganda Kampala,Uganda

About US:



Development Fund (UNCDF) is the UNs capital investment agency for the worlds

least developed countries. It creates new opportunities for poor people and

their communities by increasing access to microfinance and investment

capital. UNCDF focuses on Africa and the poorest countries of Asia and

the Pacific, with a special commitment to countries emerging from conflict or

crisis. It provides seed capital  grants and loans  and technical

support to help microfinance institutions reach more poor households and small businesses,

and local governments finance the capital investments  water systems, feeder

roads, schools, irrigation schemes  that will improve poor peoples lives. United Nations CapitalDevelopment Fund (UNCDF) is the UNs capital investment agency for the worldsleast developed countries. It creates new opportunities for poor people andtheir communities by increasing access to microfinance and investmentcapital. UNCDF focuses on Africa and the poorest countries of Asia andthe Pacific, with a special commitment to countries emerging from conflict orcrisis. It provides seed capital  grants and loans  and technicalsupport to help microfinance institutions reach more poor households and small businesses,and local governments finance the capital investments  water systems, feederroads, schools, irrigation schemes  that will improve poor peoples lives.



Programme: About UNCDF CleanStartProgramme:

UNCDFs CleanStart Programme supports low-income consumers to

transition to cleaner and more efficient energy through inclusive finance.

CleanStart is a global programme helping to lift at least 2.5 million people

out of energy poverty by 2020. To achieve this vision, the programme provides

risk capital and technical assistance to competitively selected financial

service providers and energy enterprises.

At the heart of the CleanStart approach is brokering risk-sharing

partnerships between downstream as well as upstream value chain actors, and

de-risking some investment opportunities. Of particular value to CleanStart is

developing partnership and financing models that can be replicated and

scaled-up by other public and private actors working towards a common vision of

expanding energy access for the poor.

CleanStart is active in Nepal, Uganda, Ethiopia, Myanmar, and several

other East and West African countries through a partnership with a rural

microfinance institution called PAMIGA. The CleanStart global programme team is

based in UNCDFs Asia-Pacific Regional Office in Thailand, as well as Nepal and

Uganda.

Job Summary: The internship

will contribute to improving knowledge sharing and market awareness efforts of

the CleanStart program. This will include functions related to research;

communications and partnerships; and advocacy/market awareness to increase

visibility of CleanStart results and insights amongst the clean energy and

energy financing sectors. CleanStart is looking for interns who are willing to

explore the field of financial inclusion to reduce energy poverty through both

knowledge sharing and knowledge production.

Key Duties and

Responsibilities: The Interns will

be taken on a rolling basis. Applicants can apply for a specific work stream as

highlighted below, or the CleanStart programme will match the intern with a

specific work stream: The Interns willbe taken on a rolling basis. Applicants can apply for a specific work stream ashighlighted below, or the CleanStart programme will match the intern with aspecific work stream:

Knowledge Production (Research and Analytics):



Supporting (Big Data) research and analysis

activities;



Supporting monitoring and evaluation of

CleanStart partners to distill lessons learned from progress reports on program

and product innovation activities;



Reviewing and keep stock off energy finance

literature and policy publications;



Supporting research publication writing and

editing.



Market development (Business development support and Advocacy)-



Scoping opportunities for clean energy

enterprises in Uganda;



Liaising with CleanStart enterprise partners to

evaluate needs related to training; financing; market awareness; and general

management (Incubation services);



Researching financing opportunities (blended finance,

risk capital, equity, grants) for clean energy enterprises in CleanStart target

countries;



Development and management of Cleanstart

enterprise partner database;



Other tasks as requested by the CleanStart team.

Knowledge Sharing (Communications and Partnerships):



Providing input and maintaining the contact

database the programme;



Supporting events and thinkshops organization

with sector participants;



Producing of a variety of communication tools:

writing of blog articles, news and press releases;



Curating content related to energy finance and

financial inclusion in social networks;



Disseminating information about the programmes

events and publications in social media;



Reporting on events feedback by participants and

writing workshops proceedings;



Performing desktop research on donors, partners

and resource mobilization opportunities for the CleanStart Program and its

partners (energy companies, financial institutions);



Supporting writing proposals and concept notes

as needed.









Qualifications, Skills and Experience:



The

ideal candidate for the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) Intern,

CleanStart Programme employment opportunity should be enrolled in a

relevant masters programme in a graduate school (second university degree

equivalent or higher) at the time of application and during the internship, or

having graduated from a relevant programme in the last year OR



Pursuing relevant university/college studies

with significant work experience, if applying from a country where graduate

studies are not widely available.



Previous work experience is considered an asset;

but it is not a requirement unless graduate studies are not widely available.

Personal Competencies:



Understanding of sustainable development,

renewable energy, and private sector development and engagement is an asset;



Demonstrable skills in research, analytical

thinking, and communication;



Excellent writing and editing skills in English;



Proven ability to manage diverse and complex

tasks, with tight deadlines;



Able to take initiative and work independently,

with minimum supervision;



Strong organizational, communication and

interpersonal skills with ability to work under pressure within an

international setting;



Interest in the UN system and general knowledge

of development issues is a plus;



Ability to perform a variety of administrative

tasks.

How to Apply:



the UNCDF Internship Application form, Download Here All candidates should submit your Resume/CV and an application usingthe UNCDF Internship Application form,

All applications must contain the following information:



Summary statement of competencies in relation to

the TOR



Earliest availability, part and/or full time,

when they complete their studies, preferred workstream, duty station location



Curriculum Vitae



Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) credentials at the link below Please upload your UnitedNations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) credentials at the link below

Deadline: 15th March 2018



please visit

find us on our facebook page For more of the latest jobs,please visit http://www.theugandanjobline.com orfind us on our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/UgandanJobline



The ongoing spat between Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited (RJIL) and the telecom industry association Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) worsened today, as COAI demanded apology from Reliance Jio..

First, RJIL took offence to a press release issued by COAI on TRAI's and the Telecom Tariff Authority's (TTA) recent changes in reducing mobile termination charges and international termination charges.



In its press release on Feb 20, COAI had contented that the reduction in these charges would not benefit consumers greatly and would cause further distress to the debt-burdened telecom sector.



The press release had also noted that other than one dissenting member of COAI, all others unanimously supported the position taken by the industry body on this issue.



A number of telecom companies have also initiated legal proceedings against the TRAI decision in separate high courts.



However, following the COAI press release RJIL sent two notices to the body and to Rajen Mathews, secretary general of COAI, who had issued the press release.



In a reply to Kapoor Singh Guliani, president - regulatory, RJIL, by COAI dated Feb 28, the body has retorted by saying that it reserves the right to initiate legal proceedings against RJIL. That is if RJIL seeks to pursue any 'fabricated' defamatory case in court, alleging bias against it by the industry body.



Reliance Jio, the new entrant, had earlier stated during consultations on the issue with the telecom regulator, that it supports lowering of termination charges, a source of income among the existing players.



"It is not surprising to note that RJIL has sought to justify and provide rationale for the changes made by the TRAI in the TTO where the TRAI has not provided sufficient reasoning," the COAI letter said in response to Reliance JIO's allegation that the COAI position favoured Vodafone, Airtel and Idea.



Other than terming the COAI press release defamatory and malicious Reliance Jio had also alleged that the press release was 'brash, bold and unreasoned'.



In its missive, COAI has advised Reliance Jio to withdraw its notices and issue a public apology for allegations made by it.



A response to COAI's letter is yet awaited. What remains to be seen now is if this spat pitches Reliance Jio, the new cash rich entrant against the rather cash stripped existing telecom companies.



The telecom industry in India is estimated to carry a debt burden of Rs 70,000 crore, an increase in which is primarily due to higher spectrum prices they paid to government in recent auctions.

One of the best things about the Academy Awards this year was James Ivory's win. At 89, the filmmaker-writer became the oldest nominee for the Oscars and won one too. Probably, a message for all who are passionate about their workage is just a number.

Unpretentious, as he looked with a shirt emblazoned with the face of the lead actor, Timothee ChalametElio from the film Call Me By Your Namethat he has written and produced, and also planned to direct it initially. The octogenarian adapted the screenplay from Andre Acimans novel of the same name. Besides being a coming of age drama about first love, Call Me By Your Name is a gay love story that is seductive and overwhelming at the same time. The writing is so fresh that not for a moment you look at it as anything but love. With all the support and love it got from cinephiles, the film directed by Luca Guadagnino is ought to be remembered as one of the greatest love stories of the times.

The others nominated in the category were Mudbound, The Disaster Artist, Mollys Game, and Logan.

Call Me By Your Name is about Elio, who is entering adulthood, and Oliver, a graduate who comes to stay with Elios family as a guest. Elio discovers his sexuality, orientation and the power of love as he gets closer to Oliver over the duration of his stay. The film was not just a contender in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. It was one of the most lauded films at the 90th Academy Awards. However, The Shape of Water, again a story of unusual love, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouria moms journey to find her daughter's murderer leading to many more life discoveriesgained more buzz over the last few weeks.

Ivorys award, however, was certain because of the depth he brought to the screenplay. With so much love and admiration that the film got world over, it is not a surprise that Ivory made a record as he received his first Academy award at 89 the oldest to get an Oscar. Previously, the director-writer has been nominated thrice in the best director category for the filmsA Room With a View (1985), Howards End (1992), and The Remains of the Day (1993).

An American, Ivory, who wears his gay identity openly, has worked extensively with Indian-born film producer Ismail Merchanthis partner of many years professionally and personally. Besides finding a constant partner in German-born British-American writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The three were principals in Merchant Ivory Productions that was formed in 1961.

And thus his acceptance speech couldn't have been complete without their mention. Merchant passed away in 2005, while Jhabvala in 2013. Ivory said that his work with Merchant led him to this award.

My rule number one for a screenwriter who adapts a novel is first to thank the author, Andre Aciman, who wrote the story about first love and is here tonight, Ivory said in his acceptance speech.

He continued, thanking his partners, I wouldnt be standing up here without the inspired help I received from my lifes partners, who are gone.

Ivory began his film career with a film on Venice and its art culture. He had gone to Venice as a 22-year-old tourist and "fell in love with the city". He went to other places, but returned to Venice in 1952. As a part of his thesis for the California School where he was studying film, he wanted to tell the story of the city through its art. In a 2015 video interview, he said, "With a 16 mm camera, a Bolex that I had bought, a tripod no one helping me, no crew, no sound crewand I am not an artist. But I said, my stars are going to be the great painters of Venice like Caroaccio, Gentille Bellini, and Veronese." He stayed in Venice in 1952-53 and shot the film by joining the academia there. Later though, he had to hire a light crew. His effort was lauded even then by experts who appreciated the details that went into it, especially the close shot of the artworks.

In a December 2017 interview with GoldDerby, talking about writing Call Me By Your Name, he said that the first thing he liked about the story was that it was set in Italy. "The story appealed to me, everybody has had a first love. It has its exciting side. I also like the milieu: the kind of family it was, sort of international family. It sort of was not, what I consider a Merchant-Ivory film; it has (rather) got a Merchant-Ivory big house in it, and it has a family which speaks several language and then a different language to the servants. And then it has one of those locations that you see in several Merchant-Ivory movies. All of that was very appealing," he said.

Earlier this year, for Call Me By Your Name (that was nominated in four categories at the Oscars), Ivory also bagged the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, Writers Guild of America, the Critics' Choice Awards among others. Ivory, now the oldest Oscar recipient ever, has broken the record of Ennio Morriconehe won the Oscar for best original score for The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino) at 87 in 2015.The Congress' electoral debacles in the northeast have brought into sharp focus the style of functioning as well as the political efficacy, or lack of it, of AICC general secretary C.P. Joshi, who is in charge of party affairs in the states in that part of the country.

As the results of the Assembly elections in the three northeastern states of Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland were announced on March 3, it emerged that the Congress had been whitewashed in Tripura and Nagaland but had a fighting chance of forming a government in Meghalaya.

Perhaps not willing to have a repeat of Manipur and Goa, where the BJP managed to form the government despite the Congress being the single-largest party, in Meghalaya, the Congress rushed senior leaders Kamal Nath and Ahmed Patel to Shillong.

This is being read as the party leadership's wariness about leaving the post-results machinations to Joshi alone.

There were complaints after the Manipur debacle that Joshi, former PCC chief of Rajasthan and a former Union minister, who is said to be close to Congress president Rahul Gandhi, had not been fast off the blocks in ensuring that the Congress got the necessary numbers to form the government after it emerged as the single-largest party in a hung Assembly last year, leaving it to the state leadership to reach out to other parties.

Joshi has not been popular with the local Congress units of the states that he has been given the charge of.

In Assam, he was criticised for not properly handling the rebellion by Himanta Biswa Sarma, who later quit the Congress to join the BJP. Sarma is now the BJP's chief strategist in the northeast region, and is credited with the success that the saffron party has made electorally in the region.

Recently, Nagaland Congress president Kew Khape Therie went public with his criticism of Joshi, accusing him of showing scant interest in the affairs of the party in the state. He squarely blamed Joshi for the party failing to win a single seat in the state.

A major complaint of the Congress leaders in the northeast has been that Joshi has not visited the states in the region enough and has not held enough consultations with them.

Even in Bihar, where former PCC chief Ashok Choudhary recently quit the Congress along with three other MLCs to join the JD(U), Joshi was blamed for the development. Choudhary accused Joshi of having used him and his party colleagues, and not giving them their due.

Joshi was kind of pushing me out of the Congress, said Choudhary.

It remains to be seen if Joshi, who is said to be overburdened with states, will be divested of some of his responsibilities. Gandhi is said to be keen on general secretaries holding charge of only one state.Sunil Deodhar, an RSS pracharak who is being considered as the architect of the BJP's good showing in the assembly polls in the three northeast states, today said targeting the youth and tribal communities there helped the party.

He said that his maiden visit to Meghalaya was as a pracharak and it lasted eight years and in November 2014, he was made in-charge of Tripura.

"I was completely unaware of the language, culture and attitudes of the people when I first went there. I continued working there in different capacities and was made in-charge of Tripura in November 2014. This is because I could speak the tribal launguages of the state as well as Bengali and Odiya spoken by a large section of the people there," he said.

"We targeted the youth of the region, and with diligent effort, got connected with several local tribes and migrant communities. We ensured that these youth visited cities across the country as part of the "Bharat Mera Ghar" initiative. It created a social bridge between the North-East and the rest of the country," he added.

He claimed the RSS managed to break the stranglehold of the Communists in Tripura because the Left cadre had got disillusioned with the rampant corruption within the Left parties there.

"The last few years, it was getting increasingly visible that the new Communist cadre were getting fed up with crony capitalism and corruption in the Tripura government. A major chunk of these cadre joined BJP which, in turn, pulled in the votes," Deodhar said.

He said that special sessions were held for these new entrants into the party fold in which the concepts of cultural nationalism as well as the core ideology of the BJP-RSS was taught.

"Similar was the case with the Congress and Trinamool Congress party workers who too joined us and helped increase our votes," he added.

Replying to a query on how he got assigned to the North-East in the first place, Deodhar said, "I was given two options, to work in Maharashtra or work in the North-East. I decided to take up the challenge and went to Shillong (Meghalaya)."

Deodhar had also worked as a national coordinator of the North-East India Communication Cell set up by Nitin Gadkari, when the latter was the BJP's national president.

Prior to that, Deodhar was made incharge of Dahod district in Gujarat for the 2012 Assembly polls and managed to up the tally of the party from the Adivasi-dominated region from one seat to three.

Unmarried, the former teacher from suburban Andheri here runs an initiative called 'My Home India' which aims to establish a communication channel between communities and tribes of the North East.

He said that he would not be associated with the government-elect as his job was to help the party win the polls.

Deodhar's work has received praise from the Shiv Sena whose spokesperson, Sanjay Raut, said that he had emerged as the third person in the BJP, after PM Narendra Modi and party president Amit Shah, who could win elections.

"The poll result from the North East for the BJP is like cultivating "kesar" (saffron) in the desert," Raut said.

He said that the BJP's victory in the region would bring it into the mainstream.

Raut added that the victory might not have an impact on the national mood, but was important from the point of national security.For Biplab Deb, president of the BJP's Tripura unit, becoming chief minister after the party's stunning victory on Saturday does not seem to be a cakewalk anymore.

Two other strongmen have emerged as strong contenders for the top job along with Deb, who was brought from Delhi last year as the chief of the BJP in Tripura.

With a massive win in Agartala, Sudip Roy Barman, the former leader of the opposition in the Tripura Assembly, who joined the BJP from Congress 'via the Trinamool Congress' last year, has suddenly become a strong contender for the top job after Deb.

Barman had been a long-time Congress member who joined the Trinamool Congress in 2016 to protest the Congress' alliance with the left in the West Bengal elections that year. In 2017, he and other TMC MLAs joined the BJP.

BJP insiders say, without the tremendous performance of Roy Barman, BJP would not have been able to register such a 'stupendous' win. Roy Barman has also won his Agartala seat with a whopping margin of 7,400 votes. In small states like Tripura, such a margin is considered big.

Also he has the support of around 20 out of 35 MLAs of the BJP, said a BJP leader in Tripura.

Deb also won from Banamalipur seat, on the outskirts of Agartala, by a margin of little more than 9,500 votes.

In an exclusive interview with THE WEEK, Roy Barman denied that he was pitching himself for the top job. But he denied that he was not in the race.

Asked about whether he is in the race, Neither I am in the race nor I am out of it. Its the decision of central leadership of BJP who would decide about the chief ministers post.

Deb told THE WEEK, I am the president of the party and my job is not to select the chief minister. As far as becoming the CM is concerned, I will deliver whatever job is given to me.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, a close associate of Sunil Deodhar, state in-charge of BJP in Tripura, and Odisha tribal leader and Union Minister Juel Oram, are going to Tripura on Tuesday to finalise the prospective chief minister.

That Oram has been included in the team has added significance in that there is a strong tribal lobby in the party, which would like to see a tribal leader become the chief minister.

Despite the presence of a tribal lobby, another strong contender, however, has emerged, who is also a tribal leader. Rampada Jamatia, who won from Bagma seat by around 2,800 votes, is very close to the RSS and perceived to be a honest man.

Jamatia also refused to be drawn into the controversy but said, Whatever the partys highest leadership asked me to do, I would do that.

Like Deb, Jamatia is also a former RSS man, who had been an RSS member for many years and was a senior ONGC official. He retired from his job and was brought to the BJP last year.

Sources said Deodhar has indicated his preference to Amit Shah in Delhi, who would discuss the names with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

And Gadkari and Oram would bring that name to Agartala on Tuesday. The final declaration is expected to be done on Wednesday and the new government could be formed on March 8.As China has enhanced its presence in the Indian Ocean Region by deploying its submarines, ships and research vessels, Indian government said that the Chinese presence is aimed to project itself as a 'maritime power' in the region.

Minister of State for defence Subhash Bhamre, in a written reply to the Parliament on Chinese military activity in Pakistan, stated that the government has seen media reports in this regard and keeps a constant watch on such developments having a bearing on Indias security and takes all necessary measures to safeguard it.

"Government is aware of Chinas stated objective of becoming a maritime power. As part of this strategy, China is developing ports and other infrastructure facilities in the littoral countries in the Indian Ocean region, including in the vicinity of Indias maritime boundary," Bhamre informed Rajya Sabha. Chinese military has made its strong presence in the Gwadar port in Pakistan and now in Djibouti. However, India is also expanding its presence in the region through Iran's Chabahar port, which India is developing in association with Iran.

According to Indian Navy sources, there has been a noticeable increase in the movement of PLA Navy's warships in the Indian Ocean Region in the name of anti-piracy mission. But the way, Chinese navy is setting up bases in and around the IOR, has serious implications for the security environment in the region. Indian Navy has total of eight warships on mission deployment in the IOR.

Bhamre stated that the Indian government is also aware that under the Belt and Road Initiative, China is undertaking projects of developing infrastructure facilities in several countries in the region.

While talking about measures, junior minister in the defence ministry said that "India and China have on several occasions reiterated that, as large neighbours following independent foreign policies the relationships pursued by India and China with other countries must not become a source of concern for each other." He also added that "both countries have agreed to display mutual respect and sensitivity to each others concerns and aspirations.

Bhamre further clarified that the government is committed to developing friendly and mutually beneficial relations with all its neighbours under its Neighbourhood First policy.

"India is an active economic partner of its neighbours and is involved in various development projects in these countries. India also has extensive ties with neighbouring countries in education, culture, trade and investments as well as defence and security cooperation. Indias relations with other countries stand on their own footing and are independent of the relations of those countries with third countries," Bhamre's statement added.The Jammu and Kashmir government on Monday told the Supreme Court that an Army officer, Major Aditya Kumar, was not named as an accused in the FIR on the January 27 Shopian firing incident in which three civilians were killed.

Taking on record the statement of the state government, the Supreme Court said there should be no investigation till April 24 in the case.

"Let the matter be listed for final disposal on April 24. In the meantime, there shall be no investigation on the basis of FIR till then," a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud said.

The Supreme Court had on February 12 restrained the Jammu and Kashmir police from taking any 'coercive steps' against Army officers, including Major Aditya Kumar, who was earlier reportedly named as an accused in the case.

Three civilians were killed when Army personnel fired at a stone-pelting mob in Ganovpora village of Shopian on January 27 this year, prompting the chief minister to order an inquiry into the incident.

The FIR was registered against personnel of 10 Garhwal Rifles under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Ranbir Penal Code (the penal code applicable in Jammu and Kashmir).

The Supreme Court was hearing the plea of retired lieutenant colonel Karamveer Singh, the father of Major Aditya Kumar, seeking to quash the FIR against his son.

Singh had said in his petition that his son, a major in 10 Garhwal Rifles, was 'wrongly and arbitrarily' named in the FIR as the incident relates to an Army convoy that was on bona fide military duty in an area under AFSPA and was isolated by an 'unruly and deranged' mob pelting stones, causing damage to military vehicles.

During the hearing on Monday, the counsel representing Jammu and Kashmir told the bench that Major Aditya was not named as accused anywhere in the FIR.Mufti Waqas, the Jash-e-Muhammad mastermind of the attack on Army camp at Sunjwan in Jammu on February 10 has been killed, police and Army said.

Army spokesperson N.N. Joshi said based on specific intelligence about the presence of a terrorist at Hatwar, Awantipur in Anantnag, a joint operation by Army's 50 RR and police was launched in which Waqas, who masterminded the attack on CRPF camp at Lethpora near Pampore on Srinagar-Jammu national highway on December 31, 2017, and Army camp at Sunjwan was killed.

''Waqas a category A++ militant and was one of the most wanted militant commanders,'' Joshi said.

The JeM commander had a bounty of Rs 10 lakh on his head.

Joshi said during the operation there were no civilian casualties or collateral damage.

He said the killing of Waqas has resulted in a major dent to the designs of JeM after the killing of operational commander Noor Mohammad Tantray alias Noor Trali in the same area on Dec 17.

J&K DGP Sheesh Paul Vaid in a tweet said Jaish commander Mufti Waqas has been killed in an encounter at Hatwara, Awantipore in Anantnag.

''He was the mastermind behind the attack on DPL Pulwama, CRPF camp at Lethpora and Army camp at Sunjwan,'' Vaid tweeted.

IGP Kashmir S.P. Pani said ''weapons and incriminating material used in the preparation of IEDs was also recovered from him. Pani said Waqas was a foreign terrorist.

The Sunjwan attack had shaken the Army after four JeM militants stormed the camp on February 10 at 4.30 am and attacked the residential quarters of the soldiers. Five Army men and a civilian, father of one of the deceased soldier, were killed and nine others including women and children were injured when the four JeM fidayeen attacked the camp.

The Army first rescued the trapped soldiers and their families and then neutralised the four JeM fidayeen in a 36-hour operation.

Among the injured was the pregnant wife, Shahzada, of a soldier who was hit in the butt. She gave birth to a baby girl through caesarean.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharama visited Jammu after the operation was over and met the senior officers of the Army. She also met the injured and warned that Pakistan would pay for the attack.

''Pakistan would pay for this attack,'' she warned. ''I cannot give you a timeline when but I repeat Pakistan will pay for this at a time and place India deems fit.''

The killing of Waqas is a major setback for the JeM as he was considered as the operational brain behind the group's attacks.As the CBI and Enforcement Directorate (ED) close in on Karti Chidambaram, investigators say he is still not cooperating with the probe agency. This may prompt the CBI to seek extension of his custody for further questioning. Kartis custody ends on Tuesday and he will be produced before the CBI special judge in Patiala House Court on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, investigators are trying to build a watertight case against Karti; the confessions of the MukerjeasPeter and Indrani, the then owners of INX Mediawill play a major role in determining the fate of the criminal case against Karti Chidambaram. The accused was charged with using the office of his father, then finance minister P. Chidambaram, to influence and manipulate a probe against the company.

Indrani had confronted Karti in jail in Mumbai on Sunday. In a fresh development, the ED got the CBI court's permission to question Peter in the case.

The agency is probing the money laundering angle in the case against the couple. Peter will be questioned on March 6.

Both Indrani and Peter are incarcerated in Arthur Road Jail in Mumbai after they were arrested for the murder of Indranis daughter Sheena Bora in 2012. Incidentally, the couple is under trial in the murder case, which is also being probed by the CBI.

The INX media is accused of flouting provisions of the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), and statements given by Indrani to the ED have implicated the then finance minister, according to sources. Indrani is learnt to have reiterated her claims that they had met Chidambaram in his north block office, seeking FIPB clearance for their media company which was also under the IT lens.

The Mukerjeas claimed that then finance minister asked them to help his sons business interests and make foreign remittances for the purpose. Subsequently they claimed to have met Karti Chidambaram where he made a demand of Rs 1 million, and suggested the names of Chess Management and Advantage Strategic as alternatives to make payment.

Subsequently, Indrani said in a statement to the CBI that 700,000 USD (Rs 3.10 crore) was paid. The said payment was made abroad and this aspect is still being investigated, said an ED official.

The revelations gain significance as the the agency will now question Peter once again after Kartis arrest by the CBI. Significantly, the ED is tightening its case against Karti and has forwarded its complaints to the CBI to probe the larger conspiracy of the office of the finance minister being misused to accrue gains to companies linked to Karti Chidambaram.

The accused has claimed that there is political vendetta behind the probe against him, even as his counsel told the special CBI court that it was then Chidambaram who had ordered the probe against INX Media during his term as finance minister.Narendra Modi is getting ready to play the gracious host again. The red carpet is being readied for French President Emmanuel Macron's first visit to the country after taking over the reins of France.

France is no Canada, this is very clear. Modi had rushed to meet Macron, shortly after his election last summer, when he was on a hectic tour of Europe, covering Germany, Spain, Russia and, of course, France. Mandarins in the external affairs ministry had then said that it was important to establish personal rapport with leaders of countries with whom India had extensive bilateral ties with, and the sooner that is done, the better. Modi did that with his trademark hug at the Elysee Palace.

The 39-year-old leader, France's youngest president, is going to get the Modi brand of hospitality, with a visit being planned to the prime minister's constituency, Varanasi, where the two will have lunch before heading to Assi Ghat. During the Uttar Pradesh visit, Macron is also slated to inaugurate a solar plant at Dadar Kala village in Mirzapur on March 12. A French company, Engie Solar, is building the plant, said to be the biggest in Uttar Pradesh.

Macron will also attend the first summit of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), which will be hosted at Rashtrapati Bhavan, on March 11. Representatives of around 50 countries are expected to attend the summit, including Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and Bangladesh President Abdul Hamid, as well as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

The ISA was set up after the Paris Summit on Climate Change in 2015. A brainchild of Modi, it aims for countries between the tropics to work at scaling up and harnessing solar energy for their developmental needs. India itself hadin its Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC), to scale up the share of non-fossil fuel-based electricity in its energy bouquetcommitted to anchor an alliance of solar-rich countries between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

The summit almost came to naught on the issue of 'historical responsibility', by which the developing countries demanded not just greater leeway in emissions, but also sought that the developed world, which had begun industrialisation 200 years earlier, spend more for clearing up the mess.

Clearly, the west did not want that commitment in the final document. Then, US president Barack Obama made a call to his good friend Modi and India, which was at the forefront of the demand, graciously agreed to have those two words removed. In return, France, which was host to the summit and thus keen on its success, got committed to the ISA cause.

A year later, when Donald Trump became American president and drew back US commitment to climate change mitigation, Paris and New Delhi became firmer in their resolve to work together for the ISA in particular and the Paris Accord in general. France is not a solar-rich country, but it has the technology that can be used to scale up solar use. In fact, two of the programmes being launched during Macron's visit will be the scaling up of solar mobile storage and solar rooftop storage.

France and India became strategic partners in 1998 and the bilateral relationship encompasses a host of areas including technology, defence, climate change, energy and technology. Almost all these areas will be under discussion, as well as the joint initiative against terror. Macron says he hopes to reform Islam in France. The country has seen some nasty terror attacks in the last few years, including one right before the Climate Summit in 2015.

Macron's India tour comes before his US visit scheduled for April and just weeks after his visit to China.Protests and clashes broke out in some parts of south Kashmir on Monday morning against the killing of a militant and four civilians by the Army the previous evening at Pahnoo, Shopian.

Ajaz Ahmed, a reporter in Shopian, told THE WEEK that scores of people, including women, took to the streets in Shopian from various villages to protest the killing of the four civilians by the Army.

''Situation is very tense here,'' Ahmed said.'' Hundreds of people have assembled in the villages of the four youth killed by the Army.''

The police and CRPF have been deployed in strength to tackle the situation, Ahmed added.

Clashes were also reported from Anantnag at K.P. Road between students and police.

The students pelted stones on police and shouted pro-freedom slogans.

Reports said police arrested dozens of students to prevent the situation from turning violent.

The government has ordered the suspension of the internet in Kashmir to prevent the situation from flaring up.

In Srinagar, restrictions were imposed on several areas considered sensitive by police. Traffic between Srinagar and north Kashmir's Baramulla and Kupwara was moving normally.

An Army spokesman, N.N. Joshi, on Sunday evening said the Army killed a militant, Shahid Ahmed Dar, and three 'overground workers' of militants in retaliatory fire after a mobile vehicle check post came under attack.

''Three overground workers of the militant who were travelling with him were found dead. Police have reached the spot,'' Joshi said.

Local residents, however, said the three men killed at the spot were civilians and not overground workers.

They were identified as Suhail Khaleel Wagay of Pinjoora, Mohammad Shahid Khan of Malikgund and Shahnawaz Ahmad Wagay of Trenz of Shopian.

On Monday morning, the body of another civilian, Gowhar Ahmed Lone, resident of Moolu, Trenz, was found in an orchard, 250 meters from the spot from where the bodies of the militant and the three civilians were found the previous evening.

Lone, sources said, was found dead behind the wheel of his car.

The killing sparked protests in Shopian and other parts of south Kashmir.

On Sunday evening, Kashmir University students also took out a protest in the campus against the killing of the civilians by the Army.

The separatist Joint Resistance Leadership had called for a shutdown on Monday in protest at the killing of the four civilians by the Army.

Fearing protests by students, the government has ordered the closure of educational institutions across Kashmir that were supposed to open on Monday after winter vacations.

Examinations for various classes by J&K School Board and Kashmir University have also been postponed.

Meanwhile, the body of another militant, Ashiq Hussian Bhat, was found in an orchard at Saipora village. Bhat was resident of Rakpora. He had joined militancy last year.

The police have not backed the Army's claim that the four men it killed along with the militant were overground workers.

DGP S.P. Vaid in Jammu told reporters the Army said the three men were overground workers.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti in a tweet said,'' Deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in crossfire in Shopian. My heartfelt condolences to the deceased's families.''US e-commerce giant Amazon aims to launch its grocery delivery service in France as part of global ambitions to expand in food retail, though the move is not imminent, its general manager for France said in a newspaper interview.

Amazons purchase of Whole Foods in the United States last year has prompted speculation that it could next target the European food and supermarket sector.

(Food) is a strong development axis for Amazon since the launch of our Amazon Fresh offer in the US in September 2016, Frederic Duval told the Journal du Dimanche, adding that the Whole Foods deal marked a new step in that ambition.

We would very much like to launch this service in France, but everything in its own time. A launch represents an investment, he said.

Privately held French supermarket operator Systeme U said last week that it was discussing a possible grocery supply deal with Amazon, though a major deal between Amazon and a French retailer has yet to materialize.

Amazon has made small forays in that direction and has steadily been building its presence in France, where it has run its Amazon Prime Now express delivery service in Paris since 2016.

Last month Amazon said it would create 2,000 new jobs in France and it has also settled a long-running dispute with French tax authorities that had been seeking nearly 200 million euros from the company.

In a separate interview with Journal du Dimanche, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said: Amazon is welcomed in France because my absolute priority is to create jobs, and Amazon represents thousands of jobs.

Le Maire also said thatpartnerships are under discussions between Amazon and some French groups, notably in the food products sector and that the government would ensure fair competition.The Pentagon on Sunday reminded Pakistan that the war on terrorism in the South Asian region reached an "inflection point" and that the country should take the opportunity to tackle and defeat terrorists, as the United States and Pakistan aims to improve their souring ties.

"With respect to Pakistan, we believe that Pakistan can do more to combat terrorism," Pentagon Chief Spokesperson Dana W. White said at a weekend news briefing in Washington D.C.

"This is an inflection point and this is an opportunity and Pakistan has an opportunity to do more. They've been victims of terrorism. So, we'll look forward to continuing to work with them to see where there are opportunities," she added.

The Pentagon chief spokesperson also welcomed Pakistan's support of Afghanistan's latest peace offer to the Taliban in the Kabul Process Conference in Kabul last week.

Giving a stern warning to the Taliban, White said that the militant group had to abandon the path of terrorism and violence and support the Afghan peace offer.

She also noted that the United States continues to consult New Delhi, not only about "India's very important role" in Afghanistan but also on other issues that go beyond the South Asian region, The Dawn reported.

The briefing comes after Pakistan Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjua's will start her two-day visit to Washington D.C. from Tuesday, which is aimed at defusing the tensions between the US and Pakistan and finding a "common ground".

On Sunday, official sources confirmed that Janjua will have a series of meetings at the White House and the US State Department and will also address think-tank experts at the US Institute of Peace during her visit.

At the White House, Janjua is likely to meet with Lisa Curtis, the US National Security Council's senior director for South and Central Asia.

Curtis arrived in Islamabad last week and held talks with Janjua and Pakistan Interior Minister Ahsan Iqbal on overall ties between the two countries.

Both sides called for the developing of sustainable peace in Afghanistan and stressed on measures needed to stop human trafficking in the region.

Curtis also visited Islamabad in October last year and met with various Pakistani officials. Both sides had agreed to the common objective of eliminating terrorism.

She held meetings with Janjua and Pakistan army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa.Germanys Social Democrats (SPD) decisively backed another coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkels conservatives on Sunday, clearing the way for a new government in Europes largest economy after months of political uncertainty.

Two thirds of the membership voted yes to the deal in a ballot  a wider margin than many had expected. That means Merkel could be sworn in for a fourth term as early as the middle of the month, in a repeat of the grand coalition that has governed since 2013.

I think its good for our country that this period of uncertainty is over, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said, adding that he would on Monday propose Merkel as chancellor to the lower house of parliament. The presidents role in Germany is largely ceremonial, with the real power residing with Merkel.

The euro rose a quarter of a per cent to hit a 12-day high of $1.2358 in early Asian trading before exit polls showing Italys election was likely to result in a hung parliament knocked it lower again.

Some analysts said the common currency would be buoyed by Merkel now being able to partner with France on President Emmanuel Macrons ambitious euro zone reform plans.

Macron hailed the development as good news for Europe, but the challenges are piling up for 63-year-old Merkel, who has been acting chancellor for more than five months since an inconclusive election, with the European Union looking for leadership on economic and security issues.

A statement from Macrons office added: France and Germany will work together on new initiatives in the coming weeks to bring the European project forward.

In power since 2005, Merkel steered the European bloc through the financial crisis and debt crisis, but her authority was dented by her 2015 decision to open Germanys borders to migrants, resulting in an influx of more than a million people.

That cost her party dearly in last years election, which saw the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party enter parliament for the first time.

Clarity at last

Acting SPD leader Olaf Scholz announced the result to activists lining the balconies around the atrium of the partys Berlin headquarters early on Sunday.

We now have clarity: the SPD will join the next German government, Scholz said. The party had initially planned to go into opposition after its worst election result since Germany became a federal republic in 1949.

Merkel took to her partys Twitter feed to congratulate the SPD. I look forward to working with the SPD again for the good of our country, she said.

The SPD ballot pitted the leadership of the centre-left party against the radical youth wing, which wanted the SPD to rebuild in opposition after its disastrous election showing.

Im happy it worked out this way, Andrea Nahles, the SPDs likely next leader, told Reuters.

Scholz declined to comment on reports that he would be finance minister, saying only that the SPD would appoint three men and three women to the federal cabinet. As part of the price for its support, the SPD will take the helm at key ministries, including the finance ministry.

Further names of potential ministerial candidates may be floated at the parties regular caucus meetings, due on Monday.

The outcome means the far-right AfD will be the largest parliamentary opposition party. In a tweet, they labelled the SPDs decision a catastrophe for Germany, promising fierce opposition to the government.

Business relieved

Kevin Kuehnert, head of the SPDs youth wing, said he was disappointed but that the Jusos (youth wing) would keep up their criticism, signalling that, after bringing in a flood of new members, they would be a thorn in the leaderships side.

Criticism of the grand coalition remains. The SPD needs to be more like it has been in recent weeks and less like it has been in recent years - the Jusos will ensure this, he tweeted.

The party, already one of Europes largest, has seen tens of thousands of new members join this year. Turn-out in the poll was over 78 per cent.

German business greeted with relief the news that Germany would get a government after its longest-ever post-election interregnum.

While the United States are starting a trade war and China is challenge our industrial leadership, we have been unnecessarily self-absorbed, engineering trade union VDMAs managing director Thilo Brodtmann said.

The SPD was forced to revisit its original plan to go into opposition after the failure of Merkels initial attempt to form a coalition with two smaller parties.

With her conservatives, they thrashed out a coalition agreement which SPD leaders hailed for its commitments to strengthening the EU and giving them key government roles.

-ReutersJust hours after the prestigious Oscars were handed out in Hollywood, one of the biggest awards ceremonies for car manufacturers took place 6,000 miles away in Geneva - revealing the 2018 European Car of the Year.

For the first time in its history, the gong went to Volvo for its compact and very classy XC40, which was voted ahead of six other nominees up for the prize by 60 motoring journalists from 23 countries, including the UK.

The British-designed XC40 received 325 votes, outscoring the 242 votes for runner-up the Seat Ibiza and third-placed BMW 5 Series, with 226 votes.

Award winner: Hakan Samuelsson, CEO of Volvo Car Group, poses with the winner's trophy next to Volvo XC40 model after it was elected Car of the Year 2018

The announcement was made in Geneva ahead of the motor show kicking off tomorrow (Tuesday).

In a Eurovision-style tallying of points, a big screen cut to the representatives from each of the voting nations who revealed their favourites, with the six nominees made up by the Alfa Romeo Stelvio, Audi A8, BMW 5 Series, Citroen C3 Aircross, Kia Stinger, Seat Ibiza and Volvo's eventual winner.

Despite picking up the European Car of the Year award for the first time, this isn't first trophy given to the Swedish brand this year.

The XC40 already pocketed the 2018 What Car? of the Year award in January, followed by the XC60 being given the honour of UK Car of the Year a matter of weeks later.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the largest of it's SUV range - the XC90 - won North American Truck of the Year, while the XC60 also took the award for Utility of the Year at the same ceremony.

Hakan Samuelsson, president and CEO of Volvo Cars, said winning the award was 'perfect timing' for the Swedish car maker, which is now owned by Chinese manufacturing group Geely.

While the larger XC60 and XC90 have been going great guns for years, the compact SUV market is becoming one of the most fiercely fought sectors on the continent.

This was the second honour given to the all-new XC40 after it picked up the award for 2018 What Car? of the Year in January

It will hope the double award for the XC40 - priced from 27,905 to 40,355 - will see it favoured over other small SUVs on the market.

'Volvo now has three globally available SUVs in its range for the first time,' Samuelsson added.

'The XC40 will be a strong contributor to further growth, taking us into a new and fast-growing small SUV segment.'

The new model is already proving popular, with early orders surpassing the 20,000 mark with buyers in Europe and the US already placing deposits.

The XC40 will also be sold in China - the world's biggest car market - where demand is expected to be strong.

Volvo's Hakan Samuelsson (right) receives the trophy from the hands of Jury president Frank Janssen

The Seat Ibiza (left) was the runner-up in the awards. It was followed by the BMW 5 Series (right)

Last year, Volvo announced its commitment to electrify all if its cars launched from 2019.

That means a hybrid and pure electric version of the XC40 is due later in its cycle, with other electrified models also set to use the same platform underpinning the award-winning vehicle.

'We have a clear strategy for growth and we are committed to leading in automotive safety, connectivity services and electrification,' added Samuelsson.

'The XC40 reflects that commitment, and looking at the response from our customers and from the COTY jury here today, we are on the right track.'

Read our full report on the Volvo XC40 to find out everything you need to know about the award winner.

Monday afternoon's awards marks the unofficial start of the Geneva auto show, now in its 88th edition.

Last year's winner was the Peugeot 3008.

While the honour is said to boost sales, quite a few not-so-popular models have taken the award over the previous 54 years.

See the full list of winners below:Miss World Manushi Chhillar will not attend this year's Props awards

For the first time in seven years, The Props awards, the annual property industry shindig held in May at the Hilton Park Lane, will not be attended by Miss World, reports Financial News.

A result of the recent Presidents Club hullaballoo?

A spokesman insists not, saying the reigning beauty pageant winner, India's Manushi Chhillar, 20, merely has a scheduling conflict.

But some feel the event's boisterous flavour is long due a rethink.

A female guest at last year's lunch witheringly describes it as 'male, pale and stale'. Oof!

Strange the London Stock Exchange still haven't appointed a chief executive nearly four months after Xavier Rolet abruptly exited.

Blustering LSE chairman Donald Brydon, 72, is thought to be keen on another big fish from investment banking.

The delay in making an appointment suggests slap-headed interim chief, David Warren, 62, is unlikely to get the job.

Elegant businessman Robin Birley, 60, owner of chichi private members' club 5 Hertford Street, says his shirts are custom-made by Parisian fashion house Lanvin.

'They're probably 300 or 400, maybe more. I'm too frightened to look at the bill.' Robin's late father, Annabel's founder Mark Birley, was equally fastidious.

He wore bespoke socks and purportedly once flew his valet to the south of France to polish his brogues.

Avuncular investor Warren Buffett has been unable to sell his six-bedroom beach house in California, which has been on the market for nearly a year for 8million.

Perhaps he could attract interest by offering bidders free investment advice.

Buffett, 87, once raised 200,000 for charity by auctioning his old wallet which contained a stock tip.

Ex-Deutsche Bank trader Guillaume Adolph, who's been fined 150,000 by the Financial Conduct Authority for his role in the Libor scandal, was known to his peers as Gollum after the slimy creature from The Lord Of The Rings.

The moniker was coined by jailed UBS trader Tom Hayes, 38, as he couldn't pronounce his first name.

Was Hayes squeamish about calling him Adolph?Melrose's takeover of GKN would damage the pensions of 32,000 workers, a watchdog has warned.

The Pensions Regulator, which is responsible for making sure bosses pay into company pension schemes, is concerned that increased debt for GKN under Melrose's plans may weaken GKN's ability to pay into its heavily indebted scheme.

Car and aeroplane parts maker GKN's pension fund has a deficit of 675million with about 32,000 members.

The firm, which has 6,000 UK employees, is fighting off a hostile 7.4billion bid from the City turnaround group amid mounting pressure for the Government to intervene.

Concerns: The pension fund of GKN which makes parts for warplanes such as the Eurofighter Typhoon, has a deficit of 675m with about 32,000 members

Bosses from GKN and Melrose as well as union Unite, which is opposed to the takeover, will be quizzed by MPs this morning.

In a letter to Work and Pensions Committee chairman Frank Field, published today, The Pensions Regulator chief executive Lesley Titcomb said she had met with both sides since the possible takeover emerged.

'From the outset,' she wrote, TPR had been concerned that the increased debt involved in any takeover is likely to have 'a detrimental impact' on payments into the pension scheme.

Titcomb said she had encouraged Melrose to apply for a formal statement from the regulator  known as clearance  which would assure pensioners that their retirement savings would not be put in danger.

Field said: 'Melrose claims an impeccable record in protecting pension rights.

The surest way to demonstrate its commitment in this case would be to apply voluntarily for clearance.'

Melrose has pledged to pay an upfront sum of 150million into the pension fund if its takeover is successful.

GKN has pledged to pay 160million into the fund under its plan to split its aerospace and automotive divisions.

A Melrose spokesman said: 'Melrose has consistently strengthened the pension scheme covenants of the businesses that it has acquired.'Blackstone Group's founder is on course to be America's best-paid boss this year after pocketing 570million.

The private equity titan's boss Stephen Schwarzman got a base salary of 253,500, beyond the dreams of most ordinary people but relatively low for leading chief executives in the US.

But this was dwarfed by a 91million bonus pay-out and 479million in dividends from his 19 per cent stake in the company.

Bumper payday: Blackstone Group's founder Stephen Schwarzman is on course to be America's best-paid boss this year after pocketing 570million

It puts him on track to be the country's top earner, eclipsing Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel who got 461million.

The 71-year-old launched Blackstone in 1985 with banker Pete Peterson, who had been commerce secretary under disgraced President Richard Nixon.

Schwarzman has since built the firm into a 314billion empire with holdings in everything from hotels and theme parks to publishers and tech firms.

FACTFILE: STEPHEN SCHWARZMAN Stephen Schwarzman once summed up his business philosophy as: 'I want war  not a series of skirmishes'

He has two children with his first wife. Son Teddy is a film producer whose successes include The Imitation Game

He lives in a luxury New York apartment he bought for 22million. 740 Park Avenue is considered the most prestigious address in the city

His 70th birthday party last year featured camels, acrobats and a song from Gwen Stefani at a cost as high as 6.5million

The firm is often accused of cashing in on financial turmoil and economic chaos

After the financial crisis, Blackstone became the largest owner of single-family rental homes in the US by buying up tens of thousands when they foreclosed

But Schwarzman is no stranger to controversy.

The Blackstone chief was accused of profiteering at the expense of the elderly and vulnerable when he made almost 500million after his company sold its interest in Southern Cross, Britain's biggest care home provider.

The deal involved the sale of the group's properties, forcing Southern Cross to lease them back from another company.

The business ended up saddled with expensive long-term rent commitments and went bust in 2012, leaving thousands of residents fearing for their futures.

Schwarzman was born into a middle-class family to a father who ran a Philadelphia dry goods store. He won a place at Yale University where he joined its Skull and Bones secret society.

After graduating he met William Averell Harriman, a Democrat politician, the son of a railroad baron and a former Skull and Bones member, who advised Schwarzman to become independently wealthy if he wanted to succeed in life.

So the aspiring leader went into investment banking, deciding high finance was for him, because, as he later said, 'if you have such great-looking girls and intense guys then I want to do it'. Schwarzman  who is today worth 9.2billion  wound up working for Peterson at Lehman Brothers and built a reputation as one of its top dealmakers.

Colleagues even bought him a framed flattering newspaper profile with a mirror attached so that he could read it and look at himself at the same time.

And when his boss was forced out in an internal power struggle, Schwarzman followed to work on a new venture.

He came up with the name Blackstone from their two names, because 'schwarz' is German for black and 'petros' means stone in Greek.

Schwarzman gradually took over from Peterson following decades of growth, and made a fortune when the business went public in 2007.

The billionaire has burnished his credentials by backing good causes, including a Chinese university programme called Schwarzman Scholars and a New York Library building predictably also named after him.Santander's chief executive is being paid 1.8million a year for a job which oversaw a toxic unit at Royal Bank of Scotland  despite leaving the role four years ago.

Nathan Bostock gets the seven-figure sum to compensate him for bonuses which he gave up when he jumped ship from RBS.

The revelation will spark fury because the money relates to his time as head of risk and restructuring at RBS, a role in which he was responsible for overseeing its notorious Global Restructuring Group.

And an MP has demanded an inquiry into lucrative pay deals for undeserving bosses.

Santander's chief executive Nathan Bostoc, pictured (right) with then Mayor of London Boris Jognson in 2015, is being paid 1.8m a year for a job which oversaw a toxic unit at RBS

Tasked with rescuing failing businesses during the Great Recession, the GRG has instead been accused of loading them up with vast fees to boost its own profits.

And a report commissioned for the City watchdog squarely blames management for fostering this toxic culture.

Critics last night branded Bostocks payments a reward for failure and called for them to stop.

Labour MP Wes Streeting, a member of the Treasury Select Committee, said: For GRG victims this will feel like a huge punch in the guts.

Its past time for company boards to reflect on the collective damage these sorts of awards continue to do to the reputation of financial services.

Perhaps its time for a Treasury committee inquiry on rewards for failure, where we could haul in those responsible for dishing them out as well as those receiving them.

BOSTOCK'S REIGN Nathan Bostock joined RBS in 2009 as head of risk and restructuring

One part of the role was to oversee the Global Restructuring Group, which loaded struggling firms up with toxic fees

The scandal at GRG began in 2008  before Bostock arrived  but ran until 2013

Senior executives, such as Bostock, have been accused of failing to spot the scandal

Liberal Democrat leader and former Business Secretary Sir Vince Cable said: Santander has now got a big problem on its hands. Its top hire from RBS is turning out to be a public relations liability.

Small businesses will simply not understand why he has been rewarded on that scale, and we should be calling on the bank to stop these payments.

Bostock, 57  pictured above with former Mayor of London Boris Johnson  was head of risk from 2009 to 2013 before being promoted to finance director  a job he did for just ten weeks before joining Santander, where he served very briefly as deputy chief executive before taking the top job.

He was paid 4.7million for running the bank last year according to its annual report. But the small print reveals he was also given 1.8million as a buy-out for RBS bonus awards which he lost when he was poached.

It is the third such payment handed to Bostock, meaning he has picked up 5.4million from the deal so far. It is understood he will receive one more 1.8million payment this year.

Because the money is being paid by Santander, it is not subject to the clawback rules which would have applied at RBS  meaning it is not possible to recover the cash should doubts emerge about Bostocks conduct while working there.

The married father of two, who lives on a farm in rural Kent, has faced questions since Cable blamed him in Parliament for failings at the GRG.

It is particularly sensitive because Santander is seeking to portray itself as a champion of small businesses, and is bidding for a slice of an 800million fund to boost competition in business banking operations, set up by RBS as a condition of its 46billion bailout.

There is no suggestion that Bostock was personally responsible for any wrongdoing at the GRG, which was one of many divisions he looked after at RBS.

The board and Santanders Spanish head office have investigated and are standing behind him.

A Santander spokesman said: Nathans pay and bonus are agreed by our parent Santander Group and the Santander UK remuneration committee and board, based on performance which was evaluated as outstanding this year.

The buyout is a contractual entitlement that was agreed when he was appointed to Santander UK.A yacht once used by a criminal banker who wrecked small businesses to line his own pockets has been sold by the state.

The 100 ft Powder Monkey previously belonged to David Mills, the ringleader of a gang operating out of the Reading branch of HBOS.

The motorboat was on the market for 1million and has been sold, according to Boat International magazine.

Sold: The 100 ft Powder Monkey previously belonged to by David Mills, the ringleader of a gang operating out of the Reading branch of HBOS

Her new owner has changed the vessels name to Great Hope and taken her from Majorca, where she was impounded by officials, to the mouth of the Suez Canal in Egypt.

The owner of turnaround firm Quayside Services, 61-year-old Mills stripped the assets from businesses referred to him by corrupt HBOS employees in a 245million fraud.

Fraudsters: David Mills, centre with co-workers Michael Bancroft, left and Lynden Scourfield, right, enjoy the sunshine in Barbados

They squandered the profits on holidays, prostitutes and luxury goods.

Mills is understood to have bought Powder Monkey for 4million.

He was jailed for 15 years in 2017, along with wife Alison, 52, and the rest of the gang.MANZINI  The Swaziland Electricity Company (SEC) is owed about E15 million by government.



Since Tuesday, the company has been disconnecting power supply in all the government institutions.

Information gathered is that the places which were affected by the disconnection included the High Court, most magistrates courts, swaziland National Libraries, Royal Swaziland Police (RSP), Ministry of Natural Resources, Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Services (SBIS), two border posts and the Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA) among others. On Wednesday, power was disconnected in most of the mentioned places, however, by Thursday afternoon, it had been restored.

It is alleged that government had engaged in talks with the company in terms of settling the bill soon.



When this reporter got to the magistrates court on Thursday, suspects from His Majestys Correctional Services (HMCS) had been turned back as all the structures, including holding cells, courtrooms, magistrates chambers and passages were dark.

Principal Magistrate, the David Khumalo when asked about the electricity issues, confirmed that inmates, especially those kept at the Zakhele Remand Centre and the Matsapha Maximum Prison were turned back as the entire magistrates court was dark.

We did not want to risk and keep inmates in holding cells simply for safety reasons, Magistrate Khumalo, who declined to comment further said.



Two years ago, electricity went off at the magistrates court and inmates became violent and started assaulting His Majestys Correctional Services officers. The close to 10 officers were saved by Royal Swaziland Police (RSP) officers, who went inside immediately after power had been restored and intervened.



Most police camps were also affected by the disconnection and most police officers, who preferred to comment on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the power supply was cut off last week and they were forced to purchase fast foods and drinks for their families in town.



SEC Corporate Communications and Marketing Manager Sifiso Dhlamini said the company had published a notice recently pertaining to the disconnection exercise to be conducted countrywide.

Dhlamini elaborated that owing customers were notified and advised to settle their outstanding balances before a certain date as disconnections would be effected. I am, however, not in a position to inform you of the names of the customers as it is unethical.MBABANE  The two South African nationals suspected to have killed businessman Victor Gamedze are not prepared to come to Swaziland.



The duo, Mbusi Ncaza Nkosi and Siphiwe Ngubane, on Friday appeared at the Johannesburg Magistrates Court where they clearly stated their unwillingness to come to the country through their attorney.

It will seem the State will have an uphill battle as it is being met with resistance in its application for the extradition of the pair.



Nkosi and Ngubane on Friday morning physically made an appearance at the court and their appearance was specifically for the extradition. The suspects are currently under provisional arrest following their apprehension about two weeks ago. Social Media, was already abuzz over the suspects appearance although most of the posts suggested that they did not have enough information on what went on in court.

Their court appearance in South Africa comes after Swaziland, through the National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa (NPAS), filed an application for their extradition.



According to a source from the South African prosecuting authority, the suspects, through their attorney, told the court that they were opposing the application to be extradited to Swaziland.

Their attorney only filed a notice of intention to oppose.

Through their attorney, the suspects highlighted that they would soon be filing detailed papers outlining why they were opposing the application to be extradited to Swaziland. This resulted in the magistrate, who was presiding over the matter, postponing it to March 15, 2018.



On this day Swaziland, which is represented by Advocate Deon Van Vyk from the National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa, is expected to convince the court why the accused should be extradited, said the South African source.

The source revealed that during the hearing, there was a Swazi delegation whose further particulars were unknown to her.

She highlighted that during their next appearance, the accused were also expected to argue why they should not be extradited to Swaziland to face the murder charge.

The accused were remanded in custody until the aforementioned hearing date.



Evidence will have to be led and the magistrate will have to decide, the source added.Titusville resident George Greenawalt, a Navy veteran, gets paperwork done by Melissa Davis (center), assistant service officer for the VFW; as Laurie Baker, Titusville Redevelopment Authority executive director, looks on at Davis new office in Suite 203, on the second floor of Towne Square Building in Titusville.[March 04, 2018] From July 26-28, Asia Agri-Tech Expo & Forum Presents the Wide Commercial Possibilities Brought by Circular Economy

TAIPEI, Taiwan, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Agritech blew up agrarian innovation and has become the most influential subject to achieve environmental sustainability in the recent years. The state-of-the-art technology and products optimize the process to produce food and also help increase food safety and productivity. Supported by the official authority, Council of Agriculture (COA), UBM Taiwan organised the Asia Agri-Tech Expo & Forum, featuring advanced technologies that motivate agriculture industry to upgrade and progress, will be held concurrently with Livestock and Aquaculture Taiwan Expo & Forum on July 26-28 at the Taipei World Trade Center. The triple show positions itself as the one-stop B2B international platform and has been recruiting exhibitors from around the world. The boost to the eco-friendly policies urged vendors to develop diverse bio-fertilizers. They are organically recycled by nature fungus and able to help reinforce users' ecological awareness. Azotobacter, mycorrhizal fungi and phosphate-solubilizing bacteria, for instance, are the key fungi to utilize in reproducing fertilizer materials with well performance of promoting plant health and resistance. Aiming at eco-friendly, the "Seaweed Organic Liquid" produced by the exhibitor "Green Land & Technology", the "Anolyte" introduced by "Arnold Biotec," and the "Bio-99" showcased by "Wellness Top Biotech" are the organic fertilizers developed by patented microbial technology and featured soil aptitude for Southeast Asian countries. Owing to the fact that the consumption of meat grows all over the world, the husbandry and aquaculture farmers tend to expand farming scales and create their own brands. In addition, the allowance policy of replacing upgraded farming equipment caused ripples in the Asia-Pacific regions. The commercial possibility of livestock and aquaculture products such as feed additives, animal medicine and vaccines, smart farming systems, whole-plant equipment and so on, will grow quintuple compared to 2017. Taiwan exhibitors, Yeong Ming Machine Industrial, Spring Wisdom, Vetnostrum Animal Health, MIC Meter Industrial, Clientron, showcasing Swivel Cooler, ruminant animal feed additives, water guardian via mobiles or slates, iSensing Smart Farming Solution and NSP enzyme, will benefit from this circular economy policy and inspire the industries with no doubt. Most enquiries about the exhibition are received from buyers located in Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore. UBM Taiwan is also welcoming trade buyers from other Southeast Asian countries, the Middle East, India, China, Japan and South Korea. At present, the number of exhibitors has exceeded 2017 debut. The organiser is now recruiting IoT technology, innovative equipment and product and machinery suppliers in the fields of Agriculture, livestock and aquaculture. The grand 3-day trade show contains a series of conferences and business match-making programmes from July 26-28. For more exhibition information and details, please refer to the official website http://www.agritechtaiwan.com or contact Sophia Lu (TEL: +886-2-2738-3898; FAX: +886-2-2738-4886; Email: aat-tw@ubm.com).







About news release, please contact Ms. Joy Chou For exhibitor inquiry, please contact Ms. Sophia Lu For visitor inquiry, please contact Ms. Natasha Chiang UBM Asia Ltd., Taiwan Branch TEL:+886-2-2738-3898 FAX:+886-2-2738-4886 Email:aat-tw@ubm.com Website: www.agritechtaiwan.com www.livestocktaiwan.com www.aquaculturetaiwan.com



Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180302/2070461-1-a

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180302/2070461-1-b

Logo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170222/8521701055LOGO

Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180302/2070461-1LOGO SOURCE UBM Asia Ltd., Taiwan Branch

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] Hitachi Vantara Expands 17-Year Partnership With Tech Data in United States and Canada

SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hitachi Vantara, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE:6501), today outlined an expanded focus for their successful long-term partnership with Tech Data, the leading global end-to-end distributor of technology products, services and solutions. As the first North American partner to add the Big Data Insights Specialization to its participation in Hitachi Vantaras TrueNorth Partner Program, Tech Data will make the Pentaho suite of data analytics and integration solutions and services from Hitachi Vantara available to its partners and customers. As part of the enhanced relationship, Tech Data will also support Hitachi with the recruitment, onboarding, and sales and presales enablement of a growing ecosystem of Hitachi Vantara partners with proven success and competencies in big data analytics solutions and services.

Now more than ever, organizations across all industries are seeing tremendous value in analytics as a key technology in their digital transformation. According to analyst firm IDC, worldwide revenues for big data and business analytics will grow to more than $210 billion in 2020, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.9%.* For nearly 20 years, the Tech Data partnership has been an instrumental part of our success. Today, as we transform our business to address new trends and requirements, we are pleased to see our partnership with Tech Data transform. It now includes a focus on new strategic areas of the business, including advanced analytics where we expect to see tremendous growth ver the next 12-24 months, said Jay McGloin, vice president of sales for partners, commercial and solutions sales for Hitachi Vantara in the Americas.



Cheryl Neal, vice president of data and networking at Tech Data, said, Tech Data is proud to extend its long-standing partnership with Hitachi Vantara to focus on addressing the capabilities and outcomes that customers require today. With our expertise in solution specialization, relationships and reach, Tech Data will help drive sales and support Hitachi Vantaras advanced analytics solutions, such as the Pentaho suite of data analytics and integration solutions and services. Hitachi Vantara, in concert with Tech Data, will discuss big data insight opportunities during the Strata Data Conference in San Jose, California, March 5-8, 2018 at Hitachi Vantara booth #1221.

*IDC 2017 Worldwide Semiannual Big Data and Analytics Spending Guide, March 2017 About Hitachi Vantara

Hitachi Vantara, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., helps data-driven leaders find and use the value in their data to innovate intelligently and reach outcomes that matter for business and society. We combine technology, intellectual property and industry knowledge to deliver data-managing solutions that help enterprises improve their customers experiences, develop new revenue streams, and lower the costs of business. Only Hitachi Vantara elevates your innovation advantage by combining deep information technology (IT), operational technology (OT) and domain expertise. We work with organizations everywhere to drive data to meaningful outcomes. Visit us at www.HitachiVantara.com.





Connect With Hitachi Vantara Twitter

LinkedIn

Facebook About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE:6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers innovations that answer societys challenges. The companys consolidated revenues for fiscal 2016 (ended March 31, 2017) totaled 9,162.2 billion yen ($81.8 billion). The Hitachi Group is a global leader in Social Innovation and has approximately 304,000 employees worldwide. Through collaborative creation, Hitachi is providing solutions to customers in a broad range of sectors, including Power / Energy, Industry / Distribution / Water, Urban Development, and Finance / Government & Public / Healthcare. For more information, please visit http://www.hitachi.com. HITACHI is a trademark or registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. TrueNorth is a trademark or registered trademark of Hitachi Vantara Corporation. All other trademarks, service marks, and company names are properties of their respective owners. COMPANY CONTACT

Hitachi Vantara

Esther Costa

Esther.Costa1@hitachivantara.com

408-802-9159

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] KnowBe4 Expands Into South Africa by Acquiring Popcorn Trainin

Tampa Bay, FL, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- KnowBe4, the worlds largest security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, announced the acquisition of Popcorn Training, a security company based in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. The acquisition will add fifty-two new training modules to the KnowBe4 library. Popcorn will operate as an independent subsidiary of KnowBe4.



Stu Sjouwerman, CEO of KnowBe4 stated, We are delighted to have a new creative content team on board and are very enthused about expanding our footprint into South Africa. Popcorns appearance in the 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant as a visionary highlighted their drive to create unique content and we are happy to bring these additional modules to our customers. Popcorns CEO, Anna Collard said, We are excited about becoming part of the KnowBe4 family for a number of reasons. Firstly,it will allow us to expand our offering and integrate with KnowBe4's best of breed phishing & training solutions. Secondly, by becoming KnowBe4's representative for the African region, we look forward to building content and solutions that are applicable to the African context. Thirdly, the transaction enables us to continue to grow and to stay focused on what we love doing, which is creating high-quality cyber security awareness content.



As long as users can be duped into clicking a malicious link or attachment, cyber-criminal organizations are going to continue to take advantage of it. The bad guys are continually testing their latest malware against security software and hardware solutions. Endpoint protection helps protect against a portion of this malware but does not eradicate the problem of social engineering. KnowBe4 is focused on helping IT manage the problem of social engineering to enable users to make better security decisions.

About Popcorn Training Popcorn Training is an award-winning security awareness training provider based in Africa with a global customer base, focused on producing engaging content. About KnowBe4 KnowBe4, the provider of the worlds most popular integrated new-school security awareness training and simulated phishing platform, is used by more than 16,000 organizations worldwide. Founded by data and IT security expert Stu Sjouwerman, KnowBe4 helps organizations address the human element of security by raising awareness of ransomware, CEO fraud and other social engineering tactics through a new-school approach to security awareness training. Kevin Mitnick, internationally recognized computer security expert and KnowBe4s Chief Hacking Officer, helped design KnowBe4s training based on his well-documented social engineering tactics. Thousands of organizations trust KnowBe4 to mobilize their end-users as the last line of corporate IT defense. Number 231 on the 2017 Inc. 500 list, #50 on 2016 Deloittes Technology Fast 500 and #6 in Cybersecurity Ventures Cybersecurity 500. KnowBe4 is headquartered in Tampa Bay, Florida with European offices in England and The Netherlands. For more information, visit www.knowbe4.com and follow Stu on Twitter at @StuAllard. Attachment: A photo accompanying this announcement is available at //www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a2d5b072-9268-487e-8ce6-a577ae8df67b Kathy Wattman KnowBe4 7274749950 kathyw@knowbe4.com

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 04, 2018] Linde LienHwa highlights 2017 RMB 1.5 billion electronics customer investment commitment in Mainland China and additional new special gas production in Taiwan



- RMB 1.5 billion committed for electronic customer on-site plants and bulk gas infrastructure in Mainland China - Germane (GeH 4 ) precision blending and filling facility in Taichung, Taiwan - Fluorine (F 2 ) production, mixing and filling facility in Guanyin, Taiwan - March 2018 Shanghai presentations at SEMICON China and Global Semiconductor Forum SHANGHAI, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Linde LienHwa, a key supplier of gases and chemicals to the electronics industry, continues to invest with its customers in Mainland China and Taiwan. On-site nitrogen generator plants are an early, tangible and significant demonstration of commitment to individual customers as they plan and execute new semiconductor and display panel plants. The company is also expanding its production of electronic special gases (ESGs). This enhances its portfolio to meet the growing demand of local customers in the semiconductor and display industries. Linde LienHwa is leveraging access to global expertise to build first-in-kind capabilities in Taiwan to innovate locally for customers. In March, Linde LienHwa will highlight its position in the electronics material sector with presentations by its executives at two industry forums held in Shanghai. The company invites customers and others in the electronics industry to visit its booth at the SEMICON China trade show for one-on-one discussions about their requirements and how Linde LienHwa is their local partner with global expertise. Investing and growing with customers in Mainland China with on-site nitrogen production

Mainland China has made a large commitment to the electronics industry through the Sino IC Industry Investment Fund, more commonly known as The Big Fund. This has spurred an unprecedented number of new semiconductor and display projects launch in 2017, on top of very active preceding years in 2015 and 2016. Nitrogen gas is used in high volumes at these facilities in almost all manufacturing steps to purge and inert chemically sensitive processes. For most facilities, it is much more economical to produce the required volume of nitrogen on-site, rather than to supply the gas by truck delivery. On-site nitrogen generators are built at an early phase of each project because nitrogen is required to be ready before the facility equipment arrives. SPECTRA-N nitrogen generators from the Linde Engineering division of the Linde Group support customers with their high quality products, flexible capacity and production and energy efficiency. These plants are designed, fabricated and executed by teams located in Hangzhou and Dalian, China. Linde LienHwa has been successful in addressing the market needs with a number of new project signings. "These wins were punctuated in 2017 by a Linde LienHwa commitmen of over RMB 1.5 billion investment in on-site gas production and bulk gas installations for electronics customers in Mainland China, which will fuel electronics revenue growth for us over the next five years," said Stan Tang, President of LLH China. "This is only possible with a strong network of bulk gas production plants and fleet delivery throughout Mainland China, which back-up the on-site nitrogen plants as well as offer competitive supplies of oxygen, argon, hydrogen and other products."



GeH 4 precision blending and filling at Taichung Harbor

Linde LienHwa's capability for blending and filling of germane in Taichung Harbor is the first and only of its kind in Taiwan. The facility produces mixtures between 1 to 20% germane in ultra-high purity hydrogen with extreme precision and state-of-the-art analysis. Germane-hydrogen mixtures are used by leading-edge semiconductor companies to make the most critical elements of computer chips, and precision of the blend is essential to making a working device. Fluorine production at Guanyin

Another first in Taiwan is Linde LienHwa's production of electronics-grade fluorine in Guanyin, a district of Taoyuan City. This special high-purity grade of fluorine is produced using generators from Linde developed for the electronics industry. The fluorine is typically blended with nitrogen or other inert gases, packaged in cylinders and used by electronics customers to remove particles and unwanted deposits from the interior surfaces of manufacturing tools.

Local partner. Global expertise.

"By investing locally in material processing, we are significantly reducing the supply chain risk and increasing material availability for our customers," notes Alex Tong, President of Linde LienHwa. "These new facilities represent the latest phases in our commitment to expand ESG production in both Taiwan and mainland China." Linde LienHwa maintains an extensive network of on-site gas production, bulk gases for electronics customers, ESGs, ultra-pure wet chemicals, chemical production and stocking facilities. Linde LienHwa offers a widest number of electronics materials. Its products enable leading-edge manufacturing in the semiconductor, solar, display and solid state lighting/LED industries. Linde Electronics, its global partner, is the electronics materials and service business of The Linde Group, an industry leader in the industrial gas sector. Linde Gas operates in more than 100 countries, with world-class R&D centers, including its newest Electronics R&D Center in Taichung Harbor, Taiwan. SEMICON China and the Global Semiconductor Forum

Linde LienHwa will be exhibiting at the SEMICON China tradeshow in Shanghai 14-16 March 2018. Its focus will be on the quality, expertise, service and technical leadership that Linde LienHwa and its global partner Linde Electronics bring to the semiconductor industry through such offerings as electronic specialty gases, bulk gases for electronics customers and on-site solutions like SPECTRA-N nitrogen plants. Anshul Sarda, Vice President of Electronics Special Gases for the Linde Group, will be speaking at the SEMICON China Win-Win: Build China's IC Ecosystem forum, for which LLH is a sponsor, on 15 March in the Pudong Ballroom of the Kerry Hotel. His talk entitled "Integrating domestic and international electronic material solutions" given at 16:00 will explain the challenges of materials supply in a dynamic landscape of established and newly-launched customers and material producers. Dr. Anish Tolia, Vice President of Global Marketing for Linde Electronics, will be speaking at the Global Semiconductor Forum on 9 March at the Grand Kempinski Hotel in Shanghai. His workshop entitled "Supplying China: Combining local partnerships with global expertise by electronic material providers" will instruct on how material providers can adapt global experience in supply chains to the burgeoning opportunities and requirements of the China electronics market. SEMICON China is the annual tradeshow for the semiconductor manufacturing industry in Mainland China. All visitors are welcome to visit Linde LienHwa in the Shanghai New International Expo Center in Hall E7 at booth number 7022. For further inquiries, please contact Mandy Jiang at mandy.jiang@linde.com. About Linde LienHwa

Linde LienHwa (LLH) is an established joint venture of LienHwa Industrial Corp and The Linde Group, and is among the largest industrial gas manufacturers in Taiwan. Through close partnership with the worldwide-based Linde Group, Linde LienHwa has the capability to provide various high quality gas and gas-application technologies. Furthermore, in order to keep up with rapid growth, Linde LienHwa has invested heavily in high-efficiency gas production equipment. About Linde Electronics

Linde Electronics is the global electronics business of the Linde Group and an industry leader in gases for the electronics marketsemiconductor, solar, display and LED. Linde Electronics helps electronics companies achieve their goals through a strong focus on quality and environmental leadership, its expertise, commitment to the industry through ongoing investments in processes, engineering, and on-site and localized solutions, a broad portfolio that includes environmentally sustainable and highly specialized and rigorously measured electronic specialty gases (ESGs), bulk/pipeline gases, equipment, and services, and through working closely with customers to better meet their evolving needs. For more information, visit www.linde.com/electronics or contact electronicsinfo@linde.com. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/95247/linde_north_america_logo.jpg

SOURCE Linde Electronics

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] Vestarin: Project of the Future - Identifying the Best Cyptocurrency Trends

MOSCOW, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Germany has legalized cryptocurrencies as a means of payment, and its users are not taxed. This is an important precedent for the world as this decision was given by the largest EU economy. Previously, Japan, Belarus, and other countries had also acted the same, it shows that it opens new opportunities for businesses. In fact, many large trading companies are already accepting cryptocurrency for consumer payments. But the Vestarin project is the only one here to help the smaller businesses. "A year ago we knew what direction the blockchain would go, and within a few months we had developed the specification for the marketplace, which the world had not been ready for. But now, when we enter the final stretch of the development, the world needs us," says the creator of the Vestarin project, Said Radzhabov. A year ago, very few people believed that cryptocurrencies will actually be used by anybody, except for the small group of crypto enthusiasts and visionaries, however now it is clear, digital money is the future. Large chains like KFC, Starbucks, Dell, Microsoft box Live, Netopia, and many more have already integrated cryptocurrencies into their trading networks. Even Greenpeace and Wikipedia accept bitcoins.



But this is done inconsistently, and, above all without taking the interests of small business owners. There is therefore a need in a unified platform with broad functionality not only for payments but also to find the nearest stores, to speak to the owners and to get the feedback. This is especially true when it comes to the integration of small enterprises and establishments into the crypto industry, large companies will not be gone, but it will be difficult for small businesses to follow the best trends without the help of projects like the Vestarin.

Bitcoin is not convenient - it is slow and expensive. To satisfy the demand for quality and fast payments with cryptocurrency, the Vestarin platform has been developed - it is a multifunctional platform founded in 2017 by the international team of developers led by Said Radzhabov. Which at the moment have successfully completed the Pre-ICO, and had sold out of all their tokens for that stage. We remind, the main and final stage of the token sale - ICO starts March 5. With the latest changes in the world, it is obvious that ICO for the team won't be a problem, since the integration of cryptocurrencies tool for mass payments has become a key trend in the industry in its new conditions. While many people are only exploring the industry, the Vestarin has already mastered it, giving tremendous opportunities for consumers and businesses of all sizes. About Vestarin Vestarin is a unique platform for the cryptocurrency market. You can find the right people to work with the blockchain projects. Spend crypto for daily needs, shopping, restaurants or services without changing it to fiat money. Be more informed from trusted people about new ICO start-ups before investing in them, as well as about a lot more features such as informational base, news, forum and mining farms market, in order for businesses to integrate an establishment or a shop in any country and get a profit in cryptocurrency.

SOURCE Vestarin

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 04, 2018] Herringbone & Sui Opens Third Store in Bandra, Mumbai

MUMBAI, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Made-to-measure Suiting Company on Path to Revolutionise the Way Indian Men Dress Mumbai-based Herringbone & Sui has announced the opening of its newest store and third location at Bandra, Mumbai. This made-to-measure men's brand has quietly carved a name for themselves as one of the country's leading destinations for quality suits and garments. The brand stands for convenience, quality and affordability, and where Neapolitan tailoring meets Indian sensibilities. Herringbone & Sui is where the modern Indian man goes when he wants a Saville Row quality suit cut at Indian prices. (Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/646765/Herringbone_Sui_Bandra_Store.jpg )

Founded in 2015 in Mumbai, the company has just opened its third store in the leafy bylanes of Bandra, which GQ described as "a sublime space that gives you the ultimate shopping experience". The brand's range includes suits, shirts, trousers, Indian wear and accessories. Their stores are homages to good design and aesthetics, with custom-made art pieces and quirky elements like ciar rooms and bars. These 'destination' stores take inspiration from their iconic locations and are often tucked away from busy main roads, retaining a sense of privacy and personality. "We base our store locations out of our online sales," says co-founder Samarth Hegde. "We have a very strong online business and that's a good pointer on where we should be looking at for our brick-and-mortar stores."



When the brand was starting out, a couple of LVMH head honchos discovered the brand and ordered a few garments. This is what led them to make a sizeable investment in Herringbone & Sui, catapulting the brand to growth and expansion. Today, three years later, the company is poised to take over the rest of India and has plans to open at least 7-10 stores over the next two years. "We've proven that we can make a product that's a lot higher in quality than people would normally expect for the price," says co-founder Kabir Mehra. "And I'm not saying a little bit. It's a lot. This is something that will appeal to someone in Mumbai as much as it will to someone in New York or London." Herringbone & Sui has become a leader in the made-to-measure suiting space and has discovered that they get as many first-time buyers as they do experienced ones. With suits that start at INR 25,000, Herringbone & Sui aims to become a regular in every man's closet, from your corporate heads to Bollywood celebrities. What sets the brand apart is their use of imported Italian fabrics, which they then sew in their own factory. They use sophisticated machinery that only the large players have access to. Their garments are completely customizable, meaning that you will receive something that has been fitted to your exact specifications.

Being a heavily tech-driven company, Herringbone & Sui is all set to launch their in-house style app which will help their stylists offer customers the ultimate shopping experience. "Herringbone & Sui may have hit the Indian shores at a good time - just when Indian men were finally waking up to the importance of wearing a suit, and how essential it is for it to fit well," Mehra says. The luxury bespoke garments sales in India grew at 25% from 2013-2017 and it's possible that Herringbone & Sui's unconventional path has propelled it to the forefront of this trend. For more information, visit https://www.herringboneandsui.com/# Media Contact:

Abhishek Sharma

abhishek@aretepr.com

+91-7506843811

Arete PR



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] Skyguide & AirMap Join Forces to Develop Europe's First National Drone Traffic Management System

The nationwide deployment of AirMap UTM in Switzerland will advance the development of U-space infrastructure across Europe MADRID, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- World ATM Congress  Today, skyguide, the Swiss air navigation service provider, and AirMap, the leading global airspace management platform for drones, announced that they will develop and deploy the first national drone traffic management system in Europe. The system will be the first national deployment of U-space, Europe's vision for the digital infrastructure that will support safe and secure access to European skies for millions of drones. Much like the U.S. "Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM)" initiative, U-space is a collaborative effort to enable situational awareness, data exchange, and digital communication for the European drone ecosystem. In a pilot phase starting in June 2018, skyguide and AirMap plan to integrate the AirMap UTM platform with skyguide's infrastructure and introduce automated flight authorization in a single airspace environment. Skyguide and AirMap will also develop a roadmap for Swiss U-space that will set the stage for the deployment of a fully operational drone traffic management system in 2019 and beyond. Swiss U-space will ensure that all categories of drones and all types of missions can safely take flight in Switzerland's airspace. Swiss U-space will include features such as: Blockchain-based registration for users and drones;

Dynamic geofencing and instant digital airspace authorization;

Real-time traffic alerts for drone pilots and live drone telemetry for airspace managers;

Connectivity and communication between drone pilots and airspace administrators;

Other services to enable simultaneous flights in shared airspace. "After a year of successful collaoration with AirMap, we expect that the AirMap UTM platform meets the highest standards required for a Swiss U-space," says Klaus Meier, Chief Information Officer of skyguide. "We're looking forward to bringing U-space capabilities to Switzerland and we are excited to drive this innovation together with AirMap."



"With Swiss U-space, Switzerland aims to safely open the skies for drone commerce," said Ben Marcus, CEO of AirMap. "We're proud to work with skyguide to bring AirMap UTM to Switzerland and make it possible for more pilots, more drones, and more missions to take flight in Europe." "The establishment of a U-space is the key to improve drone operations' safety and to satisfy the security and privacy concerns of our citizens. In order to achieve these objectives, a seamless cooperation between all the partners involved is crucial. I am glad to see that a further important step to tackle this challenge was taken today." said Christian Hegner, Director General of Switzerland's Federal Office of Civil Aviation.

Swiss U-space will be a powerful catalyst for Switzerland's drone economy. Since 2013, drone flight requests at skyguide have multiplied tenfold. Switzerland is home to a thriving community of drone companies and the world's first autonomous drone delivery network, located in Zurich. The partnership follows the success of skyguide's 2017 Swiss U-space trial, the first live demonstration of sophisticated U-space services in Europe. Together, skyguide, AirMap, and SITAONAIR exhibited fully operational U-space capabilities - including registration and identification, geofencing, and flight authorization - during live drone missions performed by senseFly and PX4 in Geneva. With deployments in Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States, AirMap UTM is the most comprehensive and connected platform of its kind. The platform offers up-to-date airspace information for every country in the world, national airspace rules for more than 20 countries, and the largest network of drone operators, manufacturers, and airspace managers in the drone ecosystem, reaching more than 85% of the world's drones. About skyguide

Skyguide provides air navigation services for Switzerland and certain adjacent airspaces of neighbouring countries. With its 1500 employees at 14 locations in Switzerland, the company guides some 1.2 million civil and military flights a year safely and efficiently through Europe's busiest airspace.

Skyguide also operates drones for maintenance purposes. Example: by calibrating the ILS via drones instead of planes, skyguide will achieve significant reductions in costs (-360'000 CHF) and CO2 emissions (- 94 tons) by 2020. Several more applications are being developed. Learn more about Swiss U-space at: www.skyguide.ch/u-space About AirMap

AirMap is the world's leading airspace management platform for drones. Millions of drones, hundreds of industry developers, and hundreds of airspace managers and stakeholders rely on AirMap's airspace intelligence and services to fly safely and communicate with others in low- altitude airspace. AirMap powers more than 85% of the world's drones through integrations with major drone manufacturers such as DJI, Intel, senseFly, Kespry, and Aeryon Labs. With deployments in Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, and the United States, AirMap leads the industry in delivering technology solutions for Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) that help drones safely share the skies. Learn more about the AirMap UTM platform at www.airmap.com/UTM. CONTACT: Megan Anderson, 1-626-243-3194, megan@mightypr.com Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/288580/airmap_logo.jpg Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/649417/Skyguide_RBG_Logo.jpg

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] NYNJA, the World's First Blockchain-Unified Platform for Communications and Commerce Gives Visionary Keynote at d10e Seoul

SEOUL, South Korea, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- NYNJA Group Ltd ., a global communications and mobile technology company, presented a next generation blockchain-unified platform and ecosystem at d10e, one of the world's foremost conferences on decentralization. NYNJA's new technology, customisable for both individual consumers and large organizations, allows users to communicate, conduct trade and enter into agreements without language barriers in a decentralized on-demand cryptocurrency marketplace. NYNJA is creating the first global communications platform with an on-demand marketplace and cryptocurrency ecosystem. Users engage with this ecosystem though the NYNJA app, a mobile communicator that combines voice, text and visual messaging with robust business management and e-commerce functions. Powered by its own cryptocurrency, NYNJACoin, users can exchange freelance services and virtual goods, collaborate on complex projects and earn tokens for sharing and participating in the community. Industry-leading encryption ensures security while enabling powerful new possibilities for digital media rights and distribution. Users can be granted permissioned or paid-for access to files and content through the platform.



Marshall Taplits, Co-Founder & Chief Strategy Officer at NYNJA, shared the vision and technology powering NYNJA in his talk, "Open Unity: How individuals and societies thrive with blockchain enabled platforms".

"This was a fantastic opportunity to share our vision for a NYNJA-powered future with Korea, which clearly has one of the most vibrant and energized blockchain communities in the world. NYNJA is creating a truly open global platform where people can create, tap into independent contractor opportunities, communicate, and collaborate in a secure, seamless way that will fundamentally change the way individuals and organisations interact with each other in Korea and around the world," said Mr. Taplits. About NYNJA NYNJA Group Limited is a Hong Kong-based company creating the first international cross-platform communications platform with a built-in cryptocurrency marketplace and crypto wallet. The NYNJA platform combines voice, text and visual messaging with robust business management and e-commerce features, all powered by its own financial ecosystem and cryptocurrency, NYNJACoin. With NYNJACoin, users can exchange freelance services and virtual goods, as well as access exclusive content and earn tokens for viewing ads or using branded material.



For more information on the NYNJA platform, the NYNJA app or the NYNJACoin token sale, please visit: https://www.nynja.biz/. Book meetings with NYNJA here: https://calendly.com/david-501/30min Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180305/2071294-1LOGO

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180305/2071294-1-a

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180305/2071294-1-b SOURCE NYNJA

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] The Hershey Company Selects Accenture to Support Growth Plans and Accelerate Speed of Innovation

Accenture (News - Alert) (NYSE: ACN) has been selected by The Hershey Company (NYSE: HSY) to implement SAP S/4HANA as part of a program designed to help the snacks company streamline manufacturing and supply chain processes, gain real-time customer insights to inform decision making, and accelerate revenue-generating innovation to drive growth. The project is part of The Hershey Company's strategy of growing core confectionery and snacking products, expanding margins and leveraging technology for competitive advantage. "Our collaboration with Accenture will enable us to increase competitive advantage and support our growth ambition through greater collaboration and innovation, as well as service delivery built around the needs of our customers," said Terry O'Day, chief product supply and technology officer for The Hershey Company. "We selected Accenture for its understanding of our industry, technology credentials and proven track record in delivering enterprise transformation at scale." Richard Simon, a managing director in Accenture's Consumer Goods & Services practice, said, "Implementing SAP (News - Alert)  S/4HANA as part of this transformation initiative is a further demonstration of Hershey's commitment to become a truly modern enterprise that puts the consumer first. We are focused on helping Hershey bring innovation to market, maximize its business performance and operate even more efficiently." Keith Barringer, who leads Accenture's Consumer Goods & Services practice in North America, said, "Accenture has always been at the forefront of helping consumer packaged goods companies accelerate their adoption of new ways of working and new operating models. This opportunity enables us to bring our vast experience to Hersheyas it navigates its journey to a more agile organization."



About The Hershey Company The Hershey Company, headquartered in Hershey, Pa., is an industry-leading snacks company known for bringing goodness to the world through its iconic brands, remarkable people and enduring commitment to help children in need. Hershey has approximately 18,000 employees around the world who work every day to deliver delicious, quality products. The company has more than 80 brands around the world that drive more than $7.4 billion in annual revenues, including such iconic brand names as Hershey's, Reese's, Kit Kat, Jolly Rancher and Ice Breakers and SkinnyPop.

For more than 120 years, Hershey has been committed to operating fairly, ethically and sustainably. Hershey founder, Milton Hershey, created the Milton Hershey School in 1909 and since then the company has focused on giving underserved children the skills and support they need to be successful. Today, the company continues this social purpose through 'Nourishing Minds,' a global initiative that provides basic nutrition to help children learn and grow. Visit us www.thehersheycompany.com. About Accenture Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions - underpinned by the world's largest delivery network - Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With more than 435,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com. SAP, SAP S/4HANA and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. See http://go.sap.com/corporate/en/legal/copyright.html. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180304005030/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] Under the Leadership of HE Razan Al Mubarak, Abu Dhabi Launches the Arabic Translation of the Natural Capital Protocol

ABU DHABI, UAE, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Hosted by the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Group (ADSG), the fourth annual Abu Dhabi Sustainable Business Leadership Forum started in the capital today, bringing together some of the greatest names and companies at the forefront of sustainable business across the region. Up to 200 of the region's business leaders participated in a range of workshops, meetings and plenary sessions to spur on progress and sustainability work in the Emirate. The forum helped to promote UAE leadership sustainability initiatives, engaged thought leadership on key sustainability topics and raised awareness on the latest global trends. During the event, which was attended by Her Excellency Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, Secretary General, Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi (EAD), the Arabic translation of the Natural Capital Protocol was launched. The launch is part of a wider collaborative effort between EAD, ADSG and the Natural Capital Coalition (the Coalition) to commence a series of workshops in the Emirate to engage with business on the concept of natural capital. The Coalition is a global collaboration between more than 270 organisations, with wide representation from across the global economy. 38 diverse Coalition organisations came together to deliver the world's first Natural Capital Protocol, and almost 500 organisations provided input over the course of the two-year project. Due to exceptionally strong demand from organisations around the world, the Protocol will be translated into a number of languages in 2018. The Arabic translation, which has been developed by the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Group, in collaboration with the Natural Capital Coalition and the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency, is the first translation in the Arabic script, and positions Abu Dhabi as a leader in natural capital approaches in the Gulf Region. Her Excellency Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak, EAD's Secretary General, said: "Many of our sustainability challenges can be addressed through natural capital approaches, to help organisations become more resilient, minimise risk and protect the environment. It is, therefore, my great pleasure to introduce you to the Natural Capital Protocol - the culmination of a collaborative project to help organisations better understand how their continued success depends on the health of natural capital, and whether they are having a positive or negative impact on this health." Furthermore, speaking at the event, Mark Gough, the Coalition's Executive Director said: "As the demand for the Natural Capital Protocol continues to grow around the world, Protocol translations will become ever more crucial as a way to ensure that we are taking natural capital approaches to scale. We are grateful to the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Group and the Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi for stepping up to deliver the Protocol translation in the Arabic script"



Commenting on the Forum, Adel Ahmed Albuainain, CEO, Dolphin Energy Limited, said: "This year's theme is of particular interest to us because as a company that already places a lot of value on natural capital, we are looking forward to contributing to the discussions, sharing our insights and collaborating with our peers. We are also keen to learn more about how we can use this platform to enhance our relationship with the environment, be more efficient and cost effective and drive our sustainability performance in the years ahead." The Forum also highlighted the work the ADSG has been doing on the energy efficiency front, though a collaborative effort with the Energy Institute in the UK. Louise Kingham OBE FEI, Chief Executive, Energy Institute (EI) said: "The EI is pleased to see the focus on Natural Capital at the Abu Dhabi Sustainable Business Leadership Forum. The transition towards the sustainable use of energy is one of the great challenges facing the world today and, as a critical natural asset, energy forms a fundamental component of a Natural Capital way of thinking. The energy efficiency workshop run by the EI as part of the programme identified energy saving opportunities for the EAD and other government entities. We look forward to seeing those opportunities come to fruition."

Helen Slinger, CFO Leadership Network Director, the Prince's Accounting for Sustainability Project (A4S), said: "Better information enables better decision making. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations set out a consistent approach to assessing and disclosing climate-related risks and opportunities within mainstream financial filings. This allows improved company resilience, informed investor decisions and better evaluation of risks and exposures. A4S is supporting the TCFD by running implementation workshops and galvanizing CFOs, Accounting Bodies and Pension Fund Chairs to publicly commit to implementing the recommendations." Linden Coppell, Etihad Airways' Head of Sustainability, said: "Etihad Airways is very pleased to support the Sustainable Business Leadership Forum which will bring to the forefront so many important industry topics and issues. There are so many world-leading initiatives currently taking place in Abu Dhabi and the forum - with its focus on natural resources - will make a strong contribution in this area and Etihad Airways, which has pioneered the development and use of biofuels in commercial aviation, is delighted to be playing a central role." About the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Group (ADSG) The Abu Dhabi Sustainability Group (ADSG) is a membership organisation whose mission is to promote sustainability management in Abu Dhabi by providing learning and knowledge sharing opportunities for government, private companies and not for profit organisations in a spirit of cooperation and open dialogue. The ADSG was set up by EAD in 2008, with the support of the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi, as a forum of members who have signed the ADSG Declaration, committing to adopt best practices of sustainability management and reporting and to actively participate in ADSG activities. The ADSG is open to new members willing to practice and champion sustainability in Abu Dhabi in a spirit of cooperation and open dialogue www.adsg.ae. About the Natural Capital Coalition (The Coalition): The Natural Capital Coalition (the Coalition) has developed the Natural Capital Protocol (hereafter "the Protocol") to make the value of natural capital visible in business decision making. The Coalition is made up of over 270 organizations from a wide range of stakeholder groups including conservation, science and academia, business, associations, standard-setting, finance, accountancy and policy/government. While the Coalition is primarily directed towards solutions for business, it is also a broad 'Coalition' as its name suggests, creating a space where all interested parties from all stakeholder groups can work together to create vibrant societies and productive economies through the recognition of the value of natural capital, and the inclusion of this value in organizational decision making. The Coalition's Natural Capital Protocol and associated sector guides have been developed through a unique collaborative process, with 38 organizations coming together under contract to develop something for the public good. The Protocol, along with sector guides for the Apparel and Food & Beverage sectors were launched in July 2016. The Protocol aims to support better decisions by including how business interacts with natural capital. The Protocol is freely available at http://naturalcapitalcoalition.org/protocol/. Stay updated with our latest news! Click below to follow, like and subscribe: Environment Agency Twitter: @EADTweets https://twitter.com/eadtweets

Facebook: Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi https://www.facebook.com/EnvironmentAgencyAD

YouTube: Environment Agency - Abu Dhabi https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdRGaYXrqkMIxoEfshDDfyA

Instagram: EnvironmentAbuDhabi http://instagram.com/Environmentabudhabi

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] Siyata Mobile to Attend US IWCE 2018

MONTREAL, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Siyata Mobile Inc. (the "Company" or "Siyata") (TSX-V:SIM) (OTCQX:SYATF) is pleased to announce that it will be attending the International Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE) at booth #2674 on March 5-9, 2018 at the Orange County Convention Centre in Orlando, Florida.

IWCE offers a great opportunity for Siyata to network with peers, customers and vendors, along with showcasing its line of Uniden Cellular products. Marc Seelenfreund, CEO and Chairman of Siyata Mobile, commented, We are excited to be presenting at IWCE for a second year. We will have a strong presence in the show, the premier US two-way radio and Push-to-Talk Over Cellular event in Florida where we will be showcasing our innovative range of Uniden cellular products. IWCE features over 380 exhibitors showcasing the latest products and trends in the industry. Over 7,000 individuals attend from a diverse group of industry professionals including government/military, public safety, utility, transportation and business enterprise. The Uniden Cellular portfolio bears three 4G/LTE cellular devices. The UV350, the worlds first 4G/LTE all-in-one fleet communications device; the CP250, a connected vehicle tablet/DVR 4G/LTE device built for lighter vehicles and the UR7 HULK. The UR7 HULK is the most recent addition, along with the Companys recently announced 4G/LTE booster portfolio which are well focused towards the North American markets. About Siyata



A TSX Venture Top 50 Company, Siata Mobile Inc. is a leading global developer and provider of cellular communications systems for enterprise customers, specializing in connected vehicle products for professional fleets, marketed under the Uniden Cellular brand. Since developing the worlds first 3G connected vehicle device, Siyata has been a pioneer in the industry, launching the worlds first 4G LTE all-in-one fleet communications device in 2017. Incorporating voice, push-to-talk over cellular, data, and fleet management solutions into a single device, the company aims to become the connected vehicle communications device of choice for commercial vehicles and fleets around the world.







Siyata also offers rugged phones for industrial users and signal boosters for homes, buildings, and fleets with poor cell coverage. Siyatas customers include cellular operators, commercial vehicle technology distributors, and fleets of all sizes in Canada, the U.S., Europe, Australia, and the Middle East. Visit www.siyatamobile.com and http://www.unidencellular.com/ to learn more.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of: SIYATA MOBILE INC. Marc Seelenfreund

CEO and Chairman Investor Relations:

Arlen Hansen

Kin Communications

1-866-684-6730

SIM@kincommunications.com Sales Department:

Glenn Kennedy, VP Sales

Siyata Mobile Inc.

416-892-1823

glenn_kennedy@siyatamobile.com Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under the applicable laws.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] Study: Continued Advances Seen in Health Behaviors and Coordination of People's Care from Value-based Care Arrangements

UnitedHealthcare has released its second annual report detailing how the continued shift to a value-based health care system is encouraging better health and better care, and putting greater focus on the total cost of care. According to the study, UnitedHealthcare is seeing significant advances in people's health behaviors, better coordination of care among physicians and facilities, and cost savings with care providers who have implemented value-based arrangements. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180305005184/en/ These arrangements focus on quality and using incentives to reward better health and lower costs, rather than reimbursing care providers based solely on the volume of services delivered. Among the report's key findings: Better Health: Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) serving employer-sponsored plan participants perform better than non-ACOs on 87 percent of the quality metrics tracked.

Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) serving employer-sponsored plan participants perform better than non-ACOs on 87 percent of the quality metrics tracked. Better Care: UnitedHealthcare and care providers in value-based relationships worked together to identify and close 50 million gaps in care from 2013 through 2017.

UnitedHealthcare and care providers in value-based relationships worked together to identify and close 50 million gaps in care from 2013 through 2017. Lower Costs: Hospital admission rates are 17 percent lower for ACOs serving employer-sponsored and individual plan participants compared to non-ACOs. "Value-based care is creating a platform for positive change throughout the health care system," said Dr. Sam Ho, chief medical officer of UnitedHealthcare. "Patients get more consistent, quality care that is better coordinated and easier to navigate; health plans and care providers are working together on behalf of patients in new ways; and physicians are being rewarded for placing value and quality over volume." Approximately 15 million people enrolled in UnitedHealthcare plans currently seek care from care providers in value-based arrangements. By comparing this sizable population to patients who seek care from care providers not participating in any form of value-based reimbursement, clear patterns have begun to emerge illustrating the benefitof enhanced care coordination, placing greater emphasis on keeping people healthy and rewarding care providers for lowering the total cost of care.



The analysis also found that care providers are expanding the amount and type of compensation that is tied to value-based measures. Among Medicare ACOs working with UnitedHealthcare, over the last year 20 percent have moved further along the risk continuum, which means they are sharing a greater portion of the responsibility for patients' total care, including quality and health care costs. The report examines a broad portfolio of value-based programs with more than 110,000 physicians and 1,100 hospitals that treat people enrolled in UnitedHealthcare employer-sponsored, individual, Medicare and Medicaid products.

To support care providers, UnitedHealthcare shares clear, actionable data and analytics to improve the coordination of a patient's care and take the burden off patients to connect and aggregate information from their various doctor visits and tests. This helps reduce duplicative tests and costs, alerts physicians to specific health events and changes in a patient's treatment, and promotes a team-based approach to patient care. "When an organization like UnitedHealthcare shares these kinds of unique insights with a trusted collaborator like Arizona Care Network, you get rapid results," said David Hanekom, CEO, Arizona Care Network. "This is the kind of relationship that helps transform our health care system." Arizona Care Network, which serves patients in Maricopa and Pinal counties, was able to reduce its health care costs by millions of dollars within the first two years of its ACO with UnitedHealthcare, and patients requiring a hospital admission spent 25 percent less time in the hospital. Arizona Care Network also saw a 30 percent increase in the number of UnitedHealthcare patients it serves, thanks in part to the enhanced health care experience and care coordination from the ACO. Today, approximately $64 billion of the total annual payments UnitedHealthcare makes to care providers is tied to value-based arrangements, and the company continues to expect that to rise to $75 billion by the end of 2020. To download the full report, as well as infographics and commentary from UnitedHealthcare leaders, visit https://www.uhc.com/valuebasedcare. About UnitedHealthcare

UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping people nationwide live healthier lives by simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. The company offers the full spectrum of health benefit programs for individuals, employers, military service members, retirees and their families, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 1 million physicians and care professionals, and 6,000 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare at www.uhc.com or follow @UHC on Twitter (News - Alert) . Click here to subscribe to Mobile Alerts for UnitedHealth Group. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180305005184/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] A Connected Wearable Device to Help People Get to the Bathroom Before It's Too Late to Be Released in US Later This Year

SAN DIEGO, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Triple W, a startup company that develops the first connected wearable device that can track the progression of bladder movements using non-invasive ultrasonic sensors, announced today that their product will be released in the US later this year. The device will help elderly and disabled people who suffer from incontinence by notifying when they will need to go to the bathroom. As a result, users no longer have to worry about accidents and can often forgo the embarrassment of wearing diapers. According to a report released by CDC, more than 50 percent of older Americans struggle with incontinence. Incontinence occurs when muscles are too weak or too active. There are other causes of incontinence, such as prostate problems and nerve damage. The device goes on your lower abdomen and uses ultrasonic sensors to monitor the change in bladder size. The data collected is then sent to a server where it is analyzed using a patented algorithm. The notification is then sent to a smartphone or tablet used by the patient, nurse or caregivers, to inform when it is necessary to go to the bathroom. Atsushi Nakanishi, President and CEO for Triple W, comments: "Health services globally are struggling with the burden of growing and aging populations and continue to put more emphasis on patients and caregivers to monitor their own well-being. I believe the potential for a device like DFree in the US is vast and we are looking forward to making the product available later this year." Nakanishi also adds: "Our mission is to help people with incontinene regain dignity and confidence so that they can live their life to the fullest."



DFree's benefits extend beyond avoiding accidents. The device also provides users with a sense of control and freedom over their lives. Ty Takayanagi, who works for Triple W, has an 11-year-old son who is not able to use the bathroom independently and wears a diaper after suffering from traumatic brain injury. With DFree monitoring his son's bladder movement, he takes his son to the bathroom when his bladder is almost full. As a result, his son has become more receptive to using the bathroom instead of using the diaper. "It's about giving him a sense of control and enabling him to achieve more independence," says Takayanagi. Triple W has won numerous innovation awards with the most recent one being the Pitch Innovation Prize by AgeingFit, an organization accelerating innovation for the senior market. Triple W will also be exhibiting the DFree at Medtrade, an international trade show and conference for the home healthcare industry, held in Las Vegas this month (Booth 248). The company is currently exploring new partnership opportunities with US retailers and distributors, as well as collaborative opportunities with other US healthcare companies.

About Triple W Triple W, founded by Atsushi Nakanishi in 2015, is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan with satellite offices in Europe and US. Triple W develops DFree, the first connected wearable device that can track the progression of bladder movements using non-invasive ultrasonic sensor. The device is designed to not only help people with incontinence improve quality of life and enable independence, but to also help reduce the burden for the caregivers. DFree is now widely marketed in the Japanese market and used in about 150 senior care facilities. Triple W is also expected to roll out DFree globally later this year. Media Contacts For further information and to discuss business opportunities, please contact: Ty Takayanagi

Vice President of Marketing and Business Development

Triple W

Tel: 1-858-212-2705

Email: 191231@email4pr.com

Website: http://dfree.biz/en/ View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/a-connected-wearable-device-to-help-people-get-to-the-bathroom-before-its-too-late-to-be-released-in-us-later-this-year-300607582.html SOURCE Triple W

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] Rennova Health, Inc. President and CEO, Seamus Lagan, Returns to Uptick Newswire's "Stock Day" Podcast for 2018 Operational Update

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rennova Health, Inc. (OTCQB:RNVA), (OTCQB:RNVAW) (Rennova or the Company), a vertically integrated provider of industry-leading diagnostics and supportive software solutions to healthcare providers that recently announced the acquisition of its second Rural hospital, announces interview of CEO Seamus Lagan, on Uptick Newswires Stock Day podcast with Everett Jolly

Rennova Health has weathered a couple of very difficult years, said Jolly. "It seems that with the opening of the hospital in Oneida in August 2017 and subsequent agreement to purchase a second larger hospital 38 miles away in Jamestown, you are on your way to rebuilding some decent revenue and value in Rennova. The companys purchase of two geographically synergetic hospitals in rural Tennessee has opened the door for predictable revenue and growth moving forward. Rennova Health expects the implementation of this model will prove positive for the company and its shareholders and expects significant improvements in revenue and shareholders equity throughout 2018. Our hospital in Oneida is benefiting from increasing numbers of patients and billing each month since opening, said Lagan. The purchase of a second much larger hospital within one hours drive from Oneida will create opportunity for numerous efficiencies between the two facilities and allow us to further treat a large number of the patients that Oneida sends to other hospitals each month for operations and other treatments. To listen to the full interview please click here to the following link: https://upticknewswire.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Uptick-Network-RNVA-Interview-2-26-18.mp3 About Rennova Health, Inc.

Rennova provides industry-leading diagnostics and supportive software solutions to healthcare providers, delivering an efficient, effective patient experience and superior clinical outcomes. Through an ever-expanding group of strategic brands that work in unison to empower customers, we are creating the next generation of healthcare. For more information, please visit www.rennovahealth.com.



Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from expectations and, consequently, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Words such as expect, estimate, project, budget, forecast, anticipate, intend, plan, may, will, could, should, believes, predicts, potential, continue, and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results. Additional information concerning these and other risk factors are contained in the Companys most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company does not undertake or accept any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in their expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based, except as required by law. Contacts:

Rennova Health

Sebastien Sainsbury, 561-666-9818

ssainsbury@rennovahealth.com





Investors

LHA

Kim Golodetz, 212-838-3777

Kgolodetz@lhai.com

or

Bruce Voss, 310-691-7100

Bvoss@lhai.com About Uptick Newswire and the Stock Day" Podcast

Uptick Newswire is a private company reaching out to the masses keeping investors and shareholders up to date on company news and bringing transparency to the undervalued, undersold, micro-cap stocks of the market and is the sole producer of the Uptick Network Stock Day Podcast. The Uptick Network Stock Day Podcast is an extension of Uptick Newswire and has recently launched the Video Interview Studio located in Phoenix, Arizona with its new host Kathryn Donnelly. Investors Hangout is a proud sponsor of Stock Day and Uptick Newswire encourages listeners to visit Rennova Health, Inc. message board on: https://investorshangout.com/Rennova-Health-Inc-RNVA-55629/ Source: Uptick Newswire

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] Interactive Whiteboard Market Worth 5.16 Billion USD by 2023

PUNE, India, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- According to the new market research report "Interactive Whiteboard Market by Screen Size (Up to 69", 70"-90", Above 90"), Technology (Infrared, Resistive, Capacitive, Electromagnetic), End User (Education, Corporate, and Government), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2023", published by MarketsandMarkets, the market is estimated to grow from USD 4.31 Billion in 2018 to USD 5.16 Billion by 2023, at a CAGR of 3.69% between 2018 and 2023. The trend of gamification in education and corporate sectors, adoption of e-learning and digital classroom solutions, and increased funding from different governments to incorporate IWBs for various end users are the major driving factors for market growth. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160303/792302 ) Browse 69 Tables and 53 Figures spread through 141 Pages and in-depth TOC on "Interactive Whiteboard Market - Global Forecast to 2023" https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/interactive-whiteboard-market-51706837.html Early buyers will receive 10% customization on this report

Interactive whiteboards having a screen size between 70" and 90" is expected to hold a larger share of the interactive whiteboard market by 2023 IWBs with a display screen size ranging from 70-90" are expected to lead the IWB market, in terms of size, between 2018 and 2023. The demand for IWBs with a display screen size ranging from 70" to 90" is largely driven by educational institutes and government and corporate offices wherein they are essentially used to conduct training sessions and business meetings. Classroom teaching usually involves a group of students (an average of 30 students in a class), and IWBs with a screen size of 70-90" are found to be the most suitable to make the content (notes from the teacher or content from a textbook) visible to the entire class. Infrared technology is expected to hold the largest share of the interactive whiteboard market by 2023 IWBs based on infrared technology are durable and easier to operate compared to capacitive or resistive technologies. Another major driver for the growing adoption of infrared technology is the widespread use of Digital Vision Touch (DViT) technology. DViT technology uses infrared technology as a base and adds multi-touh features to IWBs. Infrared IWBs are mainly installed in classrooms, corporate boardrooms, and training or activity rooms in organizations.



Download PDF Brochure : https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/pdfdownload.asp?id=51706837 Education sector is expected to hold the largest share of the interactive whiteboard market by 2023

The increasing demand for e-learning and interactive learning solutions is a major factor driving the growth of the IWB market globally. Hence, governments across regions are increasingly funding interactive learning models for schools to promote the interactive learning method. Also, the frequent adoption of new technologies in designing IWBs and introduction of e-learning solutions are other major factors driving the demand for interactive whiteboards in the education sector. APAC expected to hold the largest share of the interactive whiteboard market by 2023 APAC is expected to be the fastest-growing market for interactive whiteboards during the forecast period. The interactive whiteboard market has enormous growth potential in APAC, and this product is likely to be accepted by consumers as an integral part of a digitalized classroom. The high growth can be attributed to the increased investments by the government in the education sector and the presence of some key manufacturers such as Samsung, LG Display, Sharp Corporation, and Panasonic in the APAC region. Inquiry Before Buy @ https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Enquiry_Before_Buying.asp?id=51706837 Some major companies in the IWB market include Foxconn (Taiwan), Hitachi (Japan), Samsung Display (South Korea), LG Display (South Korea), Panasonic (Japan), NEC (Japan), Ricoh (Japan), Google (US), Cisco (US), Microsoft (US). Browse Related Reports Interactive Display Market by Product (Interactive Kiosk, Whiteboard, Table, Video Wall, Monitor, Flat Panel Display), Panel Size (17"- 32", 32"- 65", Above 65"), Vertical (Education, Govt. & Corporate), Technology, and Geography - Global Forecast to 2022

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/interactive-display-market-36223528.html Subscribe Reports from Semiconductor Domain @ http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Knowledgestore.asp About MarketsandMarkets MarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies' revenues. Currently servicing 5000 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions. Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve. MarketsandMarkets's flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets. Contact:

Mr. Salgarkar

MarketsandMarkets INC.

630 Dundee Road

Suite 430

Northbrook, IL 60062

USA: +1-888-600-6441

Email: sales@marketsandmarkets.com

Visit Our Blog@ http://www.marketsandmarketsblog.com/market-reports/electronics-and-semiconductors

Connect with us on LinkedIn @ http://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsandmarkets

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] The World's Biggest Fintech Competition launches for its tenth year

MADRID, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- BBVA Open Talent, the world's biggest fintech competition, will this year mark its tenth anniversary by working with more start-ups than ever before. Once again the competition will look to find the very best fintech ideas from anywhere in the world before offering the winners the chance to grow their business with a leading global business. BBVA is looking for the fintech ideas that will shape the future of banking, that will support customers to make the most of their money and their data, and that will help customers reduce the stress of money management and financial decision-making. The bank is also seeking out those solutions that will make businesses run more efficiently, operate more effectively, and work in entirely new and innovative ways. Ultimately, through Open Talent, BBVA wants to foster and support disruption in the banking sector, and to ensure that technology can continue to work as a catalyst for positive change in an ecosystem where industry lines are blurring and great customer and client experience is a key driver for success. Rewarding industry disruption, customer experience, and business transformation The prizes for finalists and winners have been designed on feedback from the thousands of businesses that have taken part in the competition over the previous nine years, to support business growth. As well as a 150,000 prize fund for the overall winners, dozens of finalists will get the chance to take part in an immersion week with the bank, learning how to partner with a big corporation, potentially becoming a customer, and finding solutions to their specific business challenges from expertise within the bank and its partners. What's more, while the winners will automatically get fast-tracked onto the bank's proof of concept' (PoC) workstream, so too will the top ideas seen throughout the submission process. For the tenth anniversary, the competition will be streamlined, with three main prizes on offer: BBVA will also partner with the best start-ups it sees to help them address three of the biggest challenges facing fintechs: gaining exposure for their business, sourcing investment, and finding customers. Fintech for Future: the idea most likely to reshape and disrupt banking in the next decade.

Prize fund of 50,000, plus immersion week at the bank, plus exposure at a major global banking conference, plus fast-tacked onto PoC programme, plu a slot at BBVA's Open Innovation Global Summit in Madrid

Fintech for People: the idea most likely to improve the customer banking experience and positively change the way people manage their money and data.

Prize fund of 50,000, plus immersion week at the bank, plus exposure at a major global banking conference, plus fast-tacked onto PoC programme, plus a slot at BBVA's Open Innovation Global Summit in Madrid

Fintech for Business: the idea most likely to transform the way businesses manage the financial or data side of their operations.

Prize fund of 50,000, plus immersion week at the bank, plus exposure at a major global banking conference, plus fast-tacked onto PoC programme, plus a slot at BBVA's Open Innovation Global Summit in Madrid



Supporting global startups addressing the biggest banking challenges BBVA will also be inviting the best fintech solutions from each of the 11 countries in which it operates to take part in the immersion week at its headquarters in Madrid, and to take part in the BBVA Open Innovation Global Summit - which will see a gathering of influencers, investors, and potential partners comes together in the Spanish capital.

Throughout the year, BBVA will also partner with businesses that meet specific challenges the bank is seeking to solve, such as artificial intelligence, distributed ledger technology, insurtech, consumer finance, and asset management to name a few. Speaking at the launch, BBVA's Global Head of Customer and Client Solutions, Derek White, said: "BBVA Open Talent is a clear example of how the bank has been working with the fintech sector for many years, and supporting the innovation that is driving the financial services industry. "Don't underestimate the impact of this competition - if you are a start-up looking to kick-start your growth, then the insights, relationships, opportunities, and networks you can build through Open Talent create massive impact." BBVA's Head of Open Innovation, Marisol Menendez, added: "It is now the tenth year in a row we have worked to partner with the world's best fintechs to put amazing in the hands of our customers and clients. "This year we have decided to change things up a bit, and to ensure the feedback we get from the whole fintech start-up ecosystem is incorporated into the event. The aim is a totally win-win initiative for BBVA, for the start-ups, and ultimately for the customers and clients who will be the beneficiaries of the products and services being developed." Menendez added that what impresses her most about the competition are the mutual learnings both BBVA and the start-ups get from it. She said: "What we saw last year, especially with the culmination at our now annual Open Summit, was the energy the partnerships create - not just between BBVA and the start-ups, but the connections they make with investors, with business opportunities, and with each other. "Fostering this kind of mutually beneficial fintech ecosystem is really what Open Talent is all about." Last years event saw around 1,000 applicants from 77 different countries take part, with the ultimate winner being an AI-powered personal assistant solution, Change (read more here). Throughout the course of its ten-year history, BBVA Open Talent has see more than 6000 applications from more than 80 countries. In the last two years, the event has created 221 collisions between the bank and fintechs, and 34 proof of concepts. BBVA now works with seven companies who have taken part in the competition since 2016. Already in 2018, BBVA has signed an agreement with one previous participant, which will sell its home insurance solution through the BBVA Seguros platform in Argentina. Find out more and register at https://openspace.bbva.com/en/opentalent/. About BBVA Group

BBVA (NYSE: BBVA) is a customer-centric global financial services group founded in 1857. The Group has a strong leadership position in the Spanish market, is the largest financial institution in Mexico, it has leading franchises in South America and the Sunbelt Region of the United States; and it is also the leading shareholder in Garanti, Turkey's biggest bank for market capitalization. Its diversified business is focused on high-growth markets and it relies on technology as a key sustainable competitive advantage. Corporate responsibility is at the core of its business model. BBVA fosters financial education and inclusion, and supports scientific research and culture. It operates with the highest integrity, a long-term vision and applies the best practices. More information about BBVA Group can be found at bbva.com. View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-worlds-biggest-fintech-competition-launches-for-its-tenth-year-300608091.html SOURCE BBVA

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] College students to analyze cyber-security threats in 2018 National Cyber Analyst Challenge

PHILADELPHIA, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Ten university finalists have been selected for the 2018 National Cyber Analyst Challenge (NCAC), a competition that supports the best students currently pursuing cyber-related degrees in the top programs in the nation. Powered by NBCUniversal, Vanguard, Leidos, and Pfizer, the competition is administered annually by Temple University's Institute for Business and Information Technology. The top 10 teams passed Phase 1 and will advance to Phase 2 advanced cyber training and compete in the Phase 3 finals (April 12-13) at Temple University in Philadelphia. The participating schools (in alphabetical order) are Brigham Young University, Carnegie Mellon University, Howard University, Iowa State University, Pennsylvania State University, Syracuse University, University of Alabama at Huntsville, University of Maryland University College, University of New Haven, and Villanova University. Each university will receive an award of $5,000 to $10,000 to support student, faculty, and curriculum development. The winning team to be selected by a panel of industry experts will recive $20,000.



Now in its third year, the pioneering interdisciplinary competition includes undergraduate and graduate students studying information systems, computer science, and engineering. It encourages the development of strategic skills involving analysis, threat identification, and mitigation planning. "Each year presents another opportunity to meld a student- and faculty-centric experience with the nation's leading practitioners," said Dr. Munir Mandviwalla, IBIT's Executive Director and Associate Professor of Management Information Systems at Temple University's Fox School of Business. "This competition provides valuable exercises that help increase the cyber talent pool and knowledge base across the nation's top programs in Management Information Systems, Computer Science, and Engineering."

The multi-phase competition aims to inspire today's technologically literate students to pursue careers in cyber security. Each university fields a team of 4-5 students and a faculty advisor to analyze a data set. The data set provides the context to a fictitious cyber incident. For Phase I each team submitted a C-level presentation to analyze the incident and provide recommendations. The associated NCAC conference will engage faculty and industry experts on cyber risk analysis, threat identification, remediation, and communication. Presenters will discuss cyber research and curriculum challenges and opportunities including macroeconomic, policy, legal, and digital perspectives, as well as curriculum best practices  targeted toward schools interested in expanding their cyber programs. The conference will also include advanced cyber topics  tutorial style short presentations on leading edge cyber topics. Learn more about the challenge at its website. CONTACT: Christopher Vito, 1-215-204-4115, cvito@temple.edu View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/college-students-to-analyze-cyber-security-threats-in-2018-national-cyber-analyst-challenge-300607477.html SOURCE Temple University's Fox School of Business

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] The 30th Annual DVCon U.S. Continues to be Must-Attend Conference for Design and Verification Engineers; Announces Best Paper Presentation & Best Poster Awards

LOUISVILLE, Colo., March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The 2018 Design and Verification Conference and Exhibition U.S. (DVCon U.S.), sponsored by Accellera Systems Initiative, concluded its 30th annual event last week with attendees energized by the many in-depth technical tutorials, panels, poster sessions and keynote address offered during the four-day program. The DVCon Exposition was bustling each afternoon with many attendees meeting with experts and colleagues to connect and learn about the latest technologies to improve their design and verification productivity.

Overall attendance, including exhibit-only and technical conference attendees, was 836. Attendance was further enhanced by 241 exhibitor personnel that also had access to the panel sessions and keynote address, for a total of 1,077 participants. We continually strive to improve the conference each year to give practicing design and verification engineers the latest and most valuable information on current and emerging standards under one roof over four days, stated Dennis Brophy, DVCon U.S. General Chair. We have grown to keep pace with the needs of our returning and new attendees and added some new topic areas this year such as automotive security and RISC-V that were very well-received. In addition to the technical program, the Expo continues to bring people together to discuss the latest technologies and issues they face with exhibitors and their peers. The floor was full each afternoon and the conversations were lively. The Award for Best Paper Presentation, as voted by conference attendees, went to Jeffery Vance, Jeffrey Montesano, Kevin Vasconcellos and Kevin Johnston from Verilab, Inc. for their presentation, My Testbench Used to Break! Now it Bends: Adapting to Changing Design Configurations. Second place was awarded to Jeremy Ridgeway and Hoe Nguyen from Broadcom Limited for their presentation, Error Injection in a Subsystem Level Constrained Random UVM Testbench, and third place was awarded to Rajarshi Roy, Chinmay Duvedi, Saad Godil and Mark Williams from NVIDIA Corp. for their paper, Deep Predictive Coverage Collection. Top honors for Best Poster went to Timothy Pertuit, Doug Gibson and David Lacey from Hewlett Packard Enterprise for their poster, Is Specman Still Relevant? Using UVM-ML to Take Advantage of Multiple Verification Languages. Second place was awarded to Mandar Munishwar, Qualcomm, Inc., Sandeep Jana, Synopsys (India) Pvt. Ltd. Xiaolin Chen and Arunava Saha, Synopsys, Inc. for their poster, Fast Track Formal Verification Signoff. Third place was awarded to Gabriel Chidolue, Rohit Jain and Shobana Sudhakar from Mentor, A Siemens Business for their poster, Tired of Slow Gate Level Design Verification? Use these Efficien Modelling Styles and Methodology.



Congratulations to our Best Paper and Best Poster Winners for 2018, stated Tom Fitzpatrick, DVCon U.S. Program Chair. "We are very proud of the caliber of material we continue to offer our attendees, and our winners exemplify the hard work and dedication to high quality, in-depth subject matter that helps to make DVCon U.S. a must-attend conference. I would also like to thank the DVCon Technical Committee for their long hours and hard work to ensure that the material selected for our attendees is the best of the best. We continue to receive many more submissions than we can accept, which gives us outstanding options to choose from. Highlights of the Week:

New vertical topics were added to the program this year, resulting in an increase in first-time attendees to the conference. Many attendees were eager to attend Thursday sponsored tutorial sessions and learn more about ISO 26262 compliance and automotive security. There were also a number of sessions throughout the week on Portable Stimulus, including the Monday morning tutorial from the Accellera Working Group that provided updates on the emerging standard to a full house. Richard Weber, CEO of Semifore, Inc., was honored during the Accellera-sponsored luncheon on Monday as the recipient of the seventh annual Accellera Technical Excellence Award. The Monday afternoon tutorial on UVM introduced a room full of engineers to the new reference implementation aligned with IEEE Std. 1800.2-2017 created by the Accellera UVM Working Group. On Tuesday Christopher Tice, vice president of Verification Continuum Solutions in the Verification Group at Synopsys, delivered the keynote addressing how new growth segments in the industry, such as Automotive, IoT, Networking, and 5G Mobile among others, are fundamentally changing the requirements for verification. There were two panels on Wednesday, the first panel, Help! System Coverage is a Big Data Problem! had panelists discussing options for system coverage and possible improvements. The second panel, The Right Tool (or Tools) for the Toughest Verification Tasks, tackled how decisions are made about which tool or tools are best in a design verification flow. Short workshops were added to the program this year to give smaller companies more opportunities to participate in DVCon. They were well-received by attendees looking to learn more about additional design and verification technologies and solutions in 90-minute segments not otherwise covered in the DVCon U.S. program. The DVCon Steering Committee values all feedback regarding the conference. Attendees have been given a survey and are asked to provide input on how to make DVCon U.S. 2019 even better. Save the date: DVCon U.S. 2019 will be held February 25-28, 2019 at the DoubleTree Hotel in San Jose, California. About DVCon

DVCon is the premier conference for discussion of the functional design and verification of electronic systems. DVCon is sponsored by Accellera Systems Initiative, an independent, not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating design and verification standards required by systems, semiconductor, intellectual property (IP) and electronic design automation (EDA) companies. In response to global interest, in addition to DVCon U.S., Accellera also sponsors events in China, Europe and India. For more information about Accellera, please visit www.accellera.org. For more information about DVCon U.S., please visit www.dvcon.org. Follow DVCon on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/DVCon or @dvcon_us on Twitter or to comment, please use #dvcon_us. For more information, please contact:

Nannette Jordan

MP Associates, Inc.

303-530-4562

nannette@mpassociates.com Barbara Benjamin

HighPointe Communications

503-209-2323

barbara@hipcom.com



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] ForgeRock Recognized on CRN's 2018 Security 100 List

SAN FRANCISCO, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ForgeRock, the leading platform provider of digital identity management solutions, announced today that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named ForgeRock to its annual Security 100 list. This project recognizes the coolest security vendors in each of five categories: Endpoint Security; Identity Management and Data Protection; Network Security; SIEM and Security Analytics; and Web, Email and Application Security. ForgeRock is listed in the Identity Management and Data Protection category.

The companies on CRNs Security 100 list have demonstrated creativity and innovation in product development as well as a strong commitment to delivering those offerings through a vibrant channel of solution providers. In addition to recognizing security technology vendors for outstanding products and services, the Security 100 list serves as a valuable guide for solution providers trying to navigate the IT security market. The list aids prospective channel partners in identifying the vendors that can best help them improve or expand their security offerings. The ForgeRock Identity Platform was developed to integrate with any digital service. Unlike legacy identity management applications, the ForgeRock platform is designed for the distinct needs of organizations building out businesses in the internet of things, and for large-scale customer-oriented implementations where CIAM capabilities are a must. By securely connecting people, devices, and things, ForgeRock makes it possible for everyone and everything to interact in todays IoT world. With billions of devices coming online every year, organizations need a flexible platform that scales. Global organizations rely on the ForgeRock Identity Platform to manage billions of digital identities on new cloud, mobile, and IoT services, all with one unified platform. The core elements of todays businesses, both large and small, depend upon robust and reliable cybersecurity solutions, said Bob Skelley, CEO of The Channel Company. Unprecedented streams of data, the sweeping transition to cloud computing, vast networks of wireless systems, the rapidly growing internet of thingsall these adances necessitate increasingly complex and adaptive security measures. CRNs 2018 Security 100 list recognizes top vendors that are meeting this extraordinary demand with the most innovative security technologies on the market, enabling businesses to grow uninterrupted.



Were excited to once again be named to CRNs Security 100 List, says ForgeRock interim CEO and Chief Financial Officer, John Fernandez. Inclusion on the list is validation of ForgeRocks commitment to innovation in driving the digital identity space, as well as demonstration of our commitment to the channel, which has never been stronger. The Security 100 list will be featured in the April 2018 issue of CRN and online at www.crn.com/security100.

Follow The Channel Company: Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. About ForgeRock

ForgeRock is the Digital Identity Management company transforming the way organizations interact securely with customers, employees, devices, and things. Organizations adopt the ForgeRock Identity Platform as their digital identity system of record to monetize customer relationships, address stringent regulations for privacy and consent (GDPR, HIPAA, FCC privacy, etc.), and leverage the internet of things. ForgeRock serves hundreds of brands, including Morningstar, Vodafone, GEICO, TomTom, and Pearson, as well as governments such as Norway, New Zealand, and Belgium, among many others. Headquartered in San Francisco, California, ForgeRock has offices in Austin, London, Bristol, Grenoble, Munich, Paris, Oslo, Singapore, Sydney and Vancouver, Washington. ForgeRock is privately held, backed by leading global venture capital firms Accel Partners, Foundation Capital, Meritech Capital and KKR. For more information and free downloads, visit www.forgerock.com or follow ForgeRock on social media: Facebook ForgeRock | Twitter @ForgeRock | LinkedIn ForgeRock | About the Channel Company

The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. www.thechannelco.com CRN and The Channel Company logo are registered trademarks of The Channel Company, LLC. All rights reserved. Contact information:

Dave De Jear

ForgeRock Communications

Dave.dejear@forgerock.com

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] Kinetica Sessions at GPU Technology Conference Show Businesses How To Thrive in the Extreme Data Economy

SAN FRANCISCO, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Kinetica, provider of the instant insight engine for the Extreme Data Economy, today announced Chief Marketing Officer Daniel Raskin will speak about how businesses can thrive in the post big data era; and VP of Product Marketing Dipti Borkar will speak about using extreme data analytics powered by GPUs to achieve a 360-degree view of the customer at NVIDIAs GPU Technology Conference (GTC) taking place March 26  29 at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. Kinetica will also showcase its insight engine in Booth #720.

Speaking Sessions at GTC San Jose

Titled, The Extreme Data Economy: How Businesses Thrive in the Post Big Data Era, Daniels session is scheduled for March 28th at 9:00 AM at GTC San Jose. We are in the post big data era, whereby the new enterprise imperative is to build the data-powered business, said Raskin. As more users, devices and things come online, we are facing a tsunami of unpredictable data that requires complex analysis and machine learning. The new normal requires companies to use instant insight engines to drive competitive differentiation. To enable this level of agility, companies require accelerated parallel computing and NVIDIA GPUs to bring unparalleled speed, streaming data analysis, visual foresight, and machine learning to break through the old data bottlenecks. In this session, Raskin will discuss new data-powered use cases businesses will ned to address, as well as how advances in computing technology, particularly accelerated parallel computing, will translate data into instant insight and power business in motion.



Titled, Delivering an Extreme Data Analytics API for a Customer 360 View Using the Power of GPUs, Diptis session is scheduled for March 28th at 4:00 PM at GTC San Jose. Big data analytic technologies have been around for several years, but the advent of GPUs has allowed for analytics to achieve intelligence in motion for customers. Kineticas insight engine leverages this brute force power to deliver enterprises a comprehensive, advanced analytical solution for streaming data, business intelligence and artificial intelligence, said Borkar. In fact, aggregating desperate data sources into a single view and providing now analysis is a complex problem that can be solved today with the power of GPUs.

In this session, Dipti will discuss how Lippo Group, one of the largest business conglomerates in Indonesia, was able to integrate data from multiple lines of business across several industries into a single insights engine, featuring an API layer with sub-second latency. She'll discuss how their "deep and fast analytics" approach is opening up new opportunities for improved customer engagement for business in motion. Dipti will also share how Kinetica's technology leverages the power of GPUs to deliver accelerated analytics, including a before and after architectural comparison of the deployment and query performance metrics. Additionally, Kinetica can be found at Gartner Data & Analytics Summit on March 5  8 in Grapevine, TX; Strata Data Conference on March 6  8 in San Jose, CA; and at FinovateEurope on March 6 - 9 in London, UK. About Kinetica

When extreme data requires companies to act with unprecedented agility, Kinetica powers business in motion. Kinetica is the instant insight engine for the extreme data economy. Across healthcare, energy, telecommunications, retail, and financial services, enterprises utilizing new technologies like connected devices, wearables, mobility, robotics, and more can leverage Kinetica for machine learning, deep learning, and advanced location-based analytics that are powering new services. Kineticas accelerated parallel computing brings thousands of GPU cores to address the unpredictability and complexity that result from extreme data. Kinetica has a rich partner ecosystem, including NVIDIA, Dell, HP, and IBM, and is privately held, backed by leading global venture capital firms Canvas Ventures, Citi Ventures, GreatPoint Ventures, and Meritech Capital Partners. For more information and trial downloads, visit kinetica.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. Media Contact:

Beth Winkowski

Winkowski Public Relations, LLC for Kinetica

978-649-7189

bwinkowski@kinetica.com

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][March 05, 2018] NanoXplore Inc. Announces Bought Deal Private Placement

/NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES OR FOR DISTRIBUTION WITH UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES/ MONTREAL, March 5, 2018 /CNW/ - NanoXplore Inc. ("Nanoxplore" or the "Company") (TSX-V: GRA)  announced that it has entered into an agreement with a syndicate of underwriters co-led by Paradigm Capital Inc. and GMP Securities L.P. (the "Underwriters") for a "bought deal" private placement offering of units of the Company (the "Units") at a price per unit of $1.65 (the "Unit Price") for aggregate gross proceeds of approximately $8 million (the "Offering"). Each Unit will be comprised of one common share of the Company and one half of one common share purchase warrant (each whole common share purchase warrant, a "Warrant"). Each Warrant will entitle the holder thereof to purchase one common share of the Company at a price of $2.30 or a period of 24 months following the Closing Date (as defined below), and will be subject to accelerated expiration if the closing price of the Company's common shares on the TSX Venture Exchange (or equivalent Canadian exchange) is equal to or greater than $3.45 per common share for a period of 20 consecutive trading days. Two existing shareholders of the Company, Mason Graphite Inc. and Martinrea International Inc., have indicated their intention to participate in the Offering. The Company has granted the Underwriters an option, exercisable, in whole or in part, at any time up to 48 hours before the closing of the Offering, to purchase up to an additional 1,212,200 Units at the Offering Price for additional gross proceeds of approximately $2,000,000. The closing of the Offering is subject to the completion of formal documentation, including but not limited to, the execution of an underwriting agreement with the Underwriters in connection with the Offering and receipt of any required regulatory approvals, including appoval of the TSX Venture Exchange. Securities issued pursuant to the Offering, including any common shares that may be issued on exercise of the Warrants, will be subject to a statutory hold period expiring four months and one day after closing of the Offering. Closing of the Offering is expected to occur on or about March 27, 2018 or such other date as the Underwriters and the Company may agree (the "Closing Date").



The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering for acquisitions, funding for development of a 10,000 tonne per year graphene production plant and general corporate and working capital purposes. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.

About NanoXplore NanoXplore is a graphene company, a manufacturer and supplier of high volume graphene powder for use in industrial markets as well as standard and custom enhanced thermoplastic products to many customers in transportation, packaging, electronics and other industrial sectors. For more information, please visit www.nanoxplore.ca. Forward Looking Statements Cautionary Statements This press release may contain forward-looking statements. These forward looking statements relate to the closing of the Offering, use of proceeds of the Offering, the exercise of the Underwriters' option, participation by the named existing shareholders and receipt of all regulatory approvals. All forward-looking statements are based on our beliefs as well as assumptions based on information available at the time the assumption was made and on management's experience and perception of historical trends, current conditions and expected future developments, as well as other factors deemed appropriate in the circumstances. No assurance can be given that these assumptions and expectations will prove to be correct. Forward-looking statements are not facts, but only predications and can generally be identified by the use of statements that include phrases such as "anticipate", "believe", "continue", "could", "estimate", "foresee", "grow", "expect", "plan", "intend", "forecast", "future", "guidance", "may", "predict", "project", "should", "strategy", "target", "will" or similar expressions suggesting future outcomes. Forward-looking information is not a guarantee of future performance and involves a number of risks and uncertainties some of which are described herein. Such forward-looking information necessarily involves known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause NanoXplore's actual results to differ materially from any projections of future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. These risks and uncertainties include risks related to the satisfaction of the conditions to closing of the acquisition and performance of the businesses acquired pursuant to the acquisition. Any forward-looking information is made as of the date hereof and, except as required by law, NanoXplore does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise such information to reflect new information, subsequent or otherwise. Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Providers (as that term is defined in the polices of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. SOURCE NanoXplore Inc.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]A WESTSIDE/CROSSROADS COMMUNITY MEETING ADDRESSED THE GROWING NUMBER OF RECENT PURSE SNATCHINGS TARGETING OLD SCHOOL LADIES IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD!!!

Amid the boom in new biz and residents, a bustling part of Kansas City confronts increasing petty crimes of opportunity.To wit . . .Apparently, a beloved Midtown denizen was attacked and robbed on a walk of less than a block to a local community center - She has suffered minor bruises & scrapes but her mugging reveals the brazen ruthlessness of local crooks andis working to prevent more incidents by helping to spread the word.Add this heartless robbery to growing car crime and property theft reported in the aftermath of 1st Friday and we're starting to see a trend . . .Low-rent local crooks are also aware of influx of new money to the Westside/Crossroads and they're stepping up attacks against residents who seem like easy prey or who might have their guard down.This uptick in crime contradicts otherwise hopeful hype that touts luxury urban core development but downplays the risk inherent in living within a community that hosts a wide range of economic stratification, public housing nearby and the ongoing deadly crime spike that impacts every aspect of local life.Developing . . .Former Blue Springs doctor, Boy Scout leader sentenced for sodomy to be released A former Blue Springs doctor and Boy Scout leader who admitted that he sexually assaulted a boy for years has been ordered to be released from prison. Joseph Mackney pleaded guilty to one count of statutory sodomy on Sept. 25, 2017.

Check more reporting on a case that has earned citywide rebuke and tough questions posed to authorities. Take a look:Clay Chastain files $3 million defamation suit against City for publishing his name on "Watch List" for "possibly dangerous" individuals or terrorists.

For 5-years, under the Sly James Administration, the City published Clay Chastain's name on its "Watch List" for individuals the City deemed "possibly dangerous" and apparently capable of committing acts of violence, or terrorism, against the City or its employees. When trying to enter City Hall, to turn in his petitions, the City repeatedly detained Chastain, unduly searched Chastain and required Chastain be escorted about City Hall with an ARMED SECURITY GUARD. This undue act of force against Chastain humiliated, intimidated and embarrassed him as he was under constant ARMED guard while conversing with the City Clerk, her staff, other City Hall employees and even elected officials. Chastain's young daughter (who often accompanied Chastain to City Hall) witnessed all this as well.The City profiled Chastain as "possibly dangerous" even though Chastain has never committed any act of violence, nor threatened an act of violence, against anyone or any organization, group, etc. Though impassioned for his cause, Chastain is a professed Christian and a peaceful family man with two daughters, the youngest of which he was granted sole physical custody of by the Virginia courts 4-years ago. The courts would never award a father sole custody of his child if he had committed any acts of violence or terror.One can only assume City Hall has acted hateful and devious toward Clay Chastain because the City wants to undermine public support for Chastain and his moral causes which challenges the City's leadership.alleges the City deliberately (and with actual malice) published a false claim - that Chastain was dangerous - in order to harm Chastain and malign his public reputation.Perhaps Mayor Sly James can climb the highest hill in Kansas City, blow his bullhorn both loud and shrill as he explains to the community why the City considered Chastain "possibly dangerous."Furthermore, the Mayor can also explain that if Chastain was considered so dangerous by the City, why did the City immediately remove Chastain's name from its "Watch List" just because Chastain threatened to sue the City.Otherwise, Sly James will be issued a subpoena to explain it all to a jury.The government exist to serve the people, not malign them.Clay Chastain##########Deloitte, a leading provider of provides audit, tax, consulting, financial advisory and risk advisory services, has announced plans to build a state-of-the art Deloitte Digital Center (DDC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.



When complete, the DDC will support the growing focus on digital initiatives by businesses and the public sector in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, by enabling the delivery of end-to-end innovative digital solutions at scale  from strategy and design through to implementation. The DDC will provide employment and training opportunities for hundreds of Saudi nationals, as well as attracting the best digital talent from abroad.



The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology (MCIT) joined Deloitte in a signing ceremony on March 4, 2018 in Riyadh, which was attended by senior officials.



Digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, data analytics and cloud computing are going to change life as we know it, said Renjen, CEO, Deloitte Global. Deloittes investment in the digital infrastructure of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will contribute to building a thriving economy and vibrant innovative society with new job opportunities for many Saudi citizens.



The significant investment in building the new DDC and the associated talent development programmes clearly demonstrates Deloittes commitment to supporting the Kingdoms Saudi Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Programme.



The DDC will be the first Deloitte digital delivery centre in the region and is expected to support the digital skills development for Saudi youth, foster technology-driven entrepreneurship and advance the delivery of consulting services within the Kingdom and throughout the Middle East.



The Deloitte Middle East Consulting business, supported by investment and resources from the UK and Deloitte North West Europe, will form alliances with the Saudi government and businesses to help ensure alignment to their key strategic objectives. By bringing together the best of the Deloitte networks experience globally in digital transformation and change we will support a market that increasingly needs expertise in the delivery of large scale transformation programmes, added David Sproul, CEO, Deloitte UK and North West Europe.  TradeArabia News ServiceIn response to increasing customer demand, Etihad Airways has launched its first direct flight between Abu Dhabi and Baku, Azerbaijan.



The inaugural flight, EY297, departed Abu Dhabi on March 3 carrying a special delegation including diplomats, dignitaries, media representatives, and senior members of Etihad Airways management team.

On arrival in Baku, the aircraft was greeted with a traditional water cannon salute, followed by the customary display of the Emirati and Azerbaijani national flags from the cockpit windows.



Peter Baumgartner, Etihad Airways chief executive officer, said: We are tremendously excited to be launching scheduled flights between Abu Dhabi and Baku, the only scheduled service linking the two capitals. There is strong demand from both markets for a direct, full-service operation on the route, and we have responded to this increasing customer requirement. The new flights will further boost traffic from the UAE and strengthen the bilateral relations between the two nations.



The visa waiver programme introduced for UAE nationals by Azerbaijan in 2015 has greatly stimulated interest in the country, resulting in a surge of visitors since its implementation.



Etihad Airways and Azerbaijan Airlines recently announced a codeshare partnership which now sees Azerbaijan Airlines place its 'J2' code on Etihad Airways services between Baku and Abu Dhabi.



Under this partnership, Azerbaijan Airlines guests will be able to book codeshare flights to and from Abu Dhabi and connect onto Etihad Airways extensive global network.



Jahangir Asgarov, president of Azerbaijan Airlines, said: "Azerbaijan Airlines and Etihad Airways are long-standing partners in civil aviation. The launch of joint flights between our two airlines will allow Azerbaijani citizens to further expand their global reach, attracting increased numbers of tourists and creating more opportunities for business travellers."



Etihad Airways has appointed Saeed Mohammad Ahmed as its country manager Azerbaijan. A UAE national, he is an experienced aviation professional whose previous role with the airline was business development manager for the US base in Chicago. In his new position, he will be responsible for the strategic and commercial success of the new route, and for developing business relationships with key Azerbaijani corporations and the travel industry.



Flying three times a week using a 136-seat Airbus A320, configured with 16 seats in Business Class and 120 in Economy Class, the new flights will operate every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, providing optimal daylight timings for guests departing and arriving in Abu Dhabi and Baku. The schedule provides convenient connections to and from the airlines global network and has been timed evenly throughout the week to provide a mix of weekend, short stay and business travel options. - TradeArabia News ServiceManfred Rehm is one of the Men of the Mountains at the new exhibit at TC Arts Council.

The Transylvania Community Arts Council has invited 15 local male artists to participate in their newest exhibit entitled "Men of the Mountains." The exhibit will be on display at the TC Arts Council Gallery from March 9 through 30. The public is invited to an opening reception on Friday, March 9 from 5  7 p.m. to meet the artists.

Tammy Hopkins with TC Arts Council said, "We wanted to highlight some exception male artists creating in our community. We have invited John Dodson, Billy Smith, Heath Seymour, Holland Van Gores, Sean Parrish, Mike Tiddy, Stuart Howe, Everett Schmidt, Daniel Sztyber, Ken Voltz, Phil Joachim, Manfred Rehm, Reubin Shapiro, Don Voltz and Charles Evans to showcase their talent. We hope you will come out and explore this art exhibit of wood, clay, metal, mixed media, photography, drawing and paintings by our local creative talent."

The regular gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The TC Arts Council is located at 349 S. Caldwell Street in Brevard. For more information call (828) 884-2787.

As part of this special exhibit, the TC Arts Council will host a special family fun concert on Sunday, March 18, with Pretty Little Goat. The concert will be at the TC Arts Gallery from 4  6 p.m. During the concert enjoy the "Men of the Mountains" Art Exhibit with music, dancing, beer, wine, soft drinks and snacks. Tickets for the "Men of the Mountains" Concert are $20 per adult, $10 per student and 12 and under are free. Tickets are limited due to space. Call the TC Arts Council at (828) 884-2787 or stop by the TC Arts Council located at 349 S. Caldwell St. in Brevard. Tickets will be held at will call. All proceeds benefit the TC Arts Council's Art Programs.During March, the C.A.R.E. Coalition is partnering with local experts to educate interested community members about how marijuana impacts youth in Transylvania County. In recent years, data from surveys and local key informants has suggested concerning trends regarding teen marijuana use in Transylvania County. Local teens reported that it is easy to get marijuana, and many said that their parents and friends wouldnt think it is wrong for them to use marijuana.

C.A.R.E. is addressing these trends in a three-part series entitled Our Transylvania County CARES about Kids: Marijuana and Youth. The purpose of this series is to examine marijuana through the lens of the health and safety of local youth. The series will focus on how marijuana use can impact young people. Speakers will cover the latest scientific research on marijuanas risks and benefits, teen mental health and child safety, and the history of marijuana in Transylvania County.

Thursday, March 8: Marijuana in the Teen Body. Joe Cohen, M.D., emergency department physician at Transylvania Regional Hospital, will speak on how marijuana interacts with the body and brain, including peer-reviewed research and perspectives from the medical field. Thursday, March 15: Marijuana and Child Welfare. Transylvania nat-ive and local law enforcement officer Detective Robert Shular will discuss the history of marijuana in Transylvania County. He will also discuss child welfare concerns associated with marijuana abuse and how marijuana has impacted local families.

Thursday, March 22: Marijuana and Teen Mental Health. Sherrie Pace, LCSW, program director for RHA Mobile Crisis, who has worked in mental health crisis response for many years, will discuss current research, clinical experiences and professional perspectives regarding teen marijuana use and mental health.

All programs will be held at Lutheran Church for the Good Shepherd at 22 Fisher Road in Brevard from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The program is free and light refreshments will be provided.

The C.A.R.E. Coalition is working towards a healthy, vibrant Transylvania County free of underage drinking and substance abuse. All are welcome to attend the next coalition meeting on Wednesday, March 14, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. in the Community Services Building Conference room at 106 E. Morgan St. For more information, call (828) 884-1750, or visit http://www.transylvaniacare.org.Brevard College is selling five parcels of land they acquired from the late Charles Pickelsimers estate.

The colleges Board of Trustees decided to sell all the properties acquired through the estate as we have no immediate need for any of these properties, said Brevard College President David Joyce. We will use the proceeds to strengthen the financial position of the college, expand programs and enhance facilities.

The properties are as follows:

Nearly 2.85 acres at the corner of North Broad and Appletree Street in Brevard. Next Ventures, which provides used outdoor gear, is currently located in the former SAFEs Attic building on the property.

Its three parcels and one offering that comprise that corner, said Art Fisher, a real estate broker for Fisher Realty and a Brevard College trustee.

The three parcels have a combined assessed value of roughly $1.94 million and are listed for sale at $2 million.

A second piece of property is 0.25 acres at 144 East Main St. in Brevard. Attic Interiors is currently located at the site. The property has an assessed value of $554,490 and an asking price of $550,000.

The third piece of property is roughly four parcels that make up roughly 55 acres and is located behind the Cindy Platt Boys & Girls Club of Transylvania County and with frontage on the French Broad River and U.S. 276.

The four parcels have an assessed value of roughly $1.46 million and an asking price of $500,000.

A fourth property is a house at 64 Rice St. in Brevard, with an asking price of $275,000.

Its a nice house, which will probably sell quickly, and its 0.33 acres, Fisher said.

The fifth piece of property is 59 acres that went to Brevard College in the Cascade Lake area of DuPont State Recreational Forest. It has an asking price of $500,000, with an assessed land value of $533,300.

Pickelsimer was a life-long Brevard resident and president of Citizens Telephone Company, which was sold to Comporium in 2008. Pickelsimer died in 2011.Sheriff David Mahoney has been sounding the alarm about recruiting and retaining qualified people for his office for the past two years.

In the past, hes been asked whether he was pushing the panic button. Mahoney said he replied that he was not pushing the button but that his hand was basically resting on it.

Last week during the Transylvania County Board of Commissioners meeting, Mahoney said he was starting some downward pressure now.

Mahoneys comments were part of his semi-annual report on the trends, accomplishments, trends and goals his department has and is experiencing. As previously reported, each county government department has been presenting the reports. The Sheriffs Office and the Register of Deeds were the last two departments to give reports.

Mahoney pointed to the recent national negative news coverage about some law enforcement activities as part of the reason its difficult to attract and keep qualified staff. He said experienced officers are deciding the career is not worth it and are pursuing something different.

It means that all law enforcement agencies, Mahoney said, are competing with one another for a few precious applicants.

On top of that, other law enforcement agencies are offering greater compensation and benefits, he said. The Sheriffs Office is also training recruits, at some expense, and then losing them to other agencies. The Sheriffs Office has recently lost eight officers to other law enforcement agencies and four to other industries, Mahoney said.

Brevard College offers a basic law enforcement training class. Out of 15 people who completed it, the Sheriffs Office was only been able to hire one. While some of the 15 are from other areas and want to work in their home town or county, it shows, Mahoney said, the difficulty the Sheriffs Office has in competing with other agencies.

Another factor is the dwindling pool of part-time staff at the Sheriffs Office, causing the departments overtime expenses to increase. Plus, Mahoney said, his department has a number of eligible retirees this year that could see as many as eight leaving.

There is absolutely no way I can staff those positions with what we are doing currently, he said.

Mahoney said the Brevard Police Department has had an open police officer position for almost a year. He said hes heard the city may approve a substantial pay increase and hes concerned the impact it may have on his department.

Complexity/Training

Another trend is the increasing number and complexity of criminal incidents, particularly in light of technological advancements, Mahoney said. Critical incidents requiring the Special Response Teams involvement have increased as well. The team responded to nine incidents in 2016 and 20 last year.

Part of the news coverage, Mahoney said, is the focus on decision making by officers, and the discussion among law enforcement professionals is the type of training that should be undertaken.

Mahoney said his staff do a lot of fire-arms training and he said hes proud of the proficiency shown in use of force scenarios.

But what law enforcement field doesnt do, he said, is a lot of scenario-based decision making training.

How officers make better decisions is a growing question, he said, and the need for new and regular training for law enforcement personnel at all levels is ever increasing.

Equipment/Evidence/Incidents

Another issue is the lifecycle of equipment.

A few years ago, the Sheriffs Office decided to use body cameras. That first wave of cameras is starting to have issues, such as the battery or cords.

The gun manufacturer Glock also suggests, Mahoney said, that certain parts of side arms should be replaced after five years. The Sheriffs Office hasnt done this but is looking at whether and when to replace some parts or whole weapons.

The Sheriffs Office has seen a 19 percent increase in the amount of evidence it has collected and a 52 percent increase in the number of evidence disposals. Mahoney expects evidence amounts to continue to increase, while noting the importance of having evidence rooms that are well maintained, well documented and orderly.

Cases assigned to investigators increased from 585 in 2016 to 626 in 2017.

A breakdown of the case type shows 39 percent involving breaking and entering and/or larceny; 19 percent, fraud; 13 percent, death investigations; 10 percent, breaking and entering motor vehicles; 6 percent, damage to property; 5 percent, investigations involving children; 3 percent, larceny of motor vehicles; 3 percent, prison rape and 2 percent, sex crimes.

The average hours investigators spent investigating cases increased by 11 percent.

Crimes against children, Mahoney said, consume the most time for investigators.

The changing nature of crime has created a challenging environment for Sheriffs Office investigators, Mahoney said, resulting in a higher case load, more time devoted to cases and an increase in the amount of evidence to manage.

Accomplishments

The Sheriffs Office has the goal of keeping its response time to about 9 minutes or less.

This past year, Mahoney said, the department hit a record with an average response time just under 7 minutes.

Mahoney said they saw a slight increase in crime rate last year compared to the year before, but the county does enjoy one of the lowest crime rates in Western North Carolina.

Its not an accomplishment of the Sheriffs Office, he said, but of the entire community.

There is just no way that the men and women of the Sheriffs Office could do it on our own, Mahoney said.

It requires partnerships with various boards and community members, he said.

Other department accomplishments included continuing to exceed the state and national averages for clearance of cases; and hosting another citizens academy, which is typically packed with people interested in knowing how the Sheriffs Office operates. The program is held every September.

The Sheriffs Office continues to house in the detention center inmates from other counties as part of the Statewide Misdemeanant Confinement Program, bringing in additional revenues for the county. The program includes state inmates convicted of a misdemeanor, including DWI, and sentenced to more than 90 days in a county jail.

There has been a decrease in the numbers from other counties, which are looking to build or expand their own detention centers, but the numbers overall remain constant.

Mahoney also mentioned the Blue Line Foundation of Transylvania County, a nonprofit he founded aimed at helping the areas youth through efforts such as the SHIELD Camp and DARE Camp.

As previously reported, Jack and Meriam Matthews donated a house and property on Lake Toxaway to the foundation. The sale of the house and property has led the foundation to be able to purchase a piece of property in Pisgah Forest and construction will begin this summer on a permanent home for the foundation.

Goals

Recruitment and retention are among the departments goals. Mahoney plans to talk about increasing officer pay and incentives as a way to compete locally and regionally.

Mahoney also wants to add an additional investigator to alleviate the case load; purchase a tactical rescue vehicle to enhance emergency preparedness and response; provide additional comprehensive, advanced and specialized training to include scenario-based computerized simulation training; develop and implement a vital equipment replacement program; enhance the Sheriffs Offices awareness and understanding of the opportunities, challenges, strengths and needs of staff and the community through the use of data and analysis to make deputies and citizens safer.

Register of Deeds

Register of Deeds Cindy Ownbey also reported on her departments accomplishments, trends and goals over the past six months.

Included among the departments accomplishments: implementing a marriage kiosk, where applicants apply electronically but must appear in person to complete the process; beginning the next phase of the grantor-grantee index project, encompassing indexes for real estate transactions dating back to the countys beginning; completing year two of the five-year preservation project, including releasing 14 books for preservation and received back 19 books because of the process; adding an additional e-recording partner; implementing a new server and legislative changes to maps; and adhering to Secretary of State changes for assumed business names.

Ownbey highlighted the following trends: continuing increased demand for electronic resources and the number of records being processed; and continuing improvement in revenue collections.

Department goals include continuing the grantor-grantee index project and preservation project; beginning the Thank-A-Vet software project; adding shelving to the record room to house additional books from the preservation project; and beginning and completing minor renovations to the customer service areas in the office.

More from the meeting will appear in Thursdays paper.I wonder what Mark Meadows, Richard Burr and other members of Congress are feeling. They have sat by, year after year, watching our children being murdered, and each time they offer thoughts and prayers. I do not presume to evaluate anyones prayers, but my guess is their thoughts run something like this: What will this do to my re-election campaign? Can I still get thousands of dollars from the NRA? How long before this dies down and people leave us alone again?

Their apathy, cowardice, lack of concern and self-interest is disgusting. Most members of Congress did not even bother to attend the hearing when the father of one of the slain six year olds made a plea for action. It sickens me to look at these pathetic lawmakers and to hear their meaningless words and empty promises. Not one of them is blameless.

Fortunately for our country, the young people of Florida are making their voices heard. These are not helpless six year olds, but young adults, many of whom already are voters. They are coming to confront you, Mr. Ryan, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Trump, and all your colleagues who have refused to take action over these many years and countless tragedies. Mark my words; these kids are not coming alone. They will bring with them thousands of young people from all over this country and thousands of caring adults, the voters of this nation.

Now is the time to act. A token change to improve background checks is not enough. It is time to make major changes in gun laws and policies. Ban assault weapons and bump stocks. Tighten background checks, and fully support funding for mental health benefits, safer schools and local law enforcement. Anything less is too little and unacceptable.

Do we have any courageous statesmen who will stand up and take action, or are they all morally corrupt politicians with their eyes focused on re-election and their win at all cost attitudes? We the people have another chance to change things. Give careful thought to your vote in November. It is a priceless possession.

Geraldine Kiley

BrevardAlpha Destination Management is all set for a strong presence at the 52nd ITB Berlin. Taking place in Germany from 7 to 11 March 2018, ITB is the worlds leading annual travel trade exhibition that brings together over 10,000 exhibitors from 180 countries



(TRAVPR.COM) UAE - March 3rd, 2018 - Alpha Destination Management is all set for a strong presence at the 52nd ITB Berlin. Taking place in Germany from 7 to 11 March 2018, ITB is the worlds leading annual travel trade exhibition that brings together over 10,000 exhibitors from 180 countries. With a focus on Luxury Travel this year, the event is expected to attract more than 110,000 trade visitors from across the world.

Mr. Samir Hamadeh, General Manager of Alpha Destination Management, said, ITB Berlin is one of the most significant trade shows in our calendar. The German market continues to perform well and is among the top ten source markets into our destination. We are proud to announce that we have signed an agreement with Lidl Digital, the online distribution arm of Lidl Stiftung & Co. KG to offer them our tourism services in the UAE. Alpha is also the ground handling and the exclusive Destination Management Company to a wide portfolio of Tour Operators and well known Travel brands within the German market, and for us it is extremely important to continue nurturing those relations with key industry partners.



For ITB this year, our focus will be luxury travel. Speaking about the opportunities emerging in the sector, Mr. Hamadeh, commented, Luxury travel is no doubt booming. Recently, Dubai was ranked as the worlds second most popular destination for luxury travel. Globally, high-end travel accounts for seven per cent of the market and annual growth is in double-digit figures. At the same time general approach towards this market is changing. Luxury is no more about conspicuous consumption. There is more emphasis on experience rather than opulence. Veering away from material, todays elite travellers are after one-of-a-kind moment. Its all about the personal journey and the same applies to travel in the UAE. Experiential travel, personalized engagement, customized / authentic experience and wellness are some of the new trends. This presents our industry with a unique opportunity to deliver truly bespoke, innovative and memorable experiences. Therefore, it will be interesting to see the global industry trends emerging in luxury travel at ITB.



Elaborating on the companys expansion strategy, Mr. Hamadeh said, Alpha strategy is not to go for new source markets to seek new business but to target specific niche segments in existing markets such as seniors, special needs, etc to boost business. We believe certain niche areas such as the seniors segment which is worth billions of dollars globally have been underestimated, and if we design the right packages for them they will be far more valuable than the mass markets.

Visitors to ITB Berlin will be able to find Alpha Destination Management on Dubai Tourism stand



About Alpha Destination Management

Founded in 1996, by Mr. Ghassan Aridi and his partners, Alpha Destination Management is the leading destination management company and a pioneer in the tourism sector in the Arabian Gulf. Over the last two decades, the company has established itself as one of the most credible and reputed brands not only in the Gulf region but also in the international tourism industry. Controlling a significant market share of the lucrative tourism sector in the GCC, Alpha Destination Management is a market leader in the region with the largest annual turnover and wide network of international partners offering the highest levels of service and innovative and exciting experiences. Our extensive global and local knowledge and network, outstanding expertise and sound reputation is the key to success for us and all our partners.



For more information about Alpha Destination Management visit http://www.alphatoursdubai.com

###editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 5

Residents of Harbans Nagar are irked over the presence of an open LPG supply point in their residential area.

They said though they had intimated and even given a written complaint regarding the open LPG supply point in their residential area to the MC, nothing had been done in this regard.

Baldev Singh, a resident, said, The LPG distributor who is operating from our area has an office at Model Town Phase 1. But he is not supplying LPG cylinders from there. Besides, for the last several months putting aside all the safety norms, he is openly distributing LPG cylinders and putting lives of thousands of people at risk.

The gas distributor has been verbally directed to discontinue the service by government employees, but after a few days they start operating service from here, he added.

The LPG distributor, who did not wish to be quoted, said, I have a godown at Bhagu village, but due to long distance nobody wishes to come to the godown. So, I have chosen this place to supply LPG cylinders.

Moreover, I am not the only one who is operating from an open area. There are a number of gas distributors of every gas agency  Bharat, HP and Indane  who are supplying LPG cylinders from an open area.

Amandeep Singh, District Food and Supply Controller (DFSC), said, Setting up an LPG supply point in an open and residential area is not allowed as these violators are putting residents lives at.

He further stated that he would personally enquire into the matter.

Mayor Balwant Rai Nath said, However, the matter of LPG cylinders supply point in the open does not come to my jurisdiction but still I will take strict action against the violators.amansharma@tribunemail.com

Mumbai, March 5

The Reserve Bank on Monday said it has imposed a penalty of Rs 3 crore on Axis Bank for violation of NPA classification norms, and Rs 2 crore on Indian Overseas Bank for not complying with the KYC regulations.

RBI said it had carried out a statutory inspection of private sector player Axis Bank with reference to its financial position as on March 31, 2016.

The inspection, inter alia, revealed "violations of various regulations issued by RBI in the assessment of non-performing assets (NPA)",the central bank said in a statement.

"The RBI has imposed, on February 27, 2018, a monetary penalty of Rs 30 million on Axis Bank Limited for non-compliance with the directions issued by RBI on Income Recognition and Asset Classification (IRAC) norms," it said.

Regarding the state-owned Indian Overseas Bank, the regulator said in a separate release that a "fraud was detected" in one of the branches of the bank.

"The examination of the documents, including the bank's internal inspection report, revealed, inter alia, non-compliance with the directions issued by RBI on Know Your Customer (KYC) norms", RBI said, while imposing the Rs 2 crore penalty on IOB.

RBI said the action on the two banks is based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and "is not intended' to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the bank with its customers. - PTIeditorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 5

Just two days after the registration of an FIR against senior advocate SK Garg Narwana and others, the Haryana Police today conceded that nothing vital had, prima facie, been found against him, even as lawyers met the Haryana Chief Minister and abstained from work.

Assured of a free-and-fair investigation into the matter, the Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana requested all advocates of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh to resume work on Tuesday. The council made it clear that the next course of action would be decided at its general house meeting, scheduled for March 11.

The Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association also decided to withdraw its protest following an assurance from Panchkula Commissioner of Police AS Chawla.

The assurance came after a Bar Association delegation, led by president Anmol Rattan Sidhu, met Chawla. Sidhu also spoke to the Haryana Director General of Police on the issue. Agitated over the police action, the lawyers left nothing to chance. From abstaining from work to Khattar, the lawyers came out to express their solidarity with senior advocate Garg. Soon after Khattars assurance, the Panchkula police, for the present, gave a clean chit to Garg.

A communication was shot off by the Panchkula Commissioner of Police to the Deputy Commissioner of Police stating that the examination of the case file, on the face of it, revealed nothing vital against Narwana at present.

If subsequently, some clinching evidence comes against him, the investigation officer be directed to inform the president of the Punjab and Haryana High Court Bar Association, Chandigarh, before proceeding further, the communication read. The developments took place soon after the lawyers strongly condemned the act of the Haryana Police, especially the Panchkula police, in registering an FIR against the senior Bar member.

The Bar Council delegation, led by chairman Vijender Singh Ahlawat, after meeting Khattar, also submitted a written representation for the cancellation of the FIR against Narwana. The delegation told the Chief Minister that the Panchkula police registered the FIR in a very hasty manner, causing resentment among lawyers in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh.

Referring to the FIR, the delegation said Narwana had not committed any offence. He had, rather, discharged his professional duties and provided legal support to his client. The registration of the FIR against the advocate without going through the allegations not only affects the legal profession, it also impedes the justice delivery system and faith of the public at large, the delegation said, requesting the Chief Minister to ensure the cancellation of the false and frivolous FIR against him and two other advocates Diwan Bal Krishan and KD Nain. IGP (CID) Anil Rao was also present during the meeting.Sushma Ramachandran

Sushma Ramachandran

AS the country reels over the shock of multiple bank frauds and the potential impact of lakhs of crores of bad loans in the banking system, there is a growing clamour to find out the reasons for this situation. One of the answers being given is that bank operations are overly controlled by the government, leading to the influence of powerful political lobbies. The only solution, it is being argued, is to privatise banks immediately and allow them to run their own affairs to avoid the taint of crony capitalism. It does seem tempting to accept this solution. The facts support most of this thesis. Public sector banks are indeed vulnerable to pulls and pressures from the government. And this has surely created many infirmities in the banking system. But these fractures in the structures of public sector banks need to be repaired rather than resorting to privatisation, a move seen as the panacea to all ills. On the contrary, this will not magically solve these problems as all is certainly not well with private banks either in this country or in others.

One must go back to the past and recall that Indira Gandhi nationalised banks in 1969 at a time when the track record of private banks was rather poor. Many private sector banks were collapsing and depositors' money simply vanished in thin air. The nationalisation may have had a political motivation and an eye on the elections, as is constantly argued by the former Prime Ministers detractors, but the results were a boon to the general public. Financial inclusion rose rapidly from then onwards, with the sudden increase in branches of these newly nationalised banks. The number of bank branches rose from 8,000 in 1969 to 32,000 in 1980 and 60,000 in 1990. Rural branches spiked from only 1,800 in 1969 to 34,000 in 1990. Besides, it had become possible for a person to open an account with a small amount of money. Former chief economic advisor Kaushik Basu even credits bank nationalisation with ending the stagnation in economic growth by raising the savings and investment rate.

Hence, bank nationalisation was not just a misguided political initiative tagged on to the Garibi Hatao campaign that won the 1971 elections for Indira Gandhi. It was an economic reform that benefited the country in a substantive manner.

It was much later, in 2008, when the whole world was facing a financial crisis with iconic financial institutions in the developed world having collapsed, that high praise was lavished on the nationalised bank systems in this country. Former RBI governor YV Reddy in an interview had then pointed out that even the best Indian private banks were affected by the global financial crisis but public sector banks came out unscathed.

One must state the obvious at this point, which is that all the international financial institutions which failed at the time were in the private sector. This includes the iconic Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns which collapsed while others like Merrill Lynch, AIG, and the mortgage lending institutions, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had to be rescued by the state. The latter two were originally set up by the US government but then legislated into private entities. Apart from the 2008 financial crisis, there have been many instances of bank frauds leading to closures such as Barings Bank which had to down shutters due to the activity of a single rogue trader. Officials of Barclays Bank of the UK are reported to be only now facing fraud charges over activities carried out in 2008. Hence, there is no such thing as an idyllic world of private sector banking where frauds do not exist and crony capitalism does not play a role.

Even private banks in this country are not immune to the same problems that plague the public sector entities. The huge NPAs (non performing assets) stressing the banking industry are not just carried by state-owned banks. Private banks, too, have their share of bad loans. The recent half-year financial stability report by the RBI noted that the rate of increase for NPAs was 40.8 per cent for private sector banks as against 17 per cent for public sector banks on a year-on-year basis in September 2017. It also disclosed that all top private sector lenders, including ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, Yes Bank and HDFC Bank, had under-reported their dud assets in the first two quarters of the fiscal. In other words, the private banks renowned for their speed and efficiency in contrast to the tortoise-like pace of the state-owned banks are in the grip of the same malaise of mounting bad loans as the latter.

Privatisation, then, is not the over-arching solution to all the woes facing the government-owned bank industry. It is undoubtedly true that a major restructuring is needed in the operations and performance levels of these banks. Regulatory agencies, including the central bank, need to become more vigilant and the role of auditors needs to be probed further. Banks are already being audited multiple times and, hence, the need for a regulatory agency to make sure that auditors are playing their due role. As the Nirav Modi-Punjab National Bank scam unfolds, it is clear that those who were to monitor transactions failed at their job. It must be recalled that one of the fallouts of the scandal surrounding the US energy company Enron was the closure of reputed accounting firm, Arthur Andersen. Here too stern action must be taken against auditing agencies.

At the same time, greater autonomy needs to be given to state-run banks. The issue of bank chief appointments, for instance, is a key issue meant to be handled by the relatively new Banks Board Bureau. Instead, it seems to remain the purview of the Finance Ministry. All these issues will now have to be reviewed and overhauled in the light of the worsening news from banks.

The government needs to take up the issue of reviving the banking sector in all seriousness. Privatisation is surely not the way forward. But steps to improve governance standards need to be taken immediately to cleanse and revive this crucial sector of the economy.Ranjit Singh Ghuman

Ranjit Singh Ghuman

Professor of Economics, CRRID

THE pre-Green Revolution diversified agriculture of Punjab has turned into a wheat-paddy cycle. The so-called high yielding variety (HYV) seeds of wheat and paddy are giving high yield because of their high degree of responsiveness to water and chemical fertilisers. The area under paddy in Punjab increased from 2.27 lakh hectares in 1960-61 to 11.83 lakh hectares in 1980-81 and further to 29.70 lakh hectares in 2015-16. The emergence of paddy as a major crop led to heavy dependence on subsoil water and a manifold increase in the number of tubewells. The flooding method of irrigation and overuse of water therein (both in terms of quantity and number of irrigations) has further aggravated the problem.

The net sown area under tubewell irrigation increased from 22.33 lakh hectares (58.52 per cent) to 29.81 lakh hectares (71.99 per cent) while the area under canal irrigation decreased from 16.60 lakh hectares (43.50 per cent) to 11.60 lakh hectares (28.01 per cent) during 1990-2014. The irrigation intensity increased from 54 per cent in 1960-61 to 99.9 per cent in 2016. The cropping intensity increased from 126 to 190 during the same period. This, in turn, has increased the net deficit of water resources in Punjab from 2.34 lakh hectare metres (ham) in 1989 to 1,163 hams in 2013.

The number of tubewells in Punjab increased from 6 lakh in 1980-81 to 14.19 lakh in 2015-16. With the fast depleting water table, the number of submersible motors also increased from 6,19,197 (56.68 per cent) in 2009 to 9,78,874 (72.42 per cent) in 2017. This has increased the cost of tubewell installation and the consumption of electricity. The consumption of electricity in agriculture increased from 6.97 million kilowatt in 1974-75 to 11,513.37 million kilowatt in 2015-16. The free of cost power to agriculture (which now stands at Rs 7,700 crore) needs to be debated in this context.

The consumption of water in Punjab to produce one kilogram (kg) of rice is 5,337 litres as compared to the all-India average of 3,875 litres. During the triennium ending (TE) 1980-81, the rice production in Punjab consumed 16,643 billion litres of water, out of which the component of contribution of rice to the central pool accounted for 13,449 billion litres (81 per cent). The corresponding figures for the TE 2013-14 were 59,047 and 43,262 billion (73.3 per cent) litres, respectively. It is the classic case of virtual water export (in the form of rice) from Punjab to the rest of India.

The water table in 10 districts (Amritsar, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Ludhiana, Sangrur, Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahib, Moga, Mansa and Faridkot) declined in the range of 5.85 metres (Amritsar) and 18.35 metres (Kapurthala) during 1996-2014. These 10 districts are predominantly paddy growing and accounted for 63.97 per cent of the total electric tubewells in Punjab, 66.84 per cent of area under paddy and 56.32 per cent of the net sown area in 2015-16. Clearly, the share of tubewells and area under paddy in these districts is much higher than the share of the net sown area. Significantly, all the overexploited (when draft is higher than recharge) blocks, whose number increased from 53 in 1984 to 110 in 2011, fall in these 10 districts. As regards the quality of water, it is safe only in 22 blocks.

Paradoxically, for about 15 years, the central and state governments have been advising the farmers of Punjab to cultivate alternative crops without giving any roadmap and policy. Recently, the Government of India's NITI Aayog has cautioned the Government of Punjab that the country no longer needs Punjab's rice the way it was needed earlier. The government and NITI Aayog must recall that the promotion of paddy in Punjab was the result of a policy set given by the Centre and implemented by the state and now they say it is the responsibility of Punjab alone. Matlab nikal gaya to pehchante nahin!

The country's growing need for cereals, the Union Government's 'push to grow more food', massive public investment in agriculture, including R&D, subsidy on chemical fertilisers, provision of minimum support price, public procurement, non-availability of economically viable alternative crops, absence of MSP for alternative crops, etc have largely been responsible for promoting the wheat-paddy crop combination in Punjab, Haryana and Western UP.

The Government of India was comfortable with such a scenario and agri-business (domestic as well as global) and loaning agencies have their own vested interests in maintaining the status quo. The successive governments in Punjab, too, did not give any serious thought to diversification and saving the precious subsoil water. Instead of reading the writing on the wall, the state government started giving power to agriculture free of cost since 1997 which is pro-paddy and anti-diversification.

Policy response

But for constituting two committees in 1986 and 2002 (Johl Committee 1 & 2), there was hardly any policy response to promote crop diversification and address the water table issue. Both the reports, inter alia, recommended that a substantial area from under paddy be shifted to other crops as paddy was mainly responsible for the depleting water table. So far, nothing has happened. The state government constituted a committee to estimate the groundwater resources in 2004 which took eight years to submit the report and that, too, without any recommendations.

The first ever policy response came in 2008 when the state government (through an ordinance) prohibited the farmers from sowing nursery of paddy before May 10 and transplantation of paddy before June 10 (now June 15). This has helped in saving some of the precious groundwater. The micro-irrigation techniques (drip and sprinkler irrigation) are yet to show their presence in the state.

In view of the above, it is high time that both the Union and Punjab governments rise to the occasion and take suitable policy measures to save Punjab from the impending desertification. The Union Government cannot exonerate itself from its responsibility as Punjab not only provided the much-needed food security to the country but also saved it from the armtwisting politics of food aid under the American Public Law 480. The irony of the situation is that now when the farmers and agricultural labourers are committing suicide (because of the agrarian crisis emanated out of the success story of the Green Revolution), the country is not willing to come to their rescue. Punjab, too, need to have comprehensive agricultural and water policies with a focus on crop diversification and saving water.

(Views are personal)editorial@tribune.com

Vishal Joshi

Tribune News Service

Kurukshetra, March 4

Social activist Anna Hazare today demanded an autonomous central agriculture price commission with a pro-farmer mandate to fix minimum rates for farm produce.

Hazare was here in connection with his Satyagraha Jan Jagran Yatra to muster support for his agitation, scheduled to be held in Delhi on March 23.

The event was organised by the Social Justice Front headed by former Haryana Lokayukta Justice Pritam Pal. Earlier, Hazare also inaugurated a 'gaushala' at 'Yajshala' set up by the former Lokayukta near Ladwa.

Hazare showed deep concern over the deteriorating financial condition of the farming community. He said around 20 lakh farmers had committed suicide between 1995 and 2017.

This is because the government is more focused on entrepreneurs and not on those who provide food for the country. The country needs an autonomous agricultural body to make farming a profit-making vocation, he said.

The state authorities submit their suggestions to the Centre to determine prices for various agricultural commodities. The Union government ignores these for unspecified reasons, he said.

He said the formation of a price fixation commission, pension scheme for farmers and labourers and competent Lokpal were the key demands in the satyagraha.

Following our persistent efforts, the Union government had announced MSP at 50 per cent of the cost of production. It did not announce how the cost would be calculated. This announcement is an eyewash and the movement will pressurise the government to adopt a formula to benefit farmers, he said.

He said like the previous UPA government, Narendra Modi-led NDA government was had been maintaining stagnancy around the Lokpal Act. Corruption was rampant in the absence of any check on it, he added.

The 80-year-old crusader said in the last three months, he had convened 40 public meetings in various parts of the country for the satyagraha. He said the Delhi authorities were yet to give permission for the venue of the agitation.

I am getting tremendous public support. I urge you all to join the peaceful agitation in Delhi later this month. If the authorities do not allow us space, jail premises will be our place for satyagraha, he said.

Hazare told reporters that he had developed a mechanism to ensure that his platform was not misused by those hungry for power.

Before joining our apolitical front, one has to give an affidavit that she or he will not join any political party or contest elections as party candidate. Nearly 5,000 persons have furnished undertakings. It has been done to ensure that the movement is not misused anymore like my earlier team, he said.

He clarified that his supporters could contest elections as independent candidates, but he and his movement would not support their candidature.amansharma@tribunemail.com

Chandigarh, March 5

The Haryana government is in the final stages of completing an action plan to address sexual and gender-based crimes against women and children in the state, Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki said on Monday.

In his address on the opening day of the Haryana Assembly's Budget Session, he said the state action plan (SAP) would outline the responsibilities of various stakeholders so that steps are taken in a time-bound manner.

"The Haryana government is giving final touches to a comprehensive state action plan on sexual and gender based violence to address all major components of crime afflicting women and children in the state," Solanki said.

The government is committed to empower women so that they live with dignity and contribute as equal partners in the development process in an environment free of violence and discrimination, he told the House.

The governor also said the state government had launched the Food Fortification Programme in Barara and Naraingarh blocks on a pilot basis.

The programme would be extended to the entire state soon. This will go a long way in overcoming the problem of malnutrition and anaemia among women, he said.

On the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal issue, Solanki said the efforts of the government have resulted in a favourable verdict from the Supreme Court on the Presidential Reference on the matter.

Since then, the Haryana government is vigorously pursuing for the completion of construction of the remaining portion of the canal, he said.

The governor also recognised the state government's achievements in areas of socio-economic development and nation-building.

Haryana is the only Indian state which is kerosene-free and where no Panchayati Raj Institution (PRI) member is uneducated or a bank loan defaulter, Solanki said.

The state has also ensured 100 hours work to the educated unemployed youth and guarantees no farmer will incur losses if he grows potato, onion, tomato or cauliflower, whatever be the selling price for his produce, he told the 90-member assembly.

Besides, Haryana has won national acclaim for its efforts to curb the evil practice of female foeticide and remove the blemish of open defecation, Solanki said.

The government has achieved notable success in implementation of the 'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao' programme. The sex ratio at birth is 914 females per 1,000 males as of December 2017 as compared to 833 in 2011 and 871 in the same period in 2014, the governor said.

Buoyed by the unprecedented experience of transparency in recruitment of over 20,000 youths for different government jobs, people feel confident that there would be no nepotism or corruption in the ongoing process for recruitment for more than 50,000 jobs, he said.

Haryana also aims to become the first state in India to realise the target set by the prime minister, to double the income of the farmers before 2022.

On the law and order situation in the state, the governor said crime in Haryana has remained "well under control during 2017".

During the period, 97,392 cases were registered under the Indian Penal Code and most of the cases were solved, Solanki said.

"It has been proposed that persons committing rape of a girl up to 12 years of age may now be punished with death," he said.

The governor also said 1,000 posts of Special Police Officers have been created exclusively for night patrolling in Gurgaon.  PTIeditorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Shimla, March 5

Residents of 20 nagar panchayats can now seek approval of their building plans from the single window of the urban local body without having to get nod from the Town and Country Planning (TCP) Department.

The decision was taken by the Cabinet at its meeting chaired by Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur here today. The Cabinet also accorded approval for the demands for the supplementary grants for the year 2017-18.

The decision was taken to make it easy for the residents of these 20 nagar panchayats of Sunni, Kotkhai, Jubbal, Arki, Rajgarh, Shri Naina Devi Ji, Daulatpur, Santoshgarh, Tahliwal, Kangra, Nurpur, Nagrota, Dehra, Jwalamukhi, Jawali, Chowari, Sarkaghat, Riwalsar, Karsog and Banjar to seek building approvals. The people of the area had been keen that they are exempted from seeking approvals from the TCP Department as it was very cumbersome.

The Cabinet delegated powers of Director Town and Country Planning Department to the Executive Officers or Panchayat Secretaries of the 20 Nagar Panchayats which were governed by sub rules of Urban Development Department till date. The people of these urban local bodies will now get all the approvals and clearances through single window system and will not have to apply to the TCP.

The Cabinet approved setting up of Rs 748.30 lakh Regional-cum-Facilitation Centre (RFC) of National Medicinal Plants Board, Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India at Jogindernagar in Mandi district along-with requisite staff for running the Centre. The Centre will be provided annual grant of Rs 149.60 lakh. The aim of the setting up of this centre is to provide inputs for conservation, cultivation, technology up-gradation, sale of medicinal plants, training and research and development of region specific quality planting material.

The Cabinet gave nod for upgrading Community Health Centre (CHC), Bhawarna near Palampur to 50-bed Civil Hospital and Primary Health Centre Balichowki in Mandi district to the CHC. The Cabinet decided to open a sub treasury office at Shahpur in district Kangra. It also gave its approval to open fire post at Patli Kuhl in Kullu district.

The Cabinet also discussed the issue pertaining to providing recognition to Himachali regional films for local film makers so that they could get recognition at the national level.

Later, the Cabinet also expressed grief over the demise of Capt. Atma Ram, former MLA from Kangra district.monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Shimla, March 5

The month-long Budget session of the Himachal Assembly would commence here tomorrow, with Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur presenting his first state budget on March 9.

The session, which culminates on April 5, would have 17 sittings, including two private members' days on March 8 and March 30, an official release said.

There would be nine days' recess from March 17 to March 25 to enable the House committees to scrutinise the budget, the release said.

The BJP and the Congress Legislature parties will meet here tonight to finalise the strategy for the second session of the 13th Vidhan Sabha.

In the 68 members House, the BJP has 44 members followed by the Congress (21), Independents (2), and CPI(M) (1). PTIeditorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Solan,March 5

Taking stern note of complaints from a forest guard of the Loza beat in Shillai being threatened by the forest mafia, Deputy Commissioner, Sirmaur, Lalit Jain, today directed the SDM, Shillai, and the DSP (Headquarters) to take action against it and provide security to the guard.

He said forest guard Joginder Singhs efforts to curb illegal activities in his area were commendable. Jain was addressing a meeting of officials from various departments at Nahan to curb illigal activities of various mafias in the district.

He said appropriate steps would be initiated by the administration to curb the nefarious activities of forest, liquor, drug and mining mafia with the cooperation of the locals. He said a complaint box would also be placed in SDM offices where people could provide information about such activities. He said the names of such people would be kept secret.

He said Hoshiar Helpline 1090 had been started which worked for 24 hours. People could provide information on the toll-free number.

Lalit Jain said flying squads, headed by SDMs, would be constituted and 40 officials of various departments had been given powers to check the illicit activity.

The DC also directed the officials of the Excise and Taxation Department to check the illegal sale of liquor and drugs. He also instructed them to keep a vigil on shops which supplied drugs to schoolchildren.

SDMs from sub-divisions, ADM and police officials were present at the meeting.monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 5

In a dramatic turn of events, the Jammu and Kashmir government on Monday told the Supreme Court that Major Aditya Kumar was not named in FIR in connection with the Shopian firing in which three civilians were killed on January 27.

During hearing of a petition filed by Major Kumars father, Lieutenant Colonel Karamveer Singh seeking quashing of the FIR, senior counsel Shekhar Naphade told a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra that the FIR does not mention the name of the officer as an accused and that the column meant for mentioning the names of accused was empty.

Naphades statement came after the CJI asked what the allegation was in the FIR against Major Kumar.

He is an army officer and not an ordinary criminal, the bench, also comprising Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud, said.

The bench, which had on February 12 stayed criminal proceedings against Major Kumar, fixed April 24 to finally dispose of the matter. It said the investigation shall remain stayed till the next date of hearing.

On behalf of the Centre, Attorney General KK Venugopal supported the petitioner and criticised the state of Jammu and Kashmir for registering a criminal case against a serving Army officer without sanction from the Central government.

Naphade opposed the stay of investigation, saying, Nobody has the licence to kill Let the probe continue. The court has already protected the officer by saying that no coercive steps shall be taken against the officer.

Everyday soldiers are being killed. Mobs gather outside police stations to pelt stones. Do they have a licence, the Attorney General countered. He quoted Section 7 of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1990, according to which no prosecution can be launched against a serving army officer without prior sanction from the Central government.

However, Naphade said the Centres permission was not required to file an FIR and it would be required only at the time of filing of the chargesheet.

Besides quashing of the FIR, petitioner Lt Colonel Karamveer Singh has sought guidelines to protect soldiers rights and adequate compensation for them.

Three civilians were killed on January 27 when Army personnel fired at a stone-pelting mob in Ganovpora village in Shopian, prompting the chief minister to order an inquiry into the incident.

The FIR was registered against the personnel of 10, Garhwal unit of the Army, including Major Kumar, under the Sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to murder) of the Ranbir Penal Code.

The Army had on February 1 presented its version of events contradicting the police FIR. It reiterated that soldiers opened fire on protesters in self-defence to prevent imminent lynching of an officer, snatching of weapons by villagers and burning of the Army vehicles.

The petitioner contended that FIR had been illegally filed against Major Aditya Kumar and that his son had been "wrongly and arbitrarily" named in the FIR as the February 27 incident related to an Army convoy on bona fide military duty in an area under the AFSPA, which was isolated by an "unruly and deranged" mob pelting stones causing damage to military vehicles.pardeepdhull@gmail.com

Jammu, March 5

Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police S P Vaid on Monday said they were investigating the firing incident in which six people, including two terrorists, were killed by the Army in Shopian district.

Vaid said the situation was under control and appealed to the people of Kashmir to maintain peace.

Two weapons, along with other arms and ammunition, were seized from the possession of the militants, who fired upon a joint check-point of the security forces last night, the DGP told reporters on the sidelines of a function here.

The troops retaliated after they were attacked and bodies of two terrorists and four others were recovered, Vaid said, adding that the matter is being investigated.

Asked whether the deceased were overground workers, he said that is what the Army is saying. We will see what their affiliation was, he added.

On the return of a youth from militant ranks to his family, the DGP expressed hope that more women would make an appeal for their sons return.

You have seen six bodies are lying (in Shopian). Taking up arms or joining terrorism only lead to loss of life and nothing can be achieved, he said. On recent advertisements in newspapers seeking deportation of Rohingya Muslims, the DGP said the Union Government would take a call on this issue.

It is a matter involving two nations and very soon the Centre will address the issue, he said.

Later, launching a website and mobile application of a non-governmental organisation, the DGP said the essential part of parenting is to hold dialogue with children and engage them so that they do not go astray and take to petty crimes. PTIeditorial@tribune.com

Vikas Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 5

With a majority of educational institutions in J&K not taking any initiatives for the safety of the students, the School Education Department has instructed the heads of all government and private schools in the state to carry out a safety audit of their respective buildings.

The safety audit in schools includes fire and food safety (midday meals in rural schools and clearance by the authorities) on a quarterly basis. It is part of the effective implementation of the guidelines of the School Safety Policy, 2016, of the National Disaster Management Authority.

The school heads were directed to ensure training of the management committee on assessment of safety needs, developing plans as well as safety audit on a quarterly basis.

As per the safety guidelines, all schools have to develop an Emergency Response Plan, which includes evacuation procedures, handling of chemicals in the laboratory, stock-pilling of emergency equipment and materials, etc. on a yearly basis. The training needs of students and teachers with regard to the school safety on a yearly basis are also to be identified by the management, which otherwise was not done in the past.

In order to create awareness among the students regarding hazards and risk reduction, the schools have been directed to organise street plays, rallies, drawing and quiz contests along with slogan writing on a weekly basis.

There are around 23,747 government schools in J&K, including 12,252 in Jammu division and 11,495 in Kashmir division. Similarly, there are more than 5,000 private schools in the state, including 2,726 in Jammu province.

Pertinently, in November 2017, the J&K Government had announced to conduct safety audit of old school buildings to phase them out in a time-bound manner.

In January this year, the Disaster Management, Relief, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Department had ordered all DCs/Chairpersons, District Disaster Management Authority, to identify major lifeline buildings, including important offices, hospitals, shopping malls, schools, colleges and universities within their district and ensure that the fire safety audit ofthe buildings was done within a specified period.sanjiv@tribunemail.com

Anantnag/Srinagar, March 5

The situation in south Kashmirs Shopian district remained tense with the police today recovering two more bodies, raising the death toll in the Sunday night shootout to six, four of them civilians.

The bodies of three civilians, described by the Army as Over-Ground Workers (OGWs), and a militant were found soon after the 8 pm shootout in Pahnoo village. The civilians, all from Shopian district, were identified as Gowher Ahmad Lone, a fertiliser dealer from Moloo Dangerpora, Shahid Ahmad Khan, a first-year student from Malik Gund, Suhail Khalil Wagay, a Class XII student from Pinjoora, and Shahnawaz Ahmad Wagay, a labourer from Trenz village.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The Lashkar militants were identified as Amir Ahmad Malik of Harmain village and Ashiq Hussain Bhat of Rakhpora in Shopian district.

The Army claimed the militants travelling in two vehicles had sped away when signalled to stop, firing indiscriminately. Our men on duty opened fire in self-defence, Col DS Negi told the media. He said a militant and three individuals accompanying him were later found dead.

Another militant and a civilian were found dead this morning at two different locations, he said. The families of the slain civilians alleged they were killed in cold blood and that they had no links with militancy. Claiming there was a thin line between an OGW and a civilian, Commander Harbir Singh said, They were definitely civilians and its a matter of investigation as to what extent they were involved in supporting the militants.  TNSuttara@tribuneindia.com

Srinagar, March 5

Security forces on Monday gunned down Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist Mufti Waqas, believed to be the mastermind of last month's Sunjuwan terror attack, during an encounter in South Kashmir's Awantipora, officials said here.

Acting on a specific intelligence input, a small team of the Army along with the elite Special Operations Group cordoned off the Hatwar area in Awantipur and carried out a "surgical attack" on a house, the Army said.

Jaish-e-Mohammed's operational commander Waqas, the mastermind of the terror attack on the Sunjuwan Army camp in Jammu and the suicide attack on a CRPF camp in South Kashmir's Lethpora, was killed in the surgical operation, it said.

There have been no civilian casualties or collateral damage, the Army said.

Waqas's killing has dented the designs of the JeM as it comes after the elimination of the terror group's operational commander Noor Mohd Tantrey in the same area on December 17.

According to officials, Waqas, a Pakistani national who had infiltrated into the Kashmir Valley in 2017, was functioning as the operational commander of the terror outfit and had sent 'fidayeens' (suicide attackers) from Tral in South Kashmir to Jammu where they had carried out the strike on the Army camp on February 10.

Five Army men, including two junior commissioned officers (JCOs), and the father of a soldier were killed in the attack by the terrorists who struck at the sprawling camp of the 36 Brigade of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry (JKLI). All the three terrorists were killed in retaliatory action.

Waqas was also responsible for radicalisng local boys Fardeen Khandey and Manzoor Baba, who had carried out a suicide attack on a CRPF camp in South Kashmir's Lethpora on the intervening night of December 30 and December 31 last year.



Some militants stormed into an army camp in Sunjuwan in a pre-dawn strike on February 10. The gun battle that followed killed seven peoplesix soldiers and a civilian. All three gunmen involved in the attack were eventually gunned down.

Jaish-e-Mohammed later claimed the attack. PTI/ Agencieseditorial@tribune.com

Suhail A Shah

Anantnag, March 5

The alleged mastermind of the Sunjuwan attack and operational commander of the Jaish-e-Mohammad in the Kashmir valley, Mufti Waqas, was today shot dead in a brief encounter with security forces in the Lethpora area of south Kashmirs Pulwama district.

Waqas had taken over the reins of the Jaish following the killing of Noor Muhammad Tantray, alias Noor Trali, in December last year.

The security forces are describing Waqas as a category A++ militant, directly involved in the planning of the fidayeen attack on the Army base camp in Sunjuwan, Jammu. Nine people, including five Army men, three militants and a civilian, were killed in the February 10 attack on the Army camp.

According to police reports, there were specific inputs regarding the presence of militants in a residential house in the Hatiwara area of Lethpora in Pulwama district. A joint team of the police, Army and the CRPF was dispatched to the area. As the cordon was being laid, a militant barged out of the house firing indiscriminately to shield himself, a senior police officer said. He said the fire was duly retaliated, briefly, before the militant was gunned down. The militant was later identified as Mufti Waqas of the JeM, the police officer said. Waqas was the mastermind of several attacks and was active in south Kashmir since mid-2016, the officer added. Sources in the police, meanwhile, maintained that two more militants who were probably with Waqas managed to escape. Following the encounter, as the security forces were returning to the base, heavy stone-throwing erupted in the Lethpora area along the Srinagar-Jammu national highway. Dozens of youths came on to the streets and engaged the security forces in a pitched battle. There were no reports of any injuries during the clashes. The traffic on the national highway was halted for a while though.

A++ militantshalender@tribune.com

Suhail A Shah

Anantnag, March 4

Three civilians, who the Army claimed were Over-Ground Workers of terror outfits, and a militant were killed tonight in a brief exchange of fire between the security forces and militants in south Kashmirs Shopian district.

The incident triggered clashes between locals and security forces in several parts of the district as the Army was accused of killing the civilians in cold blood.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The Army, on the other hand, maintained that the civilians were OGWs (Over-Ground Workers) of militant outfits and were travelling in a car along with the slain ultra, identified as Mushtaq Ahmad Dar of Jamnagri in Shopian. The identity of the civilians was yet to be ascertained, a police official said.

A defence statement said a mobile vehicle check post of the Armys 44 Rashtriya Rifles came under fire from militants in the Pahnoo area of Shopian. The incident occurred at about 8 pm, said Army spokesperson Rajesh Kalia.

The militants fired from the car. In retaliatory firing by the Army, a militant was killed and a weapon was found on him. Three OGWs/accomplices accompanying the militant were also found dead, said Kalia.

The spokesperson said the police had reached the spot and legal proceedings were on. The Army has rushed additional troops to the spot and the entire area has been cordoned off.gspannu7@gmail.com

Mumbai, March 5

Criticising the culture of item numbers in Hindi films, veteran actor Shabana Azmi on Monday said they are used in movies for titillation.

In a panel discussion at the ongoing FICCI Frames, Azmi said item numbers involve a woman surrendering to the male gaze.

I have strong views on item numbers because they are not part of the narrative and theyve been put in a film for the only purpose of titillation and nothing else.

When a girl or a leading lady says its alright, I want to celebrate my sensuality I have no problem with that. I think thats wonderful, she said.

But under the pretence of celebrating your sensuality what you are actually doing is surrendering to the male gaze and objectifying yourselves because the business of cinema is of images, the actor added.

Azmi said it is problematic when people are shown a womans fragmented bits of her body, heaving bosom, swinging navel, shaking hip, as it robs her whole autonomy.

Citing the lyrics of Salman Khan-starrer Dabangg 2, where Kareena Kapoor Khan danced on Fevicol Se, Azmi said mouthing those lines is a cause of concern.

Please be informed, when you say main tandoori murgi hu, gatka lo mujhe alcohol kay saath and a four-year-old girl is dancing on it, you are leading to the sexualisation of children and the parents who are enjoying it, people who are encouraging her are just as responsible.

Drawing a parallel with Zoya Akhtars Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, the actor said portions of Katrina Kaif in the film, where she wears a bikini, were gracefully shot.

In the film, Katrina Kaif comes out of the water in a bikini, the camera doesnt go close to her, doesnt linger on her bosom or the droplets falling. The camera in mid (frame) sees her coming out of the water, picks up her bathrobe, wears it and you immediately accept that she is an instructor who is coming and doing her job.

The very same shot, if the director had decided to go over, it would be objectification. So its the intention. Theres a difference between sensuality and objectification, she added.

Also present at the discussion were Vani Tripathi Tikoo, CBFC member, Gayatri Yadav, president and head, Consumer Strategy & Innovation, Star India, Apurva Purohit, president, Jagran Prakashan Ltd and Tavleen Singh, political columnist and author.  PTIgspannu7@gmail.com

Mumbai, March 5

Ajit Andhare, chief operating officer, Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, which co-produced the controversy-ridden Padmaavat, on Monday said its a myth that filmmakers stoke controversy for free publicity.

The Sanjay Leela Bhansali-directed film ran into a major controversy with several Rajput outfits taking offence over the portrayal of queen Padmavati.

At a panel discussion at the on-going FICCI Frames, Andhare said one big myth filmmakers deal with is that for them all publicity is good publicity.

No storyteller, no one in the business of films wants to stoke up a controversy, least of all when you are making a mainstream film, which also happens to be the most expensive film of the industry. This is a big myth, which we should clearly dispense with, he said.

In the case of Udta Punjab also, these kinds of things were said. Nobody courts controversies, certainly not stakeholders, when so much is at stake, he added.

Andhare said during the Padmaavat controversy, they were trying to dissuade people from what they were believing was in the film but nobody was listening.

The panel discussion, titled The Myth of Offence: Are Historical & biopics endangered species was moderated by screenwriter Anjum Rajabali.

Andhare said theres no lack of understanding from the governments side about the importance of the (film) industry but raised concerns over the mixing of politics with films.

If politics is going to be mixed with the business of films, then we are in for difficult times...Till date, we have not had a situation where a film, ultimately with the institutions backing itjudiciary, censor boardhas been stopped in this country.

At the most what has happened is, that a couple of states or a state, where there is a political pressure, the films dont find a release, he added.

Padmaavat, though released nationwide, was banned in four states.

Andhare said creative people cant let such controversies affect their voice, and should continue to make the film they believe in.

If we start letting this affect us in our choices of subjects, then I think we are already slipping because we are not even trying to make another film which might offend someone or someone might manufacture a dissent. We need not get influenced by it. Thats why I said, I hope this (Padmaavat row) is an exception and not a norm.  PTIRajnish Wattas

Rajnish Wattas

AS US President Donald Trump spewed fire and fury over the high tariff levied by India on the import of America's iconic Harley-Davidson mobikes, I recalled riding those 'phatphatiyas' that plied as taxis in the Delhi of yore. With the great Indian jugaad, these powerful bikes, along with some other imported brands were converted into three-wheeler taxis that plied between Connaught Place and Chandni Chowk at very affordable tariffs. These colourful, mean machines, adorned with loud, floral ornamentations, driven mostly by burly Sardarjis, promised an adventurous, rickety, wind-blowing ride.

With the advent of Vespa and Piaggio auto-rickshaws, these quaint contraptions phased out. Mobikes yielded space to the new-age scooters as the preferred modes of transportation. However, the roar, or rather the phatphat, of Royal Enfield 'Bullets' still resonated in fauji cantonments, as their DRs (dispatch riders) went about their rounds, delivering military 'signals' with speed and alacrity.

Some privileged college heroes zipped through their academic pursuits on fancy mobikes, showing up for classes suitably attired in snazzy leather jackets to spend more time in the campus canteens, impressing pretty maidens, than taking copious notes in the library. While these spoiled rich family scions roared on their swashbuckling machines, most of us commuted on our Atlas or Hercules bicycles, pedalling away against strong winds on cold winter mornings.

Soon, one of our mates managed to convince his stern father about the efficacy of the then newly launched 'Rajdoot' mobike as the panacea for improving his dismal attendance record in the morning physics class. Once, he even managed to convince a dainty co-ed for a ride to the city for a bite of some 'softy ice-cream'. However, in his over-excitement to roar off like a Bullet with the coveted rider, he turned on full throttle much before the young lady had properly ensconced herself in the pillion seat. As the poor thing fell down with a thud, the mobike Romeo got a tight slap, ending all such future dream runs.

A colleague, even after his return from the US, wouldn't let go of his love for riding his prized Harley-Davidson, always proudly parked outside his architectural studio in Chandigarh. Once riding through the chaotic Madhya Marg traffic, he broke many bones in an accident. But as soon the doctors reassembled his bone architecture, he was back in the saddle.

Easy riders on 'Fat boys' or 'Hogs'  fond nicknames for the Harley-Davidsons  roaring past the smooth American highways is a common sight. Sometime back, in New York, I saw all traffic stopped along the Hudson Avenue running along the river as hordes of these bikers zipped past. Dressed in black leather jackets, jeans and cowboy belts, sporting fancy goggles, their big, burly tattooed biceps bulging out they were absolute showstoppers!

One way to settle the tariff war between Trump and his 'beautiful fantastic friend Modi' might be to let both of them race their respective bikes  the 'Hog' versus the desi Bajaj Pulsar  along the Rajpath or the Capitol Hill. And may the winner clinch the import tariff tiff!sanjiv@tribunemail.com

New Delhi, March 5

The government has ordered a CBI probe into the alleged paper leak in one of the tests of the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) held last month, Home Minister Rajnath Singh said today.

The order came a day after the SSC, which conducts examination for subordinate services, recommended an inquiry by the CBI into the allegations of leak of questions of the Combined Graduate Level (Tier-II) Examination 2017 held from February 17 to 22.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

We have accepted demands of protesting candidates and have given orders for CBI inquiry. The protest of the students should stop now, Singh told reporters here.

Job aspirants have been protesting outside the commissions office here since February 27, seeking a CBI probe into the alleged paper leak. Yesterday, Delhi BJP chief and MP Manoj Tiwari, along with a delegation of the candidates, met SSC chairman Ashim Khurana seeking CBI probe.

They had also met the home minister to apprise him about their concerns. Later, in a statement, the SSC chairman had said the commission agreed to recommend to the Department of Personnel and Training to request the government to conduct a CBI enquiry into the allegations of leak of questions of Paper-I on February 21, and other related issues. The SSC conducts examinations for recruitment to lower categories of posts in the central government.  PTIgspannu7@gmail.com

New Delhi, March 5

The Congress on Monday demanded that Prime Minister Narendra Modi make a statement in Parliament on steps being taken by him to bring back the accused in bank frauds, and alleged that the peoples hard-earned money has been looted and sent offshore under a government which had promised to bring back the black money stashed abroad.

Targeting Modi, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad and deputy leader Anand Sharma said the prime minister should speak up on the bank frauds.

The prime minister should have come to both the Houses and made a statement. One scam after another is taking place in banks and the amount is worth thousands of crores of rupees, Azad told reporters.

He said the prime minister should tell the people of the country through Parliament on the steps he is taking to get back those accused of committing bank frauds and assure them on the steps he is taking to bring the guilty to book.

Azad alleged that the prime minister is unable to bring black money back to India, but has been successful in sending white money out of the country.

He said the prime minister makes frequent foreign visits and the BJP claims that he is very popular worldwide. His popularity is no good for the country if he is unable to bring back to the country the people behind these huge bank scams, Azad said.

He failed to bring back any such money. But, I will congratulate him for sending out white money from the country. Maybe, we made a mistake in hearing him, the Congress leader said, taking a swipe at the prime minister on his promise of cracking down on black money hoarders.

Azad said it started with jeweller Jatin Mehta, who along with his wife left the country in 2016 after committing bank frauds of Rs 6,500 crore.

The government also helped him get a citizenship of St Kitts, he alleged, and added that thereafter Lalit Modi and Vijay Mallya left, followed by Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi.

Anand Sharma said Congress leaders like him, Azad and others had given notices for suspension of all business to discuss the biggest bank fraud in the history of Independent India in which the loot of public money is rising.

Peoples money today is not safe. The government on its own should have agreed to what we are saying to discuss this because the peoples money is not safe in the banks.

People of India, their hard-earned money, their savings are in bank deposits. That has been looted. Why has the prime minister chosen to be quiet? he said.

Asking why the prime minister is quiet, Sharma said, He should assure the country that he will bring them back and they will be punished under the law. Peoples money will be recovered. That is the message which the country wants to hear.

He said, We have a situation, but Modi ji is silent on it. He talks of every other matter, but this.

The former union minister said the three accused Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and Jatin Mehta, are involved in bank frauds to the tune of Rs 27,000 crore and alleged that all of them had access to the government and to its leadership.  PTIrchopra@tribunemail.com

New Delhi, March 4

The Delhi High Court on Monday directed a lower court to pronounce its verdict in a case relating to the alleged tampering of documents during the trial of the main 1997 Uphaar fire tragedy case by November 30.

Justice Anu Malhotra also sought a status report on trial in the matter by September 7.

The trial court is directed to complete the proceedings in the case and pronounce the judgment by November 30. A status report is called for on September 7, the court said.

The high court also asked the Delhi government and other parties in the case to cooperate in the trial to expedite disposal of the matter.

Senior advocate Vikas Pahwa, representing the Association of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy (AVUT), sought a day-to-day trial in the case related to tampering of evidence in the main case.

He said the lower court was giving only one date each month, leading to a delay in the trial.

The state and Delhi Police, however, said they were assisting the court so proceedings are expedited.

On January 17, the high court had sought details of a case relating to the Uphaar cinema fire tragedy which was being heard by a trial court. This was after the victims group moved a plea for a speedy trial in the matter.

The high court sought to know the status and number of witnesses being cross-examined in the case relating to the alleged tampering of documents during trial of the main case, which involved real estate barons Sushil and Gopal Ansal.

It sought to know the details of pending matters before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate at the Patiala House court here.

On June 13, 1997, a fire broke out at the theatre during the screening of Bollywood film Border, killing 59 people and injuring over 100.

On January 31, 2003, a trial court ordered an inquiry after some documents related to the case went missing from the courts record room. After an inquiry, a court employee was dismissed from service.

The case is related to the tampering of a judicial file pertaining to a letter written by Vice President of Ansal Properties Industries Ltd, VK Nagpal, to the Delhi Fire Service. An FIR was registered in this regard.

It is important to note, that even in the main Uphaar fire tragedy case, the entire trial was concluded within a period of 10 years with the intervention of this court...

However, in the instant case, which arises out tampering with the original court records of the Uphaar fire tragedy case, despite 10 years from the date of registration of FIR, not a single prosecution witness has been able to complete their deposition, the plea by association president Neelam Krishnamoorthy said.

The Delhi High Court had on May 12 last year, upheld a trial court order framing charges of tampering of evidence against Ansals.

A magisterial court on May 31, 2014 ordered framing of charges against seven accused for abatement of offence, causing disappearance of evidence, criminal breach of trust by public servant and criminal conspiracy under the IPC.

Theatre owners Gopal Ansal and his brother Sushil Ansal, Anoop Singh, Prem Prakash Batra, Harswaroop Panwar, Dharamveer Malhotra and Dinesh Chandra Sharma were accused of tampering with evidence in the case, pending since 2006.

All the accused have denied the allegations against them. PTIgspannu7@gmail.com

Smita Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 5

Climate change and environment will be the key themes underlining the first official visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to India coinciding with the International Solar Alliance (ISA) inauguration on March 11.

Macron, who arrives on March 9, will enjoy Prime Minister Narendra Modis trademark hospitality with a visit to his parliamentary constituency Varanasi on March 12.

The two leaders will inaugurate a 75 MW Enviro Solitaire Pvt. Ltd solar power plant at Dadar Kala village in Mirzapur.

Macron will then visit Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Hastkala Sankul in Benares Hindu University  a trade facilitation centre for handicrafts inaugurated by Modi last September  before flying to Assi Ghat.

Modi will accompany Macron for a boat ride along the ghats of the Ganges to showcase his governments focus on Namami Gange (National Mission for Clean Ganga) and host lunch for the president and First Lady Brigitte.

Japanese PM Shinzo Abe accompanied by Modi had watched evening Aarti at the illuminating Dashwashamedh Ghat in 2015.

Interestingly on his official visit to France earlier in 2015, Modi accompanied by Macrons predecessor and former President Francois Hollande took a boat ride along river Seine where the leaders talked diplomacy.

Key objective for Macrons visit is the inaugural ISA conference. The India-led initiative was launched two years ago at the Paris Climate Change Conference.

ISA seeks joint efforts to reduce cost of technology and mobilise more than 1000 billion USD by 2030 for massive deployment of solar energy.

The founding conference will be attended by representatives from at least 125 countries and multilateral institutions with participation confirmation from 21 Heads of States and 4 Heads of Governments (Prime Ministers) so far.

Registered with the United Nations as an intergovernmental treaty-based organisation recently, the ISA Framework agreement has been signed by 58 countries and ratified by 27 members till date.

Macron in the preface for a special India edition of his memoir Revolution writes he discovered India through Mahabharata and has been inspired by Mahatma Gandhi.

Stressing on the significance of climate change cooperation with India he says, Both our countries have understood that forthcoming growth is not pitted against but resides in combating climate change.

Macron will also address the media at The Gateway Hotel Ganges in Varanasi prior to his departure for France.rchopra@tribunemail.com

Washington, March 5

Indian Embassy telephone lines have been spoofed by fraudsters in the US to cheat people for money, according to an advisory issued by the mission that warned against entertaining any suspicious calls.

The Indian Embassy here has informed the US Government about it and launched its own internal investigation.

It also issued a rare public advisory on such fraud calls that has cheated people with money, thus bringing bad name to the diplomatic mission.

These fraudsters either seek personal information like credit card details, etc, or try to extort money from Indian nationals by inter alia claiming that there are errors in their passports, visa forms, immigration forms, etc, which could be rectified by paying money, and at the same time warning that the so-called errors, if not rectified, could result in deportation of the individual to India or their imprisonment in the US, the Indian Embassy said in its advisory.

Some of the Indian nationals living in the US, who received such call, brought to the notice of the Embassy that some fraudsters are spoofing Embassy of India telephone lines to make calls aimed at cheating people.

Some of these calls are shown as being from the Embassy telephone numbers while others simply use Embassy identity.

In some cases, these fraudsters also claimed that they received such information from the Embassy or other authorities in India. Visa applicants have also received such calls purporting to be from the Embassy.

The Indian Embassy has started collecting information from the public, including details of the Western Union account number or bank account details where the money was transferred.

In its advisory, the Indian Embassy said none of its officials made any telephone calls seeking personal information from any Indian or foreign nationals.

In case any additional documentation is required from an existing applicant, it is sought only through emails originating from the official domain, it said.

It urged people living in the US not to entertain any suspicious telephone calls made in the name of Embassy of India. It also advised people not to reveal any personal information or transfer any money in response to such calls.

This is for the first time probably that fraudsters have been spoofing Indian Embassy phone numbers.

According to informed US government officials, in the past they have received similar complaints from other diplomatic missions as well, in particular those from the European nations.

Officials said while the spoofing technology is easily available, it is tough to get to the origin of such phone calls. Americans have been frequent victims of such phone callsfrom call centres in Indiaon behalf of the US Internal Revenue Service. In several joint operations in the last one year, Indian authorities have arrested scores of people making such fraud calls. PTIamansharma@tribunemail.com

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 5

The issue of CBI Special Judge BH Loya's death once again led to heated exchange between senior counsel Dushyant Dave and Harish Salve in the Supreme Court on Monday after the former raised questions over the conduct of some sitting judges of the Bombay High Court in the case.

Dave, who is representing one of the petitioners demanding an independent probe into Loya's death, expressed surprise over the readiness of certain judges of the Bombay High Court to give statements that it was a natural death. Some of the judges who asked inconvenient questions were transferred, he added.

It's a travesty that judges after judges who stood in their way have been punished, Dave told a three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra.

"Your Lordships judges are being abused. It can't be allowed," said Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta who, supported by senior counsel Harish Salve, is representing the state of Maharashtra.

An angry Dave retorted, "He (Mehta) has been a lawyer for Shri Amit Shah for 15 years And now he is instructing Mr Salve and Mr Rohatgi."

Salve tried to impress upon the bench by saying sitting judges can't be allowed to be abused.

"Mr Salve should not be allowed to stand up in this court," Dave said.

As Dave continued with his allegations against judges and change in roster, Justice AM Khanwilkar objected to it. "It's a very broad statement That's not the way to go about," said Justice Khanwilkar.

Justice DY Chandrachud, who is also on the three-judge bench, reminded Dave that as a senior lawyer coming from Gujarat he must be aware of the practice in Bombay and Gujarat high courts on the issue of roster which changed after six to eight weeks. There was nothing unusual about it, he clarified.

Dave accused Bombay High Court's former Chief Justice Mohit Shah of offering bribe to Loya, who was hearing the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.

Loya had died of a cardiac arrest on December 1, 2014, in Nagpur where he had gone to attend the wedding of a colleagues daughter. He was handling the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case in which various police officers and BJP president Amit Shah were named.

Shah was later exonerated in the case.

His death has been hitting headlines since November 2017 after media reports quoting his sister raised questions about the circumstances surrounding his death and its alleged link to the Sohrabuddin case. After Loya's death, special judge MB Gosavi had discharged Shah and some other accused.

As the arguments remained inconclusive, the CJI ordered the matter to be posted for hearing on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) has filed an intervention application seeking a court-monitored probe by a high-powered team into Loya's death. The bench agreed to hear CPIL counsel Prashant Bhushan on Friday.

Last month, asserting that there can't be any questions raised over the natural death of Loya, the Maharashtra government had sought dismissal of petitions seeking a probe by a Special Investigation team (SIT), saying four judges who were with him had confirmed it.

Four judges who were with him (Loya) have said he died a premature but natural death three years ago. "Either you say they are all lying or you dismiss the case," Rohatgi had told the bench last month.

The four judges had given their statement to the Maharashtra Police confirming that Loya died a natural death and the state contended its supported by post-mortem report.

On February 5, taking strong exception to the language used by senior advocates Dushyant Dave and Pallav Shishodia during hearing on petitions seeking an SIT probe into Loya's death, the bench had said the courtroom should not be reduced to the level of a "fish market".sanjiv@tribunemail.com

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 5

In a dramatic turn of events, the Jammu and Kashmir Government on Monday told the Supreme Court that Major Aditya Kumar was not named in the FIR in connection with the Shopian firing on January 27 in which three civilians were killed.

During hearing of a petition filed by Major Kumars father Lt Col Karamveer Singh seeking quashing of the FIR, senior counsel Shekhar Naphade told a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra that the column in the FIR meant for mentioning the names of accused was blank.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Naphades statement came after the CJI sought to know the allegations against the officer. He is an Army officer and not an ordinary criminal, the Bench, also comprising Justice AM Khanwilkar and Justice DY Chandrachud, observed.

The Bench, which had on February 12 stayed criminal proceedings against the Major, fixed April 24 to finally dispose of the matter. It said the investigation shall remain stayed till the next date of hearing. On behalf of the Centre, Attorney General KK Venugopal supported the petitioner and criticised the state for registering a criminal case against a serving Army officer without sanction from the Centre.

Naphade opposed the stay on investigation, saying: Nobody has the licence to kill Let the probe continue. The court has already protected the officer by saying that no coercive steps shall be taken against the officer.

Everyday soldiers are being killed. Mobs gather outside police stations to pelt stones. Do they have a licence? the Attorney General countered. He quoted Section 7 of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1990, under which no prosecution can be launched against a serving Army officer without prior permission from the Centre.

However, Naphade said the Centres permission was not required to file an FIR and it would be required only at the time of filing of charge-sheet. Three civilians were killed on January 27 when the Army fired at a stone-pelting mob in Shopian village.rchopra@tribunemail.com

New Delhi, March 5

The Lok Sabha was on Monday adjourned for the day after unrelenting protests by the opposition Congress over the Rs 12,700 crore PNB scam, and demands by the TDP for a special package for Andhra Pradesh.

On the first day of the second leg of the Budget session, the House witnessed uproar as Congress, TDP, TRS as well as AIADMK members trooped into the Well.

Noisy protests disrupted Question Hour which led to Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourning the House till noon.

As the House reassembled, Congress members trooped into the Well with placards demanding a reply from the Prime Minister on diamantaire Nirav Modis whereabouts.

Trinamool Congress members, too, were seeking to raise the same matter.

Nirav Modi is the alleged kingpin of the Rs 12,700-crore fraud at Punjab National Bank. The fraud came to light last month after the countrys second-largest state-run lender PNB reported that it had detected fraud in award of LoUs to the designer diamond jewellery maker.

TDP members protested in the Well demanding special package for Andhra Pradesh while those from the TRS sought increase in reservation quota in Telangana.

Amid vociferous opposition protest, Mahajan said she had received the resignation letter of Neiphiu Rio from the Lok Sabha following the Nagaland Assembly election results.

I have accepted his resignation with effect from February 22, Mahajan said.

Three-time chief minister of Nagaland, Rio won unopposed in the recent assembly election in the state. He is likely to become the chief minister again.

Before the beginning of the proceedings of the House, BJP members were seen clapping when Prime Minister Narendra Modi walked into the House. With folded hands, Modi greeted the members as well as those in the Opposition benches.

As the BJP and its allies captured power in the three North Eastern states, many of the saffron party MPs were seen wearing Assamese gamosa.

Obituary references were made for four former members--Rudolph Rodrigues, Kamla Prasad Singh, Khagen Das and Kumari Farida Topno. PTIrchopra@tribunemail.com

Jajpur, March 5

A woman has been arrested on charges of killing her minor daughter at Mugpal village in Kuakhia police station area of Odishas Jajpur district, police said.

Sony Behera (26) dumped her three-year-old girl, Barsha, in a pond on Saturday night, Kuakhia police station Inspector-in-Charge Ashis Kumar Sahu said, adding that the woman had confessed to her crime.

Beheras husband beats drums on festive occasions for a living. He was not at home when the incident happened, Sahu said.

The couple had two children--a six-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter.

Beheras son was sleeping with her grandmother in a separate room when she sneaked out of home with Barsha before flinging her into a pond, said Sahu.

The next morning, she left for her paternal home, where she apparently confessed to have killed her girl in a fit of rage, Sahu said.

Her family and locals then recovered the childs body from the pond and Beheras mother-in-law filed a complaint with the local police.

Behera has been arrested under Section 302 of the IPC. She confessed to the crime and disclosed that she was upset about an argument that she had with her husband the day before, Sahu added. PTIrchopra@tribunemail.com

Yash Goyal

Our Correspondent

Jaipur, March 5

A wrong medical report about Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh suffering from swine flu (H1N1) made him fly to Delhis Apollo hospital on Sunday night.

On a slight sneezing and cold following a change in the weather, Sawai Man Singh Hospital on Sunday evening detected that Singh was suffering from H1N1 virus.

The Governor who is used to getting his health check-up in Delhi rushed to Apollo hospital there and his H1N1 test was found negative, Raj Bhawan PRO Lokesh Chandra Sharma said on Monday.

The Governor is not suffering from swine flu, and got a minor check-up and treatment for seasonal disease. He will go to Aligarh from Delhi on Tuesday, and attend the marriage of his granddaughter Poornima Singh, the PRO said.

Meanwhile, the Governor told the state government to do a high-level probe into the slackness of the medical and health department at SMS hospital.

Recently, BJP MLA Amrita Meghwal was found H1N1-positive by the Assemblys clinic while she was attending the session, and at least 10 others sitting nearby were also screened but they were found negative.

Another BJP MLA Narpat Singh Rajvi recovered from H1N1, while CM's Media Advisor Mahendra Bhardwaj though recovered from the disease but was suffering from lung infection and was hospitalised in cottage ward of SMS hospital during Holi season.

Last year, BJP MLA Kirti Kumari and 20-point vice-chairman (cabinet rank) Digamber Singh died of the disease.

Of 10,978 samples tested for swine flu, 1,090 people were detected positive, and of which 97 have succumbed to the illness in the state since January 1. Jaipur has reported maximum 30 deaths as of now.gspannu7@gmail.com

Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 5

A Canada-based NGO, Professor Mohan Memorial Foundation, named after a poet from Punjab, on Monday urged the Centre to replace the names of islands within Andaman and Nicobar archipelago after those who made supreme sacrifices and suffered tortures at the hands of British colonisers during the Independence struggle.

In a representation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the NGOs president Sahib Thind said the islands have been named after British colonial officials who perpetuated colonial rule, and who defamed and heaped cruelties on our heroes.

He made a special mention of Ghadar Party, which was floated in North America, and whose leaders were in plenty and operated from Canada.

He referred to Sohan Singh Bhakna, a native of Punjab, who founded the party.

The Ghadar Party played an important role in the Independence struggle. Thousands of Ghadar Party stalwarts had taken part in the movement, served years in prison, or met their demise at Cellular Jail on the islands, he said.

Thind, who is on a visit to India, said he has also met and represented his petition to leaders cutting across party lines for scrapping of names related to colonisers from the islands, their cities and the Cellular Jail.

His other demands include naming of Ross Island as Ghadar Island and publication of biographies and stories of the struggles of the Cellular Jail Ghadar inmates for visitors.

Also, Independence martyrs and Ghadar Freedom Fighters should be given equal presentations in Cellular Jail tourist shows, he said.

The NGO has been organising Ghadri Babiyan da Mela for past many years in Canada.editorial@tribune.com

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 5

The cash-strapped state government has proposed to reduce the salary of teachers recruited on a contract basis to one-fourth of their present pay so as to induct them as permanent employees.

Over 15,000 teachers have been asked to work on the basic pay of Rs 10,300 per month for the next three years. The take it or leave it offer was reiterated at a meeting between representatives of these teachers and Education Minister Aruna Chaudhary, here this evening.

These teachers, recruited under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA), computer teachers and those hired for Adarsh schools, are presently drawing salaries ranging from Rs 31,000 to Rs 50,000 per month.

Under the Right to Education (RTE) Act and the norms of the SSA/RMSA and model school schemes (these schools are affiliated to the CBSE), the government is supposed to ensure that all teachers are regular employees. The Congress had promised that it would regularise the services of these teachers.

We are shocked that they are unwilling to offer pay protection and are making things worse for teachers, said Sukhwinder Singh Chahal, conveyor of the Sanjha Adhyapak Morcha, that held a meeting with a functionary of the Education Department. He said they would stage a protest outside Sikhya Bhawan in Mohali on Tuesday against the government move.

Didar Singh Mudki, a teacher posted at Government Senior Secondary School, Mudki (Ferozepur), told The Tribune that when he was recruited in 2009, his pay was Rs 16,500, which now stands at Rs 42,804. After nine years, they expect us to work for just Rs 10,300. Forget about pay protection, the government is out to harass those who are educating future generations, he rued.

Education Minister Aruna Chaudhary told The Tribune that the government had offered to regularise services with a three-year probation period on basic pay, as per the rules. It was a decision of the previous government to keep all fresh recruits on basic pay for three years. We are willing to give the teachers an option to either get absorbed in the Education Department on basic pay or continue working on a contract basis on the present salary. Due to financial constraints, it's not possible for the government to absorb 19,000 contractual teachers under various schemes and also protect their pay," she added.editorial@tribune.com

Anirudh Gupta

Ferozepur, March 5

Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu today sought the enactment of a law to award death penalty to drug dealers in the state, citing the stringent legislation in certain Western and Gulf countries.

Sidhu claimed that the drug trade had spread its tentacles alarmingly during the Akali-BJP rule as several of their leaders were patronising the cartel. The minister said the Congress had implemented a multi-pronged strategy, including setting up the Special Task Force (STF), which had curbed the drug menace to a considerable extent.

He was here to lay the foundation stones of development projects in Zira subdivision. He was accompanied by Congress MLAs Parminder Singh Pinki, Harjot Kamal, Kulbir Zira and Darshan Brar, besides former minister Inderjit Singh Zira and other party leaders.

Addressing a thanksgiving rally organised by Kulbir Zira, Sidhu announced funds to the tune of Rs 5.97 crore for the Municipal Councils in Makhu and Zira and the Mallanwala Nagar Panchayat.

Sidhu said the Congress had brought an end to insurgency in the state, but the Akalis had unleashed economic terrorism during their 10-year rule by grabbing all major businesses, leaving the industry in the red.

Many industrialists shifted base due to the highhandedness of the Akalis, he added. Challenging SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal to an open debate with him, Sidhu said wherever the former would organise a pol khol rally, he would hold a parallel show.

They (Akalis) have lost repeatedly after a debacle in the Assembly elections, said Sidhu.

Spelling out his plans for the Local Government Department, he said, We are going in for large-scale recruitment, including that of Executive Officers, to overcome staff shortage.

He also laid the foundation stones of Moti Bagh and a taxi stand in Zira.rajivbhatia82@gmail.com

Washington, March 5

Guatemala will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in May, two days after the US embassy makes the same move, Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales said on Sunday at a conference in Washington.

I would like to thank President Trump for leading the way.

His courageous decision has encouraged us to do what is right, Morales said in a speech at the American Israel Public Affairs Committees annual policy conference, according to a translation of his remarks on the pro-Israel US lobbying groups website.

Guatemala was one of only a handful of countries that backed US President Donald Trumps December decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Trumps move reversed decades of US policy, upsetting the Arab world and Western allies.

Afterward, 128 countries defied Trump by backing a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution calling for the United States to drop its recognition of Jerusalem.

The status of Jerusalem is one of the thorniest obstacles to forging a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as their capital.

The international community does not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the entire city, home to sites holy to the Muslim, Jewish and Christian religions.

The United States is an important source of assistance to Guatemala, and Trump had threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that supported the UN resolution.

Prior to 1980, Guatemala and a dozen other countries maintained an embassy in Jerusalem. Israels passage in June 1980 of a law proclaiming Jerusalem its indivisible and eternal capital led to a UN Security Council resolution calling on Guatemala and several other countries to move their embassies to Tel Aviv, prompting their transfer.

Morales said his decision to return the Guatemalan embassy to Jerusalem strongly evidences Guatemalas continued support and solidarity with the people of Israel. Morales, a former television comedian with an important base of conservative Christian support in the Central American country, became embroiled earlier this year in a dispute with the United Nations when a UN-backed anti-corruption body in Guatemala tried to impeach him.

Although Morales avoided impeachment, he failed in an attempt to expel the head of the body, the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, after criticism from the United Nations, the United States and the European Union.  Reuters.gspannu7@gmail.com

Kathmandu, March 5

Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Monday arrived here on a two-day visit during which he will hold talks with Nepals top leadership as part of his countrys efforts to engage with regional nations.

Abbasi, who is visiting Nepal at the invitation of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, was received by Finance Minister Dr Yuvaraj Khatiwada at the Tribhuwan International Airport.

He was accorded the guard of honour at Army Pavilion at Tundikhel Ground in presence of Prime Minister Oli.

Abbasi is the first high level foreign leader to visit Nepal after Premier Oli assumed office last month.

Prime Minister Abbasi met his Nepalese counterpart Oli and exchanged views on matters of mutual interest, according to Nepal Foreign Ministry sources.

He will also call on President Bidyadevi Bhandari at Rastrapati Bhawan, Sheetal Niwas, Kathmandu, tomorrow and will meet other high officials of Nepal.

Abbasi is the first Pakistan Prime Minister to visit Nepal after an interval of three years.

Former premier Nawaz Sharif had visited Nepal to attend the 18th SAARC Summit.

Oli will host a dinner tonight in honour of Abbasi.

His visit will provide an opportunity to further expand and strengthen bilateral relations across all areas of mutual interest including trade, education, tourism, defence and people to people contacts, Pakistans Foreign Office said in a statement.

The visit is a part of Pakistans pro-active and outreach efforts to engage with regional countries, the Foreign Office said yesterday.

It said ways of invigorating the South East Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) as an important regional organisation will also be discussed.  PTIrajivbhatia82@gmail.com

Seoul, March 5

A South Korean delegation left for North Korea on Monday, a presidential official said, aiming to bring the North and the United States together for talks in a bid to rein in the Norths nuclear and missile programmes.

Both North Korea and the United States have expressed willingness to talk, but US President Donald Trump demands the North denuke first.

The North, which has vowed never to give up its nuclear deterrent against US hostility, says it will not sit down to talks under preconditions.

Reclusive North Korea, which has made no secret of its pursuit of a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the mainland United States in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, is also concerned over a joint US - South Korea military exercise, which it sees as a preparation for war.

South Korean officials have said the drill will start next month as planned, after being postponed for the Winter Olympics held last month in the South.

The 10-member South Korean delegation, headed by National Security Office head Chung Eui-yong, left from Seoul Air Base in Seongnam, near the capital, the official said, on condition of anonymity.

We will deliver President Moon Jae-ins wish to bring about denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula and permanent peace by extending the goodwill and better inter-Korean relations created by the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Chung said at the presidential Blue House before he left.

The delegation hopes to speak with North Korean officials on starting dialogue between the North and the United States as well as other countries, he added.

The delegation includes National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon and Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung.

The delegation is expected to attend a dinner with North Korean officials on Monday, with another meeting set for early Tuesday, said another administration official, who sought anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Officials at the Blue House said they were unsure whether or when the Norths leader, Kim Jong Un, would meet the delegation.

The government hopes the visit will create a positive atmosphere, Unification Ministry spokesman Baik Tae-hyun told a regular briefing.

Thawing relations between the neighbours have prompted speculation of future direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang after months of tension and exchanges of bellicose insults between Trump and Kim Jong Un fuelled fears of war.

North Korea has not carried out any weapons tests since late November, when it tested its largest intercontinental ballistic missile. Inter-Korean talks began after Kim Jong Un said in his New Years address that he wanted to engage the South.

Pyongyang has since sent athletes to participate in the Olympics, as well as a high-ranking delegation that included Kims sister, Kim Yo Jong.

Impoverished North Korea and the rich, democratic South are technically still at war because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

The North regularly threatens to destroy the South and its main ally, the United States, which stations 28,500 troops in the South, a legacy of the Korean War, and carries out regular joint military exercises.

Neither sanctions nor provocations nor threats can ever undermine our position of a nuclear weapons state, the Norths Rodong Sinmun newspaper said recently.

Hoping that the DPRK would abandon its nuclear programmes is as foolish an act as trying to wish seas to get dried up, it said, referring to itself by its official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.  Reuters.gspannu7@gmail.com

Ankara, March 5

Police on Monday detained 12 suspected Islamic State militants in the Turkish capital, Ankara, and were searching for eight others, state media reported, as the US Embassy was closed due to an unspecified security threat.

The Ankara chief prosecutors office said in a statement that all of the suspects captured in the police operation were foreign nationals.

They were allegedly trying to recruit members for the extremist group and were in contact with people in conflict zones, the statement said, without providing further details.

The US Embassy said on its web page late on Sunday that the mission would be closed due to a security threat and urged US citizens to avoid the embassy as well as large crowds.

It also advised citizens to keep a low profile, adding that it would announce its reopening once it resumes services.

It was not clear if the embassys closure was related to Mondays police operation. But the Ankara governors office said authorities had reviewed security in the capital and had taken additional measures, following intelligence provided by US sources about possible attacks against the embassy or where Americans are staying.

Security was high outside the embassy on Monday, and police searched pedestrians before allowing them to enter a street where the main gate is located.

In 2013, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive in front of the US Embassy in Ankara, killing himself and a Turkish guard. Turkish officials blamed the attack on domestic leftists.

Turkey suffered a slew of deadly terror attacks in 2015 and 2016 carried out by IS or Kurdish rebels. An attack at a luxury Istanbul nightclub during New Year celebrations on January 1, 2017, killed 39 people.  APvermaajay1968@gmail.com

Moscow: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Monday that Moscow had evidence that the US was trying to interfere in the Russian presidential election, the RIA news agency quoted him as saying. Russia holds a presidential election on March 18, which incumbent Vladimir Putin is likely to win. The Interfax news agency cited Ryabkov as saying that the US was trying to sow chaos in Russia and that US sanctions were aimed at destabilising Russia. Reuters

Close Netanyahu aide turns state witness

Jerusalem: A confidant of Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to turn states witness in a burgeoning corruption case, becoming the third former aide to testify against the Israeli leader in a series of scandals and casting a shadow over a high-profile visit to the White House. Various media outlets said longtime Netanyahu family spokesman Nir Hefetz had agreed to turn state's witness in return for a more lenient punishment. AFP

Pak PM Abbasi in Nepal, meets Oli

Kathmandu: Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Monday arrived here on a two-day visit during which he will hold talks with Nepals top leadership as part of his countrys efforts to engage with regional nations. Abbasi is the first high level foreign leader to visit Nepal after Premier Oli assumed office last month. Abbasi met his Nepalese counterpart Oli and exchanged views on matters of mutual interest, as per to Nepal Foreign Ministry sources. PTISince 1996, practitioners of the Tibetan Buddhist Protector Dorje Shugden have been unfairly segregated, ostracised, suppressed and persecuted by the Tibetan leadership, also known as the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) who are based in Dharamsala, North India. For over 20 years, Shugden practitioners have suffered from discrimination simply because of their choice of religious faith, and the unjust, oftentimes violent treatment is well-documented.

The Tibetan leadership proclaim themselves to be a democratic administration, but what kind of democratic leader publishes information condemning a religion and its believers on his administrations official website? Would any democratic government amend its nations constitution to single out a religious belief and advise against its practice? And would any democratic administration constitutionally condemn practitioners of a religious denomination as criminals in history?

The Tibetan leaders deny the existence of a Dorje Shugden ban. They claim that they merely advise against Dorje Shugden practice and that Shugden practitioners have the freedom to practise whatever religion they wish. But in all truth, it is not just advice but pure persecution against a religious faith and its followers, which should never happen in a democratic and free nation. In the beginning the leadership was very firm on and direct on the ban. Later it did not look good so they were asked to tone down their rhetoric against Dorje Shugden but you can see here very clearly the leadership demanding that all Dorje Shugden monks be expelled immediately from the monastery. Some people might say its a monastic rule to be followed, but it was the practice in the monasteries for 400 years. The exiled Tibetan leadership depends on the governments and organizations of the free world for millions per year in donations to sustain them. It will not look good for a group of persecuted refugees to be persecuting their own people using religious segregation.

The unpleasant and unfortunate truth is that Dorje Shugden people are not allowed in Tibetan hospitals, clinics, schools, stores and are denied governmental jobs and parliamentary representation. The Tibetan leadership pressures Tibetan Buddhist monasteries to expel monks who continue their worship of Dorje Shugden. The Tibetan leaderships Department of Information and International Relations regularly publishes information about prominent Dorje Shugden practitioners on their official websites, to sway public opinion against them and to encourage further stigmatisation and persecution. In reality, it is an official, systematic and institutionalised witch hunt against a group of people who want nothing more than to practise their religion in peace.

And so, undeterred by decades of suffering, discrimination and pain, over 200 Dorje Shugden practitioners from more than 20 different countries recently gathered in Kathmandu, Nepal in a show of unity and support during this difficult period. The International Buddhist Conference of Dorje Shugden Followers was organised not for political reasons, but to discuss methods by which to continue our practice of Dorje Shugden in the spirit of peace and mutual respect as positive spiritual citizens of the global world. This is all Dorje Shugden practitioners want  to live in peace and harmony alongside our neighbours, free to practise our own faith without fear of repercussions.

I thank Reuters from my heart for covering the International Buddhist Conference of Dorje Shugden Practitioners as it lets people know who Dorje Shugden practitioners really are. We are fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, lawyers, doctors, engineers, accountants, artists and musicians  ordinary men and women whose only wish is to exercise their religious freedoms, free from persecution or the fear of it. Reuters has a sterling reputation for publishing timely and influential news articles that are distributed on hundreds of platforms and reach out to all sectors of global society. This Reuters article brings with it a message of peace and reconciliation and drives home the point that Dorje Shugden practice is not motivated by political agendas nor has it ever been. In fact, the practice has a rich history spanning the last 400 years and has benefited people greatly on their spiritual paths to become better and more compassionate citizens of the world. All we want is to see this trend continue.

Reuters bringing more attention to the unity of Dorje Shugden practitioners around the world will give them hope and inspiration because awareness is being created about their plight. Once again, I am grateful to Reuters for running this article. Thank you.

With folded hands,

Tsem Rinpoche

Addendum

Central Tibetan Administrations Website

Below is a screenshot of Tibet.net, which is the Tibetan leaderships website. In it, they have a section with information about Dorje Shugden which is designed to promote hatred, negativity and direct vulgarities towards Shugden practitioners. What kind of democratic leadership has a section like this on their site targeting a religious group? Imagine the uproar there would be if the American or Canadian, or any other democratic government had sections like this on their site for the public!

His Holiness the Dalai Lamas Website

This is a screenshot of DalaiLama.com which is the official website of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. When this section exists on His Holiness website, it actually emboldens Tibetans to discriminate against and segregate Shugden practitioners. This section is basically the Dalai Lamas endorsement of such behaviour; when anti-Shugden individuals see this, they think it is okay to segregate against the practice because the Dalai Lama said so. I dont think the Dalai Lama would agree with this but the webmaster and shadow writers behind his website should not put this type of anti-Dorje Shugden section which subscribes to discrimination against a group because of religion. In the 21st century, this is not fitting of a great spiritual leader like His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Do not discriminate tolerate; is the way to go.

If the Dorje Shugden ban is just advice and not a ban, then why is a section like this necessary on any website?

Tibetan Parliament-in-Exiles Resolution Stating Government Employees Should Not Rely on Dorje Shugden

In 1996, the Tibetan leadership passed a resolution stating that all departments (and ergo their employees) should not rely on Dorje Shugden (point 8). The resolution also stated that individuals who do engage in its worship will harm the Dalai Lamas life and the so-called Tibetan cause. That being the case, how will anyone within the Tibetan settlements and government be able to openly engage in Dorje Shugden practice after that, if their worship has been widely labelled as anti-Dalai Lama, anti-CTA and treasonous? To openly practice after that will leave them open to criticism, vulgarities, harassment and discrimination, as Dorje Shugden practitioners have been for the last 20 years. So they will be left with three options: to give up the practice (which many will not do), to practice secretly, or to give up their jobs.

Tibetan Parliament-in-Exiles Resolution Naming Dorje Shugden Practitioners as Criminals in History

This is a screenshot of tibet.net, the Central Tibetan Administrations official website, which shows the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exiles unanimous resolution dated 17 March 2014 naming Dorje Shugden practitioners as criminals in history (point 3, paragraph 2).

VIDEO: Dalai Lama bans Dorje Shugden practice

and expels monks

His Holiness the Dalai Lama was recorded in Drepung Monastery in 2008 clearly stating that those who refused to give up their Dorje Shugden practice should be expelled from the monasteries. His Holiness even said that if people found it difficult to fulfill this instruction, that they should say that the Dalai Lama told them to expel Dorje Shugden practitioners.

My question is this: if giving up Dorje Shugden practice is just advice, and it is up to us who we wish to rely on, then why are there such heavy repercussions for people who choose to keep the practice? As a result of His Holiness saying this, thousands of Shugden monks were expelled from the monasteries, and were forced to set up their own monasteries where they would be able to continue their Dorje Shugden practice.

VIDEO: Gaden Monastery Attacked

Since the inception of the Dorje Shugden ban 20 years ago, the CTA (Central Tibetan Administration) continues to organize a hateful campaign against Dorje Shugden practitioners. In doing so, the Tibetan leadership has gone against the very core teachings of His Holiness the Dalai Lama on compassion and tolerance and thereby, misled the world over the nature of their activities. The Tibetan leadership pursues huge sponsorship and financial aid from the West in order to run its operations but they actually channel these funds towards campaigns that suppresses religious freedom within the Tibetan communities through various means to instigate violent suppression against Dorje Shugden practitioners.

This video footage shows clearly how Dorje Shugden practitioners have lived their lives in fear for the last 20 years due to the ban on Dorje Shugden. Although the Tibetan leadership and supporters have continued to use various violent and underhanded means to segregate and discriminate Dorje Shugden practitioners, the practitioners themselves have not fought back. Instead, they continue to uphold their peaceful reliance on their Dorje Shugden lineage lamas and especially the practices and teachings they have received in relations to the protector deity. The main part of the video was filmed in 2000 and it shows 3,000 lay and ordained Tibetans heading towards Gaden Shartse Monastery in South India in order to riot against a group of Dorje Shugden practitioners.

Disclaimer: This video belongs to a third party. Permission was granted for us to upload here. This video is not being used for any commercial purposes, it is being used for educational purposes only.

VIDEO: Dorje Shugden practitioner rejected

from Gaden Shartse Monastery Guest House

A Dorje Shugden practitioner enquiring about room rates at the Gaden Shartse Monastery Guest House in Majnu-ka-tilla, Delhi was rejected by the hotel staff and asked to leave.

VIDEO: France 24 reports on the Dorje Shugden issue

France 24 is a reputable news network based in France, known for their objective reporting style. They covered the Dorje Shugden issue extensively, surely a reflection of the seriousness of the issue for them to devote so much airtime to it. In their video, France 24 captured on film the discrimination against a Dorje Shugden monk.

VIDEO: Al Jazeera reports on the Dorje Shugden issue

Based in the Middle East, Al Jazeera was formed in response to the heavy influence of Western culture on the media. They are known to cover controversial topics that other news agencies may be reluctant to cover, and provide hard-hitting, objective coverage of current affairs.

Evidence of the Ban

Over the years, my students have collected evidence of the ban against Dorje Shugden. Personally, I find it quite disappointing and sad that they have been able to collect so much evidence because it just goes to show how widespread and pervasive this ban has become. As you can see below, notices banning Dorje Shugden practitioners can be found just about anywhere in the Tibetan settlements. Whether a Dorje Shugden person is trying to access healthcare or enter a restaurant, or try to buy something from a shop, they are banned everywhere and refused service. How is this just advice when the repercussions of practising Dorje Shugden are so violent inside the Tibetan communities and settlements?

For more interesting information:



Copyright Disclaimer: Under Section 13 of the Malaysian Copyright Act 1987, allowance is made for fair dealing for purposes such as non-profit research, private study, criticism, review or the reporting of current events. The Operator and author(s) of TsemRinpoche.com, a not-for-profit blog, do not claim ownership on the intellectual property rights of the contents, images and/or videos reproduced in this article. Any subsisting intellectual property rights shall belong to the legal owner of the contents, images and/or videos.The eight UEFA Champions League round of 16 first legs produced eight different scorelines, some slightly closer than others.

Results ranged from 5-0 wins, both home and away, to three draws by different scorelines. It is fair to say some teams will be a little more confident than others going into the second legs starting on Tuesday.

We looked at every past first leg in the European Champion Clubs' Cup/UEFA Champions League with an identical scoreline to the current round of 16 ties and noted which teams went though.

So while the precedents say Roma and Shakhtar Donetsk are virtually level, Porto, Basel and Besiktas must do things no side has done in this competition before. Which, by the way, was also the case last season when Barcelona welcomed Paris Saint-Germain having lost the first leg 4-0 in France ...

Highlights: Real Madrid 3-1 Paris

6 March

Paris Saint-Germain v Real Madrid (1-3)

Times first-leg scoreline has happened: 91

Home side in second leg through: 21 (23.1%)

Away side in second leg through: 70 (76.9%)

Liverpool v Porto (5-0)

Times: 29

Home side in second leg through: 29 (100%)

Away side in second leg through: 0 (0%)

7 March

Tottenham Hotspur v Juventus (2-2)

Times: 82

Home side in second leg through: 65 (79.3%)

Away side in second leg through: 17 (20.7%)

Manchester City v Basel (4-0)

Times: 58

Home side in second leg through: 58 (100%)

Away side in second leg through: 0 (0%)

13 March

Manchester United v Sevilla (0-0)

Times: 204

Home side in second leg through: 136 (66.7%)

Away side in second leg through: 68 (33.3%)

Highlights: Shakhtar Donetsk 2-1 Roma

Roma v Shakhtar Dontesk (1-2)

Times: 175

Home side in second leg through: 87 (49.7%)

Away side in second leg through: 88 (50.3%)

14 March

Barcelona v Chelsea (1-1)

Times: 200

Home side in second leg through: 138 (69.0%)

Away side in second leg through: 62 (31.0%)

Besiktas v Bayern Munchen (0-5)

Times: 3

Home side in second leg through: 0 (0%)

Away side in second leg through: 3 (100%)

Bonus UEFA Champions League round of 16 stat ...



How many seeds (home in second leg) have gone through

8: 2013/14

7: 2005/06, 2010/11

6: 2006/07, 2011/12, 2012/13, 2014/15, 2015/16, 2016/17

5: 2003/04, 2004/05, 2008/09

4: 2009/10

3: 2007/08facebook like button Tweet tweet button for twitter

Published March 1, 2018

Former U.N. Ambassador, two-term mayor of Atlanta, author, pastor and Civil Rights icon Andrew Young, Jr. spent Tuesday, February 27 on the University of Louisiana Monroe campus. The day began with a special guest lecture and a session with Student Government and Campus Activity Board Members.

Later that evening, Ambassador Young spoke to a crowd in Brown Auditorium. The presentation opened with Young drawing comparisons between young people getting politically involved in the wake of the Parkland High School shooting and the Civil Rights movement. Regardless of the subject discussed, Young remained optimistic for the future.



Young, a pivotal member of the the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SLCC), gave a first-hand account of the Birmingham Boycotts of 1963 and the Selma to Montgomery marches. He provided insight into how the SLCC organized peaceful protests and how they harnessed the new technology of television news.



Youngs ideology and actions were always derived from his faith in God. It is what drove him to join the SLCC. Through his speech, he also painted a more human side of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. than one traditionally sees. Young recalled moments of humor between himself and Dr. King, and that he loved to tell jokes about pastors.





The narrative weaved in and out of many sections and timefames of his life, but the one common thread throughout his story was one of hope and peace. He also described his involvement with the global Civil Rights movement as the first African-American Ambassador to the United Nations.



After a question and answer session lead by SGA President Bryce Bordelon, the evening concluded full-circle with Ambassador Young leading the crowd in a cappella rendition of the gospel song Its gonna be all right and a standing ovation from the crowd.



About Andrew Young

Born in New Orleans in 1932, Ambassador Young, attended Howard University and earned his divinity degree from Hartford Seminary. After graduation, he served as pastor in Beachton, Ga. before joining the Southern Christian Leadership Conference which coordinated non-violent protests, boycotts, and civil disobedience during the Civil Rights era.



During the 1960s, Young was a key strategist and negotiator during Civil Rights campaigns that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He was elected to Congress in 1972 until he was appointed as President Jimmy Carters Ambassador to the United Nations in 1977, the first African-American to hold the post.



Young negotiated an end to white-minority rule in Namibia and Zimbabwe, both in Africa. He brought Carter's emphasis on human rights to international diplomacy efforts. Young was the recipient 1979 recipient of the NAACP Spingarn Medal, and he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1981.



As two-term mayor of Atlanta, Young brought in over 1,100 businesses, over $70 billion in foreign direct investments and generated over a million jobs. He was also instrumental in the citys bid for the 1996 Summer Olympic games.UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is concerned about the safety of a group of vulnerable Rohingya women, men and children from Myanmar, who have been living in a so-called no mans land near the border between Myanmar and Bangladesh since the end of August 2017. UNHCR is closely following the developments after they were reportedly ordered to vacate the area by the Myanmar authorities.

UNHCR underscores that everyone has the right to seek asylum, just as they also have the right to return home when they deem the time and circumstances right. People who have fled violence in their country must be granted safety and protection and any decision to return must be voluntary and based upon a free and informed choice.

UNHCR also reiterates that conditions are not yet conducive to the return of Rohingya refugees. The causes of their flight have not been addressed and we have yet to see substantive progress on addressing the denial of their rights. Pursuing the conditions that will address these causes and enable their voluntary and sustainable return is critical.

In this regard, UNHCR continues to request to the Government of Myanmar to allow humanitarian access to UNHCR and partners throughout Rakhine State. This will be essential to promote coexistence among all of communities; to support the government towards their commitment to implement the Rakhine Advisory Commissions (RAC) recommendations; and for UNHCR to monitor protection conditions, provide independent information to refugees, and accompany returns as and when they take place.

In Bangladesh, the Government and people continue to generously receive refugees and to provide them with protection and support. Nearly 700,000 refugees have now sought refuge in the country since violence broke out in the northern part of Myanmars Rakhine State in late August of 2017.Leonor Galeano and her adolescent daughter were driven from their home by fighting between the Colombian government and left-wing rebels. While safe from gunfire, they had entered a whole new world of peril.

Finally settling in a new home in the south of the country, Leonors 12-year-old daughter befriended the child of a local official. Behind her mothers back, he raped the youngster multiple times over the next three years, finally leaving her pregnant.

Because we are displaced, people believe that we are worthless, that we dont have the same rights as everybody else, says Leonor.

More than five decades of armed conflict in Colombia have uprooted some 7.4 million people within the countrys borders. Women and girls like Leonor and her daughter  who make up more than half of the total  are particularly vulnerable.

There is a deep relation between sexual violence and displacement.

Preoccupied by immediate concerns such as finding food and shelter, and removed from their family support networks, aid workers say they are particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation as they seek shelter on the margins.

There is a deep relation between sexual violence and displacement, says Adri Villa, a community-based protection assistant at UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.

Displaced women in Colombia unite against sex abuse (Michelle Begue, producer / Julia Galiano-Rios, camera-editor)

But sexual violence isnt just a cause for displacement. It sometimes occurs during and after displacement, once they have settled in their new home, she adds.

There is no official register that collates specific data on the number of women and children who have been victims of sexual violence in the context of Colombias conflict.

See also: Rohingya refugees stitch new lives in Bangladesh

Like many who find themselves out of their homes and struggling, Leonor did not have the resources, the knowledge or the tools to exercise her basic rights. However, help was at hand in southern Putumayo province.

Since 2005, a collective of 66 groups has been advocating for womens rights. It focuses on the difficulties faced by tens of thousands of displaced women among nearly 146,000 victims of the armed conflict in the region bordering Ecuador.

The problem of sexual violence  is most prevalent among families who have been forcibly displaced, because they are in a state of greater vulnerability, says Muriel Fatima, president of the Life Weavers Womens Alliance.

A group discussion at the headquarters of the Life Weavers Women's Alliance in Mocoa, Colombia. Participants work through issues of abuse inflicted on women displaced by the armed conflict and free counselling is provided.  UNHCR/Ruben Salgado Escudero

Alicia was sexually abused at the age of 18. Ten years later, she was displaced after witnessing an assassination and began receiving death threats. Having found the Life Weavers Women's Alliance she is now an activist, raising awareness of abuse.  UNHCR/Ruben Salgado Escudero

Women and children light candles forming the word "paz" ("peace") at a community event organized by the Life Weavers Women's Alliance in Mocoa, Colombia.  UNHCR/Ruben Salgado Escudero

Fatima Muriel addresses the audience at a community event for "Dia de las Velitas" or "Little Candles Day", a traditional holiday in Colombia.  UNHCR/Ruben Salgado Escudero

A UNHCR partner, the Alliance provides counselling and empowerment workshops to survivors of sexual abuse across the region, and  crucially  the chance to pursue justice through the courts.

Financial support for the Alliance is one of the ways UNHCR it is honouring its commitments to refugee and displaced women, which include preventing and responding to sexual and gender-based violence.

Through the Alliances legal aid and council the Galeano family was able to report the local official to police. I felt so much anger and pain, says Leonor, but thanks to UNHCR and the alliance, this man was finally taken into custody in May.

I consider myself a survivor, because I have moved forward.

While a date for his trial has not yet been set, she is trying to lead her family forward  and there seems to be a positive change.

Today, through the Alliance, she participates as a womens rights activist in public events that bring awareness to issues of abuse. At home she says she has formed a closer bond with her daughter and grandchild and has even started a small business to support them.

With the Alliance, Leonor, her daughter, and other women in the network can access workshops that help them gain economic independence  another important tool to empower displaced women.

A peace agreement in 2016 between the government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, ended hostilities.

When Leonor speaks about her new-found strength, it is as if she is moving towards much-needed peace and closure of her own.

I am thankful because with the help of the alliance and UNHCR I have survived, she says. I consider myself a survivor, because I have moved forward.Navjot Sidhu not ultimate choice of Congress leadership as Punjab CM, cancels CLP meeting to elect new CLP leader 19 Sep 2021 | 12:29 PM Chandigarh, Sep 19 (UNI) Punjab Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting scheduled to be held for the second consecutive day on Sunday to elect a new leader of the CLP has been deferred till further instructions from the party leadership. see more..

Alert sounded as one case of chickenpox detects in south Kashmir 19 Sep 2021 | 12:19 PM Srinagar, Sep 19 (UNI) An alert has been sounded and doctors are closely monitoring the situation after a case of chickenpox was detected in a school in south Kashmir district of Shopian. see more..

Nagaland records 60 new Covid-19 cases 19 Sep 2021 | 12:13 PM Kohima, Sep 19 (UNI) In the latest COVID-19 situation in Nagaland, the number has increased to 60 new cases, which increased the total number of corona virus infected cases to 30,840 so far and with one more death, the death toll rose to 653. see more..

BJPs election team led by Fadnavis to arrive in Goa tomorrow for poll preparation 19 Sep 2021 | 12:10 PM Panaji, Sep 19 (UNI) Leader of Opposition in the Mahrashtra Legislative Assembly Devendra Fadnavis, who was recently appointed as partys election in-charge in poll-bound Goa, will be in the state on September 20 to discuss partys strategy for the ensuing 2022 Legislative Assembly elections. see more..Chandigarh, Mar 4 (UNI) Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu on Sunday said for Universities to become centre of excellence, the need of the hour is to reform, perform and transform.

The Vice-President, also Chancellor, Punjab University, Chandigarh, made this observation at the 67th Annual Convocation Address.



Mr Naidu urged the students to master mother tongue and to work hard, to aim high and to achieve heights.



He said that there is no substitute for ethics and value system. He suggested the youth for using the right means of communication that technology has provided, to facilitate social harmony and cultivate a culture of healthy and civilised discussion on many of the pressing problems.



' It is appreciable that this University is continuing with its commendable tradition of honouring some of the outstanding Indian scientists, doctors, writers, educationists and leaders from industry. Many illustrious leaders and makers of the nation in many fields have been associated with the (PU), including colleagues of national and international stature. Such intellectual heights are achieved when 'the mind is without fear and the head is held high, when people of a nation is free from colonial domination, build their own frameworks of thought,' he stated.



' Each discipline is valuable, if pursued with intellectual rigor and integrity and each has its own methods of investigation. But each discipline is also connected with another. The division between the areas of science and humanities is an artificial one, made for convenience sake, which we have adopted in the process of creating the institutions of academia. How can science not be human, if it is an activity carried out by human beings? How can humanities not be scientific if it has to properly observe its subjects? In the words of Vivekananda, it is in the balanced mind that understanding comes, `it is the calm, forgiving, well-balanced, equable mind that does the greatest amount of work,' Mr Naidu said and added that 'google can never replace guru and urged the youth to respect them. No-one can teach anybody. Within one there is all knowledge, even in a child it is so, and it requires only an awakening, and that much is the role of a teacher.'

'It is certainly a privilege and an achievement to attain degrees of higher education at a premier university. Along with this justified sense of pride and achievement, there is also a sense of hope and expectation of what the future will bring. And it is also a time for planning the next stage of life, and of working in the competitive environment we see around us,' he said.



Prof. Arun K. Grover, Vice Chancellor, Punjab University, in his address said that the report of planning commission advocated that University faculties and researchers should be enabled to work in areas which would improve the competitiveness of the Indian Corporate Sector vis a vis their counterparts globally.

On the occasion, Mr Naidu conferred Honoris Causa Degrees on three eminent icons i.e. Prof. M.M.Sharma (D.Sc.), Prof. Sir Tejinder Singh Virdee (D.Sc.), Sh. Jagdish Singh Khehar (LLD). PU also conferred Khel Rattan Award to Sh. Milkha Singh, Gian Rattan Award to Prof. B.N.Goswamy and Udyog Rattan Award to Sh. Sunil Kant Munjal.

Governoror of Punjab and Administrator, UT. Chandigarh Sh. V.P.Singh Badnore and Governor of Haryana Prof. Kaptan Singh Solanki were present on the occasion, as guest of honors.



Out of the total 324 Ph.D. degrees, 98 were from Science, 14 from Pharma Sciences, 75 from Arts, 34 from Education, 43 from Languages, 24 from Law, 14 from Engineering and Technology, 11 from Business Management and Commerce, 10 from Design and Fine Arts and 1 from Dairying and Animal Husbandry faculties.

UNI JS RSU 1950Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 5 (UNI) Congress-led UDF Opposition on Monday staged a walkout in Kerala Assembly, in protest against denial of an adjournment motion seeking discussion over the suicide of a Gulf returnee, whose attempt to construct an automobile shop was disrupted by All India Youth Federation (AIYF) demanding bribe to allow work to go on.

Seeking the leave of the House to move the motion in this regard, Adoor Prakash of Congress alleged that the workers of AIYF, the youth wing of CPI, erected party flags in the land which he leased out to start the workshop.

The CPI is the second largest ally of the CPI(M)-led Left Government in Kerala.Police Mitr Kaksh (Service-cum-Complaint Centre) to be established at each police station

Chandigarh, Mar 5 (UNI) Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki on Tuesday said that Police Mitr Kaksh (Service-cum-Complaint Centre) would be established at each police station, initially as a pilot project in the districts of Rohtak, Karnal and Panchkula.

Addressing the Hayana Vidhan Sabha on the first day of the Budget session here, the Governor said these would not only add to the humane face of the police, but also help in enhancing peace, harmony and brotherhood in the society.

It has been decided to set up a Centralised Police Control Room (Haryana 100 Project) for the entire state at an estimated cost of Rs 153 crore and running cost of Rs 40 crore per annum. This project would be directly manned by highly trained Professional personnel at the police control room, being set up at Sector-3, Panchkula.March 5 2018

Investors are being sought to help finance a 265,000sq/ft Grade A office development at 177 Bothwell Street, Glasgow, sister scheme to a smaller 155,000sq/ft office build at 122 Waterloo Street The 137m scheme has been designed by Sheppard Robson Architects on behalf of HFD Group and is being championed by the Scottish Government as a key generator of inward investment.Rising to 12 storeys the enlarged project is conceived as a succession of glazed elements bound by stone piers and will be topped by a rooftop running track to offer occupants the chance of a scenic jog.HFD attained planning permission for an increase in floor space in February of last year and are committed to delivering the project on a speculative basis if no pre-let can be secured.Loana the Bloodthirster after her death in 1909. Allegedly she died from drinking her own blood.

Ioana the Bloodthirster



Ioana Constantinescu

died in the autumn of 1909

Cause of death: Ritual Suicide

by purposeful ingesting of large quantities of her own blood

Stated and concluded the official autopsy

and coroners reports

Timisoara, Romania Octombrie 23

She called it the Communion of the Saints



Twenty seven year old Ioana

was laid to rest in a private ceremony

attended only by Spenta Armaiti members

She was known to many throughout the township

of Timisoara, in western Romania

as a witch and an idolator

Many feared her

Many knew the stories of alleged hemo-ingestion

and unknown Strigoaica in the wood



She was conspired against

by two Christian ministers and their wives

To drive out the devil from their midst

and cleanse the northern gods from among us

Just before dawn, on Octombrie 21st

she was dragged from her home by an mob

and beaten near unto death

She spent the next two days drinking continually

from the Communion Glass



Both ministers and their wives were dead

before the end of the year

Photographing the dead was a rather morbid Victorian era tradition that endured into the 20th Century. A particular post-mortem pic that often makes the rounds in these circles is of a Romania woman who died in 1909: Ioana Constantinescu, better known to connoisseurs of all things creepy and bizarre as Leona the Bloodthirster. The suspected witch was beaten to within an inch of her life by an angry mob before committing ritual suicide by consuming goblet after goblet of her own blood.According to The 13th Floor , the most detailed accounts available identify the woman as Loana (or Ioana) Constantinescu, a 27-year-old woman from the Romanian city of Timisoara. Loana is rumored to have been a devout practitioner of Zoroastrianism  one of the worlds oldest organized religions, originating in ancient Persia and still practiced by millions today, though mostly in East Asia. In Western Europe, however, Zoroastrianism is far less common.Within Timisoaras majority Christian population, Zoroastrians were often looked down upon as witches, and Loana was reportedly persecuted and ostracized by the people of Timisoara  particularly a pair of ministers who spread rumors that the young woman worshiped Satan and drank the blood of local children.The panic continued to escalate until a mob of hysterical vigilantes descended on Loanas home on October 21, 1909, dragging her into the street and beating her severely. She survived the vicious attack, but was hospitalized with severe blunt-force injuries and lacerations. For reasons unknown, the woman checked herself out of the hospital less than two days later, despite her extensive injuries, and returned to her home.By the following morning, she was dead.The real mystery begins with the widely-documented claim that Loanas demise was not the direct result of the vigilantes attack, but from a bizarre ritual suicide, during which the woman reportedly made multiple cuts to her arms and legs, then drained a massive amount of blood into a sacramental goblet. While there is no official death certificate available, the medical examiner allegedly claimed the cause of death was a combination of extensive blood loss and internal shock from ingesting such a large quantity of blood, which likely triggered cardiac arrest.When city authorities discovered the womans body, they also found an altar in her home adorned with strange occult symbols, effigies and ritual herbs.Was Leona the Bloodthirster real, or is this a case of a fanciful story attaching itself to an unknown photo? Skeptics point to the fact that verifiable confirmation of Ioana Constantinescus existence is difficult to come by. The biography normal cited can only be traced back to a poem on Poetry Critical , attributed to a writer known only as Unholy:Skeptics are also quick to point out that, whoever the woman in the photo actual is, she doesnt look like someone who recently received a serious beat-down. Still, the infamous picture of Leona the Bloodthirster, and her chilling missive, continues to captivate. The mental imagery conjured of a woman imbibing on glasses of her own blood seems tailor-made for Hollywood horror. At this point, it hardly matters if Ioana Constantinescu was an actual person or just another tasty bit of creepypasta; either way, shes a staple of internets sinister sidea specter likely to haunt the web for generations to come.(via Bloodbath and BeyondA bank officer in Ha Noi. - VNA/VNS Photo Tran Viet

On the website of Nam A Bank, for instance, the bank is seeking to recuit 1,000 employees for many different positions, such as directors, deputy directors, managers and others because it wants to expand its operations this year and next.

It also provides many internship programmes for students of majors including economics, finance, and business administration.

Nguyen Luong Hieu, head of the Nam A Banks Human Resource and Training Division, said that the bank is focused on recruiting more human resources for lending and telephone sales.

IT engineers also are needed for the banks digital banking this year, Hieu said.

Others banks, including Indovina Bank Ltd and Tien Phong Commercial Joint Stock Bank, have published their recruitment needs on an online recruitment portal, VietnamWorks, with more than 680 jobs on March 2.

According to experts in the banking sector, its positive results last year and strong forecast for this year have fostered the heavy recruitment.

VnEconomy cited a statistic of the State Bank of Viet Nam released in the beginning of this year showing that 25.3 per cent of credit organisations nationwide are facing a shortage of employees.

A banks employee in HCM City told Viet Nam News that many of her colleagues have quit their jobs because of heavy workloads and pressure to reach high sales targets.

They also thought that the industry had many legal risks.

More than 52 per cent of these organisations plan to increase their staff in the first quarter and 68.7 per cent will recruit more employees for the whole year, the SBV statistics say.

A banking workforce report on February 26 released by Navigos Group, a recruitment company in Viet Nam, shows that 56 per cent of 15 surveyed banks could enhance their policies to attract employees although they already had basic and reasonable policies for employees.

According to the report, up to 89 per cent of the surveyed banks have an average salary ranging from VND10 million to 30 million (US$440-1,321) per month.

Twenty six per cent of employers said that uncompetitive wages and remuneration are the biggest recruitment obstacle.

Thirty seven per cent of employers also said that in order to increase the efficiency of recruitment, banks should consider offering financial incentives to attract candidates.

According to the survey, 62 per cent of 237 candidates received a bonus of one to three months of salary on average; 18 per cent received 3 to 5 months of salary; 7 per cent received 5 to 7 months of salary and 5 per cent received over 7 months of salary.

Moreover, the average annual salary increase of the surveyed candidates is quite high. Forty per cent of them have an annual salary increase of over 10 per cent.

According to the report, 50 per cent of candidates said they would like to work at a foreign bank or branch of a foreign bank in Viet Nam; 31 per cent of them want to work for joint stock commercial banks; 11 per cent select state-owned commercial banks and 3 per cent select joint venture commercial banks.

The candidates said that some main reasons why they want to work in foreign banks including expecting to be treated fairly and work in a healthy environment; expecting high salaries and more promotion opportunities; expecting to use English and work with expat colleagues and managers and expecting to have training opportunities.Danang land plot segment takes divisive flight

Two spotlights

Following the real estate fever in 2016, Danangs land plot segment continued to experience robust performance in 2017 with two spotlight segments.

The first was the land plot segment in the south of Danang and the north of Quang Nam, like the planned Dien Nam-Dien Ngoc New Urban Area. In the beginning of 2017, the segment warmed up thanks to good news from the city. Danang successfully hosted the APEC Economic Leaders Week, as well as implemented several large-scale infrastructure projects.

In the first quarter of 2017, the market saw land prices nearly double from VND2-3 million ($88-132) to VND4-5 million ($176-220) per square metre, even reaching VND8 million ($352) along the Hoang Sa extended street. Prices hiked in the area primarily because the Quang Nam Peoples Committee has green-lighted a slew of resort projects at an investment promotion conference in the province. Meanwhile, the University Village project has been resumed with a total investment capital of VND20 trillion ($880 million).

To the east from a planned tunnel through the Han River in Van Don-Thuan Phuoc area of Son Tra District, land prices have escalated to a record high of VND20 million ($880) per sq.m. Prices normalised at VND10-12 million ($440-528) when the prime minister decided to suspend the project and reassess its feasibility.

The second spotlight was the northeastern area which used to be quiet before the latest news of Danang Railway Station, Lien Chieu Port, and Vingroups project in South Hai Van drew investors attention. This, coupled with infrastructure development, made the area more appealing to investors. Take Golden Hills for exampleafter a long delay, it completed the first phase in the second quarter of 2017 with a complete take-up.

Several projects have been hunted by investors like Pandora City, Lakeside Palace, Cham River Park, Phuoc Ly, Hoa Khanh Residence, Nam Tran Central Park, Northwest Urban Area, Phuong Trang Urban Area, and most recently, New City, which is located on the previous site of Tan Cuong Thanh Urban Area in Lien Chieu District.

Land prices have also been on a steady increase to VND7-10 million ($308-440) per sq.m in the areas next to Golden Hills, up to VND15-17 million ($660-748) in the centre of Lien Chieu District, which is almost the match of Hoa Xuan in Cam Le District.

This area is forecasted to become the hotspot of Danangs real estate market, especially after Sun Groups grand designs have been outlined for Hoa Ninh-Hoa Son Urban Area in Hoa Vang District. Accordingly, in a proposal submitted to the Danang Peoples Committee, the group said it aims at inviting the worlds leading consulting firms like WATG, CallisonRTKL, Hyder, and WSP to conduct research and planning to ensure the success of the project.

Look out for suspended projects

In spite of the tremendous potential of the Danang real estate market, analysts have issued warnings to investors.

Southern Danang has seen a boom in the land plot segment in the past two years, but its infrastructure has yet to be fully developed. The construction progress is slow at most of the projects in the area, apart from some urban areas including FPT City, Hoa Xuan, Phu My An, Golden Hills and Sea View.

Most projects have been delayed for several months, although the developers have announced good sales performance and committed to completing infrastructure facilities on time. At the planned Dien Nam-Dien Ngoc New Urban Area, thousands of land plots remain undeveloped while buyers are waiting in vain for their ownership certificates.

Vu Trong Phung from real estate services firm 68 Land said that the land plot fever in Danang in the past two years helped change the facade of several areas in the central city and the north of Quang Nam. However, this will not be enough to solve deep-rooted problems, such as the locals being unable to settle down due to high property prices. In fact, many projects remain sparsely populated despite being sold out.

According to Tran Ngoc Thanh, general director of Dat Xanh Central Vietnam, developers have failed to create a vibrant community due to a lack of customer support and the incomplete infrastructure.

When customers purchase a property either for living or investment, they need to carefully study the project and the developer, especially their capability and track record of project development. After choosing the project, investors and homebuyers should visit the site to observe the construction progress before spending money, Thanh added.

Meanwhile, Phung noted that Danang features continuously strong economic growth and ever-increasing living standards. The city keeps luring in a large number of workers from other localities and the citys population is projected to reach two million people in the next few years. As a result, according to real estate developers and brokers, the housing demand in the central city will rise in the coming time, and it will also push up prices.

Le Thanh Sang, director of Kim Thinh Real Estate, said that speculators are distorting the landed property segment in the city. There are several land plots left idle in Danang and the Dien Nam-Dien Ngoc in Quang Nam, with a majority in the hands of investors from Hanoi. At the same time, local people cannot afford land as the prices are exorbitant.

On the same note, Dang Thanh Thien, manager of the Alo Dat Danang news website, said that there is huge demand for affordable housing, but land gets pricey in the city. Also, many projects have been left undeveloped, serving as a deterrent for homebuyers to spend money.Vietnam needs a reasonable policy to protect and develop domestic automobile industry

Removing import tax

According to an evaluation report of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the average localisation rate in the domestic automobile industry is only 7-10 per cent, much lower than the 65-70 per cent in regional countries and 80 per cent in Thailand.

Economist Ngo Tri Long said: Foreign invested firms in this segment receive many incentives, but the countrys automobile industry gets nothing if we depend on them.

Currently, CBU (Completely Built Up) imports from the ASEAN bloc have been increasing after the import tax was removed. Expert Nguyen Minh Dong said that stopping manufacturing and strengthening imports is an inevitable goal of foreign invested firms.

Without incentives, automobile brands will not invest in Vietnam. They will pour money to expand factories in Thailand, Indonesia, and India, which have developed automobile and supporting industries, added Dong.

In fact, had the government not issued Decree No.116/2017/ND-CP, CBU vehicles would be massively imported into Vietnam. Earlier, in the last months of 2017, at international seaportsthe main points of entry of imported carsthousands of cars arrived but failed to start import procedures to wait for the removal of the import tax in 2018.

Then, Decree 116 came into effect from January 1, 2018 without delay, while importers did not have all the required documents to import vehicles. Until the last two days of 2017, automobile enterprises had to pay 30 per cent tax for cars under nine seats, and 5 per cent for vans.

Currently, Vietnam is considering approving automobile firms to enhance car imports and removing the Vehicle Type Approval (VTA) certificate and other tight requirements.

At a February 26 meeting with relevant agencies, not only foreign invested firms under the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturers' Association (VAMA), but also US and Japanese firms also spoke to ease importing conditions.

In order to develop the automobile industry, Dong said that Vietnam needs a strategy to protect the domestic industry while limiting car imports.

Tax policy is key

As imported CBU cars will be very difficult to import from 2018, Toyota Motors Vietnam (TMV) plans to transfer assembly of its Fortuner model to Vietnam, which it has been importing as CBU units from Indonesia since January 2017.

If it becomes easier to import cars, the Japanese automobile giant will cancel assembly in Vietnam, because importing cars is cheaper.

According to a TMV source, if it becomes easier to import cars, the Japanese automobile giant will cancel assembly in Vietnam, because importing cars is cheaper.

According to Dong, Vietnam should prescribe that foreign automobile makers assembling products in Vietnam and manufacturing qualified components will receive a 10-year exemption from value-added tax. This would promote investment instead of tightening import conditions.

Huyndai Thanh Cong also recommended removing special consumption tax from automobiles manufactured domestically.

"This measure has been applied by regional countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and India to promote investment in the support industry among domestic manufacturers, raising the localisation rate and reducing sales price," Le Ngoc Duc, general director of Huyndai Thanh Cong, confirmed.

With the exception of under-seven-tonne trucks and over-25-seat passenger cars, the localisation rate of automobiles in Vietnam is low, thereby it is very difficult to export cars and parts to other countries. Tax policy is key to overcome the problem.

The representatives of Vinafast also confirmed purchasing domestically-manufactured components and spare parts as well as support and collaborate with manufacturers and part suppliers to develop the automobile industry of the country.

Govt to work with businesses to boost automobile industry The Government will work with automakers to turn the national automobile industry into a key economic sector, contributing to the countrys economic growth and meeting ...

Car prices blamed for sluggish automobile industry growth Automobiles which are priced higher in Viet Nam than in regional countries is the reason for the sluggish development of the automobile industry, experts say.

Vietnam still tries to develop automobile industry The government of Vietnam does not intend to give up the dream of developing an automobile industry, even though it has failed to do so ...

Automobile industry braced for integration The impacts of Vietnams integration with regional and world economies may vary for the automobile industry.Picture taken on Mar 4, 2018 in Poznan, Poland, shows a house that collapsed, probably following a gaz explosion. (Jakub KACZMARCZYK/PAP/AFP)

They said they did not expect to find further victims from the collapse, which was thought to be the result of a gas explosion.

"According to our calculations, our measuring equipment and our rescue teams, there should not be anyone else in the rubble," said national rescue service chief Leszek Suski.

He said 40 people were in the building when it collapsed at 7.50am (2.50pm Singapore time).

"It was provisionally determined that it could have been a gas explosion," the firefighters' spokesman told TVN24 television.Indonesia and Thailand are Vietnam's top car import markets

Indonesia and Thailand, Vietnams two major car exporters, are trying to change the Vehicle Type Approval (VTA) certificates to reopen car exports to the country after Decree 116 tightened quality checks.

International trade director general of the Indonesian Ministry of Trade Oke Nuwan said in a statement on last Thursday that, With the VTA adjustment, Indonesian automobile exports are expected to return to the country.

Under the decree, car importers in Vietnam are required to obtain a VTA certification, which details the imported vehicles quality, safety and environmental protection. The VTA must be issued by authorities in exporting countries. In addition to this, one sample will be selected from every batch of imported cars for emission, quality and technical safety tests. The inspection will be repeated in the next shipment, even on the same car models.

Recently, automobile branches like Toyota and Honda have announced stopping bringing cars to Vietnam because they cannot obtain a VTA certification issued by authorities in the exporting country.

Recently, automobile branches like Toyota and Honda have announced stopping bringing cars to Vietnam because they cannot obtain a VTA certificate issued by authorities in the exporting country.

The Indonesian government will convey the change in the VTA certificate to the Vietnamese government to get an immediate response. Hopefully, there will soon be automotive exports to Vietnam, said Oke, who led the Indonesian delegation in its visit to Hanoi on February 27-28.

Indonesia has also sent sample of VTA to the Vietnamese authorities for confirmation of the acceptance of the requirement in line with Decree 116.

New regulations issued by the Vietnamese government forced Indonesia to stop the exports of completely built-up (CBU) vehicles to Vietnam this month.

Meanwhile, Pham Anh Tuan, head of the Policy Subcommittee of the Vietnam Automobile Manufacturerss Association, said that the Ministry of Transport (MoT) has accepted the model VTA certificate issued by the Thai government for vehicles exported to Vietnam.

He added that automakers are planning to resume exports after several months of halt. Toyota, Honda, Ford, GM, Mitsubishi, Nissan, and Mazda, who exported vehicles from Thailand to Vietnam, had submitted the papers to the ministry and recently received approval for exports.

Decree 116 stipulates the conditions for producing, assembling, importing and trading automobile maintenance and repair services and was issued on October 17 last year to tightened car imports from January 1, 2018 onwards.

Car importers in Vietnam are now required to obtain a VTA certification, which details the incoming vehicles' quality, safety, and environmental protection specs. The VTA must be issued by the authorities of the exporting country.

According to Vietnam Customs, Japanese automaker's Honda is going to complete customs procedures to import cars into Vietnam today, marking its first shipment after Decree 116 that tighten checks take which took effect January 2018.

The first fleet from Thailand arrived in Ho Chi Minh on March 1, 2018. With 2,004 Honda cars including Jazz, Accord, CRV and Civic. Under that, 1,054 cars will shipped off in Ho Chi Minhs SPCT Port to complete customs procedures. The remaining will be transferred to the northern port of Haiphong.

Honda Vietnams website released that Honda Vietnam is trying to meet the new requirements on import conditions in Decree 116 to hand out cars to customers in the second quarter of 2018.Special models present designs honouring the cultural exchange between Vietnam and Italy in an event last year.

Accordingly, they joined a workshop held late last week in Hanoi to discuss sustainable designs and future architecture.

The event gathered many experts such as Italian Design Ambassador to Vietnam Aldo Colonetti, technician Luca Paioletti from the Ghella Construction Company, architect Duong Binh Thai from Exposure Architects Company and architect Takashi Niwa from the Vo Trong Nghia Architects Company.

Under the framework of Italian Design Day, a fashion show and workshop on creating a sustainable and environment-friendly fashion industry will take place on March 17-19 in Hanoi. Vietnamese and Italian designers will join the event.

The activities are part of an initiative of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation. Italian Design Day celebrates the globally acknowledged leadership of the Made in Italy label.

In 100 locations around the world, 100 ambassadors of Italian culture (designers, entrepreneurs, journalists and critics, as well as communicators and teachers) will participate in a panel discussion on Italian designs unique blend of factors, both material and immaterial, which have retained their distinctive features through the centuries despite a major overhaul by communications and mobility systems; creativity and originality; top-quality materials; and high-quality construction, as well as production processes that respect the environment, workers and end users and the highest quality packaging and advertising.

The culture of design in Italy began during the Renaissance and developed due to the influence of the schools of industrial design and artistic trends and followed diverse and innovative flows linked to territories and entrepreneurship. After World War II, Italian design symbolised the countrys economic growth and became the leading element of Italys industrial production.The jury panel including piano teachers from Vietnam National Academy of Music and Ho Chi Minh Conservatory at National Steinway Youth Piano Competition in 2016. steinwaycompetition.vn

The InternationalSteinway Festivaltakes place every two years and is one of the most significant events for piano students in the world. Every two years, children and teenagers from around the world meet to take part in a musical community with the festival concert as the highlight.

In Vietnam, the competition has been being held since 2012 by Viet Thuong Music, a Steinway representative in Vietnam. This year there are about 130 young contestants registered.

"It is the only professional competition for all piano students under 17 years old," said Phuong Nguyen, from the national organisation. "The number of participating contestants has grown over time. This year the number of contestants almost tripled than 2016. It means that quality of the contestants will be improved."

The competition will include audition, semi-final and final rounds. The semi-final round will be held in April 20 in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City . The final round will take place on May 19 in Ho Chi Minh City .

There are three categories for different ages. The first category is for 11 and under, the second category is for 12 to 14 and the third category is for 15 to 17. Participants must present three constrasting selections totalling a maximum playing time from 15 to 20 minutes.

The repertoire must include the first movement of a Sonata by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Clementi or Schubert. Participants are required to perform the exact same repertoire for further stages of the competition.

The winners from the categories will perform the same piece at a gala concert to compete for one slot to present at the regional finals in Taiwan in August. There, competitiors will vie for a chance to represent Southeast Asia at the International Steinway Festival 2018 in Hamburg , Germany .Parkson fell to more modern competition taking over an evolving retail scene

Parksons sunset

Savich Aniyah, a 51-year-old businessman from Malaysia, expressed grief after the close of a series of Parksons stores in Vietnam, particularly Parkson Flemington.

According to Savich Aniyah, living far from his hometown, he felt consoled by seeing projects invested by his countrymen, including Berjaya's large-scale real estate projects or Parkson's shopping centres.

I am proud of seeing shopping centres with the Parkson logo. My family often goes shopping in these places. Parkson was used to be a heavyweight in the retail sector, however, times change and the new large-scale retailers brought new shopping behaviours. These new contenders spelled the end of Parksons splendor, forcing it to either adapt to the new shopping behaviours or leave and make room for others," he said.

Along with Aniyah, Le Canh Bich Hanh, managing director of womens fashion chain Vascara, will hold fond memories of Parkson. Four or five years ago, Parkson was the number one choice when Vascara expanded its operations, and Vascaras products were present on the shelves at almost all of Parksons shopping centres.

The reason why Parkson started closing its stores is that its out-dated business model cannot compete on the market anymore. Notably, Parksons loyalty to the department store model made it inferior to shopping malls which cater to a larger variety of demands, including shopping, supermarkets, cinema, amusement areas for kids, and food courts.

Besides, Parkson suffered greatly after the expenses for upgrading the store system and rental prices increased, while it had to share the market with an increasing number of heavyweight competitors.

The representative of Thuy Duong Trading and Real Estate One Member Company Limited, the investor of Parkson Flemingtion, stated that the closing of Parkson Flemington will not impact the operation of Parksons remaining stores. However, the bleak business results as well as the pressure from competitors spell doom for the remaining stores.

The throne of shopping mall and complex centre model

Parksons demise in Vietnam shows that the retail sector is moving away from the department store model to the shopping mall and shopping complex models, reacting to changing shopping behaviours.

With the average area of 45,000-60,000sq.m, each shopping mall or shopping complex was built to offer a one-stop shopping experience, including areas for shopping, restaurants, spa, supermarket, and banks. These shopping malls not only become leading destinations for shopaholics, but also meet all demands of families, from children to adults.

The first change is that shopping centres focus on trading high-end fashion products, instead of a mix between high-end and affordable products. Numerous shopping centres survive from rent paid by luxury brands like Gucci, Chanel, Versace, D&G, Burberry, Hermes, Dior, and Louis Vuitton, among others.

The second is the transition from the department store model to the shopping mall model, as signified by the appearance of Lotte, AEON Mall, Saigon Centre Takashimaya Mall, and Vincom.

Department stores range about 20,000 square metres, mainly focusing on comestics and fashion items. This models relatively small area makes it difficult to optimise benefits and accommodate areas for restaurants or amusement areas for kids.

Meanwhile, with the average area of 45,000-60,000sq.m, each shopping mall or shopping complex was built to offer a one-stop shopping experience, including areas for shopping, restaurants, spa, supermarket, and banks. These shopping malls not only become leading destinations for shopaholics, but also meet all demands of families, from children to adults.

There is another opinion that the fast increase in quantity of Vincom, a domestic shopping centre brand, is the major reason behind Parksons leaving.

At present, Vincom is considered the uncontested champion of the Vietnamese retail market, with the largest retail area for lease in the country, offered through 46 shopping complexes in 22 cities and provinces. The figure is expected to increase to 50 this year. Vincom became the favourite destination of both international and domestic fashion brands.

Besides, AEON Mall is accelerating the preparation to build its second shopping mall in Hanoi, this time in Hadong district, as well as other malls in Haiphong and Ho Chi Minh City.

Furthermore, Lotte also plans to expand operations in Vietnam.30 investors vie for the position of strategic investor at PV Power, photo PVPower.vn

After that, it will conduct the sale of 676 million shares or 28.88 per cent of its charter capital to a strategic investor. Interested investors are required to have reported profit in the last two years, hold no accumulated losses, and keep the acquired PV Power shares for at least five years.

To date, 30 investors expressed interest in becoming the strategic investor of PV Power. However, no official applications have been submitted to PV Power yet.

Previously, on January 31, PV Power reported a successful IPO by selling all the 468.37 million shares on offer at the average selling price of VND14,938 ($0.66) per share, with the highest and lowest selling prices being VND28,000 ($1.23) and VND14,500 ($0.64). After the sale, PV Powers total capitalisation reached $1.48 billion.

PV Power was established in 2007 andis fully-owned by PetroVietnam. As the second-largest electricity producer in Vietnam, the company operates one coal-fired thermal power plant, three gas-fired power plants, and three hydropower plants.

PV Power is considered the first power producer to report a complete take-up at its IPO via public auction.

Earlier in 2015, Vinacomin-Power Holding Corporation sold only 0.005 per cent of the offered shares for VND12.053 billion ($529,469), failing its IPO.

Besides, in early February, Power Generation Corporation 3 (EVN Genco 3) also reported a failed auction with only 2.8 per cent of the offered shares sold, leaving 97.2 per cent unmarketable.

PV Power was established in 2007 andis fully-owned by PetroVietnam. As the second-largest electricity producer in Vietnam, the company operates one coal-fired thermal power plant, three gas-fired power plants, and three hydropower plants.

The firm plans to develop nine gas-to-power projects located in Dong Nai, Kien Giang, Binh Thuan, and Quang Nam.

In 2017, PV Power produced 20.581 million kWh of electricity, acquiring VND30.98 trillion ($1.36 billion) in revenue and VND2.503 trillion ($109.95 million) in pre-tax profit. This year, the firm expects to generate 21.570 million kWh with VND30.95 trillion ($1.35 billion) in revenue and VND1.91 trillion ($83.9 million) in pre-tax profit.A block of rental houses for workers in District 2 of HCM City. - VNS Photo Viet Thanh

It currently costs a renter VND700,000 to one million per month for a 20 to 25 metre-square-room, up 30 per cent year-on-year, according to Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper.

Due to the rising number of university students and labourers coming back to HCM City to study and work after a long break, the demand for room rentals has skyrocketed.

Couple Duc and Hue from Binh Dinh Province had to take leave from work to roam over Tan Phu, Binh Tan, Tan Binh districts in an effort to find a room which their family could afford.

I collect and trade used things for a living while my husband repairs electric devices. We earn VND8 to 10 million per month and are looking for a room that is maximum VND2 million. That room should not be too small for our children. Hue said.

They have planned to move to Binh Chanh District for cheaper alternatives.

Four university students from the Sai Gon Technology University encountered a similar difficulty, searching for rooms in Binh Chanh Districts Binh Hung Commune.

Le Trung Thinh, a member of the group, complained that their previous landlord had promised to keep unchanged the rental rate after Tet. However, the landlord recently decided to raise it to VND700,00 per room, with effect from February.

We, of course, had to leave and have not yet been able to find affordable rooms in the area, he said, adding that searching for rooms takes a large amount of their time, which affects their studying.

Many students in Go Vap, Thu Duc, and Binh Thanh District have to cramp into one small room or move further away from their school to save money.

Landlord Linh on Binh Hung Communes Pham Hung Street explained that prices go up every year and that she has to pay for room maintenance service and other fees, making the rate increase.

In order to support university students and labourers, Peoples Committees of District 8, 9, 12, among others have organised multiple activities.

In Thu Duc District, the Labour Union, together with relevant authorities have sent officials to households that offer rental service to encourage them to maintain the rate.

Meanwhile, at the ward-level office of many district Peoples Committees, information on where to find rooms and landlords mobile numbers have been posted for people in need.

According to the Youth Worker Support Centre, it collected information on available rooms for rent before Tet, ready to share to renters after the holiday.

However, the system was jammed up a little due to surging demand. The centre is gathering and categorising information on room status, which will be later announced to labour and youth unions in the city.

Nguyen The Trinh, director of a rental agency in District 8, said that renters should ask their landlords in advance of any changes in the rate and renew their rental contracts before Tet to refrain from paying higher prices in the new year.Millenials see public broadcasters as a relic from the past, but supporters say taxpayer-funded media guarantee that all Swiss residents receive crucial news in all four languages. AFP/Fabrice COFFRINI

Swiss voters on Sunday (Mar 4) look set to reject a proposal that would see public broadcasters lose taxpayer funding, following a campaign that stirred debate about the media's role in fostering national unity.

The "No Billag" initiative -- a reference to the Billag firm that collects the media licensing fee -- divided Switzerland on political and generational lines.

Led by the youth wing of the libertarian Free Democratic Party (PLR), No Billag's proponents sought to portray the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SSR) as an unfairly dominant and outdated relic.

SSR, which received about 1.2 billion Swiss francs from the licence fee last year -- or three quarters of its budget -- delivers news in the country's four official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansch.

Many credit it for guaranteeing that all Swiss residents receive information of crucial public interest in all four languages, along with a range of opinion and analysis.

But No Billag's proponents argued that freeing taxpayers of the 451 Swiss francs ($477, 391 euros) annual fee would unlock new economic potential, create a more competitive media sector and ultimately foster more choice.

The licence fee "doesn't work for our generation. It is too expensive and it funds a state system that we don't support", Nicolas Jutzet, a member of committee that initiated No Billag, told AFP.

The 23-year-old economics student at the University of St. Gallen was voicing a sentiment shared during the campaign by other millenials -- a generation that increasingly consumes media via the Internet rather than radio or broadcast networks.

Jutzet argued that people should pay subscription fees only for things that they actually want to consume.

"We choose other things -- our food, our clothes -- why should it be any different with media", said 20-year-old law student, Louise Morand, a Geneva-based member of the No Billag organising committee.

Switzerland's largest party, the nationalist and anti-migrant Swiss Peoples Party (UDC), threw its support behind the initiative.

- Strong pushback -

Sunday's poll is part of Switzerland's direct democracy system, where proposed initiatives face a national vote four times a year.

The campaigns are often muted in politically tepid Switzerland, but sometimes -- as with No Billag -- temperatures rise.

A broad political coalition along with prominent athletes, filmmakers and even the chief executive of top Swiss bank UBS, Sergio Ermotti, came out in defence of public media.

The mobilisation was "exceptional" for Switzerland, said University of Geneva political scientist Pascal Sciarini, who noted that apathy is often the only clear winner during national votes.

The mobilisation appears to have been successful, with final polls before the vote indicating two-thirds support against the proposal.

The committee formed to fight No Billag underscored the dangers of a fully profit-driven media environment in multilingual Switzerland.

It warned that with a substantial majority of the country's wealth concentrated in German-speaking areas, programming will increasingly skew to that audience.

The committee called the measure "an attack" against the French speaking Suisse Romande region and warned that programming for the Italian minority would inevitably be hurt.

A spokesman for the public broadcaster, Daniel Steiner, told AFP that a "yes" vote would force SSR to shut down and that it would be "impossible" to ensure public interest broadcasting in four languages moving forward.Since the groups establishment in 1994, Tan Hiep Phat has set itself the mission of contributing to Vietnams prosperity by creating the nation's leading beverage brands. Our goal is to become a pioneer in the Asian food and beverage sector, while serving consumers on a global scale. This is also the aspiration of the founder of the group, Tran Qui Thanhmy fatherwho always strove to bring the Vietnamese beverage industry to the world. He hopes that Vietnamese beverage brands will be able to secure a more powerful position in the international market. At present, Tan Hiep Phats products lead the Vietnamese beverage production scene with exports to nearly 20 countries worldwide, but this is just the beginning. We have been and will surely continue to introduce more Vietnamese brands to international friends.Wood and wood products are a key export segment in Vietnam

In 2017, the export value of lumber and forestry products was $8 billion, while the domestic sales was $1.47 billion. Wood and wood products became the sixth-ranking export item of Vietnam, capturing 6 per cent of the global market share. Vietnam ranks fifth over the world in terms of wood and wood products exports, as well as second in Asia, and the first in the ASEAN.

However, Nguyen Xuan Cuong, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, said: $1.47 billion is a small number compared to Vietnam's potential. Thereby, the wood sector should evolve the domestic market to reach $4 billion in domestic consumption and $10 billion in wood and forestry products exports by 2020, according to the action plan for the development of the wood and wood products market in 2014-2020.

In order to reach the target, the forestry industry set the $10.22-billion target in total product value in 2018, with the export value of wood and wooden products at $8.66 billion. It set the total product value target of $11.49 billion in 2019, with the export value of wood and wood products at $10 billion.

Favourable conditions and opportunities

The export value of wood and wooden products in the first two months of this year is estimated at $1.3 billion, up 20.1 per cent on-year. The US, China, and Japan are the top three export markets of Vietnam.

Nguyen Quoc Khanh, chairman of the Handicraft and Wood Industry Association of Ho Chi Minh City (HAWA), said that the number of furniture production regions over the world has not increased, with the exception of the Asia-Pacific. Thereby, opportunities for enterprises development, potential markets, and good competitiveness all provide favourable conditions to this sector.

Meanwhile, China's anti-dumping lawsuits in the US resulted in smaller competition in furniture items. The demand for furniture in the world grows, while furniture production is a particular strength of Vietnamese enterprises.

Besides, as the 2017 Law on Forestry created favourable conditions, the new free trade agreements resulted in increasing taxes on raw agricultural products, as well as Vietnam's policy stability will strengthen the development of this sector.

We have enough favourable conditions to develop the wood sector. If we miss this chance, Indonesia or Malaysia will surely surpass Vietnam to take control of the market, reaching the top of the ASEAN market, emphasised Khanh.

Minister Cuong said that in order to hit the target of $4 billion in domestic consumption and $10 billion in export value by 2020, wood processing needs to capitalise on last year's successes to evolve in the coming time. Especially, it is necessary to boost forestation, apply scientific innovation to enhance productivity and value, and supply materials for domestic consumption and export.

Difficulties ahead

In addition to the advantages, Khanh also noted there are some challenges in front of the sector. The US is the first-ranking export market of Vietnam, but the US government has reduced corporate income tax (CIT) to 25 per cent (from 35) to develop the local wood sector. Thereby, Vietnamese enterprises should avoid sectors or items which are growing in the US.

Wood exports to the European market are not increasing, as the decreasing euro is causing difficulties for Vietnamese exports. Meanwhile, the demand from China, Japan, and South Korea is not rising. As a result, Vietnamese firms should break open new markets and take advantage of tax incentives.

Local wood sector takes firmer root With the leading position in Southeast Asia, Vietnams wood production and processing industry is under the spotlight of foreign companies and suppliers.

Wood exports to fall short of expectation The export revenue of timber and woodwork products is projected to reach US$7.4 billion, $200 million less than the target set for the sector this ...

Japanese-invested furniture production plant to be built in Ba Ria-Vung Tau The Nitori Ba Ria-Vung Tau Company, a subsidiary of Japan's Nitori Holdings, was licenced to develop a US$150 million plant manufacturing wooden furniture in the ...

Foreign furniture firms shift businesses to Viet Nam A number of foreign furniture firms have shifted their businesses from Indonesia to Viet Nam since early this year.

Italy luxury furniture maker comes to Vietnam Colombo Stile, a top Italian luxury furniture brand, opened its first showroom in the country in Ho Chi Minh City on August 27.You have permission to edit this article.

Edit CloseLaw enforcement officers gather in front of the White House in Washington, after the area was closed to pedestrian traffic Saturday. Authorities said a man shot himself to death outside the White House midday.Waves crash against Minot Light off the Scituate coast off Massachusetts on Sunday as a noreaster batters the coast. The lighthouse was built in 1855.Tower of Homage Lights Up for Girls in Tech on International Womens Day

On Thursday 8th March, the Tower of Homage will be illuminated with the 'Girls in Tech' logo. This is in recognition of the amazing achievement of Gibraltar having the first All Girls' team to reach the CyberCenturion finals.

This team have been competing in this competition for the past three years, and managed to reach these finals without the use of a 'Wildcard' entry which was offered by the competition organisers to encourage female participation. They qualified by finishing in the top 10 out of 500 registered teams, the majority of them being All Male teams.

The day is also International Women's Day and this tribute is very fitting as it highlights the ability for women to achieve identical results, when given the same opportunities as their male counterparts. There should be no barriers when it comes to opportunities both in and out of education.

With only one in ten technology jobs being held by women, they must be given the confidence to know that they can carry out these tech orientated jobs as well as any man. There should be no assumption or stigma that males are more suited, and it is something we must work on as a society.

Both boys and girls should always have the same expectations, regardless of what they may be. With the introduction of co-education in the 2019 Education Revolution, this will go a long way to ensuring equal opportunities to all.

Minister for Equality, Samantha Sacramento, said: It gives me great satisfaction to know that a local all-girls team from Westside School has made history by becoming the first all-girls team to compete in the Cyber Centurion finals in the UK, particularly since girls are under-represented in STEM fields. I am very proud of their performance and I know that their success will spur on other students, especially female students, to take part in the competition. Challenges like these develop our students personally and socially but they are also important in sending out the message that girls are just as capable as boys. I would like to send my best wishes to all local students participating in this competition.Photo: Instagram/Adam Rippon

Turns out Adam Rippon didnt need Ellen to make his dreams come true, he simply harnessed an opportunity himself. After announcing on Ellen last week that he had been sleeping on Shawn Mendes (crush-wise, not literally), Rippon found a way to meet Mendes without any help from DeGeneres at an Oscars party. Rippon, clad in his Tyra-approved kink-but-make-it-fashion suit and harness, shared a selfie with Mendes, who seems enthusiastic but confused, on his Instagram story. He might not have completed any quads at the Olympics, but Rippon sure is sticking the landing in real life.Homeland Like Bad at Things Season 7 Episode 4 Editors Rating 4 stars * * * *  Previous Next  Photo: Antony Platt/Antony Platt/SHOWTIME

With Chief of Staff David Wellington busy undermining President Keanes power (arguably for her own good) and Carrie Mathison riding the wave of prescription drugs as she investigates a murder, Homeland centers this weeks episode on a bloody nightmare in the heartland. A big departure from globetrotting tales of governmental betrayal and espionage, Like Bad at Things tells the story of a disturbingly believable disaster, even before Saul Berenson draws direct parallels to Waco and Ruby Ridge. In those real-world cases, violence erupted between the U.S. government and those who no longer trusted or believed in it  and similar cases will likely happen again. Hopefully, if that day comes, it wont be as horrific as the end of this weeks Homeland.

David is at home when a furious POTUS shows up. She first presumes that it was her military commanders who went over her head and ordered the Syrian strike, but Wellington confesses quickly. As he says, We needed to put one up in the win column. Wellington gives a speech hes likely rehearsed a few times about how much hes supported Keane, explaining that he ordered this strike to change the narrative about her presidency. Neither of them have any idea that Carrie is watching this exchange, but she cant tell anyone about it or risk her surveillance being revealed. And, of course, neither of them have any idea that whats about to happen will redefine her presidency forever.

On that note, things are getting more and more intense at what well refer to as the compound housing fugitive and talk-radio host Brett OKeefe. The FBI keeps bringing in new weapons, and its not long before the first shot is fired. It may only be at a drone surveilling the area, but its a shot nonetheless and a harbinger of things to come. The woman who lives in the home is worried about what might happen next. She should be.

Meanwhile, Carrie tracks Wellingtons buddy Simone Martin on the day she went to Hazelton, just before General McClendon died. The theory is that Wellington and Martin had something to do with his death. Tracking the parking ticket Martin received that day leads Carrie to a cash-advance place, where she convinces the guy who runs the counter to reveal that Simone was given $9,950. (Why that amount? Probably because five figures would require different paperwork and might even get the IRS involved.) Before you can say, Hmm, thats not a lot for a hit, Carrie and Max figure out that Simone made four other stops where she took out similar sums. Which means she got almost $50,000 for a murder-for-hire.

The history books of the Homeland universe will write chapters about what happens next near the compound. J.J., the son of the owners of the home, is chasing his dog, who is shot from a nearby tree line by FBI agents. Responding emotionally, J.J. raises his weapon and he gets plugged in the stomach. An agent comes in to help and hes taken hostage by the rebels. We have an injury and a hostage. This all just got very real. On a call to Saul, Brett reveals that he isnt really in control, and well learn that Saul wont be for long either. The FBI refuses to offer medical help to J.J. as long as they have their man, but Saul calls the president and gets them to do exactly that. Saul gets shit done.

The EMS comes in to take care of J.J. and it doesnt look great. Hes losing blood and could be going into shock. Brett OKeefe uses the opportunity to broadcast to his loyal fans, saying, The first shots were fired today in the war against America. Its one thing to stoke the passion of your listeners, but he also says that President Keane ordered it. Its that manipulation of the truth that makes people like OKeefe so loathsome: He has dozens of opportunities to stop what happens this episode, but hes too weak and selfish to take them. J.J.s mother senses this crucial mistake and yells at OKeefe to stop while hes still on the air. Its a really sad moment  there is a young mans life on the line and hate speech is flourishing. J.J. goes to a hospital.

While Carries sister forces her to take her Seroquel, which makes her very drowsy, Saul is doing his best to negotiate with Brett. He knows that the chance for either of them to stop this madness is slipping away. With all these guns, its inevitable, he says. Negotiators lose control. He suggests that Brett remind his rebel buddies how the Alamo ended.

Crowds are assembled outside the hospital where J.J. is being treated  and thats when a bearded man decides to do something horrendous. First, he grabs some scrubs and pretends to be a doctor to gain access to the hospital. Then he sneaks near the room where J.J. is being treated and snaps a pic on his phone that makes it look like no one is tending to him. He emails it out under the subject FBI Lets Boy Bleed to Death. It is 100 percent #fakenews and its going to lead to a massacre.

Carrie and Dante are still investigating, but she needs to get a drug cocktail to keep her stable first  this seems to be foreshadowing for episodes to come. Will Dante have to decide if Carrie making the right decision or just hasnt taken the right meds? For now, she warns him, If things fuck up, the badge wont save you.

The real action is happening at the compound, where the rebels have agreed to let the women and children go. They agree to do a health check and debrief, and maybe everyone will find peace. But we know that hospital photo is about to drop at the worst possible time. And thats what happens: A news story features the photo just as the transfer is going down, and J.J.s family doesnt know its fake. Saul yells at Brett on the phone to tell them the boy is fine. They know hes fine. Brett says nothing. He may claim he didnt know whether or not to believe Saul, but its more likely he just needed to keep his ruse going. Its a grave, terrible mistake: J.J.s dad walks into the other room and kills the FBI agent whom he now believes killed his son.

All hell breaks loose. The FBI responds, opening fire on the compound. Its terrifying. Shots ring out and Brett runs downstairs to safety. Its too late to stop anything, which Saul sadly informs President Keane. Tear gas fills the basement, forcing Brett to use an American flag as a mask  not exactly subtle, but nice symbolism for a man who hides behind a bullshit concept of patriotism. They pull OKeefe out, choking, crying, and staring at the bodies strewn everywhere. Its the worst-case scenario of fire and death. And Brett could have stopped it with three words: Its not true.

Other Notes

 With Brett in custody, will the disaster at the compound lead to further violence or protests? Could Homeland be setting up a season thats about a full-blown civil war?

 I havent yet commented on the closing line of the credits, which you may not recognize. Its from Quinns letter back in season five: Just think of me as a light on the headlands, a beacon steering you clear of the rocks.

 If youre wondering why you recognize Brett OKeefe, actor Jake Weber co-starred in CBSs Medium for years and also appeared in Dawn of the Dead, Meet Joe Black, and U-571. (One last bit of trivia: Hes British.)

 I like the new credit sequence, but I wish they could have found room for the great Gil Scott-Heron line that opened it before: The first revolution is when you change your mind about how you look at things and see there might be another way to look at it that you have not been shown.Mary Poppins has finally returned from her sky kingdom/spacecraft/ wherever she lives her immortal life when not bringing stern joy and delight to children all over Britain. In a new teaser trailer aired during tonights Academy Awards, Lin-Manuel Miranda is as startled as anybody to spy a nanny drifting down from the heavens via an umbrella. Between the power of flight and her ability to manipulate the weather, Mary Poppins could be an X-Men, but instead she kindly choses to help raise our children. How wonderful. Her mirror image is also sentient.Roger Deakins posing with his first Oscar. Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

Fourteenth times a charm! On Sunday night, your sexy British photography teacher Roger Deakins took home the Best Cinematography trophy for his work on Blade Runner 2049, ending a streak of empty-handed nights dating back to The Shawshank Redemption.

Deakinss string of snubs was the third-longest among living nominees after composer Thomas Newman, whos gone 0-for-14, and sound mixer Greg P. Russell, whos pulled in 16 nominations without ever winning. (Russell would have had 17, but his nomination for 13 Hours was rescinded for improper campaigning.) That sounds like a lot, but its nothing compared to fellow sound mixer Kevin OConnell, who last year won his first Oscar after a whopping 21 nominations. At what point do you just stop showing up?

Youve got to assume that the win feels pretty good for Deakins, and not just because he can stop worrying about what he might have done to turn the Academy against him: Hes now only two wins behind Emmanuel Chivo Lubezki and Vittorio Storaro in the Most Oscar-Winning Cinematographer Alive race. (Mid-century DPs Leon Shamroy and Joseph Ruttenberg top the overall standings with four  still potentially catchable for the 68-year-old Deakins, who averages about a film a year.)

Despite his long winless streak, its hard to call Deakinss win for Blade Runner 2049 a makeup award. The look of the film  the incessant rain and blimp-sized neon women of its futuristic Los Angeles, the vision of San Diego as a rusted wasteland, the amber clouds of smog that fill its Las Vegas section  sticks with you even after the specifics of the plot have long faded. Still, its worth celebrating the moment with a look back at some of Deakinss other equally Oscar-worthy work.

The Shawshank Redemption (1995)

Deakins had worked in features since the early 80s  he did the 1984 adaptation that lent its look to that famous Apple ad  but his first Oscar nomination came for this future cable classic. In a 2009 interview with NPR, he highlighted the films famous roof scene as one of his personal favorites, thank to one ostentatious crane shot that showed how close Tim Robbins really was to the edge. (Dont worry, he was wearing a safety harness.)

Fargo (1996)

Snow is one of the hardest things to photograph, but Deakins was able to find the tension in a landscape full of flat, snow-covered plains. (It may have helped that much of the snow was fake, as the film was shot during a particularly precipitation-free winter.)

Kundun (1997)

As part of his determination to work with every good director in Hollywood, Deakins earned his third nomination for Martin Scorseses Kundun, bringing a wide-screen sense of scale to this mid-budget Tibetan epic.

The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford and No Country for Old Men (2007)

This is where the Deakins snub narrative really took off; despite shooting the eventual Best Picture winner, he wound up going 0-for-2 at these Oscars. (Robert Elswit won for There Will Be Blood, which you cant really complain about.) The Assassination of Jesse James is the best Terrence Malick film Terrence Malick didnt direct, and its opening train-robbery scene presaged the many moody silhouette shots to come in Deakinss oeuvre. No Country was his ninth collaboration with the Coen Brothers, and its hard to argue its not his best, filled with stark, perfectly composed images that underscore the films existential dread.

Skyfall (2012)

Skyfall was snubbed at the Oscars, but it would almost certainly take home the prize for Best Silhouettes in a Roger Deakins Film, thanks to its instantly iconic Shanghai skyscraper fight scene. Here and elsewhere, the level of visual showmanship on display would cement it as the best of the Daniel Craig Bond films (so far).

Sicario (2015)

Deakinss collaborations with Denis Villeneuve would prove just as fruitful as his work with the Coens. His moody landscapes on Sicario helped give what could have been a by-the-numbers genre exercise some much-needed verve. The final sequence in the tunnels borrows heavily from the look and feel of video games, but as my occasional colleague Sean T. Collins likes to say, whats wrong with being influenced by one of the most popular media forms of the 21st century? Ultimately, it was proof that, even in his 60s, Deakins had some new tricks up his sleeve.How dare they! Photo: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic

The highlight of this years Oscars was undoubtedly Frances McDormands win for Best Actress and all the things she had to say, namely inclusion rider. During that speech, you may have noticed her put her Oscar down on the stage and take her eyes off it for the remainder of her speech. It now appears that wasnt the last time she was separated from her little gold man. Multiple reports say that at the famed Governors Ball after party, McDormands Oscar was temporarily stolen. According to the New York Times Cara Buckley, McDormand had set [her Oscar] down and was chatting when someone made off with her trophy. Buckley shared a photo of the suspect, whom a photographer for chef Wolfgang Puck (who caters the party) apparently tracked down. The photographer was able to retrieve the Oscar and get it back to McDormand.

Security at the Governors Ball are looking for this guy, who grabbed Frances McDormands Oscar and ran out with it. Wolfgang Pucks photographer stopped him, got the Oscar back, and the guy disappeared back into the ball. Apparently Frances has said to let him go. #Oscars #Drama pic.twitter.com/5tlsx4Ulwt  Cara Buckley (@caraNYT) March 5, 2018

According to USA Today, McDormand was spotted crying emotionally outside the Governors Awards ball after giving up the search for the statuette on the premises, and departing with her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen. Though the Oscar was easily returned to McDormand because it was engraved with her name on it, the alleged thief was reportedly able to sneak back into the party and remains at large. Buckley claims that McDormand has said to let him go; however, a representative for the actress did not comment on the nature of how her Oscar went missing, telling USA Today that Fran and Oscar are happily reunited and are enjoying an In-N-Out burger together. The paper did note that security at the Governors Ball was alerted of the situation, which can only mean its going to take three billboards to demand justice for her briefly missing Oscar.

Update, 11:15 a.m. ET: TMZ now reports that the man who stole McDormands Oscar has been arrested for felony grand theft. Theyve obtained footage of the man, identified as Terry Bryant, bragging about the Oscar, claiming it belongs to him and asking for congratulations. He reportedly had a ticket to the event.Washington (CNN)The national debate over gun control has thrown a new dynamic into this year's top Senate races.

For the five Democrats defending seats in states President Donald Trump won in 2016 by double-digits, the issue is complicated: Their national party and donors want gun restrictions, but the right-of-center, exurban and rural voters they'll need to win have historically opposed tighter gun laws. They'll have to decide how far they can go, and how they can sell it.

For some Republicans, particularly Florida Gov. Rick Scott, it's a different problem: They'll be accused of ignoring opportunities to act on gun violence before the shooting in Parkland, Florida.

As we wait to see how the gun debate evolves in statehouses and on Capitol Hill, here's our March edition of the 10 Senate seats most likely to switch parties in November.

Remember: The current balance of power in the Senate is 51 Republicans, 49 Democrats (and independents who caucus with them). That means Democrats need a net gain of two seats to take control of the chamber. That's a tough task on a map where Democrats are defending 26 seats and Republicans just have to hold eight.

1. Nevada

Incumbent: Republican Sen. Dean Heller

Primary date: June 12

Heller tops this list for two reasons: He's the only Republican up for re-election in a state Hillary Clinton won in 2016, and unlike the split fields we see in other states, he has dangerous one-on-one matchups in both the primary (against Danny Tarkanian) and the general election (against Rep. Jacky Rosen).

The good news for Heller: President Donald Trump wants to help him. Trump told Republican National Committee members he'll go to Nevada to campaign for Heller ahead of the primary. (And if Trump forgets that promise, the fact that Tarkanian used Ivanka Trump against Heller will probably serve as a strong reminder.)

The bad news: Cozying up to Trump is a problem in a general election.

2. Arizona

Incumbent: Open seat (Republican Sen. Jeff Flake is retiring)

Primary date: August 28

In a year of Republican primaries all over the map, this one has the makings to be the nation's most chaotic.

Rep. Martha McSally spent much of the last month backing away from her 2016 criticism of Trump. Former state Sen. Kelli Ward was in Washington for CPAC courting major donors and organizations for a well-financed brawl. And former Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio is a wild card who could spoil the entire race for Republicans if he wins the primary.

With the primary still months away, Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is watching and waiting.

Flake, meanwhile, is off to New Hampshire for an event later this month, kicking up 2020 presidential speculation.

3. Missouri

Incumbent: Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill

Primary date: August 7

Republican attorney general Josh Hawley has played the scandal surrounding indicted Gov. Eric Greitens carefully, breaking with the Missouri GOP in calling for an investigation and tweeting that there is "no place for party or partisanship."



A felony indictment by a grand jury is a serious matter. There is no place for party or partisanship. The criminal justice system must be allowed to work. I am confident the House's investigation will be thorough and swift, and will proceed without regard to party.

Still, Greitens' seemingly inevitable downfall is bad for the party's brand. Navigating those choppy waters -- ideally as quickly as possible -- is important for Hawley's Senate prospects in a state Trump won by 19 points in 2016.

4. Indiana

Incumbent: Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly

Primary date: May 8

In the three-way Republican primary between Reps. Todd Rokita and Luke Messer and former state Rep. Mike Braun, it's Rokita who wields the sharpest knife.

His opening line in their first debate got at both Braun's past participation in Democratic primaries and questions surrounding Messer's residency. "Mike, welcome to the Republican Party," Rokita said. "Luke, welcome back to Indiana."

Rokita's all-base, all-the-time strategy was on vivid display in his first TV ad:

5. West Virginia

Incumbent: Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin

Primary date: May 8

Manchin tried an odd idea last month: He urged other senators to sign a pledge not to campaign against each other.

It seemed like a self-serving proposal by a former governor who, while in that job, was chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, an organization with the sole job of defeating Republican governors.

Even if senators stay out of it, others are willing to wade in. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker endorsed attorney general Patrick Morrisey, who along with Rep. Evan Jenkins and coal CEO Don Blankenship are running to oppose Manchin.

6. North Dakota

Incumbent: Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp

Primary date: June 12

Republicans got good news when Rep. Kevin Cramer changed his mind and decided he'd run against Heitkamp after all.

The cherry on top: There won't be a GOP primary. State Sen. Tom Campbell, who was also in the race, is instead running for Cramer's House seat.

Heitkamp will benefit from footage of Trump extending a handshake and calling her a "good woman" on stage at a September event. But there are good reasons Republicans consider this a top target: Trump won the state by 36 points in 2016. And Heitkamp won her seat by less than a point in 2012.

Heitkamp is still well-funded and hasn't had to cast many tough votes (with tax reform being a possible exception), and there remain questions about Cramer's strength as a candidate. But this race looks better for Republicans now than it did a month ago.

7. Montana

Incumbent: Democratic Sen. Jon Tester

Primary date: June 5

Last in a string of five straight Democratic-held seats in states Trump won by double digits, Tester is watching and waiting to see how the GOP primary develops.

State auditor Matt Rosendale, the other Senate candidate with a flat-top, appears to be the Republican front-runner, with businessman Troy Downing, former judge Russell Fagg and state Sen. Al Olszewski are also in the race.

8. Wisconsin

Incumbent: Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin

Primary date: August 14

Many families dislike the political life. But rarely do you see the parents of a candidate -- Republican businessman Kevin Nicholson -- give the maximum possible donations to his Democratic opponent, Baldwin.

Nicholson has challenged state Sen. Leah Vukmir to six debates in a primary that is still developing. Businessman Eric Hovde is also exploring a run.

The first debate is set for March 28 hosted by WTMJ-AM and being broadcast on the radio.

9. Ohio

Incumbent: Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown

Primary date: May 8

Here's the counterintuitive case for Republicans having a shot here:

When state treasurer Josh Mandel dropped out, the assumption was that Brown probably had this race in the bag. But the truth about Mandel was that Republicans never believed he'd win. They'd already seen Brown beat him once, in their 2012 head-to-head.

At least Rep. Jim Renacci, the front-runner for the nomination, gives the GOP a bit of a clean slate. He's capable of self-funding at least partially in an expensive state, too.

As Ohio drifts rightward, it's possible this one will be harder for Democrats to put away than they'd like.

10. Florida

Incumbent: Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson

Primary date: August 28

In the wake of the Parkland shooting, Nelson is showing that he's ready for a fight against Gov. Rick Scott, the Republican who is widely expected to announce a Senate run in the near future.

In a CNN town hall on guns, Nelson linked Scott's inaction in the wake of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando to the Parkland shooting.

"Two years ago, when 49 lives were taken in the Pulse nightclub, and nothing was done -- not in Washington, not in Tallahassee, not one thing offered by the administration in Tallahassee," he said. "And here we are, going through this again. And it's going to unfortunately very possibly continue unless we get some common-sense laws on the books."State authorities renewed their call for help finding a missing Haleyville woman who has been missing for more than three months.

Jessica Lee Ann Hamby, 24, was last seen leaving her home Jan. 2.

Investigators said, they are executing search warrants in hopes it will give them the evidence they need to make a break in the case.

Hamby's father, Keith said, "Hell. It's been a roller coaster ride of emotions. Her babies want to know where their momma's at. Jessie had a lot of people that loved her."

Hamby is 5'2" and 125 pounds with brown hair and hazel eyes. Authorities did not release any other details about where she may have gone, but said multiple agencies are investigating her disappearance.

Keith said, his daughter left a voluntary detox program at Lakeland Community Hospital back in January. A friend dropped her off and she hasn't been seen since.

"It could happen to you. It could happen to you just like it happened to me, her momma, her sister, and her kids," Keith said.

Anyone with information about her location can is asked to contact the Haleyville Police Department at 205-486-5201, the Alabama State Bureau of Investigation at 256-436-1344 or the 25th Judicial Circuit District Attorneys Office at 205-921-7403.(CNN) -- West Virginia legislators scrambled Monday to see whether there is enough money to meet teacher pay demands and end a strike that has dragged into its eighth day.

A legislative conference committee appointed to resolve differences between the state Senate and House is scheduled to meet at 4 p.m. Thousands of people thronged to the Capitol as the anticipation grew.



Sarah Jorgensen/CNN Sarah Jorgensen/CNN

"We recognize the urgency of this situation," said Delegate Paul Espinosa, chair of the House Education Committee and co-chair of the conference committee on House Bill 4145, the pay raise legislation.

Gov. Jim Justice and the union leaders last week agreed that teachers and service personnel would receive a 5% pay raise. The House approved the proposal, but the Senate passed a 4% raise. Union leaders say the teachers won't return to work until they get a 5% raise.

Espinosa said he has been speaking with his counterpart in the Senate, Majority Leader Ryan Ferns, "on how we would like to proceed with the committee's work to resolve the differences" between the Senate and the House of Delegates.

Democrats in the Legislature say new revenue projections show the money is there and that a 5% raise would amount to $13 million more in spending than a 4% bump.

"This situation has evolved very quickly in recent days, and we want to make sure committee members have a full array of accurate information available to make a well-informed decision," Espinosa said..

"To accomplish that, we have instructed our respective Finance Committee staffs to pull data and put together the necessary fiscal information, and have separately reached out to the Governor's Office staff to ask for more budgetary information from the executive branch."

Many teachers, service personnel and other citizens have descended on the state Capitol to express their concerns about pay. The size and density of the crowds has prompted a "capacity concern from Capitol Police and the West Virginia Fire Marshal.

"No further visitors are being admitted at this time," the state Department of Military Affairs & Public Safety said. Capitol Police and organizers are working to "ensure manageable conditions this afternoon," the agency said.

West Virginia public school teachers are continuing their strike because the Legislature didn't meet their demand for higher pay and better benefits over the weekend. All 55 counties announced school closures for Monday. About 20,000 teachers walked out February 22, keeping almost 277,000 students out of class.

West Virginia public school teachers earn an average salary of about $45,000, making them among the lowest paid educators in the United States. School service personnel are also walking out. The pay raise must be passed as a law, since West Virginia is not a collective bargaining state.

'Great personal cost'

A GoFundMe page for the striking workers had garnered more than $218,000 by midday Monday.

The WV Teachers Strike Support Fund, started by citizens and not sponsored by unions, is designed to help "teachers and school service personnel who are taking on great personal cost to organize and support their families during the strike."

The fund said it doesn't expect to collect enough money to supplement lost salary or wages, but aims to help meet needs.

"Thanks, everyone. Strike Support Fund Committee has met for a second time today. We have now reviewed 174 requests and approved more than $71,000 -- to teachers and school service personnel to cover strike costs, child care, medical bills, lost pay for aides and substitutes, re-stocking food pantries, and other efforts to support children and families during the strike. ..."

Other issues in West Virginia, Oklahoma

The House bill with the 5% raise quickly passed Wednesday, but Senate lawmakers expressed concern about how the state will fund the raise and passed the 4% version on Saturday after hours of debate and discussion.

The House voted not to adopt the 4% version of the bill. With no agreement between the chambers, the conference committee was created. Three members from the House and three from the Senate -- two Republicans and one Democrat -- were selected.

The group has until Tuesday to come to a decision about the bill. The House and the Senate could extend that deadline. If a meeting of the minds eventually fails, an earlier law specifying a 2% raise for teachers' pay would kick in, and then 1% over two years.

On the House floor Monday, Delegate Justin Marcum, a Mingo Democrat, urged the House of Delegates to resolve the pay raise bill before any other bills are considered from the Senate, according to the West Virginia House Democrats Facebook page. The suggestion was rejected by the Republican leadership.

"However, all members of the House are in agreement that they will not back down from the 5% pay raise that passed the House, and the Delegates representing the House on the pay raise conference committee have been notified they are to stand their ground on 5%," the Facebook post said.

The issue of teachers' pay isn't restricted to West Virginia. In Oklahoma, public school teachers are considering a strike over their salaries.

West Virginia teachers are equally unhappy with their employee health insurance program. Tentative agreements on pay did not include a fix to the Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA), which employees say requires them to pay premiums that are too high.

A task force on the health insurance issue meets March 13.

The-CNN-Wire

 &  2018 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved.Caltex has defended its attempts to stamp out wage underpayment in its franchise network after the Fair Work Ombudsman found that more than three-quarters of outlets it inspected were exploiting workers.

Only six of 25 retail fuel outlet sites operated by 23 Caltex franchisees in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide inspected by the FWO were found to be complying with workplace laws. This represented a non-compliance rate of 76 per cent.

Only six of 25 retail fuel outlet sites operated by 23 Caltex franchisees in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide inspected were found to be complying with workplace laws. Credit:Sasha Woolley

In light of this alarmingly high level of non-compliance across its retail fuel outlets, I am not surprised by Caltexs announcement to the ASX last week that it will transition franchise sites to company operations, Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James said.

FWOs report shows Caltex Australia has been presiding over a non-compliant and unsustainable operating model.Its well-publicised shortcomings in marketing in China had a devastating effect on earnings, which plummeted for a year and have only just begun to recover.

Instead it risks regulatory sanctions that can restrict the companys licence to operate or at worst threaten its licence altogether.

James Packers Crown Resorts really needs to remain under the regulatory radar both in Australia and in China. But it is failing miserably.

Having just got its head above water after the China fiasco it has now raised the ire of the Victorian gaming regulator.

This time it has been pinged for trialling a practice called blanking pokie machines which can restrict the options gamblers to bet within their comfort limits.

Crown has a licence to make a lot of money but it needs to remain within regulatory boundaries regardless of its desires to squeeze the last drop from the profit lemon.

As far as the practice of blanking, this is probably a bridge too far. For the player he or she needs to bet bigger or smaller - and may not have the option of betting the preferred level.

It was an issue that was raised by Federal MP Andrew Wilkie last year having been alerted to the practice by whistleblowers. Regulators had little choice but to pursue the very public issue.Australian taxpayers are being warned they are at risk of picking up the bill if Australia is sued by multinational corporations under a new international trade agreement to be signed this week.

Under the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) to be signed in Chile on March 8, Australia has committed to allowing the employment of workers from six new countries without requiring them to first check if there is an Australian who could do the same job. The six new countries granted waivers to requirements for labour market testing are Mexico, Chile, Japan, Canada, Malaysia and Vietnam.

The ACTU said the Australian government has also chosen to give up Australia's sovereignty to being sued by foreign corporations when they believe a change in Australian laws are affecting their profits. This had left "the taxpayer open to picking up the bill for [multinational corporations] if they disagree with our public policies".

The ACTU said the government could exclude future tobacco control laws, but Australia could be vulnerable to being sued for other legislation changes.University of Sydney staff have been given written warnings and counselling as part of disciplinary action in response to a review of alleged inappropriate spending on corporate credit cards.

A spokeswoman for the University of Sydney said it had completed an investigation into 21 staff from the global student recruitment team for alleged financial misconduct.

"Those individuals were the subject of confidential disciplinary proceedings, whereby they were each asked to respond to the university's concerns about their behaviour," the spokeswoman said.

Sydney University. Credit:Paul Jones

The investigation was completed on Friday and most staff have received notification of their individual outcomes.Frances McDormand, winner of the Oscar for best performance by an actress in a leading role for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, poses in the press room. Credit:AP

Speaking backstage, actress Frances McDormand said the wave of change in Hollywood that was reflected in the Oscar telecast began long before the Weinstein scandal which dominated headlines late last year.

"It happened way before that, it began with what happened last year when Moonlight won best picture," she said. "That's when it began to change. It had to be acknowledged [tonight], not just in fixing the mistake, but in acknowledging that Moonlight won best picture, 2017."

McDormand said she had surfed an extraordinary awards season thanks to Three Billboards.

"It was interesting, I don't show up all the time but I was there at the Golden Globes and there was an arc which began there," she said. "The messaging we're getting to send to the public is we're going to be one of the small industries that is trying to make a difference."

McDormand also said she was surprised to see the extent to which the film had re-invigorated the use of billboards in activist campaigns around the world, notably campains connected to the Grenfell fire in London, gun control in Miami and outside the UN, addressing the subjct of war in Syria.

"Billboards still work, I think it's really exciting," she said. "That's the kind of power an image can have, and that's what we're making, we're making powerful images."The man who wrote the blueprint for Tony Abbott's deeply unpopular 2014 budget has been handed $50,000 of taxpayers' money  with no competitive tender process  to conduct a secret Turnbull government review.

The Department of Industry awarded businessman and prominent Liberal Party supporter Tony Shepherd a $55,000 contract to conduct a 17-day review of the troubled Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility late last year.

Mr Shepherd was the architect of the Coalition's Commission of Audit  the document that paved the way for Mr Abbott's austere first budget, which sparked an angry public backlash and sowed the seeds of the then prime minister's political downfall.

Tony Shepherd (centre) with then treasurer Joe Hockey (left) and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann in 2013. Credit:Andrew Meares

The NAIF review looked at the investment mandate, governance and general effectiveness of the $5 billion infrastructure financing body, which is yet to invest in a single project despite being up and running for almost two years.One of Donald Trump's top trade advisers says no country will be granted an exemption from the US President's newly announced tariffs on steel and aluminium, fuelling pessimism inside the Turnbull government about whether Australia's lobbying efforts will secure such an exception.

Peter Navarro, director of the White House's National Trade Council, said the 25 per cent levy on steel and 10 per cent levy on aluminium could be in place this week and, while there was scope for individual businesses to receive exemptions, the measures would apply to all countries.

"There's a difference between exemptions and country exclusions. There will be an exemption procedure for particular cases where we need to have exemptions so that business can move forward but at this point in time, there will be no country exclusions," Mr Navarro told CNN on Sunday night, AEDT.

Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull during bilateral meetings in February. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

However, in a sign of the uncertainty surrounding the President's decision making, US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross said "we shall see" when asked if there would be any exceptions, leaving wriggle room for Mr Trump to change his mind.Nicole Kidman Credit:Jordan Strauss

It's bow season and no one does it better than our Nic. This Armani Prive ensemble has more bows and tape than the Myer Gift Emporium but it works. A round of applause please.EDITOR'S NOTE: The High Court overturned Cardinal George Pell's conviction for historic child sex offences in a judgment handed down April 7, 2020. In a unanimous decision all seven High Court judges found Victoria's Court of Appeal should not have upheld Pell's conviction It found the evidence could not support a guilty verdict.

Cardinal George Pell has arrived at a Melbourne court under an intense international media glare for a hearing that will decide if he stands trial on historical sexual offence charges.

An enormous media pack mobbed the 76-year-old Cardinal as he and his legal team arrived outside Melbourne Magistrates Court in white car on Monday morning.

About 20 police officers shielded the Cardinal from the international media throng as he walked from the car to the courthouse.A Federal Court judge has blasted a Commonwealth tribunal after it concluded homosexuality is fixed at birth and cannot change over time, branding the decision "illogical" and based on "assumptions, pre-conceptions or pre-judgments" about human sexuality.

Justice Jayne Jagot said the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) failed to "properly satisfy itself about critical facts" when it affirmed an immigration department decision refusing a Lebanese woman a temporary partner visa on the basis she was not in a genuine relationship with her husband.

The woman came to Australia in December 2009 on a student visa and remained in the country illegally between December 2013 and October 2014 before marrying her husband, a Lebanese man in Australia on a protection visa, and applying for a temporary partner visa.

According to the AAT, the woman's husband had been granted a protection visa on the basis of his homosexuality and feared persecution in Lebanon.

The tribunal wrote to the woman in January last year and said it was "difficult to see how the sponsor can have a commitment to his marriage to you when he has not told you about his claimed homosexuality".While he said he would raise the child as his own, he revealed the identity of the father is a grey area. Right. Only problem is, the identity of his partner is not. And now this man, ostensibly claiming to do the chivalrous thing of standing by his woman, has opened up a national debate about whom she slept with and when, about how many blokes graced her bed. He has opened her up to global slut-shaming.

The headlines might have read "Bundle of Joyce, he scoffed, but, they never even asked if it was Joyces bundle.

The entire continent of Australia moved a degree westwards yesterday with the sheer force of eye muscles rolling after Barnaby Joyce revealed he was not sure if he was the father of Vikki Campions child. Seriously? We need to know this?

I know, I dont like typing those words, or evoking those thoughts, but this is what the former deputy prime minister of this country has invited us to do.

The women in Joyces immediate orbit, in this sorry and sadly on-going saga, have been humiliated, trashed, exposed, maligned and put on trial all in the name of  what?

Joyce said that because the media were still asking questions, "we felt we had no choice but to tell the story." But he - they - did. He is on the backbench now, and the pressing questions are now primarily to do with allegations of sexual misconduct or harassment.

Lets unpack two salient parts of this story. First, Joyce claimed that no journalists  notably The Daily Telegraph  actually asked him if the child was his. This is incorrect. Sharri Markson, who broke the story, tweeted yesterday that she asked Joyce if the baby was his and only proceeded with the story when they were satisfied he was treating the unborn child as his own. Then, we were reminded that the first question Leigh Sales asked him on 7.30 was this:

You have not commented yet on front page newspaper reports today that you are in a relationship with one of your former staffers, who is expecting your child. Is that accurate?

An opportunity, right there, to be honest. His answer? Well, Leigh, what I want to do is make sure that private matters remain private.The mother of missing toddler William Tyrrell has denied any role in his disappearance, urging her son's kidnapper to "let him come home" more than three years after he vanished.

Karlie Tyrrell also said the foster parents looking after her son when he went missing at the age of three had "failed" him and should feel guilty.

Karlie Tyrrell, mother of missing toddler William Tyrrell, says her children should never have been taken into foster care. Credit:Seven News

William Tyrrell vanished as he played in his foster grandmother's front yard on the NSW Mid North Coast the morning of September 12, 2014.

His disappearance sparked a mammoth police investigation and generated widespread public concern.A pet matchmaking service is attracting the attention of big name investors including Qantas with a raise of $5 million in funding.

Mad Paws matches pet owners and sitters and has also signed a commercial deal with the airline enabling Mad Paws users to accrue Qantas frequent flyer points for bookings including overnight pet hosting away from home, pet sitting at the pets home, dog walking, pet day care and house visits.

Mad Paws founders Jan Pacas and Alexis Soulopoulos with a Qantas staff member.

Other investors in the series A funding round include Microequities Venture Capital, Scale Up Media Fund, existing investor Madoch Ventures, and Tim Fung, chief executive and co-founder of Airtasker who will be joining the Mad Paws board.

Chief executive and co-founder, 27-year-old Alexis Soulopoulos had the idea for Mad Paws when he was at the University of Sydney and in 2014 he created a platform that allowed students to share pets with students who needed pet sitters.A dangerous sex offender, with a history of rape and biting women's breasts, remains locked up in WA because he has not demonstrated an ability to self-care and there is no suitable accommodation for him.

Ever since Mark Robert Unwin, 38, completed his last prison sentence of two years and four months in 2011, he has remained in custody under a continuing detention order.

Mark Robert Unwin remains behind bars. Credit:Louie Douvis

Justice Lindy Jenkins refused to revoke Unwin's continuing detention order at a review in October but her reasons have only now been published by the WA Supreme Court.

She noted Unwin had been distressed over the issue.From 22 January to 2 February 2017, Vietnam hosted the Theoretical Training on Cargo Control in the framework of the UNODC-WCO Container Control Programme (CCP) in Da Nang. The training was conducted by WCO technical experts who have already experience working in Vietnam. It was intended to support the establishment of a specialized Port Control Unit (PCU).

The training covered various aspects on different types of risks on smuggling via maritime containerized traffic such as risk management, risk analysis on commercial documents, risk indicators, container search, types of concealments, seal tampering and the modus operandi rip on / rip off, targeting security risks, an introduction to the WCO Strategic Trade Enforcement implementation guide, CITES, IPR as well as practical risk management exercises; WCO and UN conventions and human rights were also covered. Participating trainees were working in different areas such as intelligence, investigation, risk management and controls. A total of 24 customs officers from Vietnam, 4 of whom were women, participated in this training event.

Both the Vietnamese participants and the training experts were very satisfied with the outcomes of the training and are motivated to continue with the staged training concept applied by the CCP.

Currently, Port Control Units established in the framework of the CCP are operational in 48 countries; funding for 7 countries in total has been granted by the donors of this joint UNODC-WCO programme.

The implementation of this activity in Da Nang is funded by the Government of United States.Stinging rebuke for Biden's "boosters for all" planLoading...

The classics have proven a veritable source for adaptation over the last few years, with Anne Carson storming the ramparts with a Ben Whishaw-led Bakkhai in 2015, while last year Zinnie Harris transformed the Oresteia into a meditation on mental health at the Edinburgh International Festival.

So John Ward's punk-infused Electra, telling the tragic story of the cursed daughter of the murdered king Agamemnon, leaps into a contemporary context with ease. We meet the titular princess, ostracised in the palace of Argos, where her mother Queen Clytemnestra is now married to second husband (and dubious claimant to the throne) Aegisthus. Desperate to see her father avenged, Electra awaits her absent brother Orestes' return when he will stir up revolt against the existing order.

Whereas Harris' version of the tale found the intimate personal crisis in a fractured family, Ward pushes his lens further, out into the wider world of Argos that exists beyond the walls of Aegisthus' palace. The piece is set in a city reeling with the memory of a war won, but not one it profited from. There is unrest, and insurrection, the likes of which today's audiences will recognise in parallels with the Arab Spring or even the London riots.

Lydia Larson imbues Electra with a steely reservation, pining for a long-lost brother and sense of hope, the two synonymous in her mind. Sian Martin brings a political tactility to the doomed Queen, every inch the modern politician.

Ward's script thrives when at its most adventurous, grappling with modern themes of disillusioned youth and how easily those in political power can see their private lives exploited by the public eye. At one point Clytemnestra, a woman constantly scrutinised, is interviewed live on TV  "It's a strange thing", she says "to live so publicly, in a world of men". The inclusion of two PR moguls is an equally canny decision. But in a lengthy piece that mixes secular politics with tracts about the pantheon of gods, the adventurousness sometimes gives way to orthodoxy, and protracted sermons to Apollo hamper the modern vision of the text.

It's David Hewson's musical direction, coupled with the neon glow of Sam Wilde's set, that pushes the piece on  Electra hums and throbs, the clatter of floor toms and bass guitar performed by the cast of seven adding a sense of foreboding and impending dread. The quieter passages of music, as haunting as any score from a David Lynch film, were equally enthralling, underscoring the mournful moments of Electra's life, particularly her forced exile from the palace.

The music, for all its splendour, also feels underused and its interplay with the text only coming in short, sharp bursts. When the show hits its stride it explodes with power, especially during the second act, but at over two and a half hours, some cuts wouldn't go amiss.

Electra runs at Bunker Theatre until 24 March.VIDEO



Hello. Appreciation to all veterans & Cherokees whove served. Thank you! Learn more Cherokee here! Wado! pic.twitter.com/aVAs94VRUo So #WhatDidWesSay on the #Oscars last night? As Vietnam Vet @WesleyStudi introduced a montage of military movies, he said in our Cherokee languageHello. Appreciation to all veterans & Cherokees whove served. Thank you! Learn more Cherokee here! Wado! https://t.co/qc9yAx5ThP March 5, 2018

As Vietnam Vet Wesley Studi introduced a montage of military movies, he said in Cherokee language Hello. Appreciation to all veterans & Cherokees whove served."I see it as an acceptance of my participation in the business over a number of years," Studi said this week from his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. "It's like being invited to the party."It also signifies something larger, said Studi, whose credits include "Avatar," ''The Last of the Mohicans" and "Dances with Wolves.""It's a time when we're all hopefully embracing the diversity of the world we live in, and Hollywood has a way of reflecting that," he said.He may be the first American Indian presenter at the Oscars, Studi said, a possibility echoed by Sonny Skyhawk, an actor and longtime activist. Academy librarians were unable to confirm that because presenters aren't tracked.But the academy acknowledged that a scant number of Native Americans have taken part in the ceremony since it was launched  although famed humorist Will Rogers, who was of Cherokee heritage, did host in 1934.Nominations have gone to three Native Americans, all Canadian, including actors Chief Dan George in 1971 for "Little Big Man" and Graham Greene in 1991 for "Dances with Wolves" and musician Buffy Sainte-Marie in 1983 for the original song "Up Where We Belong," which won the Oscar.When "Dances with Wolves" won for adapted screenplay, writer Michael Blake invited film consultant Doris Leader Charge to join him onstage. She also translated his remarks into Lakota Sioux.There was one unexpected appearance: In 1973, actress and activist Sacheen Littlefeather subbed for Marlon Brando at his request, rejecting his best-actor award for "The Godfather." Brando had said his decision to refuse the trophy was, in part, to protest the depiction of Native Americans on-screen.By Jina Belcher Ground zero for federal efforts to boost communities reeling from the downturn[Read More]Close Get email notifications on Mike Holloway daily!

Your notification has been saved.

There was a problem saving your notification.

Whenever Mike Holloway posts new content, you'll get an email delivered to your inbox with a link.

Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.Ontario must stick together to fight U.S. protectionismWhen our elected representatives swear an oath of allegiance in Ontario's legislature, they are making a commitment to put the people of our province first. On Sunday, I sent a letter to the leaders of the Conservatives and NDP calling for their members to honour that commitment by supporting Bill 194, the Fairness in Procurement Act.We are swimming against a rising tide of protectionist sentiment in the United States  a current that only grew stronger last week with U.S. President Donald Trump's wrong-headed attack on the steel and aluminum industries. While we don't yet know the impact these proposed new tariffs will have on Ontario workers, they are just the latest in a disturbing trend of protectionist actions that threaten Ontario.Whether we're talking about the ongoing uncertainty over NAFTA or the emergence of "Buy American" laws at the state level, the free and fair trade upon which our businesses depend is at risk. In these uncertain times, we need to stand up for our workers and businesses. And the best way to do that is by putting partisan games aside and presenting a united front.The proposed Fairness in Procurement Act is one arrow in our quiver. It would enable Ontario to take a measured response when states like New York or Texas bring forward "Buy American" policies that tilt the playing field in their favour. Our U.S. partners need to know that we will not sit idly by while they dismantle the foundations of our shared prosperity. They need to know that protectionism leads nowhere. But by delaying and casting doubt on this important and timely legislation, the other parties are sending U.S. leaders a mixed message. The Conservatives and NDP are playing politics at a time when we can least afford it.Bill 194 is part of a broad and ongoing U.S. engagement strategy that our government is implementing. It includes extensive outreach on my part. Over the last year, I have met with 37 governors and dozens of Congress people, senators and senior members of the U.S. administration. I am making sure they understand exactly what is at stake.For the majority of the governors I have met with, Ontario is their state's top customer. We are the top customer for 20 states and number two for another eight. Millions of jobs on both sides of the border depend on NAFTA.The U.S. leaders I am meeting with appreciate that our partnership creates jobs. That's good news. But as these meetings have made clear, the jobs and opportunities that have been created under NAFTA are not always enough to steer U.S. politicians away from protectionist populism. There are myriad forces at play in the United States right now and we need all the leverage we can get. This is where Bill 194 comes in and why all party support is essential.When New York State first proposed "Buy American" provisions in its budget last year, the rules were extremely punitive to Ontario and would have given New York businesses an unfair advantage. I sent some of my most senior ministers to Albany to lobby against it. We were crystal clear that if they went ahead, we would respond.Initially, New York State was receptive. They backed down. But late last year, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a different piece of Buy American legislation into law and it is set to take effect on April 1. Texas has passed similar legislation.It would be irresponsible of us to allow businesses in New York or Texas to continue winning public procurement contracts in Ontario while our own businesses are shut out from similar opportunities in those states. This is why we need to pass the Fairness in Procurement Act. It will act as a powerful deterrent and, as a last resort, would allow us to level the playing field.But just as important as the ability for Ontario to take responsive actions under Bill 194 is the message that we can send: that in the face of U.S. protectionism, Ontario's political leadership is united. That no matter our party affiliation, we will always stand up for fair and free trade, because the well-being of our people depends on it.This bill is about the people we all represent. Their jobs. Their future. As Premier, it is my responsibility to stand up when Ontario's interests are threatened  but is not my responsibility alone. It is one I share with every member of the house. All MPPs must do their part and support Bill 194.Scott Surovell was a baby in a stroller when his mother took him to hearings on the Equal Rights Amendment in the early 1970s, and growing up, he often heard stories about the need for the ERA.

Now a Democratic state senator in Virginia, the 46-year-old has introduced a bill to ratify the ERA for the last six years, three when he was a member of the Virginia House and three in the Senate. Surovell has fallen short every time  most recently Feb. 9, when House and Senate committees quashed it. The Republican committee chairmen said floor votes were improper because the time limit for ratification set by Congress expired in 1982.

This years loss came despite a spirited demonstration by more than a hundred supporters in the Capitol, who sang We Shall Overcome and shouted Shame! Shame!

Many Americans either think the ERA is already part of the U.S. Constitution or that it has gone the way of John Travoltas white leisure suit in Saturday Night Fever. But the fight goes on, and it is drawing fresh momentum from the 2016 election and the #MeToo movement.

The Constitution says an amendment must be approved by three-fourths of the states. But it does not mention a deadline, so supporters argue that Congress can extend the 1982 ERA deadline again, or waive it. The 27th Amendment on congressional pay raises, for example, was ratified 203 years after Congress proposed it.

Nevada last March became the 36th state to approve the ERA, meaning that supporters need only two more states to reach the 38 required for ratification. Before Nevada, the last state to ratify had been Indiana in 1977.

The votes have all been hair-breadth losses  until Nevada, said Roberta W. Francis, ERA education consultant for the Alice Paul Institute, a nonprofit in New Jersey that advocates for women. This is a time when theres a lot more energy under the ERA.

Besides Nevada and Virginia, the states that did not ratify by the 1982 deadline are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Utah.

Twenty-three states have added equal rights amendments to their state constitutions, mostly during the years the national ERA effort was moribund. Oregon added an equal rights guarantee to its Constitution in 2014, and legislators in Delaware and Vermont are working on state ERAs this year.

Were seeing a sea change where its becoming much harder to deny the truths of womens voices, said Georgia state Sen. Nan Orrock, a Democrat who has worked to ratify the ERA during 31 years in the Legislature. Theres a palpable sense of women on the move.

Nevada surprise

The federal ERAs main provision states that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex.

An ERA was first introduced in Congress in 1923, and Congress approved it in 1972, sending it to the states for ratification with a deadline of 1979, and extending it in 1978, to 1982.

In the current Congress, U.S. Sen. Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, and U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat, have proposed removing the deadline, allowing the ERA to become part of the Constitution as soon as a 38th state ratifies it. U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat, would start over with new language in a fresh start amendment.

One question mark is how to count the five states  Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky and South Dakota  that later rescinded their ratifications. Courts have not ruled whether rescission is lawful.

In Nevada, the ERAs prospects were bleak until just recently. Democratic Nevada state Sen. Pat Spearman got nowhere when she pushed for ERA ratification in 2015.

Revival Nevada last March became the 36th state to approve the ERA, meaning that supporters need only two more states to reach the 38 required for ratification. Before Nevada, the last state to ratify had been Indiana in 1977.

People would tell me it was nothing more than a stunt, it didnt mean anything, and we shouldnt be wasting peoples time, she said.

But when Democrats won control of the Nevada Legislature in 2016, Spearman saw her chance. Another advantage: Female lawmakers now make up about 40 percent of the Nevada Legislature, as much as any state.

Last March, the Nevada Senate passed the measure 13-8, with all Democrats and one Republican female senator voting in favor. In the Nevada Assembly, the vote was 28-14, again with all Democrats and one Republican woman voting for passage.

If you had called me in mid-2016, I would not have said Nevada would ratify, said Bettina Hager, Washington, D.C., director of the ERA Coalition and Fund for Womens Equality, an advocacy group.

What happened was everything was lined up, Hager said. You need three things to be in play: a strong lead sponsor, advocates working on the ground, and the makeup of the Legislature. Nobody was expecting it to go that well.

Illinois as epicenter

Illinois, long the epicenter of the Stop ERA movement, is poised to be a battleground once again.

State Sen. Heather Steans, a Democrat, said a number of Republicans who support the ERA but fear a challenge from the right have told her privately they will vote for it in April, after the March 20 primary.

Pro-ERA groups have formed a coalition that is sponsoring screenings around the state of a documentary about women, Equal Means Equal.

Michelle Fadeley, the Illinois chapter president for the National Organization for Women, said for the last six months she has been speaking at least four times a month to large audiences at screenings. We are highly hopeful its going to happen this year in Illinois.

1972 rally A woman in a Los Angeles, California, crowd holds a sign reading THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT IS FOR EVERYONE in August 1972.

Phyllis Schlafly, who was born in St. Louis and lived in Alton, Illinois, was the face of the national fight against the ERA during the 1970s and early 80s. Schlafly argued that the amendment would lead to coed bathrooms, require women to be drafted into the military and taxpayers to pay for abortions, among other things.

Over the years, the kinds of changes in society Schlafly warned about have come to pass  without the ERA. Same-sex marriage and adoption by gay couples are legal, women voluntarily serve in combat, and mothers can be required to pay child support.

Schlafly died in 2016 at 92, but the Eagle Forum she founded continues the fight, using many of her arguments.

You could compel women to be drafted and put into combat, said Elise Bouc, chairwoman of Stop ERA Illinois. Now they have a choice, but theyd have to be drafted in equal ratios to men and placed in equal ratios in front-line combat.

The Catholic Conference of Illinois, which lobbies on behalf of church members in the state Capitol, also plans to oppose the ERA, said Bob Gilligan, conference executive director. The conference did not take a stand the last two legislative sessions, when it was focused on tax issues involving church schools.

This issue has been around since 1972, and many believe the clock has expired with the time allotted to pass the ERA, Gilligan said. Were also opposed because the language should more accurately reflect current issues. He said his group is worried that courts might use the ERA to mandate publicly funded abortions, or force Catholic hospitals to perform gender reassignment surgeries.

Stuck in the 70s?

But some legal scholars have the opposite worry: that the 1970s ERA isnt expansive enough.

My idea for the ERA today is we should not be stuck in the 1970s, said Julie C. Suk, professor at Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, who has studied equal rights measures around the world.

We need to start thinking about remaining inequalities  persistent pay inequity, lack of accommodation for pregnancies, and lack of paid parental leave, she said. Will the ERA help us solve these problems or stand in our way?

The current ERA language prohibits discrimination by states and the federal government but not corporations. Judges could decide what the amendment covers, Suk said, adding that for judges to understand the amendments intent, supporters need to be loud.

In Virginia, Surovell is planning his strategy for next year.

Im going to find a Republican chief sponsor, he said, noting that the ERA has bipartisan support in the General Assembly, and two Republicans on the Senate Rules Committee voted in favor.

All politicians  Republican and Democrat  need to be aware that women are very upset right now with whats going on in Washington, Surovell said. Theyre looking for an affirmative story.

Stateline is a news service of The Pew Charitable TrustsWhile you were so concerned about what Trudeau wore in India.Mandatory-minimum sentencing rules unravelling into patchworkCanada's web of mandatory-minimum jail terms is coming apart, leaving an uneven set of penalties for offenders, as judges in several provinces declare many such sentences grossly excessive and abhorrent.In dozens of cases, most of them in the past three years, judges have declined to apply the minimum sentences required in a variety of gun and drug crimes and sexual offences against children, The Globe and Mail has found in a review of the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII) national database of court rulings.Instead, they are setting aside these obligatory sentences for specified crimes, describing them as a form of "cruel and unusual punishment" prohibited by the Constitution. That has left the judges free in some instances to use house arrest as an alternative to jail.Only higher-level courts, such as superior courts of provinces and the Supreme Court of Canada, may strike a law down.Such courts have done so on more than 25 occasions involving more than a dozen different minimum sentences.The result is a patchwork of sentencing rules across the country. Although sentencing patterns normally vary somewhat in different regions, the Criminal Code is supposed to set out the basic ground rules uniformly across Canada. That is no longer true for sentencing in many drug, gun or sex crimes. Some mandatory minimums no longer exist in some jurisdictions, having been ruled unconstitutional, but are still being applied in others.Taken together, the actions at multiple levels of court, and in several provinces and territories, amount to a judicial rejection of a key component of the former Conservative government's tough-on-crime agenda.UPDATE: Utica College says that the lockdown has been lifted.



Photo taken at Utica College, courtesy of The Tangerine Photo taken at Utica College, courtesy of The Tangerine

Photo taken at Utica College, courtesy of The Tangerine Photo taken at Utica College, courtesy of The Tangerine

_______________________________



UPDATE: Utica College says that the school remains on lockdown, and all buildings have been safely evacuated, with students and staff being sent to two "safe zones."

A notice posted to the colleges Facebook page says that law enforcement conducted a thorough search of all campus buildings and a secondary sweep of all the buildings is currently underway.

The full update from UC reads:

"The Utica College campus continues to be on lockdown. A thorough search of all campus buildings has been conducted. All buildings have been safely evacuated by law enforcement, and students, faculty, and staff were escorted to Strebel Student Center and Clark Athletic Center, both of which were declared "safe zones" by law enforcement. A secondary sweep of all buildings is under way. The Utica Police Department continues to work with federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to investigate the threat.

Within the next half hour, faculty, staff, and non-residential students will be systematically released from campus. Remain where you are until you receive instruction from law enforcement. Residential students will be escorted back to their residence halls by law enforcement, and must remain there until the lockdown has been lifted. Again, the campus remains on lockdown. Individuals who leave campus will not be allowed to return until the lockdown has been lifted.

Please continue to follow updates distributed via the website, email, UC Alert, and the college's Facebook and Twitter."

The Utica Police Department will be holding a press conference regarding the situation at 4:45 p.m. We'll provide more information as it becomes available.

_______________________________

UPDATE: The lockdown at Utica College continues as law enforcement officers are helping to evacuate people from campus buildings.

At 1:24 p.m., Utica College posted the following update:

Armed police officers continue to evacuate campus buildings and escort individuals to safe locations. Please continue to shelter in place. There are no reports of any shots fired, injuries, or suspect in custody.

Utica, New York Mills, New Hartford, Sauquoit, Notre Dame, Whitesboro and Westmoreland schools are all on precuationary lockouts due to the situation at Utica College.

Utica, New York Mills, New Hartford, Notre Dame and Westmoreland schools have also cancelled their after-school activities today. Sauquoit and Whitesboro schools have canceled all outdoor activities.

_______________________________

UPDATE: Utica College and emergency officials are reporting that there is no confirmation of shots fired on campus, where local, state and federal law enforcement officials are on scene investigating a threat.

The latest message posted by Utica College states:

"There is no confirmation of any shots fired on campus, and there are no injuries reported. Law enforcement continues to investigate threat. Local, state, and federal law enforcement are on scene. Campus remains in lock down. Please follow all instruction from law enforcement."

Utica police say that around 11 a.m., Utica College received threats from an individual who said he was armed with a weapon.

"At this time there is no substantiation to any reports of an active shooter or shots fired on the campus, Utica police said in a news release. We will continue to investigate the incident and further follow up releases will be sent accordingly.

The Utica Police Department is the lead agency investigating the incident.

Utica, New York Mills, New Hartford, Sauquoit and Whitesboro schools are all on precuationary lockouts due to the situation at Utica College.

_______________________________

UPDATE: Utica College says that law enforcement will be evacuating school buildings and escorting people to a safe location.

A message posted to Utica Colleges Twitter page said that people on campus should continue to shelter in place until they receive a UC Alert instruction to do otherwise. Theyre also told to follow all instructions from law enforcement.

The most recent message posted says, Armed uniformed officers will be clearing buildings as soon as possible. Comply with all law enforcement instructions. If you are sheltered in place, you will be evacuated and escorted to a safe location. Please stay where you are until directed by law enforcement.

The Oneida County Department of Emergency Services posted on its Facebook page just after 12 p.m., There is NO active shooter at Utica College. The police are currently investigating a threat but there was no active shooter.

The Utica City School District and New York Mills Union Free School District are both under precautionary lockouts due to the Utica College Situation.

_______________________________

UPDATE: Utica College sent out another message to students and staff telling them to shelter in place due to a real, credible threat.

The message, which was also posted to the Utica College Twitter page, reads:

UC ALERT: Utica College is currently under a lock down due to a real, credible threat. Everyone on campus is to remain sheltered in place. Please get to a safe place and remain there until you are told the shelter in place direction has been lifted.

The Oneida County Sheriff's Office been dispatched to the scene, in addition to Utica police and state police.

All schools within the Utica City School District are currently under a precautionary lockout as well, according to district officals.

UC ALERT: Utica College is currently under a lock down due to a real, credible threat. Everyone on campus is to remain sheltered in place. Please get to a safe place and remain there until you are told the shelter in place direction has been

lifted.  Utica College (@uticacollege) March 5, 2018

_______________________________

UTICA  Utica College students and staff have received a message notifying them that the school is locking down due to a threat.

The message was sent out just after 11 a.m. and it stated, UC has received a threat and is locking down. Please remain where you are and lock doors until further notice.

The message was also posted to Utica Colleges Twitter account.

The Utica Police Department was called to the school at 10:58 a.m., according to the Oneida County 911 Center. New York State Police have been dispatched as well.

We will provide more information as it becomes available.UPDATE: The lockdown at Jarvis Middle School in Mohawk has ended, according to the Central Valley School District.

A notice posted on the districts website reads:

The lockdown at Jarvis Middle School has ended. School officials initiated the lockdown after the report of a specific threat against the school. Mohawk Police, Ilion Police, Herkimer Police, and New York State Police conducted a complete search of the school. After a thorough investigation, police determined the building, students, and staff to be safe.

Jarvis Middle School students will be dismissed at the normal time. All after school activities will take place as scheduled."

_________________________________

MOHAWK  Jarvis Middle School in Mohawk is currently under lockdown while police investigate a possible threat, according to a message sent to parents by the Central Valley School District.

The text message reads, Jarvis MS is in a precautionary lockdown while police investigate an unconfirmed threat against the school. All children and staff are safe.

Central Valley School District officials said a notice would be posted to their website, cvalleycsd.org, this afternoon.

NEWSChannel 2 crews are at Jarvis Middle School working to learn more information. We will provide more details as they become available.ROME  The Rome Police Department is asking for the public's help locating a suspect for this weeks Warrant of the Week.

Joshua Wright, 38, is wanted on a charge of first-degree criminal contempt for allegedly violating a court order with physical contact.

Wright is described as being 5 feet 10 inches tall, weighing 180 pounds.

If you have any information regarding Wrights whereabouts, you can send an anonymous tip to the Rome Police Department, or the Mohawk Valley Crime Stoppers. You can also call 911 or call Rome police at 315-399-7780.(NBC News) "The Shape of Water" won big at Sunday's Academy Awards.

The romance about a mute woman and a sea creature earned Best Picture and three other Oscars, including Best Director for Guillermo Del Toro.

"I was a kid enamored with movies growing up in Mexico. I thought this could never happen. It happens," the director said.

In the acting categories there were no surprises. Gary Oldman's portrayal of Winston Churchill in "Darkest Hour" brought him Best Actor, while supporting honors went to Allison Janney for "I, Tonya" and Sam Rockwell for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri".

That film's star, Francis McDormand, was overwhelmed by her second Oscar as Best aAtress.

McDormand saluted all of the night's female nominees, encouraging their continued support in Hollywood.

The night also produced some history.

"Get Out"'s writer and director, Jordan Peele, became the first African American to win Best Original Screenplay.

Read more: http://nbcnews.to/2D007mD



China News on Women





Sorry, the page you requested was not found. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Womenofchina.cn, try visiting the Womenofchina Home pageCrews from National Grid work to restore power to residents along Great Road in Lincoln Saturday, after large trees took down power lines during Fridays noreaster.NJ plant owners suspend funding pending legislation

05 March 2018

Share

The co-owners of the Salem nuclear power plant in New Jersey have suspended funding for future capital projects at the site after legislation to recognise the attributes of nuclear power plants faced delays in the state Senate. Similar action may be taken at the Hope Creek power plant.

Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) on 2 March notified the US Securities and Exchange Commission that the plant's co-owners, Exelon and PSEG Nuclear, had discussed the ongoing funding of capital projects at the plant. The two-unit pressurised water reactor plant is 57% owned by PSEG, with Exelon owning the remaining 43%.

"As a result of recent postponements in the New Jersey legislative process regarding a bill that would sufficiently value the attributes of nuclear generating stations serving New Jersey and the decline in the market energy revenues, Exelon Generation and PSEG Nuclear agreed, at a co-owners meeting held on February 28, 2018, to cancel the funding of future capital projects at the Salem generating station that are not required to meet Nuclear Regulatory Commission or other regulatory requirements or that are not required to ensure its safe operation," PSEG said.

"PSEG Nuclear anticipates that similar actions may be appropriate at its wholly-owned Hope Creek generating station in New Jersey as well, and the assessment of this is continuing," the company added.

New Jersey's four nuclear reactors - the single-unit Hope Creek and twin-unit Salem plants, and Exelon's single-unit Oyster Creek - together generate 38.5% of the state's electricity. PSEG previously said that without intervention Hope Creek and Salem were expected to be unable to continue operating economically and might have to close. Oyster Creek is already scheduled for early retirement in October, following changes to state water use rules that would have required the construction of new cooling towers at the plant.

Draft legislation to establish a zero emission certificate programme, which would credit nuclear power plants for their non-emission of carbon dioxide, was passed by Senate and Assembly committees on 23 February. Bill 877 was considered by the Senate on 26 February but failed to progress to a vote. According to NJ Spotlight, the bill's sponsor, Senate President Stephen Sweeney, said the bill requires further review. The bill also includes requirements to examine electricity storage, support for solar and wind energy initiatives, and measures to reduce electricity consumption.

PSEG said funding of capital projects at Salem may be restored "when and if legislation is enacted in New Jersey that sufficiently values the attributes of nuclear generation and Salem benefits from such legislation".

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

Related topicsUnion County Sheriff's Office(CHARLOTTE, N.C.) -- A North Carolina school bus driver was arrested on felony charges after allegedly making online threats to "shoot up" a middle school and ranting against immigrants, authorities said.



Lashauna Hooker Beachum, 32, of Charlotte, was taken into custody after the Union County Sheriff's Office received complaints from numerous residents that she posted the social media threat against Porter Ridge Middle School in Charlotte less than three weeks after a gunman killed 17 people at a Florida high school.



"The safety of our kids and schools is one of our highest priorities. Any comment, rumor or social media post mentioning violence on school property is unacceptable and will not be tolerated," Union County Sheriff Eddie Cathey said in a statement.



Beachum allegedly posted the threat on Facebook around 2 a.m. Friday, using a fake name, Tony Underwood, spokesman for Union County Sheriff's Office, told ABC News. The threat was removed, but was re-posted several hours later, he said.



In the Facebook post, the writer made expletive-laced references to three people and disparaging remarks aimed at "immigrants" in the Suburban Estates neighborhood of Charlotte, where Porter Ridge Middle School is located, sheriff's officials said.



"I'm sick of this school, these ... teachers and immigrants of Suburban Estates trying to take over the school," reads one of the post, obtained by ABC affiliate station WSOC-TV before it was taken down.



Apparently referring to President Donald Trump's attempts to overhaul the immigration system, including banning immigrants from several predominantly Muslim countries, the poster went on to write: "You all won't be satisfied until trump sends all you ... back out of here. i'm going to shoot up the school to help him out."



Detectives traced the Facebook messages to Beachum's residence and determined that she posted it, Underwood said. She was arrested on Sunday and released Monday morning on $20,000 bail, he said.



Detectives interviewed Beachum, but the motive behind the threat remains under investigation, Underwood said.



Underwood said Beachum was arrested on a felony warrant charging she made false reports concerning mass violence on educational property.



Beachum could not be reached for comment. It is unclear if she has hired an attorney.



Tahira Stalberte, spokeswoman for the Union County Public School District, told ABC News that Beachum was hired on Jan. 3 and was fired on Friday once district officials learned she allegedly made the threat.



Up until her dismissal, Beachum was "in good standing as an employee," Stalberte said.



The incident left parents such as Joshua Gregory so concerned he made his two sons stay home from classes at Porter Ridge Middle School on Friday after hearing about the threat. He said Beachum is his sons' bus driver.



"It just blew our mind. What if my kids were on the bus and she got angry?" Gregory told WSOC-TV. "It just goes to show you what lengths people are willing to go to when they have evil in their heart."



The threat was posted just 16 days after 19-year-old suspect Nikolas Cruz allegedly opened fire with an AR-16 assault rifle at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 14 students and three staff members.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.India and Vietnam enhance nuclear cooperation

05 March 2018

Share

India and Vietnam have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to strengthen their cooperation in nuclear energy. The agreement was one of three MoUs signed during Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang's visit to India.

Quy (left) and Basu (right) at the signing ceremony (Image: Indian Prime Minister's Office)

The MoU was signed on 3 March in New Delhi by Sekhar Basu, secretary of India's Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), and Dang Dinh Quy, Vietnam's deputy minister of foreign affairs. The signing was witnessed by Quang and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"The purpose of the MoU is to strengthen the technical cooperation in the field of atomic energy for peaceful purposes," the Indian Prime Minister's office said in a statement.

The MoU calls for cooperation between the DAE's Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership (GCNEP) and the Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute (VinAtom).

The GCNEP is a nuclear research and training centre under construction near New Delhi. The Indian government approved the establishment of the GCNEP in 2010, and construction began on the facility in January 2014. The centre is to house five schools to conduct research into advanced nuclear energy systems, nuclear security, radiological safety, nuclear material characterisation and applications for radioisotopes and radiation technologies. Training facilities are to include virtual reality laboratories and a radiation monitoring, calibration and accreditation laboratory.

VinAtom is a research and development institution under the Ministry of Science and Technology. Formed in 1976, its functions are to conduct fundamental and applied research on nuclear science and engineering, nuclear reactor technology, nuclear fuel and material, radiation protection and nuclear safety, and radioactive waste management technology.

During his visit, Quang also thanked India for extending support to Vietnam in building a research reactor for the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

Vietnam's nuclear plans

In February 2006 the Vietnamese government announced that a 2000 MWe nuclear power plant should be on line by 2020. This general target was confirmed in a nuclear power development plan approved by the government in August 2007, with the target being raised to a total of 8000 MWe nuclear by 2025. A general law on nuclear energy was passed in mid-2008, and a comprehensive legal and regulatory framework is being developed.

Since October 2008, two reactors totalling 2000 MWe had been planned at Phuoc Dinh in the southern Ninh Thuan province. A further 2000 MWe was planned at Vinh Hai nearby, followed by a further 6000 MWe by 2030.

However, in November 2016, Vietnam's legislature endorsed the government's decision to abandon plans to build the country's first two nuclear power plants in favour of renewable energy and power imports amid lower crude oil and coal prices.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

Related topicsIAEA brings PWR training to Middle East

05 March 2018

Share

The International Atomic Energy Agency has launched the first regional training course in the Middle East on pressurised water reactors (PWRs). In cooperation with the University of Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates, the course took place between 19 and 23 February and brought together more than 20 participants from eight IAEA Member States at the university's College of Engineering.

A course participant using the PC-based nuclear reactor simulator software (Image: IAEA)

The Vienna-based agency said today that the development and management of national nuclear power programmes requires systematic and continuous training for qualified nuclear professionals. This drives a need for developing and updating existing nuclear education and training programmes, it added.

In support of human resource development in Member States, the IAEA uses PC-based simulators to actively train nuclear professionals. These can simulate actual operational conditions of nuclear power plants and include 'what to do' during power fluctuations, starting and stopping cooler pumps, bringing the turbine generator into and out of service, and moving control rods.

Wallid Metwally, vice dean and associate professor at the College of Engineering, said: "Given the IAEA's wealth of experience and various tools, our engagement with the Agency is critical for the success of such courses. The training course successfully educated the participants, ensuring that they will become future trainers themselves."

These training sessions also teach participants what technical measures are necessary to implement in ensuring reactor safety during accidents. First-hand response simulations ensure that students fully understand and can effectively apply theoretical content, according to the IAEA statement.

Tatjana Jeremovic, technical officer from the IAEA's Nuclear Power Technology Development Section, said: "These courses are highly suitable for operators, maintenance technicians, suppliers, regulators, students, and engineers. In addition to five other regional training courses conducted last year, this course in Sharjah brings our total number of trained participants to 125, from over 20 Member States."

Launching this first regional training course in Sharjah, is expected to aid research and development institutions, universities, operators, and regulatory bodies in newcomer countries, including those that are considering adding nuclear power to their energy mix, the IAEA said.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

Related topicsEmail Sign Up For Our Free Weekly Newsletter

Sign Up Free | The WPJ Weekly Newsletter Relevant real estate news.

Actionable market intelligence.

Right to your inbox every week. Go Thank you for your interest!

You will now be receiving our Weekly Real Estate Newsletter.

Real Estate Listings Showcase

According to a new report by Cushman & Wakefield, China has reclaimed top spot for the most attractive market for manufacturing, confirming its status as the sector's powerhouse. Last year's number one ranked country, Malaysia, falls to third place behind Lithuania.Cushman & Wakefield's Manufacturing Risk Index report ranks countries based on a range of risk and cost factors, including political and economic risk, market conditions and labor costs, to provide a comprehensive assessment of the attractiveness of 42 countries worldwide.China was ranked first in the baseline index due to its efficient supply chains and infrastructure networks that continue to provide a reliable export platform, despite cost-sensitive production increasingly moving to lower cost countries in the Asia Pacific region. Malaysia fell to third position as it shifts from being a low-cost location to a high-value manufacturing hub, but the country remains extremely attractive and has largest pool of skilled workers in the region.Lithuania is ranked as the world's second-most attractive destination for manufacturers, a result of having the lowest European labor costs in the CEE (Central & Eastern Europe) region, standing at 14% below Poland and 30% below the Czech Republic. Another factor in its success is that it is considered the second-easiest country in which to do business within the CEE region.The UK, placed 31st in the 2018 rankings, has benefited from the devaluation of sterling since the Brexit vote which has boosted demand for UK goods abroad. The UK is ahead of The Netherlands (34th), Germany (38th) and France (39th) in the global table. However, depending on the outcome of Brexit negotiations, the UK's attractiveness as a location to serve the rest of Europe could be at risk as a hard border with the rest of Europe would increase the cost of goods and disrupt pan-European supply chains. In terms of Advanced Production rankings, when only high-tech manufacturing is considered, the UK is ranked 3rd behind the USA (1st) and Singapore (2nd), with Western Europe dominating the rest of the top 10.Robert Hall, Cushman & Wakefield's Chair of Industrial & Logistics, EMEA said, "Location and supply chains continue to be the key concerns for the manufacturing sector. Central and Eastern European countries remain highly attractive and globally competitive, as overall labor costs in the region are relatively low and infrastructure investment increases connectivity with the rest of Europe. With Brexit looming and border controls potentially tightening between EU member states, the emphasis remains not only on the free flow of goods, but also the free movement of workers to relieve critical labor shortages across Europe."The region accounts for five of the top 10 markets. In Central Europe, close proximity to Western European economies and improved infrastructure in the form of new motorways have significantly boosted the appeal of Hungary (ranked 7th), Czech Republic (8th) and Slovakia (9th). Whilst labor costs have increased in recent years, they are still below those further west.These wage hikes, as well as growing labor shortages, have in turn increased the attractiveness of locations further east, including Lithuania (2nd), Turkey (10th), Romania (16th) and Bulgaria (19th). As well as the lowest labor costs, Lithuania was only beaten by Estonia for ease of doing business. In emerging manufacturing locations Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria comparatively weaker infrastructure and geopolitical uncertainty continue to act as a deterrent from manufacturers locating their plants. Poland took 17thposition.Joanna Sinkiewicz, Partner, Head of Industrial and Logistics Agency, Cushman & Wakefield Poland also commented, "Manufacturing Risk Index is our annual publication that presents the world's most attractive manufacturing locations and changing trends. The report looks at key factors which face companies when deciding where to locate new manufacturing facilities, including business environment, risks and costs. Poland has been consistently ranked high in the global manufacturing risk index for years, but has now slipped four places to 17th compared to 2016. We should work on reducing investor risks as improving the perception of Poland will clearly add to the attractiveness of our country."France, Italy, and Spain registered the fastest year-on-year growth in industrial production in the Eurozone in 2017 and are ranked 39th, 38th and 30th respectively. A combination of decreasing wages, more flexible labor laws, and highly skilled labor force has contributed to robust growth in manufacturing output since late 2016 in these countries.Report author Lisa Graham, EMEA Head of Logistics & Industrial Research & Insight at Cushman & Wakefield stated, "Following recent fiscal crises and austerity packages in countries across southern Europe, some economies are now seeing a rise in industrial growth and attracting new business in a highly competitive market. Spain's automotive industry is the second largest in Europe, accounting for 20% of their total exports and is playing a key role in the country's manufacturing rebound. There are currently over one thousand specialized auto suppliers in Spain, placing them 6th globally in terms of turnover, and 17 automotive production plants. Ford Motors' new plant in Valencia is the company's largest in Europe, demonstrating strong confidence in Spain's labor reforms and support for its manufacturing sector."China (1st), Malaysia (2nd) and Taiwan (4th) account for three of the top four spots in the global rankings. Taiwan has gained a reputation for electronics components manufacturing with Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in this sector reaching a six-year high in 2016, highlighting its continued appeal. The government's investment policy also supports the machinery, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, 'green' innovation, and national defense sectors. Other countries to feature in the top 20 include the Philippines (12th), Thailand (15th), Singapore (18th) and Indonesia (20th).Manufacturing is key to the ongoing growth of the region, with GDP per capita in Asia forecast to increase by nearly 25% in the next five years, with China (currently world's second-highest GDP) and India (currently sixth-highest GDP) expected to see growth rates in the region of 30%. By 2020, manufacturing's share of GDP will exceed 20% in the top 60 largest global economies. In China, manufacturing will still account for a massive 30% of GDP in 2025.Canada (5th) and the U.S. (6th) are among the top 10 in the rankings. A sound business environment, high-quality infrastructure, and availability of skilled labor contribute to their attractiveness as manufacturing locations.The recent announcements from Toyota/Mazda and Samsung to make additional investments in new plants in the U.S. are fueling hopes of reshoring. Following a similar announcement made by rival LG, Samsung recently made public its plan to invest $300 million in the construction of a new appliance manufacturing factory in South Carolina.However, President Trump's aversion to NAFTA treaty has cast a level uncertainty on the future shape of the North American supply chains. While currently unlikely, a withdrawal of the U.S. would penalize Mexico and Canada as manufacturing bases.Passengers on a flight from Malaysia to Bangladesh were shocked to see a young man stripping naked and pleasuring himself while watching pornography, according to police.

The incident unfolded on Saturday, on Malindo Air Flight OD162 from Kuala Lumpur to Dhaka.

The 20-year-old college student from Cyberjaya University sat down in his seat and urinated.

He then stripped naked and went to the bathroom.

When the young man got back to his seat, he opened his laptop and began watching porn.

The man, who was not identified, then began pleasuring himself.

When the flight attendants confronted him and urged the college student to put on his clothes, he attacked them.

That is when other passengers stepped in and restrained the college student.

His hands and feet were then tied up with a cloth.

The naked passenger remained tied up until the end of the flight.

When the flight landed in Dhaka, the suspect was arrested by the police who waited for the student at the gate.

Malindo Air said in a statement that the college students behavior was unacceptable and he was banned from future flights.Have you seen Stuart Lymer, wanted in connection with the disappearance of 17 year old Jessica Roe

This article is old - Published: Sunday, Mar 4th, 2018

Staffordshire Police are this evening widely circulating the above picture of missing Jessica Roe aged 17, who is believed to be with Stuart Lymer aged 45.

Chief Constable Staffordshire Police, Gareth Morgan, said tonight: We need your help to find Jessica & arrest Lymer. Were appealing for sightings & whereabouts please.

Stuart Lymer, 45, is wanted in connection with the disappearance of Jessica due to her age

Staffordshire Police said: We are becoming increasingly concerned about the welfare of a 17-year-old girl who has gone missing from Cannock.

We believe Jessica Roe is with 45-year-old Stuart Lymer from Uttoxeter. He is now wanted in connection with the disappearance of Jessica due to her age.

Jessica was last seen at 1pm on Friday (2 March) when it is believed she got into a van with Lymer at Tesco in Heath Hayes, Cannock. The van has since been found on a car park in Stafford. Enquiries are ongoing to establish where they travelled to afterwards. 

Detective Inspector Alan Lyford said: We have genuine concerns for Jessicas safety, particularly whilst she is in the company of Lymer. There is no suggestion that Jessica was forcibly taken, however we need to bring her home to ensure she is safe.

Jessica is described as white, 5ft 2 and of medium build. She has brown eyes and short black hair. Please note that Jessicas hair is darker and shorter than in the photo. She was last seen wearing a black coat and black trousers.

Anyone who has seen Jessica or Stuart or anyone who has any information about their whereabouts is urged to call Staffordshire Police immediately on 101 quoting incident number 696 of 2 March. Alternatively call independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

(Although this is outside our usual coverage area several people have pointed us to the widening appeal)Invite to Dydd Llun Pawb coming through your door this week!

This article is old - Published: Monday, Mar 5th, 2018

Everyone in Wrexham will be getting a copy of this leaflet through their door, inviting them to the grand opening of Ty Pawb in a few weeks time.

Ty Pawb  Wrexhams new 4.5 million arts and market space  is opening on April 2nd with a large opening event planned including a parade through town and fun for all the family.

Stalls will be setup and open from midday with a variety of local traders selling food, drinks, crafts, and more.

At 12:30pm a grand parade featuring 100s of representatives from local community groups, marching alongside some very special giants and led by the fantastic Band Pres Llareggub Brass Band  on the route below.

Co-organiser Neal Thompson told us: Were getting really excited for the day we have planned for the grand opening of Ty Pawb on easter monday (2nd April). Were expecting visitors from far and wide on the day, but we also want to make sure everyone in Wrexham knows about the launch of their brand new arts and markets hub in the town centre.

Thats why well be delivering an invite to join us for Dydd Llun Pawb parade and free street festival, through the letterbox of every household in Wrexham county this week.

An outdoor stage will be set up on the southern end of Chester Street, with the programme reading:

2.30pm  Delta Academy Choir

3.30pm  Black Park Accordion Club

4.30pm  Band Pres Llareggub Brass Band

5.30pm  Wrexham Community Choir

6.30pm  Baby Brave

7.30pm  The Big Beat

8.15pm  Grand Finale with Fireworks!

Inside the newly opened Ty Pawb the programme is:

12pm  5pm  Childrens Play Area with Play Day. Playday is the UK wide celebration of Childrens Right to Play. Help us create one big and very playful environment. This event offers something for everyone who enjoys playing including the chance to get wet and messy!

6pm New Sinfonia Orchestra

3pm and 4pm  Delta Academy Juniors 5pm and 6pm  Popstarz Academy

6pm  Guided Tour of Ty^ Pawb. As well as performances throughout the building throughout the day.

You can see the full digital version of the leaflet that is going out to all homes in the Wrexham area on this PDF.

If you are thinking of attending organisers are keen for you to mark yourself as interested or going via their Facebook event page here!In a new attack on free speech, the European Union (EU) is calling on major social media and Internet firms including Facebook, Twitter and Google to automatically and immediately censor online material.

On March 1, the EU Commission called on companies and EU states to ensure the detection and removal of illegal content through reactive (so called notice and action) or proactive measures. It also identified a vast amount of material targeted for censorship. According to the Commission, its recommendations apply to all forms of content ranging from terrorist content, incitement to hatred and violence, child sexual abuse material, counterfeit products and copyright infringement.

Considering that terrorist content is most harmful in the first hours of its appearance online, all companies should remove such content within one hour from its referral as a general rule, it said.

The measures the EU is discussing would force companies to create programs, answerable to no one, to trawl the Internet and delete users content. This would consolidate censorship measures the EU proposed last year via the EU Internet Forum, which called on tech firms to work to develop automatic removal of online content.

The EU hailed moves in this direction that have already taken place. According to the EU, Twitter reported that three quarters of the 300,000 accounts removed between January and June 2017 were deleted before posting their first Tweet. According to YouTube, more than 150,000 videos have been removed since June 2017. Once aware of a piece of terrorist content, Facebook removes 83 percent of subsequently uploaded copies within one hour of upload.

The EU justified its policy with shopworn claims about the fight against terrorism. While several platforms have been removing more illegal content than ever before ... we still need to react faster against terrorist propaganda and other illegal content which is a serious threat to our citizens security, safety and fundamental rights, said Digital Commissioner Andrus Ansip.

Press accounts of the latest EU demand for censorship cited the need, as the Guardian put it, to fight extremist content on the web that has influenced lone-wolf attackers who have killed people in several European cities after being radicalised.

The argument that EU censorship is aimed at so-called lone-wolf terrorists is a lie, above all because lone-wolf terrorists are largely a political fiction. The major terror attacks in Europe were carried out not by isolated individuals, but by members of Islamist networks active in NATOs proxy wars in the Middle East, and who were actively watched and protected for that reason by European intelligence.

The organizers of terrorist attacks in France in 2015 and in Belgium in 2016 were well known to the intelligence services. The Kouachi brothers who led the Charlie Hebdo attack, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the leader of the 13 November 2015 attacks in Paris, and the El Bakraoui brothers who carried out the 22 March 2016 Brussels attacks were all well known to European intelligence. They were allowed to travel freely and prepare their attacks, as their networks were intelligence assets operating under state protection.

Similarly, the links of the Islamic State militia to Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri and Manchester bomber Salman Abedi were well known to German and British intelligence, respectively, before they attacked. These attacks were seized on by the EU powers to intensify police-state measures that shred basic democratic rights, such as the state of emergency in France.

Now, the red herring of the fight against lone-wolf terrorists is serving as a pretext for yet further attacks on Internet freedom and freedom of speech.

These attacks are well advanced. The EU wants the same IT companies that work closely on Internet censorship with a wide variety of states, above all Washington and the US intelligence agencies, to use similar methods to trample on freedom of speech and other democratic rights in Europe. This is what emerged from recent remarks by Julian King, the EU Commissioner for Security.

Censorship like that being proposed by the EU, King said, is not only possible, its being done already by a number of the larger platforms. He called for proactive measures to identify and remove illegal content, including automated means such as upload filters, where this is appropriate. He also called on IT firms to cooperate with EU member States, trusted flaggers and among themselves to work together and benefit from best practices.

Such remarks are a warning. US politicians and IT firms have openly declared that they are seeking to carry out politically targeted censorship, aiming to promote trusted news outlets that function as little more than state propaganda outlets. Above all, these censorship measures are being implemented to restrict access to socialist and antiwar publications, such as the World Socialist Web Site, amid rising opposition to war and austerity among American workers and youth.

Last summer, the WSWS identified that a dramatic decline in its readership, together with that of other socialist, antiwar, and progressive web sites, resulted from Googles implementation of a new algorithm aiming to promote authoritative news sources over alternative sources of information.

Now, under the guise of fighting terrorist content, the EU is similarly seeking to implement repressive measures to censor the Internet that are squarely aimed at rising social and political discontent internationally. Major European powers are already enacting similar censorship laws at the national level. Since January 1, the German Network Enforcement Law has been in effect, enabling Berlin to regulate and censor the Internet along similar lines as the Trump administration and its attack on net neutrality in the United States.

In the name of fighting illegal content, the EU aims to target any oppositional views that challenge its plans to slash social spending to finance remilitarization and wars abroad.

As the German ruling elite prepares a new coalition government between the Social Democrats and Christian democrats, the parties involved in the new government have called for strengthening the German armed forces and German influence worldwide, as well as major increases in military spending.

In France, President Emmanuel Macron has announced 300 billion in military spending over the next 6 years, as well as calling for deep cuts in basic social programs and a return of the draft.

It is in this contextamid deep popular opposition to EU austerity and militarism, amid recent strikes across Europe, from German metalworkers and British rail workers to Romanian autoworkersthat the EU is seeking to set up the censorship of the Internet and social media.

The author also recommends:

For an international coalition to fight Internet censorship

[23 January 2018]Lecturers at public universities across Kenya went on strike on March 1, citing low salaries and back pay owed to them. The action is a renewed effort by the lecturers unionsthe Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) and the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU)nearly three months after a strike in December that ended with lecturers receiving non-binding promises from the government to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, including increased salaries.

This time the lecturers have vowed to continue the strike until their demands for increased salaries and funding to upgrade facilities are met by the government.

The lecturers have additionally demanded access to other services that are generally available to employees in the public sector, such as car loans and higher quality medical insurance. On the issue of poor wages, the lecturers and other public employees have blamed pervasive government corruption, which allows officials to swipe funds allocated to the public sector.

In announcing the strike, UASU General Secretary Constantine Wasonga stated, We want salary structures that will do away with distortions that barely make sense. As a professor, I earn less than my students who are KMPDU members.

The walkout by lecturers has paralyzed public universities across the country, with facilities shuttered and classes suspended. A number of public hospitals and clinics have also been closed, as several hundred medical student interns are participating in the strike.

At the center of the conflict between the lecturers and the Ministry of Education is the previous years budget, which factored in paltry salary increases for lecturers and professors employed at Kenyas 31 public universities. The other major issue is the Vice Chancellors Committees failure to implement the pay increases.

Many public universities have fallen into disrepair and neglect after successive governments slashed funding for the public university system, leaving facilities in desperate need of renovation. The ability of universities to provide quality education has been undermined by obsolete facilities and equipment, together with overworked and underpaid academic staff.

The lack of funding for Kenyas public university system was illustrated in a February 12 letter addressed to Ministry of Education Secretary Amina Mohamed titled Crisis in Public Universities Due to Underfunding. The letter, signed by numerous academic staff from several public universities, paints a grim picture of a university system on the brink of collapse.

Besides the funding shortfall for renovation of facilities and salaries of current staff, the letter highlights a deficit of 3.5 billion Kenyan shillings (more than $34 million) in pension benefits owed to retired staff.

For its part, the Kenyatta government has displayed its contempt for academic staff and students alike by refusing to respond or table a counter-offer to lecturers. Officials have made various statements in the media painting striking workers as criminals and blackguarding them for delaying students education and graduation.

The Kenyan ruling elite sits atop a social powder keg that threatens to erupt into open class struggle. At one end a corrupt elite hoards massive wealth, while at the other end the Kenyan masses struggle to survive.

For their part, the UASU and KMPDU pursue the material interests of the Kenyan elite. These organizations seek to subjugate workers to the authority of the profit system and are neither able nor willing to carry out the necessary fight to unite the entire Kenyan working class against capitalism, which is the root cause of declining wages and social inequality.A South Korean delegation headed by two top security officials is due to arrive in Pyongyang today for high-level talks aimed at lowering acute tensions on the Korean Peninsula and paving the way for negotiations over North Koreas nuclear and missile programs.

A statement from the presidential Blue House in Seoul said National Security Office (NSO) head Chung Eui-yong and National Intelligence Service (NIS) chief Suh Hoon, would be part of a 10-person delegation. The presence of Chung and Suh suggests that South Korean officials want to put the issue of North Koreas denuclearisation on the agenda.

The presidential statement indicated that the delegation will attempt to arrange talks between North Korea and the United States despite the obstacles involved. The Trump administration has repeatedly insisted that the Pyongyang regime must take steps to denuclearisethat is, agree to US demands in advancebefore any talks can proceed.

North Korea has emphatically ruled out any preconditions to talks with the US. The foreign ministry on Saturday condemned Washingtons refusal to hold a dialogue with conditions as a preposterous action.

We have [the] intention to resolve issues in a diplomatic and peaceful way through dialogue and negotiation, but we will neither beg for dialogue nor evade the military option claimed by the US, Pyongyang declared, adding: We have the full capability and will to confront any option favoured by the US.

While tensions on the Korean Peninsula eased temporarily during the Winter Olympics held in South Korea, Vice President Mike Pence and other US officials attending the sporting event deliberately snubbed members of the North Korean delegation. The situation will quickly become tenser as the South Korean and US militaries hold major joint military exercises, starting early next month.

The annual drills, Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, were delayed to enable a North Korean team to take part in the Olympics. They will involve hundreds of thousands of troops backed by US naval and air power. The war games are clearly aimed against the Pyongyang regime and are a rehearsal of military plans that include pre-emptive strikes against North Korea and decapitation raids to kill its top leaders.

In the past, North Korea has condemned the annual exercises as preparations to invade. On Saturday, its official KCNA news agency declared that the drills would harm reconciliation between the two Koreas.

If the US finally holds joint exercises while keeping sanctions on the DPRK [North Korea], the DPRK will counter the US by its own mode of counteraction and the US will be made to own all responsibilities for the ensuring consequences, the KCNA commentary warned.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is walking a fine line in attempting to set up talks between the US and North Korea, without, at the same time, allowing Pyongyang to drive a wedge between South Korea and its military ally, the US.

Last Monday, during a meeting with Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Yandong, Moon said North Korea and the US had indicated their willingness to hold talks. He appealed for both sides to make concessions. There is a need for the United States to lower the threshold for talks with North Korea and North Korea should show it is willing to denuclearise, he said.

Moon stressed the urgency, saying: It is important the United States and North Korea sit down together quickly.

The Trump administration has issued bellicose threats to attack North Korea if it develops a nuclear missile capable of reaching continental America. CIA chief Mike Pompeo declared in January that North Korea was a handful of months away from crossing Washingtons red line.

South Koreas envoys will travel to Washington following their trip to Pyongyang to brief top US officials on the talks. However, there is no sign that the White House is prepared to make any concessions to enable negotiations to go ahead. Last year, Trump publicly rebuked US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for wasting his time in seeking to set up talks with North Korea.

On February 24, Trump again insisted that discussions would take place only under the right conditions, otherwise were not talking. He warned that the US would move to phase two, which would be very, very unfortunate for the world. A few days later, Trump again threatened North Korea, saying: Were talking about tremendous potential loss of lives, numbers that nobodys even contemplated, never thought of.

Speaking at an annual Gridiron Dinner on Saturday, Trump joked about the possibility of talks with North Korea. Now were talking. They, by the way, called up a couple of days ago, they said we would like to talk, he declared facetiously during a rambling speech. And I said, so would we, but you have to denuke.

Trumps frivolous attitude to talks with North Korea only underscores his administrations aggressive and reckless policy that could, by his own admission, trigger a catastrophic war costing the lives of millions.

China has already reacted to the danger of war on the Korean Peninsula by reinforcing its military presence on its border with North Korea. In early February, the Chinese military test-fired its anti-missile system. Beijing is not concerned simply at the prospect of a flood of North Korean refugees, but the threat that the US and its allies would transform the country into an American client-state.

Speaking on Sunday ahead of the opening of Chinas National Peoples Congress this week, Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui appealed for talks between the US and North Korea. War and chaos on the peninsula is not in the interests of any side, he said.

Russia, which also borders North Korea and confronts the US and its proxies in Syria, has expressed deep concern. Asked about the danger of war, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed out last week that the White House had clearly stated that all options are on the table. He warned that a conflict would be a humanitarian disaster which could claim the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of civilians.

In an ominous new development, prominent US newspapers are linking North Korea with the Syrian conflict, accusing Pyongyang, with any substantiation, of providing the Syrian military with chemical and other weapons. Linking North Korea with Syria, in order to provide another pretext for war against Pyongyang, only heightens the danger that other powers will be quickly dragged into a conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

The author also recommends:

US media airs pretexts for preemptive attack on North Korea

[3 March 2018]Teachers in Oklahoma are angry. They are threatening to follow West Virginia educators in statewide strike action against an intransigent legislature entirely beholden to the energy industries and big businesses.

Teachers from Oklahoma stand with West Virginia, an Oklahoma teacher and supporter of the Facebook group Oklahoma Teachers United (OTU) told the WSWS. On Friday of next week [March 9] Oklahoma teachers will go to the national media and announce a strike date. Hang strong West Virginia! We need your courage as we approach the microphone.

Oklahoma teachers have been paid on the same salary scale for the last 10 years. Like West Virginia, their last statewide strike was in 1990. The Oklahoma Education Association (OEA) union has steadfastly opposed strike action, citing its illegality. In response to the years of both legislative and union indifference, teachers have now organized independently through social media to demand action.

Another Facebook group, Oklahoma Teacher Walkout  The Time is Now! has ballooned to more than 40,000 members within a week. A meeting of several dozen teachers from seven districts around the state was held Friday in Oklahoma City. The groups have discussed a possible walkout April 2, during the period of standardized testing, or not returning after spring break. They have publicized a list of 30 school districts in which the state superintendents have agreed to suspend school to support teachers. Other educators have made their views known, with one posting, It needs to be more than just a one-day deal.

Students have continued to show their support for teachers. Bartlesville High School students walked out Friday, February 23 carrying signs We Love Our Teachers to protest the education funding cuts. Students at Oneta Ridge Middle School walked out last Wednesday to support educators.

While passing huge tax cuts to large energy companies and to the top individual income-earners, the Oklahoma legislature has enacted budget cuts making its educators salaries 50th out of 50 states. The recently-released ranking from the Bureau of Labor Statistics report of 2016 has only added fuel to the fire among teachers.

Ten years is long enough, one educator told the WSWS. Nothing has happened except the oil and gas companies are getting richer while were getting poorer. We cant even afford to go to the doctor when were sick. The union should have been out front in this, and theyve accomplished nothing.

According to a January report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Oklahoma has cut per capita student funding by 28.2 percent over the last decadethe most drastic decline in the country. The defunding of public education in the state has also resulted in crippling teacher churn. Tulsa Public Schools lost 35 percent of it teachers within two years, according to the Tulsa World.

Over 100 school districts in the state have gone to a four-day class schedule to cut maintenance and transportation costs. Facing a dire teacher shortage, school districts are granting emergency credentials to willing adults and placing them in the classroom. There are currently 1,850 such people teaching school in the state. This year, I emergency-certified my secretary, Penny Risley, the principal of an elementary school in Wagoner, told The Economist.

Molly Jaynes told local media KTUL, Frustration levels are high, so a strike is not a touchy word anymore. I think we have surpassed the point of conversations, and I dont think that theres anything the legislators have provided us recently to give us any sort of hope that theyre going to take actual actions this time.

An Oklahoma Teacher Walkout? petition has garnered almost 20,000 signatures of teachers and others calling for a raise of $10,000 per year. The comments from the signees tell the story of pent-up anger and resentment. Gay La Carmichael wrote, Im tired of being told all the good teachers are leaving. Im tired of being told I knew what I was getting into when I chose to become a teacher. Im tired of scraping by to pay my bills. Im tired of hot gluing and taping my textbooks together. My students deserve better. I deserve better.

When asked about the reaction of the Oklahoma Education Association, the OTU supporter told the WSWS, We went to the union a year ago and told them about our strategic plan, and we asked for their support. We were told in no uncertain terms, You will get none!

The OEA announced in February its support for a bill calling for a regressive tax on fuel and cigarettes that would supposedly fund a $5,000 pay increase for teachers. This grossly inadequate increase, even endorsed by Governor Mary Fallin, was spurned by educators who said that a $10,000 a year increase is the minimum. The paltry measure was defeated in any event.

An elementary school teacher told the WSWS that several of the teachers in her school were increasingly dissatisfied with the union. One teacher recently told her, Im seriously thinking about quitting the union because they havent accomplished anything.

For their part, Democrats have shed crocodile tears for the teachers, blaming the Republicans for the tax cuts awarded to the states largest industries, oil and gas. However, Democrats dominated the state for nearly 100 years after it joined the Union in 1907, during which time adequate education funding was never attained.

Under Democratic Governor Brad Henry, bipartisan agreements resulted in deep tax cuts for the states wealthy between 2004 and 2007, laying the basis for catastrophic cuts to schools. The slashing of income taxes has continued apace under Republican Governor Mary Fallin, with annual savings since 2005 to top earners estimated at $1.022 billion according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

Meanwhile the energy industry has not only netted billions in profits, but the legislature has also handed the oil-and-gas industry $300 million to $500 million yearly in direct tax breaks. Among the most profitable corporations reaping tax rewards in the state are Exxon Mobil, Halliburton, Valero Energy, Phillips 66, Chevron, Patterson-UTI Drilling and military contractors Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrup Grumman.

All of these measures have exacerbated the social crisis in the state. Oklahoma is one of the hungriest states in the nation, with one in four children experiencing hunger every day. State support for higher education has been cut by $76 million since 2009. The dire budget cuts to education have had huge implications for educators and their families, driving up class sizes and eliminating programs.

Many teachers are working two jobs to make ends meet, a special education teacher told the WSWS. Another said, I am driving a 15-year-old car with 200,000 miles on it. I have two daughters in college, using student loans they will have to pay back for the rest of their lives. Our insurance has shot up so high that we have only a few hundred dollars a month to buy food and incidentals after we pay our mortgage. I am hoping a pay increase will come before my car dies completely.

The unions have done nothing but to impede progress we might have made without them. And, we cant wait any longer on them.

The author recommends:

Growing opposition to public education cuts in Oklahoma

[22 February 2018]

Bodies of five workers recovered at site of Oklahoma gas well blast

[24 January 2018]Last Thursdays announcement by President Donald Trump of sweeping tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium marks March 1, 2018 as a date that will resonate in economic history.

It is not just the size of the tariffs themselvesa 25 percent impost on steel and 10 percent on aluminiumthat is significant, but the fact that they are being imposed on national security grounds, a justification supposedly reserved for wars or national emergencies.

The measures threaten to set off a series of retaliatory measures by Canada, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and other nominal allies of the US, as well as China.

In the lead-up to the actual signing of the tariff measures by Trump, expected later this week, there is a push by US allies for exemptions. But that appears to have been ruled out by the head of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, Peter Navarro, who said over the weekend that while there may be exemptions for specific businesses, they would not apply to individual countries.

Whatever the immediate outcome of these manoeuvres, the decision is an historical turning point. As the Financial Times noted, By invoking national security as the grounds for the new trade barriers Mr. Trump has crossed a line in the international trading system.

This trade war measure is a major step in the dismantling of the system of economic relations established by Washington itself after World War II to prevent a repetition of the destructive global conflicts that marked the first half of the 20th centuryconflicts that had deep economic roots and threatened the very survival of the capitalist system.

Writing on the outbreak of World War I, Leon Trotsky explained that its objective significance lay in the irreconcilable conflict between the global economy and the economic framework of the national state. But the way the governments propose to solve this problem of imperialism, Trotksy wrote, is not through the intelligent, organised cooperation of all of humanitys producers, but through the exploitation of the worlds economic system by the capitalist class of the victorious country, which country is by this War is to be transformed from a Great Power into the World Power.

The contradiction to which Trotsky pointedbetween the global economy and the system of rival nation-states in which capitalist property is rootedwas not overcome by the war. Rather, it continued to deepen, leading to an economic war of each against all in the Great Depression, culminating in the eruption of the Second World War just two decades after the conclusion of the First.

Reviewing the state of international relations in the late 1930s as the world prepared for war, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull and others in the Roosevelt administration concluded that a major factor driving the inevitable new conflagration was a breakdown in the international trading system and the formation of rival blocs. If war was to be prevented from erupting again in the post-war period, then a new economic order had to be established, based on expanding markets and a stable international monetary system.

This was the origin of the international monetary system established at Bretton Woods in 1944 and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade in 1947 on the initiative of the US.

But while the new system prevented a return to the 1930s and helped avert the prospect of socialist revolution which many feared would result, it did not overcome the fundamental contradictions of global capitalism that Trotsky had so clearly identified.

The post-war order was based primarily on the supremacy of the United States as the preeminent world economic power. However, the very post-war economic expansion it generated, and the consequent revival of the two main rivals of the US, Germany and Japan, undermined the supremacy of the US on which the post-war order was grounded.

By the end of the 1960s, barely two decades after the new order had been established, these contradictions were finding their expression in the widening balance of payments and trade deficits of the US, leading to the decision by President Nixon on August 15, 1971 to remove the gold backing from the US dollarthe basis of the monetary system established in 1944and impose higher tariffs on imports.

The succeeding period has been characterised by two interconnected processes: the further integration of the world economy through the globalisation of virtually all production processes and the ongoing decline of the US, in relation to both its historic rivals and emergent new ones, above all China.

It is from the re-emergence of this contradictionbetween the world economy and the nation-state system, at a far more intense level than when Trotsky identified it in 1914that the actions of the Trump administration arise.

The tariff measures, imposed under conditions where manufactured goods containing steel and aluminium, the initial targets in the trade war, cross borders often on multiple occasions during their production, are not the result of the insanity of Donald Trump and his America First cohorts in the White House.

Rather, they flow from the historic irrationality of an economic system that is not based on the intelligent, organised cooperation of all of humanitys producers, but is completely subordinated to the never-ending struggle for markets and private profit.

Trade war measures did not begin with Trump. Significant measures were taken by the Obama administration, which drew the conclusion that the very economic order established by the US at the conclusion of World War II was now working against the interests of American capitalism.

Two key initiatives under Obamathe Trans Pacific Partnership centred on Asia (to the exclusion of China) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership aimed at Europewere intended to secure a new system based on American dominance.

Both have been effectively scrapped, but the essential objective continues under Trump, in a form that recalls Trotskys observation some 90 years ago that in a period of crisis, the hegemony of the US would operate more openly and more ruthlessly than in a period of boom, as America sought to extricate itself from its maladies at the expense of its rivals.

The Trump measures have brought opposition within the US, especially from industry groups that point out that as users of steel and aluminium they will be disadvantaged by the measures in the struggle for markets. Fears are also being expressed that the US tariffs will bring retaliation from Europe, Japan and other US allies.

The New York Times warned in an editorial yesterday that the Trump measures could be the first in a host of such actions, sending the US into a much broader trade war, the likes of which the world hasnt seen since the Great Depression.

However, the Times does not oppose trade war as such. It only wants it to be better targeted, noting that if Trump were truly interested in getting China to reduce its excess production, he would have worked with the European Union, Canada, Japan, South Korea and other countries to put pressure on Beijing.

In other words, instead of using a blunderbuss, Trump should have deployed the economic equivalent of a Cruise missile.

Such opposition within the ruling class to the Trump measures should not, however, give rise to false hopes that somehow reason and rationality will prevail. It should be recalled that the Smoot-Hawley tariff measures of June 1930 were also denounced at the time. But that did not prevent their passage, triggering a full-scale trade war that played an immense role in creating the conditions for the eruption of World War II.

Nor will the Trump administration be deterred by warnings that it is initiating a similar global conflict. The position of the administration is that trade war has been going on for some time, only now the US is stepping up to the ramparts.

Whatever the immediate outcome of the present conflict, the underlying drive will continue because the Trump measures are rooted not in the psyche of the present occupants of the White House but in the irresolvable, objective contradictions of the capitalist mode of production.

This means that the fight for world socialist revolution must be taken forward as the practical program of the day, as Trotsky explained at the outbreak of World War I. It is the answer of the international working class to the program of war and dictatorship of international capitalism.In this bicentenary year of the birth of Karl Marx, the contradictions of capitalism he so clearly laid bare are more explosive than ever. Millions of workers and young people are searching for an alternative to a world of austerity, inequality and the threat of World War III. Under these conditions there is much to learn from the life and legacy of pioneer American socialist Eugene V. Debs.

Eugene V. Debs

Debs (1855-1926) is the subject of a new film documentary, American Socialist: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs. The film, directed by Yale Strom (The Last Klezmer) and narrated by well-known actress Amy Madigan, is being shown in theaters around the US at various times in the course of the next few months. It is also available via the Kanopy video streaming service, accessible through many public libraries.

On the basic facts of Debs life and career, Stroms film is accurate and informative. Its use of audio and video, combined with the reading of letters and speeches, makes much of this history come alive. There are also some useful comments by a number of scholars, including Debs biographer Nick Salvatore, the Maurice and Hinda Neufeld Founders Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.

However, when it comes to the legacy of Debswhat his struggle means todaythe movie should come with a giant warning sign. Using various means, some more brazen than others, it aims to turn Debs revolutionary message into its opposite, claiming that the courageous fighter against imperialist war and the capitalist two-party system was a kind of forerunner of Bernie Sanders, the loyal Democrat and defender of imperialism today.

American Socialist: The Life and Times of Eugene Victor Debs

The main outlines of Debs life are effectively depicted in Stroms film, including his birth in Terre Haute, Indiana to an enlightened immigrant couple from the Alsace region of France, his early adult years as a labor organizer and later a founder of the American Railway Union, and his six-month jail sentence after the bitter Pullman strike of 1894.

This latter experience was a turning point, because Debsalready almost 40 years oldbecame acquainted while in prison with some of the works of Karl Marx. His own experience with capitalist state repression and official strikebreaking was illuminated and explained by Marxism. He soon broke definitively with the Democratic Party and the kind of trade unionism later epitomized by Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor (AFL). For the rest of his life Debs was, as he later put it, a flaming revolutionist.

Soldiers on train during 1894 Pullman strike

There is much more to Debs life of ceaseless and selfless struggle, as shown in some of the films narration and illustrated by the audio, video and photographic record. This includes Debs role as chief editorial writer for the Kansas-based Appeal to Reason, which had a circulation in the hundreds of thousands; his close friendship with such figures as Lucy Parsons (the widow of Haymarket martyr Albert Parsons), Helen Keller and Big Bill Haywood; his five campaigns for the US presidency as the candidate of the Socialist Party, beginning in 1900; and his co-founding of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in 1905, in bitter struggle for industrial unionism and socialism against the AFL. During this period, Debs traveled constantly, speaking to meetings of many thousands and rallying support for bitter strike struggles.

Debs won nearly one million votes in the election of 1912, 6 percent of the total, although perhaps closer to ten percent if one takes into account the votes that were stolen. But Debs most heroic contribution to the international working class struggle came a few years later, with the conflict that would go down in history as World War One. American imperialism stayed out of the war for nearly three years, but President Woodrow Wilson brought the US into the carnage in early April of 1917just one month after the February Revolution in Russia, and about seven months before the October Revolution that established the first workers state in history.

Debs was past 60 and not in good health. He had opposed the war from the very outset, unlike the vast majority of the leaders of the European parties of the Socialist International. After US entry into the war, he refused to buckle under to the pressure of nationalism and chauvinism. He took a stand in total opposition to social-patriotssocialists in word but patriotic supporters of the capitalists in deedlike SP leader Victor Berger and Morris Hillquit, who feigned opposition to the war for a time. Meanwhile the Wilson government passed the Espionage Act in June, 1917, providing draconian penalties for speaking out against the war.

Debs welcomed the October Revolution later that year. In 1918, he gave his famous antiwar speech in Canton, Ohio, well aware that he courted arrest. He was charged with sedition, convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison, a possible death sentence for a man of his age and condition.

Debs mugshot

Running for the presidency from his maximum-security prison cell in Atlanta, Debs won more than 900,000 votes. In the face of mounting appeals for clemency, Wilson called Debs a traitor and declared publicly that he will never consent to pardon this man.

Meanwhile the Socialist Party split over the fundamental question of the Russian Revolution. Debs sought to maintain friendly ties to old comrades in both the old Socialist and new Communist Parties. He was finally released from prison on Christmas Day of 1921, and greeted on his return home to Terre Haute by a crowd of 25,000.

Debs continued to defend the Soviet workers state, and is quoted in the movie as declaring, after his release from prison, that the revolution must protect itself during the period of transition to socialism.

In his last years, a price was exacted for Debs political weaknesses, howeverabove all his inability to recognize that the working class requires a revolutionary leadership, a party built in sharp and principled struggle against all forms of opportunism and reformism. Debs conception of an all-inclusive party, his refusal to take part in the necessary inner-party struggle, led him to remain in the Socialist Party rather than join in the fight to build a leadership based on the lessons and perspective of the successful revolution in Russia.

This does not negate the significance of the heroic struggles waged by Debs for more than a quarter-century. In the final analysis, his difficulties reflected those of the young and theoretically untrained American working class, while American capitalism was still in its ascendancy on the world stage.

Debs legacy includes the fight for the political independence of the working class against class collaboration. Above all, it stands in the tradition of internationalism, the fight against imperialist war, and the understanding, as articulated by German revolutionary leader Karl Liebknecht, that the main enemy is at home.

Debs dedication to the cause of socialism was recognized by both Lenin and Trotsky. Trotsky, writing about his brief period in the United States in early 1917 in My Life, his 1932 autobiography, concisely described Debs weaknesses but also his strengths: Old Eugene Debs stood out prominently among the older generation because of the quenchless inner flame of his socialist idealism. Although he was a romantic and a preacher, and not at all a politician or a leader, he was a sincere revolutionary; yet he succumbed to the influence of people who were in every respect his inferiors. Hillquits art lay in keeping Debs on his left flank while he maintained a business friendship with Gompers. Debs had a captivating personality. Whenever we met, he embraced and kissed me; the old man did not belong to the drys. When the Babbitts proclaimed a blockade against me, Debs took no part in it; he simply drew aside, sorrowfully.

Lenin, writing in his Letter to American Workers in August of 1918, as the revolution was fighting for its life against more than a dozen foreign imperialist armies of intervention, explained, Irecall the words of one of the most beloved leaders of the American proletariat, Eugene Debs, who wrote in the Appeal to Reason, I believe towards the end of 1915, in the article What Shall I Fight For (I quoted this article at the beginning of 1916 at a public meeting of workers in Berne, Switzerland)that he, Debs, would rather be shot than vote credits for the present criminal and reactionary war; that he, Debs, knows of only one holy and, from the proletarian standpoint, legitimate war, namely: the war against the capitalists, the war to liberate mankind from wage-slavery.

I am not surprised that Wilson, the head of the American multimillionaires and servant of the capitalist sharks, has thrown Debs into prison. Let the bourgeoisie be brutal to the true internationalists, to the true representatives of the revolutionary proletariat! The more fierce and brutal they are, the nearer the day of the victorious proletarian revolution.

The filmmakers want to bury this understanding of Debs legacy. Instead they try to soften Debs revolutionary message.

This is done indirectly in some scenes. The pro-war role of such figures as Berger is alluded to only briefly and very politely. Reporting that the SP reached a membership of 118,000 in 1912 and elected Socialist mayors in cities across the country in this and subsequent years, the film illustrates this with photos of some of these mayors, including such sewer socialists as Jasper McLevy of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and ending withnone other than Bernie Sanders, the mayor of Burlington, Vermont for much of the 1980s.

Documentary poster linking Debs with Bernie Sanders

But the filmmakers save the worst for last. Frances Fox Piven, the veteran Social Democrat and professor at the City University of New York, appears on screen and begins speaking, with no apparent context or explanation, about the right-wing populists of the Tea Party. According to Fox Piven, these are ordinary people aroused and organized by a section of the elite because they are angry about the whole series of changes of the past five decades, including womens liberation, an African-American president, gay and lesbian movement, etc.

Although the 85-year-old middle class academic, a longtime member of the Democratic Socialists of America, doesnt spell it out, her remarks amount to the reactionary insinuation that Debs was a kind of predecessor of todays identity politics!

At the end of the film we hear from Hendrik Hertzberg, the longtime writer for the New Yorker, one of the major media voices of left-liberalism and identity politics, including the current #MeToo campaign. According to Hertzberg, if Debs had lived in a less repressive era than the 1890s, when he was originally sent to prison and discovered socialism, he might have gone on to become a standard though extraordinary Democrat. He might today have his own show on MSNBC, or been someone like Ohio Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown. How disgusting!

These outrageous, politically obscene comments are not minor flaws. Both Fox Piven and Hertzberg are leading figures in the upper middle class liberal and pseudo-left milieu centered around academia and the media. Their prominence in American Socialist reflects a definite political aim: to use the reputation of Debs to channel the anger and growing leftward movement among workers and young people back into the same Democratic Party that Debs spent so many years mercilessly fighting, the Democratic Party that has abandoned whatever reformist or populist policies it espoused in Debs day, and today is leading the anti-Russia campaign and the charge for imperialist war.

American Socialist can be recommended only for its valuable historical background. Only the Trotskyist movement takes forward the struggle for socialism to which Debs dedicated himself, and can therefore honestly explain his life and heritage. For an understanding of this historical period the work of James P. Cannon, the founder of American Trotskyism and an active participant in the socialist movement in the period of the war and the Russian Revolution, is indispensable, especially his 1956 article written on the centennial of Debs birth, and his book, The First Ten Years of American Communism.The following are messages of support from education workers in the UK to the striking West Virginia teachers.

Tom, a teacher, writes:

I wholeheartedly support the struggle by the West Virginia teachers. Their principled stand is an inspiration for workers internationally. In the UK, teachers have been under attack for decades and losing struggles on pensions and performance-related pay. The teacher unions in Britain have not lifted a finger to fight against attacks to pay and conditions. A few token one-day strikes and regional actions have left teachers demoralised with many looking to leave the profession. The character of our unions is clear from the absence of any message of solidarity with the teachers of West Virginia. Teachers and all workers must draw these lessons and mobilise independently of the union bureaucracy. Your struggle is a direct example of what needs to be done to make any change to the situation that faces teachers, workers and youth internationally.

Tania, a Special Educational Needs teacher, writes:

I have been teaching for over 20 years. I stand in full solidarity with your courageous stand in defence of wages, conditions and the rights of children for a fully funded educational system. In the UK, we face crippling budgetary cuts and increased class sizes. The government aims to privatise every school in the UK over the next four years, along the lines of charter schools in the US. Teachers have shown their willingness to fight, returning yes votes to strike ballots from 2010 onwards. But this determined stand has been strangled by the trade unions, especially the National Education Union, which is staffed by leading members of various pseudo-left groups. Millions participated in strike action in 2011, linked with other public sector workers. But the trade union bureaucrats systematically isolated this and every dispute since. West Virginia shows that the ability of the bureaucracy to impose defeats is being challenged. Your struggle is the same as ours. Victory will come if you organise independently, form independent rank-and-file committees and turn to the broadest sections of the working class who have all had enough! I will inform my colleagues here in the UK of your brave stand and mobilise support for your determined battle.

Robert, a lecturer, writes:

The UK lecturers strike and the West Virginia teachers strike, are part of the same broader struggle. Since 2009, UK lecturers have seen their pay fall by 16 percent in real terms. The amount spent by UK universities on staff has fallen by around 10 percent. It will only get worse. The number of PhDs awarded each year far exceeds the number of job openings, leading to the creation of a workforce exploited through temporary, fractionalized, and part-time contracts, heavy teaching loads and job insecurity. This reduces the number of permanent posts. For the minority of graduates who manage to find permanent academic employment, the demands of the job have increased massively. Nearly all academics I know work longer than their contracted hours and there are huge demands in terms of research, teaching and administration. Most academics are never away from the job! In terms of real hourly pay, academics often joke that they may as well be working in McDonalds. Not only are they under pressure to churn out publications with machine-like regularity, they must also demonstrate the impact of their research by partnering with external organizations and routinely apply for grants where the average success rate is around 9 percent. Lecturers face growing class sizes and rising expectations from students paying over 9,000 a year in tuition fees. The student as consumer model, far from producing critical, independent thinkers, means UK universities risk becoming factories, mass producing young minds socialized into patterns of conformity. The average student now takes on around 60,000 of debt to go to university. Interest on student loans is now above 6 percent, and student debt is being sold to private companies. Students pay more for lesswith an ever-larger proportion of teaching carried out by Ph.D. students and adjuncts. A quarter of UK students now report mental health difficulties. When they complete their degree, they enter a job market that is more competitive than ever. Student loans are also available to fund masters degrees. From August 2018 it will be possible to get student loans to fund PhDs. Potentially, a student could accrue eight years worth of debt. The total amount owed would be equivalent to taking out a mortgage on a house. The crisis of UK higher education, like secondary education in West Virginia, is the inevitable result of capitalism left unchecked. The present woes of the UK university system go back to the 2008 financial crisis. With the bailout of the banks having served to transfer public wealth into the hands of the super-rich, government subsidies for UK higher education fell from 40 percent to 12 percent of university income. Course costs were transferred from the state onto students with massive tuition fees as well as maintenance loans needed to support living costs. International students pay anywhere between 16,000 and 37,000 a year in tuition fees. The ruling class is now coming for lecturers pensions, proposing measures that will leave the average lecturer 10,000 a year worse off in retirement. Striking West Virginia teachers understand that they cannot trust the unions or big business politicians to act in their interests. They are organizing resistance independently. This will inspire others, including UK lecturers. It is essential that workers recognize what is common in their struggles and support one another. Because capitalism is global, the only meaningful form of resistance must also be global.

Simon, a lecturer, writes:

I extend my heartfelt wishes for success in the struggle waged by West Virginian teachers. You have shown real guts and determination by rejecting the trade unions stitch-up agreement. The offer of an unguaranteed one-time 5 percent rise is a further wage cut. But together with empty promises of further task forces by the governor, it was enough for your unions to tell you to go back to the classrooms. I have read of the rich history of militant class struggles in West Virginia and you are continuing this proud tradition. I will urge my colleagues to link their struggle with your own. Our collective success or failure depends on forging a united, independent working class offensive.

Sarah, a teacher, writes:

I am in solidarity with the teachers of West Virginia state and their decision to defy the unions sell-out of their contracts and pensions. As a teacher in the UK I see the same insipid, treacherous forces at work to divide sections of the working classes and pit them against each other, assigning blame rather than assigning direct accountability for the crisis that education around the world finds itself in. The finger should be pointing at capitalism. The only solution to this crisis is the unification of struggle for education worldwide under socialism.A Liberal Party government in the Australian island state of Tasmania was returned to office with a reduced vote in last Saturdays election, and is likely to hold a precarious one-seat majority in the 25-member legislative chamber.

The corporate media hailed the result as an historic victory. It is the first time that a Liberal administration has been returned for a second four-year term since 1986. Hopes were even expressed that the outcome in Australias smallest state could stabilise the national parliamentary order and buoy the unravelling federal Liberal-National Coalition government.

After the political madness that has beset Australia over the past two years, the Liberal victory in the Tasmanian election could be a sign of a return to normality, todays Australian Financial Review editorial claimed.

In reality, the Liberals scraped back into office largely as a result of another negative vote against Labor and the Greens. These two parties remain widely detested and discredited after imposing the corporate austerity agenda when in power from 2010 to 2014. During that period, the Greens also propped up the federal Labor government of Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd before it was defeated in a landslide.

More broadly, the vote reflects deepening disaffection with the parliamentary establishment as a whole. No party could legitimately claim to have popular support. The discontent in the working class produced by years of the destruction of permanent jobs and decimation of basic services found no political outlet.

Premier Will Hodgmans Liberal government suffered a negative swing of about 1.5 percentage points. Labor picked up a swing of almost 6 percent, but from a record low vote in 2014 of just 27 percent. The result was the still one of the worst in the partys history.

For the Greens, who posture as a progressive third party, the outcome was disastrous. They suffered a swing of about 3 percent, having already lost a third of their vote in 2014. The resultjust 10 percent of the voteis the worst in Tasmania since the Greens were first formed as Green independents in 1989. Tasmania is regarded as the home of the Greens, which later spread to other states as support for Labor and the Coalition collapsed.

The right-wing populist Jacqui Lambie Network, which sought to exploit the hostility toward the political establishment, fared even worse. Led by ex-federal senator, Jacqui Lambie, the media suggested the party could possibly pick up enough seats to enter government. Instead, it secured just 3 percent of the votes and failed to win a single seat.

With voting being compulsory, another expression of the political alienation was the informal votethose who cast a vote for no candidate or spoiled their ballot. In the northern and central electorates of Bass, Braddon and Lyons, where levels of poverty are highest, the informal vote was around 5 percent. In the generally more affluent southern electorates of Denison and Franklin that figure was about 2.5 percent.

Because of the complex flows of preference votes in the states Hare-Clark proportional representation system, it may be many days before the seat count is finalised. The Liberals may hold 13 or 14 seats out of 25. A 13-seat outcome could produce instability because the government must appoint one MP as the assembly speaker, leaving it without a working majority. Labor could have 9 to 10 seats, a gain of two or three, and the Greens may be reduced to just one seat, down from three.

Hodgman, a third generation Liberal politician, heads an openly big business government. That includes the predatory gambling industry, which poured millions of dollars into a media and advertising scare campaign, threatening the destruction of thousands of jobs in hotels and clubs if poker machines were restricted to casinos, as promised by Labor and the Greens.

Apart from the poker machine issue, however, the Labor and Greens campaigns were virtually indistinguishable from the Liberals, who matched their phony promises to increase spending on the chronically over-stretched public health and education systems. There was no mention whatsoever of the crucial issues confronting the working class: falling wages and living standards, soaring social inequality and the looming dangers of trade war and war.

Moreover, Labor and the Greens had little credibility after slashing spending, and closing schools, from 2010 to 2014. In the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis, the Labor-Greens government destroyed 1,000 public sector jobs. The overall population of the island is just over half a million.

Labor attempted unsuccessfully to don a fresh face by installing Rebecca White as a new leader just a year ago. However, White is a career Labor staff member who represented the party in parliament throughout the 201014 Labor-Greens coalition.

Likewise, Greens leader Cassy OConnor was a key minister in the Labor-Greens government. She served in the cabinet alongside Nick McKim, now a federal Greens senator. As education minister, he provoked intense public opposition by moving to shut down public schools to satisfy the demands of the financial markets for deep budget cuts.

Party founder and long-time national leader, former Senator Bob Brown, yesterday publicly offered to lead a review into the Greens devastating performance. Yet he is the architect of the Greens evolution from an environmental protest outfit into the third party of the capitalist political elite. He led the Greens into their first de facto coalition with a state Labor government from 1989 to 1992 and later backed a similar arrangement to prop up a minority Liberal government from 1996 to 1998.

Significantly, the Greens vote was much higheraround 17 percentin Denison, based on the state capital of Hobart. This likely reflects the partys increasing reliance on an upper middle class constituency in better-off suburbs.

Whatever the outcome of any review by the Greens, OConnor has already indicated a further shift in a right-wing, nationalist direction. On election night she said the party would move for an investigation into foreign ownership and influence in Tasmania when parliament resumed. This dovetails with the campaign being mounted by the federal Coalition government against Chinese interference in Australia, accompanied by anti-democratic legislation aimed at suppressing anti-war and other dissent.

OConnor also extended an olive branch to the Liberal government, signalling the Greens readiness to help it function with a narrow majority. She congratulated Hodgman, saying: I do wish you well, and I do hope that over the next four years you put this island and its people first.

The failure of Jacqui Lambies network to profit from the widespread political disenchantment provides another demonstration of the unstable character of such outfits. Lambie first won a seat in the federal Senate in 2013 as a member of mining magnate Clive Palmers party, which has since collapsed.

Lambie, an ex-military police officer, promotes xenophobic, bigoted and authoritarian responses as a means of diverting the discontent over job losses, falling living standards and budget cuts. Having broken with Palmer on an opportunist basis, without any clear political differences, her grouping was itself hit by defections and ructions.25 Years Ago | 50 Years Ago | 75 Years Ago | 100 Years Ago

25 years ago: Yeltsin survives impeachment vote

Boris Yeltsin, left, and Bill Clinton in 1995

On March 10, 1993, Russian President Boris Yeltsin survived an impeachment vote in the Congress of Peoples Deputies. The vote in favor of impeachment was 418 in favor to 341 against. However, this was short by 99 votes of the absolute majority required in the 1,033-member congress.

The threat of Yeltsin imposing a military dictatorship hung over the vote. A week earlier, on March 3, he had held a well-publicized meeting with top military officers from the Russian Army, Navy, and Air Force, which Congress Chairman Ruslan Khasbulatov blasted as a direct attempt to involve the army, the Interior Ministry, the security forces into the political processes. Yeltsin emerged from those talks with bluster about taking the final option if his opponents in the legislature continued to challenge his control of state institutions like the central bank.

There was no principled difference between the Russian Congress and Yeltsin. Both were committed to continuing the policy of capitalist restoration which had unleashed an economic holocaust in Russia in 1992, cutting industrial production by 20 percent and living standards by 50 percent in a single year. Yeltsin, however, spoke most directly for the nascent capitalist class, comprised of sections of the former bureaucracy, outright mafia elements, and layers of the petty bourgeoisie, who were profiting from wholesale looting of the planned economy.

Yeltsin also sought to represent the mercenary interests of the imperialist powers in Russia, especially the United States. In Yeltsins dispute with the legislature, he was strongly backed by President Bill Clinton, who, according to New York Times writer Thomas Friedman was preparing innovative forms of direct aid to prop up the corrupt Russian president.

[top]

50 years ago: Anti-Stalinist protests begin in Poland

A protest demonstration in Warsaw

This week in 1968 a growing wave of protests by students and working class youth rocked the Stalinist regime of the Polish Peoples Republic.

On March 8, a demonstration by Polish students that had been organized by the left-wing group Komandosi at Warsaw University, in opposition to Stalinist censorship of art, was violently suppressed by the paramilitary ORMO and ZOMO riot squads. The next day, a similar protest by students of the Warsaw University of Technology ended in violent clashes with the police.

Despite the violent crackdown, protests took place in in virtually every major Polish city in the following days, including Cracow, Biaystok, Katowice, Kielce, Opole, Wrocaw and Gdansk. The protests, which were partly inspired by growing demonstrations in neighboring Czechoslovakia, spread to involve high school students and, above all, working class youth.

The Stalinist regime of Wadysaw Gomuka feared that the movement might spread to broader sections of the working class. It responded with a violent crackdown and anti-Semitism. Between March 7 and 6 April, some 2,750 people were arrested. On March 11, the regime launched a vicious anti-Semitic campaign, using chauvinistic and anti-Jewish stereotypes to slander the leaders of the student movement. Many of them would eventually either leave the country or play a leading role in the Solidarity movement of the late 1970s and 1980s.

[top]

75 years ago: US government censors Trotskyist newspaper

A 1941 edition of The Militant denounces Smith Act prosecution by American Gestapo

On March 7, 1943, the Postmaster General of the United States revoked the second class mailing rights of the Militant, then the newspaper of the Socialist Workers Party, the American section of the world Trotskyist movement. The American Civil Liberties Union labelled the move the gravest threat to freedom of the press that has thus far arisen in the course of US intervention in World War II.

An attorney for the Post Office submitted to a government-appointed board a total of 99 objectional excerpts from the Militant that criticized the policies of the administration of Franklin Roosevelt. He cited the papers advocacy of a workers and farmers government as the only solution to the problems of war, fascism, unemployment and racial discrimination.

The Post Offices attorney charged, The Militant  regards the war as a struggle in the interest of the capitalistic classes of the world and not as a war for democracy. It declares that this war is benefiting the capitalists and businessmen .... It continuously attacks the government and accuses them of operating in the interests of the businessmen. .. We are not concerned here with questions of truth or falsity. It does not make any difference if everything the Militant said is true .... Look at the horrible picture which the Militant paints of the war and the army.

Post Office interference with the Militant began in November 1942 at the time of the US invasion of North Africa. Issues of the Militant were held while the government examined their contents. Three November issues and one December issue of the paper were ordered to be destroyed.

The attack on the Militant represented a continuation of the government assault that began with the 1941 Smith Act trial that convicted 18 members of the Socialist Workers Party for their revolutionary opposition to World War II.

[top]

100 years ago: British force begins imperialist occupation of Soviet Russia

British soldiers in Murmansk

On March 6, British Royal Marines landed in Murmansk, in the far north of Soviet Russia, marking the beginning of the imperialist intervention in the Russian Civil War, a bloody intervention that would draw in all of the major imperialist powers in an unsuccessful bid to crush the Russian Revolution, including France, the United States, and Japan.

Ironically, the British apparently landed at the invitation of the local Murmansk Soviet, which feared that White (counter-revolutionary) soldiers in nearby Finland might attack. Finland, whose independence had been recognized by the young Bolshevik government, was in the midst of a civil war in which Whites were slaughtering Red Guards and militant workers, while being backed by Germany, which was itself preparing an invasion.

Simultaneously, from March 6-8, the 7th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party was convened in extraordinary session in Petrograds Tauride Palace. It was the last national party meeting in Petrograd. Threatened by the various imperialist powers, the Bolsheviks were preparing to move the Soviet government to Moscow.

The Congress ratified the brutal Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, forced on the Soviet government and reluctantly backed by Lenin, over the objections of an ultra-left wing led by Nikolai Bukharin, who demanded that the war against Germany be recommenced.

It also voted to change the name of the RSDLP to the Communist Party, in order to distinguish it from the treacherous Social Democratic parties of the Second International, which had almost all supported their respective nations in World War I. The Congress elected a 15-member Central Committee, with Lenin and Trotsky receiving the most votes.

[top]Davino Watson, a US citizen illegally detained for three-and-a-half years by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) between 2008 and 2011, spoke to the World Socialist Web Site about the mounting government attack on immigrants in the US.

Watsons interview with the WSWS occurred in the wake of the Supreme Courts decision that immigrants detained and awaiting disposition of their cases were not entitled to bail hearings, effectively subjecting them to indefinite detention without due process. Watsons suit against the US government for his near-deportation and years of detention in ICEs maximum security prisons was dismissed last summer on the specious grounds that his opportunity to sue had elapsed while he was still detained and fighting deportation.

**

Nick Barrickman: What is your reaction to the recent Supreme Court decision denying immigrants the right to seek bail?

Davino Watson: Its very disturbing that they can now detain immigrants for this amount of time. Its morally wrong. There are a lot of people who will be affected by this, emotionally, and Im just hoping that this decision will be overturned in the future.

Interview with Davino Watson

NB: The decision basically creates a class of people in America who are not protected by the US Constitution. Relating this to your own experience, theres very little keeping the US government from expanding this treatment to American citizens.

DW: Right. That was my initial thought and thats what I feel happened to me, too. I feel like my constitutional rights were violated.

Its not going to just be immigrants. It will also be American citizens caught inside this as well. Its kind of like a Catch-22 in a sense, because youre going to have American citizens locked in jail for these long periods of time and they will not be able to file a lawsuit, because the government will say they thought you were an illegal alien and these are the proper procedures. Its devastating.

I cant even imagine how the immigrants feel, especially the DACA recipients. Trump was talking at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference and he stated, Our immigration laws are so bad that when we catch [immigrants], its called catch and release. We have to by law catch them and release them.

I look at my case and ask: Why couldnt you catch and release me? For me to be locked up for three-and-a-half years when they had all of my information on hand is very wrong. If they had checked the paperwork that I had forwarded to their superiors in ICE, I wouldnt have spent so much time in jail. If that were to happen to me now it would be that much more traumatizing.

When Trump talks about immigrants I believe hes engaging in stereotypes. Not all immigrants are criminals. You have immigrants that work hard, you have people that come and want to pursue their dreams. Thats what makes America great, the diversity of the people.

NB: We live in an international society right now

DW: I think that ending DACA will shine a really negative light on the government. People are going to hate the US for this. The Dreamers have a right to be in this country and better themselves. I was watching a lot of videos of how families were reacting to this, the kids. You could see a sense of betrayal in their reactions. This was something extended to them, and now its being taken away.

Eight hundred thousand people will be affected by this. That is not a small number. Thats a violation of their constitutional rights. These kids didnt beg to come here; their parents brought them. Theyve been here for a long period of time and are striving to do better. I believe Trump is racist to put immigrants in the same category as criminals and gangs.

When I was in the detention center in Buffalo, New York for those years, there was this one Mexican, his name was Aguilar. I remember I would try to talk to him. He couldnt really speak English, but he was always so nice. He would tell me about where he lived. There was so much murder and every day he said he walks in fear.

He came to America and he would work on farms and things like that. He would get locked up because, you know of course, people would call immigration and ICE and throw him in detention. He would tell me, Im going to come back, and Id ask, Why? He said he had no choice.

I felt bad that he would go through this cycle of coming to America, trying to establish himself, praying not to be arrested, thenboomhe gets caught, thrown into detention and deported. Its heart-touching. He has kids, hes like, I dont do anything wrong, Im just trying to work. Its very disturbing.

NB: If the government begins deporting DACA recipients, this would represent one of the largest forced migrations in history, on the scale of the US internment of the Japanese during World War II and the Nazis sending European Jews to ghettos in Warsaw, for instance.

DW: I believe it. I can imagine people being deported in large numbers back to certain countries. These are people leaving their countries because of wars, because they were being terrorized by gangs and narcos. Theyve possibly seen their friends and family members being killed. To send these people back to that environment is totally wrong. Not to mention, these countries would also have to prepare to take in these large numbers of people.

NB: Our organization, the Socialist Equality Party, calls for working people to build their own political party. What do you think of a party that would unite people, not based upon their race or what country they were born in, but based on their role as the creators of societys wealth, the working class?

DW: I think that would be great. As working class people, we see whats really going on. I think that having a party to represent these people, to speak to their issues and contest things, I think that would be awesome. Thats what America needs right now at this time.About 450 auto parts workers at Dakkota Integrated Systems and HBPO in Windsor, Ontario went on strike Sunday morning after Unifor negotiators failed to reach an agreement based on the pattern set at Avancezone of four auto parts companies that supply the giant Windsor Fiat-Chrysler minivan plant. Several hundred workers at ZF Friedrichschafen, the fourth supplier company, are set to strike Monday morning should no settlement be obtained.

Due to the nature of just-in-time delivery processes at Fiat-Chryslers Windsor Assembly, production of the Pacifica and the Dodge Grand Caravan at the plant could be quickly shut down. It is for this reason that Unifor is expected to attempt to wind up the strike as quickly as possible. In previous strikes by parts workers at Windsor Assembly feeder plants in 2012 and 2016, Unifor quickly responded to demands from Fiat-Chrysler management to immediately resume production and ram through contracts at hastily convened emergency meetings.

The workers at all four feeder plants voted by almost 100 percent to strike for better pay, benefits and working conditions last month.

Years of stagnant wages, reduced benefits, the expansion and entrenchment of two-tier hiring, deteriorating working conditions, and an ever-increasing cohort of even lower paid, temporary workers have contributed to a growth of militancy among the rank-and-file. Expectations have been further fueled by the recent $2.40 increase in the provincial minimum wage that has slashed the differentials between the new $14 per hour minimum and the only slightly superior wage levels for new hires in the parts plants.

In a pre-emptive statement meant to dampen the demands of the rank-and-file, newly-minted Unifor Local 444 President James Stewart told the Windsor Star before strike votes commenced that the workers expectations had been raised too much by the provincial minimum wage hike. The expectation is for a similar increase, he said. Its unrealistic for anyone to bargain that type of increase. But the expectations are up, so that would be our challenge.

That a union official, supposedly representing the workers should announce as negotiations begin that the demands of his membership were unrealistic is just the latest proofif more proof is neededthat Unifor acts as a junior partner of the corporations to increase shareholder profits and suppress the wages and benefits of the auto workers. Under conditions where workers are in a powerful position to press home demands for a significant pay increase and improved benefits and working conditions, Unifor will act with all due speed to prevent production shortfalls at Fiat Chryslers Windsor Assembly.

A team of World Socialist Web Site Autoworker Newsletter reporters visited HBPO picket lines on Sunday afternoon in Windsor, just blocks from the Chrysler minivan plant. The 120 workers there make front-end modules for FCAs Pacifica and Grand Caravan models.

Unifor had placed a gag order on pickets, directing all inquiries to Unifor officials. However, a Unifor official on the picket line refused to make any statement, saying we know who you are. He delivered an announcement to workers that there had been no progress in negotiations, but that Unifor and management were still meeting and there would be another update soon, indicating the strike might soon be wrapped up before there was any impact on Chrysler production.

One worker told the Autoworker Newsletter that the plant is a tier one supplier. There is a major amount of support. We are getting workers down here from different factories. He noted that the workers were being told nothing about the content of negotiations by Unifor. They wont know anything until we go into ratification, he said.

A worker from Syncreon Automotive in Windsor came down to the picket line to support the HBPO workers. He said his plant produced ignitions and other components for the Windsor minivan plant. He said that I am very interested in patterning agreements, indicating that the lower, grow in wage was a major issue.

A worker from the nearby Flex-N-Gate plant also came down to show his support. He issued the following warning to workers at HBPO. Here the unions stand with management. All the auto parts plants around here are under Unifor.

He explained that workers at his plant had experienced being sold out. That is what happened to us 8 years ago. Unifor stuck with management. They told us we had to sign the agreement or the company would move. They get bonuses from management. The unions never do anything for the workers. I am paying $60 a month in dues for nothing.

Despite the attempt by Unifor to silence the WSWS, a number of strikers gave statements of solidarity with striking West Virginia teachers.

One HBPO worker said, I say to the teachers, just stay strong. There is safety in numbers.

Workers were angered by the attempts of the teacher unions to force West Virginia teachers back to work with an inferior contract. Those teachers dont have anyone fighting for them, one exclaimed.

Another worker pointed to the experience of 12,000 Ontario College faculty who struck for five weeks last fall and were ultimately forced back to work under strikebreaking legislation enacted by the union backed Liberal government. Speaking of the role of the unions she said, It is the same as what they did at the colleges. They didnt end up getting anything.

A Flex-N-Gate worker added, Its a good first step. They should stay out and keep going. It is not just West Virginia. There are problems across the whole US. look at all the school shootings. Even here in Canada the students struggle with education. They have a hard time. A lot of kids quit school because they cant afford it.

Workers should be forewarned. Unifor has no intention of bringing before the membership a contract that meets any of their demands. The lessons of the scuttled strikes at Dakkota in 2012 and Integram Seating in 2016 that once again imposed miserable concessions deals must stand as a warning to striking workers today.

Over the last three decades, Unifor, like the entire trade union bureaucracy, has been transformed into a pro-company organization, controlled by an upper-middle class layer of highly paid officials who answer only to the corporations and the government, and have a direct interest in intensifying the exploitation of the workers they claim to represent.

The only way forward for workers is to break decisively with this anti-working class organization and build rank-and-file committees, independent of and in opposition to Unifor. These committees must begin making plans for job action immediately, above all by appealing for support from auto parts workers at other facilities, the more than 20,000 autoworkers at FCA, Ford and GM in Canada, and autoworkers throughout North America.Editor's Note: CNN is committed to covering gender inequality wherever it occurs in the world. This story is part of As Equals, a year-long series.

Lilongwe, Malawi -- "I am strong," the girls chanted, their voices filling a classroom in the outskirts of Lilongwe, Malawi's capital. "I can use my voice. I can use my body!"

The group of about 50 schoolgirls, dressed in indigo uniforms, were being taught to fight off sexual assault. In front of them, Simang'aliso Domoya paced up and down, calling on the pupils to repeat her mantra: "I am beautiful, but I am dangerous!"

The girls, ages 11 to 16, looked at the instructor wide-eyed. Outside the classroom, other students gathered to peer through the windows.

Domoya is a coordinator for the Malawian non-governmental organization Ujamaa-Pamodzi, which teaches self-empowerment and self-defense in classrooms across the country.

The team uses vocal exercises and physical activities to teach girls how to speak out against assault, harassment, abuse, and -- if necessary -- how to physically fight off attackers.

It's a critical skill in the country, where one in five girls, and one in seven boys, are sexually abused before the age of 18, according to the 2014 Violence Against Children and Young Women in Malawi report.

The Ujamaa-Pamodzi course was adopted from the No Means No Worldwide program, an initiative to reduce sexual violence and assault in Kenya's capital. One study found that out of 522 girls, ages 14 to 21, who took the "consent classes" in Nairobi's Kaariobangi and Korogocho neighborhoods, more than half reported using the self-defense skills to avert sexual assault in the year after training.

Since the organization first began, Ujamaa-Pamodzi has taught around 25,000 girls and 12,000 boys.

Domoya said they split their instruction into verbal and physical -- and both play an important role.

"We encourage the girls to use their spirit to believe in themselves, and to know how defend themselves from assault," Domoya said. "We also have a safety goal: We encourage girls to get away in each and every situation -- not to fight, but to get away and use their voice to shout, yell and speak out."

Many of the girls CNN spoke with said the workshop has had a real-life impact. They asked that their names not be used in case of repercussions from their families.

One 15-year-old student told CNN that her sister's husband tried to rape her while she was living in the couple's home. "I used the verbal skills I learned from their workshop to end the assault, such as warning him I'd tell my sister," she said.

Later, she contacted one of the Ujamaa facilitators, who advised her to warn her brother-in-law that she would report him to a local child protection organization.

"They [Ujamaa] helped me speak out and use my voice," she said. "I learned how to help protect myself."

Harassment is normalized in Malawi, the girls say. A 12-year-old participant of the workshop said the skills she learned have given her confidence to act.

"When I'm walking home from school, sometimes men will try and stop me and touch me," she said. "And now ever since, I have pushed them off me, or I run away. I don't freeze up anymore."

The organization says the majority of cases can be stopped verbally. Their training focuses on self-defense tactics that target an attacker's eyes, back, groin and knees.

"Some people think at first, 'Oh, it's just about martial arts!' But it's more than that. It's helping to teach them to believe in themselves," Domoya said.

"The way they'll react to their father is different to how they will react to a stranger ... Their response will also differ depending on the attacker's height, weight, environment. We encourage them to speak to someone they trust, and to not give up hope -- to keep talking."

Beyond the practical life skills, the group also identifies survivors of sexual abuse and harassment in their sessions. So far, the staff have identified and supported more than 400 girls and boys.

They said the abuse of children is increasingly coming from teachers -- an issue they're tackling head-on in their workshops. Lessons involve a role-playing scenario in which a teacher harasses a pupil.

The group runs classes for boys, too, teaching them about everything from sexual health to healthy relationships, consent and peer pressure. They say the responsibility to end harassment and abuse is up to boys, too.

"To end abuse and gender-based violence, it's critical to include boys and men," Martin Ndirangu, the director of the group's operations in Malawi, said.

The organization also encourages boys to consider "what it means to be a man."

"We ask them: 'What does it mean to be a man?' What should they do?"

"We tell boys there are two moments -- one is ordinary moments, the other is moments of truth -- where they are put to the test to understand their values. We encourage them to be courageous about what they care about: their future, their family, whatever it means to them," Ndirangu added.

The response to the program from students is positive: Boys who had said they often feared peer pressure say they now understand the importance of having their own voice. Girls who were previously introverted and shy report a new level of confidence and ambition.

"If a man touches me, then I know no, that's not right," one girl said at the end of their session.

Ndirangu cited anecdotal evidence that the program has helped prevent cases of child marriages and teen pregnancies. But he said "raising awareness" isn't enough to help protect girls and boys in Malawi.

"We think awareness is one thing, but we don't really see change. It's not enough just going on radio talking about these things; we need to teach real-life skills. We know we are helping -- and we are seeing how they're using the skills in situations across Malawi every day."INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (WTTV)  A police procession escorted the body of fallen Boone County Deputy Jacob Pickett from the north side to downtown Indianapolis Monday morning.

The procession started around 9:15 a.m. at St. Vincent Hospital and made its way to the Marion County Coroners Office, winding along a route from W. 86th St. to Meridian St. to 38th St. and Dr. Martin Luther King Street before arriving at the final destination on McCarty Street.

Officers saluted as Picketts body was moved from the hospital to a hearse. Dozens of police vehicles led the way during the procession before it made its final stop at the coroners office.

About an hour and a half after it began, Picketts remains were taken inside the coroners office for an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Officers again saluted as Picketts coach passed.

Pickett was mortally wounded Friday while helping Lebanon police officers serve a warrant. Authorities said Friday that he would not survive his wounds. He was taken off life support early Monday morning.

Pickett was an organ donor, and his heart will go to a patient at St. Vincent Hospital. Visitation is scheduled for Thursday and his funeral will be held Friday.

All Boone County offices will be closed on Friday, March 9, in memory of the fallen deputy.

*This story was originally published by WTTV in IndianapolisCHICAGO (AP) - Identity theft was the top complaint consumers made to the Illinois attorney general's office last year.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan released the annual list on Monday. Identity theft ranked No. 1 for the first time since 2007 with more than 2,500 complaints. Madigan's office attributed the jump to last year's large Equifax data breach.

In total, roughly 147.9 million Americans have been impacted by Equifax's data breach. It remains the largest data breach of personal information in history.

The No. 2 slot went to education-related complaints involving student loan debt, loan counseling and for-profit schools. Other complaint topics included consumer debt, construction and home improvement, telecommunications and vehicle sales, among others.

Overall the attorney general's office received nearly 24,700 complaints last year.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.COLES COUNTY, Ill. (WTHI) - An Illinois mother facing a first degree murder charge is deemed fit to stand trial.

We're talking about 22-year-old Savannah Weiss.

The Charleston Police Department says in early December Weiss' toddler was found dead in her home. Officials say Weiss confessed to leaving the two-year-old inside of a pack-n-play unattended for several days. An autopsy revealed the cause of death was dehydration and malnourishment.

Since then, Weiss has pleaded not guilty to the crime.

She's currently being held in the Coles County Jail and is due back in court in April.ACKERMAN, Miss. (WTVA) - Residents in Choctaw County came together for their National Guard send off dinner.

About 50 men and women from the area will deploy soon.

The event was for the soldiers and their families.

It started at 4:00 p.m. Sunday at the Ackerman community center. Several speakers were there including special guest Trent Kelly.

Kelly told WTVA it is bittersweet to see his brigade deploy without him.JACKSON, Miss. (AP)  The University of Mississippi is acknowledging its historical connections to slave labor, slave owners and officials who set policies that stripped African-Americans of voting rights after the Civil War.

The university on Friday unveiled six plaques on its main campus in Oxford to provide information about the history of the school that was founded in 1848.

"These plaques are daily reminders of our obligation to learn from the past and commit to an inclusive future," Ole Miss Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter said in a statement.

One plaque says 10 of the university's original buildings were constructed with the labor of enslaved African-Americans. Three of the buildings, including the university's main administrative center, the Lyceum, are still in use. The plaque also says that "a large number of slaves" were used to cut through hills near campus in 1856 and 1857 to make way for a railroad line, and that the slave owners received railroad company stock.

"Slavery was a system underpinned by exploitation and violence, and slaves also suffered beatings and other abuses documented in University records," the plaque says. "The University of Mississippi today honors the legacy of these enslaved individuals and acknowledges the injustices under which they lived and labored."

George Hall, which now houses a speech and hearing center, was named in 1920 for James Zachariah George, who served in the U.S. Senate from Mississippi from 1890 until his death in 1897. A new plaque notes that George served as a delegate to Mississippi's Secession Convention before the Civil War and that as state Democratic Party executive committee chairman in 1875-76, he was responsible for "a program of voter intimidation, violent repression, and riot aimed at returning his state to white Democratic rule."

Mississippi's population is about 38 percent black, and black students made up about 13 percent of the Ole Miss enrollment in 2015, the most recent year for which detailed figures were immediately available.

Vitter's predecessor, Dan Jones, announced in 2014 that the university would provide historical context for Old South symbols as a way to acknowledge its complex history and to make a diverse student body feel more welcome. Race has been a constant theme at Ole Miss for many years. In 1962, the campus that was rocked by violence after court-ordered integration.

In 2016, the school added a plaque to provide information about slavery and the Civil War to a Confederate soldier statue that has been on campus since 1906.

Debate has been taking place in many parts of the U.S. about how to deal with the public display of symbols and monuments tied to slavery and the Confederacy. New Orleans is among the places that have removed Confederate monuments in the past year. Harvard University last year acknowledged its ties to colonial-era slavery, and Yale University rebranded a residential college that had been named for a 19th century U.S. vice president who supported slavery.

All eight of Mississippi's public universities have stopped flying the state flag because it includes the Confederate battle emblem  a red field topped by a blue tilted cross dotted by 13 white stars. Adopted in 1894 and reconfirmed by voters in 2001, it is the last state flag in the nation with the emblem that critics view as racist.TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A Tallahassee Fire Department member and a Tallahassee Police Department officer have been found guilty in a charity scheme.

Joseph "Mike" Amison, a TFD firefighter, and his wife, Jennifer Amison, a TPD officer, were found guilty of racketeering, 2 counts of grand theft more than $10,000, organized scheme to defraud, grand theft and failure to apply contributions in a manner consistent with solicitation.

A sentencing date has been set for March 27, 2018 at 1:30 p.m.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - A Tallahassee Fire Department member and a Tallahassee Police Department officer have been arrested based on charges stemming from a fundraiser for first responders' families.

Joseph "Mike" Amison, a TFD firefighter, and his wife, Jennifer Amison, a TPD officer, both were the subjects of warrants issued after an investigation concluded they had made personal use of the donations.

Earlier in September, Jennifer Amison was arrested and released on pretrial conditions.

Joseph Amison, who was booked into the Leon County Jail, and his wife face several charges stemming from a 2016 fundraiser:

Organized scheme to defraud

Failure to apply contributions in a manner substantially consistent with solicitation

Two counts of grand theft $10,000-$20,000

The fundraiser was held after the passing of Tallahassee firefighter Chris Thurman, Tallahassee firefighter Captain Brad Deanda, and Shelby Allen, who is the late daughter of a Tallahassee firefighter. The fundraiser was intended to benefit the families of those who passed.

The complaint says the Amisons kept nearly $12,000 from the families.

The documents say that the Amisons claimed to be having "health problems" as an excuse for not giving the families the money, though health records show otherwise.

MOBILE USERS: Download our WTXL news app on your Apple and Android devices for the latest from South Georgia and North Florida. Also, download our WTXL Weather Now app for Apple and Android devices to get the latest local weather wherever you go.TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - If you like to write or are interested in writing about mystery, suspense, thrillers, fantasy, sci-fi, this month's Tallahassee Writers Association meeting is considered a must for you.

Peggy Kassees joined in studio with all the details.

This month's guest is Susan Goodhope and her dog Shiraz, who's a human remains detection dog.

The Tallahassee Writer's Associate March meeting is set for Thursday, March 8 from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. It'll be held at the Marzuq Shrine Temple on the corner of North Monroe and Tharpe streets.

It's free to attend! For more information, call 850-510-1454.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-02 01:28:43|Editor: yan

Video Player Close

AMMAN, March 1 (Xinhua) -- Jordan's lower house on Thursday condemned the military operations in Syria's Eastern Ghouta that resulted in the death of scores of civilians, state-run Petra news agency reported.

Targeting civilians will only bring more destruction and chaos and fuel extremism, violence and revenge, the lower house said in a statement.

It also highlighted the need to reach a political solution to Syria's crisis and protect its unity and territorial integrity to end the suffering of people.

The killings of children, women and the helpless in Syria would only worsen the situation and undermine efforts to find a solution for Syria, it added.

Meanwhile, the Jordanian lower house urged all fighting groups in Syria to stop violence, and called on all powers to stop interfering in the affairs of Syria.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 04:06:34|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

DAMASCUS, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday that the chemical attacks allegations against the Syrian government are part of the Western "dictionary of lies," state news agency SANA reported.

Assad made such remarks after his meeting with Hussein Jabri Ansari, Iran's Foreign Minister's Special Assistant for Political Affairs, in the capital Damascus.

The allegations of the use of chemical weapons are a "mere blackmail" that the West resorted to strike the Syrian army, he noted.

The western countries recently reaccused the Syrian army of using chemical weapons in attacks against rebels, most recently in the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus.

Assad also said the Western media and political campaign against Syria under humanitarian titles aim primarily at "reviving terrorism and terrorists after the heavy blows they suffered."

"The talk about humanity according to the Western logic means one thing that the Syrian army is advancing," Assad said, referring to the recent crescendo of international condemnation of the Syrian government about the worsening humanitarian situation in the country.

In fact, the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition is supporting the Islamic State (IS) and the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front "with no shame," the Syrian president noted.ROME, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Italians went to the pools to renew the parliament on Sunday, in one of the most divisive and uncertain elections in decades.

Polling stations opened at 7 a.m. and closed at 11 p.m. local time, and the turnout was 58.42 percent at 7 p.m., the Interior Ministry said.

According to first exit polls unveiled by state-run RAI television soon after the end of the voting, anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) would be the most popular party with 29.5 percent to 32.5 percent.

Yet, a center-right coalition including center-right Forza Italia (FI) party and rightwing League would altogether gather more support with 33.5-36.5 percent of the votes.

A center-left coalition led by the Democratic Party (PD) -- which ruled the government in the last five years -- would poll third at 25.5 percent to 28.5 percent.

Delays were registered at some polling stations, and especially in Sicily's regional capital Palermo and in Rome, as voting cards with wrong names of candidates were detected, and had to be replaced. A new anti-fraud check implemented in this round of voting was also blamed for long cues.

Out of a 60-million population, some 46.6 million people were eligible to vote to choose 618 deputies and 309 senators.by Alessandra Cardone

ROME, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Italians went to the polls to renew the parliament on Sunday, in a vote seen as both crucial and highly unpredictable.

Some 46.6 million people (out of 60 million citizens) were eligible to cast their ballot in 61,552 polling stations across the country -- open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. local time -- and there were 618 deputies and 309 senators to choose.

The vote was taking place under a new and untested electoral law, which would allocate a little over one-third of seats via a first-past-the-post system, and two-thirds on a proportional basis.

Compared to previous elections, the result of this new system was harder for analysts to forecast, and many predicted the vote would result in a hung parliament.

Nonetheless, Italians seemed quite eager to express their view, and the turnout registered during the day was averagely higher than the last political election in 2013.

Outside a polling station in central Piazza Mazzini -- in one of the wealthiest districts of the Italian capital -- Anna said her main reason to vote was "to keep Italy in a united Europe."

"I want a strong Italy, of course, but within Europe... and I felt this was the right time for us pro-Europeans to make our voices heard," she told Xinhua.

The woman, who works as an author, was worried because she saw a depressed mood and a very negative atmosphere prevailing in the country, despite the first signals of recovery.

"I am not saying everything is all right... but we have been through 10 terrible years, and just started to get back on our feet," Anna explained.

"This is not the moment to let ourselves be dominated by anger, and throw everything away."

Indeed, the vote came at the end of a very tense campaign, in which divisive issues dominated the public debate among candidates.

There were the major contenders: firstly, a center-right coalition comprising former Prime Minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) party, rightwing anti-immigrant League, and a third rightwing minor ally.

All opinion polls showed this center-right alliance was the front-runner, although 81-year-old Berlusconi was barred from holding public office until 2019 due to a tax-fraud conviction.

A tougher immigration policy was the "cement" of the coalition, but a divide emerged between FI's moderately pro-European stance and that of the two allies, much more critical towards the European Union (EU) and its fiscal rules.

Second key contender was anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), co-founded by comedian Beppe Grillo, and currently led by 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio, running for prime minister.

This was expected to be the most voted single party, according to opinion polls. Yet, the M5S has always refused to enter into alliance with other parties.

As such, despite a possible large electoral result, it might lack the necessary number of seats in parliament to govern alone, unless it changes its tactic.

The M5S's political platform called for a tougher immigration policy, a strong change in most of the policies implemented in the last years, and more public spending regardless of EU limits.

The third runner was a center-left, pro-EU coalition led by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's Democratic Party (PD), with three minor allies.

After ruling the cabinets in the last five years -- implementing painful and often controversial economic and political reforms -- the PD was expected to lose support among voters.

Despite signs of a slow economic recovery indeed emerged since mid-2015 -- and a 1.5 percent growth was posted in 2017 -- many Italians were still feeling the pain of the deep crisis that hit the country since 2008.

The hardship fed anger, and bitter feelings towards the political establishment increased, visibly involving large sectors of the middle class.

Leaving her polling station in Tor Pignattara, a popular and multi-ethnic neighborhood in the east of Rome, 66-year-old Maria Antonietta was indeed in a angry mood.

"I have just cast my ballot now, and until the very last moment in the booth, I did not know what to vote," she told Xinhua.

Her difficulty was rooted in her dissatisfaction with the current fiscal policy: taxes were too high, and she was not sure what party would be best to choose in order to change it.

"We need constructive policies, and more support to citizens and especially to middle-class ones: we were those affected the worst in the crisis, and I find it outrageous," Antonietta explained. If no big changes intervene soon, the woman said she would be ready to leave the country.

On the opposite side by age and by attitude was Alessandro, a 31-year-old worker and student. "I voted to confirm some of the policies implemented so far, and to push for further changes in some other sectors," the man said.

A positive outcome for "extremist forces" represented Alessandro's worst fear. As for his priorities, he would like to see "the citizenship granted to the children of migrants, and more liberal policies on bio-ethical issues."

"Last but not least, I think the next government should help more the poor and the middle-class households, who have been destroyed by the crisis," he said.Two girls hold Chinese lantern for Lantern Procession and Lion Dance outside Art Institute of Chicago, the United States, on March.3, 2018.(Xinhua/Wang Ping)

CHICAGO, March 4 (Xinhua) -- The citywide celebrations of the Chinese lunar New Year in the U.S. city of Chicago culminated with a lantern procession this weekend, making the traditional Lantern Festival.

A special event called "Lantern Celebration" is co-organized Saturday by Art Institute of Chicago (AIC), Chinese Fine Arts Society and Maggie Daley Park. Attendees of the activities learned to make Chinese lanterns, watched Chinese ancient story telling and Chinese music, and joined a lion dance-led lantern procession.

Local residents attend Lantern Procession during the Lantern Celebration Event outside Art Institute of Chicago, the United States, on March 3, 2018. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)

In the modern wing of AIC, dozens of children with their parents crowded the small stage as the host Norman Garcy Yap was telling the origin of Chinese Lantern Festival, while a local Chinese artist played traditional Chinese instrument "Erhu".

Three kids were invited to perform with the story told by host, and the interaction was echoed with laughter and applause.

A Chinese artist interacts with young children with Chinese story telling at Art Institute of Chicago, the United States, on March 3, 2018. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)

In the Ryan Learning Center of AIC, hundreds of American parents made Chinese lanterns with their children. Moreover, the museum also provided visitors with Chinese language tour, and offered Chinese festival food at the museum's restaurant.

A wonderful lion dance-led lantern procession brought the celebration to climax, as hundreds of people marched from Millennium Park to Maggie Daley Park, where dozens of children in Chinese traditional costume performed figure skating in the ice rink.

Children perform figure skating during the Lantern Celebration Event in Chicago, the United States, on March 3, 2018. (Xinhua/Wang Ping)

Apart from lantern celebration, AIC opened an exhibition titled "Mirroring China's Past: Emperors and their Bronzes" which began on Feb. 25 and lasts till May 13.

AIC keeps a close relationship with China, and it has organized many exhibitions of its collection from China, held several events to introduce Chinese culture, such as Chinese lunar festival celebration, including Lunar New Year and Mid Autumn Day.

Chicago is the first U.S. city to launch Chinese New Year celebration in the name of city government, and 2018 will be the fifth year for the City of Chicago to mark Chinese New Year.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 08:02:12|Editor: Mengjiao

Video Player Close

PARIS, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Florian Thauvin's goal in stoppage time earned Marseille a 1-1 draw against Nantes and one crucial point in their contention for the second position, while Lyon suffered their sixth straight Ligue 1 match without a win as they were held 1-1 at Montpellier on Sunday.

Rightback Leo Dubois put Nantes ahead with a powerful shot outside the box past Steve Mandanda in the 11th minute.

Nantes kept their advantage until the dying seconds of the match, before Thauvin managed to salvage Marseille one point as he comfortably netted home, his 16th goal of the campaign, in the fifth minute of stoppage time.

Lyon's last victory in the league dated back to a 2-1 home win against leaders Paris Saint-Germain on January 21, before the followed-up three losses and three draws badly cost them hope of catching up with second-placed Monaco.

In pouring rain away to Montpellier, Lyon saw their defense cut open easily by Jonathan Ikone's pass just seven minutes into the match, and Ruben Aguilar's cross from the right flank was swept at the far post by Isaac Mbenza.

The best chance of tying the match for Lyon arrived six minutes before the interval, only to see their forward Mariano Diaz head against the bar from a Memphis Depay corner.

Montpellier almost doubled the lead in the 54th minute, but Paul Lasne's superb strike outside the penalty area also hit the crossbar. Four minutes later, Mariano converted Houssem Aouar's left-wing cross from a close range.

Following their six-match winless streak, Lyon still trailed Marseille by five points on fourth, and their gap from Monaco has been extended to nine points.

Paris Saint-Germain, who were without several key players, maintained their 14-point lead atop the table following Saturday's 2-0 road victory over Troyes.

Earlier on Sunday, Caen beat Strasbourg 2-0 thanks to goals from Enzo Crivelli and Frederic Guilbert.NEW DELHI, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A militant and three others accompanying have been killed in an army ambush in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said.

According to Indian military spokesman colonel Rajesh Kalia, an army vehicle was fired upon by militants at village Pohan in Shopian district, about 53 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, Sunday night.

"A joint mobile vehicle check post near Pohan in Shopian was fired upon by militants at 8:00 p.m. (local time) from a vehicle. In the retaliatory fire, one militant was killed and a weapon has been found with him," Kalia said. "The accomplices who were accompanying the militant were also found to be dead."

Locals however contested the army version, saying the three were civilians.

Following the clash massive protests broke out in the area against the killings.

Police officials said they had initiated investigations into the incident.

Separatist groups demanding an end to New Delhi's rule have called for a shutdown in the region on Monday to protest what they described as civilian killings.

A guerrilla war is going on between militants and Indian troops stationed in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 1989. The gunfight between the two sides takes place intermittently across the region.

Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan, is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 09:02:26|Editor: Liangyu

Video Player Close

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The 13th National People's Congress, China's national legislature, opened its first session Monday morning at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Premier Li Keqiang will deliver a government work report at the opening meeting.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 09:15:58|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

Deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) walk to the Great Hall of the People for the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th NPC in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2018. (Xinhua/Li Gang)CANBERRA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's popularity has collapsed in the wake of his deputy's resignation, a poll found.

The latest Newspoll, published on Monday, revealed that Turnbull's lead as preferred prime minister over opposition leader Bill Shorten has dropped from 14 points in early February to just 2 points.

Only 37 percent of 1,657 respondents identified Turnbull as their preferred prime minister, down from 45 percent in February, while Shorten's rating rose from 31 to 35 percent.

The poll was taken in the wake of Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce resigning over his relationship with former staffer Vikki Campion, a saga that dominated the political landscape for the first months of 2018.

Shorten's Australian Labor Party (ALP) maintained its 53-47 lead over the incumbent Liberal National Party (LNP) on a two-party preferred basis, the 28th consecutive Newspoll the LNP has lost under Turnbull's leadership.

Labor also holds a lead in primary vote 38-37 over the LNP while both the left-wing Greens and right-wing One Nation Party experienced significant drop-offs.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 09:12:32|Editor: Liangyu

Video Player Close

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China will unveil and implement the development plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, among other moves to promote coordinated regional development of the country this year, according to a government work report Monday.

The country will promote in all areas mutually beneficial cooperation between the mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao, according to the report.YANGON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Seven people have been killed and some 12 others injured as a car collided with a truck and an express vehicle in Danupyu town in Myanmar's southwestern Ayeyawaddy region, according to the official Global New Light of Myanmar Monday.

The accident happened at 8:45 p.m. local time Saturday, when a car carrying three passengers lost control and crashed into a stationary truck, and then into another express vehicle carrying 16 passengers on the other lane.

The driver and six others died on the spot, local police was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, another rear end collision occurred on the same spot on Sunday morning when a car with two people on board crashed into a stationary truck ahead, causing injuries.

That driver was also charged for reckless driving, the report added.CANBERRA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Australia's opposition party has promised to support the government as it attempts to prevent a "trade war" over new U.S. import tariffs on steel and aluminum.

Chris Bowen, the Australian Labor Party's treasury spokesperson, said on Monday that it was time for "cool heads" after U.S. President Donald Trump announced 25 percent and 10 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, saying "trade wars are good and easy to win."

A number of regions, including Canada and the European Union (EU), have threatened retaliation over the sudden change.

Bowen said that governments from around the world needed to unite and warn the United States about the dangers of protectionism and benefits of free trade.

"A trade war here will be very damaging to everybody involved, including the United States, and this is a matter where all governments around the world are fully entitled to press the Trump administration on what should happen," Bowen told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 10:22:43|Editor: Liangyu

Video Player Close

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Premier Li Keqiang vowed no tolerance of any separatist scheme or activity for "Taiwan independence" in a government work report to the national legislature.

"We will remain firm in safeguarding China's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Li said when delivering the report to the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC) Monday morning.

Upholding the one-China principle, the Chinese mainland will continue to promote peaceful development of cross-Strait relations on the basis of the 1992 Consensus, and advance China's peaceful reunification, he said.

Li promised that the mainland will expand cross-Strait economic and cultural exchanges and cooperation, and ensure that over time, people from Taiwan come to enjoy the same treatment as mainlanders when they pursue study, do business, work or live on the mainland.

"As fellow Chinese living on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, we share a bond of kinship. As long as we go with the tide of history and work together for our nation's greater good, we will together create the future -- a beautiful future of national rejuvenation," he said.YANGON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The Myanmar government will release a list of jobs which are warned as unsuitable for children to do in the country in order to prevent them from working in hazardous condition, the official Global New Light of Myanmar reported Monday.

The move was aimed at helping protect the children's right to survive, labor rights and right to education, among others, the report said.

There are nearly 1.3 million child labors in Myanmar, 80 percent of them are from rural areas, according to surveys.

Myanmar has called for cooperation to eradicate child labor and implement it as a national duty, saying that the project of its kind involves everybody.

All are to actively coordinate and discuss the setup of future work to eradicate child labor in Myanmar, Vice President U Myint Swe told a coordination meeting of the Myanmar National Committee on Child Labor Eradication (MNCCLE), led by himself, in Nay Pyi Taw recently.

U Myint Swe pointed out that child labor issue is not only a big challenge to Myanmar but also a global issue related to poverty and natural disaster.

The 37-member MNCCLE was formed on Feb. 5 to implement the national level program of child labor eradication, while cooperating with local and international organizations.

Myanmar signed ILO Convention 182 for prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labors in 2013 and submitted the implementation report in 2015.

ILO has implemented a four-year program on the elimination of child labor in Myanmar since 2013.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 10:42:50|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

MANILA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Cultural exchanges are always important to the bilateral relations between the Philippines and China, making the two countries better friends, Philippine presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said.

Roque told Xinhua on the sidelines of a Spring Festival gala on Sunday night that the event will help peoples of China and the Philippines understand each other better.

"Cultural exchanges are always important to the bilateral relations. When we try to share our cultural experience and traditions, we help understand each other better. When we understand each other better, we can be better friends," said Roque.

"Now the Philippines and China are good friends, the two countries hope not only expand the political and economic relationship but the cultural relationship as well," said Roque.

Roque also expressed hope that in the future the Philippines will send its artists to China and let Chinese people understand the Philippines better.

Roque said the recent relationship between the Philippines and China is "excellent." He believed the friendship will bring mutual benefit to both countries and bring stability to the region.

Around 3,000 overseas Chinese and Filipinos in Manila attended the event and feasted on the performances by Chinese artists, which included Peking Opera, classical dances, traditional instruments and Chinese songs.

The gala, titled "Cultures of China, Festival of Spring," has been held annually since 2009 and has since presented shows to around 6 million overseas Chinese and audiences worldwide.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 10:52:52|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

RAMALLAH, March 4 (Xinhua) -- The Revolutionary Council of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party on Sunday called for an Arab role to confront the U.S. policy of recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

The U.S. declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel "can never create any new legal reality on the ground," the council, which wrapped up a three-day conference in Ramallah, said in a statement.

"Jerusalem will be the eternal capital of the Palestinian state," the statement said. "The Palestinians will never accept any attempt to reduce or lessen the Islamic, Arab and Palestinian right in Jerusalem."

The council also called on Arab nations and governments "to pass and overcome any attempt to liquidate the Palestinian cause or marginalize it," adding: "The next Arab Summit will be an opportunity to stress and reiterate this fact."

The council welcomed the peace initiative presented by Abbas before the United Nations (UN) Security Council last month, which proposed holding an international peace conference in mid-2018 to end Israeli occupation based on the two-state solution and international legitimacy resolutions.

The statement also called on the countries that support the two-state solution to go on with their recognition of the state of Palestine.

Internally, the council called on the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee to implement the Palestinian Central Council's decisions to reconsider ties with Israel and the agreements signed with it.

Last December, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the U.S. embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to the city.

The U.S. State Department said more than a week ago that the country is planning to open the embassy in Jerusalem in May, earlier than expected.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 11:27:58|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

by Abdul Haleem

KABUL, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani during his speech at the Kabul conference recently offered to have talks with the Taliban without any preconditions, in a bid to end the endemic war in the conflict-ridden country.

The offer made by the president included the recognition of the Taliban as a political group, a ceasefire and the release of Taliban prisoners.

The offer also included the opening of a political office for the Taliban in Kabul or any other Afghan cities, issuing passports and freedom of travel for the Taliban and reviewing the constitution if the group wants.

The peace package offered by president Ghani was widely welcomed by participants at the Kabul conference, attended by delegates from more than 20 countries including Pakistan, China, the United States, Germany and India. However, Afghan political observers have been cautiously looking at the package's potentiality for a positive impact on national reconciliation.

"The offer made by President Ghani, in fact, was an extraordinary suggestion and showed extreme flexibility by the government of Afghanistan to the Taliban to encourage the outfit to come to the negotiating table," political and military analyst General (Rtd) Atequllah Amarkhil told Xinhua.

Describing the peace offer as "very helpful" for bringing both sides closer, the analyst, nevertheless opined that the "Taliban won't sit at the negotiating table unless and until their foreign supporters are convinced to honestly support" the ongoing Afghan peace efforts.

The Taliban group, which has repeatedly rejected the offer for talks with the Afghan government and ahead of Kabul conference called on Washington to have direct talks with the armed outfit, has yet to react to Ghani's offer.

"The stakeholders in the Afghan game and countries around Afghanistan are doubtful about the honesty of the U.S. in the war on terror in Afghanistan," said the analyst.

Describing the role of Pakistan in helping the Afghan peace process succeed as very important, the analyst said "mustering Pakistan support to facilitate direct talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government is essential."

He added that Pakistan won't play a pro-active role in bringing the Taliban to the negotiation table unless and until its legitimate concerns are met.

"The Afghan crisis won't end in the near future unless regional cooperation is ensured," another political expert Haroon Mir told local media.

He said the Afghan government had failed to win regional support for ending the war and bringing peace to Afghanistan in the presence of some 150,000-strong U.S. and NATO-led troops a few years ago.

At present, it seems difficult to achieve the same goal overnight.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 11:43:02|Editor: Liangyu

Video Player Close

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China will unveil and implement the development plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, among other moves to promote coordinated regional development of the country this year, Premier Li Keqiang said Monday.

The country will promote in all areas mutually beneficial cooperation between the mainland, Hong Kong, and Macao, Li said Monday morning in a government work report delivered to the first session of the 13th National People's Congress.

Over the past five years, exchanges and cooperation between the mainland and Hong Kong and Macao have been steadily enhanced as the construction of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge has been completed, Hong Kong and Macao have thrived and remained stable.

The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is one of China's regions that are called for coordinated development. Others include the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area and the Yangtze Economic Belt.

According to the report, the country will make solid progress in the coordinated regional development strategy, and create a new landscape in regional development.CANBERRA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Australia is the world's largest reserve holder or producer of key commodities including gold, iron ore and aluminium, a report has found.

Australia's Minister for Resources Matt Canavan said that Geoscience Australia's "Australia's Identified Mineral Resources" (AIMR) report, published on Monday, reaffirmed the country's position as a hotspot for mineral investment.

"By almost any measure, Australia is a world leader in mineral resources. We hold the largest identified resources of nine commodities, including gold. We are also the world's largest producer of five commodities. This includes lithium, a mineral resource with potential that is just beginning to be unlocked through new and emerging technologies," Canavan said in a media release on Monday.

"We are also leading the way internationally in mining innovation and are exporting more mining services around the globe than ever before."

In addition to gold, iron ore and aluminium, Australia was also a top five producer of rare earths, mineral sands, zinc, lithium, lead and coal.

The report said there were more than 300 mines operating in Australia in 2017, almost 100 of which were in Northern Australia.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australia's mining industry generated revenues of 60.8 billion Australian dollars (47.1 billion U.S. dollars) before tax in the financial year ending in June 2016.

The AIMR report found that mining accounted for 7.4 percent of Australia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2016-17.

Despite the size and importance of the mining sector, only approximately 160,000 Australians are employed by the industry.ROME, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Initial exit polls of Italy's national election showed on Sunday that former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition was set to win the most votes but might fall short of a majority.

According to exit polls conducted by RAI state television, Berlusconi's four-party coalition, including his moderate Forza Italia (Go Italy!) and the League, was expected to win over 36 percent of the ballots, followed by the anti-establishment Five Star Movement with 29-32 percent.

Within the right-wing bloc, Matteo Salvini's anti-migrant and euroskeptic League won 16 percent, ahead of its main center-right partner Forza Italia, which garnered 14 percent.

With a wide margin, the populist Five-Star Movement has emerged as Italy's single most popular party. One of its leading members Alessandro Di Battista called the initial results a "triumph" and said "all other parties will have to come to talk to us (to form a government)."

Salvini put a simple message on his Twitter account: "My first words: THANK YOU!"

The ruling center-left Democratic Party, led by outgoing Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, came third by obtaining nearly one fifth of the votes.

"If this is the final result, for us it is a clear defeat and we will move into the opposition," the party's Lower House leader Ettore Rosato told RAI.

Initial exit polls appear to confirm the expectation of a possible scenario in which no single party or bloc could win enough seats to be an absolute majority in the parliament.

If confirmed by official results, none of the three main groups or blocs can rule alone. The country would see weeks of post-election negotiations to forge a new coalition government.

Italians were called on to choose their representatives in the 315-member Senate and the 630-seat Lower House for a five-year term under a new electoral system which would allocate a little over one-third of seats via a first-past-the-post system, and two-thirds on a proportional basis.

Final results of the election are expected to be released on Monday.

Italy's Interior Ministry said the turnout for the election that ended at 11 p.m. local time (2200 GMT) was about 74 percent, a slight drop from the 75 percent of eligible voters who participated in the 2013 election.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 12:03:04|Editor: Liangyu

Video Player Close

KHARTOUM, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The remarkable success of China's "one country, two systems" principle has set a good example for other countries to solve problems, Sudanese experts said.

"Since the application of the principle in Hong Kong and then Macao, the experience has ... helped in creating political and economic stability in the two (regions)," Hassan al-Saouri, a political science professor at Al Neelain University and chairman of the Sudanese Society for Political Science, told Xinhua.

"Hong Kong has achieved great success in preserving its economic position thanks to the principle. Such flexible self-rule has contributed to maintaining a stable relationship between the Chinese central government and the Hong Kong administration," he said.

The principle can also be applied to Taiwan, he said, adding that it was a more logical and viable choice than others.

Balla Ali Omer, a Sudanese media writer and China expert, agreed, saying the practical implementation of the "one country, two systems" principle has contributed to the economic and developmental renaissance in Hong Kong and enhanced the special administrative region's political stability.

"This principle can be applied in Taiwan," he said, pointing out that politicians in Taiwan need to take on "their historical responsibilities" and that foreign interventions only complicate the matter further.

Omer said this unique Chinese method can help resolve many issues in different parts of the world.DHAKA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Ride-sharing service is no longer just a pipe dream in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh, as people can now use mobile apps to easily get a motorbike delivered to their doorstep in minutes.

A handful of companies have already started app-based on-demand motorcycle ride-sharing services in Dhaka and elsewhere in the country, which are known for inadequate road systems and public transport services.

In Dhaka, one of the most densely populated cities in the world with a population of about 15 million, a substantial portion of the day's working hours are wasted on the streets due to traffic jams, which indirectly adversely impacts the country's economy.

Against this backdrop, app-based motorcycle ride-sharing service providers like Pathao have proved to be quite popular as they take users to their destinations by threading through the heavy traffic.

Rizwan Ahmed Rafi works in a private company. He regularly rides a motorbike and can swiftly skim through traffic.

"My office is located at Banani in Dhaka. Every day I have to come to the office and in the past it was very difficult to get here," he said.

"I had to use three or four different modes of transport for just one journey. I'd use buses and rickshaws. Sometimes it was unbelievably difficult," he added.

He said the buses were so crowded and slow due to the heavy traffic that it almost made no sense catching one at all.

"Thankfully, the app Pathao has made my commute to work far more easy these days and along with other uses we can be far more productive at work, because we can save so much time that was once wasted stuck in traffic," Rafi said.

He added that upon sending a request via the app just before leaving home or his office, a rider would arrive and swiftly drop him off at his desired location.

"There are no problems with the fees as the service is relatively inexpensive. As well as being a more efficient worker I can also spend more time with my family. It's certainly a win-win," he said.

For rider Asif Ahmed, the service created an opportunity for him to earn some extra money before and after office hours.

Ahmed likes to work as a rider as he can work according to his own schedule.

"I am a private service provider. Every day, I share a ride on the way to the office and on the way back from the office. By working this way I earn 15,000 taka (about 180 U.S. dollars) a month," he said.

For Sabnaz Afroz, a female rider who began to work as a rider in 2017, such a service came as a big blessing.

"This is because when I was a student in Dhaka, I had a lot of problems in earning money for my studies," she said, adding that, "it helped me a lot as a source of income."

"I've finished my degree and I am now studying for my master's without having to worry too much about money," she said.

Operators said the ride-sharing services are fast-gaining popularity in urban areas with the rise of both users and riders day by day.

Riaz Uddin Ahamad, director and head of rider acquisition at Pathao, said app-based ride-sharing services have not merely benefited the riders and their users but also the entire motorbike industry.

He said motorbike traders are benefitting from the growing popularity of the services.

"So far I understand the demand for motorbikes, especially those from China, are on the rise in Bangladesh. Chinese companies like Lifan are now exporting more products to Bangladesh," he said, adding that "due to the reasonable prices of Chinese motorbikes, our younger generations can better afford to buy them."

"And with their Chinese motorbikes they can engage themselves with the app-based on-demand motorcycle ride sharing services," said Ahamad.NEW DELHI, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Indian investigators have arrested four senior executives of companies owned by disgraced billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi in connection with the the country's biggest-ever bank fraud of 1.8 billion U.S. dollars.

"The four executives were arrested Sunday. They included a director of Choksi's company Gili India and a top auditor. All were involved in preparing applications for fraudulent Letters of Undertakings submitted to state-owned Punjab National Bank," an official said Monday.

With these arrests, the number of those taken into custody in connection with the fraud has risen to 17. Though Nirav Modi has not yet been arrested, India's External Affairs Ministry has revoked his passport as well as Choksi's over their involvement in the scam.

Indian authorities have also launched a massive crackdown on companies linked to Nirav Modi, and seized 10,000 luxury watches and nine luxury cars last week, apart from freezing his personal shares and mutual funds.

Nirav Modi is said to have defrauded Punjab National Bank, India's second largest state-run bank, of 1.8 billion U.S. dollars, though he has said that he owed the bank only 775 million U.S. dollars, in a letter shot to the bank's management.

The celebrity jeweller, the alleged mastermind of the massive fraud, is said to have fled the country and was reportedly last seen in New York after his appearance at World Economic Forum in Davos as a member of the Indian delegation.SYDNEY, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Australian company profits in the final quarter of 2017 have surprised many economists, with every major sector seeing a positive jump.

Expecting to see a lift of around 1.5 percent, the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showed on Monday that gross operating profits rose 2.2 percent in seasonally adjusted terms in the three months to December 2017.

The strongest performing sector in the lead up to the busy Christmas period was the food services industry, surging 18.0 percent after falling 0.1 percent the previous quarter.

The mining and the resources industry were also big winners adding 4.2 percent to their revenue on the back of stronger commodity prices and increased global demand for iron ore.

Manufacturing soared 9.5 percent, construction bounced 2.9 percent, wholesale trade gained a whopping 11.2 percent and retailers climbed 4.9 percent.

Over the course of the entire year, total profits were up 4.3 percent overall, while wages and salaries down under improved 1.0 percent for the quarter and 4.3 percent for the year.

Economists will now look to Wednesday's GDP read, which is predicted to improve by 0.5 percent.

But although today's data may suggest there could be a slight possibility Australia's GDP read could also come in above market expectations, Capital Economics Australia and New Zealand economist Kate Hickey told Xinhua that inventory data as well as mining and petroleum figures were a little weaker.

"We still expect to see the 0.5 percent increase, however sometimes inventories can offset by imports so it can be hard to know exactly how market perceptions will change," she said.NEW DELHI, March 5 (Xinhua) -- India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh is all set to get the largest solar plant when French President Emmanuel Macron inaugurates it on March 12.

The largest solar power plant of the state is being set up by French company Engie Solar in Mirzapur district, some 300 kms from Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow, and is expected to generate 75 megawatt alternating current.

"French President Macron will arrive at the solar power plant at Dadar Kala in a helicopter. He will inaugurate the plant and address locals. He is likely to spend around 45 minutes at the plant," Mirzapur district magistrate Bimal Kumar Dubey told the media.

Solar power in India is a fast developing industry.

In January 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government expanded its solar plans, targeting 100 billion U.S. dollars in investment and 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022. And the country's initiative of 100 GW of solar energy by 2022 is an ambitious target.S.Korean president's special envoys leave for Pyongyang Source: Xinhua 2018-03-05 13:08:13 SEOUL, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A plane carrying South Korean President Moon Jae-in's special envoys left for Pyongyang to hold talks with senior officials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), multiple local media reported Monday. Editor: ZDSEOUL, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A plane carrying South Korean President Moon Jae-in's special envoys left for Pyongyang to hold talks with senior officials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), multiple local media reported Monday.

The special delegation, composed of five emissaries and five working-level officials, was led by Chung Eui-yong, top national security adviser for Moon and head of the National Security Office of the Blue House.

Included in the delegation was Suh Hoon, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS); Chun Hae-sung, vice unification minister; Kim Sang-gyun, a second deputy NIS director; and Yun Kun-young, a senior Blue House official.

The passenger jet carrying the emissaries will travel via a western direct route to the Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang.KUALA LUMPUR, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's exports in January grew 17.9 percent year-on-year to 82.86 billion ringgit (21.26 billion U.S. dollars) as exports of electrical and electronics (E&E) remains strong.

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) said on Monday that expansion in exports in January was driven mainly by growth in all major sectors.

Manufactured goods, which accounted for 82.5 percent share of Malaysia's total exports surged 20.4 percent year-on-year. The main contributors to the increase were exports of E&E products, which rose 27.1 percent.

Mining and agriculture goods exports were also up 8.5 percent and 6.2 percent respectively.

Meanwhile, Malaysia's imports in January expanded 11.6 percent to 73.15 billion ringgit, resulting in a trade surplus of 9.71 billion ringgit.

Malaysia's trade in January also surged 14.9 percent year-on-year to 156.01 billion ringgit as trade with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), the European Union (EU), China, India and South Korea expanded.

Malaysia's trade with China rose 8.5 percent year-on-year to 25.33 billion ringgit. Its exports to China surged 17.9 percent to 10.1 billion ringgit driven by E&E products, chemicals and chemical products as well as optical and scientific equipment exports.

Malaysia's imports from China increased by 3.1 percent to 15.23 billion ringgit, supported by E&E products, machinery, equipment and parts as well as manufactures of metal.

Malaysia's trade with ASEAN in January expanded 16.2 percent year-on-year to 42.98 billion ringgit, with its exports to the region up 15.6 percent. Its trade with the EU also surged 20.5 percent year-on-year to 15.52 billion ringgit, with its exports to the region growing 13.6 percent

"The January exports growth is above our expectation. However, it may be due to seasonal effect as we have a shorter trading month in February," UOB Malaysia economist Julia Goh told Xinhua.

Goh remained cautious on Malaysia's exports growth as growing protectionism may weigh on global trade momentum.

She maintained her views that Malaysia's export growth to slow down to 9 percent in 2018, from last year's 18.9 percent.

Affin Investment Bank's chief economist Alan Tan, however, opined that the better-than-expected exports growth suggested that Malaysian economy continued to enjoy broad-based global recovery.

"Malaysia's strong exports momentum (double-digit growth) is likely to sustain in the first half. However, the growth may trend lower in the second half due to high base effect," he told Xinhua.

He did not expect the U.S. recent protectionism measures to have significant impact on Malaysia's exports, but he stayed cautious as any retaliation move from other major economies may pose downside risk.

Due to high-base effect, Tan maintains his exports growth forecast of 7 percent, and expects the country to grow at 5.3 percent this year, which was slower when compared with 5.9 percent last year.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 13:38:16|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

SHIBERGHAN, Afghanistan, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Four militants were killed as their explosive device went off prematurely when they were planting a mine on a road in Afghanistan's northern Jawzjan province, army spokesman in the northern region Mohammad Hanif Rezai said Monday.

"The Taliban terrorists were planting a mine on a road in Qurshangor village of Manjagek district Sunday night to target security forces caravan, but the device exploded prematurely killing four on the spot," Rezai told Xinhua.

Taliban militants are yet to make comment on the report.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 13:58:22|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

KABUL, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified armed men set a school on fire overnight in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, local television channel Ariana News reported Monday.

Citing a local official Attaullah Khogyani, the media outlet reported that "four armed men entered Eimal Khan school in Mohmand Dara district at midnight and set it on fire," during which all the documents and books inside the school building were burned.

Although no group has claimed responsibility, Taliban and Islamic State groups' militants who are against education are active in the area.VIENTIANE, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The Lao government has compiled a list of potential development projects to attract domestic and foreign investment, local state-run daily Vientiane Times reported on Monday.

According to the list, local and foreign investors are invited with 27 projects in six provinces out of the country's 18 provinces or cities. The Lao government will provide tax breaks and non-tax incentives as part of efforts to attract private investment in these projects, said the daily.

Projects or activities invited "have been studied and formulated by concerned sectors and local authorities based on their importance for national economy and having natural resource potentials; these projects and activities have been officially approved by the government or provincial authorities, but require capital for their development," said a notice posted on the website of Lao ministry for planning and investment since the end of February.

The Lao government is eyeing total investment of about 164 million U.S.dollars by the private sector to undertake these projects and business activities.

The Lao government initiated the concept of compiling potential investment projects as part of efforts to attract investment in projects and business activities that are essential for local development.

The Lao government is actively encouraging the private sector to invest in priority development projects as it is facing a shortage of revenue. The scheme also eases the government's work as it attempts to turn rural settlements into modern towns, said the daily.

The Lao government hopes the provision of relevant information to business people will help to diversify the country's economic base. Most business operators in Laos are interested in mining and hydropower as the country has plenty of these natural resources.

According to data from the ministry, most investment is ploughed into electricity generation and mining. From 2011 to 2015, accumulated investment funding in the energy and mining sectors was about 3 billion U.S. dollars and 2.5 billion U.S. dollars respectively.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 14:08:25|Editor: Yamei

Video Player Close

Forza Italia party leader Silvio Berlusconi arrives to cast his vote at a polling station in Milan, Italy March 4, 2018. Italians started to cast their ballots Sunday morning leading to the election of a prime minister, two days after politicians made their final campaign for the general election. (Xinhua/Alberto Lingria)

ROME, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Italy's ruling center-left Democratic Party admitted defeat early on Monday morning in one of the country's most divisive national elections amid a far-right, euroskeptic and populist surge.

"This is a very clear and very marked defeat," said Italian Agriculture Minister Maurizio Martina, adding that Democratic Party leader and former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi will comment further later in the morning.

According to the Interior Ministry, voting booths closed at 11 p.m. local time on Sunday, by which time about 74 percent of over 46 million voters had cast their vote, a slight drop from the 75 percent of eligible voters who participated in the 2013 election.

Italians were called on to choose their representatives in the 315-member Senate and the 630-seat Lower House for a five-year term under a new electoral system which would allocate a little over one-third of seats via a first-past-the-post system, and two-thirds on a proportional basis.

According to exit polls conducted by state-run RAI television, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right four-party coalition, including his moderate Forza Italia (Go Italy) and the League, was in the lead with 33-36 percent of the vote, followed by the populist Five Star Movement with 29-32 percent.

Within the right-wing bloc, the anti-migrant and euroskeptic League won 16 percent, ahead of its main center-right partner Forza Italia, which garnered 14 percent.

The center-left Democratic Party led by Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni came third by obtaining nearly one fifth of the votes.

With a wide margin, the Five-Star Movement has emerged as Italy's single most popular party. One of its leading members Alessandro Di Battista called the initial results a "triumph" and said "all other parties will have to come to talk to us (to form a government)."

Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, took to Twitter with a simple message that "My first words: THANK YOU!"

The Democratic Party's Lower House leader Ettore Rosato told RAI, "If this is the final result, for us it is a clear defeat and we will move into the opposition."

Rosato said that his party would never cooperate with "extremists" such as the League or the Five Stars.

Predictions also showed that no single party or bloc will win enough seats to be an absolute majority in the parliament.

If confirmed once official results are released later on Monday, none of the three main groups or blocs can rule alone. The country would see weeks of post-election negotiations to forge a new coalition government.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 14:28:31|Editor: Liangyu

Video Player Close

WASHINGTON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The annual sessions of China's top and legislative and political advisory bodies would start a historic journey to greater reform and opening-up, said a U.S. scholar.

William Jones, Washington Bureau chief of the U.S. publication Executive Intelligence Review, made the remarks in a recent interview with Xinhua.

Jones said China has vowed to open up more in the future, and the world can be reassured to get more benefits from this commitment.

Jones said China's reform and opening up will be conducted in a steady manner, and "at a pace that is determined by the needs of the Chinese economy."

"There will be more foreign direct investment. There will be more ties between Western and Chinese companies, but it will be done in such a way that the financial system ... would be subordinate to the physical economy," he said.

When asked about topics of the "two sessions" that he felt most interested in, Jones listed poverty elimination, the ongoing structural reform, the anti-corruption drive and China's international role.

The two gatherings of this year are "extremely important," because at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) last year, Beijing reiterated its goal to eliminate poverty in the coming years, said Jones.

"The entire world has been just totally taken aback by the tremendous amount of efforts that have been placed on bringing people out of poverty and with a goal of eliminating poverty entirely by 2020," he said, adding that China's efforts can be a model.

He also said the issue of rural vitalization would be a big part of the discussion during the "two sessions."

There will also be a major discussion at the meetings about the current fight against corruption, said the scholar.

"It's very important because corruption leads to ineffective deployment of economic resources and it also creates a lot of tension within the population as a whole when they see some people becoming richer and other people becoming poor and when they see the public goods are being utilized in a not so good manner," he explained.

As for China's international presence, Jones said the nation "is now playing a global role as well as a regional role," which participants of the meetings are also expected to discuss.

Commenting on the proposed inclusion of "building a community with a shared future for humanity" in the constitution during the "two sessions", he said the notion "means that the world can no longer operate on the basis of geopolitics, on the basis of a zero-sum game, winners and losers, but in terms of mutual interests," he said.

"This has got to become the norm for relationships between countries, both big and small."

And there will be talks about reforms to restructure China's economy, said Jones.

"China has, because of the international economic crisis, now been concentrating on creating a domestic demand through the poverty reduction, through these structural reforms, through the infrastructure investment. This now has become a major driver for the Chinese economy, and that's going to have to continue for a while," he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 14:38:34|Editor: Jiaxin

Video Player Close

Chung Eui-yong (front, R), top national security adviser for South Korean President Moon Jae-in and head of the National Security Office of the Blue House, and Suh Hoon, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), are seen at the airport in Seoul, South Korea, March 5, 2018. A plane carrying South Korean President Moon Jae-in's special envoys left for Pyongyang to hold talks with senior officials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), multiple local media reported Monday. (Xinhua/Newsis)

SEOUL, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A special plane carrying South Korean President Moon Jae-in's special envoys left for Pyongyang Monday on a mission to mediate talks between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The plane carrying the 10-member special delegation took off from an airport in Seongnam, outside of the capital Seoul, at about 2 p.m. local time (0500 GMT), local TV footage showed. The passenger jet, called Air Force Two, will fly via a western direct route to the Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang.

The delegation, composed of five emissaries and five working-level officials, was led by Chung Eui-yong, top national security adviser for President Moon and head of the National Security Office of the Blue House.

Also included in the delegation were Suh Hoon, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the country's spy agency, Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung, Second Deputy NIS Director Kim Sang-gyun and Yun Kun-young, a senior Blue House official.

Before leaving for Pyongyang, Chung told reporters that he will convey to the DPRK side President Moon's firm will and resolution to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and build a genuine, lasting peace on the peninsula.

The chief delegate said the emissaries will make an in-depth discussion on ways to continue a variety of dialogues between the DPRK and the international community, including the United States, as well as inter-Korean talks.

The Blue House indicated that the delegation's key mission was to broker talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

During their two-day trip, the South Korean envoys will hold talks with senior DPRK officials about issues, especially the conditions to be created for any U.S.-DPRK dialogue to denuclearize the peninsula, the Blue House said Sunday.

Baik Tae-hyun, unification ministry spokesman, told a press briefing Monday that the delegation's main focus is to encourage the start of the DPRK-U.S. talks to advance the denuclearized peninsula.

After returning to Seoul Tuesday afternoon, the envoys will brief President Moon on their DPRK trip, and then will visit Washington to explain to the U.S. side about the outcome of talks between the South Korean envoys and the DPRK officials.

Chung and Suh reportedly planned to visit Washington within this week to discuss the possible start of talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

Local media speculated that the South Korean delegation would meet top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un to deliver the letter of President Moon, but the Blue House had yet to confirm it.

Moon met with the high-ranking DPRK delegations, who came here last month to attend the opening and closing ceremonies of the 23rd Winter Olympics.

During the meeting with Moon in Seoul, Kim Yo Jong, the younger sister of the DPRK leader, delivered her brother's letter to Moon, conveying the DPRK leader's invitation to the South Korean leader to visit Pyongyang.KUALA LUMPUR, March 5 (Xinhua) -- India's move to raise its palm oil import tax to the highest in more than a decade will again hit palm oil demand and prices as it makes the oil substantially costlier in the country, said analysts Monday.

CIMB Research's analyst Ng Lee Fang estimated in a report that India's move will make palm oil costlier in India by around 15 percent.

"On top of this, crude palm oil will be pricier compared to other imported crude edible oils due to the widening import duty differential between palm oil and other edible oils under the new import duties structure," she said, adding that this could lead to weaker demand for palm oil from India, resulting in softer CPO prices.

India last week raised its import duties on crude palm oil (CPO) and refined palm oil by 14 percentage points to 44 percent and 54 percent.

Maybank Kim Eng's analyst Ong Chee Ting also said in a report that India's latest new import duty is more punitive than the previous round as palm oil will lose its price competitiveness significantly compared to other edible oils.

"It will effectively cancel out Malaysian government recent positive move, damaging the country's palm oil demand and prices," he said.

Earlier on Jan. 8, the Malaysian government temporarily suspended the CPO export taxes for a period of three months to ease the country's palm stockpile price.

MIDF Research's analyst Alan Lim who foresees immediate negative impact from India's new move on palm industry, however, believed things should normalize after two months as India consumption is only 11 percent of oils and fats globally.

"As the increase is targeted only to palm oil, we do expect India to boost their purchase of soybean oil and rapeseed oil as the import duty on these oils is lower as compared to palm oil. This should also result in higher price for soybean oil and rapeseed oil globally," he said.

Thus, in the long run, he believed the move will improve the competitiveness of palm oil against soybean oil and rapeseed oil and hence increase the demand for palm oil in other major consumer countries.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 14:48:37|Editor: Chengcheng

Video Player Close

MEXICO CITY, March 4 (Xinhua) -- Mexican negotiators taking part in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) talks here said Sunday it is still possible to find a compromise to the automobiles rules of origin dispute, despite planned U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

Mexico's chief technical negotiator Kenneth Smith said there was positive dialogue during the seventh round of talks involving the United States, Mexico and Canada, which closes Monday.

"We believe there is still space to continue talking in a constructive manner and to find a good result at the end of the day," Smith told the press. "I feel we had a positive dialogue in this round, we want technical discussions on rules of origin to resume in the coming days."

While the three sides discussed Canada's proposals for the rules of origin, the Mexican side has also been sitting down with its automotive sector to find ways to resolve this impasse, considered the main stumbling block in the talks.

The rules of origin determine what percentage of vehicles must be manufactured in North America to meet NAFTA yardsticks. Canada and Mexico are in favor of maintaining the 62.5 percent rate for vehicles and 60 percent for auto parts that was put in place in 1994. However, the U.S. side is demanding that the North American content be raised to 85 percent and introduce a minimum 50-percent U.S. origin requirement.

Canada has offered a counter-proposal to change the way vehicle costs are measured and use this to determine the rules of origin.

Canada's proposal was followed by a threat by U.S. President Donald Trump to slap 25 percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports.

The U.S. move would be a major disruption to rules of origin talks since the two are essential for manufacturing vehicles.

However, Mexican negotiator Salvador Behar said the two issues were not linked.

"There are some successes we can show but we still have a little more to do," the chief Canadian negotiator, Steve Verheul, added.

The eighth round of talks will be held in the first half of April.

The talks to modernize the two-decade-old NAFTA have been taking place since August 2017. More than 30 topics have been addressed so far, including regulatory improvements, small and medium-sized enterprises, economic competition and anti-corruption.KUALA LUMPUR, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia's state-owned oil company Petronas on Monday announced a new oil and gas discovery from its Boudji-1 exploration well in Block F14 (Likuale), located in south Gabon.

The energy firm said in a statement, the ultra-deepwater exploration well, drilled in water depths around 2,800 meters, encountered 90 meters of gross high quality hydrocarbon-bearing pre-salt sands.

The discovery was made by its subsidiary PC Gabon Upstream S.A. (PCGUSA) -- the operator for Likuale with Australia's Woodside holding a 30 percent participating interest.

The discovery marks a significant milestone for Petronas as it expands upstream growth in West Africa, demonstrating its frontier exploration and deepwater operational capabilities, said the statement.

"The discovery in Gabon is an encouraging development for Petronas, as we continue to pursue growth activities beyond Malaysia, in line with the strategy to expand our core oil and gas business by growing our resource base," said executive vice president and upstream chief executive officer of Petronas Mohd Anuar Taib.

Aside from boosting Gabon's oil and gas industry, he said, the discovery will also spur further growth activities in the region, and complements the group's achievements towards building a significant deepwater portfolio globally.

Petronas, together with the Ministry of Petroleum and Hydrocarbons in Gabon, will conduct an assessment to further determine the commerciality of the resource volume, according to the statement.

To-date, Petronas' deepwater portfolio includes partnerships in the Gumusut-Kakap, Malikai and Kikeh deepwater fields located offshore Sabah.

Besides, there are two new upcoming deepwater development projects in the portfolio -- the Limbayong field in Sabah and the Kelidang Cluster in Brunei.

It is noted that Petronas is the second largest gross acreage holder in offshore Mexico with a total of nine blocks.

To strengthen its presence in West Africa, Petronas has recently signed a farm-out agreement with Australia's FAR Ltd for a 40 percent interest in the offshore petroleum licenses of Blocks A2 and A5 located offshore Gambia.JALALABAD, Afghanistan, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A total of seven militants of the Islamic State group were killed as Afghan aircrafts targeted the hardliner group's hideout in Achin district of Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province on Sunday, spokesman for provincial government Attaullah Khogiani said Monday.

The airstrikes, according to the official, were conducted Sunday afternoon during which a weapon cache of the insurgent outfit was also destroyed.

IS militants have yet to make comment on the report.HAVANA, March 4 (Xinhua) -- The Cuban electoral authorities on Sunday carried out a trial run of the second stage of the general elections set for March 11.

Around 200,000 people took part in the trial which, according to the National Electoral Commission (CEN), is to test the availability of human and material resources.

Tomas Amaran, vice president of the CEN, told reporters that the test covers the functioning of personnel, logistics, transportation and communication means.

It covers 24,471 polling stations spread in the Caribbean nation, including 143 special facilities installed in hospitals and terminals of trains and buses.

On March 11, over 8 million Cubans, out of a 11.2 million population, are to cast their ballots to elect 605 deputies for the National Assembly of People's Power and 1,265 delegates for 15 provincial assemblies.

Last November, Cuba held suffrages to select 12,515 delegates (councilors) to municipal government assemblies as the first stage of the general elections.

The new legislature of the National Assembly will be constituted on April 19 for a term of five years.

On that day, the deputies should elect through direct and secret vote the new Council of State, including its president.

President Raul Castro, 86, has promised to step aside and make way to the younger generation.

Nevertheless, Castro will continue holding the position of secretary general of the ruling Communist Party of Cuba until 2022.TORONTO, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- White Gold Corp. (TSX.V:WGO) (OTC:GFRGF) (FRA:29W) (the Company) is pleased to announce a Mineral Resource Estimate on the White Gold property located in Yukon, Canada.

Highlights Include:

Indicated Mineral Resource of 961,000 gold ounces within 12,324,000 tonnes at 2.43 g/t gold, and Inferred Mineral Resource of 282,500 gold ounces within 5,157,000 tonnes at 1.70 g/t gold, from the Golden Saddle (GS Main, GS Footwall and GS Upper) and Arc deposits.

within 12,324,000 tonnes at 2.43 g/t gold, and within 5,157,000 tonnes at 1.70 g/t gold, from the Golden Saddle (GS Main, GS Footwall and GS Upper) and Arc deposits. A consistent high-grade core on the GS Main that contains 832,000 gold ounces at a grade of 2.96 g/t gold in an Indicated category and 107,000 gold ounces at a grade of 3.18 g/t gold Inferred using a >1 g/t cut-off. Included in this high-grade core is 525,600 gold ounces at a grade of 4.68 g/t gold in an Indicated category and 81,900 gold ounces at a grade of 4.74 g/t gold Inferred using a >3 g/t cut-off.

in an Indicated category and Inferred using a >1 g/t cut-off. Included in this high-grade core is in an Indicated category and Inferred using a >3 g/t cut-off. Mineralization on the Golden Saddle and Arc is also known to extend beyond the limits of the current resource estimate. Geologic models in this area conceptually include an estimated 7 to 10 million tonnes grading between 1 to 1.5 g/t gold.

Mineralization on all zones is open along strike, down dip and down plunge with grades increasing at depth.

Detailed images of the resource model and additional information can be found at http://whitegoldcorp.ca/investors/exploration-highlights/.

Jodie Gibson, P.Geo., Vice President of Exploration for the Company, commented We are very pleased with the Mineral Resource estimate on the Golden Saddle and Arc. It provides us with a solid foundation from which we can expand the current mineral inventory in future exploration programs. Particularly exciting is the GS Main which has a remarkably consistent core at grades >3g/t Au that has been traced from surface to approximately 400m depth and is open down dip and down plunge. The Arc also remains open for expansion in all directions and our 2017 program demonstrated a subparallel zone to the Arc.

These results have been achieved with only 44,698m of drilling on the Golden Saddle and 11,911m of drilling on the Arc to date by the Company and previous owners. Combined with the numerous other known exploration targets on the property that have received minimal to no drill testing and the broad advances in our understanding of the regional geology and controls on mineralization, we believe there is significant potential to expand the current resource base and make new discoveries. Furthermore, recent investments into access and infrastructure via the Yukon Resource Gateway project continues to improve the overall economics within the district.

To learn more about our resource and exciting exploration plans, please visit us at booth 2139 and core shack booth 3111 at the 2018 PDAC Convention this week at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. We welcome anyone who is interested to join us for our corporate presentation on Monday, March 5 at 4:00PM in Room 802.

Resource Estimate Details

The resource estimate was conducted by Arseneau Consulting Services (ACS) and is reported within the guidelines of the Canadian Securities Administration National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101). ACS carried out database verification, grade shell geometry, variography, and ordinary kriging exercises. A database with a total of 3,751 samples from 126 drill holes was used for the Golden Saddle and Arc areas. The Indicated and Inferred mineral resources were classified according to the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves by Dr. Gilles Arseneau, P.Geo., of ACS, a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101. The Company intends to publish an updated technical report within 45 days of this news release which will include the resource estimate. The report will be available at that time on SEDAR and the Companys website.

Indicated and Inferred resources were categorized as potentially open pit or underground minable utilizing 10m x 10m x 10m blocks at 0.5 g/t Au and 3.0 g/t Au cut-off grades, respectively, and utilizing a Whittle shell model. The Grade Tonnage Report using an Ordinary Kriging Estimate is as follows (1-5):

Area Type Classification Cut-off (g/t) Tonnes

(000's) Grade

(g/t) Contained

Gold (oz) GS Main Open Pit Indicated 0.5 11,431 2.52 925,280 Inferred 1,905 2.36 144,660 Underground Inferred 3.0 121 3.81 14,830 GS Footwall Open Pit Indicated 0.5 864 1.24 34,560 Inferred 1,378 1.16 51,430 Underground Inferred 3.0 114 3.24 11,870 GS Upper Open Pit Inferred 0.5 757 0.83 20,270 Arc Open Pit Indicated 0.5 30 1.19 1,130 Inferred 881 1.39 39,430

(1) Mineral Resources which are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

(2) The estimate of Mineral Resources may be materially affected by environmental, permitting, legal, title, taxation, socio-political, marketing, or other relevant issues.

(3) The Inferred Mineral Resource in this estimate has a lower level of confidence than that applied to an Indicated Mineral Resource and must not be converted to a Mineral Reserve. It is reasonably expected that the majority of the Inferred Mineral Resource could be upgraded to an Indicated Mineral Resource with continued exploration.

(4) The Mineral Resources in this report were estimated using the CIM Standards on Mineral Resources and Reserves, Definitions and Guidelines prepared by the CIM Standing Committee on Reserve Definitions and adopted by the CIM Council.

(5) Indicated and Inferred ounces were determined using the following assumptions: gold price of US$1,400/oz, average gold recovery of 94% on the Golden Saddle and 85% on the Arc (based on preliminary metallurgical test work), pit slope of 50 degrees, mining cost of CAN$2.50/tonne mined, processing costs of CAN$15.00/tonne milled, G&A costs of CAN$5.00/tonne milled, transportation and royalty costs of CAN$46.15/oz, and a US:CAN exchange rate of 0.77. These assumptions are subject to the completion of a detailed economic analysis and are not to be interpreted as such.

Wireframes for the Golden Saddle (GS Main and GS Footwall) and Arc were constructed to enclose mineralized zones with composited assays greater than 0.3 g/t Au over 1.5m length. The GS Main was split into 5 domains (101, 102, 103, 104, & 110) with the 110 domain consisting of a high-grade core within the 101 domain that was modelled on 1.5m composites greater than 3 g/t Au. The GS Footwall was split into 3 domains (201, 202, & 203), and the Arc and Arc Footwall were modelled as distinct domains.

Capping was performed on the assays using the 97th or 98th percentile values based on assays within each zone. Within the GS Main, domains 101  104 were capped at 10 g/t Au and the 110 domain was capped at 18 g/t Au. All domains within the GS Footwall were capped at 7 g/t Au and the Arc was capped at 5 g/t Au.

A block model encompassing all zones was constructed by ordinary kriging using Dassault Systems GEMS software. The model was estimated using 10m x 10m x 10m blocks and grades were estimated in three passes. Pass 1 and 2 were based on variography and had expanding ranges from 50-60m for pass 1 and 110  130m for pass 2. Pass 3 estimated blocks that had not been estimated during pass 1 or 2 but were pierced by drill holes. Any blocks estimated during pass 1 by at least three drill holes within a 50m radius were classified as Indicated and all other estimated blocked were classified as Inferred.

Mineral Resources on both the Golden Saddle and Arc are potentially amenable to open pit mining methods. Any mineralized blocks that were not within the pit shells but at a >3g/t cut-off were considered potentially amenable to underground mining methods. All tonnage, grade, and contained metal content estimates have been rounded. Rounding may result in apparent summation difference between tonnage, grade, and contained metal content.

Mineralization on portions of both the Golden Saddle and Arc is known to extend beyond the limits of the current resource estimate, however, the mineralization in these areas does not currently meet the criteria to be classified as Mineral Resources. Based on drilling in these areas and current geologic models this includes an estimated 7  10 million tonnes grading between 1  1.5 g/t Au. The reader should be cautioned that the potential quantity and grade is conceptual in nature; there has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the target being delineated as a mineral resource.

Golden Saddle Deposit

Within the Golden Saddle, the resource estimate was conducted on three zones, the GS Main; GS Footwall, and GS Upper. Both the GS Main and GS Footwall trend NE-SW and dip to the NW at approximately 55 degrees with mineralization occurring along faults, fractures, and breccia zones in an overall normal to strike-slip structural regime. The GS Upper consists of narrow, discontinuous, zones of mineralization intercepted in drilling above the GS Main and appear to be associated with high angle structures subparallel to lithology in the Golden Saddle. Together, the zones define mineralization over 900m strike length and up to 400m down dip. Mineralization is open along strike and down dip/plunge on both zones.

The GS Main is the most significant in terms of estimated ounces and overall grade; containing approximately 96% of the Indicated ounces within the overall resource. Furthermore, the 101-110 domain is specifically important as it encompasses the core of mineralization within the GS Main; can be consistently be traced from surface to over 400m depth; defines an overall northly plunging ore body; and is open and appears to the increasing in grade with depth. This is highlighted by the grade sensitivity on the GS Main, where over 95% of the contained Indicated ounces are within a cut-off grade of >1 g/t and approximately 57% are within a cut-off grade of >3g/t Au.

GS Main - Open Pit - Mineral Resource Estimate Grade Sensitivity Classification Cut-off

(g/t) Tonnes

(000's) Grade

(g/t) Contained

Gold (oz) Indicated >3.0 3,553 4.66 532,590 >2.0 5,583 3.86 692,120 >1.5 7,362 3.34 791,130 >1.0 9,593 2.85 880,500 >0.9 10,031 2.77 893,950 >0.8 10,383 2.71 903,490 >0.7 10,744 2.64 912,210 >0.6 11,041 2.59 918,420 >0.5 11,431 2.52 925,280 >0.4 11,788 2.45 930,460 >0.3 12,119 2.40 934,210 Inferred >3.0 521 4.79 80,270 >2.0 876 3.84 108,090 >1.5 1,101 3.41 120,710 >1.0 1,399 2.94 132,330 >0.9 1,497 2.81 135,310 >0.8 1,611 2.67 138,450 >0.7 1,722 2.55 141,110 >0.6 1,813 2.45 143,010 >0.5 1,905 2.36 144,660 >0.4 1,976 2.29 145,680 >0.3 2,057 2.22 146,590

(1) Mineral Resources which are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Future work on the Golden Saddle in 2018 will focus on the high-grade core of the GS Main and aggressively drill test it with step-outs down dip and down plunge. Additional detailed metallurgical testing will also be performed on the Golden Saddle and an oxide model will be prepared to assess the potential heap leachability of the Golden Saddle mineralization. A detailed exploration plan and finalized budget for the 2018 program on the White Gold property regional exploration portfolio will be reported in due course.

Arc Deposit

The Arc is located approximately 400m south of the Golden Saddle and consists of two zones, the Arc Main and Arc Footwall zones. Both zones trend E-NE and dip to the north at approximately 50 degrees. Mineralization at the Arc has been defined over 1,200m in strike length and up to 400m down dip with mineralization open along strike and down dip. Based on historic metallurgical testing(6) and with only limited drilling performed to date, only a small portion of the mineralized zone meets the criteria to be classified as a Mineral Resource at this point in time. Future work to assess the potential economic viability of the Arc will include detailed metallurgical testing and sensitivity analyses using different gold prices, gold recoveries and potentially, mining and processing methods along with additional drilling.

(6) See Underworld Resources News Release UW2010-NR1 dated Jan. 5, 2010 and available on SEDAR

QA/QC

The analytical work for the 2017 program was performed by Bureau Veritas Commodities Canada Ltd., an internationally recognized analytical services provider, at its Vancouver, British Columbia laboratory. Sample preparation was carried out at its Whitehorse, Yukon facility. All RC chip and diamond core samples were prepared using procedure PRP70-250 (crush, split and pulverize 250 g to 200 mesh) and analyzed by method FA430 (30g fire assay with AAS finish) and AQ200 (0.5g, aqua regia digestion and ICP-MS analysis). Samples containing >10g/t Au were reanalyzed using method FA530 (30g Fire Assay with gravimetric finish).

The reported work was completed using industry standard procedures, including a quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) program consisting of the insertion of certified standards, blanks, and field duplicates into the sample stream. Additionally, historic QA/QC data and methodology on the White Gold property were reviewed and are summarized in the Independent Technical Report for the White Gold Project, Dawson Range, Yukon Canada by Dr. Gilles Arseneau, P.Geo. dated September 15, 2017 (the Technical Report) and available on SEDAR. The qualified persons detected no significant QA/QC issues during review of the data.

Qualified Person

Jodie Gibson, P.Geo. and Vice President of Exploration for the Company is a qualified person as defined under NI 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the content of this news release. For further information regarding the White Gold property, please refer to the Technical Report available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

About White Gold Corp.

The Company owns a portfolio of 19,438 quartz claims across 30 properties covering over 390,000 hectares representing approximately 40% of the Yukons White Gold District. The Companys flagship White Gold property has a mineral resource of 960,970 Indicated and 262,220 Inferred ounces of gold. Regional exploration work has also produced several other prospective targets on the Companys claim packages which borders sizable gold discoveries including the Coffee project owned by Goldcorp Inc. and Western Copper and Gold Corporations Casino project. The Company has outlined an aggressive exploration plan to further explore its properties. For more information visit www.whitegoldcorp.ca.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Information

This news release contains "forward-looking information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of the applicable Canadian securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release. Any statement that involves discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as "expects", or "does not expect", "is expected", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", "plans", "budget", "scheduled", "forecasts", "estimates", "believes" or "intends" or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results "may" or "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking statements. In this news release, forward-looking statements relate, among other things, to: the anticipated benefits to the Company and its shareholders respecting the Companys objectives, goals and exploration activities conducted and proposed to be conducted at the White Gold properties; future growth potential of the Company, including exploration results and future exploration plans, and any potential upgrading of existing mineralization or Mineral Resources based upon future exploration.

These forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions and estimates of management of the Company at the time such statements were made. Actual future results may differ materially as forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to materially differ from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors, among other things, include: the expected benefits to the Company relating to the exploration conducted and proposed to be conducted at the White Gold properties; failure to identify, upgrade or realize mineral resources; the preliminary nature of metallurgical test results; uncertainties relating to the availability and costs of financing needed in the future, including to fund any exploration programs on the White Gold properties and the Companys other properties; business integration risks; fluctuations in general macroeconomic conditions; fluctuations in securities markets; fluctuations in spot and forward prices of gold, silver, base metals or certain other commodities; fluctuations in currency markets (such as the Canadian dollar to United States dollar exchange rate); change in national and local government, legislation, taxation, controls, regulations and political or economic developments; risks and hazards associated with the business of mineral exploration, development and mining (including environmental hazards, industrial accidents, unusual or unexpected formations pressures, cave-ins and flooding); inability to obtain adequate insurance to cover risks and hazards; the presence of laws and regulations that may impose restrictions on mining; employee relations; relationships with and claims by local communities and indigenous populations; availability of increasing costs associated with mining inputs and labour; the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development (including the risks of obtaining necessary licenses, permits and approvals from government authorities); the unlikelihood that properties that are explored are ultimately developed into producing mines; geological factors; actual results of current and future exploration; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be evaluated; soil sampling results being preliminary in nature and are not conclusive evidence of the likelihood of a mineral deposit; title to properties; and those factors described under the heading "Risks and Uncertainties" in the Companys most recently filed managements discussion and analysis. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes, or believed at the time, to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure shareholders that actual results will be consistent with such forward-looking statements, as there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and information. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information, or the material factors or assumptions used to develop such forward-looking information, will prove to be accurate. The Company does not undertake any obligations to release publicly any revisions for updating any voluntary forward-looking statements, except as required by applicable securities law.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange (the Exchange) nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

Contact Information:

David DOnofrio

Chief Executive Officer

White Gold Corp.

(416) 643-3880

ddonofrio@whitegoldcorp.caVLADIVOSTOK, Russia, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A Russian Navy unit is guarding the military airfield on Matua, a volcanic island in the Kuril Islands chain, Admiral Sergei Avakyants, commander of the Pacific Fleet, said.

"There is a military airfield on Matua, which is capable of receiving light military transport aircraft and helicopters. Infrastructure has been created for the functioning of the airfield, which is guarded and serviced by the unit of the Pacific Fleet," Avakyants told Russia's Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper in an interview published Monday.

He also said attention was being given to replenishing the combat crew in the region and commissioning new support vessels and coastal equipment.

Two modern hostels for servicemen were handed over to the military unit recently, he said.

The Russian military and the Russian Geographical Society conducted a joint expedition to Matua Island in May 2016 to study the possibility of basing Pacific Fleet forces there.

Matua is located near the center of the Kuril Islands chain.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 15:48:50|Editor: Jiaxin

Video Player Close

Kashmiri people gather near the body of a civilian killed in army firing in Shopian district, about 53 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, Martch 5, 2018. Two militants and four civilians were killed in army firing in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, officials said Monday. (Xinhua/Javed Dar)

SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Two militants and four civilians were killed in army firing in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, pushing region on the edge, officials said Monday.

The firing took place on Sunday late evening at village Pohan in Shopian district, about 53 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

According to Indian army spokesperson, on Sunday late evening, militants fired upon their mobile vehicle check post (MVCP) in Pohan village and in the retaliatory fire, a militant and three people accompanying him were killed.

Army has not suffered any casualty in the attack.

Locals including the victim families however refuted the army version and said four people killed in the incident were civilians.

On Monday morning body of another civilian was found near the spot.

Reports said his body was found dead behind the steering wheel of his car.

Police said the investigation of the case has been taken up and bodies were handed over to their families.

According to police spokesman, the body of another militant has been found.

"The preliminary investigation suggested the death of said militant is part of chain of incident at Pohan," the police spokesman said.

Massive protests in the area began immediately after the word about civilian killings went across.

Locals including young women and children took to roads shouting anti-India and pro-freedom slogans demanding punishment to the army. Thousands of people participated in funeral prayers of the civilians and militants.

"The situation is tense and a sea of people have gathered to stage protests against the civilian killings and participate in the funeral prayer," Mohammed Younis, a local told Xinhua over telephone from Pinjura village. "There is lot of anger and tension among the locals over the killings."

Eyewitness said in another village of Malikgund, six rounds of funerals were held for a slain youth and women were seen beating their chests and throwing flower petals and candies in mourning on the civilians.

Mobile internet services in twin districts of Shopian and Pulwama have been snapped fearing it would mobilise crowds to participate in anti-India protests.

Authorities have ordered closure of all the educational institutions in the region and postponed all the scheduled examinations for the day. Schools in the region were supposed to open on Monday after a three-month winter break.

A complete shutdown against the civilian killings is being observed in the region on the call of separatist groups demanding an end to New Delhi's rule in India-controlled Kashmir.

Authorities have imposed restrictions in several parts of Srinagar city. The domestic rail service has also been suspended in wake of the prevailing tension.

Reports said clashes broke out in Anantnag town between students and police. Police used force to disperse the protesting students and detained many among them.

Anti-India sentiment runs deep in the psyche of majority of Kashmiris. Irate residents defying curfew and restrictions took to roads at several places and clashed with police. The youth throw stones and brickbats on contingents of police and paramilitary, who respond by firing tear smoke shells, pellets and bullets, which often proves fatal.

In January, protests erupted in the region when three civilian youth were killed in army firing.SEOUL, March 5 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in's approval rating rose for two straight weeks amid the continued dialogue mood between the two Koreas, a weekly survey showed Monday.

According to the Realmeter poll, support for Moon gained 0.8 percentage points from a week earlier to 66.5 percent last week. Moon's support score was on the rise for two weeks in a row.

The result was based on a poll of 2,003 voters conducted last week. It had 2.2 percentage points in margin of error with a 95 percent confidence level.

The continued rise in Moon's support came amid the inter-Korean dialogue mood that lasted after the decision by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to participate in the South Korea-hosted Winter Olympics.

The high-ranking DPRK delegations to the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies met with President Moon to discuss ways to build peace on the Korean Peninsula and improve inter-Korean relations.

Moon dispatched his special envoys to Pyongyang earlier in the day as part of efforts to broker talks between the DPRK and the United States to advance the denuclearization on the peninsula.

Support for Moon's ruling Democratic Party climbed 0.7 percentage points over the week to 50 percent last week, keeping an upward trend for two straight weeks.

It was followed by the main opposition Liberty Korea Party with 19.7 percent, which added 0.4 percentage points compared with the previous week.

The approval scores for the conservative Bareun Future Party fell 0.3 percentage points to 6.8 percent, while those for the minor progressive Justice Party and the liberal Party for Democracy and Peace stood at 4.5 percent and 3.0 percent respectively.MANILA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will skip the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Australia summit this month, his spokesman said on Monday.

"The president regrets that he will be unable to attend the ASEAN-Australia summit this month. Developments at home continue to require the President's presence in the Philippines," said presidential spokesperson Harry Roque during a briefing at the Malacanang presidential palace.

He said Duterte needs to be in the country to attend the Philippine Military Academy on March 18 "as he considers this an opportunity to have a dialogue with younger military officials."

The commemoration of the 14th anniversary of ASEAN-Australia ties is scheduled from March 16 to 18.

Roque said Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano will represent Duterte to the high-level meeting that will be held in Sydney.

"The special designation will help ensure that the Philippines continues to be engaged with ASEAN and Australia in advancing shared interest in the same region," he said.Gangbu Glacier in Tibet (Xinhua/Purbu Tashi) Tucked away in Nakarts County in Tibet, Gangbu Glacier stands solitarily near the border between China and Bhutan. The glacier builds a maze of ice and snow that is various in shape and magnificent in figure. Gangbu Glacier in Tibet (Xinhua/Purbu Tashi) Gangbu Glacier is only more than 250 kilometers from Lhasa, but tourists to Tibet seldom set foot on this land of ice due to its high altitude at around 5,500 meters and other adverse natural conditions. Most of the land here remains untouched. Gangbu Glacier in Tibet (Xinhua/Purbu Tashi) To true nature lovers, however, the landscape itself is worthy of all the troubles. Gangbu Glacier in Tibet (Xinhua/Purbu Tashi) The crystal clear ice and snow here form a fairy land on earth. Stand on the glacier of thousands of years old, and you will feel as if you were living in the glacial period. Gangbu Glacier in Tibet (Xinhua/Purbu Tashi) The best season to visit Gangbu is winter, as the glacier and ice-covered rivers are well-frozen, making it safer to exploit deeper in the arrays of small icebergs. Gangbu Glacier in Tibet (Xinhua/Purbu Tashi) Gangbu Glacier in Tibet (Xinhua/Purbu Tashi) (Translation by Lu Huilan)Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 16:08:56|Editor: Lifang

Video Player Close

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China will launch the Long March-5B carrier rocket into space in 2019, according to a spokesperson for the China Manned Space Engineering Office (CMSEO).

The rocket will help carry the core module and experiment modules to China's space station.

The Long March-5B carrier rocket will undergo testing in March in preparation for the first launch mission.

China will select the third batch of astronauts in the first half of this year for its manned space exploration plan. The new astronauts will include not only pilots, but also maintenance engineers. More manned and cargo spacecrafts have been scheduled for development.

The spokesperson also said the CMSEO would cooperate with the United Nations for Outer Space Affairs to offer opportunities on the application of the Chinese space station, with the European Space Agency on module development and with other countries on the lunar probe.

China initiated the manned space program in 1992. Designed as the country's strongest carrier rocket, the Long March-5 has a payload capacity of 25 tonnes to low Earth orbit, or 14 tonnes to geostationary transfer orbit.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 16:24:01|Editor: Lifang

Video Player Close

GUIYANG, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Authorities plan to increase the population of South China tigers this year in southwest China's Guizhou Province, where the wild endangered tiger species is believed to have disappeared.

Ran Jingcheng, with the Guizhou provincial wild animal and forest plant management administration, said that 12 South China tigers will be introduced in Guizhou to "help rejuvenate the tiger population."

Currently, 117 South China tigers survive worldwide, about two-thirds of which are the offspring of tigers from Guizhou, Ran said.

"Most of these tigers bred in captivity were the offspring of the 5 tigers caught in Guizhou from 1958 to 1962 and a tiger captured in Fujian Province in 1970," Ran said.

Beginning in 2016, the Guizhou government listed increasing the South China tiger population to the government agenda.

"The plan is to introduce tigers from other provinces and help them reproduce in Guizhou," Ran said. "A national park will be built to train them in living skills until the tigers are able to survive in the wild."

The national nature reserve in Guizhou's Xishui County has a forest area that stretches more than 1,800 square km, providing a place with enough water and food for the tigers, Ran said.

"It's a perfect place to release the tigers," he said.

Indigenous to China, South China tigers used to be found across the country.

"In the 1950s, more than 400 tiger skins were purchased each year in China," Ran said. "In Guizhou alone, more than 100 skins were purchased each year."

But with the increase of guns and rising logging activity, their numbers dwindled, he said.

From 1960 to 1964, about 60 tiger skins were purchased each year on average, but in the 1970s, only one or two tiger skins were purchased each year.

Wild South China tigers were last seen in the Xishui nature reserve in the 1990s, Ran said.

"The tigers have been nowhere to be seen ever since," said Ran.

Efforts to breed more of the rare tigers are already under way. In February, a South China tiger cub was born in a wild animal park in Guizhou, the first cub of the endangered species successfully bred in Guizhou in four years.

The female cub, weighing 750 grams, was born to mother Meng Meng at Guizhou Forest Wildlife Zoo. In 2009, the zoo introduced four South China tigers from Shanghai, and two cubs were born in 2014, one of which is the newborn's father.

But the cub, born premature and with incomplete renal function, died 11 days after birth.

"The survival rate is less than 50 percent, so increasing the South China tiger population will take a long time," Ran said. "But since we have embarked on the journey, we will not stop."

"Maybe in 30 years, the tigers will roam in the forests in Guizhou again," Ran said.SUVA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand pledged on Monday a funding assistance of 9.5 million New Zealand dollars (about 6.8 million U.S. dollars) for Samoa to help the South Pacific Island state recover from the tropical cyclone Gita.

According to a statement by Samoa's Department of Press and Communications, this was announced on Monday by visiting New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who arrived in Samoa on Sunday night for an one-day official visit.

Announcing the first funding assistance of 3 million New Zealand dollars (2.1 million U.S. dollars) to help Samoa get a speedy recovery from tropical cyclone at a joint press conference with Samoan Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, Ardern said that the impact of cyclone Gita had been felt across the region, including New Zealand, and her government was committed to helping communities at home and in the Pacific recover as quickly as possible.

Ardern said that the funding would be provided directly to the Samoan government to support the recovery and building of more resilient infrastructure.

The second funding component of 6.5 million New Zealand dollars (about 4.7 million U.S. dollars) is to support Samoan women and young people to set up business.

Ardern said that women and young people were strongly represented in the small and medium enterprise sector, so this funding would have a direct impact on their ability to establish sustainable businesses and help Samoa achieve sustained and inclusive economic growth.

The funding will be focusing on improving the performance of Samoa's private sector through direct support for micro, small, and medium enterprises.

Samoa is the first leg of Ardern's current Pacific Island states tour which will also take her to Tonga, Niue and the Cook Islands.TOKYO, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A large metal object may have fallen off an airplane while flying close to Japan's Narita airport, authorities said Monday.

The one kilogram, trapezoid-shaped object, was spotted by a local resident on Sunday, according to Narita city government officials.

The white, metallic object, which was 25 centimeters in width and 50 cm in height, was found on a mountain roughly seven km away from the busy airport's B runway and just 30 meters from a residential area, the officials said.

Japan's transport ministry stipulates that airlines are to report any instances of lost or missing parts if they are 100 square-centimeters or larger.

The ministry also requires it is to be informed if the missing parts, in the case of them being non-metal, are reported if they weigh in excess of 200 grams.

For metal parts, if the weight is 100 grams or more, the missing part must be reported to the ministry.

Two similar instances in September last year caused local residents and passengers here concern.

The first being a panel falling off a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines plane and striking a car after the plane took off from Kansai International Airport.

The second incident involved an inbound All Nippon Airways aircraft arriving at Narita airport losing a panel twice in the same month.

The Narita city government and the transport ministry are currently trying to determine if the sizable object found on Sunday is part of an aircraft.HARARE, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Former minister in the old government led by Robert Mugabe, Ambrose Mutinhiri, has become the first ruling Zanu-PF party member to voluntarily resign as a legislator in protest over Mugabe's ouster following a military intervention last November.

Mutinhiri has since written a letter to the Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda notifying him of his withdrawal of membership from the ruling party and resignation from Parliament.

"I have taken this decision after carefully considering the events of the past four months, starting with the unconstitutional overthrow of the elected Head of State and Government, President Robert Mugabe and his illegal replacement with Emmerson Mnangagwa, by the Zimbabwe Defence Forces through a military coup on 15 November 2017," he said.

Mutinhiri was until the last cabinet reshuffle by new President Emmerson Mnangagwa the Minister of State for Mashonaland East Provincial Affairs.

Mnangagwa did not retain him when he named his new government leadership.

State media on Monday quoted unnamed sources alleging that Mutinhiri had become a proxy for Mugabe and his wife and had been appointed to lead a new political outfit known as the New Patriotic Front.English German

Sika AG today successfully placed a bond with a total amount of CHF 300 million through a double tranche. The payment date of the bonds is March 27, 2018. The bonds were placed under the lead management of UBS AG and Credit Suisse AG. They will be listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange. The net proceeds of the transaction will be used to support the growth strategy of Sika, to serve the company's long-term, general financing, and for acquisitions.

CHF 160 million bond 2018-2020 with a floating interest rate based on 3-month CHF LIBOR, paid quarterly. There is a minimum interest rate of 0.00% and a maximum interest rate of 0.05%. The bond was issued at 100.602%, which reflects a yield at launch

of -0.30%.



CHF 140 million bond 2018-2026 with a fixed coupon of 0.60% per annum. The bond was issued at 100.351% which reflects a yield of 0.555%.

CONTACT

Dominik Slappnig

Corporate Communications &

Investor Relations

+41 58 436 68 21

slappnig.dominik@ch.sika.com

SIKA CORPORATE PROFILE

Sika is a specialty chemicals company with a leading position in the development and production of systems and products for bonding, sealing, damping, reinforcing and protecting in the building sector and motor vehicle industry. Sika has subsidiaries in 100 countries around the world and manufactures in over 200 factories. Its more than 18,000 employees generated annual sales of CHF 6.25 billion in 2017.

The media release can be downloaded from the following link:HARARE, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa has congratulated the new leader of the country's largest opposition party, Nelson Chamisa, on attaining the new position and appealed for peace during the run-up to forthcoming national elections.

"I would like to congratulate Nelson Chamisa as he takes over the leadership of the MDC. We look forward to a competitive, peaceful and positive election campaign, providing the people of Zimbabwe with a clear and democratic choice," Mnangagwa posted on his Facebook page Sunday.

He said he hoped all his opponents would keep the campaign calm and clean and allow the people of Zimbabwe to decide which direction Zimbabwe should take over the next five years.

Chamisa was elected the party's new president last week following the death of founding president Morgan Tsvangirai on Feb. 14.

He immediately became the presidential candidate for the MDC Alliance, a grouping of parties.

His election is being contested, however, by Thokozani Khupe who alleges that his election was unconstitutional and that by virtue of her being the only elected party vice president, she should lead the party until its next congress in 2019.

Tsvangirai in 2016 appointed Chamisa and Elias Mudzuri as co-vice presidents in addition to the elected Khupe, in a move which generated fissures in a party which has been trying to take power from Mnangagwa's ruling Zanu-PF since 2000.

Mnangagwa took over from former President Robert Mugabe in November 2017.SUVA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Fiji, a South Pacific Island state with a population of more than 880,000, will need 9.3 billion Fijian dollars (about 4.6 billion U.S. dollars) to deal with climate change in the coming 10 years, a Fijian government official said on Monday.

According to Fiji Broadcasting Corporation (FBC), this was said by Fiji's Attorney-General Aiyaz-Sayed Khaiyum while responding to climate change-related questions raised in the Parliament.

As the President of the 23rd Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP23), Fiji is highly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and the unsustainable exploitation of the oceans.

According to a study released last November in Germany, By 2050, Fiji's annual losses due to extreme weather events could reach 6.5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with more than 32,000 people pushed into hardship every year.

Fiji's National Climate Change Policy also says that global sea level changes will more than double by the end of this century. Fiji has since 1993 recorded a 6mm increase in its sea level per year, larger than the global average. The rapid rise of sea levels and the resulting saltwater intrusion that stems from the increased ferocity of coastal floods have made portions of the island nation uninhabitable.

Currently, Fiji has relocated three villages to higher ground, and the country will have another 42 to 43 villages earmarked to be moved to higher ground who have been on coastal areas.CAPE TOWN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The Private Rhino Owners Association (PROA) on Monday launched a initiative that will facilitate the legal trade of rhino horns.

The newly established online trade desk, known as the Rhino Horn Trade Africa (RHTA), aims to provide a managed, efficient platform from which genuine buyers and sellers can trade in "clean", humanely acquired rhino horns, the South Africa-based PROA said in a statement emailed to Xinhua.

The initiative will assist both buyers and sellers of legal horns when it comes to matters of compliance, including Finance Intelligence Centre Act (FICA) requirements and the verification of permits, according to the association.

Last year, PROA members voted unanimously to create a trade desk to facilitate sales and bring much-needed conservation revenue to mitigate rhino management and security costs.

The South African government introduced the moratorium on rhino horn trade in 2009 to curb rhino poaching. But private ranchers say the moratorium has failed to stop the scourge, and therefore should be lifted.

Private rhino owners in South Africa currently own in excess of 7,000 black and white rhinos, more than the rest of Africa combined (about 37 percent of the national herd).

The RHTA is working closely with the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory (VGL) and University of Pretoria at Onderstepoort to ensure that all rhino horns sold through the RHTA are first recorded on the Rhino DNA Index System, or RhODIS database, Jones said.

This means that every rhino horn offered for sale through RHTA must possess a DNA certificate. Genetic profiling is the key control in establishing the provenance of every rhino horn on offer. By this mechanism no "blood" horn is able to enter the market.

Jones said the revenue generated from sales will be viewed as conservation revenue that will assist rhino owners to continue protecting and caring for their animals, which they currently do at great personal expense, with no incentives or outside funding.

Although last year's Constitutional Court order set aside the moratorium on the domestic trade in rhino horns, the domestic trade in rhino horns is subject to the issuing of the relevant permits in terms of the relevant laws, regulations and applicable provincial legislation in order to be able to trade nationally, the government says.

Global trade of rhino horns remains prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

South Africa, home to about 90 percent of the world's rhino population, bears the brunt of rhino poaching, loosing 1,028 rhinos to poaching in 2017.SEOUL, March 5 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in's special envoys to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) planned to meet and have a dinner with top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, the Blue House of South Korea said Monday.

Presidential Spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a press briefing that the special delegation had agreed with the DPRK side to have a meeting and a dinner with the DPRK leader from 6 p.m. local time (0900 GMT) Monday.

The 10-member delegation, led by Chung Eui-yong, top national security advisor for President Moon, took off from an airport in Seongnam, outside of Seoul, earlier in the day on a special plane.

The delegation, composed of five envoys and five working-level officials, included Suh Hoon, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), Vice Unification Minister Chung Hae-sung, Second Deputy NIS Director Kim Sang-gyun and Yun Kun-young, a senior Blue House official.SAN FRANCISCO, March 4 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese delegation held a scouting event at Stanford University on Sunday to recruit talents from Silicon Valley, a global innovation hub.

The delegation from Yangpu, a district in Shanghai, was looking for high-tech skills in areas such as big data and machine learning.

"Yangpu welcomes talents from all around the world. We hope foreign talents can come to participate in and share the rapid development of Yangpu," Li Yueqi, Communist Party of China secretary for the district, said.

"China has entered a new era and innovation is the theme. As Shanghai is focused on becoming an outstanding global metropolis, Yangpu District is in the frontline to implement the innovation strategies," Li said.

Yangpu was designated a national innovation pilot urban district in 2010. Six years later, the State Council, China's cabinet, named it as one of the first national demonstration bases of entrepreneurship and innovation.

The district is home to 10 world-class universities and over 100 research institutes.

"We are committed to building Yangpu into one of the most innovation-friendly areas in the world," Li said.

Wang Jingfan was among the almost 300 students and young entrepreneurs who attended the event. Wang, a Stanford student, is also the leader of an overseas Chinese students' group developing their own startup projects.

"It's a trend to base innovations here in the Silicon Valley and develop the market in China," he told the participants.

Wang, who visited more than 10 high-tech enterprises in Yangpu in 2016, is now helping promote the district's preferential policies for foreign talents.

The delegation, which included executives of more than 20 biotech, artificial intelligence and internet technology companies in Yangpu, also provided networking opportunities for companies and individuals planning to go to China.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 18:24:31|Editor: Lu Hui

Video Player Close

Chung Eui-yong (C), top national security adviser for South Korean President Moon Jae-in and head of the National Security Office of the Blue House, is seen at the airport in Seoul, South Korea, March 5, 2018. A plane carrying South Korean President Moon Jae-in's special envoys left for Pyongyang to hold talks with senior officials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), multiple local media reported Monday.(Xinhua/Newsis)

SEOUL, March 5 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in's special envoys to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) agreed to meet with top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, the Blue House of South Korea said Monday.

Presidential Spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a press briefing that the special delegation had agreed with the DPRK side to have a meeting and a dinner with the DPRK leader from 6 p.m. local time (0900 GMT) on Monday.

It was not known whether the dinner meeting had started as agreed upon.

The 10-member delegation, led by Chung Eui-yong, top national security advisor for President Moon, took off from an airport in Seongnam, outside of Seoul, at about 1:50 p.m. local time.

The delegation, composed of five envoys and five working-level officials, included Suh Hoon, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), Vice Unification Minister Chung Hae-sung, Second Deputy NIS Director Kim Sang-gyun, and Yun Kun-young, a senior Blue House official.

The plane carrying the South Korean delegation arrived in the Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang at around 2:50 p.m. local time, according to the Blue House.

The special emissaries were greeted by Ri Son Gwon, chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland who visited South Korea last month as a member of high-ranking DPRK delegations to the opening and closing ceremonies of the 23rd Winter Olympics.

The South Korean envoys moved to a resort facility in Pyongyang to meet with Kim Yong Chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea who led the ranking DPRK delegation to the Olympic closing ceremony.

During the meeting with the vice chairman, the South Korean envoys discussed schedules for their two-day stay in Pyongyang, agreeing to have a dinner meeting with the DPRK leader, according to the Blue House.ASSADABAD, Afghanistan, March 5 (Xinhua) -- At least five people including four militants and one police have been killed as clash erupted in Marawara district of the eastern Kunar province on Monday, provincial police chief Haqnawaz Haqyar said.

According to the official, the clash flared up after Taliban militants stormed some security checkpoints in Bachi area of Marawara district early Monday morning, and police retaliated, forcing militants to flee after leaving four bodies behind.

Three more militants and one more police sustained injuries in the fight, the official added.

Security forces would continue to target the insurgents in the area, the police chief further said.

Taliban militants haven't commented.WELLINGTON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand will make an initial contribution of 500,000 NZ dollars (360,886 U.S. dollars) to help with the emergency response following the 7.5-magnitude earthquake in Papua New Guinea's Highlands region last Monday, Foreign Minister Winston Peters said on Monday.

"The rugged terrain and loss of communications in the area impacted means it is taking time to build a complete picture of the damage, but we know that tens of thousands of people are reported as requiring humanitarian assistance," Peters said in a statement.

New Zealand is working with Papua New Guinean authorities, the United Nations, donors and aid agencies on the ground to identify how New Zealand can best assist, Peters said, adding that New Zealand stands ready to assist Papua New Guinea.

A RNZAF C130 Hercules aircraft carrying emergency relief supplies departed for Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea, on Monday, carrying family hygiene kits, shelter kits, jerry cans, and tarpaulins.DAR ES SALAAM, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A senior Tanzanian government official has voiced concerns over Lake Manyara's diminishing water levels, calling for more efforts to save the key tourist attraction from drying up.

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism Gaudence Milanzi said on Sunday a balance between wildlife conservation and human activities should be achieved as water level in the lake, which is home to flamingoes and hippopotamus, continued to diminish at an alarming rate.

"Lake Manyara National Park is drying up fast, at 5 percent every year, caused by human activities," Milanzi told 13 permanent secretaries from different ministries on a visit to Lake Manyara National Park to assess the effects of human activities on the lake.

"This task calls for the attention of more than one ministry," he said. "That is why we have come together to find ways of saving the lake."

Milanzi said each of the 13 ministries has a role to play in saving the lake, which is home to a diverse set of landscapes and wildlife.

Yustina Kiwango, an ecologist with Lake Manyara National Park, said water level in the lake has dropped from 20 meters to 5 centimeters over the years.

"You can actually drive across the lake," she said.

According to Kiwango, the effects of human activities in the lake have resulted in the disappearance of some water species, including the flamingoes.

The situation inside the lake has also made it difficult for the survival of the hippopotamus, Kiwango added.WELLINGTON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The New Zealand government and industry bodies are committed to jointly funding the response to the Mycoplasma bovis outbreak which is a widespread bacterial infection in cattle, a senior agricultural official said on Monday.

The funding of 85 million NZ dollars (61 million U.S. dollars) for operational and compensation costs for the outbreak response, beginning July 1, 2017, to the end of the current financial year, was approved by the cabinet on Monday, said Minister of Agriculture and Biosecurity Damien O'Connor, adding that 10 million NZ dollars was approved in December last year.

Since Mycoplasma bovis was found in New Zealand in July last year, the Ministry for Primary Industries has spent 10 million NZ dollars on the operational response and 2.5 million NZ dollars on compensation claims, O'Connor said, adding that industry bodies DairyNZ, Beef+Lamb New Zealand, and the Meat Industry Association have committed 11.2 million NZ dollars towards operational costs.

"This is a sign of a healthy government-industry relationship and allows us to continue to contain the disease to determine its full spread, keeping the option of eradication open until that decision is made in a few weeks," O'Connor said.

A total of 51 compensation claims have been received with 10 paid in part or in full, he added. (1 NZ dollar equals to 0.72 USD)THIS NEWS RELEASE IS NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES. ANY FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH THIS RESTRICTION MAY CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF U.S. SECURITIES LAW

TORONTO and PICKERING, Ontario, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Automodular Corporation (NEX:AM.H) (AMD) and HLS Therapeutics Inc. (HLS) intend to enter into an amendment (the Amendment) to the arrangement agreement between AMD and HLS dated December 21, 2017, as amended (the Arrangement Agreement) in connection with the amalgamation of HLS and AMD by way of a plan of arrangement under the provisions of the Business Corporations Act (Ontario) (the Arrangement) to form a company to be named HLS Therapeutics Inc. (the Resulting Issuer). The Amendment will provide that, if the net settlement proceeds in respect of AMDs litigation with General Motors (the GM Claim) are distributed to former shareholders of AMD following the closing of the Arrangement (rather than as part of the Arrangement), the Board of Directors of the Resulting Issuer will have the ability to distribute certain escrowed funds in addition to such net settlement proceeds.

AMD currently believes that the settlement proceeds in respect of the GM Claim may not be received from General Motors on or before March 7, 2018, as would be required under the Arrangement Agreement to effect a distribution of such proceeds as part of the Arrangement, due to a dispute that has arisen as to payment of HST on the settlement proceeds. Unless AMD receives HST on the settlement proceeds from General Motors, AMD will be required to remit a total of $805,310 of HST out of the $7 million settlement proceeds. AMD earlier today filed a motion on an urgent basis in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice seeking a declaration that the settlement is exclusive of HST and requiring General Motors to pay HST on the $7 million settlement amount. A hearing has been set for March 7, 2018.

On February 26, 2018, AMD and HLS announced that, if the settlement proceeds were received on or before March 7, 2018, a distribution of approximately $6.3 million would be made as part of the Arrangement through a redemption of preferred shares of the Resulting Issuer (each, a Resulting Issuer Preferred Share) to be issued to AMD Shareholders under the Plan of Arrangement. This distribution amount was calculated based on the expected net settlement proceeds from the GM Claim, together with certain AMD cash on hand that would otherwise be contributed to an escrow account on closing of the Arrangement to fund the litigation of the GM Claim.

In light of the dispute over payment of HST, unless AMD receives settlement proceeds of $7 million plus HST from General Motors by March 7, 2018, the previously announced redemption of Resulting Issuer Preferred Shares will not occur as part of the closing of the Arrangement and the distribution of net settlement proceeds will be less than the $6.3 million amount previously announced.

If the settlement proceeds are received after March 7, 2018, the redemption of the Resulting Issuer Preferred Shares will occur pursuant to the terms of the Resulting Issuer Preferred Shares on or about ten business days following the later of the receipt of the proceeds and the date of completion of the Arrangement. In that case, the Board of Directors of the Resulting Issuer will have the discretion to approve the release of certain funds from escrow to be included as part of the post-closing distribution in addition to the net settlement proceeds.

The Amendment also provides that fractional Resulting Issuer Preferred Shares will not be issued after any redemption of Resulting Issuer Preferred Shares, with any such fractions being rounded to the nearest whole number. The amendment concerning fractional shares was required as the parties have been informed that intermediaries such as CDS and DTC are unable to facilitate fractional shares in their systems.

A copy of the Amendment (which includes the plan of arrangement and the terms of the Resulting Issuer Preferred Shares) is available on www.sedar.com.

About AMD

AMD since 1997 provided sequencing and sub-assembly services for modules that were installed in vehicles assembled by North American Original Equipment Manufacturers at plants in Canada and the United States. AMD provided these services to the Ford Motor Company (Ford) until the completion of the multi-year agreement and its related amendments on December 23, 2014. Following the expiry of AMDs commercial agreement with Ford on December 23, 2014, AMD ceased operations at its two remaining operating facilities in Oakville, Ontario. During the first quarter of 2015 both facilities were returned to the respective landlords. At the current time, AMD has no active operations. The remaining employees have assisted in pursuing the GM Litigation. Both the AMD board of directors and the remaining members of the executive management team have been focused on finding ways to leverage AMDs cash balance and public company listing.

About HLS

Formed in 2015, HLS is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the acquisition and commercialization of late stage development, commercial stage promoted and legacy stage managed branded pharmaceutical products in the North American markets. HLSs focus is on products targeting the central nervous system and cardiovascular therapeutic areas. HLSs management team is composed of seasoned pharmaceutical executives with a strong track record of success in these therapeutic areas and at managing products in each of these lifecycle stages.

Neither the Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

THIS PRESS RELEASE DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL OR THE SOLICITATION OF AN OFFER TO BUY ANY SECURITIES IN ANY JURISDICTION, NOR SHALL THERE BE ANY OFFER, SALE, OR SOLICITATION OF SECURITIES IN ANY JURISDICTION IN WHICH SUCH OFFER, SALE, OR SOLICITATION WOULD BE UNLAWFUL.

THE SECURITIES PROPOSED TO BE ISSUED IN THE PROPOSED ARRANGEMENT HAVE NOT BEEN AND WILL NOT BE REGISTERED UNDER THE U.S. SECURITIES ACT OF 1933 (THE 1933 ACT) AND MAY NOT BE OFFERED OR SOLD IN THE UNITED STATES OR TO A U.S. PERSON IN THE ABSENCE OF SUCH REGISTRATION OR AN EXEMPTION FROM THE REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS OF THE 1933 ACT. THE RESULTING ISSUER INTENDS TO ISSUE SUCH SECURITIES PURSUANT TO THE EXEMPTION FROM REGISTRATION SET FORTH IN SECTION 3(a)(10) OF THE 1933 ACT.

Notice on forward-looking statements:

This release includes forward-looking information or forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws, which may include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to the completion of the Arrangement, the terms on which the Arrangement is intended to be completed, the ability to obtain regulatory and shareholder approvals and other factors, the settlement of the GM Claim, and the timing of receipt of settlement proceeds and whether such proceeds include HST. Often but not always, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as expect, intends, anticipated, believes or variations (including negative variations) of such words and phrases, or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would or will be taken, occur or be achieved. Such statements are based on the current expectations and views of future events of the management of AMD and HLS, and are based on assumptions and subject to risks and uncertainties. Although management of each entity believes that the assumptions underlying these statements are reasonable, they may prove to be incorrect. Except as required by applicable securities laws, forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and neither AMD nor HLS undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

For More Information

AMD Contact Information

Christopher S. Nutt

President and Chief Executive Officer

Automodular Corporation

(905) 420-0200

invest@automodular.com

HLS Contact Information

Ross Marshall

Investor Relations

HLS Therapeutics Inc.

(416) 526-1563

ross.marshall@loderockadvisors.com

Gilbert Godin

President and Chief Operating Officer

HLS Therapeutics Inc.

(484) 232-3400 ext. 101

g.godin@hlstherapeutics.comKATHMANDU, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi arrived here on Monday for a two-day official visit to Nepal.

Nepali Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada and senior Nepali government officials welcomed Abbasi at the Tribhuvan International Airport upon his arrival earlier Monday.

In a statement, the Pakistani Foreign Office said that Abbasi is paying a visit to Nepal as part of Pakistan's pro-active and outreach efforts to engage with regional countries.

The office said that Abbasi's visit will provide an opportunity to further expand and strengthen bilateral relations with Nepal across all areas of mutual interest including trade, education, tourism, defence and people to people contacts.

Abbasi is the first high-level foreign dignitary to visit Nepal after the inauguration of the new government under the leadership of K.P. Sharma Oli on Feb. 15.

Abbasi and Oli will hold a meeting on bilateral ties later on Monday, according to the Nepal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Diplomatic sources said that the two prime ministers will discuss about holding the 19th Summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), which was scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November 2016, but cancelled after India and three other SAARC member states announced to boycott the meeting. Since then the SAARC Summit has not been held.

Nepal is currently the chair of the eight-member SAARC comprising Afghanistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 19:19:45|Editor: Jiaxin

Video Player Close

MANILA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A sub-leader of the Daesh-inspired Maute Group has taken over as the emir or leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Southeast Asia, a Philippine military spokesman disclosed Monday.

The new ISIS-Southeast Asia emir, identified as Abu Dar, succeeded Isnilon Hapilon, a senior leader of the Abu Sayyaf, another notorious terror group besides Maute in southern Philippines, who was slain by government forces at the height of the five-month siege of Marawi city last year.

"The one who is standing as their emir or leader now, the one who replaced him (Hapilon) is Abu Dar," said Maj. Ronald Suscano, spokesman of the Army's 1st Infantry Division based in Zamboanga del Sur.

Hapilon and Maute leader Omar Maute were killed after elite government soldiers assaulted their lair last October inside the main battle area in Marawi city. The assault also led to the rescue of 20 hostages, including a two-month old baby girl.

Suscano described Dar as a "full-blooded Maranao", a term for a southern tribe. He said they have reports that Dar is frequenting Pagayawan town in Lanao del Sur where the terrorist leader grew up, studied and married.

Suscano said Dar was among those who laid a siege of Marawi city on May 23 last year, but was able to slip out, along with other Maute members and leaders. The fighting led to the death of 974 terrorists, soldiers and policemen and 47 civilians.

"He escaped out of Marawi with a large amount of money. His group carried the money so they have a lot of funds," said Suscano.

A security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said military estimates the amount the group of Dar was able to carry out of Marawi at about 500 million pesos (10 million U.S. dollars), adding Dar and his men slipped out of Marawi during the early stage of the siege.

Dar, like Hapilon, is reported to have connections with foreign terrorists. "There are foreign terrorists left (in Mindanao). He is with them now. We just can not say how many or disclose the identities of these foreign terrorists left," said Suscano.

Last November, an intelligence officer in the Philippine army said there are about eight foreign terrorists operating in Mindanao, providing assistance to local terrorists.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 19:19:45|Editor: pengying

Video Player Close

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China will raise its defense budget by 8.1 percent in 2018, up slightly from last year's 7 percent, but still considered moderate in view of the country's size, economic volume and security demands.

The 2018 defense budget will be 1.11 trillion yuan (about 175 billion U.S. dollars), according to a budget report submitted to the first session of the 13th National People's Congress Monday.

Although higher than the previous two years, it is the third time for the growth rate to dip into the single digit since 2011, following 7.6 percent in 2016 and 7 percent in 2017.

The country spent about 1.02 trillion yuan (about 161.87 billion dollars) in national defense in 2017, about 1.3 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).

China's defense budget takes up a smaller share of its GDP and national fiscal expenditure compared with other major countries, said Zhang Yesui, spokesperson for the first session of the 13th NPC, at a press conference on Sunday.

Its military spending per capita is also lower than other major countries, Zhang said.

China's military spending, which serves to safeguard the security of roughly 20 percent of the world's population, continues to lag behind the United States, though the two countries are growing closer in terms of economic size.

In November last year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a defense policy bill worth 692 billion U.S. dollars for the 2018 fiscal year, about four times China's budget, while the U.S. population is a quarter of China's.

Steady and appropriate growth of defense spending is necessary because the Chinese armed forces have been modernizing to keep up with the country's development, said Major General Chen Zhou, research fellow at the Academy of Military Sciences affiliated with the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

A large part of the increased spending is for upgrading equipment, supporting military reforms and improving the welfare and training conditions of servicemen and women, Chen said.

China has set goals to complete the basic modernization of national defense and forces by 2035 and to transform its armed forces into world class by the mid-21st century.

In the past five years, the country has been trying to transform its armed forces from simply large to strong, with a restructured command system, enhanced combat readiness and reduced personnel.

The four military headquarters -- those for staff, politics, logistics and armaments -- have been reorganized into 15 agencies, while the seven military area commands were regrouped into five theater commands.

In the meantime, the percentage of land force personnel among the entire PLA was cut to less than half, and the new Rocket Force and the Strategic Support Force were established.

The number of PLA officers was also reduced by 30 percent.

The armed forces are required to meet new national security demands, fulfill new missions, offer strategic support for national rejuvenation and catch up with international military development, which requires continuous input, Chen said.

"Whether a country is a threat to others or not is not determined by its national strength and armed forces, but by the policy it adopts," Chen said.

With a defense policy that is defensive in nature, China's development will not pose a threat to any other country, he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 19:34:48|Editor: Jiaxin

Video Player Close

BAGHDAD, March 5 (Xinhua) -- An Iraqi legal body ordered Monday to confiscate assets of hundreds of relatives and cronies of former leader Saddam Hussein.

Tasked with vetting the members of Hussein's Baath party, the Iraqi Supreme National Commission for Accountability and Justice decided to confiscate the movable and immovable properties of a list of 4,257 people.

Their properties will be registered as properties of the Iraqi Finance Ministry, the commission said in a statement.

The listed people have the right to object the decision in a special committee formed by the Council of Ministers to decide the fate of the seized assets, it added.

Some of the named in the list are in prison, others are living abroad and some were executed, such as Saddam Hussein himself and his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as Chemical Ali.

Ali was hanged in 2010 for ordering attacks in 1988 that killed thousands of Kurds in the town of Halabcha in Iraq's northeastern province of Sulaimaniyah.COLOMBO, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka's Health Ministry said on Monday it would soon seek cabinet approval to raise the age limit of cigarette sale to adults from 18 to 21 years.

Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne said that the proposals would soon be drafted, and following cabinet approval, cigarette sales would be banned to anyone below the age of 21 years.

He said steps were also being taken to ban the sale of cigarettes near schools across the island in order to discourage students from smoking.

He said the sale of cigarettes would be banned within a distance of 100 metres around schools and this will be gazetted on April 7 to coincide with the World Health Day.

Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena recently blamed the use of tobacco and alcohol for the increasing poverty level and deterioration of health among poor people in the country.

Sirisena said more than 500 million rupees (about 3.2 million U.S. dollars) were being spent per day in Sri Lanka on tobacco and alcohol and the low-income groups were spending 35 percent of their earnings on tobacco and alcohol.

He further said the government would aim to ban the cultivation of tobacco in the island by the year 2020.MANILA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Philippine police have arrested a suspected terrorist who allegedly took part in attacking the southern Philippine Marawi City in May last year, authorities said on Monday.

Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Director General Ronald dela Rosa said Abdul Nasser Lomondot was arrested around 5 p.m. on Saturday in Manila City. He said a pistol and a hand grenade were confiscated from the suspect.

The military tagged Lomondot as "a Maute Group sub-leader who took part in the Marawi rebellion." Lomondot is "one of the key planners" in the attack of Marantao, a town in Lanao del Sur province, the military said.

"He participated in the killing of innocent Christian civilians and committed violence against female and child hostages," the military said, adding that Lomondot trained in Butig town in Lanao del Sur "along with other Daesh members."

Since the death of Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon, whom the military tagged as the "established Amir of Maute-Daesh in the Southeast Asian region", the military said the remnants of the terrorist groups scattered into small groups and went into hiding in different parts of the Lanao del Sur.

"They were also monitored recruiting and conducting training particularly in the boundaries of Lanao and Maguindanao areas where they enjoy a certain civilian support," the military said.

Army Major General Roseller Murillo said the recent arrest helped the military harvest "valuable information that allows authorities to further hunt down the remnants of the group."

"More so, these successes clearly indicate their dwindling organizational leadership and capabilities," Murillo said.

Appropriate charges are being prepared to be filed against Lomondot who is now detained in a police jail in Manila City.

Lomondot's arrest came a few days after the arrest on Feb. 25 of the widow of a slain Malaysian terrorist leader Zulkipli Bin Hir alias Marwan in a raid in the southern Philippine province of Lanao del Norte.

Philippine authorities have also arrested Egyptian man Fehmi Lassoued suspected of being a member of the Islamic States (IS) extremist group. He was arrested on Feb. 19 with a Filipino woman over the weekend inside his rented room at an apartment in Malate, Manila.

Mindanao is under martial rule since May last year when a group of IS-linked extremists, led by Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups, attacked Marawi City, triggering a five-month war that ruined the city and claimed the lives of more 1,200 people.

Many of the pro-Islamic State (IS) militants who carried out the attack were killed. But a number apparently managed to escape when government security forces have retaken the city in October last year.

Some of them came to the capital of Manila, according to PNP chief Dela Rosa, who admitted on Monday that a ranking Maute group member has indeed slipped into Metro Manila to hide.

He also admitted that it's impossible to cordon off Mindanao and monitor the terrorists.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 20:09:57|Editor: Lifang

Video Player Close

TAIPEI, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan's industrial production index in January rose 10.86 percent from a year earlier to 115.98, thanks to the steady global economic growth, according to the island's economic affairs authority Monday.

The sub-index for the manufacturing sector grew 10.84 percent from a year earlier to 117.45 in January, setting a new monthly high and registering 21 consecutive months of increase.

Taiwan's industrial production, especially the semi-conductor sector, is expected to continue to expand in the first quarter of 2018, buoyed by the development of novel technology and steady global economic growth, the island's economic affairs authority said.

In the meantime, Taiwan's wholesale revenue grew 10 percent year-on-year to 882.9 billion new Taiwan dollars (30.15 billion U.S. dollars) in January, but the retail and catering sectors dropped 4.4 percent and 12.1 percent, respectively, due to a different base of comparison as the Lunar New Year fell in January in 2017, but in February in 2018.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 20:24:58|Editor: Jiaxin

Video Player Close

A Syrian soldier guides trucks of aid while crossing from the Wafidin area, northeast of Damascus, toward the rebel-held Douma district in the Eastern Ghouta countryside on March 5, 2018. As many as 46 truckloads of relief aid entered the rebel-held Douma district in the Eastern Ghouta countryside east of the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday. (Xinhua/Ammar Safarjalani)

DAMASCUS, March 5 (Xinhua) -- As many as 46 truckloads of relief aid entered the rebel-held Douma district in the Eastern Ghouta countryside east of the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday.

It was the first aid shipment to reach that hotspot area since the UN Security Council adopted a resolution to achieve a 30-day-long humanitarian ceasefire in Syria on Feb. 24.

It's also the first shipment to enter that area since a Russian-backed humanitarian pause went into force seven days ago.

The truckloads of aid presented by the UN, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) entered the Douma district through a humanitarian corridor in the Wafidin area northeast of Damascus.

The long-awaited shipment entered a day after the UN announced it was sending the shipment to help meet some of the needs of the civilians in that rebel-held area.

During the process, Ali al-Zatari, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Syria, said he was spearheading the convoy into Douma to supervise the delivery process.

"The humanitarian convoy constitutes of medial and food items presented by the UN and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent as well as the International Committee of the Red Cross. It constitutes of 46 truckloads of aid that will be distributed in Douma district," he said.

The UN official, however, said that the authorities in Syria have demanded to decrease this shipment, which was supposed to meet the demands of 70,000 people.

"This convoy is not enough as the parcels have been decreased from meeting the demands of 70,000 people to 27,500 people this is why we hope to bring in aid convoys again on Thursday to support the needs of civilians in Douma and other areas in Eastern Ghouta," he said.

Earlier in the day, the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria said the rebels in Eastern Ghouta pledged to allow civilians to leave that area in exchange for the entry of aid, but no civilians have left yet, particularly that the Russian-backed partial daily humanitarian pause entered its second week with only two children and a Pakistani couple leaving Eastern Ghouta.

The Syrian government and its Russian allies blamed the rebels of hindering the efforts to allow civilians out or let in humanitarian aid.

Eastern Ghouta has grabbed international attention recently since the military showdown has started to gain momentum on Feb. 18 between the rebels and the Syrian government forces, which showed determination to dislodge the rebels from that sprawling area east of Damascus.

The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2401 on Feb. 24, which requires all parties in Syria to immediately cease clashes and provides a sustained humanitarian break for at least 30 days across Syria.

Two days later, the Russians demanded a daily humanitarian pause for five hours in Eastern Ghouta specifically.

But those initiatives have slightly reduced the number of rebels' mortar shells on the capital and the Syrian airstrikes and bombardment of Eastern Ghouta.

The area has been the major threat to Damascus since the rebels took hold in that area in 2012, with armed militants launching attacks on the capital with mortar shells and in some instance through implementing incursion attempts.

Four major rebel groups are currently positioned inside Eastern Ghouta, namely the Islam Army, Failaq al-Rahman, Ahrar al-Sham and the Levant Liberation Committee, or the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday that the military offensive in Eastern Ghouta will continue in tandem with allowing humanitarian aid to enter the area and offer the civilians a chance to leave toward government areas in Damascus.

The War Media, the media wing of the Syrian army, said on Sunday that the Syrian forces have captured nearly 40 percent of Eastern Ghouta over the past few days after battles with the al-Qaida-linked groups, which are excluded from any pacification.

The UN humanitarian agencies have sounded the alarm about the worsening humanitarian situation in that region, where activists said over 600 people have been killed since late last month by the heavy bombardment on their areas.LJUBLJANA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The American Chamber of Commerce in Slovenia (AmCham) has expressed regret about the U.S. administration's plans to impose punitive tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, warning it could prompt retaliatory measures from the EU.

Citing that "U.S. companies employ more than 4.7 million workers in Europe," AmCham Slovenia says the unilateral decisions will harm "cross-atlantic economic and political links, which could jeopardise jobs, investment and security on both sides of the Atlantic."

According to a news report by the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) on Monday, the chamber also warns of retaliatory measures from the EU prompted by the U.S. tariffs move.

While sharing the U.S. administration's concern about global steel and aluminium surplus capacities as a potential threat to jobs in the EU and in the U.S., the chamber's Director General Ajsa Vodnik said it was important that the U.S. and the EU "find a joint response and address the challenges together".

"The global steel and aluminium overcapacity calls for a coordinated response from the EU and U.S. Unilateral U.S. government actions would fail to address this issue and instead risk harming America's relationship with Europe, its staunchest ally," AmCham EU director general Susan Danger was quoted by the STA as saying.

The comments came after U.S. President Donald Trump announced he was planning to levy penalties of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminium imports as of this week.

Europe as well as Canada, Brazil, Mexico and China have announced counter-measures, fuelling expectations about a global trade war. Slovenian steel and aluminium manufacturers are moderately concerned, said STA.MOGADISHU, March 5 (Xinhua) -- An International charity organization on Monday called on donors to increase humanitarian aid to help avert famine in Somalia where the lives of some 2.7 million people are at risk.

In a statement issued on the eve of London for Somalia humanitarian conference, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warned that half a million people today are on the brink of famine.

"The international community saved thousands of lives in Somalia last year, and helped stop a famine before it could happen. But less humanitarian aid now threatens to throw the country back into a deeper crisis, even towards catastrophe," NRC Regional Director Nigel Tricks said in a statement.

The focus of the High-Level Event for the Humanitarian Situation in Somalia is to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in Somalia and generate political and financial momentum for the 2018 humanitarian response and recovery.

The Tuesday event will bring together senior decision makers and partners to agree on how to plan and fund the 2018 humanitarian response, address priority gaps, review lessons from the successful 2017 famine prevention response and how these can be applied to best effect in 2018.

According to the charity, while the country dodged famine last year, 2.7 million people today are living in what the UN describes as crisis or emergency phases of hunger.

"Aid works, as humanitarian aid saved countless lives in Somalia last year, but 2018 promises a new year of crisis. Somalia's forecast includes continued drought for several regions this year," Tricks said.

"Without a focused effort by government and the international community to maintain support for Somalis at risk, thousands of people may be pushed back over the edge," he warned.

According to the statement, the humanitarian community seeks 1.5 billion U.S. dollars for programs to sustain and rebuild the drought and conflict stricken country in 2018 with focus on drought.

A catastrophe was averted last year as donors, governments and agencies heeded crisis warnings, and acted quickly to help hold off another famine. This year the situation is urgent as 5.4 million Somalis will need humanitarian aid.

According to the statement, more than 300,000 children under age five are acutely malnourished, including 48,000 severely malnourished children who face an increased risk of death.

Some 1.1 million people fled their homes due to drought and conflict last year in Somalia, adding to the one million people who were already displaced within the country from previous years.Estimados amigos,

Les doy cordialmente la bienvenida a este Blog informativo con articulos, analisis y comentarios de publicaciones especializadas y especialmente seleccionadas, principalmente sobre temas economicos, financieros y politicos de actualidad, que esperamos y deseamos, sean de su maximo interes, utilidad y conveniencia.

Pensamos que solo comprendiendo cabalmente el presente, es que podemos proyectarnos acertadamente hacia el futuro.

Gonzalo Raffo de Lavalle

Las convicciones son mas peligrosos enemigos de la verdad que las mentiras.

Quien no lo ha dado todo no ha dado nada.

Helenio Herrera

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

Karl Marx

If you know the other and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

Sun Tzu









We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share.This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.



Paulo CoelhoSource: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 20:40:00|Editor: Jiaxin

Video Player Close

RAMALLAH, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Palestinians reject the U.S. President Trump's Middle East peace plan, said advisor of Palestinian president Abbas on Monday.

Nabil Shaath said in statements to the official Palestinian radio station that "there is no Palestinian acceptance to Trump's ideas, therefore it does not matter when it would be announced."

He stressed that "the Palestinians will not accept an American plan to re-engage the sole American control over the peace process, and if Washington wants to contribute to the peace process it must be part of a multi-lateral international framework."

He highlighted the Palestinians are still seeking to formulate a multilateral international mechanism to overlook the peace process including Europe, China and Russia.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime minister is expected to meet with Trump Monday to discuss several issues, including the future of the peace process.

The last round of U.S.-sponsored negotiations between Palestine and Israel achieved no breakthrough.

On Dec. 6, 2017, almost one year after Trump took office, he recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and ordered the U.S. state department to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

As a result, the Palestinians disqualified the U.S. from being the sole sponsor of the peace negotiations with Israel and called for a multilateral peace mechanism.

On Feb. 20, Palestinian President Abbas presented a peace initiative in a speech at the UN Security Council, proposing to hold an international peace conference in mid-2018 to jumpstart final status negotiation based on two-state solution and international legitimacy resolutions.KATHMANDU, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The first session of the Federal Parliament of Nepal was held here on Monday and it endorsed the interim working procedure of the parliament, according to Parliament Spokesman Bharat Raj Gautam.

The first session took place three months after the Himalayan nation successfully held landmark provincial and federal parliament elections simultaneously in two phases in November and December last year.

There are 275 members in the House of Representatives (HoR) or the Lower House, in which 165 members were elected under the first-past-the-post category or direct election and 110 on the proportional representation basis.

Similarly, there are 59 members in the National Assembly (NA) or the Upper House in the Federal Parliament.

The members of HoR and NA in the Federal Parliament were sworn-in yesterday at a function held at the Federal Parliament Building.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 21:00:04|Editor: Jiaxin

Video Player Close

TEHRAN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A senior Iranian security official said Monday that the missile program of the Islamic republic is not a threat to any country.

Iran will boost its defensive power including the missile capabilities, and its deterrent plan will not be affected by the political pressures, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said.

Shamkhani made the remarks in a meeting with the visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in the capital Tehran.

He urged the European countries not to bend under the U.S. "psychological game" pertaining to Iran's nuclear deal.

The Iranian official called for the acceleration of implementation of the Iranian nuclear deal, internationally known as JCPOA, signed in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (Russia, China, the U.S., Britain, France and Germany).

Trump has threatened to scuttle the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal unless amendments are made to it.

Any move to undermine the JCPOA would result in the loss of credibility of other international agreements, said Shamkhani.

For his part, Le Drian hailed Iran's commitment to the JCPOA and said that France insists on the full implementation of the deal.

Le Drian said that both countries have new plans for boosting cooperation in monetary and banking interactions.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday voiced his support for the 2015 nuclear deal which limited Iran's nuclear activities in returns for the lift of western sanctions against Tehran.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 21:05:06|Editor: Jiaxin

Video Player Close

VIENNA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, on Monday warned that if the Iranian nuclear deal failed, it could be very negative for the nuclear inspection regime and multilateralism.

Speaking to a board meeting in Vienna, IAEA chief Yukiya Amano said Iran is now cooperating with his team monitoring Tehran's implementation of the nuclear deal which was agreed in 2015 summer.

However, the chief of the UN nuclear agency noted if the Iran nuclear deal were to fail, "it would be a great loss for nuclear verification and for multilateralism."

U.S. President Donald Trump has time and again expressed dissatisfaction over the deal made during his predecessor's term, while Iran has shot back, saying it did not want any more changes in the deal.

The historic agreement involved Iran scaling back its nuclear plans to gain sanctions relief from western states.

However, Iranian ballistic missile program, viewed by some western states as connected to Tehran's nuclear capability, was not included in the deal.

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian visited Iran on Monday to affirm European support for the nuclear deal.ULAN BATOR, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Mongolia's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said here Monday that a martial law has been declared in 12 provinces to contain the spread of the deadly foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).

As of Monday, there have been outbreaks of the FMD in 33 administrative subdivisions in the 12 provinces.

NEMA has distributed 500,000 doses of vaccine to the relevant provinces to fight the disease.

Also, Mongolian quarantine officials have had over 3,300 animals slaughtered since the beginning of this year in the country to contain the spread of the disease.

According to the relevant officials, the disease may have been spread through haycocks.

Mongolian Deputy Prime Minister Ulziisaikhan Enkhtuvshin has been informed about the spread of the FMD. The authorities are working to find out the causes of the disease spread.

The FMD is a viral infectious disease that spreads among cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, sheep and pigs. The main symptoms of sick animals are increased body temperature, blisters and ulceration in the mucous membranes and hoofs in the mouth.

The disease is rarely transmitted to humans, but humans may also be infected if exposed to the virus.MANILA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Over 2,200 leftist rebels and their supporters have so far surrendered to the government this year, the Philippine military said on Monday.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said in a statement that 2,263 New People's Army (NPA) rebels and their supporters have yielded to the government authorities in the first two months of this year, and 90 percent of them are from Davao region.

Of the 2,263, 607 are regular members while 1,656 are supporters, according to the statement.

The military said the big number of those that surrendered is a result of the "combined focused military operations, intelligence efforts, civil-military operation, re-integration efforts and peace and development programs of the AFP, the PNP (Philippine National Police), and local government units."

The NPA has been staging a leftist insurgency in 60 Philippine provinces since 1969, which have resulted in over 40,000 deaths.NAIROBI, March 5 (Xinhua) -- After enduring a dry spell that lasted months causing severe drought in several parts of the country, Kenyans are currently grappling with heavy rains that are pounding the East African nation.

The rains started barely a week ago signaling the end of dry spell and citizens welcomed them with joy, but thousands are already feeling the pain of the downpour.

Heavy traffic jams, blocked roads due to poor drainage, flooding of houses, displacement and high fares are among the consequences of the rains residents have to grapple with.

On Sunday, it rained continually in most parts of the country, with the rains that started on Saturday night lasting the entire day. They continued up to Monday morning in some regions, including Nairobi.

The change of the weather pattern, from a dry spell to heavy rains, has been drastic, pointing to the effects of climate change affecting the East African nation.

The Meteorological Department had predicted that the long rains season would start in March and end in May. The rains were expected to increase in intensity as time progresses, but all indications are clear that they have started on a high.

"Rains are a blessing and I was looking forward to their start because the dry spell had pushed us to the edge. But it is barely a week since they started and I am already feeling like it has been raining for the last one month," Catherine Odengo, who works with a tour company in Nairobi, said on Monday.

Her works involves a lot of travelling to different parts of the country with both local and foreign tourists to game reserves and lodges.

On Feb. 28, with a group of tourists, she left the capital Nairobi for the Tsavo National Park at the coast.

"Our four-day tour was good thanks to the dry weather that made it easy for us to crisscross the massive park seeing elephants and other wild animals. But on Friday, it started to rain and we had to cut short our tour and return to Nairobi because the roads in the park could not allow us," she recounted.

The journey back to the capital on Saturday turned into a nightmare, as Odengo with the group of tourists found a massive traffic jam some 50km to Nairobi. They spent 10 hours in the jam, only managing to wriggle out on Sunday mid-day.

Police blamed the massive traffic that stretched for kilometres on heavy rains and 'overlapping', a bad habit by Kenyan motorists that involves driving on the wrong side. The rains exacerbated the situation.

In the capital Nairobi, the city's poor drainage has once again been exposed by the heavy rains, with a good number of roads rendered impassable due to floods and a majority clogged by traffic.

Residents are spending plenty of time in traffic jams like never before and commuters have to contend with being charged double fare as public transport operators take advantage of the situation.

"I left home at about 6am for work and spend two-and-half hours in traffic instead of the usually one hour from Kahawa to the city centre. The last time I stayed in traffic that much was over a year ago," said Moses Kimani, a banker in Nairobi.

One of the estates worst affected by the floods in Nairobi following the deluge is the middle-income South C.

Residents spend the better part of Friday night and Saturday morning removing water from their houses due to the floods.

"It was horrible. I arrived home late in the night due to a heavy traffic jam only to find my house flooded. I could not even get in and had to spend the night at a friend's place and return the following morning to clear the mess," said Harrison Musila, a project officer with a non-state organization, in Nairobi.

The rains have cut off several roads across the country, with among the worst hit being the Nairobi-Narok road which leads to the world-famed Masai Mara Game Reserve.

Several road accidents have also been reported in different parts of the country in the last two days due to slippery roads and poor visibility following the rains.

Road Safety Volunteers Association noted that at least five people were killed in different parts of the capital over the weekend following the heavy rains.

Kenya Meteorological Department in its latest update noted that Nairobi, western, Rift Valley and Nyanza regions would receive rainfall from March 1, which would continue for the better part of this month.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 21:35:15|Editor: pengying

Video Player Close

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Monday expressed strong confidence in the nation's ability to prevent systemic risk.

"We are fully capable of forestalling systemic risk," Li said when delivering a government work report at the opening meeting of the annual parliamentary session, citing sound fundamentals of the Chinese economy and the many policy tools at disposal.

China's economic and financial risks are on the whole manageable, Li said. "What China needs to do is to tackle both the symptoms and root causes and take effective measures to defuse potential risks."

Li vowed a serious crackdown on unlawful activities, such as in illegal fundraising and financial fraud.

"The country will strengthen coordination in financial regulation, improve regulation over shadow banking, Internet finance, and financial holding companies, and further improve financial regulation," he said.

Li stressed forestalling and defusing the local government debt risk.

"All forms of borrowing and debt underwriting that violate the law and regulations are strictly prohibited. Provincial-level governments should assume overall responsibility for debts incurred by local governments within their jurisdictions; governments below the provincial level should live up to their own responsibilities; and all must take active, prudent steps to deal with outstanding debt," he said.

The premier promised to improve the standard mechanisms for local governments to secure financing, noting that this year, local government special bonds issued would total 1.35 trillion yuan, an increase of 550 billion yuan year on year.

The special bonds will "be used as a matter of priority for financing the smooth implementation of ongoing projects; and the scope of the use of special bonds will be appropriately expanded," he said.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the 2008 global financial crisis.

Prevention of financial risks is key for China to win what policy makers called the "three critical battles," namely controlling risks, reducing poverty and tackling pollution.

In July 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for stronger financial regulation to contain risks at a National Financial Work Conference.

"Guarding against systemic financial risks is the eternal theme of financial work and the government should take stronger initiative to monitor, warn against and deal with risks in a timely manner," Xi said.

China will control local government debt growth, crack down upon financial irregularities and improve supervision on Internet finance, according to Xi.

Liu He, director of the General Office of the Central Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs, stressed financial risk control at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in January.

"Shadow banking and hidden debt for local governments are serious problems we have to deal with," Liu said. "In about three years, we will strive to bring the overall leverage ratio under effective control, make the financial system more adaptable and better serve the real economy, prevent systemic risks and facilitate better flow of economic activities."

Shao Yu, cheif economist of Orient Securities Company Limited, said, "The [government work] report has sent a clear message that the government will strengthen supervision over shadow banking, Internet finance, and financial holding companies. I'm looking forward to seeing local governments and law enforcement departments implement their work."

ICBC International economist Cheng Shi also said that improving financial supervision over shadow banking, Internet finance, and financial holding companies could close loopholes and make sure that supervision covers the sector thoroughly.

Chen Jing, an NPC deputy from Shanghai, said he would make a proposal with focus on deepening reform in the financial sector.

Chen also called for more cooperation between financial supervision departments, public security departments, procuratorates, courts and local governments to strengthen cooperation in forestalling financial risks.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 21:40:16|Editor: Mengjie

Video Player Close

File photo taken on Sept. 14, 2017 shows Fuxing bullet trains at the assembly workshop at CRRC Changchun Railway Vehicles Co. Ltd. in Changchun, northeast China's Jilin Province. China aims to see economic expansion at around 6.5 percent this year, according to the government work report released Monday. The projected economic expansion this year should also be within reach without much difficulty, according to Chinese economic observers. This judgment is based on the prospect that China is to enjoy a thriving year for consumption, a higher-quality growth and a further opening-up market, which are expected to make China continue its role of stabilizing the global economy. (Xinhua/Zhang Nan)

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China aims to see economic expansion at around 6.5 percent this year, unchanged from 2017, according to the government work report released Monday.

"Given China's economic fundamentals and capacity for job creation, GDP growth of around 6.5 percent will enable China to achieve relatively full employment," Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said while addressing the opening of the first session of the 13th National People's Congress, China's national legislature.

AN ATTAINABLE GOAL

The same GDP growth target was set last year, but the world's second largest economy outperformed, expanding 6.9 percent in 2017, picking up speed for the first time in seven years.

The projected economic expansion this year should also be within reach without much difficulty, according to Chinese economic observers.

The International Monetary Fund in January raised its forecast for China's GDP growth from 6.5 percent to 6.6 percent amid an upbeat outlook for the global recovery. International investment banks including UBS, J.P. Morgan and Nomura also revised their China 2018 GDP growth prediction upward to as high as 6.7 percent.

China's future economic growth is not without headwinds. Recent rising trade friction with the United States is widely considered to be a major roadblock checking the country's external demand, but its impact might be overestimated.

Targeted tariffs and restrictions may hurt related sectors, but the macro impact on China's exports or GDP growth will be very small as a stronger global recovery helps to drive 2018 export growth beyond earlier forecasts, more than offsetting any negative impact from trade friction, according to Wang Tao, UBS chief China economist.

Despite possible slower infrastructure and property investment this year, consumption growth should stay resilient in 2018 thanks to solid income growth, underpinned by robust export and service sector activity, Wang added.

The record high spending by travelers and movie-goers during the week-long Chinese New Year holiday heralds a thriving year for consumption as increasingly affluent Chinese are more willing to pay for higher-quality products and unique experiences.

China's economic planner, the National Development and Reform Commission, expects retail sales of consumer goods to rise around 10 percent in 2018, as well as a rising prominence of the service sector, whose added value might share 52.2 percent of GDP.

A DIFFERENT GROWTH

Although China's economic expansion target is unchanged, it might deliver different growth as China prioritizes growth quality over pace.

The projected growth rate reflects China's position of not over-emphasizing speed but stressing improvements in quality and the effect of development, according to another NDRC report.

"We will strongly promote high-quality development," Premier Li said.

The 19th Communist Party of China (CPC) National Congress as well as the central economic work conference both played down the necessity of pursuing high-speed GDP growth.

The world's second largest economy has sailed into a new era when the country gears up to build a moderately prosperous society in all respects, not just impressive economic figures.

A more sensible approach towards GDP targets is also being taken by local governments. Of the provincial governments, 15 lowered this year's growth target and 15 kept their figures unchanged, with only one expecting a higher growth.

With less emphasis on GDP as the sole performance evaluation indicator, local governments can shift more attention to other key indicators that gauge growth quality such as people's income, and the development of healthcare, education and the environment, according to Liu Shijin, a national political advisor and former senior state think tank official.

China has composite advantages, Premier Li said, citing a complete industrial system, a vast market, abundant human resources and dynamic entrepreneurs and innovators.

"All this means that we have the ability and the conditions to achieve higher quality, more efficient, fairer and more sustainable development," Li said.

STILL GLOBAL STABILIZER

The "around 6.5 percent" GDP target, if achieved, will still be one of the fastest GDP growths worldwide. Although it has bid farewell to breakneck expansion, China, with a higher-quality growth, will continue its role of stabilizing the global economy by further opening up its market.

More dividends from China's growth will be shared globally with a string of opening-up policies to be rolled out to mark the 40th anniversary of the country's reform and opening-up drive, which made China what it is today.

"Bolder moves of opening-up means fresh opportunities for the rest of the world as the Chinese market is big and keeps generating new demand," said Wang Ruijun, an NPC deputy from south China's Guangdong Province, the frontier of the country's reform and opening-up drive.

The country will completely open up its general manufacturing sector to foreign investors this year. Meanwhile, access to sectors like telecommunications, medical services, education, elderly care and new energy vehicles will also be expanded for foreign investment, according to Li.

China's rising middle-income group, with a population of around 400 million, means a huge consumption market for foreign firms thanks to their increasingly bigger appetite for foreign products.

To encourage imports, China will host the first China International Import Expo this year and lower import tariffs on products including automobiles and a number of everyday consumer goods.

"We will open our market wider to promote industry upgrading and more balanced development of trade, and to provide Chinese consumers with a broader range of choices," Li added.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 22:05:21|Editor: Jiaxin

Video Player Close

TEHRAN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said here Monday that dialogue among the Syrian political groups is the requirement for the peace in the Arab State.

In the meantime, measures should be adopted to halt the arms supply to the opposition groups and terrorists which is necessary to restore security and stability in Syria, Shamkhani made the remarks in a meeting with the visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

He also criticized what he called the West's ignorance of Saudi-led military raid against Yemen and West's double-standard policy over the humanitarian crisis in the Arab state.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday urged Iran to put "necessary pressure" on the Syrian government to halt military actions in the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta.

Macron made his remarks during a phone call with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rohani.

Macron said France expected "a constructive contribution by Iran to regional de-escalation and the resolution of crises in the Middle East," said the statement.The US vs. China: A Study in Opposites



by Jeff Thomas







In the first photo, taken in 1972, US President Richard Nixon made what was then considered a bold move, visiting Mao Zedong in Communist China. Literally, as well as figuratively, Chairman Mao is on the left and Mr. Nixon is on the right.



In the second photo, taken over forty years later, we have US President Barack Obama making a similar visit to China. This time, again literally as well as figuratively, Mr. Obama is on the left and Chinese President Xi Jinping is on the right.



Over the ensuing four decades, both countries have been changing dramatically. The US has become increasingly socialistic, more focused on Big Government and more of a totalitarian state. In 1972, it was the worlds foremost creditor nation; it is now the worlds foremost debtor nation. By contrast, China, since the death of Chairman Mao, has opened up considerably, with billions of people becoming upwardly mobile, in response to China becoming increasingly capitalistic.



To be sure, both countries retain some of their historical features, but increasingly, the US is acting like a country in decline, whilst China is acting like a country on the rise.

As a result of successful capitalism, the US became the worlds foremost power after World War II. Then, in the 1960s, the US began apologising for the spoils that came with that capitalism. It became increasingly popular for Americans (largely at the urging of the media and the political structure) to be ashamed of capitalistic achievements and to head in a more socialistic direction.





Republican politicians have needed to soften their views on capitalism in order to appear to be good people. (Good people has essentially come to mean those who are prepared to take from the rich and give to the poor.) They are now Republicans in name only. The US still has two major parties, but one is a moderately liberal party and the other is a vehemently liberal party.



China has gone in the opposite direction, becoming increasingly capitalistic. The results have been dramatic. Many Chinese now have all the trappings that Americans do. In addition, their government is expanding more each year into capitalism.



Again, these developments have followed along the lines of Declining Empire vs. Burgeoning Empire. Increasingly, the US approach to the world has become one of demanding that other countries subjugate themselves to the US, as though they are subsidiaries of the empire. The US has demanded that trade in many essentials (particularly energy) be settled in the US dollar.



As this relationship has been crumbling in recent years, the US has responded by threatening other countries, creating sanctions against them, and even invading them. In doing so, the US has earned the reputation as the schoolyard bully of the worldthe country that the world loves to hate. They still have to play ball with the US, but the resentment is growing globally.



(It should be noted here that, if and when a schoolyard bully does fall from his position, he is stomped on, not only by his challenger, but also by those who resented and hated him but had previously deferred to him and pretended to befriend him. Similarly, when empires fall from grace, staunch allies frequently switch sides rather quickly.)



In contrast to the US, the Chinese have, in recent decades, displayed the sort of capitalism that is indicative of a burgeoning global player. They are, in effect, saying, Were open for business and were here to deal. We have some creative ideas to offer that we think youll welcome. Theyre not twisting arms behind backs. Theyre offering creative opportunities for other countries.



In addition, theyre not aiming for immediate gratification. Their aim is for long-term benefits, just as US goals once were. Today, the Chinese are buying up properties on every continent, setting up businesses, and making sure that the locals benefit from their investments.



In addition, theyre creating deals with governments that those governments could not create on their own. They seek out a country like Venezuela that is on the ropes economically and offer to buy heavily into Venezuelas primary assetoilto the tune of tens of billions of dollars. The deal is not intended to provide a major return for China in the short term, but it does place China in the economic catbird seat in Venezuela over the long haul.



Around the globe, state-backed Chinese developers are offering creative deals to other countries political leaders. For example, if a small nation needs, say, a new port and the port costs $50 million (an amount that the country does not have), the Chinese offer to build the port for, say, $30 million, a bid that no other developer can meet. The Chinese developer takes a loss on the construction, but a part of the deal is that he gets a significant portion of the income of the port for, say, 50 or 75 years.



Chinese developers are now executing such deals in nearly every country in the world. What they lose in profits upon completion is made up for in long-term income. As a bonus, China not only owns property worldwide, it is a shareholder in the economies of countries worldwide.



This rapidly expanding global Chinese capitalism is receiving little notice in the US media, but that, most certainly, will change. As the US reaches its own economic tipping pointmarket crashes, currency collapse, etc.and finds that it can no longer pay even the interest on its debt, it will also discover that it cannot pay out the benefits promised to the 50% of its population who pay no income tax but are recipients of governmental largesse. The US government will then find itself desperately trying to keep this portion of the population at bay, as payouts to recipients decrease. As a result, governmental capital projects will fail to receive funding. Someone will need to step in and offer creative bidding. Enter the Chinese.



Once the US is on more of a Third-World economic footing, it will have little choice but to accept the kinds of deals that the Chinese have recently offered in Jamaica, Egypt, Nicaragua, etc.



The result will be Chinese ownership not only of considerable US real estate and corporations within the US, but ownership of US infrastructure.



Today, the vestiges of Communism undoubtedly remain in China, but the move is decidedly away from Communism, toward capitalism. Conversely, the US seems to be hell-bent on replacing US capitalism with a socialist totalitarian state. Since more than 50% of Americans are now on the dole in some form, it seems highly unlikely that the US will suddenly reverse that direction, since the majority of Americans will vote for continued (and increased) government hand-outs.



Both Chairman Mao and President Nixon are now pushing up daisies, and their present-day replacements are reverse images of them. The future belongs to those who are productive.



As investment guru Jim Rogers has stated, the future belonged to the British in the 19th century and the Americans in the 20th century. The Chinese will own the 21st century. Accordingly, Mr. Rogers made Singapore his home.



We are passing through the early stages of a period of dramatic change. The economic and political world is in the process of turning upside down. Those who come out the other side of this change with their skin on will be those who have diversified both their wealth (however large or small) and, indeed, themselves, so that they are positioned to thrive in the future, rather than to remain where they are and be a part of the decline.NAIROBI, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A Kenyan firm on Monday said it planned to roll out a clean cook stove that aims to reduce country's dependence on firewood and kerosene for household cooking.

James Kariuki, Managing Director of International Research and Development Africa, told Xinhua in Nairobi that it has designed a low cost cook stove that uses biofuel for cooking.

"We intend to introduce the stove to millions of households who are currently dependent on dirty sources of energy such as firewood and kerosene," Kariuki said on the sidelines of the Nairobi Innovation Week.

The cookstove has been patented by the Kenya Industrial Property Institute. He noted that the cookstove is smoke free as well as carbon neutral.

"In addition it has been designed with special metals so that it remains cold even after cooking," he observed.

Government data indicates that over 65 percent of the population depends on firewood and charcoal while another 15 percent uses kerosene.

Kariuki said people would prefer to use clean sources of energy such as Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) or electricity for cooking but are unable due to their high costs.

"We want to equalize access to clean cooking and at the same time conserve Kenya's forests," he added.

International Research and Development Africa has so far built approximately 300 biofuel stoves on a trial basis. "Since we have validated the efficacy of the product, we will begin mass production of the product," he said.

The biofuel cookstove will retail for about 30 U.S. dollars and use anhydrous alcohol from sugar beet.

Kariuki has come up with a hybrid sugar beet variety that can grow in Kenya. He plans to contract farmers to cultivate sugar beet which will be used to produce sugar, while the byproduct will be biofuel for the cookstove.LONDON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- An overhaul of Britain's planning laws to enable 300,000 homes to be built a year was announced Monday by British Prime Minister Theresa May.

The reforms will place a greater emphasis on converting planning permissions into homes. In what is the first major overhaul of planning policy for six years, the changes will provide a comprehensive approach for planners, developers and councils to build more homes.

Announcing the shake-up, May said that tearing up the protected green belts of Britain is not the answer to Britain's housing crisis and that existing projections will be maintained and, in some cases, strengthened.

The protection of green spaces is considered a hot topic, particularly in some of the traditionally Conservative shire county areas.

May told delegates at the national planning conference that home ownership in Britain was largely unaffordable to those without the support of the so-called "the bank of mum and dad," a reference to children relying on financial help from parents to climb onto the property ladder.

"Young people without family wealth are right to be angry at not being able to buy a home," May said.

Councils and developers will be required to work with community groups to ensure those affected by new developments will have a say.

More freedom will be given to town and city councils to make the most of existing land to build homes that maximize density.

Redundant land will be encouraged such as underutilized retail or industrial space for homes, with more flexibility given to extend upwards on existing blocks of flats and houses as well as shops and offices.

Housing Secretary Sajid Javid said: "An entire generation is being locked out of a broken housing market as prices and rents race ahead of supply. Reforming the planning system is the crucial next step to building the homes the country needs."

A spokesman for the Ministry of Housing said: "The government has already delivered more than a million homes since 2010, and last year saw the biggest increase in housing supply in England, over 217,000 new homes -- for almost a decade."

John Healey, Labour's Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, said: "This policy shows again that ministers have no proper plan to fix the housing crisis. Eight years of failure on housing is the fault of Whitehall, not town halls."

"Since 2010, home-ownership has fallen to a 30-year low, rough sleeping has more than doubled, and the number of new homes being built still hasn't recovered to pre-recession levels."LUSAKA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Immigration authorities in Zambia have deported 47 foreigners, 46 of them from Ethiopia, for illegally entering the country, a spokesperson said on Monday.

The other deported was a French national, according to Immigration Department spokesperson Namati Nshinka.

He said in a statement that the deportation was conducted between February 23 and March 1 after the affected foreigners finished serving their prison sentences for unlawful entry and stay in Zambia.

The 46 Ethiopians were among 70 people from that country arrested on October 15 last year in an operation conducted in Lusaka, the country's capital, he added.

According to him, 24 other Ethiopians were still serving their prison sentences.JUBA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- South Sudan on Monday said the rehabilitation and reintegration of hundreds of former child combatants recently released from various armed groups is on progress at various training centers.

William Deng Deng, head of the South Sudan Disarmament Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR), told journalists that they are already offering trauma and psycho-social treatment to 311 ex-child combatants released in February with the help of UN children's fund (UNICEF) from the South Sudan National Liberation Movement (SSNLM) in Yambio, south of the capital.

"The reason they (children) joined combat is because they lack skills to live within the economy. We are already offering counseling, trauma treatment and psycho-social support to them," Deng said in Juba, adding that they are registering the remaining 389 children in Budue State out of 700 that have been released.

Deng disclosed that vocational skills like carpentry, farming, building and brick laying are some of the skills the ex-child soldiers are receiving.

Oluku Andrew, national coordinator for Child DDR, confirmed they are aware of more children still serving in various armed groups.

"What we know there are still more children with armed groups, so long as the conflict continues there are groups that tend to use children," he said, adding that children act as informers and helpers within the armed groups.

Oluku added that about 4,000 former child soldiers have been released from armed groups between 2011-2018.

According to UNICEF, 17,000 were recruited into armed conflict by the warring groups since the start of war in 2013 including 2,342 children killed or maimed, 3,090 children abducted, and 1,130 children sexually assaulted.

South Sudan descended into violence in December 2013, after political dispute between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Machar led to fighting mostly between Dinka ethnic soldiers loyal to Kiir against Machar's Nuer ethnic group.

The 2015 peace agreement to end the violence was again violated in July 2016 when the rival factions resumed fighting in the capital forcing Machar to flee into exile.

The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions that have sought refuge in neighboring countries.File photo: A display featuring missiles and a portrait of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is seen at Baharestan Square in Tehran, Iran September 27, 2017. Picture taken September 27, 2017. (Nazanin Tabatabaee Yazdi/TIMA via REUTERS)

TEHRAN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A senior Iranian security official said Monday that the missile program of the Islamic republic is not a threat to any country.

Iran will boost its defensive power including the missile capabilities, and its deterrent plan will not be affected by the political pressures, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani said.

Shamkhani made the remarks in a meeting with the visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in the capital Tehran.

He urged the European countries not to bend under the U.S. "psychological game" pertaining to Iran's nuclear deal.

The Iranian official called for the acceleration of implementation of the Iranian nuclear deal, internationally known as JCPOA, signed in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (Russia, China, the U.S., Britain, France and Germany).

Trump has threatened to scuttle the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal unless amendments are made to it.

Any move to undermine the JCPOA would result in the loss of credibility of other international agreements, said Shamkhani.

For his part, Le Drian hailed Iran's commitment to the JCPOA and said that France insists on the full implementation of the deal.

Le Drian said that both countries have new plans for boosting cooperation in monetary and banking interactions.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday voiced his support for the 2015 nuclear deal which limited Iran's nuclear activities in returns for the lift of western sanctions against Tehran.COLOMBO, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena on Monday ordered the police to conduct an immediate impartial probe after violent mobs clashed in Kandy.

The government information department said Sirisena had also instructed the army and police to provide the highest security to ensure the safety of all citizens in the district.

Police imposed curfew across the Kandy District earlier on Monday after mobs clashed on the streets causing severe unrest. The clashes were triggered by racial violence.

Police Spokesperson SP Ruwan Gunasekere told Xinhua the curfew would stay in place till Tuesday morning while security had been beefed up.

Several parliamentarians had also raised concerns over the unrest and called on the government to conduct an immediate probe to restore normalcy in Kandy.

The police spokesman said the clashes had erupted in Digana town in Kandy on Sunday night after a 41-year-old man succumbed to his injuries after being attacked by a group of people on Feb. 22.

Gunasekara said 24 people had been arrested over the killing so far. Out of the 24, 10 were directly involved in the killing of the victim while 14 people were arrested on suspicion.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 22:30:29|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

ANKARA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police on Monday detained four Islamic State suspects in northern Samsun province, as part of an investigation into a possible attack on the U.S. embassy in Turkey.

The four suspects detained were all Iraqi citizens and were taken to the police station for legal proceedings, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Early Monday, Ankara police detained 12 IS suspects in raids across the city, accusing them of trying to recruit members for IS and "contacting with people in conflict zones."

The U.S. embassy was closed on Monday due to an unspecified security threat. Police have taken high security measures outside the U.S. embassy.LUANDA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Angolan President Joao Lourenco on Monday in Luanda met Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov on bilateral ties.

According to a press release from the President's Civil Office, they discussed different issues related to the strengthening of bilateral relations during the meeting.

The Angolan statesman expressed interest in seeing the Russian Federation participate in more areas of the Angolan economy, such as gas production apart from diamond mining.

A package of agreements was also discussed by both parties, including validating the equivalences of academic diplomas.

The agreements under discussion are expected to be concluded and signed at the time of the visit by President Joao Lourenco to Russia later this year.

The relations between Angola and Russia reached a high point in 1976, when the two countries signed the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation.

From 1976 to the present, relations between the two countries have undergone different stages of cooperation, and are currently significant in the sectors of Energy, Geology and Mining, Higher Education, Training, Defense, Interior, Telecommunications and Information Technology, Fisheries, Transport, Finance and Banking.

Currently, an estimated 1,000 Russians live in Angola, while at least 1,500 Angolans live in Russia.

After Angola, the Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation will visit Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Ethiopia.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 22:45:32|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

BEIRUT, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Lebanon and Brazil will sign a defense agreement, said visiting Brazilian Foreign Affairs Minister Aloysio Nunes Ferreira Monday.

The agreement will "open a legal framework for the cooperation that already exists between our two countries," the minister said.

Ferreira said so following meeting with Prime Minister Saad Hariri, said the statement from the prime minister's media, adding that he also mentioned "an association agreement between Lebanon and the Common Market of South America."

"We have a very important presence of Lebanese and descendants of Lebanese in Brazil in all areas of our social, economic, political and cultural life," Ferreira added.

He confirmed Brazil's solidarity with Lebanon's efforts and the challenges it faces, including the refugee problem, the problem of investment in infrastructure, the effort to re-equip its armed forces and the qualification of its military.

"We also express solidarity with the security of Lebanon since we are very proud to participate in the United Nations maritime force which is responsible of ensuring security on the Lebanese coast," he said.

Ferreira also invited the prime minister to visit Brazil, and informed the intention of Brazilian President Michel Tamer to visit Lebanon at the end of the year.KIEV, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The Ukrainian government and rebels on Monday accused each other of breaching a new cease-fire that came into force earlier in the day in the country's eastern region of Donbas.

The Ukrainian army said in a statement posted on Facebook that pro-independence rebels attacked them two times with mortars.

Meanwhile, the rebel-run DAN news agency, citing the insurgent operation command, said that the army fired gun shots to the rebel-controlled areas.

There were no reports about the casualties in Donbas since the new truce started.

On March 2, the Trilateral Contact Group that comprises representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe reached an agreement on a fresh truce starting from March 5.

The conflict in eastern Ukraine broke out in April 2014 between government and separatist forces, which has left more than 10,000 people killed. There have been dozens of cease-fires after the conflict erupted.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 22:50:32|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang delivers a government work report at the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th National People's Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2018. (Xinhua/Ju Peng)

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China will reduce the poor rural population by over 10 million in 2018, including 2.8 million people to be relocated from inhospitable areas, Premier Li Keqiang said Monday.

"Poverty alleviation efforts will be carried on through the development of local industries, education, and healthcare," Li said when delivering a government work report at the first session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), the national legislature.

China will do more to support areas affected by extreme poverty, and the central budget's newly enlarged poverty reduction funds and related transfer payments will be weighted toward these areas.

Li said that China would tailor measures to individuals and individual households to ensure that targeted poor populations, including elderly people, people with disabilities, and people with serious diseases, receive the assistance they need.

"Poverty relief policies will remain unchanged for those already lifted out of poverty, while the battle goes on, and the newly poor and those who slip back into poverty will receive prompt support," he said.

The premier promised targeted measures against corruption and misconduct in poverty alleviation.

"China will continue to apply the current poverty alleviation standards and ensure that poverty reduction progresses as planned and meets all standards," he said.

More than 68.5 million rural people had been lifted out of poverty in China over the past five years. That means 37,000 people escaped poverty every single day. The national poverty rate falling from 10.2 percent to 3.1 percent.

Ximeng County in southwest China's Yunnan Province used to be a national-level poor region. Inspired by the country's targeted poverty alleviation drive, the county has developed cattle farming and tourism over the past five years, bringing poverty rate drastically down.

"People have moved from their shabby thatched or wooden houses to new apartments," said Yang Yu, Party chief of the county.

Zuo Xiangyun, an NPC deputy from east China's Jiangxi Province, said Shenshan Village, his hometown, had developed yellow peach and tea plantations, as well as rural tourism.

"Tourists to the village increased from 100,000 in 2016 to nearly 220,000 last year. Thanks to this change, our incomes also grew," Zuo said,

Zuo also said to consolidate poverty alleviation, infrastructure should be improved and a proper industrial development plan must be in place.

China has made great leaps in reducing poverty and reaching the benchmarks laid out in the Sustainable Development Goals, according to the United Nations Development Programme.

William Jones, Washington bureau chief of the Executive Intelligence Review news magazine, said ending poverty had long been regarded a major task for humanity, but until recently was seen as a "utopian dream."

"With China, that dream is now becoming a reality," he said.

"China's remarkable progress in reducing extreme poverty has significantly contributed to the decline in global poverty," noted Hoon S. Soh, World Bank program leader for economic policy for China.

According to a draft report from the Ministry of Finance released Monday, the central government will allocate over 106 billion yuan (16.7 billion U.S. dollars) to subsidize poverty reduction, an increase of 20 billion yuan, or 23.2 percent over last year.

Additional funds will mainly be used in areas affected by extreme poverty, mostly in western China.

"Bringing another 10 million people out of poverty will be much harder this year and requires the government to roll out more precise and tailored measures," said Wang Sangui, a professor with Renmin University.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 22:50:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China's unmanned submersible Qianlong No. 2 has applied its new capabilities in the latest exploration in the southwest Indian Ocean, scientists told Xinhua Monday.

The Qianlong No. 2, China's self-developed 4,500-meter-level autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV), has conducted five dives during its journey on the second section of the country's 49th ocean expedition, said Tao Chunhui, chief scientist on the project.

The AUV used two of its new capabilities on the mission: operating without monitoring from its mother vessel, and taking multiple acquisition sensor modules onboard during the dives, according to Tao.

It thus acquired a mass of data on distribution characteristics such as three-dimensional terrain, regional water abnormity and geomagnetism near the seabed.

With a length of 3.5 meters, height of 1.3 meters and width of 0.7 meters, the Qianlong No. 2 was independently designed by Chinese scientists and can dive to a depth of 4,500 meters.

It has cruised 325 kilometers in a total of 141 working hours during its journey on the second section of the expedition, which concluded Monday.

Its mission was to detect polymetallic sulfide deposits in the exploration area in the southwest Indian Ocean.

On March 2, the Qianlong No. 2 attempted the new capability of working without the monitoring of its mother vessel for the first time.

Chinese scientists released an unmanned monitoring platform, which can navigate autonomously and monitor the AUV's actions.

"Therefore, the underwater operations of the Qianlong No. 2 could be well monitored and its mother vessel free to conduct other missions," Tao said.

"When the work of Qianlong No. 2 was done, its mother vessel would come back and collect it from the water," he added.

In addition, it carried multiple acquisition sensor modules onboard during its missions under the sea, enabling scientists to collect richer data by adding various sensors to the vehicle.

"Its newly-conducted capabilities have reached our forecast after the preliminary applications. New capabilities will be improved and upgraded in the following applications," said Li Bo, head of the research group of the Qianlong No. 2.

The Qianlong No. 2 has been under development since 2011, and was unveiled in October 2014.

It was mainly developed for the exploration of deep-sea mineral resources, as a comprehensive system with integrated technologies in minor landform changes detection, a seabed camera and magnetic survey capabilities.

The AUV can detect waters rich in sulfide deposits that contain various metals, and deep-sea terrain, as well as photograph sulfide, basalt and marine organisms.

The trial exploration in the Indian Ocean in 2016 proved that the AUV can practice deep-sea mineral resource investigation. And it can adapt to the complex terrain in the ocean and finish underwater tasks.

It will conduct underwater detection missions on minor landforms, water abnormity and magnetic surveys in a working area total of about 300 square kilometers in the second and third sections of the expedition, according to Li.

The first sea trial of the Qianlong No. 3, an upgraded version of the Qianlong No. 2, is expected to be conducted this April.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 23:10:38|Editor: Liangyu

Video Player Close

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- People across China on Monday observed a day commemorating Lei Feng, a soldier renowned in China for his generosity and altruistic deeds.

This was the 55th "Lei Feng Day," with people helping others and volunteering in remembrance of Chairman Mao's call to "learn from Comrade Lei Feng."

Lei reportedly died in an accident in 1962 at the age of 22. He was made a national hero after Chairman Mao called on the nation to study his life in 1963.

In Changchun, capital of northeast China's Jilin Province, drivers from a taxi group named after the national hero delivered food to an orphanage on Monday. Founded in 1997, the team has been committed to helping people in need.

Drivers wore armbands printed with the slogan "Learning From Lei Feng." They offered free of charge rides for senior citizens, the disabled, students and other needy residents.

"Not too long ago, an 80-year-old man called and asked us to help take his wife to hospital, because their only daughter was not at home," said Yuan Hui, the team leader, adding that they have been committed to helping others for 20 years.

"I used to be a driver in the military, just like Lei Feng. When I serve people in need, I am showing what kind of person I am, and I am also adding a bit of positive spirit to a civilized society," he said.

On Sunday, a coalition of volunteers was founded for Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei. The volunteers will work to preserve the environment and provide services for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

According to research on voluntary services in Shanghai over the last year, undertaken by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, the volunteering spirit has increased among the public.

Some 91 percent of the people surveyed were satisfied with the voluntary services they receive, the research showed. Top three types of voluntary service are social work, city operation and environmental protection.

Voluntary spirit is part of building an open and inclusive city, said Lin Yuesheng, 66, a volunteer in Guangzhou.

"Guangzhou should be a diverse and inclusive city. Volunteering strengthens communities and brings warmth to people, particularly for migrant families," said Lin.

In Guangdong Province, there are over 9 million registered volunteers and 80,000 voluntary organizations.

In Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, volunteers handed out brochures and pamphlets to call for people to become volunteers on Monday. Tibet has 230,000 volunteers, about seven percent of the total population.

The Tibetan regional library, which won a national award for its long-time public service, organized seminars and special sessions for blind readers and children. They also increased opening hours.

"We will carry on the Lei Feng spirit and provide high-quality public services for readers," said Tseten Butri, a librarian.MILAN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Italy's rightwing, anti-immigrant League party, on Monday hailed an unprecedented result scored in general elections held on Sunday.

With few thousands votes yet to count, partial results showed the League won at least 17.7 percent, according to data from the Interior Ministry.

It's a significant change compared with the just a bit over 4 percent the party achieved in the previous election in 2013.

Its major partner in the center-right coalition, Forza Italia (FI) party, was in the second place with some 14 percent. "Today a good path begins," League's leader Matteo Salvini told a press conference in Milan.

"I am sure our party will do a good job in parliament, because most of our newly-elected lawmakers are local officials from the local administration, as such they are experienced people," Salvini added.

The vote to renew the Italian parliament in Sunday proved one of the most divisive and uncertain elections in years for the country.

With votes counted in over 58,000 polling stations out of total 62,000 at midday, official data showed the center-right coalition altogether reached 36-37 percent of the vote. The anti-establishment Five Star Movement followed with some 32 percent.

In the third place was a center-left coalition led by Democratic Party, which ruled the cabinets in the last legislature, with some 23 percent.

None of the three major contenders has gathered enough votes to win the absolute majority of seats in parliament necessary to govern alone.

The leader of the League, which had run the campaign with a strong anti-immigration and Eurosceptic platform, said Italians sent a clear signal on Sunday. "It is the Italians who decide for Italy, not Paris, not Berlin or Brussels, and not the spread (the financial markets)," Salvini told reporters.

He confirmed the League's political path would remain within the center-right, dismissing any chance of a possible alliance with populist M5S to form a government.

"The League has won within the center-right, and it will now lead the center-right," Salvini stressed.

He added the party would work in order to try to form a government "with those forces that agree on the center-right's program."

After definitive results were announced, political negotiations will be needed in order to see if a majority in both lower house and senate can be formed. The process, brokered by Italian president Sergio Mattarella, might take weeks.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 23:35:47|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, joins a panel discussion with the deputies from Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at the first session of the 13th National People's Congress in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2018. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping said Monday the focus of high-quality economic development should be placed on transforming and upgrading industries.

Efforts should be made to strengthen and improve the real economy, Xi said as he joined a panel discussion with the deputies from Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at the first session of the 13th National People's Congress, China's national legislature.

Chinese economy has transitioned from a phase of rapid growth to a stage of high-quality development, said Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, warning that old ways of thinking might lead China almost nowhere and miss precious opportunities.

Local governments should build on their strengths and tap their potential to develop more emerging, high-end, high-value-added and capital-and-technology-intensive industries, putting in place a multi-dimension and multi-pillar modern industrial mix, Xi pointed out.

The Inner Mongolia autonomous region should well develop the modern energy sector by following the latest global industrial trends. The energy sector's industrial chain should be extended and utilization rate improved, according to Xi.

He also called on the region to develop modern equipment manufacturing, modern services and other emerging sectors like new material, biomedicine, electronics and information, energy conservation, and environmental protection to lend fresh growth momentum.

The region should enhance infrastructure development and make full use of its geographical position for better resource allocation and production layout, Xi said.

Debt risks should be closely watched and effectively prevented, Xi added.

Xi called for more efforts on environmental protection. The management of mountain, water, forest, land, and lake should be planned as a whole. Important projects should be pushed forward elaborately, including the northwest-north-northeast China networks of shelterbelts.

The region should try its best to strike a balance between grass and livestock, strengthen desertification prevention and wetland conservation as well as controlling water, air, and soil pollution.

Xi called for more intensive and precise efforts to help villages with a large number of impoverished residents shake off poverty.

Efforts should focus on issues like industrial development, employment, infrastructure, public services, and healthcare. The medical security system should be improved to address poverty caused by illness, he said.

The president said the poverty alleviation fight should be complemented with China's rural vitalization strategy to improve living conditions of farmers and herdsmen.

Xi said actions should be taken against corruption and undesirable practices in poverty relief work, while demanding strict punishment for embezzlement of poverty relief funds, and elimination of practices like formalities for formalities' sake, bureaucratism, and falsification.

Xi also called for fostering a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation and promoting ethnic solidarity.

Efforts should be made to encourage all ethnic groups to watch out for and help each other and raise awareness of ethnic unity, so that all ethnic groups could be together "like seeds of a pomegranate," he said.

Core socialist values should set the tone of the common spiritual home of all ethnic groups, Xi said, adding that they should be nurtured among the people, particularly children and even in kindergartens.

He encouraged creativity in forms and means of promoting the core socialist values and learning from traditional culture of ethnic minorities.

The country should work to build a secure and stable northern border, he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-05 23:45:51|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

ADEN, Yemen, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Unidentified gunmen on Monday shot dead a senior official of security forces in Yemen's southern port city of Aden, a local police source told Xinhua.

Colonel Abdul Kareem, a commander of the newly-recruited Yemeni security forces in Aden, was killed when gunmen opened fire at him in Sheikh Othman neighborhood, the source said on condition of anonymity.

"The Colonel was assassinated by two masked gunmen riding a motorcycle while he was having his breakfast in a cafeteria in the same neighborhood," the source said.

Yemeni security forces arrived at the scene after the attack and launched an investigation into the incident, the source added.

The incident occurred just 24 hours after the Islamic State (IS) group claimed responsibility for killing two security personnel in Aden.

Commanders of the newly-recruited Yemeni security forces backed by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are frequently targeted by suicide bombers or drive-by shooters.

No group has claimed responsibility for Monday's drive-by shooting yet, but both the Yemen-based al-Qaida branch and the IS conducted a number of similar attacks in Aden in recent weeks.

The southern port city of Aden is considered as Yemen's temporary capital and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government based itself there since 2015.

During the past two years, the al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and other terrorist groups including the IS had an active presence in Yemen's southern part.

The impoverished Arab country has been locked into a civil war since the Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including capital Sanaa, in 2014.

Saudi Arabia leads an Arab military coalition that intervened in Yemen in 2015 to support the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after Iran-backed Houthi rebels forced him into exile.

The United Nations has listed Yemen as the country of the world's number one humanitarian crisis, with seven million Yemenis on the brink of famine and cholera causing more than 2,000 deaths.ISLAMABAD, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan has successfully test-fired long range anti-ship cruise missiles, a statement from the Pakistan Navy said on Monday.

The Pakistan Navy (PN) and the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) jointly tested the anti-ship cruise missiles, the C-802 AK, air to surface missiles, which were fired from both the JF-17 Thunder aircraft and Pakistan Navy Ship SAIF.

The statement noted that the successful joint launch of the missiles by two defence forces of Pakistan exhibit the desired interaction and cooperation between the two organizations.

"Missiles launched from both platforms, successfully hit their intended targets which not only re-asserts the efficacy of the weapon systems but also manifests the extended range of Joint PN-PAF Sea-Air operations and desired synergy between the two services," said the statement from PN.RIGA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Latvia's state-owned power transmission system operator Augstspriehuma Tikls (AST) paid nearly 57.4 million euros (70.6 million U.S. dollars) for a 34.36 percent stake in Conexus Baltic Grid (Conexus), media reported Monday.

The gas transmission and storage company last year was spun off from Latvijas Gaze natural gas utility.

AST CEO Varis Boks said that the transmission system operator took a loan from the Latvian treasury to pay for the purchase.

He also said that the acquisition of Conexus shares was an economically advantageous deal and that it would have no effect on power transmission tariffs.

The Latvian government is buying up Conexus shares in order to create a regional natural gas market and ensure the Latvian energy market's further integration in the European Union, as well as to improve the security and competitiveness of energy supplies, Boks said.

Latvia, which opened up its gas market to free competition in April 2017, had to split up its gas monopoly Latvijas Gaze to comply with EU laws. Latvijas Gaze continues to sell natural gas, but its shareholders -- Gazprom, Itera Latvija and Uniper -- were expected to sell off their shares in Conexus Baltic Grid by Dec. 31, 2017.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 00:25:57|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

AMMAN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Jordan said on Monday it received a letter from Israel nominating a new Israeli ambassador to the Kingdom, a government official said Monday.

"We received a request from Israel nominating an Israeli ambassador to Amman. The request was sent to the concerned authorities seeking their opinion," Minister of State for Media Affairs and Government Spokesperson Mohammad Momani told reporters.

"The foreign ministry is taking necessary diplomatic measures in this regard," the minister said during a press conference Monday.

Jordanian officials have indicated recently that Jordan and Israel are going ahead with all preparations to reopen the Israeli embassy, prepare for the return of Israeli embassy staff to Amman and resume relations.

Last month, Israel named a veteran diplomat to Jordan. The Israeli foreign ministry named Amir Weissbrod as the new ambassador.

Weissbrod has reportedly worked as a diplomat in Amman and is an expert in Middle East affairs and Islamic movements.

In January, Israel officially apologised for an incident in which an Israeli embassy guard killed two Jordanians, and the killing of Jordanian Judge Raed Zuaiter by Israeli troops in 2014, while crossing to the West Bank.

The Foreign Ministry of Jordan said it had received an official memo from Israel's foreign ministry in which "the Israeli government expressed its apology and deep regrets regarding the Israeli embassy incident in July last year, resulting in the martyrdom of two Jordanian citizens, and also regarding the death of Judge Raed Zuaiter."

In response, Jordan announced that it would allow the reopening of the Israeli embassy in Amman.PARIS, March 5 (Xinhua) -- French President Emmanuel Macron made mention of the rise of anti-establishment parties in Italy's legislative election at a press conference here on Monday, saying that he takes note of a "brutal context" of the election.

"I take note that, in the world we live in, you can fight for great ideas, but you can't do that without taking into account a brutal context," Macron said.

"It's undeniable that Italy has suffered for months and months under the pressure of migration. This very strong migration pressure is a context we should keep in mind," he added.

The French president said he remained prudent about the voting results, pending Italian President Sergio Mattarella's decision to form a government as required by the constitution.

He also reiterated France's commitment to defend "a Europe that protects" amid mounting populism across European countries.

Early results showed that anti-establishment Five Star Movement and far-right League party emerged the most popular parties in Europe's third main power, giving a blow to the mainstream in a punishment vote over alarming migrant flows, security, and economic recovery.

If confirmed, no party would reach the majority required to govern alone, raising prospects of the creation of a eurosceptic coalition that may challenge Macron's recipe for Europe.BERLIN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The profitability of German insurance company Allianz AG has been significantly undermined by extreme weather patterns, corporate earnings data published on Monday showed.

According to the figures, high pay-outs to customers for storm damage led to the Munich-based firm's operating profit shrinking by 11 percent to 2.3 billion euros (2.84 billion U.S. dollars) during the past fiscal year. Net profit fell by 25 percent to 1.48 billion euros.

Expenses covered by the insurer for elemental damage in particular rose faster than expected to 541 million euros in 2017 from 337 million euros the previous year.

In spite of the poor headline figures, chief financial officer Burkhard Keese said Allianz had experienced a successful year for its vehicle and life insurance services.

The new life insurance business, where Allianz is already the undisputed market leader, grew by 21 percent despite a wider trend of decline across the sector. Combined with growth in the number of insured cars to 8.5 million, corporate gross revenue consequently increased by 7 percent to 34.9 billion euros.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 00:51:05|Editor: Liangyu

Video Player Close

Ma Huateng (R), Wang Yaping (C) and Xu Liyi, deputies to the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), receive an interview before the opening meeting of the first session of the 13th NPC in Beijing, capital of China, March 5, 2018. (Xinhua/Jin Liwang)

BEIJING, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Chinese tech entrepreneur Ma Huateng, or Pony Ma, was the first among 10 deputies introduced at the first "passage interview" of the first session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), which opened on Monday.

"Our goal is to build a digital China, a country with strong cyber technology," said Ma, founder and chairman of Tencent, during the interview in the Great Hall of the People on Monday.

Ma, who came to Shenzhen in 1984, said he is a real witness and beneficiary of the reform and opening up policy.

Ma said China's reform and opening up drive, which marks its 40th anniversary this year, has been a miracle.

"If you look back in human history, there has been no other country that has lifted nearly 700 million people out of poverty in just 40 years," he said.

Ma said that Shenzhen has developed from a small fishing village to a metropolis whose GDP exceeded 2.2 trillion yuan last year. Meanwhile, Tencent has developed from a company with only five members to one of the ten biggest internet companies in the world.

Notably, Ma said, the monthly global active users on the company's messaging app WeChat have reached one billion.

"In 2015, I made the Internet Plus proposal, and in 2017 I proposed building a digital economy. This year, I bring a proposal on building a digital China," said Ma.

"Internet Plus was the method, digital economy is the result, and our goal is to finally build a digital China," he added.

Passage interviews take place on the path leading toward the main hall of the Great Hall of the People, where group interviews are arranged on the sidelines of major meetings.

Female astronaut Wang Yaping, mayor of east China's Hangzhou City Xu Liyi, and Chairman of SAIC Motor Corporation Limited (SAIC Motor) Chen Hong were among the first group of deputies invited to answer questions from the press.

Wang Yaping said giving a televised science lesson from space to Chinese students in 2013 was an unforgettable moment. Not only had she fulfilled her dream, but she also inspired many.

"After I came back from my mission, I received letters from many children who said they wished to become astronauts as well. It made me feel proud and happy," she said.

Xu Liyi said the city government of Hangzhou, the host of the G20 summit in 2016, will further simplify affair-handling procedures for enterprises and individuals.

Gong Baoxiong, Party secretary of Liangjiahe village of Yanchuan County in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, spoke about the development of his village during the past five years.

"We received over one million tourists last year, and I hereby invite more people to visit our village," Gong said.

A total of 10 questions were raised and the interview lasted about 40 minutes. The group interview was broadcast live on state television and various portals.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 00:56:07|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

Participants learn how to write Chinese calligraphy at a workshop in Herakleidon Museum in Athens, Greece, on March 3, 2018. The goal of the educational workshop introducing Chinese culture at Herakleidon Museum free of charge on Saturday was to provide one more opportunity to Greeks to get to know a different way of thinking. (Xinhua/Lefteris Partsalis)

by Maria Spiliopoulou

ATHENS, March 5 Xinhua) -- Greeks queued at Herakleidon museum opposite the Acropolis hill in Athens this weekend to participate in a workshop aimed to introduce them to Chinese writing and culture.

"Let's write Chinese" read the museum's open invitation to the Greek audience and hundreds of people of all ages and professions expressed interest to pick up the brush and ink and try to structure Chinese characters on rice paper.

Professor of History Jing Ling, a Chinese living in Greece for many years who speaks fluently the Greek language, taught the participants some of the basic strokes and guided them through the history of the Chinese writing system and calligraphy, one of the quintessence of Chinese culture.

The goal of the educational workshop which was held for first time at Herakleidon museum free of charge on Saturday was to provide one more opportunity to Greeks to get to know a different way of thinking, another philosophy and culture and search for similarities between the two ancient civilizations, Jing Ling told Xinhua.

"It is the first time I am doing this kind of workshop. It is not to teach Greeks the art of calligraphy or give a Chinese language lesson. Through the Chinese characters and the brush I wanted to let people understand that the two countries are different, but there is fertile ground for communication," she explained.

As the interaction between the Chinese and Greek people is flourishing in recent years thanks to the deepening cooperation between the two governments and many enterprises in numerous sectors, more and more Greeks are intrigued to get acquainted with Chinese mentality, culture and life style.

The "students", teenagers and white-haired museum visitors alike, "bombarded" Jing Ling with questions, asking her to show them how to write in Chinese "man", "woman", "sun", "tiger", "beauty" and "love."

Stratos Diamantis, a musician, and Fani Kalogeropoulou, were initially discouraged by the complexity of some characters and writing with the brush, but by the end of the workshop they were eager to learn more.

"It was a great experience. It is the first time I am trying out something like this. It was very difficult trying to control the ink. It was exciting hearing about the symbolisms and the meanings behind the characters and ideograms," Diamantis told Xinhua.

"It was marvelous. We discovered another mentality. We realized how other people are seeing the world. It was very interesting," Kalogeropoulou said.

Loukia Konstantinou, a visual artist, was also among the participants in Saturday's event. Later in March she will assume the role of the "teacher" introducing in a similar workshop Greeks to Chinese painting.

"It was excellent. It was a unique experience as people were introduced to Chinese philosophy through the characters," she commented.

Herakleidon Museum, a privately-funded and non-profit organization, which has been bringing art, education, and culture to the Greek public since 2004, has organized a long series of similar events to introduce Greeks to Chinese culture this spring, according to Maria Romaniou, the museum's head of educational programs.

The activities are held as Herakleidon museum hosts from Sept. 23, 2017 running to April 29, 2018 an exhibition of ancient Chinese science and technology.

The exhibition "Ancient Chinese Science and Technology" is for the first time hosted in Greece as part of the Greece-China 2017 Year of Cultural Exchanges and Cooperation in Creative Industries.KIEV, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The armed conflict, which has raged in eastern Ukraine for almost four years, has claimed the lives of 138 children, a senior Ukrainian parliament official said on Monday.

"Since the start of the conflict, 138 children were killed. They fell victims to the hostilities and to the landmines explosions," Iryna Gerashchenko, the First Vice Speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, told reporters during a briefing in Ukraine's southern city of Odessa.

The government also estimated that the violence in eastern Ukraine has directly affected more than 950,000 children, with more than half of them still residing in the conflict-torn territories.

In April 2014, the Ukrainian government started a military operation against rebel militants, who seized cities and towns in eastern Donbas region and declared independence from Kiev.

The confrontation has snowballed into the violent conflict, which has killed more than 10,000 people, including over 2,500 civilians.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 01:06:09|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

ISTANBUL, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A Turkish court on Monday dismissed a request for the release of two Greek soldiers, ruling for their continuing custody for crossing into Turkey, Turkish media said.

The court in the northwestern province of Edirne rejected the appeal by lawyers of Lt. Aggelos Mitretodis and Sgt. Dimitros Kouklatzis, who claimed that they lost their way on Friday due to bad weather and crossed the border inadvertently into Edirne, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

Citing security sources, Anadolu said the Greek soldiers face charges of espionage and sending records on their phones to their superiors.

Despite being NATO allies, Turkey and Greece have a relationship strained, among others, over disputes in the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas over islets and gas drilling rights respectively and over Greece's refusal to extradite eight Turkish soldiers suspected of involvement in a coup bid in 2016.File photo: Nir Hefetz sits in the Magistrate Court next to a policeman during his remand hearing in Tel Aviv, Israel , February 22, 2018. (Reuters photo)

JERUSALEM, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's former top adviser Nir Hefetz signed a state's witness agreement Monday in a high-profile corruption case involving the Israeli leader, officials said.

A police spokesperson said the deal with Nir Hefetz, a former media adviser for Netanyahu and his wife and the couple's close confidant, was signed on Sunday night.

Hefetz was released to a house arrest on Sunday after spending two weeks of detention in jail, during which he was investigated by the police's Lahav 433 special anti-corruption unit.

Israeli media reported that under the deal, Hefetz will give the police audio records involving at least three corruption affairs in which Netanyahu is a suspect. In return, Hefetz will receive full immunity: He will not stand to trial, spend time in jail, or be required to pay a fine.

The deal casts a long shadow on the visit of Netanyahu in Washington, where he is due to meet later Monday with U.S. President Donald Trump.

The move was widely described by local media as a dramatic development against the long-time Israeli prime minister.

Hefetz, considered to be one of his most loyal associates, was described also as Netanyahu's "spin doctor."

Hefetz is a suspect in two criminal cases. In the so-called "case 4000," he is suspected of being part of a bribery deal, in which Israel's largest telecom company, Bezeq, received regulatory and financial benefits from the Communication Ministry, which Netanyahu headed between 2014 and 2017, in addition to his capacity as prime minister.

In return, Walla, a news site controlled by Bezeq's control-holder, Shaul Elovitch, allegedly refrained from criticizing Netanyahu and gave him and his wife, Sara Netanyahu, positive coverage.

In the second case, dubbed by the police "case 1270," Hefetz allegedly tried to bribe Judge Hila Gerstal in 2015, who was a candidate for the position of the attorney general, offering her the office in exchange for dropping a case against Sara Netanyahu.

Hefetz, 52, served as Netanyhau's media adviser between 2014 and 2017. He kept close ties with the Netanyahus also after leaving the job.

He is the third associate who turns against Netanyahu, who denies any wrongdoing and charges he is a victim of a witch-hunt carried out by the media and "the left."

Netanyahu and his associates are suspected to be involved in at least five criminal corruption cases.

Last month, Israeli police recommended to indict Netanyahu for a series of serious corruption charges including bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in two other cases, "case 1000" and "case 2000."

In "case 1000," Netanyahu and his family allegedly received expensive cigars, champagne, and jewelry in a sum amounting to about one million shekels (about 282,800 dollars) from the Israeli businessman and Hollywood tycoon, Arnon Milchan, and Australian businessman, James Packer, between 2007 and 2016.

In "case 2000," Netanyahu allegedly received bribes from Arnon Mozes, the publisher of Yedioth Aharonoth, one of Israel's largest newspapers. According to the police, Netanyahu and Mozes held talks over an "exchange deal," in which Netanyahu would receive favorable coverage in Yediot Aharonot in return for promoting a law and other measures that would limit the distribution of Israel Hayom, Yedioth's main rival.

On Friday, Netanyahu and his wife were questioned for the first time in the "case 4000."

Netanyahu was questioned at the official Prime Minister's Residency in Jerusalem and Sara Netanyahu was questioned at the Lahav433 anti-corruption unit outside Tel Aviv.

The investigations sparked speculations that Netanyahu might call for early elections to reaffirm his public support. Opinion polls last Friday showed that his party, the Likud, maintains its power and would win the elections, despite the corruption suspicions.SEOUL, March 6 (Xinhua) -- Top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un met with South Korean President Moon Jae-in's special envoys earlier Monday, South Korean media reported Monday night.

The DPRK leader hosted a welcome dinner with the South Korean officials, the Yonhap News Agency quoted Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom as saying.

Earlier in the day, Kim Eui-kyeom told a press briefing that the special delegation had agreed with the DPRK side to have a meeting and a dinner with the DPRK leader.

The 10-member delegation, led by Chung Eui-yong, top national security advisor for President Moon, took off from an airport in Seongnam, outside of Seoul, at about 1:50 p.m. local time (0450 GMT).

The delegation, composed of five envoys and five working-level officials, included Suh Hoon, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), Vice Unification Minister Chung Hae-sung, Second Deputy NIS Director Kim Sang-gyun, and Yun Kun-young, a senior Blue House official.

The plane carrying the South Korean delegation arrived in the Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang at around 2:50 p.m. local time (0620 GMT), according to the Blue House.CHICAGO, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Gun violence in U.S. third biggest city Chicago has dropped significantly so far this year, according to data compiled by the Chicago Tribune.

The number of people shot so far in 2018 was down by about 30 percent compared to the same period in 2016 and 2017, while homicides were down by about 25 percent.

Chicago has consistently ranked among the top in the country in homicides in recent years and has become synonymous with guns.

A total of 370 people have been shot this year to date, and there have been at least 82 homicides. In the same period in 2016, at least 520 had been shot and there had been 109 homicides; in 2017, at least 540 shot and 108 homicides.

The year of 2016 saw 762 homicides in Chicago, most of which were gun-related, more than New York and Los Angeles combined. Since then, Chicago has made all-out efforts to rein in the gun violence.

Local police contributed the progress to "crime-fighting technology, hiring more police officers and reinvigorating community policing efforts."BERLIN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Police are trying to identify two perpetrators of an acid attack on an energy company executive through DNA analysis of a glove found at the scene of the crime, German media reported on Monday.

Bernhard Guenther, chief financial officer at the German renewable energy provider Innogy, suffered serious injuries when two unknown men poured acid on the manager when he was returning from the bakery close to his Duesseldorf home on Sunday.

Police told the press that the suspects, both of whom have been charged with attempted murder, escaped on foot. At the time of writing, the acid attack victim was still being treated in a specialized medical unit.

German media have speculated that the attack may have been politically-motivated given Guenther's previous position at Innogy's mother corporation RWE which maintains a controversial involvement in environmentally-harmful brown coal power plants. According to Spiegel however, the energy executive had already once previously been the victim of violent assault. It remains unclear at this point whether the incidents are linked.

However, a spokesperson for the Wuppertal state prosecution office noted that investigators were not aware of earlier threats against the victim and that no one had claimed responsibility for the attack so far. Police emphasized on Monday that they were investigating "in all directions", scrutinizing both Guenther's personal and professional background for clues.

RWE chairman Rolf Martin Schmitz told the press that his company's staff were "shocked and appalled" by the news. According to Heilbronner Stimme newspaper, other energy providers, including Karlsruhe-based EnBW, have reacted by taking "appropriate measures" to ensure the safety of employees who were potentially at risk.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 02:26:19|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

HOUSTON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Chief of International Energy Agency (IEA) said Monday that China will continue to be a main driving force for the growth of global oil demand.

Fatih Birol, executive director of IEA, said in a press conference at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit that "China continues to be the main driver of global oil demand growth."

In 1983, Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the United States. Each year, CERA clients gathered for a few days in Houston, the energy capital of the nation, to attend the executive conference where they gained insight into the energy future while connecting with their peers. Over time, the program was expanded to five days of informative sessions and networking opportunities-and named CERAWeek.

This year's CERAWeek kicked off on Monday in Houston, Texas, the United States. The annual energy conference features presentations and discussions by energy industry and governmental leaders. The theme for this year's event is "Tipping Point: Strategies for a New Energy Future."

Birol added that India follows China in terms of growth in the demand for oil, and together the oil demand of those two countries accounts for about half of the growth in global oil demand.

Meanwhile, he stressed that China's demand shows some weakening, partly because of saturation and partly because of new Chinese policies regarding pollution mitigation.

IHS Markit is a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions for the major industries and markets that drive economies worldwide.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 02:56:25|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (R) speaks to the press with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the UN headquarters in New York, on March 5, 2018. Michael Bloomberg has been appointed as special envoy of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for climate action, the UN press service said on Monday. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has been appointed as special envoy of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for climate action, the UN press service said on Monday.

Bloomberg will support the UN chief's climate strategy and efforts toward the planned 2019 Climate Summit at UN Headquarters in New York, it said.

The 2019 Climate Summit will mobilize stronger and more ambitious action toward 2020 climate targets. Bloomberg will leverage efforts in key areas of the Climate Summit to encourage rapid and enhanced implementation of the Paris Agreement in the context of sustainable development, it added.

Guterres will be engaging and inviting leaders from governments, businesses, finance and civil society organizations with a view to bending the emissions curve by 2020 and accelerating the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

The secretary-general and Bloomberg share the perspective that the emissions gap needs to be closed soon to limit global temperature increase to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, it said.

Bloomberg, founder of the Bloomberg financial news and information service, served as mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013.

He was appointed as UN special envoy on cities and climate change in January 2014 by the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.GENEVA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- A Swiss firm and a German-based company announced on Monday they would develop Europe's first national drone traffic management system in Switzerland.

Skyguide, the Swiss air navigation service provider, and AirMap, a German-based airspace management platform for drones, made the announcement in a joint release in Geneva.

"The system will be the first national deployment of U-space, Europe's vision for the digital infrastructure that will support safe and secure access to European skies for millions of drones," the companies said.

They said that much like the U.S. "Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM)" initiative, U-space is a collaborative effort to enable situational awareness, data exchange, and digital communication for the European drone ecosystem.

The pilot phase will start in June.

Skyguide and AirMap said they will also develop a roadmap for Swiss U-space that will set the stage for the deployment of a fully operational drone traffic management system in 2019.

The two companies said the AirMap platform provides national airspace rules for more than 20 countries and reaches more than 85 percent of the world's drones through its network.

Since 2013, drone flight requests at Skyguide have multiplied tenfold.

Switzerland is home to many drone companies and the world's first autonomous drone delivery network, located in Zurich, the press release said.LONDON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- An RAF helicopter was used Tuesday to deliver essential supplies to a part of England's Lake District where communities have been cut off from the outside world for five days.

With deep snow brought in by Storm Emma blocking all roads into the Fellside and South Stainmore areas of Cumbria likely to remain for another 48 hours, the military were drafted in to help.

The Chinook helicopter has been airlifting supplies, including food, coal and logs for heating and electrical heating appliances as the operation which started

Council leader in Cumbria, Stewart Young, said: "The depth of snow and the challenging nature of the terrain is making progress on clearing roads exceptionally slow.

"As a result it is estimated that it will be at least 48 hours before we reach many more of these communities hence the need to bring in military assistance and we are very grateful for their help."

Over the weekend troops were dispatched to help communities in Scotland where heavy snow storms caused severe problems. Essential workers were ferried to hospitals and care homes by the army.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 03:26:33|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

ANKARA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Turkey officially demanded the arrest and extradition of former Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) leader Salih Muslim from Germany, state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Monday.

Turkey sent the files to Berlin on Friday, the government spokesperson Bekir Bozdag said.

Ankara High Court has issued an arrest warrant for Muslim on charges of "damaging national unity and integrity," and asked the Interpol to issue a red notice against him.

However, Germany has so far "failed to meet the expectations of judicial practices" from Turkey, Bozdag added.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told reporters that he is to discuss the extradition of Muslim with his German counterpart on Tuesday.

On Feb. 27, Muslim was released by a Czech court after he was detained two days ago in Prague, triggering a strong protest from Turkey, which requested the country to extradite him.

The recent footage on Facebook showed that Muslim was seen in Berlin on Saturday at a rally against Turkey's ongoing military operation in Syria.

The Turkish Interior Ministry has offered a bounty of nearly 1 million U.S. dollars on Muslim who is listed as a most wanted terrorist.

Ankara regards the PYD as the Syrian affiliate of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 03:56:40|Editor: Zhou Xin

Video Player Close

GENEVA, March 5 (Xinhua) -- World Trade Organization Director-General Roberto Azevedo on Monday called on members to avoid triggering an escalation in global trade barriers urging them to reflect on the matter.

He was speaking at a meeting of the whole WTO membership in response to a series of announcements from the organization's members in recent days which suggested that a range of new, unilateral trade barriers could soon be put into force.

"In light of recent announcements on trade policy measures, it is clear that we now see a much higher and real risk of triggering an escalation of trade barriers across the globe," said Azevedo.

"We cannot ignore this risk and I urge all parties to consider and reflect on this situation very carefully. Once we start down this path, it will be very difficult to reverse direction," said the WTO chief.

U.S. President Donald Trump's decision last week to levy tariffs on steel and aluminum imports received worldwide criticism and retaliatory intentions from some of its closest allies.

Trump announced on Thursday a plan to impose penalties of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum, which he said will come into effect this week.

The planned tariffs sparked anger from Canada and the European Union (EU).

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Trump's plan will have "significant and serious" economic ramifications on the two nations.

Azevedo said in his speech however, "An eye for an eye will leave us all blind and the world in deep recession. We must make every effort to avoid the fall of the first dominoes. There is still time."

The WTO head also commented on the current situation in the WTO's Appellate Body, specifically regarding the impasse in the selection process for new members.

The United States is calling for the Appellate Body to be reformed which members say is holding up the appointment of new judges to it.

Azevedo described this as an "extremely serious and urgent concern for us all," as the dispute settlement function underpins the whole trading system.

The director-general said that members should be actively formulating and discussing solutions, and that he would be facilitating further conversations on the issue in the coming days.CHICAGO, March 5 (Xinhua) -- China's opening up to the world created an economic miracle for the country and its people, and the miracle has benefited U.S. Great Lake state of Michigan, Tom Watkins, an advisor to Michigan-China Innovation Center said in an article on Monday.

He made the remarks in an article published on China-U.S. Focus, an open-platform website for Chinese and American thought leaders to express their views on the myriad issues that face the two nations.

Year 2018 marks the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up.

According to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC), in 2016, Michigan ranked No. 2 in the United States in terms of the number of investment projects from China; No. 3 in terms of the number of jobs created by Chinese investment; and No. 4 in terms of total Chinese capital investment received.

Between January 2010 and July 2017, Michigan received 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in new business investment from China, creating 5,475 jobs for Michigan residents, said the MEDC.

In the article, Watkins emphasized the deep ties between China and Michigan, saying Michigan Governor Rick Snyder understood that building bridges was a far smarter strategy than erecting walls.

In his article titled "As China opens up, Michigan benefits," Watkins, who has studied China for more than 30 years, wrote that what had transpired over China's 5,000-year history was nothing short of amazing, but the last 40 years had been truly remarkable and universally acknowledged as a stunning reversal of fortune for China.

"Seeing China then and now is as if a movie started in black and white and suddenly switched to Technicolor with surround sound, it is that remarkable and dramatic," he said.

"Michigan can be proud of this longstanding relationship and we look forward to years of friendship and collaboration that will benefit our citizens," Watkins wrote, adding Michigan can also learn from the Chinese who continue to make a massive investment in education and infrastructure.

"Cities, states, and nations that invest in their people will thrive," he added.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 04:11:43|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

TEHRAN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Iranian senior officials on Monday called for collective resolve by the European countries to protect the Iranian nuclear deal reached in 2015.

Europe should push the United States to adhere to its obligations under the 2015 nuclear agreement, said Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday in a meeting with visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in the capital Tehran.

Besides, Europe should not allow the United States to pose "illogical and illegal" demands concerning Iran's nuclear deal, Zarif said.

The deal is "international diplomatic achievement," and it should be protected, he stressed.

The U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to scuttle the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal unless amendments are made to it.

However, Zarif noted that the nuclear deal, internationally known as JCPOA, is a multilateral agreement and its fate cannot be subjected to the whims of Washington.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is tasked with monitoring Iran's compliance with its obligation, has verified Iran's compliance with the deal in 10 reports.

The Iranian foreign minister also criticized some European countries for "being influenced under U.S. pressures" over Iran's nuclear deal and missile program.

Zarif said that Europe should not be affected by the U.S. "unwise and politically-motivated" approaches, and play a more constructive role in saving the JCPOA.

Le Drian said that Paris is determined to implement the JCPOA and has taken many practical measures in this regard.

"Tehran and Paris have started positive banking cooperation and the French companies' investment in Iran has been increased after the JCPOA took effect," he added.

In the meantime, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani on Monday urged the European countries not to bend under the U.S. "psychological game" pertaining to Iran's nuclear deal.

The Iranian official called for the acceleration of implementation of the Iranian nuclear deal.

Any move to undermine the JCPOA would result in the loss of credibility of other international agreements, Shamkhani also made the remarks in a meeting with Le Drian.

For his part, Le Drian hailed Iran's commitment to the JCPOA and said that France insists on the full implementation of the deal.

He said that both countries have new plans for boosting cooperation in monetary and banking interactions.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday voiced his support for the 2015 nuclear deal which limited Iran's nuclear activities in returns for the lift of western sanctions against Tehran.

Le Drian arrived in Tehran on Monday for talks with Iranian officials on mutual ties as well as regional and international issues.RABAT, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Morocco's King Mohammed VI condemned on Monday the cowardly terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou.

In a message of condolences to President of Burkina Faso, Roch Marc Christian Kabore, the king voiced his solidarity and support following these "despicable" terrorist acts.

He stressed that these terror attacks aimed at undermining the security and stability of Burkina Faso and of the Sahel-Saharan region.

In this message, the king also expressed to the president, the bereaved families and the brotherly Burkinabe people his heartfelt condolences, wishing the wounded swift recovery.

At least 16 people were killed and another 80 were injured after the Friday attacks that targeted the French embassy and the headquarters of the army.PARIS, March 5 (Xinhua) -- French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday urged the European Union respond swiftly in the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to raise tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

Trump announced on Thursday a plan to impose penalties of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum, a decision that has received worldwide criticism and retaliatory intentions from some of its closest allies.

"If the announcements made last week were to be confirmed and implemented, it is clear that they would violate the rules of the WTO," Macron told reporters.

"It is important in this context that the European Union reacts swiftly and proportionately within the WTO and in respect of the WTO," he added.

At a joint press meeting with Philippe Couillard, premier of the Quebec at the Elysee Palace, the French president noted that Trump's plan amouted to "economic nationalism," which according to him would lead to war and would be "a very bad response to the international environment."

For his part, Couillard said the new tariffs on steel and aluminum would impact first the " domestic American market" where consumers will pay higher prices of everything made with these metals.

"As for the trade war, it is rare that it does not make only losers. It is not a road where we must bring the world. One should rather show.. the importance of open markets and their mutual benefits," he added.MADRID, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Spanish companies cite the ongoing political uncertainty in Spain as their main worry for the year, according to an annual report published by the consultancy KPMG and the Spanish Confederation of Business Organizations (CEOE) on Monday.

The Catalan crisis and the fact that the government has still not found the support to pass the budget for 2018 are reasons for the current unease.

A total of 82 percent of Spanish business people said the political uncertainty, followed by geopolitical tension and the end of the expansionist monetary policies of the Bank of Spain (BCE) were big worries, according to the Perspectivas Espanoles (Spanish Perspectives) report.

A total of 57 percent of those questioned admitted to having delayed investments as a result of the political uncertainty and 46 percent said it had damaged the country's image abroad.

However, the business class is broadly optimistic for 2018 and this optimism is another of the key indicators in the report with six out of 10 business people saying they considered the current economic situation to be "good" or "excellent," an increase of 23 percent on the same report in 2017.

Seventy-seven percent are confident they will see sales improve in 2018, while 45 percent believe they will win new contracts, a possibility which will improve if the situation in Spanish society is finally resolved.

Looking at the different sectors of the economy, the automobile industry has the biggest hopes for growth, followed by the construction and banking sectors, with 80 percent of vehicle manufacturers predicting more sales and jobs.

In the construction sector, 79 percent of those questioned believe that the situation is "good" or "excellent", an indicator which contrasts with the pessimism displayed in the recent past, when the effects of the economic crisis were still being felt.

The optimistic KPMG report contrasts sharply with the words of Bank of Spain governor Luis Maria Linde, who indicated on Monday there were "serious problems" with the Spanish pension system.

According to Spanish media, Linde said imbalances in the pension system would "only be resolved with more employment."

Linde's declarations came in a context of ongoing protests by pensioners in the face of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's announcement of a rise of just 0.25 percent in the state pension, which in some cases is translated into a meagre increase of just one euro a month in real terms.

Spanish pensioners have been taking to the streets in large numbers to protest the situation, which, according to the Independent Authority for Spanish Fiscal Responsibility (AIReF), will produce a loss of seven percent in the spending power of retired people between now and 2022.RABAT, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank granted Morocco a total of 3.7 billion U.S. dollars in loans between 2014 and 2017, World Bank's Country Director for the Maghreb, Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, revealed on Monday in the Moroccan financial capital of Casablanca.

Speaking during a meeting with the press to present the results of the strategic partnership between the two parties for the 2014-2017 period, and the new phase of cooperation (2018-2023), Marie-Nelly said partnership between Morocco and is "very solid" and "is consolidated further over the years."

She noted that bilateral cooperation has led to "very good results" and helped the Moroccan government in the implementation of many important projects to achieve sustainable development.

"Morocco has made significant efforts in a number of areas thanks to the World Bank's support for various sectors of economic and social activity, including agriculture, health, solar energy, drinking water supply," Marie-Nelly said.

"In the next five years (2018-2023), we are planning to tackle three main issues, namely employment, human resources (education and social protection) and territorial development," she said, stressing the need to give more attention to Morocco's remote rural areas to promote their development.

Marie-Nelly also called for a "better involvement" of governance in various areas of activity, she noted , adding that the partnership between the two parties "aims to strengthen institutional arrangements, efficient management of budgetary resources and citizen participation."WASHINGTON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Monday he was "extremely worried" about President Donald Trump's new tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, and urged the president not to move forward with the plan.

Trump announced last Thursday that the United States planned to impose 25 percent of tariff on steel imports and 10 percent for aluminum, as these imports threaten the U.S. national security.

"We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan. The new tax reform law has boosted the economy and we certainly don't want to jeopardize those gains," said AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Ryan.

Leaders of the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means have also drafted a letter to Trump, expressing concerns about "the prospect of broad, global tariffs on aluminum and steel imports," according to Lauren Aronson, a spokeswoman for the committee Chairman Kevin Brady.

U.S. trade partners, including Canada and European Union, said that the U.S. actions were unacceptable and they reserved the right to retaliate if the U.S. import restrictions hurt their workers at home countries.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last Friday that the import restrictions announced by Trump would not only hurt the United States, but also other economies.by Stefania Fumo

ROME, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Italy's former prime minister Matteo Renzi resigned as leader of the center-left Democratic Party on Monday after admitting to a "clear and marked defeat" in Sunday's national election.

"We were unable to stop the winds of extremism," Renzi told a televised press conference, adding that the Democratic Party will not negotiate with the winners and will therefore become an opposition party.

Meanwhile, Italy's far-right and populist forces vied for power after surging in the national vote, which delivered no clear winner but marked the defeat of the center-left Democratic Party of outgoing Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni.

At least 73 percent of Italy's 46.6 million voters turned out, according to the Interior Ministry.

The latest projections showed a center-right coalition led by media mogul Silvio Berlusconi hovered at 37 percent in both houses of parliament. While the populist Five Star Movement stood at just over 32 percent and a center-left coalition led by the Democratic Party trailed at 23 percent.

Luigi di Maio, chief of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, said in televised comments that the Five Stars are open to talks "with all other parties" after admitting that while they have "tripled their seats" in parliament, they still don't have the numbers to form a government on their own.

Meanwhile anti-immigrant and euroskeptic League leader Matteo Salvini said in televised comments that "we will not participate in a mishmash government" and that his center-right coalition with Berlusconi's Forza Italia party has "the right" to form a government on its own.

Both forces have promised to reverse the current open-door immigration policy, roll back unpopular pension reforms, and introduce drastic tax cuts and generous welfare policies.

On the economic front, the spread between Italian and German 10-year bonds, a gauge of market confidence in the Italian economy and of Italy's borrowing costs, jumped 12 points to 143 before closing just over 136 points, up 5.83 percent, according to Il Sole 24 Ore business paper. The higher the spread, the lower the confidence of international markets and investors.

Standard & Poor's rating agency said in a statement the elections results "won't immediately impact" its Italy sovereign rating, Italian news agency ANSA reported.

Italians went to the polls Sunday to elect their representatives in the 315-member Senate and the 630-seat Lower House, after a campaign marred by political violence and resentment towards immigrants amid persistent unemployment of 11 percent and a sluggish economic recovery.

Last month, an Italian man linked to Salvini's League party opened fire on Africans in the city of Macerata, wounding six before he was captured, in what police said was a racially-motivated attack.

On Monday in Florence, an Italian man was arrested after he shot to death an African street vendor. In a separate incident, unknowns set fire to the door of a Muslim mosque in the northern city of Padova overnight, ANSA news agency reported Monday.

Over 180,000 migrants, mostly from Africa, entered Italy in 2016, compared to just under 120,000 entries in 2017 and around 5,300 so far in 2018, according to the latest data from Italy's Interior Ministry.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 05:11:54|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

CAIRO, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Egypt and Saudi Arabia signed an agreement to launch a joint investment fund worth 16 billion U.S. dollars, state-run MENA news agency reported Monday.

Egyptian presidential spokesman Bassam Rady said that the fund is meant to boost new projects in Egypt, according to MENA.

Rady added that a number of agreements and memorandums of understanding (MoUs) between the two countries were signed in the fields of investment and environment protection.

The agreements were signed Sunday in a ceremony held in Cairo that was attended by visiting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi.

The Saudi Crown Prince arrived in Cairo earlier on Sunday in a three-day visit as the first stop of his first foreign tour since he became crown prince last year.

Bin Salman is scheduled to leave for Britain on March 7 and later visit the United States, the kingdom's closest and strongest Western ally.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 05:16:55|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

CAIRO, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry discussed on Monday with U.S. envoys about possible ways to resolve a diplomatic crisis between Qatar and four other Arab countries, including Egypt.

In a statement, the Egyptian foreign ministry said that Shoukry received in Cairo Timothy Lenderking, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Gulf affairs, and former U.S. Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni.

In June last year, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed relations with Qatar, accusing the oil rich Gulf country of supporting terrorism. Qatar rejects the allegations as "baseless."

The four Arab countries also issued a list of 13 demands for Doha to end the crisis, including reducing its ties with Iran and closing the Qatari Al-Jazeera TV station.

Under the list, Qatar is also required to immediately terminate its construction of a Turkish military base in addition to severing all ties with "terrorist organizations" including the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic State, al-Qaida, Lebanon's Hezbollah and Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as Nusra Front, and label them as terrorist groups.

Shoukry raised the concerns of Egypt and the other countries of Qatar's continued negative role in sponsoring terrorism and extremism, "either materially or by providing safe haven to terrorists, or spreading the discourse of hatred and incitement," which endangers the security of the four countries, the statement said.

According to the statement, the Egyptian top diplomat was briefed by the U.S. envoys about the results of the meetings they held during their tour in the region.

The foreign minister stressed that there is consensus among the four countries that Qatar should implement their list of demands, adding that the Arab countries have demonstrated on more than one occasion seriousness in dealing with the crisis.LONDON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- British Prime Minister Theresa May told lawmakers Monday that the government is looking at the U.S.-Canada border to see if similar arrangements could be applied to the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

How the Irish border will work once Britain leaves the European Union has become one of the most pressing issues in the ongoing Brexit negotiations.

May said the British and Irish governments both agreed there should be no post-Brexit hard border on the island of Ireland.

After updating MPs in the House of Commons on her latest Brexit speech last Friday at the Mansion House in London, May faced questions from MPs.

Asked by one MP to give examples of countries not in a customs union which had no borders checks, May said there are many examples of different arrangements for customs around the rest of the world.

"We are looking at those, including the border between the United States and Canada for lessons that could be applied to Ireland," May said.

Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the main opposition Labor Party, said May had failed to bring clarity to Brexit talks, adding the Brexit proposals she announced last Friday were barely papering over the cracks.

Saying the last 20 months since the EU referendum had been wasted, Corbyn said the arrogance of some of the members of May's front-bench ministers who said Brexit would be the easiest deal in history has turned into debilitating infighting.

Corbyn told MPs: "The prime minister's speech on Friday promised to unite the nation, but it barely papered over the cracks in her own party."

He said May had failed to offer a real solution over Northern Ireland. Instead, he added, May had rehashed an already discredited government idea to use a mix of technology and goodwill to ensure no hard border In Ireland.

The Irish republic will remain an EU member, meaning after Brexit the border with Northern Ireland will become the only EU border within the UK.

May told MPs she was confident Britain can reach an agreement with Brussels about a future trading arrangement, adding that a deal was in the interests of both sides.

She added: "We cannot escape from complexity of the task ahead. But with pragmatism, calm and patient discussion, I am confident we can set an example to the world."

May said there will be ups and downs over the months ahead, adding: "but we will not be buffeted by the demands to talk tough or threaten or walk out, and we will not give in to the counsels of despair that this simply cannot be done, for this is in both the UK's and EU's interests.

"We must build a new and lasting relationship while preparing for every scenario," May said.

On Wednesday the Chancellor Philip Hammond is scheduled to make a keynote speech spelling out Britain's Brexit proposals for the financial and banking services, largely focused in and around the City of London.KILIFI, Kenya, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan authorities are working hard to catch criminals behind the killing of a Swiss national on Sunday in the coastal county of Kilifi, police said on Monday.

Kilifi County divisional police commander Joseph Muriuki said one suspect has been arrested as detectives intensify their hunt for individuals who murdered Schneider Hans Rudolf.

"The victim was killed at his home following a raid by a heavily armed gang," Muriuki said. "The attackers hacked him to death using a machete and escaped with cash and mobile phones."

He said the suspect in police custody, a female, was found in possession of a phone of the murder victim.

Muriuki said the suspect is cooperating with police investigators.

Last year, three Swiss nationals, including an elderly couple who had lived in Kenya for more than 20 years, were killed in Kilifi county, a renowned tourism haven.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 05:32:00|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

HOUSTON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Unless investments are made in the upstream sector of the Oil & Gas Industry, oil production beyond 2020 will not be able to satisfy demand, chief of International Energy Agency (IEA) said Monday in Houston, Texas, the United States.

Fatih Birol, executive director of IEA, told a gathering of the media at CERAWeek by IHS Markit that declining production in existing fields amounts to about 3 million barrels a day, or "in other words, one North Sea (production) each year."

"IEA for six years has tried to highlight the decline in existing fields. This year we have looked at more than 10,000 fields, field by field, since the year 2000... to see what is the observed decline rate of production," said Birol, adding that "we lose 3 million barrels a day because of the decline of aging fields."

According to Birol, production growth is not only needed to meet the growth in oil demand, but at the same time to replace the decline in the aging fields.

Investment into the oil industry has yet to recover from an unprecedented two-year drop in capital expenditures (CAPEX) in 2015-2016, but the latest energy outlook by IEA sees little-to-no increase in upstream spending outside of the United States in 2017 and 2018.

Birol said the IEA energy outlook shows that CAPEX dropped 25 percent from 2014 to 2015 and then 26 percent from 2015 to 2016. The spending in 2016 to 2017 was flat after a 50 percent increase in spending on U.S. shale was largely offset by declines in investment elsewhere. Only a modest rise in CAPEX is expected this year as a shift towards short cycle projects, especially U.S. shale, accelerates.

That is not to say that companies are not spending more on new projects. An increase in spending is nevertheless expected for Exxon, which spent 23.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2017 compared with guidance of 24 billion dollars.

The same is the case for Statoil, who maintained CAPEX guidance at 11 billion U.S. dollars, while spending 9.4 billion dollars last year. ConocoPhillips and Eni raised spending plans, while BP and Chevron expect to spend less, the IEA energy outlook stated.

Because of long lead times and continued cost deflation, investment in conventional offshore developments looks set to decline again this year. However, there are signs of renewed optimism about spending for the longer term with several offshore projects sanctioned last year.

With conventional onshore investment remaining mostly flat, the only source of growth is from LTO where investment is expected to increase by roughly 20 percent, IEA stated.

In 1983, Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA) was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the United States. Each year, CERA clients gathered for a few days in Houston, the energy capital of the nation, to attend the executive conference where they gained insight into the energy future while connecting with their peers. Over time, the program was expanded to five days of informative sessions and networking opportunities-and named CERAWeek.

This year's CERAWeek kicked off on Monday in Houston, Texas, the United States. The annual energy conference features presentations and discussions by energy industry and governmental leaders. The theme for this year's event is "Tipping Point: Strategies for a New Energy Future."

IHS Markit is a world leader in critical information, analytics and solutions for the major industries and markets that drive economies worldwide.BERLIN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Germany's foreign trade with Russia rose for the first time in 2017 following four years of decline, according to data released on Monday by the German Federal Statistical Office.

Last year, Germany exported goods in the value of 25.9 billion euros (31.9 billion U.S. dollars) to Russia, while it imported goods in the value of 31.4 billion euros from Russia.

Exports to Russia soared 20.2 percent year on year in 2017 from a year ago, while imports from Russia rose 18.7 percent year on year.

Russia was one of the economies with which Germany recorded a trade deficit. In 2017, Germany's trade deficit with Russia amounted to 5.6 billion euros.Source: Xinhua| 2018-03-06 05:37:02|Editor: Mu Xuequan

Video Player Close

BAGHDAD, March 5 (Xinhua) -- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg held meetings with Iraqi leaders to enhance training mission of Iraqi security forces after the territorial defeat of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi received a NATO delegation headed by Stoltenberg in his office, where the two sides asserted on the importance of cooperation in fighting the IS group, according to a statement released by the Prime Minister's Office.

"We are training the Iraqi forces and will continue to support Iraq and cooperate in training, building military academies and provide expertise," the statement quoted Stoltenberg as saying.

For his part, Abadi said that "the great victory over the gangs of Daesh (IS group) must be maintained and we must eliminate the ideological presence of terrorism and continue chasing them."

In mid-February, Stoltenberg said in Brussels that NATO defense ministers agreed to start plans for a training mission in Iraq.

He said the move "has been requested by both the Iraqi government and the global coalition."

NATO already has a small training team for Iraqi officers, "but establishing a mission will make our current training efforts more sustainable," he added.

Late in January, a statement by Abadi's office said that the Prime Minister told Stoltenberg in a phone call that Iraq wanted to intensify and accelerate training of Iraqi forces, including the military intelligence service.

Abadi, who is also Commander-in-Chief of Iraqi forces, officially declared on Dec. 9, 2017 the full liberation of Iraq from the IS after Iraqi forces recaptured all the areas once seized by the extremist group.

However, small groups and individuals of IS militants are still capable of carrying out sporadic attacks against security forces and civilians.MOGADISHU, March 5 (Xinhua) -- More than 30 aid agencies working in Somalia on Monday called on multilateral lenders to cancel the Horn of Africa nation's debt so that Mogadishu can access funds to create conducive environment for investment.

The agencies, including World Vision, Action Aid, Save the Children and Relief International, said in a joint statement issued on the eve of a London conference for Somalia that lending restrictions are hampering Mogadishu's efforts to scale up investments in education, health and security sectors.

"Cancelling the debt would give Somalia access to long-term development finance and create the conditions for private investment," the organizations said.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Christine Lagarde in January pledged to prioritize Somalia's debt relief, saying every effort is being made to speed up the process.

According to the IMF, Somalia's external debt is about 5 billion U.S. dollars, but Mogadishu has not made a service or amortization payment since the onset of the civil war two decades ago, making it impossible to access loans from the IMF.

The agencies said the countries that are in arrears to the IMF and the World Bank are not eligible for debt relief, nor can they receive funding through the World Bank's International Development Association (IDA).

"These arcane rules on arrears are excluding Somalia from one of the largest development financing pots. As many policy influencers gather in London, they have an opportunity to change this picture," said the agencies.

They said many children's lives could be saved with well-functioning health, education services and safety nets that are well catered by a stable government and its institutions.

The focus of the High-Level Event for the Humanitarian Situation in Somalia is to draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in Somalia and generate political and financial momentum for the 2018 humanitarian response and recovery.

Somali Prime Minister Hassan Khaired is in the United States for meetings with IMF and World Bank officials as Mogadishu seeks to have its debt cancelled.RABAT, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Morocco and Czech Republic have finalized a military cooperation deal aimed at consolidating military and defense technical collaboration, said Morocco's national defense administration Monday.

The deal was sealed during talks between Abdeltif Loudyi, Morocco's minister delegate to the head of government, who is in charge of the national defense administration, and Czech Vice Foreign Minister Martin Tlapa.

The two officials discussed means to ensure the smooth implementation of the new military cooperation agreement.

They also hailed the good relations between the two countries in many areas, exchanging views on ways and means of strengthening cooperation in the field of national defense.

The visiting Czech vice foreign minister lauded the considerable progress made by Morocco and its active commitment to international and regional peace and stability.

Tlapa, who is leading a large delegation to the kingdom, met also the Moroccan Foreign Secretary of State Mounia Boucetta.ALGIERS, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Denmark on Monday officially reopened its embassy in Algeria, eight years after its closure, the official APS news agency reported.

The opening ceremony was held at the embassy headquarters in Algiers, in the presence of visiting Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen, and his Algerian counterpart Abdelkader Messahel.

"The reopening of the embassy reflects the interest granted by the Kingdom of Denmark to the historical ties bounding the two countries and also reflects our desire to strengthen and broaden the privileged bilateral political and economic relations," Messahel was quoted as saying.

For his part, the Danish foreign minister hailed the reopening of the embassy, stressing the importance of strengthening political and economic relations between the two countries.

Arriving in Algeria on Sunday for a three-day visit, Samuelsen said his visit aimed at "strengthening bilateral relations, including the consolidation of economic cooperation between the two countries."

Messahel hailed the "excellent" political ties between Algiers and Copenhagen, noting that there is a "constant" dialogue between the two parties on issues including the fight against terrorism, illegal immigration and violent extremism.

The Danish foreign minister also held talks with the Algerian Energy Minister Mustapha Guitouni, during which they discussed potential investment opportunities, as well as ways and means of strengthen cooperation, especially in the field of hydrocarbons and renewable energy.

Samuelsen welcomed the "good business prospects" between Algeria and Denmark in the field of wind and solar energies.

Samuelsen is scheduled to lay the first stone of a Danish-Algerian joint drug manufacturing plant in the province of Blida, 50 km southwest of Algiers.

On the same day, the Danish official will chair an Algerian-Danish business forum, where economic operators of both countries will discuss investment opportunities in Algeria.RABAT, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank launched on Monday a project worth 200 million U.S. dollars to improve the investment capacity of Morocco's largest city of Casablanca.

The launching ceremony of the program, known as "Casablanca Municipal Support Program," was chaired by Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, World Bank's country director for the Maghreb and Malta, Middle East and North Africa.

The loan will help fund the Greater Casablanca Development Plan 2015-2020, which will need some 500 million dollars and aims to boost the city's investment and economic competitiveness.

The objective of the World Bank's support program is to increase the city's investment capacity by improving Casablanca's revenue management systems, and attracting private investment in urban infrastructure and services through public-private partnerships.

The program will also support reforms aiming to promote an environment conducive to business development by automating business procedures, increasing administrative transparency and reducing delays to obtain authorizations such as building permits and business licenses.

Casablanca hosts around 12 percent of Morocco's total population and contribute to 20 percent of the national GDP.LISBON, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Portugal's Prime Minister Antonio Costa was joined by his Spanish counterpart Mariano Rajoy in the Portuguese town of Elvas on Monday, for the launch of a public tender to build a new train line from the Portuguese interior to the Spanish border.

"This investment will simultaneously contribute to improved conditions for private investment, internationalization and the export of our products and services," said Costa, quoted by Portuguese Lusa News Agency.

"It is also symbolic of the new moment the Portuguese economy is experiencing. We lived through years of tough crisis, but we've managed to turn the page," he added.

The project to build a 100-km stretch of track from the town of Evora, south-east of Lisbon, to Elvas, near the Spanish border, has a budget of 509 million euros (628 million U.S. dollars), around half of which will be paid by the European Union (EU).

Construction is scheduled to commence in March 2019 with work to be completed by early 2022.

The tender was launched with an event at the Elvas Contemporary Art Museum. Besides the Portuguese and Spanish premiers, the European Commission's head of transport Violeta Bulc was also present.

Bulc said Portugal had received 680 million euros of EU transport finance in recent years, while Spain had received 800 million.

"It's good belonging to the European Union," she said, before calling upon Rajoy to ensure completion of the rail network with connections through Spain to France.

Prior to the launch, the delegation visited Elvas' former train station to unveil a plaque symbolizing the start of modernizing work on a stretch of track running from Elvas to Caia, on the Spanish border.

This 11-km section had come to be known as "the missing link" in the international southern corridor project, a scheme designed to link Portugal's port of Sines with distribution centers at the heart of Europe.

Rajoy said, "The Evora-Elvas and Elvas-Caia lines go towards meeting an objective of fundamental importance, while uniting our citizens and improving their day-to-day lives."Iran 's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif (R) shakes hands with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian as they meet in the capital Tehran on March 5, 2018. (AFP photo)

TEHRAN, March 5 (Xinhua) -- Iranian senior officials on Monday called for collective resolve by the European countries to protect the Iranian nuclear deal reached in 2015.

Europe should push the United States to adhere to its obligations under the 2015 nuclear agreement, said Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday in a meeting with visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in the capital Tehran.

Besides, Europe should not allow the United States to pose "illogical and illegal" demands concerning Iran's nuclear deal, Zarif said.

The deal is "international diplomatic achievement," and it should be protected, he stressed.

The U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to scuttle the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal unless amendments are made to it.

However, Zarif noted that the nuclear deal, internationally known as JCPOA, is a multilateral agreement and its fate cannot be subjected to the whims of Washington.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is tasked with monitoring Iran's compliance with its obligation, has verified Iran's compliance with the deal in 10 reports.

The Iranian foreign minister also criticized some European countries for "being influenced under U.S. pressures" over Iran's nuclear deal and missile program.

Zarif said that Europe should not be affected by the U.S. "unwise and politically-motivated" approaches, and play a more constructive role in saving the JCPOA.

Le Drian said that Paris is determined to implement the JCPOA and has taken many practical measures in this regard.

"Tehran and Paris have started positive banking cooperation and the French companies' investment in Iran has been increased after the JCPOA took effect," he added.

In the meantime, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani on Monday urged the European countries not to bend under the U.S. "psychological game" pertaining to Iran's nuclear deal.

The Iranian official called for the acceleration of implementation of the Iranian nuclear deal.

Any move to undermine the JCPOA would result in the loss of credibility of other international agreements, Shamkhani also made the remarks in a meeting with Le Drian.

For his part, Le Drian hailed Iran's commitment to the JCPOA and said that France insists on the full implementation of the deal.

He said that both countries have new plans for boosting cooperation in monetary and banking interactions.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday voiced his support for the 2015 nuclear deal which limited Iran's nuclear activities in returns for the lift of western sanctions against Tehran.

Le Drian arrived in Tehran on Monday for talks with Iranian officials on mutual ties as well as regional and international issues.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.1. Fill in your name or an alias. Do not leave blank or use the name 'guest' or 'anonymous'.

2. No Nivul Peh. Profanity will be deleted.A MONTH ago the open water on the Big Lake left many doubtful of any quality fishing time. Jeff Scherwinski, right, of Saxon, Wis., jigs for trout and salmon Saturday.

By RALPH ANSAMI

[email protected]

SAXON, Wis. - Winter doldrums evaporated with 40-degree temperatures on the Lake Superior ice at Saxon Harbor Saturday morning.

With only a faint south breeze, fishermen were heading out in snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles to fish for salmon and trout.

Kelly Thurow, of Saxon, who runs a charter boat service in the summer, said fishing had slowed down a bit in the past week, but anglers have been picking up a few coho salmon and brown trout.

The ice tents on Saturday were scattered anywhere from over 15 feet of water to out a mile or more off shore.

Thurow said when fishing gets hot, word spreads quickly and the ice fills with tents. Saturday started slowly and it appeared angling would end by noon for many.

A tent set up nearest to the boat landing had produced a coho on a fathead minnow in about 15 feet of water, but a few other near-shore anglers didn't have a fish as of 10 a.m.

The ice was from 12 to 18 inches thick, with only a few cracks.

Jeff Scherwinski, of Saxon, said some anglers were using spawn for bait. "It's been hit or miss," he said, as he tried jigging.

The trouble with such a sunny day is the fish often prefer cloudy, snow-filled weather.

John Carli, of Hurley, was heading out with a heavily loaded four-wheeler, seeking the whereabouts of Julio Zarzyki, of Montreal, and his partners, since they're usually able to locate and catch any fish that might be hungry. They were out a long way from the harbor.

Other anglers fished out from the mouth of the Montreal River.

With so many ice trails blazed across the lake ice, fancy gear, augers and tents weren't necessary in such mild temperatures. Slightly iced-over holes punctuated the ice and a chisel was about all that was necessary to re-open one.

The fact that fishermen were able to get out on the ice at all this winter was doubtful about a month ago, when open water was visible as far as the eye could see.

The ice since blew in and has formed a solid layer, although Lake Superior, even in the winter, can change in a heartbeat, as the Saxon Harbor winter tsunami of a few years ago proved.

But on this weekend, with the sun shining and holes bored, there were few concerns on the ice, other than whether or not a fish would bite.DANCERS YOUNG and old circle the drummers in the middle of the gym in Watersmeet at Saturday's eighth annual powwow of the Lac Viex Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.

By IAN MINIELLY

[email protected]

Watersmeet - The Lac Viex Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians held their eighth annual winter powwow Saturday in the gym of the Watersmeet High School. Chairman James Williams Jr. said the powwow brings people from as far away as Wisconsin, Minnesota and even Canada for the two day get together.

When asked why they meet in the winter, Williams said it helps break up the winter and gives their scattered folks a chance to gather together, while also preserving their history, traditions and culture. The members of the LVD band also meet in the summers and have done so for over 20 years in August.

The members of the tribe spent much of Saturday dancing to the beat of the drums. Williams said the different dances from the jingle and grass dances to the traditional represent different elements of their culture through dance. The drummers in the center of the ring sing different songs, depending on the dance type.

Williams said another positive element of the powwow is it provides the local community a chance to see how the band celebrates together in all the different regalia displayed by dancers, drummers, and regular folks in attendance.

The powwow lasted until 9 p.m. Saturday, before resuming Sunday at noon, according to Williams. The powwow was scheduled to end at 4 p.m., Sunday. The Watersmeet senior class ran the concession stand to raise money for their class in school while the community came together to provide an evening community feast Saturday at 5 p.m.As a homeowner, you probably already know that you should be working to maintain your home. But, chances are, you Read MoreNews

Cambridge, Massachusetts - Neurons in the brain communicate via rapid electrical impulses that allow the brain to coordinate behavior, sensation, thoughts, and emotion. Scientists who want to study this electrical activity usually measure these signals with electrodes inserted into the brain, a task that is notoriously difficult and time-consuming.

MIT researchers have now come up with a completely different approach to measuring electrical activity in the brain, which they believe will prove much easier and more informative. They have developed a light-sensitive protein that can be embedded into neuron membranes, where it emits a fluorescent signal that indicates how much voltage a particular cell is experiencing. This could allow scientists to study how neurons behave, millisecond by millisecond, as the brain performs a particular function.

If you put an electrode in the brain, its like trying to understand a phone conversation by hearing only one person talk, says Edward Boyden, an associate professor of biological engineering and brain and cognitive sciences at MIT. Now we can record the neural activity of many cells in a neural circuit and hear them as they talk to each other.

Boyden, who is also a member of MITs Media Lab, McGovern Institute for Brain Research, and Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, and an HHMI-Simons Faculty Scholar, is the senior author of the study, which appears in the Feb. 26 issue of Nature Chemical Biology. The papers lead authors are MIT postdocs Kiryl Piatkevich and Erica Jung.

Imaging voltage

For the past two decades, scientists have sought a way to monitor electrical activity in the brain through imaging instead of recording with electrodes. Finding fluorescent molecules that can be used for this kind of imaging has been difficult; not only do the proteins have to be very sensitive to changes in voltage, they must also respond quickly and be resistant to photobleaching (fading that can be caused by exposure to light).

Boyden and his colleagues came up with a new strategy for finding a molecule that would fulfill everything on this wish list: They built a robot that could screen millions of proteins, generated through a process called directed protein evolution, for the traits they wanted.

You take a gene, then you make millions and millions of mutant genes, and finally you pick the ones that work the best, Boyden says. Thats the way that evolution works in nature, but now were doing it in the lab with robots so we can pick out the genes with the properties we want.

The researchers made 1.5 million mutated versions of a light-sensitive protein called QuasAr2, which was previously engineered by Adam Cohens lab at Harvard University. (That work, in turn, was based on the molecule Arch, which the Boyden lab reported in 2010.) The researchers put each of those genes into mammalian cells (one mutant per cell), then grew the cells in lab dishes and used an automated microscope to take pictures of the cells. The robot was able to identify cells with proteins that met the criteria the researchers were looking for, the most important being the proteins location within the cell and its brightness.

The research team then selected five of the best candidates and did another round of mutation, generating 8 million new candidates. The robot picked out the seven best of these, which the researchers then narrowed down to one top performer, which they called Archon1.

Mapping the brain

A key feature of Archon1 is that once the gene is delivered into a cell, the Archon1 protein embeds itself into the cell membrane, which is the best place to obtain an accurate measurement of a cells voltage.

Using this protein, the researchers were able to measure electrical activity in mouse brain tissue, as well as in brain cells of zebrafish larvae and the worm Caenorhabditis elegans. The latter two organisms are transparent, so it is easy to expose them to light and image the resulting fluorescence. When the cells are exposed to a certain wavelength of reddish-orange light, the protein sensor emits a longer wavelength of red light, and the brightness of the light corresponds to the voltage of that cell at a given moment in time.

The researchers also showed that Archon1 can be used in conjunction with light-sensitive proteins that are commonly used to silence or stimulate neuron activity  these are known as optogenetic proteins  as long as those proteins respond to colors other than red. In experiments with C. elegans, the researchers demonstrated that they could stimulate one neuron using blue light and then use Archon1 to measure the resulting effect in neurons that receive input from that cell.

Cohen, the Harvard professor who developed the predecessor to Archon1, says the new MIT protein brings scientists closer to the goal of imaging millisecond-timescale electrical activity in live brains.

Traditionally, it has been excruciatingly labor-intensive to engineer fluorescent voltage indicators, because each mutant had to be cloned individually and then tested through a slow, manual patch-clamp electrophysiology measurement. The Boyden lab developed a very clever high-throughput screening approach to this problem, says Cohen, who was not involved in this study. Their new reporter looks really great in fish and worms and in brain slices. Im eager to try it in my lab.

The researchers are now working on using this technology to measure brain activity in mice as they perform various tasks, which Boyden believes should allow them to map neural circuits and discover how they produce specific behaviors.

We will be able to watch a neural computation happen, he says. Over the next five years or so were going to try to solve some small brain circuits completely. Such results might take a step toward understanding what a thought or a feeling actually is.

The research was funded by the HHMI-Simons Faculty Scholars Program, the IET Harvey Prize, the MIT Media Lab, the New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Award, the Open Philanthropy Project, John Doerr, the Human Frontier Science Program, the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health, including an NIH Directors Pioneer Award.Health News

Dallas, Texas - Survival from cardiac arrest doubled when a bystander stepped in to apply an automated external defibrillator (AED) before emergency responders arrived, according to new research in the American Heart Associations journal Circulation.

According to the American Heart Association, of the more than 350,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests that occur in the United States each year, more than 100,000 happen outside the home. Less than half (45.7 percent) of cardiac arrest victims get the immediate help they need before emergency responders arrive, in part because emergency medical services take, on average, between four and ten minutes to reach someone in cardiac arrest.

An international team of researchers looked at 49,555 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests that occurred in major U.S. and Canada cities. They analyzed a key subgroup of these arrests, those that occurred in public, were witnessed and were shockable. The researchers found that nearly 66 percent of these victims survived to hospital discharge after a shock delivered by a bystander. Their findings emphasized that bystanders make a critical difference is assisting cardiac arrest victims before emergency responders can get to the scene.

Among the studys results:

Bystanders used an AED in 18.8 percent of these cases.

Cardiac arrest victims who received a shock from a publicly-available AED had far greater chances of survival and being discharged from the hospital than those who did not; 66.5 percent versus 43 percent.

Cardiac arrest victims who received a shock from a publicly-available AED that was administered by a bystander had 2.62 times higher odds of survival to hospital discharge and 2.73 times more favorable outcomes for functioning compared to victims who first received an AED shock after emergency responders arrived.

Victims who received an AED shock from a bystander (57.1 percent) using a publicly-available device instead of having to wait for emergency responders (32.7 percent) had near normal function and better outcomes.

Without a bystander using AED shock therapy, 70 percent of cardiac arrest patients either died or survived with impaired brain function.

We estimate that about 1,700 lives are saved in the United States per year by bystanders using an AED, said senior study author Myron Weisfeldt, M.D. Unfortunately, not enough Americans know to look for AEDs in public locations, nor are they are trained on how to use them despite great and effective efforts of the American Heart Association.

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), use of an AED is the third step in the cardiac arrest chain of survival. The first two steps in a witnessed, out-of-hospital cardiac arrest are to 1) call 9-1-1 and 2) begin immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).

One of the studys limitations is that it only examined bystander AED use without considering the combined impact of calling 9-1-1 and starting immediate CPR.

During a cardiac arrest, the electrical activity in the heart is disrupted. According to the American Heart Association, every second counts because without immediate CPR, the heart, brain and other vital organs arent receiving enough oxygenated blood. For every minute without CPR, the chance of death increases by 10 percent.

Based on the study findings, Weisfeldt and his team, including lead author John Hopkins medical student Ross Pollack, would like to see greater distribution of AEDs, including equipping police with defibrillators, especially in regions where it takes emergency responders long to get to the patient.

Bystanders have the potential to save a life, Weisfeldt continued. This should be a great incentive for public health officials and bystanders to strive to have AEDs used on all victims of cardiac arrest.

The American Heart Association launched its Workplace Safety Training Initiative in 2017 with survey results that complement the Weisfeldt studys insights. The Associations survey found that most U.S. employees are not prepared to handle cardiac emergencies in the workplace because they lack training in CPR and First Aid. In fact, half of all U.S. workers (50 percent) cannot locate the AED at work. In the hospitality industry, that number rises to two-thirds (66 percent). More than 10,000 cardiac arrests occur annually in the workplace.

First Aid, CPR and AED training need to become part of a larger culture of safety within workplaces, said Michael Kurz, MD, chair of the American Heart Associations Systems of Care Subcommittee and associate professor at the University of Alabama School of Medicine in the Department of Emergency Medicine. We are certainly seeing higher public interest in this training, and our campaign calls upon decision makers in workplaces and popular public spaces such as arenas, fitness centers, hotels, and churches to place AEDs in the same locations as a fire extinguisher.

Co-authors are: Ross A. Pollack, B.S.; Siobhan P. Brown, Ph.D.; Thomas Rea, M.D., M.P.H.; Tom Aufderheide, M.D.; David Barbic, M.D.; Jason E. Buick, M.Sc.; Jim Christenson, M.D.; Ahamed H. Idris, M.D.; Jamie Jasti, B.S.; Michael Kampp, paramedic/EMS Chief; Peter Kudenchuk, M.D.; Susanne May, Ph.D.; Marc Muhr, EMT-P; Graham Nichol, M.D., M.P.H.; Joseph P. Ornato, M.D.; George Sopko, M.D., M.P.H.; Christian Vaillancourt, M.D., M.Sc.; Laurie Morrison, M.D., M.Sc.; and the ROC Investigators. Author disclosures are on the manuscript.

Funding: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in partnership with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; U.S. Army Medical Research & Material Command; The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) - Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health, Defense Research and Development Canada; the Heart, Stroke Foundation of Canada; and the American Heart Association.Latest News

Las Vegas, Nevada - A former Henderson resident pleaded guilty Friday to distributing images of child pornography, some of which were tweeted to his followers, announced U.S. Attorney Dayle Elieson of the District of Nevada.

Mark Alan Stoneking, 40, previously of Henderson, Nevada, now a resident of Elyria, Ohio, pleaded guilty to one count of distribution of child pornography. United States District Judge Richard Boulware II accepted the guilty plea and scheduled sentencing for May 31, 2018.

According to the plea agreement, Stoneking admitted that, on December 20, 2014, and January 6, 2015, he distributed using a Twitter account sexually explicit photos of children. On January 12, 2016, the Henderson Police Department and members of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force executed a search warrant at his residence in Henderson and seized electronic devices containing more than 600 videos and more than 200,000 images of child pornography.

The minimum statutory penalty is five years in prison and the maximum statutory penalty is 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Stoneking will also be required to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.

The case was investigated by the FBI and the Henderson Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tony Lopez is prosecuting the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys Offices and the Criminal Divisions Child Exploitation and obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.Coun Perez reiterates warning to barangay leaders involved in drugs

07 Aug 2017 Hits:37 Comments(0)

Liga ng mga Barangay President, Councilor Jerry Perez yesterday reiterated his warning to all barangay officials from using or selling drugs. Perez said he is closely monitoring the activities of all the barangay officials and vowed sanctions against erring leaders. Aqui gane na mio barangay ya quita ya iyo na puesto cunel dos barangay leaders quien mas temprano ya sale positivo na...In a shocking incident, a student of All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna was found roaming in semi-naked condition in the girls hostel allegedly after consuming bhang in a Holi party. The student, who hailed from Kerala, was rusticated after the incident came to light.

According to Hindustan Times, thr incident took place on February 27 when the final year student walked into the hostel of nursing students wearing a lungi. His lungi reportedly came off while he ran inside the hostel. He was then escorted out of the hostel by security officials.

The report further said that the college administration tried to evade any action over the issue but the girl students staged protest demanding stringent action against the MBBS student. The administration then succumbed to the protest and initiated action against him.

The student was under the influence of bhang, and not alcohol, clarified the college administration in view of Bihar being a dry state when consumption of alcohol invites penal action.The Delhi Police has arrested a woman for allegedly killing her husband by giving him poison on the advice of a tantrik. Soon after the case was reported, the police rushed on Sunday to arrest the main accused, KV Rama, and the Tantrik, who was identified as Shyam Singh alias Bhagat Singh.

According to reports, the woman has confessed to have committed the crime. On February 26, the Delhi Police received a call from Ram Manohar Lohia hospital that a person was brought to the hospital in an unconscious state and died while he was being undergoing treatment. He was identified as one D Srinivas Murthy.

While investigating, the police discovered that the woman had furnished wrong phone number and address in hospital documents. Following this, CCTV footage of the hospital was scanned wherein a car was seen. By tracking the car number, the cops managed to reach the Kalibari residence of the woman.

The cops then detained her and interrogated her about the same. She then confessed to have killed her husband by giving him poison. She told police that the poison was arranged by the Tantrik.

Brother of the deceased was also approached by the police who rushed in from Andhra Pradesh, and then filed an FIR wherein she was charged under section 302, 120B and 201.

Murthy was a manager in a finance company while his wife pursued a government job. The accused told the police that she was in a disturbed marriage with Murthy, who was an alcoholic. She also said that her family was under debt of as much as Rs 10-12 lakh.New Delhi: A critically endangered Sumatran tiger was disemboweled and then hung from the ceiling by villagers in a remote Indonesian community after it attacked a pair of locals.

Human-animal conflicts are rampant in the vast Southeast Asian archipelago, especially in areas where the clearing of rainforest to make way for palm oil plantations is destroying animals' habitats and bringing them into closer contact with people.

Initially believing the tiger to be a 'supernatural creature', locals from Hatupangan village in North Sumatrafollowed the big cat to its jungle lair, as per a conservation official.

On Sunday, the tiger  which has been seen around the village since last month  attacked the curious group and seriously injured two villagers.

Later, despite warnings by conservation officials to not harm the big cat, the villagers announced plans to kill the animal.

"Unfortunately they would not listen. They insisted on killing the tiger," said local conservation agency head Hotmauli Sianturi, adding that a conservation officer was blocked from preventing the death.

"After killing the animal, the locals hung up its body for display. It's very regrettable."

Some internal organs were missing from the tiger's body, said authorities, who are investigating the killing.

Sumatran tigers are considered critically endangered by protection group the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with 400 to 500 remaining in the wild.

(With AFP inputs)New Delhi: After an illustrious career of more than 25 years, Guillermo Del Toro has finally become an Oscar winner.

The 53-year-old director beat out fellow nominees Christopher Nolan ('Dunkirk'), Greta Gerwig ('Lady Bird'), Jordan Peele ('Get Out'), and Paul Thomas Anderson ('Phantom Thread').

It's his first Oscar win on his fourth nomination.

During his speech, Del Toro praised Hollywood for creating an environment that welcomed immigrants such as himself.

"In the last 25 years, I've been living in a country all of our own. The greatest thing our industry does is to erase lines in the sand. We should continue to do that," he said.

Del Toro also thanked distributor Fox Searchlight for listening to his "mad pitch" for a fairytale about a mute janitor who falls in love with a fish-man and thought it was "a sure bet."

'The Shape of Water' earned 13 total Oscar nominations, the most of any film this year, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Sally Hawkins), Best Supporting Actor (Richard Jenkins) and Best Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer).New Delhi: Pakistan has violated the ceasefire agreement along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir as many as 351 times since January 1 this year, the government said on Monday.

Of these, 209 cases occurred in January while 142 instances were noted since February 21, Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre told the Rajya Sabha in a written reply.

"Appropriate response to these ceasefire violations has been carried out wherever necessary. During ceasefire violations, the inhabitants of border villages, which are vulnerable to shelling and firing, are shifted to safer locations to prevent any loss of life. All arrangements are made to shift them to safer locations," the Minister said in his reply.

He added that the defences along the border are "periodically fortified" and made "more robust and resilient" through continuous improvements to withstand the attacks.

The opposition has been critical of the Narendra Modi government for its failure to contain Pakistan in order to check ceasefire violations and terrorist intrusions from across the border that has resulted in considerable loss of life including that of security personnel in the last few years.

In 2017, a total of 860 instances of ceasefire violations by Pakistan occurred in which 15 Army personnel lost their lives while 58 were injured. Also, four Border Security Force (BSF) personnel were killed and 14 were injured, according to the information provided by the government to the upper House.

In these cross-border firings, 12 civilians also lost their lives while 79 got injured.

Besides, 33 infiltration bids were foiled by the army while 131 terrorist-related incidents happened last year.

In these cases, 14 Armymen, two BSF men, 40 civilians and 31 Jammu and Kashmir Police personnel lost their lives while 46 Army personnel, two BSF men, 99 civilians and 85 state police personnel were injured.

In a separate reply, Bhamre said that the defence forces have taken various measures to check terrorist attacks on army camps such as intensifying intelligence gathering and deployment of drones for surveillance.

"The government had issued broad guidelines for security of defence installations to the defence services and in compliance to the said guidelines, the defence services have taken a number of actions including risk categorisation of military bases; appraisal and upgradation of intelligence gathering capabilities; strengthening and streamlining of the response mechanism; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs); periodic security audit of all military installations etc," the Minister said.

"The Army also carries out an in-depth analysis of the terrorist incidents and security breaches that are identified with various incidents," he added.New Delhi: The BJP on Monday hit back at Congress chief Rahul Gandhi over his remarks accusing it of "usurping" power in Meghalaya.

Taking to Twitter, Rahul accused BJP of using big money to create 'opportunistic alliance'.

With just 2 seats, the BJP has usurped power in Meghalaya, through a proxy. Like in Manipur & Goa, showing utter disregard for the mandate of the people. Obsessed instead with grabbing power, using big money to create an opportunistic alliance.#DemocracyDemonetised  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 5, 2018

Reacting to Rahul's tweet, BJP's national spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao said that the Congress president was "desperate" as his party's "moneybags" had failed to deliver a government in the state.

Rahulbhai, You never seem to learn lessons. In Meghalaya, people have rejected the Congress and gave a mandate for anti-Congress govt. We understand your desperation as you shrink in political space and face the prospect of being reduced to power only in Puducherry. https://t.co/jHdLWDt15E  GVL Narasimha Rao (@GVLNRAO) March 5, 2018

Meghalaya threw up a fractured mandate on Saturday with the ruling Congress emerging as the largest party, marginally ahead of its rival, the NPP, an ally of the BJP at the Centre and in Manipur.

The Congress bagged 21 seats in the 60-member Assembly, eight less than the last elections. The NPP came second with 19 seats in its kitty.

The BJP, which drew a blank in the last elections, got two seats. The United Democratic Party (UDP) won six seats while its alliance partner the HSPDP won two seats. The People's Democratic Front (PDF) bagged four seats, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM) and three Independents got one seat each.

Sangma met the governor on Sunday evening to stake claim to form a coalition government in Meghalaya.

He submitted a letter of support from 34 MLAs - 19 of the NPP, six of the United Democratic Party (UDP), four of the People's Democratic Front (PDF), two each of the Hill State People's Democratic Party (HSPDP) and the BJP, and an Independent.

The Congress could not garner the support of regional outfits to cobble together a coalition government. Top party leaders Ahmed Patel and Kamal Nath rushed to Shillong to talk to regional parties but to no avail.

Meanwhile, earlier on Monday, breaking his silence on the party's defeat in three Northeast states, Rahul said he respected the mandate of people in the region and was committed to winning back their trust.

"The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to win back the trust of the people. My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party," he posted on Twitter.

The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people. My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party.  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 5, 2018

The Congress failed to score a single seat in Tripura and Nagaland.

(With PTI inputs)NEW DELHI: The second part of Parliament's budget session is set to begin on Monday on a stormy note with the opposition ready to corner the government on the issue of bank frauds.

As both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha meet after month-long recess, the multi-crore PNB bank fraud and other financial scams are likely to dominate the proceedings in both the Houses.

The opposition and the government are likely to lock horns over the issue.

Opposition parties would demand answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on how the multi-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud and other banking scams took place under his watch and how the government failed to stop them.

Congress deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma has given a notice for a discussion tomorrow under rule 267 of the House on the bank fraud issue.

The government, on its part, is seeking to counter the opposition offensive by bringing the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill.

The legislation, once passed, will grant powers to the government to attach assets of persons declared fugitive. This will include benami assets too.

The bill to target economic offenders was approved by the government following the fleeing of diamond merchant Nirav Modi and other accused in the over Rs 12,600-crore Punjab National Bank scam.

The BJP has claimed that the PNB scam had started during the UPA rule and its government has acted swiftly after the fraud came out in the open.

The passage of the triple talaq bill will also be high on the government's agenda.

While the opposition has not planned any joint strategy so far, it is likely to meet in a day or two to chalk out a plan for the Parliament session.

Other issues that the opposition is likely to raise include those relating to crimes against Dalits and women. The issues of farmers distress, slowdown of the economy and rising unemployment were also expected to be raised by opposition benches.

The Congress will also raise the issue of "vendetta", alleging that the BJP-led government was targeting its political opponents. This comes in the wake of the arrest of Karti Chidambaram, the son of former finance minister P Chidambaram.

The second part of the session would primarily see the passage of the Union budget for 2018-19 and discussions on the demand for grants for various ministries.

The BJP, which is energised after its emphatic victory in Tripura and impressive performance in Nagaland and Meghalaya polls, is likely to adopt an aggressive posture in Parliament.

The ruling party will rake up scams taking place during the Congress times and pin it down, the party sources said.

The passage of the OBC bill, that seeks to provide constitutional status for the OBC commission, is another issue high on the government agenda.

The government has also listed some other bills for consideration and passage in both Houses.

In the Lok Sabha, it intends to bring 'The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, 2017', ' The Specific Relief (Amendment) Bill, 2017' tomorrow, and 'The Dentists (Amendment) Bill, 2017', on Tuesday.

In the Rajya Sabha, the government has listed 'The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2017', and 'The State Banks (Repeal and Amendment) Bill, 2017', for the first day of the session.

Congress leaders said the aim is to corner the government unitedly and demand answers from it on various issues which it has evaded in the past, a party leader said.

"We will demand answers from the government on the bank fraud scam. We will also demand answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the scam happened right under his watch," Sharma told PTI.

He said the party is also set to raise the issue of "selective vendetta" at the hands of investigative agencies by the BJP-led government to target key political opponents.

CPI leader D Raja said the issue of PNB fraud will be taken up and the new bills that the government proposes to bring would also be discussed.

"We will demand answers from the government on how the fraud happened. The banking sector is in a deep crisis and its credibility is under stake," he told PTI.

TMC leader Derek O'Brien said his party is for a debate and a discussion in Parliament, and would evolve a joint opposition strategy soon.

"We will coordinate with other opposition parties to expose this BJP government that has not delivered on their promises. I don't want to name any particular issue as there are many. We have issues for everyday in Parliament," he said.

O'Brien also claimed that the BJP had gone "overboard" with its victory in Tripura.

"If their target is West Bengal our target is Red Fort. BJP did not win Tripura, the Left surrendered it," he said, claiming that Prime Minister Modi will not deliver his address from the Red Fort in 2019.New Delhi: India is all-set to showcase its capability as a major defence manufacturing hub at the DefExpo 2018 which is scheduled to be held in Chennai between April 11 and 14. In a press release on Monday, the Defence Ministry stated that the expo will project India's ability to manufacture and export several defence systems and components for all three Services - Army, Navy and Air Force.

In prime focus at the expo would be Hindustan Aeronautics Limited's various flying platforms including domestically designed and manufactured fourth-generation Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) - Tejas; Advanced Light Helicopter - Dhruv, and Dornier civilian aircraft. Naval design capabilities too would be highlighted. "As the DefExpo is being held on sea-shore, along the East Coast road enroute Chennai to Mahabalipuram, it provides Indian Navy to brandish its domestic design and manufacturing capabilities. India will proudly present its Naval designing capabilities in shipbuilding," read the release from the Defence Ministry.

Land systems too will get a large share of the spotlight with 155mm Advanced Towed Artillery Gun (ATAG) all-set to be unveiled at the expo. Designed by Defence Research and Development Organisation in partnership with Kalyani Group, Tata Power and OFBs, it is the first time India will have its own ATAG. Dhanush - a 155mm artillery gun - will also be on display. Other highlights for the Army include India's tank-manufacturing abilities courtesy MBT Arjun, T90 and T-72 and Bridge Laying Tanks (BLTs).

The country's missile and rocket manufacturing capabilities would be showcased with BrahMos missiles, Akash missile systems and Pinaka rockets.

The expo will also seek to promote domestic private industry and aero-components industry at a time when the government is looking to reduce dependence on imports and instead, increasing abilities to manufacture for forces within the country as part of 'Make in India' initiative. The country has one of the largest defence budgets at Rs 2.95 trillion with imports eating into a large chunk of the allocated money. In the face of new and dynamic challenges from Pakistan and especially China, defence spendings will continue to dominate the country's overall expenditure but manufacturing domestically may bring costs down.New Delhi: Hearing the plea of Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash challenging a breach of privilege notice issued to him for allegedly skipping a meeting called by the panel, the Delhi High Court on Monday said that the Arvind Kejriwal government should calm their tempers.

The court also sought response of the Centre, AAP government, Lieutenant Governor (LG) and others on Prakash's plea. A single-judge bench of Justice Rajiv Shakdher issued notices to the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Privilege Committee, the Question and Reference Committee, apart from the city government and the LG, while seeking their reply in two weeks.

It posted the matter to April 11, 2018, after Delhi Assembly's privilege committee agreed to defer the meeting till further orders.

The matter came up before Justice Shakdher after a division bench comprising justices GS Sistani and Sangita Dhingra Sehgal, which heard the matter briefly, said that the plea should be dealt by a single judge bench.

At the outset, the HC expressed reservation on hearing the plea saying it will have to see whether it has the jurisdiction to deal with the matter or not.

"We need to address the issue of jurisdiction. We have to be very cautious while dealing with the issue. Today, it is the case of Delhi Assembly. Tomorrow it could be Lok Sabha or Rajya Sabha. We need to hear this matter in detail," the bench observed, PTI reported.

During the proceedings, senior advocate Sanjay Hegde, appearing for the privilege committee, assured the bench that he has sought instructions, and he was ready to undertake that there would be no coercive action against the chief secretary if he attends the meeting.

Senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, appearing for the CS, however, said that the notice which was issued to him was a "clear case of malice"

The panel had on February 21, 2018, had recommended privilege proceedings against the CS for contempt of the House after he skipped the meeting called by the committee.

A committee of the Delhi Assembly had on Sunday accused Prakash of "lying" before the HC with regard to the breach of privilege notice.

Members of the Question and Reference Committee said that they would also initiate "forgery proceedings" against Prakash for misinforming the court.

An AAP MLA had said on Sunday, "We have learnt that the CS has moved the High Court challenging the breach of privilege notice served to him by accusing us of arm-twisting him in a matter related to alleged attack on him, but he is hiding the fact that the meeting was related to rising NPAs," PTI reported.

"The committee members challenge the CS to stick to the contents of his affidavit and not alter these contents. The chief secretary is clearly trying to shield those involved in the multi-crore scam, which appears to be on the lines of the Punjab National Bank scam," the committee had said in a statement.

Earlier, in February 2018, the Delhi CS had alleged that he was beaten up by AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan and another AAP MLA in the presence of Kejriwal at the CM's residence, where he had been called for a meeting.

The incident had led to the filing of an FIR by the CS and the 'March for Dignity', led by Prakash from the Delhi Secretariat to Raj Ghat. It had seen the participation of around 800 officers and employees holding candles in their hands.

(With PTI inputs)NEW DELHI: The Patiala House Court in Delhi extended the judicial custody Indrani Mukerjea for 14 days in connection with the alleged INX Media bribery case.

Indrani - one of the former directors of INX Media Ltd - appeared before the court through video conferencing from Mumbai's Byculla jail.

In a related development, Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union minister and veteran Congress leader P Chidambaram moved to the Supreme Court earlier in the day, seeking the quashing of summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate.

On Sunday, Karti was taken to the Byculla Central Jail by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for questioning in the bribery case. Upon reaching the Byculla Central jail, Karti was made to face Indrani and Peter Mukerjea, co-accused in the money laundering case.

Indrani Mukerjea had recently admitted before a magistrate that Karti had met her in a Delhi hotel and demanded USD 1 million in bribe for the FIPB clearance.

The ED had registered a case in May last year under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act against Karti Chidambaram, INX Media and its directors - Peter and Indrani Mukerjea - both accused in the Sheena Bora murder case.

Indrani along with her husband Peter Mukerjea "allegedly siphoned off 90 million GBP (Great Britain Pounds) and this money is suspected to have gone to overseas countries through unauthorised route of hawala etc", the ED plea had said.

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) permitted INX Media to receive FDI for Rs 46.2 million, however, it received foreign investment totalling to Rs 3,053.6 million during August 2007 to May 2008, the ED had said.

"Thus excess foreign exchange equivalent to Rs 3004.4 million beyond the disclosed and permitted foreign investment was received by INX media from three Mauritius-based foreign investors," the agency had said.

Rabin, Peter's son from an earlier marriage, was found to be handling funds of Peter and Indrani Mukerjea held in the form of bonds in New Zealand, the ED had said.

"Rabin... Peter and Indrani have laundered money and are involved in financial transactions in UK connected with illicit funds generated in India," the application had said.

The ED also noted that the murder of Sheena Bora, Indrani Mukerjea's daughter from an earlier relationship, was suspected to be motivated by financial reasons.NEW DELHI: Karti Chidambaram, the son of former Union minister and veteran Congress leader P Chidambaram, on Monday moved to the Supreme Court in the alleged INX Media bribery case seeking the quashing of summons issued by the Enforcement Directorate.

On Sunday, Karti was taken to the Byculla Central Jail for questioning in the bribery case. He was taken to Mumbai in an Air India flight around 8 am by the CBI, which is probing the case.

Upon reaching the Byculla Central jail, Karti was made to face Indrani and Peter Mukerjea - the ex-directors of INX Media Ltd.

Indrani Mukerjea had recently admitted before a magistrate that Karti had met her in a Delhi hotel and demanded USD 1 million in bribe for the FIPB clearance.

While being taken back to Delhi from Mumbai, Karti Chidambaram, however, said that all allegations levelled against him are ''baseless and politically motivated.''

Karti is accused of allegedly receiving Rs 3.5 crore from the Mumbai-based INX Media, now known as 9X Media, for helping it get Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance in 2007, when it was run by Peter and Indrani - both accused in the Sheena Bora murder case.

On March 1, the Patiala House Court in Delhi had sent the junior Chidambaram to CBI custody for five days following which he was questioned for nearly seven hours by the CBI.

In a dramatic development in the INX Media case, Karti was arrested by the CBI from Chennai airport on February 28 on his return from abroad.

After his arrest in Chennai, CBI officials took him to Delhi by the afternoon. He was taken to the CBI headquarters and then produced before a Duty Magistrate.

The arrest of Karti came nine months after the CBI registered an FIR against him on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, accepting gratification by corrupt or illegal means, influencing public servants and criminal misconduct.New Delhi: Both Houses of Parliament saw adjournments on the first day of the second-half of Budget Session on Monday, with Opposition members seeking to corner the government on a range of issues.

While the Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day after an earlier adjournment, the Rajya Sabha saw three adjournments.

Following are the top developments:

- As the upper House was reconvened at 2 pm on Monday after two earlier adjournments, the Opposition MPs were on their feet and many of them trooped near the Chair's podium, shouting slogans "Nirav Modi ko wapas laao (Bring Nirav Modi back)".

- Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien asked the agitating members to return to their seats but they kept shouting slogans.

- On the other side of the podium, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MPs protested demanding special status to Andhra Pradesh, since Telangana was carved out of it.

- Kurien said he was ready to allow a short duration discussion on the PNB frauds and asked Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad to start it. But, Azad said that discussion could be started only if the other parties agreed to it.

- "Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to bring back black money. The black money hasn't come, while the white money flew out of the country," Azad said.

- In the morning, as soon as the House met for the day, opposition MPs protested against the multi-crore PNB scam forcing two adjournments.

- Several Opposition MPs including Azad, Samajwadi Party's Naresh Agarwal and Trinamool Congress' Sukhendu Shekhar Roy had given notice to discuss the PNB scam under Rule 267 by suspending all listed business for the day.

- From the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) side, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe had given notice under the same rule for discussion on relatives of former Union Ministers allegedly found involved in scams.

- The Chair rejected the notices and asked them to raise the issues under other relevant rules.

- In the Lok Sabha, opposition members from several parties, including the Congress, Trinamool Congress, Telugu Desam Party (TDP), Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) and the AIADMK, were on their feet raising different issues after the House met for the day.

- Several members, including those from the TDP and the TRS, were displaying placards. While most of the TDP MPs were wearing yellow scarves, party MP Naramalli Sivaprasad from Chittoor was dressed as Lord Krishna. The AIADMK members were demanding constitution of Cauvery Management Board.

- Amid din, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan announced that she had accepted resignation of Nationalist Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) leader Neiphiu Rio as a member of the House with effect from February 22. As the sloganeering continued, Mahajan adjourned the House for the day.

(With IANS inputs)New Delhi: Amid a bitter war of words with the Congress over the Rs 12600 crore PNB scam, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Monday blamed the latter for rising non-performing assets (NPAs) and the worsening bank debt crisis.

Addressing a press conference in the national capital, Prasad said that the Congress-led UPA government did not follow the rule book during its tenure. The Union Minister also hit out at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is often credited for reforming the Indian economy.

"Under the so-called economist and then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the entire banking system went haywire due to all kinds of interference with it," the BJP leader said.

Making a scathing attack on the Congress, Prasad said that banking scams like the Nirav Modi-linked PNB fraud took place during the Congress-led UPA rule.

Prasad also attacked former finance minister P Chidambaram, who has been very vocal about Narendra Modi government's economic policies and the GDP growth rate.

Blaming Chidambaram for the faulty UPA gold import scheme, Prasad said, "On May 16, 2014, an order was passed by the then Finance Minister to provide benefits to seven private companies. Gitanjali was one of the seven companies."

The minister also blamed Congress for spreading lies, confusion and fear about the BJP-led NDA government.

''Congress has been indulging in the politics of fear and confusion in the last 4 years. Congress party has issues with technology since technology brings transparency,'' he added.

''Many times the UPA did not allow correct data to be entered into bank records. Advances (to banks) rose during UPA but were not recorded in the books,'' the minister said.

The minister also blamed the Congress party for using the word 'joomlas'' while targeting BJP.

''Don't know how much they have learnt Hindi. They have been using the word 'joomla' a lot. Do you know, there was 80:20 scheme that was started in August 2013,'' Prasad asked.

''In November 2014, we scrapped the 80:20 scheme. The Congress must answer, who were those people who were lobbying on behalf of Gitanjali and related companies. And how many cuts they were taking,'' he asked.

There was a Scheme 80:20 introduced in August 2013 & repealed in November 2014. On 16th May 2014, the date of the declaration of results, the then Finance Minister gave 'aashirvaad' to 7 pvt companies under 80:20 Scheme. One of those companies was #Gitanjali: Ravi Shankar Prasad pic.twitter.com/o4iOGrR3q1  ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2018

''Rahul Gandhi must answer after he returns from Italy,'' the minister demanded.

Attacking Congress for criticising Aadhaar, Prasad said, ''We have saved crores of rupees with Aadhaar. Today the worst critic of Aadhaar is the Congress. Some of their biggest leaders speak against Aadhaar. I know the Congress faces difficulties in accepting technology.''

''He (Rahul Gandhi) called GST Gabbar Singh tax. I am very sure that Congress is anti-reform. Whenever there is reform there is transparency and accountability,'' Prasad said.

The Union Minister also congratulated the BJP workers for the party's splendid electoral success in the recently concluded assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya, and Nagaland.

(With Agency inputs)New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday arrived home from Italy where he had gone to meet his 93-year-old maternal grandmother.

The Gandhi scion has yet again courted a controversy for not being with his party when it suffered losses in the recently concluded assembly elections in three northeastern states  Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had hit out at the Congress chief for deserting his party workers ahead of the announcement of Meghalaya, Tripura and Nagaland assembly elections results.

Hitting out at the Congress chief, Union Minister Giriraj Singh had said, "He is not a natural leader, he is a gift of circumstances. He was born to a queen. Once he disappeared for 56 days, today also he has gone. No leader leaves workers at such crucial time. He cannot handle stress."

Congress, however, came to Rahul Gandhi's defence, saying it is not a crime to visit one's grandmother.

Earlier in the day, Rahul took to Twitter and said the Congress respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya.

The Congress president further said that the leadership was committed to strengthening the party across northeast and winning back the trust of the people.

He tweeted, The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people. My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party.

The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people. My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party.  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 5, 2018

Despite having the highest share of seats in the recently held assembly polls in Meghalaya, the Congress has been unable to form the government, as the National People's Party (NPP)-led coalition bagged 34 seats, thus claiming stake to form the state government under the leadership of Conrad Sangma.

Showcasing a remarkable performance, the BJP and allies swept Tripura and Nagaland with a thumping majority.

(With ANI inputs)NEW DELHI: Amid protest by SSC aspirants against the alleged leak of examination paper for the combined graduate level exam - SSC CGL tier 2 - the Supreme Court on Monday said that it will hear the plea seeking an investigation into the matter on March 12.

On Sunday, the Staff Selection Commission (SSC), which conducts examination for subordinate services, decided to recommend a CBI inquiry into the alleged paper leaks in one of its tests held on February 21.

In a statement, SSC chairman Ashim Khurana said that a delegation of candidates, who were protesting against the alleged paper leaks, met him along with Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and handed over a memorandum.

They pressed for a CBI enquiry into the allegations of leaking of the SSC question papers of the Combined Graduate Level (Tier-II) Examination 2017 held from February 17 to 22.

"The commission agreed to recommend to the Department of Personnel and Training to request the government to conduct a CBI enquiry into the allegations of leaking of question papers of Paper-I on February 21, and other related issues," the statement said.

Earlier, Tiwari, along with the protesting students, met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and apprised him about the concerns raised by the protesting SSC aspirants.

Speaking to reporters later, Tiwari said that he had met Rajnath Singh along with protesting SSC aspirants during which their demand for a CBI probe into the SSC paper leak was accepted.

''The Home Minister heard the students and assured action in this regard," he said.

Tiwari further said that if corruption has happened then it should be investigated adding, "We are against corruption and the demand of these students is very genuine."

"I have complete faith in my government, the culprit whoever it may be, will not be spared as BJP and Delhi state stand by their demand," he added.

''I request those still sitting in protest to go home. I assure them that the process of CBI investigation has started,'' Manoj Tiwari said.

Tiwari's colleague and BJP Member of Parliament (MP) Meenakshi Lekhi too assured the aspirants of a fair investigation at the earliest.

"We have had a meeting with the Home Minister and he assured us that an investigation has been initiated in the case," she said adding that a thorough probe will be done in the matter.

In a related development, anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare on Sunday met the SSC aspirants who are protesting against the alleged paper leak of the combined graduate level exam.

The protesters have been demanding a CBI-led investigation into the matter.

Hazare urged the protestors to walk on the path of non-violence and demanded the government to take action in this regard.

"While opposing injustice and harassment, it is extremely important to walk on the path of non-violence. This strengthens the democracy," he told the protestors.

The students have been protesting outside the SSC office at Delhi's CGO complex since February 27, seeking a CBI probe into the alleged paper leak in the Combined Graduate-Level (CGL) exam.

The SSC conducts examinations for recruitment to lower categories of posts in the central government.New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday restrained the Jammu and Kashmir Police from carrying out any investigation in pursuance to FIR registered against Major Aditya Kumar in the wake of the death of three civilians as the Indian Army tried to disperse a stone-pelting mob in Shopian district in Kashmir.

Restraining the Jammu and Kashmir Police from carrying out further investigations, a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud directed the further hearing on the petition by Lt. Col. Karamveer Singh on April 24.

Lt. Col. Karamveer Singh -- a serving army officer and father of Major Aditya Kumar -- is seeking the quashing of the FIR against his son.

At the outset of the hearing, Attorney General K.K. Venugopal told the court that the mere filing of the complaint against an army personnel serving in the disturbed area was barred under Section 7 of Armed Forces Special Powers Act without the prior sanction of the Centre.

Attorney General cited top court judgements of 2006 and 2014 in support of his contention that without Centre`s sanction even a complaint against a serving army officer operating in disturbed area was prohibited under the law.

However, this was opposed by senior counsel Shekhar Naphade, who is appearing for Jammu and Kashmir, saying that the registration of FIR and even filing of chargesheet did not amount to taking cognizance of the offence and thus no prior permission of the Centre was required.

Attorney General Venugopal took exception to Naphade telling the court that Section 7 of the Armed Forces Disturbed Area Act could be read as a licence to kill people.

"Is there a licence to kill under Section 4 and Section 7 of the Act," Naphade said with Attorney General taking exception to the words "licence to kill".

Naphade told the court that Major Kumar has not even been named as an accused in the FIR.

In the last hearing of the matter on February 12, the court had restrained Jammu and Kashmir Police from taking any coercive action against Major Kumar.

Lt. Col. Karamveer Singh is father of Major Aditya Kumar. The petitioner father has contended that registration of FIR and the consequent proceedings would adversely impact the morale of the armed forces fighting militancy in the trouble-torn states.

Major Kumar and other soldiers of 10 Garhwal Rifles have been accused of opening fire on a stone-pelting mob which had attacked an army convoy near Ganowpora village in Shopian district on January 27.

The firing resulted in the death of three in the stone pelting crowd.

"The manner in which the lodging of the FIR has been portrayed and projected by the political leadership and administrative higher-ups of the state, it reflects the extremely hostile atmosphere in the state," reads the petition by Lt. Col. Karamveer Singh.

"In these circumstances, the petitioner is left with no other viable option but to approach this Court under Article 32 of the Constitution of India for protection of valuable Fundamental Rights of his son and himself, enshrined under Article 14 and 21 of the Constitution of India," it adds.

It said that Major Kumar was wrongly and arbitrarily named as the incident relates to an Army convoy on bonafide military duty in an area under the AFSPA (Armed Forces Special Powers Acts), which was isolated by an "unruly and deranged" stone-pelting mob.

The intention of the Major Kumar was to save Army personnel and property, and the fire was inflicted only to impair and provide a safe escape.

"The unruly mob was requested to disperse and not to obstruct military persons in the performance of their duties and not to damage government property...

"The unruly behaviour of the unlawful assembly reached its peak when they got hold of a Junior Commissioned Officer and was in the process of lynching him to death.

"It was at this moment that warning shots were fired... which as per the said terms of engagement is the last resort to be taken...," the plea has said.New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday accused BJP of 'usurping' power through proxy in Meghalaya, using big money to create 'opportunistic alliance'.

With just 2 seats, the BJP has usurped power in Meghalaya, through a proxy. Like in Manipur & Goa, showing utter disregard for the mandate of the people. Obsessed instead with grabbing power, using big money to create an opportunistic alliance.#DemocracyDemonetised  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 5, 2018

Reacting to Rahul's tweet, BJP's national spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao retorted:

Rahulbhai, You never seem to learn lessons. In Meghalaya, people have rejected the Congress and gave a mandate for anti-Congress govt. We understand your desperation as you shrink in political space and face the prospect of being reduced to power only in Puducherry. https://t.co/jHdLWDt15E  GVL Narasimha Rao (@GVLNRAO) March 5, 2018

Meghalaya threw up a fractured mandate on Saturday with the ruling Congress emerging as the largest party, marginally ahead of its rival, the NPP, an ally of the BJP at the Centre and in Manipur.

The Congress bagged 21 seats in the 60-member Assembly, eight less than the last elections. The NPP came second with 19 seats in its kitty.

The BJP, which drew a blank in the last elections, got two seats. The United Democratic Party (UDP) won six seats while its alliance partner the HSPDP won two seats. The People's Democratic Front (PDF) bagged four seats, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM) and three Independents got one seat each.

Sangma met the governor on Sunday evening to stake claim to form a coalition government in Meghalaya.

He submitted a letter of support from 34 MLAs - 19 of the NPP, six of the United Democratic Party (UDP), four of the People's Democratic Front (PDF), two each of the Hill State People's Democratic Party (HSPDP) and the BJP, and an Independent.

The Congress could not garner the support of regional outfits to cobble together a coalition government. Top party leaders Ahmed Patel and Kamal Nath rushed to Shillong to talk to regional parties but to no avail.

Meanwhile, earlier on Monday, breaking his silence on the party's defeat in three Northeast states, Rahul said he respected the mandate of people in the region and was committed to winning back their trust.

"The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to win back the trust of the people. My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party," he posted on Twitter.

The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people. My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party.  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 5, 2018

The Congress failed to score a single seat in Tripura and Nagaland.

Just before the results of the three Northeast states were announced, Rahul had announced on Thursday that he would visit his 93-year-old grandmother in Italy over the Holi weekend.

(With PTI inputs)New Delhi: Admitting that recent years have seen a significant rise in presence of Chinese ships and submarines in the Indian Ocean region, Navy Chief Admiral Sunil Lanba assured that every movement is being monitored closely and that India's maritime security is absolutely secure.

In an interview to WION, Admiral Lanba said that the Indian Navy is keeping a close watch on Chinese activities in the Indian Ocean. "Indian Ocean is the only ocean named after a country. We have a great maritime heritage. Chinese ships are in the Indian Ocean since 2008 and they have a lot of ships and submarines deployed here. (But) We are aware of what is happening and last year, we started a new deployment pattern which is mission-based deployment," he said. "We monitor all movements and the Indian Navy is fully capable of ensuring its maritime security."

While China maintains its ships patrol international waters to provide safe passage to its merchant ships, many countries regard an increasing deployment of military vessels as part of China's expansionist policies. India, in particular, is cautious due to reports that China plans to deploy a nuclear submarine at Pakistan's Gwadar port - close to Indian waters. Admiral Lanba though highlighted India's naval co-operation with eastern neighbours as a step in the right direction. "We have been co-operating with our eastern neighbours since the Act East policy was initiated in 2014. We, along with Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam conduct co-ordinated patrol on our maritime borders," he said. "We are also helping them train their personnel."

While India looks to train and assists its smaller eastern neighbours, Admiral Lanba acknowledges that co-operation with major powers like the United States and Japan too is crucial. "Malabar Exercise began in 1993 and it was a joint naval exercise between the US and India. From 1993 till now, the scope and size of the exercise has gone up. Japan has become a permanent member. We learn from each other," said Admiral Lanba, adding that no other country should have a problem with such exercises as they aren't targetted at any country. China, in the past, has hinted at its reservations to the Malabar Exercise.Hyderabad: Telangana Chief Minister and TRS chief K Chandrashekhar Rao, who is getting huge support for his proposal to form a third front as a viable alternative to the BJP and Congress; has decided to take the discussion regarding the same forward.

KCR, as K Chandrashekhar Rao is popularly known, on Monday unveiled plans to conduct a series of meetings across the country to prepare a national agenda on forming a third front.

Rao, as per reports, is chalking out a programme to hold meetings with organisations, associations and retired bureaucrats in this regard.

According to the Telangana Chief Minister's Office, KCR will first hold discussions with the retired All India Service Officers like IAS, IPS, IFS and IRS.

As these retired officers have seen political developments closely at state and all India level, meeting with them will be highly useful, the chief minister's office said.

Rao is also expected to meet retired defence personnel and officers; legal luminaries; farmers' associations and employees' associations of all states; and economists and retired finance secretaries.

"These meetings will be followed with meetings with media houses, journalists, industrial houses, labour organizations and so on one after another," a statement from KCR's office said.

These meetings will be organised in Hyderabad, New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Calcutta and Bangalore.

Rao's proposal to provide an alternative to both the BJP and Congress has already received support from West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi and actor-politician Pawan Kalyan.

The TRS leader claimed that six to seven MPs from Maharashtra also telephoned him to convey their support.

Stating that both the BJP and Congress failed the people, KCR had recently said there was a need for qualitative change in Indian politics.

Calling for amendments to the Constitution to facilitate higher economic growth, he demanded that the Centre should transfer subjects like education, health, urban development, rural roads, reservation to the states.

(With Agency inputs)Trinamool Congress leader Derek OBrien has claimed that Narendra Modis speech from ramparts of Red Fort on August 15 this year will be his last as the Prime Minister of the country. Talking to mediapersons, the West Bengal leader said that the writing is on the wall.

He added that it was a challenge on behalf of the Trinamool Congress and all opposition parties that PM Modi would not deliver the Independence Day speech in 2019.

PM Narendra Modi will deliver his last speech as Prime Minister from ramparts of Red Fort on 15 August 2018. Writing is on the wall. In 2019, he will not deliver that speech in Red Fort. This is our challenge on behalf of TMC and all the opposition parties, said Derek O'Brien.

This comes a day after West Bengal Chief Minister and TMC supremo Mamata Banerjee backed Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief K Chandrashekhar Raos call to form a Third Front to offer an alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress.

The Trinamool Congress leader spoke to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief to convey that she is with him in bringing like-minded parties together.

According to the West Bengal Chief Minister's Office, Mamata told him that she fully agrees with him and is ready to work with him. ''I am in agreement with you. I will work with you," the West Bengal CM's office quoted Mamata as saying.

KCR, as the TRS chief is popularly known, had on Saturday said that there was a need for a qualitative change in the Indian politics and declared that he was ready to bring together like-minded parties.

"There is a serious need for qualitative change in the national politics. People are vexed now. No qualitative change is seen by the people even after 70 years of exercise of democracy. It is very unfortunate. People are looking for a change. Can we expect something new to happen if Congress comes to power after BJP," the Telangana Chief Minister had said.

He said that the new platform could be a third front or any other front and he will not mind being a part of the change. "It can be a third front or any front. Discussions are going on the same. I am trying to `bring change` in politics and I don't mind to be a part of the change," he said.

Former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren too telephoned KCR and expressed his support for the third front. He welcomed KCR's decision to play a key role in national politics.

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi too backed KCR's proposal for a third front before 2019 polls. The country is fed up with the BJP and the Congress, and it's time to go for a third front, the AIMIM chief said.

"I welcome Telangana CM's statement and he rightly stated that people of the country are fed up with BJP governance and Congress is not a viable option, neither it can become one," said Owaisi.

(With agency inputs)Srinagar: Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist Mufti Waqas, believed to be the mastermind of Sunjuwan terror attack, was killed by security forces during an encounter in South Kashmir's Awantipora on Monday.

Acting on a specific intelligence input, a small team of the Army along with the elite Special Operations Group cordoned off the Hatwar area in Awantipur and carried out a "surgical attack" on a house, the Army said.

Jaish-e-Mohammed's operational commander, the mastermind of the terror attack on the Sunjawan Army camp in Jammu and the suicide attack on a CRPF camp in South Kashmir's Lethpora, was killed in the surgical operation, it added, as per PTI.

There have been no civilian casualties or collateral damage, the Army said.

Meanwhile, J&K DGP Shesh Paul Vaid also tweeted:

Jaish commander Mufti Vakas has been killed in an encounter at Hatiwara Awantipora.

Regards  Shesh Paul Vaid (@spvaid) March 5, 2018

He was Cheif Commander of JEM in J&K & master mind of suicidal attacks of Sunjuwan , Lethpora , Pulwama DPL and BSF at Srinagar airport.  Shesh Paul Vaid (@spvaid) March 5, 2018

According to officials, Waqas, a Pakistani national who had infiltrated into the Kashmir Valley in 2017, was functioning as the operational commander of the terror outfit and had sent 'fidayeens' (suicide attackers) from Tral in South Kashmir to Jammu where they had carried out the strike on the Army camp on February 10, 2018.

Five Army men, including two junior commissioned officers (JCOs) and the father of a soldier were killed in the attack by the terrorists who struck at the sprawling camp of the 36 Brigade of the Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry (JKLI). All the three terrorists were killed in retaliatory action.

Waqas was also responsible for radicalising local boys Fardeen Khandey and Manzoor Baba who had carried out a suicide attack on a CRPF camp in South Kashmir's Lethpora on the intervening night of December 30 and December 31, 2017.

Earlier, the terror group's operational commander Noor Mohd Tantrey was killed in the same area on December 17, 2017.

(With PTI inputs)Srinagar: A day after a mobile vehicle check post was attacked in south Kashmir's Shopian district, two other bodies have been recovered on Monday, taking the death toll to six.

"Two bodies of terrorists and four other bodies recovered. Two weapons have also been recovered from the terrorists", said J&K DGP SP Vaid.

On Sunday, a terrorist and three others were killed in after a mobile vehicle check post was attacked.

"Another body has been found at a distance from last evening's incident at Pahnoo Shopian," a police spokesman said after one of the bodies was recovered today.

The deceased has been identified as Gowhar Ahmed Lone of Chitragam in Shopian, he added.

According to sources Lone's body was recovered from a car.

Last night, a joint mobile vehicle check post (MVCP) near Pohan was attacked when the security forces signalled a car to stop in Shopian, but it did not.

The Army men were fired upon and they retaliated, in which a terrorist was killed, a senior army official had said.

"A joint Mobile Vehicle Check Post (MVCP) was fired upon by terrorists near Pahnoo village in Shopian district of south Kashmir at 8 pm today (Sunday),'' a Defence spokesman had said.

A weapon and a pouch were also found near the dead terrorist's body.

"In retaliatory firing, a terrorist identified as Shahid Ahmad Dar, son of Mushtaq Ahmad Dar, resident of Jamnagri of Shopian, was killed and a weapon found with him,'' he had added.

A senior J&K Police official had said that when police were called, they found a car some distance away in which three youths were found dead.

He had further said that it was being ascertained whether the three youths were associates of the slain terrorist or not.

The Srinagar-based Defence spokesman Col Rajesh Kalia had, however, said the three were over-ground workers (OGW) and accomplices of the slain militant.

"Three OGWs/accomplices in the car who were accompanying the terrorist were also found to be dead," he had said.

All the three were locals and residents of Trenz, Pinjoora and Imam Sahib areas of Shopian.

The J&K Police has reached the spot and was carrying out legal formalities, he had said.

A massive cordon and search operation were also launched in the district.

Locals had claimed that the three slain persons were civilians without any militant connections.Shillong: National People`s Party (NPP) president Conrad K Sangma on Sunday met Governor Ganga Prasad and staked claim to form the next government in the northeastern state of Meghalaya.

During his meeting with the Meghalaya Governor, Sangma claimed support of 34 members, including those from NPP, BJP, United Democratic Party (UDP), Hill State People`s Democratic Party (HSPDP) and others.

After their meeting, Meghalaya Governor Ganga Prasad invited Sangma to form the new government in the state.

NPP's Conrad Sangma met #Meghalaya Governor to stake claim to form government. Oath ceremony to take place on 6th March at 10.30 am. pic.twitter.com/27NaL1UAwV  ANI (@ANI) March 4, 2018

NPP president Conrad K Sangma is scheduled to take oath on March 6.

Speaking to reporters later, Conrad Sangma said, ''Next two to three days are very crucial since the Assembly term will culminate on March 7. Running a coalition government is never easy, but I am confident that the MLAs who are with us are very committed to the state and people, and will work towards their development."

Next 2-3 days are very crucial because Assembly term gets over. The House expires on 7th before that everything has to take place and by tomorrow everything will be clear: Conrad Sangma in #Meghalaya's Shillong pic.twitter.com/eUSDjhqkq5  ANI (@ANI) March 4, 2018

Meanwhile, Northeast Democratic Alliance (NEDA) convenor Himanta Biswa Sarma too confirmed that Conrad will be the new chief minister of Meghalaya.

Speaking to reporters here, Sarma stated that there would be no deputy chief minister for the state.

There will be no Deputy CM in the new government: Himanta Biswa Sarma, BJP #Meghalaya pic.twitter.com/H6yUD3fODQ  ANI (@ANI) March 4, 2018

Furthermore, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader noted that since one MLA out of every two MLAs of all supporting political parties will be a part of the new government, one MLA out of the two BJP MLAs will also be a part of it.

As per the results of the Meghalaya State Assembly polls declared on March 3, the Congress party retained its hold with 21 seats, while the NPP bagged 19 seats.

The BJP, which drew a blank in the last elections, got two seats. The UDP won six seats while its alliance partner the HSPDP won two seats.

The Peoples Democratic Front (PDF) bagged four seats, the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM) and three Independents got one seat each.

Following the declaration of results, the BJP had on Saturday suggested that the NPP and UDP may enter into an alliance to form a "non-Congress government" in the state.

Echoing a similar stance, UDP president Donkupar Roy today extended the party`s support to the NDP.

(With ANI inputs)New Delhi: It has just been few days to Sridevi's death and looks like haters on social media are back to doing in what they are best -- posting hate comments and using demeaning language to target people.

Recently, Boney Kapoor's daughter from his first marriage Anshula Kapoor shared a post on her Instagram account that read, "No matter how chaotic it is, wildflowers still spring up in the middle of nowhere. She captioned the post writing, "Strong willed, they dare to blossom & hold their own, spreading their beauty wherever the wind takes them. Wildflowers dare greatly."

While the post was hailed as motivational by many, it somehow didn't go down well with one of Arjun Kapoor's fans, who chose that particular post to vent her anger against Sridevi and her daughters and badmouthed them.

However, this gesture was not received well by Anshula and she slammed the troll in the most dignified way possible.

First, she deleted the comment and then replied the fan writing, "Hi, I'm requesting you to refrain from using abusive language especially towards my sisters, I do not appreciate it and have therefore deleted your comments. While I am grateful for your passion and love for bhai and me, just a small correction  I was never working outside India. Lets please spread joy and good vibes. Thank you for the love."

Check out the post:

A post shared by Anshula Kapoor (@anshulakapoor) on Mar 4, 2018 at 12:44am PST

Anshula's reply:

Boney had recently penned down an emotional note on his wife's death and mentioned how his elder children - Arjun and Anshula provided immense support to the family and his two daughters and stood out as strong pillars for the entire Kapoor clan during the crisis.

"I am blessed to have the support and love of Arjun and Anshula, who have been such pillars of strength for myself, Khushi and Janhvi. Together, as a family, we have tried to face this unbearable loss," he wrote.Ottawa: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has wished his country people lots of luck for the much awaited 90th Academy Awards, which are underway in Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles."Lots of Canadians up for Oscars again this year.

Congratulations, good luck tonight and thank you for bringing your magic to the big screen," tweeted Trudeau.

The Oscars will see a host of Canadian film-makers in line for award.Canadian Producer J. Miles Dale is part of lead Oscar nominee The Shape of Water. Shot in Toronto and Hamilton, Guillermo del Toro's unlikely romance is heading into the Academy Awards ceremony with 13 nominations, with Canadians in the running for their work on the fantastical film`s production design, costume design, sound editing, sound mixing and film editing.

Animated film The Breadwinner is another example of this year's Canadian success stories.

The film`s Irish director Nora Twomey, Canadian screenwriter Anita Doran and author Deborah Ellis (the Canadian who penned the bestselling novel on which the movie is based), are the core drivers of the acclaimed animated film, which was executive produced by ace actor Angelina Jolie.New Delhi: If Modi government will accept the demands of Central government employees', around 48 lakh employees are likely to see minimum pay hike from Rs 18,000 to Rs 26,000 and fitment factor from 2.57 times to 3.68 times.

These benefits were recommended by the 7th Pay Commission and approved by the Union Cabinet.

According to reports, pay hikes will come into effect from April 2018. Earlier, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had promised salary increase for the lower-level employees beyond the recommendations of 7th Pay Commission and had also said this in the Rajya Sabha on July 19, 2016.



The Modi government had approved the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission in June 2016 and raised minimum pay from Rs 7,000 to Rs 18,000 per month with fitment factor 2.57 times.

But, the Central government employees are demanding for a minimum pay hike to Rs 26,000 from Rs 18,000 and fitment factor to 3.68 times from 2.57 times. For that, the Modi government has reportedly formed a committee to look into this matter.

According to Finance Ministry sources, earlier it has been said that the demand for hike in minimum pay and fitment factor beyond the recommendations wont be accepted as it will bring a financial burden on the government.

According to an earlier report, 34 modifications by the 7th Pay Commission had been approved by the Union Cabinet, which means an additional annual burden of Rs 30,748 crore to the exchequer. All allowances are given the effect from July 1, 2017.

A day after the Cabinet had cleared the 7th Pay Commission, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had promised to consider their demand for higher minimum pay. Even if the higher minimum pay is announced, Central government employees, who get salaries from pay matrix level 1 to 5 will only get the benefit of it and mid-level and top-level employees will continue to get salaries according to the recommendations of the 7th Pay Commission.

According to reports, the Modi government is planning to give minimum pay of Rs 21,000 instead of current Rs 18,000. However, it is believed that the increase will differ based on pay matrix level, an official said earlier.

The government is reportedly working on pay hike for the lower-level employees from April, following the promise of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in Parliament and the demands of the unions despite the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) letter on October 30, last year.

The letter published by the DoPT stating that the demand for an increase in pay and fitment factor does not appear to be treated as an anomaly, therefore, these do not come under the purview of the National Anomaly Committee (NAC). The government had also formed the NAC to resolve pay-related anomalies that may arise during the implementation of recommendations.NEW DELHI: Several female students appearing for Class 12 examination have alleged that they were asked to strip in the name of frisking before examination by the women staffer of Vishwashanti Gurukul, Maharashtra Institute of Technology in Pune.

The strip-search was done on the pretext of preventing the students from carrying chits inside the examination centre.

The alleged search incidents took place between February 21 to 28.

An FIR has been registered against the women security guards of MIT College of Engineering, following the incident.

Maharashtra Education minister Vinod Tawde has ordered an inquiry into the matter. "It is not correct to search girls in this manner. Board does not gave such order. We are also planning to change the exam centre," said Tawde.

There were reportedly 219 students from Prithviraj Kapoor Memorial Junior College who had appeared in the examination.

The complaint was lodged against MIT Vishwashanti Gurukul School at Loni Kalbhor police station by the parents of the students.

The accused female staffers have been booked under Section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) of the Indian Penal Code.The Rajasthan government has clarified on the diktat to introduce uniform for college students in the state. Speaking to mediapersons, Rajasthan Education Minister Kiren Maheshwari said that it was the demand of students that there should be a dress code in colleges.

Yeh students ki hi demand ki unke colleges mein dress code hona chahiye, jisse yeh clarity aaye ki padhne wala bachcha hai (it was a demand of students that there must be a dress code in their colleges, so that theres clarity that they are students), she said.

The Rajasthan education minister further clarified that they have not issued any direction on the colour of the uniform that the colleges allow. In the end, students have to decide, she added.

The Congress party, meanwhile, hit out at the state government over the new directive alleging that the Vasundhara Raje government was working on the directions of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Rajasthan mein sarkar RSS ke ishaare pe chal rahi. Pehle curriculum mein badlaav kara, phir school mein bhagva kapde pehenne ka notice diya. Ab sab kuch bhagva karke, yeh sabko baba banana chahte hain (In Rajasthan, the government is working on the directions of RSS. First they changed the curriculum, then they issues directions for school students to wear saffron. Now they are making everyone wear saffron and will make them godmen and godwomen), said Congress leader Govind Dev Singh Dotasar.

According to local reports, the government is expected to take feedback from student unions and college department heads on the uniform for each college. The PinkCity Post quoted an Education Department official as saying that the idea behind the move is to impose discipline. He also said that the uniforms would be made compulsory from the new academic session.

The feedback of each college will be forwarded to the government by principals of colleges concerned, following which a final decision on the colour would be taken, said the report.New Delhi: World-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has said that there was absolutely nothing before the Big Bang, explaining what happened prior to the existence of our universe.

The Big Bang theory proposes that a tiny speck of matter and energy began to grow, bringing about the birth of our universe about the universe billions of years ago.

However, scientists are intrigued by what was there before the "explosion" when there was supposed to be nothing.

Basing his theories on the assumption that the universe has no boundaries, the British cosmologist said: There was nothing around before the Big, Big Bang.

"The boundary condition of the universe ... Is that it has no boundary," Hawking told physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson at the "Star Talk" show aired on National Geographic Channel.

The Big Bang theory holds that the universe in retrospective can shrink to the size of an extremely small "subatomic ball" known as the singularity.

According to Hawking, the laws of physics and time cease to function inside that tiny particle of heat and energy.

The ordinary real time as we know now shrinks infinitely as the universe becomes ever smaller but never reaches a definable starting point.

Hawking argued that before the Big Bang real ordinary time was replaced by imaginary time and was in a bent form, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

"It was always reaching closer to nothing but didn't become nothing," said Hawking.

To help people better understand the abstract and confusing state, the physicist drew an analogy between the distorted time with Ancient Greek philosopher Euclid's theory of space-time, a closed surface without end.

"One can regard imaginary and real-time beginning at the South Pole. There is nothing south of the South Pole, so there was nothing around before the Big Bang," Hawking said.

"There was never a Big Bang that produced something from nothing. It just seemed that way from mankind's perspective," Hawking said.

He said that a lot of what we believe is derived from a human-centric perspective, which might limit the scope of human knowledge of the world.

Stephen Hawking has time and again warned against various issues that concern the world at large.

The British physicist has been quite outspoken about the existence of alien civilization and has warned against efforts to contact them.

He also said that the human race is destined to be doomed unless we move to space, while also predicting that AI robots will replace humans in the future.

(With PTI inputs)By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. You can find out more by clicking this linkUttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has triggered a row with his latest statement. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) strongman has said that the festival of Holi has to be respected by everyone as it falls once in a year while Namaz is offered many times.

Referring to the shifting of Namaz timing on the occasion of Holi, the UP Chief Minister said that he really appreciated that the timings were changed. Adityanath made the statement while addressing a public rally ahead of Phulpur Assembly bypolls, scheduled on March 11.

Ahead of Holi, Imam-e-Eidgah Maulana Khalid Rasheed Firangi Mahli, who is also executive committee member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), had appealed to the imams of different mosques, especially those in sensitive areas, to shift the timing of the Friday prayers by 30 minutes to an hour and, in the process, send a message of communal amity.

"In the past, there have been incidents of riots breaking out with the Holi revellers throwing colour on those going to offer namaz...We have taken this step especially keeping in mind the sensitivity in the mixed population areas," he had said.

The cleric had said that Shia scholar Maulana Kalbe Jawwad had also decided to shift the prayer timings at the Asifi mosque.

The bypolls in Gorakhpur and Phulpur were necessitated as Yogi Adityanath and Keshav Prasad Maurya were elevated as Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister respectively following BJPs victory in the Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh.

The BJP has fielded former Varanasi mayor Kaushlendra Singh Patel as its candidate from Phulpur while Upendra Shukla would contest from Gorakhpur.

Gorakhpur assumes significance as it is the bastion of Adityanath, who has represented the seat in Lok Sabha five times. Prior to Adityanath, Gorakhpur was thrice represented in Parliament by his mentor Avaidyanath.

Phulpur, once the bastion of the Congress, was represented by late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The BJP won the seat for the first time in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.New Delhi: Reacting to the announcement by the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) of their support for the Samajwadi Party (SP) candidates in the March 11 bypolls to Phulpur and Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seats, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said on Monday that it was like snake and mole coming together.

"The tie-up between the SP and the BSP is like snake and mole coming together in the time of a storm. This is what the situation of the two parties is like," he said.

On Sunday, the BSP supremo, while ruling out the possibility of an electoral tie-up with the SP for the bypolls, had said that the two parties could help each other in the upcoming Rajya Sabha and Legislative Council elections and also suggested a possible formula for it.

Aaj phir dono (BSP & SP) ke gathhbandhan ki baatein sunne mein aa rahi hain. Aisa lagta hai jaise koi toofan aata hai toh saanp aur chuchundar ek saath milke khade ho jaate hain. Inki yeh sthiti aa chuki hai: UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath during a public rally in Gorakhpur pic.twitter.com/IIEmL3fMCj  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) March 5, 2018

She had said that the BSP had not fielded any candidate from Phulpur and Gorakhpur, "but this does not mean that party workers will not cast their votes. They will, in fact, exercise their voting rights appropriately... As per my earlier directives, the BSP workers will vote for a candidate who will be in a position to defeat the BJP, and there is nothing wrong in it".

Mayawati had added that if SP and BSP legislators transfer their votes to defeat the BJP in the Rajya Sabha and UP Legislative Council polls, then it should not be perceived as an electoral alliance.

"The BSP on its own cannot send anyone to the Rajya Sabha. The SP too does not have the adequate number of MLAs that it can send two of its MPs to the Rajya Sabha. To ensure the victory of its second candidate, it will need additional votes. Our party after holding deliberations with the SP has decided that our party worker will go to the Rajya Sabha. In return, we will help them in the Legislative Council elections," she had said.

On the other hand, SP leader Ram Govind Chowdhury said in Ballia on Monday that the BJP will taste defeat in Gorakhpur bypolls and it will be the beginning of party's decline.

Gorakhpur and Phulpur seats were vacated by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya after the UP Assembly elections last year.

Gorakhpur is the home turf of Adityanath.

(With PTI inputs)LUCKNOW: A wanted criminal with a reward of Rs 50,000 on his head was on Monday gunned down in an encounter by Uttar Pradesh Police.

The encounter took place in Uttar Pradesh's Bulandshahr.

The wanted criminal has been identified as Amit alias Kalwa.

Kalwa was accompanied by another criminal who, however, managed to escape.

Police have recovered revolvers and dozens of cartridges from their possession.

According to the police, it had prior information that Kalwa was about to execute a major plan along with his partner.

A number of cases including loot and murder are going on against Kalwa.LUCKNOW: A 26-year-old woman in Uttar Pradesh beat her father-in-law to death after he allegedly raped her twice on two consecutive days.

The incident took reportedly place on Saturday at a village under Madhotanda police station in Uttar Pradesh's Pilibhit.

The woman beat her father-in-law with a stick and her husband was an accomplice in the crime. Following the murder, the couple surrendered to police.

An FIR was lodged on Sunday morning after the elder son of the accused filed a written complaint.

As per the statement of the victim, she was first raped on Friday when her husband was at work. Media reports suggest that the husband saw his father raping his wife.

The woman has, meanwhile, been sent to a government hospital for a medical test.

The wife of the deceased had committed suicide four years back, said the villagers.The United States has once again asked Pakistan to step up its efforts against terrorism with Pentagon saying there are 'new opportunities' that the country should make use of in battling terror outfits. Relations between the two countries have soured in recent months with the Trump administration admonishing Islamabad for not doing enough against terrorism emanating from its soil, and Pakistan insisting it is a victim of terrorism because of its efforts on ground.

While war of words may have indeed dominated the diplomatic discourse between the two countries, both US and Pakistan appear intent on not letting relations deteriorate to a point of no return. Two days before Pakistans Foreign Secretary Tehmina Janjuas two-day visit to Washington which starts from Tuesday, Pentagon's chief spokesperson Dana W. White urged Pakistan - once again - to act tough. "With respect to Pakistan we believe that Pakistan can do more to combat terrorism," she said. "This is an inflection point and this is an opportunity and Pakistan has an opportunity to do more. Theyve been victims of terrorism. So, we'll look forward to continuing to work with them to see where there are opportunities."

A key point of friction between the US and Pakistan has also been Washington asking New Delhi for an increased role in Afghanistan. White however insisted that a greater role for India is not just in the best interest of Afghanistan but for the entire South Asian region. She said the US continues to consult New Delhi on not just issues related to Afghanistan but also on issues which are for the whole of South Asian region and even beyond.

Pakistan though remains suspicious about India's intentions and about growing ties between the US and India. While relations with India have been rickety for decades, Pakistan's relations with the US have been in troubled waters too - the biggest low coming when President Trump's first tweet of 2018 blasted Pakistan.

The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2018

The two countries though once again engage to discuss pivotal security-related issues in a bid to repair strain ties.Nineteen years after being imprisoned on anti-state charges, a journalist in Uzbekistan was finally released on Sunday in what is being widely regarded as a triumph for human-rights activists around the world.

Yusuf Ruzimuradov, now 64, became the longest-jailed journalist after he was jailed in 1999 on charges of working for a banned newspaper - Erk - which was regarded to be anti-government. The editor of the newspaper - Muhammad Bekjanov - was also arrested at the time in what was seen by many as clamping down on journalistic freedom and on freedom of speech. In the nearly two decades since the arrests, human-rights groups have worked relentlessly to secure the release of Ruzimuradov but without much success. Success though finally came last week.

UK's Independent quoted Steve Swerdlow of New York-based Human Rights Watch as saying that the release from prison of Ruzimuradov was historic. "Today, we can breathe a sigh of relief that Yusuf Ruzimuradov  the longest imprisoned journalist in the world  has finally been released in Uzbekistan, but we remain outraged at the grave injustice that robbed him of 19 years of his life." Organisations like Human Rights Watch are indeed taking a pause to rejoice Ruzimuradov's release but are aware that their fight has to continue.

The continuing fight in Uzbekistan stems from the fact that while the country's president has only now reduced the validity of confessions taken under torture, there are still journalists in the country who are behind bars. Two such journalists go on trial on Monday after they were all set to be released as well. At the last moment, it has been learnt, their sentences were extended. Tales of such instances are quite common in Uzbekistan - a country from where several journalists have fled after citing a threat to their lives. In the 2017 World Press Freedom Index released by Reporters Without Borders (RWB), Uzbekistan was ranked 169 out of 180 nations for its poor treatment of journalists. "Discontent with complete control over the traditional media, the authorities have steadily tightened their grip on the Internet in recent years, blocking access not only to independent news websites but also, more recently, to censorship circumvention tools and many instant messaging apps," read the report.

In the same report, Sweden ranked at the top while North Korea fared the worst at rank 180. India was placed at rank 136.Open source

Though the Trilateral Contact Group imposed the ceasefire in Donbas, illegal armed formations did not stop shootings towards the Armed Forces positions. As a result, one Ukrainian soldier was injured. This is reported by the press center of Donbas conflict headquarters on Facebook.

Militants launched three precision fires on ATO zone defense works, the message says.

Militants launched fire in Luhansk sector from 82-mm mortars, grenade launchers and small arms upon Ukrainian defensive posts near Shchastya. Militants violated ceasefire shooting from 82-mm mortars and heavy machine guns not far from Troitske.

According to the press-office, Russian troops applied grenade launchers and small arms in Novotroitske region.

As we reported earlier, the ceasefire agreed by the Trilateral Contact Group, which settles the situation in Ukraine took effect on Monday, March 5, at midnight.

Besides the ceasefire, the Trilateral Contact Group stressed the importance of imposing and execution of ceasefire and unconditional application of disciplinary measures towards violators.

Over past 24 hours, Russian troops continued shooting at Ukrainian positions from Minsk-banned weapons. Militants used tank armament in some sectors.

Related video:According to the militants, the incident took place in Yazynuvata region, no casualties reported

The so-called Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) claimed that Aleksey Zhuravlev, the MP of the State Duma of Russia came under fire. The representative office of the DPR in the Joint Center of Control and Coordination (JCCC) claimed this.

Today at 13:45, the Ukrainian security officials opened the fire from the heavy weaponry at Avdiivka and Kruta Balka; 10 mines of 82mm were launched. The group with the humanitarian aid to the military was shelled. Aleksey Zhuravlev, the MP of the State Duma of Russia and the journalists were within a group, the message said.

It is noted that this trip was not coordinated with the command of the Armed Forces of the DPR and the representative office of the DPR in the JCCC.

At the same time, Roman Yurchylo, the press officer of the Ukrainian side of the JCCC did not confirm this information in the broadcasting of 112 Ukraine.

The Ukrainian side of the JCCC connects these provocative attacks (that took place from the beginning of this day) at the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the attempt to provoke the backfire and shift the responsibility for the violation of the ceasefire. I cannot say whether it will take place tomorrow. The conditions that I mentioned should be fulfilled to make the ceasefire regime to come into force. I cannot confirm this information (on the presence of the Russias State Duma MP), he said.

The HQs of the Ukrainian Armed Forces warned about the possible provocations made by the militants on the eve of the ceasefire regime.

The militants shelled the Ukrainian soldiers in an hour after the beginning of the ceasefire regime.

As it was reported, the Armed Forces of Ukraine were ready to the settlement and observance of the ceasefire regime since midnight of March 5, 2018.

The Trilateral Contact Group in Donbas confirmed the adherence to the full and termless truce in Donbas since March 5.Open source

Ukraines natural gas stocks in the nations underground storage facilities (USFs) between 24 February  3 March dropped by 7.5%, or 783 million cubic meters (mcm), from 10.425 billion cubic meters (bcm) to 9.642 bcm. Particularly, 112.62 mcm of gas was withdrawn from storage facilities on 3 March alone, the state-run gas transport system operator Ukrtransgaz said, UNIAN reports.

The Russian gas monopoly Gazprom has lost a litigation with NAK Naftogaz-Ukraine at the Stockholm Court of Arbitration, which ordered Gazprom to pay $2.56 to the Ukrainian corporation. First, Gazprom agreed to supply 0.5 bcm of gas to Ukraine in March at the priced determined by the court.

Nevertheless, it suddenly refused to fulfill its contractual obligations and cut the gas pressure at the entry point to the Ukrainian gas transportation system on the eastern border to the critical 50.6 kgf/cm2. Naftogaz-Ukraine says Gazproms failure to comply with the court order has caused a gas deficit in Ukraines GTS. To overcome the crisis, the Ukrainian government introduced restrictions on domestic gas consumption, whereas Naftogaz opted for an emergency purchase of 60 mcm of gas from Polands PGNiG.

Ukraine began the year with 14.7 bcm of gas in the countrys underground storage facilities, which was the largest gas stock as of the start of the year over the previous five years. On 26 October 2017, Ukraine stopped injecting gas into underground storage facilities and started pumping it out to ensure a smooth heating season. By the beginning of the 2017-2018 heating season (15 October), Ukraine had accumulated a total of 16.8 bcm of natural gas in its underground storage facilities.Read the original text at 112.ua.

The 2018 Italian general elections were held on 4 March 2018. The date of their holding became known in December last year after Italian President Sergio Matarella dissolved the parliament. The main political battle unfolded between the ruling Democratic Party of former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and the center-right alliance, created by the former prime minister and leader of "Forza Italia" party Silvio Berlusconi and leader of "Northern League" eurosceptic Matteo Salvini. This political contest was also joined by the populist "Five Stars Movement" Luigi di Maio. The outcome of the parliamentary elections in Italy is of certain significance for Ukraine and the European Union. Italy is the fourth economy in the EU. Now the Italian government is involved in anti-Russian sanctions and is in favor of deepening European integration. If the balance of political forces changes in Italy, then the attitude to Ukraine and further development of the EU could change.

The elections could be called an attempt of the leader of the Democratic Party Matteo Renzis political revenge. At the end of 2016, he has voluntarily resigned as a prime minister after the referendum, where more than half of Italian citizens voted against a package of reforms on limiting the powers of the Senate, strengthening the vertical of executive power, and the fight against corruption. Renzi has focuses on resolving socio-economic issues in his election program. Democrats promise to reduce social insurance wages deductions from 33% to 29%, reduce the income tax from 24% to 22% for small and large businesses, and to set monthly fee to the state treasury for independent workers (80 euros). The Democratic Party is going to increase social payments for large families (400 euros per month for three years), raise the minimum pension by 1.5 times to 750 euros. Democrats are guided by the support of pensioners, beneficiaries, and educated urban residents. The leader of the Democrats pays attention to the settlement of the migration crisis. Renzi opposes reception of refugees and offers to provide material assistance to those countries, from which the migrants depart. He believes that the EU should stop allocating money to Poland and Hungary, which refuse to host refugees on their territory as part of the European Commission plan.

Matteo Renzi

The recent polls show that the Democratic Party has a limited resource of support among the population. Up to 26% of Italian voters are ready to vote for them. A significant part of the local population is dissatisfied with the existing social and economic problems. Most of the voters are concerned about the problem of unemployment. As of January 2018, the unemployment rate in Italy reached 11%. Over 2.8 million citizens (out of 60 million) are out of work. About 31.5% of Italian youth are not employed. Last year, the Bank of Italy opened 30 vacancies for young professionals, and 80,000 applicants have sent their CVs. Italy's public debt is 120% of GDP. There is a crisis in the banking sector. More than 15% of loans issued were never returned. The discontent of the Italians concerns the too high tax burden - over 42% of GDP (more than in the US and Germany). At the same time, the state spends large amounts of money on maintaining the bureaucracy. Italy has set one of the world highest salaries for government officials (144 thousand euros per year). Italians are concerned about the migration crisis. Despite the fact that in the second half of 2017, the influx of refugees into Italy through the Mediterranean Sea fell by 70%, the fate of 130 thousand people who are in temporary hubs has not yet been determined. Italy continues serving as a transit country for people from African countries who seek for the political asylum in the EU.

The situation of the Democrats is complicated by the fact that potential partners in the coalition from the center-left camp are weak in the political arena. The center-left pro-European parties "More Europe", "Together," and "Civic Choice" are supported by only 28% of Italian citizens. Not all the center-leftists want to enter into an alliance with Renzis party. The leader of the "More Europe" party Emma Bonino does not want to form a coalition with the Democratic Party because of the reluctance of the acting authorities to grant Italian citizenship to the children of migrants born in Italy. The position of the Democrats was weakened by the recent party split. A part of the deputies left the Democratic Party and formed the left-centrist party "Free and Equal" led by Senate Chairman Pietro Grasso. It looks like this party is trying simply to take the votes from the Democrats and to please the Italian youth. Grasso promised to introduce free education in Italian universities.

The informal leader of the center-right camp is the 81-year-old Silvio Berlusconi. Unlike Renzi, he managed to agree in advance on an alliance with the center-right parties "League of the North" journalist Matteo Salvini, "Brothers of Italy" former minister for youth affairs (in the Berlusconi government) Giorgia Meloni and "Us with Italy" Maurizio Lupi. In total, these political forces are supported by 37% of voters (individually these parties have less support than Democrats). Center-rightists manipulate populist slogans and play on anti-migrant moods of the electorate. In the event of coming to power, they promise to start mass deportations of illegal migrants, enter checkpoints at the borders, and expel all refugees who do not have grounds in Italy. Berlusconi and Salvini proposed to introduce a 15-23% single income tax rate, to exempt poor Italians from taxes. "Forward, Italy" promises to raise the minimum pension to 1000 euros, and the "League of the North" promised to lower the retirement age.

Silvio Berlusconi, Matteo Salvini

Berlusconi tries to repeat the success of 1994 during these parliamentary elections. Then, according to the results of the parliamentary elections, the "Forward, Italy" party agreed to form a coalition with the "League of the North", and Berlusconi became the prime minister. However, Berlusconi does not have the right to hold the post of prime minister until 2019 due to judicial restrictions. Salvini also has plans for the prime minister's office, but within the European Union, he has a negative image because of his Eurosceptic and separatist sentiments. At one time, he advocated the creation of Padania state in the north of Italy. "League of the North" is in power in Lombardy and Veneto, which provide 30% of Italy's GDP, and supports the idea of the federalization of Italy. In October 2017, referendums took place in the territory of these regions, and the majority of the local population voted for the expansion of autonomy and reduction if financial allocations to Rome.

Separated place belongs to "Five Star Movement" of Luigi di Maio, supported by about 25% of voters. The "Five Star Movement" adheres to anti-globalism, advocates the introduction of direct democracy through referendums and Internet voting. "Five Star Movement" promises to exempt those who earn less than 10,000 euros a year from paying taxes, to pay a minimum pension and allowances for Italians who live below the poverty line in the amount of 780 euros per month. In terms of migration policy, the populists are close to the center-rightists.

Formally, the "Five Star Movement" refuses to enter into an alliance with any political force. The founder and former party leader, the Italian comedian Beppe Grillo, opposes joining the coalition with the Democratic Party. The party risks to appear in opposition again. The popularity of the "Five Star Movement" has reduced in connection with the ineffective activities of the incumbent mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi. For two years in power, she could not solve the problem of removing garbage from the capital, organize road repairs and cope with the effects of heavy snowfall this winter.

It is difficult enough to say which of the political forces in Italy is more appealing to Ukraine. Many generations of Italian politicians singled out relations with Russia as one of the main priorities of foreign policy. They had purely economic interests. Italy imports natural gas from Russia, which accounts for 35% of the imports of the blue fuel of the Mediterranean country. In the industrial sector of the Russian Federation, about 1 billion dollars of investments of Italian businessmen are concentrated. According to Coldiretti, farmers have lost about 600 million euros because of anti-Russian sanctions. In connection with Russia's counter-sanctions, imports of meat, sausages, fish and seafood, vegetables, fruits, and dairy products from the EU were banned. Italian politicians have to play a greater or lesser degree of the Russian card in order to attract Italian business oriented toward cooperation with Russia, and maneuver on the Ukrainian question.

The leader of the Democrats Matteo Renzi stands for the preservation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of our country and assured the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko during his visit to Kyiv in March 2015. However, in December 2015 at a meeting of representatives of the EU member states, Renzi blocked discussion of the issue of toughening sanctions against Russia. He also spoke out against the tightening of anti-Russian sanctions in the fall of 2016, believing that this makes no sense. Then the possibility of introducing new sanctions was considered by the leaders of the EU member states in response to Russia's participation in the bombings of the Syrian city of Aleppo. This double-digit position on the Ukrainian question is connected with the fact that he wants to flip electorate of the center-right and populists, who openly support Putin's policy in Ukraine.

Brussels is interested in Renzi as Italy's prime minister because he stands for strengthening European integration and federalization.

Beppe Grillo

If center-rightists such as "Forward, Italy", "League of the North" or "Five-Star Movements" come to power in Italy, it wont be profitable for Ukraine. These political forces support the idea of rapprochement with Russia and welcome the abolition of anti-Russian sanctions. Berlusconi is an old friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin. They have visited Crimea together. Thus, Berlusconi expressed his solidarity with Russia in the conflict with Ukraine. Salvini supports the abolition of anti-Russian sanctions, justifies the annexation of Crimea. Representatives of the Five-Star Movement emphasize the negative consequences that the policy of anti-Russian sanctions has brought to their country. MP from the "Five Star Movement" Paola Karinelli is convinced that during the anti-Russian sanctions Italy has lost 7 billion euros, and the number of the lost workplaces can reach up to 200 thousand. Italian center-rightists and populists are opponents of the European Union. Salvini advocates the liquidation of supranational bodies of the EU and the return of European integration to the stage of the Common Market, as it was before the 90's. The "Five Star Movement" supports the holding of a referendum on Italy's withdrawal from the Eurozone.

The pre-election race in Italy turned into a field of information battle between Russia and the European Union. The Russian media do not hide that the right-centrist Berlusconi's coming to power in Italy is preferable for Moscow as the result of parliamentary elections. According to the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Russia might interfere in Italy's electoral process by promoting parties that oppose anti-Russian sanctions. There are agreements between "United Russia" and the "League of the North" on cooperation in promoting business in Russia-Italy relations, with the "Five Star Movement" - on cooperation in the information sphere. One anonymous source from the national security of Italy informed Business Insider that some local parties are subject to outside influence.

The Italian authorities offered to educate students of 8,000 educational institutions to recognize fake news and to distinguish reliable information from propaganda. In February, Russian Today and Sputnik have published some articles in which Berlusconi was presented as a politician, whose view was shared the Italians, and Salvini was depicted as the leader capable of defending Italy from Germany's open door policy. It is advantageous for Russia that politicians who support its position on the Ukrainian issue and lobby the abolition of anti-Russian sanctions in the European Union come to power in Italy.Read the original text at 112.ua.

Open source

Due to several serious factors, Naftogaz has called on the Ukrainians to reduce gas consumption. As the head of a state-owned company, Andriy Kobolev said, Russian Gazprom's refusal to supply gas to Ukraine could cause a deficit of 10 million cubic meters per day (due to the frosty weather in Ukraine). Naftogaz was going to buy from Russia 18-20 million cubic meters per day, and only about half of this volume could be covered by the imports from the EU, Kobolev said. In addition, Gazprom reduced the pressure on the Russian section of the GTS by 20%, and now Naftogaz needs to spend more gas to maintain normal pressure and continue the transit. There is enough gas in underground gas storage facilities. However, the volume that could be raised from these facilities should not exceed the limit. If now there were 15 billion cubic meters of gas, it would be possible to raise 150 million cubic meters per day. But currently, there are 10 billion cubic meters, so we can raise less gas.

Kobolev's statement on reverse deliveries is not connected with physical capabilities to pump volumes. Rather it contributes to the price, which is higher due to the abnormally cold weather in Europe. Due to frosts, spot gas prices in Europe are now at least three times higher than usual. Of course, Russian gas would be much cheaper. Now the price reaches 500-600 euros for 1 thousand cubic meters vs. 190 euros. However, this would last for 2-3 days, and the temperature will decline, and the prices will return to the previous or even lower level.

It is not the first time when Gazprom tricks us. For example, January 1, 2006, it has left Ukraine without gas. And after that, there were different situations, connected with a decrease in pressure, which was quite deliberate.

The current situation will be settled as soon as the temperature rises at least 5 degrees. But if the situation drags on... Under Yulia Tymoshenko, when the similar situation happened, the big industrial facilities were simply cut out of gas or its supply was reduced. And this scenario can happen again if the abnormally cold weather does not go away. We have Ukrtransgaz, which can do many things in a manual mode: some major industrial enterprises are directly connected to its main pipelines. National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine has enough tools to influence the situation.

However, I believe this is unlikely. The temperature will rise, and in 2-3 days the problem will be solved by itself. But if such a situation occurred in December or January, there could be a catastrophe. We are very lucky that it is March now.

Regretfully, I can only say that Russians now have a unique opportunity to sell gas to Europe. However, instead of using it, they play similar games. They have a surplus of gas, and they kill themselves biting the hand that feeds. Their image is quite tarnished, but they continue to damage it more and more. Apparently, Gazprom is simply mad about the decision of the Stockholm arbitration on the transit contract.Read the original text at Atlantic Council.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (C), Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu (L) and Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov watch events to mark Victory Day in Sevastopol May 9, 2014

Russia has downplayed its military support for its proxies in eastern Ukraine by portraying the conflict as a civil war between Russian and Ukrainian language speakers. Western media often mistakenly portray the war in eastern Ukraine as a cultural war between Ukrainian and Russian speakers, drawing on the deeply held stereotype of a country divided between eastern Russian-speaking and western Ukrainian-speaking regions.



In portraying the conflict as a civil war, Russia conveniently ignores facts and public opinion. Only 5 percent of Ukrainians believe Russia intervened in Crimea and Donbas because of the violation of the rights of Russian speakers, while 42-46 percent believe it was to prevent Ukraine from leaving Russias sphere of influence, Russias inability to accept Ukraine as an independent state, and Russian opposition to Ukraines European integration. Meanwhile, only 16 percent of Ukrainians view the conflict in the Donbas as a civil war, while 60 percent see it as Russian-supported separatism and a war between Russia and Ukraine.

This map shows the number of Ukrainian security forces in each oblast who have been killed since the 2014 conflict began. Credit: Screenshot http://memorybook.org.ua/indexfile/statbirth.htm



Dnipro (Dnipropetrovsk), an oblast neighboring the Donbas, has the highest number of military casualties at 432 deaths; other regions have two to four times lower figures.



Ceremonies and speeches at the burials of military casualties and their graves are symbolically important for national identity in every country as military cemeteries become places of pilgrimage and national memory. Orthodox priests service a majority of the religious panakhydy (memorial services) of military casualties and, with the Russian Orthodox Church refusing to participate, they are conducted by priests from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyiv Patriarch. Each panakhyda becomes a manifestation of Ukrainian patriotism and resolution to stand up to Putins aggression.



Putins military aggression is creating large numbers of military plots in cemeteries throughout eastern and southern Ukraine alongside other graves of Ukrainian soldiers who have died in earlier wars. These deaths are influencing Ukrainian national identity and hastening its divorce from Russia.There are traces of Russian involvement in the incident, and there may be more like this one, Foreign Minister says

Open source

Russian provocateurs could be behind the recent attack on the office of Hungarian Culture Association in Uzhgorod, westernmost Ukraine. Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine's Foreign Minister tweeted this on Monday after the police detained the perpetrators.

'I appreciate how the police did their job in Transcarpathian region. There are so many traces of the Russian involvement there... Hello to everyone who speculated on alleged anti-Hungarian views there. I do not rule out there could be more attempts to de-stabilize the situation,' he said.

Previously, the National Police detained five men involved in the incident; the assumed organizer is still at large.

The arson at the office happened in small hours of February 26. Units of the State Emergency Service put out the fire after it destroyed furniture and part of the property on an area of 25 square meters.

Later, the Ukrainian ambassador in Budapest was summoned to the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs because of an attack on the office of Hungarian Culture Association.According to him, the detained went towards the provocation tempted of money

The soldiers of the Anti-Terrorist Operation are among detained for the attack on the Hungarian Culture Association in Uzhgorod, western Ukraine on February 27. Hennady Moskal, the Head of Zakarpattia Regional State Administration reported this on Facebook.

Unfortunately, I should state that there are the soldiers of the Anti-Terrorist Operation among the detained criminals, citizens of Cherkasy and Kropyvnytski who set the office of the Hungarian Culture Association on fire on February 27. They are not the members of the political parties of movements, they went towards the provocation tempted of money, he claimed.

According to Moskal, the personality of the organizer is also identified  it is a citizen of Transnistria who escaped to home right after the commitment of the crime.

According to our information, he is a worker of the Ministry of State Security of Transnistria. Taking into account the status of this territory, the organizer is beyond the reach of the Ukrainian justice at the moment, however, there is no doubt that Russias FSB is behind the second arson of the Hungarian Culture Association, Moskal noted.

He confirms that the Russian special service attempted to involve the local citizens in the arson of the office and when this attempt failed they involved the perpetrators from other regions.

According to Moskal, the aim of the provocation is the dismantlement of Zakarpattia on the inter-ethnic basis. He added that the Donbas scenario cannot be embodied here.

Previously, the National Police detained five men involved in the incident; the assumed organizer is still at large.

As we reported Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine's Foreign Minister claimed that the Russian provocateurs could be behind the recent attack on the Hungarian Culture Association.

Related video:According to the foreign minister, Moscow will continue the attempts to disrupt the situation in Zakarpattia

Pavlo Klimkin, the Foreign Minister of Ukraine claimed that there are no anti-Hungarian attitude and campaigns in the country; the provocations are the attempts to disrupt the situation in Zakarpattia. He claimed this at the joint press conference with Finish Foreign Minister Timo Soini as 112 Ukraine broadcasted.

The last example is the understanding that exactly Russia attempts to destabilize the situation in Zakarpattia where we have the Hungarian community. At the moment, it is clear that the organizer of these events disappeared in Transnistria where the 100% control of Russias FSB is. So, all those who try to say that there is some anti-Hungarian attitude or even campaign should appeal to Moscow, to Kremlin and Central Department of the FSB. I am sure that Moscow will continue the attempts to disrupt the situation and we will counter-stand this, Klimkin claimed.

He also added that the government will not allow to threaten the citizens of Ukraine of the Hungarian origin.

On February 4, a bottle with an incendiary mixture was thrown into the building of the Transcarpathian Union of Hungarians. Minister of Foreign Affairs condemned people, who did this in the building of Hungarians Union.

The arson at the office happened in small hours of February 26. Units of the State Emergency Service put out the fire after it destroyed furniture and part of the property on an area of 25 square meters.

Previously, the National Police detained five men involved in the incident; the assumed organizer is still at large.

Also, Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine's Foreign Minister claimed that the Russian provocateurs could be behind the recent attack on the Hungarian Culture Association.Also, the defense ministers discussed the participation of Sweden in the UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas

Open source

Ukraine and Sweden agreed to prepare a new contract on the cooperation in the defense sphere. Stepan Poltorak, the Defense Minister of Ukraine claimed this after the negotiations with Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist as 112 Ukraine broadcasted.

We agreed to reconsider the international protocol that is the basis for the building of our relations that was signed in 2001; we reached the agreements on the necessity to prepare the full-format contract between the governments of Sweden and Ukraine and between the Defense Ministries of Sweden and Ukraine, Poltorak claimed.

Also, the ministers discussed the UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas.

One more block that we considered today is connected with the discussion of the deployment of the UN peacekeeping mission at the temporarily occupied territory of Ukraine and possibility of the Armed Forces of Sweden to participate in it. We agreed on all issues and our decisions are constructive, he said.

In his turn, Hultqvist claimed that in the case UN Security Councils adopts a decision on the deployment of the UN peacekeeping mission then Sweden will consider the possibility to participate in it.

As we reported Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist came to Ukraine with a working visit on March 5.

Previously, Sweden and Denmark agreed to step up their common efforts standing up against the Russian propaganda, expressing their concerns about Russia's actions in the hybrid war.The Crimean prosecutor's office warns Ukrainian citizens that if they participate in organizing the conduct of Russian elections in the annexed Crimea, they will be punished. This was stated by the deputy prosecutor of Crimea Olexander Udovychenko.



"If this is a citizen of Ukraine, in case of proof of his guilt, he may face punishment for high treason, which provides up to 15 years of imprisonment and responsibility for the illegal conduct of elections, which the Criminal Code also qualifies as a crime," Udovychenko said.



In addition, the prosecutor's office noted that the citizens of Russia who will take part in organizing and holding elections on the peninsula are also threatened with harassment under articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine about the seizure of state power and encroachment on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.



Earlier, the prosecutor's office urged Crimeans not to participate in the organization of presidential elections of neighboring Russia in the annexed Crimea. The Prosecutor's Office of Crimea can bring to responsibility 10 thousand members of election commissions.



Earlier, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister said that Kyiv sent a note of protest to Moscow because of the Russian president's election in the occupied Crimea.



The presidential elections in Russia will be held on March 18, 2018. According to Russian laws, presidential elections should be held on the second Sunday in March. In 2018, according to these rules, they had to pass on March 11, but they were postponed for a week, so that the voting day coincided with the anniversary of the annexation of Crimea. Such a step, according to the plan of the presidential administration, should help increase the turnout at the elections.



Open source

Special Representative of the US State Department for Ukraine Kurt Volker stated that the Russian-created DNR and LNR formations in Donbas should be liquidated because they do not meet the Constitution of Ukraine. Volker said this during a panel discussion at the analytical center of the Hudson Institute, reports LB.ua.



"The so-called Luhansk People's Republic and Donetsk People's Republic are the entities created by Russia to help disguise Russia's role and strengthen the conflict, and they must be eliminated," Volker said.



The US Special Representative added that for them there is no place in the Ukrainian constitutional system. The Minsk agreements are aimed at restoring the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and these entities must disappear.

Related: NATO explaines why Putin's warnings about nuclear weapons unacceptable



During the discussion, Volker also stated that the preparation of local elections in certain uncontrolled areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions may take six months after the full deployment of the peacekeeping force.



He expressed hope that the UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas will become a means for the implementation of the Minsk agreements. In particular, according to him, the assistance of the peacekeeping mission in the implementation of the Minsk agreements should create a transitional period of transfer of control in Donbas first from Russia to the UN, and then to Ukraine.



As previously reported, Volker previously said that for the conducting of elections in the Donbass the UN mission should be deployed throughout the region, but the deployment can begin from a line of demarcation.

Related: Clashes near Parliament: Seven injured police officersAccording to the police, a family died in the apartment because of carbon monoxide

Open source

Eight people die in private house in Berdychiv, 112 Ukraine reports.

As it turned out, a neighbor noticed that nobody from the family goes out of the house for the second day. She also noticed that there was a weird smell coming from the apartment.

Alla Vashchenko, spokesperson of Zhytomyr regional police department said that the call came at 19:30 today, on March 5.

For now, the death of eight people is a proven fact by investigation teams of Zhytomyr Police Headquarters and Berdychiv Police Department are working on site, Vashchenko confirmed.

According to the gathered information, bodies of a husband and a wife were found in the apartment along with their two children, born in 1990 and 1997, and two grandchildren  a boy was three years old and a girls was about to turn one. Apart from them, the othe owner son's girlfriend and a neighbor, who visited them, were found dead.

The preliminary cause of death is carbon monoxide poisoning. Police do not consider the version of violent death for now. Yet, Alla Vashchuck said that they will give the final answer on the cause of the death after the autopsy.

Police have already determined that the stove heating was on and there was an overheated stove in the apartment. They suppose that it was the source of carbon monoxide.

Related video:15 people among 111 detained in clashes near Parliament had veteran identification cards. Artem Shevchenko, Internal Ministry spokesperson, wrote about it on his Facebook page.

111 people in total were taken to Pechersky and Shevchenkivskyi Police Department. 15 of them had veteran identification cards, two of them stated they had cards orally, but they did not show any document to confirm this. Two more of detained had veteran identification cards, he wrote. The police compiled information on four people (women), who were not war veterans.

One detained man, who has a veteran identification card, is suspected of vandalism under the Criminal Code of Ukraine.

One of the protesters was on the wanted list under the article on illegal production, distribution, possessing or transportation of drugs, psychotropic substances or similar things from May 29, 2015.

Seven of detained people served in Ukraines National Guard battalion Donbass.

Earlier, Semyon Semenchenko, member of the Vyzvolennia movement and peoples deputy, wrote on his Facebook page, that there were a lot of war veterans among the detained.

We took the first part of homeless from the police. That is how people, inspired by the victory (40:1), pro-government commentators call illegally detained during tent city attack war veterans. Shevchenkivskyi Police Department couldnt take away their veteran identification cards. Please, meet. These are war veterans, he wrote.

Shevchenko reminded that according to Ukraines Service on ATO Participants and Veterans Affairs nearly 329 000 people received veteran identification cards.

As we reported earlier, the police officers started the investigation in the tent city under two criminal procedures: the events of Feb. 27 near the Parliament. But the protesters started to resist against law enforcers. The clashes began and according to the police data 6 people out of those, who were in the tent city, were injured, four victims among policemen. As to Vyzvolennia, 11 protesters were hospitalized, seven police officers were injured.

Later, it was reported that, as a result of clashes between the protesters and law enforcers over 100 people were detained. While searching the premises of the camp, the police seized nine RGD-5 grenades, fuses, Molotov cocktails and five smoke grenades.

The law enforcers released all protesters detained at the protester camp near the Ukrainian Parliament.

Related video:Finland will continue supporting reforms in Ukraine. Timo Soini, Finnish Foreign Minister said it after the negotiations with his Ukrainian colleague Pavlo Klimkin. They had a meeting today, on March 5 in Kyiv, Foreign Ministry press center reports.

Ukraine signed an Agreement on implementation of the project Finnish support for Ukrainian school reform. Klimkin called it a good example of Finish support. They also discussed cooperation in the energy saving sphere. Soini noted that Finish Government intends to establish a Fund to provide assistance for Ukraine. Resources from the Fund will be allocated for implementation of energy saving projects.

Besides, the increase in turnover signifies improvement of Ukraines cooperation with Finland  trade increased by 17% in 2017.

Timo Soini stressed, that Finland will continue supporting sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. He said that Helsinki is ready to provide forces for UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas. Soini noted that the Kremlin has keys to solve Donbas conflict, which is why there is no reason to cancel anti-Russian sanctions.

Speaking of North Stream 2, Soini emphasized that Gazprom has to fulfill all of the international obligations, including the decision of the Stockholm Arbitration. As to Ukraine, Finland recognizes it as a reliable gas supplier.

Related video:The President noted, that there are reasons to think about the relevancy of the Nord Stream 2 project in terms of energy supply security in Europe

Ukraines President Petro Poroshenko hopes that European countries will not allow Russia to use tools of gas blackmailing. Poroshenko said it during the meeting with Peter Hulkivist, Swiss Defense Minister, broadcasted by 112 Ukraine.

Russias actions after the Stockholms Arbitration decision, a threat or a public announcement, that they stop gas supply to Ukraine, regardless of the Courts decision, and do not plan to abide by the decision concerning gas transit and their threats of contract termination, which is not provided by the contract, give reasons to think over the relevancy of the Nord Stream 2 project in terms of energy supply security in Europe. This project monopolizes Russias gas supply to EU and violates principles of diversification. I hope, that countries of northern Europe, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark are key to prevent Russia from using tools of gas blackmailing of Ukraine and EU, Poroshenko said.

As we reported earlier, Gazprom has officially forwarded a notification to Naftogaz-Ukraine about gas supply contracts termination through the Stockholm Arbitration.

But Naftogaz did not receive any notification.

After the ruling of the Stockholm Arbitration, Russia's Gazprom announced its intention to terminate gas contracts with Naftogaz Ukraine.

The Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce has granted the lawsuit of Naftogaz as to compensation for the volumes of transit gas that had not been delivered by Gazprom on February 28. According to the decision of the court, Naftogaz got a $4,63 billion compensation for the transit gas that had been agreed on, but not delivered by Gazprom. As a result of two arbitrations in Stockholm, Gazprom is to pay Naftogaz $2,56 billion. The court dismissed the demands of Gazprom that stated that the money hadnt been paid as it was considered the fines for what they called unlawfully seized by Naftogaz volumes of the transit gas. $526 000 of interest per day will be added to the debt from March 1.

Related video:Naftogaz-Ukraine does not see any reasons to cancel gas contracts with Gazprom. Yuriy Vitreko, Director for Business Development at Naftogaz, said it in the briefing, broadcasted by 112 Ukraine.

Our position is the following  we do not see any reasons to cancel gas contracts. Besides, Gazproms explanations and proposals concerning revision of contracts and condition of contracts termination are unacceptable for us, he said.

Alexey Miller, the Head of the enterprise, stated, that Gazprom forwarded an official notification to Naftogaz about gas contracts termination through the Stockholm Arbitration.

As we reported earlier, after the ruling of the Stockholm Arbitration, Russia's Gazprom announced its intention to terminate gas contracts with Naftogaz Ukraine.

The Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce has granted the lawsuit of Naftogaz as to compensation for the volumes of transit gas that had not been delivered by Gazprom on February 28. According to the decision of the court, Naftogaz got a $4,63 billion compensation for the transit gas that had been agreed on, but not delivered by Gazprom. As a result of two arbitrations in Stockholm, Gazprom is to pay Naftogaz $2,56 billion. The court dismissed the demands of Gazprom that stated that the money hadnt been paid as it was considered the fines for what they called unlawfully seized by Naftogaz volumes of the transit gas. $526 000 of interest per day will be added to the debt from March 1.

Related video:According to Lutkovska, the rights for the peaceful gathering, freedom of speech and right not to be subjected to inhuman treatment were violated

Valeria Lutkovska, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights urged the Prosecutor Generals Office of Ukraine to hold the investigation of the violations by the National Police and the National Guard during the liquidation of the tent camp on March 3 as it is stated on the website of the ombudswoman.

It is noted that the law enforcers allowed the violation of the human rights, particularly the rights for the peaceful gathering, freedom of speech, right not to be subjected to inhuman treatment, the degrading treatment and right for the personal liberty.

We draw the special attention to the fact that the outrage violation of the law of Ukraine On National Police that bans the police officer to inflict a hit on the head, neck, clavicular part, sex organs, loins (tailbone) and abdomen, the message said.

According to this, the ombudswoman urged the Prosecutor General to provide the holding of the fast and effective investigation of the events, foreseeing the periodic public reports on the results, the Verkhovna Rada to consider the draft laws concerning the improving of the legislation on the identification of the police officers and soldiers of the National Guard of Ukraine, the government to adopt the laws and regulations on the actions of the law enforcers and other services for the provision of the security of the public peace.

As we reported earlier, clashes between the protesters and law enforcers occurred on March 3 and over 100 people were detained. The police came to the camp of the protesters to conduct an investigation at the protesters' camp, according to the decision of the court.

The police officers started the investigation in the protesters camp under two criminal procedures: the events of Feb. 27 near the Parliament, when 14 police officers were wounded, and the events near the October palace in 2017, when police officers were also wounded. As to the events of Feb. 27, a few protesters were informed about suspicion.

While searching the premises of the camp, the police seized nine RGD-5 grenades, fuses, Molotov cocktails and five smoke grenades.Klimkin added that the main issues of the meetings were UN peacekeepers in Donbas and gas

Open source

Pavlo Klimkin, the Foreign Minister of Ukraine claimed that the trade between Ukraine and Finland increased by 17% in 2017. He claimed this at the joint press conference with Finish Foreign Minister Timo Soini as 112 Ukraine broadcasted.

Today we talked about the bilateral agenda, economic relations, session of the bilateral commission in September 2018, the fact that our trade increased by 17% and new Finnish investments, the minister said.

Klimkin added that the main issues of the meetings were UN peacekeepers in Donbas and gas.

But the main issues and you perfectly understand, were, firstly on the situation in occupied Donbas and around occupied Donbas. It is very important for us that our Finnish friends are ready to participate in the up-coming peacekeeping mission but now we should put the pressure on Russia to make the peacekeeping mission to be real, Klimkin claimed.

As we reported Ukraine in 2017 exported goods for 39.9 billion dollars, - its 19% more than in 2016.Poroshenko has instructed the Defence Minister and the Head of the General Staff to arrange this

Petro Poroshenko has instructed to provide conditions for training of Swedish and Ukrainian military servicemen. Ukraines President said it during the meeting with Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hulkvist, broadcasted by 112 Ukraine.

I support and I have entrusted the Defense Minister and the Head of the General Staff to provide all the conditions in Yahotyn Training Centre for Swedish military servicemen to be involved in the mission. Today we have a mutually beneficial cooperation - Ukrainian servicemen share the experience of acting against Russias hybrid aggression towards us and how to stop the aggressor. Swedish servicemen share their experience in return," Poroshenko said.

As it was reported earlier, Ukraine and Sweden decided to prepare a new agreement on cooperation in defense sphere.

Related video:A meditation and sharing support group focused on the practice of Buddhist teachings and the 12 steps of recovery while integrating the Dharma and the basic goodness of meditation.

The Heart of Recovery is a meditation and sharing support group with the purpose of bringing together the practice of meditation, the Shambhala and Buddhist teachings, and the Twelve Steps of Recovery with the goal of integrating the basic sanity of the Dharma and the basic goodness of meditation with our commitment to abstinence. We welcome all those who wish to share in these common interests.

The Heart of Recovery is a meditation and sharing support group with the purpose of bringing together the practice of meditation, the Shambhala and Buddhist teachings, and the Twelve Steps of Recovery with the goal of integrating the basic sanity of the Dharma and the basic goodness of meditation with our commitment to abstinence. We welcome all those who wish to share in these common interests.The Hospitality Industry Education Foundation hosts the junuors' and seniors' cilinary and management competition.

The Hospitality Industry Education Foundation hosts high school students from across the state to compete in the New Mexico ProStart Invitational, a culinary and management competition for high school juniors and seniors. Students who are taking ProStart classes compete to see who will become the state champion and represent New Mexico in the National ProStart Invitational, hosted by the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation. This years event will be held on Monday, March 5, 2018 at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Albuquerque. Click here to learn more about sponsorship and volunteering.

Culinary teams prepare a three-course meal in 60 minutes using only two butane burners, in addition to executing knife skills and cooking techniques.

Management teams develop an original restaurant concept and apply critical thinking skills to the challenges managers face in day-to-day operations.

Come support High School teams from across the state as they compete in culinary and management!

Click here for event updates! Competition schedule to be post 2/25/18.PLEASE NOTE!

Due to the March 23, 2020 NM DOH Public Health Order, These Event Listings Are Not Accurate!

All non-essential businesses are closed, public gatherings are prohibited!

(One day some of these events will be rescheduled or will resume, but they are not happening now!)YEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. The private sector will implement 3 billion 109 million drams worth of industrial projects in Ararat Province in 2018, and over 500 jobs will be created, Governor Aramayis Grigoryan told ARMENPRESS in an interview.

Speaking about 2017 achievements, the Governor mentioned that in almost all sectors Ararat has been named best province thanks to the joint work of the government and community officials.

We were the first in the country to initiaite the E-passport of communities projects, which contains complete information and enables to update the database quarterly, will in turn enables potential investors to get to know the capacities of the province, Governor Grigoryan said.

He also mentioned the clean-up of more than 200 waste disposal sites on the sidelines of the Clean Armenia project, due to which the province was named the cleanest province of Armenia.

Touching upon urban development, I have to stress that weve done huge work. 124 million drams from the nearly 550 million was saved. In 2017, the construction of the Vedi dam, Artashat medical center, Kharberd school, internal drainage system of Zod Banavan was launched, he added.

Speaking on the priorities of the province for 2018, the governor pointed out the 3 main goals as part of the 2017-2025 Ararat Province development strategy.

First, appliance of intensive methods of businesses, creation of jobs, ensuring 20% economic growth through reducing poverty, second  10% reduction of discrepancies of less developed areas through guidance of investments, and thirdly improvement of human resource management skills and increasing the activeness of local actors, he said.

To reach the goals, the governor says theyve chosen industry as priority, as well as the development of SMEs and intensive agriculture.

The governor said nearly 34 billion drams of works and projects will be carried out in 2018 in the province funded by the government, the private sector, international organizations and local budgets.

The province is home to many historic-cultural and natural monuments, and the province is highlighting the creation of a modern resort zone near the Yeraskh section of the Yerevan-Yeraskh highway.

The governors office has also suggested the creation of an agricultural tourism center near Khor Virap Monastery.

Full interview is available in Armenian.

English translator/editor: Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. A historic-cultural reserve is planned to be built in the little neighborhood of Meghri, a town in Syunik province, Armenia, town official Mkhitar Zakaryan told ARMENPRESS.

Historic-cultural monuments are a driving force of tourism in Meghri, just like in the entire country. We have heritage dating back to the medieval and early medieval times here. There are ancient churches in the Shvanidzor, Alvank and Meghri communities. Two churches are currently under renovation in Meghri. One is funded by the US Embassy and in cooperation with the ministry of culture, and the other is funded by the French Country and Culture organization. The Izmirlyan Foundation is carrying out a major program in the little neighborhood of Meghri, it is already at the phase of launch. Major investments are being implemented in terms of developing historic-cultural tourism. A historic-cultural reserve is planned to be built in Meghris little neighborhood, Zakaryan said.

He mentioned d that the potential for greater development of tourism is associated with the proximity of the area to Iran.

He mentioned the development of infrastructures to be important in order for the town to serve not only as a transit zone for Iranian tourists.

The local official said they are focusing on every tiny detail, and the menus of local restaurants will also include Iranian language, in addition to Armenian.

English translator/editor: Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. The US Embassy in the Turkish capital of Ankara has ceased all diplomatic and consular operations for one day, Hurriyet reports.

After the embassy issued the notification, it became known that Ankara security forces are carrying out an anti-ISIS operation in the city.

Ankara prosecutors said theyve issued arrest warrants for 20 people.

12 are currently detained as local law enforcement agencies continue the operation.

English translator/editor: Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. Meghri community of Syunik province has donated an area located 500km away from the Armenian-Iranian border checkpoint to the ministry of nature protection, reports Armenpress.

Hovhannes Hovhannisyan  chief of staff of the ministry of nature protection, told reporters that the space can expand if necessary. We plan to construct there the administrative building of Arevik national park, he said. This year we are planning to implement the buildings designing works and will launch the construction works in late 2018 or early 2019. The Arevik national park in Meghri community should have its administrative building. The area has been provided to the ministry.

Aram Aghasyan  head of the specially protected areas of the Nature Protection Bioresources Management Agency, said according to the interstate agreements signed in 2012 Armenia and Iran reached an agreement to establish a center for visitors.

The ministries of nature protection of Armenia and Iran have signed an agreement which aimed at creating a friendship and peace park in the transboundary protected area. The Iranian side has already created a space for the expected visitors, and the center for visitors in Armenias territory will be established within the frames of the Assistance to Protected Areas program. It later also can serve for the cooperation, and its last stage supposes creating a biosphere protection place jointly with the Iranian side, Aghasyan said, adding that scientific trips are also expected to be conducted within the framework of the cooperation.

The construction of the Arevik national parks administrative building is scheduled to be completed in 2019-2020.

English translator/editor: Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. A number of villages of Meghri community, Syunik are planning to have pre-school educational institutions soon, Meghri official Mkhitar Zakaryan told reporters.

He said the pre-schools will be introduced in the bordering villages of Lijk, Karjevan, Shvanidzor and Lehvazk.

The program is very extensive and important for keeping the young people in the village, he said, noting that the pre-schools will be housed in the buildings of the former outpatients village establishments.

The healthcare ministry has already approved providing the buildings to the community.

English translator/editor: Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. FMD K & L Europe, an aftercare beneficiary of the Development Foundation of Armenia (DFA), signed a memorandum of understanding with Swiss Sylex and Clinerion companies to promote biotechnology in Armenia, the DFA told Armenpress.

In particular, three companies will cooperate in promoting investments in biotechnology and clinical research in Armenia and investment of the best international practice.

The advanced technology, professional experience and capacity of our partners inspire confidence that this initiative will create new opportunities for industry development, CEO of FMD K&L Europe Mr. KiritVelani said.

The company's assessment of foreign investment is best expressed by bringing other foreign companies to Armenia, a good example of which is the trilateral program, the DFAs Aftercare team leader Mr. Hayk Mirzoyan noted.YEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. The ARF faction of the Armenian Parliament is ready to discuss the name of any candidate for the Prime Minister who will be proposed by the Republican Party of Armenia, ARF faction head Armen Rustamyan told reporters during the parliamentary briefings, Armenpress reports.

He said the first discussions over the candidate for the PM will be held at the ruling coalition already nearly on April 9 when the incumbent Presidents powers end. According to the memorandum of the coalition, the right to nominate the candidate for the prime minister belongs to the Republican Party, but its natural that they should propose the candidate, and the coalition will discuss this issue. This will take place nearly on April 9. I think we will not release anything on this matter before April 9, Rustamyan said.

He said the new governance system will launch on April 9, therefore, the issue of electing the PM will emerge after April 9. The President-elect should also take office since he also must take part in this process, the lawmaker said.

Asked whether the ARF is ready to discuss any other candidacy except from that of incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan, Armen Rustamyan said they are ready to discuss any candidacy that will be proposed by the Republican Party. The right to nominate the candidate for the PM belongs to that party. We will discuss the issue linked with that concrete person, he said.

President Serzh Sargsyans powers end on April 9, 2018 after which the President-elect Armen Sarkissian will take office. The deadline for nominating the candidate for the Prime Minister is from April 9 to 16. The election of the Prime Minister will be held at a special session on April 17.

English translator/editor: Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. U.S. and Armenian law enforcement authorities and prosecutors coordinated the capture and return of a U.S. citizen fugitive located in Yerevan, Armenia, the U.S Embassy in Armenia told Armenpress.

The U.S. citizen was arrested by Armenian law enforcement personnel in Yerevan, Armenia, in December 2017 based on an Interpol Red Notice. The individual was previously charged in the United States for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor. While under supervised release pending trial, the subject fled the United States, initiating an international fugitive investigation. U.S. Department of State Diplomatic Security Service agents assigned to the Criminal Investigative Liaison Branch in Washington, DC, and the Assistant Regional Security Officer-Investigator at the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan coordinated with Armenian law enforcement authorities who promptly located and arrested the fugitive.

The General Prosecutors Office of the Republic of Armenia, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of International Affairs, the U.S. Marshals Service International Investigations Branch, and the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan coordinated closely on the extradition process.

United States Ambassador to the Republic of Armenia Richard Mills, Jr., and General Prosecutor Artur Davtyan of the General Prosecutors Office of the Republic of Armenia made the announcement.

International fugitives can present serious risks to public safety, said U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard M. Mills, Jr. We appreciate the close cooperation of the Armenian General Prosecutors Office and Armenian law enforcement personnel in helping to locate, arrest, and extradite the individual so quickly.

Prosecutor General Artur Davtyan stated: "We highly appreciate the cooperation with the U.S. competent authorities having the history for decades and the active role of the U.S. Embassy in Armenia therein. Such cooperation serves as strong proof that time and distance cannot hinder the fulfillment of the principle of holding a person inevitably liable for the crime committed. Hence, sooner or later any person committed a crime will face justice wherever he is".

The fugitive will now face the pending charges in a U.S. court. The accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a U.S. court of law.YEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. Nikol Pashinyan, head of the opposition Yelk faction of the Armenian parliament, will have a meeting with civil society representatives in Yerevans Freedom Square.

The opposition MP confirmed the meeting during parliamentary press briefings.

Today at 18:30 I will meet with civil society representatives in Freedom Square, he said.

Asked for the reason of the meeting, the MP responded: One of the representatives of the civil society had publicly offered a meeting. I have accepted the offer and I think there is nothing unusual for us to hold such meetings, Pashinyan said.

English translator/editor: Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. On the occasion of the birthday of Armenias national hero, Artsakh hero Vazgen Sargsyan on March 5, President Serzh Sargsyan visited the Yerablur military pantheon to pay tribute to the memory of the Commander (Sparapet), the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

Accompanied by the high-ranking leadership of the Republic, the President laid a wreath at the tomb of the Commander.

The President also laid flowers for the memory of Armenian heroes fallen for the independence of the Fatherland. Thereafter, the President attended attended the ceremony of blessing of Young Yerkrapahs under the direction of the Catholicos of All Armenians in at St. Vardanants Martyrs Church in Yerablur.

President Sargsyan addressed congratulatory message on the swearing-in ceremony of the new members of the Young Yerkrapah structure.

The message runs as follows:

Dear members of the Yerkrapah Volunteers Union and guests,

Dear new members of the Young Yerkrapah structure,

I warmly congratulate you on this solemn swearing-in ceremony.

This traditional ceremony is a symbolic baptism of becoming a young yerkrapah. From now on you are our citizens of tomorrow devoted to the defense of the Fatherland.

The ceremony is taking place on March 5  the birthday of Armenias national hero Vazgen Sargsyan. I believe that you will loyally continue the great patriotic work of the Commander and the good traditions of the Yerkrapah Volunteers Union.

I wish all of you to bear the title of Young Yerkrapah with proud and dignity which first of all is responsibility and duty. I wish you to serve your youth power and energy for patriotic activities and reach new achievements.

English translator/editor: Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. The ARF considers the termination of the ratification procedure of the Armenian-Turkish protocols as the greatest achievement of the recent period, ARF faction head Armen Rustamyan told reporters during the parliamentary briefings on March 5, reports Armenpress.

I think we can also benefit from this, and this is obvious since Turkeys real face was revealed, that country with its regime is far from the value system of the civilized world, Armen Rustamyan said.

At the same time, he said Armenia and Turkey are neighbors and must eventually normalize the relations. But this normalization cannot happen with the language of preconditions. I think the agreement should contain two very simple sentences relating to launching the process of normalizing the relations. If a protocol is signed, it should be stated very clearly that Armenia and Turkey establish diplomatic relations and start solving all issues existing between the two countries through these relations, the ARF faction head noted.

He said there are numerous problems between the two countries which definitely need to be solved when establishing relations. According to him, the solution of all issues should be transferred to a field of interstate relations. We have always supported establishing such relations, he said.

On March 1, 2018 the National Security Council of Armenia endorsed the decision to terminate the process of ratifying the protocols On Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Turkey and On Development of Relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Turkey, which were signed on October 10, 2009. President Serzh Sargsyan tasked the foreign minister to notify the Turkish side of Armenias decision. With a letter stating Armenias position on this issue President Serzh Sargsyan had notified all parties present at the signing ceremony, in particular, the Presidents of Russia, France, the USA and the Swiss Confederation, the President of the Council of the European Union and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe.

English translator/editor: Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. Former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili has called on his party members of the United National Movement to begin negotiations with other parties for nominating a single candidate for the upcoming presidential elections in October.

We must return to power in 2018. How are we gonna do it? We must win the presidential elections and overturn Ivanishvilis administration, we must destroy his feudal system, Saakashvili said in a televised address from Amsterdam.

Nika Melia, one of the leaders of the United National Movement had earlier announced that they are already holding talks with other parties, but didnt mention which party in particular.

English translator/editor: Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. During a press conference dedicated to the Armenian-Kazakh ties, Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Armenia Timur Urazayev congratulated the Armenian partners on holding successfully the constitutional reforms, as well as on electing a new president, reports Armenpress.

The Kazakh Ambassador noted that the two countries are passing through the stage of constitutional reforms.

These processes are just delayed in Kazakhstan in terms of time, but Armenia launched this process in December 2015 which, I think, will be completed very soon, and I am convinced that under the new conditions the countrys government and leader will definitely maintain the very stable and partering bilateral relations. I am sure we will achieve much more as both the bilateral and multilateral relations continue developing, he said.

Armen Sarkissian has been elected 4th President of Armenia by the Parliament on March 2. 90 MPs voted in favor of his candidacy, while 10 voted against.

English translator/editor: Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. The citizens of Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea will be able to visit Armenia without a visa, the draft decision is included in the Armenian governments March 6 session agenda, Armenpress reports.

According to the explanation, the adoption of the decision will enable the citizens of the aforementioned countries to visit and stay in Armenia for a maximum of 180 days within a year, freeing them from the visa requirement. According to the Armenian government, this will not only contribute to boosting tourism, but also will be a new beginning for the mutual recognition of spiritual and historical-cultural values of the peoples, outlining and developing a number of new spheres for bilateral cooperation.

The draft decision aims at liberalizing the visa-related relations with Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea, contributing to the increase of visits of these countries citizens to Armenia.

English translator/editor: Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. The construction of the Kapan airport in Syunik is planned to be completed in June, Kapan mayor Ashot Hayrapetyan told reported.

A public discussion was held regarding the construction of the Kapan airport, and extensive works have been done, and are still ongoing. We hope the opening will take place during the year, the mayor said.

Domestic flights are planned to be operated from the airport, according to initial plans.

The Mayor expressed hope that soon international flights will also be launched, namely to Russias Sochi, Min Vody, Adler and other cities.

English translator/editor: Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. The first Aurora Dialogues of 2018 was held in New York City, USA, Idea Foundation told ARMENPRESS.

The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, in partnership with the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, hosted distinguished members of the humanitarian community to explore the drivers of human solidarity during the first Aurora Dialogues event in New York City. The event, titled Solidarity Beyond Borders: Stepping Up When Others Step Back, focused on what moves people to risk their lives and stand up for others in challenging situations.

The Dialogues began with opening remarks from Aurora Humanitarian Initiative co-founder Vartan Gregorian and National September 11 Memorial & Museum President and CEO Alice Greenwald who spoke about how celebrating stories of heroism is essential for driving action.

Their remarks were followed by a keynote presentation from Dr. Philip Zimbardo, famed psychologist, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University, and Founder and President of the Heroic Imagination Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting heroism in everyday life. The address focused on the psychological reasoning and response to heroism, highlighting the ways in which people can learn to step up while others step back.

Moral courage is at the core of heroism, not bravery, said Dr. Philip Zimbardo. Between good intentions and good actions, there are always obstacles to overcome. However, we can all learn to be wise and effective heroes. When you do something positive and others notice, there will be a ripple effect.

In a panel discussion moderated by Washington Post Columnist David Ignatius, 2016 Aurora Prize Laureate Marguerite Maggy Barankitse spoke about her own experience facing and overcoming adversity. When the Burundian civil war broke out, Maggy, a Tutsi, tried to hide 72 of her closest Hutu neighbors to keep them safe from persecution. They were discovered and executed as Maggy was forced to watch. Following this gruesome incident, she decided to act and has since saved roughly 30,000 children as the founder of Maison Shalom, a childrens home and support center, and treated more than 80,000 patients by founding the REMA Hospital in 2008.

The panel also featured Lieutenant Bill Keegan, Retired Port Authority Police Department Lieutenant, Special Ops, who was Night Operations Commander of the World Trade Center Rescue/Recovery Teams at Ground Zero from September 11, 2001 until the end of the recovery, which was marked on May 30, 2002 when the last steel column from the original World Trade Center was ceremoniously removed. He spoke about the arduous task of recovering the victims and sustaining the recovery teams mission of compassion and selflessness. Lieutenant Keegan is now the Founder and President of H.E.A.R.T. 9/11 (Healing Emergency Aid Response Team), working to respond to disasters, rebuild community centers in hard-hit areas and bolster recovery efforts by nurturing resiliency for individuals, families and communities. Human rights activist and ENOUGH Project Founding Director, John Prendergast, joined the panel to discuss how bystanders can become upstanders in the face of adversity to garner solidarity for the causes that they champion.

Maggy and Lieutenant Bill Keegan embody courage and the incredible journey of those who have overcome adversity. In Maggys case, after being saved herself, she went on to save thousands of others. As John Prendergast noted, it is crucial that we not only highlight voices like theirs, but also the thousands of others still being persecuted as well as crushed by poverty, in order to bring about real change, said Vartan Gregorian, co-founder of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and President of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. We are honored to partner with The National September 11 Memorial & Museum to draw attention to these survivors personal stories and to highlight the importance of generosity. The impact of the cycle of giving is one of the core values of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. These heroes have risked their lives. At the very least, the rest of us can give our support to them and their causes so that the spirit of generosity and human values are upheld.

We are honored to join the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative in promoting the generosity of the human spirit, as this is also a positive legacy of the September 11, 2001 attacks, 9/11 Memorial & Museum President Alice M. Greenwald said. The Museum tells stories of courage and resilience, of strangers helping one another, and of first responders who risked their lives to save others. These stories should be celebrated, and demonstrate that, when the times require, human decency will ultimately triumph over human depravity.

Following New York, the next Aurora Dialogues will take place in Moscow this April leading up to the annual Aurora Dialogues in Yerevan this June as part of a weekend of events culminating in the presentation of the 2018 Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity  a $1 million award honoring those who risk themselves for the benefit of others.

English translator/editor: Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. Armenia and Kazakhstan have constructive and good partnering relations, Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Armenia Timur Urazayev said during a press conference dedicated to the book titled The Era of Independence by President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev, Armenpress reports.

Meanwhile, the economic and commercial relations give rise to desire more, and this perhaps is due to the yet incomplete formation of effective models for the development of these relations. We talk a lot about the fact that the current trade turnover volume is not in accordance with the existing potential, the Ambassador said.

He noted that Armenia mainly exports wine, brandy, jewelry to Kazakhstan.

Armenia has wonderful intellectuals, representatives of culture, art, great names that can be voiced constantly and talked for a long time. As for Kazakhstans commercial relations with the foreign partners, it has formed a special export model and opportunities, the Kazakh Ambassador said, mentioning the cereal, machinery and other products imported to Armenia.

The Ambassador also informed that works are being carried out for establishing joint enterprises.

Commenting on the Kazakh Presidents book, the Ambassador said it clearly presents all stages Kazkahstan has passed in 26 years.

English translator/editor: Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. Under the current circumstances Armenia plans to restrict the entry of the citizens of Yemen as much as possible, the respective draft decision is included in the governments March 6 session agenda, Armenpress reports.

The necessity of adopting such decision is linked with the fact that over the past decade the inner-political situation in Yemen is tense which reached its culmination in 2014 and remains tense till now. Drastic deterioration of the situatios is also expected under the inner-political disagreements after the murder of former president of Yemen Ali Abdullah Saleh on December 2, 2017. New fightings, armed clashes are possible. By the adoption of this decision a new point is added to the governments N329 decision regulation which proposes to restrict providing visa to the Yemeni citizens and people with travel documents, the draft decision says.

English translator/editor: Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. The bill on Bodies of State Administration System was included in the upcoming March 6 extraordinary session agenda after being debated in the parliament of Armenia.

Justice Minister David Harutyunyan said the bill is a large package of legislative initiatives which contains additional 50 bills.

Until now, the regulations of bodies acting in the circle of the executive power were in different circles  government decisions, presidential orders, laws. Under Article 159 of the Constitution, when a single system of bodies was clearly defined, we must define it all by law. Naturally we shouldve tried to define certain unified standards, Harutyunyan said.

The bill defines bodies under the governments jurisdiction  the state revenue service, the urban development committee, the nuclear safety regulatory committee, the statistical committee, the real estate cadastre committee, the healthcare and employment inspection body, the fire and technical safety inspection body, the nature protection and subsoil inspection body, the food safety inspection body, education inspection body and the market control inspection body.

Article 5 of the law defined bodies under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister  the national security service, the police, the state protection service and the state control service.

Article 6 defines the list of bodies under jurisdictions of ministries  compulsory enforcement service, correctional service, probation service, rescue service, social security service, state protocol service, migration service, water committee, science committee, civil aviation committee, tourism committee, general staff of the armed forces, state property management committee, supreme qualification commission, forestry committee, language committee.

English translator/editor: Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. President of the Republic of Artsakh Bako Sahakyan on March 5 held a working consultation discussing the implementation of several socio-economic programs in the Republic, the Presidential Office told Armenpress.

A special focus was attached to the restoration process of Talish.

The heads of concerned agencies presented respective reports on issues included in the agenda.

President Bako Sahakyan gave concrete instructions on the proper implementation of the issues discussed.

The consultation was also attended by Artsakh state minister Arayik Harutyunyan and other officials.

English translator/editor: Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. Agreement on promotion and mutual protection of investments is expected to be signed between the governments of Armenia and the United Mexican States, Armenpress reports.

The issue on approving the proposal of signing this agreement is included in the Armenian governments March 6 session agenda.

The draft agreement has set the common principles of investment activity between Armenia and Mexico. The agreement provides an opportunity to create favorable conditions for investors of the two countries contributing to promoting the business initiatives in the two countries. The agreement guarantees protection and safety to the investor of each side.

Based on the aforementioned, Armenias ministry of economic development and investments considers appropriate the signing of the agreement by Armenia.

English translator/editor: Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian Armed Forces are fully prepared to counter any encroachment, Colonel General Movses Hakobyan, Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces, told reporters in the Yerablur military pantheon on the birthday of Commander (Sparapet) Vazgen Sargsyan, reports Armenpress.

He highly appreciated Vazgen Sargsyans contribution to the formation of the Armenian Army. We are ready to resist any war and we not only run a defense policy, but also can counter any attack, he said.

Commenting on the statements made by Azerbaijan, Movses Hakobyan said no serious changes have ever been made in the Azerbaijani foreign political statements. They were drinking tea in Shushi, were fishing in Sevan since 1992. They always had a desire, but this doesnt mean anything, Hakobyan said.

English translator/editor: Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. Newly appointed Ambassador of Cyprus to Armenia Leonidas Markides (residence in Moscow) presented the copy of his credentials to Armenian foreign minister Edward Nalbandian on March 5, the foreign ministry told Armenpress.

The FM congratulated the Ambassador on his appointment and highly appreciated the bilateral relations between Armenia and Cyprus. The minister wished success to the Ambassador on his mission expressing hope that his activity will boost the bilateral mutual partnership.

The Ambassador thanked for the reception and wishes and assured that he will make the maximum efforts to promote the exemplary cooperation between Armenia and Cyprus.

The officials discussed issues relating to political dialogue, cooperation in international structures, development of commercial ties, expansion of legal framework, as well as the steps aimed at expanding the cooperation in the fields of tourism and culture.

FM Nalbadian and Ambassador Markides praised the role of the Armenian community in the development of Cyprus.

They both attached importance to the Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement which opens new prospects for deepening the bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

During the meeting the officials exchanged views on the process of the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide, the international communitys efforts on preventing crimes against humanity and genocides.

They also touched upon the upcoming Francophonie summit which will be held in Yerevan in October 2018.

The meeting agenda also included the issues relating the settlement of the Cyprus issue and the Karabakh conflict, as well as the mutual assistance of the two countries to the joint efforts of the international community made on this path.

English translator/editor: Aneta HarutyunyanYEREVAN, 5 MARCH, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 5 March, USD exchange rate is down by 0.01 drams to 480.79 drams. EUR exchange rate is up by 2.20 drams to 592.38 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate is down by 0.05 drams to 8.43 drams. GBP exchange rate is up by 2.29 drams to 664.21 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price is up by 224.49 drams to 20439.79 drams. Silver price is up by 2.00 drams to 254.2 drams. Platinum price is down by 15.77 drams to 14963.11 drams.YEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. The first session of the Supreme Judicial Council of Armenia was held on March 5 at the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Judicial Department of the Republic of Armenia, the session was convened for electing the Chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council of Armenia from the 5 members previously elected by the National Assembly.

The Council unanimously elected Gagik Harutyunyan Chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council of of Armenia by a secret ballot.

English translator/editor: Tigran SirekanyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. The members of the delegation headed by Lyon Mayor Georges Kepenekian who is in Yerevan on an official visit, accompanied by Yerevan Deputy Mayor David Ohanyan and members of the Republican Party and Yelk factions of Yerevan Council of Elders visited the Memorial Complex of Tsitsernakaberd where they laid a wreath at the memorial to the victims of the Armenian Genocide and flowers at the Eternal Flame commemorating the Holy Martyrs.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of Yerevan Municipality, Georges Kepenekian also visited the museum-institute of the Armenian Genocide where familiarized himself with the samples and made a note in the Commemoration Book of Honorable Guests of the Museum.

The Mayor of Lyon planted a fir-tree in the Memory Alley of Tsitsernakaberd.

English translator/editor: Tigran SirekanyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan received the delegation of the French Bouc-Bel-Air city at the head of its mayor Richard Mallie.

As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of Artsakh Presidents Office, various issues related to the bilateral relations were on the discussion agenda.

The President noted with satisfaction that cooperation with administrative districts and units of France was on a high level underlining that it enabled to bring to life important socioeconomic, humanitarian and public programs.

The Head of the State expressed confidence that the bilateral ties would be strengthened on consistent basis, highlighting necessary potential for this.

English translator/editor: Tigran SirekanyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan sent a message on the occasion of Young Yerkrapah members oath-taking ceremony. As ARMENPRESS was informed from the press service of the Armenian Presidents Office, Serzh Sargsyan particularly said,

Dear members of Yerkrapah Volunteers Union and guests,

Dear newly recruited members of Young Yerkrapah organization,

I cordially congratulate you on this solemn oath-taking ceremony. This traditional event stands for a symbolic ceremony of baptism on the way to joining Young Yerkrapah. From today on, you are supposed to be our future citizens, dedicated to Homelands defense.

The ceremony is taking place on March 5, the birthday of Armenias National Hero Vazgen Sargsyan. I believe you will continue Sparapets patriotic undertakings and the good traditions of Yerkrapah Volunteers Union.

I want all of you to be proud and honored with the name of Young Yerkrapah, which first of all means responsibility and commitment. I wish you could put your youthful energy and zeal at the service of patriotic deeds in order to record ever new achievements.

English translator/editor: Tigran SirekanyanYEREVAN, MARCH 5, ARMENPRESS. A cooperation memorandum was signed between Yerevan and Lyon on March 5 at Yerevan municipality that outlines the priority directions for deepening the cooperation between the two cities. The memorandum was signed by Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan and Lyon Mayor Georges Kepenekian. ARMENPRESS reports the Mayors gave a speech following the signing of the document.

Highlighting the cooperation and friendly relations between our two cities I once again reaffirm our sincere readiness to further deepening and strengthening the existing warm relations between Yerevan and Lyon. We have a successful experience of cooperation with Lyon. Since the establishment of bilateral relations we have implemented various joint projects for the benefit of the residents of our friendly cities Taron Margaryan said, emphasizing the personal contribution of Georges Kepenekian.

Speaking about the festive events planned on the occasion of the 2800th anniversary of Yerevan, Taron Margaryan invited Georges Kepenekian to Armenia to participate in the events.

Lyon Mayor Georges Kepenekian once again thanked for the warm reception and expressed confidence that the newly signed memorandum will open a new page for the cooperation of the two cities.

He emphasized that its a great honor for him to be in Yerevan once again, and assured that he will be in Yerevan to celebrate the 2800th anniversary of the city.

Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan awarded Lyon Mayor Georges Kepenekian with Yerevan Mayor's Gold Medal for his huge contribution to the friendly relations between Yerevan and Lyon.

English translator/editor: Tigran SirekanyanWe've detected that JavaScript is not enabled in your browser.

You must enable JavaScript to use craigslist.On Tuesday, the CEO of UK certificate reseller Trustico decided to settle an argument with Digicert executive VP Jeremy Rowley by emailing him the private keys for 23,000 TLS certificates that had been issued by Symantec's disgraced Certificate Authority, to prove they had been compromised.



Symantec was once one of the internet's leading Certificate Authorities, empowered to issue the cryptographic credentials that secure HTTPS browser sessions and other private communications. They were caught in a series of grievous security shortcomings, thanks to the Certificate Transparency system, which captures and displays nearly every certificate seen in the wild, producing incontrovertible evidence of cheating and incompetence.

Digicert inherited Symantec's Certificate Authority business; Trustico was once a reseller for Symantec and had issued 50,000 Symantec certificates that the Trustico claimed had been compromised (Trustico is not a Digicert reseller; if the certificates were revoked, Digicert could get 50,000 new paydays by selling certificates from one of its other suppliers). Digicert's Rowley doubted this, so Trustico's CEO just emailed him the private keys.

Certificate Authorities are not permitted to retain these keys. Trustico says it kept them in "cold storage," a meaningless buzzphrase that in no way excuses a major breach of its duty as a reseller for a Certificate Authority.

Trustico's website went offline shortly after the news of this protocol breach broke; a researcher revealed a serious security flaw in the site that would let attackers gain root privileges on Trustico's servers and execute arbitrary code.





Prior to the introduction of Certificate Transparency, many security researchers had voiced concern that the practices of Certificate Authorities were inadequately scrutinized and ripe for abuse. Since so much of the internet's security depends on CAs behaving themselves, and since a single rogue CA could compromise any session or communication, bad conduct among CAs presented a nearly infinite risk to the security of the internet and its users.



"During our many discussions over the past week we put it to you that we believe Symantec to have operated our account in a manner whereby it had been compromised," the Trustico officials wrote. They continued: "We believe the orders placed via our Symantec account were at risk and were poorly managed. We have been questioning Symantec without response as to concerning items for about a year. Symantec simply ignored our concerns and appeared to bury them under the next issue that arose."

23,000 HTTPS certificates axed after CEO emails private keys [Dan Goodin/Ars Technica]Soon after Frances McDormand received her Oscar for Best Actress for her brilliant performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, the statuette was stolen. After searching high and low for it, McDormand "was spotted crying emotionally outside the [Governor's] ball after giving up the search for the statuette on the premises and departing with her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen," according to USA Today.

And then it was found.

A man named Terry Bryant was arrested for grand theft for taking the statue. In the video above we see him prancing around, bragging to party-goers about the award that he won. No one noticed McDormand's name, which was already engraved on the statue.

"Who wants to tell me congratulations!" he says in a state of exuberance. And, in Hollywood fashion, everyone around him congratulates him, acting like they knew who he was and what he won the Oscar for.

According to USA Today:West Virginia's teachers across the state are participating in an unsanctioned wildcat strike with no end in sight  thanks in part to the widespread support for their cause among West Virginians, and solidarity from other workers.



As dire as the situation in West Virginia's public schools is, it's even worse in Oklahoma, where schools have gone on 4-day weeks so teachers can take part-time work at Walmart and make rent.





Now, thousands of Oklahoma teachers have massed in a Facebook group where they are planning their own walkout. Oklahoma pays teachers so badly that it has a chronic shortage of applicants for open jobs, meaning it will struggle to hire scabs to counter the strike.

Both Oklahoma and West Virginia are "red states," which is typically understood to mean a state where conservative voters elect conservative politicians, but as these strikes demonstrate, they're better understood as a place where progressive elements are systematically excluded from participating in policy through gerrymandering, voter suppression, unlimited election spending by industry, etc  and that without that escape valve for their energies, they are ready to boil over and start a political revolution.



Echoing West Virginia teachers grievances for more pay and more staff, Oklahoma teachers and a newly formed group"Oklahoma Teacher Walkout  The Time Is Now!" are calling for the state's 41,000 teachers to walk off the job as soon as April 2, the group's leader said. "A walkout would be the last resort, but we want more money for education in the state, that means more money for supplies, more staff and pay raises so teachers will stay," said the group's leader, Alberto Morejon. "Teachers are leaving left and right, we're the lowest paid in the country," said Morejon, an eight grade history teacher in Stillwater, OK, about 66 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, . The group's Facebook page, created last week, has more than 36,400 followers.

Oklahoma teachers might follow West Virginia in strike, walk outs [Rich McKay/Reuters]News / National

by Staff reporter

A Harare woman was granted a peace order after she approached the civil court accusing her boyfriend's wife of insulting and assaulting her.Nomercy Gonda appeared before magistrate Lazini Ncube accusing her boyfriend's wife, Melisa Nyakabano, of visiting her workplace and insulting her."I was involved in a relationship with her husband without the knowledge of him being married, but when I discovered that he was, I left him. She has, since December, visited my workplace countless times and shouts despicable words at me," she said.Gonda also accused Nyakabano of verbally abusing her through the phone."She is texting me and calling me, saying all sorts of things. she keeps calling me and accusing me of being a prostitute," she said.Gonda also accused her boyfriend's wife of threatening to hire soldiers to beat her up as a way of silencing her.Nyakabano did not oppose the application, but insisted that Gonda was still involved in a relationship with her husband."I want to live in peace with her, but she has not left my husband as she said, she is still seeing my husband, that's why I taunt her," she said.Nyakabano also accused Gonda of sleeping with her husband in her matrimonial home."I always text her because she is still seeing my husband and when I am out of town she comes to sleep at my house, in my bed and I have no option," she said.Nyakabano also accused Gonda of causing chaos in her home as she claims she is now being regularly assaulted by her husband."I have no peace in my home now, my husband now beats me each time I ask him about his relationship with her," she said.In granting the order, Ncube advised Nyakabano not to assault or insult Gonda and encouraged both parties to live amicably.News / National

by Staff Reporter

Two members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police Border Control section, Clayton Chipembere and Clopas Nhamburo, appeared before Chiredzi magistrate, Geraldine Mutsoto, on Wednesday facing charges of taking bribes from a transport operator.The court heard that between January and December 2016 the accused jointly or individually received different amounts of money from Samuel Moyo whose vehicles are plying the Musina-Chiredzi route amounting to $222.Moyo of house number 1149 Dilibadzimu Township in Beitbridge further alleged that he bought a refrigerator for Chipembere worth R3 800, in order for his vehicles Gutu Motors and Travel Tour to gain free passage.He went on to tell the court that the two once impounded his Mercedes Benz sprinter registration number ABQ5160 at Masimbiti shopping centre along Ngundu-Tanganda highway before demanding a bribe from him.He further stated that he paid the two by transferring money through Ecocash amounts ranging from $16, $18, $50, $26, $52, and $60 throughout the year. The statement for the transactions made was produced in court. The matter came to light went he (Moyo) gave a bribe of $50 to Tinashe Chapungu also of the border control section and was subsequently arrested.However, the two's defence lawyer, Langton Mhungu argued that, never at any stage did his clients criminally abused their duties as police officers or unlawfully and intentionally received any money from Moyo. He went further to argue that the false allegations were, dubious and malicious cooked up for the sole purpose of running away the criminal case Moyo was arrested for.During cross examination, Mhungu said, "I won't be wrong if I call you a criminal, because you are an accomplice in this matter. Your evidence can not be relied on because you can deliberately lie or mislead the court in order to secure an indemnity from prosecution, or get a lighter sentence.Two were remanded out of custody to March 14 2018, for continuation of trial and the two state witnesses Paddington Mubayiwa and Jordan Patsika who Moyo's driver and assistant are expected to testify.News / National

by Staff Reporter

A source close to the embattled G40 former Minister of Tourism, Walter Mzembi has dismissed claims that Mzembi is part of the New Patriotic Front (NPF) outfit."Contrary to the report by the state run Herald, Walter Mzembi is not a member of the NPF. The report by the Herald is not true. Mzembi is currently preoccupied with his personal business ventures and not politics."The same source has reliably highlighted that just like Mzembi, the former sport minister, Makhosini Hlongwane is not part of the Mugabes' second-coming."In all confidence, I can assure you that Walter Mzembi and Makhosini Hlongwane are not part of the NPF project. I am even certain that they are not harbouring any intentions to destabilise the ZANU-PF vote in the coming elections. The two are just out of politics."This comes amid allegations that the NPF is still operating as a ghost political party ahead of the forthcoming 2018 polls with a key aim to sway ZANU-PF voter confidence.Mugabe and his wife Grace are key forces behind the NPF; as well as other exiled G40 principals who include Jonathan Moyo, Patrick Zhuwao and Saviour Kasukuwere.Mzembi and Hlongwane were part of the overthrown Mugabe administration following the military coup which saw the rise of the illegitimate Mnangagwa Government in November, 2017.The two former cabinet ministers have also suffered targeted incrimination by the Mnangagwa Government on allegations of abuse of office during their respective terms as ministers.Opinion / Columnist

ZIMBABWE can be a very interesting country. Even if one says tomorrow is Saturday, which it is, someone may decide to take you head on that, more like a person appointed by the Roman Catholic Church to challenge a proposed beatification or canonisation, or the verification of a miracle.There are such people everywhere; those who express contentious opinions to provoke debate or test the strength of opposing arguments. They play the devil's advocate. This seems to be what is happening now. You have political and military opinion leaders, as well as ordinary people who still claim what happened on November 14/15 last year in Zimbabwe was not a military coup.Muckraker was clear from day one: it was a coup d'etat in French, a putsch in Swiss German or golpe de estado in Spanish. In English it's simply a coup, borrowed from French. In simple terms there was an unconstitutional takeover of government, which resulted in the removal of an elected incumbent, in this case former president Robert Mugabe, never mind how controversial his election was. That's a different story.Why is this still an issue? Well, a senior military commander this week raised the debate when he claimed it was not a coup because the military did not take over the executive, judiciary or the legislature, as well as declare a state of emergency and suspend the constitution to rule through martial law. It sounds logical until you consider the upshot of the military intervention: forcing Mugabe to resign basically at gunpoint. Not that we care about Mugabe's fall (we have been arguing that he must go for over 20 years now), but we are concerned about the constitution, democracy and the well-being of the people, not Mugabe.Things vary in meaning depending on the framework you judge them in, which determines parameters of the debate. If you ask us whether is it rational and sound to say it was not a coup because the military did not directly and completely seize power, we will of course say it is not. The point is the military removed Mugabe and put their own man, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, which is a coup.The contrary view simply amounts to missing the forest for the trees; getting involved in details of an issue to the point of missing the bigger picture. Or alternatively, it is a devil's advocate perspective or argument for the sake of argument. In this tragic drama, we certainly need some comic relief like that from time to time.Devil's sermonWhich brings to us our lead story last week in which we reported in detail  almost verbatim  what Mugabe told Moussa Faki Mahamat, the African Union Commission chair at his Blue roof Mansion in Harare on February 19. On February 24, Mugabe was at it again when he protested in front of a handful of guests he had invited to his luxurious residency for his belated 94th birthday party.Mugabe's bitter protests and complaints can be summarised as follows:He was forced to resign on November 21 2017 by the military;The current Mnangagwa administration is unconstitutional;The country is now effectively running under military rule;There has been a degradation of political and civil liberties,Zimbabwe must go back to a constitutional and legal order;Elections won't be free and fair due to military interference;His beloved wife Grace cries daily because of harassment;Grace didn't get her PhD fraudulently, she worked for it; andHis family is being denied its constitutional benefits (pension).Look, there is no question about the unconstitutional change of government. The reason why Sadc, AU and the international community kept quiet or gave tacit support to Mnangagwa and the military is simply that they were tired of Mugabe. More importantly, Zimbabweans joined in the fray by protesting against Mugabe while supporting the military intervention. That was the turning point. Without the people's support, the army was going to find itself operating between the devil and a deep blue sea. So Mugabe is right on some of these issues. It is harebrained to say the coup was right because Mugabe was a dictator. It's a ridiculous argument.However, that is as far as it goes.The trouble here is that Mugabe has no moral authority to talk about democracy and military interference in politics given his misrule and tyranny, and indeed use of the military to hang onto power. He has lost the moral high ground on that. He cannot credibly pontificate about democracy and freedom when his repressive regime denied people the same and left a trail of atrocities against dissenters. Those who dared stand up or oppose Mugabe's government were intimidated, harassed, attacked, maimed or killed. Strange that he now says if you oppose Mnangagwa and his regime they say "you must die". That is exactly what used to happen during his era.Make no mistake, for ordinary people and us it was always going to be important to celebrate the downfall of Mugabe, one of Africa's last standing dictators who ruled Zimbabwe with an iron fist for 37 years.His authoritarian and disastrous rule perpetrated untold damage to the nation and its people. For the majority, the disintegration of Mugabe's dictatorship simply provides a starting point, perhaps under conditions of enhanced freedom and limited economic recovery.Serious political, economic, and social problems will continue for years, requiring the regrouping of democratic forces to continue with the campaign for fundamental reform and enduring change.Yet it is not lost on us that Mugabe's departure may not necessarily lead to a new dispensation. Aristotle warned a long ago: "Tyranny can also change into tyranny". We are not yet there, but Mnangagwa must avoid that path.In the meantime, Mugabe must spare us his devil's sermons, sit down, chill and write memoirs on how dictators fall or on how not govern  him being the case study!Ziyambi hypocrisyJustice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi was in Geneva this week at the 37th session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva Switzerland. "We continue to consolidate and deepen constitutionalism in Zimbabwe, including the holding of elections every five years. Concrete measures to align Zimbabwe's domestic laws with international human rights instruments that it is part to, are also being undertaken," Ziyambi told the 37th session of the council.As he pontificated about upholding international human rights, back home he had incredibly booked every venue daily in his constituency until the end of campaigning for the next general elections as a way of shutting out the opposition. In a letter to Zvimba rural district council, Ziyambi ordered that no political party should be allowed to hold rallies in the district as all the venues are booked till the end of August 2018. There you have it folks. This is madness. He is such a funny or ridiculous guy. That Ziyambi preaches democracy in Geneva, while practicing fascism back home shows he is a big hypocrite.Reality checkThe excitement and hope brought about by the "new dispensation" is now evaporating faster than dew in sweltering heat. For instance, the expectation that Mnangagwa and his government would solve the country's acute cash shortages was dissipated by Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa's admission in Parliament recently that the crisis will not be resolved any time soon. He said this was as a result of lack of confidence in banks. This is not surprising as no one will deposit money knowing that they will struggle to get it out when they need it. How investors are to have any confidence to come in such circumstances boggles the mind. Chinamasa's admission just goes to show that the new regime's first 100 days have been a damp squib despite the state media's puerile propaganda. Muckraker does not expect Mnangagwa to wave a magic wand and resolve Zimbabwe's multifaceted problems in 100 days, but his officials and himself must understand that direction is more important that speed in this game. So don't promise things you can't do please!Opinion / Columnist

The history of Zimbabwe will never ever be complete without the mentioning of the name of its first Executive Prime Minister and then President, Cde R.G Mugabe, never!!! He fronted the liberation struggle with the likes of Joshua Nkomo, Josiah Magama Tongogara, Jason Ziyapapa Moyo, Leopold Takawira only to mention a few. He presided as the prime minister and later executive president for a period of 37 (Thirty seven) years.During his reigns, he managed to open Zimbabwe to the world, transforming most of its 'crude' institutions into polished ones. Amongst the institutions, the Zimbabwe Defence Force (ZDF) is one of them, where he was the Commander-In-Chief, until he left office. Under his stewerdship, the ZDF managed to maintain peace in Zimbabwe and abroad. Good examples on foreign missions being the ZDF involvement in the Mozambican Civil War between 1983 until 1992.From being one of Africa's post-cold war peacekeeping powerhouses in the 1990's over the past decades, Zimbabwe's contributions to the United Nations Peace operations have been modest. Zimbabwe's first United Nations deployment came in 1991 in the United Nations Verification Mission in Angola(UNAVEM II).The good performance of the Zimbabwean detachment earned the country a credible reputation of professionalism that led to further UN requests for its personnel since then, particularly the Zimbabwe National Army.In 1992, Zimbabwe was seconded for troop deployment to Somalia (UNISOM II) until 1994.In 1998 to 2002, the army was on a mission to the then Congo war. All missions were undertaken with distinction. Thanks to the policies of the then Commander-In-Chief, for making all the above initiatives!!!A direct inference of the now former President and Commander-In-Chief's statement that was quoted in one of the weekly publication, and just to repeat the quote,"...the same colourful soldiers are uneducated people who are jealous of Intelligence operatives who are paid more than them. Cde Mugabe told guests at his private party that,"...the military had sided with President E.D Mnangagwa, accusing them of beating Intelligence personnel saying they were paid higher than them. You wear good 'suits' hence protecting Mugabe.....aaah they didn't know that you do not need to be educated to be a soldier. Normally soldiers are recruited from Grade 7 or Form 2, while the Intelligence team is recruited from those who are educated"We acknowledge that it is within his rights to express his mind and views as provided by the country's constitution, I believe the former president is overreacting hear. Those rights, as they are provided in CHAPTER 4 of the constitution under Bill Rights section 44-87, it must be noted that the rights in the BILL OF RIGHTS are not absolute. They may be limited by a law that complies with section 86 of the constitution. He ought to respect the rights of Zimbabweans as the people expressed their views democratically. Certain rights of individuals cannot be taken away by one person or state if they are within the constitution. These are called fundamental rights and freedom. If the former president feels his rights were infringed he is free to approach the courts and challenge the infringement.Truly, the former President's statements were triggered by the actions of the soldiers under the command of the then General Chiwenga on the 15th of November 2017.He accuses the soldiers of rolling out Tanks to the streets during Operation Restore Legacy, which saw him leaving the hot seat together with the criminals which surrounded him. There is no any positive relationship between being unlearned and the presence of tanks in the streets. The former president forgets that the secure environment that all of us, including him, have enjoyed as a country has not been a walk in the park for the Defence Forces. While our perennial adversaries worked round the clock to frustrate our security and integrity, the Zimbabwe National Army has always been alert to these machinations and maneuvers, and being equal to the task, they have succeeded in overcoming any such challenges.Legal experts including continental Blocks extolled the Zimbabwe National Army for its political stabilisation intervention, which they said was done in the spirit of national interest and security. They argued that all was done in accordance with the dictates of and tenets of the constitution and in respect of Sadc and AU security protocols. All was done in a way that prevented even a single drop of blood, promoting national peace and development a clear sign that our soldiers are educated, according to the specifications of their profession. Education in its widest sense is learning to live and interact, so can we say the ZDF members are academic midgets?To drive my point that the ZNA members are educated home, on the 15th of November 2017, knowing that Cde Mugabe had been put under house arrest, they acted with considerable restraint and commendable respect for the people and the incumbent President,R.G Mugabe. The millitary received everyone's imprimatur and support across the political divide. They did what they did whilst emphatically reaffirming President Mugabe as the Head of State and Government at the time, and their Commander-In-Chief.Beyond any stretch of imagination, it is unbelievable to say our Zimbabwean soldiers are uneducated, when Cde Mugabe used to boast of the Officer Cadets where Advanced level is a strict requirement. It is disputable when most colleges and Universities in the country are taught by ZNA lecturers.The former president is not new to 'throwing' insults to government workers. At one time he told teachers in the country that he himself was once a teacher, but left the profession when he realised that it was not a rewarding choice. Most viewed such rantings as either a joke or one of the greatest errors or reckless statements he made in his thirty something years' career.Making such derogatory statements, whether targeted at teachers or soldiers is counted as an effrontery. Impudence at its peak! Cde Mugabe's statement against soldiers, to say the truth was wild, incoherent and inconsistent with their track record, it was emotional, with normative prevarications which are not supported by any empirical evidence.It is not surprising that Cde Mugabe is being fed with lies against the sitting President, Cde E.D Mnangagwa by double standards people or bootlickers. These people are trading double edged swords between the two. We have seen many who we know to have been too loyal to Cde Mugabe, trying to gossip him, undermining his relationship with President Mnangagwa, or vice versa, in order to try and preserve their own employment and financial assets et cetera. This is highly uncalled for. Within the same current government, not so many changes were made in terms of personnel, yet another loophole through which information continues to leak to people like Jonathan Moyo and the other G40 members; it goes without saying it that they are well informed about the going's-on in the party.It is only Cde ED Mnangagwa who had the temerity to tell the then President Mugabe that the people had spoken in their numbers against him. Many were afraid of doing this, even up to now they play blame games, thinking maybe one day he would bounce back to power, NEVER!!!!Not even a single day had former President Mugabe listened to the people's voice like President Mnangagwa does. The police were a nuisance in the country and their high corrupt tendencies costs Zimbabwe as a country as they scared away tourists. The former president never acted but the people were crying louder day by day.He was given the utmost protection between 15 and 24 November 2017 when the public bay for his head, live or dead!!! His statement was a mockery to the ZDF who oversees his everyday life in the country and this cannot be taken serious by average thinking people as they all knew that he was old and obviously age is taking its tow.Bumble vs. Tinder: Which Is Better?

Which of These Popular Dating Apps Deserves Your Time?

With so many sites and apps out there focused on dating, it can be tough at times when deciding how to approach the concept. The pure proliferation of these digital dating options might even have you wishing for the return of analog ones, like IRL speed dating or personals in the local newspaper. But lest you get discouraged before even taking a shot at all, you might want to consider what are perhaps two of the top apps in the online dating game at the moment: Tinder and Bumble.

RELATED: All the Best Online Dating Sites and Apps, Reviewed

Though Tinder was launched in September 2012, a little over two years before Bumbles December 2014 launch, its younger app sibling has covered a fair amount of cultural ground in recent years. While Tinders raw user numbers dwarf Bumbles  in no small part because of its success outside the United States, making it a truly global app  Bumble is still the second highest-grossing dating app in the world, boasting over 12.3 million monthly active users, according to SensorTower.

One noteworthy aspect linking the two apps is the fact that Bumbles founder, Whitney Wolfe Herd, is an ex-Tinder employee who left the company determined to start her own app after her negative experiences at Tinder. But perhaps the most salient reason to compare the two is the fact that Bumble has been billed as an alternative to Tinder since it first launched  specifically, its often referred to as feminist Tinder.

Thats because the basic mechanics of the two apps are essentially identical  you swipe through a seemingly endless stack of other users profile photos (right to indicate your interest in them and left to indicate your non-interest), then when two users have both swiped right on each other, theyre notified and given the opportunity to chat with one another. Now, heres where we see one simple but impactful difference: On Bumble, straight men cant message women until the woman has initiated the conversation.

So what does that mean for you? Will you have a better success rate on Tinder or Bumble? Well, it depends on what youre looking for. Read on to discover which app offers the better online dating experience for you.

1. Tinder's Features vs. Bumble's Features

When Tinder launched in 2012, its popularity was in large part the product of three noteworthy features:

A geolocating feature that showed you only users within a certain radius of you

The ability to swipe on other users profile pictures to indicate your interest

The fact that unless you matched, you couldnt message anyone

While the geolocating feature was similar to the one that had driven the incredible success of Grindr, the hookup app for gay men launched in 2009, Tinder was the first time it had been used in a dating app for people who identified as straight.

That aspect, along with the other two aforementioned features, help shift online dating from a tedious, reading-heavy process into something that felt more like a fun, instantly responsive mobile game.

The app was addictive, and its success led to established competitors like OkCupid designing Tinder-like versions of their own site, as well as the creation of brand new apps with similar layouts. The most prominent of those has been Bumble, which replicates the profile pic-swiping mechanism and the geolocation-based aspect as well.

Since their creation, however, both apps have added myriad new features and options in an attempt to improve to keep things fresh and exciting.

RELATED: The Ultimate AskMen Guide to Tinder

You can now link your Tinder and Bumble profile with your Instagram and Spotify accounts, for instance, allowing people to see what your photos are like outside of the ones youve uploaded, as well as sample your taste in music.

Both and Tinder also now allow users to undo an accidental left-swipes, though both apps embed this feature within their paid memberships. And in the last two years, both apps added the ability to conduct in-app video calls, without having to share personal information like a phone number or last name.

Winner: Tie

Bumble

2. Tinder's Sign-Up Process vs. Bumble's Sign-Up Process

Unlike the lengthy sign-up processes of online dating sites in the early 2000s, well-run apps in todays day and age have A/B tested the sign-up process into oblivion, and have largely concluded that the faster, the better. As a result, signing up for either app is pretty straightforward, and doesnt involve filling out any forms or conveying much personal data or preferences. In order to discourage fake accounts, both Bumble and Tinder ask you to sign up using some means of identity-verification  your phone number, in Tinders case, or your phone number, Facebook account or Apple ID in Bumbles.

RELATED: How to Use Bumble to Get a Date

After creating the account, youre prompted to build your profile.

On Bumble, you'll share your first name and then add a minimum of two (and maximum of six) photos, either from Instagram, Facebook, or your camera/camera roll. You'll also have to share your date of birth with Bumble (only adults 18+ can use Bumble), though they'll only show your age to potential matches. Next, you'll select your gender (woman, man or non-binary), or click "more gender options" to access an extensive list of gender identities  including trans identities, gender-fluid identities, gender-questioning, etc  sourced in conjunction with GLAAD, HRC and other LGBTQIA+ advocacy groups (major props to Bumble!).

Once you've shared this personal info with Bumble, you'll be prompted to choose one of three ways to use the app: Bumble Bizz for professional networking, Bumble BFF for finding friends, and Bumble Dating for making romantic connections. If you choose the dating option, you'll be asked which gender you're interested in connecting with, as well as to say what you're looking for on the app: "something casual," "not sure yet," "a relationship" or "prefer not to say." Finally, you'll be asked to supply a recovery email address, in the event that you somehow lose access to your account, as well as agree to Bumble's Registration Pledge, essentially stipulating that you'll be on your best behavior while using the app or else they'll reserve the right to kick you off. This is part of Bumble's commitment to removing the toxicity that tends to seep into online dating, and we're all for it.

I'd also like to add an aside about Bumble's Photo Verification software. When I was supplied with a free premium account for the purposes of this review, I initiated my account by uploading photos of my dog (because I'm not currently looking for romance). Maybe five minutes passed before the software alerted me that my photos weren't valid and I'd have to upload photos of my face. Bumble even takes things a step further: you can get a blue "safety shield" icon added to your account if you complete their photo verification process, to help minimize catfishing.

Tinders process is slightly different  after adding your name, your birthday and identifying yourself as either man or woman, youre given the opportunity to add the school youre attending before uploading any pictures. Swiping starts right after you select your sexual orientation and gender preferences (men, women or everyone).

One of the longstanding criticisms of Tinder was safety, as their fast signup process made it easy for bots, catfishers and other unsavory people to use the app, but in 2020 they addressed these concerns through their own Photo Verification software, enabling users to trust that the person they're matching with is who they say they are. Users who verify, by taking a series of real-time selfies in specific poses, will be granted a blue check in their profiles.

Both apps allow for more details to be filled in later on, but you can basically jump into using the apps to their full capacity within a minute or two at most. That having been said, because of its slew of extra options, and its straight forward approach, we give the edge to Bumble.

Winner: Bumble

Tinder

3. Tinder's Pricing vs. Bumble's Pricing

Since their respective launches, both apps have been free to download and use, meaning you can match and exchange messages with real people without ever paying a dime. However, as with many ostensibly free apps  dating or otherwise  Tinder and Bumble monetize their platforms by charging for certain bonus features and restricting what free users can do in some cases.

Tinder, in particular, has clamped down on the free usage of its app in recent years by limiting the number of swipes users can make in a single day, allowing for 100 right swipes per day. That might sound like a lot to the uninitiated, but depending on how picky you are and how quickly you go through profiles, you could easily burn through them in just 15 minutes or so.

Tinder now offers three subscription tiers, in ascending order of price and features: Tinder Plus, Tinder Gold, and Tinder Platinum, with the prices varying by your region. The basic Tinder Plus account hides ads, gives you unlimited likes and Rewinds (undoing an accidental swipe), and the ability to use their Passport feature to swipe internationally. Tinder Gold gives you all of these features, plus free Super Likes (allowing the person to know you've liked them), a curated list of potential matches ("Top Picks"), a list of people who have liked you, and a free profile boost each month, making you more visible to singles in your area. Tinder Platinum adds all the aforementioned features, plus the ability to send messages to people before matching with them, plus Priority Likes, which causes your Likes and Super Likes to show up faster than non-subscribers.

Bumble offers just two subscription tiers: Bumble Boost and Bumble Premium. Bumble Boost starts at $7.99 per month in the United States, and can be purchased in periods of one week, one month, three months or six months. Boost offers unlimited likes and "Backtracks" (the ability to undo an accidental left-swipe), plus it gives users the ability to extend the shelf-life of matches past the 24-hour cutoff point (Extend), one Spotlight (a profile visibility boost) per week, and 5 SuperSwipes (lets someone know you liked their profile) per week.

Bumble Premium adds all of the above features, plus the ability to swipe without people seeing your profile (Incognito), the ability to swipe in other cities and countries (Travel mode), the ability to see who has liked your profile (Beeline), and unlimited "advanced filters," allowing you to filer matches based on religion, politics, attitude towards pets, fitness, and even astrology signs.

Is there a clear winner here? We don't think so.

Winner: Tie

4. Tinder's User Base vs. Bumble's User Base

Tinders approach when discussing its user base has been to publicize the number of swipes and matches occurring, rather than the raw number of daily, monthly or total users. Its site currently boasts that its users generate 2 billion views per day, 1.5 million dates per week, and over 65 billion total matches across over 190 countries and 40 languages since it was founded. With numbers like that, it might be easier to just list the number of singles who arent on Tinder.

However, that crowd of users doesnt necessarily work in your favor. Since the concept of Tinder is built around you deciding what you like rather than an algorithm, the majority of people you swipe through will be people youre probably not that interested in. If you live in a major metropolitan area and are really picky, you might just have to devote serious amounts of time to swiping through them all.

Bumble, meanwhile, benefits from having a slightly less popular app thats geared to a specific population. Based on reading reviews, the stereotypical Bumble user is college educated, attractive and polite, so while youve got fewer options to choose from, youre also probably spending less time left-swiping people youre not interested in.

Winner: Tinder

5. Tinder's Aesthetics/Interface vs. Bumble's Aesthetics/Interface

Tinder and Bumble both make use of an interface thats primarily composed of two modes: the image-focused swiping mode and the text-like chat mode where you interact with your matches (though both apps have since added video calling as well). Since swiping mode is so intuitive (left for dislike, right for like on both apps) and the chat mode so closely resembles standard text-messaging functionality for iOS and Android phones, the interface is easy to adapt to.

However, there are a few differences in terms of how the swiping works between the two apps: On Tinder, you swipe through your potential matches photos, whereas on Bumble you scroll down. And, most importantly, Tinder allows for instant conversation once a match is made, while Bumble conversations (in heterosexual relationships) can only begin when the woman makes the first move. Tinder matches are also permanent (unless one of the members deletes the match), whereas Bumble matches expire after 24 hours, so there's a sense of urgency on Bumble.

Regardless, both apps are well-designed  easy to use and regularly updated to keep up with the times. Compared to the rest of the online dating game, Tinder and Bumble are the cream of the crop ...at least for the time being.

Winner: Tie

6. Best for Hooking Up: Tinder or Bumble?

When looking for hookups, Tinders big user base and ease-of-use approach works in your favor. Not only is it jam-packed with an incredible number of people who appear to be looking for the dopamine rush from a match notification, the apps focus on surface-level interactions is distinctly hookup-friendly.

You swipe on people based on how they look, not who they are, and matches can start chatting immediately in every case. That mentality syncs up nicely with what people might be looking for in a no-strings-attached hookup, which is a base physical attraction with no delays.

In this arena, Bumbles unique conversational mechanism  which insists the woman send the first message, deleting matches that dont speak within 24 hours  is something that often means matches go nowhere without any actual conversation. On the flip side, of course, many Tinder matches go nowhere despite conversation, so you might not be losing much.

As well, Bumbles reputation for being a bit classier, stocked with people with high-minded and forward-thinking ideals, might actually work against its success as a hookup option. Sure, modern progressivism tends to be very sex-positive, but the people you find on the app might be choosier, more interested in relationships or even people you dont want to have a simple hookup with.

At the end of the day, Tinders vaguely seedy reputation is actually an asset when it comes to hookups. Since theres a lower expectation of quality matches, people dont go there expecting the same level of courtship. That means youre more likely to run into a fellow hookup-seeker on Tinder than on Bumble, even if it also means youre also more likely to swipe through a lot of people youre not interested in (and who arent interested in you).

Winner: Tinder

7. Best for Relationships: Tinder or Bumble?

When it comes to finding relationships, however, youre confronted with the same issue that people have been dealing with since the advent of online dating  is it better to meet a large quantity of potential partners, or a smaller, more curated number?

If you take the former approach, youre likely to slog through a lot of people with whom youre totally incompatible. That could mean hours and hours and hours of swiping (over months or even years), or spending time and money going on some seriously bad dates.

If you take the latter approach because youre holding out for a soulmate, its hard to argue that either app is necessarily better. Now, if youre looking for someone you could realistically date and introduce to your friends and family, Bumble is probably the better bet.

For starters, its gender numbers are much closer to being equal than Tinders  at least, according to the available data  with Bumble boasting 46 percent women. Tinder keeps their gender breakdown under wraps, but studies have put it at closer to one-third women  meaning if youre looking for a relationship with a woman, youre dealing with less competition.

If you bring that sext-first, ask-questions-later mentality that you see from some guys on Tinder, youre unlikely to have a high success rate on Bumble. But if you approach it with patience and a sense of respect for the people you right swipe on, you and Bumble could be a match made in heaven.

Winner: Bumble

8. Best for Men: Tinder or Bumble?

If you're a guy, you might be wondering, "OK, but which one is better for me?" Truth be told, you can't really answer that question for all men. For starters, gay guys use both apps  but they're less popular in the queer community than dating apps dedicated for gay men  so whether you're looking for men, women, non-binary people or some combination of all of the above won't necessarily impact which you prefer.

Second, whether you prefer to send the opening message or sit back and wait for the messages to roll in depends on what kind of guy you are. Depending on how comfortable you are in your masculinity, and how likely you think you are to get matches and messages without initiating, you might prefer Bumble.

On the flip side, if you're all about crafting a killer opening line and you want to spend all of your free time swiping on people regardless of whether it'll lead to a date, Tinder might be the app for you.

The tenor of a dating app can very much change over time, but at least right now, two options are so closely matched (pun intended) in so many ways, it's hard to name a clear winner when it comes to the male experience. If you're genuinely not sure which to try out, you could flip a coin  or download them both and give them a test-swipe.

Winner: Tie

9. Alternatives If You Dont Like Bumble or Tinder

Neither Tinder nor Bumble sounding that good to you? Thats totally understandable. As popular as theyve been in recent years, the swipe-first model isnt for everyone. If youre one of those people who still likes finding love  or a lover  the old fashioned way, by filling out a detailed profile, keep reading for some good alternatives.

Match

Looking for something a little classic in the face of the Johnnies-come-lately of the online dating game? Match.com is the dating site for you. Theyve been around for about two decades, but rather than being some dusty relic of dating days gone by, theyve remained at the top with state-of-the-art features and a beautiful and easy-to-use interface. You really cant go wrong with Match.

Check i out

Zoosk

That being said, maybe youre looking for something a little more zippy. Zoosk might be just that. While they dont have Matchs pedigree, Zoosk has established a name for themselves with great usability and a large and date-able database. Theres a reason they received the highest rating in AskMens dating site reviews  go check them out and see why.

Check it out

XMatch

Unless you were looking for something that was a little less relationship and a little more sex? If so, dont be ashamed. Tinder has a reputation for being a hookup app, but these days its full of people looking for love, too. XMatch, however, has retained its sex-first, ask-questions-later mentality: Its user base is there for short-term arrangements, not long-term engagements.

Check it out

You Might Also Dig:By Nadoun Coulibaly OUAGADOUGOU (Reuters) - Attackers in Burkina Faso's capital killed eight people and wounded dozens more in a coordinated assault on the army headquarters and French embassy that France's foreign minister said was likely carried out by "terrorist groups". West Africa's arid Sahel region is suffering a spike in violence by militant groups, some with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State, that is drawing an increasingly aggressive response from countries including France and the United States. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which is the third major assault on Ouagadougou in just over two years. Previous attacks were conducted by allies of al Qaeda in reprisal for Burkina Faso's participation in a regional fight against Islamist militants. "Everything suggests that this attack was carried out by terrorist groups," Jean-Yves Le Drian told LCI television. "France is determined to relentlessly fight these terrorist groups that want to destabilise the (West Africa) region and who are a serious danger to our security and interests." Burkinabe state television said the unidentified gunmen killed five soldiers and wounded 64 at the military headquarters. Two members of Burkina Faso's paramilitary gendarmes were killed defending the embassy. President Roch Kabore tweeted that the death toll had risen to eight. Le Drian said that there were "numerous" Burkinabe victims at the army headquarters, but that no French nationals had been killed in the simultaneous attacks. The national police said in a statement that eight gunmen were killed: four at the embassy and four at the army headquarters. Two attackers were captured, according to military source and state television. Witnesses said masked gunmen attacked the downtown army headquarters at around 10 a.m. (1000 GMT). "I saw people with sacks on their backs attack the guard. Then I heard the explosion. I saw soldiers flee the army headquarters building running," witness Kader Sanou told Reuters. The explosion inside the headquarters shook surrounding buildings, set the compound on fire and sent up a thick column of black smoke. Panicked residents fled the city centre on foot or motorbikes as dozens of Burkina Faso soldiers and armoured vehicles took up positions in the area. A Reuters reporter saw an ambulance entering the army compound. FRENCH TARGETS Around two kilometres (1.24 miles) away the French embassy also came under attack after a van sought to break through the buildings' barrier. Le Drian said the damage at the embassy was relatively minor. France's defence ministry said French special forces, which have a base in the country, were used to protect French citizens and secure the embassy. Police also took up positions near the offices of the prime minister where gunfire was also reported. A Reuters reporter said gunfire had largely ceased by noon. The French targets attacked are symbolic given that President Emmanuel Macron chose to outline his Africa strategy, including the fight against militants, in Ouagadougou in November. Burkina is a former French colony and, like several others countries in west and central Africa, retains close security and trade links with Paris. The landlocked country of around 19 million exports cotton and gold. Macron, who spoke to President Kabore by phone, condemned the attack and said Paris was fully committed to the region, where France has some 4,500 soldiers as part of a counter-terrorism force since it intervened against militants in Mali in 2013. Islamist groups have stepped up attacks in major cities in West Africa the last few years, including deadly assaults in Mali, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast and Niger. Suspected jihadists killed at least 18 people last August during a raid on a restaurant in Ouagadougou, and militants have targeted Burkinabe security forces along its remote northern border region with Mali. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for an attack on a restaurant and hotel in Ouagadougou in January 2016 in which 30 people were killed. Five countries - Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad, Mali and Mauritania - backed by France, launched a new taskforce last year to tackle Islamist militants in the region, to which international donors have committed half a billion dollars. (Additional reporting by Aaron Ross in Dakar, Souleymane Ag Anara in Niamey and John Irish, Emmanuel Jarry, Jean-Baptiste Vey, Sophie Louet and Richard Lough in Paris; Writing by Joe Bavier, Edward McAllister and John Irish; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)By Prak Chan Thul PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodia's former opposition leader Sam Rainsy said on Sunday he was open to talks with Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has held power since 1985, to end a crisis caused by the dissolution of the main opposition party ahead of elections in July. The Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) was dissolved by the Supreme Court last November at the request of Hun Sen's government who said they had been plotting to take power with the help of the United States. The CNRP denies the allegation. The dissolution followed the arrest of party leader Kem Sokha who was also accused of plotting to take power with U.S. help. That charged was mounted because of the threat the CNRP posed at the elections set for July 29, he said. Sam Rainsy resigned as president of the CNRP in 2017 but remains one of the government's most visible critics. He had previously served as finance minister in an ill-fated coalition set up when Hun Sen refused to give up power after losing a U.N.-organized election in 1993. He has lived in France since 2015 to avoid a series of convictions he says are politically motivated. "I am always open to meeting with Hun Sen's government in order to find a peaceful solution to this unprecedented crisis, a solution that would be acceptable to both sides with international guarantees," Sam Rainsy said in a tweet on Sunday. They were his first comments on the matter since the opposition was banned. Hun Sen has been criticized by Western countries over the CNRP's dissolution and the arrest of Kem Sokha ahead of the July 29 general election. A crackdown by Hun Sen's government and its allies has included non-governmental organizations, opposition lawmakers and some independent media. Hun Sen, who will visit Australia in mid-March for a regional meeting, said on Friday he is open to holding talks to end the crisis but would not negotiate a change to criminal convictions brought against opposition figures. A spokesman for Hun Sen's Cambodian People's Party said on Sunday that Sam Rainsy was not serious about holding talks. "He has no way out," Sok Eysan told Reuters. "The culture of dialogue is dead and he has to face prison for crimes he's has committed." (Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Matthew Mpoke Bigg)Everything We Know About The Central Michigan University Shooting So Far

A student from Central Michigan University was arrested on Saturday after shooting his parents on campus after a day-long manhunt.

The suspect, James Eric Davis Jr., 19, was found around 12:15 a.m. along the train tracks by a bystander on a train passing through the north end of campus in Mount Pleasant and called authorities. Davis was arrested a short time after.

The danger our community has endured for the past 24 hours is over, said Bill Yeagley of the Central Michigan University police department during a press conference on Saturday.

Trending: Oscars 2018 Red Carpet Live Stream: When and Where to Watch Celebrity Arrivals

The shooting occurred on Friday at Campbell Hall a little before 9 a.m. during the time parents were picking up students for spring break. The victims, Dina Davis and James Davis Sr. were shot in their sons dorm room before he took off.

Heres what we know about the shooting so far:

Davis thought he was being threatened by another person: Authorities said during a press conference that on Thursday, March 1, Davis approached campus police and said someone was trying to hurt him. Davis claimed this person had a gun but was very vague on why he wanted to harm him, according to police.

Davis then told officers the man who wanted to hurt him had a warrant for his arrest because he had previously committed a murder. Police told reporters they found the individual, who had no registered weapon and did not pose a threat to him.

Don't miss: Man Shot At His Own Party After Putting On Bulletproof Vest

Everything was very vague, but we did get a name of someone who might be involved in threatening Mr. Davis, said Yeagley. We located the individual and interviewed him. This man did not pose a threat to Davis or any other individual.

Campus police approached the teen again on Friday, March 2 around 1 a.m. to find that he had multiple bags outside of his dorm room. When they questioned Davis Jr., campus authorities said he was not making any sense. His parents were immediately called, and Davis Jr. was taken to a local hospital. Authorities said this could be due to a possible drug-related incident, but did not release any further details.

Story continues

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Davis is currently in the hospital being treated for hypothermia: After apprehending the suspect, Davis Jr. was taken to a local hospital to be treated for hypothermia.

Most popular: Oscar Nominees 2018 List: How To Pretend You've Seen All the Nominated Films

He was clearly cold and life was not making sense to him at that moment, said Yeagley.

Yeagley said there were no immediate questions asked, but he will be transferred to Isabella County Jail once he is released from the hospital.

The gun was registered under his father's name: Yeagley told reporters during the press conference that the gun Davis Jr. used to shoot his parents was registered to his father. Davis Sr. was a part-time police officer in Chicago.

The shooting at Central Michigan University today strikes close to home. A sad day in Bellwood and across the 7th District. My sincerest condolences go out to the family of Bellwood Police Officer James Davis Sr. and his wife who were shot and killed this morning. May they RIP, tweeted Rep. Emanuel Chris Welch.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Authorities said there are videos and photos of Davis Jr. carrying his fathers gun from the parking lot into the residence hall.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekBy Guy Faulconbridge and Alistair Smout LONDON (Reuters) - Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, who was convicted by Russia of betraying agents to British intelligence, was critically ill on Monday after exposure to an unidentified substance in Britain, two sources close to the investigation told Reuters. British police said two people, a 66-year-old man and a 33-year-old woman, had been found unconscious on a bench in a shopping center on Sunday in the southern English city of Salisbury after exposure to the unknown substance. Both are critically ill in intensive care. Police declared a major incident. Skripal, once a colonel in Russia's GRU military intelligence service, was convicted in Russia of treason in 2006 but exchanged as part of a Cold War-style spy swap in 2010 on the tarmac of Vienna airport. Skripal is 66 years old. British police did not release the names of those who were being treated but two sources close to the investigation told Reuters that the critically ill man was Skripal. It was unclear what the substance was, they said. "This has not been declared as a counter-terrorism incident and we would urge people not to speculate," Wiltshire police's Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden told reporters. "However, I must emphasize that we retain an open mind, and that we continue to review this position." Relations between Britain and Russia have been strained since the murder of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium-210 in London in 2006, a killing which a British inquiry said was probably approved by President Vladimir Putin. The Kremlin has repeatedly denied any involvement in the killing. Litvinenko, 43, an outspoken critic of Putin who fled Russia for Britain six years to the day before he was poisoned, died after drinking green tea laced with the rare and very potent radioactive isotope at Londons Millennium Hotel. It took some time for British doctors to discern the cause of Litvinenko's illness. SPY SWAP Skripal, who was arrested in 2004 by Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) on suspicion of betraying dozens of Russian agents to British intelligence, was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006. But he was later pardoned in 2010 by then-President Dmitry Medvedev as part of a spy swap to bring 10 Russian agents held in the United States back to Moscow. The swap, one of the biggest since the Cold War ended in 1991, took place on the tarmac of Vienna airport where a Russian and a U.S. jet parked side by side before the agents were exchanged. One of the Russian spies exchanged for Skripal was Anna Chapman, who was greeted as a hero by the Kremlin. She was one of 10 spies who tried to blend in to American society in an apparent bid to get close to power brokers and learn secrets. They were arrested by the FBI in 2010. Putin, himself a former KGB officer, sang patriotic songs with the returned spies. Since finding refuge in Britain, Skripal kept largely out of the spotlight until he was seen making strange movements on a bench in Wiltshire on Sunday. "On the bench there was a couple, an older guy and a younger girl. She was sort of leant-in on him, it looked like she'd passed out maybe. He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky," witness Freya Church told the BBC. "They looked so out of it that I thought even if I did step in I wasn't sure how I could help, so I just left them. But it looked like they'd been taking something quite strong." (Reporting by Alistair Smout, William Schomberg and Andy Bruce in London and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)Protecting the world's special places  one motorcycle at a time.

That's how Rally for Rangers states its purpose: the foundation raises funds to purchase new motorbikes and gear for rangers in some of the world's most remote natural parks.

Later this year, some 15 riders will be heading to South America's sparsely-populated Patagonia region to take part in a gruelling 1,500-kilometre rally  and Ottawa dirt biker Mike Cox is one of them.

Cox told CBC Radio's In Town and Out that he first heard about the rally through a friend and decided to sign up.

"My initial reaction was, yeah, OK, whatever! And then I'm sitting in my office, and it's late at night, and I thought, well, what the heck."

Cox said he's raised about a third of his $11,000 fundraising goal, which included a donation from Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.

He added that he's not fazed by the danger and challenges inherent in the rally.

"I've broken the odd bone, but you know, they heal," he said. "Maybe a little slower at my age, but it doesn't scare me off."

Rally for Rangers first took shape in 2013, when former U.S. park ranger Robert McIntosh was working in Mongolia to help strengthen the country's national park system.

After seeing that park rangers were in dire need of equipment, McIntosh pledged to return the following year to deliver a new dirt bike.

Once back home in the U.S., he soon enlisted dirt bike riders to take part in what became the group's first rally in Mongolia.

Adventure  but also advocacy

While the thrill of the adventure is part of the attraction, Rally for Rangers co-founder Tom Medema told In Town and Out the goal is above all to help the rangers do their job.

"They're trying to protect some of the last pristine resources on earth," Medema said.

"And they just don't have the resources that they need."

Medema says the rangers have to deal not only with well-equipped poachers, but also with illegal mining and other harmful development.

Story continues

"When you combine that environmental protection and helping these rangers with the adventure of a lifetime, it's hard to pass that up," he said.

'Not for the faint of heart'

Besides new dirt bikes, rally participants have also delivered other gear to the rangers, including new tents and sleeping bags, GPS units and binoculars.

After three rallies in Mongolia, this December's Patagonia ride marks the first time they've branched out of Asia.

"It's not for the faint of heart," Medema said of the trek, which includes vast stretches of roadless areas, dirt trails and river crossings.

"It's rough. It's rugged. It takes a lot of stamina,"

Besides the rally in Patagonia, the group will also be hosting another rally in the Altai Tavan Bogd National Park of Mongolia.Winnipeg relative says widow and baby in more limbo as they hide in Afghanistan

A Winnipeg couple, who say their son was executed after his family allowed his sisters to go to school abroad, is begging the Canadian government to help bring their daughter-in-law and grandson out of hiding in Afghanistan to Canada.

CBC has agreed to conceal the identity of the family out of concerns it could draw attention to their loved ones in hiding.

"I'm the unluckiest mother who never got to see her son  I came here with the hope that I will be saving them," said the mother of the slain man while fighting back tears speaking through a translator. "I'm living with that hope and this life otherwise doesn't mean anything to me."

The woman said she last saw her son three years ago in Afghanistan. He was shot and executed in the Afghan capital, Kabul, last September and his family believes the Taliban is behind the killing.

She and her husband are asking Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada for an emergency intervention and have written to MP and federal cabinet minister Jim Carr, asking for help.

'We don't know what's going to happen to them'

"That's the worst feeling that you can have and knowing that he has left a young wife and innocent child at risk and we don't know what's going to happen to them to them at any moment," said the woman's husband, who talked about the pain of losing a son.

"Right now I'm sitting here I'm not knowing what kind of situation they are (in), wondering whether they are alive."

The widowed mother in Afghanistan wrote to an IRCC case processing agent in February explaining how hard life has been for her and her son since her husband's killing.

"Due to the inequality and discrimination against women, a child without a father in Afghanistan, even with a mother, is like with no parent," she wrote.

Parents granted asylum in 2015

Her father-in-law and his wife came to Winnipeg as refugees in 2015 and provided CBC with documentation of the Immigration and Refugee Board member's decision to grant them asylum.

Story continues

In the decision, the board member found the family was at risk due to their Hazara ethnicity and Shia faith. The board member wrote that after one of the couple's daughters returned to Afghanistan from going to school abroad in the U.S. and Europe, the family started getting threatening phone calls.

The family says it received a death threat in a letter from the Taliban after word got out they had allowed their girls to study abroad. In March 2015, the dad received several calls where the caller accused him and his family of being infidels and received death threats for anti-Islamic conduct.

"The conduct in question was allowing his daughters to go to the USA to study," the IRB decision says.

Applied for help in India

While the couple's son was alive, he took his family to India where the family made an application for refugee status to the High Commissioner for Refugees in New Delhi. The family went back to Afghanistan to attend a funeral and the son was killed less than a month later.

The family says reality for women living in Afghanistan is grim and widows are at special risk.

"They don't have any form of rights," said the 58-year-old woman. She said she never felt she had rights throughout her life in Afghanistan.

A recent BBC study found Taliban fighters are now openly active in 70 per cent of Afghanistan and a Human Rights Watch Report released late last year found an estimated two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school.

"Nobody knows what's going to happen once they are stepping up out of their homes whether or not they are going to be blown up by a bomb explosion," the 58-year-old woman said.

Canada could step in: lawyer

Winnipeg human rights lawyer David Matas said Canada could give a visa to the mother and her baby in Kabul but under regular circumstances, to get refugee status, the two would have to leave Afghanistan to apply for asylum.

"Mechanically it could happen, it's just a matter of whether the right steps are taken and the right decisions are made," Matas said.

An application can be made based on humanitarian grounds in an applicant's home country but the process can take years.

The father said he and his wife are grateful to Canada for granting them refuge and hope the government will step in and do the same for his grandchild and daughter-in-law before it's too late.

"If they don't these two lives will be at risk and I may have to see what I can do even if it may be putting my own life at risk of doing something about the situation."

A spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and Carr's press secretary declined to comment on the case citing privacy laws.A Bombardier Inc. Global 6000 business jet stands on display at the Singapore Airshow held at the Changi Exhibition Centre in Singapore on Feb. 5, 2018.

For most people, $52 million is an astronomical amount of money to borrow. But a Canadian bank approved a loan for that amount for a controversial South African family.

They used it to buy a luxury jet  which is now missing.

The jet belongs to the Gupta family, known for their ties to former South African president Jacob Zuma.

Earlier On HuffPost:

Export Development Canada (EDC), a credit agency owned by the Canadian government, helped Bombardier seal the deal, lending the Guptas the money for their Global 6000 jet, according to The Washington Post.

The family defaulted on the loan last October and still owe EDC over $34 million.

They've long been accused of trying to "capture the state" for their business interests, according to BBC News. Their alleged corruption contributed to scandals that forced Zuma to resign in February.

Political activists demonstrate in front of the Bloemfontein Regional Court on Feb. 15, 2018.

There's an arrest warrant out for one of the famiy's members, Anjay Gupta, Global News reported.

EDC seems aware the jet will likely be used to help Gupta evade the law as they've applied to a South African court for permission to ground the plane.

The only problem is that the bank can't find the plane, which is registered with the letters ZS-OAK on its tail.

FlightAware, which tracks the locations of planes around the world, notes the jet's status is unknown. It also explains the plane's owner has asked for it to not be tracked through the public database.

Canadians shouldn't worry

The bank told Global News that they would not comment about the missing plane because legal proceedings to find it are ongoing.

An international agreement stipulates lenders can seize a plane in any country that is part of the Cape Town Treaty. Still, Canadians shouldn't be too concerned about footing the bill for the aircraft.

A Toronto aviation lawyer told the Washington Post, "I don't think the Canadian taxpayer is going to get bilked, unless the aircraft has been otherwise disposed of."By Matt Spetalnick and Jeffrey Heller WASHINGTON/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he might travel to Israel for the opening of the U.S. embassy there as he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a united front against Iran in White House talks. Trump's decision for the United States to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the embassy there from Tel Aviv reversed decades of U.S. policy, aggravated Arab allies and has complicated his administration's attempt to revive long-stalled Middle East peace talks. Trump, with Netanyahu at his side in the Oval Office, said he was considering making what would be his second visit to Jerusalem as president. The opening of the U.S. embassy is planned for May. "We're looking at coming," Trump said. "If I can, I will." Mired in corruption investigations threatening his political survival, Netanyahu - questioned at his home by police on Friday - stepped into a different spotlight during his five-day U.S. visit. Trump's push to change or scrap Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and concerns over Tehran's foothold in Syria topped the agenda of his talks with Netanyahu, U.S. and Israeli officials said. Both leaders have long railed against the deal, citing its limited duration and the fact it does not cover Iran's ballistic missile program or its support for anti-Israel militants in the region. "If I had to say what is our greatest challenge in the Middle East to both our countries, to our Arab neighbors, its encapsulated in one word: Iran," Netanyahu said. "Iran must be stopped. That is our common challenge." Trump has threatened to pull out of the agreement unless European allies help "fix" it with a follow-up accord. An Israeli official said Netanyahu and Trump were likely to talk about how to overcome European resistance on the matter. Israel has accused Tehran of seeking a permanent military presence in Syria, where Iranian-backed forces support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war. Netanyahu has also cautioned that Israel could act against Iran itself after an Iranian drone flew into Israel last month and an Israeli warplane was shot down while bombing air defenses in Syria. He has accused Iran of planning to build precision-guided missile factories in Lebanon, amid tensions along that border. [L8N1Q809R] Trump suggested that the Palestinians are eager to return to negotiations and said if they do not, "you don't have peace." Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, angered by Trump's Jerusalem move, has refused to engage with the United States on Middle East peace, prompting Trump to delay the rollout of peace proposals. Participating in the talks was Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has been on the defensive amid investigations into alleged meddling by Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign. Some analysts believe Kushner's ability to run the Middle East initiative has been handicapped by his loss of access to certain valued U.S. intelligence because of a White House clampdown on access to such secrets for those without full security clearance. 'ROUTINE CHECK-IN' No major announcements or breakthroughs were expected from Trump's talks with Netanyahu, whose relationship with the president has been among the closest of any other world leader. "This is a routine check-in meeting," one U.S. official said of Netanyahu's second visit to the Trump White House. For Netanyahu, however, the Oval Office meeting and address to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC on Tuesday offer a respite from his legal troubles. Netanyahu awaits a decision by Israel's attorney general on whether to indict him, as police have recommended in two bribery cases. Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing. U.S. officials have said the cases are not expected to affect Netanyahu's talks, which include meetings with members of Congress. (Reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Jeffrey Heller; additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe, Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by William Maclean and Grant McCool)By Alison Bevege SYDNEY (Reuters) - Almost a week after a deadly quake struck the rugged Papua New Guinea highlands, nearly 150,000 people remain in urgent need of emergency supplies as damaged roads and landslides have hampered the delivery of aid to isolated communities, agencies have said. The quake destroyed or damaged the homes of around 7000 people, while 147,000 were in severe need of food, water and sanitation, the director of the International Red Cross in PNG, Udaya Regmi, told Reuters on Sunday. Landslides have cut roads, preventing the delivery of aid to several places where it's most needed. "The challenge is road access, it's still not accessible to trucks and four-wheel drives," Regmi said. "Big trucks cannot go there. It's one of the reasons the food is becoming less and less. There are no fears of starvation yet but we've not got the full picture." Papua New Guinea (PNG) declared a state of emergency across the earthquake-hit region last week but the scale of the disaster will not be known until relief workers and authorities can complete their assessments in the area. A report by the World Food Program for the United Nations two days after the 7.5 magnitude quake hit the Southern Highlands on February 26 estimated 465,000 people were exposed to the disaster of which 143,000 needed urgent humanitarian assistance and 64,000 were suffering from extreme food insecurity. Anna Bryan, program director for CARE International in PNG, said the impact of the earthquake could not be understood by the initial death toll of 31 people as tens of thousands of people uninjured by the actual quake have been cut off from food, drinking water, communications and medical help for a week. "Public health and public hygiene are now concerns," she said. Bryan said rivers dammed by landslides created stagnant water polluted by silt and bacteria, leaving people with the threat of disease. Aid has been flown in by aircraft but it is not yet known if it has been able to get to all the people in need. Aftershocks terrified villagers for five days after the initial temblor and only started subsiding on Saturday, multiple sources said. Julie Sakol a nurse at Mendi General Hospital said on Sunday the aftershocks were slowly decreasing. "It's coming every two hours now ... the movement of the ground is slowly going down." Australian Sally Lloyd who is visiting PNG said villagers were terrified by the constant shaking. "It is terror," she said by telephone from Mount Hagen on Sunday. "They think the end of the world is happening." Earthquakes are common in Papua New Guinea, which sits on the Pacific Ocean's "Ring of Fire," a hotspot for seismic activity due to friction between tectonic plates. The PNG and Australian governments, the Red Cross and Care International have all provided aid. Energy firm ExxonMobil which had to declare force majeure on exports from its PNG LNG project in the wake of the earthquake has also donated US$1 million to the humanitarian effort. Oil company Santos said on Sunday that it will donate US$200,000 to aid agencies in PNG for disaster relief on top of a US$1 million donation it has already provided to Hela Provincial Hospital. (Reporting by Alison Bevege; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)A week and a half after a gunman took the lives of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a group of protesters assembled in a city minutes away. Carrying signs and a megaphone, they stood outside the headquarters of Kalashnikov USA, a company that manufactures versions of the AK-47 assault riflea popular firearm, though not the same one the Parkland shooter used. One woman held a sign saying, Nyet, not here, with a hammer and sickle. And, if not for the American sanctions against Russia, the facility would not even be there.

AK-47s are weapons of war, and its being manufactured in our own backyard, said Mitchell Stollberg, the chairman of the Broward County chapter of Progressive Democrats of America, and the organizer of the February 25 rally. Then to find out that it was a Russian company makes it even worse.

Kalashnikov USA started as an importer of firearms from Kalashnikov Concern, a Russian company. That changed after former President Barack Obamas administration imposed sanctions on certain Russian companies in 2014, because of the countrys interference in Ukraine. The list included Kalashnikov Concern. In a statement at the time, the Russian company said the sanctions go against the interest of American consumers.

Trending: Oscars 2018: 6 Interesting Facts About the Annual Awards Show

Kalashnikov Concerns history dates back to an armory established under Russian emperor Alexander I in the early 19th century. Now named after Mikhail Kalashnikov, the Russian lieutenant general who developed the AK-47, the company describes itself as the largest Russian manufacturer of assault and sniper rifles, guided artillery projectiles and precision weapons. It also makes civilian hunting shotguns and sporting rifles, and says it produces 95 percent of small arms in Russia. Fifty-one percent of the company is state-owned, and private investors own the rest.

03_03_Kalashnikov_Parkland_shooting

Joe Raedle/Getty

Story continues

After the sanctions, Kalashnikov USA began manufacturing its own weapons, including a version of the AK-47. We started with the proven AK-47 design, utilizing the Russian Heritage of the long stroke, gas piston, rotating bolt design, the company says on its website. To this legendary firearm, we added the American Innovation.

Don't miss: Actor David Ogden Stiers Has Died, Aged 75  Here's a Look at His Most Famous Roles

Kalashnikov USA decided to relocate from Pennsylvania to Florida in 2015, with a 40,000-square-foot facility, according to Pompano Beach city records. A spokesperson once told Floridas Sun Sentinel that the company expected to sell primarily to overseas buyers, and, in May 2017, the manufacturer announced it had started sending out shipments.

But less than a year later, Kalashnikov USA is now under scrutiny for not only producing and selling AK-47s but also doing that so close to where the Parkland shooting occurred, even if the proximity is a coincidence. (The manufacturer does not produce the AR-15, the weapon used in Parkland.)

The February 14 shooting has renewed calls for gun control. In a meeting with lawmakers on Wednesday, President Donald Trump expressed interest in firearms legislation. But in a tweet the next day, he seemed to suggest otherwise, writing, Good (Great) meeting in the Oval Office tonight with the NRA! Trump has spoken at at least two NRA conventions, and the association supported his 2016 presidential campaign.

Representatives for Kalashnikov USA did not respond to requests for comment.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekUpdates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blog spot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work.

.

..JNS.org..02 March '18..Queen Elizabeth II is marking her 66th year of reign in 2018, which by any standards is an extraordinarily long time for a single individual to be a head of state. (By comparison, King David is said to have reigned for 40 years, and Queen Victoriacomfortably overtaken now by Elizabethmanaged 64.)Off the top of my head, I cant think of any current ruler who has remained in place throughout the Cold War and beyond. In that sense, historians will have a grand second Elizabethan era to pour through, one so lengthy that those things that were features of the first half of her reignration books, royal family struggles with the Church of England, a snarling punk ditty by the Sex Pistols that rhymed queen with fascist regimewere misty memories by the time it came to its close in the age of social media.But for all the momentous historic changes that Elizabeth witnessed from her vantage points at Buckingham Palace, Windsor and Balmoralchanges that were often blessed with royal visits, high honors, state banquets and so forthone country went stubbornly unacknowledged: Israel.Now that Elizabeths grandson, Prince William, has announced a first-ever visit by a British royal to Israel, in addition to Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, it is perhaps time to reflect on the relationship, or absence of one, between the House of Windsor and the Jewish nation.Share this: Twitter

Facebook

WhatsApp

LinkedIn

Email

Telegram



New York, March 5, 2018The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Ukrainian authorities to investigate claims that police attacked journalists covering a protest in Kiev, and to ensure the safety of the press. At least two journalists were injured in Kiev on March 3 when police dispersed a protest camp outside parliament, where activists were calling for the resignation of the president and an end to corruption and immunity for members of parliament, according to press reports.

We call on all Ukrainian police to respect the right of journalists to cover political events without fearing for their safety, said CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova. Ukrainian authorities must investigate attacks on journalists and punish those responsible to send a strong message that they support and protect a free press.

A police officer allegedly used pepper spray in the face of Serhiy Nuzhnenko, who works for the Ukrainian service of the U.S. Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), the outlet reported. Nuzhnenko was treated in a hospital for chemical burns, according to reports. Bohdan Kutiepov, with the independent television channel Hromadske, said a police officer kicked him and swore at him, according to the local Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Both journalists said they clearly identified themselves as press, according to reports. The Kiev Prosecutors Office said that it has opened a criminal investigation into possible police obstruction of Nuzhnenkos professional activities.India and Vietnam have signed three agreements including landmark pact on civil nuclear cooperation to boost bilateral relations. These agreements were inked after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held talks with visiting President of Vietnam, Tran Dai Quang in New Delhi. Vietnam is one of Indias closest strategic partners in the ASEAN region.

Signed Agreements are

MoU on Economic and Trade Cooperation: Its purpose is to establish a framework for enhancing economic and trade promotion.

MoU on Cooperation in the field of atomic energy: It was signed between the Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership, India (GCNEP) and Vietnam Atomic Energy Institute (VINATOM). Its purpose is to strengthen the technical cooperation in the field of atomic energy for peaceful purposes.

Work Plan for years 2018-2022 in Agriculture: It was signed between Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Vietnam. Its purpose is to promote cooperation in transfer of technology and exchange of visits of technical experts in the fields of agriculture and allied.

Key Takeaways from Joint Statement issued

India and Vietnam agreed to work for independent, open and prosperous Indo-Pacific region where sovereignty and international laws are respected and disputes are resolved through dialogue. They are committed to expanding maritime ties and ensure an open, transparent, inclusive and rules-based regional architecture.

Both countries will work together for regional security, including maritime and cyber security. They respect the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and will further deepen Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

Both countries agreed to increase cooperation in defence production and also explore possibilities in co-production and transfer of technology in defence sector as defence and security is important pillar of the strong bilateral ties.

Both countries will further strengthen trade and investment ties, including in sectors like agriculture and agro-products, renewable energy, textiles and oil and gas. They will also strengthen their longstanding bilateral partnership in oil and gas and explore possibilities of working with other countries for trilateral partnership. They will increase two-way investment and hoped that bilateral trade will reach $15 billion by 2020.Krishna Kumari Kolhi (39) from Sindh province in Pakistan became first-ever Dalit Hindu woman to get elected as Senator, member of upper house (Senate) of Muslim-majority country.

She won the election for the reserved seat for women from Sindh province. She is a member of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari-led Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Her election represents major milestone for women and minority rights in Pakistan. Earlier, PPP had elected first Hindu woman named Ratna Bhagwandas Chawla as senator.

Krishna Kumari Kohli

She belongs to remote village in Nagarparkar district of Thar in Sindh province of Pakistan. Kohli was born in February 1979 in poor family. She and her family members had spent nearly three years in private jail (as forced bonded labours) owned by landlord of Kunri in Umerkot district. She was grade 3 student at time when her family held captive.

She belongs to family of valiant freedom fighter Rooplo Kolhi, who had waged a war against invading British colonialist forces when they had attacked Sindh from Nagarparkar side in 1857.

At the age of 16, she was married to Lalchand. Even after marriage she pursued her studies and in 2013 completed masters in sociology from the Sindh University. She had joined PPP as social activist along with her brother, who was later elected as Chairman of Union Council Berano. She has actively participated and worked for rights of downtrodden people of marginalised communities living in Thar and other areas. 



Our Divisions

Copyright  2021-22 DB Corp ltd., All Rights Reserved

This website follows the DNPA Code of Ethics.West Bengal: 14 abducted fishermen rescued in Sundarbans

March 05,2018 | Source: Prothom Alo

Members of Forest Guard rescued 14 abducted fishermen and seven fishing boats following a gunfight with forest robbers in Gatar Khal area of Katka sanctuary in the Sundarbans in Bagerhat on Saturday, reports UNB. A Forest Guard team was conducting regular boat patrol in Gatar Khal (Cannel) around 1:30pm. Sensing the presence of the law enforcers, robbers opened fire on them, forcing the Forest Guard members to retaliate that triggered a gunfight, said divisional forest officer (DFO) of Sundarbans east zone Mahmudul Hasan.



However, it was not immediately known that anyone of the robbers was hurt during the gunfight, he added. Later, the law enforcers rescued six fishermen who were abducted for ransom recently and seized three boats around 5:00pm, said the DFO. Following the gunfight, members of Bangladesh Coast Guard (BCG) and Forest Guard jointly conducted several drives in different places in the forest and rescued eight more fishermen and three boats, said Lt Commander Mahdin, commanding officer of BCG West Zone in Mongla. Meanwhile, no forest robber was detailed till filing of this report.Sri Lanka: Destructive and unsustainable practice of bottom trawling resurfacing in Sri Lanka?

by Ashani Basnayake

March 05,2018 | Source: The Sunday Times

In July 2017, Sri Lanka became the first country in Asia to completely ban bottom trawling and the use of destructive trawl nets. Six months later, the Department of Fisheries proposed to weaken this ban by allowing less destructive trawling in designated trawling zones. A majority of fishermen in the Northern Province are outraged by this announcement and have protested the non-enforcement of the ban. Eleven representatives from Jaffna and Puttalam-based fishermans cooperative societies travelled to Colombo on January 17 to meet the Minister of Fisheries and petition him to enforce the ban in full. The Minister has since promised to fully implement the legislation after the local government elections. This article recalls the context in which Sri Lankas ban on bottom trawling and trawl nets was instituted and presents three reasons for immediately enforcing the ban.



Trawling: easy profit but destructive and unsustainable



Mechanised bottom trawling inflicts severe environmental damage. It destroys critical coral reefs and sea grass bed habitats due to the fact that it involves dragging nets across the seafloor. Meanwhile, mechanised trawl nets are indiscriminate and result in high levels of by-catch in which marine mammals, sea turtles, birds and a wide variety of commercially less valuable juvenile species are trapped in these nets, and often perish. By-catch due to trawling has been recorded as high as 92 per cent in Sri Lanka.



In this overarching context, the influx of thousands of Indian mechanised bottom trawlers to the Northern coast of Sri Lanka presented an enormous environmental and economic challenge. The combined efforts of Northern fishermen, key political actors including TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran, and research-based advocacy groups, resulted in the landmark ban on mechanised bottom trawling and trawl nets in July 2017. Since the passage of the legislation, fewer Indian trawlers have been seen operating in Sri Lankan waters. Yet many Sri Lankan vessels are taking up the destructive and unsustainable practice due to non-enforcement of the ban



Need to enforce the ban



There are at least three reasons as to why the Government of Sri Lanka including the Ministry of Fisheries should enforce the total ban on mechanised bottom trawling and trawling nets without delay.



1.Developing a sustainable fishing industry



Globally, fishing stocks have declined dramatically. A FAO study in 2016 placed 31.4 per cent of fish stocks globally as overfished, 58.1 per cent fully fished and only 10.5 per cent categorised as under fished. Sri Lanka is surrounded by rich fishing resources and stands to benefit greatly from high quality, sustainably harvested marine products that fetch a higher price on the global market. This is because global markets often require seafood products to be produced through sustainable fishing practices. For example, many supermarkets in Europe have a policy of selling only eco-labelled fishery products. In Germany, approximately 50 per cent of supermarkets shelves are stocked with eco-labelled fishery products.



Moreover, Sri Lankas biggest exports markets are Europe and the US which already demand adherence to strict health and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities (IUU) requirements. In 2012 and 2013, Sri Lankan seafood export earnings grew at approximately 20 per cent. However, earnings contracted sharply in 2015 (-32.9 per cent) following the one and a half-year ban on Sri Lankan seafood to the EU for IUU infringements. Export earnings are now recovering following reform of the fisheries sector. However, this incident should serve as a reminder of the economic cost of not adhering to IUU requirements.



Hence, both overfishing of global fish stocks and an increasing demand for sustainably harvested fish products place Sri Lanka in a position to both sustainably increase its relatively low catch rates and supply a growing niche market. The continued use of illegal trawl nets and environmentally unsustainable methods may reduce opportunities to access higher value overseas markets for seafood products from Sri Lanka, as well as develop a domestic market for higher quality, sustainably harvested, seafood.



2. Meeting domestic and international obligations



Enforcement of the ban will help Sri Lanka meet domestic and international obligations. Based on reports of local fishermen, trawl net fishing continues within an international Ramsar Wetland protected area adjacent to Wilpattu National Park, and the Palk Bay, which is another ecologically sensitive site. Moreover, in Sri Lanka, the by-catch of trawling often includes dugongs and sea turtles (mainly the Olive Ridley), both of which are declared vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List.



Due to their unsustainable and indiscriminate nature, trawlers violate the Flora and Fauna Protection Ordinance, which protects certain species of wildlife, such as sea turtles and dugongs, and restricts activities within protected areas. Trawlers also arguably violate at least three international conventions, including the Ramsar Wetlands Convention, the Convention on Migratory Species, and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) for these same reasons.



3.Preventing new incursions of Indian trawlers



The enforcement of the ban remains crucial to preventing new incursions by Tamil Nadu trawlers. Tamil Nadu trawlers were compelled to withdraw from disputed traditional waters following the ban. It was on environmental grounds that the dispute was concluded. In fact, the ban has prompted India to taking measures to reform its own fishing industry by considering a ban on bottom trawling in the Palk Bay. Yet, by failing to enforce the ban on Sri Lankan vessels that operate trawl nets, Sri Lanka now risks losing its hard-fought moral position, and destabilising diplomatic ties with India.



Another emerging argument that lends support to the full enforcement of the law is fuelled by reports of bullying by boat owners engaged in illegal trawl net fishing who are allegedly cutting nets of traditional fisherman. Whether these events are substantiated does not take away the fact that the presence of boats engaged in trawling under any guise, is illegal. Implementation of the ban under the Act serves to quell such emerging issues and focus on supporting positive reform to the fishing industry supported by this government.



The Government of Sri Lanka is positioned to transition Sri Lankas fishing industry into a global supplier of sustainable seafood products. It can also promote Sri Lanka as a global champion on environmental protection and marine conservation. In the face of the clear reasons outlined in this article, the Minister of Fisheries must keep his promise to fully enforce the ban on mechanised bottom trawling and destructive trawl nets.Cybersecurity

Air Force wants better software security baked in

To counter the growing sophistication of enemy hackers, the Air Force has embraced agile software development, testing and deployment processes.

Since cancelling the Air Operations Center (AOC) 10.2 contract with Northrup Grumman in July 2017, the Air Force has been adopting practices from Silicon Valley to improve software development. The AOC Pathfinder project, which aims to speed delivery of AOC weapon systems capabilities to the warfighter, takes advantage of automated builds multiple times a day, fuzzing and automated testing, according to Air Force Cyberspace Innovation Director Lauren Knausenberger.

We are looking at redefining the way that we develop software in the government and how you bake security into the process so it is not an afterthought, Knausenberger said at the Feb. 27 AFCEA Cybersecurity Technology Summit. We are pushing toward proofs that have results -- where you might see language to fix vulnerabilities in 10 days or red teams and pen testing.

Through the first two rounds of Hack the Air Force bug bounty program, hackers identified previously unknown vulnerabilities for cash. Air Force Chief Information Security Officer Peter Kim said the program was enlightening because it surfaced hidden problems and showed how to fix them.

The Air Forces current certification process is part of the problem, Kim said, as it can be burdensome for coders who must check software packages.

Every time you create a widget, you need to build a huge certification package that causes people pain and suffering and lots of sorrow, Kim said. It is hundreds of pages thick, and they need to do all of these controls  [which doesnt work] in the modern age.

AOC Pathfinder is creating a new process to develop code. Our goal in the near term is to certify the AOC software factory so everything coming out is automatically certified," Knausenberger said. "We are pushing the proof toward the results.Spectrum

DOD looks to share more spectrum

The government announced plans to study the possibility of sharing or clearing a 100 megahertz swath of spectrum for high-speed mobile broadband.

David Redl, administrator of the National Telecommunications and Industry Administration, said in a Feb. 26 blog post that 100 MHz in the 3450-3550 MHz band, used by the Department of Defense for military radar, could be a key asset in expanding the U.S. broadband spectrum inventory.

Under the Spectrum Pipeline Act, passed in 2015 with the budget bill, agencies can seek funding for studies related to relinquishing or sharing spectrum for commercial use.

The engineering study announced by Redl will examine whether the spectrum can be shared for mobile broadband, "without harming critical government operations."

The Federal Communications Commission has already set rules for the adjacent 3550-3700 MHz mid-spectrum band for its planned Citizens Broadband Radio Service.

FCC chairman Ajit Pai hailed the move as "great news" for next-generation commercial wireless services. "Altogether, this could unleash a contiguous block of hundreds of megahertz of valuable spectrum for new technologies and services, including 5G," he said.

The news hit the same day Pai announced plans to tee up the 3.7 to 4.2 gigahertz band for terrestrial commercial use and to auction off spectrum in the 28 GHz and 24 GHz bands. Pai made those announcements in a speech at the World Mobile Congress in Barcelona.Emerging Tech

USMC, CyberCom show interest in quantum and blockchain

Quantum computing and blockchain technology face similar obstacles when it comes to gaining acceptance in the federal government. Most leaders know they have potential, but practical experience is limited.

Quantum computers are not yet advanced enough to crack encryption, but Department of Defense agencies can't wait until an attack occurs.

Before I start putting something out a network, we need to see what an adversary could attack, Ray Letteer, chief of the Marine Corps cybersecurity division, said at the Feb. 27 AFCEA Cybersecurity Technology Summit. Although quantum computing will provide vastly more processing power, we recognize that [it can also] be used against us, and we need to start doing something ourselves to be proactive, he said.

At the U.S. Cyber Command, Director of Intelligence Casey Carey said he sees quantum computing as a way to reduce anonymity and bring attribution to who is operating on their networks.

At the same time, quantum computing does concern me, Carey said. When I think about the encryption on our classified networks  if someone is able to break that encryption, then we have real problems.

When it comes to upgrading systems, Letteer said embedded cryptography presents challenges.

We need to make the system more Lego-like so when you have a new version, updates can be done quickly and seamlessly [as] adjustments and still be able to move, Letteer said. Otherwise, we are going to be struggling for years.

For blockchain, DOD is conducting a study on the technology's potential uses in both offensive and defensive cyber applications.

The report will assess efforts by foreign powers, extremist organizations and criminal networks using distributed database technologies. It will also address blockchain use by federal agencies and possible vulnerabilities to critical infrastructure networks due to cyberattacks. The report is due in June.

Letteer said he sees blockchain helping keep government information secure in the cloud.

If I have a capability through blockchain to keep the cloud protections, Ive addressed the issue of getting into the cloud quicker and still protecting my information, Letteer told GCN. It enables the tagging, labelling and standardization of my environment  so if there are any changes, people will know about it.

For now, the Marine Corps is still exploring what value blockchain can provide. Carey said blockchain could help Cyber Command with intelligence capabilities.

From an intelligence perspective, if any adversary finds something on our network before us, they have killed us, Carey said. We need to do risk assessments before moving forward with blockchain.People

Nakasone talks cyber deterrence at confirmation hearing

The U.S. has failed at deterring cyberattacks.

Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone, the nominee to be the next director of the National Security Agency, told senators in a confirmation hearing March 1 that adversaries such as Russia and China hack the U.S. because they dont fear the consequences.

They do not think that much will happen to themthey do not fear us, Nakasone said during the hearing when Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) asked what would happen to adversaries after a cyberattack.

As cyberspace develops, the longer that we have inactivity, the longer our adversaries are able to establish their own norms  and I think that is very, very important that we realize that, Nakasone said.

Nakasones comments echoed those of current NSA Director Adm. Michael Rogers, who also heads U.S. Cyber Command, and who told legislators on Feb. 27 the White House hadnt given him proper authority to disrupt Russian hacking operations at their base.

Nakasone, who currently leads Army Cyber Command, said the U.S. needed a cyberwarfare strategy and doctrine, which are critical to be able to set the framework for not only how we operate but also as a message to our adversaries as well.

If confirmed, Nakasone said, he would help shape cyberwarfare policy  along with Congress, the defense secretary and the White House -- but he emphasized that cyber should be only one part of a comprehensive, whole-of-government strategy.

We should always think of cyberspace not necessarily as always being a cyber response, Nakasone said. What we have to do is continue to determine what is the best way forward here what best fits within our national strategy and then act on that.

Nakasones bluntness with respect to U.S. adversaries such as North Korea, China and Russia drew a passionate response and endorsement from Sen. Benjamin Sasse (R-Neb.) who said Nakasones exchange with Sullivan was the most important thing to happen on Capitol Hill that day.

Were 31 years into cyberwar but were four years into regular attacks against the United States, to which we publicly admit we dont respond or we dont respond in any way that can change behavior, he bellowed.

Later Sasse said, This is ultimately not the responsibility of uniformed military, to bear the brunt of the hopefully rightful anger an ire of the American people. But their government is failing them. At the top at the executive and legislative level we are not responding in a way that is adequate.

Sasse ended his questioning by saying Nakasone would clearly be confirmed, adding that the country would be blessed to have him in this role.

If confirmed, Nakasone would assume command of U.S. Cyber Command as part of the controversial dual-hat role. He didnt offer an opinion but vowed to assess and report findings on the appropriateness of the merged roles to the defense secretary and Director of National Intelligence within 90 days of taking office.

I think we begin with the question, whats best for the nation, Nakasone said. "And I think thats critical for us to consider, is it best for the nation that the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command stay together under one leader or is it time now that we think about a separate National Security Agency and a separate [cyber] combatant command.

In prepared written responses to committee questions, Nakasone noted that the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act outlined six conditions for terminating the dual-hat arrangement. "If confirmed, I will evaluate these conditions and provide my assessment to the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who must certify these conditions are met to ensure that termination does not adversely impair either organizations mission," he wrote.

During his testimony, Nakasone added that one of his top priorities as head of Cyber Command and NSA would be to increase readiness through cross-functional teams.NABU detectives get court warrant to examine Kharkiv judge's call data in gas fraud case

The judge ordered a state-owned gas producer, Ukrgazvydobuvannia, to transfer to Karpatnadrainvest volumes of natural gas extracted under a joint investment and production contract, while being aware that the gas had earlier been arrested in a high-profile "Onyshchenko case".

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterBrussels prolongs sanctions against Yanukovych, allies

Sanctions against 13 persons have been extended for another year.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterPoland and other member states say Nord Stream 2 is against the strategic interests of the EU and undermines its ambition to build an Energy Union.

The European Commission has proposed to extend EU internal energy market rules to cover offshore gas pipelines. But the legal services of the Council  representing EU member states  has opposed the EU executive's legislative proposal.

The Commission sees Russia's plan to double the gas it could pump under the Baltic Sea to Germany, bypassing traditional routes via Ukraine, as undercutting EU efforts to reduce dependence on Moscow and its support for Kyiv, Euractiv wrote.

Read alsoGas transit via Ukraine in 2017 sets 7-year highUnder proposed changes to the gas directive, all import pipelines would have to comply with EU rules requiring pipelines not be owned directly by gas suppliers, non-discriminatory tariffs, transparent operations and at least 10% of capacity be made available to third parties.

The Nord Stream 2 project, fully owned by Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom, is far from complying with the EU's so-called third energy package rules. Russia has challenged these rules with the World Trade Organization.

In particular, legal certainty is needed regarding the off-shore section of the pipeline, given that part of it, including its only entry point, lies outside EU jurisdiction.

According to leaked documents obtained by EURACTIV.com, the Council's legal service believes that the EU does not have jurisdiction to apply energy law on unbundling, transparency, third-party access and regulated tariff to pipelines crossing the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of member states.

The Council legal service also criticizes the Commission's draft by stating it "lacks any reasoning on the regulatory power of the Union over offshore pipelines in the EEZ".

Read alsoGermany in March to allow Russia laying gas pipeline bypassing Ukraine  Naftogaz CEOThe Commission's legislative proposal was also overwhelmingly opposed by European energy industries. The Commission had asked for public comments on the proposal to change the Gas Directive by January 31. All statements (22 submissions) from European industry associations (BusinessEurope, Eurogas, BDEW, Confindustria, etc.) reject the proposal, including based on what they claim is superficial preparations (no impact assessment, no proper stakeholder consultation).

Supportive statements came from only 12 stakeholders, 11 of which are based in Poland, including 7 companies where the Polish government has the largest individual shareholding (such as PGNiG, Gaz System, PKN Orlen).

Read alsoNord Stream 2 to make Russo-Ukrainian war more likely: Polish PMPoland and other member states say Nord Stream 2 is against the strategic interests of the EU and undermines its ambition to build an Energy Union.

Removing the Nord Stream 2 hurdles could have consequences for making possible another Russian gas import pipeline: the second pipe of Turkish Stream, which could reach EU territory close to the Bulgarian sea port of Varna. Reportedly, the pipeline would be named "Balkan".Gas war: Naftogaz demands compensation from Gazprom for gas imported from EU amid brief energy crisis

Gazprom has already been officially warned about Ukraine's demands over non-fulfillment of contractual obligations.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterFinance Ministry should reduce foreign exchange debt  NBU

The arrival of foreign investors ready to buy hryvnia papers should be welcomed.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterUkraine's ecology ministry intends to join German NABU's lawsuit against Nord Stream 2

Semerak says Putin is trying to divide Europe, supporting various radical political forces in different countries.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterThe liberalization plan is tied to certain macroeconomic conditions.

Ukraine will maintain for now a requirement for firms to sell 50% of their foreign currency income due to delays in loans expected from the International Monetary Fund and lower than forecast forex reserves, the central bank deputy head said.

"The liberalization plan is tied to certain macroeconomic conditions," Deputy Central Bank Governor Oleh Churii told a briefing on Monday, as reported by Reuters.

"We have a certain delay in cooperation with the IMF," he added.

Read alsoPM Groysman says Rada should cancel taxation of Ukraine's top universitiesAs UNIAN reported earlier, the regulator announced further easing of administrative restrictions on the currency market, established in 2014-2015 to stabilize the exchange rate of the national currency, with the proviso that full currency liberalization is possible after the entry into force of a new law on currency and the introduction of effective tax legislation in Ukraine.

Today, a number of NBU restrictions are still being applied to citizens and businesses, including the compulsory sale of 50% of currency proceeds, the advance transfer of hryvnias to buy foreign currency at the request of customers, and limitation on the purchase of cash currency by individuals in the equivalent of UAH 150,000, or $5,367 at the current forex rate, per day.Naftogaz to close its representative office in Moscow

The Ukrainian gas company found it inexpedient to run the office in Russia.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterS&P: Lack of sustainable transit contract poses long-term risk for Gazprom's exports

The European market is the anchor for Gazprom's EBITDA generation.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterPresident Trump recently announced that his administration would impose tariffs on steel and aluminum. Such tariffs could have substantial effects on a range of American industries and the overall economy.

In a column for Economics21, Berenberg Capital Markets chief economist Mickey Levy explored the potential macroeconomic effects of the announced tariffs. Those insights are important in helping to analyze the broader ramifications of the new duties.

This column examines the justification made for the tariffs and what lessons can be gleaned from past experience.

The administration cited national security interests as justification for the tariffs. The Department of Defense (DoD) issued a memorandum in response to the Department of Commerces reports on the subject, noting that the U.S. military only requires about three percent of domestic steel and aluminum production. Due to this small share, the DoD reiterated that it does not believe the findings in the reports impact the ability of DoD programs to acquire the steel or aluminum necessary to meet national defense requirements.

Even with the many factors affecting steel jobs and production, from trade to automation to the state of the global economy, domestic production of aluminum and steel has been fairly stable for decades, except for a substantial decline during the Great Recession. This is shown in the figure below, with the first quarter of 1990 indexed to 100. If national security concerns are indeed the animating force behind steel and aluminum tariffs, the U.S. military would already seem to have an abundant, reliable supply of domestic production.

Domestic Production of Raw Steel and Aluminum

Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

One reason to think the announced tariffs on steel are not likely to have a substantial effect on China is that the country is not in the top ten in terms of U.S. steel import sources. According to the IHS Global Trade Atlas, Canada, Brazil, South Korea, and Mexico were the top four sources for imported steel through September 2017. China came in at 11th, and imports from China were down 5 percent from the preceding year. Furthermore, the memo expressed concern about potential adverse effects for key allies, as the United States is the destination for the vast majority of steel exports for Canada and Mexico.

Looking at the effects of steel tariffs in the past provides an estimate of the effects of a new tariff, although the context and details differ. In March 2002, acting on the findings from a report by the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Bush Administration imposed tariffs ranging from 8 percent up to 30 percent on a range of steel products.

In a follow-up analysis, the USITC arrived at a central estimate of a welfare loss of $41.6 million, and an estimated annual GDP loss of $30.4 million. Steel-consuming companies shifted some of their sourcing of steel, and some faced higher prices. Steel product producers or distributors were more likely to benefit from the measures. Another report estimated that more jobs were lost in adversely affected industries than the total amount of people working in the steel production and distribution industry overall.

It remains to be seen how other countries will respond, although many of them have signaled or announced their own tariffs. Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, said the European Union considering tariffs on products ranging from Harley-Davidson motorcycles, bourbon, and other agricultural products, although plans have not yet been finalized.

Due to increases in steel productivity since the implementation of the Bush tariffs, any potential benefits for U.S. steel producers or distributors are likely to be smaller, while the costs to the economy could be greater.

For a partial explanation as to why the job-protecting potential of the new tariffs will likely be muted, we need to look no further than the American Iron and Steel Institute, an association representing the North American steel industry. That group touts the industrys significant labor productivity gains over the recent decades: the number of man-hours per finished ton of steel fell from 10.1 in the 1980s to an average of 1.9 in 2015.

Two potential avenues could help avoid the worst of the fallout resulting from these tariffs and whatever escalating countermeasures follow them.

The problems introduced by concentrated benefits and diffuse costs, here represented by steel producers and steel-consuming companies and other industries that could be affected by new tariffs from other countries, could be reduced by the new avenues companies have to quickly disseminate their estimates of how they would be harmed to the public via social media. This could make the diffuse costs more salient to the average American, although it is an open question as to whether negative reactions would have any effect on the administrations determination to impose the tariffs.

Secondly, Congress could take some actions to help avert this scenario. More immediately, congressional Republicans are attempting to dissuade the president from following through with the imposition of the tariffs. A more transformative action would be to consider a bill such as Senator Lees Global Trade Accountability Act that would subject Executive Branch trade actions to congressional approval. So far, the bill has only been referred to the Committee on Finance, and passage would be a steep uphill journey.

The recently announced steel and aluminum tariffs are likely to have negative effects on the American economy. They are unlikely to increase steel-producing jobs. From a national security perspective, the Department of Defense has indicated it does not think the tariffs are necessary, and domestic production of both aluminum and steel has remained strong.

American companies that use aluminum and steel as inputs will be harmed, and significantly more Americans work for those companies than in steel or aluminum production. More domestic industries would be harmed by any tariffs imposed by other countries in response. The American economy and workers would be better off without the tariffs.

Charles Hughes is a policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute. Follow him on Twitter @CharlesHHughes.

Interested in real economic insights? Want to stay ahead of the competition? Each weekday morning, E21 delivers a short email that includes E21 exclusive commentaries and the latest market news and updates from Washington. Sign up for the E21 Morning Ebrief.After many meetings and debates, the Chicago delegation succeeded in working with the New York United Federation of Teachers, Local 2 (UFT) to push the AFT to take stronger stands on charter school accountability and school closings  though many delegates from Chicago would have liked the language to have been even stronger.

Generally speaking, the New York delegation represented organizing charters as the best model for handling their role in reshaping unions, despite the fact that according to many reports few charter schools in New York have been organized as is the case in Chicago. This logic is the same touted by the Progressive Caucus of the AFT. The few that have been organized are a part of the UFT local though they have separate contracts negotiated with the help of UFT. The Chicago delegation reflection the mindset that allowing new charters to continue to proliferate while attempting to organize existing charters is an end game in which public schools and the union lose.



Jen Johnson, CTU, Local 1 in Substance

Irans Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has said that strict measures to enforce hijab have not been fruitful.

Speaking at a meeting in Tehran on Sunday March 5, Rahmani Fazli called for thorough studies to find the root cause of the failure, reported the official government news agency IRNA.

He also said that dress code patrols, the police and the judiciary have not been able to enforce hijab rules following the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) further quoted Rahmani Fazli.

Meanwhile he added Social developments and change of lifestyle have rapidly changed Iranians attitudes about social issues including hijab.

Rahmani Fazli continued that as far as the government is concerned, hijab is a cultural issue and it does not view failing to observe the dress code as a criminal offence.

This signals that President Hassan Rouhanis government would like to see a moderation in hijab rules and dress code.

Nevertheless, Tehrans Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi stressed that failure to observe the rules of hijab in public is an offence.

Dolatabadi then called on the police to fulfil their responsibility in enforcing the dress code.

The interior minister is officially in charge of the Iranian police, aka Law Enforcement Force, which does not have a good track record of listening to the minister. Although it must enforce what the ministry adopts as official policy, yet the police force has always been part and parcel of the regimes hardline side and answerable to them.

Rahmani Fazli represents the Rouhani administration, but it is the hardline prosecutor Dolatabadi who has the upper hand in controlling law enforcement and his call for heavy-handed treatment of the protesters always supersedes the administrations moderate rhetoric, which is evident in Rahmani Fazlis comments.

Earlier, Tehrans Police Commander Hossein Rahimi had said that the police would firmly enforce the hijab.

Rahimi made the comment after a policeman pushed down a young woman who was protesting compulsory hijab in Tehran causing serious injury before arresting her. Videos of the incident show a policeman using swear words against by-standers after attacking the woman.

Jila Bani Yaqub, an Iranian journalist, wrote on her Twitter that the young woman, Maryam Shariatmadari, was in serious need of medical attention.

Social media users have also reported that policemen broke an arm of another young woman, Hamraz Sadeqi, while arresting her for peacefully protesting the compulsory hijab.

On 26 January, international human rights watchdogs Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch expressed concern about the clamp-down on women protesting compulsory hijab in Iran.

US State Department has also expressed support for Iranian men and womens peaceful protest against compulsory hijab.

Peaceful demonstrations against compulsory hijab gained a new momentum in late December 2017 simultaneous with widespread protests poverty and social injustice in over 80 cities in Iran.

In January, the police announced that those protesting compulsory hijab might be jailed from one to ten years.The city of Tehrans debt is much higher than previously stated, according to the deputy mayor, who blames the previous mayor for the citys financial woes.

The Tehran municipality owes 520 trillion rials (roughly $12 billion in todays exchange rate), Deputy Mayor Hojjat Mirzaei told the pro-reformist daily Sharq, saying former Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibafs highly expensive management style and favoritism in assigning projects dug the city into its debt hole.

The staggering figure dwarfs an earlier estimate by current mayor Mohammad Ali Najafi, which placed the citys debt burden at 300 trillion rials (roughly $7 billion). Just six months into his term as mayor, Najafi has repeatedly accused his predecessor of corruption and misappropriation of funds.

Mirzaei said the payments owed to city contractors alone reach 90 trillion rials (roughly $2 billion), and Tehran City Councilor Mahmoud Mirlouhi said interest payments on the total debt are $1.7 billion annually.

Qalibaf, an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander and former chief of the Islamic Republics police force, served as the mayor of Tehran from September 4, 2005 to August 22, 2017.

More than $5 billion of city funds went missing during Qalibafs tenure City Councilor Majid Farahani disclosed January 15.

Some say this money was used to pay on the citys overdue debts, but where were the payments registered? Arent there any books or accounting? Farahani demanded.

Qalibaf ran for president against incumbent Hassan Rouhani in 2017, but dropped out of the race at the final stage to back another conservative challenger, the mid-ranking cleric Ebrahim Raeisi.

In a report delivered to the city council January 14, Najafi accused his predecessor and his staff of spending municipal funds in last Mays presidential electionsuddenly employing 13,000 new personnel, arbitrarily giving away 674 real estate holdings and cheating in the management of the Municipal Staff Deposit Fund.

Qalibaf has not responded to these allegations.

Nevertheless, one of his hardline allies, judiciarys spokesman and mid-ranking cleric Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeie, has dismissed the allegations, maintaining, All newly appointed officials love to criticize their predecessors, but whenever asked for documented evidence, they have nothing to present.Tehran, March 5, 2018 (AFP) -

Iran's foreign minister slammed the European Union for "extremism" in relationship to Tehran in an interview published Monday ahead of a meeting with his French counterpart.

"In order to keep the United States in the Iran nuclear deal, European countries are suffering from extremism and this will ultimately undermine Europe's policy," Mohammad Javad Zarif told reformist newspaper Etemad.

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian arrived in Tehran early Monday for talks, with Europe pushing for pledges over Iran's ballistic missile programme.

It is the first visit by one of the European signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal since US President Donald Trump set an ultimatum that he would abandon it if it was not "improved".

But Zarif warned in the interview that "any action to satisfy the party that has most violated the nuclear agreement is useless".

"At present, two groups have violated the nuclear deal: the United States and the Europeans. The Americans because of Washington's policy and the Europeans because of the US policy," he said.

"The Europeans, because of the policy of the US could not meet their commitments, especially in the banking sector. Therefore these two groups are not in a position to set conditions for the country that has fully implemented its commitments," the minister added.

Zarif also hit out at the "error" by European nations including France and the United Kingdom of backing regional rival Saudi Arabia as it heads a coalition fighting rebels in Yemen.

Le Drian's team has made it clear to Tehran that he is no "emissary of Donald Trump", and wants to preserve the nuclear deal.

But France's top diplomat has said that without an end to ballistic missile tests by Iran, it will "always be suspected, with reason, of wanting to develop nuclear weapons".

Tehran denies seeking nuclear arms and says its missiles are purely defensive and not up for discussion.AFP - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to meet his "true friend" Donald Trump in Washington on Monday during a visit that will take him away from swirling accusations of personal corruption and a government crisis roiling the Israeli scene.

On Friday, police questioned Netanyahu for five hours over a bribery scandal that some commentators say could spell his political doom. In two separate cases, the police last month recommended that he be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of public trust.

At the same time, Netanyahu is grappling with a spreading governmental crisis that could lead to early elections.

But he will find a warm welcome at the White House from a president who has pursued a policy of unswerving support for Israel and its government.

Netanyahu will also take part, during his four-day visit, in the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the influential pro-Israeli lobbying group.

The two leaders are certain to discuss Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital -- a move warmly embraced by Netanyahu though widely denounced in most capitals -- as well as the struggle to curb Iran's regional influence.

In his encounters with Trump and at the AIPAC conference, he is expected to focus mainly on Iran as Israel's greatest enemy, and one he says seeks a permanent military presence in neighboring Syria.

The prime minister is also expected to call again for changes to, or the cancellation of, the nuclear accord between world powers and Iran, said Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington.

"Israel, I think, is hoping that there will be a more active American role in trying to block, trying to stem, the Iranian advances in Syria," where Tehran backs the Assad government, he said. Beyond its political support, the United States provides Israel, its key regional ally, with more than $3 billion in annual military aid.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Gulgiz Muradova  Trend:

Trends exclusive interview with Montenegrin Foreign Minister Srdjan Darmanovic.

Question: There are traditionally good relations between Azerbaijan and Montenegro. The two countries enjoy multifaceted cooperation in a number of sectors. Which spheres do you believe still need incentives?

Answer: Relations between Montenegro and Azerbaijan are friendly, with intensive and constructive dialogue at the highest political and working level. As a milestone of our traditionally good relations, President of Montenegro H.E. Mr. Filip Vujanovic and President of Azerbaijan H.E. Mr. Ilham Aliyev signed the Declaration on Friendly Relations and Partnership in 2013. Lately, we have made significant steps in the field of public administration and signed the Memorandum on Cooperation in Public Administration, which will significantly support Montenegrin public administration reforms. During my recent visit to Azerbaijan in November 2017, and talks with the highest officials, we agreed that there are numerous possibilities for further strengthening of cooperation in the fields of agriculture, tourism, education, science, culture, sport, parliamentary cooperation.

Our bilateral relations have been further strengthened with strategic partnership in the sector of energy and recent successful Azerbaijans investments in the sectors of tourism, real estate and banking. The next meeting of the Joint Economic Committee, due to take place in Baku this year, will certainly contribute to concretization of further areas of cooperation.

Q.: Economy plays a major role in relations between countries. Do you think the trade turnover between Montenegro and Azerbaijan reflects the existing potential? What is going to be done to increase the trade turnover?

A.: Clearly, there is room for expanding trade. We welcome deepening of contacts between Montenegros Chambers of Economy and Azerbaijans Chamber of Trade and Industry, and we fully support organizing of business forums for Montenegrin and Azerbaijani companies, which would contribute to identifying concrete opportunities for business and trade.

Q.: Azerbaijan is in the top three of main investors of Montenegro. What about investing in Azerbaijan? Which sectors will be interesting for Montenegrin investors?

A.: Azerbaijan was the third largest investor in Montenegro in 2017. Projects such as Portonovi, worth 650 million, by Azmont Investments, which is a part of Azerbaijan Global Investments (AGI), add important value to Montenegros aspiration to position itself as a luxury travel destination, and the Government of Montenegro is committed to supporting and promoting such investments. Azmont Investments recently announced the investment of 290 million in Portonovi in 2018, which will be their biggest annual investment in Montenegro since entering the market in 2012. We hope that the success of this important investment will be a signal to other investors from Azerbaijan to come and explore the opportunities for successful business.

When it comes to Montenegros businesses, I believe they have yet to discover Azerbaijan and its investment opportunities, which is what business forums are for. This is also a signal for our national Agencies for Promotion of Investment to work closer to promote opportunities our two countries clearly have in abundance.

Q.: Does Montenegro plan to deepen the energy segment of bilateral cooperation? Work is underway to implement the Southern Gas Corridor. What is your view of this projects role in ensuring Europes energy security? What will this project mean for Montenegro?

A.: The energy sector is one of the most dynamic and most promising sectors for investments in Montenegro and the Government of Montenegro is committed to the development of a diversified and resilient energy sector through the implementation of necessary reform activities and through its participation in regional and European energy markets. With the expected completion of the interconnection between Montenegro and Italy via an undersea electrical transmission cable and its linkage with the energy systems of the neighboring countries, Montenegro is on its way to become a regional energy hub for electricity, especially for energy from the renewable sources. Montenegro has substantial potential in the field of renewable energy sources, especially wind farms, small hydro plants, solar energy, biomass. The Southern Gas Corridor, or Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project, and its Adriatic-Ionian branch, known as IAP, are a significant contribution to the diversification of the energy sector not solely in Montenegro, but in all the countries involved. This project is very important from the aspect of security of energy supply, competitiveness and development of the region as a whole.

Q.: Government of Azerbaijan is currently working towards diversifying its economy, putting a particular accent on non-oil sector. What do Montenegrin businesses need to do to enter Azerbaijani market in post-oil period?

A.: We certainly welcome possibilities for Montenegrin companies to do business in Azerbaijan. It is important for Montenegros companies to be regularly informed about the developments in non-oil sectors of Azerbaijans economy and thus seize the opportunities for doing business when they present themselves.

Q.: What steps can be taken to attract Montenegrin tourists to Azerbaijan? What about Azerbaijani travelers? What steps can be effective in increasing the tourist flow in both directions?

A.: As Montenegro is gaining more and more popularity with tourists from all over the world, we would like to see more tourists from Azerbaijan. In 2015, the Government of Montenegro introduced a visa-free regime for citizens of Azerbaijan, who can enter and stay in Montenegro with a valid passport visa-free for up to 90 days, which is a clear message that tourists from Azerbaijan are welcome in Montenegro. And not only tourists, but also businesses, students and professionals. Having a direct flight from Baku to Montenegro is of course a key precondition. For now, a direct charter connection Baku-Tivat-Baku once a week has been announced for the period July 5-September 13, 2018, but I hope that we will see more flights in the future. In order to attract more Azerbaijani tourists to visit Montenegro, Montenegros Tourism Office recently had a successful promotion event in Baku with one of Azerbaijans largest tour operators, Pasha Travel.

Q.: Along with successful economic and humanitarian interaction, there is political understanding between our countries. What is the position of Montenegro on the resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?

A.: Montenegro, as a NATO member and future member of the European Union, supports peaceful resolution of the conflict, and, through cooperation with partners, will continue to contribute to global security and stability. Also, Montenegro will continue to advocate constructive high-level dialogue through the activities of Minsk Group and respect for the UN resolutions and principles of territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Q.: Should we expect any high-level visits any time soon?

A.: In the light of further strengthening of relations and overall cooperation, we expect that the visits of the Prime Minister of Montenegro H.E. Mr. Dusko Markovic and the President of the Parliament of Montenegro H.E. Mr. Ivan Brajovic to Azerbaijan will be organized soon, as well as the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan H.E. Mr. Elmar Mammadyarov to Podgorica.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

The protocol of the first meeting of the Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco was signed March 5, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told Trend.

Relevant text was introduced in the Protocol on the illegal economic and other activities of Armenia in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. The text of the Protocol says:

"The Azerbaijani side informed the Moroccan side on the current situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, as well as about the illegal economic and other activities in these territories accompanied by the violation of the state and private property rights contradicting the norms and principles of the international law, and about attempts of Armenia to strengthen military occupation, as well as its attempts to attract foreign physical and legal entities to illegal activity in these territories."

In this regard, the Azerbaijani side referred to the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, as well as to 10/44-POL Resolution on the aggression of the Republic of Armenia against the Republic of Azerbaijan, approved at the 44th session of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, held in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire, on July 10-11, 2017, where among other issues, requests the Member States to carry out strict measures to prevent any activity of their physical and legal persons against sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, as well as not to engage in any activity or not to support such activity in Nagorno-Karabakh region and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

To this end, Azerbaijan requested the Kingdom of Morocco to prevent import and export, trade and sale of products and services produced in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region, or the products and services that are produced by means of resources received from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, as well as not to allow any kind of activity related to the advertising and marketing of products and services for the promotion of the separatist regime created by Armenia in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, and to prohibit financial services such as financing, financial support, insurance and reinsurance related to import/export of products covered by this prohibition.

The Moroccan side reaffirmed its commitment and support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within the internationally recognized borders and in this regard reassured its readiness to act accordingly.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Ali Mustafayev - Trend:

Morocco supports the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, which has faced aggression and non-compliance with internationally recognized resolutions, Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Nasser Bourita said.

He made the remarks at a press conference with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in Baku March 5.

We consider it extremely important to observe the principle of territorial integrity and we support the efforts of fraternal Azerbaijan for a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Bourita said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.Hoy Los Angeles - the Spanish language edition of the Los Angeles Times - published on March 2, 2018 an article dedicated to the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.

It should be noted that with one million circulation, Hoy Los Angeles is the largest Hispanic newspaper in the United States. It is also noteworthy that there are over 55 million Hispanics in the United States, including 15 million in California and 5 million in the Los Angeles County alone, and this community's influence in the countrys political and economic life is increasing day by day.

Titled California Senate must listen to both sides of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and authored by Hoy Los Angeles Editorial Director Alejandro Maciel, the article discusses the history and present of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict; the Khojaly Genocide that was committed by Armenia against Azerbaijan in 1992; as well as the recent anti-Azerbaijani hearing that was held at the California State Senate, dedicated to, among other things, the 30th anniversary of Sumgait events.

The author mentions that in the early 1990s Armenia occupied Azerbaijans Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts expelling 800,000 Azerbaijanis from these territories. He stresses that coupled with 250,000 Azerbaijanis, who were forced to leave Armenia, the conflict caused the displacement of over one million Azerbaijanis.

The author talks in this regard specifically of the Khojaly Genocide: On February 25 and 26, 1992, the Armenian armed forces, together with the 366th infantry regiment of the Soviet troops stationed in Khankendi, seized the town of Khojaly. In these actions, a total of 613 people, including 63 children, 106 women and 70 elderly people were massacred. Eight families were totally exterminated, 130 children lost one of their parents and 25 children lost both. Around 1,275 civilians were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 people remains unknown.

In this vein, the author opines that the California Legislature must be fair and also recognize the genocide against the Azerbaijani people, committed by the armed forces of Armenia. He further notes that In 1994, a ceasefire agreement was signed followed by peace negotiations. Despite the fact that 24 years have passed, Armenia has not yet implemented the four resolutions of the UN Security Council demanding the withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

The article lists relevant resolutions that were adopted by a number of other influential international organizations, emphasizing that in those documents Armenia was recognized as an aggressor, and the ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijans lands was condemned as crimes against humanity.

Speaking of the California Senates anti-Azerbaijani hearing of February 28, 2018, the author notes that the hearing did not produce the expected results for the Armenian lobby, as only two of the 40 California senators attended the hearing, while members of the Azerbaijani community living in California showed up, asking various questions, such as why senators did not condemn the massacres committed by Armenia against Azerbaijani people and the displacement of one million Azerbaijanis from their lands, or why Senator Anthony Portantino (chair of the hearing) demonstrated bias regarding the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict.

In conclusion, the article says: Without a doubt, it is important that our legislators address international issues, discuss them and take a stand. But in this case, the California Senate has the civic and moral responsibility to listen to both sides of this conflict and be true to its principles of fairness and justice.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

Israel is one of few strategic partners of Azerbaijan in all respects  both countries cooperate in military-technical direction, in the field of the latest technologies and healthcare, Azerbaijani Presidents Assistant for Public and Political Affairs Ali Hasanov told Israel  Azerbaijan International Association (AzIz).

Israeli specialists have been working in Azerbaijan for several years in various fields of our economy, and in particular, in agriculture, agro-industrial complex, industry, where they introduce the latest technologies and equipment. Our countries are also united by our people. There is a big community of Azerbaijanis in Israel, who have already integrated into Israeli society and represent our republic with dignity, Hasanov said.

The Jewish community in Baku is also linked by various ties, including family ties, both with Israel and Azerbaijan and is worthy of being represented in the republic thanks to the policy of tolerance conducted by our President Ilham Aliyev, he noted.

The presidential aide emphasized that political relations are also developing successfully between the two countries.

We have established good contacts between our parliament members, as well as representatives of the government. Good relations have been established with governmental and non-governmental organizations, public structures and the media. We are very satisfied with the level of development of these relations, Hasanov said.

He also noted that in recent years, Azerbaijan is engaged in building a bridge between Israel and the Muslim world.

Azerbaijan enjoys its authority in the Muslim community, and by using this, its relations, the country is trying to establish links between the Jewish state and the Arab world, added the top official.

We believe that common interests can be found here, and an example of this is our cooperation and our relations. Based on common interests, a mutually acceptable approach to the establishment of friendly relations can also be found. Anyway, we are trying to do this and bring it to our partners in the Muslim world, Hasanov noted.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend:

Azerbaijans Central Election Commission (CEC) has accumulated a lot of experience during the elections held previously, and the country has professional electoral experience, CEC Secretary Mikail Rahimov said.

He made the remarks March 5 at a briefing in Baku. Rahimov stressed that Azerbaijans Electoral Code is one of the leading electoral codes examined by the Council of Europe.

He noted that Azerbaijan has created all the necessary conditions for democratic and transparent election.

Mikail Rahimov also said that the CEC pays much attention to raising the level of professionalism of the members of the lower election commissions and carries out various activities in this direction.

The presidential election will be held in Azerbaijan on April 11.Headline changed, details added (first version posted on 12:43)

Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

Chairman of the Central Election Commission of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mazahir Panahov has presented a presidential candidate certificate to Ilham Aliyev.

Panahov congratulated Ilham Aliyev as the first candidate registered for the presidential election to be held in Azerbaijan on April 11.

President Aliyev expressed confidence that the forthcoming presidential election will be held transparently, fairly, in full compliance with the laws of Azerbaijan, and will reflect the will of the Azerbaijani people.

He also wished success to the Central Election Commission in its work.

Emphasizing that the preparations for the election are carried out at the proper level, Mazahir Panahov expressed gratitude to President Ilham Aliyev as a guarantor of the constitutional rights of Azerbaijani citizens in connection with the creation of all conditions for a democratic and transparent election, in full compliance with the requirements of the Electoral Code.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Ali Mustafayev - Trend:

Azerbaijan and Morocco have signed a number of agreements at a meeting between Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and Moroccos Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Nasser Bourita in Baku March 5.

The two ministers signed the Convention between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income, Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco on cooperation in the field of security and combating crime, Protocol of Intent between Azerbaijan Railways CJSC and the Moroccan National Railways and the Protocol of Intent between Azerbaijan State Marine Academy and the Higher Institute of Maritime Studies of Morocco.

Diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Morocco were established in December 1992.

According to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee, trade turnover with Morocco amounted to about $3.9 million in 2017.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Ali Mustafayev - Trend:

Azerbaijan and Morocco will continue cooperation in several key areas, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said March 5 in Baku at a joint press conference with Moroccos Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Nasser Bourita.

The sides discussed cooperation in the fields of agriculture, energy and transport, and noted the need for cooperation of the two countries private sectors, Mammadyarov said.

In addition, as part of the meeting, the parties discussed possible holding of a joint business forum, as well as implementation of a number of joint projects to be discussed in detail in late 2018 - early 2019.

Mammadyarov added that Morocco and Azerbaijan render each other great support as part of cooperation in international organizations.

In turn, Nasser Bourita noted that relations between Azerbaijan and Morocco will develop not only at the diplomatic level, but also through active economic cooperation.

Proposals on cooperation between the business circles of Azerbaijan and Morocco will be prepared in the near future, he said.

The minister added that the two countries have great investment potential, which will become one of the key aspects of bilateral cooperation.

The diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Morocco were established in December 1992.

According to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee, the countrys trade turnover with Morocco amounted to approximately $3.9 million in 2017.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

A newly-built Culture Center has been inaugurated in Shaghan, Khazar district.

First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva attended the opening ceremony. She cut the ribbon symbolizing the official inauguration of the Center.

Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfas Garayev informed Mehriban Aliyeva that the construction of the two-storey Culture Center started in 2014. The center features a 200-seat auditorium, cinema theatre, make-up room, drawing workshop, musical, applied, arts, literature, dancing clubs, reading hall, library, 41-seat amphitheatre. Green areas were created around the center.

Mehriban Aliyeva viewed the center, and wished its staff success.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has expressed his condolences to Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev in connection with fire in the Republican Drug Rehabilitation Center.

"We in Ukraine were deeply saddened by the terrible news of numerous casualties in fire in the Drug Rehabilitation Center in Baku," Poroshenko's letter of condolence reads.

On behalf of Ukrainian people and on my own behalf, I extend my deepest condolences to the families and beloved ones of the deceased, wish speedy recovery to all the injured, the letter said.

A strong fire broke out at 06:10 (UTC +4) on March 2 in a one-story building of Azerbaijans Republican Drug Rehabilitation Center in Baku.

Twenty-five people died as a result of the fire, says a joint statement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Prosecutor Generals Office, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, and the Health Ministry of Azerbaijan.Headline changed, details added (first version posted on 11:48)

Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has today received Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Morocco Nasser Bourita.

Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Nasser Bourita extended best wishes of His Majesty King Mohammed VI both to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the country.

The king of Morocco, His Majesty Mohammed VI highly appreciates his very good personal relations with you and the successfully developing ties between our two countries, the minister said.

Minister Bourita noted that ahead of the anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the Moroccan side is also preparing for the events to mark the 25th anniversary of the historic meeting between the late King of Morocco and the national leader of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, which was held in Casablanca.

The minister described the historic meeting as a basis for building very good relations between the two countries, saying President Ilham Aliyev and the Moroccan King successfully continue this path.

He noted that the meeting of the joint commission, to be held as part of his visit, creates a good opportunity to discuss prospects for bilateral relations.

The Moroccan minister hailed solidarity between the two countries on the international arena, saying Morocco supports the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and is grateful to Azerbaijan for supporting Moroccos territorial integrity.

Pointing to the growing Islamophobia and radicalism across the world, the minister underlined the importance of the two countries strengthening efforts to preserve the Islamic values globally.

President Ilham Aliyev noted that the bilateral relations between the two countries are successfully developing on solid grounds, saying the foundation of these relations was laid by national leader Heydar Aliyev and the late King of Morocco.

The head of state said that the two countries demonstrate mutual solidarity in international organizations, including the UN and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and emphasized the importance of mutual support for the two countries territorial integrity.

President Ilham Aliyev pointed to Azerbaijans contribution to the Islamic solidarity, underlining the existence of multiculturalism and religious tolerance in Azerbaijan.

He noted that the country has become a venue for prestigious international events, including the Islamic Solidarity Games, and various international exhibitions and conferences in this regard.

The president underlined the importance of presentations on the preservation of Islamic culture held by Azerbaijan in Europe, as well as ISESCOs electing Nakhchivan as the Islamic Culture Capital for this year and Baku a few years ago.

Today, Azerbaijan is actively fighting against the wide-spread Islamophobia across the world, and our countries demonstrate the same position on the international scene in this regard, President Aliyev said.

Pointing to the economic ties, the head of state hailed the great potential for expanding bilateral cooperation in this area.

He underlined the significance of increasing mutual trade and exploring investment opportunities to this end.

President Aliyev thanked for the greetings of His Majesty King Mohammed VI and asked the minister to extend his greetings to the Moroccan King.Details added (first version posted on 14:45)

Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

Inci orphanage-kindergarten has been inaugurated in Mardakan, Khazar district, after a major overhaul, which was initiated by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva attended the opening ceremony.

Head of Baku City Executive Authority Hajibala Abutalibov informed Mehriban Aliyeva that the orphanage-kindergarten was built in 1987.

Mehriban Aliyeva viewed the orphanage-kindergarten, which will accommodate up to 230 children aged from 2 to 6 in 12 groups, including 8 Azerbaijani language and 4 Russian language groups. There is also an English language club here.Details added (first version posted on 14:14)

Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Ali Mustafayev - Trend:

Azerbaijan and Morocco will continue cooperation in several key areas, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said March 5 in Baku at a joint press conference with Moroccos Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Nasser Bourita.

The sides discussed cooperation in the fields of agriculture, energy and transport, and noted the need for cooperation of the two countries private sectors, Mammadyarov said.

In addition, as part of the meeting, the parties discussed possible holding of a joint business forum, as well as implementation of a number of joint projects to be discussed in detail in late 2018 - early 2019.

Mammadyarov added that Morocco and Azerbaijan render each other great support as part of cooperation in international organizations.

In turn, Nasser Bourita noted that relations between Azerbaijan and Morocco will develop not only at the diplomatic level, but also through active economic cooperation.

Proposals on cooperation between the business circles of Azerbaijan and Morocco will be prepared in the near future, he said.

The minister added that the two countries have great investment potential, which will become one of the key aspects of bilateral cooperation.

The diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Morocco were established in December 1992.

According to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee, the countrys trade turnover with Morocco amounted to approximately $3.9 million in 2017.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

Azerbaijan's ambassador to Iran Bunyad Huseynov met with Vice-President and Head of Department of Environment of Iran Isa Kalantari on March 5, the Azerbaijani embassy told Trend.

The sides discussed prospects for further expansion of cooperation between the two countries in environmental and ecological protection, protection of flora and fauna, as well as other prospects.

Huseynov voiced concern over the pollution of Araz transboundary river by industrial enterprises of Armenia, and noted the damage caused to the ecosystem of Iran and Azerbaijan.

Touching upon the agreement on construction and operation of the Ordubad and Marazad hydroelectric power plants between the Government of Azerbaijan and the Government of Iran, signed in April 2014, the ambassador stressed the existence of fruitful cooperation between the two countries on the use of the Araz River. The agreement was ratified by the parliaments of Iran and Azerbaijan in 2017.

At the meeting, the sides also discussed the protection of bioresources of the Caspian Sea and their joint use. They stressed the importance of keeping sea water clean.

Kalantari stressed the need to preserve and properly use the ecological environment of the Araz River and the Caspian Sea, which play an important role in the economies of both countries. He noted that the Iranian government pays special attention to protection of water basins.

The vice-president stressed the importance of cooperation between Iran and Azerbaijan in environmental protection and restoration, and also spoke about the activities implemented in Iran in the field of ecology.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev signed an order March 5 on measures to provide the countrys settlements with gas.

According to the order, 100 million manats will be allocated to the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan to continue the work to bring the gas supply level in the country to 95 percent by the end of 2018.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

Azerbaijans AtaBank OJSC offers Lombard loan on favorable terms by placing a gold and jewelry items as loan security.

Lombard loan doesnt have requierements of workplace reference and guarantor. This is an excellent opportunity for customers without formal workplaces to obtain a loan. It is possible to apply to any branch of AtaBank OJSC only with ID card and convert gold and jewelry into cash in a short time. Once the loan is fully repaid, the pledge will be returned to the customer.

Details:

Maximum amount: 10,000 manats

Annual interest rate: 22-26 percent

Term of the loan: up to 36 months

We would like to remind that AtaBank OJSC also has other very valuable Express, Classic and Auto loan products. Also customers of AtaBank OJSC can make operations via their credit cards all over the world.

Operating since 1993 AtaBank OJSC is a hi-tech universal Azerbaijani bank with 100 percent domestic capital. The Bank provides a full range of services to corporate and private customers through 31 branches and divisions in Baku and regions of the republic.Celebration of International Womens Day, which is commemorated on March 8, took place at Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS) today.

BHOS rector Elmar Gasimov and Chairwoman of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs of the Azerbaijan Republic, Ph.D in political science, professor Hijran Huseynova attended the event.

The event started with the National Anthem of Azerbaijan Republic.

Speaking at the event, the Higher School rector Elmar Gasimov extended his congratulations to Hijran Huseynova and to all women and girls working and studying at BHOS. He told about active participation of women in all spheres of social, political, economic, scientific and cultural life of the country, which is exemplified, in his words, in particular by the Baku Higher Oil School where women comprise 60% of all staff members. Elmar Gasimov emphasized that the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev pays special attention to the issues of increasing of the role of women in the society and said that the country government takes all necessary steps to ensure gender equality and protection of the womens rights. The rector extended his gratitude to Hijran Huseynova for her activities and her valuable contribution towards solving womens and family problems in Azerbaijan.

The Chairwoman of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs of the Azerbaijan Republic Hijran Huseynova also extended her sincere congratulations and best wishes to all women of the Higher School on the occasion of the International Womens day. She awarded six female employees of BHOS with Honorable Diplomas of the State Committee for Family, Women and Children Affairs for their many-year service and successful professional activities.

The Higher School rector Elmar Gasimov also presented awards to seven female employees for their professional activities and presented valuable gifts to all women and girls working or studying at BHOS. The event concluded with a concert with Peoples artist of Azerbaijan Azer Zeynalov, Merited artists Teymur Amrakh and Gulustan Aliyeva and the Higher Schools Music Club.The third meeting of the Members of the Board of the Caspian European Club has been held in Baku under the chairmanship of First Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Caspian European Club Telman Aliyev.

During the meeting the Members of the Board discussed the Club's strategy, as well as new projects and objectives to be implemented by the end of 2018.

Meetings with the participation of the Members of the Board and Heads of the working committees of the Caspian European Club are held on a monthly basis, Telman Aliyev said. Each meeting is traditionally held in one of the offices of the Members of the Board. This time the meeting was held at the office of Ziraat Bank Azerbaijan headed by Avni Demirci, who at the same time heads the Banking & Finance Committee within the Caspian European Club.

Each Member of the Board submitted the report and spoke about the current activities and future plans of the working committees headed by them. At the same time during the meeting they approved the plan of action by the end of the year. The Members of the Board discussed preparations for the 5th Caspian Energy Forum Tbilisi  2018 to be held on April 18, for the 6th Caspian Energy Forum Nakhchivan - 2018 to be held in June, for the Caspian Energy Forum Baku - 2018 scheduled for September and Caspian Energy Forum Prague  2018 to be hosted in December this year.

The Caspian European Club was established in June 2002 with the support of the largest oil and gas companies operating in the Caspian-Black Sea region. His Excellency President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev is the Chairman of the Caspian European Club, Caspian American Club and Caspian Asian Club.

Since the very establishment the Caspian European Club has promoted attraction of revenues from the oil industry towards the development of the non-oil sector. The Caspian European Club, Caspian American Club and Caspian Asian Club, which bring together more than 5,000 member companies and organizations, operate in 70 countries around the world and make proactive efforts to support a dialogue between the government agencies and the private sector.

* The reference to the Caspian European Club, Caspian American Club and Caspian Asian Club event is mandatory when publishing materials, information, articles or preparing audio and video plots.

For more information, please contact:

E-mail: [email protected]

URL: www.caspianenergy.net; www.caspianenergy.orgBaku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev has signed an order amending the presidential decree #1640, dated Aug. 26, 2006, on the approval of the composition of the Government Commission for Economic Cooperation between Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

Under the order, the composition of the Commission will be as follows:

Chairman of the Commission

Energy Minister of Azerbaijan;

Members of the Commission:

Deputy Minister of Defense Industry of Azerbaijan;

Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan;

Deputy Minister of Emergency Situations of Azerbaijan;

Deputy Minister of Economy of Azerbaijan;

Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan;

Deputy Minister of Education of Azerbaijan;

Deputy Minister of Transport, Communications and High Technologies of Azerbaijan;

Deputy Chairman of the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan;

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Azerbaijan to Ukraine;

Vice-President of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan;

Director General of Baku International Sea Trade Port Closed Joint-Stock Company.

The Foreign Ministry was instructed to send a notification to the Ukrainian side about the amendment to the order.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

The State Oil Fund of Azerbaijan (SOFAZ) sold $364.1 million at the currency auctions organized by the countrys Central Bank (CBA) in February 2018, SOFAZ said March 5.

SOFAZ sold $299.1 million at the currency auctions in January 2018. Since early 2018, the Azerbaijani banks bought $663.2 million from SOFAZ.

The currency is sold as part of SOFAZs transfers to the Azerbaijani state budget, which are envisaged in the volume of 9.216 billion manats for 2018.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Ilkin Shafiyev - Trend:

Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC) is discussing the possibility of creating joint investment funds with foreign partners, AIC Executive Director Rovshan Najaf said at a press conference in Baku March 5.

He didnt specify with which companies negotiations are underway, noting that all details will be revealed later.

AIC is already a shareholder of one of the investment funds - Caspian International Investment Company.

The Caspian International Investment Company was established in 2008, and the AIC has a 24.1 percent share in the company. Other shareholders of the investment company include the Islamic Development Bank, Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, Al Ahmar Group and AREF Investment Group.

Najaf said that in general rendering support for the non-oil sector, in particular, through the creation of industrial zones in Azerbaijans districts will be the main task of the AIC in 2018.

In 2018, such zones will start operating in the Masalli, Hajigabul and Sabirabad districts, he added.FMD K & L Europe, an aftercare beneficiary of the Development Foundation of Armenia, signed a memorandum of understanding with Swiss Sylex and Clinerion companies to promote biotechnology in Armenia.

Three companies will cooperate in promoting investments in biotechnology and clinical research in Armenia and investment of the best international practice.

The advanced technology, professional experience and capacity of our partners inspire confidence that this initiative will create new opportunities for industry development, stated the CEO of FMD K&L Europe Mr. Kirit Velani.

The company's assessment of foreign investment is best expressed by bringing other foreign companies to Armenia, a good example of which is the trilateral program, said the DFAs Aftercare team leader Mr. Hayk Mirzoyan.

Development Foundation of ArmeniaBaku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Ali Mustafayev - Trend:

Relations between Azerbaijan and Morocco will develop not only at the diplomatic level, but also through active economic cooperation, Moroccos Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Nasser Bourita said.

He made the remarks in Baku March 5 at a joint press conference with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.

Proposals on cooperation between the business circles of Azerbaijan and Morocco will be prepared in the near future, he said.

The minister added that the two countries have great investment potential, which will become one of the key aspects of bilateral cooperation.

The diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Morocco were established in December 1992.

According to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee, the countrys trade turnover with Morocco amounted to approximately $3.9 million in 2017.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Ilkin Shafiyev  Trend:

A new car plant will be built in Hajigabul industrial district of Azerbaijan, Executive Director of Azerbaijan Investment Company Rovshan Najaf said at a press conference held on March 5.

He said that the negotiations are underway with foreign investors in this regard.

The company plans to arrange production of both passenger cars and trucks. The information on what vehicle models and brands will be manufactured, was not provided.

Najaf also reminded that an automobile plant will be commissioned in the Neftchala industrial district in 2018.

The opening of the first joint Azerbaijani-Iranian automobile plant, which is being built in the Neftchala industrial zone, is planned by late this March. Its founders are Iran's Khodro and Azeurocar.

The joint Azerbaijani-Iranian plant is expected to manufacture Dena, Rana, Soren and Samand cars, as well as a number of Peugeot models. The projects cost is estimated at 24 million manats and the plants annual capacity will be about 10,000 cars. The cars are planned to be exported to Ukraine, Russia and Central Asian countries in the future.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Ilkin Shafiyev  Trend:

Three industrial zones will be launched in Azerbaijan in 2018, Executive Director of Azerbaijan Investment Company Rovshan Najaf said at a press conference held on March 5.

He said that the total investment made in enterprises in the Neftchala industrial zone amounted to 45.3 million manats.

Presently, nine enterprises engaged in industry, food industry, agriculture sectors and one workshop operate in this industrial zone that will open up 500 new jobs.

Najaf added that investors in the Masalli industrial zone presented 33 projects worth 33 million manats.

At the first stage, which will be completed this year, nine enterprises will start operating here. The total volume of investments in these enterprises will be 7.1 million manats, which will open up over 200 new jobs. The enterprises will be engaged in the production of furniture, plastic, ceramic and metal products, building materials.

In the Sabirabad industrial zone, investors presented six projects. The volume of investments will amount to 43 million manats and will allow to open 850 new jobs. The enterprises will engage in the spheres of light industry, agriculture, production of building materials. It is also planned to create a logistics center, he said.

Presently, five industrial parks have been created in Azerbaijan - Sumgait Chemical Industrial Park, Balakhani, Garadagh, Mingachevir and Pirallahi industrial parks, as well as four industrial zones - Neftchala, Masalli, Hajigabul and Sabirabad.Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, March 5

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Deputy Prime Minister of Turkmenistan Maksat Babayev gave instructions on the creation of new types of activities of the closed joint-stock company Nebitgazhizmat for obtaining additional financial benefits.

This issue was discussed at the meeting on the results of the work of oil and gas companies over the past two months of 2018, the countrys Oil and Gas Complex online newspaper reported.

Heads of Turkmengas, Turkmenneft state concerns, Turkmengeology state corporation, Turkmenbashi complex of oil refineries and Nebitgazhizmat CJSC addressed the meeting.

In particular, information was provided on the technical and economic indicators achieved in the field of oil and gas condensate production, processing of hydrocarbon raw materials, production of gasoline, diesel fuel, polypropylene, lubricating oils and other petroleum products, as well as liquefied, natural and associated gas, export of natural gas, and investments.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Ilkin Shafiyev  Trend:

Shares of the Turkish petrochemical complex Petkim increased by 138 percent in 2017, and reached the record high of the past three years, the Turkish media quoted Anar Mammadov, general manager of Petkim Petrokimya Holdings AS, as saying.

Currently, the value of Petkim shares on the Istanbul Stock Exchange is 8.09 Turkish liras per share.

Mammadov reminded the plans of Socar Turkey Energy AS in the near future to carry out an initial public offering of shares (IPO).

We are planning an IPO for Socar Turkey Energy in the upcoming period. The details are not defined yet. According to our estimates, oil prices will stand at about $60. This is a good price for us, he added.

Earlier, Head of SOCAR Turkey Enerji Zaur Gahramanov spoke about the IPO plans of the company, scheduled for 2020.

SOCAR Turkey Energy is one of the biggest investors in the Turkish economy. It is expected that in 2018, the consolidated turnover of SOCAR Turkey Enerji will reach $15 billion and the company will become the second biggest industrial company in Turkey with 5,000 employees and export potential of $3 billion.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Maksim Tsurkov  Trend:

Profit of Petkim Petrokimya Holding AS increased by 93 percent in 2017 as compared to 2016, the Turkish media quoted the companys General Manager Anar Mammadov as saying.

Mammadov said that the companys profit rose from 725 million Turkish liras in 2016 to 1.4 billion liras in 2017.

The main reason for the increase in profits is explained with the decline in oil prices and the depreciation of the Turkish lira, as well as the increase in production thanks to the effective work. About 3.42 million tons of products were produced with a production capacity of 3.6 million tons, in other words, the capacity was used by 97 percent. About 10 percent of the increase was achieved thanks to the implementation of the My Petkim program, the general manager noted.

He said that as a result of Petkims integration with the Star refinery, annual profit will increase by $100 million.

We will improve our efficiency after integration with the Star Refinery, and $60 million of additional profit will be received thanks to advantages in the field of logistics, and additional $40 million  through carrying out joint services, Mammadov added.

Petkim produces plastic packages, fabrics, detergents, and is the sole Turkish manufacturer of such products, a quarter of which is exported. The production capacity of Petkim is 3.6 million tons per year.

Petkim shareholders are SOCAR Turkey Petrokimya AS (51 percent), while 49 percent is in free circulation on the stock exchange.

The complex includes 14 plants that produce 20 different types of products.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Huseyn Valiyev - Trend:

The export volume of services of Azercosmos OJSC, the national satellite operator of Azerbaijan, in January 2018 amounted to $423,000, reads the "Export Review", published by the Center for Analysis of Economic Reforms and Communications of Azerbaijan on March 5.

According to the data, Azercosmos OJSC's income from the export of the services accounted for 59 percent of the total revenue of the operator.

Azercosmos OJSC provided services to 15 countries, including the UAE, Germany, Egypt, Georgia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Cyprus, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Lebanon, Turkey and Tanzania.

Azercosmos OJSC operates geostationary satellite Azerspace-1 and low-altitude satellite Azersky. The total income of the company from the commercial exploitation of the satellites reached $91 million, according to the operator's data released in February.

The revenues from the operation of Azerspace-1, Azerbaijans first satellite, since its launch into orbit, amounted to $72 million, while the revenues from the operation of Azersky satellite amounted to $19 million.

Azerspace-1 was launched on Feb. 8, 2013. Its service area includes the countries of Europe, Caucasus, Central Asia, Middle East and Africa.

The Azersky satellite was handed over to Azerbaijan in line with an agreement inked Dec. 2, 2014 at the BakuTel exhibition by Azercosmos OJSC and the French Airbus Defence and Space company.

The company plans to launch the second Azerspace-2 satellite in the first half of 2018. The zone of its service will include the countries of Europe, Central and South Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Azerspace-2, along with the expansion of the coverage zone, will become a reserve for Azerspace-1.Bakcell, the First Mobile Operator and Leading Mobile Internet Provider of Azerbaijan, has taken part in the 6th Career Fair, organized by ADA University.

This significant annual event brings together industries and young talents of Azerbaijan to establish their successful cooperation and make the talents closer to their potential employers. The largest companies and organizations of the country are taking part in the fair, to offer numerous internship and career opportunities to students and alumni of ADA University.

Taking an active part in the economic life of the society and being one of the largest investors in the non-oil sector of the country, Bakcell largely contributes to the development of youth employment  one of the main priorities of Azerbaijan's economy. Within the frames of the ADA Universitys 6th Career Fair, Bakcell has presented vacancy and internship opportunities available at the companys Sales and Marketing departments. The students were also provided with information about Bakcell and its innovative approach towards the companys customers and offered services. As a result, Bakcell stand at the fair has gained large attention of the students.

Bakcells mission is to support local young talents in their education and career, and thus contribute to bright future of Azerbaijani youth.

Bakcell, The First Mobile Operator and the Leading Mobile Internet Provider of Azerbaijan, offers a variety of products for modern mobile communications customers. Bakcell provides class leading 3G and 4G mobile internet experience in the country under the Su[email protected] brand name.

As one of the largest national non-oil investors, Bakcell today continues making large investments in the economy of Azerbaijan through its investments in state-of-the-art telecommunication technology and its people who service our customers.

For more information about Bakcell products and services, please visit www.bakcell.com or call 555. For press releases please see www.bakcell.com/az/news (or www.bakcell.com/en/news for press releases in English).

If you are not a Bakcell subscriber, but wish to find out about Bakcell and its services, please call 012 498 89 89.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

Azerbaijans AccessBank CJSC invites interested companies to participate in a tender for maintenance of printers and cartridges in the banks head office and branches, according to the banks message.

All the companies interested to participate in the tender can obtain additional information by calling (+994 55) 201-07-98 or sending an email to: [email protected].

Bids can be submitted until March 9, 2018.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Enquiry mission of the Bureau international des expositions (BIE) will visit Azerbaijan April 17-19, BIE representative told Trend March 5.

On 17-19 April, the enquiry mission will visit Azerbaijan to assess the bid to host the EXPO in the countrys capital, Baku. The program of the visit in Azerbaijan is not currently finalized, said the BIE representative.

Azerbaijan proposed to organize the Baku EXPO 2025 from May 10 to November 10.

The exhibitions topic will be Developing human capital, building a better future.

Russia (Yekaterinburg) and Japan (Osaka) also bid for hosting EXPO 2025.

On 6-8 March, the first enquiry mission will be in Japan to assess the bid to organize EXPO 2025 in Osaka. This will be followed on 2-4 April by an enquiry mission to Russia with regard to host EXPO 2025 in the city of Ekaterinburg.

The task of the enquiry mission is to assess the feasibility and viability of the EXPO project, a necessary step for the candidature to go further in the selection process.

The findings of the enquiry missions will be discussed by the BIEs Executive Committee in May, which then draws up a recommendation to the General Assembly based on each projects viability and conformity to BIE regulations.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_ZeynArmenian Minister of Justice Davit Harutyunyan believes that distributing several thousand dollars worth of salami and vodka, donated by anonymous donors, to ministry employees poses no corruption risk.

In February, Hetq revealed that that AMD 2.267 million ($4,700) in gift packages had been given to justice ministry employees and that the ministry balked at revealing who donated the salami, ham and vodka.

Wheres the corruption risk in giving gifts to my own staff? Harutyunyan has since replied.

When asked if the ministry was in the practice of accepting gifts from donors and then passing them on to employees, the minister replied, Were talking about a miniscule gift.

Harutyunyan also refused to name the person who donated the salami and vodks..

While the ministry, in its response, went out of its way to assure Hetq that no taxpayer money was used to acquire these holiday parcels, it overlooks the fact that public servants are not allowed to receive any gifts. Its a violation of Article 29 of the Law on Civil Service.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

The measures are being carried out for the sustainable development of tourism infrastructure and types of tourism within the existing administrative and territorial units of Azerbaijan, the rational use of tourism resources, the extension of the tourist season in the countrys districts and effective local governance, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Culture and Tourism said in a message March 5.

According to the message, in this regard, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted a resolution "On the Establishment of the Khizi-Khachmaz, Guba, Gusar Tourist and Recreational Zones" dated August 1, 2016 upon the proposal of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, which was agreed with the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, Ministry of Justice and the State Committee on Property Issues.

According to this resolution, Khizi-Khachmaz tourist and recreational zone was created in the administrative territories of the Khizi district (7,969.22 hectares), Siyazan district (14,365.44 hectares), Shabran district (25,833.78 hectares), Khachmaz district (33,832.40 hectares).

The Guba tourist and recreational zone was created in the administrative territories of the Guba district (3,729.43 hectares).

The Gusar tourist and recreational zone was created in the administrative territories of the Gusar district (14,546.55 hectares).

The Ministry of Culture and Tourism prepared the "Action plan for the Khizi-Khachmaz, Guba, Gusar tourist and recreational zones for 2017-2018", which was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers May 4, 2017.

An investment promotion mechanism was created upon the Azerbaijani presidents decree to improve the business sphere, support the creation of new enterprises and increase industrial production.

The document on investment promotion is the main document that allows receiving benefits envisaged in the Tax Code and the Law on Customs Tariff.

The agreements were signed with the companies which won the tender in connection with the preparation of the general plans for the development of the Guba, Gusar and Khizi-Khachmaz tourist and recreational zones in accordance with the amount of budgetary funds allocated to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for 2017.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

Trend:

Malaysian HOS International Trading SDN BHD, in a consortium with Chinese companies, intends to implement the Shurob thermal power plant project in Tajikistan, TajikTA reported citing the Tajik State Committee for Investments and State Property Management on March 5.

According to the committee, representatives of the Malaysian company visited the Shurob settlement in the Isfara district, Sughd region, and received information on coal reserves, where a thermal power plant is planned to be built.

HOS International Trading SDN BHD intends to submit a new version of the feasibility study for the project to the Tajik government until the end of March.

In October 2013, the Tajik government and HOS International Trading SDN BHD signed an agreement on implementation of the Decree on the Draft Concession Agreement on the Shurob Thermal Power Plant.

According to the committee, the 300 MW thermal power plant's construction in Shurob settlement in the Isfara district is implemented through direct investments worth $400 million.

According to the agreement, the investor will use the coal deposit for 30 years.Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, March 5

By Huseyn Hasanov Trend:

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has signed a decree exempting certain types of goods imported into the country from customs duties, the Turkmen government said in a message.

The document was adopted in order to continue the work carried out in Turkmenistan on state support for manufacturers of import-substituting and export-oriented products, further development of the domestic poultry industry, according to the message.

The document is aimed at effective use of all available opportunities for increasing the output of import-substituting products.

Representatives of the private sector are being actively attracted to solving these tasks, the Turkmenistan State News Agency reported.

Earlier, Berdimuhamedov said that further increasing the role of entrepreneurship in the national economy is determined as one of the key directions in the program for social and economic development of Turkmenistan for 2018-2024.

Practical actions in industry and agriculture should be directed both at import substitution and accelerated development of production using qualitatively new technologies, he said.

That is, these actions should be directed not only at solving the current tasks, but also to ensure Turkmenistans economic and food security in the future, Berdimuhamedov noted.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan will create a joint workgroup for saving the Aral Sea, Kazakh Ambassador in Uzbekistan Yerik Utembayev said during his visit to Karakalpakstan (Uzbekistan), according to the Uzbek media.

We have reached an agreement on joint actions for saving the Aral Sea. Karakalpakstan has a large experience in the desertization control, as well as in standing of various plants, especially of haloxylon. A joint activity of Uzbek and Kazakh specialists will help finding the most efficient methods, Utembayev noted.

He said that the Kazakh presidents initiative on further strengthening of the role of the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea is very important, especially during the Kazakhstans membership year in the UN Security Council.

Currently, Kazakhstan seriously plans to strengthen its coordination with the Central Asian states for saving the Aral Sea, he added.

Utembayev also noted that Uzbekistan pays special attention to saving of the Aral Sea.

Particularly, the Uzbek president noted in his speech at the UN General Assembly that prevention of consequences of the seas drying requires active consolidation of international efforts, including the activity in the framework of the UN Development Program.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will open the high-level international conference on Afghanistan "Peace Process, Cooperation in the Sphere of Security and Regional Interaction" in Tashkent on March 2627, 2018, Uzbek media reported citing the Uzbek Foreign Ministry.

According to the information, among the guests invited to the conference are the UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres and the UN Special Envoy to Afghanistan Tadamiti Yamamoto, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, as well as the foreign ministers of China, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Turkey, India, Iran, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The Tashkent conference will be held after the second meeting of Kabul Process, which was conducted in the Afghan capital on Feb. 28, 2018, and will become a logical continuation of the international communitys efforts on ensuring peace and stability in Afghanistan.

The conference participants are expected to express a consolidated position at regional and global levels on necessity of starting direct negotiations between the Afghan government and the Taliban movement without any preconditions as soon as possible.

The conference will be summed up by a Tashkent Declaration, which will reflect the main points of the discussion.

Uzbekistan put forward the idea to hold the Tashkent conference not as a one-time event only, but will rather put serious efforts both at the bilateral and multilateral levels to promote peaceful political process in Afghanistan, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry said.Tehran, Iran, March. 5

By Kamyar Eghbalnejad  Trend:

Iran enjoys the longest inland route within the International North-South Transport Corridor, therefore, it will earn more benefits compared to the other countries participating in the corridor, Nourollah Beiranvand, the deputy for planning and investment at the Railways of the Islamic Republic of Iran (RAI) told Trend.

Beiranvand said that in addition to its economic benefits, Iran enjoys strategic advantages concerning the corridor.

The International North-South Transport Corridor is meant to connect Northern Europe with Southeast Asia. It will serve as a link connecting the railways of Azerbaijan, Iran, and Russia. At the initial stage, it is planned to transport 5 million tons of cargo per year through the corridor and over 10 million tons of cargo in future.

In order to complete the mega project of the North-South Corridor, three railroad segments connecting the northwestern city of Qazvin to the border city of Astara should be constructed inside Iran.

The first segment is Qazvin-Rasht, which, according to Iranian officials, is almost completed and expected to be inaugurated soon.

The second segment connecting the cities of Rasht and Astara is expected to be constructed within three years with Azerbaijans financial aid.

In the meantime, the sides have already utilized the Astara-Astara segment, which connects the two border cities of the same name in Iran and Azerbaijan.

Javid Gurbanov, chairman of the Azerbaijan Railways CJSC, on March 1 met with Director General of Islamic Republic of Iran Railways Saeed Mohammadzadeh to discuss the latest developments regarding the railway.

During the discussions, it was noted that the International North-South Transport Corridor will unite the railways of the Scandinavian countries, Russia, Azerbaijan in a single network.

Saeed Mohammadzadeh said that this project will strengthen the railway communications of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia, the transit and economic potential of these countries, as well as give impetus to the cargo flow in this direction.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iran has openly criticized EU over its efforts to keep the US committed to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA/nuclear deal) through giving privileges to President Donald Trump.

The EU policy on giving privileges to the US in order to keep the country in the nuclear deal is wrong and this means surrendering to the psychological game initiated by Trump, IRNA news agency quoted Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, as saying at a meeting with visiting French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in Tehran on Monday.

A possible failure of the pact would damage the reputation of international agreements, he added.

Welcoming efforts to expand bilateral cooperation with France, Shamkhani urged Paris to remove obstacles to deepening banking ties between the two countries.

Speaking about Irans role in the region, Shamkhani said that if it was not for Irans costly confrontation" with terrorism, insecurity could quickly spread into Europe and France.

The secretary of the Supreme National Security Council touched upon Irans missile program and said the country's missile capability poses no threat to other countries and is merely based on the policy of deterrence.

With Trump warning of a last chance for the worst deal ever negotiated, UK, France and Germany have been working with US officials to draw up a strategy to improve the Iran nuclear deal in return for Trump keeping the pact alive by renewing US sanctions relief on May 12.

Bloomberg on Monday reported that French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is traveling to Tehran as part of a European drive to salvage the nuclear deal with Iran that President Donald Trump is threatening to scuttle and the Islamic Republic has said it may be forced to abandon. On May 12, Donald Trump is expected to decide whether to continue waiving sanctions under a US law.

So far, Iran has adhered to the terms of the nuclear deal, as verified by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors in 10 reports since the pact was implemented in January 2016.

But the economic benefits Iran is receiving in return have fallen short of expectations, even after energy and financial sanctions were lifted. Major banks and companies have avoided engaging with Iran from fear of running afoul of remaining US restrictions or seeing a snapback of sanctions given Trumps threats.

US President Donald Trump has told the Europeans that they must agree to fix the terrible flaws of the Iran nuclear deal or he would re-impose the sanctions that Washington lifted as part of the pact.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has said the EU is capable of playing a constructive role in order to protect the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) aka nuclear deal.

Protecting this diplomatic achievement must be equally important for all of us and verbal support is not enough, Zarif told his French counterpart Jean-Yves Le Drian at a meeting in Tehran.

Zarif further accused the US of failing to fulfill its commitments under the agreement.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was in Iran as part of a European drive to salvage the nuclear deal with Iran that President Donald Trump is threatening to scuttle and the Islamic Republic has said it may be forced to abandon.

France has also echoed concerns raised by US President Donald Trump on Irans regional influence and missile power.

On May 12, Donald Trump is expected to decide whether to continue waiving sanctions under a US law.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Gazenfer Hamidov  Trend:

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who arrived in Tehran March 5 morning, has started negotiations with senior Iranian officials.

In the first round of talks, Le Drian held a meeting with Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, the Iranian media reported without unveiling further details.

The top French diplomat is scheduled to hold talks with his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and President Hassan Rouhani during the day-long visit.

The visit is taking place as concerns over the fate of Iran's nuclear deal are growing. In early March, Reuters reported that European powers and Iran have started talks over Tehrans role in the Middle East and will meet again this month in Italy as part of efforts to prove to US President Donald Trump that they are meeting his concerns over the 2015 nuclear deal.

A day before Le Drians visit to Tehran, Frances foreign ministry said that Irans ballistic missile program was a major concern.

The ministry said it wanted Iran to contribute in a positive manner to solving crises in the Middle East.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Azer Ahmadbayli  Trend:

From 2016 up until March 2018, nine United Nations Security Council (UNSC) draft resolutions have not been adopted, thanks to the negative vote of permanent members of the Council.

To be precise, eight of them were vetoed by Russia, one by the US. All the documents concern the situation in the Middle East.

From 2001 to 2006 the picture was completely the opposite  ten US vetoes against the one of Russia. Almost all of the issues concerned the Palestinian question.

Under the United Nations Charter, the Security Council has, among others, functions and powers to: maintain international peace and security in accordance with the principles and purposes of the United Nations; determine the existence of a threat to the peace or act of aggression and to recommend what action should be taken; to take military action against an aggressor.

Instead, some of the world's greatest powers have been using the UNSC for their own benefits. Considering this, these powers can no longer be trusted to arbitrate international issues.

Last week Russia vetoed a UK-drafted resolution based on UN Panel of Experts report, condemning Iran for violation of arms embargo by sending missiles and other armament to Yemen's Houthi rebels.

Some members of the Council made statements before the voting.

The United Kingdom is deeply concerned about the fact that Iran failed to take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer of short-range ballistic missiles, missile propellant and unmanned aerial vehicles to what was then the Houthi-Saleh alliance, as reported by the Panel of Experts. We agree with the Panels assessment that in the light of that, Iran is in non-compliance with paragraph 14 of resolution 2216 (2015). Iran, and other States that violate Security Council resolutions, must be held accountable for it," UK representative Allen said.

While we fully endorse the majority of the draft resolutions provisions, we cannot concur with its unconfirmed conclusions and evidence, which will require verification and discussion by the Sanctions Committee," said Russias UN representative Nebenzia.

He also said: We are generally in principle against a politicized approach to the technical rollover of the Sanctions Committees Panel of Experts, one whereby their assistance is used to decide neither technical nor expertise issues but geopolitical ones. During the expert consultations we  clearly explained our disagreement with a number of provisions in the draft resolution based on selective and contentious conclusions of the Panel of Experts.

Nevertheless, both British and Russian speakers were very careful when speaking about their adherence to the SC unity.

Meanwhile, the US representative, Eckels-Currie, said: The report of the Security Councils Panel of Experts on Yemen (S/2018/68) has laid out in devastating detail the evidence of Irans ongoing destructive defiance of the Security Councils resolutions. The Panel has found significant evidence that Iran has violated the Yemen arms embargo established by the Council in 2015 in resolution 2216. And how did the Panel know? It knew because the ballistic missiles launched by the Houthis, which struck near civilian areas in Saudi Arabia, were found to be of Iranian origin.

Therefore, there are clearly contradictory opinions among SC members. Some say there is a clear evidence Iran violated international law. Some others, calling into question competence and independence of the UN Panel of Experts, say this is not enough proof of it.

There is one more point of view  that of the international community, which has the right to know the true situation.

If, after the first use of chemical weapons in Syria, UNSC members had used all their capabilities and technical means to find the perpetrator, whether the Assads regime or the opposition, and then took the toughest military action against him, there would have been no numerous subsequent relapses and many lives would have been saved.

Looks like a failure.

Some of the UNSC members are busy with protecting interests of their own, but not those of the international community. Their not inability, but deliberate renunciation to go all the way in finding unequivocal evidence of the commission of crime, leads to further violence as it can be seen with regards to Syria.

I have to cite Mr. Nebenzia again: To be blunt, the wording of the draft resolution proposed by the United Kingdom could have seriously destabilizing consequences,which would inevitably escalate regional tensions. Rather than making relations in the Middle East more antagonistic, we should be taking steps aimed at reaching agreement through mutually respectful dialogue.

Many people on Earth are not interested in mutually respectful dialogue.

They are interested in finding the truth and punishing those responsible. Only in that case the world can safeguard itself from violation of global order.

Now look what went on going after the draft Resolution had been vetoed.

"If Russia blocks the steps to prevent the dangerous and destabilizing actions of Iran, the United States and its partners are left with no choice but to take action against Iran, which Moscow will not be able to block," said the U.S. representative to the UN, Nikki Haley.

That is, any unity among UNSC members is completely out of the question and Washington is going to act beyond the UN frames. Is it an acceptable solution for maintaining international peace and security in accordance with the principles and purposes of the United Nations?

If the UNSC members, principally those who have the right of veto, dont have a political will to accurately exercise their direct duties and to really find out who is right and who is wrong, then it means the international mechanism doesnt work or at least has major malfunction.

If so, the time has come to urgently reform the international body. There is an option to leave UNSC and create political stalemate or, making use of the UN Charter, to recommend the admission of new members with changing the vote rules.An analysis of soil and sand samples taken from Yerevan playgrounds shows that many contain levels of heavy metal concentrates that pose a health risk.

Higher than safe levels of chromium concentrate were found in 26 of the 29 soil samples.

Higher than safe levels of lead concentrate were found in 8 of the 29 samples taken from Yerevans Nor Nork, Kanaker-Zeytoun, Arabkir, Erebuni, Nubarashen, Shenkavit and Kentron district playgrounds.

Mari Chakryan, who conducted the Safe Playground for Your Kids and Mine project, today released the worrisome findings.

With support from the EUs Eastern Partnership Civil Society Programme, the Safe Playground for Your Kids and Mine project started to monitor overall conditions of Yerevan playgrounds late last year.

Last November, Chakryan told Hetq that the project found that Yerevans thirty of so playgrounds were unsafe for kids, being strewn with litter and the sand boxes are filled with beer bottles and cigarette butts.

Results from the projects second phase are worrisome still.

Chakryan and her team of colleagues and community members took soil and sand samplings from the playgrounds and sent them to the Center for Ecological-Noosphere Studies of Armenias National Academy of Sciences for analysis.

Chakryan, President of the Public Awareness and Monitoring NGO, wrote to Minister of Health Levon Altunyan to find out what health and safety standards, if any, are being monitored at Yerevan playgrounds.

The ministry responded that the monitoring of such conditions at neighborhood play areas is not in the purview of its inspection agency.

In the aftermath of these findings, Silva Ayvazyan, Coordinator of Yerevans Aarhus Center, sent a letter of Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan, asking if the municipality is required to monitor and renovate playgrounds and whether it tests the soil.

The municipality responded that neighborhood play areas are officially listed and that the local government, in conjunction with district leaders and apartment boards, monitor conditions and repair problems that arise.

The municipality stressed the fact that the safety of children is of paramount importance when playgrounds are built or renovated.Georgias border guards have detained seven people for attempting to cross into Turkey illegally, Agenda reports.

The Interior Ministry did not reveal the identities of the detainees, but said two were Georgians while four from Bangladesh. One detainee is Uzbekistani.

They face four to five years in prison.The US Embassy in the Turkish capital of Ankara will be closed on Monday because of a security threat, the embassy said on Sunday in a statement, Sputnik reported.

"Embassy Ankara informs US citizens that the US Embassy in Ankara will be closed to the public on March 5, 2018, due to a security threat. The Embassy will announce its reopening, once it resumes services," the statement said.

The embassy pointed out that it would provide only emergency services while being closed.

"Routine services, such as passport renewals including lost or stolen passports, reports of birth abroad, and notarial services, are not considered emergencies. Requests for these services will be processed through our online appointment system once the Embassy reopens. Visa interviews and other routine services are cancelled; applicants will be informed directly of steps to take," the statement added.British Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday that she wanted financial services to be part of a deal on the countrys new relationship with the European Union after Brexit, echoing comments she made in a speech last week, Reuters reports.

One of the elements that we will be looking at as part of our future economic partnership with the European Union is a partnership on financial services, May said in a response to a question after giving a speech on housing.

The role that the City of London here plays is not just important for us, its important for the whole of the European Union... so we will be looking to include financial services.

EU officials have said Mays approach amountscherry picking the best bits of the EUs single market. They say Britain must accept less access to the single market if it continues to rule out some of the conditions for member countries, including the free movement of people from across the EU.Matteo Renzi has quit as leader of the Democratic Party after suffering huge losses in yesterday's Italian election.

Speaking this afternoon, Mr Renzi hit out at "extremist" parties who he said his party would not be joining.



The ex-PM added PD would be in opposition in the next parliament.

Despite overseeing a modest economic recovery, the ruling centre-left coalition trailed a distant third on 22 percent, hit by widespread anger over persistent poverty, high unemployment and an influx of more than 600,000 migrants over the past four years.

The resignation news was earlier revealed by sources within his party. His spokesman Marco Agnolotti denied knowledge of the leader's resignation when responding to the claims on Twitter.

However, at a press conference this afternoon Mr Renzi confirmed he was standing down.North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is hosting a dinner for two South Korean delegates, the first time officials from Seoul have met the young leader since he took office in 2011, BBC reports.

The South Korean president's office confirmed the meeting shortly after the delegates' arrival on Monday.

The delegation is in Pyongyang for rare talks partly aimed at restarting dialogue between the North and the US.

Relations between the Koreas have warmed following the Olympics.

In an unprecedented move the delegation includes two ministerial-level envoys - intelligence chief Suh Hoon and National Security adviser Chung Eui-yong.

North Korean state radio said the delegation was met by Ri Son-gwon, North Korea's reunification chief, who led talks in the weeks before the Winter Olympics.

During the two-day visit, the South Korean group will focus on establishing conditions for talks aimed at getting rid of the North's nuclear weapons as well as dialogue between the US and Pyongyang.

Mr Chung had earlier told a press briefing he would deliver President Moon Jae-in's "resolution to maintain the dialogue and improvement in relations between the South and the North... [and] to denuclearize the Korean peninsula".

"I plan to hold in-depth discussions on various ways to continue talks between not only the South and the North, but also the North and the United States," he added.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The Turkish Armed Forces are ready to clear of terrorists Syrias Manbij district, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, Turkish media reported March 5.

He said that the Operation Olive Branch will continue throughout the north of Syria to the border with Iraq.

Earlier, Erdogan said that the US was informed about Turkeys position on the Syrian Manbij district.

He noted that the ethnic composition of Syrias Manbij was changed by PYD terrorists, adding that the Arabs, who accounted for 90 percent of inhabitants of that area, were completely expelled from there.

On Jan. 20, the Turkish Armed Forces, together with the Free Syrian Army, launched the Operation Olive Branch in Afrin, Syria.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizogluBaku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

The Turkish Armed Forces will use the new tank armor system Pulat in Syrias Afrin, said Ismail Demir, head of the Undersecretariat for Defense Industries (SSM) of Turkey, Turkish media reported March 5.

He noted that the new system has fully passed the tests. Previous reports said the new system would be installed on to the Leopard 2 and M 60 tanks.

On Jan. 20, the Turkish Armed Forces, together with the Free Syrian Army, launched the Operation Olive Branch in Afrin, Syria.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizogluBaku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

The Turkish Armed Forces have started liberation of Jandaris settlement in Syrias Afrin district, Turkish media reported March 5, citing military sources.

The Turkish Armed Forces are inflicting strikes at positions of terrorists in the Jandaris settlement, and the forces of the Free Syrian Army are fighting in the vicinity of the settlement.

A total of 134 settlements were liberated from terrorists as part of the Operation Olive Branch.

On Jan. 20, the Turkish Armed Forces, together with the Free Syrian Army, launched the Operation Olive Branch in Afrin, Syria.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizogluBaku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag announced about releasing 142 settlements from terrorists in Syria's Afrin, Turkish media reported on March 5.

According to Bozdag, 2,795 terrorists were killed in the Operation Olive Branch.

On Jan. 20, the Turkish Armed Forces, together with the Free Syrian Army, launched the Operation Olive Branch in Afrin, Syria.

Earlier, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced that about 8,000-10,000 PYD/YPG terrorists are supposed to be hiding in Afrin.

Turkey began drawing its military to the Syrian border from late June 2017. The forces were being concentrated in Turkish Kilis Province bordering Syrian territory controlled by YPG/PYD.

On Aug. 24, 2016, Turkish Armed Forces, with the support of the Syrian opposition, launched the Euphrates Shield Operation against the IS militants and liberated the city of Jarabulus as well as the city of Al-Bab in northern Syria.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizogluBaku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

Persons suspected of preparing a terrorist attack on the US Embassy were detained in the province of Samsun in northern Turkey, Turkish media reported March 5.

Reportedly, all detainees are citizens of Iraq. No other details of the operation is disclosed.

Earlier, it was reported that the US Embassy in Ankara will suspend its work on Monday, March 5, for security reasons.

"The US Embassy in Ankara informs American citizens that the diplomatic mission will be closed on March 5 because of security threats. The embassy will announce the resumption of work later," the American embassy said in a message.

Previously, Ankara mayors office reported that Ankara police have strengthened security measures in the Turkish capital. The move came following the statement by the US Embassy in Ankara that it will suspend its work on March 5 for security reasons.

--

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizogluFor refugees and poor migrants, travel can be terrifying, with no guarantee of a welcome at the end. For the one percent, it's a different story, as a growing number of cash-strapped countries invite them in  as long as they bring plenty of money.

In the Gold for Visas project, reporters for OCCRP probe the shadowy business of selling visa-free travel and even citizenship to the rich, including some who would rather not say where that money comes from.

These stories were produced as part of the Global Anti-Corruption Consortium, a partnership between OCCRP and Transparency International, in cooperation with Global Witness.

READ THE STORIES

Global Firm Has Advice for Armenia: Bargain-Priced Golden Visas

What a deal!

If Armenia ever offers a Golden Visa program, the recommended price for citizenship could be as low as $50,000, according to a report prepared by a leader in the global immigration and investment services industry.

That would make Armenia a rock-bottom option in the Eastern European region, maybe in the world, for citizenship through investment. Even at that low price, the report says, the country could expect $138 million in new revenue over six years.

Arton Capital, which worked up the numbers for Armenia, specializes in citizenship-by-investment programs, commonly called Golden Visas. More than 20 countries now offer such schemes, which are popular with the wealthy and with those eager to evade taxes, including money launderers, corrupt officials, and organized crime figures.

The firm has long experience organizing such programs in about a dozen other countries. It was founded by Armand Arton, an ethnic Armenian who grew up in Bulgaria before moving to Canada, a nomadic childhood which he describes in his TedX talk.

Traveling with a Bulgarian passport in the 1980s was often challenging and a humiliating experience that marked [me] deeply at a very early age and defined [my] future, he said, and sparked a lifelong interest in simplifying cross-border movement.

Bargain-Basement Golden Visas

The price for Golden Visas in other countries starts at around 100,000 and goes up from there. In really popular places, it can be as much as 10 million.

The Arton report recommends that Armenia keep its price well below that to compensate for several challenges, not the least of which are its closed borders with neighboring Azerbaijan and Turkey. Following a ceasefire in 1994, Armenia and Azerbaijan continue to be technically at war over the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region. Turkey closed its border to Armenia during the war.

Armenia has also struggled with corruption. In 2017, it ranked 107th out of 180 countries in Transparency Internationals annual Corruption Perceptions Index. That was six places better than the previous year, but still left Armenia mired in the lower half of the worlds countries. (The report describes this problem delicately as some corruption risks in both official and commercial spheres.)

Arton candidly lists some of the countrys other negatives: Its population of less than 3 million and its low GDP per capita of about US$3,300.

But it also highlights the countrys positives, such as its strong ties to global economic hubs and its geographic and cultural proximity to strategic markets.

Armenia offers investors access to Russia and almost all the post-Soviet states, which means around 250 million potential consumers, including in Central Asia  plus almost 82 million more in neighboring Iran, with which the country has friendly relations.

And if the country achieves visa-free access to the Schengen zone, which it might in five to seven years, according to the Arton report, it could justly claim to have recreated its historic role as a stop on the Silk Road linking east and west.

As a whole, investors looking for long-term value can be sold on the advantages of Armenia, Arton advises.

With [visa-free access] to 60+ countries and its special relationship with Russia together with its geographical proximity with Iran, obtaining an Armenian citizenship will be seen not only as a means to secure ones future and security, but also as a strategic move for ones business development and positioning, the report states.

An Experienced Operator

The Arton report notes that while the government could run the program, a better option would be to hire a professional operator with experience in the field of investment immigration, described as an internationally acclaimed company. The report does not spell out who that might be, or how much that operator would be paid  but Arton would seem to be a likely contender.

The report estimates that about 14 percent of the estimated net cash flow the program would generate over a six-year period would cover its administrative, managerial, and marketing expenses. This would be about $20 million in total, a figure which presumably would include payments to an operator.

Arton clearly hopes that Armenia will choose an operator rather than go it alone.

Some governments consider this option of program management as they feel that the management, the processing, and the administration of a program must be delegated to an experienced operator who will secure its success and sustainability, the report says.

The companys legal representative responded to reporters questions, but did not allow that response to be made public.

How to Run a Golden Visa Program

Arton suggests that Armenia offer potential investors two options: a $50,000 direct contribution to a state-owned fund or a $100,000 investment in a fund run by an asset management company chosen by the government, which would offer the possibility of some return.

It further suggests that Armenia sets two types of fees. The first would be a non-refundable processing fee of up to $10,000; the second fee, the amount of which is not specified, would cover background checks into applicants records and sources of income.

Arton sees no downside to Armenia offering Golden Visas.

On the contrary  the overall economic impact is very high. The average investment amount with which we have probed (US$50,000) comprises 13 times the average annual household income and has the potential to cover the average external debt of 33 Armenian nationals.

The report suggests setting other criteria for applicants, such setting a minimum age of 18, requiring excellent character, and excluding those with convictions for crimes against humanity, sexual offenses, human trafficking, drug trafficking, money laundering, terrorism and terrorism financing, migrant smuggling, or other offenses.

Why Arton?

The International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), an international organization based in Vienna that works on migration policy, paid for the Arton report as part of an EU-funded project, Support to Migration and Border Management in Armenia.

Arton Capital was unknown in Armenia before a delegation from the firm arrived in May 2017 and the Armenian Ministry of Economic Development and Investments announced that it was there to help attract foreign investment.

Representatives of Arton Capital meet with Armenian officials during their first visit to Yerevan in May, 2017. Credit: MIBMA

Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Investments Tigran Khachatryan described the company at the time as experienced, with offices in more than 15 cities, and said that it had attracted over $3 billion in citizenship projects.

Carel Hofstra, who heads the ICMPD office in Armenia, told OCCRP partner hetq.am that Arton had been chosen after a competitive process involving several consultancy companies that provide similar services, based on Internet research, and Artons competitive pricing and previous experience. Hofstra, the ministry, and Arton Capital all refused to disclose the cost of the initial contract, but the EU delegation to Armenia disclosed a price tag of 18,500 (excluding VAT).

It is not known yet if or when an Armenian program offering citizenship in return for investment might be launched.

On its website, Arton says: In support of its philanthropic commitment, Arton Capital has pledged to donate the consulting fees awarded by the contract to help refugees in Armenia.

According to the website, an estimated 20,000 refugees from Syria, many of whom are ethnic Armenians, have arrived in the country since the war broke out in 2011.

This story was produced as part of the Global Anti-Corruption Consortium, a partnership between OCCRP and Transparency International.Baku, Azerbaijan, March 5

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

Turkey will not extradite two Greek soldiers who illegally crossed the borders, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said, Turkish media reported March 5.

Bozdag said Greece did not demand the extradition of the soldiers who crossed the border of Turkey.

He noted that a criminal case has been opened against the soldiers.

On March 2, two Greek soldiers were detained in Turkey. The incident occurred near the Evros River on the border between Greece and Turkey.

--

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizogluA man has been arrested in relation to Frances McDormands stolen Oscar, PEOPLE has confirmed.

Terry Bryant, 47, was arrested on suspicion of felony theft after he allegedly stole the gold statue at the Governors Ball, Los Angeles Police Department tells PEOPLE.

Bryant remains in jail on $20,000 bail.

The Best Actress winner, 60, headed to the annual party after the show, where she had her statue engraved with her name. However, she later realized her Academy Award was missing.

McDormand left the party with her husband, Joel Coen, but security was eventually able to find the prize and return it to the actress.

I can confirm that after a brief time apart, Frances and her Oscar were happily reunited last night. They celebrated their reunion with a double cheeseburger from In-N-Out, McDormands rep tells PEOPLE.KYODO NEWS - Mar 5, 2018 - 22:13 | All, World

Former U.S. President Barack Obama is likely to visit Japan later in the month and may hold talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe over the North Korean nuclear and missile issues, a Japanese government source said Monday.

According to the source, final arrangements are under way for the visit by Obama, who served as U.S. president from 2009 and 2017, with the most likely date considered to be March 24 and 25.

Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his stated intention to seek a world without nuclear weapons, became in 2016 the first sitting U.S. president to travel to Hiroshima, the site of the first U.S. atomic bombing in the closing stage of World War II.

Obama and Abe also visited Hawaii's Pearl Harbor in a show of reconciliation between the two World War II foes.KYODO NEWS - Mar 5, 2018 - 11:32 | All, Japan, Feature

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko will make a three-day visit to Okinawa from March 27 to commemorate victims of World War II, in what could be their final trip to the prefecture, the site of a major WWII battle, before the emperor's abdication, the Imperial Household Agency said Monday.

The imperial couple will stay in Naha, the capital of the southern island prefecture, and travel to Japan's westernmost island of Yonaguni for the first time, according to the agency.

The Okinawa trip was arranged as the couple strongly desired to visit the prefecture, which became a fierce battleground in the spring of 1945 and was occupied by the United States after the war until its reversion to Japan in 1972, agency officials said.

The 84-year-old emperor, who will step down in April next year, and empress, 83, have long felt sympathy for Okinawa, around a quarter of whose residents died in a three-month ground battle. The total death toll from the Battle of Okinawa exceeded 200,000, including Americans.

It will be the couple's 11th trip to Okinawa, including visits they made as crown prince and crown princess. They last visited the island prefecture in June 2014 ahead of the 70th anniversary of the end of the war in 1945.

The two are expected to fly to Okinawa and visit the National War Dead Peace Mausoleum in the city of Itoman on the main island on March 27 to pay tribute to the war dead.

The couple will make a day trip the next day to Yonaguni Island to visit a stone monument marking Japan's westernmost point and see "Yonaguni uma," a horse breed native to Japan.

On the final day, they will travel to the city of Tomigusuku on the main island to visit Okinawa Karate Kaikan, a facility dedicated to the karate martial art, which is said to have its roots in Okinawa, before flying back to Tokyo.

The emperor and empress first visited Okinawa in 1975, three years after its reversion to Japanese control, at a time when attitudes to the imperial family among local residents were complicated due to the war, which was fought under the name of the emperor's father, Emperor Hirohito. When the couple visited the Himeyuri war memorial in the southern part of the Okinawa battlefield, leftist activists threw a firebomb in a protest action. Neither the then crown prince nor princess was hurt.

After ascending to the throne in 1989, the emperor became the first Japanese monarch to visit the prefecture in April 1993 when he attended a national tree-planting ceremony there.

The emperor and empress offer a silent prayer every year on four war-related dates -- June 23, when the Battle of Okinawa ended, Aug. 6, when the first U.S. atomic bomb was detonated over Hiroshima, Aug. 9, the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and Aug. 15, when Emperor Hirohito told the nation over the radio of the end of the war, according to the agency officials.

The couple views them as "four days that should never be forgotten," they said. Emperor Hirohito, posthumously known as Emperor Showa, was commander in chief of the Japanese military before and during the war.

The emperor and empress have traveled to former battlefields to sooth some of the wounds of the war as well as to disaster-hit areas to console victims.

The agency is considering arranging more trips for such purposes before the emperor's abdication on April 30, 2019, the officials said. The emperor has signaled his wish to retire due to concern about his advanced age and weakening health, and the Chrysanthemum throne will be succeeded to by his elder son Crown Prince Naruhito, 58, on the following day.KYODO NEWS - Mar 5, 2018 - 23:50 | World, All

Special envoys of South Korean President Moon Jae In arrived in North Korea on Monday and were expected to meet with its leader Kim Jong Un, according to a South Korean presidential spokesman.

Kim Jong Un was due to host a dinner for the special envoys only a few hours after their arrival in Pyongyang, spokesman Kim Eui Kyeom told a press briefing.

If the talks were held, it would be the first time for Kim Jong Un to have direct talks with South Korean officials since he became North Korea's supreme leader following the death of his father Kim Jong Il in 2011.

The envoys may have delivered Kim a letter from Moon, sources close to the matter said.

The delegation departed on a special flight from an airport in Seoul, taking a route across the Yellow Sea, the South Korean presidential office earlier said.

When the envoys arrived in Pyongyang, they were welcomed by Ri Son Gwon, the head of the Committee for Peaceful Reunification of Fatherland, a state agency in charge of handling inter-Korean affairs, the North's Korean Central Broadcasting Station said.

South Korean local media reported that the envoys met with Kim Yong Chol, the head of the ruling party's United Front Department, who led a high-ranking North Korean delegation to the closing ceremony of the Pyeongchang Olympics.

The delegation is slated to leave North Korea on Tuesday.

The envoys are visiting for talks with North Korea's leadership to clear a path for dialogue between that country and the United States, South Korea's longtime ally.

In addition to discussions on improving inter-Korean relations, the envoys are believed to have sounded out Kim's views on his country re-entering into dialogue with the United States for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The delegation, composed of five special envoys and five working-level officials, is headed by Chung Eui Yong, chief of the presidential National Security Office.

It also includes Suh Hoon, head of the National Intelligence Service, and Chun Hae Sung, vice minister of unification. Suh, known as a specialist on North Korea, coordinated summits between the two Koreas in 2000 and 2007.

Hours before their departure, Chung told a press briefing that he would "deliver President Moon Jae In's sincere and firm resolve to maintain the dialogue and improvement in relations between the South and the North...to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula," Yonhap News Agency reported.

"In addition, I plan to hold in-depth discussions on various ways to continue talks between not only the South and the North, but also the North and the United States and the international community," he was quoted as saying.

After returning from Pyongyang, Chung and Suh will head to Washington to report on the visit directly to U.S. President Donald Trump, according to an official close to the negotiations. "The results will be explained to China and Japan in an appropriate manner," the official added.

The United States maintains that any dialogue with North Korea must be conducted with the explicit and unwavering goal of "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization."

North Korea on Saturday expressed eagerness to hold talks with the United States "on an equal footing," official media said, rejecting a U.S. demand to abandon nuclear weapons if the Asian nation wants to start bilateral talks.

Washington and Seoul have agreed to suspend their joint drills until the March 18 end of the Pyeongchang Winter Paralympics in South Korea, to which the North has pledged to send its athletes.

Moon's office earlier said the envoys would visit North Korea to reciprocate for its dispatch of Kim's younger sister and close aide Kim Yo Jong as part of Pyongyang's high-level delegation to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in South Korea last month.

Chung and Suh met with her and other North Korean officials during their visit to South Korea.HONG KONG, March 5 (Reuters) - China aims to get its home-grown, overseas-listed companies to float on the domestic exchanges through the depositary receipts route, people with knowledge of the matter said, in a plan that would pit Shanghai and Shenzhen against Hong Kong in the battle to host China's tech giants.

The move forms part of efforts by Beijing to counter the threat of a large number of its local technology companies opting for New York or Hong Kong listings instead of their home market, one of the people said.

The guidelines for China depositary receipts (CDRs), similar to American depositary receipts, is likely to be finalised in the second half of this year by China's securities regulator, said the two people.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) will start accepting CDR applications from interested firms towards the end of the year, they said, declining to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter.

A depositary receipt is a financial instrument representing a firm's publicly traded shares. Trading in depositary receipts rather than the underlying shares reduces administration and transaction costs, both for companies and for investors.

These receipts represent ownership of a set number of company shares that can be listed and traded independently from the underlying stocks, and are often used by emerging market companies to raise capital in places like the United States and London.

The CSRC plan, if implemented, could give Chinese investors access to leading overseas-listed local technology companies including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, Baidu Inc , JD.com Inc, and Tencent Holdings Ltd.

All these firms preferred to list overseas due to Beijing's strict rules on their track record of profits, as well as because of the lengthy time taken to clear the IPO applications in the world's second-largest economy.

CSRC could not be immediately reached for comment outside of business hours. Financial magazine Caixin first reported the planned CDR move on Monday.

Baidu declined to comment, while Alibaba, JD.com and Tencent did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment. (Reporting by Sumeet Chatterjee, Shu Zhang, Yiming Shen, Julie Zhu and Kane Wu Editing by Shri Navaratnam)* China set to beat steel, coal targets in five-year plan

* Underscores effort to streamline bloated sectors, clean air

* NDRC report comes as annual Parliament starts on Monday

By Muyu Xu and Tom Daly

BEIJING, March 5 (Reuters) - China's state planner pledged on Monday to cut more steel and coal production capacity this year, putting the country on track to beat its long-term targets, as Beijing reinforced its vow to beat smog and make "skies blue again".

At the opening of the annual meeting of parliament, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a work report it will reduce steel capacity by around 30 million tonnes and coal output by about 150 million tonnes this year.

The cuts would put the world's top steel maker and coal miner on track to meet its 2020 targets in the government's five-year plan about two years ahead of schedule.

The cutbacks came as Premier Li Keqiang said in prepared remarks that the government would consolidate gains made in the country's fight against pollution to defend the "blue of our skies.

China planned to cut emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, major sources of hazardous airborne particles known as PM2.5, by 3 percent this year, Li said. That's the same as the 2017 targets, which were easily exceeded.

Elsewhere, the NDRC report largely reiterated existing goals, underscoring China's years-long determination to crack down on pollution, cut back supply in bloated heavy industries and upgrade fossil-fuel energy sources by cutting coal use in favour of cleaner energy.

In both steel and coal, it has focused on shutting outdated, more polluting plants, while bringing on more efficient operations with lower emissions to ensure supply. Steel output hit a record last year, while coal production also rose.

The 2018 cuts were higher than expected, said Zhang Min, a coal market analyst at China Sublime Information Group.

"Setting a high target this year showed the government is not slowing down the pace of reform for the two industries," said Zhang.

Story continues

AHEAD OF LONG-TERM TARGETS

Cutting 30 million tonnes of steel capacity in 2018 will bring the total reduction over three years to 145 million tonnes. That will put China well ahead of a plan to reduce excess by up to 150 million tonnes by 2018 to 2020.

Steel rebar prices dipped 0.7 percent in morning trade, as the news was largely priced in after Beijing flagged last month that it expected to meet the objective in 2018.

A cut of 150 million tonnes of coal this year would bring the total cut since the start of 2016 to 590 million tonnes, well ahead of the five-year plan by the world's top coal consumer to slash 500 million tonnes of coal capacity by 2020.

Thermal coal futures were down 0.7 percent, hitting their lowest since mid-Janauary as concerns about falling demand offset news of the cuts.

In 2017, China produced 3.45 billion tonnes of coal in 2017, up 3.2 percent from the previous year and a record 832 million tonnes of steel.

Also in the report, the government said it will shut coal-fired power plants with capacity of less than 300,000 kilowatts that fail to meet emission standards in 2018.

The NDRC said it also will continue to focus on merging and restructuring steel companies, and guard against eliminated capacity coming back online.

(Reporting by Muyu Xu, Tom Daly, Josephine Mason and Meng Meng; editing by Richard Pullin)* PNG LNG to take about 8 weeks to restore production - Exxon

* Project uncertainty has drained liquidity from spot markets

* Quake has killed at least 31 people (Adds ExxonMobil PNG quotes, project details)

SYDNEY, March 5 (Reuters) - ExxonMobil Corp said on Monday it would take about eight weeks to restore production at the Papua New Guinea liquified natural gas project (LNG), following a powerful earthquake that hit the country's energy-rich interior a week ago.

The 7.5 magnitude quake on Feb. 26 triggered landslides and flattened buildings, killing at least 31 people, and has affected the regional LNG market. The South Pacific nation has declared a state of emergency.

Exxon said in a statement on Monday that 300 non-essential personnel had been evacutated and work at the Hides gas conditioning plant in the highlands had turned to restoring camp and associated facilities.

"While the gas conditioning plant was safely shut in, there has been some damage to various pieces of equipment and foundation supports that will need to be inspected and repaired," it said.

"Initial visual inspections of the major processing equipment indicate that they may not have been significantly impacted," it added.

Exxon is the operator and largest shareholder of the project that includes a 700-km (435-mile) gas pipeline that connects gas reserves in PNG's jungle Southern Highlands to a coastal liquefaction plant. Oil Search Ltd and Santos are also project partners.

Oil Search said the Agogo production facility and the Moran field were the most affected by the quake, and major repairs will be required before production can restart. The timeframe to restart production through Agogo is still being reviewed.

Uncertainty around production from PNG has drained liquidity from Asia's spot LNG markets with buyers and sellers taking a wait-and-see approach before committing to trade, a market source said.

The PNG LNG project is considered one of the world's best-performing LNG operations. Exxon said earlier this month that together with its partners, France's Total SA and Australia's Oil Search, it plans to almost double the facility's export capacity to 16 million tonnes per year.

(Reporting by Jonathan Barrett; Additional reporting by Chris Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Richard Pullin)SAO PAULO, March 5 (Reuters) - Brazil's benchmark Bovespa index was roughly flat on Monday, underperforming some other major Latin American equities markets despite general market optimism, after new corruption revelations sent shares in food companies plummeting.

Early on Monday, Brazilian federal police said they arrested the former chief executive of food processor BRF SA on charges that he and other executives were aware that the company committed fraud in trying to avoid food safety checks.

Police said the charges were part of a new phase in the so-called 'weak flesh' corruption investigation, which caused havoc last year on the sector and temporarily closed export markets to Brazil, the world's largest beef and chicken exporter.

By afternoon, BRF shares had dived 15.8 percent, taking 227 points off the Bovespa. Shares of asset manager Tarpon Investimentos SA, whose largest investment is BRF, fell 18 percent, their largest ever drop, after the arrest of Pedro Faria, former chief executive at BRF and currently a partner at Tarpon.

Shares in Brazilian food companies JBS SA and Marfrig Global Foods SA also took a hit, falling 5.2 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively.

As a whole, the Bovespa was trading up 0.14 percent in the afternoon, as the index was supported by shares of state-run oil major Petroleo Brasileiro SA, known as Petrobras, whose preferred and common shares had jumped 2 percent and 2.3 percent, respectively.

Various sectors such as telecoms, finance, and consumer discretionary were in the black due to general optimism regarding the possibility of monetary easing in Brazil and positive developments in global commodities markets.

That helped take the bite out of the food sector losses, even as the Bovespa significantly underperformed equities in Mexico and other nearby markets.

"Here we have more and more the perception of a market converging toward a new cut in the Selic (interest) rate," said Vitor Suzaki, an analyst at Lerosa Investimentos.

"And abroad there's also the improvement of commodities, which is buoying emerging markets." Key Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 1636 GMT: Stock indexes daily % YTD % Latest change change MSCI Emerging Markets 1175.73 -0.54 2.04 MSCI LatAm 3081.71 0.52 8.4 Brazil Bovespa 85878.34 0.14 12.40 Mexico IPC 47769.54 0.47 -3.21 Chile IPSA 5523.22 -0.4 -0.74 Chile IGPA 27697.63 -0.37 -1.01 Argentina MerVal 32246.72 1.08 7.25 Colombia IGBC 11298.75 0.27 -0.63 Venezuela IBC 4296.88 3.24 -86.45 Currencies daily % YTD % change change Latest Brazil real 3.2534 -0.13 1.84 Mexico peso 18.8930 -0.44 4.27 Chile peso 598.52 -0.01 2.69 Colombia peso 2849.85 0.57 4.64 Peru sol 3.247 0.28 -0.31 Argentina peso 20.2100 0.45 -7.97 (interbank) Argentina peso 20.37 0.15 -5.60 (parallel) (Reporting by Gram Slattery and Flavia Bohone Editing by Frances Kerry)URI vs. SSD: Which Stock Should Value Investors Buy Now? URI vs. SSD: Which Stock Is the Better Value Option?

Ericsson ERIC has partnered with Dialog Axiata PLC  Sri Lanka's largest telecommunications services provider  to launch the first commercial Massive IoT network in Southeast Asia that supports both Cat-M1 (Category M1) and NB-IoT (Narrow Band IoT) technologies.

Ericsson is offering Cat-M1 (LTE-M) and NB-IoT support as a software activation to Dialog Axiata's existing LTE Radio Access Network.

The advanced mobile network technology, which will be deployed across Dialog Axiatas Sri Lankan network, will accelerate the proliferation of IoT devices. Further, features like long battery life, superior coverage and cost-effective enterprise solutions will help develop the countrys IoT ecosystem.

Cat M1 and NB-IoT technologies are becoming increasingly popular, owing to the fact that these optimize devices to send data while utilizing battery life to the maximum. Ericsson's Massive IoT solutions for Cat-M1 and NB-IoT devices offer immense advantages such as low cost, massive connections, deep coverage, low power consumption as well as more secure and reliable transmission.

The technologies are driving the IoT revolution on the technical side of things, which is not surprising considering the advantages they offer. The Cat-M1/NB-IoT network will multiply opportunities for solutions like Smart Metering for utilities, Smart Parking, smart environmental sensors for smart cities, logistic solutions and other applications in agriculture and farming.

In spite of solid offerings, Ericsson is witnessing negative industry trends and adverse business mix in mobile broadband. Particularly, uncertainty in the financial markets, reduced consumer telecom spending and delayed auctions of spectrums pose significant threats for Ericsson. Operators have been cautious in making new investments, especially in the emerging markets, which has affected the companys revenues and profits. Further, Europe and Latin America  the markets with the biggest impact  are expected to have an increasingly challenging investment environment.

Story continues

Ericsson Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Ericsson Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise | Ericsson Quote

As far as earnings performance is concerned, Ericsson has had a dismal earnings surprise history over the trailing four quarters, missing estimates terribly all through. The company has lagged estimates by a whopping 552.5% on an average.

Ericssons earnings estimates have moved south in the past couple of months, indicating bearish analyst sentiment for the stock. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2018 earnings has been revised downward from 17 cents to 3 cents over the past 60 days, driven by three downward estimate revisions versus just one upward.

Over the past year, the companys shares have returned 2.1%, significantly underperforming the industry's gain of 16.7%.

Nevertheless, Ericsson expects to stabilize its operations amid a difficult market in 2018. Ekholms restructuring plan will help streamline the companys focus areas, improve profitability and revitalize its technology and market leadership.

Whether these steps will allow Ericsson to get back on the growth track, remains to be seen. Right now, we are apprehensive over the impact of the restructuring and tough market conditions on the companys profits and share price in the near term.

We have a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) on the stock, at present. Investors who are looking for exposure to the upcoming 5G upgrade cycle or IoT might look at players like Nokia Corporation NOK and Cisco Systems, Inc. CSCO.

Stock to Consider

A better-ranked stock in the same space is Harris Corporation HRS, holding a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Harris Corporation has a decent earnings surprise history, with an average positive surprise of 6.7%, driven by three earnings beats over the trailing four quarters.

The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All

Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.

See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >>



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Ericsson (ERIC) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Nokia Corporation (NOK) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Harris Corporation (HRS) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.FILE PHOTO: The logo of Dow Jones Industrial Average stock market index listed company Chevron (CVX) is seen in Los Angeles, California, United States, April 12, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo

By John Tilak, Ernest Scheyder and David French

TORONTO/HOUSTON (Reuters) - Chevron Corp (CVX.N) is exploring options including the sale of a minority stake in its Canadian liquefied natural gas (LNG) project as it pushes ahead, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Among the parties in talks with Chevron for a possible stake in Kitimat LNG are Petroliam Nasional Bhd [PETR.UL], or Petronas, which scrapped its own $36 billion LNG project in British Columbia last year due to challenging market conditions, two of the people said.

Reuters spoke over the past week to the sources, who said there is no certainty that Chevron would proceed with the stake sale. The persons spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is private.

Chevron declined to comment, and Petronas did not respond to a request for comment.

Chevron is also considering selling a stake in the project to a financial investor such as a Canadian pension fund or a private equity firm, the people added.

Canadian companies Seven Generations Energy Ltd (VII.TO) and Tourmaline Oil Corp (TOU.TO) are in discussions to supply natural gas to Chevron's project, the people said. Seven Generations may also consider buying a stake in the project by partnering with other gas producers, the people said.

While any possible deal with a financial investor would be strictly a cash infusion to help support the cost of building the project, a deal with a producer could be structured as a commitment to supply natural gas to the plant for a period of 20 to 25 years, the people said.

Canadian pension funds have a huge appetite for infrastructure-style assets that offer stable cash flows over a long period, and pipeline investments tend to have those attributes.

The project in British Columbia, a 50/50 joint venture with Australia's Woodside Petroleum Ltd (WPL.AX), has a 20-year, 10 million-metric-tonne-per-year export license for LNG and is expected to cost tens of billions of dollars to build.

Story continues

Kitimat could become one of the largest capital investments in a Canadian energy project, Chevron says on its website.

Taking such a substantial investment decision has been difficult for the duo, given concerns over a global LNG supply glut for the last three years. Fierce political opposition in Western Canada to building pipelines and other energy infrastructure has also escalated in the last several years.

However, surging gas demand from China and Southeast Asia is reassuring export project developers that the market cycle is finally beginning to turn.

Seven Generations declined to comment, and Tourmaline did not respond to a request for comment.

Located about 1,400 kilometers north of Vancouver, the Kitimat project was earmarked to utilize shale gas extracted in the northern part of British Columbia and export LNG to energy-hungry markets in Asia.

San Ramon, California-based Chevron acquired its 50 percent stake in Kitimat in early 2013 from EOG Resources Inc (EOG.N) and Encana Corp (ECA.TO).

(Reporting by John Tilak in Toronto and Ernest Scheyder and David French in Houston; Additional reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi in Kuala Lumpur, Julie Gordon in Vancouver and Aaron Sheldrick in Tokyo; Editing by Denny Thomas and Matthew Lewis)Public perception of Walmart (WMT) and Dicks Sporting Goods (DKS) improved after both retailers imposed new restrictions on gun sales, in the aftermath of the Feb. 14 high-school shooting in Florida that left 17 dead.

A new survey of consumers by research firm YouGov BrandIndex shows that the buzz score for Walmart jumped 7 points after Walmart changed its gun policy on Feb. 27, from 13 to 20. The score for Dicks surged from 2 to 18. YouGov computes scores by asking survey respondents whether theyve heard anything about a given brand recently, and whether it was positive or negative. The worst possible score is -100 (totally negative) while the best is 100 (totally positive).

Both stores still sell guns. But each recently changed its policies, taking assault-style weapons off the shelves completely and requiring all buyers to be at least 21. Walmart is the nations biggest seller of firearms, while Dicks is the biggest sporting-goods retailer.

Not surprisingly, impressions of the changes at both retailers varied by political persuasion. Democrats and Independents led the push behind Walmarts rise in perception, while Republicans perception of the retail giant fell slightly. Democrats were also responsible for the boost for Dicks, while Republicans and Independents stayed the same on the store.

Buzz scores jumped for Walmart and Dicks after they tightened rules for gun purchases on Feb. 28. Source: YouGov BrandIndex

Consumer-facing companies are grappling in various ways with American gun violence and the controversies over permissive gun laws in many states, and in Washington. Nearly 20 companies have cut ties recently with the National Rifle Association, the nations major gun-rights lobbying group. Recent research by YouGov found none of those companies suffered a net decline in public-perception scores. Scores for two airlines, Delta and United, improved slightly. Since those are net perception scores, they can include some consumers who react negatively and others who react positively.

Delta did suffer one setback: the state of Georgia canceled a proposed tax break for the airline worth about $50 million, as retribution for Delta ending a discount program for NRA members. Gov. Nathan Deal is a Republican, and Republicans control the Georgia legislature, where several members said Delta was singling out conservatives for unfair treatment. Delta has since said it plans to end affiliations with all groups that have a political slant.

Story continues

Confidential tip line: rickjnewman@yahoo.com. Encrypted communication available.

Read more:

Rick Newman is the author of four books, including Rebounders: How Winners Pivot from Setback to Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman

Follow Yahoo Finance on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedInOil prices rise Monday morning

Investing.com - Oil prices rose Monday morning in Asia with expectations that oil producers would discuss further how to clear the global oil excess during a meeting between OPEC and U.S. shale companies.

Crude Oil WTI Futures for April delivery were trading at $61.52 a barrel in Asia at 10:45pm ET, up 0.44%. Brent crude futures for May delivery, traded in London, were up 0.43% at $64.65 per barrel.

The largest energy industry conference, CERAWeek, begins on Monday. Oil ministers from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other global oil players will gather in Houston for the event.

On the sidelines of the conference, a dinner is expected to be held on Monday between OPEC officials and U.S. shale firms.

Soaring shale oil production in the U.S. has hampered OPECs attempt to ease the global oversupply and prop up prices.

OPEC has been reducing output by around 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) since January 2017, with output falling to a 10-month low in February 2018. Meanwhile, U.S. crude inventories increased by 3 million barrels in the last week of February, putting a lid on prices.

Since mid-2016, U.S production has increased more than 20%, exceeding 10 million bpd. The U.S. has already risen past top exporter Saudi Arabia, and is set to overtake Russia as the worlds largest oil producer by 2019 at the latest.

This month, the number of oil rigs drilling for new production in the U.S. rose to 800 for the first time since April 2015, pointing to more increases in output to come.

Meanwhile, OPEC President Suhail Mohamed Al Mazrouel, who is also the oil minister of the United Arab Emirates, said on Sunday that OPEC has not discussed rolling over production cuts until next year.

Related Articles

Oil prices climb ahead of OPEC meeting with U.S. shale firms

Crude Oil Prices - Weekly Outlook: March 5 - 9

Gold / Silver / Copper Prices - Weekly Outlook: March 5 - 9March 5 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the New York Times business pages. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

- The messaging company Telegram has been around since 2013, but never tried to raise significant money until late last year. Now, thanks to an initial coin offering, or I.C.O., Telegram is on track to pull in a billion dollars in just four months - long before the product the company is raising money for is even built. http://nyti.ms/2Fpt2FW

- Hundreds of thousands of people remained without electricity on Sunday, after a fierce storm swept through much of the eastern United States on Friday. Some utility companies told customers that power may not be restored until later this week, around the time another storm could strike the region.http://nyti.ms/2FmMGlV

- The White House continued to sow uncertainty on Sunday about the stiff tariffs President Trump said he would impose on steel and aluminum imports as key advisers defended the policy but left room for the president to change his plans. http://nyti.ms/2FkDtuD

(Compiled by Bengaluru newsroom)Statoil ASA STO, along with its partners, intends to commence exploration drilling on the UK and Norwegian continental shelves using the semi-submersible rig  West Phoenix.



Operations are expected to begin from the summer of 2018. Two seadrill companies  North Atlantic Drilling UK Ltd. and North Atlantic Norway Ltd  have been awarded the contract.



An exploration well for the Ragnfrid North license on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) will be the first to be drilled by the West Phoenix. Subsequently, three wells will be drilled on the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS). The rig has received the requisite consent from the authorities for these operations.



The cost for drilling the Ragnfrid North is estimated at $19.5 million, while the cost of the three wells on the UKCS is projected to be $18.5 million. The operations include integrated drilling services such as fuel, casing running, remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV), slop treatment and cuttings handling as well as mobilization and demobilization.



Located in PL199, Ragnfrid North lies about 20 kilometers south of the Kristin field in the Norwegian Sea. On completion of the well, the rig will travel to the UKCS where Statoil will drill three wells.



The appraisal well will establish the potential volume range in the Verbier discovery. Announced in October 2017, Verbier was initially estimated to hold 25-130 million barrels of oil. The partners in P2170 are Statoil, Jersey Oil and Gas and CIECO V&C (UK) Limited holding 70%, 18% and 12%, respectively.



The Pip prospect occupies the Fladen Ground Spur area in license P2318. The Bigfoot prospect lies 30 kilometers (about 20 miles) south of the Mariner field, in license P2314. Statoil operates these licenses with a holding of 50%, while BP owns the remaining 50%.



The drilling of all these four wells is expected to take about four to five months. They will be drilled in a continuous campaign and is scheduled to begin in the third quarter.



In January, Statoil awarded contracts to North Atlantic Norway Ltd and the West Hercules for drilling in the Barents Sea.



Q4 Price Performance



During the last three months, Statoils shares have gained 13.4% against the industrys 1.9% decline.

Story continues









Zacks Rank & Other Key Picks



Statoil carries a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).



A few other top-ranked players in the same sector are Occidental Petroleum Corp. OXY, Pioneer Natural Resources Co. PXD and ConocoPhillips COP. All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here



Houston, TX-based Occidental Petroleum is an integrated oil and gas company. The company delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 24.57% in the preceding four quarters.



Headquartered at Irving, TX, Pioneer Natural Resources is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company. The company delivered an average positive earnings surprise of 66.92% in the preceding four quarters.



ConocoPhillips, based in Houston, TX, is a major global exploration and production (E&P) company. The company delivered a positive earnings surprise of 144.45% in the preceding four quarters.



The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All



Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.



See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >>



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



Statoil ASA (STO) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Pioneer Natural Resources Company (PXD) : Free Stock Analysis Report



ConocoPhillips (COP) : Free Stock Analysis Report



Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment ResearchSino-Saturday breaks late this week as I am in transit to Singapore for the launch of Brainstorm Design. More on that in the days ahead. For China-watchers, the past week brought three momentous developments. We began with the revelation that Chinas National Peoples Congress has proposed rescinding a rule limiting Chinas president to two five-year terms. Then, on Thursday, US president Donald Trump announced he would sign a bill imposing import tariffs of up to 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum. Finally Xis main economic advisor, Liu He, on a high-profile visit to Washington, received an unmistakeably frosty reception from the Trump White House.

The abolition of term limits for Chinas presidency is a change many analysts had predicted, but one of huge significance because it clears the way for Xi Jinping to remain ruler of China for as long as he likes. It also confirms that China has cast aside the collective leadership model established under Deng Xiaoping in favor of the kind of strongman rule that characterized the era of Mao Zedong.

Trumps trade tariffs, intended to protect US producers from Chinese competitors, would apply to all steel and aluminum producing nations, including key strategic allies like Japan, South Korea and Canada. The measures invited immediate global criticism and are almost certain to provoke future retaliation.

Trumps refusal to meet with Liu is revealing as political theater. In his first year, Trump went to extraordinary lengths to praise Xi and cultivate a personal relationship with the Chinese leader. But such a deliberate snub of Xis personal emissary suggests the Trump-Xi bromance is over.

Taken together, the three moves make the world economy a far riskier place than it was a week ago. The predictable result: a broad selloff in global equity markets.

Whats next? To state the obvious: relations between the worlds two largest economies have entered a dangerous and unpredictable new phase.

Story continues

Theres a case to be made that Chinas decision to remove term limits on Xi is a positive for that nations growth. In theory, consolidating authority in a single individual will put an end to factional infighting and bring stability to policy-making; China now has a decisive leader who can make the tough choices required to ensure continued economic growth.

In my view, that case is weak. Chinas shift to authoritarianism is a throwback to an old era in which dogma defeated dynamism and is a clear negative for future growth. China has made a great leap backwards from autocracy to dictatorship.

In a provocative essay published in Jack Mas South China Morning Post, David Shambaugh, a leading American China expert, argues that Xis wilful overconcentration of power in himself, and his concomitant deconstruction of institutions and procedures that were established to constrain such power and avoid it ever being concentrated in a Chinese leader again, are both a reversal of the past 40 years of policies and a very dangerous precedent for the future.

And, as the Economist notes, the abolition of term limits on the Chinese presidency offers the clearest evidence to date that the Wests assumption that economic integration would encourage China to become a market economy was a huge miscalculation.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journals fiercely conservative editorial board has blasted Trumps new trade measures as the biggest policy blunder of his presidency. Trump remains unfazed. On Friday, he boasted that trade wars are good and easy to win. Well learn more about the details of Trumps tariffs in the week ahead. Hang onto your hats.

Technology and Innovation

Cloud mine. Apple will be moving its iCloud data to Chinese data centers in order to comply with Chinese regulations. Though the change only affects users whose accounts list mainland China as their country of residence, it raised concerns from human rights activists, who worry that it could lead to the arrests of democracy advocates. Reuters

On the plate. Alibaba has plans to acquire Ele.me, Chinas largest food delivery platform, from existing investors such as Baidu. Alibaba and affiliate Ant Financial already own 40% of the start-up, valued at $9.5bn, and will buy the remainder from existing investors such as Baidu. Financial Times

Billionaires row. Chinas securities regulator is considering granting special approvals to tech unicorns to list on domestic stock exchanges. Applications from start-ups valued over $1bn in the biotech, cloud computing and other high-tech industries will have their IPO applications to the China Securities Regulatory Committee fast-tracked over regular applications. China Money Network

Mobike, Chinas leader in dockless bike rentals, plans to impose higher fees on misbehaving users. Those with a fair score will have to pay double while those rated poor will be charged multiple times more, said the company. Tech in Asia

The Peoples Daily, a Chinese newspaper often considered the Communist Partys official mouthpiece, published a full-page spread this week reaffirming that the country does not only support blockchain technology, but hopes to be a global leader in the field. The paper added that government policy will help to further develop blockchain in China, and that the technology is highly suited to regulatory oversight. TechNode

Tencent founder Pony Ma is now Chinas richest man, according to the latest Global Rich List published by respected Shanghai-based wealth research firm Hurun Report. Mas estimated fortune more than doubled to $47 billion in the last year as his company reached a value of $540bn, more than that of Facebook. CNN

Trade and Economy

Trading barbs. China has expressed grave concern and said it will actively take measures to protect its interests, after Trump remarked Friday that trade wars are easy to win, along with plans to levy penalties of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports from next week. Trumps words were also drew swift rebuke from the president of the European Commission. Associated Press

Lieutenant Liu. China this week sent Liu He, Xi Jinpings most trusted economic adviser, to Washington for trade talks after a trip by state councillor Yang Jiechi failed to contain tensions between the worlds two biggest economies. But who exactly is Liu He? The Washington Post has an in-depth profile of Xis former schoolmate and party loyalist. Washington Post

Ensure it. The Chinese government is stepping up scrutiny over Chinas insurance sector. After seizing control of troubled Anbang Insurance Group last week, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) issued a warning this week to three major insurers, Ping An Insurance, New China Life Insurance and China Re Asset Management Co over their overseas investments. China Money Network

Down but not out. A unit of the beleaguered HNA Group announced that it will be launching two funds with 20 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) to bolster and promote Beijings Belt and Road program for infrastructure development in emerging markets. The fund will be co-run by a Hong Kong-based company specialising in intellectual property exchange and will invest in projects connected with the Belt and Road program. Caixin Global

In Case You Missed It

Have Chinas politics taken a turn for the worse? The Economist

China Has Detained the Relatives of Four U.S. Journalists, Report Says TIME

China-South Korea Relations: A Delicate Detente The Diplomat

Baidus video business iQiyi to raise up to $1.5B in US IPO TechCrunch

Chinas SenseTime, MIT Launch Artificial Intelligence Alliance China Money Network

China issues first licenses to road test driverless vehicles Reuters

China racism row: meet African woman who lost out to blackface on TV gala South China Morning Post

China, too, has lessons to learn from US terracotta warrior vandalism case, experts say South China Morning Post

Politics and Policy

Leadership line-up. China is expected to have four new vice-premiers after the annual National Peoples Congress this month. Three of them will likely helm Xis top priorities: poverty alleviation, environmental protection and curbing economic risks. The 200 members of the Communist Parts Central Committee met this week to finalize senior level appointments and will endorse them at the national legislatures full session that begins on Monday. South China Morning Post

Nothing is forever. The constitutional reforms to remove presidential term limits does not equate to life-long terms, official state media Peoples Daily said in an editorial this week, after widespread concern that Xi Jinping was trying to hold on to power indefinitely. Reuters

Nothing to Xi here. The latest target of Chinese internet regulators: online criticism of Xi Jinpings decision to remove limits on presidential terms. Dozens of phrases and new terms expressing fear of Xis dictatorial inclinations were scrubbed off social media platforms such as Weibo and WeChat. Financial Times

Also Australia. Australias army is following in the footsteps of the U.S. by phasing out the use of phones from Chinese makers Huawei and ZTE due to security concerns. The Australian defense department had previously purchased and issued Huawei and ZTE phones, but all Huawei phones have already been decommissioned. Caixin

Water warrior. China is planning to launch the countrys first-ever nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the water by 2025, amid efforts to bolster its military and step up its maritime defence. Chinas two existing aircraft carriers use conventional oil power. South China Morning Post

Summaries by Debbie Yong. @debyong

debbie.yong@timeinc.com

Find past issues, and sign up for other Fortune newsletters.FILE PHOTO: A worker inspects wire rod at TIM stainless steel wire factory in Huamantla, in the Mexican state of Tlaxcala October 11, 2013. REUTERS/Tomas Bravo/File Photo

By Susan Cornwell and Ayesha Rascoe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump faced growing pressure on Monday from political and diplomatic allies as well as U.S. companies urging him to pull back from proposed steel and aluminum tariffs, although he said he would stick to his guns.

Inside the White House, there still appeared to be confusion about the timing and extent of the planned tariffs, which would hit allies like Canada and Mexico hard.

Efforts by Trump and U.S. trade negotiators to link the NAFTA trade pact talks to the duties received short shrift from Ottawa and Mexico City.

Leading Republicans turned up the pressure on Trump, with House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan leading the charge. Ryan's home state of Wisconsin would be hit by proposed European counter-measures on Harley Davidson motorbikes.

Representative Kevin Brady, another top House Republican, called on Trump not to hit America's closest allies.

The planned tariffs have roiled world stock markets as investors worried about the prospect of an escalating trade war that would derail global economic growth. Stocks across the globe rose on Monday, however, after four days in decline as investors saw the tariff threats as a U.S. negotiating tactic and not a done deal and as pressure grew on Trump to back off.

"We're not backing down," Trump said during a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "I don't think you're going to have a trade war," he added, without elaborating.

Earlier comments from Trump had stoked talk of a global trade war as he described them as easy to win and issued a threat to German carmakers. One of those, BMW, runs a plant in the United States that is the largest single autos exporter in the country and has created thousands of jobs.

Most responses to Trump's proposed tariffs have been targeted. The European Union said it would hit Harleys, bourbon and jeans, iconic American products. It did not threaten to ramp up the issue.

Story continues

China has been largely mum, urging caution, and both Canada and Mexico have stressed the targeted nature of any response.

STRESSES INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE?

Trump was expected to finalize the planned tariffs later in the week, although some observers familiar with the process said it could occur next week. The initial announcement by Trump last week came as a surprise.

The United States, Mexico and Canada have been holding talks over changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact that Trump has threatened to abandon.

Six months of tense talks have produced little in the way of progress and a move by Washington to link the steel and aluminum tariffs to progress on NAFTA was rebuffed by Canada and Mexico.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer also attempted to drive a wedge between Canada and Mexico when he suggested the United States would be willing to hold bilateral, rather than trilateral talks. The two countries again stood firm.

In Washington, aides scrambled to meet Trumps demand for the paperwork to be completed for a formal announcement. The exact timing was unclear as the tariff documentation had to be drafted and go through a variety of reviews, a process that takes days, an administration official said.

There was always a chance that Trump could amend his initial announcement to take account of the concerns expressed about it, said a source familiar with the internal debate at the White House.

TRUMP'S TRADE TRAIL

Trump has frequently talked tough on trade, although his actions have not always matched his words. On his first day in office in January 2017, he withdrew from the 14-nation Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, a deal that was dead on arrival in the U.S. Congress in any case.

He has frequently tweeted and said that he would pull out of NAFTA, which he has called a jobs killer. But a year after taking office, the 1994 deal remains intact.

Trump has approved a series of small-scale trade actions, of which the steel and aluminum duties would be a part. Taken together with actions on washing machines and solar panels, the proposed move accounts for just 4.1 percent of U.S. imports. In terms of global trade, they are just 0.6 percent, investment bank Morgan Stanley said in a report.

The head of the World Trade Organization warned of a real risk of triggering an escalation of global trade barriers and a deep recession, even as financial markets and many economists started to discount the risk of a global crisis.

"We must make every effort to avoid the fall of the first dominoes. There is still time," WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo told the heads of WTO delegations at a closed-door meeting in Geneva.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Steve Holland, Eric Walsh and Susan Heavey in Washington, Adriana Barrera, Sharay Angulo, Lesley Wroughton and David Ljunggren in Mexico City, Rodrigo Campos in New York and Tom Miles in Geneva; Writing by Frances Kerry and David Chance; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Peter Cooney)FILE PHOTO: The seal of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission hangs on the wall at SEC headquarters in Washington, DC, U.S., June 24, 2011. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday said it had charged a New York-based company for a scheme illegally soliciting foreign nationals interested in living in the United States through a federal government investment program.

In a statement, the SEC alleged that the unregistered company, Edwin Shaw LLC, had illegally brokered dozens of investments by such foreigners between April 2014 and March 2017.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and David Alexander; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)Square Inc (NYSE:SQ) shares were soaring today after an overseas news outlet reported that the company may soon dip its toes in cryptocurrency trading.

Square Inc (SQ)

The company has not released any definitive information on the manner, but a small-time news site based out of Latvia said that the payment services provider is possibly testing an integration with Bitcoin, according to a report from three traders who asked to not be identified.

A contributor named Oladapo Olagoke wrote the news about Square on a website called Cryptona that focuses on cryptocurrency news. No new information regarding the matter has been released yet and Olagoke wasnt able to be reached for comment.

InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips

Back in Jan. 31, Square CEO Jack Dorsey wrote in a tweet that the company will eventually introduce Bitcoin trading for almost all the users of its Cash app. Dorsey followed up the tweet with a message on Feb. 27 that said Bitcoin, for us, is not stopping at buying and selling.

Last week, the company impressed in its quarterly earnings results. On Friday, Square said that its general counsel Hillary Smith would be resigning from the company.

SQ shares gained roughly 9.5% Monday. This marks the stocks largest single-day uptick ever if it holds by the end of the day, as the last time the stock hit its highest one-day gain was on May 4, 2017, when it rose 8.9%.

More From InvestorPlace

Compare Brokers

The post Why Square Inc (SQ) Stock Is Soaring Today appeared first on InvestorPlace.By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) - The head of the World Trade Organization told member states on Monday they must prevent "the fall of the first dominoes" in a trade war and warned of a real risk of triggering an escalation of global trade barriers and a deep recession.

World trade policy is in turmoil because of U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement last week that he planned to put controversial tariffs on steel and aluminium, prompting threats of tit-for-tat actions and concerns for the trade system itself.

"We must make every effort to avoid the fall of the first dominoes. There is still time," WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo told the heads of WTO delegations at a closed-door meeting in Geneva.

"In light of recent announcements on trade policy measures, it is clear that we now see a much higher and real risk of triggering an escalation of trade barriers across the globe," Azevedo said, according to a copy of his statement released by the WTO.

Azevedo is normally very conservative in remarks about WTO members' trade policies, but he also plays a role as a guardian of the global trading rules, a bulwark against protectionism.

On Friday he broke his silence on Trump's tariff plan, expressing concern and saying a trade war would be in nobody's interest.

In his statement at Monday's meeting, he did not name any one country but sounded a more urgent warning.

"Once we start down this path it will be very difficult to reverse direction. An eye for an eye will leave us all blind and the world in a deep recession," Azevedo said.

Trade officials said that many diplomats at the meeting voiced concern about protectionism, and 11, including the 28-state European Union, expressed very strong concerns about Trump's announcement on Thursday specifically.

As well as the EU, Mexico, Japan, Australia, China, South Korea, Brazil, Norway, Canada, India and Venezuela all warned of the knock-on effect of Trump's action and urged the United States to think again.

Trade officials said the U.S. representative at the meeting, originally called to discuss a recent ministerial conference in Argentina, spoke only about the original agenda without mentioning the furore over the U.S. tariff plan.

(Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Matthew Mpoke Bigg)We're sorry, you encountered a page that doesn't exist.Nokia Traffica geolocation capabilities provide robust map-based location data on traffic and network issues down to the street level

Improves Tele2's ability to identify network problems and troubleshoot subscriber service issues

5 March 2018

Espoo, Finland - Nokia Traffica is helping Tele2 Netherlands deliver a superior real-time subscriber experience on its mobile network by more quickly and accurately identifying and resolving service issues and improving network quality.

Nokia Traffica software is part of the Nokia Cognitive Analytics portfolio. It is a real-time network analytics solution for monitoring and troubleshooting that provides deep insights into traffic, network conditions, locations, devices and subscriber activity. It enables service provider customer care and operations teams to better understand how subscribers are experiencing their services.

Building upon Tele2 Netherlands' existing Traffica deployment, Nokia Traffica's geolocation capabilities provide a granular view of services issues down to the geo-tile level. They also provide an intuitive, map-based visualization system making it easier for service providers to precisely pinpoint the location of service issues, such as poor cell coverage and dropped calls.

With these powerful new capabilities, Tele2 Netherlands can better detect, troubleshoot and resolve network and subscriber issues using real-world, real-time data, dramatically improving overall network quality, delivering a better subscriber experience and reducing churn.

Meile de Haan, CTO of Tele2 Netherlands, said: "Working with Nokia as our long-term strategic partner, the Traffica solution is well-suited to our needs. The new geolocation capabilities provide our customer care and operations teams with deeper insights that will enable us to consistently deliver the highest level of quality for our state-of-the-art LTE network."

Mikkoa Yla-Kauttu, account director, Netherlands at Nokia said: "Our Cognitive Analytics portfolio provides powerful tools and capabilities to help service providers increase efficiencies and improve network quality. We are delighted to work with Tele2 Netherlands to deliver the highest levels of network and service quality to their customers."

Resources

Connect with Nokia

Subscribe to receive information on specific areas of interest

Website

Blog

Twitter

LinkedIn

Facebook

About Nokia

We create the technology to connect the world. Powered by the research and innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, we serve communications service providers, governments, large enterprises and consumers, with the industry's most complete, end-to-end portfolio of products, services and licensing.

Nokia is enabling the infrastructure for 5G and the Internet of Things, and shaping the future of technology to transform the human experience. nokia.com

Media Inquiries:

George Millington

Nokia Software Communications

Phone: +1 925-683-5471

Email: george.millington@nokia.com

Nokia

Communications

Phone: +358 10 448 4900

Email: press.services@nokia.comHALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ucore Rare Metals Inc. (TSXV:UCU) (OTCQX:UURAF) (Ucore or the Company) has set a 2020 production start date for the recently announced U.S. Strategic Metals Complex (SMC), a rare earth elements (REE) separation plant to be located in Ketchikan, Alaska. Ucores transition to production will be led by Mr. Mike Schrider, Chief Operating Officer and Mr. Randy MacGillivray, VP Project Development in conjunction with the engineering efforts of IBC Advanced Technologies, Inc. (IBC), other specialty firms, and local Alaska based consultants.



The Company is currently entering its second phase of Alaska SMC due diligence, including: (i) specific site selection within the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, (ii) design engineering, (iii) construction costing (CAPEX), (iv) finalization of input feedstocks from the short-list of competing alternatives, (v) operational costing (OPEX), and will reveal additional schedule highlights once confirmed.

The Alaska SMC Development and Production Throughput Schedule, including an initial planned throughput of 1000 TPY in 2020-21, ramping to 5000+ TPY by 2024, is as follows:

Planned Alaska SMC Development and Production Throughput Schedule

18  19 19  20 20  21 21  22 23  24 Design

Financing

Construction Construction

Commissioning

Production 1000 Tonnes

Annual REC

Throughput 2500 Tonnes

Annual REC

Throughput 5000+ Tonnes

Annual REC

Throughput



The decision to embark on the engineering design is a significant milestone for Ucore and Alaska; as together we accelerate to becoming a technology-based producer of individual, saleable, REE oxides in the worldwide market, said Jim McKenzie, President and CEO of Ucore. Our go-forward planning during H1 2018 includes the business plan, engineering, construction and operating schedules for the Alaska SMC. Were pleased to share the highlights of this information with our shareholders and the residents of Ketchikan via a series of forthcoming press releases in the weeks and months ahead.

The residents of Ketchikan have expressed a great interest in our Alaska SMC project said Mike Schrider. Were pleased to finally be in a position to reveal our initial schedule highlights as well as additional aspects of the design and planning process as they materialize in the immediate term.

We envision the Alaska SMC as the first component of the nearby Bokan Dotson Ridge rare earth element projects surface complex, said Randy McGillivray. Ucore is in a position to construct a state-of-the-art rare earth separation facility that is neither energy-intensive nor a threat to air and water quality. We have the opportunity to permit and construct the first large scale REE separation facility using clean-green Molecular Recognition Technology (MRT), in an environmentally sustainable and safety conscious manner.

On March 31, 2014, Ucore announced the unanimous support and authorization of the Alaska State Legislature for the investment of up to USD $145 Million in the Bokan-Dotson Ridge rare earth element project at the discretion of the Alaska Import Development and Export Agency (AIDEA). Included in that investment proposal was an allocation for the design and construction of a REE separation facility. Ucores forthcoming engineering, business and construction plans for the Alaska SMC will be submitted to AIDEA under this authorization for consideration, due diligence, review and approval thereof.

Qualified Person

Michael Schrider, P.E., Chief Operating Officer of Ucore Rare Metals Inc., has approved the scientific and technical content of this news release and is the Qualified Person responsible for its accuracy under NI 43-101 regulations. Mr. Schrider, holds a B.Sc. degree in engineering from the University of New Orleans and is a Registered Professional Engineer in the State of Louisiana.

About Ucore

Ucore Rare Metals Inc. is a development-phase mining company focused on establishing rare metals resources and beneficiation technologies with near term potential for production, growth and scalability. The Company has a 100% ownership stake in the Bokan  Dotson Ridge REE property in Alaska. The Bokan  Dotson Ridge REE project is located 60 km southwest of Ketchikan, Alaska and 140 km northwest of Prince Rupert, British Columbia and has direct ocean access to the western seaboard and the Pacific Rim, a significant advantage in developing near term production facilities and limiting the capital costs associated with mine construction.

For further information, please contact Mr. Randy MacGillivray, VP Business Development of Ucore Rare Metals Inc. at: +1 (604) 842-9802 or visit <http://www.ucore.com>.

Cautionary Notes

This press release includes certain statements that may be deemed forward-looking statements. All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address future exploration drilling, exploration activities, research and development timelines, and events or developments that the Company expects, are forward looking statements. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include exploitation and exploration successes or setbacks, research and develop successes or setbacks, continued availability of financing, and general economic, market or business conditions.

MRT is at advanced testing stages and has yet to be proven, at a commercial scale, for the separation of rare earth elements. The Company has not yet released an economic assessment on the use of MRT for the separation of rare earth elements and does not yet have any specific contracts for the processing of rare earths using MRT.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined by the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.ACS will be represented at the 62nd Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) as Immediate Past Chair of the Branch Executive Committee, Jo Stewart-Rattray, joins the Australian delegation.

Stewart-Rattray has been selected to join the official party travelling to New York to provide insight and expertise into how technology can empower rural women around the world.

Speaking to Information Age, she explained that being given the opportunity to represent Australia at the United Nations is quite literally a lifetime dream come true.

When I was a seven-year-old living in the country, I was a big Audrey Hepburn fan, she said. I saw her movies and she was working at the UN and I though I want to do that.

As time went on, I recognised her work as a UN goodwill ambassador as a way to make a difference.

Of course, thats a long way from the Australian heartland, so I never really thought it would happen, so this seriously is a dream come true.

Stewart-Rattray joins the delegation of eight as one of two non-government delegates  Australia is one of the only member states that allows non-government delegates to participate in the formalities.

Established in 1946, the CSW is an annual two-week session where participating parties can agree on further actions to accelerate progress and promote womens enjoyment of their rights in political, economic and social fields, its website states.

This year, representatives from 193 UN member states, civil society organisations and UN entities will meet at the UN headquarters in New York to discuss the priority theme of Challenges and opportunities in achieving gender equality and the empowerment of rural women and girls.

Stewart-Rattray will use her vast experience in the ICT industry to provide insight into how technology can impact and empower rural women.

Were talking about all 193 member states, not just Australia and the First World, she said.

Technology allows opportunities in business, it allows opportunities in studies, it also allows the ability of women to remain safe if they have access to a mobile phone, for instance.

In her 25 years of working in the Australian ICT industry, Stewart-Rattray has built significant connections amongst other women in technology.

It was this network that landed her the opportunity to join the upcoming delegation.

I was hosting a lunch at a conference for women in the tech industry, and a woman heard me speak and said, I have an opportunity that you should throw your hat in the ring for, she said.

By the time I had gotten back to Adelaide she had sent me the link and I had just four days to put something together, and I worked with some colleagues and we put something together and put it in the mix.

So without that level of connectivity between women and the women in tech workforce I wouldnt have had this opportunity.

Leading the delegation will be Minister for Women, the Hon Kelly ODwyer, who spoke of the value Stewart-Rattray, and the other non-government delegate Dr Pat Hamilton, will bring to her team.

With expertise and depth of experience in Australias rural and IT sectors respectively I am confident that Dr Hamilton and Ms Stewart-Rattray are extremely well placed to make a valuable contribution to the CSW62 themes, the Minister said in a statement.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Kabul, Mar 4 (IBNS): Two Islamic State militants, who were suspected to be involved in planning attacks on Imam Zaman mosque and some other areas of Afghanistan capital Kabul city, have been arrested, media reports said on Sunday.

The arrest was confirmed by National Directorate of Security (NDS) of Afghanistan.

An NDS official, who wished to go unnamed, was quoted as saying by Pajhwok Afghan News in Kabul that Daesh attack plotters in Kabul, Ehsanullah and the groups recruitment in charge for the capital, Mohammad Omar, were arrested in Kabul last month.

These two men also brought two other men named Abu Zubari Khurasani and Abu Jandullah Uzbaki from Nangarhar province to Kabul, who carried out attack on Imam Zaman Mosque, source told the news agency

The source said both the detained terrorists were responsible for planning all Daesh attacks in the capital city.

The official told the news agency that the two Daesh members recruited nearly 20 people, most of them university students, and then sent them to Nangarhar and some others to Jawzjan province for working with the rebel group.

The attack on Imam Zaman mosque on Aug 25, 2017 had left 28 people dead and 50 others injured.

Kabul and rest of the nation have witnessed several terrorist attacks in recent times.

More than 10,000 civilians have lost their lives or suffered injuries during 2017, according to the latest report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documenting the impact of the armed conflict on civilians in Afghanistan.

The human cost of this ugly war in Afghanistan  loss of life, destruction and immense suffering  is far too high said the Secretary-Generals Special Representative for Afghanistan, Tadamichi Yamamoto, during the launch of the latest annual report in Kabul.

The report detailed that in 2017, UNAMA and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) documented 10,453 civilian casualties  3,438 killed and 7,015 injured.

The findings show that the majority of civilian casualties resulted from suicide attacks, improvised explosive device, ground engagements, targeted killings, explosive remnants of war and air strikes.



Police are investigating the incident while the perpetrators remain at large.

A commemorative plaque and a bust of Lesya Ukrainka, one of Ukrainian literature's foremost writers best known for her poems and plays, were cut off from a facade of a corresponding house-museum in Kyiv over the weekend.

The bust and commemorative plaque made of bronze were installed on 97 Saksaganskogo Street in 1971 on the 100th anniversary of the writer's birth, which was marked at the UNESCO level.

Read alsoKyiv's Moscow bridge renamedThe writer and her family lived in the house in 1899-1909. The museum opened its doors in 1960.

Police are investigating the incident while the perpetrators remain at large.Two anti-European Union parties appear to be the biggest winners in Italys parliamentary elections on Sunday.

However, neither parties, Movimento 5 Stelle, or M5S, and Lega, have received enough seats in Parliament to govern the country alone.

Early projections say that M5S will be the largest single party with about 32 percent of the vote. The M5S did not even exist 10 years ago.

The right-wing coalition of Lega and Forza Italia appear to have earned 36 percent of the vote. Forza Italia is an established party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

It was also clear that Italian voters rejected the ruling Democratic Partys message that the economy had improved under its government. The pro-European Union party suffered the biggest losses this election.

As the results arrived, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen celebrated the strong showing of the Lega party. She tweeted: "The spectacular advance and top showing of the League [Lega] coalition led by our ally and friend Matteo Salvini is a new stage in the awakening of the people!"

The results of Sundays elections will not be seen as good news for migrants in Italy. The two winning parties have supported efforts to stop migration and increase deportations.

An unclear political future

The outcome of the vote, leaving no party with a clear majority, creates political uncertainty for Italy.

Some political experts say Italy would face a political revolution if M5S and the Lega formed a coalition government. But others think it is not likely to happen. An advisor to Italys President Sergio Mattarella said, many in M5S just won't sit at the same table as the Lega.

It is also possible that Italy may be left with the same Prime Minister as before the election, Paolo Gentiloni. The 63-year-old Gentiloni is widely seen as one of the few politicians with the diplomatic ability to manage current Italian politics.

Some experts say Mattarella will likely pick Gentiloni to lead a coalition government if the winning parties cannot form a government among themselves.

The new Italian parliament will meet for the first time on March 23. And President Mattarella is not expected to open formal talks on forming a government until early April.

Im Phil Dierking.

Jaime Dettmer wrote this story for VOA News. Phil Dierking adapted it for VOA Learning English. Hai Do was the editor.

Do you think two populist parties can agree on enough issues to run the government? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. ______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

deportation - n. to force (a person who is not a citizen) to leave a country

spectacular - adj. causing wonder and admiration

uncertain - adj. not exactly known or decidedThe 90th Academy Awards honored the best films of 2017. Mexican director Guillermo del Toro was the big winner with the Best Picture and Best Director Oscars for his film The Shape of Water.

But more importantly, the show from Hollywood aired live on television as planned with speeches, old film and appeals for female solidarity. There were no protests or mistakes, unlike last year when Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty announced the wrong winner for Best Picture.

Jimmy Kimmel hosted the ceremony at Los Angeles Dolby Theatre. And three actresses, Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek and Annabella Sciorra, appeared together before a video showing a changing Hollywood industry. They were among the several women who accused producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual abuse.

The video showed Greta Gerwig, only the fifth woman to ever be nominated for best director. It also had Yance Ford, the first transgender nominee for Strong Island, Dee Rees, whose Mudbound received a cinematographer nomination and the Pakistani-born Kumail Nanjiani for The Big Sick.

The program avoided problems when actor Casey Affleck, last years Best Actor winner, stayed home, rather than follow tradition and present the Best Actress award. Affleck has been accused of sexual misbehavior. Instead Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence presented the Best Actress Oscar.

Special Oscars moments

Walking joyously onto the stage, 86-year-old Rita Moreno wore the same dress from the 1962 ceremony. She had worn the dress 56 years ago to receive the Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story.

James Ivory became the oldest Oscar-winner at the age of 89. He won for his screenplay Call Me By Your Name. And Christopher Nolans World War II film Dunkirk received three technical awards.

Chiles A Fantastic Woman, which starred the transgender actress Daniela Vega, won best foreign film. Disney and Pixars celebration of Mexican culture, Coco, took best animated feature, as well as best song for Remember Me.

Jordan Peele became the first African-American to win best original screenplay for his horror film Get Out. Peele said he stopped writing it 20 times, because he did not think it would get made.

But I kept coming back to it because I knew if someone would let me make this movie, that people would hear it and people would see it, said Peele.

Frances McDormand used her appearance on stage to speak on behalf of women. The Best Actress winner asked, If I may be so honored to have all the female nominees stand with me.

We all have stories to tell, she said.

I'm Anna Matteo.

Susan Shand adapted this story for Learning English based on AP news reports. Hai Do was the editor.

Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

solidarity - n. a feeling of unity among people who have the same interst, goal

transgender  adj. of or relating to people who feel that their true nature does not match their sex at birth

joyously - adv. feeling or showing great happiness

U.S. President Donald Trump said he is not backing down on his plan to raise taxes, known as tariffs, on imported steel and aluminum.

However, members of his Republican Party and leaders around the world are warning the taxes are not a good idea.

The president has said products from Canada and Mexico, two of the largest steel exporters to the U.S., would face the tax just like all other countries.

But he suggested that he might be willing to exempt the two countries if they agreed to different terms for the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

No, were not backing down, Trump said in the Oval Office during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Weve had a very bad deal with Mexico, weve had a very bad deal with Canada  its called NAFTA, Trump said.

Trump made his comments after a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan said the Republican leader was extremely worried about a trade war. She added that Ryan urged the president to not advance with this plan.

The Trump administration says the tariffs are necessary to support American industries that are important to national security.

But the presidents comments and messages on Twitter have suggested that he is seeking to influence talks on NAFTA. The latest round of a nearly yearlong renegotiation effort is coming to an end this week in Mexico City.

Trump tweeted, Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed. Also, Canada must treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S.



Reactions to tariffs plan

Trumps announcement last week that he would place tariffs on steel and aluminum imports unsettled the stock markets and angered allies.

The U.S. military has asked for targeted tariffs on metal imports from countries like China. It warned that tariffs on all countries would hurt national security partnerships with some countries.

But other officials supported a tariff without exceptions. Speaking on a Fox news program, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said: 25 percent on steel, and the 10 percent on aluminum, no country exclusions  firm line in the sand.

Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said the sweeping action would let China off the hook. He also said it would divide the U.S. and its allies.

Jean-Claude Juncker is president of the European Commission. He said the European Union could answer by taxing American goods including whiskey, blue jeans, and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Trump replied by threatened to tax European cars if the EU raises tariffs on American products. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross called threats from American allies pretty trivial and not much more than a rounding error.

Douglas Irwin is a Dartmouth College economist. He recently published the book Clashing Over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy.

He told the Associated Press, Usually, all sides lose in a trade war. Trade shrinks as countries pile on barriers in an effort to remedy some grievance, with consumers paying the price.

Trump administration officials said Monday that the tariffs will be made official in the next two weeks.

Hai Do adapted this story for Learning English based on AP news reports. Mario Ritter was the editor.

Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

tariffs n. taxes on good coming into or leaving a country

exempt v. to say that one person or group does not have to do something that all others have to do

advance v. to carry forward

exceptions n. cases where the rule does not apply

exclusions n. cases not included along with the others

sweeping adj. something broad or general, not applying to only a few

trivial adj. of little importance

pile v. to continue to add things making a pile

grievance n. statements of dissatisfaction with a situation or process

consumers n. people who buy goods and servicesAn American aircraft carrier has arrived at a Vietnamese port for the first time since the Vietnam War.

The USS Carl Vinson arrived Monday in the central city of Danang and will remain for several days. Two other U.S. Navy ships are also visiting. The carrier has more than 5,000 crew members.

The U.S. carriers vis it was first announced in January during a visit to Vietnam by U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. The two countries normalized relations in 1995 and have greatly expanded ties in many areas. A U.S. arms embargo was lifted in 2016.

The arrival of the USS Carl Vinson marks the biggest U.S. military presence in Vietnam since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975.

The U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, Daniel Kritenbrink, said in a statement the historic visit shows the dramatic progress in U.S.-Vietnamese relations in recent years.

Through hard work, mutual respect, and by continuing to address the past while we work toward a better future, we have gone from former enemies to close partners, the ambassador added.

The first U.S. Marines arrived in Danang in 1965, marking the start of major American involvement in the Vietnam War. About 58,000 American soldiers and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese were killed in the war.

Danang was a major U.S. military base during that time. It is now Vietnams third-largest city and a place many people visit for vacation. Some city residents said they welcomed the Navy visit.

During the war, I was scared when I saw American soldiers, 55-year-old Tran Thi Luyen told the Associated Press. He operates a small shop in the city.

Now the aircraft carrier comes with a completely different mission, a mission of peace and promoting economic and military cooperation between the two countries, he said.

Huynh Quang Nguyen, a taxi driver, said he was happy and excited about the visit. Increased cooperation between the two countries in economic, diplomatic and military areas would serve as a counterbalance to Beijings, he said.

He was speaking about the growing influence of China across the region. China has been building up man-made islands in the South China Sea in recent years that can support military structures. The expansion has angered Vietnam and other nations in the area which also have territorial claims in the South China Sea.

Le Hong Hiep is with the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. He told the Associated Press the Carl Vinsons visit can be a clear sign to China that the U.S. is committed to keeping strong ties in the area.

Although the visit is mainly symbolic and would not be able to change Chinas behavior - especially in the South China Sea - it is still necessary in conveying the message that the U.S. will be there to stay, he said.

Le, however, added that China knows Vietnam is not likely to side with the U.S. militarily to challenge Chinese expansion.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse. Mario Ritter 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

dramatic  adj. attracting attention: causing people to carefully look or listen, while often showing a lot of emotion

mutual  adj. shared between two or more people or groups

counterbalance  n. adding balance to something by being opposite

symbolic  adj. expressing or representing something without using words

convey  v. make something known to someone

challenge  v. to say or show that something may not be true or correctA Vatican magazine has denounced the misuse of nuns who cook and clean for church officials with very little pay.

The monthly magazine Women, Church, World describes how nuns are often treated like servants. The magazine, part of the official Vatican daily newspaper LOsservatore Romano, is written by women journalists and scholars.

Many nuns cook and clean for male church leaders and perform other household duties.

Some of them serve in the homes of bishops or cardinals, others work in the kitchens of church institutions or teach, says the magazine. Some of them, serving the men of the church, get up in the morning to make breakfast, and go to sleep after dinner is served, the house cleaned and the laundry washed and ironed.

A nun identified only as Sister Marie describes how nuns serve church leaders, but are rarely invited to sit at the tables they serve.

Such work activities of Catholic nuns is widely known. But it is notable that an official Vatican publication would openly write about the churchs history of misusing nuns.

Until now, no one has had the courage to denounce these things, the magazines editor, Lucetta Scaraffia, told the Associated Press. We try to give a voice to those who dont have the courage to say these words publicly.

Inside the church, women are exploited, Scaraffia said in a recent interview.

Pope Francis has told Scaraffia he reads the magazine. But church officials have also questioned past writings that clashed with official teachings.

One recent issue on women who preach appeared to support allowing lay women to give religious speeches during church services. After concerns from church officials, one of the writers had to publish an explanation that he was not suggesting a change to existing church rules

Only a handful of women hold high leadership positions in the church. Several nuns do lead some Vatican departments that oversee religious issues.

One nun, called Sister Paule, told the magazine many nuns are highly educated and have college degrees. But most still end up only performing household duties because their intelligence is not valued.

Behind all this is the unfortunate idea that women are worth less than men, and above all that priests are everything in the church, while sisters are nothing, she said.

During a recent trip to Peru, Pope Francis condemned crimes against women that happen in some parts of the world.

He also has often called for dignified work - and dignified pay - for all. He recently wrote in a book on womens issues that he was concerned that in many cases, womens work in the church sometimes is more servitude than true service.

Im Bryan Lynn.

Bryan Lynn wrote this story for VOA Learning English, based on reports from the Associated Press and Reuters. Hai Do 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

nun  n. woman who is a member of a religious community and who usually promises to remain poor, unmarried and separate from the rest of society in order to serve God

scholar  n. person who has studied a subject for a long time and knows a lot about it

laundry  n. clothes, towels and other items that need to be washed

iron  n. piece of electrical equipment that you use for making clothes flat and smooth

courage  n. the ability and willingness to do something difficult or dangerous

exploit  v. to use (someone or something) in a way that helps you unfairly; to abuse someone

allow  v. to permit (something) : to regard or treat (something) as acceptable

lay  adj. not ordained into or belonging to the clergy

unfortunate  adj. having bad luck

dignified  adj. serious and somewhat formal; behaving in a way that makes people respect you

oversee  v. to watch and direct (an activity, a group of workers, etc.) in order to be sure that a job is done correctly

servitude  n. the condition of being a slave or of having to obey another person American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved.

326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at [email protected] | (844) 978-6257

MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security.



Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information



 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research.Ormat Technologies, Inc. operates as a holding company. The firm engages in the provision of geothermal and recovered energy power business. It operates through the following segments: Electricity, Product and Energy Storage. The Electricity segment focuses in the sale of electricity from the company's power plants pursuant to PPAs. The Product segment involves in the manufacture, including design and development, of turbines and power units for the supply of electrical energy and in the associated construction of power plants utilizing the power units manufactured by the company to supply energy from geothermal fields and other alternative energy sources. The Energy Storage segment consists of battery energy storage systems as a service and management of curtailable customer loads under contracts with U.S. retail energy providers and directly with large commercial and industrial customers. The company was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Reno, NV.

Read MoreAptiv Plc engages in the design, development, and manufacture of vehicle components. The firm also provides electrical, electronic, and safety technology solutions to the global automotive and commercial vehicle markets. It operates through the following business segments: Signal and Power Solutions, Advanced Safety and User Experience, and Eliminations and Other. The Signal and Power Solutions segment includes complete electrical architecture and component products. The Advanced Safety and User Experience segment covers component and systems integration in connectivity and security solutions, as well as advanced software development and autonomous driving technologies. The Eliminations and Other segment comprises of elimination of inter-segment transactions, other expenses, and income of a non-operating or strategic nature. The company was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

Read MoreIntel launched its Gemini Lake line of low-power Celeron and Pentium processors late last year, but so far most of the Gemini Lake-powered computers weve seen have been desktops rather than notebooks, tablets or convertibles.

Now theres at least one convertible notebook with a Gemini Lake processor that you can actually buy.

The Jumper EZBook X1 is an 11.6 inch laptop with a full HD touchscreen display, a 360 degree hinge, a 6 watt Intel Celeron N4100 quad-core processor. Its up for order from AliExpress for around $425 and up.

Intels Gemini Lake processors should offer a modest boost in CPU and graphics performance over their Apollo Lake predecessors plus a few new features including support for Local Adaptive Contrast Enhancement technology which is designed to balance display brightness and battery life so that you can see a laptop display easily outside, but get up to 10 hours of video playback time from a 35Wh battery (presumably when indoors).

The EZBook X1 is a bit more expensive than a typical Apollo Lake convertible, but thats not entirely surprising given that its one of the first devices on the market with a new chip, and its spec sheet looks reasonably decent.

In addition to a quad-core processor with Intel UHD 600 graphics, the system has:

4GB of DDR4 RAM

64GB of eMMC flash storage

Fingerprint sensor

802.11ac WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0

USB Type-C and USB 3.0 Type-A ports

mini HDMI port and 3.5mm headphone jack

microSD card slot (up to 128GB)

VGA camera

Stereo speakers

9,000 mAh battery

The EZBook X1 comes with a USB Type-C power adapter, and the laptop measures 10.8 x 7.4 x 0.5, weighs about 2.1 pounds, and has a metal chassis.

The notebook also appears to have slim top and side bezels, and if Im not mistaken, it looks like the webcam is below the screen.

If youd rather not buy computers from AliExpress, the EZBook X1 probably wont be the only Gemini Lake convertible for long. Lenovo will probably release a Yoga 330 convertible laptop with an Intel Pentium Silver Gemini Lake processors soon.

via CNX-Software

Share this article: Share this: Facebook

Twitter

Reddit

Pocket

Tumblr

Pinterest

LinkedIn

Email

Xiaomi has become one of the top 5 smartphone companies in China, and the companys phones have also become popular in other markets including India and Singapore. But while Xiaomi sells a handful of gadgets in the US including a media streaming box for TVs, battery packs, and headphones, the company has yet to officially bring its phones to the US.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, that could change this year. Or maybe next year.

According to the paper, Xiaomi chairman said the company plans to start entering the market by end 2018, or by early 2019.

The US market presents challenges for a company like Xiaomi, which has made a name for itself by offering high-quality hardware at low prices and placing an emphasis on software and services.

Most smartphone customers in the US are used to buying phones from a wireless carrier and either getting a discounted price or paying for their phone in monthly installments so that a $900 phone doesnt feel like a $900 phone (since youre only paying $20 or $30 a month for it on top of your data plan).

But over the past few years weve seen a growing number of options in the US for buying your own phone and bringing it to the carrier of your choice. Companies like BLU seem to be having success in the budget unlocked smartphone space, while OnePlus and Google have been selling unlocked premium phones.

Meanwhile Chinese phone makers ZTE and Huawei (with its Honor sub-brand) have been going after the mid-range space, which is where I suspect Xiaomi will try to compete if and when it does enter the US market.

Another key difference between the US and Chinese smartphone landscape? The Google Play Store doesnt operate in China, which gives companies like Xiaomi more leeway to introduce their own app stores for Android devices (as well as custom apps and user interface skins).

Its unclear to me whether the companys MIUI user interface and app ecosystem would be as popular in the US as it has been in China.

But Id love to find out. Xiaomi has been one of the more exciting Chinese consumer electronics companies to watch in recent years but for the most part Ive been watching from the sidelines since most of the companys phones have limited support for US wireless networks.

Then again, maybe were jumping the gun here. This isnt the first time wed heard that Xiaomi was going to enter the US phone market soon.

Share this article: Share this: Facebook

Twitter

Reddit

Pocket

Tumblr

Pinterest

LinkedIn

Email

Tourism agents in Hong Kong have been supporting Macaus tourism industry, according to Macau Government Tourism Office (MGTO) head Helena de Senna Fernandes, who spoke on Friday during a luncheon in Hong Kong. In 2017, Macau welcomed more than 32 million visitors, 6.1 million of which were Hong Kong residents. Talking about marketing strategies, Senna Fernandes said that the MGTOs representative in Hong Kong would launch brand-new promotional campaigns in the HKSAR.

Drill on class-suspension notification

The Education and Youth Affairs Bureau will be holding an interdepartmental class-suspension notification drill due to the issuance of a rainstorm warning signal on March 11. The one-hour drill will seek to review the notification mechanism for class suspension due to inclement weather; to strengthen interdepartmental collaboration and to ensure that the work of class-suspension notification runs smoothly, according to a statement issued by the Bureau.It hasnt found a cure for Alzheimers disease and doesnt have any drugs on the market. Yet, TauRx Pharmaceuticals Ltd. says the companys worth about USD2.5 billion as it embarks on its latest trial funded by shareholders including casino operator Genting Bhd.

If the trial proves successful, the Singapore-based company plans to apply to European and U.S. regulators for conditional or accelerated approval of its drug, TauRx Deputy Chairman Tay Siew Choon said in an interview in the city-state last month. It will also need to raise about $150 million to conduct a more comprehensive phase III trial, though at that point, it would evaluate options including an initial public offering or sale.

TauRx is pressing ahead in a field that has seen many of the largest pharmaceutical players from Pfizer Inc. to Axovant Sciences Ltd. exit or fail. Just last month, Merck & Co. said it will end a trial of its most advanced Alzheimers drug while Biogen Inc.s shares tumbled after saying it was making changes to its trial. TauRx disappointed investors in 2016 when it said its LMTX drug failed to meet a primary goal of slowing the rate of disease progression when taken in combination with other Alzheimers drugs.

We have consistently seen that our theory works, and theres no reason to give it up, said Tay. Shareholders support and faith in us has not weakened.

On top of a $71 million rights issue in October to fund the current trial, TauRx had already raised more than $500 million since 2002, according to Tay. The last financing round in 2016 valued the company at about $2.5 billion, he said. Billionaire Lim Kok Thays Genting invested $112 million in TauRx in 2012, becoming its biggest shareholder with about a 20 percent stake.

TauRx has been recruiting patients since November for the current trial, where it plans to test its drug on 200 patients with mild Alzheimers disease who arent taking any other medication. The results are expected in early 2019. Joyce Koh, Livia Yap, BloombergThe Chief Executive (CE), Chui Sai On, departed yesterday to Beijing, where he is expected to attend the opening of the first session of the 13th National Peoples Congress (NPC) today.

Before departing, Chui spoke to reporters at the local airport, commenting on the consequences of last weeks ruling by the Court of Second Instance, which has revoked the contract granted to China Construction Engineering to build the superstructure project of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) depot. The CE reported the government is convinced that the Taipa section of the LRT will commence operation next year. Though Chui said he respects the courts ruling, he added that the government intends to appeal.

The CE also commented upon the recent measures introduced to cool the real estate market and facility acquisitions by young local buyers. He said that there were no market oscillations during the process and pledged to meet the demand for new houses by speeding up approval processes and reclaiming unused land, among other measures.

During his visit to Beijing, from March 4 to 7, besides attending the NPC opening, Chui will also meet with officials of the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Commerce, and the China Food and Drug Administration.

Secretary for Economy and Finance Lionel Leong is one of the other officials travelling with the CE on the visit. During Chuis absence, the Secretary for Administration and Justice, Sonia Chan, will be the Acting Chief Executive.Germanys Social Democrats voted to join Chancellor Angela Merkels next government, clearing the last hurdle to her fourth term and restoring a sense of political stability in Europes biggest economy.

SPD members approved the coalition pact by a wider-than-expected margin, which may make it easier for the party to effectively govern with Merkels Christian Democrat-led bloc. The result, unsealed yesterday morning, was 66 percent in favor to 34 percent against. Before the vote, SPD leaders had said they hoped for 60 percent support.

The chancellor can expect to be re-inaugurated by mid-March, allowing her to move ahead with priorities such as working with Emmanuel Macron to strengthen the euro zone and coordinating on a united European front against Chinese encroachment.

We now have clarity, interim Social Democratic chairman Olaf Scholz told reporters. The SPD will join the next government.

While the impasse in Berlin hasnt dented Germanys economic boom, its held back policy making since Merkel won a national election in September with her blocs worst result since 1949. That weakness, and the arrival of a far-right party in parliament, reflect a changing political landscape that almost derailed Merkels bid to extend her 12 years in office.

Lets get to work  Germany and Europe, Peter Altmaier, Merkels chief of staff, tweeted seconds after the announcement. Merkel welcomes the clear result and looks forward to working with the SPD again, her Christian Democratic Union said on Twitter.

With a resumption of the grand coalition government now assured, the SPDs pick for finance minister will be among the most-watched decisions ahead. Scholz, the mayor of Hamburg and a centrist Social Democrat, is viewed as the front-runner for a post the party wrested from Merkel in the coalition deal sealed in February. The Social Democrats plan to unveil their cabinet nominations on March 12.

Fending off a youthful grass-roots revolt against staying in government allows the Social Democrats to serve as Merkels junior partner for the third time in the grand coalition of Germanys two biggest parties. Its a sign that the political center, while diminished, is holding after the longest coalition-building talks since World War II.

Merkel, reduced to acting chancellor for months, has said shell serve a full term until the next scheduled election in 2021. Even so, shes begun preparing the CDU for her eventual departure.

Last week, Merkel named an ideological ally and successful state election campaigner, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, to a senior party post. Responding to conservative critics who blame the chancellor for the partys electoral decline, Merkel also nominated a crop of younger leaders for cabinet positions.

The Social Democrat ballot was both the final hurdle and the last option for a Merkel-led majority government after the pro-market Free Democrats, a CDU ally in the past, scuttled a first set of coalition talks. That breakdown, and turmoil in the SPD after its worst postwar election result, made it unusually difficult to build a government alliance.

Polls suggest Merkel retains a solid power base, with 52 percent of the general public and 85 percent of her blocs supporters saying they favor her serving another term, according to an FG Wahlen poll for broadcaster ZDF published last week.

Though some her most outspoken critics view Merkel as too liberal, only 35 percent of her blocs backers say they want the CDU to shift to the right, according to the poll. BloombergChina has no desire to overturn the existing international order and its increasingly powerful military does not constitute a threat to others, the spokesman for the countrys ceremonial legislature said yesterday.

However, in a break with recent practice, Zhang Yesui refused to provide a figure for the rate of growth in the national defense budget. That move follows complaints that China isnt open enough about how it funds its military or what the goals of its massive campaign of expansion and modernization are.

Zhang sought to strike a reassuring tone in remarks at a news conference on the eve of the opening of the National Peoples Congress annual two-week session.

He said China defended and contributed to the current United Nations-centered global order, but also said some reforms were necessary.

Chinas development is conducive to world peace, stability and prosperity, Zhang said, pointing especially to global economic growth, trade and poverty reduction.

As to the international order, we have no intention of overthrowing everything for starting over again, Zhang said. Reforms should focus on international rules that have fallen behind the times and no longer align with the shared aspirations of all nations.

Chinas secretive military had begun to open up a crack in recent years, and the National Peoples Congress spokesman in recent years has made a tradition of responding to a question on the defense budget by announcing the percentage increase over the past years, at least in rough terms.

Zhang, however, did not address the question of numbers, saying instead that past increases by a modest margin had gone to equipment upgrades, training and improving welfare and living conditions for troops.

Chinas defense spending as a share of GDP and the budget also remains lower than that of other major nations, he said.

China proceeds from a defense policy that is defensive in nature. Chinas development will not pose a threat to other countries, Zhang said.

The finance ministry last year said the defense budget would top 1 trillion yuan (USD145 billion) for the first time, after the exact figure was initially kept out of public documents released at the start of the annual legislative sessions.

That marked about a 7 percent increase, continuing a trend of lowered growth amid a slowing economy, despite regional tensions over the South China Sea and other issues.

Years of double-digit percentage growth have given China the worlds second-largest defense budget after the United States, which is in a class of its own with a proposed budget of $716 billion for next year.

However, Chinas publicly announced defense spending has never been entirely accurate since it fails to omit a significant amount of off book expenditures on defense equipment projects, said Peter Jennings, executive director of the nonpartisan Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tank.

Whats alarming is not the non- reporting of largely fictitious defense spending figures so much as the Chinese leadership is shedding even the pretense of being open about its military plans, Jennings said in an email to The Associated Press.

Combined with President Xi Jinpings plans to eliminate term limits on his rule and his consolidation of control over the military, the lack of public information about defense spending and military planning pushes China toward a more authoritarian and militarized leadership, Jennings said.

These trends should be deeply concerning to the Asia-Pacific region and beyond, he said.Christopher Bodeen, Beijing, APSouth Korean President Moon Jae-in will send his top national-security adviser as well as his chief spy as special envoys to Pyongyang today in a bid to persuade Kim Jong Un to open talks with Washington, in the latest bid to avoid a potential conflict over the countrys nuclear program.

The 10-member group will be led by Chung Eui-yong, national-security adviser, and Suh Hoon, the chief of the National Intelligence Service. They will meet with North Korean officials on the two-day trip, Moons top communication officer Yoon Young-chan said at a briefing. They will discuss the possibility of U.S. and North Korea talks aimed at denuclearization and inter-Korean relations, he said.

The envoys will then travel to Washington to discuss the result of the meeting, Yoon said, adding that South Korea will closely coordinate with Japan and China.

Moons intention to dispatch his top aides, revealed after a 30-minute phone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday, came less than a month after Kim invited Moon to visit Pyongyang. The U.S. and North Korea exchanged war threats last year as Kim detonated his most powerful nuclear device and test fired intercontinental ballistic missiles.

While both the U.S. and the North say theyre open to talks and South Korea is eager to broker an agreement, how much each party will concede in talks is unclear.

The White Houses statement following the Trump-Moon phone conversation said the two leaders noted their firm position that any dialogue with North Korea must be conducted with the explicit and unwavering goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization.

Moon also wants to rid North Korea of nuclear weapons, but his own road map for North Koreas denuclearization consists of two steps: freeze first and complete disarmament second.

North Koreas spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the state-run Korean Central News Agency late Saturday that it wont accept U.S. preconditions.

We have intention to resolve issues in a diplomatic and peaceful way through dialogue and negotiation, but we will neither beg for dialogue nor evade the military option claimed by the U.S., it said. Kanga Kong, BloombergHoli or the Festival of the Colors is an ancient Hindu tradition which is celebrated all across India and also in Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan, among many other places, and announces the arrival of spring.

As has become a tradition, this year, the Holi Festival was once again celebrated in Macau yesterday thanks to the initiative of the Indian Culture Association of Macau, which painted the Pousada de Coloane in Cheoc Van in all the Holi colors yesterday.

Participants at the festival have been growing in number since its founding in 2010, according to the head of the organizers, Victor Kumar, who spoke with the Times.

Its getting bigger, more people every year And more fun, said Kumar, noting that the number of participants during the first hour of the event exceeded 200.

Questioned as to whether this fit the organizers expectations, Kumar said, its good, I believe if the weather had given a little help we could have even reached 300 or more, referring to the heavy rain that fell all morning on Sunday.

Nevertheless, the misty weather and some threats of showers did not discourage the crowd that did brave the weather, a crowd multicultural in character and filled with spirit.

Explaining the festival and its connections to the region, Kumar stayed away from the idea of the festivals background being rooted in Hindu mythology and the obvious link to Indian culture, instead commenting, This is a festival to celebrate life, to celebrate passion and to celebrate all those who do things with their hearts, he said.

[Its] more than to celebrate the Indian culture [and actually] is to celebrate all cultures, the interconnection between people from different cultures And above all, [the idea is] to be happy and to have fun.

Fun that did not seem to elude the crowd, which kept dancing the whole afternoon while smearing each other with the colorful powder, the essence of the celebration.

One participant, Carrie, was said to have come from Hong Kong for the event in Macau, as did several other participants.

I hope to have some fun while having a few drinks with friends and thats it its all about having fun. The great majority of the group of friends was not at the event for the first time, having already participated in previous years.

The program, as promised by the organizers, included several activities and games, as well as presentations from other local groups such as the Macau Samba School. One feature was some cultural Brazilian samba drummers, an act which Kumar added a twist to, simultaneously adding some traditional Punjabi sounds.

Earlier on, the celebrations started with a special colorful yoga session.

In this commemoration of the triumph of good over evil represented in the festivals roots, colors filled the air to the rhythm of a DJ set and drums in the terrace of Pousada de Coloane. Kumar was thrilled with the venue, noting that it is not easy to find places in Macau that can hold these kind of events.

As for next year, there is the definite promise of more Holi Festival activities in Macau.The Executive Council has proposed a transfer of authorization for demonstrations and assembly from the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau (IACM) to the Public Security Police Force (PSP), according to Leong Heng Teng, spokesperson of the Executive Council, who made an announcement in a press conference held on Friday.

The proposal concerns the amendment of the law of demonstration and assembly rights.

Currently, parties who intend to organize demonstrations or assemblies are required to inform the IACM president in writing. The IACM president, after being supplied with the relevant activity applications, will inform the PSP director.

The change is intended to preserve public order, and also to take into consideration the practicality of the situation, where currently the IACM president needs to inform the PSP about an application.

In order to better carry out the related work, and better protect the order during assemblies and demonstrations, thus protecting the public security, as well as improving the [administration] efficiency, the SAR government suggests transferring IACMs respective functions [demonstrations and assemblies] to PSP, Leong announced.

Leong pointed out that other aspects concerning the publics right of holding demonstrations and assemblies will not be affected by the changes.

It does not involve changes related to other regulations of the right for demonstration or the right for assembly, explained Leong.

The Executive Council spokesperson further explained that there is no problem regarding the shift from a civic to a non-civic matter [by transferring the rights from IACM to the PSP].

He claimed that the change was made only with the goal of preserving public order and that it does not involve substantial modifications.

When asked whether Macau has been experiencing chaotic demonstrations, which could have led to the amendment of the law, Leong said that this is not the problem.

Leong also expressed that Macaus demonstrations and assemblies have been conducted lawfully, and that the government has been implementing its functions according to the law.

According to Leong, the change has not been made in light of Macaus current demonstration and assembly situation; it was only made out of practical considerations.

Regarding why no previous public consultation was carried out for the proposal, given that is related to a human rights issue (freedom of speech), Leong noted that the change does not weaken or reduce human rights [in Macau].

According to Leong, IACMs functions have been continuously transferred to other departments in recent years.The MSAR government has not fully revealed its plans for construction projects within the 85 square kilometer sea area near Macau, following Beijings grant of rights to Macau to manage activities in that area.

Recently, authorities proposed that the area would not be used for any gaming activity. An expert has expressed hope that this prohibition will be honored.

Thomas Daniell, a professor at Kyoto University, and formerly the Head of Architecture and Design at the University of St. Joseph, was in the region this weekend to give a talk titled Unbuilt Macau.

In the public talk, Daniell discussed the citys master plan prior to the handover of the city to China in 1999, as well as its history.

Speaking to the Times, Daniell expressed his hope that the MSAR will be true to its word regarding the exclusion of gaming activities in the area.

Thats great to be given the freedom to use that water but as a standard, it still requires approval from Beijing in terms of whats actually done there. So more freedom is always a good thing, he said.

The history shows that [the MSAR] often say something like that and finally, of course casinos appear. But who knows? Perhaps now they will be true to their word and there will really be no new gaming developments, Daniell added.

Echoing the same sentiments was Eduardo Tavares da Silva, a civil engineer who was involved in several urban projects in the region in the early 1980s. Given the chance to comment, Tavares da Silva suggested that the densely populated city should already consider its plans for the 85 square kilometer area, emphasizing the importance of creating a space for schoolchildren.

We can build a lot in the area. A new education town for instance. [] These children need fresh air [and] playgrounds so lets make an education town where we all the schools [are placed], he suggested.

Tavares da Silva hinted that many schools in the region are concentrated in the center of town, sometimes even in the vicinity of old buildings  a precarious situation unsuitable for schoolchildren.

Meanwhile, when questioned by the Times as to whether the city is progressing only for the benefit of high-income level residents, the expert noted that the city could learn from other regions, including Singapore, when it comes to good public housing built for levels of all income.

I think its planning and population planning. What kind of population do we need? How can Macau cope with it? Tavares da Silva questioned.

The veteran engineer also proposed that proper planning for Areia Preta is needed, as residential buildings in the area are already too old and crowded.

He proposed temporarily rehousing one block of families in Seac Pai Van and rebuilding that block. This would allow those families to move back into the same area so they do not break their family or friendship links.

And with that, maybe we can create more space for another block and then the whole area would be rehoused in these two or three blocks, he explained.

Furthermore, Eduardo Tavares da Silva is an advocate of transforming Macau into a walkable city, dismissing the idea that it is currently walkable due to the immense foot and vehicle traffic in the city center.

[The] San Ma Lo area needs to be carefully preserved [in] character because thats the old town. I myself proposed that cars should be [prohibited] in Almeida Ribeiro because when we did the planning for that the area, I took the cars away from the square because people in the square are being squeezed, he said.

The engineer also suggested that the city should have more walkalators to provide a more attractive alternative to using private vehicles.

So [if] we have so many rolling carpets [walkalators], we dont need so many cars, we dont need all the motorbikes coming to the center of town because they can come [walk] easily, he said. More specifically, on the peninsula, he envisages a route made of walkalators linking Areia Preta to downtown Macau.

Although there are escalators leading to the public hospital and to the Taipa Houses Museum, the expert suggested that the city needs many more, particularly in Seac Pai Van area leading to A Ma Cultural Village and going downhill to the beach.

Everything is possible. There is MOP500 billion cash waiting for all the possibilities, Tavares da Silva jested.When Joanna Demafelis indebted family needed money to fix their typhoon- battered home, she followed in the footsteps of millions of other Filipinos and left to find work overseas. And like far too many Filipinos, her journey ended in tragedy.

Demafelis mutilated body was found last month inside a freezer in an abandoned apartment in Kuwait, where she worked as a housemaid for a Lebanese man and his Syrian wife. She had likely been dead for more than a year.

Demafelis flower-draped coffin sat Friday in her family home in rural Sara town in central Iloilo province, where relatives, who had alerted authorities in 2016 that she was missing, honored her memory and called for justice.

Well miss her. She was so kind to all of us, her brother Joejet Demafelis said, adding hundreds of relatives and friends came on the eve of her burial.

Her slaying is the latest tragedy to befall an overseas worker from the Philippines, where about a tenth of the nations 100 million people toil in more than 200 countries worldwide to provide for families back home. Last year, those workers sent home more than $31 billion, accounting for 10 percent of the countrys gross domestic product.

Officials warn Demafelis death wont be the last. They say a dangerous mix of poverty, spotty enforcement of labor laws, difficult conditions especially in Arab nations, and the logistical nightmare of watching over huge numbers of workers abroad means other tragedies are inevitable.

You gnash your teeth and ask Why is this happening? Sen. Franklin Drilon, a former labor secretary, said in an interview, adding that laws meant to protect workers needed to be enforced. Certainly, it can happen again.

President Rodrigo Duterte has responded to Demafelis death by banning the deployment of Filipino workers to Kuwait, though that wont affect the more than 250,000 Filipinos still working in the oil-rich nation. The Philippine senate, meanwhile, has opened an inquiry into what went wrong.

The president, who is prone at making public outbursts, also lashed out at Middle East nations.

The Filipino is no slave to anyone, anywhere and everywhere, an enraged Duterte said shortly after Demafelis body was found. We send to you a Filipino worker, hale and hearty [] do not give us back a battered worker or a mutilated corpse.

But deaths among the army of Filipino workers abroad arent new. Nearly 200 Filipino workers died in Kuwait over the last two years, mostly due to health reasons, but 22 cases were suicides or fatal criminal attacks, said Hans Cacdac, head of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration in Manila.

Cacdac said 45,000 to 50,000 distress cases are reported each year, many of them in Arab countries.

The sixth of nine children of a poor farmer, Demafelis did not go to college and flew to Kuwait in 2014. She had wanted to earn money to repair the family house, which was battered by Typhoon Haiyan the year before, reacquire a small piece of farmland that had been mortgaged, and help pay tuition for a sibling to finish a criminology course.

Those were her dreams that prompted her to leave, her elder brother Joejet Demafelis told The Associated Press.

For more than a century Filipinos have been doing the same. Under American colonial rule in the early 1900s, Filipinos traveled to work on pineapple plantations in Hawaii and later in fish canneries in Alaska and elsewhere on the mainland until entry restrictions eased the exodus.

In the 1970s, a construction boom in the Middle East lured more workers out of the Philippines, which had heightened political and economic uncertainties under then President Ferdinand Marcos. The Philippines labor export policy at the time addressed unemployment at home and generated badly needed foreign exchange to bolster the economy.

As the number of workers climbed, so did incidents that strained Philippine ties with host countries, such as abuse of Filipinos at the hands of employers or Filipinos committing crimes.

A 1995 case in which a Filipina housemaid was convicted of murder and executed in Singapore despite her pleas of innocence, prompted outrage in Manila and fresh legislation meant to set a higher standard of protection for workers, their families and Filipinos in distress. Countries of destination needed to be able to guarantee the rights of workers by having signed agreements with the Philippines.

The law also set a policy that the country would as soon as practicable allow only skilled workers to be deployed overseas and would try to wean the country off of dependence on the earnings of migrant workers.

The law has clearly had mixed results and officials acknowledge that Demafelis fell through the cracks in its safety nets.

Demafelis calls to her family were brief and scant and she did not mention any problem, according to her sister Joyce Demafelis. When she stopped calling in 2016, her family started to get worried and notified authorities in December that year, Joejet Demafelis said.

He said authorities did not take adequate steps to find out what happened.

Inquiries about Demafelis were passed on to a Filipino labor officer in Kuwait but the officer was too overwhelmed with complaints, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said.

I asked why no action was taken and I was told it was humanly impossible to attend to them [] there was too much work, Bello said, adding he did not accept that excuse and recalled the Kuwait-based officer and two others.

Demafelis employers have reportedly been arrested, though few details surrounding her slaying are known, including when and how she was killed.

Unlike professionals who work in offices, housemaids are particularly vulnerable to abuse given that they work in the privacy of homes out of sight of authorities, said Bernard Olalia, who heads the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration, which regulates the deployment of Filipinos abroad.

In some countries, such as Kuwait, employers often keep the passports and cellphones of their maids to prevent them from fleeing, but it also cuts them off from their families and other support systems, Olalia said.

An option the government is considering is to ban Filipina maids from being deployed but continue allowing professionals to seek jobs abroad, Olalia said.

Amid the outrage over Demafelis death, Philippine labor officials have pledged to shoulder the repair of her familys house, where relatives were preparing for her funeral Saturday. The government will also send her sibling through college and finance the reacquisition of her familys farmland.

We wish all of these would have happened, Joejet Demafelis said. But never at the cost of her life. Jim Gomez, Manila, APTencent Holdings Ltd. Chairman Ma Huateng called on the Chinese government to introduce an ID system that would link multiple sets of travel documents with a mobile phone as part of a plan to boost regional trade between Hong Kong and mainland China.

Chinas second-richest man said new technology systems and laws could let Hong Kong residents make electronic payments and cross the border more easily. Ma was speaking at a press conference in Beijing, two days before the countrys legislative council convenes in the capital to set the years agenda.

Its still very complicated and wed need to make it work with the Customs systems but from a technology point of view we can do it, Ma said. We have been talking to the chief executive in Hong Kong for quite some time about a number of these issues, including the electronic ID. Tencent, whose company is best known for the social-media phenomenon WeChat, is headquartered in Shenzhen, just over the border from Hong Kong.

While championing greater technology innovation and prosperity, the plan is also a lightning rod in Hong Kong  now an autonomous self-governing city  thats becoming increasingly wary of political meddling from Beijing.

Ma has advocated further integration in the Pearl River Delta region, saying Hong Kong, Macau and Guangdong province can be more like the multi-city San Francisco Bay technology hub in the U.S. if it gets easier to move around. Hong Kong and Macau have retained their own immigration policies since the British and Portuguese handovers in 1997 and 1999, respectively, and have busy border crossings with the mainland.

Ma suggested in June that Hong Kong and mainland Chinese immigration and customs officials could share locations. Critics responded by saying the idea violated the  one-country, two-systems framework.

Ma said some Hong Kong citizens fear an excessive flood of talent from mainland China, while other difficulties include standardizing tax benefits. He said a worker swap system, where for example companies could only hire a tech worker if a local tech worker went abroad, could mitigate those concerns. He also proposes tax benefits to attract high-end talent to companies in two Pearl River Delta areas  Qianhai and Hengqin.

Its a little bit difficult to solve these problems for the time being, he said through a translator. If we were to look at tax incentives, questions would be asked: Why do only Guandong people get this, why not others?

And if migration from abroad increases too much, will that pressure the job market in Hong Kong? Were thinking about these issues.

Ma also proposed policies to enhance security for online financial services. Companies should work more closely with regulators to crack down on illegal activities, he said Saturday.

He also advocated mechanisms that would protect underage people from the harms of the Internet and use games to teach important life lessons. Tencent has been criticized by state media for encouraging gaming addictions. BloombergTwo massage therapists have claimed in new lawsuits that casino mogul Steve Wynn used his power to coerce them into sexual acts, making them the latest women to accuse the billionaire of sexual misconduct.

The unnamed 49-year- old woman and an unnamed 36-year-old woman made strikingly similar allegations in their separate lawsuits about what happened during their time as therapists working for Wynn Resorts.

Wynn forced the younger woman into sexual acts about 50 times over the course of about three years starting in 2006, she said in a lawsuit filed last week. She says Wynn gave her USD400 tip after each massage and told her to never to talk about it.

The older woman said Wynn forced her sexual acts about a dozen times in 2011-2012, giving her a $1,000 tip after each massage and telling her to never to talk about it, according to her lawsuit filed Wednesday.

Both said the sessions took place in Wynns office with the door locked and security officers and dogs outside guarding the room. The women said they declined some of his sexual requests, but said they thought they would be fired if they did not agree to do certain things.

Wynns spokesman, Ralph Frammolino, did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Wynn has denied the previous misconduct accusations and attributed them to a campaign led by his ex-wife. Her attorney has denied that she instigated a Wall Street Journal story in late January that reported a number of women said he harassed or assaulted them and that one case led to a $7.5 million settlement.

Wynn resigned as chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts on Feb. 6, less than two weeks after the story broke.

The new lawsuits came after police reports were made public last week that showed two women made allegations against Wynn dating from the 1970s. One of the woman told police she had a child with Wynn after he raped her, while another reported she was forced to resign from a Las Vegas job after she refused to have sex with him.

The massage therapists are also suing Wynn Resorts board of directors, accusing them of being liable because they should have reasonably known that Steve Wynn was a danger to female employees.

Wynn Resorts spokesman Michael Weaver said last week the company had no immediate comment because it had not reviewed the lawsuits.

The women say in the lawsuit that they were hired in 2005 by Wynn Resorts as a massage therapist. Starting around 2006, Wynn began making regular appointments for the younger woman to give him massages in his office. He began doing the same with the older woman in 2011.

They both said the first massages were normal, but then Wynn began exposing himself to them after he learned that they were each financially dependent on the job. The older woman told Wynn that she was going through a divorce and would soon become a single mother, she said in the lawsuit.

The final occurrence with the older woman came in 2012, but she continued to experience emotional distress and a hostile work environment until she left the company last year, her attorneys Justin Watkins and Matthew Hoffmann said Thursday.

The women decided to file the lawsuits after seeing media reports and court filings that made them realize they werent alone and that the Wynn Resorts board of directors must have known, Watkins and Hoffman said.

The lawsuits add to a host of legal challenges facing Wynn and his former company since news report in January revealed sexual misconduct allegations against the billionaire.

Wynn Resorts is facing scrutiny by gambling regulators in Nevada and Massachusetts, where the company is building a roughly $2.4 billion casino just outside Boston. Regulators in Macau, the Chinese enclave where the company operates two casinos, are also inquiring about the allegations.

In addition, groups of shareholders have filed lawsuits in state court in Las Vegas accusing Wynn and the board of directors of Wynn Resorts of breaching their fiduciary duties by ignoring what the lawsuits described as a longstanding pattern of sexual abuse and harassment by the companys founder. Brady McCombs, APThe prospect of Chinese President Xi Jinping ruling for an unlimited number of terms is dominating discussion as Chinas legislature opens its annual session today. The constitutional amendment to the two-term limit on the president underscores Xis standing as Chinas most dominant political figure in decades.

Thats aroused concerns about a return to the one-man rule of past dictators such as Mao Zedong and what that could mean for Chinas domestic politics and international standing, with some warning of the possibility of capricious policy making and greater political repression. The ruling Communist Party allows no public debate, although some have registered their opposition in social media posts.

A look at the term limits controversy and some of the major issues on the table at this years meeting of the nearly 3,000-member National Peoples Congress:

A possible Xi

presidency-for-life

The proposal to amend the constitution by lifting the limit of two consecutive terms for the president and vice president appeared without warning, even if few were surprised by the move. Though its expected to pass with near-unanimous approval, it has aroused some complaints from independent political commentators and internet users posting online.

One of the most popular images was of Winnie the Pooh  to whom Xi is said to bear a resemblance  hugging a pot of honey accompanied by the quote, Find the thing you love and stick with it. Xi had seemed to signal his intentions to stay on beyond the traditional limit of two five-year terms as president and party secretary by declining to appoint an obvious successor at last years Communist Party congress.

Implications for

Chinas political system

While seen as offering stability in the near term, the prospect of Xi as president-for-life has many worrying about his long-term intentions and a return to one-man rule in the style of the Chinese emperors or communist Chinas founder, Mao Zedong. Along with reviving fears of dictatorship, greater political repression and policy making on a whim, the move undermines a decades-long push for greater institutionalization of the levers of power and strengthened rule of law. It also throws up questions about the future succession process and appears to scupper any chance for political liberalization to keep pace with Chinas increasingly individualistic society.

On Sunday, the spokesman for the congress, Zhang Yesui, defended the constitutional amendment as necessary to ensure the unity of Xis three top positions as president, leader of the Communist Party and head of the Central Military Commission. The move is conducive to uphold the authority of the [Communist Party] Central Committee with Xi Jinping at the core, Zhang said.

Looking long term

By setting the stage to extend his rule by a decade or more, Xi seems to indicate that he believes hes the only one fit to see out his vision of turning China into a top innovative nation by 2035 and to realize his China Dream of a fully modern leading nation by mid-century. Hes also eager to carry forward his campaigns to end corruption and abuse through the establishment of a National Supervisory Commission, to end poverty and continue turning the Peoples Liberation Army into the dominant military force in Asia.

Other longer-term goals and prospects include eclipsing the U.S. as the worlds largest economy and pushing it out of the Asia-Pacific power sphere, managing Hong Kong until its 50 years of semi-autonomy run out in 2047 and engineering reunification with Taiwan  either peacefully or by force.

Turbulence ahead

Chinas embattled liberal intellectuals have universally panned the move. Theyve registered their opposition in brief postings on social media that have been heavily censored, comparing the situation to that of imperial China, North Korea or the Mao era. Though Xi, 64, has sidelined his opponents within the party elite, many rank-and-file members had come to believe in the institutionalized norms established during the era of reformist leader Deng Xiaoping and may find the possibility of Xi retaining a total monopoly on power for years or decades to come distasteful.

Cheng Li and Ryan McElveen of the Brookings Institution wrote that some may see the removal of term restraints as heralding a return to an era of vicious power struggles  a zero-sum game in which they will also ruthlessly engage in the years to come. Concerns have also been raised over the high-handed manner in which the amendment is being forced through, with little sign of a firm consensus in favor. There have been rumors of opposition from within the party even before its Feb. 25 announcement, which, in a highly unorthodox move, was first made in English on a Sunday afternoon.

Installing key ally Wang

Qishan as vice president

Xi appears intent on making the bold move on term limits with his trusted ally Wang Qishan alongside as vice president. Wang has been Xis main enforcer in his trademark campaign against corruption, now well into its sixth year, and has helped take down potential rivals both retired and in office.

Though Wang, 69, is past standard retirement age and stepped down from the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee last year, he retained his seat as a member of the National Peoples Congress and stands to transform the traditionally ceremonial role of vice president. That will further consolidate Xis authority against Premier Li Keqiang and allies of former leaders Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, and shake up the status quo by which real power at the center derives almost exclusively from the Standing Committee.

New cabinet to handle

slowing economy,

other challenges

Along with the vice president, the congress will appoint a slew of Cabinet ministers and other top officials to oversee the running of the worlds most populous nation and second-largest economy. Among their key challenges is an economy whose growth slowed to 6.8 percent last year, the loss of some 2 million jobs in the public sector, widespread environmental degradation and trade frictions with key partners the U.S. and EU.

Having launched bold initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road initiative, China is now charged with maintaining that momentum in the face of doubts from the West and some reluctance on the part of participants.

Trump, North Korea pose

foreign policy challenges

Along with Chinas growing international status, foreign relations weigh ever more heavily on proceedings at the congress. Chinas fraught relations with North Korea, its dispute with South Korea over missile defense and perennial sparring with the U.S. over trade and regional security are among the hot-button issues likely to be raised at the foreign ministers news conference held over the course of the congress.

Beijing has also been put on the defensive over accusations that it is meddling in the affairs of other nations to squelch critical views of China and control the affairs of overseas Chinese communities. Xis intention to rule indefinitely will enhance fear of the China threat, Chinese law expert Gerome Cohen wrote in a blog posting for the Council for Foreign Relations. Xis ever greater repression will make people think of Stalins decades-long centralization of power, Cohen wrote. AP

Trump: Xi President for life at fundraiser



U.S. PRESIDENT Donald Trump appeared to praise Chinese counterpart Xi Jinpings efforts to extend his tenure in a speech to donors, according to a recording released by CNN. Dont forget Chinas great and Xi is a great gentleman. Hes now president for life, Trump told Republican backers. The crowd erupted in laughter in response to the remarks made Saturday at his Mar-a-Lago estate. And look, he was able to do that, Trump said. I think its great. Maybe well give that a shot some day, he said, prompting more laughter. The comments could add another source of tension between the worlds two largest economies days after Trump pledged to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, fanning fears of a trade war. The plan to repeal term limits has prompted unusually open expressions of dissent in China.Steve Wynn cant drop a court fight with his ex-wife Elaine thats blocking both of them from selling their shares in Wynn Resorts Ltd., a judge said.

The casino mogul argued that the dispute over the validity of an agreement locking up the divorced couples stock was moot, but a Nevada judge didnt agree.

The ruling Friday leaves in place the six-year, three-way court battle among the casino mogul, his ex-wife and his former business partner Kazuo Okada. It preserves the status quo that has barred Elaine Wynn from controlling her USD1.6 billion stake in Wynn Resorts, and it may prevent Steve Wynn from divesting part of his stake should regulators require it because of the allegations of sexual misconduct against him.

Nevada District Court Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez in Las Vegas said she denied Steve Wynns request because the validity of the stockholders agreement is too intertwined with other issues in the lawsuit, including the forced redemption of Okadas shares six years ago.

Lawyers for Aruze USA, Okadas former holding company, and Elaine Wynn opposed the request.

Wynn, 76, stepped down Feb. 6 as chairman and chief executive of his namesake company. Gaming regulators in Nevada, Macau and Massachusetts, where the company is building a $2.4 billion casino, have said theyre looking into the accusations, reported by the Wall Street Journal, that Wynn pressured employees at his Las Vegas resort over many years to have sex with him. He has denied the allegations.

Mark Ferrario, a lawyer for Elaine Wynn, said she wanted full and complete relief on all her claims, not just the ones Steve Wynn sought to dismiss.

Because of his own conduct, hes now under scrutiny, Ferrario said at the hearing. They are desperately trying to avoid a devastating consequence coming down from regulators.

After his resignation, Wynn conceded that the 2010 stockholders agreement, which prevented his ex-wife from selling her shares without his permission, wasnt enforceable. Elaine Wynn has sought a court ruling that the agreement was invalid.

Wynn, who owns 12 percent of the companys shares, has said he has no immediate plans to sell.

The case is Wynn Resorts Ltd. v. Okada, A-12-656710-B, Clark County, Nevada, District Court (Las Vegas). BloombergMichael Bloomberg will launch the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Cape Town on March 7

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who made his fortune selling financial data, has given more than a billion dollars since 2007 to curb global tobacco use, which claims nearly seven million lives every year.

Along with World Health Organization (WHO) director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and South African health minister Aaron Motsoaledi, Bloomberg will launch the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Cape Town on March 7.

Q: What is your long-term vision for the global fight against tobacco?

A: If we could completely eliminate tobacco use today, it would prevent nearly one billion early deaths this century.

Ten years ago, one billion people were covered by a high-quality tobacco law, such as graphic health warnings and bans on indoor smoking. Today, five billion people are. That progress has saved an estimated 35 million lives.

The bad news is, as more cities and countries pass these laws, tobacco companies are working even harder to get new customers hooked  especially young people. They are marketing more in low and middle income countries, including in Africa, where smoking rates are lower and there tend to be less tobacco laws in place.

Q: What is the single-most effective measure that governments can take to reduce the number of tobacco deaths?

"If we could completely eliminate tobacco use today, it would prevent nearly one billion early deaths this century," Bloomberg says

A: Raising taxes on tobacco is the most effective way to drive down smoking rates, particularly among young people. It is also the least widespread of all the proven tobacco control policies.

Q: Many countries collect huge amounts of money from tobacco tax revenues. China, for example, collects a trillion yuan (about $150 billion, 120 billion euros) annually. Does this not create a perverse incentive to maintain tobacco sales, even in the face of tobacco's terrible health tolla million deaths a year in China?

A: The revenues that countries collect from tobacco taxes pale in comparison to the costs imposed on society by smoking.

Something like one in every three men in China will die from smoking at current rates. Millions more will suffer from preventable, debilitating illnesses. That imposes a huge burden on society, in health costs and lives lost.

Q: Philip Morris International, the makers of Marlboro, has recently set up a the grant-giving Foundation for a Smoke-Free World? Is it credible?

A: The tobacco industry has one goal, and that is to make profits. When a company says it is supporting an effort to drive itself out of business, you have to ask: what is really going on here?

The fact is that Philip Morris International continues to aggressively market tobacco to children. They are fighting back against policies aimed at fighting smoking, including suing countries when they pass measures warning people about the dangers of tobacco.

Smoking claims nearly seven million lives every year

Q: What do you say to the argument that tobacco users in 2018 know the dangers of lighting up, so government and civil society should not be trying to police their behaviour?

A: I've always supported the right to use tobacco. I think you're making a mistake, but you have the right. But you don't have the right to expose others to second-hand smoke.

Nor is the cost of smoking limited to smokers: governments spend trillions of dollars each year treating preventable illnesses caused by smoking, not to mention lost productivity when people get sick or die.

Consumers are being bombarded with billions in ads to use these addictive products. We are working to hold the industry accountable and shine a light on its deceptive practices.

Q: Climate change is also one of your major preoccupations. Do you see any parallel between the tobacco and coal industries?

A: Both the coal industry and the tobacco industry have misled the public about the dangers of their products. Both have put profits above people's health. Both have lobbied politicians to protect their interests.

The good news is: both are losing ground. The more people know about the health impacts of coal and tobacco, the less people support their use.

 2018 AFPOlder women residing in the U.S territories are less likely to receive recommended or timely care for breast cancer compared with similar women residing in the continental United States, according to Yale researchers. Their findings were published in the March issue of Health Affairs.

Using Medicare claims data from 2008 to 2014, the researchers analyzed breast cancer care for women in the U.S. territories, including American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. Compared to women living in the continental United States (defined as 48 contiguous states, Alaska, and the District of Columbia), women in these territories who had surgical treatment for breast cancer were significantly less likely to receive other recommended care, the researchers said.

In the period preceding surgery, women in the territories had 24% lower odds of receiving diagnostic needle biopsy. Following breast conserving surgery, they were less likely to receive radiation therapy, noted the researchers.

These women also experienced significant delays in receiving timely care. For example, one month after diagnosis, 42% of women in the U.S. territories had breast surgery, compared to 63% of women in the continental United States. For women in the territories who received breast-conserving surgery, 41% also received radiation therapy, compared to 77% of those in the continental United States.

"The pronounced inequality in breast cancer care for women in the territories demonstrates the importance of research focused on this understudied U.S. population," said Tracy Layne, first author, who contributed to the project as part of her doctoral training at the Yale School of Public Health.

The U.S. territories are home to nearly 5 million people; the majority identify as racial or ethnic minorities. By law, residents of the territories are U.S. citizens (except for those living on American Samoa). However, federal funding for Medicare in the territories is substantially lower than in the continental United States, limiting resources for healthcare services, including breast cancer care, said the researchers.

"Inferior breast cancer care in U.S. territories is particularly concerning, given that our study focused on a time period prior to Hurricane Maria," said Cary Gross, M.D., professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine and senior author of the study. "Our findings suggest that efforts to address the devastating impact of the hurricane on the citizens and healthcare infrastructure of the Caribbean territories need to focus on making the system better than it was." Gross is a member of Yale Cancer Center.

Explore further Death rate from heart attack higher in US territories than on mainlandNew compounds targeting epigenetics have shown remarkable early activity in patients with lymphoma, according to data presented at the TAT (Targeted Anticancer Therapies) International Congress 2018 in Paris, France. ESMO's phase-I oncology meeting featured early clinical studies with BET inhibitors and EZH2 inhibitors.

Dr Anastasios Stathis, head of the New Drugs Development Unit of the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland (IOSI), Bellinzona, Switzerland, was one of the first oncologists to conduct research in this field. He said BET inhibitors have shown some activity in leukaemia, lymphoma and also NUT carcinoma, a rare and aggressive solid tumour driven by a translocation involving BET genes. His previous phase I research on the first-in-class BET inhibitor birabresib (OTX015/MK-8628) showed some activity in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, providing proof-of-concept for this approach. (1)

Subsequently birabresib was used on a single-patient compassionate basis in four patients with NUT carcinoma. Stathis said: "This was the first evidence that preclinical findings with BET inhibitors in models of NUT carcinoma could be translated into activity in patients." (2)

Since then multiple BET inhibitors have been studied in clinical trials and preliminary results have confirmed that they may be effective in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and NUT carcinoma. (3) Tolerability of these compounds has generally been good, but some side effects have been observed that may limit treatment compliance. Thrombocytopaenia which can be dose-limiting but is reversible and not accompanied by major bleeding events, fatigue and gastrointestinal symptoms have been the main side effects that have emerged so far.

Regarding activity, patients do eventually progress on treatment and the duration of response is unknown. Stathis said: "It's not clear what the real clinical impact of BET inhibitors could be. Compounds approved for lymphoma in the last five years had single-agent phase-I response rates above 30%, but activity with BET inhibitors is less than 30%. The hope is to identify the patients that would benefit most and test BET inhibitors in combination with other compounds. In addition, there are new classes of BET inhibitors in preclinical studies and we need to wait to see if they have better activity."

Another area where clinical data is emerging is related to EZH2 inhibitors for which data will be presented at TAT 2018. EZH2 is a protein that exhibits relatively frequent mutations in lymphoma. Results will be presented from a study in patients with B-cell lymphoma showing evidence of antitumour activity with an EZH2 inhibitor, which was well tolerated and had manageable toxicities. (4) Study author Dr Adrian Senderowicz of Constellation Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, US, said: "If approved by health authorities, EZH2 inhibition may become a new treatment paradigm in relapse or refractory EZH2 mutant follicular lymphoma patients."

A previous study showed that another EZH2 inhibitor, tazemetostat, induced objective response rates of 92% in patients with EZH2 mutant follicular lymphoma and 26% in those with the wild-type. (5) Stathis said: "The question is whether it makes sense to treat patients without the mutation, since the response is so much lower. However, these patients do show some response and researchers want to know why."

Stathis said: "We do have proof, and we will see further evidence at TAT 2018, that epigenetics are a promising target in lymphomas."

Explore further New investigational compound shows promise against melanoma, lymphoma

More information: 1. Amorim S, Stathis A, Gleeson M, et al. Bromodomain inhibitor OTX015 in patients with lymphoma or multiple myeloma: a dose-escalation, open-label, pharmacokinetic, phase 1 study. Lancet Haematol. 2016;3(4):e196-204. 1. Amorim S, Stathis A, Gleeson M, et al. Bromodomain inhibitor OTX015 in patients with lymphoma or multiple myeloma: a dose-escalation, open-label, pharmacokinetic, phase 1 study. Lancet Haematol. 2016;3(4):e196-204. DOI: 10.1016/S2352-3026(16)00021-1 2. Stathis A, Zucca E, Bekradda M, et al. Clinical Response of Carcinomas Harboring the BRD4-NUT Oncoprotein to the Targeted Bromodomain Inhibitor OTX015/MK-8628. Cancer Discov. 2016;6(5):492-500. DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-15-1335 3. Stathis A, Bertoni F. BET Proteins as Targets for Anticancer Treatment. Cancer Discov. 2018;8(1):24-36. DOI: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-17-0605 4. Abstract 42O 'A Phase 1 Study of CPI-1205, a Small Molecule Inhibitor of EZH2, Preliminary Safety in Patients with B-Cell Lymphomas': presented by Adrian Senderowicz during Proffered Paper Session 2 on Tuesday, 6 March, 11:00 to 12:30 (CET) in Room Scene AB. 5. Morschhauser F, Salles G, McKay P, et al. Interim report from a phase 2 multicenter study of tazemetostat, an EZH2 inhibitor, in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas. Hematol Oncol. 2017;35(S2):24-25. doi.org/10.1002/hon.2437_3Credit: CC0 Public Domain

At 87, Maxine Stanich cared more about improving the quality of her life than prolonging it.

She suffered from a long list of health problems, including heart failure and chronic lung disease that could leave her gasping for breath.

When her time came, she wanted to die a natural death, Stanich told her daughter, and signed a "do not resuscitate" directive, or DNR, ordering doctors not to revive her should her heart stop.

Yet a trip to a San Francisco emergency room for shortness of breath in 2008 led Stanich to get a defibrillator implanted in her chesta medical device to keep her alive by delivering a powerful shock. At the time, Stanich didn't fully grasp what she had agreed to, even though she signed a document granting permission for the procedure, said her daughter, Susan Giaquinto.

That clarity came only during a subsequent visit to a different hospital, when a surprised ER doctor saw a defibrillator protruding from the DNR patient's thin chest. To Stanich's horror, the ER doctor explained that the device would not allow her to slip away painlessly and that the jolt would be "so strong that it will knock her across the room," said Giaquinto, who accompanied her mother on both hospital trips.

Surgery like this has become all too common among those near the end of life, experts say. Nearly 1 in 3 Medicare patients undergo an operation in the year before they die, even though the evidence shows that many are more likely to be harmed than to benefit from it.

The practice is driven by financial incentives that reward doctors for doing procedures, as well as a medical culture in which patients and doctors are reluctant to talk about how surgical interventions should be prescribed more judiciously, said Dr. Rita Redberg, a cardiologist who treated Stanich when she sought care at the second hospital.

"We have a culture that believes in very aggressive care," said Redberg, who specializes in heart disease in women at the University of California, San Francisco. "We are often not considering the chance of benefit and chance of harm, and how that changes when you get older. We also fail to have conversations about what patients value most."

While surgery is typically lifesaving for younger people, operating on frail, older patients rarely helps them live longer or returns the quality of life they once enjoyed, according to a 2016 paper in Annals of Surgery.

The cost of these surgeriestypically paid for by Medicare, the government health insurance program for people over 65involve more than money, said Dr. Amber Barnato, a professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Older patients who undergo surgery within a year of death spent 50 percent more time in the hospital than others, and nearly twice as many days in intensive care.

And while some robust octogenarians have many years ahead of them, studies show that surgery is also common among those who are far more frail.

Eighteen percent of Medicare patients have surgery in their final month of life and 8 percent in their final week, according to a 2011 study in The Lancet.

More than 12 percent of defibrillators were implanted in people older than 80, according to a 2015 study. Doctors implant about 158,000 of the devices each year, according to the American College of Cardiology. The total cost of the procedure runs about $60,000.

Procedures performed in the elderly range from major operations that require lengthy recoveries to relatively minor surgery performed in a doctor's office, such as the removal of nonfatal skin cancers, that would likely never cause any problems.

Research led by Dr. Eleni Linos has shown that people with limited life expectancies are treated for nonfatal skin cancers as aggressively as younger patients. Among patients with a nonfatal skin cancer and a limited time to live, 70 percent underwent surgery, according to her 2013 study in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Surgery poses serious risks for older people, who weather anesthesia poorly and whose skin takes longer to heal. Among seniors who undergo urgent or emergency abdominal surgery, 20 percent die within 30 days, studies show.

With diminished mental acuity and an old-fashioned respect for the medical profession, some aging patients are vulnerable to unwanted interventions. Stanich agreed to a pacemaker simply because her doctor suggested it, Giaquinto said. Many people of Stanich's generation "thought doctors were God ... They never questioned doctorsever."

Dr. Margaret Schwarze, a surgeon and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, said that older patients often don't feel the financial pain of surgery because insurance pays most of the cost.

When a surgeon offers to "fix" the heart valve in a person with multiple diseases, for example, the patient may assume that surgery will fix all of her medical problems, Schwarze said. "With older patients with lots of chronic illnesses, we're not really fixing anything."

Even as a doctor, Redberg said, she struggles to prevent other doctors from performing too many procedures on her 92-year-old mother, Mae, who lives in New York City.

Redberg said doctors recently treated her mother for melanomathe most serious type of skin cancer. After the cancer was removed from her leg, Redberg's mother was urged by a doctor to undergo an additional surgery to cut away more tissue and nearby lymph nodes, which can harbor cancerous cells.

"Every time she went in, the dermatologist wanted to refer her to a surgeon," Redberg said. And "Medicare would have been happy to pay for it."

But her mother often has problems with wounds healing, she said, and recovery would likely have taken three months. When Redberg pressed a surgeon about the benefits, he said the procedure could reduce the chances of cancer coming back within three to five years.

Redberg said her mother laughed and said, "I'm not interested in doing something that will help me in three to five years. I doubt I'll be here."

The momentum of hospital care can make people feel as if they're on a moving train and can't jump off.

The rush of medical decisions "doesn't allow time to deliberate or consider the patients' overall health or what their goals and values might be," said Dr. Jacqueline Kruser, an instructor in pulmonary and critical care medicine and medical social sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Many hospitals and health systems are developing "decision aids," easy-to-understand written materials and videos to help patients make more informed medical decisions, giving them time to develop more realistic expectations.

After Kaiser Permanente Washington introduced the tools relating to joint replacement, the number of patients choosing to have hip replacement surgery fell 26 percent, while knee replacements declined 38 percent, according to a study in Health Affairs. (Kaiser Permanente is not affiliated with Kaiser Health News, which is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation.)

In a paper published last year in JAMA Surgery and the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, Schwarze, Kruser and colleagues suggested creating narratives to illustrate surgical risks, rather than relying on statistics.

Instead of telling patients that surgery carries a 20 percent risk of stroke, for example, doctors should lay out the best, worst and most likely outcomes.

In the best-case scenario, a patient might spend weeks in the hospital after surgery, living the rest of her life in a nursing home. In the worst case, the same patient dies after several weeks in intensive care. In the most likely scenario, the patient survives just two to three months after surgery.

Schwarze said, "If someone says they can't tolerate the best-case scenariowhich involves them being in a nursing homethen maybe we shouldn't be doing this."

Maxine Stanich was admitted to the hospital after going to the ER because she felt short of breath. She experienced an abnormal heart rhythm in the procedure room during a cardiac testnot an unusual event during a procedure in which a wire is threaded into the heart. Based on that, doctors decided to implant a pacemaker and defibrillator the next day.

Dr. Redberg was consulted when the patient objected to the device that was now embedded in her chest. She was "very alert. She was very clear about what she did and did not want done. She told me she didn't want to be shocked," Redberg said.

After Redberg deactivated the defibrillator, which can be reprogrammed remotely, Stanich was discharged, with home hospice service. With nothing more than her medicines, she survived another two years and three months, dying at home just after her 90th birthday in 2010.

Explore further Perioperative Surgical Home reduces death, ER visits in elderly hip fracture patients

2018 Kaiser Health News

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.(HealthDay)Survivors of adolescent cancer have higher rates of adverse mental health outcomes than the general population, according to a study published online Feb. 22 in Cancer.

Paul C. Nathan, M.D., from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, identified all five-year childhood cancer survivors diagnosed before age 18 years and treated in an Ontario pediatric cancer center from 1987 to 2008. They matched 4,117 patients to 20,269 population controls in order to compare rates of mental health care visits (family physician, psychiatrist, emergency department, hospitalization) and the risk for a severe mental health event (emergency department, hospitalization, or suicide).

The researchers found that, compared with controls, childhood cancer survivors had a higher rate of mental health visits (adjusted relative rate [RR], 1.34). Female gender (RR, 1.39) and being diagnosed at ages 15 to 17.9 years (compared with ages 0 to 4 years: RR, 1.81) were associated with higher rates of mental health visits. However, cancer type, treatment intensity, and treatments targeting the central nervous system were not significant predictors of mental health visits. Compared with controls, survivors were at increased risk for a severe event (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.13). Childhood cancer survivors diagnosed with cancer at age 4 years or younger were at greatest risk for a severe event by age 28 years (16.3 percent).

"Survivors of adolescent cancer have a higher rate of mental health visits overall, whereas survivors of cancer before age 4 years have a markedly elevated risk of severe events," the authors write.

Explore further Mental distress common in survivors of teen, young adult CA

Copyright  2018 HealthDay. All rights reserved.Research conducted by Dr. Ted Price BS97 and colleagues in the Pain Neurobiology Research Group focused on a newly discovered pain mechanism related to D5 dopamine receptors. Credit: Ricardo Castrillon

New research from The University of Texas at Dallas supports the growing consensus that pain begins differently for men and women at the cellular level.

Dr. Ted Price BS'97, Dr. Salim Megat and their colleagues in the Pain Neurobiology Research Group recently found that a specific manipulation of receptors in the nervous system for the neurotransmitter dopamine impairs chronic pain in male mice, but has no effect on females.

Price, an associate professor of neuroscience in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, said that the new findings add to the growing chorus of recent research indicating strong differences in pain's origins in males and females. The results were published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

"For the same magnitude of pain in a male and a female, the mechanisms that drive pain seem to be remarkably separate," Price said. "We've made a cellular change that completely reverses the genesis of the chronic pain in only the male. What we're learning is that different types of cells drive the development of pain."

The experiment focused on a newly discovered pain mechanism related to D5 dopamine receptorsone of five identified classes of receptors for the neurotransmitter. Mice genetically engineered to lack these D5 receptors showed significantly reduced pain responsesbut only the males.

"It's extraordinarily specific for males," Price said. "If we see the same results in human tissues, it will support the idea that you could make a D5 antagonist drug to treat pain in men."

Discovering Differences Once Overlooked

Price said that the discovery was set in motion by a dictate from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) four years ago. Previously, many preclinical experiments used only male animals due to their relative simplicitylacking an estrus cycle for reproduction that modulates hormone levels. When the NIH indicated that it would require research to include both males and females, it cleared the way for these dimorphismsdifferences between the sexesto be discovered.

"We've been overlooking a key variable for a long time, and I'm as guilty as everyone else," Price said. "Professionally, we saw no reason to do it until 2014. But we're discovering that the NIH's decision was the right thing. Everyone I know doing these studies is finding new and interesting mechanisms that we've simply overlooked."

Price added that this new research philosophy explains some of the inability to reproduce results in prior, single-sex studies.

"Those running clinical trials for the last five years have been frustrated because the preclinical results don't come through in the clinical studies," Price said. "The cause of this problem, potentially, is that up until recently, many of the preclinical investigators were just using males. Then, in the clinical trials, human participants are primarily female, because more women suffer chronic pain than men."

Devising New Ways to Treat Pain

The accelerating movement of research demonstrating profound differences between males and females may soon yield a new model for pain relief medication, Price said.

"It leads me to believe that it's fairly likely we'll want to make male- and female-specific drugs for chronic pain," Price said. "If not that, we may need to develop diagnostics to look at an individual's cell types that are prolonging pain, so we can tailor the therapeutic based on the underlying mechanism. We just don't do that right now."

Price admits that, in one respect, his own research findings frustrate him, due to which sex they favor.

"Discovering D5 receptors as a pain relief target upsets me in a way. Most chronic pain patients are women, not men, so I would prefer to develop something that was certain to work in females," he said.

He's hoping that adding his research to the mounting evidence of sex dimorphism can help bring change in how pain alleviation is viewedand eventual relief to chronic pain sufferers regardless of their sex.

"The D5 mechanism discovery is not so important in and of itself," he said. "What's really important is that it's another very clear indication that there are extraordinarily strong mechanistic sex differences in how pain becomes chronic. When you take what everybody has done in the field, that theme is really something that we have to pay very close attention to, and I feel like it's going to lead to the breakthrough we all really want."

More information: Salim Megat et al. A Critical Role for Dopamine D5 Receptors in Pain Chronicity in Male Mice, The Journal of Neuroscience (2017). Journal information: Journal of Neuroscience Salim Megat et al. A Critical Role for Dopamine D5 Receptors in Pain Chronicity in Male Mice,(2017). DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2110-17.2017Credit: CC0 Public Domain

When caring for stroke patients, health care providers should focus on the social and emotional issues facing patients, rather than only physical rehabilitation, according to a new study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"Rather than focusing only on physical rehabilitation, a realistic approach to managing care should consider the emotional needs of patients and their caregivers," says Dr. Scott Murray, Primary Palliative Care Research Group, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. "Balancing the need for hope of recovery with the potential of severe disability or death is important in this approach."

Stroke is the second leading cause of death, accounting for 11% of deaths worldwide. Survival is especially poor for people who have had a severe total anterior circulation stroke with loss of motor control, language and other conditions.

The study of 219 patients in central Scotland with severe stroke (total anterior circulation stroke) looked at the experiences, concerns and priorities of patients, families and health care professionals in the 12 months after stroke. In the first 6 months, 57% (125 people) died, with 1-year fatality of 60% (132 deaths.) About two-thirds (67%) of deaths occurred within the first month after stroke.

Researchers found that patients and their families reported grief over the loss of their previous life, anxiety among caregivers over whether they were "doing the right thing," uncertainty about the future and confusion about prognosis. As well, the term "palliative care" was interpreted negatively by many health care providers, families and informal caregivers, as it is associated with care for people, for example patients with advanced cancer, who are dying.

"Many patients and informal caregivers would have welcomed more support in making decisions and in planning for the future from day one," writes Dr. Murray with coauthors. "The focus was on active rehabilitation, recovery, motivation and hope, with much less discussion and preparation for limited recovery."

The authors suggest that the principles of palliative care rather than the term itself should be applied to stroke patients, which means supporting people to live well with deteriorating health and making them comfortable until their eventual death.

In a related commentary www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.170956, Dr. Jessica Simon, Department of Oncology, University of Calgary, writes "the challenging questions for physicians and other health care providers should not be, 'What shall we call it?' or 'Who should receive palliative care?'; the questions for each patient who is facing the challenges associated with life-threatening illness should be, 'Am I providing the palliative care support my patient needs?' and 'Is there access to sufficient specialist palliative care resources in my community if needed?'."

"Outcomes, experiences and palliative care in major stroke: a multicentre, mixed-method, longitudinal study" is published March 5, 2018.

Explore further Earlier palliative care at home linked to fewer hospital admissions

More information: Marilyn Kendall et al. Outcomes, experiences and palliative care in major stroke: a multicentre, mixed-method, longitudinal study, Canadian Medical Association Journal (2018). Marilyn Kendall et al. Outcomes, experiences and palliative care in major stroke: a multicentre, mixed-method, longitudinal study,(2018). DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.170604 Jessica Simon. Who needs palliative care?, Canadian Medical Association Journal (2018). DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.170956 Journal information: Canadian Medical Association JournalEGLF7 retains immune cells in the perivascular space in MS lesions. Credit: Catherine Larochelle, Timo Uphaus, Frauke Zipp

A prospective new method of treating patients with multiple sclerosis has been proposed by researchers of the Mainz University Medical Center working in cooperation with researchers of the University of Montreal. In model trials and experiments employing human endothelial cells, they discovered that the EGFL7 protein hinders the migration of immune cells into the central nervous system by stabilizing the blood-brain barrier. These findings have recently been published in Nature Communications.

The autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the most common disorders that cause disabilities in young adults in industrialized countries. In MS, the body's own immune system attacks the central nervous system (CNS). Immune cells (T cells) cross the blood-brain barrier, i.e., the physiological barrier between the blood circulatory system and the CNS, enter the brain, and damage the protective covering of the nerve fibers, the myelin layer. This results in the degeneration and loss of function of nerve cells and leads to neurological disability-related symptoms.

The primary aim of MS research is to develop new treatments that will prevent this pathological process. The researchers chose a completely innovative pathophysiological-based approach as EGFL7 had not previously been considered of relevance to MS research. However, it has been shown, for example in the case of breast cancer, that EGFL7 does have an influence on the migration of immune cells into tumor tissue. Since the migration of immune cells into the brain plays a significant role in MS, the researchers decided to investigate this protein and whether it could also have an effect on the autoimmune disorder. Notably, on the basis of their results they were able to demonstrate a possible new approach to successfully treat MS.

The researchers discovered that CNS inflammation was accompanied by an increased release of EGFL7. Immune cells subsequently bind to EGFL7, in a sense being taken prisoner so that they are prevented from crossing into the CNS. EGFL7 is released by the endothelial cells of the blood-brain barrier and causes immune cells to be retained in the perivascular space. In their model trials, the researchers next found that exposure to EGLF7 makes the blood-brain barrier less permeable. In the presence of this more effective barrier, the passage of immune cells into the CNS was reduced. This counteracted the corresponding pathological mechanisms and thus led to improvements in clinical symptoms.

Furthermore, the researchers were able to confirm their experimental findings in a human blood-brain barrier model, where there was also decreased migration of immune cells in isolated human endothelial cells. They now conclude that it might be possible in principle to take advantage of the way that EGFL7 inhibits the migration of immune cells into the CNS and enhances the impenetrability of the blood-brain barrier for the treatment of multiple sclerosis.

Explore further How rogue immune cells cross the blood-brain barrier to cause multiple sclerosis

More information: Catherine Larochelle et al. EGFL7 reduces CNS inflammation in mouse, Nature Communications (2018). Journal information: Nature Communications Catherine Larochelle et al. EGFL7 reduces CNS inflammation in mouse,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03186-zAn MRI with increased signal in the posterior part of the internal capsule which can be tracked to the motor cortex consistent with the diagnosis of ALS. Credit: Frank Gaillard/Wikipedia

In a new application of gene-editing technology, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have gleaned insights into the genetic underpinnings of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disease that's notoriously tricky to parse.

The team's findings are a step toward demystifying how the disease progresses and could even help lay the groundwork for new therapeutic targets.

ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, erodes muscle function and impairs the brain's ability to communicate with the body, making simple voluntary muscle movementssuch as brushing your teeth, talking or even breathingexceedingly difficult and, eventually, impossible. ALS falls into a category of neurodegenerative diseases that all share a common "signature"abnormal protein clumps that build up in the brain.

In ALS, these protein clumps, or aggregates, are thought to be fatally toxic to neurons, ultimately leading to the devastating physical symptoms of the disease. But the process of the cells' demise is still largely a black box.

"These toxic protein aggregates are what's likely driving the pathology in the disease, but no one really knows how they cause neuronal cell death. That's really what we wanted to probe in this study," said Aaron Gitler, PhD, professor of genetics. He shares senior authorship with Michael Bassik, PhD, assistant professor of genetics.

Gitler's and Bassik's labs used CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology to sort through the entire human genome and pick out the genes that helped neurons shore up defenses against the toxic protein. Not only did some genes give the researchers a deeper mechanistic understanding of the disease itself; a handful seem to hold potential as drug targets, too.

A paper describing the research will be published online March 5 in Nature Genetics. Graduate students Nicholas Kramer and Michael Haney share lead authorship.

A simple but deadly protein

The discovery that mutations in the C9orf72 gene is a relatively common cause of ALS has helped ignite efforts to understand how ALS works at the molecular level. In ALS, the mutated C9orf72 gene contains a huge segment of DNA that repeats itself and, when that part of the gene is erroneously turned into various rogue proteins, they gum up neuronal function and lead to cell death.

"In a healthy person, you might see 10 to 20 of these DNA repeats," Haney said. "But in ALS, they expand to hundreds or even thousands of repeated segments, and that's the template for the production of these toxic proteins."

Gitler and Bassik set out to answer two basic questions: How do the toxic proteins snuff out otherwise healthy neurons? And are there other genes that inherently protect againstor conversely, exacerbatethe effects of the toxic proteins in the brain?

Rather than separately interrogate every gene in the human repository, the researchers used a tactic called genomewide screening, which harnesses CRISPR-Cas9 to alter the function of every single human gene simultaneously. In this case, they used the technology to produce "gene knockouts," targeting genes with a kind of molecular scissors that makes precise cuts, leaving them unable to carry out normal function.

The gene knockouts, Kramer explained, help the researchers spot genes that either enhance toxicity or prevent it: If you identify a gene and knock it out, and the ALS protein repeats are no longer toxic, then you know that the absence of that gene actually protects the neuron against degeneration. And perhaps more importantly, it may be a potential drug target.

Tmx2: A sentinel of cell death

After systematically knocking out every gene in the human genome and measuring the toxicity of the ALS proteins in cells, the researchers found that about 200 genes, when knocked out, either helped to protect the cell from the toxic proteins or made it more vulnerable to them. To zero in on a smaller set of genes, Haney and Kramer followed up with two subsequent knockout screens in primary mouse neurons.

They found a handful of knockouts that were particularly potent protectors. One, for example, helped block off critical entrances through which the toxic ALS proteins infiltrate the cell and corrupt it. But there was another knockout in particular that caught the group's attention for its mysterious ability to ward off neural death. The gene normally codes for a protein called Tmx2, which is found in a part of the cell called the endoplasmic reticulum. But when depleted in mouse neurons in a dish, the cells survived nearly 100 percent of the timequite a jump, considering that the survival rate for normal neurons was 10 percent.

"We could imagine that Tmx2 might make good drug target candidate," Haney said. "If you have a small molecule that could somehow impede the function of Tmx2, there might be a therapeutic window there."

Right now, Tmx2's role in the endoplasmic reticulum isn't completely clear. But it's thought to be involved in the response to various environmental stressors, particularly those that trigger cell death. According to the study's findings, it may be a modulator of other genes that set off the cell-death process.

"We're still in early phases, but I think figuring out exactly what Tmx2 normally does in a cell is a good place to startthat would hint at what functions are disturbed when these toxic species kill the cell, and it could point to what pathways we should look into," Kramer said.

More broadly, CRISPR screens like the one in this study have been used to investigate a range of disease pathways. But the team said this is the first time, to their knowledge, that a genomewide human CRISPR knockout screen has been used to discover clues about a neurodegenerative disorder. Gitler and Bassik are currently teaming up to use this same approach to understand additional causes of ALS and even other neurological diseasesHuntington's, Parkinson's and Alzheimer'sthat involve toxic proteins. "I think it's a really exciting application for CRISPR screens, and this is just the beginning," Bassik said.

Explore further Scientists move closer to treatment for Huntington's disease

More information: CRISPRCas9 screens in human cells and primary neurons identify modifiers of C9orf72 dipeptide-repeat-protein toxicity, Nature Genetics (2018). Journal information: Nature Genetics CRISPRCas9 screens in human cells and primary neurons identify modifiers of C9orf72 dipeptide-repeat-protein toxicity,(2018). nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/s41588-018-0070-7Credit : Susanna M. Hamilton, Broad Communications

Imagine you viewed the world's diversity solely through the lens of genetic and genomic data. Looking at the gnomAD browser, for instance, you would think that more than 45 percent of humanity was from Europe or had European ancestors. Data collected by the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium would leave you thinking all of us are either European (96 percent) or East Asian (four percent).

These numbers do not reflect reality. Fourteen percent of world is of African descent, 16 of European. Collectively, East and South Asia account for more than half of humanity. This disconnect skews our understanding of the full diversity of human genetics and how disease manifests in different populations.

"Most data on the genetics of human disease comes from northern European population registries and, increasingly, large U.S. health care systems," explained Steven Hyman, a Broad core institute member and director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad. "But it is already clear from complex conditions like type 2 diabetes that studying populations with different genetic backgrounds can reveal really informative disease-associated alleles and genes.

"If genetics is the intellectual platform for understanding the biology of human illness," he added, "we need to incorporate as much human genetic diversity as possible."

The data diversity gap yawns particularly large for neuropsychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders, contributing to disparities in therapies available for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, autism, and other diagnoses around the world. This is particularly troubling given that neuropsychiatric conditions alone account for 25 percent of the global burden of disease.

"The data we have on psychiatric disorders are missing a massive amount of diversity. We're leaving out whole continents," said Karestan Koenen, a Broad associate member in the Stanley Center and a psychiatric epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. "And to put it bluntly, we're in danger of identifying therapeutic targets that may only be of use for white people."

For that reason, the Stanley Center and partners around the world have launched an ambitious effort to take psychiatric genetics global. Through an overarching effort called the Stanley Global Neuropsychiatric Genetics Initiative (a.k.a. Stanley Global), together they have created a set of massive-scale pilots aimed at vastly expanding the diversity of the genetic data available on psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders by collecting, sequencing, and analyzing samples from diverse populations around the world. One of Stanley Global's first major foraysa consortium dubbed Neuropsychiatric Genetics in African Populations (NeuroGAP)recently started probing the genetics of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in four nations across Africa.

What's more, Stanley Global has created a robust curriculum intended to foster independent, home-grown neuropsychiatric genetic research ecosystems, first in Africa and then beyondmaking the tools and benefits of genetic science more broadly available around the world.

Capturing unseen diversity

From a population genetics standpoint, Africa represents the greatest genetic diversity in the world, reflecting the human species' origins there. It stands to reason, then, that many traits and disorders should display greater genetic diversity compared to the rest of the world.

For psychiatric disease, however, little of that diversity has been captured. There have been few psychiatric genetics studies in Africa, with relatively small sample sizes. Even with other large genetics collaborations within Africa, such as the H3Africa Consortium, psychiatric disorders usually end up low on the priority list.

These factors raise the risk that psychiatric drug and diagnostic development could leave Africa behind.

"If we leave Africa out of psychiatric genetic research, the tools and drugs developed down the line may not be appropriate for patients there," said Koenen, who has a long-standing interest in working in Africa and who also studies the genetics of post-traumatic stress disorder. "A whole revolution in psychiatric genetics could bypass Africa."

NeuroGAPa partnership helmed at the Broad by Koenen and spanning Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, and Ugandaaims to capture that diversity through what may be the largest collection effort yet mounted in Africa. The partnership's first study, called NeuroGAP-Psychosis, will collect saliva samples from more than 17,000 people diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, as well as an additional 17,000 people without these diagnoses.

It is a goal made possible through the efforts of researchers, clinicians, nurses, technicians, and project managers at more than 30 hospitals, clinics, and community health centers spread across the four participating countries.

"In previous studies that I've worked on in Africa, we've recruited 2,000 people at most," said Anne Stevenson, the program director for NeuroGAP-Psychosis. "To the best of my knowledge, nothing comparable has been done on this scale to date."

Each sample will be processed at its collection site, with DNA shipped to the Broad for DNA microarray genotyping and genome-wide association analysis. These analyses should identify unique genetic variations that correlate with participants' diagnoses.

"Even though we're not analyzing whole genomes," Koenen noted, "we should be able to retrieve tons of new information and help fine tune our understanding of what counts as a 'common' gene variant."

Laying strong foundations

In developing their approach, the NeuroGAP-Psychosis collaborators have had to contend with the history of scientific inequity stemming from past interactions between western and African researchers.

"History has many examples of scientists from high-income countries who partner with African researchers, take samples and data, and are never heard from again," Hyman explained. "We want to avoid repeating those mistakes, and think about the kinds of infrastructure we can build and which will remain once this project is complete."

As a result, the NeuroGAP-Psychosis team has entered into truly collaborative partnerships with their colleagues in Africa, committing to share data openly (in keeping with the Stanley Center's dedication to open science), conduct analyses collaboratively, and work to foster a robust neurogenetic research enterprise within each participating country.

At the heart of this last commitment lies an innovative Stanley Global research training effort called GINGER (for Global Initiative for Neuropsychiatric Genetics Education in Research). Based at the Broad and the Harvard T.H. Chan School, GINGER comprises a two-year research education program with a critical purpose: to prepare a new generation of neuropsychiatric genetic researchers in Africa who will build on the discoveries of NeuroGAP-Psychosis and other projects (more on that in a moment) as well as chart new research avenues in their home countries.

"By promoting neuropsychiatric genetics research locally," Koenen explained, "we hope to help create a sustainable infrastructure through which psychiatric projects like this can be carried out and supported locally.

"And by raising the bar on the science," she continued, "we hope to draw more researchers into the field locally and bring more attention to these disorders."

"We want to train junior researchers and give them the tools to not just use data but build their own careers based on the data," added GINGER director, Broad associate member, and at Harvard T.H. Chan assistant professor Lori Chibnik. "By working together we build camaraderie that ultimately will lead to more intra-African collaborations, not just trans-Atlantic," she said. "We want to build research capacity by investing in people."

The GINGER team worked closely with the NeuroGAP site investigators to create an appropriate curriculum and train African researchers on a range of topics (e.g., informed consent, statistical analysis, population genetics). Their efforts have resulted in a comprehensive mix of mentoring, online coursework, and hands-on workshops in the U.S., Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and the United Kingdom.

"The only way to ensure that a project's legacy lasts past its lifespan is to build the capacity of young and vibrant junior faculty to fill in the gaps and continue the work," said Dickens Akena, a psychiatrist and lecturer at Makerere University in Uganda and one of the NeuroGAP-Psychosis site leaders. "The GINGER fellowship was carefully crafted to identify promising faculty, train them according to local needs, mentor them, and help them grow over time."

"NeuroGAP represents an opportunity not only to contribute to the global body of genetic knowledge but also to build the capacity for research in our region and train our junior researchers to carry out their own studies," said Lukoye Atwoli, dean of Moi University School of Medicine in Kenya and another NeuroGAP-Psychosis site leader. "I expect that we will build capacity that can then help solve other health-related problems in our country."

"We've been involved in other projects where capacity building has been an element, but it's been a small part," added Dan Stein, head of psychiatry & mental health at the University of Cape Town and also a NeuroGAP-Psychosis site leader. "Here, building the next generation is key."

In addition to GINGER, Stanley Global has also established NeuroGenE, a major bioethics initiative created in collaboration with and led by neuroethicist Ilina Singh at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Through a combination of bioethics research, practical ethics advice, training, and capacity building, NeuroGenE will support the Stanley Global projects, first in Africa and in the future other regions, by recognizing and collaboratively finding solutions for ethical questions and challenges that arise within and across scientific sites.

"Capacity-building in the ethics related to global neuropsychiatric research is core to the sustainability of this model," Singh explained. "Alongside the next generation of scientists, we need to build the next generation of neuroethicists."

A global approach

NeuroGAP-Psychosis is not the only Stanley Global effort in Africa. Under development is a sister effort dubbed NeuroDev, that will focus on the genetics of neurodevelopmental disorders of childhood.

Neither is Stanley Global focused solely on Africa. The program is also building or conducting similar collaborative efforts with partners in:

China: A schizophrenia projectled by institute members Benjamin Neale and Mark Daly and Stanley Center Asia Initiatives director Hailiang Huangplans to sample five ethnic populations across six provinces and regions, in collaboration with BioX-Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Finland: In collaboration with Finland's Institute for Molecular Medicine, National Institute for Health and Welfare, and Social Insurance Institution, and Finnish university hospitals, this collaborative project, led by associate member Aarno Palotie, will study the genes of 10,000 schizophrenia patients. (The people of Finland have a genetic background unique among European populations.)

Mexico: A collaborative project with Mexico's National Institute of Psychiatry, overseen at the Broad by Koenen, aims to collect samples from 4,000 people diagnosed with psychosis and 4,000 controls from Mexico City and Campeche.

Hyman believes fully that the the time to undertake these efforts is right now, especially if we are to capture the energy around genetics and global health.

"We're in the age of human genetics and genomics, and people around the world are geared up to find new knowledge and put it to use in understanding and addressing human disease," Hyman said. "If we delay seriously studying diverse genomes, in essence we delay all of biology, and projects that could benefit millions in the developing world will just fall off the map. We need to move ahead as rapidly and effectively as we can."

Explore further Study finds first molecular genetic evidence of PTSD heritabilitySurgeons have made many significant contributions to science in the 20th century, but the specialty has been losing ground to other medical researchers in terms of government funding over the past decade, according to a study published as an "article in press" on the website of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons ahead of print. The authors recommend ensuring that those surgeons who want to do research have the resources to do it.

"Most surgeons don't conduct research because it takes extra time and isn't always compatible with their primary responsibility for taking care of patients," said senior study author Gorav Ailawadi MD, FACS, who along with more than a dozen surgeon-scientists and students at the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, took part in the study.

The researchers focused on the Research Project Grants, specifically R01 awards, which the National Institutes of Health (NIH) calls "the original and historically oldest grant mechanism used by NIH. R01 grants provide support for health-related research and development based on the mission of the NIH." 1 Their analysis looked at a major segment of Research Project Grant (RPG) funding from the NIH, and other NIH grants awarded between 2006 and 2016. The NIH underwrites most successful academic research laboratories in the United States with tens of thousands of grants, primarily R01s.2 However, in the past decade, the number of NIH grants has gone down, while applications (and grant amounts) have increased.3 Only about one of every five or six applications resulted in a funded grant over the period studied.

While the NIH budget has held steady at about $3.2 billion annually for research grants over the last decade, funding to surgeons declined from $314 million to $292 million. Nonetheless, the results showed that surgeons produced impactful research, and were successful in converting NIH K-series4 mentored/early investigator awards into R01 support as independent investigators.

Study findings also showed that surgeons had significantly less success obtaining grants compared with other applicants, particularly, internal medicine faculty. But 831 surgeons did obtain NIH R01 grants during the study period, and the influence of their research was noticeable, as measured by the number of articles published in distinguished journals reporting on their research findings. In addition, the researchers wrote that a "grant impact score was calculated for each grant based on the publications' impact factor per funding dollar amount." Based on this formula, surgeons' impact scores increased by about 25 per cent over the study period, Dr. Ailawadi said. Orthopedic surgeons conducted by far the most influential research among surgeons in the study using this metric.

In addition, 46 percent of young surgeons who obtained NIH K-Series research grants in the years between 2007 and 2012 went on to successfully obtain a subsequent R01 grant. K-grants are designed to help early-career researchers get established with the help of mentors.

An important part of the surgeon's work is to find ways to minimize complications to the patient, Dr. Ailawadi said. He explained that interactions with patients inspire surgeons to create innovations that they can put to work in clinical practice to improve patient outcomes sooner rather than later. The tradition of the surgeon-scientist traces back to such giants of medical research as Alexis Carrel,5 who won the Nobel Prize in 1912 for his foundational contributions to vascular surgery and transplantation.

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, NIH funding has benefited innumerable landmark advances in surgical science. Two prime examples are the legendary decades of work by general surgeon Bernard Fisher, MD, FACS, who established systemic chemotherapy for breast cancer as an effective means for treating the disease as opposed to the old aggressive Halsted radical mastectomy. Dr. Fisher was the first to establish, by means of laboratory and clinical investigation using randomized trials, a scientific basis for breast-conserving surgery.6 Furthermore, the NIH funded some of the leading-edge research of plastic surgeon Susan E. Mackinnon, MD, FACS, FRCSC, who has been recognized for her leadership in the innovative use of nerve transfer procedures for treatment of patients with devastating peripheral nerve injuries.7 Both surgeons were named recipients of the Jacobson Innovation Award by the American College of Surgeons, the College's highest research honor.

Moving forward, the authors recommend that academic institutions and the NIH increase support for surgeon-scientists at the beginning of their careers "to increase basic/translational science research and lead to future surgical discoveries that will benefit mankind."

But surgeons may be at a disadvantage compared with other scientists, Dr. Ailawadi said. "Hospitals want surgeons to operate and bring in revenue." Secondly, he pointed out that, "the NIH has shifted more to molecular analyses, and has become much more focused on benchtop research," which is typically performed by full-time PhD researchers in a laboratory rather than clinicians in a practice setting. Thirdly, applicants for NIH K-Series grants must agree to devote between half and three-quarters of their time to research. And finally, the authors state, many young surgeons have come to believe that "basic research may not be part of their role" once they begin practice.

"Most of us train five years or longer to learn how to operate and take care of patients. We don't spend five years training to do research. It's much harder for surgeons to decide to do research, attain the skill set and pursue it, when they have opportunities to be remunerated for their clinical volume alone." Dr. Ailawadi said.

Dr. Ailawadi believes that surgeons' declining representation among NIH grantees is a potentially worrisome sign for the future, because the NIH approves grants based on recommendations from study sections composed to an extent of past and present grantees. While the NIH works to include experts in any given study section who are well versed on the science the group will be reviewing, Dr. Ailawadi noted that fewer surgeons getting grants means fewer surgeons will be in those influential study sections in the future.

"Then the challenge will be to convince PhD scientists on study sections that our research is more meaningful to the field of surgery than that of a number of PhDs who are also submitting their projects in other disciplines," he said.

Explore further Surgery practice patterns differ by location of residencyCredit: CC0 Public Domain

One in 25 people have synesthesia, in which an experience involving one sense is associated with perception in another sensefor example, seeing colors when listening to music. Now, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the University of Cambridge report clues into the biological origins of such variations in human perception. They studied families with synesthesia, and describe genetic changes that might contribute to their differences in sensory experience.

Some people with synaesthesia may see sounds, while others may taste them or feel them as shapes. This kind of sensory cross-talk comes in many forms, and develops during early childhood. It has been known for over a century that synaesthesia runs in families, giving a strong hint that inherited factors are important.

"Brain imaging of adults with synaesthesia suggests that their circuits are wired a little differently compared to people who don't make these extra sensory associations. What we don't know yet is how these differences develop," said Dr. Amanda Tilot, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. "We suspect some of the answers lie in people's genetic makeup."

A genetic window into sensory experience

Today, in a report published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and the University of Cambridge report new genetic clues that could help explain the biology of synaesthesia. The researchers carefully analysed the DNA of three families in which multiple members, across several different generations, experience colour when listening to sounds.

The team took advantage of advances in genome sequencing, enabling them to identify genetic variants in the synaesthesia families and track how they were passed on from one generation to the next. In particular, they focused attention on rare DNA changes that altered the way genes code for proteins, and that perfectly matched the inheritance of synaesthesia in each of the three families.

While the highlighted DNA variants differed between the three families, a common theme emerged to connect them: an enrichment for genes involved in axonogenesis and cell migration. Axonogenesis is a key process enabling brain cells to wire up to their correct partners.

Combining families to uncover biological processes

Professor Simon Fisher, Director of the Max Planck Institute, who led the research, said, "We knew from earlier studies by the Cambridge team that no single gene can account for this intriguing trait; even families who experience the same form of synaesthesia are likely to differ in terms of specific genetic explanations," said Fisher. "Our hope was that the DNA data might point to shared biological processes as candidates for involvement in synaesthesia."

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre, Cambridge University, commented, "This research is revealing how genetic variation can modify our sensory experiences, potentially via altered connectivity in the brain. Synaesthesia is a clear example of neurodiversity which we should respect and celebrate."

In search of synaesthetes

To better understand these findings, the team is looking for new families and individuals to join their study. To learn more about their research and take a short test to find out if you experience a common form of synaesthesia, go to http://www.mpi.nl/synaesthesia.

Explore further Better odour recognition in odour-colour synaesthesia

More information: Amanda K. Tilot el al., "Rare variants in axonogenesis genes connect three families with soundcolor synesthesia," PNAS (2018). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Amanda K. Tilot el al., "Rare variants in axonogenesis genes connect three families with soundcolor synesthesia,"(2018). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1715492115The deal will bolster the profile of the nine-year-old The Infatuation. But it also raises questions about whether Zagat, once the 800-pound gorilla of restaurant recommendations, can remain relevant when a slew of younger digital competitors have emerged and thrived.

Founded by Tim and Nina Zagat as a survey of their friends opinions on New York City eateries, Zagat and its quotation-mark-laden reviews  appearing in the companys distinctive burgundy-colored guidebooks  once made the publisher synonymous with searches for restaurants.

Then Google bought the company  under the direction of Marissa Mayer, who went on to become Yahoos chief executive  to integrate it into its mapping service. Life under Google has sometimes been rocky for the business, including a de-emphasizing of Zagat content in favor of Googles own collected recommendations.

In 2016 Google unveiled a new look for Zagats website and an app that provided suggestions based on users locations and the time of day.

Zagat has helped us provide useful and relevant dining results for users across our various products, Jen Fitzpatrick, a vice president of product and engineering at Google, said in a statement. The Infatuation is an innovative company that will be a terrific home for the Zagat brand.To prove that he's the world's most powerful user of social networks on the Internet, by a single tweet, Donald Trump managed to erase two percent from the value of the global equities. We learned that he was ready to impose tariffs or taxes on steel imports.



China responded in the most mature, pro-trade way among the economic powerhouses  well, maybe it's not quite a paradoxical exception. China will revenge if something like that happens but it "doesn't want a trade war". Theresa May has also tried to persuade Trump to reconsider.



Well, the European apparatchiks speak a bit different language. They're enthusiastic and eager to join the post-Olympic trade war games. Europe will impose tariffs on jeans, bourbon, and Harley-Davidsons imported from the U.S. Nice. But Donald Trump really loves such pissing contests. So he tweeted that if bourbons are restricted, America won't allow European cars to be imported which is fair because U.S. cars can't really be sold in Europe at all (which is rubbish but OK).



And so on and on. Quite a slippery slope.









It's a bad development. Just some year or two ago, people believed that there would be a full-blown Atlantic free trade zone. Now, we're not quite certain whether there will be any trade at all.



Trump may imagine himself as a general of a gloriously victorious army in the global trade war. But it's really silly because trade is more or less a symmetric enterprise and when it's restricted, both sides suffer. In some counting, they lose exactly as much.









I understand the dissatisfaction of Donald Trump's  his desire to stop the apparent unfairness of the trade restrictions across the world which manifests itself as the annual $800 billion trade deficit of the U.S. ($150 billion out of it is the trade deficit with the EU countries). And he has the determination, power, and desire to fix these imbalances  it may be done.



But you know, The Donald, I sincerely hope that you're reading this blog post. This injustice is just apparent. Why is it apparent? Because with a different counting of the trade, the U.S. trade is balanced. What is the different counting?



The different counting is that the U.S. dollar banknotes and the U.S. treasuries  or at least a fraction of them  should be considered a "popular U.S. product" that is being bought by others. When Unamericans are increasing their financial reserves by buying new U.S. dollars or the U.S. bonds, they are basically buying another U.S. product  pictures of Benjamin Franklin and similar great guys.



America is able to print these pictures and it's very good at this activity  as good as Germans are at producing the Daimler cars. And foreigners want to have an increasing number of these products in their basements. That's why America is capable of sustaining the $800 billion annual deficit, often without a significant devaluation of the U.S. dollar. It's sustainable because the easily printed banknotes and treasuries are basically products that are flowing in the opposite direction, from America to Europe and China and elsewhere.







This guy is one of the three Americans (or people who often live there) who have driven a modern Skoda (the Czech subsidiary of the Volkswagen Group, 2nd in profitability after Porsche)  which exports to the whole world except for North America. The other two Americans who have driven a Skoda are the Handsome Dancer duo from New York who have recorded the hilarious Skoda Coincidance ad for Skoda Taiwan. It's indeed possible to ban the import of car brands to the U.S. But what would the Americans gain is Mercedes or BMW became as esoteric in America as Skoda already is?



Trump is mainly a president of those Americans who work hard and produce something really tangible  like coal or steel. But you know, Mr Trump, there are lots of Americans  and to some extent, all Americans belong to this group  who live a happy live by selling the pictures of Benjamin Franklin they just printed.



Most other nations would be grateful if they were able to live prosperous lives just by printing and selling pictures of Benjamin Franklin (or some Swiss guys because the Swiss enjoy a similar status as Americans). Mr Trump, try to go to Kenya or another sithole and ask them whether they're willing to print U.S. dollar banknotes and "sell" these banknotes for lots of Western products. They would love to accept this occupation! They can't do it with the pictures of their leaders because such pictures are almost worthless and they would quickly become even more worthless if they tried to print much more. Even Americans, when they think a bit rationally, are grateful for that fate. It's a much more convenient job to print a few pictures of some great Americans with numbers on the pictures than to mine tons of coal and similar difficult stuff.



If that setup is sustainable, and it seems sustainable at least for many additional years or decades, it's a pretty good one for America and you could easily find out that the new world you're trying to get  with a protectionist America that no longer runs trade deficits  could very well turn out to be a great disappointment. American workers would have to work more than today.



And I would like to offer a different argument: the trade deficit can't really disappear without a big deterioration of the prestige of the U.S. currency, the U.S. treasuries, and the U.S. in general. Why? As I mentioned from a slightly different perspective, one way to look at the $800 billion trade deficit is to think about the products that are going from America, but especially coming into America, and this imbalance makes Americans less employed and other things.



But another way to understand or estimate the deficit is to count how many extra U.S. dollars and bonds the foreigners are willing to add to their reserves every year. This number  which may be said to be completely unrelated to the truly tangible products made in the U.S. as well as outside the U.S.  is enough to quantify the annual U.S. trade deficit. The annual trade deficit is also equal to the amount of U.S. cash and bonds that is just being added to the foreign reserves.



So if that number  the U.S. annual trade deficit  decreases, it unavoidably means that the Unamericans are less willing to collect U.S. dollars and bonds and I think that this basically implies that the prestige of America in the world will have dropped. Do you get my reasoning? And do you really want it, Mr Trump?



You know, if you view the increase of the U.S. exports and the decrease of the imports into the U.S. as an exercise for your muscles that you have to perform manually, you're missing something. The hypothetically decreasing U.S. deficits will have some additional consequences. In particular, if the U.S. were converging towards a balanced trade balance, and assuming "all other things equal", the U.S. dollar would strengthen and the trade deficit would ultimately reappear, anyway (not necessarily as big as before, but it would reappear), because the trade deficit is a reflection of the foreigners' desire to pile U.S. cash and bonds.



Because the unemployment in the U.S. is rather low, you may really find out that the status quo is an excellent one and any change that you're planning will actually make Americans less prosperous and it will make America less prestigious, too. So I kindly recommend you to stop the plans for an accelerating trade war. Stop trying to compete with the drunk likes of Mr Juncker who is capable of imposing tougher, more socialism-like regulations. At the end, I guess that the European Union is better in these freedom-crippling activities than you are  because our beloved European Union is one giant socialist sithole.



Another reason you don't really want to slide on that slippery slope is that the U.S. stocks would suffer  we saw a demo of that on Friday. And remember how important a source of pride and prestige the growing stock market under your watch has been. That could stop or be completely reversed. Do you want it? Maybe, policies trying to maximize the growth rate of the stock market are the best policies for the U.S. economy and for your prestige as the economist-in-chief, too.



Thanks for your attention, Mr President.Important stuff you won't get from the liberal media! We do the surfing so you can be informed AND have a life!Final day of elections in progress in Russia

Birds dying en masse in New York

Armenia parliament to hold hearings on September 22

Drone mistakenly drops package of drugs into US schoolyard

Researchers uncover risk of mutated coronavirus

Several hundred people go on protest action at US Congress

France: One person dies in a fight with participation of 150 bikers

Nuclear Chief of Iran does not plan to negotiate nuclear transaction in Vienna

US Capitol is preparing for rally of Trump supporters

21 people detained in Yerevan protests

Armenia Parliament Speaker on yesterday's incident with children of Artsakh on Goris-Kapan road

8 new cases of COVID-19 reported in Artsakh

Karabakh President receives Deputy Director of Hayastan All-Armenian Fund

Presidents of Tajikistan and Iran sign Memorandum of Cooperation

Situation at Charles Aznavour Square in Yerevan is tense, police are apprehending demonstrators

Yerevan citizens hold demonstration demanding cancelation of Independence Day event

Veterans of 44-day Karabakh war awarded

Erdogan to visit discuss situation in Idlib with Putin during visit to Russia

Opposition "Armenia" faction says authorities are leading session devoted to Syunik situation to failure

Explosion in Afghanistan's Jalalabad leaves at least 3 dead

Russia citizen breaks window of Yerevan bank and enters, police disarm him (PHOTOS)

Armenia police chief signs orders

Displaced residents of Karabakh's Shushi discuss Artsakh status and other issues during consultation

1,011 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Karabakh Parliament Speaker receives acting Rector of Yerevan State University

US Embassy in Armenia: Former Ambassador John Ordway is in Yerevan

Mined car explodes in Kabul

Karabakh President receives acting Rector of Yerevan State University

The Taliban draft new Constitution of Afghanistan

Thousands of Haitians are amassed near US borders

Azeri policeman threatens Armenian children on Goris-Kapan road - "There is no more Nagorno-Karabakh"

Turkey expects construction of first reactor of Akkuyu Nuclear Power Plant to end in May 2023

Armenia PM's assistant and daughter of deceased serviceman get into dispute

Taliban forcing young Afghans to go to war

Karabakh National Security Service says news about Azerbaijanis working with Iranian passports is false

Armenia high-tech industry minister receives UK Ambassador

Opposition "Armenia" alliance cancels Robert Kocharyan's visit to Moscow due to court decision

Relatives of deceased Armenian soldiers demand that Independence Day event be canceled

Assistant to Armenia PM: There is no Turkish equipment at Republic Square

Azerbaijanis stop microbus transporting children of Artsakh, very obscenely tell them to get off

Digest: Karabakh soldier injured near border, Azerbaijanis stop car carrying bread to Armenia soldiers

Armenia PM's assistant to relatives of fallen soldiers: 30th anniversary of Independence Day event must be held

Deceased Armenian officer's daughter: Pashinyan is causing relatives of the fallen servicemen pain again

Armenia Freedom of Information Center hosts discussion on transparency of real owners

Parent of deceased Armenian soldier: There won't be a vivid fireworks display

Karabakh emergency situations service: Searches for remains of Armenian servicemen fruitless for 2 days

Armenian cross-stone consecrated in Mariupol

Armenia President at Summit of Minds: War was not only against Azerbaijan

Armenia official: No company with dominant position in countrys liquefied gas market

Kremlin assesses need for summit of "five" of UN Security Council

Fallen soldiers families protesting at Republic Square in Yerevan

Iran President: Countries of region need to create conditions for Afghanistan's development

Armenia, France FMs discuss Karabakh conflict

US Department of State approves defense treaty with Saudi Arabia

Putin to vote in Russian State Duma elections online

Armenia air defense trainings kick off

Dollar still going down in Armenia

Russia defense minister becomes a grandfather

Putin: Russia supports process of Iran's accession to Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Russian peacekeepers ensure safety during construction of road leading to mobile phone tower in Karabakh

Ombudsman briefs Baroness Caroline Cox on Azerbaijan violations against Armenia border residents

Armenia Deputy PM: I hope natural gas price stays the same

Pashinyan: Armenia interested in effective restraint of threat of terrorism in CSTO, SCO regions

Prosperous Armenia Party leader on upcoming local self-government elections

Artsakh MOD: Azerbaijan violated ceasefire, Defense Army soldier wounded

Russia company holding arms supply negotiations with Armenia

Azerbaijan nominates occupied Armenian Shushi for cultural capital of Turkic world

Armenia State Committee of Science has new General Secretary

Deputy PM: Armenia is considering possibility of importing natural gas from other countries, but...

Eurasian Economic Union minister: Armenia sees 19% growth of exports to EEU countries, 12% growth of trade

Armenia deputy PM is for starting border demarcation, delimitation with Azerbaijan

Azerbaijanis stop car carrying bread to Armenia soldiers

Armenia opposition MP: Border demarcation occurs when countries have no problems with each other

Armenia legislature majority faction: Yerevan, Baku must finally begin border delimitation, demarcation phase

Opposition Armenia Faction MP: Lawsuit filed with UN against Azerbaijan was correct, logical

Armenia deputy premier: Solution for unblocking regional communications more visible in terms of railways

GeoProMining announces completion of 2nd stage of Agarak Copper-Molybdenum Combine modernization project

Armenia deputy PM: Situation on Goris-Kapan road may affect economy

Opposition Armenia Faction in parliament: Security crisis in country not overcome yet

Armenia Police, Europol sign collaboration agreement (PHOTOS)

Azerbaijan to also petition to UN International Court of Justice in response to Armenia appeal

OSCE PA chair: Despite ceasefire in Karabakh much more needs to be done to guarantee durable peace

759 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

Those displaced in Artsakh stage protest outside Armenia government

Russia Central Electoral Commission info center launches Duma voting and other elections

World oil prices dropping

Armenias Pashinyan to Irans Raisi. Our two governments activities started at same time, this is very good nuance

Armenia, India FMs discuss Karabakh conflict

Newspaper: Armenia-Azerbaijan agreement details known

Newspaper: Opposition Armenia Faction 2 MPs at focus of authorities attention

Newspaper: Laborers with Iran passports are brought to Artsakh

Armenia PM, Iran President meeting in Tajikistan

Trump predicts disappearance of US

Armenia institutes proceedings against Azerbaijan before International Court of Justice

3,000 French medical workers dismissed for refusing to get vaccinated against COVID-19

Russia, China, Iran and Pakistan affirm need to achieve national reconciliation in Afghanistan

Armenia State Revenue Committee chief and Russian counterpart discuss cooperation in taxation sector

Members of opposition "Armenia" parliamentary faction meet with delegation led by Baroness Caroline Cox

Armenia Deputy PM: Gyumri's Shirak International Airport has everything to serve European low-costers

Ambassador: I don't believe Belarus gives preference to Yerevan or Baku when it comes to relationsYEREVAN.  France will voice its position regarding Armenias decision to annul the Armenia-Turkey protocols when everything is clarified, French Ambassador to Armenia Jonathan Lacote told reporters on Monday.

As reported earlier, last week President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan signed a decree to terminate the process of signing of Armenia-Turkey protocols.

In 2008, at the initiative of the President of Armenian a new phase of Armenian-Turkish relations was started. As a result, on October 10, 2009 in Zurich, the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Turkey  Edward Nalbandian and Ahmet Davutoglu  signed the Protocol on the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Turkey and Protocol on development of relations between of the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Turkey.

The signing ceremony was attended by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, head of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers Slovenian Foreign Minister Samuel Zbogar and Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union.

The Armenian authorities sent the protocols to the National Assembly for ratification in April next year, however, Turkey delayed the ratification for a long period of time. Moreover, Ankara put forward preconditions and links the ratifications to the Karabakh conflict.

Turkey officially recognized the Republic of Armenia on 24 December 1991 and till now refuses to establish diplomatic relations with the Republic of Armenia. In 1993, Turkey unilaterally closed its air and land borders with Armenia.

Taking into account the call of the Political Council of the parties-members of the ruling coalition, on April 22, 2010 the President of Armenia signed a decree on the suspension of the process of ratifications of the Protocols. The notification has been sent to Turkey.

In 2015 President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan recalled Armenia-Turkey protocols from the parliament.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly session in September 2017 Sargsyan said that the Turkish government is putting forward ridiculous preconditions for the ratification of the Zurich protocols. According to the president, as there is no positive progress on Turkeys ratification of these agreements, Armenia will annul agreements.YEREVAN.  The Francophonie Summit can increase tourist flow to Armenia, French Ambassador to Armenia Jonathan Lacote told reporters on Monday.

According to him, Armenia should be ready to submit a corresponding tourist offer to attract tourists not only from France, but also from all French-speaking countries.

The second Francophonie film festival will take place in Yerevans Moscow Cinema from 12 to 18 March facilitated by the Embassies of Canada and Switzerland, said Jonathan Lacote adding that famous French chef of Armenian origin Sonia Ezgulian and designer Guillaume Long will arrive in Armenia for the Francophonie Summit.

The competition of French language is scheduled on March 20, while young people, aged 13-25, can participate in French exam which will take place on March 24, the Ambassador noted.

According to Jonathan Lacote, Francophones Second National Theater Festival will be held in Gyumri from 30 to 31 March. Under the guidance of Konstantin Orbelian, the premiere of Jules Massenets "Manon" will take place at the National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet from 11 to 12 April.

The cultural events within the Francophonie Summit will be held from March 12 to April 12 in Yerevan and Gyumri.South Korean President Moon Jae-in's special envoys to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) agreed to meet with top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un, the Blue House of South Korea said Monday, Xinhua reported.

Presidential Spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom told a press briefing that the special delegation had agreed with the DPRK side to have a meeting and a dinner with the DPRK leader from 6 p.m. local time on Monday.

It was not known whether the dinner meeting had started as agreed upon.

The 10-member delegation, led by Chung Eui-yong, top national security advisor for President Moon, took off from an airport in Seongnam, outside of Seoul, at about 1:50 p.m. local time.

The delegation, composed of five envoys and five working-level officials, included Suh Hoon, director of the National Intelligence Service (NIS), Vice Unification Minister Chung Hae-sung, Second Deputy NIS Director Kim Sang-gyun, and Yun Kun-young, a senior Blue House official.

The plane carrying the South Korean delegation arrived in the Sunan International Airport in Pyongyang at around 2:50 p.m. local time, according to the Blue House.A U.S. citizen fugitive, who was located in Armenia, has been extradited to the United States, U.S. embassy said.

U.S. and Armenian law enforcement authorities and prosecutors coordinated the capture and return of the U.S. national who was arrested by Armenian law enforcement personnel in Yerevan in December 2017 based on an Interpol Red Notice.

The individual was previously charged in the United States for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor.

President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan on Monday visited Yerablur Military Pantheon on the birth anniversary of National Hero of Armenia and Hero of Artsakh, the late Vazgen Sargsyan.

The President, accompanied by the top leadership of Armenia, laid a wreath to the tomb of the slain Prime Minister and Supreme Commander and paid tribute to him. Serzh Sargsyan placed flowers in memory of the Armenians who sacrificed their lives for the independence of the homeland.

A large fire occurred early Saturday morning in an underpass in downtown capital city Yerevan.

The Emergency Situations Ministry said that even though an investigation is underway to determine the cause of this fire, preliminary information suggests that the homeless had burned the household waste at this underpass, and this had caused the fire. The fire was extinguished at 6:18am.

A new Yerevan-Gyumri-Yerevan electric passenger train has been launched.

Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, headed to on board the new train on Saturday. The train will operate from Fridays to Sundays as an express train, and the duration of the ride will be 1 hour and 59 minutes.

The man charged with the murder of the Armenian psychic has been sentenced to 20 years in jail.

Mushegh Mkhitaryan could not hide tears when listening to the verdict on Monday. The body of psychic Ani Majnunyan was discovered with many stabs in August 2015.

France condemns any statement that hinders the Karabakh peace process, French Ambassador to Armenia, Jonathan Lacote said.

He noted this reflecting on Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyevs recent statement with respect to their taking back Armenias capital city of Yerevan as well as the Zangezur region and the Lake Sevan area.

The Shape of Water has won the Oscar for best picture at the 90th Academy Award. Gary Oldman won the Oscar for Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in Darkest Hour, while Frances McDormand was named the Best Actress in Leading Role.

Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro was named the best director, while A Fantastic Woman has won the Oscar for best foreign language film.

Architects of Denial, a documentary about Armenian Genocide denial, premiered in Yerevan on Monday.

The movie by Executive Producers Dean Cain and Montel Williams was first screened last October.

This first person account of the Armenian Genocide through the eyes of survivors includes interviews with experts, as well as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, famous British barrister Geoffrey Robertson.Home | News | General | I cant understand what Buhari was doing at the Kano wedding while 110 girls are still missing - Bakare

- Pastor Bakare blasted President Buhari and 22 other governors who went to Kano for Gandujes daughters wedding

- The pastor said going for wedding just after Boko Haram abducted Dapchi school girls and killed UN aid workers shows the leaders are insensitive

- He asked if they would attend the wedding if any of them had lost a daughter in the Dapchi captivity

Pastor Tunde Bakare, the serving overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly (LRA), says he cannot comprehend what President Muhammadu Buhari and 22 state governors were doing at the Kano wedding, while 110 Dapchi schoolgirls are still in captivity.

On Saturday, March 3, at least 22 governors converged on Kano, to celebrate the wedding of Idris Ajimobi and Fatima Ganduje, the son and the daughter of Abiola Ajimobi, and Ibrahim Ganduje, governors of Oyo and Kano states, respectively.

Also in attendance was the president, and high-ranking members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), including Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos state.

READ ALSO: Nigerians criticise Buhari for attending wedding of governors children in Kano, presidency reacts

Bakare says the wedding, which came two days after Boko Haram killed some UN aid workers in Rann, and two weeks after the abduction of the Dapchi school girls in Yobe, shows the insensitivity of Nigerian leaders, the Cable reports.

Bakare said: Forgive my ill-mannerism, but I could not comprehend why a governor will celebrate the wedding of his daughter, and another governor of his son, on the front pages of newspapers, flashing it before our eyes, when other peoples daughters are in captivity.

If any of them had lost a daughter in that captivity, would they celebrate that way? I know the Bible says rejoice with them that rejoice, but I do not know what the president of Nigeria was doing there.

And somebody came to say, let me explain to you, it is Islamic tradition, before this time, about January, they had agreed, that he (Buhari) will be the one to give the bride away and (Bola) Tinubu will be the one to pay the dowry, and present the son, and they agreed long before now.

I looked at him and said the president of Nigeria wanted to come to my daughters wedding, and I said to him, sir, dont come. That is beneath your office. Face the work of the state and keep serving.

And 22 governors showed up to mark register, when 110 daughters of citizens of your nation were captured by Boko Haram that you said you have already technically defeated?

It just shows how insensitive our leaders are. We have gotten to a stage that our president has become a king and a monarch. That his son who rode his pleasurable bike that almost claimed his life, will be returning from an overseas trip, where he had received special healthcare that Nigerians cannot afford, that it took a whole minister of state to go and welcome him, because he has no job.

Speaking at the Latter Rain Assembly on Sunday, March 4, Bakare said anyone who knows the true state of things in Nigeria will weep for the country.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news

He said: If you truly know the truth, you will weep, if you know how much we are owing as a nation, you will weep. For 16 years of PDP they borrowed N6 trillion, for three years of APC, they borrowed N11 trillion.

And they are not going to pay the debt. You and I, and our children, and our childrens children will pay the debt, unless they write them off again.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com previously reported that Pastor Bakare stated that President Buhari can choose to stand for re-election in 2019 if he so desires.

The cleric made his comments on Saturday, February 3, during a town hall meeting in London.

He also stated that the presidents health condition had improved.

Bakare further commended former President Goodluck Jonathan for accepting the results of the 2015 presidential election even though it was not in his favour, and urged Nigerians to thank the ex-president for preventing a bloodbath in the nation by accepting the result.

2019: Should Buhari heed Obasanjo's advice? - on NAIJ.com TV:

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | DAY 5: Daily Independents Bureau Chief still in DSS detention

Tony Ezimakor, the Abuja Bureau Chief of Independent Newspapers, is still being held by the Department of State Services, DSS, without charge, despite appeals by well-meaning individuals, activists and other groups.

Rights activists, lawyers, non-governmental organisations, NGOs, and journalists have decried DSS undemocratic act by holding Ezimakor for days without arraigning him in court.

DSS

Yesterday marked the fifth day Ezimakor willingly walked into the head office of DSS in Abuja, in response to an invitation from the security agency.

The Abuja-based journalist is being held purportedly over exclusive stories on Boko Haram campaign and negotiations with the insurgents.

Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights, CASER, yesterday, added its voice to the call on DSS to immediately release the journalist.

CASER said: It is utterly shameful for state authorities to use punitive detention as a means of attempting to stifle truth, which is the reason for Section 39 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The DSS must quickly realise that it would be constituting itself into an enemy of democracy in a modern Nigeria if it begins to hound journalists either for their opinions or for publishing well-researched facts that have the potential of exposing corruption and grand deceit in official circles.

Ezimakors published investigative report on the involvement of a Swiss foreign service agent and the alleged clandestine payment of millions of Euros by the Nigerian government to secure the release of the kidnapped Chibok girls, deserves commendation.

Other groups that have added voice to the cry to have Ezimakor released are Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC; Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, OurMumuDonDo, a coalition of civil rights organisations led by Charly Boy.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | New okada trouble: 27-yr-old man kills father, stabs mother in Anambra

By Vincent Ujumadu

AwkaTHE 27-year-old

Okada rider, who allegedly killed his father for refusing to buy a new motorcycle for him has said that his spirit asked him to do so.

The Okada rider, Mr. Ifeanyi Oguejiofor, from Ezimuko Nsukwu village, Abatete in Idemili North Local Government Area of Anambra State, who reportedly stabbed his father, Mr. Osita Oguejiofor, to death with a kitchen knife, also stabbed his mother several times with the same knife.

She, however, survived.

An eyewitness said Ifeanyi also stabbed himself several times, apparently in a bid to commit suicide.

The eyewitness said: Trouble started that fateful day at about 8a.m., when the young man, a commercial motorcycle operator, approached his father and demanded for the money he had requested from him for the procurement of a new motorcycle, since the one he was using for the business had become old and was giving him a lot of trouble.

His father told him that he had no money to buy a new motorcycle, but that he will buy a new engine for the one he was using.

The fathers response did not go down well with him and so he made straight for the kitchen, grabbed a knife and pounced on his father, stabbing him repeatedly on the neck and shoulder till he slumped and gave up the ghost.

After dealing with his father, he descended on the mother, who was crying for help when her husband was under attack by their son. He stabbed her on the ribs and shoulder and when she fell on the ground, he thought she was also dead.

He then began to stab himself, but passers-by and neighbours intervened by alerting local vigilance group and the Police, who promptly arrested him. Ifeanyi later said that he did what he did because his spirit asked him to do it.

The Divisional Police Officer of Ogidi, Mr. Mark Ijarafu, confirmed the incident, saying the corpse of Ifeanyis father had been deposited at Iyi-Enu Mission Hospital mortuary, Ogidi, while the mother was taken to an undisclosed hospital for treatment.

The DPO said the suspect was still being detained, while investigation into the incident was ongoing.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...By Ochereome Nnanna

FORMER President, General Olusegun Obasanjos public statement of 24th January 2018 asking President Muhammadu Buhari not to run in 2019, left us with mixed feelings.

On the one hand, we were not surprised because the only regime that Obasanjo has spared his acid missive was that of General Abdulsalami Abubakar. That should not shock anyone: Obasanjo was the greatest beneficiary of Abubakars hurried eleven-month transition programme. The Abubakar regime released him from the Yola Prisons, pardoned him and mobilised support for him to emerge as an elected president on the platform of a new popular national party then, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Obasanjo says he writes these things because of his love for Nigeria, but his critics feel he tries to muddy his successors (even those he personally brought to power) to make his own tenures look the cleanest. Some also say he takes such action when his interests and expectations in a regime are no longer fully accommodated.

Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo

On the other hand, his January 24th anti-Buhari public statement, though conveyed in unusually polite and statesmanly tones, did surprise me. I could not see the obvious Obasanjo interest that Buhari, whom he supported after dumping the party he exploited to emerge a two-term elected president, had offended. To the best of our knowledge, Obasanjo went in and out of Aso Villa just as he wished. He could not claim to be among those whom the president abandoned after achieving his long-sought ambition to be an elected president.

It also caused a lot of excitement because Obasanjo spoke the minds of millions of Nigerians and reflected the true state of the nation. He said what a lot of other concerned Nigerians have been saying, but being who he is, his own contribution was bound to touch the insular nerves of Aso Rocks todays men, and it did.

What intrigued me the most was that Obasanjo did not just criticise and fold his letter; he promised to lead the way to usher the change he was asking for. That meant a whole lot of things. For instance, his promise to champion a Coalition for Nigeria was almost like Pastor Tunde Bakares Save Nigeria Group initiative (funny enough, in spite of the cries of Nigerians over incompetent governance, fuel deregulation, poor quality anti-corruption fight and herdsmens attacks, Pastor Bakare no longer sees the need to Save Nigeria since his friends are now in power).

It also meant that Obasanjo could end his retirement from politics and re-enter the fray at 82. It meant he could directly mount the soapbox and campaign against a fellow general who, though, is his junior. Some also felt that Obasanjo is like a bird that dances at the roadside to a beat coming from the depths of the forest: he must have sensed that for some reasons, Buhari is unlikely to last the distance if he opts to disregard his advice and run in 2019.

These were some of the factors that stoked public interest in the Coalition for Nigeria Movement, CNM, which was formally launched on 31st January 2018 in Abuja with fanfare. Obasanjo joined the group during its launch in Abeokuta, Ogun State the following day. But since that day, very little is heard of the Movement. After the froth died down, very little beer is left in the tumbler.

When Obasanjo took this giant and risky step, I wondered to myself what he was really playing at. Did he intend to create a new political party, hoping for disenchanted members of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and main opposition PDP to join? Did he expect his CNM to become what the APC became in 2013-2015? If so, that would be an act of unpardonable political naivete for a man who perched atop a ruling party for the best of 15 years. Perhaps, it is only Obasanjo himself alone who will not know that he lacks the capacity to win elections on his own.

It is one thing to be in power and leverage on incumbency or firmly established networks to win elections, and another thing to form a party and win elections. A Bola Tinubu has proved his capacity to win elections both by leveraging on incumbency and starting his own party, at least in a restricted section of the country. Obasanjo can only move the mountains within established political parties like the PDP and APC. The fact that his CNM has already started fizzling out within a month of its birth proves that he really has no political constituency of his own. Obasanjo going solo has exposed him for what he is: a political general without an army he can call his own. Perhaps, he should have just preached without trying to practise as well.

It is only a political neophyte who will believe that the APC and or PDP would simply dissolve into an upstart CNM just because Obasanjo waved a magic wand. The PDP is a deeply entrenched political party which ruled the country for 16 straight years. Say what you like about it, the party is still strong. It has proved this by successfully exiting its leadership crisis and presenting itself as a beautiful bride for disenchanted APC leaders who, in any case, are mostly PDP in their political reflexes, to return. Though they decamped to the APC and helped it to win the 2015 elections, they have not been accepted or accommodated in their new platform by President Buhari and Asiwaju Tinubus core of APC. The urge to run back to mama when beaten as legendary Muhammad Ali would say, is a natural impulse.

On the other hand, say what you like about APCs current internal travails, it is the ruling party; the party with the yam and kniferight now. And you know, Nigerian politicians are like goats  they run after the person who is carrying fodder (goat food). The elders say a dog will always follow a pot-bellied man; he will either defecate or vomit any time soon. Dogs have no time for flat-bellied folks because there is nothing to offer, or so it seems.

In spite of the Buhari regimes incompetence, nepotism and failed promises, it will take a series of major earthquakes within the APC before it will lose its grip on power. However, that is quite possible. Many goats within the APC have starved while a few have fed fat. A time comes when hungry goats go and fend for themselves. The fact that the APC has not used the past three years to consolidate its various coalition sections into an integrated whole means that it wont take much for it to come loose at the seams. But at the end of the day, it is still the APC that will determine whether it holds on to power or loses it back to the PDP.

Yes indeed, the fight is between the APC and PDP. There is nothing a third force can do to alter this fact in 2019. The PDP should be happy that Obasanjos CNM is not drawing traction. A strong third force will merely make APCs retention of power (even under Buhari) a mere cakewalk. Forget what happened in France under Emmanuel Macron. We are a long way from France. If there is going to be a change for the better in Nigeria, it can come from the APC or PDP, at least for now because they are the only viable, bankable platforms.

A third political force should wait till June 2019 and launch big time. With hard work, it can be on a level field with APC and PDP by 2023.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Girls and women in the consciousness of the Nigerian people

By Owei Lakemfa

THE girl-child for many years suffered discrimination on education. Girls were those kept at home while their brothers went to school. This was especially the case when school fees had to be paid. Rather than be at school, she was asked to help with the home, farm and sell at the market. Many families thought there was no need investing in a girls education when she will end up in her husbands house procreating and continuing the circle of life. In fact, some argued that the girl would ultimately change her name and would not continue the family lineage which under the patriarchal society, only the male child can guarantee.

The struggle to change these perceptions has been long and tortuous and many are still unconvinced. As a result, many of our mothers in the 1940s to the early 70s were barely literate in Western education. Today, the titanic battles to educate the girl-child are still on with some parents using the cover of tradition and religion to deny her education. The phenomenon of underage marriage is still very much with us. So the battle to educate the girl-child is on. That is why the kidnap of 276 girls from the Government Secondary School, Chibok, Bornu State in the night of April 14-15, 2014 was even more tragic as more parents would think it better that the girl-child remains at home rather than become the target of terrorists. Exhibiting a belief by some that the woman is no different from any other commodity, Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau gleefully announced that he had sold off some of the Chibok girls. Although 57 of the girls escaped while being transported into servitude and quite a number were released in 2016 and last year, a significant number remain in captivity used mainly as sex slaves.

Tragically, on Monday February 19, 2018, the terrorists raided another girls school, the Government Girls Science and Technology College, Dapchi, Yobe State, leaving 110 girls unaccounted and presumed kidnapped.

All these will have negative effects on the campaign to get the girl-child educated. As the world commemorates the International Womens Day on March 8, let us in Nigeria focus on the Chibok and Dapchi school girls who have been frog-jumped into premature adulthood; fearing for their lives, uncertain of a future, forced into marriages with men of bestial instincts and not certain if they will ever see their loved ones again or ever return home. Let us spare a thought for their parents who in sending their children to school hoped for a better future for them only to have them kidnapped and their lives endangered. Let us think of the trauma the girls siblings and loved ones are going through.

Let us praise the men and women who have made concerted efforts to free the girls. Especially those of the Bring Back Our Girls, BBOG, group led by Dr. Obiageli Ezekwesili who have campaigned tirelessly for the girls to be brought back home. They are the ones who continue to prick our conscience and ensure the issue remains on the front burner despite harassment.

They remind me of the conscientious people who in the 1980s and 90s under the Women In Nigeria, WIN, group campaigned vigorously for women rights, end to discrimination against women, for girl-child education and an equitable country based on social justice. They worked tirelessly to defend the rights of women, fought against the abuse of women and combat sexist stereotypes. Leading lights of that movement included Ayesha Imam, Altine Muhammed, Ify Iweriebor, Nema Ngur, Ngozi Iwere, Theresa Nweke, Ladi Olorunyomi and Professors Bene Madunagu and Molara Ogundipe-Leslie. There were men in WIN like Dr. Jibo Ibrahim who is also a member of the BBOG group.

The WIN women are worthy successors to a long line of Nigerian women who in colonial and the immediate post-colonial era made a difference. Women like Adunni Oluwole who in 1936 broke away from the established church to become an itinerant preacher with a keen sense of social justice. She came into national limelight when she supported the first general strike in the country, the 1945 Cost of Living Allowance, COLA, Strike. Although not a worker herself, she mobilised for the strike, donated money for it and cooked for the striking workers. She also has the distinction of being the first woman to establish a political party when on May 29, 1954,she founded the Nigeria Commoners Liberal Party in Mushin, Lagos with the aim of chasing away the colonialists and enthroning commoners especially workers, in power rather than the elite politicians whom she did not trust. She died within three years. Although she lost the legislative elections, her partys candidate, D.l.G. Olateju won the Osun North (Ikirun) Constituency Seat,

Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was another leading nationalist who fought the colonialists and asserted the right of women. She led an estimated 50,000 women to resist paying tax to the British colonialists, and fought for the right of Nigerians to free movement including their right to visit Socialist countries without repercussions. There was Hajia Gambo Sawaba who fought for the rights of the poor and went to jail 16 times for her political activism, especially for her uncompromising struggle against feudalism. She was a vigorous campaigner against child marriage. Mrs. Margaret Ekpo, was a consummate social mobiliser who stood her ground in the colonial and First Republic politics especially in the East which was dominated by powerful men like Nnamdi Azikiwe, Mbonu Ojike and Michael Okpara.

Historically, Nigerian women have never shied away from making fundamental contributions to the development of society even if they had to sacrifice their lives or those of their loved ones. There was Inikpi, the Igala Princess who offered to be buried alive to save her people from being colonised. There was Moremi from Offa who saved the Ife from constant raids. She consulted Esinminrin, the water goddess promising to give whatever prize the goddess required if it helped the Ifes. She discovered the secret of the invaders which led to their defeat. When she returned to fulfill her vow, the goddess demanded her most prized possession, her son, Oluorogbo. Like the Biblical story of Abraham who offered his son for sacrifice, Moremi in deep sorrow, offered her son. Until this day, a seven-day festival, Edi, is held in her honour.

Queen Kambasa Edimini was the first woman to rule a Niger- Delta kingdom when she ruled the Bonny Kingdom. She established a formidable army whom she personally led.

On this occasion of the 2018 International Womens Day, let us give a thought to these Nigerian girls and women who have had to suffer or make sacrifices for our communities and countrys development.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Business man, Nwude, lawyers charged for forging documents on forfeited properties

By Abdulwahab Abdulah

Justice Mojisola Dada has remanded in prison, an ex-convict and business man, Emmanuel Nwude who was charged alongside two lawyers-Emmanuel Ilechukwu and Roland Kalu, accused of forging legal documents for a property earlier forfeited to victims of a crime through judgment.



The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, charged the lawyers, Ilechukwu and Kalu, who were called to bar 29-years ago and Nwude on a 15-count charge of conspiracy, forgery, making documents without authority, dealing with forfeited property without authorization and transfer of forfeited property to nominees.

Other charges include; making false statement to a public officer, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, attempt to pervert the course of justice, fabricating evidence, giving false evidence under oath and giving false information to the EFCC.

The accused persons have pleaded not guilty of the charges.

According to EFCC, the defendants committed the fraud on a property which had been ordered to be forfeited in a High Court judgment given in 2005 by Justice Joseph Oyewole.

Justice Oyewole had in the judgment ordered that the property be forfeited to victims of a crime perpetuated by Nwude, the first defendant.

He said On Jan. 12, 2011, the defendants forged a power of attorney issued in the name of Mankris Ventures Ltd purporting that Mankris Venture is the owner of the property located at Plot Y, Mobolaji Johnson St., Oregun, Alausa, Lagos.

They did this with the full knowledge that the property was forfeited as restitution to victims of a crime in a judgment given on Nov. 18, 2005 by Justice Joseph Oyewole in Federal Republic of Nigeria Vs Emmanuel Nwude and six others with suit number ID/92c/04.

The victims had subsequently sold the property to Rossab Industrial Design Ltd and the company had assigned the property to G.C Nweze and Company Ltd.

The forged power of attorney was issued to Kalu and ownership transferred to him in order to sell and dispose of the property.

On Aug. 22, 2014 the defendants instigated a team of police officers from PSFU, Force Headquarters, Abuja, to forcefully take over ownership of the property by giving them false information about the true state of affairs of the property.

On Oct. 15, 2014, the defendants also gave false information about the property to another team of policemen from Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Adeniji Adele, Lagos.

The policemen from SARS took over and invaded the property because they were made to believe that they were acting on the orders of Mankris Ltd. 

Omewa noted that the defendants had also instituted two lawsuits over the property in the High Court and Magistrate Court.

On July 16, 2012 the defendants instituted a lawsuit in the Ikeja Magistrates Court with suit number MIK/3125/2012 and misled the Magistrate Court to give judgment in their favour.

On March 18, 2014 the defendants filed a lawsuit at the Ikeja High Court against Rossab Industrial Design Ltd and the Registrar of Titles Lagos falsely claiming that Mankris Venture Ltd was the owner of the property, he said.

The EFCC prosecutor said the defendants also forged some legal documents which include a statutory notice to quit the property and a statutory notice of owners intention to recover possession of the property.

The defendants also gave false information to the EFCC on Oct. 21, 2016 in a petition written to the anti-graft agency about the property, he said.

Mr Ladi Williams (SAN), the defence counsel to Ilechukwu and Kanu asked the court to grant the lawyers bail on self recognisance.

It is pertinent to show Your Lordship that the second and third defendant are lawyers with 29-years experience each at the Bar.

They have in that time practiced as legal practitioners without blemish, I will like to crave Your Lordships indulgence to release them on self recognisance and that they forfeit their call to bar certificate to the court as part of their bail conditions, he said.

Mr Stephen Amallagoge, the defence counsel to Nwude told the court that the EFCC was yet to respond to the bail summons had recently filed for the first defendant on March 1.

Justice Mojisola Dada in a ruling granted bail in the sum of N200,000 with two sureties in like sum for the lawyers and ordered the remand of Nwude in prison custody.

Justice Dada adjourned the case till March 6 for hearing.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | NASS moves to override Buhari on Peace Corps Bill

as Fear grips applicants over millions paid for job forms

By Soni Daniel, Northern Region Editor, Henry Umoru and Emman Ovuakporie

For the first time in the life of the present National Assembly and the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, the legislature will this week take a daring step to challenge the president and prove to the nation that they cannot be dictated to by the executive arm of the government.

File: Peace-Corps

Competent sources in the two chambers of the NASS confirmed to Vanguard, Sunday night, that they would take decisive action to override President Buharis rejection of the Nigerian Peace Corps Bill, which they laboured to pass last year and transmitted to the Presidency before the end of last year.

One of the lawmakers told Vanguard that the leadership of the two chambers of the NASS was disappointed by the decision of the executive to jettison the bill, which the lawmakers consider as a priority to boost their political mileage in the forthcoming election.

The lawmaker, who is a ranking member of the House of Representatives, pointed out that the NPC bill meant a lot to members of the legislature given the number of their constituents they had already secured employment forms for with a lot of money.

The official said they had the number required by law to overturn Buharis rejection of the bill and make it an Act of the Parliament as was the case with the Niger Delta Development Commission in 2000 when the then President Olusegun Obasanjo withheld assent to the bill.

I can tell you that the NPC bill is like a referendum on most of the lawmakers in Nigeria and we will prove to the Presidency that this bill cannot be thrown away just like that.

If we fail to make it to become law and give legal backing to the Nigerian Peace Corps, most of our members would have unwittingly we dug their political graves in many states of the country, another ranking lawmaker from the Northeast, told one of our correspondents on Sunday.

Vanguard learnt that the leadership of the NASS had already mobilized support from both the ruling All Progressives Congress and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party to prepare for the showdown with the presidency, which they have been embroiled in several political feuds in recent times.

However, when contacted yesterday, the Spokesman for the House of Representatives, Abdulrazaq Namdas, played down on the move to counter Buhari on the rejected bill, saying that the NASS was still studying the bill.

Namdas said that it was only after studying the Presidents rejection letter that the NASS would take necessary action.

It is after we have exhaustively scanned through Buharis letter rejecting the bill that we can take a definite action on the matter, Namdas said.

Similarly, the Spokesman for the Senate, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, APC, Niger North, vowed the Senate would do what the Constitution specifies once the President refuses assent to the Peace Corps Bill.

Senator Abdullahi said, The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides for what should be done if a bill has been passed by the National Assembly, transmitted to the President for assent and he fails to do that.

I think that was what was done on the issue of the NDDC Bill for example.

So in this case, as much as many of us are aligned to the need to have the Peace Corps and we believe that it will add to provide another layer of our security system it should be allowed.

Remember the bill says that the agency is not going to be part of the Interior Ministry but that of Youths and it is designed actually to help to support the youths in so many ways through engagements, volunteerism and many other things.

For me, the Peace Corps as a very good thing; it is not new to Nigeria but it is happening in many other countries and that was why we approved it in the first place, the Senator explained.

But the as the lawmakers attempt to revive the corps, the fate of thousands of Nigerians who parted with N40,000 each for the agencys employment forms, now hangs in the balance, as the police are now armed with more powers to move against its officials for operating an illegal organization.

The embattled leader of the NPC, Dickson Akor, had explained last year that the N40,000 the agency collected per applicant was for training materials as the agency did not enjoy any financial support from the government.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Arik Air, Presidential Air Fleet sign MOU on capacity building

By Lawani Mikairu

Arik Air, weekend, signed Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, on capacity building with the Presidential Air Fleet, PAF. According to the terms of the agreement, Arik Air shall provide pilots of the Presidential Air Fleet rated on the airline aircraft type, Line Training and Hour Building to maintain proficiency on the aircraft.

Arik Air

The agreement was signed when the Commander of PAF, Air Commodore Hassan Bala Abubakar led senior officers of the Fleet to Arik Air Aviation Centre at Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos.

Speaking about the agreement , Arik Air Chief Executive Officer, Captain Roy Ilegbodu said :  Arik Air, and Presidential Air Fleet (PAF) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on capacity building which empowers the airline to assist in imparting proficiency and line training for the PAFs pilots.

According to the terms of the agreement, Arik Air shall provide pilots of the Presidential Air Fleet rated on the aircraft type Line Training and hour building to maintain proficiency on the aircraft, including undertaking regular commercial flight under supervision, as per the standards approved for the airline.

Ilegbodu also said the agreement would go a long way in bridging the gap in the Fleet Pilots training and proficiency, stating that both parties could always work together to achieve their goals.

Speaking at the ceremony, PAF Commander, Air Commodore Abubakar appreciated the support and cooperation PAF has been receiving from Arik Air over the years, stressing that this has helped in getting the Pilots to maintain a high level of training.

Arik Air had in the past assisted PAF in the proficiency training of its pilots and this must have informed the decision by the top hierarchy of the Fleet to enter into this agreement.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Edo SUBEB launches Edo-BEST programme, trains 300 teachers in pilot scheme

to deploy electronic lesson notes

The Edo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), has flagged off the training of 300 teachers drawn from 300 public primary schools in the state in the pilot scheme of the Edo Basic Education Sector Transformation (Edo-BEST) programme.

Acting Chairman, State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) and Special Adviser to the Edo State Governor on Basic Education, Dr. Joan Oviawe addressing journalists during a tour of schools in Benin City, Edo State.

Acting Chairperson, Edo SUBEB and Special Adviser to the Governor on Basic Education, Dr Joan Oviawe, disclosed this when executives of Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) called at her office, in Benin City, the Edo State capital.

The Edo-BEST is a basic education reform blueprint that prioritises deployment of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools in teaching, harmonises teaching and learning outcomes across locations and promotes an interactive classroom management model, among others.

The meeting was to get the buy-in of the leadership of the NUT and unveil how the reforms will revolutionise the basic education subsector in the state.

Dr. Oviawe said the scope of work for EDO- BEST will include governance and institutional development; teacher and curriculum development; community participation and partnership, and infrastructure and organisational development. She added that the reforms will be spread across the 18 Local Government Education Authorities (LGEAs).

Dr. Oviawe emphasised that there was an urgent need to improve teacher quality and performance, increase numeracy and literacy levels, improve infrastructure as well as engender support system for school administration and management for increased efficiency.

She said the EDO-BEST programme will develop highly skilled teaching workforce, adding, We have already selected those to be trained on how to use ICT tools such as tablets in the classrooms. This will help harmonise learning outcomes. The programme will also enhance the Edo State Basic Education Curriculum and restore public confidence in the quality of education offered in public schools.

Assuring members of the NUT that the reforms are in the best interest of the state, she said, Government is not out to witch hunt anyone, neither are there plans to sack anybody or close down schools as is being rumoured.

The narrative in the last few years need to change. We should put a stop to the blame game and work together to give quality education to our children. The aim of these reforms is to develop a collaborative and support structure between teachers and government to improve the system she said.

The SUBEB boss revealed that 300 head teachers will be selected to participate in a pilot scheme of Edo-BEST programme in 300 schools. They will be trained to use tablets loaded with lesson notes and guides that help imbibe positive classroom management procedures to effectively drive learning outcomes, she added.

Chairman, NUT Edo State Chapter, Comrade Pius Okhueleigbe, expressed appreciation to the acting chairman of SUBEB for her efforts to reform the sector.

He pledged the unions continued support to governments reforms to improve the states education sector.

Director, Bridge Policy and Partnership for Africa, Adesuwa Ifedi, said the place of technology in ensuring better outcomes in schools is incontrovertible, assuring that the Edo-BEST programme will solve some problems of inconsistency in teaching standards.

According to her, every other sector is using technology, education must change, teachers must follow suit; teachers are nation builders. With the use of digital lesson plans, teachers can work with prepared lesson plan to ease their burden and give more time to supervise the children and manage their classrooms.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Osasu Igbinedion dismisses anti-APC Tinubu, Amaechi interviews on TOS as fake news

Founder and anchor person of the globally viewed *The Osasu Show*, Ms Osasu Igbinedion has dismissed as false and a complete fabrication the trending reports in the social media that both the All Progressive Congress (APC) National Leader, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, rebuked the APC and called on Nigerians to reject them at the polls in 2019 on her show.

FROM LEFT: FORMER GOVERNOR OF RIVERS STATE / APC CAMPAIGN DIRECTOR-GENERAL, CHIBUIKE AMAECHI; APC LEADER, ASIWAJU BOLA TINUBU AND PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI DURING BREAKING OF FAST AT THE PRESIDENTIAL VILLA ABUJA ON TUESDAY (14/7/15)

025/JULY2015/ICE/STATE-HOUSE File Photo

In two separate stories entitled, BREAKING  APC And I Have Failed Nigerians, APC Will Be Voted Out In 2019  Tearful Tinubu Tips PDP To Win In 2019 and EXCLUSIVE!! APC AND I HAVE FAILED NIGERIANS, PLEASE VOTE US OUT IN 2019  MINISTER AMAECHI BREAKDOWN IN UNCONTROLLABLE TEARS, both Tinubu and Amaechi were quoted as saying that, APC had failed Nigerians and that they would not be surprised if PDP comes out victorious come 2019 elections.

One of the reports on a website, www.ataophyc.com said Tinubu made this call on the Osasu Show, aired by the African Independent Television, AIT, on Friday Morning, which was monitored by our source.

It stated that Tinubu who sounded emotional as he was given the opportunity to speak, pointed out that he would never shy away from saying the truth. If you say the truth you will die, If you lie you will die, I have decided to say the truth and die. I am going the take an unpopular position today, by saying that the APC and I have failed the nation and so many Nigerians are not happy about it.

Curiously, the same quote was attributed to Amaechi in another report on trendingnewsng.com which it claimed Amaechi also made on Friday.

In a swift reaction, Osasu Igbinedion said nothing could be farther from the truth, stating that neither Tinubu nor Amaechi were featured on TOS on Friday.

While we have indeed interviewed many eminent Nigerians such as President Buhari, the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, Governors, Ministers and other personalities on the show which airs on 9am on Fridays on AIT, 7.30pm on Sundays on Ben TV London, 8.30pm on Mondays on ITV Abuja and Tuesdays 7pm on ITV Benin, we have not yet interviewed Asiwaju Tinubu. Mr Amaechi on the other hand spoke to us in an exclusive interview sometime in 2016 about matters relating to Rivers State Politics. Of course, it will be a great honour to feature the former on our show, she said.

She called on Nigerians to ignore the reports, stating categorically that they are false. She wondered why those behind the mischievous circulation of the fake news decided to target her programme for their inordinate mission. For future reference, it is easy to verify interviews conducted on The Osasu Show by simply visiting www.tostvnetwork.com or follow us on social media @TheOsasuShow, she stated.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | New council executives will deepen strategic leadership, devt at LGAs  Obaseki

I will not disappoint my people, says Ogbemudia, only female chairman-elect

Governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has said that the new helmsmen at the local councils in Edo State will deepen his brand of strategic leadership at the 18 local councils, to ensure that those at the grassroots enjoy result-oriented governance.

L-R: Edo State Deputy Governor, Rt. Hon. Comrade Philip Shaibu; First Lady of Edo State, Mrs. Betsy Obaseki; Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State; Rev. Fr. Edwin Omorogbe; Oredo Local Government Chairman-elect, Evbareke Jenkins Osunde; his wife, Mrs. Ndali Osunde; and the Vice Chairman-elect, Oredo LGA, Lady Belinda Ogiefa, after a Thanksgiving Mass at the St. Pauls Catholic Church, Benin City, on Sunday, March 04, 2018

The governor, who said this during a Thanksgiving Service at the St. Pauls Catholic Church, Airport Road, Benin City, on Sunday, stressed that the wake and see phenomenon of leadership will now be felt by those at the grassroots across the state.

Speaking after the service, Obaseki said that the All Progressives Congress (APC) will introduce the same quality of service he is pioneering at the state level, in the local government through the new chairmen and councilors.

According to him, That is why our party, the APC, decided to field candidates we know are very credible, and are people with experience to take charge of the affairs of our local government areas.

So, we are quite excited and happy, and assure the people of Edo State that the new heads at the local governments will render services to the people that will surpass what they have seen before.

We will want to deepen the Wake and See concept of programme execution. We want to make sure that the same spirit gets to the local government areas, he added.

Some of the new local government chairpersons who attended the service are Ogbemudia Eghe of Egor Local Government Area (LGA); John Akhigbe of Etsako Central LGA; Destiny Enabulele of Ovia South West LGA; Jenkins Osunde of Oredo LGA and Eric Osayande of Ikpoba Okha LGA.

The Parish Priest, Reverend Father, Edwin Omorogbe commended the state government for organising the elections to enable the people choose those to lead them at the local government areas.

He expressed appreciation to the governor for spearheading the campaign against human trafficking and illegal migration, noting that the church was worried about the trend and was committed to ensuring that the incidence is brought to a halt.

We are committed to end the scourge of illegal migration. The Archbishop Augustine Akubeze of Benin Archdiocese has thrown his weight behind the governors campaign and we are happy he is battling the ugly trend.

At the same time, we appreciate the state for organising the local government elections. The turnout showed that the people are concerned about electing who they see on a daily basis. So, the charge is now for these new heads not to disappoint, he said.

The only female chairperson-elect, Eghe Ogbemudia, said that she wouldnt disappoint her people for reposing confidence in her and trooping out to vote for her.

I appreciate the people for coming out en mass yesterday. This confidence reposed in me will not go to waste. I promise not to disappoint my people, she

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | CPC urges calm as Medview cancels flight for safety reasons

Abuja  The Consumer Protection Council (CPC) has urged members of the public to remain calm as passengers involved in the incident involving Medview aircraft are in safe hands.

Med View Airline

The Director-General, CPC, Mr Babatunde Irukera made the appeal in a statement on Sunday in Abuja

Irukera said that no passenger was hurt after Medview Airlines Flight VL2108 to Maiduguri from Abuja was cancelled for safety reasons on Sunday.

He said that the CPC had been communicating with officials of Medview airline, and it said at no time there was an emergency, and passengers were never at risk.

At approximately 1400 HRS, while attempting to depart Abuja to Maiduguri on the final segment of the sector, the flight had a Ramp Return, that is, return to base after commencing taxiing on account of a safety issue.

Specifically, an indicator lamp signifying a minor disorder emerged.

The Captain, exercising the appropriate abundance of caution and in compliance with applicable safety standards aborted the flight and returned to base for technical assistance.

All passengers disembarked in an orderly manner, returned to the lounge and were catered to by the airline in accordance with relevant Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations regarding treatment of passengers during delays.

Engineers are presently concluding minor repairs so that the aircraft can become operational, he said.

Irukera said the flight to Maiduguri was expected to operate later today, either by same aircraft, or a redundancy or recovery plan that Medview had informed CPC that was in place.

He said the CPC would continue to monitor the situation, and provide updates if necessary. (NAN)

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...The leader of the Latter Rain Assembly (LRA), Pastor Tunde Bakare, has said that he cannot understand what President Muhammadu Buhari and other governors were doing at the wedding Fatiha of Idris Abiola Ajimobi son of Governors Isiaka Ajimobi and Fatima Umar Ganduje daughter of Abdullahi Umar Ganduje in Kano on Saturday when when other peoples daughters are in captivity.

Recalled that on Feb. 19, 110 students of Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe, were abducted by the suspected insurgents.

Pastor Bakare speaking at on Sunday service in his church in Lagos further said that the Peoples Democratic Praty (PDP) for 16 years its spent in government borrowed N6 trillion but the All Progresive Congress (APC) just in three years has borrowed N11 trillion.

He said: Forgive my ill-mannerism, but I could not comprehend why a governor will celebrate the wedding of his daughter, and another governor of his son, on the front pages of newspapers, flashing it before our eyes, when other peoples daughters are in captivity, If any of them had lost a daughter in that captivity, would they celebrate that way? I know the Bible says rejoice with them that rejoice, but I do not know what the president of Nigeria was doing there. And somebody came to say, let me explain to you, it is Islamic tradition, before this time, about January, they had agreed, that he (Buhari) will be the one to give the bride away and (Bola) Tinubu will be the one to pay the dowry, and present the son, and they agreed long before now.

I looked at him and said the president of Nigeria wanted to come to my daughters wedding, and I said to him, sir, dont come. That is beneath your office. Face the work of the state and keep serving. And 22 governors showed up to mark register, when 110 daughters of citizens of your nation were captured by Boko Haram that you said you have already technically defeated? It just shows how insensitive our leaders are. We have gotten to a stage that our president has become a king and a monarch. That his son who rode his pleasurable bike that almost claimed his life, will be returning from an overseas trip, where he had received special healthcare that Nigerians cannot afford, that it took a whole minister of state to go and welcome him, because he has no job.

If you truly know the truth, you will weep, if you know how much we are owing as a nation, you will weep. For 16 years of PDP they borrowed N6 trillion, for three years of APC, they borrowed N11 trillion. And they are not going to pay the debt. You and I, and our children, and our childrens children will pay the debt, unless they write them off again.Home | News | General | Free floats of shares: 14 companies may face Stock Exchange sanction

By Peter Egwuatu

THERE are indications that 14 companies may face sanction from the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, following the companies inability to comply with the NSEs minimum post-listing requirement with regards to free float of shares to the investing public.

Free float rule stipulates the minimum number of shares required by promoters of public companies listed on the NSE to be released to the investing public for trading at the stock market.

The companies that have free float deficiencies include: AG Leventis Plc, African Paints Plc, Capital Hotel Plc, Caverton Offshore Support Group Plc, Champion Breweries Plc, Chellarams Plc, Ekocorp Plc, E-Tranzact International Plc, Great Nigeria Insurance Plc. Others are Infinity Trust Mortgage Plc, Interlinked Technology Plc, The Tourist Company of Nigeria Plc, Transcorp Hotels Plc and Union Bank of Nigeria Plc.

Nigerian Stock Exchange

Companies listed on the Exchange are required to maintain a minimum free float of their shares for the set standards under which they are listed in order to ensure that there is an orderly and liquid market for their securities.

Free float rule

The free float requirement for companies on the Alternative Securities Market, ASEM Board, is 15 per cent of market capitalization, Main Board is 20 per cent of market capitalization, same as companies on the Premium Board is 20 per cent of market capitalization or above N40 billion on the date the Exchange receives the Issuers application to list.

An information posted on the NSE website stated: The following companies mentioned that have free float deficiencies have applied for waivers from the Quotations Committee of Management specifically provided compliance plans with tentative timelines to support their requests.

The Quotations Committee of Management considered and approved an extended timeframe for the companies to regain compliance with the listing requirement. The companies are however required to also provide quarterly disclosure reports to the Exchange detailing their level of implementation of the compliance plans.

Financial Vanguard checks revealed that the 14 companies are still unable to meet the compliance date as approved by the Exchange.

Analysis of companies with free float deficiencies

Findings revealed that AG Leventis has free float of 11.64 per cent and deficiency of 8.36 per cent or 1.901 billion shares with compliance due date of July 2017; African Paints 9.82 per cent of free float and deficient of 10.18 per cent or 381.969 million shares with compliance due date of December 31, 2017; Capital Hotel Plc 2.62 per cent of free float and deficiency of 17.38 per cent or 10.274 billon shares with compliance due date of October 31, 2017; and Caverton Offshore 17.40 per cent and deficiency of 2.60 per cent or 500.651million shares with compliance due date October 31, 2017.

Others are Champion Breweries Plc 17.30 per cent of free float and deficiency of 2.70 per cent or 1.222 billion shares, though undergoing restructuring; Chellerams Plc 14.87 per cent of free float and deficiency of 249.402 million shares with compliance due date of February 28, 2018; Ekocorp Plc 11.84 of free float and deficiency of 8.16 per cent or 343.630 million shares with compliance due date of October 31, 2017; and E-Tranzact International Plc 5.65 per cent free float and deficiency of 14.35 per cent or 10.667 billion shares with compliance due date of October31, 2017.

Also Great Nigeria Insurance at16 per cent of free float has deficiency of 4.00 per cent or 956.871 million shares with compliance due date October 31, 2017; Infinity Trust Mortgage 3.50 % of free float and deficiency of 16.50 % or23.831 billion shares with compliance due date of May 31, 2018; Interlinked Technology 14.50 % of free float and deficiency of 5.50% or 89.782 million shares; The Tourist Company 3.58 % of free float and deficiency of 16.42% or 10.303 billion shares, while delisting in progress; Transcorp Hotel 6.00% of free float and deficiency of 14% or 17.734 billion shares with compliance due date of December 12, 2017 and Union Bank Nigeria Plc 14.94% of free float and deficiency of 5.16% or 9.863 billion shares with compliance due date of June 30,2017.

Meanwhile, further analysis showed that AG Leventis has applied for an extension of compliance date; Capital Oil is under regulatory watchlist; Champion Breweries has obtained NSEs Quotation Committee of Management approval and is currently restructuring; Great Nigeria has concluded the first leg of the transaction for free float and Management of NSE has engaged the company on the next stage; The Tourist Company of Nigeria is under regulatory watchlist, while Union Bank has applied for an extension.

While reacting to the NSEs position a source close to Transcorp said: The company is aware of the free float deficiency and Management is working closely with the Stock Exchange to meet the free float requirement. We could have done this earlier before now but the market has not been favourable since last year but we hope that once the market is favourable, we will float more shares to the general public.

Operators, shareholders react

Commenting on this, Managing Director/CEO, APT Securities & Funds Limited, Mallam Kasimu Kurfi, stated: The situation depend on the market demand as long there is no demand it will take time to meet up the minimum flotation of 20 per cent of the issued shares. You can see that despite effort of Dangote, still Dangote Cement Plc did not meet up with the minimum free float of share over years after listing on the Exchange. The better way is to give more time to the defaulters otherwise they may delist which is not good for the market.

Also commenting the Executive Vice Chairman, High Cap Securities, Mr. David Adonri said: The Inability of the companies to comply with the free float is worrisome. It is to ensure that stocks ownership in public companies is not concentrated in few hands and to prevent price manipulation and dearth of liquidity. The earlier the defaulters comply, the better it is for the integrity of the capital market.

In his own remark, Managing Director/CEO, Sofunix Investment and Communications Limited and a Chartered Stock Broker, Mr. Sola Oni said: The NSE requires quoted companies to have a minimum 20 percent of its paid up share capital as free float or at least the value of its free float should be equal to forty billion naira on the day the company is admitted to the Daily Official List of the Exchange. The philosophy of free float is to hedge against high level of lock-in shares held by the companys promoters. However, companies that fail to comply with the requirement have breached part of The Exchanges Post Listing Requirements which they signed to uphold. It portrays them as not transparent and reduces effective public participation in the companies ownership. This can attract sanctions from the Exchange.

On the part of shareholders, a breach of free float rule obscures the real capitalization of such companies. It makes it difficult for shareholders to know the actual total value of a company for the purpose of investment decision. This particularly affects stockbrokers and other investment advisers in their advisory services on such companies.

Reacting, the spokes person for Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria, ISAN, Mr. Moses Igbrude said: When market regulators failed or choose to bend the laws or their regulations to favour some players this scenario will be the case. Before now, core investors were not allowed to own more than 51 per cent or 60 per cent. This will allow for free float of shares. In the name of attracting certain companies to list on Stock Exchange the regulation was removed and the implication is what we are seeing in the market. The regulators also forgot that the strategic investors dont trade their shares and it is the free float of shares in market that make prices.

The removal or non compliance to rule is one of the reasons why most delisted companies opted for that option, it made it a lot easy for a company with the intention to delist to gradually increase its percentage holdings over time by using their cronies to mop the shares. Share price of such stocks can easily be manipulated and it doesnt reflect true market price, the likes of AG Leventis . Dangote group of listed companies falls in this category. I strongly advice the NSE and SEC to have the boldness and confidence to address this issue if they really want to have a global or international market as they want us to believe. A free float of companies shares is one major criteria to measure transparent and credibility of Stock Exchange.

Another shareholder, activist, Alhaji Gbadebo Olatokunbo said: The initial rule was that core investor will not hold more than 60 per cent of the issued capital. May be the NSE later knew that the policy wasnt practicable and then relaxed, because I dont know why after being quoted, you still want to enforce such policy.

But for companies holding so much like 50/70 per cent and above, my take is yes. Yes, because if you dont, they (companies) will wake up from the wrong side of the bed one day and decide to buy-back from local-investors. It had happened in many companies e.g. Nigerian Bottling Company, NBC, 7up, Chellerams etc. I think companies should, if not must not hold more than 20/30 per cent of their stocks after few years of quotation on NSE, our rules/regulations needs periodical reviews on citizen participation.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | FG accuses NASS of unduly delaying 2018 budget

By Soni Daniel, Northern Region Editor

ABUJAThe Federal Government, yesterday, formally joined issues with National Assembly over its allegation that Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, were not coming forward to defend the 2018 budget, thereby delaying its passage.

Director-General of Budget Office of the Federation, Mr. Ben Akabueze, in a statement made available to Vanguard last night, rejected the claim made by the lawmakers, saying none of the MDAs had withheld any budget information from National Assembly since the president had laid all the required information before the legislature on November 7 last year.

The Budget Office also made it clear that contrary to the impression being given by NASS that MDAs were not coming forward to defend their budgets, it was only the budget of Government-Owned Enterprises, GOE, that they needed to talk about if there was any need, since the GOE budgets were also attached by the president to the 2018 copy he presented to the lawmakers last year.

The Budget Office said: The attention of the Budget Office of the Federation has been drawn to media reports suggesting that the FGN 2018 Budget was submitted to the National Assembly without details for some Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

We have also received enquiries along same lines from concerned members of the public. It has, therefore, become necessary to clarify the facts regarding this matter.

Mr. President submitted the budget with all the usual details required by NASS to process the budget.

We would like to emphasize, for the avoidance of doubt, that on November 7, 2017, President Muhammadu Buhari, as constitutionally stipulated, laid before the National Assembly (NASS) the Executive budget proposals for 2018 with all the usual details required by the National Assembly to process the budget.

This included the details of the budgets of all federal MDAs based on the Government Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS) budget templates.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | 8 mth-old-baby, 1,499 others benefit from LASG, senator, club free eye surgery

By Olasunkanmi Akoni & Etop Ekanem

Lagos State Government, in partnership with Rotary Club of Lagos, Palm Groove Estate, through Indo Eye Hospital, and Senator Gbenga Ashafa, representing Lagos East Senatorial District, weekend, presented eye aids to 1,500 beneficiaries, including an eight months old baby who went through a successful eye cataract operation.

Speaking at the event, Ashafa, who commended the contribution of Oba Rilwanu Akiolu to the success of the exercise, urged Nigerians, particularly politicians to be selfless and deliver humanitarian services to the society.

According to him, This is a big lesson to most of us holding political offices to come forward and help the less privileged. For every step we take we must be thinking of the future and render selfless services to the society. This is what the state government, Rotary Club and other donors are doing. You cant really feel the importance of this exercise until you have a relation with such health challenge.

What this programme has done was to restore hope and life back to the dead. For me, I am dedicating my life as a politician to the selfless service in this area of bringing back vision to those in the dark.

I urge other politicians who I am representing not to sit down at home and leave everything to government alone. We should be part of the problem solving in the developmental growth of Nigerians and Nigeria.

Also speaking at the event attended by Rotarian Wale Ogunbadejo, District Governor, Rotary Club, Lagos State, Mr. Atul Kasheetry, President, Rotary Club of Palmgroove Estate, said the Indian community in Nigeria, the States Ministry of Health and Senator Ashafa co-sponsored the programme.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | 20 killed, 300 cows stolen in fresh Taraba violence

About 20 persons have been reported killed and 300 cows stolen, following a fresh outbreak of ethnic violence on the Mambilla Plateau in Sardauna Local Government Area of Taraba State, yesterday.

A fleeing resident, Saadu Mogoggo, who said his house was attacked at Leme suburb of Gembu, said two of his brothers were killed on Saturday evening and their cattle rustled by a group he identified as the Mambilla Militia.

His words: As I speak with you, we are yet to bury their corpses. The ethnic militias attacked our residence in Leme, where they killed our father last month. During this attack, the Mambillas took away over 100 cows.

My two younger brothers reported the matter to a nearby military base and a soldier was attached as escort to retrieve the stolen cows. Unfortunately, in the process, my younger brothers were both killed while the soldier fled with injury.

Abdu Gagarau, another resident of the area, who said he was speaking from hiding, said: The burning and killing by herdsmen continued till early this morning (yesterday).

Since last Thursday they have been attacking our settlements and over 20 people killed. Some were buried and over 300 cattle stolen by the militias.

The Mambila ethnic group is known for attacking other tribes. They attacked the Panso in 1982, the Fulani in 2002 and in 2017. When eventually we retaliate, the normal shouts of herdsmen will start. Let government be proactive and come to our rescue.

Fulani cry to govt

A Fulani community leader in the area, Mr. Ahmadu Nguroje, called for government and security intervention.

Mr. Nguroje said: At least 20 people are feared killed, looting of houses, shops and burning down to ashes by the Mambilla militias along Tapare and Yerimaru axis have been recorded here in Sardauna Local Government Area of Taraba State.

About 12 others were also injured and are on admission at a hospital in Gembu.

The lawmaker representing Nguroje and Gembu constituency in the state House of Assembly, Bashir Muhammad, confirmed the latest disturbances.

He said: There have been violent and systematic killings of Fulani nomadic herdsmen in the remote areas in Mambilla Plateau.

It is unfortunate that while efforts are being made to restore peace, the killings continued unabated with many people feared killed between Thursday and Sunday (yesterday), just as dozens of livestock were killed or injured. I was even told that over 200 cows were rustled.

Security is grossly in adequate because some of the affected villages are in hinterlands that can take one or two hours to access. We want more security personnel, particularly soldiers, to ensure peace.

Governor speaks

Reacting, Governor Darius Ishaku, who spoke through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Emmanuel Bello, called for an end to the violence.

His words: Anyone who takes any life, irrespective of religion or tribe, is a criminal; whether it is on the summits of Mambilla or the plains of Southern Taraba and anywhere in this state. And we shall deal with them as criminals.

We are committed to an amicable resolution of the crisis in the state and peaceful co-existence of all ethnic nationalities, attributing the renewed crisis to disagreement between two ethnic groups.

Police story

The Police spokesperson in the state, David Misal, told newsmen that four people were confirmed killed from both sides of the ethnic groups, adding that security officials had been dispatched to the area to restore peace, but that no arrest had been made.

Investigations revealed that the crisis started on Thursday over a land dispute between nomadic Fulani and Mambilla in Yerimaru village, which spread into neighbouring villages.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Scarcity of lower naira denomination hurting our businesses  MSME operators

Urge CBN to sustain direct distribution

By Elizabeth Adegbesan

MICRO, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) operators have lamented the negative impact of the scarcity of lower naira denomination on their businesses, urging the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to sustain the direct distribution of the lower denominations.

Naira

Speaking to Financial Vanguard, they complained that the scarcity of N5, N10, N20 and N50 notes is not only real but acute, leading to loss of sales, and quarrel with customers.

Consequently they urged the CBN to sustain the direct disbursement of lower naira denomination to traders, which it commenced last week in Abuja.

Mrs. Ramota Adeyanju, a petty trader opposite Ajangbadi High School, in Ojo local government, Lagos, said, The scarcity of lower denomination especially N10, N20 and N50 is seriously affecting my business. As you can see I am a petty trader in this school. Sometimes students go away with my money when I cant give them their balance with a promise that they would bring my money. They do but not all the time. So I decided to collect their money and tell them to come back for their balance. It worked for a while but I discovered that some students collect their balance twice.

This limits sales and makes me record losses. In this business we only earn less profit (N20) from a dozen of biscuits or a pack of sweet or chewing gum. The banks and the CBN should look into this issue to save our businesses and economy at large.

However, another petty trader, Mr. Usman Abdulkareem, said the scarcity of lower naira denomination doesnt affect his business but the mutilated notes does. The only problem I am experiencing is that of the mutilated notes, faded and burnt polymer notes that are in circulation. The government should release new notes as most customers reject the bad ones and this tends to hinder sales.

On his part, Mr. Soyinka Akande, a manager in one of the popular eateries, said, Our business is being challenged with the scarcity of N50, N100 and N200. Sometimes our cashiers leave the counter to source for lower naira denomination leaving customers unserved. The impatient customers collect their money and leave. They see it as fraud. This limits our daily sales. Sometimes we urge customers to use the Point of Sale (POS) terminal to save us the time of sourcing for their balance. Some of them reject this option saying, do you know if we have money in our account.

Also lamenting, Mr. Patrick Ogbonna, a KeKe NAPEP operator, said, The N100 note is very scarce to the extent that we do wait for passengers to board other vehicles in other for them to pay us. The sad part of it is that the N100 in circulation is very tattered and passengers reject them when given to them. The CBN should issue quality minted currency.

Mr. Nosa Ogedengbe, a commercial motorcyclist, said, The situation is very serious in this area. The denomination giving us problem is the N100. There is no N100 in circulation. The ones in circulation are mutilated. It affects my business. During rush hours, I would be sourcing for N100 instead of carrying passengers. The CBN should do something about the situation. They should release new notes.

But the Director of Currency Operations, CBN, Mrs. Priscilla Eleje, blamed the scarcity of lower naira denomination on unscrupulous members of the society.

Speaking in Abuja at the commencement of direct disbursement of lower currency denominations to traders, she said that N50, N20, N10 and N5 notes would be channelled to traders through their associations in markets across the nation.

The CBN will intervene on a weekly basis in the immediate and later respond based on demand, she said.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Govt admits fraud in SIP: Matters arising

By Dele Sobowale

If you shut up truth and bury it underground, it will but grow and gather to itself such explosive power that the day it bursts through, it will blow up everything in its way  Emile Zola, 1840-1902.

ONE unpleasant truth has recently blown up in the faces of President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo. On May 29, 2015, President Buhari announced the Social Intervention Programme, SIP, which was called the most audacious attempt by any government in Nigeria to address the issues of poverty and joblessness.

Buhari

The four components of SIP included: employment of 500,000 teachers; payment of N5000 per month to five million poor Nigerians; ICT Training designed to turn trainees into entrepreneurs and employers of others and the feeding of 5 million school children. If it had succeeded, it would have been Buharis legacy project which would have also made him Nigerias greatest leader of all time. It is not succeeding. In fact, it is a colossal failure and a big fraud.

Unfortunately, for Buhari and Nigeria, SIP was a product of more wishful thinking than effective planning. It never had a chance for success as conceived. But, Buhari, never a methodical planner, and appointing people based on sentiments rather than competence, planted the seeds of failure and fraud even as he sent in the first budget in 2016 to kick-start the SIP. In the 2016 Budget, SIP was allocated a mind-boggling N500bn; it was the largest allocation to any sector. It was even bigger than what Fashola got as Super Minister of Power, Housing and Works. Few people, except Senator Danjuma Goje and me questioned the allocation of so much money to a totally new programme whose details were still to be worked out.

Buhari did not fall into this trap all by himself. Perhaps knowing his own limitations when it comes to understanding complex programmes, the President relied on the Vice President  a Professor of Law and Pastor. Osinbajo also was keenly aware of his own deficiencies in such matters. So, he turned to one Mr Laolu Akande  his Senior Special Adviser  whose tissue of lies on SIP has finally blown up in everybodys faces. For Buhari and Osinbajo it was a blunder to commit so much to an untested idea and someone with no track record of achievements.

When the 2016 Budget estimates reached the Joint Appropriation Committee, Senator Goje made this observation. There is no detailed and clear-cut structure being laid down for the implementation of this project because what we have in the budget is N300bn recurrent and N200bn capital. We had to push hard to get some details which were not convincing. For instance, the explanation we got is that N5000 will be given to one million Nigerians. Who will choose the one million? (Sen. Goje, March3, 2016).

The Joint Appropriation Committee, at first deleted the N5000 from the 2016 budget and advised the Federal Government to go and do its homework before re-presenting the SIP in the 2017 budget. But, those who were hell-bent on taking Nigeria to the cleaners would have none of that patriotic advice.

They must have their scam ratified by the National Assembly. Pressure was brought to bear on the NASS and N500bn was appropriated as requested. That was almost double what was allocated to Education or Health  the operations of which were well-known to all. It never made sense and will never make sense. In no country does a reasonable government allocate more funds to an untried project than staple fare. But, Buhari and Osinbajo know very little about budgets.

Senator Danjuma was not alone in raising alarm. In August of 2016, I wrote as follows about SIP. As a minimum, Nigerians must be told who will be the beneficiaries of these programmes, how they were selected, where they can be located in order to verify the claims by government about performance later. Does this sound like not trusting government? You bet it is.

That was the first of at least twelve articles written about SIP warning Nigerians that SIP, under VP Osinbajo would eventualy become a den of corruption. On each occasion, I had challenged Mr Laolu Akande and the VP to substantiate their claims that SIP was achieving results. For instance, the article  Fooling Nigerians on N5000 payment  was written in January 2017, after traveling to nine states and finding no single official recipient of the money. Questions on FGs School Feeding appeared in August. It detailed all the lies which were being reported from the VPs office by Mr Laolu Akande who has refused to disclose the list of schools benefiting from the phony School Feeding Programme. All to no avail.

Just as I was about to give up; thinking the wicked have done their worst about SIP and Nigerians dont seem to care about the swindles involved in it, Mrs Maryam Uwais, Senior Special Adviser to the VP and the person directly in charge of SIP suddenly opens up and vindicates me. On February 16, 2018, THISDAY on page 10 had a story titled: NEC: Social Investment Programme Marred by Fraud, Corruption. The Guardian made it front page news.

Govt Admits Fraud in N1th Social Investment Fund. Mrs Uwais, tired of the cover-up of monumental fraud under the SIP, located in the VPs office is letting us into the dark secrets which had characterized Buharis pet project. Mr Laolu Akande, predictably, is now difficult to reach by media. He can run but he cant hide. Thanks Mrs Uwais

To be continued

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Virgin Mary to appear in Bavaria?

The Virgin Mary smells of roses and is returning to Upper Bavaria. The mother of God is set to appear in the small St Lawrence Chapel in Unterflossing on March 17 at half past four, sharp (1530 GMT).

That is according to Otto Masszi, a man who, a few years ago, bought and renovated the chapel in the village of 100 souls at his own expense.



He denies any personal interest. Whether or not this becomes a place of pilgrimage is of no concern to me, he says.

The virgin has appeared here twice in the past, most recently in September. Hundreds made the pilgrimage, along with a self-appointed prophet named Salvatore Caputa. Some of them insist they could smell her.

There was this unmistakeable scent of roses, says Erich Neumann, chairman of the association of friends of the St Lawrence Chapel, who organized the gathering.

Masszi, who works as an engineer for city of Munich  and is also organist and choir leader in several parishes  says a woman even saw the mother of God, describing her as having brown hair and being dressed in a blue velvet robe.

The archdiocese of Munich and Freising, under the jurisdiction of which Unterflossing falls, have refrained from commenting on the phenomenon, which has generated debate among the faithful and others in the region, saying matters outside the churchs purview were involved.

The archdiocese instructed its clerics not to become involved in order to avoid lending any legitimacy to the phenomenon.

Even before that, Father Armin Thaller, the local priest, had maintained his distance, saying the church first had to test the reports. He spoke of walking a line so sharp that one could cut ones feet to pieces.

Reports of Marian apparitions are not uncommon among devout Catholics. Some of the more famous were in Lourdes in France, where a series of appearances were reported in 1858, and another in Fatima in Portugal, where the Mother of Jesus is said to have revealed herself in 1917. Both are places of pilgrimage for Catholics to this day.

Other places where the virgin is believed to have appeared are Guadelupe in Mexico and Filipov in the Czech Republic.

But even if these apparitions are acknowledged by the church, this merely means that they do not conflict with the faith. The faithful are not compelled to believe.

The question being asked is why Mary should appear in Unterflossing, of all places. There are a few theories.

First, Benedict XVI, the pope emeritus who retired five years ago, was born some 30 kilometres away and went to school in the area. There is also Altoetting, with its famous Black Madonna dating back to the 14th century. It is nearby and already an established place of pilgrimage.

Masszi has his answer ready: Our Lady simply chose to make an appearance in strongly Catholic Upper Bavaria. She had previously tried at a place where she was unwelcome  a farmers private chapel in Walpertskirchen a little to the west, where Caputa was awaiting her with his retinue.

According to Masszi, Caputa has close links with the virgin and goes ahead of her when she wishes to appear, along with hundreds of pilgrims. That didnt sit well with the son of the farmer who owned the channel and he chased the group off the farm.

He even put his manure cart in the way, Masszi says in disgust. A tragedy. You cant pull the rug out from under the Mother of God. He then took the decision to invite Mary to his chapel, appealing to Caputa to pass on the invitation.

The fact that the Mary will appear at 4:30 pm on the dot does not surprise Masszi. She knows the time of day. But he warned guests to come early, as those who have not prayed have little chance of seeing her.

Prayers will start around noon. Following the ban imposed by the archdiocese, an afternoon service will be conducted without a priest.

Masszi says he is opposed to commerce done in the name of Mary, at nearby Altoetting for example. That does not please the mother of God.

People in the area are preparing for a surge in interest. You are the 300th caller, says Hans Soehl, owner of a metalworking company in nearby Obertaufkirchen, whose phone number has mistakenly been linked to the apparition.

We have nothing to do with the Marian apparition, apart from the wrong phone number.(dpa/NAN)

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Politicians will stay in Abuja and be granting interviews - Army tackles Rep who said 110 Dapchi girls' are in Yobe

- The army has reportedly criticised Honourable Goni Bukar for saying the missing 110 Dapchi girls are still in Yobe

- The army said the lawmaker has no knowledge of what he is talking about

- The army also ask Bukar to present himself before the military and security outfits for a journey to where he alleged the girls are being kept

The Nigerian army has reportedly reacted to a claim by House of Representativs member, Honourable Goni Bukar that the 110 secondary school girls abducted by Boko haram insurgents from Dapchi, Yobe state are being kept in Bulabulin, a village in the same state.

The army, who seemed insulted by the lawmaker unfounded claimed said it is inviting the Reps member to lead the way to the village where he claimed the girls are being kept, The Nation reports.

READ ALSO: National Assembly to override President Buhari on Peace Corps Bill

A top officer, who pleaded for anonymity, said: If they know where the girls are, they know what to do, instead of staying somewhere in Damaturu or Abuja and claiming that the girls are somewhere within Yobe state or anywhere else.

This is how some of these politicians will stay in Abuja and will be granting interviews to you media people, claiming this and that, yet they are not anywhere near their constituencies.

I have been in Maiduguri since Tuesday and all the nations top military and security brass have been in Maiduguri and Yobe axis, pursuing all the leads. The investigations are not only on-going, painstaking and multi-dimensional, but what I can tell you now is that we are not leaving any stone unturned.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

Recall that NAIJ.com previously reported that Bukar, said the 110 girls abducted by Boko Haram from their school in Dapchi town of Yobe state are possibly been kept in Bulabulin town in Yunusari local government area of the state.

The lawmaker representing Bursari/Yunusari/Gaidam federal constituency, told The Nation newspaper on Thursday, March 1, in Damaturu the state capital that the girls were still within the territory of Yobe state.

Nigerians react as Boko Haram terrorists kidnap over 100 girls in Dapchi, Yobe | Street Gist on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Nigeria's security situation is worse under President Buhari - Former governor

- President Muhammadu Buharis government does not have the capacity to protect lives and property

- This is the opinion of the immediate past governor of Benue state, Gabriel Suswam

- Suswam made the comments against the background of the herdsmen attacks across the country

Former governor of Benue state, Gabriel Suswam, has said President Muhammadu Buharis government does not have the capacity to protect Nigerian lives and property.

Suswam made the comments while speaking to a group of journalists in Makurdi, the Benue state capital at the weekend.

According to him, when economic issues are not handled properly they lead to security issues such as the nation is experiencing at the moment.

Suswam says the security and economic situations of the country at the moment are worse than under Jonathan. Photo credit: thewillnigeria.com

READ ALSO: 2019: Enugu APC endorses President Buhari for 2nd term

His words: Issues of security and economy are linked together. Once we have economic issues such as what we have now, they lead to insecurity.

I heard they say we are out of recession, that does not reflect on the per capita income of ordinary Nigerians and that can degenerate into security situations.

So economic failure is directly linked to this security issues as we are seeing now.

When we had security issues while we were in government, the opposition (the APC) took time to criticise us and showed to the Nigerian people that there was a government (Goodluck Jonathans PDP led administration) that was incapable of protecting lives and property.

He noted that the reason for which the APC was voted to power may have been the belief that the PDP administration had failed Nigerians.

He, however, said it was now left for Nigerians to decide whether security issues had reduced or increased with the coming of the APC administration.

His words: The basis for which they were voted was that the people believed that these people (PDP) have failed and these new people (APC) that promised us heaven and earth may likely protect us.

It is left now for Nigerians to decide whether they have been able to de-escalate the security challenges in the country, as it were, or that it has rather heightened.

My own personal opinion is that there is worse security and economic situations now than they were during Jonathans time.

That shows there is a failure in the way things are being managed, and I think that other than play politics with it, we should all sit together on a table and proffer solutions that are viable enough to protect the people; for now, we are playing politics with everything.

The party (APC) came in at the backdrop of propaganda and they have continued as if they are in opposition, that is very bad.

We were told that Boko Haram was totally annihilated, its unfortunate that Boko Haram is strong enough to go into a school and kidnap one hundred and eleven girls (Dapchi girls) and up till now they have no clue as to where those girls have been moved.

This is something that is unthinkable, unacceptable, and I believe that PDP is the only viable platform to protect Nigerians.

He admitted that his party, the PDP made mistakes in government, but added that the APC has not performed any better.

We (PDP) did our best, made our own mistakes but this government shows that it has no capacity to protect lives and property, and as you can see, it is now across the entire nation.

Its no longer located in one place; its in Benue, its in Adamawa, its in Ondo, its in Edo, its in Ekiti, its in Borno, its everywhere. And so it is left for you and me to judge what we need to do in 2019, he said.

PAY ATTENTION:Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news

Meanwhile, a report by international news agency Reuters claiming that the APC NEC endorsed President Muhammadu Buhari for a second term in office has proved to be incorrect.

According to the APC national publicity secretary, Alhaji Bolaji Abdullahi, what the NEC did at its last meeting, was to pass a vote of confidence on the president and the Chief John Odigie-Oyegun-led National Working Committee.

APC chieftain give reasons why his party could be voted out in 2019 on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | NASS to override President Buhari on Peace Corps bill

- There is still more news surrounding the rejected Peace Corps bill by President Muhammadu Buhari

- There are talks that National Assembly many members are favourably disposed to having the bill passed

- The members might override the president's powers to see the bill come to life

A report by Vanguard has detailed how most members of the National Assembly are planning to override President Muhammadu Buhari's powers to pass the Peace Corps bill.

Last week, President Buhari had informed the National Assembly vi a letter, that he was withholding his assent on the bill due to paucity of funds and duplication of duties.

But Nigerian federal lawmakers apparently see things differently and they will this week take a daring step to challenge the president according to the report.

The leaders of the National Assembly will have no choice but the go with majority opinions in both chambers. Source: Twitter

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

Sources quoted report say the lawmakers would take decisive action to override President Buharis rejection of the Nigerian Peace Corps Bill, which they laboured to pass last year and transmitted to the presidency before the end of 21017.

One of the lawmakers quoted in the report under the condition of anonymity, said the leadership of the National Assembly were disappointed by the decision of the executive to jettison the bill, which the lawmakers consider as a priority to boost their political mileage in the forthcoming election.

The lawmaker pointed out that the NPC bill meant a lot to members of the legislature given the number of their constituents they had already secured employment forms for with a lot of money.

The official said they had the number required by law to overturn Buharis rejection of the bill and make it an act of the Parliament as was the case with the Niger Delta Development Commission in 2000 when the then President Olusegun Obasanjo withheld assent to the bill.

His words: I can tell you that the NPC bill is like a referendum on most of the lawmakers in Nigeria and we will prove to the presidency that this bill cannot be thrown away just like that.

If we fail to make it to become law and give legal backing to the Nigerian Peace Corps, most of our members would have unwittingly dug their political graves in many states of the country.

Another lawmaker from the northeast revealed that the leadership of the National Assembly had already mobilized support from both the ruling All Progressives Congress and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party to prepare for the showdown with the presidency.

However, when contacted, the spokesman for the House of Representatives, Abdulrazaq Namdas, played down on the move to counter President Buhari on the rejected bill, saying that they were studying the bill.

He went on to say it was only after studying the presidents rejection letter that the National Assembly would take necessary action.

It is after we have exhaustively scanned through Buharis letter rejecting the bill that we can take a definite action on the matter, Namdas said.

Similarly, the spokesman for the Senate, Senator Sabi Abdullahi, vowed the Senate would do what the constitution specifies once the president refuses assent to the Peace Corps Bill.

His words: The constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides for what should be done if a bill has been passed by the National Assembly, transmitted to the president for assent and he fails to do that. I think that was what was done on the issue of the NDDC Bill for example.

So in this case, as much as many of us are aligned to the need to have the Peace Corps and we believe that it will add to provide another layer of our security system it should be allowed.

Remember the bill says that the agency is not going to be part of the interior ministry but that of youths and it is designed actually to help to support the youths in so many ways through engagements, volunteerism and many other things.

For me, the Peace Corps as a very good thing; it is not new to Nigeria but it is happening in many other countries and that was why we approved it in the first place.

READ ALSO: Withholding of assent is not the end of the Peace Corps bill, it is still on transit - Senator Ohuabunwa

Meanwhile, the council of commandants and Board of Trustees of the Peace Corps of Nigeria (PCN) have called on President Buhari to reevaluate and reconsider his decision to withhold his assent to the Peace Corps bill.

They made the call at a press briefing in Abuja on Friday, March 2, arguing that there was no security agency in Nigeria that was currently undertaking the functions ascribe to Peace Corps in the said bill.

Speaking on behalf of the organisation, the national commandant, Dr Dickson Akoh said the bill does not conflict with that of the functions of any existing security agency in the country.

EXCLUSIVE: Be patient with President Buhari, Femi Adesina tells Nigerians on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Ethnic violence: 20 people reportedly killed, 300 cows stolen in fresh clash in Taraba

- A fresh violence has erupted between herdsmen and residents of Leme in Sadauna local government area of Taraba state

- Twenty people were reportedly killed, 12 injured while 300 cows were rustled

- Residents of the community claimed they fled their houses after attack

A fresh violent ethnic clash on the Mambilla Plateau in Sardauna Local Government Area of Taraba state on Sunday, March 4, has reportedly led to the death of twenty people, while about three hundred cows have been rustled.

A resident of the community who fled during the clash, Saadu Magoggo, said that two of his brothers were killed on Saturday evening and their cattle rustled by a group he identified as the Mambilla Militia, Vanguard reports.

Another fleeing resident of the area, Abdu Gagarau, said: The burning and killing by herdsmen continued till early this morning (Saturday).

READ ALSO: PDP congratulates Obasanjo at 81; says he is one of the best performed Nigerian presidents

Since last Thursday they have been attacking our settlements and over 20 people killed. Some were buried and over 300 cattle stolen by the militias.

The Mambila ethnic group is known for attacking other tribes. They attacked the Panso in 1982, the Fulani in 2002 and in 2017. When eventually we retaliate, the normal shouts of herdsmen will start. Let government be proactive and come to our rescue.

A Fulani community leader, Ahmadu Nguroje, said: At least 20 people are feared killed, looting of houses, shops and burning down to ashes by the Mambilla militias along Tapare and Yerimaru axis have been recorded here in Sardauna Local Government Area of Taraba State. About 12 others were also injured and are on admission at a hospital in Gembu.

Reacting to the violent clash, Governor Darius Ishaku, who spoke through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs, Emmanuel Bello, said: Anyone who takes any life, irrespective of religion or tribe, is a criminal; whether it is on the summits of Mambilla or the plains of Southern Taraba and anywhere in this state. And we shall deal with them as criminals.

We are committed to an amicable resolution of the crisis in the state and peaceful co-existence of all ethnic nationalities."

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

Recall that NAIJ.com previously reported that four people were killed in a fresh communal clash which erupted on the Mambilla Plateau on Thursday, March 1, between the Fulani and Mambilla ethnic stock.

According to the report, several houses and other valuables were set ablaze by the warring factions as both sides were said to have recorded casualties.

The crisis which started at Nguroje before spreading to Jakarta villages was reportedly ignited by a dispute over land.

Victims of herdsmen killing buried in Benue state on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Dangote donates N1.2bn business school to Bayero varsity

kanoThe business educational development of Northern Nigeria took a new turn weekend when renowned businessman, Aliko Dangote donated a N1.2 billion ultra-modern business school edifice to the Bayero University, Kano, (BUK), first of such in the northern part of the country.

Christened Dangote Business School, the business mogul disclosed that talks are on to affiliate the school with the popular Havard Business School, in the United States of America.

Alhaji Aliko Dangote

Speaking Group at the opening of the School at the new site of the University, Dangote stated that no effort was spared to ensure that the school, building get was up to international standard and one if the biggest in the sub Sahara Africa.

Dangote said the Business School, which was commissioned by the Kano State Governor, Abdulzhi Umar Ganduje, was conceived as part of the contributions of the Nigerias business mogul, Alhaji Aliko Dangote towards encouraging world class entrepreneurship education at the highest level in Nigeria.

He described the School as best of its kind in northern Nigeria, adding that the School, as accredited by the Nigerian University Commission, will be the first business school to offer Doctor of Business Administration PhD. program in Nigeria.

The Africa richest man added that the business school would ease sharing of business information globally and how future African leaders could advance their businesses as well as building capacity which would translate to boosting the continents economy.

Dangote traced the journey of the construction of the school to the days of Prof Attahir Jigawa as the Vice Chancellor of the University when he pleaded with him to help in the establishment of a business school that can accelerate entrepreneurship in the country.

He said he agreed to build the edifice because of his conviction that good quality education is the bedrock of meaningfu

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Why Change is difficult in Niger-Delta  Nsima Ekere

Former deputy governor of Akwa Ibom State and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Nsima Ekere, is the managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC. In this interview in Lagos, Ekere outlines the issues and challenges he has faced in his assignment. He speaks on how he responded to the culture of protests that was once the signature portrait of the NDDC. Excerpts:

So far, what challenges have you encountered in realising your objectives at the NDDC?

NDDC bosss Nsima Ekere

Lots of challenges. First of all, institutional resistance to change, which is normal. A lot of people have become used to doing things in a certain way; they wouldnt be very pleased that you now demand a new attitude. And second, you also have political interferences here and there. You want to go a certain way, (and it) may not be politically correct to do that. So you always have to juggle and balance all of these issues. And then the major problem of the Niger Delta which has affected the Commission, if you ask me, is the attitude of some of our stakeholders and the youths particularly. They have this sense of entitlement, that this place was meant for them, so why are you trying to stop us from chopping our money?

That is not an easy thing to do and that is why, it is not an easy thing to contain. But we are doing the best we can to try and put all of these things to check and build up the region and the Commission

How did you confront the mindset of bickering that has historically been associated with the boards of the NDDC?

Well, I guess it is generally a management strategy, if you come in and you are not able to carry members of your management and board along in the way you run the Commission, definitely you will have problems. It is engagement; you just engage people, get them, try and get their buy-in to things you think you want to do. Weve set up a Strategy Committee at Management level and the three executive directors, that is the two EDs and myself, we always interface with the strategy team. So there is this buy-in by all members of the executive management to the programmes and reforms agenda that we are driving. And then with the board also, we have a representative from the chairman in that strategic team. So there is no disconnect between the management and the board.

Most times, what one really needs to fight is suspicion, mutual suspicion. If you dont carry people along and they are suspicious of what you are trying to do, and you have certain agenda different from their agenda, then you have these problems. But fortunately we dont have these issues, and I pray that the infighting that you have noticed in the NDDC Boards of the past will not be our portion.

So how are you dealing with this sense of entitlement?

I have always said to the youths and stakeholders any time I am opportune to address them, that it is better to think of sustainable economic model that we can use to empower our people. I dont believe that you should just keep dashing them money. There was a time at NDDC when there were like two to three protests every week, because when they come for the protest, when you are dispersing them they expect to be given some money. So any time somebody is broke in his house, they will come and protest, so that something can come. I stopped that.

I made protests unattractive. So when they come to protest, you allow them stay there the whole day and dont give them money when they are going. So, gradually the number of protests began to reduce, so the protest you see now, are protests that are sponsored by some politicians for their selfish reasons.

We know a couple, they had to sponsor protests, but ordinarily the genuine protesters that used to come on their own spontaneously have drastically reduced, almost stopped because they know that there will be no money to pay the buses that they hired to come unlike what used to happen in the past.

I believe that it is better to think of sustainable economic models, sustainable economic activities to engage our youths with and that is why we are coming up with what we call The Niger Delta Enterprise Centres for start-ups, so that people with bright ideas can come into those centres. It is different from what we used to do before. Before now, we used to do a lot of trainings and empowerment programmes. in other words, we called people, train them in various skills and at the end of the training give them starter packs to go and start their businesses. For instance, we train somebody in some skill area, give him a starter pack and six months, one year down the line you see the guy still unemployed; he is standing at the gate of NDDC.

What used to happen for most of them is that when they get those starter packs at the end of the training, they will sell it off and collect the money and after that they will come back and look for more. But with the enterprise hub that we are thinking of doing now, we should be able to address that challenge.

How are you tackling allegations by your contractors about delayed payments for jobs done and reports of delays in the remittance of scholarship grants to students?

We discovered that there was a lot of over trading in NDDC; they had much more projects than they could pay for with the available funds and thats why we have also said going forward in our budget instead of creating new projects, 70% of the budget would be dedicated to servicing ongoing projects, while only 30% would be used for salaries, overhead and new projects.

When you look at the NDDC Act, there is a financial provision which states how much and how the funding of NDDC would be structured. If NDDC was able to get all the money that we are supposed to get under the Act, you will see that there would be enough money to pay for those contracts. As we speak today, we have a shortfall of about N1.7  1.8 trillion from the Federal Government contribution to the NDDC. In other words, the Federal Government is owing us that much money.

If that much money was paid why wouldnt contractors be paid? So it is basically a funding problem. I have about N5 billion in a month. By the time you pay salaries and overheads maybe you have N3 billion remaining. How can you use N3 billion to pay N1 trillion to contractors? We are using bare hands; we are working with our bare knuckles as it were. So, there is a serious constraint of funds in NDDC and that is why we have a lot of those problems. But we believe that that would improve. We believe that the Federal Government would make good on their contributions.

Fortunately Mr. President approved that the Ministers of Finance and Budget & Planning should sit with us and resolve these issues. We are hoping that with that we would be able to make some progress, once money comes in the contractors would be paid.

On the NDDC Post Graduate Scholarship Programme

We have paid up all NDDC scholars. When we came in, we discovered that there were lots of hanky-panky in the scholarship thing.

A masters programme for instance is supposed to last one year, 18 months in the maximum. But you will see that an NDDC scholar who won the scholarship in 2007 to do a masters programme in the US or the UK will still be claiming scholarship in 2017. Do you understand what I mean? And we had several cases like this. Somebody will win the NDDC scholarship, would be in Nigeria, not in any school anywhere in the world and he is claiming money.

So that is why it was necessary that we froze that process, because we needed to confirm what really the issues were, who the genuine students were but unfortunately in that process some genuine students suffered. We regret very much that some genuine students had their money withheld for a while during that verification process.

But all of that has been done now and we have paid up to date. We are hoping that going forward, all NDDC scholars will get their money as at when due, because at least we have been able to do the verification. We are happy with the numbers that we are getting and we are happy that the people in school are the genuine students and we wouldnt owe them.

The Timi Alaibe administration developed a regional master plan. Are you working with that master plan?

The Niger Delta Master Regional Plan wasnt a master plan for NDDC alone; it was a master plan that was to see to the integrated regional development of the entire Niger Delta Region. Physical development, economic development, even social economic development as well. Now, all of the development centres, I am talking of the Federal Government agencies and departments, ministries, and ministry of Niger Delta, the nine State Governments of the Niger Delta, Local Governments, International Donor Agencies, and all these international agencies that are working in the Niger Delta and of course NDDC and even the international oil companies operating in the region; everybody must key into that master plan, work and develop the Niger Delta in incremental fashion.

Unfortunately, that master plan has not been implemented, because, for the master plan to have been successfully implemented, you needed the buy-in of the various stakeholders that we are talking about. Maybe because of a lack of awareness and political differences, that hasnt happened and so we have decided now that there is a need for the review of the Master Plan.

I was with the German Ambassador the other day when he came to visit. That was one of the major things we talked about and they have an agency of the German Government, GTC that was originally instrumental in the development of the Master Plan, coming to help us again.

The World Bank and the EU are also in, we are getting a lot of international support in the review of the Master Plan. And for me, the major thing in reviewing the master plan is that we must get the collaboration and buy-in of all the respective stakeholders. So Edo State Government, Ondo State Government, Delta State Government, Bayelsa, Rivers, Imo, Abia, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, all the 9 State Governments of the Niger Delta must buy-in to the need for a regional development master plan.

If the State Governments buy-in, their respective local government areas would also. Then we would now review the master plan and give ourselves timeliness that is when we would have a meaningful implementation of the master plan and that is when it would make sense. And so we are in the process of reviewing it in line with current realities and then set targets that are attainable.

There have been some issues and report from your home state, Akwa Ibom about conflicts with the Commission and your contractors being driven away from projects sites. How are you tackling such issues?

Unfortunately, most of what happened in Akwa Ibom was political. We have engaged them through the Federal Government. We hear there is a change of heart from the State Government.

Overall, we are trying very hard now to engage with the nine Niger Delta Governors. We are not in competition with any of them. The roles and responsibilities of a governor and managing director of NDDC are very different. We are and should work as partners to resolve the problems of the region. That has been my focus. That is why the Board is constantly engaging with the state governors. We have visited virtually all of them except Akwa Ibom.

Why Akwa-Ibom? Have you made an effort to visit Akwa-Ibom?

Yes, we have and we are still engaging them hoping that we will have an opportunity to visit. We have had a very unfavourable situation in Akwa Ibom and that is unfortunate. I am from Akwa Ibom and have served that state as deputy governor. So the best interest of the state is always paramount to me.

Akwa Ibom is the largest oil producing state in Nigeria and by NDDC policies, it should attract the highest number of projects from the Commission. That is not what the present Board met on ground. The Board has been magnanimous enough to want to redress this. We need the partnership and support of the State Government to make this happen.

It is not about me. It is not about the Board. It is not about politics. We at NDDC believe it is the right and proper thing to do. And thats the focus of the Board.

Like I said, we have visited all the State Governors except Akwa Ibom State and we are interfacing well with all of them. For the very first time, we have set up budget committees in all the states. We asked our State Representatives, that is the commissioners representing the various states on the Board of NDDC  who serve as chairmen of the budget committees in their respective states  to go to their State Governments and sit down with them and articulate the programmes and projects to be included in our budgets.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Enwonwu, the immortal: what is in a name?

By OSA AMADI, Arts Editor

I have always wondered why on earth anyone would choose to name ones child Badmus when there are names like Goodluck. But then, those who know better say Badmus has nothing to do with the word bad. Yet, I am not convinced. I wont give that name to my child because, as they say, the Devil is very crafty. According to Kabalarian philosophy, You can change your life (for good or ruin it) through the power of a balanced name.

 Late Prof. Benedict Enwonwu - Princess Tutus portrait painted by Enwonwu, (1974)

There is, therefore, a lot in a name. A name is a wish or prayer of the giver of the name. And by some queer stroke of fate, the meaning of the name one bears often plays out accordingly in the life of such a person. The name Enwonwu literally means immortal. As we can see, that name has become immortalised!

Oliver Enwonwu, son of the immortal Enwonwu is not just following his fathers trails, he is keeping up with the pace. Oliver is also an artist and Director of the popular Omenka Gallery at 24 Ikoyi Crescent Lagos. He shared a deep philosophical viewpoint with Vanguards Arts & Reviews on the significance of names and how the name Enwonwu has and is still playing out in the life of members of his lineage:

The name is quite apt to the life and works of my father, Ben Enwonwu. When you think about the fact that a creative person doesnt really die because his works live after him for people to evaluate and speak about, then you will know why the immortality in Enwonwu speaks volume. For example, Tutu became a much talked about masterpiece so many years after the man passed on. You can see how significant the name is especially as it relates to his profession. He (my father) was also a titled chief, an Ozo in Igboland called Odinigwe. These in all are immortality and creativity encompassing. His fathers name is Omenka meaning creative person. You can easily see in all that it is prophetic from the first generation. From Omenka to Enwonwu and Odinigwe, you can see how symbolic the names sound, similar to what the Yoruba call oriki.

The names are very significant in the entire family lineage as a heritage including my own career as an artist, businessman and gallery owner. Enwonwu as a name runs as a generational prophecy and stands as a continuous legacy and heritage. The creativity imbued in the name saturates the entire lineage and I believe it is a continuum even to generations unborn.

Ben Enwonwu (14 July 1921  5 February 1994) was born as a twin to Omenka Odigwe Emeka Enwonwu of Umueze-Aroli in Onitsha, Nigeria. Interestingly, his fathers name, Omenka, means artist. And Omenka ended up becoming an artist  a reputable traditional sculptor who created office stools and decorated doors with religious images.

Between 1934 and 1937, Ben Enwonwu studied Fine Arts under Kenneth C. Murray, an education officer in charge of art education in the colonial civil service and later, director of antiquities, at Government Colleges, Ibadan and Umuahia. At some point, he became Murrays assistant and was rated as the most gifted and technically proficient student among Murrays students.

He attended Goldsmith College, London in 1944, and from 1944 to 1948 continued his studies at Ruskin College, Oxford, England, and at Ashmolean College and Slade School of Fine Arts, Oxford where he graduated with first-class honours.

In 1937, Enwonwus works were exhibited at the Zwemmer Gallery in London by Murray. He later took postgraduate courses in anthropology and ethnography at the University of California and Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge.

One year after his graduation from the Slade Art School with a diploma in Fine Art and honours in Sculpture, Enwonwu bagged a Masters of Art degree in Social Anthropology at the University College in London. In 1969, he received his Doctorate degree from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

After working with Murray for many years, Enwonwu was hired as a teacher at the Government College Umuahia, but Murray was not happy that the university authority decided to pay Enwonwu the same salary as seasoned teachers of the school. This created disaffection between Enwonwu and Murray his master. Perhaps, as a result of this rift, Murray resigned from his post at Government College Umuahia and Enwonwu replaced him as art teacher.

Enwonwu also taught art in Mission School, Calabar Province (19401941), and Edo College, Benin City (19411943). He functioned as art adviser to the Nigerian Government from 1948. From 1950, he toured and lectured in the United States, executing many commissioned works as a freelance artist. Between 1949 and 1954, Ben Enwonwus works were exhibited in London, Lagos, Milan, New York City, Washington D.C., and Boston.

In 1956, during her visit to Nigeria, Queen Elizabeth II commissioned Enwonwu to sculpt her portrait with bronze, which was unveiled during the 1957 Royal Society of British Artists exhibition in London. In 1959, he became a supervisor at the Information Service Department office in Nigeria; a fellow of Lagos University, Lagos (196668); cultural advisor to the Nigeria Government (196871); and visiting artist at the Institute of African Studies at Howard University, Washington D.C., in 1971.

From 1971 to 1975, he was appointed the first professor of Fine Arts at the University of Ife, Ile-Ife. He was also art consultant to the International Secretariat and FESTAC 1977.

A portrait of Adetutu Ademiluyi, an Ife Princess, painted by Enwonwu in 1974 got missing in 1975. Tutu was rediscovered in 2017 in a London flat and sold for 1,205,000 in an auction held by Bonhams on 28 February 2018 in London and Lagos simultaneously. The Tutu portrait, one of the three paintings made by Enwonwu, has become a Nigerian national icon, and the name, Enwonwu has taken its place among the immortal names of this world. Who ever said there is nothing to a name?

Notable works

1956  Bronze sculpture of Queen Elizabeth II

1964  Sango: the Yoruba god of lightning and thunder

1973  Tutu

1986  Risen Christ: was displayed at the University of Ibadan but was torched as a result of political-religious tensions.Awards

1944- Shell Petroleum Scholarship: to study in the United Kingdom

1954- National Merit Award: for academic and intellectual attainment in Nigeria

1958- Commonwealth Certificate in London: for contributions to art by the Royal Institute of Art

1958-Member of the Order of the British Empire

1971-Officer of the National Order of the Republic in Senegal

1980-National Order of Merit in Nigeria: for contributions to art in Nigeria

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Sen. Shehu Sani has declared that he will dump the APC if the ongoing effort at resolving the crisis in Kaduna state chapter of the party fails.

He urged President Muhammadu Buhari and former Lagos Governor, Bola Tinubu, who head the reconciliation committee, to ensure that all warring factions are treated equally.

Sani, who represents Kaduna Central at the Senate, spoke on Sunday in Abuja while addressing newsmen after meeting with Mr Segun Oni, leader of the partys fact-finding committee on crisis.

He said that he was summoned by Oni as his faction of the party could not meet with members of the committee when they visited Kaduna.

Sani maintained that he was in support of any effort that would restore peace, unity and stability within the party in the state and the country.

He, however, added that it was in the interest of the party not to defer its problems and crises, but to solve them.

If one person is ready and the other person is not ready, certainly we are not going to make any headway. So, I very much identify myself with any effort that is aimed at bringing peace, NAN quoted him as saying.

Our position is this, if the governor of Kaduna state is for peace, we are for peace. If hes for war, we are also for war and a bigger war, he said.

The lawmaker, however, said that it was the desire of everyone to come together and work to heal wounds.

This, he said, was critical to restore confidence and hope in the minds of millions of Nigerians that voted for the APC in 2015.

He added that a situation where some people within the party were treated as outcasts would not augur well for it.

Sani also said that it was wrong for some people to be categorized as pro-Buhari and others as anti-Buhari within the party.

He said that everyone who is in the APC was pro-Buhari, explaining that the difference was that while some were not sycophants, others were.

He advised Buhari to personally intervene in the crisis in the party in Kaduna, saying the president is the glue that binds the members.

I still see President Muhammadu Buhari as the glue of APC; if we dont have Buhari in the APC, everyone will find his way to his home.

So, as he remains the glue, he must also be up and doing in addressing these crises.

As far as I am concerned, the success of this party in the upcoming elections is dependent on how it would be able to manage the crisis and solve the problems.

The Segun Oni committee came to Kaduna and requested that we should all sheath our sword and bury our hatchet. For now, we only covered our hatchet with leaves.

We have provided the facts and we are waiting for Tinubu to act on it; as far as I am concerned, I believe that Oni is working with Tinubu. There is no conflict of responsibilities, he said.

He advised the partys leadership to avoid the symptoms of crisis that destroyed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Sani hinted that if the crisis in Kaduna defied peaceful moves, members may have to take the next step.

And as far as I am concerned everyone has plan B; even for me, I have plan B, C and D.

If anyone felt that this party belongs to him and doesnt belong to me and that I am not needed in the party, there is no way I can continue to remain in the party.

After all, it is a free world, Sani said.The Nigerian government is set to release about 95 former Boko Haram terrorists after series of training, vocational skills acquisition and rehabilitation courses.

The repentant terrorists were trained by the Nigerian Army wing charged with the responsibility of Deracialising, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (DRR) in Gombe State.

The commandant of the camp, Colonel Adegoke Adetuyi, during the graduation ceremony of the repentant terrorists on Saturday, said they were also empowered with vocational skills.

An essential element of DRR program is training of the ex-combatant by instructors from National Directorate of Employment (NDE). They went through a number of vocations including barbing, shoe making/leather works and cosmetology which compose of making of body cream, perfume and liquid soap among others.

They were enthusiastic about their skill acquisition program and they are looking forward to practice their trades after discharge from the camp. They are to further their training with NDE in their state of residence in order to enhance smooth reintegration, he said.

The coordinator of Operation Safe Heaven (OPSC), Major General Bamidele Shafa, said they have earlier facilitated the rehabilitation of 750 men, women and children who were released to their various state government.

One of the repentant fighters, Fadau Bukar, asked for forgiveness for the atrocities they have committed against humanity and the nation as a whole.

This is happiest day in life. Its like a day of admission into paradise. I appeal to the larger society to receive us wholeheartedly because we have realised that the ideologies of the Boko Haram are wrong thats why we surrendered.

We have repented fully and will contribute to the development of ourselves, the society and the nation, Bukar said.Over two weeks after, the Senate has not considered the report by the ad hoc committee set up to investigate the controversial reinstatement and promotion in the federal civil service, of former Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms, Abdul-Rasheed Maina.

The committee, made up of chairmen and vice-chairmen of Senate Committees on Public Service and Establishment; Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters; Financial Crimes and Anti-Corruption; and Internal Affairs laid their report on February 14, 2018.

The Chairman of the panel, Senator Emmanuel Paulker, made the presentation.

The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, had on October 24, 2017, set up the panel to probe into the controversial circumstances surrounding Mainas return to the civil service after being dismissed and declared wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

During the probe, the Minister of Interior, Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau (retd.) and the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, had appeared once before the Senate panel, while the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), appeared thrice.

Although the panel was mandated to report back to the Senate in two weeks, it did not do so until about four months after.

Also, while the Senate panel conducted its investigative hearings behind closed doors with some of its members lamenting that the venue of next sittings were always unknown, the House of Representatives had conducted a similar probe live on television.

When contacted to explain the delay, a member of the panel and the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Financial Crimes and Anti-Corruption, Senator Chukwuka Utazi, referred our correspondent to Paulker.

He also said it was the duty of the Senate Committee on Rules and Business to list the report on the Order Paper for consideration by the chamber.

I am a member of the committee, I am not the chairman. I ask the chairman; he presented the Senate report and should be following it up with the Committee on Rules and Business, Utazi said.

Both Paulker and the Chairman of the Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Baba Garbai, did not pick calls made to their telephone lines. They also did not reply a text message sent to them asking them to explain the delay.

While calls made to the telephone lines of the Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Aliyu Sabi-Abdullahi, did not connect, calls to the Vice-Chairman, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce, rang out. They also did not reply a text message sent to them as of the time of filing this report on Sunday night.

The Senate had on January 9 asked Malami to explain to Nigerians why he had been running around the courts seeking to stop the probe by the National Assembly into Mainas case.Home | News | General | Defection hits PDP as members dump party for APC in Rivers

- Some members of the Peoples Democratic Party have defected to the All Progressives Congress in Omoku, Rivers state

- Omoku is the hometown of the Rivers state chairman of the PDP, Chief Felix Obuah

- A chieftain of the APC, Professor Henry Arinze Ugboma, promised the defectors that the party would produce the governor in 2019

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has lost some of its members to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Omoku, hometown of the Rivers state chairman of the PDP, Chief Felix Obuah.

While receiving the defectors on Saturday, March 3 at Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, ONELGA (Omoku) local government area, an APC chieftain, Professor Henry Arinze Ugboma, assured them that the APC would produce the governor in 2019, The Nation reports.

NAIJ.com noted that Ugboma said that Governor Nyesom Wike had not shown commitment to develop the state.

READ ALSO: 515 patients benefit from Saudi medical team's free eye surgery in Kano

Ugboma said: I am happy I am a member of the APC family. Something different is beginning to happen in ONELGA. The over 100 PDP members that have just joined APC in ONELGA, you will not regret the wise decision. About two years ago, I stood on this ground (the playground of Federal College of Education (FCE), Technical, Omoku) and I declared for the APC.

"I did not make a mistake joining the APC. Today, my story is different. Your stories shall also be different. Your lives shall change for the better. God shall use you to rewrite the stories of your families. You are not making a mistake by joining the APC. You have taken the golden steps to victory.

When the transportation minister, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, was governor of Rivers state, the roads that Wike claims to be constructing, were created by him (Amaechi). Wike is just wasting the money of Rivers and cajoling some people to siphon resources of the state. For political reason, Wike is destroying legacies, programmes and capital-intensive projects of Amaechis government that can provide employment opportunities for the teeming qualified youths."

Speaking of her defection, one of the defectors, Queen Azubuike, said she and others left the PDP because they were tired of the killings in ONELGA.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com previously reported that over two thousand members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Degema local government area of Rivers state defected to the main opposition party All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.

The defectors were welcomed on Monday, June 26, 2017 at Tombia, Degema local government area, during an empowerment programme.

On hand to welcome the defectors, Dr Sokonte Davies, a chieftain of the APC in Rivers and a former member of the House of Representatives representing Degema/Bonny constituency, described APC as the only party that was capable of meeting the aspirations of Nigerians.

PDP's Magnificent 7 for 2019 - on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Ex-CJN Mukhtar reveals how lobbying, godfatherism weaken Nigerian judiciary

- A former chief justice of Nigeria, Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar has disclosed how lobbying and godfatherism have weaken Nigerian judiciary

- Mukhtar said anything that seems to be favouritism should be discouraged and discarded

- She maintained that they devalue system because of incompetence of the personnel

A former chief justice of Nigeria, Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar, on Saturday, March 3, decried the negative impact of what she termed rising culture of lobbying, favouritism and godfatherism in the Nigerian judiciary.

Punch reports that Justice Mukhtar made this known in Abuja at a book presentation held in honour of a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Clara Ogunbiyi.

She said: ''Merit must be the watchword in the appointment of judges and the culture of favouritism, lobbying and godfatherism must be discarded for the judiciary to be strong as it used to be.

READ ALSO: 20 reportedly killed, 300 cows stolen in fresh ethnic battle in Taraba state

''I will, at this junction, revisit the issue of lobbying and in addition favouritism and godfatherism in the appointment of judicial officers. It is sad that we allow the rising culture of lobbying to influence appointment in the judiciary.

''If we are to revive what held sway in the past, that is, maintaining a strong and competent judiciary, then merit should be the watchword. Lobbying, favouritism and godfatherism should be discouraged and discarded, as they lead to the fall in the standard, and instead of enhancing the institution; they devalue and weaken it because of incompetence of the personnel.

''These practices negate the principles of justice and breeds indiscipline. I once read in one of our daily newspapers that lobbying is the norm in the USA (United States of America) and since we are practising the American system of democracy, its adoption here is in order.

''I disagree because even if they do so, they consider merit first as the efficiency and the intellectual ability of an appointee is always paramount, as far as the judiciary is concerned.

''We should not think of only what we desire today, but what we will bequeath to the generation yet unborn.''

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

She described the retired Justice Ogunbiyi, as an epitome of humility.

Other speakers, including the chairman of the event, a former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, a former Chief of Army Staff and Defence Minister, General Theophilus Danjuma; Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno state, paid tributes to Justice Ogunbiyi.

Serving Justices of the Supreme Court, Yusufu Turaki, Babatunde Omotara, Justice James Ogebe; her husband, Bamigboye Ogunbiyi and a former minister for the Federal Capital Territory, Alhaji Abba Gana, also poured encomiums on her.

The book, Honey from the Rock, authored by Olugbenga Owa, is a biography of Justice Ogunbiyi.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had reported that the chief justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen on Tuesday, February 27, ordered judges to resume at 9 am and close 4 pm daily in all courts.

The chief justice of Nigeria made this known at a function on at the presidential villa, Abuja. The event was organised by the Itse Sagay-led presidential advisory committee against corruption.

Onnoghens directives was part of 13 reforms aimed at fighting corruption and ensuring speedy and transparent delivery of justice in the Nigerian judicial system.

EFCC stages a walk against corruption - on NAIJ.com TV:

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Spate of violence: Why Buhari and I didn't visit Yobe, others - Osinbajo

- The Muhammadu Buhari-led government has been criticised severally for not showing empathy to victims of violent attacks by physically visiting them

- Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has spoken on the reason he and his boss has not visited some places attacked

- Osinbajo says condolence visits alone won't solve the problems

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has spoken on the reason he and President Muhammadu Buhari have not visited some communities attacked recently.

The federal government has been criticised severally by many Nigerians for not showing empathy to victims of violent attacks by physically visiting them.

The recent being the abduction of 110 students by Boko Haram terrorists in Dapchi, Yobe state.

President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo have stayed away from violent prone states in recent times. Photo credit: Novo Isioro

READ ALSO: Dapchi kidnap: Well resist further attacks on students - NANS

President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo are also yet to visit Benue, Zamfara, Adamawa and Taraba states which were also subjected to attacks in recent times.

Speaking with some journalists in Lagos over the weekend, Osinbajo said while the government has expressed sympathy with the people, condolence visits alone would not solve the problem.

His words: There is no amount of condolence that can compensate for the loss of life. Benue killing is one set of killing far too much; there is no amount of condolence that can compensate for that. And I want to say that its a massive tragedy.

But the question that you seem to ask Ive been to Zamfara, Ive been to Adamawa when this killing took place. There are those who said, oh, why dont you visit the Fulani settlement, why do visit only where Christians were?

I even visited Benue in September where there have been killing before; then Ive visited them when the flooding took place and we looked at all the issues and tried to address many of these. There have been several of these issues in different places, recently Dapchi. We have expressed condolences, but no amount of condolence would do.

Osinbajo noted that ensuring the attacks do not reoccur again by securing the areas were uppermost on the government's mind.

He also gave details of the efforts by the government to stem the tide of violent attacks through deployment of security forces.

The more important thing and our focus has been, is first of all ensuring security in these places.

We have to address the security question in a much more robust way; that the police are able to do these effectively. We have deployed the military to Kaduna, two battalions to Kaduna. In Benue and Taraba axis, we have the 93 battalion, we have 72 Special Forces.

We have full concentration in Taraba and all of that, and by the way, the military is fighting in most of the north-east. So, there is a situation where the military is overstretched. So I think the most important thing is, first of all, to ensure they actually address the security of the people, he said.

Meanwhile, the ongoing search for the missing Dapchi girls has been extended to neighbouring countries, the federal government has announced.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Friday, March 2, the minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said top military and security officials on Thursday, March 1, travelled to the northeast to add more urgency to the search, which has now been extended beyond the northeast theatre.

The officials according to the statement , include the nation's top military officer and Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin; Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas; Chief of Army Staff; Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai and the Director-General of the Department of State Services, Alhaji Lawal Daura.

READ ALSO: Federal Government confirms 110 Dapchi schoolgirls missing

Nigerians react as Boko Haram terrorists kidnap over 100 girls in Dapchi, Yobe on Street Gist

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Nigeria's economy will fall back into recession if Buhari is not re-elected in 2019 - Governor Sani-Bello warns

- The Niger state governor, Abubakar Sani-Bello has advocated for President Muhammadu Buhari's re-election

- Sani-Bello said Nigeria's economy will fall back into recession should President Buhari fail to contest in 2019

- He called for total support for the president re-election ambition come 2019

The governor of Niger state, Abubakar Sani-Bello has assured Nigerians that they will not regret re-electing President Muhammadu Buhari into power in 2019.

Sani-Bello said President Buhari re-election into presidency in 2019 will help stabilise Nigeria's economy.

He said if the president is not re-elected in 2019, Nigeria's economy will face challenges and may fall back into recession.

READ ALSO: Governor Dickson, Ibori begin advocacy for referendum

Receiving the people of Kontagra at the government house in Minna over the weekend, the governor said the support declared by the All Progressives Congress (APC) governors was to ensure continuity and sustainability of Buharis good work in Nigeria.

He said: If President Muhammadu Buhari does not contest in 2019, there will be problem in solving the enormous challenges facing the country because he is truthful, fair and just in administering the country.

READ ALSO: NASS to override President Buhari on Peace Corps bill

The governor also urged Nigerians to support Buharis endorsement for Presidency in 2019.

He said said Nigeria would continue to become a greater nation under President Buhari's administration.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

NAIJ.com earlier reported that some youths from Urhobo and Isoko in Delta state endorse President Buhari for second term in 2019.

The youths said the president deserves a second term in office.

They said the Buhari led administration has left no stone unturned in the fight against corruption and will do better than its has done if re-elected in 2019.

What must President Buhari do to regain the trust of Nigerians? - on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | MOSOP raises alarm over impending crisis in Ogoniland; accuses FG of causing problem, calls for quick resolution

- MOSOP has called on the federal government to act immediately to resolve the crisis emerging in the Ogoni region following the oil exploration and clean-up exercise there

- The groups president, Leborsi Pyagbara, said the silent attitude of the Buhari-led government was fueling the crisis

- He raised an alarm over an impending doom brewing in the area and urged the government to intervene before the region experienced what happened in 1994 over again

The Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government has been blamed by the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) for the divisions and crisis emerging among Ogoni leaders and stakeholders over the resumption of oil exploration and clean-up process in the area, Vanguard reports.

The groups position was made public by its president, Leborsi Pyagbara, who spoke in Port-Harcourt, the Rivers state capital, over the weekend.

READ ALSO: Buharis appointments have mostly favoured Christians/Southerners - Osinbajo

NAIJ.com gathers that Pyagbara chided the federal government for being silent on the crisis in Ogoni; stating that this attitude was fueling the volatile situation.

MOSOP raised an alarm over an impending doom brewing in the area, and urged the government to, as a matter of urgency, convene a dialogue between major players in the Ogoni issues to tame the situation.

He stated: The federal government is responsible for the problem we are facing today. If they had done what they ought to do, we will not be facing the different groups that are emerging to endorse companies.

If they had initiated a broad based discussion to resolve issues, we would not find ourselves in the mess we are in now.

The oil money is always there to cause problem. There is need for the federal government to intervene before we experience what happened in 1994 again.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com previously reported that a first class Ogoni monarch, His Royal Highness, Timothy Suanu Bari Dam, said that the cleanup of Ogoniland should not be taken for politics, saying the federal government should give every assistance needed to make the programme a great success.

The monarch, who is the chairman of Ogoni Traditional Rulers Council, disclosed that the former minister of environment, Aisha Mohammed, had good intentions for the project; hence, he advised the federal government to be sincere with the project and let permanent peace and good environment return to devastated area.

Traditional ruler laments non development of Ogoniland since Saro Wiwa died - on NAIJ.com TV:

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | We are focusing on how to do a peaceful transition - US speaks on Nigerias 2019 general elections

- The United Sate of America (USA) has spoken about the Nigeria's forthcoming general elections

- US declared that there is a political, ethnic, tribal and security issues in the country

- The country commended the most recent elections in Liberia, saying it was the first open, fair, and peaceful transition of governments in over 75 years

The United Sate of America (USA) has disclosed that Nigerias 2019 general elections and a peaceful transition, remained its major priority in view of the countrys strategic position in the region.

The US department of state said during a background briefing on the first trip of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Africa, monitored by the News Agency of Nigeria in New York.

Tillerson would meet with Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari and other top government functionaries, and also leaders of Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya during his travels from Tuesday, March 6 to 13.

READ ALSO: National Assembly to override President Buhari on Peace Corps Bill

The department said over two decades ago, the number of countries in Africa with really democratically elected government were really very few only three or four.

It said, however, now we had over two dozen African countries with democratically elected governments and which are hopefully not going to have transitions in government through coup detats and other illegal methods.

The state department said: ''As we look at the 20 elections, obviously Nigeria, though its not this year  its going to be next year  that really is a major priority focus, because thats going to be the third most populous country in the world by 2050. It has really very complex political issues and ethnic and tribal issues and security issues.

''And thats an area that we really are focusing on how to do a peaceful transition, a democratic transition, but more important is how to hold governments accountable to the people.''

The department explained that obviously, a lot of those African countries were still fragile democracies and the US was trying to strengthen them.

The US commended the most recent elections in Liberia, saying it was the first open, fair, and peaceful transition of governments in over 75 years, saying that is a good thing.

It regretted what it called the ''horrendous rule of Charles Taylor and the degradation of the institutions there, but now well going back and theyre building, and I think with the election of George Weah thats going to be a positive thing.''

The US also noted the election of Nana Akufo-Addo in Ghana, Alassane Ouattara in Cote dIvoire and Macky Sall in Senegal, describing them as you positive developments.

It said, however, that Ethiopia remained a challenge for the US and a focus for it as well and an opportunity.

The US explained that it was looking at trying to build institutions, really strengthen institutions, and also have peaceful transitions and hold governments accountable to the people in Ethiopia.

It said it was also looking at how it could have reconciliation and dialogues between all of the different groups  the Oromos, the Amharas, the Tigrays, and also in Kenya with the opposition and with the ruling government.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

Accordingly, the department said building strong institutions and holding governments accountable are some of the things that are certainly going to be the subjects of discussion during Tillerson trip.

The state department said: ''How do we advance political and economic reform that will help in the transition process? Those are issues too that were working in Zimbabwe with the transition between Robert Mugabe and Emmerson Mnangagwa.

''And also were looking hopefully at South Africa with the election of Cyril Ramaphosa from Jacob Zuma and seeing how thats going to transition.''

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission said it will partner with the United Nations to ensure effective operations during the 2019 general election.

INEC said the partnership is focused on building capacity of its staff ahead of the election scheduled to hold in February 2019.

Nigerians want PDP back in 2019 - Goodluck Jonathan declares at PDP Caucus Meeting on NAIJ.com TV:

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Non-reconstitution of CBN, NSITF, PenCom, SEC boards harming economy, warns NECA

By Victor Ahiuma-Young

LAGOSNIGERIA Employers Consultative Association, NECA, weekend in Lagos, expressed concerns over non-reconstitution of the boards of some critical federal parastatals, especially Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Nigeria Social Insurance Trustfund, NSITF National Pension Commission, PenCom, and Security and Exchange Commission, SEC, among others.

CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele

The umbrella body for employers in Nigeria warned that continued delay in the reconstitution of these boards and non-confirmation of nominees to the Monetary Policy Committee, MPC, were unhealthy for the nations economic growth and development.

At a briefing, President of NECA, Larry Ettah, urged the federal and state governments to remain focused on ensuring broad-based economic recovery that would ensure improved economic activity across most economic sectors, develop business friendly-laws and policies, ensure the continuous existence of businesses by avoiding inconsistencies in policies, boost employment, improve corporate and firm performance and reduce poverty and unemployment.

While commending the federal government for the constitution and re-constitution of some Boards of Parastatals and Agencies, though very late, contended that this lateness and outright non-reconstitution of some other Boards portends danger for good governance with negative image for the country.

Of greater concern to businesses is the non-reconstitution of critical Boards such as the NSITF, NHIS, PENCOM, CBN, SEC, among others. We had expected government to have set up the Boards by now. The absence of Boards for the parastatals is one awful legacy of the military regime that should be discarded without further delay.

We are worried about the non-confirmation of nominees to the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) by the National Assembly. This critical Committee has been unable to meet because it could not form a quorum as stipulated in the CBN Act 2007. We believe that the countrys monetary policy should not be left to run on auto-pilot as the outcome of the deliberation of the MPC is important to the sustainable economic growth and development of our country.

On recurring fuel scarcity and subsidy regime, he said: Like a sore that has refused to heal, the recurrent issue of fuel scarcity has reared up its ugly head again.

We are where we are today because government has not been faithful to the deregulation of the PMS market of the downstream sector of the oil and gas. Let us ponder and ask ourselves where the non-deregulation of the petroleum sector has led our economy: Continued dependence on off shore sources for petroleum products, perennial shortage of petroleum products, flourishing black market where Nigerians pay an amount way above market rate for petroleum products, loss of manpower as a result of endless hours spent at filling stations, massive and unimaginable corruption in the management of the subsidy dispensation, etc.

There is no question about the fact that the subsidy regime has returned and now under the management of NNPC.

This is not the way forward. The time has come for government to choose economic imperative over political expediency by allowing the pump price to reflect the reality of the market thereby creating the enabling environment for uninterrupted supplies of the product and the needed investment that will ensure self reliant domestic production.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | 3 children in Benue IDPs camp crushed to death

By Peter Duru

MAKURDIAfter escaping the menace of marauding herdsmen, three children, housed at the Abagena internally-displaced persons, IDPs, camp in the outskirt of Makurdi, Benue State capital, were reportedly crushed to death by a truck on Makurdi-Lafia Road.

Executive Secretary of Benue State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, Mr. Emmanuel Shior, who disclosed this in Makurdi yesterday, said the victims lost their lives weekend, while crossing the highway to the camp.

Mr. Shior said: The victims had visited Makurdi town and were returning to the camp on a motorcycle when they met their tragic end.

The motorbike rider was also among those who were crushed to death by the trailer on that very busy road. These were people, who ran from their communities for fear of being killed by herdsmen.

The remains of the victims were deposited at the mortuary in Makurdi, while the driver of the truck was also arrested by the Police.

The SEMA boss expressed worry that aside the accident, killings had continued in the state in spite of the presence of security agents and the ongoing Exercise Ayem A Akpatuma (Cat Race) being conducted by the Nigerian military to check herdsmens incursions in the state.

His words: That is what I told the Commissioner of Police two days ago, when he came to sensitise the IDPs on the need for them to return home. I told him clearly that the appeal was not good enough.

This is because we have cases of IDPs who went back to check whether it was safe for them to return, but they couldnt return to the camp again, they were killed by herdsmen.

They went to check if their places were safe for them to return. They didnt go to carry foodstuff because we have been providing food for them: SEMA and the government provide food for them, supported by several people, individuals and groups.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Catholic priest condemn APCs loyalists attack on Bishop Obinna

Tension as dep gov insists on running against Okorochas son-in-law

By Chinonso Alozie

OWERRIA Catholic priest, Reverend Father, Eunan Asomugha, yesterday, condemned verbal attacks on the Archbishop of Owerri Diocese, Anthony J. V. Obinna, by supposed members of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the state.

APC

The Priest, while delivering his sermon at the St Matthew Catholic Church in Ngwoma Obube, Owerri North Local government area, in the state, wondered why people should be angry unnecessarily.

The drama, was said to have taken place on Saturday, during a burial mass of the mother of Mr. Alex Mbata, at St Michaels Catholic Church Ngwoma Obube in Owerri North local government area.

A funeral mass where Okorochas son-in-law, Mr Uche Nwosu, and wife of the governor, Mrs Nkechi Rochas Okorocha, were present.

It started when Bishop Obinna, was said to have encouraged the congregation to ensure that they get their PVC, and vote the right choice for good governance.

He also was said to have mentioned how bad the roads are and advised the authorities to give it maximum attention.

The Bishops lamentation was said to have provoked one of Nwosus loyalists, which escalated and attracted uncomplimentary remarks against the Bishop.

Aside generating heat in the church, parishioners found it difficult to bring the situation under control.

Reverend Father Asomugha, who briefly commented on the matter, in his homily, said: We are ruling with our fist. The Bishop is advocating for the less privileged. They are angry because the Bishop said go and get your PVC, and vote the right person.

Meanwhile, there is tension in the state following the insistence of the Deputy Governor, Prince Eze Madumere, to run for the governorship position.

Mr. Uche Nwosu, son-in-law to Governor Rochas Okorocha, has declared to run for the 2019 governorship election and has got the endorsement of the governor.

Amid the growing tension, another governorship aspirant, Senator Ifeanyi Araraume, said that APC, in the state cannot be under the control of one man.

Recently, Okorocha, who asked Madumere to go for the Senate, said he was going to contest for Imo West Senatorial District with Uche Nwosu contesting for governorship. The arrangement did not go down well with the Deputy, who rejected the Senate offer and insisted on going for the governorship in the interest of Imo people.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | APC chieftain sues NASS over election re-ordering

By Emeka Mamah

ENUGUA chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Chief Anike Nwoga, has filed a suit challenging the bill passed by the National Assembly, NASS, changing the sequence of the 2019 elections as proposed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

Senate

Nwogas Counsel,Godwin Onwusi, filed the suit at the Federal High Court, Enugu, Friday.

Apart from the National Assembly, those joined as defendants in the suit number: FHC/EN/CS/28/2018 are the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, the INEC, and the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, AGF.

The plaintiff who is the Zonal Vice Chairman of the party in Enugu East senatorial district asked the court for an interlocutory injunction restraining President Muhammadu Buhari from giving his assent to the bill passed by the National Assembly changing the sequence of the 2019 elections, when presented to him, pending the determination of the substantive suit.

In his motion on notice brought pursuant to orders 26 and 28 of the Federal High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2009 and under the inherent jurisdiction of the court, Nwoga further prayed the court to restrain the NASS from overriding the Presidents veto, should he decide to do so, pending the determination of the substantive suit.

He further asked for an order of interlocutory injunction restraining INEC from complying with the sequence of elections contained in the bill passed by the NASS, pending the determination of the substantive suit.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Only 10 state houses of assembly have voted on LG autonomy  NULGE

By Precious Nicholas

abujaNigeria Union of Local Government Employees, NULGE, weekend that Local Government Autonomy had not been rejected by states houses of assembly in the on-going constitution amendment process, as been speculated.

NULGE said the bill on local government autonomy was still under consideration by 26 houses of assembly across the country, as only 10 houses of assembly have so far considered the bill and passed it to the Chairman of Conference of Speakers of states houses of assembly for transmission to the National Assembly.

President of NULGE Ibrahim Khaleel gave this explanation to dispel the speculation going on that the states houses of assembly might have rejected local government autonomy, based on the transmission of some bills that have already been considered by the states houses to the National Assembly on Thursday.

He explained that the National Assembly sent 15 different bills to the states houses, of which Local Government Autonomy Bill, is one of them.

Among the 36 states however, only 10 states had considered, as at that Thursday, the Bill on Local Government Autonomy and forwarded it to the Chairman of Conference of Speakers, which was part of what transmitted it to the National Assembly on Thursday.

Among the 10 states that had considered it, eight states: Kwara, Benue, Niger, Plateau, Bauchi, Cross River, Bayelsa and Ogun states voted for local government autonomy while only two states: Edo and Imo, rejected it by voting against it.

Khaleel, who said he had sought clarification from the Chairman, Conference of Speakers and senior officials of the National Assembly, noted that Rivers and Lagos states had not even worked on the Local Government Autonomy Bill, while the remaining 24, who joined the other 10 states to transmit it to the National Assembly, said they had stepped the bill down for further consultation.

According to him: So, 24 states houses of assembly are still working on it, many of them are already holding public hearing on it. That is what is going on.

For example, Sokoto State just conducted public hearing on the bill between Tuesday and Thursday this week. Gombe has just called for memorandum from its citizens on Local Government Autonomy Bill.

Others also differ it to hold public hearing and for further discussions before they vote and forward it to Chairman, Conference of Speakers.

It is just that only eight so far have voted for it among 10 states who have fully considered it. It is possible that we will still get the remaining 16 states, out of the remaining states that have not voted on Local Government Autonomy Bill. We can see that it has not been rejected. So, we cant say local government autonomy has been rejected. It is still work in progress.

He said the Speaker of House of Representatives cannot be blame for the speculation arising from his statement, because of the complexity of the ongoing constitution amendment process.

Khaleed stated that the conference of speakers decided to transmit to the National Assembly, those bills that have already been considered by various states houses, rather than wait till all the states completed works on all the 15 bills.

Even though, this, according to him brings confusion, he stated that the intention of the Conference of Speakers was not to waste time on the exercise.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | 2018 Olumo Festival: Yoruba language, key to development of our race  Alake, Adams

By Dapo Akinrefon

AbeokutaTHE Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, has urged all Yoruba sons and daughters to use the language to promote culture and tradition of the race.

*Oba Michael Adedotun Gbadebo

Speaking at the 2018 edition of the Olumo festival which was organized by the Olokun Festival Foundation in Ikija, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Oba Gbadebo, said the promotion of the Yoruba language is vital to the development of the race.

He said: It is very important for us as a race to revive our culture and tradition. What we are doing today is to celebrate Lisabi who was our progenitor, and at the same time, promote our culture and tradition.

So I think we can always promote our culture and tradition by speaking the Yoruba language regularly to our children.

The monarch, who commended the Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, Aare Gani Adams, for using his financial and human resources in promoting the culture and tradition of the Yoruba race across the south west urged him not to relent in his efforts to make Yoruba land a great race to be reckoned with in the world.

In his remarks, Aare Adams, who is also the Chief promoter of the Olokun Festival Foundation, expressed concern on the way the Yoruba treat their language.

Adams said: The way we handle our language is not too good for us as a race, our language is supposed to be our identity, it is our pride and it is the greatest weapon of security for us a people.

As a culture activist, Chief promoter of the Yoruba culture and tradition, and founder of the Oodua Progressive Union, OPU, it saddens my heart that the Yoruba, with huge population of over 250 million people all over the world, is presently finding it difficult to take its pride of place in the world, he added.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Lobbying, godfatherism behind fallen standard of justice  Ex-CJN

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri

ABUJAThe first female Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar, has attributed the falling standard of justice delivery in the country to lobbying, favouritism and godfatherism in the appointment of judicial officers.

The ex-CJN, who spoke at the official presentation of a book published in honour of a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Clara Ogunbiyi, said she was saddened by the rising culture of lobbying to influence appointments in the judiciary.

*Aloma-Mariam-Mukhtar, CJN: Promises reformation

She said the country would be unable to maintain a strong and competent judiciary, if the current process for the appointment of judicial officers was not re-appraised and sanitised.

Justice Mukhtar, who headed the Nigeria judiciary from 2012 to 2014, said: I will at this juncture re-visit the issue of lobbying, and in addition favouritism and godfatherism in the appointment of Judicial Officers.

It is sad that we allow the rising culture of lobbying to influence appointments in the judiciary. If we are to revive what held sway in the past i.e maintain a strong and competent judiciary then merit should be the watch word.

Lobbying, favouritism, and Godfatherism should be discouraged and discarded, as they lead to the fall in standard, and instead of enhancing the institution they devalue and weaken it because of incompetence of the personnel. These practices negate the principle of justice and breeds indiscipline.

The 66-paged book entitled Honey From The Rock, was unveiled by the former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon (retd) and former Chief of Army Staff/Minister of Defence, General Theophilus Danjuma (retd).

The book captured various challenges encountered by Justice Ogunbiyi, who was the first female from North East of Nigeria to be elevated to the Supreme Court.

Earlier, both Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, SAN, and Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, praised retired Justice Ogunbiyi for her ruling in the ongoing trial of former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government has tamed grand corruption in Nigeria.

Professor Osinbajo gave the statement during an interview he granted a group of journalists and social media practitioners in Lagos on Friday, 2 March 2018.

He explains government policies, the fight against corruption, infrastructural development, 2018 budget, controversies on appointments and the rating by Transparency International

Q: On Nigerias rating by Transparency Internationals Corruption Perception Index.

Vice President: I think that by even Transparency Internationals own assessment, Transparency International uses nine different indexes to come to a conclusion. In four out of those indexes, Nigeria moved up, in another four Nigeria stabilized & dropped in only one index. So in aggregation, it (T.I) then decides that it has fallen in certain number of points below where we were.

I think the important thing to bear in mind about Nigerias anti-corruption fight is that the government has done what it ought to do by focusing on grand corruption. Grand corruption is the type we experienced years before when, for example, $15 billion was lost in defence contract. Two, three weeks to election, N100 billion in cash was taken out, and again $293 million in cash, two weeks, three weeks to election. Thats the kind of impunity. And of course you are also familiar with the scam that went on in the NNPC at the time; the so called statutory contracts, thats grand corruption. That is the corruption that crippled the economy of the country.

Let me tell you very quickly how you can recognise that we have scaled a good deal on grand corruption today: despite the fact that we are earning 60 percent less in revenue, we are actually able to spend more than ever before in the history of this country on infrastructure. In 2017, we spent about N1.3 trillion on capital. Thats the highest in the history of the country. So we are able to do far more with far less because we have controlled the impunity that went on, the grand corruption, and all of that.

Now, how does that translate to perception; because grand corruption is a big aspect of corruption. Its a big one because if you cannot control grand corruption, you cant do what you want to do. But then you cannot address the corruption as you go through our airports, our ports or as you go through government offices, in many cases. Thats where the whole perception emerges.

We must have a deeper and much wider way of dealing with corruption. How are you going to do that? You must have an efficient way of doing that; like automation, removing discretion from individuals.

Q: What is the institutionalised process of fighting corruption?

Vice President: Institutionalisation is not a one-off thing, its a process, and we are dealing with that, thats exactly what we are doing. For example, the TSA and being able to look at government accounts and all of that is one way of institutionalising a process by which you can be sure of what people are doing, how this things are happening. The process of allowing the EFCC to do its work without dictation, saying that look, this what the EFCC is doing, and giving them every support that you can. These are ways of institutionalising. And it is that same process that we are taking in the public service  Automation.

For example, look at all that we have done in the ease of doing business. The whole point of doing that is institutionalising processes, so that when you come into Nigeria you can get your visa after applying online; so that Customs dont have to sit around the airport, that is why we are putting in the I-check and we are putting all sorts of other processes. That is to institutionalise; its not a one-off process.

Q: Whats the national strategy on anti-corruption?

Vice President: Thats a long conversation, but put simply, the national strategy is to ensure that public officers in particular are not able to privatise public finances. And how do we intend to achieve that? We intend to achieve that by ensuring that there is consequence for corruption and also by automating processes, removing discretion from individuals because if you dont remove discretion from individuals the individuals can have discretion as whether or not they will grant certain approvals through certain processes; then you continue to encourage corruption at one level or the other.

In 2017, we spent about N1.3 trillion on capital. Thats the highest in the history of the country. So we are able to do far more with far less because we have controlled the impunity that went on, the grand corruption, and all of that.

Q: Aside from the EFCC, it seems the other anti-corruption agencies such as the ICPC are doing nothing

Vice President: Well, I dont agree. I think that you will find that alongside the work of the EFCC, in fact one of the critical things we do is, we try and re-direct the ICPC. We appointed the executive secretary of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Advisory Council, PACAC, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, to head that body and we believe the ICPC is the important part of the whole fight against corruption. We revamped the leadership of the ICPC. Unfortunately we were stalled because it requires Senate confirmation, that hasnt been done. That is the area of focus for us because the ICPC is supposed to be involved, not just in corruption, but in orientation and re-orientation of the public service. So, its an important part of our work.

Q: Nigerians in diaspora are one of the biggest foreign exchange contributors of about $20 billion. Aside from having a Special Adviser to the President on Diaspora Affairs, does Nigeria have a Diaspora partnership?

Vice President: I think weve also gone beyond the Office of the Adviser; we now have a Diaspora Commission by law, which I think is a policy step. That Commission will aggregate a lot of the records through data for diaspora in order to encourage the diaspora to interact more with government, with private sector and all that. But dont forget that, with the whole diaspora experience and what is in tune with other nations of the world; the usual focus is on remittances; what are they able to remit as it is pointed out, it is a substantial amount of money. It is something in the region of $20 billion.

But it obviously goes beyond that. In developing the economy we also need diasporas talent. So we need diaspora in technology, we need diaspora in education, medical practice and all that. The Ministry of Health, for example, actively engaged with the personnel in diaspora for specialists, setting equipment and all of that. But I believe that one of the most critical ways of doing so is through the diaspora commission, ordering it, measuring it; once that is constituted.

Q: Allegations of nepotism against the Buhari administration.

Vice President: Look at the cabinet, for example, from the point of view of the religion, it has an equal number  18 Christians, 18 Muslims; but, we have the Secretary to the Government of the Federation as well as the Head of Service who are Christians. So we have 20 Christians to 18 Muslims; thats the structure of the cabinet. So if you take that narrative you may argue that perhaps the Christians have the upper hand; thats a possible narrative.

Let us look a little deeper into that, so there are those who may argue, for example, that the north has an upper hand or perhaps one section has an upper hand in the cabinet as one narrative. The South East, for example, has five states. Four of the South Eastern states have senior ministers; all of them, except one, who is Minister of State for Education.

Look at the cabinet, for example, from the point of view of the religion, it has an equal number  18 Christians, 18 Muslims; but, we have the Secretary to the Government of the Federation as well as the Head of Service who are Christians. So we have 20 Christians to 18 Muslims; thats the structure of the cabinet. So if you take that narrative you may argue that perhaps the Christians have the upper hand; thats a possible narrative

Q: The President has no choice in that, it is a constitutional requirement.

Vice President: In assigning particular portfolios he does. In the north, seven northern states have no senior minister, including the Presidents home state, Katsina. Now, there are those who will say, if you are nepotistic; surely seven northern states have no senior minister. Its a narrative depending on how you want to run it.

I give you another example; Im from the South West. There are people who will say I am from the South West, the North has everything. The South West, for the first time in the history of this country, has one Minister who is in charge of three ministries: Power, Works and Housing. The Ministers of Finance & Communications are also from the South West. These are critical ministries. You can run the narrative in whichever way that you choose. There are those who will say, for instance, look at the number of CEOs of agencies of government; the highest number of CEOs in our nation today comes from Ogun State, the state has the largest number. There are those who will say thats his state (i.e VPS State). So you can run the narrative depending on how you want to run it.

The President has admitted that, yes there are situations where you can find certain things as true and he intends to have a look at that. For example, youve given the example of security positions and he said he is going to take a look at look at it. I believe that is the way to go because you can run any narrative that will suit the figures you are showing. And that is where we have legal process. There are people who dont know that the number of CEOs from Anambra State are more than the number of CEOs from Katsina State or anywhere else, except Ogun.

The President has admitted that, yes there are situations where you can find certain things as true and he intends to have a look at that. For example, youve given the example of security positions and he said he is going to take a look at look at it. I believe that is the way to go because you can run any narrative that will suit the figures you are showing

Q: Revamping Nigerias education system.

Vice President: If you will recall about a few months ago, I think it was in January, we had an education retreat; what needs to be done again is to unfold a whole direction in education. We came in with a manifesto on education, we had a few points that we were looking at and we also had some time to look at it. But many of us raised the issue that you dont just pick the whole education; what about engineering because what we are seeing is such a dramatic change, not just in method of instruction in the requirement, job requirement, employment requirement, in technology and all of that, and thats exactly what we are trying to do.

For example, we cannot have primary education the way it is, weve got to teach young people, weve got to introduce technology; youve got to have collaboration in education. We discovered, for instance, when we were doing the N-power  employment for young graduates, we discovered that it was also an opportunity to train the graduates. For the first time we were able to open a portal that has educational materials for graduates to just go in there. We also have devices for them to use.

But one important advantage of what we are doing is that all of a sudden, you can now train tens of thousands of people without sitting them in one place. So technology is going to play a role. We are in a very interesting place in terms of education today because you can leverage a great deal on technology. You can leverage a great deal on what is happening in other parts of the world. And we are trying to harness all of those resources and try to do something that will make a difference in our country. Here we are, in another 10 years we will be moving closer and closer to 2050 when we are going to be the 3rd largest population in the world. And there is almost a 70% youth population. We are not going to provide them with the number of classrooms that will be required, so weve got to really leverage on technology. Weve got to leverage on verified trend that we see here and there.

Q: The delay in 2018 budget.

Vice President: We have a democracy that has, as you know, three arms. The two relevant arms for budget are the executive and legislature. If you recall when I was Acting President, I signed the 2017 budget and, at that time, I made the announcement with the full consensus of the National Assembly that, from 2018, we are going to have a budget that is going to apply in January and end in December the normal financial year. We agreed that we will submit our proposal in good time, and we did that first week of November. The President did so. We fulfilled that part of the agreement. The budget is with the National Assembly. There is very little we can do to control that. Thats the system that we have.

Q: Seeming rift between the Executive arm of Government and the Legislature.

Vice President: Well, Im not so sure that the tensions are unknown. The democratic system anywhere as, for example, in the US where we borrow our bicameral legislature from, you find that despite the fact that the Republican Party controls major part of parliament, it still doesnt mean that bills are necessary going to go through.

So one must assume that the responsibility of the National Assembly is to scrutinise what the executive is doing and not just to be a rubber stamp. But I also agree with you entirely that its important for us, for the sake of our country, our economy and for the sake of many young people who are relying on us to deliver. We ensured that we released our budget on time. I want to believe that the executive has done its part and we wait on the National Assembly.

Q: On Nigerias debt reportedly now being higher than what was inherited by this administration.

Vice President: No, No, I dont think so. First let me explain that we have a government that is very prudent, a government that believes in financial prudence, a government that condemns impunity  the way that the thing was practiced before now, and a government that spends resources on the right thing. For the first time in the history of our country, we are spending about N1.3 trillion on capital; it means that we are investing in the right place. We are not just borrowing money anyhow; no, we are investing in the right place. Every government or most governments anywhere probably look for some points to borrow, but the important thing is what are you borrowing for? And thats why we building the Lagos-Kano rail, doing the Lagos-Calabar rail, the second Niger Bridge and the Mambilla hydro project that has been abandoned for almost 40 years.

We are improving capacities in power, we are investing in social investment, we are investing long-term in the things that will create an economy that can support a large number of young graduates, who are coming in the market every day. Thats a process that needs a lot of thinking; that needs a lot of investment. I think the most important thing is to ask that when there was a N9 trillion debt, where is the infrastructure to account for that? I think that is the most important question to ask. Its not whether you borrow, but what you spend that money on

We are improving capacities in power, we are investing in social investment, we are investing long-term in the things that will create an economy that can support a large number of young graduates, who are coming in the market every day. Thats a process that needs a lot of thinking; that needs a lot of investment. I think the most important thing is to ask that when there was a N9 trillion debt, where is the infrastructure to account for that? I think that is the most important question to ask. Its not whether you borrow, but what you spend that money on. I think we should be able to prove that the earning is 60% less than the earning in the past five six years. So we are spending far more on the right thing and we are able to ensure that we build a future that young people can truly look forward to.

Q: What about the 50% revenue reportedly being spent on settling debts?

Vice President: No, we are not spending 50% of our revenue servicing debt. Let me explain that, we have a deficit somehow in the region of about N2.6 trillion now, a lot of our revenue has to be spent on capital and recurrent, and recurrent is 70% of revenue. But for the first time we are spending 30% on capital. Before now when oil was a $115 a barrel, we were spending 11% or 15% on capital, and capital is the most important expenditure because that is where you do the infrastructure in order to be able to build the economy. So the reality is what we are spending is to provide the infrastructure that will last.

Q: Abduction of 110 Dapchi girls in Yobe and the killings in states like Benue and Zamfara. Why didnt the President or you visit these places?

Vice President: Let me say it first that no amount of condolence can compensate for the loss of life, whether in Calabar, Mambilla or Benue or where people were killed in Adamawa or Zamfara, any of these states. There is no amount of condolence that can compensate for the loss of life. Benue killing is one set of killing far too much; there is no amount of condolence that can compensate for that. And I want to say that its a massive tragedy. But the question that you seem to ask Ive been to Zamfara, Ive been to Adamawa when this killing took place. There are those who said, oh, why dont you visit the Fulani settlement, why do visit only where Christians were? I even visited Benue in September where there have been killing before; then Ive visited them when the flooding took place and we looked at all the issues and tried to address many of these. There have been several of these issues in different places, recently Dapchi. We have expressed condolences, but no amount of condolence would do.

The more important thing, and our focus has been, is first of all ensuring security in these places. We have to address the security question in a much more robust way; that the police are able to do these effectively. We have deployed the military to Kaduna, two battalions to Kaduna. In Benue and Taraba axis, we have the 93 battalion, we have 72 Special Forces. We have full concentration in Taraba and all of that, and by the way, the military is fighting in most of the North East. So there is a situation where the military is overstretched. So I think the most important thing is first of all to ensure they actually address the security of the people.

Q: Nigerians definitely appreciate all you are doing. But they want to see their leaders come to them to grieve with them in the face of national human tragedy

Vice President: Let me say that I definitely agree with you, the more places that we can go to the better. But I made a point earlier that we also have to address the serious concern that people have. We have to address those concerns; we have to address the rehabilitation concern. I am going round and the President is also going round, there is no question at all and I agree that if we go to all these places it would be so much better.President Muhammadu Buhari is expected to pay a visit to Taraba state on Monday, March 5, following the Mambilla killings which occurred in the state.

It had earlier been reported that a fresh violent ethnic clash on the Mambilla Plateau on Sunday, March 4, has reportedly led to the death of twenty people, while about three hundred cows have been rustled.

A resident of the community who fled during the clash, Saadu Magoggo, said that two of his brothers were killed on Saturday evening and their cattle rustled by a group he identified as the Mambilla Militia.

The current clash is sequel to another clash which reportedly occurred on March 1, between the Fulani and Mambilla ethnic stock, leading to the death of about four persons.

According to the report, several houses and other valuables were set ablaze by the warring factions as both sides were said to have recorded casualties.

The crisis which started at Nguroje before spreading to Jakarta villages was reportedly ignited by a dispute over land.

Meanwhile, Governor Abubakar Bagudu of Kebbi has said that the clashes between farmers and herdsmen across the country are not tribal but consequences of climate change.

Bagudu stated this in Birnin Kebbi when the minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, paid him a courtesy visit with a team of journalists.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the minister led journalists to Kebbi for on-hand assessment of the agriculture revolution in the state.

The governor who said that the clashes were misunderstood in many quarters, challenged the media to carry out investigation to ascertain the truth and veracity of his claims.Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu has debunked reports that he cleared the bill for the medical treatment of the presidents son, Yusuf Buhari.

Yusuf was flown abroad for further treatment after he and his friend, Bashir Gwandu, were severely injured along Gwarimpa road in Abuja on December 26, 2017.

Yusuf, who returned to the country last week, was initially admitted at Cedarcrest Hospital, Abuja.

Reacting to news that he funded the cost of the foreign trip and treatment, Kachikwu maintained his detractors were behind the claim.

He said it was the same persons who have been saying that he had intention to run for governor in his home state, Delta that was behind the rumour.

When you add these developments together, then you can see my stand that it is pointless debating with people, who delight in lowly fantasy. They cannot transcend the unfortunate stations of pulling others down, he told Thisday.

Theirs is not to add value but connive with the dissidents of the society to destroy ideas that are development-focused and minds that are progressively sculpted. I do not belong to that class and will therefore not be seen as joining issues with them.

On his alleged political ambition, Kachikwu said: I have refuted this story time and time again, and for the umpteenth time, I want to place it on the record that stories about my governorship bid are sponsored to achieve whatever result.

But the truth is that such stories have nothing to do with me as a person and even curious is that the peddlers are very consistent, meaning it is a calculated falsehood being sold to the public.

I might not have a grasp of why they are doing this, it is not totally true, however that I do not have a clue why they are traveling this route. Unfortunately, it is cheap and undeserving of my precious time.

That I am denying it again does not mean in another one month or two, they would still not dust the story up again, modulate and spin it from yet another angle.

What this means is that those behind the stories are not just idle, they are clearly people of small minds, who have nothing productive and engaging to do but have elected to be canon fodders in the hands of equally feeble minds to fester whatever sinister plans they have.Aisha Wakil, better known as Mama Boko Haram has disclosed that members of Musab al-Barnawi faction of Boko Haram were ready to surrender.

Recall that Wakil had on Friday disclosed Boko Harams intention for the abducted Yobe girls.

However, speaking with Tribune on Saturday, she stated that the sect taht kidnapped 110 Dapchi schoolgirls were not heartless people and were ready to drop their arms and embrace peace.

Wakil, a former member of the Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the Northern region, set up by former President Goodluck Jonathan said the only thing stopping them is the fear of how they would be reintegrated into the society and how the society will see them.

I was shocked, like every other Nigerian, as same history has repeated itself like Chibok girls. I enquired and I was told that it was Habib and co who took the girls.

This is not Habibs habit, son of Mohammed Yusuf. I know he is with Maman Nur one of the peaceful groups of Jamatul Alis Sunna, Liddawati Wul Jihadi. Nur, Habib and group are people with less violence.

Why these Dapchi little girls were taken by them left me with shock. I know, believe and trust that they wont hurt them or hold them long. This group I can beat my chest and tell the world that it needs peace and it wants to stop.

These kids are not heartless people. May Almighty Allah touch the hearts of these dear sons so that they could stop. The whole world is watching. What are they afraid of? Who will touch a surrendered fighter? Do they think the world and I would not be there for them?

Dear sons, my knees are on the ground, my hands up to Allah, begging all of you to stop. Try me your mum, just come out with the girls, please dont do havoc again. From the deep of my heart, I beg with motherly love and tears.

Stop and dont let your sisters stay too long. We are not praying for future occurrences. We need the fight to end peacefully. Every individual in the country, mosques, churches, states the whole country should engage in praying. Stop blaming anyone. I believe if we pray more, God will pour down His grace on us, Nigeria will be better again, Aisha said.

Bashir Manzo, who chairs the association of the affected parents, also speaking said that he would rather wait for any strategy the governor, who is the chief security officer of the state, would adopt, in conjunction with the Federal Government, to get back their kids.

I and my colleagues are the ones with the authentic list of the missing girls, the 84 announced by the government is suspicious because the managers of the school did not tell the governor the truth.

The formation of the association is to ensure justice is done in their struggle in actualising the return of the girls.

One area the parents and the community were concerned was the circumstances surrounding the abduction after the withdrawal of security operatives in Dapchi days before the attack.

It pains them so much; even the governor is pained by it

Another issue of concern to the parents was the arrest of three of their members for allegedly attacking the convoy of the governor the day after the incident. he said.There are strong indications that there could be a mass defection in the Lagos chapter of the ruling All Progressives Congress ahead of the 2019 elections.

The mass defection, our correspondent learnt, is being spearheaded by some aggrieved members of the party over the recent endorsement of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode for second term and Remi Tinubu for third term in the Senate.

The aggrieved members, who described the endorsement as a unilateral decision, are mainly from the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), which merged with the ACN faction to form the current APC in Lagos state.

It will be recalled that at a meeting of the Lagos Central Senatorial District Leadership Forum held at Victoria Island, Lagos a week ago, Prince Tajudeen Olusi (OON) endorsed Ambode and Remi Tinubu for another term.

It was gathered that the development triggered Mr. Fouad Oki and his followers to form a pressure group within the ruling APC in Lagos State.

Members of the group said they might disengage themselves from the extant merger if the leadership of the party in the state continued to make unilateral decisions.

They described the endorsement, which is expected to be formalised during the partys senatorial conference, as undemocratic.

They also called for the interpretation of the merger through necessary instruments.

Speaking on behalf of the aggrieved members, an APC chieftain and former gubernatorial candidate under the defunct CPC in the 2011 election (before the merger in 2015), Ambassador Abayomi Mumuni, berated Prince Olusis announcement and the unilateral endorsement of Governor Ambode and Senator Tinubu.

Mumuni said, We are still experiencing the actions of the ACN, not the merger we signed before the election. If not, why would the party take a unilateral decision by endorsing (defunct) ACN candidates alone without considering the interests of other merging parties who also have candidates?

We may not see a complete APC in Lagos come 2019, as the defunct CPC might consider stepping aside from the merger arrangement except there is an immediate resolution on the interpretation of the merger.

The two-time ANPP senatorial candidate in Lagos Central District explained that the lopsidedness and maltreatment against his members started after the merger was sealed in 2015.

Since the merger, I still perceive myself as CPC because the merger wasnt visible in Lagos. Nothing was offered to us (in CPC) and others (ANPP and part of APGA). We were excluded from the Senate, House of Representatives and State Assembly seats. It was zero patronage by the State Government, he added.

The security expert and author of two books on terrorism expressed disappointment that CPC members in the state were also abandoned by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government.

He wondered why the former presidential flag bearer of the same party (CPC) would abandon his members.

He (Buhari) forgot his constituency, which is the CPC. He is now surrounded by those who called him and his party unprintable names. These same people are telling us that he (Buhari) has mortgaged us (the Southwest CPC). I told them there is no way I would allow the merger to mortgage my people.

Whether we were mortgaged or not, we arent going to take what happened in 2015 come 2019.

Mumuni regretted accepting the mandate to contest as the CPC candidate in the Lagos State governorship election, saying he would have defeated Senator Oluremi Tinubu in the 2011 Lagos Central Senatorial election.

He said, I didnt have the intention to contest against Fashola. My mandate had always been the Lagos Central Senatorial District, which is my constituency. I am a son of the soil. My first election was against Obanikoro of AD in 2003. I contested against Ade Dosumu in 2007. I would have defeated Asiwajus wife in 2011.

But I changed my intention because there was no governorship candidate for the defunct CPC in the South West, except Barrister Shittu in Oyo State. With me, we were the only two CPC gubernatorial candidates that supported President Buharis bid to become Nigerias President. My withdrawal from the senatorial election gave Asiwajus wife an edge in the election.

In 2019, with zero patronage, I dont see the merger happening in Lagos. Actually, we might disengage ourselves from the merger and return to our constituency  the CPC. There are no two ways about that, except there is an immediate resolution and interpretation of the merger.Home | News | General | Alumni association make moves in recovering missing Dapchi girls, discusses plans to end herdsmen-farmers crisis

- The Alumni Association of the National Institute (AANI), has promised to help the federal government in recovering the missing 110 Dapchi girls

- AANI also said it is making moves to resolve the herdsmen-farmers clashes across Nigeria

- Governor Simon Bako Lalong of Plateau state urged the association to keep using different means in ending the clashes

The Alumni Association of the National Institute (AANI), has offered to assist the federal government in ensuring the safe return of the 110 girls recently abducted from the Government Girls Science and Technical College in Dapchi, Yobe state.

Khaleel Bolaji, the AANI president, said this at the 38th annual general meeting of AANI at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) in Kuru near Jos.

Bolaji also said the association was also making contributions to bring an end to the herdsmen-farmers crisis throughout the nation, Daily Trust reports.

READ ALSO: Abducted nurse sends chilling message to family during Boko Haram attack at Rann

He stated that cases such as the kidnapping of the girls by Boko Haram terrorists and the persistent herdsmen-farmers clashes were to be discussed during the business session of the alumnis meeting.

Jonathan Juma, the acting director general of NIPSS, had earlier said the institutes research directorate hosted a session on the conflict on the theme: Sedentary Farmers and Nomadic Herders Conflict in Nigeria: Towards a Strategic Response. Juma said the institute will send a policy brief to the government on the development.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet!

Governor Simon Bako Lalong of Plateau state urged AANI to use such forums to proffer solutions that will assist government at all levels to put an end to the crisis.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had reported that the presidency had revealed why Boko Haram terrorists managed to abduct the 110 schoolgirls in Dapchi.

The personal assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on social media, Lauretta Onochie, said system failure led to the recent abduction of school girls in the northeast region.

What is the problem with Nigeria? | Street Gist On NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | PDP vows to defeat APC in 2019 presidential election by securing 65% of votes

- Edo state chapter of the PDP has advised President Buhari not to be deceived by the promise made by Governor Godwin Obaseki to him if he seeks re-election in 2019

- PDP said Obaseki promised the president that the state will deliver 1.2 million votes to him

- The party, however, promised to deliver over 65% of the votes to PDP in the election

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo state said President Mohammed Buhari should not to believe the promise by the state Governor Godwin Obaseki that the state would deliver 1.2 million votes to him in the 2019 general election.

Vanguard reports that the PDP vowed that it would defeat the All Progressive Congress (APC) in the election by securing 65% of the votes.

The state chairman of the PDP Dan Orbih made the promise of 1.2million votes made by Obaseki was empty and unrealistic.

READ ALSO: National Assembly to override President Buhari's rejection of Peace Corps bill

He, however, urged President Buhari not to be deceived by the governors promise.

Orbih spoke while addressing PDP youths in Benin City at a conference tagged: Youth and Leadership: Waking Up The Sleeping Giant.

He noted that in the last presidential election conducted under former Governor Adams Oshiomhole, the APC secured 45 percent of the votes while the PDP got 56 percent.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app

According to him, ''I listened to governor Obaseki promising Buhari 1.2 million votes in Edo State in the next presidential election. Let me use this opportunity to say the statement by Godwin Obaseki is an empty promise. Godwin Obaseki is a man with a very short memory.

In the last presidential election where Buhari was the presidential candidate in Edo state, Edo PDP delivered 56 percent of the votes to Goodluck Jonathan while APC deliver only 45 percent to Buhari and this was under Adams Oshiomhole spending the state funds and they did not defeat us during the presidential election.''

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had reported that the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha said that re-electing President Buhari in 2019 would be of benefit to the quest by the southeast to produce the president of the country.

Mustapha made the statement at the weekend, at a reception organised for the permanent secretary, cabinet affairs office, Georgina Ehuria, by the former governor of Abia state, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu.

2019 Presidency: Nigerians reveal why they prefer Atiku to President Buhari on NAIJ.com TV:

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Herdsmen-farmers crisis: FG steps in; set to rebuild houses destroyed in Southern Kaduna

- Following a committee assessment, the federal government would rebuild houses destroyed in Southern Kaduna during the clash between farmers and herdsmen

- The govt reportedly intends that all those affected by the conflict are rehabilitated by way of rebuilding the structures destroyed, so that they can come continue with their normal lives

- Before the development was made public, some victims of the attack had already been making plans to rebuild their structures

The federal government has pledged to rebuild houses destroyed during herdsmen-farmers clashes in parts of Southern Kaduna, an official said on Monday, March 5, NAN reports.

The pledge was made when the Presidential Committee on Herdsmen-Farmers Clashes headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo assessed the level of destruction in affected communities in the area.

READ ALSO: Abducted nurse sends chilling message to family during Boko Haram attack at Rann

NAIJ.com gathers that Mr James Akujobi, who led the assessment committee to Kaduna state, told newsmen in Kafanchan that the aim was to ensure that victims resume back their normal lives.

Akujobi, an Executive Director at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said the team was in Southern Kaduna to evaluate the level of destruction recorded, with a view to rebuilding affected structures and rehabilitating those affected.

It is the intention of the government that all those affected by the conflicts are rehabilitated by way of rebuilding the structures destroyed so that they can come back to their homes and continue with their normal lives, he said.

The official assured that the federal government would fast track action to ensure that members of the affected communities, especially farmers, return to their normal activities.

Also, Executive Secretary of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Mr Ben Kure, said the agency would provide the necessary assistance to the presidential committee to achieve its purpose.

As a host agency, SEMA is playing the role of providing the needed logistics that would make the work of the visiting team easier.

We will assist the committee to arrive at a comprehensive and detailed assessment of the affected locations, he said.

Earlier, Malam Tanko Tete, the Tum Ninkyob of Kaninkon Chiefdom, said at his palace in Bakin Kogi, that the setting up of the committee demonstrated the federal governments concern for the people.

He said that members of the community had been praying for such intervention which would bring succour to victims.

It has not been easy with the victims even though some were already making plans to rebuild their structures, he said.

The committee plans to visit Ninte, Ungwan Ajo, Golkofa, Godogodo, Dogon Fili, Gadabiyu, Anton, Pasakori, Kario, Dalle, Asso, Goska, and Dangoma in Jemaa local government.

It will also visit Tachira, Tsonje, Adu, Tafan, Kukum Daji, Kukum Gida, Agban, A. A Abbas Filling Station, Takad, Garaje, Ashim, Mifi and Zilan in Takad Chiefdom all in Kaura local government.

In Zangon Kataf local government area, communities to be visited included, Samaru Kataf, Katsit and Zonkwa; while in Kauru local government, the committee will assess damages in Ungwan Magaji, Ungwan Rimi, Kaziti, Kigbeni and Kigam communities.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com previously reported that the people of Southern Kaduna said they were ready to dialogue with Fulani herdsmen if that would bring lasting peace to the region.

According to them, it was left to the governor of the state to bring such people to the negotiation table.

The people however claimed that some eminent people in Kaduna state were biased, given their volatile statements concerning the attacks.

Nigerian herdsmen vs Nigerian farmers - on NAIJ.com TV:

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Finally! Presidency reveals why 110 schoolgirls were abducted in Dapchi

- An aide to President Muhammadu Buhari has revealed why 110 schoolgirls were abducted from Dapchi

- Lauretta Onochie said system failure led to the recent abduction of school girls from Government Girls' Science and Technical College, Dapchi in Yobe state.

- She said if those responsible for protecting the Chibok girls were punished after the 2014 abduction, the Dapchi incident would not have happened

The presidency has revealed why Boko Haram terrorists managed to abduct 110 schoolgirls from Government Girls' Science and Technical College, Dapchi in Yobe state.

The personal assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on social media, Lauretta Onochie said system failure led to the recent abduction of school girls in the north east region.

In a series of tweet on Monday, March 5, Onochie while condemning the latest attack in Taraba state which left 20 people killed described such acts as evil.

READ ALSO: NASS to override President Buhari on Peace Corps bill

Bemoaning the failure to appropriately punish people who do wrong, the presidential aide said if those who were saddled with the responsibility of protecting the Chibok girls abducted on April 14, 2014 were punished, the Dapchi abduction would not have happened.

Onochie said: "We have a culture of not punishing those who do wrong. Consequently, we experience system failures. If those whose duty it was to protect the Chibok Girls were arrested, tried and jailed, we would have been saved the repeated agony of the Dapchi Girls. No consequences meted."

The presidential aide also alleged that the 2014 abduction of over 200 schoolgirls were swept under the carpet by the past administration despite world outrage.

READ ALSO: Ethnic violence: 20 people reportedly killed, 300 cows stolen in fresh clash in Taraba

She accused the past administration of having lived in total denial on issues surrounding the abduction of the girls.

Onochie added that despite the effort of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, the present government is constantly being abused and harassed for upholding justice and fighting corruption.

She warned that unless the Nigerian state and its people resort to allowing the law take its cause such crimes and possibly more abduction by the terrorist group will continue.

"We are abused & intimidated & harassed when we publish the series of victories recorded by agencies responsible for recovering our stolen funds from those who stole our common wealth and left us in abject poverty.

"Stop playing blame games", they tell us. For them, it's a game

Unless we allow the law to go after the smell of crimes by punishing those who break our laws, irrespective of their status and who they know in our nation, the system that failed the Chibok and the Dapchi Girls will continue unabated. Sadly, lives will continue to be lost," Onochie said.

See her tweets below:

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

READ ALSO: Obasanjo at 81: 7 amazing facts that make Obasanjo one of the most powerful men in the world

NAIJ.com earlier reported that a lawmaker had blamed President Buhari over the abduction of the girls from the school in Dapchi, Yobe state.

Oladipupo Adebutu, who represents Remo federal constituency at the House of Representatives said the president weakness contributed to the abduction.

Adebutu also called for the resignation of President Buhari should his administration fail to rescue the girls.

Nigerians react as Boko Haram terrorists kidnap over 100 girls in Dapchi, Yobe | Street Gist on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | PDP chieftain urges Gov. El-Rufai to reinstate over 4,000 sacked district heads

A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna State, Dr Jaafaru Saad, on Monday urged Gov. Nasir El-Rufai to reinstate the more than 4,000 districts and ward heads recently sacked by the state government.

Saad, who holds the traditional title of Galadiman Ruwan Zazzau, made the call in an interview with Newsmen in Kaduna on the recent crisis in Kasuwan Magani, Kajuru Local Government Area of the state.

Nasir-El-Rufai

According to him, the traditional rulers are key instruments in conflict resolution at local level, as such their sack by the governor has created a huge vacuum in the security architecture of the state.

Our traditional leaders are closer to the people than the government, and the structure of the traditional system made it possible for disagreement to be resolved even at ward heads level, he said.

Sa ad expressed the belief that the reinstatement of the sacked traditional rulers would help in averting crisis and attendant loss of lives and properties as witnessed in Kasuwan Magani.

The PDP chieftain, who is also a governorship aspirant under the party, urged the National Orientation Agency (NOA) and other relevant state organs to intensify campaigns on peaceful coexistence among communities in the country.

He said that the Kasuwan Magani crisis, which led to huge human and material losses, was a clear indication that much needed to be done to reorient the psyche of Nigerians against any form of tribal or religious violence.

According to him, NOA and other relevant state organs must step up efforts to promote tolerance and mutual respect for religious and traditional beliefs and values in the country.

We are in a democratic system that guarantees freedom of religious practices and other fundamental human rights, as such, people needs to know their rights and how not to infringe on other persons rights.

It is not healthy that we are still divided along religious lines, which push us to fight each other at the slightest provocation. This is not helping us as a nation and as a people.

We must intensify awareness campaign on virtues such as forgiveness, tolerance and love, and learn to embrace dialogue whenever there is disagreement, he said.

Saad also called for the creation of inter-religious forum at the community level to discuss issues affecting unity and conflict resolution.

He stressed that only dialogue would prevent physical lashes because of disagreements, adding that the absence of a forum for dialogue makes many multi-religious and multi-ethnic communities in the state vulnerable to conflicts.

Traditional, religious and youths leaders could meet from time to time to discuss and agree on matters affecting their mutual interests and forestall conflict.

This is because conflict of whatever nature, usually takes religious dimension in this country with unimaginable consequences, he noted.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Omoku: Now we can join APC and not get killed -ONELGA residents

By Egufe Yafugborhi

PORT HARCOURT  RESIDENTS across Ogba Ndoni Egbema local government area, ONELGA, Rivers state, has expressed relief that they can now publicly declare membership of the All Progressives Congress, APC, without hitherto risk of being targeted and killed by partisan rivals.

The people expressed the relief at a gathering in Omoku, ONELGA headquarters, where the party chieftain and Chief Medical Director, University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Prof Henry Ugbomah, admitted 100 new members including defectors from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the APC.

APC

Chief Ugbomah noted that frequent politically motivated brutal killings before and after the 2015 general elections carried out by the terror gang of now eliminated Johnson Igwedibia, a.k.a. Don Waney largely targeted APC members and consequently deterred the people from voting for the party during elections.

Ugbomah said, The bloodsuckers who kept us in prison are no longer there. They have gone into the abyss of hell. We know how they killed Chief Anidu and several APC leaders and followers. We know who the killers were and their sponsors.

Nobody would have thought APC could gather here like this and say we are fed up with PDP. Say it before now, your head would be off your shoulders the next day. Thanks God the days of hiding because of killers are over.

Now the heat is on their sponsors. Anyone who shared blood of the innocent in ONELGA will not go unpunished unless he truly repents. I urge you all to now freely preach the gospel of change. I was part of them, but left when the killing was too much. They know we will vote them out in 2019

Queen Azubuike, one of the new APC entrants revealed that, I had long been interested in joining the APC, but I couldnt because of the way people were being killed. I am happy today that a Professor of Medicine has come out to encourage us. I will be active from now on

The event was organized in furtherance of the pro-APC group, Free Rivers Development Initiatives drive to mobilize as many members for the APC towards wrestling power from the ruling PDP in the state.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Saudi Arabia donates $10m arms, relief aid to Nigeria

By: Kingsley Omonobi

Abuja  Following the worsening humanitarian crises being experienced in the camps of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) across the North East in the war against Terrorism, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has risen to Nigerias aid with the provision of $10million.

Saudi Arabia Salman

Leader of a Saudi Arabian delegation who announced the aid package at the ministry of Defence, during a visit to Mansur Muhammad Dan Ali on Monday, Nasir Bin Mutlak, disclosed that the aid package which is in cash and military equipment was aimed at assisting the IDPs in the north east in particular as well as other essential needs of the military.

Our country (Saudi Arabia) and Nigeria have continued to have very good relationship. Our mission in the ministry of Defence is to help our brothers in the IDP camps in the North East. The $10million is from the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center and the Saudi Development Fund.

It is meant to show solidarity with Nigeria in the fight against terrorism and to show support in aid of the IDPs who are going through some sufferings.

Mutlak also said that the delegation would visit the states in the North East affected primarily by Boko Haram to ascertain the level of support to be provided to ease the effect of the insurgency destruction on those states and report back to their country.

Responding, Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali commended the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the huge support to Nigeria at this time noting that aside assisting in tackling challenges at IDP camps, it will go a long way in helping to acquire strategic military equipment needed to tackle the terrorists challenges.

He said, Nigeria really values the alliance between our countries to fight terrorism. As you may be aware, we have the Multi-national Joint Task Force MNJTF, comprising Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin Republic fighting to stop the spread and advancement of terrorism in the region.

Consequently, the humanitarian crises goes even beyond Nigeria. We have refugees from Cameroon, Chad and Niger, worsening the already tough situation with IDPs in the country. Your intervention will go a long way in helping us tackle these challenges.

However, I will still call on your government to consider other areas where you can still be of assistance because the challenges are enormous. These areas include provision of military hardware, Intelligence sharing and training, the minister said.

Other members of the Saudi Arabia delegation were Khalid Bim Abdulrahman Al-Mani and Muhammad Bin Addidat Al-Namla.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Dapchi girls: Extend search to Gashak Gumti park following suspected helicopter landing  Villagers

By John Mkom, Jalingo.

Villagers from Maidanu hamlet in Gashaka local government area of Taraba state have called on the Federal Government to extend search for the recent kidnapped Dapchi girls to Gashaka National Gumrti Park following the recent visit to the Park by an unknown helicopter.

Prsident Buhari and Dapchi school girls

Gashaka Gumti National Park is the Nigerian largest National Park that covers 6600 land square meter at Nigeria/Cameroon bolder, the land is eighteen times more than Lagos state.

The villagers who spoke to Vanguard confirmed the constant landing of a suspected helicopter in the Gashaka Gumti Park said the activities of the unknown helicopter indicates that people are being feed or suspected criminal activities were going on in the Park.

Mallam Ajamu Usman a villager from Maidanu who spoke to Vanguard disclosed that on the 1/3/2018 a helicopter landed at a very high mountain which is located deep inside the National Park around 6 pm and left after two hours.

We were at a lower mountain for hunting late in the evening on Wednesday, we were eleven, we saw the helicopter landing on the third mountain, the area is a difficult terrain that one can hardly trace what is happening

Of recent, there have been high level of criminal activities by unknown gun men in the Park, there has been very high level of robbery and kidnapping that is been conducted in the Park, there is also numerous wildlife animals in the Park which hardly allow human beings to go round

The same helicopter came back some days ago at about 8 pm and left around 9 pm, another one came around 5 am and left 6 30 am the day, the constant visits of the helicopter is indicating that something suspicious in happening in the area

Vanguard, investigation revieiled that more than eight persons who were kidnapped and taken to Gashaka Park pay ransome before they were freed, these same people who spoke to Vanguard disclosed that they were taken toward Maidanu forest.

One of the kidnapped victims who refused to give his name for security reasons said his kidnappers did not wear mask, he said he could not know any of them nor understand the language which his kidnappers were speaking, he doubted if they were speaking any of Nigerian languages.

Book Haram have relocated to Gashaka Gumti Park with their activities, they are kidnapping people and collecting money to help their lively hood, I have names of those who were kidnapped

Tanko Mamuda Karanti, the younger brother of the Taraba state commissioner for ministry of Social Development Mr. Musa Karamti was kidnapped and Ransome was paid, Tanko is the village head (Joro) of Karanti

Mr. Aloy, an Igbo business man, Mr. Francis also an Igbo business man, Nyako Mbanga, Mr. Emmanuel, all the people of Karanti area were kidnapped between December last year to February this year

Others who were kidnapped includes Matan Sabo, and Mallam Giwa, a timber dearer, he was kidnapped at Jimtari, all these people I mentioned were taking to that same direction and they told us the same story which I have told you here

Two things need to be checked, both Book Haram and armed Fulani men are grouping in that difficult terrain, the federal government must take these things seriously so as to check insecurity in Gashaka and at Mambila Plateau

The chairman Gashaka local government council Mallam Muhammed Gayam confirmed that there have been a high level of criminal activities in the Gashaka Gumti park.

Although the chairman could not confirm the landing of the suspected helicopter, he said that kidnapping and robbery activities were on a high rate in the Park.

Muhammed said the council has organized prayers in Churches and Mosques for Gods intervention over the matter.

He further said security were mobilized to check the criminal activities happening in the Park.

It will be recalled that sometimes in 2017, there was a report of a suspected landing of a helicopter within Gashaka Gumti National park, a development that triggered series of checks by security men.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Saraki, double payment and former governors

By Femi Salako

THE passage of a bill by the Kwara State House of Assembly stopping pension to former governors and their deputies holding public offices is in the best interest of Nigerians. An action believed to have been influenced by Dr. Bukola Saraki, who was governor of Kwara, the Senate President has charged the remaining Houses of Assembly across the country to take a cue and save money for their respective states.

The bill was passed by the House of Assembly on February 27. Saraki subsequently issued a statement to commend the Kwara Assembly Speaker, Ali Ahmad, for ensuring the passage. While Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed is expected to swiftly give his assent to this bill, the Chairman of the National Assembly deserves huge commendation for his rare demonstration of selflessness by influencing the action of the lawmakers.

The Senate President had said in his statement: I am pleased that following my conversation with Kwara Speaker, Ali Ahmad, two months ago, the bill to suspend the payment of pension to former governors and their deputies when they hold a political or public office was passed into law yesterday by the Kwara House of Assembly.

It is without doubt that many more acts of conscionable sacrifice by political elites in Nigeria, as exemplified by Saraki, would go a long way to make the country a better place. It would be recalled that the senator held the reins of government in Kwara from 2003 to 2011 and he has since represented Kwara Central in the Senate.

The self-seeking design of some former governors to keep feeding already fattened cows had recently been roundly condemned by Nigerians when it became public knowledge; but none of the concerned individuals, except Saraki, has thought it necessary to act in the interest of the masses. The Senate President could have as well chosen to turn deaf ears to the hues and cries against this double payment like his other colleagues in the National Assembly.

There are currently not less than 20 serving senators who are former governors and deputy governors.

Those in this category include Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso from Kano, Kabiru Gaya from Kano, Godswill Akpabio from Akwa Ibom, Theodore Orji from Abia and Abdullahi Adamu from Nasarawa. Others are Sam Egwu from Ebonyi, Shaaba Lafiagi from Kwara, Joshua Dariye from Plateau, Jonah Jang from Plateau, Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko from Sokoto, Ahmed Sani Yarima from Zamfara, Danjuma Goje from Gombe, Bukar Abba Ibrahim from Yobe, Adamu Aliero from Kebbi and George Akume from Benue.

The former deputy governors are Biodun Olujimi from Ekiti and Enyinnaya Abaribe from Abia. Danladi Abubakar Sani who served as the Acting Governor of Taraba State is also a serving senator.

Meanwhile, the double payment suspension bill, as advocated by Saraki, also concerns former governors who are Ministers in the cabinet of President Muhammadu Buhari. They include Dr. Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Productivity; Dr. Kayode Fayemi, Minister of Steel; Rotimi Amaechi, Transport Minister and Mr Babatunde Fashola (SAN), Minister for Power, Works and Housing.

It is left to be seen if any of the senators and ministers earning double payment could in good conscience rationalise this abnormality. There is just no way that these public office holders will not in the inner recesses of their minds give credit to Saraki for aligning with fairness and godliness.

The pension law in favour of former governors and their deputies in Akwa Ibom State provides for them equivalent to the salaries of the incumbent as their monthly pensions. The pension package includes a new official car and a utility vehicle every four years. This is in addition to one personal aide, a cook, chauffeurs and security guards at a sum not exceeding N5 million per month and N2.5 million for the deputy governor.

The situation is not any different in other states of the federation. The monetary compensation and the total package for former governors and their deputies are even far more humongous in financially buoyant states like Lagos. Bearing these facts of opulence of former governors and the impoverished governed populace in mind, the call by Saraki for the double payment suspension is as justifiable and as reasonable.

The Senate President has evidently risen far taller than holier-than-thou claimants to moral scruples.

Mr Salako, a public affairs analyst, wrote from Akure, Ondo State.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Breaking: Gunmen kidnap Kano govt official, demand N20m ransom

By AbdulSalam Muhammad

KANO  Unknown gunmen have abducted a top official of Kano SUBEB, Alhaji Uba Muhammad and demanded N20m ransom.

Alh. Uba Muhammad who is the Secretary of Kano state Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) was whisked away by unknown persons at gunpoint in the early hours of Saturday at his Shiye village, Bunkure local government area of Kano state.

A family member who pleaded anonymity told Vanguard that his brother has been in captivity since last weekend .

The family source further disclosed that the abductors have demanded a ransom of N20m to set him free.

He confided in Vanguard that the case has been reported to the police, as he added that concern authorities are responding to the demand.

It was a shocking news on Saturday when the development was reported to the board. He was kidnapped at his village where, he mostly, spend his weekend. 

We were told by the family that some people invaded the family house with guns and took him away. We have already reported the case to the government and relevant security apparatus and we hope the man will be rescued soonest. Family source noted .

When contacted on phone, Police Public Relations Officer, DSP. Magaji Musa Majia confirmed the development, as he assured the police commitment to rescued the victim alive.

Reacting to the demand of N20m ransom, Majia said the police was informed by the family member who came to lodge the complaint.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Jubilation among Saudi women as government lifts car ban on them, appoints a female to a top official post for the first time

- A Saudi Arabian Woman, Eman Al-Ghamidi has been appointed to assume a top government post for the first time in the history of the country

- Al-Ghamidi got the appointment just hours after the car ban on women in the country was removed

- Women in the country said that the developments will spearhead total female liberation in the country and allow them to exercise their full rights

A Saudi woman, Eman Al-Ghamidi, has for the first time been appointed to take over to a senior government post for the first time, authorities said shortly after a ban on women drivers was lifted as the conservative kingdom takes steps to modernise its image.

Being the origin of Islam, Saudi Arabia had been globally condemned as the only country in the world that prohibits women from driving cars, a culture with some human rights activists see as an indication of Riyadhs low regard for women, Reuters reports.

READ ALSO: Catholic priest condemn APCs loyalists attack on Bishop Obinna

Just after King Salman proclaimed the end of the ban, the government announced that a woman had been appointed as assistant mayor of Al Khubar governorate.

The center for international communication at the ministry of culture and information said in a statement: "Eman Al-Ghamidi was given the post as part of plan to boost the number of females in leadership positions in line with Vision 2030."

The Saudi government has said Vision 2030, a ideology of economic and social reforms, will raise womens quota of the labour market to 30 per cent from the present 22 per cent.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet!

The news of the removal of the car ban for Saudi women inspired jubilation among them, despite the fact that their driving licences will not be released until after nine months.

Allowing women drive could at last remove the obstacles to their full right to education, employment and even medical treatment.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com reported that working with the World Conference for Islamic Youths, a medical team from Saudi Arabia comprising five Saudi eye surgeons, had conducted free eye surgery for 515 patients in Kano state.

NAIJ.com noted that the announcement was contained in a statement by the Saudi vice consul, Yousef Ibrahem Alghamdi.

What is working well and what needs improvement in Nigeria? - On NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | A collection of the most interesting Hausa novels blogs

So, you are interested in the best Hausa novels? Then, welcome to the list of the most popular websites that will offer your attention the most interesting, catching, and popular Hausa novels. These blogs are easy to find but hard to leave! Just check them out!

A collection of Top Hausa novel blogs

Heres a list of the most popular and interesting Internet blogs with Hausa novels. If you are looking for some nice reading, be sure to visit them and find something to your liking.

Hausanovels4u

This is a blog that welcomes you in the land of Hausa reading to meet all tastes and demands. You can find novels about the faith in the Almighty and about the simple human love, about living a righteous life, and about acquiring wisdom. Check out this wonderful blog and have a nice piece of reading!

Aishaummi

A blog managed by a teenager who just loves writing and wants to share some emotions, thoughts, and sense of the world with interested people.

READ ALSO: How many languages in Nigeria?

Zahramuhammadmahmud

Another blog conducted by a female Hausa author whos offering her writing to all those who are interested. Delicious pieces of Hausa language reading are waiting for you!

Jeeddahaleeyu

One more creative teenagers blog whos eager to share some writing with the world. You are welcome to this blog with your desire to support the Hausa language and culture, your love for fine reading, and your desire to sympathize with the chief characters of the novel!

Gidannovels

One of the best Hausa novel blogs and one of the most complete compilations of somebodys works. Here you can enjoy numerous stories with diverse plots and characters. Just visit the blog and choose a novel to your liking!

Billytabaco

One more teenage author whos writing in the Hausa language and keeping the tradition of his native people. Welcome here and enjoy some modern writing from the point of view of a young person with a fresh world outlook!

MrSumaru

This big Hausa novel blog with numerous pieces of interesting reading is waiting for those who want to find some pleasant pastime. The talent of this author will call you to join the characters in their adventures, life situations, and problems.

Hausa Novels & others

This is a blog for those who have a Facebook profile. You are free to browse the downloaded stories, share them, like them, and even post your own ones.

Where to look for other best Hausa novels?

Well, you can always find any possible Hausa novel website if you browse the Internet with the help of a search engine. Just start your search, and you will always find numerous blogs, web pages, social network communities and entire websites dedicated to the Hausa writing.

If you are interested in such websites and pages where you can post your own writing, you are welcome to Blogspot. Everything you need to do is create an account. You may even use a working nickname so that nobody knows who you are. You should feel free to post everything you want (however, only in case it belongs to you and is not a copied piece from another author).

This is how your own texts in the Hausa language can be published on the web for all those who are interested in such reading. Take your time and enjoy your reading!

READ ALSO: Modes of communication in Hausa

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Opinion: Christians are idol worshipers By Femi Aribisala

Editor's note: Popular Nigerian atheist, Femi Aribisala, writes on Christian religion.

He highlights on worshipping God and how most Nigerian Christians worship money which he describes as idol.

Atheism does not exist. Man is a worshiper. Everybody worships. The critical question is who or what we worship. I went to buy blank videotapes in a van emblazoned with Christian VideoNet on both sides.

When I came out of the van, an Asiatic gentleman engaged me in friendly banter. He was clearly not a Christian, but I soon got the impression he was in the marketplace for a new religion. He did not wait for me to witness to him.

Having seen the insignia on the van, he wanted me to tell him about Christianity. But then he had some vital questions he wanted cleared up right at the onset.

Mr Ernest Okorie and others of St Dominic Church Young Christian Workers performed the Passion of Jesus as Christians all over the world mark Good Friday the day Jesus Christ was crucified yesterday.

Your religion, he asked, does it allow you to drink alcohol? Yes, I replied expansively, we even drink wine in church. Wonderful, wonderful, said my new-found friend, brightening up. Then he asked: How many gods do you have?

I was a bit slow on the uptake and did not quite understand what he was getting at. What do you mean how many gods do I have? I asked incredulously. Yes, yes, the man replied, without any hint of mischief. How many gods do you have? I have only one God, I insisted marvelling at him.

Only one? he asked in disbelief. You have only one God? Well, yes, I replied, now defensive. I have only one God. The man shook his head in a way that said eloquently: Forget it. I imagine him saying to himself: What is the point of a religion where you only have one God? That is simply too risky. What if he happens to be busy at any given time? On later reflection, I came to the conclusion that it was a god-sent question. Therefore, I pose the same question here: How many gods do you have?

Do you even know how many gods you worship? Idol worship One of the most important subjects that Jesus addresses in the scriptures is idol worship. One of the Ten Commandments of God says: I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:2-3). Atheism does not exist. Man is a worshiper. Everybody worships. The critical question is who or what we worship.

We either worship the one true God or we worship idol gods. Says John Calvin: The heart of man is an idol factory. Left to himself, without divine revelation, man will worship almost anything. We worship what we highly esteem.

For this reason, Jesus says: What is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. (Luke 16:15). Jesus himself faced the challenge of idol worship at the very inception of his ministry: The devil took him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, All these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me.

READ ALSO: Top medical researchers discover HIV antibody that proves effective without the use of pills

Then Jesus said to him, Away with you, Satan! For it is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only you shall serve. (Matthew 4:8-10). Many people, including those who call themselves Christians, have accepted the devils offer. We worship the devil and his things instead of the one true God. Thus, Jesus counsels: Store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:20-21). It goes without saying that God is the only real treasure we have. Every other so-called treasure is ephemeral. God is: the Desire of All Nations. (Haggai 2:7). Accordingly, John warns all believers: Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. (1 John 2:15-16). Idols of the heart Jesus told a Samaritan woman: You worship what you do not know; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews. (John 4:22). The same conundrum applies today. Many presume salvation is of the Italians or the Romans, but it is not.

Salvation is of the Jews. For this reason, Roman Catholicism is full of idol worship. God says: You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God. (Exodus 20:4-5).

But Roman Catholics have deliberately removed this injunction from their own non-scriptural version of the Ten Commandments, so that the people would be unaware that they are contradicting it.

As a result, the making of idols is very big business in Rome, and the worship of idols is standard fare in Catholicism. However, the problem is not limited to Roman Catholics. It is a general predicament among all Christians.

The problem with idol worship is that many who worship idols are unaware that they are worshiping idols. Many worship God while also worshiping idols. But when we worship God and other gods simultaneously, we become idol worshipers.

Thus it is said of the people of Samaria: They feared the LORD, yet served their own gods- according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away. (2 Kings 17:33). Even more fundamental is the fact that many of the idols worshiped today are not physical idols: they are idols of the heart. God identifies this tendency to Ezekiel: Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces. (Ezekiel 14:3).

These idols are strongholds set up in our hearts and minds that prevent us from growing in the knowledge of God, and from seeing the glory of God in our lives.

READ ALSO: To fight Boko Haram, assist IDPs, Saudi Arabia gives Nigeria N3.6 billion

Thus, Paul says we should cast down: imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians: 10:5). Worship of money

One of the idol gods that Christians have been seduceed into worshiping is mammon; the god of money.

Paradoxically, this worship even takes place during church services. Today, everything is upside down. People go to church to pray for money, to invest money and to learn about how to make money. God has become second-place; simply an instrument for the acquisition of money.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app

Mercenary pastors now claim the gospel gives us the power to get wealth. In his book, The $elling of Je$u$, Victor Bryditzki observes cryptically that: Je$u$ is a multi-billion dollar industry, expanding into places where angels (and sober Christians) fear to tread.

But the word of Jesus remains sure, having this seal|: No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. (Luke 16:13).

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of NAIJ.com.

Your own opinion articles are welcome at info@corp.naij.com drop an email telling us what you want to write about and why. More details in Naij.coms step-by-step guide for guest contributors.

Were ready to trade your news for our money: submit news and photo reports from your area using our Citizen Journalism App.

Contact us if you have any feedback, suggestions, complaints or compliments. We are also available on Twitter. Smartphones giveaway.

How we fed, clothed over 17,000 widows with about N60million - on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Fact check: Is it true that Thailands rice mills have collapsed as claimed by Ogbeh?

Audu Ogbeh, the minister of agriculture, On Friday, March 2 claimed that Thailand has accused President Muhammadu Buharis government of being responsible for the collapse of seven of its rice mills.

Ogbeh quoted the Thailands ambassador to Nigeria as saying that the federal government has dealt with his country.

The minister said this was because Nigerias importation of rice has fallen by 95%.

He further added that unemployment rate has risen by four percent in Thailand.

His words: Just like two weeks ago, the ambassador of Thailand came to my office and said to me that we have really dealt with them.

READ ALSO: Ethnic violence: 20 people reportedly killed, 300 cows stolen in fresh clash in Taraba

But I asked what did we do wrong and he said unemployment in Thailand was one of the lowest in the world, 1.2 percent, it has gone up to four percent because seven giant rice mills have shut down because Nigerias import has fallen by 95 percent on rice alone.

The agriculture minister has made two claims from this report: claim one; collapse of seven rice mills in Thailand, claim two; unemployment in Thailand has risen to four %.

Are these two claims true?

NAIJ.com brings you the facts as checked by the Cable Newspaper.

Claim one: Collapse of seven rice mills in Thailand

According to the Cable, the ministers claim that seven rice mills collapsed in Thailand owing to Nigerias low patronage could not be verified.

Instead, Thailands export has reportedly continued to grow. The Nation Thailand reported that overall exports in January 2018 alone rose to 17.6% with an income of $20.101 billion.

Significantly, rice exports reportedly grew to 37.2% year-on-year.

This is an indication that rice mills are not collapsing in Thailand. Instead, rice producers in the country may need to build more mills to satisfy the demands!

Similarly, the Rice Exporters Association of Thailand reportedly said rice exports reached a record high in 2017.

The president of the association, Charoen Laothammatas, said they would be able to export around 9.5 million tons of rice in 2018.

Information on the associations website puts Nigerias import in 2017 at 23,192 metric tonnes. What Nigeria imported in 2015 and 2016 were 644,131 and 58, 260 metric tonnes respectively.

Though the information on their website indicates that Nigerias rice import has dropped significantly, one could understand that the quantity of rice imported from Thailand into Nigeria is not significant enough to lead to the collapse of any mill in the country.

Claim two: Unemployment in Thailand has risen to 4%

The Cable fact-checked this claim to be false.

Trading Economics, a firm that provides accurate information on economic indicators, exchange rates, stock market indexes, government bond yields, and commodity prices, puts Thailands unemployment rate at 1.3 percent as at January 2018.

The unemployment rate in Thailand inched up to 1.3 percent in January of 2018 from 1.2 percent in the same month a year earlier, information on the firms website read.

The number of unemployed went up by 26 thousand from the prior year to 475 thousand while the number of employed declined by 142 thousand to 37.07 million.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

In December 2017, the jobless rate was 1 percent. Unemployment Rate in Thailand averaged 1.45 percent from 2001 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 5.73 percent in January of 2001 and a record low of 0.39 percent in November of 2012.

Conclusion

The claim that seven mills collapsed in Thailand because of Nigerias low patronage cannot be verified. The claim that Thailands unemployment is at four% is false.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had previously reported that President Buhari challenged the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI) to ensure availability of quality and affordable fertilizers to farmers at the right time as the nations journey to self-sufficiency and food security is not negotiable.

The president gave the challenge at a meeting with members of the PFI and Fertiliser Producers and Suppliers of Nigeria (FEPSAN) at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Friday, March 2.

The Presidency had in February inaugurated the PFI, which was approved by President Buhari in December 2016, to achieve the local production of one million metric tonnes of blended Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium (NPK) Fertilizer for the 2017 wet season farming.

Ebonyi state, Nigeria and West Africa's food capital on NAIJ.TV:

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Catholic priest condemn APCs loyalists attack on Bishop Obinna

- Reverend Eunan Asomugha has condemned verbal attacks on the Archbishop of Owerri Diocese, Anthony Obinna, by supposed members of the APC in the state

- Catholic priest said Bishop Obinna only charged voters to elect their preferred candidate as next Imo governor

- The Bishop was said to have encouraged the congregation to ensure that they get their PVC, and vote the right choice for good governance

A Catholic priest, Reverend Father, Eunan Asomugha on Sunday, March 4, reacted to the verbal attacks on the Archbishop of Owerri Diocese, Anthony J. V. Obinna, by supposed members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.

Vanguard reports that Asomugha made this reaction while delivering his sermon at the St Matthew Catholic Church in Ngwoma Obube, Owerri north local government area, in the state, wondered why people should be angry unnecessarily.

The priest was said to attended a burial mass of the mother of Alex Mbata, at St Michaels Catholic Church Ngwoma Obube in Owerri North local government area.

READ ALSO: President Buhari to visit states ravaged by herdsmen clashes

A funeral mass where Okorochas son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, and wife of the governor Nkechi Rochas Okorocha, were present. It started when Bishop Obinna, was said to have encouraged the congregation to ensure that they get their PVC, and vote the right choice for good governance.

He also was said to have mentioned how bad the roads are and advised the authorities to give it maximum attention.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

The Bishops lamentation was said to have provoked one of Nwosus loyalists, which escalated and attracted uncomplimentary remarks against the Bishop. Aside generating heat in the church, parishioners found it difficult to bring the situation under control.

Reverend Father Asomugha, who briefly commented on the matter, in his homily, said: ''We are ruling with our fist. The Bishop is advocating for the less privileged. They are angry because the Bishop said go and get your PVC, and vote the right person.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had reported that the Bishop of the crisis-ridden Catholic Diocese of Ahiara, most Reverend Peter Okpalaeke reportedly resigned his appointment without disclosing the cause for the resignation letter which he tendered to the Vatican.

The Supreme Pontiff, Pope Francis appointed most Reverend Lucius Ugorji, the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Umuahia, as the apostolic administrator of Ahiara Diocese.

The development is contained in a terse statement released by the director of social communications, Catholic secretariat of Nigeria, Reverend Chris Anyanwu on the sideline of the ongoing first 2018 plenary of the Catholic bishops conference of Nigeria.

Ex Bishop David Abioye's driver quits Living Faith Church, converts to Islam - on NAIJ.com TV:

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Beware of fake tax officials - FG warns Nigerians

- The minister of finance, Kemi Adeosun, advises tax payers to demand for written notice when they receive phone calls from tax officials

- She urges Nigerians not to provide any details like home address or bank details to such officials

- Adeosun says FG will soon begin to name and prosecute tax evaders in Nigeria Read

The minister of finance, Kemi Adeosun, has alerted Nigerians to the activities fake tax officials alleging to be officials of the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS).

Adeosun on Sunday, March 4, advised tax payers to demand for written notice when they receive phone calls from tax officials.

READ ALSO: Buharis led administration will rescue Dapchi schoolgirls - Aisha Alhassan

My attention has been drawn to reports of some unidentified tax officials requesting for bank details and address of tax payers.

If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be from the Tax Office, do not panic. Ask them to send you a written notice. Do not provide any details like your address or bank details, she said.

The warning was also stated by the presidency as seen below:

Meanwhile, Kemi Adeosun, on Thursday, March 1, said that the federal government is ready to prosecute, name and shame tax evaders that fail to utilise the tax amnesty programme, the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS), to regularise their tax profiles.

Nigerian Tribune reports that she also disclosed that the federal government would strictly adhere to the confidentiality of the automatic exchange of financial account information in tax matters, in line with the guidelines of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

NAIJ.com gathered that the minister made this known at the VAIDS stakeholders symposium held at the Umaru Shehu YarAdua Centre, Murtala square, in Kaduna state.

STREET GIST: Name a Nigerian politician who is not corrupt on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | N676m fraud: Human rights lawyer seeks to be joined in case against Abba Moro

Abuj  Chief Nkereuwem Akpan, a Human Rights Lawyer, has filed a suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja, seeking to be joined as party in a suit instituted by the EFCC against former Minister of Interior, Abba Moro.

Abba Moro

Moro was minister during former President Goodluck Janathans administration.

Moro, is standing trial with three others over alleged N676 million recruitment fraud.

Others charged along with him are the former Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mrs Anastacia Nwobia and a Deputy Director in the ministry, Mr F.O. Alayabami

The suit brought pursuant to Section 6(6) (a) (b) of the 1999 Constitution an dated Jan.28 was made available to NAN on Monday in Abuja.

The applicant is seeking an order to be joined as a defendant to the suit.

He is also seeking the leave of the court to allow him to file his preliminary objection, counter affidavit, written submission and all other processes in the suit.

Akpan has asked for alternative order for the court to take judicial notice of an appellate courts decision on the legality of Ibrahim Magu to still remain Acting Chairman of the EFCC.

The applicant avers that Magu in the exercise of his functions under the EFCC Act has negatively impacted on the rights of the party seeking to be joined.

He submits that the plaintiff has been adjudged by a court of competent jurisdiction to have violated Section 35 in suit No.CT/HC/CV/494/2010 delivered May 25, 2011.

Akpan argued that Magus continuous stay as the head of the anti-graft commission was also invalidated by the Court of Appeal, Abuja in suit No. CA/A/282/2013 delivered Aug. 14, 2013.

Akpa, further avers that he has been negatively affected by the continuous exercise of the functions of office as Acting Chairman of the EFCC by the plaintiff therein.

He therefore, said the plaintiff could not while in contempt of the Orders of court approach the same court seeking equitable reliefs.

The applicants propriety interest is the right to life, personal liberty and freedom from illegal incarceration including his rights to public apology ordered by the court of appeal on August 14, 2017.

The party seeking to be joined has a claim against the plaintiff who has oppressed and continues to oppress the party seeking to be joined using his office.

I am therefore seeking the intervention of this court to compel the plaintiff to stop this malfeasance and impunity by a grant of this application and the reliefs sought.

This honourable court owes a sacred duty to safeguard its independence and prestige by shutting its doors on the plaintiff pending when he is purged of his contempt for the extant Orders of court.

It is an immutable principle of law that a party in contempt cannot approach the same court for equitable reliefs while labouring under said contempt, he said.

NAN reports that the suit is yet to be assigned to a judge. (NAN)

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | NIMASA N3.4bn fraud: Court adjourns trial to March 27

The ongoing trial of a former Director-General of NIMASA, Patrick Akpolobokemi, charged with N3.4 billion fraud was on Monday in Lagos adjourned until March 27 following an argument over admissibility of a document.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had called its second witness before a Federal High Court.

Akpobolokemi, a former D-G of the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), is charged alongside five others on a 22-count charge bordering on fraud.

Other accused are: Captain Ezekiel Agaba, Ekene Nwakuche, Felix Bob-Nabena, Captain Warredi Enisouh, Anda Company named Al-kenzo Ltd.

Trial resumed on Monday at about 10.56 a.m. with the prosecutor, Mr Festus Aifeyodion, calling the second witness for the prosecution.

Aifeyodion informed the court that the case was for continuation of trial, and his witness was present in court.

The witness mounted the witness box and opted to be sworn on the Holy Bible.

In his evidence-in-chief, the witness introduced himself as Mr Solomon Akhanolu, a forensic and compliance officer with First Bank with his address at Marcarthy Street in Lagos.

He told the court that his scope of duty involves acknowledgement of emails and response to requisitions from agencies such as the EFCC, Independent Corrupt Practice Commission (ICPC), National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) the Police and other law enforcement agencies.

On the transaction of events of Aug. 24, 2015, the witness told the court that the EFCC wrote a letter to First Bank, requesting for account opening document and packages as well as mandate card of the defendant.

He said that the required document including the certificate of identification, were made available to the commission on Sept. 16, 2015.

The prosecution then inquired from the witness if he knew one Mr Chijioke Enujioke and the witness replied in the affirmative, adding he is my boss

The witness further stated that both he and Enujioke perused the letters and document, before his boss appended his signature.

After the witness response, the prosecution sought for an adjournment to enable him tenders the said document.

He added that the available document before the court were not clear enough and so, he required an adjournment to enable him produce a more legible document.

Mr Onyeke Edoka, Mr Seni Adio (SAN) and Mr C. K Mmrakwe, Counsel to the second, third, fifth, and sixth accused respectively objected to the request for adjournment.

The Defence Counsel urged the court to proceed with the trial, adding that the prosecution could lead its witness on other aspects of the document which appeared clear enough.

Edoka specifically, argued: My Lord, I can see the said document clearly as I have the sight of an eagle; I urge the court to refuse the application for adjournment and lets make progress in this case.

The prosecution has not given any cogent reason why an adjournment should be granted, and so, I urge the court to refuse same.

Adio and Mmrakwe also objected to the request for an adjournment.

In his response, the prosecutor (Aifeyodion) again explained that he had sought an adjournment to enable him tender document which he was comfortable with since the instant ones were not clear.

He again urged the court to either grant an adjournment or stand down the matter for some time to enable him get a clearer copy of the document from the commission.

After the arguments, Justice Ayokunle Faji adjourned the case until March 27 and 28 for continuation of trial.

The accused were alleged to have committed the offences between December 2013 and July 2015 and converting N3.4 billion belonging to NIMASA to personal uses.

The accused were first arraigned before Justice Saliu Saidu.

They had all pleaded not guilty to the charges and were granted bails by the court.

However, following the transfer of Justice Saidu from Lagos to the Port Harcourt Division of the court, the case was re-assigned to the new judge, Justice Faji.

The offences contravened the provisions of Sections 15 (1), (3), and 18 (a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibitions) Amendment Act, 2012.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Court sacks Obs of Egbe

BY BOLUWAJI OBAHOPO

LOKOJA  A Kogi State High Court sitting in Isanlu, headquarters of Yagba East Local government area has sacked the Oba of Egbe, Abiodun Agbana for mounting the throne for lack of constitution power



The court made the ruling on a interlocutory Injunction brought by the claimant, Capt. (Rtd.) Folunrunsho Aremu against the Oba and three others challenging the selection and appointment of Agbana as the paramount ruler of Egbe land, said

Delivering judgment on the suit number: KGS/IHC/10/2016 & KGS/EHC/5/2016, Justice Obayomi who invalidated the appointment and asked each parties to return to status quo also banned the state government, Ministry of Local government and Chieftaincy Affairs and the Yagba traditional council from going ahead in the coronation of the embattled king.

The judgment, which elicited mixed reactions in the community was a result of a fierce legal battle between the plaintiff, Capt. (Rtd) Folorunsho Amupitan and the embattled monarch.

After listening to both parties, Justice Obayomi granted an order of mandatory injunction setting aside the recognition of Abiodun Agbana by the Kogi State government.

Justice Obayomi further granted an order of mandatory injunction setting aside the issuance and acceptance of the certificate of recognition earlier issued the embattled traditional ruler by the state government and any act or acts made in furtherance of the said acceptance by the defendant.

The judge also set aside the proposed coronation of Oba Agbana on the ground that he resorted to self help while the case was still pending before the court. The 1st defendant is hereby restrained from parading, holding himself out and or in any manner whatsoever acting as the traditional ruler, pending the hearing and determination of this suit,

 An ORDER restraining the defendants, especially the traditional institutions from setting in motion any process for rhe appointment of the Baale of Egbe during the pendency of the consolidated suits.

Justice Obayomi said failure to obey the direction contained in the order by any of the defendants will amount to contempt of Court.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...The candidates rhetoric and campaign commercials then and now can be appealing to some who want to see a better Illinois; however, three years later, Rauners own record has persuaded me conclusively that our party and the state must choose a much better leader and now we can.

In the fall of 2014, I endorsed Bruce Rauner for governor because I believed that the alternative, another four years with Pat Quinn at the helm, would be unthinkably bad for Illinois. Some individuals inside and outside our party gave warnings about Bruce Rauner that should have been heeded. I reluctantly overlooked those red flags, tried to see some good in him and his positions with which I agreed, and hoped for the best. A lot of us did.

Ive had a fairly close-up view to Governor Rauner his handling of our states agencies, budget and bill review, his relationships with legislative leaders along with rank-and-file General Assembly members, and his executive branch staff. In this book, youll be taken behind the scenes as the author reviews the salient events that explain in detail why we are taking the extremely rare step of unseating an incumbent governor from our own party.

His challenger, whom I am fully supporting, is State Representative Jeanne Ives. She is a West Point graduate, economics major, former Army officer, suburban mother of five, former city council member, and three term member of the Illinois General Assembly.

For the past five years, Ive fought alongside Rep. Jeanne Ives in Springfield, Chicago, the suburbs and viii downstate as she has consistently and vigorously defended Illinois families, taxpayers and businesses especially those whove been abused and ignored by Illinois bipartisan ruling class.

Both in and out of the public limelight, she has an unparalleled work ethic and unmatched commitment to an independent, conservative, reform-minded agenda.

Jeannes experience, capabilities, and character have made her a standout leader. Her deep knowledge and firm grasp of policy and its consequences put her head and shoulders above all of the other gubernatorial candidates. Ive seen her defeat bad policies in the House of Representatives by preparing well and probing the right issues during floor debates. Ive seen her work amicably on difficult issues with colleagues across the ideological spectrumbut without compromising on conservative principles.

As a Hillsdale College undergraduate, I had the privilege and pleasure of hearing many excellent speakers on campus. One really stood out: Lady Margaret Thatcher, former British Prime Minister, spoke on The Moral Foundations of Society. A transformational conservative leader and personal friend to President Ronald Reagan, Thatcher answered crises at home and abroad with integrity and resolve. The so-called Iron Lady earned the name because, as noted by historian Paul Johnson, she was a conviction politician, as opposed to a consensus one.

We are fortunate to have our own Iron Lady here in Illinois. She will tell the truth and provide real leadership on the solutions that will transform our beloved but beleaguered state. For such a time as this Illinois needs Jeanne Ives as our next governor.

Please read this book and join our fight to save Illinois.Home | News | General | Breaking: Declare state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno, Yobe for six months, Clark to Buhari

Urges Buhari to appoint Senior Military Officers for the front line states

Condemns the frequent traveling of the governors who abandon their people

By Henry Umoru

ABUJA FORMER Federal Commissioner for Information and South South Leader, Chief Edwin Clark has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to as a matter of urgency, suspend all democratic institutions in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states to allow the military have full control of the states.

According to him the President should appoint very senior military officers to handle the states for six months, after which Boko Haram insurgency would then be buried forever in these states of the North East geo- political zone of Nigeria, just as he condemned in very strong terms, the frequent traveling nature of the governors, thereby abandoning the people and their challenges.

E. K. Clark

Addressing Journalists Monday at his Asokoro residence, Abuja, Clark particularly urged President Buhari to in consonance with his constitutional powers, to declare a full scale state of emergency in these frontline states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe similar to what had happened in Plateau state.

Chief Clark said, Once again I congratulate the armed forces for their brilliant job. But we will be deceiving ourselves if we continue to believe that we can defeat the Boko Haram by allowing the state government to operate side by side with the military.

It must be remembered that accusations are being made by people who give support to the Boko Haram, but I can say with all seriousness that this supporters of Boko Haram are within the state of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, and very few from outside. A state of emergency will definitely create a very conducive atmosphere for the military to act on their own, particularly, a sole administrator who also must be a very senior military officer, and I can assure Mr. President that within the next six months Boko Haram will be given a final burial.

Details later

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Security: Buhari to visit Yobe, Benue, 3 other troubled states

President Muhammadu Buhari will embark on tours of Taraba, Benue, Yobe, Zamfara and Rivers States over recent terrorist attacks, criminal activities and communal clashes in the affected states.

A statement by Mr Femi Adesina, the Presidents Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, issued in Abuja on Monday, said the President decided on the visit after reviewing security reports on the incidents.

Adesina

The presidential aide noted that the unfortunate incidents in the affected states had led to tragic loss of lives and kidnapping of innocent Nigerians including 110 schoolgirls.

Adesina recalled that the President had earlier directed the Armed Forces and other security agencies to compile comprehensive reports on the various incidents.

He said: Having received and studied the Reports, the President has decided to undertake an on the spot assessment of the various occurrences and to meet and console the communities affected.

From today, March 5, he will visit Taraba, and subsequently Benue, Yobe, Zamfara and Rivers States.

According to Adesina, President Buhari has been receiving daily briefings and is in constant touch with the Governors for update on the situations.

He quoted the President as calling on all Nigerians especially those in the affected areas, to cooperate fully with security agencies to enable them curb the spate of crimes, prevent further occurrence, arrest perpetrators and bring them to justice.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Clashes: FG to rebuild destroyed houses in Southern Kaduna

The Federal Government has pledged to rebuild houses destroyed during herdsmen-farmers clashes in parts of Southern Kaduna, an official said on Monday.

The pledge was made when the Presidential Committee on Herdsmen-Farmers Clashes headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo assessed the level of destruction in affected communities in the area.

President Muhammadu Buhari and Cross Section of Ministers

Mr James Akujobi, who led the assessment committee to Kaduna State, told newsmen in Kafanchan that the aim was to ensure that victims resume back their normal lives.

Akujobi, an Executive Director at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said the team was in Southern Kaduna to evaluate level of destruction recorded with a view to rebuilding affected structures and rehabilitate those affected.

It is the intention of the government that all those affected by the conflicts are rehabilitated by way of rebuilding the structures destroyed so that they can come back to their homes and continue with their normal lives, he said.

The official assured that the federal government would fast track action to ensure that members of the affected communities, especially farmers return to their normal activities.

Also, Executive Secretary of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Mr Ben Kure, said the agency would provide the necessary assistance to the presidential committee to achieve its purpose.

As a host agency, SEMA is playing the role of providing the needed logistics that would make the work of the visiting team easier.

We will assist the committee to arrive at a comprehensive and detailed assessment of the affected locations, he said.

Earlier, Malam Tanko Tete, the Tum Ninkyob of Kaninkon Chiefdom, said at his palace in Bakin Kogi, that the setting up of the committee demonstrated federal government concern for the people.

He said that members of the community had been praying for such intervention which would bring succour to victims.

It has not been easy with the victims even though some were already making plans to rebuild their structures, he said.

The committee plans to visit Ninte, Ungwan Ajo, Golkofa, Godogodo, Dogon Fili, Gadabiyu, Anton, Pasakori, Kario, Dalle, Asso, Goska, and Dangoma in Jemaa local government.

It will also visit Tachira, Tsonje, Adu, Tafan, Kukum Daji, Kukum Gida, Agban, A. A Abbas Filling Station, Takad, Garaje, Ashim, Mifi and Zilan in Takad Chiefdom all in Kaura local government.

In Zangon Kataf local government area, communities to be visited included, Samaru Kataf, Katsit and Zonkwa while in Kauru local government the committee will assess damages in Ungwan Magaji, Ungwan Rimi, Kaziti, Kigbeni and Kigam communities.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has described President Muhammadu Buharis visit to Taraba and planned visit to Benue, Zamfara, Yobe and Rivers states, which have recorded different forms of killings this year as afterthought, saying; Obviously, the President is more concerned about his reelection in 2019 and his visit to those States that he abandoned during their times of trouble is to seek for votes, not to sympathize with the people of the States on their loses.

Governor Fayose likened President Buhari to a selfish king who went on making merry while his people were in agony only to show up when the people had already buried their loved ones that were gruesomely murdered, gotten over their anguish and moved on with their lives.

In a statement issued by Monday, by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said it was the height of cruelty that the same President Buhari, who promised to lead from the front in the fight against Boko Haram could not visit Dapchi, Yobe State where 110 school girls were abducted by the insurgents, elected to go on merrymaking in Kano.

On January 9 and 12, this year, 88 victims of herdsmen attacks were given mass burial in Taraba State. Also on January 11, 2018, another 73 persons killed by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Benue State were buried in a mass grave in Makurdi, the state capital.

Meaning that in Taraba and Benue States alone, 161 Nigerians were given mass burial within three days! This never caught the attention of our President. Rather, it was a visit to Nasarawa, a neighboring State to Benue that was important to him.

To further demonstrate his lack of compassion for Nigerians, while the entire nation, especially parents of the 110 abducted school girls in Dapchi, Yobe State are still in anguish, President Buhari went to Kano last Saturday to attend a social function, thus sparking negative reactions from Nigerians.

Apparently, it was the negative reactions of Nigerians, especially on Social Media and the effects on the Presidents reelection bid that necessitated his hurried visit to Taraba State today, and planned visits to Benue, Zamfara, Yobe and Rivers States.

I am sure the people of Taraba State wont be hoodwinked by the Presidents cosmetic sympathy, show of concern and crocodile tears, which he never bordered to shed when hundreds of indigenes of the State were being killed by suspected herdsmen, the governor said.

While declaring the visits as belated and afterthought, Governor Fayose said; Nigerians can no longer be deceived by a President who never cared for them when they needed him most. Therefore, no amount of hurriedly organized campaign visits will sway the people, who never saw the President to protect them from being killed and console them when they lost their dear ones.Liberian President, George Weah, on Monday said political change was meaningless without development, prosperity, and growth.

Weah said this while addressing State House correspondents at the end of a meeting he had with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

He said he was in Nigeria on a mission of gratitude and respect for the roles that Buhari and Nigerians have been playing in maintaining peace and stability in the West African sub-region and particularly in Liberia.

He said although Nigerias economy was the largest in Africa with the most powerful Army in the sub-region, the country has never used your wealth and military prowess to expand its territory, threaten its neighbours, or destabilise any sovereign nation in the region.

He said Liberia needed Nigerias support to jumpstart its economy.

Weah said, The prices of our two basic export commodities-rubber and iron-ore continue to fall on the world diminished market.

Our foreign exchange earnings from the export of these and other commodities are used mainly on the importation of food and other commodities, causing massive trade deficits.

Youth unemployment is at an all-time high, and prices of basic commodities continue to increase.

Our people have voted for change, and for hope. And change is finally here. But mere political change is meaningless without development, prosperity, and growth.

We need Nigerias help to jump-start our economy. You played a major role in bringing peace to Liberia, you reformed our Army and today it is performing its duties to the highest professional standards.

As we speak, they are serving in a peace-keeping mission in Mali. You have also built and expanded the capacities of Liberians in so many ways.Home | News | General | I sell 6 sachets of Tramadol to pupils daily - Suspect confesses as police parade student, madman for robbery

- Police have arrested a 40-year-old Ibrahim Sheu who sell addictive stimulants to school pupils

- The suspect was arrested in Itire area of Lagos when undercover RRS operatives stormed the area

- The police also arrested a polytechnic student and a madman for alleged robbery

A 40-year-old Ibrahim Sheu, who was arrested on Monday, March 5, by the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) operatives for selling Tramadol and other addictive stimulants to school pupils, said he sold about six sachets a day.

The Nation reports that Sheu was arrested alongside his 23-year-old son, Farouk Ibrahim, after undercover RRS operatives busted them at Itire area of Lagos.

READ ALSO: Breaking: President Buhari arrives Taraba (photos)

NAIJ.com gathered that the suspects lurked around schools where the pupils approach them to get the substances.

But Sheu denied lurking around schools, insisting that the pupils came to his shop to buy two capsules of the stimulants.

The suspects being paraded by the police

He said: I dont use to go to any school. The children used to come to my shop to buy Tramadol. I sell two capsules for N30 to them. I sell about six sachets everyday. I only sell to those in secondary schools. Primary school children used to come but I dont sell to them.

Parading the suspects, the state commissioner of police, Imohimi Edgal, said they were arrested after officials of the state ministry of women affairs got information that some primary and secondary school pupils indulged in hard drug in the area.

Edgal advised parents to be very vigilant and carry out surprise checks on their wards in school.

Also paraded was a 23-year-old, Olaniyi Oluwatimilehin, who allegedly stole an Iphone-8 and N230,000 at a shop, as well as a mentally unstable man, Johnson Oyahere, 35, found with a toy gun under Eko Bridge.

Oluwatimilehin, a Gateway Polytechnic student, committed the alleged offence on February 16 at 10:20am, at 13, Aina street, Ikeja.

According to the police, he was captured by a Close Circuit Television (CCTV) and the footage was posted on the internet.

Edgal said: The technical crew of the command, RRS, travelled to Wasimi in Ogun state, where the suspect was located and arrested. The stolen phone with his sim card already inserted was recovered from him.

Upon careful examination of the phone, it was discovered that the suspect was discussing the possibility of leaving the country with one of his friends.

For Oyahere, Edgal said RRS operatives posted on the bridge went after the man, adding that he became dis-organised when he sighted the police.

The officers noticed he was trying to hide an object in his trousers pocket. Before you could say jack, he began to walk away pretending to be mentally unstable.

The team arrested and searched him and a black plastic toy pistol, which is a perfect prototype of Berretta pistol, was recovered from him.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

The public should be vigilant because not all persons who appear to be mad may be actually mad, the police commissioner added.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had previously reported that a 20-year-old man identified as Sultan Bello was arrested by the Kano state police command for allegedly impersonating the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II.

See the faces of newly arrested criminals in Lagos state - on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | President Buhari awards scholarship to PhD level to 3 secondary school students

- President Buhari awarded cash prizes to three secondary students

- They also received scholarship to PhD level

- The students performed excellently at the Young Nigerian Scientists Presidential competition

President Muhammadu Buhari has awarded cash prizes and scholarship up to PhD level to three secondary school students.

The Nation reports that the three students were given the award in the just concluded Young Nigerian Scientists Presidential competition.

READ ALSO: Breaking: President Buhari arrives Taraba (photos)

The students came out as the best in the 774 local government areas of the country.

The president was represented by vice president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo at the opening ceremony of the 2018 technology and innovation expo where the students got the award.

He said: "In September 2016 the state house hosted the first Aso villa demo day ro showvase the innovation of emerging startups from around the country, since the world bank has supported a batch of those innovators with grants totally about $3mthe first batch of which has already been disbursed and the world bank is committing an additional $3m in the funding for six~ technology hubs across Nigeria in our universities.

The federal government is collaborating with the Bank of Industry and other private sector entities to run a Presidential technology innovation challenge in all Nigerian universities, public and private and also some Polytechnics in April of this year, each university winner will be invited to an award event hosted by Mr President at the villa, we are also setting up technology hubs in universities in the six geopolitical zones.

We will also establish centers of acquisition of technology in each of the six geopolitical zones, we will provide intervention funds that will strengthen research and development through training programs and partnerships in Nigerian universities and polytechnics, our goal is to develop self-confident nation that is quickly able to identify and take advantage of emerging opportunities in a rapidly changing world.

Congratulate our best science students who have emerged as the best in the 774 local government areas of the country, I am pleased to announce that the candidates who emerged first, second and third respectively in the final examination of the recently concluded Young Nigerian Scientists Presidential competition have been granted full scholarships, up to PHD levels in any science related discipline of their choice in any of our universities, the future of Nigeria belongs to the young people and it is our duty as a government to create tye enabling environment for them to grow to their full potential.

As part of our effort to create a nurturing environment for technology and innovation in Nigeria, President Buhari has approved a new national science, technology and innovation Roadmap 2017-2030 for Nigeria.

He has also approved a national strategy for competitiveness in raw materials and product development in Nigeria. It is our intention as a government to utilize this initiative to stimulate local production of our raw materials and support our ambition for a diversified economy.

Meanwhile, Nigeria's minister of Science and technology, Ogbonnaya Onu, promised to help Nigerian universities establish science parks to facilitate diversification of the countrys economy through science, technology and innovations, Vanguard reports.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news

NAIJ.com gathered that the minister made the promise in his address at the first International Conference for Science Parks and Innovation Ecosystem for National Development, holding at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

According to the minister, the culture of establishing high-tech clusters should be promoted by universities, new business incubators and research complexes within the science and technology sector.

President Buhari commissions first Nigerian drone - on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | One of my regrets in life is inability of my parents to witness my success story in life - Obasanjo

- Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has revealed his greatest regret in life

- Obasanjo made the revelation during the celebration of his 81st birthday anniversary

- He said his parents inability to be alive to witness the turnaround in his life was sad and regrettable

Former president Olusegun Obasanjo has said that one of his regrets in life was the inability of his parent to witness his success story in life.

Nigerian Tribune reports that he described their deaths as sad and regrettable, considering their sacrifices in making him what he has become as a man today.

READ ALSO: President George Weah begs Buhari to provide 6000 teachers to Liberia

NAIJ.com gathered that Obasanjo said this in his remarks at a reception organised to mark his 81st birthday, held at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, on Monday, March 5.

He said he was convinced that his late parents would be happy in their graves with the numerous achievements he had so far recorded in life.

One thing that saddens my heart when I remember is that my parents left this world too early. They made sacrifices and they did not wait to see the results. How I wish they have waited to see and eat fruits of their labour.

But going by what Yoruba believe and says that, the dead always watch over their beloved ones and see happenings around them, I am convinced that, my parents are happy in their graves, as they watch over me, he said.

Obasanjo said his parents inability to be alive to witness the turnaround in his life was sad and regrettable despite sacrifices made by them to ensure his success.

He further said that the remaining of his years on earth would be for the service of God and humanity saying, I will continue to appreciate, praise adore and worship God.

We must be able to serve humanity, if we cant serve humanity, we cant serve God. I do not believe God had created a bad situation for Nigeria or any country in Africa.

On leadership in Africa, Obasanjo blamed Africas political and economic challenges on leadership deficit which he said was responsible largely for its underdevelopment and growth.

He explained that the issue of leadership, development and values should be upheld to change the paradigm shift in the area of development.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

The Ogun state Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun in his goodwill message sought for Obasanjos reduction in his daily activities.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had earlier reported that the All Progressives Congress (APC), said that the legacy of former president, Olusegun Obasanjo had continued to inspire good governance on the African continent after so many years.

2019 re-election bid: Should President Buhari heed Obasanjo's advice? - on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | After meeting with Buhari, George Weah seeks 6000 teachers from Nigeria

- President George Weah of Liberia has begged Nigeria to provide 6000 teachers to his country

- He made this plea after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Monday, March 5

- He said his government inherited many problems which can only be tackled with assistance from countries like Nigeria

President George Weah of Liberia has called on the Nigerian government to provide 6000 teachers to his country as part of the technical assistance agreement between the two nations.

Premium Times reports that while speaking Monday, March 5, shortly after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House Presidential Villa in Abuja, Weah said his government inherited many problems which can only be tackled with assistance from countries like Nigeria.

READ ALSO: I sell 6 sachets of Tramadol to pupils daily - Suspect confesses as police parade student, madman for robbery

NAIJ.com gathered that Weah was inaugurated into office on January 22 after defeating immediate past vice president Joseph Boakai of the Unity Party.

Addressing journalists after his meeting with Buhari, the Liberian leader identified some of the urgent problems facing his country as youth unemployment, as well as the need to revive the education, agriculture, mining and health sectors.

Your sustained technical assistance for capacity building in these sectors is most welcome. For example, Nigerian teachers and medical volunteers to Liberia, under the Technical Assistance Corps TAC) agreement with Liberia, have been very crucial in boosting capacity development in Liberia, and it is my hope that this assistance can be considerably increased to address with urgency our most pressing socio-economic needs at this time.

More specifically, under the Bilateral Teacher Exchange programme, we are seeking 6,000 plus teachers to make up for the shortage of good teachers in our educational system, he said.

Weah thanked Buhari for the invitation extended to him and said his delegation was on a mission of gratitude and respect for the extraordinary and exceptional role that you, our Nigerian brothers and sisters, have played and continue to play in maintaining peace and stability in the West African sub-region, and more particularly, in Liberia.

He said although Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa, with the most powerful army in our sub-region, you have never used your wealth and military prowess to expand your territory, threaten your neighbours, or destabilise any sovereign nation in the region.

He also said the prices of Liberias two basic export commodities, rubber and iron ore, continue to fall on the world market, which have diminished the countrys foreign exchange earnings from the export of the commodities.

He asaid most export earnings of Liberia is used mainly to import food and other commodities, causing massive trade deficits while youth unemployment is at an all-time high, and prices of basic commodities continue to increase.

Our people have voted for change, and for hope. And change is finally here. But mere political change is meaningless without development, prosperity and growth.

Your Excellency, we need Nigerias help to jump-start our economy. You played a major role in bringing peace to Liberia, you reformed our Army and today it is performing its duties to the highest professional standards. As we speak, they are serving in a peace-keeping mission in Mali.

You have also built and expanded the capacities of Liberians in so many ways. For example, during our recent observance of Armed Forces Day in Liberia, we were informed that two of our military personnel will soon be graduating as pilots from one of your esteemed institutions.

We would like to see a continuation and expansion of that programme, for both men and women, he said.

Weah also declared that Liberia is now open for business to the Nigerian private sector.

He said there is a need to address the current volume of trade between the two countries, which is very low and does not exceed five million dollars, by some estimates.

Yet, the Liberian banking sector is dominated by Nigerian banks, and I am made to understand that their Head offices in Nigeria may be considering reducing their support or even shutting them down because of the recent downturn in our economy.

If this is true, I urge them not to do so, as l am optimistic that trade and commerce will increase in the near future.

There are also major shortcomings in the electricity and power sectors, in road construction, in housing, in mining, and in fisheries, to name a few, that could be of serious interest to Nigerian investors, either as individuals or companies, or through joint-ventures or public-private partnerships.

We invite all of you to come to Liberia and explore the many new opportunities for investment that abound to increase under this new political dispensation. I promise you that you will find a government that is not only business friendly, but ready to do business.

On a personal note, President Buhari, it is my intention, with all due respect and affection, to frequently seek your wise counsel and advice as we embark upon this arduous task of nation-building, reconstruction, and transformation of my country.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

Nigerias historical benevolence towards Liberia cannot be quantified. And once again, we seek your urgent and critical assistance, he said.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had earlier reported that Nigerian President Buhari on Monday, March 5, hosted the Liberia president George Weah at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

2019 Presidency: Nigerians reveal why they prefer Atiku to President Buhari - on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...The Ives for Governor campaign has released a new ad. In a press release, the Ives campaign noted that political Columnists Greg Hinz and John Kass called out Governor Rauner for lying about Ives in political attack ads. A coalition of Republican legislators signed a letter demanding Governor Rauner end his shameful distortions of Jeanne Ives record.Home | News | General | Female lawyer petitions IGP over land ownership tussle involving police commissioner

- The commissioner of police in Enugu state, Mr. Danmallam Mohammed is currently enmeshed in a controversy

- The controversy is over the ownership of some plots of land in the state

- A petition written by a female legal practitioner, Mrs Uju Ken-Ohanenye, indicted he police boss

The commissioner of police in Enugu, Danmallam Mohammed is currently enmeshed in a controversy over the ownership of some plots of land in the state.

The Police boss has also been accused of frustrating the execution of a court judgement issued by an Enugu state High Court.

In a petition to the Inspector General of Police dated Monday, February 12, the CP Mohammed was alleged to have conspired with a House of Representative member, Hononurable Chukwuemeka Ujam to pervert the cause of justice on the real ownership of the land.

Copies of the petition sent to the IGP. Photo credit: Mrs Uju Ken-Ohanenye

READ ALSO: Police parades notorious kidnap gang for abducting 9-year-old girl

In the petition written by a female legal practitioner, Mrs Uju Ken-Ohanenye, she claimed to have purchased plots of land at a specified area after which she perfected all relevant government papers to establish her ownership in 2013.

The petitioner lamented that shortly after perfecting the papers, politicians in the government of Enugu state allegedly trespassed on her land and confiscated the plots by distributing them among themselves.

She said in order to redress the injustice against her, she instituted a court action against the Attorney General of Enugu state as well as the commissioner in charge of land in the state.

She added that on July 21, 2016 a landmark judgement was delivered by Justice A.R. Ozoemena in her favour nullifying the purported confiscation of the land by trespassers.

Justice Ozoemena in the judgement barred the defendants and their agents from depriving her of ownership of the land and that in the event the land is needed in the public interest, the defendant must first pay her adequate compensation for the improvement effected on the land.

Besides, the court held that the defendants or their agents cannot revoke her fundamental interest in the property and also granted the restraining order against them.

The petitioner further explained that in the attempt to reclaim the land she registered the judgement delivered in her favour and requested the court for the execution of the judgement to enable the land to be recovered from the trespassers.

She further stated that the court authority notified the commissioner of police on their decision to execute the judgement through court official after which the police in response deployed his 8 policemen to the court officials for the purpose of executing the judgement.

She said after recovering the land from the trespassers, a House of Representative member, Honourable Chukwuemeka Ujam, who was a commissioner for land in the state at the time she purchased the land, showed up to claim ownership of the land and met with the police commissioner for an assistance to chase her away from her land.

According to her, after the lawmaker had met with the police chief, the court judgement and enroll order granted in her favour by the High Court in 2016 were ignored by the Enugu police boss, and his men have since laid siege on the land to deprive her of the ownership.

She explained that several attempts by the High Court officials to enforce the judgement were thwarted and frustrated by the police chief on the instruction of the federal lawmaker.

She therefore, appealed to the IGP to call the Enugu state police commissioner to order and allow the cause of justice and fair play to prevail in her ordeal.

She regretted that as at the time she completed all government papers on the land, the two defendants in the case did not file appeal at the court of Appeal in Enugu but instead have been using crude power and self-help through the assistance of the police commissioner to frustrate the execution of the judgement to deprive her of the ownership of the land

NAIJ.com efforts to get the reaction of the force police public relations officer, Mr. Jimoh Moshood was not successful as at the time this report was published.

READ ALSO: Police parade 13 militia/kidnap gang, recover arms and ammunition in Minna

Meanwhile, the direct phone numbers of police commissioners across the country have been made public by the Nigeria Police Force.

The decision was taken after the Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris gave a directive on the disarmament and recovery of prohibited firearms, ammunition and weapons in the possession of all suspected militias, bandits, vigilante groups, neighbourhood watch and other groups or individual(s) or bodies.

Are Nigerian Policemen the worst in the world? on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Farmers-herdsmen clash: President Buhari lands in Taraba for security assessment (photos)

President Muhammadu Buhari has arrived at Jalingo, the capital of Taraba as part of his attempt to carry out on-the-spot assessment of the security situations in the state.

The president arrived in the state on Monday, March 5 and was received by Governor Darius Ishaku if the state.

President Muhammadu Buhari arrives Taraba state. Credit: Facebook, APC UK

READ ALSO: Top global medical researchers discover new HIV antibody

President Buhari is expected to carry out security assessment in the state. Credit: Facebook, APC UK

The president is expected to carry out an on-the-spot security assessment as part of effort to stop the recent clashes between farmers and herdsmen.

The president is also expected to visit Benue, Zamfara, Yobe and Rivers and also visit affected communities in the states.

NAIJ.com earlier reported that a fresh violent ethnic clash on the Mambilla Plateau in Sardauna local government area of Taraba on Sunday, March 4, has reportedly led to the death of twenty people, while about three hundred cows have been rustled.

A resident of the community who fled during the clash, Saadu Magoggo, said that two of his brothers were killed on Saturday evening and their cattle rustled by a group he identified as the Mambilla Militia.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

The current clash is sequel to another clash which reportedly occurred on March 1, between the Fulani and Mambilla ethnic stock, leading to the death of about four persons.

According to the report, several houses and other valuables were set ablaze by the warring factions as both sides were said to have recorded casualties.

The crisis which started at Nguroje before spreading to Jakarta villages was reportedly ignited by a dispute over land.

Nigerian herdsmen vs Nigerian farmers on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Saraki presents Africas map-painted ostrich egg to Ghanas President

The President of the Nigerian Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, has presented an ostrich egg painted with the map of Africa on it to the President of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

Saraki who is in Ghana for the 25th anniversary celebration of the Ghanaian Parliament, presented the painted and lacquered egg which was made in Bauchi state, Nigeria, to promote made in Nigeria goods and arts.

Ostrich egg presented by Saraki to President Nana Akufo-Addo

Decorated ostrich eggs were traded as luxury items from the Middle East to the Western Mediterranean during the Iron Age (1200-300 BC).

The presentation of the egg was the highlight of the meeting between the President of the Nigerian Senate and the President of Ghana on the sidelines of the anniversary celebration.

Speaking at the meeting with Ghanaian President, Saraki reviewed the history of Nigeria-Ghana diplomatic relationship, submitting that it has improved democracy and good governance for the people of both countries.

Saraki presents the ostrich egg to President Akuffo-Addo

He appreciated the relationship of the countries pointing out that the invitation of President Mohammadu Buhari and himself (Saraki) to witness the celebration of Ghanas 25 years of parliamentary democracy is a sign of the growing good relationship between the two nations.

According to Saraki, Nigerias Senate and the National Assembly in general is committed to improving the quality of governance in favour of the people, a resolve which he said had resulted in the enactment of several laws and passage of important resolutions.

In his remark, Ghanas President, Akufo Addo, noted that, because of the key roles played by parliaments in good governance, the two countries are paying much attention to boosting parliamentary relationship.

Akufo Addo who noted that parliaments in both countries had become very robust and rich in the quality of legislations, said it was in the best interest of the people that support must be accorded the legislature to continue its work.

He stated that the collaboration between Nigeria and Ghana in good governance and democracy has been of great benefits to Africa and its people.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Nigerians to be involved in PHarcourt, Warri, Kaduna refineries revamp  NNPC

..Investors to build pipe mills for $2.8bn AKK project

By Michael Eboh

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Monday, disclosed that a large number of Nigerians would be involved in the planned revamp of the countrys three refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna states.

Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr Maikanti Baru

Speaking at the 2018 Technology and Innovation Expo in Abuja, organized by the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mr. Maikanti Baru, also stated that foreign contractors involved in the construction of the $2.8 billion Abuja-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline project would be required to build pipe mills in Nigeria.

Baru, who was represented by the Chief Operating Officer in charge of Refineries at the NNPC, Mr. Saidu Mohammed, stated that already, the Federal Government had started the training of Nigerians that would be expected to play major roles in the revamp and management of the three refineries.

He noted that the revamping would create a number of job opportunities for Nigerians, as all the major scaffolding works, crane operations, as well as the crucial engineering, procurement and construction services would be carried out by local engineers.

He said, A lot of Nigerians would be involved in the refineries revamp. As a matter of fact, up front, we have already started training Nigerians in the interim that would eventually man these places. The core thing about revamping the refineries also goes to say that all the facets of engineering, procurement and construction, Nigerians have to be involved.

Of course they cannot do the revamping anywhere else but in Nigeria. All service providers from cranes, scaffolding, among others, would all be provided by Nigerians. There is a tremendous amount of jobs to come through this revamping. And after the revamping, we expect that a lot have to be done to ensure that the input that is required to continue to make these refineries survive, are provided by Nigerians.

On the $2.8 billion AKK pipeline project, Baru stated that the contractors in the project had been told that importation of line pipes would not be allowed until all the capacity of existing pipe mills in the country is filled.

He said, First of all the engineering is domiciled here, no doubt about that. When you come to the procurement of big projects like the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Pipeline, the main input is the line pipes. What we have done to drive the Nigerian Content agenda to make sure that until we fill the capacity of the existing mills in Nigeria we cannot import line pipes.

Those who are coming to build this pipeline, has it in mind that at the end of the day, they may have to come with their mills together, to manufacture the line pipes right there. And for the other area of services, Nigeria has already achieved a lot. We are in the construction. Majorly, Nigerians construct the line pipes and Nigerians do all the pre-commissioning and commissioning services. Nigerians are also there in the maintenance in gas pipelines because we are going there and we are marching forward.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Okowa 2019: Osanebi takes campaign to Ndokwa rulers, stakeholders

Deputy Speaker, Delta State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Friday Ossai Osanebi has taken Governor Okowas re-election campaign to leaders, stakeholders and traditional rulers in Ndokwa land, calling on them to support the re-election crusade of Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, Governor of Delta State come 2019.

Osanebi in one of his visits over the weekend in Lagos, met with the President General (PG) of the highest Social Political group and umbrella body of Ndokwa people globally, Ndokwa Neku Union ( NNU); High Chief Johnson Opone FCA and further consulted His Royal Majesty, Enyi Friday Abaja, the Ukwuata 1 of Umukwata.

In different encounters, Osanebi thanked the two leaders and major stakeholders in the Ndokwa project for their support for the government of Senator Ifeanyi Okowa and their leadership style which has helped in consolidating the peace and development of Ndokwa land.

Gov. Okowa

The deputy speaker noted that within 3 years of Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Okowas administration, he has demonstrated rare capacity and leadership charisma which has made Delta State stable, even in the face of serious economic challenges.

While thanking and applauding the efforts of the leaders, Osanebi also called, The Empowerment Master, further prayed them for more support and cooperation with the Governor and government of Delta State, especially for the re-election of Governor Okowa, come 2019.

Osanebi noted that the PDP led administration of Delta State has carefully distributed projects and social infrastructures around Ndokwa land and God, through the party and his colleagues in the House of Assembly has privileged him to serve as Deputy Speaker of the state house of assembly, adding that one good turn deserves another.

The deputy speaker also said that the three local governments areas of Ndokwa land are major strongholds of the Peoples Democratic Party, adding that the cooperation and support of leaders, youths and women of the area will enhance the Governors return to office to complete his prosperity and transformation project in Delta State.

Osanebi was accompanied on the visit by social cum political analyst and former DESOPADEC Commissioner, Sir Ken Okolugbo.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Again five feared dead as herdsmen attack Benue community

.we have record of two deaths  Security Adviser

..I am yet to confirm  CP

BY PETER DURU

MAKURDI  No fewer than five persons were feared dead at the weekend in a fresh attack on Umenge village in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State by suspected herdsmen despite the ongoing Exercise Ayem Akpatuma (cat race) a Nigerian military spike operation to stem the incursions of the herders in the state.

Residence of Benue state in Abuja, protesting over the killings of their relatives by the Fulani herdsmen at the National Assembly gate in Abuja Thursday. Photo by Gbemiga Olamikan

Vanguard gathered that the victims who had successfully escaped alive early January when the community was attacked by herdsmen, met their death on Sunday when they went back to assess the safety of their community in order to return back to their homes.

They had gone to Umenge from the camps to ascertain whether they could go back home since the military had come to ensure the safety and protection of lives and property.

Unfortunately, none of them made it back alive to the camp except the a motorbike ride who managed to escape but others were not so lucky.

The victims did not know that the Fulani herdsmen had laid ambush for them and as soon as they were approaching the village, they opened fired on them killing five on the spot. The source said.

Confirming the development, Security Adviser to the Benue state Governor, Lt. Col. Paul Hemba (rtd.) said his office could confirm the death of two persons, a man and a woman who were killed in the village by the armed herdsmen.

Col. Hemba explained that the herdsmen after chasing away the locals occupied the community and also took a strategic position on a hill in the village from where they monitored movements in the community.

The villagers were on a hike heading to Umenger which is close to Gbajimba that houses the headquarter of the Exercise Ayem A Akpatuma when the Fulani herdsmen who have occupied the area hid on a hill and attacked them killing two of the villagers while the motorcycle rider managed to escape.

He stated that the policemen posted to the village were complaining that they did not have a functional vehicle adding that the military had promised to go on operation there on Tuesday.

Col. Hemba explained that corpses of the two deceased victims had been evacuated to Makurdi and deposited at the mortuary of the Benue State University Teaching Hospital, BSUTH, Makurdi

When contacted, the Benue state Police Commissioner, Fatai Owoseni said he was yet confirm the killings, adding I am out of town and before leaving I couldnt confirm the killings.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | NHRC receives 76 complaints on hate speech, electoral violence in South-south- Official

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) says it received 76 complaints relating to hate speeches and electoral violence from the South-South geopolitical zone.

The Acting Executive Secretary of the commission, Mr Tony Ojukwu, disclosed this at the commencement of sensitisation meeting held at the Federal High Court in Uyo on Monday.

Ojukwu said that the complaints which were being investigated would be handled in the public hearing organised by the commission from Tuesday.

He called on complainants and alleged violators to appear before the commission as scheduled.

This public hearing is for the entire South-South; we have complaints from most of the states in the zone

In this session, we have 76 complaints which had been investigated before and they are going to come up during this session.

This is an opportunity to give fair hearing to both the complainants and alleged violators.

We have chosen the approach of public hearing because of the large complaints received, Ojukwu said.

The executive secretary also said that the purpose of the sensitisation was to create awareness on dangers of hate speeches and violence during election.

He urged politicians to refrain from making statements that could cause violence and divide the country as the 2019 general elections draw near.

Ojukwu explained that the whole idea of the sensitisation was to deepen the nations democracy and advised that campaigns toward 2019 elections must be issue based.

He said: the purpose of the present campaign by the NHRC is to discourage use of hate speech and violence during campaigns and election activities

For those who choose to use the tools of hate speeches and election violence, they will be investigated and prosecuted and made to account for their actions.

In his remarks, the Speaker of Akwa Ibom House of Assembly, Mr Onofiok Luke said that every Nigerian should condemn the use of hate speech.

Luke urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security agencies to remain unbiased in performance of their duties.

Most countries that are in conflict today started with hate speeches and electoral violence. As we approach 2019 elections, we must talk to ourselves and continue in the campaign against the use of hate speeches.

The speaker commended the NHRC for the sensitisation and urged it to take the campaign to churches, mosques and traditional institutions.

The Commissioner of Police in the state, Mr Adeyemi Ogunjemilusi in a goodwill message noted that the menace of hate speech and electoral violence could be curbed through legislation.

Ogunjemilusi, who was represented by DCP Administration, Mr Yekini Ajogun advised political actors to operate within the ambit of the law as they go about their campaigns.

He urged the NHRC to remain unbiased to make the outcome of the exercise acceptable by all.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Buhari finally decides to visit Yobe, Benue, Zamfara, Rivers, Taraba over crises

President Muhammadu Buhari will embark on tours of Taraba, Benue, Yobe, Zamfara and Rivers States, where there had been either terrorist attacks, criminal activities or communal clashes.

He will visit Mambilla, Taraba state today, before embarking on the trip to Ghana, to attend the 61st independence anniversary of the country.

Buhari

A statement by Mr. Femi Adesina, the Presidents Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, issued in Abuja on Monday, said the President decided on the visits after reviewing security reports on the incidents.

The presidential aide noted that the unfortunate incidents in the affected states had led to tragic loss of lives and kidnapping of innocent Nigerians, including 110 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram on 19 February, in Dapchi, Yobe State.

Adesina recalled that the President had earlier directed the Armed Forces and other security agencies to compile comprehensive reports on the various incidents.

He said: Having received and studied the reports, the President has decided to undertake an on-the-spot assessment of the various occurrences and to meet and console the communities affected.

From today, March 5, he will visit Taraba, and subsequently Benue, Yobe, Zamfara and Rivers States.

According to Adesina, President Buhari has been receiving daily briefings and is in constant touch with the Governors for update on the situations.

He quoted the President as calling on all Nigerians especially those in the affected areas, to cooperate fully with security agencies to enable them curb the spate of crimes, prevent further occurrence, arrest perpetrators and bring them to justice.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Buhari condoles with Governor Ishaku over Taraba killings, says more people killed in the state than Benue, Zamfara

- President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, March 5 visited Taraba state over herdsmen-farmer clashes

- He said more people killed in Taraba than in Benue and Zamfara

- The president said that peace and security were not the responsibility of the government alone but a collective one

President Muhammadu Buhari has said that the number of persons killed in herdsmen and farmers clashes and other violent attacks in Mambilla plateau, Sardauna local government area of Taraba state, is more than those killed in Zamfara and Benue states combined.

Premium Times reports that while speaking in Jalingo on Monday, on Monday, March 5, during a meeting between the Fulani and Mambilla ethnic groups, Buhari said "he has a way of gathering his own information on all the crises and killings in the country.

READ ALSO: President George Weah begs Buhari to provide 6000 teachers to Liberia

NAIJ.com gathered that the president, who said he was in the state to condole with the government and those who lost their loved ones, described attacks and shedding of blood as unfortunate.

Herdsmen-farmers clashes: Buhari condoles with Governor Ishaku, says more people killed in the state than Benue, Zamfara

He said peace and security were not the responsibility of the government alone but a collective one.

He appealed to all to ensure that justice is done to all the people at all times, adding that the perpetrators of the heinous acts would be identified and punished.

Speaking earlier, the Taraba Governor Darius Ishaku, thanked the president for the visit and assured that the administration would do everything possible to ensure that peace was maintained in the state.

The governor also assured the president that the traditional institutions and leaders of Sardauna local government would be mobilised to work together to ensure the take-off of the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project in the area.

In the president s entourage were service chiefs, ministers of information, defence and women affairs as well as some members of the National Assembly from Taraba.

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had earlier reported that President Muhammadu Buhari arrived at Jalingo, the capital of Taraba as part of his attempt to carry out on-the-spot assessment of the security situations in the state.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

The president arrived in the state on Monday, March 5 and was received by Governor Darius Ishaku of the state.

Nigerian herdsmen vs Nigerian farmers - on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | More than half of Nigerian children are appropriately breastfed - Report

- A report has said that more than half of the Nigerian children are appropriately breastfed by their mothers in Nigeria

- The report said 56% of children between the ages of 0 and 23 months whose parents lived urban areas were appropriately breastfed

- Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS5) was carried out in partnership with National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and other health agencies in Nigeria

A report has said that more than half of the Nigerian children are appropriately breastfed by their mothers.

The fifth round of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS5) shows that 58.2% of a total 10,898 children between the ages of 0 and 23 months placed under survey are appropriately breastfed.

The report carried out by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in collaboration with the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA) and National Agency for the Control of Aids (NACA), as part of the global MICS programme also showed that 23.7% of Nigerian children between 0 and five months are exclusively breastfed while those between six months and 23 months currently receiving solid, semi-solid or soft foods stands at 69.7%.

READ ALSO: After meeting with Buhari, George Weah seeks 6000 teachers from Nigeria

Using mothers education, family wealth and many other parameters as indices, the report further showed that 56% of children between the ages of 0 and 23 months whose parents lived urban areas were appropriately breastfed while their 59.2% of their counterparts in rural areas were appropriately breastfed.

Similarly, children whose mothers had no form of education, non-formal, primary, secondary or higher education who were appropriately stood at 62.4%, 62.8%, 58.2%, 52.3% and 50.6 respectively.

A UNICEF monitoring and evaluation specialist, Maureen Zubie-Okolo, at a media training said the data for MICS5 was collated between September 2016 and January 2017 from 33,901 households in 2,239 enumeration areas across the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory.

Zubie-Okolo said journalists need to learn to process, analyse and visualise data.

She said the skill to process data is needed for telling better stories on developmental issues and help policy makers in taking the right decision in the country.

READ ALSO: Farmers-herdsmen clash: President Buhari lands in Taraba for security assessment (photos)

She added that reporting forms the basis for sound advocacy, fund raising and sustenance for developmental issues among many others.

In the past, the United Nations Children's Fund had said that breastfeeding which cost effective is a proven means of saving the lives of babies.

UNICEF also said that by increasing breastfeeding 820,000 lives can be saved annually.

Also, under nutrition has been estimated to be associated with 2.7 million child deaths annually or 45% of all child deaths while infant and young child feeding is one of the major areas to improve child survival.

READ ALSO: APC senator wades into SARS/youths bloody clash in Anambra

Subsequently, the first two years of a childs life are particularly important, as optimal nutrition during this period lowers morbidity and mortality, reduces the risk of chronic disease, and fosters better development overall.

Optimal breastfeeding is so critical that it could save the lives of over 820 000 children under the age of five years each year.

UNICEF in collaboration with the World Health Organisation describing breastfeeding as a natural act and a learner behaviour said it is important that mothers and other caregivers receive adequate support for establishing appropriate breastfeeding.

This includes exclusive breastfeeding - without water, formula or any kind of food - for a child within the first six months of his/her life.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet!

To sustain this act, both organisations recommended that breast milk is introduced within the first one hour of life and it continues to provide up to half or more of the child's nutritional needs during the second half of the first year.

NAIJ.com earlier reported that UNICEF had said that Nigeria ranks among the highest on newborn deaths in the world

The organistion in its report said that the number of death recorded would have been avoided if there was availability of medical care to all pregnant women

It also said it is currently carrying a campaign on the preservation of the lives of newborn babies by helping to provide health care.

Man warns other Nigerian men to desist from giving their wives 'Amala' everyday - on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Governor Bruce Rauner appeared on Fox & Friends Monday morning with the hope of appealing to conservatives nationwide as a corruption fighter and swamp destroyer. "You seem to be the only man that agrees with you," co-host Brian Kilmeade says.

However, Rauner's polling numbers are just slightly worse than President Trump's in Illinois, according to the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute's latest disapproval ratings:Home | News | General | APC senator wades into SARS/youths bloody clash in Anambra

- Senator Andy Uba has waded into the a clash that occurred within his senatorial district

- The clash was between youths of Umunze community and men of the State Anti Robbery Squad (SARS)

- The All Progressives Congress (APC) senator condemned the violence and called for restraint on all sides

The senator representing Anambra South Senatorial District, Senator Andy Uba has condemned the violence between youths of Umunze and agents of the State Anti Robbery Squad (SARS).

Senator Uba stated this on Monday, March 5, in a statement sent to NAIJ.com by his media office.

He stated that he has mandated his constituency office staff to conduct an on the spot assessment of the situation and report back to him.

A scene of the clash which also witnessed the burning of vehicles. Source: Twitter

READ ALSO: Police parade 13 militia/kidnap gang, recover arms and ammunition in Minna

Part of the statement read: As the senator representing the good people of Anambra south, I received the news of the clash, between the youths of Umunze and agents of SARS with immense sadness.

I immediately reached out to my constituency office members and mandated them to do an on the spot assessment of the present situation and report back to me.

I will also get in touch with the Inspector General of Police and request for immediate investigation and resolution of the crisis.

I hereby urge the warring youths and the agents of SARS to desist further from any action that will overheat the policy and worsen the conditions of those living in those areas.

I am calling for peace and restraint from both parties, enough blood has been shed already, further loss of lives will not help in solving the problem.

Meanwhile, the direct phone numbers of police commissioners across the country have been made public by the Nigeria Police Force.

The decision was taken after the Inspector General of Police Ibrahim Idris gave a directive on the disarmament and recovery of prohibited firearms, ammunition and weapons in the possession of all suspected militias, bandits, vigilante groups, neighbourhood watch and other groups or individual(s) or bodies.

READ ALSO: Police parades notorious kidnap gang for abducting 9-year-old girl

Are Nigerian Policemen the worst in the world? on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Breaking: Armed operatives reportedly invade residence of ex-NIA DG

The official residence of a former acting director-general of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Dauda Mohammed, has been reportedly invaded by armed security operatives.

Premium Times reports that the armed security men were in black clothing typically used by Nigerias secret security organisations.

READ ALSO: One of my regrets in life is inability of my parents to witness my success story in life - Obasanjo

NAIJ.com gathered that the property is located at No. 3 Osara Lane, off Osara close in Abujas Maitama district.

A source said the armed men were at the building to evict Mohammed.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

Meanwhile, NAIJ.com had previously reported that the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, vowed to recover the missing National Intelligence Agency (NIA)'s $202million security intervention fund.

The acting EFCC head said this on Wednesday, February 28, when he met with members of the House of Representatives committee on public safety, national security and intelligence.

The meeting which is geared towards recovering the said sum which formed the total of the $289 million fund approved for the agency by the Jonathan administration, Independent reports.

The EFCC stages walk against corruption - on NAIJ.com TV

[embedded content]

Source: Naija.ng

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Herdsmen kill over 10 in Monday evening attack in Benues Omosu village

BY PETER DURU, MAKURDI

No fewer than 10 persons were feared dead, Monday evening, in a bloody attack on Omosu village in Ojigo ward Edumoga of Okpokwu local government area of Benue state by suspected herdsmen.

Residence of Benue state in Abuja, protesting over the killings of their relatives by the Fulani herdsmen at the National Assembly gate in Abuja Thursday. Photo by Gbemiga Olamikan

Vanguard gathered from a source in the area that the well armed herdsmen stormed the village at about 4pm shooting sporadically at anything on sight and burning down houses in the community.

It has bloody a bloody evening in Okpokwu, armed herdsmen stormed Omosu village and opened sporadic fire on the locals killing anyone and thing they came across.

I cannot give you the casualty figure or number of people killed and injured at the moment, but many have been killed and several houses were also razed.

Confirming the development on phone, Chairman of the local government council, Mr. Francis Ejembi said there was pandemonium in the entire area.

He said, Its a serious problem and heartrending. We are moving corpses and the injured from the village to the hospital and so far we have moved about 10 corpses and several injured persons to Saint Marys Hospital Okpoga.

We are still searching for more corpses and the injured and it is very possible that we may recover more dead bodies and injured persons because the village has been sacked and many are still missing. Its indeed a sorry sight here. We have also informed the Police.

When contacted, the Police Public Relations Officer, Assistant Superintendent, ASP, Moses Yamu confirmed the report.

Yamu said, We have reports of clash between the youths of Omosu village in Edumoga community.Our men are there responding to the development.

Meanwhile we do not have the figure of casualties but our men are on ground to check an escalation of the crisis. We will get back to you when we get a clearer picture of the casualty figure because we do not want to speculate.

This is coming few hours after suspected herdsmen allegedly killed five persons at the weekend in a fresh attack on Umenge village in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State by suspected herdsmen despite the ongoing Exercise Ayem Akpatuma (cat race) a Nigerian military spike operation to stem the incursions of the herders in the state.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Rann attack: NMA holds National Confab on security of health workers

By Luminous Jannamike

ABUJA-The Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, has concluded plans to host a National Conference on Security of Hospitals and Health Workers.

The Chairman, NMA National Committee on Security and Doctors Safety, Dr. Friday Imoniche, said the conference will feature expert presentations, case studies and lessons from past incidents and strategic action plans in the areas of security risk management for hospitals; security threats, risk and vulnerability for health workers; movement of security, due diligence and others.

He said the confab, which is scheduled to hold in Abuja from March 7th to 9th 2018, is the first component of a three-part initiative designed to enhance security of hospitals, medical doctors and other health professionals.

According to him, Medical and health workers have become targets of choice for insurgents and kidnappers. Security and safety protocols of emergency units of hospitals are routinely breached by criminals posing as patients. New born babies are brazenly stolen in some hospitals.

The consequence of insecurity of hospitals and medical workers for healthcare delivery are devastating. Access to healthcare is harder as medical workers and their families relocate away from insurgency and kidnap prone environments.

Primary Healthcare facilities have been shut down. Vaccination programmes are compromised. Pregnant women are at greater risk; and achievement of 2030 UN SDG of ensuring healthy lives for all more difficult.

Attention of governments and hospitals are redirected towards reacting to fallout of terror attacks and kidnap incidents rather than focusing on healthcare delivery.

Vanguard recalls that the UN suspended Humanitarian work, until next weekend, near the border with Cameroon where nearly 80,000 people depend on emergency food aid and medical care.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Charly Boys group demands release of Daily Independent Newspaper Bureau Chief, Ezimakor

Says group will occupy DSS Headquarters Wednesday

Charly Boys group, OurMumuDonDo Movement, has demanded the unconditional release of the Abuja Bureau Chief of the Daily Independent Newspaper, Tony Ezimakor, who is currently under the detention by the Department of State Services, DSS.

For over five days now, the Abuja-based journalist is being held purportedly over exclusive stories on Boko Haram campaign and negotiations with the insurgents.

Tony Ezimakor

However, in a statement jointly signed by Charles Oputa, for OurMumuDonDo; Deji Adeyanju,

for Concerned Nigerians; Ariyo Dare Atoye, for Coalition in Defence Of Nigerian Democracy and Bako Abdul Usman, for Campaign For Democracy on Monday, the group said it would occupy the DSS Headquarters on Wednesday in peaceful demonstration against the continued detention of the journalist.

According to the statement, the group also called for the unconditional release of the journalist.

The statement reads thus:

Following the continued detention of Mr. Anthony Ezimakor, the Abuja Bureau Chief of the Daily Independent Newspaper by the Directorate of State Service (DSS), and the continued disregard for his rights to freedom of speech, right to dignity of the human person, and right to fair hearing as guaranteed by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, we have decided to occupy the DSS Headquarters in Maitama by 9:00am on Wednesday March 7, 2018.

The decision to occupy the DSS office was made in a bid to prevent Mr. Ezimakor from suffering the same fate as Sheik Ibrahim Elzakzaky who has been detained illegally at the DSS facility for more than two years.

We reemphasize our demand for the unconditional release of Mr. Ezimakor by the DSS. In the alternative, we demand that the Federal Government charges him to court as stipulated in the Constitution and give him the opportunity to defend himself.

We urge all members of the local and international media to attend this peaceful protest aimed at drawing attention to the increasing incidents of unlawful harassment of the press and the unlawful detention of Nigerian citizens in violation of their constitutional rights by the present administration.

We also invite all peace-loving Nigerians who are interested in preserving and protecting our democracy to join us on Wednesday.

Our Mumu Don Do!

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | Obstruction of justice: Court dismisses Rickey Tarfas no-case submission

Ikeja  An Ikeja High Court in Lagos, has dismissed a no-case submission filed by Mr Rickey Tarfa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), during his trial for obstruction and perverting the course of justice .

Tarfa had informed the court that he had no case to answer when he was to open his defence during Mondays lengthy proceedings which lasted from 11.47am till 5.25pm.

Rickey Tarfa

Justice Aishat Opesanwo, however, in a ruling held a contrary view, the judge noted that she was satisfied that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had established a prima- facie case against Tarfa and he should proceed with his defence.

The judge also did not award Tarfa N150million in exemplary damages for malicious prosecution which e he had demanded from the anti-graft agency.

I have taken consideration of Section 38(2) of the EFCC Act and Section 97(3) of the Criminal Law of Lagos 2011, the oral and documentary evidence given by the prosecution.

I am satisfied that the prosecution has established a prima-facie case against the defendant.

I invite the defendant to proceed with his defence of the three-count charge contained in the information herein, the judge said.

NAN reports that Tarfa is currently being tried on a three-count charge of obstruction of justice, perverting the course of justice by the EFCC and unlawful secret communication with Justice Mohammed Yunusa.

The EFCC alleges that Tarfa wilfully obstructed two of its officers, Moses Awolusi and Sanusi Mohammed, from making an arrest of his clients within the premises of the Igbosere High Court, Lagos.

Tarfas clients, Gnanhoue Sourou and Nazaire Odeste, were suspected by the EFFC of committing financial crimes.

The EFCC also alleges that Tarfa engaged in alleged illegal and secret communication with Justice Mohammed Yunusa, a Federal High Court judge who presided over the case.

The EFCC had called five prosecution witnesses during the trial.

Earlier during proceedings, Mr Abiodun Owonikoko (SAN) , the defence counsel to Tarfa had in the no-case submission dated Dec.12, 2017 requested that the court dismiss the case because the defence had no case to answer.

My Lord, we have filed a motion praying for Your Lordship to consider our arguments on the no-case submission.

We have formulated in the written address a singular issue which is whether at the close of the prosecutions arguments, a prima facie case has been established to warrant the defendant entering a defence in the three-count charge.

If in the negative, we will be requesting exemplary damages from the EFCC, he said.

According Owonikoko, based on the evidence presented by the anti-graft agency during proceedings, essential ingredients necessary to secure a criminal conviction have been unproven.

He said: Count-one of the charge, is the allegation of obstructing authorised officers of the EFCC in the exercise of their powers.

These officers were named Moses Awolusi and Sanusi Mohammed, we have reviewed the evidence and the evidence is at variance with those of the officers.

Moses Awolusi (PW1) was the only one that testified during the trial and he said that it was he and Sanusi Adelana that were involved in the alleged incident.

Sanusi Adelana and Sanusi Mohammed are not the same person.

The EFCC during the trial, amended the charge but they did not amend the name on the charge, if the evidence does not correspond with the name of the charge, a vital ingredient of the offence is missing.

Owonikoko said that the names of the clients that Tarfa was allegedly shielding from prosecution were also not properly indicated in the charge and the EFCC at any point did not amend the alleged error during the trial.

The defence counsel said that when Awolusi, the EFCC official, testified during the trial, there were discrepancies in his testimony compared to the evidence before the court.

PW1 under cross-examination said that he got information to arrest the defendant at 5pm on Feb. 6, 2016 and that prior to that, the information was to invite and if not possible, effect an arrest of the defendant.

Meanwhile in the charge, the period the defendant is alleged to have evaded arrest was from 11am to 4.30pm but he said in his evidence that he got instruction to arrest at 5pm on that day.

Everything the EFCC claims do not confirm obstruction, all they got from the defendant was cooperation, he said.

Owonikoko alleged that there were also discrepancies in the evidence presented by the EFCC regarding count two of the charge was about Tarfa engaging in alleged secret communication with Justice Mohammed Yunusa.

The call log brought by the prosecution was thoroughly disowned by the maker of the document under cross-examination.

There was so many discrepancies in the documents and the sole evidence they (EFCC) were depending on was that call log and these calls were made without hiding the caller identification.

The statement from Justice Yunusa when he was invited by the EFCC was that he was friends with the defendant from university and the calls were social in nature and he never discussed his cases with the defendant.

The entire communication period was 15-minutes in the course of two years and Justice Yunusa was never called as a witness in this trial.

I find it curious that they are using only the written statement of Justice Yunusa as the basis of their case.

Regarding the third count of the charge which was obstruction of justice, Owonikoko said that issues surrounding the charge are currently subjects of appeal at the Court of Appeal.

It is a subject of appeal on three grounds in which the prosecution are respondents.

It is our submission that it is wrong for any of the parties before such an appeal to file a criminal charge on the complainant.

For that we will be demanding exemplary damages from the EFCC for malicious prosecution, he said.

Responding to the points raised by the defence, Mr G.A Latona the prosecuting counsel for the EFCC, asked the court to dismiss the defences no-case submission.

He said: The application of the defence suffers from some fundamental lapses.

The prosecution has not established the guilt of the defendant which is not required at this stage, what we have shown is that there is something that Your Lordship has to call upon him to explain.

What the defence has done is to handpick bits and pieces of evidence and tell Your Lordship that ingredients have been established without considering the totality before the court, he said.

Latona said that the defence did not consider the totality of the evidence surrounding the identity of the EFCC official Mr Sanusi Mohammed and that Mohammed and Mr Sanusi Adelana were the same person.

They have not established that there is no Sanusi Mohammed who escorted PW1 (Moses Awolusi) which they refer to in the charge.

The charge rightfully mentioned Sanusi Mohammed without considering the totality of the evidence of PW1 including exhibit D2 (a disposition) which was tendered by the defendant.

I urge My Lordship to look at the disposition on oath where the defendant mentioned Sanusi Mohammed.

He gave evidence in that disposition that the EFCC officials that wanted to arrest him are PW1 and Sanusi Mohammed.

We have been able to establish that Sanusi Mohammed is the same person who accompanied PW1 and who is referred to in the charge and there is also proof of this in the courts record of proceeding of Oct. 24, 2016, he said.

The EFCC prosecutor disputed that the issues surrounding the third count of the criminal charge filed against Tarfa are issues currently on appeal at the higher court.

The learned silk is attempting to distort facts, the three suits before the Court of Appeal are civil suits and they involve fundamental human rights issues.

They are about unlawful detention in which the person being detained went to court and not the criminal charge of obstruction of justice, he said.

Latona in his submission, also noted that the EFCC had proven that Tarfa engaged in unlawful communication with Justice Yunusa beyond reasonable doubt.

On the issue of communication with Justice Yunusa, there was copious oral testimony of Mr Danladi Daniel (PW5).

They alleged the communication was not secret, the question one poses is that why was it not made known to the other party in the proceeding.

Their own definition of secrecy within this charge beats my imagination, especially with the outcome of that particular case in line with the text message communication.

My humble submission is that the prosecution witnesses have given evidence and tendered documents which has called Your Lordship to require an explanation.

Your Lordship should discountenance and dismiss their argument and award costs to the EFCC, he said.

Justice Opesanwo adjourned the case till May 24 and 25 for defence.(NAN)

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | President Buharis planned visit to Taraba, Benue, others, an afterthought  PDP

By Dirisu Yakubu

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has described the imminent visit of President Muhammadu Buhari to Taraba, Benue and other crisis-prone areas where innocent lives were lost recently as an afterthought and a move to further hoodwink the people ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Buhari in Taraba state

In a statement issued by the partys National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP lamented the eleventh hour decision of the President to pay a condolence visit to the affected states after months of tragedy wrecked on them by suspected Fulani herdsmen.

Many Nigerians have dismissed the planned visits of President Buhari to these states as cosmetic afterthought. Nigerians have already formed their opinion of him, and rightly so, as a President that has never shown them concern in their time of need.

It is alarming that Mr. President will consider visiting some of these states months after marauders, insurgents and bandits committed their havocs. Mr. President has been in the country and never thought it necessary to pay a condolence visit to any of these states until Nigerians raised the alarm alleging a manifest indifference on his part.

It is even more pathetic that in Benue state, President Buhari summoned the leaders of the bereaved people to the Presidential villa, Abuja, rather than complying with the age-long tradition of Africans by visiting the bereaved, the statement read.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Home | News | General | 2019: Igbo group roots for Buhari

By Dirisu Yakubu

A pan-Igbo pressure group, the Movement for the Actualization of South-East Presidency (MASEP) Monday pledged its support for the actualization of a second term in office for President Muhammadu Buhari.



The group said having taken a cursory look at the political dynamics in the land, it is convinced that a President of Igbo extraction would be realised in 2023 on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

At a press conference in Abuja on Monday, spokesperson of the group, Humphrey Onyima said a two-term for Buhari would facilitate the bid of the Igbo to have one of its own occupy the highest political office in the country.

Our main reason is to get the north to see out her tenure and let the South-East take the lead in 2023. Thus, a Buhari presidency would guarantee that of the South-East come 2023, he said, noting that the construction of the Second Niger Bridge by the President Buhari administration is one democratic dividend the South-East geo-political zone would not forget in a hurry.

Onyima continued: The construction of the three-phase Second Niger Bridge is on course. The bridge will by-pass Onitsha and Asaba to connect to the Owerri-Onitsha expressway at Nkwerre-Ezunaka and, then, cross Atani to the Asaba-Benin Expressway at Okpanam, with a total length of 44 kilometres.

MASEP also justified its solidarity for Buhari on key achievements recorded within its less than three years in office, particularly the fight against insurgency and earnings from the sale of crude oil at the international market.

To the credit of this government, between June 2015 and July 2017, it has earned $58billion in oil revenue, according to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC.

While we would refrain from making comparisons, it is imperative to point out that the payment of contractor liabilities running into trillions (of naira) is ongoing, Boko Haram is being given the desired attention, massive development of rail transportation is ongoing, the age-long clashes between herdsmen and farmers are being addressed by the government, amongst others.

Power generation is on the rise, as more power plants are coming on stream. The Azura Power Plant in Edo is a great example. Work has started on the Mambilla 3,050 megawatt hydro-electric dam abandoned for the past 35 years, while the stalled Zungeru 700MW hydro-electric power project is due for completion in 2019. The transmission and other requirements to operate the 30MW Gurara Phase 1 hydroelectric plant, the 40MW Kashimbilla hydro-electric plant and the 215MW Kaduna Gas/LPG/Diesel power plants will all be completed before 2019.

This government has set a target of ending fuel importation by 2019. Licenses have been issued to 10 modular refineries with a refining capacity of 30,000 barrels per day and total refining capacity of 300,000. The pre-fabricated part of Amakpe modular refinery in Akwa Ibom has been containerised and is being shipped to Nigeria, Onyima added.

The group said with the likes of Igbo leaders as former Abia State governor, Orji Uzor Kalu, incumbent Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha, and ex-Senate President, Ken Nnamani and several others, the Igbo ethnic nationality is ready to take over the leadership of the country in 2023 at the expiration of Buharis second term in office should he choose to seek a second term in 2019.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: General

Loading...Zimbabweans must step up their political game if the nation is ever going to get out of the hell-on-earth it is in right now. Those who continue to follow people like Nelson Chamisa are telling the whole world that Zimbabwe is NOT yet ready to get out of the hell-hole. Chamisa is not presidential material and every time he opens his mouth he confines it.

"Reforms are very important. There can't be elections without reforms. ED must stop paying lip service and giving political rhetoric to free and fair elections," said Chamisa.

After all that has been said on the subject, especially during and after the GNU; one expected that this is the one subject any MDC leader will be able to talk about with authority and decisiveness. Not so from Chamisa!

"He (President Mnangagwa) has been calling for free and fair elections but he has been doing nothing about free and fair polls. Free and fair elections is not a slogan but practical substance on the ground.

"What legislative reforms have been put in place; what institutional reforms have been put in place; what structural reforms have been put in place; what about habitual and cultural reforms (that) have been instituted? This madness has shot off the roof."

Gift Phiri, Daily News Editor, tried to pin down Chamisa with a follow up question. "Let's suppose you don't get the reforms you are pushing for, what will you do?" "We will never accept an election where we don't know where ballot papers are printed. Polling material to be used and the ballot printing are key issues that we are not going to leave to conjecture like we did in 2013."

If Chamisa was not such a scatter-brain then he would know the following:

1) Even with the best will in the world no one can implement the legislative, structural, etc. reforms he is talking about now, four or five months before the elections. So, if there is no hope in getting the reforms implemented the question of what MDC is going to do become a rhetorical one in that we already know the answer - the party will contest the elections regardless.

2) Chamisa is asking Mnangagwa to implement the reforms and yet MDC failed to get even one reform implemented in five years of the GNU. One gets the feeling he is just grandstanding, he would never get any meaningful reforms implemented even if he was to get another chance to do so.

3) David Coltart admitted the reason why MDC leaders ignored SADC leaders' advice not to take part in the July 2013 elections without reforms was greed. "The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn't now do the obvious  withdraw from the elections," explained Senator Coltart.

"The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility."

Coltart has also acknowledge the price the nation has had to pay for the MDC leaders' greed was forfeiting the chance to force Zanu PF to implement the reforms. The same cannot be said about Chamisa and many of the other MDC leaders; they are ploughing on heedlessly, blundering from pillar to post.

The state of the nation's economy with unemployment a nauseating 90% and  of our people living on US$1.00 a day speaks volumes of Zanu PF, the party that has governed the nation these last 38 years. The country is dying, literally, for a complete government to take it out of this hell-hole. Alas! MDC is not that alternative government.

Nations get the government they deserve, 38 years after independence, we cannot say we do not deserve this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete with its entourage of corrupt and incompetent opposition parties. If we want a competent and accountable government then we will have to take the business of selecting competent leaders with the urgency and seriousness the matter demands.

Zimbabwe is the poorest nation in Africa both economically and politically; to have E D Mnangagwa and N Chamisa as the nation's presidential candidates shows just how desperately poor the nation must be.

"Tichanzwa nokuvirira zvose mavhu namarara!" (We will pay dearly for our recklessness in electing rubbish as leaders!)Home | World | Africa | Time is running out - Zimbabwe Vigil Diary

The Mugabes are aggrieved at their treatment by President Mnangagwa. Despite vast government resources devoted to their imperial upkeep, they are angry at being forced to step aside from ruling Zimbabwe. 'It's not fair', Mugabe told the AU. 'It's unconstitutional', calling on the organisation to intervene to reseat him on his presidential potty.These are strange times in Zimbabwe. Apart from the Mugabes now completely detached from reality, this week a 'prophet' produced a 'goblin' in a Harare court. The 'prophet' was accused of demanding money from passengers on a bus from Binga to prevent a potentially fatal accident. He apparently scared off everyone but was arrested walking to the city centre with the 'goblin'. The 'prophet' unveiled the 'goblin' in court - a live tortoise draped in a hyena skin and beads, looking rather like Mr Mugabe, who has long had an interest in goblins and calabashes and such like. Perhaps the tortoise was on his way to see President Mnangagwa.The Vigil hopes that Mnangagwa will stop moving like a tortoise. Four months ago he insisted that the upcoming elections would be free, fair and credible. He has since repeated this mantra at every stop as he continues Mugabe's circus of never-ending travel. Now there are only 5 months left before the constitutional deadline to hold the elections.President Mnangagwa has made a big thing of his willingness to allow EU observers into the country. This is seen as a major step forward because 'tame' observers from AU countries and 'friends' have shamelessly endorsed repeated election fraud in Zimbabwe. Court-ordered revelations in South Africa, for instance, have shown how damning criticism of election rigging in Zimbabwe was repressed by the Pretoria government.But the EU takes things more seriously. It's already late to begin the lengthy process of getting observers from them. As the EU ambassador in Zimbabwe, Philippe Van Damme, explained: 'The first thing we need is a formal request by the government to invite what we call an exploratory mission which is a mission of experts who will speak to the different stakeholders of the electoral process and assess whether indeed these stakeholders consider these observation missions as useful. They will also assess the feasibility of electoral observation from a security and logistical point of view. And then they will advise us on whether or not an EU electoral observation should be deployed. And then, of course, the final decision will be taken once, based on that mission, the government confirms its willingness to deploy that mission or not.'Apart from inviting the observation missions, there is clearly a lot of work still to be done. We have heard nothing, for instance, about the need to open state-controlled media to the opposition during the election campaign. Time is running out.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: Africa

Loading...Downstate is a geopolitical term, Charles Wheeler III, a journalism professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield, added.

Of course, the Quad-Cities is downstate, he said with a sigh.

I lived in Rock Island for almost a decade and I considered myself a downstater. In fact, most of the folks I knew there did. But times change so I called up longtime Quad-City journalist John Beydler and asked him.

SPRINGFIELD  A TV reporter got a bit snippy with an Illinois gubernatorial candidate the other day and informed her that Rock Island and Moline are not in downstate Illinois.

Traditionally, downstate Illinois is the 96 counties in Illinois that arent Cook County or one of the counties touching Cook. That means that Rockford is just as much Downstate as Carbondale, he said.

No argument here.

I grew up on a hog farm near Galesburg. We were 199 miles from Chicago and 288 from Carbondale. But we always referred to ourselves as downstaters.

Its a sociological term more than a geographic one.

Downstate is what geographers refer to as a vernacular region. There isnt anything negative about the term. It simply refers to the area of Illinois that isnt as closely tied to Chicago as those in the immediate metropolitan area. So, places like Quincy, Galesburg, Peoria, Carbondale, Rockford and the Quad-Cities are all considered part of Downstate Illinois, said Dr. Norman Moline, who taught culture and geography at Augustana College in Rock Island for 45 years.

Illinois is hardly unique in these geopolitical designations that dont always make sense by just looking at map. For example, San Francisco is considered northern California even though it is closer to Mexico than to the Oregon border.

In Maine, the area of the state known as downeast is north of where most Mainers live. Go figure.

I chatted with Wally Haas, editorial page editor of the Rockford Register Star and asked him about this downstate designation for Illinois most northern major city.

Just about everyone in Rockford knows that when the term downstate is used, it includes Rockford even though we are about as far north as you can get in Illinois. Youll hear some folks who dont like the term, but everyone knows it includes us.

Rich Morthland, a communications professor at Black Hawk College in Moline and a former state legislator, said, Of course the Quad-Cities is in downstate Illinois. People in the area know that. When I was in Springfield, I was a member of the Downstate Caucus.

Morthland, by the way, is the running mate of Jeanne Ives, the candidate who was "corrected."

Peoria is in the north central part of Illinois. But for decades, the Peoria Journal-Stars front page proclaimed it Downstate Illinois largest newspaper.

So, am I picking on this young KWQC reporter who corrected a candidate about what is or isnt downstate?

No. But it is important for all of us to remember that meanings of words can be nuanced. And sometimes their definition is not quite what one might think.

Scott Reeder is a veteran statehouse journalist. He works as a freelance reporter in the Springfield area and produces the podcast Suspect Convictions. He can be reached at ScottReeder1965@gmail.com.Home | World | Africa | Khupe says she is not going anywhere

EMBATTLED MDC-T vice president, Thokozani Khupe, has vowed that she would not leave the opposition party although she has lost the succession race to Nelson Chamisa.

MDC-T national organiser Abednico Bhebhe told journalists yesterday that Khupe was determined to stay put and preserve her legacy despite being the butt of vicious attacks by party members aligned to Chamisa.

Bhebhe conveyed the message on behalf of Khupe who attended the media briefing but could not address the journalists as she had lost her voice.

This came a day after the MDC-T national council met in Harare and endorsed Chamisa as the party's substantive leader and 2018 presidential candidate.

The party organ also gave Khupe, Bhebhe and national chairman Lovemore Moyo a seven-day ultimatum to make amends and work with the other leaders or face possible expulsion.

Speaking on her behalf, Bhebhe said Khupe would remain in the party in order to build the nation and leave a legacy that would stand for long.

"Khupe's stay in the party signifies that even if a man marries other wives, the first wife will remain for the sack of the children and even if she leaves, she will be remembered as a good wife. She is building a nation and soon people will recognize her importance after her departure," Bhebhe said.

Bhebhe said Khupe wanted to leave a mark and teach people how proper leadership was.

"Khupe wants people to see and learn how things are done in a proper way and proper things are done this way," he said.

One participant asked Khupe why she was still interested in the party when it has been obvious that she was being side-lined.

"It is up-to you to denigrate yourself. There are a lot of parties out there that admire your strength. It's up to you if you can leave MDC-T and look for a better place where you can be recognised and maintain your legacy," Bhebhe said.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: Africa

Loading...Home | World | Africa | Mnangagwa locked me out by his ministers

PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa has accused his Cabinet ministers of shielding him away from critical developments happening in the country.

Mnangagwa made the remarks during a tour of Univern Enterprises in Harare's Workington Industrial area on Saturday, where he was exposed to cutting edge technology including live monitoring of toll plazas by the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (Zinara).

"I did not know we have this kind of technology in the country. I am sure in some instances you are world-class. This is an eye opener. This has not been shown to us and I do not think even people in my Cabinet know about this. If they do then it means they have been keeping this away from me," said Mnangagwa in what seemed as a thinly veiled attack on Transport minister Jorum Gumbo.

Gumbo was conspicuous by his absence during the two-hour tour of the institution that runs the nerve centre of Zinara. Univern entered into a partnership with Zinara, in a bid to plug loopholes and stem the tide of corruption that had driven the parastatal to the top of THE graft ladder in the country. Zinara now boasts some of the best systems in the country and Mnangagwa said he had been pleasantly surprised at the level of technological innovation that the public private partnership has brought.

"In some areas I think we are at the top of the ladder in terms of the modernity of the technology we have. That is the way to go and that is where we are going.

"We cannot remain mediocre; this is why we say Zimbabwe is open for business because we want to catch up, to leapfrog and catch up with other countries. And my mantra now, besides Zimbabwe is open for business, is that by 2030 we must be a middle-income country," said Mnangagwa while calling for unity of purpose.

The President quipped that the level of technology that Univern has established allowed the company to monitor the whole country from Harare.

"I am so happy you have this drive and realise you can monitor the whole country from here except the Office of the President.

"As the old generation we must create the climate, but the young generation can adapt to technology easily. So I wish you more innovation," he said.

Univern chief executive officer Phil Mushosho said his organisation had been energised by Mnangagwa's visit.

"That he took time off his busy schedule and on a weekend to visit us shows the depth of his appreciation of what the private sector can bring to this economy. We have different systems for different departments in government, but the good thing is that these are fully integrated to allow for cross-pollination of ideas and technological transfer as well as skills sharing," Mushosho said.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: Africa

Loading...Home | World | Africa | Zacc boss roasted over $2.4 million

THE Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc) was last week grilled by the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee for spending $2,4 million on three upmarket houses in Harare without verifying owners of the properties or demanding title deeds.

The committee heard that the houses were occupied by Zacc officials without the consent of the commission. This was revealed in a 2016 audit report by Auditor-General (AG) Mildred Chiri.

MPs questioned Zacc secretary Silence Pondo over three houses in Harare's leafy suburbs worth $2,4 million that were occupied by Zacc staff in 2011 without a nod from the commission.

"The AG reports that three houses with a value of $2,4 million were allocated to commission employees without title deeds or documents. Did you manage to locate the title deeds and who are the owners?" Mabvuku-Tafara MP James Maridadi (MDC-T) asked.

Pondo claimed that Zacc had now located the title deeds, adding that the three houses were registered with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

One of the houses was allocated to former Zacc chief executive officer Ngonidzashe Gumbo who was arrested and jailed, while the other house was allocated to Sukai Tongogara, the current Zacc general manager (prevention, corporate governance and external relations). It was not specified which other manager occupied the third house.

Bulawayo South MP Eddie Cross (MDC-T) raised a red flag, saying the prices of the houses were exaggerated.

"A figure of $2,4 million for three houses means that each house costs close to $800 000 and these are very posh houses on large properties," Cross said.

Pondo said the houses were located in the leafy suburbs of Highlands, Rolf Valley in Chisipite and Strathaven.

He added that there was no policy to support the issuance of the houses to the employees, adding that Zacc only discovered that the three houses were issued to the top management after Chiri's audit report.

Barbara Gandawa, the Zacc head of risk and audit, said the houses in question were bought by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in 2009 for the employees in question, but the circumstances in which the RBZ ended up buying the houses were still being investigated.

Before Gumbo was arrested, he was also engaged in another scandal, where irregular payments of $1,7 million were made to an estate agent who happened to be his daughter.

It was later discovered that the building in question was acquired for $1,2 million, resulting in Zacc being prejudiced of $400 000.

After Gumbo's conviction, the property was forfeited to the State.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: Africa

Loading...Home | World | Africa | Trump urged to to seek ways of accommodating Mnangagwa

FORMER United States ambassador to Zimbabwe, Charles Ray, has urged Washington to seek ways of accommodating President Emmerson Mnangagwa's politicised military establishment and help in the re-industrialisation of the country in the aftermath of a credible election later this year.

In a statement before the Africa Subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs last week, regarding the potential for US-Zimbabwe relations in the aftermath of former President Robert Mugabe's ouster, Ray said the opposition is Zimbabwe was too disjointed to pose a threat to Mnangagwa's Zanu-PF government.

Mnangagwa's administration swept to power on the back of a military coup in November last year, after Mugabe succumbed to pressure from the public and Parliament and stepped down.

"The elephant in the room, which can't be entirely ignored, is the Zimbabwean military. Existing laws and regulations will limit what we can do with the military, but for the long term, peaceful development of Zimbabwe, at some point we will have to figure out a way to work with this institution," he said.

"Initially, I believe the primary focus should be on inculcating in the military establishment an ethos of service to the nation as a whole rather than identification with a specific political party. In my limited contact with senior military officials when I was ambassador, I was convinced that there exists within the military establishment a cadre of people who would like to professionalise and depoliticise the institution. The challenge will be to identify those individuals, and develop effective ways of working with them."

According to Ray, the US could try to tip-toe the Zimbabwean securocrats and approach them through Sadc.

"One possibility might be to establish a working relationship with the Sadc Peacekeeping Academy, which is located in Harare, and allowing Zimbabwean military participation in courses of instruction on military professionalism.

"I leave it to State and Defence, working with the congress, to determine just how such a programme would be implemented," said the retired ambassador.

With Mnangagwa consistently declaring he intends to run a free and fair election, Ray said the US needed to find ways of working with him.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: Africa

Loading...Home | World | Africa | Mugabe endorses Mutinhiri's party

This is a statement from the National Patriotic Front which has confirmed that it will be led by retired Brigadier General Ambrose Mutinhiri who recently resigned from Zanu Pf.

Harare-5 March 2018- Retired Brigadier General Ambrose Mutinhiri, who resigned from Parliament and Zanu PF last Friday over the unconstitutionality of the military coup that illegally imposed Emmerson Mnangagwa as President of Zimbabwe and led to the Army's usurpation of the power and authority of civilian institutions including Zanu PF, paid a courtesy call on President Robert Mugabe at his Harare Blue Roof residence yesterday 4 March 2017.

Cde Mutinhiri is the Founding President and Presidential Candidate of the National Patriotic Front (NPF), whose formation was initiated on 19 November 2017 in direct response to the military coup four days earlier, and has come into fruition following an extensive private and public consultation process by its founding members.

The purpose of the courtesy call was to appraise. President Mugabe of Cde Mutinhiri's bold and inspiring resignation as well as to thank the President for having afforded Cde Mutinhiri a cherished opportunity to work with and under him in various national capacities.

Cde Mutinhiri especially thanked President Mugabe for laying a solid and irreversible ground for generational renewal in Parliament and government through progressive policies that have empowered the youth who are now poised for unstoppable leadership roles across the political divide and in business, civil society and churches.

Cde Mutinhiri also took the opportunity to inform President Mugabe of the formation of the NPF by a cross-section of Zimbabweans including but not limited to Zanu PF members who are outraged by the unconstitutional and humiliating manner in which President Mugabe was criminally ousted from the leadership of both Zanu PF and the country by real criminals who have shamelessly damaged Zimbabwe's fledgling constitutional democracy and dented the professional reputation of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.

Cde Mutinhiri told President Mugabe that the result of all this is that there's no constitutional order in Zimbabwe today and that the government created by the coup is unlawful and illegitimate at national and international law and that, for these reasons, the NPF is approaching the Constitutional Court in Zimbabwe as well as appropriate regional, continental and international bodies to ensure the return to constitutional order and legitimacy in the country and to facilitate justice for the victims of the military coup who are currently helplessly in limbo.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: Africa

Loading...Home | World | Africa | Pertinent questions about the Ndebele King

The following represents a litany of questions drawn from a diversity of people who genuinely seek to understand role and relevance of the institution of the King in their lives. I made an attempt to answer some of those questions but my responses are neither exhaustive nor representative of the royal house position as I'm not the royal spokesman. I do so from a personal passion and expectation of what I wish the monarch could do.

1. Why resuscitate the Monarch, it's such an old and irrelevant institution? This is 2018 not 1818.

We are resuscitating the monarch because the Ndebele nation never took the decision to abolish it in the first place; the British colonialists did it. When the colonisation of our country occurred in 1893, the Ndebele nation lost four principal things which they never recovered even after independence in 1980:

a. They lost their land, which they have not yet recovered. Remember that Ndebele people were evicted from within 150km of Bulawayo to be resettled in the semi arid Gwayi Reserve (Tsholotsho District) and Shangani Reserves (Nkayi and Lupane Districts all of which are known for their hostile climatic, drainage and soil conditions. As we speak right now villagers in Siphepha Communal lands in Tsholotsho are drowning in floods because that place was never meant for human settlement. Other Matabele people remain scattered all over Zimbabwe some as far flung as Buhera and Musengezi. The new King will need to lead the rectification of this history of dislocation. It is disconcerting to watch outsiders being brought to be resettled in farms around Bulawayo when the pre-colonial owners of that land remain excluded.

b. They lost their cattle, which they have not yet recovered. Thomas Meikles and his brother, presided over the Looting Committee which was set up to collect 800 000 cattle belonging to the Ndebele and distribute them among themselves and their African batsmen. Some were driven to South Africa. The government of Zimbabwe cannot champion that agenda. The King will lead the rectification of this history of dispossession in which the government of the United Kingdom has a case to answer.

c. They lost their monarch, which they have not yet recovered. In this regard, the Ndebele people are the only people who lost their institution of the King due to colonisation. Nobody else did but that is not to say they cannot revive theirs if they so wish.

d. They lost their independence. Arguably this is the only thing which was achieved after the demise of colonialism but many still feel that Mthwakazi never regained her independence since 1893, her colonial status was simply inherited by Zimbabwe.

Being an old institution does not make it irrelevant. Royal families are symbols of national unity and sources of pride. Many European countries today including the English still have genuine affection for their monarchs. These include the Netherlands, Spain, Denmark, Belgium, Luxembourg, Norway, and Monaco among others. Monarchs also exist in many African countries including South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Zambia, Uganda, Nigeria, Morocco etc.

2. King Lobhengula was disgraced in defeat by the colonial forces, after signing away his country?

Show me one African ruler who was not disgraced through violent colonisation and I will show you a collaborator. You either resisted or collaborated. However, even those who collaborated later discovered that they had chosen a wrong path as they were better off under Ndebele rule than white colonialism. The ex collaborators joined the Ndebele in the Uprising of 1896-7 against their colonizers whom they had previously aided to colonise them. Practically speaking, all African rulers were disgraced when they lost their power and autonomy to European settlers who then subjugated them under their rule. Even Chief Khama of Betshwanaland Protectorate (Botswana) and the Litunga of Barotseland (Western Zambia) who avaoided a military confrontation but cjoe to voluntarily place themselves under British protection were not saved from various forms of ill-treatment and racial segregation by their supremacist colonisers. King Lobhengula preferred an Anglo-Ndebele Pact of mutual respect and equality like the one he had signed with Paul Kruger of the Transvaal Republic, not subjugation. The Anglo-Ndebele Pact was expected to be buttressed with a marriage union between the British Queen and His Majesty, King Lobhengula like King Mzilikazi had done with the Swazi Queen Nyamazana on finding her already in charge of affairs in Zimbabwe. The African inferiority complex currently prevalent against Europeans is a new phenomenon traceable to the colonial period. King Lobhengula used to make Europeans crawl on their bellies before him after making them wait months to see him. He never recognized white people's racial superiority. His forces sent the British Army helter skelter until they were saved by the Maxim gun. King Lobhengula forces put up the stiffest fight the British had ever witnessed in their colonial exploration. Only the spear-wielding Matabele and Zulu forces humiliated the British Imperial Army when they defeated them at Tshangane (ePupu) and Isandlwana respectively. With or without the Rudd Concession, Rhodesia was going to be colonised. This is the reason why the rest of the other countries where King Lobhengula had no jurisdiction still got colonised. Some had to execute vicious armed struggles to win their freedom back after nearly a century of colonial occupation.

3. Why have you not done this before, why after 125 years, have you been afraid?

It is not true that the Kingdom is being revived for the first time now after 125 years of silence. Many attempts were made immediately after 1893 and around the time of Umvukela but were frustrated by colonial settlers. More such attempts continued to be made since then but have always been consistently thwarted by the successive regimes in Rhodesia with one such effort being made by Prince Nguboyenja in 1918 when he took on the British Imperial government leading to the matter being unjustly adjudicated by the British Privy Council in favour of the British Crown. Prince Nyamande also made several attempts to revive the monarch with the support of izinduna but was equally frustrated by the colonial administrators in Rhodesia. Fear was not the factor although there was a lot of persecution directed at those who were closely associated with the Ndebele royal family. As part of the strategy to deny the Ndebele people of any rallying point, Cecil John Rhodes and his cronies exiled most of the King's boy children in South or England. These princes included Njube, Mphezeni and Nguboyenja. Njube is was banished to the Cape colony and is the direct anacestor to Prince Bulelani Lobhengula Khumalo who has been identified as the successor to the throne.

In the 1950s, the advent of African nationalism caused a slump in the demand for the revival of the monarch because the nationalists said it could wait until independence was won by Africans. When constitutional talks for independence came in 1979, the nationalists ducked the issue even when both Ian Smith and the British Government raised it. Ndebele people were actually let down by leaders of the Patriotic Front co-led by Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe who selfishly marginalised the issue.

4. What is the purpose of the King? What will he do for Mthwakazi or Zimbabwe?

Apart from being symbol of national unity and source of pride, we need the institution of the king to:

a. Reverse the cultural and linguistic erosion suffered by the multi-tribal Mthwakazi nation.

b. Lead our people on a crusade to conserveour culture and language against all forms of threats.

c. Revive some of our ancient but relevant cultural heritage and ceremonies such as inxwala, umhlanga, umthontiso and ukusoka.

d. Spearhead efforts to recover our lost land and the 800 000 herd of cattle looted after the fall of the Ndebele Kingdom

e. Spearhead development in the region through proper land administration, ukusisa system and isiphala seNkosi.

f. Make final adjudication on all referral cases from the chiefs.

5. Did you ask permission from the Zimbabwe government to resuscitate this Monarch?

Zimbabwe is presumably a free country founded on constitutional democracy. Free people do not beg their governments for permission to practise their culture; they inform or notify it if that is deemed necessary.

6. The Constitution of Zimbabwe does not recognize a King how will you install a king?

The Constitution may not recognise the King per se but does not outlaw the existence of a ceremonial king. The constitution actually does recognise traditional leadership in terms of Chapter 15.1(1) and (2):

15.1 Traditional leadership

(1) Traditional leadership under customary law is recognised.

(2) A traditional leader is responsible for performing the cultural, customary and traditional functions of a chief, headperson or village head, as the case may be, for his or her community.

"...as the case may be..." actually accommodates the King although at the time of crafting the constitution the drafters may not have specifically mentioned the designation of the king.

7. They appointed a foreigner as Ndebele King, are there no qualified Zimbabweans from the Khumalo lineage?

No Ndebele seed, let alone a cub of the Matabele Lion is a foreigner in Mthwakazi no matter how long they stayed in forced exile. This is like saying all children born in exile during the liberation struggle have no claim over Zimbabwe. The objective of exiling all the eligible princes to South Africa was to defeat the resolve of the Ndebele to revive their monarch. By overlooking the foreign-based Ndebele princes the elders will be double-punishing the royal descendants for an injustice first done to them by Cecil John Rhodes. By appointing Bulelani the elders have reversed Cecil Rhodes's 125 year long temporary victory.

8. Many claimants have come through over the years, Mcijwana Khumalo, Mzilikazi II (Stanley Tshuma), and now Peter Zwide Khumalo. What is the position now, how would we know who the right one is?

It is actually very normal that such claimants have suddenly emerged in their desire to occupy the vacant throne. All these claimants are chancers as they are either not descended from the last Ndebele king in the case of Mcijwana Khumalo and Stanley Tshuma or do not qualify based on the Ndebele royal succession technicality regarding the time of their Lobhengula-sired ancestor's birth. Mcijwana claims to be descended from Prince Nkulumane while Stanley Tshuma claims to be descended from Prince Hlangabeza. Both were Lobhengula's brothers and their claims were invalidated by Lobhengula's eventual ascendancy to the Ndebele throne and his being the last king. Peter Zwide Khumalo who claims ancestry to King Lobhengula's first born, Prince Nyamande, is disqualified on the basis that his immediate ancestor from Lobhengula's loins was born before his father became king. Records about the coronation of King Lobhengula in 1870 reveal that Prince Nyamande and his siblings from the two Mkhwanazi women who were Lobhengula's first wives witnessed the coronation. Of course we have recently seen an attempt to rewrite that history and present Prince Nyamande as having been born in 1873, which is not correct because in 1870 Lobhengula had been married for at least eight years.

9. How are you going to support the King, where will the King live, what will he do all day?

The financial costs of the monarch are fairly modest. The British royal family, for example, costs the average taxpayer less than $1 per year and probably brings in far more than that in tourism dollars. The British royal family brings tourists to England in droves. I expect that whatever budget for the sustenance of the institution of the King will be defrayed by the tourist revenues he is expected to rack in. The King will live in his palaces which we expect to be constructed in the four provinces where the king's jurisdiction extends; that is Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and South as well as the Midlands province. We expect the Royal office to be extremely busy in matters of administering the land within his territorial jurisdiction in collaboration with the chiefs, presiding over referral cases from chiefs, presiding over traditional ceremonies, spearheading development and chairing the royal council meetings attended by chiefs as well as meeting the people around his country to instil a strong sense of identity and patriotism.

10. The King is Nguni but most of the people in Matabeleland are not Nguni, why can't Tshuma or Moyo being appointed kings?

To be technical with you every Ndebele person, by virtue of being Ndebele, regardless of their ethnic origins and surnames are anthropologically, culturally and linguistically classified as Nguni. Do you think if you killed all the so called Nguni (since this is the wish of some people in this region) you will suddenly have another language group in Matabeleand emerging as the majority? Never! The Nguni speaking people will still continue being the most numerically dominant in the region. Remember before the arrival of the King Mzilikazi in this country, there was no one who called themselves Ncube, Dube, Ndlovu, Sibanda, Ngwenya, Nkomo, Ngulube, Nyoni, Nyathi, Manyathela, Msipha, Nkiwane, Mthunzi, Mpala, Mlalazi, Mangena, etc. These surnames and people who use them are as much Nguni as the Khumalo as they speak and practice the same ultire6as them. History fused them together into one entity like all the true nations of the world. A nation is not a tribe but a collection of diverse peoples who share a common history and aspirations. They even habe to speak one language. Khumalo is not the king of Ndebeles because he is Nguni; he is the king because he founded the Ndebele identity and nation. You can't change the founders of a nation unless you're a thief of history. Any other person who wishes to lead Ndebeles must form a political party, campaign to be endorsed as a leader and contest elections. Of course there are miscreants who have been on the rampage to criminalise Nguniness in Zimbabwe for genocidal purposes. They are driven by their jealousy to see the wonder of Ndebeleness as a product of a successful nation building exercise by Kings Mzilikazi and Lobhengula. Prince Bulelani Lobhengula will therefore be king of all Ndebele people and other identities which for historical and mutually beneficial reasons wish to be identified with the Ndebele .

11. The Rozwi of the Mambo Trust also want to resuscitate their King, what do you say to that?

The Mthwakazi King will be happy to relate cordially with any of the kingdoms in Southern Africa whether they are the Mambos based on the Chief Mugabe lineage in Masvingo, or mambos drawned from Chief Chiundura in Gweru. There are many countries like Nigeria and South Africa where kings coexist not just in one country but within the same province such as in Limpopo where Vendas, Pedis and Shanganis live together as neighbours. Their boundaries are clearly defined by the distinct languages they speak and the culture they practise. I presume the Rozvi language and culture will also define their kingdom's boundaries.

However, whoever wants to revive their ancient kingdoms must not do so being prompted by reasons of jealousy of the Ndebele and spitefulness of their identity. There are some people who think that by threatening to revive their defunct monarchs from lineages which have become extinct they will discourage the Ndebele from their quest for cultural renaissance.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM: Africa

Loading...Last week, President Emmerson Mnangagwa extended the deadline applicable to those who externalised money and assets by two weeks in the hope that the cold-hearted among them will mellow and do the right thing before the noose tightens around their necks.

From the recorded cases of externalisation, only 45 percent of the culprits have played ball, and the rest are playing "catch me if you can".

At the expiry of the two-week deadline next week, focus will shift to Mnangagwa's government as the nation rightfully follows how the new administration, accused of resembling old wine in new bottles, will deal with those playing hard to get.

Mnangagwa has already pronounced himself clearly on this matter.

When he introduced the three-month moratorium, which expired on February 28, he told those who cared to listen that the long arm of the law will catch up with offenders, regardless of their stations in society. He went further to say he will name and shame offenders.

But if there is one thing the Mnangagwa administration has been good at, it is saying the right things. The 100-day plan, which government has been harping about since it assumed power riding on the cocktails of the military, shows the devil has been in the implementation.

Its anti-corruption blitzkrieg has only seen members of the Generation 40 faction being hauled to the coals, among them Walter Mzembi, Samuel Undenge and Ignatius Chombo, and none in the Team Lacoste faction is yet to face the music.

There is even the curious case of Obert Mpofu who was reported to the Zimbabwe Anti Corruption Commission and yet nothing is being done to investigate the allegations levelled against the former Mines minister who was in charge of the portfolio when $15 billion in diamond revenue was said to have been funnelled outside the country.

Recent reports suggest that even Team Lacoste-aligned Zanu-PF functionaries who are locked behind bars believe that they must now taste freedom now that the "political circumstances" have changed.

Mnangagwa must avoid falling into pitfalls that swallowed his predecessor, Robert Mugabe, who used corruption as a bait to recruit loyalists who, in the end, turned against him when they discovered that he was no longer of use to them. Being a good listener, the message has reached Mnangagwa's ears.

While in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) last week, Mnangagwa said his government would not consider friendship in its fight against corruption as no one is above the law.

Addressing Zimbabweans based in the DRC, he said the vision of his administration was to ensure adherence to the rule of law. Well said Cde President.

So what are you waiting for?OMG, she's so nutty, I loved it.



Although she didn't deserve the Oscar.

Reply

Thread

Link

For the first time in years, I saw all the movies in the Actress in a Leading Role category, and I actually think that she deserved it. However, I think Saoirse didn't deserve her nomination. She's a good actress, but Lady Bird and her performance were overrated.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Personally,I think Sally Hawkins deserve it more, as she was able to express so much without actually talking throughout the movie.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Yeah, I don't get anyone saying she didn't earn it. The movie was trash but her performance was amazing.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

i was surprised by how much i liked ladybird. but i was also surprised by how overrated saoirse's performance was... i don't think it was that great, maybe even kinda bad actually? BUT i really like saoirse onscreen, she just has a likable/charismatic quality. but i don't think she gave the best performance in that movie.



for some reason i still wanted her to win though idk.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I think that once someone breaks the seal and is nominated the first time, people tend to develop this bias where they see an Oscar worthy performance in most things that they do afterwards. i think saoirse falls into this category.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

it's kinda bizarre to me that people p much unanimously praise chalamet's performance in cmbyn (and i don't disagree) but i've seen quite a few who share your opinion that saoirse's is overrated, when i felt like both characters are actually really similar in many ways & so are their performances.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

She was great but my problem is that she has already played this exact character many, many times and was as great. A part of me wonders if that's the only performance she can put out and if so, maybe my great is not even trying for her... Idk.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

This isn't Emma Stone, Jen Law or Gwyneth Paltrow. Sally might've delivered a more nuanced, touching performance and I think she was more deserving but there isn't a world where Frances isn't deserving of awards.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Question: if someone steals your Oscar the day you won it and they never find it, can the Academy give you another one?



Edited at 2018-03-05 04:54 pm (UTC)

Reply

Thread

Link

I think they do.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Yes, they replace them if they are stolen.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

OT But I love your icon! I've been following her for a while and I hope she does well on the show.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I think she's really talented, so I also hope she does well. Loving your Bianca icon, too!

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

lmao

Reply

Thread

Link

Like, I didn't want her to win either but that's just rude. What kind of randos are they letting in the Governors Ball??

Reply

Thread

Link

Not like she doesnt have a spare...



Can someone steal back Gary Oldmans oscar and give it to someone more deserving like for example, ANY of the other nominees....

Reply

Thread

Link

His win was such a stinker tbh. Me and my friend booed in unison when they called his name.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Lol aren't they engraved?

Reply

Thread

Link

I think they are engraved the same night. Either way, who steals an Oscar?

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I'm thinking copious amounts of alcohol was involved in this "theft"

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Lots of people have had their Oscars stolen over the years! They almost always track them down because the fools put them up for auction.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Ms. Sally and Ms. Saoirse seeking revenge tbh!!!



That's stupid though. Why would someone be that much an asshole?

Reply

Thread

Link

Also a few sites are reporting she started crying when she realized it was gone which I really can't picture. She just seems like the Queen of IDGAF.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I would feel so guilty if someone gave me something valuable and it was stolen

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

People who do things FOR THE LULZZZZZ and CRAZINESS of it all

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Maybe he thought he could sell it?

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

OMG, I thought this was going to be some quirky story that was being over-dramatic click bait but nope. She was seen crying after having lost it - that's fucked up, man.

Reply

Thread

Link

LoL

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

LOL

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

omg... the mere thought of frances mcdormand crying legit makes me SO SAD

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Smh, leave ha alone.

She endeared to me last year, I'm about to watch every movie she's ever been in. She has a new fan. 

Reply

Thread

Link

Wait, that's the mom from Almost Famous! Love her.

Reply

Thread

Link

Rock stars have kidnapped my son!

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I love her in that movie, DONT TAKE DRUGS!

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

she's incredible in it <3

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

she's so good in that movie

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

lol thats cute

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

It was Joey Tribbiani.

Reply

Thread

Link

Lmao

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Oscars supposedly have zero resale value since these days only the Academy can buy them back (and for a pittance), so how is this grand theft?



Edited at 2018-03-05 05:28 pm (UTC)

Reply

Thread

Link

i think they are made out of brass and plated with 24K gold

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Frances is a really interesting person

Reply

Thread

Link

I wanna get drunk with her, tbh.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

She and Emma Thompson (whose drunken antics were sorely missed last night!) would be so much fun to hang out with.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

SAME. Or stoned. I bet she's a riot.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

LMFAO after I saw Fargo the first time, I said I wanted to have tea with her.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

She is!

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Seriously.



Her indifference and speaking up saying "Get diverse or you can get another actress," is the level of awesome I want to achieve.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

i wanna see her movie pitches lol

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link





WTF?! Did they not listen to Mulaney the other night??

Reply

Thread

Link

This gif, omfg!!

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

lol

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Nick's facial expression is killing me, LoL.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

lmao mcdormand-assisted suicide

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

lmao omg

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

This entire monologue was hilarious

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

john mulaney is one seriously funny motherfucker. i think he may be my favourite comedian.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

OMG, you're here! I was missing you <3

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

lmfao fuck i love him

Reply

Parent

Thread



LinkM E S S

Reply

Thread

Link

what was even the point of that second tweet?

Reply

Thread

Link

She's such an obnoxious piece of trash.



First off she tries to tell a story of a woman then ends it with "that woman was me!" Umm OK.



then she feels the need to specify that the man was Jewish and then "This wasn't the first time! Other Hassidic men have attacked women!"



It just kept getting worse and worse.

Reply

Thread

Link

She didn't lie about the aggressive drivers, but she def did not need to specify his religion. Like one of the re: said, now there's just going to be a witch hunt and more antisemitism

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I live in the area and Im having a hard time being upset over this. Hasidic Williamsburg is full of aggressive drivers and giant busses that dont obey normal laws of traffic. Im not even sure if Hasidic women are allowed to drive.

Reply

Thread

Link

no they are not allow to drive...some they don't even work i think it depends who are you married with

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Yeah. I wonder how many people who are angry at her have actually tried driving in Williamsburg. They are notoriously aggressive drivers, even by NYC standards.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

that stretch of flushing (and the surrounding streets) from like marcy to the highway is hell on earth traffic-wise. an impenetrable sea of honda pilots.



....except for friday night's and saturdays.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I used to live nearby, and this.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

i lived in williamsburg for 10 years and that specific sect of hasidism is a fucking shitty terrible cult that does and hides incredibly fucked up shit like crimes against children and abuse of women they behave as though they are above the law and general rules of society do not apply. is Every Single Person who is a part of that group a bad person? of course not! but the group as a whole is bad, just like any shitty cult.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Seriously, I don't live in NYC and I've never even been there. But I've heard from NPR and some podcasts about some of the issues and cultural clash happening with the Hasidic community.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

But, is her (or your) beef the driving, or that they are Hasidic? Why mention his religion, even if they are overwhelmingly Hasidic people doing it? They're probably just shitty drivers. You happen to be in a Hasidic area. It sorta works like that.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

The first tweet was whatever but that second tweet slid into Anti-Semitic territory super quick.



Edited at 2018-03-05 07:54 pm (UTC)

Reply

Thread

Link

Exactly like all the fake sjw/liberals. it's disgusting how they hide behind their bullshit

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

yup

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

yeah fuck her messy ass

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Definitely. Despite what I said above (that that particular Hasidic community is toxic), the way she tweeted about them is really not okay.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

So.. are there news items on these attacks happening before? Known to the community of South Williamsburg? Is this a thing?

Reply

Thread

Link

So it does happen, thanks.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Honestly, it's kind of complicated. There's a long history of tensions between the Hasidic community and the non-Hasidic people in the neighborhoods around them. There was a big thing a while back about bike lanes, that the Hasidic community didn't like that they encouraged "scantily clad" women to ride bikes through the neighborhood, etc. And harassment (sexual and otherwise) has been an issue, of cyclists and pedestrians, although obviously that's an issue everywhere, not just in the Hasidic community. There have been other things, like them trying to segregate buses that they run using public funding (trying to make women sit in the back of the bus) that don't exactly help community relations.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link











this car chased down two people I know in the bike lane, attempting to run them over

unfortunately it's very well known problem in this neighborhoodthis car chased down two people I know in the bike lane, attempting to run them over

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

good comment. i hate the "what if you said _______" arguments. i think people are doing it here to point out that the left lets a lot of antisemitism slide, but imo it's a shitty way to make that point

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

In that particular neighborhood they have their own religious police force and yes they have attacked both women and other visible minorities who happened not to be hasidic. There's a few videos in this post showing that bikes have been run off the road purposely multiple times.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

There's so much abuse that goes on in the Hasidic community though and so many people get shamed and disowned and attacked for "leaving" and living a secular or less religious life after being forced into an arranged marriage with someone they met for an hour and then having a bunch of kids and being expected to just be a submissive and quiet homemaker.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

i remember watching a doco about that recently. i think it was on netflix. so sad.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

The thing is, they keep all their crimes very hush hush. I'm Muslim too so I get the stereotype sucks, but this community is very sketchy. I live in Brooklyn and right adjacent to another massive Hasidic community, and the shit they get away with is unreal. I work at a hospital and we hear stories of how they use their own ambulances and police forces to cover up whenever they hit and run people. Also, whenever they come to our hospital as patients, they are all over the patient making sure everything is going by correctly and don't give two fucks about HIPAA.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Go back to defending your racist husband. You guys are perfect for each other.

Reply

Thread

Link

i've spoken with charlyne, we're fine.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

You're lucky to have me.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Right? This is a note to all those people wondering how she can be married to a man like him. This is how.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

or Tarantino

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Stay showing your ass, sweety. You're doing amazing!

Reply

Thread

Link

Attempting (or actual) harm to women is not exclusive to any group of men no matter how you want to slice the pie, so what the hell is the point of her Tweets? She needs to take an extended social media break and sort her life out.

Reply

Thread

Link

Well, Hasidic men aren't exactly champions of women's rights or tolerance. Hasidic Judaism is extremism, plain and simple. I know ya'll are going to roast me, I don't care. I've seen enough documentaries to understand why people are desperate to escape its chains.



If people in ONTD are going to take a stand against wingnut bible thumpers, for their anti-LGBTQ stance, attack on women's reproductive rights etc., we need to do the same against other extreme sects of religions. Just because they're a minority doesn't mean they're exempt from critique.



Edited at 2018-03-05 09:25 pm (UTC)

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

For every article you find about men in the Hasidic community attacking women on the street I can find two about some "red-blooded American male" who murdered his wife/girlfriend/random woman who told him no. The problem is toxic masculinity in general.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

this seems to be a very specific problem in this area, tho?

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

im dying at "thank you for your kind words of support" like sis youre out here claiming hasidic men are trying to kill you please stop.

Reply

Thread

Link

Yeesh ~woke liberals really don't give a fuck about antisemitism

Reply

Thread

Link

they are all hypocrites

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

neither does this community most of the time

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

agreed

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

we should be thanking her! her twitter is a gift!





Reply

Thread

Link

idk why that tweet sent me off, but i was like biiiiitch who the fuq are you!? lmfao

Reply

Parent

Thread



LinkEverybody gets a death hoax these days, just turn this into a thirst post please.

Reply

Thread

Link

I'm so glad you're back!

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

His forearm to upper arm ratio makes me less insecure about mine 'cause this man is beautiful.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

yas queen cupcakke

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

just turn this into a thirst post please



are there any cavill posts that aren't thirst posts?



are there any cavill posts thatthirst posts?

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link





[ NSFW ]















since I havent thirsted for him since the tudors....

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

My heart jumped into my throat for a full three seconds before I noticed and processed the word "NOT"

Reply

Thread

Link

THANK GOD

Reply

Thread

Link

Judging by the reception for BvS and JL I assumed they were just referring to his career....

Reply

Thread

Link

lmao Same

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

lol

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Details, show me thighs.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

lmao

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

LOL sis.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

GO IN SIS

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

i can't tell if i love or hate the moustache and it's driving me insane lol

Reply

Thread

Link

Ive been hating it but then I saw the MI:6 trailer and I was so confused cos I had the sudden urge to... sit on his face

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

lmao this is the exact type of confusion im facing ty for understanding

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

He's British?! I feel like there are so many stealth British dudes out there.

Reply

Thread

Link

I saw him on Grahm Norton and when he started to speak and I heard his accent my panties flew off.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

he was so much better when he was skinny, boring and not skirting around the sexual predator registry by dating college freshmen

Reply

Thread

Link

Did they lie? Whats a 33 year old man doing dating a 18/19 year old? mess.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

Maybe the WORLD is wrong. Maybe the fact that ppl think this is "trivial," when in reality it should be considered predatory, is the problem. And ppl like you who insist that getting all judgey about creepy age differences is ~trivial~ are the real regressives.



I notice you do it when people mention the creepy age difference in CMBYN, too. Like. All the fucking time.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

is he still fucking 19 year olds?

Reply

Thread

Link

not at the moment

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I'm two 16 year olds so he can fuck me twice.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

He aint fucking me



- a bitter 19 year old

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Those lats are like angel wings and he's about to take off.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

lmao

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

oh my fucking god lmfaoooooo

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

BITCH LMAOO



Mte tho

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

LMFAO



but does ONTD want to be Tom or Jerry? (don't tell me, I already know)

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Licky licky boom boom

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

goddamn

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Omg the second one. Click and save

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I kinda love his body in Immortals.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

I thought it was kind of funny...like what would we have lost? Nothing that you couldn't provide with your imagination and your hand.

Reply

Thread

Link

omg this song is about masturbating

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Do bad things to me Henry

Reply

Thread

Link

I cant decide whats hotter his as or tights.

Reply

Thread

Link

why not both?

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Body of a Greek god, personality of hummus.

Reply

Thread

LinkI was originally very skeptical, tbh, but now I am totally here for it.

Reply

Thread

Link

Not needed

Reply

Thread

Link

hmmm



i'm certainly not a hater but idk how i feel about this. althoughhh i just finished everything sucks and everything 90s sounds good rn lol.

Reply

Thread

Link

i liked it a lot more than i thought it would. i started watching it in the middle of watching la casa de papel bc that was a huge disappointment, and i was so pleasantly surprised ?



the characters are so pure, yet all have depth and they re-created the 90s so well it makes my heart ache in a good way lol.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

That show is insanely cute. I've been telling everyone to watch it and I can't stop listening to 90's pop. I was like middle school aged when the show takes place, so I remember looking up to kids like them and thinking they're so grown up and cool, I can't wait to be them.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link





i know a lot of tumblr/twitter was upset bc the age differences between [ Spoiler (click to open) ] peyton and sydney (kate and emmaline) are like 5 years irl that show is sooooooooooo good! i want to do a rewatch and i need a full hour of it!i know a lot of tumblr/twitter was upset bc the age differences betweenbut they're just acting??? like no one cared about zac efron and kay panabaker kissing on summerland and iirc she was underage when it happened (lmao the only age difference i actively know)

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

omg what a super adorable show!

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Doesn't the older guy crush his heart in the end? Why even be bothered??

Reply

Thread

Link

he does. he gets engaged to some woman he used to date and is pretty much like "lol bye." then Swiss Chalet delivers the most haunting 2-minute sadface into the fireplace.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

LOL love this. This should be the official IMDB description imo.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

is really not like that though



more like "he had to" because his family wouldn't have accepted him being gay, it was very clear it was a decision made out of goddamn fear

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

As an aside, it's slightly obnoxious that all criticism of this movie is deflected as 'hating' no matter how mild.

Reply

Thread

Link

I was thinking this about Adam Rippon's outfit last night. If anyone puts him on a worst-dressed list it would be homophobia, but it was a really tacky and terrible choice.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

lmao i know what you mean. sometimes i'm like "oh, that's tacky" but also "straights do not engage"

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I just hate the usage of "haters" and "hating". It's a way for people to avoid uncomfortable conversations and different points of view. It's like "fake news".

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

yup. thats how i knew the movie wasnt for me. that and that gross ass scene from the book.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

apparently it's "tired" to maintain the very valid central criticism of the movie. live in your filth, sis, but own it and don't pretend the vitriol is somehow unearned

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

idk how I feel about this but I'm leaning towards no, mostly because I feel like a sequel would kind of diminish the original ending

Reply

Thread

Link

yeah, I feel this

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Unless the cast signed contracts that require them to be in a sequel, I wouldn't hold my breath on seeing this happen. There's no time frame given, but he doesn't even have a script or funding yet, and two years from now, the leads might have moved on to the point that they don't want to revisit these characters.



And two years from now, I doubt Timmy is going to look 5 or 6 years older. He's going to look like a child for the next decade, lbr

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I finally saw this movie this weekend and I was really disappointed :( I haven't been keeping up too much with the posts here, but did anyone else not really enjoy it?

Reply

Thread

Link

this might be just me but I got confused when they were like, lowkey arguing? being passive-aggressive? it was kinda hard to follow some of the logic of it or why they were annoyed with each other at times.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Yeah that part was very frustrating. I think its a bit more clear in the book versus the film but they were a bit vague in the film as to why Oliver and Elio was mad. Oliver was trying to keep distance because he thought he came on too strong in the Volleyball scene and probably felt pervy. Elio was mad and embarrassed in that one scene because of other stuff. They just weren't very clear in that regard.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

i think their trying to deliver the way it was in the book without saying which is difficult. basically they both wanted each other but didn't know the other did so they're acting all angry because of the tension.



but there's some weird emotions in the book like elio saying one night when he doesn't come back from a boat trip he kind of hopes he's dead and his eyeless corpse will wash up on the beach

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

idk how you identify sexually but after they had sex and Elio was being passive aggressive for seemingly no reason... I felt that

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

I related to the passive-aggressivenes and low-key arguing on a personal level bc I'm currently going through a similar stuff. I think it's not unusual when you have this much tension and want and jealousy in the air and you sort of trying to figure things out.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

I honestly couldn't even finish it. I tried twice and just thought it was boring.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

it was boring and facile imo, style over substance, which is the director's doing. the acting was pretty stilted too outside of timothee.

Reply

Parent

Thread

Expand

Link

I didn't like it all that much. I kept being weirded out by Oliver. I thought Timothee was wonderful. I could relate to him, especially the last 10 minutes. But Armie Hammer.. I didn't get it. I know that Elio is precocious but there are great pains to explain that he's still just a 17yr old kid who doesnt know wtf he's doing. I thought a lot of the picture was really beautiful, especially when Elio is waiting at night for Oliver to come home, but some of the direction was really odd, too. Ugh I don't know.



In any case, a sequel is weird, because the last ten minutes of that movie are really great and should be left alone.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Me! Like...I've heard a lot of people talk about how it captures that feeling of your first love and the awkwardness and how much it makes your heart ache but it was just so slow and I wasn't into it at all. It felt like a chore to get through.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

issues i had with the age difference aside, i thoroughly enjoyed the novel. i thought it honestly captured what it's like to fall in love, especially for the first time, through the eyes of a compelling dude. however, i think whatever endeared me to the novel was mostly absent from the film. save for the soundtrack, cinematography, and the performance tchal and the background characters gave, i thought the film was lifeless. the choppy editing sucked the life out of the centerpiece of the story, elio and oliver's relationship, which left me feeling cold. and it doesn't help that the lead cast bungled so much of the press tour, but that's kinda besides the point.

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

I feel like it would be daunting to follow up such a critically acclaimed film/performance with a sequel but it's obvious everyone involved really cares about this story. Armie is going to full full throttle to get that Oscar nom.

Reply

Thread

Link

Timmy can get his Oscar for it!

Reply

Thread

Link

Good, keep those two busy and out of projects I could care about.

Reply

Thread

Link

lol

Reply

Thread

Link

um what

Reply

Thread

Link

Yes! So excited!

Reply

Thread

Link

Call Me By Your Name 2: Call Me Harder? 2 Call Me 2 By Your Name?



IDK, I thought the ending of this movie was its strongest part and it doesn't feel like a movie that needs a sequel but then, I probably would have said that Before Sunrise didn't need a sequel either (if I hadn't been 3 when it came out lol) and I wouldn't mind it if the sequels to this turn out sort of like that series.

Reply

Thread

Link

Call Out 2 Me By Your Name

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

Call Me Maybe

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

omg yeth..

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

call me by your name 2: electric boogaloo

Reply

Parent

Thread



Link

As a gayelle, the end was honestly so meaningful. I feel like so many of us have been in kind of the same situation as Elio. I really liked the movie but I feel like the ending was so powerful that tagging an epilogue on it might kind of ruin it.

Reply

Thread

LinkChaperones are specialized proteins in the cell that help other proteins to reach their functional 3-D shapes, which correspond to the states preferred at thermodynamic equilibrium. But a new study by EPFL, UNIL and INSERM (France) scientists shows that chaperones can also maintain proteins in non-equilibrium states, potentially altering their fate. The work is published in Nature Chemical Biology.

After translation, proteins must fold to their functional 3D shape and keep it while under attack by various perturbations: external stress such as temperature changes, wrong interactions with other proteins in the cell, and even deleterious mutations. To ensure that proteins stay functional, the cell uses a particular class of proteins, the chaperones. These are present in all organisms and are among the most abundant proteins in cells, emphasizing how crucial they are to sustain life.

The current view is that the functional 3D shape of a protein is also its most thermodynamically stable state, and that chaperones help proteins reach this state by keeping them from aggregating and by allowing them to escape so-called "kinetic traps" - points where the protein may get "stuck" in a non-functional state. And to do all this, chaperones need energy, which in the cell comes in the form of adenosine triphosphate, or ATP.

The labs of Paolo De Los Rios at EPFL and Pierre Goloubinoff at UNIL, in collaboration with Alessandro Barducci (INSERM - Montpellier) have now shown that the energy from ATP is used by chaperones to actively maintain the proteins they are working on in a non-equilibrium but transiently stable version of the functional form, even under conditions upon which the functional form should not be thermodynamically stable.

"What we found is that chaperones can actively repair and revert the proteins they act upon in a non-equilibrium steady-state," says De Los Rios. "In this state, the proteins are in their native state even if, from an equilibrium thermodynamics perspective, they should not."

The researchers combined theoretical and experimental approaches to prove that chaperones are molecular motors, capable of performing work and extending the stability range of proteins. The results may challenge parts of the prevalent view that evolution has designed amino acid sequences so that the functional state of the protein they belong to is thermodynamically optimal.

"In the presence of chaperones, even thermodynamically sub-optimal proteins might be able to reach their functional form, facilitating evolution in its endless exploration of chemical possibilities," says De Los Rios.

Explore further Maximum precision in protein synthesis

More information: Pierre Goloubinoff, Alberto S. Sassi, Bruno Fauvet, Alessandro Barducci, Paolo De Los Rios. Chaperones convert the energy from ATP into the non-equilibrium stabilisation of native proteins. Nature Chemical Biology 05 March 2018. Journal information: Nature Chemical Biology Pierre Goloubinoff, Alberto S. Sassi, Bruno Fauvet, Alessandro Barducci, Paolo De Los Rios. Chaperones convert the energy from ATP into the non-equilibrium stabilisation of native proteins.05 March 2018. DOI: 10.1038/s41589-018-0013-8An asteroid belt orbits a star in this artist's rendering. In a new study, experiments at Berkeley Lab explored possible chemical pathways that could form complex hydrocarbons -- like those found in some meteorite samples -- in space. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Scientists have used lab experiments to retrace the chemical steps leading to the creation of complex hydrocarbons in space, showing pathways to forming 2-D carbon-based nanostructures in a mix of heated gases.

The latest study, which featured experiments at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), could help explain the presence of pyrene, which is a chemical compound known as a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, and similar compounds in some meteorites.

A team of scientists, including researchers from Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, participated in the study, published March 5 in the Nature Astronomy journal. The study was led by scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and also involved theoretical chemists at Florida International University.

"This is how we believe some of the first carbon-based structures evolved in the universe," said Musahid Ahmed, a scientist in Berkeley Lab's Chemical Sciences Division who joined other team members to perform experiments at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS).

"Starting off from simple gases, you can generate one-dimensional and two-dimensional structures, and pyrene could lead you to 2-D graphene," Ahmed said. "From there you can get to graphite, and the evolution of more complex chemistry begins."

Pyrene has a molecular structure composed of 16 carbon atoms and 10 hydrogen atoms. Researchers found that the same heated chemical processes that give rise to the formation of pyrene are also relevant to combustion processes in vehicle engines, for example, and the formation of soot particles.

The latest study builds on earlier work that analyzed hydrocarbons with smaller molecular rings that have also been observed in space, including in Saturn's moon Titan - namely benzene and naphthalene.

Ralf I. Kaiser, one of the study's lead authors and a chemistry professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said, "When these hydrocarbons were first seen in space, people got very excited. There was the question of how they formed." Were they purely formed through reactions in a mix of gases, or did they form on a watery surface, for example?

Ahmed said there is an interplay between astronomers and chemists in this detective work that seeks to retell the story of how life's chemical precursors formed in the universe.

"We talk to astronomers a lot because we want their help in figuring out what's out there," Ahmed said, "and it informs us to think about how it got there."

Kaiser noted that physical chemists, on the other hand, can help shine a light on reaction mechanisms that can lead to the synthesis of specific molecules in space.

Reaction pathways that can form a hydrocarbon called pyrene through a chemical method known as hydrogen-abstraction/acetylene-addition, or HACA, is shown at the top. At bottom, some possible steps by which pyrene can form more complex hydrocarbons via HACA (red) or another mechanism (blue) called hydrogen abstraction -- vinylacetylene addition (HAVA). Credit: Long Zhao, Ralf I. Kaiser, et al./Nature Astronomy, DOI: 10.1038/s41550-018-0399-y

Pyrene belongs to a family known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, that are estimated to account for about 20 percent of all carbon in our galaxy. PAHs are organic molecules that are composed of a sequence of fused molecular rings. To explore how these rings develop in space, scientists work to synthesize these molecules and other surrounding molecules known to exist in space.

Alexander M. Mebel, a chemistry professor at Florida International University who participated in the study, said, "You build them up one ring at a time, and we've been making these rings bigger and bigger. This is a very reductionist way of looking at the origins of life: one building block at a time."

For this study, researchers explored the chemical reactions stemming from a combination of a complex hydrocarbon known as the 4-phenanthrenyl radical, which has a molecular structure that includes a sequence of three rings and contains a total of 14 carbon atoms and nine hydrogen atoms, with acetylene (two carbon atoms and two hydrogen atoms).

Chemical compounds needed for the study were not commercially available, said Felix Fischer, an assistant professor of chemistry at UC Berkeley who also contributed to the study, so his lab prepared the samples. "These chemicals are very tedious to synthesize in the laboratory," he said.

At the ALS, researchers injected the gas mixture into a microreactor that heated the sample to a high temperature to simulate the proximity of a star. The ALS generates beams of light, from infrared to X-ray wavelengths, to support a range of science experiments by visiting and in-house researchers.

The mixture of gases was jetted out of the microreactor through a tiny nozzle at supersonic speeds, arresting the active chemistry within the heated cell. The research team then focused a beam of vacuum ultraviolet light from the synchrotron on the heated gas mixture that knocked away electrons (an effect known as ionization).

They then analyzed the chemistry taking place using a charged-particle detector that measured the varied arrival times of particles that formed after ionization. These arrival times carried the telltale signatures of the parent molecules. These experimental measurements, coupled with Mebel's theoretical calculations, helped researchers to see the intermediate steps of the chemistry at play and to confirm the production of pyrene in the reactions.

Mebel's work showed how pyrene (a four-ringed molecular structure) could develop from a compound known as phenanthrene (a three-ringed structure). These theoretical calculations can be useful for studying a variety of phenomena, "from combustion flames on Earth to outflows of carbon stars and the interstellar medium," Mebel said.

Kaiser added, "Future studies could study how to create even larger chains of ringed molecules using the same technique, and to explore how to form graphene from pyrene chemistry."

Other experiments conducted by team members at the University of Hawaii will explore what happens when researchers mix hydrocarbon gases in icy conditions and simulate cosmic radiation to see whether that may spark the creation of life-bearing molecules.

"Is this enough of a trigger?" Ahmed said. "There has to be some self-organization and self-assembly involved" to create life forms. "The big question is whether this is something that, inherently, the laws of physics do allow."

Explore further A hot start to the origin of life? Researchers map the first chemical bonds that eventually give rise to DNA

More information: Long Zhao et al, Pyrene synthesis in circumstellar envelopes and its role in the formation of 2D nanostructures, Nature Astronomy (2018). Journal information: Nature Astronomy Long Zhao et al, Pyrene synthesis in circumstellar envelopes and its role in the formation of 2D nanostructures,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-018-0399-yIn February 2001, before the Olympic cauldron in Salt Lake City roared to life and focused the world's spotlight on Utah, scientists at the University of Utah placed the first of several carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) sensors atop a building on campus.

CO 2 is a key greenhouse gas leading to anthropogenic climate change, with cities around the world as major emitters of CO 2 . Now five CO 2 sensors monitor the air at sites on the Salt Lake Valley floor. It's the only multisite urban CO 2 network in the world with more than a decade of continuous measurements and it's showing how urban and suburban growth impacts a metro area's CO 2 emissions.

In a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by atmospheric scientists Logan Mitchell and John Lin report that suburban sprawl increases CO 2 emissions more than similar population growth in a developed urban core.

"The general thought is that more compact cities on a per capita basis emits less carbon," Lin says. "Some of these cities also have these expanding fringes. These places are less 'green', so to speak. That expanding frontier is moving."

Building the network

From the first sensor, placed atop the eight-story William Browning Building on the U campus, the network has expanded to include sensors in the Sugarhouse (placed in 2005), Murray (2005) and Rose Park (2009) areas, all well-established urban and suburban neighborhoods in the northern Salt Lake Valley. A sensor placed on Hidden Peak, at the top of the Snowbird ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains, measures background CO 2 levels.

Google Earth Engine data shows development and growth in the southwest Salt Lake Valley. Farmlands in 1984 become fully developed subdivisions by 2017. Credit: Google Earth Engine

CO 2 sensors require resource-intensive maintenance and calibration, factors that may explain why few other cities have multisite networks. Lin says the primary driving force in creating the network, however, was a forward-thinking vision among U researchers led originally by Jim Ehleringer, Diane Pataki and Dave Bowling in the biology department. Because of that vision, Lin says, "We know more about CO 2 in the Salt Lake Valley than any other urban area. We are one of the leading urban CO 2 networks, and the U is at the center of that."

See the locations of sensors used in this study here.

Suburban Growth

An additional sensor was placed in the southwest corner of the valley, intended to represent rural areas. But that sensor, located just west of South Jordan, has yielded some of the most interesting results. Although the area consisted of open fields when the sensor was first placed in 2004, it is now a bustling, developed area. The sensor picks up emissions from a wide swath of the region, as far east as Draper and as far south as Lehi.

"That part of the valley is a really important part of the story," Lin says.

"You're going from a land surface type where there's no people around and you have suburban expansion into this undeveloped land," Mitchell adds. "It's changing the CO 2 emission framework quite a bit."

The sensor in the southwestern corner of Salt Lake Valley provided an opportunity to directly compare the effect of population growth on emissions in different land-use areas. Over the same time that population in the southern part of the Salt Lake Valley and neighboring Utah Valley exploded, Salt Lake City grew by around 10,000 people. But the growth in CO 2 emissions wasn't comparable with the growth associated with suburban expansion in the southern end of Salt Lake Valley.

The research team concluded that growth in CO 2 emissions around the valley was more influenced by the type of neighborhood than by the total number of people moving into that neighborhood.

"In the more urban area, there's population growth there, but it's in the mature part of the city, not associated with growth in CO 2 ," Mitchell says. "If you add more people into downtown Salt Lake City, they're going into an existing place. But it's this population growth in rural areas that is seeing an increase in CO 2 emissions."

Comparing to global data

The team compared their results to four inventories of global carbon emissions to see if the same trend held. Just as with the U data, the inventories showed that population growth was not directly correlated to emissions growth. But the inventories showed a constant rate of emissions over the Salt Lake Valley, failing to capture the high CO 2 growth rate in suburban areas.

Global inventories are getting better and more refined, Mitchell says. "This is the bleeding edge of inventory constructionstarting to look at spatial structures in cities in these inventories. Because no other city has a long-term record, no one's been able to look at the evolution over time across a city."

Lin and Mitchell are now leading a project called CO 2 -USA (CO 2 -Urban Synthesis &Analysis network) to link CO 2 monitoring networks in urban areas across the country. "Some might have three to five years of data," Lin says. "We're hoping to join forces and to compare and contrast cities."

Locally, the team's next focus is on looking at the relationships between air quality and CO 2 measured at their tower sites (now numbering 12 and situated in surrounding basins) as well as incorporating the air quality data collected since 2014 on mobile sensors that ride along with light rail TRAX trains. The trains, operated by the Utah Transit Authority, crisscross the valley, and the data they collect fill in the gaps between long-term stationary CO 2 monitoring sites.

Lin also plans to use their data to make projections about Salt Lake's emissions future, including the city's goal to reduce CO 2 emissions by 80 percent by the year 2040. "The hope is that we or others who use these tools can help inform where the most bang for their buck is or whether 80 percent is even realistic given the projected population growth."

"Salt Lake City is one entity in the valley, but it's not the only one," Mitchell says. "If you reduce emissions by 80 percent and everyone moves out further from work and commutes in, it's not actually solving the problem."

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Energy.

The CO 2 data are publicly accessible. Archived and real-time measurements can be found at air.utah.edu/ .

Explore further Nursery stock, homeowner preferences drive tree diversity in Salt Lake Valley

More information: Long-term urban carbon dioxide observations reveal spatial and temporal dynamics related to urban characteristics and growth, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2018). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Long-term urban carbon dioxide observations reveal spatial and temporal dynamics related to urban characteristics and growth,(2018). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1702393115Credit: CC0 Public Domain

When word got out that the Trump administration wanted to end government funding of the International Space Station by 2025, resistance to the idea was swift and forceful.

In a rare sign of just how unpopular it was, two senators from opposing partiesDemocrat Bill Nelson of Florida and Republican Ted Cruz of Texasimmediately came out against the proposal, which was contained in the president's 2019 budget blueprint.

But former NASA astronaut Sandy Magnus said that stepping away from the space station could be seen as a sign of progress toward the eventual goal of sending humans out into the solar system. By transferring management of the ISS to private industry, she said, NASA still could lease space to continue its research in low Earth orbit while focusing more efforts on places such as the moon and Mars.

"It's a question of, does NASA own the building or is it leasing the building?" said Magnus, who lived on the space station for 4 { months in 2008 and 2009. It's "neither a good or a bad thing. It is the next stage in the evolution. But we've got to do it well."

After leaving NASA, Magnus became executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a position she held until January. She spoke with the Los Angeles Times about the pros and cons of having NASA stop operating the space station.

-

Q. What type of research is happening on the International Space Station?

A. It's everything from microbiology to biology to biochemistry to animal studies to human studies to material science to combustion science to Earth science and space science. Also, psychology and human behavior.

Q. Why is it important to do this research in space?

A. There are a lot of things we learn in microgravity about how cells behave, about how human physiology changes, how materials can form, how fluids operate and how combustion processes work that we can't learn about on Earth because gravity is such a horrible all-pervasive force.

It really is, trust me.

Q. And it's not just science, it's engineering too?

A. Right. If we want to expand human spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit, we have to take all the global systems that work naturally on Earth and figure out how to design them mechanically to work on spacecraft.

If you are going out to the moon, or to Mars, or even farther someday, you need to have your own closed system for life support. That's what we're testing on the space station.

Q. Would the White House's proposal to stop directly funding the space station after 2024 hurt this type of research?

A. The question about the future of the Space Station is: How do we maintain a science research and technology development platform, but expand its capabilities so it is not just the government owning or 100 percent using that platform? In theory, the White House plan is not bad, but the execution is going to be critical.

Q. Are private companies working with the space station now?

A. It's happening in a few different capacities. In general the kind of companies that use the station for research and development are biology companies, microbiology companies and drug companies. In part that's because these are systems that behave very differently in microgravity. Also, the experiments are easy to get up and down.

But we are still at the very beginning stage of developing a market of people who want to go to space if it's not subsidized by the government. Who is going to go up there to do research? How can we make it so that it is not just the government leasing a building, but the government leasing a building that other people are also leasing too?

Q. Do you know of any companies that are ready to take on management of the Space Station?

A. Even now, the Space Station is not operated just by NASA. There are other companies, like Boeing, that have contracts with NASA to help manage it. Two companies, Bigelow Aerospace and Axiom Space, are interested in attaching a commercial lab to the Space Station, but whether they are able to take over operational control of the whole thing, I don't know.

Q. What's good about having private industry involved in the space station?

A. As more companies and people get into research and development in low Earth orbit, I think we'll get more creative ideas both about the fundamental science we can do there and about what products we can create in space.

As a scientist and engineer, I understood how gravity played into my physics and engineering equations. But when you go to zero gravity and actually see how things behave differently, you understand it on a different level.

When we can get more people up there, that will be the tipping point for making people realize that, "Oh, I can do this experiment." "Oh, I can develop this product." Or, "I could research this line of inquiry that would help people on Earth."

Q. The U.S. has several international government partners who share management of the ISS. If NASA privatizes its part, what happens to them?

A. That's a big question mark. These discussions have already started, and I think you're going to see a lot of churn around this issue over the next six to nine months because nobody knows what it's going to look like. This is a very interesting creative moment we're in.

Q. Does having a company run the space station rather than the government contaminate its mission?

A. Don't look at it as private industry or government. You have to look at it as private industry and government.

If we get more people engaged in low Earth orbit so the government doesn't have to spend as much time there, then the government can put its resources into going beyond low Earth orbitlike going back to the moon and eventually onto Mars, and maybe on to Europa 100 years from now.

Explore further US wants to privatize International Space Station: report

2018 Los Angeles Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Stem cells with shared genetic information aid in the study of human disease. Credit: Kyoto University / Knut Woltjen

Researchers led by Dr. Knut Woltjen report a new gene editing method that can modify a single DNA base in the human genome with absolute precision. The technique, which is described in Nature Communications, is unique in that it guides the cell's own repair mechanisms by design, providing pairs of genetically matched cells for studying disease-related mutations.

Single mutations in DNA, known as single nucleotide polymorphismsor SNPs for shortare the most common type of variation in the human genome. More than 10 million SNPs are known, many of which are associated with ailments such as Alzheimer's, heart disease and diabetes. In order to understand the role of SNPs in hereditary disease, scientists at Kyoto University's Center for iPS cell Research and Application (CiRA) create induced pluripotent stem cells from patient donors.

iPS cells retain the genetic makeup of the donor and can be converted into any cell type in the body. In this way, cells from tissues such as the brain, heart or pancreas can be created and observed in the laboratory, enabling safe testing for new disease treatments before starting clinical trials.

Proving that a SNP causes disease requires very strict comparisons to genetically matched, or isogenic, iPS cells. The ideal cells are what the researchers describe as isogenic "twins," cells whose genomes differ only by one SNP. However, Dr. Shin-Il Kim, co-first author on the study, says that creating these twins is not trivial.

"Usually, we need to add a gene for antibiotic resistance along with the SNP to overcome low efficiency. Since that adds another change to the genome, we also need a way to remove it."

To create isogenic twins, the Woltjen laboratory has developed new genome editing technology that inserts an SNP modification along with a fluorescent reporter gene, which acts as a signal to detect modified cells. They also engineered a short duplicated DNA sequence, known as a microhomology, on the left and right sides of the reporter gene, and unique target sites for CRISPR, an enzyme that cuts DNA.

These features allowed the researchers to exploit an endogenous DNA repair system in the cell called microhomology-mediated end joining (MMEJ) in order to precisely remove the reporter gene. MMEJ removes the fluorescent reporter gene, leaving only the modified SNP behind. By arranging the mutant SNP in one microhomology and the normal SNP in the other, the method efficiently generates isogenic twins.

CiRA Associate Professor Dr. Knut Woltjen, called the new gene editing method MhAX, or Microhomology-Assisted eXcision. Woltjen's inspiration came from observing naturally occurring MMEJ repair in response to DNA damage.

"To make MhAX work, we duplicate DNA sequences which are already present in the genome. We then let the cells resolve this duplication. At the same time, the cells decide which SNPs will remain after repair," he says. "One experiment results in the full spectrum of possible SNP genotypes."

In collaboration with Dr. Takashi Yamamoto at Hiroshima University, and Dr. Tomoyoshi Soga of Keio University, the Woltjen lab used MhAX to create SNPs in the HPRT and APRT genes, mutations that are associated with gout and kidney disease, respectively.

Biochemical analyses showed cells with the HPRT mutant SNP had altered metabolism similar to patients, while the isogenic twin control cells, derived in the same experiment, were normal. The APRT*J mutation, often found in a population of Japanese patients with acute kidney failure, demonstrated the high efficiency of MhAX, as both gene copies (one from the mother and one from the father) required gene editing to study the mutation's effects.

Woltjen's lab has already begun applying their method to the creation and correction of SNPs in genes associated with other diseases. Collaborating with researchers in Japan and Canada, they are investigating the genetic cause of severe diabetes in juvenile patients.

Diabetes clinical trials using embryonic stem cells are currently underway, but chronic immune suppression is required. Gene correction of the patient's own iPS cells could lead to a source of healthy insulin-producing pancreatic cells with a reduced chance of rejection following transplantation.

"Our goal is to generate gene editing technologies which improve our understanding of disease mechanisms, and ultimately lead to therapies," said Woltjen, "We're confident that MhAX will have broad applicability in current human disease research, and beyond."

More information: Shin-Il Kim et al, Microhomology-assisted scarless genome editing in human iPSCs, Nature Communications (2018). Journal information: Nature Communications Shin-Il Kim et al, Microhomology-assisted scarless genome editing in human iPSCs,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03044-yThe MATISSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) successfully made its first observations at the Paranal Observatory in northern Chile in early-2018. MATISSE is the most powerful interferometric instrument in the world at mid-infrared wavelengths. It will use high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy to probe the regions around young stars where planets are forming as well as the regions around supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies.This image is a colourised version of the first MATISSE interferometric observations of the star Sirius, combining data from four Auxiliary Telescopes of the VLT. The colours represent the changing wavelengths of the data, with blue showing the shorter wavelengths and red the longer. The observations were made in the infrared, so these are not the colours that would be seen with the human eye. Credit: ESO/MATISSE consortium

The new MATISSE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI) has now successfully made its first observations at the Paranal Observatory in northern Chile. MATISSE is the most powerful interferometric instrument in the world at mid-infrared wavelengths. The first MATISSE observations used the VLTI's Auxiliary Telescopes to examine some of the brightest stars in the night sky, including Sirius, Rigel and Betelgeuse, and showed that the instrument is working well.

MATISSE (Multi AperTure mid-Infrared SpectroScopic Experiment observes infrared lightlight between the visible and microwave wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering wavelengths from 3-13 micrometres (m). It is a second-generation spectro-interferometer instrument for ESO's Very Large Telescope that can take advantage of multiple telescopes and the wave nature of the light. In this way, it produces more detailed images of celestial objects than can be obtained with any existing or planned single telescope at these wavelengths.

After 12 years of development by a large number of engineers and astronomers in France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and at ESO, and following an extensive period of demanding work installing and testing this very complex instrument, initial observations have now confirmed that MATISSE is working as expected.

The initial MATISSE observations of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse, which is expected to explode as a supernova in a few hundred thousand years, showed that it still has secrets to reveal. The new observations show evidence that the star appears to have a different size when seen at different wavelengths. Such data will allow astronomers to further study the huge star's surroundings and how it is shedding material into space.

The principal investigator of MATISSE, Bruno Lopez (Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur (OCA), Nice, France), explains its unique power: "Single telescopes can achieve image sharpness that is limited by the size of their mirrors. To obtain even higher resolution, we combineor interferethe light from four different VLT telescopes. Doing this enables MATISSE to deliver the sharpest images of any telescope ever in the 3-13 m wavelength range, where it will complement the James Webb Space Telescope's future observations from space."

MATISSE will contribute to several fundamental research areas in astronomy, focusing in particular on the inner regions of discs around young stars where planets are forming, the study of stars at different stages of their lives, and the surroundings of supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies.

Thomas Henning, director at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany, and MATISSE co-principal investigator, comments: "By looking at the inner regions of protoplanetary discs with MATISSE, we hope to learn the origin of the various minerals contained in these discsminerals that will later go on to form the solid cores of planets like the Earth."

Walter Jaffe, the project scientist and co-principal investigator from University of Leiden in the Netherlands, and Gerd Weigelt, co-principal investigator from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), Bonn, Germany, add: "MATISSE will give us dramatic images of planet-forming regions, multiple stars, and, when working with the VLT Unit Telescopes, also the dusty discs feeding supermassive black holes. We hope also to observe details of exotic objects in our Solar System, such as volcanoes on Io, and the atmospheres of giant exoplanets."

MATISSE is a four-way beam combiner, meaning it combines the light collected from up to four of the 8.2-metre VLT Unit Telescopes or up to four of the Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) that make up the VLTI, performing both spectroscopic and imaging observations. In doing so, MATISSE and the VLTI together possess the imaging power of a telescope up to 200 metres in diameter, capable of producing the most detailed images ever at mid-infrared wavelengths.

Initial tests were made with the Auxiliary Telescopes, and further observations with the four VLT Unit Telescopes are planned during the next few months.

MATISSE superimposes the light of an astronomical object from the combined light of multiple telescopes, resulting in an interference pattern that contains information about the appearance of the object, from which an image can then be reconstructed.

MATISSE's first light marks a big step forward in the scope of current optical/infrared interferometers and will allow astronomers to obtain interferometric images with finer detail over a wider wavelength range than currently possible. MATISSE will also complement the instruments planned for ESO's upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT ), in particular METIS (the Mid-infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph). MATISSE will observe brighter objects than METIS, but with higher spatial resolution.

Andreas Glindemann, MATISSE project manager at ESO, concludes: "Making MATISSE a reality has involved the work of many people over many years and it is wonderful to see the instrument working so well. We are looking forward to the exciting science to come!"

Explore further MATISSE to shed light on the formation of Earth and planetsArtist impression of Enantiornithes by artist Raul Martin. Credit: Raul Martin

The tiny fossil of a prehistoric baby bird is helping scientists understand how early avians came into the world in the Age of Dinosaurs.

The fossil, which dates back to the Mesozoic Era (250-65 million years ago), is a chick from a group of prehistoric birds called, Enantiornithes. Made up of a nearly complete skeleton, the specimen is amongst the smallest known Mesozoic avian fossils ever discovered.

It measures less than five centimetres - smaller than the little finger on an average human hand - and would have weighed just three ounces when it was alive.What makes this fossil so important and unique is the fact it died not long after its birth. This is a critical stage in a bird's skeletal formation. That means this bird's extremely short life has given researchers a rare chance to analyse the species' bone structure and development.

Studying and analysing ossification - the process of bone development - can explain a lot about a young bird's life the researchers say. It can help them understand everything from whether it could fly or if it needed to stay with its parents after hatching or could survive on its own.

The lead author of the study, Fabien Knoll, from The University of Manchester's Interdisciplinary Centre for Ancient Life (ICAL), School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, and the ARAIDDinopolis in Spain explains: "The evolutionary diversification of birds has resulted in a wide range of hatchling developmental strategies and important differences in their growth rates. By analysing bone development we can look at a whole host of evolutionary traits."

With the fossil being so small the team used synchrotron radiation to picture the tiny specimen at a 'submicron' level, observing the bones' microstructures in extreme detail.

Phosphorous mapping image and photo of fossil. Credit: Dr. Fabien Knoll

Knoll said: "New technologies are offering palaeontologists unprecedented capacities to investigate provocative fossils. Here we made the most of state-of-the-art facilities worldwide including three different synchrotrons in France, the UK and the United States."

The researchers found the baby bird's sternum (breastplate bone) was still largely made of cartilage and had not yet developed into hard, solid bone when it died, meaning it wouldn't have been able to fly.

The patterns of ossification observed in this and the other few very young enantiornithine birds known to date also suggest that the developmental strategies of this particular group of ancient avians may have been more diverse than previously thought.

Dr Fabien Knoll in lab. Credit: Dr. Fabien Knoll

However, the team say that its lack of bone development doesn't necessarily mean the hatchling was over reliant on its parents for care and feeding, a trait known as being 'altricial." Modern day species like love birds are highly dependent on their parents when born. Others, like chickens, are highly independent, which is known as 'precocial." Although, this is not a black-and-white issue, but rather a spectrum, hence the difficulty in clarifying the developmental strategies of long gone bird species.

Luis Chiappe, from the LA Museum of Natural History and study's co-author added: "This new discovery, together with others from around the world, allows us to peek into the world of ancient birds that lived during the age of dinosaurs. It is amazing to realise how many of the features we see among living birds had already been developed more than 100 million years ago."

Explore further Early bird winds back the avian clock

More information: Fabien Knoll et al, A diminutive perinate European Enantiornithes reveals an asynchronous ossification pattern in early birds, Nature Communications (2018). Journal information: Nature Communications Fabien Knoll et al, A diminutive perinate European Enantiornithes reveals an asynchronous ossification pattern in early birds,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03295-9Professor Alexander Petersen. Credit: University of California - Merced

A group of interdisciplinary scientists have put the practice of science itself under a microscope to begin quantifying the fundamental drivers of scientific discovery and to help develop tools and policies aimed at improving the scientific endeavor.

An article co-written by 14 researchers from various universities including UC Merced, lays out a framework that could pave the way to improving the current researcher-evaluation system. Many people say the current system stifles younger researchers researchers, especially those working at the intersections of disciplines.

The article, published online today in Science, also advocates for stronger incentives to encourage curiosity and creativity-driven risk-taking.

The researchers hope to spur conversations and new policies that enhance career paths for scientists, lead to improved performance-evaluation processes, help identify new and exciting areas along the scientific frontier and compel new and better ways of funding science.

The Science of Science, or SciSci, as the researchers call it, uses large-scale data to measure the co-evolution of researchers, ideas, institutions, funding and publicationsa large network of networks.

The researchers used different links in the larger network, including article-to-article citations, which are a common measure of scientific papers' influence.

"Citations are a form of career currency," said UC Merced Professor Alexander Petersen, a researcher in the management of complex systems department within the School of Engineering and a co-author of the article. "As scientific evaluation becomes metric-driven, assessment of career progress is increasingly impacted by how often we are cited by other researchers. It's not a perfect system, but it's objective and it can weigh heavily on the trajectory of our careers."

Because science builds on other scientific work, each new research paper published must cite previously published work and its authors. As a result, researchers become linked via collaboration and in the way they cite each other.

The need for recognition and citations for career advancement has exacerbated a "publish or perish" mentality among researchers, Petersen said. Every researcher would like to be published in the most noteworthy journals, but there is stiff competition to do so. "Mega-journals"a new online-only rapid-publishing model geared around charging researchers to publish their articlescan publish upwards of 400 articles per week, but authors must pay to be included. That forces researchers to strategize: To pay or not to pay.

The SciSci authors say the increasingly quantitative evaluation system, which heavily relies on the citation-count system, spawned a "rich-get-richer" dynamic in which the most-cited, senior-level, rock-star researchers who already have big grants get more big grants, while junior faculty, especially those who don't fit traditional science disciplinessuch as those who work at the emerging intersection of economics and neuroscienceare less able to support their work.

This is an issue federal granting agencies struggle with as they develop policies to help early-career and interdisciplinary researchers compete for much-needed but limited funding.

"There is a lot of work that goes into trying to get a grant, but a lot of what's being funded isn't research that has ground-breaking potential, because the researchers simply aren't willing to take the risk to submit risky proposals," Petersen said. "As my colleagues have shown, it's possible there could be a more effective and more efficient way to distribute public funding for research."

Even though interdisciplinary research often leads to novel ideas with high impact, evidence from grant applications shows that expert evaluators typically give lower scores to novel or interdisciplinary research proposals, the paper says.

The authors advocate improving the evaluation system to make it more supportive of interdisciplinary collaborations.

How can individual researchers leverage the SciSci findings? Petersen said he discovered something that surprised him through his contributions to SciSci: Scientific "life partners" are rather common and can explain a great deal of scientific success.

What's behind two individuals who are highly capable on their own coming together to create an explosion of innovation could be a future SciSci topic for study. Scientific partners share the risks, Petersen said, but they also share the rewards.

"There are a large number of scientists who find partners and stick with them over their lifetimes," he said. "About 1 in 6 of the super-star scientists I looked at shared more than half their publications with their strongest partners. I call those partnerships 'super-ties.' And when I analyzed their individual careers  comparing those publications with super-ties to those without  the publications with super-ties have significantly higher citation impact. It's not just a matter of skill complementarity, but also a matter of mutual trust, conviction, commitmentand fun."

Explore further Researchers prefer citing researchers of good reputation

More information: Santo Fortunato et al. Science of science, Science (2018). Journal information: Science Santo Fortunato et al. Science of science,(2018). DOI: 10.1126/science.aao0185Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Snap Inc. is reportedly giving Spectacles, its camera-equipped sunglasses, at least two more tries.

The Venice maker of the video messaging app Snapchat is working on two new versions of the glasses to improve upon its poorly selling original version, according to the video news outlet Cheddar.

Snap declined to comment.

One of the new versions is reportedly expected to be released in the fall and will look similar to the original pair, but will be offered in different colors and boast higher performance.

The other version, reportedly slated for 2019, is a more sophisticated version of the glasses. The company is considering adding two cameras to produce 3-D effects and built-in GPS, which could raise prices to about $300, more than double Spectacles' standard price.

Spectacles were released in 2016. Snap sold about 150,000 pairs, well below company expectations. Snap had to write down $40 million in costs associated with the excess inventory in 2017.

Snap's chief executive, Evan Spiegel, is determined to succeed in hardware given the potential for augmented reality to boost interest in Snapchat.

Spectacles are a product of Snap Lab, the company's hardware division. The lab was hit with layoffs and leadership changes last year.

In addition to Spectacles, Cheddar reported Snap had reached out to eyewear manufacturers Luxottica and Warby Parker about partnerships.

2018 Los Angeles Times

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A new research article published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzes the positive impact of long-term nutrient reductions on an important and valuable ecosystem in the Chesapeake Bay. Scientists indicate the resurgence of underwater grasses supports nutrient reductions from EPA's Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) along with conservation incentives have resulted in a healthier Chesapeake Bay.

Jonathan Lefcheck, PhD, formerly of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and now at the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science, along with 13 co-authors, show that a 23 percent reduction of average nitrogen levels in the Bay and an eight percent reduction of average phosphorus levels have resulted in a four-fold increase in abundance of Submerged Aquatic Vegetation (SAV) in the Chesapeake Bay. This ecosystem recovery is an unprecedented event; based on the breadth of data available and a sophisticated data analysis, this is the biggest resurgence of underwater grasses ever recorded in the world.

"It's a humbling and unique opportunity," said lead author Lefcheck. "These efforts began before I was even born, but we are at a stage now where all of these different threads can be pulled together to unveil a picture of unprecedented success. This is a message of hope, and I look forward to a future when the Bay is filled with grasses, something I never thought I would see during my lifetime."

The researchers employed advanced analytical tools to definitively show how the reduction of excess pollutants like nitrogen and phosphorus are the cause of this ecosystem recovery. To link land use and Chesapeake Bay status, researchers analyzed data in two different ways: one focusing on the cascade of nutrients from the land to the waterways, and one showing what happens to SAV once the nutrients are in the water.

These findings are a collaborative effort between: Virginia Institute of Marine Science, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Environmental Protection Agency Chesapeake Bay Program, U.S. Geological Survey, National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, St. Mary's College of Maryland, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Maryland Department of Natural Resources, and Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

Dr. William Dennison of UMCES and Dr. Robert "JJ" Orth of VIMS at the College of William and Mary are senior co-authors and have worked on underwater grasses and water quality reporting for Bay ecosystem restoration over decades. Dr. Dennison is the recipient of the first Margaret A. Davidson Award for Stewardship from the Coastal Estuarine Research Federation (CERF) and Dr. Orth received the outstanding scientist of Virginia award March 1 from Governor Ralph Northam.

"J.J. and I have had the distinct privilege of facilitating research that confirms a direct correlation between conservation actions undertaken by a broad partnership and ecosystem responsiveness that is leading to positive ecological outcomes." said Dennison. "The EPA Chesapeake Bay Program is working and can serve as a model for the rest of the world."

Orth noted: "I am proud of our team of young and experienced researchers who worked in a collaborative environment to produce these exciting results. I really feel the torch is being passed to a next generation of scientists who bring both the passion and knowledge needed to continue the vital work of marine science required to keep our Chesapeake Bay flourishing. What has been a lifetime of work for Bill and me can now be analyzed and managed with analyses of long term data sets in creative ways to highlight this wonderful recovery."

More information: Jonathan S. Lefcheck el al., "Long-term nutrient reductions lead to the unprecedented recovery of a temperate coastal region," PNAS (2018). Journal information: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Jonathan S. Lefcheck el al., "Long-term nutrient reductions lead to the unprecedented recovery of a temperate coastal region,"(2018). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1715798115Bernard Friedman of Santa Barbara Mariculture hauls in a line of mussels at his aquaculture farm off the coast of southern California. Credit: Rebecca Gentry

Earth's vast and vital oceans are a critical source of economic productivity, but issues of space management, interindustry conflict and environmental degradation often limit sustainable commercial development.

Now, researchers have developed a new model that weighs the tradeoffs and opportunities for aquaculture development in the Southern California Bight. The system, created by a group that includes Carrie Kappel, a senior fellow at UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, looks specifically at three types of offshore aquaculture as well as existing wild-capture fisheries, scenic views, disease risk and impacts to seafloor communities. The team's findings appear in the journal Nature Communications.

"Our holistic analytical model balances the location, type and intensity of ocean uses across sectors and industries," explained Kappel, a member of the Sustainable Fisheries Group at UCSB's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management. "It could herald a new paradigm of environmentally sustainable ocean usage and management."

The model design accounts for and quantifies relevant environmental, industrial and societal interests in a given area. It also allows for a method of planning that supports a variety of harmonious, economically productive activities without condemning a region to ecological disaster. The team applied its model to the development of three representative types of offshore aquaculture farms with industry potential in Southern California: Mediterranean mussels, striped bass and sugar kelp.

"Our goal was to create a system that can simultaneously plan for multiple uses while optimizing the benefits of those different uses and minimizing the negative impacts on other uses and the environment," said lead author Sarah Lester, an assistant professor of geography at Florida State University.

The United Stateswhich operated at a $14 billion seafood trade deficit in 2016lags far behind other countries in aquaculture development due to complex regulatory policies and social opposition. Moreover, concerns about the environmental impact of offshore aquaculture, as well as potential conflicts with other sectors such as wild-capture fisheries, have worked to limit broad development, even in areas primed for aquacultural success. This made aquaculture the perfect case study for the group's marine spatial planning models.

To address area-specific stakeholder concerns, the team also accounted for four overarching factors in their computations: the wild-capture California halibut fishery, which draws from the same soft-bottom habitat that would be developed for aquaculture; the environmental health of the flora and fauna that occupy the seabed, which could be harmed by oxygen-poor conditions caused by fish farms; the quality of views from public and private lands that could be blemished by aquaculture structures on the ocean's surface; and the risk of disease spread among fish farms connected by ocean currents.

By pairing these models with an analytical tradeoff analysis, the researchers were able to identify tens of thousands of optimal spatial plans, a subset of which satisfied all four stakeholder concerns and therefore would be especially instructive for decision-makers. Ultimately, they determined that use of the models could increase sector values by millions of dollars and reduce harmful impacts to less than 1 percent compared to conventional approaches to spatial planning.

The group's strategy was to develop models that could be applied anywhere, not just to one stretch of the Southern California coastline, and would not be limited to aquaculture. In fact, Kappel and co-author Crow White, of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, have applied this analytical approach to the siting of wind farms off the coast of Massachusetts.

"As we continue to look to our oceans for crucial, environmentally tenable economic output, these models could provide an analytical foundation for intelligent and responsible development," Kappel said.

"I think this is a particularly useful approach when we think of new and emerging uses," Lester said. "There's a trend toward new ocean industrieswhether it's aquaculture, alternative energy or deep-sea miningthat could make great use of this approach."

Explore further How a tiny portion of the world's oceans could meet global seafood demand

More information: S. E. Lester et al. Marine spatial planning makes room for offshore aquaculture in crowded coastal waters, Nature Communications (2018). Journal information: Nature Communications S. E. Lester et al. Marine spatial planning makes room for offshore aquaculture in crowded coastal waters,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-03249-1Ivory burn event in Kenya. Credit: Daniel Stiles

Media coverage of the torching of huge caches of ivory presented a strong message against elephant poaching and ivory trade, but many of those who needed to hear it most may not have received it, an international study has found.

University of Queensland researcher Alexander Braczkowski said an examination of the global media coverage of the world's largest ivory burn in Kenya in 2016, revealed that coverage disproportionately reached western audiences.

Mr Braczkowski, of UQ's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said the study was the first to assess the potential impact of the destruction of more than 105 tonnes of ivory, worth roughly US$100 million (A$128 million) on the black market.

"Our study found 81 per cent of online media coverage was produced in the United States, which has few elephant poachers and few consumers of illegally-sourced ivory," Mr Braczkowski said.

"Both print and online media coverage was weaker in ivory-consuming countries such as China, and 59 per cent of Chinese coverage was in English, which may not have reached all target audiences."

UQ School of Biological Sciences and Griffith University researcher Dr Duan Biggs said with no real measure of the effectiveness of these conservation marketing events, there is no way of judging if they achieve their objectives of reducing ivory demand and supporting elephant conservation.

Stockpile before burning. Credit: Daniel Stiles

"If ivory consumers, poachers, dealers and policy makers were the intended audiences, then a strategy of sustained media pressure to extend news coverage to weeks or months may have been better to effect change.

"These destruction events should also coincide with key meetings of policy makers, with more leaders of source, transit and demand countries invited to attend," he said.

Ivory burn event is staged. Credit: Daniel Stiles

ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions Dr Matthew Holden said governments, donors and NGOs should introduce monitoring around events such as ivory burns.

"There is an urgent need for measures of media reach, and how messages are received, and whether it changes attitudes in ivory demand countries," Dr Holden said.

"For example, does it cause fluctuations in raw and worked ivory prices, or impact the levels of consumer demand for ivory products?"

More information: Alexander Braczkowski et al, Reach and messages of the world's largest ivory burn, Conservation Biology (2018). Journal information: Conservation Biology Alexander Braczkowski et al, Reach and messages of the world's largest ivory burn,(2018). DOI: 10.1111/cobi.13097Screenshot from d-cell.ucsd.edu, where researchers can use DCell, a new virtual yeast cell developed at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Credit: UC San Diego Health

UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers developed a visible neural network and used it to build DCell, a virtual model of a functioning brewer's yeast cell.

"It seems like every time you turn around, someone is talking about the importance of artificial intelligence and machine learning," said Trey Ideker, PhD, University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center professor. "But all of these systems are so-called 'black boxes.' They can be very predictive, but we don't actually know all that much about how they work."

Ideker gives an example: machine learning systems can analyze the online behaviors of millions of people to flag an individual as a potential "terrorist" or "suicide risk." "Yet we have no idea how the machine reached that conclusion," he said.

For machine learning to be useful and trustworthy in health care, Ideker said, practitioners need to open up the black box and understand how a system arrives at a decision.

Machine learning systems are built on layers of artificial neurons, known as a neural network. The layers are tied together by seemingly random connections between neurons. The systems "learn" by fine-tuning those connections.

Ideker's research team recently developed what they call a "visible" neural network and used it to build DCell, a model of a functioning brewer's yeast cell, commonly used as a model in basic research. To do this, they amassed all knowledge of cell biology in one place and created a hierarchy of these cellular components. Then they mapped standard machine learning algorithms to this knowledgebase.

DCell can be viewed at d-cell.ucsd.edu. The technical details are published on March 5 in Nature Methods.

But what excites Ideker the most is that DCell is not a black box; the connections are not a mystery and cannot form by happenstance. Instead, "learning" is guided only by real-world cellular behaviors and constraints coded from approximately 2,500 known cellular components. The team inputs information about genes and genetic mutation and DCell predicts cellular behaviors, such as growth. They trained DCell on several million genotypes and found that the virtual cell could simulate cellular growth nearly as accurately a real cell grown in a laboratory.

"Human knowledge is incomplete," said Jianzhu Ma, PhD, an assistant research scientist in Ideker's lab who led the efforts to build DCell. "We want to complete that knowledge to help guide predictions, in health care and elsewhere."

Ideker and Ma also put DCell to the test. If they deliberately fed the system false information, it wouldn't work. Take ribosomes, for example. Cells use these tiny biological machines to translate genetic information into proteins. But if the researchers instead wired ribosomes to an unrelated process like apoptosis, a system cells use to commit suicide, DCell could no longer predict cell growth. The virtual cell "knows" that the new arrangement isn't biologically possible.

Ideker and his colleagues at the Cancer Cell Map Initiative, which he co-directs, are now generating some of the experimental data they need to build a DCell for human cancer. Then they will determine how best to personalize this virtual cell approach for a patient's unique biology.

"We want one day to be able to input your specific cancer-related genetic mutations and get back a readout on how aggressive your cancer is, and the best therapeutic approach to prevent its growth and metastasis," said Ideker, who is also founder of the UC San Diego Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics.

Explore further Researchers ID cancer gene-drug combinations ripe for precision medicine

More information: Using deep learning to model the hierarchical structure and function of a cell, Nature Methods (2018). Journal information: Nature Methods Using deep learning to model the hierarchical structure and function of a cell,(2018). nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nmeth.4627March 5, 2018 in FileMaker (E)

[prMac.com] Fremont, California - .com Solutions Inc. has released FmPro Migrator Platinum Edition 8.48 with enhancements supporting the automated conversion from Microsoft Visual FoxPro to FileMaker Pro Advanced 16. This release supports FileMaker Pro Advanced 11 - 16 on macOS and Windows.



The Problem: Visual FoxPro has been discontinued by Microsoft for more than 10 years - and you need to upgrade to a supported custom app development platform.



The Solution: FmPro Migrator Platinum Edition 8.48 has been enhanced to perform automated Visual FoxPro to FileMaker 16 conversions.



FileMaker (an Apple subsidiary) is widely regarded as the leader in low code custom app development - supporting Windows, macOS, IOS and HTML5 deployment platforms. Converting legacy Microsoft Visual FoxPro applications to FileMaker 16 offers many advantages including:



* Cross platform compatibility - FileMaker solutions run directly on macOS, Windows and IOS devices. WebDirect serves FileMaker custom apps via HTML5 to all mobile and desktop platforms running a supported web browser. Visual FoxPro can only run on the Microsoft Windows operating system.



* Easier database sharing - FileMaker database files can be shared using FileMaker Server or FileMaker Cloud with macOS, Windows and IOS devices. WebDirect serves FileMaker database files via HTML5 to any device or platform using any supported web browser. Visual FoxPro can never run directly on this many platforms without major rewriting.



* Greatly enhanced file capacity - FileMaker supports a 7TB filesize compared with the anemic 2GB Visual FoxPro DBF filesize limit. If a DBF file ever exceeds the 2GB file size limit, it will immediately become corrupted.



* FileMaker Cloud Hosting - FileMaker Cloud is a version of FileMaker Server running on the AWS cloud infrastructure. FileMaker Cloud provides secure, reliable access to your custom apps using FileMaker Pro, FileMaker Go, and FileMaker WebDirect - all without the administrative hassle.



* Easier Development - Upgrading to FileMaker Pro 16 also offers developers the opportunity to take advantage of the latest design, development and security features included with FileMaker Pro Advanced 16 and FileMaker Server 16 and FileMaker Cloud 16 - including WebDirect capacity enhancements.



Pricing and Availability:

FmPro Migrator Developer Edition (8.48) is priced at $600 (USD) per developer, and is available immediately. A functional demo version of FmPro Migrator may be downloaded from .com Solutions online.

Founded in 1999 by David Simpson in Sunny California, .com Solutions Inc. develops multi-platform graphical applications supporting FileMaker Pro, SQLite, Oracle, MySQL, Access, SQL Server, Sybase, DB2, OpenBase, PostgreSQL, FrontBase, Valentina, VB6, LiveCode and Visual FoxPro developers. FmPro Script Diff, compares and edits FileMaker Pro scripts. SQLite Diff compares SQLite database schema and data. Copyright (C) 1999-2018 .com Solutions Inc. All Rights Reserved. FileMaker is a registered trademark of FileMaker, Inc. - An Apple Subsidiary. Apple, the Apple logo and macOS platforms are trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.

###This year marks the 50th anniversary of Milwaukee's open housing marches, which focused attention on a knot of persistent urban problems. This project is part of an ongoing series of stories, videos and other special features that will examine how far Milwaukee has come  and the work that remains to be done.

Alisha Fox begins her story matter-of-factly: At age 1, social workers took her from her mother  single, working poor, living in a rundown Milwaukee neighborhood  and placed her in foster care. Three years later, she landed with her father, a sometimes construction worker prone to heavy marijuana use and violent bouts of depression.

Her life became a progression of adversity: neglect, abuse, incest, depression, mental health treatment, courtroom appearances, depositions.

Journal Sentinel reporter John Schmid produced this special report through a Marquette University Law School fellowship established through the school's Sheldon B. Lubar Fund for Public Policy Research. The fellowship provides support for journalism projects on issues of civic importance. All the work was done under the direction of Journal Sentinel editors.

In grade school, doctors branded her with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder  a common misdiagnosis  and prescribed a cocktail of the wrong medications. Not until age 14, after she gave testimony to put her father behind bars, did the diagnosis change to post-traumatic stress disorder, an affliction typically associated with landmines, combat zones and refugee camps.

Today, at 21, Fox works at La Causa Recovery Center on the near south side, helping others reclaim their lives. She speaks at conferences on suicide prevention and trauma-informed social work. She plans to get a degree and become a therapist.

Theres still nightmares and flashbacks, but every day is better, she says with neither bitterness nor blame.

The city of Milwaukee produces far too many Alishas  children exposed to traumatic levels of abuse, neglect and violence  but not nearly enough who find a path to post-traumatic healing.

We are beyond the tipping point, says Franklin Cumberbatch, project manager at Bader Philanthropies, active in some of the citys hardest-hit neighborhoods. We are at a catastrophic point.

Boston psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, who studies how post-traumatic stress inflicts damage on mental and physical health, once asked: How do you turn a newborn baby with all its promise and infinite capacities into a 30-year-old homeless drunk?

Armed with new data on the link between childhood trauma and lifelong hardship, Milwaukee community development leaders are radically changing strategies to address that question. The hope is that, in the process, they can slow or turn around the citys unremitting social and economic spiral.

People like Fox illustrate that those who are traumatized can recover.

Those people are exceptional, says Geoffrey Swain, chief medical officer for the Milwaukee Health Department, about traumatized individuals who rise above adversity. Theres a belief in the United States that if you work hard enough, you can pull yourself out of any situation. But not all can.

Healing the invisible scars often involves one-on-one interventions that have little to do with conventional urban remedies like adding more police, teachers or jobs programs. Instead, it typically begins with a series of questions known as the adverse childhood experience survey, the ACE test, which asks whether they were exposed as children to violence, drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, incarceration.

The mere fact of just being asked What happened to you? by itself is a huge first step, says Nancy Stone, a mental health clinician at Sojourner Family Peace Center, a Milwaukee nonprofit that houses and helps victims of domestic violence.

Thats the first moment of treatment and potentially of breaking the cycle, Stone says.

Within three months of being asked about their lives, some survivors of traumatized childhoods report an improvement in their situation. They said they felt better that someone asked and someone listened, Stone says.

Alisha Fox, a 21-year-old survivor of extreme trauma, beat the odds and overcame years of abuse. Video by Mike De Sisti

Atrophied community

In summer 2011, some of Milwaukees leading foundations asked for an assessment of community development  how it was working, how it could improve.

The global recession of 2008-10 had just ratcheted the urban economy down a few more turns.

In October, Brophy & Reilly, an urban strategies consultancy based in Baltimore, issued its report. It was blistering.

There is no articulation of an overall agenda, the report said. There is very little strategic alignment and little in the way of systematic communication. The report described an atrophied and balkanized city with no one in charge of estimating needs and resources. Many past efforts had failed, demoralizing the players in the system.

The citys competitiveness was at stake.

Support our investigative journalism Become a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel subscriber today and get unlimited digital access to support stories like this one.

Support our investigative journalism Become a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel subscriber today and get unlimited digital access to support stories like this one.

The reaction to the report, led by organizations like the Greater Milwaukee Foundation and the Zilber Family Foundation, has led to a sea change. The biggest foundations each singled out the hardest-hit neighborhoods, like Clarke Square on the near south side and Amani on the northwest side, where they would concentrate their efforts.

Just as the nations social scientists zero in on individual census tracts for their studies of self-perpetuating urban distress, Milwaukees nonprofits started to affect change one neighborhood at a time.

Its a classic clear, hold and build strategy, says Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm, using an Army intelligence term from his service days in Korea.

Its also an effort to create community resilience, says Josh Mersky, an associate professor of social work at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Increasingly, many of the new tactics include trauma response training and trauma screening  in schools, in juvenile courts, in social agencies. For example, city police created a Trauma Response Team in the 7th District on the northwest side.

First-responding officers who encounter children who witnessed shootings, car crashes or domestic violence refer families to county mental health teams.

Helping traumatized children takes a lot more than a free walk-in mental health clinic, says Robert Fox, professor of counseling psychology at Marquette University. Fox (no relation to Alisha) had tried that idea, but those who needed the services seldom walked in. He eventually developed a program that gets results but consumes far more time, effort and emotion: weekly visits to households by licensed therapists. The therapists, often accompanied by grad-level Marquette students, ask 20 ACE-like questions.

It opened our eyes to whats going on in these homes, says Fox, describing youngsters given to such prolonged emotional fits that they destroy furniture.

Alisha Fox, a 21-year-old survivor of extreme trauma, and Tim Grove, chief clinical officer at SaintA, talk about the ACE test. Video by Mike De Sisti

Foxs program at Marquette serves 400 children a year, most from the citys south side and north side, and just won a $2 million five-year federal grant.

Further, Chisholm stationed six assistant district attorneys in the citys district police stations, where theyre meant to collaborate directly with neighborhood activists and local police.

The Community Prosecution Units work on social problems, where possible, before they escalate into violent crimes and arrests.

National data show that four of every five prison inmates have a high-trauma background, says Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern. The vast majority of our violent offenders are behaving in ways that may seem normal to them, frankly.

It makes sense to treat such individuals at an early stage, he says, so there isnt a shooting or robbery. At that point, our options are limited to punitive response.

The district attorneys office ran a cost-benefit analysis of 300 county residents who had intersected with both the criminal justice and the countys mental health system. We are spending enormous sums of money on them without solving their problems, Lovern says.

One of the most recent ACE-inspired interventions gets to the heart of the citys economic plight: Mersky, founding co-director of the citys newly created Institute for Child and Family Well-Being, is setting up a subsidized job training program that will ask applicants to fill out an ACE questionnaire. The results might lead to a referral to mental health services in addition to the training classes.

Resilient survivors

Not everyone exposed to trauma allows themselves to become traumatized. Some have an inner firewall of resilience.

Yael Danieli, who researches how trauma is passed down through generations, defines resilience as the capacity to believe that some better future might exist, even when no other possibilities are apparent.

I might be helpless, but I dont have to be hopeless because there might be someone else who can help me, Danieli explains. It might be God, it might be luck. Hope could be magical. For example, you could be in a concentration camp and you imagine your grandmothers hand on your shoulder, saying: Keep going, son. And you keep going. Minds that are stuck reliving traumatic memories often lack that capacity, she says.

On the ACE trauma scale, Alisha Fox scores a nine out of 10.

Fox and others like her also have other attributes in common: They often dont blame, dont see themselves as victims, and accept that the horrific experiences shaped them  as if the pain gave them a greater purpose.

Yes it sucked what happened, Fox says. But at the end of the day, Im compassionate, caring and loving. If I didnt go through what I went through, I wouldnt be the person I am today.

What's your ACE score? Start the quiz

What's your ACE score? Start the quiz

Like Fox, many survivors find a calling helping others deal with addictions or mental health afflictions. They find a purpose in their lives to try not to pass adversity onto the next generation, says Robert Anda, a public health physician who co-created the ACE test 20 years ago. That is healing.

Changing gears

When the citys manufacturing economy began to shrink in the 1970s, it wasnt a slow transition but a swift upheaval. Major employers like Schlitz Brewing and Continental Can shuttered their operations, as did the American Motors autoworks, machine shops and leather tanneries.

In terms of falling industrial dominoes, one stood out in a league of its own: Allis-Chalmers Manufacturing Co., the largest private-sector employer in Wisconsin in the last century.

At its peak, over 17,000 worked at its 160-acre flagship campus of imposing brick factories in West Allis, on the edge of Milwaukees city limits. It was an export behemoth, shipping made-in-Milwaukee engines and machinery around the globe, and casting a halo of blue-collar opportunity across Milwaukee.

Allis-Chalmers began to struggle in the 1980s, and declared bankruptcy in 1987. It wound down the West Allis works, leaving an economic vacuum in its wake. Dozens of smaller companies that supplied Allis-Chalmers disappeared with it.

Today, much of the space where the hulking factories stood has been re-purposed. Theres a plaza with a Dollar Store, a Burger King and a Kmart. A few overhead cranes are preserved as relics.23 hours ago

3 Stocks Close to Record Highs to Buy Now

Although the market has been pulling back over the past few weeks, the good news is that there are still pockets of strength that stand out as potential buying opportunities. In fact, some stocks are trading close to their all-time highs and have barely budged during the recent market weakness, which tells us that there is heavy demand for their shares.

Read ArticleArgentina's former president Cristina Kirchner and other senior members of her government have been referred for public trial over an alleged cover-up of Iranian involvement in a 1994 bombing of a Jewish charity in Buenos Aires, the judiciary announced on Monday. Judge Claudio Bonadio has closed the investigative phase of the case, referring it to a higher level court for a public trial, the judiciary said. A start date has yet to be set. The bombing of the Argentine-Israelite Mutual Aid organization killed 85 people, the deadliest attack of its kind on Argentine soil. Kirchner and her former foreign minister Hector Timerman and others in her 2007-2015 administration are accused of abuse of power and obstruction for signing a memorandum of understanding with Iran in 2012 that would have established a "truth commission" to investigate the bombing. The case against them was opened in January 2015, on the basis of charges brought by Alberto Nisman, a prosecutor who was found dead in mysterious circumstances four days later. Nisman had claimed that the memorandum of understanding was a maneuver to cover up for the involvement of Iran and Hezbollah in the attack. The case languished after his death, but Bonadio reactivated it in August 2016. Kirchner, who has denounced the charges against her as a political persecution, nonetheless has said she welcomes an open trial to prove her innocence.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sam Nunberg, a former political aide to U.S. President Donald Trump, said on Monday he would refuse to comply with a subpoena to testify before a grand jury in U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election campaign. "I'm not going to cooperate," Nunberg told MSNBC. "Why do I have to spend 80 hours going over my emails" with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon and Trump associate Roger Stone. Mueller's investigation arose in part from the findings of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia had meddled in the election and that its goals eventually included aiding Trump who won a surprise victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton. Russia denies the allegations and Trump says there was no collusion between Moscow and his campaign. Mueller has charged several Trump associates and more than a dozen Russians. Nunberg, in a phone call to MSNBC, said a subpoena to appear before a grand jury was "absolutely ridiculous." Nunberg rejected any notion that Trump had colluded with Russians. "Donald Trump did not collude with the Russians. It is the biggest joke to ever think that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians," said Nunberg, who also spoke to the Washington Post and CNN. Nunberg started working for then-businessman Trump in 2011, making him one of his earliest political advisers, but he was fired from the Republican's campaign in August 2015 before the heat of the 2016 presidential race. Asked if he was concerned about being held in contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena, Nunberg laughed off the idea. "Let's see what Mr. Mueller does. I think it would be funny if they arrested me. I think it would be really, really funny if they wanted to arrest me because I don't want to spend 80 hours going over emails I had with Steve Bannon and Roger Stone," he said. (Reporting by Lisa Lambert and David Alexander; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Grant McCool)Italys election on Sunday didnt deliver a clear victory to any single party or alliance, yet there was an unmistakable winner: the populist and far-right parties that campaigned on anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-establishment views and an avowed dislike of the European Union.

The preliminary results of the vote show a fractured political landscape with no easy path for parties to negotiate a coalition government. Both established center-right and center-left parties lost support, while the populist and ideologically amorphous Five Star Movement gained the largest single share of the vote.

The far-right League party, which vowed to carry out a rapid mass expulsion of migrants, also made huge gains and became the third-largest party. Its the extreme nationalist partys best result ever, and the election outcome gives it a strong hand in talks to form a government.

Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. His Forza Italia party lost support in the election, leaving him in a weakened political position. (Photo: Remo Casilli / Reuters)

The Five Star Movement Takes The Lead

The anti-establishment Five Star Movement, formed only in 2009, emerged as the biggest winner in the election. It drew around 32 percent of the vote, according to preliminary results, and further solidified the shocking gains it made during its first election race in 2013.

The party continued to gain popularity through feeding off widespread discontent with the political status quo, laying on populist rhetoric and moderating its controversial calls to leave the Euro currency.

Five Star bills itself as neither left nor right, but routinely criticizes the European Union and supports increasing restrictions on immigration. The partys popularity attracted the interest of President Donald Trumps former strategist Steve Bannon, who traveled to Rome for the vote and lauded the Italians for embracing populism.

If the party does manage to form a government, it would mean that 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio, who is currently head of the Five Star Movement, could become the youngest world leader.

The Left And The Right Fall Apart

Italys election is emblematic of political ruptures across Europe, where once-powerful parties are losing their traditional voter bases to newly empowered radical parties that posture themselves as agents of change. These rising parties have capitalized on deep frustrations toward establishment politics and the EU, while often stoking anti-Islam, anti-immigrant sentiment in their calls to embrace national identity.

Story continues

Traditional left-wing parties have suffered some of the worst losses in Europes recent political turmoil, and Italys election is no different. The center-left Democratic Party performed even worse than expected, and its only shot at joining a government would be to ally with the Five Star Movement or a combination of right-wing and far-right parties  both of which are unlikely. Its leader, former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, abruptly resigned after the vote.

Equally disturbing for establishment parties is what happened on the right. Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italia lost its role as the biggest conservative party, as the anti-immigrant League party surged in popularity and can now claim to be the Italian rights standard bearer. The two parties have an alliance, but the result relegates 81-year-old Berlusconi to a supporting role when days before the vote he looked set to become kingmaker of a future government.

League leader Matteo Salvini gives a speech during a rally in Milan. (Photo: Tony Gentile / Reuters)

The Far Right Grows In Power

The League, led by Matteo Salvini, went from 4 percent of the vote in the last election to what preliminary results predict is around 18 percent this time around. Formerly called the Northern League and focused on the secession of northern Italy, the updated party embraced a nationalist, anti-Islam and anti-immigrant message to broaden its support. Salvini vowed to deport 150,000 migrants in his first year in office if elected, has called for proposals such as racially segregating trains, and has blamed migrants for rape, drug-dealing and spreading diseases.

Over 600,000 migrants arrived in Italy in the past four years, many fleeing violence and human rights abuses in their countries of origin. Migrant arrivals to Italy fell drastically last year, but the issue remained at the forefront of the campaign.

During the race, a former candidate for the League went on a drive-by shooting spree targeting African immigrants. The 28-year-old man shot and wounded six people before police arrested him. The shooting took place days after a high-profile murder in the same town, in which a Nigerian man was charged with killing and dismembering a teenage girl.

Salvini condemned the shootings, but his rhetoric has further enflamed bitter tensions in Italy over immigration. White nationalist and fascist groups rallied in the streets during the lead-up to the vote, clashing with anti-fascist protesters and stirring dark memories of past decades of political violence in Italy.

Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio would be the world's youngest leader. (Photo: Ciro De Luca / Reuters)

What Happens Next?

Italys President Sergio Mattarella will now decide who gets the first shot at forming a government. This would normally be a basic process, but this time Mattarella will have to choose carefully between Five Star and the right-wing alliance between the League and Forza Italia.

Five Star and the right-wing bloc will both need a coalition partner, and could look to each other to form the next government. The League and Five Star alone would have enough seats between them for a majority in parliament. Five Star and the Democratic Party would also be able to form a coalition.

The unique problem for the Five Star Movement is that it has always been a staunchly anti-establishment party. Although it left the door open to coalitions as the election approached, joining up with another party is something of a betrayal of its core values.

Another potential coalition would sideline the Five Star Movement and involve the Democratic Party forming a grand coalition with the right-wing bloc, but while mathematically possible it makes little ideological sense.

Finally, its also possible that none of the parties in Italys notoriously dysfunctional political system will be able to agree to form a coalition. In that case, Italy will head for new elections and potentially even more instability.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story indicated the Five Star Movements first election race was in 2003. In fact, it was in 2013.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.It looks like Europes largest economy finally has a new government after nearly six months of uncertainty and Chancellor Angela Merkel is getting a fourth term. It all happened thanks to the strong vote from the Social Democratic party (SPD) that agreed to another grand coalition government with the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

The vote marks a stark about-face considering Social Democratic leaders had vowed that they would not join a coalition with Merkel after the September election. But the members of the center-left party voted by a surprisingly large margin to join what has been popularly known as the loveless alliance.

Advertisement

Now Germanys parliament is expected to meet on March 14 and re-elect Merkel, effectively ending what has been the countrys longest time without a government since World War II. Merkel said she was looking forward to further cooperation for the good of our country. European allies also celebrated, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying that the alliance is good news for Europe. Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel also cheered the news saying that the EU would finally be able to move forward on key priorities such as immigration and trade.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

#GroKo: Chancellor Angela Merkel took to the @CDU's Twitter feed to congratulate the @SPDde, saying she looks forward to further cooperation. pic.twitter.com/OPmfR1C5Q6  DW News (@dwnews) March 4, 2018

Even though the coalition is a clear victory for Merkel, she certainly has her work cut out for her as she tries to balance the disparate demands of what is clearly an uncomfortable alliance. But at the same time, the vote by the Social Democrats provides a clear sign that the political center, while diminished, is holding after the longest coalition-building talks since World War II, notes Bloomberg. Beyond domestic challenges Merkel will also be expected to take a lead role in dealing with President Donald Trump and his threat to impose tariffs on European cars.On this weeks episode of my podcast, I Have to Ask, I spoke to Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and the editor in chief of Lawfare. Over the past year, Wittes has become one of the most prominent commentators on the Robert Mueller investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia, thanks in part to his friendship with James Comey and to his time reporting on Justice Department. He has also emerged as a strong critic of Trump and the Republican Party.

Advertisement

Below is an edited excerpt from the show. In it, we discuss how to read the tea leaves of the Mueller investigation, why people are too critical of Comey, and why even Trump hasnt changed his positive opinion of the national security state.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

You can find links to every episode here; the entire audio interview is below. Please subscribe to I Have to Ask wherever you get your podcasts.

Isaac Chotiner: Are you thinking about the Mueller investigation differently than you were several months ago?

Benjamin Wittes: Im not sure that I am, except that it has definitely progressed. Mueller has played his cards very close to the vest. We know very little about what he is thinking or planning other than what hes done. There have been more actions since a couple months ago, and therefore we have more data points to read, more tea leaves. But we still have essentially no information about his thinking, his plans, or his directional momentum, other than what we can read. So theres definitely more information to play with, but it is still consistent, potentially, with a pretty wide range of possible theories of the case.

Advertisement

Theyre trying to say as little as possible, except when they say a lot.  Benjamin Wittes

Do you see ways in which the Mueller team is trying to keep its hand hidden, and there are signs theyre not revealing things that they could be revealing, and there are strategic reasons for that? Or theyre just doing what they can, and it is what it is?

Advertisement

Its a bit of both. The setting in which theyve decided to be communicative is the indictment of the 13 Russians, where they gave a lot of information. And they really used that indictment to tell a story. In addition, with both the [George] Papadopoulos and [Michael] Flynn statements of offenses, they kind of judiciously let out information about subject matter about certain meetings and content and things that were said. Beyond that, theyve said essentially nothing. And their other documents have been exceedingly spare in terms of the communicative nature of them. And I do think thats on purpose, that theyre trying to say as little as possible, except when they say a lot.

Advertisement

Advertisement

And is the reason that you would try to say as little as possible that this is what prosecutors would do in any case? Or is this about the sensitivities here involvedthe sense that Trump may try to further interfere with the investigation?

Its a little of both. So No. 1, standard prosecutorial practice is to be quite judicious with investigative sensitive information. And yes, there are prosecutorial leaks in the federal system. Theyre not especially common. And good prosecutors dont do it very much. So thats the baseline condition.

Advertisement

In addition, I think there are a number of other factors here that all kind of push in the same direction. One is that Mueller follows Comey, whom the president has been publicly tweeting about as a leaker. And though thats actually quite untrue, it is something that would make you, if you were in Muellers shoes, very careful not to do anything that would give ammunition to the president to discredit the investigation.

Advertisement

Before Mueller was appointed, we saw incredible leaks from the bureaucracy. And I think the conventional wisdom about that has been that people in the bureaucracy were worried about what would happen to this investigation, so they were leaking the stuff. And then when Mueller was chosen, he took over and put a lid on that.

The corollary to that would be nothing about the indictment of these 13 Russians leaked, presumably because they do not have Washington defense lawyers who are talking to reporters. Is that your sense too, that the leaks have largely stopped because people have confidence in Mueller and that the leaks we see are largely from defense lawyers?

Defense lawyers are one of the frequent sources of information, but theyre not the only one. Broadly speaking, I think there are three, maybe four, groups of sources for the overwhelming majority of these stories. One is, as you say, the defense bar. The second is the witnesses themselves. Now, a lot of the witnesses are people who work in the White House, people who work in the campaign. And these people, for lots of other reasons, have independent relationships with a lot of the reporters in question. So they talk. Assuming the informations not classified, theres often not much ethical impediment to talking to a reporter about stuff that happened that you were involved in or stuff that youve heard around. No. 3 is Congress. There are multiple congressional investigations of many aspects of these things, and Congress isthis will be shockingnot the most leak-proof organization in the world.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

And then the fourth element, where I think a certain amount of stuff is coming from, is other people who get wrapped up in stuff. So any investigation like this involved a number of ancillary witnesses who get pulled into things because theyre there, because they interacted with people. And these people have no obligations of confidentiality, and, by the way, the investigation can be quite disruptive to their lives. And they may have no particular reason to keep anybodys confidence, and so they talk.

What about the bureaucracy leaking and now leaking less?

The question of whether the leaks in the bureaucracy have calmed down because of increased confidence as a result of Mueller is a complicated one because a lot of information that would previously have been available has kind of dried up at this point. So in the late months of the Obama administration and early months of the Trump administration, there was this flood of intelligence reporting about the Russia operation. And it shocked people. And a certain amount of that information leaked, most famously the Flynn-Kislyak conversation. One possibility is that your hypothesis is correct, and everybodys like, Bob Mueller will take care of it. I dont need to leak this now. But another possibility is that the shocking things that developed in that period kind of leaked in relatively early, and they have not been replaced by other streams of similarly shocking information because that is now being handled by the investigation. Its not a sort of ongoing reporting stream that results from the intelligence communitys assessment that President Obama ordered late in 2016.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

There have been news reports that the president would especially be set off by the Mueller team looking into his business and financial interests. Is there a conscious sense of that if were going to indict the presidents son-in-law or look into his businesses, you would wait until the end to do this, that we would pursue other lines of inquiry first, in case our investigation is shut down?

Advertisement

I dont know the answer to that question. I am not in touch with anybody in the special counsels office.

I think there are two possible ways for the special counsels office to think about that question. One is to say our job is to be total straight shooters and do our job with no strategic calculation as to the nature of the people were dealing with. And the president has certain powers that no other subject of such an investigation would have, like the power to pardon everybody involved, or the power to fire us, or the power to obliterate the office that we work for. But we actually cant control any of that, and its wrong for us to take any of that into account in the way we do our jobs. What our job is is to ignore that, treat all that as noise. And if he exercises those authorities, thats the political systems responsibility to respond to that, not ours. That would be one way to think about it.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The other way to think about it is to say that inherent in conducting an investigation like this is the task of protecting the investigation, given what Jim Comey called in his congressional testimony the nature of the personyou dont want to forget who youre dealing with. And you want to behave in a way that maximally protects the investigative equities and the structure and independence of the investigation from predations by the president and his people. And that means making certain strategic calculations.

There was an FBI investigation before Robert Mueller took over. Would it sort of automatically revert to being an FBI investigation again if Mueller was fired?

I think it would.  So it is at this point a series of indicted cases, among other things. If you fired Mueller but didnt get rid of his office, there would still be an office of special counsel that would then lack a head, and somebody would presumably be sort of acting in that capacity, and maybe youd have to appoint another one. Thats what happened to the special prosecutors office in Watergate. Thats how we got Leon Jaworski. That did not work out well for Richard Nixon. If, on the other hand, he sought to rescind the regulation, get rid of the office in its entirety, that would not cause the cases that the office has garnered pleas in or issues indictments in to disappear. They would revert to the Justice Department. So you would have to then figure out what bureaucratic part of the Justice Department would inherit the different parts of the investigation. Thats a mess, and I dont think the FBI would just stop investigating it because the structure in which they were working had vanished. So I think its very much an open question, and again, it depends on the sort of mechanics by which you tried to effectuate this.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

In hindsight, how do you think James Comey dealt with the investigation into Hillary Clinton and the emails, and the investigation that, I guess, had started by that point of Trump campaign associates and some connection to Russia?

These are matters that are currently before an inspector general, who has investigated a number of areas related to this energetically and is apparently nearing the end of his process and getting ready to release reports on it.

That said, I think the FBI was put in an impossible position in 2016. And I have never argued that there was no basis to fault decisions that were made in the bureau, including by Comey. And in fact, I was one of a relatively small number of people who raised public questions about the handling of the Clinton email matter back in July of 2016 when Comey released his statement. I, actually, at the time wrote a piece saying that I didnt dissent from his decision to do it, but I was uncomfortable with it.

Advertisement

And all that said, I think he was in an impossible position and that there was no good way to handle it. And I think the way he chose to handle it backfired in a big way, whether or not, by the way, it actually contributed to the electoral outcome. The fact that large numbers of people think that it did is itself a problem. I also think, by the way, that the attorney general and the deputy attorney general deserve a lot of responsibility here that people dont think about much. But the attorney general was the one who allowed the candidates husband to get on her plane and then did not recuse herself. And the deputy attorney general and the attorney general both were in a position to direct the FBI director not to make the public statement that he did. And they didnt do it.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

The basic problem here was that we had a grenade in the room, and we have one person who has, to a fault, a tendency to fall on every grenade and take responsibility for all kinds of things that are probably other peoples departments. And on the other hand we had a bunch of people who ran from the room. And thats a toxic combination.

What about the Trump angle? There was infamously a piece in the New York Times, I believe, on Oct. 31, 2016, saying the FBI saw no link between Trump and Russia. Do you think that there was a mistake made there? Harry Reid, I believe, released a letter saying that Comey had a lot of information about this, that he was not talking about the way he was about the Clinton email investigation. Do you think thats a fair critique, or are people misunderstanding that?

Advertisement

I think that critique is wrong. You say, Why did you handle one one way, and whyd you handle one the other way? Thats an error. And its an error for two reasons. One is that Comey announced the closing of the Clinton investigation in July, when he thought the investigation was finished.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The Trump investigation had just begun. You dont talk about an investigation that is just starting, right? So they were in completely different places. Now, the wrinkle here, of course, was that the perception that the Clinton investigation was done turned out to be wrong because they ended up in October having new information that they felt they had to take steps on. But when they issued those statements and made the comments that they made, they did it because they thought they were done with the investigation. So if theres an appropriate time to say what your investigative conclusions and actions are going to be, surely it is when youre done.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The Trump investigation starts in July, according to Comeys later testimony and a number of other documents. And generally speaking, when things are in an early, very preliminary stage, thats precisely when you dont talk about them. The second reason, and the most important reason, is that one of these investigations was a counterintelligence investigation. These are the most sensitive investigations in the United States government. The Trump investigation started with an allied foreign intelligence service giving us information about George Papadopoulos. The New York Times has since reported that it was the Australians. So when people, including Harry Reid, say that you should be going public with the material that you are working with, with respect to Trump, what theyre saying is that you should blow a FISA [warrant], which was the Carter Page FISA, and you should release information about an early phase counterintelligence investigation. And that is simply an unthinkable propositionand, by the way, it remains unthinkable when Devin Nunes turned around and did it a year and a half later. So people like me who are really angry about what Devin Nunes did, I dont think it would have been any more appropriate had Harry Reid done it.

Advertisement

Advertisement

You gave a quote for a New York magazine profile, where you said, I dont lead any kind of resistance. I keep warning all of our newfound admiring readers that Im not part of that world. You know, the day we have sane government again, including, by the way, sane conservative government, Im going to go back to being an apologist for the national-security state. And I wont even have to go back to it! Because thats actually what I am.

Word.

Has Trump getting elected and ostensibly being in charge of the national security state made you think differently at all about the power it should have, knowing that this was possible?

Advertisement

That is an extremely complicated question. And the very short answer to that is no. I have been arguing for 10 years that the stakes associated with well-crafted, strong national security authorities, particularly in the counterterrorism and counterintelligence and espionage space, are much lower for a democratic society than people in the human rights and civil liberties communities and much of academia believe. In other words, you can have responsible detention regimes for al-Qaida figures. You can have strong NSA collection programs. You can have a drone strike program. And that the consequences for democratic government, of doing that, are actually not that we are on a slippery slope to 1984.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Now, we now have truly dangerous, menacing, presidential leadership. And I am one of the peopleI think the record will reflect thiswho most accurately predicted what Donald Trump would actually do in office using presidential authorities. And I did it during the campaign. And one of the things that he has not done is abused any of these authorities. We havent had any roundup of people for detention purposes under military authorities. We havent seen drone strikes or the use of terrible killer robots. We havent seen abusive surveillance authorities. The NSA isnt part of any of Donald Trumps abuses. What has Donald Trump abused? He has abused not the marginal coercive powers of the federal government that are well-regulated in statute and law, supervised by courts. He hasnt abused any of those authorities.

Advertisement

Hes abused the core powers of the presidency, the basic discretionary judgments. I will hire this person and fire this person. I will or wont allow my family to use the government as a nesting spot. I will or wont allow the Justice Department to remain, for enforcement purposes, apolitical. I will or will not abuse the power of presidential speech. These are not at the margins of presidential authority. Theyre the core powers of the president. And its interesting to me that in all the debates, all the debates we have about marginal counterterrorism authorities over the last post-9/11 era, theyre all about the marginal powers of the federal government. And weve lost sight of what a truly abusive human being does with the powers of the presidency, which is abuse the core discretionary authorities of it.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

I guess the response would be, No. 1, we havent had a major terrorist attack. And No. 2, Trump is someone who is incompetent and has pettier grievances rather than large-scale grievances, and that if someone different were to take the oath of office, the things that were talking about could actually be more of a concern.

Let me turn the question around and say: When you look at the federal government today, what scares you more? The Justice Department or the NSA?

The Justice Department, but I would just add that could be my own biases, the person I am, and it could also be partially the fact that I think were dealing with a particular kind of authoritarian personality, rather than a different kind of authoritarian personality. But the point is to take

I want to suggest that theres another reason, which is that the NSA operates under a comprehensive statutory scheme with respect to its ability to interact with you. We have a lot of experience with the fact that those rules are basically complied with, kind of neurotically. And we have seen zero evidence that Donald Trump has tried to change those rules. And by the way, it would be a heavy lift for him to try to change those rules.

I think he has an instinct for the soft spot. And the soft spot, the place where you could actually do tyrannical stuff in the United States government, is actually not the intelligence community. Its not an accident that the intelligence community has been something he has had to attack. And its because they live by rules, and he hates rules.When the California Democratic Party declined to endorse Sen. Dianne Feinstein last week, it was taken as a sign that progressives might be poised to update the political order in the Golden State. Kevin de Leon, the leader of Democrats in the state Senate and a proud progressive, won 54 percent of the vote to Feinsteins 37 percentshy of the 60 percent needed to win the partys endorsement but an impressive upset nonetheless. Im running for the United States Senate because the days of Democrats biding our time, biting our tongue, and triangulating at the margins are over, de Leon said in a speech before results were tallied. And Im running because Californias greatness comes from acts of human audacity, not from congressional seniority.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Even in regions like conservative Orange County, the political tides seem to be shifting. Two of the countys Republican congressmen, Ed Royce and Darrell Issa, announced their retirements in January, likely sensing, as Democratic leaders have, that demographic change and anti-Trump sentiment have made the area ripe for Democratic pickups. There are more than a dozen Democrats in the running for those seats and 67 total for the 14 Republican-held seats statewide. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting 10 of those seats and is especially optimistic about the seven Republican-held districts that went for Clinton in 2016.

But the already liberal state isnt likely to move further left without at least a few hiccups. As reported by the Intercepts David Dayen, there was a floor fight during the state partys convention over an endorsement in the Orange County regions 45th District race. David Min, a law professor and former economic policy director at center-left think tank the Center for American Progress, narrowly managed to clear the 60 percent threshold required for an endorsement, triggering a contentious petition challenge from backers of progressive opponent Katie Porter, endorsed by Democracy for America and 2020 hopefuls Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. Min ultimately prevailed in a voice vote called by state party Chairman Eric Bauman after canvassing and speeches from party leaders.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The episode was ammunition for party activists who insist that the party establishment routinely engages in efforts to thwart progressives. But in California, voters themselves seem to be in on the scheme. For instance, Sen. Feinstein has, along with all the advantages of a 26-year incumbency, a nearly 30-point lead on De Leon in the polls. In 2016, Bernie Sanders lost the state to Clinton in 2016 by nearly 8 pointsnot a blowout, but not a particularly flattering showing either. The fairly firm grip the partys establishment seems to have on the state goes some way toward explaining why there hasnt been much talk at all about unseating Californias most important Democrat: Nancy Pelosi.

Advertisement

Advertisement

There is growing chatter among voices both progressive and not in the House about whether Pelosis time as leader of Democrats in the chamber might be up. On the right and in the jittery center, theres an abiding belief that Republican attacks associating vulnerable candidates with Pelosi make her leadership a liability in contestable districts. On the left, progressives are loudly dissatisfied, ironically, with her commitment to leaving space in the party for centrist candidatesPelosi endorsed anti-choice incumbent Dan Lipinski in Illinois 3rd District on Thursdayand her wariness of moves left broadly speaking on issues like single payer.



In her district, that discontent has only produced a few long-shot challengers, all from the left. The most covered of which so far has been 72-year-old former attorney and Bernie Sanders volunteer Stephen Jaffe, whos seasoned his economic progressivism with a dash of disdain for left identity politics. It was discovered last May that Jaffe had written a Facebook post lamenting that old straight white men like himself were perceived as a politically incorrect liability. I dont want to be judged by the color of my skin, or by my age, he later explained to the Los Angeles Times.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The other potentially serious candidate in the race is Ryan Khojasteh, the going-on-25 son of Iranian immigrants, a law student at UCHastings, and a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors Immigrant Rights Commission. He is as perfect a representative of the lefts more youthful and diverse elements as one could possibly conjure and he knows it.

When youre worth $29 million, and Im living in a subsidized studio apartment in the Tenderloin with $150,000 in student debt, thats a disconnect that may never be bridged, he said of Pelosi in an interview with Slate. What we need to do is create a diverse coalition from the Latino/Latina community, the African-American community, the LGBTQ community, the Asian community, the Middle Eastern community, the underserved communities together. Give us a reason to believe in change and have a seat at the table so that we can be part of the process, not just be used for our votes.

Advertisement

Advertisement

His platform comprises nearly every item on the progressive wish list: single-payer health care, a $15 minimum wage, comprehensive immigration reform, free college education, marijuana legalization. Hes open, too, to exploring proposals that are increasingly the subject of conversation on the left, including a job guarantee and universal basic income. Khojasteh also reached out to the San Francisco chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America for a chance to speak to the group but was told the group wasnt endorsing candidates for federal office. Hes nevertheless optimistic that he can build up the grassroots support from left and progressive activists he needs to get his candidacy off the ground. Hes also relying on Californias jungle primary system, in which candidates from all parties compete in the same primary before a runoff of the top two vote gettersmaking a race between two Democrats in the general likely. Weve calculated that we need around 20,000 votes, he says. Twenty thousand votes would give us strong second place. And then from that position, force her into a debate. I really do believe this would be a winnable race if we could get her to debate, and we will raise hell until we get that debate.



Even on that narrow front, Khojasteh will have his work cut out for him. Pelosi has habitually ignored primary opponents and can obviously afford to do so. She cleared 70 percent of the vote in the past two primaries and 80 percent of the vote in the past three general elections. Still, as far as the left wings long-term project of remaking the party is concerned, it likely wont hurt if left candidates make noise and demonstrate that they can have or can build constituencies, provided that there arent too many contenders. In districts outside San Francisco, the jungle primary system means theres a real risk that Democratic vote splitting could hand an advantage to Republican incumbents if the field gets too crowded. [I]n 2012, Democrats suffered an embarrassing defeat in a Southern California congressional district where they held an edge in voter registration, Mother Jones Bryan Schatz noted. Four Democrats ran, split the vote, and then-Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar finished third behind two Republicans in the primary.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

But thats not a concern in districts as safe as Pelosis, where progressives have little to lose, and attention from the voting public and respect from party elders to gain. And Khojastehs hoping that he and other progressive challengers do well enough to rattle the party into rethinking its strategy nationally. [W]hat we need to be doing is inserting passion into our politics rather than pragmatism, he says. We really need to reframe our strategy. I think in the hearts and minds of people there is this fire for progressivism. But were never going to understand that potential unless we start fighting for it.A renowned Harvard professor has been placed on leave and is under investigation after decades of complaints that he sexually harassed multiple women resurfaced as part of the #MeToo movement, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

Jorge Dominguez, the chair of the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies and a tenured professor in the universitys government department, was first disciplined in the early 1980s, when an assistant professor in the department accused him of harassment.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which first reported on the resurfaced complaints on Tuesday, Dominguez tried to kiss Terry Karl so many times in 1981 she lost count:

Advertisement

She remembers the night in her car when he confided that he would be the next department chairman, and that he would review the book she was writing. It was unfortunate, he said, that he had to decide the fates of people he liked. He moved his hand to her thigh, beneath her skirt, and leaned in for a kiss.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

After a year or two of the advances that allegedly disregarded Karls requests, verbal and written, that he stop, she filed a complaint with the university. Harvard gave Dominguez a warning, and he was removed from administrative responsibilities for three years, according to the Chronicle. Karl, feeling uncomfortable working under Dominguez, left the university. (Dominguez has refused to comment on the accusations, according to the Chronicle, but has said he sought to behave honorably in his relationships.)

Advertisement

According to the Chronicle, other women who were harassed by Dominguez in later years did not report him because they feared Harvard would respond in a similarly anemic way.

According to the Chronicle, four of the women found each other over social media in November, as allegations against Harvey Weinstein and other powerful men began piling up. The Chronicle ultimately spoke to 10 women who allegedly were harassed by Dominguez.

According to the Post, Harvards provost, responding to the Chronicle article, said the accounts were heartbreaking and that the Arts and Sciences faculty began contacting students in Dominguezs department to ask them about their experiences with him. The government department also held a meeting on Friday for students to air their complaints about the departments climate, according to the student newspaper.

Because Dominguez is tenured, the Harvard Corporation must be involved in his firing, and he can only be dismissed for grave misconduct or neglect of duty, according to the Post.A few months after Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, Democrats captured nearly 50 House seats and several Senate seats in the November election. In similar fashion to the Tea Party wave of 2010, the ballot results in 74 brought a different variety of politician to WashingtonDemocrats known as the Watergate Babiesand they helped change the Democratic Party (then still controlled by a number of more conservative Southerners) and the way Congress functioned. In The Class of 74: Congress After Watergate and the Roots of Partisanship, John A. Lawrencewho served almost 40 years as a congressional staffer, eventually becoming chief of staff to Nancy Pelosiexplains just how this group changed the Hill. But his book also helps us understand why these changes didnt stick, and just why Congress has sunk to new depths in the Trump era.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

I recently spoke by phone with Lawrence, a visiting professor at the University of Californias Washington Center, whom I have known socially for many years. During the course of our conversation, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, we discussed the effect of Watergate on American politics, what Newt Gingrich did to Washington, and what John Boehner understood about the Republican Party.

Isaac Chotiner: Why exactly was the 1974 congressional class so important?

John A. Lawrence: If youre going to understand the roots of contemporary partisanship, you really need to go back to this era, because it was in the 1970s that [much] of what has grown into a highly polarized, highly partisan political system and electorate took root. We have a Congress today which is largely not functioning. It has given up on its role as producing legislation, as conducting investigations, as examining through oversight the activities of the executive branch. When you look at what this class of 1974 did, they took a Congress that looked a lot like that and turned it into a much more dynamic and operative political institution.

Advertisement

This a class that Norm Ornstein, whos one of the really great congressional scholars, has called the most consequential class in the 20th century, and yet its been labeled the Watergate Babies. For 40 years, people have minimized the role of this class. Its an important class not only because of what happened in the 1970s, but because the role that they played so demonstrates how a group of committed, ideological but pragmatic young people can come into the Congress, into an institution that had really become so dysfunctional, and really focus it to be more democratized, to change the power structure.

Advertisement

I think a lot of people like myself who are not experts on Congress would say, Look, in the 1960s you had a wave of incredible legislation pass Congress. In 1974, you had Congress stand up to Richard Nixon. What then was so dysfunctional?

Advertisement

Advertisement

The period of productivity that you mentioned was the Great Society perioda very, very brief period of time, basically from early 1964 to 1966. After that, very little legislation was passed. It was possible because in that very brief period of time, Democrats had such a large majority that they were able to push through legislation with the help of many Republicans, I should point out, who occupied more moderate positions. That actually was a key component of the Congress.

This bipartisan coalition could overcome what was called the conservative coalition, of conservative Democrats and Republicans that blocked much of that legislation in the years leading up to the Great Society, and that blocked much of that legislation in the years following, until you get to 1974 and once again Democrats get a very large majority. Theyre able to effectuate a lot of institutional changes that disseminated power more widely throughout the caucus, so that the chairmen were not as able to block legislation and to singlehandedly determine the kind of legislation that would be considered. As they disseminated this power, they gave younger people chairmanships. They brought power to the subcommittees instead of just all in the full committees, and a lot of issues that had been bottled up for many years, whether thats environment or energy reform or womens rights, education or childrens health, these were all issues that had been bottled up in these committees for many years.

Advertisement

Advertisement

So what then happened to break Congress again, and when did it break?

At the same time that this class comes in, you have the resurgence of a new conservative movement that comes out of the ashes of 1964. The successes of the Great Society and then the successes of the Democratic Party following Watergate obscured to some extent how revived this conservative movement was, not simply within Congress but externally as well.

Advertisement

You also had the emergence of a lot of divisive cultural issues, whether thats abortion or school busing or flag burning or draft resistance, that become vehicles by which conservatives are able to inject these very highly partisan issues into the congressional debate. In part, they can integrate them into the congressional debate because the liberalized rules that the Class of 74 and others helped to put into place give everyone in the Congress a greater opportunity to offer amendments and to control portions of the debate.

Advertisement

Theyre terrified of primaries. Theyre terrified of an activist base that has no institutional loyalty whatever.  John A. Lawrence

There are many other issues that are developing similarly in this period of the late 1970s, including a lot of dissatisfaction within a younger group of conservatives who look at the changing demographics and the changing electoral performances in the South, in the Sun Belt, in many suburban areas, and think that, notwithstanding the losses the Republican Party in the House has suffered, they have the capacity to build a majority, but they can only do that by taking much more extreme positions. That emphasizes race, that emphasizes personal conduct and ethics, and its out of this movement that you really see Newt Gingrich and that movement come and emerge and become the driving conservative force. By the time you get to the mid-1980s, youre really starting to see a diminution of ideological diversity within the parties and a rising level of division between the two parties that plays out over the next 20 years, into our contemporary highly politicized environment.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Do you attribute any of the blame to Democrats? I think a lot of Republicans would say, one, the Bork nomination, and then later on the way Harry Reid did certain things, at least on the Senate side, played a role in polarizing these institutions and exacerbating problems.

Advertisement

Sure. I dont think that one party bears lone responsibility here, but I think that one looks more to the Republican Party because from the tactical standpoint, the Republican Party viewed itself as the minority. It was fighting to get towards majority status, and to some extent the Democrats were not sufficiently aware of this growing political strength.

The Democrats, when they strike back, when they finally realize what is going on, and for example Jim Wright in the House begins to shut down the open rules that reforms had put in place and that had allowed many of the Republicans to offer these controversial amendments, which helped to identify weak and vulnerable Democratic membersthat effort by Wright is used as an illustration of the tyranny of the Democratic majority, and is cited by virtually every Republican I talk to as where they think this more heavily polarized political environment originates.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Was there a moment during your time in Congress where you began to notice things going awry?

It may not have been a particular incident, but I think certainly in the House the rise of Gingrich and the Gingrich faction is very significant. It really stigmatized government itself, and employed a level of rhetoric that demonized the political opposition. I think that that tended to change the nature of the debate.

That went hand in hand with the emergence of these issues that could be described as cultural issues or ethical issues, policy issues that are seen as rights rather than simply as policy debates. I think it became more and more difficult as those issues grew in prominence to find common ground, because its one thing if you have to find common ground in a highway transportation bill. You know, you can figure out what the number is going to be or what projects youre going to do. But when youre asked to compromise on something you see as an ethical issue or a cultural value, or a religious issue for that matter, that becomes much more difficult.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Weve seen an across-the-board Republican surrender to Trumpism in the House. In the Senate, weve seen a similar surrender with a few people sort of speaking up occasionally. Have you been surprised or depressed by this?

Advertisement

I think Ive been depressed. Ive been a little less than surprised because Ive seen, really since the Republican takeover in the 2010 elections, the seeds of what youre describing coming into fruition. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that, particularly in 2010, 2012, you had this very large infusion of people out of the Tea Party and then out of the Freedom Caucus who were running as much against their own leadership as they were against the Democrats in some ways.

Advertisement

John Boehner very often talked to me and he talked to the press about this, that the elevation of the Republican Party into majority status came because it had a group of people arrive that in many cases had won nominations and won elections without the help of the party, without toeing the party line. This is a group that doesnt value the institution, that has contempt for it. When I see Trump coming along, I think that hes reading the grassroots in many of those districts in a way that was very accurate and explains the origins of many of those people who have found themselves in Congress and really changing the nature of Congress.

Advertisement

What does surprise me, though, is the complete abdication of congressional responsibility by the leadership. If there was one common thread that runs through the last 40 years in Congress, really since Vietnam and Watergate, it is a bipartisan effort to reassert Congress as a coequal branch, to hold particularly the presidency accountable through oversight, through investigation, through hearings, and by pushing its own legislation rather than simply doing whatever the president tells it to do. Yet, if you look at Paul Ryan today, hes saying hes not going to bring an immigration bill to the floor until the president tells him what he wants. Hes not going to bring a gun bill to the floor until he knows what the president wants. Hes not conducting investigations into Russias interference into the election or the failure of the administration to take further action. Theyre terrified of primaries. Theyre terrified of an activist base that has no institutional loyalty whatever.

Advertisement

Advertisement

You knew Boehner pretty well. What did you think of him when you were you working with him, and do you think he would be doing things differently if he were in Paul Ryans job today?

Advertisement

Shortly after Republicans won the election in 2010, I ran into Boehner. It was before he was speaker, but I had known him. I had worked with him for years on the Education Committee. He was the chairman of the committee and I was the Democratic staff director. I congratulated him, and he said to me, In six months Ill be more popular in your caucus than I am in mine. We knew that he had risen to the speakership and the Republicans had risen to the majority by virtue of this infusion of people who did not want to play by the rules, did not want to respect the integrity of the institution, and did not want to be legislatively productive. They viewed the institution to which they had been elected and the leadership of that institution as the enemy, whether they were Democrats or Republicans.

Boehner, look. Boehner is a very conservative guy, but hes sort of an old-school conservative. He got into politics because he was running, of all things, a plastics company, and he was annoyed at government regulations and taxes. He wasnt really moved to get into politics because of the social issues. He was much more into the traditional economic and regulatory policies, but thats not where these other people were coming from, this newer group. I think he was very frustrated by their lack of collaborativeness, their lack of respect.

Do you think hed be handling Trump differently?

Oh, I think that by the time he left, he was pretty exasperated at the whole process, and I think what he did was to  you know, he cut a deal with Obama in 2013 on the deficit. It was a deal that, as with previous continuing resolutions and fiscal cliffs, he had to depend on Democratic votes to pass, and he just got out of Dodge because he had had enough.Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has a big week ahead of him. On Tuesday, Kobachs signature voter fraud measurea requirement that all voters show proof of citizenshipgoes on trial in a federal district court. The ACLU has sued to the block the law, which disenfranchised about 35,000 people, or one in seven Kansas voters, in its first three years. Kobach and his office will defend the acts legality by attempting to prove that a significant number of non-citizens have registered to vote in Kansas. The law has been on hold since May 2016, when U.S. District Judge Julie A. Robinson ruled that it likely violated the National Voter Registration Act.

Advertisement

Kobachs conduct outside of court, particularly on Donald Trumps election integrity commission, is notoriously sleazy. The outwardly nativist Republican routinely lies about evidence of voter fraud to justify voter suppression measures (and demonize immigrants in the process). You might expect Kobach to temper his chicanery in courtbut the litigation over his proof-of-citizenship law suggests that he is temperamentally incapable of playing by the rules. On the eve of trial, Kobach has already been reprimanded by the court three times, and is still at risk of being held in contempt of court. Heres a partial summary of Kobachs flagrant misconduct:

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

 After Robinson issued her injunction, she directed Kobach to add to the voter rolls an estimated 18,000 Kansans who were barred from registering because they lacked a birth certificate or passport. Kobach agreed to count these individuals votesbut failed to notify them that they were registered or add their name to the states registration website. Even worse, he refused to give them regular ballots for the August 2016 primary, instead providing them with provisional ballots. The ACLU filed a motion; Robinson ordered Kobach to appear in court and explain why he had not fully complied with her order. He finally complied just one day before his own contempt hearing.

Advertisement

 The ACLU asked Kobach to turn over the document he carried into a meeting with Donald Trump that mentioned the NVRA. He refused, claiming that they were irrelevant to the Kansas case. In fact, they were highly relevant, and Kobach made several false claims about their contents. A magistrate judge found that Kobach had made patently misleading representations to the court about the documents and fined him $1,000. Robinson upheld the sanction.

 On Jan. 30, 2018, Kobachs expert witness Jesse Richmanthe author of a highly dubious voter fraud study favored by Trumpsurprised the ACLU with a supplemental report estimating rates of noncitizen voting. Kobach had plenty of time to warn the ACLU about Richmans new report, which used data that had been available since July 2017. Instead, he waited to file it until the last minute, depriving the plaintiffs of sufficient time to respond. Robinson excluded the report as untimely, writing that Kobach had sandbagged plaintiffs and the court five weeks before trial.

Advertisement

Advertisement

 On Jan. 8, the ACLU filed another motion to hold Kobach in contempt of violating a different court order. The group exhaustively documented Kobachs refusal to send certificates to voters who tried to register but lacked proof of citizenship. These certificates state critical information, such as voters precincts, polling location, and districts for different offices. The ACLU also demonstrated that Kobach had refused to correct extremely deceptive information in the official Kansas election manual that suggested these voters could not lawfully cast a ballot. On the eve of trial, Kobach has still not addressed these problems. Dale Ho, director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, told me on Monday that the motion is still pending, and he expects Robinson will address it during trial.

Every lawyer makes mistakes. But Kobachs behavior cannot be written off as a series of good-faith errors. The secretary of state has consistently ignored the orders of a federal court and lied in order to withhold information. This strategy isnt just unethical; its extremely foolish. That same court will now oversee a landmark trial probing the prevalence of voter fraud. Kobach has already proved that he cannot be trusted to tell the truth or follow the law. Robinson simply has no reason to believe a word he says at trial.Fourth of July weekend, 1986, was an awkward time for President Ronald Reagan to rededicate the Statue of Liberty as a welcome light to immigrants. Speaking on immigration during his acceptance of the Republican nomination for president in July 1980, Reagan had welded fragments of Emma Lazarus famous sonnet, installed on the statues base, to an American exceptionalism and Protestant nationalism Lazarus had not shared. Can we doubt that only a Divine Providence placed this land, this island of freedom here as a refuge for all those people in the world who yearn to breathe freely? he asked. When it came to the question of whose search for safety mattered, his examples were aligned with Cold War priorities: Jews and Christians enduring persecution behind the Iron Curtain, the boat people of Southeast Asia, of Cuba and Haiti, victims of drought and famine in Africa. America, it seemed, was synonymous with the freedom that immigrants craved, but some immigrants hunger for air mattered more than others.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Once Reagan was in office, his administration made immigration policy an extension of an aggressive, militarized foreign policy. Despite the 1980 Refugee Act signed by President Carter, which set the criteria for asylum broadly as a well-founded fear of persecution, Reagans Immigrant and Naturalization Service politicized refuge, disproportionately granting asylum to those fleeing Communist states and denying it to nearly all applicants from violent, oppressive regimes the United States supported, like those of El Salvador and Haiti. Migrants who were owed asylum hearings were denied them. Where for decades, undocumented asylum applicants in state custody had been released on bond unless considered dangerous, from 1981 onward, many were imprisoned in detention centers, some of them leased-out jails. Meanwhile, U.S. military, political, and economic aid to right-wing regimes was helping uproot tens of thousands of Haitians, Guatemalans, Salvadorans, and Filipinos, some of whom found themselves at the United States increasingly harsh, punitive borders. The Sanctuary Movement, a campaign by faith communities to help migrants fleeing death squads and violence in Central America remain in the United States, was surveilled, infiltrated, and prosecuted by the administration.

Advertisement

The Statue of Liberty is so inescapable, so encrusted in tourist kitsch, we forget shes weird.

Ever since Europeans first set foot in North America, those with shallow claims to being American have had strong ideas about who belonged. Donald Trump, in trying to bar refugees and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, terminating temporary protected status for Haitians and Salvadorans, and threatening hundreds of thousands of childhood arrivals to the United States with deportation, is drawing on deep nativist currents in American life. Writing 25 years before the Declaration of Independence, in a treatise on the demographics of the Pennsylvania colony, Benjamin Franklin expressed his worries about the arrival of Spaniards, Italians, Russians, Swedes, and the French, people who possessed what he called a swarthy Complexion; he complained that Germans were becoming so numerous that they threatened to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

But the founders also believed that the United States, if it wished to advance republicanism in a world of monarchies, needed to open its arms to those fleeing tyranny elsewhere, particularly Europeans. The U.S. must serve as what George Washington and others called an asylum for the oppressed of every Nation and Country. They also believed that the United States needed immigrants and their labor to build up American industry and infrastructure, seize North America from Native Americans, and extend what they called the empire of liberty across the continent. When European Americans argued over who should and shouldnt be allowed to immigrate, that debate played a critical role in making them native to North America, at least to themselves. Before too long, deciding that the person just behind you as you stepped off the boat was a scary immigrant was a venerable American tradition.

Advertisement

When Americans debate immigration, they have, for 132 years, inevitably found themselves wrestling with the meaning of a colossal, copper-green woman who carries a torch. As a physical and symbolic object, the Statue of Liberty is so inescapable, so encrusted in tourist kitsch, we forget shes weird. Shes stern-faced, but a symbol of welcome. Shes from abroad, but stands for America. Facing onto the world from New York Harbor, is she a beacon or a border guard?

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

For the far right, the openness with which the statue has become associated is a threat. On Aug. 2, CNN reporter Jim Acosta challenged senior policy adviser Stephen Millerarchitect of the White Houses hard line on immigrationabout the presidents proposal for a policy that favored highly educated English speakers and cut legal entries in half. Acosta pointed out that the Emma Lazarus poem didnt say anything about speaking English or computer programming. Miller replied, echoing a common nativist talking point: The poem that youre referring to, that was added later, is not actually a part of the original Statue of Liberty, he said. The statue was a symbol of liberty and light in the world, not of immigrants coming to the United States. Despite his eagerness to discuss history that day, Miller did not bring up his Russian Jewish ancestors, refugees who fled anti-Jewish violence in Belarus.

Advertisement

Advertisement

In truth, the statue has always proved an elusive shape-shifter when it comes to immigrants. For several decades after its dedication in 1886, it was seen by many Americans as representing a militant warrior-goddess guarding the nations gates from swarming European rabble. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the most well-known poem that brought together the statue and immigration wasnt Lazarus refugee-welcoming The New Colossus. It was New England writer and editor Thomas Bailey Aldrichs rabidly xenophobic Unguarded Gates, first published in 1892. The poem called out to Liberty, a white Goddess, warning her of a wild motley throng on the nations unprotected doorstep: Malayans, Scythians, and Slavs who brought unknown gods and rites, strange tongues, and tiger passions, here to stretch their claws. When the Ku Klux Klan drove a parade float through downtown Bellingham, Washington, in May 1926, leading a 750-person procession, its centerpiece was a Statue of Liberty, towering over six hooded Klansmen.

Advertisement

Advertisement

By the early 20th century, recent immigrants and their descendants made the statueone of their first sights upon entering New York Harborinto their emblem and talisman. For Amelia Meisner Lindsay, a Russian immigrant who had been a child at the time of her 1905 crossing, the encounter was mystical. I knew at once that she had recognized us, she recalled in a 1977 essay. This was the statue Emma Lazarus had written of in 1883, a Mother of Exiles. But it took another half century, years of activism, a war against fascism, and the upward mobility of European immigrants to fully displace the nativist guardian in the American public imagination. (The plaque bearing Lazarus poem was indeed only installed in the statues base in 1903.) By the early postWorld War II period, the statue, the poem (especially its viscerally memorable huddled masses), and even its author were becoming interchangeable, and The New Colossus was being memorized and recited by schoolchildren along with Paul Reveres Ride.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Yet even as the exiles statue joined the American vernacular, promises of shelter and freedom extended to newcomers outstripped those made to the descendants of forced migrants from Africa. Langston Hughes put it this way in the Chicago Defender in 1950: With her face toward the Old World welcoming the refugees of poverty and oppression, terror and hate, Liberty stands in New York Harborsome have saidwith her back to Harlem. He called on black Americans to ask the country, insistently: Shouldnt we at least have the same chance that refugees have? When will you permit us the privileges you offer Russians, Germans, Poles or Danes who come to our shores? Liberty, he said, would take delight in asking those questions for us.

Advertisement

Hughes had seized hold of a crucial element of the statues power: While associated with America, it stood resolutely offshore, looking askance at the nation and posing urgent questions from the border. You could drape its base with Stars and Stripes bunting each Flag Day, but the statue remained stubbornly alien. She came from France. Waves of early 20th-century immigrants had transformed her into a 305-foot-tall thorn in the side of the United States racist immigration laws. Notably, Lazarus statue did not demand that immigrants make the U.S. stronger, wealthier, or more diverseits protection was predicated on nothing more than the humanity and vulnerability of those to whom it was offered. It was easy enough to miss the fact that Lazarus sonnet made no reference to the United States: The freedom her statue stood for was not of America or by America, but beyond America.

Advertisement

Advertisement

No one expected the bombastic celebration of immigrants to crash into the well-being of an actual immigrant.

Reagans statue, by contrast, was America itself. We are the keepers of the flame of liberty, he said at the climax of his opening address at the centennial ceremonies, delivered on Governors Island. We hold it high tonight for the world to see, a beacon of hope, a light unto the nations. Planners of the event had placed immigrant symbolism at the heart of Liberty Weekend proceedings, foregrounding immigrants as the recipients of American benevolence and reflections of American greatness. But as became clear over four days of fireworks, tall ships, lasers, trumpet fanfares, Elvis impersonators, warships, Jazzercise dancers, pop ballads, and yacht flotillas, the statue invoked at the anniversary bore little resemblance to Lazarus giantess, no matter how many times The New Colossus was invoked. One could have been forgiven for having no idea there was an ongoing refugee crisis in which the United States was implicated. The intense debate over current immigration policy hardly can be found in the official Liberty Weekend program, noted one reporter for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.

Advertisement

Instead, the arrivals invoked at the event in song and speech were immigrants out of a nostalgic miniseries, safely sepia-toned into the past with their worn caps, tattered shawls, and hopeful eyes; the event had been orchestrated by Hollywood television and movie producer David Wolper. The festivals immigrants were strivers, not sufferers. They worked hard and virtuously, their labor coated over with gauzy populism, their inner selves invested with a capitalist spirituality. It was to their credit, Reagan said, that they had labored all their lives to keep their children fed, clothed, and educated. They were, mostly, of European descent. By the 1980s, most immigrants to the United States were from Asia and Latin America, but eight of the 12 naturalized citizens honored with Liberty Medals during the event were white. The poverty of past immigrants was quaint, circumstantial, and not morally disqualifying, assuming that it channeled them into productive work rather than protest. Most fundamentally, Americas immigrants had possessed what Reagan called an abiding love of liberty: It was not exactly clear what he meant, but unquestioning loyalty to the United States, economic self-responsibility, and material self-fulfillment were key ingredients. The events most celebrated immigrants were almost-Americans. Thousands participated in one the largest mass naturalizations in American history. Chief Justice Burger performed a swearing in at Ellis Island and, via satellite hookup, at massive, televised ceremonies across the country.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Meanwhile, on the eve of the celebrations, about 4,800 immigrants were being detained by the federal government, facing deportation by an increasingly forceful INS. According to the New York Times, more than 200 were being held in a detention center in lower Manhattan, about a mile and a half from the festivities. There were men with long rap sheets and men who had been working $2-an-hour jobs when they were swept up in INS raids. The Times story described Ramino Soto Uribe, 35, who arrived from Venezuela on a six-month tourist visa, overstayed, and had been working as a car painter in Paterson, New Jersey. Hed wanted a better life, a chance to put down some roots. A few weeks earlier, local police and immigration officials had found marijuana at the apartment he shared with some friends. They also found pay stubs, tracked him to his job, and arrested him. At the time of Liberty Weekend, he was fighting to remain in the United States and following television coverage of the revelry from inside the prison facility. He told the Times, I would love to be at that celebration.

Advertisement

Ghalam Mohammad Paiman, a 22-year-old man from Afghanistan, had fought in the mujahideen army for three years, a freedom fighter in Reagans campaign to push back the Soviet invasion. According to court papers, he had been tortured in a Kabul prison and would be eliminated if he were returned home. He had arrived at JFK Airport the previous January without a passport or visa, been arrested, and was being held in a cinder block room with barred windows. When I came to this country, he told the Times, I had high expectations of liberty and peace. I expected to be treated with dignity. I expected human rights to be honored. I am not a criminal. But I am treated like a criminal. Growing up in Afghanistan, hed seen pictures of the Statues lamp in schoolbooks. He could hear the party from the window of his cell. The Statue of Liberty represents freedom and justice to many millions, he said. But I am confined in this prison.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Activists did not let the administration have the last word, protesting with marches, rallies, and editorials, before and during the centennial events, that the statue wasnt simply being rededicated; it was being body snatched. Anti-poverty campaigners asked why present-day huddled masses had been left out of the glitzy, privatized revelry. Black writers charged that the histories of enslaved and free African migrants to America had been written out of the weekends official memory. It was the Sanctuary Movement that served as the leading champion of the exiles statue. Two days before the start of the centennial, five movement activists had been sentenced, but none received prison time. The press, in its trial coverage, had made a point of connecting Liberty Weekend to both the ongoing refugee crisis and the Sanctuary Movement that the events had scrupulously dodged. The effort was aided by prominent allies. Those now leaving Central America are the new huddled masses, said Jesse Jackson, speaking on the eve of Liberty Weekend at a hearing in Los Angeles on the arrival of refugees to the city. In a February op-ed in the Detroit Free Press, Coretta Scott King had strongly defended the Sanctuary Movement members. As the nation prepares to celebrate the centennial of the mother of exiles,  she wrote, they provided a timely reminder of our obligation to honor our ideals and heritage. She closed by quoting The New Colossus.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

The stark contrast between a long-awaited, immigrant-themed extravaganza in New York City and the mass deportation of the tired and poor won the Sanctuary Movement greater support. In June, the United Church of Christ passed a resolution advocating sanctuary. In presenting it, Rev. John Thomas stated that, as the nation prepared to celebrate the statues birthday the following month, we mock her spirit by turning away or deporting Latin Americans. In his homily at an ecumenical council, the politically conservative Cardinal John OConnor, archbishop of New York, took away larger lessons from the anniversary. All of us are here as refugees, all exiles, all pilgrims, he said, and unless we can understand this reality, we cannot understand ourselves as a people or why we need the Statue of Liberty at all.

Advertisement

The statue had badly needed repair and restoration as the centenary approached. Salt, harbor winds, and water damage had corroded its copper plating, leaving rusty iron support bars and gaping holes that were structurally unsound and symbolically unfortunate. The renovations that led up to the 1986 ceremony had done much. Figuratively speaking, they are ongoing: The Statue of Liberty is always being built and rebuilt, by various ideological architects, often at odds with each other. Many have cast her as American, facing outward to protect the nation and project American power across the globe; for these builders, immigrants were ultimately just the symbol and instrument of that power. But for Lazarus and those she inspired, the statue was there to offer what she had called world-wide welcome to those escaping dangerincluding dangers brought about by the actions of the United States. These newcomers would, in turn, perpetually challenge the country she fronted with the question of where its responsibilities to the rest of the world ended and began. This statue was notcould not beAmerica. She was a migrant from some great, distant country whose papers the United States did not always honor.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

At the 1986 events, no one expected the moment when the bombastic celebration of immigrants crashed into the well-being of an actual immigrant: Hue Cao, age 11. While a very young girl, she had fled Vietnam with her widowed mother and siblings in 1979 in a small fishing boat and been picked up by a U.S. naval vessel, which provided them food, shelter, and clothing. Raised in Hawaii, she had submitted an essay on What the Statue of Liberty Means to Me for a centennial competition and won statewide and then the national prize: a trip to New York for the celebration, where she would recite the essay, and a 1987 Nissan Sentra XE sedan worth $9,000. The sixth-graders words resonated with Liberty Weekend themes of rescue, gratitude, and the equating of America and freedom. The Communists her family had escaped were cruel, stern and ill-tempered. We wanted to live in America, she wrote, a land where there is liberty and justice. The statue had taken on powerful meaning for her family: Whenever they would see its image, she recalled, her mother would tell us that she is America. Americans cared for all people, from homeless to hopeless people; it was a place that lends a hand to those in need.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

But there was a problem. Caos family happened to be receiving Medicaid, food stamps, and welfare payments, and were only allowed to exempt $1,500 of a cars value from the strict asset caps laid down by federal regulations; if Cao accepted the Nissan, they would be cut off from the assistance they needed. This was awkward. Everyone scrambled. President Reagan didnt mention the issue when he congratulated Cao over the phone. Believe me, he said, you have paid your dues. According to an official at the Aloha Liberty Foundation, the White House had pulled every string possible to allow Caos family to keep the car, but there was no getting around the fear of overprivileged welfare recipients. In the end, the foundation liquidated the car and set up a college fund for Hue, and her family was given a used Buick Skylark worth $1,499 by an anonymous donor. Flown from Honolulu to New York City with her family, Cao read her essay at the unveiling ceremony. Her mother, Lien Ma, and two of her brothers received U.S. citizenship during the weekends mass naturalizations. While in New York City, the family stayed at the Hotel St. Moritz on Central Park South, courtesy of real estate developer Donald Trump.

When four months later, on Nov. 6, President Reagan signed a sweeping new immigration law, it reflected the United States divisions on the matter as well as its points of convergence. Immigrant rights advocates and their allies won legal status for undocumented immigrants who had entered the United States before January 1982, had lived there continuously, possessed some knowledge of the United States, and could prove they were not guilty of crimes. Opponents of amnesty received increased funding for Border Patrol enforcement, tightened status checks for any immigrant noncitizens who sought federal benefits, and a crackdown on the knowing employment of undocumented workers. The Reagan administration continued to sponsor repressive regimes whose actions displaced tens of thousands of people, many of whom struggled to find refuge in the United States, and many of whom were deported or turned away. Hue Caos vision of America as a place that cared for all people, including those without home or hope, would have to wait.A former Donald Trump aide named Sam Nunberg, who has been subpoenaed by Robert Mueller and asked to produce correspondence with several individuals that have some involvement in the Trump-Russia investigation, is making the rounds Monday afternoon saying some incendiary things:

 That hes not going to comply with the subpoena and that if Mueller doesnt like it, he can arrest him and throw him in jail.

 That Carter Page, the campaign foreign policy adviser and Putin apologist who traveled to Moscow in July 2016, was colluding with the Russiansbut did not have any real influence with Trump, who was merely using Page as a name on a list to project the appearance of foreign policy competence. (About that second part, Nunberg is probably not wrong.)

Advertisement

 That Trump may have done something during the election that Mueller could charge him with.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

 That Trump knew in advance about the June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower between Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, and a number of shady Russians with connections to the Putin government.

Scandalous! But there are a number of reasons not to take anything Sam Nunberg says seriously:

 He was fired from the Trump campaign in August 2015 for having written years of crude/racist Facebook posts. He was not part of the campaign during the period that the Trump Tower meeting or Pages trip to Moscow took place.

 He is known for making things up and, in fact, may not even be a reliable source on the subject of which things he did and did not make up.

Advertisement

 What he actually said to CNNs Jake Tapper about the Trump Tower meeting was this:

TAPPER: President Trump says he knew nothing about the meeting. Do you think thats true? NUNBERG: No. TAPPER: You dont think thats true. NUNBERG: No. It doesntand Jake, Ive watched your news reports. You know its not true. He talked about it the week before.

What Im pretty sure Nunberg is referring to is Trump having promised during a June 7, 2016, campaign appearance that he would soon give a speech outlining all of the things that have taken place with the Clintons. Trumps remarks took place just hours after the Trump Tower meetingwhich was famously pitched to Don Jr. as an opportunity to get dirt on Clintonhad been set up. But this coincidence has been discussed extensively elsewhere, and its entirely possible the speech that Trump Sr. was promising involved material from the book Clinton Cash rather than anything Russia-related.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Sam Nunberg: a fun guy to talk to, but maybe not one to take too seriously.

Advertisement

Update, 7 p.m.: As this Daily Beast article notes, Mueller appears to be interested in Nunbergs interactions with longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone, who Nunberg has worked for and refers to as his mentor. Stone left Trumps presidential campaign in 2015 but reportedly kept on speaking terms with the candidate; Stone is also known to have communicated in 2016 with a Twitter account believed to have been used as a front by Russian hackers. So while the idea that Nunberg has direct knowledge of crimes Donald Trump committed seems farfetched, he does have a clear connection to someone else Mueller is reportedly interested in.Sen. Thad Cochran, the 80-year-old chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee, announced Monday that he will retire on April 1 due to his deteriorating health. The Mississippi Republicans current term runs through January 2021, but his age and recent health concerns had prompted plenty of speculation that Cochran would step down sometime this year.

My top concern has always been my constituents in Mississippi, Cochran said in a statement.

My hope is by making this announcement now, a smooth transition can be ensured so their voice will continue to be heard in Washington, D.C.

Advertisement

Cochran, who is currently the longest-serving member of Congress, had largely gone MIA from the Senate last year. He introduced only two bills in 2017, both of them minor, and had reportedly stopped meeting with his fellow senators about substantive legislative matters. He also missed about a month of work in the fall while recovering from a urinary tract infection at his homean absence that Donald Trump repeatedly and awkwardly kept misattributing to Cochran being in the hospital.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Cochrans departure will leave Republicans with control of only 50 seats in the upper chamberbut only temporarily. Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican, will appoint a temporary replacement, who will then hold the seat until a special election is held in November to fill the two-plus years remaining in Cochrans term. While Roy Moore reminded us to never-say-never, Republicans will be heavily favored to keep the seat in the special election, which will be held on Election Day. The state hasnt been represented by a Democrat in the U.S. Senate in about 30 years, and Mississippi hasnt voted for a Democrat for president since 1976.

Advertisement

Cochrans exit is arguably great news for Mississippis other senator, Roger Wicker. Wicker is up for re-election this November, and had been expected to face a spirited primary challenge from hard-line conservative Chris McDaniel, a state senator who nearly beat Cochran four years ago in a nasty primary fight of their own. But just last week McDaniel suggested that he might instead run for Cochrans seat if it were to open up this year, and he again left that door open in a statement Monday evening that noted that, while he is currently focused on his campaign against Wicker, all options remain on the table.

But McDaniel might not coast to the Senate. Majority Leader Mitch McConnellwho was savaged by McDaniel during his last run against Cochranhad already begun urging Bryant to appoint himself, if Cochran were to resign, according to the Washington Post. That could set up a replay of last years Republican primary in Alabama, where Roy Moore triumphed with an outsider campaign over McConnells preferred candidate.Russias virtual efforts to meddle in U.S. elections are ramping up ahead of the midterm campaign. But you wouldnt know it looking at the State Department that doesnt appear to see it as a priority at all. The issue seems to be so far down the departments to-do list that it has yet to spend a single dollar of the $120 million that it was allocated to deal with foreign efforts to interfere in U.S. elections, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

Advertisement

How unprepared is the State Departments Global Engagement Center to deal with any efforts by Moscow to interfere in the election? Well, for one, it doesnt have a single analyst who knows how to speak Russian.

More than a single department though, the Times notes that the failure to spend any of its budget to combat foreign interference shows just how disinterested the Trump administration appears to be on the issue. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has even expressed skepticism there is anything the department he leads can do to prevent Russian meddling. If its their intention to interfere, theyre going to find ways to do that, Tillerson said in an interview last month. And we can take steps we can take, but this is something that once they decide they are going to do it, its very difficult to pre-empt it.

After the Times began asking about the money, the State Department said it would be getting $40 million from the Pentagon. It seems Americans have caught on to this lax attitude.

A poll released by Axios on Sunday shows that a majority of Americans have little to no faith that the Trump administration can stop foreign governments from interfering in the midterms.On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Gundy v. United States, a constitutional challenge to federal sex offender regulations. If, like me, you believe that Americas current sex offender regime is draconian, unjust, and counterproductive, that might sound like good news! And perhaps it is. But theres one aspect of the courts grant that may be very bad news from progressive viewpoint: It will only consider whether the policy in question violates the nondelegation doctrinea hazy legal principle last used to strike down New Deal legislation in 1935.

Advertisement

The law in question, the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), required states to expand their sex offender registries or lose millions in federal funding. It also increased punishments for sex offenders, keeping them in the registry for decades, strictly limiting their freedom of movement, and allowing them to be detained for years in civil commitment after they finish serving their prison sentences. Oddly, Congress did not clarify whether SORNA must apply to sex offenders convicted before the laws passage. Instead, it gave the attorney general authority to apply the law retroactively, which he did.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Typically, the Constitutions Ex Post Facto Clause prohibits the government from applying a new criminal law retroactively to punish an offender who committed his crime before the laws passage. But in 2003, the Supreme Court rejected an Ex Post Facto challenge to Alaskas retroactive sex offender registration act, holding that Alaskas measure was not sufficiently punitive to violate the clause.

Advertisement

Thus, Herman Gundythe defendant in this case, who was convicted of a sex offense before SORNAs passagedecided to challenge the federal laws retroactivity under the nondelegation doctrine. Under this theory, Congress infringes upon the constitutional separation of powers when it delegates too much legislative authority to another branch of government. Here, Gundy asserts that Congress delegated an unconstitutional amount of power to the attorney general by allowing him to determine how to apply SORNA retroactively.

I am simultaneously sympathetic to and terrified by this argument. On the one hand, SORNA is a truly terrible law, and Id like to see it reined in. On the other hand, Gundy may open up a nasty can of worms. The Supreme Court has deployed the non-delegation doctrine to strike down legislation precisely twicein 1935. Both laws were New Deal regulations: one governing industrial labor laws, the other setting quotas on oil sales. But shortly thereafter, the court changed its attitude toward the New Deal, giving up efforts to police economic reforms. Since then, the court has largely abandoned the nondelegation theory, allowing Congress to delegate power to another branch so long as that power is limited by some intelligible principle. Justice Anthony Kennedy described the doctrine as somewhat moribund during oral arguments in 2014.

Advertisement

Advertisement

In recent years, however, several conservative justices have expressed an interest in reviving nondelegation principles. Justice Clarence Thomas wants to bring it back; so does Justice Neil Gorsuch, who praised the doctrine as a safeguard of personal freedom while on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. (He also endorsed it in a 2017 speech to the Federalist Society.) Many progressives fear that, once resuscitated, the theory could be used to strike down all manner of economic regulations.

Advertisement

Its a reasonable concern. These days, Congress hands off most regulatory authority to a slew of federal agencies situated in the executive branch. A court concerned about nondelegation could strike down a vast range of liberal legislation under the doctrine. Labor laws and environmental protections would be especially vulnerable, since Congress gives agencies a broad mandate to interpret and implement these measures. If the Supreme Court renders that mandate unconstitutional, federal rules that protect workers rights, collective bargaining, clean air, and endangered species would fall.

Advertisement

So: Should progressives panic about Gundy? Not quite yet. University of North Carolina criminal law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick points out that the Supreme Court could set different rules for the non-delegation in the criminal context. Gorsuch suggested as much in his 10th Circuit opinionwhich, in fact, involved a similar challenge to SORNAs retroactivity. In an impressive dissent, Gorsuch wrote that Congress must provide something more than an intelligible principle when delegating prosecutorial authority given the individual liberty at stake. If the separation of powers means anything, he asserted, it must mean that the prosecutor isnt allowed to define the crimes he gets to enforce.

I think Gorsuch is probably right, but I worry about this courts ability, or willingness, to limit the non-delegation doctrines revival to criminal cases. Gorsuch has a knack for reintroducing conservative principles in cases where they lead to a liberal outcome, even though the underlying rationale tilts the law rightward. Would this conservative Supreme Court cabin non-delegation to criminal law? Or might it succumb to the temptation to use this principle as a sword to slay economic and environmental regulations, too? Gundy will give us a glimpse of the answer.The biggest story in the country that doesnt involve Donald Trump is happening in West Virginia, where teachers are in the second week of a strike that has closed schools in all 55 counties of the state. Around 33,000 teachers and school service employees are on the picket lines, and thousands of workers have rallied in person at the state capitol in Charleston demanding higher pay, lower health care costs, and better conditions in their schools and classrooms. Teachers in West Virginia are among the lowest paid in the nation and face rapidly rising premiums that wipe out their modest pay increases.

Advertisement

Striking is illegal for public sector workers in West Virginia, but in the absence of collective bargainingwhich is also forbidden for state workersa strike is the only choice for teachers who want fair treatment, decent wages, and a full hearing from state leaders. This strike has showcased the potent organizational skills of West Virginias teachers, as well as the remarkable solidarity of these workers and their communities, who have gone so far as to provide meals for children who would have received them at school.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

The strike also shines a light on the shifting fortunes of the American workforce. Like the Fight for 15 movement to raise the minimum wage, and other recent grass-roots progressive movements, the West Virginia strike should expand mainstream notions of what it means to be working class and economically vulnerable.

Advertisement

When pundits and political observers (and the president) talk about working-class Americans, they have an archetype in mind: the white, blue-collar male worker. Journalists who travel to Rust Belt communities in states like Pennsylvania and Ohio often take as a given that those workersand laborers like themare representative of working-class Americans. But since the 1970s, working-class labor has shifted from making stuff to serving people, a product of globalization, technological change, and a policy regime that prioritized the flow of capital above all else. Increasingly, the typical working-class American looks more like a fast food worker or paid caregiverjobs held predominantly by white women and people of colorthan someone who wears a hard hat to the job site. And while most definitions of working class center on workers without college degrees, there are many laborers with college diplomas whose prospects are now similar to those without them.

Advertisement

Advertisement

The teachers of West Virginia are a case in point. Despite being well-educated, their take-home pay is low relative to other similarly situated workers. Salaries for teachers in the state start at around $30,000 for those with a bachelors degree, $35,000 for those with a masters, and $40,000 for those with a doctorate. Promised a measure of economic security on account of their educations, many are living essentially paycheck to paycheck.

Since they walked out, teachers have successfully won concessions to raise their pay from Republican Gov. Jim Justice and GOP lawmakers in both the House of Delegates and the state Senate. But rank-and-file teachers are continuing the strike in order to make similar gains on health care costs. Indeed, a spokesperson for the teachers union told the Washington Post that all of this was a long time coming. This is a cumulative strike, said Kym Randolph of the West Virginia Education Association. I mean, the pay and the benefits have been problems for years, and theres constantly been the promises of, Well take care of this, well take care of this. Its finally gotten to the point where, you know, the promises arent enough.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Those cumulative effects are impossible to separate or disentangle from race and gender. Teaching in public schools is a profession now dominated by women, and has seen its pay and prestige decline as a result. The new working-class jobs in the service and care industries are devalued, in part, because they are associated with black and Hispanic workers, women in particular. And the declining cachet and security of a variety of public sector jobs outside of law enforcement is as much about gendered and racialized assumptions about public sector workers as it is about an ideological opposition to public employment from the right of American politics.

The West Virginia teachers strike should remind mainstream and elite observers that working-class or economically vulnerable is a category that expands far beyond blue collar work and industrial labor. And early signs are that West Virginia is just the beginning. Teachers in Oklahoma are contemplating their own strike in the wake of budget cuts and similarly dire conditions in schools.

Advertisement

All of this comes as the United States Supreme Court prepares to issue a ruling that would cripple public sector unions, and thus fatally wound the last real stronghold of organized labor in the country. West Virginia gives the court an example of what may result when workers are deprived of collective representation and have no real outlet for grievances.

That decision will further weaken unions, which are already grappling with far less power and influence than they wielded in the past. But labor discontent, and thus labor unrest, is still a reality. It may look different than we imagine, but its no less potent or important.The news from China over the past week has fully put to bed the notion that the country is on a path toward a more open and democratic political system. The countrys leaders are fully confident that their authoritarian model is the one best suited for the country. Whats less clear now is whether Americas president feels the same way about our own system.

Following last weeks announcement that China will be scrapping presidential term limits, paving the way for indefinite rule by President Xi Jinping, the Economist published an editorial that functions as a mea culpa for the optimism of Western liberals over the past three decades that Chinas economic opening up would open up the countrys politics as well. Chinas hybrid of market capitalism and one-party rule along Leninist lines has proved much more durable than most people in the West expected. The Economist also fretted about Chinas newfound interest in exporting its political model abroad:

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

China used to profess no interest in how other countries run themselves, so long as it was left alone. Increasingly, however, it holds its authoritarian system up as a rival to liberal democracy. At the partys 19th congress last autumn, Mr Xi offered a new option for other countries that would involve Chinese wisdom and a Chinese approach to solving the problems facing mankind. Mr Xi later said that China would not export its model, but you sense that America now has not just an economic rival, but an ideological one, too.

Its true that Chinas state media has been increasingly touting its development miracle to the developing world as an alternative to the Western consensus. Governments in poor countries have long been interested in Chinas money and are increasingly interested in its ideas as well. And why not? The Chinese model promises that economic prosperity is possible without forcing political elites to surrender power. It makes autocracy respectable.

Advertisement

Theres ample reason to pay attention to Chinas efforts to flex its ideological muscles abroad, including the Communist Partys training programs for African bureaucrats, the increasing leverage Beijing wields over countries that receive investment as part of its global One Belt One Road Initiative, growing concern about the influence of Chinese-funded organizations on global university campuses, as well as Beijings increasing willingness to pursue dissidents abroad and pressure foreign companies that stray from the party orthodoxy on topics like the Dalai Lama and Taiwan.

Advertisement

Still, this is all relatively modest compared with the Soviet Unions aggressive efforts to spread its style of communism during the Cold War or Americas own ideological influence abroad today. And it remains to be seen whether Chinas system is durable enough to weather this seeming transition from a rules-based institutional autocracy into a one-man dictatorship. Xis personal ambitions may ultimately have punctured the notion that Chinas system is inherently more stable.

Advertisement

Advertisement

So, theres no reason to be anxious that the newly elevated official ideology of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era is going to set the world on fire. Or at least there wouldnt be, if the president of the United States werent declaring himself a fan of it.

Trump discussed Chinas abolishing of term limits at an event Saturday with Republican donors at Mar-a-Lago, saying, Hes now president for life. President for life. No, hes great. And look, he was able to do that. I think its great. Maybe well have to give that a shot some day.

As with much of Donald Trump Thought, the idea hes expressing here is somehow both idiotic and fascinatingly complex. For one thing, Trump is actually undercutting Chinas propaganda. Xi has not been declared president for life, and the countrys senior officials and state media would never frame it that way. In paying Xi a compliment, Trump is actually endorsing his critics argument that the Chinese leader is becoming an unaccountable dictator, putting his pal in an awkward position.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Trump is also clearly joking when he says, maybe well have to give that a shot, but only in the sense that he was also joking in 2016 when he said, Russia, if youre listening, I hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. The lighthearted tone gives him plausible deniability, while making clear that he doesnt actually find the idea hes kidding about to be deeply objectionable.

Given Trumps past statements about Xis status, as well as his attaboys to Turkeys Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on their moves to consolidate power, theres enough evidence to conclude that Trump does not find authoritarian power grabs objectionable.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Trump might say that its not Americas place to lecture other governments on their countries internal politics. Democracy promotion understandably doesnt have the best name right now. (Trumps recent attacks on George W. Bushs war in Iraq are harder to argue with.) There ought to be a vigorous and serious debate about when, whether, and with what methods the U.S. should attempt to promote democracy overseas. Doing so is not always productive or justifiable. That said, there ought to be agreement across the political spectrum that, at a bare minimum, the president of the United States should believe that democracy is the preferable system.

Advertisement

Yes, there have been the familiar bromides about freedom and human rights in scripted remarks like the State of the Union or last years address to the United Nations, as well as calculated attacks on the abuses of governments like Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela. But when Trump speaks off the cuff, its not entirely clear he does believe in this. For that matter, an administration unwilling to do even the bare minimum to prevent election meddling by another authoritarian powerRussiaclearly has little interest in protecting Americas own democracy, much less any other countrys. European leaderswho until recently had enthusiastically greeted Xis soothing rhetoric about free trade and the rules-based international order, viewing him as a potential hedge to Trumps erratic populismseem unlikely to pick up the torch.

The Pentagon, according to the recently released National Security Strategy, views the global era were entering as a return to great power competition against adversaries like China and Russia, after two decades of focusing on terrorism. If that competition is also a battle of ideologies and political beliefs, its starting to look like only one side is interested in fighting.Weeks of drama surrounding one of Trumps 12 luxury hotels culminated Monday morning when armed agents evicted the companys staff from the Trump Hotel in Panama City, Panama, according to the Associated Press.

The conflict between the Trump business, which manages the property, and the hotels majority owner, Orestes Fintiklis, centered around a messy dispute in which Fintiklis accused the Trump Organization of mismanagement and the Trump Organization accused Fintiklis of staging a takeover of the hotel.

Advertisement

Fintiklis, in arguing for his right to kick out the property manager, accused the Trump Organization of gross incompetence that led to swelling costs and tanking revenue, according to ABC News. As a result, he argued in a court filing, he was losing out on his investment, while lining the [Trump Organizations] pockets. Fintiklis has taken his case to court in the U.S. and to international arbitration in Panama in an effort to evict the Trump business.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

According to the Washington Post, a public prosecutor is investigating Trump employees for refusing orders from Fintiklis, possibly breaking the law in doing so. The employees could be jailed or fined. The Panamanian Labor Ministry is also investigating whether the Trump Organization violated the countrys national labor code by allegedly failing to pay hotel staff.

Advertisement

Fintiklis, apparently considering the legal process too slow, asserted his power as the owner by sending in his own security guards to forcibly remove the Trump Organization. On Tuesday, a video showed Fintiklis security guards tussling with security guards from Trumps company. Panamanian police arrived to break up the fight, and when one officer attempted to enter the hotels administrative offices, one of Trumps guards blocked access and was handcuffed and taken away, according to the Post. In a bizarre cap to the mornings events, Fintiklis entered the hotel, tried to fire nine employees from the Trump Organization, couldnt find them, and proceeded to play Beethovens Fur Elise on the lobby piano, to a round of applause from his employees.

Advertisement

The Trump Organization responded to these efforts by accusing Fintiklis of using a rogue private security team to physically take over the management before resorting to thug-like, mob style tactics, according to ABC News. Fintiklis did not have the right to seize the property, the company argued, as the contract that handed over management duties to the Trump Organization through 2031 stipulated that the agreement could not be broken without the ruling of an arbitrator. Fintiklis betrayed the company, the company said, by plotting a takeover and termination of Trump Hotels.

Advertisement

Its unclear if and how the dispute will affect diplomacy in Panama. The U.S. ambassador is set to leave in just a few days, having recently resigned over an unwillingness to serve Trumps agenda. The possibility that the presence of Trump properties in other countries could sway diplomacy and international policy led many to call for Trump to divest from the Trump Organization. In a move that failed to satisfy ethics watchdogs, Trump put his sons in charge of running the business but left it under his ownership. According to the Post, Donald Trump made, in his most recently available filing, $810,000 in roughly 15 months from the Panama hotel.The statewide teachers strike in West Virginia is now in its eighth day. Heres the deal:

 Union representatives reached an agreement last week with Republican Gov. Jim Justice to raise salaries by 5 percent. But the agreement didnt address the spiking health insurance costs that teachers have said are forcing them to effectively take annual pay cuts, and the pay-raise bill still hasnt actually been passed into law. Last Thursday, then, as the New Republic explains here, the labor stoppage became a wildcat strike when teachers continued refusing to report to work despite their representatives agreement.

Advertisement

 There has been a push by some teachersone endorsed by Justice, who happens to be a billionaire coal heirto raise the states severance tax on oil and natural gas extraction in order to fund the states Public Employee Insurance Agency (PEIA), which provides  yes, insurance to its public employees. As labor reporter Dave Jamieson documents in the Huffington Post, business taxes in West Virginia were cut significantly a decade ago with the support of former state governorand current Democratic senatorJoe Manchin. Jamieson cites an analysis which says the cuts reduced the states annual revenue by $425 million.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

 A legislative conference committee is set to meet at 4 p.m. Monday to discuss teacher salary raises, a scheduling decision that state Democrats have criticized for its lack of urgency, which seems like a fair point given the every school in the state has been shut down for more than a week issue. (Both chambers of the legislature are controlled by Republicans.) The stuff they were working on this morning must have been really important!

Advertisement

 As has been taking place since the strike began, teachers and supporters are massing in and outside the state capitol building. More than 3,700 people were reportedly inside the capitol as of this morning, and the local fire marshal is getting concerned.

BREAKING: The size and density of the crowd at the #WV Capitol has prompted a capacity concern from Capitol Police and @WVFireMarshal. *No further visitors are being admitted at this time.* Capitol Police are working with organizers to ensure manageable conditions this afternoon.  WVDMAPS (@WVDMAPS) March 5, 2018

And thats whats happening in West Virginia!Top White House officials went on the Sunday talk shows and made it pretty clear that while it was President Donald Trump who would decide what would happen with the harsh tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, for now there is little sign that there would be any exemptions for U.S. allies. The presidents advisers defended the position and made clear that for now the Trump administration would not make any kind of exemptions for the likes of Canada, Britain or other European allies. One adviser did give a hint that there could be exemptions though for certain businesses, suggesting that perhaps the tariffs wont be as all-encompassing as some thought at first.

Advertisement

Theres a difference between exemptions and country exclusions, Peter Navarro, who directs the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, said on CNNs State of the Union. There will be an exemption procedure for particular cases where we need to have exemptions so that business can move forward, but at this point in time, there will be no country exclusions. Although he didnt specify what the exemptions would entail, Bloomberg says they are likely to be confined to specific types of steel or aluminum products used by different industries, which may not be made at all in the U.S.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro says there will be no country exclusions on the steel and aluminum tariffs #CNNSOTU https://t.co/aeTUknbjNi https://t.co/NbqFKKJwVe  CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) March 4, 2018

Advertisement

Navarro said Trump is expected to sign the tariffs, which he announced would be of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, at the end of this week or early next week. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross dismissed any retaliation that European countries could take as ultimately insignificant. Its some $3 billion of goods that the Europeans have threatened to put something on, Ross said on ABC. Well, in our sized economy, thats a tiny, tiny fraction of 1 percent. So while it might affect an individual producer for a little while, overall its not going to be much more than a rounding error.

Commerce Sec. Wilbur Ross tells @gstephanopoulos "there's a lot of history that needs to be undone" with trade negotiations: "We have unilaterally given away all kinds of concessions ever since the end of World War II." #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/iSRJBp5jDL  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 4, 2018

Meanwhile though the intense lobbying from world leaders continued. On Sunday it was the turn of British Prime Minister Theresa May who expressed deep concern over the planned tariffs. In a phone conversation, May told Trump that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity in all parties interests, according to a spokesperson.The just-concluded Italian election is a watershed moment in the remarkable rise of populism.

The past few years have amply demonstrated that populists in North America and Western Europe can occasionally cobble together surprising majorities. Now, the Italian case shows that they have astounding longevityand can become absolutely dominant in a country that had long been considered a consolidated (if admittedly chaotic) democracy.

Italys political landscape is so baroque that its pointless to explain the ins and outs of the countrys many rival parties and movements. But Fonderie Creative, a group of Italian graphic designers, has done a very nice job of summarizing the most important movements in advance of the election.

Advertisement

With The Simpsons as a helpful cheat sheet, heres what you need to know about yesterdays results:

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

 Krusty the Clown, aka the Movimento Cinque Stelle (Five Star Movement), came out as the strongest political party, taking about one-third of the vote nationwide. Radically critical of all existing political institutions, the Five Star Movement has recently started to deploy more anti-immigrant rhetoric, has received sizeable support from Russian sources in the past, and is seemingly run by a shadowy PR firm. Although its leaders pledged that they would stay in opposition, they are now demanding to take a role in the government.

 Snake Jailbird, aka the Lega Nord (Northern League), took about 18 percent of the vote. Founded as a separatist party that advocated for the independence of the countrys affluent north, the League has, under the leadership of Matteo Salvini, transformed itself into a hypernationalist and virulently xenophobic party in the mold of Frances National Front. When a former candidate for the party shot six African migrants in the city of Macerata in the middle of the campaign, Salvini pointedly refused to condemn him.

Advertisement

 Mr. Burns, aka former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italia, took 14 percent of the vote. Berlusconi, a self-made billionaire who dominated Italian politics from 1994 until his ignominious fall from power in 2011, is simultaneously an ideological moderate whose economic and social policies are largely within the bounds of ordinary Italian politics and an institutional radical who has weakened the Italian judiciary to keep himself out of jail.

In case youve been counting, Krusty, Jailbird, and Mr. Burns have nearly two-thirds of the vote between them. Poor Springfield.

Advertisement

Advertisement

How this sorry cast of characters is actually going to rule Italy is anybodys guess. The Five Star Movements short record of government at the local and regional level has been an unmitigated disaster, and they lack realistic coalition partners. Before the election, many commentators assumed that a center-right coalition between Berlusconis Forza Italia and Salvinis League might rule the country. The center-left Partito Democratico (Democratic Party) could conceivably lend this government informal support. But because Salvini has taken more votes than Berlusconi, and would therefore lead such a government, this would essentially amount to a Social Democratic party helping to make a far-right extremist the prime minister of the countrywhich would set a terrible precedent for other parts of Europe, and be all but certain to destroy the party. (Theres also another horror scenario: a coalition between the most extreme and euroskeptic parties, Five Stars and the League; but at least for now, Salvini seems to have ruled this possibility out.)

Advertisement

Advertisement

The most likely outcome, then, is protracted negotiations that lead either to an unstable and short-lived government or to new elections. Italy has always been chaotic; now, it is to all intents and purposes ungovernable, as a daily newspaper headline read Monday.

This, then, is the kind of politics you get when trust in liberal democracy hits rock bottom, mutually hostile anti-system parties proliferate, and ideologically coherent coalitions become impossible. Welcome to 21st-century Europe.

The consequences for Italy are likely to be tragic. The country is not only unspeakably charming and beautiful; it also retains real economic strengths, including a vibrant manufacturing sector in the north. But its history of corruption and over-regulation has, for many decades, been sapping its strength. While Italy had a higher per capita GDP than the United Kingdom as recently as the early 1990s, it has barely experienced any growth in the past decades and now lags far behind.

Advertisement

Advertisement

During an unusual period of reasonable leadership by the center-left Democratic Party since 2013, the country has been finally starting to recover. This year, Italys GDP was forecast to grow by 1.5 percent. Now, investors are going to think twice about pouring more money into the country, and the possibility of a crisis of confidence that would make Italys high public debt unsustainable once again looms on the horizon.

This, then, is the kind of politics you get when trust in liberal democracy hits rock bottom.

The most depressing manifestation of the twin crisis of omnipresent corruption and sluggish growth has been a widespread feeling of hopelessness among young Italians. Youth unemployment is very high. Unskilled and semi-skilled jobs are largely given to the children of friends and relatives. Even highly qualified doctors or lawyers need to go to humiliating lengths to procure employment, and often fail. Every year, tens of thousands of the most ambitious and talented young Italians leave the country.

Advertisement

This dire situation makes it perfectly understandable that so many young people around the country have decided to vote for the Five Star Movement, which has best captured their anger at the status quo and their cynicism about a rigged political and economic system. But the dysfunction that Krusty the Clown will bring to Rome is also likely to deepen their malaise. As in so many other countries, populists in Italy have thrived by railing against failings that are all too real but are likely to implement solutions that only serve to aggravate them.

It is tempting to think of the rise of populism as a self-correcting mechanism. On this account of the current situation, these parties rise because traditional elites have failed to deal with public frustrations. Their entry into politics either pushes traditional parties to get their act together or empowers newcomers who can do better. Over time, the system stabilizes.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

But the Italian case suggests that the rise of populism may, instead, be self-radicalizing. While it is true that populists rise because traditional political elites have failed to deal with public frustrations, their success makes it even more difficult for moderate parties to deal with them. Instead of helping to address the root causes of public anger, populists make them more acute, and voters grow even more agitated. Over time, the system becomes even more chaotic.

There is also another important lesson the world can take from the Italian election, as the important (and as yet unpublished) work on the pathways of populism by Jordan Kyle makes clear: When Berlusconi fell from grace in 2011, Italy seemed to turn away from populism. But in truth, the cancer just metastasized. Now, an even more aggressive form of it is ravishing different parts of the body politic all at once.

Similarly, it is tempting to think that things will go back to normal if Donald Trump leaves the White House in 2020. But as the experiences of Italy and many other countries around the world show, it is not enough to beat an authoritarian populist to free a country from the threat of strongman rule. Anybody who wants to save liberal democracy has to resolve the deep reasons for public frustration about the political system, not just combat its most immediate and glaring manifestation.Authorities in Iceland have arrested 11 people in connection with what they have deemed the biggest string of thefts in the countrys history, the Associated Press reports. About 600 bitcoin mining computers, worth almost $2 million in total, have gone missing across multiple data centers. The burglars stole the huge trove of hardware over the course of four break-ins in December and January. A judge on Friday ordered two of the suspects to remain in custody, while the nine others were released on bail.

Advertisement

This is a grand theft on a scale unseen before, Olafur Helgi Kjartansson, a police commissioner, told the AP. Everything points to this being a highly organized crime.

Locating the stolen goods will be difficult because the thieves need not sell the computers to make a profit. With a few exceptions, mining and trading bitcoin is a largely untraceable process. Law enforcement officials have not managed to recover any of the computers as of yet and are now contacting internet service providers, storage units, and power companies to be on the lookout for spikes in electricity consumption or any other signs that people may be using the miners.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

In order to mine bitcoin, computers must use a large amount of power to solve complex mathematical equations and prevent the mining hardware from overheating. Iceland is a hub of mining activity because it has a wealth of cheap and renewable energy, cold weather, and fast fiber-optic internet networks, Business Insider has noted. The country will likely use more energy for bitcoin mining than it will for powering all of its homes combined over the next year.

Last week, news outlets in Malaysia reported that local authorities arrested nine people who were part of a crime syndicate that specializes in stealing Bitcoin mining computers. Police there claim to have recovered 58 miners.Last Thursday, reports emerged that a former recruiter at YouTube had sued parent company Google in January for allegedly firing him after he criticized its diversity hiring practices as discriminating against white and Asian men.

Its at least the fourth lawsuit this year against Google having to do with its internal politics and culture. The case of James Damore, the Google engineer whose controversial memo and subsequent firing set off a media firestorm, has heaped scrutiny onto the companys workplace climate. Google has in many ways assumed the role of a college campus in the public consciousness, as people have begun viewing the company and its employee dynamics as a microcosm of the nations broader culture wars. Its workforces lack of race and gender diversity has received censure from the left; Google itself released a report in June indicating that women occupy only 20 percent of the companys tech positions, and only 1 percent of the companys tech workers in the U.S. are black. Yet, attempts to correct those disparities has triggered protest from the right. As a result of this debate, the media and even the courts have trained a microscope on the companys employees and their quarrels with one another.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Heres a roundup of the allegations from former employees suing Google in 2018. The company has disputed the claims in each case.

Hiring practices that disadvantage white and Asian applicants

Arne Wilberg, the ex-recruiter mentioned above, claims that Google fired him in November for complaining to his managers and the human resources department that YouTube was using illegal hiring quotas to boost numbers of black, Latino, and female employees. He further alleges that higher-ups had deleted emails and other documents outlining these diversity benchmarks, which on several occasions had required him to make decisions on candidates based on their race or gender.

Google sent Bloomberg a response reading, We have a clear policy to hire candidates based on their merit, not their identity. At the same time, we unapologetically try to find a diverse pool of qualified candidates for open roles, as this helps us hire the best people, improve our culture, and build better products.

Advertisement

Bro-culture that enables sexual harassment

Loretta Lee was a software engineer at Google for seven years before the company fired her for poor performance in 2016, which she characterizes as a wrongful termination. She filed a lawsuit last month alleging that the company fostered a bro-culture in which co-workers repeatedly harassed her. There are a number of disturbing allegations outlined in her suit, including reports of male co-workers spiking her drinks, hiding under her desk, sending her inappropriate messages, and refusing to leave after showing up at her apartment with liquor. The suit even claims that a man slapped Lee in the face at a holiday party for no apparent reason. When she went to talk to HR about the issue, Lee claims that the representatives pressured her to file a formal complaint, for which she received internal retaliation from her team.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Advertisement

Google has denied Lees account and told Gizmodo in a statement, We have strong policies against harassment in the workplace and review every complaint we receive. We take action when we find violationsincluding termination of employment.

Discrimination against white conservative men and their views

Damore, perhaps Googles most prominent right-wing agitator, authored a 10-page memo entitled Googles Ideological Echo Chamber when he was working at the company as an engineer. In it, he at one point suggested that biological differences between men and women account for the gender imbalance in the tech sector. A day after he posted the memo on an internal company network, Gizmodo obtained a copy and published it. Google subsequently denounced the memo and fired Damore, who quickly became a darling among conservatives. He and David Gudeman, a software engineer whom Google allegedly fired after the HR department accused him of suggesting that a Muslim co-worker may be a terrorist, joined together in January to sue the company for discriminating against white conservative men.

Advertisement

The National Labor Relations Board concluded in January that Damores firing did not violate labor laws since parts of the memo did not count as protected speech, Bloomberg reported. Google has also stated that it looks forward to defending against Mr. Damores lawsuit in court.

Advertisement

Suppressing opinions deemed too liberal

Tim Chevalier is an engineer who was fired in November after he had posted left-leaning commentary on Googles internal message boards, often in opposition to Damore. He characterized the memo as misogynistic and contended that white boys feel threatened when they arent afforded certain privileges. Damores suit contains screenshots of a blog post that Chevalier wrote about punching Nazis. Chevalier, who is transgender, alleges in his lawsuit, Google defines appropriate workplace speech by the standard of what someone with a cisgender, heterosexual, white, male, upper-middle-class background would say. He further claims that he received censure from superiors and indifference from human resources, which eventually led to his termination.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Google sent a statement to Wired reading, An important part of our culture is lively debate. But like any workplace, that doesnt mean anything goes. All employees acknowledge our code of conduct and other workplace policies, under which promoting harmful stereotypes based on race or gender is prohibited. This is a very standard expectation that most employers have of their employees. The overwhelming majority of our employees communicate in a way that is consistent with our policies. But when an employee does not, it is something we must take seriously. We always make our decision without any regard to the employees political views.With the oldest millennials now 35 years old, this generation is entering the ranks of management  and, as with everything else they do, theyre shaking it up in a big way. Here are four ways millennial managers are different from their predecessors, according to a recent American Express study.

Theyre purpose-driven. Its not all about profit for millennials. Nearly seven out of 10 want to make a positive difference in the world, and expect the companies they work for to do the same. More than eight in 10 (81 percent) believe that to be truly successful, a business must have a purpose that resonates with people, and 78 percent want to work for a company that shares their values.

What it means at work: Millennial managers will be looking for people who share those values, too. Employees need to value the companys larger purpose, not just getting a paycheck.

Theyre focused on employee well-being. I dont just mean employees physical health, but also their mental, emotional and financial health. Millennial managers want to give employees opportunities to improve their skills, help them achieve work-life harmony, and keep them happy at work. For example, 75 percent of millennials in the survey say a successful business needs to be flexible, rather than forcing employees to adhere to a rigid structure, and 74 percent believe a successful business should support employees outside of work. In addition, 39 percent say paying employees fairly is the top challenge in the workplace today.

What it means at work: Employees working for millennial managers will likely enjoy greater freedom in their jobs and a workplace that views them as people, not just employees.

Theyll invest in employees. Millennials are willing to put their money where their mouths are when it comes to employee training. Employee development (94 percent) is the number-one area where millennials say they would invest time and money as managers; 87 percent would also invest in executive education.

What it means at work: Employee development is a highly effective way to retain talented employees and boost employee satisfaction. This will help millennial managers keep their top people from jumping ship.

They define success differently. While millennials are eager for new challenges, theyre not about work for its own sake. When asked to define what success means to them personally, 62 percent of millennials say its enjoying their work, while 58 percent say its having good work/life balance. To achieve that balance and enjoy what they do, millennials are willing to make some sacrifices. Thirty-five percent say they would settle for less responsibility at work, 35 percent would lower their expectations for career advancement, and 30 percent would take a lower salary.

What it means at work: Keep millennial managers happy with meaningful work and job flexibility, and youll keep them on your team. But dont expect them to be satisfied with a fancy title or hefty salary. If a managerial job interferes with their overall life goals, they wont hesitate to step down to a more relaxed role.

Millennials are ready and eager to take on management roles. Seventy percent of millennials say having a C-level executive job appeals to them, compared to 63 percent of Generation X. However, theyre also very open to change. More than one-third predict the role of the CEO will no longer be relevant within the next 10 years  maybe because millennials are shaking things up.A new social media platform has gained a lot of traction in recent weeks. Vero is a social app that doesnt include any ads or algorithms to impact what users see from those they follow. It simply features posts in chronological order, a simple thing users of platforms like Facebook and Instagram have been clamoring for.

The app actually launched back in 2015. But its blown up seemingly overnight, surpassing 1 million registered users and continually crashing due to high demand.

For business users, the draw is clear. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have changed up their algorithms so much in recent years, making it much more difficult to receive views and engagement organically. Posts only show up for users based on the type of content theyve previously engaged with, which often leaves business users losing out on plenty of views and choosing instead to pay for added reach rather than enjoying the free and low cost marketing potential social media used to offer.

What is Vero?

Vero lets users create posts in a few different categories: photos, text, links, music, videos and places. So as a business owner or manager, you might benefit from posting promotional videos, behind-the-scenes photos or links to new products. You can also set designations for people you connect with: close friends, acquaintances  and everyone else. This lets users have more control over who sees each of their posts, though users cant see what categories other people have put them in.

The platform is built to work on a subscription model, so theoretically, the platform can remain ad free. In fact, the company promised to welcome its first 1 million users as free-for-life users. And due to the recent crashes and interruptions in service, the company has extended the offer until further notice.

If youre interested in signing up, you can download the app in the App Store or Google Play and then designate a username as you would on basically any social platform. From there, you simply start posting and building your network to reap the benefits of an old-school social platform which doesnt run on an ever-changing algorithm.

However, the buzz surrounding Vero hasnt all been positive. Some early adopters have already started deleting the app, in part due to co-founder Ayman Hariris involvement with a folded Saudi construction company with a poor track for record for dealing with workers. The company has attempted to refute the allegations . Others have also expressed concerns about some parts of the apps privacy policy, including a section stating they can use any user content including your name, voice, and/or likeness.

There have been plenty of examples over the years of social sites and apps with tons of early buzz simply fizzling out (anyone remember Peach?) Whether Vero will fall into this category still remains to be seen. It certainly fills a void users of other social platforms are hungry for. But creating the next Facebook or Instagram is no easy task. And Vero already appears to have some pretty serious roadblocks in its way.Acquiring qualified people is also a challenge for auditing companies

The Slovak Spectator spoke with auditing companies in Slovakia about current challenges they are facing.

Font size: A - | A +

Increasing regulatory requirements, technological changes and the availability of human resources and data security are the main challenges auditing companies are facing in Slovakia.

The complexity and volume of auditing and accounting regulations are increasing while the pressure on audit fees from clients continues, said Dalimil Draganovsky, partner and head of assurance at EY in Slovakia. The market is trying to find balance between the required audit quality and audit efficiency.

The Slovak Spectator spoke about current challenges auditing companies in Slovakia are facing with Draganovsky, Zuzana Letkova, audit partner at Deloitte in Slovakia, Bart Waterloos, partner at VGD Slovakia and Peter Mrnka, director of PwC in Slovakia.

The Slovak Spectator (TSS): What are the biggest challenges for auditing companies locally and globally? Are there any changes that should be adopted in Slovakia?

5. Mar 2018 at 6:30 | Jana LiptakovaCareer counselling lags in schools

Practical advice on future profession is necessary, particularly for dual education, employers admit.

Font size: A - | A +

Slovakia is likely to return millions of euros to the European Unions coffers if it fails to meet its goal of enrolling at least 12,000 students in the dual education system by 2020, employers representatives warn.

So far, around 2,800 students from 80 secondary vocational schools have joined the system in its first two years of operation, the Education Ministrys statistics show.

Employers point mainly to the lack of state support and insufficient awareness of the system and its benefits among primary school pupils and their parents. Career counselling should play an important role at schools, but observers admit it is not working properly.

Educational consultants dont have enough time for individual career counselling which is badly needed at schools, Alzbeta Stofkova Dianovska, chair of the Association of Educational Advisors, told The Slovak Spectator.

Primary schools important for technical studies

Observers agree the motivation to study technical specialisations should already start in primary school.

It is a basic prerequisite for successful vocational education and preparation for employment based on market needs, Viliam Gonda, head of the Department of Informatics and Communication at the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told The Slovak Spectator.

But many specialisations currently lacking in the labour market are gradually disappearing, or have already vanished from schools. Now companies are trying to re-launch them, for example, with dual education, said Lucia Nacikova from the Amrop consulting company.

It is important to actively contribute to increasing the quality of education and its connection with the needs of employers in regards to the rising quality of graduates and their entrance into the job market, adds Peter Rusinak, policy officer and coordinator for the committee on business-academic cooperation at the American Chamber of Commerce in Slovakia.

Given the creative potential children naturally possess, we believe the education system at primary level should stipulate their technical as well as soft skills, respectively, Rusinak told The Slovak Spectator.

If children are not motivated to focus on technical subjects at schools, they often pick grammar school or a business academy for their future studies, and end up at university with a focus on humanities, according to Lubos Sirota, deputy chair of the board at the consulting company McRoy Group.

Moreover, many children shy away from technical specialisations because they are afraid of maths. Overcoming these fears and presenting science and technology in a motivating way are important for primary school teachers, opines Guido Glania, president of the German-Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Making the right choices

To increase the interest in technical studies, the State Institute for Vocational Education (SIOV) has introduced a new subject - technology - and has trained teachers of physics, biology, technology and chemistry to use interactive methodology and encourage their pupils to focus on technical subjects, said Lenka Dorcakova of SIOV.

5. Mar 2018 at 12:30 | Radka MinarechovaRadicova: You cannot handle murder with an appeal

In an interview, former prime minister Iveta Radicova claims that she does not expect any resolute stance from the Most-Hid party.

Font size: A - | A +

Sme: How do you perceive the recent events?

Iveta Radicova (IR): This is no easy question. It is crucial to state why we have achieved this state of matters and current atmosphere in society. We are now focusing on enormously brutal, premeditated murder which is probably the last straw for all institutions and politicians as well as citizens; it has shaken us. When you sow hatred and create permanent enemies, you reap hatred that has multiplied itself.

Sme: What do you mean?

IR: If I first summarise all journalists in a brutal and indecent way, and if I want to reduce their trustworthiness in society, I create space for alternatives which vie for trust. But these alternatives are often extremists, as they follow the path of hatred and anger.

If we continue to live by the phrase the need has not happened, if police and investigation bodies use cases as boulders, this results in declining trust in institutions which should be primarily responsible for security in society, be it government, the judiciary, or police.

Sme: Does this mean that we cannot feel safe in Slovakia?

IR: If we talk about human rights, about citizens feeling satisfied here, we can choose two ways how to approach the existing violence in society. I am talking about the Istanbul Convention. You can approach it as a politician and say that you need to stop violence and embrace the notion that we can prevent such violence from happening in society.

And if there are any representatives of the Catholic Church who have some reservations, we can always use the clause of objection which complies with the Constitution.

Sme: And what is the second way?

IR: You stand up with a torch in your hand, and you announce that you will never ratify anything like this, as the marriage is threatened, and so on. This is about the style of politics, about creating an enemy, causing a growth in mistrust, splitting and polarising society which gradually grows into demonstrations of brutal violence.

Sme: Culture Minister Marek Madaric resigned because of the murder of Jan Kuciak. Isnt it strange that it was this minister?

IR: We are speaking here about cultural character and cultivation. Democracy isnt about the existing institutions in the first place, but rather about the way these institutions behave. It is about what values you bring to society, especially cultural values. In such a situation you cannot pretend that nothing happened and handle it by appealing to citizens to let police and investigators do their job in peace. In this context, I understand the ministers decision.

5. Mar 2018 at 10:46 | By Peter KapitanAfghani helicopter pilots will train in Kosice

The Slovak Training Academy (STA) will train future helicopter pilots from across the globe. They have a US Black Hawk simulator too.

A new training centre for future helicopter pilots from across the globe has opened at the airport in Kosice and will welcome its first students soon.

A total of 17 Afghanis, mostly aviation engineers and engineers with a technical specialisation, will start their preparation this week. They will spend 16 months there altogether, the Pravda daily wrote on March 1.

The training is secured by the Slovak Training Academy (STA), while the investors are the Slovak company MSM Group and the Czech firm European Air Services. The construction of the STA, including the purchase of helicopters, cost many millions of euros, and it was completed without any state help, the SITA newswire wrote.

Afghanis and other students

The centre was officially opened at the end of last year. The Afghan students have already undergone similar training in the Czech Republic, Ivan Rudolf of the STA said, as quoted by Pravda.

The Academy will expand, its head Juraj Laus told a press conference on February 28 about four months after it had been opened. He did not specify, however, in which locality this expansion would take place.

Read also:

Read also: Slovaks will train helicopter pilots from around the world Read more

In a short time, we have recorded great interest in theoretical and practical training from several countries, Laus said, as quoted by SITA. We are sure this region is worth investing in as it has historically been connected with aviation and there are hard-working diligent people here. I cannot specify the locality, as it has not been picked yet but it will ultimately be in eastern Slovakia, he summed up.

It is good that after several years, eastern Slovakia is coming to the foreground as an important region of aviation, and of aviation  especially practical  training, the Dean of the Faculty of Aeronautics at the Technical University of Kosice, Stanislav Szabo, noted.

New simulator, US helicopters to train on

On February 28, the Slovak Training Academy also presented its new simulator for the US Black Hawk helicopter. Apart from this, students from all over the world will have at their disposal a total of 15 helicopters, including four US Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawks, SITA wrote.

Read also:

Read also: Defence minister presents new helicopters to Slovak Air Force Read more

The theoretical part of the training will be in English, and it will continue with instruction on technical aviation subjects, Peter Korba, expert director of the STA project said, adding that practical training in piloting with the Schweizer 269 and MD-500 will follow.

5. Mar 2018 at 14:13 | Compiled by Spectator staffEmbraco keeps production in Italy for now

The multi-national company Whirlpool will not move the production of compressors to Slovakia for now as originally announced.

Font size: A - | A +

Based on media reports, it now appears that due to the intervention of the Italian government, the US company Whirlpool will for the time being not cancel 500 jobs in Italy that should have been relocated to Slovakia. Embraco, a subsidiary of Whirlpool, has frozen the planned switch of 500 jobs in Riva di Chieri in Torino and has promised to keep them there until the end of 2018, the Pravda daily wrote on March 5, citing the Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni from March 2nd.

Whirlpool and its Italian presence

In 2014, Whirlpool took over its Italian competitor Indesit for about 758 million. Last November, the US concern announced that it was to scrap around 500 jobs in its plant near Torino where compressors for fridges are produced. The production should have been moved to Bratislava.

Read also:

Read also: Italy points to illegal state aid as Embraco announces relocation to Slovakia Read more

Two thousand people used to work in the Torino plant but currently there are only 535 employees there. The compressors should be made in another European plant belonging to the group, the TASR newswire wrote. Job cuts are inevitable, Whirlpool argues, to boost and keep European production.

5. Mar 2018 at 14:23 | Compiled by Spectator staffThe SNS is not clear of links with Vadala

The Aktuality.sk news website reports that Jan Holko of SNS, a top official at the Defence Ministry, has collaborated with Antonino Vadala.

Font size: A - | A +

Links to the Vadala family, Italians who live in Slovakia and are alleged to have contacts with the Italian Mafia, exist not only within Smer but also within the SNS. The party and its leader Andrej Danko have kept a low profile over the past week, not making any big statements until Sunday, when Danko gave an official statement calling for an investigation into the murder.

Meanwhile, Aktuality.sk reported that the company owned byJan Holko, who is considered Dankos right-hand man, had contacts with Antonino Vadala who is suspected of links with Ndrangheta and was the man featured in the last article by the murdered journalist Jan Kuciak. Holko is the head of the service office of the Defence Ministry which belongs to the SNS within the coalition agreement.

Holko, however, defends himself and claims he currently has no real ties to Vadala, Aktuality.sk wrote, adding that apart from being a shadow defence minister, Holko is also considered to be close to the SNS chair and Speaker of Parliament, Andrej Danko.

On March 5, spokesperson for the Defence Ministry, Danka Capakova, published a statement explaining Holkos position in regard to this case without him having been publicised in connection with it.

In his statement, Holko ruled out friendly relations with Vadala, hinting, however, that they were not strangers in business. The Sofos company (i.e. the firm in which Holko was chairman of the board) was cheated and defrauded by the company of this gentleman when buying computer technology. The claim from the firm of this gentleman was collected by Sofos, and goods were returned, Holko wrote. He also added that he currently has no contacts with Vadala. However, he did not rule out that things might have been different in the past.

It was Holko who introduced Vadala to Smer politician Viliam Jasan, according to Aktuality.sk. The murdered reporter, Jan Kuciak, wrote that they had business relations, meeting in 2014 at several firms, including Sofos, according to Aktuality.sk.

In 2012, Holko was Jasans assistant.

5. Mar 2018 at 14:48 | Compiled by Spectator staffMarches connected to the recent murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kusnirova, will continue.

Organisers announced another march for Friday, March 9, exactly one week after the first one, called We Dont Want the 1990s Back. The march will start in SNP Square in Bratislava at 17:00.

This time, the march is called For a Decent Slovakia and its organisers, Katarina Nagy Pazmany, Peter Nagy and students Karolina Farska and Juraj Seliga also have some demands: they are asking for a thorough and independent investigation of the murder with the participation of foreign investigators and also a new, trustworthy cabinet who will not act on the part of people in whom suspicions of corruption and connections to organised crime exist" Juraj Seliga said, as quoted by the SITA newswire.

Read also:

Read also: UPDATED: Deloire: Bratislava is the capital of press freedom today Read more

The organisers stress that they are not members of any political party and their interests are apolitical.

Today, it is obvious that Prime Minister Robert Fico and Interior Minister Robert Kalinak do not represent the values for which thousands of people stood up on Friday, they write in a press release. Thus, we will continue with civic meetings and call on all citizens to join us and persevere, to not take our decency for lack of determination and perseverance.

Two marches took place last week in Bratislava with tens of thousands of people participating while thousands more commemorated the murdered couple, Kuciak and Kusnirova, in dozens of other cities and towns across Slovakia and worldwide, SITA wrote on March 5.

The gatherings will also take place in other towns in Slovakia:

And abroad:

5. Mar 2018 at 14:55 | Compiled by Spectator staffKiska responds by calling on PM Fico not to ignore the disintegration of his cabinet.

President Andrej Kiska should explain to the public why he visited the private house of George Soros in New York last September, Prime Minister Robert Fico stated during his delayed briefing on March 5.

Fico began by stating he was sorry to see the country moving away from the discussion around who committed the murder to what he called irrelevant things and announced he would deal with the politics of the case soon but not right now. Immediately afterwards, however, he unleashed an attack on President Andrej Kiska who, a day earlier, called on him to either make significant changes to his cabinet or initiate early elections.

Fico accused Kiska of joining forces with the opposition and said he regretted Kiska's words from the day before when he said that the motive for the murder is irrelevant.

Read also:

Read also: Robert Fico enters the ranks of the conspiracy theorists Read more

Fico hinted that he suspects Kiska of being involved in attempts to destabilise the state and mentioned the name of billionaire George Soros.

Soros is a favourite among fake news writers, but most of the claims linked to his name are pure hoaxes, including, for instance, an article claiming that Soros may force the British government to back off from Brexit.

Ficos coalition partner Most-Hid, in their reaction to Ficos attack on Kiska, branded his words incomprehensible and unacceptable.

The prime minister has embarked on a perilous road, possibly with no return, Most-Hid wrote in their official statement, calling on Fico not to continue his rhetoric in order not to make further talks about government restructuring impossible.

Read also:

Read also: Murder of journalist: A short guide to the current political situation in Slovakia Read more

Kiska: Conspiracies do not release Fico from his duty to solve the crisis

Political analyst Pavol Babos told the Sme daily that by mentioning Soros, Fico has joined the ranks of politicians like Viktor Orban in Hungary.

This rhetoric brings him closer to many disinformation websites that, paradoxically, the state and European authorities are fighting against, Babos told Sme.

Kiska didn't keep his meeting with Soros secret. He announced it on Facebook in September 2017 along with the explanation that they were discussing the Roma issue. Kiska responded to Ficos accusations by saying that Fico is ignoring the fact that his cabinet is falling apart.

His former close friend, Marek Madaric, delivered his resignation to the president and his two coalition partners [SNS and Most-Hid] are pondering what comes next, was the stance adopted by Kiska which his spokesperson, Roman Krpelan, provided to the SITA newswire. Deflecting attention with conspiracy theories does not release the prime minister from his duty to solve the deep political crisis or to make space for somebody else who can.

Madaric: Changes must be made

Outgoing Culture Minister Marek Madaric (Smer) handed his resignation letter to the head of state on Monday, March 5. Until a new culture minister is appointed, Peter Pellegrini (Smer) will be entrusted with the temporary management of the Culture Ministry.

Regarding Kiskas two scenarios to resolve the current political situation following the murders of the journalist and his fiancee, Madaric said that the government must face some reorganisation.

Its clear that some changes in the government must be made, said Madaric. This view doesnt result from the presidents opinion but from the fact that the coalition parties are also promoting specific changes.

In reference to the non-resignation of Interior Minister Robert Kalinak (Smer) he said that perhaps, if a change had occurred last week, the situation would be calmer.

As previously announced, President Kiska will start talks with representatives of the political parties on Wednesday, March 7th.

The presidents office, immediately after the Ficos speech on Monday, March 5, recalled that Kiskas meeting with Soros was not concealed and that they informed the public about it on Facebook.

5. Mar 2018 at 16:35 (modified at 5. Mar 2018 at 20:58) | Compiled by Spectator staffRobert Fico enters the ranks of the conspiracy theorists

This a good moment to ask those people in his government who still enjoy some modicum of international credit, like Lucia Zitnanska or Miroslav Lajcak, if they are still ready to be part of Ficos show.

Viktor Orban does not shy away from using the conspiracies around Soros in political fight. Robert Fico (right) now did the same. (Source: SITA )

A few weeks ago Robert Fico was still riding the wave of Slovakia, the pro-European island in Central Europe, hoping that it would carry him safely into the core of the EU.

That now feels like years ago. One week ago, still shocked by the news of the murder of two young people, one of them an investigative reporter, we did not know where the whole situation would take the country. But none of us expected to witness the prime minister exchange pro-European island for another phrase, Soros.

That is a meme from a different, darker world, a world thatFico entered as he left the room without letting journalists ask any questions this afternoon following a brief statement which he had used to accuse others of manipulating the tragedy  and launched a major political attack on the person he clearly sees as his main political rival: President Andrej Kiska.

5. Mar 2018 at 17:45 | Michaela TerenzaniForeign journalists will help Kuciak's colleagues continue his work

The Sme daily interviewed Jan Bayer from Axel Springer, the publisher of the Aktuality.sk news website that the murdered journalist worked for.

Foreign reporters will bring an international dimension to the work of Slovak journalists, says Jan Bayer, executive board member and president of news media for the Axel Springer publishing house. The murder of Jan Kuciak is the biggest tragedy the publisher has ever had to deal with.

You have come to Slovakia because Ringier is planning to start an international team of journalists. How will it work?

In the first place, we are here for Jan. We wanted to pay our respects to him. He was a very talented journalist who started a great work. That is one of the reasons why we have decided to bring several foreign journalists to Slovakia. We already have a great team of reporters here, and we will try to help them out with further investigative reporting. It is our duty to organise something like this.

So the focus will still be on Slovak journalists at your publishing house?

We have got a great team here but the international dimension might be interesting for them too. That is why we asked people in Dublin, Zurich, and other cities, for cooperation.

Ringier has been declaring that in the long run that they want to fight against oligarchs in the media. Aren't you considering the sale of the Novy Cas tabloid daily to Anton Siekel and the printed magazines to the Penta investment group?

We believe in free journalism but digital journalism is our priority now. Axel Springer today focuses mainly on digital outlets, print is a different category.

Have you ever had to deal with a similar tragedy to the murder of Jan Kuciak?

No, we have never experienced such a tragedy. One of our journalists was jailed in a Turkish prison and was only released a few days ago. This, however, is a terrible tragedy.

Have you had a chance to talk to any Slovak politicians?

Our local team did and we have planned some meetings with government representatives.

What do you think about the attitude of many politicians towards journalists?

I really cannot judge the situation, coming from outside. The media needs to be independent.

5. Mar 2018 at 21:12 | Lukas OndercaninPolice Corps president: Prominent NAKA officer arrived at crime scene for police reasons

Gaspar files charges against opposition deputies.

The head of the national anti-corruption unit of the National Criminal Agency (NAKA), Robert Krajmer, arrived at the house of murdered journalist Jan Kuciak just 10 hours after the bodies were found. He did not enter the courtyard and was there for police reasons linked with the clarification of a criminal case. Police Corps president Tibor Gaspar said this on Monday, March 5, in response to statements by the opposition. He is also filling charges.

Earlier on Monday, Igor Matovic, leader of the opposition OLaNO party, said that the police might have been eavesdropping on the murdered journalist. In his opinion this was the only way that Krajmer could have known that Kuciak was dealing with the operations of the Italian mafia in Slovakia. Matovic pointed out that on the Sunday following the murder, Interior Minister Robert Kalinak (Smer) explained Krajmers presence by saying that his unit is investigating the possible criminal activities of the Italians. However, the fact that the murdered journalist was preparing an article about them only came out on the Monday evening.

Gaspar labeled the statement about eavesdropping as nonsense.

He also said, when answering a question about whether the investigation could be objective when the murdered journalist wrote articles about his brother-in-law, owner of the private security service Bonul Miroslav Bodor and about the links of Krajmers wife to the Bodors, that the investigation will be objective and that it is being carried out under the strict supervision of the prosecution services.

Read also:

Read also: More concerns about independence of Kuciak murder investigation Read more

Gaspar considers the statements of opposition politicians Matovic, Gabor Grendel, Jan Budaj and Veronika Remisova, all OLaNO, and Lubomir Galko and Lucia Duris Nicholsonova, both SaS, about the police and his personality as beyond limits. He perceives them as blackmail and false allegations and has filed charges.

5. Mar 2018 at 21:04 | Compiled by Spectator staffSouth32 Limited operates as a diversified metals and mining company primarily in Australia, Southern Africa, North America, and South America. The company has a portfolio of assets producing alumina, aluminum, bauxite, energy and metallurgical coal, manganese ore and alloy, ferronickel, silver, lead, and zinc. It also exports its products. South32 Limited has a strategic alliance agreement with AusQuest Limited for exploration opportunity under at its Morrisey nickel-copper project. The company was formerly known as BHP Coal Holdings Pty Limited and changed its name to South32 Limited in March 2015. South32 Limited was incorporated in 2000 and is headquartered in Perth, Australia.

Read MoreValeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. operates as a multinational, specialty pharmaceutical, and medical device company that develops, manufactures, and markets a range of pharmaceuticals, over-the-counter (OTC) products, and medical devices. The company operates through three segments: Bausch + Lomb/International, Branded Rx, and U.S. Diversified Products. The Bausch + Lomb/International segment provides pharmaceutical products, OTC products, and medical device products, primarily consist of Bausch + Lomb products, with a focus on the vision care, surgical, consumer, and ophthalmology Rx products in the United States; and pharmaceutical products, generic pharmaceutical products, OTC products, medical device products, and Bausch + Lomb products in Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East. The Branded Rx segment sells gastrointestinal and dermatological products in the United States. The U.S. Diversified Products segment offers pharmaceutical products, OTC products, and medical device products in the areas of neurology and certain other therapeutic classes, including aesthetics. The company was founded in 1983 and is headquartered in Laval, Canada.

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of BP: 200 PS Overseas Holdings Inc., 563916 Alberta Ltd., ACP (Malaysia) Inc., AE Cedar Creek Holdings LLC, AE Goshen II Holdings LLC, AE Goshen II Wind Farm LLC, AE Power Services LLC, AE Wind PartsCo LLC, AM/PM International Inc., ARCO, ARCO British International, ARCO British Limited, ARCO Coal Australia Inc., ARCO El-Djazair Holdings Inc., ARCO Environmental Remediation L.L.C., ARCO Exploration Inc., ARCO Gaviota Company, ARCO International Investments Inc., ARCO International Services Inc., ARCO Midcon LLC, ARCO Oil Company Nigeria Unlimited, ARCO Oman Inc, ARCO Resources Limited, ARCO Trinidad Exploration and Production Company Limited, ARCO Unimar Holdings LLC, Actomat B.V., Advance Petroleum Holdings Pty Ltd, Advance Petroleum Pty Ltd, Air BP Albania SHA, Air BP Brasil Ltda., Air BP Canada LLC, Air BP Croatia d.o.o., Air BP Finland Oy, Air BP Iceland, Air BP Limited, Air BP Norway AS, Air BP Sales Romania S.R.L., Air BP Sweden AB, Air Refuel Pty Ltd, Allgreen Pty Ltd, AmProp Finance Company, American Oil Company, Amoco (Fiddich) Limited, Amoco (U.K.) Exploration Company LLC., Amoco Bolivia Petroleum Company, Amoco Bolivia Services Company Inc., Amoco Canada International Holdings B.V., Amoco Capline Pipeline Company, Amoco Chemical (Europe) S.A., Amoco Chemicals (FSC) B.V., Amoco Cypress Pipeline Company, Amoco Destin Pipeline Company, Amoco Environmental Services Company, Amoco Exploration Holdings B.V., Amoco Guatemala Petroleum Company, Amoco International Finance Corporation, Amoco International Petroleum Company, Amoco Leasing Corporation, Amoco Louisiana Fractionator Company, Amoco MB Fractionation Company, Amoco MBF Company, Amoco Main Pass Gathering Company, Amoco Marketing Environmental Services Company, Amoco Netherlands Petroleum Company, Amoco Nigeria Exploration Company Limited, Amoco Nigeria Oil Company Limited, Amoco Nigeria Petroleum Company, Amoco Nigeria Petroleum Company Limited, Amoco Norway Oil Company, Amoco Oil Holding Company, Amoco Olefins Corporation, Amoco Overseas Exploration Company, Amoco Pipeline Asset Company, Amoco Pipeline Holding Company, Amoco Properties Incorporated, Amoco Remediation Management Services Corporation, Amoco Research Operating Company, Amoco Rio Grande Pipeline Company, Amoco Somalia Petroleum Company, Amoco Sulfur Recovery Company, Amoco Tri-States NGL Pipeline Company, Amoco Trinidad Gas B.V., Amoco U.K. Petroleum Limited, Amprop Illinois I Limited, Amprop Inc., Anaconda Arizona Inc., Arabian Production And Marketing Lubricants, Aral Aktiengesellschaft, Aral Luxembourg S.A., Aral Services Luxembourg Sarl, Aral Tankstellen Services Sarl, Arco Mediterraneo Inversiones S.L., Areas Noriega S.L., Areas Singulares Reyes S.L., Aspac Lubricants (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Atlantic 2/3 UK Holdings Limited, Atlantic Richfield Company, Atlantic Richfield Companyd, Autino Holdings Limited, Autino Limited, Auwahi Wind Energy Holdings LLC, B2Mobility GmbH, BASS Management Pty Ltd, BP (Abu Dhabi) Limited, BP (Barbados) Holding SRL, BP (Barbican) Limited, BP (China) Holdings Limited, BP (China) Industrial Lubricants Limited, BP (GTA Mauritania) Finance Limited, BP (GTA Senegal) Finance Limited, BP (Gibraltar) Limited, BP (Guangzhou) Advanced Mobility Limited, BP (Hunan) Petroleum Company Limited, BP (Indian Agencies) Limited, BP (Shandong) Petroleum Co. Ltd, BP (Shanghai) Trading Limited, BP - Castrol (Thailand) Limited, BP AMI Leasing Inc., BP Absheron Limited, BP Advanced Mobility Limited, BP Africa Limited, BP Africa Oil Limited, BP Akaryakit Ortakligi, BP Alaska LNG LLC, BP Alternative Energy Holdings Limited, BP Alternative Energy Investments Limited, BP Alternative Energy North America Inc., BP Alternative Energy Trinidad and Tobago Limited, BP America Chembel Holding LLC, BP America Chemicals Company, BP America Foreign Investments Inc., BP America Inc, BP America Inc., BP America Limited, BP America Production Company, BP Amoco Chemical Company, BP Amoco Chemical Holding Company, BP Amoco Chemical Indonesia Limited, BP Amoco Chemical Malaysia Holding Company, BP Amoco Exploration (Faroes) Limited, BP Amoco Exploration (In Amenas) Limited, BP Andaman II Ltd, BP Angola (Block 18) B.V., BP Argentina Exploration Company, BP Argentina Holdings LLC, BP Aromatics Holdings Limited, BP Aromatics Limited, BP Asia Limited, BP Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., BP Asia Pacific Holdings Limited, BP Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, BP Australia Capital Markets Limited, BP Australia Employee Share Plan Proprietary Limited, BP Australia Group Pty Ltde, BP Australia Investments Pty Ltd, BP Australia Nominees Proprietary Limited, BP Australia Pty Ltd, BP Australia Shipping Pty Ltd, BP Australia Swaps Management Limited, BP Aviation A/S, BP Benevolent Fund Trustees Limited, BP Berau Ltd., BP Biocombustiveis S.A., BP Bioenergia Campina Verde Ltda., BP Bioenergia Ituiutaba Ltda., BP Bioenergia Itumbiara S.A., BP Bioenergia Tropical S.A., BP Biofuels Advanced Technology Inc., BP Biofuels Brazil Investments Limited, BP Biofuels Louisiana LLC, BP Biofuels North America LLC, BP Biofuels Trading Comercio Exportacao Ltda., BP Bomberai Ltd., BP Brasil Ltda., BP Brazil Tracking L.L.C., BP Bulwer Island Pty Ltd, BP Business Service Centre Asia Sdn Bhd, BP Business Service Centre KFT, BP CIV Pty Ltd, BP Canada Energy Development Company, BP Canada Energy Group ULC, BP Canada Energy Marketing Corp., BP Canada International Holdings B.V., BP Canada Investments Inc., BP Capellen Sarl, BP Capital Markets, BP Capital Markets America, BP Capital Markets America Inc., BP Capital Markets p.l.c., BP Car Fleet Limited, BP Caribbean Company, BP Castrol KK, BP Castrol Lubricants (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., BP Central Pipelines LLC, BP Chembel, BP Chemicals (Korea) Limited, BP Chemicals East China Investments Limited, BP Chemicals Investments Limited, BP Chemicals Limited, BP China Exploration and Production Company, BP Comercializadora de Energia Ltda., BP Commodities Trading Limited, BP Commodity Supply B.V., BP Company North America, BP Company North America Inc., BP Containment Response Limited, BP Containment Response System Holdings LLC, BP Continental Holdings Limited, BP Corporate Holdings, BP Corporate Holdings Limited, BP Corporation North America, BP Corporation North America Inc., BP D-B Pipeline Company LLC, BP D230 Limited, BP Danmark A/S, BP Developments Australia Pty. Ltd., BP Dogal Gaz Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, BP East Kalimantan CBM Limited, BP Eastern Mediterranean Limited, BP Egypt Company, BP Egypt East Delta Marine Corporation, BP Egypt East Tanka B.V., BP Egypt Production B.V., BP Egypt Ras El Barr B.V., BP Egypt West Mediterranean (Block B) B.V., BP Energy Asia Pte. Limited, BP Energy Colombia Limited, BP Energy Company, BP Energy Europe Limited, BP Energy Solutions B.V., BP Energy do Brasil Ltda., BP Energia Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., BP Espana S.A. Unipersonal, BP Estaciones y Servicios Energeticos Sociedad Anonima de Capital Variable, BP Europa SE, BP Exploracion de Venezuela S.A., BP Exploration & Production Inc., BP Exploration (Absheron) Limited, BP Exploration (Alaska), BP Exploration (Alaska) Inc., BP Exploration (Algeria) Limited, BP Exploration (Alpha), BP Exploration (Alpha) Limited, BP Exploration (Angola), BP Exploration (Angola) Limited, BP Exploration (Azerbaijan), BP Exploration (Azerbaijan) Limited, BP Exploration (Canada) Limited, BP Exploration (Caspian Sea), BP Exploration (Caspian Sea) Limited, BP Exploration (D230) Limited, BP Exploration (Delta), BP Exploration (Delta) Limited, BP Exploration (El Djazair) Limited, BP Exploration (Epsilon) Limited, BP Exploration (Gambia) Limited, BP Exploration (Greenland) Limited, BP Exploration (Madagascar) Limited, BP Exploration (Morocco) Limited, BP Exploration (Namibia) Limited, BP Exploration (Nigeria Finance) Limited, BP Exploration (Nigeria) Limited, BP Exploration (Psi) Limited, BP Exploration (STP) Limited, BP Exploration (Shafag-Asiman) Limited, BP Exploration (Shah Deniz) Limited, BP Exploration (South Atlantic) Limited, BP Exploration (Xazar) Pte. Ltd., BP Exploration Angola (Kwanza Benguela) Limited, BP Exploration Argentina Limited, BP Exploration Australia Pty Ltd Level 15, BP Exploration Beta Limited, BP Exploration China Limited, BP Exploration Company (Middle East) Limited, BP Exploration Company Limited, BP Exploration Indonesia Limited, BP Exploration Libya Limited, BP Exploration Mexico Limited, BP Exploration Mexico S.A. De C.V., BP Exploration North Africa Limited, BP Exploration Operating Company, BP Exploration Operating Company Limited, BP Exploration Orinoco Limited, BP Exploration Personnel Company Limited, BP Exploration Peru Limited, BP Express Shopping Limited, BP Finance Australia Pty Ltd, BP Finance p.l.c., BP Foundation Incorporated, BP France, BP Fuels & Lubricants AS, BP Fuels Deutschland GmbH, BP GOM Logistics LLC, BP Gas & Power Investments Limited, BP Gas Europe S.A.U., BP Gas Marketing Limited, BP Gas Supply (Angola) LLC, BP Ghana Limited, BP Global Investments, BP Global Investments Limited, BP Global Investments Salalah & Co LLC, BP Global West Africa Limited, BP Greece Limited, BP Guangdong Limited, BP High Density Polyethylene - France, BP Holdings (Thailand) Limited, BP Holdings B.V., BP Holdings Canada, BP Holdings Canada Limited, BP Holdings International B.V., BP Holdings North America, BP Holdings North America Limited, BP Hong Kong Limited, BP India Private Limited, BP Indonesia Investment Limited, BP International, BP International Limited, BP International Services Company, BP Investment Management Limited, BP Investments Asia Limited, BP Iran Limited, BP Iraq N.V., BP Italia SpA, BP Japan K.K., BP Korea Limited, BP Kuwait Limited, BP LNG Shipping Limited, BP Latin America LLC, BP Latin America Upstream Services Inc., BP Lubricants KK, BP Lubricants USA Inc., BP Luxembourg S.A., BP Malaysia Holdings Sdn. Bhd., BP Management International B.V., BP Management Netherlands B.V., BP Marine Limited, BP Mariner Holding Company LLC, BP Maritime Services (Singapore) Pte. Limited, BP Marketing Egypt LLC, BP Mauritania Investments Limited, BP Mauritius Limited (in liquidation), BP Middle East Enterprises Corporation, BP Middle East LLC, BP Middle East Limited, BP Midstream Partners GP LLC, BP Midstream Partners Holdings LLC, BP Midstream Partners LP, BP Midwest Product Pipelines Holdings LLC, BP Mocambique Limitada, BP Mocambique Limited, BP Muturi Holdings B.V., BP Nederland Holdings BV, BP Netherlands Upstream B.V., BP New Ventures Middle East Limited, BP New Zealand Holdings Limited, BP New Zealand Share Scheme Limited, BP Nutrition Inc., BP Offshore Gathering Systems Inc., BP Offshore Pipelines Company LLC, BP Offshore Response Company LLC, BP Oil (Thailand) Limited, BP Oil Australia Pty Ltd, BP Oil Espana S.A., BP Oil Hellenic S.A., BP Oil International, BP Oil International Limited, BP Oil Kent Refinery Limited (in liquidation), BP Oil Llandarcy Refinery Limited, BP Oil Logistics UK Limited, BP Oil New Zealand Limited, BP Oil Pipeline Company, BP Oil Senegal S.A., BP Oil Shipping Company, BP Oil UK Limited, BP Oil Venezuela Limited, BP Oil Vietnam Limited, BP Oil Yemen Limited, BP Olex Fanal Mineralol GmbH, BP One Pipeline Company LLC, BP Pacific Investments Ltd, BP Pakistan (Badin) Inc., BP Pakistan Exploration and Production Inc., BP Pension Escrow Limited, BP Pension Trustees Limited, BP Pensions (Overseas) Limited, BP Pensions Limited, BP Petrochemicals India Investments Limited, BP Petroleo y Gas S.A., BP Petrolleri Anonim Sirketi, BP Pipelines (Alaska) Inc., BP Pipelines (BTC) Limited, BP Pipelines (North America) Inc., BP Pipelines (SCP) Limited, BP Pipelines (TANAP) Limited, BP Pipelines TAP Limited, BP Polska Services Sp. z o.o. Ul., BP Portugal -Comercio de Combustiveis e Lubrificantes SA, BP Poseidon Limited, BP Products North America, BP Products North America Inc., BP Properties Limited, BP Raffinaderij Rotterdam B.V., BP Refinery (Kwinana) Proprietary Limited, BP Regional Australasia Holdings Pty Ltd, BP River Rouge Pipeline Company LLC, BP Russian Investments Limited, BP Russian Ventures Limited, BP SC Holdings LLC, BP Scale Up Factory Limited, BP Senegal Investments Limited, BP Services International Limited, BP Servicios de Combustibles S.A. de C.V., BP Servicios territoriales S.A., BP Shafag-Asiman Limited, BP Shipping Limited, BP Singapore Pte. Limited, BP Solar Energy North America LLC, BP Solar Espana S.A., BP Solar International Inc., BP Solar Pty Ltd, BP South America Holdings Ltd, BP Southern Africa Proprietary Limited, BP Southern Cone Company, BP Subsea Well Response (Brazil) Limited, BP Subsea Well Response Limited, BP Taiwan Marketing Limited, BP Technology Ventures Inc., BP Technology Ventures Limited, BP Train 2/3 Holding SRL, BP Transportation (Alaska) Inc., BP Trinidad Processing Limited, BP Trinidad and Tobago, BP Trinidad and Tobago LLC, BP Turkey Refining Limited, BP Two Pipeline Company LLC, BP UK Retained Holdings Limited, BP Venezuela Investments B.V., BP West Aru I Limited, BP West Aru II Limited, BP West Papua I Limited, BP West Papua III Limited, BP Wind Energy North America Inc., BP Wiriagar Ltd., BP World-Wide Technical Services Limited, BP Zhuhai Chemical Company Limited, BP+Amoco International Limited, BP-AIOC Exploration (TISA) LLC, BPA Investment Holding Company, BPNE International B.V., BPRY Caribbean Ventures LLC, BPX (Eagle Ford) Gathering LLC, BPX (KCS Resources) LLC, BPX (Karnes) Gathering LLC, BPX (Permian) Gathering LLC, BPX (WSF Operating) Inc., BPX Energy Inc., BPX Midstream LLC, BPX Operating Company, BPX Production Company, BPX Properties (GP) LLC, BPX Properties (LP) LLC, BPX Properties (NA) LP, BTC Pipeline Holding Company Limited, BXL Plastics Limitedv, Bahia de Bizkaia Electridad S.L., Baltimore Ennis Land Company Inc., Black Lake Pipe Line Company, Brian Jasper Nominees Pty Ltd, Britannic Energy Trading Limited, Britannic Investments Iraq Limited, Britannic Marketing Limited, Britannic Strategies Limited, Britannic Trading Limited, Britoil Limited, Burmah Castrol, Burmah Castrol Australia Pty Ltd, Burmah Castrol Holdings Inc., Burmah Castrol PLC, Burmah Castrol South Africa (Pty) Limited, Burmah Chile SpA, Butamax Advanced Biofuels, CASTROL Austria GmbHb, CH-Twenty Inc., CNAA, Cadman DBP Limited, Casitas Pipeline Company, Castrol (China) Limited, Castrol (Ireland) Limited, Castrol (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Castrol (Shenzhen) Company Limited, Castrol (Tianjin) Lubricants Co. Ltd., Castrol (U.K.) Limited, Castrol Australia Pty. Limited, Castrol B.V., Castrol BP Petco Limited Liability Company, Castrol Brasil Ltda., Castrol Caribbean & Central America Inc., Castrol Colombia Ltda., Castrol Del Peru S.A., Castrol Egypt Lubricants S.A.E., Castrol India Limited, Castrol Industrie und Service GmbH, Castrol KK, Castrol Limited, Castrol Lubricants RO S.R.L, Castrol Mexico S.A., Castrol Namibia (Pty) Limited, Castrol Offshore Limited, Castrol Pakistan (Private) Limited, Castrol Philippines Inc., Castrol Servicos Ltda., Castrol Ukraine LLC, Castrol Zimbabwe (Private) Limited, Centrel Pty Ltd, Charge Your Car Limitedc, Chargemaster, Chargemaster (Europe) GmbH, Chargemaster Limited, Charging Solutions Limited, Clarisse Holdings Pty Ltd, Coastwise Trading Company Inc., Consolidada de Energia y Lubricantes (CENERLUB) C.A., Conti Cross Keys Inn Inc., Coro Trading NZ Limited, Cuyama Pipeline Company, DHC Solvent Chemie GmbH, Dermody Developments Pty Ltd, Dermody Holdings Pty Ltd, Dermody Investments Pty Ltd, Dermody Petroleum Pty. Ltd., Dome Beaufort Petroleum Limited, Dome Wallis (1980) Limited Partnership, ECM Markets SA (Pty) Ltd, Elektromotive Limited, Elite Customer Solutions Pty Ltd, Elm Holdings Inc., Energy Global Investments (USA) Inc., Enstar LLC, Estacion de Servicio Alto Campoo S.L., Estacion de Servicio Ganzo 10 S.L., Estacion de Servicio Reocin 9 S.L., Estacion de Servicio Santillana II S.L., Estacion de Servicio Sardinero S.L., Estonian Aviation Fuelling Services, Europa Oil NZ Limited, Exomet Inc., Expandite Contract Services Limited, Exploration (Luderitz Basin) Limited, Exploration Service Company Limited, FWK (2017) Limited, FWK Holdings (2017) LTD, Finite Carbon, Flat Ridge 2 Holdings LLC, Flat Ridge Wind Energy LLC, Foseco Holding Inc., Foseco Holding International B.V., Foseco Inc., Fosroc Expandite Limited, Fotech Solutions Ltd, Fowler Ridge Holdings LLC, Fowler Ridge I Land Investments LLC, Fowler Ridge II Holdings LLC, Fowler Ridge III Wind Farm LLC, FreeBees B.V., Fuel & Retail Aviat ion Sweden AB, Fuelplane- Sociedade Abastecedora De Aeronaves Unipessoal Lda, GOAM 1 C.I S. A .S, Gardena Holdings Inc., Gelsenkirchen Raffinerie Netz GmbH, Grampian Aviation Fuelling Services Limited, Guangdong Investments Limited, Highlands Ethanol LLC, Hosteleria Noriega S.L., IGI Resources Inc., Insight Analytics Solutions Holdings Limited, Insight Analytics Solutions Limited, Insight Analytics Solutions USA Inc., International Bunker Supplies Pty Ltd, Iraq Petroleum Company Limited, Jupiter Insurance Limited, Ken-Chas Reserve Company, Kenilworth Oil Company Limited, Kingbook Inversiones Socimi S.A., Latin Energy Argentina S.A., Lebanese Aviation Technical Services S.A.L., Limited Liability Company BP Toplivnaya Kompania, Limited liability company Setra Lubricants, Lubricants UK Limited, Lytt Limited, Manormaker (Nominee No. 1) Limited, Manormaker (Nominee No. 2) Limited, Manormaker GP Limited (99.90%) 11 Black Horse Lane, Mardi Gras Transportation System Company LLC, Markoil S.A., Masana Petroleum Solutions (Pty) Ltd, Mayaro Initiative for Private Enterprise Development, Mehoopany Holdings LLC, Mes Tecnologia En Servicios Y Energia S.A., Minza Pty. Ltd., Mountain City Remediation LLC, No. 1 Riverside Quay Proprietary Limited, Nordic Lubricants A/S, Nordic Lubricants AB, North America Funding Company, OMD87 Inc., OOO BP STL, Omega Oil Company, OnSight Analytics Solutions India Private Ltd., Orion Delaware Mountain Wind Farm LP, Orion Energy Holdings LLC, Orion Energy L.L.C.b, Orion Post Land Investments LLC, Oyambre 1 S.L., PRODUITS METALLURGIE DOITTAU, PT BP Petrochemicals, PT Castrol Indonesia, PT Castrol Manufacturing Indonesia, PT Jasatama Petroindo, Pacroy (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Peaks America Inc., Pearl River Delta Investments Limited, Petrocorner Retail S.L.U., Phoenix Petroleum Services Limited, Pozuelo 4 S.L., Prospect International C.A. (In liquidation), Puente Arce 4 S.L., Remediation Management Services Company, Richfield Oil Corporation, Rio Corvo 2 S.L., Rolling Thunder I Power Partners LLC, Romax Insight Korea Ltd., Ropemaker Deansgate Limited, Ropemaker Properties Limited, Ruhr Oel GmbH, Rusdene GSS Limited, SOFAST Limited, SRHP, Saturn Insurance Inc., Sherbino I Holdings LLC, Sherbino Mesa I Land Investments LLC, Sociedade de Promocao Imobiliaria Quinta do Loureiro SA, Societe de Gestion de Depots d'Hydrocarbures - GDH, South Texas Shale LLC, Southeast Texas Biofuels LLC, Southern Ridge Pipeline Holding Company, Southern Ridge Pipeline LP LLC, Sp/f Decision3 (GreenSteam) Company, Standard Oil Company, Standard Oil Company Inc., Standard Oil of Ohio, Stryde Limited, Sunrise Oil Sands Partnership, TISA Education Complex LLC, TJKK, Taradadis Pty. Ltd., Telcom General Corporation, Terre de Grace Partnership, The Anaconda Company, The BP Share Plans Trustees Limited, The Burmah Oil Company (Pakistan Trading) Limited, The Standard Oil Company, Toledo Refinery Holding Company LLC, Torrelavega 7 S.L., Union Texas International Corporation, Vastar Pipeline LLC, Veba Oel AG Veba Oel, Verenium, Viceroy Investments Limited, Villacarriedo 8 S.L., Warrenville Development Limited, Water Way Trading and Petroleum Services LLC, Welchem Inc., West Kimberley Fuels Pty Ltd, Westlake Houston Development LLC, Whiting Clean Energy Inc., Windpark Energy Nederland B.V., and Winwell Resources L.L.C.CONSOL Coal Resources LP produces and sells high- British thermal unit (Btu) coal in the Northern Appalachian Basin and the eastern United States. It owns a 25% undivided interest in the Pennsylvania mining complex, which consists of three underground mines and related infrastructure that produce high-Btu thermal coal located primarily in southwestern Pennsylvania. The company markets its thermal coal principally to electric utilities. CONSOL Coal Resources GP LLC operates as a general partner of the company. The company was formerly known as CNX Coal Resources LP and changed its name to CONSOL Coal Resources LP in November 2017. CONSOL Coal Resources LP was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania.

Read MoreTrin Tr-Information. This is a purely informative post. Of late, I have received emails from some of you who have made it to a grad school in the US. First, ...

Ever Been To Jugarat? As a student, there are lots of parties one could attend here. Welcome parties, potlucks, barbecues, international students' parties,...

Childhood Chocolate Memories Opting out of a late lunch, I inserted the one dollar bill into the vending machine and watched with fascination as the bar of snickers f...

Working for myself One year ago, I started working as a tenure-track faculty at a research university. After the first day at work, Ma asked me, "So wha...

The Kiss Eaters. We Bengalis are strange. Social. Gregarious. Food lovers. Corrupt. Morally depraved. People tell me that you cannot mistake a Bengali. Wh...

That deadly concoction of motherly love! One of the big, big things about living in desh (country) is that I am only one short, direct-flight away from baadi (home). Given the la...

I Feel Like a Mixer Grinder When I woke up that morning, it felt like a train rode over me. I had images of a large mass of bulls chasing me, their hoofs springing a ...

Kawta Jaama Holo? I was shaken out of my reverie where I heard the loud ghonta and shaankh in the wee hours of dawn. It had drizzled the night before, and t...

Mere Paas Ma Hai ... Aur Tumhare Pass? They are the reserve stores of love and affection (and adipose). Their pious feet (with sacred dust and all) mark the sanctuaries of the d...The Vietnamese agency assigned to the oversight of the food industry has been implementing various stringent measures in an effort to have the yellow card by the European Commission (EC) rescinded.

The yellow card corresponds with a warning issued by the EC to any country refusing to cooperate in the international fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

Vietnam received card in October 2017, which stipulates that after a six-month period, if the country can enable considerable progress in grappling with illegal fishing, the sanction will be lifted, and a green card  an eligible status for export  will take its place; otherwise, a red card, a total ban, will be enforced.

Vietnams Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and provincial authorities have been striving for the removal scheduled for April 2018, Ha Cong Tuan, the bodys deputy minister, said on March 2.

A number of coastal areas have equipped themselves with offshore fishing boats and preemptively taken actions against illegal fishing in the waters of neighboring countries.

In Quang Ngai Province, located in central Vietnam, those boats found with a repeat of forbidden fishing are indefinitely prohibited from operations, according to Tran Ngoc Cang, chairman of the local Peoples Committee.

The owners of two boats coded QNg 90518 and QNg 90945, for instance, have forfeited the right to be granted loans for their profession and to carry out fish-catching activities for good.

In addition, before fishing boats depart from docks, coastal police require their owners and captains to sign a commitment document against illegal fishing.

In Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, in southern Vietnam, the local Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has formulated an action plan to stop fishers from continuing catching fish in foreign waters, according to Tran Van Cuong, director of the body.

The program was designed in accordance with the [said] ministrys guidelines and will be presented to the provincial Peoples Committee for approval over the next few days, Cuong said on March 2.

He added that since October 2017 the spirit of this effort has also been seen in an official order from the committee, thwarting any attempts by Vietnamese boats to fish outside the nations maritime areas.

Punitive measures accordingly include rendering invalid from six to twelve months the fishing licenses of boats transgressing the national sea borders for the first time, and revoking the fish-catching right permanently for ships with a recurrence of illegal fishing.

The Vung Tau administration has also required fishing boats with large power machines to be retrofitted with cameras and stay connected around the clock with relevant authorities on land.

Boats which belong to that type but fail to feature the devices are not granted or ineligible to renew operation licenses, Cuong, the director, said.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Vietnam could export 6.5 million tonnes of rice in 2018, the Vietnam News Agency reported on Sunday, citing a deputy agriculture minister as saying.

That would be a 12 percent increase from 2017 exports, according to Reuters calculations.

Vietnam, the worlds third-largest rice exporter, exported 5.8 million tonnes of rice in 2017, up 20.4 percent from a year earlier and brought in $2.6 billion in exports revenue, customs data showed.Vingroup, which has interests in real estate, retail, hotels, e-commerce, healthcare, education, agriculture and car manufacturing among others, said in a statement on Sunday it had officially decided to invest in its higher education brand VinUni.

The mission of VinUni is to train elite human resources who are equipped with the knowledge, skills, life experience and aspirations needed to contribute to the prosperity of our society and have a positive impact on the worlds knowledge, said Le Mai Lan, vice chairwoman of Vingroup.

According to Lan, VinUni already has detailed plans in place for strategic cooperation with the worlds leading universities, including Ivy League institutions such as Cornell University or the University of Pennsylvania.

Vingroups university will be developed to meet evaluation criteria of credible university rankings such as Quacquarelli Symonds or Times Higher Education.

VinUni will be focused on the three disciplines of business, technology and health sciences, Lan said, adding that the first university of Vingroup will be headquartered in Hanoi.

Construction of the university is expected to break ground in 2018, with admissions beginning as early as in 2020, the vice chairwoman said.

Vingroup is Vietnams fifth-biggest company by market value.

The conglomerate already has investments in the education sector through its VinSchool network, which consists of schools offering education from elementary to senior high in Vietnam.A young student in Vietnam has embarked on a journey around the country alone after deciding to delay his studies for one school year to translate the dream of broadening his experience of various Vietnamese regions into reality.

Twenty-year-old Khong Minh Triet, living in Binh Duong Province, southern Vietnam, began his nationwide on-foot trip on the morning of December 29, 2017, temporarily leaving behind his usual academic life at the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City.

Triet secured consent from his parents and approval from his school, which will keep his academic performance results valid when he resumes studying.

His motivations are discovering attractions in Vietnam and overcoming the self-imposed challenge of trekking on the number-eight-shaped route he mapped out himself.

The route, about 4,500 kilometers long, passes through many provinces, primarily following National Route 1, one of Vietnams north-south arteries, and the Ho Chi Minh Trail, stretching along the mountainous western side of the central region.

The itinerary excludes some provinces in northern Vietnam, to which Triet will pay a visit by some means of transport.

He geared up for the odyssey by taking muscular exercises: regularly training with a plastic ball to increase the strength of his legs.

The practice only consists of tossing, kicking and chasing the ball without wearing any shoes. I spent 20 minutes every day doing the training, and stuck to it for six months straight, he recalled.

Triet said the modes of transport chosen and the routes length to be covered are subservient to what is learned during the journey.

He left home with identity papers and only VND20,000 (nearly US$1), which unexpectedly appeared in his backpack after a check, for he wanted to carry no money.

He divides his 8-shaped route into six manageable sections, along each of which he will travel continuously for a month before stopping by major cities in Vietnam where people he wished to meet reside.

It took him 31 days and a half to reach the end of the second section in Moc Chau District, Son La Province, northwestern Vietnam, where he is laying over, after covering the first for 29 days.

The young man planned to arrive in Hanoi in a month.

Khong Minh Triet and the foreigners he met on his trip. Photo courtesy of Triet

The journey has hitherto left him with memorable experiences.

He has slept along road sides and fell in a panhandlers shoes on many occasions.

I was imagining what a beggar would do to have food and a sleeping place. I thought that people would have some leftover after a meal, so I often asked for a bowl of rice in the afternoon, Triet recollected.

At first he slept on a public bench, but then thanks to suggestions from other people, he found seemingly more decent places that charged him no cost, like gas stations, restaurants, rest houses, hospitals, border posts, and locals homes.

Climatic differences interested him but also hampered his walk.

In Phu Yen Province, south-central Vietnam, local people warned me against Tu Bong winds, because they might catapult me down to the rice paddy from the road. But I didnt believe such stiff breezes happened in that calm weather, he said.

He then had to take shelter from the unbelievable gust before braving the elements.

To me the trip was mixed with happiness and difficulty. By happiness I mean the places I visited have weird occurrences, and by difficulty I mean it required huge exertion to trudge a short distance of one kilometer, he said.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson, the flagship of the U.S. Navy Carrier Strike Group One (CSG-1), is scheduled to dock in Vietnam from March 5 to 9, accompanied by the guided missile cruiser USS Lake Champlain and the destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer.

As no U.S. aircraft carrier has ever docked at a Vietnamese port since the war ended in 1975, international media is referring to the upcoming visit as the largest military presence by the U.S. in Vietnam since that time.

The Da Nang visit was announced in January, when U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis visited Hanoi, his first trip to Vietnam since assuming his post.

During a meeting with his Vietnamese counterpart General Ngo Xuan Lich, both ministers agreed to request approval for the visit from their superiors.

On February 21, Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States Pham Quang Vinh toured the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier during a business trip to Norfolk, Virginia.

Launched in 1980, USS Carl Vinson uses the call sign Gold Eagle. The ship is named after Carl Vinson, a Congressman from Georgia, in honor of his contributions to the U.S. Navy. In 2011, the body of Osama bin Laden was buried at sea from the ships deck.

CSG-1 was patrolling off the Philippines prior to heading for the East Vietnam Sea in preparation for the visit.

Below are some photos of the three main ships in the Vietnam visit.

USS Lake Champlain is a Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser. Photo: U.S. Navy

The USS Lake Champlain is named in honor of the Battle of Lake Champlain, which took place during the War of 1812. Photo: U.S. Navy

RGM-84 Harpoon missiles on board the USS Lake Champlain. Photo: AP

The USS Lake Champlain is capable of launching a range of missiles including Tomahawks, SM-2, SM-3s, and RIM-162 ESSMs. Photo: U.S. Navy

USS Lake Champlain has been to the Persian Gulf on multiple occasions, first as a part of Operation Desert Shield, then following Operation Desert Storm. Photo: U.S. Navy

The USS Carl Vinson cost US$3.8 billion, carrying some 72 aircraft including FA18 Super Hornets and Hornets, EA 18G Growlers, Nighthawk helicopters and surveillance aircraft. Photo: U.S. Navy

Aircraft aboard the USS Carl Vinson. Photo: AP

USS Carl Vinson is equipped with such armaments as Multiple NATO Sea Sparrow, Phalanx CIWS, and Rolling Airframe Missile mounts. Photo: U.S. Navy

With a crew of more than 5,800, the USS Carl Vinson is well equipped with medical amenities. Photo: U.S. Navy

USS Carl Vinson crew members load missiles onto the aircraft carrier. Photo: U.S. Navy

Two F-18 Hornets launch from the USS Carl Vinson. Photo: U.S. Navy

USS Carl Vinson receives replenishment from a helicopter. Photo: U.S. Navy

USS Carl Vinson captain Douglas Verissimo has hailed his ship as a floating city. Photo: U.S. Navy

The USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) participates in a drill with Japanese destroyers. Photo: Reuters

Launched in October 2008, the guided missile destroyer USS Wayne E. Meyer is one of the U.S. Navys newest warships. Photo: U.S. Navy

The USS Wayne E. Meyer is named after Rear Admiral Wayne E. Meyer, known as the "Father of Aegis." Photo: U.S. Navy

USS Wayne E. Meyer carries the 100th AEGIS Weapon System to be put into operation by the U.S. Navy. Photo: U.S. Navy

Armaments on the USS Wayne E. Meyer include Mk 41 vertical launch systems. Photo: U.S. Navy

The USS Wayne E. Meyer can carry up to two SH-60 Seahawk helicopters. Photo: U.S. NavyCheck out the news you should not miss today, March 5:

Politics

-- Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang and his spouse were greeted by Bangladeshi President Mohammad Abdul Hamid with a 21-gun salute during an official welcome ceremony as they arrived in Dhaka for a three-day state visit to the South Asian country on Sunday.

-- The U.S. Navys aircraft carrier Carl Vinson is scheduled to be berthed in the central city of Da Nang for a historic five-day visit today, March 5, marking the largest military presence by the U.S. since the war ended in 1975.

Society

-- A mentally ill man managed to pass all security checks to board a Vietnam Airlines flight bound for Ho Chi Minh City at Vinh Airport on Saturday and was detected and asked to leave the aircraft only minutes before takeoff.

-- A refrigerator truck driver was found dead, while a woman traveling with him was in critical conditions over alleged suffocation for sleeping inside the vehicle with all windows closed in the Central Highlands city of Da Lat on Sunday.

Business

-- No cars with less than nine seats were imported into Vietnam in the week ending February 28, after the country observed the Lunar New Year, as importers still fail to meet the stricter requirements set in Decree 116, which is meant to protect the country's domestic auto industry.

-- The managers of Dana-Italy and Dana-Australia, the two steel factories that were last week asked to shut down for causing pollution in the central city of Da Nang, held a meeting on Sunday to apologize to local residents for affecting their lives with the facilities' polluting operations.

-- Vietnams government had to borrow nearly VND30 trillion (US$1.32 billion) to pay interest on public debts and cover regular spending in the first two months of this year, the Ministry of Finance has reported.

Lifestyle

-- The second Bulgarian rose festival will be held from March 8 to 11 by the Embassy of Bulgaria in Vietnam in Hanoi.

Sports

-- Vietnam's star hurdler Nguyen Thi Huyen, who has six Southeast Asian (SEA) Games gold medals under her belt, has suddenly announced her retirement from professional competition, even though she is the country's medal hopeful at the upcoming Asian Games in August.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Representatives of two steel plants in the central Vietnamese city of Da Nang have extended their apologies to local residents for causing environmental pollution that heavily affected their livelihoods.

The public apology was made following a meeting in Van Duong 2 Village, Hoa Lien Commune, Hoa Vang District on Sunday morning.

The gathering focused on making the final decision regarding the operations of the Dana-Y and Dana-Uc Steel Factories.

According to the conclusion of the Da Nang administration, the two plants are required to cease their main activities, which have been the primary cause of environmental pollution in the neighborhood.

The Dana-Y steel factory in Hoa Lien Commune, Hoa Vang District. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment and the Peoples Committee in Hoa Vang District are tasked with making sure the firms comply with the decision.

The two businesses are allowed to maintain other operations.

Following the decision, representatives of the two steel plants took part in a conversation with local residents, during which they apologized for letting the production affect the local environment.

The firms asked the residents to give them time to relocate the factories and build new facilities, explaining that the immediate shutdown of the steel plants would affect more than 1,000 workers.

The Dana-Uc steel factory. Photo: Tuoi Tre

Pham Mai, who resides in Van Duong 2 Village, stated that local people have yet to reach an answer regarding the companies request.

They are willing to help the businesses as long as the firms do the same thing in return, Mai continued, adding that all activities at the factories should be closely monitored from now on.

Mai Son Tho, an official in Van Duong 2, requested the Da Nang administration to provide local residents with new agricultural land because parts of their previous properties had been contaminated by the steel making operations.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!Five staff members of an airport in central Vietnam have been fined for letting a mental patient sneak onto a plane on the weekend.

The penalty has been imposed upon four aviation security employees and an airline procedures officer at Vinh International Airport, located in the namesake city in the north-central province of Nghe An, Tran Hoai Phuong, director of the Northern Airports Authority, confirmed on Sunday evening.

Each of the aviation security personnel was fined VND10 million (US$439) and had their professional certificate revoked for two months, while the airline officer was slapped with a VND4 million ($176) fine.

The employees did not follow the protocols and allowed a mental patient to get on an aircraft, Phuong said, adding that their carelessness had compromised aviation safety.

The Northern Airports Authority will also work with managers of the Vinh airport to prevent similar situations from happening in the future.

According the case file, the incident happened on Saturday afternoon on flight VN1265, operated by national carrier Vietnam Airlines, which was scheduled to fly from Nghe An to Ho Chi Minh City.

The mental patitent was the last one to get on the plane.

As he was taking a long time to look for a seat, a flight attendant asked for his boarding pass and discovered he did not have one.

The cabin crew also found out he was not on the passenger list and coordinated with airport security units to escort the man back to the airdrome.

An investigation later showed that the man was a 21-year-old mental patient, who managed to climb the wall into the airport and pass security checkpoints to get on the aircraft.

His family also presented several documents proving he was being treated at a local hospital.

The patient was then released without any charges.

In late February, three employees were fined VND4 million each for letting a foreign passenger board the wrong flight at Tan Son Nhat International Airport in Ho Chi Minh City.

The passenger got on a plane to Singapore despite buying a ticket to Myanmar.

Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to get the latest news about Vietnam!SKY News will screen a Live panel show, Strong Australia, in which host David Speers will hear from Australian business heads.

The show will visit ten locations, outside Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra discussing jobs growth, innovation and social cohesion in local communities.

It is produced in conjunction with The Business Council of Australia and News Corp Australia, with the first event in Adelaide next week.

Angelos Frangopoulos, CEO Australian News Channel said: Were proud to provide a national broadcast platform that will highlight the issues affecting regional communities across Australia.

Chief Executive of the Business Council of Australia, Jennifer Westacott said: Australians arent interested in the bickering that dominates our political landscape. If politics as usual cant tackle the challenges we face, our joint Strong Australia campaign will help identify the practical, pragmatic solutions we need.

We want to hear from Australians across the nation. Were committed to creating jobs, investment and opportunities and were determined to recognise the contribution business owners and their employees make in these communities.

The first Strong Australia business lunch event will be held on Thursday 15 March in Adelaide focusing on The Future of Work and the South Australian Election.

Melvin Mansell, SA Editorial Director, News Corp Australia said: This is a crucial opportunity for debate that provides the chance for Australians to have a voice, in a forum where their voices will be heard.

Business Council of Australia Chief Executive Jennifer Westacott, together with the Australian CEO of BAE Systems, Gabby Costigan, Chief Executive of Adelaides iconic Haighs Chocolates, Alister Haigh and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Mike Hirst will headline the panel discussion in Adelaide.

For ticketing and venue information visit www.strongaustralia.com.au

Thursday 15 March at 8:00pm AEDT on SKY News.Last night, the 90th Academy Awards ceremony took place in Los Angeles. The evening was hosted by US comedian and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, and the expectations were high for a year filled with truly great films and truly terrible real-life events, particularly surrounding the Film industry. This was the first Oscars since the emergence of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements.

This Oscars ceremony is also the first since the film business has had a chance to respond to the election of US President Donald Trump. In the past year, weve seen films like The Post, which celebrates the free press that Trump likes to insult and put down, and Coco, which celebrates the country of Mexico that Trump likes to insult and put down, and Darkest Hour, which celebrates a competent and beloved historical world leader.

Guillermo del Toros fantasy Cold War romance The Shape of Water had by far the most nominations of the year with thirteen, while Christopher Nolans WWII epic Dunkirk came in second place with eight, and Martin McDonaghs brilliant, topical black comedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in third place with seven. The latter was the first to take home a gong, with Sam Rockwell receiving the Best Supporting Actor award.

Best Picture race was won by The Shape of Water

Facing stiff competition from some of the greatest films in recent memory, this years Best Picture winner was The Shape of Water. It was unsurprising, since that was the film that got the most nominations and therefore the one that the Academy voters enjoyed the most across the board.

This is the same way it usually goes  the film with the most nominations, especially if theyre in both the creative and technical categories, takes home the gold.

The nominees for the Oscar for Best Director were quite varied and diverse. There was Christopher Nolan, the beloved Brit director who shouldve already won by now, Jordan Peele, a rare African-American nominee (just the fourth of all time), Greta Gerwig, a rare female nominee, Boogie Nights and Magnolia legend Paul Thomas Anderson, and the Hispanic visionary Guillermo del Toro.

In the end, the winner of the award was del Toro for helming Best Picture winner The Shape of Water.

The acting categories were a hotly anticipated bunch at this years Oscars. There were a heck of a lot of talented actors nominated who delivered fierce and powerful performances in some of the greatest films of the past year.

The first acting winner announced was Rockwell, and then Allison Janney, who won Best Supporting Actress for her role alongside Margot Robbie in the figure skating biopic I, Tonya. Best Actor went to Gary Oldman, who has finally won after years of being underrated as one of the greatest actors of all time, and Best Actress went to Frances McDormand, who was equally deserving.

Social issues movies won in the writing categories

As for the screenwriting awards, the Best Original Screenplay trophy went to Jordan Peele for his brilliant and unique take on race in America in Get Out, while Best Adapted Screenplay went to Call Me By Your Name, the gay romance film, so they were both issues movies.

And as for the music-based awards, the Oscar for Best Original Score went to The Shape of Water, while Best Original Song went to the beautiful Remember Me from Coco.

And speaking of which, Pixars beautifully touching Coco won Best Animated Feature, so no surprises there. The Chilean film A Fantastic Woman won the award for Best Foreign Language Film. Critically acclaimed sequel Blade Runner 2049 won Best Visual Effects for its richly detailed spectacles, while the mathematically timed and structured Dunkirk won Best Film Editing.Sumitomo Forestry, the lumber division of the Japanese finance and industrial conglomerate, has revealed its plans to construct in Tokyo the world's tallest wooden building, a 350m high skyscraper which would also become the country's highest building. Named W350, the wooden high-rise structure will have a total of 70 stories. Its braced tube structural frame would need 185,000 cubic metres of solid wood combined with steel columns, beams and diagonal braces. Thus W350 won't be a wooden building in the strict sense, as steel would still account for 10 percent of its structural makeup.

The internal braced tubular framework is also necessitated by japans high rates of seismic activity, as it would prevent deformation of the entire structure due to lateral forces exerted by earthquakes or wind. Completion of the proposed hybrid timber skyscraper in 2041 would mark the company's 350th anniversary.

Wooden, wrapped in live plants, and with enormous price tag

Once completed, the ambitious high-rise would be almost four times taller than the world's current tallest timber building, the 18-storey Brock Commons Student Residence in Vancouver. As reported by Dezeen, the skyscraper is designed by Sumitomo's own Tsukuba Research Laboratory who for this project teamed with Tokyo based Nikken Sekkei.

The mixed-use tower will host a hotel together with a menagerie of offices, shops, and some 8,000 apartments. From all sides, the rectangular block will be wrapped in rows of extended balconies adorned with live plants on every level, while the building's interior will be clad in pure solid wood. The planned timber frame landmark won't come cheap, as Sumitomo Forestry estimates its total cost at 4.2 billion, almost double that of a conventional high-rise building of comparable size and height.

Nevertheless, the company indicated they are looking to reduce the gargantuan figure by coming up with a new innovative technology, as it sees W350 a cornerstone of a new global initiative to encourage wider use of timber in cities. Sumitomo believes that wider use of wood in construction would create a more environmentally-friendly urban environment and increase sustainability and biodiversity, as the traditional material during its lifetime stores copious amount of carbon instead of releasing it back into the atmosphere.

High rise wooden structures gain popularity across globe

Even though historically timber buildings dominated Japanese cities, fire risk greatly reduced the use of wood in construction in the country after the Second World War. Yet with the 2010 Act for Promotion of Use of Wood in Public Buildings timber construction in Japan received a major boost, and latest examples of large timber public buildings in Japan include landmarks like the 2020 Tokyo Olympics stadium designed by Kengo Kuma. W350 is the latest in the recent series of timber High Rise buildings planned across the globe. These include a 300m tall addition to the Barbican housing estate in London proposed by PLP Architecture and a timber-framed high rise block designed for Toronto by Penda.

In his recent interview with iNews Andrew Lawrence, Arup structural engineer and timber specialist talked about growing worldwide interest in timber construction due to its sustainability credentials and its potential to speed up construction. Yet he suggested W350's final version would look very different to the current design and might rely on less wood than originally specified. Involved in a comparable project in Amsterdam, Mr Lawrence and his team found it quite challenging to build a 19-storey building comprised of approximately 80 percent wood and 20 percent concrete, as even that material breakdown appeared already pushing the boundaries for what can be achieved with structural wood in construction.A mysterious object was spotted by alien hunters (Picture: Google Earth)

Alien hunters say they have spotted a crash-landed UFO in a Google Earth image of Antarctica.

Extra-terrestrial enthusiasts say they located the mysterious object on South Georgia Island in the Southern Atlantic Ocean.

They claim it could represent a crash-landed spacecraft of some kind.

In the image, the long narrow shape lies in the snow and ice with a trail behind it.

The image was captured and posted online in a video by YouTube channel SecureTeam10, who believe it may indicate there is other life out there in the stars.

Is the truth out there in Antarctica? (Picture: Google Earth)

It appears to be some sort of massive elongated or cigar-shaped object that at some point  and we dont know when  came to a screeching halt in the snow, the alien hunters said.

This could be something which came from the air and crash-landed.

MOST POPULAR TODAY ON YAHOO

However, many observers pointed out that the shape could be anything but out of this world.

Some theorised it was merely a rock that had been pushed along a glacier.

One YouTube viewer said he was stationed on the island with the Royal Navy.

He said: The research station on the island asked us to fly a photographic recce over the entire island to document population and locations of reindeer.

As the photographer on that recce, I can confirm 100 per cent that what you see in the image is just the result of a glacial slide. Sorry.

But other commenters arent so certain.

One said: Healthy scepticism is fine. But this object has left a nearly perfect, symmetrical, evenly-spaced trail behind it for 3,000+ feet.BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium has detained eight people during raids linked to an anti-terrorism investigation, prosecutors said on Monday.

Police raided seven homes on Sunday in the Brussels district of Molenbeek as well as the Flemish towns of Geraardsbergen and Mechelen, the office of the federal prosecutor said, adding that no weapons or explosives had been found.

"A judge specialised in terrorism matters had asked for the home searches to be carried out," the office said.

Newspaper DH had earlier reported that those being held were suspected of planning a militant attack.

Prosecutors did not give any details, but said the case was not connected to the attacks in Paris of November 2015 - which involved Belgian as well as French gunmen - or the Brussels bombings of March 22.

(Reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; editing by Philip Blenkinsop and David Stamp)North Korea may have made up to $200 million last year in cryptocurrency transactions, which they used to bypass international sanctions on Kim Jong Un's nuclear weapons program, according to an expert.

Priscilla Moriuchi, a cybersecurity expert and former U.S. National Security Agency officer, claims Kims regime is estimated to have gathered 11,000 bitcoins last year, as reported by The Korea Times.

If the country sold the bitcoins during its financial peak in December, they would have made around $210 million. However, since January the total value has fallen to $120 million.

Trending: Donald Trump Calls Putin's Nuclear Weapons Display 'Irresponsible' in Calls With Allies

GettyImages-668298262

Getty

According to Moriuchi, the large amount of cryptocurrency was obtained through mininga process that involves gathering recent transactions into blocks and trying to solve a computationally difficult mathematical problem. Once the problem is solved, it builds a so-called "block" that is essentially the currency.

Moriuchi believes North Korea is using bitcoins to subsidize its flagging economy, which is severely burdening by numerous international sanctions over its nuclear program.

Don't miss: Is North Korea Preparing to Attack U.S. Power Plants?

I would bet that these coins are being turned into somethingcurrency or physical goodsthat are supporting North Koreas nuclear and ballistic missile programme, she told Vox.

Last month, President Donald Trump announced harsh new sanctions against the regime, after the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang came to an end along with a lull in Korean Peninsula tensions. The intent of the sanctions is to cut off North Koreas funds until it has no choice but to start negotiations over its escalating nuclear weapons program. The cryptocurrency could help enable the regime to evade these sanctions.

Story continues

Moriuchi believes Pyongyang has already constructed a network of cyber operations bases in other countries, such as China and various parts of Southeast Asia where the mining takes place. In order to block these efforts, Moriuchi said more needs to be done to better regulate cryptocurrency exchanges.

Most popular: Even Bill Clintons Friends Dont Seem to Want His Support in the #MeToo Era

That helps create a paper trail we can use to identify North Korean accounts and how North Korea is moving these currencies, she said.

In recent years, North Korea has proven itself to be a growing criminal cyberthreat. Last December, the U.S. claimed Pyongyang was behind the infamous WannaCry ransomware that affected more than 200,000 victims in 150 countries and brought the U.K.s National Health Service to a screeching halt. The cyber attack also resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of operations.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekScientists have finally succeeded in producing a strange phenomenon they've been hunting for more than 50 years now. Called a Shankar skyrmion, it's a knot of matter looped together by twisted magnetic fields that, just like a giant tangle of yarn, often only gets tighter when you pull on a string.

When the team of scientists created this weird structure in a quantum material, they realized it looked awfully familiar: Now they think its secrets might help explain a dramatically long-lived type of lightning. That's all according to a recent paper published in the journal Science Advances, which outlines the new discovery and its possible implications.

03_05_skyrmion_ball_lightning

Heikka Valja

Trending: Putin Promises to Protect Russians Indicted by Mueller Investigation, Says Hell Never Allow the U.S. to Extradite Citizens

The biggest moment was when we realized we got the same electromagnetic fields as predicted for ball lightning, co-author Mikko Mottonen, a quantum computing researcher at Aalto University in Finland, told Gizmodo. We didnt aim for that. But wow.

Mottonen and his colleagues started with a Bose-Einstein condensate, an incredibly weird state of matter beyond the traditional solid, liquid and gas. To make a Bose-Einstein condensate, scientists take rubidium gas and cool it way down to just above absolute zero, but in such a way that it doesn't freeze solid like orderly ice. Instead, it becomes a wacky mess of particles all in the same quantum state.

Read more: Watch Stephen Hawking Explain What He Thinks Came Before the Big Bang

Don't miss: WhatsApp New Feature: Users May Soon Have an Hour to Recall Embarrassing Chats

Then, the team applied a loopy magnetic field, which successfully knotted the quantum gas to produce the skyrmion in three dimensions. And by looking closely at the skyrmion, they were able to study its magnetic fieldwhich they realized was exactly what happens in ball lightning.

Story continues

That's a strange form of lightning that forms knots of light that can last several seconds (a normal lightning strike is over in tens of microseconds). Scientists have been suspicious for a while now that ball lightning was built by magnet fields, but didn't have much proof. The skyrmion work isn't proof either, but it suggests they're on the right track.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekInvestigators were trying to figure out why a Central Michigan University student charged with fatally shooting his parents acted so strangely the day before the killings that he was taken to a hospital.

The shooting happened Friday after James Eric Davis Jr.'s parents picked him up from that hospital and brought him to his dorm to pack up for spring break. University police Chief Bill Yeagley said the 19-year-old can be seen on video in the dorm's parking lot with the gun before he entered the residence hall where his parents were shot around 8:30 a.m.

Davis Jr. has been charged with two counts of murder and a weapons charge in the shootings of his father, Eric Davis Sr., and mother, Diva Davis, university spokeswoman Heather Smith said. Davis Sr. was a part-time police officer in Bellwood, Illinois, and Yeagley said the gun used by Davis Jr. belonged to his father.

At a press conference Saturday, Yeagley declined to say whether drugs were found in Davis Jr.'s system. He declined to say what type of gun was used or whether it was his father's service revolver.

Davis Jr. was initially taken to a hospital after his arrest early Saturday but will be moved to a jail once he's discharged. It was not immediately clear when he will make his first court appearance.

Authorities said Davis Jr. fled after the shootings, prompting an intensive manhunt in the area. He was arrested without incident shortly after midnight when someone aboard a train spotted a person along railroad tracks in Mount Pleasant, and called police, Yeagley said.

Central Michigan is at Mount Pleasant, about a 285-mile (460-kilometer) drive from the family's hometown of Plainfield, Illinois, in south suburban Chicago. The shooting occurred on a day when parents were arriving to pick up students at the university for the beginning of a weeklong spring break.

Yeagley said witness statements and video indicate that at the time they were shot, Davis Jr.'s parents were in his fourth-floor dorm at the campus' Campbell Hall "simply packing up for spring break."

Story continues

Davis Sr. had been a longtime member of the Illinois Army National Guard, serving in the Iraq War and later as a recruiter, according to Illinois National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Brad Leighton.

An officer was so concerned about Davis Jr.'s erratic behavior that he had spoken to his mother about possible drug use before the parents arrived on campus.

"The mother said she too was concerned this could be drugs," he said.

Yeagley said Davis Jr. had not been previously identified by campus officials as someone that others on campus were concerned about.

"Mr. Davis was not ever reported, and we had no interaction that we're aware of with him in any negative fashion  with anybody  prior to this incident," he said.

University President George E. Ross said the shooting had left the campus and surrounding community traumatized. "There were thousands of people who were sheltering in place yesterday and they will be dealing with this for the rest of their lives," he said.

See Also:Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) former leader Saleh Muslim is escorted to a Czech court, which will rule on his custody pending extradition proceedings requested by Turkey, in Prague, Czech Republic, February 27, 2018. REUTERS/David W Cerny

By Ali Kucukgocmen and Matthias Baehr

ISTANBUL/BERLIN (Reuters) - Turkey said on Monday it had issued a second extradition request for Syrian Kurdish leader Saleh Muslim, calling for his temporary detention and extradition from Germany after a Czech court released him last week.

The issue is likely to come up when Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu meets German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel in Berlin on Tuesday. German ministry officials confirmed the planned meeting but gave no further details.

Muslim, who formerly headed the PYD, Syria's main Kurdish party, was detained in Prague last week at Turkey's request.

On Saturday, at a demonstration attended by thousands of Kurds in Berlin, Muslim called for an immediate halt to Turkey's military operation in the Afrin region in northern Syria.

"The situation is very miserable ... hundreds of civilians being killed," Muslim told Reuters TV. "Germany should not support them. Turkey is now attacking, mostly using German weapons ... This is support for state terrorism."

Ankara considers the PYD and its YPG armed group terrorist organisations and says Muslim is linked to two bombings in the capital Ankara that killed dozens. Turkey sees both groups as extensions of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, which has waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast.

A Czech court ruled for Muslim's release, a move Turkey described as political, against international law and "clear support for terror". Ankara has said it would pursue Muslim "wherever he goes".

Muslim has said the allegations against him are false. He has also said he will remain in European Union territory and cooperate in any further proceedings.

Ankara requested Muslim's temporary detention and extradition from Germany on Friday but Berlin has yet to comply, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Monday.

"German authorities had to take measures and comply with the law between two countries, but unfortunately they have not complied," Bozdag, the main government spokesman, told a news conference. "We will... continue to invite Germany to act honestly and sincerely."

Story continues

German officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the extradition request, which could complicate efforts by the two NATO allies to begin repairing their strained diplomatic relations.

Ankara launched a military operation inside Syria six weeks ago to sweep YPG fighters from its southern border.

Relations between Turkey and Europe have soured in the aftermath of a 2016 failed coup, as President Tayyip Erdogan has overseen a sweeping crackdown. More than 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs, and more than 50,000 detained. Turkey says the measures are necessary for its security.

A Turkish court last month freed a German-Turkish journalist pending trial after indicting him for alleged security offences, a move that had been seen as potentially leading to an easing of tensions between the two NATO allies.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr and Andrea Shalal in Berlin; Editing by David Dolan and Andrew Heavens)By Idrees Ali

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon acknowledged on Monday that a Turkish offensive against a U.S.-backed militia in Syria had affected the fight against Islamic State and led to an "operational pause" in eastern Syria.

The United States and Turkey, while themselves allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, have diverging interests in the Syrian civil war, with Washington focused on defeating Islamic State and Ankara keen to prevent Syrias Kurds from gaining autonomy and fuelling Kurdish insurgents on its soil.

Turkey launched an offensive on Afrin in January to drive out the Kurdish YPG militia, which it regards as a terrorist group and as an extension of a Kurdish insurgency at home.

Pentagon spokesman Colonel Robert Manning told reporters that the pause meant that some ground operations by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed umbrella group dominated by the YPG, had been temporarily put on hold. Manning said air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State had not been affected and the SDF continue to hold territory taken back from the militant group.

While much of the fighting against Islamic State has moved to small pockets, the United States still needs the YPG to hold territory, ensuring that the Islamist militant group does not re-emerge.

Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway, another Pentagon spokesman, said the U.S. military had seen SDF fighters leave the fight against Islamic State.

"Some fighters operating within the SDF have decided to leave operations in the middle Euphrates river valley to fight elsewhere, possibly in Afrin," Galloway said.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said hundreds of SDF fighters had left the middle Euphrates river valley in the past two weeks.

Turkey has been enraged by U.S. support for the YPG, which Ankara views as a terrorist organization. Washington has backed the YPG in the fight against Islamic State in Syria.

Story continues

Last week, U.S. Army General Joseph Votel, the head of U.S. Central Command, said Turkish activity in Afrin was distracting from the fight against Islamic State.

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on Feb. 24 demanding a full month-long ceasefire across Syria excepting only groups that it had designated as terrorists.

Turkey has said the ceasefire resolution does not apply to the YPG and has rejected Western calls for it to implement the truce.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by James Dalgleish)By Minh Nguyen

DANANG, Vietnam (Reuters) - A U.S. aircraft carrier arrived in Vietnam on Monday for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War, dramatically underscoring the growing strategic ties between the former foes at a time when China's regional influence is rising.

The imposing grey silhouette of the USS Carl Vinson could be seen from the cliff tops just outside the central Vietnamese city of Danang, where the 103,000-tonne carrier and two other U.S. ships begin a five-day visit.

"The visit marks an enormously significant milestone in our bilateral relations and demonstrates U.S. support for a strong, prosperous and independent Vietnam," Daniel Kritenbrink, the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, said in a statement.

"Through hard work, mutual respect, and by continuing to address the past while we work toward a better future, we have gone from former enemies to close partners."

The arrival of the Vinson marks the biggest U.S. military presence in Vietnam since 1975 - but it also illustrates Hanoi's complex and evolving relationship with Beijing over the disputed South China Sea as China announced its largest rise in defence spending in three years.

Vietnamese envoys had been working for months to ease the concerns of their giant Chinese neighbour over the visit and the prospect of broader security cooperation between Hanoi and Washington, according to diplomats and others familiar with the talks.

U.S. carriers frequently cross the South China Sea in a rising pattern of naval deployments, and are now routinely shadowed by Chinese naval vessels, naval officers in the region say.

"We've met with numerous international entities. We've seen several, so yes, we've seen Chinese ships," Rear Admiral John Fuller, Commander, Carrier Strike Group 1, told reporters in Danang. "We've seen other ships out there, so nothing extraordinary. It's been a routine deployment and everything we've seen has been exceptionally professional."

Story continues

China's rapid construction and build-up of the land it holds in the disputed Spratly islands group has alarmed Vietnam and other regional governments as it seeks to enforce its claims to much of the disputed waterway, through which some $3 trillion in trade passes each year.

While some Chinese commentators have used the Vinson's presence to demand an even greater Chinese military build-up in the South China Sea, official reaction from Beijing has been relatively muted since the stop was announced in January.

That announcement came during a two-day visit to Hanoi by U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and followed months of backroom military diplomacy between Hanoi and the Pentagon.

Although no U.S. aircraft carrier has been to Vietnam since the end of the war, other, smaller U.S. warships have made high-level visits.

Those include a 2016 visit by submarine tender USS Frank Cable and guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain to Cam Ranh Bay, a crucial logistics complex during the Vietnam War.

A U.S. Navy band will play a concert in Danang during the Vinson's visit, and sailors from the carrier are to spend time at a treatment centre for people who were exposed to Agent Orange chemicals during the war.

(Writing by James Pearson; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Nick Macfie)FILE PHOTO: Norwegian sovereign wealth fund (SWF) CEO Yngve Slyngstad listens during an interview in Oslo, Norway, June 2, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo

Thomson Reuters

By Alister Doyle Environment Correspondent

OSLO (Reuters) - Many Norwegian companies lag high standards for reporting their impact on the environment that the Nordic nation's $1 trillion wealth fund is championing abroad in 2018.

The world's biggest sovereign wealth fund, which is barred by the Norwegian government from investing at home, wants the 9,100 companies in which it holds stakes to submit data on issues such as water use and climate effects to London-based non-profit group CDP, formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project.

In Norway, just two firms - DNB bank and property firm Entra - were on a CDP list of 160 "A" rated performers worldwide for disclosure in 2017. That was comparable to other Nordic nations but not exemplary, CDP data show.

Norway's state-controlled oil group Statoil got an "F" grade for disclosure of fresh water use - a core focus area for the fund abroad - after it declined to take part in the CDP survey.

On climate change reporting, including tracking greenhouse gas emissions, Statoil got a strong "A-".

"It's not our responsibility" to ensure that Norwegian firms comply, central bank governor Oeystein Olsen told Reuters when asked if Oslo was pressing higher standards abroad than at home. The wealth fund is managed by a unit of the central bank.

CDP said there were no Norwegian firms, for instance, among almost 100 companies including L'Oreal , Walmart and Toyota <6201.T> rated as leaders in tracking greenhouse gas emissions in their supply chains.

"If Norwegian companies want to take a leadership role on climate change they should be engaging with their suppliers on these issues," said Sonya Bhonsle, head of supply chain at CDP.

Norway's fund, built from the nation's oil and gas revenues, says global warming is stoking downpours, droughts and rising sea levels that threaten long-term earnings. It says investors need harmonized data to compare risks.

Story continues

Its policies, such as restricting investments in coal companies, have huge influence for companies and investors because it owns on average 1.4 percent of all listed shares worldwide.

Yngve Slyngstad, the fund's CEO, said it encouraged companies abroad to "strengthen their reporting in general, directly to the investors, but also indirectly through the CDP". Few companies are doing enough on climate change, he said.

SEA WATER

Statoil spokesman Erik Haaland said the company did not take part in the CDP fresh water survey because most of the firm's operations are offshore, using abundant sea water. Statoil has water-intensive shale oil and gas in the United States.

"Also, the questionnaire is quite extensive, and since the issue is less material for our operations we made the decision to not take part," he said.

Asked if the government had a double standard, Norway's deputy Finance Minister Geir Olsen wrote in an e-mail that the ministry "welcomes efforts to standardize climate reporting according to internationally agreed principles."

The finance ministry oversees the sovereign wealth fund.

Martin Skancke, a consultant on the design of sovereign wealth funds, said "obviously there is a reasonable expectation that when the government promotes these standards through the fund in foreign markets that it also promotes them internally".

He said that, from his own experience on boards of Norwegian companies, the center-right government does urge companies to disclose environmental data. He said it was hard to estimate the extra costs of such reporting.

Among other Norwegian companies, state-controlled telecoms group Telenor got an "A-" for climate change reporting in 2017, while aluminum producer Hydro and fertilizer-maker Yara International , in which the state owns just over a third, got "C"s.

Hydro said it had reported to the CDP since 2004 but lost marks on technicalities.

"When filling in the CDP questionnaire, we are more occupied about reporting quality information requested by important stakeholders, than exactly following the CDP format," it said in an e-mail.

Yara spokeswoman Kristin Nordal said the company halved its greenhouse gas emissions between 2004 and 2013.

"We will certainly not claim to have all the answers in place on issues such as climate and water, and we are presently going through a strategic process to further improve our response to sustainability matters," she said.

Abroad, the companies in which the fund has the biggest holdings - Apple Inc and Nestle - both got "A" grades from CDP for climate change reporting.

On fresh water use, most big foreign energy companies joined Statoil in declining to take part in the CDP water survey. Exceptions included Total and Neste Oy .

(Reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Mark Potter)

See Also:Germany's Social Democratic Party (SPD) has backed a great coalition again, putting an end to six months of political uncertainty, while handing Chancellor Angela Merkel her fourth consecutive term in power.

At the weekend, the SPD announced that 66.02% of its loyal and faithful had voted in favour of the deal with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

The first time that the SPD joined Merkels CDU in government was in 2005 and the second one in 2013, pushing through several key pieces of legislation in exchange, including on higher minimum wages, setting the age of retirement at 63 years and legalising homosexual marriage, among other measures.

In the September elections last year, Merkels party fell short of an absolute majority, but so too the SPD, led by Martin Schulz, failed to capitalise on voter discontent, setting the scene for negotiations on forming a third grand coalition.

Angela Merkel congratulated her new coalition partners via Twitter, saying that she "looks forward to working together again for the benefit of our country.

Next week, the SPD will announce the six ministers it has chosen to represent it in the coalition, although it had already indicated that it would opt for three men and three women, with some of them being new faces while others had served as ministers during the previous cabinets.

Experts at Deutsche Bank said, "the appearance of a post-Schaeuble pro-European policy stance by Germany is a buffer against the potential risks from Italy. This morning, the euro initially strengthened on Germanys developments but pared back gains to be marginally lower following news from Italy."European stocks are continuing to move higher, save in Italy, where traders are still assessing the unexpected results from the country's parliamentart elections which appear to indicate the country's main anti-establishment parties came away with half of the votes.

Also weighing on sentiment, on Saturday US president Donald Trump threatened to target European carmakers with additional levies if Brussels retaliated against the White House's new tariffs on aluminium and steel.

"This constitutes a "mass populist rebellion", not just for Italy but also for the European Union, said Saxo Bank FX strategist John J. Hardy.

In particular, Hardy pointed out that a government in Rome led by the 5Star party would slow down progress towards banking union in the single currency bloc.

With 94% of votes counted, according to Italy's Interior Ministry the 5Star party came away with 32.20% of the ballots cast - roughly five percentage points more than expected - while the Lega party garnered 17.71% of the vote, five percentage points more than Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia.

As of 1150 GMT, the benchmark Stoxx 600 was trading 0.55% or 2.01 points higher at 369.05, alongside a 0.26% or 13.43 point gain on the Cac-40 to 5,150.09, while Spain's Ibex 35 was adding 0.43% or 40.70 points to 9,571.80.

Meanwhile, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Italian government bond was five basis point higher to 2.02% and that on similarly-dated Spanish debt down by four basis points at 1.52%.

In parallel, the FTSE Mibtel had come off its worst levels of the day but was still trading lower, erasing 0.42% to 21,819.26, led by falls in shares of Italy's main lenders, Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena, UniCredit, UBI Banca, Intesa Sanpaolo, Mediobanca and Assicurazioni Generali.

Commenting on the results of Sunday's Italian vote, economists at Berenberg said: "The outlook for further pro-growth reforms in Italy looks dim for now. Instead, Italy could be heading for partial reform reversals and an increase in public spending that may lead to some conflict with Italy's partners in the EU.

"If the 5Stars focus more on their anti-corruption drive than their expensive spending promises, the outlook may be less concerning."

But it wasn't all bad news at the start of the week.

Also on Sunday, it was announced that 66% of the German SPD party's voters had backed forming a grand coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU/CSU, putting an end to the longest political impasse in modern German history.

Significantly, the coalition programme called for a focus on domestic issues and euro area reforms.

Nonetheless, economists at Barclays Research cautioned that: "any reform requiring either implicit or explicit German fiscal backing, such as debt mutualisation or the establishment of a euro area Finance Minster with an independent budget, seems unlikely in our view.

"Any such reform would also need support from all member states and, following Prime Minister Rutte's remarks on Friday, the Netherlands would likely oppose it."

Against that backdrop, come Monday morning strategists at JP Morgan reiterated their 'overweight' stance on Eurozone equities, citing - among other factors - stocks' "undemanding" valuations relative to fixed income.

Weak economic data

On the economic front, IHS Markit's 'final' euro area service sector purchasing managers' index for January printed at 56.1, which was below a preliminary reading of 56.7 and far beneath January's print of 56.8.

The chief reason for the downward revision was a lower-than-expected print on the French PMI of 57.3, versus a preliminary estimate of 57.8.

Data on euro area retail sales volumes for January was also short of the mark, revealing a dip of 0.1% month-on-month (consensus: 0.3%).

However, according to Eurostat, in year-on-year terms they advanced by 2.3% (consensus: 2.0%).

Meanwhile, ELSTAT reported that Greece's gross domestic product edged higher by just 0.1% quarter-on-quarter over the three months ending in December (Barclays: 0.5%).

Axa craters

In the corporate space, France's Axa agreed to buy American property and casualty peer XL Group for about $15.3bn in cash, for a 33% premium versus XL's closing price on Friday.

Elsewhere, it was reported that Airbus would move to slash its headcount by 3,600 people in the wake of lower rates of production for its A380 and A400M models.

At the weekend, Siemens announced a pricing range for the upcoming initial public offering of its Healthineers unit of between 26 and 31 a share, for a total valuation ranging from 26-30bn.London's FTSE 100 was up 0.2% to 7,080.20 in afternoon trade on Monday, with paper and packaging companies leading the gains on the back of a Goldman note.

Smurfit Kappa and DS Smith were the top gainers as Goldman Sachs put out a note on packaging and paper.

Goldman said it likes Smurfit in the packaging space, along with Mondi, which had been trading up earlier. The bank said it expects Smurfit and Mondi to benefit from already achieved price increases throughout 2017 and continuous solid demand.

"Smurfit Kappa Group and DS Smith, two of the biggest box producers in Europe are targeting box prices after rising input costs through 2017 caused margin contraction. At 4Q results, Smurfit highlighted it had achieved a 5% box price increase and remained confident in achieving the 6%-8% it guided for earlier in 2017.

"DS Smith is targeting an 8%-10% increase and had achieved around 3.5% at 1H18 results and price increases are progressing in line with expectations. We expect the recovery to continue in 1H18 and drive a margin expansion in 2018 as producers benefit from already achieved box prices and get additional gains in 1H18 contract negotiations."

GS upped its price target on Smurfit Kappa to 3,000p from 2,700p.

Housebuilder Persimmon was in the black even as PM Theresa May revealed a new planning policy framework to force councils to hit house-building targets. May said in a speech in London that developers need to do their bit, with those slow to build new homes at risk of being refused planning permission in future. She also said the bonuses being paid to the heads of some of the biggest developers are based not on the number of homes built but on their profits or share price.

Property investment and development company Segro was on the front foot after an upgrade to 'buy' from Stifel.

London Stock Exchange was in the black following a report that it has brought in Simon Collins, a former UK chairman of KPMG, to head up an independent review of last year's boardroom crisis.

Sky News reported over the weekend that LSE chairman Donald Brydon has written to its 20 largest shareholders to inform them of the review.

Ashtead was on the front foot ahead of its third-quarter update on Tuesday, which is expected to show strong trading and yield improvement.

Risers

Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) 2,526.00p 3.95%

Smith (DS) (SMDS) 473.60p 3.00%

Persimmon (PSN) 2,643.00p 2.28%

CRH (CRH) 2,448.00p 2.04%

Ashtead Group (AHT) 2,035.00p 1.83%

SEGRO (SGRO) 581.60p 1.64%

Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,680.81p 1.44%

Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 457.39p 1.37%

London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) 3,885.00p 1.25%

Old Mutual (OML) 249.00p 1.22%

Fallers

Rentokil Initial (RTO) 265.30p -2.64%

Evraz (EVR) 438.10p -1.40%

Mediclinic International (MDC) 566.40p -1.39%

British American Tobacco (BATS) 4,167.00p -1.26%

ITV (ITV) 152.15p -1.14%

Standard Life Aberdeen (SLA) 363.00p -0.87%

Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 5,890.00p -0.84%

HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 699.10p -0.84%

Associated British Foods (ABF) 2,587.00p -0.77%

Glencore (GLEN) 361.85p -0.73%Whether it is gazing at the stars in the George E. Coleman Sr. Planetarium, designing objects with a 3D printer, listening to a NASA physicist, or engaging with robots, children and adults alike will be able to get their fill of science at University of North Georgia's (UNG) Science Festival.

Funded by a Presidential Innovation Award, the inaugural event will run from Friday, March 23, to Sunday, March 25, on UNG's Dahlonega Campus and sites nearby on Dahlonega's downtown square. Events include planetarium shows, science talks from UNG faculty and guests, science panels, and guest authors.

Authors scheduled to speak are NASA physicist Les Johnson, Emory University paleontologist Anthony Martin and James Costa, executive director of the Highlands Biological Station in North Carolina. Their inclusion is a result of a collaboration between the UNG Science Festival and the Dahlonega Literary Festival, which falls on the same weekend.

"It was a happy accident," said Dr. Sonny Mantry, assistant professor of physics at UNG, referring to the both festivals falling on the same weekend.

Dr. Donna Governor, assistant professor of science education at UNG, explained the idea for the festival came out of the Science Cafe, which is a social hour and dinner followed by a guest speaker talking about scientific subjects.

"At one of the Science Cafe events, I mentioned sponsoring a science festival to Sonny, Governor said. "I didn't expect him to bite, but he did. So here we are."

The two reached out to other science-based faculty and staff members to help plan and participate in the science festival. Dr. Lesley Simanton-Coogan, lecturer of physics at UNG and planetarium director, volunteered to help on both counts.

"The point of the planetarium is to do outreach with the community and get people excited about science, and with the planetarium you could not get a more perfect fit than with the festival," she said.

Simanton-Coogan said the planetarium will present its current Friday night show "IBEX: Search for the Edge of the Solar System" along with two new shows that she wrote. They are "Harry Potter Astronomy" and "Meet the Dwarf Planets." She said the current show focuses on the Interstellar Boundary Explorer mapping the edge of the solar system plus views of the current night sky and recent discoveries.

She explained "Harry Potter Astronomy" will look at the astronomy class and characters mentioned in Harry Potter books written by J.K. Rowling. The second, "Meet the Dwarf Planets," will focus on Pluto and other objects like it.

"We will learn about what dwarf planets are and what they look like," Simanton-Coogan said.

Children and adults attending the UNG Science Festival will not be the only ones learning. UNG students will survey participants for feedback about the festival.

"We want to know why they are coming and what they are getting out of it," said Dr. Gina Childers, assistant professor of secondary education. "We also want to know what works and what doesn't and what will bring them back next year."

The main goal for the organizers of the UNG Science Festival, however, is to bridge the gap between science and the community.

"We want to make science accessible and fun," Childers said.

For more information, visit the Dahlonega Science Council website and click on the science festival tab or visit the UNG Planetarium webpage on the festival.Citrus County School District Superintendent Sandra Himmel issued a statement after it was discovered that a teacher was hosting an alleged White Nationalist podcast. Himmel had Human Resources begin an investigation and later discovered the teacher was Dayanna Volitich, who is a social studies teacher at Crystal River Middle School.

Podcast was called 'Unapologetic'

According to the Huffington Post, Volitich secretly recorded a controversial white nationalist podcast called "Unapologetic." The podcast was created by someone with the alias of Tiana Dalichov.

Volitich was known to brag about teaching her views to her students. The podcast was uploaded to Tunein.com. Her podcast is described as a wild ride discussing a variety of topics. In the first episode, Volitich says Islam is an ideology and that its end goal is the destruction of Western culture.

During the February 26 episode, Volitich had a guest on who said that kids from different parts of the world are supposed to learn the same and have the same IQ. Volitich later said that science has proven that some races are smarter than others. Volitich also agreed with her guest, who said that more white supremacists are needed in public schools, serving as teachers. She later said that it's best if they do it covertly.

School investigating the revelations

During the 2015-2016 school year, the school was made up of 90 percent white students, four percent black students and three percent Hispanic students. School District Director of Educational Services Scott Hebert, says the district is looking into the comments made in the podcast and will determine whether her actions violated district policy or code of ethics.

Herbert later said that her views are not in line with the district's.

Parents have already complained about Volitich's teaching, but she managed to slip by because she lied to the principal. In the beginning, it was unclear whether Volitich was Dalichov, but after comparing records from social media accounts, such as photos, employment background, and history, they discovered they were the same person.

Volitich has since scrubbed all her previous online activity. Volitich has not said anything about the incident or her teaching methods to anyone. While the district continues to investigate, it's unclear what they will do once they are done with their investigation. The school itself has also not said anything about the incident or Volitich herself.On Friday, Donald Trump agreed to declassify the controversial Nunes memo that accused the FBI of bias against the president. After the memo was made public, the consensus was that no credible information had been revealed, though Fox News had a different take on the information presented.

MSNBC vs Fox News

It's no secret that media outlets report on Donald Trump in different ways. Some are more favorable, and others appear to have an ax to grind. When it comes to mainstream cable news channels, those who are critical of the president and the administration tend to stick with CNN and MSNBC, while supporters become glued onto Fox News.

In regards to the four page memo put together by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, no hard hitting evidence was revealed, though those on Fox News painted the release as a major bombshell, with Sean Hannity calling it one of biggest scandals since Watergate. Fox and the memo in question were on display during the February 2 edition of "Deadline: White House" on MSNBC.

"This memo is like Al Capone's safe. The difference is when Geraldo opened the safe and there was nothing there, back in those days there wasn't a TV network dedicated to telling you that in fact there was great treasure in the empty safe" - @SteveSchmidtSES w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/UTBn8cPZtQ  Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) February 2, 2018

Joining host Nicolle Wallace was former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt as the two ripped into Fox News for their role in constantly supporting Donald Trump.

"We remember the big nothing-burger of Geraldo and Al Capones safe," Schmidt said in reference to Geraldo Rivera's attempt to uncover a big mystery in gangster Al Capone's vault that turned out to be empty. "This memo is like Al Capones safe and Geraldo, its a big nothing," he added.

Steve Schmidt went on to point out the irony that Geraldo was a guest on Sean Hannity's show the previous night speaking about the Nunes memo, before Nicolle Wallace chimed in and declared the conservative network "state-run media essentially functioning to sort of obscure and cover up and distort the reality." Wallace doubled down and added that Fox News were the first to see the memo, saying, "there wasnt even a pretense of releasing the memo for the public good or for all citizens, simply to the viewers of Fox News."

Next up

While Fox News continues to be a political safe space for the Donald Trump administration, the majority of the other major news outlets in the country have been holding the president's feet to the fire over a wide-range of issues.

After just over a year in office, Trump's war of words with the media has expanded to an attack on the FBI and Department of Justice, as well as anyone or any organization that isn't loyal to his agenda 100 percent of the time.After passing their controversial tax cuts, Republicans have been quick to gloat anytime a corporation has announced raises or bonuses for their workers. For House Speaker Paul Ryan, he decided to brag about a local school secretary's pay increase, but it didn't go over well on Twitter.

Ryan's blunder

The Republican tax plan claims to put money back in the pocket of middle class Americans, but critics and Democratic rivals say otherwise. The majority of the benefits of the tax bill are going to the top one percent, with experts predicting that $1.7 trillion will be added to the national debt over the course of the next decade.

While some businesses have announced bonuses and raises, many have remained skeptical as to whether or not the tax bill was the source of the decision. As reported by Mediaite on February 3, House Speaker Paul Ryan came under fire after bringing attention to the modest raise given to school secretary.

Twitter Blows Up After Paul Ryan Hypes Tax Cuts By Highlighting Secretarys $1.50 a Week Pay Increase https://t.co/okU3PZbL3p pic.twitter.com/iEg6ZZEpgh  Mediaite (@Mediaite) February 3, 2018

Taking to Twitter on Saturday morning, Paul Ryan retweeted an article from the Associated Press about the increase in workers' paychecks. "A secretary at a public high school in Lancaster, PA said she was surprised her pay went up $1.50 a week," Ryan wrote, adding, "she said (that) will more than cover her Costco membership for the year." Ryan has since deleted the tweet after facing backlash which went viral across social media.

Instant backlash

As expected, critics of the tax cut were quick to lash out. "I don't know that this is something to tout. A check for $1,000 is a big deal for many people...I understand why elected officials promote that. But $1.50 a week shouldn't be put up as an example," Yashar Ali of New York Magazine tweeted out.

I don't know that this is something to tout. A check for $1,000 is a big deal for many people...I understand why elected officials promote that. But $1.50 a week shouldn't be put up as an example. pic.twitter.com/YeF0yjGKxM  Yashar Ali  (@yashar) February 3, 2018

@PRyan I am a middle class worker in SW Ohio and I didnt see my taxes go down a measly $1.50 per week Paul Ryan touted today ....Republicans raised my taxes and are giving it to their rich donors #Fraudsters  Joshua Birkenhauer (@TheBirkenhauer) February 3, 2018

"A dollar fifty.

A dollar fu**ing fifty. Plant this man in a fu**ing volcano," Drew Magary of Deadspin tweeted. "Youre a horrible person. How much did Lyin Donny profit from this while we should be thankful for $1.50 a week?? Vile demon," a tweet went on to read.

A dollar fifty. A dollar fucking fifty. Plant this man in a fucking volcano. https://t.co/y109lajTAF  Drew Magary (@drewmagary) February 3, 2018

Read this amazing retweet by Brian that Paul Ryan posted and then deleted. Then retweet for all to see. $1.50 per hour raise - Are you kidding me? https://t.co/sRZ10sFgoX  Maxine (@MaxineMikki) February 3, 2018

@SpeakerRyan !! Youre a horrible person. How much did Lyin Donny profit from this while we should be thankful for $1.50 a week?? Vile demon. https://t.co/IwOW63D7Oo  Dan Daniels (@DanDaniels123) February 3, 2018

"I am a middle class worker in SW Ohio and I didnt see my taxes go down a measly $1.50 per week Paul Ryan touted today....Republicans raised my taxes and are giving it to their rich donors," an additional tweet added.

"Just when I thought it was impossible to think any less of Paul Ryan...this. What an epic tool," a follow-up tweet stated. As of press time, neither Ryan nor his office have issued a response to the criticism over the deleted tweet, while Republicans are expected to continue to promote the tax cut.Less than 24 hours after declassifying the controversial Nunes memo, Donald Trump decided to sound off on social media. Following his tweets, he was quickly met with criticism over a basic grammar error.

Trump on Twitter

It's been just over a year since Donald Trump has been in the White House, and he's been forced to deal with allegations of being in cahoots with Russia during the Kremlin's reported hacking of the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 election. Despite Trump's denial, several well-respected news outlets and government agencies have concluded that Russia hacked the election, leading to an investigation attempting to uncover whether or not the president worked with the rival nation.

This memo totally vindicates Trump in probe. But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on. Their was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2018

In response, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes concluded a nine month investigation by accusing the FBI and Justice Department of being bias against Trump, culminating in a controversial memo of his findings that was released on Friday. Commenting on this issues was Trump during a February 3 rant on Twitter. Taking to Twitter on Saturday morning, Donald Trump was defiant over the Nunes memo.

"This memo totally vindicates 'Trump' in probe,'" the president tweeted out, while speaking in the third person, before adding, "But the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on,"

* There

and yes,

you are an American disgrace.



By the way, why was Carter Page, someone who had been under surveillance since 2013 for his suspicious contacts with Russia, given any role to play in your campaign?  Jim Sylvester (@JVSylvester) February 3, 2018

What kind of President types "Their" and "there" in the same sentence?   Tony Palmer (@tonypav70) February 3, 2018

"Their was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead)," Donald Trump went on to tweet, while using the incorrect form of the world "there" by tweeting "their." "This is an American disgrace!" he added, but not before critics could point out his grammar error.

Rasmussen just announced that my approval rating jumped to 49%, a far better number than I had in winning the Election, and higher than certain sacred cows. Other Trump polls are way up also. So why does the media refuse to write this? Oh well, someday!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 3, 2018

Trump on approval

In another tweet on Saturday morning, Donald Trump cherry picked a conservative-leaning poll to cite his current approval with the American people.

"Rasmussen just announced that my approval rating jumped to 49%, a far better number than I had in winning the Election, and higher than certain 'sacred cows,'" he posted. Not stopping there, the commander in chief doubled down on his attack on the media. "Other Trump polls are way up also. So why does the media refuse to write this?" Trump wondered, before adding, "Oh well, someday!"

While Trump's approval has increased in recent weeks, a recent CNN poll put the president's favorable rating at 42 percent, the 49 percent cited in the tweet is relegated to the one Rasmussen poll that is known to have a right-wing slant. With 2018 just five weeks old, only time will tell how the rest of the year plays out.Over the last week and through the weekend, Donald Trump has faced an onslaught criticism due to a variety of issues plaguing the administration. After Sarah Huckabee Sanders did her best to defend the president, those who oppose the administration wasted no time firing back.

Reporter: Sam Nunberg, on MSNBC said, "[the president] may have done something during the election but I don't know that for sure."@PressSec: He definitely doesn't know that for sure because he is incorrect. https://t.co/JVcXqz7cqj pic.twitter.com/U1jnQVztxX  CBS News (@CBSNews) March 5, 2018

Sanders on Trump

With a new week starting off, Donald Trump is still being forced to deal with many issues and scandals.

The aftermath of the mass shooting in Parkland, Florida remains a hot topic, with both sides of the gun control debate not willing to give an inch. The recent resignation of White House Communications Director Hope Hicks has also been a thorn in the side of the president, which became a source of comedy during the Academy Awards and on "Saturday Night Live." In addition, Trump's recent comments on trade and remarks made by a former aide that have also caused a fiery reaction.

.@PressSec to @jonkarl on Pres. Trump's statement that "trade wars are good and easy to win": Trump is confident U.S. would win trade war, "but that's not the goal. The goal is to get free, fair and reciprocal trade." https://t.co/7YuXVhVByI pic.twitter.com/V7tnm7oQlU  ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) March 5, 2018

As the drama in and outside the White House continued, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders took questions from reporters on March 5.

Sanders was asked about the recent comments made by former Trump aide Sam Nunberg who said of the president, "I think that he may have done something during the election. I don't know that for sure." "He doesn't know that for sure because he's incorrect. As we've said many times before, there's been no collusion with the Trump campaign," Sanders noted, before taking a shot at Nunberg's "lack of knowledge." Nunberg has been subpoenaed by Russian investigation special counsel Robert Mueller, but is refusing to testify.

On the issue of Donald Trump's comments on trade, Sarah Sanders dismissed the rift between the White House and House Speaker Paul Ryan. "We have a great relationship with Speaker Ryan. We're going to continue to have one, but that doesn't mean we have to agree on everything," Sanders said, before adding, "We haven't actually fully rolled out all of the details, so therefore it would be hard for me to say that they're going to change."

Twitter reaction

As Sarah Huckabee Sanders was predictably defending Donald Trump, critics of the White House made sure not to hold back their thoughts.

"(SHS) just starting the Monday Liars Poker Club. Tune in and count the lies!" one tweet read.

#SarahHuckabeeSanders just starting the Monday Liars Poker Club. Tune in and count the lies!  Corporate Piggies (@CorporatePiggie) March 5, 2018

@CNNPolitics. Will someone please remind Sarah Huckabee Sanders that the people of the United States did not choose Trump. The electoral college did. Hillary won the popular vote.  barbara451#BoycottNRA (@barbara451) March 5, 2018

"They shoved Sarah Huckabee Sanders out to the podium asap but it was too late, the Nunberg call had ended," a Twitter user wrote. "Will someone please remind (SHS) that the people of the United States did not choose Trump. The electoral college did.

Hillary won the popular vote," another tweet added.

They shoved Sarah Huckabee Sanders out to the podium asap but it was too late, the Nunberg call had ended.   AmyMaru  (@AJDMaru) March 5, 2018

Life was so much more peaceful when Sarah Huckabee Sanders was in South Korea. I didn't have to listen to her lie wall-to-wall at her daily #PressBriefing  LaurenBaratzLogsted (@LaurenBaratzL) March 5, 2018

FINALLY someone asked about Carl Ichans business dealings and Sarah Huckabee Sanders suddenly had to duck out.  Super Nintendo Chalmers (@MavisGary) March 5, 2018

"Life was so much more peaceful when Sarah Huckabee Sanders was in South Korea. I didn't have to listen to her lie wall-to-wall at her daily," a social media user noted.

"Watching (SHS) exploit vets in an attempt to preempt any questions about Trump's trade war/flip flops on gun control/announced desire to be president for life/cabinet and campaign indictments/failure to make a deal on DACA/obvious conspiracy with Russia. Gross," an additional tweet added.As reported on Saturday (March 3) by the local police, a Central Michigan State University student shot and killed both of his parents at the campus residence hall on Friday (March 2). Witnesses cited the 19-year-old student, James Eric Davis Jr., walking from a parking lot armed with a gun into the residence. Video evidence has also been taken to support what witnesses claimed.

According to Chief Bill Yeagley, the gun used for the murders of the two unfortunate parents was registered to the suspects father. Davis Jr. was arrested on Saturday morning after an individual spotted him on a train passing the north side of the campus.

The sighting came after midnight as authorities apprehended Davis Jr. with no incident.

Motive not clear

It is not clear as to why Davis Jr. shot his parents. The only thing that the authorities have on the suspect is that he clearly shot his parents in the campus residence. Also, his parents, James Eric Davis Sr., 48, and Diva Jeenen Davis, 47, had traveled from Chicago to the University.

Authorities presume that the parents were there to pick up their son to take home for the spring break. The police did have to go on a manhunt that lasted hours on Friday after the shootings which led to the arrest of Davis. Jr. on Saturday morning.

It was also added by the local campus police that Davis Jr. was apprehended twice a day before the fatal shootings.

Davis Jr. was acting erratically on Thursday evening (March 1) and was eventually taken to the local hospital. It is believed that Davis Jr. was under the influence of drugs or simply was experiencing a bad reaction to drugs.

The suspects father

James Eric Davis Sr. was a part-time police officer in Bellwood for over 20 years.

Davis Sr. assisted the police department for special occasions. He was also an Army veteran and employed at the Jesse Brown Va Medical Center in Chicago.

The medical center where Davis Sr. was employed is providing grief counseling for the staff that worked with the victim. Andre Harvey, mayor of the Chicago suburb of Bellwood, considered Davis Sr.

as a pillar of his community since Davis Sr. was a part-time police officer and worked at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. The authorities will investigate this incident as a domestic violence incident, despite occurring on a university campus. This incident also comes right at a moment when the nation is still shocked by the high school shooting that occurred in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead.Briana DeJesus just had surgery and despite being in recovery right now, she still has time for a Kailyn Lowry Twitter feud. The "Teen Mom 2" stars sparked up some extra drama on social media after Javi Marroquin appeared as a special guest on Kailyn's podcast "Coffee Convos with Kailyn Lowry and Lindsie Chrisley."

While on the show, Javi discussed his current relationship status, which at the time was single. He also hinted that he and Briana were considering getting back together. They did just that but it didn't take long for Javi to have a change of heart again and leave Briana, fresh out of surgery, in Florida with her family as he returned home to be with his son.

Of course, a cameo from Briana's ex Devoin probably helped him make that decision.

Briana goes live on Instagram

On Friday, Briana DeJesus went live on Instagram from her recovery bed and started ranting about the Javi and Kail situation. Kailyn thought that that was hilarious and retweeted someone else commenting on Briana's rant, asking why Briana was so worked up about Kail if she really was secure about her "status with Javi."

Briana quickly responded, insisting that Kailyn not talk about her on her podcast without expecting her to say something about it. To that, Kailyn responded that Briana is always talking about her.

"B***h idgaf. U play the victim," Briana responded. "I told u on the phone if u mention my name or my kids ever again there was gonna be a problem.

And u didnt listen. Not my fault."

"Ok hypocrite. Ya mention my ex, my kids, my parents, etc. its only ok when you do it? Whats the problem briana? You cant even get out of bed," Kailyn shot back.

It didn't take Jenelle Evans long to see the drama between Kailyn and Briana.

Yes, she did chime in despite issuing cease and desist letters to a handful of her "Teen Mom 2" co-stars, demanding that they don't talk about her at all anymore.

The controversial MTV star kept it brief. She tweeted, "I'm telling you...'attention seeker' until the day she dies."

Javi chooses Lincoln over Briana

The latest drama between Kailyn and Briana erupted after Javi Marroquin decided to leave Florida and end his relationship with Briana DeJesus.

It probably didn't help things when Javi took to Twitter to explain his reasons for leaving and then added a cherry on top about how he apologized to Kailyn for his recent drama.

At the end of the day a good relationship with my sons mother will make Lincoln the happiest. I lost sight of that. This trip made me realize that and Ive apologized to kail for my actions.  Javi Marroquin (@Javimarroquin9) February 2, 2018

"At the end of the day a good relationship with my sons mother will make Lincoln the happiest," Javi wrote. "I lost sight of that. This trip made me realize that and Ive apologized to kail for my actions."

Many "Teen Mom 2" fans applauded Javi for being so mature about his recent relationship problems. Kailyn must have agreed too and she quickly retweeted Javi's tweet, further rubbing the snub in Briana's face.It's no secret that the majority of celebrities out in Hollywood are not big fans of Donald Trump. During the 90th annual Academy Awards, it didn't take long before the president was put on blast.

.@jimmykimmel: "We don't make films like 'Call Me By Your Name' for money. We make them to upset Mike Pence." https://t.co/exBwXiE7dz #Oscars pic.twitter.com/RnY7rLjwKW  ABC News (@ABC) March 5, 2018

Oscars on Trump

When Donald Trump kicked off his campaign for president back in the summer of 2015, his controversial rhetoric didn't go over well with many in the country, including the more liberal leaning Hollywood.

As time went on, many celebrities used their popularity to rally against Trump, which has since continued into his presidency. Since then, award shows have been a place where celebrities who oppose Trump have used the audience to push back against him, even while not using his name. From Meryl Streep to Oprah Winfrey, Hollywood against the president has been on full display.

As seen during the 2018 Academy Awards on March 4, Donald Trump was a top target, with host Jimmy Kimmel poking fun at the current commander in chief and his vice president.

Kimmel started the program off addressing the rise of the "Me Too" movement, before taking a shot at the Oscar for being a 90-year-old award. "Oscar is 90 years old so he's probably at home watching Fox News," Kimmel said, in reference to the president's age and obsession with watching and quoting the conservative Fox News Channel.

.@jimmykimmel encourages passionate and substantive speeches at tonight's

#Oscarsand "if you want to encourage others to join the amazing students at Parkland at their march on the 24th, do that." https://t.co/lJd891ISOk pic.twitter.com/bGZcEGRB4U  ABC News (@ABC) March 5, 2018

Later on in the monologue, Jimmy Kimmel spotlighted Jordan Peele, who wrote and directed the film "Get Out," about an African-American man who is targeted by his white girlfriend and her family.

"None other than President Trump called 'Get Out' the best first three-quarters of a movie this year," Kimmel said in regards to the allegations that the president is a racist. Before the end of the monologue, Kimmel also brought up the film "Call me by your name" which is about the romantic relationship of two young men. "We don't make movies like 'Call me by your name' to make money. We make them to upset Mike Pence," Kimmel said in a direct shot at the vice president's opposition to LGBT rights due to being a conservative Christian.

Moving forward

While it's clear that the stars out in Hollywood are no fans of Donald Trump, the president has many other issues to worry about. With members of his administration resigning at an increased rate, with White House Communications Director Hope Hicks being the latest example, the ongoing investigation into Russian election interference, and his reckless behavior on social media continuing to be a problem, only time will tell to see how the rest of Trump's administration plays out heading into the upcoming midterm elections and eventually the 2020 presidential election.Khloe Kardashian is a well-known reality star who has made millions for sharing her life on "Keeping Up With The Kardashians." Khloe, along with her two sisters Kourtney and Kim, has filmed the show for years and they have shared the good, the bad and the ugly in their lives. But it sounds like Kardashian may not be using her platform to fight for victims of sexual abuse. Ryan Seacrest is one of the latest people to be accused of sexual misconduct and while many other men are facing punishment as accusers come forward, it sounds like Seacrest is getting support.

According to a new tweet, Khloe Kardashian revealed that Ryan Seacrest was her favorite as she watched the Oscars last night. Khloe revealed she was watching Seacrest and Giuliana Rancic's E! network coverage of the red carpet. While Giuliana was hosting a fashion panel across the street, Ryan was on the red carpet, talking to celebrities as they arrived to celebrate the best in movies. But when Khloe tweeted that he was her favorite, people had quite the reaction given the recent accusations.

Connection to E! network

It wasn't long ago that Suzie Hardy accused Ryan Seacrest of "unwanted sexual aggression." She was the first person to speak out against Seacrest, but her accusations come after a long list of women, who are starting to speak out against men who have abused their power over women.

As for Khloe Kardashian, she may not know Suzie Hardy, but her tweet reveals that she may not believe Ryan's accuser. Several people on Twitter have accused her of only speaking out about Ryan for the sake of money. When Khloe tweeted that Seacrest was her favorite, one person said that it was good to know that Khloe supported an accused sexual predator and worked for a network that hates women.

Oscar Sunday!! I love the E red carpet coverage with my favs @RyanSeacrest and @GiulianaRancic   Khloe (@khloekardashian) March 4, 2018

Of course, the follower is referring to a story about equal pay that surfaced late last year. Khloe has yet to address her comment, but it's possible that she won't address Ryan's accuser.

Accused of making up stories

This isn't the first time that people are believing that women are just making up accusations for the sake of a financial reward. One of the biggest examples is the President of the United States, who has been accused of sexual misconduct several times but has faced no repercussions. In fact, many women feel that they are not being heard, as he continues to sit in the oval office.

How do you think Khloe Kardashian is handling this entire situation?Farrah Abraham went public with her boyfriend, stuntman Aden Stay, on March 2 and around the same time, her former boyfriend, Simon Saran, weighed in on the relationship. During a new interview, Saran, who split from Abraham last year due to her proposal demands, said that while he was happy for his ex, he suspected she was dating Stay not for love, but for money.

Good for her, Simon Saran told The Ashley's Reality Roundup of her new romance. She needs an older man in her life," he explained. Then, he seemingly took aim at the relationship, saying, "She needs the financial support from him.

Guys like that are more willing to give [that]. Although it is unclear why Abraham would be in need of financial support, Saran may have been referring to her recent firing from the show that made her famous, "Teen Mom OG."

I wish them the best, he added.

Farrah Abraham hinted at a Simon Saran reunion last year

After their sudden split in early 2017, Abraham and Saran frequently sparked rumors of a reconciliation by taking a number of vacations together. As fans may recall, Abraham and Saran celebrated her birthday in Jamaica last year before traveling to Sin City to celebrate the birthday of a friend. The former couple then turned up together in Greece and again, fans wondered if they were giving their romance another shot.

Abraham and Saran dated for two years and some of their relationship was seen playing out on "Teen Mom OG." Other moments, even online spats, played out on the couple's Twitter pages throughout the end of last year.

Farrah Abraham isn't allowed to talk to Simon Saran

Months after returning home from a summer trip to Greece, Farrah Abraham spoke to E!

News and revealed that her daughter, nine-year-old Sophia Abraham, was no longer allowing her to communicate with Simon Saran. "I would say I'm cordial with [Simon Saran] but I'm not allowed to talk to him because Sophia doesn't like him," she explained.

Abraham gained fame after welcoming Sophia while filming "16 and Pregnant" in 2009 and began appearing on "Teen Mom" years later.

Since then, she has been starring on "Teen Mom OG" alongside Maci Bookout, Catelynn Lowell, and Maci Bookout. However, when the show returns for its eighth season later this year or early next year, Abraham will be absent and another reality star could be seen in her place.

"Teen Mom OG" Season 7 is currently airing on MTV on Mondays at 9 PM.North Korea welcomed the New Year by reopening the hotline, and extending an olive branch to South Korea. The intention was noble and the Norths participation in the 2018 Winter Olympics was like the icing on the cake. The event was a success, the bonds of friendship strengthened, and the ground was set for preliminary talks

CNN reports that Moon Jae-in is sending a High Level 10-member delegation to Pyongyang to discuss peace initiatives with their counterparts in the North. The agenda will cover inter-Korean relations and could also establish conditions for dialogue between the United States and North Korea on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The delegation will return to Seoul for a debriefing, and subsequently, travel to America to share the outcome of their visit.

Pyongyang must abandon its nuclear ambitions

In November 2017, North Korea tested a new missile that had a superior performance compared to earlier ones. The North has claimed that this new Hwasong-15 nuclear missile could target any location in the United States. That sent out shock waves, and CIA Director Mike Pompeo remarked that the next step for Pyongyang could be to install a warhead on the missile. That would put America under threat.

In view of these developments, the US had agreed to meet with North Korea provided it calls a halt to its nuclear ambitions. Donald Trump and Moon Jae-in discussed the matter over the phone and agreed that denuclearization would be a precondition to any meeting.

Hence, South Korea is sending its delegation to initiate the peace process.

Are sanctions hurting Pyongyang?

The thaw in relations began with the reopening of the hotline that had been lying dormant for a long time. The 2018 Winter Olympics provided a platform for an exchange of thoughts between North Korea and South Korea. The talks nurtured hopes of peace returning to the Korean peninsula and clouds of a nuclear confrontation with the United States receding.

North Korea had threatened to nuke the United States and had identified a few probable targets. The UN imposed sanctions on the country to check Pyongyangs nuclear ambitions and the effect of trade restrictions could probably be a major factor for the North to extend the olive branch.

According to Fox News, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson feels that the change in the attitude of the regime could be a result of international sanctions that are hurting. Speaking at an event at Stanford University in California, he added that South Korean President Moon Jae-in subscribes to the same line of thinking.On Monday, local superstition won despite warnings from the central government. In this instance, villagers from Hatupangan in North Sumatra turned a deaf ear to Indonesia's Natural Resources Conservation Agency. The row was all based on the villagers' belief that an evil, "shapeshifting" tiger had infiltrated their village. When they found that tiger, they killed it, skinned it, disemboweled it, and hung up for show.

The problem for the Indonesian government is that the tiger in question was a rare Sumatran tiger. This species is internationally recognized as endangered, and thus deserves some protections from poachers and trophy hunters.

All of those protections failed in this instance, for Natural Resources Conservation Agency officers found that the tiger's canine teeth, claws, and skin had been removed after death. Such removals indicate that parts of the tiger are likely being sold on the black market.

"Unfortunately they would not listen. They insisted on killing the tiger," said Hotmauli Sianturi, the regional head of the NRCA.

Panic in the village

The problems in Hatupangan started months ago when locals began noticing a tiger prowling around their town. At some point, the residents found that the tiger slept underneath a stilt house in the village. This caused several villagers to attack the tiger with spears, says one local man named Lion Muslim Nasution.

All of the Indonesian government's warnings to leave the tiger alone came to nothing.

According to the Jakarta Post, the largest circulating newspaper in the country, everyone in the village knew that Sumatran tigers are officially protected. Because there are only about 400 wild tigers in the whole world, the government in Jakarta has set fines and jail time for anyone caught killing a tiger.

However, fears ran rampant in the village about the tiger being a shapeshifter, which caused many to panic.

Much like the werewolf superstition in Europe and North America, shapeshifting tigers are thought to be magical men who use their powers of transformation to strike out against their enemies. In Indonesia and Malaysia, the weretiger is called Harimau jadian.

Black market

For criminal investigation officers, the killing of the tiger in North Sumatra is a cause for concern. Namely, it is highly likely that the tiger's scattered remains will be sold and used for traditional medicine practices in Indonesia. There is also a possibility that some of the tiger's body parts could wind up in higher-paying countries like Vietnam or China.

Animal poaching for money is rife in Indonesia. Due to the island nation's diverse ecosystem and its bevy of endangered animals, criminals think of the jungles of Sumatra and Borneo as treasure troves. Recently, on the island of Borneo, Indonesian officials found a series of decapitated orangutans, some of whom had been shot over 130 times.

Many of these animal killings are blamed on reoccurring conflicts between local farmers and workers on large plantations. More animal carcasses have been found in recent weeks due to an ongoing battle between the two sides.CYBER

Telos books $108M Air Force defensive cyber support order

Telos Corp. has won a five-year, $108 million task order to support the Air Forces IT infrastructure and networks used for defensive cyber operations.

The Air Force awarded the work through its NETCENTS-2 Network Operations and Infrastructure Solutions Small Business contract vehicle, Telos said Monday.

Air Combat Command sought help in planning, infrastructure systems and network operations for its weapon and mission systems. Ashburn, Virginia-based Telos will also offer network assistance and technical support to ACC under the order.

Telos will also integrate communications with commercial, military and coalition networks and support encryption for secret communications on base.

Work will take place at 17 command locations across the U.S.M&A

Verscend picks up General Dynamics IT commercial health products

Health care analytics company Verscend said Monday it has acquired a portfolio of commercial health insurance payer products from General Dynamics IT services business.

Verscend is the former health services business of Verisk Analytics and was acquired by private equity firm Veritas Capital in June 2016 for $820 million. The Waltham, Massachusetts-based business subsequently rebranded to Verscend two months later.

With this latest transaction, Verscend is taking in a collection of products used in efforts to combat health care fraud, waste and abuse. Verscend sought to strengthen its payer quality analytics and reporting tools.

Health insurers, providers, employers, brokers, government and academic institutions are among the customers of those products. They are used in payment integrity, risk adjustment, quality improvement and population health functions.Federated Investors, Inc. is a publicly owned asset management holding company. Through its subsidiaries, the firm provides its services to individuals, including high net worth individuals, banking or thrift institutions, investment companies, pension and profit sharing plans, pooled investment vehicles, charitable organizations, state or municipal government entities, and registered investment advisors. Through its subsidiaries, it manages separate client-focused equity, fixed income, balanced and money market mutual funds along with separate client-focused equity, fixed income, money market, and balanced portfolios. Through its subsidiaries, the firm invests in the public equity and fixed income markets across the globe. It invests in growth and value stocks of small-cap, mid-cap, and large-cap companies. The firm makes its fixed income investments in ultra-short, short-term, and intermediate-term mortgage-backed, U.S. Government, U.S. corporate, high yield, and municipal securities. It employs both fundamental and quantitative analysis to make its equity investments. Federated Investors, Inc. was founded in 1955 and is based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with additional offices in New York City and London, United Kingdom.

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of The Timken: AIPCF V Feeder CTP Belts LLC, Apiary Investments Holdings Limited, Australian Timken Proprietary Limited, B.I.O. Asset Management GmbH, BEKA Beteiligungs GmbH, BEKA Japan Co, BEKA Lubrication Systems (Kunshan) Co, BEKA-Geschaftsfuhrungs GmbH, BEKALUBE IBERICA, BEKAWORLD Singapore Pte, Bearing Inspection Inc., Beka Lubrication, Beka World LP, Beka World Management Inc., Beka-Lube GmbH, Beka-Lube N.V., Beka-Nederland B.V., Bekalube France S.A.S., Bekalube S.R.L., British Timken Limited, Cone Drive, Cone Drive Operations Ltd, Diamond (Weifang) Power Transmission Co. Ltd, Diamond Chain (UK) Limited, Diamond Chain China Company, Diamond Chain Company, Diamond Chain Technology (Suzhou) Co., Dr. Koppel Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, Drive Comercio Importacoes e Exportacoes Ltda., Drives Brazil Holdings I LLC, Drives Brazil Holdings II LLC, Drives Comercio Importacoes e Exportacoes Ltd, EDT Corp., Gintec Active Safety Ltd., Greencat GmbH, Greencat Polska Sp. Z.o.o., Greencat Sp. Z.o.o., Groeneveld Belgium N.V., Groeneveld Comercial e Importadora Ltda., Groeneveld Groep B.V., Groeneveld Groep Holding B.V., Groeneveld Groep Nederland B.V., Groeneveld Groep Onroerend Goed Holding B.V., Groeneveld Groep Onroerend Goed Nederland B.V., Groeneveld Group, Groeneveld ICT Solutions B.V., Groeneveld ICT Solutions GmbH, Groeneveld ICT Solutions Groep B.V., Groeneveld ICT Solutions Ltd., Groeneveld ICT Solutions N.V., Groeneveld ICT Solutions S.A.S., Groeneveld ICT Solutions S.L., Groeneveld Immobiliare S.r.l., Groeneveld India Private Limited, Groeneveld Information Technology Holding B.V., Groeneveld Italia S.r.l., Groeneveld Latin America Ltda, Groeneveld Lubrication Solutions GmbH, Groeneveld Lubrication Solutions Inc., Groeneveld Lubrication Solutions Limited, Groeneveld Lubrication Solutions Ltd., Groeneveld Lubrication Solutions Pty Ltd., Groeneveld Lubrication Solutions S.r.l., Groeneveld Lubrication Solutions Sarl, Groeneveld Ooo, Groeneveld Polska Sp Z.o.o., Groeneveld Pte. Ltd., Groeneveld Sarl, Groeneveld South Africa Pty Ltd., Groeneveld Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Groeneveld Transport Efficiency B.V., Groeneveld Transport Efficiency Holding B.V., Groeneveld Transport Efficiency Iberica S.A., Groeneveld Transport Efficiency International Holding B.V., Groeneveld Transport Efficiency Nederland B.V., Groeneveld UK Limited, Groeneveld USA Holding Inc., Groeneveld s.r.o, Interlube Limited, Interlube Systems Ltd, Interlube UK Limited, Interlube USA Inc., Jiangsu TWB Bearings Co. Ltd., Jiangyin Huafang New Energy Hi-Tech Equipment Co., Lovejoy Curtis LLC, Lovejoy Inc, MAW-Maschinenfabrik Wannberg GmbH, MPB Corporation, PT Tech LLC, R+L Hydraulics GmbH, ROLLON Corporation, Rail Bearing Service LLC, Rollon, Rollon (Shanghai) Commerce and Trading Co., Rollon (Suzhou) Manufacturing Co., Rollon GmbH, Rollon India Pvt. Ltd, Rollon Ltd. UK Limited, Rollon S.a.r.l., Rollon S.p.A., S.E. Setco Service Company LLC, Standard Machine, TTC Asia Limited, TUBC Limited, The Timken Corporation, The Timken Service and Sales Company, Timken (Bermuda) L.P., Timken (Canada) Holdings II ULC, Timken (Canada) Holdings III ULC, Timken (Chengdu) Aerospace and Precision Products Co. Ltd., Timken (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Timken (Gibraltar) 2 Limited, Timken (Gibraltar) Limited, Timken (Hong Kong) Holding Limited, Timken (Shanghai) Distribution and Sales Co. Ltd., Timken (Wuxi) Bearings Co. Ltd., Timken Aerospace Drive Systems LLC, Timken Argentina Sociedad De Responsabilidad Limitada, Timken Australia Holdings ULC, Timken Bermuda Treasury Ltd, Timken Canada GP ULC, Timken Canada LP, Timken Colombia SAS, Timken Communications Company, Timken De Mexico S.A. De C.V., Timken Do Brasil Comercial Importadora LTDA., Timken Drives LLC, Timken Engineering and Research - India Private Limited, Timken Espana S.L., Timken Europe B.V., Timken Gears & Services Inc., Timken Global Treasury SARL, Timken GmbH, Timken Holdings LLC, Timken India Limited, Timken Industrial Services LLC, Timken Italia S.r.l., Timken Italy Holding S.r.l., Timken Korea Limited Liability Corporation, Timken Lux Holdings II S.A R.L., Timken Luxembourg Holdings SARL, Timken Mex Holdings SARL, Timken Mex I LLC, Timken Mex II LLC, Timken Mexico Rodamientios S. de R.L. de C.V., Timken Middle East FZE, Timken Motor & Crane Services LLC, Timken Newco Corp., Timken Newco I LLC, Timken PWP SRL, Timken Polska SP z.o.o., Timken Receivables Corporation, Timken Romania SA, Timken Rulman ve Guc Aktarma Sistemleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Timken SMO LLC, Timken Singapore PTE Ltd., Timken South Africa (PTY) Limited, Timken South Africa Holdings, Timken U.S. Holdings LLC, Timken UK Limited, Timken US LLC, Timken UWC LLC, Timken-Rus Service Company ooo, Timken-XEMC (Hunan) Bearings Co. Ltd., Torsion Control Products Inc., Torsion Control Products Inc., Wazee Electric, Wenjo B.V., and Yantai Timken Co. Ltd..12 Wall Street research analysts have issued "buy," "hold," and "sell" ratings for Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy in the last twelve months. There are currently 1 sell rating, 8 hold ratings and 3 buy ratings for the stock. The consensus among Wall Street research analysts is that investors should "hold" Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy stock. A hold rating indicates that analysts believe investors should maintain any existing positions they have in GCTAF, but not buy additional shares or sell existing shares.

View analyst ratings for Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy or view top-rated stocks.Suncor Energy Inc. operates as an integrated energy company. The company primarily focuses on developing petroleum resource basins in Canada's Athabasca oil sands; explores, acquires, develops, produces, transports, refines, and markets crude oil in Canada and internationally; markets petroleum and petrochemical products under the Petro-Canada name primarily in Canada. It operates in Oil Sands; Exploration and Production; Refining and Marketing; and Corporate and Eliminations segments. The Oil Sands segment recovers bitumen from mining and in situ operations, and upgrades it into refinery feedstock and diesel fuel, or blends the bitumen with diluent for direct sale to market. The Exploration and Production segment is involved in offshore operations off the east coast of Canada and in the North Sea; and operating onshore assets in Libya and Syria. The Refining and Marketing segment refines crude oil and intermediate feedstock into various petroleum and petrochemical products; and markets refined petroleum products to retail, commercial, and industrial customers through its other retail sellers. The Corporate and Eliminations segment operates four wind farm operations in Ontario and Western Canada. The company also markets and trades in crude oil, natural gas, byproducts, refined products, and power. The company was formerly known as Suncor Inc. and changed its name to Suncor Energy Inc. in April 1997. Suncor Energy Inc. was founded in 1917 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of Colgate-Palmolive: 887357 Ontario Inc., COLGALIVE S.A., CP GABA GmbH, CP International Holding C.V., CP West East Investment Limited, Cleaning Dimensions Inc., Colgate (BVI) Limited, Colgate (Guangzhou) Company Limited, Colgate (U.K.) Limited, Colgate Business Services of the Americas S.C., Colgate Flavors and Fragrances Inc., Colgate Global Business Services Private Limited, Colgate Holdings, Colgate Inc., Colgate Oral Pharmaceuticals Inc., Colgate Palmolive Ghana Limited, Colgate Palmolive Holding S.Com.P.A., Colgate Palmolive Nouvelle Caledonie Sarl, Colgate Palmolive Tanzania Limited, Colgate Sanxiao Company Limited, Colgate Venture Company Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (America) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Asia) Pte Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive (Blantyre) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Brunei) Sdn Bhn, Colgate-Palmolive (Central America) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Central America) Inc. y Compania Limitada, Colgate-Palmolive (Centro America) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (China) Co. Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive (Costa Rica) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (Dominica) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Dominican Republic) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (East Africa) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Eastern) Pte. Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Egypt) S.A.E., Colgate-Palmolive (Far East) Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive (Fiji) Pte Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Gabon) S.A., Colgate-Palmolive (Guyana) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (H.K.) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Hellas) S.A. I.C., Colgate-Palmolive (Hong Kong) Holding Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Kazakhstan) L.L.P., Colgate-Palmolive (Latvia) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive (Middle East Exports) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Myanmar) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (New York) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive (Proprietary) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Research & Development) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Romania) SRL, Colgate-Palmolive (Thailand) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (UK) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Uganda) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive (Vietnam) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive (Zambia) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive (Zimbabwe) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive A.B., Colgate-Palmolive A/S, Colgate-Palmolive Adria Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Argentina S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Asia Pacific Treasury Services Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Belgium S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Bolivia Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Canada Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Caricom Service Co. Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Central European Management Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Chile S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Cia., Colgate-Palmolive Comercial Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Commercial (Hellas) SP LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Commerciale S.A.S., Colgate-Palmolive Commericale S.r.l., Colgate-Palmolive Compania Anonima, Colgate-Palmolive Company Distr. LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Company GmbH, Colgate-Palmolive Cote dIvoire S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Cyprus Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Development Corp., Colgate-Palmolive East West Africa Region (Pty) Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Enterprises Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Espana S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Europe (Holdings) Sarl, Colgate-Palmolive Europe Sarl, Colgate-Palmolive Finance (UK) plc, Colgate-Palmolive Global Trading Company, Colgate-Palmolive Holding Argentina S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Holding Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Hungary Kft Limited Liability Company, Colgate-Palmolive IHQ Services (Thailand) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Inc. S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Industrial Ltda., Colgate-Palmolive Industriel S.A.S., Colgate-Palmolive International Holding LLC, Colgate-Palmolive International LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Investment Co. Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (BVI) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (PNG) Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Investments (UK) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Investments Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Israel Ltd., Colgate-Palmolive Italia S.r.l., Colgate-Palmolive JSC, Colgate-Palmolive Lanka (Private) Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Latin America Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Limited, Colgate-Palmolive Manufacturing (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive Marketing Sdn Bhd, Colgate-Palmolive Maroc S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Mocambique Limitada, Colgate-Palmolive NJ Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Nederland B.V., Colgate-Palmolive Norge A/S, Colgate-Palmolive Participacoes e Investimentos Imobiliarios Lda., Colgate-Palmolive Peru S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Philippines Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Pty Ltd, Colgate-Palmolive Retirement Trustee Limited, Colgate-Palmolive S.A. de C.V., Colgate-Palmolive S.p.A., Colgate-Palmolive Senegal S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Services (Hellas) LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Services (Poland) Sp. z o.o., Colgate-Palmolive Services CEW GmbH, Colgate-Palmolive Services S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Slovensko s.r.o., Colgate-Palmolive Support Services, Colgate-Palmolive Temizlik Urunleri Sanayi ve Ticart S.A., Colgate-Palmolive Transnational Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Ukraine LLC, Colgate-Palmolive Unipessoal Lda, Colgate-Palmolive de Paraguay Sociedad Anonima, Colgate-Palmolive de Puerto Rico Inc., Colgate-Palmolive del Ecuador S.A.I.C., Colgate-Palmolive del Peru (Delaware) Inc., Colgate-Palmolive Eeska republika spol. s r.o., Colpal CBS S de R. L. de C. V., Consumer Viewpoint Center Inc., Cotelle S.A., Dimac Development Corp., Dominica Coconut Products Limited, EKIB Inc., ELM Company Limited, Elta MD Holdings Inc., Elta MD Inc., EltaMD, Filorga Americas Inc., Filorga Asia Limited, Filorga Benelux SA, Filorga Cosmetiques Polska, Filorga Middle East DMCC, Filorga Portugal Unipessoal Lda., Filorga RU Limited Liability Company, GABA Europe Holding GmbH, GABA International, GABA International Holding LLC, GABA Schweiz AG, GABA Therwil GmbH, Gamma Development Co. Ltd., Global Trading and Supply LLC, Hamol Ltd., Hello Products, Hello Products LLC, Hills Funding Company, Hills Pet Nutrition (NZ) Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Asia Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Canada Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Denmark ApS, Hills Pet Nutrition Espana S.L., Hills Pet Nutrition GmbH, Hills Pet Nutrition Holding B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Indiana Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition Italia S.r.l., Hills Pet Nutrition Korea Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Ltd., Hills Pet Nutrition Manufacturing B.V., Hills Pet Nutrition Manufacturing s.r.o, Hills Pet Nutrition Norway AS, Hills Pet Nutrition OOO, Hills Pet Nutrition Pty. Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition S.p.A., Hills Pet Nutrition SNC, Hills Pet Nutrition Sales Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition South Africa Proprietary Limited, Hills Pet Nutrition Sweden AB, Hills Pet Nutrition Switzerland GmbH, Hills Pet Nutrition Taiwan Ltd, Hills Pet Nutrition Trading (GZ) Co. Ltd, Hills Pet Nutrition de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Hills Pet Nutrition de Puerto Rico Inc., Hills Pet Nutrition s.r.o., Hills Pet Products (Benelux) S.A., Hills Pet Products Inc., Hills Veterinary Companies of America Inc., Hills-Colgate (Japan) Ltd., Hopro Liquidating Corp., Hygiene Systemes et Services SA, IES Enterprises Inc., Inmobiliaria Colpal S. de R.L. de C.V., Inmobiliaria Hills S.A. de C.V., Innovacion Creativa S.A. de C.V., Kolynos Corporation, Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques Espana S.L.U., Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques Italia S.R.L., Laboratoires Filorga Cosmetiques S.A., Laser Brand Toothpaste, Lournay Sales Inc., Mennen Company, Mennen Interamerica Ltd., Mennen Limited, Mennen South Africa Ltd., Mennen de Chile Ltd., Mennen de Nicargua S.A., Mission Hills Property Corporation, Mission Hills S.A. de C.V., Norwood International Incorporated, Olive Music Publishing Corporation, PCA SKIN, Paramount Research Inc., Penny LLC, Pet Chemicals Inc., Physicians Care Alliance LLC, Productos Halogenados Copalven C.A., Purity Holding Company, Purity Music Publishing Corporation, Refresh Company Limited, Samuel Taylor Holdings B.V., Sanex, Sanxiao Company Limited, Services Development Co. Ltd., Societe Generale de Negoce et de Services (GENESE) S.A., The GDN - The Global Distributive Network SAS, The Lournay Company Inc., The MPDP - The Medical and Pharmaceutic Distributive Platform SAS, The Murphy-Phoenix Company, Tom's of Maine, Toms of Maine Holdings Inc., Toms of Maine Inc., Veterinary Companies of America Inc., Vipont Pharmaceutical Inc., and XEB Inc..Seven-term Sen. Thad Cochran, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, announced he will resign his seat on April 1st. Cochran, 80, cited health problems in announcing the decision, according to The Associated Press. The Mississippi Republican is currently the 3rd most senior member of the Senate, behind only Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont and Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah. Hatch has previously announced he will retire at the end of 2018.

The Republican Gov. Phil Bryant will appoint a temporary replacement. A special election will be held on November 6th, coincident with the 2018 midterms. The winner of that race will serve the remainder of Cochran's term, which will next be contested in 2020.

Mississippi joins Minnesota with both Senate seats up for election in 2018. Republican Roger Wicker is running for a 3rd term in the regularly scheduled election. That seat is safely Republican. Sabato's Crystal Ball is starting the special election race as 'Likely Republican', although it is worth noting that no state in this 'double-barrel' situation has elected Senators of different parties since 1966.

That the rating is 'likely' instead of 'safe' could partially be due to one quirk of Mississippi special election law. There will be no party primaries and the November 6th election will be nonpartisan. All candidates will run on a single ballot, with party affiliations not listed. If no candidate exceeds 50%, the top two will meet in a runoff. If that involved a Democrat vs. a controversial Republican, there's at least a small chance of a repeat of an upset like we saw in neighboring Alabama late last year.

There will now be 35 Senate seats contested in 2018; 26 are held by Democrats and 9 by Republicans. We'll be updating the Interactive Senate Map in the days ahead to reflect this new race.Experience earned Oscars Sunday night at Hollywoods 90th Academy Awards: Most winners of the top-line honors were 50 or older, and James Ivory, writer of Call Me By Your Name, became the oldest competitive Oscar winner ever. He is 89.



Veteran performers Frances McDormand, 60, and Gary Oldman, who turns 60 March 21, took top acting awards for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Darkest Hour, respectively.



Guillermo del Toro, the affable 53-year-old storyteller and Mexico native, took two top awards, directing and best picture, for The Shape of Water.



Lively Sam Rockwell, who will celebrate his 50th later this year, earned his best supporting actor Oscar for Three Billboards, and Allison Janney, who has a bushel of nominations and wins for her work on screens small and large, won her first Oscar as a supporting actress for I, Tonya. (She has seven Emmys for various television works.)



Other over-50 talents who took golden statues home included Roger Deakins, 68, nominated 14 times, who won his first Oscar for best achievement in cinematography for Blade Runner 2049; and Alexandre Desplat, 56, who won his second Oscar of nine career nominations for original score.



Desplat paid tribute to his mother, who will turn 90 this year. Oldman, who has been picking up awards all season (including AARPs Movies for Grownups) also noted his mother, 99, who he said was watching from her couch. He told her, Put the kettle on. Im bringing Oscar home.Aberdeen's has 3 open missing-person cases.

The Aberdeen Police Department is currently handling three missing person cases, which range from a few months to decades old.One of the sad facts of recent government action is the evisceration of the IRS budget.

Since 2010 Congress has embarked on a war against the IRS. The IRS is responsible for administration of our tax laws. One part of the IRS role is to collect the revenues that fund the goods and services that we demand (yes, demand) from government.

While the IRS has never been loved, the recent war (yes, war) on the agency is new. Perhaps it is part of a broader effort to attack the institutions of government in general.

Embattled former IRS Commissioner John Koskinen made outgoing remarks on the state of the IRS on Nov. 6, 2017. I want to report the facts, directly from the former commissioners statement.

What follows is from the former commissioner. Ill first report the facts as the commissioner did in November, and then make a few comments.

Tax administration will fail in one of two ways. About 64 percent of IRS IT systems are out of date and out of warranty. Twenty-two percent of software products are two or more releases behind industry standard.

If a catastrophic failure of IRS systems occurred in tax season, lengthy interruptions in processing and paying $275 billion in tax refunds could occur. This could have a devastating effect on the economy.

The other significant problem is the ability of a declining IRS workforce to ensure that the tax laws are complied with. IRS has lost 20,000 employees since 2010, including 7,300 enforcement personnel.

IRS now has less than half the number of revenue officers than in 1954. The number of criminal investigation special agents is the smallest since 1971.

IRS audits conducted in 2017 were the fewest in 14 years. Criminal investigations are down by 36 percent since 2010, and criminal prosecutions are down by a third in the last four years.

We have what is referred to as a voluntary compliance system. The tax collectors for Rome decided how much tax was owed  some for Rome and some for them. This is why Pharisees asked the disciples of Jesus why their teacher eats with tax collectors and sinners.

The IRS does not visit your house to determine your tax liability. If you are the target of the rare IRS audit, the agent may try to get more for the government than is properly owed. But there are protections to fight back, and the agent is not looking to keep some of the tax for himself.

Like many of you, I believe in law and order. Like many of you, I would like to see more police officers in Albuquerque to fight our crime. Like many of you, I would like to see more FBI agents and Homeland Security to protect against internal and external threats to public safety. Like many of you, I would like to see a strong military to protect against threats to our system of government.

It takes money to make these things happen. And if we also believe that we should each pay the share of taxes that we properly owe based on the laws of our country, we should support the IRS budget, proper staffing of agents, and current technology to do their job.

The war on the IRS has damaged law and order in our tax system. I simply cannot comprehend why someone who champions law and order in all of the things I listed above reviles it when it comes to our tax laws.

Criminal investigations are down. This does not mean fewer resources to go after law-abiding citizens. It means fewer resources to go after money laundering, criminal gangs, and the very few in each community who believe that they have no common bond to our society that requires a shared sacrifice.

Budgets, including government budgets, reflect values. We elect people to make decisions how our shared values should dictate our spending. But we need revenues also. And we need our laws enforced fairly. Cutting the IRS budget hurts revenues and fair administration of the system.

I remain perplexed how people who support laws and their enforcement also cheer targeting the IRS. It makes me wonder if they mean what they say.

Jim Hamill is the director of Tax Practice at Reynolds, Hix & Co. in Albuquerque. He can be reached at jimhamill@rhcocpa.com.A 50 to 100-acre wildfire is burning on Kirtland Air Force Base land in the East Mountains, a spokesman said Sunday.

Jim Fisher, spokesman for the base, said the fire is burning on a training range in a remote area on the eastern side of the base, although he could not immediately provide a precise location.

Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office Capt. Justin Dunlap said his office was aware of the fire and said it is contained and there is possibly some smoke blowing that way. But there is no need for an evacuation.The loss of Dr. Billy Graham leaves an enormous void in our public life. He was one of our greatest faith leaders, called to a life of service to God and fellow man. He shared a message of respect, inclusion, grace, forgiveness, unity and love that made our nation a better and stronger place.

Today our country is at a crossroads  it is polarized politically, racially, religiously and socially, creating chasms that some believe will never be bridged. This is a frightening prospect and reminds us to consider King Davids words in Psalm 133:1, Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!

No matter your race, religious affiliation, gender, political party or socioeconomic status, we are all in this together. New Mexico has the potential to be one of the greatest states in the union if we reject the temptation to be separated by our differences and choose to be united by what we have in common. Responding to Dr. Grahams passing, President Barack Obama tweeted, Billy Graham was a humble servant who prayed for so many  and who, with wisdom and grace, gave hope and guidance to generations of Americans. Sadly, some expressed outrage at these remarks. Perhaps they were unaware that in 2010, President Obama traveled to North Carolina to meet with Dr. Graham at his home. Dr. Graham met with every president prior to President Obama dating back to President Harry Truman. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. also respected Dr. Grahams work. Dr. King, who devoted his life to fighting inequality and spreading a message of unity, once said, Had it not been for the ministry of my good friend Dr. Billy Graham, my work in the civil rights movement would not have been as successful as it has been. Why did President Obamas words create such an unfortunate controversy? Presumably, those who were upset strongly opposed Dr. Grahams stance on some social issues. President Obama had his differences with Dr. Graham on matters of politics and policy but still recognized his contributions to our country and its people. That ability to set aside differences and recognize the good work and character of others is exactly what makes our nation great. I appreciate President Obamas courage in honoring a man with whom he did not always agree. It should be an example to people of all political stripes. That,I believe, is the lesson we should learn from Dr. Grahams passing.

New Mexicans will always have differences, but we should remember the things that unite us, like our love for our children, our hope they can be healthy and successful, and our collective desire to create a better state for our families, friends and neighbors.

President George W. Bush was also greatly impacted by Dr. Grahams life and mission. Gods work within me began in earnest with Billys outreach, Bush wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Feb. 16. His care and his teachings were the real beginning of my faith walk  and the start of the end of my drinking. I couldnt have given up alcohol on my own. But in 1986, at 40, I finally found the strength to quit. That strength came from love I had felt from my earliest days and from faith I didnt fully discover until my later years.

Dr. Grahams message of forgiveness, love and grace helped a fallible man overcome a struggle millions of Americans battle. It ultimately helped President Bush become a better man. At the end of the day, we can all learn a positive lesson from Dr. Grahams service and hopefully be inspired help each other become better citizens, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters  better humans.

Cangiolosi is chairman of the New Mexico Republican Party and an executive at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center.LOUISIANA INTERCHANGE REVAMP STARTS: On Wednesday, crews will begin work on the westbound Interstate 40 on- and off-ramps at Louisiana, as well as on the interchange.

The $4.9 million project is scheduled to run through August, according to a news release from the New Mexico Department of Transportation. The first phase, primarily bridge work, will run through early May, involve some lane closures and will have all work done overnight, from 9 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.

The second phase, roughly May through August, will see the ramps closed and work running 24/7.

The project is being paid for with state and federal dollars .

MORE RAMP CLOSED SIGNS ON I-25: Ken reported last week that there is little to no warning that the San Antonio exit on northbound Interstate 25 is closed while crews add a southbound highway lane and a northbound ramp lane.

That means drivers who either miss the lone sign at Jefferson or get on the interstate at Jefferson or San Mateo have no idea they will have to get off much farther down the highway and double back if their destination is off San Antonio.

Kimberly Gallegos, who handles information for NMDOTs District 3 Office, says there is one message board located on the shoulder of I-25 under the Jefferson bridge notifying drivers that San Antonio is closed, but for those getting onto the interstate from Jefferson, it is unclear because they dont see the message board. I have brought this to the contractors attention and it should be fixed today (Feb. 27). Thank you for the heads up.

And on Friday, NMDOT sent out a news release announcing the New Mexico Department of Transportation reminds motorists of ramp closures for the I-25 San Antonio to Jefferson construction project. The department has also started using overhead dynamic message boards to alert traffic during peak hours of ramp closures on I-25 both northbound and southbound of the project.

Those closures are the San Antonio off-ramp on northbound I-25, and the San Mateo and Jefferson off-ramps on southbound I-25.

SPEEDERS OUT OF HAND: And pmontano2 emails the speed vans, not the red-light cameras, need to be reinstated. The speeders are getting out of hand  50 mph in a 30 mph zone  which means lost revenue to the city by not issuing citations for speeding. I am especially concerned about Ouray NW between Coors Road and Ladera Drive. But as I said, speeders are getting out of hand everywhere.

The Albuquerque Police Department has advised that anyone with speed/traffic concerns can call the non-emergency number, 242-COPS, or contact their local substation to request speed trailers, extra patrols, etc. The six area command numbers are:

 Foothills Area Command, 332-5240

 Northeast Area Command, 823-4455

 Southeast Area Command, 256-2050

 Valley Area Command, 761-8800

 Southwest Area Command, 831-4705

 Northwest Area Command, 768-4850

MORE ON DELAYED BIRTH CERTIFICATES: After a recent column discussed Real ID and delayed birth certificates  those issued based on supporting documents to folks who never got a birth certificate in the first place  reader Kent Argubright had this to add:

I have a delayed-issue birth certificate like (the earlier reader mentioned) and the MVD accepted it without question for issue of a Real ID compliant license.

FYI, the U.S. Passport office did not accept a delayed-issue birth certificate when I applied for a U.S. Passport. I tried for a year to satisfy them, but was unsuccessful until I contacted my Congresswomans office, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham. Her staff was successful in helping me to provide the documentation necessary to satisfy the U.S. Passport office.

That documentation included: parents birth certificates, notarized affidavits from five family members who were aware of birth and infant care, baptismal records. The amount of documentation was a pile 3/4 of an inch tall. Constituent services were a godsend.

Editorial page editor DVal Westphal tackles commuter issues for the Metro area on Mondays. Reach her at 823-3858; dwestphal@abqjournal.com; or P.O. Drawer J, Albuquerque, N.M. 87103.Once he figured out the best way to be a writer was to just get on with it, Albuquerques Victor Milan never looked back.

He had already churned out some paperback adventures when his first hardback book, a Western titled The Night Riders, was published by Doubleday in 1979 under Milans Keith Jarrod pseudonym. He was 24 years old.

Between that time and his death on Feb. 13 at age 63, Milan wrote, alone or with others, under his own name and several pen and publishing house names, scores of novels and stories. He might have written more if he had not gotten off to what he considered a slow start.

At first I thought I had to learn to make a living some other way, that you couldnt be a writer first off, Milan told an Albuquerque newspaper reporter in 1979.

Armed with a keen intelligence and an unfettered imagination, he worked in genres ranging from Westerns to mysteries and historicals to mens adventure novels. But from the start, Milan wanted to be known as a science fiction writer, and it is in the world of science fiction and fantasy that he found his home.

He was an integral part of New Mexicos tight-knit science fiction/fantasy family and a persistent presence at Bubonicon, Albuquerques annual science fiction convention. He died at an Albuquerque hospital of pneumonia after a struggle with cancer. A celebration of his life will be at Bubonicon 50 in August.

Midnight at Vips

In August 1985, when I was a reporter with The Albuquerque Tribune, I interviewed Milan just before his novel The Cybernetic Samurai arrived in bookstores. He thought the book would mark a turning point in his career, because he believed it appealed to a broad audience.

Its the old story of a computer taking over the world, but this time the computers a good guy, he told me.

Certainly, The Cybernetic Samurai is one of his best. And if it didnt catapult him into the big time, it didnt slow him down, either. His most recently published novel is 2017s The Dinosaur Princess, part of Milans epic fantasy series set in a world where knights ride dinosaurs into battle.

He was also one of the founding writers of the long-running Wild Cards series of shared-universe novels penned by 30 or so authors and edited by George R.R. Martin of Game of Thrones fame and New Mexico science fiction writer Melinda Snodgrass.

Snodgrass, who writes for both print and TV, including work for Star Trek: The Next Generation, credits Milan with saving her from the legal profession and helping her become a writer of fiction.

I met Vic, appropriately enough, in the science fiction section of a little (Albuquerque) bookstore where I was working to earn some money before I started law school, she said.

Milan and Snodgrass hit it off and hung out together as Snodgrass completed law school and her first years of law practice. He introduced her to his science fiction and fantasy writer friends, a circle she found infinitely more interesting than her colleagues in the legal system.

I told him I wanted to be part of his world, Snodgrass said. He said, I bet you could write if you tried, and Ill help you. And he did. Id write and he would look at it and make notes, and wed meet to go over these notes at midnight at the Vips Big Boy on Fourth Street.

She said midnight at Vips offered a vantage point for viewing an array of fascinating people and quirky incidents.

Vic sort of taught me to watch this cavalcade of humanity go by, because you never know when you can put it into a book, she said. She credits Milan for reshaping her life.

I hated being a lawyer, Snodgrass said. I thanked him when I visited him in the hospital. I told him, You gave me my life. 

Spelling Bee winner

Milan was born in Tulsa but moved to New Mexico when he was 7. In 1968, he won The Albuquerque Tribune Spelling Bee and represented the city at the National Spelling Bee that June in Washington, D.C. In the national competition, he was knocked out by emery, which he spelled emory. I bet he hated that. He was way too smart to get tripped up by a five-letter word.

He was the student commencement speaker at Albuquerque Academy, from which he graduated in 1972, and he received scholarships to attend Yale University. He attended Yale for a year and attended the University of New Mexico for a year.

It didnt feel comfortable. It didnt work, he said of his college experience during that 1985 interview with me. I decided if you want to be a writer, you should try writing, which I did. And it worked.

Milan was a writer  first off and forever.

UpFront is a front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Ollie Reed Jr. at 823-3916 or oreed@abqjournal.com.BEIRUT  A U.N. convoy carrying desperately needed food and medicine to besieged civilians entered the war-ravaged eastern suburbs of Damascus on Monday, but aid agencies said Syrian authorities blocked the delivery of some of the health supplies, including trauma and surgical kits and insulin.

The shipment was the first to enter eastern Ghouta since Russia instituted what it called daily humanitarian pauses in the fighting a week ago. It also was the first time in weeks that any aid has been allowed in amid a crippling siege and a government assault that has killed hundreds of people in the past month.

Despite the truce, at least 50 civilians were killed Monday in airstrikes and shelling, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group. The activist-run Ghouta Media Center said 24 people were killed in Hammouriyeh and another 10 in Harasta, both towns in eastern Ghouta.

The U.N.s humanitarian office said the 46-truck convoy of health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people, entered Douma  the largest town in eastern Ghouta  around midday.

But it said the Syrian government did not allow 70 percent of the health supplies to be loaded and would not allow them to be replaced by other items.

The World Health Organization said that during an obligatory routine inspection by Syrian national authorities, many of the supplies in the WHO shipment were rejected, including all trauma, surgical, dialysis and insulin supplies.

Marwa Awad, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program in Damascus who accompanied the convoy, also said many of the life-saving health supplies were not allowed to be loaded.

Consequently, three of the 46 trucks being sent to Duma today are close to empty, she told The Associated Press. We hope to be able to take them inside on the next convoy Thursday.

The government routinely removes lifesaving medical supplies from aid convoys, in a pattern of denying such aid to civilians living in opposition areas. U.N. officials have complained for years about such actions by the Syrian government.

Many civilians in Douma are desperate for food and medicine, and had hoped for relief as the convoy began entering the area, one of the last rebel strongholds near the capital.

Eastern Ghouta, home to about 400,000 people, has been under a crippling siege and daily bombardment for months. More than 700 civilians have been killed in the last two weeks alone.

Douma-based media activist Ahmad Khansour said there is tremendous reproach against the U.N. and the international community in eastern Ghouta.

Its not possible that the (Syrian) regime is allowed to besiege a city for six years, and then we wait for them to approve an aid delivery, he said.

Khansour said the aid covers 7 percent of the people in need.

Can you imagine such a number? It means if we divide it evenly, each family gets 2 kilograms (about 4.5 pounds). Its enough for one day. Its unbelievable how shameful this is of the U.N., he added.

The U.N.s Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Ali al-Zatari, said the aid was delivered to civilian groups and local councils, in coordination with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. Military groups did not receive any supplies, he said.

We hope that civilians will get a fair share, their share, their ultimate share of the humanitarian supplies, al-Zatari said.

Ingy Sedky, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Damascus, said the aid delivery was a first positive step that would lessen the suffering of the civilians.

However, more needs to be done in the coming period, she added. A one-time aid delivery will never be enough to fulfill the needs. Repeated and continuous access to eastern Ghouta by humanitarian organizations is a must.

Sedky said the delivery included 5,500 bags of food and flour, enough for 27,500 people, in addition to medical items. One food parcel should last a month for family of five, the ICRC said.

Feels like racing with time, said her colleague, Pawel Krzysiek, in a tweet after the trucks arrived in Wafideen, a key crossing point set up by the Syrian government for civilians leaving eastern Ghouta and for aid to enter.

The only other U.N. aid delivery to eastern Ghouta this year was on Feb. 14, when a convoy of supplies for 7,200 people reached Nashabiyah, a smaller town.

Syrian President Bashar Assad vowed Sunday to continue the offensive in eastern Ghouta despite a U.N. Security Council resolution passed Feb. 25 demanding a 30-day cease-fire.

The daily humanitarian pauses would continue, allowing any civilians wanting to leave the region to do so, Assad said.

There is no contradiction between the truce and the military operation, Assad said in comments broadcast on Syrian TV.

The daily pause was ordered last week by Russia, a key Assad ally. It has been implemented with daily violations for the past week, and no civilians have left the encircled region.

Russia has accused rebel groups of preventing civilians from leaving, while residents say they fear permanent displacement or retribution by Syrian authorities.

The Assad government, meanwhile, said it achieved significant progress in its ongoing military operation in eastern Ghouta, seizing about 36 percent of the total area held by different armed groups.

Syrias Central Military Media said troops continued advancing from the east and were only 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) from meeting up with troops coming from the west, which would cut eastern Ghouta into two parts.

Mondays announcement came a day after troops recaptured Nashabiyah and a number of villages and farms in eastern Ghouta in the largest advances since the governments wide-scale operation began last month. Besides the 50 reported civilian deaths, there also has been a wave of internal displacement of people fleeing the front lines.

In Geneva, the U.N.s top human rights body called for investigators to conduct an urgent and targeted probe of the violence in eastern Ghouta.

The Human Rights Council adopted a resolution proposed by Britain instructing its Commission of Inquiry on Syria, created 6 1/2 years ago, to conduct a comprehensive and independent inquiry and report back in June.

The measure also threw the councils support behind the U.N. cease-fire across Syria to allow humanitarian aid in and to evacuate the sick and wounded.

___

Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Philip Issa in Beirut contributed.Prev 1 of 9 Next

Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

CORRECTION: A headline in Tuesdays Journal incorrectly said the Supreme Court sent a New Mexico water case to arbitration. The court remanded the case to a so-called special master who will oversee ongoing arguments in the case.

WASHINGTON  The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that the federal government can intervene in a water case pitting Texas against New Mexico and Colorado, meaning the case will be sent back to a special master to arbitrate the dispute.

The opinion, written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, said the federal government must be allowed to meet its federal water obligations  including an international agreement with Mexico  and actions that would go against the decades-old Rio Grande Compact would hinder that duty. The 1938 Rio Grande Compact governs the distribution of water in the Rio Grande Basin.

Gorsuch said a breach of the Compact could jeopardize the federal governments ability to satisfy its treaty obligations to Mexico.

Texas sued New Mexico in 2014, claiming that New Mexico farmers and pecan growers illegally pump groundwater from below Elephant Butte Dam that would otherwise flow to El Paso and West Texas. New Mexico claims that its water obligations to Texas are measured at the dam.

New Mexico had filed a motion to dismiss Texas lawsuit, but in July a special master appointed by the Supreme Court to analyze the case recommended the court reject that motion and allow the case to proceed. The complicated case could set a standard for the role the federal government will play in settling water rights disputes between states in the years ahead.

Reed D. Benson, chairman of the Natural Resources & Environmental Law Program at the University of New Mexico, said the Supreme Court ruling was not unexpected.

This decision is a preliminary ruling on the kinds of arguments the U.S. can make in this case, and the result was what most people expected, especially after the oral argument, Benson said. Its a narrowly written opinion that doesnt change the course of the lawsuit. But the outcome is not encouraging for New Mexico, in part because it allows the U.S. to reinforce all of Texas compact arguments.

In issuing its ruling, the court noted that New Mexico has conceded in pleadings and at oral argument that the United States plays an integral role in the Compacts operation.

Marcus J. Rael Jr., a private attorney working under contract for the New Mexico Attorney Generals Office, represented the state before the court Monday. Rael told the justices in January that under his view of the law, the federal government can pursue legal remedies under an earlier treaty but not under the 1939 compact apportioning the water among Texas, New Mexico and Colorado.

James Hallinan, a spokesman for New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas, noted that the Texas lawsuit was filed during the tenure of then-Attorney General Gary King, and he said Balderas is looking out for New Mexicos interests and will continue to vigorously defend the rights of New Mexico water users and work with all parties to seek a fair resolution for New Mexicans.

Todays ruling was a preliminary matter clarifying the United States role in the case, Hallinan added.

During oral arguments before the court in January, justices seemed to signal their thoughts on the matter.

It seemed to me quite simple, Justice Steven Breyer said during the arguments. The Constitution foresees that they (the federal government) can intervene where theres an interest. They have several interests. End of case, unless there is something that I dont see.

In 2008, water agencies in Texas and New Mexico, along with the federal government, reached a deal to share lower Rio Grande water. The parties hoped negotiating a Rio Grande operating agreement among themselves would head off an interstate lawsuit by Texas. But in 2011, Kings office filed suit to invalidate the interstate water operating agreement, charging that it gave away too much of New Mexicos water to Texas.

Texas, in its initial Supreme Court filing, cited Kings lawsuit, arguing that it advanced novel interpretations of the Rio Grande Compact and that the Supreme Courts help was needed to untangle the disagreement.WASHINGTON  Trade wars generate no medals, monuments or military parades. But they do tend to leave a lot of economic wreckage, often hurt the very people theyre meant to help and can fracture diplomatic relations among allies.

After announcing plans last week to slap taxes on imported aluminum and steel, President Donald Trump called trade wars good and breezily forecast an easy victory for the United States.

Economists see it rather differently. Starting a fight with trading partners has mostly proved to be self-defeating, they note.

Usually, all sides lose in a trade war, says Douglas Irwin, a Dartmouth College economist and author of the just-published Clashing Over Commerce: A History of U.S. Trade Policy. Trade shrinks as countries pile on barriers in an effort to remedy some grievance, with consumers paying the price.

Wall Street clearly agrees. Stocks sank Thursday and Friday after Trump announced plans to slap tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports, effectively threatening to wage commercial war on U.S. trading partners from Brasilia to Berlin to Beijing.

Shares of some of Americas biggest exporters  Boeing, Deere, Caterpillar  fell hardest on fears that other countries would retaliate against U.S. products.

The term trade war is usually tossed around when countries spar over commerce, often without a clear sense of what it is. Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University, defines it as a series of escalating tit-for-tat trade barriers imposed on each other by two or more countries.

Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, says the world hasnt endured a full-blown trade war since the 1930s. But globally, war drums are beating again.

Europeans have threatened to retaliate against Trumps metals tariffs by targeting American blue jeans, bourbon and Harley-Davidson motorcycles. It may not be a coincidence that Harleys are produced in House Speaker Paul Ryans Wisconsin and bourbon in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells Kentucky. Trump has met Europes threat of retaliation with a piled-on threat of his own: To slap tariffs on European autos.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, which stands to suffer most from Trumps proposed steel and aluminum tariffs, warned that he was prepared to defend Canadian industry from the tariffs.

China has responded to earlier Trump-imposed trade sanctions  tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines  by launching an anti-dumping investigation into U.S. sorghum exports, a move seen as a warning shot at American farmers who depend heavily on trade.

China, after all, consumes a third of the soybeans American farmers produce. John Heisdorffer, president of the American Soybean Association, warned that a Chinese retaliation to Trumps tariffs would be devastating to U.S. soy growers. Our competitors in Brazil and Argentina are all too happy to pick up supplying the Chinese market.

Though full-blown trade wars are mostly destined to fail, countries can sometimes pressure their trading partners to change their ways, Alden says. With U.S. automakers reeling from Japanese competition in the 1980s, the Reagan administration strong-armed Japan into agreeing to voluntary export restraints on car shipments. Japanese automakers ended up moving factories to the United States to avoid the limits.

But shielding one domestic industry from foreign competition can hurt others by driving up prices. A study by NERA Economic Consulting found that a 7 percent aluminum tariff  less than what the administration is planning  would save 1,000 jobs annually in the aluminum industry but wipe out 22,600 other jobs across the U.S. economy.

In 2002, President George W. Bush imposed tariffs on Chinese steel. The move allowed U.S. steel producers to increase prices, raising costs for companies that buy steel and pressuring them to cut back elsewhere. But the tariffs are thought to have cost significant U.S. job losses.

Or consider the Rubber Chicken dispute of 2009. The Obama administration slapped tariffs on Chinese tires, charging that a surge in imports was hurting the U.S. tire industry. Beijing counterpunched: It imposed a tax of up to 105 percent on U.S. chicken feet  a throw-away item in the U.S. thats considered a delicacy in China. The Peterson Institute for International Economics calculated that the tariffs probably saved 1,200 American tire jobs  but consumers paid over $900,000 in higher tire prices for each job saved.

To justify its proposed tariffs, the Trump administration invoked a section of U.S. law to declare that metals imports threatened Americas industrial base and national security  even though the Pentagon says the military needs just 3 percent of U.S. aluminum and steel production.

The administration stretches the definition of a national security threat to the breaking point, says Alden at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The World Trade Organization gives member countries leeway to protect their national security interests. But theres always been a gentlemans agreement that you dont use (a national security pretext) just because you have an industry in trouble, says Kent Jones, an economist at Babson College. This is extending the definition of national security for protectionist purposes and, believe me, theres going to be a big backlash.

Most analysts agree that the U.S. steel and aluminum industries have been hurt by overproduction in China, which has reduced global prices for the metals and made it difficult for U.S. producers to survive. But analysts say the United States should have teamed with Europeans and Japanese, who also are being harmed by Chinas oversupply, to pressure Beijing to curb its steel and aluminum output.

In a call Sunday with Trump, British Prime Minister Theresa May argued that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity and expressed deep concern about Trumps tariff plan, according to the British Foreign Office.

It seems like Trump was hell-bent on doing something more provocative, says Daniel Ikenson of the libertarian Cato Institutes Center for Trade Policy Studies.

China already faces barriers to the U.S. market. And its only the United States 11th-biggest steel importer. The biggest supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States? Canada, a steadfast ally.

Its unclear whether the Trump administration will exempt Canada or other allies from the tariffs. But in a television interview Sunday, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro appeared to reject the idea: As soon as you exempt one country, he said, then you have to exempt another country.

As Trump threatened to target European automakers, Marietje Schaake, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, tweeted that Europe doesnt want a trade war but will be forced to respond to US protectionism. She noted that German automakers made 845,000 cars in the United States last year.

The world is interconnected, she wrote, not zero-sum.

____

Follow Paul Wiseman on Twitter at https://twitter.com/PaulWisemanAP

____

For related Fact-Check items on this topic:

http://bit.ly/2FhUrX7

http://bit.ly/2FgNllTPANAMA CITY  Workers pried President Donald Trumps name from signs outside his family companys luxury hotel in Panama on Monday, as Trumps executives were ousted from their management offices in a business dispute under orders from Panamanian officials. Trumps security guards also left.

The end to a 12-day standoff over control of the property came early in the day when a Panamanian judicial official and police officers backed the hotels majority owner, Orestes Fintiklis, as he took possession of the offices. The Trump-affiliated management and security officials then left the 70-story, waterfront high-rise.

This was purely a commercial dispute that just spun out of control, said Fintiklis, a Miami-based private equity investor and head of the hotel owners association. And today this dispute has been settled by the authorities and the judges of this country.

The Trump Organizations lawyers, however, said Panamanian courts had in fact made no determination on the underlying dispute  a management contract held by the Trump group that it claims is still valid  and had only appointed an interim management until an international arbitration panel rules on the issue.

Trump Hotels is totally convinced it will not only prevail, but that it should also be paid damages, costs and other charges related to todays actions, the lawyers said in a statement. The Trump Organization didnt say who the new management was or why the Trump name was removed from the hotel.

The Panamanian Embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Panamanian judicial official told The Associated Press a statement would come later in the day.

The Trump Hotels website had ceased offering direct bookings at the hotel by early Monday afternoon. We apologize, the site said. There are no available rooms for your requested stay.

The hotel owners tried to fire Trumps company last year, but the Trump Organization disputed the termination as legally invalid. As part of his fire sale purchase of 202 of the hotels 369 units, Fintiklis signed a February 2017 agreement not to challenge Trumps management contract  a deal the Trump Organization considers binding.

Fintiklis quickly changed course after the deal closed in August, arguing that alleged mismanagement by Trumps staff and the deterioration of the Trump brand rendered keeping the property in Trump hands impossible. In late December, Trumps management team ran off a team of Marriott hotel executives visiting the property at Fintiklis invitation.

Our investment has no future so long as the hotel is managed by an incompetent operator whose brand has been tarnished beyond repair, Orestes wrote to his fellow hotel owners in a January email obtained by the AP.

The most recent and intense feuding began Feb. 22, when Fintiklis came to the property with termination notices for Trumps management team. Trump hotel officials turned away Fintiklis and his entourage, refusing to let him check into any of his private equity funds 202 hotel rooms.

A legal complaint filed by Fintiklis said that, late that same evening, he and others in his party witnessed Trumps management team destroying hotel documents, which Trump officials have denied.

For more than a week, Trumps hotel business staved off efforts by Fintiklis and his allies to gain control of the property, with rival security teams skirmishing over physical control of key infrastructure. That included the administrative offices and the hotels closed caption security system, which was housed in the condo association within the same building. Grainy footage of the encounter obtained by the AP shows Trump security officials shoving a representative of the condo owners association and a brawl in a stairwell between opposing security guards.

Initially invited by Trumps managers, the Panamanian police repeatedly visited the hotel to keep the peace. At least one Trump security official was taken off the property in handcuffs, though a police source told the AP he was not arrested.

Trump officials denounced Fintiklis efforts to take control of the property as thug-like, mob-style tactics and pledged in a February statement they would not give in to bullying and the use of force. Until litigation and arbitration involving the property was concluded, Trump officials said, they had no intention of leaving.

While Trump staffed up with additional security  stationing guards at the hotels administrative offices for more than one week  the fight for physical control of the hotel ended quietly with the intervention by Panamanian authorities. Trump security officials exited the property on their own accord, leaving the hotels administrative office vacant.

The whereabouts of the Trump hotel management team could not be immediately determined, but Fintiklis declared the fight over.

Today Panama has made us proud, Fintiklis said, adding that he intended to apply for Panamanian citizenship. Though Fintiklis has generally declined to comment on the dispute, he appeared to gloat Monday. Sitting at the piano in the hotels lobby, surrounded by reporters and news cameras, he played Accordeon, a Greek song celebrating that countrys fight to overthrow a fascist regime.

Within two hours, a man using a hammer and a crowbar began stripping Trump signage from a stone plaque in front of the building.A man who was found dead near West Central last Friday doesnt appear to have been the victim of foul play, according to a spokeswoman for the Bernalillo County Sheriffs Office.

Felicia Maggard said deputies were called to the area around 2:30 p.m. March 2 for reports of a body off the side of the road near Central and Atrisco Vista. She said when they got there they found a man, later identified as 57-year-old Stephen Gishley, dead.

Homicide detectives were called to the scene but Maggard said preliminary results from an autopsy found his death was not a homicide. But, she said, they are still waiting for more information to determine how he died.

Maggard said Gishleys next of kin have been told of his death.Motocruizers Technologies India (P) Limited, the company behind Indias leading and biggest bike rental services startup ONN Bikes has awarded its PR mandate to Mumbai based PR agency aainos integrated communications network (aainos).

Bengaluru based ONN Bikes,provides mobility solutions via short term renting, long term leasing and owning of two wheelers across multiple cities, with a fleet size of over 2300 bikes and provides its services to individuals, corporate houses and Logistic service providers across India. The company has existing tie-ups with over 65 leading organisations like OLA, UBER, Swiggy to name a few.

Namit Jain, Founder  ONN Bikes informed Our objective was to partner with an agency that could focus on delivering value driven outcomes enhancing our brand awareness, recall and positioning. aainos prs media approach strategy is designed for effective audience positioning through concentrated targeting.

Sonia Kochhar, Director  Media and Business Development at aainos informed Our approach is designed to generate effective outcomes through targeted objectives. ONN Bikes is already a successful venture and we look forward to provide all possible support to further enhance their brand positioning .

aainos provides a bouquet of services like public relations, content development, event planning & execution and digital services.As per media reports, Prasar Bharti and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) have been at loggerheads over release of funds towards payment of salaries of the staff of Doordarshan and All India Radio.

Now, SS Vempati, CEO, Prasar Bharti, has said that MIB had released funds amounting to Rs 208 crore towards payment of salaries. Vempati tweeted on March 4, 2018, Noticed reports in sections of media on non-disbursal of salaries to DD & AIR staff. Rs 208 crore towards salaries were released on the 28th Feb 2018. Attempts to create panic malafide. PB has so far received Rs 1,989 crore from MIB as grants-in-aid for salaries during FY2017-18.

According to online news website, The Wire, Prasar Bharti Chairman A Surya Prakash had alleged that MIB had not released funds for payment of salaries since December 2017. Due to this, Prasar Bharti had to release the funds to pay the salaries for January and February 2018 from its own contingency funds.

Reacting to the media reports, MIB in a clarification issued on March 2, 2018 had stated: It has come to the notice of the Ministry that a deliberate, sinister, motivated campaign has been launched by some elements to wrongfully tarnish the image of the Ministry of I&B by reporting that money to Prasar Bharti is not being released after December 2017 as a retaliation to Prasar Bharti not obeying certain dictates of the Ministry.

The MIB called these allegations patently defamatory in nature and said: Fiscal prudence and accountability is the very fulcrum of the functioning of any Government organisation. Prasar Bharti is as much bound by the General Financial Rules (GFR) of the Government of India as any Ministry or any organisation receiving grants-in-aid from the Government. As per the provision of GFR, any autonomous organisation receiving Grant-in-Aid must sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry, clearly bringing out the physical and financial targets with timelines for activities to be done by utilising the said grant during that financial year. For the record, irrespective of repeated reminders from the Ministry, no MoU has been signed by Prasar Bharti.

Citing an example of how fiscal accountability leads to curbing of wasteful expenditure, MIB illustrated, By bringing in Human Resource Information System (HRIS) in Prasar Bharti, at repeated insistence of the Ministry, exact amount of expenditure on employees has been worked out and this has resulted in savings to the tune of nearly Rs 30 crore per month for the salary head (Rs 360 crore a year). The Sam Pitroda Committee had also suggested a number of measures such as manpower audit, etc. to enhance financial discipline. Hence, we are hopeful that following similar footsteps, together a lot can be done to enhance transparency and accountability.

At the same time Ministry reiterated that the Government remained committed to protecting the interest of all Prasar Bharti employees.After winning millions of hearts in China, Turner's massively popular emoticon, Tuzki, is ready to take the international world of glitz and glam by storm! Turner India has announced an exciting collaboration with Indian fashion designer Manish Arora for the international launch of a special Tuzki-inspired collection.

Launched as a part of Manishs Fall-Winter collection, called Orange is the new Zen, was unveiled at the mecca of international fashion trends, the prestigious Paris Fashion Week. This year marks a milestone for the veteran designer, celebrating 10 glorious years of showcasing stunning designs at one of the worlds most revered fashion week.

Commenting on the collection launch, Manish Arora, Indias leading fashion designer said, It feels great to partner with an iconic brand like Tuzki. This unique collection was inspired by this special rabbit. He personifies a composed, relaxed yet a cool lifestyle, one that is similar to mine. The collection is a story of Tuzkis day in Paris where he is seen meditating below the Eiffel tower, chilling in his room with a glass of wine and watching nature from the window, highlighting the fascinating character that he is! Being a Tuzki fan, it's a pleasure to be a part of his world now, in my own way.

The collection, including t- shirts, dresses, jackets, pants, sweat shirts and accessories like backpacks, pouches and clutch bags, inspired by the rabbit, will be widely promoted and available for sale across Manish Arora Fashion stores in China, Tuzkis home country, before bringing it to the Indian market.

Clement Schwebig, Turner Asia Pacific's Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President of Business Development, Licensing and China, added, It's an exciting time for us, with two powerhouse brands coming together to showcase Tuzki to a new audience of fans. Paris Fashion Week serves as the perfect international platform to unveil a first glimpse of Manish's Tuzki-inspired collection.

With quirky movements and humorous body language, groovy dance moves and a penchant for milk, the mischievous bunny quickly became an internet sensation in China. Flitting from cheekiness to profound thoughts, Tuzkis moods have reflected those of millions of people through emoji, gifs, animations and stickers on various platforms.

Embodying these unique traits and features of the emoji star, the collection is a unique dove-point between Tuzkis quirky characteristics and Manishs astute craftsmanship. The collection features apparels and accessories that puts the spotlight on Tuzkis funny traits and peculiarities through the fashion designers quintessential creativity and play on colours. This collaboration is all set to elevate Tuzkis presence to an unprecedented international scale, expanding his popularity beyond the China market.Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier?

Sign up to receive news and updates from this site directly to your desktop.

Breaking News Columbia Breaking News Greenville Breaking News Myrtle Beach Breaking News Aiken Breaking News N Augusta Breaking News

Click on the bell icon to manage your notifications at any time.

Success! Please click the 'Allow' button in the 'Show Notifcations' alert in your browser if one is available. Thank you for signing up!

Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page.SRINAGAR:A complete shutdown is being observed across Kashmir to mourn the killings of six persons by army after militants attacked a Mobile Vehicle Check Post on Sunday evening.In south Kashmir, nocturnal protests went on throughout the entire night in Pahnoo area of Shopian district where four youth were killed by the army.

The slain youth have identified as Suhail Khalil Wagay from Pinjoora, Mohammad Shahid Khan from Malikgund and Shahnawaz Ahmad Wagay from Langandora Trenz, and Gowhar Ahmad Lone of Moolu, Trenz.

The two alleged militants have been identified as Aamir Ahmed Malik son of Bashir Ahmed Malik of Harmeen and Ashiq Hussain of Rakhpora area of the district.

Gowhar Ahmad Lones dead body was found, barely 200 meters from the gunfight site, in a Wagon R car, bearing registration number JK01Q- 1723 on wee hours of today morning.

Board of School Education and University of Kashmir University authorities have ordered a cancellation of all the exams for today, while schools, which were opening today after two and a half months break have been directed to remain shut till further orders.

In twin districts of Shopian and Pulwama, the mobile internet has been barred while a large contingent of forces has been deployed in the entire South Kashmir region to thwart protests in the wake of the killings.

Massive clashes erupted at several areas in south Kashmir today morning to protests against the killings.

Reportedly, people, including women and children, took to the streets in Tral, Awantipora, Pulwama, Shopian and many other villages and towns of south Kashmir, triggering massive clashes with government forces in these areas.

Restrictions have also been imposed in parts of Srinagar.

Train service have also been suspended today across the Valley.

Authorities have also reduce the mobile internet speed in entire Kashmir Valley as a precautionary measure.

The reports said that police have sent a communication to the cellular companies wherein it has directed them to reduce mobile internet (4G/3G) into 2G speed in all districts of Kashmir Valley with immediate effect.

As per the directions, the companies have been asked not to keep speed more than 128 kbps.

The Indian troops opened fire on a car near a military camp in Pahnoo area of the district, resulting in the death of six innocent people. The killings led to massive clashes between protesters and the occupational forces in Shopian, Pulwama and other areas.

Meanwhile, complete shutdown is being observed across the Kashmir Valley, today, against the innocent killings. Call for the strike was given by the Joint Resistance Leadership comprising Syed Ali Gilani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Muhammad Yasin Malik. The authorities have imposed strict restrictions in Srinagar, Islamabad, Shopian, Puwlama and Kulgam districts and suspended internet mobile services in south Kashmir to prevent protests.

Territorys Public Service Commission (PSC) has postponed the examination for four papers which were scheduled to be held on Monday.

On the other hand, Indian police launched major search operations at two separate places in the Rajouri district. The forces conducted searches in Chawa, Mochi Mohalla, Crusher Morh, Tandwal, Thandikassi, Iran Khanetar, Gambhir and Kakora areas.

With inputs from Rising KashmirCAIRO  On Feb. 24, a number of tribes in the National Council for Arab Tribes announced their support for El Ghad Party head Moussa Mustafa Moussa, who is running against President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the upcoming election. The declaration was made during an El Ghad Party meeting at its headquarters in Cairo in which members of the National Council for Arab Tribes attended.

Meanwhile, Moussas campaign revealed on Feb. 24 some aspects of his electoral campaign under the slogan Building a Better Egypt.

In appreciation of the tribes national role in supporting Egypt and protecting its borders, Moussa suggested re-evaluating their lands and improving their situation by providing services and better prices. Many tribes assume monitoring and reconnaissance tasks on the field, especially in the border areas; others provide immediate information to the security authorities.

The exact number of tribes in Egypt is unknown. Some sources estimate that their number is greater than 100 and that around 17 million Egyptians belong to those tribes. They are mainly concentrated in border provinces such as the Sinai Peninsula, Aswan and Matrouh.

The National Council for Arab Tribes had issued a press release on Feb. 18 announcing several rallies to support Moussa in the upcoming presidential election. These events began on Feb. 24 and will end on March 23  the time frame set by the National Electoral Commission (NEC).

The National Council for Arab Tribes is affiliated with the Ministry of Social Affairs. Its objective is to facilitate communication and cohesion between tribes and Egyptian provinces, place tribes on the nations map and allow them to participate in all sectors in a way that reflects their influence and number.

Wajih Abu Hajar, the secretary-general of provinces in the council, told Al-Monitor that the council was established in 2013. It consists of 68 Arab tribes representing the different provinces of the republic, and it communicates with other Arab tribes outside of Egypt that are connected to the Egyptian tribes.

When it comes to the reasons why the tribes support Moussa, Abu Hajar said, Moussa and the El Ghad Party were the first to support the establishment of the council, either through providing headquarters in different provinces or trying to solve the tribes problems.

Abu Hajar added, Supporting Moussa is a move to repay his kindness. This man deserves to be in the best position to represent the tribes in Egypt, especially since his family is originally from Minya and is known for its tribal background.

Asserting that the council will not support Sisi for yet another presidential term, Abu Hajar said, Moussas candidacy has placed us in front of an ultimatum, especially since we respect and appreciate Sisi, who brought back security to Egypt and came to power in the most difficult of times. Yet when we had to choose, we supported Moussa since it is a duty for all tribes represented in the council.

He continued, It is enough that Moussas electoral program touched down on the needs of the tribes by stressing the need to solve their pending land ownership issues with the government. Many tribes reside in borderlands that are subject to conflicts on ownership with the state.

As for the strategies that the tribes will implement in supporting Moussa, Abu Hajar explained, We will hold rallies in several provinces, and the last one will be held in Cairo on March 23, and Moussa will be present for that one to directly address his supporters and discuss his entire vision.

Moussa officially submitted his candidacy papers on Jan. 29 and later mentioned in a press conference that El Ghad Party has made important studies that would solve many problems in Egypt, so the party found it necessary to run for elections.

In addition to this popular tribal support for Moussa, some tribes, such as the tribes of the Red Sea region, declared their support for Sisi in a rally held on Feb. 2.

The NEC had announced Jan. 8 that the doors will be open for Egyptian expats residing abroad to vote March 16-18, while elections within Egypts borders will be held March 26-28.

Ammar Ali Hassan, a writer and specialist in politics and sociology, spoke to Al-Monitor about the importance of the support granted to Moussa by the National Council for Arab Tribes in the upcoming presidential election.

Hassan said, The support given by this great number of tribes to Moussa does not necessarily mean that all tribes wont vote for Sisi, especially in light of dwindling influence by the tribal sheikhs on the other members of the tribe. In other words, imposing one political inclination or one candidate on all tribal members is not possible.

Hassan added, This tribal support might not translate into an influential voting bloc that would tip the balance in favor of the tribes-supported candidate for the upcoming presidential election. This support is closer to flattery in paying back Moussa for the services he gave the tribes.

He continued, The councils declaration of support for Moussa could be viewed from a completely different angle. It could turn out to benefit Sisi, since it portrays a different mental image. It shows the international community that there is a political movement in Egyptian society, and that there is actual competition for the presidency.

Including the tribal component in the presidential election draws attention to the inclusion of tribes in the political process in Egypt. It also opens the door to speculations on the capacity of tribes to play an effective political role in the future.CAIRO  Salah Hasaballah, the head of the Freedom Party and parliament spokesman, kicked off the partys Feb. 24 press conference to announce its endorsement for Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in the upcoming election. Al-Bawaba news quoted him as opening with, President Sisi stood up to the Brotherhood and countered their attempts to seize power. He risked his own life to save Egyptians from destruction. Hasaballahs remarks show how strongly politicians and everyday citizens support Sisi just for being the Muslim Brotherhoods adversary.

However, a Feb. 6 Bloomberg article cited Brotherhood sources saying Sisi intends to reconcile with the group ahead of the election. The piece has caused a flurry of reaction articles.

In a Feb. 7 al-Modon article, Muslim Brotherhood sources in Egypt were quoted as saying that Sisi seeks to reconcile with imprisoned Brotherhood leaders via mediators from military intelligence as part of a deal whereby senior leaders will be freed in exchange for disengaging from politics.

Bloomberg noted that Sisi dismissed the director of the Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate, Gen. Khaled Fawzy, who has taken a hard line against the Brotherhood, and jailed former military chief Gen. Sami Anan, his rival for the presidency who has strong ties with the Muslim Brotherhood. Anan, the report noted, has "promised to reopen the files of past verdicts against the Brotherhood, which he argued were politicized, in the hope of receiving their support in the upcoming election. According to Bloomberg, "Sisi seems to believe that reconciliation with the Brotherhood is inevitable and is determined to ensure it benefits him and not a rival.

Al-Monitor contacted Mahmoud Kabish, the former dean of the Faculty of Law at Cairo University, who said that neither a reconciliation with the Muslim Brotherhood nor a release of its imprisoned leaders would take place. The president does not have the powers to achieve either, and these matters are subject to judicial rulings. On the possibility of a presidential pardon, he answered, Although the president is granted pardon powers, such a pardon is legally impossible at present. This is because most of the Brotherhood leaders continue to face lawsuits that are still being investigated. The prisoners cannot be pardoned until the investigation is over and sentences are issued.

Imad Eddine Hussein, the editor-in-chief of Egypt's al-Shorouk and a writer focusing on political affairs, said in a Feb. 22 article for Deutsche Welle that many journalists and other observers question why the Egyptian security institutions are intensifying their crackdown on the Brotherhood at home even as Egypt is warming to Brotherhood affiliates abroad such as Hamas and Sudan's ruling National Congress party.

Hamas delegations paid several visits to Egypt last year and early 2018, holding meetings with officials in charge of the Palestinian reconciliation dossier and Egyptian intelligence. In February, hostilities eased between the Egyptian and Sudanese regimes following months of dispute over the Grand Renaissance Dam.

Hussein told Al-Monitor, The Egyptian policy is against the Brotherhood and will not accept any extremist group in a political role. It, however, cannot force countries such as Palestine and Sudan to pursue the same policy. This is why the Egyptian authorities have dealt with the Brotherhood abroad in a way that serves Egyptian national security. It does not imply a prelude to a reconciliation at home." He called the Sudanese and Gazan parties' recognition of the current Egyptian regime, which replaced the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi during the June 2013 revolution, "a triumph for Sisi and the current regime."

Yousri El-Azbawi, a researcher for Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, offered another analysis of Bloombergs article. He told Al-Monitor that it is impossible for Sisi to reconcile with the Muslim Brotherhood at home because this matter is not exclusively in his hands. It also involves the judiciary and the wider Egyptian society, which is against the Brotherhood in general. He pointed out that such a reconciliation would do Sisi no good in the elections because it would lead all those who stand opposed to the Brotherhood such as Al-Azhar, Christians, all of the civil parties and even religious parties such as the Nour Party to oppose Sisi himself.

Azbawi went on to say that every now and then, fugitive Brotherhood leaders in Turkey, Sudan and Qatar, such as Mohamed Gamal Hishmat, Mahmoud Hussein, Mahmoud Ezzat and others, seek to promote rumors in their countries of refuge that they are still influential in Egyptian politics to continue receiving political and financial support there. They also seek to stir up tension between the Egyptian regime and some of the anti-Brotherhood regimes in the Gulf countries, particularly the UAE. Bloomberg itself pointed to Sisis fears that reconciliation with the Brotherhood would negatively affect his ties with the Gulf countries, especially the UAE.

Mohammed Sawdan, a representative of the Foreign Relations Committee of the Freedom and Justice Party, which has strong links to the Brotherhood, did not deny the facts as presented in the article. He told Al-Monitor, Some of the state apparatuses have perhaps negotiated for a reconciliation with Brotherhood leaders. But I do believe that such a quest is not serious, because since the day Sisi seized power, his policy has been based on fully removing the Brotherhood from the landscape. Sisi's efforts as depicted in the article are nothing more than a maneuver by security and political apparatuses to persuade imprisoned Brotherhood leaders not to encourage their bases to support a candidate other than Sisi in the election.UN special coordinator for the Middle East peace process Nickolay Mladenov announced in a Feb. 15 statement that the Palestinians and Israelis have reached an agreement on reviewing the reconstruction plan of the Gaza Strip in place since 2014, so as to effectively repair the damage caused by the Israeli war on Gaza the same year.

Miladinovs statement followed a meeting in Ramallah on Feb. 14 with Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and the Israeli Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai to discuss the possibility of alleviating Israeli restrictions on Gaza and speeding up the reconstruction process.

Today  three years into the reconstruction plan  only 60% of buildings have been reconstructed as Israel does not allow most building materials into the Gaza Strip. This has caused the construction process to break down, harming the Palestinian companies and inflicting major losses of millions of dollars on the economy, Mohammed Abu Jiab, the editor-in-chief at Al-Eqtesadia newspaper in Gaza, told Al-Monitor.

Egypt had organized the Cairo Conference on Palestine  Reconstructing Gaza following the destruction of the coastal strip by the Israeli attacks in the summer of 2014, and $5 billion was pledged to the Palestinians, of which $3.5 billion was allocated for rebuilding the Gaza Strip. Of 53 countries and entities participating, only 28 were fully committed to their pledges, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United States, the European Union and Turkey.

Atef Adwan, head of the Economy Committee in the Palestinian Legislative Council, told Al-Monitor, The talk about the United Nations changing its reconstruction plan for Gaza has one main reason: Israel fears that the situation in Gaza might explode because of the dire conditions and the decline in living standards. Israel could have pressured the UN to speed up the reconstruction plan, not out of love or empathy for the Palestinians, but out of fear of a Palestinian revolution that might spill into Israel.

The international community seems to have realized that the rebuilding plan for the Gaza Strip needs to be reviewed and then at the least reformulated so that Israel is bound to allow all construction materials into Gaza. This is especially true in light of the growing Palestinian discontent with the plan, which prompted protests calling for the plans abolition after major delays in implementation; these holdups have been widely criticized in the Palestinian media.

It is necessary to end rather than review this plan as it has replaced the Israeli blockade with a UN siege on Gaza. The entire process is slow and very expensive with dozens of international experts being paid obscenely large salaries, and expensive monitoring programs and mechanisms to check the destination of every cement bag to ensure that nothing is being used by Palestinian factions for other reasons  upon the directives of Israel, Omar Shaban, the head of the Gaza-based Pal-Think for Strategic Studies, told Al-Monitor.

I met with President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Sept. 17, 2014, and talked with him about the danger of the [plans] mechanism. The plan is a failure and is costing Palestinians a lot. It should be canceled altogether, Shaban said

Private sector institutions in the Gaza Strip called in a Feb. 20 statement for the cancellation of the plan, describing it as a failure that contributes to the promotion of the siege on Gaza under UN auspices. The statement noted that the amount of cement brought into Gaza between October 2014 and the end of December 2017 does not exceed 2 million tons, only 30% of Gazas needs for the same period.

A senior Palestinian employee at one of Gazas international nongovernmental organizations told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Many international institutions working within the framework of the UN plan expressed dissatisfaction with the slow reconstruction process. It should be noted also that the plan has expanded to include comprehensive construction projects of new houses, but with the same delays in implementation.

It has been three years since the Gaza reconstruction plan was launched, yet no major breakthrough has been made. Construction materials have not been flowing into Gaza in sufficient amounts to meet the rebuilding requirements, as Israel has tightened its grip on the border crossings for fear of such materials being used for other purposes, mainly the building of tunnels by Hamas.

There are 100,000 housing units that were partially or completely damaged in the last Israeli war on Gaza. Revising the UN rebuilding plan or finding a better alternative would open doors to 300 Palestinian construction and contracting companies. This is not to mention job opportunities for 70,000 technicians and professional construction workers, Nabil Abu Muailaq, former head of the Palestinian Contractors Syndicate in Gaza, told Al-Monitor.

In addition, due to the plans security and technical procedures, 130 companies with contracts in the reconstruction of Gaza stopped their projects. With these policies in place, the construction process is likely to drag on for 20 years, he said.

It has become clear that the requirements for the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip necessitate reconsidering the UN plan that has been in force for more than three years now. The Palestinians believe that the plan has institutionalized the Israeli blockade and is prolonging the construction process for many years to come. As a result, the international community is calling for a new plan that would take the complaints of the Palestinians into consideration and speed up the entire process.Iraq has detained hundreds of foreign women allegedly affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) and has sentenced 17 Turkish women to death by hanging. Women from other countries, including France and Germany, also have received death sentences and Baghdad is now facing pressure from those countries to instead extradite the women to their home nations.

Humanitarian officials estimate Iraq is holding about 1,700 foreign women and children. Many of the women are accused of being affiliated by marriage to IS fighters or of providing aid. Trials began after military operations ended and the country declared itself liberated from IS on Dec. 9. Just last week, 16 Turkish women were sentenced to death. Others have been sentenced to life in prison. All of their sentences can be appealed.

France has on more than one occasion expressed its position against the trials. On Jan. 30, French Justice Minister Nicole Belloubet threatened to intervene in cases of its nationals, though she didn't specify what type of intervention. Belloubet's comment came after the Iraqi judiciary on Jan. 22 sentenced to death a German national of Moroccan origin for allegedly having joined IS.

Iraq has no universal law or convention providing for extradition. It does have bilateral extradition treaties with specific countries, but those treaties have yet to be put into action and don't cover terrorism-related crimes.

Human rights organizations, including the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights and the French Human Rights League, are pressuring the Iraqi government to extradite French suspects to face trials in France, citing a fear of unfair trials in Iraq.

We are trying to retrieve our nationals to prosecute them in Paris," a French human rights official told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. "The Iraqi government is incapable of ensuring them fair trials; we do not expect it to do so. Three French women will be facing trial [soon], and we fear they will be sentenced" before France can reach a satisfactory solution with the Iraqi government. "We are against the death penalty, the official said.

The Iraqi penal code says people accused of committing crimes in Iraq must be tried there. However, once the prisoners have been tried, their countries can have them extradited to serve their sentences in their home countries.

But not everyone in France would welcome their return.

France wants to ensure that its citizens receive fair trials, but its judicial system is already overburdened. Some in the government also object to imprisoning jihadis in French jails for fear they will incite other prisoners. While it may be that there is less resistance to having female rather than male Islamic militants returned to France, the country has made its stance on jihadis clear in the past.

Hisham al-Hashimi, a researcher on extremist groups, told Al-Monitor, There are 509 women of European nationalities who face trials in Iraq, including 300 Turks.

He added, Iraq will not extradite these women  before they are tried, [but] Baghdad wants them to serve their [prison] sentences in their countries. Iraq is trying to communicate with these countries, but it seems that the European countries and Turkey do not want these women back.

In a surprise move, Iraq handed over to Moscow 27 children and four Russian women alleged to be IS members whom Iraqi authorities claimed had been brainwashed or tricked into joining IS. Back in Russia, these women are to face charges of illegally entering Iraq.

Iraq appears to be speeding up trial proceedings against the foreign women, perhaps because it doesn't want to yield to foreign demands against the death penalty. And the government doesn't want to create a public uproar by showing leniency in some of the trials, or risk a political crisis with parties supporting Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who has said that people who commit crimes in Iraq will be tried in Iraq.

The women who have been sentenced may appeal their judgments before the Iraqi Court of Cassation. And it could be that international political pressure, particularly from European countries, may still lead Iraq to extradite women believed to have been merely affiliated with IS rather than directly involved in terrorist acts.25-yr-old man injured in Dhading khukuri attack

A man was critically injured in a Khukuri attack in Dhading district on Monday. The injured has been identified as Raju Tamang, 25, of Jharlang, Khaniyabas-1 of the district.Ultra-Orthodox parties are pushing for the adoption of a bill exempting the ultra-Orthodox from conscription, even threatening to block the approval of the 2019 budget over it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu takes these threats seriously, since in Israel rejection of a budget is synonymous with a non-confidence vote against the government.

But can Aryeh Deris Shas party find a compromise and prevent a decision to dismantle the government and move to an early election? The latest polls dont flatter Shas, and the party is already on the brink of the vote threshold for representation in the Knesset. One of Deris close associates told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that going to an early election now would be the dumbest move possible for all the coalition parties.

The Purim holiday gave Yisrael Beitenu's leader, Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, an opportunity to needle the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox parties  his rivals in the political conflict over the conscription law. Liberman posted a video Facebook message for Purim. Dressed up as an ultra-Orthodox man, he said, When the month of Adar is on us, we enlist with joy. With the help of God, Litzman would be in the Sayeret Matkal, and Gafni in Shayetet 13.

Its doubtful that the two ulta-Orthodox politicians he named, Knesset members Yaakov Litzman and Moshe Gafni, appreciated Libermans joke about their joining Israel's elite army and navy units. The prank added fuel to the fire of the conflict that threatens the coalition.

A November 2015 amendment to the conscription law removed the criminal consequences for yeshiva students who evade military service  the penalties that had been added by the previous Knesset in 2014. In September 2017, the Supreme Court struck down the amendment, objecting to the way the amendment undermined the authority of the defense minister to set quotas for enlisted ultra-Orthodox as he sees fit. The court gave the Knesset a year to pass an alternative law.

After the ruling, the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox parties made it clear that legislating a new conscription law was critical. However, it seems that if it werent for the embroilment of the prime minister in an array of criminal investigations, they might have waited until the Knessets summer session instead of setting an ultimatum for passing it during the current session.

Until two weeks ago, the ultra-Orthodox had seemed satisfied with their achievements in the current government and would not have turned the question into a crisis. Deri said that the law must pass and Agudat Yisrael's Council of Torah Sages called for pressure on Netanyahu, but there were no threats or ultimatums.

Early last week, the tone changed. Liberman announced Feb. 27, Regarding the conscription of the ultra-Orthodox, Yisrael Beitenus position is clear. We will only support legislation formulated by the professional staff assembled by the Defense Ministry. The staff includes only professionals and there is no ultra-Orthodox representation. Gafni quickly responded by threatening the coalition: We entered the coalition with the central issue being yeshiva students. The state cannot exist without students whose learning is their faith. We legislated to regulate the issue. The Supreme Court rejected the law for the fourth time. We said well legislate a basic law but Yisrael Beitenu opposes it. From now on, we will no longer vote for the senseless laws you introduce.

Litzman then directly addressed Netanyahu and informed him that in accordance with the instructions of the Council of Torah Sages, he cannot support the government budget until the conscription law passes. In response, Liberman said, The conscription law is a draft-dodging law. The decision of Yahadut HaTorah is no less than blackmail. Yisrael Beitenu will not give in and will not allow this to happen.

Netanyahu, in the midst of interrogation preparations, urgently gathered the heads of the ultra-Orthodox parties and promised to try to find a solution.

The ultra-Orthodox are also directing their anger toward Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, whom they accuse of promising to support the law but then reneging. It is Kahlon's doing that the Supreme Court continues to run this country, a senior Yahadut HaTorah member told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.

Kahlon insists on passing the budget during the current session, which ends March 18, and his party, Kulanu, announced that it will not hesitate to go to elections if that doesnt happen.

On March 3, Culture Minister Miri Regev of the Likud warned, Theres only one party in the coalition that has no reason to fear an election. Its called the Likud. We have a very high degree of trust from the public and bogus threats will not work against us. There is something to her claim. Most polls show the Likud keeping its power as the largest party in the Knesset. In comparison, almost all of the other coalition parties would weaken.

Within the Likud, members wonder what caused the ultra-Orthodox to harden their line. A Likud minister told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that when party leaders sat with leaders of the ultra-Orthodox parties to understand why they made the ultimatum, their answers were evasive. One of the ultra-Orthodox politicians said, The possibility that in the next few months Netanyahu will be forced to vacate his seat is causing us to lose sleep, and its clear to us that in such an event theres no chance that we would get a conscription law that we could live with. Liberman is waiting for us in a corner because he owes his voters some achievements before the election or he will not pass the vote threshold. With all our achievements, without an acceptable conscription law, it would be as though we got nothing done during the current term.

The Likud minister has no doubt that Netanyahu's interrogation on March 2 riled up all the coalition parties, and the whirlwind of threats and counter-threats is almost unstoppable. The prime minister needs superhuman political power to be able to deal with this crisis while he is occupied by the investigations, said the minister.

Netanyahu won a few days respite with his trip to the United States to participate in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's conference and meet with President Donald Trump. Upon getting on the plane, he said that there is no reason to go to an early election and all that is needed from the coalition parties is goodwill. Until Netanyahu returns, Ministers Yariv Levin and Zeev Elkin, with Deris help, will be hard at work on a resolution.The ring of criminal investigations is closing in on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leaving him very little room to maneuver. At this stage, most other people would throw up their hands and find a quick exit, if only to stay out of prison. Netanyahu continues navigating this stormy sea and planning his rescue strategy or, at least, planning some significant delay of the inevitable. As of now, Netanyahus strategy consists of three parallel components: questioning the legitimacy of the gatekeepers, particularly the police, the attorney generals office and the media; tightening coordination with the US administration and creating the impression that when it comes to Israels relationship with US President Donald Trump, there is no alternative to Netanyahu; and holding a snap election to increase his strength or, at the very least, signal to the attorney general what the people really want.

Lets start with the election. Netanyahu does not want to be seen as someone who is dragging Israel into a new round of elections just to save his skin, when he has a year and eight months until the end of his term in November 2019. This is why the serious coalition crisis that erupted this weekend was not only timely  it was exactly what he needed. The crisis revolves around a spat between Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and the ultra-Orthodox Yahadut HaTorah party, led by Yaakov Litzman, over the enlistment law that is designed to exempt ultra-Orthodox youth from conscription. While the spat is making all the other members of the coalition nervous, Netanyahu has been able to maintain an unusually calm demeanor. According to a political source talking on condition of anonymity, Netanyahu has even informed his coalition partners that if things dont work out over the next few days, we will be forced to take it to the voters.

On March 4, however, HaBayit HeYehudi seniors Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked both announced that this was a fake crisis. They claimed that Netanyahu could resolve the crisis with a few phone calls, but that he isnt interested in doing that. The right will not get a better government, even after the elections, Shaked warned.

This made it hard for Netanyahu on March 5 to stick to his plan to go with and feel without, namely, to keep a stable coalition while preparing for early elections. The criminal investigations closing in on him actually boosted his standing in the polls, while June seems like the perfect time for an election, since it will precede Attorney General Avichai Mandelblits anticipated decision to indict Netanyahu (or not). All of this would seem to be encouraging Netanyahu to let the country get dragged into an election. He will have to make his decision by the end of the week. But Israeli elections are always a dangerous enigma. The candidates may know how they go in, but they have no idea how they will come out, if at all.

At the same time, anonymous sources continue to deliver harsh blows to Israels gatekeepers and law enforcement, all in an effort to challenge their legitimacy. With the backing of several Likud Knesset members, along with Culture Minister Miri Regev, Netanyahu is trying to create the impression that these are largely political investigations, conducted under pressure from the media and the left. Despite the fact that the Israel Police chief and the public prosecutor are both Netanyahu appointees and considered close to the prime minister, many Israelis are convinced that the system is persecuting Netanyahu. After weeks in which the Israel Police in general and Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh in particular have come under methodical attack, it is now Mandelblits turn. This began with a well-planned series of rumors on WhatsApp and continued with anonymous reports appearing on websites close to the prime minister.

According to these reports, Mandelblit could easily be pressured, or even extorted, over recordings in police possession. These 2010 Harpaz affair recordings could allegedly incriminate Mandelblit. Based on this information (which is apparently completely baseless), Mandelblit is worried about his personal affairs being made public. This refers to the period when he served as chief military advocate general, with the rank of major general. In other words, the motivations for his current actions have nothing to do with the case.

As if by magic, a report published in Israel on March 4, just a few days after this wave of rumors began, claimed the attorney general is considering a devils advocate staff in his office to lay out the arguments for not indicting Netanyahu in order to counter the arguments for indictment made by his regular, professional staff. As of now, it is unclear whether this decision has anything to do with the latest rumors facing Mandelblit. People close to him have been trying to assuage public fears by saying that he will not be influenced by rumors, gossip or unfounded reports. He continues to oversee the investigation, they say, steering its course with stable hands.

The third part of Netanyahus plan is a joint operation involving him and various US administration sources. There are those among the Israeli opposition who call this "Operation Saving Bibi. It relies on the particularly close relationship between Netanyahu and Trump, as well as Trumps son-in-law Jared Kushner; vital aid provided by US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman; and the unprecedented influence that Israels ambassador in Washington, Ron Dermer, has on senior administration officials, among them Kushner. This facet of the operation is credited with advancing the US Embassys move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, reportedly to May, and the meeting between Netanyahu and Trump on March 5. The underlying principle of this strategy is to convince the Israeli public that the prime minister wields enormous influence over Trump, and that their special, close relationship has been advantageous to Israel in many ways, chief among them the decision to accelerate the embassys move to Jerusalem.

Netanyahu is well-aware that moving the US Embassy to West Jerusalem has no real operational importance. It is merely a propaganda event intended to make a statement. Yet this does not prevent him from getting as much leverage as possible from the move and pushing the move date up to Israels Independence Day this May. The timing fits perfectly with talk of advancing the election to June, if that actually happens. As far as Netanyahu is concerned, the timing would be ideal. The election would take place right after Independence Day, which will include the traditional series of propaganda events in the national consensus and under the prime ministers aegis, and also the embassy move. The timing could enable him to win a record number of Knesset seats and to signal to law enforcement that the people are behind him, regardless of any progress in the investigations.

At this stage, it is hard to tell how much of this multistage plan will actually be realized. Netanyahu knows that even if there is an election and he comes out stronger, it will not stop the investigations from proceeding full steam ahead. Furthermore, there is no connection between the number of Knesset seats or popularity in the polls and the police investigations and criminal activities. Case 4000  which looks at Netanyahus relations with communication mogul Shaul Elovitch  should end the police saga and provide Mandelblit with the critical mass needed to indict Netanyahu. The prime minister also knows that even though the law does not address this scenario, there has never been a prime minister who remained in office while being tried for criminal activity in all of Israels history.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu keeps fighting. Thats what he is made of. He will never give up. He will never surrender. When it comes to his personal interests, there is no such thing as going too far. His supporters and associates have no qualms about casting aspersions and disparaging Israels official institutions, including its entire law enforcement system, just to help the boss escape.

In the meantime, Netanyahus former adviser Nir Hefetz signed a state witness agreement against the prime minister March 5. Hefetz was one of the people closest to Netanyahu. His signature of the state witness agreement is tantamount to an earthquake, significantly bringing closer the end of the Netanyahu era.Turkish air force jets pounded targets around the town of Jindires as a military offensive against Syrian Kurdish forces in northern Syria entered its 45th day. Efforts to drive out the group known as the Peoples Protection Units (YPG) from Jindires are seen as critical to Turkeys goal of encircling Afrin amid growing debate as to whether Turkeys hawkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will follow through with pledges to capture the city of Afrin itself  a fight that promises to be drawn out and bloody.

A commander from the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) contacted by Al-Monitor via WhatsApp concurred that the fall of Jindires, which lies southwest of the city of Afrin, would disrupt access to and from Syrian regime-held areas that serve as the Kurds logistical supply lines for the defense of Afrin and its environs.

The Turkish strategy is to lay siege to Afrin and to cut off the connection to Nubl and Zahra, the SDF commander, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Al-Monitor.

Forces loyal to the Syrian regime have reportedly been deployed in support of the YPG from the mainly Shiite villages of Nubl and Zahra. Haberturk, a mainstream news channel, broadcast footage shot from Hatay, on the Turkish side of the border, of Turkish jets bombing Jindires. Large plumes of brown smoke rose from a hilltop that the channel said was near Jindires. Haberturk reported that the purpose of the strikes was to "soften" resistance before Turkish-led ground forces moved into the town itself.

Commentators believe that the battle for Jindires marks a shift from rural to urban warfare in Turkeys Operation Olive Branch  a move that will prove hugely challenging. Jindires needs to be taken if Turkish-led forces are to close in on Afrin proper. Sedat Ergin, a veteran columnist for Hurriyet, wrote that Jindires "spreads out over a large area  [and] clashes with terrorist groups in a residential area with civilians carry more risks and difficulties than ones in the countryside.

According to Istanbul-based think tank the Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM), the Turkish gendarmerie and police special operations units, which are the urban warfare and counterterrorism elite of the Turkish security forces, are being deployed to the areas of operation." EDAM added that the "use of  civilians as human shield[s]" on behalf of the YPG and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is "highly problematic."

The PKK has been waging a battle for Kurdish self-rule inside Turkey and is closely allied with the YPG. Turkey says the PKK and the YPG are one and the same and pose an existential threat. It is on these grounds that Turkey has carried its battle to Syria, where the YPG  thanks to US backing for a campaign against the Islamic State (IS)  now controls around a quarter of the country.

The US-led coalitions alliance with the YPG has wrecked Washingtons relations with Turkey. But as the campaign against IS winds down, the Donald Trump administration is scrambling to salvage its strategic partnership with Turkey, which has been a NATO ally for more than half a century. In a background briefing for Turkish journalists last week, a senior US official in Ankara declared, We do not consider the YPG as an ally to the US. Our ally is Turkey. The United States made clear from the beginning our military cooperation with the YPG  was a temporary, tactical arrangement aimed entirely at combating [IS]. Moreover, Washington argues that what is going on in Afrin is none of its concern because Afrin is within Russias zone of influence and no American troops are stationed there.

During his recent meeting with Erdogan in Ankara, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson appeared to have fended off potential moves by Turkey against the mainly Arab town of Manbij, which is administered and protected by locals who are backed by the YPG. Some US special forces are deployed close to Manbij, which they helped wrest after a protracted battle in 2016. But now the YPG is thinking of opening a second front against Turkish-led forces in the Euphrates Shield area from Manbij to alleviate pressure on Afrin, the SDF commander said. That would put the kibosh on Washington's efforts to de-escalate tensions with Ankara over Manbij.

Hardened by more than four years of urban warfare against IS fighters in Kobani and Manbij, the YPG will likely put up stiff resistance against Turkish-led forces, and the number of Turkish casualties  currently at 44, according to the Turkish General Staff  could sharply increase. But should Turkey decide to bomb Jindires proper before sending in ground troops, that risk would be minimized. The SDF commander predicted, They dont care about civilians. They will bomb the town, they will flatten it.

The pro-Kurdish ANHA news site published footage on March 5 of what it said were buildings in the center of Jindires that were struck by Turkish planes. The images showed streets strewn with rubble and collapsed cinder block structures on fire. Photographs of civilians said to be killed and wounded in the Turkish attacks continue to be circulated by pro-Kurdish social media accounts.

Western journalists coming into the Kurdish-controlled northeast via Iraqi Kurdistan have been denied access to Afrin. Media coverage both in Turkey and by Kurdish outlets remains predictably slanted, and the number of civilian and combatant casualties are near impossible to establish. But Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported last month that Turkish Armed Forces appear to have failed to take necessary precautions to avoid civilian casualties in three attacks in northwest Syria in late January 2018. The group further noted, The attacks killed 26 civilians, including 17 children. HRW based its report on investigations carried out on just three Turkish attacks. Syrian Kurdish officials cite civilian deaths in the hundreds. Turkey denies targeting civilians or any civilian infrastructure and accuses the YPG of killing Turkish civilians in cross-border artillery attacks. EDAM reported that seven Turkish civilians had perished in such attacks since Jan. 21.

Various Trump administration officials who follow the Syrian conflict dismiss Turkeys threats to capture Afrin as hot air and insist that its foothold in the areas around Afrin is unsustainable. But Aaron Stein, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council who has written extensively about Turkeys role in Syria, is less sanguine. I take Erdogan at his word," he told Al-Monitor. "I assume Turkey will surround the city, besiege it and then use overwhelming firepower to enter Afrin, unless the YPG and the Syrian regime reach an agreement that will force Russia to take action to clamp down on the actions of its junior partners in Ankara. Stein was alluding to Russias consent in letting Turkey use airspace that it controls in northern Syria to carry out Operation Olive Branch. The prevailing consensus is that Russia gave Turkey the nod so as to force the YPG to ditch its relations with the United States and to allow regime forces to regain full control over Afrin.

A recent opinion poll published by Metropoll and made available to Al-Monitor suggested that 56% of respondents strongly support Operation Olive Branch, while 15% partially support the campaign. But if the Turkish army were to move into Afrin city, a seasoned commentator who declined to be identified by name, argued "the nation will focus on its triumph over the PKK and not on the number of Turkish soldiers who died achieving it."Al-Amal hospital lies roughly 50 feet from the Syrian border in Reyhanli, Turkey. It is the only hospital run by Syrian NGOs with approval from the Turkish authorities to treat victims of the Syrian conflict, according to the Syrian American Medical Society, an NGO that supports the hospital.

Each day, patients and their families cross the border, seeking treatment from the volunteer staff at Al-Amal, many of whom are refugees themselves.

The Syrian civil war, which began with a crackdown of pro-democracy demonstrators by President Bashar al-Assads government forces in 2011, has resulted in the deaths of more than 465,000 Syrians.

More than a million people have been injured and at least 12 million have been forced to leave their homes.

Hospitals and other medical facilities have become targets, with New York-based NGO Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) documenting 492 attacks on medical facilities since the start of the conflict.

When they are bombing hospitals, that means there are no lines. They are killing everyone. When I felt that we couldn't protect ourselves as doctors, I couldn't continue in Syria. A S D, volunteer at Al-Amal hospital

PHR and other watchdogs have accused the Syrian government of intentionally targeting medical workers and facilities throughout the conflict.

In this climate, many health workers have fled the country, offering their services to places like Al-Amal, which provide treatment for those with nowhere else to turn to.

Here, patients and volunteers from the hospital tell stories of war, violence, and futures put on hold by a conflict that shows few signs of resolution.

Dr Hisham Bismar

Hisham is a Syrian-American doctor, based in the US. He travels to Turkey to volunteer as a surgeon in Al-Amal hospital.

[Screengrab/Al Jazeera]

I think it was footage of a father carrying his son with his arm completely amputated. Thats what actually instigated me to contact the Syrian American Medical Society, and they put me in touch with the facility in Turkey.

Soon after I arrived, they gave me a clinic. I started having one patient after another. Initially I was overwhelmed by the number of patients coming in with very complex problems, and also by the human side behind it. Several of these patients had stories behind their injuries, which also adds to the emotional stress  you dont want to base your medical decision on emotions.

We keep repeating the same mistake: Srebrenica, Rwanda, Darfur, and now Syria. Dr Hisham Bismar, volunteer surgeon

The thing which actually struck me the most and affected me the most was seeing the children. When it starts affecting children, thats where I draw the line. I think in this war you had a whole generation which was exposed to massive trauma. Its going to affect how they grow, how they think.

My kids dont quite grasp what Im doing. They ask, why is there a war over there? I tell them sometimes people try to inflict suffering on other people and I just try to see if I can make things a little bit better. Whenever I look at my kids, I have that feeling that I really need to go back.

We keep repeating the same mistake: Srebrenica, Rwanda, Darfur, and now Syria. Its just the same problem keeps happening over and over again and were not doing anything different.

I dont think what Im doing is really anything special in particular, but I think every little bit helps. I know if I was in that situation I would like to have somebody who would be able to provide care for me. Im fortunate enough to be able to help, regardless whether its big or small. That doesnt matter. What matters to me is that Im doing something.

Mohammed

Mohammed* is a fighter with the Free Syrian Army. He visits Al-Amal after being injured by gunfire.

[Screengrab/Al Jazeera]

I was covering for my colleague. A bullet came and hit my hand. It took four days for me to reach Turkey, because in Syrian hospitals  they will kill me if they catch me. It happened with some friends.

We never imagined we would become fighters. We are citizens. We are not terrorists. Everybody should understand: we are just defending ourselves. Mohammed* - Free Syrian Army fighter

If Assad, his army or the people loyal to him know my real name, they will kill my parents directly, because Im fighting him.

When our revolution started there were no guns, no weapons. It was a matter of some boards, flags saying: Assad go out  thats it. Then, rockets, bombs, tanks shooting us everywhere.

A bomb fell down from a helicopter. Assads army threw it down in a market. The people were just trying to buy some food and go back home.

Ive seen the pieces of them. Bread with blood, vegetables with blood, and parts of their bodies spread everywhere.

And again when the ambulance came, they sent a rocket from the MiG [a Russian-made aircraft]. The ambulance team were all killed.

We never imagined we would become fighters. We are citizens. We are not terrorists. We are not terrorists. Everybody should understand: we are just defending ourselves  thats it.

Promise

Promise began working as an administrator at Al-Amal in 2015, after arriving in Turkey as a refugee in 2015. She remains hopeful that she will be able to return home one day.

[Screengrab/Al Jazeera]

In 2011, I was studying for the baccalaureate exam. The demonstrations started, and we joined them. We were all communicating through a network and I disseminated the news through the network.

They told me my name was at the security checkpoints. What bothered me and scared me the most is when they arrested girls at roadblocks and abused them and locked them away. To die by a bullet is better than being arrested by the regime.

This bracelet is a symbol of the revolution, that we will continue going forward no matter what. It means freedom.

Z

Z* is a volunteer surgeon at Al-Amal. In his work, he treats many young children affected by the Syrian conflict.

[Screengrab/Al Jazeera]

The way that were seeing the kids, there are signs of distress and trauma.

Theyre clearly malnourished. Theyve lost that bright smile. Its difficult to get them to engage with you and I can tell its kind of hard for them to trust.

There was a young boy. He was hit by a sniper with a bullet, it crossed his spinal cord, severing his spinal cord, and putting this young boy in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

What really got my attention was that this guy, this little boy was hit by a sniper. So theres somebody out there that has the ability to look through a telescope, and know theyre shooting a 12 year old boy.

There are times when they aim for pregnant women, and aim to shoot the baby. What were the political affiliations of those children in the womb? What kind of threat were they to anybody?

A Y

A Y is a Turkish businessman who crosses the border as many as 10 times each day, bringing wounded people into Turkey for medical help.

[Screengrab/Al Jazeera]

When I turned 20, I started thinking about the meaning of life. I said to myself I want to help the oppressed.

I wake up at 6am and I go to the Atma crossing [on the Syria-Turkey border near Afrin], I pick up seven patients and seven of their companions. Im like a bridge from Syria to Turkey, a bridge with an ambulance.

I have never given any bribes to the Turkish border guards. For example, I say: youre a good person, look at this sick, injured person. For the sake of humanity, let him in.

If you believe in God, this is your Muslim brother, let him in. If youre a Christian, for the sake of Jesus please let him in. If youre Jewish, for the sake of Moses please let him in. Just let him in.

This work gives me joy, I havent found anything that brings me more joy.

Abdullahs mother

Abdullahs mother brought her five-year-old son to Al-Amal after he was hit with shrapnel. The family plan to return to Syria following Abdullahs operation.

[Screengrab/Al Jazeera]

It was Friday, I was busy at home with his brothers. Abdullah heard the voices of kids in the street so he went out to play with them.

I dont know for sure what kind of shell it was but there was a big explosion. He lost function in his left hand. His left leg and trunk were full of shrapnel. My feelings were uncontrollable.

I hope that God heals him and all the children and heals Syria from this situation.

A S D

A S D* is a recently-arrived volunteer at Al-Amal. Before seeking refuge in Turkey, he worked as a surgeon in Syria, often under bombardment.

[Screengrab/Al Jazeera]

Once they put one car beside the hospital and they bombed it. They told us we will bomb your hospital while you are treating the rebel people.

When they are bombing hospitals, that means there are no lines. They are killing everyone.

When I felt that we couldnt protect ourselves as doctors, I couldnt continue in Syria.

One time, a bomb fell on the street and there was one guy, they brought him to me and his spleen was out. Really, I did the splenectomy while the patient was on the table and there was no anesthesia: without anesthesia, without anything. Just I tied the splenic artery and removed the spleen, even when the patient was still awake. Because I needed to save him.

We saw many amputated legs, amputated arms, injuries to the abdomen, the chest, you will see the chest open. You cannot delete these images.

*Not his/her real name.

Editors note: These interviews have been edited for clarity and brevity.Last week, the BBC broadcast an expose on forced disappearances in Egypt. The report claimed, among other things, that a young Egyptian woman, Zubaida Ibrahim, had allegedly forcibly disappeared. Importantly, the reports section on Ibrahim relied primarily on one, key source, Ibrahims mother, Um Zubaida, who also claimed that her daughter had been brutally tortured by police.

Two days after the BBC report was released, however, Egyptian satellite television network ON E aired an interview with Ibrahim, during which she said she was not forcibly disappeared. Ibrahim told presenter Amr Adeeb that she was married in early 2017 and had given birth to her first child 15 days before the interview. Her alleged husband and son appeared with her on television.

Egyptian authorities and media have had a field day with the ON E interview, seeing it as both vindication and evidence that the BBC is spreading fake news about Egypt.

In response to the BBC reports specific references to the Egyptian security forces, Egyptian President Abdelfattah Al-Sisi said that defaming the Egyptian police and military is tantamount to high treason.

Egypts public prosecutor, Nabil Sadek, called for legal action to be taken against news organisations that spread false news, statements and rumours.

The public prosecutors statement was followed by formal legal action against Um Zubaida, after she doubled down on her original claims in a new television interview. On Thursday, Um Zubaida was arrested for publishing and broadcasting false news that could harm the countrys national interests. Meanwhile, reports also surfaced Saturday that human rights lawyer Ezzat Ghoneim, who was aiding Um Zubaida, disappeared.

The BBC, for its part, released a statement that said it stands by the integrity of its reporting teams.

It is likely that only a relatively small number of people know, with certainty, what exactly has happened with Zubaida Ibrahim. But one can hardly blame Egyptians  many of whom have taken to social media to rail against the government and the ON E interview  for trusting the BBC account and doubting the governments.

Media censorship and torture

Egyptians have several reasons to be suspicious.

First, the Egyptian ON E interview reported  and the Egyptian government hasnt denied  that Ibrahim and her mother were both arrested and imprisoned for several months in 2014, allegedly for participating in an anti-government protest. Importantly, the 25-minute ON E interview generally elides this important fact.

Second, Egyptian media are largely propagandist. Indeed, Sisi came to power on the heels of a military coup, during which he shut down opposition media. Since then, for the duration of his four-year presidency, Egyptian media has been primarily serving as a tool for the regime.

Moreover, ON E presenter Amr Adeeb is a well-known government sycophant. Sisi has, in the recent past, used Adeebs shows as a platform, sometimes calling in live and speaking to the host for long segments. It is perhaps not beyond the realm of possibility, then, that Adeeb would work with the government to stage a farcical interview.

{articleGUID}

Third, putting Um Zubaidas single, forced disappearance accusation aside, the Egyptian government has forcibly caused hundreds of people to disappear over the past four years. An Egyptian human rights group documented more than 900 cases of forced disappearance between August 2015 and August 2016.

In the summer of 2016, Amnesty International produced hard evidence of the Egyptian governments systematic campaign of forced disappearances and torture. The report documented hundreds of cases, with approximately three to four people per day vanishing at the hands of Egyptian security forces.

Fourth, the Egyptian authorities have consistently denied forced disappearance, torture, and other crimes, only to have been caught being untruthful.

An Italian graduate student, Giulio Regeni, represents an illustrative case in point. Regeni disappeared at the hands of Egyptian police on January 25, 2016. His mutilated body was found nine days later.

Egyptian authorities initially claimed Regeni had been hit by a car, but then changed their story several times. Italian investigators uncovered signs of systematic torture on Regenis body; he had been brutally beaten, electrocuted, and burned.

Given all of these realities, it is perhaps not surprising that some Egyptians are doubtful of recent government and media accounts regarding Ibrahim.

Unprecedented repression

This individual allegation of forced disappearance aside, there is little debate that the Sisi regime now represents the most repressive in Egypts modern history. None of Sisis dictatorial predecessors  Gamal Abdel Nasser, Anwar Sadat, and Hosni Mubarak  amassed such an inexhaustible record of human rights violations.

Governments over which Sisi has presided have carried out several mass killings of unarmed protesters, including the massacre of more than 900 protesters on a single day in August 2013, and initiated the largest mass death sentences in recent world history.

Furthermore, Sisi is responsible for a campaign of mass arrests, with more than 60,000 people arrested or charged since the 2013 military coup that brought him to power. By comparison, under the most repressive period of Abdel Nassers rule in the 1950s, there were 20,000 political prisoners, and under Mubarak  30,000 in the 1990s.

Mubaraks security apparatus was notorious for massive political repression, including torture and targeted killings of protesters, but never included anything on the scale witnessed during the Sisi era.

The current Egyptian government has also jailed journalists and systematically eliminated contenders for the presidency, including through arrest, extortion and brute intimidation. Sisi recently said, ominously, that an uprising  the kind that toppled Mubarak in 2011  will never happen again in Egypt.

The Sisi regime has seemingly been willing to do anything and everything to maintain its strong grip on power. Is it so far-fetched, then, to think they may have staged an interview to cover up a crime?

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.Describing the human depravity it takes to insult and throw accusations at children facing deadly violence is quite difficult to do in any language, polite or otherwise.

It is absurd and unnecessary to have to say that it is wrong for adults to attack children, who have survived a school shooting or facing facing bombardment on a daily basis. But apparently, we live in a world where children in distress are seen as fair targets, accused of everything and anything from being actors, to being exploited for regime change, to being al-Qaeda agents.

This was recently the case with a Syrian boy, 15, who has been viciously attacked online and in the media for posting videos showing the devastation of Eastern Ghouta.

The reaction against him was hardly surprising. Syrian children have been mercilessly killed by the regime and its allies for seven years now and there has been a constant stream of images of their bloodied faces. But the response to them has been scepticism and online attacks instead of sympathy and an imperative for change; news outlets and activists alike, in a bizarre vague manner, mention the deaths of these children but somehow fail to say who murdered them.

{articleGUID}

For children in the Middle East, this is nothing new. For more decades than I have lived, children who are victims of murderous US and Arab foreign policies have been treated with a shocking lack of sympathy by both the mainstream and alternative media.

To be perfectly clear, this is not the fault of any of these children: It is the fault of adults who claim to be up in arms about US imperialist ambitions, yet defend Russian imperialist ambitions.

Palestinians have fought the battle of humanising their victims for over 100 years, documenting their victims, giving media interviews, creating their own media, and generally using any tools at their disposal to show how Israel is an aggressor. Afghans, Iraqis and Yemenis have had to do the same.

In some cases, they have succeeded. Yet, some of the very westerners who were thought to have finally admitted the nature of the aggressor that Israel is or that the US is, have now turned around and used Israel as an argument against another oppressed people: the Syrians who rose up against Bashar al-Assad, Russia, Iran, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). They, this logic goes, are pawns of Israel, so vilifying them and their children amid death and destruction is acceptable.

Many failed to recognise the danger of these attacks on children, until this type of human depravity came home to roost.

From Florida to Syria to the West Bank, children are victims thrice over

When a young man shot and killed 17 children at a Florida high school, the aide to a local legislator accused the students speaking out against guns and the National Rifle Association (NRA) of being paid actors. Some conspiracy theorists went so far as to claim the whole thing was suspicious because one of the outspoken students fathers was a retired FBI agent.

This wasnt the first time children in the US were accused of being crisis actors, but the difference between them and children from the Middle East who have faced the same accusations is the ferocity with which they have been defended. For example, actor Mark Ruffalo, who has nearly 4 million Twitter followers, is on a crusade to defend Florida students against the NRAs attacks (as we all should), but when it came to Syria, he called media coverage on the Assad regimes crimes propaganda.

{articleGUID}

When Bana al-Abed went viral for her daily reporting on her life as a child in besieged Aleppo late 2016, so-called journalists began to question her motives, making fun of her English and calling her a paid propaganda mouthpiece for jihadists.

Sixteen-year-old Ahed Tamimi of Palestine received the same treatment, with commentators obsessing over her looks, accusing her family of being paid actors and claiming she was at fault for slapping the Israeli soldier.

Now, as the Assad regime and Russia pound the Ghouta regions people into oblivion, the anti-imperialism crew is reacting with its usual attacks on the children who are trying to use social media to save themselves and their families while at the same time defending children in the US who are speaking out against the NRA.

One of the biggest and yet-unaddressed problems with this political tactic is that it abuses these young people on three different levels. They are victimised by the oppressors, such as the Assad regime in Syria, or Israel in Palestine, or the shooter in Florida; then by the alternative media which accuses them of being paid to publicise their reality; and finally by the political actors, both for and against these children.

Children can and have been exploited by actors in conflicts. But those who deny them the freedom to express their reality and discount their very real experiences of fear are the bigger criminals.

This is not about us

There is a reason I limited myself to linking to those who vilify children rather than mentioning them by name. They have been named and shamed by several outlets and countless activists, and there is no need to rehash their crimes against these children.

Yes, we must challenge the narratives produced by these child attackers. However, tempting as it may be, we must also avoid falling into the trap of focusing our discourse on responding to their bogus claims.

It is time to refocus all efforts on the children who are living in these adult-created hell-holes and trying to survive by telling their stories in the ways they believe will reach the widest audience possible. A suffering child in the US deserves our attention and for us to come to his or her defence, and so do the suffering children in the Middle East.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.At least two people killed and dozens of guests rescued after attack by armed men on luxury complex on citys outskirts.

At least two people have been killed after an attack on a popular tourist resort on the outskirts of Malis capital, Bamako, according to officials, but dozens of guests were rescued.

Armed men stormed the luxury Le Campement Kangaba complex near Dougourakoro on Sunday, attacking a resort frequented by top officials and foreign residents, especially during the weekend.

Malian troops and soldiers from Frances Bakhane counterterrorist force headed to the scene. Local residents reported hearing shots fired while smoke billowed into the air.

Malis Security Minister Salif Traore said late on Sunday that at least four attackers were killed by security forces.

We have recovered the bodies of two attackers who were killed, Traore told journalists, adding that they were searching for the bodies of two others, without specifying if any more were on the run.

At first we thought they were armed bandits but we know how armed bandits operate. They dont hold territory, so now we think it is a terrorist attack, Traore had earlier told reporters outside the entrance to the resort, part of which was on fire.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Flames rise following the attack on the popular resort [Reuters]

Officials said two people had been killed, including a French-Gabonese citizen and another whose nationality was not yet known.

Two others had been wounded, one civilian and a policeman, Baba Cisse, spokesman for the security ministry, told the Reuters news agency. An attacker had also been wounded and fled, leaving a sub-machine-gun and six bottles of explosives behind, he said.

Malian state TV reported that 36 guests had so far been rescued. At least 14 people, both Malians and foreigners, were wounded, according to the security ministry.

A witness told local television ORTM he saw a man arrive on a motorcycle who started shooting at the crowd followed by two or three people who came in another vehicle.

Witness Boubacar Sangare was just outside the compound during the attack. Westerners were fleeing the encampment while two plainclothes police exchanged fire with the assailants, he told Reuters.

READ MORE: Malis Keita vows to keep fighting terrorist groups

A security ministry official said government troops have sealed off the area and are in the process of organising operations against the attackers.

French President Emmanuel Macron pledged full support to Malis leader in a phone call after the attack, Macrons office said on Monday.





Andrea de Georgio, a freelance journalist in Bamako, said the resort is about 10km outside the capital.

He told Al Jazeera that the attack seemed to be well-organised.

The attackers are hidden inside the camp, and the camp is very big so there are a lot of places where they can hide, de Georgio said.

Al Jazeeras Nicolas Haque, reporting from neighbouring Senegal, quoted sources as saying that security forces have be going door-to-door inside the resort, making sure that the fighters are apprehended or driven out.

Security threats

The west African country has been battling armed rebellion for several years, with fighters roaming the north and centre of Mali.

The US embassy in Bamako had warned earlier this month of a possible increased threat of attacks against Western diplomatic missions, places of worship, and other locations in Bamako where Westerners frequent.

In November 2015, gunmen took guests and staff hostage at the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in a siege that left at least 20 people dead, including 14 foreigners.

That attack was claimed by al-Qaedas North African affiliate, the al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) group.

A state of emergency has been renewed several times since the Radisson Blu attack, most recently in April when it was extended for six months.

The United Nations has a 12,000-strong force in Mali known as MINUSMA, which began operations in 2013.

It has been targeted constantly by armed fighters, with dozens of peacekeepers killed, including five on Saturday.Mexico City  Yolanda Moran was supposed to meet her son, Dan Jeremeel Fernandez Moran, at the bus station in their hometown of Torreon, in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, on December 19, 2008.

But when she arrived, only her daughter-in-law and younger son were waiting, with news that they had not heard from Dan Jeremeel for several hours.

It was in the time when there was a lot of violence going on in Coahuila, especially in Torreon, so I immediately got very worried, she told Al Jazeera. We went looking for him right away, and made a report to the police.

A few weeks later, something happened that is somewhat unusual in Mexico, where about 90 percent of crimes go unsolved: an arrest was made.

Coahuila state police had discovered a man in possession of Dan Jeremeels red Volkswagen Jetta.

The suspect, Ubaldo Gomez Fuentes, was a lieutenant in the Mexican Army, assigned to an anti-drug intelligence unit in Torreon.

He confessed to being part of a kidnapping gang  made up of soldiers and civilians  that abducted Dan Jeremeel.

But he would not say what happened to Morans son.

More than nine years later, and still without answers, Moran and human rights groups fear that the recently passed Internal Security Law, which formally regulates the use of the military in police roles, will only lead to more cases like that of Dan Jeremeel.

Military deployed in war on drugs

The soldiers who kidnapped Dan Jeremeel had been deployedto Torreon in January 2007 to fight organised crime in the region, where violence was on the rise as the Zetas Cartel  itself founded by army deserters  tried to wrest control of Torreon from the Sinaloa Cartel, then led by El Chapo Guzman.

{articleGUID}

But the violence only got worse over the next few years as more soldiers were deployed in the Torreon area, according to the magazine Proceso.

Some soldiers were accused of corruption and human rights abuses, including arbitrary detention and extrajudicial executions.

In June 2007, Juan Jose Barrientos Amador, a 35-year-old taxi driver, was found dead after witnesses saw him being arrested by soldiers. The killing led to several protests in front of military installations, but no one was prosecuted, and the military refused to comment on the case.

The deployment of the military to fight crime was part of a strategy of then-President Felipe Calderon, who argued that local police were ineffective and corrupt. But complaints of human rights violations by the military quickly began piling up.

The army has been on the streets for 10 years, and violence has only increased ... And now, with this Interior Security Law, which was designed by the army itself, things can only get worse. Yolanda Moran, victim's mother

In 2008, there were more than a thousand complaints of human rights violations against the army to the National Human Rights Commission. Cases like that of Dan Jeremeel and Jose Barrientos led many to question the effectiveness of the military strategy in the so-called war on drugs.

Things can only get worse

Such questions reemerged late last year with the passage of the Interior Security Law.

The army has been on the streets for 10 years, and violence has only increased, Moran said. And now, with this Interior Security Law, which was designed by the army itself, things can only get worse.

The law, signed by President Enrique Pena Nieto last December, formalises and expands the participation of Mexicos armed forces in internal security.

The Mexican military has been fighting crime on a large scale since December 2006, when then-President Felipe Calderon ordered it onto the streets to fight drug trafficking.

{articleGUID}

But until the Interior Security Law was passed, the military was operating in a state of questionable legality.

According to the Mexican Constitution, the military should only be deployed within the country in situations of foreign invasion or rebellion.

The recently-passed law provides a clear legal justification for the military to exercise police powers, the laws proponents argue.

Under the law, the president can make an interior security declaration when he considers that interior security is at risk, and send in the military.

The law also expands the militarys ability to carry out surveillance of Mexicans and allows the military to administer its own operations, with limited oversight from state and local civilian authorities.

The passage of the law was applauded by military authorities, who had asked Congress for a legal framework for military action in the drug war. After the law was passed, Secretary of National Defence General Salvador Cienfuegos thanked Congress, saying the law will give the military the framework it needs to effectively fight drug cartels.

The law was criticised by human rights organisations, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which pointed to widespread rights violations by the military during the ongoing drug war.

The law now faces several constitutional challenges by civil society groups, as well as state and municipal governments. Pena Nieto has said he will not invoke the law until the court challenges are resolved.

A failed model

Santiago Aguirre, sub-director of the Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez Human Rights Center, told Al Jazeera that the law also represents the continuation of a failed anti-crime strategy.

This legislation elevates a failed model of security to the level of law, he said.

{articleGUID}

The evidence is clear that the deployment of the military has only led to more violence and human rights violations.

Between 2006 and 2011, the murder rate in Mexico tripled, according to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

Although the murder rate declined after its first peak in 2011, violence spiked again in 2017, when over 23,000 people died violent deaths, making last year the deadliest in modern Mexican history, according to government data.

In 2006, Calderons government could have argued that we dont have enough empirical evidence to know what this policy could lead to, Aguirre said.

But now, after 11 years, we have clear evidence that the deployment hasnt reduced violence, and that it has increased human rights violations. So, instead of an Interior Security Law that petrifies that policy, we need to strengthen civilian authorities and withdraw the armed forces.

Carlos Ventura, of the Vitoria Human Rights Centre, questioned the premise that the military is less susceptible to corruption than police forces.

Curiously, theyve tried to present the army as an almost impeccable actor, he told Al Jazeera. But were not convinced, because we have documented the direct participation of the armed forces in human rights violations, and also the high levels of impunity that they enjoy.

A study by the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) from November 2017 found that complaints of human rights violations against the military almost always go unresolved. A 2014 reform allows civilian prosecutors to investigate human rights violations committed by soldiers, but it has not been fully implemented. According to the WOLA report, the Interior Security Law will further weaken civilian authorities ability to investigate and prosecute soldiers.

Nothing ever changes

Moran said Dan Jarameels story shows that soldiers are far from incorruptible. And although the initial investigation into his disappearance seemed promising, brutal networks of secrecy and impunity between the military and organised crime have prevented her from finding her son.

The army lieutenant who was arrested with Dan Jeremeels car and confessed to kidnapping him implicated several other soldiers and civilians, some of whom were also arrested in January 2009.

The army refused to cooperate with the investigation. Less than a month after the arrests, an armed commando broke into the jail where the suspects were being held and killed them.

The evidence is clear that the deployment of the military has only led to more violence and human rights violations. Santiago Aguirre, sub-director of the Agustin Pro Human Rights Center

Another alleged accomplice was arrested by the military near Mexico City in 2010. He was brought back to Torreon and put in the same jail where his accomplices had been killed. He suffered the same fate.

Another suspect is still at large, and rumoured to have recently deserted the army to join the Zetas.

Moran said she doesnt feel justice has been served, nor does she have the closure of knowing what happened to her son. Her only hope is that the one surviving fugitive be caught, but she added that the case is not being actively pursued.

The army hasnt taken any kind of responsibility, even though it was their people who made my son disappear, she said.

Since 2008, Moran has dedicated herself to searching for her son and advocating for the families of the disappeared. Along with other families, she founded United Forces for Our Disappeared (FUND), a civil organisation that groups hundreds of families of disappeared people.

For Moran and the other families at FUND, the military is fundamentally unsuited for policing, and any attempt to regulate or reform military policing, like the Interior Security Law, is fundamentally flawed.

Weve had so many meetings with military leaders, weve been to these human rights courses that the soldiers are taking now, she said.

But nothing ever changes, she added.

This Interior Security Law isnt the solution  we need to strengthen civilian authorities so we can get the soldiers off the streets.Iran labelled common enemy of Israel and Arab Gulf states while Palestinian leadership comes in for criticism.

A previous version of this article stated that Greenberg travelled to both Saudi Arabia and the UAE. This is incorrect. Greenberg travelled to the UAE and Jordan. The article also said that Greenberg urged support for Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The crown prince was never mentioned by name and all references to Mohammed bin Salman have been removed.

Washington, DC  The chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in the United States has praised the United Arab Emirates for its tolerance and fight against terrorism, and urged the pro-Israel lobbying group, AIPAC, to encourage and support Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states pursuing a similar path.

Stephen Greenberg told the annual conference, under way in Washington, DC, on Monday that he visited the UAE and Jordan.

In the UAE, I found a country that is tolerant, pluralistic, promoting women in government and the private sector, while committing to fight terrorism and extremism in every form, Greenberg said.

He added that the visit gave him hope for positive change in the region.

He also urged the gathering to encourage and support the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states pursuing a similar path, adding that real change must be encouraged constantly.

In his trademark strident tones, Naftali Bennett, Israels minister for education and diaspora affairs, said: Israel is strong and stronger than all of its enemies combined.

Describing Iran as the head of the octopus that needs to be attacked, Bennett, an extreme right-wing member of Israels security cabinet, said: We also must not allow other countries from going nuclear. We should prevent Saudi Arabia from having nuclear power.

Ayalon says Israel has a lot in common with Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain [Ali Younes/Al Jazeera]

Danny Ayalon, former Israeli deputy foreign minister who also spoke at the conference, told Al Jazeera that he has good relations with Saudi leaders and that Israel has a lot in common with the Arab Gulf states of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain, especially in countering Irans rising power in the region.

Iran is our common enemy, he said.

Demilitarised state

Using his main address, Avi Gabbay, the leader of Israels Labour Party, declared that Israel must separate itself from the Palestinians by establishing a demilitarised Palestinian state on parts of the occupied Palestinians territories in the West Bank and Gaza.

Gabbay, who is running for election to be the next prime minister of Israel, said Palestinians must first meet several conditions before Israel should consider agreeing to their demands of having their independent state.

Echoing one of AIPACs signature lobbying efforts this year, Gabbay said the Palestinian National Authority must first stop its economic support of families of Palestinians imprisoned and detained by Israel for their activism against the Israeli occupation.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, there are more than 6,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

{articleGUID}

Gabbay, who said his family emigrated to Israel from their ancestral home in Morocco in 1964, described all the Palestinians imprisoned by Israel as terrorists.

Emphasising separation from the Palestinians as key to Israeli maintenance of its Jewish majority, Gabbay said his parents left a Muslim-majority country to be part of a Jewish-majority country.

Avoiding acknowledgement that Palestinians have a right to be free in their independent country, Gabbay kept the focus on Palestinians confined to improving their economic situation, something he said would ultimately help Israel.

We must have economic cooperation to improve the Palestinian economy to have a secure peace with Israel, he said.

We not only are part of the Middle East but we want to lead the Middle East.

On the issue of the illegal settlements that Israel is building in the occupied territories, Gabbays views did not vary from the standard line of the current Likud-led government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Sole objection

Gabbays only objection on the Israeli settlement project inside the occupied territories was over hill-top posts that were built by enterprising Jewish settlers without government sanction.

We must stop building on hill tops because they dont provide any security value to Israel, he said.

According to the Israeli human rights organisation BTselem, about 600,000 illegal Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, which Israel seized from Jordan during the 1967 war.

He also carefully avoided any mention of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories on which Palestinians hope to establish their independent state.

{articleGUID}

For his part, Ayalon, the former deputy foreign minister, echoed Gabbays sentiments and said the Palestinian leadership was to blame for not reaching a peace agreement with Israel.

He also refused to acknowledge that Israel is occupying Palestinian territories but said Israel would be willing to negotiate if Palestinian leaders recognise Israel as a Jewish state and end all of their claims inside Israel, including the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in what is now Israel.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which signed the Oslo peace agreements with Israel in 1994, has recognised Israels existence along pre-1967 war lines.

Palestinians are demanding the establishment of an independent state encompassing the West Bank and Gaza with Arab East Jerusalem at its capital.

The PLO has renounced claims to the parts of historical Palestine that now make up Israel but insists on a solution to the issue of Palestinian refugees.

Follow Ali Younes on Twitter @ali_reportsUS embassy said it would be closed to the public as of Monday as a result of an unspecified security threat.

Turkish police have arrested 12 people in the capital, Ankara, in an investigation of an armed group, state media reported.

The arrests came hours after the US embassy in Ankara said it would remain closed for the day due to a security threat.

The 12 suspects were among 20 people for whom detention warrants were issued by the Ankara state prosecutors office, state-run Anadolu Agency said.

It said they were foreign citizens and had been seeking to recruit new members to their group.

The US embassy said on Sunday it would be closed to the public as of Monday, as a result of a security threat it did not specify, and only emergency services would be provided.

The embassy advised US citizens in Turkey to avoid large crowds and the embassy building, and to be aware of their own security when visiting popular tourist sites and crowded places.

Visa interviews and other routine services would be cancelled on Monday, the embassy said, adding that it would make an announcement when it was ready to reopen.

The embassy was the target of a 2013 suicide bombing, claimed by a far-left group, that killed a Turkish security guard.

Stained relations

Relations between NATO allies, Washington and Ankara, have been strained over a number of issues, notably the US arming of Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG).

Turkey launched an operation on January 20 against the YPG in its border stronghold of Afrin in northwestern Syria.

{articleGUID}

Turkey considers the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and its armed wing YPG to be terrorist groups with ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), active in Turkey.

The PKK has waged a decades-long armed fight against the Turkish state that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Turkey has repeatedly called on Washington to stop working with the YPG.

The US, in return, has expressed concern about the Turkish operation dubbed Olive Branch and urged restraint from Turkey.Apex court begins recording Kantipur statements

The Supreme Court on Sunday started recording the defendants statements in a contempt of court case against the Kantipur daily. The process will continue on Monday.Embassy in Ankara advises US citizens in Turkey to avoid large crowds and the embassy building in the capital.

The United States embassy in Turkey has been closed to the public as of Monday due to a security threat and only emergency services will be provided, the mission said in a statement.

The embassy advised US citizens in Turkey to avoid large crowds and the embassy building, and to be aware of their own security when visiting popular tourist sites and crowded places.

It did not specify what the security threat was that prompted the closure.

Additional security measures were taken after intelligence from US sources suggested there might be an attack targeting the US embassy or places US citizens were staying, the Ankara governors office said in a statement on Sunday.

Visa interviews and other routine services would be cancelled on Monday, the embassy said, adding that it would make an announcement when it was ready to reopen.

The embassy was the target in 2013 of a suicide bombing, claimed by a far-left group that killed a Turkish security guard.

Stained relations

Relations between NATO allies Washington and Ankara have been strained over a number of issues, notably the US arming of a Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG).

Ankara on January 20 launched an operation against the YPG in its border stronghold of Afrin in northwestern Syria.

{articleGUID}

Turkey considers the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and its armed wing YPG to be terrorist groups with ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), active in Turkey.

The PKK has waged a decades-long armed fight against the Turkish state that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Turkey has repeatedly called on Washington to stop working with the YPG.

The US, in return, has expressed concern about the Turkish Operation dubbed Olive Branch and urged restraint from Turkey.Marquez is described as the greatest Colombian who ever lived.

One of the most popular Spanish-language writers in the world, and the best-known practitioner of magical realism, Gabriel Garcia Marquez would have been 91 on March 6.

Affectionately known as Gabo, Marquez is also known as the greatest Colombian who ever lived. He was a novelist, poet, short-story writer, screenwriter and journalist.

In 1982 Gabo became the first Colombian and only the fourth Latin American author to win the Nobel Prize in literature.

Marquez life was not always easy, as he had some serious health issues. At the age of 85, he was diagnosed with Alzheimers after fighting a long battle against lymphatic cancer which he was diagnosed with in 1999.

This is his story:

History vs reality

Marquez was born in the town of Aracataca in 1927, and grew up with his maternal grandparents, Tranquilina Iguaran and Colonel Nicolas Ricardo Marquez, until he left to attend school in the capital, Bogota.

His grandfather was a colonel who killed a man in a duel; he had three legitimate and an unknown number of illegitimate children.

Marquez remembered something his grandfather told him: you cant imagine how much a dead man weighs, and later integrated that lesson into his novels.

The Colonel, whom Garcia Marquez described as his umbilical cord with history and reality, was also an excellent storyteller.

You can't imagine how much a dead man weighs Colonel Nicolas Ricardo Marquez

Always a journalist

Marquez studied law but never received a degree. He instead chose the path of journalism in El Espectador.

The late 1940s and early 50s in Colombia were a period of civil unrest, which left as many as 300,000 people dead. This era would become the background for several of his novels.

The political unrest sent Marquez back to the coast, to the town of Cartagena de Indias, where he continued writing.

He wanted to stay close to the real world, a journalist who wrote fiction. Leaf Storm, his first novella, was written in 1955 when he was only 27 years old.

Im a journalist. Ive always been a journalist, he told the Associated Press news agency. My books couldnt have been written if I werent a journalist because all the material was taken from reality.

An iconic writer with iconic books! Happy Birthday, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. #HappyBirthdayMarquez pic.twitter.com/YNGgAunnj5  Penguin India (@PenguinIndia) March 6, 2018

Influences

Marquez read intensely; he is known to have read the American writers Hemingway, Faulkner, Twain and Melville; as well as the European writers Dickens, Tolstoy, Proust, Kafka and Virginia Woolf.

I cannot imagine how anyone could even think of writing a novel without having at least a vague of idea of the 10,000 years of literature that have gone before, Marquez said.

But he was not as impressed by Western Europe as many other Latin American writers, and he often expressed his belief that Europeans were patronising Latin America.

Europeans, he said in his Nobel lecture, insist on measuring us with the yardstick that they use for themselves, forgetting that the ravages of life are not the same for all, and that the quest for our own identity is just as arduous and bloody for us as it was for them.

The quest for our own identity is just as .. bloody for us as it was for them Garcia Marquez, author

Journalism and fiction

Marquez started alternating between journalism and fiction in the late 1950s.

In 1961, he moved to Mexico City where he would live on and off for the rest of his life.

After four years of not writing fiction, the author began writing One Hundred Years of Solitude, which was inspired by a drive he took to Acapulco in Mexico.

Once he returned to his home, he started an 18-month journey, during which he wrote non-stop while his wife Mercedes looked after the household.

Published in 1967, One Hundred Years of Solitude sold out within days.

The author penned over 25 books, transporting readers into a world of magical realism, infusing otherwise ordinary situations with magical elements.

Left-wing causes

Marquez used his name, time and money to support left-wing causes.

He was a defender of the Sandinistas, and for over three decades, the US denied him a visa to travel there. They believed he was a member of the Colombian Communist Party, a suspicion bolstered by his friendship with Fidel Castro.

His shorter pieces dealt with subjects including Venezuelas Hugo Chavez, while his book, News of a Kidnapping, portrayed how cocaine traffickers, led by Pablo Escobar, worked in his native Colombia.

After receiving his cancer diagnosis, Marquez spent his time writing his memoirs, his only other work during this time was one novella that described the love affair between an old man and a prostitute.

Marquez died at the age of 87 at his home in Mexico City.

Recognition

The international recognition he earned allowed bim to act as a facilitator in several negotiations between the Colombian government and the armed groups.

In 1972 he was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

And in December 1982, he received the Nobel Prize in literature for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continents life and conflicts.Dozens of Palestinian journalists have staged a demonstration outside the UN office in Gaza City to protest Facebooks practice of blocking Palestinian Facebook accounts.

Demonstrators held banners saying Facebook is complicit in [Israels] crimes and Facebook favours the [Israeli] occupation.

Speaking at Mondays demonstration, organized by the Journalists Support Committee, a Palestinian NGO, Salama Maarouf, a spokesman for Hamas, described the popular social media platform as a major violator of freedom of opinion and expression.

Facebook blocked roughly 200 Palestinian accounts last year  and 100 more since the start of 2018  on phony pretexts.

He asserted that some 20 percent of Israeli Facebook accounts openly incite violence against Palestinians without facing any threat of closure.





Israel  Facebook

In late 2016, Facebook signed an agreement with Israels Justice Ministry in which it promised to monitor content on Palestinian accounts.

In March 2017, Facebook briefly shut down the page of Fatah, the party which dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA), after it published an old photograph of late leader Yasser Arafat holding a rifle.

A political satire page, Mish Eek, critical of both Israel and the PA, has been shut down and reopened several times.

Social media platforms do not take down content for overtly political reasons, but they do take down what they consider hate speech or incitement to violence, and other forms of online abuse that anyone reports to the administrators.

But Palestinian journalists and activists say there is a double standard regarding the enforcement of the platforms policies.

Never signed up to facebook corporate crap and now that they are shutting down users in the Gaza Strip to hell with it  john kenny (@JohnKennyMedia) January 4, 2018

Sada Social

Palestinians journalists and activists have created their own social media watch group, called Sada Social.

Sada Social was launched in September 2017 by three Palestinian journalists, with the aim of documenting violations against Palestinian content on social networks such as Facebook and YouTube, and to liaise with their executives to restore some of the pages and accounts that have been shut down.

Iyad Alrefaie, cofounder of Sada Social, earlier this year told Al Jazeera there is a very big gap between Palestinians and Israelis.

[Nothing happens] to Israelis who publish a status calling for killing Palestinians, he said. But if Palestinians post any news about something happening on the ground or done by an Israeli soldier, Facebook [may] close the account or the page, or delete the post.Guatemalas President Jimmy Morales said he will move his countrys embassy to Jerusalem two days after the US will.

Guatemalas President Jimmy Morales has announced that he will move his countrys embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on May 16, two days after the United States is scheduled to do the same in a controversial move that has drawn worldwide condemnation.

On Tuesday, Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Palestinian Liberation Organizations (PLO) Executive Committee condemned Guatemalas announcement as dangerous and provocative.

Speaking on Monday at the annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in Washington, DC, Morales said that the embassy move strongly evidences Guatemalas continued support and solidarity with the people of Israel.

In May of this year, we will celebrate Israels 70th anniversary, and under my instructions, two days after the United States moves its embassy, Guatemala will return and permanently move its embassy to Jerusalem, he said.

Condemnation

The international community does not recognise Israels annexation of occupied East Jerusalem, and in December 2017, 128 countries backed a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution that called for the US to rescind its move.

Guatemala was only one of the handful of countries to vote against the resolution after the US threatened to withdraw financial aid to countries who voted otherwise.

By taking such a step that defies international law, Mr Morales, also besieged at home by charges of corruption and abuse of power, has partnered with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump in violating international law and undermining the chances of peace, Ashrawi said in an official statement.

She also urged the international community to intervene and hold the Israeli occupation and its partners to account for such flagrant violations and provocative actions that fuel the flames in an already volatile situation.

Following Trump

Trumps administration announced their recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital last December, breaking with decades of official US policy.

The US decision led to the outbreak of protests throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, resulting in the deaths of at least 16 Palestinians by the Israeli army during the same month.

Morales thanked US President Donald Trump for leading the way  His courageous decision has encouraged us to do what is right, he said.

On May 15, Palestinians will mark Nakba Day, the annual commemoration of the displacement that preceded and followed the Israeli Declaration of Independence in 1948.

The embassy move will take place on May 16, with the Guatemalan president adding that he is sure many other countries will follow in our steps.

It was also the first country to back Trumps decision on Jerusalem. The countrys close relations with the US are largely defined by its dependency on US financial support.

Furthermore, the local economy depends on money sent by hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans living in the US, with remittances reaching $8bn in the last year  roughly three-quarters of the Guatemalan budget.

Reversed decision

Prior to 1980, 13 countries had their embassies in Jerusalem. But after Israel passed a law declaring Jerusalem as its indivisible and eternal capital, a UN Security Council resolution called for these countries to move their embassies to Tel Aviv.

During his time in office from 1993-1996, Guatemalas former President Ramiro de Leon Carpio  a big supporter of Israel  had ordered the transfer of his countrys embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

He was forced to reverse his decision after Muslim-majority countries threatened to suspend buying Guatemalas biggest export, cardamom.After foreign troop withdrawal timeline urged by parliament, NATOs leader says PM Ababi gave greenlight to stay.

NATO forces are staying in Iraq at the countrys request, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said during a rare visit on Monday to Baghdad, after parliament called for a foreign troop pullout.

We are here because Iraq wants us to be here. We are not here without the consent and without an invitation from Iraq, Stoltenberg told AFP news agency on Monday.

We should not stay longer than necessary, we will train the trainers as long as necessary to make sure IS [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] does not reemerge.

Stoltenbergs comments come days after the Iraqi parliament called for the government to draw up a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops from the country.

The Iraqi parliament expresses its gratitude to all countries which have supported Iraq in its fight against Daesh [ISIL] and calls for the government to draw up a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops, it said in a statement.





Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared in December the end of the war to expel ISIL fighters from the country, three years after they seized one-third of Iraq, sweeping aside security forces in rapid succession.

Helping ourselves

Stoltenberg visited a NATO training facility in Iraq and met Abadi weeks after NATO defence ministers agreed on a bigger train-and-advise mission in the country.

All 29 allies want NATO to play a bigger role in fighting terrorism because terrorism affects all of us. Its been a clear message from the Trump administration, but also from the other allies, Stoltenberg said.

This is about helping Iraq, but also about helping ourselves.

He also praised the enormous transformation of Iraqi forces since 2014, when ISIL launched its lightning offensive and seized swathes of territory.

The Iraqi forces in 2014 are totally different from the Iraqi forces in 2018, the NATO chief said.

As combat operations wind down after three years of war against ISIL, the NATO mission set to start in July will focus on bomb disposal, military medicine, and reforming security institutions, including fighting corruption, he said.Protesters hurl rocks and shout anti-India slogans after soldiers killed four civilians and two suspected fighters.

Tens of thousands of angry protesters poured onto the streets throughout Indian-controlled Kashmir, hurling rocks and shouting anti-India slogans after soldiers killed four civilians and two suspected fighters.

Many protests on Monday centered around the town of Shopian, where the shooting occurred. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries during the demonstrations, which security forces responded to with volleys of tear gas.

The overnight shooting at a military checkpoint threatened to spark more unrest in a region that in recent years has seen renewed rebel attacks and repeated public protests against Indian rule.

Authorities put parts of the region under lockdown after the late Sunday night shooting, deploying soldiers and riot police, shutting schools and internet service, and ordering people off the streets in some areas in an attempt to derail protests.

Deeply distressed

But widespread anger, along with funerals for the six victims and separatist calls for a business shutdown, helped ignite angry demonstrations.





The trouble began late Sunday night, when officials say a car refused to stop at a checkpoint outside a Shopian military base and fighters inside fired at the soldiers.

Indian army spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said a rebel and three civilians were killed when soldiers fired back. A fourth civilians body was recovered from a nearby car, officials said, and the body of another rebel was found a few kilometres away. Authorities said he was wounded in the shooting and died later.

Kalia called the slain civilians over-ground workers  a term that Indian security forces use for people who give support to Kashmiri rebels.

Police, though, were careful not to use that term, calling them simply young men and saying they were investigating the incident.

Kashmirs top elected official, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, called them civilians. In a tweet, Mufti said she was deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire in Shopian.

Propaganda and lies

But across the region, most people believed all were killed in cold blood. The soldiers shoot even at shadows, and theyre employing every tactic to suppress people, said Bashir Ahmed, a Shopian resident.

Top separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq called the armys version propaganda and lies and said the soldiers had let loose mayhem on Shopian.

{articleGUID}

Authorities cut mobile phone internet service in the most restive towns, and reduced connection speeds in other parts of the Kashmir Valley, a common government practice to prevent anti-India demonstrations from being organised.

At one of the funerals, soldiers fired in the air to disperse thousands of mourners in a village in the Shopian area. No one was reported injured.

In January, anti-India protests erupted across Kashmir after soldiers killed three civilians during clashes in the same area.

Rights activists accuse Indian troops in Kashmir of routinely misusing their power, killing civilians in staged confrontations for promotions or rewards.

Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India, with both nations claiming the entire region.

Rebels have been fighting Indian rule since 1989, demanding Kashmir be made part of Pakistan or become an independent country. India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, a charge Pakistan denies.

Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has met high-ranking South Korean officials, South Korean news agency Yonhap said.

According to the South Korean presidential office, Kim hosted a dinner with South Korean President Moon Jae-ins special envoys on Monday, Yonhap reported.

It is believed to be the first time the North Korean leader has met South Korean officials since he took office in 2011.

The meeting comes as a delegation of South Korean officials travelled to North Korea on Monday to discuss bilateral relations between the two, rival neighbours and potential dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang administrations.

According to US media, the South Korean envoys are also expected to put forward the presidents wishes for nuclear disarmament in the Korean Peninsula, as well as encouraging peaceful dialogue between both nations in the hope of restoring diplomatic ties.

After the two-day visit to North Korea, the delegation will travel to the US to brief officials there on their discussions in Pyongyang.

North Korea staged its most powerful nuclear test last year [KCNA/Reuters]

The delegations visit is the latest chapter in a remarkable detente achieved through the recently concluded Winter Olympics, where North Korean athletes were accorded warm welcome.

The trip is in response to an invitation offered by North Korean leader Kim Jong-uns sister for South Korean President Moon Jae-in to visit Pyongyang.

Senior North Korean officials, led by Kims sister, visited South Korea during last months Winter Olympics.

Tensions high

The isolated, impoverished North staged its most powerful nuclear test and test-fired multiple missiles last year, including some capable of hitting the US mainland, in defiance of UN sanctions.

North Koreas leader Kim and US President Donald Trump have traded threats of war and personal insults, sending tensions soaring.

Moon, who advocates dialogue with the nuclear-armed regime, said last week that Washington needs to lower the threshold for talks with Pyongyang.

However, the US has ruled out any possibility of talks before the North takes steps towards denuclearisation, and imposed what Trump hailed as the toughest ever sanctions on Kims regime late last month.

On Saturday, a foreign ministry spokesman in Pyongyang called on the US to drop any preconditions for talks.Despite help from Supreme Court decisions, members of sexual minority say, on the ground, progress often feels distant.

Lahore, Pakistan  In her twenties, Jannat Ali dreamt of walking outside as a woman. Society, however, wanted her to live in one of two gender boxes. But she never fully identified with either.

I always felt uncomfortable sitting with boys, she says, describing her experience while in school.

Ali, who now identifies as a transgender woman, would save pocket money to take dance classes, telling her family she was attending yoga.

When I was dancing, I was free  wherever I was, she told Al Jazeera.

Her dance performances have been broadcast on Pakistani TV networks, attracting publicity and, at times, drawing the concern of her family.





What would people say, her family members would say, fearful of inviting societal disapproval.

Although Ali is among the few transgenders who retains family support, it was not always this way.

At one point, Alis sibling accused her of tarnishing the family name and contributing nothing to the family, even though she was their primary breadwinner.

I have been earning for seven years, Ali recalled telling her family.

I did not save anything for myself.

While the term transgender gained widespread usage in the West during the 1970s, in South Asia the term usually refers to a more specific, and older, group of individuals known as hijras, some of whom prefer to be known by other designations such as khawaja sira.

Historically, hijras blurring of traditional gender boundaries was seen as granting them mystical powers, such as the ability to cast alternately auspicious or pernicious invocations over newborns or at weddings.

Hijra communities form around guru-chela relationships, similar to the master-disciple relationships of Sufism, providing a source of protection and support for individuals cast out by their families.

While guru-chela communities retain their importance to this day, there is also an increasing number of individuals who have adopted a global transgender identity outside these traditional institutions.

Regardless of whether they become chelas, many transgender Pakistanis are also trying to maintain relations with their families.

However, increasing familial acceptance has brought its own set of challenges, particularly in the realm of inheritance.

In Pakistan, inheritance portions are often determined by gender, with women receiving half the amount of men.

{articleGUID}

Inheritance can generate family conflicts, but for transgender individuals, it was worse: members were required to undergo a medical exam to determine if their share would correspond to that of a male or female.

This February, a Senate committee determined that the countrys transgenders could inherit property without a medical board deciding their gender for them.

Accordingly, transgender individuals will receive an inheritance based on the gender identity they have transitioned into and chosen for themselves.

Transgenders have the right to live with dignity and avail all fundamental rights guaranteed by the constitution, Senator Sehar Kamran tells Al Jazeera.

The Senates decision marks the most recent development in a long history of rulers recasting hijras position in South Asian society.





While hijras have long languished on the economic periphery  surviving by soliciting alms at shrines, birth ceremonies and weddings  during the Mughal period, hijras held venerated positions in the courts guarding harems.

The British, however, viewed hijras as a menace to public decency and morality, attempting to criminalise their begging and even classifying the group as a criminal tribe in 1871.

In the decades after Pakistan declared independence from the British in 1947, successive governments have sought to protect the sexual minority and guarantee their rights.

Like neighbouring India, Bangladesh and Nepal, Pakistan recognises hijras as a third gender, thanks to a 2009 Supreme Court decision that awards them classification as a distinct category.

In 2011, the group received the right to vote, and a year later, the government awarded them the right to inheritance, promising them equal treatment under the law.

Last year, Pakistan also counted transgenders as a separate category in the census.

But for the transgender community on the ground, these developments often feel distant.

The main area of concern for transgenders is the accessibility of services, said Qamar Naseem, a programmed coordinator at Blue Veins, a Peshawar-based organisation that works with the transgender community.

Systemic violence

Transgenders contend with systemic violence and discrimination in accessing health services, affordable housing, transportation and alternate livelihood options, he said.

{articleGUID}

Recent events have also underscored the tenuous footing on which their rights rest: In January, a transgender was gang-raped in Pakistans northwest by a criminal group.

In another gruesome case in 2016, Alisha, a transgender who was gunned down in Pakistans northwest, died when a hospital tried to decide whether to admit her to the male or female wing.

Still, for transgender activists, there is a widespread understanding that legal protections can make a difference.

Ali is free to perform classical dances on stage, without familial pressure constricting her choices.

Dance is my best friend. At least I have a platform where I can be myself, she said.

She even recently joined other transgender individuals in taking up a mentor, saying that if she is ever spurned by her kin, there would be a backup option:

I will have another family, she said, half-joking. Right now, however, she said theres no issue between her and her family.

Theres a tolerance  maybe because Im taking care of them.Conscience Convoy wants to raise awareness of the crimes committed against women in Syrias prisons.

Hundreds of women are gathering at Turkeys border with Syria to draw attention to the plight of Syrian women after years of civil war.

Organisers of the protest say more than 6,000 women are currently being held in prisons in Syria and some are being subjected to torture and rape.

Conscience Convoy

Around 200 Bosnian women had set off from Sarajevo to Istanbul to join an all-women convoy, to raise awareness about the suffering of women and young girls imprisoned in Syria by the Syrian government.

The International Conscience Convoy, which describes itself as the voice of the oppressed women in Syria set off from Istanbul on Tuesday, March 6, in a journey across Turkey to southern Hatay province, at the Turkish-Syrian border.

The Conscience Convoy of women from around 55 countries in 155 busses was scheduled to stop along the way in the cities of Izmir, Sakarya, Ankara and Adana.

From South America and from all over the world, women are joining us on #InternationalWomensDay for the release of thousands of women who are detained in #Syria|n prisons. #TimeIsNow #IWD2018 pic.twitter.com/20Dnn5kxbE  Conscience Movement (@conscienceorg) March 5, 2018

Womens voice

More than 465,000 Syrians have been killed in the Syrian war, over a million injured, and over 12 million  half the countrys prewar population  displaced from their homes. Women have been the silent victims of the ongoing eight-year war.

The organizers of the Conscience Convoy say they hope to draw attention to the suffering of women who are being tortured, raped, executed, imprisoned and made refugees since the beginning of the war in Syria.

To initiate an attempt to release all girl and women prisoners unlawfully held in Syria; to invite all humanity to take effective measures to protect women during conflicts and wars.

We as women from Turkey and around the world are joining the Conscience Convoy to raise voices for Syrian women, who have been unlawfully held and tortured in Syrian prisons, said the group in a statement on February 27.

Mothers of Srebrenica

Members of the Mothers of the Srebrenica group are among the women joining from Bosnia; they faced the same fate as Syrian women during the Bosnian war during 1992-1995.

The president of the Association of the Mothers of Srebrenica and Zepa Enclaves, Munira Subasic, joined the sendoff ceremony of the Bosnian women.

Srebrenicas mothers are well aware of what pain means; now Syrian women are experiencing the same pain we went through, she said, speaking to Anadolu news agency.

We are in the 21st century; the United Nations, the US and Russia need to be ashamed, she added.

On March 8 we will all together call out for help for the Syrian women held in Syrian prisons, said Enida Gujo, the Balkan Cultural Alliance Association representative.Authorities set curfew to combat new wave of violence directed at the countrys Muslim minority.

Sri Lanka imposed a curfew in a central town popular with tourists after days of unrest between religious communities with a Buddhist man killed and Muslim businesses set ablaze.

Police said on Monday there had been riots and arson attacks since the weekend in Kandy district, while sources told Al Jazeera the violence was spreading throughout the South Asian island nation.

The curfew was imposed to control the situation in the area, said police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera.

Police officers were placed on heightened alert in Kandy to ensure the situation does not spiral into inter-communal conflagration, the government said in a statement.

Mobs set fire to Muslim-owned businesses and attacked a mosque in the east of the country.

Local officials said more than two dozen suspects had been detained by police in connection with the spate of arson attacks, while senior officers also launched an investigation into the conduct of the police.

Rajith Keerthi Tennakoon, executive director of the Centre for Human Rights Sri Lanka, condemned the unfathomable police inefficiency that he said led to the violence.

Social media pages rallied Sinhalese mobs to assemble in Teldeniya town at 10am. At 11am, there was a proclivity for violent confrontations to take place as mobs gathered. The destruction of Muslim properties started taking place from around 1pm, Tennakoon told Al Jazeera.

Kandy is the latest region to be plagued by religious and ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, a nation of 21 million people.

For 30 years #SriLanka you witnessed your streets run red with the blood of your children. Have you forgotten the loss? The fear? The pain? The suffering? Have you learned nothing? When will you see reason? When will you act? #StandAgainstRacism #OneNationOnePeople #lka pic.twitter.com/hJefq0d14G  Aman Ashraff (@amanashraff) March 5, 2018

Najah Mohamed, secretary of the National Front for Good Governance party in Sri Lanka, told Al Jazeera attacks are spreading all over the country, not just in Kandy.

We are facing the same situation that we had experienced with the previous government with tension, hate, and violence against Muslims are rampant especially where they are a dispersed community, said Mohamed.

Religious and ethnic violence can turn deadly in Sri Lanka, where Muslims account for 10 percent of the population and Buddhists Sinhalese make up nearly 75 percent.

Some observers blame the hardline Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) group for the ongoing violence.

The violent BBS mobs manipulated the situation to fuel attacks against Muslims in an unprecedented way and started attacking people. In the afternoon the police and curfew were here, but there are still rising underreported incidents taking place, Mohamed said.

Religious violence is not new to the island. An anti-Muslim campaign was launched following the deadly Aluthgama riots in June 2014.

President Maithripala Siresena had vowed to investigate anti-Muslim crimes after assuming power in 2015, but no significant progress has been reported.

Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe are yet to make an official statement on the recent unrest.

Tasnim Nazeer contributed to this reportBalance of power

The events that have occurred since the three-tier elections last year have made it clear that a major shift in Nepals politics is underway. For many years, politicians and intellectuals have bemoaned the fact that governments have been highly unstable and coalition governments prone to collapse.Food aid allowed to enter rebel-held enclave for first time in weeks, but Syrian troops take most of the medicine.

A 46-truck convoy carrying humanitarian aid have entered Eastern Ghouta through a government-controlled checkpoint for the first time in nearly a month, but crucial medical supplies have been confiscated by the Syrian military.

Robert Mardini, head of Middle East operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a tweet on Monday that a convoy carrying desperately needed aid for tens of thousands was on its way to Eastern Ghouta.

The convoy included surgical supplies and medicine, as well as 5,500 food and flour bags enough for 27,500 people.

Ali al-Zatari, a senior UN official with the convoy, told Reuters news agency it would take many hours to offload the aid in the rebel-held enclave, and it might be well after nightfall before it could leave Eastern Ghouta.





A World Health Organization official said the government had ordered 70 percent of medical supplies to be stripped out of the convoy, preventing trauma kits, surgical kits, insulin and other vital material from reaching the area.

The ICRC confirmed some medical equipment had been blocked but gave no details.

More than 700 civilians have been killed during an aerial offensive that began on February 18.

The area, home to 400,000 people, has been under siege by the government ever since armed opposition groups took control in mid-2013.

Bombardment on the enclave killed at least 45 civilians on Monday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

The UK-based war monitor said at least 19 of the victims died in the town of Hammuriyeh, where barrels bombs were dropped.

The SOHR said the death toll could rise as bodies were being retrieved from the rubble.

Zatari said he was not happy to hear loud shelling near the crossing point into Eastern Ghouta despite an agreement that the aid would be delivered in safety.

We need to be assured that we will be able to deliver the humanitarian assistance under good conditions, he said.





A 30-day ceasefire unanimously voted for by the members of the UN Security Council on February 24 has largely failed to hold.

Residents of Eastern Ghouta, which lies to the east of Damascus and was known as the breadbasket of the capital, have previously voiced their scepticism of a Russian-proposed five-hour daily humanitarian pause that began last Tuesday.

These pauses would supposedly create humanitarian corridors to allow the evacuation of those seeking medical treatment and the entry of aid convoys, but air strikes have continued to target civilians and residential areas.

Earlier, state government media, SANA, accused terrorist groups of stopping civilians from evacuating Eastern Ghouta through Wafideen for the seventh day in a row.

The terrorist groups in Ghouta are still preventing civilians from leaving, even with ambulances and transport buses waiting on the other side of the safe corridors, SANA said.

Ground offensive

Meanwhile, the SOHR says, Syrian troops and pro-government allies have advanced further into Eastern Ghouta.

Regime forces now control 33 percent, or a third, of besieged Eastern Ghouta, the group said on Monday.

Rami Abdel Rahman, SOHRs director, said the speed with which government forces are moving into the rebel-held enclave is because of the fact that these operations so far are mostly conducted in farmland.

The Syrian government said it has recaptured control of 36 percent of Eastern Ghouta.

Syrians carry a wounded man after a government air strike hit residential areas in Eastern Ghoutas Douma town [Anadolu]

The countrys Central Military Media said that troops are continuing their advance from the east and are only 3km from meeting troops advancing from the west, laying the ground for the dividing Eastern Ghouta into two parts.

Yet local journalists in the area said the territories captured were less than one quarter.

Battles between the rebels and the pro-government troops are still being fought in a hit and run manner, one journalist in Douma told Al Jazeera, adding control of some of the territories was quickly changing.

In a press conference on Sunday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said that the Syrian army is attacking Eastern Ghouta to restore stability and defend the people who are confronting terrorists.

We will continue fighting terrorism  and the Ghouta operation is a continuation of fighting terrorism, Assad said.

Jaish al-Islam, one of the armed opposition groups in Eastern Ghouta, said the governments scorched earth policy had forced rebels to retreat and regroup, but vowed to recover lost territory.

The groups spokesperson Hamza Bairakdar said that Jaish al-Islam had already begun offensive and that hundreds of soldiers from the Syrian Army have been killed in the last two weeks.US largest military force in Vietnam since 1975 war

What the US Navy is describing as a routine port stop is being seen as a direct signal to China.Bulawayo, Zimbabwe  Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa took office 100 days ago, promising change and progressive steps towards a more democratic future, after 37 years of Robert Mugabes iron-fisted rule.

However, his 100-day plan of action to stimulate the economy, attract foreign investment, curb corruption and promote human rights has received mixed reviews in the country.

Since Mnangagwa took power, free, state medical care for children and the elderly and a temporary reduction in fuel prices have been introduced.

The government has also removed police roadblocks and spot fines for traffic offences, which many see as having a positive effect on society.

The proposed establishment of special anti-corruption courts and the arrests of several high-profile figures on allegations of corruption have also been welcomed by the public, but some, including Ida Sibanda, a 57-year-old former school teacher, say more must be done to root out corruption.

He has done a good job so far in getting rid of roadblocks and arresting corrupt people, Sibanda told Al Jazeera.

But there are some in his own cabinet who must go behind bars.

The public has broadly welcomed corruption-related arrests [Tendai Marima/Al Jazeera]

In his crackdown on corruption, Mnangagwa issued a three-month amnesty in December to return looted money.

According to the new president, at least $250m out of an estimated $1.3bn of externalised funds have been repatriated since the amnesty began.

In an effort to re-engage with the world with the aim of reviving Zimbabwes economy, Mnangagwa has cut new deals with Belarus, Russia and China.

He also recently commissioned a South African company to supply hundreds of train wagons and locomotives for $400m to the National Railways of Zimbabwe, a struggling, state-owned enterprise once hailed as Southern Africas transport beacon.

Government efforts to revive industry, which currently operates at less than 50 percent capacity, have some hoping a better future might be possible.

Job creation hopes

Gilbert Nyoni, a 48-year-old self-employed panel beater, said the $20m lifeline recently given to the Cold Storage Company (CSC) shows some sign that one of the countrys largest meat abattoirs could soon operate at full capacity.

Nyoni, who currently works at a car scrapyard behind the giant slaughterhouse, said he hopes that efforts to support CSC would translate into job creation.

I can feel some change even though its small. Things may not be where we want them to be, but I think if this government continues working, well get there, Nyoni told Al Jazeera.

If industries like CSC and others are reopened as they [the government] promise then there will be real jobs for people.

Nyoni hopes [Tendai Marima/Al Jazeera]

While some see signs of change on the horizon, others remain sceptical as long bank queues and cash shortages persist.

After 100 days I cant see the change. If anything, things are changing for the worse and not for the better, said Marshall Zvandasara, 27, who makes sofas in a dimly-lit workshop behind the CSC.

Now that this 100 days is gone, are we going to start counting another 100 days again waiting to see change, how many times will we count before the economy gets better?

For his part, Mnangagwa has called for patience, citing years of economic decline.

In a recent video chronicling the successes and challenges of his first 100 days, Mnangagwa reminded people change was not an overnight process.

We must, of course, be realistic and recognise that it takes more than 100 days to recover the economy, Mnangagwa said.

Real change takes time.

Samukele Hadebe, director of the Public Policy Research Institute of Zimbabwe, which has worked with the government on the 100-day plan, echoed the presidents sentiment.

The idea of the 100-days plan is to inspire confidence, not just to a few people, but to all of us as stakeholders in Zimbabwe, Hadebe told Al Jazeera.

One hundred days doesnt mean therell be immediate changes on the ground, but its to say there are significant indicators that show it is possible to embark on change and the political leadership to do so is there.

The idea for the plan was partly inspired by the Adam Smith Institute, which in 2007 published a series of recommendations for a post-Mugabe administration.

We are tired of being an embarrassment to the world because of bad leadership, Hadebe said.

Unlike Mugabe, who had frosty relations with the West, Mnangagwa has prioritised re-engagement with Western powers.

Mnangagwa has promised peaceful and credible elections in September, but the EU maintains Zimbabwe will not receive significant support until meaningful electoral and democratic reforms are made.

The US recently extended targeted measures against senior ruling Zanu-PF members and associated companies because they continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to US foreign policy, according to a letter issued by President Donald Trump.

Breakthrough needed

Despite the setback, Mnangagwa continues to chant the mantra that Zimbabwe is open for business, but human rights activist Evan Mawarire questions whether Zimbabwe is free enough.

Mawarire, a pastor who faced charges of subversion under Mugabe for calling for protests, told a human rights summit in Switzerland last month that Zimbabwe needs a breakthrough of democracy and the rule of law.

Mawarire, like other activists, urges Mnangagwa to do more for human rights, including the alignment of laws with the constitution, as well as the repeal of repressive laws and greater tolerance of alternate views.

Under Mnangagwas leadership, there have been several tense confrontations between the police and activists, who are critical of the presidents alleged role in past ethnic massacres, and the governments current prohibition on the coronation of the traditional king of the minority Ndebele group.

Chief Nhlanhla Ndiweni of Ntabazinduna, a rural hamlet 40 kilometres north of the second southern city of Bulawayo, questioned whether Mnangagawas rule amounted to a less repressive leadership.

If at the early stages of the so-called new dispensation we fall at the first hurdle, then to me as a traditional leader here, I begin to question whether indeed there is a new dispensation  As a chief my goodwill only lasts insofar as I see this government respecting me [and] respecting my culture, Ndiweni said.

Ziyambi Ziyambi, the justice minister, says that despite some hurdles, Mnangagwas government has a greater commitment to a people-centred human rights policy.

However, firm action might seem a long way off to many Zimbabweans, 100 days after the fall of Mugabe.Mohammed Zaanoun, a photographer and videographer, has been documenting the protests since the first day.About the show

A weekly programme that examines and dissects the worlds media, how they operate and the stories they cover. Watch The Listening Post every Saturday at 0830GMT9/11 and Parkland: When Systems Fail

Everyone paying attention knows now that the Parkland massacre by a severely troubled and dangerous young man was the result of a failure of a host of government institutions. The FBI received several specific warnings and ignored them. The Broward County sheriff's department also ignored countless notifications, as did the local police. Much of the inefficiency was probably due to sheer incompetence, people not doing the jobs they were meant to do. But much was the result of a truly ridiculous program invented by the Obama administration, the Promise policy. Jack Cashill has written about this in depth, as the same program was also the reason Trayvon Martin was roaming the streets when he was killed. The Obama administration wanted to end the racial disparity in the prison population and so bribed school districts and local law enforcement to simply not arrest minority kids in their schools, no matter how criminal their behavior. This was meant to stop the "pipeline to prison" that had been endemic among school-age minority kids. As a result, criminally-inclined kids became emboldened to escalate their illegal activity. Nikolas Cruz bought ten guns and passed every background check because no one reported his accelerating criminality to the Feds. And because of this nonsensical program, seventeen young people are dead.

For those who have not read Lawrence Wright's outstanding book, The Looming Tower, tune into the series based on it now airing on Hulu. It tells the story of how the terrorist attack of 9/11/01 was virtually allowed to happen thanks to a similarly catastrophic policy that banned intelligence agencies from communicating with one another. The story bears much in common with the systemic failures that led to the Florida school murders. In the days before 9/11, a "wall" of long standing was made higher and thicker that "prevented communication between intelligence agents and criminal investigators." This meant that the CIA could not, and would not, share information with the FBI. It was Jamie Gorelick, Deputy Attorney General in 1995, who drafted a memo that made the existing law even more restrictive. The original wall was built by Democrats who loathed the FBI and created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 1978. After the WTC bombing in 1993, there was an obvious need for more cooperation between agencies. Gorelick's memo did exactly the opposite. Counter-intelligence investigations were to be separate and distinct from criminal probes. So whatever was uncovered by the CIA could not be shared or combined with the fruit of FBI investigations. It was all about "appearances." That and the fact that the left at the time loathed the FBI; then-Director Louis Freeh was investigating the already long list of Clinton campaign crimes of raising money from numerous foreign sources. How things change. Today's FBI has willingly sabotaged itself in service of the left, to protect the corruptions of the Obama administration and to cover up the decades of nefarious activities of the Clintons. It seems clear that in both cases, and most likely thousands of others unknown to the public at large, the ever-growing power and reach of government plans and policies implemented under the cover of darkness, (the Gorelick memo only came to light during the 9/11 Commission) and often for purely political purposes have put millions of law-abiding citizens at great risk. Such power, imperiously put into effect and stupidly abused, led to 9/11 and the three thousand plus deaths that occurred that day and those that came after among the first responders. And such power is reliably responsible for the seventeen deaths in Parkland. Big government is failing us, which most likely explains Trump's victory in 2016. Eight years of the Obama administration's fundamental transformation of our country left a majority of us depressed and branded as "deplorable." The left does not suffer opposing views, it criminalizes them. While the primacy of the race/class/gender meme has long prevailed as de rigueur on university campuses, it now rules nearly every aspect of America life, from restroom edicts to making race and gender a matter of choice. Black Lives Matter and the LGBT movements now have more power than our churches, businesses, and all other traditional institutions. The rest of us are expected to cower and submit before the leftist dictates of the new American culture and to dispense with the values once held dear. Victimhood rules. If one is not a victim, then he or she is an oppressor. That is how it is. That is how Nicolas Cruz was able to buy ten guns. That is how the Saudi terrorists were able to take down the WTC. Consequences be damned.Then there is Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Lurking in the weeds, moving with stealth and deception like a ninja. Or playing Rip Van Winkle, taking a nap, ignoring the waves of corruption engulfing the DOJ and FBI. Which is it?

Conventional wisdom, as shaped by the mainstream media, is becoming more and more schizophrenic. President Trump is a Russian stooge, doing Putins bidding, yet he is reigniting the cold war via new Russian sanctions. His White House is in chaos, yet the left is apoplectic over his barrage of policy initiatives. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is shooting blanks and at the same time is circling the Oval Office, ready to pounce and indict.

Lets look at the latter scenario first. That Jeff Sessions, in the view of his boss, is Mr. Magoo. Trump also described Sessions as beleaguered. Now almost 14 months into the Trump presidency, the evidence of massive corruption in the Obama DOJ and FBI is piling up. As outlined on these and other pages, the Obama administration attempted to prevent Trumps election. Having failed, it began a new effort to undermine and destroy his presidency via illegal wiretaps, leaks, misleading the FISA court, and pushing the bogus Russian collusion narrative.

Trump tweeted his displeasure with his AG and the OIG, publicly criticizing their lack of action and political bias.

Each week reveals new revelations. The latest being FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe leaking investigation details to journalists, all without consequence or accountability, while Michael Flynn is indicted for misstating a minor detail to the FBI.

Its not only Trump noticing Sessions ineptitude. Fox Business host Lou Dobbs tweeted, Sessions has fallen ill, he's incapacitated in some fashion, or he's been coopted or captured: to preserve any dignity, for the good of the country he needs to resign. This after when Sessions was questioned by House investigators, he constantly deferred to his deputy, Rod Rosenstein. The same Rosenstein who approved FISA warrant requests to spy on Carter Page, and by extension, the Trump campaign.

GOP Rep Matt Gaetz, in the thick of the House investigation also weighed in, saying, If Jeff Sessions does not appoint a second special counsel, then we need a new Attorney General. Gaetz is concerned that even if the OIG or Congress finds evidence of wrongdoing, its the DOJ that will need to do the prosecuting. Congress does not have that power and all evidence points to sleepy Jeff Sessions oblivious to the corruption in his own agency.

Other members of Congress, such as Trump supporters Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows have called on Sessions to resign, saying that, By recusing himself from the FBIs investigation into Russias alleged interference in the United States election, Sessions has lost control, allowing for a leaky and unnecessarily overdrawn, partisan investigation.

All painting the picture of an inept Mr. Magoo as Attorney General, letting the lunatics run the asylum, doing a grave disservice to his president and the country.

Now the opposite scenario, that AG Sessions is indeed a ninja, working behind the scenes to drain the swamp, but doing it, out of necessity, quietly yet methodically.

What is Sessionsresume? 12 years as a U.S. Attorney, two years as Alabama AG, three terms as a conservative U.S. senator, one of the earliest supporters of candidate Trump. Nearly 30 years navigating the swamp through a solid conservative lens. To say that he doesnt understand current events or the significance of his role in all of this is hard to fathom.

Trump is no fool. And he doesnt suffer fools either. Watch speeches or interviews from decades ago and Trumps core beliefs have changed little. He has spoken constantly of the swamp, fighting the establishment of the media, Democrats, and even his own party. Why would Trump tolerate an inept AG, rather than uttering his famous, Youre fired!

Jeff Sessions offered to resign in September of last year, and before that in June. If Trump was so displeased, he could have accepted Sessions resignation. But he didnt. What if this is all a grand charade? A deception to keep his enemies off guard?

As Thomas Lifson at American Thinker and Vachel Lindsay on Twitter have outlined, Trump and Sessions may be staging their own reality show, keeping the media and members of Congress barking up the wrong tree. A grand but necessary deception in order for the swamp to be drained effectively.

Trump may well be dispelling any conception that Sessions or OIG Horowitz are Trump stooges by publicly berating them. Repeatedly. So when the OIG report comes out, Sessions has no political restraints against unleashing the DOJ on the DOJ/FBI corruptocrats.

Trump understands what he is up against. As the old saying goes, when you try to kill the king, you had better not miss. In this case the king is the deep state, powerful, well entrenched, tentacles everywhere. Picking off one bad actor at a time may not work, as the beast can regrow its tentacles. Cutting off the head is the only way to kill the beast.

Rep. Devin Nunes, at the cutting edge of this investigation, perhaps gave a hint at the grand strategy. Unlike his colleagues, piling on Sessions and calling for his resignation, Nunes, Broke with President Trump and said he welcomes Attorney General Jeff Sessions' announcement that the Justice Department's inspector general would investigate alleged abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Nunes has been a pit bull investigating deep state abuses. Has he suddenly gone soft by giving Sessions and the OIG his full support? Or is he lifting the curtain on Trump and Sessions grand deception?

So, which is it? Is Jeff Sessions a doddering dolt, oblivious to the fact that his own agency is on fire, burning with the flames of corruption? A nincompoop?

Or is this a grand deception, Trump and one of his earliest supporters, working stealthily beyond the public eye, getting their ducks in a row before unleashing The Storm? A ninja?

When Trump secured the GOP nomination, he told supporters, I understand the responsibility of carrying the mantle and I will never ever let you down. He hasnt broken his promise yet.

Readers will have to form their own opinions. As Qanon likes to say, Expand your thinking. Are the talking heads on CNN and Fox News thoughtful analysts or are they pushing a preconceived agenda for ratings and acclaim within their beltway echo chamber? Is President Trump another vacuous politician or is he a brilliant strategist, following through on his promises, always several steps ahead of his detractors?

This should play out over the coming weeks and months. Boom or bust.

Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us. That's why we've always put friends and family at the core of the experience. Research shows that strengthening our relationships improves our well-being and happiness. But recently we've gotten feedback from our community that public content -- posts from businesses, brands and media -- is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.

Facebook has caved to Democrat political pressure and is censoring newsfeeds on users pages, as Mark Zuckerberg explains, for their own good . The progressives at Facebook have gone nuclear.

Cutting through the Orwellian talk of connecting us together and feedback from our community, this is an entirely political story. After Donald Trumps election, Zuckerberg came under tremendous pressure to use Facebook for the Democrats Resistance. All the bludgeons were brought out  Russian bots, fake news, that Facebook handed an unearned victory to Trump. And the greatest of all, the threat of government regulation.

At first Zuckerberg resisted the Resistance, but then he caved suddenly, following a personal intervention by Obama.

The results of Obamas intervention are in:

Engagement on Donald Trumps Facebook posts has dropped by approximately 45 percent since the platform introduced a new algorithm change, following a year of pressure from left-wing employees and the mainstream media for allowing the President to win the 2016 general election.

The most interesting aspect of the progressives victory has received almost no press. It was Barack Hussein Obama himself who knuckled Zuckerberg, in a chance encounter at an anti-poverty gathering of the glitterati, in Peru. Obama openly told Zuckerberg he had to do something about the next presidential race.

The Washington Post reported last fall:

Nine days after Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg dismissed as crazy the idea that fake news on his companys social network played a key role in the U.S. election, President Barack Obama pulled the youthful tech billionaire aside and delivered what he hoped would be a wake-up call. For months leading up to the vote, Obama and his top aides quietly agonized over how to respond to Russias brazen intervention on behalf of the Donald Trump campaign without making matters worse. Now huddled in a private room on the sidelines of a meeting of world leaders in Lima, Peru, two months before Trumps inauguration, Obama made a personal appeal to Zuckerberg to take the threat of fake news and political disinformation seriously, although Facebook representatives say the president did not single out Russia specifically. Unless Facebook and the government did more to address the threat, Obama warned, it would only get worse in the next presidential race. (snip) The conversation on Nov. 19 was a flashpoint in a tumultuous year in which Zuckerberg came to recognize the magnitude of a new threat  a coordinated assault on a U.S. election by a shadowy foreign force that exploited the social network he created.

Until Obamas intervention, Facebook corporate policy was rock solid. Zuckerbergs entire business model was that Facebook is a platform, not a content provider. The company has always claimed they have no responsibility for content. The Jewish Press begged Zuckerberg to block Islamic Facebook pages teaching how to make lone wolf knife attacks fatal. Zuckerberg refused. Not his problem.

In the past, Facebook often bowed to PC pressure from the feminist, gay and Islamic communities. Pamela Geller got fed up with being blocked and sued. A gun range owner was blocked after the Orlando shooting for offering free self-defense classes to LGBT. Pro-life crowdfunding a movie on Roe v. Wade was blocked, as were dozens of conservative Catholic websites. But these forays into censorship of conservatives were isolated, and often reversed with claims they had been done by mistake.

That was before the Obama White House had to cover its tracks of spying on the Trump campaign and newly elected President Trump.

At first, Zuckerberg was impervious to the hysteria that fake news and Russian bots on Facebook had thrown the election to Trump. He knew it was nonsense, because hes a numbers and data guy, and the reach of Russian accounts was pitiful.

Russian interference generated 129 real-world events that drew 340,000 Facebook users. If we look at the number of mobile active Facebook users for December 2016, we see that there were 1.74 billion. Thus, the Russians commandeered 0.000195402% of the Facebook users for that one month.

You could argue that the election was thrown in a few key states, where targeted fake news confused voters. From the Washington Examiner:

Looking at key states, the total spent on ads targeting Wisconsin was $1,979, according to Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr. Ad spending in Michigan was $823. In Pennsylvania, it was $300. That is not the stuff of rigging elections.

As for Russian content that appeared on newsfeeds:

"This equals about four-thousands of one percent (0.004%) of content in News Feed, or approximately 1 out of 23,000 pieces of content," Facebook executive Colin Stretch said in prepared testimony before the Senate last November.

From wired.com:

at a conference two days after the election, Zuckerberg argued that  The idea that fake news on Facebookof which, you know, its a very small amount of the contentinfluenced the election in any way, I think, is a pretty crazy idea, he said.he likes to form his opinions from data. And in this case he wasnt without it.

Zuckerberg was correct. The idea that fake news on Facebook helped elect Trump is crazy.

Donald Trump needed Russian help to be effective on Facebook? Thats crazy. The idea that Trump betrayed his country for help on social media is crazy. And the idea that the scale of the Russian effort on Facebook had any impact is crazy.

But telling the truth in Obamas progressive America is not allowed.

Zuckerbergs comments did not go over well, even inside Facebook. They seemed clueless and self-absorbed. What he said was incredibly damaging, a former executive told WIRED. We had to really flip him on that. We realized that if we didnt, the company was going to start heading down this pariah path that Uber was on.

Zuckerberg was soon disabused of the notion that he could data check whether fake news threw the election. Nice little company you have there.

After the election, because Trump won, the media put a ton of attention on fake news and just started hammering us. People started panicking and getting afraid that regulation was coming. and we decided to figure out how we could put together our own packaged program that shows how seriously we take the future of news.

It took Facebook a long time to figure out how to control fake news.

Censorship at Facebook is no longer a bug. It is a feature. President Trumps clicks are down 45%.The Democrats as Russian Dupes, 2018 Edition

No wonder the Russian meddlers are laughing  the Dems are wittingly colluding in sowing discord through sleazy identity politics and by fostering extreme multiculturalism. Lacking substantive policy ideas, their main hope for electoral success is to divide and conquer. Russia is a major geopolitical adversary, which makes the Democrats the enemy within. The thread that binds our great tapestry of cultures was woven by our founding fathers "in order to form a more perfect union." Their system of checks and balances ensures that rationality and compromise establish a balance between our contradictory instincts of cooperation and competition. Their emphasis upon individual liberty  rather than the organic state  helped ensure that a thriving civil society based on shared values would emerge from the nasty and brutish conditions of a state of nature.

Our union was an improvement, but it started imperfectly; nevertheless, we've always been guided by our nation's motto. Though there have been several iterations of the Great Seal of the United States, the one constant is the inscription "E Pluribus Unum." Historically, legal immigrants embraced this ideal and eventually assimilated into America, particularly those processed through Ellis Island. While proud of their heritage, they were grateful for the bountiful opportunities America bequeaths to those who relish the promise of America and who cherish the ways of the last great hope of Earth. This makes it even more galling that Democrats endeavor to unravel our legal fabric by flouting federal immigration laws. They are the enemy within who prioritize illegal aliens over American citizens. Democrats are also inflaming social disharmony by pursuing identity politics, to the undoubted amusement of Russian trolls. This tends to be self-perpetuating, for if a constituency is rewarded for being a distinct group, there is little motivation to assimilate. It is a zero-sum proposition that corrodes the "common good" that underpins a vibrant body politic. By fostering dependence on government, and divvying up handouts based on ethnicity, the Democrats are making a mockery of JFK's inaugural address exhortation: "... ask what your country can do for you." No wonder liberals are not enamored of Western civilization, as this extremely divisive multiculturalism is anathema to the profound teachings of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Enlightenment philosophers like John Locke. They emphasized a shared set of norms, with social strata acting in concert toward the common good of the republic. Locke, in particular, provided the philosophical underpinning by which civil society emerges from the "might makes right" chaos of nature. Perhaps Trump was observant when describing the Democrats' reactions at his SOTU address as treasonous. Not chanting "USA, USA," but cheering when the stock market's "Trump Bump" temporarily turns into a "Trump Slump" is preposterous, though I'm sure Vladimir delights in their perfidious propaganda. Let's face it: most Republicans were against Obama because his polices, as proven, were bad for America; however, Democrats are against Trump out of fear that his polices are generally good for America (pending the extent and outcome of his trade tariffs). In essence, what's good for America is bad for Democrats. They are the enemy within who deride America's founding principles and ideals. Meanwhile, the Russians are doing a Cossack Dance and savoring our discord. Their army of trolls spent a pittance, especially in the "blue wall" states, compared to the billions spent by the presidential campaigns. Notably, most of their efforts to undermine confidence in American democracy came after the election (56 percent of Facebook ad impressions) and dovetailed with the Democrats' resistance. For example, Russian operatives organized the "Trump is not my president" rally, which had the biggest attendance, as Democrats participated wholeheartedly. The Russian intruders must be thrilled with their puppet, Nancy Pelosi. Given the extent of her collaboration, perhaps we should assign her a Russian-style last name like Popov; after all, Nancy has been popping off a lot lately. Debilitated by her liberal disease, she even proselytizes that tax cuts are unpatriotic. Nancy Popov is like a political commissar shrieking that Trump's DACA proposal is subterfuge to make America white again. The Russian trolls couldn't have scripted this insidious racism any better, as it implies she's trying to make America browner. Certainly, she has the bona fides, having once arranged a photo on the Capitol steps (and then doctored it) to commemorate white men no longer representing a majority of the Democrat caucus. After popping off about white guys trying to negotiate an immigration deal, she bizarrely claimed that DREAMers  otherwise known as young illegal aliens who commit disproportionately more crime  make America more American. That just defies logic, since America flourishes when the rule of law is observed, not when illegals are aided and abetted. Clearly, Nancy Popov's unwavering determination to institutionalize identity politics aligns with Russia's exploitation of our social divisions. They must be laughing their rears off in Moscowand in the troll farm in St. Petersburg. I'm sure the Russian operatives would like nothing more than to subvert the sanctity of our cherished "one citizen, one vote" principle. Once again, Democrats are their allies: the Russian bots have infiltrated the Democrats' collective consciousness in Nancy's home state of California, where they plan to automatically register driver's license recipients to vote, making voter fraud by illegals more likely. Disconcertingly, there are no penalties for ineligible voters who do vote. Chicago is just as bad with its new municipal ID cards for illegal aliens (they deviously call them "undocumented immigrants") being valid to register to vote. This will likely bolster the ranks of the enemy within. Perhaps offended by our exceptional nature, Putin believes that our society is imperfect and vulnerable to internal strife rooted in divisive social issues. That's why his troll farms are leveraging social media to provoke extreme multiculturalism that rips asunder our social bonds. Whereas recent European leaders sounded a requiem for multiculturalism, Pelosi and her colleagues are onboard with Vlad: they are determined to turn our nation's motto upside-down. "Out of one, many" seems to be their imperative. To buttress a government framework that ultimately depends upon basic shared principles founded upon a universal understanding of the common good  for citizens  it would certainly be better if Nancy Layov. Image: Renate Dodell via Flickr.Bids called for feasibility study for Korala dry port

The Nepal Intermodal Transport Development Board has started groundwork for the construction of an inland container depot (ICD) at Korala, Mustang on the Nepal-China border. On Sunday, the board issued a notice inviting interested firms to submit bids to conduct a feasibility study for the dry port.Didnt a significant figure in Black history instruct Americans to judge each other on the content of their character, not the color of our skin? Shouldnt character, rather than skin color, be the primary focus for everyone who lives in this country?

Recently, Michelle Obamas official portrait was unveiled, but rather than just thank artist Amy Sherald the former first lady couldnt control the temptation to drag skin color into a historical event. After taking in the massive portrait of herself, Michelle had this to say about children who would eventually see her image:

I'm also thinking of all the young people...who will see an image of someone who looks like them hanging on the wall in this great American institution. I know the impact that will have on their lives, b/c I was one of those girls.

The premise of Michelles statement is that the former first lady spent her childhood wandering around Chicago museums looking for paintings depicting people who look like her but couldnt find one.

And people believe that balderdash.

Based on her statement, either Michelle shunned museums as a child or thinks shes the first black woman that black children find relatable

The truth is that throughout the history of art black and brown people have always been the depicted in paintings. In fact, Alessandro de' Medici, son of the most powerful and culturally-influential family in Florence, Italy, from the 15th to the mid 18th century, was the half son of a Moorish slave. Alessandro was about as white as Barack Obama is Irish.

Now, barely two weeks after Michelles oh-so-relatable reveal, Americans are supposed to believe that a museum-dweller spontaneously found 2-year-old child mesmerized by Michelle Obamas gigantic likeness?

Well, thats the story.

Apparently, Ben Hines from North Carolina said he was touring the Smithsonian looking for patriots with his wife when, quite by accident, he happened upon little Parker Curry glaring at the former first ladys image.

Ben captured the candid photo and posted it on Facebook where it went viral. Hines told Buzzfeed

It was so touching and uplifting for me to see this beautiful child looking at a beautiful portrait of a powerful woman. I was so delighted to have been in the right place at the right time.

The little girl Parkers mother, Jessica Curry, said her daughter just wanted to stareShe was fascinated.

After Hines photo went viral, Amy Sherald, the creator of Michelles portrait chimed in on how touched she was by the photo that depicted a small child, the black first lady in the large white dress, and the hovering Black security guard.

Amy said the photo brought her back to her first field trip to a museum where she saw an image by white realist artist Bob Bartlett of a black man standing in front of a house.

Sherald said:

There was a painting of a black man standing in front of a house. I don't remember a lot about my childhood, but I do have a few emotional memories etched into my mind forever and seeing that painting of a man that looked like he could be my father stopped me dead in my tracks. This was my first time seeing real paintings that weren't in a book and also weren't painted in another century. I didn't realize that none of them had me in them until I saw that painting of Bo's.

So, Amy Sherald doesnt remember her childhood but does remember seeing a painting of a black man because thats when she realized that Art History books excluded Black people?

Clearly Amy, along with Michelle, visited the wrong museums.

The buzz now is that Parker Curry staring at Michelles portrait proves that images are relevant and that 2-year-old minority children, barely out of diapers, notice when theyre not represented equally in art museums.

Back to Parker Curry at the Smithsonian. For starters, Michelles skin color in the Sherald painting is an odd death-pallor gray, not black or brown. Therefore, its highly unlikely a little girl thought Michelle looked like her. 

Moreover, how about we give the child credit for appreciating the colorful geometric shapes, which is what 2-years old do, or acknowledge that the mere size of the portrait stunned the kid. No, instead, the default reaction for some on the left is to focus on race immediately and to use a toddlers response to prove something about lack of representation in the art world.

Whats worse is the contrived nature of a photo that uses an innocent child to give validation to Michelles bizarre looks like them statement on the day her Smithsonian portrait was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

The whole Parker in the Smithsonian photo seems manufactured. Instead of art, for arts sake, or a little girl just looking at a painting, now museums, art history and, portraiture have become another pawn in a discussion about race that is tearing this nation apart.

Jeannie hosts a blog at www.jeannie-ology.comWhat Is #MeToo Good For?

What is #MeToo good for? It is good for some women and bad for most men  and devastating for social civility. It has yielded a bonanza of public sympathy, legitimized anti-male aggression, and created an atmosphere of profitable grievance-mongering for the distaff wing of the gender divide while it has shamed and traumatized the wilting spear side. Men are tout court guilty of "toxic masculinity," women are innocent victims without agency or choice, and there's an end of it. Many years ago, I lost a much-needed job opportunity because I rejected the advances of the woman responsible for academic hiring. One is free in many such compromising situations simply to walk away. You don't get the job, which is unfortunate, but, unless one's very life is at stake, the moral option takes precedence over the pragmatic decision. True, there are some offers you can't refuse, as Mario Puzo put it, but in the vast majority of cases, you can refuse most offers that come your way if you are willing to pay the price.

Equally to the point, I did not indulge in recrimination, feel sorry for myself, rail against an unfair world, or meditate launching a MeToo movement. That's just how the real world operates, and, as they say, you suck it up and proceed to the next challenge. This is why I never jumped on the anti-Harvey Weinstein bandwagon or sympathized with those poor actresses who felt compelled to visit his room in order to further their careers. Walk away, take your chances, rely on your talent, and hope for a better opportunity in the future. Yet the allegations continue to pour in. Patrick Brown, erstwhile leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, was recently accused of sexual misconduct by two women riding the MeToo wave. They went not to the police, which would have been the proper course of action, but to the media. Their stories, largely unverified, were aired by the CTV News network, which provoked Brown's near immediate resignation. I was never fond of Brown, whose platform seemed a little to the left of current premier Kathleen Wynne's Liberal agenda or, at any rate, pretty much identical, advocating a carbon tax and anti-Islamophobia legislation. He struck me  and many others  as a Liberal wolf in Conservative clothing, and I am relieved he is no longer party leader. Nevertheless, he was the victim of a MeToo campaign that pretty clearly had no basis in reality and has cost him dearly. It also plunged the party, which was leading in the polls, into political disarray just months before the provincial election. This is merely another instance of the damage the movement can cause. Brown at least has the option, of which he has availed himself, of suing Bell Media and its CTV satellite for engaging in "false, malicious, irresponsible and defamatory" reporting. He will probably win. His public profile and media savvy have given him a distinct advantage. But a private citizen will have little or no such recourse available to clear his name  apart from the fact that the taint, however unfounded, always remains. Consider the case of an Ottawa doctor, Vincent Nadon, recently charged with voyeurism and sexual assault. His name is out there in local and national news and is now a topic of conversation. According to the police report, a young woman claimed she had "reason to believe" that she was being secretly filmed during a medical consultation. Dr. Nadon was initially jailed, subsequently placed under house arrest, and later won bail under some bizarre conditions, including being prevented from using recording devices, accessing the internet, or communicating with his patients. Ten more female patients dating back to 1995 have since the first report come forward with similar allegations. As of this writing, the allegations have not been tested in court. It is too soon to pronounce one way or another. Yet several disquieting issues remain unaddressed. The complainant claims, according to news reports, that she was secretly videoed. If the occurrence took place secretly, how then could she have known? Where is the videotape, assuming it exists? A presumably intelligent professional would not have been so negligent as to store the incriminating evidence on his office computer. Moreover, if a video does exist, may it not have been made in self-defense? I understand that this and other protective maneuvers are becoming common practice among professionals, academics, and business men who find themselves alone in a room with a woman. In some accounts, the women are described as " victims ," yet nothing has been proven. The term is obviously used in anticipation of a guilty verdict in conformity with the so-called "social justice" agenda, for which due process is obsolete. Is not the sudden emergence of a posse of claimants not in itself suspicious, especially as none of the plaintiffs saw fit to come forward in the previous months and years? Collusion or contagion in such instances is not unheard of, as the infamous Ghomeshi trial clearly revealed. A patient lodges her grievance a full 23 years after the event allegedly took place. This does not compute. Patients claim they were sexually touched . Some have said they were touched " inappropriately ." What exactly does this mean? The accused happens to be a doctor. Physicians have the freedom of examining your body if they are to perform their duties. If a woman were offended, she could have gotten up and left or demanded a female doctor. She could have signaled her distress, which would have been immediately heard in the busy medical clinic and crowded halls. After diligent searching and to the best of my knowledge, I find that no evidence to substantiate the allegations has surfaced, yet Dr. Nadon has effectively been convicted and punished before standing trial. Although it is too late to do anything about this now, the doctor's name and photo should not have been circulated publicly until the case had actually gone to court. A strict publication ban should have been in place. Pro forma, the accusers' names and photos were not made public, as they rarely are in assault cases. Even if the allegations are false or without substance, the plaintiffs will likely not be charged with willful mischief or obstruction of justice, but the doctor's reputation is ruined, and his ability to earn his livelihood has been stolen from him. As it happens, my wife was a patient of Dr. Nadon for over ten years. Her only complaint was that the large volume of his patients tended to reduce consultation time, but she found his conduct always discreet and professional. A great number of his patients feel exactly the same way and have rated his abilities at the top of the chart. They are grateful to have been treated by him. This does not mean he is innocent of the charges against him, but it does suggest that the rush to judgment is both premature and injudicious. The damage is already done. This is a textbook example of the perverted form of justice  Queen of Hearts-style  practiced by social justice advocates and feminist activists: sentence before verdict when it comes to men. Dr. Nadon's case is an illustration in little of how jurisprudence now tends to work. The principle of burden of proof is slowly but inexorably going out the window. It is being replaced by what is called "preponderance of evidence," which means simply what the judge or adjudicator feels is the more credible story. And the more credible story always seems to be the woman's, no matter how often such narratives are inherently absurd or contradictory and are later shown to be flimsy and unreliable, and in some cases even retracted. No matter. In the current climate of toxic feminism and social justice tribunals, the bedrock principle of impartial judgment based on concrete evidence no longer applies. What we are now witnessing in our ostensibly free country is the advent of show trials in everything but name. In a real sense, the Soviet Union never collapsed. It is here among us in democratic guise.Business freedom and worldwide quality of life

In 2006, the World Bank published an extensive inventory of wealth sources in 118 nations. Based on their analysis, natural resources like arable land and petroleum reserves contribute very little to the overall wealth of developed nations like the U.S. Most of the wealth in developed nations can be attributed to "intangibles" like education and rule of law. Reason magazine provides a useful summary for those who do not have time to read the 172-page report. The World Justice Project quantified one of these intangibles by generating a Rule of Law Index based on the following nine components: constraints on government power, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice, criminal justice, and informal justice. Since the World Bank attributes 57% of intangible capital to the rule of law, it is reasonable to assume that intangible capital is proportionate to scores published by the World Justice Project.

In earlier articles, I showed how minorities and blue-collar workers benefit most in states with a business-friendly "regulatory environment" as ranked by Forbes. Similarly, the Heritage Foundation published international scores for "business freedom," which make up one of 12 components in its annual Index of Economic Freedom. According Fig. 1, the benefits of business freedom appear to extend far beyond the availability of blue-collar jobs.

Fig. 1: The x-axis is a component of the Heritage Foundations overall index of economic freedom. The y-axis represents scores from the World Justice Project. The data is limited to nations scored by both organizations. Ch. = China, In. = India. Based on archived data from Heritage, the U.S. declined from 10th to 18th place for business freedom during the eight years of the Obama administration (seven places below Sweden!). This is of no concern to progressives because they often believe that business-friendly policies are at odds with the environment and social welfare. Nevertheless, those who are dismissive of overregulation cannot ignore the fact that all the nations in the upper right portion of Fig. 1 provide a far better quality of life. What did Denmark, Norway, Finland, and New Zealand do to rank among the top 10 for both business freedom and rule of law? The aforementioned data come as no surprise to conservatives, who believe that business freedom goes hand in hand with intangible capital, but conservatives might be surprised by the lack of correlation between government spending and business freedom in Fig. 2. It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss how business-friendly policies can coexist with big government. Nevertheless, these results could serve as an opportunity to grow the consensus on regulatory reform. After all, if fiscal restraint is not a precondition for business freedom, then it might be easier to persuade moderate liberals to question the pro-regulatory talking points of their more progressive colleagues. Downsizing the government is just as important, but this battle needs to be fought separately.

Fig 2: The graph represents two components of the Heritage Foundation's index of economic freedom. Government spending scores are obtained by subtracting from 100, so a higher score for government spending indicates that government expenditures make up a smaller portion of GDP. As the Trump administration rolls back job-killing regulations of the Obama era, some reporters wring their hands over safety and the environment. Even if you believe that Republicans do not care about public safety or "want dirtier (and) dirtier water," you still must acknowledge that there is a point at which the cost of compliance exceeds overall benefits to society (in environmental science, we call it the "law of diminishing returns"). If everyone takes a closer look at the policies of nations near the top right portion of Fig. 1, then both sides might agree on where to draw the line on regulations. Even though liberals will look to Finland and libertarians will look to Hong Kong as their models, they might at the very least come together on the need to minimize the administrative barriers to free enterprise. Antonio Chaves teaches biology at a local community college. His interest in economic and social issues stems from his experience teaching environmental science.In 1812, Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry tried rigging elections by redrawing district boundaries so his Democratic-Republican Party (the forerunner of today's Democratic Party) would win more seats. One such district was shaped like a salamander, which critics called a "Gerrymander."

Unelected Pennsylvania Supreme Court judges voted along partisan lines, 5-2, to control the legislature's power to draw congressional districts. In 2000, Democrats tried to throw out overseas ballots by Florida soldiers, and the far left Center for American Progress this February proposed making it harder for Americans in uniform to vote overseas, because soldiers tend to vote as conservatives. In 2016, Virginia's Gov. Terry McAuliffe issued an executive order giving votes to more than 100,000 felons, who vote up to 88 percent Democratic.

President Barack Obama, as Craig R. Smith and I noted in our book Money, Morality & The Machine, broke all legal limits with his "Obamamander," in effect stretching the southern border of the U.S. to include voters from all of Mexico and half of Central America. On April 1, California will begin automatically registering all driver license holders to vote and will remove any criminal penalty from non-citizens thus registered who vote illegally.

The latest Democratic scheme could be called "gerrymandering by age." Several efforts are underway  including some reportedly receiving funds from billionaire radical George Soros  to lower the voting age from 18 to 17 or 16. Former Obama speechwriter Jon Lovett advocates votes for 16-year-olds. Leftist Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe writes that "[t]eens between 14 and 18 have far better BS detectors, on average, than 'adults' 18 and older. Wouldn't it be great if the voting age were lowered to 16?"

In fact, young voters are inexperienced and naive, immature, and dependent on others, and they generally have never held a serious job or had to pay taxes or a mortgage. They are easy prey for leftist teachers and demagogues who advocate wealth redistribution, gun confiscation, and other radical schemes.

As with soldiers and felons, leftists want to do more than give votes to immature voters. They also want to take away the right to vote from older citizens, who tend to vote conservatively. Time Magazine's Joel Stein argues:

Old people vote shortsightedly, choosing the least Progressive outcome. In surveys in the U.S. and the U.K., people over 65  compared with people under 30  were nearly twice as likely to be against gay marriage; twice as likely to be pro-Brexit; half as likely to support legalization of marijuana; nearly five times less likely to want to spend money on education; 60% more likely to vote for Donald Trump; and nearly 50% more likely to say immigrants have a negative impact on society.

"The over-65 generation does not accurately represent our country," writes Stein, "because they are overwhelmingly white and actually vote. So, unfortunately, we're going to have to bar them from voting." Is he joking?

To do this, the left must circumvent the 26th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says, "The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age."

Odds are the Democrats will follow Mr. Obama, who confiscated guns from Social Security recipients not because they were old, but because their need for help filling out government paperwork was "evidence" that they're "mental defectives," a judgment Democrats could use to take away their Second Amendment rights.

Ironically, Democrats have worked to increase voting by the mentally deficient, whose ballots can be filled out and cast absentee by liberal government social workers...to gerrymander and steal elections.

The left already denies freedom of speech and threatens violence against those with non-leftist opinions, such as disbelief in global warming or support for President Donald Trump. How large a next step is it to deny the vote to those who demonstrate their "mental deficiency" by opposing the left?

Lowell Ponte is a veteran think-tank futurist and author or co-author of eight books. His latest, co-authored with Craig R. Smith, is Money, Morality & The Machine, available free and postpaid by calling 800-630-1492. Lowell can be reached for interviews by email at radioright@aol.com.Andres Avelino Anduaga  if that's even his real name  admitted to assuming the identity of a U.S. citizen in 1980. Armed with a fake birth certificate, he developed a seemingly legitimate persona by applying for a California driver's license, Social Security number and U.S. passport.

If you are an average payer of federal income taxes, the entire amount of money you have paid and will pay in federal income taxes over your lifetime has been stolen by one illegal alien, with plenty of money left over to pillage from the tax payments of your neighbors. Kristina Davis of the San Diego Union-Tribune broke a story two days ago that now is rightfully garnering national attention .

The official documents identified him as Abraham Riojos, born in Alpine, Texas, in 1958. The documents allowed him to move freely between Mexico and the U.S., and also to receive nearly $361,000 in government benefits over the years. On Thursday, Anduaga, 66, pleaded guilty to theft of public property and being a previously removed unauthorized immigrant in the U.S. He has agreed to pay back to several government agencies what he stole but could face additional fines as well as up to 12 years in prison when sentenced.

Rojos was already a criminal before he started ripping off taxpayers. CBS adds:

[T]he man claiming to be Riojos had a rap sheet that included 21 different names and six dates of birth, dating back to 1974, the newspaper reported. They included a firearms violation, forgery, cocaine possession and multiple DUIs, according to prosecutors.

The list of benefits he was able to grab is illustrative of the incredible generosity of American and California taxpayers:

An analysis of Anduaga's benefits showed he first applied for Supplemental Security Income benefits in 1989 and was awarded payments retroactive to 1988. He received monthly payments  $244,441 total  until Aug. 1, 2016, according to his plea agreement.

Almost a quarter-million dollars heisted from the mythical "Social Security Trust Fund"  money that might not be there when you or your family member reaches retirement age. That's missing money that will force an increase in Social Security taxes, or a cut to benefits, or both.

The fact is that disability payments often are a racket, a source of plunder for people not really disabled, but pretending to be mentally or physically impaired. To be sure, there are legitimate claims from people with real impairments. But the following graphs from NPR demonstrate that unemployment rates are correlated with disability claims and that the named causes of disabilities have moved sharply in the direction of unverifiable complaints like back pain and mental disability:

The perp also ripped off California taxpayers:

He also qualified for Medi-Cal benefits and payments  which he shouldn't have as a unauthorized immigrant [sic]  and received $112,981 total. Plus, he illegally received more than $3,486 in food stamps under a county program.

And he moved freely between the U.S. and Mexico, thanks to his stolen identity.

Records show he crossed through the pedestrian lanes at the San Ysidro Port of Entry several times a week. He was arrested Nov. 28 during one of those crossings. His arrest warrant bore the name Jose Reyes, and besides Riojos and Riojas the complaint included another aka of Jose Gonzalez-Cardoza. It wasn't until later, when pressed, that he said his real name was Andres Avelino Anduaga, prosecutors said.

Andagua/Rojos was actually living in Tijuana (where his stolen money went farther) and collecting his checks from a rented mailbox. This means that the money was a net drain from the U.S. economy not even passing into the hands of American sellers of food, clothing, and other daily necessities. In this regard, it is identical to the nearly $30 billion a year sent to Mexico by Mexican residents of the U.S., legal and illegal.

The big lesson of this case is that poor people cost taxpayers a lot of money. Not even mentioned is the cost of the "earned income tax credit," which is available to low-income people, who get a check from taxpayers instead of paying income tax when they file with the IRS. It is a welfare payment to low-income people.

This is why the United States must stop the flow of low-skill, low-income immigrants and instead apply a merit-based system that allows only immigrants who can contribute to our economy.

In the old Soviet Union, they used to call people who failed to work and contribute to the economy "social parasites," and they made "parasitism" a criminal offense. That was never called "socialist realism," a term reserved for propagandistic art. But it is in fact realistic to evaluate people on the grounds of their ability to make a net contribution to society when deciding to admit a potential immigrant.Levin is an attorney with significant expertise in constitutional issues. He is one of the country's leading radio talk show hosts . He is also a bestselling author of nonfiction political books and the host of a nightly program LevinTV on the CRTV subscription channel. In the 1980s, Levin was a top aide to Attorney General Ed Meese.

Mark Levin hit a home run with the bases loaded in the second outing of his new Fox News program on Sunday, March 4. His guest for the full hour on Life, Liberty & Levin was Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Starting with their investigation into alleged collusion between the Russians and the Donald Trump campaign, transition, and presidency, Nunes and his committee have developed information that reveals the exact opposite of what had been alleged. Instead of Trump-Russia collusion, the evidence points to an insidious plot to employ the full power and authority at the highest levels of the previous administration of Barack Obama to illegally surveil Donald Trump's campaign and advisers for the purpose of making a false criminal case to the secret FISA court in order to plant the seeds for the destruction of the 45th president's administration.



Rep. Devin Nunes on Life, Liberty & Levin, March 4, 2018.

Levin approached his interview with Nunes as if he were building the factual basis in a legal case and interviewing the most knowledgeable friendly witness. He referred  chronologically  to the record of articles published in the mainstream media starting in October 2016 based on illegal leaks from the Obama administration, the purpose of which appeared to be the take down of the Trump presidency.

Levin's Q&A with Nunes, who was encountering Levin in person for the first time, could not have been more compelling. In fact, the hour presented the alarming facts of this complex evolving story in a manner that was both informative and shocking. In this writer's opinion, it was perhaps the best concise summary of the controversy to date, presented in a way that could be easily followed, understood, and absorbed.

Fox News has not yet made a transcript of the program available. The network appears unlikely to do so, since a transcript of the first episode of Levin's premiere show on February 25 has not been forthcoming. So far, Fox News has posted a 14-minute video clip from the Levin-Nunes episode. Several third parties have uploaded the full hour, commercial-free, to YouTube, including here. How long these unofficial videos will remain online is anyone's guess. Five hours after the program first aired, a search of Google News shows that nothing has (yet) been written in the media about this news-breaking episode of Life, Liberty & Levin.



Mark Levin and Rep. Devin Nunes on Levin's Fox News program, March 4, 2018.

The entire program is essential viewing. Here are a few excerpts, as transcribed by the author:

Mark Levin: As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did the Obama administration spy on the Trump campaign? Rep. Devin Nunes: I think it's pretty clear, and average Americans understand, that that happened. Levin: My argument to you, sir, is that this goes right to the top. The president [Obama] may not know all of the particulars, but he had to know a hell of a lot from the public record and from his own people. What do you say? Nunes: Well, it's hard to believe that she [national security adviser and top Obama confidante Susan Rice] didn't know that. The letter that she writes to herself on January 20th[, 2017], hours before the Trump administration comes into power, it doesn't make any sense other than to say it must have been some type of way to justify whatever actions were taken or [to] cover something up.

Levin asked Nunes about the difficulty his committee has encountered during the past year in getting information from the courts and the executive branch.

Nunes: This has been the challenge historically for the Congress. Once they create something [not in the Constitution, like the courts and the FBI], it's hard to oversee it, it's hard to shut it down, it's hard to control it. What our committee has done, for the first time in a long time  with the help of all of our members, on the Republican side at least  who want to get to the bottom, to get to the truth. This is the first time in a long time when you've seen Congress really use our authority and use our power to go all the way to the courts to get information to try to rein in out-of-control bureaucracies. It should alarm people what it has taken for us to get to the bottom of this fiasco that's occurred. ... Nunes: The media in this country is dead. It no longer exists, and the American people need to understand this. I don't know where it's going to all end  if it's dead forever  but 90% of the media is far-left-wing, and they are totally reliant on getting clicks and playing to their base and to their owners to support what their owners want. Levin: We have what I call a Praetorian Guard media  they're going to protect the Obama administration no matter what that administration did or does. If the shoe were on the other foot  if this were a Republican administration that did this to a Democratic candidate  it would be the greatest scandal in American history.

It is apparent that Life, Liberty & Levin, which airs Sundays on Fox News at 10 P.M./E.T. and P.T., will be appointment viewing from now on, especially when Levin's guest is a potential news-maker like Devin Nunes.

Peter Barry Chowka is a veteran reporter and analyst of news on national politics, media, and popular culture. He is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. Follow Peter on Twitter at @pchowka.It was not about economics or looking for a job. My father could have found a job in the new Cuban Central Bank and enjoyed some bureaucratic privileges. We left Cuba because he was thinking about his kids, not himself.

Many years ago, my father explained why we left Cuba and moved to the U.S. It sounds like a fairy tale, but it's true.

Or there were social benefits that we would qualify for in the U.S. In fact, my father did not know what Social Security was until he saw a deduction on his first paycheck.

Welfare? All we ever got was used furniture and winter coats. They were given to us by a generous church.

We came here because my late father said that in the U.S., laws would be respected by all, or what we often to refer to as the rule of law.

My good guess is that my late father would be concerned about what we've just seen in Oakland  a mayor who protects criminals. This is an amazing story that sounds a lot more like a Latin American country than the U.S.:

A sweep of Northern California by federal immigration officials this week, which was partly thwarted when the Oakland mayor sounded the alarm, nabbed a number of illegal immigrants [sic] convicted of a variety of serious and violent crimes. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials announced this week that the four-day raid led to the arrest of 232 illegal immigrants [sic] in the San Francisco Bay Area. Of those 232, 180 "were either convicted criminals, had been issued a final order of removal and failed to depart the United States, or had been previously removed" from the country and had come back illegally. Another 115 "had prior felony convictions for serious or violent offenses, such as child sex crimes, weapons charges and assault, or had past convictions for significant or multiple misdemeanors." The numbers might have been greater, but for the intervention of Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, who tweeted out a warning of the impending raid, tipping off others who might have been caught. Acting ICE Director Tom Homan said on "Fox & Friends" that Schaaf's warning meant that there are roughly 800 illegal immigrants [sic] they were unable to locate.

The intervention of Mayor Schaaf allowed criminals to escape?

This is an outrage, and Attorney General Sessions needs to take action here. A.G. Sessions needs to put someone in jail, or more of this behavior will happen again.

I can't wait for a county or city to say abortions or "marriage" between two people of the same sex will not be tolerated in their jurisdiction. I'm sure that Mayor Schaaf will be the first to say federal laws have to be respected.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.The Washington Post's passive-voice propaganda smears Israel

With the headline "Sacred Jerusalem church is shuttered amid tax dispute" (2/26/18), the Washington Post uses the passive voice to slyly imply, but avoid directly stating, that Israel shuttered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for tax evasion. Reinforcing this impression, the article begins, "The doors of Jerusalem's sacred Church of the Holy Sepuchre were shuttered Sunday amid a growing dispute[.]" The second paragraph starts with the following: "The unprecedented move at a site that each day draws thousands to the place where Christians believe Jesus was crucified, buried and later resurrected comes after the Jerusalem municipality took steps to collect taxes on church properties in the city." The fourth paragraph speaks of a "news conference in front of the church's bolted wooden doors." The fifth paragraph is a quote repeated in the article from a church leader complaining of a "systematic and offensive campaign" by Israel.

The seventh paragraph starts with this: "Closing the church's doors comes at a highly sensitive time after a potentially destabilizing decision by President Trump to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the U.S. Embassy there from Tel Aviv." The Post reemphasizes the closing of the church's doors and throws in its daily anti-U.S. administration agenda wherever possible. And what is with this "potentially" destabilizing decision? The U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital hasn't destabilized anything. Another example of how the newspaper of record in the nation's capital injects opinion into the facts of its reporting. The Post agenda continues: "Local Muslims and Christians have said that such a move [moving the embassy to Jerusalem] could upset the religious balance in Jerusalem, a city holy to all three Abrahamic religions." What does this have to do with the tax dispute, other than side-stepping the issue and taking a cheap shot at the U.S. administration? The side-stepping and cheap shots in the article continue with the Post remark that the U.S. State Department alienated the Palestinians by announcing the exact date of the embassy move and that the Palestinians now feel that it is "impossible for the United States to be a fair broker in any future peace process between them and Israel." And the link with the tax dispute is...? Sixteen paragraphs in, we learn Israel's view of the dispute: "Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said the new policies would not affect the churches and would cover only properties belonging to church authorities that are used for commercial purposes." Sounds like much ado about nothing! Unless the objective is to sensationalize the news and bash Israel and the U.S. administration. The perfect trifecta! This solves the question of the tax dispute  it's not with the church itself, but with commercial (non-prayer) properties the church owns. Finally acknowledging a point in Israel's favor, the article states that "the Israeli parliament agreed to hold off discussing the legislation to ease tensions with church leaders in Jerusalem and find a compromise." Reasonable  even more than reasonable! So to the essence of the article, what's the story with the sacred church closure, disappointing so many? Why was it done? There is only a vague clue when the article states, "The site's closure is also a response to the proposed legislation[.]" It was a response? "Response" by whom? We don't learn the answer in the article but have to look for it the very next day in another Post article entitled "Sacred Jerusalem church to reopen after Israel backtracks on tax properties" (2/27/18). The first sentence states, "Christian leaders in the Holy Land said Tuesday they would reopen the sacred Church of the Holy Sepulchre after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stepped in to resolve a dispute with the Jerusalem municipality over the taxation of church property." So contrary to sneaky implication of the passive-voice headline and the structure of the entire article, it was the church's own leaders who "closed" or "shuttered" the sacred church, not Israel. But only diligent readers of 16 paragraphs will learn the truth.Voting with their feet: Venezuelan flight from socialism is now a human wave

Socialist Venezuela, the "sea of happiness" whose system was touted by Sean Penn, Oliver Stone, Joe Kennedy, Bernie Sanders, Cindy Sheehan, and others, is losing its people. A lot of people. The nation of nominally 28 million people has now seen as many as four million flee for their lives, unable to stand all that "sea of happiness." That's one out of seven Venezuelans, a figure even worse than the one out of ten who have fled Castro's Cuban island hellhole for the exact same reason: socialism. The Venezuelan human waves are just beginning. And it's going to get a lot worse. It's time to start thinking about what can be done about this disaster.

The Post compares the Venezuelan refugee exodus to Europe's 2015 mass migration of Syrian refugees and 2017's Rohingya exodus from Burma. In reality, it's bigger, because it's connected to Latin America's other two refugee crises cited by the Post: the millions of Cubans who fled Cuba's socialism through the 1960s, 1980s, and present day, and the million refugees from El Salvador, whose crisis was brought on by Cuban-backed communist guerrillas. Venezuela, which is Cuban-run, is now seeing its own human waves outward for the same reasons. Same socialism, different horror. The Washington Post describes how desperate Venezuelans are now "pouring out" of that explicitly socialist paradise and have now turned up on sidewalks, in parks, and in cheap motels in neighboring Colombia, as well as nearly every nation in Latin America not bearing a socialist label. Chile has seen the highest percentage increase of more than 1,000%, according to the Post. Colombia, the country next door, and hardly one that can offer vast welfare packages, has seen the highest absolute numbers, at least 600,000, with only 150,000 in the country legally. The fact that these Venezuelans are going to Colombia instead of the distant U.S., as Central America's migrants are doing now, is a sign that they are real refugees, not economic migrants. Real refugees take any port in a storm, including a relatively poor country as a first country of asylum. Real refugees suffer not just economic privation but political persecution, which is part and parcel of socialism. Venezuelans are imprisoned and tortured for dissident views, as the Post reports. Their leaders are barred from running for office. They themselves are terrorized by government motorcycle gangs, which control their food ration cards and demand votes for the ruling party as conditions for getting them. They are punished through the withdrawal of food from their shelves if they criticize the president. Their vote is not secret. Cubans control their identification card system. Elections, since at least 2004, (when Jimmy Carter naively certified as free and fair a recall referendum), have borne heavy signs of fraud. It's not just wanting a better economic situation that is driving them out. Even on the economic front, the problems are political, because socialism is the politicization of markets - with businesses expropriated at the direction of central planners, homes burned out by government goons, price controls leading to inevitable shortage, and workers fired for not voting the party line. But, being impoverished by socialism's worthless money, Colombia is as far as fleeing Venezuelans can get. The Post quotes a particularly idiotic United Nations official who dismisses the reality that they are refugees because bombs are not falling: "People fleeing Syria were generally seen as refugees, but that's not the case with Venezuelans," Merkx said. "Venezuela is not being bombed. It has some of the dimensions [of a refugee crisis], but not all Venezuelans are refugees." What the official fails to understand is that socialism is war against people, every bit as bad as physical war. The final days of the Soviet Union, where Aleksander Solzhenitsyn spoke of the corrosive exhaustion of the system, made for the same agony and trauma that Venezuelans are now enduring. Socialism mobilizes people for war, constantly, and its countries even look like war zones. And every one of these hellholes experiences millions of people fleeing for their lives, at least until the doors are bolted shut, which may happen in Venezuela, too. The Post deserves some credit for reporting this, because the downstream media, such as television, which take their cue from what's in the papers, aren't picking these stories up. Hot Air's John Sexton rightly notes that the silence is there out of the domestic left's embarrassment about the real impact of socialism. The Post could do better by including the word "socialism" in its reportage, but at least they are expending the time and high expense of reporting such stories. All the same, they lose the meaning of their stories by not singling out socialism. That they are not, and the broader media is silent, is a problem, because our Millennial generation here largely thinks socialism is preferable to capitalism. In the foreign policy circles, the talk is all about how to provide for the refugees instead of strike at the root of why people choose to become refugees in the first place, which is socialism, and the brutal regime that is driving one out of seven of its citizens from their homeland. Until the socialist roots of this nightmare are adequately exposed in a Nuremburg-style discrediting, the refugee flood will all be just a big bill for the U.S. and Latin American taxpayers and a subsidy to the Venezuelan socialist ruling class running this country into the ground.The best of Chrome OS in one Chromebook line: Affordable, durable, and portable.

Chromebooks are everywhere at the moment and so consumers are not short on choice. As part of the MWC 2018 proceedings, Lenovo was present at the event and showcased a number of its laptop-based solutions, including a new Chromebook. Technically Speaking, three new Chromebooks. These are the Lenovo 100e, the Lenovo 300e, and the Lenovo 500e Chromebooks, and although they were originally announced back in January, it is only at MWC 2018 where media outlets were able to go hands-on with the devices for the first time. This is when we got to see just how good they are and what they offer, resulting in one of our Best of MWC 2018 picks.

Advertisement

First off, choice is one of their big selling points as while manufacturers often bring to market different variants of the same Chromebook, they usually differ at the core spec level only. Resulting in essentially the same design. That is not quite the case here, as Lenovo has opted to bring to market three Chromebooks that while technically the same, are different from the ground up. Each one has its own selling points, features, and design traits befitting its price. In other words, regardless of what type of Chromebook you are looking for, there is a good choice one of these will check all the right boxes for you. Building off this point, all of the Chromebooks here offer superb value for money. Lenovo has literally hit the nail on the head when it comes to pricing and so whichever model a buyer does opt for, they will be getting an excellent purchase for the price. This can be best seen in the premium department as the Chromebook 500e not only offers a typically Chrome OS experience, as well as a design that allows it to be rotated and used in a variety of different positions, but it also comes with its own stylus for good measure. Making this an ideal option for those looking for a Chromebook that is also fully compatible with freehand writing and sketching  and all for under $350. The price is important to note here as this is the most premium of the three Chromebooks.

In spite of these Chromebooks coming with these advanced features and more modern design traits, one of the reasons they are priced so well is these devices have been put together with the education market in mind. Now, this does not mean that they are solely for the education market, as they are not. But what it does means is they come with the general build quality and level of protection designed to accommodate the education market. Therefore, non-education buyers will benefit from a more durable build including aspects like rubber bumpers, reinforced ports and hinges, while also being able to take advantage of premium features such as the rotating hinge and stylus support. Again, while all of these features are not present on all three Chromebooks (for example the Chromebook 100e boasts a more traditional laptop design), this is the real crux of this Chromebook collection  buyers can choose which Chromebook features they want or need and not have to pay for the ones they dont  while still benefiting from a robust and durable product at a highly competitive price.

Lenovo 100e Chromebook

Advertisement

Lenovo 300e Chromebook

Lenovo 500e ChromebookBiratnagar SEZ plan in limbo for lack of funds

The governments plan to build a special economic zone (SEZ) in Biratnagar, the countrys eastern business hub, is in limbo due to lack of funds. The announcement to set up the SEZ was made five years ago, but the government has released no money to buy the required land.Qualcomm is bridging the gap between Android mid-rangers and flagships.

Qualcomm arrived at the 2018 edition of Mobile World Congress to showcase numerous new technologies spanning a wide variety of industries, yet arguably the biggest announcement made by the company in Barcelona came in the form of the Snapdragon 700 series. The latest chip lineup is meant to bridge the gap between the mid-range and flagship silicon offerings from the semiconductor manufacturer, having the potential to redefine the concept of value-oriented devices.

As its understood that the Snapdragon 700 lineup wont be directly replacing the Snapdragon 600 chips, Qualcomm is apparently seeking to add the fifth major product family to its portfolio, one thats focused on enabling contemporary mobile technologies such as artificial intelligence in the non-flagship segment of the market. Even if the Snapdragon 600 series is to be discontinued, the new chips are promising a set of features thats unheard of in the context of handsets which arent aiming to compete in the top price bracket. The Qualcomm AI Engine thats supported on the last several generations of the companys ultra-premium chips will also be part of the Snapdragon 700 package, allowing for on-device AI computing that isnt reliant on the cloud. Likewise, devices equipped with the new silicon will be able to utilize AI technologies while taking pictures and videos as the series boasts the firms Spectra image signal processors which are also conducive to slow-motion recording and enhanced low-light performance. Quick Charge 4.+ support will also be included, being yet another aspect in which the Snapdragon 700 series will be on par with the 800 lineup despite its lower cost.

Advertisement

Compared to the Snapdragon 600 family, the new chips promise up to 30-percent better performance and are hence likely to be manufactured on the 10nm process node, another industry first for mid-range mobile chips. Qualcomm intentionally didnt talk about the manufacturing process of the Snapdragon 700 series as part of its MWC 2018 announcement but should soon clarify on the matter in an official capacity, a company spokeswoman told Android Headlines. Should the firm bring its top mid-range chips in line with its most premium offerings as far as production technologies are concerned, such an achievement would mark a historic milestone for the semiconductor industry.

Therefore, while many details about the Snapdragon 700 series remain unknown, the core concept behind the new chips shows a lot of promise and could ultimately make highly capable Android devices accessible to even more consumers. Whether Qualcomm manages to realize the full potential of its latest products and offer an unprecedented level of power, features, and efficiency in the non-premium segment of the market remains to be seen but from a technological standpoint, the Snapdragon 700 family is an extremely exciting proposition and one that could create an entirely new price bracket in the smartphone market, or at the very least significantly improve the already existing mid-range one. As for when that might happen, Qualcomm didnt share many details on the matter, having only said its planning to start offering the Snapdragon 700 samples to manufacturers over the first half of the year, signaling that the new chips may be commercialized as soon as late summer or early fall.Two new devices from Samsungs budget Galaxy J series have appeared on Geekbench revealing their model numbers and other details. The first one bears the model number SM-J337A which is expected to launch as the Galaxy J3 (2018), while the other one carries the model number SM-J337P and should be called Galaxy J3 Pro (2018) at launch. When launched, these two phones are expected to become budget-oriented entrants to Samsungs Android smartphone portfolio while aiming at the lower end of the spectrum.

Both of them run Android 8.0 (Oreo), feature 2GB of RAM and a quad-core processor from Exynos. The Galaxy J3 (2018) gets the Exynos 7570 processor clocked at 1.43GHz, on the other hand, the Pro variant has a marginally faster Exynos 7885 processor clocked at 1.59GHz. This is a major factor behind the difference between their test scores where the Galaxy J3 (2018) has scored 1,651 points in multi-core test and the Galaxy J3 Pro (2018) scored 1,799 points. Their single-core test score is 604 and 650 points respectively as per the listing. Considering the two devices are a part of Samsungs J series that serves the budget segment, performance isnt an aspect these devices are expected to excel at. These benchmark tests were performed a couple of weeks back, on February 23. The South Korean company will reportedly announce an elaborate Galaxy J lineup of smartphones for 2018 with many of them already leaked in the past.

These two devices had also leaked last week with the same model numbers  SM-J337A and SM-J337P. Besides them, the Galaxy J6 and Galaxy J8 for 2018 had also appeared on the same benchmarking tool with the model numbers SM-J600F and SM-J720F respectively. Earlier in February, Samsung had trademarked the names Galaxy J3 Star and Galaxy J7 Star in the U.S. suggesting their possible arrival in the coming days. As part of the budget lineup, the Galaxy J2 Pro (2018) was announced in Vietnam in January with a price tag of $145. The device sported a 5-inch Super AMOLED display, 2,600mAh battery, and an 8-megapixel rear camera capable of recording 1080p videos, while it came with Android 7.0 Nougat pre-loaded. Samsungs Galaxy J smartphone series targets the emerging markets where its entry-level devices are the driving force and contribute to the majority of sales.LG introduced its 2018 series of OLED and SUPER UHD TVs at a launch event held in Seoul where the company announced a total of ten new models including the LG W8, G8, E8, C8, and B8, all of which should offer voice assistant technology powered by its own AI platform called Deep ThinQ while promising to deliver stellar image quality with the OEMs Alpha 7 and Alpha 9 processors. Various design languages have been employed during the creation of the new 2018 TV lineups, including the Picture-on-Wall and One Glass Screen form factors, as well as the Picture-on-Glass and Cinema Screen aesthetics.

The LG W8, G8, E8, and C8 OLED TV lineups take advantage of the OEMs Alpha 9 intelligent processor, which should provide high color accuracy and perfect black levels on an OLED panel that should deliver adequate image quality even from steep viewing angles. Meanwhile, the LG B8 series employs LCD technology and makes use of LGs Alpha 7 processor, all the while employing Nano Cell and Full-Array Local Dimming solutions for backlighting. The OEM claims that the SUPER UHD LG B8 offers the most advanced picture quality in the LCD segment, promising enhanced image rendering with improved shadow details, deeper blacks, and accurate color reproduction from the widest viewing angles. LGs latest OLED TV series consists of models with screen sizes ranging from 55 to 77 inches, whereas the SUPER UHD TV lineup varies in size from a 49-inch diagonal to one measuring up to 75 inches in length.

As far as audio is concerned, both the new OLED and LCD series employ Dolby Atmos support, and with the implementation of Natural Language Processing (NLP) and LGs deep learning platform  Deep ThinQ  the 2018 LG TV sets will give users the ability to issue voice commands to their devices by speaking to a remote. And with the inclusion of Deep ThinkQ, the latest TV sets can be used as smart home hubs for other connected devices including air conditioners, purifiers, smart speakers, Internet-enabled lights, and robotic vacuum cleaners. The NLP capabilities will launch and be supported in a total of fourteen countries including the United States, Canada, Germany, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Pricing and exact availability details of the new LG OLED and SUPER UHD models have not been unveiled but are expected to be disclosed this spring.It seems like the Nokia 9 is still in HMDs plans, along with the Nokia 8 Pro. This info comes from NPU, and the source also claims that both the Nokia 8 Pro and Nokia 9 will be fueled by the same processor, the Snapdragon 845. The Nokia 8 Sirocco was launched as the Nokia 9 (2017), according to the source, which means that the Nokia 9 (2018) is coming, and HMD will probably stick to that name this time around.

The Nokia 8 Pro is expected to launch in August this year, says the source, while the Nokia 9 will arrive in September, if NPU is to be believed. Truth be said, this seems a bit odd, its hard to believe HMD is planning to release two flagship Nokia smartphones within a month or two, but anything is possible. The Nokia 9 will probably be considerably more expensive than the Nokia 8 Pro. says the source, and it may cost as much as the Galaxy S9 Plus, even. The Nokia 9 is expected to ship with an in-display fingerprint scanner, and a number of other, interesting features. The Nokia 9 is also expected to sport a slightly larger display than the Nokia 8 Pro, it will allegedly come with a 5.7-inch panel, while the Nokia 8 Pro will sport a 5.5-inch display. The source did not mention anything regarding a curved display, but it is quite possible that the Nokia 9 will sport a curved panel similar to the Nokia 8 Sirocco, which is HMDs first smartphone with a curved display.

As many of you already know, HMD has introduced five Nokia-branded smartphones during this years Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, and those phones were amongst the most talked-about devices of the tradeshow. HMD launched the Nokia 8 Sirocco, Nokia 7 Plus, Nokia 6 (2018), Nokia 1 and the Nokia 8110 4G. The first three handsets are Android One phones, the Nokia 1 is an Android Go handset, while the Nokia 8110 4G is more or less a feature phone with some smartphone features. Future Nokia-branded phones will come with stock Android, and will be a part of Googles Android One project, which is something HMD announced during MWC 2018 as well, so chances are that both the Nokia 8 Pro and Nokia 9 will sport stock Android.Chinese phone maker OPPO is now accepting pre-registrations for the R15 and R15 Plus, its latest Android devices set to be launched in the coming weeks. The company also shared a new promotional render of the upcoming smartphones which confirms their largely bezel-less design and an 18:9 display panel with a small notch housing their front-facing sensor array. As was the case in previous years, the new additions to OPPOs R lineup are likely to be equipped to compete in the upper mid-range segment of the market, with recent rumors indicating the handsets will be equipped with either one of Qualcomms Snapdragon 600-series chips or the Helio P60, MediaTeks 12nm offering officially announced last week at Barcelona, Spain-based Mobile World Congress.

The Snapdragon 700 series was previously rumored as being another candidate for powering the R15 family but that possibility now appears to be unlikely after Qualcomm confirmed it will only begin sampling the new chips in the first half of the current year, suggesting no flow production will take place before summer, whereas OPPOs new smartphones are expected to debut no later than spring. Both handsets are also rumored to feature 6GB of RAM and at least 64GB of internal flash memory. With OPPOs R-branded offerings traditionally placing a large focus on mobile photography, the R15 and R15 Plus are expected to do the same, particularly in the context of selfies as they should retain the Beauty mode of their predecessors.

The handsets should be powered by ColorOS 4.0 based on Android Oreo, with the presence of the latest major iteration of the operating system essentially guaranteeing support for Googles Project Treble. The reworked framework of the mobile OS should help OPPO develop monthly security patches for the R15 and R15 Plus in a more timely manner. The devices are also set to join the growing list of notch-equipped Android phones which already contains the likes of the ASUS ZenFone 5 and Essential PH-1, whereas the successor to the LG G6 and OnePlus 6 are also said to be featuring the same design cue.Sony has launched the XF90 TV series in Europe, and according to the OEM the entire lineup consisting of three models should now be in stock at major authorized retailers across the old continent. The LED-based Sony XF90 series was originally introduced earlier in January at CES in Las Vegas along with the OLED-powered AF8 lineup and promises High Dynamic Range (HDR) capabilities as well as a 4K resolution.

The XF90 models are powered by the Android TV platform, which means that they offer access to Google Play services as well as popular streaming solutions including Netflix, YouTube, Amazon Prime Video and more. As far as hardware is concerned, the 4K HDR panel is driven by Sonys 4K HDR Processor X1 Extreme real-time image processing unit, and also worth mentioning is the inclusion of a new addition from Sony bearing the name of X-Motion Clarity. According to the OEM, this technology helps with rendering fast-moving objects by minimizing blur without costing brightness. Contrast is handled by Sonys own X-tended Dynamic Range Pro 6x technology which, as the name suggests, promises up to six times higher contrast compared to conventional TVs employing LED display technology. Lastly, Sony claims that the XF90 models were designed to be fully compatible with its own HT-XF9000 Dolby Atmos sound bar which, much like the TV series at hand, was officially announced earlier this year at CES.

The Sony XF90 series comes in three sizes including 55-inch, 65-inch, and 75-inch models, and evidently, each model carries a different price tag. The smaller solution is now available in some European countries for the price of 1,999, while in the UK the product is available for 1,699. The larger 65-inch model is available from authorized retailers in Europe for the price of 2,699, or for 2,299 in the UK, specifically. Finally, the largest 75-inch variant costs 4,699 in markets across the old continent, whereas prospective customers in the UK are able to acquire a unit for the price of 3,999. Its worth noting that the XF90 series is known as the X900F in the United States where the lineup consists of five models in different sizes, including a 49-inch as well as an 85-inch variant with prices ranging from $1,099 to $6,999.Last week, Mobile World Congress took place in Barcelona, Spain. Its the biggest mobile show of the year, and where a number of new high-end smartphones debut every year. Twitters Marketing account for the UK did a survey to see which brand was talked about the most on February 26th (the day where every company had its press conference). And surprisingly, Nokia was the most talked about brand. Beating Samsung, Huawei, Google and Apple. Apple is always a surprising one here, since Apple never attends MWC or any other trade show.

Thats nothing to sneeze at for Nokia. The company did unveil five devices at the show last week, including a nostalgia device in the Nokia 8810 (or the Banana Phone). It also unveiled the Nokia One, Nokia 6, Nokia 7 Plus and Nokia 8 Sirocco. All of these are Android One devices (and all future Nokia devices will be Android One devices as well), with the Nokia One being an Android Go device which is priced at $85. So the company announced a slew of new devices from HMD Global, who makes its smartphones. But Nokia also made headlines on the networking side, for a number of 5G announcements  including a couple of announcements with US carriers for 5G networks in the US. So it was a pretty good show for Nokia for both major sides of its business. Its health side was also at the show, but it didnt actually announce anything. Nokia Health was showing off all of its products, and some new app features that are going to be coming in the near future though.

Samsung held its Unpacked event at Mobile World Congress, and debuted the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus. Typically, these two devices would be the most talked about devices at any event. So for Nokia to beat Samsung and have more tweets about it, is pretty impressive. And it should be good for the company moving forward. Nokia, while it seems like its not a huge company in the smartphone market, did ship a ton of phones last year. It shipped 70 million phones last year, and 60 million of those were feature phones. So itll be interesting to see how these new devices from Nokia perform in 2018, especially the 8810, which did get a ton of attention at the show.Following the resolution of the high-profile legal battle between Uber and Waymo over alleged trade secret theft, the ride-hailing startup is now actively seeking a self-driving partnership with Alphabets subsidiary, The Information reported Monday, citing people with knowledge of the development. Its presently unclear how close Waymo is to agreeing to such a collaboration, especially as it already has a standing partnership agreement with Ubers main domestic rival Lyft, yet joining forces with Uber would effectively guarantee all three players share the first place in the U.S. self-driving race thats still heating up.

Uber dropped the idea of collaborating with Waymo before the autonomous driving company was even spun off from Google, having last considered such a move in 2015 under the leadership of co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer Travis Kalanick, two years after the Mountain View tech giant took a stake in the startup. The new push for a Waymo partnership is understood to be coming directly from the top, with CEO Dara Khosrowshahi reportedly being under no illusions that Ubers self-driving tech can rival that of Waymo. Due to that state of affairs, the 48-year-old sees a joint venture with Waymo as the most logical long-term move, insiders claim. In the meantime, Uber is close to launching an experimental ride-hailing network and has reportedly set an internal goal to introduce such a service in Phoenix, Arizona, before the end of the year, months after Waymo did the same. The program is expected to use Volvo XC90 SUV models Uber has been testing for some time now, having already ordered a new batch from the Swedish automaker late last year. The initial version of the service would only operate on fixed routes in optimal weather conditions, one source claims.

Uber is most likely to tempt Waymo with a promise of a major share of any revenue generated with their hypothetical joint venture, with the company reportedly believing owners of self-driving cars should still see the majority of profits made by self-driving taxi services, much like its human drivers take home most of their fares. Waymo may also be interested in a collaboration due to the fact that its technologies are still restricted to highly specific areas and weather conditions, making large-scale automated taxi service launches unlikely in the immediate future. Instead, the companys self-driving solutions are initially expected to be commercialized via a hybrid business model that would encompass both traditional ride-hailing offerings with human drivers and autonomous vehicles, industry sources believe.According a video published on February 26, 2018 to the YouTube account of the "Chronicles of Turkmenistan", Turkish Company BMC has delivered 4x4 armoured vehicle Amazon and Vuran to the Turkeminstan armed forces. The video was recorded during a visit of the Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to a new border post near Serhetabat, which is close to the border with Afghanistan.



The BMC Amazon 4x4 armoured vehicle used by Turkmenistan armed forces (Picture source Print Screen YouTube account Chronicles of Turkmenistan)

The video footage has shown the Amazon 4x4 and Vuran 4x4 armored vehicles, produced by Turkish firm BMC. There is no official information about the number of vehicles purchased by the Turkmenistan. Recently, during the Independence Day parade held in the capital in December 2017, Turkmenistan has displayed several recently acquired foreign-made ground vehicles for its army and special forces.

The BMC Amazon 4x4 multi-purpose armoured vehicle was presented for the first time to the public during the Defense Exhibition Eurosatory in June 2016. It's new generation of 4x4 combat vehicle offering high level of protection against mine and IEDs threats.

The design of the BMC Amazon is standard with the engine at the front, the crew in the middle and the troops compartment at the rear. The vehicle can carry a total of 7 military personnel including driver and commander.

The BMC Amazon has a monocoque structure with integrated v-shaped armoured hull that protects people against mine blast by deflecting an upward directed blast away from the vehicle. The vehicle is also protected against side blasts from improvised and roadside explosive device (IED) and shell splinters.



The BMC Vuran 4x4 armoured vehicle used by Turkmenistan armed forces (Picture source Print Screen YouTube account Chronicles of Turkmenistan)

The Vuran is 4x4 multipurpose armoured vehicle design and manufactured by the Turkish Commpany BMC which was unveiled for the first time in February 2017 at IDEX, the defense exhibition in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

The basic layout of the Vuran is similar to the BMC Amazon with the engine at the front, the crew in the middle and the troops compartment at the rear. The vehicle can carry a total of nine military personnel.

Thanks to its monocoque type armored cabin and glasses, shock absorbing seats, V-shaped underbelly, gun ports and emergency exit hatch; Vuran 4X4 is part of a family including the Multi-Purpose Armored Vehicles. It provides mine and ballistic protection for its passengers. Front rear view camera, automatic fire extinguishing system, remote controlled weapon station, run-flat tyre inserts and A/C with heating and cooling functions are the outstanding features of Vuran 4x4.



The BMC Amazon 4x4 armoured vehicle at IDEF 2017 defense exhibition in Turkey (Picture source Army Recognition)



The BMC Vuran 4x4 armoured vehicle at IDEF 2017 defense exhibition in Turkey (Picture source Army Recognition)By Dezan Shira & Associates

Editor: Vasundhara Rastogi

On February 19, Singapores finance minister Mr. Heng Swee Keat delivered the 2018 budget.

With an emphasis on Asia, emergence of new technologies, and an aging population, this years budget focused on helping businesses in Singapore prepare for future challenges and create new opportunities. As a result, much of the budgets schemes and proposals are directed towards greater investment in and around the development of Singapores knowledge resources and the growth of domestic firms. At the same time, Singapore continues to strive to remain an attractive investment destination.

In this article, we present key highlights from the budget with important implications for businesses.

Measures to help businesses overcome near-term pressures

Wage Credit Scheme

Rising wage costs remain a key concern for businesses in Singapore, and the 2018 budget will extend the Wage Credit Scheme (WCS) for three more years to 2020, to help business cope with near-term cost pressure and save big while hiring local talent.

The WCS, which co-funds wage increases for Singaporean employees, up to a gross monthly wage of S$4,000 (US$3,031), will provide 20 percent co-funding for 2018, 15 percent for 2019, and 10 percent for 2020. The gradual lowering of the WCS contribution to wages is to help employers adapt to the eventual withdrawal of the scheme.

The scheme aims to encourage employers to share productivity gains with staff.

CIT rebate

Further, to help taxpaying companies, especially small ones, manage immediate cost challenges, the budget has announced the enhancement and extension of the corporate income tax (CIT) rebate.

The CIT rebate will be raised to 40 percent of the tax payable, capped at S$15,000 (US$11,368), for the year of assessment (YA) 2018 and will be extended to YA 2019 at a rate of 20 percent tax payable, capped at S$10,000 (US$7,579). Currently, companies can qualify for CIT rebate of 20 percent of tax payable, capped at S$10,000 (US$7,579) for YA 2018.

Changes to the Start-Up Tax Exemption (SUTE) scheme

Presently, a new company can qualify for the following exemptions in each of the first three YAs, subject to conditions:

100 percent exemption on the first S$100,000 (US$75,785) of normal chargeable income; and

50 percent exemption on the next S$200,000 (US$151,570) of normal chargeable income.

As per the 2018 budget, the tax exemption under the SUTE scheme will be adjusted to:

75 percent exemption on the first S$100,000 (US$75,785) of normal chargeable income; and

50 percent exemption on the next S$100,000 (US$75,785) of normal chargeable income.

All other conditions of the scheme will remain unchanged while the amendment will take effect on or after YA 2020 for all qualifying companies under the scheme.

Changes to the Partial Tax Exemption (PTE) scheme

Presently, except SUTE beneficiaries, all companies can qualify for the following, in each YA:

75 percent exemption on the first S$10,000 (US$7579) of normal chargeable income; and

50 percent exemption on the next S$290,000(US$219777) of normal chargeable income.

The tax exemption under the PTE scheme will be adjusted to:

75 percent exemption on the first S$10,000 (US$7,579) of normal chargeable income; and

50 percent exemption on the next S$190,000(US$143,992) of normal chargeable income.

This change will take effect on or after YA 2020 for all companies and bodies of persons, except those that qualify for the SUTE scheme. All other conditions of the scheme remain unchanged.

RELATED: The Guide to Employment Permits for Foreign Workers in Singapore

Measures to foster productivity, technology, and innovation

Enhanced tax deductions for qualifying R&D, IP, and licensing costs

To encourage and support businesses to build their own innovations, the budget has raised tax deduction for qualifying expenses incurred on research & development (R&D) projects from 150 percent to 250 percent from YA 2019 to 2025.

Similarly, the budget has raised the tax deduction for intellectual property (IP) registration fees from 100 percent to 200 percent for the first S$100,000 (US$75,785) of qualifying IP registration and IP in-licensing costs incurred for each YA. The change will take effect from YA 2019 to 2025.

Tech Skills Accelerator (TeSA) to encourage digital skills

With digital technologies gaining importance, the 2018 budget has set aside an additional S$145 million (US$109 million) for the TechSkills Accelerator (TeSA) program. TeSA aims to equip the Singapore workforce with digital skills and to enhance employability outcomes for individuals in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector.

Productivity Solutions Grant

The 2018 budget will also streamline existing grants that support the adoption of pre-scoped, off-the-shelf technologies into a Productivity Solutions Grant (PSG). The grant will provide funding support for up to 70 percent of qualifying costs, starting from April 1, 2018. Businesses can apply for the grant through the business grant portal.

Besides the schemes discussed above, the budget also announced a National Robotics Program (NRP) to encourage the wider use of robotics in sectors like construction; a National Wide E-Invoicing Framework to improve productivity and enhance cash flow; and an Open Innovation Platform  a crowd-sourcing platform, that will help businesses find partners to co-create solutions.

RELATED: Singapores Chairmanship: Prospects for ASEAN in 2018

Measures to help businesses scale up globally

Double tax deduction for internationalization (DTDi)

The DTDi scheme incentivizes businesses and companies to internationalize. Presently, businesses under the scheme are allowed a tax deduction of 200 percent on qualifying market expansion and investment development expenses, subject to approval. The amount of expense that can qualify for the DTDi without approval will be raised from S$100,000 (US$75,786) to S$150,000 (US$113,678) per YA.

Enterprise Singapore

A composite of two existing grants  SPRING Singapores Capability Development Grant (CDG) and IE Singapores Global Company Partnership Grant (GCP)  the Enterprise Singapore grant will provide integrated support to companies to help them compete at both domestic as well as international level.

Enterprise Development Grant (EDG)

The EDG will provide funding support to the business for up to 70 percent of qualifying costs from YA 2018 to 2019 to help them build a range of capabilities.

PACT scheme

An integration of various partnership support measures, the PACT scheme will allow companies to receive up to 70 percent of qualifying costs for collaborations between companies in areas, including capability upgrading, business development, and internationalization.Chand-Maoist demands resignation of local representatives

Netra Bikram Chand-led Communist Party of Nepal on Monday handed over letters to the chiefs of Siddhicharan Municipality and Manebhanjyang Rural Municipality demanding resignation of local level representatives."We have an ambitious vision and strategy for the firm. Our rapidly growing capabilities in the Americas and in Asia Pacific are critical to those ambitions, and fundamental to our leading global client offering, commented Matthew Layton, Clifford Chance managing partner. By adding David and Connie to the team, our strategic decision-making will benefit from their extensive market and cultural insights into the unique opportunities and challenges of their regions.

The firm has also announced that Chris Davies has been reappointed as global head of the firms tax, pensions, and employment practice for a second term.

HSF disputes chief to chair Belt & Road commission

The global head of disputes at Herbert Smith Freehills has been appointed chair of a new commission to address dispute resolution related to Chinas Belt & Road Initiative.

Justin DAgostino is also Hong Kongs alternate member of the ICC Court.SUV

kWh

On March 5 and 6, that is starting today, the German carmaker will parade through the city center of the Swiss town several e-tron prototypers, including the SUV model . Audi dares all in Geneva to keep their eyes open, snap a pic of the e-tron they see and get the satisfaction of having their photos posted on the specially-designed website. Take a picture wherever you see one of our test vehicles and post your pictures using the hashtag #etron. We will feature the most beautiful pictures on our page here, says the carmaker in an announcement.To make hunting easy, Audi has also provided a map showing the route the e-tron prototypes would take on Genevas streets starting 4.30 pm, local time. The models would be out on the streets for two hours only, so a keen eye and a quick finger are required.The e-tronwas expected to be presented this year, following several months of rumor and speculation. Initial information point to the use of a 95battery capable of providing a driving range of 300 miles (482 km), and three different power outputs to be offered on the production version.The pre-order book for the e-tron SUV opened back in January, the Germans taking the same marketing path chosen by Tesla for its EVs. Customers can reserve their e-tron for 2,000 euros in several European countries.News of the e-tron to take to the streets of Geneva comes on the heels of Jaguars release of the I-Pace . The two models would fight for pretty much the same market segment, one that at this point does not exist in Europe (except for Tesla's Model X), but that is likely to become very crowded in the years ahead.Now, as Lamborghini aficionados know, this hue comes from the Sant'Agata Bolognese automaker's palette, having been introduced on the Superleggera incarnation of the Gallardo back in 2006.However, this is far from the first time when we see the hue covering a machine wearing a BMW or a Porsche badge.The Neunelfer we have here has recently landed at Porsche Long Beach in California, so, night shots aside, the Zuffenhausen hero will enjoy plenty of sun.Looking past the main hue of the car, we find satin black weels featured Guards Red lips (this CCX option seems to be popular among GT car owners and here's a 2019 GT3 RS packing such a feature).Black was also used for the inner graphics of the optional all-LED headlights of the car.Yellow is also part of this Neunelfer's color mix, with the shade being used for the brake calipers of the 500 hp animal (this means the 911 is fitted with carbon-ceramic brakes).As for the cabin of this 991.2-generation Porsche 911 GT3 , the most important elements are the full bucket seats and the PDK gear shifter - together with the said stopping hardware, these bring the ideal configuration for spending time on the track, so we expect this GT3's life to include plenty of rumble strip adventures.This is a brilliant occasion to remind you that there are plenty of Gen 2 GT3 specs that include a manual tranny, proving that bringing back the three-pedal option was a brilliant choice for the German automotive producer.This weekend, Musk posted a photo on his Instagram account showing one of his nocturnal fantasies. Deep in the hole with my boring machine. Sometimes when we touch, the honestys too much ... Musk wrote in the comment accompanying the photo.In case you were wondering what happens to the billionaire when he puts his hands on his machines, you should know the second phrase used by Musk is not his, but comes right out of a Dan Hill love song dating from back to the 1970s.Now, peculiar as his romantic thoughts are, and leaving aside his obvious inclination towards linking his endeavors to music, we would have very much have liked to know where the boring machine is and what it is doing.Musk unfortunately did not report on the location of the machine. What we get from that photo is that it is indeed somewhere very dark, possibly underground.In the final days of February, it was revealed that Musks the Boring Company has received a permit from the Washington, D.C., Department of Transportation to start preparatory and excavation work at a site in the countrys capital.His boring machines are supposed to create tunnels for two different projects Musk is working on at the same time. The first is the hyperloop system, meant to transport people and cargo in pods, through closed and preferably vacuumed tubes.The second is Musks idea of moving public roads underground, where cars would travel not by using their own wheels, but on some type of rail-based transportation platform.We'll get over the fact the company builds supercars for most of the time and focus solely on the Baja Boot reboot (you read it here first) called the Expedition. As the name suggests, the vehicle is designed to boldly go where no one has gone before, with the presence of a hard surface to turn its wheels on being the only restricting factor.Or so you'd think. Earlier this year, Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus (SCG) announced it was planning a trip up the world's highest volcano in an attempt to break a ten-year-old record set by a modified Suzuki Samurai. There was some uncertainty regarding the targeted volcano since the company claimed the Expedition would climb at over 7,000 meters and the tallest one is just 6,893, but even that would be enough to set a new record.Now, though, even though the four-by-four is yet to clear the first task, it looks like the poor vehicle is going to be facing another challenge. This time, however, the toughest part won't take place at high altitude - quite the contrary, actually, as it'll involve swimming at sea level. Auto Guide says an amphibious Expedition will set off from New York, travel across the entire United States of America (and a bit of Canada) and reach Alaska before crossing the Bering Strait into Russia. From there, it would follow The Road of Bones across the Trans Siberian Highway, through St. Petersburg and all the way to Paris, France.SCG claims the Expedition (also possibly called "Boot") would be 100 percent street-legal, though we fail to see why you would ever want to drive one on asphalt. The company is reportedly also looking at entering its 4x4 vehicle in the Baja 1000 raid starting next year.An international game of cat and mouse has the Canadian government pitted against a wealthy South African family at the center of a political corruption scandal and the disappearance of their luxury business jet. Now Canadas state-owned Export Development Bank is trying to repossess the 2014 Bombardier Global 6000 saying its owed $27 million of the original $40 million loan it provided the Gupta family to buy the jet. There are also allegations the aircraft, with a registration of ZS-OAK, has been used as a getaway vehicle for Gupta family members. There is a very real concern that the aircraft may be used to escape justice or for some unlawful means, the bank wrote in an application to the South African court seeking to ground the airplane.

That would appear to be a formality since no one seems to know where the big bizjet is. The tail number has been hidden on FlightAware and the bank is hoping someone will spot the aircraft and let them know. It was last seen a few weeks ago in Russia, Dubai and India according to the Washington Post. The Guptas, whose empire includes media, mining and machinery, have been implicated in wide-ranging corruption involving former South African President Jacob Zuma, who was forced to resign in the scandal. An arrest warrant is still outstanding for one of three brothers, Anjay Gupta. When the jet turns up, its likely the bank will be able to seize it because most countries are party to international agreements that allow creditors to claim goods from clients who are in default. The bank says the Guptas havent made a payment since October of 2017.Rep. Sam Gravess office says they first heard that he was being considered to head the FAA in news reports last week. The long-time Missouri Republican, pilot and co-chair of the House general aviation caucus, was among three short-listed candidates named by Axios in a story last week that focused on President Donald Trumps alleged suggestion of his personal pilot John Dunkin to head the agency. The FAA has been without an administrator since January when Michael Huerta retired. Since then Assistant Administrator Dan Elwell has commanded the eighth floor and he was the third name on the Axios list.

Graves spokesman Suzanne Youngblood told the Kansas City Star its possible Axios confused the FAA rumor with Graves publicly stated goal to become the next head of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The current chairman, Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., is retiring at the end of his current term. Shuster was also the architect of a failed move to corporatize the air traffic control system. Shuster pulled that language from the current FAA reauthorization bill last week saying he didnt have the votes to carry it.The Baltimore Sun is the alma mater of some of history's most famous political journalists, and had its agenda-setting coverage featured on "The Wire." ... The Denver Guardian has published fictional stories and isn't a newspaper. ... National Review is provocative and consistently conservative.

The big picture: Those thumbnail descriptions, provided first to Axios, are examples of the consumer-friendly online guides (with green, yellow and red ratings) coming from NewsGuard, co-founded by journalists and media entrepreneurs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz.

Details:

NewsGuard is scheduled to launch in October, in time for the congressional midterms, with 7,500 Nutrition Labels for websites, covering what NewsGuard says is "98% of all news and information consumed and shared online in the U.S."

The co-founders announced Monday that they have raised $6 million, and they plan to hire dozens of trained journalists as analysts. The lead investor, in a group of 18 investors, is the ad giant Publicis Groupe.

What's planned , according to Brill, the founder of The American Lawyer, Court TV, and Brills Content magazine: Our goal is to help solve this problem now by using human beings  trained, experienced journalists  who will operate under a transparent, accountable process to apply basic common sense to a growing scourge that clearly cannot be solved by algorithms.

, according to Brill, the founder of The American Lawyer, Court TV, and Brills Content magazine: Our goal is to help solve this problem now by using human beings  trained, experienced journalists  who will operate under a transparent, accountable process to apply basic common sense to a growing scourge that clearly cannot be solved by algorithms. Why it matters , from Crovitz, a former Wall Street Journal publisher: In addition to alerting people to fake news, one of our key goals is to help consumers, including young people, know when to take news from certain sites with a grain of salt."

, from Crovitz, a former Wall Street Journal publisher: In addition to alerting people to fake news, one of our key goals is to help consumers, including young people, know when to take news from certain sites with a grain of salt." What's next: The partners say NewsGuard will eventually expand to other countries.

Here are the opening lines of several sample NewsGuard Nutrition Labels (NGNLs):

BaltimoreSun.com : "The website of a news organization with a rich history, founded in 1837 as a newspaper serving the metropolitan area in and around Baltimore, Maryland."

: "The website of a news organization with a rich history, founded in 1837 as a newspaper serving the metropolitan area in and around Baltimore, Maryland." DenverGuardian.com: "A site that seems like a traditional newspaper site, but is not actually associated with any newspaper or other newsgathering organization."

"A site that seems like a traditional newspaper site, but is not actually associated with any newspaper or other newsgathering organization." NationalReview.com: "An advocacy journalism website associated with the fortnightly National Review magazine, founded in 1955 by conservative intellectual William F. Buckley, Jr., that produces serious, provocative reporting and commentary with an unabashed, consistent conservative point of view."

"An advocacy journalism website associated with the fortnightly National Review magazine, founded in 1955 by conservative intellectual William F. Buckley, Jr., that produces serious, provocative reporting and commentary with an unabashed, consistent conservative point of view." GAO.gov: "The website of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, created to be an independent, non-partisan agency working for the U.S. Congress that audits and evaluates the operations of all federal agencies."

"The website of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, created to be an independent, non-partisan agency working for the U.S. Congress that audits and evaluates the operations of all federal agencies." CommonwealthFund.org : "The website of the New York-based Commonwealth Fund, a non-profit research and policy advocacy organization focusing on healthcare."

: "The website of the New York-based Commonwealth Fund, a non-profit research and policy advocacy organization focusing on healthcare." NPR.org: "The website for National Public Radio (NPR), a Washington D.C.-based syndicator of news programs that are distributed to over 900 public radio stations in the United States."

Go deeper:HOUSTON  One of the world's largest energy conferences is focusing more than ever on new technologies helping big oil and gas companies cut costs and carbon emissions.

Why it matters: The spotlight on new tech underscores how the high-carbon parts of the energy industry are trying to embrace the future of low carbon and high tech. The extent to which this conference evolves reflects the very evolution of the sector itself.

Driving the news: The conference, called CERAWeek, features first-time interviews with top executives at Google and Amazon Services and also a head of a national laboratory coming for the first time, according to organizers. A technology hub housed inside the conference that began last year is more than triple its initial size.

Bill Vass, vice president of engineering at Amazon Web Services, will be here, and Google is sending its CEO of its cloud business, Diane Greene. Their presence reflects the growing digitization of energy companies.

Within the Silicon Valley context, she [Greene] is equivalent to any of these big names in energy, said James Rosenfield, IHS Markit executive and co-host of the conference. Shes a household name in Silicon Valley, but when I mentioned her name in Houston, shes less well known except to the IT people.

I asked conference host and energy historian Daniel Yergin how many times in the past Google and Amazon executives have participated in the event.

I think I would say a really long time, beginning this year, Yergin replied with a slight chuckle.

The back story: Pronounced seer-a, CERA stands for Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm founded more than 30 years ago by Yergin and Rosenfield in Cambridge, Mass. Since being acquired by IHS Markit in 2004, CERAWeek has grown to more than 500 speakers and thousands of attendees from 70 countries.

The event feels like the center of the global energy universe for a few frenzied days, with high-profile speeches and closed-door deal-makings alike.

The tech hub will include everything from a Formula E (for electric) race car to displays of digitization to augmented reality vertical taxis. There are also 12 events on blockchain, according to Rosenfield.

We have brought down the average age of CERAWeek by 10 years because we have all these young people involved in startups, he said.

The sponsors of the tech hub have doubled from eight in its inception last year and now include oil giants Saudi Aramco and Total.

Another tech hub backer is Maana, a Silicon Valley startup with patented technology that encodes human expertise and combines it with companies' data to make their operations run more efficiently, according to its chief marketing officer Azita Martin. Maana opened up a Houston office last year.

Between the lines: Several factors are driving oil companies, historically more conservative than Silicon Valley startups, to embrace high-tech changes. The oil-price collapse of 2014 is one of them, and the worlds move to lower-carbon technologies to address climate change is another.

A change that might be driven by cost or efficiency has the collateral effect of carbon benefits, Rosenfield said. Equally, something thats driven by climate, that could also have the collateral effect of changing how companies operate.

The competitive nature of the transportation sector and oil demand, which includes electric vehicles, is also driving innovation. The CEO of General Motors, Mary Barra, speaks Wednesday.

Yes, but: This is still Houston, and the oil industry is never going to be a rapid adopter of anything new, given that its operations are based on huge infrastructure that cant be easily changed.

With the tech hub more than three times its 2017 size and a record number of speakers, the more than 3,500 attendees  itself another record  are bound to miss things.

My absolute greatest frustration is I cant go to everything, said Yergin, who is doing most of the keynote interviews.

That record attendance comes amid a steep price tag that some energy executives complain is too high: $8,250 for the week. Thats $500 more than the past three years, according to a CERAWeek spokesman.

I guess thats the price for Silicon swag.Dr KC renews demand for Parajulis personal and academic details

Anti-corruption crusader and senior orthopaedic surgeon Dr Govinda KC has filed a direct application to Chief Justice Gopal Prasad Parajuli demanding that he should make public his citizenship details.On Friday night, President Trump entertained around 250 Republican donors in his Mar-a-Lago ballroom. Spotted in the audience: Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen, who recently admitted to paying $130,000 to porn star Stormy Daniels.

The most shocking moment of the evening came when Trump brought his old pal Rudy Giuliani onto the stage.

Giuliani told the crowd he had been down there for Trump's wedding.

"Hillary was also here," he said, according to two sources in the room, "and she actually fit through the door.

The crowd gasped. I'm told Giuliani's wife gave him a "most foul look." Trump later told the audience: "I'm just glad I didn't say it."

Get more scoops like this by signing up for Sneak Peek and our other Axios newsletters.A senior ruling party lawmaker who led a parliamentary investigation into the deadly 2008 post-election events has spurned media speculation that in his remarks during parliamentary hearings last month he may have blamed ex-president Robert Kocharian for ordering the use of force against opposition protesters in the wake of a disputed presidential election 10 years ago.

On March 1-2, 2008, Kocharian, then the outgoing president, suppressed nonstop street protests held by tens of thousands of people who supported the claim of opposition leader and first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosian that the vote had been rigged in favor of his handpicked successor, Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) leader and then prime minister Serzh Sarkisian.

Ten people, including two police officers, were killed in the clashes followed by a continued crackdown on the opposition during and beyond a 20-day state of emergency imposed by Kocharian.

Samvel Nikoyan, of the HHK, who headed an ad hoc parliamentary committee set up shortly to probe the events, raised questions in his speech at the opposition-initiated parliamentary hearings on February 23 that media said implied blame on Kocharian for ordering the use of deadly force.

We say, dear second president, while substantiating the introduction of a state of emergency you stated, in particular, that [during the standoff with security forces] opposition members popped up from behind buses and fired [at police officers]. None of the injured police officers who were examined by forensic doctors had gunshot wounds. A question arises, Mr. President: where did you get that information on the basis of which you made decisions that could prove fateful for the course of the events, Nikoyan stated.

Speaking as a guest of Azatutyun TVs Sunday Analytical Show aired on March 4 the HHK lawmaker, however, denied that his speech was directed against Kocharian, stressing that it was only construed as such by some media.

This was concocted by the media. I said in front of everyone: you [media] like to make conclusions, make up lies and then believe in those lies and make references to your own lies later, Nikoyan charged.

He stressed that he only repeated the questions publicly addressed to Kocharian as well as Ter-Petrosian during the work of the committee years ago. The official position of the ad hoc committee on the second president was the following: his actions were fully in conformity with the Constitution and laws, Nikoyan stressed.

Neither Kocharian, nor Ter-Petrosian officially responded to the questions in the public domain. As Nikoyan explained during the parliamentary hearings, the ad hoc committee did not have the powers to officially interrogate the former officials.By Rashid Shirinov

Parents of Armenian servicemen are extremely concerned about the situation in the countrys army. As the already deplorable situation in the Armenian army is deteriorating day by day, the parents are no longer just displeased, but openly express their dissatisfaction by joining the protests against the countrys military leadership.

One of the main reasons that cause protests of soldiers parents is that the relations between servicemen conscripted from Armenia and Karabakh, which Armenia occupied from Azerbaijan, become more acute in the Armenian army. The disagreements that arise between these two groups often lead to crimes, including serious ones.

Armenian users of social networks note that parents do not want their children to serve in the front line and die due to the irrational policy of the Armenian leadership. Therefore many families opt to move abroad under any pretext so that their sons are far from the Armenian army.

No special effort is required to understand the dangers of serving in the Armenian army within the country itself and in the occupied Karabakh. More than 15 criminal offenses were registered in the military units only for the first 20 days of February, but the Armenian military authorities continue to keep silence. As a result of these incidents, at least nine servicemen were injured  some of them ended up in a hospital, while others became disabled.

Moreover, the report prepared by the Peace Dialogue organization, says that there were 56 cases of murders, 69 suicides, 90 deaths by accident, 39 due to health problems, 16 because of violation of safety rules in the Armenian army over 2010-2017, while 9 deaths occurred due to inaction of commanders and negligence. The Peace Dialogue employees have still not been able to establish the causes of deaths of 17 other soldiers.

Various human rights activists in Armenia note that hazing of conscripts has a strikingly violent form in the Armenian army. Soldiers who have undergone more than six-month service bully new conscripts, while those in their last six months are senior soldiers, who enjoy various privileges, including immunity from such a treatment.

Moreover, these senior soldiers collect taxes from other soldiers of a military unit with subsequent transfer of the collected money to the unit authorities. Those who do not want to comply with this rule get subject to bullying, violence and even get killed.

Thus, the permissiveness and crimes leading to non-combat losses in the army cannot but cause protests among Armenians. The protests are not yet large-scale, but their number is increasing. This can produce serious problems for the countrys political and military leadership.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenias armed forces have 87 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said March 5.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Rashid Shirinov

Austrian tourism companies will not organize visits to the occupied territories of Azerbaijan  this is reflected in the protocol signed at the 9th session of the Azerbaijani-Austrian Joint Commission for Economic, Agricultural, Industrial, Technical and Technological Cooperation.

The meeting was held in Vienna under the chairmanship of Azerbaijans Transport, Communications and High Technologies Minister Ramin Guluzade and Deputy Federal Minister for Austrias Digital and Economic Affairs Matthias Tschirf.

The document notes that the relationship building between the countries will take into account the fundamental norms and principles of international law, including respect for the principles of territorial integrity and inviolability of borders. Individuals and legal entities will carry out their activities on this basis.

Illegal business, economic or other kind of activity in Nagorno-Karabakh and other regions of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia are illegal and the country takes necessary measures against those who are engaged in such activities. Moreover, unauthorized visits to the occupied Azerbaijani territories are also considered illegal and individuals who pay such visits are included in the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministrys list of undesirable persons.

It was noted at the meeting that despite the growth in the trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Austria last year, this indicator does not correspond to the economic potential of the two countries.

The Austrian companies participating in the meeting expressed interest in expanding their activities in Azerbaijan, and it was decided to hold a business forum in Baku in May with the participation of both countries private sector representatives.

The meeting also hosted a presentation of Azerbaijans bid to host World Expo 2025.

Diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Austria were established on February 20, 1992. The highest level of trade turnover between the two countries was registered in 2015, when it amounted to 525 million euros. The turnover mainly comprises oil products as well as agricultural, machine-building, and petrochemical products.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Kamila Aliyeva

Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC) is discussing the possibility of creating joint investment funds with foreign partners, AIC Executive Director Rovshan Najaf said at a press conference in Baku on March 5.

He didnt specify with which companies negotiations are underway, noting that all details will be revealed later.

AIC is already a shareholder of one of the investment funds - Caspian International Investment Company.

The Caspian International Investment Company was established in 2008, and the AIC has a 24.1 percent share in the company. Other shareholders of the investment company include the Islamic Development Bank, Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, Al Ahmar Group and AREF Investment Group.

Najaf said that in general rendering support for the non-oil sector, in particular, through the creation of industrial zones in Azerbaijans districts will be the main task of the AIC in 2018.

In 2018, such zones will start operating in Masalli, Hajigabul and Sabirabad regions, he added.

Our task is to create industrial zones in all regions of Azerbaijan. At present, we are working on this task, Najaf said.

He said that the total investment made in enterprises in the Neftchala industrial zone amounted to 45.3 million manats.

Presently, nine enterprises engaged in industry, food industry, agriculture sectors and one workshop operate in this industrial zone that will open up 500 new jobs.

Najaf added that investors in the Masalli industrial zone presented 33 projects worth 33 million manats.

At the first stage, which will be completed this year, nine enterprises will start operating here. The total volume of investments in these enterprises will be 7.1 million manats, which will open up over 200 new jobs. The enterprises will be engaged in the production of furniture, plastic, ceramic and metal products, building materials.

In the Sabirabad industrial zone, investors presented six projects. The volume of investments will amount to 43 million manats and will allow to open 850 new jobs. The enterprises will engage in the spheres of light industry, agriculture, production of building materials. It is also planned to create a logistics center, he said.

Countrys new car plant

He also informed that automobile plant will be built in Hajigabul industrial district.

Negotiations are being held with foreign investors in this regard, according to the executive director. The company plans to arrange production of both passenger cars and trucks.

Najaf also recalled that in 2018 an automobile plant will be commissioned in the Neftchala industrial district.

By the end of March this year, the opening of the first joint Azerbaijani-Iranian automobile plant, which is being built in the Neftchala industrial zone, is planned. Its founders are Iran Khodro and Azeurocar.

Total cost of projects

He went on to say that the total cost of projects with the participation of AIC reached $1.2 billion.

As many as $450 million of foreign investments were attracted to these projects, which contributed to the creation of 2,600 new jobs, according to the executive director.

As for the financial indicators of the AIC, Najaf noted that the companys net profit in the end of 2017 was 2.7 million manat ($1.58 million).

The companys revenues for the reporting period amounted to almost 4.8 million manat ($2.8 million), and expenses 1.8 million manat ($1.05 million). The company also received dividends for 1.25 million manat ($735,470).

Azerbaijan Investment Company (AIC) has been operating since 2006. The main goal of the company is to attract new investors to the existing and new commercial enterprises of the country, as well as to support the development of the non-oil sector by investing in these enterprises at their own expense.

At present, AIC funds are invested in such spheres as agriculture, heavy industry, food industry, logistics and pharmaceuticals.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Rashid Shirinov

Armenia must be ready for de-occupation of the seized Azerbaijani territories and follow the requirements of international law, since there is no other way out, Italian expert Fabio Paladini told Day.Az on March 1.

The expert mentioned that Azerbaijan can effectively use Italys OSCE Chairmanship and unite efforts towards resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

"Italy, as the country chairing the OSCE, has already stated that it will take efforts in the Karabakh settlement, and I think that this issue will be on the agenda during Italys chairmanship in this organization," he said.

+Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano has earlier said that this year his country plans to pay maximum attention to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh and other conflicts in the region, noting that all these issues are Italys priorities during its OSCE Chairmanship.

Paladini mentioned that the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict remains one of the most difficult regional problems over more than two past decades.

The conflict began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Until now, Armenia controls fifth part of Azerbaijans territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions.

While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, the occupation of the territory of the sovereign state with its internationally recognized boundaries has been left out of due attention of the international community for years.

During the entire period of its ineffective activity, the OSCE Minsk Group has not made any progress in the negotiation process, and it can be said that it has almost outlived itself as a serious international platform, Paladini said.

Nevertheless, he added, international mediators have recently accellerated their efforts for resolutiom of the problem. They periodically visit the region, meet with the heads of Azerbaijan and Armenia and try to consolidate their efforts in one direction.

The expert noted that in general, this is a positive fact and a sign of interest in this issue. He believes that it is difficult to solve it in a short time, since the problem is deep, serious and requires great efforts from both sides of the conflict and international mediators. The expert added that the protracted conflict can negatively affect the entire situation in the region.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Rashid Shirinov

Confession by one of the leaders of the radical Armenian lobby in the U.S. on the Khojaly genocide during the hearings on the 30th anniversary of the Sumgayit events at the California State Senate, organized by the Armenian lobby, testifies to Armenians realization of their responsibility for the events in Khojaly, Azerbaijani MP Aydin Mirzazade told Trend on March 4.

During the hearings, Mihran Toumajan, Director of the Armenian Assembly of Americas Western Region, actually admitted that Armenia committed genocide against the peaceful Azerbaijani population in Khojaly.

Mirzazade noted that this fact should be recognized sooner or later.

Armenian nationalists already begin to realize how much responsibility they took upon themselves by committing the tragedy in Khojaly. The Azerbaijani people will never forget this tragedy, the MP stressed, adding that this genocide will always be a heavy charge for Armenians.

Khojaly, the second largest town in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, on the night of February 25-26, 1992 came under intense fire by the Armenian armed forces from the already occupied towns of Khankendi and Askeran. As many as 613 civilians, mostly women and children, were killed in the massacre, and a total of 1,000 people were disabled. Eight families were exterminated, 25 children lost both parents, and 130 children lost one parent. Moreover, 1,275 innocent people were taken hostage, while the fate of 150 of them remains unknown.

Mirzazade noted that today Armenians cannot mislead the world community regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh issue with the same success as before.

The world community already knows the truth about these events. Moreover, there are Azerbaijani patriots who are able to oppose the Armenian speculations with facts and evidence before any audience, the MP said.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Until now, Armenia controls fifth part of Azerbaijans territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding regions.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Inci orphanage-kindergarten has been inaugurated in Mardakan, Khazar district, after a major overhaul, which was initiated by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva attended the opening ceremony.

Head of Baku City Executive Authority Hajibala Abutalibov informed Mehriban Aliyeva that the orphanage-kindergarten was built in 1987.

Mehriban Aliyeva viewed the orphanage-kindergarten, which will accommodate up to 230 children aged from 2 to 6 in 12 groups, including 8 Azerbaijani language and 4 Russian language groups. There is also an English language club here.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

A new education block of the Special School of the State Border Service has been inaugurated in Mardakan, Khazar district of Azerbaijan.

First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva attended the opening ceremony.

Chairman of the State Border Service Elchin Guliyev reported to First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva.

Mehriban Aliyeva cut the ribbon symbolizing the official inauguration of the school. She also met with first year-fifth grade cadets studying in patriotism class. The cadets presented a keepsake to Mehriban Aliyeva.

The new block of the Special School occupies a total area of 11,000 sq m. There are 23 rooms, shooting gallery, 400-bed dormitory, gym, pool, canteen, paintball and other sports grounds here.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzFarmers quiver as tuskers wreck crops and property

A herd of wild elephants has been wreaking havoc at Punarbas Municipality in Kanchanpur district near the Indian border for the past one week.By Kamila Aliyeva

Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Morocco Nasser Bourita who is on an official visit to Azerbaijan held several meetings in Baku on March 5.

He also held a meeting with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov during which a number of agreement were signed.

The two ministers signed the Convention between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income, Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco on cooperation in the field of security and combating crime, Protocol of Intent between Azerbaijan Railways CJSC and the Moroccan National Railways and the Protocol of Intent between Azerbaijan State Marine Academy and the Higher Institute of Maritime Studies of Morocco.

Addressing the joint press conference which followed the meeting, Bourita noted that the relations with Azerbaijan are based on solidarity and mutual support.

He went on to say that said that relations between Azerbaijan and Morocco will develop not only at the diplomatic level, but also through active economic cooperation.

My colleague and I have discussed a number of very important tasks, and I am happy to report that our views on their solutions converge. Economic cooperation between our countries should be as strong as the political one. In the near future, proposals will be prepared on cooperation between the business circles of Azerbaijan and Morocco, he said.

The minister also added that the countries have a great investment potential, which will become one of the key aspects of bilateral cooperation.

Bourita stressed that Morocco supports the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, which has faced aggression and non-compliance with internationally recognized resolutions.

We consider it extremely important to observe the principle of territorial integrity and we support the efforts of fraternal Azerbaijan for a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, he said.

Mammadyarov, in turn, informed that the cooperation in the fields of agriculture and energy was discussed.

He also noted the need for cooperation of the two countries private sectors.

Mammadyarov added that Morocco and Azerbaijan render each other great support as part of cooperation in international organizations.

Diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Morocco were established in December 1992.

According to Azerbaijans State Customs Committee, trade turnover with Morocco amounted to about $3.9 million in 2017.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Kamila Aliyeva

Being a highly strategic energy project for the European Union, the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) will secure external funding for the project, Lisa Givert, TAP Head of Communications, told Azernews.

She recalled that in early February 2018, the EIB has decided to grant a loan of 1.5 billion euro stressing that this is in line with TAPs project financing strategy.

Additionally, TAP expects to secure funding from a number of multilateral institutions, such as the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, as well as Export Credit Guarantee Agencies of a number of OECD countries involved in the supply of goods and services, she said.

In addition, a large proportion of TAPs financing is foreseen to include commercial lenders, according to Givert.

As a highly strategic energy project for the European Union, TAP is recognized as a Project of Common Interest (PCI) by the EU Commission and EU member states, she noted.

There is a strong market rationale for our project. Europe needs new sources of natural gas to meet its long-term demand, fuel economic recovery and diversify energy supply. Gas  as the cleanest fossil fuels  will continue to play a key, strategic role in the energy mix for decades to come, she said.

Therefore, we remain confident that TAP will secure external funding for the project, Givert added.

Commenting on the investments realized by TAP, she said that TAP is currently implementing several social and environmental investment (SEI) projects and many more projects are in the works.

These programs are developed in line with TAPs funding principles to promote sustainable development and in full consultation & cooperation with communities along the pipeline route, she said.

She went on to add that, in total, TAP will invest over 55 million euro in the communities along the route.

As of the end January 2018, TAP has given internal approval to a total of 181 projects, amounting to approximately 30 million euro. These projects are either completed or under development, Givert added.

Speaking about TAP readiness, she noted that the projects schedule remains unchanged.

In terms of overall project progress, we are 2/3 complete  including all engineering, procurement and construction scope, Givert said.

TAP continues to work towards being ready to deliver first gas from Shah Deniz in 2020, according to TAP Head of Communications.

TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union (EU). The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries.

Connecting with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, TAP will cross Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to connect to the Italian natural gas network.

The project is currently in its construction phase, which started in 2016.

Once built, TAP will offer a direct and cost-effective transportation route opening up the vital Southern Gas Corridor, a 3,500-kilometer long gas value chain stretching from the Caspian Sea to Europe.

TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Kamila Aliyeva

In line with EU regulation (the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) is an Independent Transmission Operator and complies with the Third Directive), any shipper who wishes to take part in TAPs open seasons may do so as long as they comply with the requirements for participation, Lisa Givert, TAP Head of Communications, told Azernews commenting on the possibility of other countries joining the project.

Earlier, European Commission Vice-President for Energy Union Maros Sefcovic said that the EU is ready to discuss the possibility of connecting Iran to the Southern Gas Corridor. He also said that the EU continues to seek ways to connect Turkmenistan to the Southern Gas Corridor project at a press conference in Baku on February 15 following the Fourth Ministerial Meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council.

TAP is the European leg of the Southern Gas Corridor, which is one of the most complex energy projects worldwide. While TAP will initially transport 10bcm/a from the Shah Deniz II field in Azerbaijan, our pipeline can double its capacity once additional gas resources come on stream, Givert said.

TAPs landfall in Italy provides multiple opportunities to some of the largest European markets such as Germany, France, the UK, Switzerland and Austria, according to TAP Head of Communications.

TAPs contribution to energy security and diversification will perhaps be most significant in South Eastern Europe. TAP remains committed to facilitating connections to several infrastructure projects such as the Interconnector Greece  Bulgaria (IGB) and the Ionian Adriatic Pipeline (IAP), she noted.

Givert stressed that by cooperating with IGB and IAP, TAP plays a key role in facilitating greater interconnectivity and security of supply - key objectives of the European Energy Union.

TAP also has reverse flow capability in the event of an emergency or potential cut off further upstream. We do want to emphasize that TAP neither owns the gas it transports, nor is it responsible for building physical infrastructure in South-Eastern Europe (beyond our 878km pipeline), she said.

So, it is up to the various entities in the region to arrange commercial terms with potential suppliers of gas to ensure new and diversified sources reach their respective markets, according to Givert.

As economic recovery continues, and coal-fired power generation is gradually phased out, it is expected that natural gas demand in South-Eastern Europe will grow, to power homes and industries, she stressed.

So, TAP will enable the introduction of a cleaner energy source, therefore contributing to reducing carbon emissions and achieving environmental targets, according to Givert.

TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union (EU). The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries.

Connecting with the Trans Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, TAP will cross Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to connect to the Italian natural gas network.

The project is currently in its construction phase, which started in 2016.

Once built, TAP will offer a direct and cost-effective transportation route opening up the vital Southern Gas Corridor, a 3,500-kilometer long gas value chain stretching from the Caspian Sea to Europe.

TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Kamila Aliyeva

Shares of the Turkish petrochemical complex Petkim increased by 138 percent in 2017, and reached the record high of the past three years, according to Anar Mammadov, general manager of Petkim Petrokimya Holdings AS, Turkish media outlets reported.

Currently, the value of Petkim shares on the Istanbul Stock Exchange is 8.09 Turkish liras ($2.1) per share.

Petkim, in which SOCAR has a share of 51 percent, produces plastic packages, fabric, detergents and is the sole Turkish manufacturer of such products, a quarter of which is exported. The rest of the complex shares are in free circulation on the stock exchange.

Mammadov recalled the plans of SOCAR Turkey Energy A. S. to carry out an initial public offering (IPO) of shares in the near future.

We are planning an IPO for SOCAR Turkey Energy in the upcoming period. The details are not defined yet. According to our estimates, oil prices will stand at about $60. This is a good price for us, he added.

Earlier, Head of SOCAR Turkey Enerji Zaur Gahramanov spoke about the IPO plans of the company, scheduled for 2020.

The initial public offering (IPO) is the first time that the stock of a private company is offered to the public.

Going public helps companies to diversify equity base, raise market capital, as well as to increase public awareness which in turn opens up new opportunities through introducing companys products to a new group of potential customers.

Founded in 2008, SOCAR Turkey Energy is one of the most well-established oil and natural gas companies of the world.

SOCAR Turkey Energy keeps empowering Turkish industry with its significant investments, thus assisting Turkey in becoming a major player in international energy platforms.

It is expected that in 2018, the consolidated turnover of SOCAR Turkey Energy will reach $15 billion and the company will become the second biggest industrial company in Turkey with 5,000 employees and export potential of $3 billion.

SOCAR is the biggest foreign investor of Turkey with its total investment to reach $19.5 billion by 2020.

At the same time, SOCARs group companies in Turkey, namely Petkim, STAR Refinery, Petlim Container Terminal and Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) represent the largest-scale investment that Azerbaijan has ever made to a single country.

---

Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Iran and Turkey started 2018 with a tiny increase in their bilateral trade.

Trade turnover between the two countries reached $839.56 million in January, which is not significantly different compared to the first month of preceding month, when the mutual trade value accounted to $837.39 million.

The latest statistics released by the Turkish Statistical Institute indicates that the exports of Turkey to Iran in January 2018 were valued at about $262.023 million, 4.5 percent less compared to $274.47 million in January 2017.

Meanwhile, the country imported goods worth $577.54 million from Iran in the same month, compared to $562.92 million worth of imports in January 2017(2.6 percent more).

The trade turnover between Iran and Turkey stood at $10.75 billion during the January-December 2017. The figure indicates a rise by 11.2 percent compared to the same period of the preceding year ($9.67 billion).

Turkey's exports to Iran in the period amounted to $3.26 billion, compared to $4.97 billion in the 12-month period of 2016.

The trade turnover between the two countries was $13.71 billion in 2014, which stood at $9.76 billion in 2015, indicating a 29-percent plunge.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Iranian Armed Forces spokesman Masoud Jazayeri has warned that no one in the country is allowed to negotiate the issue of missile program with foreigners, Tasnim news agency reported.

Iran will continue advancing its missile power nonstop and the foreigners are not allowed to intervene, he added.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian is in Iran as part of a European drive to salvage the nuclear deal with Iran that President Donald Trump is threatening to scuttle and the Islamic Republic has said it may be forced to abandon.

France has also echoed concerns raised by US President Donald Trump on Irans regional influence and missile power.

On May 12, Donald Trump is expected to decide whether to continue waiving sanctions under a US law.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Nigar Pashayeva

Since economic provision of Azerbaijan is thriving, local citizens became more interested in the broadening the mind with the help of travel. Naturally, the most popular destination of all is brotherhood country Turkey with its incredible historic heritage.

A number of Azerbaijan tourists visiting Turkey increased by 1.974 million in the past three years (2015-2017), according to the statistic of the Association of Turkish Travel Agencies (TURSAB).

In 2015 a number of Azerbaijani visitors in Turkey made up 602,488 while in 2016 a growth of 2.39 percent (or 606,223 tourists) was observed. Last year this figure was 765,514 tourists.

Indicators of statistical research of TURSAB showed that the Azerbaijani visitors accounted for 1.66 percent of the total number of tourists in 2015 and 2.36 percent in 2017.

The statistics of the TripAdvisor Traveller Choice 2017 show that the most popular destinations of all wanderlust followers, including Azerbaijani citizens are Istanbul, Goreme (Kappadokia), Icmeler, Urgup, Dalyan, Kalkan, Kusadasi, Oludeniz, Kemer and Managvat.

Pointing out a certain period of the year, the number of tourists in Turkey rocketed by 23.1 percent compared to the previous year.

Overall, in 2017 32.4 million tourists visited Turkey. It means, that a total number of tourists rose by 27.84 percent in a juxtapose in 2016.

Majority of Azerbaijani tourists chose Turkey as a main destination, which attracts them with coastal areas such as Antalya, Bodrum, and Kusadasi.

Azerbaijani tourists often travel to Turkey for vacation in July and August. Turkey which provides high-quality and inexpensive vacation for many international tourists has long ago become one of the most favorite destinations for many Azerbaijanis.

--

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzHere are seven updates for ASC leaders to know for March 5, 2018.

ASCA rebukes 'sensationalized' story misrepresenting ASC safety

The Ambulatory Surgery Center Association rebuked a story by Kaiser Health News and USA Today saying it misrepresented the safety and quality of outpatient surgery.

https://www.beckersasc.com/asc-quality-infection-control/asca-rebukes-sensationalized-story-misrepresenting-asc-safety.html

Anthem halts controversial modifier 25 reimbursement policy

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield won't proceed with a policy that would have slashed reimbursement rates for evaluation and management services billed with modifier 25 by 50 percent.

Vermont senators drop ASC provider tax proposal

Vermont's Senate Health and Welfare Committee unanimously voted against a bill to regulate and tax independent surgery centers, removing one barrier to the planned 2019 opening of the state's second ASC. The bill would have imposed care board oversight and various expenses, including a 6 percent provider tax based on net patient revenue and a $2,000 annual licensing fee.

U of Alabama at Birmingham anesthesiologist dies after being assaulted in Mexico

University of Alabama at Birmingham anesthesiologist William Thomas O'Byrne III, MD, died Feb. 28, after he was physically assaulted while on vacation in Mexico. Dr. O'Byrne, 54, was vacationing in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, with friends earlier in the week. He was assaulted while on vacation, severely beaten and left for dead in a ditch. His friends found him and rushed him to a hospital, before he was flown back to the U.S. on life support.

EVP of customer relations retiring from The Joint Commission

Ann Scott Blouin, RN, PhD, is retiring from The Joint Commission, effective April 13. Cheryl Hoying, RN, PhD, will succeed her as chief nurse executive and executive vice president of customer relations.

UCHealth Longs Peak Hospital, ASC named project of the year

Longmont, Colo.-based UCHealth Longs Peak Hospital received the Project of the Year Award from the Longmont Economic Development Partnership. Longs Peak Hospital features an adjoining ASC, a level 3 trauma center, operating rooms and advanced cardiac services.

Physicians Endoscopy supports Colon Cancer Awareness Month

Physicians Endoscopy is involved with several initiatives to kick off Colon Cancer Awareness Month. PE started off March with a colon cancer awareness campaign offering information and education to all affiliated centers.Federal parliament convenes today

Newly elected members of the federal parliament took the oath of office on Sunday. The first session of the House of the Representatives (HoR) and the National Assembly (NA) will commence at the International Convention Centre at 4pm on Monday.Nearly three-fourths (72 percent) of physicians in medical group practices oppose mandatory participation in Medicare alternative payment models, according to a recent Medical Group Management Association poll.

The Feb. 27 poll comprised responses from 1,176 physicians, most of whom prefer flexibility and financial incentives to push forward Medicare APM models.

"Despite support for APMs, a large majority of physician practices oppose government mandated participation, citing lack of evidence, diversity among medical practices, and the negative impact on practice innovation," said Anders Gilberg, MGMA senior vice president of government affairs.

Fourteen percent of respondents support mandatory government APMs, while another 14 percent are unsure.



More articles on healthcare finance:

CHS sees Q4 net loss widen to $2B

Baylor Scott & White closes 113-bed Texas hospital: 4 things to know

Tenet sees net loss swell to $230M, says $1B hospital divestiture plan is on trackCommunityCare, a Tulsa, Okla.-based health insurer, is cancelling its contract with Tulsa-based Hillcrest HealthCare System, according to Tulsa World.

Only about 6,500 of CommunityCare's 140,000 members are affected by the contract being severed.

The move comes amid allegations Hillcrest overbilled CommunityCare members. CommunityCare claims 34 members with HMO plans contacted the insurer since late 2016 to complain about Hillcrest overbilling them by a combined $400,000.

Hillcrest told Tulsa World CommunityCare's allegations are "false and irresponsible."

"CommunityCare's public notice of termination is surprising and disappointing, given that we have been working together for months on re-negotiating our contract," Hillcrest said in a statement to Tulsa World. "We vehemently deny any allegations of wrongdoing; to claim that any of the billing practices in question violate state law is an egregious misstatement not based in fact."

CommunityCare's attorney argues Hillcrest violated the contract between the two entities by practicing balance billing.

More articles on healthcare finance:

CHS' shares plummet after reporting $2B loss

35 hospital groups urge court to halt $1.6B in Medicare payment cuts

Baylor Scott & White closes 113-bed Texas hospital: 4 things to knowMore hospitals are interested in aggregating and analyzing patient-generated health data to fuel clinical innovation and transform care delivery.

However, implementing a scalable remote patient monitoring program with this data can be challenging. Hospitals must implement various clinical and operational elements to ensure patient safety and privacy, along with staff support, before rolling out such a program.

In a Feb. 21 webinar sponsored by Validic and hosted by Becker's Hospital Review, Ed Marx, CIO of Cleveland Clinic; Jodi Daniel, partner at Crowell & Moring; and Drew Schiller, CEO of Validic, answered commonly asked questions on patient-generated health data and remote patient monitoring programs.

Here are six questions addressed in the webinar.

1. What are the clinical and operational elements health systems need to have in place to support a scalable remote patient monitoring program?

Mr. Marx shared three important elements hospitals need for a successful remote patient monitoring program. The first thing hospitals should look at is alignment. "Always go back to the organization's mission," Mr. Marx said. "For us, it's about providing better care for the sick, investigating their health problems and providing better education. Remote patient monitoring hits on all three parts of our mission."

Secondly, leaders should ensure the organization's culture can support the data initiative. The third element focuses on leadership, according to Mr. Marx. "You could have the best program or the best alignment, but if you don't have strong leadership carrying this through on both the clinical and operations side, it won't happen," he said. Once hospitals solidify these three core tenets, other necessary program components  such as streamlined workflows, interoperability and a strong analytics team  should come easily.

2. What are the lesser-known technical challenges providers may experience when constructing the infrastructure to support a remote patient monitoring program?

Data from in-home medical devices and wearables is continuous in nature  patients may have multiple blood pressure or glucose readings in a day, according to Mr. Schiller. In contrast, clinical care teams are used to seeing a data model that's episodic in nature, where patient data is entered into the chart during a visit before the encounter ends. "These two models are very difficult to reconcile, and that's one of the biggest challenges," Mr. Schiller said.

To get around this, hospitals must ensure they bring in the right data at the right time, using an exception management model. For example, clinicians should be notified if a glucose reading falls out of a certain range, whether through an internal message system or email. This information must be accessible within a clinician's normal workflow so they can see what's happening with the patient at a glance, without going to a separate portal or log-in page. "We've seen a lot of remote patient monitoring programs fail because they relied on a completely separate solution," Mr. Schiller said. "It's really critical to have that embedded in the clinician's workflow."

3. What are some of the greatest misconceptions in regard to bringing in patient-generated health data?

Ms. Daniel outlined three common misconceptions about patient-generated health data. The first misconception: Patient-generated health data poses serious legal and regulatory compliance issues. "There are clearly additional risks in bringing in data from various sources into the healthcare setting," she said. However, these risks are manageable. Hospitals should make data security a regular practice at their organization by conducting a risk assessment for a new data source or tool and developing strategies to mitigate risk.

The second misconception is that remote patient monitoring programs will increase clinicians' workload and force them to sift through mountains of patient-generated health data. In reality, numerous technologies with dashboards, alerts and analytics services exist today to help clinicians make sense of the data at a glance and even reduce their workload.

The third misconception revolves around liability. "Clinicians are concerned about the risk of having volumes of data and not acting on it," said Mr. Schiller. "But I don't think this risk is so different from the data they have now." Providers are already tasked with receiving laboratory results and figuring out which readings aren't in a normal range, or addressing patient concerns after hours without EHR data. Mr. Schiller said hospitals should establish practices and protocols to address this risk upfront, and communicate with patients about their own responsibilities and expectations for patient-generated health data. Hospitals should also implement workflows to triage information, and share waivers with patients about what clinicians will do with the information they receive from patient-generated health data.

4. How do you merge the episodic care model of the in-hospital environment with the continuous care model needed to support RPM?

Hospitals can select specific cases or patient populations to work with to expand their remote patient monitoring program across the care continuum, according to Mr. Marx. For instance, hospitals could give bone marrow transplant patients devices before they're discharged, and then have a nursing team on the outpatient side monitor the data flow and notify physicians if interventions are necessary. "Care transitions are always very tricky, but this would make for a very natural handoff," Mr. Marx said. "And this is just one use case. There are many more examples."

The care team should also provide device management for patients once they leave the hospital, according to Mr. Schiller. "It's important for the care management team to support patients as they use those devices."

5. Are data standards still a market challenge with regard to patient-generated health data and integrating these data points in the clinical environment?

While data standards will always be a challenge for hospitals, they are improving dramatically for patient-generated health data, according to Mr. Schiller.

The two biggest challenges relate to accessing data from devices and bringing the data into the clinical workflow. A lot of devicemakers implement their own form of Bluetooth for security protocols, so hospitals need to work directly with the manufacturer to extract that data. Sometimes the device manufacturer prefers to host the device-cloud connection on its own server, so hospitals can get the data from the cloud via an application programming interface, according to Mr. Schiller. "This poses a challenge, as there are no standards for how APIs should structure information like this in the cloud," he said.

Mr. Schiller said the Consumer Technology Association, which he is a board member of, has three groups of industry professionals working to develop various data sharing standards. He also cited the increased adoption of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources  created by the nonprofit Health Level Seven International  for helping to improve the process of delivering data into the clinical workflow.

6. What new CPT codes  or code changes  can we expect to see over the next few years to support PGHD usage?

The 99091 code that covers remote patient monitoring is decades old and holds significant limitations, according to Ms. Daniel. The code only applies to biometric data, refers to a one-way flow of information from patients to providers and works on a fee-for-service basis, meaning clinicians are only paid for the amount of active time they look at the patient-generated health data.

CMS now has codes for areas like chronic care management, which allow physicians to be reimbursed for some services that don't occur in face-to-face patient interactions, according to Ms. Daniel. The American Medical Association also set up the Digital Medicine and Payment Advisory Group to push for new codes related to remote patient monitoring, which she hopes CMS will eventually adopt.

Mr. Marx concluded the webinar by expressing the need for healthcare providers to advocate for better technology standards on behalf of patients.

"If we don't, nobody will," he said. "We need to continue to push professional organizations, the government, etc., to see the true promise of healthcare and technology merging together to improve the lives of patients around the world."

To view the webinar recording, click here.

To view the webinar slides, click here.Turlock, Calif.-based Emanuel Medical Center CEO Sue Micheletti and Chief Nursing Officer Sony Sidhu are no longer working at the hospital, according to a report by The Modesto Bee.

Here are eight notes:

1. Warren Kirk, CEO of Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare's Central Valley market, sent out a memo letting Emanuel Medical Center staff know about the sudden departures. He did not mention the reason behind the leadership change.

2. A spokesperson from Tenet, which is Emanuel Medical Center's parent, said "the company would not have further comment out of respect for employee privacy," according to the report.

3. Neither Ms. Micheletti nor Mr. Sindhu gave a comment to The Modesto Bee.

4. Ms. Micheletti served as CEO of Emanuel Medical Center since 2014, when the facility became a part of Tenet. In his memo, Mr. Kirk "thanked [Ms.] Micheletti for playing a pivotal role in bringing Emanuel into the Tenet fold," the report notes. He also wrote Tenet wishes Ms. Micheletti and Mr. Sindhu well in their future endeavors.

5. However, some people believe Ms. Micheletti and Mr. Sindhu were ousted, The Modesto Bee reports.

6. Jeffrey Lewis, CEO of the nonprofit created by Tenet's acquisition of Emanuel Medical Center, Legacy Health Endowment, said Tenet allowing nurses to unionize last year put Ms. Micheletti and Mr. Sindhu in a tough spot. Soon after the nurses voted to join California Nurses Association/National Nurses United, nearly 400 employees at the medical center also voted in favor of unionization.

7. Lani Dickinson will serve as interim CEO and acting chief nursing officer at Emanuel Medical Center.

8. Ms. Dickinson's prior experience includes serving as COO of Lakewood (Calif.) Regional Medical Center and chief nursing officer at Doctors Medical Center in Modesto, Calif.From a Vermont hospital settling false claims allegations to a 20-state lawsuit arguing the ACA is unconstitutional, here are the latest healthcare industry lawsuits and settlements making headlines.

1. Vermont hospital paid $1.7M to settle false claims allegations

Brattleboro (Vt.) Memorial Hospital paid Vermont and the federal government approximately $1.7 million to resolve allegations it violated the False Claims Act.

2. Nurse wins $3.83M racial discrimination lawsuit against Hawaii hospital

A jury awarded Ellen Harris, RN, $3.83 million in damages Feb. 28, concluding a five-year legal battle between Ms. Harris and Honolulu-based The Queen's Medical Center.

3. Anthem Blue Cross accuses California hospital of $13.5M billing scheme: 9 things to know

Anthem Blue Cross is accusing Sonoma West Medical Center and the hospital's owner, Palm Drive Health Care District, both in Sebastopol, Calif., of fraudulently billing for toxicology testing services.

4. 35 hospital groups urge court to halt $1.6B in Medicare payment cuts

Thirty-five state and regional hospital associations filed a friend of the court brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reverse a lower court decision and grant a preliminary injunction to stop a Medicare payment reduction for many hospitals in the 340B Drug Pricing Program.

5. Judge rules ex-Lutheran CEO improperly disclosed CHS' confidential information: 7 things to know

A Tennessee judge issued an order Feb. 26 stating the former CEO of Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Lutheran Health Network improperly disclosed confidential information belonging to LHN and its parent company, Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems.

6. Ohio AG targets 4 drug distributors in second opioid lawsuit

Attorney General Mike DeWine filed a lawsuit against four drug distributors, alleging the companies created a public nuisance through unsafe distribution tactics that resulted in the oversupply of opioids in Ohio.

7. Judge dismisses Molina's lawsuit over New Mexico Medicaid contracts: 3 things to know

A judged tossed Molina Healthcare of New Mexico's lawsuit to stop New Mexico from moving forward with newly awarded Medicaid contracts.

8. 20-state lawsuit argues ACA unconstitutional after individual mandate repeal: 5 things to know

A 20-state coalition filed a lawsuit against the federal government Feb. 26 seeking to end the ACA.

9. New Hampshire woman sues state hospital and health services over patient assault: 9 things to know

A woman who worked as a psychiatric advanced practice registered nurse at Concord-based New Hampshire Hospital sued the state and facility regarding a mentally ill patient who attacked her in 2014.

10. New York judge drops charges against surgeon accused of strangling nurse with elastic cord

A Nassau County District Court judge on Feb. 20 dropped criminal charges against an East Meadow, N.Y.-based Nassau University Medical Center surgeon who was accused of strangling a nurse with an elastic cord.

11. DOJ abandons most of lawsuit accusing UnitedHealth of Medicare fraud

The Justice Department cast aside much of a False Claims Act lawsuit alleging UnitedHealth Group used incorrect risk scores to inflate Medicare Advantage payments.

More articles on legal and regulatory issues:

Feds launch investigation into Tenet's Detroit Medical Center: 7 things to know

9 latest lawsuits involving hospitals

Ex-UPMC Health Plan director sentenced to prison for embezzling $846kIn a lawsuit heading to New York Supreme Court, a former medical resident at Rochester, N.Y.-based Strong Memorial Hospital accused a radiologist and University of Rochester Medical Center faculty member of repeatedly raping her, according to a Democrat and Chronicle report.

The accuser, a medical resident who was completing her rotation in pediatric radiology at Strong Memorial Hospital, alleges the defendant, Johan Blickman, MD, PhD, vice chair of URMC's department of imaging sciences and pediatrics professor, invited her to his house in August 2014 to discuss a research project and proceeded to drug and rape her, according to the lawsuit.

The former medical resident further claims Dr. Blickman subsequently blackmailed her with nude photographs and continued to coerce her to have sex with him, at least once in his office at Strong Memorial Hospital. Dr. Blickman also allegedly met with the accuser's boyfriend and attempted to involve him in killing Dr. Blickman's ex-wife, according to the lawsuit.

URMC said it first heard about an "inappropriate relationship" from the accuser's lawyer in 2016, two years after she was last at UR, and subsequently "took action based on our findings."

"Last week the university received a complaint in which new and different allegations have been made against Dr. Blickman by [the accuser], some of which would be serious criminal offenses if proven true," URMC spokesman Chip Partner said in an email to the Democrat and Chronicle. "Dr. Blickman is on (paid) leave and we will review these new allegations as we prepare our response to the complaint, but we have not received a law enforcement inquiry related to them." Mr. Partner declined to say what action URMC took in 2016.

The lawsuit does not mention whether the accuser reported Dr. Blickman's actions to URMC or law enforcement or sought to file criminal charges, when and how the alleged behavior ended and whether anything came of the alleged murder conspiracy.

The lawsuit does not allege URMC ignored any complaints, but states the university "had a duty to protect [the accuser] from injury" while she was a student there, according to the report. The lawsuit seeks $30 million in damages.

The accuser, now a radiologist in Boca Raton, Florida, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Dr. Blickman did not respond to the Democrat and Chronicle's request for comment, but a statement from the law firm representing him in the matter said the allegations "are patently untrue, vehemently denied, and appear to be an attempt to use the current social climate to gain a financial windfall"Although it is difficult for physicians to tell chronically ill patients that treatment is futile, when physicians fail to tell patients treatment is futile, it may only make them suffer more, argues retired gastroenterologist Samuel Harrington, MD, in The Washington Post.

Surgeons often tell patients treatment is futile indirectly when they declare them inoperable, which patients tend to accept since they are aware of the significant harm ineffective surgeries can cause, Dr. Harrington wrote.

However, physicians who care for patients with advanced chronic diseases do not have such clear-cut negative certainties to rely on, especially when patients ask if there is anything that could possibly help their condition, Dr. Harrington added. "In many cases the answer is, technically, 'yes,' when practically speaking it is 'no, not really.'"

Dr. Harrington describes an experience he had with a patient who he determined had no effective medical treatment available for his symptoms and no surgical cure for his disease. For this patient, palliative surgery was the only option to control his gastrointestinal pain, but he was emotionally unwilling and too physically weak for a medical procedure.

"And yet for weeks he had wasted time with clinic visits because his gastrointestinal specialists fragmented his care, focusing only on this horrible symptom," Dr. Harrington wrote. "Nobody had looked at him as a whole being. No one had told him that he was terminally ill. No one had told him that his symptoms might be reduced by palliative care but could not be eliminated. When I tried to explain that to him, it appeared to fall on deaf ears."

Despite the American Medical Association's efforts to encourage physicians to recognize the futility of treating certain extreme situations and advanced diseases, these guidelines face a powerful resistance, Dr. Harrington argues. "There remains a powerful resistance, shared by doctors, patients and family members, to recognizing treatments as ineffective when dealing with chronic illnesses such as advanced congestive heart failure, severe dementia and unresponsive cancer."

In this way, physicians are contributing to patients' suffering during their final days of life, Dr. Harrington argues. "Physicians must recognize and help patients understand that endless treatment eventually becomes cruelly ineffective but that palliative care is never futile," Dr. Harrington wrote.Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill in Ohio's General Assembly aimed at stopping Anthem and other health insurers from denying coverage to members using the emergency department under certain circumstances, cleveland.com reports.

Here are four things to know about House Bill 536.

1. The bill concerns an ED policy change Anthem rolled out in Ohio at the beginning of 2018. Under Anthem's ED policy, the insurer reviews diagnoses after members' ED visits. If their condition is determined to be nonemergent, Anthem may not cover their ED claims.



2. The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Alicia Reece, D-Cincinnati, would prohibit Anthem's policy change from affecting individual and employer policies, in addition to managed Medicaid products. Anthem's current policy does not apply to Medicaid managed care members.



3. Should the bill pass, Anthem's policy would be considered noncompliant in Ohio. Rep. Reece told cleveland.com insurers using similar policies "would not be able to get government contracts, tax credits, tax abatements, all of the things to do business in the state."



4. Anthem and the Ohio Association of Health Plans did not respond to cleveland.com's request for comment.



For more information on Anthem's ED policy in Ohio, click here.A former first trust bank branch is set to become a restaurant

A former First Trust branch in east Belfast could become the latest bank to be turned into a restaurant, it has emerged.

Deramore Developments hopes to reconfigure the former bank on Upper Newtownards Road, Ballyhackamore.

The ground floor will be transformed into an open-plan restaurant. The first floor and an extension to create a second floor would provide three apartments.

Mark Thallon, partner at TDK commercial property consultants, which is behind the leasing of venues such as Pizza Express and Camille in the area, will also lease out the unit and apartments. He said: "Ballyhackamore is a good location. It has become a destination for the food and beverage industry here."

Last month pizza chain Little Wing announced plans for a venue in an old Bank of Ireland in Newtownards.Aldi is to appoint a new UK chief executive as the German supermarket embarks on a management shake-up.

Matthew Barnes, an Aldi veteran who joined the company in 1997, will make way for Giles Hurley who will become the new UK and Ireland chief executive.

Mr Hurley is also an Aldi stalwart, having spent almost 20 years at the firm over which time he has held down roles such as training director, group buying director and most recently UK group managing director since 2015.

He will take the hot seat on May 1.

Meanwhile, Mr Barnes, who is credited with overseeing the supermarket's meteoric rise from upstart to challenger to the so-called Big Four, has been promoted to the "coordination board" of Aldi South, which is the parent firm of the grocery giant's UK operations.Muhmmad Al-Najjar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images(DAMASCUS, Syria) -- An international humanitarian aid convoy has finally been able to get into a besieged suburb of Damascus that has been surrounded and virtually cut off by Syrian government forces.



Forty-six truckloads of food and medical aid, amounting to food for 27,500 people and health items for 70,000 were brought in through efforts of the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations World Food Program and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, according to a press release by the Red Crescent.



Among the supplies are specialized nutrition for malnourished children, general medical items, equipment for kidney treatment and nourishment for babies.



The relief convoy marks the first time in four months that the World Food Program and its partners have been able to reach the area of Douma in the besieged enclave of eastern Ghouta, the U.N. agency said.



The enclave has been surrounded by Syrian government forces since 2013 and has endured what the World Food Program said is "tremendous suffering, with over 400,000 people there experiencing severe shortages of food, fuel, medicine and drinking water."



A humanitarian crisis is unfolding in eastern Ghouta where raging violence has paralyzed our response and our ability to reach families who desperately need help, says Jakob Kern, the World Food Program representative in Syria.



The longer eastern Ghouta is deprived of the necessities of life, the more people will die. We appeal to all parties to allow the ongoing and safe delivery of aid to all people in need, no matter where they are, Kern said.



The convoy was supposed to enter Ghouta on Sunday, but was held up by Syrian government forces.



A source at the World Health Organization told Reuters that government security forces removed 70 percent of the organization's truckloads - taking out trauma kits, surgical kits and insulin.



Battle for control of eastern Ghouta has continued unabated, despite an order by Russia, an ally of the Syrian government, for a "humanitarian pause," according to people on the ground there.



The BBCs Jeremy Bowen who is in Damascus tweeted "Syrian armed forces heavy gun is firing steadily close by, I can hear the impacts hitting inside the enclave. UN's 30 day ceasefire is nowhere." State news agency SANA reports that Ghouta armed factions have shelled a military hospital, injuring some critically.



Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said when briefing a small group of journalists on Sunday that his forces' push to take control of the area would continue while respecting humanitarian pauses to allow civilians to leave the area.



Over the weekend, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that regime-affiliated forces advanced over about 25 percent of Ghouta, nearing their goal of cutting it in half. Their advance occurred in thinly-populated rural farm areas.



The armed factions opposing the regime forces have meanwhile retreated into more densely-populated urban areas, where military observers expect the fight to be much tougher and slow going for both sides.



The World Food Program and partners are planning another convoy this Thursday to supplement the supplies already distributed on Monday and provide food for a total of 70,000.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.High development trajectory

The inauguration of Prime Minister KP Oli comes with high hopes, and anticipation that the government will take swift measures to usher transformational economic growth, national development, and political reform anchored on the new constitution.Belfast City Council looks on course to pass a resolution tonight calling for the decriminalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland.

The motion proposed by an Alliance councillor and seconded by Sinn Fein will be opposed by the DUP and independent nationalist councillors.

The SDLP's position on the resolution last night remained unclear, with two PUP councillors supporting it and the Ulster Unionists likely to vote according to individual conscience.

The motion is being proposed by Alliance's Kate Nicholl and seconded by Sinn Fein's Mary Ellen Campbell.

It notes the increasing number of women accessing abortion pills online which leaves them vulnerable to prosecution.

It says there is an impact on healthcare professionals who, under the law, may have a duty to provide details to the PSNI.

"Therefore, if a woman requires medical assistance after accessing these pills, the threat of prosecution and life in prison is likely to act as a real deterrent, thus potentially having a detrimental impact on her health," the motion states.

"Accordingly, the council believes that abortion should be regulated like any other medical care and not by criminal law... A woman who has an abortion is not a criminal, nor are healthcare professionals who care for them, and the law should not treat them as such."

Sinn Fein and Alliance hold 27 of the 60 seats in City Hall. With People Before Profit's Matt Collins supporting the motion, along with two PUP councillors and the third abstaining, it looks likely to be passed.

However, turnout at the meeting, which was rescheduled from Thursday due to the snow, could be key and the motion's opponents still hope to derail it.

Green councillor Georgina Milne, who said she strongly supported the resolution, is unable to attend. The SDLP and UUP will propose amendments.

While abortion is a matter of conscience and not policy for Alliance, its eight representatives are likely to support the motion.

Group leader Michael Long said: "Our Balmoral councillor Kate Nicholl is proposing this motion. With abortion medication available on the internet, she feels it's important the council discusses and takes a position on this new issue."

DUP councillor Graham Craig claimed the resolution was "divisive and rancorous". He said: "The DUP is a pro-life party and this motion is quite clearly contrary to that position. This motion proves that Alliance and Sinn Fein are inextricably linked in City Hall. Alliance in Belfast has been taken over by a hard-left cabal."

PUP councillor Julie-Anne Corr Johnston said: "The PUP unreservedly and unapologetically trusts women. Abortion is a conscience issue for our members so myself and Billy Hutchinson will support the motion and Dr John Kyle will abstain.

"The council doesn't have legislative powers to decriminalise abortion but it can act as a lobbyist to those who do. And in the Assembly's absence it is the only platform for debate."

UUP group leader David Browne said his party may propose an amendment and its six councillors would likely vote according to conscience.

People Before Profit councillor Mr Collins said: "The criminalisation of women who procure the abortion pill is shocking and disproportionately impacts on those living in poverty. As a pro-choice party, we wish to see free, safe and legal access to abortion across this island."

Independent unionist councillor Jolene Bunting said she would oppose the motion.

Independent councillor Declan Boyle, one of three SDLP City Hall members who left the party following an internal dispute over abortion, said he was strongly against the resolution.

"I don't believe in criminalising women but both lives matter and this motion removes legal protection for the unborn," he said. "There are some hard cases but this motion is about abortion on demand."

When asked how the four SDLP councillors would vote, group leader Tim Attwood said the SDLP was a pro-life party and also believed in showing compassion. "We are working towards an amendment that we can support and we are in conversation with other parties in relation to that," he said.The DUP has branded a debate on an Irish Language Act to be proposed at Belfast City Council tonight as needlessly divisive.

The motion from People Before Profit's Matthew Collins, calls for the council to support the introduction of an Act.

Disagreement between the DUP and Sinn Fein over an Act was a key reason for the collapse of the recent talks to resurrect power-sharing at Stormont.

The motion from Mr Collins claims an Irish Language Act is "crucial in delivering fair and proper treatment for the Irish language community" and urges councillors to voice their support for the introduction of such legislation.

The motion, which has been seconded by Green Party councillor Georgina Milne, has been slammed by the DUP.

Its City Hall group leader Lee Reynolds said the issue was one that the council had no power over.

The full text of the motion notes the "positive revival of the Irish language in Belfast over the past number of decades".

"Today, the city of Belfast has a historically large concentration of Irish speakers, which includes a growing number of Irish-medium schools, providing for thousands of pupils and thousands more residents who speak the Irish language on a daily basis," it reads.

"The council also recognises the impressive grassroots movement that has developed in recent years calling for an Irish Language Act in order to safeguard and strengthen rights for the Irish language community, a call that has received widespread political support.

"The council believes that such a move is crucial in delivering fair and proper treatment for the Irish language community and supports the introduction of an Irish Language Act."

Mr Reynolds said: "The DUP will be voting against the motion. In the absence of the Assembly some have been trying to make the council the alternative debating chamber. They are consistently taking it into areas that it has no powers over and dragging the mood and relationships in the council in a negative direction.

"While different parties will no doubt back it, they are being disingenuous. They say they want one, but can't agree on what they want in one.

"Even then it wouldn't be enough for some Irish language groups and spokespeople.

"Meanwhile, everyone suffers in the absence of a working Executive as some would prefer to play gesture politics than govern."

The Assembly has not sat for more than a year after the then Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness collapsed the institutions by resigning over the DUP's handling of the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal.

Talks to revive Stormont have been ongoing over the last year, but have failed to reach agreement.

A leaked draft of a purported deal between the DUP and Sinn Fein in the most recent negotiations included an Irish Language Act, an Ulster Scots Act and a Respecting Culture and Diversity Act. This prompted a unionist outcry, with the Orange Order and TUV among others claiming the plan was not acceptable.He appeared before Belfast Magistrates' Court to face charges of common assault and assault on police.

A homeless man was allegedly kicked to the head as he slept in Belfast city centre, a court heard on Monday.

Robert Davey, 21, is accused of involvement in the attack at Donegall Square East on Saturday.

Davey, of Falls Road in the city, was refused bail to attend a drug rehabilitation unit in Dublin.

He appeared before Belfast Magistrates' Court to face charges of common assault and assault on police.

Opposing his release, a PSNI officer said the incident involved targeting "a homeless sleeping man, kicking him to the side of the face".

The victim sustained facial and hand cuts in the attack, the court heard.

It was claimed Davey also grabbed and ripped up a file after being taken into custody.

"He seems to have major anger problems," the officer added.

A defence solicitor described Davey as a vulnerable individual with a drug addiction.

"He has fallen through the cracks of society, it's a very sad case," the lawyer said.

District Judge Fiona Bagnall was told bail was being sought for Davey to attend a rehabilitation programme in the Republic of Ireland.

But denying the application, she ruled there was a risk of re-offending.

"At this point in time I'm not going to take the risk of him going to Dublin," Mrs Bagnall said.

"The case before the court needs to be dealt with, if the offence is anything like it was described to me."

She remanded Davey in custody to appear again by video-link on March 22.A man who tried to choke his father with his legs after being challenged about playing loud music has avoided jail.

Jakub Borkowski was given a four-month suspended prison term for what his lawyer described as a "brawl" at their home in south Belfast.

The 22-year-old Polish national, of Chesham Park in the city, also slapped his sister when she intervened.

Belfast Magistrates' Court heard police were called to the house last Friday night amid reports Borkowski had carried out the assaults following a row.

He had disagreed with his father over a painting and decorating job they had carried out together.

Borkowski went to his bedroom and drank three tins of beer before being asked to turn down the music, a prosecution lawyer said.

The court heard he then turned violent, punching his father and attempting to choke him with his legs.

When his sister tried to get him off he slapped her to the face.

Borkowski also pushed a police officer and broke the lock on a door at the property.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of common assault and further offences of criminal damage and assault on police.

Defence counsel Michael Boyd said his client had been doing casual painting and decorating work with his father to earn money for his own family back in Poland.

"They had some trivial falling out over the standard of work on their last job," he told the court.

"This passed off, Mr Borkowski went to the shop and bought some beers, came back and was playing music loudly when his father challenged him.

"Matters got out of hand and ended up in a brawl with his father which, unfortunately, his sister got in the middle of."

Mr Boyd added that Borkowski is now likely to reconcile with his family.

"Managing his anger is something he is going to have to get a hold of," counsel acknowledged.

Imposing a total of four months imprisonment, District Judge Fiona Bagnall suspended the terms for 12 months.A bottled water station set up by Thames Water in Streatham Vale in London (Jonathan Brady)

Water shortages caused by burst pipes have led to problems for thousands of properties and the closure of two of manufacturing giant Jaguar Land Rovers UK plants.

The car firm said it was stopping production at its Solihull plant from Monday evening and Castle Bromwich site from Tuesday morning, after being advised that they needed to limit water supply.

Severn Trent said it had been working closely with the company and that it had agreed to stop production to help us target our supply.

Thank you to everyone for your continued patience as our teams are out fixing as many leaks as possible. We really appreciate your understanding, and want to reassure everyone we're doing what we can to fix the leaks and get things back to normal as soon as possible. pic.twitter.com/j3sI6DhN73  Severn Trent (@stwater) March 5, 2018

A Jaguar Land Rover spokeswoman, who said that at any one time there are 10,000 employees at the Solihull site and 3,000 at Castle Bromwich, could not confirm when the plants would re-open.

She added: We are closely monitoring the situation.

Thousands of properties in south east England have been affected, with Thames Water saying 5,000 were having issues, while Welsh Water said 4,500 customers were affected.

On Monday Thames Water, Affinity Water, South East Water and Southern Water all urged customers who do have running water only to use it where essential.

Severn Trent, which could not give a figure for the properties affected, said it had experienced an unprecedented number of burst pipes and had its treatment works at full pelt to get water out to customers.

Firms supplied bottled water at affected sites but such was the demand that some stations temporarily ran out.

While firms said they are doing their best to fix leaks and repair bursts amid milder conditions which followed the deep freeze of last week, the regulator has criticised some companies for an apparent planning failure.

Ofwat chief executive Rachel Fletcher said: While the recent severe freeze and thaw have undoubtedly had an impact on pipes and infrastructure, this weather was forecast in advance. A number of water companies appear to have fallen well short on their forward planning and the quality of support and communication theyve been providing, leaving some customers high and dry.

She added they may take action after supply is restored if firms are found not to have had the right structures and mechanisms in place to be resilient enough.

It follows criticism from Environment Minister Michael Gove last week, who warned water firms to clean up their act or face tougher regulation.

He told company bosses they had not been acting in the public interest, accusing some of playing the system for the benefit of wealthy managers and owners.

Streatham MP Chuka Umunna said he would be raising the water supply issue for his area and other parts of the UK in Parliament, while a Labour party colleague on Lambeth council tweeted a letter he said had been written to Mr Gove calling for an inquiry into Thames Waters handling of the situation.

Thames Water have shown they are not fit to manage London's water network. Enough is enough - @JenniferBrathwa and I are calling on the government to step in pic.twitter.com/FZHDJGcS0p  Mohammed Seedat (@moseeds) March 5, 2018

Councillor Mohammed Seedat tweeted: Thames Water have shown they are not fit to manage Londons water network. Enough is enough  @JenniferBrathwa and I are calling on the government to step in.

A number of schools could not open on Monday due to water issues.

A spokeswoman for Thames Water said they were grateful to those who had heeded their low usage warning and asked for continued co-operation from customers.

Meanwhile, the military was deployed to take emergency supplies  including food and fuel  to parts of Cumbria which have been left isolated following heavy snowfall that blocked roads.

An RAF Chinook and personnel from RAF Odiham have deployed to provide assistance to communities in Cumbria.



Crews and survival equipment specialists from No. 27 Sqn, accompanied by Royal Marines, headed to Carlisle Airport providing relief for communities cut off by heavy snow. pic.twitter.com/PviABJc4OZ  RAF Odiham (@RAF_Odiham) March 5, 2018

Most parts of the UK are thawing out, the Met Office said, after the barrage of snow that hit the country last week.

As temperatures rise above freezing elsewhere, eastern parts of Scotland remain subject to a snow warning, meteorologist Martin Bowles said.

He said while the thaw in the south east has been quick, the rapid rise in temperature is not unusual.

Its fairly quick but usually when you get a cold spell it will go up by 5 or 10 degrees in one or two days, he said.

There are currently 28 flood alerts in place, mainly in the south west and west of England.

A timber firm in East Sussex suffered thousands of pounds worth of damage after a pipe burst, a woman from the company said.

Trudy Holman tweeted: Sussex Timber Products Ltd in Crowborough burst pipe causing thousands of pounds of damage spent from early hours sat morning till sunday mid day pulling down ceilings and pulling out kitchens and carpets ruined new doors all been newly refurbished.

Temperatures rose over the weekend after the Beast from the East and Storm Emma brought a deep cold snap during last week, which saw the first day of meteorological spring.

Following a low of -5.6C (21.92F) in London last week, the mercury hit 11.2C (52F) in the capital on Monday.Tributes have been paid to a Shankill teenager who died suddenly at the weekend

Tributes have been paid to a Shankill teenager who died suddenly at the weekend.

Police are investigating the sudden death of Katie Nicole Ballentine after her body was discovered in a house at Crimea Court in north Belfast on Friday. Her death is not being treated as suspicious.

Last night pals shared social media messages in memory of the former Belfast Girls' Model pupil. Among the many messages, Lindsay Morrow wrote: "So sad - everyone needs to know no matter what there's always someone to talk to - and the next day is always a better day."

Ms Ballentine's funeral will take place from her home on Wednesday and afterwards to Roselawn Crematorium.

Casey Beattie posted: "Fly high babe. I can't believe this. Taken far too young. Wouldn't have met a nicer person than you. Sleep tight gorgeous. Forever in my heart. I'll always remember the laughs we had."

Damien Mathers added: "R.I.P Katie Ballentine, my heart breaks for your family and friends. Can't imagine how much pain they are feeling right now. Stay strong everyone, she's watching over you all."

Young people in the Shankill have been urged to seek support after Katie's death.

Stunned community workers appealed for struggling young people to reach out. Greater Shankill ACT said it had been "rocked by another death of a young person".

"Our thoughts go out to our close friend and his family circle who have lost a precious young girl," it added.

If you are affected by any issues in this article, call the Samaritans on 116123 or Lifeline on 080 8808 8000The DUP has accused the authors of a report looking into the reasons behind thousands of Protestants leaving the west bank of Londonderry during the Troubles of "rewriting history".

The report was published by human rights organisation the Pat Finucane Centre.

Read More

It found that between 1971 and 1981 the Protestant population of the west bank fell drastically, not only because of sectarian intimidation, but because of poor housing and a lack of economic development.

However, the DUP's East Londonderry MP Gregory Campbell and Foyle MLA Gary Middleton have hit out at the report.

Mr Campbell said: The report headlines itself as 'Protestant Migration from the West Bank'. 'Migration' is a term more commonly used to describe a natural phenomenon among some birds who migrate for the winter, who usually return when the weather improves.

"The primary and overwhelming cause of the exodus from the west bank was intimidation and violence. They did not migrate and 99% of them never returned.

"There was obvious and naked sectarianism in the campaign which resulted in people fleeing the west bank of the Foyle.

"Those who authored this report should listen to the voices of people directly affected and who have spoken of how the report seeks to 'diminish' their experience.

"They should not diminish it by increasing the significance of peripheral factors, by painting it as part of a much longer term pattern or blaming unionism for 90% of the Protestant population leaving the west bank in ten years.

"Instead of attempting to rewrite history, we should ensure future generations do not forget the reality of what happened as it has been chronicled on film, in print and on stage. No one should be subjected to any rewriting of this part of our shared history.

Expand Close Foyle DUP MLA Gary Middleton / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Foyle DUP MLA Gary Middleton

Between 1971 and 1981 the Protestant population of the west bank, also known as the cityside, dropped by two-thirds - from 8,459 in 1971 to 2,874 in 1981.

By 1991 it had fallen to 1,407, down 83% in those 20 years.

Mr Middleton said: Over the years there have been attempts to justify, rewrite and portray the exodus of Protestants from the west bank of Londonderry as being something much different from the reality at the time.

"The factual, evidence based position has been well documented by the thousands who were intimidated and attacked from their homes and who were left with no choice but to move out for the safety of themselves and their families.

"The truth has become uncomfortable for some however any attempts to rewrite the past will continue to be refuted.

The report, by Dr Helen McLaughlin and Dr Ulf Hansson, does say intimidation was a "highly significant factor", but suggests the situation was more complex.

It states: "The evidence shows that a number of complex and often inter-related 'push' and 'pull' factors contributed to Protestant migration from the west bank of Derry/Londonderry from 1969-1980 in particular."

The report says other reasons included "poor and limited housing on the cityside and the availability of better housing elsewhere", and the policy of skewing economic development and investment away from Derry.The posters were erected in Londonderry Strabane, and support the release of Tony Taylor

The erection of fake council posters calling for the release of leading a Londonderry dissident republican has outraged unionists.

Yesterday afternoon two large posters calling for the release of Tony Taylor and bearing the official Derry City and Strabane District logo were erected.

They were placed on the roundabout outside the Guildhall and at the 'Let the Dance Begin' tin sculptures in Strabane by people in official high-visibility council jackets.

The council has denied it commissioned or erected the posters.

Mr Taylor is a former IRA man who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 1994, and again jailed for three years in 2011.

However, his licence was revoked in March 2016.

Nationalist and republican councillors have long called for his release, stating there is no evidence of any wrongdoing. Back in 2016, the council backed a motion tabled by independent councillor Gary Donnelly to call for Mr Taylor's immediate release.

The message on the poster mirrors that of Mr Donnelly's motion, stating: "Former British Secretary of State Theresa Villiers, in conjunction with unaccountable intelligence agencies, has ordered the incarceration of Derry Republican Tony Taylor without charge or trial. This council calls for Tony's immediate release."

A large blue Derry City and Strabane District Council logo sits below the statement.

DUP councillor David Ramsey said that the posters were "insulting, dangerous and damaging to community relations".

"It is strange, to say the least, that an official council logo would be used to promote the release of a convicted terrorist," he said. "This man clearly wasn't reformed by his time in prison. For unionists, we just see this man as a danger to our community and to everyone in our city.

"I'm a councillor with Derry City and Strabane District Council.

"Our official council logo is there calling for the release of an unrepentant terrorist, which is very shocking.

"I would also say that it is dangerous because it's like saying that the council - although they did pass a motion to support the campaign for his release - is promoting his release.

"It's labelling the council as supporting a known terrorist.

"It's like putting two fingers up to the law.

"There are major questions to be asked on how someone can use the logo in this way. It is not good for community relations at all. It is an insult and it is dangerous."

A spokesperson for Derry City and Strabane District Council said that it did not commission or erect the posters.

Taylor has been in jail since March 2016, having previously been released on licence under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.

He had been sentenced to 18 years in jail in 1994 for planting an IRA bomb in Londonderry.

He was also jailed for three years in 2011 for possession of a rifle.

Taylor was released from Maghaberry Prison in 2014, but two years later the then Secretary of State, Theresa Villiers, revoked his licence "because of the risk he poses to the public".

No formal charges were laid against him.

Last year, Sinn Fein Mayor of Derry and Strabane Council Maoliosa McHugh came under fire for addressing a rally supporting Taylor's release while wearing his chain of office.

The move sparked unionist anger, with accusations that the mayor was unable to represent the whole community. However, Mr McHugh said there was "a corporate position as far as Tony Taylor is concerned and I was reflecting the corporate position of the council as mayor".The high-profile trial involving two Ulster Rugby accused of rape did not sit on Monday, due to a juror falling ill.

Last week a male juror was discharged from serving on the jury on medical grounds - and earlier today the trial was halted again due a second juror being unable to attend due to sickness.

The remaining members of the jury at Belfast Crown Court were told by Judge Patricia Smyth that at this stage it was not possible to say when the hearing will resume, but thanked them for agreeing to sit this weekend.

As the trial was due to move into the defence stage, the eight men and two women were called into court and told "one of your number is sick" and that enquiries that were being made "to ensure the trial remains on track."

Judge Smyth told the jury: "The juror will be in touch later this afternoon to confirm whether or not she is well enough to attend tomorrow, and you will be informed immediately whether or not you are required tomorrow.

"I cannot say at this stage when the trial will resume. That will depend on the juror.

After revealing the jurors have agreed to sit from 9am to noon this Saturday, Judge Smyth expressed her gratitude for their willingness to do so, which she said was "yet another infringement on your private lives."

Before allowing them to go for the day, Judge Smyth again issued a warning to the jurors not to speak to anyone about the case.

She said: "Please do be on your guard and avoid situations where you think people might question you or put you under pressure. Just tell people you cannot talk about this trial."

Ulster rugby players Paddy Jackson (26) from Oakleigh Park and 24-year old Stuart Olding, from Ardenlee Street, have both been charged with - and deny - rape, while Jackson denies a further charge of sexual assault.

Appearing alongside the pair are 26-year old Blane McIlroy, from Royal Lodge Road in Belfast, who has been charged with exposure, and Rory Harrison (25), who is facing charges if perverting the course of justice, and withholding information. They also deny the charges levelled against them.There has been a huge outpouring of support for a former Newtownabbey councillor after his 14-year-old grandson was killed in a crash in Australia.

Caleb Scott was killed after he was hit by a truck while out playing on his bike with a friend in the Whyalla Norrie area in the south of the country.

His parents described him as a "chatterbox" who was dependable and quirky.

He was the best kid ever, his devastated mother Stacey told the Adelaide-based The Advertiser.

His father Jon said the two boys reached a road junction with his friend pulling to a stop while the other carried on through.

Police told the family the boy's death would have been instantaneous.

The Scott family said the support from their community had been overwhelming.

Here in Northern Ireland there has been a similar outpouring of support.

His grandfather John Scott served twice as the mayor, first for Newtownabbey and later as head of the larger Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council. He was a representative of both the DUP and UUP before retiring from politics last year for health reasons.

He said he was "heartbroken" over the death. He is preparing to fly to Australia with wife Audrey and daughter Sarah for the funeral.

Expand Close Caleb / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Caleb

After posting about the incident on Facebook, people from across the community and political divide paid their condolences.

"So sorry for your loss John, thinking of you all," said former UUP MLA Jo-Anne Dobson.

Belfast councillor Jim Rodgers added: "Deeply sorry to hear of this latest tragedy to hit your family. My thoughts and prayers are with you all at this sad and difficult time. God Bless."

Alliance councillor John Blair said: "Dreadful news John. We are all thinking of you and your family."

Caleb is survived by his parents and brothers Jackson, 16, JJ, 11, and one-year-old Sammy.

A fundraiser has been launched to help support the family. to donate go to JustGiving.

It has been set up by Mr Scott's daughter Sarah and almost 500 was raised over the weekend.

We are overwhelmed with everyones messages of love and support at this extremely difficult time, said Sarah.

An SA community reeling from death An SA community is reeling from the death of a teenage boy in a shocking accident which happened at a notoriously dangerous intersection. www.7NEWS.com.au #7NEWS Posted by 7NEWS Australia on Saturday, March 3, 2018If govt institutions are broken and press silenced, we are going down a dark path

With the formation of a federal state and a left alliance-led government in power possibly for the next five years, what is in store for the democratic process in Nepal?A 36-year-old man has been arrested in Belfast on Monday on suspicion of arson with intent at a shop in the city centre.

The charges are in relation to an incident at a shop in the Donegall Street area on Friday, February 23.

The man is currently in custody assisting police with their enquiries.

At the time of the incident police received a report of a man entering a premises, pouring out a flammable substance, and then setting it alight.

The suspect then made off on foot.

Three people were in the store at the time of the incident.

Although no one was injured, all three were left badly shaken.

Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service attended the scene and extinguished the fire.A 42-year-old man, arrested under the Terrorism Act in west Belfast earlier today, has been released pending a report to the Public Prosecution Service.

The arrest was in relation to an investigation of violent dissident republican activity.

The man was taken to the serious crime suite at Musgrave police station but has now been released.A man has been arrested in the Ballymagowan area of Londonderry.

A 45-year-old man arrested in Derry on Monday after police searched a property in the city has been released pending a report to the Public Prosecution Service.

Police arrested the man under the Terrorist Act in the Magowan Park area of Creggan.

A number of items were removed from the house for further examination.The attack happened at a shop in Donegall Street in Belfast. Pic Google Maps

A 36-year-old man has been charged with arson with intent to endanger life and possession of Class A drugs in connection with an incident at a shop in Belfast.

The charges are in relation to an incident at a shop in Donegall Street area on Friday February 23.

At the time of the incident police received a report of a man entering a premises, pouring a flammable substance, and then setting it alight.

The man is due to appear at Laganside Courts in Belfast on Tuesday.Ulster Unionist Party MLA and ex soldier Doug Beattie has condemned Labour Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell for commemorating 'convicted terrorists'

The party's justice spokesperson condemned the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell following the revelation that he has a plaque commemorating the IRA and INLA Hunger Strikers displayed in his office.

Prior to becoming an MLA Mr Beattie was highly decorated in over 28 years of military service in the Royal Irish Regiment.

Read More

The 'H-Block Martyrs 1981' plaque hangs in the Labour MP's study in Hayes, it emerged in an interview he gave to the Financial Times.

The plaque referring to the 10 IRA and INLA prisoners who died during the hunger strikes, including Bobby Sands, was presented to Mr McDonnell in 2004 by Gerry Kelly, the convicted Old Bailey bomber turned Sinn Fein politician.

"I've always honestly and openly said I believe in a united Ireland, but the point was to try and get to a united Ireland without the violence," Liverpool-born Mr McDonnell told the FT

Perhaps the most troubling thing about the news that John ODonnells decision to keep a plaque to the Hunger Strikers on his office wall is that it comes as no real surprise," said Upper Bann MLA Beattie.

It is one thing for an obscure councillor or possibly even a backbench Labour MP to do this, but for someone who is the Shadow Chancellor to do it is a betrayal of the British Labour tradition.

The Hunger Strikers were convicted terrorists. They were in prison for terrorist acts including bombing and murder. One of them - Raymond McCreesh - was caught in possession of a weapon used by the IRA in the sectarian murder of ten workmen.

What kind of Labour politician chooses to commemorate someone who was caught in possession of a weapon used to murder ten innocent men as they headed home to their families after a days work?

Expand Close Doug Beattie / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Doug Beattie

A spokesman for Mr McDonnell said the plaque did not condone the previous actions of those involved in the hunger strikes.

"This was a gift to John for his work in promoting peaceful protests aimed at bringing both sides together during the Troubles.

"It merely commemorates the peaceful protest in prison, not the prior actions of those involved."Karol Kelly who was killed in Grafton Street, Derry in the early hours of Sunday 04 March 2018

A father-of-five stabbed to death in a Londonderry street has been described as a big gentle giant.

Karol Kelly (35) from the Beechwood area of the city died after an altercation with several men outside a house in Grafton Street.

Read More

It is believed his neck and face were slashed from his mouth to behind his ear and he was stabbed five times in the abdomen.

The attack happened at 2.40am yesterday in the quiet residential street, which is popular with young families and students at the nearby Ulster University.

Mr Kelly died in the back of an ambulance and his body was kept inside the vehicle in the sealed-off street for almost 12 hours before undertakers were able to remove it.

Police have launched a murder investigation and arrested three men aged 27, 20 and 19 in connection with the incident. They removed a silver Ford van from the street for forensic examination and were yesterday searching a nearby alleyway for the murder weapon.

Two men, aged 19 and 20, who were arrested on Sunday remain in police custody. Detectives have been granted a 36 hour extension to question them.

A 27-year-old man who was also arrested has been released on bail pending further enquiries.

Detective Superintendent Jason Murphy said: My thoughts first and foremost go to Karols family who woke up yesterday morning to the horrific news about the murder of their loved one. He was a father to five children aged between three and 15 years old and they all now face a lifetime without his presence. Karol was a devoted son, brother and uncle and he also leaves behind a partner.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close Karol Kelly Police and forensics officers at the scene of the murder of Karol Kelly / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Karol Kelly

Karols murder has caused widespread shock and distress within the Creggan area, particularly for those who witnessed this violent and senseless attack. The community in the Grafton Street area may hold vital information which could help to establish the circumstances surrounding Karols murder.

"I would like to thank the community for the help they have provided so far and would appeal to those with any information to contact detectives at Strand Road police station."

Detective Superintendent Murphy added: "I would particularly like to speak to anyone who was in the Grafton Street or Park Avenue areas of Derry on Sunday morning between 2.30am and 3am.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Police and forensics officers at the scene of the murder of Karol Kelly Lorcan Doherty The scene at Grafton Street, as PSNI officer investigate the murder of a 35-year-old man in the early hours of Sunday morning. Three men, aged 19, 20 and 27, have been arrested - Credit: Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. Lorcan Doherty The scene at Grafton Street, as PSNI officer investigate the murder of a 35-year-old man in the early hours of Sunday morning. Three men, aged 19, 20 and 27, have been arrested - Credit: Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. Lorcan Doherty The scene at Grafton Street, as PSNI officer investigate the murder of a 35-year-old man in the early hours of Sunday morning. Three men, aged 19, 20 and 27, have been arrested - Credit: Lorcan Doherty / Press Eye. Lorcan Doherty The scene at Grafton Street in the Rosemount area of Derry where a man was killed in the early hours of Sunday morning / Credit: Martin McKeown - Inpressics.com The scene at Grafton Street in the Rosemount area of Derry where a man was killed in the early hours of Sunday morning / Credit: Martin McKeown - Inpressics.com The scene at Grafton Street in the Rosemount area of Derry where a man was killed in the early hours of Sunday morning / Credit: Martin McKeown - Inpressics.com / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Police and forensics officers at the scene of the murder of Karol Kelly

"This includes people who were in the area prior to the altercation taking place and also anyone who witnessed the murder. Grafton Street is a quiet, residential area and I would like to thank people living here for their patience while police continue to investigate this brutal attack. Anyone with information should contact police on 101, quoting reference number 243 04/03/18."

Tributes poured in yesterday for the Londonderry father, who was described as a big gentle giant who would have given you the coat off his back and a gentleman.

In a Facebook post, Mr Kellys younger brother Paul wrote that his brother was now at peace.

In the early hours of this morning, my big brother was taken from this earth very quickly and very tragically, he said.

At this sad time, myself and my family take great comfort in knowing that he is at peace with himself now and in a far happier place, even given the nature of his death.

He added: For now, RIP Big Bruv and sleep tight, your demons have now left you to peace.

SDLP MLA Mark Durkan, who visited the victims father Fran and his mother Philomena yesterday, said that they were distraught at the loss.

The family are reeling at what has happened, he said. They are still in a real state of shock. The enormity of this tragedy will only sink in in the coming days, weeks, months and beyond.

Foyle MP Elisha McCallion said that Rosemount was a community in shock.

The community in the Rosemount area and indeed the wider city has been shocked by this incident, she said.

My thoughts are with the family and friends of this man and I want to express my condolences to them at this sad time.

The PSNI has now launched a murder inquiry and I would encourage anyone with any information that can help that investigation to get in contact with the police.Snow and ice could cause problems

The road has been closed.

Follow the latest updates from our travel feed below

The Dobbin Road in Armagh has been reopend folowing an earlier crash.

Diversions are in place and traffic is being diverted onto the Vicarage Road, delays are expected.

Our live updates from across Northern Ireland are compiled by @TrafficwatchNI, @BBCNITravel and @PSNITraffic.The PSNI is spending 125,000 a day on overtime as it struggles to plug gaps in its workforce, shocking figures reveal.

The bill is on course to reach nearly 50m this year. In some cases individual officers are drawing more than 40,000 a year in overtime on top of their normal salary. It has led to warnings that the PSNI's staffing levels are insufficient.

Read More

Mark Lindsay, who chairs the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, said there was a "crying need" for more officers.

The PSNI's spending on overtime was disclosed after a Freedom of Information request by the Belfast Telegraph.

It shows:

In the 12 months to last April, a total of 45.5m was spent on overtime - equivalent to 124,730 a day;

Over 1,787,400 hours of extra work were recorded in that time;

In the six months from April to September 2017, the bill rose by a further 24m, with almost 814,000 extra hours clocked up;

At the current rate of spending, the PSNI overtime bill will hit 48m this financial year - the highest total for four years;

One officer worked an astonishing 1,759 hours of overtime last year - equivalent to 73 24-hour days. Another worked 1,569 extra hours;

An officer claimed 44,555 in overtime last year, another claimed 44,318 and a third earned 42,393.

The PSNI said the highest overtime payments were for a "very few" specialist officers.

Deputy Chief Constable Drew Harris said budget cuts and political uncertainty meant it was difficult to recruit more officers.

He expects officer numbers to drop by 100 in the next financial year, leaving around 6,600. That is well below the 7,000 officers which Chief Constable George Hamilton previously stated he needs to police Northern Ireland effectively.

The Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said there was an urgent need for more officers.

"Obviously officers worked the hours to justify the overtime payments," Mr Lindsay said.

"If there wasn't a need for officers to be on shift, then the overtime bill would be a lot less, but there is a crying need as they tackle the full range of crime and terrorism in Northern Ireland.

"Overtime isn't the best way to maintain a police service to the public, but it has to be used as a last resort when you don't have the numbers on the ground to maintain normal work patterns.

"The issue for us is the fact that we have too few officers working excessive hours and shifts. They go the extra mile at some considerable cost to themselves and their families and, yes, that involves overtime, but there's no other option open to them."

In the 2016/17 financial year, covering the 12 months up to March 31 last year, a total of 1,787,406 extra hours were worked. The total bill was 45,526,927.

The three highest individual overtime claims were 1,759 hours (worth 44,555); 1,569 hours (44,318) and 1,558 hours (42,393).

The average salary in Northern Ireland for full-time employees is around 26,000.

In the first half of the current financial year, from April to September, the overtime bill stands at 24,032,851 - relating to 813,835 hours.

Ulster Unionist MLA Alan Chambers said the figures are proof that current PSNI staffing levels are insufficient.

Mr Chambers, a former RUC part-time reservist, said: "We have always maintained that staffing should reflect the figure first envisaged by the Patten Report, which set the PSNI staffing figure at 7,500.

"It should also be remembered that the Patten Report also recommended that there should be an enlarged Part Time Reserve of up to 2,500 officers.

"Given that the PSNI's own website says it has 6,689 officers as at February 1, 2018, it does not take a mathematical genius to work out the shortfall, nor should it come as a surprise that there is such a large overtime bill.

"What is needed is more officers, plain and simple. The ongoing political impasse and the consequent lack of a policing board is obviously not helping the situation."

SDLP MLA Dolores Kelly said the PSNI's staffing situation needed urgent review.

"People will be shocked by these figures and will question how such an overtime bill can be clocked up," she said.

"I would question why the money can be found for overtime, and yet the PSNI is unable to recruit additional officers."

Mr Harris, defending the PSNI's overtime bill, said: "In the last four years we've taken 160m out of the police budget so against that uncertainty it's difficult to keep your recruitment going."Kailali Prison inmates start fast unto death

Resham Chaudhary, the main accused in Tikapur incident, and 24 other co-accused have started fast unto death in Kailali District Prison from Sunday.Sean Savage, Mairead Farrell and Danny McCann, the three IRA members shot dead in Gibraltar

A Sinn Fein MEP has said she was "inspired" by Mairead Farrell, one of the IRA terrorists shot dead by the SAS in Gibraltar.

Martina Anderson, who was jailed for 13 years for conspiring to cause explosions, paid tribute to the would-be bomber on Twitter.

Farrell, who would have been 61 on Saturday, was one of three members of an unarmed Provisional IRA 'active service' unit shot dead on the Rock in 1988.

They had planned to bomb a parade of the Royal Anglian Regiment in the centre of the territory two days later.

Ms Anderson wrote: "Inspired by her back in the day and now. Mairead Farrell is still with us at every meeting we do, every step forward we take.

"Gone but never forgotten.

"Comrade Mairead Farrell's birthday would have been today."

The message was retweeted by former Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams.

In reply to the tweet, Mid Ulster Sinn Fein councillor Niamh Doris wrote: "Every time I feel like I'm having a difficult time at work I put on an interview from Mairead Farrell and just reflect on how she and so many others paved the way for me."

Meanwhile, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell has been slammed after it was revealed he has a plaque commemorating republican hunger strikers on the wall of his office.

The 'H-Block Martyrs 1981' plaque hangs in the Labour MP's study in Hayes, it emerged in an interview he gave to the Financial Times.

North Belfast DUP councillor Dale Pankhurst described the news as "disgusting, though unsurprising".

Former Tory Cabinet Minister Lord Tebbit, whose wife was paralysed in the 1984 IRA Brighton bombing, said yesterday that Mr McDonnell had been "caught out again".

"It only confirms the closeness of IRA killers with some parts of the Labour Party," Mr Tebbit said.(left to right) MEP Matt Carthy, Michelle OONeill, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier, Mary Lou McDonald and MEP Martina Anderson, during a meeting in Brussels on Monday. Credit: Sinn Fein/PA Wire

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald discussed the need "to safeguard the Good Friday Agreement" with the EU chief negotiator on Brexit.

Speaking following a meeting with Michel Barnier on Monday, the Sinn Fein leader said: Todays meeting with Michel Barnier was very productive. We discussed the need to safeguard the Good Friday Agreement (GFA), our economy North and south, and the rights of citizens.

We raised our continued frustration at the failure of British Government to bring forward any workable solutions to the problems caused by Brexit.

Michel Barnier clearly understands the challenges that Brexit presents to the GFA.

It is clear that the British Government can no longer hide behind rhetoric or vague aspirations.

What is required is clarity and legal certainty for our people, our businesses, and our agreements and that is what has been absent from the British Government.

Expand Close Arlene Foster AFP/Getty Images / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Arlene Foster

DUP leader Arlene Foster will lead a party delegation to meet Mr Barnier on Tuesday.

Speaking in advance of the meeting, Mrs Foster said: The DUP wants to see a sensible Brexit which works for Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom but also for our nearest neighbours too.

"We will not countenance any proposal which would create a new border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. The economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom must be respected and protected.

"72% of all goods leaving Belfast port are destined for Great Britain. We trade more with the rest of the United Kingdom than anywhere else - even combined. Placing a border down the Irish Sea would not just be politically unacceptable but would be economically catastrophic."

She added: "The December agreement needs to be translated fully and not some elements of it dismissed in order to fulfil one particular outcome. The draft legal text produced last week is not a full and faithful representation.

"It is utterly unacceptable for Northern Ireland to be treated separately from the rest of the United Kingdom as set out in the draft EU legal text. We will never support any such concept and the EU need to realise such concepts will never be accepted and agreed by the UK.Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has ruled out formal three-way talks between the UK, Ireland and the EU to look at Theresa Mays Brexit offer.

Updating MPs on her plans, Mrs May said the UK and Irish governments and the European Commission will be working together to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

But Mr Varadkar said it was not in Irelands interests to take part in formal three-way talks regarding the wider Brexit issues, and that what was needed was for Downing Street to produce more detailed proposals.

I have an ambition for our future with the EU - the right Brexit deal for Britain. Now let's get on with it. pic.twitter.com/zRCJzbWfyK  Theresa May (@theresa_may) March 4, 2018

He said talks would be limited to issues unique to Ireland.

Mrs May set out her position in the Commons following last weeks major speech on Brexit.

She told MPs: We will not go back to a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

Neither will we break up the UKs own common market with a border down the Irish Sea.

As Prime Minister I am not going to let our departure from the EU do anything to set back the historic progress made in Northern Ireland, nor will I allow anything that would damage the integrity of our precious union.

The UK and Irish governments and the European Commission will be working together to ensure that we fulfil these commitments.

But before Mrs Mays statement, the Irish PM said: There wont be tripartite or three-way talks.

What will happen is that there will be talks between the EU 27 and the UK, and Ireland is part of the EU 27 and were much stronger by the way as one of 27.

Mr Varadkar added consultations could take place between the two governments about issues that are unique to Ireland.

We will of course have negotiations about what could be done to avoid a hard border, but what we wont be getting into is a negotiation with the UK, or a three-way negotiation, Mr Varadkar said.

Thats not in our interest and not the way that this can be concluded.

The Taoiseach told RTEs Morning Ireland programme that he gave Mrs Mays Brexit speech on Friday a guarded welcome, but that detail was now needed from the UK Government.

What we want is not so much principles and aspirations and red lines, Mr Varadkar said.

What we want is detail, written down in black and white that can be codified into law and that is what is required.

Mrs Mays speech earned her breathing space from warring Remain and Leave factions in the Conservative Party, but her plans for maintaining a soft Irish border while leaving the customs union were thrown into doubt when Irish Tanaiste and foreign minister Simon Coveney said the EU may not accept her proposals.

Amid the ongoing row over the border, Sinn Fein leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle ONeill travelled to Brussels on Monday to meet EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

Just arrived in Brussels with @MaryLouMcDonald for meeting with @MichelBarnier to discuss case for special arrangements on the island of Ireland & protection of the Good Friday Agreement #NoBorder  Michelle ONeill (@moneillsf) March 5, 2018

After what she described as a frank, productive and positive meeting with Mr Barnier, Mrs McDonald voiced support for the Taoiseachs stance.

The Taoiseach is absolutely correct to say that the substantive negotiation is between the British government on one hand and the EU member states collectively on the other and in our view it is important to maintain that dynamic, she said.

The Sinn Fein president added: The ball is now in Mrs Mays court, the ball is now in the court of the British, who say they dont like what they have seen, they dont like the solution advanced by Europe, if they dont like that we would like to know what is their solution.

Mrs McDonald said Mr Barnier understood the importance of resolving the border problem.

I am happy to say we have a shared understanding that there cannot be a withdrawal agreement, much less an agreement on any future relationship between Britain and the European Union, in the absence of an answer to the Irish question, she said.

Mr Barnier, who is due to meet DUP leader Arlene Foster and deputy leader Nigel Dodds in Brussels on Tuesday, said his discussions with Sinn Fein had been positive.

Good meeting this morning with @MaryLouMcDonald and @moneillsf @sinnfeinireland - essential to listen to all voices in Northern Ireland. Meeting @DUPleader tomorrow. Working to ensure the #UKs orderly withdrawal #Brexit pic.twitter.com/ckNDwO1eeS  Michel Barnier (@MichelBarnier) March 5, 2018

He tweeted: Essential to listen to all voices in Northern Ireland.

Mrs May has rejected Brussels proposals that would see Northern Ireland kept in an effective customs union with the EU as a fallback in case other solutions cannot be found.

She has proposed technological solutions and an exemption from new restrictions on the 80% of cross-frontier trade carried out by smaller businesses.

Mrs May told MPs: We cannot escape the complexity of the task ahead.

We must build a new and lasting relationship while preparing for every scenario.

But with pragmatism, calm and patient discussion, I am confident we can set an example to the world.Sergeant Maurice McCabe arrives to be questioned at the Disclosures Tribunal at Dublin Castle (Niall Carson/PA)

An Irish police whistleblower said an unfounded sexual assault allegation ruined his life forever.

Sgt Maurice McCabe has accused the Garda force of malpractice including the quashing of penalty points.

The saga surrounding the handling of his claims of wrongdoing among gardai in Cavan-Monaghan contributed to the end of the careers of former Taoiseach Enda Kenny, two former chiefs of the Garda and ex-justice minister Frances Fitzgerald.

A decision was taken not to prosecute him following a false allegation in 2006 while he was an officer in Bailieborough, Co Cavan by a complainant who later confronted him outside the Garda station.

A Garda whistleblower whose case almost brought down the Irish Government has arrived at Dublin Castle to give evidence to the Disclosures Tribunal. pic.twitter.com/oQcRuYI19I  michael mchugh (@mmchugh02) March 5, 2018

Sgt McCabe said he was 100% exonerated by the Garda investigation.

A letter from the officer said: I am married with five children and this scurrilous allegation has ruined my life forever.

I am a completely changed person in that I dont trust anyone any more.

He sought the Director of Public Prosecutions directions: All I seek is fairness.

He appeared before a public inquiry at Dublin Castle which considered the handling of the complaint against him.

The Disclosure Tribunal led by Mr Justice Peter Charleton is probing how the Garda handled Sgt McCabes whistleblowing.

Part of the Tribunals terms of reference is considering whether the false and unfounded child sex abuse allegation made against Sgt McCabe in 2006 was used against him.Thousands of sea creatures have washed up on beaches after the 'beast from the east' (Bex Lynam, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust/PA)

Thousands of crabs, starfish, mussels and lobsters have washed up along the UK east coast following the big freeze and stormy weather, wildlife experts said.

Tens of thousands of the marine animals are lying, ankle-deep in places, along the Holderness coast in Yorkshire, while similar scenes have been reported along the coast including in Norfolk and Kent.

Most of the animals on the Yorkshire coast are dead, except for lobsters which Yorkshire Wildlife Trust have been working with local fishermen to rescue, the charity said.

Expand Close Live lobsters were gathered in buckets to be released back into the sea (Bex Lynham, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Live lobsters were gathered in buckets to be released back into the sea (Bex Lynham, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust/PA)

Lobsters that were still alive were gathered in buckets and taken to tanks in Bridlington for care, before being put back into the sea as the weather improves.

The beast from the east led to a 3C drop in sea temperatures last week, causing sea animals to hunker down and reduce their activity level, according to Bex Lynam, North Sea marine advocacy officer at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.

This makes them vulnerable to rough seas  they became dislodged by large waves and washed ashore when the rough weather kicked in.

Larger animals such as dolphins are more mobile and can save themselves by swimming away when this sort of thing happens, she said.

Lobsters are one of the few species still alive  thats why were saving them with local fishermen.

This area is very important for shellfish and we work alongside fishermen to promote sustainable fisheries and protect reproductive stocks. Its worth saving them so that they can be put back into the sea and continue to breed.

The Wildlife Trusts senior living seas officer Dr Lissa Batey said it was not possible to prevent natural disasters such as the die-off as a result of the cold.

But she said: We can mitigate against declining marine life and the problems that humans cause by creating enough protected areas at sea and by ensuring that these sites are large enough and close enough to offer fish, crustaceans, dolphins and other marine life the protection they require to withstand natural events such as this.

Marine life washed up on the Holderness Coast - an estimated 25,000 lobsters were transported to merchants tanks at Bridlington and released at sea this morning in deeper water. #beastfromtheeast #marinewashup pic.twitter.com/wasUeS2XxH  Yorkshire Wildlife Trust (@YorksWildlife) March 5, 2018

The Holderness Inshore area is already designated as a marine conservation zone, and the Government is due to announce a consultation into more such protected areas this year.

Only 50 of 127 originally recommended sites around England have so far been designated, which wildlife campaigners say is not enough to form a sufficient blue belt of protected areas in the seas.

The Government has also been warned it must do more to manage protected areas in the UKs seas to ensure they are not just paper parks.President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were in Florida at the time (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

Authorities have identified the man who fatally shot himself in front of the White House.

Police say it was 26-year-old Cameron Ross Burgess, recently of Maylene, Alabama, who approached the fence along the north side of the White House and fired several rounds from a handgun shortly before midday Saturday.

President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump were in Florida at the time, and the Secret Service said no member of the first family was at the White House then.

Authorities say none of the shots appeared to have been directed toward the White House.

Final Update: Secret Service can confirm that no member of the First Family was at the @WhiteHouse during today's incident outside the fence line.  U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) March 3, 2018

Media outlet Al.com reported that an Auburn University spokesman said Burgess graduated from the school in 2013.

The newspaper reported state records for Burgess revealed no criminal history.1. It is often asserted that the simpler the wedding ceremony, the more likely the marriage will be a success. But what's wrong with having a party? Even if it does cost 60,000 to entertain all your friends in a hotel over the space of three days.

2. One dodge is to marry in some exotic location abroad - that keeps down the cost because so many guests won't travel to Seville, Barbados or the Seychelles for the nuptials. A travel site specialising in destination weddings has seen a 14% increase in sales to faraway wedding locations over the space of a year.

3. But be sure that you get all the paperwork correct. There was a poignantly comical case of a group of Irish couples who married in Lourdes and only discovered several decades later that they were never legally married at all, as they had omitted a separate civil ceremony obligatory in France (Good rom-com movie material).

4. There's nothing wrong with a healthy row every now and again. Domestic violence is dreadful, but I'm not comfortable with the idea that a robust slagging-off constitutes emotional abuse. Moreover, when it comes to verbal invective, women are every bit the equal of men.

5. Togetherness is all very well, but it's refreshing to make space for separate hobbies just the same.

6. There was a British sociological study recently which claimed that bad girls make good wives. I can identify with that. Bad girls are less likely to imagine that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence - they've been there and they know it isn't.

7. Sex is essential to marriage. A 'marriage blanc', where consummation has not taken place, was always grounds for annulment. Yet there have been happy marriages which were sexless or became so. The writers Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West had a blissfully contented marriage though he was a homosexual and she was (a highly active) lesbian. Nicolson's diaries are full of utter devotion to Vita and she relied on him totally.

8. Some old wives' advice about marriage: Kissin' don't last, cookin' do. Don't marry for money, but don't go courtin' where it ain't. My mother liked the Old Testament advice, "Never let the sun go down on your anger".

9. It is said that the best way to avoid a broken marriage is not to have divorced parents. An example from the royals: Diana was emotionally disturbed by her parents' bad marriage and distressing divorce. Kate Middleton is sensibly grounded because her middle-class parents seem to be in an intact and successful union.

10. Many cultures still practise arranged marriages, and it was not unusual in Ireland up to the 1940s (although, judging from literature, there could be a certain amount of stigma around a 'made match', even where the spouses were willing). Some Asians claim a skilled matchmaker can put couples together happily, with an emphasis on common interests, shared values and mutual respect.

11. But there's no accounting for the human heart. I knew a journalist who walked into the lift of a tall building, clapped eyes on a beautiful nurse therein and two weeks later they eloped - and lived happily ever after.

12. Can May-September marriages work? The conventional wisdom is that the dice are stacked against a big age gap, but look at Emmanuel and Brigitte Macron, with a 24-year difference, and the slightly, em, unusual background that she was his teacher when he was a teenage boy. They're still serenely together, but when he's 60, she'll be 84. Challenging.

13. The veteran agony aunt Irma Kurtz gives women this advice: "Never date a man you haven't smelled." I know a woman who couldn't decide between two swains, so chose the one whose smell attracted her. They're happy together.

14. International unions have become much more common with globalisation. But when Mary Banotti, as an MEP, found herself sorting out tug-of-love child problems occasioned by international marital separations, she came to the conclusion that there's a lot to be said for the boy (or girl) next door. National, ethnic or religious differences may increase friction. Just saying.

15. 'Marriage equality' has a nice ring to it, but I never did know of an equal marriage - it's a power struggle. But the power shifts in a successful union over the years - the weaker spouse can become stronger, and vice versa.

16. You just have to get along with your in-laws. Romeo and Juliet's marriage would have been wrecked if the Montagues and Capulets remained mutually hostile.

17. All systems have seen the purpose of wedlock as begetting children. Today, some couples simply don't want kids. But maybe they should ask, 'Do I want to be a grandparent?', rather than, 'Do I want to be a parent?'. The pioneering social reformer Beatrice Webb was certain she didn't want children during her hectic prime. Later on, she regretted this choice.

18. Byron said that "wedlock's the devil", but he didn't foresee the studies which tell us that you're likely to be healthier, saner, live longer, and be better-off financially if you are married.

19. A veteran husband's wise advice: "When you're wrong, admit it. When you're right, say nothing."

20. There are rules for maintaining marriage, but some partnerships which defy all the rules are wonderful nonetheless.Stephen Nolans brand of journalism can rankle with some, but it serves a vital purpose

Sinn Fein wants Stephen Nolan off the airwaves. I know this because I read in the Irish News a column by Jim Gibney, one of the best-known of Sinn Fein's chorus of canaries.

Until they were replaced by technology in the 1980s, canaries were employed underground to detect dangerous gases.

Sinn Fein employs them to test out risky ideas in public.

Mr Gibney is an obedient servant of his party who often demonstrates his unquestioning loyalty.

I got a laugh out of his tribute to the Dear Leader as he stepped down as president of Sinn Fein.

Gerry Adams, he explained, "is a warm, sensitive, thoughtful and approachable person. He is brave and fearless. He has a zany sense of humour and enjoys a laugh".

Most republicans, apparently, wanted this "unique and special person, a national and international statesman", to lead the party "forever".

And so on and nauseatingly on.

Mr Gibney's charity does not extend to Stephen Nolan, who is clearly getting under the skin of the republican powers that be.

Last week he accused Mr Nolan of using his show in "a divisive and destructive manner" that "helped collapse the north's institutions over the heating financial scandal and helped scuttle the most recent draft agreement".

Now, before I go to Mr Nolan's defence, I'd better clarify a few things.

I groan about Press hysteria as much as most people; I think, on Brexit, much of the media is undermining the negotiating position of the United Kingdom, and I feel sorry for politicians trying to function at a period in history when they have no privacy and everything they say and write is subjected to intense and often unfair scrutiny.

But I believe a free Press is a vital prerequisite for a healthy democracy, and care passionately about free speech and diversity of opinion, and would be as horrified about the demise of The Guardian as of The Daily Mail.

Nolan seems to me to be in the great tradition of troublesome journalists obsessed with peering under stones and shining an unforgiving light on what lives under them.

Despite listening to him frequently and being interviewed by him sometimes, I've no idea about his political opinions and was recently rather baffled by being described on Twitter by one of my more inventive critics as "a Nolan lackey".

The distinguished historian Professor Brian Walker recently accused Mr Nolan on his own show of constant negativity, escalating tension, being part of Northern Ireland's problems and deliberately excluding moderate voices.

I am a friend and admirer of Brian's (he took me to my first bonfire), but although I honour him for taking on the lion in his own den and doing so very ably, I had to come down on Stephen Nolan's side.

One of the greatest failures of the media in the last few years came from its unwillingness to listen to the angry people who brought about victory for both Brexit and Donald Trump.

In my experience of him, Mr Nolan loves lively debate for its own sake, and though I can get as fed up as anyone with rudeness and abuse, I rejoice that Joe and Mary Public have a platform where no one will hush them for having unfashionable or immoderate opinions.

Which takes us back to Mr Gibney, who is trying, bizarrely, to transfer the blame for bringing down Stormont from Sinn Fein to Mr Nolan.

He wrecked the deal, apparently, by fanning the "roaring bellows" of unionist opinion.

Sinn Fein is furious that media voices accuse it of using the Irish language as a weapon in the anti-unionist culture wars, and is focusing its anger on Mr Nolan, who apparently "belittled" one of their politicians by repeating Gregory Campbell's bad curry-my-yoghurt joke to him.

Apparently, there's "popular opposition growing on the airwaves rejecting Nolan's style of journalism" and a petition calling on him to apologise.

I'm one of those journalists Sinn Fein has tried to silence in the past, and it is sometimes succeeded in preventing me going on air.

It's time for the public to stand up for Stephen Nolan.

Ruth Dudley Edwards is the author of Newspapermen: Hugh Cudlipp, Cecil Harmsworth King And The Glory Days Of Fleet StreetLanding rights at any airport except Haneda, says Japan

Japan has said it is ready to provide landing rights to Nepali carriers at all airports except Haneda Airport in Tokyo during discussions over amending the air service agreement (ASA) between the two countries, officials of the Tourism and Civil Aviation Ministry said.Over the past several years I have been working on a book, Migration And The Making Of Ireland. It examines how immigration, as well as emigration, has shaped life on this island since 1600 or so.

Much of the focus is on migrants who have arrived during the last few decades, such as Poles, Chinese and Muslims from many countries. There is also a focus on earlier groups, including Jews from what is now Lithuania, Huguenots and, of course, settlers from Scotland and England.

At an early stage in the writing I had a heated exchange with an irate friend on the proper use of terminology.

I used the term "migrant" to refer to settlers from Scotland, who were part of the early-17th century Plantation of Ulster. But he insisted that those who arrived in Ireland during the 17th century could not be described as "migrants".

Yet, the Plantation of Ulster included waves of settlement by ordinary labourers, artisans and by people whose descendants migrated onwards to North America as indentured servants.

Some of those who settled, or were planted, in Ireland had migrated in order to flee persecution elsewhere. Many of the Catholic Irish who emigrated from this island were no less part of settler overseas colonisation projects than those who came to Ulster from Scotland and England.

Emigration from Ireland mostly occurred to places that were, or had once been, part of the British Empire.

Both Catholic and Protestant emigrants became part of colonial systems as soldiers, policemen, administrators and as missionaries.

We should be careful, some historians advise, about concentrating too much on plantations in seeking to understand social change in 17th century Ireland.

We focus on plantations and their owners, because we have considerable documentary records of these and because we have far poorer records of how ordinary migrants who settled in Ulster lived their day-to-day lives.

For the most part, ordinary migrants remain invisible. We know, perhaps, where they came from and their range of occupations, but not their particular stories.

A pamphlet published in 1610 by Thomas Blennerhasset, an undertaker with 2,000 acres in Co Fermanagh, exhorted his fellow Englishmen to settle in Ulster, but only if they had the necessary skills and character.

Tradesmen, smiths, weavers, masons, carpenters and husbandsmen were needed and would succeed in Ulster.

Ministers of God's word were also needed. Poor, indigent fellows were advised to stay where they were; they would starve in Ulster.

Histories of the Ulster Plantations give considerable details of the landholdings, successes and failures of landowners and the lives of clergy, but when it came to ordinary settlers, these were thin on detail.

The stereotypes applied to subsequent generations of Ulster Presbyterians did not necessarily apply to their first generation settler ancestors.

Take for example the testimony of Andrew Stewart, who was the son of a Presbyterian minister who settled in the Six Mile Water Valley in south Antrim during the 1620s: "From Scotland came many, and from England not a few, yet all of them generally the scum of both nations, who for debt, or breaking and fleeing from justice, came hither, hoping to be without fear of man's justice in a land where there was nothing, or but little, as yet, of the fear of God."

Many of the Presbyterian ministers who went to Ulster prior to 1625 were disappointed to find many settlers fairly indifferent to religion. Presbyterianism did not flourish until a few decades after James's plantation.

In his 1914 book The Ulster Scot: His Religion, the Rev James Barkley Woodburn sought to explain this early ambivalence by likening early Scottish settlements to mining camps: "The first to emigrate to a mining camp are generally those who have not succeeded at home, or who have been in debt, or who are dissatisfied with their present condition."

Of course, such stereotypes may be no more true than ones associated with present day immigrants.

What many migrants share is a desire for a better life for themselves and their families, initiative and, perhaps, a sense of adventure.

In writing the book, the challenge has been to find similar ways of addressing the experiences of emigrants and immigrants across space and time, for all that different political, economic, cultural and religious contexts need to be understood.

The basic similarities between many migrant journeys make it possible to fruitfully examine both immigration and emigration in the same breath.

Most immigrants and emigrants who left, or came to, Ireland journeyed under circumstances that were not of their choosing.

They were often helped by family members, who had already come to, or left, Ireland.

Different religions have provided broadly similar support systems for emigrants from Ireland (Quakers, Presbyterians, Catholics and Jews) and among immigrants to Ireland (Jews, Pentecostals, Russian Orthodox and, more recently, Muslims).

The kinds of wider circumstances that push and pull migrants from one place to another recur again and again - be it the 17th century or the 21st century.

Bryan Fanning is Professor of Migration at University College Dublin. His new book, Migration And The Making of Ireland, is published by UCD Press, priced 20The Public Health Agency are encouraging the public to show their support for mums who breastfeed

Despite having made real progress over the years, Northern Ireland still has the lowest breastfeeding rates in the UK and one of the lowest in Europe.

The Public Health Agency (PHA) recently launched the campaign Not Sorry Mums to promote the benefits of breastfeeding and encourage the public to show their support for mums who breastfeed.

While most mums here have positive experiences breastfeeding research commissioned by the PHA indicated that some women were not particularly comfortable breastfeeding outside the home and in front of members of their extended family. Recent media coverage of women being asked to stop breastfeeding in public has also reinforced the perception that breastfeeding is not acceptable in public.

Janet Calvert, Regional Breastfeeding Lead for the Public Health Agency said:

Support within the family and from the wider community can really make a difference. Creating that supportive environment for breastfeeding is something we can all play an active part in as it can help mums feel more comfortable about feeding in public, something that can be quite daunting for first time mums and we know many mums are apprehensive about it.

For some mums we know getting started isnt easy and thats why support is crucial at the beginning and in sustaining breastfeeding. While breastfeeding is natural it is also a learned skill. It usually takes a few weeks for mother and baby to get used to breastfeeding.

Janet continued: "If the early weeks are challenging it can be really difficult for many mums to keep going with breastfeeding. But there is help and support available. Your midwife and health visitor will be able to give you practical advice and you can also get help from local breastfeeding support groups and advice from voluntary breastfeeding counsellors."

Visit www.notsorrymums.info to find out more about breastfeeding. The site has information on mother-to-mother support, which is available from local breastfeeding support groups and peer support volunteers, and information for partners and families who can offer support to mothers. It also covers what dads need to know about breastfeeding, offering practical advice and tips on how they can help their partner.

You can also click here to view the interactive map to find breastfeeding support groups in your area or join the conversation about breastfeeding support using #NotSorryMumsSUNDAY LIFE NEWS - H-Block Martyrs 1981 plaque whihc hangs in the office of Labour's Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell who has said he would be "ruthless" about managing spending and said his ambition is to restore credibility in economic debate. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is under fire after it was revealed he has a plaque commemorating republican hunger strikers on the wall of his office.

The 'H-Block Martyrs 1981' plaque hangs in the Labour MP's study in Hayes, it emerged in an interview he gave to the Financial Times.

The plaque referring to the 10 IRA and INLA prisoners who died during the hunger strikes, including Bobby Sands, was presented to Mr McDonnell in 2004 by Gerry Kelly, the convicted Old Bailey bomber turned Sinn Fein politician.

Liverpool-born Mr McDonnell told the FT: "I've always honestly and openly said I believe in a united Ireland, but the point was to try and get to a united Ireland without the violence."

The senior Shadow Cabinet minister has previously apologised for demanding that people "honour" the "bombs and bullets and sacrifice" made by the IRA and hunger strikers.

Former Cabinet Minister Lord Tebbit, whose wife was permanently paralysed in the 1984 Brighton bomb, said yesterday that Mr McDonnell had been "caught out again".

"It only confirms the closeness of IRA killers with some parts of the Labour Party," he said.

Asked if Mr McDonnell should remove the plaque, Lord Tebbit said: "I think I know where I would like to put it up."

A spokesman for Mr McDonnell said: "This was a gift to John for his work in promoting peaceful protests aimed at bringing both sides together during the Troubles.

"It merely commemorates the peaceful protest in prison, not the prior actions of those involved."Zafar Iqbal, who was targeted in a suspected militant attack on March 3, 2018, gives autographs as students surround him and his wife, Yasmeen Haque, at the Ekushey Book Fair in Dhaka, Feb. 12, 2015.

As he lay bleeding, Zafar Iqbal, a Bangladeshi scientist widely viewed as a pioneer of Sci-Fi writing in his country who spoke out against radicalism and faith-based politics, reportedly showed mercy on the man who allegedly attacked him with a knife.

Iqbal, who was recovering Monday at a military hospital in Dhaka from his stab wounds, pleaded for students to spare the suspect, identified as Faizur Rahman, soon after a group of enraged youths ganged up on Rahman and roughed him up following Saturdays attack at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in the northeastern city of Sylhet.

Do not beat him. Save him. Check if he is my student, the professor told a political science student at the time, according to a report in BDNews24.com, a local news website.

Iqbal is a professor of computer science and engineering at the university, where he heads up its electrical engineering department.

The attack occurred during a robotic fair at the university while Zafar Iqbal was guarded by four police officers.

This attack on Dr. Zafar Iqbal is directly an attack on free intellectual thinking and an attack on all writers and publishers, publisher Robin Ahsan, the proprietor of Srabon Prokashoni, a secular publishing house, told BenarNews.

Iqbal, 65, is considered a leader of Bangladeshs progressive movement and a pioneer in science fiction in the Bengali language, who has written several non-fiction books on physics and mathematics. In addition, he writes columns published in mainstream newspapers.

His father was a policeman who was killed while fighting against Pakistan and its collaborators in the 1971 war of independence, when Bangladesh was known as East Pakistan. During the decades since, Iqbal has actively spoken out against alleged war criminals who had sided with Pakistani forces, as well as against religious-based political parties and organizations.

Ahsan described Iqbal as a writer who directed his works at young people. He is important for writing the history of the Liberation War [the 1971 war] for kids.

Two brothers have similar literary careers. Elder brother Hunayun Ahmed, who died in 2012, was known as a best-seller writer of Bangla literature. Younger brother Ahsan Habib is one of the countrys best cartoonists and edits Bangladeshs only cartoon-focused humor magazine, Unmad.

He is a voice against Islamic radicalism and sectarianism. He was not silent while they killed writers and publishers, Ahsan said of Zafar Iqbal, referring to a string of murders that targeted secular writers in Bangladesh in 2015 and 2016.

Among those killed was writer and blogger Avijit Roy who was fatally stabbed after leaving the Ekushey Book Fair on the Dhaka University campus in February 2015. In October of that year, Faisal Arefin Dipan, the founder of Jagriti Publishers who published works by Roy and Zafar Iqbal, suffered a similar fate.

Dipans widow, Razia Rahman Jolly, published two more books by Zafar Iqbal.

He is a bird of light. People living in darkness are obviously trying to kill him, she said.

In online postings, radical groups have claimed that Zafar Iqbals writings have insulted the prophet Dawud and his son, prophet Sulaiman.

Razia Rahman said she realized that her actions could have consequences.

After writers, maybe publishers will be the targets, she said.Two suspected Maute militants were captured in Manila, including one believed to have participated in killing several Christian hostages during last years siege of the southern Marawi by Islamic State-linked extremists, the military said Monday.

Police and civilian intelligence operatives apprehended Nasser Lomondot, a sub-leader of the Maute gang, and Rizasalam Lomondot in the Tondo district of the Philippine capital on Saturday, authorities said. Officials did not say if the two were related.

Army Infantry Division spokesman Maj. Ronald Suscano said the suspects were captured after being observed in the area. The operatives seized pistols and a hand grenade.

Lomondot was responsible for the killing of some of the women and children hostages at the height of the five-month Marawi siege, Suscano told BenarNews.

In May 2017, Maute gang members joined Islamic State (IS) local leader Isnilon Hapilon when his group ransacked Marawi, destroying a local church, killing Christians and holding dozens of hostages, including women and children.

Backed by foreign fighters from Southeast Asia and the Middle East, Hapilons group engaged government troops in some of the fiercest fighting in recent years, forcing President Rodrigo Duterte to call for military assistance from long-time military allies the United States and Australia.

Successive air raids flattened much of Marawi, and a portion of the once-prosperous predominately Muslim city remains off limits to the citys 200,000 residents, many of whom remain in evacuation centers four months after the battle ended.

Hapilon and the top leaders of the Maute gang were killed in October, but Duterte said dozens were believed to have escaped and fanned out into remote areas to recruit new fighters. At least 1,200 people were killed in the battle, most of them militants.

Suscano said the arrested militants were part of a Maute gang that engaged troops in a gun battle in January in a town outside Marawi. Three enemy fighters were wounded and arrested in that firefight.

The police authorities in Manila will file appropriate criminal charges, Suscano said.

Foreign fighters

Troops were continuing to receive intelligence reports that foreign fighters were trying to make their way into the south to link up with what remains of those who were routed in Marawi, he said. In particular, militants could likely sneak into remote parts of Lake Lanao near Marawi, Suscano warned.

Philippine officials have arrested at least four foreigners since January  including a suspected IS bomber from the Middle East and a Spanish national  on anti-terrorism charges.

Murad Ebrahim, leader of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, formerly the countrys largest Muslim separatist force until it signed a peace deal with Manila, said his men had received intelligence reports of foreigners moving into areas in the south believed controlled by the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG).

ASG is a kidnap for ransom gang specializing in bombings, kidnappings and beheadings and Hapilon was one of its commanders before he pledged allegiance to IS.

Foreign terrorist organization

Last month, the U.S. government officially designated the Maute group on its list of foreign terrorist organizations affiliated with the IS, making it a crime for any citizen to provide, or attempt to conspire to provide material support or resources to the group.

Meanwhile, Duterte, who visited Marawi last week, vowed to speed up the rehabilitation of the city, even as large parts of the city still lay in ruins.

He inaugurated a one-hectare (2.5-acre) housing area for those displaced by the fighting on the outskirts of the city, and delivered a message for the community.

I am offering you my heartfelt apology. I ask for forgiveness, Duterte said. That is why I promised you that right after the war, rehabilitation will start immediately. Our soldiers fought the Maute terrorists to recover your houses.

He vowed to fully rebuild and rehabilitate Marawi by the time he ends his six-year term in 2022, even at the cost of borrowing a huge amount to pay for the projects.Moncks Corner, SC (29461)

Today

A mix of clouds and sun during the morning will give way to cloudy skies this afternoon. High near 85F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Overcast. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 71F. Winds light and variable.Pakistan PM arrives in Kathmandu for two-day visit

Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has arrived here in Kathmandu for a two-day official visit on Monday. He is leading a 32-member delegation.Bowling Green State Universitys Center for Archival Collections will host Roger Pickenpaugh March 15 as he talks about the Civil War and his award-winning book, Johnsons Island: A Prison for Confederate Officers. Pickenpaugh is the winner of the centers 2016 Local History Publication Award.

Johnsons Island: A Prison for Confederate Officers tells the story of what was expected to be the Unions sole military prison in Sandusky Bay from its planning stages until the end of the Civil War. Pickenpaugh draws on diaries and prison records to provide a depiction of day-to-day life.

Pickenpaugh recently retired after a 30-year teaching career at Shenandoah Middle School in Sarahsville, Ohio. His books have focused mainly on outstanding Ohio weather events and the Civil War. He has devoted a great amount of study to the topic of Civil War prisons.

Captives in Gray begins at 4 p.m. March 15 in the Pallister Conference Room, Jerome Library. The lecture is open to all, free of charge and does not require advanced registration.

To individuals with disabilities, please indicate if you need special services, assistance or appropriate accommodations to participate in this event by contacting Accessibility Services at access@bgsu.edu or 419-372-8495. Please notify us prior to the event.The company will utilize this facility to commercialize worlds first highly-accurate non-invasive diabetes tests.

DiabetOmics, a global medical diagnostics company that is developing the worlds first patented non-invasive, saliva-based diabetes monitoring test has opened its first manufacturing facility in Hyderabad. Honble Minster for IT, Municipal Administration & Urban Development, Industries & Commerce, Public Enterprises, Shri. K.T.Rama Rao inaugurated this facility recently. DiabetOmics will utilize this facility to commercialize their highly accurate, easy-to-use, bluetooth-enabled and non-invasive diabetes point of care (POC) tests and maternal health tests in India and around the world. Ventureast invested about 4 million in DiabetOmics in 2015.

This new facility, which is situated in a three acre plot in Muppireddipally will directly employ about 100-120 people. The overall capacity of the plant will be to produce 8-10 million test strips a year and 10,000 to 15,000 assembled readers to begin with. The company has completed construction of their world-class manufacturing plant and the technology transfer from USA. The commercial production is expected to begin in the next quarter this year and will target the Indian and European markets.

The global burden of diabetics is over 375 million, with India (72 million) and China (109 million) as major epicenters for diabetes. Dr. Srinivasa Nagalla, CEO of DiabetOmics Inc., said We are pleased to bring these innovative diagnostic tests to the market beginning later part of this year which will be a huge paradigm shift for the patients around the world particularly for emerging countries like India where the affordability of quality care is a major burden for many low income families.

In addition to saliva-based diabetes tests, the company is currently developing point-of-care tests for rapid screening of Type I diabetes and early detection of diabetic kidney and eye complications. Across the world, it has been identified that Preeclampsia is the second leading cause of maternal death and gestational diabetes which is a common prenatal complication affecting 16 percent pregnancies.

Mr. Venkatadri Bobba, Director- DiabetOmics & General Partner, Ventureast said, DiabetOmics has come a long way from the discovery of the Salivary Glycoproteins as the best biomarkers for Glycemic Index to product and Bluetooth-enabled readers. The new plant will be in full compliance with global regulatory requirements and will showcase high quality and low cost manufacturing capabilities of our highly qualified & well trained staff and the ecosystem enabled by the State of Telangana. Most importantly, it is gratifying to note that many patients and their families could benefit from our innovations beginning later part of this year.

Dr. Varaprasad Reddy, Founder Shantha Biotech and Chairman Diabetomics India said, We are excited that our manufacturing facility has been built, technology transferred, within months of getting the CE Mark (European approvals) and start supplying the products to the needy patients in just about 2 years from the date of laying foundation stone in Feb 2016. We are happy to bring this innovative non-invasive testing which is free of pain and patient friendly to the market.A Dutch-Belgian Vaccine Delegation was in India from 21st to 25th February, 2018 to further intensify cooperation in the Life Sciences and Health Sector.

Life Science and health is priority sector for strategic investment in both the Netherlands and India. Growing market opportunities in India, combined with the Netherlands strengths in areas such as Therapeutics & Vaccines, Diagnostics, Medtech and E-health create excellent opportunities for partnerships that address shared societal challenges with smart solutions. Making India, a valuable partner for the Dutch Life Sciences and Health (LSH) Sector.

Dutch Lifesciences majors Philips, DSM are important players in the Indian healthcare industry. Key Indian pharma players have active and growing investment in the Netherlands; companies including Serum Institute of India, Dr. Reddys, Lupin, and Sun Pharma are leveraging the Dutch life sciences ecosystem for their global strategy. The recent decision to relocate the European Medicine Agency (EMA) will further enhance the existing position of the Netherlands as a hub for Indian pharmaceutical companies.

The Affordability and accessibility of healthcare is a theme where our countries have excellent opportunities for Innovation partnerships. This theme is central to our bilateral partnership for affordable medical devices and the Indo-Dutch living lab for e-health which is currently under development in Bangalore. Vaccine development is another priority area for new partnerships.

Vaccine Development

India and the Netherlands have strong historic ties in the area of vaccines. Technology transfer through the Netherlands Vaccine Institute has made an important contribution to the sectors development in India. The emergence of India as a global manufacturing hub and its growing strength in vaccine innovation creates opportunities for partnership where vaccine players from both countries work together and leverage each others strengths for new product development.

A Dutch-Belgian Vaccine Delegation was in India from 21st to 25th February, 2018 to further intensify cooperation in the Life Sciences and Health Sector. The Delegation consisted of Dutch LSH entities like Intravacc, Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD), Janssen Vaccines & Prevention, LiteVax. Viroclinics, and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. Belgian vaccine entities, Flanders Bio and Flanders Vaccine, Univercells and Q-Biologicals are also participating in the mission.

During their visit the delegation interacted with Government, Indian vaccine experts and Academia to explore and identify new partnerships in vaccine development under the freshly launched Innovate in India initiative. In addition to affordable vaccine development interactions in Delhi, the annual Vaccine World Summit in Pune and the Bio Asia 2018 in Hyderabad also involved the delegations participation.

India is an important partner for the Netherlands--specifically in terms of cost-effective vaccine development. We firmly believe, the existence of affordable, innovative vaccine technology is synonymous to an improvement in global health," said Mr. Niels van Leeuwen, Senior Advisor International R&D cooperation, Life Sciences & Health, Netherlands Enterprise Agency.



Leading Dutch vaccine development player, Intravacc, was also part of the vaccine delegation. Vaccines play a critical role in public health globally- and for Intravacc, India is a vital market for partnerships in vaccine development. Through research, knowledge sharing and constantly innovating with Indian academia, public health organizations, biotech and pharmaceutical companies we contribute to providing access to affordable healthcare for all, Thijs Veerman, CEO, Intravacc said.



The New Delhi leg of the Vaccine Mission also included a discussion on possible vaccine collaborations between Davinder Gill, CEO, Hilleman Labs, India and the delegates. New Delhi-based Hilleman Labs focuses on high-impact, affordable vaccine solutions aimed towards effective immunization.



Affordability is at the core of our adjuvant design. We look forward to partner, collaborate and serve Indian vaccine R&D organisations," said Lukk Hilgers of Litevax BV, after discussing the scope of innovative Indo-Dutch vaccine solutions at the Hilleman Labs.



Apart from forging new partnerships, the mission also involved substantiating existing Indo-Dutch vaccine R&D partnerships even further. A name synonymous to Vaccine R&D in India, the Serum Institute, Pune and Intravacc, the Netherlands engaged into exploring new joint vaccine solutions and strengthened the 40-year-long Indo-Dutch vaccine collaboration.



Affordable Medical Devices

In 2016, The Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) / the Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development (ZonMw) opened a joint-call for project proposals. The topic for the call was, Technology for a Sustainable Healthcare: Minimally invasive techniques. The joint call has resulted in funding for three Indo-Dutch projects that are dedicated to developing sustainable healthcare systems.

Other notable joint projects under the bilateral cooperation include, the AIIMS Erasmus MC cohort study on cognitive decline and the Imaging partnership between Maastricht University Medical Center and the NCCS in Pune which will consists of a series of joint projects and a joint masters program.

Living Lab on E-Health:

To further develop strong ties between the two countries in Life Sciences & Healthcare, a 15-20 member delegation from academia and industry will visit the Netherlands from 19th to 21st March. Some of the participants include Philips, TCS, Bosch, HealthMap Diagnostics, Forus Healthcare, Apollo Hospitals, Manipal Hospitals, Narayana Nethralaya, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Manipal University and Christ University among others. The purpose of this visit is to take the Living Lab initiative forward where a total of 15 joint projects have been proposed in areas such as Elderly Care, Diabetes & Hypertension and Mental Health.

European Medicine Agency (EMA)

Furthering its reputation as a world leader in the Life Sciences and Health Sector, the Netherlands is also gearing up for the relocation of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) from London to Amsterdam in 2019. EMA is the body that assesses the efficacy, quality, and safety of new medicines, for human and animal health, before they are approved for the European market. A direct consequence of the Brexit, Amsterdam was chosen to house the new EMA headquarters among nineteen EU cities that tabled their bids for the position.Bernie Gunther returns in the thirteenth book in theand, perfect for fans ofand

1957, Munich. Bernie Gunther's latest move in a long string of varied careers sees him working for an insurance company. It makes a kind of sense: both cops and insurance companies have a vested interest in figuring out when people are lying to them, and Bernie has a lifetime of experience to call on.

Sent to Athens to investigate a claim from a fellow German for a ship that has sunk, Bernie takes an instant dislike to the claimant. When he discovers the ship in question once belonged to a Greek Jew deported to Auschwitz, he is convinced the sinking was no accident but an avenging arson attack. Then the claimant is found dead, shot through both eyes. It's a win for Bernie's employers at least: no one to pay out to even if the claim is genuine. But who is behind the murder, and why?

Strong-armed into helping the Greek police with their investigation, Bernie is once again drawn inexorably back to the dark history of the Second World War, and the deportation of the Jews of Salonika - now Thessaloniki. As Europe seems ready to move on to a more united future with Germany as a partner rather than an enemy, at least one person in Greece is ready neither to forgive nor forget. And, deep down, Bernie thinks they may have a point.Pakistan PM arrives today

Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi of Pakistan is arriving in Kathmandu on Monday, on a two-day official visit to an important regional country and a close friend of the Islamic republic.PM Oli's proposal to join govt positive: RJPN

The Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN) has said the formal request by Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to join the government as a positive move.SSF-N negotiates hard as PM Oli tries to build ties with Province 2

The left alliance is having a difficult time managing entry of the Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum-Nepal (SSF-N) to its fold after the latter demanded three ministries and deputy speaker.President Donald Trump insists he is "not backing down" on his plan to impose stiff tariffs on imported steel and aluminium despite anxious warnings from House Speaker Paul Ryan and other congressional Republicans of a possible trade war.

The president said North American neighbours Canada and Mexico would not get any relief from his plan to place the tariffs on the imports but suggested he might be willing to exempt the two longstanding allies if they agreed to better terms for the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"No, we're not backing down," Trump said in the Oval Office, seated with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We've had a very bad deal with Mexico, we've had a very bad deal with Canada - it's called NAFTA," Mr Trump said.

The president opened the door to exempting the two countries from the planned tariffs, telling reporters: "That would be, I would imagine, one of the points that we'll negotiate."

But he added: "If they aren't going to make a fair NAFTA deal, we're just going to leave it this way."

Mr Trump spoke shortly after a spokeswoman for House Speaker Ryan said the GOP leader was "extremely worried" about the tariffs setting off a trade war and had urged the White House "to not advance with this plan".

Republican leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee, meanwhile, circulated a letter opposing Trump's tariff plan.

The administration says the tariffs are necessary to preserve the American industries - and that imposing them is a national security imperative.

But Mr Trump's comments and tweets earlier in the day suggested he was also using them as leverage in the current talks to revise NAFTA. The latest round of a nearly yearlong renegotiation effort is concluding this week in Mexico City.

He tweeted: "Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed. Also, Canada must treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S."

In the meantime, Mr Trump's tariff plan has been branded "absolutely unacceptable" by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, has said the European Union could respond by taxing American goods including bourbon, blue jeans and Harley Davidson motorcycles.

The tariffs will be made official in the next two weeks, White House officials said Monday, as the administration defended the protectionist decision from critics in Washington and overseas.

Speaking on Fox and Friends, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said: "25% on steel, and the 10% on aluminium, no country exclusions - firm line in the sand."

Mr Trump's pronouncement last week that he would impose the tariffs roiled markets and rankled allies.

The across-the-board action would break with the recommendation of the Pentagon, which pushed for more targeted tariffs on metals imports from countries like China and warned that a wide-ranging move would jeopardise national security partnerships.

But Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose agency oversaw reviews of the industries that recommended the tariffs, said on ABC's This Week Mr Trump was "talking about a fairly broad brush".

Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said the sweeping action would let China "off the hook", adding the tariffs would drive a wedge between the US and its allies.

"China wins when we fight with Europe," he said on CBS's Face the Nation, adding "China wins when the American consumer has higher prices because of tariffs that don't affect Chinese behaviour."

Mr Trump has threatened to tax European cars if the EU boosts tariffs on American products in response to the president's plan to increase duties on steel and aluminium.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May raised her "deep concern" at the tariff announcement in a phone call with Trump on Sunday.

Mrs May's office says she noted that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity."

But Mr Ross rejected threats of retaliation from American allies as "pretty trivial" and not much more than a "rounding error."

And Mr Navarro argued "there are virtually no costs here", saying: "If you put a 10% tariff on aluminium, it's a cent and a half on a six pack of beer and it's $25,000 on a $330 million (Boeing 777)."

Trade politics often cut along regional, rather than ideological, lines, as politicians reflect the interests of the hometown industries and workers. But rarely does a debate open so wide a rift between a president and his party - leaving him almost exclusively with support from his ideological opposites.

Labour unions and liberal Democrats are in the unusual position of applauding Trump's approach on grounds it will bolster jobs in a depleted industry, while Republicans and an array of business groups are warning of dire economic and political consequences.

In the 2016 election, Trump's criticism of trade agreements and China's trade policies found support with working-class Americans whose wages had stagnated over the years.

Victories in big steel-producing states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana demonstrated his tough trade talk had a receptive audience.

- PABy Eamon Quinn

A prediction by the French finance minister that the EU plan to tax revenues of tech companies in Europe will be set at a rate closer to 2% than 6% will boost the chances of the proposal being adopted in the face of Irish opposition, a leading Irish tax expert has said.

Joe Tynan, head of tax at PwC Ireland, said the digital tax proposals remain a significant threat to Irelands corporation tax regime because so many tech companies such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, Airbnb, and Uber have large offices in Ireland. Already widely leaked, the Commissions tax paper is due to be published in about two weeks time but the details of the precise level of the tax, which will be levied on big digital companies gross turnover, has yet to be decided.

Setting the tax at a low level of 2% would help it be implemented, but would also likely mean increases in the future, and potentially further undermine Irelands corporation tax base, Mr Tynan told the Irish Examiner.

And now that the US Treasury will tax the trillions of dollars US tech giants have kept off-shore, the Commission risks stoking retaliatory action from Donald Trumps White House, Mr Tynan said.

Raising 8bn in corporation tax revenues last year, the Government has strongly opposed the digital tax which it argues undermines the sovereign principle of countries setting tax policy. Irelands tax regime has long been under international scrutiny and led to a Commission ruling that Ireland had struck a sweetheart tax deal and should collect 13bn in back taxes from Apple. French finance minister Bruno Le Maire told Le Journal du Dimanche the EU later this month will unveil plans to tax large global tech companies revenue at a rate in the 2%-to-6% range, though more likely closer to 2% than to 6%, Reuters reported.

A European directive will be disclosed in the coming weeks. It will be a considerable step. The (tax rate) range is 2% to 6%, we will be closer to 2% than 6%, Mr Le Maire said. To those who might say the measure is too modest, Mr Le Maire said: Its a starting point. I prefer a text that will be implemented very quickly rather than endless negotiations. We will fine tune it later.Two nabbed in Kathmandu for Tikapur murder

Police have arrested two men from Kathmandu in connection with the murder of a youth in Tikapur during celebration of Holi festival on Friday.By Ann OLoughlin

A bid to resolve a bitter dispute between a son and his mother concerning ownership of the well-known Kilkenny group of luxury design retail stores has so far yielded no compromise, the Commercial Court has heard.

Greg OGorman initiated proceedings against his mother Marian in February 2017 and Mr Justice Brian McGovern was told some months later, in June 2017, the sides had agreed to explore mediation of the dispute. Greg and Marian O'Gorman are pictured below.

The judge welcomed that news as "very wise" and said he hoped there would be a successful outcome.

However today Rossa Fanning SC, for Mr O'Gorman, said there had been negotiations between the sides for some time concerning a resolution but unfortunately there was no compromise at this time.

In the circumstances, the parties had agreed the matter could be further adjourned to early next month so discovery affidavits could be provided, counsel said.

The judge adjourned the proceedings on that basis.

The action is by Mr O'Gorman, Castle Close Avenue, Blarney, Co Cork, against his mother Marian, of Fernhurst, Tower, Blarney, Co Cork, who is CEO of the company running the Kilkenny stores employing 300 people. She denies his claims.

Mr O'Gorman's father Michael and siblings Christopher, Castle Close Road, Blarney; Melissa, Mount Street Crescent, Dublin 2 and Michelle, Fernhurst, Tower, Blarney, were all previously joined as notice parties because the outcome of the case will affect them.

Greg O'Gorman claims his mother "summarily terminated" his employment as group marketing director in July 2016 in a "humiliating" manner after 13 years service and "no suggestion of misconduct or non-performance" on his part.

This left him, his wife and three children, "financially destitute" and he has been unable to get alternative employment, he said.

He claimed, despite promises over years of a share transfer for his hard work, his mother had in June 2016 publicly repudiated a signed "Family Constitution" document under which she held legal ownership of shares in the company in trust for the O'Gorman Family Business Partnership comprising himself and his siblings.

All four siblings hold a 25% share, with the estimated value of his shareholding at 12.5m, it is alleged.

At a company meeting of June 22, 2016 his mother read a prepared statement stating the company was no longer to be considered as a "family company" and his employment was summarily terminated without reasons shortly afterwards, Mr OGorman claims.

The "enormous personal toll" of these events has been compounded by marital disharmony between his parents which lead to their separation after 41 years married, he added.Ahead of International Womens Day, Padraig Hoare talks to Leisha Daly, country director of Janssen, the pharmaceutical firm of Johnson & Johnson, about women leaders

Some of the best would-be female business leaders in the country remain under the radar, according to Leisha Daly  but that can and must be changed, she believes.

Ms Daly is country director of Janssen, the pharmaceutical company of Johnson & Johnson.

She is also part of the firms collaboration with the University of Limerick (UL) on the Wistem2d programme, an acronym for Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Manufacturing and Design, which is designed to encourage female students to study science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

At a national level, just 25% of people currently working in STEM-related careers are women.

Ms Daly said she was lucky to have a grounding in the sciences as a child growing up in Laois and Carlow in the 1970s.

From two years in Carlows regional college studying science, she progressed to a diploma in Kevin Street in Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT) and eventually a PhD in Trinity College Dublin (TCD) under Professor John Bonnar.

I started in the regional college in Carlow in the late 1970s. I would have done the PhD in the late 1980s. Even now, the statistics are not a whole lot better  only 25% of women are in jobs that are STEM-related.

UL research on women in STEM was startling, according to Ms Daly.

In a number of the courses, whether it is aeronautical engineering or whatever, in some classes there are just two or three women in a class of 25. They did talk about feeling isolated, they did talk about feeling not having that peer group that encourages them to study together, have fun together, enjoy the course together.

That really was something we felt strongly about. We have a mentoring programme now for the young women which is now in its second year, she said.

Firms are getting better at work-life balance, said Ms Daly  now is the time for women to seek out opportunities in management.

I think of myself as a female leader in science. I need to make sure people do not look at me and say they dont ever want to do what I do.

You have to make sure its something people can aspire to and that it is worthwhile.

The research felt working in STEM wasnt conducive to family life. That you need to work around the clock, that the people who work in those roles dont have a great work-life balance, or its just too tough. We need to change that.

We encourage people to stay in contact when they are off, not to disappear for a year but simply to stay in touch. A lot of companies are now creating a better environment that is more conducive to family life, she said.

Leisha Daly: Always had an ambition to lead people and says now is the time for women to seek out opportunities in management.

Ms Daly is worried not just about the lack of women in STEM but also leadership roles in general. It is not just a patriarchal society that is a barrier to women progressing, but also a self-belief one, she said.

I always felt the biggest barrier was myself. I never actually felt being a woman was an issue. I actually felt that I didnt speak up enough. With the wisdom of hindsight, I would have sat around tables where I was the only woman and didnt speak up enough.

I always had an ambition to lead people because I thought I would be good at that. I started off in a technical role and wasnt managing people. I was given the opportunity to manage a sales team and it progressed from there.

You dont get an opportunity if you dont put up your hand and say you want to be outside your comfort zone and try something different, she said.

Ive had several points in my career where Ive had that feeling that I need to do something different. Research shows women tend to wait until they have all the qualifications before they go for a position whereas men tend to give it a go. Put yourself out there and go for that position. Grab it by the scruff of the neck and grab it, she said.

The love of science began at an early age, something Ms Daly feels can be instilled in young people today with more focus on STEM in primary school.

I have two teenagers myself. It is amazing, talking to them from an early age about different types of leaves, trees, the stars, etc that you realise you can have a huge influence.

I was fortunate to have primary school teachers that always had nature tables and we were all brought out on nature walks and that kind of thing.

Im sure that still happens but I really believe that is where you can get children to develop an interest in the sciences.

When I went to an all-girls secondary school in Carlow, physics wasnt available, and neither was honours maths. Speaking to some of the college students now, it seems there are still some schools that dont provide physics as a subject. That needs to change. It has to be made available for everybody, whether they choose it or not. If it is not there, youre never going to choose it, she said.By Eugene McErlean

Recent weeks marked a significant turning point in the long-running mortgage arrears saga where the policy of kicking the can down the road has started running out of road.

First, we had a key intervention from Edmund Honohan, the Master of the High Court, who reports from the coalface about the impending repossession crisis.

Mr Honohan said he sees people in courts on a daily basis who are struggling to hold off repossession and has observed the inadequacy of the State system that is meant to help them resolve their problems.

The picture painted by Mr Honohan is a far cry from the positive outlook of five years ago when the former minister of finance Michael Noonan, announced the Governments plan to tackle mortgage arrears putting new legislation, structures and processes in place to deal with the issue.

These included setting targets for the six main banks.

By the end of 2013, half of customers were required to have a sustainable solution worked out with their lenders.

The Central Bank was to monitor the performance of the banks against the targets and take appropriate action in the event of banks failing to meet them.

Mr Honohans assessment of how that policy has worked out in practice is less than flattering.

Towards the end of last week came the news that the Department of Finance had challenged the European banking watchdogs classification of restructured home loans as non-performing.

The ECB wants Irish banks to return to normal levels of non-performing loans, or NPLs, with the result that Permanent TSB has decided to put billions worth of loans up for sale in an attempt to reduce the huge level of NPLs on its books in a bid to reach the target level of 5%.

Ulster Bank also made a similar announcement in recent weeks stating that it was preparing to sell off part of its loans in arrears in order to reduce its NPL levels.

Its chief executive Gerry Mallon said: There is a regulatory requirement for us to reduce our non-performing loan book. Thats the view of the ECB.

Ten years on from the crisis, the level of non-performing loans in the sector is still out of tolerance. They require us to get to around 5% of our total loan book in non-performing loans. Were currently at 16%.

Both lenders announced they were setting aside extra provisions to accommodate the likely reduced value they will receive for the loans compared to the value on their balance sheets.

These announcements mark the unravelling of the Governments approach to resolving the decade-old mortgage arrears crisis.

Mr Noonans case-by-case approach for individual debt resolution enabled the banks to set their face against any solution that involved the writing down of the value of the loan on their balance sheets.

This week the immovable object of no write down has met the irresistible force of ECB prudential requirements.

It appears that in order to bring NPL levels back into line the only option for banks is to sell sections of their impaired loan books in bulk to vulture funds at a discount.

The irony is that had this discount been applied on an individual case-by-case basis then sustainable long-term solutions would have been available to help resolve many of the cases that appear in Mr Honohans court.

The strategy of keeping defaulting borrowers in limbo with interim and partial solutions that do not involve the actual writing down of the debt has resulted in this impasse.

From a prudential point of view, the ECB is exactly right.

It is not sustainable for banks to continue to operate with these extended levels of non-performing loans and the sooner the situation is resolved the better.

It was surprising that the Department of Finances response to this impasse is to lobby the ECB to change the rules.

No matter what arguments may be made about the perils of selling mortgages to vulture funds, the solution to that problem is unlikely to be found by the department challenging the ECBs definition of what constitutes a performing loan.

A better course would be to consider Mr Honohans proposals, which appear to involve practical solutions.

Instead of selling to vulture funds, the loans could be purchased by a State-funded friendly vulture co-operative scheme that would take over the non-performing loans and remove them from the banks books.

Mr Honohan noted that because there is no public money available for mortgage-to-rent, ethical co-operative funding should be allowed to come in and take up where the State has abysmally failed.

This proposal would have the added advantage of not requiring any deviation from the ECBs prudential requirements.

In any event, lets hope that we can work towards a new policy such as Mr Honohans that avoids the vulture funds repossessing too many Irish homes.

Eugene McErlean is an expert on corporate governance and the banking industry.Update 6.30pm: Garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe has testified that former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan was "obsessed" with him and told the former Garda press secretary to bury him, writes Gerard Cunningham.

Giving evidence for the first time at the Disclosures Tribunal Sgt McCabe said that Superintendent Dave Taylor, the former press secretary, told him that he was ordered by Callinan to spread rumours that McCabe had been investigated for sexual assault.

Sgt McCabe said that Supt David Taylor "was in bad shape" when he met him in 2016, and "you could see that he was distressed or stressed."

"He kept saying I destroyed you. And I said I want to know what you did to me," Sgt McCabe said.

Sgt McCabe said he was told there was an orchestrated campaign to destroy him "in the form of whispering, of phone calls, of texts."

Supt Taylor told the sergeant this was done "on the authority of ex-commissioner Martin Callinan, Sgt McCabe said.

Mr Taylor told the sergeant that he would receive text messages from Martin Callinan, and he would then forward these to journalists, the inquiry heard this afternoon.

Mr Taylor also said he would always send the texts to Noirin O'Sullivan, and she would reply "that's perfect" and Mr Taylor would then send them on, Sgt McCabe told the tribunal.

A file picture of Supt David Taylor

Sgt McCabe said he was told that Ms O'Sullivan "was the pusher and she knew everything that was going on."

Mr Callinan and Ms O'Sullivan deny the allegations of a smear campaign against Sgt McCabe.

The sergeant told the tribunal that he met Supt Taylor at his house with his wife while Supt Taylor had been temporarily suspended in September 2016.

He said Mr Taylor told him that there was a "constant obsession" with Sgt McCabe, and if an article or interview appeared about the sergeant, Martin Callinan would say "use your phone and do him down. He has to be buried."

"Martin Callinan would encourage David Taylor to spread the rumours about me, the fact I had been investigated for sexual assault," Sgt McCabe said.

The historic assault complaint in 2006 led to a garda investigation, and a recommendation from the DPP again a prosecution as there was no evidence any assault had taken place.

Sgt McCabe said he was told there was an intelligence file on him in Garda HQ, and an officer was designated to monitor his activities on PULSE.

The tribunal had to adjourn briefly as Sgt McCabe became visibly upset as he recalled a meeting with Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness. After the break, Sgt McCabe said that Mr McGuinness told him that Commissioner Callinan had told him (Mr McGuinness) 'McCabe was not to be trusted and that he had abused vulnerable children and his nieces'.

Sgt McCabe said he was "furious" when he spoke with Supt Taylor, and said that Supt Taylor could have stopped and said no at any time.

Sgt McCabe said that Supt Taylor's wife Michelle Taylor told him that Supt Taylor had met "a spiritualist" and felt he had to confess what he had done. She told Sgt McCabe that they had believed all the allegations that they heard about him.

Sgt McCabe said that after the meeting, he "couldn't get my head around hundreds of text messages", and the next morning he contacted Supt Taylor again to confirm that there had been hundreds of text messages.

"He said to me, it could have been thousands," Sgt McCabe said.

Tribunal barrister Pat Marrinan SC said that Supt Taylor will say there were no text messages and that the information was spread through word of mouth. On 26 September 2016, Sgt McCabe made a protected disclosure about what he alleges Supt Taylor told him.

Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe and his wife Lorraine, at the Disclosures Tribunal in Dublin Castle today. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Update 4pm: 'A kick in the teeth': McCabe describes feelings after garda chief's reaction to complaints

Following a recess, Sgt Maurice McCabe has told the Disclosures Tribunal that former Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan told a TD he had sexually abused all of his children and his nieces.

When asked to recall what John McGuinness told him at a meeting in May 2016, Sgt McCabe became emotional.

He said Deputy McGuinness also recalled being told by Commissioner Callinan that Sgt McCabe wasnt to be trusted and that it was very serious.

Sgt McCabe said he couldnt believe it and was unable to recall how he got home that night.

Sgt McCabe is now being questioned about how he came to meet with former garda press officer David Taylor, who alleges a campaign to smear him by senior gardai.

Update 2.40pm: Garda whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe has said that the response of a garda chief following an internal garda investigation into his complaints of malpractice was "a kick in the teeth".

Chief Superintendent Colm Rooney issued a circular letter in 2011 congratulating all gardai stationed in Bailieboro, Co Cavan saying the report vindicated the station's high standards and professionalism.

Eleven out of 42 of the complaints made by Sgt McCabe were upheld by the 2011 report.

Last month Chief Super Rooney, now retired, told the tribunal that he now believed the views he expressed in the circular letter were inappropriate.

My vindication of the high standards was not warranted, he said.

The Charleton tribunal also heard today that Sgt McCabe told a senior officer that he felt he had been forced out of his position when he sought to step down as Sergeant in Charge at Bailieboro Garda Station in March 2008.

He said there was a culture in An Garda Siochana which made it "extremely hard to speak out".

He said he did not want to identify any person or place, but "there would be often places where I wasn't welcome at all".

Sgt McCabe said his revelations about penalty points "really hit hard in the force."

Giving evidence for the first time before the tribunal, Sgt McCabe was questioned by tribunal barrister, Pat Marrinan SC.

In a module completed last month, the tribunal examined whether unjustified grounds were inappropriately relied upon by the former garda commissioner, Noirin O'Sullivan, to discredit whistleblower Sgt Maurice McCabe at the O'Higgins Commission of Investigation.

The commission, which sat in private in 2015, investigated complaints made by Sgt McCabe about certain policing matters and about serious allegations against senior officers including then Garda Commissioner, Martin Callinan.

Last summer, the tribunal looked at the creation and distribution of files by Tusla and the HSE containing false allegations against Sgt McCabe and whether he was the target of a smear campaign.

The tribunal heard how details of a serious assault from an unrelated case were added to a report on Sgt McCabe due to a "copy and paste error.

A garda investigation following a 2006 allegation by Miss D against Sgt McCabe led to a recommendation from the DPP against a prosecution in the case, stating there was no basis for a prosecution and the incident described did not amount to an assault or to a sexual assault.

Sgt McCabe said that during this investigation, he got "great support" from his station colleagues and from senior garda management in the Cavan Monaghan division.

Sgt McCabe said he "was extremely happy" when he was told he had been exonerated.

He said that following encounters with Mr D and Mrs D, he asked that the DPP's directions should be shared with the family, so that they understood he had been exonerated.

The tribunal also heard that in January 2008, Sgt McCabe sent a letter to Supt Michael Clancy outlining 21 points of concern in Bailieboro garda station.

The following month, Sgt McCabe said he wrote a letter outlining his difficulties with the D family at the request of Supt Clancy.

Sgt McCabe said it was Supt Clancy's idea that he should ask for the DPP's direction to be shown to the D family.

Tribunal chairman Mr Justice Peter Charleton said that this was a "new idea" and he understood the proposal to share the DPP's direction had come from Sgt McCabe.

"I wasn't asking him, he was asking me," Sgt McCabe told the chairman.

Folk singer Christy Moore (left) and Author Frank Connelly, at the Disclosures Tribunal in Dublin Castle today. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire

In March 2008, Sgt McCabe resigned his post in Bailieboro, citing lack of managerial support, lack of standards, lack of accountability and lack of duty to the public.

Sgt McCabe said he believed that a 2009 Facebook comment about a puppet called "Maurice the rat" could have referred to him. The incident was described later by the O'Higgins commission of inquiry as "vile and offensive".

Sgt McCabe said the 2011 circular by Chief Supt Rooney saying that the internal garda report into his complaints found no systemic failures in the management or administration of Bailieboro garda district was a kick in the teeth."

He also said that after his name became public he received hundreds of emails and letters of support from around the country.

"I'd say three or four hundred. I haven't got any hate mail, not one. I couldn't reply to them all, naturally. In fact I haven't replied to any, he said.

The sergeant also said that colleagues in the traffic unit in Mullingar where he worked had been "completely supportive" of him though "there was an element that would just blank you.

"They know how I work, they treat me one hundred percent," Sgt McCabe said. He said he also received support from his wife and children.

Maurice McCabe at the Disclosures Tribunal in Dublin Castle, Dublin today. Pic: Gareth Chaney Collins

Earlier: Maurice McCabe says sex assault claim 'ruined my life'

Sergeant Maurice McCabe said an unfounded sexual assault allegation "ruined" his life forever.

Sgt McCabe has accused the Garda force of malpractice including the quashing of penalty points.

The saga surrounding the handling of his claims of wrongdoing among gardai in Cavan-Monaghan contributed to the end of the careers of former Taoiseach Enda Kenny, two former chiefs of the Garda and ex-justice minister Frances Fitzgerald.

A decision was taken not to prosecute him following a false allegation in 2006 while he was an officer in Bailieborough, Co Cavan by a complainant who later confronted him outside the Garda station.

Sgt McCabe said he was 100% exonerated by the Garda investigation.

A letter from the officer said: "I am married with five children and this scurrilous allegation has ruined my life forever.

"I am a completely changed person in that I don't trust anyone any more."

He sought the Director of Public Prosecutions' directions: "All I seek is fairness."

He appeared before a public inquiry at Dublin Castle which considered the handling of the complaint against him.

The Disclosure Tribunal led by Mr Justice Peter Charleton is probing how the Garda handled Sgt McCabe's whistleblowing.

Part of the Tribunal's terms of reference is considering whether the false and unfounded child sex abuse allegation made against Sgt McCabe in 2006 was used against him.

Former Justice minister Michael McDowell arrives for the Disclosures Tribunal. Pic: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Update 11am: Maurice McCabe was 'extremely happy' when he was cleared of abuse allegation

Maurice McCabe has told the Disclosures Tribunal that he got great support from management and garda colleagues in the Cavan-Monaghan district when he was cleared of an allegation of abusing the daughter of a colleague.

The Garda whistleblower has been giving evidence for the first time at the Tribunal, where he will face questioning about an alleged smear campaign by gardai against him.

Sergeant McCabe said when he was told the DPP had exonerated him in April 2007, he was extremely happy.

However, he has told the Tribunal that he was unhappy with a senior colleague for not giving him the DPP directions sooner.

Maurice McCabe

Earlier: Maurice McCabe to give evidence for the first time

Garda Whistleblower Maurice McCabe will be questioned this morning about an alleged Garda campaign to smear him, as well as his treatment at the OHiggins Commission.

Maurice McCabe will only testify once before the Disclosures Tribunal, and lawyers for all parties will be given the opportunity to question him.

The Tribunal has already held hearings on the creation of a Tusla file which contained a false allegation of sexual abuse by Maurice McCabe, and on whether former Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivan relied on inappropriate grounds to discredit Sgt McCabe at the OHiggins Commission.

Lawyers for the Gardai will be able to cross examine Sgt McCabe about these modules, and about an alleged smear campaign conducted by senior gardai.

Later this month the Tribunal will hear from the former head of the Garda Press Office Dave Taylor, who alleges that he was directed by former Commissioner Martin Callinan to brief negatively about Sgt McCabe.

Digital DeskBy Louise Roseingrave

A nine month old baby died a day after he was admitted to hospital with a chest infection, an inquest has heard.

Baby Eoin Julian, from Ballylinan, Co Laois was admitted to Our Ladys Childrens Hospital in Crumlin on December 29 2015 and died the following day.

The inquest has heard how a number of changes have been implemented at the hospital since the babys death.

Baby Eoin was born at the Coombe Hospital on March 16 2015. His mother Aine Julian had been advised he had heart defects when she was twenty weeks pregnant.

He was born in good condition and weighted 7 pounds 12 ounces. For both myself and Sean this was like winning the lottery, Mrs Julian said.

The child had an enlarged heart due to a thickening of the heart muscle of the left ventricle.

Baby Eoin spent three days in Neonatal Intensive Care before he was discharged to the ward and later from hospital on March 21.

A few days later he was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea.

Pediatrician cardiologist Dr Orla Franklin told Dublin Coroners Court that a percentage of children presenting with similar difficulties to Eoin will improve over a period of years.

Dr Franklin said that if Eoin could get through his first year of life without his heart deteriorating, he would likely overcome his difficulties, Mrs Julian said in her deposition.

In August 2015 it was found that Eoins heart had not deteriorated and Dr Franklin expressed optimism about the babys prognosis.

She said he was doing extremely well, Mrs Julian said.

On December 27 2015 baby Eoin developed a slight cough. Two days later Mrs Julian brought her baby to Crumlin Childrens Hospital because the cough was getting worse.

He was diagnosed with bronchiolitis and moved from the emergency department to a ward.

The infant was deemed be a higher risk due to his enlarged heart and he was reviewed by a number of doctors.

The inquest heard that baby Eoin was given chloryl hydrate to sleep and this was administered on the ward, which is against hospital guidelines.

A CPAP ventilator, which the child used for sleep apnea at night was used while he was awake despite instructions from a respiratory consultant that it should be used while he slept.

A call from a nurse requesting assistance from a doctor at 10.22am on December 30th went unanswered. The child was not seen by a Consultant Cardiologist until he was transferred to intensive care in a critically ill condition, shortly before he died on December 30.

The cause of death was acute cardiac arrythmia due to bronchial pneumonia in the context of an abnormal heart.

The inquest continues tomorrow with evidence from three nurses.By Tom Tuite

Prominent republican Dessie OHare, known as the Border Fox, is to stand trial in the non-jury Special Criminal Court accused of threatening a man's life and false imprisonment of three people in Dublin.

Mr OHare (pictured below), 61, with an address at Slaterock Road, Newtownhamilton, Co Armagh, was charged with threatening to kill or cause serious harm and false imprisonment of a man at Rathcoole in Saggart, Co Dublin, on June 9, 2015 and falsely imprisoning two other members of the same family, a male and a female, at a house at The Towers, Garter Lane Saggart on the same date.

He was also charged with engaging in violent disorder and assault causing harm to another man at the same location.

He appeared again at Dublin District Court today when he was served with a book of evidence.

State solicitor Rioghnach Corbett told Judge Grainne ONeill the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has certified that Mr OHare was to be returned for trial to a sitting of a Special Criminal Court.

The non-jury court is used for trials involving organised crime and terrorism offences.

The decision was made under Section 46.2 of the Offences Against the State because in this case the ordinary courts are not effective for the administration of justice, Judge ONeill was told.

The DPPs certificate was handed in to court.

A date for his appearance before the Special Criminal Court has not yet been set but the state solicitor said she would notify Mr OHares solicitor when it was known.

Judge ONeill acceded to a request from defence solicitor Eoin Lysaght to grant legal aid which included representation of senior and junior counsel for Mr OHare at his trial. She told the accused he was being returned for trial and he must inform the prosecution if he intended to rely on an alibi in his defence.

There was no objection to him remaining on bail.

Mr OHare, who did not address the court, has not yet indicated how he will plead to the charges.

At his first hearing in January, bail was set in his own bond of 100 with a 20,000 independent surety.

The terms stated he must reside at his current address and the PSNI and the Garda must be notified of any change. He also had to surrender his passport, be contactable by phone, abide by a curfew and sign on daily at a Garda station in Co. Monaghan.By Eoin Reynolds

A nurse who tried to help a father while his baby choked on a piece of tissue was not sure if he was following her instructions, a murder trial heard today.

Aine Watts told the trial of 40-year-old John Tighe that she didn't advise Mr Tighe to carry out CPR because her priorities were to unblock the baby's airways and get medical experts to the scene as quickly as possible.

She told defence counsel Michael P O'Higgins SC that she advised Mr Tighe to do chest compressions and "whack" the baby's back, but she was not sure if these instructions were being followed.

She later said she felt the advice was not being adhered to and then that she was not sure if the the instructions were fully understood.

Mr Tighe of Lavallyroe, Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo has pleaded no guilty to murdering his son Joshua Sussbier Tighe at his home on June 1, 2013. He is on trial at the Central Criminal Court.

The prosecution alleges that Joshua died from having a wad of tissue put into his throat while Mr Tighe has said from the outset that the six-and-a-half month old grabbed the tissue and swallowed it while the accused was in the bathroom.

Ms Watts worked at the WestDoc medical service in 2013 where Mr Tighe called saying that his baby was choking on a piece of tissue. The witness took over the call when her colleague Liz Watson asked her to.

She agreed with prosecution counsel Paul Murray SC that she told Mr Tighe to make a little fist and press at the bottom of the ribs into the sternum and up to make Joshua vomit.

She also told him to put his fingers in the baby's mouth and "grab" the tissue but Mr Tighe told her he couldn't and that the child was cold and not breathing.

Under cross examination she agreed with Mr O'Higgins that she and her colleague were trying their best to help the accused. She further agreed that the protocol states that if a child is unresponsive you should begin CPR.

She said that both she and her colleague advised Mr Tighe to press the baby's chest but she was not sure if these instructions were being followed so her next priority was to unblock the airway by grabbing the tissue.

In a hospital setting, forceps would be used to pull the obstruction from the airway so she advised him to get a set of tweezers.

While she said the protocol states that CPR should begin, in this instance she felt the advice was not being adhered to so she then advised him to flag down the doctor who was on his way, as she wanted to get medical experts to the house as soon as possible.

Mr O'Higgins asked if she had formed the view that she would not advise CPR and she replied that without an airway, it is "extremely difficult" to undertake CPR. In her experience choking babies who have lost consciousness can come back when the airway is unblocked. She said her priority was to get the doctor to the house.

Counsel suggested that the purpose of carrying out CPR would be to maintain the baby's life so that when the doctor arrived the baby would be alive.

She said that would depend on whether her instructions were being followed. When Mr O'Higgins put it to her that he could not have followed the instruction to give CPR if that instruction was not given, she said that she felt instructions had been given but she wasn't sure they were fully understood.

She added that she had experience of her instructions not being followed, in her opinion.

The jury rose during Ms Watts' evidence, with the foreman returning to say that the case was bringing back memories of a personal loss he suffered some years ago.

The juror was discharged, reducing the jury to seven men and four women.

The trial will continue tomorrow in front of Justice Patrick McCarthy.A teenager has been arrested after Gardai seized drugs and cash from a flat complex in Dublin today which is estimated to have a combined worth of 83,000.

As part of an intelligence-led operation, gardai from the Street Crime Unit attached to Kevin Street Garda Station searched a residence at Oliver Bond House flat complex in Dublin's south inner city.By Conor Kane

Gardai and fire service personnel are trying to establish the cause of an explosion in a house in Waterford which led to a man suffering burn injuries.

The occupant of the house at Ballytruckle Road in the city is being treated at University Hospital Waterford after being taken there by ambulance following the explosion and fire which happened at 8.45pm last night.

It is understood his injuries are not life-threatening but he did sustain burns.

Initial speculation suggested the explosion was caused by gas but gardai said this morning that it is too early to say how it happened.

Were following a number of lines of inquiry into it and clearly one of them is a close examination of the scene, Superintendent Chris Delaney said.

A number of neighbouring houses were evacuated on last night after the incident, as a precaution, and the scene has been preserved by gardai.

Four units of the Waterford fire brigade attended the scene and brought the fire under control by 10.30pm.

Fire service officers and members of the garda technical bureau are carrying out a forensic examination of the house to try and find out what caused the explosion. That examination is expected to last for much of today.

The property is a terraced, single-storey house located close to the end of the Ballytruckle Road cul-de-sac, metres away from the R709 Inner Ring Road and near Waterford citys Old Tramore Road.Wanted MP Silwal claims he did not go into hiding

Former deputy inspector general of Nepal Police and CPN-UML member of the parliament, Nawaraj Silwal, attended Sundays oath ceremony at the Parliament building in New Baneshwor despite the arrest warrant against him.By Isabel Hayes

A man charged with dangerous driving causing the death of a 70-year-old woman had an eye condition and was advised not to drive, his trial has heard.

David Byrne (42) went on trial today at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court charged with one count of dangerous driving causing the death of Patricia Dunne at Collins Avenue East in Killester, Dublin, on October 16, 2015. He has pleaded not guilty.

Mr Byrne, with an address in Sunnyhill, Castlemartin Lodge, Kilcullen, Co Kildare, has also pleaded not guilty to one count of dishonestly inducing the National Driving Licence Service (NDLS) to issue him a driving licence on September 30, 2014.

He has further pleaded not guilty to one count of making a false or misleading statement in the course of taking out insurance on October 16, 2015.

Fionnuala O'Sullivan, BL, prosecuting, told the jury of six men and six women they would hear evidence that Patricia Dunne, a 70-year-old woman, was walking home pulling a shopping trolley around midday on the day in question when she came to cross the road.

Ms O'Sullivan said that a van slowed to allow Ms Dunne to cross, but a car driven by Mr Byrne hit her and she was flung up in the air before the car came to a stop.

A number of Killester College students and an off-duty fire officer came to Ms Dunne's aid. She was conscious and able to give her name before she was taken to hospital by ambulance, the court heard. She later died in hospital.

Gardai also arrived at the scene and met with Mr Byrne who appeared to be in deep shock, Ms O'Sullivan said.

She told the jury that while this was a dangerous driving case, it was not a case where speed was involved, or in which traffic signals were disobeyed. Nor was it a case involving drink, Ms O'Sullivan said.

The circumstances we say make this driving dangerous arise out of a medical condition we say the accused had and which we say he knew about, she said.

She said it was the prosecution case that Mr Byrne suffers from Usher Syndrome Type 2, a condition which causes difficulty seeing in low light and loss of peripheral vision.

It's also the prosecution case that as far back as 1997, he was advised by a doctor that he should not be driving, Ms O'Sullivan said.

For Mr Byrne to drive with that condition was driving in a manner which was or likely to be a danger to the public. That dangerous driving caused the death of Ms Dunne.

The prosecution alleges that when applying for a driving licence, Mr Byrne failed to disclose this condition. He also allegedly failed to inform his insurance company, the court heard.

Ms O'Sullivan told the jury that most people drive and everyone is a pedestrian. As a result, It is easy to think, there but for the grace of God go I, she said.

But she said the jury must leave sympathy at the door.

You will have to be clinical, cold, dispassionate, she said.

The trial continues before Judge Patricia Ryan.By Ann OLoughlin

The National Maternity Hospital is to seek an injunction stopping an inquiry into the death of a woman during surgery for an ectopic pregnancy until its legal challenge before the High Court has been heard.

In January the hospital secured permission to challenge the Minister for Health's decision to order the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) to carry out a statutory investigation into patient safety issues including surgery being carried on outside core hours and the readiness of hospitals to respond to major emergencies in such circumstances.

The inquiry arises out of the death of Malak Thawley (34) at the National Maternity Hospital on May 8th, 2016.

Earlier this year her widower Alan Thawley settled his action over her death against the National Maternity Hospital for compensatory damages.

The court heard the doctor who carried out the surgery was an inexperienced junior surgeon and was not supervised.

The Hospital's judicial review challenge came back before Mr Justice Seamus Noonan today, who granted the hospital permission to bring an application for an injunction.

If granted the injunction will prevent the inquiry from proceeding until the hospital's judicial review challenge has been determined.

Imogen McGrath Bl for the Hospital said it had been hoped the bringing of the challenge would result in the Minister and HIQA putting the inquiry on hold.

Despite correspondence between the various parties, Counsel said no such undertakings have been given by the Minister and HIQA.

Counsel said HIQA had published on its website the terms of reference and a guidance document in relation to the inquiry indicating the process is going ahead.

Counsel said the hospital requires an injunction preventing any further steps in the inquiry from being taken, as otherwise the NMH's proceedings would be moot.

Mr Justice Noonan fixed the hearing of the injunction application for next Friday.

In its proceedings, the National Maternity Hospital claims the Minister was acting outside his powers in ordering a new inquiry in circumstances where three other reports into the death of Ms Thawley had already been done, one by the hospital itself, another by the HSE and there was also the coroner's report.

The Hospital's own review had resulted in the implementation of changes to ensure there is no recurrence of the Thawley tragedy and they were backed by the HSE, the coroner and HIQA, the Hospital says.

The Minister had fettered his discretion by telling Mr Thawley that whatever about the HSE report, he would still order an inquiry into the matter.

This was effectively giving a third party the discretion as to whether an investigation would be ordered.

A statutory inquiry requires that it must be on foot of a specific concern but the Minister had implied that it was because the provision of all hospital services outside core hours was unsafe, which the Hospital says is irrational.

In an affidavit, National Maternity Hospital Master Rhona Mahony said the new investigation, under Section 9(2) of the Health Act 2007, will undermine clinical and public confidence and could be counter-productive in its effect on national maternity services.

The inquiry will have a chilling effect on the ability of clinicians to delivery high risk and emergency care in an already challenging environment, both at the National Maternity Hospital and nationally, she added.

The National Maternity Hospital is not opposed to a fourth investigation but believes the type of inquiry ordered by the Minister will have serious implications for the Hospital's operations and affect public confidence, Ms O Mahony says.

Instead of a Section 9 inquiry, the National Maternity Hospital has suggested an independent expert body such as the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology UK should be appointed to conduct a further investigation.30 staff members employed at the Lidl store in Tallaght which was looted during Storm Emma have been redeployed to other stores in the area.

A meeting was held today between management and workers to arrange for staff to move to nearby stores in order to minimise the disruption to peoples' livelihoods.By Tom Tuite

A Dublin taxi driver has been described in court as lazy and unwilling to get wet after he refused to take writer and television producer Maia Dunphy and her toddler in his car because she had a buggy.

The mum, 41, and her toddler, aged two, had been caught in the pouring rain when she tried to hail Anthony Fannins taxi at a rank at St Stephens Green in Dublin on Feb. 23 last year.

However, Dublin District Court heard Fannin, from Cappagh Road, Finglas, D.11 told her the buggy would not fit into the boot of his Toyota Avensis saloon.

The case went to a full court hearing on Monday after he had refused to accept an 80 fixed penalty notice

He was prosecuted by the National Transport Authority (NTA) on a charge of refusing to carry a passenger which can result in a maximum 2,500 fine. He had pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The 41-year TV presenter, who also appeared in the hit RTE reality series Dancing With The Stars, told the court became angry with Fannin and reported him to the NTA, Judge John Brennan was told.

Former mechanic Fannin who has been a taxi driver for 25 years and hoped to retire next year claimed he was concerned her buggy along with her shopping would not fit in the boot of his car.

Taxidriver Anthony Fannin leaving Dublin District Court.

Judge Brennan found him guilty but noted he was a man of mature years and had no prior convictions. He told the taxi driver that if he donated 250 to the Irish Down Syndrome Sporting Organisation and paid 150 toward prosecution costs the case would be struck out, meaning he would be spared a recorded criminal conviction.

Adjourning the case until May, the judge warned Fannin that otherwise he would face a conviction with a 500 fine along with an order to pay 400 toward the NTAs legal costs.

Ms Dunphy, who is married to comedian Johnny Vegas, gave evidence about her 30-second interaction with the driver.

It had been raining heavily and she had the buggy with her child and was also carrying a bag and a box. She had gestured toward his boot but, she alleged, he didnt get out of his car.

The court heard she left saying dont bother after he refused and recommended another taxi with more room.

NTA inspector Noel McNally told the court that Fannins type of car was popular in the taxi industry because it was a family saloon.

He took the report from Ms Dunphy and said he also questioned Fannin who told him that the buggy had a top that had to be removed and would not have fit in the boot. Mr Fannin told the NTA official I was a disgrace and this was a joke, the court was told.

The NTA official met Ms Dunphy and carried out a test to prove her foldable buggy would have fit in the boot of an Avensis and that there was ample room. Photos of his demonstration were handed in to the judge.

Ms Dunphy also said that the it could fit in the boot of her mothers Nissan Micra.

In cross-examination with defence counsel Fiona Pekaar it was put to the NTA official that Fannin had not wanted to put her to the bother of having to dismantle her buggy.

Mr McNally said that the driver had shown no willingness to do it and was a lazy driver unwilling to get wet to provide a public service that he was duly obliged to.

In evidence, Fannin accepted the buggy would have fit in the boot but there would not have been room for her shopping as well.

He told prosecution solicitor Jason Teahan he didnt want her box in the seating area in case there was an accident. The prosecution solicitor put it to him he had changed his story from the version in his interview with the NTA inspector.

The driver said he got out to find her a hatchback taxi but she said dont bother and left.

He said he had experience of loading buggies and went out in all weather including the recent snow storm.

His barrister argued that a taxi driver can refuse to take a passenger if there was too much baggage or that it could damage the vehicle.

Describing it as an unfortunate case, the judge found him guilty and noted that Ms Dunphy had become very angry so much so she made a complaint to the taxi authority. He was satisfied that it was a lazy driver unwilling to get wet to and not willing to provide a service he was obliged to provide.

Ms Dunphy did not seek witness expenses.By Natasha Reid

A mother of one has been sentenced to three years in prison for staging her housemates suicide in order to impede the prosecution of the man who strangled her.

The judge took into account the fact that the accused was one of lifes victims and in an abusive relationship with the killer at the time.

That man, whom the judge said could undoubtedly be described as the murderer, was never charged.

This was due to his limited brain function arising out of an injury sustained months later while fleeing gardai after a car he had hijacked crashed.

A self-confessed neo nazi, he is currently living in a care facility, where he is spoon fed.

However, his 34-year-old former partner was convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury earlier this month.

She was found guilty of impeding the killer's apprehension or prosecution, knowing or believing him to have murdered Antra Ozolina (49).

Egita Jaunmaize, of no fixed abode, admitted placing a blue cord around her fellow Latvians neck so as to simulate her suicide in order to make it more difficult to establish that her death was suspicious.

She had pleaded not guilty to carrying out the offence, without reasonable excuse, at their home at The Old Post, Main Street, Kilnaleck, Co Cavan on or about June 27 or June 28 2014.

The mushroom picker told gardai that she was in fear for her life and acting on her boyfriends orders at the time, having just seen him strangle Ms Ozolina.

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy noted that the authorities initial view was that the deceased had taken her own life, but that suspicion grew and tests were sought.

She was a lady, who had appeared happy in herself, had family, and there was no indication that she had any suicidal ideation, noted the judge.

The trial heard that a forensic autopsy showed that the deceased had sustained blunt force injuries, as well as the fatal asphyxia.

The judge accepted that the accused woman's involvement had sprung from her relationship with the assailant.

Theres little doubt but that, on perusal of the psychiatrists and psychologists reports, her relationship with the assailant, the man who could undoubtedly be described as the murderer, was an abusive one, he said, adding that the aggression had been extreme.

He said the accused might be described as a vulnerable person, noting evidence that this was due to her being the victim of a violent crime as a child.

Notwithstanding the abusive nature of the relationship, the jury held her fully responsible for her actions, he noted.

However, he pointed out that that sentencing was a subjective matter and he therefore had regard to the fact that she was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and was one of lifes victims so to speak.

He took into account her lack of a previous criminal record and the fact that she had worked hard in Ireland, as well as certain vulnerabilities of temperament and of personality.

He said that the true suffering of the deceased womans family could be attributable only to the death itself and that the impeding offence could not be regarded as having a significant effect.

He noted that the maximum penalty was 10 years in prison, but imposed a custodial sentence of three years, backdated to 22nd February 2017.

Garda James McDevitt told her sentence hearing last week that the accused had alerted the authorities to what appeared at first flush to be a suicide in her home.

He told Patrick Gageby SC, prosecuting, that gardai found the deceaseds body lying on her bathroom floor with a rope around her neck and an open bible and vodka bottle nearby.

The results of an autopsy by a non-forensic pathologist were also consistent with it being a tragic death.

However, the deceaseds employer rang gardai and informed them that, on his and her colleagues knowledge of her personality, she was unlikely to have commited suicide.

Gda McDevitt agreed that this triggered a fresh look at the matter and a forensic pathologist found blunt force trauma to her body, along with death by asphyxiation.

The accused painted her boyfriend out of the picture in her first statements. She later explained that this was because he had a suspended sentence due to be activated in his native Latvia and did not want to come to garda attention.

She eventually admitted there had been a disagreement between the two women, that she had gone to bed, but woke to the sounds of screams.

She said that she went into her housemates room and found her boyfriend throttling her.

Once he had succeeded, he asked her to assist him in covering up by putting a rope around her neck so the death would appear like suicide.

She went on trial for assisting an offender, arguing that she was under duress and had a reasonable excuse, but the jury found that she had none.

She remained in a relationship with that offender until October 2014, when he hijacked a car and was involved in a large car chase across Co Longford.

In trying to evade gardai, he was knocked down by another car and suffered a severe brain injury.

Giollaiosa O Lideadha SC, defending, put forward a number of factors in mitigation, including the killers violence towards his client.

He also reminded the judge of a major trauma she had suffered as a child, which experts said had led to her getting into and remaining in the abusive relationship with the killer.

He asked the judge to take into consideration her role as a mother and the fact that, as a foreigner, she would have particular difficulties in custody here. He asked for a sentence at the more lenient end of the scale.Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has ruled out formal three-way talks between the UK, Ireland and the EU about Brexit.

"There won't be tripartite or three-way talks," he said.

"What will happen is that there will be talks between the EU 27, and the UK and Ireland is part of the UK 27, and we're much stronger, by the way, as one of 27."

Mr Varadkar's comments came after British Prime Minister Theresa May suggested on yesterday that there would be three-way talks about Brexit.

The Taoiseach added that there will be consultations between the two Governments about issues that are unique to Ireland.

"We will, of course, have negotiations about what could be done to avoid a hard border but what we won't be getting into is a negotiation with the UK, or a three-way negotiation," Mr Varadkar said.

"That's not in our interest and not the way that this can be concluded."

The Taoiseach told RTE's Morning Ireland programme that he gave Mrs May's speech about Brexit on Friday a guarded welcome but detail was now needed from the UK Government.

"What we want is not so much principles and aspirations and red lines," Mr Varadkar said.

"What we want is detail, written down in black and white that can be codified into law and that is what is required."

Meanwhile, former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has accused the British Government of playing games with Ireland over the border.

Last week, Theresa May refused to put into writing a verbal deal allowing the North to remain in the EU customs union after Brexit.

Mr Ahern thinks the UK is being cynical.

PA & Digital DeskWater restrictions and pressure on hospital services will continue in the coming days and weeks in the aftermath of the Storm Emma, writes Juno McEnroe.

While day-to-day life returns to normal in most parts of the country, a snow and ice warning remains for a number of areas in the east and south-east, as well as the risk of flooding.

Temperatures could fall tonight as low as -3C or lower if there is a break in the cloud in eastern parts.

With high tide later today in Dublin and river heights increasing in Wexford, there are risks of flooding. This risk has passed in the south. In general, an Orange warning remains in place for the country for the next 24 hours.

The National Emergency Coordination Group stressed that the biggest problems in the clean up after the snow storm was huge pressures on water and health services in the coming days.

Over 40,000 HSE appointments were cancelled last Thursday and Friday and these must be rescheduled.

Over 1,000 ambulance calls were also responded to in recent days and many patients have not been able to return home after treatment. All non-elective surgery has been cancelled in hospitals today, it was announced.

The HSE confirmed that difficulties for services particularly in hospitals would continue for up to two weeks. Doctors representatives have called for a state of emergency to be announced.

Meanwhile, homes in the Dublin will see their water restricted in the coming days.

Pressure will be restricted "across the board" for the region, between the hours of 7pm and 7am, it was announced. This follows huge spikes in demand for water.

An extra 20 million litres in the water system was needed yesterday compared to the day before. Overall, some 60m litres in water is being demanded more than a normal day, it was added.

Irish Water is trying to fix leaks in Athlone, east Meath and Longford among areas.

People are being asked to minimise toilet flushes or shower usage for the coming days.

Elsewhere, near all homes that lost electricity have been reconnected and most bus and rail services are now running at normal capacity.The world's longest-running musical is coming to Dublin!

It has been announced that Les Miserables will tour the UK and Ireland with our capital being one of the stops.

Les Mis will be on at the Bord Gais Energy Theatre from December 5, 2018 until January 12, 2019.

The show inspired by the Victor Hugo novel will tour the UK and Ireland for the first time in almost 10 years.

Tickets go on sale on Monday, March 12 at 9am - prepare the barricade!A Turkish court has rejected lawyers' requests for two Greek soldiers arrested in Turkey to be released from custody.

The two were arrested last week for allegedly entering a Turkish military zone and on suspicion of attempted espionage. Greece said the two soldiers, a lieutenant and a sergeant, accidentally strayed into Turkey due to bad weather during a patrol of the Greek-Turkish border.

The development has added further tensions to already strained ties between the Nato allies.

Lawyers for the two Greek soldiers filed a demand on Monday for their release at the court in the northwestern Turkish city of Edirne.

The court however, ruled that they must remain in custody on grounds that they did not have permanent residence in Turkey and because the court was still examining the "digital data" seized from them, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Family members of the two soldiers were able to visit them in jail on Monday.

Earlier in Athens, Greek foreign minister Nikos Kotzias renewed a demand for their swift release.

"Turkey must observe procedures prescribed by international law, and not turn a routine incident into a big political and legal issue," he said.

A river marks most of the Greek-Turkish border, while a fence runs along much of the land section. However, some parts aren't clearly marked.

Relations between neighbours Greece and Turkey have soured in recent weeks over longstanding disputes about boundaries in the Aegean Sea and natural gas drilling rights off the coast of war-divided Cyprus.

Last month, a Greek coast guard vessel was rammed by a Turkish patrol boat off disputed islets in the east Aegean, and Turkish warships prevented an exploratory gas rig from drilling near Cyprus.

Turkey meanwhile, is angered by court decisions in Greece rejecting the extradition of eight Turkish servicemen wanted by Ankara for their alleged involvement in a failed military coup in 2016. The eight deny any involvement in the failed coup, and Greek courts have ruled they would be at risk of not receiving a fair trial if returned to Turkey.

Turkish deputy prime minister Bekir Bozdag rejected speculation that Ankara could use the Greek soldiers' arrest to secure the extradition of the eight Turkish soldiers.

"The arrest of the two soldiers in Turkey is not the subject of a swap," Mr Bozdag said. "Neither the Greek government nor the Turkish government have made a request for a swap."

- PAJames Packer's Crown Resorts could face fines and have its flagship casino licence stripped or suspended as Victoria's gambling watchdog launches rare disciplinary proceeedings against the listed company for allegedly tampering with poker machines.

The regulator's action against Crown comes after independent federal MP Andrew Wilkie last year tabled whistleblower evidence from former gaming-floor technicians at Crown's casino in Melbourne's Southbank, claiming they had been ordered to make secret alterations to boost losses on poker machines.

Whistleblowers from Crown Melbourne claimed they were ordered to tamper with the pokies. Credit:Josh Robenstone

The Victorian Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation, which investigated the claims, revealed on Monday it had now launched proceedings against Crown on one of the key allegations - that Crown had "blanked" out the buttons for certain low-betting options on poker machines.

"The commission has commenced disciplinary proceedings against the casino operator," a VCGLR spokeswoman said. "These proceedings relate to the use of blanking of buttons on certain electronic gaming machines on the casino floor."The well-known plus-size fashion brand Maggie T will live on after collapsing earlier this year, with Specialty Fashion Group acquiring the label with plans to relaunch it in Millers stores.

Maggie T  named after the iconic Australian model Maggie Tabberer  called in administrators DW Advisory in January, becoming the latest fashion retailer to go under.

Maggie T collapsed in January. Credit:Marco Del Grande

Specialty Fashion Group, which owns the Karties, Rivers, Crossroads and City Chic brands, said on Monday it had bought the intellectual property assets associated with Maggie T and would relaunch the brand in Millers stores and online next month.

Maggie T is an iconic Australian womenswear brand that will resonate with our customer base," said chief executive Daniel Bracken.A top trade adviser to US President Donald Trump said on Sunday a process will be in place for businesses to get exemptions from the White House plan to place steep tariffs on steel and aluminum, offering the first indication a tariff hike could be less broad than first thought.

Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, said countries will not be excluded from the tariffs because that would become a slippery slope, but there will be a mechanism for corporate exemptions in some cases.

Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, said countries will not be excluded from the tariffs because that would become a slippery slope. Credit:Bloomberg

"There will be an exemption procedure for particular cases where we need to have exemptions, so that business can move forward," Navarro said on CNN's "State of the Union" program.

The scenario of possible exceptions came after Trump's surprise announcement on Thursday and subsequent aggressive business lobbying against the tariffs, an outcry from US trading partners and criticism from fellow Republicans.This morning, Margot Robbie was announced as the latest ambassador for French fashion house Chanel. And, based on the events that followed, she could really run the whole business if she had to. Margot Robbie arrives at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Credit:Eric Jamison/Invision/AP The Australian actor made her debut for the fashion house on the Oscars red carpet (no biggie, just a soft launch), wearing a white haute couture gown from the brand. But, while things were picture perfect in front of the cameras, once she made it backstage one of the dress's beaded straps reportedly fell off.

Multiple outlets reported seeing the 27-year-old receive a sewing kit from an assistant, before promptly sewing the strap back on herself. Somewhere on the Gold Coast, Robbie's old high school textiles teacher is giving themselves a pat on the back. Loading Oh, aint got time for that! Robbie, who was nominated in the Best Actress category for her portrayal of controversial US figure skater Tonya Harding in I, Tonya, told People after the incident. The moral of the story? Be a multi-skilled employee.One of Canberra's most respected ACT public servants, Nic Manikis. Credit:Jamila Toderas

Let's have a look at what is making news this Tuesday.

We're looking at a mostly sunny day with a top of 23 degrees, with just a slight chance of rain in the evening, so you can probably risk it if you are out seeing the sights at Enlighten.

A celebrated former ACT public servant received a bizarre legal demand for more than $20 million after a $1 billion property deal involving the Malaysian government fell through.

Nic Manikis is a former senior official at the Community Services Directorate, and is widely credited as the driving force behind the National Multicultural Festival, among other achievements.

In 2014, while also working as a public servant, Mr Manikis said he met representatives from the Malaysian government, including the state-controlled Employees Provident Fund, to discuss a lucrative proposal.

Steven Trask has all the details here.

Approvals for new apartments in Canberra fall significantlyThe mother of a man killed on a Canberra construction site wants grieving families to be given a greater voice after being denied a chance to read an impact statement at an inquest into his death.

Ben Catanzariti, 21, was killed after suffering severe head injuries when a concrete pouring boom came crashing down on a Kingston Foreshore construction site on July 21, 2012.

Barney and Kay Catanzariti holding the jumper Ben (inset) was wearing on the day of his death.

He had been working for Belconnen Concrete for just two weeks before the incident which left two others injured.

Investigations established the sudden collapse was due to the fracture of high strength bolts, but the cause of the failure has been under contention since.There's been much revelry now the digital Granny has been located (C8). Bob Kershaw of Woonona thinks it's "good to see you have some clout in the Herald". (Credit to the readers. The C8 mailbox was in some distress for a while there). A cautious Rod Burke of Green Point writes: "Good to hear that Granny is 'between Editorial and Obituaries'. Let's hope she never makes it all the way there!"

John Hickey of Coolangatta says: "As a Resident Medical Officer in 1964 my first number plate (C8) was DOA."

A question from Ben Aveling of Alexandria: "I am looking for a verb to describe the act of walking while using a mobile phone. Perhaps my Google-fu has failed me, but I have searched online without success. Can Column 8 and its most erudite readers help?"

Alan Marel's search for cases of spontaneous combustion (C8) has led to a note on the type from Bill Holley of Mayfield: "I have it on good authority that Vern Toose, a compositor working for Frank Packer in days of yore, designed a set of lead overshoes which were worn to prevent the risk of spontaneous human combustion due to friction in the typesetting departments of major newspapers."

The more IBM interpretations (C8) we get, the more esoteric they seem. Alastair Browne of Cromer Heights recalls: "In the early days, IBM also stood for Imitation Burroughs Machines," while Barry Kemple of North Turramurra says long ago "another interpretation was I'm Bloody Mandrake."More than 100 millimetres of rain has fallen on parts of south-east Queensland overnight, leaving a handful of roads flooded.

Storms expected to hit the region during the day ended up rolling towards the coast closer to midnight, dumping 54 millimetre in half an hour at the Gold Coast Seaway.

Parkland Boulevard, off Roma Street in Brisbane, was closed due to flooding on Tuesday morning. Credit:Jorge Branco/Fairfax Media.

Bureau of Meteorology senior forecaster Sam Campbell said some parts of the coast copped 140 millimetres, with 70mm-100mm falling across most of Brisbanes north.

Just north of the city, Lake Kurwongbah picked up 117 millimetres, while the Brisbane CBD itself copped 59 millimetres.One of the men accused of the violent road rage assault that left a Gold Coast man in a coma will fight the charge against him, arguing the incident was initiated and accelerated by the victim.

Brock Prime remains in hospital in a coma.

Brock Prime remains in a stable but life-threatening condition with a suspected fractured skull and broken leg from the assault which occurred on the M1 motorway on February 24.

On Monday, two of the three men accused of the attack were granted bail on strict conditions in Beenleigh Magistrates Court, despite the magistrate stressing the seriousness of the charge.

In opposing the bail, police prosecutor sergeant Ellen French argued the pair had displayed an inability to maintain self-control and "had chosen to take matters into their own hands".A prestigious Gold Coast boarding school will shut down for three days later this month following a gastro outbreak which has affected hundreds of students and teachers.



The Southport School will close on Friday, March 23, just three days before the end of the first term, after 400 students and teachers were impacted by the outbreak of norovirus.

Despite attempts to control the gastro outbreak, The Southport School has decided to end Term 1 early.

The outbreak has plagued the school for the past five weeks.

Gold Coast Public Health Unit professor Paul Van Buynder said his team was working with the school to help manage and control the outbreak and was pleased the school had decided to close early.Western Australia's future success as a premium tourist destination lies in embracing craft beer, according to Edith Cowan University researchers.

The Craft Beer Tourism report has revealed the industry is booming, and ECU researcher Nevil Alexander says it's time the tourism authority recognised how the market could help WA's visitor numbers.

Gage Roads marketing manager Scott Player, WA Premier Mark McGowan and VenuesLive CEO Mike McKenna.

"There is clearly a desire for craft brewery experiences  the whole industry is evolving, and we need to recognise beer as a tourism asset," Mr Alexander said.

Published just last year, the report outlined concerns faced by those who wanted to push craft brewery as a tourism asset but were not sure how to execute their plan.Warning that "the price of victory is eternal vigilance," iconic West Australian author Tim Winton has donated prize money from his book The Boy Behind the Curtain to help protect the Ningaloo Reef.

Winton is a noted environmental campaigner in WA and was heavily involved in the Save Ningaloo Reef campaign of the early 2000s - he donated prize money for his 2001 book Dirt Music to that effort after taking out the WA Premiers Prize.

Tim Winton has donated prize money from his book The Boy Behind the Curtain to help protect the Ningaloo Reef.

Nearly twenty years later, Winton's The Boy Behind the Curtain won the non-fiction category of the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature with prize money of $15,000.

Winton's essays cover aspects of his life including his involvement in the historic Save Ningaloo Reef campaign which led to Ningaloo's listing on the World Heritage register.Laws to ban property developers making donations to political parties will be reintroduced to Queensland Parliament this week.

The state Labor government introduced the legislation to Parliament late last year but did not get the laws passed before the November 25 election.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says legislation banning political donations from developers will be introduced this week. Credit:Darren England/AAP

The legislation, which will apply retrospectively to last year's campaign, now needs to be reintroduced.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Monday confirmed the laws would be raised at this week's sitting of Parliament, after suggesting in January they might not be introduced until later in the year.Authorities will soon have speedy access to photos from driver's licences, visas and passports, without seeking a warrant to hunt suspected terrorists.

Legislation will likely be passed through Queensland Parliament this week, allowing police to more quickly access facial images for non-transport-related offences to match against potential offenders.

Police will no longer need a warrant to access Queensland licence photos when the new legislation is passed.

The bill will also set up Queensland's participation in the Australia-wide Identity Matching Services, a biometric face matching system, with information shared between states and territories, after an agreement at COAG in 2017.

Australians convicted of terrorism offences have used fake names when buying ammunition and chemicals to make explosives, and pre-paid phones to communicate anonymously.Beijing: China has cut 170 million tonnes of steel making capacity and 800 million tonnes of coal production, at the cost of 1.1 million local jobs in five years, Chinese premier Li Keqiang said on Monday, while noting a "sharp rise in protectionism globally".

China's steel production capacity would be cut by a further 30 million tonnes this year, and coal by another 150 million, he told China's annual sitting of parliament.

China is cutting its steel and coal production partly for environmental reasons, and partly because it produces more than it can use.

Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang arrive for the opening session of the annual National People's Congress in Beijing. Credit:AP

But any slowdown in China's steel making reduces the price Australia gets for its iron ore, the biggest export to China, the Department of Industry, Science and Technology noted in a report in January.It is 5.30am. I am sitting on an upturned bucket in a cell bathroom  the only place at this time of day where there is any light.

My 146 cell mates are mostly asleep, though an occasional early riser wanders in every few minutes to pee in the narrow trench that has been cut into the tiled floor behind me.

There is no water in the tank to flush the three squat toilets 147 men must share.

The smell of urine is overpowering.

At least 50 per cent of the time there is no water in the tank between around 8.30 pm and 6.30 am.Oslo: Norway's fjords have long inspired the country's artists and drawn streams of tourists. In winter, their ice-laced surfaces shimmer beside snow-capped mountains: a vision of natural beauty, blissfully untouched.

But lost in the depths of the fjord in Oslo, stretching out from the capital, is a trove that would please any intrepid archaeologist or Nordic noir sleuth: sunken Viking trinkets, bullion from Hitler's prized warship and, possibly, a few victims of homicide.

Mostly, though, the fjord is filled with garbage, like unwanted cars. And that has alarmed environmentalists.

"Not many years ago, a mayor said, 'If you want to get rid of a car, put it on the ice,'" said Solve Stubberud, general secretary of the Norwegian Divers Federation.Riyadh: Saudi Arabia will help keep Britain safe with extensive sharing of intelligence on terrorists, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman says.

In an exclusive interview ahead of his visit to Britain this week, the heir to the Saudi throne, who now in effect runs the country on a day-to-day basis, said he believed that close cooperation between Riyadh and the UK's intelligence agencies would help prevent further jihadist attacks.

Commuters walk past a City of London Police officer after a terrorist attack last year. Credit:Bloomberg

"We want to fight terrorism and we want to fight extremism because we need to build stability in the Middle East," he said. "The British and Saudi people, along with the rest of the world, will be much safer if you have a strong relationship with Saudi Arabia."Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC

A Sheepshead Bay woman allegedly fed her look-alike in Queens a poisonous cheesecake in an attempt to kill her and steal her identity.

The Queens District Attorneys office charged the woman with attempted murder, burglary, and a litany of other crimes on Feb. 28, according to a press release.

This is a bizarre and twisted crime that could have resulted in the death of a Queens woman, whose only fault was that she shared similar features with the defendant said Queens County District Attorney Richard A. Brown.

The office said that the Sheepshead Bay woman visited the home of her doppelganger on August 28, 2016, and gave her a cheesecake. The victim ate the dessert, and then felt sick and laid down. The next day, a friend found her unconscious in her bed, dressed in lingerie with pills around her body, which resembled a suicide. After she went to the hospital, and then returned home, she discovered that her passport, employment card, a gold ring, and cash were missing from her home.

The two women  who both have dark hair, share a similar skin complexion, and speak Russian  knew each other before the incident, a Queens District Attorneys office spokeswoman said.

Department of Homeland Security officials tested the cheesecake and found that it included phenazepam  a tranquilizer invented in the Soviet Union. The Federal Bureau of Investigation determined the pills found beside the victim were also phenazepam, according to the district attorneys office.

The Sheepshead Bay woman was arrested on March 20, 2017, following a police investigation. Police found the victims passport and other belongings after arresting her, the office said.

The alleged poisoner was charged with attempted murder, burglary, attempted assault, assault, reckless endangerment, unlawful imprisonment, two larceny charges, and criminal possession of stolen property. She is due back in court on May 25, and faces up to the 25 years in prison, also according to the district attorneys office.

The lawyer defending the accused did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Daily Mail reported that the defendant is also wanted in Russia for allegedly murdering a woman in 2014. A district attorneys office spokeswoman said the office had no information on the accusation, and the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC did not immediately respond to an inquiry on the matter.Karti Chidambaram said on Sunday that "false" and "politically motivated" allegations had been made against him, days after being arrested by the CBI in connection with the INX media case. Karti, the son of former finance minister P Chidambaram, was flown back to Delhi from Mumbai, where he was questioned along with Indrani Mukerjea, one of the accused in the Sheena Bora murder case.

The CBI brought the two "face-to-face" in Byculla jail. In the confrontation, which lasted for more than three-and-half hours, Karti denied allegations made by Indrani. Sources told INDIA TODAY TV that CBI videographed the entire confrontation. Karti, who landed in Mumbai at 10 am, was taken to Byculla jail directly where Indrani has been lodged on charges of killing her daughter Sheena.

While entering the prison, Karti waved at media persons who had assembled outside the high-security prison. At about 11.30 am, CBI made both Indrani and Karti sit face-to-face. Karti, 46, is accused of having received Rs 3.5 crore from Mumbai-based firm INX Media (now known as 9X Media), to help it get a Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance in 2007. At the time, the company was run by Indrani and her husband Peter Mukerjea. Indrani said she and her husband met Karti on the instructions of then finance minister, sources said. Karti denied the charges, sources told INDIA TODAY TV.

The doors of the prison were shut and no other person from outside was allowed to enter the premises when the two were questioned, a source said. The CBI team came out of the prison around 3.15 pm and a smiling Karti waved again at journalists while standing on the footboard of a car being used by the agency. According to CBI sources, both Peter and Indrani had alleged that they met then finance minister P Chidambaram at his North Block office, seeking clearance for foreign investments in their media company after the income tax department detected irregularities, in 2007.

Chidambaram had allegedly then asked them to help the business of his son and make foreign remittances for the purpose. Indrani has also alleged that she and Peter met Karti at a five-star hotel in Delhi, where he allegedly made a demand of $1 million (Rs 6.5 crore). Karti was later, confronted with receipts seized from raids at the ASCPL office which amounted to Rs 10 lakh. Karti claimed he was not involved in day-to-day questioning of the management firm. Indrani also said INX media signed a deal with Chess Management Service Pvt Limited and Payments were made to Advantage Strategic Consulting Pvt Limited (ASCPL).

Around 3 pm, the confrontation between Karti and Indrani got over after which CBI took him directly to Mumbai Airport and boarded the 5 pm flight for Delhi. On Friday and Saturday, accused by CBI of giving false statements, Karti was confronted with documentary evidence regarding an FIPB clearance gran-ted to INX Media when his father P Chidambaram was finance minister. Karti is accused of receiving Rs 3.5 crore from INX Media to help it get FIPB clearance.

Karti was arrested earlier this week from Chennai airport after he arrived from UK. The businessman will be in CBI custody till March 6, when he will be produce in court again. He was arrested nine months after the CBI registered an FIR against him on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, accepting gratification by corrupt or illegal means, influencing public servants and criminal misconduct.Karti Chidambaram, who is under the CBI custody, today approached the Supreme Court to get the Enforcement Directorate's summons quashed. In his fresh writ petition, Karti Chidambaram has challenged the summons on the ground that the ED has no jurisdiction to issue such notices based on the FIR registered by the CBI. The Supreme Court will hear the matter tomorrow.

Last year in May, the CBI lodged an FIR against Karti Chidambaram for alleged irregularities in Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media. It said that INX Media received overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when Karti's father P Chidambaram was the Finance Minister.

Based on the CBI FIR, the ED registered a case of money laundering against Karti under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The ED in its FIR said that Karti received money from INX Media in return for using his influence to manipulate a tax probe against it in a case of violation of FIPB conditions to receive investment from Mauritius.

Karti's counsel today filed the plea before a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, which agreed to hear it along with related pending matters scheduled for hearing on Tuesday. The apex court is likely to hear the anticipatory bail plea of Karti Chidambaram on Tuesday.

Last week, the CBI arrested Karti Chidambaram from Chennai airport after he returned from the UK. He will be in the CBI custody till tomorrow. Karti was arrested nine months after the CBI registered an FIR against him on charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating, accepting gratification by corrupt or illegal means, influencing public servants and criminal misconduct.

The ED has so far issued multiple summons to Karti Chidambaram. In its previous summon, the agency had asked Karti to appear before it on March 1. However, senior lawyer Kapil Sibal approached the Supreme Court to get it postponed. The apex court had rejected the plea.

(With inputs from PTI)Lakshmi Mittal might be the king of steel elsewhere but his company ArcelorMittal still needs a foothold in India. Mittal is now making a desperate attempt to build a substantial presence on Indian shores with his bid for the stressed assets of Essar Steel. The India born tycoon may come in the way of the efforts by the Ruias, Essar Steel promoters, to save the company from slipping out of their grasp. Rewant Ruia's Aurora Investments is a minority shareholder in the only other bidder for the company - a consortium Numetal led by VTB Capital.

Mittal had made some headway in India when his group's ArcelorMittal Netherlands BV bought a 29.05 per cent stake in Uttam Galva Steels in 2009. He decided to offload his stake in Uttam Galva at a rock bottom price to his co-promoters to meet the eligibility criteria for bidding for Essar Steel's assets.

Both bids for Essar Steel require a nod from the interim resolution professional (IRP) to move forward. But Mittal has made sure he stays in the reckoning, an attempt to change the fortunes of his group in India. The Ruias though will put up a spirited fight to save the asset and prevent a further slimming of their group. Recently, they sold Essar Oil to Russian conglomerate Roseneft.

In the past decade, ArcelorMittal Group made some valiant attempts to scale up in India. It included MoUs with states like Jharkhand, Odisha, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal for projects that entailed an investment of anywhere between Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 50,000 crore. But they only made big newspaper stories and there has been little progress on the ground. The group is also discussing a proposal to set up an auto-grade steel mill with SAIL.

Uttam Galva, Mittal's entry vehicle into India, too is a bank defaulter and is undergoing insolvency proceedings. Critics point out that his investments in the company couldn't save it. Will he be able to turn around Essar Steel? Only time will tell but Mittal made his fortune by acquiring stressed assets across the globe. It all started in the 90s when his companies started picking up stressed assets in countries like Indonesia, Ireland, Canada, Kazakhsthan, Trinidad &Tobago and Mexico. After limited success with his acquisitions in his previous purchases in Canada and Germany, he started looking at assets in former Soviet Union countries, especially those in a financial mess. This includes his 1995 pick Karmet Steel works at Temirtau in Kazakhstan for $400m. This was also the time when steel consumption picked up in neighbouring China and turned around his fortunes.



In 2004, he emerged as the world's biggest steel maker. His Ispat International NV acquired another group company LNM Holding and then merged with International Steel Group, forming Mittal Steel. The journey, which started in 1976, with LNM Group setting up its first steel mill with 26,000 tonne capacity in Indonesia, led to this conglomerate with 42.1 MT steel shipments and profits of $22 billion that year. In the next two years, he made the group a behemoth, with the acquisition of European steel major Arcelor Steel after hectic boardroom negotiations and overcoming opposition from then chairman of the company Guy Dolle and French President Jacques Chirac. But India still remained beyond Mittal's reach.

ArcelorMittal controls 10 per cent of global steel manufacturing and was one of the first to have annual output cross 100 million tonnes (MT). Turnover in 2017 reached $68.6 billion. But all this didn't come easy. In 2015, ArcelorMittal reported a whopping debt of $15 billion and losses amounted to $7.9 billion. The steel giant is still making efforts to cut down on its debt. In a statement released on January 31, the company has set a net debt target of $6 billion. It appears difficult because, globally, the steel sector is battling two big challenges: overcapacity and dumping from China. Along with this, the group's arm in South Africa is battling a fuel crunch. Earlier in 2016, the South Africa's competition tribunal fined the company 100 million rand for price rigging. The group has already paid the first instalment of this fine.

Mittal has investments in HPCL's Bhatinda oil refinery and along with ONGC's foreign investment arm -- OVL -- floated OMEL (ONGC Mittal Energy Ltd) to buy stakes in oil assets. The distress sale of Essar Steel and other assets may help Mittal in expanding his footprint in India.The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has issued orders restraining Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and 60-dd entities including various individuals, companies and limited liability partnership firms, from selling their assets so that the government can recover funds siphoned off by them in the Rs 12,600 crore PNB fraud.

The corporate affairs ministry has made a public announcement that the ex-parte order was passed on a petition filed by the ministry under sections of the Companies Act, 2013. The ministry moved the petition under various provisions such as section 221, which pertains to freezing of assets of a company on inquiry and investigation, and section 222 that relates to imposition of restrictions upon securities.

The 64 entities against whom the restraining order has been passed Apart from the main perpetrators of the fraud Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, some of their relatives and various companies such as Gitanjali Gems, Gilli India, Nakshatra Brands and Firestar Diamond figure on the last of barred entities.

Partnership firms such as Solar Exports and Stellar Diamond have also been included on the list. According to the ministry, there is an injunction against these entities from removal, transfer or disposal of funds, assets and properties till further orders. The NCLT has posted the matter for further hearing on March 26 when the entities concerned have been asked to be present before the tribunal. As per the public announcement, in case the entities fail to appear on that day, then the matter would be heard ex-parte.

Apart from the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate, the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) under the corporate affairs ministry is also investigating the matter. The ministry has ordered the SFIO to investigate around 110 companies, including some listed ones, and about 10 LLPs linked to Modi and Choksi. The estimated Rs 12,636 crore swindle took place through fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) in collusion with some employees of PNB who are also being investigated in the case.

Although PNB managing director and chief executive Sunil Mehta had said the bank would honour all bona fide commitments under the LoUs, there are reports about some disputes between PNB and other lenders on repayment. While PNB is trying to make out that the LOUs are fraudulent as they were sent on the SWIFT system without putting it on the core banking server of PNB.

However, other banks such as SBI, Allahabad Bank and UCO Bank and Axis Bank are of the view that any bank guarantee that comes through to them on the SWIFT system from PNB is valid. According to them any short circuiting of norms is an internal problem for PNB. Interestingly, Mehta and a former PNB chief, Usha Ananthasubramanian have also been questioned by the CBI in connection with the mega fraud.

Mauritius starts probe to trace cash

The Mauritius authorities have also swung into action to detect any money that the scamsters in the PNB fraud case may have parked in the island nation. The Financial Services Commission (FSC) of Mauritius said in a statement that it has taken cognisance of media reports about the purported fraud allegations with regards to Punjab National Bank, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi.

The FSC is assessing the reported information and is closely monitoring the matter in collaboration with the Bank of Mauritius, the Mauritius Revenue Authority and the Financial Intelligence Unit. The FSC is also in constant communication with its international counterparts under existing exchange of information agreements, the statement said.

The FSC, regulator of nonbanking financial services and global business sectors in Mauritius, said it will take necessary regulatory action against any of its licensee, as also individuals or companies under its jurisdiction, found to be linked with any illegal, harmful and/or fraudulent practices that may cause any prejudice to the good repute of Mauritius.

Indian investigative agencies are also seeking details from their counterparts in various other countries including Mauritius and Hong Kong about the details of the financial transactions related to the case as the money has been siphoned out of overseas branches of Indian banks on the basis of guarantees extended by PNB's Brady House branch in Mumbai.Ever since the PNB fraud worth Rs 12,700 crore has come to light, the NDA government has been facing for flak from the Opposition parties for letting accused Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi slip out of the country. But the Centre seems to have got some ammo to hit out at the previous UPA government. Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, in a press conference on Monday, said it was during the "so-called economist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh" that the banking system was derailed and that former finance minister P Chidambaram helped Mehul Choksi's Gitanjali Group through the UPA government's 80:20 Gold Import Scheme.

"There was a Scheme 80:20 introduced in August 2013 and repealed in November 2014. On May 16, 2014, the date of the declaration of results, the then finance minister gave 'aashirvaad' to seven private companies under the 80:20 Scheme. One of those companies was Gitanjali," Ravi Shankar Prasad said in a press conference in New Delhi.

"Chidambaram and Rahul Gandhi must answer why this was passed on the day of the results to benefit these seven companies? Chidmabaram wasn't doing it himself, but they had his blessings," added the minister.

Prasad said it was because of the advances given during the UPA government that the non-performing assets (NPAs) have risen up to 82 per cent. "Time and again we have stated that not a single loan given under our govt is NPA. In 2008, the total advance to people given by the banks was Rs 18.06 lakh crore. By March 2014, the amount went up to Rs 52.15 lakh crore. The stressed asset identified out of this was only 36 per cent," ANI quoted the minister as saying.

The minister also accused former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for interfering with the banking system. "Under the 'so-called economist' Prime Minister Manomhan Singh, the entire banking system went haywire due to all kinds of interference with it," he said.

80:20 GOLD IMPORT SCHEME

Launched by the previous UPA government in August 2013, the 80:20 Scheme allowed traders to import gold only after they had exported 20 per cent of gold from their previous import. During a Parliament's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meeting with the Ministry of Finance officials last week, the BJP members highlighted the issue of the 80:20 Scheme.

They alleged the scheme, which was launched during P Chidambaram's tenure, was misused by Mehul Choksi for money laundering, reported PTI. The PAC's sub-committee, which was headed by BJP Member of Parliament (MP) Nishikant Dubey, also asked the top officials of the Revenue Department, Enforcement Directorate (ED), CBDT (Central Board of Direct Taxes), and the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) to share all the details regarding the scheme within a week.

SCHEME RESULTED IN RS 1 LAKH CRORE LOSS: CAG

During the PAC meeting held last week, the members also discussed the CAG (Comptroller and Auditor General) report, which was released in 2016. The report said the UPA's 80:20 scheme had resulted in Rs 1 lakh crore loss to the exchequer, reported PTI. To support the earning of one US dollar (around Rs 60 then) for jewellers, the government had to bear the expenditure in the form of duty foregone of Rs 221.75, said the CAG report.

The BJP members in the committee have alleged that the scheme was used by jewellers for "round tripping of black money and money laundering", and that all of this happened under Chidambaram. The round tripping is a process by which black money that goes out of the country returns as white money.

Firestar Diamond owner Nirav Modi allegedly defrauded the Punjab National Bank of over Rs 12,700 crore, while his paternal uncle and Gitanjali Group owner Mehul Choksi also defrauded several public sector banks of thousand crores of rupees. Both of them fled the country in January first week.

Meanwhile, a special CBI court in Mumbai has sent Vipul Ambani, CFO of FireStar Diamond, and 5 other accused - Kavita Mankikar, Arjun Patil, Rajesh Jindal, Kapil Khandelwal and Niten Shahi - to judicial custody till March 19.The Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill 2017, which was approved by the Union Cabinet on Friday, is expected to dominate the list of bills to be tabled in the parliament following the Nirav Modi-PNB multi-crore fraud. A look at some key economic Bills to be tabled this session

The Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill 2017

The Bill aims to stop economic offenders who flee overseas to avoid getting caught in financial frauds or offences. The Bill was first mentioned by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his Budget speech in 2017-18 and is applicable for offenders against whom an arrest warrant has been issued for a scheduled offence.

Economic offences include those defined under the Indian Penal Code - the Prevention of Corruption Act, the SEBI Act, the Customs Act, the Companies Act, Limited Liability Partnership Act, and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.

The proposed law also allows confiscation of the accused's assets and covers cases in which the total value is Rs 100 crore or more.

It proposes setting up an independent regulator for auditors.

The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill 2017

The Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha by Labour Minister Santosh Kumar in December 2017 and aimed at increasing the gratuity limit for private sector from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh in line with the government sector.

After the implementation of the 7th Central Pay Commission, the ceiling of gratuity amount for central government employees was increased from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 20 lakh. Under the present set-up, employees are paid gratuity if they provide at least five years of continuous service to an organisation when he/she is leaving it.

Also, the Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill will allow the government to notify a higher period (26 weeks) of maternity leave as continuous service. This is due to the implementation of the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 which extended the maternity leave period to 26 weeks from 12 weeks.

The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill 2016

The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill 2016 was introduced as an attempt to create an exhaustive and comprehensive legislative framework for road safety in India and amends the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988. The Bill has introduced some significant reforms - guidelines to bind State governments in creating a framework for taxicab aggregators, finance insurance to treat the injured and compensate families of the dead in hit-and-run cases, inclusion of Good Samaritan Guidelines, proper electronic surveillance on national and state highways and urban roads and others.

The State Banks (Repeal and Amendment) Bill 2017

The Bill was introduced to repeal the two Acts - State Bank of India (Subsidiary Banks) Act, 1959, and State Bank of Hyderabad Act, 1956.

It also seeks to amend the State Bank of India (SBI) Act, 1955 to remove references to subsidiary banks and powers of the SBI to act as an agent of the RBI for subsidiary banks. The Centre had approved the merger of five associate banks - State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Mysore and State Bank of Patiala - along with Bharatiya Mahila Bank with the SBI. The merger had made the State Bank of India one of the 50 biggest banks of the world, increasing its capital base to disburse more loans.





With PTI inputsThe Indian Railways has reportedly decided to cut down the tariff of trains like Maharaja Express, Palace on Wheels, the Golden Chariot, Deccan Odyssey and Royal Orient by almost 50 per cent. The fare for an adult on such trains is between $3,850 to $26,070.

According to a report in The Pioneer, the Railway Board on March 1 reviewed the policy on luxury trains and decided to reduce the existing haulage charges by 50 percent through a commercial notification. The decision comes after the Ministry of Railways slashed haulage charges borne by the state tourism departments, partners or stakeholders like IRCTC which run the trains in coordination with the network of Indian Railways.

Moreover, the report said common people will be able to travel in luxury saloons used by the President of India, Prime Minister and top railway officials. The Presidential suite on luxury trains boasts two bedrooms with a living cum dining room.

With airlines offering attractive fares for domestic tickets, train passengers travelling on premium trains like Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duranto have witnessed a dip. The occupancy on luxury trains has also witnessed a sharp decline in recent years.

Trains like Royal Rajasthan and Palace on Wheels recorded a decline in revenue by a staggering 63.18 per cent and 24.08 per cent, respectively, the report said. The reduction in tariff is said to be because of the fall in revenue from luxury trains.

In India, luxury trains started in 1982 with the introduction of Palace on Wheels in 1982 to promote tourism in Rajasthan. Luxury trains are equipped with state-of-the-art amenities such as Wi-Fi in rooms, plasma TVs with satellite channels, DVD players, individual climate control and electronic safe. Aboard the train, guests are offered butler service, meals, house brands of Indian wines, beer and spirits.

To make use of its 336 saloon cars, Indian Railways is also planning open private saloon cars for travellers. Currently, saloon cars are used by top railway officials. The report said that crores of rupees were spent on maintenance of these saloons which were often misused by railway officials and their families for vacationing.Accenture Technology Services is one of the five core business verticals for Accenture. Bhaskar Ghosh, Group Chief Executive of Accenture Technology Services, sits in Bangalore. There is a message in this on the role for India and the importance of this space for Accenture globally and it is apparent from the numbers. Consider this: In fiscal 2017 (Accenture follows a fiscal year ended August 31, 2017), revenues from the "New", i.e. digital- cloud- and security-related services, accounted for $18 billion, or approximately 50 per cent of Accenture's total fiscal revenues of $34.9 Billion. Compare this with three years ago -- in fiscal 2015 (year ended August 31, 2015) digital-related services generated revenues of $7 Billion (in Accenture's total revenues of $31 Billion). India also adds up as an important geography even by number of people. Out of 435,000 people at Accenture globally, around 150,000 are in India. Speaking to Business Today's E. Kumar Sharma, Ghosh, a science graduate with management in marketing and a PhD in management, talks of the importance of India, the talent transformation underway at Accenture with re-skilling and equally important, its new artificial intelligence (AI) testing services. Excepts:



On the changing role of technology:

There is a step jump in terms of technology with AI, IoT (Intenet of Things), Machine Learning everything coming together. How you rely on these will be very different from what has been in the past. The fundamental change with AI is that a machine will learn and act and this is a huge shift from IT programming of the past, where it involved structuring a programme and where we knew exactly how a software will behave. Also, in the past, whenever we talked about technology and innovation, it was all about replacement of human being by a machine but now we are talking about the two working together and for this both the human beings and machines need to change to this new reality. So, we need to be careful how we develop and govern this technology.

On what Accenture is betting big on:

Broadly at a very higher level, we defined three years back digital as an umbrella which included a collection of technologies like cloud and IoT and now it is artificial intelligence and it is digital that we are betting on. Today, about 55 per cent of our revenue comes from this new type of work that is being defined under digital. Three years ago it was about 25 to 30 per cent. If you look for the precise numbers then in fiscal 2017 (year ended August 31, 2017), revenues from the "New", i.e. digital- cloud- and security-related services accounted for $18 billion, or approximately 50 per cent of Accenture's total fiscal revenues of $34.9 billion as against $7 billion out of $31 billion in fiscal 2015.

On how it plays out for a company like Accenture:

How it works is that for us, in digital technology, it is not really so much about technology per se but the business transformation through technology, which is how organizations get value. Suppose if we talk about IoT, you could look at it purely as technology, in which case, you come down to a space where you put some sensor, write a code and get data. But then that is not where the actual value resides. It is really when you redesign your business with this new technology that you stand to gain from its true value. So, the way we do it is, we lead this with consulting and first take to our clients the business case on how the technology will bring value to the customer and then we bring the technology. Therefore, we always say Accenture operates at the intersection of business and technology.

On a few specific domains gaining focus:

We are betting big on security domain/ security consulting, that is a huge opportunity across the globe. We are talking about cloud applications, another opportunity apart from IoT. We are investing more on blockchain and artificial intelligence and machine learning are huge focus areas. But then, artificial intelligence should be seen along with analytics. Large part of our business comes from data and analytics.



On the kind of jobs and newer roles that are getting created:

Globally, Accenture is over 400,000 people organisation. Out of that 200,000 work on technologies across the globe. Of these, over the last 18 months, around 160,000 people have been trained in newer technologies. Every manager across the globe has an app and knows exactly how many people in their group are trained in the new and it creates a friendly competition between various geography leads. We don't push the people into training though we encourage them as it is important to stay relevant. We just make it available because talent rotation into newer technologies is extremely important. As far as new recruits, they will be in the newer technologies. How many we will add in terms of new recruits depends on the business growth per region.



On the extent to which new talent is readily available:

Really available talent in this space will be a challenge but then we continue to get the right talent at the entry level and then we train them. But then, when you look at the recruitment focus, there is a difference now. For example, historically in technology, I recruit primarily engineering graduates in computer science, electronics and so on. But now, I am interested in recruiting also mathematics and statistics graduates, which was not the focus in the past. Why? Because when there is artificial intelligence, it is very statistical based and a person with statistics background will come handy. Again, so that machines do not get confused, it is also important for machines to learn how humans behave and therefore there is need for anthropology graduates too.

On Accenture's new artificial Intelligence testing service:



We have just launched new services for testing AI systems. It is powered by our unique methodology of "teach and test" that is designed to help companies build, monitor and measure reliable AI systems within their own infrastructure or in the cloud. The methodology is really about ensuring that the AI systems are producing the right decisions in two phases. In the 'teach' phase the focus is on the choice of data, models and algorithms that are to be used to train machine learning. This phase experiments and statistically evaluates different models to select the best performing model to be deployed into production, while avoiding gender, ethnic and other biases as well as ethical and compliance risks. The 'test' phase however, is when the AI system outputs are compared to key performance indicators and are assessed for whether the system can explain how a decision or outcome was determined. It uses innovative techniques and cloud-based tools to monitor the system on an ongoing basis for sustained performance.

We have our artificial intelligence group and a lot of people worked on this for the last six months.

We have 1000 clients across 40 industries to whom we provide the normal software testing service. Now, when these clients develop applications with artificial intelligence, they need different testing, creating an additional market.

The theme of Accenture's Technology Vision 2018 report is 'Intelligent Enterprise Unleashed'; this is about how rapid advancements in technologies-including AI, advanced analytics and the cloud-are accelerating the creation of intelligent enterprises and enabling companies to integrate themselves into people's lives, changing the way people work and live.

On where India fits into all of this:

India is a very important geography for us in our global footprint. Even in the new offering, there was participation from India along with teams from other geographies. We have in all around 150,000 people in India. The focus for India earlier was cost, quality and productivity but in the last few years, India is playing a role more in driving innovation and value.

We do not have delivery centres but have advanced technology centres and they are all about innovation, intelligence, industry (differentiation), new IT and new skill.

On his goal over the next 12 months:

There are few things. At the macro level, focus on innovation. I believe the talent transformation has to complete. Now, it is 160,000 ot of the 200,000. The share has to reach 80 to 90 per cent . That is all of them will need to transform to the new technologies. When I say, 55 per cent of revenues from new technology areas, it means 45 per cent that has not rotated to this. Bringing that share down is important.As the probe agencies speed up their probe in the Rs 12,700 crore PNB scam, many other frauds worth crores of rupees have come to light. In one such scam worth Rs 515 crore involving Kolkata's RP Info Systems, the CBI questioned one of the company directors accused in the case on Monday. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officials quizzed company director Shivaji Panja, and would question other officials soon. The complaint filed by a consortium of 17 banks says RP Info System and three of its directors defrauded them of Rs 515 crore loan. The agency has already raided the houses and the offices of all those accused in the case.

Earlier, Canara Bank had clarified that the complaint filed against RP Info Systems and its directors Shivaji Panja, Kaustuv Ray and Vinay Bafna for allegedly the consortium was a revised one. These directors allegedly took the loan on the basis of forged stocks and debtors' statements, and then wilfully defaulted on it.

"The leader of the consortium had filed a case with CBI in May 2015. The account had been treated as fraud by our bank during October 2015 and reported to the RBI. Consequent upon the leader bank relinquishing its role as the leader of the consortium and as directed by CBI (BS&FC), Kolkata, we were authorised by the remaining member banks to file revised complaint with CBI," Canara Bank had said in a statement. The other banks in the consortium included State Bank of India, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, Union Bank of India, Allahabad Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Central Bank of India, State Bank of Patiala, Federal Bank, and Punjab National Bank, among others.

The case has been registered under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy) read with 420 (cheating), 468 and 471 (both related to forgery) of the IPC and the criminal misconduct by a public servant. The FIR says the accused were availing bank funds on the basis of 'false and fabricated stock/receivables/ debtors statements, forged drawing power letter, etc.'

RP Infosystem had also inflated its receivables, Canara Bank mentioned in the FIR, as supposed debtors like Gail India, Vincent Electronics, and CEAT informed that they had no dealings with the company. Following this, Canara Bank filed the FIR with CBI with consent from other member banks of the consortium.

Panja, one of the directors of RP Infosystem has been involved in financial offences since long. In 2015, he was arresed dramatically while returning from Dhaka with West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. He was detained by the state police on the basis of a lookout notice by economic offences wing of Delhi police.

The CBI had booked Panja along with other directors of RP Infosystem in June 2015 for defrauding IDBI Bank of Rs 180 crore.

The bank, in its complaint on February 26, now part of the FIR, has alleged that the company, which manufactured computers under the brand name Chirag, had taken funds from the consortium from time to time from 2012 onwards. These loans have become NPAs, it said. The banks alleged that the company manipulated financial statements and did not route sale proceeds through the loan account.New research released today by Linked Finance shows that businesses who have borrowed money from the Irish peer-to-peer (P2P), have grown their staff numbers by an average of 24%.

Seventy two percent of respondents to the survey said the funds they had raised through the platform had helped them to grow their teams, with 68% planning to hire more staff this year.

The companies surveyed had grown from an average of 10 employees to almost 13 post funding. When these figures are applied to all 892 Irish SMEs the platform has supported so far, the survey suggests that funding secured with Linked Finance has directly led to the creation of over 2,400 new jobs since 2013.

Business sentiment among Irish SMEs looks to be strong, with Linked Finances survey showing that 81% of companies are positive or very positive about the outlook for their business in 2018. This is consistent with ISMEs recent quarterly business trends survey which showed confidence amongst its members at a 21-month high.

Linked Finance has seen a strong increase in demand across the first two months of 2018, following a transformative 2017 for the lending platform, which saw total loans made of 24.2m, an increase of 155% on the prior year.

The company has now provided more than 1,300 loans to Irish SMEs since its launch in 2013, more than 46 million in funding with 3.5 million in interest already earned by Linked Finance lenders.

Commenting on the research, CEO of Linked Finance, Niall Dorrian said, "The high level of business confidence we see in this survey is reflected in the demand were seeing for new lending on the platform. SMEs need a quick decision on a loan application and dont have the resources to engage in the lengthy procedures which are expected by some traditional lenders. This is why peer-to-peer lending is such an attractive option, with an easy online application process and same day credit decision on loans of up to 250,000."

Source: www.businessworld.ieA year before Britain is due to leave the European Union, top U.S. investment banks plan to hire far more people in London than anywhere else in Europe, indicating they expect the City will remain their main regional hub, at least in the short term.

When Britain voted to quit the EU in the summer of 2016, analysts predicted a mass exodus of investment banking jobs from London - historically Europe's premier financial hub - to rival centers in continental Europe.

Banks themselves warned that thousands of London-based jobs could be lost or transferred to Europe, and named or started to beef up alternative hubs in cities like Frankfurt and Dublin.

But as confusion reigns over what the trading relationship between Britain and the EU will look like after Brexit Day on March 29, 2019, top banks appear to be keeping plans for large scale recruitment in continental Europe on ice and investing in their well-established London offices instead.

As of Feb. 27, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs had a total 1,544 postings for jobs in Britain open on their websites, according to a review of the websites conducted by Reuters.

Total vacancies available in Dublin, Frankfurt and Paris - the three cities vying to woo business away from the city of London after Brexit - stood at less than 200 for the five banks.

The five banks, which employ around 40,000 people in Britain, declined to provide official comment on their plans.

"American banks were really quiet in 2016 and early 2017, but in the beginning of this year they are forecasting their hiring will be up (in the UK) this year compared to last year," said Darren Burns, a director at international recruitment firm Morgan McKinley.

This comes after a buoyant year for investment banking fees in 2017 and a return to market volatility in early 2018, which analysts believe could lead to much healthier revenues for the banks' trading business over the coming months.

Fees from bond and equity trading, loan syndication and mergers and acquisitions in Europe, Middle East and Africa for investment banks overall rose 19.5% in 2017, outperforming growth in the Americas and Asia-Pacific.

JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and BofA-Merrill Lynch took a 23.1% share in investment banking fees in EMEA last year, up from 21.2% in 2016, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Anne Murphy, head of the financial services practice at headhunter Odgers Berndtson, said U.S. investment banks were adding to their London-based workforce more actively than last year.

"It is fair to say that lots of banks are waiting as long as they can before pushing the button on any continental European relocation or hiring plans and even when that happens, in the short term the numbers involved will be in the 10s rather than the thousands," she said.

She pointed to several large office lettings and lease extensions, and a number of initiatives in the UK capital, such as Citigroup's recent decision to set up an innovation lab.

U.S. banks have said London would almost certainly remain their primary hub in Europe irrespective of Brexit, citing a broader pool of talent, a more suitable legal and regulatory framework and an Anglo-Saxon workplace culture as factors giving the British capital an edge.

However, they have also said relocation and hiring decisions were subject to change, depending on the shape of any deal between Britain and Brussels for the financial services sector.

"London will always be super important - all the banks are having to have between 6,000 and 10,000 people each here," said a senior source at one of the five U.S. banks. "But we have a long way to go before we can drawn any long-term conclusions about how one city ranks in importance over another."

JP Morgan has the most openings, with 593 vacancies posted on its careers website in Britain versus 10 in Germany and 19 in Ireland, as of Feb. 27. The bank has said it could eventually move more than 4,000 jobs out of Britain because of Brexit, but in the short term it forecasts between 500 and 1,000 moves.

Goldman Sachs is hiring 385 people in Britain and Citi 277, while Morgan Stanley and BofA Merrill Lynch are recruiting 191 and 98 people respectively.

The London hiring numbers are higher than last year at least two of the five U.S. banks, sources at those banks said, but pointed out that the numbers do not only involve classic investment banking roles but also IT and operations staff.

Some bankers have said they were reassured by a meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May earlier this year, where they were told that the future of financial services was a core government priority.

The lobbying efforts by rival financial centers, such as Paris or Frankfurt, have not yet had a significant impact. France has over the past year-and-a-half stepped up efforts to attract bankers by promising tax deductions and school places.

Out of the five banks' 191 jobs on offer in the three busiest European financial centers, 133 are inIreland, 47 in Frankfurt, and just 11 in France.

Citigroup, which has said it would headquarter its EU trading operations in Frankfurt due to Brexit, has already started to hire for a risk analytics team in the city.

"While we will continue to operate in the UK market, we also need to develop a new solution for the EU market," Citi said in the job posting for the roles.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is hiring in Ireland a financial accountant who will "carry out regulatory reporting to provide to the Central Bank of Ireland for the first entity, who expects to grow by the year end following Brexit."

The bank has 98 vacancies in Britain. A source familiar with its hiring plans said that "the level of replacement represents ordinary course of business." (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ieTaoiseach Leo Varadkar on Friday said he remained concerned that British Prime Minister Theresa May did not fully recognize the implications of leaving the European Union's customs union and single market.

May in a Friday speech urged the EU to show more flexibility in talks on a relationship after Brexit, saying Britain realized it could not get all it wanted but she believed an ambitious trade deal was still possible.

"She (May) has given a number of important reassurances today, which I welcome," Varadkar said. "However I remain concerned that some of the constraints of leaving the Customs Union and the Single Market are still not fully recognized."

Varadkar said he particularly welcomed May's "clear commitment" to Northern Ireland's 1998 peace agreement and to a December agreement to avoid a hard border between the region and the Republic of Ireland.

He said in the speech May recognized that the UK will face hard choices "given constraints between some of the UK aims and the consequences of withdrawing from the European Union."

But while he welcomed May' bid to secure a very close relationship with the EU after Brexit, that London needed to provide "more detailed and realistic proposals." (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ieRyanair and IAG's Aer Lingus have signed a co-operation agreement to offer connecting flights on each other's services, the Aer Lingus CEO was quoted as saying on Sunday.

In a first for Ryanair, Europe's largest budget airline will feed passengers from some of its European routes onto its Irish rival's transatlantic services, while Aer Lingus will connect ontoRyanair services to various European destinations.

Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O'Leary had long been opposed to selling journeys involving connecting flights but the company started trials on Ryanair-only connections last year.

"We will trial it in the marketplace. If it's successful, we will live with the problems of success. If not, we will learn the lessons and move on," Aer Lingus Chief Executive Stephen Kavanagh told Britain's Sunday Times newspaper.

Ryanair chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs last week said that the company hoped to start operating connecting flights with Aer Lingus this year.

The Sunday Times said the service will be packaged by a third-party intermediary that will also offer passengers connection insurance to cover missed onward flights.

The risk of having to compensate passengers for missed connections was one of Ryanair's main reasons for shunning the idea of offering feeder flights for long-haul routes.

The Irish airline last year ended talks with Norwegian Air Shuttle on a similar arrangement. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ieMinisters from the United States, Canada and Mexico meet on Monday to wrap up the latest round of NAFTA talks under the shadow of U.S. President Donald Trump's proposed steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

Trump is expected to finalize the tariffs - 25% on steel and 10% on aluminum - later in the week, posing a tough challenge for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo.

The Mexican and Canadian ministers are likely to press Trump's trade envoy on whether their countries will be excluded from the blanket tariffs.

"I expect it to be front and center" at the meeting, said Kevin Brady, the Republican chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, which oversees U.S. trade policy.

Officials have so far been evasive when asked how the three nations can continue trying to update the North American Free Trade Agreement at a time when the U.S. president is about to take a highly protectionist measure.

Brady led a delegation of U.S. lawmakers to Mexico City to press officials on the need to conclude the talks, which have unnerved financial markets worried about the possibility that the North American supply chain could be disrupted.

Speaking on Sunday, Brady said all fairly-traded steel should be excluded from the tariffs. U.S. stocks fell sharply on Thursday on fears of a looming trade war after Trump, a Republican, announced the planned tariffs.

The NAFTA talks are going slowly and the Mexico City round - the seventh of eight planned sets of negotiations - produced little of substance.

Eight days of talks in Mexico's capital failed to make headway on new rules governing the content of products made in North America, which has been one of the most contentious issues in the talks.

The U.S. negotiator charged with overseeing the so-called rules of origin unexpectedly returned to Washington for consultations early on and did not return. Talks on the matter will be rescheduled before the expected next proper NAFTA round in Washington in early April.

Still, Brady said he was impressed with the progress made during the week, emphasizing it was important to finish negotiating a modern, pro-growth agreement that would boost manufacturing and jobs.

U.S. Representative Roger Marshall, a Republican who traveled with Brady to Mexico, said meetings during the week had closed chapters related to chemicals, communications and anti-corruption efforts.

"I am very optimistic," Marshall told reporters after briefings from U.S. trade officials.

Canada's chief negotiator Steve Verheul said: "For the week we do have successes we can point (to), but we still have got a bit more to do."

Dave Solverson, a former president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, said the NAFTA region could not afford a trade war, especially when attempting to renegotiate the 24-year-old trade deal. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ieChinese tourists visit Bangkok on March 10, 2017. The two most popular overseas destinations for Chinese tourists last year were Thailand and Japan, with 9.8 million and 7.4 million visitors respectively. Photo: VCG

Buoyed by rising incomes, favorable exchange rates and easier visa processes, outbound travel from China hit another record last year, a new survey showed.

Chinese people made 130.5 million trips overseas last year, a 7% jump over 2016, while total spending increased by 5% to an estimated $115.3 billion, according to a report released by top Chinese travel services provider Ctrip and the China Tourism Academy, a state-backed research institute.

Last year, China was the biggest source of tourists to 10 nations  Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Russia, the Maldives, Indonesia, North Korea and South Africa  the report said. The two hottest destinations were Thailand and Japan, attracting 9.8 million and 7.4 million visitors respectively.

But Chinese shunned South Korea last year, with the number of visits plunging by 48.3% to 4.17 million, the report said, attributing the drop to cooling bilateral relations after Seoul agreed to deploy the U.S. THAAD missile defense system in the country, a move Beijing opposed.

In addition to Thailand, other Southeast Asian countries are winning over Chinese hearts, according to the report, which said that Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines rose up the popularity rankings and into the top 10 most-visited regions during the Lunar New Year holiday.

Vietnam received more than 4 million visits from Chinese travelers last year, a surge of 48.6% year on year, a jump the report attributed in part to President Xi Jinpings visit for the summit of leaders from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group of economies in Da Nang.

Contact reporter Jason Tan (jasontan@caixin.com)Qingdao Doublestar's move to buy South Korean tire-maker Kumho Tire has sparked protests among local workers, who reportedly fear a leak of core technologies, massive layoffs and a negative impact on the local economy. Photo: VCG

After a previous failed attempt, Chinese tire-maker Doublestar has agreed to acquire a controlling stake in cash-strapped South Korean peer Kumho Tire, at a slimmed-down price. But protests from Kumhos workers union continue.

Qingdao Doublestar Co. Ltd. said Monday that its parent company, Doublestar Group, signed an agreement on Friday with Korea Development Bank, one of Kumho Tire Co. Inc.'s major creditors, to buy a 45% stake in the Korean company for 646 billion won ($598 million).

The revised deal, valued at 5,000 won per share, is a bargain compared with an agreement a year ago that would have allowed the Chinese company to hold a 42.1% stake in Kumho for 955 billion won, or 14,389 won per share.

After the initial deal was announced in March 2017, Kumho employees protested, fearing layoffs. At the same time, former owner Kumho Asiana Group said that it wanted to buy back the firm.

Meanwhile, political and commercial sentiment between China and South Korea was souring over Beijings opposition to Seoul hosting a U.S. anti-missile system.

Then in September, the Chinese side said the deal had fallen apart, with no reason given.

In November, Kumho Asiana Group chairman Park Sam-koo said he had no intention of buying back Kumho Tire, which gave creditors full authority to work on rescue plans for the countrys second-largest tire-maker.

The second attempt by creditors to sell to Doublestar again aroused protests from Kumho's workers union, which staged a sit-in protest on Friday, saying it feared a leak of core technologies, massive layoffs and a negative impact on the local economy, the Korea Times reported Sunday.

Under the latest agreement, Doublestar will employ current Kumho workers for at least three years. It also prohibits Doublestar from selling its stake in Kumho for three years, several South Korean media outlets reported.

Kumho hit a branding crisis in 2011 when Chinas state-run broadcaster CCTV published an expose saying that the manufacturer used substandard rubber in its products. Its sales declined from 2012 to 2015 when the company began losing money.

When creditors put Kumho up for sale in 2016, several well-known companies  such as French tire-maker Michelin Group, China National Chemical Corp. and German automotive manufacturer Continental AG  reportedly showed interest.

The Doublestar agreement is the latest in a string of Chinese acquisitions of foreign tire manufacturers. In 2015, China National Chemical Corp. agreed to buy Italys Pirelli, the world's fifth-largest tire-maker, for around 7.1 billion euros ($8.7 billion).

Shares of Shenzhen-listed Doublestar rose 1.98% on Monday, while South Korea-listed Kumho shares dropped 9.98%.

Contact reporter Coco Feng (renkefeng@caixin.com)Chinese officials have been adept at ascribing a vision for the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) that garners support from a wide array of countries, as well as international institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). The appeal is simple. China is offering to mobilize trillions of dollars in capital for something that all countries, rich and poor, crave: infrastructure. But as the vision moves to implementation, the Chinese government and its BRI partners would do well to address its key vulnerabilities.

High on the list is Chinas go-it-alone approach to managing debt problems, evident in high-profile cases like Venezuela and in lesser-known situations like Sri Lanka and Tajikistan. The World Bank and other international institutions, which seek to lend their names to the BRI, have an obligation on behalf of their member countries to press the Chinese on a legacy of opaque and ad hoc debt workout arrangements. These arrangements often prove to be a bad deal for distressed borrowers and are misaligned with global development objectives, which are pinned on principles of transparency and sustainability.

For the Chinese themselves, unilateralism on debt is increasingly problematic. Not only does it contribute to a political backlash in debtor countries, it makes Chinese financial interests increasingly vulnerable in the absence of the kinds of protections afforded to Paris Club creditors. In fact, this club of rich-country lenders was formed not to look out for the interests of debtors but to use collective action to ensure repayment from recalcitrant borrowers. In practice, the disciplines, transparency, and predictability of the Paris Clubs approach, working in concert with the IMF and multilateral development banks, has proved to be beneficial for creditors and borrowers alike.

In new research, we identify eight BRI countries that could be pushed into debt distress due to lending under the initiative. Thats a relatively small share of the 68 countries associated with the BRI. But for these eight, which include Pakistan, Djibouti and Laos, Chinas past behavior as a creditor ought to be a source of concern.

Unlike the worlds other leading government creditors, China has not signed on to a binding set of rules of the road when it comes to avoiding unsustainable lending and addressing debt problems when they arise. Chinas rapid emergence from poor country to the worlds creditor has meant that sound policy frameworks around debt management, such as the approach of the Paris Club, have not caught up to Chinas role as lender today.

Given Chinas dominant role as an official creditor, it may be asking too much of Chinese officials to simply sign on to the set of rules and disciplines of a G-7-dominated forum like the Paris Club. Whether it is the club itself, or some new arrangement that holds closely to key principles of transparency and collective action, China would do well to step up on the debt front as the BRI gets underway. Firmer commitments on responsible lending go beyond lending transparency and include clearer disciplines around lending terms and loan volumes, as well as project standards that help to ensure positive economic returns such as open and competitive procurement.

China can claim success when it comes to a vision for the BRI that has gained widespread support. The way forward demands a clear policy framework aligned with global standards, something that has been absent from Chinas lending practices to date. Whether Chinese officials have the will to pursue this approach will be critical in determining the ultimate success or failure of the BRI.

Scott Morris is a senior fellow and director of the U.S. Development Policy Initiative at the Center for Global Development. He served as deputy assistant secretary for development finance and debt at the U.S. Treasury Department during the first term of the Obama administration.1. Make Flashcards Of Key Terms, People And Dates

By preparing flash cards you will be more inclined to have a look at them more often than what you normally would. This would obviously result in you retaining the concepts better. Hence make it a point to make a note of the all the key dates in flashcards. If you are the creative sort, you can also consider making it colourful. However, make sure that you do not put in too much of an effort into preparation of the flashcard as that will leave you with lesser time to study.

2. Read Out Loud As You Read The Text

By reading out loud, you are activating multiple senses on your part to receiving the same concept. That way the possibility of retention increases manifold. Moreover if you are sleepy, it is a good practice to read out aloud as that will make you feel much more attentive.

3. Prepare Your Own Notes

By studying from your own notes (and not that given by your college or tuition teacher), you ensure that the highlight is on the concepts that you are not so strong at. That way you can ensure that equally well versed with all the topics that are there in your syllabus and that you score well. Another advantage of preparing your own notes is the fact that in the process of preparing you actually end up studying the topic once.

4. Use Mnemonics To Memorize Facts

Every individual has a unique way of remembering things. Things that are important to you may not be so to someone else and vice versa. That is why it is a good practice to come up with your own mnemonics when it comes to memorizing facts. A very important aspect of answering the history question paper is to answer in correct chronology. By using mnemonics you will ensure that the data is recalled in the correct order.

5. Connect Details To A Map Or Timeline To Find A Relation Between The Facts

We understand that the subject of history has a lot of facts and figures and it is evident that you will get confused with the facts and figures once in a while. To avoid that from happening, try to connect all the details that you learn in a particular chapter or unit to a map or timeline.

6. Be Familiar With The Format Of Examination

By going through the last three to four years' question papers you will know what to expect in yours. That way you will not waste precious time in the exam hall deciding how to go about with answering the questions. By practicing the previous year's question papers you will be armoured to deal with yours with apparent ease.

7. Take Practice Tests

In history board exams what is often seen is the fact that students are unable to complete the exam and they claim that the paper was too lengthy'. Usually that is not the case. The reason most people find it difficult to complete the history papers is because they have poor time management skills. To tackle this problem makes sure that you take a lot of practice tests. That way you will not have to leave questions (whose answers you are well aware of) unanswered.

8. Do Not Beat Around The Bush

Many people are of the opinion that history is all about beating around the bush. This is far from being true. While checking your answer sheets what the examiners look for is the fact whether you have the key points in your answer. If you miss that and go about beating the bush about everything else, chances are that you will not be allotted any marks.

9. Use The Units Main Idea To Prepare For The Long Questions

Any history question paper is bound to have some long descriptive type questions in it. The advantage of this type of questions is that they are often repetitive in nature. Thus if you can go through the previous years' questions and prepare on a certain number of broad questions using the unit's main idea to convey that you have read through the entire lesson, chances are that you will score very good marks in the history exam.

10. Make Guesses

Since this is the board exam, it will not have negative marking. Thus for the section on multiple choice questions you can try making guesses even if you do not know the correct answer. You do not really have too much to lose even if your answer is incorrect. However, if by the stroke of luck your answer is correct you will fetch yourself some extra marks.Assam Public Service Commission has released an employment notification calling out for aspirants to apply for the post of Forest Ranger. There are totally 50 vacancies available for the government job. Selected candidates can earn up to INR 100000.

Applicants will need to undergo a training programme on forestry by the Ministry of Environment and Forest. Those interested can check out the eligibility, salary scale, application process and the complete details of the recruitment here. The last date to apply for the post is Apr 4, 2018.

Assam Public Service Commission Recruitment 2018 Vacancy Details

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Post Forest Ranger Number Of Vacancies 50 Salary Scale Up to INR 100000 Educational Qualification Bachelor's degree in science or engineering with specialisation in relevant field Age Limit 21 to 43 years Job Location Assam Application Fees INR 250 Industry Civil services Skills Required Passion in wildlife and plants and aptitude Application Start Date Mar 3, 2018 Application End Date Apr 4, 2018

Also Read: 7 Civil Service Jobs 2018 You Must Not Miss

How To Apply For Assam Public Service Commission Recruitment 2018 For Forest Rangers

In order to apply for Assam Public Service Commission Recruitment 2018 for Forest Rangers, follow the steps given here:

Step 1 Log on to the APSC official website. Step 2 Scroll down and click on the Application form for other examinations link. Step 3 The instructions to apply will be displayed on a PDF file. Step 4 Scroll down to find the application form. Step 5 Take a print out of it and fill your particulars in the field provided.

Step 6

Cover the application form in an envelope and send it to APSC.

APSC Recruitment Mailing Address and Format

Superscribe on the envelope as "Application to the post of Forest Ranger" and send it to:

Deputy Secretary,

Assam Public Service Commission

Jawaharnagar, Khanapara, Guwahati-22

ISRO Recruitment 2018 For Various Posts: Earn Up To INR 208700!Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission has released a notification calling out for aspirants to apply for the post of Motor Vehicle Inspector. Selected candidates have the scope of earning up to INR 113500.

Those interested can check out the eligibility, salary scale, how to apply and the complete details of the civil service job here. The last date to apply for the post is Mar 13, 2018.

Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission Recruitment 2018 For Engineers

How To Apply For Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission Recruitment 2018

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Post Motor Vehicle Inspector Organisation Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission Salary Scale INR 35900 to INR 113500 in level 13 pay matrix Job Location Tamil Nadu Educational Qualification SSLC or Diploma in automobile or mechanical engineering Age Limit 21 to 32 years Industry Civil services Job Description The candidate will have to inspect motor vehicles at Tamil Nadu Transport Subordinate Services Skills Required Supervision and leadership skills Application Start Date Feb 14, 2018 Application End Date Mar 13, 2018

Also Read: 7 Civil Service Jobs 2018 You Must Not Miss

How To Apply For Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission Recruitment 2018

In order to apply for Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission Recruitment 2018, follow the steps given here:Photo: The Canadian Press

A network of doctors has developed a new Canadian guideline for managing opioid use disorder, including a recommendation of which replacement medication should first be used to treat those addicted to the powerful narcotics.

The guideline, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, was created for a wide range of health-care providers to address the urgent need for treatment of opioid use that is causing a crisis of overdoses and deaths.

In 2016, there were 2,861 opioid-related deaths in Canada. As of last June, another 1,460 deaths had been attributed to the drugs and the total number for 2017 was predicted to reach about 4,000, fuelled by a combination of overprescribing by doctors and an influx of synthetic opioids, such as illicitly manufactured fentanyl and carfentanil.

"Opioid use disorder is a public health emergency nationwide and this guideline provides a blueprint for health practitioners to step up and provide evidence-based care," said Dr. Julie Bruneau, a physician at the Universite de Montreal and lead author of the guideline.

The guideline recommends that Suboxone (buprenorphinenaloxone) be used as a first-line treatment whenever possible to reduce risk of toxicity and death.

The drug is used as a replacement for opioids to prevent severe withdrawal symptoms, but has a much safer side-effect profile than methadone, the medication traditionally prescribed for opioid addiction.

"In British Columbia, in about one in four prescription opioid overdose deaths, methadone is actually the culprit," said Dr. Even Wood, director of the BC Centre on Substance Use and senior author of the guideline.

Those prescribed methadone must visit a pharmacy daily to ingest their dose in the presence of a pharmacist and the drug's side-effects include a sedating effect, both of which make it challenging for those trying to work or otherwise carry on with their lives, Wood said from Vancouver.

"So as a first-line medication, it doesn't make a lot of sense."

Suboxone is an oral medication designed for at-home use and has a minimal risk of overdose, even if taken in a large quantity at once, he said, adding that it allows those being treated to better function in life, attend a recovery program or hold down a job.

The network that developed the guideline included 43 health-care practitioners who are part of the Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse (CRISM) and also involved people with opioid use disorder to consider patient preferences.

Other key recommendations:

 In people who respond poorly to buprenorphinenaloxone, consider transitioning them to methadone treatment.

 Start with methadone when buprenorphinenaloxone is not the preferred option.

 In patients who do not respond to either buprenorphinenaloxone or methadone, consider slow-release oral morphine, prescribed as daily witnessed doses.

 Avoid withdrawal management alone without transition to long-term treatment to reduce the risk of relapse and death.

Beyond recommending the use of buprenorphinenaloxone as the first-line treatment whenever possible, the guideline also identifies how certain common practices should be avoided  specifically, offering withdrawal management as an isolated strategy, which can increase overdose rates.

For those who choose to go into a detox program, in which the person reduces their reliance on opioids with the goal of abstinence, Wood said a better system needs to be developed to refer people immediately to an in-patient recovery program or intensive out-patient treatment.

"If they go into a detox program, then you want to make sure they're linked to ongoing addiction treatment and close follow-up because the likelihood of relapse is so high," he said.

In a related CMAJ commentary, Drs. Joseph Donroe and Jeanette Tetrault of the Yale University School of Medicine, say the expansion of access to care for opioid use disorder requires primary-care providers to take the lead, "as they do with other chronic diseases of similar complexity, such as diabetes."

"This national guideline describing the pharmacologic management of opioid use disorder is timely and needed to address the expanding epidemic of opioid use disorder and overdose," they write.

"Importantly, the guideline is geared toward front-line providers, who are vitally important to decrease the existing treatment gap."After the "resurrection" in the empire, Jose Alfredo He will be captured and will spend some time in an ordinary...Price rise granted for INSEE and Tokyo Cement

05 March 2018

The Sri Lanka Consumer Affairs Authority (CAA) today (Monday) has allowed INSEE Cement (formerly Holcim Lanka) and Tokyo Cement to increase the price of a 50kg bag of cement by LKR3 (US$0.019) with effect from last Wednesday, reports the Sri Lankan Sunday Times.



The Ministry of Industry and Commerce had given consent to the two companies to increase the cement price subject to the approval of the CAA. INSEE and Tokyo Cement had requested to increase the price, citing high costs of imported raw materials, official sources said.



To date, Sri Lanka's other three cement companies have not made any request to the CAA to increase the price and imported cement prices have not changed, according to cement traders.





Published underHolcim to import 423,500t of clinker into Argentina

ICR Newsroom By 05 March 2018

Between May and December 2018 Holcim is expected to import 423,500t of clinker into Argentina, worth US$27.52m. The imports will arrive in 10 shipments of 42,350t each.



In December 2017 the cement producer announced investments of US$120m to increase cement capacity at its Malagueno plant in Cordoba. The project includes the addition of a complete line with a clinker capacity of 0.512Mta and a cement capacity of 0.73Mta. Construction works are expected to start in 1H18.

Published underPeru's Invercem plans expansion

ICR Newsroom By 05 March 2018

Peruvian cement producer Inversiones en Cemento (Invercem) plans the construction of cement plants in Pisco and Ayacucho, according to its founder Victor de La Torre. The new works in Pisco will have a capacity of 0.22Mta while the Ayacucho facility will have an output potential of 0.45Mta



The firm will invest US$18m into a 0.22Mta cement plant in Trujillo, where it currently operates a packing plant. At present it imports cement from China-based Anhui Conch Cement Co, selling it under the Qhuna brand. In February, the company sold 130,000 bags of cement in Peru but expects to increase sales following the opening of the new plant.



The new plant is being shipped from Spain and is scheduled to arrive in Peru in April 2018 with commissioning expected 4-5 months later.



Invercem is present in the north of the country, where it competes with Cemento Pacasmayo but expects to expand across the country in the long term. At present, it is able to sell 550,000 bags per month. In addition to the Trujillo works it has a 0.5Mta mill in Manchay.





Published underLafargeHolcim incurs major impairment charges, rolls out 5-year strategy

ICR Newsroom By 05 March 2018

LafargeHolcim's underlying turnover for 2017 amounted to CHF26,129m, a decline of 2.9 per cent, while in euro terms there was a 10.2 per cent decrease to EUR22,672m. The Asia-Pacific region generated 28.5 per cent of group turnover, while Europe represented 27.4 per cent and North America 21.7 per cent. Latin America contributed 11.3 per cent and Africa/Middle East 12.9 per cent. Margins improved from 22.1 per cent to 22.9 per cent and underlying operating EBITDA advanced by 0.7 per cent to CHF5990m in Swiss franc terms, while it declined by 4.6 per cent to EUR5198m, when measured in euros. At the trading level there was a 10.8 per cent improvement to a profit of CHF3351m (EUR2908m) and after a 4.5 per cent increase in the net financial charge to CHF958m (EUR831m) there was a pretax profit of CHF2393m (EUR2076m). After a CHF3829m impairment charge, of which CHF2724m represented goodwill and country book value, there was a net attributable loss of CHF1675m (EUR1453m) compared with a CHF1791m profit the year before.

Net debt at the end of December was 2.6 per cent lower at CHF14,346m (EUR12,448m), giving a gearing level of 51.6 per cent compared with 47.8 per cent. The increased gearing level reflects the impairment charge. Capital investment in the year declined by 17.1 per cent to CHF1355m (EUR1176m), and are forecast by the group to remain below CHF2000m in 2018.

Cement shipments were 10.2 per cent lower at 209.5Mt. Shipments of aggregates eased by 1.4 per cent to 278.7Mt while ready-mixed concrete deliveries were down by eight per cent to 50.6Mm. For 2018, the group expects turnover growth of 3-5 per cent and EBITDA to improve by at least five per cent.

Turnover in the Asia-Pacific region, which has been re-defined to include a proportional consolidation of Huaxin Cement, declined by 9.5 per cent to CHF7441m (EUR6457m). EBITDA came off by 11.1 per cent to CHF1418m (EUR1230m). Cement deliveries in Asia and Australasia were 197.3 per cent lower at 91.57Mt while on a comparative basis there was a 5.5 per cent increase. Deliveries of aggregates were 1.4 per cent lower at 31.8Mt and showed an underlying increase of 9.7 per cent. In ready-mixed concrete, actual deliveries fell by 16.7 per cent to 12.8Mm, while there was a slight underlying improvement of 0.7 per cent. The two main Indian subsidiaries between the sold 49.16Mt of cement and clinker, an increase of 11.4 per cent, representing a 16.3 per cent increase in turnover and EBITDA increased by 21.3 per cent. Cement shipments in China improved, helped by the governments environmental investments. In the Philippines volumes and prices suffered from increased competitive pressures and delays to infrastructure investments. Malaysian volumes and prices were lower as a result of increased capacities. Volumes increased in Australia, reflecting strong demand in New South Wales.

The European turnover recovered by 2.1 per cent to CHF7167m (EUR6219m). EBITDA improved by 3.8 per cent to CHF1385m (EUR1202m). Cement deliveries increased by 2.9 per cent to 42.8Mt, while shipments of aggregates were 0.8 per cent ahead at 125.2Mt, but ready-mixed concrete deliveries eased by 0.9 per cent to 18.2Mm. Cement volumes grew notably in Romania, Poland and Russia but declined in Switzerland, as did aggregates and concrete. French volumes and margins advanced and the British results improved in spite of a more difficult market. With 569 batching plants 267 aggregates plants, Europe has the greatest downstream exposure within the LafargeHolcim operation.

The North American turnover improved by 1.4 per cent to CHF5664m (EUR4915m), thanks to acquisitions and EBITDA advanced by 11.1 per cent to CHF1483m (EUR1287m). Cement shipments were off by 1.7 per cent to 19.2Mt. Cement and clinker volumes in the USA were helped by the coming on-stream of additional production capacity at the Ste Genevieve and Ravena works. Adverse weather conditions limited construction activity in the first and third quarters. In Canada volumes were strong in the West, thanks to renewed investment by the oil industry, while in the East profits showed growth in spite of increased competitive pressure. Aggregates deliveries declined by one per cent to 107.1Mt, while ready-mixed concrete volumes improved by 4.9 per cent to 9.1Mm.

Turnover in Africa and the Middle East declined by 13.5 per cent to CHF3374m (EUR2928m) and EBITDA was down by 13 per cent to CHF1085m (EUR941m). Cement deliveries were down by 11.4 per cent to 35.7Mt and aggregates shipments by 15 per cent to 10.4Mt while ready-mixed concrete deliveries fell by 21.4 per cent to 4.7Mm. Algerian profitability suffered as increased production capacity let to weaker prices. In Egypt cement prices were under pressure from increased capacity and a falling currency. The Nigerian margins saw good improvement thanks to lower costs and improved prices.

In Latin America the turnover advanced by 6.1 per cent to CHF2944m (EUR2555m) and EBITDA rose by 19.3 per cent to CHF1055m (EUR915m). Cement shipments recovered by 3.4 per cent to 24.9Mt, while aggregates deliveries dropped by 29.4 per cent to 4.2Mt, having already fallen by 24.4 per cent in the previous year. Ready-mixed concrete volumes declined by 11.4 per cent to 5.8Mm. Holcim Apasco in Mexico saw cement volumes recover on the back of increased infrastructure investment. In Argentina volumes rose notably and record results were achieved in the year. The Brazilian market remains depressed and the focus is on containing costs.

CEO rolls out 2022 strategic plan

With eyes firmly set on the future, LafargeHolcims new CEO, Jan Jenisch, laid out his plan to revamp the cement group.

The new five-year strategy not only targets annual sales growth of 3-5 per cent and a recurring EBITDA expansion of at least five per cent, but also improvements in free cash flow of over 40 per cent of EBITDA and of return on invested capital to more than eight per cent.

"The merger is now behind us. It was quite an exercise and not an easy one. Building materials is a market that is growing above GDP globally, so would we would expect building materials to grow 2-3 per cent," Mr Jenisch said. "With our strong market positions we have to grow above the market," he added.

To achieve targets, the company would focus on fewer markets with a focus on the USA, Latin America, India and Africa. This would also include the selling of around US$2bn of assets and the possible exit of the company in two or three countries. Two-thirds of CHF3.8bn impairment charge were concentrated in Algeria, Malaysia, Iraq, Brazil, Indonesia and Egypt. The company said they followed an assessment of the value of a wide range of markets and of specific business units.

In addition the company launched a CHF400m cost savings drive from its administration costs, saying it would close corporate office in the Singapore and Miami. The company also stopped its share buyback programme and kept its dividend steady while saying it would look at bolt-on acquisitions.

Published underNorth Korea is known as the Hermit Kingdom for a reason. They are the most isolated country, politically, in the entire world. Even so, they do have international allies that help them despite pressure from the some of the worlds superpowers.

Many of these allies are eternally intertwined politically with North Korea. Some are lynchpins, so to speak, and could take the regime down. Take a look at some of North Koreas largest international partners and which ones may betray them critically.

1. Ally: Russia

Russia is one of North Koreas oldest allies. The U.S.S.R. was the main benefactor to the North Korean regime during the Cold War, and the current Russian Federation still maintains close ties to North Korea. It is in Russias best interest to have North Korea maintain control of their region for multiple reasons.

North Korea acts as a buffer state between Russia and U.S. allies, South Korea and Japan. Even though the Cold War is over, tensions between the West and Russia have never been higher. Being that North Korea is one of the few countries sharing a land border with Russia, they are also a strategic fuel route.

Next: An equally big supporter of North Korea that is problematic, to say the least

2. Ally: China

China is another huge ally of the North Korean regime. Many of the same interests that maintain Russias support, maintain Chinas support. They are good trade allies and they share mutually beneficial geopolitical stakes.

China and Russia have both condemned the nuclear tests that North Korea has been doing. But they have no interest in stopping or destabilizing the regime. Its in their best interest to have the North Korean regime stable and distracting the world. For China, they need a distraction from the disputes in the South China Sea. For Russia, they need a distraction for Syria.

Next: This next country isnt an outright ally of North Korea, but it is a strategic informal partner.

3. Potential ally: Pakistan

Now, this isnt an outright alliance. Pakistan has had some ties to North Korea, including trade and aid, but has never made an official bond with the country. Most of the interactions between the two are in the black or gray markets.

The only country with enough influence to stop that is China. Chinas biggest enemy is India. So China isnt going to stop Pakistan from doing that because Pakistan causes a constant headache for India. Its the same kind of logic you might expect on a playground, but it does keep them busy.

Next: This next country is a capitalist country that wants better trade with North Korea.

4. Potential ally: Malaysia

Malaysia was once very anti-Communist, especially after crushing a Socialist insurgency in the late 1980s. However, because they are very pro-business and they are a Capitalistic society, they will trade with anyone. That includes North Korea. Strategically speaking, this is good for both countries. Malaysia gets yet another trading partner in the Pacific, and North Korea uses Malaysia to open its self up to the world markets.

Next: The only European ally.

5. Ally: Bulgaria

North Korea actually does have a European ally. The relationship between Bulgaria and North Korea began during the communist era. They have maintained that relationship since the fall of the Bulgarian communist regime. Its also one of the few countries that Kim Il Sung has visited when he was alive.

However, Sofia has become concerned with North Koreas saber-rattling. They have strengthened their bilateral agreement, and at the same time followed all U.N. and European sanctions against the regime. Its hard to tell where Bulgarias loyalties lie, but they are not a critical component of the North Korean regime.

Next: The things they do for this country are monstrous.

6. Ally: Syria

The al-Assad regime knows no bounds to its brutality. One of their greatest offenses is the use of chemical weapons on its own citizens. Those chemical weapons are being developed with the aid of North Korean personnel and products. North Korea provides certain tiles, thermometers, and valves necessary to developing chemical weapons. The U.N. has also seen North Korean technicians at Syrian chemical weapons factories.

Next: Will this country betray North Korea?

7. Potential betrayer: Madagascar

North Korea actually has quite a few African allies. Madagascar is one of its largest. A large portion of its arms manufacturing is done in Madagascar, alongside Uganda, Ethiopia, Namibia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Most of the trade is brought through Madagascar and into North Korea. Madagascar is also home to larger black and gray market operations that North Korea has outside of their borders.

Next: Here are the countries that are going to betray North Korea.

8. African nations will be the ones to betray North Korea

As the West isolated North Korea and pushed fledgling African nations to the side in the 20th century, the nations naturally attracted to each other. That created large opportunities to manufacture and trade within each others borders. These relationships were always dismissed by the West because the West viewed all the nations involved as non-threatening.

Now it looks like they could hold the key to toppling the North Korean regime. The majority of North Koreas conventional weapons are produced in African countries. They also rely heavily on food from these countries, mainly fish.

Next: The betrayal has already begun.

9. The pawns are falling

African nations are being lured away from their trade agreements with North Korea by the U.S. Sudan abandoned its trade relationship agreement in exchange for lifted sanctions from the U.S. and its allies. Its only a matter of time before that begins to happen with other countries as well. Theoretically, China and Russia would have to supplement way too much trade for stable international relationships and couldnt absorb the political cost.

Whether any of that will work or is apart of the Wests strategy, we dont know. But we can speculate given the information we have.

Follow The Cheat Sheet on Facebook!A Donald Trump/Kim Jong Un showdown was bound to happen. The two have clashed since the Trump took office. Trump and Kim Jong Un have been baiting each for a while now, and in February 2018, North Koreas official party newspaper published a piece that might contain the most damaging rhetoric toward Trump yet

Read on to and find out the awful things that Kim Jong Un has said about Trump  and other U.S. presidents. And, find out what Trump fired back.

1. Heres how the latest feud started

Rodong Sinmun, the official North Korean party newspaper, published a long article in February 2018  and the article had some pretty awful things to say about Donald Trump, according to The New York Times. One thing it accused Trump of doing is using his discussion of human rights during his State of the Union address as a pretense to take military action against North Korea.

During his speech on Jan. 30, 2018, Trump said that Pyongyangs pursuit of nuclear weapons is reckless, and he spoke about its and human rights abuses. Apparently, North Korea took that as a threat of military action.

Next: Trump took a page from Bushs playbook.

2. Trumps State of the Union Address Comparison

The article in Rodong Sinmun also compared Trumps speech to a 2002 address by President George W. Bush before he made the decision to invade Iraq, according to The New York Times. When Bush delivered his 2002 State of the Union address, he described Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the axis of evil, he went on to invade Iraq. North Korea assumes that because Trump talked about North Koreas depraved character he wants to follow in Bushs footsteps and declare war.

Next: The pot calls the kettle black.

3. Kim Jong Un maintains Trump is nuts

The Rodong Sinmun commentary had plenty more to say about Trump, according to The New York Times. It described the U.S. leader more than once as mentally unstable and went on to say that Trump must be dolt-like if he thinks North Korea wouldnt respond to an attack. In fact, the editorial said that North Korea would break Trumps back if he touched one clump of grass in the country.

Next: Translation problems

4. Some translation glitches in the commentary

Translating the Rodong Sinmun commentary apparently proved rather difficult. According to The New York Times, an English translation of a part of the commentary didnt completely make sense. The only way for the United States and the world to find peace, said the translator, would be to urgently detain Trump, who is putting the U.S. and the world in turmoil, in the isolated hospital of psychopath.

Next: Trump comments caused a furor.

5. Heres how Trump really infuriated Kim Jong Un

Trump had plenty to say about North Korea during his State of the Union address  and he spoke to some very interesting audience members. The parents of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who died just after he was released from a North Korean prison in 2017, and activist and North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho were present, according to The New York Times. Today he lives in Seoul, where he rescues other defectors and broadcasts into North Korea what the regime fears the most  the truth, said Trump about Ji Seong-ho.

Next: Someone lost a job.

6. Trump demands loyalty against Kim Jong Un

When Victor Cha  the former choice for Ambassador to South Korea  said he didnt support a U.S. preemptive strike on North Korea, he was no longer the White Houses candidate of choice. The Washington Post later published an opinion article, according to The New York Times, in which Cha maintained that Trump was thinking about waging a bloody nose strike against North Korea. Cha said that if Trump did this, it could escalate into a war that would likely kill tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Americans.

Next: North Korea hates defectors

7. Trump made the mistake of praising a North Korean defector

The Rodong Sinmun not only criticized Trump for raising the issue of human rights in North Korea during his State of the Union address, it had an issue with him speaking about North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho  at all. Because Trump praised Ji Seong-ho for his dramatic flight to freedom, the newspaper criticized him for praising human trash.

When Ji was 13, he lost his left foot and left hand in a train accident when he was looking for coal to exchange for food, and he went through a lengthy surgery  without any anesthetic. He got no rehabilitative care, and had to get around on wooden crutches. He used those crutches to travel thousands of miles to defect to South Korea in 2006.

Next: Trump violates human rights?

8. North Korea accuses Trump of violating U.S. citizens human rights

In answer to Donald Trumps assertion that the North Korean regime is committing atrocious human rights violations, the article in Rodong Sinmun accused U.S. of perpetrating human rights violations. The newspaper cited those violations as gun crime and racism, which the North Korean government recently released a report about.

Next: Not the first time

9. North Korea has insulted other U.S. leaders

This isnt the first time North Korean state propaganda has criticized U.S. leaders. It has insulted President Barack Obama by publishing citizens quotes that included calling Obama as a clown and a dirty fellow, and suggesting he live with a group of monkeys in the worlds largest African natural zoo and lick the breadcrumbs thrown by spectators.

In 2009, North Korea referred to then-Secretary of State Hilary Clinton as a funny lady, who is by no means intelligent, and went on to say she looks like a primary schoolgirl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping. according to The New York Times. And it called the George W. Bush administration a bunch of tricksters and political imbeciles who are the center of a plot breeding fraud and swindle.

Next: Kim Jong Un called Trump a neukdari.

10. Kim Jong Un called Trump a dotard

In September 2017, Trump speech at the United Nations General Assembly. During it, he threatened to totally destroy North Korea and called Kim Jong Un Rocket Man. Of course, Pyongyang retaliated.

In response to his threat, Kim Jong Un called Trump a mentally deranged dotard. The actual Korean word Kim Jong Un used was neukdari, which translates into a derogatory term for someone who is old, lazy, useless, and demented.

Next: Trump fires back

11. Trump responds to dotard insult

President Trump could not leave Kim Jong Uns insult  calling him a dotard  alone. He took to Twitter in the early morning to strike back, saying Kim Jong Un is obviously a madman who doesnt mind starving or killing his people.

Next: Death sentence

12. North Korea sentences Trump to death

North Koreas state media isnt standing for President Trumps insults to its leader, Kim Jong Un, according to The Guardian.When Trump talked about the Norths cruel dictatorship in a speech to legislators in Seoul, tempers flared. In November 2017, the North Korean press said Trump deserved the death penalty, and it also lambasted him for canceling his visit to the inter-Korean border, calling him a coward.

Next: Insult upon insult

13. North Korea insults worldwide leaders, too

North Korea media has had so much to say about other foreign politicians its hard to include it all. It called President Park Geun-hye of South Korea a prostitute and a snake who should meet a miserable dogs death.

And lest we forget when it commented that George W. Bush looked like a chicken soaked in the rain when he dodged a shoe someone threw at him him during 2008 Baghdad news conference.

Next: Trumps trip

14. North Korea lambasted Trump for visiting Asia

In November 2017, Trump made a 12-day trip to visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. According to the Independent, North Korea had something to say about his trip. Its foreign ministry said Trumps tour was a warmongers trip for confrontation with our country, trying to remove our self-defensive nuclear deterrent. In addition, it said that, reckless remarks by an old lunatic like Trump will never scare us or stop our advance.

Next: Trump escalates things.

15. Trump responds to yet another Kim Jong Un insult  inappropriately

Donald Trump wasnt about to let North Koreas remarks about his Asia tour go unanswered. He took to Twitter  from Hanoi, Vietnam  the day after the foreign ministry made the remarks.

Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me old, when I would NEVER call him short and fat?' Trump wrote in his tweet, referring to Kim Jong Un, North Koreas leader. Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend  and maybe someday that will happen!

Read more: The Similarities and Differences Between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un Will Surprise You

Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook!George Washington goes down in history as one of the most loved presidents of all time, in large part because of his character. When he was just 16 years old, the future president copied some etiquette rules that seem to have had a major impact on his sense of morality and civility. The Washington Post reports that these Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation came from an English translation of a 16th-century Jesuit treatise.

Our first president may have followed these rules, dubbed George Washingtons rules of civility by later generations. But many presidents, including Donald Trump (page 18), have broken Washingtons rules over the years.

1. Thomas Jefferson

In office : 1801 to 1809

: 1801 to 1809 Rule that he broke: Think before you speak. Pronounce not imperfectly, nor bring out your words too hastily but orderly and distinctly.

Its widely believed that Thomas Jefferson was terrified of public speaking. So it seems safe to say that Jefferson probably wasnt great at delivering speeches  and likely didnt follow George Washingtons to pronounce not imperfectly. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation notes that we dont know how many of Jeffersons written speeches he actually delivered in public. Jefferson delivered two inaugural addresses that were described as so quiet they were only partially audible, and he delivered his annual addresses to Congress in writing.

Next: This president loved to go skinny-dipping.

2. John Quincy Adams

In office : 1825 to 1829

: 1825 to 1829 Rule that he broke: Put not off your clothes in the presence of others, nor go out your chamber half-dressed.

The etiquette rules that George Washington copied out warned against walking around half-dressed or naked. But a long line of presidential skinny-dippers has disregarded that rule. One example? John Quincy Adams, whom New Republic characterizes as the founding father of skinny-dipping. His morning routine involved a naked dip in the Potomac River. And as New Republic notes, he didnt keep the ritual secret from Washington insiders  including journalists, who knew exactly where to find him.

Next: This president taught his parrot to curse.

3. Andrew Jackson

In office : 1829 to 1837

: 1829 to 1837 Rule that he broke: Use no reproachful language against any one, neither curse nor revile.

Andrew Jackson goes down in history as one of the most foul-mouthed presidents. So of course, he broke George Washingtons rule against cursing and using coarse language. A man who fought duels, outfitted the White House with spittoons, and beat a would-be assassin with his cane, Jackson likely surprised no one by occasionally uttering obscenities. What did surprise people was the string of obscenities that his pet parrot let loose during the former presidents funeral.

Next: This president delivered the longest inaugural address  and died shortly thereafter.

4. William Henry Harrison

In office : 1841 to 1841

: 1841 to 1841 Rule that he broke: Let your discourse with men of business be short and comprehensive.

William Henry Harrison broke the rule about keeping your speeches short with his record-setting inaugural address, which exceeded 8,000 words. Harrison also holds an unfortunate record as the shortest term in office, as he died only a month after taking office. As History explains, the man with the shortest White House tenure delivered the longest inaugural address in history, which may have been his undoing. It took Harrison an hour and 45 minutes to deliver his speech on a cold March morning  and he caught a cold that developed into a fatal case of pneumonia.

Next: This president didnt dress neatly.

5. Zachary Taylor

In office : 1849 to 1850

: 1849 to 1850 Rule that he broke: Wear not your your clothes foul, ripped, or dusty, but see they be brushed once every day at least, and take heed that you approach not to any uncleanness.

Zachary Taylor is one of several presidents who broke George Washingtons rules about dressing neatly. Taylor dressed sloppily, with The Presidential Ham reporting that he simply wore whatever was comfortable. The publication notes that even as a soldier, [Taylor] typically appeared in a hodgepodge of civilian and military dress. He was also farsighted and walleyed, so he wore reading glasses and often squinted.

Next: This president spoke about unpleasant subjects, including strangely prophetic dreams.

6. Abraham Lincoln

In office : 1861 to 1865

: 1861 to 1865 Rule that he broke: Speak not of doleful things in a time of mirth or at the table. Speak not of melancholy things as death and wounds, and if others mention them change if you can the discourse. Tell not your dreams, but to your intimate friend.

Abraham Lincoln fought clinical depression his entire life, and didnt exactly observe George Washingtons advice to avoid speaking of melancholy subjects. The Atlantic notes that Lincolns friends referred to him as profoundly melancholy. He often wept in public. And he recited maudlin poetry. Additionally, he didnt follow the rules advice to avoid discussing his dreams. Lincoln told his friends about dreams that now seem strangely prophetic, including two that seemed to foretell his assassination.

Next: This president didnt have good taste in friends.

7. Ulysses S. Grant

In office : 1869 to 1877

: 1869 to 1877 Rule that he broke: Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for is better to be alone than in bad company.

George Washington learned that a gentleman should keep good company. Many presidents complied with that rule, with one particularly notable exception: Ulysses S. Grant. Grant infamously chose a Cabinet that became plagued by corruption and scandal. U.S. News explains that Grant named both incompetent and corrupt friends and associates to key jobs in his administration. Consequently, his presidency underwent a series of embarrassing scandals as Grant naively enacted lax policies that enabled businessmen to make millions.

Next: This president loved to eat.

8. William Howard Taft

In office : 1909 to 1913

: 1909 to 1913 Rule that he broke: Make no show of taking great delight in your victuals, feed not with greediness. Cut your bread with a knife, lean not on the table neither find fault with what you eat.

George Washingtons rules, like many other guides to civility, warned against gluttony (and bad table manners). But William Howard Taft didnt listen. As the Miller Center notes, Taft typically ate a dozen eggs, a pound of bacon, and mounds of pancakes for breakfast, leaving him sluggish for most of the morning. The Village Voice reports that There is no question that Taft was a glutton, and his tastes ran to lengthy meals featuring multiple meats, fishes, and fowls in rotation.

Next: This president didnt always make rational decisions.

9. Woodrow Wilson

In office : 1913 to 1921

: 1913 to 1921 Rule that he broke: Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for is a sign of a tractable and commendable nature. And in all causes of passion, admit reason to govern.

Though you may know Woodrow Wilson for leading America through World War I or laying out a plan for the League of Nations. But Wilson didnt quite live up to George Washingtons rules about avoiding malicious behavior or letting rational thinking guide your actions. The New York Times notes that Wilson claimed for the United States the right to speak for the peoples of the world. And irrationally convinced that he spoke for the voiceless masses, he was blind to the inconsistencies in his own behavior. That included his actions to undermine racial equality at every turn.

Next: This president famously lost his temper.

10. Harry S. Truman

In office : 1945 to 1953

: 1945 to 1953 Rule that he broke: Never express anything unbecoming, nor act against the rules moral before your inferiors.

While George Washington would likely have wanted subsequent presidents to always maintain their composure, presidents have lost their tempers many times over the years. One notable incident involved Harry S. Truman, who The University of Virginia reports penned a scorching rebuke to a music critic who disliked a performance by Trumans daughter. Truman wrote numerous insults, even threatening, Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens youll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!

Next: This president wasnt exactly discreet.

11. John F. Kennedy

In office : 1961 to 1963

: 1961 to 1963 Rule that he broke: Be not immodest in urging your friends to discover a secret.

The etiquette rules that George Washington copied down also taught that some things are better kept a secret  a lesson that John F. Kennedy disregarded on at least a few occasions. Slate counts Kennedy among the presidents who have revealed classified information to foreign governments. (The Kennedy administration revealed spy-plane photos showing Soviet missile positions in Cuba.) Additionally, Kennedy wasnt exactly discreet about his philandering or what New Republic characterizes as his penchant for taking outlandish risks after he entered the White House.

Next: This president routinely played a mean joke on his visitors.

12. Lyndon B. Johnson

In office : 1963 to 1969

: 1963 to 1969 Rule that he broke: Show nothing to your friend that might affright him.

While you could make many critiques of Lyndon B. Johnsons character, one of the most unique concerns his defiance of Washingtons rule against showing a friend something that might scare him. Johnson routinely broke this rule by pranking advisers with his Amphicar (an amphibious car built in Germany in the 1960s). Business Insider reports that the vehicle looked like an ordinary automobile. Johnson would offer to drive guest around his ranch, then barrel the vehicle down a hill into a lake, telling passengers that the brakes had malfunctioned.

Next: This president didnt intend to quickly accomplish his campaign promises.

13. Richard Nixon

In office : 1969 to 1974

: 1969 to 1974 Rule that he broke: Undertake not what you cannot perform but be careful to keep your promise.

Even though George Washingtons rules warned against making promises you cant keep, many presidents failed to keep their campaign promises. One easy example? Richard Nixon. Nixon ran on a promise to end the Vietnam War. But to win the election, he needed the war to continue. So Nixon acted to stall the Vietnam peace talks before he assumed office. After he became president, Nixon expanded the war into Laos and Cambodia. And it wasnt until 1973 that he settled for a peace agreement that could have been achieved in 1968.

Next: This president had bad teeth (somewhat like George Washington).

14. Gerald Ford

In office : 1974 to 1977

: 1974 to 1977 Rule that he broke: Keep your nails clean and short, also your hands and teeth clean, yet without showing any great concern for them.

We dont have anything bad to say about Gerald Fords hands or fingernails. But as the Tuft University Dental Alumni Association notes, Ford had famously bad teeth, defying Washingtons rule about keeping ones teeth clean. (However, we think Washington wouldnt have much room to complain, as he seems to have worn a set of false teeth that included teeth pulled from his slaves.) Ford didnt seem to get good dental care, and likely had periodontal disease.

Next: This president chose the wrong kind of pastime.

15. Bill Clinton

In office : 1993 to 2001

: 1993 to 2001 Rule that he broke: Let your recreations be manful not sinful.

George Washingtons rules warned that gentlemen should choose activities and hobbies that are manful but not sinful. Bill Clinton seems to have broken with that advice by cheating on his wife with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The Atlantic notes that Clinton was very credibly accused of sex crimes in the 1990s, including an alleged violent assault. But Clinton was not left to the swift and pitiless justice that todays accused men have experienced, the publication notes, a phenomenon that had its own consequences.

Next: This president spoke hypocritically.

16. George W. Bush

In office : 2001 to 2009

: 2001 to 2009 Rule that he broke: Wherein you reprove another be unblameable yourself; for example is more prevalent than precepts.

George Washingtons rules warned against hypocrisy, a lesson that George W. Bush didnt seem to completely understand even as Donald Trump took office. Vice noted that Bush hypocritically rebuked Trump for his cruelty. Bushs own record includes terrible treatment of Muslim and Middle Eastern detainees. Bush is responsible for the Iraq War and its death toll in the hundreds of thousands. And he also enacted Islamophobic immigration policies and surveillance programs. And as Slate explains, Bush also hasnt acknowledged that had there been no Bush, thered be no Trump.

Next: Discover the rule that Barack Obama broke.

17. Barack Obama

In office : 2009 to 2017

: 2009 to 2017 Rule that he broke: Kill no vermin as fleas, lice, ticks, etc. in the sight of others. If you see any filth or thick spittle, put your foot dexterously upon it. If it be upon the clothes of your companions, put it off privately, and if it be upon your own clothes, return thanks to him who puts it off.

The list of etiquette rules that George Washington copied down included a rule against killing insects in the sight of others. Barack Obama famously broke this rule when he killed a fly in the middle of an interview with CNBC. Many Americans found the incident funny, and some were even impressed by Obamas fast reflexes in dispensing of the pest. But as Politico notes, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) called the incident an execution, and admonished Obama to show compassion for even the least sympathetic animals.

Next: Discover the rule that Donald Trump broke.

18. Donald Trump

In office : 2017 to present

: 2017 to present Rule that he broke: Every action done in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those that are present.

The Washington Post notes that some think George Washington triumphed by following the rules, while Donald Trump has prevailed by flouting them. One good example? Trump routinely breaks Washingtons rule about showing respect for others. Serving as the first white president in the famous words of Ta-Nehisi Coates, Trump has used some pretty unpresidential rhetoric about black people, Muslims, Hispanics, and other groups. Even beyond what critics characterize as racist and Islamophobic comments, Trump routinely insults people and groups of people on his Twitter account  sort of the opposite of what Washington would have advised.

Read more: These American Presidents Were Actually Terrible People

Check out The Cheat Sheet on Facebook!Royalty abides by a very different set of rules for practically everything  especially weddings and funerals. For Denmark, Queen Margrethes marriage to husband and Prince Consort Henrik was one of great love and disagreeing. Even though Denmark is considered one of the happiest countries in the world, Prince Henricks death brought up a lot of drama.

You see, the prince refused to be buried next to his royal wife. What was once a beautiful bond between the couple inevitably turned very sour. Heres a quick recap of the couples marriage and the surprising reason this prince refused to be buried next to his queen.

1. The couple was married in 1967

Queen Margrethe and Prince Henrik met one another in the spring of 1965 in London. The two enjoyed one anothers company and eventually fell in love. After their engagement in October 1966, the two married on June 10, 1967, with Henrik adopting Denmark as his new home country. The couple honeymooned to Cozumel, Mexico, prior to returning to Denmark where Queen Margrethe gave birth to two sons in 1968 and 1969.

Next: Heres how the prince died.

2. Prince Henrik died from a lung infection

The Royal House of Denmarks press release in September 2017 informed the public that Prince Henriks health had been compromised, and he was diagnosed with dementia. However, it was January 2018 when he was hospitalized due to a lung infection. Despite the infection never clearing up, the prince was discharged on account that spending his last days surrounded by family was more appropriate.

Next: The original burial plan went awry.

3. The couple planned to be buried at Roskilde Cathedral

Deviating from a death plan threw the royal family for a major loop, not to mention the media. All along, both Prince Henrik and Queen Margrethe were planning to both be buried at Roskilde Cathedral. This is, after all, where generations of Denmarks royalty have rested in peace. Artist Bjrn Nrgaard even created a tomb for the two.

Next: Heres why the prince refused to rest in peace next to his royal wife.

4. His wife wouldnt name him king

Despite being married to the queen for over 50 years, it wasnt until 1972 that Margrethe was crowned the Queen of Denmark. Interestingly enough, when a prince is crowned king in Denmark, his wife will follow suit, becoming his queen. When the roles are reversed, however, a queens husband does not necessarily become the king. For Henrik, he was given the title of Prince Consort. This so greatly upset him, that he declared his refusal to be buried next to Queen Margrethe at Roskilde Cathedral.

Next: Royal rules arent always created equal.

5. Prince Henrik wasnt treated equally

Henrik felt as though he was not treated as an equal in the eyes of Denmark royalty, thus renouncing his title as Prince Consort in 2016. Clearly, Henrik harbored bitter feelings towards what he considered a lack of gender equality, inevitably packing his bags. Even though he remained married to the queen, Henrik spent the majority of his time in a vineyard in the southwestern region of France.

Next: Heres what the queen thought about all of this.

6. Queen Margrethe has accepted this reality

Because her husband so valiantly protested his royal title (or the lack thereof), it seems the Queen Margrethe was not totally blindsided by Henriks lack of interest in sharing an eternal tomb. Instead, the queen accepted and honored her husbands dying wish.

Next: The family has set aside this time to mourn.

7. The family will mourn until March 14

With the loss of any loved one, time to mourn is critical. During a 60-person, 45-minute funeral service on February 20, 2018, the queen wept for the loss of her beloved husband, despite a rocky past. And while any funeral is typically a time for all to mourn, the Royal Family has set aside ample time for Prince Henrik. In one statement, the family announced they wouldnt take part in social or entertaining events until March 14.Some Catholics in the United States believe that there are more important issues of concern than the persecution of Christians around the world, despite a recent survey revealing that a significant number of respondents think attacks based on religion, especially against Christians, have become more severe in recent times.

The survey - which was conducted by the group Aid to the Church in Need and released on March 1 - aimed to look into the awareness of Catholic Americans when it came to Christian persecution. At least 40 percent said that they knew it was a "severe" problem globally, while 51 percent believed that it was a "somewhat severe" problem. At least four in 10 Catholics also said that attacks based on religion were directed towards Christians the most.

Regardless of the numbers, however, for some Catholic Americans, Christian persecution was not their main problem. The most pressing issues for them were ranked as follows: human trafficking (86 percent), poverty (86 percent), climate change (74 percent), refugee crisis (74 percent), and Christian persecution (69 percent).

"What the survey reveals quite clearly is that there is a need to increase the engagement level of the US Catholic Church when it comes to global Christian persecutionaboth at the grassroots and leadership levels," ACN USA chairman George Marlin said in the press release. "The issue has to become a priority."

Human rights watch group Open Doors revealed in a separate survey that Christians in North Korea were in the most danger of being persecuted. The group's rankings of other countries where following Jesus could be seen as a crime include Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan and Pakistan.

Marlin stressed that Christians need more leadership to stand up to these persecutions that might likely involve executions, rape, other forms of violence and harassment, as well as social exclusion. Half of the people who answered the poll, however, found Pope Francis, the leader of the Catholic Church, as the most engaged pontiff.Email Whatsapp Menu Whatsapp Google Reddit Digg Stumbleupon Linkedin Comment

Anti-Christian bias and bigotry is now a reality in America. It is not  at least not yet  the violent persecution seen in other parts of the world, but there is a surely and slowly spreading religious intolerance which is paving the way for public hostility.

By now you've probably heard how ABC's Joy Behar openly mocked Vice President Mike Pence on live TV by saying he was "mentally ill" because he says he hears from God in his prayers. This presenter insulted not only the Vice President, but the whole Christian faith.

Some of America's greatest leaders, including the late Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr., were Christian believers who impacted millions of people because of their faith. According to Joy Behar, these men, as well as every Christian since the time of Jesus, had to have been mentally ill.

To Christians, especially those in influential positions in society, this opposition should not come as a surprise. Jesus never sugar-coated the reality that his followers would be ridiculed for their faith.

"If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own," Jesus declared to his followers. "As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you" (Jn. 15:19).

Jesus' warning couldn't be truer today.

So the question becomes, when Christians encounter anti-religious bigotry, whether by the media or from across the street, how should they respond biblically? I want to offer two suggestions.

First, we must refuse to compromise our beliefs. In fact, we can even use the experience to strengthen our convictions.

In his letter to the early Christians, Peter wrote, "If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you," (1 Peter 4:14). Behar's offensive comment towards Vice President Pence should motivate Pence to pray all the more, particularly for God to soften the hearts of lost people. As Americans, it is also important to pray that our Christian government leaders would have strength to hold fast to their convictions.

Second, we should appropriately respond to the opposition. It was encouraging to hear how 30,000 phone calls inundated ABC News in defense of Vice President Pence, demonstrating how many Americans still support Christian beliefs and values. Even so, we should always defend our faith with gentleness and respect. Christians are called to a higher standard. "Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult," wrote Peter.

Peter and the early Christians demonstrated righteous zeal in defense of the faith, but they never divorced truth from love. Speaking truth without any compassion or empathy is not real truth at all. In fact, the Apostle Paul refers to it as a "noisy gong or clanging cymbal."

Jesus went as far as telling his disciples to love their enemies and give to them without expecting anything in return. If he were here today, he would probably tell us to serve our attackers, even when everything within us says to retaliate in equal measure.

We need to keep in mind that the real reason why people deride Christians is because they haven't experienced God's love and forgiveness. They are searching for truth and coming up empty. However, as citizens of Heaven, we have the strength of the Holy Spirit to help love those who ridicule us. When Jesus was being crucified, he looked at his executioners and said, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do."

Let's show people we care enough to start a conversation  a conversation which involves both speaking and listening. Most people can't grab coffee with the host of "The View," so start with people in your workplace or in your neighborhood.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality." Let's choose to always respond in this way when someone insults or mocks us because of our faith. Christians are not called to win arguments. They're called to love people.

My Faith Votes is a nonpartisan movement focused on motivating Christians in America to participate in local and domestic elections. By partnering with local churches, pastors and national faith leaders, My Faith Votes mobilizes and resources Christians to lead the conversation on the place of faith in culture and politics. Gov. Mike Huckabee serves as the organization's honorary national chairman.home World Catholic Church buys St. John Paul II statue after French court orders removal of cross

The Catholic Church in France has agreed to buy the statue of the late St. John Paul II after an administrative court had ordered the removal of a cross from the 25-foot monument.

The statue, which was donated by Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli to the small northwestern town of Ploermel in 2006, depicts the late pope praying beneath an arch adorned with a cross.

In October 2017, the Conseil d'Etat, the top administrative court in France, ordered the removal of the cross from the statue, citing the country's 1905 law of separation of Church and state.

According to Catholic News Agency, the statue, which has stood in a public carpark for 12 years, was sold by the mayor of Ploermel, Patrick Le Diffon, to the Catholic Church for $24,000.

Once the sale of the monument is finalized, it will be moved a few meters at the Church's expense to the adjoining grounds of a private Catholic college, where it will still be visible to the public.

Before the statue even went up, it had been challenged in court by secular activists, who hailed the October ruling as a victory.

"It's what should have happened from the start," said Andre Le Beherec, head of the local Freedom of Thought association, which filed the lawsuit against town officials.

After the court ruling, tens of thousands of people had signed a petition opposing the removal of the cross. The decision also drew backlash on Twitter, with some users using the hashtag "#montretacroix," which means "show your cross."

Le Diffon had said at the time that the statue was a work of art and had opposed the dismantling of the cross. The French conservative party also denounced the court ruling as "madness" and "destructive to the country's history."

Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydlo had previously offered to relocate the statue of the Polish pope to his home country to "save it from censorship." She contended that religious censorship was undermining the values of Europe and and was a nuisance to Europeans.

"Our great Pole, a great European, is a symbol of a Christian, united Europe," Szydlo said at the time, referring to St. John Paul II.

"The dictate of political correctness a the secular state a introduces a place for values that are alien to our culture, (and) which lead to terrorism to the daily life of Europeans," she added.

Paul Anselin, the former mayor who put up the statue, had expressed his support for the sale of the statue as a means to end the controversy.

"We have to move on from this situation," Anselin said while noting that he regretted that a gift had been sold. "Selling presents, it just isn't done," he added.Andy Savage update: Memphis church 'wrapping up' investigation into pastor's alleged sexual assault

Highpoint Church in Memphis, Tennessee has released a statement updating its members on an investigation that is 'wrapping up' into Pastor Andy Savage, who has been accused of an alleged sexual assault in 1998 and who remains on leave.

In the statement, Highpoint Church officials said: 'We want to update you regarding Andy Savage. The investigation is wrapping up and the initial findings give us assurance that we can begin the long process of moving forward as a church.

'Just as the culture around us is waking up to the suffering expressed by the courageous voices of the #metoo movement, we are taking very seriously our commitment to fully understand how our church should minister to the needs of the people we impact. Andy Savage remains on leave. We will release further updates as the situation requires.'

Savage has said that he will abide by the wishes of church leadership once the investigation is complete.

However, Savage has received support from leaders at Highpoint, who said they were aware of the historic incident, that took place in Texas, before Savage was hired, and church members gave Savage a standing ovation after he spoke about the case shortly after it emerged into the public eye in January.

Savage was youth pastor at Woodlands Parkway Baptist Church in Houston and the alleged victim, Jules Woodson, was a 17-year-old high school senior when the incident occurred.

In an account originally published on the website The Wartburg Watch, Woodson said that Savage sexually assaulted her in his car in a secluded area while driving her home from a church event.

Woodson said that she reported the encounter the following day to, but police were never contacted. Woodson contacted the authorities recently but the statute of limitations has expired. The staff member to whom she reported, Larry Cotton, resigned from his post at The Austin Stone Community Church last month.

Savage eventually left the church, returned home to Memphis and accepted the position at Highpoint.

He has said that he recalls the incident as consensual.

An administrator at Highpoint has said that the investigation there includes a review of past and present actions by church leaders regarding Savage, as well as the impact of those actions. Fredricks is also advising the church 'as it makes decisions about the future of ministry at Highpoint'.

A separate independent investigation, which is expected to begin after the Savage review is complete, will evaluate the church's child protection practices,GAFCON conservative Anglicans face tensions over women bishops ahead of June meeting

The GAFCON conservative Anglican grouping, set up to resist what it perceives as a liberal drift in the Anglican Communion, is facing internal pressures over its position on female bishops following the consecration of a woman bishop in one of its constituent provinces.

A GAFCON 'Task Force on Women in the Episcopate' reported last September and concluded that 'the provinces of GAFCON should retain the historic practice of the consecration only of men as bishops until and unless a strong consensus to change emerges after prayer, consultation and continued study of Scripture among the GAFCON fellowship'.

However, the GAFCON-affiliated province of South Sudan consecrated Elizabeth Awut Ngor as assistant bishop of the Diocese of Rumbek on December 31, 2016.

GAFCON represents conservative evangelical Anglicans who are united in their opposition to homosexual practice. However, while most would also be opposed to women in pastoral leadership, there is less unanimity on this question  and it is now being faced with a split over what some believe is a core issue of biblical faithfulness.

GAFCON'S Primates Council said in response to the task force report that it, 'while recognising that there are differing views on the consecration of women to the episcopate, encourages the provinces of GAFCON to continue to study the Scriptures, to consult with one another and to pray that God would lead us to a common mind on this issue'.

The South Sudan appointment pre-dates the task force report, though a 'voluntary moratorium' on the consecration of women as bishops was agreed in 2014. However, in an indication of the polarisation of views on the issue, one of those who consecrated Awut, Archbishop Daniel Deng, told Radio Good News before his retirement in January this year, 'It was in my dream to ordain a woman as bishop in the Episcopal Church of South Sudan and Sudan before I leave.' Deng was not present when the moratorium was agreed.

However, in an apparent inconsistency, GAFCON's statement on Awut's consecration said Deng had told the Primate's Council that 'his personal decision to consecrate a female bishop was an extraordinary action taken in the midst of civil unrest in a part of his country where most of the men were engaged in armed conflict'  a statement appearing to contradict his stated enthusiasm for women bishops in general.

The GAFCON statement said the primates 'chose to not allow this anomaly to change the course followed since 2014' and that the 'voluntary moratorium' remained in place pending further discussion at the GAFCON meetings in Jerusalem in June.

In an indication of the tensions over the issue, GAFCON has also been accused of underplaying the significance of the consecration and even, in an Anglican Unscripted YouTube broadcast, of attempting to conceal it. According to Thinking Anglicans, the appointment was not made public through normal channels such as the Anglican Communion News Service and only became known when group photos taken at last month's meeting of the South Sudan House of Bishops showed one bishop in a skirt holding a handbag, as reported by Anglican Ink.

The GAFCON-affiliated Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas protested the consecration of Awut on Friday, saying, 'we struggle to understand why it is that the consecration of Ms Awut has been seemingly kept as a secret within the GAFCON community for over a year. If it is the belief of the South Sudanese that women are rightly consecrated to the episcopacy, why was this not more openly celebrated from the start?' It says: 'We find the seemingly veiled nature of the consecration for over a year, along with the accompanying questions it raises, deeply disconcerting in the Diocese of Fort Worth.'

However, writing on the Anglican Ink website in response to the YouTube broadcast, GAFCON press officer Andrew Gross denied any 'conspiracy' to hide the news. 'GAFCON knew that South Sudan's news would become public knowledge, but it was South Sudan's news to break, not ours,' he said.

'In hindsight perhaps Gafcon could have encouraged the South Sudanese Provincial office to make a statement proactively, but, because the situation in South Sudan is so messy and the pressures so huge, we waited.'

Gross appealed for patience, saying: 'We love our brothers and sisters [in South Sudan] and are praying for them. I hope that the rest of the Anglican world shows them as much grace and patience as have the GAFCON Primates.'

GAFCON confirmed to Christian Today: 'We had no motivation to keep it secret, and didn't consider keeping it a secret was ever possible or desirable.'

The tensions over the Awut's appointment indicate, if nothing else, the difficulty of getting even conservative Anglicans united by their opposition to liberalism to march in step  a difficulty that mirrors, ironically, that faced by the archbishop of Canterbury, who also has to keep a fractious coalition of independent provinces together. While the consecration of women as bishops does not arouse the same level of visceral opposition as acceptance of same-sex marriage, it is still a major sticking-point for many conservatives. GAFCON's meeting in June will be a testing time for the movement's unity.Huge taxes, land expropriated: Archbishop Welby, Cardinal Nichols denounce Israeli 'threats' to Christian community

The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the Catholic archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, have expressed their deep concern to the Israeli government over threats to church lands which caused the closure of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

In a joint letter to the Israeli ambassador to London, Mark Regev, the two faith leaders laid out their opposition to the 'unprecedented, punitive and discriminatory taxation of Christian institutions' and their fears that the dispute could inflict long term damage on relations between the Christian and Israeli communities.

The Jerusalem mayor caused outrage among church leaders across denominations in recent weeks by his attempt to make any church properties that are not places of worship retrospectively subject to municipal taxes. The municipality claimed that the three Christian denominations collectively owe some 186 million shekels ($53 million) in back taxes.

In response, the Greek Orthodox, Catholic and Armenian leaders of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre agreed sensationally to close the Jerusalem church in protest last Sunday.

The closure of the iconic church also coincided with a meeting by a ministerial committee for legislation, which had been scheduled to discuss a bill, supported by Israeli settlers, allowing the state to expropriate land in Jerusalem that the Greek Orthodox and Catholic churches have sold off since 2010 to private investors.

After the intervention of the embattled Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and an apparent climbdown on both fronts, the church re-opened last Wednesday morning. Netanyahu and the Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat established a team headed by the regional cooperation minister Tzachi Hanegbi to try to formulate a solution concerning the issue of tax collection from the churches, according to a statement by the prime minister's office last Tuesday.

However, the archbishops clearly do not believe the threats are over and their letter stated that both the taxes and the bill 'threaten to cause serious damage to the Christian presence in Jerusalem, to Christian families, and to the Christian institutions, including hospitals and schools, which serve many of the poorest people, regardless of their background'.

It went on: 'It is our view that the measures being pressed in Jerusalem and in the Knesset are a clear and evident threat to the status quo. These violations of historic agreements risk undermining prospects for peaceful coexistence between communities, at a time of already heightened tensions.'

The two archbishops said that they are praying for the peace of Jerusalem and have urged the Israeli government to address this crisis as a matter of urgency and immediately enter dialogue with the local churches to find a resolution.

Welby met with Netanyahu in Jerusalem last year, when the Israeli prime minister reminded the archbishop that they had first met at the funeral of Margaret Thatcher in 2013. Netanyahu is currently in the US.Israeli PM in talks with Trump as scandal back home threatens his job

The issue of Iran is likely to dominate talks between the Israeli prime minister and Donald Trump in Washington today, but back home Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a growing crisis over a bribery scandal that threatens to end his premiership.

Mired in corruption investigations, Netanyahu  who was questioned at his home by police on Friday  will step, temporarily, into a different spotlight during his five-day US visit.

The Oval Office meeting and address to the pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC on Tuesday offer a respite from his legal troubles.

Netanyahu awaits a decision by Israel's attorney general on whether to indict him, as police have recommended in two bribery cases. Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing.

US officials have said the cases are not expected to affect Netanyahu's talks, which include meetings with members of Congress.

The Israeli prime minister leaves behind growing questions over his relatively weak position that surely forced him personally to intervene in what the respected Israeli newspaper Haaretz called a 'crisis' over the Church of the Holy Sepulchre last week, with Israel climbing down over demands for retrospective taxes on church properties and a controversial bill, supported by Israeli settlers, that the churches said further threatened their lands.

The rare climbdown led to the church being re-opened after it drew the attention of the world to the previously obscure measures by sensationally closing last Sunday.

Now, Netanyahu is keen to focus the world's attention on Iran and Trump's push to change or scrap Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Concerns over Tehran's foothold in Syria are expected to top the agenda of the talks, US and Israeli officials said.

Both leaders have long railed against the deal, citing its limited duration and the fact it does not cover Iran's ballistic missile programme or its support for anti-Israel militants in the region.

Trump has threatened to pull out of the agreement unless European allies help 'fix' it with a follow-up accord. An Israeli official said Netanyahu and Trump were likely to talk about how to overcome European resistance on the matter.

'I intend to discuss a series of issues with [Trump], but foremost Iran, its aggression, nuclear ambitions and aggressive actions in the Middle East, including along our very border,' Netanyahu told reporters on his departure from Israel.

Israel has accused Tehran of seeking a permanent military presence in Syria, where Iranian-backed forces support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a civil war.

Netanyahu has also cautioned that Israel could act against Iran itself after an Iranian drone flew into Israel last month and an Israeli warplane was shot down while bombing air defences in Syria. He has accused Iran of planning to build precision-guided missile factories in Lebanon, amid tensions along that border.

'We want to know and we must know, what the US position will be if we do enter into some wider confrontation with Iran,' Michael Oren, a deputy Israeli cabinet minister and former ambassador to Washington, said on Sunday on Israel's Channel 13 TV.

US secretary of state Rex Tillerson has called on Iran to withdraw its military and militia from Syria. But with Russia the dominant international player in Syria, it is unclear what practical steps Washington could take to ease Israeli concerns.

Trump and Netanyahu will also discuss efforts led by the president's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner to develop an Israeli-Palestinian peace proposal, which the president has previously said could lead to the 'deal of the century'.

The process has gone nowhere, however, since Trump's unilateral recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December and his announcement of the coming move of the US embassy to the city in May, shortly after Israel's 70th anniversary.

Kushner, meanwhile, also finds himself on the defensive amid investigations into alleged meddling by Russia in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Palestinian leaders have reacted to the change in decades-old US policy on Jerusalem by rejecting Washington's traditional leadership of peace efforts.

Netanyahu told reporters in Israel that he will discuss with Trump the possibility of inviting him to the embassy's Jerusalem opening.

No major announcements or breakthroughs are expected from Trump's talks with Netanyahu, whose relationship with the president has been among the closest of any other world leader.

'This is a routine check-in meeting,' one US official said of Netanyahu's second visit to the Trump White House.

The Trump administration remains hopeful the Palestinians can be drawn back into negotiations after a 'cooling-off' period, one US official was reported as saying, while conceding there had been no sign that would happen any time soon.

Some analysts believe Kushner's ability to run the Middle East initiative has been further handicapped by his loss of access to certain valued US intelligence because of a recent White House clampdown on access to such secrets for those without full security clearance.

The Trump administration has no plans to use Netanyahu's visit to roll out peace proposals Kushner's team is crafting, a second US official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.

'We are as committed to peace as ever,' the official said. 'We will release the plan when it is done and the time is right.'

Additional reporting by Reuters.Justin Bieber concert terror attack news: Teen gets life sentence for concert terror plan

Teenager Lloyd Gunton has been slapped with a life sentence for planning a terror attack at a Justin Bieber concert.

Gunton, 17, reportedly wrote a "martyrdom letter" and researched security for Bieber's gig in Cardiff as part of his planned attack. Police raided the boy's south Wales residence on the day of the concert and they discovered a gutting knife and a claw hammer inside his school backpack.

"I am a soldier of the Islamic State. I have attacked Cardiff today because your government keep on bombing targets in Syria and Iraq. There will be more attacks in the future," his letter read.

During the trial, Birmingham crown court's jurors were told Gunton also had a note with bullet points that include "strike the infidels who oppose Allah in the neck" and "run down the non-believers with a car."

According to The BBC, he had posts in June 2016 that showed support for Al Qaeda. In addition, Gunton  who had been diagnosed with autism  shared photos of the Islamic State's flag. Investigators dug deeper into his online profiles and discovered that the password to his Instagram account was "truck attack."

One of his social media posts even directly pertained to a terror attack, which read, "May Allah bring terrorism to Cardiff on 30th June."

Aside from his disturbing posts, authorities learned that he had researched how to stab and kill, as well as how to carry out an attack by using a vehicle.

The troubled teen was found guilty of one charge of engaging in the preparation of a terrorist act, as well as two charges of possessing terrorist information and two charges of encouraging terrorism. He is required to serve a minimum of 11 years behind bars before being eligible for parole.Meghan Markle to be baptised this month 'out of respect for the Queen'

Meghan Markle will be baptised as an Anglican by the Archbishop of Canterbury during a service at Kensington Palace later this month, according to the Sunday Times.

Markle, who is set to marry Prince Harry in May, was raised a Protestant, went to a Catholic school and previously married a Jewish man.

Her father, Thomas, who was Episcopalian when Meghan was born, will travel to the wedding from Mexico, according to the Sunday Times, while her mother, Doria Ragland, a Protestant, will come from California.

The report claims that Markle has requested that Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, performs the ceremony because she has 'formed a close bond with him'.

A source told The Sunday Times: 'She and Harry have been doing wedding prep with [the archbishop].'

Markle attended the Catholic Immaculate Heart high school as a teenager and later married Trevor Engelson, who is Jewish.

While she did not adopt his faith, according to the Daily Mail their wedding in Jamaica in 2011 was conducted with many Jewish traditions, with the couple being lifted on chairs. They divorced two years later.

Markle was not formally required to become an Anglican in order to marry Harry, but it is believed that she wanted to do so out of respect for the Queen, who is the head of the Church of England.

Markle and Prince Harry will be married at Windsor Castle on May 19.#MeToo: 7 lessons for the movement from slave trader John Newton

Every time there is a manifestation of human evil, whether it's an abuse scandal in the church, paedophilia like Jimmy Saville, the Weinstein affair, or the perversion of charity in Haiti, the response is the same: never again!

We must set up an inquiry, make new laws, change the culture, wear Me Too badges/dresses; and then  it happens again.

Perhaps we need to take a wider perspective and reflect more on human nature. Perhaps we can learn from history.

John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace and an Anglican preacher in the late 18th century, was, as is well known, a slave trader. He was a captain on a ship that between 1745-1754 made several trading voyages.

Contrary to the popular myth he did not, from the moment of his conversion, repent of his slave trading and campaign against it. He did not write Amazing Grace as an act of penitence and confession. It was only later on in life that he came to fully realize the evil of slave trading and to write against it. But then he wrote an amazing tract entitled Thoughts on the African Slave Trade.

It is piercingly honest and movingly informative. And it has some clear lessons for us in the 21st century as we seek to come to terms with our flawed humanity.

1. Be prepared to face up to, and confess, our past sins

'I hope it will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.

2. We need to think about and challenge what society says

'But I never had a scruple upon this head at the time; nor was such a thought once suggested to me by any friend. What I did I did ignorantly; considering it as the line of life which divine providence had allotted me, and having no concern, in point of conscience, but to treat slaves, while under my care, with as much humanity as a regard to my own safety would admit.'

'The slave trade was always unjustifiable; but inattention and interest prevented, for a time, the evil from being perceived.'

3. Sexual exploitation is, and always has been, as much about power as it is about lust

'When I was in the trade I knew several commanders of African ships who were prudent, respectable men, and who maintained the proper discipline and regularity in their vessels; but there were too many of a different character. In some ships, perhaps in the most, the licence allowed, in this particular was almost unlimited.'

4. Familiarity with evil breeds contempt and callousness

Newton writes of a situation where 100 slaves on another ship, men, women and children, were thrown overboard when drinking water was short. They were thrown overbroad to drown so that the insurance would pay, because if they had died on board it would have been the ship-owners who would have paid.

'But unlimited power, instigated by revenge, and whether hard, by long familiarity with the sufferings of slaves, has become callous, and insensible to the pleadings of humanity, is terrible.'

'These instances are specimens of the spirit produced, by the African trade, in men, who, once, were no more destitute of the milk of human kindness than ourselves.'

5. It is often those who consider themselves to be the most civilised who behave with the most barbarity

'When the women and girls are taken on board a ship, naked, trembling, terrified, perhaps almost exhausted with cold, fatigue, and hunger, they are often exposed to the wanton rudeness of white savages.'

'When I have charged a black with unfairness and dishonesty, he has answered, if able to clear himself, with an air of disdain, "What! Do you think I am a white man?'"'

6. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil

Newton talks with brutal honesty about how when human beings are regarded as commerce they are treated inhumanely. He tells us that in Antigua a slave rarely lived beyond nine years in slavery because a commercial decision was taken that it was cheaper to treat slaves cruelly.

'By rigorously straining their strength to the utmost, with little relaxation, hard fair, and hard usage, to wear them out before they became useless, and able to do service; and then, to buy new ones, to fill up their places.'

He raises the question of whether wars were started or encouraged to increase the number of available slaves.

'I judge, the principal source of the slave trade is, the wars which prevail among the natives. Sometimes these wars break out between those who live near the sea. The English, and other Europeans, have been charged with fomenting them; I believe (so far as concerns the Windward coast) unjustly.'

7. Evil must be challenged

Newton was not one for excusing his or his nation's guilt.

'If but an equal number are killed in war, and if many of these wars are kindled by the incentive of selling the prisoners, what an annual accumulation of blood must there be, crying against the nations of Europe concerned in this trade, and particularly against our own!'

He did speak truth to power. Remember that slavery was legal at this time (it would be many years before the persistent efforts of Wilberforce would bear fruit  at great cost to the British Empire) and that it helped fund the great cities of London, Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow. Many people's livelihoods depended on it. He challenged those who argued 'by pleading for a commerce so iniquitous, so cruel, so oppressive, so destructive as the African slave trade'.

Are there things in our culture that are considered normal, and part of the commercial scene that in years to come humans may look back and wonder how we did it?

Does the re-introduction of slavery through the sex trade not shame us? The fact that there are now more slaves in the UK (an estimated 20,000) than there were in Newton's day is a stench in the nostrils of God. The renaming of prostitution as 'sex work' and the attempt to legalise the exploitation of the poor and weak by the rich and powerful is a sin that reaches to heaven.

What about the taking of human life in the womb being justified by economic circumstances, or the taking of the human life of the elderly because they have become a burden upon society?

Are there aspects of trade and 'free' markets and 'free movement of labour and capital' which end up creating 'wage slaves'? Is the development of authoritarian technocracies something that is good for human development?

In our culture we too often react to the demonstration of human evil by blame shifting, virtue signaling and a kind of moralistic triumphalism. We speak and act as if we would never be like that.

He put the sub-heading on his essay, Homo Sum ('I am a man') not to excuse himself, but to point out that all human beings (it's not just 'men') are exploitative and evil.

The solution to this is not to have yet more meaningless and powerless vows of 'never again' but instead to listen and obey the words of Christ. Newton also put at the head of his essay the words from Matthew 7:12: 'So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets.'

It's a simple standard that our society needs to hear. And it's one that we cannot meet without the mercy, forgiveness and grace of Christ. The most radical thing we can do to change society and turn the world upside down, is to proclaim and live this gospel of grace.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,

that saved a wretch like me,

I once was lost, but now am found,

Was blind, but now I see.

David Robertson is associate director of Solas CPC in Dundee and minister at St Peter's Free Church. Follow him on Twitter @TheWeeFlea'The Grudge' reboot plot, cast rumors: Sony eyeing Andrea Riseborough for lead role

The American adaptation of the Japanese horror flick "The Grudge" is getting a reboot from Sony soon and it may have just found its lead in Andrea Riseborough.

Deadline broke the news this past weekend that the "Black Mirror" actress is in talks to star in the new version of the film. Not much is known about the plot of the reboot yet but should she board the project, Riseborough would portray a different role than Michelle Gellar, who starred in the 2004 American remake.

As recalled, Gellar's Karen Davis is a social worker living in Tokyo with her boyfriend. This time, "The Grudge" will reportedly have a detective and single mother for the lead.

Beyond Riseborough's potential casting, no details were revealed including whether the reboot would still feature the characters of Kayako and Toshio the mother and son who were murdered by their husband/father and carriers of the curse.

"The Grudge" reboot would be the 13th film in the Japanese franchise, which also has a video game and several graphic novels. It started back in 1988 with the TV movies "Katsumi" and "4444444444" which, according to Screen Rant, served as the foundations for the rest of the installments. The sequel "Juon: The Curse" was its first full-length film and "The Ring" crossover "Sadako vs Kayako" was the most recent one.

Sony's reboot has no release date at the moment, but it does already have Nicolas Pesce on board as its director. This would be Riseborough's first ever role in a horror film.

Hopefully, the new take on Takashi Shimazu's cult Japanese thriller would be as successful, if not more, as its American predecessor. The latter notably brought in a staggering $187 million worldwide on a budget of just $10 million and spawned two sequels.

Apart from "The Grudge" reboot, Riseborough is also said to be circling "Amazon-Sky miniseries Zero, Zero, Zero."The Shape of Water... into wine: Christian Today's alternative Oscars 2018

So, The Shape of Water beat out Three Billboards for the biggest prize in cinema (confounding our predictions once again). But as the glitz and glamour of Sunday night's Oscar ceremony fades, and all the glittery confetti is swept up in that theatre, do not worry that your appetite for endless awards ceremonies will go unsatisfied today. Because, for the third year running, I'm here to humbly present our hypothetical prizes for films which did a good job of representing the Christian faith on screen over the last year. That's right: it's Christian Today's Alternative Oscars!

In order to qualify for these awards, a film must have been released over the course of the last year, but doesn't necessarily need to be intended as a faith-based film (Mad Max: Fury Road is a previous winner. Star Tom Hardy called it 'his proudest moment in film'*). 2016 saw a particularly rich crop of films with faith as a central theme, including Martin Scorsese's Silence (which actually featured 'the voice of God'), and redemptive war epic Hacksaw Ridge. So was Christianity still at the forefront of Hollywood's priorities in 2017?

*I imagine.

Best depiction of the Christian faith

2017 was arguably the year when Christian movies stopped sucking quite so badly. In the somewhat unexpected big screen adaptation of The Case for Christ, Mike Vogel and Erika Christensen star as Lee and Leslie Strobel, the atheist journalist and his recently-converted wife, wrestling with what her great awakening means for their marriage. Vogel is excellent as a man struggling with his wife's new focus ('You're cheating on me, with Jesus!' he exclaims at one point), but Christensen is the best thing about the film: a believable new convert who has simply found that faith  rather than her husband  is what gives her life meaning. It's eventually enough to send him scrambling on his own reluctant journey towards faith, writing evangelistic literature and eventually, a big screen biopic. How meta.

Best explicitly Christian film

When a film adaptation of William P Young's gazillion-selling Holy Trinity novel The Shack was announced, expectations were somewhere between low and outraged (there are still some who believe the book to be a work of heresy). Yet Stuart Hazeldine's beautiful and imaginative film is the very best version of it one can imagine; nuancing out some of the more casually-heretical moments, and winning over audiences with some memorable casting (so much so that Octavia Spencer's role as 'Papa' gets a little referential nod in Oscar Best Picture winner The Shape of Water). Reviews were somewhat sniffy, but of course they were: this is essentially a long conversation about theology on screen.

Most challenging depiction of faith

I like Billy Crudup, mainly because I was once mistaken for him. But watching him as Captain Oram in Alien: Covenant, it's quite hard to maintain that sense of affection. Not only is he a committed Christian, but he's in the Archbishop George Carey mould of seeing religious persecution around every corner. Thrust to the helm only because of the original captain's death at the start of the film, he believes he should have been captain from the beginning and only missed out because of his faith. He's an unashamed, Bible-quoting believer, but partly as a result the rest of the crew undermine him and describe him as 'insufferable'. So the role is challenging on two somewhat contradictory levels: first, because if we're not careful, Christians can come across as killjoys with persecution complexes, but second, because there's good reason to suppose that our current cultural trajectory will actually land us in a place where Christians aren't able to get jobs because of apparent conflicts with their faith. Just ask Tim Farron.

Best parable

I could never recommend Darren Aronofsky's Mother!  an unsettling and confusing horror packed with shocks and one particularly outrageous moment of infanticide  but there's no denying that it was one of 2017's most theologically-preoccupied films. It's hard to know exactly who is a metaphor for whom in this apparently straightforward (and then very much not) tale of a couple in a sort-of Eden who witness a Cain-and-Abel murder, then have to give up their only child to a baying mob. Javier Bardem is probably meant to be God the Father; Jennifer Lawrence a metaphor for the earth that incarnates his son. So while that central, horrifying moment is almost unwatchable, it does give some insight into what it must have meant for God to watch Jesus on the cross.

Best illustration of a biblical theme

There are a number of great contenders for this prize, including Vice-Admiral Holdo's great act of 'laying down her life for her friends' in The Last Jedi, to the proof that 'the truth shall set you free' in Spielberg's The Post. I'm going to give this as a joint award however, to two Best Picture nominees so intrinsically linked that their release in the same year takes you back to that summer when we got Back to the Future parts II and III. Both Christopher Nolan's wonderful Dunkirk and Joe Wright's Darkest Hour focus on the same pivotal period in the Second World War, where an almost impossible situation somehow turned out good thanks to extraordinary leadership and astonishing bravery. Both films offer a fine illustration of that famous verse, 'The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not overcome it' (John 1:5).

Best redemption narrative

Last year's best superhero movie by some distance was Thor Ragnarok, a hilarious, colourful and endlessly-creative take on a creaking genre. Yet despite all the wisecracking (and boy, there is a lot of that) and comic-book violence, there's also time for some interesting themes and a bit of Christian-crowd-pleasing redemption. As they contemplate with horror the idea that their home planet might be destroyed by a gigantic fire demon, the people of Thor's world Asgard realise that in fact, home is within them. Asgard is a people, not a place, and they must only escape with their lives to preserve it. It might just be the finest metaphor for the church ever seen in a blockbuster film.

Best Christian character

It might sound slightly ridiculous  and theologically incorrect  to describe him as a 'Christian' character (he can't follow himself, after all), but Avraham Aviv Alush is so incredibly compelling as Jesus in The Shack that I'm going to bend the rules. Many people agreed that the performance was so likeable that it made them want to go and spend time with the real Jesus. Surely that's the finest sermon feedback a preacher can ever receive?

So there you have it. There are no statuettes on offer for the winners here, no eye-popping Gucci goodie bag. Only the sense of pride that comes from being awarded a pretend prize from a Christian website. It's not been a year where faith has been front-and-centre in Hollywood, but again it's played a key supporting role. And with a string of faith-focused releases lined up for 2018, it's likely that these coveted awards are only going to get more competitive next year.

Martin Saunders is a contributing editor for Christian Today and the deputy CEO of Youthscape. Follow him on Twitter @martinsaunders.Three-year-old Dylan Colson was having the pony ride of his life.

At the Houston rodeo Monday morning, he giggled. He looked around in wonder. He held on tightly to his brown-and-white pony, Cowboy.

What he did not do: Look at the cameras his mom and grandmother were holding up.

"Dylan, look at me!"

"Look over here!"

As the ponies traipsed in a circle, Dylan's mother, Jodi Colson, jogged around to catch up."Take a picture when we come back by, because he might be smiling," she told her mother.

Dylan was so wowed all day by the rodeo's sights and sounds, he wasn't too cooperative with photos, said his grandmother, Joyce Jozwiak.

"There's so much going on," she said, and after all, the kid's just 3. "We went to the petting zoo - oh my god. He was more interested in all the little animals."

The Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show turns everyone into an amateur photographer. If you don't walk away with a goofy group shot or a spectacular selfie, did you even rodeo?

Photo opportunities popped up all over NRG Park - and so did cameras. People shimmied up next to show sheep, grinned on the midway or propped toddlers up on bales of hay.

Right inside the rodeo entrance, John and Sandy Sanchez stopped at a big metal cowboy sculpture to shoot pictures of their 4-year-old twins, Carmen and Ashley. Sandy Sanchez predicted the girls would be posing for photos all day long.

"Let's put it this way: I've got 6,000 photos on my phone," she said, and they're mostly of the twins.

A few yards away, as they wrapped up a first-grade field trip, a group of teachers from Alvin ISD's Wilder Elementary asked a bystander to take their photo in front of a giant cowboy boot. As he snapped the photo, they all jumped into the air.

"Did it work?" "Did you get it?"

All six crowded in to peek at the photo on Monica Herrera's phone: perfect on the first try.

It was Herrera who instructed everyone to jump, Ashlee Gulley said. To get the perfect rodeo photo, "you need the perfect scenery, the perfect backdrop - and then you need a photo coordinator."

Everyone carries around a camera in their phone these days, but the rodeo offers plenty of opportunities to pay for one-of-a-kind snapshots. You can sit on a pony or pose with a baby kangaroo. And at the Big Sky Rides trailer on the midway, visitors can hop on a bucking bull and get a photo that looks like they're trying to go eight seconds in the ring.

For three years now, Harvey and Barbara Fladland have brought their trailer down from Montana to take people's photos with Little Brother, a real bull who broke his back on the PBR circuit in 2006, died and was mounted.

The Fladlands have been in the souvenir photo business for 15 years, so they got started before cell phone cameras became ubiquitous. Now, instead of paying $20 for a 5-by-7 print, people will try to sneak in behind the photographer and shoot their own photos for free.

Barbara Fladland is having none of that.

"This is my business," she said. "I'll say, 'I'm sorry, you cannot take a picture with a cell phone.'"

If she sees someone trying to sneak a shot, "I tell them that if they do take one with their cell phone, it's a $10 charge."

She laughed. "Then they usually put their phone away."James Nielsen/Staff

Cheniere Energy announced Monday that it will export liquified natural gas to India for the first time as demand for U.S. energy products surges in Asia and elsewhere.

The Houston-based energy company signed a 20-year contract with GAIL India Ltd., a state-owned natural gas company, to ship 3.5 million tons of LNG annually. India is working to address an air pollution crisis in New Delhi and other urban areas by using cleaner-burning fuel sources to reduce its reliance on coal.Plains All American Pipeline CEO Greg Armstrong said Monday steel tariffs announced by President Donald Trump last week could hurt pipeline construction in the United States.

Speaking at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit conference in Houston, Armstrong said certain types and sizes of steel pipe, as well as valves and other equipment, were only available outside the United States.

"We need some flexibility to be able to move forward. That will be part of the dialogue," with the administration, he said. "We got about $1.5. billion of projects underway that use quite a bit of steel."

The comments came during a discussion on the state of U.S. energy infrastructure and the Trump administration's bid to ramp construction up in the years ahead.

TOMLINSON: Trump trade war could hurt innocent Houston businesses

Armstrong was bullish on federal officials' moves to date, saying the permitting and regulatory processes had improved since Trump took office.

"The number of regulations we have to comply with have stacked up over the years," he said. "The last 12 to 14 months we've seen a different attitude and attitude matters a lot."

More for you Ryan splits with Trump on planned tariffs

Those comments were echoed by Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, who is leading legislation to shrink government agencies' permitting reviews to less than two years.

"There's a lot of chaos in Washington," he said. "But if you get behind the daily headlines and tweets, it's clear there has never been a more exciting time for the American energy sector."

EXPLAINED: President Trump said Canada mistreats U.S. farmers. This is what he meant.

But one of Trump's signature accomplishments - the tax cut signed last year - has so far had little impact on the energy sector, Armstrong said.

"Right now it hasn't had a huge impact on what people plan to do," he said of the tax cut. "It's a little bit early."The March meeting of the Lower Trinity Valley Bird Club will be held on Thursday, March 8, at 6:30 p.m. at The FLNB Corner, 1822 Sam Houston Ave. in Liberty across from the First Liberty National Bank.

The speaker for March will be Paul Gregg. His presentation will be "A trip to and in the Guadalupe Mountains, NOT the River!"While much of the attention has been focused on the March primaries, which will be over on March save any runoffs, another election is looming.

Municipal and school district races are set and for one school district, there will be no election.

DAYTON ISD

The Dayton Independent School District (DISD) will have an election this year with one incumbent drawing a challenger. Kerri Bartee currently serves on the board and will face challenger Mark Richter. Bartee is the director of Catholic Christian Education at St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church in Dayton on Cleveland Street. Richter is a quality manager.

Incumbents Linda Harris, Position 5, and C. D. Williams, Position 6, are unopposed and will be returned to their seats on the school board.

LIBERTY ISD

Position 2 incumbent Bruce Bell, Position 3 incumbent Lance Lawrence and Position 6 incumbent Rachel Odell will all be returned to the school board since none of them drew any challengers in their races.

It is likely the school board will cancel the election at their next regular board meeting.

DAYTON CITY COUNCIL

Josh Townsend, current Dayton city councilman representing Position 1, did not file for reelection and his place will be filled by two candidates who will vie for his spot.

Russell Allen Payne will challenge retiree Wendell Null for the seat on council.

Position 2 incumbent Sherial Lawson and Position 3 incumbent Alvin Burress will be returned to city council with neither of them having a challenger on the ballot.

Burress was originally appointed to fill the seat of former city councilman Dwight Pruitt who stepped down to assume more work in his church.

LIBERTY CITY COUNCIL

Since no one else threw their hat into the ring, the Liberty City Council will see Mayor Carl Pickett returned to the office of mayor. Pickett is a practicing attorney in Liberty and was first elected to the council in May of 2006.

The city of Liberty is a home rule city that operates under a council/manager form of government. All councilmen are elected as at-large members for a term of two years.

Councilman Louie Potetz did not file this election after 10 years on the council which opened the door for challengers to join council. This election, only the top three vote-getters will be elected to council.

Vying for a spot on the council is incumbents David Arnold and Paul Glazener in Liberty.

Arnold is a local dentist and Glazener is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Church in Liberty.

Newcomers James "Chipper" Smith, manager of Pioneer Well Services, and bookkeeper Courtney Daniel will challenge for the office of city council member.

In addition to the council race, Ordinance 4004 calls for the vote on seven propositions amending the city's home rule charter.

The seven propositions mostly deal with the clean-up of language in the charter to reflect current law.

The first amendment is focused on the boundaries of the city. The city has spent the last two years with annexation and the boundaries need to be amended.

Since the city hasn't had a public health authority in some time, the second proposition asks to remove that language from the charter.

State law amended some specific language and dates dealing with the canvassing of elections and so the third proposition amends it according to law.

Proposition 4 deals with the Planning and Zoning Commission, allowing a member to serve three consecutive terms, then following the third term, requiring them to take off one term and then they can return again to serve.

The fifth and sixth propositions require the cleanup of language to reflect state law.

The last and final prop deals with the term limits for the Charter Review Committee themselves. The recommendation is that they are allowed to serve two consecutive terms, lay out a term, and then they may return to serve again if they want.

Early voting begins April 23 and ends on Tuesday, May 1. Polls on election day are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.A Rosenberg man has been charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of another man wearing a bulletproof vest at a party in the Heights, Houston police said.

Jason Griffin, 39, has also been charged with felon in possession of a weapon and unlawful possession of body armor.Houston police are searching for three masked suspects wanted in related armed robberies in the Memorial area.

The men, one of whom was wearing a monkey mask, entered the Valero station at 901 Bunker Hill on Feb. 19 at about 12:15 a.m., the Houston Police Department's Robbery Division said in a video release.

The men, carrying handguns, approached the store clerk and demanded cigarettes and money from the cash register, police said.

BIZARRE SHOOTING: Man charged after another man in bulletproof vest shot to death

The victim described the suspect in the monkey mask as being polite during the robbery.

The suspects took the money, cigarettes and the clerk's wallet and fled on foot.

Police believe they are also connected to the robbery of the Jack in the Box on Feb. 17, 9:21 p.m. at 901 Dairy Ashford.

In that incident, three masked men jumped the counter, pointed their guns at employees and demanded money from the safe, plus the employees' wallets.

Two men were wearing the same masks as in the Valero robbery. A third suspect wore a tan handkerchief over his face.

The suspects were described as follows:

Suspect No. 1: 20 to 25 years old, 6 feet to 6 feet 2 inches tall, 165 to 200 pounds, wearing a monkey mask and described as being polite during the robbery wearing red shoes.

Suspect No. 2: 20 to 25 years old, 6 feet to 6 feet 2 inches tall, 165 to 200 pounds.

Suspect No. 3: White male, 20 to 23 years old, 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 7 inches tall, thin build.

Anyone with information on either case is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS to leave an anonymous tip.

Dana Burke is a digital reporter at Chron.com. You can read more of her stories here and follow her on Twitter at @danapburke.Fun and exercise meet culture and camaraderie as a Monday night class in Israeli folk dancing continues in its eighth year at Congregation Shaar Hashalom in the Bay Area.

"The class was meant to last only four or five months, but the participants do not want to stop dancing," said Wendy S. Kane, the conservative synagogue's publicity co-chairman.

"It is very much a secular thing," said teacher Amira Hemme, who was born in Israel but has called Pearland home since 1993. "My group is recreational."

"Not everybody (in the class) is Jewish," added Alesia Stewart of Clear Lake. "We come from all different religions and beliefs. When I dance, I am not thinking about problems; I just enjoy myself. It is a wonderful way to exercise, have a few laughs and find rhythm in the present moment."

Like Stewart, another longtime participant, Anna Lopez of Friendswood, read about the class in a newspaper and decided to give it a try.

"I had been to Israel in 2011, but there was so much going on that I didn't pay attention to the music," said Lopez, who is a travel agent. "When I got home, I was living in Webster, my aunt saw an announcement about the class in the newspaper; so we went. I fell in love with Israeli folk dancing."

Hemme said that six to 10 women take the class, but that everyone is welcome to join, including men.

"I teach the steps and we dance," Hemme said.

The classes are held 7:30-9:30 p.m. each Monday at Congregation Shaar Hashalom, 16020 El Camino Real, in Houston. The cost is $4 per session or $35 for 10 sessions for congregation members and $5 per session or $45 for 10 sessions for others.

Hemme, who is married and in her 60s, said the music ranges from songs from the 1920s to the present.

"Israeli folk dancing is relatively young," she said. "It is highly choreographed; so each dance has its own steps. As opposed to Greek dancing, for instance, which has a set of dance steps which are used to dance any number of songs. If I had to pick just one choreographer as my favorite, it would be Israel Shiker. He created some of our favorite dances."

Lopez said she enjoys learning about the meaning and history of each dance.

"It is a cultural experience," added Stewart, 54, whose parents immigrated to the United States from Jamaica. "I have never taken a trip to Israel, but I feel that the music transports me there."

Perhaps best of all, said the participants, is the exercise they get from dancing.

"It gets my heart up. It gets my energy going. You will get a good workout," Lopez said.

In addition, said Stewart, "Lovely friendships happen."

For more information, call the synagogue office at 281-488-5861 or send an email csh@shaarhashalom.org. Information also is posted on the congregation calendar for Mondays at www.shaarhashalom.org.

Don Maines is a freelance writer who can be reached at donmaines@att.netRestaurateur Benjy Levit and chef Dylan Murray seem intent on matching the Houston Height's rapid pace when it comes to debuting new restaurants.

The team just launched their fifth Local Foods location at 714 Yale Street on Friday, Feb. 16 at the thriving Heights Mercantile urban market.

"Local Foods in the Heights fulfills my long-time goal to bring the concept to one of Houston's historic and most vibrant neighborhoods," Levit said in a prepared statement. "The Heights possesses a diverse community of residents that is passionate about its food options."

The Heights restaurant is helmed by executive chef Maria Gonzalez, who formerly worked at Levit's Benjy's on Washington located at 5922 Washington Avenue.

ELSEWHERE: Benjy's on Washington to get a redo

At the new address, Gonzalez will craft the restaurant's signature scratch-made sandwiches and gourmet, healthy sides with the help of a Josper charcoal oven, which is the centerpiece of the exhibition-style kitchen.

The menu is expected to maintain the classics that made the restaurant famous, as well as some new a-la-carte dinner and weekend brunch offerings, including spiced red bird chicken served with carrot date ginger salad; Lebanese Rice made with basmati, pistachios and golden raisins; and a vegetable ricotta kugel served with a house salad. Vegans and vegetarians will also be able to indulge in marbled sweet potatoes and vegan migas.

The 4,500-square-foot indoor space at the the Heights' Local Foods accommodates 120 patrons. Outside, a covered patio features large communal tables surrounded by plants and a view of passersby.

"The design was inspired by the Heights and its distinct brand of quirky appeal," deisgner Aaron Rambo noted. He added, "I am excited for the neighborhood to embrace Local Foods in Heights Mercantile and want guests to feel right at home whenever they stop in for a bite or drink."

More Information Local Foods in the Heights Location: 714 Yale Street Phone: 713-360-6133 Hours: Daily from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. See More Collapse

FIRST LOOK: Night Heron in Montrose

Rambo worked alongside Michael Hsu and Micah Land of the award-winning Michael Hsu Office of Architecture, to dream up this space.

The design duo is also collaborating on Benjy's on Washington, Gonzalez's former kitchen work space, which is currently undergoing a comprehensive remodel. The restaurant closed at the end of last year, as Houston Chronicle food critic Greg Morago wrote last November. It's slated to return with "a bigger bar with a 30-seat dining counter, a new kitchen, a new 1,100-square-foot patio." The second-floor lounge will transform into a private event space.

That space is still undergoing its makeover. For now, Houstonians can step into Levit's latest unveiling on Yale Street.

"I'm excited for Local Foods to be not only a food destination but also a community partner that is committed supporting the Heights in a host of different ways," he said.The Houston-Galveston Area Council will stage a March 15 meeting in Pearland on a topic that makes many area residents frown - Traffic issues.

The 6 p.m. meeting at Dawson High School is an invitation for residents and commuters to speak out on what they think is needed to alleviate mobility problems.

"We want people to come and tell us all their complaints and gripes and ideas for how to make things work better," said Alan Clark, director of transportation planning with H-GAC, a regional association of local governments.

One effort under way to address a traffic trouble spot is a $14 million project spearheaded by Brazoria County to reconstruct the Texas 288/FM 518 intersection to add through and turn lanes on FM 518 and turn lanes and traffic signals to Texas 288 frontage roads.

In another project, the intersection will be expanded when toll roads on completed on Texas 288.

"We made additional investment in that location to further improve the operation of Broadway and (Texas 288)," Clark said. "We provided additional funding with help from the city of Pearland and Brazoria County to replace existing bridges on 288 over Broadway. Those bridge columns are being moved back so Broadway can be widened and 518 can have more lanes."

"Improvements to 518 will be pretty significant," Clark said.

'The Gauntlet'

More Information Traffic talk What: Houston-Galveston Council Regional Transportation Plan public meeting When: 6-8 p.m. March 15 Where: Dawson High School, 2050 Cullen Blvd., Pearland Details: www.2045rtp.com See More Collapse

Dozens of residents responding to a Facebook survey mentioned the area around FM 518 (also known as Broadway) and Texas 288 as the worst intersection in the city.

"We call that area 'the gauntlet,' one person wrote.

Others wrote that road expansions to accommodate the nearby Silverlake Village master-planned community have created traffic problems.

"Absolutely the worst design," one person wrote about the community's entrance near Target. "This is a master Unplanned community."

The longtime frustration hasn't gone unnoticed in H-GAC transportation planning committees.

"FM 518 and 288 have been a focus for a long time in terms of planning and commitment to funding," Clark said.Civil rights activists and politicians Monday gathered outside the Harris County criminal courthouse and demanded resignation of a veteran district judge over controversial published remarks he made about African American defendants and the Black Lives Matter movement.

Several speakers invited by the Greater Houston Coalition for Justice called on voters to replace State District Judge Michael McSpadden, who is up for re-election, and other jurists who have a pattern of denying personal bonds to poor defendants. Among the groups and elected officials decrying McSpaddens conduct were the Houston branch of the NAACP, CAIR of Houston, LULAC and the GI Forum. Democratic elected officials and candidates in attendance included state representatives Armando Walle and Ana Hernandez, as well as Lina Hidalgo, the Democratic challenger for County Judge Ed Emmetts job, all of whom urged the county to settle a costly lawsuit over bail practices an appeals court ruled were unconstitutional.

The demonstration comes days after many of the groups filed a complaint with the states watchdog commission in Austin seeking sanctions against McSpadden - who has served on the court for 36 years - whom they claim demonstrated through his comments that he has pre-judged defendants before they arrive in his court.

COMPLAINT - Advocacy groups seek sanctions against Harris County judge who disparaged Black Lives Matter

McSpadden was interviewed by the Chronicle last month for a story about 31 criminal judges who instructed magistrates to deny cash-free bail bonds to defendants. The judge said he felt most felony defendants were "tainted." He said they tended to have extensive criminal histories, committed new offenses while out on bond, and they did not take court dates seriously.

COMMENTS - Harris County judges told hearing magistrates to deny no-cost bail

McSpadden went on to say, "The young black men - and it's primarily young black men rather than young black women - charged with felony offenses, they're not getting good advice from their parents," he said. "Who do they get advice from? Rag-tag organizations like Black Lives Matter, which tell you, 'Resist police,' which is the worst thing in the world you could tell a young black man ... They teach contempt for the police, for the whole justice system."

McSpadden has declined subsequent requests for comment, but submitted a letter to the editor outlining his thoughts in greater detail.

At the press conference, Johnny N. Mata, director of the Greater Houston Coalition for Justice said was appalled by McSpaddens statement, which he said indicated the judges mind was made up before he heard cases involving black defendants. He and other community leaders drew a link between McSpadden and other judges who systematically denying cash-free bond to poor defendants, and the countys protracted defense in the civil rights lawsuit over local bail practices that a federal appeals court last month affirmed were discriminatory against indigent defendants.

Were not here to coddle criminals, were here to defend justice, especially in the way that the scales of justice weigh down more on the poor, Mata said.

James Douglas, president of the Houston branch of the NAACP said he believed McSpadden was not alone in this thinking, but he should be removed from trying cases because he cannot be fair.

LETTER FROM JUDGE - McSpadden speaks loud and clear on Black Lives Matter

He has indicated he has preconceived ideas about potential individuals that might come before him in a criminal trial, said Douglas, a law professor at Texas Southern University. To make a statement that certain segments of the population have criminal intent and not deal with people on an individual basis is not the kind of criteria we want to see in the people who serve on the bench.

Not only is he racist, hes not very smart, he said.

Gabrielle Banks covers federal court for the Houston Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter and send her tips at gabrielle.banks@chron.com.As Houston ISD officials wrestle with how to fill a $115 million budget shortfall, stave off a potential state takeover and work to recover after Hurricane Harvey, Superintendent Richard Carranza announced Monday he would leave the district after less than two years on the job, accepting an offer to lead New York City's school system.

Carranza appeared Monday afternoon at a press conference with New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio. Carranza's status with Houston ISD was not immediately available. De Blasio said those details are being worked out, but the outgoing chancellor is expected to remain on board until the end of March.

At a press conference announcing his appointment Monday afternoon, Carranza said the chance to take over the nation's largest school district and alignment with De Blasio's agenda were primary factors in accepting the job.

"There is no other New York City Public Schools," Carranza said. "It was an opportunity that I could not say 'no' to."

Houston ISD board members are expected to meet Thursday to discuss the district's next steps.

"We the board wish Carranza the best in his endeavors and appreciate the leadership he brought to this district," Houston ISD Board of Trustees President Rhonda Skillern-Jones said in a statement. "We are committed to continuing the work he began and moving the district forward."

Carranza's departure leaves Texas' largest school district leaderless as it faces consequential challenges. The district faces a $115 million budget shortfall and potential state takeover due to poor academic performances at a handful of the district's more than 280 campuses.

The district must rebuild four schools significantly damaged by Hurricane Harvey and is looking to dramatically change the way it funds its schools.

Reporting by Jacob Carpenter, Ericka Mellon, Brian M. Rosenthal and Shelby Webb | Timeline by Jordan Rubio

Zeph Capo, president of the Houston Teachers Federation, said he had to "pick (his) jaw up off the floor" when he learned of Carranza's departure Monday afternoon. He said he understands why Carranza would take the new job but fretted over the timing.

"There was this big pit in my stomach because we have such massively important decisions happening right now. Of all times to be without a leader I was thinking wow, this is not it," Capo said. "I'm really, really concerned about our school district not having a leader right now, with the big decisions with school finance and making sure pull schools out of (improvement required status)."

During his brief tenure with HISD, Carranza has announced sweeping proposals aimed at improving struggling schools, making campus funding more equitable, reshaping the district's magnet programs and improving special education services, among other things. While some of those plans have been enacted, such as the Achieve 180 campus turnaround plans, others are still in their planning stages.

Bob Sanborn, president and CEO of the statewide Children at Risk education nonprofit, said Carranza's proposals may now shift in scope without his oversight.

"Whenever a superintendent leaves, you see parts of their programs be dismantled, parts of them not implemented," Sanborn said. "I imagine that's what will happen with some of Carranza's plans."

De Blasio said he had spoken with Carranza about the job for about a month. De Blasio originally chose Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho for the job and publicly announced the choice, but Carvalho turned down the job Thursday. Carranza was the runner-up for the position behind Carvalho, De Blasio said.

De Blasio said he met with Carranza over the weekend, offering him the job late Sunday night.

"The decision was straightforward. Richard Carranza has done amazing work," De Blasio said.

Carranza, 51, said his values in education aligned with De Blasio, making it "very easy for me to say I would like to be part of this movement in New York City." His base salary in New York City will be the same as his Houston ISD salary, which was $345,000 in 2016-17.

Carranza came to Houston ISD, the nation's seventh-largest school district, from San Francisco Unified School District, where he served as superintendent from 2012 to 2016. Carranza took over from Terry Grier, who retired after 6 1/2 years atop Houston ISD.

Carranza arrived as a personable, well-received choice following Grier's tenure, which led to some acrimony among board and community members. He often spoke about promoting greater equity across the district and improving campuses in historically impoverished neighborhoods. His signature turnaround plan, Achieve 180, used about $15 million to improve educator quality and increase social services in long-struggling campuses.

However, some education advocates in Houston questioned whether Achieve 180 would significantly impact students. Carranza's plans for revamping the campus funding model and tweaking the magnet school system also drew criticisms from many community members, who argued the plans haven't been fully formed or vetted.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.A resplendent horse, a defiant bull, an humble donkey and a dignified buffalo are among the colorful characters captured in the art Lyndon Gaither brought to sell at this years Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.

Once youre around horses, you can see what theyre thinking by looking at their eyes, the soft-spoken painter and rodeo regular said in between a steady flow of customers on the first full week of the Houston Rodeo. Thats why I paint the eyes first.

It is the intimacy by which Gaither paints his subjects that amplifies their personalities. The acrylics he uses highlight this further.

An artist since he was 20, the Lubbock natives style has broadened significantly. For much of his career, Gaither painted off a monochromatic palette of brown sepias, which he partly attributes to the black-and-white TV consumption from his youth.

Growing up, the Westerns stuck with me, the 68-year-old said.

The Gene Autry Show, The Roy Rogers Show, The Lone Ranger and Bonanza helped illustrate the vision Gaither carried out in his earlier years as a painter.

When our kids were little, we used to tease him, that he didnt know [the world] was in color, Gaithers wife, Barbara, said. He evidently had this color in his head for years, but nobody knew it.

Around 15 years ago, Gaither left behind his decidedly conventional style of painting and transitioned into bold colors. He began to wet his paint brush with purples, yellows and green, reminiscent of American pop art.

A resident of Dallas, Gaither paints from photos he snaps of animals at ranches, rodeos and stock shows in Fort Worth. He treks out to Yellowstone National Park to photograph the bison he paints and his work sometimes draws from what he sees traveling to exhibit at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas.

Before fully immersing himself in painting, Gaither worked as an art director doing the signage and color coordination for amusement parks, including Six Flags New Orleans and a Singapore water park.

Barbara Gaither said many of his customers live in upper Mountain states like Montana, where Western culture may be the standard but the weather is cold and the earth is brown.

His art is a pop of color for these customers, she said.1. Yes. COVID-19 can only be stopped through vaccinations. A mandate is needed.

2. Yes. This is a major step, but were facing a national emergency. It is a justifiable move.

3. No. The government is right to promote vaccinations, but not to require them.

4. No. This is government overreach and legally questionable. A mandate is wrong.

5. Unsure. Its in the publics interest, but mandates infringe on individuals rights.

Vote

View ResultsSolving the challenges of flooding in Houston and surrounding communities in the face of rising sea levels and increasing frequency of extreme weather events is not for the faint of heart. Adapting and remediating our infrastructure, housing and economy in a way that is just and equitable to those most vulnerable will be difficult at best and very expensive. The cost of corrective action is well beyond what municipal governments can or should have to handle on their own.

As much as we appreciate a smaller national government in some regards, these are difficult times, and we need the federal government to take the lead. That means implementing a tax on carbon emissions.

Infrastructure improvements alone are not enough in this changing climate. We need to draw down carbon pollution. A well-constructed tax can serve as an economic solution to reduce our carbon emissions and sequester carbon pollution, actions that can help reduce the disastrous effects of extreme weather events.

The urgency of the situation we find ourselves dealing with is soft-pedaled by fiscal conservatives and wary politicians, but we must take action now.

There are currently more than 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the Earths atmosphere, and as the non-profit 350.org has stated, we need to be below 350 ppm to avoid catastrophic climate change. We need to reduce the carbon pollution in our atmosphere.

Paul Hawkin, author of the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming, has said to members of the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL), a group working tirelessly to generate the political will needed to implement climate action, that putting a price on carbon is one of the most effective ways to reduce it.

Economist Bob Litterman, in speaking at a Union of Concerned Scientists panel at Rice University last spring, said creating a market-driven solution by pricing carbon is the only way to create the necessary changes in a timely manner.

Even major oil and gas companies, such as ExxonMobil, have come around to support a carbon tax.

Putting a price on carbon would be difficult to implement one city, one state at a time. To balance border trade issues, to make it fair and equitable for all citizens, this critical economic solution really needs to be incorporated at the federal level. And it needs to be a bipartisan solution, since it affects all of us now as it will also affect our grandchildren in the future.

CHRIS TOMLINSON: Don't believe in climate change? Energy companies do.

In November, members from local chapters of CCL met with Mayor Sylvester Turners staff,seeking his signature on a letter urging our local representatives to join the House of Representatives Climate Solutions Caucus. This bipartisan caucus currently has 70 members, 35 Democrats and 35 Republicans, but Texas is sadly not yet represented. We feel strongly that at a minimum, Houston representatives should be at the table, helping to shape effective policy that addresses carbon pollution mitigation while assuring that the fourth largest city in the nation remains its energy capital.

To date we have no letter signed. City Hall staff has stated that there has been no time to address this request, as they are still dealing with the havoc created by Hurricane Harvey, a truly daunting task. We understand the need to focus on the most pressing issues, but implementing a strategic carbon-reduction plan is urgent and immediate. It is our sincere hope that our local government officials have the foresight to actively seek a broader solution to a burgeoning crisis and that they do so soon.In the wake of the shootings at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people, New York governor Andrew Cuomo and the state legislature should look closely at the states gun and mental-health policiesboth are in need of reform. New York was ahead of the curve in 2013, when it passed the NY SAFE Act requiring therapists to report the names of mentally ill people under their care believed to be dangerous and to have guns. The law requires county mental-health directors to investigate the reports, and if appropriate, instruct criminal-justice authorities to seize guns from the disturbed individuals and enter their names into a database, with the goal of precluding them from purchasing guns in the future.

The legislature should amend the SAFE Act to require more than just the removal of guns; it should mandate that officials evaluate these mentally ill individuals for inclusion in Kendras Law, New Yorks most successful program for dealing with potentially violent, mentally ill people who fail to comply with treatment. Kendras Law lets courts order individuals who have engaged in one or more acts, attempts or threats of serious violent behavior toward self or others to receive up to one year of treatment while they continue to live in the community. It has reduced incarceration, homelessness, and hospitalization by around 70 percent, saving taxpayers 50 percent of the cost of care.

Kendras Law itself needs to be made permanent and strengthened. We have identified more than 20 technical changes that would keep patients, the public, and police safer, but perhaps the most important change is to get the New York State Office of Mental Health to take leadership in implementing the law. At the Joint Budget Hearing on mental health in February, OMH Commissioner Ann Sullivan did not even mention Kendras Law, in spite of multiple questions from legislators on how to reduce the mental illness-to-jail pipeline. OMH regularly sends its speakers to community events, but none of the brochures they hand out tell family members how to get loved ones into Kendras Law. Governor Cuomo should insist that mental-health departments focus on helping the most seriously ill, rather than concentrating on the worried well.

To prevent a Parkland-like event, New York State must also supplement its overly restrictive involuntary-commitment laws. Current law requires individuals to be a present danger to self or others before they can be mandatorily treated. But laws should prevent violence, not require it. New York should add grave disability, need for treatment, and lack of capacity commitment standards to supplement its danger to self or others standard. If Florida had done that, Nikolas Cruz, who was known to be mentally ill, might have met the standard needed to hospitalize him. Finally, New York should allow families and police to seek gun-violence restraining orders in order to remove guns from the seriously mentally ill, and prevent them from purchasing guns in the future.

These are reasonable and limited reforms that would make New York safer and improve the lives of the mentally ill. In his State of the State address in January, Governor Cuomo said, Some jurisdictions say case law prevents them from helping mentally ill street homeless. If that is their excuse, they should tell us what law stops them from helping sick homeless people and we will change the law.

Weve just told him.

Photo: serdjophoto/iStockBritains largest charity shops chains have looked into more than 230 allegations relating to safeguarding concerns over the past five years, according to BBC 5 Live Investigates.

The investigation, broadcast yesterday and presented by Adrian Goldberg, surveyed 10 of the UKs biggest charities, which included Oxfam, British Red Cross, Barnardos and Cancer Research UK and found that collectively they have internally investigated 236 cases over the past five years.

Some charities were only able to provide figures for the last 12 months so 5 Live said the real figure is likely to be higher.

The broadcast said that some charities could not say whether the victims were staff, volunteers, and sometimes how old they were.

5 Live did not name all ten charities that it questioned, but according to the Charity Shops Survey 2017, published by Civil Society Media, the largest ten charity retail chains have a combined network of nearly 4,500 shops. They employ about 8,500 staff and around 100,000 volunteers.

According to the investigation, at least 11 of the 236 reported victims were children.

Of those investigated, Oxfam had the highest figure, with 150 safeguarding complaints over five years and 63 of those upheld.

5 Live did not say how many of the 236 cases were upheld.

The broadcast said: Oxfam told us they do take safeguarding extremely seriously and they do have systems in place to protect their shops staff and volunteers.

Barnardos reported 14 alleged incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault associated with the running of their charity shops, with nine of those inside the shops.

Six of the alleged victims were young volunteers, aged just 15 and upwards.

The broadcast said: They told us all allegations of misconduct are fully and immediately investigated and that they do take action if they need to.

British Red Cross recently reported that 15 of its 20,000 UK volunteers, including six retail volunteers, were investigated over the past year for incidents related to sexual misconduct. This resulted in 11 dismissals, including all those based in shops.

The charity is currently investigating three members of the its UK-based staff due to allegations related to sexual misconduct.

'Uplift in calls from the charity sector'

Georgina Halford-Hall, chief executive of Whistleblowers UK, said her organisation had received an astronomical uplift in calls from the charity sector since the Oxfam scandal broke last month.

She said: Weve been receiving on average one or two a month over the past year or so but weve had in excess of 30 in the past two and a half weeks. They are reporting a mixture of financial irregularities and areas around misconduct. Sexual harassment, bullying, they are the usual ones.

Halford-Hall also suggested that the charity sector was a magnet for predators.

"It's almost as if regulation for them is deemed unnecessary because, of course, everybody who works there would be nice," she said. "Those who say the unspeakable about areas where we have traditionally been sympathetic are not welcome.

"And yet those are the areas that attract people who are predatory, they're exploitative - all of the evidence supports this."

She added: "We've heard about inappropriate relationships between members of staff, between staff and volunteers and also volunteers raising concerns about the way staff have interacted with vulnerable children and teenagers."

Better regulation needed

Halford-Hall criticised the Charity Commission, suggesting that its reporting system did not encourage people to come forward with complaints.

She said: They dont have a whistleblower hotline, they have a reporting system which is accessed through the internet.

One of the questions it asks you is do you have any documents. Most people, particularly witnesses of sexual harassment or bullying, dont have paper trails. If you say no, the Charity Commission website closes down and says 'we will not be able to help you with this'.

At the moment, the Charity Commission has in excess of 200 cases that have not been allocated to a case worker.

The programme said that the Charity Commission declined an invitation to appear on it but said they are reviewing the way they communicate with those who bring vital information to them that leads to serious regulatory action.

The programme said: They acknowledge that whistleblowers who have gone to them with serious concerns about charities are not always made aware of the difference their reports have made. But they should be reassured that where appropriate their concerns have been acted on.

Commission responds

The Commission told Civil Society News it was speaking to 5 Live about the accuracy of some of the points made in the programme and that it is already exploring ways to improve how it communicates with people.

A Charity Commission spokesman said: We have a dedicated whistleblowing email address on our home page and a robust system for handling concerns raised, but we are not complacent and regularly review our policies. We commissioned an internal audit on our whistleblowing procedures which reported in June 2016 and identified no major weaknesses.

"We have updated our web guidance to make it more accessible to potential whistle-blowers and took advice from Public Concern at Work (PCAW) to ensure this was in line with best practice. PCAW have also run training sessions for our staff. As well as looking at our own processes, we have highlighted the importance of charities developing their own systems for concerns to be raised internally, and the need for cultures that match. We would welcome further engagement with PCAW on this matter and wholeheartedly encourage anyone working in a charity who has concerns to come forward.

Helen Stephenson, chief executive of the Commission, has previously announced that the regulator is reviewing the way it communicates with those who bring it information that leads to serious regulatory action. She said: It has become clear to us, over the past few weeks that whistle-blowers who come to us with serious concerns about charities are not always made aware of the difference their reports have made.

"People who make what is often a brave decision to come to the regulator with important information, should, where appropriate, be reassured that we have acted on their concerns. So I want us to look carefully at the way in which we communicate with those who bring vital information to us that leads to serious regulatory action.

Criminal record checks

The programme reported instances of some convicted paedophiles volunteering or working in charity shops and raised the issue of some shops not undertaking criminal records checks.

Karl Wilding, director of public policy and volunteering at NCVO, said the law around whether charities are allowed to undertake Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check is surprisingly complicated and suggested a changes to the law should be considered.

Wilding told the programme that while any instances were unacceptable, the fact that charities are encouraging a culture of whistleblowing, encouraging staff to report incidences, I think is a good thing.

He said: If we want charities to be transparent, we are going to hear more about these sorts of things.

After the programme, the Charity Retail Association issued a statement saying it has advice and guidance to help its members ensure staff and volunteers are properly vetted.

A spokesman said: The law prohibits DBS standard and enhanced checks to be carried out for all roles  they can be undertaken only for positions involving certain types of work including work with young people and vulnerable adults.

As part of our guidance we advise that a combination of checks should be carried out for each role, and that every case should be considered on its own merits.

It is of course very much in our members interests to recruit staff and volunteers with integrity, and to ensure that staff, volunteers and the general public have the utmost confidence in charity shops as safe places in the community to work, volunteer and shop.

A statement published on the British Heart Foundation's website published on Saturday said: "Some reports have questioned the use of DBS criminal record checks in charity recruitment. But none of our retail employees and volunteers are legally eligible for an enhanced or standard DBS check, although we are looking in to alternatives."

The British Red Cross said that 15 of its 20,000 volunteers had been investigated in relation to sexual harassment or misconduct in the past year, resulting in 11 dismissals. Of this six were retail volunteers and one was dismissed. The charity said it had three ongoing investigations into sexual misconduct by staff but none relate to its charity shops.

Editor's note: This story has been updated to include the British Red Cross statement and clarify that some charities had provided the level of detail requested by the programmeThe Charity Commission has opened statutory inquiries into the Lantern of Knowledge Education Trust and the Essex Islamic Academy following an employee's recent conviction on terrorism charges.

The Commission announced last Friday that it had opened two inquiries, looking into the Lantern of Knowledge Education Trust and the Essex Islamic Academy. The Commission has opened the inquiries following the conviction of a former part-time teacher Umar Haque on terrorism charges.

The Lantern of Knowledge Education Trust runs a secondary school where Haque was employed "as a part-time teacher and supervisor" from April 2015 until January 2016. The Essex Islamic Academy, also known as the Ripple Road Mosque, is a secondary school at which Haque also worked.

The regulators inquiry will examine The Lantern of Knowledge Education Trust's general administration, governance and management by trustees, including the management and supervision of staff at the school with access to children or young people. In regards to its inquiry into the Essex Islamic Academy, the Commission will "consider how Haquer was able to attempt to radicalise children, and what the trustees and others at the charity knew about this".

The inquiry will also examine the Trust's  policies and procedures, including those relating to safeguarding according to the Commission.

The Commission cites a report received by Ofsted, the regulator for service care providers for children and young people, which concluded that Lantern of Knowledge governors have not held school leaders to account for the decline in standards at the school, and have too readily accepted information from school leaders without insisting that it is rigorously analysed.

The Commission said the inquiry was opened following engagement with the schools trustees and a compliance visit to the schools premises in November 2017.

The inquiry has been opened after one of the schools part time teachers was recently convicted of trying to recruit children he was teaching into an army of jihadists to help carry out terrorist attacks in London.

Michelle Russell, director of investigations, monitoring and enforcement at the Charity Commission, said: "This is one of the worst cases we have seen with children, as young as 11, being exposed to harm through attempted radicalisation and terrorist material by this man. The welfare of these children is of utmost importance to all agencies involved. Haques abhorrent actions dont just affect these children, but their families and the community as a whole. It is important that those affected have the appropriate support made available to them, and the Commission will continue to do all it can to support the statutory agencies to ensure that this is the case.

"The vast majority of mosques and supplementary schools including madrassahs do good work and are an important resource in local communities. What happened clearly damages the trust and confidence the childrens parents had in the charity he was employed at, as well as wider public confidence. We and the public expect charities, particularly those working with children and young people, to be safe places, free from abuse or harm. This was not the case here, where Haque grossly abused the trust placed in him because of his position and teaching role."

Part-time teacher found guilty of trying to recruit children into army of jihadists

The Commissions announcement follows the conviction of Umar Haque, a part-time teacher at the trusts school.

Haque was found guilty last week of showing students at the Essex Islamic Academy beheading videos and other violent militant propaganda, forced them to re-enact deadly attacks on the British capital and made them role-play attacking police officers.

Dean Haydon, head of the Metropolitan Polices Counter Terrorism Command, said: When specially trained officers interviewed the children, they described being shown by Haque horrific videos of extreme terrorist violence including executions.

"They told police how Haque made them roleplay terrorists and police officers, with the children acting as terrorists being made to stab the 'police officers' to death.

"The children were paralysed by fear of Haque, who they understood to have connections to terrorists and who essentially told them that a violent fate would befall them if they told anyone what he was doing. They were too afraid to confide in anyone.

"It's crucial that the police, partners and communities do all they can to identify where young and vulnerable people are being radicalised and I urge anyone with concerns that this is happening to report it confidentially to police."

According to a report by Reuters, Haque had no teaching qualifications and was being employed as an administrator at the school. The Metropolitan Police said that Haque was attempting to radicalise 55 children. "All 55 children have received safeguarding support and 35 have been assessed to require longer-term support, which is being provided to them," said the Met.

Haque was one of three men arrested for planning a terrorist attack, although he was the only one employed by the trust.

Statement by the trust

In a statement the Lantern of Knowledge Education Trust said: The trustees, governors and staff of Lantern of Knowledge School were shocked when Umar Haque was arrested, and struck with horror to subsequently learn of his activities. Our trust and school takes extremism very seriously. We work tirelessly to develop our pupils into rounded, upstanding and inclusive British-citizens who make positive contributions to society  indeed, our endeavours and educational standards over many years speak for themselves.

Umar Haque was employed as a part-time teacher and supervisor from April 2015, in a relatively minor role. He taught a class of 18 pupils. He left the school voluntarily for personal reasons in January 2016. He did not return to the school after this point.

We have co-operated fully with all authorities investigating Haque sharing information with Police, Local Authority Social Services, Department for Education, Ofsted and the Charity Commission - and we will continue to do so. Access was given to the police to enable interviews of pupils to take place and for statements to be taken.

We denounce any form of radicalisation and would have been swift to notify the police and prevent team if any had come to the schools attention during or after Haques employment.

Essex Islamic Academy has been contacted for a comment.

Lantern of Knowledge Educational Trust

The Lantern of Knowledge is a registered charity which lists its activities as homeless feeding programme, offering university scholarships to under privilege students, interfaith and community cohesion as well as running a secondary school.

According to its most recent set of accounts for the year ending 30 September 2016, the organisation had an income of 523,328 and spending of 411,695.

The Essex Islamic Academy is a registered charity which had a total income of 150,920 and spending of over 45,000 according to its most recent set of accounts published on the charity register for the year ending 5 April 2017.US profit margins as a percentage of GDP are close to all-time highs. For many, this is a sign of corporate health further corroborated by the S&P 500s second quarter profit growth of over 10 per cent on the previous year. Good news it would seem, but the question for investors is how long will it last and are sustained high profits even desirable?

Jeremy Grantham described profit margins as a proportion of GDP as one of the most mean-reverting measures available. If profits stay high, then there is something wrong with the system. This statement goes to the heart of the free market and speaks to Schumpeters creative destruction theory. In a healthy, well-functioning capitalist system, high profitability should be temporary as new entrants nibble at corporate incumbents and eventually steal their share through the innovation of superior products and services. Conversely, much praise is now being directed at large-cap listed technology stocks such as Facebook and Amazon who use their cash piles and the network effects of their huge user bases to dust off the competition. The key issue is whether this is a fundamentally good thing.

For some investors, the new paradigm (remember that?) justifies structurally higher equity allocations. But memories could prove to be painfully short because competition is never far away, even when it appears to have been vanquished. In emerging markets, a new cadre of companies with huge scale in their domestic markets are starting to expand. Past examples include the rise of Hyundai cars in Europe, but more pertinent to todays higher-profits debate are the new digital platforms such as Alibaba. These firms are like Trojan horses in that they permit small and medium-sized companies to gain a foothold in mature markets, allowing them to challenge larger firms without requiring their own logistical and marketing functions. They in turn could then list and inject fresh competition into the stock markets.

Permanently higher? Or ripe for competitive destruction?

Asking for volatility?

To wish for a shake-up in the agents of profit generation feels a lot like asking for market volatility. But in the long term, institutionalising the sources of corporate profits among a small handful of firms is not desirable. Most obviously, it makes for poor diversification and worse market consequences when regime change does come about. It can drive entire markets upwards, and potentially downwards too. This has certainly been the case as the large cap listed US technology stocks have been a significant contributor to the S&P 500s progress in 2017. Between them, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Google and Amazon are now worth around $3tn. And such situations can create negative feedback loops.

The issue is compounded by the fact that at the market level, the US is now richly valued. Whether valuation measures like the Shiller CAPE, market cap/gross value added (a tax adjusted form of GDP) or the Tobin Q are used, the implication, based on long term history, is that future equity market returns will be subdued from here onwards. Just days before the tumultuous market events of 1929, US economist Irving Fisher triumphantly declared that stock prices were on a permanently high plateau. A change in todays profit landscape might inflict pain but it would also serve to rebalance the equity market and, for those investors sitting on the sidelines, any such development could be an opportunity to buy into the market at attractive levels.

Figure 2 illustrates that high valuations suggest lower equity returns from here.

This time will not be different

Monopolistic situations are intrinsically unhealthy for markets in the long run but historically they have tended to adjust, sometimes spectacularly. There is no reason to believe that this time will be any different, particularly given trends in developing economies which are producing new sources of head-on competition. This is to be welcomed, rather than feared.

As pioneering antitrust legislator John Sherman said in 1890: If we will not endure a king as a political power, we should not endure a king over the production, transportation and sale of any of the necessaries of life. Investors today are citing market inefficiencies to rationalise super-elevated profits and high returns into the future. But it is right and desirable that such a situation should eventually be challenged by new competitive and disruptive forces. An active and thematic approach to investment management will be key to navigating such changes successfully.

Julian Howard is head of multi asset solutions at GAM

Charity Finance wishes to thank GAM for its support with this articleAmericas alarming disunion is evident any time you turn on the news or read the paper. But a recent survey commissioned by the Ford Foundation indicates that our disconnect goes beyond our political disagreementsthat our division may be exacerbated by the makeup of our media.

The surveys primary goal was to analyze coverage of race in American news media, and to understand how different segments of the population perceive that coverage. We learned that perceptions differ widely between communities. When asked how African Americans are portrayed in the media, for example, 62 percent of African-American respondents answered that coverage is more negative than reality, while only 46 percent of white respondents believed that to be the case. When asked whether the media makes race relations seem worse than they are, 59 percent of white respondents agreed, compared to 37 percent of African-American respondents.

TRENDING: How hacked emails and a yacht in Monaco ended my career at WSJ

In other words, people who are underrepresented in the media have a very different view of its coverage than people who are overrepresented. And there are consequences. Both African-American and Hispanic respondents believed white communities are portrayed more positively than realitywhile only a little over a quarter of white people surveyed agreed.

These results make sense, given what we know about American newsrooms. According to a 2017 survey conducted by the American Society of News Editors, a mere one out of six American newsroom employees are racial minoritiesa minor decline from 2016. Meanwhile, data from the Radio Television Digital News Association reveals that the percentage of people of color in this country has increased by more than 12 percent over the past 27 years, yet during that time, American television news only became 6.6 percent more diverseand radio less than 1 percent more so.

But Americans arent divided on all fronts. In every racial group surveyedincluding half of white respondentsmost people believed that hiring more minorities would improve the quality of news.

Sign up for CJR 's daily email

RELATED: Covering a country where race is everywhere

Of course, the problem of representation in media is hardly limited to racial minorities. There are many other groups that look to journalism to hold up the mirror to society, and dont see themselves or their experiences reflected. When rural or working-class communities do not see or hear their struggles reflected in elite East Coast media, its easy to understand why they might dismiss the press as biased. It doesnt help that local journalismwhich covers the issues closest to peoples liveshas been consistently suffocated by economic pressures.

Whats more, we cannot afford to presume that the gap between what communities see in the media and what they experience is closingor that it will get better by itself. In fact, this week marks the 50th anniversary of perhaps one of the clearest and most famous warnings that our media was worsening our cultural divisionsand that persistent and pervasive inequality had permeated the press and our society.

In February of 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnsons National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders issued the Kerner Reportwhich detailed an extensive and daunting list of inequalities and inequities that led to civil unrest in Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Newark. Our nation is moving toward two societies, the blue-ribbon panel concluded. One black, one whiteseparate and unequal.

Among its findings, the commission highlighted how the lack of adequate representation among the people assigning, reporting, and editing media coverage might drive the underlying problems of race relations. White readers were not informed about the problems facing black communities and remained unaware of their struggle. The commission suggested that greater representation might ameliorate this problem and provide more equal coverage.

In every racial group surveyed, most people believed that hiring more minorities would improve the quality of news.

This recommendation came alongside others that addressed unjust police practices, unemployment, underemployment, and inadequate housing. Sadly, these recommendations went largely ignored. The issue of media representation was one point in a broader constellation of institutions necessary to preserve democracy. Even though some improvements were attempted after the Kerner Report, progress in many of these areas has largely stalled, if not reversed.

As a nation, we must recommit ourselves to the lessons of the Kerner Report, and to building a media that reflects the whole of Americanot one that divides and only reinforces one side or another. We must advocate for the hiring and promotion of journalists who represent the full American experience, and also for the creation of and support for local journalism that holds the powerful to account.

As news viewers, listeners, readers, and consumers, we must push media companies to be more transparent about the makeup of their staffs, and work to hold them accountable on issues of diversity, inclusion, and harassment. And we must also recognize the ways in which a healthy, thriving, independent media is necessary for the survival of our democracy, and do our best to preserve both.

We cannot allow another 50 years to pass before addressing the inequalities that eat away at our media, and America as a whole. Together, we must ensure that the people who understand the problems facing all communities have a voice in solving them, and news platforms that reflect their views. In the meantime, we, collectively, will keep speaking truth to poweruntil the powerful in media and Washington start telling more of our truth.

RELATED: Lessons on covering race and racism after Charlottesville

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Darren Walker is the president of the Ford Foundation.California state agencies spent nearly $1.8 billion fighting fierce wildfires that killed dozens of people and destroyed thousands of homes and businesses last year, legislative budget experts reported Thursday.

The federal government will reimburse most of the costs, but the state will still need to come up with about $371 million on top of the states existing wildfire budget, the Legislative Analysts Office told the Senate Budget committee. That shouldnt be a problem because state revenue has far exceeded expectations so far this fiscal year and the general fund is flush with cash.

The 2017 wildfire season in California was nothing short of catastrophic, said Mark Ghilarducci, director of the Governors Office of Emergency Services.

Nearly $1.5 billion was spent fighting fires and on recovery north of San Francisco in October, including debris removal and infrastructure repair. A series of fires in wine country and other areas killed 44 people and destroyed 8,800 buildings, prompting $10 billion in insurance claims.

The state spent about $300 million on December fires in Southern California, including the largest blaze in state history that swept through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. The preliminary numbers are likely to increase as officials get a better account of spending.

Gov. Jerry Brown has proposed spending $35 million in next years budget to backfill lost sales, property and hotel tax revenue for local governments and to repair infrastructure. He also proposed spending $350 million from the states tax on carbon emissions for forest management on fire prevention, new helicopters, fire engines and other purposes.

Meanwhile, fire chiefs from around the state are asking lawmakers for $100 million to boost the states mutual aid system for sharing resources across departments.

That could include overtime for firefighters positioned ahead of time in areas experiencing dangerous weather and for new technology such as satellite tracking to monitor fire engines.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.India, home of the world's fastest-growing economy, is quickly becoming one of the globe's greatest technology hubs.

That is partially thanks to the country's abundance of highly skilled technical graduates, whose numbers are growing at a rate of 7 percent per year, according to the latest study from India's ministry of commerce and industry.

It is also credit to India's thriving start-up scene, which is ranked third in the world, accounting for 4,750 businesses.

However, this means competition can be fierce and choosing the right place to work is all the more important. Based on reviews from current or former employees, U.S. employment search engine company Indeed has ranked the top technology companies to work for in India.Sunday's election in Italy appears to have given no party a clear majority  signaling a period of political instability for one of Europe's biggest economies. As of Monday morning local time, the official vote count indicated that a center-right bloc will gain the most seats in parliament  though that group does not include the day's top vote-getter, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement. Those results are in line with market expectations. Italy will now try to calm markets, while its many political parties work to form a new government and appoint a prime minister.

Weeks of negotiations on the way

Weeks of talks between the parties may now lie ahead. In the event of a hung parliament, the Italian constitution specifies no time limit for parties to reach an agreement or call a fresh election. "The formal process to form a government will be directed by President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella. The president is under no obligation to hand a mandate to the biggest party, and may first seek to establish whether parties can get together a coalition with enough seats to govern," Wolfango Piccoli, co-president of Teneo Intelligence, said in a note last Tuesday.

Paper ballots are counted after the end of voting in the Italian general elections on March 4, 2018 in Naples, Italy. Ivan Romano | Getty Images

Once the parliament reconvenes on March 23, Mattarella will be able to nominate a prime minister-designate. According to research firm the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), "Mattarella may also award an 'exploratory' mandate, giving a prime minister-designate several days to negotiate with other parties before reporting back to him." "More than one round of talks is possible, as the president would be very unlikely to award a 'full' mandate to form a government and schedule a parliamentary confidence debate without assurances that the administration commands a clear majority," the research group said.

Could a minority government be approved?

"Technically speaking, it is possible. The constitution requires that a government wins a confidence vote with a simple majority in both chambers," analysts at UBS said in a note Wednesday.

"The drawback of a minority government would be lifespan, stability and potential to implement reforms  all of which would likely be fairly limited," the bank warned.

Will there be no government in the meantime?

No, Italy will remain under the leadership of caretaker Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni. He has led Italy since former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi resigned in 2016. Gentiloni has said he will remain in office until a new executive is formed, and his government will exercise full powers in the meantime. "We see this as a commitment to ensure stability and to prevent market concerns during the likely long period required to form a new coalition after the elections," UBS said.

Are new elections possible?President Donald Trump delivered a few zingers about White House drama at Washington's annual Gridiron Dinner on Sunday, mocking close aides as well as the prospect of his own impeachment.

President Donald Trump in the Roosevelt Room at the White House, on January 11, 2018. Getty Images

The exclusive event, organized by journalists, is essentially a roast of political figures  similar to the White House Correspondent's Dinner. Trump poked fun at grave issues currently dogging his administration, including staff departures and the ongoing Russia investigation. Here's a summary of his top jokes.

North Korea

On North Korea, Trump said he "won't rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un," noting that the reclusive regime "called up a couple of days ago" and expressed a desire to talk. "As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that's his problem, not mine," Trump said in reference to Kim. It wasn't clear if the president was being serious. In a tweet last year, the Republican called Kim "a madman who doesn't mind starving or killing his people."

Jared Kushner

"Before I get started, I wanted to apologize for arriving a little bit late. You know, we're late tonight because Jared could not get through the security." Trump's son-in-law had his top-level government security clearance downgraded last week, with various reports attributing the move to concern over Kushner's international business dealings.

Vice President Mike Pence

"I really am very proud to call him the apprentice. But lately, he's showing a particularly keen interest in the news these days. He starts out each morning asking everyone, 'Has he been impeached yet?' Mike, you can't be impeached when there's no crime, please remember that." Special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia inquiry has fueled calls for the president's impeachment, but Trump denies claims of collusion with the Kremlin.

Jeff Sessions

"I offered him a ride over, and he recused himself. What are you gonna do? But that's OK." The attorney general removed himself from the Russia investigation last year, citing potential conflicts of interests, in a move that sparked Trump's ire.

White House resignations

"So many people have been leaving the White House. It's invigorating since you want turnover. I like chaos. It really is good. Who's going to be the next to leave? [Adviser] Steve Miller or [first lady] Melania?" Many senior aides have departed since Trump took office in January 2017, including national security advisor Michael Flynn, chief of staff Reince Priebus, and most recently, communications director Hope Hicks. On chief strategist Steve Bannon, whose explosive comments were featured in the tell-all "Fire and Fury" book, Trump said the former Breitbart News executive "leaked more than the Titanic."

Media

On The New York Times, which Trump has repeatedly criticized as fake news, the president said "I'm a New York icon. You're a New York icon. And the only difference is I still own my buildings." He also called Fox News the "fourth branch of government."

WATCH: Trump's tariff announcement dominates NAFTA talksA self-flying robot called the Astrobee is heading for the International Space Station in 2019. The robot can help astronauts with everything from housekeeping to spacecraft monitoring and maintenance.

The Astrobee is one of the newest systems developed around NASA SPHERES research.

SPHERES stands for "synchronized position hold engage and reorient experimental satellites." The robots are not actually spherical. Instead, they are one-foot by one-foot cubes with rounded corners and bumpers.

Packed with cameras, sensors, a touchscreen and an arm, the Astrobee can perch in place on the ship as needed. Fans and lasers on the robot help it maneuver around when it is floating in zero-gravity.

"A crew can't be depended on to do everything necessary to maintain a spacecraft. Astrobee is a step in advancing that type of technology," Astrobee Program Manager Jose Benavides told CNBC during a visit to NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.

Among other capabilities, the Astrobee can cruise autonomously around the ISS taking account of things like air quality, sound levels, and the location of the thousands of tools that astronauts need to do their jobs. This alleviates the need for astronauts to expend energy and time on patrolling the ship or searching for misplaced items.

Autonomous mode will make the Astrobee useful on trips to Mars, when spacecraft may not be able to maintain communications with other ships or with Houston. But the robots can also be controlled remotely, by researchers on Earth. They can use Astrobees to check up on, and interact with astronauts, systems and experiments aboard the ISS, for example.

Astrobee's design was inspired, in part, by the "training remote" in "Star Wars." The training remotes, smart, self-flying robot used in combat training helped Luke Skywalker learn, blindfolded, how to wield a light saber.A commentary published by North Korea's official KCNA news agency warned that North Korea would "counter the U.S." if joint military drills go forward.

A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman was quoted by KCNA as saying "we will neither beg for dialogue nor evade the military option claimed by the U.S."

It reiterated on Saturday that it was willing to talk to the United States but said it would never sit with any precondition.

North Korea said it would not beg to talk with Washington and denounced upcoming U.S.-South Korean joint-military exercises, warning that it would take countermeasures against the United States if they went ahead.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a grand military parade celebrating the 70th founding anniversary of the Korean People's Army at the Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang.

Meanwhile, South Korea will dispatch a delegation led by senior security officials for a two-day visit to North Korea starting Monday, the presidential Blue House announced Sunday, as U.S. President Donald Trump hinted that he is ready to talk to Pyongyang.

The drills will take place next month, a South Korean presidential security adviser said according to the Yonhap news agency. They had been delayed until after the Winter Olympics and Paralympic games in South Korea.

South Korea's presidential Blue House said in a statement that National Security Office (NSO) head Chung Eui-yong and National Intelligence Service (NIS) chief Suh Hoon, a veteran of past negotiations with the North, will be among the 10-member South Korean delegation visiting Pyongyang.

The visit was part of an effort to lower tensions on the Korean peninsula as well as possibly arrange talks between North Korea and the United States, it said.

After the visit to North Korea, the envoys will travel to the United States to brief officials, and Seoul said it would also coordinate closely with officials in Japan and China.

During a joke-filled monologue at a dinner with journalists in Washington on Saturday, Trump suggested that the United States will be meeting with North Korea but has told Pyongyang it must first "denuke."

"We will be meeting and we'll see if anything positive happens," he added.

It was unclear if Trump was joking or if formal U.S.-North Korea talks were imminent.

Speaking on Sunday in Beijing ahead of the opening of China's parliament, Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui said China hoped the United States and North Korea could begin dialogue too.

"War and chaos on the peninsula in not in the interests of any side," Zhang said.

Last month, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to meet with North Korean officials, including leader Kim Jong Un's sister, while in South Korea for the Winter Olympics but the North Koreans canceled at the last minute, U.S. officials said in February.

The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang last month gave a boost to recent engagement between the two Koreas after more than a year of sharply rising tensions over the North's missile programme and its sixth and largest nuclear test in defiance of United Nations sanctions.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in hopes to capitalize on that thaw in relations by arranging talks over North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programme.

During a phone call on Thursday, Moon told Trump of his plan to send a special envoy to North Korea in response to an invitation from leader Kim Jong Un.

In sending an envoy to Pyongyang, Moon said he would be seeking to reciprocate Kim Jong Un's decision to send a senior delegation, including his sister, Kim Yo Jong, to the Olympics, marking the first visit by a member of the North's ruling bloodline since the 1950-53 Korean War.

The White House has said any talks with North Korea must lead to an end of its nuclear programme, and on Feb. 23, the United States said it was imposing its largest package of sanctions to pressure North Korea to give up its nuclear and missile programmes.

At the time, Trump also warned of a "phase two" that could be "very, very unfortunate for the world" if the steps did not work.

 CNBC contributed to this report.A low-profile Chinese-funded electric car start-up that counts one of Tesla's co-founders among its executives has begun testing self-driving car technology on California roads, the company said Monday.

SF Motors has so far kept a lower profile than some other electric car start-ups, including those funded by Chinese backers, such as Faraday Future. But it has made a series of moves that suggests it is a potentially serious player in the electric vehicle market and other new transportation technologies.

Most recently, the company secured a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to test autonomous driving tech on roads in the state. In October, the company bought battery start-up InEvit, headed by Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard, who is now SF Motors' vice chairman and chief scientist. It also began a multiyear, $2.5 million partnership in 2016 with the University of Michigan to conduct proprietary joint research on automated driving systems.

The company already has two offices and one factory in the United States, and others in Germany, China. It plans a facility in Japan.

Now, the firm is ready to raise its public profile, Chief Technology Officer Yifan Tang said in an interview with CNBC. For example, the company plans to unveil a concept car later in March.

The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese automaker and parts supplier Chongqing Sokon Industry Group, which gives it support and backing that other similar electric start-ups do nor have, including some from China, Tang said.

"It allows us to do all this technological development without having to search for other funding or means of support," he said.Netflix shares will march higher throughout 2018 as the company funnels cash into original content and subscribers upgrade to 4K ultra-high-definition televisions, according to two Wall Street firms.

UBS told clients Monday that it revised its financial estimates for Netflix upward as the company's efforts in original content and customer retention widen its competitive moat.

"Increasingly building out its global production muscle and focusing on content that travels internationally, Netflix has emerged as a content powerhouse that is actively building a global moat," wrote UBS analyst Eric Sheridan on Monday. "We see ample runway ahead for

international subscriber growth given: low penetration of existing global broadband households [and] low broadband penetration in international markets."

Sheridan added that Netflix has achieved the same level of interest and recognition that premium programming producers generate. The second season of Netflix's "Stranger Things," for instance, garnered higher search interest than every season of HBO's "Game of Thrones" in the U.S., according to the analyst.

"The international success of Netflix's original content also helps lower the incremental cost of acquiring and servicing new subscribers in domestic and foreign markets alike," Sheridan added, bumping his price target on Netflix to $345 from $290, implying 15 percent upside from Friday's close.Amazon is in early talks with financial institutions including J.P. Morgan Chase to help launch checking account-like products, aimed at younger customers and those without bank accounts, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.

This is the latest move by the e-commerce giant to solve one of the biggest barriers to shopping on its website: lack of a credit card.

More than a quarter of U.S. households have no or limited access to checking and savings accounts. These so-called unbanked and underbanked households rely heavily cash or checks to fund their purchases, making shopping online difficult. Unbanked doesn't necessarily mean unconnected, about 6 in 10 unbanked consumers have a smartphone, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

For Amazon, this group of shoppers is increasingly vital. New prime subscriptions flattened in the third quarter of 2017, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley. Another survey by Piper Jaffray in June said that 82 percent of U.S. households with more than $112,000 in annual income are already Prime members. Its reach is the lowest among those that make less than $41,000 a year.

Meantime, millennials are increasingly eschewing credit cards, as they tend to be more distrustful of banking institutions than their predecessors. Thirty-three percent of millennials said they do not anticipate needing a bank account in the next five years, according to a 2015 report by Goldman Sachs.

Online retailers make more money by getting shoppers to make repeat purchases  even if at a low dollar value  than they do if those shoppers spend a lot at once. Amazon has therefore been slowly building its base of products for lower-income shoppers. This past summer, it launched a discounted Prime service for those enrolled in the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, with an EBT card. The electronic benefit transfer card works much the way a debit card does.

It also upped its partnership with 7-Eleven, which already housed Amazon's delivery "lockers" pick-up locations for Amazon orders.

In November, it announced that shoppers at 7-Eleven stores nationwide could deposit as little as $15 and as much as $500 into an Amazon account through its "Amazon cash" program. Shoppers can then use that cash to shop on Amazon. Nearly one-half of the U.S. population lives within one mile of a 7-Eleven store.

"We felt we had a market opportunity, how do I create digital inclusion for consumers who are unable to take part in the digital economy. Amazon Cash is part of that overall strategy," Gurmeet Singh, chief digital officer and chief information officer at 7-Eleven, told CNBC in a previous interview.

Amazon has launched similar programs with CVS, Speedway, Sheetz and other stores.

Amazon did not immediately respond to requests for comment.A Quarter Pounder hamburger is served at a McDonald's restaurant on March 30, 2017 in Effingham, Illinois. McDonald's announced today that it will start making the burger with fresh beef patties instead of the frozen beef that it currently uses.

The big sell-off in McDonald's shares this year is a buying opportunity, according to one Wall Street firm.

Credit Suisse reiterated its outperform rating for McDonald's shares, saying any short-term weakness in the company's sales will be temporary.

The restaurant chain's stock is down 14 percent this year through Friday due to investor concerns over its first-quarter U.S. sales. The company January.

"The last time MCD traded at these valuation levels was in ~late 2016 as investors feared a slowdown in US SSS [same-store sales]," analyst Jason West wrote in a note to clients Monday. "We believe the business is in a much better place than it was a few years ago, so the current correction seems overly punitive if it's due to short-term sales concerns."

West reaffirmed his $191 price target for McDonald's shares, representing 29 percent upside to Friday's close.

The analyst noted each 1 percentage point change in U.S. same-store sales impacts McDonald's earnings per share by only 6 cents per year. He said fast-food industry sales are "volatile" after the holiday season especially due to increased promotions.

"We are hesitant to read too much from 1Q trends," he wrote. "We remain optimistic that MCD can deliver solid SSS this year given the drivers noted above, along with some macro help (rising employment, incomes, and consumer confidence). New menu platforms can also take time to gain traction, as was the case with the original Dollar Menu launch in 2012."



McDonald's shares rose 1.9 percent Monday after the report.Work crews across the Northeast raced Sunday to restore power to more than 1.5 million homes and businesses in the wake of a powerful nor'easter as the area braced for more possible bad weather on the way.

Tens of thousands of utility workers were working over the weekend after the muscular storm  known as a "bomb cyclone" for undergoing a rapid pressure drop  battered neighborhoods from Virginia to Maine. Snow showers and coastal flooding were expected in parts of upstate New York and New England on Sunday as another, much weaker storm arrives and mingles with the bomb cyclone, nicknamed "windmageddon" for the widespread damage and power outages caused by its strong winds.

"The snow can coat more areas on Sunday night with the highest chance for that to happen from Boston to Cape Cod," AccuWeather senior meteorologist Kristina Pydynowski said. "Motorists may face slick patches for the Monday morning commute."

More from USAToday:

Florida students say 'coward' teacher left them to die

How a push to cut costs and boost profits at surgery centers led to a trail of death

Girl, 2, dies after mirror falls on her in Payless Shoe store

The weather pattern that helped deliver the bomb cyclone will weaken slightly but not go away in the short term, according to AccuWeather. This pattern, known as a block, causes the routine west-to-east movement of storms to slow down. This slower speed allows the storms to strengthen in certain situations.



While the upcoming pattern will not be brutally cold, it may be just cold enough so that when storms come calling, some snow may be involved in parts of the Northeast, according to the site.

Meanwhile, crews were busy with the cleanup of snapped trees, damaged structures and piles of debris from Friday's storm. Floodwaters had receded in most areas, but the storm had taken huge chunks out of the coastline in Massachusetts and other states.

"We've been here a long time and we've never seen it as bad as this," Alex Barmashi, who lives in the hard-hit village of Sagamore Beach in Massachusetts, told the Associated Press.

Up the coast in Scituate, Becky Smith watched as ocean waters started to fill up a nearby marina's parking lot from her vantage point at the Barker Tavern, a restaurant overlooking the harbor.

"It looks like a war zone," Smith told the Associated Press on Saturday, describing the scene in the coastal town near Boston where powerful waves dumped sand and rubble on roads and winds uprooted massive trees.

Maggie Carmany, general manager at Row 34 Restaurant in Boston's Fort Point neighborhood, said the area seemed to have recovered and the storm brought out the best nature in people.

"We have been in touch with everyone, 'Hey, are you guys open? Hey, can I help pump out the basement?'" she said. "The restaurant community has really been looking out for each other."

Lobster Stop owner Peter Dawson, 55, said he didn't lose power in his Quincy, Mass., store. But the storm hurt his normally lively "meatless Friday" business. "One of my big days during Lent is Friday, and the storm definitely hindered my Friday. I was $3,000 off."

Residents in other areas, meanwhile, bailed out basements and surveyed the damage while waiting for power to be restored, a process that power companies warned could take days in some areas. Power outages on the East Coast dipped by about 500,000 from a peak of 2 million earlier Saturday, but officials said lingering wind gusts were slowing repair efforts.

Authorities on Saturday reported two more deaths from the storm, bringing the total to at least seven in the Northeast. A 25-year-old man in Connecticut and a 57-year-old Pennsylvania man were killed when trees fell on their cars Friday.

The other five people killed included two children. A man and a 6-year-old boy were killed in different parts of Virginia, while an 11-year-old boy in New York state and a man in Rhode Island, both died. A 77-year-old woman died after being struck by a branch outside her home near Baltimore.

Floodwaters in Quincy, Mass., submerged cars, and police rescued people trapped in their vehicles. High waves battered nearby Scituate, making roads impassable and turning parking lots into small ponds. More than 1,800 people alerted Scituate officials they had evacuated, The Boston Globe reported.

Even states as far away as Florida will feel the effects: At least the first half of March is likely to bring more cool days than warm days in the Sunshine State, relative to average, because of the system, according to AccuWeather.

Contributing: Sophie Kaplan, USA TODAYSam Nunberg, ex-Trump aide. MTP | MSNBC

In a reversal, Sam Nunberg, a former aide to Donald Trump, said late Monday night he would likely cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller after all. His latest comment, made in an interview with The Associated Press, was a reversal of his earlier remark that he would not comply with Mueller's subpoena but would instead risk arrest. Nunberg told the AP that he's angry about being asked to share his communications with a long list of people. He added that he doesn't think the subpoena is fair and that Mueller's team should narrow its scope of inquiry. However, he conceded that he would "end up cooperating" with Mueller. The special counsel's subpoena had asked Nunberg to hand over communications related to Trump and nine other people, and to appear in front of a grand jury investigating whether Russia interfered in the U.S. 2016 presidential election.

Nunberg: Mueller may have something on Trump

In a series of disjointed interviews late Monday in the United States, Nunberg said he thinks the special counsel might have something on the president. When asked whether Mueller's team could have something, Nunberg told MSNBC, "I think they may." Nunberg's bombshell came during a media blitz Monday as he told various outlets that he would refuse to comply with Mueller's subpoena in the Russia probe. Nunberg, who was an advisor on Trump's presidential campaign, told MSNBC that it would be "really funny" if Mueller arrested him for ignoring the grand jury subpoena. Laughing, he said that "my lawyer is about to dump me right now."

Mueller is investigating possible collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign during the 2016 campaign. The probe has picked up momentum in recent weeks, yielding indictments of 13 Russians accused of waging "information warfare" to swing the election to Trump, and a guilty plea from former top Trump campaign official Rick Gates. Trump has repeatedly denied allegations of collusion. Nunberg told MSNBC that investigators have been asking, "Did you hear people speaking Russian in the Trump office?" and "Did you hear about Trump Tower Moscow?" He said he had not heard Russian being spoken in the office, calling the question "ridiculous." Trump's company reportedly sought a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow while he was running for president. The project never came to fruition. Nunberg also claimed that Mueller's team told him "flat-out" that Trump was taking positions on different policies because of his business interests. Nunberg strongly denied that Trump ever said that he made policy decisions based on his businesses.

How Nunberg's comments change

The MSNBC interview came after The Washington Post published a story that cited Nunberg as saying he would refuse to comply with the subpoena. "Let him arrest me," Nunberg told the newspaper. "Mr. Mueller should understand I am not going in on Friday." Nunberg said that he was refusing the special counsel "because what they sent me was absolutely ridiculous." "Should I spend 50 hours going over all my emails with [Trump confidant and longtime political operative Roger Stone] and with Steve Bannon?" Nunberg said in the MSNBC interview, adding that Mueller's team also asked for communications with former Trump campaign staffers Hope Hicks and Corey Lewandowski. Last week, the White House said Hicks, a longtime close aide to Trump, would be leaving her role as communications director. Despite being "not a fan of Donald Trump" for the way Nunberg says he treated Stone and others, the former Trump aide said that "when they get a subpoena like this ... Mr. Trump's right, it's a witch hunt." But when asked whether he believed that the special counsel may have something on Trump, Nunberg responded, "I think they may." He added: "I think that he may have done something during the election. But I don't know that for sure." Nunberg softened his stance somewhat in a later interview with CNN. "I suspect that they suspect something about him," he told the network in an interview. "I can't explain it unless you were in there. ... The way they asked about his business dealings, the way they asked if you heard anything even while I was fired ... it just made me suspect that they suspect something about him." CNN also asked whether investigators sought information about plans for a Trump Tower Moscow. "Yes," Nunberg said. In a later CNN interview on Monday, Nunberg alleged that Trump knew about the now-infamous June 2016 meeting between Trump campaign officials  including Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner  and reportedly Kremlin-connected Russians, who promised damaging opposition research on then-candidate Hillary Clinton. "He talked about it a week before," Nunberg said of Trump. "All he had to say was, 'Yeah, we met with the Russians. The Russians offered us something, and we thought they had something and that was it.' I don't know why he went around trying to hide." White House staff initially denied the meeting involved the president in any way, but a Washington Post report later alleged that Trump was directly involved in crafting the initial, misleading statement claiming that the meeting was centered around Russian adoption. The Associated Press reported in December 2017 that Trump Jr. testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee that he had not told his father about the meeting at the time it happened.

White House: Nunberg is 'incorrect'

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday said that Nunberg is "incorrect" in saying Mueller could have something on Trump. "As we've said many times before, there was no collusion with the Trump campaign," Sanders said. "Anything further on what his actions are, he hasn't worked at the White House so I certainly can't speak to him or the lack of knowledge that he clearly has." Nunberg was a top advisor to Trump even before the real estate magnate's presidential campaign officially began. He advised Trump during his flirtation with running for president in 2012. A February 2014 Buzzfeed article about Trump's presidential ambitions referred to Nunberg as "Trump's political right hand." Nunberg worked as a Trump campaign aide until August 2015, when he was fired after reports emerged of racially charged Facebook posts that he allegedly wrote. At the time, Nunberg denied he wrote the posts, which involved the use of racial and religious slurs against then-President Barack Obama and Rev. Al Sharpton. Nunberg and Trump sued each other in 2016. Trump accused Nunberg of leaking dirt to the New York Post, while Nunberg alleged that Trump might have broken campaign finance laws. Trump and Nunberg settled their legal dispute later that year. The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.  CNBC's Christina Wilkie contributed to this report.

WATCH: Mueller reportedly subpoenas one witness's communications with TrumpFrances McDormand excited and confused viewers of the 2018 Academy Awards on Sunday night when she abruptly concluded her impassioned acceptance speech for the Oscar for Best Actress with two words: "inclusion rider." An inclusion rider is a clause in an actor's contract that requires that the cast and crew reflect the demographics of the world today. For instance, a typical inclusion rider would require that a cast be 50 women, 40 percent people of color, 5 percent L.G.B.T.Q., and 20 percent disabled.

McDormand says that she herself only learned what an inclusion rider was last week. "You can ask for and/or demand at least 50 percent diversity in not only the casting but also the crew," she told the press following the ceremony. "The fact that I just learned that after 35 years of being in the film business  we're not going back." The concept was developed by University of Southern California professor Stacy Smith, founder and director of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative. She tells The New York Times that inclusion riders also require "a good-faith effort to ensure representation in key areas behind the camera" and that "bias is corralled in the interviewing and hiring process."

Actor Frances McDormand at the 2018 Oscars Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty ImagesSource: gims.swiss

The 88th Geneva International Motor Show kicks off in Switzerland this week marking 2018's first major exhibition for automakers. CNBC will attend the show with rolling coverage of the big reveals and here are some of the hot new vehicles set to star at the event.

Ferrari 488 Pista

Source: Ferrari

The Ferrari 488 Pista is said to house the firm's most powerful V8-engine ever. The maximum speed, according to the company website, is more than 211 miles per hour. Ferrari also quotes 710 brake horse power (bhp). The price, as yet not confirmed, is expected to break past $250,000.

Jaguar I-Pace

Jaguar I-Pace Source: Jaguar

In a bid to knock the Tesla off its perch as the luxury electric car of choice, Jaguar is unveiling its I-Pace. The emissions-free car seats five people and claims a 298 mile range. The U.K.-based firm also said the SUV (sport-utility vehicle) can hit 60 mph within 4.5 seconds.

McLaren Senna supercar

Source: McLaren

McLaren's $1 million "Senna" car sold all 50 of its exclusive run to seriously cashed-up motor heads. Now, with an extra $250,000 tacked on to the sticker price, comes the "Carbon Theme" edition. The yellow detail and green brake callipers are a nod to the Brazilian racing legend from whom the car takes its name.

Source: PAL-V

Dutch company PAL-V is selling its three-wheeled Liberty flying car for about $600,000 as the Pioneer Edition makes its debut in Geneva. A cheaper model ($400,000) is on the way and will include flight lessons in the price. You will need a pilot's licence and, no, you are not allowed to just land it on the freeway.

Lexus UX

Source: Lexus

Lexus has announced it will stage the world premiere of its new UX crossover at the Geneva Motor Show on March 6. The manufacturer has claimed the handling of its newest model "will be as agile as a hatchback." The car is being touted as a rival to BMW's X1 and the Audi Q3.

BMW Z4

Source: BMWFeverpitched | Getty

There could be more money in your paycheck, thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Chances are, you haven't noticed. That's according to a new Bankrate.com study, which found that just 24 percent of workers have taken note of the changes to their take-home pay. Those adjustments began earlier this year to reflect the new income tax withholding tables. The tax reform legislation ushered in changes including an increased standard deduction, the reduction of individual income tax rates and the elimination of personal exemptions.

Now is the time to evaluate how the rules for tax year 2018 will affect you, said Ted Jenkin, CEO and founder of oXYGen Financial Inc. in Alpharetta, Georgia. While you are meeting with your accountant to look at this year's taxes, talk about how your tax situation will shape up next year.

It would be smart not to let that extra cash vaporize in your savings account. Ted Jenkin CEO and founder of oXYGen Financial Inc.

One particular thing to watch out for: Whether you are withholding too much or too little under the new rules. If you normally file as married or single, you want to check to see if that's still the best strategy for you. "Look at your taxes now so you're not surprised next year," Jenkin said.

Put extra money to work

When it comes to the extra money in your paycheck, you want to be strategic. "It would be smart not to let that extra cash vaporize in your savings account," Jenkin said. First, start with variable-rate debt including mortgages, student loans and credit cards. As rates rise, you will likely be paying more on those outstanding sums, according to Jenkin. Next, consider adding to your mortgage payment. Those small amounts can reduce interest paid and add up to shorten the term of your debt, Jenkin said.

"So many people reach retirement and still have a mortgage," Jenkin said. "Having any kind of serious mortgage in retirement really cripples your ability to do other fun stuff." Then, turn to your retirement savings. Increase your contributions to your 401(k) plan, particularly if you haven't reached the maximum amount toward your company match. Also, consider starting a Roth IRA, which is funded with after-tax funds. Finally, use the money to boost your skill set, Jenkin suggested, such as online courses from sites like Udemy or MasterClass. Those additional skills can make you a more valuable  and ultimately a higher paid  employee.

Mixed reviews

Those who have noticed changes to their pay are mostly satisfied with the results, according to Bankrate.com's survey. On a scale of one to 10, 28 percent of respondents rated the changes a 10, indicating they are "extremely satisfied" with their paychecks. Another 58 percent of respondents gave the changes an eight or higher.

But not everyone is so happy, with 10 percent rating their feelings on the pay changes a one, or "not at all satisfied," and 14 percent giving the changes a three or lower. Twenty-eight percent of respondents were in the middle. Bankrate.com's online survey included 2,195 U.S. adults; 1,071 of those respondents indicated they are employed full or part-time. The survey was conducted in February. Here are the new income tax brackets for married couples:

Rate Taxable Income Bracket 10% 0 to $19,050 12% $19,050 to $77,400 22% $77,400 to $165,000 24% $165,000 to $315,000 32% $315,000 to $400,000 35% $400,000 to $600,000 37% $600,000 and up

WATCH: Why that tax refund might not be a good thingA Nabors Industries floor hand uses a towel to wipe drilling fluid from a section of pipe on a crude oil rig outside New Town, N.D. Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images

By many measures, the U.S. oil industry should be having a great year. It is emboldened by higher crude prices, a White House favoring deregulation, and improving energy demand. But the industry has a different sort of challenge  to not drill too much. With the relative boom in oil prices, despite recent fluctuations, investors are judging companies more by their balance sheets and do not want to see overexpansion. "[Companies] could be sowing the seeds of their own demise. They're going to be called to task by their lenders and shareholders at some point," said John Kilduff, founding partner of Again Capital. "They don't have the infinite runway the high-tech companies of Silicon Valley had." The recent stock market sell-off has not been kind to energy stocks. For the month of February, the S&P energy sector was down 11.3 percent, its worst monthly performance since September 2011. "I think there's a new game. It's no longer just about production growth. It's also about return to shareholders, and I think the companies have heard them," said Daniel Yergin, vice chairman of IHS Markit, which hosts its annual CERAWeek conference in Houston starting on Monday. "It's a different metric than it was even a year ago."

I think there's a new game. It's no longer just about production growth. It's also about return to shareholders. Daniel Yergin vice chairman of IHS Markit

For now the U.S. oil industry continues to increase production. In November the United States produced a record 10.057 million barrels a day, surpassing Saudi Arabia due to its production cutback. While that number has fluctuated, the United States has produced more than 10 million barrels a day in recent weeks, according to the Energy Information Administration. The risk for the market, with higher oil prices, is that it could again become oversupplied, as it was before the OPEC-Russia deal to cut production. "There's a tension that the stronger the oil markets or oil prices become, the more the improvement in economics get, the more you would think you want to spend more. Then there's more supply," said Dan Pickering, co-president of Tudor, Pickering, Holt. "OPEC can spoil the party with more production or coming back early, and the U.S. can spoil the party by ramping up their activity." During the deep slump in oil prices, which bottomed in 2016, the U.S. industry became more technologically savvy and learned to make wells even more productive, through technology like horizontal drilling. Yergin said the emphasis among industry leaders remains on costs savings. "I think it's a further drive for efficiency, and that's going to be one of the really big themes. They need the efficiency now not just to deal with lower prices; they need it so they can deliver return to shareholders," he said. With the exception of refiners, energy stocks have been battered even as oil prices improved. The stocks of exploration and production companies, transport companies, equipment and services companies and integrated oil and gas companies have all been hit in the last year. Pickering said the emphasis on discipline and balance-sheet strength has occurred as shareholders are applying pressure. "They are buying companies that are more disciplined, and they are selling companies that are less disciplined. There would be more spending if companies could do whatever they wanted," he said. "It's the balancing of the capital discipline in the balance sheet and the returns you can get. It's a tightrope act, and shareholders are weighing in, along with boards."

Saudi Aramco, EVs and NAFTA are big topicsEuropean markets extended gains on Monday to finish the session sharply higher, as investors appeared to brush aside concerns of political gridlock in Italy.

Tesco completes takeover of Booker

Europe's retail stocks performed well on Monday, closing up 1.18 percent amid takeover news. Tesco completed a 4 billion ($5.51 billion) takeover of Booker, creating a new powerhouse in Britain's food market. Tesco's shares jumped 1 percent following the announcement.



Autos came under pressure during the session, after President Donald Trump threatened European car-makers over the weekend with a tax on imports if the European Union (EU) moved to retaliate over his plan to impose a tariff on steel and aluminum imports. A number of German and French automakers fell into the red during trade, but recouped some losses after Trump suggested in a tweet that he could drop tariffs if a "new and fair" NAFTA agreement was signed. In individual stocks, shares of silicon wafer group Siltronic surged 7.62 percent after the Munich-based firm reported its latest figures, saying that it was forecasting a highly-positive 2018 fiscal year. Europe's second-largest insurer AXA however slumped 9.7 percent after it agreed to buy Bermuda-based XL Group for around $15 billion.

Italy's election outcome unclear"We're going to have to wait until the details come out before we can really get to any specific impact on our programs," Hewson said on " Power Lunch ."

However, she said the company's supply base, some of which is located outside the U.S., is "critically important"

It's too soon to know the impact of President Donald Trump 's proposed tariffs on Lockheed Martin' s business, the defense contractor's CEO, Marillyn Hewson, told CNBC on Monday.

Trump's tariff talk has sparked fears of a trade war. On Thursday, the president announced the U.S. would enact tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.

It's unclear who would be subject to the tariffs, although on Monday Trump signaled he may drop them for Canada and Mexico if they can renegotiate a new NAFTA deal with the U.S.

Lockheed Martin produces the F-35 aircraft for the U.S. military. There are 170,000 jobs in the F-35 program in the U.S. alone, plus there are other countries developing products and components for the aircraft, Hewson said. For example, the horizontal tail is made in Canada.

There is also the issue of international customers.

Remy Nathan, vice president for international affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association, told CNBC last week that often trade and security cooperation intertwine.

"When we are enjoying good trade relations with other countries we have positive foreign relations, positive security cooperations, and they are oftentimes more interested in purchasing U.S. defense equipment and working with our militaries," he said.

"The opposite is also true, and so those are real concerns that we have," he added.

International sales account for 30 percent of Lockheed Martin's business.

However, Hewson is optimistic that the tariffs won't result in retaliation from the company's foreign buyers because the work Lockheed Martin does primarily supports countries in their national defense.

"Generally we don't see them make those kinds of choices to not buy the products and capabilities they need to protect their citizens because of oil prices, or something of that nature, or tariffs," she said. "I would suspect that their first order is to protect their citizens."



 CNBC's Amanda Macias and Morgan Brennan contributed to this report.None of the sharks made an offer to invest except for Kevin O'Leary , who Siminoff turned down.

The investors on ABC's "Shark Tank" had a chance to be early backers of the business  Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff appeared in a 2013 episode seeking a $700,000 investment in exchange for 10 percent of his company, then called Doorbot. But they missed out.

While you might imagine the sharks would regret missing the chance to invest, Mark Cuban says he stands by his choice not to make an offer.

"I would pass on Doorbot again if given the chance," Cuban writes on LinkedIn, in response to another user's post.

That's because Cuban had concerns about how much capital the business would need in order to grow.

"While Jamie did an amazing job turning Doorbot into Ring, I have a fundamental aversion to companies that require raising hundreds of millions of dollars to do less [than that] in revenues," he explains.

"That's not a knock on Ring. [Siminoff] was on a mission and he is achieving it," Cuban continues. "He earned every dollar. It wasn't easy for him. This is about what I look for, and Doorbot didn't fit."

O'Leary too says he saw promise in Siminoff, but had problems investing in the business at its then early stage.

"I liked [Siminoff] a lot. I thought he was a great sales guy, but at that time his valuation was insane," O'Leary tells CNBC Make It. Just like Cuban, O'Leary says he made the right choice.

"I never think about it a second time, I really don't," O'Leary says. "I feel that the road is always going forward. You can't go looking back  you can't second guess yourself. You have to do what you think is right in the moment.... For that time, I made the correct decision."

Both O'Leary and Cuban say they're happy for Siminoff, and hope he inspires future generations to be ambitious and entrepreneurial.

Cuban tweeted, "Congrats Jamie !!! Always a beautiful thing when an entrepreneur succeeds. Way to ring the Amazon bell!"

Tweet

Don't miss: Mark Cuban says studying philosophy may soon be worth more than computer sciencehere's why

Like this story? Like CNBC Make It on Facebook!Microsoft has been slowly adding more email intelligence to its Cortana digital assistant, but it has resisted integrating it directly into Outlook mobile. That's about to change, soon. Sources familiar with Microsoft's Outlook plans tell The Verge that the company is currently testing Cortana within Outlook on iOS and Android.

The Cortana integration will allow users of the popular mobile email client to listen to and respond to emails with their voice. This will be particularly useful during car journeys, and Microsoft is testing Cortana integration directly within Outlook mobile that will work over Bluetooth and read messages aloud. Users will be able to ask Cortana phrases like "what's my email," or just to read messages from specific contacts.

Microsoft is currently testing its Cortana integration internally, and if the feedback is positive then the feature should make its way to beta and public releases of Outlook for iOS and Android. News of Cortana integration in Outlook comes just weeks after Microsoft's Outlook for iOS and Android boss transitioned to overseeing the Cortana digital assistant. Javier Soltero, who first joined Microsoft when the software maker acquired the Acompli email app, will report to Harry Shum, Microsoft's head of AI and research.

Read more from The Verge

Apple's high-end headphones may be released before the end of the year

YouTube is adding a new AR greenscreen effect to its stories feature

Flagship phones in 2018 will all have glass backs, whether we like it or notA mother holds her infant son Luke during a visit with him at Lily's Place, a treatment center for opioid-dependent newborns in Huntington, West Virginia, October 19, 2015.

Children as young as 1 year old are overdosing on opioid medication and being hospitalized at a rapid rate, a new study published Monday found.

The number of pediatric opioid hospitalizations requiring intensive care nearly doubled to 1,504 patients between 2012 and 2015, from 797 patients between 2004 and 2007, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Pediatrics.

"We do believe there's a direct relationship to the adult opioid crisis," Dr. Jason Kane, associate professor of pediatrics and critical care at Comer Children's Hospital in Chicago, told CNBC. He's the lead author of the study, which used data from the Pediatric Health Information System database and involved an examination of 31 children's hospitals.

Kane said about 20 percent of the youngest children were poisoned by methadone, an opioid used to treat moderate to severe pain or opioid dependence in adults. This means many young children are likely finding their parents' medication and ingesting it, Kane said.

The majority of the opioid-related hospitalizations were of children between the ages of 12 and 17 years old, the data showed. However, one-third of the children that required intensive care due to opioid overdose were under the age of 6. Overall, 37 percent of patients required mechanical ventilation and 20.3 percent required vasopressors, a drug used to raise blood pressure.Last March, bitcoin traded at around $1,000 a coin. Later in December, it was more than $19,000. This week, it's back around $11,000. Some people are betting that in 2050  or whenever they are more gray-haired than today  it'll be worth a lot more. "I don't want to be a loser in the future," said Leya Yusupov, a 37-year-old mother of two who lives in Queens, New York. Last year, she invested 15 percent of her retirement savings in cryptocurrencies. "Some people think I'm crazy." She's not alone. Six percent of savers say they would consider using cryptocurrencies as an investment option for their retirement plan, according to a recent survey by Auctus, a platform for retirement planning. Fourteen percent said they were unsure, but interested in the idea. Auctus surveyed more than 500 people in the U.S., ages 18 to 44. Chris Kline, chief operating officer at California-based Bitcoin IRA, said about 4,500 people have signed up for its retirement accounts since it opened in 2016. Type into Google, "bitcoin IRA" and you'll see a torrent of advertisements. But proceed with caution: These accounts come with heavy fees and risk. Douglas Boneparth, president and founder of Bone Fide Wealth, said he worries the talk about bitcoin IRAs will make people overestimate how "normal" it is to invest in cryptocurrencies. "It makes it look more appealing to everyday people," Boneparth said. "For most people who have an IRA, they're in no position to be investing this way. Adding that kind of risk doesn't coincide with most people's desire to get to retire soundly."

How it works

BitIRA's office in Burbank, California

In a standard retirement account, your investments are typically limited to stocks, bonds and money market funds. "If you walk into Fidelity and say, 'Put bitcoin into my IRA, they'll say, 'Get lost'," said Ed Slott, retirement-planning expert and founder of Ed Slott & Co. in Rockville Centre, New York. So if you want to invest your retirement savings in cryptocurrencies, you'll need what's known as a "self-directed" account, which you can fill with almost anything (prohibited investments include life insurance, collectibles and personal property). You can, of course, keep your other retirement accounts and only pursue the self-directed option for your cryptocurrency investments. There are custodians now  like Kingdom Trust in Murray, Kentucky  that will manage your self-directed account and allow for digital currencies to be among your alternative investments. Just know it will cost you. "There's a litany of fees because they know you can't get it anywhere else," Slott said. Kingdom Trust, for example, charges a monthly $20 account fee as well as a 0.07 percent holding fee on your account balance. Additional fees include an opening and asset purchase charge, as well as a $100 fee to transfer out funds. By comparison, many traditional IRA accounts come with no annual or opening fee. They do often charge small transaction fees when you buy or sell an investment. Fidelity's fee, for example, is $4.95. There can be other fees on your investments, including underwriting and low balance charges, as well as fees the underlying mutual funds assess, that you should check for.

These custodians that offer self-directed accounts typically don't have any fiduciary responsibility to you. It will be up to you to determine what investments are best for you, or to make sure you don't go over IRA contribution limits ($5,500 a year if you're under 50, or $6,500 if you're older). To make matters more complicated and expensive, if you want cryptocurrencies among your alternative investments, these custodians often require you to first hire another company to make the purchases of bitcoins and ripples for you.

If you walk into Fidelity and say, 'Put bitcoin into my IRA, they'll say, 'Get lost.' Ed Slott IRA expert

Bitcoin IRA and BitIRA are some of the firms that provide this service. You'll typically have to pay a fee of around 15 percent of your investment when you open an account or add new money. You may also see a "liquidity fee" when you shift your money between cryptocurrencies and cash.

BitcoinIRAs office in Sherman Oaks, California Source: BitcoinIRA

Keep in mind: You can't just buy cryptocurrencies and send them to an IRA, said Aaron Pottichen, president of retirement services for CLS Partners in Austin, Texas. A company (like Bitcoin IRA or BitIRA) has to make the purchases for you to comply with retirement account rules. That means if you already have cryptocurrencies, "You have to sell it and repurchase it," Pottichen said. Of course, if you bought bitcoin when it was worth $1,000, that won't be desirable.

Here's what you should be mindful of

Mehmet Ali Ozcan | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

The IRS considers virtual currencies as property. That means they're eventually taxed at your capital gains rate (either long or short term). Investing your IRA in cryptocurrencies could potentially save you on taxes. Slott said it may make the most sense to open a Roth IRA, as opposed to a traditional one, so that your distributions can qualify as tax-free. "You might as well hit it big and not share it with the government," Slott said. Not every cryptocurrency IRA company offers Roth accounts though. There are also income limits to qualifying for a Roth. If you make more than $135,000 as a single or $199,000 as a couple, you'll have to stick to a regular IRA.President Donald Trump's trade advisor Peter Navarro, a fierce China critic who has clashed with more pro-trade voices in the White House, may have gained an upper hand in that debate.

That's according to Jonathan Pain, author of the Pain Report, who told CNBC on "Street Signs" that this development is likely to have an impact soon. Navarro is director of the White House National Trade Council.

"I think we are likely to see more surgical, and specific American trade measures or tariffs against Chinese goods," he predicted.

"Because don't forget, Peter Navarro is the author of the book, Death By China ... so we know how he thinks. And his mindset and his opinion appears to have won the battle within the white house. It is very important that we understand the ramifications of that," he added.

Noting that Navarro and U.S Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer have been "working feverishly" on a battle plan for Trump, he said: "We now know that they have basically won the battle within the White House ... I think this marks a really interesting new chapter in the presidential term."Russia's President Vladimir Putin addresses (C) a rally in his support at the Luzhniki Stadium ahead of the 2018 Russian presidential election scheduled for March 18, in Moscow, Russia on March 03, 2018.

Russia claims to have evidence the U.S. has attempted to interfere in Moscow's forthcoming presidential vote, the RIA news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying on Monday.

The Interfax news agency cited Ryabkov as saying the U.S. was looking to create chaos in Russia. He also added that U.S.-imposed sanctions were primarily aimed at destabilizing the country. Ryabkov provided no evidence to support these claims.

Russian citizens are due to head to the ballot box on March 18, with the latest opinion polls indicating an overwhelming victory for incumbent Vladimir Putin.

Many Western observers are skeptical about the democratic merit of Russia's electoral process in general.Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said Monday he is "extremely worried" about President Donald Trump's plan to implement new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

But Trump shot back not long afterward, telling reporters in the Oval Office he was not going to back down on tariffs.

He did, however, again signal that he may drop tariffs for Canada and Mexico if they can renegotiate a new NAFTA deal with the U.S. Trump also singled out China as the biggest problem the U.S. faces on trade  a notion he repeatedly expressed during his campaign.

Stocks rose Monday afternoon as traders saw an easing in concerns over a potential trade war. A Republican source told CNBC that congressional leaders have not ruled potential action if Trump follows through on his plan.

Ryan is trying to push the Trump administration not to slap 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum, a plan announced by the president on Thursday.

"We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan," said AshLee Strong, Ryan's spokeswoman. "The new tax reform law has boosted the economy and we certainly don't want to jeopardize those gains."

Later, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: "We don't have to agree on everything" with Ryan. Her remark echoed Trump's earlier insistence on his hard line.

"No, we're not backing down," the president said later during an Oval Office meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We had a very bad deal with Mexico, we had a very bad deal with NAFTA."

Trump said the U.S. had been "ripped off" by other countries on trade. "We lost $800 billion on trade," he said. "We are going to take care of it."

But Trump left a little wiggle room on his tariff stance. "Right now," he told reporters, he is "100 percent" backing the tariffs  "but it could be a part of NAFTA," he added, referring to the ongoing negotiations with Mexico and Canada.

Officials from the U.S., Canada and Mexico met for the final round of NAFTA talks Monday, but sources told Reuters that the renegotiations would end without a trilateral statement between the countries.

 CNBC's Christina Wilkie and Mike Calia contributed to this report.President Donald Trump appeared to signal the tariffs on steel and aluminum, which he hastily announced last week, may not be implemented, at least for Canada and Mexico, if a new NAFTA agreement is negotiated that he likes. (CNBC)



Ministers from the U.S., Canada and Mexico meet today to wrap up the latest round of NAFTA talks, even as President Trump is expected to implement steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. The ministers will likely to press Trump on the tariffs. (Reuters)



* Trump administration beats back warnings on tariffs (WSJ)

* Steel company offers $1,000 bonuses, if tariffs actually happen (CNBC)

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet today at the White House as the administration's Mideast peace plan remains in limbo. (AP)



Saudi Arabia and Egypt have agreed to create a $10 billion joint fund to develop a mega-city in Egypt's southern Sinai Peninsula. (CNBC)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was hosting a dinner with South Korean envoys in Pyongyang today, the first such meeting since he took power in 2011. (NBC News)

Robert Mueller, the special counsel who's leading an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 elections, has issued a subpoena for all communications from one witness regarding President Donald Trump and nine other people, according to Axios.



Additionally, the State Department has yet to spend any of the $120 million it has been allocated to combat foreign efforts to sway U.S. elections, the New York Times reports. The Times also points out none of the 23 employees tasked with the efforts speak Russian.

Ten years after the financial crisis, the Senate is preparing to roll back banking regulations, with more than a dozen Democrats ready to give Republicans the votes they need. Supports say the bill will give relief to midsize and regional banks. (Washington Post)

The Florida Senate today considers landmark gun legislation that would create a program for arming teachers, raise the minimum age for buying a rifle to 21, and pour millions of dollars into mental health programs. (USA Today)

Italy is headed towards a hung parliament this morning, following an election that saw voters shun mainstream politics and opt for anti-establishment parties. The votes counted so far showed the Five Star Movement would be the largest single party. (CNBC)Actress Ashley Judd, US-Italian actress Annabella Sciorra and Mexican-Lebanese actress Salma Hayek deliver a speech about sexual harassment in the entertainment industry during the 90th Annual Academy Awards show on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California.

If the Academy Awards is any guide, the Time's Up movement is alive and well.

In addition to prominent lapel pins and outspoken movement A-listers like Selma Hayek and Jane Fonda, a new era of readiness to tackle harassment and sexism pervaded nearly every aspect of Sunday's Oscars telecast.

And that is having repercussions well beyond Hollywood.

In the aftermath of such alleged egregious behavior by Harvey Weinstein (and many others), human resource professionals are noting an increase in reports of sexual harassment across the board.

More than a third of all HR experts reported at least one sexual harassment allegation in the last year. Of those, 36 percent said it was an increase from the year before, according to new data from the Society for Human Resource Management, or SHRM.

"It has taken on an energy that is hard to describe," said SHRM's CEO, Johnny Taylor Jr., "Because of Harvey Weinstein as the example, we had to deal with the issue of consent."Both Democrats and Republicans will break out the cavalry this week in a special House election that could have big implications for which party controls Congress after November's midterm elections. Former Vice President Joe Biden heads to Pennsylvania's 18th District, which is in western Pennsylvania, to campaign on the Democratic side. President Donald Trump will go to western Pennsylvania to rally support for the GOP. Texas will also hold its first-in-the-nation primary elections, as Democrats aim for possible gains in the red state.

Pennsylvania election

Joe Biden Getty Images

The March 13 special election pits Republican state Rep. Rick Saccone against Democratic former prosecutor Conor Lamb. In 2016, Trump won the district by 20 points, but polls show a much tighter race for the House seat vacated by Rep. Tim Murphy's resignation. Democrats hope to compete in some red pockets of the country as they try to win control of the House in November, and the Pennsylvania race will partly show whether they can do so. The minority party needs to gain 24 seats to take a majority in the House. Biden, a native of northeast Pennsylvania, heads to the western part of the state Tuesday to campaign for the 33-year-old Lamb. Democrats hope the plain-spoken Biden can appeal to blue-collar voters in the district. The former vice president will speak at a Lamb rally with union members, followed by another public rally with campaign supporters. Meanwhile, Trump will hold a campaign-style rally in the district Saturday night. The president will likely promote the GOP tax plan, as he did during a stop in western Pennsylvania in January, as well as his recent decision to put stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

President Donald Trump delivers a speech on tax reform after touring Sheffer Corporation in Blue Ash outside Cincinnati, Ohio February 5, 2018. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Trump hopes his protectionist move will appeal to voters in the 18th District. His pledges to crack down on trade practices he deems unfair to American workers partly fueled his rise to the presidency in 2016. Trump's tariff decision has highlighted divisions on trade within both the Republican and Democratic parties. Two separate polls for the special election last month showed Saccone with a 6 and 3 percentage point lead, respectively. Lamb raised more than $3.3 million in the first seven weeks of the year, five times what Saccone raised. Saccone has received a major boost from outside organizations linked to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump. Outside groups have spent $6.9 million opposing Lamb and $2.4 million supporting Saccone so far, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, while putting only a little over a million toward both supporting Lamb and opposing Saccone. The pro-House GOP Congressional Leadership Fund has largely attacked Lamb by highlighting his opposition to the GOP tax plan and tying him to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. Its most recent ad shifted issues, criticizing Lamb's stance on immigration.

Texas primaries

Texas holds its primary elections Tuesday. A spike in early voter turnout has heartened Democrats, but it is unclear whether that enthusiasm will hold through November. Texans will pick party standard bearers for 36 congressional districts, one U.S. Senate seat and the governor's office. Republicans hope to stave off disaster: Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, recently told supporters Democrats will "crawl over broken glass" to vote in November.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) Cameron Costa | CNBCChristopher Steele, the former MI6 agent in London where he speaks to the media for the first time, March 7, 2017. Victoria Jones | PA Images | Getty Images

The former British spy who wrote the infamous "Trump dossier" reportedly told special counsel Robert Mueller's team that Russia intervened to dissuade President Donald Trump from nominating Mitt Romney as secretary of State. The New Yorker reported Monday that Christopher Steele spoke with the special counsel's investigators last September as part of Mueller's investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election. The magazine cited unidentified sources. Mueller was appointed in May 2017 to probe Russia's potential links with the Trump campaign, as well as "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation." On Feb. 16, the special counsel obtained indictments against 13 Russian operatives, accusing them of involvement in a long-term campaign of misinformation against the U.S. to help Trump and disparage his opponent, Hillary Clinton.President Donald Trump's plan to place steep tariffs on imported steel and aluminum is hitting a raw nerve in the energy industry, which has been racing to lay enough pipelines to accommodate booming U.S oil production.

Alaska Republican Senator Daniel Sullivan, speaking at IHS Markit's annual CERAWeek energy conference on Monday, said he disagrees with the sweeping tariffs on all trade partners and said they would raise costs for the energy sector. Sullivan is active in setting U.S. energy infrastructure policy and introduced the Rebuild America Now Act.

"There's a way to do it that focuses on the problem  the real problem  which is China, and do it in a way that we align ourselves with our allies, not alienate them, and I worry that this approach right now could have the opposite effect," said Sullivan.

Sullivan applauded Trump for trying to tackle the problem of cheap steel imports, but said the Trump administration should unite U.S. partners around the goal of addressing overcapacity in China's steel industry. He said Trump could also aim to disrupt transshipment of Chinese steel, in which countries avoid tariffs by purchasing Chinese supplies, refabricating them slightly and sending them to the United States.

In a trade war, Sullivan says he worries foreign countries could punish his state by slapping tariffs on products like seafood and energy supplies.The war of words between President Donald Trump and the EU could lead to some serious pressure on the German auto industry, one expert told CNBC.

Trump threatened via Twitter on Saturday to hit back at any tariff measures from the European Union  floated in response to Trump's recently announced global steel import tariffs  in kind. The billionaire businessman's potential next target? European cars. And the biggest victim of them all may be Germany.

"It would be quite severe if we were to face additional import duties to ship the cars into the U.S.  the Germans in particular are very, very exposed," Arndt Ellinghorst, the head of global automotive research for advisory firm Evercore ISI, told CNBC Monday.

He noted the example of BMW, which sells about 350,000 cars in the U.S. annually, roughly 70 percent of which come from Europe. "That's probably an $8 billion to $9 billion revenue stream, if you put a 5 to 10 percent additional cost on it, it would cost something like $400 million to $800 million. Some of that would be absorbed by the company, and some of it would have to be absorbed by the consumer in the U.S."

Ellinghorst did add that cars being shipped from the U.S. into Europe faced a 10 percent import duty while European cars into the U.S. faced a 2.5 percent import duty. "I think what the administration is talking about is to balance out this difference in tariffs to make it more of an equal playing ground for American and European carmakers," he said.

Out of roughly six million cars exported by Europe in 2016, more than one million were absorbed by the U.S.  just over 16 percent  its largest country market by a wide margin. Meanwhile, of America's $53.6 billion in car exports that same year, the value of its car exports into Europe was $11.8 billion, or roughly 22 percent of the total, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

The U.S. is the third-largest car exporter globally after Germany and Japan, accounting for 7.7 percent of total world exports. It ran a trade deficit of more than $151 billion overall with Europe in 2017.President Donald Trump's proposed tariffs can't save the dying steel and aluminum industry, former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told CNBC on Monday.

Gutierrez, who headed the Commerce Department from 2005 to 2009 under then-President George W. Bush, said steel and aluminum jobs have been in a decline ever since they peaked in 1953.

"And to suggest that we're going to bring back these industries is a little naive," Gutierrez, now chairman of Albright Stonebridge Group, told "Squawk Box." "Why is it that you're focused on bringing back industries that have been in a decades-long decline instead of creating new industries?"

"It's the way of the world," added Gutierrez, who was also the former chairman and CEO Kellogg.

Bush tried steel tariffs of as much as 30 percent on imports in 2002. But the levies were quickly lifted  less than two years into a planned three-year run  because of threats of relatiation from European trading partners.

Trump announced plans on Thursday for tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminium products, sparking fears of a trade war and sending the stock market into a tailspin. The next day, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC that Trump's tariffs are "no big deal."

In a tweet Monday, Trump signaled that his tariffs may not be implemented, at least for Canada and Mexico, if a "fair" NAFTA agreement is negotiated. Ministers from the U.S., Canada and Mexico meet on Monday to wrap up the latest round of NAFTA talks.

@realDonaldTrump: We have large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada. NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs. Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed. Also, Canada must..

Trump's actions are protectionist, Gutierrez said, adding that policy style has never really worked. "It's not good for the global economy," he said.Kleven finds a sharp decline in women's earnings after the birth of their first child  with no comparable salary drop for men. The cumulative effect is huge: Women end up earning 20 percent less than their male counterparts over the course of their career. His study is among a growing body of research that suggests what we often think of as a gender pay gap is more accurately discussed as a childbearing pay gap or motherhood penalty. Childless women have earnings that are quite similar to men's salaries, while mothers experience a significant wage gap. Studies conducted in the United States have come to this finding  and Kleven's new research does too. This chart, for example, shows vastly different earnings trajectories for women who have children versus those who do not become mothers.

Childbearing, the study estimates, accounts for 80 percent of the gender wage gap in Denmark. Kleven's research uses Danish data, but similar studies conducted in the United States have found similar results. Harvard economist Claudia Goldin has found that the gender wage gap in America is the largest for women in their 30s  in other words, their prime, childbearing years. A 2009 study led by University of Chicago's Marianne Bertrand echoes that conclusion. It examined the earnings of thousands of business school graduates. It found that women earned an average salary of $115,000 right out of graduate school, while men earned $130,000. Men also worked, on average, a few more weekly hours and had a bit more prior experience as they entered the workforce. But nine years into their careers, women saw their salaries rise to an average of $250,000  while men's salaries averaged out at $400,000. Men were earning 60 percent more than women. "The one thing which is not changing is the effect of children," Kleven says of the gender wage gap. "This is very persistent and constant. All the other sources are declining, but the child effect sticks, and that ends up taking over as the key driver." Historical drivers of the gender wage gap  a lack of education among women, for example  are disappearing. But the professional penalty women face for having children is stubborn, and it isn't going anywhere.

In Denmark, childbearing creates a 20 percent gender wage gap

Much of Kleven's paper is designed to untangle what exactly happens after women have children that leads to this wage gap. He finds that women start to gravitate toward different jobs after the birth of a child, ones with fewer hours and lower wages. Ten years after childbirth, women have a 10 percentage point higher probability of public sector employment than men. These are jobs that typically offer "flexible working hours, leave days when having sick children, and a favorable view on long parental leaves." Men, however, see their careers go on largely unchanged, with dads and non-parents having roughly equal earnings over the next decades.

Denmark's generous leave policy might exacerbate the gender wage gap by pulling women out of the workforce for longer periods of time. In theory, Danish policy does allow parents to split up their leave. But in practice, Danish women take off the vast majority of time after the birth of a child. Recent data shows that Danish men account for just 10 percent of parental leave taken in the country. "When parental leave is neutral [not specifically divided up between two parents], then we wouldn't expect it to do something great for the gender gap," Kleven says. While maternity leave is no doubt a family-friendly policy, it isn't the type of policy that will fix the gender wage gap. If anything, it potentially can widen the gender wage gap by taking just women out of the labor force for as long as a year, likely reducing their earning potential in the future. Other Scandinavian countries have revised their parental leave policies to address this exact issue. Iceland, for example, reserves 13 weeks of parental leave for dads  and now has more than 90 percent of new fathers using the benefit.

The unsolved question: Why does the child care penalty exist?

I asked Kleven why the child care penalty is so persistent and stubborn as other causes seem to fade away. "That's the holy grail question," he says. "We don't answer it, but it's one of the things that I continue to work on." It's not totally clear why, for example, Danish women still take the vast majority of parental leave that could be used by either parent.[The stream is slated to start at 3 p.m., ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]

Press secretary Sarah Sanders is set to brief reporters on Monday amid criticisms from both political parties in Congress over President Donald Trump's newly proposed tariffs.

Trump announced at a White House meeting on Thursday that the new taxes on imports would include a 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum.

Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said he was "extremely worried" about the consequences of a potential trade war resulting from the new proposal, and sent a statement on Monday "urging the White House to not advance with this plan."

Shortly following Ryan's statement, Trump responded in Oval Office comments that the White House is "not backing down" on trade.

The rebuttal came during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who praised Trump for his decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

"This will be remembered by our people through the ages," Netanyahu said. "Others talked about it. You did it."

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the $130,000 payment from Trump's longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, to a former adult film actress had been flagged as suspicious and referred to the Treasury Department.The Missourians Opinion section is a public forum for the discussion of ideas. The views presented in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Missourian or the University of Missouri. If you would like to contribute to the Opinion page with a response or an original topic of your own, visit our submission formBlockchain developers are in short supply and hot demand.

The job of developing blockchain distributed ledgers for businesses was recently ranked first among the top 20 fastest-growing job skills, and postings for workers with those skills grew more than 200% last year.

Salaries for blockchain developer or "engineer" positions are accordingly high, with median salaries in the U.S. hovering around $130,000 a year; that compares to general software developers, whose annual median pay is $105,000, according to Matt Sigelman, CEO of job data analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies.

In high-tech regions of the U.S. such as Silicon Valley, New York City or Boston, a blockchain developer has a median annual salary of $158,000  an $18,000 premium over salaries for general software developers.

People with experience with specific blockchain iterations, such as Solidity and Hyperledger Composer, are in even higher demand  and that demand is increasing steadily, said Eric Piscini, a principal in the technology and banking practices at Deloitte Consulting LLP.

"This is the number one thing I have in mind when I wake up in the morning: 'Where will I find more engineers to join the team,'" Piscini said via email.

Solidity is a blockchain programming language for creating smart contracts (self-executing scripts); Hyperledger Composer is an open-source version of blockchain based on JavaScript; it has REST API support that allows non-developers and developers to create business networks.

Along with Hyperledger, Ethereum is the world's leading blockchain platform and both are the basis for a myriad of decentralized applications (Dapps), from smart contracts to cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum's Ether.

Just below blockchain engineers on the list of the fastest-growing jobs is a related skill: bitcoin cryptocurrency developers. (Blockchain is the technology that underpins bitcoin.)

Taking second fiddle only to robotics specialists, blockchain and bitcoin developers are advertising their services for as much as $200 per hour, according to Upwork, an employment site that specializes in freelance workers.

Where to learn blockchain

Most who choose to add blockchain to their skillset or seek a career as blockchain developers are typically versed in programming languages such as Java or Python, Piscini said. But that's by no means a prerequisite.

"More universities are starting curricula and the natural cycle to graduate enough students will produce good volumes in the next few years," Piscini said. "We collaborate with universities around the world to develop content and hire the best talent."

Several accredited U.S. universities now offer courses on blockchain, such as MIT, which has offered two courses on cryptocurrency engineering and design, and Stanford University, which has a course called Bitcoin Engineering that teaches developers how to create bitcoin-enabled applications.

MIT also a third blockchain course  part of its Professional Certificate programs. The Applied Blockchain certification course features hands-on experience with simulations and exercises with blockchain. This course is geared toward C-suite and decision makers in a wide variety of industries, including finance, law, education, and government.

There are also specialty schools, such as Mountain View, Calif.-based Blockchain University and London-based education startup B9lab, which launched an online Certified Ethereum Developer Training program in 2016.

"We've been running this and other courses for over two years now and have trained 1,000 people from over 75 countries," said Elias Haase, founder of B9lab.

The most successful students in B9lab's courses tend to have sysadmin experience and have worked with Javascript before, Hasse said, but "with the right amount of focus, we've seen people from different backgrounds do really well.

"Our youngest student was 14, the oldest 76. So we've seen a pretty broad variety of developers," he said.

Currently, the easiest and fastest way to become proficient is to learn on your own or attend programs organized by blockchain vendors and industry groups, such as Consensys, Blockapps, the Ethereum Foundation and Hyperledger.

Under the auspices of the Linux Foundation, Hyperledger is a collaborative cross-industry effort created to advance blockchain technology. Its Hyperledger Fabric and Sawtooth modular frameworks can be foundations for developing distributed ledgers for businesses.

While software developers tend to be the ones who sign up for blockchain courses, you don't have to be a coder to glean business-oriented knowledge of the distributed ledger technology or even learn to create blockchain networks for your company, according to Hyperledger Community Architect Tracy Kuhrt.

Hyperledger Hyperledger Community Architect Tracy Kuhrt

For example, Hyperledger offers an introductory course for business people who simply want to learn about how the technology can be applied to their environment. The course includes a primer for techies hoping to learn how to start building blockchain applications with Hyperledger frameworks.

Hyperledger's courses are designed to be completed in 40 hours, but there's no time limit for completing the courses.

Developers who want to learn coding can take more specific courses on blockchain modular platforms, such as Hyperledger Fabric or Sawtooth. Those seeking a certificate in Hyperledger blockchain technology can turn to open online course provider edX; upon completion, they can pay $99 for a certificate in the technology.

"The courses could be taken by someone who is not developer," Kuhrt said. "It does provide a working example for the two projects we have  Hyperledger Fabric and Sawtooth. There are step-by-step instructions...to work through that. As far as whether or not it would be difficult for someone who doesn't have programming experience, I don't think that's where the challenge would be. I think somebody who doesn't spend a lot of time staring at command lines in a computer might have some challenges, but it really is intended to help anybody to get up and running and be able to see what's possible with blockchain technologies."

How one developer changed careers

Until last year, Kuhrt had spent 10 years as a software engineer at PayPal, working her way up to its strategic architecture team where she was tasked to look at blockchain as a potential business platform. Kuhrt went on to design and implement a proof of concept for a PayPal rewards point program using Hyperledger Fabric, an open-source modular blockchain architecture.

"That's how I got interested in Hyperledger. It's a great place to get in on the ground floor," said Kuhrt, who last year took the job at Hyperledger, the Linux Foundation project started in 2015. "I think this technology is going to make some big changes in the way business is done."

Kuhrt is now in charge of connecting outside technologists to the Hyperledger's various blockchain initiatives, including its free training courses.

Since the courses went online last year, 72,925 people have enrolled and 2,252 have completed the course work, according to Kuhrt. Not surprisingly, enrollments continue to explode as the adoption of blockchain in a myriad of industries continues to grow

Blockchain applications are being applied to healthcare record management, renewable energy certificate trading and supply chain management, among others.

Burning Glass Technologies

Toptal, a service that connects various software developers with employers, just launched a new blockchain specialization service for businesses hunting for blockchain engineers.

Since January 2017, Toptal said its client demand for blockchain expertise has shot up by more than 700%.

As enterprises and venture capitalists alike provide capital and credibility to blockchain initiatives, the industry's challenge has become the pace at which the technology itself grows. For blockchain to succeed, it will need a sustainable, accessible pool of elite talent, according to Luka Horvat, head of Talent Operations at Toptal.

While moving into a career as a blockchain engineer is no small feat, as it does require a significant time investment into becoming acquainted with the tools and related technologies, it's an excellent time to take the leap, said Horvat.

"Demand for blockchain developers is at an all-time high," he said.

How to transition to a blockchain career

To transition into a career in blockchain, the first step anyone would need to take is to pick the initial technology they want to work on, Horvat said. That can range from contributing to a core of open-sourced blockchains (e.g., Bitcoin); creating business networks using the Hyperledger family of modular platforms; or creating public smart contracts using Solidity.

"Having experience with back-end and lower level development (cryptography) is beneficial for the transition as well, but is not required," Horvat said.

Toptal sets a high bar for talent, requiring engineers to have a strong fundamental knowledge of blockchain and the underlying technologies  including cryptography and distributed systems  as well as some knowledge of how most public blockchains work, "which we test for using theoretical tests and coding tasks which are geared towards the technologies powering blockchains."

Blockchain developer positions come in all types, from hourly to full-time. The type of role depends on the size of the client and the kind of project or product it is working on, according to Horvat. Regardless, the demand for blockchain roles (whether hourly or full-time) is skyrocketing.

Toptal's client list ranges from startups raising funds via ICOs (initial coin offerings) to Fortune 100 companies that are transferring major business segments to blockchain, Horvat said. The work developers are tackling varies from distributed programming to cryptography, private blockchains, decentralized applications and smart contracts, among others.

"Even assuming 20,000 developers have worked with blockchain in some form or another, this is less than 1 in 1,000 developers worldwide. ...Those developers that do have experience in the field are in great demand."  Windsor Holden, Juniper Research

"Some clients start with only a few developers part time to get a project started, and then ramp up with a larger full-time team as the project gets underway," Horvat said. "As the underlying technologies related to blockchain continue to evolve over time, organizations that are investing in the technology will have needs that evolve as well, which Toptal is suited to addressing."

The supply of blockchain experts, however, still lags well behind the demand for their services.

[ Further reading: IBM sees blockchain as ready for government use ]

In a survey of 200 Fortune 500 executives by Synechron Inc., a New York-based IT consultancy, 55% said they had plans to implement blockchain technology over the next decade.

"For blockchain technology to gain traction, it will require more developers to acquire the skills to be able to work with the technology," said Windsor Holden, a blockchain analyst with Juniper Research. "Even assuming 20,000 developers have worked with blockchain in some form or another, this is less than 1 in 1,000 developers worldwide. For the moment, those developers that do have experience in the field are in great demand."

While the small number of developers will stand to benefit enormously in the short term, it will be essential to develop training programs, both by academia and in-house via the leading technology providers, according to Holden.

In the meantime, a number of blockchain 'boot camps' have offered developers an introduction to the technology, including an eight-week course provided by New York's Byte Academy that costs $10,000.

The Academy - School of Blockchain claims to be one of the only accredited schools for blockchain code training. The school is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS-CASI).

On Jan. 29, the Academy launched its first onsite "immersion class" to retrain 120 software developers for blockchain in Sofia, Bulgaria; it plans to offer a six-week online course in July. The immersion blockchain course is six weeks long and costs from $18,000 to $24,000, depending on the location of the classes, the Academy said in its marketing material.

The Academy is launching four more international classes in the April-May timeframe, the locations of which have yet to be announced. It expects about 1,600 students will complete its six-week blockchain training program this year.

The school also works with students to place them in jobs once they complete the program.

While the first class has yet to graduate, an Academy spokesperson said its regular software development program boasts a graduate placement rate of 92%, "and we fully expect our blockchain student placement rate to equal, if not surpass that rate."

Blockchain is tech you can build a career around

The U.S. is expected to lead the world in blockchain investments, accounting for 40% of spending, followed by Western Europe, China and the Asia Pacific region (not including Japan), according to a recent report from IDC.

By 2021, spending on blockchain is expected to reach $9.2 billion, with the technology likely to rival that of Linux and the open-source software industry in general.

While 2017 was considered a time of experimentations for the still-evolving technology, as businesses came to see both its benefits and challenges, this year is considered a crucial year as enterprises move from proof-of-concept projects to full blockchain deployments.

"Blockchain is a technology that will continue to be around for a long time and it's a place people can build a career around," Kuhrt said. "I think I could spend the rest of my career thinking about blockchain technologies."

This story, "The blockchain market is hot; here's how to learn the skills for it" was originally published by Computerworld .Granted, Februarys patches from Microsoft werent as malevolent as Januarys patches, but they still managed to knock out lots and lots of PCs. That said, if you can tiptoe around the problems, now is a good time to get the latest versions of the latest patches installed.

Problems with Win10 Fall Creators Update

The worst problem I see at this point involves clobbered USB connections on Win10 Fall Creators Update (version 1709) machines after installing the latest cumulative update, KB 4074588. To its credit, Microsoft has acknowledged the problem. But the only offered fix, a complex manual workaround, would drive a hardened MS-DOS junkie to drink.

Microsoft currently acknowledges all of these problems with the February Win10 1709 cumulative update:

Windows Update History reports that KB4054517 failed to install because of error 0x80070643. Even though the update was successfully installed, Windows Update incorrectly reports that the update failed to install. Microsoft is working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release.

After installing this update, some USB devices and onboard devices, such as a built-in laptop camera, keyboard or mouse, may stop working. This may occur when the windows update servicing stack incorrectly skips installing the newer version of some critical drivers in the cumulative update and uninstalls the currently active drivers during maintenance. Microsoft is working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release. Workaround steps are available in KB4091240 .

After installing this update, some devices may fail to boot with INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. This issue occurs when the Windows update servicing stack incorrectly skips installing the newer version of some critical drivers in the cumulative update and uninstalls the currently active drivers during maintenance. Microsoft is working on a resolution and will provide an update in an upcoming release. Workaround steps are available in KB4075150 .

As well as a problem with Active Directory Federation Service.

Its become a familiar refrain. Microsoft had problematic patches for Win10 1709 in December, in January (took three tries and they it didnt get it right) and in February. I keep waiting for 1709 to stabilize before I recommend that folks move on from 1703, but that time hasnt come yet.

Then there are those who bought new PCs with 1703 installed and dont have enough storage to run the upgrade to 1709.

Even if most of the Win10 world has been pushed, pulled and prodded onto 1709 (AdDuplex reports that 85% of all Win10 users they see run Win10 1709), the avalanche of buggy patches proves to me that Fall Creators Update just aint ready for prime time.

Truth be told, the multiple patches for 1703 (two in January, two in February) leave me feeling queasy about the Win10 Creators Update as well. I guess thats the price we pay for Windows as a Service and the mad dash to two new versions of the last version of Windows per year.

Other problems

There have been problems galore with the .Net Preview patches, with several yanked after colliding with QuickBooks 2017 Enterprise. Fortunately, theyre just Previews  you only installed them if you specifically sought them out and you shot yourself in the foot.

Windows 7 users who install the latest patches (Monthly Rollup KB 4074598, or Security-Only KB 4077525) may have problems if they have a Smart Card two-factor authorization enabled on their machine. Microsoft also warns: After installing this update, SMB servers may experience a memory leak. No solution at this point.

If youre using Flash on Internet Explorer (or Edge) and havent yet installed the fix for CVE-2018-4878, described in Microsofts Security Advisory ADV180004, youre vulnerable to a Malspam campaign attack described by Morphisec Labs. Of course, if you avoid Flash and/or use a different browser, you have little to fear.

With those exceptions, Susan Bradleys Monthly Patchlist gives an all-clear for the other 40 or so patches released this month.

Microcode limps along

For those of you following the trials and travails of the KB 4090007 microcode updates, which are only available by manual download and only apply to sixth-generation Skylake Intel chips running Win10 1709, theres a reason why theyre so obscure: Microsoft doesnt want normal people to install them.

Microcode, you may know (but I didnt!), is different from firmware. Gunter Born on his BornCity site explains:

There is also a small but subtle difference between firmware updates for the UEFI and a microcode update. A firmware update for the UEFI must be approved by the manufacturer of the motherboard. This update may also include microcode updates. These are loaded from the UEFI firmware into the CPU when the system is started. Pure microcode updates can be rolled out by Microsoft. These microcodes are loaded into the CPU when the operating system is started. The above update is therefore a microcode update, which is reloaded every time Windows starts.

For now, I figure youd be crazy to install the microcode update  particularly because there are no Spectre v 2 exploits in the wild. Susan Bradley has a full explanation of the patch and a warning to admins who may be contemplating the leap of faith:

For those that plan to import these microcode updates into your Server 2016 WSUS, theres a known issue whereby one cant import updates into WSUS based on Server 2016 like one is used to in other platforms. As noted on the WSUS blog, youll need to edit a bit before you can import the patch.

What you should do

In my humble opinion, its time to install the February patches  unless youre using Win10 Fall Creators Update version 1709. (To see your version, in the Cortana search box, type about and press Enter.) If youre on 1709, wait until Microsoft finally fixes the USB problems.

Step 1. Make sure your antivirus is copacetic with this months patches.

If you have a reasonably recent version of your antivirus software  updated in the past few weeks  youll be fine. If youre running Windows Defender, youre fine. But if you have a weird antivirus product, or youve stopped doling outantivirus payola, I figure its best to uninstall your currentantivirus and get Windows Defender or Microsoft Security Essentials working, just for as long as it takes to get Windows updated. Check with your antivirus vendor for details.

If you dont want to trust your PC to Microsoft  who can blame ya?  check out Kevin Beaumonts detailed list of antivirus vendors and their patch proclivities. If you want to check to see if your machine, specifically, is ready for the February patches, follow the steps posted by SueW on AskWoody.com.

Step 2. Make a full system image backup before you install the January patches.

Theres a non-zero chance that the patches  even the latest, greatest patches of patches of patches  will hose your machine. Best to have a backup that you can reinstall even if your machine refuses to boot. This, in addition to the usual need for System Restore points.

There are plenty of full image backup products including at least two good free ones: Macrium Reflect Free and EaseUS Todo Backup.

Step 3. For Win7 and 8.1

Microsoft is blocking updates to Windows 7 and 8.1 on recent computers. If you are running Windows 7 or 8.1 on a PC thats a year old or newer, follow the instructions in AKB 2000006 or @MrBrians summary of @radosuafs method to make sure you can use Windows Update to get updates applied.

If youre very concerned about Microsofts snooping on you and want to install just security patches, realize that the privacy paths getting more difficult. The old Group B  security patches only  isnt dead, but its no longer within the grasp of typical Windows customers. If you insist on manually installing security patches only, follow the instructions in @PKCanos AKB 2000003 and be aware of @MrBrians recommendations for hiding any unwanted patches. Note that AKB 200003 has been modified to incorporate Microsofts fixes-of-fixes in January.

For most Windows 7 and 8.1 users, I recommend following AKB 2000004: How to apply the Win7 and 8.1 Monthly Rollups. If you want to minimize Microsofts snooping but still install all of the offered patches, turn off the Customer Experience Improvement Program (Step 1 of AKB 2000007: Turning off the worst Windows 7 and 8.1 snooping) before you install any patches. (Thx, @MrBrian.)

Watch out for driver updates  youre far better off getting them from a manufacturers website. After youve installed the latest Monthly Rollup, if youre intent on minimizing Microsofts snooping, run through the steps in AKB 2000007: Turning off the worst Win7 and 8.1 snooping. Realize that we dont know what information Microsoft collects on Window 7 and 8.1 machines. But Im starting to believe that information pushed to Microsofts servers for Win7 owners is nearing that pushed in Win10.

Step 4. For Windows 10

If youre running Win10 Creators Update, version 1703 (my current preference), or version 1607, the Anniversary Update, and you want to stay on 1607 or 1703 while those on 1709 get to eat Microsofts dog food, follow the instructions here to ward off the upgrade. As you go through the steps, keep in mind that Microsoft, uh, forgot to honor the Current Branch for Business setting  so you need to run the feature update (read: version change) deferral setting, if you have one, all the way up to 365. And hope that Microsoft doesnt forget how to count to 365.

If youre running an earlier version of Win10, youre basically on your own. Microsoft doesn't support you anymore.

If you have trouble getting the latest cumulative update installed, make sure youve checked your antivirus settings (see ProTip #2 above) and, if all is well, run the newly refurbished Windows Update Troubleshooter before inventing new epithets.

To get Windows 10 patched, go through the steps in "8 steps to install Windows 10 patches like a pro."

Parting shots

As is always the case, DONT CHECK ANYTHING THATS UNCHECKED. In particular, dont be tempted to install anything marked Preview.

Its time to get patched. Even if you really, really dont want to.

Thx, @MrBrian, @sb, @PKCano, @abbodi86, and many others

Join the chorus on the Titanic at the AskWoody Lounge.May: We can build more houses and still preserve the beauty of the nation

She promises to rewrite the rule book  The Sun

and is trying to ensure she takes Middle England with her  Daily Telegraph

Five new garden towns could be built between Oxford and Cambridge  Daily Mail

Build, build, and build some more  The Sun Says

The flawed planning system, that mixes cronyism with socialism, has been decades in the making  Matt Ridley, The Times

First Help to Buy borrowers face the start of fees  FT

England needs more homes. For many decades and under successive governments, we simply havent built enough to meet steadily rising demand, and it is our children and grandchildren who are paying the priceAt last years party conference, I set out my personal commitment to fixing our broken housing market. Today sees the latest step in that process, as the government rewrites the planning rulebook, overhauling it to make the system fairer, more transparent, and get more of the right homes built in the right places more quickly. The new rules will speed up the planning process, ensure that permissions are turned into homes more quickly, and see to it that new developments are supported by appropriate infrastructure. But building the homes our children and grandchildren need doesnt have to mean destroying the open countryside we all treasure. Across England, Green Belts continue to serve a valuable purpose.  Theresa May, Daily Telegraph

>Yesterday: ToryDiary: May the builder?

Willetts: Tax baby boomers to cover health and social care costs of ageing society

The baby boomer generation must pay higher wealth taxes to fund health and welfare spending as costs spiral as a result of an ageing population, a Tory former minister has said. Lord Willetts said higher wealth taxes are needed unless the burden of paying for an ageing population is to be placed entirely on the shoulders of young people who are already struggling to match the living standards of their parents. He will cite Resolution Foundation research showing that by 2030 spending on health, education and social security will rise by 20 billion in todays money, and by 60 billion by 2040. The extra spending, almost entirely driven by health costs, would need to be covered by a massive 15p hike in the basic rate of income tax to cover the funding gap until 2040, unless reforms are made elsewhere. In a speech at the Resolution Foundations Westminster headquarters, its chair Lord Willetts will say: The time has come when we boomers are going to have reach into our own pockets. The alternative could be an extra 15p on the basic rate of tax, paid largely by our kids. Is that kind of tax really the legacy we  a generation who own half the nations wealth  want to bequeath our children and grandchildren?  Daily Mail

This is the moment when the chickens come home to roost  David Willetts, The Times

He proposes reform of inheritance tax and council tax  The Times

Bricklayers earn more than graduates  The Sun

Middle income workers miss out on the benefits of growth  The Times

Feel-good treats on the NHS  The Sun

Oliver: Im not a patronising nanny, I just think the poor lack logic and willpower  The Times

Scaremongering about the HPV vaccine risks lives  The Times

>Today: ToryDiary: Willetts revives our question. What should Tories tax?

Anti-establishment and Eurosceptic parties make big gains in Italy

Italian voters have delivered a bruising rebuke to the countrys political establishment, as both the populist Five Star Movement and the anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic Northern League were poised to make sweeping gains in the general election. Although ballots were still being counted on Monday, early results according to official data from the interior ministry suggested a hung parliament and a period of protracted and tense negotiations shepherded by Sergio Mattarella, Italys president, for the formation of a new government. Five Star was one of the big winners from the election, as it appeared on course to be Italys strongest single party with 32 per cent of the vote. Although it cannot form a government unless it strikes an alliance with other parties, it has positioned itself as the dominant force in Italian politics. If these figures are confirmed it would be historic and extraordinary, Five Star will be the pillar of the next legislature, said Alfonso Bonafede, a Five Star lawmaker.  FT

The Prime Minister cautions Trump against sparking a trade war

Theresa May protested to President Trump over his plans for tariffs on steel and aluminium imports yesterday amid warnings about the prospects for a UK-US trade deal. Ministers rebuked the president for threatening a trade war after he announced that the US would impose duties of 25 per cent on imported steel and 10 per cent on aluminium in an attempt to save its domestic industry. Mr Trump also said that, if Brussels retaliated, the US would put a tax on cars made in the European Union. Mrs May relayed her fears to him by telephone yesterday afternoon. The prime minister raised our deep concern at the presidents forthcoming announcement on steel and aluminium tariffs, noting that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity in all parties interests, a spokeswoman said. David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister and Mrs Mays deputy, warned Washington against using failed methods to protect domestic industry. He said that the US was not taking an advisable course in threatening trade and that trade wars dont do anybody any good.  The Times

The White House says there will be no exceptions  Daily Mail

Britain should not be treated like China  Daily Telegraph Leader

Trump ally sold shares days before tariff announcement  The Times

Can the Presidents advisers persuade him to champion innovation instead of protectionism?  The Times Leader

Will regional food brands still be guarded by protectionism?  The Sun

The SNP claims a deal on devolved powers is close  The Scotsman

and raises the prospect our new immigration system will be subject to negotiation with Brussels

Some cabinet ministers are uneasy that the system will feel little different to present arrangements under EU free movement rules. Yesterday Mrs May suggested that the EU would get a say in the UKs new system, in discussions likely to take place before the MAC issues its final report in September. She told BBC Ones The Andrew Marr Show: What were saying is that were going to want to ensure that people from the UK can still go abroad to the other 27 members of the EU, and vice versa. Asked how she would achieve this, she replied: Well be setting out our immigration rules, well negotiate with the EU. Because obviously we want to look at what happens to UK citizens as well as what happens to EU citizens.Conservative Home, the grassroots website, pointed out at the weekend that there were no senior government figures arguing for the need to alter policy to reduce substantially the numbers of EU nationals entering the country. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that EU net migration was 90,000, alongside non-EU net migration of 205,000.  The Times

>Today: David Jones on Comment: Brexit. Why we must all now ready ourselves for no deal  and WTO terms

>Yesterday:

Project Fear was based on unconscious bias, political expectations and group think, Cambridge academics find

Gloomy Treasury forecasts that predict Brexit will be an economic disaster are flawed, Cambridge researchers warn today. A study by the universitys Centre for Business Research raises serious questions over predictions by government officials, academic bodies, the IMF and the OECD. They say most estimates of the economic impact of the Leave vote are based on modelling that exaggerates the negative effects. The study, published today, is titled How the Economics Profession Got it Wrong on Brexit and says Treasury forecasts before and after the referendum were too pessimistic. Researchers say the assumption about the degree of uncertainty caused by the Brexit vote was arbitrary and wrong. Conclusions were likely to be the result of unconscious bias, political expectations and group think among the authors, they claim. And they say the Treasurys failure to discuss its work  and subject it to outside scrutiny  is unacceptable.  Daily Mail

>Yesterday:

Mordaunt demands action from aid charities

Hundreds of allegations against charity shop staff and volunteers  Daily Mail

Keep on giving  The Guardian Leader

Penning says the Navy should note be used as a cash cow for aid ventures  Daily Mail

Carillion directors passed up a way to retrieve some money for pension funds

British aid agencies must set new standards of good conduct for the rest of the world to follow, the international development secretary will demand today. At a meeting called after The Times exposed sexual misconduct by Oxfam aid workers, Penny Mordaunt will tell senior officials from scores of charities that they face a turning point. Now is the time for action, Ms Mordaunt said before the meeting in London. The aid sector needs to ensure it is meeting its duty of care to the worlds most vulnerable people. It needs to be honest about past mistakes. It must do all it can to win back the trust of the British public. There are concerns, however, at how far the Department for International Development (Dfid) and the sector itself are prepared to go in implementing policy commitments. The invited audience will be dominated by senior executives, with little input from child protection or safeguarding experts.  The Times

The government knew of a plan that could have retrieved more than 360m from Carillion, limiting the cost of its collapse to taxpayers and sparing pension scheme members from cuts to their retirement payouts, but did not encourage directors to pursue it. Multiple sources told the Guardian that the Cabinet Office, responsible for oversight of government contractors, did not apply any pressure on Carillions directors to adopt the proposals, presented by accounting firm EY in mid-December last year. EYs plan would have involved breaking up the company, selling the profitable parts and placing the rest into liquidation, avoiding an involuntary collapse. The accounting firm believed this would generate 364m, of which 218m could be injected into the firms 13 pension schemes, estimated to have a deficit of close to 1bn. One source familiar with the companys final weeks said this could have prevented some of the schemes entering the Pension Protection Fund.  The Guardian

Moore: How strange that Watson, scourge even of fake iniquity, should be so forgiving of Mosley

McDonnell suggests he should consider returning the cash  Daily Mail

Give the money to charity  The Sun Says

The threat of nationalisation is harming energy investment, says National Grid  FT

Shadow Chancellor might reconsider the appointment of toxic equalities advisor  The Times

IPPR supports a single income tax  The Sun

Burst pipes cause water shortages across London and the South East

Opinions could legitimately differ about Max Mosley in his youth. Some say that his active support for his father Oswalds fascist party when he was 20 or so damns him forever. Others point out that many young people adopt extreme positions and that it is forgivable, when very young, to be in thrall to your parents strong views.I lean to the latter viewWhat is odder, though, is that the deputy leader of the Labour Party, Tom Watson, should be so forgiving. No one is more zealous than Mr Watson in hunting down iniquity. Indeed, he hunts it down even where it does not existYet Mr Watson, whose office has received 540,000 from Mr Mosley, does not feel that he should return the money. His stated reason  though obviously he has 540,000 other ones  is that Mr Mosley has used his money to help the weak [Mr Watson?] against the strong.  Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph

Households across London and south east England have been told to use as little water as possible  after extreme weather caused burst pipes. Thames Water said around 12,000 homes were left with no running water following the recent deep freeze and thaw, while several water companies said they were also tackling multiple bursts on their networks. Four companies  Thames Water, South East Water, Southern Water and Affinity Water  urged customers who do have running water only to use it where essential. In a joint statement, they said: Where possible, take short showers rather than baths, do not leave taps running unnecessarily and only run washing machines and dish washers when you have a full load.  Daily Telegraph

Energy companies will be made to write off bills after 12 months  The Times

Home Office loses track of 500 foreign criminals before deportation

Home Office spends 36,000 on all-gender toilets  The Sun

Campaigners write to Rudd over immigration exemption to data protection  The Guardian

Senior police officers repeatedly warned about false allegations against Iraq troops  Daily Telegraph

The MoD is losing its moral compass  Johnny Mercer, Daily Telegraph

News in Brief

The Home Office has lost track of hundreds of dangerous foreign criminals awaiting deportation from Britain. Instead of being locked up until they are thrown out of the UK, the offenders, including rapists, robbers and paedophiles, vanished after being let out of prison. Immigration chiefs lost track of the foreign national offenders (FNOs) after they completed their sentences and were released into the community  meaning they could still pose a threat. Figures obtained using freedom of information laws revealed that 494 criminals absconded between January 2014 and March 2016.  Daily MailIts now fourteen months since Matteo Renzis ill-fated referendum on the Italian constitution, which led to his downfall as Prime Minister. And now, as I predicted after the referendum, an Italian general election has delivered a major boost to two parties which played a central role in unseating Renzi: the Lega (formerly Lega Nord) and the Five Star Movement (M5S). The former golden boy of the centre left saw the vote of his Democratic Party (PD) nosedive, and there are currently conflicting reports of whether he has resigned (again).

Hung parliaments and talk of multi-faceted coalitions are hardly unusual in Italy, but this particular result poses a series of new questions politically:

1) Will the League ditch its coalition with Berlusconi?

In its previous incarnation, as the regionally-restricted, sometimes secessionist, often scandalous Lega Nord, Matteo Salvinis party was stuck as the junior partner to Silvio Berlusconi. But now, after a rebrand as a national party (hence the dropping of Nord), the radical right sidekick has outperformed the old master. Will Salvini and his colleagues stick with the centre-right coalition, given than it doesnt have the seats to form a majority government, at least as currently constituted? Even if they stay put, the election result signals a shift in who has to answer to whom  but might they be tempted to go further and sever ties in favour of a new alliance that could offer them new opportunities? One senior party figure says first we will talk with our coalition allies. Emphasis on the first.

2) Is M5S going to have to enter government?

Ever since its foundation, M5S has been a peculiar beast. One of its many contradictions is that it has sometimes looked distinctly uncomfortable about the prospect of holding power, despite a great deal of enthusiastic rhetoric about how government ought to run. Theyve so far managed to avoid getting their hands dirty at a national level, not least because they dont quite fit with either of the two would-be ruling coalitions. But now, as the largest party, can they really avoid it any longer? To govern they would need either a coalition or some kind of confidence and supply agreement, and that means getting into bed with other parties. The party has elements of left and right in its mindset and its personnel, which opens up all sorts of possibilities. The question is whether it would be willing to risk dirtying its insurgent reputation by laying down with more establishment figures like Berlusconi or Renzi, or alternatively whether it would be willing to strike a deal with the Lega, who bring plenty of their own problems in terms of some very controversial views on immigrants and the spectre of corruption scandals.

3) What does this mean for the Euro and the EU?

Its true to say that both the League and M5S have espoused eurosceptic views on many occasions. Salvini has often pledged to get rid of the Euro, and M5S famously urged a referendum on membership of the single currency. But it would be a mistake to overplay this; while the Leagues leader is still making critical noises, both parties have in recent months toned down their radicalism on the topic. Readers may recall that Marine Le Pen made a last-ditch attempt to do the same before her presidential run-off in France  the same logic of not frightening the horses too much applies in Italy, and the more moderate rhetoric was carefully deployed much longer before polling day. A referendum is unlikely to be just around the corner, therefore, but this result still shows sizeable Italian disillusionment with the EU. More than 50 per cent of votes in one of the core member states have been cast for Eurosceptic parties; that doesnt herald Italexit, but it is a rebuke to Brussels nonetheless. We dont yet know the composition of any resulting government, but a Lega/M5S coalition would not be a bastion of support for the EU grabbing more money and power, nor for ideas like the compulsory allocation of refugees through a new Common Policy, for example. More generally for the Western alliance, Salvini makes no secret whatsoever of his enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin  a worrying prospect for NATO, should he get into government.

4) Where next for the Left?

As in France, Holland, and Germany, the Italian centre-left has taken a serious battering. Renzi himself hasnt helped that  indeed, he precipitated his partys crisis by giving his opponents the perfect opportunity to bloody his nose in the referendum  but the problem appears to be wider. Voters didnt opt for another brand of socialism or social democracy in protest at a leader they disliked, they shifted more drastically and opted for much more rebellious options like M5S, which absolutely loathes the PD. The Italian electoral system works on a confusing mixture of first-past-the-post constituency seats and proportional allocation (and, even more confusingly, the age threshold to vote is different for electing different houses of parliament), so national results matter as well as simply local and regional ones. But all the same, theres a regional story to the PDs decline, as the map above (via @EuropeElects) shows. The parties of the right now completely dominate the north of the country, barring some urban centres, while M5S completely dominates the south. The centre left has been squeezed even in the middle of the country, and only just held onto Tuscany, long a solid heartland. The knives will be out for Renzi, but there will also be a wider argument underway about ideology. Corbynite figures in the UK are quick to point out that the British Labour Party saw its vote rise last year, even while its more centrist allies on the Continent plummeted to disaster  their implication is obvious.Cllr Chris Whitehouse is Chairman of The Whitehouse Consultancy and Cabinet Secretary of the Isle of Wight Council.

An innovative, Government-funded, public private partnership on the Isle of Wight is delivering real results for the otherwise insoluble problem of a decaying highways infrastructure.

The country is now firmly in the teeth of the annual pothole season when the yawning gaps in local council highways budgets reverberate through the long-suffering suspensions of motor vehicles across the United Kingdom. But on the Isle of Wight, where just over five years ago the highway network was found by a national survey to be the worst in the country, the story is rather different.

And whisper it quietly, but the solution has arrived in the shape of a Private Finance Initiative. Yes, Private. Finance. Initiative: the three words that currently evoke more Pavlovian vitriol from the left than Jacob, Rees and Mogg, are responsible for an astounding transformation of a road network that had crumbled as a consequence of years of underfunding.

The statistics since the Isle of Wight Highways Improvement Partnership began in 2013 are impressive. More than 400 kilometres of the Islands roads have been resurfaced  and in some cases rebuilt too  and the entire street lighting network has been updated with more than 12,000 energy and money-saving LED lamps now illuminating the vastly improved street-scene.

Major engineering schemes have anchored sections of some of the Islands most historically unstable stretches of road, long-standing issues of highway flooding have been addressed, two thirds of parking machines have been renewed, (with the rest to follow) and street furniture across the network has been upgraded as have countless traffic signals, road signs, bollards and road studs.

The Highways Improvement Partnership also requires this upgraded road network to be maintained to the high levels defined in an arrangement that was agreed with near unanimity by a Conservative-run Isle of Wight Council in 2012.

There are other economic benefits too. The work is underpinned by a grant of 260 million (at 2013 prices)  agreed by the then Coalition Government  and the contract is delivered by an operating company, Island Roads, that has a supply chain including over 150 Island companies which has pumped an estimated 54 million into the local economy. The project provides work for more than 200 people and an apprenticeship scheme that was recently feted by the Island Chamber of Commerce has given 14 young Islanders a step up towards a career in engineering or business administration and management.

Under the project contract, the network is being maintained at an enhanced level and more efficiently too as Island Roads has combined operations previously supplied by seven entities into just one. These efficiencies save the Isle of Wight Council an estimated 1 million a year, or around 5 million since the project began. The contract also gives the authority financial certainty as we know what our liabilities and financial contributions will be each year we set the budget. Crucially the authority has not just effectively outsourced the highways services, it has outsourced the risks too. So, when  as happened in 2015  a key bridge spanning a strategic route was found to be failing, the cost of the strengthening project was borne not by the council, but by Island Roads.

Similarly, all pothole claims  and these have reduced markedly since 2013  are now made against Island Roads, not against the council.

It has taken the Isle of Wight Councils new Conservative administration, elected last year, finally to extol the virtues of a project that is providing Isle of Wight road users with the high-quality highways for which they yearned (resident surveys regularly highlighted the condition of roads the number one concern) and Isle of Wight council taxpayers, value for money. Our Council Leader, Cllr Dave Stewart, and the Transport Portfolio Holder, Cllr Ian Ward, are giving strong and consistent messages about the benefits this Partnership brings not only for residents using the roads, but for potential investors in the Islands economy, an economy that were determined to grow to create the varied and skilled jobs sought by the next generation of islanders.

We can only speculate why the previous chaotic Independent administration (2013-2017  which ultimately collapsed with the political equivalent of a hissy-fit, riven with internal divisions) sought to frustrate rather than celebrate the Partnership in the face of all the positive benefits. Perhaps, behind this effrontery lay a determination to undermine the decision  any decision  of the Conservative administration which preceded them. There was also a latent ideological distrust of the PPP model seeping through, given the left-leaning nature of many of the self-styled independents.

And given both the vague promises of the shadow chancellor in respect of taking back PFI contracts and more recently the failure of Carillion, the anti-PFI rhetoric has been refreshed.

But therein lies a problem for the Left and those of a Left leaning. Just as the Left cannot accept that parts of the NHS are not perfect, neither can they accept that some PFIs  such as that which is mending the Isle of Wights roads  work very well.

If petulant politics was used to obscure the clear and obvious benefits of our local road improvement project which would be the envy of pretty much every other local authority, then it is a shame. The current Conservative administration believes a good local council should be led not by dogma but by the principles of sound local governance, and value-for-money.

The Islands Highways Improvement Partnership is a clear success in terms of delivering a huge and much-needed infrastructure project. But in doing so, it sends a further message which is vital to the Islands renaissance: the Isle of Wight Council is a trustworthy partner for potential large investors and the Island is a place that is open for business.David Jones is a former Welsh Secretary and is MP for Clwyd West.

By any measure, the Prime Ministers speech at the Mansion House last Friday was a remarkable achievement. In my book, it was the best she has made, better even than Lancaster House last year. A measure of its strength was that it was welcomed from across the spectrum of Conservative opinion, receiving praise from both Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nicky Morgan.

The speech was notable for its realistic appraisal of the negotiating challenge that the UK faces in securing the sort of deep and comprehensive free trade agreement it seeks with the EU, whilst striking the optimistic tone that many Brexiteers feel has hitherto been absent from Government messaging on the post-withdrawal future.

The Prime Minister was clear that the UK will leave both the Single Market and the Customs Union and cease to be subject to the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, all essential elements of the restoration of parliamentary sovereignty. At the same time, she acknowledged that compromises will have to be made if a trade deal is to be secured. Access to the Single Market would necessarily be less extensive than presently enjoyed. The UK would probably align many of its regulatory standards to those of the EU, seek associate membership of some EU agencies, and be prepared to make a financial contribution to their running costs.

The speech went into considerable detail about alternatives to the Customs Union, the first being a customs partnership, under which the UK would mirror EU duties for goods ultimately intended for the EU market, and the second a streamlined arrangement relying heavily on technology. Refreshingly, there was an acknowledgement that a fudge might be necessary for SME trade between Northern Ireland and the Republic, allowing smaller companies to operate as they do at present, with no further restrictions.

The Prime Minister was keen to point out the strengths that the UK would bring to any future trade relationship. The British medicines regulator currently assesses more new medicines than any other member state. The UK provides around 30 per cent of the broadcast channels available in the EU; and UK-located banks provided more than 1.1 trillion of lending to the rest of the EU in 2015 alone. She made clear that looking only at precedent when negotiating the new relationship would inflict injury on both parties. We need to be imaginative, and look at new solutions.

It was an intensely British speech, full of pragmatic common sense. It deserved the approval it has attracted from across the parliamentary party. To that extent, it was a success, for which the Prime Minister deserves the fullest praise.

The question remains whether the second audience to which it was addressed will have reacted as warmly to the speech. The Prime Minister went out of her way to say that she understood the EUs principles. I have no doubt that she does, and will therefore know just how big a sell it will be to convert the speechs proposals into an agreement.

Initial reactions from the EU have been mixed. The ultra-Europhile Guy Verhofstadt criticised the speech for its lack of serious proposals and accused the Prime Minister of simply putting a few extra cherries on the Brexit cake. He made the entirely otiose observation that the EU is a rules-based organisation and that there was little appetite to renegotiate the rules of the Single Market. Michel Barnier, however, welcomed the clarity that the UK would leave both the customs union and the single market, and also the recognition that trade-offs would be necessary.

It is Verhofstadts comments that are perhaps more indicative of the likely response from the EU. The structures of the Union are regarded as sacrosanct by most member states  not least, and most significantly, Germany.

I recently had a discussion with a very senior German diplomat, during which I pointed out that Germany exported around a million cars annually to the UK. Surely, I said, Germany would want to avoid the imposition of 10 per cent duty on each one of those cars, which would be the case if no trade deal were done. The consequences for the German motor industry would be devastating.

The diplomat politely demurred; I should understand, he told me, that preserving the integrity of the European Union was a greater priority to the German Government than protecting the interests of the countrys motor manufacturers.

He could, of course, have been bluffing. However, I strongly suspect he wasnt. EU politicians speak in almost catechismal terms about the supremacy of the Unions institutions, the sanctity of the four freedoms and the inviolability of the duty of sincere cooperation. We should not underestimate the extent to which our decision to exercise our treaty right to leave has been regarded as blasphemy. Our proposal for a new relationship may well be dismissed as heretical.

We must hope that it is not, and that the sensible terms proposed in the Mansion House speech will be taken up by the EU as the basis of a comprehensive trade deal. If however, they are rejected, then it will not be for the want of goodwill on the part of the Prime Minister.

And, given that the Prime Minister does understand the EUs principles, I have no doubt that she is ensuring that all necessary steps are now being taken to ensure a smooth departure from the EU and an inevitable future trading relationship on WTO terms if the trade deal proves impossible. That means commissioning physical and digital infrastructure and recruiting necessary personnel. It also means offering tangible reassurance to business that such work is being done.

As the Prime Minister observed, change is not to be feared, as long as we face it with a clear-sighted determination to act for the common good. The Mansion House speech was an eloquent expression of British goodwill. Whatever the EU response, we have made clear our determination to pursue a new, global future, ideally on the best of terms with our European neighbours.The local government elections on 3 May will be the first big test of voters opinion since they deprived the Conservatives of their majority in Parliament last June. Among the most closely watched results from the authorities across Britain will be those from the 32 London boroughs.

Ten of these are currently under Conservative control, including the partys two local government flagships: Westminster, run by the Tories since its creation in 1965, and Wandsworth, in Tory hands since 1978, even though, during the Blair years, all three of the boroughs MPs were Labour.

My latest research  including a 3,000-sample poll and focus groups in eight boroughs over the last month  has explored in detail how London voters see things, both locally and nationally, as the May elections approach.

The backdrop to the London elections is not propitious for the Conservatives. In 2017 they lost six of their 27 London seats, four to Labour and two to the Liberal Democrats. Though the partys national vote share rose by 5.5 points to 42.4 per cent, in London it actually fell, while Labours grew by 10.8 per cent, rising in 71 of the capitals 73 constituencies.

The national picture

We found the national political picture looking pretty grim to Londoners, including many of those who voted Conservative in last years general election. Just a quarter  including only six in ten of those who voted Tory last June, and only just over half of Conservatives who voted to remain in the EU  said they approved of the governments record to date.

Conservative voters gave Theresa May a mean performance score of 60 out of 100, while Londoners as a whole gave her 35  compared to 47 for Jeremy Corbyn and 53 for London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who topped the table.

How good is your council?

On a local level, things look slightly more promising for the Tories. People living in Conservative-controlled local authority areas were more likely to say they thought their council was well run, and less likely to think it was badly run, than those in Labour areas.

People in Tory areas were also more likely to say they thought their council was better run than most councils in London. More than four in ten of those who voted Conservative in 2017 in these areas said they thought their council was better than most.

Whos in charge  and does it matter?

However, only around six in ten voters in Conservative and Labour areas could correctly identify the party that ran their local council  though 78 per cent of both Tory voters in Tory authorities and Labour voters in Labour authorities knew who ran things locally.

More to the point, only half of London voters said they thought it made much difference which party ran their local council when it came to the quality of local services, and only four in ten when it came to the level of their local Council Tax. Indeed, only just over half of Conservative voters in Conservative authorities said they thought which party was in charge made a great deal or a fair amount of difference to local services or Council Tax levels.

In fact, even in Conservative local authorities, only a third of all voters and just over half of 2017 Tory voters said they associated the party with better local services; a similar proportion of voters overall and fewer than half of Conservatives associate the party with lower Council Tax. Fewer than one in five of all Tory authority residents, and only one in three 2017 Conservative voters, think of the party as offering both. In our Westminster focus groups, people were well aware of their low Council Tax but often put this down to their councils abundant revenue from parking charges and traffic fines rather than sensible Tory financial management.

What matters in the local elections?

Asked where they put themselves on a scale between thinking the local elections are entirely about local issues and choosing people who will do a good job on the local council, or that they are a chance to show what we think about the parties and leaders and the overall direction of the country, most types of voters were very close to the middle.

Conservatives leaned only very fractionally closer to the local side of the scale than most. As we found in our focus groups, this often reflected a dilemma for previous Tory voters between wanting to express their displeasure, especially over Brexit, and the wish to keep their council in what they regarded as safe hands.

When it came to the issues that would play the biggest part in their local election voting decisions, Londoners as a whole were most likely to name local health services, housing (the biggest single issue for voters aged up to 49), crime, and Britain leaving the EU. Council Tax was the fifth most chosen issue, named by just 23 per cent of voters and 32 per cent of 2017 Conservatives.

For Londoners as a whole, and those who voted Labour in 2017, the best reason to vote Labour in May was that the party stands for things I agree with and that Labour understand and represent people like me. The best reason for voting Conservative was I trust them to set the Council Tax at a sensible level, though this was chosen by only 14 per cent of Londoners (20 per cent of those living in Tory authority areas). In Conservative authorities, four in ten chose this this as a good reason to vote for the party, putting it second behind they stand for things I agree with.

Momentums momentum

Half of all London voters, including more than four in ten of those who voted Labour last year, said they had never heard of Momentum. Of those who had heard of the group, nearly half of 2017 Labour voters said they thought the group was a force for good  often, in focus groups, saying they sounded as though they were taking the party back to its roots and providing some balance to an increasingly right-wing Conservative Party  while only a third thought it sounded like a force for ill.

The battlegrounds

Our analysis found that the 630 wards in the 32 London boroughs can be divided into six types or segments when we take into account demographic factors like age, health, housing tenure and working status, as well as modelled voting behaviour at recent elections.

Three of these are solidly Labour: Stuck in the Capital, dispersed across London, characterised by high levels of deprivation; Mobile Minorities, typically found in East and North West London; and the Barista Belt, comprising young, single professionals and people in social housing in the East and South East of the city. One segment, Sound of the Suburbs, mostly found on the outer ring in places like Bromley, Chingford and Uxbridge, has proved reliably Tory.

The last two, though, will be crucial: Liberally Affluent, largely made up of highly qualified professionals and students in West and West-Central districts, and Village London, clustered in the South West, comprising more settled professionals and families, and with the lowest levels of deprivation among the six types. Both these segments voted heavily to remain in the EU, were decisive in the lost Tory seats of Battersea, Kensington, Kingston and Twickenham, and helped give them a nasty scare in Putney. These are the people who will be going to the polls again in May in the Conservative boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea, Kingston, Richmond, and of course Wandsworth and Westminster.

The full report, Capital Punishment? The Conservative Party and the 2018 Local Elections, is available at LordAshcroftPolls.com, along with full data tables.Lord Flight is Chairman of Flight & Partners Recovery Fund, and is a former Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

Watching The Darkest Hour, I could not help thinking that Halifax and his appeasing Foreign Office colleagues would have been scheming Remainers, versus the Churchill camp struggling for a decent Brexit! The key point is, however, that this is not a darkest hour for the UK. Our underlying negotiating position is strong, both in terms of the EUs trade surplus with the UK of approaching 100 billion per annum, and our already-conceded willingness to pay a huge 40 billion for a decent free trade agreement.

At the outset of the Brexit negotiations my perception was that the EU would play around with bogus reasons why they could not offer an FTA, in order to maximise how much money they could get out of us for eventually agreeing some form of FTA. We now risk entering a delay transition period, no doubt in order to get yet more money out of us. But there is in reality no cliff-edge. It is ultimately up to us as to what we are prepared to accept and not to accept, as the terms of such a transition period.

Personally, I would not agree to implement every new EU law with no vote upon these, and as we will have exited the EU, I would want to get on with concluding trade agreements with other countries. It would be perfectly possible to construct a stripped-down and simplified FTA which could be implemented quickly  if the EU is willing so to do  and, as proposed by Martin Howe QC, there is no need for the UK to stick to the existing tariff regime in all circumstances.

The EUs stance that concluding an FTA between the UK and the EU will be immensely complicated is also a nonsense. Unlike other FTA negotiations, here the two negotiating entities begin from a position of zero tariffs on each others exports and complete regulatory alignment. From this starting point, what is the problem in concluding an FTA? Barnier is setting a scene designed to make life as difficult as possible for the UK, ultimately  I suggest again  in order to extract as much money from us as possible.

It may have been sensible tactics to have agreed so far to the EUs terms, establishing that we are reasonable people; but the time has now come to stand firm. If we cannot get a sensible FTA deal from the EU and if the EU continues to insist on imposing an unnecessary delay transition period, it is time to say no and to leave the EU without an FTA, to negotiate WTO deals with other countries while we begin a process of regulatory reforms.

As Howe has also pointed out previously, there is no legal obligation to pay the EU anything once we have left, and accordingly all payments to the EU should cease from March 2019. The probability must be that the EU would quickly come back to us with acceptable FTA proposals. Like The Darkest Hour this is now a time for conviction and courage, and not compromise and capitulation.

I have found it interesting to note the number of people, and particularly women, praising Theresa May for having to stand up to all the EU flak and downright rudeness. I am a Thatcher Conservative, and I perceive the Prime Minister as a Macmillan Conservative but who is a decent and brave woman. I cannot help thinking that a government headed by her, but with Michael Gove, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson as the key ministers, would be a formidable tank to deal with Barnier and his EU bureaucrats.David Willetts will set out today why the growing burden of paying for health, pensions and social services is unfairly distributed. By 2040, income tax will need to rise by 15p in the pound, or else public debt will be on its way to being 230 per cent of GDP to pay for them, he will say. Richer older retired people are already doing better out of the system than younger poorer working ones  previously, they gained final salary pensions and free university education; now, they possess the lions share of savings and housing. Willetts will argue that intergenerational justice requires that they fund a larger share of services that they themselves use.

This view is as conventional as it is correct. And the former Cabinet Minister has done more than any other politician to help make it so, writing a book, The Pinch, to set out his case in formidable detail. But, as ever, analysing problems is less controversial than posing solutions, and Willetts has two: first, high value properties should provide more council tax and, second, more better off people should pay more inheritance tax, albeit at a lower rate. Indeed, he goes further by arguing that politics is going to be very different as the baby boomers age. The age of tax cuts is over. Instead politics will be about who pays more and how much they pay.

Three distinct but related questions are posed by these ideas.

The first is whether the transaction that Willetts suggests is the best way of funding the need that he identifies. Essentially, the choice for funding welfare boils down to two models. First, those who can afford to pay do so collectively through tax or social insurance. Second, people meet costs as they go  though the state will inevitably, and rightly, play a role in shaping the rules and system, for example by trying to create an insurance market. Andrew Dilnots plan and the Conservative Manifesto proposals of last year were nearer the second model.

The latter bombed. But it might be that had a cap on payments been proposed in the first place, and the pitch for the idea been rolled better, that it would have won voter support, over time. The political risks of spreading the burden of an already unpopular tax, inheritance tax or hitting asset-rich, cash-poor, Tory-inclined voters may be no less great or even greater.

However, Willetts undoubtedly has a point when he suggests that to fund public services, and especially those for which needs are rising, one has to tax something  or many things. Thats why this site ran a three-part series last week on what Tories should tax. As Mark Wallace reminded readers when summing it up, no tax is both popular and good, and some are neither. And as Paul Johnson of the Institute of Fiscal Studies has put it, council tax is deliberately designed to be regressive. Reform is bound to come sooner or later. Mark Field has made a very solid case on this site for additional bands at the top. The trick of making Willetts specific proposal work would be to ensure that funds raised go to help pay for social care.

The second question that his speech raises is what other taxes, or combination of them, might cover the needs that he identifies instead. Our authors last week preferred to tax consumption than income. But we may be near the limits of what can be raised through, say, sin taxes without encouraging smuggling further. An alternative to plucking feathers from geese gradually, in Colberts phrase, is to grab at a lot at once  the opposite of what he advised. So instead of going for new council tax bands, say, government could remove some of the capital gains tax exemptions from property.

From one point of view, these are grossly unfair: if the value of your property rises, it has done so through no merit of your own. From another, removing these exemptions would penalise people from seeking to do the right thing  save, relieve the taxpayer of burdens, and pass on their money to their children. Change would risk the backlash that the Tory manifesto social care proposals receieved, but squared. Instead, government could seek to raise more money from those who dont vote  in other words, who come from other countries. There may be enough empty foreign-owned properties in London to raise some more funds from. Or else more tax could be squeezed out of the social media giants.

Theresa May once said that taxes are the price one pays for living in a civilised society. She was right. Willetts makes the same point indirectly through the proposal that he outlines today. But it doesnt follow that one can simply tax ones way out of a problem. Part of the answer to the rising burden of care for the elderly  or the need to spend more on defence  is to seek to push up the rate of growth of the economy.

Which leads to the third question that Willetts ideas suggest. Obviously, doing so depends upon a great deal more than competitive tax rates  such as providing more infrastructure, transport and housing. None the less, tax is a vital part of the mix. Is there a grand tax bargain with the electorate to be made, whereby some taxes fall while others rise? Might new and higher council tax bands be traded off against tax cuts for poorer workers  such as reductions in national insurance contributions? Should cuts in business rates or corporation tax be prioritised instead?

Such a bargain, of some kind, is our preference. For if the age of tax cuts really is dead, the economy risks falling terminally ill. Delivering reductions would of course require spending control. But thats another story.This site is not available in your countrySince November 2016, Locomotive #17 (which is currently located on the South East corner of Brookdale and Ninth Streets) has become a heated topic. The biggest issue in debate was whether City Council should or should not put money aside to refurbish the Locomotive that evidently needed to be repaired. Doug McOuat from the Ontario Electric Railway Historical Association stated that two of Canadas top Railway Museums consider Locomotive #17 to be in good condition. Both of these museums have over 60 years of experience, and they both have a Cornwall locomotive in their collection.

When the Locomotive was designated as historically significant in 2006 under a heritage designation (designation in the province of Ontario allows municipalities and the provincial government to designate individual properties and districts in the Province of Ontario, as being of cultural heritage value or interest. When a property is designated, it means that the municipal council has the responsibility to protect buildings and properties that are of cultural significance) City Council at that time promised to put $10,000 into the Locomotive to secure its upkeep. They did not keep that promise. However, in June, our current City Council decided to put money aside to refurbish the Locomotive which is estimated to cost approximately $85,000.

The next issue to arise, is that the city believes the Locomotive needs to be moved to another location in Cornwall. The biggest question to follow suit was, where could it be moved to? On February 7, 2018, a survey was released asking the public for their input on where the locomotive should be moved to. Three months prior to, Cornwalls Waterfront Committee began discussing the option of having the Locomotive grace Lamoureux Park. This idea was quickly shot down, and I do not agree or disagree with their decision. Lamoureux Park is a beautiful green area for the public to enjoy, however, most of the land that makes up Lamoureux Park is landfill. This means that the land in Lamoureux Park may not be solid enough to hold the 70-ton Locomotive. If the engine were to be moved to our waterfront area, and it did eventually sink into the ground, lifting it would bring more expenses to the city. The other side to this suggestion, is that the RCAFA building, the Cornwall Community Museum, and the Civic Complex are all heavy buildings that are situated in the park, albeit on grounds that are original  not landfill. Could areas near these places hold the Locomotives weight?

An ideal and historically appropriate location for the Locomotive, would be the Cotton Mill area. In the early 1900s train tracks went directly to this area, and they were used daily. Cornwall grew and thrived on the success of its mills, and a lot of that success can be attributed to the shipping that was done via rail. Restored, the Locomotive would be an important historical addition to this area. The Waterfront committee was concerned that the engine would become a target for graffiti. I believe having the Locomotive in the Cotton Mill area will deter vandals from damaging this piece of history, because it would be under the eyes of the condo dwellers and citizens visiting local businesses in that area.

Cornwall has lost countless of historically significant properties to fires and unpredictable tragedies, but it has unfortunately lost much of its history to neglect. We should be proud of the history that remains in our city, and I believe it would be ideal to do all that we can to protect the history we still have left.CORNWALL, Ontario  The City of Cornwall took the time to remember an former councillor and community organizer on Friday, Feb. 23.

Gerald Chuck Charlebois has left a lasting impact on the City, especially the East End and is being remembered as a community minded man who had a vision to improve his neighbourhood. He sat on City Council three times between 1986-1988, 1992 to 1994 and 1995 to 1997,

Charlebois passed away on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018 at the age of 69 after a long illness.

His DNA is all over the East End, said Cornwall City Councillor Claude McIntosh. He was a man who did more than dream, he was a man of action and the Cotton Mills wouldnt have happened with out him.

Charlebois was a key player in the redevelopment of the old Cotton Mills by the waterfront in Cornwall and he was honoured in October with having a part of the waterfront bike path named after him.

The City of Cornwall has really lost an advocate for moving this city forward, commented Mayor Leslie OShaughnessy.

Centretown Coordinator Todd Lihou said that Charlebois would be remembered in Le Village as a force for positive change.

Chuck was such a force for positive change in our community, he said. Whether it was development in Le Village, the waterfront or the Cotton Mills, Chucks fingerprints are all over the positive projects now underway or completed in Cornwall. Le Village has finalized plans to erect two arches on the bicycle path that will denote the new Chuck Charlebois Recreational Trail. This portion of the bike path, running from Marlborough Street to St. Lawrence College is a perfect location to honour Chucks legacy, as it runs directly adjacent to the waterfront lands chuck fought so hard to see developed.

Friday afternoon, at the City of Cornwalls Budget Steering Committee meeting, Councillor Denis Carr asked the room for a moment of silence to remember Chuck Charlebois.

Canadian flags at municipal buildings were lowered to half-mast out of respect to Charlebois on Friday.CORNWALL, Ontario  Princess Elsa, Snow White, and Cinderella made a special appearance at the Cornwall Civic Centre last Sunday, February 4th of 2018, for the 4th annual Kinette Cornwall Princess Ball.

This year the ball sold out with more than 220 guests, and an estimated 6000$ raised by the group for the Boys and Girls Club and cystic fibrosis.

Princesses from all over gathered to raise funds by providing children with a number of events such as face painting, a carriage photo booth, and of course ballroom dancing.

The Cornwall Kinette club has continued to grow the event since its conception in 2014 and already has plans for 2019.

Melodie Lemoeligou with the Kinette club helped organize the event and has next years ball scheduled.

I am just so excited by the faces of the little kids when their names are announced at the door, and they see all the magic. Thats what is; all about the kids, said Lemoeligou.

With most of the guests and volunteers dressing as their favourite Disney characters it was like a scene from a fairy tale.

The Kinette club is a service club that has been in Cornwall for 75 years and made up most of the volunteer staff helping with the event.

Its a fun day and a lot of work, but fun work! said Sue Caron, a life member with the Kinette Club of Cornwall.

Caron dressed as one of the fairy godmothers from Cinderella while many of the princes and princesses were played local high school students.

The Kinette Club of Cornwall has their date said for next years ball and is already selling tickets so be sure to book ahead.Find the full online version of the magazine here.

CORNWALL, Ontario  The Nav Centre was full of excitement after the much anticpated cover to the tenth edition of the Cornwall Living Magazine was revealed.

Melanie Brulee, a born and raised musician from Cornwall, graced the cover of the magazine this year.

She is a great example of what Cornwall can offer people and where they can go given the opportunities offered here, said Bob Peters of Choose Cornwall. Everywhere she plays she is an ambassador for Cornwall.

Seaway News General Manager Rick Shaver explained the goals of this years edition of the magazine.

In todays edition, the 24th in our series of business magazines and the tenth anniversary of Cornwall Living, we celebrate what makes you want to choose Cornwall, he said.

He also highlighted some of the great stories to come out of Cornwall that the magazine was able to tell.

Its about how a family taking a ship from England to Canada in 1867 resulted in that family settling in Cornwall and 150 years later, a great grandson appeared as a Mouseketeer and now is a household name and successful movie star, he said. We look at how a young lady from Cornwall, Melanie Brulee is making a name for herself in the ever-changing world of music. How a local lad, Brian McCourt, is now a star of HGTVs Backyard Builds. I bet you didnt know he was from here and he used to serve you popcorn at Galaxy theatre, he continued. Those are just a few of the headlines in this magazine. There is so much more.

Finally, Shaver thanked those who made the magazine possible who were in attendance.

I get to do all the talking, but its the hard work of Bob Peters and Colleen ( Parette ). Thank you to both of you for once again your continued hard work and effort on the development of this magazine, he said. To all the staff, your efforts paid off this year as we once again outdid ourselves and have produced, I believe, and award-winning magazine.CORNWALL, Ontario  The Heritage fair came to the Cornwall Square to celebrate the vast history of the region on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2018.

Debbie Ledoux played a major role in putting the fair together by gathering numerous associations throughout the area, including the Akwesasne Genealogy, Dalkeith Historical Society, and the Loyal Orange Association of Canada to name a few.

The fair has been held steadily for 10 years by the work of the Municipal Heritage Committee of Cornwall that is chaired by Marjorie Vallee.

This year we have fourteen different associations, more than we have ever had in the past, so we are really impressed with the turnout, said Marjorie Vallee.

Many of the displays showcased the history of Cornwall with its countless buildings and heritage sites.

I love our community! The fact that this region is literally the founding of Ontario and in many ways the founding of Canada cant go much deeper than that, explained Don Smith, the Manager and Associate Curator of the Cornwall Community Museum

The fair was a great way for those who are new to the community or are part of the younger generations to delve into the past.CORNWALL, Ontario  Lauren Seguin, 22, of Cornwall was arrested on Feb. 26, 2018 and charged with impaired operation of a motor vehicle and over 80.

It is alleged the woman was operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol on Feb. 26, 2018 when her car struck a hydro pole on Eleventh St. Police were contacted, attended the scene and took the woman into custody. She was charged accordingly and released to appear in court on March 13, 2018.

ASSAULT, BREACH, CRIMINAL HARASSMENT

CORNWALL, Ontario  A 20-year-old Cornwall woman was arrested on Feb. 22, 2018 and charged with assault, criminal harassment and breach of recognizance for communicating with her ex-boyfriend and being within 200 meters of where he might be. It is alleged while in the area of Marlborough St. and Second St. on Dec. 31, 2017 the woman communicated with her ex-boyfriend, assaulted a woman he was with then followed them in her car. Police were contacted and an investigation ensued. On Feb. 22, 2018 the woman attended police headquarters to deal with the matter. She was taken into custody, charged accordingly and held for a bail hearing. Her name was not released as it would identify the victims in the matter.

BREAK AND ENTER

CORNWALL, Ontario  Jamie Garlow, 25, of Cornwall was arrested on Feb. 22, 2018 and charged with break and enter. It is alleged on Oct. 23, 2017 the man entered a residence without permission and police were contacted to investigate. On Feb. 22, 2018 the man was taken into custody, charged accordingly and released to appear in court on April 3, 2018.

WARRANT

CORNWALL, Ontario  An 18-year-old Cornwall man was arrested on Feb. 23, 2018 on the strength of a warrant. It is alleged the man failed to attend court on Feb. 22, 2018 for breach of a youth probation order charge and a warrant was issued for his arrest. On Feb. 23, 2018 the man attended police headquarters to deal with the matter. He was taken into custody on the strength of the warrant and held for a bail hearing. His name was not released as per provision of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

MISCHIEF, BREACH

CORNWALL, Ontario  Chantal Turcotte, 49, of Cornwall was arrested on Feb. 23, 2018 and charged with mischief and breach of undertaking for communicating with a certain person and failing to keep the peace. She was also charged with breach of probation for failing to keep the peace. It is alleged on Feb. 8, 2018 the woman attended the residence of the person she is to have no contact with and damaged a window. Police were contacted and an investigation ensued. On Feb. 23, 2018 the woman attended police headquarters to deal with the matter. She was taken into custody, charged accordingly and held for a bail hearing.

BREACH

CORNWALL, Ontario  A 26-year-old Cornwall man was arrested on Feb. 23, 2018 and charged with breach of undertaking for communicating with his ex-girlfriend, being within 100 meters of her and for failing to keep the peace. It is alleged the man was found to be in breach of his conditions when police were investigating an unrelated matter on Feb. 23, 2018. He was taken into custody, charged accordingly and held for a bail hearing. His name was not released as the conditions stem from a domestic incident and would identify the victim in the matter.

IMPAIRED, OVER 80

CORNWALL, Ontario  Jodi Adams, 45, of Akwesasne was arrested on Feb. 24, 2018 and charged with impaired operation of a motor vehicle and over 80. It is alleged the man was operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol on Feb. 24, 2018 when he was stopped at the Port of Entry. Police were contacted and took the man into custody. He was charged accordingly and released to appear in court on March 13, 2018.

CARE AND CONTROL

CORNWALL, Ontario  Barbara Southwind, 41, of North Bay was arrested on Feb. 25, 2018 and charged with care and control. It is alleged on Feb. 25, 2018 the woman was found to be in care and control of a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol when police responded to a suspicious vehicle call. She was taken into custody, charged accordingly and released to appear in court on March 13, 2018.

POSSESSION OF A PROHIBITED WEAPON, BREACH OF A PROHIBITION ORDER

CORNWALL, Ontario  Zachary Myers, 21, of Cornwall was arrested on Feb. 25, 2018 and charged with possession of brass knuckles and breach of a prohibition order for being in possession of the weapon. It is alleged the man was found to be in possession of brass knuckles when he was stopped at the Port of Entry on Feb. 25, 2018. Police were contacted and an investigation ensued. During the investigation the man was taken into custody, charged accordingly and released to appear in court on April 3, 2018.AKWESASNE  The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Council declared a State of Emergency in the Territory of Akwesasne at around 5 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 22.

The declaration of a State of Emergency is pursuant to the inherent power of the Tribe to act in the best interest of tribal members, noted Tribal Chief Eric Thompson. He added, We take immense responsibility in protecting public safety and the welfare of all community members, particularly those that are currently being impacted by flooding.

The Tribal Council signed the order to declare the State of Emergency because they believe that there is an imminent threat to the lives and property within their territory due to rising water levels and ice jams.

We want all of our community members to please be safe during the flooding, stated Tribal Chief Beverly Cook. She added, Residents being impacted by the high water level should exercise caution and evacuate, if you have not already done so.

On Wednesday, the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe (SRMT) enacted a precautionary and non-mandatory evacuation of the affected areas, that area includes the east and west of the St. Regis River from Helena/North Road to the northern border of the Tribes jurisdiction.

The voluntary evacuation order will remain in effect until Saturday, as ice jams clear and waters recede.

We continue to encourage community members to please be prepared for any type of natural hazard, said Tribal Chief Michael Conners. He added, Please follow instructions provided by our communitys first responders and develop your own familys emergency preparedness plan, which may require being unable to return to your home for several days.

A Unified Incident Command Post comprising Tribes Emergency Planning Office, Saint Regis Mohawk Tribal Police Department and the Hogansburg-Akwesasne Volunteer Fire Department and county and state agencies has been setup to monitor the flooding.

Those interested in contiued flood updates are asked to tune into 97.3fm CKON, the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribes Facebook page and Akwesasne TV.With the promise of easy migration of workloads from one cloud provider to another, container technology is quickly becoming a technology the channel cannot afford to ignore, solution providers said.

Brandon Ebken, chief technology officer at Tampa, Fla.-based solution provider Cardinal Solutions, said solution providers need to start adopting container skill sets and offerings or risk losing clients to competitors.

"If you're a managed service provider and you're not adopting containers today, your competitors are coming in [saying], 'We're adopting containers and improving our SLAs and delivery model,' and they're selling that to customers," said Ebken, during an executive session Sunday at XChange Solution Provider 2018. "Or there's a system integrator, like us, whos coming in and talking to customers about, 'Here's how we're going to modernize your company in the public cloud.' And we're talking about containers and orchestrating from there."

There are a slew of service opportunities solution providers can build on container technology around application modernization, automation and improving continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) for customers. The technology's purpose is to significantly improve the complexities surrounding applications, processes and infrastructure, Ebken said.

[Related: XChange Solution Provider 2018]

Ebken said containers can now be characterized as a virtualized application, with the biggest market disruption coming from open-source container platform Kubernetes.

"Kubernetes is taking the whole industry by storm," said Ebken. "Every single person on our team delivering any type of IT services has to understand Kubernetes. Kubernetes has become the absolute critical foundation because it is the future for deploying applications."

Kubernetes is an open-source platform for the deployment, scaling and management of containerized applications. Originally launched by Google, other vendors like Microsoft and Red Hat have taken over Kubernetes leadership.

Cincinnati, Ohio-based Cardinal Solutions, who was named Microsoft's 2017 Worldwide Partner of The Year for Open Source on Azure, has been winning with Kubernetes for years. He said every single public cloud provider  from Amazon to IBM -- now has a native Kubernetes platform service.

One reason why the container technology has caught on so rapidly over the past 12 months is because it's easy to transition services from one vendor to another. "We're not locking ourselves into any one of these public cloud providers," said Ebken. "So if I start deploying something on the Google Kubernetes service, it's pretty easy for me to move those assets over to the Azure's Kubernetes service because it's all rooted in open source."

Stephen Evans, director of operations for the Orlando, Fla.-based solution provider APYL, attended the executive session and agreed with Ebken regarding how container technology, such as Kubernetes, is disrupting the industry at a rapid pace.

"How it orchestrates everything together, I dont want to say it's necessary revolutionary, but it's definitely something that companies want because it helps them to have better uptime, a better product in the end, and better workflow," said Evans. "So instead of having a pain point, for example, like not having a testing environment, they can replicate that testing environment easy. They can deploy it in Google and others by the second."

Cardinal's Ebken said every type of solution provider needs to either adopt or accelerate their company's container strategy given its ability to easily package an application's code, configurations and dependencies into simple building blocks.

"Whether youre a system integrator, MSP, ISV, whether you're focused on applications, data, infrastructure  this is a hot trend across every one of those," he said.Executives looking to create a culture of innovation must stop focusing on artifacts and espoused values and instead address a business's holy grails and lived values, according to a renowned leadership expert.

Northwestern University Associate Dean Bernard Banks said that culture often morphs from supporting the execution of strategy to determining the actual strategy itself in organizations that have been around for a long time. Banks is a retired Army brigadier general, and previously led West Point's department of behavioral sciences and leadership.

"Culture is this invisible force that everyday guides our actions, in ways that sometimes we're very cognizant of," said Banks Sunday at XChange Solution Provider 2018, hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company. "Many other times, we're not actually aware of how the culture is influencing our actions."

[RELATED: XChange: Solution Providers Predict Record Growth In 2018, Expecting Biggest Sales Bang Since The Dot.com Boom]

Businesses looking for a quick fix to their cultural shortcomings often turn to artifacts, which include visible structures and processes such as logos, typefaces or dress codes. Even though companies spend an inordinate amount of time focused on artifacts, Banks cautioned that changes here can never permanently alter an organization's culture.

"Artifacts matter," Banks said at the Loews Sapphire Falls Resort in Orlando. "But artifacts are not where cultural change truly resides."

Espoused values are the formal statements made by a company about why they do what they do, and are often put onto laminated business cards or displayed prominently in corporate headquarters. These typically include statements such as "we have a deep and abiding respect for the customer," or "we believe in financial integrity," according to Banks.

Far more information than espoused values, though, are the values in use, or the behaviors that organizations really reward on a daily basis, Banks said. Good organizations have one-to-one congruence, Banks said, meaning that the values they state are actually the ones they live by.

But in many organizations, Banks said there's a divergence, with businesses afflicted by an unhealthy culture typically suffering from a tremendous divergence here. For instance, Banks said he was once employed by a financial services company that claimed to treat everyone with dignity, but was told by colleagues that would need to be combative in order to get ahead.

"Leaders should focus on the values in use, not what's printed on the laminate," Banks said. "The laminate is always going to be great, but those values in use can many times be different."

Businesses almost never start out with the intent to be nefarious, Banks said, but instead suffer from a slow and steady uncoupling of their espoused values from the values in use. This is the reason why companies like Uber, Volkswagen and Wells Fargo ended up in trouble, according to Banks.

"As leaders, you always have to ask, 'What are our values in use today?' Banks said. "Because if you're not keeping an eye on them, they can quickly get away from you."

At the root of culture are a company's underlying assumptions, or the most holy 'thou shalls' and 'thou shall nots' of an organization, Banks said. They usually pre-date the leader's arrival, Banks said, but always influence how people view right and wrong.

As a result, Banks said businesses that try to imitate a move made by someone else in the industry often face strong internal pushback since the action is perceived to violate one of the organization's underlying assumptions.

"If you try to institute something inside your firm that violates one of the 'thou shalls,' you will have a hard time making it happen," Banks said.

In order to have a culture of innovation, Banks said leaders must embrace creativity, engagement, risk-taking, and customer focus by embedding those values in use, supporting them through the company's underlying assumptions, and making structural decisions that allow these practices to flourish.

From a creativity standpoint, Banks said businesses should focus on being open to new ways of doing things. As far as engagement is concerned, Banks said employees should want to be involved and proactively ask how they can help rather than simply pointing fingers.

Businesses should also ensure they're avoiding dumb risks, or uncalculated experiment that could cripple a company if they're unsuccessful, Banks said. Instead, Banks said they should seek out smart risks where the risk factors are understood from the get go, mitigation initiatives are put in place, and the organization can absorb the loss if the experiment doesn't turn out as it was hoped for.

"You have to continually foster smart risk," Banks said. "You should never underwrite dumb risk, but you have firms that do."

Success resides in being relentless in attempting to address the needs of customers, Banks said. Companies should stay away from becoming enamored with what they're currently doing and searching far and wide for customers that value that, according to Banks.

Finally, Banks said organizations need great leadership teams that drive innovation. Specifically, Banks said that effective leaders underwite smart risk, maintain an obsessive focus on the customer, allow creativity to flourish, and avoid shooting down ideas all the time.

Saratoga Technologies has excelled at living its core values, with everybody from network technicians and software engineers to executives and salespeople on the same page around why the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based solution provider does what it does, according to Jennifer Patterson, employee support specialist.

Upon returning home, Patterson said she plans to pay more attention to how risk-taking is rewarded or discouraged within the business.

As a business leader, Boca Raton, Fl.-based Computers Plus President Norman Rosner said he needs to make sure that reality aligns with the company's stated values and that he reacts quickly whenever something goes wrong. Rosner believes he can most effectively model the company's values by publicly owning any mistakes he makes and taking concrete and tangible steps to avoid a repeat incident.

"You have to practice what you preach," Rosner said.

Video by Diana Blass.Discovery and service mapping specialist iQuate is seeking new channel partners to onboard who want to make cloud migration simpler for customers.

"We can discover all your business applications across a data center or hybrid cloud type environment, so within minutes, you get a complete map of those applications and the supporting infrastructure," said Fred Johannessen, vice president of alliances for iQuate, at XChange Solution Provider 2018. "Today to get the same results, you as an MSP or service provider have to go interview folks, look at out of date information on Excel spreadsheets and CMDBs (configuration management database). Whereas, within minutes  you can get that map using our product."

iQuate's flagship product iQcloud provides a digital management platform to automate discovery and service mapping across complex hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

[Related: Solution Providers: Container Tech, Particularly Kubernetes, Is 'Taking The Whole Industry By Storm']

The software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution targets cloud migration and digital transformation projects for MSPs, giving partners agentless discovery of IT environments for a unified view of businesses services before moving to the cloud, according to Johannessen.

"Literally, if you have a 500 or 1,000 server environment, you'll get results within half an hour to an hour at the most," said Johannessen.

The Ireland-based company, with U.S. headquarters in Los Gatos, Calif., is actively searching to onboard new MSPs in North America and Europe. Johannessen said solution providers could quickly become partners with training only taking a few days.

iQCloud is also a member of Cisco's Solution Partner Program with iQCloud supporting Cisco CloudCenter for fast migration of business-critical applications. The company is led by CEO Patrick McNally, who was previously Global Sales Leader for SoftwareONE, as well as Director of Global Segment for Dell for its EMEA market.Partners stand to make 25 percent margins selling Intermedia's new Unite Unified Communications-as-a-Service platform as the vendor sets its sights on doubling in size in the next three years and dominating the SMB UCaaS market.



"I'm looking to go deeper with our partners, to build a business," Intermedia Chief Revenue Officer Eric Martorano told CRN at The Channel Company's XChange Solution Provider 2018 event in Orlando, Fla., Monday. "I'm looking for an opportunity for Intermedia to become a greater share of our partners' business. To do that we have to put the right product in the market, but also enable those partners to be successful. The only way we're going to double our business is with partners by our side and going deeper with them."

Intermedia's new Unite UCaaS platform is vital to its growth strategy, and Mark Sher, the Mountain View, Calif., company's vice president of unified communications products and marketing, said he expects partners to make 25 percent margins selling the offering. Unite is available to partners at between $15 and $20 per month, per user, Sher said.



The UCaaS market is expected to grow at about a 20 percent annual rate to about $15 billion in five years, Martorano noted during an XChange keynote. In the process, privately held Intermedia has its sights set on doubling in size in the next three years, and putting distance between itself and competitors like 8X8 and Ring Central, Martorano told CRN.



Partners will be crucial to achieving that goal, Martorano said, and the company, which does about 80 percent of its business through the channel today, is committed to a partner-focused strategy.



"Our competitors say they focus on the channel, but at the end of the day, it's a lot of talk," Martorano said. "With Intermedia, what you'll see is action. We're present in over 30 channel industry events, by far greater than any of our competitors. We won't attend a direct event without our channel. It's 100 percent commitment to the channel community. We have resources in readiness, in the concierge desk, in marketing and partner account managers, field resources, all 100 percent dedicated to the channel. That's something that none of our competitors can talk about."



The Unite platform is an all-inclusive cloud-based phone system that integrates desk phone, mobile phone and desktop technologies, including videoconferencing, collaboration, voice-mail transcription, fax, storage and cloud backup. The system carries a 99.999 percent service-level agreement, and users can set their own SLAs when dealing with their customers, Sher said. The systems can be configured and ordered online, and Intermedia is including a variety of training and enablement options for partners in the system's base price.

Unite can also be sold either as an Intermedia product, or under partners' own brands. In the private-label version, partners set prices on a deal-by-deal basis and do their own billing.



Intermedia provides sales and technical support for the platform, a sales concierge desk for partners, as well as customer on-boarding and training.



By including a complete suite of partner training, enablement and support services, Intermedia is hoping to take some of the confusion and uncertainty out of UCaaS, and prompt more of its 6,600 existing partners that aren't yet selling UCaaS to get in on the opportunity, Martorano said.



"It's about getting over the fear of getting involved because of the complexity, the perceived complexity, because it's really not," Martorano said. "If you're going in all by yourself, it could be complex. If you don't have a partner like Intermedia it might be difficult, but at the end of the day we make it so easy. Our model makes it easy for the channel partner to get involved. Some partners aren't even used to a recurring revenue model, so it's moving their business to a recurring revenue stream. We help the partners through that entire process.



"We have north of 6,000 partners, but not all of them are selling UCaaS today," Martorano said. "So just within our partner base, we have an opportunity to recruit and take partners along on the UCaaS journey. We started off as a hosted Exchange company, and over the years we transformed. Now we're moving to this unified communications and collaboration company. There are still a lot of partners that are just doing email, or just doing security and compliance. ... Within that 6,000, there's such a huge opportunity to get partners to move."



Intermedia's message resonated with Bernard Devroe, director of IoT and cybersecurity at CieloIT, a Lubbock, Texas, solution provider that works with one of Intermedia's competitors. Devroe said the simplicity and potential profitability of the Intermedia Unite offering could convince CieloIT to switch to Intermedia for UC.



"We're not a partner currently. We're with another vendor, but they've been having some issues," Devroe said. "We've been looking for another provider in case we decide to leave them." Intermedia's all-inclusive platform and commitment to drive it profitably through the channel while providing comprehensive support, services and partner enablement grabbed Devroe's attention.

"It stands out because it seems like they're going to help us more than our current provider does, and that kind of reliability is important to us," he said. "My philosophy is keep it simple, and if we can simplify it to the point where customers feel empowered to make changes on their own, I'm all for it."Cruise Industry News talks to Wartsilas Vice President of Services, Area America, Walter Reggente, about the companys 12-year performance-based maintenance agreement with Carnival Corporation.

First, can you walk us through what has been the experience and impact after the first year of the 12-year agreement with Carnival?

A key component in the agreement between Carnival and Wartsila is our Performance Based Logistics (PBL) model, which enhances the co-operation and transparency between Wartsila and Carnival. As a result of this model, Wartsila and Carnival are collaborating much more closely and effectively. Together, we can showcase unique ways of working in the maritime industry. We can also take advantage of many new opportunities provided by e.g. digitalization. Even though the main impact of this cooperation focuses on safety, optimized performance, and efficiency (fuel savings), we must also highlight the reduced environmental footprint our partnership provides.

Thanks to our longer-than-usual agreement, the joint Wartsila-Carnival Team has the ability to understand better how to improve the reliability, efficiency, and safety of the vessels. This strengthened involvement of Wartsila in vessel operation has enabled a new level of collaboration. We have introduced a range of modern features and best practices, such as innovation of products, improved maintenance practices, supply chain logistics, remote support, and consistent interaction between the vessel, Carnival technical department, and Wartsila.

Can you point out any concrete examples of benefits having been achieved so far?

A dedicated end-to-end Wartsila organization has been created, specifically tailored to become fully integrated with Carnival to meet the PBL requirements. There are dedicated teams to manage all operational and logistical aspects, as well as teams committed to developing systems, products, and best practices to meet or exceed the targets we have jointly set out with Carnival. Engine maintenance planning has been centralized, covering the entire Carnival fleet of Wartsila engines across all Carnival brands globally. This is achieved thanks to the seamless coordination and structured communication between the local and global teams, respectively. This is a new level of partnership, which is already delivering positive results benefiting both Wartsila and Carnival.

A significant focus area for both Wartsila and Carnival has also been the optimization of all processes involved; with the ultimate objective being continuous improvement of the assets on board the vessels.

Another important point is the integrated remote connection to Carnivals vessels from Wartsilas Customer Centers. We have co-developed a system to monitor data from the vessels remotely. By analyzing the collected data, we are able to identify opportunities for improving efficiency. This is another example of how two companies can be more effective while saving time and costs through an integrated and transparent approach.

During the first months of the co-operation, Wartsilas engineers, in collaboration with each vessels crew and technical staff, have performed a comprehensive technical evaluation of the entire Carnival fleet of Wartsila engines. This was done to guarantee that the engines are up to date with respect to the latest technical standards applicable to each particular engine type.

Covering 79 vessels and 400 engines, what are the performance criteria and metrics you are monitoring?

The performance criteria are enabled by the installation of accurate measurement systems performed by Wartsila onboard the Carnival vessels. The Wartsila measurement systems monitor fuel efficiency at different engine workloads and different weather conditions. The continuous monitoring of the engine, vessel, and weather parameters allows Wartsila to tune and maintain the engine according to real needs. This enables Carnival to save on fuel costs while mitigating the risks of unplanned maintenance. Improved efficiency allows Carnival and Wartsila to share incentives according to a designed model and also enables Wartsila to improve the whole logistical and technical chain to obtain the planned targets.

Are these criteria and metrics the same across the fleet, or do they vary with the powerplant configurations and deployment of the ships?

The objective is to optimize the efficiency of each individual engine in the Carnival fleet, in terms of SFOC (Specific Fuel Oil Consumption) reduction, measured at regular intervals throughout the agreement period. The goal is to ensure that each particular engine reaches its lowest achievable level of SFOC, thus reducing the total amount of fuel consumed by the aggregate fleet of engines, which ultimately translates into cost savings for Carnival.

How does it actually work - where does the data stream go and how is it flagged, if needed, and then what happens and how?

The engines are equipped with sensors to measure all relevant parameters, such as temperatures, pressures, and speed data as well as the individual fuel consumption of each engine. The data is then transmitted from the vessel to the cloud system and further from the cloud to the Wartsila Customer Centers, where all parameters and their trends are visualized. Any anomaly in the data readings is detected and presented to a team of Wartsila experts, who can react with immediate troubleshooting and remedial actions, which are communicated to both Wartsila and Carnival local operations.

Can you explain how the so-called shared financial incentives and exposure work?

The agreement with Carnival includes shared incentives and promotes shared targets like the safety, quality, efficiency, and reliability of the engine room, resulting in improved availability and more efficient vessel operation.

With this agreement, Wartsila will perform certain particular maintenance activities and performance upgrades on the engines in order to reduce their SFOC. As a result of the SFOC reduction, the savings for Carnival on the total fuel cost are calculated, based on the agreed contractual process. Carnival will share the calculated fuel savings amount with Wartsila on a periodic basis, based on certain percentages agreed upon and set out in the agreement. This represents an incentive for both Wartsila and Carnival to constantly find opportunities for improving the fuel efficiency of engines.

What are the benefits of having Wartsilas maintenance planning (DMP) and condition-based maintenance (CBM) systems? Couldnt Carnival do this themselves through their Fleet Operations Centers?

Dynamic Maintenance Planning and Condition Based Maintenance entails a combination of (i) remote technical analysis performed by engine and systems experts in Wartsila, (ii) data comparison against fleet benchmarks built utilizing Wartsilas global engine installed base, (iii) historical maintenance logs, and (iv) on-site power plant inspections whereby specific engine components and systems are checked for condition. The outcome is that engine maintenance is performed when needed, allowing flexible maintenance schedule, guaranteeing maximum safety, and minimizing risk for engine failures. Carnival will also monitor engine performance data.

Is this a unique maintenance agreement for Wartsila or does the company have similar agreements with other shipping companies?

Wartsila has considerable experience in service agreements and currently several full comprehensive maintenance agreements in force with both marine and power plant customers globally. These include agreements that have incentives linked to specific KPIs. However, the fuel efficiency program with shared incentives, the size and composition of the Carnival fleet of engines being maintained, and the level of cooperation between Carnival and Wartsila are key factors, which make this agreement between Carnival and Wartsila a unique in the industry.Thordon Bearings announced it will celebrate the 20th anniversary of its first ever water-lubricated shaft installations on cruise ships.

This May will mark twenty-years since Thordon Bearings water-lubricated propeller shaft bearings were first installed onboard Princess Cruises Grand Princess and Disney Cruise Lines Disney Magic, the company said.

"Since those very first installations, the sector has become a major proponent of the conventional water-lubricated propeller shaft design, with 32 ocean-going cruise ships currently operating the Thordon system and 11 more on order," said the company, in a prepared statement.

Commenting on the sectors adoption of the technology, Thordon Bearings President and Chief Executive Officer Terry McGowan, said: Environmental protection is of course high on the list of priorities for cruise ship owners, but system reliability, reduced operational expenditure and maintenance are other key factors influencing the purchasing decision.

During their years of continuous service, neither Grand Princess nor Disney Magic, or for that matter, any other cruise ship operating Thordons water lubricated propeller shaft systems, have experienced downtime, cancellations or changes to cruise itineraries due to bearing failure, which cannot be said of other propulsion arrangements.

While the original bearings on the Grand Princess were replaced like-for-like during a major refit in December 2016, after 18.5 years of continuous service, the Disney ship continues to operate with the original polymer bearings to this day, the company said.

Andy Wright, Fleet Operations Director, Technical Operations, Princess Cruises, said: During the vessels scheduled drydocking in 2013, class surveyors found the COMPAC bearings to be still fit for purpose but recommended changing them at the next drydocking in 2019. We decided to replace all four bearings in 2016 during Grands extensive refit at the Vigor floating dock in Portland, Oregon.A busy week in the cruise industry kicks off on Monday in Florida. A look at the early news:

**The MSC Fantasia became the biggest ship ever to call in Scarborough, Tobago, when it made its inaugural call on March 1 (pictured above).

**Following recently signed agreements to operate duty-free shops aboard the Carnival Horizon, Symphony of the Seas and Celebrity Edge, Starboard Cruise Services announced it will have 360,000 square feet of retail space on cruise ships by 2020, representing 750 brands on more than 90 ships.

**Carnival Cruise Line announced that Queen Latifah will christen the Carnival Horizon in Manhattan in May.

**Due to strong winds and sea swells, the Port of Palm Beach is closed on Monday, and Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line has elected to use Port Everglades for a turnaround for the Grand Celebration. The line is using buses to get guests back and forth to Palm Beach. The ship is expected back in Palm Beach after a two-day cruise, docking on Wednesday morning.

**With the Adonia making its last call in Trinidad, the ship prepared a cake in the colors of the national flag for the event. The ship has been sold to Azamara and will re-launch as the Azamara Pursuit this summer after a lengthy refit orchestrated by MJM. Carvalho's Agencies was the port agent for the vessels final stop in Trinidad for P&O Cruises.

**Scottish ports are looking to build on a record year for cruise traffic in 2017 that saw 761 vessels calls and 680,600 passengers. There are currently 815 vessels and around 821,000 passengers expected in a season which gets underway this month and continues well into the fall, according to Cruise Scotland.EAST WINDSOR  Its fun when bulldozers tear down useless buildings, and thats what the Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes started doing up in East Windsor on Monday as they plan a casino at the site of movie theater that never should have been built.

Too bad theyre not blowing up the old Showcase Cinemas; that would have made better pictures.

When will the casino open? The chairmen of the tribes said it will happen in 24 months. In fact, it could take eight years to slog through two federal lawsuits, financing and actual construction.

Consider: Monday was also the day the state and the tribes were due to file briefs in a federal lawsuit against the Department of the Interior in their effort to win final approval of changes to the states 25-year-old compact with the tribes. That case is a reminder that the tribes  operating jointly as MMCT Venture  are nowhere near being able to build the casino along I-91.

The eight-year figure is based on a realistic timeline if the lawsuits drag on, which is exactly what MGM Resorts International wants to see as the Las Vegas company opens its MGM Springfield Casino this fall.

We dont know what the gaming landscape will even look like in six or eight years.

Why so long? First, were talking about the tribes and the state suing a Trump administration that seems opposed to the change, although the tribes, the governor and Connecticuts U.S. senators all say the change is legally sound.

Then were looking at MGM re-filing its 2015 lawsuit claiming the state violated its constitutional right to bid on the proposal.

Recall, the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York threw out that lawsuit, saying MGM didnt have standing because Connecticut hadnt granted MMCT a license. Well, now MMCT has that license and MGM most likely has standing and can file the lawsuit  after the current federal squabble over approval ends, perhaps in 2019 or 2020.

That MGM lawsuit could easily take three years. Then MMCT, if it wins or settles favorably, could line up financing to build East Windsor. And that $300 million project could take a couple of years to open just from that point.

The mood was bright under a partly sunny sky at the site on Monday, as a crowd of union workers and politicians watched the bulldozers take their bites.

Kevin Brown and Rodney Butler, the tribal chairmen of the Mohegan Tribe and the Mashantucket Tribal Nation, respectively, not only declared a two-year timeline to actually open  based on the tribes moving ahead despite the lawsuits  but also promised they will hire at least 350 people from Hartford, 150 from East Hartford and 175 from surrounding towns.

Jobs are the calling card. Later this week, lawmakers in the General Assembly will hear comments on a new bill that would revoke the East Windsor license and open casino development to bids  from MMCT, MGM, Wynn, Caesars or you and me.

MGM hopes that will lead to approval of its $675 million plan for Bridgeport, a sensible place to build a casino considering proximity to New York.

But the open-bidding bill, a.k.a. the MGM bill, has a low chance of passing as long as it revokes the East Windsor casino license. Theyre asking a majority of the House and Senate to undo what they did last year in a bitterly fought bill in which MMCT promised jobs and revenue for Connecticut.

MMCT wanted to make sure to get a wall or two knocked down ahead of the hearing. Active bulldozers look like progress.

In fact, we have a stalemate. Absent a negotiated deal, were likely to see nothing in Bridgeport and nothing in East Windsor anytime soon.

It might not take the full eight years. Two years? Thats a wildly optimistic schedule from the partnership that took two years to pick a town.

But it sure is fun watching the movie theater walls come tumbling down.How does an airline feed 250 passengers for 19 hours? How does it keep rice or noodles moist for that long? Serve a perfectly cooked medium rare steak on the plane? Or ensure that food is tasty, beautiful and fresh after making its way halfway around the world from kitchen to truck to plane to airplane seat?

Singapore Airlines invited SFGATE cameras out to its inflight kitchens for a look at how it pulls off this amazing feat for some of the longest flights in the world.

Once a quarter, chefs, airline executives and accountants gather in a nondescript beige building next to a Hampton Inn in Millbrae, California. They are there to view, taste and discuss the meals served on Singapore Airlines long haul flights to Asia.

This ritual has recently taken on added importance as the airline chooses meals for its "ultra long haul" flights. Currently, one of Singapore Air's longest flight runs between San Francisco and Singapore, a 16-17 hour odyssey on an Airbus A350-900.

Singapore Air also recently started flying its longest flight, between New York/Newark and Singapore, which clocks in at about 19 hours. Flights like that require new thinking about inflight dining.

Don't miss a shred of important travel news! Sign up for our FREE bi-weekly email alerts

One new concept for ultra-long flights is something like an all-day-brunch or dine-on-demand plan in business class. This means that passengers don't necessarily have to dine when flight attendants push their carts down the aisles. Instead, they can choose from a wide variety of meals at any time during the very long flight.

For example, when you board SIA's SFO-SIN nonstop at 9:30 am, you can choose to have a dim sum or an omelet for breakfast. Or maybe you flew in from the east coast, and would rather have a steak for your first meal? Or maybe just a nice bowl of warm noodle soup. No problem.

As the flight approaches Singapore for a 6 pm arrival 17 or so hours later, some passengers may want breakfast after sleeping during the latter part of the flight. Others who may have slept earlier may be ready for a smoky barbecue sandwich or a bowl of fresh fruit.

If you know what you want before you go, premium economy and business class passengers can go to Singapore Air's website to "book the cook" and order from a special menu of items specially prepared on the ground and served on the plane when requested. (We checked out a few delicious menu items -- like fried prawns tossed with tangy mayonnaise and topped with candied walnuts-- during our visit- see it in the slideshow above.)

The current lowest fares for January flights on Singapore's two dailies between SFO and Singapore are about: $1,000 in economy, $1,600 in premium economy, and around $4,900 in business class. Singapore competes with United on this nonstop route, so fares rise and fall a lot. Singapore Air also flies from SFO to Singapore via Hong Kong using a Boeing 777.

Be sure to scroll through the slideshow at the top for a look behind the scenes at the inflight kitchen and boardroom as execs and chefs taste meals and make decisions. The story is in the captions! You'll get a preview of what it will be like to dine aboard tone of he world's longest distance and duration flights.

What's the best meal you've had on a long distance flight? Would you rather eat or sleep on a flight to Asia? Tell us in the comments!

Read all recent TravelSkills posts here

Chris McGinnis is SFGATE's senior travel correspondent. You can reach him via email or follow him on Twitter or Facebook. Don't miss a shred of important travel news by signing up for his FREE biweekly email updates!SHELTON  Two prominent members of the towns firefighter community, allegedly liquored up from a fire department dinner, are charged with setting their own fire outside the firehouse.

Gregory Bomba, 45, a former fire captain, and William Tortora, 57, the brother of Fire Marshal James Chic Tortora, were being held in lieu of $250,000 bonds after being charged with second-degree arson, second-degree reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.

These are things you don't expect from people in service, so it's disappointing, Mayor Mark Lauretti said.

Both men were well-respected volunteer firefighters. Police wouldnt discuss a motive for their actions accept to say that both men were believed to have been intoxicated at the time.

Although the incident occurred Feb. 3, court documents indicate there was some confusion as to who should investigate it. At one point, James Tortora was assigned to investigate it by Fire Chief Fran Jones. Jones didnt contact police until 10 days later and at that point, police detectives pointed out that having James Tortora do the investigation may be a conflict of interest because Tortoras brother was a suspect.

Police suggested that the State Fire Marshalls Office be contacted but this was not done.

Shelton fire officials declined comment.

More News Shelton fire marshal's brother accused of setting blaze

William Tortora was arrested Friday. Bomba, 45, of Newtown surrendered himself Monday morning.

Police said they later obtained video surveillance footage of the incident that occurred outside the Echo Hose Company firehouse.

They said the video shows William Tortora, Bomba and another man standing at the back of a white pickup truck. Bomba and Tortora are seen lighting card board boxes on fire in the bed of the truck. As the boxes burst into flame, Tortora can been seen with his cell phone video recording the fire, police said.

After a few minutes, the entire bed of the truck is engulfed with flames shooting five feet in the air, police said. They said Tortora then began to throw some of the flaming boxes around the parking lot damaging a city-owned car nearby.

Police said Tortora then got into the truck and drove off with the bed still flaming. Drivers beeped their horns at him as he drove the flaming truck down Howe Avenue and onto Route 8, burning boxes flying onto the roadways.

Police said Tortora was later laughing and bragging about the incident.

Police seized Tortoras cell phone; one of the videos on the phone had the voice of man saying all these cars are going to burn.Contributed / Courtesy of Beardsley Zoo

BRIDGEPORT  Staff at Connecticuts Beardsley Zoo are grieving the death of Harper, a 12-year-old red wolf who was euthanized Feb. 26 after battling an agressive form of cancer.

A resident of the zoo for three years, the male wolf was beloved by the zoo community, according to a news release from Beardsley. Harper will be deeply missed by all of us here at Connecticuts Beardsley Zoo, said zoo director Gregg Dancho in the release. He had a unique personality and related well both to his companion, Shy, and to his animal care staff. It has been our privilege to have known him since December, 2014.Federal banking officials have agreed to consider revising money-laundering regulations that a new report blames for a rash of bank closures along the Mexican border in recent years.

The regulations are having the unintended consequence of prompting banks along the border to close branches and terminate accounts, according to a report released this week by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The branch closures and account terminations, which are called de-risking, are creating headaches for small businesses and forcing some residents to go without bank accounts from San Ysidro to parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, The San Diego Tribune reported.The House and Senate are both in session this week, with the Senate expected to vote on a NAFCU-backed regulatory reform bill that includes member business lending (MBL) and certain Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) relief provisions.

The Senate took action Thursday to set the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act (S. 2155) up for a potential procedural vote on the bill early this week, paving the way for potential Senate passage of the legislation before the end of the week.

NAFCU supports numerous provisions within the bill, including:

The Credit Union Residential Loan Parity Act, which would allow credit unions to treat loans for one-to-four-unit, non-owner-occupied dwellings that qualify for the MBL exemption as residential loans with lower interest rates  similar to how banks make these loans to small businesses.STORY LINK EUR to GBP Exchange Rate Fails to Hold Ground on Concerning Italian Election Results

EUR Weakened by Market Uncertainty about Italian Election Results

Ultimately, this is expected uncertainty, and the markets are far more tolerant about European politics than earlier given the favorable economic backdrop,

GBP Supported against Weaker EUR by UK Services PMI

A complex array of forces were at play in the UK services sector last month resulting in the fastest rise in new orders since May 2017 but also hindered by continued consumer caution over spending.



In fact it was business customers that had the confidence to forge ahead with orders, as consumers hesitated over concerns about possible rate rises impacting on their household budgets and what the future could hold.

EUR/GBP Forecast: Eurozone News Could Drive Pairs Movement This Week

Like this piece? Please share with your friends and colleagues:

The weekends Eurozone political news was mixed and this left the Euro to British Pound (EUR/GBP) exchange rate lower on Monday. The Pounds strength was bolstered slightly by news that Britains services sector had beaten expectations in February but its gains were limited by Brexit concerns.Due to Brexit uncertainties causing broad weakness in the Pound last week, EUR/GBP surged throughout the week from 0.8801 to 0.8923. Since markets opened on Monday the pair has weakened slightly but remains in the region of 0.89.While Eurozone data has continued to be optimistic enough to hint that the Eurozone will continue to see strong growth in the coming months, one of the weekends European political events has caused fresh uncertainty in the currency bloc.Sunday saw Italy go to the polls for the nations 2018 general election  and the results caused uncertainty in markets on Monday.The results revealed a split Italy with over 30% of voters choosing the populist Five Star Movement Party. It became more evident throughout Mondays European session that Italy was headed for a hung parliament.Parties are now expected to negotiate potential coalitions, but markets are concerned that coalition talks may not succeed or that a right-wing coalition may not be strong. The success of populist parties also concerned Euro traders.Still, despite this uncertainty the Euros losses against Sterling were not considerable. This is because amid a strong economic backdrop in the Eurozone, as well as the successful formation of a new German grand coalition, Italys uncertainty is being tolerated.According to Geoffrey Yu from UBS Wealth Management in London;Market relief that German Chancellor Angela Merkel had finally secured a fourth term in power and another term heading up a CDU/SPD grand coalition helped the Euro to avoid further weakness.On top of this, Mondays Eurozone ecostats were generally optimistic. Markits final February composite PMI came in at 57.1, which fell short of projections but was still a strong figure overall.Thanks to Mondays stronger than expected UK ecostats, the Pound was able to edge higher against a weak Euro despite revived market concerns about the possibility of a hard Brexit.Markits UK services PMI was forecast to have improved slightly from 53 to 53.3 in February, but instead jumped to a stronger 54.5. This was the prints best figure in four months and it was boosted by growth and hiring in new businesses.Thanks to the stronger services results, the overall composite PMI beat expectations too and rose from 53.5 to 54.5.According to Duncan Brock from the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply;Unless there are developments in the Brexit process in the coming days, major Eurozone news is likely to drive the Euro to British Pound (EUR/GBP) exchange rate for most of the week.Markets will of course pay close attention to the possibility of developments in Italy, with the nations political parties expected to begin negotiations in attempt to form a new government and end the hung parliament.However, upcoming Eurozone ecostats and a Thursday meeting from the European Central Bank (ECB) are likely to influence Euro trade too.Wednesday will see the publication of the Eurozones third Q4 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) projections. Eurozone growth is expected to have slowed from 2.8% to 2.7% year-on-year.Thursdays ECB policy decision could be the biggest event of the week for Euro investors. If the bank shows any signs of hawkishness in regards to recently strong Eurozone data the Euro could see stronger performance by the end of the week.On the other hand, if the ECB expresses concern over the past weeks US trade tariff news, or the results of Italys election, the Euro could weaken.

International Money Transfer? Ask our resident FX expert a money transfer question or try John's new, free, no-obligation personal service! ,where he helps every step of the way, ensuring you get the best exchange rates on your currency requirements.

TAGS: Euro Pound ForecastsCounty commissioners say ADHS funds can be used for 219Plagued by corruption, Indias governance does not have the will to do anything about it. The recent Nirav Modi-Choksi-Karti scams have produced two political reactions. Both Congress and the BJP have decided to make an ugly diatribe against each other to win political brownie points by targeting opponents.

Following Bofors, Rajiv Gandhi lost the election because of allegations of corruption against him and others. He tried his best to cover up by absolution from a Parliamentary Joint Committee. The Lokpal Bill would have been passed in 1987 to focus on Rajiv Gandhi, but Chidambaram came to his rescue with a Prevention of Corruption Act 1988.

Media trial

But the message to the electorate was raja chor hai (king is a thief). In the 2014 election, the BJP drummed up corruption charges again. There was enough on the plate (2G, coal scam, etc). In the present scenario  the Nirav-Choksi-Karti scams  the blame game triumphs over all else. Who helped Nirav? Congress or BJP?

The allegations are often cheap. Why did Chidambaram and his wife Nalini attend Kartis court hearing? Swamys barb is that it was to intimidate judges! Chidambaram is a special target who earlier had the portfolio of finance minister. But what exactly was his corrupt involvement? He is his sons father? Some file passed through his ministry years ago? This leaves more than a suspicion that the intent is not to reveal corruption but to throw mud. On the Nirav Modi incident, the case against Chidambaram seems weak and misplaced. TV anchors flaunt their pro-BJP prejudices in a tone that has made them judge and jury.

This trial by television is the worst tradition of investigative journalism. Our anchors cannot claim the skills of a David Frost who tore Savundranyagam apart to prompt Lord Denning to say: Trial by television is not to be tolerated in a civilised country. No less worthy was his tearing the veil from Richard Nixon. Indian anchors are not interested in the truth but only their own political biases. Anchors should pursue truth and not drama. Politicians join in. The evil of corruption gives way to corruption as a political tamasha of vilification. Today the BJP is in power and must answer.

Anna Hazare became a public hero precisely because the nation understands corruption is a prime concern. He virtually brought the Parliament to its knees when a sense of the House resolution was passed to meet his demands. In the Nehru era, then Indian high commissioner to Britain Krishna Menon did not resign over the jeep scandal. But former finance minister TT Krishnamachari had to resign over favours shown to industrialist Dalmia.

Likewise, Partap Singh Kairon was forced to resign as chief minister of Punjab by Nehru over corruption. But the most telling example is that of Lal Bahadur Shastri who resigned in 1956 because there was a railway accident on his watch though he was innocent.

Jaitley must resign

The very concept of accountability is for someone to accept responsibility. This Shastri did. The present crises is related to the finance ministry under Arun Jaitley. In the best traditions of parliamentary accountability, Jaitley should resign.

This is not an admission of guilt but accepting responsibility. In recent times, the honourable Shastri example is ignored. There is an election next year and Jaitley resigning would hurt the BJP electorally. The Prime Minister is a travelling salesman for India abroad and an orator for the BJP who is to blame.

Jaitley suggested that the solution lies in yet one more statute called the Fugitive Offenders Bill, 2018. This had been Jaitleys dream since he tried to track Bofors money. This is not an anti-racketeering law similar to American legislation. First, what will trigger action under the Bill are three criteria: (i) an arrest warrant (ii) fleeing from the country, and (iii) the sum being Rs 100 crore or more.

Proposed Bill

At present, an attachment following investigation is available and has been done. Whether this will persuade Nirav Modi and Choksi to come back is not vouchsafed. So the real part of the Bill likely to hurt Modi and Choksi is the claim on foreign assets. On this, the Bill is indeterminate. Jaitleys answer is that this will be achieved through international cooperation. This is too ambiguous to mean anything involving nations, banks, investment companies and others. Jaitleys optimism is a farce.

Second, in this controversy, there has been an attempt not to blame the government but accountants  supposedly they did it. So, there is to be a regulatory National Financial Reporting Authority to take over disciplinary functions over all listed and unlisted companies who can take action including government referrals. This grand gesture is unnecessary. India has enough laws to deal with corruption. A small amendment on assets would have been enough. But the grandness is to show that the government is doing something while diverting the blame.

This is a faulty Bill. Will it be retrospective? Or is this a make-believe a solution to show the government is acting. The Select Committee to examine it threadbare. For the moment, what is needed is a thorough investigation (even if CBI has recently come into question) to prepare the ground of extradition. Dont convert grave corruption into a tamasha. Corruption eats at the vitals even for the prized policy of attracting investment. Yet, corruption flowers.

(Courtesy of Mail Today)

Also read: Who is responsible for 'news ki maut'In one of my earlier articles, I had argued that despite the nightmare that unfolded for Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the March of 2017, it would be too early to write their political obituaries.

Both BSP and SP more or less held on to their core vote bank, and failed to add the fence-sitters or the most backward classes (MBCs) among the other backward classes to their fold. Together with the Congress, they commanded over 50 per cent of the votes polled. The coming by-polls have brought these political fancies back to political narrative.

In a dramatic development, SP announced that it had the support of the BSP in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh by-polls. While BSP has decided not to contest the by-polls, SP and Congress (which had a pre-poll alliance in 2017) have carved separate ways in these by-polls.

BSP's support

The Phulpur constituency was a stronghold of the BSP before 2014 elections. A SP-BSP tactical understanding could stop frittering away of the Muslim vote and prove a resurgence point for Dalit-Muslim-Yadav (DMY) politics (in the by-polls) that had dominated the UP political landscape for decades. Any addition to this could prove detrimental to BJP's prospects.

Let's get down to some arithmetic to see how this could work in real life scenario. The two constituencies, Gorakhpur and Phulpur, have five Assembly segments each. BJP won all 10 assembly segments in 2017. But the combined vote share in these seats of BSP and SP plus Congress, could have given five seats to SP, two to BSP, two to Congress, and leaving only one for BJP. It is also known that Phulpur, in particular, was a "Modi wave" win, it isn't a stronghold of either Keshav Prasad Maurya or BJP, and even in Gorakhpur, it was only in Gorakhpur urban, where BJP had managed to inch ahead of the combined vote-share of the three parties. With Modi wave, waned to an extent, this could throw surprising results.

Battle of prestige

Fresh out of a massive setback in Rajasthan, the by-elections to the Parliament seats of Gorakhpur and Phulpur are seen as a must-win for the BJP. Not only because these have been vacated by prominent personalities - chief minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya, but also because a SP-BSP alliance, along with a tactical understanding with the Congress, has made these by-elections a BJP versus the rest battle. A loss in these would be seen as a verdict of the newly stalled BJP government. A win of the Opposition here, would strengthen the alliance, and will send ripples across the political landscape of the country.

Alliances with smaller parties

To shore up SP's shrinking support base, Akhilesh Yadav is looking at stitching alliances with smaller parties that could play party-spoiler in many seats. Charting a new political trajectory, Akhilesh Yadav is attempting to go beyond the traditional Yadav-Muslim political combination and extend outreach to the MBCs through mergers and alliances with smaller caste-based parties. By announcing Pravin Nishad, son of Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal (Nishad) party's founder Sanjay Nishad, Samajwadi Party has shown the flexibility required to get additional MBC votes. Nishads have close to three lakh votes in Gorakhpur, which could possibly prove a game changer in the elections. The Nishad community (Nishads, Mallahs, and Kewats) in UP constitutes less than 4 per cent of the OBC population but is one of the more politically organised OBC groups.

Similarly, by fielding Nagendra Pratap Singh Patel, a Kurmi, SP has made overtures to the Kurmi community, which constitutes about 9 per cent of the population of the state. In a recent development, Akhilesh Yadav paid visit to old time loyalist and Kurmi leader, Beni Prasad Verma, in an attempt to mend fences with veteran caste leaders, who yield influence. Similar overtures have been made to the Peace Party, which yields support base of Parsmanda Muslims in eastern UP, and is seen as a potential ally to consolidate Muslim votes in the belt.

A multi-corner election

Something that has gone completely unnoticed is the tactical decision of Congress to contest these elections, knowing the fact that it yields no edge in these two seats and will only be remembered as a "also ran" party.

Both its candidates Surhita Chatterjee Karim from Gorakhpur and Manish Mishra from Phulpur, belong to influential Brahmin community.

Congress had been trying to get a piece of the upper caste pie, which has for long been consolidating behind BJP. According to Congress' calculations, the two candidates might steal a section of upper caste voters, who may not be averse to shifting their loyalties from the BJP. However, the lackluster campaigning by the Congress, makes this quite doubtful.

For the Gorakhpur by-election, Congress candidate Chatterjee Karim is said to be popular both among the region's numerically strong Bengali population, and among upper caste in the Gorakhpur town. Even in 2014, BJP had polled higher vote share (56 per cent) in Gorakhpur urban. In the other assembly segments, this was less than 40 per cent. Thus, any shift in vote share in the urban segment will be a direct blow to BJP.

Congress candidate Chatterjee Karim, married into a Muslim family, is said to have almost no support base outside the urban segments. Thus, whatever vote share she garners, would be a direct loss to BJP's Brahmin candidate Upendra Shukla.

Similarly in the Phulpur seat, where both SP and BJP have fielded Patel candidates, and SP's Nagendra Patel is expected to vie for OBC votes with the traditional Muslim votes, Congress by fielding a strong Brahmin candidate here, has made a serious bid to tap into the Brahmin vote bank. If the upper caste consolidation in favour of BJP, can be prevented, and tactical moves taken to get the other OBCs into its fold, BJP's victory march can be stopped.

Tactical cooperation among parties

A direct alliance between the three players, spells an antithesis to consolidation of individual vote base. There exists huge distrust among the vote-banks they command and a direct alliance may result in frittering of votes, rather than consolidation. Dalits of BSP, and Brahmins of Congress, distrust the Yadav vote bank of SP, and thus a section would likely shift towards BJP, in case of direct alliance. However, contesting elections alone leaves the Opposition without any proven strategy to defeat the surging BJP. A rather common understanding here could be to have one strong contender against BJP, and contestants which could take away a section of core-BJP votes. A victory in any of the seats would prove that a multi-corner fight with a tactical understanding among Opposition parties can yield partial victory in the politically convoluted state of UP. So, if not a direct alliance, a shared understanding could be the pragmatic move. But, till then it is 'game on' in UP.

BSP had announced that this understanding is limited to the by-polls and shouldn't be taken as an alliance between the two parties. But as the political history of the state has been, never read the obvious and leave some grounds for possibilities.

Also read: Economic outlook may look good but why India can't take it for grantedThe following companies are subsidiares of Fidelity National Information Services: 11601 Roosevelt Boulevard Realty LLC, AFSF II AIV Investors D-LP, AGES Participacoes Ltda., AKC Insurance Company LLC, Advanced Portfolio Technologies Ltd., Alphakinetic Ltd., Armed Forces Financial Network LLC, AssetExchange, Automated Securities Clearance LLC, Best Payment Solutions Inc., Bibit Spain S.L., Bitpay Payments KK, C&E Holdings Luxembourg S.a.r.l., CPRS Holdings Inc., Canadian Envoy Technology Services Ltd., Capco, Central Credit Services Limited, Certegy Canada Company, Certegy Card Services B.V., Certegy Dutch Holdings B.V., Certegy France Limited, Certegy SAS, Certegy UK Holdings B.V., Chex Systems Inc., Clear2Pay, Clear2Pay (Shenzhen) Company Limited, Clear2Pay APAC Pte. Ltd., Clear2Pay APAC Pty Ltd., Clear2Pay BV, Clear2Pay Belgium BV, Clear2Pay China Limited, Clear2Pay France SAS, Clear2Pay Germany GmbH, Clear2Pay Limited, Clear2Pay Nanjing Co. Limited, Clear2Pay Nederland BV, Clear2Pay Poland Sp. z o.o., Clear2Pay Scotland Holdings Limited, Clear2Pay Scotland Limited, Clear2Pay Spain S.l., ClearTwoPay Chile SpA, Complete Payment Recovery Services Inc., Compliance Coach, Credit Management Solutions, Decalog (UK) Limited, Decalog N.V., Envoy Services Bulgaria Limited, Envoy Services Ltd. (Asia) SDn BHD, Envoy Services Pty Ltd., Envoy Services South Africa (Pty) Limited, F.I.S. Systems (Middle East) Limited, FIS (Switzerland) SA, FIS (Tunisia) I SARL, FIS (Tunisia) II SARL, FIS Ambit Holdings Pty Ltd, FIS Apex (International) Limited, FIS Apex (UK) Limited, FIS Asia Pacific Inc., FIS AsiaPacRim Holdings Ltd., FIS Australasia Pty Ltd., FIS AvantGard LLC, FIS Banking Solutions UK Limited, FIS Bilgisayar Hizmetleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, FIS Brokerage & Securities Services LLC, FIS Business Integration (UK) Limited, FIS Capital Markets UK Limited, FIS Capital Markets US LLC, FIS Card Services (Caribbean) Ltd., FIS Card Services (Thailand) Co. Ltd., FIS Consulting Services (Ireland) Limited, FIS Consulting Services (UK) Limited, FIS Denmark ApS, FIS Derivatives Utility Services (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., FIS Derivatives Utility Services (UK) Limited, FIS Derivatives Utility Services LLC, FIS Energy Solutions Limited, FIS Financial Solutions Canada Inc., FIS Financial Systems (France) SAS, FIS Foundation Inc., FIS GCS LLC, FIS Global Business Solutions India Private Ltd., FIS Global Execution Services (Ireland) Limited, FIS Global Execution Services Limited, FIS Global Holdings S.a.r.l, FIS Global Recovery Services India Private Limited, FIS Global Solutions Philippines Inc., FIS Global Trading (Deutschland) GmbH, FIS Global Trading (Hong Kong) Limited, FIS Global Trading (Iberica) S.L. Unipersonal, FIS Global Trading (Nederland) B.V., FIS Global Trading (Portugal) Unipessoal Lda, FIS Global Trading (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., FIS Global Trading (Suisse) SA, FIS Global Trading (UK) Limited, FIS Healthcare Trustee Limited, FIS Holdings (Germany) GmbH i.L., FIS Holdings Limited, FIS Holdings Mauritius, FIS Insurance Services Limited, FIS International Subsidiaries Holdings Inc., FIS Investment Systems (UK) Limited, FIS Investment Ventures LLC, FIS Investor Services LLC, FIS Japan KK, FIS Kingstar Cayman Islands Limited, FIS Korea Ltd., FIS Management Services LLC, FIS Management Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., FIS Pakistan (Private) Limited, FIS Payment Solutions & Services India Private Limited, FIS Payments (Ireland) Limited, FIS Payments (UK) Limited, FIS Pensions Limited, FIS Romania SRL, FIS SG (Italia) S.r.l., FIS SG International Holdings LLC, FIS SG Systems Philippines Inc., FIS Sherwood Systems Limited, FIS Solutions (India) Private Limited, FIS Solutions LLC, FIS Solutions Software (India) Private Limited, FIS Systeme GmbH, FIS Systems (Hong Kong) Limited, FIS Systems (Luxembourg) S.A., FIS Systems (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., FIS Systems (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., FIS Systems Canada Inc., FIS Systems International LLC, FIS Systems Kenya Limited, FIS Systems Limited, FIS Systems NZ Limited, FIS Systems Pty Ltd, FIS Systems South Africa (Pty) Limited, FIS Systems de Colombia S.A.S., FIS Technology (Beijing) Co. Limited, FIS Technology Services (Poland) Sp. z o.o., FIS Technology Services (Tunisia) SARL, FIS Technology Services Singapore Pte. Ltd., FIS Treasury Systems (Europe) Limited, FIS Treasury Systems (UK) Limited, FIS UK Holdings Limited, FIS Vietnam LLC, FIS Worldpay (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, FIS Worldpay Jersey Limited, FIS-SG Holding Corp., FNIS Istanbul Danismanlik Limited Sirketi, FV General Partner LLC, Fidelity Holding Ltda., Fidelity Information Services (Hong Kong) Limited, Fidelity Information Services (Iberia) S.L.U., Fidelity Information Services (Israel) Ltd., Fidelity Information Services (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd., Fidelity Information Services (Thailand) Limited, Fidelity Information Services Front Arena AB, Fidelity Information Services GmbH, Fidelity Information Services Holdings B.V., Fidelity Information Services India Private Limited, Fidelity Information Services International Holdings Inc., Fidelity Information Services LLC, Fidelity Information Services Limited, Fidelity Information Services Operations GmbH, Fidelity Information Services SARL, Fidelity Information Services Slovakia s.r.o., Fidelity Information Services de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fidelity International Resource Management Inc., Fidelity National Card Services Inc., Fidelity National Global Card Services Inc., Fidelity National Information Services (Netherlands) B.V., Fidelity National Information Services C.V., Fidelity National Information Services Inc., Fidelity National Participacoes e Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Fidelity National Servicos de Tratamento de Documentos e Informatica Ltda., Fidelity National Servicos e Contact Center Ltda., Fidelity Participacoes e Servicos Ltda., Financial Insurance Marketing Group Inc., GL Settle Limited, GL Trade (South Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, GL Trade CMS (Thailand) Limited, GL Trade Software DOO, GL Trade Solutions CMS (Thailand) Limited, Glesia S.r.l., GoCart LLC, Information Services Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Integrity Treasury Solutions Europe Limited, Integrity Treasury Solutions Inc., Integrity Treasury Solutions Limited, Integrity Treasury Solutions Pty Limited, Link2Gov Corp., Memento, Metavante Corporation, Metavante Payment Services LLC, Metavante Technologies Inc, Metavante Technologies Limited, Minorca Corporation NV, Monis Management Limited, Monis Software Limited, NYCE Payments Network LLC, Oshap Software Industries Ltd., Oshap Technologies Ltd., PT FIS Systems Indonesia, PT Fidelity Information Services Indonesia, Panther Holdco 2 Inc., Panther Holdco Inc., Payment Brasil Holdings Ltda., Payment Chile S.A., Payment Trust Limited, Paymetric Inc., Pazien Inc., People's United Merchant Services LLC, Platform Securities Holdings Limited, Platform Securities International Limited, Platform Securities International Nominees Limited, Platform Securities LLP, Platform Securities Nominees Limited, Platform Securities Services Limited, Reech Capital Limited, Reliance Financial Corporation, Reliance Integrated Solutions LLC, Reliance Trust Company, Rocket Partners Holdings LLC, Sanchez Computer Associates Pty Limited, Secondco Limited, Ship Holdco Limited, Ship Luxco 2 S.a.r.l., Ship Luxco 3 S.a.r.l., Ship Midco Limited, Solutions Plus Consulting Services Limited, SunGard, SunGard Data Systems Beijing Co. Ltd., SunGard Global Services (Tunisia) III, SunGard Global Trading (Australia) Pty. Ltd., SunGard India Sales Private Limited, TP Technologies N.V., Tayvin 346 Limited, Transax Limited, Trax BV, Valuelink Information Services Limited, Valutec Card Solutions LLC, Virtus Fund Services, Virtus Group LP, Virtus LP Holdings LLC, Virtus Partners Fund Services Cayman Ltd., Virtus Partners Fund Services Holdings Company, Virtus Partners Fund Services Ireland Limited, Virtus Partners Fund Services Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Virtus Partners Ireland Ltd., Virtus Partners Ltd., Virtus Trade Settlement LLC, WebTone Technologies, Worldpay, Worldpay (HK) Limited, Worldpay (NZ) Limited, Worldpay (UK) Limited, Worldpay AP Ltd., Worldpay Argentina SRL, Worldpay B.V., Worldpay Canada Corporation, Worldpay Cayman Holdings Limited, Worldpay Company LLC, Worldpay Do Brasil Processamento De Pagamentos Ltda., Worldpay Finance Limited, Worldpay Gaming Solutions LLC, Worldpay Governance Limited, Worldpay Group Limited, Worldpay Holdings (Barbados) SRL, Worldpay Holdings Brasil Participacoes Ltda., Worldpay ISO Inc., Worldpay India Private Limited, Worldpay Integrated Payments Canada LLC, Worldpay Integrated Payments LLC., Worldpay Integrated Payments Solutions Inc., Worldpay International Group Limited, Worldpay International Holdings Limited, Worldpay International Limited, Worldpay International Payments Limited, Worldpay International Solutions Limited, Worldpay K.K., Worldpay LLC, Worldpay Latin America Limited, Worldpay Limited, Worldpay Marketing Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Limited, Worldpay Payments (Barbados) SRL, Worldpay Processing Services SRL, Worldpay Pte Ltd., Worldpay Pty Ltd., Worldpay S.a.r.l., Worldpay Services Company, Worldpay Services SRL, Worldpay Solutions SRL, Worldpay Technology Bucharest S.R.L., Worldpay Treasury Solutions SRL, Worldpay US Inc., Worldpay eCommerce LLC, Worldpay eCommerce Limited, Xpede, YES-Secure.com Limited, YESpay International Limited, Zenmonics Inc., Zenmonics Software Private Limited, eFunds Corporation, eFunds Holdings Limited, eFunds International Limited, i DLX International B.V., and mFoundry Inc..NMC Health Plc provides healthcare services in the United Arab Emirates, Spain, and internationally. The company operates through two businesses, NMC Healthcare and NMC Trading. It owns and manages approximately 135 healthcare facilities that include hospitals, medical centers, long term care facilities, day surgery centers, fertility centers, and home health services providers. The company has developed specialized verticals covering multi-specialty care, maternity and fertility, long-term and home care, operations and management, and distribution services. It is also involved in the distribution of pharmaceutical products, medical equipment, medical consumables and devices, education and office supplies, veterinary products, cosmetics, IT products, and rehab supplies, as well as consumer products, including personal care, food and beverages, household care, and home improvement products. The company was founded in 1975 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of SAP: Abakus, Abakus Europe Limited, Abakus Ukraine Limited Liability Company, Adatfeldolgozasban Informatikai Kft., Altiscale, Ambin Properties Proprietary Limited, AppGyver, Ariba, Ariba Czech s.r.o., Ariba Inc. Palo Alto, Ariba India Private Limited, Ariba International, Ariba International Holdings, Ariba International Singapore Pte Ltd, Ariba Slovak Republic s.r.o., Ariba Software Technology Services (Shanghai) Co., Ariba Technologies India Private Limited, Ariba Technologies Netherlands B.V., Beijing Zhang Zhong Hu Dong Information Technology, Business Objects, Business Objects Holding B.V., Business Objects Option LLC, Business Objects Software Limited, CNQR Operations Mexico S. de. R.L. de. C.V., Callidus Software, CallidusCloud, Christie Partners Holding C.V., Clear Standards, ClearTrip Inc., ClearTrip Inc. (Mauritius), Cleartrip MEA FZ LLC, Cleartrip Private Limited, Coghead, ConTgo Consulting Limited, ConTgo Pty. Ltd., Concur (Austria) GmbH, Concur (Canada), Concur (France) SAS, Concur (Germany) GmbH, Concur (Japan) Ltd., Concur (New Zealand) Limited, Concur (Philippines) Inc., Concur (Switzerland) GmbH, Concur Czech (s.r.o.), Concur Holdings (France) SAS, Concur Holdings (Netherlands) B.V., Concur Technologies (Australia) Pty. Limited, Concur Technologies (Hong Kong) Limited, Concur Technologies (India) Private Limited, Concur Technologies (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Concur Technologies (UK) Limited, Concur Technologies Inc. Bellevue, Contextor, Coresystems, Crystal Decisions (Ireland) Limited, Crystal Decisions Holdings Limited, Crystal Decisions UK Limited, Emarsys, EssCubed Procurement Pty. Ltd., Extended Systems, Factory Logic, Fedem Technology AS, Fieldglass Europe Limited, Financial Fusion, FreeMarkets Ltda., Frictionless Commerce, Gigya, Gigya Australia Pty Ltd, Gigya Ltd., Gigya UK Ltd, GlobalExpense Limited, Highdeal, Hipmunk, Hybris (US) Corp., Hybris GmbH, Inxight Federal Systems Group, KXEN, Khimetrics, LLC "SAP Labs", LLC "SAP Ukraine", LLC SAP CIS, MaXware, Merlin Systems Oy, Multiposting Sp.z o.o., Nihon Ariba K.K., OpTier, OutlookSoft, OutlookSoft Deutschland GmbH, PLAT.ONE, PT SAP Indonesia, PT Sybase 365 Indonesia, Pilot Software Inc., Plat.One Inc., Plat.One Lab Srl, Plateau Systems LLC, Quadrem Africa Pty. Ltd., Quadrem Brazil Ltda., Quadrem Chile Ltda., Quadrem Colombia SAS, Quadrem International Ltd., Quadrem Netherlands B.V., Quadrem Overseas Cooperatief U.A., Quadrem Peru S.A.C., Qualtrics, Recast.AI, Right Hemisphere, Roambi, Ruan Lian Technologies (Beijing) Co., SAF, SAP (Beijing) Software System Co., SAP (Schweiz) AG, SAP (Schweiz) AG Biel, SAP (UK) Limited, SAP (UK) Limited Feltham, SAP AZ LLC, SAP America, SAP America Inc. Newtown Square, SAP Andina y del Caribe, SAP Argentina S.A., SAP Asia (Vietnam) Co., SAP Asia Pte Ltd, SAP Australia Pty Ltd, SAP Australia Pty Ltd. Sydney, SAP Belgium NV/SA, SAP Beteiligungs GmbH, SAP Brasil Ltda, SAP Brasil Ltda Sao Paulo, SAP Bulgaria EOOD, SAP Business Compliance Services GmbH, SAP Business Services Center Nederland B.V., SAP CR, SAP Canada, SAP Chile Limitada, SAP China Co., SAP China Co. Ltd. Shanghai, SAP China Holding Co., SAP Colombia S.A.S., SAP Commercial Services Ltd., SAP Concur, SAP Costa Rica, SAP Customer Experience, SAP Cyprus Limited, SAP Danmark A/S, SAP Deutschland SE & Co. KG, SAP Deutschland SE & Co. KG Walldorf, SAP Dritte Beteiligungs- und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH, SAP EMEA Inside Sales S.L., SAP East Africa Limited, SAP Egypt LLC, SAP Erste Beteiligungs- und Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH, SAP Espana - Sistemas Informatica, SAP Estonia OU, SAP Fieldglass, SAP Financial, SAP Finland Oy, SAP Foreign Holdings GmbH, SAP France, SAP France Holding, SAP France Levallois Perret, SAP Global Marketing, SAP Hellas S.A., SAP Holdings (UK) Limited, SAP Hong Kong Co., SAP Hosting Beteiligungs GmbH, SAP Hungary Rendszerek, SAP India (Holding) Pte Ltd, SAP India Private Limited, SAP India Private Limited Bangalore, SAP Industries, SAP Industries Inc. Newtown Square, SAP International, SAP International Panama, SAP Investments, SAP Ireland Limited, SAP Ireland US - Financial Services Designated Activity Company, SAP Israel Ltd., SAP Italia Sistemi Applicazioni Prodotti in Data Processing S.p.A., SAP Italia Sistemi Applicazioni Prodotti in Data Processing S.p.A. Vimercate, SAP Japan Co., SAP Japan Co. Ltd. Tokyo, SAP Kazakhstan LLP, SAP Korea Ltd., SAP Labs, SAP Labs Bulgaria EOOD, SAP Labs Finland Oy, SAP Labs France SAS, SAP Labs India Private Limited, SAP Labs Israel Ltd., SAP Labs Korea, SAP Latvia SIA, SAP MENA FZ L.L.C., SAP Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., SAP Malta Investments Ltd., SAP Mxico S.A. de C.V., SAP National Security Services PA, SAP Nederland B.V., SAP Nederland B.V. s-Hertogenbosch, SAP Service and Support Centre (Ireland) Limited, SAP SuccessFactors, SAP d.o.o., SeeWhy, Signavio, SuccessFactors, SuccessFactors Inc. South San Francisco, Sybase, Syclo, TopTier Software, Triversity, Vimercate, Virsa Systems, Visiprise, Wicom Communications, and conTgo limited. American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved.

326 E 8th St #105, Sioux Falls, SD 57103 | U.S. Based Support Team at contact@marketbeat.com | (844) 978-6257

MarketBeat does not provide personalized financial advice and does not issue recommendations or offers to buy stock or sell any security.



Our Accessibility Statement | Terms of Service | Do Not Sell My Information



 2021 Market data provided is at least 10-minutes delayed and hosted by Barchart Solutions. Information is provided 'as-is' and solely for informational purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and is delayed. To see all exchange delays and terms of use please see disclaimer. Fundamental company data provided by Zacks Investment Research.The following companies are subsidiares of BlackRock: Acero Cooperatief U.A., Acero Holdings I B.V., Amethyst Merger Sub LLC, AnalytX Hosting LLC, AnalytX LLC, AnalytX Software LLC, Aperio, Aperio, Aquila Heywood, Asia-Pacific Private Credit Opportunities Fund I (GenPar) Ltd., BAA Holdings LLC, BFM Holdco LLC, BLK (Gallatin) Holdings LLC, BLK SMI LLC, BR Acquisition Mexico S.A. de C.V., BR Jersey International Holdings L.P., Beijing eFront Software Company Limited, BlackRock (Barbados) Finco 1 SRL, BlackRock (Channel Islands) Limited, BlackRock (Luxembourg) S.A., BlackRock (Netherlands) B.V., BlackRock (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BlackRock (Singapore) Holdco II Pte. Ltd., BlackRock (Singapore) Holdco Pte. Limited, BlackRock (Singapore) Limited, BlackRock AP Investment Holdco LLC, BlackRock Advisors (UK) Limited, BlackRock Advisors LLC, BlackRock Advisors Singapore Pte. Limited, BlackRock Alternative Advisors GP Holdings LLC, BlackRock Alternatives Management LLC, BlackRock Argentina Asesorias Ltda., BlackRock Asset Management Canada Limited, BlackRock Asset Management Deutschland AG, BlackRock Asset Management International Inc., BlackRock Asset Management Investor Services Limited, BlackRock Asset Management Ireland Limited, BlackRock Asset Management North Asia Limited, BlackRock Asset Management Schweiz AG, BlackRock Asset Management UK Limited, BlackRock Australia Holdco Pty. Ltd., BlackRock Brasil Gestora de Investimentos Ltda., BlackRock Cal 1 Investor LLC, BlackRock Canada Holdings LP, BlackRock Canada Holdings ULC, BlackRock Capital Holdings Inc., BlackRock Capital Investment Advisors LLC, BlackRock Capital Management Inc., BlackRock Cayco Limited, BlackRock Cayman 1 LP, BlackRock Cayman Capital Holdings Limited, BlackRock Cayman Finco 2 Limited, BlackRock Cayman Finco 3 Limited, BlackRock Cayman Finco Limited, BlackRock Cayman West Bay Finco Limited, BlackRock Cayman West Bay IV Limited, BlackRock Cayman Z Limited, BlackRock Channel Islands Holdco Limited, BlackRock Chile Asesorias Limitada, BlackRock Colombia Holdco LLC, BlackRock Colombia Infraestructura S.A.S., BlackRock Colombia SAS, BlackRock Company Secretarial Services (UK) Limited, BlackRock Corporation US Inc., BlackRock Delaware Holdings Inc., BlackRock Enterprise Management Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BlackRock Europe Development Management Limited, BlackRock Execution Services, BlackRock Finance Europe Limited, BlackRock Financial Management Inc., BlackRock Finco LLC, BlackRock Finco UK Ltd., BlackRock First Partner Limited, BlackRock France SAS, BlackRock Fund Advisors, BlackRock Fund Management Company S.A., BlackRock Fund Managers Limited, BlackRock Funding International Ltd., BlackRock Funds Services Group LLC, BlackRock Germany GmBH, BlackRock Group Limited, BlackRock HK Holdco Limited, BlackRock Holdco 2 Inc., BlackRock Holdco 3 LLC, BlackRock Holdco 4 LLC, BlackRock Holdco 5 LLC, BlackRock Holdco 6 LLC, BlackRock Hungary Kft, BlackRock Index Services LLC, BlackRock Infrastructure Management I LLC, BlackRock Institutional Services Inc., BlackRock Institutional Trust Company National Association, BlackRock International Holdings Inc., BlackRock International Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (Australia) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (Dublin) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (Korea) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BlackRock Investment Management (Taiwan) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management Ireland Holdings Limited, BlackRock Investment Management LLC, BlackRock Investments LLC, BlackRock Japan Co. Ltd., BlackRock Japan Holdings GK, BlackRock Jersey Finco 2 Limited, BlackRock Latin America Holdco LLC, BlackRock Latin American Holdings B.V., BlackRock Life Limited, BlackRock Lux Finco S.a r.l., BlackRock Luxembourg Holdco S.a r.l., BlackRock Mexican Holdco B.V., BlackRock Mexico Infraestructura I S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Infraestructura II S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Infraestructura III S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Manager II S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Manager III S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Manager S de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Operadora S.A. de C.V. Sociedad Operadora de Fondos de Inversion, BlackRock Mortgage Ventures LLC, BlackRock Niagara LLC, BlackRock Operations (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., BlackRock Overseas Investment Fund Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BlackRock PC Holdings LLC, BlackRock Pensions Limited, BlackRock Peru Asesorias S.A., BlackRock Property Consulting (Beijing) Co. Ltd., BlackRock Property France S.a.r.l., BlackRock Property Lux S.a.r.l., BlackRock Property Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., BlackRock Realty Advisors Inc., BlackRock Saudi Arabia, BlackRock Scale Holdings LLC, BlackRock Services India Private Limited, BlackRock Singapore III Pte. Ltd., BlackRock Slovakia s.r.o., BlackRock Strategic Investors GP LLC, BlackRock Strategic Investors LP, BlackRock Trident Holding Company Limited, BlackRock UK (Alpha) Limited, BlackRock UK (Beta) Limited, BlackRock UK (Delta) LP, BlackRock UK (Gamma) Limited, BlackRock UK (Sigma) Limited, BlackRock UK 2 LLP, BlackRock UK 3 LLP, BlackRock UK 4 LLP, BlackRock UK A LLP, BlackRock UK Holdco 2 Limited, BlackRock UK Holdco Limited, Blackhawk Investment Holding LLC, CIE Automotive, Cachematrix Holdings, Cachematrix Holdings LLC, Cachematrix Integrations Private Limited, Cachematrix Software Solutions LLC, Cachematrix UK Limited, FutureAdvisor Inc., Glass Mountain Pipeline, Global Energy & Power Infrastructure Advisors LLC, Global Energy & Power Infrastructure II Advisors LLC, Grosvenor Alternate Partner Limited, Grosvenor Ventures Limited, HLX Financial Holdings LLC, MGPA (Bermuda) Limited, MGPA (Exec) Limited, MGPA Limited, Mercury Carry Company Ltd., Mercury Private Equity MUST 3 (Jersey) Limited, Object Capital Technology Inc., Phoenix Acquisition B.V., Phoenix Acquisitions Holdings LLC, Portfolio Administration & Management Ltd., Prestadora de Servicios Integrales BlackRock Mexico S.A. de C.V., SVOF/MM LLC, St. Albans House Nominees (Jersey) Ltd., State Street Research & Management, Tennenbaum Capital Partners LLC, Tennenbaum Capital Partners LLC, Tlali Acero S.A. de C.V. SOFOM ENR, Trident Merger LLC, eFront, eFront, eFront (Jersey) Limited, eFront DMLT Holdings LLC, eFront DMLT Holdings S.R.L, eFront DR S.R.L, eFront Do Brasil Solucoes Informaticas Para Sistemas Financeiros Ltda., eFront FZ-LLC, eFront Financial Solutions Inc., eFront GmbH, eFront Holding II SAS, eFront Holdings SAS, eFront Hong Kong Limited, eFront II SAS, eFront Kabushiki Kaisha, eFront Ltd, eFront SAS, eFront Singapore Pte. Ltd, eFront Software Luxembourg S.a r.l., eFront Solutions Financeieres Inc., eFront d.o.o. Beograd, iShares (DE) I Investmentaktiengesellschaft mit Teilgesellschaftsvermogen, and iShares Delaware Trust Sponsor LLC.Christopher & Banks Corporation, through its subsidiaries, operates as a specialty retailer of private-brand women's apparel and accessories in the United States. The company designs and sells women's apparel and accessories to customers ranging in age from 40 and older. Its stores offer women's apparel consisting of casual clothing, everyday basics, wear-to-work, leisure/active wear, and sleepwear in missy, petite, and women sizes, as well as jewelry and accessories. As of December 4, 2018, the company operated 461 stores, including 314 MPW stores, 80 Outlet stores, 35 Christopher & Banks stores, and 32 stores in its women's plus size clothing division CJ Banks in 45 states. It also operates christopherandbanks.com, an e-commerce Website for its Christopher & Banks and CJ Banks brands. The company was formerly known as Braun's Fashions Corporation and changed its name to Christopher & Banks Corporation in July 2000. Christopher & Banks Corporation was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Plymouth, Minnesota.

Read MoreDrax Group plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the generation and supply of electricity in the United Kingdom. The company operates through three segments: Generation, Customers, and, Pellet Production. It produces low carbon and renewable electricity; and provides system support services to the electricity grid. The company owns and operates Drax Power Station that produces electricity from biomass and coal with an installed capacity of 3,906 megawatts (MW) located in Selby, North Yorkshire; Cruachan Power Station, a pumped hydro storage station, with an installed capacity of 440 MW located in Argyll and Bute, western Scotland; and Lanark and Galloway hydro-electric power stations with an installed capacity of 126 MW located in southwest Scotland. It also owns and operates combined cycle gas turbine power stations, including Damhead Creek power station with an installed capacity of 805 MW; Rye House power station with an installed capacity of 715 MW; Shoreham power station with an installed capacity of 420 MW; and Blackburn power station with an installed capacity of 60 MW located in England. In addition, the company owns and operates Daldowie fuel plant that processes sludge from a wastewater treatment plant and converts it into dry and low-odour fuel pellets. Further, it manufactures and sells compressed wood pellets for use in electricity production; supplies and manages electricity and gas for large industrial and commercial sector customers, as well as small businesses; and provides debt recovery services. Drax Group plc was incorporated in 2005 and is based in Selby, the United Kingdom.

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of The Travelers Companies: 10762962 Canada Inc., 350 Market Street LLC, 8527512 Canada Inc., Aetna Life and Casualty Co, American Equity Insurance Company, American Equity Specialty Insurance Company, Aprilgrange Limited, Arch Street North LLC, Auto Hartford Investments LLC, Bayhill Restaurant II Associates, Camperdown Corporation, Constitution State Services LLC, Discover Property & Casualty Insurance Company, Discover Specialty Insurance Company, F&G UK Underwriters Limited, Farmington Casualty Company, Fidelity and Guaranty Insurance Company, Fidelity and Guaranty Insurance Underwriters Inc., First Floridian Auto and Home Insurance Company, Gulf Underwriters Insurance Company, IHP Capital Partners Fund VIII L.P., Northbrook Holdings Inc., Northfield Insurance Company, Northland Casualty Company, Northland Insurance Company, Phoenix UK Investments LLC, SPC Insurance Agency Inc., Select Insurance Company, Simply Business Holdings Inc., Simply Business Inc., St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, St. Paul Guardian Insurance Company, St. Paul Mercury Insurance Company, St. Paul Protective Insurance Company, St. Paul Surplus Lines Insurance Company, Standard Fire Properties LLC, Standard Fire UK Investments LLC, TCI Global Services Inc., TPC Investments Inc., TPC U.K. Investments LLC, The Automobile Insurance Company of Hartford Connecticut, The Charter Oak Fire Insurance Company, The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company, The Family Business Institute LLC, The Phoenix Insurance Company, The St. Paul Companies Inc., The Standard Fire Insurance Company, The Travelers Casualty Company, The Travelers Home and Marine Insurance Company, The Travelers Indemnity Company, The Travelers Indemnity Company of America, The Travelers Indemnity Company of Connecticut, The Travelers Lloyds Insurance Company, TravCo Insurance Company, Travelers (Bermuda) Limited, Travelers Brazil Acquisition LLC, Travelers Brazil Holding LLC, Travelers Casualty Company of Connecticut, Travelers Casualty Insurance Company of America, Travelers Casualty UK Investments LLC, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of America, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of Europe Limited, Travelers Commercial Casualty Company, Travelers Commercial Insurance Company, Travelers Constitution State Insurance Company, Travelers Distribution Alliance Inc., Travelers Excess and Surplus Lines Company, Travelers Global Inc., Travelers Indemnity U.K. Investments LLC, Travelers Insurance Company Limited, Travelers Insurance Company of Canada, Travelers Insurance Designated Activity Company, Travelers Insurance Group Holdings Inc., Travelers Lloyds of Texas Insurance Company, Travelers London Limited, Travelers MGA Inc., Travelers Management Limited, Travelers Marine LLC, Travelers Participacoes em Seguros Brasil S.A., Travelers Personal Insurance Company, Travelers Personal Security Insurance Company, Travelers Property Casualty Company of America, Travelers Property Casualty Corp., Travelers Property Casualty Insurance Company, Travelers Seguros Brasil S.A., Travelers Syndicate Management Limited, Travelers Texas MGA Inc., Travelers Underwriting Agency Limited, Ultramar Travel Management, United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, Xbridge Limited, Zensurance Brokers Inc., and Zensurance Inc..KION GROUP AG provides industrial trucks, warehouse technology, supply chain solutions, and related services worldwide. The company operates through Industrial Trucks and Services, Supply Chain Solutions, and Corporate Services segments. It develops, manufactures, and sells forklifts and warehouse trucks, such as counterbalance trucks with electric drive and internal combustion engine, ride-on and hand-operated industrial trucks, and towing vehicles under the Linde, Fenwick, STILL, Baoli, and OM Voltas brand names. The company also manufactures and sells spare parts; leases industrial trucks and related items; offers maintenance and repair, and fleet management services, as well as provides finance solutions. In addition, it provides integrated technology and software solutions, including conveyors, sorters, storage and retrieval systems, picking equipment, palletizers, and robotic solutions under the Dematic brand. The company was formerly known as KION Holding 1 GmbH. KION GROUP AG was founded in 2006 and is based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Read MoreDTE Energy Co. operates as a diversified energy company, which engages in the provision of electricity and natural gas sales, distribution and storage services. It operates through the following segments: Electric, Gas, Non-Utility Operations, and Corporate & Other. The Electric segment engages in the generation, purchase, distribution and sale of electricity to residential, commercial and industrial customers in south-eastern Michigan. The Gas segment engages in the purchase, storage, transportation, distribution and sale of natural gas to residential, commercial and industrial customers throughout Michigan and the sale of storage and transportation capacity. The Non-Utility Operations segment engages in gas storage and pipelines, power and industrial projects, and energy trading. The Corporate & Other includes various holding company activities, holds certain non-utility debt, and holds energy-related investments. The company was founded in January 1995 and is headquartered in Detroit, MI.

Read MoreVeritiv Corp. engages in business-to-business distributor of print, publishing, packaging, facility solutions, print and publishing products and services. The firm provides logistics and supply chain management solutions to its customers. It operates through the following segments: Print, Publishing, Packaging and Facility Solutions. The Print segment sells and distributes commercial printing, writing, copying, digital, wide format and specialty paper products, graphics consumables and graphics equipment primarily in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The Publishing segment involves in sale and distribution of coated and uncoated commercial printing papers to publishers, retailers, converters, printers and specialty businesses for use in magazines, catalogs, books, directories, gaming, couponing, retail inserts and direct mail. The Packaging segment provides standard as well as custom and comprehensive packaging solutions for customers based in North America and in key global markets. The Facility Solutions segment sources and sells cleaning, break-room and other supplies such as towels, tissues, wipers and dispensers, can liners, commercial cleaning chemicals, soaps and sanitizers, sani

Read MoreAareal Bank AG, together with its subsidiaries, provides financing, software products, digital solutions, and payment transaction applications for the property sector and related industries in Germany and internationally. The company operates through three segments: Structured Property Financing, Banking & Digital solutions, and Aareon. The Structured Property Financing segment offers property financing and refinancing solutions for office buildings, hotels, and shopping centers, as well as retail, logistics, residential properties, and student apartments. This segment also provides deposits, registered and bearer Pfandbriefe, promissory note loans, medium-term notes, debt securities, private placements, other bonds and subordinated issues, mortgage Pfandbriefe, and public sector Pfandbriefe. The Banking & Digital solutions segment offers various services and products for the housing, commercial property, and energy and waste disposal industries. Its services include specialized banking, payment systems, and optimized business processes. The Aareon segment provides IT systems consultancy and related advisory services, enterprise resource planning systems, software solutions, hosting and software as a service, and in-house services. Aareal Bank AG was founded in 1923 and is headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany.

Read MoreWith an estimated 28 lakh patients suffering from tuberculosis in India, tackling the disease is not an easy feat. The government plans to eradicate TB by 2025. But given the burden and challenges at the ground level, experts state that it will require active participation in terms of notifying the cases, following up and also ensuring that the treatment is completed. Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis is another burden that is rising, which adds to the growing problem of TB, explains Dr Sandeep Raj Barma, senior pulmonologist.

The government has declared that TB will be completely eliminated by 2025. Is the government realistic in this venture or will it be a Herculean task?

The national strategic plan for tuberculosis elimination is very ambitious given the statistics and burden of tuberculosis in India. This will require both public and private sector healthcare systems to work together. Firstly, they need to detect all drug sensitive and drug resistant cases, make treatment and medications available, financially supporting the cost of treatment, and develop awareness programmes both for the general public and healthcare professionals.

TB is a notifiable disease since 2012. But is the data from the private hospitals being generated properly? How can unknown cases of TB be understood?

Reporting and notifying TB patients is extremely important to collect accurate burden of tuberculosis disease and its associated deaths, including drug resistance. In India, it is estimated that only 59 per cent of the cases were reported in 2015. This might be because of unregulated private healthcare that caters to the people. In the present times, data is important to chart strategies, prevent the spread of the disease and provide effective treatment.

It is said that the latent TB bacteria is in all of us and it comes to the fore once the immune system collapses. So would majority of the people suffer from TB at some point of time in their lives?

People who are exposed to tuberculosis bacteria either eliminate or contain the infection using immune defences. Some TB bacteria remain viable and can reactivate later and develop into active TB infection.

The state where the bacteria is contained is called latent TB infection. These patients remain asymptomatic and non- infectious and majority of them do not develop any disease. However, some people do develop active tuberculosis when host immunity declines especially in cases of the elderly, malnourished or those having HIV, diabetes mellitus, etc.

How can one protect oneself from TB?

Tuberculosis is spread when an active TB patient coughs or sneezes. To prevent the spread of disease, it is important that the person covers his/her mouth with a handkerchief while coughing or sneezing. Hands need to be washed regularly. Both patients and caregivers need to be counselled.

Why is it important to complete TB treatment?

It must be completed as otherwise, it may lead to relapse of TB infection or developing multi-drug resistant strains of tuberculosis bacteria, which are not only difficult to treat but also need long-term management.

Given the large number of cases in India, is isolation of the patients important?

Anti-tuberculosis treatment is given on outpatient basis and domiciliary basis. Isolation is not mandatory. But patient counselling as well as education is important regarding nutrition, cough etiquette, hand hygiene as well as completing the course of medications.

How can people play an active role in controlling the epidemic?

Tuberculosis has reached an alarming rate in India. It needs sustained efforts from both public and private healthcare systems. It is very important to increase awareness in the people, educate them and also the healthcare professionals about the disease. It is also important to make diagnostics and medications for TB affordable.Various past studies have shown that the high stress levels could lead to array of health issues. (Photo: Pixabay)

Gone are the days when you could get away with the excuse of a hectic day at work to avoid meditation.

A team of two scientists have provided some handy tips to help the people to regularly do meditation in order to beat the stress levels.

Various past studies have shown that the high stress levels could lead to array of health issues, including high blood pressure and various other cardiovascular diseases.

The American Psychological Association study suggested that the stress levels among the American natives have been increasing for the first time in ten years, reports NBC News.

Further, there are numerous studies suggesting that meditation could help in relieving anxiety and reducing stress levels, further reducing the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

"Real people living busy lives can meditate successfully on their seven-year-old couch, in bed alone or next to their snoring partner, in the passenger seat of their car, at work, at the kitchen table, in the backseat during a road trip, in a bus or a plane seat, said researcher Light Watkins.

"And that's as it should be, because if you are waiting to find yourself atop a cliff-side or in a white, sparsely furnished room in order to feel like you can meditate, you're only going to meditate sporadically, and you're going to mistakenly conclude that what little benefit you are able to derive from your practically is magically linked to your serene environment which couldn't be further from the truth", he added.

Further Emily Fletcher founder of New York-based Ziva Meditation center highlighted the benefits and ease of practicing meditation.

"It feels just as delicious to drop into a meditation when you are feeling blissed out on a pillow with soft lighting as it does sitting at your desk at 2 pm right as your morning coffee wear off," said Emily Fletcher.

Watkins and Fletcher further suggested some techniques to start out with meditation.

- Start Practicing

Watkins recommends meditation for 15 to 20 minutes right in the beginning of your day. One must sit upright with back relaxed and shoulders not withdrawn backward. Your hands and feet must be at ease and one could stretch the legs out in front. Set a timer and close your eyes.

- Allow all thoughts

The practitioner must not try to instantly fall into a state of complete meditation. Unwanted thoughts and distractions are a part and parcel of the meditation process; rather remember all kinds of thoughts come through your way. Do not try to control your meditation.

- Practice at your ease

The more consistently you meditate, the more mindful you will become, says Fletcher. He added, "Do your meditations whenever and wherever you can fit them in ten minutes is better than zero minutes". Watkins defines meditation as allowing the luxury to think about everything and nothing at the same time. This shall be accompanied with a slight to heavy feeling of forgetfulness.

- Catch your Breath

Fletcher further mentions of Balancing Breath or alternate nostril breathing, which in Indian context is known as 'Anulom Vilom' as a warm up to meditation. It helps to balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain and has immediate energising and calming effects.

Another technique, suggested by Fletcher, is called 2X Breath. This involves breathing in for two counts through the nostrils and out through the mouth for four counts.

- Feel the moment

Fletcher further mentions of 'Come to your senses' that could be easily done at all places. It involves closing your eyes and tuning into what your senses are experiencing one at a time.March 6 is celebrated as World Dentist Day worldwide. It goes back to the invention of the first 'dental foot engine' in 1790 by George Washington's dentist, John Greenwood (1760-1819). He adapted his mothers foot treadle spinning wheel to rotate a drill. Hesy-Re, an Egyptian scribe, often called the first dentist, died in 2,600 BC. An inscription on his tomb includes the title the greatest of those who deal with teeth, and of physicians. This is the earliest known reference to a person identified as a dental practitioner.

Today dentistry has grown by leaps and bounds from that olden era. Like how science progressed from stone age to cars to rocket technology, dentistry also changed from barbarian era to conservative approach to modern gene-based therapies. Lets talk on an innovative happening arena-- the forensic odontology Forensic odontology is a branch of forensic medicine which uses the knowledge of dentistry in the field of crime detection using bite mark analysis, palatoprints, lip prints, saliva based diagnostics and so on.

The oral cavity is a useful source of DNA. The latter is obtained from saliva, the oral mucosal cells and the teeth. The main DNA source is blood, though in some situations this type of sample is not available for analysis. In teeth, DNA is found in the pulp tissue, dentin, cement, periodontal ligament and alveolar bone. Due to the resistance of the hard tissues of the teeth to environmental actions such as incineration, immersion, trauma or decomposition, pulp tissue is an excellent source of DNA. Bite mark analysis is another important area in forensic odontology. The individual bite characteristics must be documented in order to positively identify the suspect. Certain important dental features can include fractures, dental rotations, attrition and wear, congenital malformations, etc.

The physical and biological findings deteriorate from the moment of the actual bite and, therefore, should be documented as quickly as possible. Saliva is deposited in the skin at the time of biting and should be collected preferably using the double cotton swab technique. Dry saliva is hard to detect, and the amylase test is needed to identify its presence. Rugoscopy is an identification technique based on the study and analysis of the number, shape, length, direction and merging pattern of the palatal ridges or rugae (rugosities). Cheiloscopy involves the study of a series of elevations and depressions that form a characteristic pattern on the lips known as lip prints. In the same way as the finger prints, the lip prints are permanent and constant and are, therefore, unique to each individual (except monozygous twins) Forensic odontology has helped investigators in many cases like Nirbhaya rape and Sheena Bora murder cases.

This expertise was also utilized to zero in on the culprit among six-seven suspects in a rape and murder of a girl in Dehradun sometime back. The victim had borne multiple bite marks on her body which helped investigators identify him from the injury. Let this dentist day give an opportunity to know more about an important speciality dentistry which includes dedicated persons striving hard to create a lasting smile in each one of your lives.Neeraj Singhania, 38, was a deputy general manager with Matrix Cellular (International) Services Limited, and his wife Ruchi, 35, worked with a US-based IT company in Noida. (Representational image: Pixabay)

Ghaziabad: A couple in their mid-thirties was found dead under mysterious circumstances in the bathroom of their Indirapuram flat in Uttar Pradeshs Ghaziabad on Friday evening.

According to a report in The Times of India, police is clueless on how the couple died and even the postmortem report could not conclude the reason behind the deaths. It has put the cause of death as uncertain.

The two were found naked, with strips of tablets to treat blood pressure strewn near the bodies, police said.

Sachin Malik, the SHO of Indirapuram, said, Their viscera have been preserved for now and will be sent for forensic tests in Agra.

The police are yet to receive any written complaint.

Neeraj Singhania, 38, was a deputy general manager with Matrix Cellular (International) Services Limited, and his wife Ruchi, 35, worked with a US-based IT company in Noida. They lived with Neerajs parents, younger brother and sister in a 3BHK flat in Indirapurams Gyan Khand 1. The couple also have a five-year-old daughter.

According to the police, the couple had celebrated Holi on the roof of their flat and returned to their room around 6 pm. When they did not respond to repeated knocks on the door around 9.30pm, Neerajs younger brother looked through a slit in the window and found his sister-in-laws leg protruding from the bathroom.

The family eventually broke open the door and found the couple lying on the floor of the bathroom without any clothes.

An ambulance was called and they were rushed to a private hospital, where they were declared dead on arrival. Their bodies, however, did not have any injury marks, said Rakesh Kumar Mishra, the circle officer of Indirapuram.

Ruchis parents, too, had come from Vaishali to celebrate Holi in the Indirapuram flat. The birthday of Neerajs father Prem Prakash Singhania and the marriage anniversary of his parents-in-law fall on March 2. The family had gathered to celebrate the occasion, Mishra added.

The couple got married in 2010.Calling the Congress 'anti-reform', Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the party that came up with Aadhaar is today its worst critic. (Photo: Twitter | ANI)

New Delhi: Facing the wrath by the Opposition over a host of banking frauds, the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday hit back the Congress-led UPA government and the former prime minister saying that the banking system was dented under the so-called economist Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"Under the so called economist, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the entire banking system went haywire due to all kinds of interference with it," senior BJP leader and Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told at a press conference in the national capital.

He said, Congress party is anti-reform and it has been indulging in the politics of fear and confusion in the last four years.

Accusing the former UPA government of not allowing the correct data to be entered into bank records, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, Time and again we have stated that not a single loan given under our govt is Non-Performing Asset (NPA). In 2008, the total advance to people given by the banks was Rs 18.06 lakh crores. By March14, the amount went up to Rs 52.15 lakh crore. The stressed asset identified out of this was only 36 per cent. Now the stressed asset has risen to 82 per cent out of that advances made in the UPA govt. This means for more than one occasions the correct data could not make it to the records. Under the so-called economist then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the entire banking system went haywire due to all kinds of interference with it.

Further responding to the Congress attack over the multi-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud, involving celebrity jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, the Union minister sought a reply from former Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

He accused P Chidambaram of helping Gitanjali Jewellers in 2014. There was a Scheme 80:20 introduced in August 2013 and repealed in November 2014. On May 16th, 2014, the date of the declaration of results, the then Finance Minister gave aashirvaad (blessings) to seven private companies under 80:20 Scheme. One of those companies was Gitanjali. The party must answer why this benefit was given to these companies.

The 80:20 scheme was launched by the UPA in August 2013, when the government was trying to curb gold imports to tackle the current account deficit.

According to the scheme, private traders were allowed to export 20 per cent of the imported gold and retain the rest for domestic use. The scheme was scrapped by the NDA government in November 2014.

"The Congress must answer who were those people who were lobbying on behalf of Gitanjali and related companies. And how much cut were they taking? Rahul Gandhi must answer after he returns from Italy," the Union minister said.

Alleging that stressed assets of government banks rose from 32 per cent to 82 per cent during the UPA tenure, Prasad said, "Many times the UPA did not allow correct data to be entered into bank records. Advances (to banks) rose during UPA but were not recorded in the books."

Calling the Congress "anti-reform", Ravi Shankar Prasad said the party that came up with Aadhaar is today its worst critic.

"Congress party has issues with technology since technology brings transparency," the Union minister said.

Ravi Shankar Prasad also targeted the Congress over the Rafale deal controversy. It is very surprising that the Congress party which is drowned in corruption in Bofors among other purchases of the weapons system is raising questions on Rafale deal. It couldnt execute Rafale deal for ten years and are now creating a chaos when PM Modi has got the best deal in terms of price, effectiveness and weapon system, he said.

Targeting Congress president Rahul Gandhi for not doing proper research before posing questions on Twitter, the Information and Technology minister said, Now once he is back from Italy, I expect him to answer our questions.

Referring to the recently-concluded Northeast Assembly elections, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, While BJP is moving from shunya to shikhar (from zero to top), Congress is moving from shikhar to shunya (from top to zero).

Calling Nagaland election results as a tectonic shift, Ravi Shankar Prasad said, In a state with 80 per cent Christian population, 12 of our 20 candidates won the seats. This shows that people are coming forward under PM Modis vision of Sabka saath, sabka vikaas.According to estimates that have been drawn up by the government, the requirement is of Rs 20,000 crore for the healthcare policy.

Hyderabad: A major threat which will start from the East and may hit worldwide, is  no, not climate change but another phenomenon which has got insurance companies closely evaluating the healthcare industry, said Shobana Kamineni, executive vice-chairperson of Apollo Hospitals at a medical conference in the city.

The ambitious Ayushman Bharat project or Modicare, as it is being called, will be on the rolls in April 2018 and the insurance of `5 lakh each for 50 crore Indians is being worked out at the back end to set it in motion.

While the healthcare industry is excited that it will open the doors to a large section of people and also make healthcare affordable, the flipside is the trust deficit, climate change and an impending pandemic due to the spurt in infectious diseases and their easy transfer from one part of the world to another.

According to estimates that have been drawn up by the government, the requirement is of `20,000 crore for the healthcare policy.

There is also a major focus on preventive healthcare and that needs to be boosted along with effective communication between the patients and doctors.

Dr Hari Prasad, president, Apollo Hospitals, said, The trust deficit is not only the issue between patient and doctor but the community at large. Do the people want us to practice defensive medicine like the American Model of Healthcare where a battery of tests are done to ensure that the healthcare industry as a unit is safe? Or do you want us to bring in the best of quality healthcare but at an affordable price?

The continuous issues which are being raised from time to time are increasing medical tests, conflicting opinions of doctors from different hospitals and intervention of outside agencies like politicians, bureaucrats and other professionals to decide on medical treatment.

Dr Guruva Reddy, chairman, Sunshine Hospital, explained, We are no longer dealing with one type of fever. We have hundreds of fevers and little time to assess before complications begin. So to say, dont do too many tests is not the right answer.

Also, patients who have insurance cover are open to getting all the tests done, while those who are paying out of their pockets are hesitant. Hence there is a clear divide in patient psychology and acceptance of medical care.

Dr Somaraju B., chairman of Care Hospitals, said, We are all working towards saving a patients life and it must be understood that while one per cent of doctors are not practising as required, the other 99 per cent are in fact doing just that. Do not blame the profession for the mistakes of a few. It is important that we answer questions, counsel patients properly and make them a part of the care process to ensure that they do well. If they take it positively their treatment is effective and if they take the advice negatively, they suffer.KOCHI: In an operation spanning nearly a week ending on Sunday, Customs officials at the Cochin International Airport seized 3.225 kg of gold worth Rs 1 crore. In the latest instance a total of 1.14 kg of gold was seized from a Kozhikode native, who arrived by an Air India flight from Dubai on Saturday. The yellow metal was concealed in semi-solid paste form, filled in a polythene cover and strapped on to the waist of the passenger which was valued at Rs 35.79 lakh.

Kochi Customs Commissioner Sumit Kumar said gangs from Kasargod are targeting the country's airports with their innovative and traditional smuggling skills. The passengers used various modes like hiding gold in rectum, shoes and innerwear and also in semi-solid paste form. It is understood that smugglers are trying to use the current rush in passengers from the Gulf countries to Kerala as a cover for their operation.

Due to the high demand for gold in Kerala, the gangs from Kasargod are using multiple teams of smugglers to bring the yellow metal from Dubai and other sensitive stations using new and unique methods of concealment, Mr Kumar said. For each kilo of gold smuggled in from Dubai, the operator and financier makes a neat Rs 3 lakh or more, of which he would spend up to Rs 1 lakh on the carrier for air travel, lodging and commission. With these kinds of profits, we in Kerala Customs have a tough task catching these Kasargod smugglers, he added.There are 3.21 lakh cases pending in the court and since May 2015 the court has been functioning with an Acting Chief Justice.

Hyderabad: Judges working in the Hyderabad High Court have to shoulder a heavy case load because of the shortage of judges.

There are 3.21 lakh cases pending in the court and since May 2015 the court has been functioning with an Acting Chief Justice.

The Hyderabad High Court is the common High Court for Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and currently it is functioning with just 30 judges, less than half of the sanctioned strength of 61 judges.

Lawyers from AP and Telangana have been agitating for two years for the vacancies to be filled and the appointment of a regular Chief Justice.

About a month ago, the Supreme Court collegium cleared Justice T.

Radhakrishnan for the post of Chief Justice, but the central government has not cleared the appointment yet. Last year, the Collegium had cleared Justice Dama Seshadri Naidus transfer from the Kerala High Court to the Hyderabad High Court, which has also not materialised to date.

According to Jalli Kanakaiah, president of the Telangana High Court Advocates Association, and Challa Dhananjay, president of the AP High Court Advocates Association, each judge of the High Court has been burdened with the allocation of additional subjects due to the shortage of judges.

They have demanded that the Centre and the Supreme Court immediately take steps to fill the vacancies and appoint a regular Chief Justice.

Sarasani Satyam Reddy, senior advocate, said that due to the shortage, judges are forced to deliver orders in a hurry which may sometimes result in mistakes.

He said every judge must be assisted by a judicial clerk  as is the practice in the Supreme Court  who will prepare the note file of each case, which helps the judge understand the case and shortens the arguments of advocates of both sides.

But he said being overburdened by cases cannot be an excuse for a judge to keep on adjourning a case.

60% of cases pending as counters are not filed in Courts

Judges have various administrative duties apart from the legal work of hearing cases, which adds to the delay in disposing of cases.

A sitting judge of the High Court in an off the record talk said that each judge of the High Court has to look after administrative affairs of subordinate courts in the district in which he was nominated as the portfolio judge.

He said that the portfolio judge has to oversee the administrative and judicial functions of judicial officers of the district, including the maintenance of infrastructure, and prepare their annual credential reports and also periodical assessments of the orders passed by them.

He said that there is wrongly presumed by people that a judge works only five days a week from 10.30 am to 4.30 pm.

Actually, a High Court judge has to make periodic visits to subordinate courts in the district that are under his administrative control and also conduct workshops for them to improve their skills. These functions are discharged on Saturday and Sunday and not on regular court days.

The judge held the government  one of the biggest litigants  largely responsible for the pendency of cases.

We are unable to dispose of cases finally as the executive functionaries are not filing the counter affidavits. I believe that more than 60 per cent of cases are pending for want of counter affidavits. The judge felt that if the executive authorities would only take decisions as per the rule book, people will not have to knock on the doors of the High Court.

As the High Court has extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226, people approach it for every little work like house permission, passport and even for a tap and electrical connection, leave aside the many land disputes with the Revenue authorities.

According to sources in the judiciary, there are about 34 committees in the High Court of which judges are members, and each judge has to be a part of one or other committee and some of them are members of more than three committees, which have to oversee the E-Courts project, Library, Disciplinary proceedings and other administrative matters.

The sitting judge said that a judge has to do a lot of homework to understand the cases coming before him. He has to update himself about the latest case laws and also on happenings in society.Mumbai: A joint questioning of Karti Chidambaram and Indrani Mukerjea, both accused in the INX Media case, ended on Sunday evening, with the former leaving Mumbais Byculla Jail with a defiant gesture to the media claiming innocence.

Sources said Karti, son of senior Congress leader and former finance minister P. Chidambaram, was brought face-to-face with Indrani, who is lodged inside the Byculla jail and is undergoing trail for allegedly killing her daughter Sheena Bora.

The 6-member CBI team landed at Mumbai early on Sunday morning and arrived at the Byculla womens prison around 11.30 am. A defiant Karti waved at the media after alighting from the SUV, before being whisked away by the officials inside the prison.

The joint interrogation session went on for four hours that was video recorded by the CBI officials.

The questioning was to ascertain the claims made by Indrani naming Karti and his father over the foreign remittances made by the Mukerjeas to assist Karti and their interest in overseas venture.

The questioning ended around 3.15 pm. The CBI team headed to the airport to return to Delhi. While being whisked away by the CBI officials, Karti said, I am innocent. The whole case is politically motivated.

The CBI officials refused to comment on the joint interrogation. Sources added, The joint questioning was required before the custody ended. If needed, more joint interrogation will be held again. The CBI has Kartis custody till March 6.The death toll in Sunday night's clash between militants and Army troops in a remote village of Jammu and Kashmir's southern Shopian district has risen to six. (Representational Image | PTI)

Srinagar: With one more body found at the scene of crossfire, the death toll in Sunday night's clash between militants and Army troops in a remote village of Jammu and Kashmir's southern Shopian district has risen to six.

Yet another bullet-riddled body, that of a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant Ashiq Hussain Bhat, was found lying in an apple orchard at Saidpora, barely 10 kilometre from Pahnoo where the exchange of fire had taken place between militants and the troops of Armys 44 Rashtriya Rifles on Sunday night, the police said.

Following these six killings massive protests have erupted in several parts of Shopian. The reports received said the police and other security forces are facing a tough time while confronting stone-pelting mobs.

The Army had said on Sunday night that four people including a militant belonging to LeT were killed in retaliatory fire after a mobile check-post came under attack in Shopian's Pahnoo village.

The Army identified the slain militant as Shahid Ahmed Dar, a resident of Shopian's Jamnagri village. But the police said he was Aamir Ahmed Malik, a resident Shopian's Harmeen village. The identities of the civilians killed during the clash are being ascertained, the police said.

The Army alleged that they were the over-ground workers (OGWs) of the LeT and were accompanying Malik. On Monday morning, one more bullet-riddled body was found at the scene of occurrence. The police said his identity too is being ascertained.

A local source identified him as 24-year-old Gawhar Ahmed Lone and said his corpse was found lying inside a Wagon-R car near the site Sunday night's clash.

Defence spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia had said on Sunday evening that a joint Mobile Vehicle Check Post (MVCP) near Pahnoo in Shopian was fired upon by militants travelling in a vehicle at 8 pm. "In retaliatory firing, one terrorist identified as Shahid Ahmad Dar, son of Mushtaq Ahmad Dar, resident of Jamnagri, Shopian was killed and a weapon has been found with him. Also the three OGWs/ accomplices in the car who were accompanying the terrorist were found to be dead. Police has reached the spot and started legal formalities", he said in a statement issued in Srinagar.

The locals alleged that the civilians were travelling in a car through the area and were killed in reprisal by the Army following the militant attack. They identified them as Suhail Khaleel Wagay of Pinjoora, Mohammad Shahid Khan of Malikgund, Shahnawaz Ahmad Wagay of Trenz- all from Shopian.

A statement issued by the Jammu and Kashmir police said, "On the basis of the docket received from the Army, it is learnt that the MVCP of Army located near Pahnoo in Shopian was fired upon from a Maruti Swift. The Army retaliated in which a militant was killed and three individuals who were accompanying the said militant in the vehicle also succumbed to their injuries."

It added that consequently the police reached the spot and initiated medico-legal formalities and seized the weapon. "Investigation of the case has been taken up. The bodies have been handed over to the legal heirs," the statement said.

It also said that the slain LeT militant Aamir Ahmed Malik was active since July 2017.

Following the incident, clashes between surging crowds and security forces erupted in a few Shopian areas, a report said. A police officer described the situation as "very tense".

In view of heightening tensions, curfew-like restrictions have been imposed in several Shopian areas. In summer capital Srinagar, a security clampdown is being enforced by security forces in six police station areas "as a precautionary measure".

Train services in the Valley have been suspended. The authorities have ordered closure of schools and colleges whereas Kashmir University has announced postponement of examinations which were scheduled for Monday. The authorities have also placed several separatist leaders under house arrest.

Earlier, 'Joint Resistance Leadership', an alliance of key separatist leaders had called for observing one day shutdown on Monday to mourn and protest the civilian killings in Shopian.Cyber experts will conduct a disk analysis on the laptops found at the site of an encounter in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh four days ago. (File photo)

HYDERABAD: Cyber experts will conduct a disk analysis on the laptops found at the site of an encounter in Bijapur district of Chhattisgarh four days ago. Ten Maoists, including six women, were killed in the encounter between the security forces and the outlaws early on Friday. Apart from weapons, including INSAS rifles, an AK 47 and cash, the police also seized laptops.

A team of disk forensic experts will extract the over-a-period information from the gadgets. The details will be provided to the security agencies concerned for analysis and plans for next moves. We can know more about their future plans  both spreading their propaganda and attacks, advisories issued by the central committee and other important decisions taken. These are vital for the security forces, said a senior police official.

Following recent enco-unters based on tracking of e-communication, Maoists have reportedly stopped sending messages through emails, Facebook or other online tools.

The Maoists use some encrypted code for communication or storing information. However, the police had in the past cracked the communication with the help of a few surrendered Maoists.

The laptops could also have latest pictures of meetings and party activities taken up by group members.

Meanwhile, senior officials in Telangana police said top Maoist leaders had attended the meeting in a prelude to the encounter day. However, they had managed to escape from the spot during the encounter.

Maoists do not sit in a group at a particular place except when they are in meeting. When they go out to sleep or take rest, they spread out in about a kilometre area to avoid becoming sitting ducks for security forces. It might be due to this strategy that main leaders might escaped from the spot, said another official familiar with anti-Maoist operations.CHENNAI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Sunday condoled the death of an Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer from Tamil Nadu who was trampled by an elephant in Karnatakas Nagarhole Tiger Reserve.

In his message, Modi said Manikandan, 45, will be remembered for his passion towards wildlife and forest conservation. The officer was attacked and killed by an elephant when he was conducting a survey of the fire line in the DB Kuppe Forest Range in Nagarhole National Park near Mysuru on Saturday.

The PMO said the prime ministers thoughts are with the family, friends and colleagues of Manikandan, who lost his life while on duty. The country will remember him for his rich service and passion towards wildlife and forest conservation, it said in a tweet.

In Chennai, the state government released a letter that Palaniswami wrote to the departed officers wife M. Sangeetha. I was shocked to hear the news of the death of S. Manikandan and I convey my deepest condolences to the family of the officer, Palaniswami said in the letter. He also said he was praying to god to give Manikandans family the strength to overcome the great loss.

The 2001-batch officer was briefing his colleagues when a lone tusker came from behind and charged at the group.

Unfortunately, Manikandan lost his balance while trying to escape and was trampled by the jumbo, sources said, adding that he was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him dead.Kolkata: Asking the BJP to prove its worth before eyeing West Bengal, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday declared that the Trinamool Congress (TMC) has set the Red Fort as its target when the BJP eyes to rule the state.

Accusing the BJP and its affiliates of orchestrating communal tension and riots, she also announced that her government would give either jobs or rewards to those who would prevent communal tension.

"First prove your mettle. Then set your eyes on Bengal. Remember Bengal is the only state which never bowed her head down to anyone and she will never do so. Bengal shows the way to the people. Our task is to produce human beings. Our job is not to indulge in rioting. Looting the savings of the poor, who can not even arrange their food, from the banks and winning elections with their money cannot go hand in hand," she said in an oblique reference to the BJP at a rally in Purulia.

Training guns on the BJP Banerjee elaborated, "It is not a crime to be poor. But if someone tries to buy the poor with the money and orchestrating riots then it is a crime. Someone says now their target is Bengal. And Bengal says, not for her interest but for the country's sake, our target is Lal Qila in New Delhi."

Earlier at an administrative meeting in Durgapur, the chief minister alleged, "Recently another conspiracy has been underway. Some youth are given money, say Rs 20,000."

She claimed, "They are asked to throw away meat at places: sometimes at a temple sometimes at a mosque to ignite riots between two communities. It is the handiwork of the RSS and BJP. We have seen such instances in North 24 Parganas. It may be done also during Ramnavami in a deliberate attempt. I do not need to judge anyone whether he is a Hindu or a Muslim. I support all. Whoever will commit an offense is guilty."

Directing the police to pull up their socks Banerjee added, "The police has to undertake community development programme in all areas. The inspectors in charge have to keep vigil in their police station jurisdictions. I am saying all these because the RSS-BJP workers were caught in the incident which took place at Habra. Unless I would not have been vocal about it. Had it been the Trinamul workers I still would have spoken about it."

Instructing the police to set up community development committees and involve the public in it the chief minister underlined, "Those who create riot have to be caught. Those who will either catch the offender or keep a tab on such incidents will be rewarded. Some of them will be awarded Rs 1,000, others will be given jobs."THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran refuted the charge that AIYF cadre was behind the suicide of NRI businessman in Punalur. Reacting to the Chief Minister's statement in assembly that there was a tendency among political parties and its affiliated organisations to hoist flags to prevent development projects and business ventures and this practice should stop, Mr Kanam said his party was ready to abide by his directive if it was made applicable to all political parties.

He said if NRI businessman committed suicide due to AIYF pressure then case should be registered against those behind the incident. The CPI state secretary said the party's main objective was to check the reclamation of paddy fields for real estate business under the garb of development projects. The LDF is committed to protect the environment, water bodies and paddy fields. Mr Kanam's statement comes in the wake the Opposition UDF allegation that the AIYF had driven Gulf returnee Sugathan to suicide. The CPI youth wing leaders had objected to the construction of workshop.The electoral rise and ebb of the Left in India has been an interesting topic of discussion especially in recent times. When Communists chose the parliamentary path in 1952, after abandoning the Calcutta thesis of 1948, consequent to discussions held with Stalin in Moscow, they could become the largest opposition group in Parliament. In 1954, in Madras State and Travancore -Cochin, they came within striking distance of power. But history was created in Kerala with the undivided Communist party forming government in 1957. In 1967, as two different parties they came to power in Kerala and West Bengal. In the 1970s, the larger of the two parties, CPM was not in power in any State, till it won West Bengal and Tripura, while CPI was in power in Kerala as part of the Congress coalition.

The West Bengal stint was continuous for 34 years and in Kerala since the 1980s, the CPM-led Left Democratic Front has been in and out of power. In Tripura, the Left Front was in power 1978-2018 (except for 1988-1993). The long stint in West Bengal was marked by important strides like decentralization experiment, Operation Barga (programme for registration of share croppers) and improvement in agricultural production in the 1980s. Attempts were made to reap possibilities of economic liberalization by Jyoti Basu and Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee through programmes to attract private capital. The issues of land acquisition and way of handling of farmers protests resulted in a huge loss of face for the Left Front government. This coupled with other anti-incumbency factors resulted in the rout of the Left Front in 2011.

What is more intriguing is the consistent erosion of support base since then. The cadre-based party, which had withstood state repression during the 1972-77, seems to be decimated at present. This has reduced the parliamentary presence of the CPM and dented the left space in a probable non-Congress and non-BJP political front. Kerala has been a place where the base has remained more or less intact, despite oscillations in and out of power. Now, losing Tripura to BJP and not the Congress as before can put more stress on the Lefts role as an opposition party.

While CPM was concentrated in three States and could have a parliamentary strength of 30-40, CPI had a thin yet more geographical spread. Post-Mandal political polarization not only dissipated the Congress in Hindi heartland, but also the hitherto regionally strong cadre base of the CPI in Bihar. In Uttar Pradesh, it found some important leaders joining predominantly caste-based regional parties. The Left parties have on many occasions self-critically discussed about parliamentary cretinism afflicting the cadre. But now the parliamentary presence itself is getting shrunk. When capitalism takes newer forms, responses need to be more appealing. Old contributions, however, valuable, may not continue to yield dividends.

One needs to acknowledge that there is Left presence in extra-parliamentary struggles in Rajasthan, Odisha, Andhra, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, though these are not getting enough media space. But staying in social and media limelight too is important as it plays a significant role in opinion-building. This is especially when there is a deluge of anti-Left propaganda, even while claiming that the Left has become irrelevant. Fighting the irrelevant is redundant. The very fact that the fight is fierce disproves the irrelevance hypothesis. Even with a shrunken strength, the Left is considered as an ideological opponent by the national ruling party.

Organisationally and politically, a more open dialogue-based approach will help. In a political democracy, strategy adopted by Lenin to fight the Tsar and Kerensky cannot be replicated. Mass-based tactics, accepting dissent, but at the same time, projecting the difference should be the aim. In an anti-establishment struggle, there is a lot to learn from the Gandhian way of protests and tactics. Com EMS had realised this in the Peoples Plan experiment, which came after the failure of bureaucratic centralist models of the East Europe. But there is lot more distance to be travelled, especially when the noncommunist socialist movement has disintegrated to atomistic levels in Indian polity, leaving the non-Congress space exclusively to the BJP in a large number of States. The Indian Left has to re-envision a social, political and economic role in our country. That is their relevance. This should be realised and experimented.

(The author is a commentator on federal polity)Bengaluru: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the assassination of activist and journalist Gauri Lankesh took the murder suspect KT Naveen Kumar alias Hotte Manja, founder of radical Hindutva outfit Hindu Yuva Sene, to the murdered journalists house on Monday morning and recreated the crime scene as to establish his role in the killing.

Read | Is this man Gauri Lankeshs killer?

The SIT who has the custody of Naveen believe that Naveen resembles the man on the bike who did the recee of the area surrounding Gauri's house on the day she was assassinated.

The team at around 8.30 am recreated the scene of bike-borne men wearing helmet stopping the bike near the gate with one of them opening fire at Gauri.

The entire scene was captured on the CCTV camera installed at Gauri's house. Naveen was asked to wear a helmet just like the killer did and was instructed to come in the bike. "This was part of our investigation, a senior SIT officer said. The FSL team was also present at the spot.Chennai: Chief Minister K. Palaniswami on Monday described extremism, communalism and left-wing terrorism as very big threats to the society, and called for strengthening the police intelligence mechanism to tackle anti-social elements.

Addressing a conference of collectors and district police heads here, he said efforts should be made to ensure that such dangerous elements do not take rise at all. Extremism, communalism and left-wing terrorism are very big threats to the society. To efficiently handle such challenges, intelligence organisations should be strengthened and they (anti-social elements) should be nipped in the bud, the CM said.

He urged the collectors and district police heads to ensure that destructive forces are kept under control and ensure the state progressed on the growth path. All-round peace is the hallmark of the AIADMK government, he said, adding people and groups acting against the interest of national security should be dealt with strictly under the National Security Act.

The CM also urged the officials to ensure that there was no caste-related tensions and asked them to ensure social amity by holding regular conciliatory meetings among different groups. Elements trying to foment caste-related tensions should be identified and action should be initiated against them. On the safety front, authorities must employ visible policing to prevent instances of robbery and chain-snatching, the CM said.

He said there should be no delay in acting on complaints of economic offences, crimes against women and children, and honour killings. The perpetrators of crime should be brought to the book swiftly, he said.

Referring to the recent blaze at the famous Madurai Meenakshi Amman Temple, the CM said the concerned authorities should take all steps to prevent recurrence of such incident.

Deputy Chief Minister O Panneerselvam, Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan, Additional Chief Secretary (Home), Niranjan Mardi and DGP T K Rajendiran, among others, attended the conference. The three-day conference will go on till March 7, with the CM holding separate discussions with the district collectors on Tuesday and the SPs on Wednesday.MALAPPURAM: Kanam Rajendran was re-elected as the state secretary of Communist Party of India (CPI) for a second term on Sunday. He was elected unanimously at the first meeting of the newly- elected 96-member state council here on the concluding day of the state conference of the party. Mr Rajendran was nominated by party national general secretary S. Sudhakar Reddy, which was agreed by all. While 18 members were removed from former 89-member state council, 25 new members were inducted to the new council.

E.S. Bijimol, who was demoted to district council earlier, made a comeback to the state council. The party has also reconstituted the nine-member control commission inducting six new members. Ten leaders have been selected as candidate members. Addressing media after the election, Mr Rajendran said that a larger secular democratic Left platform was the need of the hour to resist the Sangh Parivar and the BJP. The Assembly election results in Tripura calls for such a larger political platform. CPI is going ahead with strengthening and broadening the politics of resistancee, Mr Rajendran said. It is a great responsibility to lead a Left party, particularly at a time when the Left is facing various threats.

There would be differences of opinion between CPI and the CPM, he said. What keeps us united is our collective election manifesto. We will never oppose it. We are the closest mainstream parties, Mr Rajendran said. He made it clear that CPI state conference has not discussed the cabinet rejig and added that criticism against the performance of CPI ministers would be examined. The state conference concluded with mass rally in Malappuram on Sunday evening.The BJP is expected to seek passage of the Triple Talaq Bill in Rajya Sabha despite strong opposition. (Representational Image)

New Delhi: The Opposition, including the Congress, is expected to corner the Narendra Modi government in the second part of the ongoing Budget Session of Parliament, which is scheduled to begin on Monday, on various contentious issues like the Punjab National Bank scam and the ongoing tussle between Prasar Bharati and the Information and Broadcasting ministry.

While the BJP government is expected to push for the passage of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, which seeks confiscation of assets of absconding fraudsters and loan defaulters, and the Triple Talaq Bill will be high on the governments agenda.

Sources stated that the government hopes that it would be able to deflect the opposition criticism if it is able to get the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill through in the ongoing Session.

The Opposition has been targeting the Modi government on the issue and said Nirav is the second big offender to flee India with a huge amount of money owed to public banks.

Another major issue that is expected to create trouble is the ongoing tussle between the public service broadcaster, Prasar Bharati, and the I&B ministry.

The Opposition has been targeting the I&B ministry over its refusal to release funds to the Prasar Bharati for the salaries of its employees. The Ministrys enmasse transfer of Indian Information service officers is also expected to be taken up during the session.Bengaluru: Buoyed by the victory in the Northeastern states, the state BJP has decided to request PM Modi and party president Amit Shah to increase their visits to the state to repeat the N-E results in poll-bound Karnataka.

This was one of the prominent issues that was discussed at the party core committee meeting here on Sunday.

After the meeting, state BJP president B.S. Yeddyurappa exuded said that the party is confident of reaching the target of 150 seats in the state, set by Mr Shah. The electorate will give a fitting reply to the killing of two dozen Hindu activists over the last six months under the current Congress government. The state will become Congress-mukt after Assembly polls. The arrogant CM Siddaramaiah will be sent home, he said. Mr Yeddyurappa said the meeting ecided to organise more public meetings to be addressed by Mr Modi and Mr Shah in different parts of the state. Mr Modi will address a meeting in Raichur on March 13. Jan Jagruthi Yatra will be held all over the state to prepare the cadre for polls. Mr Shah will take part in the valedictory of Bengaluru Ulisi padayatra in the city on March 15, he said.

An OBC rally will be held in Koodalasangama on March 7 which will be addressed by Mr Shah. Efforts are on to bring Mr Modi for the rally to woo the backward classes. Senior BJP leader K.S. Eshwarappa has been given the responsibility of making the meet a success, he said.Chennai: Asserting that he was entering politics only to fill a leadership vacuum in the state, superstar Rajinikanth on Monday declared that his intention would be to give a pro-poor people friendly government just as MGR had done.

His carping remark was greeted with wild cheers by the huge audience at the MGR Medical University owned by MGR loyalist A.C. Shanmugam, former MP and MLA of the AIADMK. The audience comprised of not just students but many Rajinkanths fans.

The road show, the crowds en route, the welcoming banners and fans from neighbouring districts culminating in that massive audience at the college venue resembled a virtual political conference.

But the most important observation the superstar made was that he indeed was stepping in to fill the political vacuum caused by the absence of two strong leaders Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi who had dominated the states polity. There is a need for strong political leadership, strong leaders and I am here to provide that because others have failed to do so, he said amidst thunderous roars.

Rajinikanth dismissed the theory that he was angling for MGRs votes by trying to become another MGR.

Let there be no doubt - there can never be another MGR. He was Gods gift to mankind. A yugapurush who cannot be emulated by anyone. But I promise that my aim would be to provide an honest and people oriented government that MGR did. Like the noon meal scheme for all children, current connection to even huts, cheap rice, bus routes to every villages at nominal fares.

In a rarity among Tamil politicians the superstar also apologised to the public for the inconvenience caused by the banners and cutouts that hindered their movement. It is illegal to erect such banners and I request my fans not to repeat the mistake in future. Whatever we do should not inconvenience the public, he stressed.

In totality it was a stunning political opener by Rajinikanth by which he let his rivals know that he is here to stay and is building up the momentum for a grand and formal launch of his political party.Superstar Rajinikanth greets his fans and audience at a function got up to unveil a statue of AIADMK founder and late Chief Minister M.G. Ramachandran at a private medical college here on Monday. Actors Prabhu, son of Sivaji Ganesan and Vijayakumar were among those from the film industry present on the occasion. (Photo: DC)

Chennai: Asserting that he was entering politics only to fill a leadership vacuum in the state, Superstar Rajinikanth on Monday declared that his intention would be to give a pro-poor people friendly government just as MGR had done. Yes, I am going to provide a government that will do good for the people, he declared.

In his strongest and most direct political speech, Rajinikanth replied to the politicians criticising the entry of film stars to politics, with the words, We are forced to enter politics, because you politicians have failed to do your job. His carping remark was greeted with wild cheers by the huge audience at the MGR Medical University owned by MGR loyalist A.C. Shanmugam, former MP and MLA of the AIADMK. The audience comprised of not just students but many Rajinkanth's fans.

Rajinikanth unveiled a statue at the university and his road trip to the venue was marked by large enthusiastic fans and supporters greeting him along the 15 km route, bringing traffic to a standstill. The grand spectacle could be dubbed a teaser to the star's actual political launch. The road show, the crowds en route, the welcoming banners and fans from neighbouring districts culminating in that massive audience at the college venue resembled a virtual political conference.

But the most important observation the superstar made was that he indeed was stepping in to fill the political vacuum caused by the absence of two strong leaders - Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi who had dominated the state's polity. There is a need for strong political leadership, strong leaders and I am here to provide that because others have failed to do so, he said amidst thunderous roars.

They became an issue too with Chennaiites taking to twitter to point out that such welcoming features made it no different from the days of banners and cutouts hailing MGR and then Jayalalithaa and members of the DMK family.

Twitter exploded with comments on the banners and hoardings adorning the roads of Chennai even as the chief justice had stern things to say of inaction by the authorities after the high court had ruled that all illegal banners and hoardings had to come down at once. Rajini fans spoke defensively of the need for their leader to achieve the same reach as the great matinee idols who went on to become netas.Kamal Haasan took a swipe at his 'friend' but potential political rival when he said that change must come from within in referring to the banners and hoardings peppering public space. Talk may be about change as Rajini is also poised to enter the political space in Tamil Nadu but it is unlikely that things will change at once at a fundamental level.

Tamil Nadu's hero worship of cinema stars is a deep-rooted phenomenon. It may not have been sighted when Kamal made a splashy entry into politics a fortnight ago. But Rajini is different. Like MGR, he is perceived to be a 'liberator' who will take his flock to the land of the promised change. Kamal might be a versatile actor. But when it comes to projections as a politician, he may not be able to match Rajinikanth's charisma, which makes him a leader, a neta in a larger sense. What we saw on Monday were the first signs of this wave of interest in an emerging leader.

Seeing the crowd that surged towards the vehicle carrying Rajini to the venue and the traffic snarl around the venue that lasted a couple of hours, a conclusion is easy to arrive at and that is about Monday having started a wave around Neta Rajini. In Tamil, it is a more illustrative word - Thalaivar. And he spoke like one as he broke the shackles and said why he can never be another MGR. If the people wished to interpret that as a message that he will try to give governance like MGR, they are not to be considered foolish. They sensed it already from the tone and tenor of his very political speech.Indias most recent gesture in respect of relations with China is, to say the least, pusillanimous. An instruction from the Cabinet Secretary reported last week  after a note by the foreign secretary  has directed all officials and senior figures to avoid any event with which the Dalai Lama is associated. The foreign secretarys note  leaked to the media  had spelt out the reason, namely, that bilateral relations with China are in a sensitive state. Just days before the instruction became public, the government had noted in reply to a parliamentary question that fresh Chinese military manoeuvres in the Doklam area could not be ruled out after the dust settled last August on the Sino-Indian standoff in the Doklam plateau.

Beijing will be justified in reading the Indian move in relation to the iconic Nobel Peace Prize winner as a triumph of its browbeating diplomacy, and possibly even as an example of Indian kowtowing. China regards the Tibetan spiritual leader as a splittist, or separatist, though the latter strenuously denies this. Beijing regularly expresses annoyance when the Dalai Lama is received by any world leader. Since 1959, when the Dalai Lama, as a boy, escaped to India following the failed Tibetan uprising against the Chinese occupation that was crushed, and was given refuge by Jawaharlal Nehrus government, the famous Tibetan monk has not engaged in any political activity in the country, and has confined himself to the religious domain. In fact, not taking part in politics was a condition of being given hospitality.

It is noteworthy that in the nearly 60 years the spiritual leader has lived in this country, political leaders or senior officials are not known to have associated with him at public forums  even at religious platforms. This makes the latest directive, which obviously has clearance from the highest level, intriguing. It also risks being seen as a placatory gesture  agreeing to doing something of which Indians have not been guilty in the first place. Last month, when the Indian foreign secretary travelled to Beijing for the first time in his present capacity (he was earlier our ambassador to China), foreign minister Wang Yi had reportedly told him that India should be prudent.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in China in June. A series of high-level official meetings between the two nations have been planned to prepare for the PMs visit, in the course of which Mr Modi is more than likely to interact with President Xi Jinping on bilateral matters and issues of common concern. It is in the interest of neither country to have anything but the friendliest of ties, and to take constructive steps to deal with points of difference. But appeasement and currying favour cannot lead to satisfactory relations.The White House said Russian military aircraft took off from Humaymim Airfield in Syria and carried out at least 20 daily bombing missions in Damascus and eastern Ghouta between February 24 and February 28. (Photo: AP/ Representational)

Washington: The United States on Sunday made its strongest accusation to date of Moscows complicity in civilian deaths in Syria, saying Russian aircraft flew bombing missions over the besieged eastern Ghouta region in defiance of a United Nations ceasefire.

The White House said Russian military aircraft took off from Humaymim Airfield in Syria and carried out at least 20 daily bombing missions in Damascus and eastern Ghouta between February 24 and February 28.

It did not say whether the jets dropped ordnance, which could be harder to determine than tracking the flight paths of Russian aircraft on US radar. But the United States directly accused Russia of killing civilians.

Russia has gone on to ignore (a UN ceasefires) terms and to kill innocent civilians under the false auspices of counter-terrorism operations, the White House said in a statement.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed on Sunday to continue the offensive in eastern Ghouta, one of the deadliest in the war. A local insurgent group called it a scorched earth campaign.

With the war entering its eighth year, capturing eastern Ghouta would be a major victory for Assad, who has steadily regained control of rebel areas with Russian and Iranian support.

Government shelling and air strikes have killed 659 people in eastern Ghouta since February 18, while rebel shelling of Damascus has killed 27, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday that Syrian government air strikes on eastern Ghouta and shelling from the rebel-held zone into Damascus probably constitute war crimes.

The White House called on pro-Assad forces to immediately cease targeting medical infrastructure and civilians. In a separate statement later on Sunday, the White House said President Donald Trump and Egypts President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi discussed Russia and Irans irresponsible support of the Assad regimes brutal attacks against innocent civilians.

President Trump and President al-Sisi agreed to work together on ending the humanitarian crisis in Syria and achieving Arab unity and security in the region, the White House statement said.

Russia and Damascus have accused rebels of preventing civilians from leaving eastern Ghouta during daily ceasefires. Rebels have consistently denied the accusation and say people will not leave because they fear the government. The multi-sided war has killed hundreds of thousands of people since 2011.The boundary condition of the universe ... is that it has no boundary, Hawking told physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson

New York: There was absolutely nothing before the Big Bang, according to British physicist Stephen Hawking, who explained what happened prior to the existence of our universe. The Big Bang theory proposes that a tiny speck of matter and energy began to grow, bringing about the birth of our universe about the universe billions of years ago.

However, scientists are intrigued by what was there before the explosion when there was supposed to be nothing. There was nothing around before the Big, Big Bang, Hawking said.

His theory is based on the assumption that the universe has no boundaries. The boundary condition of the universe ... is that it has no boundary, Hawking told physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson at the Star Talk show aired on National Geographic Channel.

The Big Bang theory holds that the universe in retrospective can shrink to the size of an extremely small subatomic ball known as the singularity. According to Hawking, the laws of physics and time cease to function inside that tiny particle of heat and energy. The ordinary real time as we know now shrinks infinitely as the universe becomes ever smaller but never reaches a definable starting point.

Hawking argued that before the Big Bang real ordinary time was replaced by imaginary time and was in a bent form, state run news agency Xinhua reported. To help people better understand the abstract and confusing state, the physicist drew an analogy between the distorted time with Ancient Greek philosopher Euclid's theory of space-time, a closed surface without end.

One can regard imaginary and real time beginning at the South Pole. There is nothing south of the South Pole, so there was nothing around before the Big Bang, Hawking said.

There was never a Big Bang that produced something from nothing. It just seemed that way from mankind's perspective, Hawking said.

He said that a lot of what we believe is derived from a human-centric perspective, which might limit the scope of human knowledge of the world.

Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.Ireland experienced a "red alert" emergency Thursday thanks to some serious winter weather ravaging through the country.

Ireland and the entire United Kingdom have experienced record cold temperatures this week, as the Beast from the East" storm  a cold weather pattern that traveled from Siberia to the U.K.  has frozen the region.

Officials say the ongoing storm has already led to 55 deaths across Europe, leaving close to 24,000 homes and businesses without power, BBC News reported.

Ireland's red alert led to a shutdown of public transport, and school and workplace closures, as well as flight cancellations and delays, according to The Irish Mirror.

The Dublin Airport shared a video of what a red alert looks like on Twitter.

The video, which has more than 248,000 views, shows heavy winds blowing snow across the entire airport.

So this is what a Red Alert for heavy snowfall actually looks like @DublinAirport. Well have further updates in the morning. Stay safe. #StormEmma #BeastFromTheEast #Snow pic.twitter.com/ENajr7xaFX  Dublin Airport (@DublinAirport) March 2, 2018

All flights from Dublin have been suspended, according to the airport, which hopes it can resume flights on Saturday.

Our snow crews are working today to continue to clear the runway, taxiways, aircraft parking stands and apron areas for our airline customers planned resumption of services tomorrow morning, according to an airport statement.

According to The New York Times, Europe is experiencing colder temperatures than the North Pole this week because of the same storm.

Arctic air is blanketing most of Europe tonight. It's actually colder in Rome, London and Paris than it is at the North Pole. pic.twitter.com/3hRWSXgZmX  Anthony Farnell (@AnthonyFarnell) February 26, 2018

The wintry weather comes at the same time that the Arctic Circle is experiencing record warm temperatures, according to The Times.We mourn with those who lost loved ones in the Florida high school shooting. Nothing can justify the shooters terrible choice. In these moments of crisis, we cry out for action  the swifter the better.

In our rush to do something, the list of rights and layers of conversation built into our republic might feel like impediments. But in fact, they were forged in a time of serial crisis. Those rights, those conversations and the way the Founders produced them can serve us well as we address todays problems.

After the French and Indian War ended in 1763, Parliament and royal officials set about trying to refill the British treasury. Colonists endured an escalating series of overreaches, affronts and deadly skirmishes, any number of which might have justified full revolt. But the colonists would prove to be unconventional revolutionaries. While they did catalog abuses, they worked out a framework of principles that kept those events in context. When the Declaration of Independence finally rang out in 1776, its mixture of grievance, prudence and principle made it an unusual  and unusually powerful  trumpet.

Of course, the Declaration proclaimed but did not secure independence, and as years of war followed, colonials struggled to overcome their regional, economic, religious and philosophical differences. When one spoke of my country, he was talking about his home state, not the budding nation of states. After victory at Yorktown, internal rebellions of impatience and the failure of the nations first government made for acutely despairing headlines.

The 24 years from 1763 to 1787  a whole generation  were punctuated by incendiary moments and failed measures. In December 1772, with rebellion simmering and outcomes far from certain, the town meeting of Roxbury wrote, Our pious forefathers died in the pleasing hope that we, their children, might live free. Let none, as they will answer it another day, disturb the ashes of those heroes by selling their birthright. They knew the goal, they knew their heritage and they gave us an even richer birthright.

When the Founders met in Philadelphia to consider a new constitution, their situation was pressing, but their perspective was enduring. The founding generation in that room was in fact three generations, ranging in age from 26 to 81. Their ages varied less than their views, and among them perhaps only George Washington was universally trusted, yet they stayed on task together. Essential contributions of ideas and leadership came from each generation and walk of life. Remembering experiences of Greeks, Romans, English barons and pilgrims as well as their own concerns, together the Founders produced a system of government that requires conversations among its levels and branches, while protecting and encouraging even more discussion and initiative in society.

Its time to relearn how to use that system and engage the challenging conversations that our deteriorating social ecology demands. If school shootings are new in the American experience, so is pervasive fatherlessness. So is omnipresent media violence. So is spiraling drug addiction. Mental illness has been with us longer, and we still dont understand it as well as we need to.

This flood of problems will not recede without sustained effort. Grieving students and those suffering in wrecked homes and communities deserve the best we can muster. The easiest changes may turn out to be gun-related, as some businesses and even political leaders are already demonstrating. But if we dont continue to ask ourselves other painful questions, including those touching fathers, families, culture and addiction, enduring improvement will elude us.

America is still an experiment in self-government, and for it to continue we must confront our problems without condemning each other. A dialogue across generations and viewpoints would echo the crucial conversations that got our nation started. We need to stay on task  together.SALT LAKE CITY  Community council representatives, environmental groups and the Utah League of Women Voters voiced their concerns Sunday over a legislative proposal to create an Inland Port Authority to oversee development in Salt Lake City's northwest quadrant.

"The citizens of the Westpointe Community Council, which encompasses most of the northwest quadrant, believe the Legislature's late introduction of this bill (SB234) is by design to impede fair and proper citizen and stakeholder due process," said Terry Thomas, vice chairman of the council.

Thomas and other opponents spoke Sunday at the state Capitol to detail their objections to the measure unveiled last week by Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton.

Critics worry the bill ultimately strips Salt Lake City of its power over land use and zoning because of the power of an appeals board for the port authority.

Ann O'Connell with the Utah League of Women Voters said rumors have been flying over state plans to put in an oil tank field or to store coal  plans she says are in stark contrast to natural attributes of the area.

"Important people will make a great deal of money," she said.

Stevenson has insisted that Salt Lake City will retain its taxing and zoning authority, but Salt Lake officials say it takes away their autonomy over the city's last undeveloped swath of land.

"This means that the city officials you have elected to represent you will not have final say on critical land use decisions for over 24,000 acres that exist in Salt Lake City," Mayor Jackie Biskupski said last week after the bill surfaced.

Critics say the Inland Port Authority bill undercuts more than two decades of planning that recognizes the area's open space and critical nature for migratory birds.

"The natural area was not determined through an arbitrary and capricious manner; it was based on decades of discussion, negotiation and collaboration with SLC major landowners, conservation advocates and other government agencies and was based firmly on scientific studies that identified land with the greatest natural values," said Ella Dibble Sorensen in a prepared statement.

Sorensen has managed the Audubon Gillmore Sanctuary adjacent to the northwest quadrant since 1995.

Critics want any action on the proposed Inland Port Authority to be delayed until more study and discussion during the summer interim.

They have also drafted an alternative bill they plan to present to Stevenson Monday and legislative leadership that proposes to create a Utah Inland Port Authority Board without exclusive jurisdiction over the land.

Stevenson has said his bill is "fair" to Salt Lake City but is also a nod to the acknowledgement that an Inland Port Authority is of vital economic interest to the entire state, not just Salt Lake City.

Denni Cawley, executive director of the Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, said the Inland Port is an environmental issue as well.

"There is nothing wrong with economic development if it is done with community and environmental health as a foundation for decision making."SALT LAKE CITY  A Utah-based outdoor clothing company has removed tags from its down-filled products that tout the items as "ethically sourced," but it says the move is related to market trends and not a push by animal rights activists.

KUHL  headquartered in Salt Lake City  recently eliminated labels that described its down clothing items as "ethical," citing seasonal preference as the reason behind the decision-making.

"As we approach the next season of production, we assess trends and conversations in the marketplace," said Melanie Webb, brand and market development for KUHL_._ "This is a process of internal meetings that involves the design, art and marketing departments, as well as our production team."

Despite changes to the labeling, the company stated where the materials come from remained the same.

"As far as sourcing goes, we havent made any changes to the way we source our materials or down products," she said. "All of KUHLs down products are RDS-certified."

RDS, or Responsible Down Standard, is a certification companies can adhere to that "ensures that down and feathers come from ducks and geese that have been treated well. This means enabling them to live healthy lives, express innate behaviors, and not suffer from pain, fear or distress," according to the organization's website.

Webb said the company typically tries to remain open to policy shifts if they deem it necessary.

"In general, we want to be flexible and humble, always leaving ourselves room for change when we discover a better way to do something," she said. "This applies not only to the way we source our materials but even to our best-selling styles."

Meanwhile, a high-profile animal rights organization is taking credit for prompting the label change.

PETA  People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals  released a statement claiming KUHL's decision came in the wake of being informed by the advocacy group about inhumane conditions within the down industry.

"After learning from PETA about the cruelty inherent in the down industry  animals are scalded to death in defeathering tanks, often while still conscious  outerwear company KUHL has pledged to remove all references to "ethically sourced" and "ethical" down from its website and product hangtags," a news release stated. "Despite taking this important step toward doing away with misleading labels, the company continues to sell items made with goose feathers."

The statement noted that down-free options are currently available, including at KUHL, which offers items made with synthetic-down technology  often made from recycled materials that insulate even when wet, unlike down. The organization added that it would continue advocating that more retailers choose nonanimal materials for their products.

"The only truly humane label is 'vegan,' so KUHL did the right thing in agreeing not to mislead well-intentioned consumers with spurious claims of 'ethical down,'" said PETA's director of corporate affairs, Anne Brainard. "PETA will keep encouraging KUHL and all other companies to ditch down altogether and embrace the many modern down alternatives on the market instead."SALT LAKE CITY  When A Wrinkle in Time hits the big screen at theaters nationwide on Thursday, a new vision of the story will take hold. For the past 50 years, that vision has existed largely in the minds of readers, of which theres been no shortage: At its 50th anniversary in 2012, Madeleine LEngles A Wrinkle in Time book had sold more than 10 million copies, according to The New York Times.

Indeed, its been a staple in elementary school curriculums for generations now. The Deseret News spoke with a few local elementary school teachers whove either read A Wrinkle in Time to their classes or had the students read it themselves.

The teachers discussed their favorite portions of the classic book.

Gloria Holmstead, fourth-grade teacher at Morningside Elementary, Salt Lake City

A Wrinkle in Time has its share of creepy moments. Through it all is a powerful and mysterious villain, a sinister something known only as IT. These moments, Holmstead said, are her favorite to discuss with students.

For most of the novel, readers learn of IT only through secondhand information. It isnt till the books final third that readers finally see what IT really looks like:

A disembodied brain. An oversized brain, just enough larger than normal to be completely revolting and terrifying. A living brain. A brain that pulsed and quivered, that seized and commanded. No wonder the brain was called IT. IT was the most horrible, the most repellent thing she had ever seen, far more nauseating than anything she had ever imagined with her conscious mind, or that had ever tormented her in her most terrible nightmares.

Holmstead said that before the students start a new chapter, she has them look at the chapter title and share their thoughts. Then they start reading. Every reader has his or her own image of the scenes and characters, and Holmstead said she keeps hers to herself. She wants to know what connections her students are making, and what kinds of images the book conjures for her young readers. These images, she explained, have changed considerably through the years.

I think its because of media, and a lot of different movies that have come out, she said. Youve got all your Transformers and Avengers, and all these different movies. I didnt have that growing up, so they see the Earth and they see beyond. It was such a foreign, far-reaching concept when I was their age. Its not to them.

Sierra Ainge Charlesworth, sixth-grade teacher at Alpine Elementary School, Alpine

Space travel is a central component of A Wrinkle in Time. Instead of flying by spaceship, the books characters become swept up in a mystical kind of inter-dimensional travel.

How does traveling between dimensions actually work? Modern sci-fi movies/shows have developed a boilerplate explanation of sorts  youve probably seen it before: a scientist pokes holes in opposite ends of a sheet of paper, joins the adjacent dots together by folding the paper, and voila! The quickest kind of space travel. (See: Deja Vu, Interstellar, Event Horizon, etc.)

These explanations werent so common in 1962 when LEngle released A Wrinkle in Time. In the book, Megs younger brother, Charles Wallace, explains it to her. The first dimension is a straight line; the second, a square; and the third, a cube. The book includes illustrations of each. The fourth dimension is time, and the fifth dimension is what makes their space travel possible. Charles Wallace explains it thusly:

Well, the fifth dimensions a tesseract. You add that to the other four dimensions and you can travel through space without having to go the long way around. In other words, to put it into Euclid, or old-fashioned plane geometry, a straight line is not the shortest distance between two points.

I think its so interesting for these kids to even fathom it  to understand that this one is like a straight line, and this one is like a box, and this one is like a cube, Charlesworth said. I just thought this was so profound, especially for middle grade fiction.

Elizabeth Sagers, fourth-grade teacher at Morningside Elementary, Salt Lake City

When Meg is sent to rescue Charles Wallace from IT, Meg doubts her abilities. She barely escaped IT once before, and doesnt know how shell remove Charles from ITs mental grasp.

As for how shell do that, the shaky-voiced Mrs. Which doesn't give Meg an exact answer.

Then, seeming to echo from all around her, came Mrs. Whichs unforgettable voice. I hhave nnott ggivenn yyou mmyy ggifftt. Yyou hhave ssomethinngg that ITT hhass nnott. Thiss ssomethinngg iss yyourr only wweapponn. Bbutt yyou mmusstt ffinndd itt fforr yyourrssellff. Then the voice ceased, and Meg knew that she was alone.

Later, when Meg confronts IT and a possessed Charles Wallace, she realizes what Mrs. Which meant: Love. That was what she had that IT did not.

The whole story is essentially about the uniqueness of the kids  and that they were viewed as different, Sagers explained. We spent a lot of time (discussing it) in the class. We spent a lot of time talking about conformity, and how there are times when its important to conform  when you go to school, and there are certain rules in the classroom that you are expected to follow  but there are other parts of the day, and other parts of your life, where conformity is not what you should do. And there are times when you celebrate your differences.SALT LAKE CITY  A 15-year-old boy was arrested over the weekend after police say he made a threat toward a Salt Lake school.

Investigators say the teen made a threat toward Northwest Middle School, 1730 N. 1700 West. He attempted to make a post on the school's Facebook page, said Salt Lake Police Sgt. Brandon Shearer. But because all posts are screened and have to be approved before they appear, the message never actually appeared on the Facebook page.

Still, school employees who saw the message contacted police. Officers interviewed the boy on Sunday and arrested him for investigation of making a terroristic threat, Shearer said.

The boy is a former student at the school and currently attends high school. Why he was allegedly making threats to his old school was unknown Monday.

Shearer said police searched the boy's home and found "no reason to believe he has means to carry out" the alleged threat. However, police are still taking all school threats seriously.

The arrest is the latest incident in a series of high school and middle school students being arrested or cited in Utah for allegedly making threats against a school. Police do not believe students in any of the cases intended to actually carry out the threats.

The wave of student threats comes on the heels of the tragic mass shootings at a Florida high school that left 17 people dead on Feb. 14.Natarajan Subramanium To Star In Jagan Rajshekar's Next Directorial

Kollywood Choreographer turned actor Natarajan Subramanium is popularly known as Natty. He has starred in many movies such as Muthukku Muthaaga and Katham Katham. The actor shot to fame with his 2014 movie Sathuranga Vettai.





The actor has been roped in by filmmaker Jagan Rajshekar for an upcoming project. The yet-to-be-titled project also stars Rahman. Regarding the movie, Rahman said, The film is a thriller  it handles a sensitive issue and has complex emotions, too. The director told me that the roles played by Natty and I have contrasting characters like that of a lion and a goat.





He further stated, How both of them struggle to achieve their goals forms the basic plot. The movie has a sensible storyline, which attracted me to this project, but I cant reveal much about it now. The storyline of the movie revolves around a chain of happenings in one single day. The movie will be shot in Chennai.





For latest movie reviews, ratings and trailers, download the Desimartini App.

Source: pbs.twimg.comExamining the cornea through a special microscope means doctors can tell if a person with type 2 diabetes has nerve damage within just 10 minutes, a study claims.

Swedish researchers say this breakthrough could help determine early stages of nerve damage, or diabetic neuropathy, so early treatment can be prescribed, preventing further damage.

The trial involved 82 people from Skelleftea in north Sweden with or without type 2 diabetes. Scientists from Umea University examined their eyes using a special microscope which revealed corneal nerve density was lower in those with type 2 diabetes compared to those without. Longer duration of type 2 diabetes was shown to reduce nerve density even further.

The newly-developed method, a combined effort by researchers Swede, Germany, Italy and Norway, involves creating images of the nerves in the cornea in three dimensions. The researchers report this is the first time this method has been used to assess the degree of nerve damage in people with diabetes.

A programme which provides an automated analysis has also been created that can be rolled out to general healthcare professionals to follow.

There are good conditions for this new diagnostic method to be widely introduced in health care, said lead author Professor Olov Rolandsson. Although there is currently no cure, its always an advantage to detect changes in the nerves early. Therefore, its valuable to find a fast and safe diagnostic method.

There is no immediate cure for impaired nerve function in people with type 2 diabetes, but maintaining very good blood glucose control provides the best chance for the body to heal low-level damage and prevent further nerve damage from occurring.

Very good blood glucose is very much achievable for people with diabetes. The Low Carb Program has allowed thousands of people to achieve strong control of their blood sugar levels whilst minimising dependence on medications.

The findings of the study have been published in the journal Investigative Opthalmology &Visual Science.Tata Motors is gearing up to launch its first premium hatchback in the country. The company showed off its premium hatchback concept, the 45X at the 2018 Auto Expo, and is now readying production plans for it. With a new design being a key element, the new hatchback will continue Tata Motors resurgence efforts, and attempt to bring a completely new offering to the companys portfolio in India.

Impact Design 2.0

The all-new Tata 45X concept follows the second generation of Tatas Impact Design philosophy, and is based on the Advanced Modular Platform (AMP) that will also serve as the base for Tatas upcoming mid-size sedan scheduled to be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show. Dubbed Impact Design 2.0, the new design language has a bolder overall stance, with a wide grille encompassing a more subtle front facade that Tata calls the Humanity Line.

Alongside, the premium hatchback is expected to feature slimmer headlamps, a coupe-like roofline and bold lines that run along the cars body from the A-pillar to the generously curved C-pillar. This may lead to a smaller window opening for the rear seat passenger, but Tata managed to execute the coupe-like design well with its latest offering, the Nexon.

With the new hatchback, Tata will continue to do the same. It is also expected to house huge wheel arches, and a completely new design to the rear end in a bid to make it look more premium. The overall flare in the design is expected to be toned down in the production model, although we would love to see the 18-inch wheels in the production spec of this car.

On overall terms, the Tata Motors 45X has a bold, SUV-like stance in hatchback form - a combination that may prove successful in the Indian car market. Considering that SUVs are the bestsellers in the Indian car market and hatchbacks still selling the highest in terms of numbers, Tata may be aiming for this sweet spot with its upcoming hatch.

Fresh interiors

Going with the new exterior design, the Tata Motors 45X is also expected to host premium, fresh interiors. This may also be in line with the Nexon subcompact SUV, which housed redesigned seats and ample focus on utility. For reference, the Nexon came with a bunch of impressive storage areas, including armrest and centre console storage slots, coin slots on the door-mounted handrests, and an impressive cooled glove box with a separate tray for holding tablets along with slots for holding pens and cards.

With the new hatchback, Tata will be aiming to add on to the same. The new ConnectNext HMI is expected to be present in the hatchback, while the centre console may also get a digital display in Tatas target to up the lifestyle quotient of its cars. Expect a host of connectivity options, along with Apple CarPlay, Android Auto and elaborate in-car diagnostics and navigation onboard. The company also has a partnership with JBL and Harman/Kardon, which may lead to JBL-branded speakers in the top trims of the hatchback.

Similar powertrain

While nothing has been specified, we expect the hatchback to come with both the 1.2-litre Revotron petrol and 1.5-litre Revotorq diesel engines. Both the engines produce 110bhp of power in their present states of tune, and it remains to be seen how Tata Motors presents these engines in its new car.

The six-speed manual transmission is almost certain to be retained here, while instead of the AMT gearbox, the 45X premium hatchback may come with a twin-clutch automatic gearbox that is reportedly under development at the moment. Considering the rising popularity of automatic gearboxes in the country, Tata Motors may launch the hatchback with options for its new automatic gearbox.

Competition, launch and pricing

When launched, Tata Motors primary competitors will be Maruti Suzuki Baleno, the new Hyundai Elite i20 and the Volkswagen Polo. All three of these premium hatchbacks have proven popular in India, and also come with CVT and DSG gearboxes, which are significantly more refined than AMT gearboxes.

The premium hatchback by Tata Motors is presently under works, and is expected to be launched by late-2018 or early-2019. When launched, expect it to undercut its competitors pricing by a margin. We expect the hatchback to be priced onward of around Rs. 6.5 lac. Tata Motors has put major emphasis on its pricing of late, with the likes of Tiago enjoying considerable success with its price-to-features ratio. The new Tata Motors 45X is expected to continue on the same note.When we were first introduced to Android Oreo Go Edition at the Google For India event in New Delhi, we were skeptical of the Mountain View tech giant embracing phones with as low as 512MB or 1GB of RAM. How can Android run smoothly with such low grade specs, we wondered. Until we experience the first batch of Android Oreo Go Edition devices at the Mobile World Congress 2018.



MWC saw the launch of the $85 (Rs 5,532 approx) Android Oreo Go enabled Nokia 1. The device is as basic as it gets. A compact 4.5-inch IPS LCD display, 1GB Ram, MediaTek 6737M processor, 8GB ROM, 5MP rear and 2 MP front cameras. Entry level is the word for this smartphone. However, unlike most entry-level smartphones, the Nokia 1 stands out with its smooth and fluid stock Android experience thanks to the Android Oreo Go Edition OS. The new, lighter operating system by Google promises 2X more available storage space out of the box on smartphones with 8GB ROM (expandable to 128GB), compared to those that sport Android Nougat. Lesser storage uptake means faster operation, quicker multi-tasking and fewer lags, which is what we experienced not only on the Nokia 1 but also the upcoming Micromax Bharat Go and Lava Z50, both of which will be the first two smartphones to support Android Oreo Go Edition in India.

Micromax Bharat Go with 4.5-inch FWVGA display, 1GB RAM, 8GB ROM

Smartphones with Android Go also house Googles optimised apps such as Google Go, Maps Go, Files Go, Gmail Go, Assistant Go and more. These apps will take up less space and load faster compared to their full-fledged counterparts. The important thing to note here is that the comparison here is still between 1GB RAM phones with Nougat versus those on Oreo Go. In our experience, while the apps did load considerably fast, the lack of enough RAM is still visible. Opening multiple apps at the same time does not hamper the user experience, but shutting them one at a time is noticeably slow.



An important inclusion is the Files Go app that lets one segregate images such as memes and good morning messages from actual pictures taken with the camera. Users can clear up these junk images with the press of a button. Files Go also helps clear app cache to clear up more space for storage. Phones with such low RAM find it difficult to function without slowdowns once a lot of apps and media are loaded onto them. When we experienced the Nokia 1, Bharat Go and Z50, the storage on them was almost empty and hence the lack of lags or performance slowdown. Google's Files Go app makes it easier to manage the limited internal storage on these phones, but it is still a manual process and users will have to be proactive enough to manage storage to get the most out of these smartphones.



Lava Z50 with 1GB RAM, 8GB ROM

Pricing of these Android Oreo Go Edition smartphones is another very crucial factor. The Nokia 1, as we already told you, costs $85 which is approx Rs 5.5K. If these devices are priced similarly in India, we will have a problem! Firstly, the phones are far from sleek, even though they are light. The plastic body, at least on the Micromax Bharat Go and Lava Z50, does not impress. Nokia 1 also has a chunky plastic body, but definitely feels better to hold and feel compared to the other two. The cameras are no great shakes on any of the phones and the processor, at least on the Nokia 1, is two years old. If Rs 5K-6K is the price point they launch at in India, they will suffer tough competition from the already existing Xiaomi Redmi 5A, which offers more RAM, better build quality, better camera (although we still have to test the Android Go devices), better display, and a bigger battery at a slightly higher price.

Nokia 1 with 1GB RAM, 8GB ROM

However, the Micromax Bharat Go and Lava Z50 are expected to launch with some offers from Airtel, so one can expect effective price drops and some data incentives. Its also not necessary these smartphones launch between the Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 price bracket just at the back of Android Oreo Go, an untested OS and faster Google updates, which we will believe when we see them. If the companies are smart, the smartphones should cost somewhere around Rs 3,000 - Rs 4,000, which is what they seem worth at first impressions. Price will truly be the deciding factor for the fate of these Android Oreo Go smartphones, at least in India.The Samsung Galaxy S9+ has taken the top spot on DxOMarks smartphone camera performance list with an overall score of 99. The top spot was earlier held by the Google Pixel 2, which scored 98 points, followed by the iPhone X which scored 97 points. The Samsung Galaxy S9+, with its dual 12MP primary camera setup and variable aperture, scored 99 points on DxOMark and the newly launched flagship smartphone was also awarded the highest photo score of 104 for any smartphone by far. In comparison, the Pixel 2 had achieved a photo score of 99. The video score for the S9+ was lower at 91 points, but DxO noted that the video quality was still pretty impressive. According to DxOMark, The S9 Plus comes with a camera that hasnt got any obvious weaknesses and performs very well across all photo and video test categories.

Samsung must be happy with the results since Camera Reinvented was the major peg of the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+ launch. The Galaxy S9+ did not see any redesign compared to its predecessor, but Samsung worked on the cameras to include variable aperture - f1.5 and f2.4, a first for any smartphone. On both the Samsung Galaxy S9 and S9+, the company has paired their Dual Pixel sensor with a very fast image processor. The sensor now uses a stacked CMOS architecture with a high bandwidth DRAM placed in between. As a result, the Samsung Galaxy S9+ can shoot better bokehs and improved low light images. You can read more about the Galaxy S9+ and its cameras here.

The primary cameras on the S9+ features a Live Focus mode, which on first impressions, made for great portraits. In addition, the new Galaxy S9, S9+ phones also feature Animoji-style 3D Emojis, which can be mapped to a users face and shared with voice recordings across various platforms. Another cool feature of the cameras on the Galaxy S9 and S9+ is the ability to shoot 960fps slow-mo videos.Samsung is holding its Samsung Carnival on Amazon, which kicks off today and will go on till March 8. During the Samsung Carnival, customers stand to get Amazon Pay cashback on a variety of Samsung smartphones, including the Galaxy Note 8.

During the Samsung Carnival, those who purchase the Galaxy Note 8 smartphone will get an Amazon pay cashback of Rs 8,000. Similarly, the buyers of the Galaxy A8+ will get a cashback of Rs 4,000 on Amazon Pay, while those who purchase the Galaxy On7 Prime will get Rs 2,000. Further, the Samsung Galaxy On7 Pro will be available for Rs 6,990.

Sandeep Singh Arora, Vice President, Online Business, Samsung India, stated, We are happy to announce the Samsung carnival on Amazon with never before Amazon Pay cashback offers. This will provide the consumers a simple and seamless experience in purchasing and receiving their offer value on the same platform.

It should also be noted that Samsung will be launching its new flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S9, and Galaxy S9+ in India tomorrow. The smartphones were unveiled at MWC 2018 and are the first smartphones to feature dual-aperture cameras. Further, the two devices will also be the first to offer Qualcomms new Snapdragon 845 SoC in India.

The camera on the two smartphones offer f/1.5 and f/2.4 aperture lenses. The f/1.5 lens is used to take better low light images, while the f/2.4 aperture lens is used for daylight shots. Further, while the Galaxy S9 comes with a single camera at the back, the Galaxy S9+ comes with a dual-rear camera setup. This means that the phone comes with Samsungs Live Focus mode, which is the companys take on Apples portrait mode.From laid-back surfer bros to tough-talking croc hunters, Australian stereotypes are abundant and enduring, and few are more ingrained in the culture than the ute-driving, VB-drinking, mullet-rocking bogan.

What is a bogan. defined by Urban Dictionary

A type of Australian that is stereotyped as bogan can usually be defined as trailer park trash and other low life names like Leigh, they can usually be found on street corners with a large group of people wearing jean shorts and thongs holding a stubby of vb.

For those of you playing along overseas, think of the bogan as the Aussie answer to the US redneck or the UK chav  a fascinating native species the Oxford English Dictionary defines as an unfashionable, uncouth, or unsophisticated person, especially of low social status.

Cmon, OED  a little harsh, dont you think?

Todays bogan is a whole new breed, and anyone willing to take an honest look at themselves is likely to find theres a bit of bogan in all of us.

Keen to find out if you qualify? You might find the answer in the 10 signs youre a bogan below.

Youse Is In Regular Rotation In Your Vocabulary

English wasnt your strongest subject at school but you never let it get you down. Youre an enterprising bloke with no problem forging his own way in the world  including the telltale use of youse instead of you. Next time a hater tries to call you out for your colourful use of language, politely remind them its in the Macquarie Dictionary and they can get stuffed.

A Bluey Is Your Go-To Attire For All Occasions

Whether the invite calls for casual, smart casual, or black tie, the beloved bluey is your uniform of choice. You see no point in splashing out on pricey designer garb when you have an entire drawer of these staunchly dependable singlets to slip into. As far as you know, Tom Ford is the guy who makes your XR6 ute.

Youve Owned A Torana Or HSV In Your Lifetime

Bogans of all ages have a special place in their hearts for the Holden classics. Nothing says out-and-proud bogan rev head like dropping your life savings on a gas-guzzling pimp-mobile (then spending more money on modifications than you did for the car in the first place). Hoon on you crazy diamond.

You Have Friends Called Shannon, Wayne, And Wade



The further you venture from the CBD, the more bogan the names of your friends, family and work colleagues get. If you find yourself driving your Ford Falcon down to Waynos joint to collect your missus (or Waynos missus), weve got some news for you

RELATED: 5 Dos & Donts Of Being An Awesome Best Man

You Hit Up The Pub And/Or Strippers On Payday

That fresh envelope arrives from Narelle who does your pay and youre off to the pub (with Wayno and Wade in tow) to smash a few schooners. Depending on how the afternoon progresses, you could end up home with your wife, sneaking in a quick with Waynes wife, starting a fight, or hitting up the renters. Or option E: all of the above.

Mad C*nt Is Your Favourite Saying

Because deep down inside, you know you are a mad c*nt, your friends are all mad c*nts, and even your Aunty Shirley is half a mad c*nt when she collects her Centrelink cheque after a two-day bender.

You Know Every Word To Khe Sanh

And you have no problem belting it out at a sticky-floor pub after a few too many. All together now: I left my heart to the sappers round Khe Sanh / And I sold my soul with my cigarettes to the black market man / Ive had the Vietnam cold turkey, from the ocean to the silver city / And its only other vets could understand

You Wear Your Sunglasses On The Back Of Your Neck

Doesnt matter whether youre on the tools, at the pub or getting married to your high school sweetheart, the sunnies go wherever you go. Theyre probably Arnett or Oakley, and white.

Youve Been Arrested In Public With No Shirt On

Like any good bogan, you believe in fighting for your right to party, punch on and generally be a lout. Your first arrest was a rite of passage, now youre ready for the big leagues  that means beer gut out and proud, and Southern Cross and/or tramp stamp tattoo on full display. It may have been at schoolies, King Street or Triple Js One Night Stand (in Dubbo), but youve been there done that and got the bracelet marks to prove it.

You Stay In Kuta When You Visit Bali

Thanks to Jetstar you now have a passport and are a regular passenger aboard the Bogan Bus to Bali with the local footy club. Youre doing your part to make the once-quiet fishing village of Kuta an even sleazier paradise lost than Las Vegas, joining the cacophony of debaucherous holidaymakers pissing green arak and buying crass souvenirs from corner shops. And your missus gets braids.

RELATED: 12 Life Hacks Every Man Needs To KnowThe former chairman of Bord Iascaigh Mhara and retired chief executive of the Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation has called on the minister for the marine to "come clean" regarding the Brexit fishing negotiations.

Joey Murrin said the government needed to make things transparent to Irish fishermen so that they know what is going on. He said that he was alarmed after watching British Prime Minister Theresa May on Sky News yesterday when she said the United Kingdom had "no problem sorting out the fishing industry.

Irish fish producers have set up an unholy alliance with other fishermen's organisations in Europe, he said.

At the end of the Brexit negotiations it is going to be all the big players around the table; France, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark, like a pack of hungry wolves sitting around the table. All the best of friends, of course, until the final deal is done and then it will be everyone for themselves and grab what they can get. Ireland will be left to pick up the crumbs."

Mr Murrin said Ireland has already lost 20,000 tonnes of mackerel in 2018, valued at about 20m.Jaguar looks to stand out from the crowd with a new racing-inspired colour scheme.

Set to debut at the 2018 Geneva motor show, the British brand is offering a new graphics pack on its top-of-the-range F-Type SVR.

The graphics pack includes '575' stripes (signifying 575 horsepower), carbon fibre bonnet louvres, lightweight 20-inch alloy wheels, bespoke tread plate and a commissioning plaque.

There are six colour choices with a base and contrasting element schemes of white and red, black and gold, grey and blue, red and black, blue and grey and silver and black.

The contrast elements are the grille surround, mirror caps, aero winglets, a stripe across the bonnet and side decals displaying the '575' graphic.And here comes the kicker line: tantalizing is exactly how the Jaguar-organised test drive proved to be, with just a short run around some traffic cones in a cheerless car park adjacent to Geneva airport to get a taste for the new electric cat.

Even the cars themselves were pre-production prototypes, but if it wasnt for stickers advertising that fact down their flanks, you probably wouldnt know it. Build quality, interior trim and fully functioning electronics all seemed indicative of what well see later in the year and its a very impressive effort.

In fact, possibly the major thing to take away is how painless Jaguar is attempting to make owners transition from fossil fuels to plug-in power.

Despite its radical construction  the I-Pace is 94 per cent aluminium, with a floor made from a layer of 432 lithium-ion cells  its a five-door liftback SUV with plenty of rear seat room, space for five passengers and a reasonable amount of luggage room in the back or under the bonnet.

You want to know about performance and handling? Well, stabbing the throttle  or maybe that should be foot operated rheostat  while bounding from one set of cones to the next was evidence theres plenty of effortless squirt.

The two motors are mounted between each of the front and rear pairs of wheels giving all-wheel-drive traction and, as with any electric motor, maximum torque is generated from just above zero rpm so thats how it should be.

Theres no conventional gearbox, just a single speed transmission so all the driver has to do is stab the d-for-drive button on the centre console and then accelerate, brake and steer.

Jaguar promises the two motors are set-up to give a rear-drive bias to the handling balance but on the extremely tight test circuit, with special slippery patches to catch drivers out, the predominant handling characteristic was of understeer or front end push. That, however, is likely to be far less apparent on the open road.The Zest Premio Edition gets features such as dual tone roof in glossy black, piano black finished outside rear view mirrors (ORVMs) on the exterior, and a tan finished mid pad on the dashboard in the interior.

Two new colour scheme are also on offer: Titanium Grey and Platinum Silver.

As optional, car buyers can choose a black boot spoiler, while the 15-inch wheels come with silver-finished wheel caps.

At the rear, the Zest Premio features a piano black boot lid garnish and a special edition badge.

Other exterior upgrades include smoked multi-reflector headlamps and piano black hood strip at the front to complement the dual tone bumper.

Recommended Video - Watch Now! Tata Nexon AMT Details, Specifications, Expected Launch & Pricing - DriveSpark

The cabin also receives new seat fabric with contrast stitching and Premio branding on the centre of the dashboard.

Mechanically, the Tata Zest Premio comes with the same 1.3-litre, four-cylinder diesel engine which produces 74bhp and 190Nm of torque. The unit comes mated to a 5-speed manual gearbox.

Regarding equipment levels, the Premio edition gets similar equipment as the XM variant which includes touchscreen infotainment system from Harman along with navigation.

DriveSpark's Thought About The New Tata Zest Premio Edition

While the Tata Zest is an ageing model compared to the new Tata Tigor, the Zest continues to impress many car buyers for its cabin space and equipment.

The Tata Zest Premio competes with the likes of new Maruti Dzire, Volkswagen Ameo, upcoming new Honda Amaze and the Ford Aspire in India.

Tata Motors has chosen to celebrate selling 85,000 units of the Zest with the Premio special edition hoping to increase its sales in India.

While the Tata Tigor commands better sales for the company, the Tata Zest is not expected to be discontinued or replaced anytime soon.More than 60 families who are on Louth County Councils housing list will be accommodated in the Ard Dealgan complex in Dundalk, which will reopen as Halliday Mills next year.

Celtic Social Housing Development Co Ltd today signed a contract with Tuath Housing to bring 68 units at the Dundalk development back into use. The complex, which is being refurbished by the development company, will be leased by Tuath Housing for a 20-year period and will be available to applicants on Louth County Councils social housing list.

Ard Dealgan, which was built by Tom McFeelys Coalport Building Company, has been vacant since it was the subject of a Fire Closure Notice in 2009. This followed an inspection which found that the manner of construction of the apartments was poor, with a general non-compliance of all regulatory matters. Louth County Council has spent more than 25,000 since then in physically securing the site, which has been the subject of vandalism, theft, fire and general anti-social behaviour. The Council had begun a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) process when the site was sold out of receivership to Celtic Social Housing Development Co Ltd, which in turn approached the Council with an offer to refurbish the building for social housing. It will now be redeveloped into a 68-unit complex, comprising 10 one-bed, 46 two-bed and 7 three-bed apartments, as well as 3 two-bed and 2 four-bed duplexes.

Commenting, Director of Housing at Louth County Council, Joe McGuinness said: Ard Dealgan has not only been an eyesore for many years, its health and safety issues meant that a building which had the potential to house more than 60 families lay idle. We are absolutely delighted to have the opportunity to bring this development back into use and we thank Celtic Social Housing Development Co Ltd for offering it for social housing. The complex will be refurbished to a high standard and the developer has already started health and safety compliance measures. The 68 units will provide safe and comfortable accommodation for a range of individuals and families in Louth when they come on stream next year.

This is just one of a number of initiatives that Louth County Council is undertaking as part of the Rebuilding Ireland programme to increase the level of social housing across the county. We have increased the number of social housing units in the county by 170 in the last three years. We are continuing this work in 2018, with a plan for an additional 208 units by the end of the year.

Chief Executive of Louth County Council, Joan Martin added: Louth County Council is a pioneer in the Rebuilding Ireland programme. We were the first county in the country to introduce the Single Stage Departmental Approval Process  in Bothar Brugha, Drogheda - and we are a national leader in the compulsory purchase of derelict or abandoned properties. We have acquired 65 properties over the past three years through CPOs, already providing accommodation for 26 households under this mechanism.

Louth County Council has a target of 208 additional social housing units in 2018 and we are working hard towards achieving that target, which we aim to do through a mixture of CPOs and CALF (Capital Advance Leasing Fund) partnerships with approved housing bodies.

We very much welcome Celtic Social Housing Development Co Ltds approach regarding providing Ard Dealgan for social housing purposes and we are interested in hearing from other developers regarding similar arrangements.

Tuath Housing chief executive, Sean OConnor said: We are delighted to once again partner with Louth County Council on this social housing project, which was funded through CALF. Tuath currently manages 175 homes in Louth and we have a development pipeline for approximately 350 homes in the county by the end of 2019. We also plan to open an office in Louth later this year.

The name change from Ard Dealgan to Halliday Mills is in honour of Arthur Halliday, who employed more than 1,000 people in his shoe factory in the 1960s, which was located on this site. It also reflects the locations original purpose as a mill. We look forward to bringing this development back to life, to welcoming the new tenants next year, and to creating a new chapter in the history of this site.

It is expected that Halliday Mills will be ready for occupancy in mid-2019.

Instantly delete email threats with 365 Threat Monitor

365 Threat Monitor scans all emails as they reach your users' mailboxes to detect ransomware, phishing and spam. Receive real-time phone alerts, get real-time security breach updates and instantly delete threats with just one click - for free! Learn More.

A group of former Facebook, Google and Mozilla executives have joined forces with the Time Well Spent advocacy group to establish the Center for Humane Technology (CHT), a new organization dedicated to combating the growing problem of addictive behavior among social media users.

The new center, along with the children's advocacy group Common Sense, on Monday announced a campaign to help change the social media model. Its goal is to lessen the negative impact of automation and other technologies on the development of children and young adults, who are considered highly vulnerable to the most damaging aspects of social media.

"Tech companies are conducting a massive, real time experiment on our kids, and at present, no one is really holding them accountable," James Steyer, CEO of Common Sense.

Teenagers polled in a 2015 survey used social media for an average of nine hours of per day, Common Sense found. Half of the teens admitted to feeling addicted to their mobile devices, and 60 percent of parents felt that their kids were addicted.

Campaign Launch

CHT and Common Sense will kick off the campaign Wednesday at a Washington conference called "The Truth About Tech: How Tech Has Kids Hooked."

Social media companies -- Facebook, Twitter, Google, Snapchat, YouTube and others -- have been microtargeting users with millions of specific advertisements, images, videos and other elements that are aimed at driving engagement, argue the campaign's backers, led by CHT Executive Director Tristan Harris, former design ethicist at Google.

Social media organizations aim to satisfy the goals of their advertisers, maintain support from investors, and create a model to monetize the information they gather, according to the campaign.

CHT hopes to encourage changes in mobile phone design that will help minimize screen time, unhook users from their devices, and get customers to spend more time interacting with real people instead of constantly checking for the next post. They also will push for better consumer protection policies that protect users from abuses.

Along with Harris, the CHT leadership team includes Founding Advisor Roger McNamee, cofounder of Elevation Partners and an advisor to Mark Zuckerberg in Facebook's early days; Chief Strategy Officer Aza Raskin, former head of user experience at Mozilla; and COO Randy Fernando, former executive director of Mindful Schools.

Capitol Hill Reaction

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., has been working to address the impact of social media on children. He is the cosponsor of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, a communications constitution, of sorts, for protecting children who use the Web.

Markey also has given his support to the Do Not Track Kids Act, a bipartisan bill that bans Internet companies from using behavioral targeting methods for tracking children and teens. It also would require parental permission for collecting personal information and location data.

"Sen. Markey recognizes that children are immersed in a digital world that may detrimentally impact their health, development and emotional well-being," said Giselle Barry, a spokesperson for Markey.

Markey intends to sponsor legislation to fund a study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, examining the role of electronic media on the growth of children, she told TechNewsWorld.

Growing Concerns

Social media abuse has become an increasingly serious problem for children, who typically have trouble controlling their impulses, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

This is not a brand new issue, as smartphones underwent design changes back when distracted driving became a major concern, he told TechNewsWorld, and when online activities fueled violent behavior in society.

"We desperately need to moderate this behavior, as it is having an adverse impact on virtually everything we see and touch, ranging from personal priorities to who runs our government," Enderle told TechNewsWorld.

"We are currently largely unable to tell bad actors from good, or fake from real news," he added, "and the very young and old are most vulnerable."

The move toward advanced automation and robotics makes addressing this issue even more urgent, Enderle said.

On the other hand, the center's concerns appear a bit misguided to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, who argued that social media has been blamed for human behavioral issues.

"I believe CHT's argument misses the boat in a couple of key ways," he told TechNewsWorld. "The first is blaming and then agitating to 'fix' technologies for apparently related cultural and behavioral changes."

It's unrealistic to expect companies to change or abandon qualities that make them successful, King said.

However, CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week acknowledged that some of the changes Facebook had made, particularly to the News Feed, were designed to help improve users' overall emotional well being.

David Jones is a freelance writer based in Essex County, New Jersey. He has written for Reuters, Bloomberg, Crain's New York Business and The New York Times.

By William J. Kinsella

Seventy-five years ago, in March 1943, a mysterious construction project began at a remote location in eastern Washington state. Over the next two years some 50,000 workers built an industrial site occupying half the area of Rhode Island, costing more than $230 millionequivalent to $3.1 billion today. Few of those workers, and virtually no one in the surrounding community, knew the facility's purpose.

The site was called Hanford, named for a small town whose residents were displaced to make way for the project. Its mission became clear at the end of World War II. Hanford had produced plutonium for the first nuclear test in the New Mexico desert in July 1945, and for the bomb that incinerated Nagasaki on Aug. 9.

As a researcher in environmental and energy communication, I've studied the legacies of nuclear weapons production. From 2000 to 2005, I served with a citizen advisory board that provides input to state and federal officials on a massive environmental cleanup program at Hanford, now one of the most contaminated sites in the world.

As U.S. leaders consider producing new nuclear weapons, I believe they should study lessons from Hanford carefully. Hanford provides one of the more dramatic examples of problems that unfoldedand persist todayat nuclear sites where production and secrecy took priority over safety and environmental protection.

www.hanford.gov

A Nationwide Nuclear Network

Hanford was one of three large facilities anchoring the Manhattan Project  the crash program to build an atomic bomb. It was part of a larger complex linking facilities across the nation. A plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, enriched uranium and operated a prototype nuclear reactor. Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico assembled a cadre of world-class scientists to design and build the weapons, using materials produced at the other sites. Smaller facilities across the nation made other contributions.

As World War II phased into the Cold War and the U.S.-Soviet arms race escalated, new sites were added in Ohio, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Colorado and elsewhere. Secrecy masked much of the work at these sites until well into the 1980s, with serious consequences for public health, worker safety and the environment. Nuclear and chemical wastes caused severe contamination at Hanford and the other sites, and dealing with them has proved to be difficult and costly.

Major sites in the Cold War nuclear weapons production complex USDOD

Contamination at Hanford

When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991, the U.S. had mass-produced some 70,000 nuclear bombs and warheads. Hanford made most of the plutonium used in those weapons. Workers irradiated uranium fuel in reactors, and then dissolved it in acid to extract the plutonium produced. This method, called reprocessing, generated 56 million gallons of liquid wastes laced with radioactive and chemical poisons.

Hanford's nine reactors were located along the Columbia River to provide a source of cooling water, and discharged radiation into the river throughout their lifetimes.

Fuel was sometimes reprocessed before its most highly radioactive isotopes had time to decay. Managers knowingly released toxic gases into the air, contaminating farmlands and grazing areas downwind. Some releases supported an effort to monitor Soviet nuclear progress. By tracking intentional emissions from Hanford, scientists learned better how to spot Soviet nuclear tests.

Liquid wastes from reprocessing were stored in underground tanks designed to last 25 years, assuming that a permanent disposal solution would be developed later. The U.S. Department of Energy, which now operates the weapons complex and its cleanup program, is still working on that solution.

Workers prepare to remove the core from a waste tank at Hanford in 2010. Hanford Site

Meanwhile, at least a million gallons of tank wastes have leaked into the ground. This material, and the prospect of more to follow, threatens the Columbia River, a backbone of the Pacific Northwest's economy and ecology. Some groundwater is already contaminated. Estimates of when that plume will reach the river are uncertain.



Radioactive trash still litters parts of Hanford. Irradiated bodies of laboratory animals were buried there. The site houses radioactive debris ranging from medical wastes to propulsion reactors from decommissioned submarines and parts of the reactor that melted down at Three Mile Island. Some nuclear decision makers have called Hanford a "national sacrifice zone."

A Struggle for Accountability

In the mid-1980s, local residents grew suspicious about an apparent excess of illnesses and deaths in their community. Initially, strict secrecyreinforced by the region's economic dependence on the Hanford sitemade it hard for concerned citizens to get information.

Cold War-era billboard at Hanford reinforcing strict secrecy rules USDOE

Once the curtain of secrecy was partially lifted under pressure from area residents and journalists, public outrage prompted two major health effects studies that engendered fierce controversy. By the close of the decade, more than 3,500 "downwinders" had filed lawsuits related to illnesses they attributed to Hanford. A judge finally dismissed the case in 2016 after limited compensation to a handful of plaintiffs, leaving a bitter legacy of legal disputes and personal anguish.

Cleanup operations at Hanford began in 1989, but have been hamstrung by daunting technical challenges and management errors. The current estimate assumes work will continue through 2060 and cost more than $100 billion, beyond the approximately $50 billion already spent.

A key challenge is building a facility to extract the most toxic materials from the tank wastes and enclose them in glass logs to be sent elsewhere for permanent burial. Projected costs have ballooned to more than $17 billion, and the estimated completion date is now 2036. And with the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada mired in controversy, there is still no final resting place for these materials, which will be dangerous for tens of thousands of years.

Cleanup has progressed in other areas. The reactors have been shut down and enclosed in concrete and steel "cocoons" until their radioactivity decays further. Hanford's "B Reactor," the world's first large-scale nuclear reactor, is now part of the Manhattan Project National Historic Park.

Buffer lands around the outer parts of the site, presumably clean enough for the purpose, have been converted to wildlife refuge areas. And in 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory (LIGO), with a station located at Hanford, detected the first gravitational waves predicted by Albert Einstein. LIGO scientists chose Hanford for its remote location and minimal interference from human activity.

Lessons to Remember

The Department of Energy now considers many of its former nuclear weapons production sites to be fully cleaned up. Some remaining sites are involved in maintaining the current nuclear arsenal and could play roles producing new weapons. Others, like Hanford, are "legacy" sites where cleanup is the sole mission.

There is more oversight of the nuclear weapons complex today, but serious concerns remain. Notably, inspectors have found problems at Los Alamos National Laboratory dating back to 2011 related to handling of beryllium, a toxic material that can cause cancer and lung disease.

These issues at Hanford and other nuclear sites are reminders that nuclear weapons production is a risky processand that in Washington state and elsewhere, legacies of the Cold War are still very much with us.

Reposted with permission from our media associate The Conversation.By Kieran Cooke

The U.S. solar industry is losing its shine. Although solar power is seen as a key way to avoid the use of climate-changing fossil fuels, U.S. solar companies are cutting investments and laying off workers. An industry employing more than 230,000 people and with an estimated worth of $28 billion is now warning of trouble ahead.

More than 10,000 jobs in solar were lost in 2017, says a report by the Solar Foundation, a non-profit research firm.

The clouds spreading across the U.S. solar sector are in part due to a slowdown in sales in so-called mature markets in California and the Northeast, both areas of double digit solar growth in recent years.

However, industry analysts say the main reason for the present travails in the solar sector is the announcement earlier this year by President Donald Trump of a 30 percent tariff on imported solar panels.

Help at Home

The aim, said Trump, is to support domestic manufacturers and stop the mass import of solar panels, mainly made in southeast Asia, South Korea and China. At present about 90 percent of solar panels installed in the U.S. are imported.

"We'll be making solar products now much more so in the U.S.," said Trump, announcing the imposition of tariffs in January.

"Our companies have been decimated and those companies are going to come back strong  a lot of workers, a lot of jobs."

The overwhelming majority of people involved in the U.S. solar sector are involved with installation and maintenance; a large number of firms also manufacture subsidiary products, such as racks for mounting the panels.

While some U.S.-based manufacturers of solar panelsthere are now very few of themhave welcomed news of the tariffs, most in the industry say the move is likely to drive up costs in what is a highly competitive energy sector.

Chinese Domination

China now dominates the global solar power market; it's the source of two thirds of the world's total solar panel capacity and it also buys up half of the world's production.

Chinese manufacturers have invested heavily in research and development and their solar products have become increasingly sophisticated.

U.S. industry analysts say the products of domestic companies will be too expensive and will not be able to compete with other energies such as wind power or gas. Demand will fall, and jobs will be lost rather than gained.

From 2010 to 2016, solar power installations in the U.S. went into overdrive, driven by falling costs and a range of government incentives. The industry says nearly 50GW of capacity is now installedenough to power 10 million homes.

The Trump administration has made no secret of its wish to promote the use of fossil fuelsincluding coaland remove incentives which were aimed at widening the use of renewable energies.

Some in the solar industry say that with or without the tariffswhich have been imposed on a sliding scale for a four-year period, with a 15 percent charge in the final yearsolar power is very much here to stay. Demand might slow, but it will not stop.



In anticipation of the tariff hike, solar companies stockpiled a vast amount of imported solar panels last year; in the last three months of 2017, U.S. imports of solar panels from China increased by more than 1,000 percentenough to supply the industry for several months.

It seems that Trump's efforts to discourage the use of renewable energy are not working in the way he might wish.

Recently, growth in solar power installations has been particularly strong in the Midwest and Southin pro-Trump states that have traditionally turned their backs on renewable energy and supported the president's fossil fuel policies.

Reposted with permission from our media associate Climate News Network.In response to the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., last month, President Donald Trump has suggested arming a fifth of the nations teachers, including those who are military veterans or otherwise trained with firearms, as well as giving bonuses to educators who agree to carry.

The proposal, though, poses a host of problems, experts say: While theres no central data on how many teachers are military veterans or have gun training, all evidence points to the fact that its nowhere near 20 percent of teachers. Among those who do have such training, some say they still wouldnt feel comfortable carrying a weapon into the classroom, while others worry about the logistics of safely and effectively arming teachers.

I think if you arm teachers, youre opening up a Pandoras box of issues, said Anthony McCurdy, a high school special education teacher in Ewa Beach, Hawaii, and a military veteran.

There is the question of liability: Who would be responsible if something went wrong? And many things could go wrong , experts saya student could find or steal a teachers firearm, the weapon could accidentally discharge, or a teacher could shoot an innocent bystander during an active-shooter situation.

Just last week, a teacher in Georgia was taken into police custody after he barricaded himself inside an empty classroom, where he fired at least one shot. Nobody was injured, but the incident raised additional questions about how educators might be screened for mental-health issues before they are armed.

Still, arming teachers isnt an entirely new proposition: States like Texas and Utah already allow authorized teachers to carry guns on school grounds. Schools in those states are not required to report how many educators bring guns to school.

Extra Security

Federal data show there were 3.8 million public school teachers in the 2015-16 school year. According to Trumps estimation, that would mean up to 760,000 teachers would be able to carry a firearm.

Frankly, you have teachers that are Marines for 20 years, they retire and become a teacher. Theyre Army, Navy, Air Force; theyre Coast Guard; theyre people who have won shooting contests for whateverthis is what they do, Trump said last month. They know guns, they understand guns.

About 298,000 educators and librarians were military veterans in 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, those educators are not all K-12 teachers.

The largest pipeline from the military to the classroom is Troops to Teachers , a federal program that helps service members and veterans transition to teaching. About 1,000 teachers across the country were employed through the program in 2016amounting to 0.03 percent of public school teachers.

Overall, about 20,000 veterans have successfully transitioned to a career in education since 1993 through the Troops to Teachers program, though its not clear how many of those veterans are still in the classroom.

Elsewhere, 80 military veterans are currently in the classroom through Teach For Americas You Served for America, Now Teach For America program. It has trained 265 teachers since its launch in 2012.

Brian Teucke, an 8th grade civics and economics teacher in Hampton Roads, Va., said having a military background makes him somewhat of an aberration among his colleagues. Teucke served in the Army from 2009 to 2013 and then went into teaching.

He has a concealed-carry permit and would be willing to carry a gun to school. His students, he said, have told him they would appreciate that extra level of security.

I do think its reasonable for someone like me, but if you look at the landscape of American educators at large, I dont think its realistic, he said. I dont represent the majority of teachers.

Teucke said he thinks arming teachers should be on a volunteer basis, and schools should require significant training for those educators who do choose to carry a weapon.

I think teachers are way overstressed, he said. I think its asking a lot to have them take on an extra responsibility.

While Teucke said he would carry a weapon into school for free, he thinks most teachers would have to be compensated to take on the extra responsibility. And between paying for bonuses and funding sufficient training, Teucke is skeptical that cash-strapped districts can afford such an initiative.

Were Not Cops

Of course, not all teachers with military backgrounds would be comfortable carrying a firearm into their classrooms. McCurdy, the Hawaii teacher, served in the U.S. Army in the 1990s and then served in the Pennsylvania National Guard. He has been trained to shoot all sorts of weapons, from handguns to automatic weaponsand he thinks arming teachers is a horrendous idea.

Were teachers, were not cops, McCurdy said. And even regular cops dont have this trainingthere are SWAT teams for a reason. You want teachers to be SWAT-trained cops? Thats crazy.

Training would be another obstacle to arming teachers, he added.

If you want it to be effective, it has to be on a regular basis, he said. Once a year would be the bare minimum, but ideally, he said, teachers would be trained quarterly or even monthlya big ask for busy teachers.

There is a dearth of research on how many teachers have gone through firearm-safety training, said Amy Thompson, a professor of public health at the University of Toledo in Ohio. Over a decade ago, she surveyed 352 elementary teachers and found that 1 percent had received firearm safety training.

More recently, shes studied the issue of guns on college campuses and found that most university faculty dont want to have guns there. Teachers tend to feel the same way, she said.

The responsibility of carrying a weapon could detract from a teachers instruction, said Benjamin Gorman, a high school English/language arts teacher in Independence, Ore., who has a concealed-carry permit.

When we have one on us, we have to be hypervigilant, he said. I would have to be thinking about the fact that a child could grab for my gun at any time.

Ultimately, McCurdy said, most teachers wont want to replicate a combat-zone situation at school. When they actually understand what the weight of carrying that gun is, what the implications are, I think the vast majority of teachers would say, Nope, cant do it. Not worth it,  he said.

Still, Trump said in a speech that arming teachers makes sense because of their commitment to their students.

Id rather have somebody that loves their students and wants to protect their students than somebody standing outside who doesnt know the students, he said. A teacher would have shot the hell out of [the Parkland school shooter] before he knew what happened.The shooting that left 17 high school students and staff members dead in Parkland, Fla., has supercharged debate in state capitals over what policymakers should do to enhance school safety.

But governors and legislators are confrontingonce againthe political and logistical hurdles to swift action on school security.

Since the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado, state and local politicians have enacted a range of laws to address school security. Additional legislation followed the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. As a result, school officials today have to navigate myriad school security policies using a hodgepodge of funding sources.

In the aftermath of the latest shooting, policymakers have scrambled to determine whats already on the books and whats not working.

As long as incidents keep happening, legislators feel they have to keep trying to find ways to stop this, said Michelle Exstrom, the Education Group Director for the National Conference of State Legislatures. Every single shooting, it brings them back to the fact that they have a profound responsibility to keep kids safe in schools.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the site of the Feb. 14 mass killing, had a slew of security measures already in place, including an armed sheriffs deputy, well-rehearsed lockdown procedures, and several classroom and hallway cameras. All of these systems fell short when 19-year-old suspect Nikolas Cruz stormed through one of the schools campus buildings with an AR-15, opening fire on teenagers and staff members.

Big-Ticket Proposals

Since then, everyone from President Donald Trump to governors, state legislators, and local school board members have pushed proposals that include arming teachers, adding more police officers to schools, adding security cameras, fencing, and other measures.

Governors in states such as Indiana, Maryland, and Washington have proposed to upend their school security strategies, promising to pour millions of dollars toward their efforts.

Others have suggested they tweak their existing laws such as tasking districts to audit school security measures and conducting more lockdown drills. Still others have set up commissions to better assess what they need to do.

Some of the most high-profile and contentious debates over school safety so far have taken place in Florida.

The state has some of the nations loosest gun restrictions and many activists there have blamed the shooting on expansive gun rights, lax school security protocol, and teenagers ability to purchase guns.

After thousands of students marched on the state capitol in the days after the shooting, Republican Gov. Rick Scott proposed a package of bills costing $500 million that would place school resource officers in many of the states schools, staff schools with mental health experts, and restrict the purchasing of guns by those under 21.

Floridas House of Representatives, by contrast, has proposed a bill that would, among other things, allow teachers with permission from school officials and local police agencies to carry weapons.

The governor said arming teachers isnt an effective strategy.

I disagree with arming teachers, Scott said. You need law enforcement that is well trained. ... Let teachers focus on teaching.

Whether or not to arm teachers has dominated discussions in other states, too.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican who is running for reelection this year, has said that arming teachers is a step too far.

I dont agree with the premise that the answer is to put more teachers into training to have them armed in the classroom, Walker said. I think there are other ways were going to roll out in the next few weeks. ... We want something thats going to help school districts across the board.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, another Republican up for reelection, pledged $125 million toward improving school safety in buildings and urged schools to update their security plans. Hes also against arming teachers.

Classrooms should never be a place of fear for our children, and no mom or dad should ever have to worry when they send their kids off to school in the morning, whether their son or daughter is going to have to come home safely, Hogan said during a press conference.

Arming Teachers

At least 15 states already have laws on the books allowing for teachers to bring guns to schools, but set widely varying conditions and ground rules, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In Texas, where some trained teachers have long been allowed to carry weapons to school, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has now tasked his states education agency to conduct school security audits.

Immediate steps must be taken to keep our students and communities safe, with the understanding that more will be expected in the future, Abbott said in the aftermath of the Florida shooting.

Oklahomas legislature is considering two bills that would arm more teachers and allow anyone 21 and older without a prior felony conviction to carry a gun without a license.

And Tennessees legislators as of last week were considering a bill that would allow for one certified armed teacher in school for every 75 students.

Governors in states such as New Mexico and Wisconsin have proposed packages that increase school security measures, including adding school resource officers.

Paying for such initiatives can be another matter. Americas public school infrastructure is already antiquated and in severe need of repair. Updating 30-year-old buildings that barely have functioning Wi-Fi with new electronic locks and security cameras can run into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Local politicians have been reluctant to pay for these costs and have sent dozens of parents to state capitals instead to lobby for state money.

Legislators in many states are already financially strapped and in recent days have proposed to pay for security measures through closing tax loopholes, pulling revenue from other school costs or taking out bonds. A group of legislators in Maine, for example, has proposed that the state take out a $20 million bond to pay for school facility security upgrades and to pay for more school resource officers.

Other state leaders, such as Pennsylvanias Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf and New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, have chosen to set up task forces and panels and hearings.

But in doing so, some state leaders risk the ire of those who are seeking more immediate action.

Governor Sununus inaction on guns is likely due to his A-rating from the NRA and his decision to expand gun rights as governor. Sununus unshakable opposition to common sense gun reform is shameful, said Ray Buckley, the chairman of the states Democratic party. He cant mask his inaction with a school safety initiative.Ramsey MHK takes up Cabinet Office role



Ramsey MHK Dr Alex Allinson

Ramsey MHK Dr Alex Allinson takes on a new role within the Manx Government today.

Dr Allinson has been appointed to the role of Member for the Cabinet Office, which has been vacant since David Ashford because Health Minister in January.

The Department for Enterprise has also reshuffled its political members, with Martyn Perkins leaving the Department.

The Garff MHK remains a member of the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture, as well as chairman of the Office of Fair Trading, while Dr Allinson retains positions withing the Department of Home Affairs and Manx Utilities.2018-03-05

Maeci

As part of the Italy, Cultures, the Mediterranean  cultural programme, Eugenio Bennato is en route towards the Southern Mediterranean. On 4 March, he will be at the Acropolium of Carthage (Tunis) for the first stop of his "Da che sud e sud" ( For as long as South has been South ) international tour, which will then take him to Morocco, Algeria, Egypt and in other Mediterranean Countries, in the rest of Africa and ultimately also in Latin America. In the music from his new album 'Da che sud e sud', which was released last October, Bennato  who will be performing with a six-man band  tackles strongly topical issues such as the new generations wish to overcome the borders imposed at present, travel, get to know each other, express ones feelings and build a life of peace and of a creative coexistence between different cultures and ethnic groups, also through a sound that merges instruments, tones, languages and voices coming from the souths of the whole world. Bennato explained: Every piece has its own story and identity, but they are all united by the presence of a voice, alongside my narrators voice, echoing the resonance of a different language, from French, to English, Spanish and Brazilian and of course to Arabic, with a strong sense of rhythm, evoking movements of the present. Eugenio Bennatos international tour is a circular event of the integrated promotional cultural programme Italy, Cultures, the Mediterranean  that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation is organising through its diplomatic and consular network in the Countries of the Middle East and North Africa in 2018. Through his music, Eugenio Bennato will bear witness to the Mediterranean identity, which can be acquired through culture, mutual knowledge and dialogue. After Tunis, Bennato will be in Rabat on 7 March, in Tangier on 9 March, in Algiers on 13 March, in Oran on 15 March, and in Cairo on 18 March. The "Da che sud e sud" tour will be organised by the Italian Cultural Institutes in Tunis, Rabat, Algiers and Cairo.The STATIS trial (sponsor Inserm-ANRS) has compared two innovative strategies designed to reduce mortality in severely immunosuppressed HIV-infected adults. Coordinated by Professors Francois-Xavier Blanc (CHU de Nantes) and Serge Domoua (Programme PAC-CI, CHU de Treichville, Abidjan), the trial is being conducted in Cambodia, Cote d'Ivoire, Uganda, and Vietnam. The results will be presented this Monday, March 5, at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections held in Boston from March 4 to 7, 2018.

Despite increased access to HIV screening and antiretroviral therapy, many HIV-infected people still enter healthcare systems very late, by which time severe immunosuppression complicates management. Mortality is high in these patients, notably because of tuberculosis, the leading cause of death in HIV-infected people. Patients who initiate antiretroviral therapy late are currently offered simple tuberculosis screening.

The STATIS trial (sponsor Inserm-ANRS) has studied the effects of intensive, systematic, and continuous screening for tuberculosis compared with systematic use of antituberculosis therapy on mortality in these patients. The first results of this study, which is conducted by Professors Francois-Xavier Blanc (CHU de Nantes) and Serge Domoua (Programme PAC-CI, CHU de Treichville, Abidjan) and their colleagues in Cambodia, Cote d'Ivoire, Uganda, and Vietnam, will be disclosed in an oral presentation at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2018).

The study analyzed data from 1047 adult patients who had never received antiretroviral therapy and whose CD4+ cell count was low (<100/mm3) at inclusion. At initiation of antiretroviral therapy, these patients were randomized between two arms. In the first arm, the patients underwent tuberculosis screening comprising an Xpert MTB/RIF test and a urine lipoarabinomannan assay. Only patients who tested positive were then given antituberculosis drugs. The tests could be repeated throughout follow-up, depending on symptoms. In the second arm, all patients received systematic antituberculosis therapy.

The success rates of these two strategies, as a function of the number of deaths or of invasive bacterial infections during the first 24 weeks of follow-up, were higher than that previously reported in the literature for simple tuberculosis screening. There was no significant difference between the two strategies.

ANRS STATIS therefore shows that systematic initiation of antituberculosis treatment is no superior than intensive tuberculosis screening in reducing mortality in severely immunosuppressed HIV-infected adults when they enter the healthcare system. The study is still ongoing and new analyses will be performed for each patient after 48 weeks of follow-up. The two strategies compared in this study are particularly suited to resource-limited settings.

###Study findings show surgeons are less successful in obtaining NIH grants, however the influence of their research was noticeable as the publication impact of surgical research increased about 25 percent over the study period.

CHICAGO (March 5, 2018): Surgeons have made many significant contributions to science in the 20th century, but the specialty has been losing ground to other medical researchers in terms of government funding over the past decade, according to a study published as an "article in press" on the website of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons ahead of print. The authors recommend ensuring that those surgeons who want to do research have the resources to do it.



"Most surgeons don't conduct research because it takes extra time and isn't always compatible with their primary responsibility for taking care of patients," said senior study author Gorav Ailawadi MD, FACS, who along with more than a dozen surgeon-scientists and students at the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, took part in the study.



The researchers focused on the Research Project Grants, specifically R01 awards, which the National Institutes of Health (NIH) calls "the original and historically oldest grant mechanism used by NIH. R01 grants provide support for health-related research and development based on the mission of the NIH." 1 Their analysis looked at a major segment of Research Project Grant (RPG) funding from the NIH, and other NIH grants awarded between 2006 and 2016. The NIH underwrites most successful academic research laboratories in the United States with tens of thousands of grants, primarily R01s.2 However, in the past decade, the number of NIH grants has gone down, while applications (and grant amounts) have increased.3 Only about one of every five or six applications resulted in a funded grant over the period studied.



While the NIH budget has held steady at about $3.2 billion annually for research grants over the last decade, funding to surgeons declined from $314 million to $292 million. Nonetheless, the results showed that surgeons produced impactful research, and were successful in converting NIH K-series4 mentored/early investigator awards into R01 support as independent investigators.



Study findings also showed that surgeons had significantly less success obtaining grants compared with other applicants, particularly, internal medicine faculty. But 831 surgeons did obtain NIH R01 grants during the study period, and the influence of their research was noticeable, as measured by the number of articles published in distinguished journals reporting on their research findings. In addition, the researchers wrote that a "grant impact score was calculated for each grant based on the publications' impact factor per funding dollar amount." Based on this formula, surgeons' impact scores increased by about 25 per cent over the study period, Dr. Ailawadi said. Orthopedic surgeons conducted by far the most influential research among surgeons in the study using this metric.



In addition, 46 percent of young surgeons who obtained NIH K-Series research grants in the years between 2007 and 2012 went on to successfully obtain a subsequent R01 grant. K-grants are designed to help early-career researchers get established with the help of mentors.



An important part of the surgeon's work is to find ways to minimize complications to the patient, Dr. Ailawadi said. He explained that interactions with patients inspire surgeons to create innovations that they can put to work in clinical practice to improve patient outcomes sooner rather than later. The tradition of the surgeon-scientist traces back to such giants of medical research as Alexis Carrel,5 who won the Nobel Prize in 1912 for his foundational contributions to vascular surgery and transplantation.



Throughout the second half of the 20th century, NIH funding has benefited innumerable landmark advances in surgical science. Two prime examples are the legendary decades of work by general surgeon Bernard Fisher, MD, FACS, who established systemic chemotherapy for breast cancer as an effective means for treating the disease as opposed to the old aggressive Halsted radical mastectomy. Dr. Fisher was the first to establish, by means of laboratory and clinical investigation using randomized trials, a scientific basis for breast-conserving surgery.6 Furthermore, the NIH funded some of the leading-edge research of plastic surgeon Susan E. Mackinnon, MD, FACS, FRCSC, who has been recognized for her leadership in the innovative use of nerve transfer procedures for treatment of patients with devastating peripheral nerve injuries.7 Both surgeons were named recipients of the Jacobson Innovation Award by the American College of Surgeons, the College's highest research honor.



Moving forward, the authors recommend that academic institutions and the NIH increase support for surgeon-scientists at the beginning of their careers "to increase basic/translational science research and lead to future surgical discoveries that will benefit mankind."



But surgeons may be at a disadvantage compared with other scientists, Dr. Ailawadi said. "Hospitals want surgeons to operate and bring in revenue." Secondly, he pointed out that, "the NIH has shifted more to molecular analyses, and has become much more focused on benchtop research," which is typically performed by full-time PhD researchers in a laboratory rather than clinicians in a practice setting. Thirdly, applicants for NIH K-Series grants must agree to devote between half and three-quarters of their time to research. And finally, the authors state, many young surgeons have come to believe that "basic research may not be part of their role" once they begin practice.



"Most of us train five years or longer to learn how to operate and take care of patients. We don't spend five years training to do research. It's much harder for surgeons to decide to do research, attain the skill set and pursue it, when they have opportunities to be remunerated for their clinical volume alone." Dr. Ailawadi said.



Dr. Ailawadi believes that surgeons' declining representation among NIH grantees is a potentially worrisome sign for the future, because the NIH approves grants based on recommendations from study sections composed to an extent of past and present grantees. While the NIH works to include experts in any given study section who are well versed on the science the group will be reviewing, Dr. Ailawadi noted that fewer surgeons getting grants means fewer surgeons will be in those influential study sections in the future.



"Then the challenge will be to convince PhD scientists on study sections that our research is more meaningful to the field of surgery than that of a number of PhDs who are also submitting their projects in other disciplines," he said.



###

Other study authors include Adishesh K. Narahari, MS; J.Hunter Mehaffey, MD, MSc; Robert B. Hawkins, MD, MSc; Eric J. Charles, MD, PhD; Pranav K. Baderdinni; Anirudha S. Chandrabhatla; Joseph W. Kocan, BS; R. Scott Jones, MD, MSc, FACS; Gilbert R. Upchurch Jr., MD, FACS; Irving L. Kron, MD, FACS; and John A. Kern, MD, FACS.



Study findings were presented at the Southern Surgical Association 129th Annual Meeting, Hot Springs, Virginia, December 2017.



Support for this study: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [T32 HL07849, UM1 HL088925, T32 GM007267, and T32 GM007055].

Disclaimer: This work is the opinion of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the National Institutes of Health.



Citation: Surgeon Scientists Are Disproportionately Affected By Declining NIH Funding Rates. Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Available at: http://www.journalacs.org/article/S1072-7515(18)30028-0/fulltext.

1 National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. NIH Research Project Grant Program - R01. Available at: https://www.nibib.nih.gov/research-funding/nih-research-project-grant-program-r01. Accessed March 2, 2018.

2 National Institute of Mental Health. Research Grants (R). Available at: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/funding/grant-writing-and-application-process/research-grants-r.shtml. Accessed March 2, 2018.

3 NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tools. NIH Databook. Available at: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/. Accessed March 2, 2018.

4 National Institute of Mental Health. Career Development Programs (K-Series). Available at: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/funding/training/career-development-programs-k-series.shtml. Accessed March 2, 2018.

5 Nobelprize.org. The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1912. Available at: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1912/. Accessed March 2, 2018.

6 Newswise. Bernard Fisher, MD, FACS, is Recipient of the 2009 Jacobson Innovation Award. Available at: https://www.newswise.com/articles/bernard-fisher-md-facs-is-recipient-of-the-2009-jacobson-innovation-award. Accessed March 2, 2018.

7 Bulletin of the American College of Surgeons. Susan E. Mackinnon, MD, FACS, FRCSC, receives 2013 Jacobson Innovation Award. Available at: http://bulletin.facs.org/2013/08/mackinnon-receives-jacobson-award/#.WpH2p2rwbcs. Accessed March 2, 2018.



About the American College of Surgeons

The American College of Surgeons is a scientific and educational organization of surgeons that was founded in 1913 to raise the standards of surgical practice and improve the quality of care for all surgical patients. The College is dedicated to the ethical and competent practice of surgery. Its achievements have significantly influenced the course of scientific surgery in America and have established it as an important advocate for all surgical patients. The College has more than 80,000 members and is the largest organization of surgeons in the world. For more information, visit http://www.facs.org.WASHINGTON - Exposure to trauma is increasingly common among school-aged American students, yet many affected children are not receiving the mental health care that could enable them to heal and thrive. Schools are the most common source of mental health care for students, which is why school administrators, counselors and teachers need the tools to enable them to develop an environment that promotes evidence-based interventions to help students overcome trauma and excel.

A new book published by the American Psychological Association - Creating Healing School Communities: School-Based Interventions for Students Exposed to Trauma - outlines models that schools can use to work with students experiencing various levels of trauma.

"On average, only 25 percent of children with mental health needs receive services," the authors wrote. "Of those children who do receive mental health services, 70 percent to 80 percent receive those services in school."

The authors recommend a model called the Multi-Tiered System of Supports, which addresses both academics and behavior in a whole-school, prevention-based approach. The first tier of this model embodies a universal approach for all students. Tier 2 is a more targeted approach for those with elevated risk or indication of need. Tier 3 is the most intensive approach, reserved for those students with the greatest need. Other elements of this model include social-emotional learning, which seeks to imbue students with five core competencies: being self-aware, being able to regulate their emotions, being socially aware, having good relationship skills and demonstrating responsible decision-making.

As part of the universal approach to supporting students exposed to trauma, there needs to be a mechanism for identifying students who need a higher level of attention, the authors wrote. They recommend that schools regularly monitor behavior, attendance and grades to identify students who are off-track.

"This is an important book being published at a critical time," said APA President Jessica Henderson Daniel, PhD. "While the tragic shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have shone a spotlight on students and trauma, many American schoolchildren experience all manner of trauma, day in and day out. This puts them at risk for psychological symptoms such as post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression, as well as poorer academic performance."

There are many advantages to schools' delivering trauma care to children, according to the authors. "[S]chool-based services eliminate many burdens on families related to transportation, time, cost and availability. In addition to circumventing structural barriers, school-based services can address many of the perceptual barriers by having trusted, known school personnel engage the family in a familiar, nonstigmatizing setting."

###

Book: "Creating Healing School Communities: School-Based Interventions for Students Exposed to Trauma," by Catherine DeCarlo Santiago, PhD, Loyola University Chicago; Tali Raviv, PhD, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine; and Lisa H. Jaycox, PhD, RAND Corp. APA Books, January 2018. This book is part of the Concise Guides on Trauma Care series, produced in partnership by APA's Division 56 (Trauma Psychology) and APA Books.

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes nearly 115,700 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.

http://www.apa.org

If you do not want to receive APA news releases, please let us know at public.affairs@apa.org or 202-336-5700.When caring for stroke patients, health care providers should focus on the social and emotional issues facing patients, rather than only physical rehabilitation, according to a new study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"Rather than focusing only on physical rehabilitation, a realistic approach to managing care should consider the emotional needs of patients and their caregivers," says Dr. Scott Murray, Primary Palliative Care Research Group, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. "Balancing the need for hope of recovery with the potential of severe disability or death is important in this approach."

Stroke is the second leading cause of death, accounting for 11% of deaths worldwide. Survival is especially poor for people who have had a severe total anterior circulation stroke with loss of motor control, language and other conditions.

The study of 219 patients in central Scotland with severe stroke (total anterior circulation stroke) looked at the experiences, concerns and priorities of patients, families and health care professionals in the 12 months after stroke. In the first 6 months, 57% (125 people) died, with 1-year fatality of 60% (132 deaths.) About two-thirds (67%) of deaths occurred within the first month after stroke.

Researchers found that patients and their families reported grief over the loss of their previous life, anxiety among caregivers over whether they were "doing the right thing," uncertainty about the future and confusion about prognosis. As well, the term "palliative care" was interpreted negatively by many health care providers, families and informal caregivers, as it is associated with care for people, for example patients with advanced cancer, who are dying.

"Many patients and informal caregivers would have welcomed more support in making decisions and in planning for the future from day one," writes Dr. Murray with coauthors. "The focus was on active rehabilitation, recovery, motivation and hope, with much less discussion and preparation for limited recovery."

The authors suggest that the principles of palliative care rather than the term itself should be applied to stroke patients, which means supporting people to live well with deteriorating health and making them comfortable until their eventual death.

In a related commentary http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.170956, Dr. Jessica Simon, Department of Oncology, University of Calgary, writes "the challenging questions for physicians and other health care providers should not be, 'What shall we call it?' or 'Who should receive palliative care?'; the questions for each patient who is facing the challenges associated with life-threatening illness should be, 'Am I providing the palliative care support my patient needs?' and 'Is there access to sufficient specialist palliative care resources in my community if needed?'."

"Outcomes, experiences and palliative care in major stroke: a multicentre, mixed-method, longitudinal study" is published March 5, 2018.

###Scientists have used lab experiments to retrace the chemical steps leading to the creation of complex hydrocarbons in space, showing pathways to forming 2-D carbon-based nanostructures in a mix of heated gases.

The latest study, which featured experiments at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), could help explain the presence of pyrene, which is a chemical compound known as a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, and similar compounds in some meteorites.

A team of scientists, including researchers from Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, participated in the study, published March 5 in the Nature Astronomy journal. The study was led by scientists at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and also involved theoretical chemists at Florida International University.

"This is how we believe some of the first carbon-based structures evolved in the universe," said Musahid Ahmed, a scientist in Berkeley Lab's Chemical Sciences Division who joined other team members to perform experiments at Berkeley Lab's Advanced Light Source (ALS).

"Starting off from simple gases, you can generate one-dimensional and two-dimensional structures, and pyrene could lead you to 2-D graphene," Ahmed said. "From there you can get to graphite, and the evolution of more complex chemistry begins."

Pyrene has a molecular structure composed of 16 carbon atoms and 10 hydrogen atoms. Researchers found that the same heated chemical processes that give rise to the formation of pyrene are also relevant to combustion processes in vehicle engines, for example, and the formation of soot particles.

The latest study builds on earlier work that analyzed hydrocarbons with smaller molecular rings that have also been observed in space, including in Saturn's moon Titan - namely benzene and naphthalene.

Ralf I. Kaiser, one of the study's lead authors and a chemistry professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said, "When these hydrocarbons were first seen in space, people got very excited. There was the question of how they formed." Were they purely formed through reactions in a mix of gases, or did they form on a watery surface, for example?

Ahmed said there is an interplay between astronomers and chemists in this detective work that seeks to retell the story of how life's chemical precursors formed in the universe.

"We talk to astronomers a lot because we want their help in figuring out what's out there," Ahmed said, "and it informs us to think about how it got there."

Kaiser noted that physical chemists, on the other hand, can help shine a light on reaction mechanisms that can lead to the synthesis of specific molecules in space.

Pyrene belongs to a family known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, that are estimated to account for about 20 percent of all carbon in our galaxy. PAHs are organic molecules that are composed of a sequence of fused molecular rings. To explore how these rings develop in space, scientists work to synthesize these molecules and other surrounding molecules known to exist in space.

Alexander M. Mebel, a chemistry professor at Florida International University who participated in the study, said, "You build them up one ring at a time, and we've been making these rings bigger and bigger. This is a very reductionist way of looking at the origins of life: one building block at a time."

For this study, researchers explored the chemical reactions stemming from a combination of a complex hydrocarbon known as the 4-phenanthrenyl radical, which has a molecular structure that includes a sequence of three rings and contains a total of 14 carbon atoms and nine hydrogen atoms, with acetylene (two carbon atoms and two hydrogen atoms).

Chemical compounds needed for the study were not commercially available, said Felix Fischer, an assistant professor of chemistry at UC Berkeley who also contributed to the study, so his lab prepared the samples. "These chemicals are very tedious to synthesize in the laboratory," he said.

At the ALS, researchers injected the gas mixture into a microreactor that heated the sample to a high temperature to simulate the proximity of a star. The ALS generates beams of light, from infrared to X-ray wavelengths, to support a range of science experiments by visiting and in-house researchers.

The mixture of gases was jetted out of the microreactor through a tiny nozzle at supersonic speeds, arresting the active chemistry within the heated cell. The research team then focused a beam of vacuum ultraviolet light from the synchrotron on the heated gas mixture that knocked away electrons (an effect known as ionization).

They then analyzed the chemistry taking place using a charged-particle detector that measured the varied arrival times of particles that formed after ionization. These arrival times carried the telltale signatures of the parent molecules. These experimental measurements, coupled with Mebel's theoretical calculations, helped researchers to see the intermediate steps of the chemistry at play and to confirm the production of pyrene in the reactions.

Mebel's work showed how pyrene (a four-ringed molecular structure) could develop from a compound known as phenanthrene (a three-ringed structure). These theoretical calculations can be useful for studying a variety of phenomena, "from combustion flames on Earth to outflows of carbon stars and the interstellar medium," Mebel said.

Kaiser added, "Future studies could study how to create even larger chains of ringed molecules using the same technique, and to explore how to form graphene from pyrene chemistry."

Other experiments conducted by team members at the University of Hawaii will explore what happens when researchers mix hydrocarbon gases in icy conditions and simulate cosmic radiation to see whether that may spark the creation of life-bearing molecules.

"Is this enough of a trigger?" Ahmed said. "There has to be some self-organization and self-assembly involved" to create life forms. "The big question is whether this is something that, inherently, the laws of physics do allow."

###

The study was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office Sciences, and UC Berkeley, the University of Hawaii, Florida International University, and the National Science Foundation.

The ALS is a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel Prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit http://www.lbl.gov.

DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov (http://science.energy.gov).MATISSE (Multi AperTure mid-Infrared SpectroScopic Experiment observes infrared light -- light between the visible and microwave wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, covering wavelengths from 3-13 micrometres (m) [1]. It is a second-generation spectro-interferometer instrument for ESO's Very Large Telescope that can take advantage of multiple telescopes and the wave nature of the light. In this way, it produces more detailed images of celestial objects than can be obtained with any existing or planned single telescope at these wavelengths.

After 12 years of development by a large number of engineers and astronomers in France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and at ESO, and following an extensive period of demanding work installing and testing this very complex instrument, initial observations have now confirmed that MATISSE is working as expected [2].

The initial MATISSE observations of the red supergiant star Betelgeuse, which is expected to explode as a supernova in a few hundred thousand years, showed that it still has secrets to reveal [3]. The new observations show evidence that the star appears to have a different size when seen at different wavelengths. Such data will allow astronomers to further study the huge star's surroundings and how it is shedding material into space.

The principal investigator of MATISSE, Bruno Lopez (Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur (OCA), Nice, France), explains its unique power: "Single telescopes can achieve image sharpness that is limited by the size of their mirrors. To obtain even higher resolution, we combine -- or interfere -- the light from four different VLT telescopes. Doing this enables MATISSE to deliver the sharpest images of any telescope ever in the 3-13 m wavelength range, where it will complement the James Webb Space Telescope's future observations from space."

MATISSE will contribute to several fundamental research areas in astronomy, focusing in particular on the inner regions of discs around young stars where planets are forming, the study of stars at different stages of their lives, and the surroundings of supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies.

Thomas Henning, director at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy (MPIA) in Heidelberg, Germany, and MATISSE co-principal investigator, comments: "By looking at the inner regions of protoplanetary discs with MATISSE, we hope to learn the origin of the various minerals contained in these discs -- minerals that will later go on to form the solid cores of planets like the Earth."

Walter Jaffe, the project scientist and co-principal investigator from University of Leiden in the Netherlands, and Gerd Weigelt, co-principal investigator from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR), Bonn, Germany, add: "MATISSE will give us dramatic images of planet-forming regions, multiple stars, and, when working with the VLT Unit Telescopes, also the dusty discs feeding supermassive black holes. We hope also to observe details of exotic objects in our Solar System, such as volcanoes on Io, and the atmospheres of giant exoplanets."

MATISSE is a four-way beam combiner, meaning it combines the light collected from up to four of the 8.2-metre VLT Unit Telescopes or up to four of the Auxiliary Telescopes (ATs) that make up the VLTI, performing both spectroscopic and imaging observations. In doing so, MATISSE and the VLTI together possess the imaging power of a telescope up to 200 metres in diameter, capable of producing the most detailed images ever at mid-infrared wavelengths.

Initial tests were made with the Auxiliary Telescopes, and further observations with the four VLT Unit Telescopes are planned during the next few months.

MATISSE superimposes the light of an astronomical object from the combined light of multiple telescopes, resulting in an interference pattern that contains information about the appearance of the object, from which an image can then be reconstructed.

MATISSE's first light marks a big step forward in the scope of current optical/infrared interferometers and will allow astronomers to obtain interferometric images with finer detail over a wider wavelength range than currently possible. MATISSE will also complement the instruments planned for ESO's upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT ), in particular METIS (the Mid-infrared ELT Imager and Spectrograph). MATISSE will observe brighter objects than METIS, but with higher spatial resolution.

Andreas Glindemann, MATISSE project manager at ESO, concludes: "Making MATISSE a reality has involved the work of many people over many years and it is wonderful to see the instrument working so well. We are looking forward to the exciting science to come!"

Notes

[1] MATISSE was designed, funded and built in close collaboration with ESO, by a consortium composed of institutes in France (INSU-CNRS in Paris and OCA in Nice hosting the PI team), Germany (MPIA, MPIfR and University of Kiel), the Netherlands (NOVA and University of Leiden), and Austria (University of Vienna). The Konkoly Observatory and Cologne University have also provided some support in the manufacture of the instrument.

[2] With MATISSE, the last of the suite of second generation VLT/VLTI instruments has now arrived at Paranal. For the VLTI this means that 17 years -- almost exactly to the day -- after obtaining first fringes with VINCI and two siderostats, the first generation of instruments has now been replaced by PIONIER, GRAVITY and MATISSE, all of them combining four telescopes (UTs or ATs) and together covering a wide range of infrared wavelengths (from 1.6-13 m). MATISSE is the first mid-infrared interferometer that can be used to reconstruct images.

[3] Betelgeuse was the first star resolved by interferometry by Michelson and Pease in 1920. It was also used as a bright test case by precursor mid-infrared interferometers -- including MIDI on the VLTI.

More information

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and by Australia as a strategic partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope, the world's most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory and two survey telescopes. VISTA works in the infrared and is the world's largest survey telescope and the VLT Survey Telescope is the largest telescope designed to exclusively survey the skies in visible light. ESO is a major partner in ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".

###

Links

* Further information about MATISSE - http://www.eso.org/public/teles-instr/paranal-observatory/vlt/vlt-instr/matisse/

Contacts

Andreas Glindemann

ESO

Garching bei Munchen, Germany

Tel: +49-89-32006-590

Email: aglindem@eso.org

Paul Bristow

ESO

Garching bei Munchen, Germany

Tel: +49-89-32006-506

Email: bristowp@eso.org

Bruno Lopez

Laboratoire J.-L. Lagrange, Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur

Nice, France

Tel: +33 4 92 00 31 46

Email: bruno.lopez@oca.eu

Stephane Lagarde

Laboratoire J.-L. Lagrange, Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur

Nice, France

Tel: +33 4 92 00 31 46

Email: stephane.lagarde@oca.eu

Richard Hook

ESO Public Information Officer

Garching bei Munchen, Germany

Tel: +49 89 3200 6655

Cell: +49 151 1537 3591

Email: rhook@eso.orgLUGANO-PARIS 5 March 2018 - New compounds targeting epigenetics have shown remarkable early activity in patients with lymphoma, according to data presented at the TAT (Targeted Anticancer Therapies) International Congress 2018 in Paris, France. ESMO's phase-I oncology meeting featured early clinical studies with BET inhibitors and EZH2 inhibitors.

Dr Anastasios Stathis, head of the New Drugs Development Unit of the Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland (IOSI), Bellinzona, Switzerland, was one of the first oncologists to conduct research in this field. He said BET inhibitors have shown some activity in leukaemia, lymphoma and also NUT carcinoma, a rare and aggressive solid tumour driven by a translocation involving BET genes. His previous phase I research on the first-in-class BET inhibitor birabresib (OTX015/MK-8628) showed some activity in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, providing proof-of-concept for this approach. (1)

Subsequently birabresib was used on a single-patient compassionate basis in four patients with NUT carcinoma. Stathis said: "This was the first evidence that preclinical findings with BET inhibitors in models of NUT carcinoma could be translated into activity in patients." (2)

Since then multiple BET inhibitors have been studied in clinical trials and preliminary results have confirmed that they may be effective in patients with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and NUT carcinoma. (3) Tolerability of these compounds has generally been good, but some side effects have been observed that may limit treatment compliance. Thrombocytopaenia which can be dose-limiting but is reversible and not accompanied by major bleeding events, fatigue and gastrointestinal symptoms have been the main side effects that have emerged so far.

Regarding activity, patients do eventually progress on treatment and the duration of response is unknown. Stathis said: "It's not clear what the real clinical impact of BET inhibitors could be. Compounds approved for lymphoma in the last five years had single-agent phase-I response rates above 30%, but activity with BET inhibitors is less than 30%. The hope is to identify the patients that would benefit most and test BET inhibitors in combination with other compounds. In addition, there are new classes of BET inhibitors in preclinical studies and we need to wait to see if they have better activity."

Another area where clinical data is emerging is related to EZH2 inhibitors for which data will be presented at TAT 2018. EZH2 is a protein that exhibits relatively frequent mutations in lymphoma. Results will be presented from a study in patients with B-cell lymphoma showing evidence of antitumour activity with an EZH2 inhibitor, which was well tolerated and had manageable toxicities. (4) Study author Dr Adrian Senderowicz of Constellation Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, US, said: "If approved by health authorities, EZH2 inhibition may become a new treatment paradigm in relapse or refractory EZH2 mutant follicular lymphoma patients."

A previous study showed that another EZH2 inhibitor, tazemetostat, induced objective response rates of 92% in patients with EZH2 mutant follicular lymphoma and 26% in those with the wild-type. (5) Stathis said: "The question is whether it makes sense to treat patients without the mutation, since the response is so much lower. However, these patients do show some response and researchers want to know why."

Stathis said: "We do have proof, and we will see further evidence at TAT 2018, that epigenetics are a promising target in lymphomas."

###

Notes to Editors

Please make sure to use the official name of the meeting in your reports: TAT International Congress 2018

Official hashtag for TAT International Congress 2018: #TAT2018

URL of the press release will be available after the embargo: http://esmo.org/Press-Office/Press-Releases/Epigenetics-Therapy-Shows-Promise-in-Patients-with-Lymphoma

References

1 Amorim S, Stathis A, Gleeson M, et al. Bromodomain inhibitor OTX015 in patients with lymphoma or multiple myeloma: a dose-escalation, open-label, pharmacokinetic, phase 1 study. Lancet Haematol. 2016;3(4):e196-204. doi: 10.1016/S2352-3026(16)00021-1.

2 Stathis A, Zucca E, Bekradda M, et al. Clinical Response of Carcinomas Harboring the BRD4-NUT Oncoprotein to the Targeted Bromodomain Inhibitor OTX015/MK-8628. Cancer Discov. 2016;6(5):492-500. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-15-1335.

3 Stathis A, Bertoni F. BET Proteins as Targets for Anticancer Treatment. Cancer Discov. 2018;8(1):24-36. doi: 10.1158/2159-8290.CD-17-0605.

4 Abstract 42O 'A Phase 1 Study of CPI-1205, a Small Molecule Inhibitor of EZH2, Preliminary Safety in Patients with B-Cell Lymphomas': presented by Adrian Senderowicz during Proffered Paper Session 2 on Tuesday, 6 March, 11:00 to 12:30 (CET) in Room Scene AB.

5 Morschhauser F, Salles G, McKay P, et al. Interim report from a phase 2 multicenter study of tazemetostat, an EZH2 inhibitor, in patients with relapsed or refractory B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphomas. Hematol Oncol. 2017;35(S2):24-25. https://doi.org/10.1002/hon.2437_3

Disclaimer

This press release contains information provided by the authors of the highlighted abstracts and reflects the content of those abstracts. It does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of ESMO who cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the data. Commentators quoted in the press release are required to comply with the ESMO Declaration of Interests policy and the ESMO Code of Conduct.

About the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)

ESMO is the leading professional organisation for medical oncology. With more than 18,000 members representing oncology professionals from over 150 countries worldwide, ESMO is the society of reference for oncology education and information. We are committed to supporting our members to develop and advance in a fast-evolving professional environment. http://www.esmo.org

Twitter: @myESMO

Facebook: esmo.org

Youtube: ESMOchannelLUGANO-PARIS, 5 March 2018 - "Fighting my cancer as much as possible" is why many patients participate in early stage clinical trials, according to research presented at the TAT (Targeted Anticancer Therapies) International Congress 2018 in Paris, France.

"The importance of early stage trials is increasing because of the pressing need for new drugs," said Dr Markus Joerger, Attending Medical Oncologist and responsible of the phase 1 unit at St Gallen Cancer Centre, Switzerland, member of the ESMO Press and Media Committee. This has been accompanied by rising interest from patients in participating in such trials due to the introduction of alternatives to chemotherapy and larger trials which benefit more patients.

Joerger said: "The public is aware that cancer treatment is not just chemotherapy, which is often accompanied by substantial side-effects; we now also have targeted drugs and immunotherapy. In addition, we have a deeper understanding of tumour biology and can better select patients for trials, leading to higher response rates and increased clinical benefit. Early stage trials include more patients than before, so there is the potential for greater numbers of patients to benefit."

Dr Benjamin Verret of the Drug Development Unit (DITEP), Institut Gustave Roussy, Villejuif, France, author of a study analysing the answers to a self-administered questionnaire assessing patient preferences for participation in phase 1 clinical trials, (1) said: "Ten years ago, phase 1 clinical trials were maybe the only option for patients with a cancer at an advanced stage that would not respond to standard treatment. Today this is no longer the case. Participants in early stage trials gain access to treatment alternatives such as targeted therapy and immune checkpoint inhibitors."

Verret's research found that "fighting my cancer as much as possible" was one of the top two reasons why patients choose to participate in a phase 1 clinical trial. He said: "In our study, only one in six patients said that clinical trial participation was their only option. More than two-thirds said their reason for taking part was 'having access to the best cancer treatment'. These findings suggest an improvement in the public's opinion of clinical trials. Interestingly, a survey we conducted among oncologists referring patients to our phase 1 trial unit also indicates more public support for early stage trials."

Commenting on the study, Joerger said: "This study suggests that the attractiveness of early stage clinical trials has improved. The centre where I work, for example has had an increase in referrals to these trials over the last ten years. Cancer therapy is becoming more personalised, and patients may have longer responses and less toxicity than with chemotherapy." Selection of patients is crucial to achieving the aims of phase 1 trials, which are to determine the correct dose and safety of a new drug. Another study presented at the TAT International Congress 2018 provided external validation of a score which predicts overall survival of patients in phase 1 immuno-oncology trials and can be used to select participants. (2) Study author Dr Lucia Ceniceros of the Clinica Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain, said: "The score is particularly useful for determining the most appropriate patients to receive treatment in a phase 1 immuno-oncology trial. Selecting the correct patients should reduce toxicities and improve survival."

Joerger added: "The score can improve understanding about the impact of immunotherapy generally. In future what we really need is predictive markers for specific immunotherapy drugs. Over the next five years we will have many more immunotherapy drugs and specific predictors should be developed for each therapy."

Dr Ahmad Awada, Head of Medical Oncology at the Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels, Belgium, expert in new drug development and Coordinator of the ESMO Faculty of Principles of clinical trials and systemic therapy, commented: "The proper selection of patients is crucial for a correct evaluation of a new agent in the phase 1 setting as the evaluation of the tolerance and the efficacy for the majority of patients is analysed at a later stage."

Awada also emphasised the importance of patient's informed consent when they are offered participation in early and/or later phase clinical trials: "New electronic tools are currently being developed in order to facilitate a patient's understanding and participation in clinical trials and to refine their expectations."

Joerger concluded: "Patients with cancer are becoming more and more interested in taking part in phase 1 clinical trials and research presented at the TAT International Congress 2018 confirms that this is not because these trials are their only option. More research is needed to improve patient selection for phase 1 trials so that even more patients with cancer can benefit."

###

Notes to Editors

Please make sure to use the official name of the meeting in your reports: TAT International Congress 2018

Official hashtag for TAT International Congress 2018: #TAT2018

URL of the press release will not be live until the embargo is lifted: http://esmo.org/Press-Office/Press-Releases/Fighting-my-Cancer-as-Much-as-Possible

References

1 Abstract 141P 'Self-questionnaire to assess patient's preferences for participation in phase I clinical trials' will be presented by Benjamin Verret during the Poster display session on Monday, 5 March, 17:10 to 18:00 (CET) in Room Scene AB.

2 Abstract 117P 'External Validation of the Gustave Roussy Immune Score (GRIm score) in an unselected cohort of patients treated at the Clinica Universidad de Navarra' will be presented by Lucia Ceniceros during a Poster display session on Monday, 5 March, 17:10 to 18:00 (CET) in Room Scene AB.

Disclaimer

This press release contains information provided by the authors of the highlighted abstracts and reflects the content of those abstracts. It does not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of ESMO who cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of the data. Commentators quoted in the press release are required to comply with the ESMO Declaration of Interests policy and the ESMO Code of Conduct.

About the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO)

ESMO is the leading professional organisation for medical oncology. With 18,000 members representing oncology professionals from over 150 countries worldwide, ESMO is the society of reference for oncology education and information. We are committed to supporting our members to develop and advance in a fast-evolving professional environment.

http://www.esmo.org

Twitter: @myESMO

Facebook: esmo.org

Youtube: ESMOchannelA prospective new method of treating patients with multiple sclerosis has been proposed by researchers of the Mainz University Medical Center working in cooperation with researchers of the University of Montreal. In model trials and experiments employing human endothelial cells, they discovered that the EGFL7 protein hinders the migration of immune cells into the central nervous system by stabilizing the blood-brain barrier. These findings have recently been published in Nature Communications.

The autoimmune disease multiple sclerosis (MS) is one of the most common disorders that cause disabilities in young adults in industrialized countries. In MS, the body's own immune system attacks the central nervous system (CNS). Immune cells (T cells) cross the blood-brain barrier, i.e., the physiological barrier between the blood circulatory system and the CNS, enter the brain, and damage the protective covering of the nerve fibers, the myelin layer. This results in the degeneration and loss of function of nerve cells and leads to neurological disability-related symptoms.

The primary aim of MS research is to develop new treatments that will prevent this pathological process. Putting the EGFL7 protein at the focus of their research, the team led by Dr. Timo Uphaus and Professor Frauke Zipp of the Department of Neurology at the University Medical Center of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz collaborated with Dr. Catherine Larochelle of the University of Montreal and Professor Mirko Schmidt and researchers of the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK). They chose a completely innovative pathophysiological-based approach as EGFL7 had not previously been considered of relevance to MS research. However, it has been shown, for example in the case of breast cancer, that EGFL7 does have an influence on the migration of immune cells into tumor tissue. Since the migration of immune cells into the brain plays a significant role in MS, the researchers decided to investigate this protein and whether it could also have an effect on the autoimmune disorder. Notably, on the basis of their results they were able to demonstrate a possible new approach to successfully treat MS.

The researchers discovered that CNS inflammation was accompanied by an increased release of EGFL7. Immune cells subsequently bind to EGFL7, in a sense being taken prisoner so that they are prevented from crossing into the CNS. EGFL7 is released by the endothelial cells of the blood-brain barrier and causes immune cells to be retained in the perivascular space. In their model trials, the researchers next found that exposure to EGLF7 makes the blood-brain barrier less permeable. In the presence of this more effective barrier, the passage of immune cells into the CNS was reduced. This counteracted the corresponding pathological mechanisms and thus led to improvements in clinical symptoms.

Furthermore, the researchers were able to confirm their experimental findings in a human blood-brain barrier model, where there was also decreased migration of immune cells in isolated human endothelial cells. They now conclude that it might be possible in principle to take advantage of the way that EGFL7 inhibits the migration of immune cells into the CNS and enhances the impenetrability of the blood-brain barrier for the treatment of multiple sclerosis.

###Bottom Line: A training intervention to help health care professionals better communicate about human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines with adolescent patients and their parents increased initiation and completion of HPV vaccine series among both boys and girls.

Why The Research Is Interesting: More than 35,000 HPV-related cancers occur each year and effective vaccines against HPV have been available in the United States since 2006 for girls and since 2009 for boys. However, the vaccines are underused among adolescents and interventions to increase vaccination rates are being studied.

Who and When: 16 primary care practices in Denver, Colorado, with half implementing a communication training intervention and the other half serving as a control group for comparison group; participants included 188 medical professionals and about 43,000 adolescents; the clinical trial was conducted between February 2015 and January 2016

Interventions and Measures: The communication training program for health care professionals had five components: fact sheets, a parent education website, images depicting diseases associated with HPV, a decision aid for HPV vaccination, and communication training for health care professionals (interventions); differences in HPV vaccine series initiation and completion for patients ages 11 to 17 in the intervention and control practice groups (outcomes)

How (Study Design): This was a randomized clinical trial (RCT). RCTs allow for the strongest inferences to be made about the true effect of an intervention. However, not all RCT results can be replicated in real-world settings because patient characteristics or other variables may differ from those that were studied in the RCT.

Authors: Amanda F. Dempsey, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, and coauthors

Study Limitations: The intervention could not examine at the patient level the effect of specific components of the intervention on HPV vaccination uptake.

Study Conclusions: Disseminating this communication training intervention among primary care health care professionals may increase national adolescent HPV vaccination levels.

###

For more details and to read the full study, please visit the For The Media website.

(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.0016)

Editor's Note: The article contains conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.

Journal JAMA Pediatrics

Link will be live at the embargo time http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2018.0016Japan -- Researchers led by Dr. Knut Woltjen report a new gene editing method that can modify a single DNA base in the human genome with absolute precision.

The technique, which is described in Nature Communications, is unique in that it guides the cell's own repair mechanisms by design, providing pairs of genetically matched cells for studying disease-related mutations.

Single mutations in DNA, known as single nucleotide polymorphisms -- or SNPs for short -- are the most common type of variation in the human genome. More than 10 million SNPs are known, many of which are associated with ailments such as Alzheimer's, heart disease, and diabetes.

In order to understand the role of SNPs in hereditary disease, scientists at Kyoto University's Center for iPS cell Research and Application (CiRA) create induced pluripotent stem cells from patient donors.

iPS cells retain the genetic makeup of the donor and can be converted into any cell type in the body. In this way, cells from tissues such as the brain, heart, or pancreas can be created and observed in the laboratory, enabling safe testing for new disease treatments before starting clinical trials.

Proving that a SNP causes disease requires very strict comparisons to genetically matched, or isogenic, iPS cells. The ideal cells are what the researchers describe as isogenic "twins"; cells whose genomes differ only by one SNP.

However, Dr. Shin-Il Kim, a Specially-appointed Assistant Professor in the Woltjen lab and co-first author on the study, says that creating these twins is not trivial.

"Usually we need to add a gene for antibiotic resistance along with the SNP to overcome low efficiency. Since that adds another change to the genome, we also need a way to remove it."

To create isogenic twins, the Woltjen laboratory has developed new genome editing technology that inserts a SNP modification along with a fluorescent reporter gene, which acts as a signal to detect modified cells.

They also engineered a short duplicated DNA sequence, known as a microhomology, on the left and right sides of the reporter gene, and unique target sites for CRISPR, an enzyme that cuts DNA.

These features allowed the researchers to exploit an endogenous DNA repair system in the cell called microhomology-mediated end joining (MMEJ) in order to precisely remove the reporter gene. MMEJ removes the fluorescent reporter gene, leaving only the modified SNP behind. By arranging the mutant SNP in one microhomology and the normal SNP in the other, the method efficiently generates isogenic twins.

CiRA Associate Professor Dr. Knut Woltjen, called the new gene editing method MhAX, or Microhomology-Assisted eXcision. Woltjen's inspiration came from observing naturally occurring MMEJ repair in response to DNA damage.

"To make MhAX work, we duplicate DNA sequences which are already present in the genome. We then let the cells resolve this duplication. At the same time, the cells decide which SNPs will remain after repair," he says. "One experiment results in the full spectrum of possible SNP genotypes."

In collaboration with Dr. Takashi Yamamoto at Hiroshima University, and Dr. Tomoyoshi Soga of Keio University, the Woltjen lab used MhAX to create SNPs in the HPRT and APRT genes, mutations that are associated with gout and kidney disease, respectively.

Biochemical analyses showed cells with the HPRT mutant SNP had altered metabolism similar to patients, while the isogenic twin control cells, derived in the same experiment, were normal. The APRT*J mutation, often found in a population of Japanese patients with acute kidney failure, demonstrated the high efficiency of MhAX, as both gene copies (one from the mother and one from the father) required gene editing to study the mutation's effects.

Woltjen's lab has already begun applying their method to the creation and correction of SNPs in genes associated with other diseases. Collaborating with researchers in Japan and Canada, they are investigating the genetic cause of severe diabetes in juvenile patients.

Diabetes clinical trials using embryonic stem cells are currently underway, but chronic immune suppression is required. Gene correction of the patient's own iPS cells could lead to a source of healthy insulin-producing pancreatic cells with a reduced chance of rejection following transplantation.

"Our goal is to generate gene editing technologies which improve our understanding of disease mechanisms, and ultimately lead to therapies," said Woltjen, "We're confident that MhAX will have broad applicability in current human disease research, and beyond."

###

The paper "Microhomology-assisted scarless genome editing in human iPSCs" appeared 5 March 2018 in Nature Communications with doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03044-y

About Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA)

CiRA was founded in 2008 and is devoted to the study of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells) and other forms of cell reprogramming along with their medical applications. Since its inception, CiRA has been directed by Shinya Yamanaka, who earned the Nobel Prize in 2012 for his discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells). For more information, please see: https://www.cira.kyoto-u.ac.jp/e/index.html

Kyoto University is one of Japan and Asia's premier research institutions, founded in 1897 and responsible for producing numerous Nobel laureates and winners of other prestigious international prizes. A broad curriculum across the arts and sciences at both undergraduate and graduate levels is complemented by numerous research centers, as well as facilities and offices around Japan and the world. For more information please see: http://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en

Hiroshima University, which was established in 1874 as Hakushima School, comprises 11 faculties, 11 graduate schools, an attached research institute, a university hospital, and 11 attached schools. Based on its founding principle of "a single unified university, free and pursuing peace" and its five guiding principles, the University is committed to promoting advanced scientific research that benefits the future of humankind while fostering excellent human resources. For more information please see: https://www.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/en

###A new study reveals the impact of the associative meaning of a single word on how readers subsequently view and refer to suicide.

In German, three terms are used to denote suicide - Suizid, Selbstmord ('self-murder') and Freitod ('free death'). A new empirical study shows that the choice of word used in media reports of suicides has a measurable impact on how readers subsequently perceive and evaluate the act of suicide. The study was carried out by Dr. Florian Arendt of the Department of Communication Science and Media Research at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich, together with his former colleague Dr. Sebastian Scherr (who is now at the Leuven School for Mass Communication Research in Belgium) and researchers based at the Medical University of Vienna. It has now been published in the journal Social Science & Medicine.

The authors recruited 451 individuals for the web-based study. The sample was first divided into three groups. The participants read short newspaper reports on suicides, which differed from one another only in the word used to refer to the act itself (Suizid, Selbstmord or Freitod). The texts given to members of each group used only one of these terms. Participants were then asked to summarize the content of what they had read in their own words, and to fill in the blanks in a word puzzle designed to test implicit memory. Finally, they were asked about their personal attitudes to suicide. "We found a clear effect, insofar as participants favored the use of the term that they had previously read in the texts assigned to each of them," says Florian Arendt.

In addition, the results provided the first indications that the three terms actually trigger different associations in readers' minds. Participants who had read the reports that referred to Freitod expressed a more positive view of suicide by incurably ill patients than those who had encountered either of the other terms. Notably, the use of Freitod by the media is regarded as problematic. "The word Freitod implies that the victim made a clear-sighted and rational decision. But all the evidence suggests that suicidal individuals typically have a very restricted perspective on their personal situation, their lives and their surroundings - they exhibit a kind of emotional tunnel vision. Seen in this light, it is very difficult to describe such a decision as free or rational," Arendt points out.

In an earlier publication, Arendt had shown that the expression most frequently chosen by news media in the German-speaking countries is Selbstmord. Meanwhile, the neutral term Suizid is used almost as often, but nevertheless the word Freitod still appears regularly in press reports. Selbstmord is not recommended because of its implicit reference to crime. Given the problematic connotations of the word Freitod noted above, the recommended term for use in reports of suicide in the German media is the neutral term Suizid.

"Our study underlines the fact that the media could play a major role in the prevention of suicides. Journalists should take care to choose the least 'loaded' term, says Arendt. However, careful choice of words is "only one of the measures which empirical research has shown can reduce the incidence of suicide." The World Health Organization (WHO) has issued guidelines for news coverage of suicides. In the English language, for example, the WHO-recommendation is not to refer to suicide as "successful" or as a "failed attempt" because these terms may elicit problematic associative meanings, implying that death is a desirable outcome. Instead, it is recommended to write "died by suicide."

###Dogs create a mental representation of objects that they perceive through smell, a new study shows - and are surprised if what they find at the end of the trail differs from what they expected to find.

Dogs' excellent sense of smell is well-known, whether it is in the context of searching for people or for contraband substances. However, the question of how dogs understand what they perceive with their sense of smell has largely been unexplored. In a study published today in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the Department for General Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience (Institute of Psychology) at Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, investigated this question and found evidence that dogs create a "mental representation" of the target when they track a scent trail. In other words, they have an expectation of what they will find at the end of a trail.

In total, study director Dr. Juliane Brauer and her staff tested 48 dogs, 25 of whom had training with the police or a search and rescue team and 23 of whom were family dogs without special training. The tests were carried out with the financial support of the Swiss Albert Heim Foundation in the Dog Studies group of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

The dogs first underwent a pre-test, in which two toys were identified for each dog that he or she liked to retrieve. In the test itself, each dog underwent four trials in which he or she followed a scent trail that was drawn with one of the two toys. At the end of the trail, the dogs found either the toy with which the track had been laid (the normal condition) or the dog found the other toy (the surprise condition). Half of the dogs in the first round were given the normal condition, and the other half were given the surprise condition. The behavior of the dogs was filmed during all test runs.

"From my experience in other studies, I had assumed that the surprise would be measurable, in that the dogs would behave differently in the surprise condition than they would in the normal condition," Dr. Brauer explains regarding her study approach. "In fact, quite a few dogs showed interesting behavior, especially in the first round of the surprise condition, which we called 'hesitation:' although they had obviously noticed the toy, they continued to search via smell, probably for the toy that had been used to lay the scent trail."

However, this "surprise effect" disappeared in the subsequent test runs. This could be because the dogs, no matter which toy they found, were rewarded by playing games, or because the room still smelled of the toys from the previous test runs, despite having been cleaned.

According to Dr. Brauer's assessment, the results of the first round of testing are nevertheless an indication that dogs have a mental representation of the target object when tracking a scent, which means that they have a concrete expectation of the target. "The comparison between working dogs and family dogs was also interesting," adds Dr. Brauer. Although the police and rescue dogs were expected to and did indeed retrieve the objects faster than the family dogs in the first round, within four rounds the two groups retrieved the toys equally quickly. Further studies should help to clarify the exact connection between smell perception, search behavior and cognition.

###

For more information about Juliane Brauer's research, please visit the Dog Studies website: https://doglab.shh.mpg.de/dog-cognition.php.The Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation (NETRF) today awarded six new research grants totaling $1.85 million to leading academic institutions around the world. The goal of the funding is to improve current treatments for neuroendocrine tumors (NETs), an uncommon and poorly understood cancer, which occurs in the body's hormone-producing cells.

"We are funding projects with the potential to be rapidly transitioned from bench to clinic because time is critical to patients with a rare and advancing cancer," said Elyse Gellerman, NETRF chief executive officer. "NETRF looks to these funded scientists to help solve critical challenges faced by NET patients, families, and clinicians."

"The translational and clinical projects we funded are exciting, ambitious, and diverse, and tackle fundamental problems in NETs, from finding novel and effective ways to block metastases, to creating new radionuclide therapies, and much needed experimental models," said Effie Tzameli, Ph.D., NETRF director of research. "The outcomes of such work will transform our thinking about how NETs spread and develop resistance to treatment, and will help develop new treatments and innovative tools to test new therapies."

The grants fund clinical, translational, and basic research in the United States, Australia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Two of the studies will work towards refining approaches for Peptide Receptor Radionuclide Therapy (PRRT), a treatment modality expanding in the U.S. following the January FDA approval of lutetium Lu 177 dotatate. Other grants focus on developing laboratory models or identifying clinical biomarkers to support drug development. One grant explores a target to inhibit metastasis in pancreatic NETs. All the studies will collectively improve insights for personalized medicine in NETs.

The NETRF grant process is a competitive and structured peer-review process, which starts with an annual global call for letters of intent in late spring. A percentage of those submitting letters are invited to submit full proposals. All responses are reviewed by NETRF's Board of Scientific Advisors and external reviewers. Final approval is made by NETRF's Board of Directors.

"These grants bring us closer to improving the delivery of care with exciting translational and clinical studies that help us work towards improving and expanding patients' treatment options," said George Fisher, M.D., Ph.D., co-chair, NETRF Board of Scientific Advisors.

NETRF funded a record number of 2018 Pilot Projects. "The increased number of Pilot Projects was made possible by the generosity of many people whose lives have been affected by NET cancer, including donors to the year-end appeal, which raised more than $100,000," said Gellerman.

NETRF is the leading private funder of NET cancer research. As a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, NETRF is supported by charitable donations from individuals and foundations. A generous gift from The Margie and Robert E. Petersen Foundation funds Accelerator and Petersen Investigator grants as well as other research projects.

Research Grants Approved for Funding by NETRF

2018 Accelerator Grant Award

An integrated preclinical and clinical evaluation of DNA-repair mechanisms in determining response to PRRT as a guide to patient selection and for development of novel combination therapies

Rodney Hicks, M.D., University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia

This four-year Accelerator Project will include both laboratory tests and clinical trials aimed at improving the clinical benefits of PRRT. While some patients respond well to PRRT, others are resistant to this type of therapy. By understanding what drives this resistance, investigators hope to improve durable response, and therefore widen the pool of patients who benefit from PRRT. Hicks and colleagues will evaluate the impact of PRRT on tumor cells' ability to recognize and repair radiation damage. To prevent cancer cell repair, the investigators will combine PRRT with therapies that block DNA-repair mechanisms. Laboratory studies will identify which targeted therapies "turn off" cellular repair mechanisms. Then, a pilot clinical trial will test the targeted therapies in combination with PRRT in patients.

2018 Petersen Investigator Grant Award

Simultaneous Auger-e- and --Particle therapy of metastasized NET using 161Tb-DOTATOC

Roger Schibli, Ph.D., Paul Scherrer Institut, Zurich, Switzerland

This two-year Petersen Project will explore the safety of a novel radionuclide for more effective treatment of NETs. Despite the effectiveness of PRRT to prolong survival, many patients will be diagnosed with metastases a few years later. Schibli and colleagues will develop a new therapy based on terbium radionuclides (161Tb), which have distinct radioactive properties, compared to Lu 177. The researchers will evaluate the ability of 161Tb-DOTATOC to kill single cancer cells and tiny metastases in a pre-clinical setting before they proceed with the first-in-man study. They theorize that this type of therapy will result in a paradigm shift in the treatment of NETs.

2018 Pilot Project Grant Awards

Biomarkers of response to cabozantinib in patients with neuroendocrine tumors

Jennifer Chan, M.D., M.P.H., Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA

This one-year Pilot Project will evaluate data and patient samples from a phase II clinical trial of cabozantinib, a targeted therapy that showed promise in treating NETs. Cabozantinib has been shown to induce cancer cell death in other types of cancers. In this study, Chan and colleagues will analyze samples from their clinical trial to look for biomarkers that could predict response to cabozantinib. Their findings will be applied to a future investigation in a phase III clinical trial of cabozantinib in NET planned by Chan and colleagues.

Exploring the role of epigenetic dysregulation in PanNET progression

Sita Kugel, Ph.D., Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, Washington

This one-year Pilot Project will investigate how pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PanNETs) spread to other organs in the body. Kugel and colleagues have found that a protein called SIRT6 plays a role in metastasis in PanNETs, in pre-clinical models. The investigators hypothesize that loss of SIRT6 may affect metastatic progression in PanNETs. To test this, they will block SIRT6 to see if tumor cells grow faster in its absence, which would suggest that SIRT6 may block metastasis. Their findings could inform the pursuit of targeted therapies, which could help stop the spread of PanNETs.

Development of Ex-vivo models of metastatic neuroendocrine tumors

Raj Srirajaskanthan, Ph.D., Kings College London, United Kingdom

This one-year Pilot Project aims to develop a laboratory model, whereby neuroendocrine tumors that have spread to the liver will be removed from the patient during surgery and successfully grown in the laboratory. Using precision cut slice technology, the investigators will cut and culture tissue slices from tumor and adjacent healthy tissue in conditions that will maintain their original tissue properties. They will then be able to use this tool to test responses to various drugs. The finding of this study might lead to translational research with the potential to enable the development of personalized medicine for treatment of NETs.

Models of NETs using 3D hydrogels

Charlotte Kuperwasser, Ph.D., Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA

This one-year Pilot Project will aim to develop a new experimental model that can be used to study NET formation and progression. Using 3D hydrogel technology developed in the Piyush Gupta lab at Whitehead Institute--that allows other tumors isolated from patients to grow with greater than 90 percent success--Kuperwasser, Gupta, and colleagues will apply this technique to grow ileum and appendix NETs. The researchers will use this experimental model to understand how NETs grow inside the intestine or the appendix and will try to establish NET cell lines that could ultimately be used to assess therapeutic response.

For more information about NETRF funded research or to register to be notified of spring 2018 grant announcements, visit netrf.org/research.

###

About NETRF

The Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation (NETRF), is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization devoted to funding research to discover cures and more effective treatments for carcinoid, pancreatic, and related neuroendocrine cancers. Since its inception, NETRF has awarded over $20 million in large-scale, multi-year research grants to leading scientists at renowned research institutions around the world. For more information go to netrf.org.Inconsistent or vague definitions of 'protected groundwater' in 17 state oil and gas regulations leave the nation's water supply vulnerable to contamination from oil and gas development.

Definitions of "protected groundwater" in 17 state oil and gas regulations are inconsistent and in many cases less protective than federal regulations used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), according to a study published Friday, March 2, 2018 in Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health. The findings demonstrate that the nation's water supply is vulnerable to contamination from oil and gas production and wastewater disposal despite federal protections for groundwater, according to the study led by PSE Healthy Energy, an Oakland, California-based energy research institute.

Because of an exemption in the Safe Drinking Water Act, states are not required to protect groundwater to federal standards during hydraulic fracturing. Thus, individual state definitions for protected groundwater determine how water resources are safeguarded during hydraulic fracturing.

Groundwater is vulnerable to contamination from chemicals used in oil and gas production through several pathways. During hydraulic fracturing operations, stimulation fluids -- mixes of chemicals that often include toxins and carcinogens -- can be injected into or near geological formations that contain groundwater for potential current and future use as water supply. Stimulation fluids can also reach the water supply through cracks or wear in casings or cement that contain production chemicals within the well.

The researchers recommend that criteria defined by the EPA for an Underground Source of Drinking Water (USDW) -- including, for example, salinity levels in brackish (slightly salty) water -- be consistently used to define protected groundwater in state oil and gas regulations.

"Continued unconventional oil and gas development directly in and below formations containing groundwater resources highlights the need for all states to protect groundwater to a single, federally defined standard," said Dominic DiGiulio, a PSE senior research scientist and lead author on the study. "Lax definitions result in lax protections. Protecting groundwater resources is vital for the U.S. economy and the wellbeing of our citizens, especially with increasing demand and climate change impacts such as sustained droughts," said DiGiulio, who worked on hydraulic fracturing and other issues at the EPA for 31 years.

Because of increased water demand, sustained droughts, and reduction in cost to desalinate water, brackish groundwater is increasingly being used for the water supply, including for drinking, food-crop irrigation and household uses. Inadequate standards leave brackish groundwater resources more vulnerable to contamination during oil and gas production, the researchers say.

"Degrading brackish aquifers decreases water security and increases risk of people being exposed to waterborne contaminants now and into the future," said Seth Shonkoff, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, who is PSE's executive director and a co-author of the study, titled "The need to protect fresh and brackish groundwater resources during unconventional oil and gas development."

Existing Standards and Practices

Due to the large variations in language and defining criteria, many state oil and gas regulations cannot be assumed to protect USDWs. For example:

In Alabama and New Mexico, protection of USDWs appears discretionary through use of terms such as "reasonable" potential for use. In Montana, West Virginia and Wyoming, protection of groundwater is explicitly removed during oil and gas development. In Louisiana and North Dakota, undefined terms such as "freshwater" are used to define protected groundwater. In Colorado and Texas, protection of USDWs depends on the location of the oil and gas field.

California requires monitoring of USDWs during hydraulic fracturing but, in an apparent contradiction, defines protected groundwater at a lesser standard than USDWs.

Definitions for protected groundwater during unconventional oil and gas development appear to be equivalent to criteria for USDWs in five states, the study found: Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah. However, researchers say that despite these definitions, production well and water data indicate that oil and gas development nevertheless occurred in formations containing USDWs in those states.

The oil and gas industry has best practices for protecting ground water. For example, The American Petroleum Institute recommends protection of USDWs during hydraulic fracturing. However, industry recommendations are not binding, and researchers found no evidence that the recommendations are followed consistently by all companies and in all situations.

"We need to apply clear and consistent scientific criteria to regulations to ensure that all Americans have access to a clean water supply regardless of which state they live in," said study co-author Robert B. Jackson, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor at Stanford University, and a senior fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment and Precourt Institute for Energy.

###

The researchers plan to expand their analysis of groundwater protection criteria to other oil and gas producing states.

Author Contact Information:

Dominic DiGiulio: (510) 330-5558, domdigiulio@psehealthyenergy.org

Seth Shonkoff: (510) 330-5554, sshonkoff@psehealthyenergy.org

Robert Jackson: (650) 497-5841, rob.jackson@stanford.edu

Physicians, Scientists and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy is a nonprofit research institute dedicated to supplying evidence-based scientific and technical information on the public health, environmental and climate dimensions of energy production and use. We are the only interdisciplinary collaboration focused specifically on health and sustainability at the intersection of energy science and policy. Visit us at psehealthyenergy.org and follow us on Twitter @PhySciEng.FlatScope may be the world's tiniest, lightest microscope for biological applications and beyond

HOUSTON - (March 5, 2018) - Lenses are no longer necessary for some microscopes, according to Rice University engineers developing FlatScope, a thin fluorescent microscope whose abilities promise to surpass those of old-school devices.

A paper in Science Advances by Rice engineers Ashok Veeraraghavan, Jacob Robinson, Richard Baraniuk and their labs describes a wide-field microscope thinner than a credit card, small enough to sit on a fingertip and capable of micrometer resolution over a volume of several cubic millimeters.

FlatScope eliminates the tradeoff that hinders traditional microscopes in which arrays of lenses can either gather less light from a large field of view or gather more light from a smaller field.

The Rice team began developing the device as part of a federal initiative by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as an implantable, high-resolution neural interface. But the device's potential is much greater. The researchers claim FlatScope, an advance on the labs' earlier FlatCam, could be used as an implantable endoscope, a large-area imager or a flexible microscope.

"We think of this as amping up FlatCam so it can solve even bigger problems," Baraniuk said.

Traditional fluorescent microscopes are essential tools in biology. They pick up fluorescent signals from particles inserted into cells and tissues that are illuminated with specific wavelengths of light. The technique allows scientists to probe and track biological agents with nanometer-scale resolution.

But like all traditional microscopes, telescopes and cameras, their resolution depends on the size of their lenses, which can be large and heavy and limit their use in biological applications.

The Rice team takes a different approach. It uses the same charge-coupled device (CCD) chips found in all electronic cameras to capture incoming light, but the comparisons stop there. Like the FlatCam project that inspired it, FlatScope's field of view equals the size of the CCD sensor, which can be as large or as small as required. It's flat because it replaces the array of lenses in a traditional microscope with a custom amplitude mask.

This mask, which resembles a bar code, sits directly in front of the CCD. Light that comes through the mask and hits the sensor becomes data that a computer program interprets to produce images.

The algorithm can focus on any part of the three-dimensional data the scope captures and produce images of objects smaller than a micron anywhere in the field.

That resolution is what makes the device a microscope, Robinson said. "A camera in your mobile phone or DSLR typically gets on the order of 100-micron resolution," he said. "When you take a macro photo, the resolution is about 20 to 50 microns.

"I think of a microscope as something that allows you to image things on the micron scale," he said. "That means things that are smaller than the diameter of a human hair, like cells, parts of cells or the fine structure of fibers."

Achieving that resolution required modifications to the FlatCam mask to further cut the amount of light that reaches the sensor as well as a rewrite of their software, Robinson said. "It wasn't as trivial as simply applying the FlatCam algorithm to the same techniques we used to image things that are far away," he said.

The mask is akin to the aperture in a lensed camera that focuses light onto the sensor, but it's only a few hundred micrometers from the sensor and allows only a fraction of the available light to get through, limiting the amount of data to simplify processing.

"In the case of a megapixel camera, that computational problem requires a matrix of a million times a million elements," Robinson said. "It's an incredibly big matrix. But because we break it down through this pattern of rows and columns, our matrix is just 1 million elements."

That cuts the data for each snapshot from six terabytes to a more practical 21 megabytes, which translates to short processing times. From early versions of FlatCam that required an hour or more to process an image, FlatScope captures 30 frames of 3-D data per second.

Veeraraghavan said the burgeoning internet of things may provide many applications for flat cameras and microscopes. That in turn would drive down costs. "One of the big advantages of this technology compared with traditional cameras is that because we don't need lenses, we don't need postfabrication assembly," he said. "We can imagine this rolling off a fabrication line."

But their primary targets are medical uses, from implantable scopes for the clinic to palm-sized microscopes for the battlefield. "To be able to carry a microscope in your pocket is a neat technology," Veeraraghavan said.

The researchers noted that while their current work is focused on fluorescent applications, FlatScope could also be used for bright-field, dark-field and reflected-light microscopy. They suggested an array of FlatScopes on a flexible background could be used to match the contours of a target.

###

Rice graduate students Jesse Adams and Vivek Boominathan are lead authors of the paper. Co-authors are graduate students Daniel Vercosa and Fan Ye. Baraniuk is the Victor E. Cameron Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Robinson is an assistant professor, and Veeraraghavan is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

The National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency funded the research.

Read the open-access paper at http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/12/e1701548

This news release can be found online at http://news.rice.edu/2018/03/05/rice-team-designs-lens-free-fluorescent-microscope/

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews

Video: https://youtu.be/wflCB9BvsEo

Video produced by Brandon Martin/Rice University

Related materials:

Rice team developing flat microscope for the brain: http://news.rice.edu/2017/07/12/rice-team-developing-flat-microscope-for-the-brain-2/

No lens? No problem for FlatCam: http://news.rice.edu/2015/11/23/no-lens-no-problem-for-flatcam-2/

Baraniuk Lab: http://richb.rice.edu

Veeraraghavan Lab: https://www.ece.rice.edu/~av21/

Robinson Lab: http://www.robinsonlab.com

Images for download:

http://news.rice.edu/files/2018/03/0305_FLATSCOPE-1-WEB-t0v2ao.jpg

FlatScope is being developed at Rice University for use as a fluorescent microscope able to capture three-dimensional data and produce images from anywhere within the field of view. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

http://news.rice.edu/files/2018/03/0305_FLATSCOPE-2-WEB-2gqkajo.jpg

Rice University graduate students Vivek Boominathan, left, and Jesse Adams set up an experiment with FlatScope, a tiny, lens-less camera they have configured for use as a fluorescent microscope able to capture three-dimensional data and produce images from anywhere within the field of view. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

http://news.rice.edu/files/2018/03/0305_FLATSCOPE-3-WEB-s6fv5a.jpg

FlatScope, developed at Rice University, captures three-dimensional data that passes through a mask and to a fingernail-sized camera chip. It sends that data to a computer that processes it back into an image. The camera may be used as an implantable endoscope, a large-area imager or a flexible microscope. (Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,970 undergraduates and 2,934 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for quality of life and for lots of race/class interaction and No. 2 for happiest students by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance. To read "What they're saying about Rice," go to http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversityoverview.

David Ruth

713-348-6327

david@rice.edu

Mike Williams

713-348-6728

mikewilliams@rice.eduChanging the shape of human participants' ears has provided new insight into how the brain represents the location of a sound source. The research, published in JNeurosci, highlights the link between sensory encoding and perception.

The ability to locate a sound in space is crucial to identify and respond to changes in the environment. Although it is understood how the brain locates a sound source horizontally, it is less clear how the brain determines how high or low on the vertical plane a sound is emitted.

Regis Trapeau and Marc Schonwiesner addressed this question in men and women by playing pink noise from a spherical array of 23 loudspeakers. An initial functional magnetic resonance imaging session using earphones, which presented the noises recorded from the loudspeakers from the participants' perspectives, showed that activation of the auditory cortex decreased with increasing elevation. Participants were then outfitted with custom silicone molds placed outside each ear canal to disrupt their elevation perception. The researchers found different responses to the same sounds between a second and third imaging session, as participants adjusted to the ear molds, indicating that the auditory cortex does not strictly represent the acoustic environment but also incorporates perception.

###

Article: The encoding of sound source elevation in the human auditory cortex

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2530-17.2018

Corresponding author: Regis Trapeau (University of Montreal, Canada), regis.trapeau@umontreal.ca

About JNeurosci

JNeurosci, the Society for Neuroscience's first journal, was launched in 1981 as a means to communicate the findings of the highest quality neuroscience research to the growing field. Today the journal remains committed to publishing cutting-edge neuroscience that will have an immediate and lasting scientific impact while responding to authors' changing publishing needs, representing breadth of the field and diversity in authorship.

About The Society for Neuroscience

The Society for Neuroscience is the world's largest organization of scientists and physicians devoted to understanding the brain and nervous system. The nonprofit organization, founded in 1969, now has nearly 37,000 members in more than 90 countries and over 130 chapters worldwide.In a new application of gene-editing technology, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have gleaned insights into the genetic underpinnings of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disease that's notoriously tricky to parse.

The team's findings are a step toward demystifying how the disease progresses and could even help lay the groundwork for new therapeutic targets.

ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, erodes muscle function and impairs the brain's ability to communicate with the body, making simple voluntary muscle movements -- such as brushing your teeth, talking or even breathing -- exceedingly difficult and, eventually, impossible. ALS falls into a category of neurodegenerative diseases that all share a common "signature" -- abnormal protein clumps that build up in the brain.

In ALS, these protein clumps, or aggregates, are thought to be fatally toxic to neurons, ultimately leading to the devastating physical symptoms of the disease. But the process of the cells' demise is still largely a black box.

"These toxic protein aggregates are what's likely driving the pathology in the disease, but no one really knows how they cause neuronal cell death. That's really what we wanted to probe in this study," said Aaron Gitler, PhD, professor of genetics. He shares senior authorship with Michael Bassik, PhD, assistant professor of genetics.

Gitler's and Bassik's labs used CRISPR-Cas9 gene-editing technology to sort through the entire human genome and pick out the genes that helped neurons shore up defenses against the toxic protein. Not only did some genes give the researchers a deeper mechanistic understanding of the disease itself; a handful seem to hold potential as drug targets, too.

A paper describing the research will be published online March 5 in Nature Genetics. Graduate students Nicholas Kramer and Michael Haney share lead authorship.

A simple but deadly protein

The discovery that mutations in the C9orf72 gene is a relatively common cause of ALS has helped ignite efforts to understand how ALS works at the molecular level. In ALS, the mutated C9orf72 gene contains a huge segment of DNA that repeats itself and, when that part of the gene is erroneously turned into various rogue proteins, they gum up neuronal function and lead to cell death.

"In a healthy person, you might see 10 to 20 of these DNA repeats," Haney said. "But in ALS, they expand to hundreds or even thousands of repeated segments, and that's the template for the production of these toxic proteins."

Gitler and Bassik set out to answer two basic questions: How do the toxic proteins snuff out otherwise healthy neurons? And are there other genes that inherently protect against -- or conversely, exacerbate -- the effects of the toxic proteins in the brain?

Rather than separately interrogate every gene in the human repository, the researchers used a tactic called genomewide screening, which harnesses CRISPR-Cas9 to alter the function of every single human gene simultaneously. In this case, they used the technology to produce "gene knockouts," targeting genes with a kind of molecular scissors that makes precise cuts, leaving them unable to carry out normal function.

The gene knockouts, Kramer explained, help the researchers spot genes that either enhance toxicity or prevent it: If you identify a gene and knock it out, and the ALS protein repeats are no longer toxic, then you know that the absence of that gene actually protects the neuron against degeneration. And perhaps more importantly, it may be a potential drug target.

Tmx2: A sentinel of cell death

After systematically knocking out every gene in the human genome and measuring the toxicity of the ALS proteins in cells, the researchers found that about 200 genes, when knocked out, either helped to protect the cell from the toxic proteins or made it more vulnerable to them. To zero in on a smaller set of genes, Haney and Kramer followed up with two subsequent knockout screens in primary mouse neurons.

They found a handful of knockouts that were particularly potent protectors. One, for example, helped block off critical entrances through which the toxic ALS proteins infiltrate the cell and corrupt it. But there was another knockout in particular that caught the group's attention for its mysterious ability to ward off neural death. The gene normally codes for a protein called Tmx2, which is found in a part of the cell called the endoplasmic reticulum. But when depleted in mouse neurons in a dish, the cells survived nearly 100 percent of the time -- quite a jump, considering that the survival rate for normal neurons was 10 percent.

"We could imagine that Tmx2 might make good drug target candidate," Haney said. "If you have a small molecule that could somehow impede the function of Tmx2, there might be a therapeutic window there."

Right now, Tmx2's role in the endoplasmic reticulum isn't completely clear. But it's thought to be involved in the response to various environmental stressors, particularly those that trigger cell death. According to the study's findings, it may be a modulator of other genes that set off the cell-death process.

"We're still in early phases, but I think figuring out exactly what Tmx2 normally does in a cell is a good place to start -- that would hint at what functions are disturbed when these toxic species kill the cell, and it could point to what pathways we should look into," Kramer said.

More broadly, CRISPR screens like the one in this study have been used to investigate a range of disease pathways. But the team said this is the first time, to their knowledge, that a genomewide human CRISPR knockout screen has been used to discover clues about a neurodegenerative disorder. Gitler and Bassik are currently teaming up to use this same approach to understand additional causes of ALS and even other neurological diseases -- Huntington's, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's -- that involve toxic proteins. "I think it's a really exciting application for CRISPR screens, and this is just the beginning," Bassik said.

###

Other Stanford authors of the study are graduate students David Morgens, Gregor Bieri and Kimberly Tsui; former postdoctoral scholar Ana Jovicic, PhD; research associate Julien Couthouis, PhD; research technicians Amy Li and James Ousey; research assistant Rosanna Ma; postdoctoral scholar Nicholas Hertz, PhD; and, Marc Tessier-Lavigne, PhD, professor of biology and president of Stanford University.

Gitler and Bassik are both members of Stanford Bio-X and the Stanford Neurosciences Institute. Bassik is also a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute and Stanford ChEM-H.

Researchers at the University of Southern California also contributed to this work.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (grants R35NS097263, DP2HD084069 and R01NS097850), the Genome Research Institute, the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins, Target ALS, the Stanford Brain Rejuvenation Project of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute, the Muscular Dystrophy Association and U.S. Department of Defense.

Stanford's Department of Genetics also supported the work.

The Stanford University School of Medicine consistently ranks among the nation's top medical schools, integrating research, medical education, patient care and community service. For more news about the school, please visit http://med.stanford.edu/school.html. The medical school is part of Stanford Medicine, which includes Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children's Health. For information about all three, please visit http://med.stanford.edu.

Print media contact:

Hanae Armitage

650-725-5376

harmitag@stanford.edu

Broadcast media contact:

Margarita Gallardo

650-723-7897

mjgallardo@stanford.eduPeople aged 85 and older whose total cholesterol had increased from their levels at midlife had a reduced risk for marked cognitive decline, compared with those a decade younger whose choles-terol was similarly elevated, Mount Sinai researchers report in a new study.

The results of the study will be available online by Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association as an article in press corrected proof on Monday, March 5, at 10 a.m.

The researchers found that people aged 85-94 with good cognitive function whose total choles-terol increased from midlife had a 32 percent reduced risk for marked cognitive decline over the next ten years, compared with people aged 75-84, who had a 50 percent increased risk.

The researchers said that the results did not suggest that those 85 and older should increase their cholesterol for better cognitive health, but rather that those in that age cohort with good cogni-tion and high cholesterol probably also had some protective factor that someday could be identi-fied and studied.

The research team evaluated the association of five total cholesterol values with a substantial de-cline in cognitive function from normal function, called marked cognitive decline. The five values were midlife (average age 40) total cholesterol, late-life (average age 77) total cholesterol, mean total cholesterol since midlife, linear change since midlife (in other words, whether it was in-creasing or decreasing), and quadratic change since midlife (whether the linear change was accel-erating or decelerating). Data were obtained from the original Framingham Heart Study, a long-term, ongoing cardiovascular cohort study on residents of Framingham, Massachusetts. That study began in 1948 with 5,209 adult subjects and is now on its third generation of participants

The team assessed whether marked cognitive decline was associated with the five cholesterol values, and whether the associations with those values changed depending on the age of cogni-tive assessment. They found several cholesterol values including high last cholesterol, increasing levels, and decreasing acceleration were predictors associated with increased risk of a marked cognitive decline, that were associated with increased risk of a marked cognitive decline. How-ever, as the outcome age increased, some associations were reduced, or even reversed. Further-more, in the subgroup of cognitively healthy 85-94 year olds, a high midlife cholesterol level was associated with a reduced risk for marked cognitive decline. This contrasts with samples in other studies that have focused on elderly subjects primarily below age 75, where midlife cholesterol was associated with increased risk of cognitive decline.

Our results have important implications for researching genetic and other factors associated with successful cognitive aging, said the studys first author, Jeremy Silverman, PhD, Professor of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The data are consistent with our protect-ed survivor model  among individuals who survive to very old age with intact cognition, those with high risk factor levels are more likely to possess protective factors than those with lower risk factor levels. Long-lived individuals who are cognitively intact despite high risk should be tar-geted in research studies seeking protective factors, which could help identify future drugs and therapies to treat dementia and Alzheimers disease.

Dr. Silverman notes that these results do not imply that those 85 and older should increase their cholesterol. His research team will next study other risk factors for cognitive decline, including body mass index and blood pressure..

We dont think high cholesterol is good for cognition at 85, but its presence might help us iden-tify those who are less affected by it. We hope to identify genes or other protective factors for cogitive decline by focusing on cognitively healthy very old people who are more likely to carry protective factors.

###

The Mount Sinai Health System is New York Citys largest integrated delivery system encompassing seven hospital campuses, a leading medical school, and a vast network of ambulatory practices throughout the greater New York region. Mount Sinais vision is to produce the safest care, the highest quality, the highest satisfaction, the best access and the best value of any health system in the nation. The System includes approximately 7,100 primary and specialty care physicians; 10 joint-venture ambulatory surgery centers; more than 140 ambulatory practices throughout the five boroughs of New York City, Westchester, Long Island, and Florida; and 31 affiliated community health centers. Physicians are affiliated with the renowned Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, which is ranked among the highest in the nation in National Institutes of Health funding per investigator. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 18 on U.S. News & World Reports Honor Roll of top U.S. hospitals; it is one of the nations top 20 hospitals in Cardiology/Heart Surgery, Diabetes/Endocrinology, Gastroenterology/GI Surgery, Geriat

rics, Nephrology, and Neurology/Neurosurgery, and in the top 50 in four other specialties in the 2017-2018 Best Hospitals issue. Mount Sinais Kravis Childrens Hospital also is ranked in six out of ten pediatric specialties by U.S. News & World Report. The New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai is ranked 12th nationally for Ophthalmology and 50th for Ear, Nose, and Throat, while Mount Sinai Beth Israel, Mount Sinai St. Lukes and Mount Sinai West are ranked regionally. For more information, visit http://www.mountsinai.org/ , or find Mount Sinai on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube."It seems like every time you turn around, someone is talking about the importance of artificial intelligence and machine learning," said Trey Ideker, PhD, University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Moores Cancer Center professor. "But all of these systems are so-called 'black boxes.' They can be very predictive, but we don't actually know all that much about how they work."

Ideker gives an example: machine learning systems can analyze the online behaviors of millions of people to flag an individual as a potential "terrorist" or "suicide risk." "Yet we have no idea how the machine reached that conclusion," he said.

For machine learning to be useful and trustworthy in health care, Ideker said, practitioners need to open up the black box and understand how a system arrives at a decision.

Machine learning systems are built on layers of artificial neurons, known as a neural network. The layers are tied together by seemingly random connections between neurons. The systems "learn" by fine-tuning those connections.

Ideker's research team recently developed what they call a "visible" neural network and used it to build DCell, a model of a functioning brewer's yeast cell, commonly used as a model in basic research. To do this, they amassed all knowledge of cell biology in one place and created a hierarchy of these cellular components. Then they mapped standard machine learning algorithms to this knowledgebase.

DCell can be viewed at d-cell.ucsd.edu. The technical details publish March 5 in Nature Methods.

But what excites Ideker the most is that DCell is not a black box; the connections are not a mystery and cannot form by happenstance. Instead, "learning" is guided only by real-world cellular behaviors and constraints coded from approximately 2,500 known cellular components. The team inputs information about genes and genetic mutation and DCell predicts cellular behaviors, such as growth. They trained DCell on several million genotypes and found that the virtual cell could simulate cellular growth nearly as accurately a real cell grown in a laboratory.

"Human knowledge is incomplete," said Jianzhu Ma, PhD, an assistant research scientist in Ideker's lab who led the efforts to build DCell. "We want to complete that knowledge to help guide predictions, in health care and elsewhere."

Ideker and Ma also put DCell to the test. If they deliberately fed the system false information, it wouldn't work. Take ribosomes, for example. Cells use these tiny biological machines to translate genetic information into proteins. But if the researchers instead wired ribosomes to an unrelated process like apoptosis, a system cells use to commit suicide, DCell could no longer predict cell growth. The virtual cell "knows" that the new arrangement isn't biologically possible.

Ideker and his colleagues at the Cancer Cell Map Initiative, which he co-directs, are now generating some of the experimental data they need to build a DCell for human cancer. Then they will determine how best to personalize this virtual cell approach for a patient's unique biology.

"We want one day to be able to input your specific cancer-related genetic mutations and get back a readout on how aggressive your cancer is, and the best therapeutic approach to prevent its growth and metastasis," said Ideker, who is also founder of the UC San Diego Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics.

###

Additional study co-authors include: Michael Ku Yu, Samson Fong, Keiichiro Ono, Eric Sage, Barry Demchak, UC San Diego; and Roded Sharan, Tel Aviv University.

Disclosure: Trey Ideker is co-founder of Data4Cure, Inc. and has an equity interest. Ideker also has an equity interest in Ideaya BioSciences, Inc. The terms of these arrangements have been reviewed and approved by the University of California San Diego in accordance with its conflict of interest policies.Huddersfield-man Joe Hopkinson wins the national prize for his text/documentary on the controversial approach to the education of immigrants in Huddersfield in the 1960s and 1970s

HISTORIANS are increasingly using modern media and technology to share their passion for the past, and University of Huddersfield researcher Joe Hopkinson has received a prestigious national award for his innovative combination of written text accompanied by a high-quality documentary film probing a now controversial approach to the education of immigrants.

The Royal Historical Society awards annual prizes for Public History and Joe is the 2018 winner of the Postgraduate Student category. The judging panel included Professor Mary Beard, one of the best-known current TV historians, and winners of other categories included David Olusoga, presenter of highly-praised documentaries.

Joe Hopkinson, now 28, studied for BA and MA degrees at the University of Huddersfield and has now begun research for a PhD in which he examines the experiences of commonwealth immigrant children in Britain between the 1960s and 70s.

It builds on his highly successful Master's project, in which he investigated how Huddersfield was one of a small number of local authorities in the 1960s and 70s that practised a policy of "bussing" children from Caribbean and Asian immigrant families so that they were dispersed around the district's schools.

"It was indicative of how highly racialised the era was," said Joe. "It was definitely done with good intentions, but the logic they used to justify it is quite shocking today. "There was a belief in the superiority of British culture, and immigrants were expected to fully assimilate into it."

Joe recorded interviews with ex-pupils from ethnic minorities and with two of the educational officers who administered the policy. He soon realised that instead of submitting a purely written thesis, he wanted to supplement it with his own documentary film. He sought specialist help and advice from experts, including the internet-based Kirklees Local TV. He was also able to incorporate footage from a 1969 BBC Panorama report on the bussing of immigrant children in Huddersfield.

Therefore, Joe's completed dissertation was an innovative combination of in-depth text with a 25-minute documentary - now available online - in which he conducts interviews and provides the narration. This is the package that impressed the Royal Historical Society judges and earned his award, conferred at a ceremony in London.

"I was conscious at the start of my Master's that I wanted to produce some kind of media that could be consumed by the public, so quite early on I decided to make a documentary," explained Joe.

"I am really proud that that it has led to the Royal Historical Society Award and it was wonderful to meet so many famous historians at the ceremony. I think it's important for historians to engage with the public and this is obviously best done through digital media these days."

Joe's PhD will also lead to a written thesis accompanied by a tailor-made film, and he has begun the process of seeking interviewees in both Huddersfield and Liverpool.

After achieving First Class Honours and a best dissertation prize for his BA in history at Huddersfield, Joe - who is a former pupil of Newsome High School and Greenhead College - was offered a Vice-Chancellor's Scholarship for his Master's degree.

Now, for his fully-funded doctoral research, he is part of the Heritage Consortium, administered by a network of universities, including Huddersfield and backed by 1.85 million of funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. Its aim is to train the next generations of experts in the field of heritage and public history.

As part of his project, Joe will receive extra training in TV and film techniques and there will be a work placement with Kirklees Local TV.

###

* The University of Huddersfield now offers an MA degree in Public History, Oral History and Community Heritage. Students produce a thesis of between 15,000 and 25,000 words and a public-facing output such as an exhibition, film, oral history archive or collaboration with a community organisation.Growers concerned about workforce shortages in the wake of Brexit could soon have an alternative solution - robots.

Pioneering work at the University of Plymouth is bringing researchers together with producers in Cornwall to create robots which could potentially work alongside their existing workforces and ensure any availability gaps are filled.

The ABC (Automated Brassica harvest in Cornwall) project is developing the cutting-edge technology to help with the cauliflower harvest - and potentially other fieldwork operations.

It's being led by robotics lecturer Dr Martin Stoelen, with key agricultural expertise provided by Professor of Plant Physiology Mick Fuller. It also involves strategic partner Teagle Machinery Ltd, and partners Riviera Produce and CNC Design Ltd.

"A lot of producers are very worried about where they will get their reasonably priced manual labour from - and rightly so," says Dr Stoelen. "Manual harvesting also represents a large portion of their total costs, often it can be up to 50%, so looking at addressing that, especially against a backdrop of Brexit, is very important."

His vision is to create small, mobile machines - "little helpers" - that could perform this task. With support from the Agri-tech Cornwall Project - an initiative supporting research, development and innovation in the agricultural, horticultural and food sectors in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly - he is designing, building and testing a rig under field conditions.

Through this project, and his spinout company Fieldwork Robotics Ltd, he is also exploring potential business models which would bring the technology to market within two to three years and which could involve the machines being owned by contractors, with farmers buying in the service when required.

This new work will build on the successes of Dr Stoelen's 'GummiArm' robot, which has two arms and, in many ways, moves more like a human than a machine. At the heart of his vision is the concept of 'variable stiffness' - robotic arms with joints that can be made soft or stiff, depending on the task.

Cameras and sensors in its "hands" can make real-time 3D models of the crop by assessing the "information" it assimilates, allowing it to recognise which parts to collect and which to leave.

With such robots recording images and touch-data from all over a field in real-time, they also bring the possibility of gathering information that could be used in a variety of ways, potentially extending their application to beyond harvest. "These robots are going to be a massive big-data application.

Dr Stoelen says: "Machines could even be 'repurposed' throughout the growing season, allowing the core technology to be rolled out to other operations - such as weeding or the application of pesticides. If the robot is reconfigurable, it could be relevant to other brassicas and indeed other crops. Ultimately, machines such as this will make life easier and simpler as a farmer. It's also cool technology which might encourage more young people to choose a career in agriculture.

"This technology is evolving rapidly, costs are coming down and developments can happen fast which means it's not too long before technology like this becomes a practical and commercially viable reality. On a global scale, it could bring massive efficiencies and improve the industry's safety record as there would be fewer people working so closely with large, moving machinery. Agriculture has been under-estimated as a potential area for applying advance robotics, but now could be its time."

David Simmons is Managing Director of Riviera Produce, which is a partner in the ABC project, and has been working in the industry for 30 years. His family has farmed at Hayle in Cornwall since the 1870s.

He said: "Harvesting costs can be up to 40% of the costs of production of brassicas and skilled labour to do the harvesting is getting increasingly difficult to obtain, especially with Brexit fast approaching. In a very competitive market place where our customers demand cheap food, the cost of harvesting is continually rising. Robotic harvesting has the potential to increase productivity and control the costs."

Robin Jackson, director of the Agri-tech Cornwall Project says: "Farmers have always been pioneers as far as technology is concerned, but the scale of the current challenges we face means we now need a step-change in terms of the rate at which the whole land-based sector develops and applies new technology. It will help address global issues, such as feeding the growing population and mitigating climate change, but it will also boost profit and efficiency at an individual farm level."

###Media coverage of the torching of huge caches of ivory presented a strong message against elephant poaching and ivory trade, but many of those who needed to hear it most may not have received it, an international study has found.

University of Queensland researcher Alexander Braczkowski said an examination of the global media coverage of the world's largest ivory burn in Kenya in 2016, revealed that coverage disproportionately reached western audiences.

Mr Braczkowski, of UQ's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said the study was the first to assess the potential impact of the destruction of more than 105 tonnes of ivory, worth roughly US$100 million (A$128 million) on the black market.

"Our study found 81 per cent of online media coverage was produced in the United States, which has few elephant poachers and few consumers of illegally-sourced ivory," Mr Braczkowski said.

"Both print and online media coverage was weaker in ivory-consuming countries such as China, and 59 per cent of Chinese coverage was in English, which may not have reached all target audiences."

UQ School of Biological Sciences and Griffith University researcher Dr Duan Biggs said with no real measure of the effectiveness of these conservation marketing events, there is no way of judging if they achieve their objectives of reducing ivory demand and supporting elephant conservation.

"If ivory consumers, poachers, dealers and policy makers were the intended audiences, then a strategy of sustained media pressure to extend news coverage to weeks or months may have been better to effect change.

"These destruction events should also coincide with key meetings of policy makers, with more leaders of source, transit and demand countries invited to attend," he said.

ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions Dr Matthew Holden said governments, donors and NGOs should introduce monitoring around events such as ivory burns.

"There is an urgent need for measures of media reach, and how messages are received, and whether it changes attitudes in ivory demand countries," Dr Holden said.

"For example, does it cause fluctuations in raw and worked ivory prices, or impact the levels of consumer demand for ivory products?"

###

The international study, involving researchers in Australia, South Africa, US, Kenya, Tanzania, Japan, Taiwan, UK, and the Philippines, is published in Conservation Biology (doi: 10.1111/cobi.13097 ).In February 2001, before the Olympic cauldron in Salt Lake City roared to life and focused the world's spotlight on Utah, scientists at the University of Utah placed the first of several carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) sensors atop a building on campus.

CO 2 is a key greenhouse gas leading to anthropogenic climate change, with cities around the world as major emitters of CO 2 . Now five CO 2 sensors monitor the air at sites on the Salt Lake Valley floor. It's the only multisite urban CO 2 network in the world with more than a decade of continuous measurements- and it's showing how urban and suburban growth impacts a metro area's CO 2 emissions.

In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by atmospheric scientists Logan Mitchell and John Lin report that suburban sprawl increases CO 2 emissions more than similar population growth in a developed urban core.

"The general thought is that more compact cities on a per capita basis emits less carbon," Lin says. "Some of these cities also have these expanding fringes. These places are less 'green', so to speak. That expanding frontier is moving."

Building the network

From the first sensor, placed atop the eight-story William Browning Building on the U campus, the network has expanded to include sensors in the Sugarhouse (placed in 2005), Murray (2005) and Rose Park (2009) areas, all well-established urban and suburban neighborhoods in the northern Salt Lake Valley. A sensor placed on Hidden Peak, at the top of the Snowbird ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains, measures background CO 2 levels.

CO 2 sensors require resource-intensive maintenance and calibration, factors that may explain why few other cities have multisite networks. Lin says the primary driving force in creating the network, however, was a forward-thinking vision among U researchers led originally by Jim Ehleringer, Diane Pataki and Dave Bowling in the biology department. Because of that vision, Lin says, "We know more about CO 2 in the Salt Lake Valley than any other urban area. We are one of the leading urban CO 2 networks, and the U is at the center of that."

See the locations of sensors used in this study here.

Growth in Daybreak

An additional sensor was placed in the southwest corner of the valley, intended to represent rural areas. But that sensor, located just west of South Jordan, has yielded some of the most interesting results. Although the area consisted of open fields when the sensor was first placed in 2004, it is now a bustling, developed area. The sensor picks up emissions from a wide swath of the region, as far east as Draper and as far south as Lehi.

That part of the valley is a really important part of the story, Lin says.

You're going from a land surface type where there's no people around and you have suburban expansion into this undeveloped land, Mitchell adds. It's changing the CO 2 emission framework quite a bit.

The sensor in the southwestern corner of Salt Lake Valley provided an opportunity to directly compare the effect of population growth on emissions in different land-use areas. Over the same time that population in the southern part of the Salt Lake Valley and neighboring Utah Valley exploded, Salt Lake City grew by around 10,000 people. But the growth in CO 2 emissions wasnt comparable with the growth associated with suburban expansion in the southern end of Salt Lake Valley.

The research team concluded that growth in CO 2 emissions around the valley was more influenced by the type of neighborhood than by the total number of people moving into that neighborhood.

In the more urban area, there's population growth there, but its in the mature part of the city, not associated with growth in CO 2 , Mitchell says. If you add more people into downtown Salt Lake City, they're going into an existing place. But it's this population growth in rural areas that is seeing an increase in CO 2 emissions.

Comparing to global data

The team compared their results to four inventories of global carbon emissions to see if the same trend held. Just as with the U data, the inventories showed that population growth was not directly correlated to emissions growth. But the inventories showed a constant rate of emissions over the Salt Lake Valley, failing to capture the high CO 2 growth rate in suburban areas.

Global inventories are getting better and more refined, Mitchell says. "This is the bleeding edge of inventory construction -- starting to look at spatial structures in cities in these inventories. Because no other city has a long-term record, no one's been able to look at the evolution over time across a city."

Lin and Mitchell are now leading a project called CO 2 -USA (CO 2 -Urban Synthesis &Analysis network) to link CO 2 monitoring networks in urban areas across the country. "Some might have three to five years of data," Lin says. "We're hoping to join forces and to compare and contrast cities."

Locally, the team's next focus is on looking at the relationships between air quality and CO 2 measured at their tower sites (now numbering 12 and situated in surrounding basins) as well as incorporating the air quality data collected since 2014 on mobile sensors that ride along with light rail TRAX trains. The trains, operated by the Utah Transit Authority, crisscross the valley, and the data they collect fill in the gaps between long-term stationary CO 2 monitoring sites.

Lin also plans to use their data to make projections about Salt Lake's emissions future, including the city's goal to reduce CO 2 emissions by 80 percent by the year 2040. "The hope is that we or others who use these tools can help inform where the most bang for their buck is or whether 80 percent is even realistic given the projected population growth."

"Salt Lake City is one entity in the valley, but it's not the only one," Mitchell says. "If you reduce emissions by 80 percent and everyone moves out further from work and commutes in, it's not actually solving the problem."

###

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Energy.

This release can be found here.

The full paper can be found here.

The CO 2 data are publicly accessible. Archived and real-time measurements can be found at https://air.utah.edu/

Correction: A previous version of this release identified the location of the sensor in the southwest Salt Lake Valley with the name of a community in that region. The sensor, however, is sensitive to emissions throughout the southwestern valley rather than a particular community or municipality and is not located within the named community. The text has been corrected to reflect this.MADISON, Wis. - The National Institutes of Health (NIH) invested more than $27 billion in biomedical research through competitive grants during its 2017 fiscal year. Those grants were awarded based on scores assigned by, and conversation between, expert peer reviewers.

This peer review process is designed to determine the best proposals to fund and is a bedrock feature of doling out dollars for scientific projects with careful deliberation.

But new findings by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers suggest that reviewers are unable to differentiate the great proposals from the merely good ones. In a detailed simulation of the peer review process - the records of real reviews are not available for study - researchers at UW-Madison's Center for Women's Health Research and their collaborators discovered that there was no agreement between different reviewers scoring the same proposals.

The upshot is that, after eliminating weaker proposals, differences in how reviewers scored proposals made it impossible to distinguish the remaining ones. The study was funded in part by the NIH to analyze and improve how billions of dollars are allocated by the agency.

The findings are published March 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Postdoctoral fellow Elizabeth Pier led the analyses of data collected by a multidisciplinary group including Molly Carnes, director of the Center for Women's Health Research, Cecilia Ford, emeritus professor of English and Sociology, colleagues in psychology and educational psychology at UW-Madison, and collaborators at West Chester University in Pennsylvania.

"How can we improve the way that grants are reviewed so there is less subjectivity in the ultimate funding of science?" is the question at the heart of this work, says Carnes. "We need more research in this area and the NIH is investing money investigating this process."

Peer review starts with experts separately analyzing and scoring a number of proposals. Groups of experts then convene to discuss the proposals and collectively decide which ones merit funding. To study this process, the researchers assembled experienced NIH peer reviewers and had them review real proposals that had been funded by the NIH. One batch had received funding right away - the excellent proposals. The other batch eventually received funding after being revised and were considered "good" proposals.

Previously published research by the same group revealed that the conversations that take place following initial scores do not lead to better funding decisions, because they amplify disagreements between different groups of reviewers.

"Collaboration can actually make agreement worse, not better, so one question that follows from that would be: 'Would it be better for the reviewers not to meet?'" says Pier, who received her doctorate in educational psychology at UW-Madison while completing the work.

To address that question in the new study, the researchers focused on the reviewers' initial critiques and identified the number and type of weaknesses and strengths assigned to each proposal, along with the score given.

"When we look at the strengths and weaknesses they assign to the applicants, what we found is that reviewers are internally very consistent," says Pier. "The thing that surprised us was that even though people are internally consistent, there's really no consistency in how different people translate the number of weaknesses into a score."

On average, researchers scored the same proposals so differently that it was as if they were looking at completely different proposals. This stark disagreement, and the polarizing effects of group conversation that previous research demonstrated, suggested to the researchers that the current peer review process is not designed to discriminate between good and great proposals.

"We're not trying to suggest that peer review is flawed, but that there might be some room to be innovative to improve the process," says Pier.

One potential improvement suggested by the research team is to create a modified lottery. In this system, an initial review would weed out weaker proposals, and the remaining ones would be funded randomly. NIH is also currently investigating ways to improve the objectivity and success of peer review.

The researchers emphasize that, with billions of dollars at stake, additional research is needed on this vital system of funding and any potential improvements to the process.

"It makes me proud to be a scientist, that we not only fund research from cells to society, but that we're continually trying to improve the process by which we award these dollars," says Carnes.

###

CONTACT:

Elizabeth Pier

elizabeth.pier@gmail.com;

Molly Carnes

608-263-9770

mlcarnes@wisc.edu

Eric Hamilton

608-263-1986

eshamilton@wisc.edu

This work was supported by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (grant R01GM111002), the UW-Madison Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education, and the UW-Madison Department of Medicine.Cryptocurrency officially equal to Legal means of payment under German Law - Bitcoin leads the way higher

BTC/USD lead the crypto markets higher on Saturday, pushing towards $11,500 as the resilient major cryptocurrency continued to enjoy a period of relative calm.

Sunday was less positive as quiet weekend trade saw the largest cryptocurrency falling, while selling was also prevalent amongst the Altcoins.

Despite the weakness, Bitcoin still managed to hold around the $11,000 level and next week bulls will definitely be eyeing what proves to be a vital trendline around $12,000.

The Weekly chart is certainly looking much better, as the bear's attempt to sell the bounce two weeks ago has failed and BTC has posted another green candle.

Fundamental news has helped the rally be more than just a dead-cat bounce and increasing adoption continues to gather pace as investment banks and regulators concede the disruptive technology of blockchain is something to be taken seriously and the tulip bulb talk is drying up as speculation has actually dried up hugely over the first few months of the year.

German courts validate Crypto

Germany and France are two major economies who, have sounded the most concerned about Bitcoin of the developed European economies.

So it was no wonder that news in which the German courts made Bitcoin payment tax free and validated the use in a legal transfer of goods would give markets a boost. As reported in Coindesk, the use of Bitcoin in a purchase is to be considered tax free in Germany, but perhaps more significantly the Federal court went further in describing Bitcoin as a legal alternative to money,

So-called virtual currencies (cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin) are considered equal to the legal means of payment, as long as these so-called virtual currencies have been accepted as alternative and contractual means of payment by the parties involved in the transaction and have no other purpose than being used as a means of payment.

This, therefore, would suggest that while Germany is a leading advocate for regulation, it is not leading the charge for a heavy-handed ban, and clearly accepts the utility of the technology as well as public desire to use cryptocurrency. In the long run, a country with Germanys influence could help ease regulatory concerns across the EU and it is certainly bullish news.A Swiss delegation has pledged to further increase scientific and technological exchange with Japan after a visit to Tokyo for a meeting of the joint committee for cooperation between the two countries.

In a press release published on Monday, the Swiss Federal Council said that cooperation has already increased significantly since the signing of the agreement on scientific and technical cooperation in 2007.

+ Read more about Swiss innovation in science and technology

The recent visit, by a delegation of funding agencies and educational research institutions and led by Ambassador Mauro Moruzzi, was an opportunity for further strengthening, the government said.

Notably, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), signed a memorandum of understanding intended to further extend and facilitate direct cooperation.

Preparations were also made for a joint research call to be launched by the SNSF and the Japan Science and Technology Agency this spring.

According to the Federal Council, Japan is one of the most important Asian partner countries for Swiss researchers. Between 2013 and 2017, Swiss and Japanese scholars have worked together on over 160 SNSF-funded projects.

Priority in the partnerships is given to funding young researchers to travel: grants by the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, as well as Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships, have enabled hundreds of Japanese students to come to Switzerland to conduct research over the past decade.













swissinfo.ch/dos





Commentators in the Swiss press have interpreted the overwhelming rejection (71.6%) of the No Billag initiative on Sunday as a strong sign of support for a publicly funded Swiss TV and radio service. Nevertheless, they believe that the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) must downsize, and opinions vary widely as to how this could be achieved.

Neue Zurcher Zeitung

The Zurich-based newspaper argued that the social foundation for an annual licence fee for Swiss households  which currently sits at CHF451.10 ($482) is crumbling, and that the corporation must therefore consider whether funds should come from the federal budget going forward. The vote marks the end of an era for the [SBC]; they can no longer finance such a large variety of programs with publicly funded fees. The framework conditions for public broadcasting must be determined by politics, the paper said.

Tages-Anzeiger

The Tages-Anzeiger, another Zurich-based German-language paper, noted that Sundays vote illustrates how the Swiss model of direct democracymakes it possible for citizens to incite change on issues neglected by the Federal Council and Parliament. Politicians failed to constrict the SBC, and now the company itself has come to realise that its time to limit its scope, the paper said. The SBC has been pursuing an aggressive expansion policy at the expense of the private media industry for years, and has become a giant corporation with an enormous number of channels and a controversial advertising strategy. Finally, the company wants to become more modest.

Basler Zeitung

Its not over yet  this was the main message of the Basel-based paper, which foresees that the next initiative challenging the SBCs funding will be here soon if keyreforms are not implemented.Despite the no-vote, the fundamental questions are not yet off the table. Public service broadcasting and its financing structure must be defined more clearly. The SBC should become a kind of news agency for audio-visual content which can be freely accessed by individuals, the German-language paper said.

Le Temps

The French-language newspaper called the vote result overwhelming, adding that the challenge is now to find out what exactly the Swiss meant by this vote, and how politicians and the SBC itself intend to proceed. The paper speculated that whilst the SBC has promised to accept criticism and move forward accordingly, a fundamental reform of the Swiss media system is still a vision of the distant future, noting thatit will be interesting to see how things develop once the debate ona different distribution of fees begins.

La Liberte

The current media landscape deserves a thorough debate, wrote the French-language newspaper based in Fribourg. Like the SBC, newspapers also needto recognise the crucial role they play in public service broadcasting, the paper said. This victory doesnt belong to the SBC, but to the public, who understood that a purely commercial television doesnt guarantee quality, it added.

Tribune de Geneve

Genevas French-language newspaper called Sundays vote a watershed moment. It added that although citizens did not abolish the SBC, they also dont want to preserve it in its present form, and that there is a gigantic task ahead for the broadcaster. The paper added that the variety of Swiss media offerings must no longer be ignored. The private press contributes just as much to the diversity of opinion and to a public debate as the SBC does, it said.

La Regione

The newspaper in the Italian-speaking part of the country summed it up thus: The SBC has been saved, but its future is a big question mark.The paper said that its clear now that the broadcaster will be cheaper, smaller and less greedy the latter in reference to the lions share of funding it receives from the licence fee in comparison to private TV and radio stations. The paper echoed other Swiss media when it added that the debate on the future of the public broadcaster, and more generally onthe public service provided by the Swiss media, has just begun.













ATS-SDA/swissinfo.ch/ln





On Sunday the Swiss Abroad  like their compatriots back homecame out against the No Billaginitiative, which aimed to cancel public financing for radio and television services by eliminating the mandatory broadcast licence fee. In most cantons, the proportion of no votes from the Swiss Abroad sat aroundor above 80%.

The need to safeguard quality public broadcasting services appears to be obvious for the Swiss living abroad. On Sunday, they rejected the No Billaginitiative by a crushing majority, according to an analysis of the results of the March 4 vote in the 12 cantons that count votes from Swiss Abroad separately.

Whereas 71.6% of the Swiss population voted no onthe initiative, the rejection was even more resounding in the diaspora, surpassing 80% in the cantons of Geneva (82.7%) and Basel-City (82.2%).

Several reasons can be proposed to explain this massive vote by the Swiss Abroad in favour of public broadcasting services. Variousstudies have shown that the Swiss Abroad tend to vote slightly more with the political left than their countrymen and women in Switzerland. No Billagwas launched by young, ultra-liberalpoliticians and supported mainly by the right-wing Swiss Peoples Party.

Debate on expatsright to vote

Sundays vote also confirmed an observation made in previous polls: namely, that expats tend to to have more confidence in the watchwords of the Swiss Federal Council andParliament than the domestic electorate. In this case, theyalso followed the recommendation of the umbrellaOrganisation of the Swiss Abroad, which opposed No Billag.

Finally, its important to recall that the Swiss Abroad are exempt from the licence fee financing Swiss public radio and television. They therefore would not have benefited from the annual households savings of several hundred Swiss francs that the acceptance of the initiative would have brought.

The fact that Swiss expats can participate in decisions that do not affect them directly is a subject of regular debate in Switzerland. In 2015, on the occasion of a very close vote, the Swiss Abroad were also accused of having tipped the balance in favour of the introduction of a generalised radio and television fee,even though theywould not have to pay it themselves. Its an accusation that it will be very difficult to frame this time, in view of the unequivocal results of Sundays vote.



The EU struggled Monday to absorb the shock of a populist breakthrough in Italy amid fears that the anti-migrant blowback would threaten a post-Brexit reform drive led by France and Germany.

The jolt from Rome came hours after Germany snapped months of political stalemate in Berlin, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel clinching four more years in power on a cautious pledge to help overhaul Europe.

The respite from Germany was short-lived with the advance in Italy of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and far-right anti-migrant eurosceptics.

Analysts said the EU would now be split between those like French President Emmanuel Macron who say the answer to populism is bolstering Europe and others who will claim that any further EU integration must be abandoned, at least for now.

You will have people against striking a reform deal, saying that now, especially with this mess in Italy, it is not the right moment for taking up risks, said Janis A. Emmanouilidis, research director at the European Policy Centre in Brussels.

Meanwhile there will be others who will say if you look at Italy and the anti-establishment voters fed up with the economic situation and migration, that we simply cant pretend to go on as we are, he added.

Pressure to reform the EU and deepen ties among the soon-to-be 27 member states mounted in 2016 with the populist-fuelled vote in Britain to split from the bloc.

The populist narrative slowed last May when Macron came to power in France promising to end business as usual in Europe with a series of ambitious proposals.

But momentum for change was thwarted almost from the start in Germany when an uncertain election result in September forced Merkel into tortuous coalition building that finally ended Sunday with a deal with the SPD centre-left.

 Italy suffers EU failure 

Now Italy could be the impediment to change, analysts said.

With M5S and the eurosceptic League performing better than expected, further progress on European integration could be difficult, said Jack Allen of macroeconomic research firm Capital Economics.

For example, they will push back against efforts to increase Italys contributions to the EU budget after the UK leaves the Union, he added.

The biggest pressure on Europe will be on fixing migration, with Italy on the frontline of the wave of migrants from Africa, which hardened anti-EU sentiment in Sundays vote.

Under the EUs controversial Dublin process, frontline states suffer the brunt of the influx, fuelling xenophobia in countries such as Italy and Greece.

Against the migration flow, the EU did not meet the call of duty due to fears over national sovereignty. Italy suffered the consequences, said French MEP Jean Arthuis on Twitter.

This issue was further worsened by the economy, with Italy still an EU growth laggard despite adopting big reforms demanded by Brussels that have yet to deliver widely felt benefits.

Faced with that failure, analysts said the most imminent danger was that a populist-run Rome would increase spending to deliver on campaign promises in disregard of EU rules.

This will create more friction between Rome and the European Commission, said Federico Santi of the Eurasia Group risk consultancy.

Italy is already at risk of failing to comply with EU-mandated fiscal targets, and any additional slippage may result in (sanctions by Brussels), he added.

 Euro exit unlikely 

But others said it was the economy that could very well keep Italy in line, as was the case in 2011 when longtime premier Silvio Berlusconi was forced to resign after the financial markets turned on him.

Euro exit, let alone EU exit, remain very unlikely, said Santi, adding that the difficulty of the populists to build a stable government may last well into the spring.

In the end, the good news out of Germany yesterday  the SPDs approval of the coalition treaty may well end up being the most consequential, said Loredana Federico, chief Italian economist at Unicredit, in a note to clients.

Any tentative plan to put Italy on a collision course with that idea will most probably face difficulty, she added.

arp/pdw/gdGerman Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Monday wished post-election Italy success in forming a "stable government", adding that he hoped Rome wouldn't take six months as Berlin just did.

Italy is our friend and partner, and we wish those responsible success in forming a stable government, for the benefit of Italians as well as of our common Europe, said Steffen Seibert.

A surge for populist and far-right parties in Italys general election left the country in political deadlock on Monday with a hung parliament likely after a campaign dominated by anger against immigration.

Italian far-right leader Matteo Salvini said that his right-wing coalition had the right and the duty to form a government after taking 37 percent of the vote.

The coalition is short of an overall majority, however, after the populist Five Star Movement became the leading single party with 32 percent of the vote.

Asked whether Merkel would soon want to meet Luigi Di Maio of the Five Star Movement, Seibert stressed that the final result of the vote was still outstanding.

And of course contact will be established with the next Italian government, whatever its makeup, Seibert told a regular news conference.

He was speaking a day after Germanys Social Democrats ended half a year of political paralysis in the Europes biggest economy by agreeing in a membership ballot to form a new coalition with Merkel.

The coalition is expected to be launched next week.

Asked about any advice Germany had for Italy, Seibert said that one wants to wish everyone that it doesnt take six months.Catalan lawmakers proposed a separatist leader currently detained over Spain's crackdown on Catalonia's secession drive as a candidate for president of the region, its parliament said on Monday.

The speaker of the separatist-controlled regional parliament, Roger Torrent, formally proposed Jordi Sanchez, 53, as a candidate, the body said in a statement.

Sanchez is considered to have little chance of taking up the post since he is remanded in custody pending accusations of sedition over last years Catalan independence crisis.

Sanchezs name was put forward after the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who is in exile in Belgium, pulled out last week in an attempt to unblock the political impasse.

In Puigdemonts absence, the parliament said Sanchez was the candidate who has the most support.

Sanchez is the former head of the Catalan National Assembly, a powerful pro-independence civil group.

The separatists push for independence plunged Spain into political crisis last year.

The Spanish government imposed direct rule over the region on October 27 after the Catalan parliament unilaterally declared independence.

Direct rule is due to last until the region elects a new president. Madrid has vowed to resist any bid to break the region away from Spain.The surge of populist parties in Italy's election shows the extent to which the country on the frontline of the migrant crisis "feels abandoned by Europe", France's European affairs minister said Monday.

The anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the far-right euro-sceptic League party were the big winners of the election, which laid bare widespread anger over immigration and frustration with mainstream politics.

Italy is a country that has faced the biggest influx of migrants in its history and has felt alone, abandoned by the European Union, minister Nathalie Loiseau told France Info radio.

It is striking how this country, a founding member of the European Union, is gripped by disappointment with Europe, she added.

As in France and Germany, which held elections last year, the chief losers of Italys vote were the traditional, parties of the mainstream left and right.

It shows that, across Europe, traditional parties are tired, said Loiseau, one of the many first-time ministers in the cabinet of Frances Emmanuel Macron, who is himself a relative newcomer to politics.

But she also warned against giving into doom-mongering, pointing to good news in Germany, where the centre-left ratified a coalition deal with German Chancellor Angela Merkels Christian Democrats, ending a long stalemate.A former Russian double agent living in Britain as part of the biggest spy swap since the Cold War is in a critical condition after suspected exposure to what police have called "an unknown substance", British media reported Monday.

The BBC and other outlets named the victim as 66-year-old Sergei Skripal, who was hospitalised in intensive care on Sunday along with an unidentified woman, in the city of Salisbury.

A former colonel in Russian military intelligence, Skripal was sentenced to 13 years in jail in Russia in 2006 on charges of spying for Britain.

But he was granted refuge in the UK following a high-profile spy exchange between the United States and Russia in 2010.

His apparent targeting echoes the case of Alexander Litvinenko, an ex-Russian spy who died in 2006 after being poisoned with radioactive polonium in London.

A British inquiry into the death ruled in 2016 Russias President Vladimir Putin probably approved the killing and identified two Russians, Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun, as the prime suspects.

 Major incident 

British police said Monday they had declared a major incident after two people  a man in his 60s, and a woman in her 30s  were found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping centre in Salisbury, 85 miles (140 kms) southwest of London.

They remain in intensive care while a multi-agency response has been coordinated, Craig Holden, Temporary Assistant Chief Constable of Wiltshire police, said in a statement.

Alongside our partner agencies, we are conducting some extensive enquiries to determine exactly what led to these two people falling unconscious and clarify whether or not any criminal activity has happened, he added.

Parts of the city centre remained sealed off Monday night as emergency responders in hazardous material suits continued to canvas there.

TV footage showed them hosing down public areas and searching bins, while a local restaurant closed as a precaution in connection with the incident, police said.

Meanwhile police vehicles were also filmed at the purported home of Skripal in Salisbury.

 No visible injuries 

Holden said Wiltshire police received a call from a member of the public who was concerned for the welfare of two people at around 4:15pm (1615 GMT) on Sunday.

The pair, who we believe are known to each other, did not have any visible injuries and were taken to Salisbury District Hospital.

They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance he said, adding that they were in a critical condition.

Police said it had not been declared a counter terrorism incident, and appealed for any witnesses to come forward.

Freya Church, who saw the couple slumped on the bench, told the BBC they looked so out of it.

It looked like theyd been taking something quite strong, she said.

The trust running Salisbury District Hospital advised people Monday not to attend the emergency department unless extremely urgent as they dealt with the situation.

A spokeswoman for Public Health England, the governments healthcare agency, said there did not appear to be any immediate risk to public health.

She added: in situations like this our scientists and medical colleagues join the multi-agency response and, when appropriate, contribute any necessary public health advice.

Despite the reassurances Wiltshire police warned local people to call emergency services if you feel your own or anothers health is significantly deteriorating.

 Spy swap 

Skripal was among 14 spies swapped by Moscow and Washington at Austrias Vienna airport in 2010, in scenes reminiscent of the Cold War.

The exchange included Anna Chapman, a glamorous member of the exposed Russian spy ring on the US east coast who rose to further fame upon her return to Moscow.

Skripal, a retired Russian secret service colonel, was convicted and jailed for 13 years in 2006 for betraying Russian intelligence agents to Britains MI6 secret service.

Russia accused him of working with MI6 since the 1990s and that it had paid him $100,000 (81,000 euros) for information.

He was pardoned ahead of the 2010 spy swap and flown on to Britain, where he had reportedly kept a low profile for the last eight years.

Marina Litvinenko, the widow of Alexander Litvinenko, told Britains Daily Telegraph: It looks similar to what happened to my husband but we need more information.

She added if a Russian poisoning plot was proved, it showed nothing has changed since my husband died.Moscow has proposed a face-to-face meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson while both are on Africa tours, a senior Russian diplomat said Monday.

Issues we need to discuss are multiplying, so we have made a proposal (for a meeting) to the US side, said Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Russian agencies reported.

Both Lavrov and Tillerson will be visiting Ethiopia in the coming days.

We dont have any information about whether their schedules could be aligned. But we believe such contact would be useful, Ryabkov said.

Lavrov began his five-day Africa tour on Monday with Angola and also plans to visit Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Ethiopia, where he will be in the capital Addis Ababa on March 8 and 9, according to the Russian embassys Twitter feed.

Tillerson is to visit African countries including Ethiopia between March 6 and 13, state department spokesperson Heather Nauert announced last week.

The two top diplomats last met in early December in Vienna and have since limited their contacts to telephone conversations, specifically on the Syrian conflict.

Russia has invested in resource extraction projects in Africa and is seeking to expand its trade with sub-Saharan countries, which in 2017 amounted to $3.6 billion (2.93 billion euros).British police reported a "major incident" on Monday after a man London media said was a Russian who had allegedly spied for Britain was in critical condition following "suspected exposure to an unknown substance".

The BBC and other media named the victim as 66-year-old Sergei Skripal who was in hospital along with an unidentified woman. There were also news reports claiming the two had been exposed to a deadly opioid in an incident on Sunday.

A former colonel with Russian military intelligence, Skripal was sentenced in 2006 to 13 years in jail in Russia on charges of spying for Britain, but was granted refuge in the UK following a spy swap between the United States and Russia in 2010.

Police said the pair  a man aged in his 60s, and a woman in her 30s  remain in intensive care after they were found unconscious on a bench in a shopping centre in Salisbury, a city 85 miles (137 kms) southwest of London.

Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden of the Wiltshire police said the force received a call from a member of the public who was concerned for the welfare of two people.

The pair, who we believe are known to each other, did not have any visible injuries and were taken to Salisbury District Hospital, he said.

They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance he said, adding that they were in a critical condition.

Holden said because the investigation was in its very early stages, we are unable to ascertain whether or not a crime has taken place.Privacy Settings

This site uses functional cookies and external scripts to improve your experience. Which cookies and scripts are used and how they impact your visit is specified on the left. You may change your settings at any time. Your choices will not impact your visit.

NOTE: These settings will only apply to the browser and device you are currently using.Here's an article I wrote about the growing wave of firings of tenured professors that has become a national scandal due to budget cuts at universities around the country. These firings are undermining our educational system, and may result in even more students not going to these schools, resulting in more budget cuts and firings.

The University Wave of Firings: A National Scandal

by Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D., J.D.

Author of Scammed: Learn from the Biggest Consumer and Money Frauds and How Not to Be a Victim and Preventing Credit Card Fraud: A Complete Guide for Everyone from Merchants to Consumers

It's a national shame that's happening at universities all over the United States. The schools are using budget cutbacks to slash programs and get rid of tenured faculty with long-term contracts that provide for only firing for cause. They are also doing this without much input, if any, from academic committees composed of university professors, thereby cutting professors out of the usual opportunity to discuss the issue and suggest other alternatives. Then, with more and more tenured faculty members offered early retirement packages or arbitrarily terminated, the schools are bringing in non-tenured adjunct part-time professors at a fraction of the salary of a tenured professor.

A major casualty of this approach is the decline in the reputation of the school, a lowered morale for both professors and students, and declining applications and attendance by students. The horrific student debt crisis is making many prospective students reassess the benefits of a university education. Especially hard hit are the humanities and social science departments, which provide students with a liberal arts education so they better understand the world, while business and high tech departments are better able to withstand the ravages, according to a university professor.

So, why can't these schools take steps to reverse their budget declines? Why haven't these administrators invested university funds in high growth sectors to be able to maintain their budgets and save their departments and tenured professors from this pillage that has hit higher education? Although the problem resides in poor management, an irony of this situation is that the cuts are coming in academics rather than in the salary and ranks of administrators. No wonder university faculty members across the U.S. are becoming more and more furious.

For example, an Inside Higher Ed article in September 2017 describes how "faculty anger is growing at Stony Brook University, where cuts designed to reduce a budget deficit are concentrated in the humanities." (Colleen Flaherty, "Losing Tenure Bids to a Budget," Inside Higher Ed, September 21, 2017) In a Wall Street Journal article in February 2017, Paul Caron describes how the status of tenured professors, who once held "some of the most prestigious and secure jobs in the U.S." are finding that "their status is under attack at public and private college alike." (Paul Caron: "WSJ: Universities, Facing Budget Cuts, Target Tenure," TaxProf Blog, February 15, 2017) Indeed, trying to resolve current budgetary problems in several states, such as Missouri, North Dakota, and Iowa, legislators have already introduced bills to eliminate tenure and associated protections. University administrators are also trying to reduce the ranks of tenured professors by making them resign or retire "voluntarily" or by making it easier to fire them. And many small private colleges, such as the College of Saint Rosa in New York and Wartburg College in Iowa have offered buyouts to get rid of longtime faculty, while many other schools are reaching the same aim by simply eliminating selected academic professor positions. Meanwhile, the professors who have managed to hold onto their jobs have their workload increased with no proportional compensation in either salary, respect, or job security.

Even more recently, the plan to phase out two dozen programs blindsided faculty members at the University of Wisconsin at Superior. Among those programs scheduled for the ax were majors in political science, sociology, and theater. This change was justified by the university administration as an honorable attempt to streamline the school's academic offerings and relieve students from the burden of selecting between too many choices of courses. But the move occurred without any discussion with the school's faculty members or even notification to many professors directly affected by the cuts, so faculty members became demoralized and upset they weren't given the opportunity to work with administrators to find pragmatic solutions to the school's budget struggles. (Katharine Mangan, "Plan to Phase Out 2 Dozen Programs Stuns Faculty at Wisconsin -Superior, ' The Chronicle of Higher Education," November 1, 2017)

Now professors at several campuses of the University of Arkansas (UA) system are also up in arms because of a new tenure policy the system's administration is trying to impose on its faculty. How did this sorry state of affairs come to be? A future article will outline the steps by which an entire state university system, losing its financial battle, turned to seeking to balance the budget by pushing out tenured faculty and cutting the salaries of faculty members deemed to be "unproductive". It is a story crying to be told.

What will happen? Will the bottom-line thinking of university administrations win out, even though this undermines the integrity of the university in achieving its core mission? Or will the efforts of some of the faculty right the ship before it sinks into mediocrity and increasingly risks losing more students and funds? The future of academic freedom and excellence hangs in the balance.

Stay tuned to what happens next in this struggle, which provides a close-in example of what is happening at many other universities that are similarly facing budget cuts and have an administration committed to running the school like a business, even at the loss of its soul. At many institutions, the stakes are even higher, because tuition will increase. As a result, daunted by the student loan crisis leaving many with high loans they find difficult to repay on leaving school, fewer students will apply. This crisis can have deep long-term impacts, making the U.S. less competitive, due to the loss of many excellent students being unable to obtain a higher education.

Our institutions of higher learning, long considered the best in the world, are suffering financial crises, the solutions to which may erode their core mission. These institutional "fixes" do not seem like ways designed to Make America Great AgainTM.

* * * * * * *

Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D., J.D., is a writer and journalist, whose specialties include writing about social issues and consumer and business frauds. Her books in this area include: Scammed: Learn from the Biggest Consumer and Money Frauds and How Not to Be a Victim; Preventing Credit Card Fraud: A Complete Guide for Everyone from Merchants to Consumers; and Lies and Liars: How and Why Sociopaths Lie and How You Can Detect and Deal with Them. She has published over 200 books, over 50 of them with major publishers, including Random House and Simon and Shuster. She is also a frequent contributor to a variety of media outlets, including the Huffington Post. Her websites include www.changemakerspublishingandwriting.com and www.ginigrahmscott.com.Lets not be naive: Theres no such thing as a free market, especially for craft brewers in Texas.

Before you blame Big Government, aka the lawmakers and regulators that usually interfere with free markets in unprofitable ways, you might want to look at the Big Beer Distributor lobby first.

Just look at Brent Deckard of Kunstler Brewing  close to where I live in San Antonio. Hes been running his brewpub for a little more than a year and already hit some weird restrictions. I enjoy talking to new entrepreneurs like Deckard because they are full of fresh outrage about restrictions on their ability to make a living.

Kunstler is licensed as a brewpub, which means customers may drink beer brewed on premises. Customers may also purchase a limited amount of beer to go, for home consumption. That brewpub-style business has only been legal since 2013.

Kunstler may not, however, sell any other brewers beer on premises. Thats illegal. It can, however, sell wine or cider made elsewhere, which makes no particular sense, especially when compared with the beer restriction. Deckard could pay a fee to a beer distributor to sell other brewers beers on his premises, even though the beer remained at his brewpub the whole time.

Why should we care about this labyrinth of brewpub laws? Only that in a highly unfree market, consumers always get fewer choices, at higher prices. And entrepreneurs have fewer ways to serve the public.

Moving up to a somewhat higher scale of production, restrictions also seem to make little sense to Eugene Simor, president of Alamo Beer Co. He operates under a beer manufacturers license, which allows you to drink beer at his facility, located just east of downtown San Antonio.

You can buy his product by the case in grocery stores. But dont dare purchase his beer directly from his facility to take away and consume elsewhere. Thats illegal. Because, well, why exactly?

Technically, under Alamos manufacturers license, Simors brewery cant do what Kunstler can do, which is to sell its own beer to go. And why is that? Well, basically, distributors need to get paid. Only small brewpubs can sell their stuff to go, while larger brewers cant in order to protect distributors from the free market.

Says Simor, I am disgusted that our elected officials continue to side with the big money-donating distributors at the expense of the hardworking small brewery owners. Texas is the only state that does not allow a small brewery like mine to sell a case of beer directly to customers.

Now, there are obviously solid reasons to regulate alcohol sales and distribution. Few people would advocate a libertarian free-for-all in the beer market, in which my 8-year old could fill up her growler with an IPA for her birthday party, or my 12-year old could manufacture some dangerous-to-consume concoction of water, grain, hops and yeast. Especially if she brewed a Berliner-style sour. Gross!

Anyway.

As Charles Vallhonrat, executive director of the Texas Craft Brewers Guild, explained to me, post-Prohibition regulations in Texas (and most states, for that matter) have strongly split up the three roles of making, distributing and selling beer. Businesses that want to engage in more than one of the those three activities have traditionally been severely restricted in part for safety reasons and in part to protect one kind of business from pushing around the other kind in an uncompetitive manner.

The growth of craft brewing over the past two decades has represented a challenge to this traditional system, as small-time makers of beer have sought to sell directly to their customers in a variety of ways, cutting out the distribution step.

As Vallhonrat tells it, craft beer makers arent looking to upturn the system. They want to loosen restrictions.

In Texas, they got their wish in 2013 with sweeping new laws allowing brewpubs to brew more beer and sell it through distributors, to retailers or directly to customers for consumption off-site. Although the new freedom came with its own set of still-complicated rules as brewers Deckard and Simor have found.

Craft brewers view a 2017 law passed in Texas as pushback by distributors and large beer makers, which sought to limit the volume of brewer sales made directly to consumers while preserving the status quo around distribution.

Rick Donley, president of the Beer Alliance of Texas, which represents distributors interests, disagrees with some of my characterization of the tensions between craft brewers, distributors and the 2017 law.

Beer distributors absolutely regard the craft sector as important customers. Beer distributors look forward to continuing to partner with crafts as our customers, as they use our delivery and marketing systems to grow their brands, he wrote me.

The Beer Alliance points out that the three-tier system has served the market well and that 2017 restrictions dont impact the overwhelming majority of craft brewers in Texas. The Beer Alliance, Donley continues, supported the 2013 changes that expanded what brewpubs could do.

Oddly, not everyone cares about beer, or the minutiae of beer laws, so let me try to make my view of this fight applicable to other businesses and industries.

The central issue that a brewpub or beer manufacturer faces is not one of big government versus free markets. Because again, free markets dont exist. I see the central tension as an economic incumbent versus challenger.

This same issue  incumbent versus challenger  drove the Uber/Lyft versus taxi drivers fight that played out in cities worldwide the past four years. Its what a lot of telecom and media fights have been about since the 1980s.

Since technology companies like Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google miraculously transformed themselves from upstarts to incumbents over the past decade, the interesting upcoming regulatory fights will hinge on how much they can shape laws favorable to their businesses.

Upstarts  such as craft beer makers  have to work a lot harder to make the case that regulations should crack open a bit more to allow them to meet customer demand. Thats a hard fight.A random draw of jury duty on a personal injury case and some good advice from friends set Deneen Donnley on the path from an apartment in the Bronx to the Executive Council at USAA.

As general counsel of the financial services giant, Donnley oversees about 700 legal employees across the companys compliance, litigation and human resources departments as well as its government and industry relations team. Shes the companys corporate secretary and top lawyer to CEO Stuart Parker, the board of directors and USAAs 33,000 employees.

Donnley also oversees the litigation work whenever the companys 12.4 million members get sued in an auto accident or homeowners or other dispute.

Donnley joined USAA in 2010 after a decade at Dutch banking and financial services firm ING Direct, where she guided the company through some dicey issues as general counsel during the financial crisis. She was well-suited for the task, having started as a regulatory lawyer at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, D.C., after law school.

But her career as a financial services attorney almost didnt happen.

A graduate of the University of Pennsylvanias prestigious Wharton business school, Donnley was working as an assistant buyer for J.C. Penney in New York  teaching Princeton Review classes for $17.50 an hour on the side and planning to go back to school for her MBA  when she was called for jury duty.

The lawyer who was presenting probably was not much older than me. I said, You know what, I could do at least as well as that lawyer can, she said. She took the LSATs and enrolled in Fordham Universitys law school the following fall. She applied to the Federal Reserve out of law school on the advice of a family friend.

She said the Fed job appealed to her over the two other offers she got because she didnt like California, and New York was too expensive even on a law firm salary.

It literally was just kind of, I think Ill go try that. she said of the Fed.

Raised as an only child raised by a single mother who worked as a correctional officer at Rikers Island in New York, Donnley says she didnt stand out academically until around the eighth grade when she was placed in the honors program in school. She applied to Wharton on the advice of a family friend.

Donnley now serves on the board of directors for Girls Inc. of San Antonio and is a member of the Womens Leadership Council for the United Way of San Antonio.

She recently sat down with the San Antonio Express-News to discuss her career. Heres an edited transcript of the interview.

Now Playing: Business editor Dawn Kopecki talked with Deneen Donnley, general counsel for USAA. Video: San Antonio Express-News

Q: Tell me a little bit about your upbringing. How many siblings do you have? Im told that your mom worked at Rikers Island, which is fascinating, so tell me a little bit about that.

More Information Quick facts on Deneen Donnley How do you start your day: Alarm goes off at 5:15 a.m., followed by a 2-mile walk with her three dogs and a neighbor at 6:15 a.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays or personal training at USAA's headquarters at 6:30 a.m. Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. First job with a paycheck: McDonald's What are you hobbies: Dogs, travel, reading and museums Favorite vacation: South Africa Favorite restaurant now: Bliss Restaurant Favorite movie: "Love Actually" If you had to choose any other career in another industry, what would it be: Math teacher See More Collapse

A: Its always a complicated question. I was raised an only child. Thats the best way to say it because my parents divorced when I was very young. My father did have two older children, so I have a half brother, half sister, but we didnt grow up together so I say raised an only child. My mother was a baby nurse for eight years, but the correction officer paid double. She just barely met the height requirement. My mother is 5-foot-2.

She was a correction officer. You never would have guessed that from meeting her. Again, shes not that tall. Shes very active in church. She did that because my mother is a strong proponent on you do what you need to do to support yourself and your family. For her, this was a much better option as far as providing options for me, opportunities for us as a family.

Q: You must have been outstanding academically to have gotten into the Wharton school at Penn. Tell me a little bit about your education.

A: I would say Im a reader, so always read a lot. I was probably reasonably bright. I was not tagged as a kid who needs kind of advanced or honor classes, probably until about the eighth grade. Nothing spectacular about my education. I went to my local high school. I was in the honors program, and took the most advanced classes that they had.

Q: English and math or just one or the other?

A: Whatever they had that came in, they placed me in it. They simply signed me up in the ninth grade for a number of honors classes. Once youre in and youre doing well, thats just how you progress through high school. I did that and I would say as far as landing at Penn, that was kind of lucky in a way. I had a friend at church who went to Penn. She said, You know its a really great school. You should apply.

Q: It seems like youve had a little bit of a charmed career. Have you ever been fired or otherwise lost a job involuntarily?

A: No.

Q: No?

A: I wouldnt say charmed. Id say Ive been fortunate. Sometimes right place, right time. Ive never lost a job, but as I mentioned I have also worked two jobs at one time. Had I not had my daughter when I did, I probably wouldve worked two jobs when I was at Fed.

Q: Really?

A: Just because if you have the free time and you have the financial necessity, thats a reason to do it. Princeton Review, to be honest, paid very well. This is back in the late 80s, so once you get into a groove of teaching, thats not hard work so I wouldve done that, but then started a family. Youre right, Ive been fortunate in that Ive never had to look for a job. Ive never lost a job involuntarily. Ive always chosen to move on to another job.

Q: Have you ever been in a work situation where you suffered a major setback or something didnt go your way?

A: Ive certainly had instances where Ive had, say, a difficult loss. When I have, I have voted with my feet if I couldnt make the situation better internally.

Q: How have you handled working with difficult colleagues, difficult subordinates, difficult higher-ups?

A: So as I see it, I cant always change them, but I can control me. I focus on my actions. How I interact with them. There have been times where Im thinking of a difficult boss who told me, I dont care what you think. Thats really demoralizing. To me, that was a signal that this is not a good place for me to work.

So then I said, OK, lets figure out what the next steps are. I would say I focus on being authentic, on being positive, on demonstrating the behavior that I think is correct, utilizing my network to figure out how I can best navigate because if theres someone difficult, its likely theyre not just difficult with me. Theyre difficult with a lot of other people. I try to use that network to figure out how to best move forward, interact with that person.

Sometimes you just kind of look at it as a long gain, that the behavior that person is exhibiting makes it likely that theyre not going to be someplace for a long time. Particularly, Id say when I was at ING Direct, that was the case. To the extent there were some difficult people. I kind of stood my ground, interacted in a positive fashion. At certain points, a good culture doesnt tolerate that type of behavior. Ive been fortunate that Ive been at places where the culture had boundaries.

Q: Along the same lines, best boss, worst boss?

A: So probably the worst one is the one who didnt care what I thought. Had no interest in developing me. That was probably the worst boss.

The best boss was someone who cared about my development, and advancement, even when I perhaps wasnt as focused on it myself. Who brought me to the table, exposed me to more, and encouraged me to take on more responsibility. So that was someone who I realized now was actually being a bit of a sponsor.

Q: Given whats going on with the national conversation around Me Too, especially given that youre not just a woman, but a woman of color, do you have any Me Too stories?

A: Id say I dont have direct Me Too stories. I do have instances where Ive been the only woman in the room and Ive been made to feel as an outsider or an other-than. Whats interesting when you have the GC role, because Im behind the scenes on so many HR actions, theres not the same kind of direct harassment perhaps of the lawyer.

I was relatively young when I became a GC. I was eight years out of law school. I did not experience those types of harassing behaviors. I experienced more of the Youre not part of the club. Were going to exclude you. Literally, I had someone ask me 9 oclock at night when Im working by myself, Are you with us or are you against us? Is that your broomstick? referring to my car.

Q: Wow.

A: Its been insensitive comments that are intended to belittle the woman whos part of the group. Ive had that as opposed to some of the more egregious personal behavior.

Q: Give us that idea of the scope of the legal team, how many people you oversee, etc.?

A: Its about 700 people.

Q: With 700 employees, and the variety of issues you oversee, how do you manage all of that?

A: It really, it comes down to having the right people in place on my team.

Q: Whats the biggest chunk of your energy spent on?

A: The regulatory environment. Id say more the federal regulators than the state, but we do spend energy on the state exams, but a lot of it is the federal regulators of the whole company, which is the Fed, the (Office of Comptroller of the Currency) and (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau).

Id say the IT concepts, and the legal drivers behind it. Making sure that we have the right talent to support our objectives. Id say talent is a big-time spender. IT space from a business-strategy point of view in supporting that takes up time.

Q: How many hours a week do you think you work, about, and how do you maintain a work-life balance?

A: I probably work 50 to 60 hours a week is what I would guess.

I have a pretty normal schedule as far as when Im in the office. Thats generally say, 8:30 to 6 or 6:30 p.m. It is what I do when I go home that adds to that time. I do do email at night. I take home reading. I certainly have a weekend reading folder. I try to clear out email on the weekend. Because I dont have anyone home but my dogs, unless my daughter is visiting or I am out of town, I just kind of flex my time to get a little bit of work done away thats not too intrusive. Its not like when she was young and she was saying, Youre not paying attention to me. Or even when shes home, I dont do as much work when shes home or I might tell people Im not taking home a folder. Im not catching up on email. My daughter is here and Im focused on family. Probably on an average weekend, Im doing six or seven hours worth of work, for me, because its split up, its relatively pain-free.

Q: Whats a must-do personal wellness ritual? Is it the working out, walking the dogs?

A: Both. Working out because its a commitment to my personal health. Ive had a doctor tell me that when I said I didnt have time to work out, he said, Well your peers are getting up at 5 a.m. to do that and sleep less.

I have a 13-year-old dog, a 5-year-old dog, and a 2-year-old dog and I just feel I owe it to them. If youre going to have dogs, you owe it to them to feed them properly, to give them exercise, to keep them stimulated.

Personal time, finding time to read because I like to read and even if its just for 15 minutes before I go to bed, I read. I listen to books on audible. I listen to podcasts. Theres always something going on. Thats me time.

Q: Where theyre not supposed to contact you.

A: Well they can contact me all they want. I dont tell people they cant contact me, like when Im on vacation for example, I say, Presume Im not in email. If you need, me text me. I think everyone here tries really hard not to text me unless its important. It is more me who has to try to not go into email because you dont want to come back to 100s of emails, so its almost easier to kind of skim through in the morning.

Q: How much email do you think you get a day?

A: If I had to guess, probably at least 200 a day.

Q: How many unread emails are there currently in your inbox?

A: I only have a 90-day retention. I probably have 1,200 unread emails. My assistant takes what Ill call industry reading and things like that, and puts them into a reading folder. If I get to those I get to them, but I would say theres probably 1,000 or so that I just havent scooped out.

I do try to at least eyeball on what they are. Then I have my assistant, whos my partner, we try to dispose of what Im going to say kind of the easy ones without me having to deal with it. We try to stay on top of things. I dont want you to think that are unread, theyre truly things that are not that important to me as opposed to things that people here at USAA need me to work on, because my team and I will make sure I get to those.

Q: How often is the company sued and how many active lawsuits, that youre aware of, are currently pending or at any one time?

A: I dont know whats public about our lawsuits, but keep in mind that members get sued all the time. Quite often, in certain states, at the end of the lawsuit there might be a third-party provider who then, basically, steps into the shoes of the member and they sue USAA. There are thousands of those types of lawsuits. They get resolved in an ordinary course.

As far as significant lawsuits, theyre in the hundreds. I would say that our levels are relatively low once you get past the run-of-the-mill type of lawsuits that you have that are really part of the claims process.

So there could be a medical bill provider in a state like Florida, where there are attorney fees. It is very common to have a lawsuit from, say, a medical provider who thinks he or she was not compensated properly. So those types of things happen all the time.

The bad-faith lawsuits that you read about in the newspaper that we are more focused on, class-action lawsuits  I think the levels are very reasonable.

Q: When youre considering someone for a job or interviewing them, what are you looking for and do you ask any trick questions in the interview process?

A: I dont do trick questions, but I do ask questions where obviously theyre open-ended and Im trying to get them to talk enough for me to understand what their leadership style is, their interpersonal style, so what do I look for? Obviously you have to be very competent. Thats a given. If youre compliance, you need to know your subject matter. If youre a lawyer, you need to really understand whatever your body of law is, but I would say it is the what plus the how, so it is how do you get things done. Its asking people for examples that would demonstrate servant leadership, something that we value here at USAA.

Q: Servant leadership, which is?

A: Basically I am here to serve. I am your leader, but it is not just about me. I am here to serve the mission. Im here to serve our members, and were trying to weed out people who wouldnt fit who say, Its all about me. Its all about my power. People like that dont do well here. Were also looking to make sure that you have the ability to engage. To influence.

Understanding how a person approaches challenges. Give me an example in the past when management didnt agree with your proposal, how did you resolve it? Asking those types of open questions, so you dont just hire a good lawyer or compliance person, you hire a good leader.The impact of solar tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration may not be as great as was feared, according to a group of industry players at a talk last week.

Raj Prabhu, CEO and co-founder of Mercom Capital Group, a market research and communications firm with offices in Austin and India, said the impact of past tariff cases has been minimal.

At the end of the day within a few months and sometimes within 12 months the markets have settled pretty quickly, Prabhu said at the panel discussion, which was hosted by the San Antonio Business Journal.

President Donald Trump decided in January to impose 30 percent tariffs on foreign made cells and modules past the first 2.5 gigawatts of imports in order to support domestic manufacturing and jobs. The tariff will last four years and decrease 5 percent a year before phasing out.

The Solar Energy Industries Association, an industry trade group, has argued that the tariff will cost 23,000 U.S. solar jobs. A report released in February from the Solar Foundation showed that in 2017 industry employment fell for the first time since at least 2010, dropping 3.8 percent or 9,800 jobs from 2016.

Ben Rodriguez, executive director of the San Antonio Solar Alliance, said that despite the tariff the industry here in San Antonio will bear it, will adjust to it, and will continue to grow for many years to come.

John Berger, the CEO of Houston-based Sunnova, a residential solar provider, said that increases to the cost of modules will likely lead to cut costs in other areas of installation, like labor.

The amount of money that goes to paying the hardworking people in the field that not only sell but install will have to come down a little, all things being equal, Berger said.

While the tariffs were imposed with the goal of supporting and potentially expanding domestic solar module manufacturing Prabhu said it takes at least a year to set up a new manufacturing facility. He pointed to the news that the American subsidiary of China-based JinkoSolar announcing plans to build a new manufacturing facility in Florida as one example of possible impacts from the tariffs.

But Prabhu warned that it is China, not the U.S., that is the largest solar market globally, and that what happens there affects the entire industry worldwide. China is a major consumer, adding 34.5 gigawatts of solar in 2016 to grow to more than 78 gigawatts. The U.S., on the other hand, added 14.7 gigawatts in 2016 to a total of more than 40 gigawatts, according to the International Energy Agency.Lynn Stahl, founder and past president of the ThriveWell Cancer Foundation and who also is a new member of the Opera San Antonio Board, said she has been connecting with people in San Antonio since she and her husband arrived here in 1976, he as senior rabbi at Temple Beth El.

She spent her working years presenting at more than 400 seminars in areas dealing with family life issues, as well as launching and facilitating cancer support groups for patients and their families. Now retired, Stahl spends her days with her 100-year-old mother and travels often to visit her six grandchildren, two daughters and their spouses.

Constantly on the go, she needs a bag that will hold her essentials and the items she most treasures.

Stahl has a collection of bags for the different seasons, but all need to be lightweight so they dont overpower her 5-foot-2-inch frame and yet have enough room to hold her junk, she said, adding that brands dont matter but plenty of pockets do.

In the large back zipper pocket of her autumn bag, for example, Stahl carries ear phones, a safety deposit key with a whistle, her mothers storage unit key and checkbook, electrolyte replenish powder and a pair of knee-high hose in case she gets cold.

But most significant are two tiny prayer scrolls with the written words, Blessed are you in your coming and Blessed are you in your going.

This prayer reminds me that we are surrounded by something far bigger than ourselves, she said.

Inside the bag, Stahl keeps her change purse, sunglasses, a cosmetic pouch with pink, red and neutral lipsticks and aspirin in case someone needs it for heart issues. Then there are the Band-Aids, hand lotion, her passport, eye drops, cough drops, nail files, hand sanitizer, Fitbit batteries, a spare key to her car and Stevia packets.

Theres still much more room in her purse: Restaurant discount cards, her voter ID card, membership cards to local museums and her mothers medical information. And her bone marrow, organ and tissue donor cards, plus prayer cards  one with a Hebrew and English prayer for travelers, another with six constant Mitzot (good deeds), and one with a prayer for her guardian angel.

I want to marinate in gratitude, and when I get anxious, these cards and prayers remind me of the importance of comfort, security and trust, she said. I have never been let down by a higher power.

When asked what her bag says about her, Stahl said: I want to be prepared, and I am organized. It says I want to be with it and fashionable but not ostentatious. I am pretty efficient and cant stand schmutz.The Alamo Colleges District now has more dual-credit high school students than any community college district in Texas but is one of just four that doesnt charge them tuition or fees.

Those two facts are related, outgoing Chancellor Bruce Leslie told district trustees and college presidents at a recent finance committee meeting. Grappling with a budget shortfall exacerbated by the exploding popularity of dual-credit courses, they ran through some options: Charge the high schoolers partial tuition, renegotiate a cost-sharing agreement with local school districts or raise property taxes.

Most community colleges in Texas charge tuition for such programs. Its usually less than what they charge their regular college students, but it has a direct effect  a negative one  on their ability to recruit students into dual credit when their families have to pay for it, Leslie said.

If we were to start charging, wed have the same thing, he said.

Diane Snyder, the districts vice chancellor of finance and administration, said her department was working with college presidents on the problem and would report again to trustees this summer.

If we are going to continue to grow at this rapid a pace, for sustainability of the quality of this program and sustainability financially, we need to come back with some recommendations to you, Snyder said.

About 12,500 students are enrolled through the five Alamo Colleges in dual-credit courses, which count for both high school and college credit  a 42 percent enrollment increase since 2012, said Don Hudson, director of business performance. Dual credit now makes up one-fifth of the districts total enrollment.

Alamo Colleges partners with local school districts to operate 16 early college high schools, which allow students enough dual-credit opportunities to earn high school diplomas and associate degrees at the same time. Enrollment in those high schools has grown 680 percent since 2012, Hudson said.

That success has a price tag. Alamo Colleges lost $21.5 million in revenue to dual-credit tuition waivers in the 2016-2017 fiscal year.

Dual credit has become popular as a free or low-cost preview of college, Hudson said, and participants are more likely to earn post-secondary degrees, save Pell Grant dollars and establish a college-going culture in their families, he said.

More than 138,000 students are enrolled in dual credit statewide, a 57 percent increase since 2012, making up 20 percent of total community college enrollment, Hudson said.

The El Paso, Houston and Texas Southmost community college districts also do not charge tuition or fees for dual credit, according to a Texas Association of Community Colleges survey published last fall. Austin Community College waives tuition for most students, while the Dallas and Vernon districts waive it for in-district students.

Among larger districts like Alamo Colleges, the Collin and Tarrant districts do not waive tuition or fees. Neither do four other districts. An additional 37 districts charge partial tuition.

Discounting just a percentage overall seems to be a model that those who had been waiving tuition and fees have moved to, Hudson said.

Trustees and administrators could also consider changing the dual-credit cost-sharing agreement with local school districts this summer, Snyder said. The agreements, first implemented last fall, require school districts to pay one of the Alamo Colleges to provide the dual-credit teachers, or vice versa. The expense has led the Judson and Lackland Independent School Districts to look for other higher education institutions to partner with.

Defecting school districts might slow Alamo Colleges dual-credit growth rate, said Mike Flores, president of Palo Alto College, who will soon replace Leslie as chancellor.

Theres a lot of nuance and complexity in dual credit, and that increased competitions going to be one of them, Flores said.

Trustee Roberto Zarate said the cost-sharing agreement currently favors local school districts that provide their own teachers but overall is not necessarily a big hit on the ISDs, and also its a very good faith effort on our part to make sure the program stays viable and that we can support it.

Trustees this summer could consider increasing Alamo Colleges property tax rate, currently about 15 cents per $100 in property value. Taxpayers whose kids are taking dual-credit courses are saving thousands of dollars in college tuition, Hudson said.

But state lawmakers could renew efforts next year to cap local property tax rates. Some trustees blamed the Legislature for expanding dual-credit opportunities in 2015 without an appropriate increase in funding.

How do we convince them that something this good, that saves so much money, merits an investment on the part of the state in the community college system? trustee Joe Alderete said. Im trying to fathom how they cant see this picture.

Having voted to expand dual credit, and knowing its popularity among parents, legislators wouldnt want to see participation decrease, trustee Gene Sprague said.

We can make a strong argument that if we are forced to transfer a small cost to students, were going to cut participation in the program, and if they dont help us out, thats exactly what we may have to do, he said.

Trustee Denver McClendon expressed the greatest anxiety over dual credit, saying, Our success may end up killing us. Snyder and Leslie, who is retiring, simultaneously replied, promising to find a solution.

Assure me that we are not going to end up in trouble as a result of dual credit, McClendon said to Snyder.

Ill assure you, Leslie said.

McClendon waved a hand at Leslie. Youre leaving, he said.Democrats in Bexar County and in counties across Texas participated in early voting in high numbers for the 2018 primary during a year when the Democratic party is hopeful that an anti-Trump sentiment will help propel more liberal candidates to power.

About 49,532 Democrats voted early by mail and in person in the Bexar County primary, while 39,533 Republicans voted, according to numbers from the Texas secretary of state website.

That number is significantly higher than it was in 2014, when about 27,544 Democrats showed up to vote, and it's more than double the early voting numbers in 2010.

More than 10,000 of this year's blue vote came on the last day of voting, according to the secretary of state's figures.

The number represents a significant change in Democratic early voting, but there is little deviation this year in Republican early voting from previous years.

In 2014, 40,549 Republicans cast an early primary vote and this year only about 1,000 fewer Republican votes were cast early.

Less than 7 percent of the of-age population cast a ballot during early voting. About 8.4 percent of registered voters in Bexar County voted, while about 8.9 percent of registered voters in the 15 largest counties in the state cast a ballot.

In Dallas County about 19,000 more Democrats voted both in person and by mail than Republicans this year. In previous years, Republicans had a larger turnout by a smaller margin.

One of the more staggering differences happened in Travis County, where 61,772 Democrats voted, nearly tripling the number of Republicans.

Statewide numbers won't be available before Tuesday, a secretary of state spokeswoman told the Express-News.

amillerbernd@express-news.net | @annieanywayFour challengers are seeking to unseat newly appointed Judge Joey Contreras from his 187th state District Court bench in what has become one of the most contested judges race in the Republican primary.

Four district court races in the March 6 primary election  three criminal and one civil  are contested.

Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Contreras to the seat that was vacated by Judge Steven C. Hilbig, who retired before his term was to expire Dec. 31. He has been on the bench since October and officially was sworn in during a formal investiture ceremony in November.

Contreras is being challenged by four fellow Republicans: Karl Alexander, Jan Ischy-Prins,Veronica I. Legarreta, and Virginia E. Maurer.

A lawyer since 1988, Contreras is a former federal prosecutor who has argued cases against the Mexican Mafia and Texas Syndicate. Although he has not been a defense attorney, Contreras told the Express-News Editorial Board that he didnt see that as a flaw in his current job as judge.

The law is not defense or prosecution oriented, he said. The law is the law. You need mental horsepower, you need integrity and the willingness to do the right thing.

Alexander, licensed since 2002, has been a defense attorney and for the past 12 years has been a prosecutor in the Bexar County District Attorneys Office. He has focused on child abuse cases for the past five years, something he said he believes he was called to do for those most vulnerable in society, according to his website.

Ischy-Prins has been practicing law in Bexar County for 25 years, both as a defense attorney and as a prosecutor and describes herself on her website as a protector of women, children and families. She said the courthouse belongs to the people, and if elected, she wants to bring dignity and respect back to the courtroom.

When you walk into the courtroom, every person should be treated respect, she recently told the Express-News Editorial Board.

Legarreta has practiced law for more than 10 years, beginning as a prosecutor. She opened her practice in 2011, is a criminal defense attorney and also mentors young lawyers. She said she has experienced and witnessed racial disparities in court and would foster an environment that would even the playing field if elected.

Maurer, licensed since 1991, is a defense attorney whose area includes criminal and family law and personal injury litigation. She said she also would like to see respect return to the courtroom, this one in particular, she said.

This was one of the biggest reasons I was running for this bench, the animosity and the hostility that was pervasive in the courtroom, she said. Just treat people with respect.

The winner of this race will face Democrat Stephanie Boyd, a longtime Bexar County prosecutor, in the Nov. 6 general election.

Meanwhile, four Republicans, David P. Martin, Kristen Mulliner, Libby Wiedermann and Todd McCray, are vying for the seat being vacated by Judge Sid Harle, who has presided over the 226th state District Court for the past 30 years. Abbott appointed Harle in August to be the presiding judge of the Fourth Judicial Region, a four-year term.

Martin has been practicing criminal law for 12 years and currently is a Bexar County prosecutor.

The tasks that will be required of the judge that is elected I feel I do every day, he said. Ive been assigned to just about every division in the District Attorneys Office and I feel I have a wider net of knowledge than my opponents.

McCray has been practicing law for 28 years, both as a prosecutor and defense attorney. He said he is running because he started looking at the races and felt that the bar seems to be getting lowered in terms of experience, and he wants to raise the standards of law in the community.

Licensed for more than 10 years, Mulliner has been a prosecutor and defense attorney and has practiced state and federal defense. Since 2010, she has been practicing criminal defense at her own law firm.

What differentiates me from the others is my federal practice, she said, which offer a wide range of cases.

Wiedermann, a former Bexar County Magistrate judge, has been practicing law for two decades and teaches criminal law at San Antonio College and UTSA.

I'm a 22-year lawyer, Ive spent about half that time as a prosecutor, the other half as a defense attorney, and having that balance and background puts me in the best position to be fair to all the parties in the courtroom.

Two Democrats are facing off for the 226th bench: Joel Perez and Velia J. Meza.

Perez, who has practiced nearly 30 years, describes himself as exclusively a criminal trial attorney who has experience as a prosecutor in Webb and Bexar counties and also as a defense attorney, two things he says should be requirements to be a judge.

Meza, who has practiced for 17 years as a defense attorney, said she would look to incorporate innovative programs that would utilize community and businesses, akin to what a specialty court provides.

Two Republicans are vying to lead the 288th Civil District Court: Clint Lawson and Joseph P. Appelt, two lawyers who own their own firms.

Lawson, a family law attorney licensed since 1995, said on his website that judges need to practice fairness, empathy, honesty, ethics, intelligence, and experience, all critical factors in the makeup of a good judge.

Appelt, who has practiced law since 1994, focuses on criminal, family, wills, trusts and probate. He is an alternate municipal court judge in Devine. He said on his website that his 25 years of practice and experience qualify him to lead the bench.

Three Democrats are vying for a chance at the 288th seat: Aida Rojas, Cynthia Marie Chapa and Milton Fagin.

Rojas has more than 15 years practicing family, personal injury and criminal law. She touts compassion, experience and her work ethic on her website as important qualifications for the bench.

Chapa, has been in private practice since 2007 and her area of expertise includes family, business and criminal and personal injury law, according to her website.

Fagin has practiced civil law in San Antonio for more than 40 years, has numerous certifications and focuses on consumer and family law.

Two Democrats, Jennifer Pena and Stephanie R. Brown, are running for the chance to unseat incumbent Judge Melisa Skinner, who has presided over the 290th state District Court since 2010 and is unopposed in the Republican primary.

Pena has 17 years of legal experience, including as a prosecutor. She has been in private practice since 2009 and spoke of the need to create alternatives to incarceration for young criminal defendants like some of the specialty courts already offered.

Brown has practiced law for 16 years as an assistant district attorney, county attorney and public defender in Bexar County. She said her passion is tackling mental illness in the justice system.

The primary election is Tuesday.Black Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper. An African American woman peering through a soft haze. A stained-glass portrait of film maker Spike Lee.

An estimated 500 people of all ages saw these and other intriguing works of art at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, 1001 N. Walters St., during Black History month. Shamariah Jointer was among the 60 people who filed across the rust-tiled floor to view the paintings and photographs of three talented congregation members: Anthony Edwards, Sr., Mark Barnes and Raashad Ali.

Jointer, 35, stood back from the black rope protecting the artwork and gazed upon each canvas with a keen eye as she studied the exhibit in the churchs foyer on this Wednesday night. She said the trios perspectives were different, but very relevant.

Theyre very unique, she said, they all speak black excellence.

The showcase was spearheaded by Velma Kemp, wife of the Rev. Kenneth Kemp, Antiochs pastor. She said the church has always been dedicated to highlighting their members and their wealth of skills and talent.

These guys are awesome and amazing in their own way, Kemp said, near a photo of her husband that Barnes created using 4,000 small individual photos. I know God put it on my heart that this was the right time to do it.

This night was also time for congregation members to gather for the weekly meal in Rector Hall, named after the churchs second pastor, John Rector Sr. Many members stopped at the art exhibit before heading into the sanctuary for evening worship and a concert by gospel musician V. Michael McKay.

Velma and Kenneth Kemps daughters  Joelle, 24, and Jessica, 30  welcomed guests as congregation members sang spirituals that sprang from small, black churches along the South decades ago. Both sisters said the way of the traditional church was like their father and the artists showcase represented their mothers spirit.

I think its important because a lot of times we dont get to see some of the things that people do, Joelle Kemp said.

The artists paintings and photographs have adorned the walls of private collectors homes, the Smithsonian Museum, East Side murals, cars and clothing. During February, each artist greeted guests on a designated Wednesday and Sunday to talk about their work.

Edwards, a retired CPS vice president, kicked off the month-long event. He started painting at the age of 42, inspired, he said, to create art after visiting a black art museum in Atlanta. His work spans politics and yesteryear through impressionism to afro centric art he enjoys sharing with the public and his Antioch family.

This is a 24 hour/365 day church community, Edwards, 66, said. Its real everyday to find some level of connectedness. I have been extremely blessed beyond my expectations.

Barnes, a self-taught artist, is also with the church audio/visual ministry. A young girl trailed her grandmother for a glimpse of his artwork depicting a wide range of the African American experience. With arms folded behind her back, the shy youngster approached Barnes and said she could never paint like he could.

Yes, you can, Barnes, 60, said, kneeling eye-to-eye with the girl. You can do it.

Ali, also known as Rah Pacasso, learned to paint at the age of 4. He uses airbrush acrylics to depict scenes that adorn East Side buildings, including a mural of African American women featuring the late Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, which can be seen at the corner of Walters and Houston.

A saved-again Christian, he said he favors painting scenes that let people know that black people were included in the Bible.

We have to claim what was taken from us, Ali, 55, said. Sometimes, we have to stand up and say who we were.REYNOSA, Mexico  One afternoon in late November, a middle-aged man cautiously approached heavily armed police at a checkpoint to report a carjacking.

Drug gangs had been terrorizing citizens in this gritty city, across the border from McAllen, dragging people from their cars at gunpoint. At its peak last fall, a dozen carjackings were reported daily.

Following up on the pedestrians tip, state police located a bullet-riddled SUV in a rundown neighborhood. The vehicles occupants had vanished.

The bodies will never be found, said Carlos Miravete, operations director for the Tamaulipas public safety department. Theyll be burned to ashes.

Miravetes blunt assessment lays bare the violence that continues to escalate in this border state, which recorded 805 homicides last year, a 35 percent increase over 2016. That figure doesnt even include victims such as those in the carjacking, whose bodies vanish without a trace.

The Tamaulipas homicide rate in 2017 was the highest since its peak in 2012, when violence between feuding drug gangs put security forces on a warlike footing. At the same time, the kidnapping rate of 3.84 per 100,000 residents is the worst in all of Mexico.

Tamaulipas shares 230 miles of border with Texas, and its industries benefit from this geography, just as drug cartels do. When the Zetas split from their former allies, the Gulf Cartel, the region was plunged into a drug war.

By 2013, the cartel chiefs had been captured or killed, and the splintered remnants continue to battle for the lucrative trafficking routes, with new leaders popping up regularly.

Reynosa has seen some of the worst violence lately, searing in the minds of residents that their city isnt a safe place to live.

In an effort to restore some semblance of order, Tamaulipas Gov. Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca ordered state police to set up checkpoints across the city last year.

Since taking office in 2016, Cabeza de Vaca has insisted his administration would turn the tide against criminal groups. He assured citizens in the months that followed that conditions in Tamaulipas were improving compared to Mexicos other cartel-plagued states, yet the numbers tell a different story.

Underscoring concerns over deteriorating security, the State Department in January issued its sternest do not travel warning for Tamaulipas, placing the state on the same footing as war-ravaged nations like Syria and Yemen.

Even as Cabeza de Vaca has pressed the federal government to send reinforcements, military patrols and operations have done little to prevent gunbattles from erupting in the streets. Beyond fighting drug cartels, the governor hopes to succeed where his predecessors failed: winning the publics trust.

The governors instructions are to establish all mechanisms necessary to return security to Reynosa, Miravete said. This is what citizens demand.

Authorities say stolen cars are used in all manner of illicit enterprises, including kidnappings and drug smuggling operations. But criminals use vehicles in ways that make it very difficult for authorities to link them with actual crimes.

Surveillance cameras spot suspicious vehicles before they arrive at roving checkpoints, so authorities can check if the vehicle was reported stolen. But some vehicles lack license plates, while others make use of stolen plates or swap out the emblems that identify the vehicles make.

Still, the governors office credits the checkpoints in and around the city with a sudden drop in auto theft, and the menacing occurrence of armed men speeding through Reynosa, but some question a strategy that subjects everyday citizens to arbitrary policing.

There is no coherent strategy from the federal government to address organized crime, so here is a governor taking matters into his own hands, said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, an associate professor of policy and government at George Mason University, and an expert on organized crime and border security. Cabeza de Vaca is only justifying his own policies, not addressing the real issues.

The concern is not unwarranted. Earlier this year, Mexicos National Human Rights Commission found evidence that marines and the security detail for the Matamoros mayor were involved in the 2014 killings in of three siblings from the Texas border town of Progreso.

Cabeza de Vaca recently accepted the commissions recommendation that Tamaulipas pursue a thorough investigation of the crime in Progreso.

In a city where the local police department was disbanded after it was found to be working directly with local drug cartels, the checkpoints raise concerns that little is being done to ensure human rights are respected.

One evening, David Guajardo, a 28-year-old college student, and his mother were stopped by law enforcement on their way home from the supermarket. They were interrogated, their vehicle was inspected, and ultimately they were allowed to continue on, but the experience is not one that Guajardo is soon to forget.

You cant avoid going out and living your life because of the insecurity, Guajardo said, But you always worry whats going to happen.

For most residents, it is all they can do to navigate through the periodic spasms of violence roiling their border city. Violence spiked in last April after Juan Manuel Loisa Salinas, a local Gulf Cartel chief known as Comandante Toro, was killed.

In the bloody aftermath, some bystanders were caught in the crossfire, further eroding confidence that authorities are capable of establishing order.

A public safety survey in December conducted by the census agency in Mexico, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography, found 95.6 percent of residents 18 or older consider Reynosa an unsafe place to live.

The insecurity has wreaked havoc on local businesses, forcing some to shutter in the face of extortion. But Reynosas maquiladora sector has been resilient, employing more than 120,000 workers and looking to hire thousands more.

To be sure, maquilas have had to adjust to the threats. Buses shuttle workers living in Texas to maquilas in Reynosa, and other employees drive beat-up cars in an attempt to stay inconspicuous on their way to work.

Security is an issue. We worry, but we have to face it, and live with it, said Enrique Castro, president of INDEX Reynosa, an industry group that promotes maquiladora exports. Its not nice to travel to our plant and not know whats going to happen.

Castro said industry leaders are working with authorities at the federal level, and believe they have a good strategy to reduce the factories vulnerability to organized crime.

The best shield against crime is the success of the maquila industry, Castro said.

Cabeza de Vaca has promoted closer business ties with Texas, and leveraged partnerships with U.S. law enforcement to train Mexican investigators in the latest crime scene evidence processing and auto theft detection. At the same time, Cabeza de Vaca has pressed the U.S. to do its part to stop the flow of weapons into Mexico.

A new report by the Center for American Progress, titled Beyond Our Borders: How Weak U.S. Gun Laws Contribute to Violent Crime Abroad found the percent of homicides committed with a gun jumped from 15 percent in 1997 to 66 percent in 2017.

State forces seized 345 firearms, 19 grenades and 11,320 bullets off the streets last year, including 96 guns and 4 grenades in Reynosa alone.

So far, a new year has brought no respite to Reynosa. Gulf drug cartel leader Humberto Loza Mendez was killed in late January by marines in Reynosa. Loza Mendez, also known as Betillo, had been fighting a turf war with a rival faction of the Gulf Cartel, and was responsible for orchestrating gunbattles and street blockades.

Amid the bloodshed, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto canceled a publicized visit to Reynosa last week to attend the inauguration of a transportation infrastructure project.

Some observers assert the change of plans came after Cabeza de Vaca, who belongs to the opposition National Action Party, or PAN, called for federal attorney general's officials to be investigated after repeated attempts to obtain files on Eugenio Hernandez Flores, the former Tamaulipas governor, were ignored.

Hernandez Flores of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was arrested by Tamaulipan officials last year, and is wanted in Texas on money laundering and bribery charges.

For their part, the presidents office claimed the visit never was confirmed, and therefore was never officially canceled.

Setting politics aside, as homicides surge to record levels across Mexico, many see little hope for a safer future.

Walking briskly on the way to pick up her kids from school, Ana Pastrana, 33, said the outlook is rather bleak.

This isnt going to end, if anything its going to get worse, Pastrana said pessimistically. There is nobody to stop it.

anelsen@express-news.netSAN ANTONIO de BEXAR, Texas, March 5, 1836  On this beautiful March day,the fate of Fortress Alamos defenders was sealed. The Mexican dictator, Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna  now holding a roughly 12-to-1 advantage in troops  has decided an attack on the fort is imminent and issued secret orders concerning its implementation to his subordinates.

The time has come to strike a decisive blow upon the enemy occupying the Fortress of the Alamo, Santa Anna noted. ... The honor of the nation being interested in this engagement against the bold and lawless foreigners who are occupying us, (I expect) that every man will do his duty, and exert himself to give a day of glory to the country, and of gratification to the Supreme Government, who will know how to reward the distinguished deeds of the brave soldiers of the army of Operations.

DAILY BRIEFING

Col. Juan Almonte, an aide-de-camp to Gen. Santa Anna reported today that the President (himself) determined (when) to make the assault (on the Alamo)... The points of attack were examined by the commanding officers.

Almonte also noted that on a day that reached a balmy 68 degrees, A brisk fire was commenced from our north battery against the enemy, which was not answered, except now and then.

A HINT

Despite the secretive nature of Gen. Santa Annas attack scheme, Alamo commander Lt. Col. William Travis is apparently aware that something is amiss outside the walls of the fortress.

This evening, local resident Angel Navarro approached the Alamo and asked that his daughters, Juana Navarro Alsbury and Gertrudis Navarro, leave the compound. Mrs. Alsbury is a cousin by marriage to the ailing former co-commander of the fortress, James Bowie, and has been attending to his illness. When Santa Annas army entered San Antonio de Bexar, she was accompanied into the compound by her son, Alijo Perez Jr., and her sister.

Reportedly, Travis dispatched a message with Mrs. Alsbury, who went outside to talk to her father. According to Mexican Gen. Vicente Filisola, About nightfall, it was reported that Travis Barnet (sic), commander of the enemy garrison, through the intermediary of a woman, proposed to the general in chief that they would surrender arms and fort with everybody in it with the only condition of saving his life and that of all his comrades in arms. However, the answer had come back that they should surrender unconditionally, without guarantees, not even of life itself, since there should be no guarantees for traitors.

Learning of the Mexican response, Mrs. Alsbury reportedly then returned to the Alamo.

DISCRETION

Surrounded on all sides by some 2,000 foot soldiers and nearly 400 horsemen  and with no evidence of reinforcement yet having presented itself  it was not unwise for Lt. Col. Travis to have inquired this evening about some sort of accommodation from his opponents.

However, when presented with the response that unconditional surrender alone would prevent Gen. Santa Anna from unleashing his minions in furious attack, the lieutenant colonel had little recourse but to figuratively unsheathe his sword and engrave a line in the dirt around Fortress Alamo, daring the dictator to step across it.

Gen. Filisola noted, With this reply (from the Alamo) it is clear that all were determined to lose their existence, selling it as dearly as possible.

IN COMMAND

Lt. Col. Travis is, of course, the man of this most desperate of hours. And like most of the defenders of the Alamo, he is not even from Texas  he is a South Carolinian by birth.

Travis was born in 1809, the first of the 11 children produced by Mark and Jemima Travis. Eventually, the young Travis was accepted for an apprenticeship under the tutelage of Claiborne's most pre-eminent barrister, one James Dellet. In 1828, Travis was wed to Rosanna Cato, and a son was born unto them the following year.

In 1830, Travis suddenly abandoned his wife, son and an unborn daughter and set off for Texas. One story so dark that it is only spoken of in whispered voices has it that he suspected the young woman of infidelity and was dubious of the parentage of her unborn child.

Quietly wagging tongues also indicate that the purported paramour now spends eternity with his toes pointed toward the heavens  compliments of Travis.

Although he arrived in Texas after the Law of April 6, 1830, apparently suspended existing empresario contracts, Travis obtained land from Stephen F. Austin in 1831. He established a law practice in Anahuac on Galveston Bay.

While traveling the country doing legal work, Travis made the acquaintance of militants opposed to the 1830 law. As tensions with the Mexican government increased, this group became known as the war party.

A prank involving rumors of a nonexistent armed force coming to challenge Mexican authority found Travis incarcerated and at the focus of the Anahuac Disturbances of 1832, which led to armed clashes at Nacogdoches and Velasco and resulted in the Conventions of 1832 and 1833 that called for separate statehood for Texas.

Travis moved his legal practice to San Felipe, and there two years ago was elected to the ayuntamiento, or town council.

Meanwhile, his wife launched legal proceedings against him, and they were divorced this past fall. It is unknown, however, if Travis is aware that the divorce has been finalized, as he has been embroiled in the battle for Texas Liberty since last summer.NEW BRAUNFELS  Constructing roads, homes and bridges requires rock and concrete, so its understandable that Vulcan Materials wants to set up shop in the fast-growing Hill Country, where rolling ranchlands are quickly being developed into new subdivisions.

But Vulcan, the nations largest producer of construction aggregates, is facing stiff resistance to plans to establish a limestone quarry on Texas 46 here in Comal County and a concrete batch plant on the same road to the west in Kendall County.

Vulcan isnt the only company seeking a permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to open a concrete batch plant on Texas 46. Corvara West has a site close to Boerne.

With Kendall and Comal being among the fastest-growing counties in the U.S., it is very likely this issue will impact many more people in our area in the near future, said Amber Clowney, a member of the Boerne to Bergheim Coalition for a Clean Environment, an anti-Vulcan group in Kendall County.

Vulcan wants to mine rock for the next 80 years on a 1,500-acre site at Texas 46 and FM 3009, two busy rural roads dotted by ever more subdivisions.

Scant support for the companys permit application was heard at a meeting last week that closed the public comment period set by the state agency.

Locals expressed fears of being poisoned by dust and fumes generated by the mining and crushing of limestone and an estimated 153 trucks picking up loads daily. Area residents also talked about groundwater depletion, property devaluation and toxic runoff.

Similar concerns are being heard among residents in the vicinity of the proposed concrete plants.

County-level officials are keeping a close eye on the projects but have little authority under state statutes over land use. Opponents must largely rely on the state environmental agency to safeguard air and water quality, and theyre often not pleased with the results.

Sabrina Houser Amaya, with the quarry opposition group Friends of Dry Comal Creek, criticized a TCEQ assessment of the proposed quarry site that described surrounding land as undeveloped and agricultural land.

Theres over 12,000 residents within a 5-mile radius, Amaya said.

Others accuse Vulcan of flouting permit requirements at other plants and called the state agency derelict for suggesting that Vulcan self-monitor its compliance and self-report violations if the new quarry opens.

Vulcan has shown they are not a good neighbor and they dont abide by state regulations, resident David Drewa said. Clearly, Vulcan cant be trusted to protect our natural resources or our health, but thats exactly what this draft permit does  it relies on Vulcan to police themselves.

Vulcan officials say their company is committed to investing in the communities it serves and to operating in a safe, responsible manner.

Vulcan spokesman Scott Burnham noted that the company had achieved the TCEQs highest compliance rating while acknowledging problems elsewhere that he said posed no threats to public health and safety.

We have never been cited for any air permit violations in Texas, Burnham said. This comes after operating some 15 quarries in Texas over the past several decades.

Company assurances continue to be greeted with doubt, and sometimes scorn, among residents of nearby subdivisions who see quarries as a threat to their quality of life.

Liz James, who lives across the road from the quarry site formerly known as the White Ranch, seized on the mining giants pledge to be a good neighbor.

We will all lose, so how can Vulcan say that you are a good neighbor? asked James, who plans to buy an air monitor to keep watch on emissions.

Air quality monitoring near quarry sites is needed, said state Rep. Kyle Biedermann, R-Fredericksburg, to provide accurate data to the operators and affected neighbors about the concentrations of airborne particulates being emitted.

Others among the 59 speakers at Tuesdays meeting predicted that quarry truck traffic would place other motorists at greater risk and cause accelerated wear and tear on roads.

Whos going to be responsible for the traffic deaths and the (truck) emissions? asked Ed Harris, calling traffic on FM 3009 a nightmare at daybreak on weekdays.

Its a headache thats not easily addressed.

We are statutorily forbidden from regulating trucks, said Joel Stanford of the state environmental agency.

Brett Bryant, a division vice president at Vulcan, said the company is conducting a traffic impact analysis to help design a safe and efficient road system there.

Were going to work with TxDOT to determine what road improvements are needed, he said.

Comal quarry

The proposed quarry site was acquired for Vulcan from rancher Eric White, who wasnt told about its future use and figured, wrongly, that houses would be built there.

The state agency will now review and respond to the comments from the meeting Tuesday, which drew nearly 500 people, along with more than 600 comments posted on the agency website, before issuing a proposed decision in a few months.

If the permit is granted, Vulcan officials say, up to 1.5 million tons of rock will be mined and crushed there annually, pulverized in a portable rock crusher at the site.

Dust generated by the operation and trucks would be controlled with water, officials said, and a perimeter buffer zone comprising 600 acres of vegetation is planned to reduce effects on the neighborhood.

The agencys permit review will focus on whether Vulcan would use the best available technology to control emissions and whether quarry operations would harm the environment or human health regarding the air.

It doesnt take into account traffic, property values, light pollution or groundwater pollution.

Vulcan opponents want the agency to refer the Vulcan permit application to the State Office of Administrative Hearings for a trial-like process called a contested case hearing. They were told those requests had to be made in writing.

If such a hearing occurs, as expected, a judge would make a recommendation on the application to TCEQ commissioners. Their decision could be appealed to a state district court.

Water issues

Separate from the air permit, Vulcan still needs to obtain approval for a water pollution abatement plan, storm water controls and an Edwards Aquifer protection plan because the location falls within the aquifers recharge zone.

Eddie Saucedo, a Vulcan environmental manager, predicted that mining the rock wouldnt affect the underlying aquifer and said 85 percent of the water used in the plants production processes would be recycled.

While acknowledging widespread public concern about quarries over aquifer recharge zones, Edwards Aquifer Authority General Manager Roland Ruiz noted that the agency has no regulatory authority over them.

Annalisa Peace, executive director of the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance, said Friday that she plans to request legislation next year to grant nine Hill Country counties limited land use authority, including the authority to prohibit incompatible land uses such as this one.Democrats and Republicans arent just choosing candidates in their primary elections Tuesday.

Through their choices, theyre setting a direction for their parties in a state with challenges in education and transportation, disputes over immigration and demographic changes that are shaping how campaigns are run and issues are addressed.

Peacemakers or bomb-throwers? Intellectuals or gut-players? Experienced hands or outsiders? Big reformers or advocates of incremental change?

The decisions are there for the making up and down the ballot as each party undergoes a struggle between its left and right wings.

For the small percentage of voters who cast primary ballots, its a responsibility that will affect their parties fortunes in the November general election and beyond.

Democrats havent been elected to statewide office in Texas in nearly a quarter century, but their participation has surged in the early primary vote this year. President Donald Trump is credited with driving up turnout among those upset over the Republican presidents policies and rhetoric.

Ronald L. Thomas, 70, of Schertz said he voted in the Democratic primary because he sees a lack of leadership from Trump and the Republican Party.

Thomas would like Congress to pass Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, affecting immigrants brought to this county as youngsters, and approve affordable college tuition for young people.

These are things that Republicans dont care about, Thomas said outside the Schertz elections office. Theyre the only ones that got money from the tax bill driven by Republicans and signed by Trump.

Bill Lyons of San Antonio, who voted in the Republican primary, said the rancor of politics has gotten too aggressive and out of hand.

We need the moderates in office, Lyons, 79, said as he was leaving the polling site at Lions Field on Broadway. House Speaker Joe Straus, a San Antonio Republican whos not running for re-election, is the kind of leader he favors.

He could get a consensus across both sides of the aisle. Thats what we need more of, Lyons said. He said that having polar opposites in the parties is just really hurting our country.

GOP candidates cant afford to be complacent in this atmosphere despite their winning record in the state, said Ray Sullivan, who worked for Republicans George W. Bush and Rick Perry when they were Texas governors and when they ran for president

During the Obama years, the Republicans were outraged and offended and highly motivated. With the change in the White House, the Democrats seem to be outraged and offended and highly motivated, said Sullivan, now a lobbyist.

I still think Texas is a reliably Republican state, but Republican candidates and the Republican Party cannot take things for granted in November the way theyve been able to in years past, Sullivan said.

Its clear that the powers that be in both parties realize the stakes.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is playing big ahead of the primary even though he is certain to win his partys nomination for re-election and to face a Democratic challenger with far less resources.

Abbott has his eye on running up the score for the general election, working to get big support from Hispanic voters who make up a strong and growing part of the states population.

The most competitive statewide GOP primary battles are for offices overseeing the agriculture industry and the future of one of Texas most venerated sites, the Alamo.

Land Commissioner George P. Bush, part of a vaunted establishment family, is in the fight of his young political career with a canny predecessor, Jerry Patterson, who has taken aim at Bushs ambitious plan to re-imagine the cradle of Texas liberty.

Patterson, a former state senator who also put a spotlight on the Alamo while land commissioner, is leading the charge for those who object to some aspects of Bushs plan for the shrine and to a management process criticized as secretive and needlessly complex. Bush has made some changes in the process, but not enough to satisfy the opposition.

In the agriculture commissioner race, the often-stepping-in-it incumbent Sid Miller is targeted by former lobbyist Trey Blocker, who has proved to not always present a sensible front himself.

While theyve debated policy, such as fees raised on industries overseen by the agency, the campaign is wide-ranging.

Miller is being forced to revisit such controversies as a state-paid trip on which he got a Jesus Shot, a controversial but legal medication that supporters say takes away pain for life. He later repaid the money, but it remains fodder for ethics question, which he dismisses.

Blocker stars in an online campaign video in which he appears in front of the hanging bodies of feral hogs to tout his endorsement by the Texas Hog Hunters Association. Blocker inexplicably punctuates his comments by stabbing one of the already-dead hogs.

A legislative fight among Republicans in San Antonio is one of three that will showcase whether Abbott has the power to oust GOP lawmakers who challenged him over the appointment of big donors to state boards and commissions. The governor is helping Hollywood Park Mayor Chris Fails in his effort to unseat Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio.

The success or failure of Abbotts play will help define the power of the governor and his relationship with House members, who will elect a new speaker in the next legislative session with Straus departure.

It also will help shape the ground rules for the continuing battle between business-aligned moderates like Straus  Larson has been a Straus ally  and further-right Republicans who cheered Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, for pushing such measures as a failed bill to restrict the public restrooms that transgender people can use.

Among Democrats, the race for the nomination to challenge Abbott is a nine-way battle with the bulk of the attention going to two candidates with starkly different profiles and credentials: former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez and Houston businessman Andrew White.

Valdez is a favorite of party members who think her image will make her a vote magnet and see her as a potentially strong progressive messenger. She comes from a migrant-worker family, seized a chance at education and embarked on a law enforcement career that culminated in her becoming the first woman, Hispanic and lesbian elected Dallas County sheriff.

White, son of the late Democratic former Gov. Mark White, has positioned himself as a moderate who would be the best candidate to attract like-minded voters and compete against Abbott in November. White has pushed specific policy proposals, such as a pay raise for teachers, while Valdezs policy portfolio isnt well-developed, and she has been dinged for not knowing enough about state government.

Neither Democrat has raised big money to get out a message in the primary, much less to compete against the $41 million-plus that Abbott has on hand. White has outraised Valdez, with his biggest boost coming from his decision to lend his campaign $1 million.

The lack of funds on the Democratic side means that the nominee may be picked by voters who dont know enough about them to understand the choice theyre making about their partys message.

Our two candidates for governor have different views, but most Texans and most Democratic primary voters are never going to know those two different views are on the ballot, said former Land Commissioner Garry Mauro, a Democratic heavyweight who was point person in Texas for Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign for president. I like both of em. I like what Andrew is saying. I like what the sheriff is saying. But most people arent going to hear about it.

The star among Democratic statewide candidates is U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke, who has whipped up enthusiasm around Texas and raised millions of dollars while he aims at U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in November. ORourke is expected to easily win the Democratic nomination for the uphill battle.

In Democratic legislative races, one spotlight is on Trey Martinez Fischers effort to regain his San Antonio seat from Rep. Diana Arevalo. She won it when Martinez Fischer left it to run unsuccessfully for the state Senate.

Martinez Fischer, a veteran known for derailing GOP measures in the House with his knowledge of rules and procedures, argues that his skills are needed. Arevalo defends her record and says Martinez Fischer abandoned the House seat when Democrats needed him.

Democrats statewide have fielded candidates for nearly 90 percent of seats in the majority-Republican Legislature and have particular hopes for areas held by the GOP but won by Clinton in 2016. In both parties, congressional races have turned into free-for-alls with multiple candidates duking it out for a chance to enter the Washington fray to either support or fight Trump.

Mauro said he expects the real races to be waged at the congressional and the legislative levels in November, although he and other Democrats see some hope for ORourke and Justin Nelson, a Democrat running to face Attorney General Ken Paxton in November. Neither Nelson nor Paxton has a primary election opponent.

Texas is going to be competitive at very many levels, Mauro said. Now, whether its competitive statewide, that remains to be seen.

Voters Tuesday will shape the view for November and beyond.Ask Latinos what disease is most likely to claim their lives, and their answers are likely to be cardiovascular disease or death by diabetes.

Wrong.

While heart disease remains the leading cause of death for non-Hispanic whites, in 2009 cancer replaced heart disease as the No. 1 killer of U.S. Latinos. And the numbers are climbing. From 2000 to 2014, the groups cancer rates went up by 72 percent.

Research now shows that by 2030, rates are expected to climb by 142 percent, in part because the Latino population is aging and cancer is a disease of the aged.

But for reasons researchers dont yet know, specific and different cancers such as liver, kidney, gall bladder and gastric cancers, for example, strike Latinos more than other U.S. demographic groups.

And thats just the beginning of the differences and disparities.

In February, Dr. Amelie Ramirez, director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio, convened the nations Latino cancer researchers.

Though the field remains small, Ramirez says the Advancing the Science of Cancer in Latinos conference drew 225 researchers from 23 states and Puerto Rico. They shared lab studies, new research, best practices, drug therapies, interventions, mortality and survival rates.

Data has come a long way. While researchers once collected it for whites, blacks and others, Ramirez says studies now include Latinos and subgroups of Latinos.

A decade ago, it would have been hard to amass so many researchers. Its still small, she says. But San Antonio wants to become the leader.

Ramirezs work on the National Hispanic Leadership Initiative on Cancer: En Accion was the first comprehensive look at Latino cancer risk factors.

Researchers are in early stages of investigating why Latinos are being diagnosed with liver, stomach, gall bladder and other cancers at higher rates, seen in San Antonio and South Texas.

The needle has moved slowly, said Ramirez, who also serves as associate director of Cancer Prevention and Health Disparities at the Mays Cancer Center.

The data is dire, and more Latino participation is need in clinical trials and studies, researchers say.

Research has found fewer Latinos get routine screenings because of fear and denial, or what Ramirez called decidia, or indecision.

Latinos are also diagnosed in the later stages of disease and are less likely to survive. Early detection and treatment are key.

Latinas are less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer  but more likely to die of it.

Ramirez says doctors report seeing Latinas come in when tumors are already protruding from their skin. She has counseled some whove compared mammogram screenings to a tortilla press. I tell them several moments of discomfort can save you.

While awareness is crucial, Ramirez says longer-term research goals include finding precision medicine for Latino patients.

The conference served as a catalyst for more research, she said. The next one in 2020 will open up to Latin American researchers.

It was the first time Latino cancer researchers came together to share what we know about cancers in Latinos, and the energy was palpable, she said.

It included Dr. Edith Perez, vice president and head of U.S. medical affairs for Genentech/Roche BioOncology, a major cancer drug developer; Dr. Paulo Pinheiro of the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, who spoke about 21st-century cancer patterns among Latinos; and Dr. Marcia Cruz-Correa of the University of Puerto Rico Comprehensive Cancer Center on underrepresented cancers with unequal burden among Latinos.

Dr. Francisco Cigarroa of UT Health San Antonio spoke about liver cancer among Latinos in South Texas; and Dr. Ronald Rodriguez, also of UT, on the high rate of late-stage kidney cancer among South Texas Latinos.

Every cancer researcher left the San Antonio conference more hopeful than they arrived, Ramirez said.

Yet they took with them another disturbing reality.

Cancer-wise, U.S.-born Latinos will fare worse than their immigrant counterparts. Its the Western lifestyle, Ramirez said, including higher rates of smoking, drinking, obesity and sedentary behavior.AUSTIN  Did you think the debate over the bathroom bill was over? Not if youre voting in the Republican primary election, even if the issue never comes up in the races you care about.

The Republican Party is asking its primary voters to weigh in on whether transgender peoples use of public restrooms should be restricted, the issue that dominated last years legislative sessions.

The ballot proposition, it should be noted, doesnt use the word transgender. Instead, it asks whether Texas should protect the privacy and safety of women and children in restrooms in schools and government buildings.

Thats the same rhetoric used to push the transgender restrictions in the past legislative session.

House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, successfully fought the efforts by Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to pass the legislation last year, citing the potential of economic boycotts and harm to vulnerable transgender people.

But Straus wont be back for the 2019 legislative session, so foes and supporters alike have a reason to weigh in on whether the issue should be pursued with potentially more likelihood of success.

The bathroom measure is one of 11 primary ballot propositions on the Republican ballot. For the Democrats, there are a dozen ballot propositions, dubbed the Texas Bill of Rights, that promote such issues as universal health care and chipping away at crushing student debt.

The nonbinding propositions wont change the law. But they are a way to shape the partys message and let leaders know if voters want an issue to be addressed.

If an idea gets overwhelming support, backers can use the vote to help drive legislation.

The propositions that were chosen show the differing approaches of the parties, and voters can decide whether to continue or mitigate those positions.

Besides the bathroom proposition, for example, the Republican ballot asks whether families should be able to get tax credits or exemptions without government constraints or intrusion when they choose private schools or home schooling.

The proposition frames it as parents being able to choose either of those two options, charter schools or public schools.

The GOP explains that parents would take their own tax money and use it for their childrens education in whatever setting they choose. It says, without further explanation, that the idea wouldnt allow parents to use other peoples tax money for their own children.

School voucher proposals have repeatedly failed in the Legislature, with opponents voicing concern that they would drain money from already underfunded public schools.

Among other propositions, the Republican Party is asking its voters whether abortion should be abolished, which the state couldnt do without a change in the Roe vs. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court guaranteeing a womans right to choose abortion.

The GOP says that its a statement that we want abortion to stop. The Republican-majority Legislature year after year has successfully pushed legislation that makes abortion more difficult.

In the Democratic Party primary, the ballot doesnt specifically ask voters about the bathroom bill, but it does have a proposition asking whether everyone should have a right to a life of dignity and respect, free from discrimination and harassment anywhere, including businesses and public facilities.

Democrats also ask their voters to weigh in on whether everyone in Texas should have the right to refinance student loan debt with the Federal Reserve at zero percent interest.

And Democratic voters will have a chance to weigh in on whether all workers should have paid family leave, paid sick leave and a living wage.

Some issues are addressed by both parties in different ways.

On immigration, Democrats ask whether voters support an earned path to citizenship for law-abiding immigrants and their children and protecting Dreamers, immigrants brought here as children. They include two other points  keeping families together and providing workforce solutions for business.

Republicans ask whether voters believe that Texas should require employers to screen new hires through the free E-Verify system to protect jobs for legal workers.

With regard to health care, Republicans want voters to weigh in on whether Texas should demand the complete repeal of Obamacare.

Democrats seek voters opinion on whether everyone in Texas should have health care, guaranteed by a universal, quality Medicare-for-all system.

On taxes, Democrats ask their voters to say whether there should be a fair tax system in which all interests pay their share.

Republicans are more specific on taxes, addressing them in three ways: whether Texas should replace the property tax system with an appropriate consumption tax equivalent (the proposition doesnt say this, but the sales tax is a consumption tax); impose a 4 percent cap on local property tax revenue increases unless there is voter approval; and ban tax dollars to build stadiums for professional or semipro teams.

When it comes to voting itself, the parties approaches also differ.

Democrats ask if their voters believe that every eligible Texan should have the right to vote; whether there should be voter-friendly initiatives such as automatic voter registration and a state election holiday; and whether voting should be free from corporate campaign influence, foreign interference or illegal gerrymandering.

Republicans want voters to decide whether election fraud should be an automatic felony, rather than being a Class A misdemeanor that can be elevated to a felony depending on circumstances.

Those who didnt cast a ballot during the early voting period, which ended Friday, have one more chance to vote: Election day is Tuesday.STAMFORD  Few people are able to trace their roots the way Stamford native Erin Cody can.

Her family has been in Stamford since the Civil War. Their presence in the state goes back even further, to the founding of New Haven in the 1600s.

I know where my relatives who served in the Revolutionary War are buried and Ive seen their actual signatures, Cody said.

Codys family is among the untold number of Irish immigrants who settled in Stamford, bringing with them their culture and religious traditions. While Irish immigration has plateaued in recent decades  replaced by an influx of new residents from the Carribean, Central and South America  Irish ancestry is still on display in the city, from cultural events hosted by the Ancient Order of Hibernians to the Basilica of St. John the Evangelist, the 150-year-old Catholic church on Atlantic Street.

While the makeup of its congregation has changed over time, Cody says the building was a product of the Irish  including her great-great-grandparents and many others who donated money to the project. They built a towering asymmetrical church with an imposing stone facade.

They left Ireland because they were being persecuted for their Catholic faith, so they put their money where their mouth is, said Cody, an IT consultant.

The church celebrated its first mass for Stamfords thriving Irish community on Thanksgiving in 1875. U.S. Census figures from five years earlier show that 28 percent of the citys male population was born in Ireland, making the Irish the largest immigrant group in Stamford, according to research by Rev. Msgr. Stephen DiGiovanni of St. Johns.

As the community blossomed, the Irish immigrants settled into tenements built along the rail lines, DiGiovanni wrote in a history of the Irish in Stamford. The first ethnic encalve, Dublin, was by the old railroad roundhouse just east of the canal. Just west of the Mill River became another Irish enclave, Kerrytown.

The church itself commemorates prominent Irish families  such as the Hickeys, Hanrahans and Duffys  in its stained-glass windows.

In 1890, the local chapter of the Ancient Order of Hibernians was founded. It was named for Gen. Philip Sheridan, an Irish-American who fought in the Civil War.

Much of the mid-19th century emigration from Ireland was due to the Great Famine, the result of blighted potato crops.

The interesting thing about Irish migration here is that country people came and settled in the big cities  Boston, Chicago, New York, New Orleans, said Frank Browne, a Stamford attorney and first-generation Irish American. They didnt go out to the country for jobs, they went into jobs in the city that had some security  policeman, fireman.

Browne, a member of the Hibernians mens division, was passed down Irish history, particularly about the Irish in Stamford, by his family.

It was force-fed to me at the dinner table by my father, Browne said. Theres a point where you say, Im never going to do this, and then you get a little bit older and you say, You know what? Im going to learn more about my heritage.

The Hibernians, a fraternal Irish Catholic organization, boasts a combined 250 members in their mens and womens divisions, a healthy number but not as high as its recent peak in the 1980s that followed a surge in Irish immigration. At one point, Stamford hosted the largest feis, an Irish dance competition, in the country, Browne said.

Every generation gets diluted, said Michael Feighan, head of the committee that organizes the Stamford St. Patricks Day Parade, which took place on Saturday. A lot of the younger folks identify themselves as American because theyve got four or five ethnic mixes in their blood and theyre far removed from whoever emigrated. Its a great thing, but its at the expense of some of the cultural aspects.

But the Hibernians are nonetheless active, offering cultural events at their Greyrock Place headquarters. They will celebrate St. Patricks Day on March 17 with a mass at St. Johns, followed by a procession to the Stamford Government Center for a flag raising and a soda bread feast at Hibernian Hall. The festivities begin at 10.

The event harkens back to what Stamfords earliest Irish immigrants sought to create here.

People felt they needed to preserve something of their homeland, Cody said.Contributed / Contributed photo

FAIRFIELD  A 29-year-old Bridgeport man was arrested on a warrant in state Superior Court in Bridgeport March 2, charged with criminal attempt to commit fifth-degree larceny and second-degree forgery.

Police said on Jan. 22, John J. Alvarez attempted to cash a fraudulent business check at the Chase Bank branch at 340 Grasmere Ave. Alvarez used his Connecticut state ID as identification, according to the report, and a Fairfield County Bank debit card in his name. The check was for $900.New in to sale

Looking to sell? Try SecondLife

New in to sale

25 new names to know

Delivery Destination or Region

GreecePlace Your Advert

Thousands of Active jobseekers are looking for new agricultural positions in 2020. Call us now to discuss the options for advertising your vacancy in our job section.Leaving the EU will be one of the most defining political events for the protection of UK animals, including livestock, according to a new report.

The lesser acknowledged animal welfare impacts of Brexit include a shortage of vets, costlier veterinary medicine, and an increase in the numbers of animals used in research, according to a new report by the Green Party.

Keith Taylor MEP has launched his new 'Animals and Brexit' report at the Green Party's Spring conference in Bournemouth on Saturday, 3 March.

The report details every piece of EU legislation safeguarding animal welfare and models the threats and opportunities presented by Brexit.

It also assesses the impact the most likely Brexit scenarios will have on the current protections offered to the four main classifications of animals covered by EU law: farmed animals, animals used in research, wildlife and companion animals.

Significant threat

According to the study, the UK government's post-Brexit trade and migration agendas pose a "significant threat" to the welfare of farmed animals and access to high-quality and affordable veterinary care.

The British Veterinary Association (BVA) has also stated their concerns over the shortage of vets post-Brexit.

The industry body has explained that Brexit has brought into "sharp relief" the UKs reliance on EU veterinary professionals.

In food safety and hygiene alone, it is estimated 95% of Official Veterinarians (OVs) working in abattoirs are from overseas, with the large majority graduating in the EU.

Most defining

The 52-page study concludes that "Brexit, in any formulation, invariably means abandoning the achievements the UK has worked with the EU to build".

It adds that leaving the EU "will be one of the most defining political events for the protection of animals in the UK."

Commenting on the findings of the report, Keith Taylor MEP said that the UK has been an influential member within the EU that has secured important animal welfare safeguards.

While a huge number of the laws protecting animals are derived from our membership, this report makes clear that the European Union's influence on animal welfare in the UK is more than just directly legislative, Mr Taylor said.

From the freedom of movement for EU vets to access to EU-wide research networks developing alternatives to animal testing, so many UK animal welfare advances are inexorably linked with our membership of the EU.

Advances seriously compromised by the hard Brexit course being piloted by a Government paralysed by confusion and division.

Sacrificed

Mr Taylor said the threats to animals posed by Brexit are tangible and plentiful, and that livestock are being readied for sacrifice on the altar of free trade.

He added: "While the Government claims the EU (Withdrawal) Bill will roll over almost half a centurys worth of hard-won animal welfare safeguards, this report shows that the assertion, both technically and practically, fails to stand up to scrutiny.

Scrutiny, incidentally, is something the Bill denies Parliament when it comes to amending and scrapping EU laws post-Brexit.

Despite the report, Defra Secretary Michael Gove has outlined his wishes for the UK to be a beacon of higher animal welfare and environmental standard once the UK leaves the EU.

The Defra Secretary has supported calls from the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation (CAWF) and Conservative Environment Network (CEN) to improve farm animal welfare and to protect the environment as the UK leaves the European Union.The sheep industry has called for the targeted use of antibiotics to ensure the immediate and long-term health of flocks.

With newborn lambs appearing around the UK, a message of responsible antibiotic use is being promoted to sheep vets and sheep farmers.

The National Sheep Association (NSA) and Sheep Veterinary Society (SVS), support by the Responsible Use of Medicines in Agriculture (RUMA) Alliance, has called for targeted use to ensure the welfare of sheep.

In letters to the Veterinary Record and Veterinary Times, a joint industry group has reminded vets of the importance of only treating lambs that need intervention, rather than automatically dosing all lambs to be on the safe side.

This message to vets coincides with the RUMA #ColostrumIsGold campaign promoting the liquid gold properties of colostrum for newborn animals and reducing the need for antibiotics.

Phil Stocker, NSA Chief Executive, said British sheep farmers pride themselves on high health and welfare standards in their flocks, and so it is essential that certain ewes and lambs are treated with antibiotics at lambing time.

Not doing so could lead to unnecessary suffering and losses. However, to preserve the efficacy of medicines in the long term, the historical approach taken on some farms of blanket treating all lambs is not appropriate, Mr Stocker said.

Good practice

Mr Stocker is one of the signatories on the letter, alongside Iain Richards (Sheep Veterinary Society President) and SVS members, who are keen for all sheep vets to access the recently published SVS Good Practice Guidelines.

The letters have been coordinated by the Sheep Health and Welfare Group (SHAWG) and the sheep sector representatives on the RUMA Targets Task Force, who are Leicestershire sheep farmer and SHAWG Chairman Charles Sercombe, and sheep vet Fiona Lovatt.

Dr Lovatt said the principle concern is the number of neonatal lambs that have historically been given a prophylactic dose of antibiotic.

He said: However, we are also concerned about anecdotal reports of the use of medicines that are not licensed for use in sheep.

Vets are in the privileged position of being allowed to prescribe medicines under the veterinary cascade, but the use of any product that is not authorised for sheep must be fully justified and have clearly auditable, clinical evidence.

Mr Sercombe concludes: While the sheep sector may present one of the lowest risks and be one of the lowest users of antibiotics, there are steps we can all take  sheep vets, animal health advisors and farmers  without any negative effect on health or performance, but helping to protect the efficacy of antibiotics for the future.NFU Scotland has urged government to agree a post-Brexit package of measures to secure the long-term viability of upland farmers as a "matter of urgency".

The farming union has called for the contribution of Scotlands hill farmers and crofters not to be measured "solely on the kilos of beef and lamb they produce".

Director of Policy Jonnie Hall said that while livestock production in the uplands is "vitally important", the value of active farming in these parts must also recognise the other "hugely significant" contributions.

These includes extensive grazing systems, and its impact on rural communities and environments.

However, Mr Hall stated that Brexit-led uncertainty threatens to undermine confidence levels in those involved in these traditional farming systems.

He has called for politicians, as a "matter of urgency", to agree a post-Brexit package of co-ordinated policy measures to secure the longer-term viability of hill and upland farming and crofting businesses.

Speaking at the conference 'A Future Vision for the Hills & Mountains', Mr Hall said: Given the physical and financial vulnerability of Scotlands hill farms and crofts for the foreseeable future, extensive hill and upland farming enterprises potentially face the sheerest cliff-edge because of Brexit and withdrawal from the CAP.

A strategy that sets out how to ensure that hill farming and crofting in Scotland can be viable and thrive must be developed.

'Brexit-driven uncertainty'

He said these traditional farming systems face "ever-increasing Brexit-driven uncertainty" that threatens to undermine confidence levels that are "already fragile".

Mr Hall continued: Rising input costs, compliance requirements and poor output prices continue to conspire, meaning that Scotlands more disadvantaged areas remain heavily reliant on agricultural support  both in terms of the direct support available through Pillar 1 and, of equal importance, the Less Favoured Areas Support Scheme of Pillar 2.

The evidence is clear that, in rapidly changing and uncertain times, a package of co-ordinated policy measures to secure the longer-term viability of hill and upland farming businesses and crofting is required as a matter of urgency.

These measures must be based on activity, rather than the area of land, and comprise of complementary measures that deliver financial stability, productivity gains and environmental benefits.

Mr Hall said the value of hill farming and crofting must not be measured by "kilos of beef or lamb alone".A new report has called on the Government to embrace organic farming in the wake of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union.

The report, which has been produced by the organic certification body OF&G (Organic Farmers and Growers) has seized on Environment Secretary Michael Gove's announcement in January.

Mr Gove said that he wanted to create a post-Brexit farming support scheme that encouraged farmers to protect the environment. OF&G says that organic farming is the ideal solution.

Defra minister Michael Gove has said that he wants to embrace change in order to secure a more sustainable future for the environment, which will include support for those who farm in the most sustainable way," said OF&G chief executive Roger Kerr.

This the perfect opportunity for Government to recognise the role organic can play in delivering those goods," he said.

Perverse outcomes

In a speech at the Oxford Farming Conference in January, Michael Gove said he wanted to see the Government deliver a "green Brexit" for the UK.

He said the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy was designed for another world.

Paying landowners for the amount of agricultural land they have is unjust, inefficient and drives perverse outcomes, he said.

The Environment Secretary said the UK would replace the existing Basic Payments of the EU with a series of support payments for what he described as "public goods."

He said: "The principal public good we will invest in is, of course, environmental enhancement."

Inherent advantages

The new report produced by OF&G, which is entitled 'An Organic Systems Approach to the Provision of Public Goods', responds by calling on the Government to properly recognise the public benefits offered by organic agriculture.

The report's authors say in their publication: We believe that there are inherent advantages that Government could exploit by investing in an organic systems approach to provide the public goods that both the environment and society urgently requires.

They say: Organic farming and food is an intrinsically agro-ecological system, where the production and processing standards are consistent with living within planetary boundaries.

In terms of public goods, it already internalises some of the most important external costs associated with non-organic food and farming.

They say: Such a policy initiative would provide a space for new environmentally benign and innovative rural strategies to flourish, building on the untapped entrepreneurial vigour amongst agro-ecologically oriented farmers and meeting the needs of like-minded food consumers and citizens.

It could, thereby, provide a viable approach to food and farming that works in partnership with an increasingly environmentally aware and ethically engaged population.

It could be a test bed for a more resilient food system that operates within a thriving countryside, with rich bio-diversity and using animal welfare friendly production methods.

Awakening of interest

OF&G refers to an awakening of interest in organic and agro-ecological production.

The Soil Association has just released figures showing that organic sales were up by six per cent in 2017 compared to the previous year.

It says the UK organic market is now worth more than ever at 2.2 billion. The organic market has been steadily growing for the last six years, according to the Soil Association report.

The OF&G report says that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is currently undertaking in depth analysis of post-Brexit policy options.

In 'An Organic Systems Approach to the Provision of Public Goods', OF&G says, "The development of a pilot scheme that effectively rewards organic production for the system level benefits it provides would be a landmark initiative and be in line with developments in devolved nations, elsewhere in Europe and around the world."

The report - a policy paper that it hopes to help inform and shape the debate about the future of food and farming - says the development of a new UK domestic agricultural policy provides the chance to address "systematic failures in the food system which have led to a decline in soils, bio-diversity and water quality."

OF&G says: "By recognising those farming systems which provide clear and substantiated benefits to the public, the Government has the opportunity to create a robust food system which offers long-term benefits."

Modern techniques

Combining modern techniques with traditional farming practices through organic farming could offer numerous benefits to the public, it says.

As well as maintaining the long-term fertility of soils, it could protect bio-diversity, preserve water quality and maintain high animal welfare at the same time as producing high quality, safe and nutritious foods.

So far, organic farming has had to bear much of the cost of providing public goods, says the report.

If organic production was properly rewarded for the multiple public goods it offered, then organic food would potentially be more accessible to all.

Distinct farming system

The paper sets out a number of issues OF&G believes the Government needs to consider if it is to create a future-proof, productive and profitable farming system. It calls for:

 organic agriculture to be recognised as a distinct farming system, which offers multiple, simultaneous benefits;

 the delivery of these public goods to be recognised and adequately rewarded - costs should not be passed onto organic consumers;

 an increase in agro-ecological farmland. It recommends that agro-ecological farming should account for about 20 per cent of the UK agricultural area, with organic representing half of that total.

Environment challenges

Roger Kerr said: We cant put clean water, bio-diversity and climate challenges on hold while we sort out soils, any more than we can solve bio-diversity issues but ignore challenges.

We need a systematic, regenerative approach to food production which addresses all of these challenges, and recognises and values those who are embracing that approach.

Michael Gove has said that the Government would outline more details about its proposals in a Spring paper ahead of a consultation period.

He said he envisaged a transition period to help farmers move from the current system.A Somerset farmer has had to ditch 8,000 litres of milk because his farm was inaccessible due to the recent severe weather conditions.

Recent conditions from the weather front nicknamed "Beast from the East" and Storm Emma caused the Met Office to issue a red warning for snow  the highest level of warning.

The south west of England was included in this red warning, and experienced some of the worst weather.

Mark Wareham, who keeps 150 cows on his farm in Trudoxhill, near Frome, told BBC News how milk tankers couldn't access his farm for two days due to the treacherous conditions.

The dairy farmer said he was hopeful trucks would be able to reach his farm tonight (3 March), and any more delays would severely impact his business.

He told the BBC: "These are pretty extreme conditions that we've experienced - it's been a challenge for everybody.

"The lorries physically couldn't get anywhere near the farm. The roads on the way were blocked and I've only got capacity to store 5,000 litres on the farm and I produce just over 4,000 every day, so I don't have enough to store for several days on end."

He added: "It's a massive impact - dairy farming is tight enough and hard enough is without losing money, but what can you do? You've just got to get on with it.

"We're expecting the tanker to get to us tonight - they've been excellent, on the phone to us every day to keep us informed."

'Businesses suffer'

National Farmers' Union (NFU) President Minette Batters said farmers are "pivotal" in the rural community, particularly during times of adverse weather.

They will be playing their part to help clear roads, unfreeze water pipes and providing emergency help to those in need, all while caring for their own business and livestock, Mrs Batters said.

Most businesses suffer during a cold snap and farming is no different. As many affected farmers will be trying to reach remote parts of their farms, I am urging everyone to remain as safe as possible and take the necessary precautions.

However in many cases, it is inevitable that business as usual will be disrupted. The NFU is supporting its members to ensure that they have the information to remain safe during this time of severe weather.

Rest assured, farmers and growers will still be working round the clock to ensure they are able to provide the public with a safe, affordable, traceable supply of British food.There is a "real sense of urgency" for government to clarify its position on rural funding for Wales after the UK leaves the EU.

The Farmers Union of Wales (FUW) has renewed its call for clarity on rural funding for Wales, following Defra Secretary Michael Goves keynote speech at the NFU Conference last month.

Whilst FUW President Glyn Roberts welcomed many of Mr Goves assurances, he said "certainty was needed" regarding issues of "critical concern" to Wales.

With around thirteen months to go before we leave the EU, there is still no clarity over the post Brexit funding formula through which Wales will receive an allocation for agriculture and rural development, or how this will be protected in order to prevent distortion between the devolved nations in terms of how much is spent on key policy areas, Mr Roberts said.

The FUW has made it clear since June 2016 that Wales funding should continue at at least current levels, and clarity on this and other matters is essential.

England seems to have had these assurances, yet Wales is still in the dark.

'Lack of certainty'

Mr Roberts said the FUW welcomed Mr Goves assurance that devolved powers would not be diluted.

He also said that the UK Governments were working together on common frameworks, but highlighted the degree to which planning in Wales by both farmers and government was "hampered by a lack of certainty".

He added: With the budget for the 2019 BPS due to be finalised in October this year, there is a real sense of urgency.

Mr Roberts also highlighted the need for policies to be "carefully assessed" rather than taken at face value.

Well intentioned policies set out in lengthy sentences must be thoroughly investigated in terms of actual figures and their likely impacts on our farms, rural communities and supply chains, he said.











The first look of Mental Hai Kya was launched today. The film is directed by Prakash Kovelamudi and written by Kanika Dhillon who also has worked on projects like Ra.One and Kedarnath. The film is produced jointly by Balaji Motion Pictures and Karma Media productions is being described as a thriller. The makers also announced that the movie will go on floors next month.Kangana Ranaut was last seen opposite Rajkummar Rao in Queen, in which both the actors delivered an exceptional performance. The two will be seen together again on screen after four years and it seems like this one will share nothing similar to Queen. Rajkummar Rao took to social media to launch the first look of the movie. He posted these pictures along with the caption, Crazy is the new normal. #MentalHaiKya with immensely talented #KanganaRanaut & my fav @ektaravikapoor. Lets begin this mental ride @ShaileshRSingh @balajimotionpic @RuchikaaKapoor @KarmaFeatures @pkovelamudi @KanikaDhillon.Kangana Ranaut spoke about the film in a recent interview with a leading daily, My next film is Mental Hai Kya, which is written by a woman screenplay writer, Kanika, The story is about a woman who could be a murderer or a mentally ill person. It talks about mental health, but also has a light-heartedness to it. Youre never sure if this girl is hallucinating or whats happening to her is for real, whether the guy (Rajkummar Rao) is trying to trap her or shes got him wrong. Kangana Ranaut also expressed her excitement on the opportunity of working with Rajkummar Rao again, He is a star today while still being a brilliant actor, so I will have to be on my toes to ensure he doesnt steal the show from right under my nose, said the actress.The producer Ekta Kapoor also shared a few more details about the film, The film promises to be a young and edgy entertainer and it comes at a time when the different and the bizzare are being celebrated, Balaji founder Ekta Kapoor said in a press release. Mental Hai Kya celebrates the beauty in imperfections and in being different and shouts out, Sanity is overrated! she said.Rajkummar Rao has been in incredible form lately as his movies like Newton and Bareilly Ki Barfi managing to win over the audience as well as the critics. Kangana Ranaut on the other hand is on a dry run as her last few films like Rangoon and Simran failed to perform at the box-office.First Look Posters Launched

Mental Hai Kya' promises to be a young and edgy entertainer and it comes at a time when 'the different and the bizzare' are being celebrated. The makers released the first look posters featuring the lead pair bringing out their crazy self.

Sanity Is Overrated

Producer Ekta Kapoor shares, "Mental Hai Kya celebrates the beauty in imperfections and in being different and shouts out, Sanity is overrated! I'm thrilled to work with Kangana and Raj on this one".

It's Hard To Define The Film, Says Kangana

The actress told Mumbai Mirror, "You're never sure if this girl is hallucinating or what's happening to her is for real, whether the guy (Rajkummar Rao) is trying to trap her or she's got him wrong."

She Is Intrigued By The Idea Of Alternate Reality

Reminiscing how as a child she once ran into a man on her way to school daily who'd laugh at the kids, Kangana said, " Everyone said he was mad but I wondered if we should be pitying him or he was the one pitying us. I'd have liked to study psychology had I continued with my education and over the years, have read a lot of books on the mind to satisfy this craving."

Kangana's Biggest Regret

One of Kangana's biggest regrets is that she portrayed an actress Sana Azim modelled on the late Parveen Babi in Mohit Suri's 2006 film Woh Lamhe without any understanding about the subject.

She revealed, "Mahesh Bhatt who scripted the film asked me if I understood her illness and I told him I did, but I didn't really understand then what schizophrenia was and played the character like she was insane. Today, she understands alternate reality better and with Prakash Kovelamudi.

Kangana Doesn't Want Rajkummar To Steal Away Her Limelight

"I was at the top of my game then but he was not intimidated and treated me on camera with the disdain his character demanded. He is a star today while still being a brilliant actor, so I will have to be on my toes to ensure he doesn't steal the show from right under my nose," quipped the actress.

What's Happening With Her Directorial Debut 'Teju'?

To this, she shared that her recent box-office reversals have made it difficult to put the project together. "I don't have my own production house, so I have to wait for my films to work to earn the confidence of the producers. For now, it's best to focus on acting. I can't sit back and wait, I have to grab every opportunity because from these opportunities, my directorial dream will be reborn," said Kangana.How It All Started..

It all began when Anshula Kapoor, daughter of Boney Kapoor and Mona Kapoor, shared a quote, "No matter how chaotic it is, wildflowers still spring up in the middle of nowhere."

This Might Be A Hidden Message For Janhvi & Khushi

She captioned the post as, "Strong willed, they dare to blossom & hold their own, spreading their beauty wherever the wind takes them. Wildflowers dare greatly."

An Ardent Arjun Kapoor Fan Abused Sridevi, Khushi & Janhvi

While everyone on social media praised and loved her heart-touching post, one ardent Arjun Kapoor fan posted an abusive message towards Sridevi, Khushi and Janhvi Kapoor, leaving Anshula Kapoor all upset!

Anshula Bashed The Troller

Anshula, who immediately deleted the abusive comment on her post, bashed the troll and replied, "Hi, I'm requesting you to refrain from using abusive language especially towards my sisters, I do not appreciate it and have therefore deleted your comments."

Spread Love & Joy

She further wrote, "While I am grateful for your passion and love for bhai and me, just a small correction - I was never working outside India. Let's please spread joy and good vibes. Thank you for the love."

We Love Anshula For Her Generosity

No matter, what bond Anshula share with Janhvi & Khushi, one thing Arjun Kapoor's sister has already proved that she's totally there for her sisters in their tough time and she will never let an outsider point a finger at them!

Anshula & Arjun Are The Pillar Of Strength For Boney Kapoor

Recently, Boney Kapoor wrote a special message for Anshula & Arjun. "I am blessed to have the support and love of Arjun and Anshula, who have been such pillars of strength for myself, Khushi and Janhvi. Together, as a family we have tried to face this unbearable loss," had written Boney Kapoor.Wife of celebrated filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani, Manjeet Hirani recently launched her book 'How To Be Human - Life Lessons by Buddy Hirani' in the presence of superstar Aamir Khan.

In this book, Manjeet, who is a well-known influencer and speaker, writes about attachment, parenting, and karma, among other things. She shows how having a dog in the house can alter your perspective and change the way you experience life.

At the book launch event, Aamir revealed that he is not at all disciplined as he looks like. He said, " "I am totally indiscipline. It's hard to believe but this is a fact. The only thing that takes me back to work is my passion for acting. Rest, I am not disciplined."

Meanwhile, Ranbir Kapoor who read the book recently shared his thoughts on the same.

The actor said, "Manjeet's book reinstates everything I have ever felt about my pets. It made me realize my goal in life is to be as good a person as they think me to be! How to be human: Life lessons from Buddy Hirani is her story, but it could very well be yours or mine."

To the lesser known, Buddy had a part to play the movie PK. The shooting led to a fond bond etched between Manjeet and the animal. So much that the Hirani's decided to pet it and named him Buddy Hirani.

Ranbir Kapoor will be seen in Rajkumar Hirani's upcoming film based on the life of Sanjay Dutt. Actress Dia Mirza who has been a part of Rajkumar Hirani's Lage Raho Munna Bhai and will be next seen in Sanjay Dutt biopic has penned the foreword for the film.

How to Be Human is a charming and heart-warming book that, with its light touch, will make you look at life from a less cynical standpoint.Christopher Nolan's longtime collaborator in the editing room, Austrailian Lee Smith bagged his first Oscar today, for Nolan's film Dunkirk which depicts the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II.

Smith was previously nominated for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight and Peter Weir's Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.

"I just want -- I just want to say, this is the most awesome thing that can happen to a guy like me. I really want to just start by thanking Christopher Nolan, who, they moved me from over there to sit with him. Because Chris is an editor himself, I mean, he doesn't handle the actual equipment and I'm very, very happy for that.

His fabulous wife, Emma, always supportive, great producer. Incredible, I mean, Dunkirk was truly the most amazing film, and I'm very fortunate to have worked on it. I'd also like to thank my beautiful wife sitting over there, Kimberley, my daughter up in the nosebleed section. Wherever. My -- I'm wrapping up, I'm wrapping up. Melanie Ramsay, John Lee, my editorial assistants, Warner brothers, the Academy, can't talk any quicker. I'm an editor, I should be able to do this very quickly. [Presenter] Matthew McConaughey, awesome. Thank you," said Smith while accepting the trophy for 'Best Editing'.

The film received eight nominated categories at the 23rd Critics' Choice Awards; winning one for Best Editing, and at the 71st British Academy Film Awards; winning one for Best Sound, three at the 75th Golden Globe Awards. It also received eight nominations at the 90th Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Nolan (his first ever Oscar nomination for directing), winning for Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.Keith & Rochelles Beach Wedding

The couple got married at a beach (Mahabalipuram, Tamilnadu) wedding on Saturday, March 3. The wedding was a low-key affair. Going by the pictures, we must say that the wedding was no less than a fairytale affair.

KeRo's Wedding

Apparently, the couple, who announced their engagement last year, made a few trips to Chennai last year and finally zeroed down on Mahabalipuram.

KeRo's Pre-wedding Picture

Sonali Bhasin shared a couple of pictures and wrote, "Friends from far and near get together to celebrate a beautiful wedding.. #preweddding #prettyladies #fun #masti #friends #celebrate #gettogether #laugh #smile #enjoy #moments #instaphoto #instapost#kerogetshitched." - (Sic)

Sonali With KeRo

Sharing another picture, Sonali wrote, "Happy to be around the happy and beautiful couple @keithsequeira @rochellerao.. Heartiest congratulations to both of you. God bless xx #preweddding #celebration #cocktail #party #beach #destinationwedding #mahabalipuram #beautiful #love #wedding #smile #happy#kerogetshitched." - (Sic)

Lisa Bocarro

Lisa Bocarro shared a few pictures and wrote, "To happy beginnings! Congratulations to two of my absolute favourites! @rochellerao @keithsequeira The most beautiful heartfelt wedding I've ever witnessed. Seen these two journey through what love was defined to be #kerogetshitched." - (Sic)

Nadisha Thomas

Nadisha Thomas shared a picture snapped with the bride and groom and wrote, "Congratulations to this beautiful couple who had such a fairytale wedding  thank you so much for getting me to sing for you guys.. it was an absolute pleasure! God bless y'all! #KeRoGetsHitched #fairytalewedding #tearyeyed #beautifulsouls #weddinggig #bestaudienceever #"- (Sic)

Kyana Emmot Writes

Kyana Emmot shared a few pictures and wrote, "Hair and Makeup by me for @rochellerao s special day! #indianbride #updo #bridal #kerogetshitched." - (Sic)

What Keith Loves About Rochelle?

While talking to a leading daily, Keith revealed as to what he loves about Rochelle, "The first thing that I love about Rochelle is that she is an emotional rock for me. It also helps that since we come from similar backgrounds, we understand each other better and so she just gets me, always. She is also a very spiritual being, which I really relate to."By Marie Dunn-Harris 95

Not many high school students can say they received their associate degree just weeks after receiving their high school diploma.

Thanks to Ohios College Credit Plus program, Kimble Arnold was able to do just that, and even more. The Monroeville, Ohio, native went on to complete his Bachelor of Science degree at 19 years old and was the youngest in his class to receive a bachelors from BGSU in December.

It was a great opportunity for me to meet new people and have a lot of new experiences that I wouldnt have been able to have just in the high school setting, Arnold said.

While a student at Firelands, Arnold worked in the Teaching and Learning Center on campus, where he tutored students in chemistry, math, biology, computer science and Spanish.

Kimble created great memories for many of our student tutees, young and old, who credit him with their academic success in several of the science classes, said Brigitte Green-Churchwell, director of Student Academic Enhancement. For us in the Teaching and Learning Center, Kimble provided a great service that continued our quality reputation of academic support to our campus community.

We are grateful for all the encouragement and tutoring expertise in science and math that he has offered the students of Firelands, said Alyson Wilson, senior mathematics lecturer.

Arnold received his associate degree in science, highest distinction in spring of 2016. Because of the many credit hours he had already taken, he was able to complete his Bachelor of Applied Health Science degree with honors only a year and a half later.

After receiving his diploma, Arnold was able to continue working at the Teaching and Learning Center while he applied to medical schools.

Everyone at Firelands is rooting for Kimble and we are very confident in his future in the medical field, Wilson said.

Arnold recently found out that he was accepted into medical school at the University of Toledo.

Im going from being a Falcon to being a Rocket, so itll be interesting for sure, he said.

Arnold isnt sure what specialty he wants to study just yet. Hes interested in psychiatry or anything related to allergy, immunology or radiology.

Im going in with an open mind and let the specialty pick me, he said.

Whatever path he chooses, his peers know he has a bright future ahead.

Kimble is genuinely interested in the faculty and staff when he asks, How are you doing today? Wilson said. That's what will bring comfort to future patients he meets in the medical field.

While Arnold moves ahead with his career, he will always remember the time spent at BGSU Firelands and the College Credit Plus program.

Its been a wonderful opportunity, he said. Ive met a very diverse group of people and learned about differences between people that I wouldnt have met otherwise.

Ohios College Credit Plus program is in its fourth year, and has had nearly 65,000 students participate. Public high school students who are interested in CCP can now notify their principal of their interest. The deadline for declarations of intent is April 1.

Did this "tic" come about after some event???

Does the engine have a lot of deposits showing under the valve cover????

Has the engine had any other problems, like fueling or oiling issues.

How was the Seafoam ingested, though a vacuum line, in the gas tank, in the crankcase????

I agree, It kinda sounds like a valve problem, with the engine running rough when the intermittent tic noise is present.



If it's a valve stem or lifter deposit problem, thicker oil isn't likely to make a difference, but a thinner oil, like an SN grade 5W-20, which your engine is speced to be able to use, that has a good detergent ad pack, or something in the thicker oil if it's still in there, that'll get in tight places & get after deposits, but still do a good lube job, might make a difference.

Just don't get crazy pouring in aftermarket treatments such that you create other problems, especially if the engine has a heavy deposit load, in which case you'd want to go after dissolving them slowly like they were formed, so they don't cause other mischief.



I've used Marvel Oil for a short period a couple of times just before an oil change, on my old squeeky clean inside 78 Merc Zypher 3.3L I6 engine, to tidy up some apparent deposits of some sort, probably light gum or varnish that were causing what sounded like a stuck lifter, or valve that caused intermittent noise & rough running, that sounded just as you describe.



I was close to oil & filter change time, so I began with 1/2 qt to top up the sump, it got better right away, so I later removed some oil & added the other 1/2 qt of Marvel Oil about 500 miles before the scheduled oil & filter change. The problem never returned & I finally let the old girl go back in 08 & it was still running just fine.



Some more thoughts for pondering, let us know what you find.The link between breast-feeding and HIV transmission

In 1992, Overbaugh teamed up with Dr. Ruth Nduati at the University of Nairobi and Dr. Joan Kreiss at the University of Washington to study whether breast-feeding raises the risk of HIV transmission from mother to infant. Formula feeding posed clear health risks to infants, particularly in areas where mothers could not access clean water, and the World Health Organization recommended breast-feeding over formula-feeding, even for mothers infected with HIV-1. At the time, the risk of HIV transmission through breast milk was unclear, and antiretroviral drugs that could prevent mother-child transmission were not yet available. Overbaughs lab supported the study by developing assays to detect HIV subtypes circulating in Kenya.

The team found that breast-feeding doubled the risk of HIV transmission from mother to child. Though collected decades ago, the samples from study are still providing insights that may help inform HIV vaccine design.

Further work from Overbaughs group suggests that maternal antibodies which facilitate antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity of HIV-infected cells may have a protective effect, and it has shown that infants can generate broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV much more rapidly than adults. Perhaps most importantly, broadly neutralizing antibodies from infants have acquired their neutralization capabilities with fewer immunoglobulin gene modifications than those from adults. This finding could provide insights that help scientists design HIV vaccines that stimulate adults to produce a broadly neutralizing response more quickly than natural infection.

Overbaugh also discussed an HIV variant found in a specific infant from the Nairobi breast-feeding trial, BG505. The infant produced a broad neutralizing antibody response to the infection. HIVs envelope protein studs the outside of the virus in groups of three, known as trimers. The envelope protein from this infants HIV variant has been widely studied by researchers seeking a better understanding of how HIVs structure contributes to its infectivity and ability to stimulate an immune response.

Its been very exciting to see how the field has landed on one virus from this trial  and that this BG505 trimer is advancing [HIV] vaccine research at a rapid pace, she said.

Lessons learned from 25 years of collaboration

Overbaugh also touched on what shes learned from her 25 years of international collaboration, particularly the lessons most relevant to young investigators.

There are great opportunities for collaboration in science, you just have to jump in and see if theyre right for you, she said. Its also been my experience that theres value in having a clinical and an international perspective as a basic scientist studying HIV.  [My collaborators] reminded me that the study of the fascinating aspects of HIV is best blended with a focus on our end goal, which is to prevent, treat and cure HIV.

Its also really just fun to be part of a supportive, long-term collaborative team, she added. As somebody who came from a working-class family and a small town, I never expected to have the experiences and the opportunities Ive had. Nor did I expect to develop the friendships Ive developed as part of this collaboration.

The annual Bernard Fields Lecture honors Dr. Bernard N. Fields, a virologist and leader in the field of molecular pathogenesis, who passed away in 1995. In 1994, Fields wrote a Nature commentary that called for AIDS researchers to turn to basic science and reinvigorated the research agenda and NIH funding policies in HIV and AIDS, said Dr. Douglas Richman, a virologist at the University of California, San Diego and director of the UC San Diego HIV Institute, who introduced the Bernard Fields Lecture.

We honor Bernies example with an annual award to an investigator who has made major contributions to basic and translational research in HIV, said Richman, who described Overbaugh as the ideal Bernard Fields awardee. Her lecture and slides can be viewed on the CROI site.Invasive water flea found in Upper Mississippi River

March 5, 2018



Invasive common water fleas collected from Pool 8 of the Upper Mississippi River near La Crosse, Wisconsin in August 2017. Photo courtesy of Elista Fisher/University of Wisconsin - La Crosse.

Working closely with biologists from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, we recently documented the invasive common water flea, Daphnia lumholtzi, in a new location. Two individual water fleas were identified in December 2017 from a sample collected on August 7, 2017 in a backwater of Pool 8 of the Mississippi River. The invasive water fleas, a type of zooplankton, were found during collaborative plankton monitoring efforts conducted on the Mississippi River near La Crosse, Wisconsin.

In the United States, the common water flea has thrived in warmer lakes and reservoirs in the south. However, the species was first detected in the Mississippi River during 1999 by researchers working on Lake Pepin in Minnesota. The most recent discovery of water fleas in Wisconsin provides new evidence to suggest that the species is more widespread in the Mississippi River basin than previously thought.

Previous studies indicate that the invasive common water flea can reproduce quickly and out-compete native zooplankton. Native zooplankton are an important food source for juvenile sportfish and other fish species that consume plankton throughout their lives, like paddlefish. Unlike most native zooplankton, the common water flea has large, sharp spines on its head and tail that makes it difficult for some fish to eat. If water fleas become too abundant in an area, edible zooplankton can become less prevalent for fish to eat. This can lead to the movement of fish out of the area, or reduced growth rates of fish that remain in waters invaded by common water flea.

The common water flea is originally from the warm lakes and streams in Africa, southern Asia, and Australia. It has been inadvertently introduced to numerous locations throughout the world. It is unclear exactly how these introductions have occurred, but scientists hypothesize that the movement of watercraft among water bodies may be a major mode of transport for common water flea. Collaborative plankton monitoring efforts on the upper Mississippi River will continue during the summer of 2018.What is the use of App Permissions?

Almost all the apps installed on your Android device needs to collect different information for functioning correctly. For example, for using Google Maps, the app needs to know your location to give you the right direction. There is no point of using Google Maps if you don't permit it to know about your location. Previously, Android allowed the developers to access the data that they required for their apps to function correctly.

But now the access to such information has become difficult for the users. You can now choose to deny the permission to the apps if you think that the data is not necessary for that app. You need to explicitly Allow' to permit accessing the data.

How to manage app permissions?

You can manage app permission right when you install the app. You can just tap on "Allow" or "Deny" tab to allow and deny permissions respectively to the app. That's the easy part. But what if you want to revoke your decision? If you're going to change the permission t status for an app, then follow the steps given below.

Step 1: Go to Settings.'

Step 2: Click on Apps.' This will open the list of the apps installed on your Android device.

Step 3: Tap on the app whose permission you would like to manage.

Step 4: Tap on Permissions.'

You will now see a list of all the permission that the app needs. Just toggle on and off the permission that you want to give and deny. That's it, wasn't that easy?

You can check all the permissions required by the app in detail by tapping on the three vertical dots placed at the upper right section of the corner. Then tap on All permissions.' You will be now given a detailed list of the things that the app can do by gaining permission of a certain category. Viewing this list will give you a clear picture about the permission that the app is seeking.

20 Things You No Longer Need Just Because of Smartphones

Wrap Up

Android has taken a good step for keeping your personal data safe and privacy intact. What do you think about the new permissions system on Android Marshmallow and the higher version? Let us know if you think if Android needs further improvement for providing more security to its users.Turning off Google Voice assistant

Step 1: First, go to Settings -> Select Google.

Step 2: Now tap Search under the Services header.

Step 3: Now select the Voice entry, where you will see an option called Voice Match.

Step 4: Now, turn off the Say "OK Google" any time switch.

or

Step 1: Tap on the Google app and tap on the three horizontal lines in the upper left corner

Step 2: Tap "Settings."

Step 3: Select Voice -> Ok Google detection.

Step 4: Tap the slider next to "Say Ok Google" anytime" to disable the feature.

Stop linking your voice recording to your Google's Account

Step 1: Now go to Google's Activity Controls page and log into your account.

Step 2: After that scroll down till you see Voice & Audio Activity.

Step 3: Now turn off the slider and you'll stop linking your voice recordings to your Google account.

How to remove your number from true caller app

Block Google from using your phones microphone

Step 1: Head on to Settings -> Apps & notifications.

Step 2: Select "See all apps" to see the apps you have installed on your device

Step 3: Scroll down, till you see the Google app and select it.

Step 4: Now tap Permissions and turn off the toggle of the Microphone slider.Best Android Oreo smartphones to buy in March 2018 Features oi-Harish Kumar If you want an Android Oreo smartphone, you can buy any of these devices.

At the MWC 2018, several Android flagship smartphones were unveiled. It goes without saying that these models run Android Oreo out of the box. Also, many existing smartphones received the update from Android Nougat. Many smartphones launched last year have started receiving the Oreo update that brings new features such as Picture in Picture mode, Notification Dots, Autofill, Quick Toggle, and a lot more.

Samsung, Asus, Alcatel, Nokia and many other brands unveiled their flagship smartphones and other models based on Android Oreo at the recently concluded MWC 2018 in Barcelona.

SEE ALSO: Buying Guide: Best smartphones you can buy in India

While the release date of many of these smartphones is not known, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9+ are all set to be released in India on March 16. These smartphones are also available for pre-booking for a cost of Rs. 2,000.

If you want an Android Oreo smartphone, you can buy any of these smartphones we have listed below. Take a look at these models and choose the right one for you.

Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus Best Price of Samsung Galaxy S9 Plus

Key Specs

6.2 Inch QHD+ Super AMOLED Display

Octa Core Exynos 9810/Snapdragon 845 Processor

Android 8.0 (Oreo)

6GB RAM With 64/128/256GB ROM

WiFi

NFC

Bluetooth

Dual SIM

Dual Pixel 12MP Rear Camera

8MP Front Camera

Iris Scanner

Fingerprint

IP68

3500 MAh Battery Samsung Galaxy S9 Best Price of Samsung Galaxy S9

Key Specs

5.8 Inch QHD+ Super AMOLED Display

Octa Core Exynos 9810/Snapdragon 845 Processor

4GB RAM With 64/128/256GB ROM

Android 8.0 (Oreo)

WiFi

NFC

Bluetooth

Dual SIM

Dual Pixel 12MP Rear Camera

8MP Front Camera

Iris Scanner

Fingerprint

IP68

3000 MAh Battery Motorola Moto Z2 Force Best Price of Moto Z2 Force

Key Specs

5.5-inch (1440 x 2560 pixels) Quad HD AMOLED POLED ShatterShield, shatterproof display

2.45GHz Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform with Adreno 540 GPU

6GB RAM

64GB storage

expandable memory up to 2TB with microSD

Android 8.0 (Oreo)

Hybrid Dual SIM (nano + nano / microSD)

12MP dual rear cameras (monochrome + color) with dual-tone LED flash

5MP front-facing camera

4G VoLTE

2730mAh battery with Turbo Charging HTC U11 Plus Best Price of HTC U11 Plus

Key Specs

6-inch (2880 x 1440 pixels) Quad HD+ Super LCD 6 display with Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection

2.45GHz Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform with Adreno 540 GPU

4GB RAM with 64GB storage

6GB RAM with 128GB internal storage

expandable memory up to 2TB with microSD

Android 8.0 Oreo with HTC Sense U.I

Nano SIM

12MP UltraPixel 3 rear camera with Dual LED flash

8MP front-facing camera

4G VoLT

3930mAh built-in battery with QuickCharge 3.0 Motorola Moto X4 Best Price of Moto X4

Key Specs

5.2-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) Full HD LTPS IPS display with Corning Gorilla Glass protection

2.2 GHz Octa-Core Snapdragon 630 14nm Mobile Platform with Adreno 508 GPU

3GB RAM with 32GB storge

4GB RAM with 64GB storage

expandable memory up to 2TB with microSD

Android 8.0 (Oreo)

Hybrid Dual SIM (nano + nano/microSD)

12MP primary camera and 8MP ultra-wide angle secondary camera

16MP Front-facing camera with LED flash

4G VoLTE

3000mAh battery with Turbo Charging Honor 9 Lite 64GB Best Price of Honor 9 Lite 64GB

Key Specs

5.65-Inch Full HD+ 18:9 Display

2.36GHz Octa-Core Huawei Kirin 659 Processor

Android 8.0 (Oreo)

3GB RAM/32GB ROM And 4GB RAM With 64GB ROM

13 MP + 2MP Rear Camera With LED Flash

13MP + 2MP Front Facing Camera

Hybrid Dual SIM

4G/WiFi/Bluetooth 4.2

3000 MAh Battery Honor V10 (View 10) Best Price of Honor V10

Key Specs

5.99-inch (2160 x 1080 pixels) Full HD+ 18:9 FullView display

Octa-Core Huawei Kirin 970 with 10nm processor + i7 co-processor, Mali-G72 MP12 GPU

4GB RAM with 64GB storage

6GB RAM, 64GB /128GB storage

expandable memory up to 256GB with microSD

Android 8.0 (Oreo) with EMUI 8.0

Hybird Dual SIM (nano SIM + nano SIM / microSD)

16MP (RGB) + 20MP (Monochrome) Dual rear cameras

13MP front-facing camera with f/2.0 aperture

4G VoLTE

3750mAh (typical) / 3650mAh (minimum) battery with fast charging Google Pixel 2 XL Best Price of Google Pixel 2 XL

Key Specs 6-inch (2880 x 1440 pixels) Quad HD+ pOLED display with 100% DCI-P3 coverage

Octa-Core Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform with Adreno 540 GPU

4GB DDR4X RAM, 64GB / 128GB storage

Android 8.0 (Oreo)

12.2MP rear camera with LED flash

8MP front camer

4G VoLTE

3520mAh battery with fast charging Google Pixel 2 Best Price of Google Pixel 2

Key Specs

5 inch FHD AMOLED Display

2.35GHz Snapdragon 835 Octa-Core Processor

Android 8.0 (Oreo)

4GB RAM With 64/128 ROM

12.2MP Camera With LED Flash

8MP Front Camera

Single Nano Sim

USB Type-C

4G VoLTE/NFC/Bluetooth 5.0

2700mAh Battery Sony Xperia XZ1 Best Price of Sony Xperia XZ1

Key Specs

5.2-inch (1920 x 1080 pixels) HDR TRILUMINOS Display with X-Reality and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 protection

Octa-Core Snapdragon 835 Mobile Platform with Adreno 540 GPU

4GB RAM

64GB internal memory

expandable memory up to 256GB with microSD card

Android 8.0 (Oreo)

Single / Dual SIM

Water Resistant (IP65/IP68)

19MP rear camera with Exmos RS sensor

13MP front-facing camera

4G VoLTE

2700mAh battery with Qnovo Adaptive Charging

Best Mobiles in India

Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow NotificationsOnline smartphone shipments grew 23% in 2017 News oi-Priyanka Seasonal sales events, aggressive promotions and value for money offerings from Chinese brands drove the demand for the online channel.

According to a new report by research firm Counterpoint, India's overall online smartphone shipments grew 23 percent annually, faster than the overall smartphone market in 2017.

More than half of the online smartphone channel volumes, as well as value, were dominated by Flipkart in 2017, followed by Amazon and Mi.com. Online exclusive smartphones were the main contributors to the online sale, a report said.

The report further said that seasonal sales events, aggressive promotions and value for money offerings from Chinese brands drove the demand for the online channel.

Tarun Pathak, Associate Director at Counterpoint Research said, "Online channel contributes to more than one-third of the total smartphones shipped in India during the year, which is the highest in the world. Flipkart led the online smartphone channel capturing more than half of the market in both volume and value terms maintaining its lead with Amazon. However, Amazon also able to grow share capturing almost one-third of the market in volume and value terms. Indian online channel market has become a duopoly with Flipkart and Amazon capturing a combined 84 percent of the total volume and 87 percent of the total value.

Counterpoint said that together Flipkart and Amazon were able to attract a lot of brands and consumers on their platforms by launching close to 100 exclusive model SKUs throughout the year.

However, these platforms will have to adopt multiple strategies from increasing number of serviceable ZIP codes, hybrid offline stores, and customer service kiosks to attract and gain more users to the platform.

Furthermore, the firm pointed out that the top three online smartphone brands contributed to 75 percent of the online smartphone market. Xiaomi, Lenovo, and Samsung were the top 3 brands on Flipkart as well as Amazon.

Close to 100 exclusive smartphones were launched on online platforms in 2017. Smartphone brands are also launching special edition smartphones like specific color variants.

Online-only brands are now expanding to offline for growth. Xiaomi is expanding its reach with Mi preferred partners, Mi homes while Motorola is expanding with Moto Hubs.

Best Mobiles in India

Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow NotificationsRazer Phone might get Android 8.1 instead of Android 8.0 News oi-Sandeep Sarkar Some folks at XDA Developers hinted that the Razer Phone might not receive the Android 8.0 Oreo update, instead, the device will be updated directly to Android 8.1 Oreo.

Razer which is a popular gaming hardware company forayed into the smartphone space by launching the first gaming smartphone aimed at gamers. The smartphone has managed to attract a lot of attention, from users all around.

As per some reports from the Beebom, some folks at XDA Developers hinted that the Razer Phone might not receive the Android 8.0 Oreo update, instead, the device will be updated directly to Android 8.1 Oreo.

The report further suggests that this information comes from the code which the Razer engineers have been submitting. The codes submitted by the engineers directly mention that the testing is being done For Android 8.1 Oreo and not for Android 8.0.

Further, the company states on its support page that the Oreo will arrive on the Razer Phone by Q1 of 2018. This gives Razer less than thirty days to roll out the Oreo update.

Recently the company has launched Razer Phone 2018 Gold Edition to celebrate Chinese New Year which happens to be on February 16. The new Razer Phone 2018 Gold Edition comes with the company's branding painted in gold color. However, rest of the features and specifications remain the same as the original smartphone that was launched in 2017.

The handset is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor paired with 8GB RAM. It offers 64GB storage that's expandable up to 2TB via microSD card. It runs on Android 7.1.1 Nougat operating system (eligible for Android 8.0 Oreo) and is backed by a 4000mAh battery with Quick Charge technology.

As for the cameras, the smartphone features a 12MP main camera with f1.75 wide angle lens, 2x telephoto zoom and dual LED flash. Up front, there is an 8MP front-snapper with f2.0 wide angle lens. Connectivity options on the Razer Phone include Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC, 4G, and 3G. It measures 158.5x77.7x8mm and weighs 197 grams.

We will keep you posted with further updates from Razer and other smartphone companies.

For all latest tech related news stay connected with www.gizbot.com

Best Mobiles in India

Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow NotificationsSamsung Galaxy J8 spotted on Geekbench ahead of its official launch News oi-Samden Sherpa Samsung is planning on bringing several smartphones in the J series in the market.

Samsung has already been working on several new smartphones in the Galaxy J series form what we have heard so far. Besides, the company is probably looking to bring in new devices like Galaxy J4, Galaxy J6, U.S. variant of Galaxy J3 in the market if you go by the reports. And further, many Samsung handsets have already popped up on the benchmarking websites. From what we can tell, Samsung does have a lot of Galaxy J series models in its pipeline and the devices may launch soon. Besides Galaxy J series has been the most popular one for the company.

Having said that, it looks like Samsung is planning on bringing one more device in the J series in the market. Well, a device with a model number SM-J800FN has just been spotted in the Geekbench database. On analyzing the details provided by the benchmark website the SM-J800FN model number hints at Samsung Galaxy J8. Many reports also suggest the same.

However, apart from the model number, there are few other details leaked about the alleged Galaxy J8.

As per the benchmark database, Samsung Galaxy J8 is being powered by an Exynos 7870 processor clocked at 1.6 GHz. It is accompanied by 3GB of RAM. The device is running Android 8.0. And going by these, it looks it will be a mid-ranger.

Interestingly, the specs seem similar to the current Galaxy J7 and other J series phones. Thus, there are speculations that this model could be another rebranded Galaxy J series phone for a specific market or a retailer. But we can't say anything as of now, as details are very scarce.

In any case, Samsung must be working to revamp its Galaxy J series phones to combat the products from the Chinese OEMs like Xiaomi, Honor, Oppo amongst others. Chinese manufacturers have been growing in popularity a lot in several markets and this could pose a threat to the market leaders.

Samsung Galaxy S7: Private Mode, Do Not Disturb, Smart View, Always On Display Explained

Meanwhile, Samsung just unveiled its new flagships, the Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 duo at MWC 2018. It looks like will be hearing a lot from the company in the coming days.

Source

Best Mobiles in IndiaVodafone luanches VoLTE services in Rajasthan News oi-Priyanka Currently, the company is offering its VoLTE support to OnePlus 3, 3T, 5, 5T, Xiaomi Redmi 4, Mi Mix 2, Mi Max 2, Nokia 5, Nokia 8, Honor View 10, 9i, 7X, Honor 8 Pro, Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro and Galaxy

After launching its VoLTE services in Maharashtra & Goa, India's second largest telecom operator Vodafone today announced the roll-out of its services in Rajasthan with cities like Jaipur and Jodhpur.

With this rollout, Vodafone subscribers in the two cities can experience HD quality voice calls, if they're using a Vodafone VoLTE supported device, the telco said.

Amit Bedi, Business Head - Rajasthan, Vodafone India, said, "We have been making significant investments to expand, upgrade and modernize our network to ensure that we provide the finest service experience and seamless connectivity to our valued customers. We are delighted that Vodafone is the first GSM operator to launch VoLTE services in Rajasthan beginning with Jaipur and Jodhpur and soon extend it to other key cities. Vodafone VoLTE is a step further towards enhancing customer experience and enabling our customers in Rajasthan to explore newer possibilities with their smart devices."

Meanwhile, Vodafone said that it will extend its VoLTE services across the country in a phased manner over the next few months.

Currently, the company is offering its VoLTE support to OnePlus 3, 3T, 5, 5T, Xiaomi Redmi 4, Mi Mix 2, Mi Max 2, Nokia 5, Nokia 8, Honor View 10, 9i, 7X, Honor 8 Pro, Samsung Galaxy C9 Pro and Galaxy J7 Nxt.

To recall, Idea has recently announced the launch of its Voice over LTE (VoLTE) services for employees, in select markets starting from 1st March 2018. Idea's VoLTE services will be launched in over 30 cities across 4 circles including the key cities of Kochi, Trivandrum, Calicut, Pune, Goa, Nashik, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Surat, Rajkot and Hyderabad among others, in the first half of the month.

Idea plans to cover all 20 4G circles with VoLTE services by the end of April '18. Initially, the service will be available for employees, to experience Idea VoLTE which will offer ultra High Definition call quality as compared to a standard voice call. Idea VoLTE services on the high-speed 4G network will enable users to simultaneously have un-interrupted internet experience while using voice service.

Best Mobiles in India

Facebook, To stay updated with latest technology news & gadget reviews, follow GizBot on Twitter YouTube and also subscribe to our notification. Allow NotificationsSun Sunday

82 /49

A few clouds. Highs in the low 80s and lows in the upper 40s.Bin Salman in Cairo after Egypt fully cedes sovereignty over islands

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 07:02PM

Saudi Arabia's crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has finally begun his tour of Egypt a day after the North African country ignored public discontent and cleared all legal hurdles impeding the transfer of two Red Sea islands to the kingdom.

Bin Salam was greeted in Cairo airport on Sunday by Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the incumbent president who heavily counts on Saudi support to remain in office after the next month presidential election.

The office of the Egyptian presidency said Salman and Sisi held a phone call with US President Donald Trump on Sunday and discussed with him "regional issues" and "ways of combating terrorism". Bin Salman is slated to travel to the US later this month after stays in Egypt and in the United Kingdom.

The trip to Egypt is first for bin Salman since he was appointed heir to throne last June. The controversial appointment came after the relatively young prince, a son of King Salman, forced his powerful cousin prince Mohammad bin Nayef out of office. That was followed by rounds of purges of other royals on accusations of corruption and misuse of public funds. His trip also comes days after an overhaul of Saudi Arabia's military leadership.

Bin Salman comes to Egypt against the backdrop of public discontent with a government decision to hand over sovereignty of two islands in the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia. The decision sparked massive protests when it was first announced in 2015. However, Egypt's top court on Saturday nullified all legal challenges to the deal and endorsed Sisi's last year ratification of the transfer.

The Saudi prince's visit to Cairo also comes ahead of next month's presidential election in Egypt. Sisi, a former military attache to Saudi Arabia, led a coup as army chief against former president Mohammed Morsi in 2013 and came to power a year later relying on massive Saudi support. Experts said bin Salman's visit to Cairo indicated that Riyadh was totally happy with Sis's rule in Egypt.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





4 Egyptian soldiers killed amid Sinai offensive

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 06:58PM

Egypt's army says at least four soldiers have been killed and three others wounded in an ongoing military operation against militants in the Sinai Peninsula.

Col. Tamer Rifa, an army spokesman, said in a statement on Sunday that at least ten militants were also killed and 245 others detained during anti-terror raids in the North Sinai city of Arish.

The spokesman added that warplanes attacked six militant targets in northern and central Sinai and the Nile Delta.

The deaths raise military casualties to at least 16 dead, along with more than 100 militants, since the start of the operation on February 9,

The army launched the campaign after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi gave them a three-month deadline to crush the Takfiri Daesh terrorists in Sinai.

Sisi issued the ultimatum in November after suspected Daesh gunmen massacred hundreds of worshippers in a Sinai mosque associated with Muslim Sufi mystics.

In recent years, militant groups have killed hundreds of soldiers, policemen and civilians in Sinai and elsewhere in Egypt.

Sinai has been the hotbed of militancy in Egypt since a coup led by Sisi ousted former President Mohamed Morsi in the summer of 2013. Sisi came to power a year later only to see attacks that had normally targeted security forces in Sinai expanded to the mainland Egypt to affect civilians.

A branch of Daesh, a Takfiri terrorist group that is on its last legs in Iraq and Syria, where it was most active, has been behind many attacks in Sinai and elsewhere. The group was blamed for the attack at a northern Sinai mosque in November that killed over 300 worshippers.

Many blame Sisi's tough crackdown on dissent for the protracted violence in Egypt. Under the former army chief, the Egyptian judiciary has jailed tens of thousands of activists, many of them members or sympathizers of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, a political party from which Morsi and members of his cabinet had hailed.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Talks at impasse as Taliban seek direct negotiations with US

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 03:09PM

The Afghan government's surprising new peace offer to Taliban is immediately running into a wall as the militants show no sign of shifting from their demand that talks for a conflict-ending compromise take place with Washington, not Kabul, a media report says.

Top Afghan security officials, who maintain back-channel discussions with Taliban, say formal talks are impeded by Taliban's insistence that their regime, ousted in a US-led invasion in 2001, remains Afghanistan's legitimate government, Associated Press reported on Sunday.

The new offer by the administration of President Ashraf Ghani includes incentives for militants that join negotiations and enter the political mainstream.

Ghani announced at an international conference in Kabul last week that the government would provide passports and visas to Taliban members and their families and work to remove sanctions against Taliban leaders. The group could also set up an office.

Meanwhile, US officials have conveyed messages to Taliban's political representatives in Qatar, urging the group to join talks with the Afghan government.

Alice Wells, America's top diplomat for South Asia, endorsed the overture and said the "onus" was on Taliban to demonstrate they are ready to talk "not to me or the United States, but to the sovereign and legitimate government and people of Afghanistan."

The militant group on February 28 called for direct talks with the United States in a declared bid to find a "peaceful solution" to the war in Afghanistan.

Last month, Taliban urged the "American people" to press their government to withdraw from Afghanistan. "America must end her occupation and must accept all our legitimate rights including the right to form a government consistent with the beliefs of our people."

Washington's involvement in the Afghan conflict is now in its 17th year.

Laurel Miller, who until last June was a senior American diplomat for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said the US should be clearer about what it is willing to negotiate on, including when it might start pulling forces from Afghanistan. "That could set the stage for talks," she said.

Such a timetable seems a remote prospect. Since August, when US President Donald Trump recommitted America to an indefinite military presence in the country, the US has sent in thousands of additional forces to train Afghans, bringing the total number of US troops to more than 14,000.

A peace push by the administration of former US President Barack Obama, which relied heavily on Afghanistan's neighbor Pakistan, floundered in 2015. Neighboring countries are doubtful about America's commitment to a political resolution.

For months, hopes of reviving long-stalled peace talks with Taliban have seemed virtually dead. The insurgents have continued an aggressive campaign in the countryside, where they now control or influence nearly half of Afghan territory, while staging repeated attacks in the capital despite intensified security.

Civilian casualties remain at near-peak levels, with about 10,000 reported for 2017. Since 2001, the US-led invasion has cost nearly 200,000 lives, and since 2014 additional violent attacks by regional affiliates of the Takfiri Daesh terrorists have heightened the sense of mayhem.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Mueller investigates possible UAE effort to buy political influence

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 09:35AM

US special counsel Robert Mueller's team is reportedly investigating possible efforts by the United Arab Emirates to buy political influence in the White House by supporting Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.

The investigators have, in recent weeks, questioned a Lebanese-American businessman with ties to the Persian Gulf nation who discussed Middle East policy with top aides to Trump, The New York Times reported Saturday.

George Nader, a back-channel negotiator with Syria during the Clinton administration and later an adviser to the de facto ruler of the UAE, frequently visited President Trump's White House last year.

The investigators have asked about Nader's role in White House policymaking and his meetings with senior adviser Jared Kushner and former chief strategist Steve Bannon, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

They discussed US policy toward Persian Gulf nations prior to Trump's first foreign trip to Saudi Arabia in May 2017, the Times said.

The investigators have also been pressing witnesses for information about any possible attempts by the Emiratis to buy political influence by funneling money to support Trump before he took office.

This could prompt an examination of how money from multiple countries has flowed through and influenced Washington during the Trump era.

The special counsel, who is investigating Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 election, has also asked witnesses about Kushner's attempts to secure financing for his family's real estate investments, focusing specifically on his talks with people from Turkey, Qatar, Russia and China in addition to the UAE.

Mueller's team has also expressed interest in a meeting Kushner held at Trump Tower in December 2016 with former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani. The Qatari embassy in Washington, however, rejected the assertions.

According to The Washington Post, officials from China, Mexico, the UAE and Israel have talked privately about ways to manipulate Kushner using his business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Scores killed as Houthis fight Saudi mercenaries outside Sana'a

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 07:01AM

A confrontation between Saudi-backed militants and Yemen's popular Houthi Ansarullah movement across the war-battered country has left around 80 people dead on both sides.

More than 55 died and dozens more were wounded in Sana'a Province's Nihm District, northwest of the country's capital, on Saturday, Yemen's medical officials said.

The sources also said fighting killed at least 25 people on both sides along Yemen's west coast.

Houthi officials, meanwhile, rejected militant claims of advancing in Sana'a's Arhab District.

The fighters and their allied army forces also thwarted a push by Saudi-backed militants to advance in the southwestern al-Bayda Province. Yemen's al-Masirah television network said dozens of the militants were killed in the province's Nati' District.

The militants fight on the side of Yemen's former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi who resigned amid internal conflict in March 2015 and then fled to Saudi Arabia.

Soon afterwards, Saudi Arabia launched a military campaign to restore the former president and crush Ansarullah, which had begun running the country's affairs after Hadi's flight.

More than 13,600 people have died and millions of people have been displaced since the onset of the Saudi-led invasion which has plunged the impoverished country into one of the worst humanitarian crises.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Millions of Italians casting ballots in general elections

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 06:33AM

Italians are taking to the polls to cast their ballots in general elections that would determine the makeup of the country's parliament and its next government.

Polling stations opened at 07:00 local time (0600 GMT) and will close at 23:00 (2200 GMT) on Sunday, with more than 30 million people eligible to vote.

The voters will choose members of both chambers of the parliament, including 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies and the 315 members of the Senate.

The anti-establishment Five Star Movement, the ruling Democratic Party, and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing coalition Forza Italia (Go Italy) are the main rivals in the Sunday general elections.

The 81-year-old ex-PM cannot hold public office due to a tax fraud conviction but has allied himself with the anti-immigrant League Party to be able to compete in the race.

Under a new law passed last year, roughly a third of the seats are to be selected by the direct "first-past-the-post" system, with the remainder to be selected by proportional outcomes divided among allied parties and coalitions.

Each party would need at least 40 percent of the votes to command an overall majority of the seats in both chambers of the parliament.

Opinion polls have indicated that Berlusconi's coalition is in the lead but will not win an outright majority, and Five Star has been widely projected by pollsters to emerge as the single biggest party. The ruling center-left Democratic Party, led by former prime minister Matteo Renzi, is predicted to finish in third place.

The general elections are held amid concerns over immigration and the economy.

The International Organization for Migration (IMO) says more than 600,000 refugees and asylum seekers have made perilous journeys from Libya across the Mediterranean to reach Italy since 2013. The huge influx of refugees has worried many Italians and politicians, triggering violent clashes between far-right supporters and anti-fascist protesters.

Italy's economy index is almost six percent lower than a decade ago, and some 18 million people are at risk of poverty, with unemployment standing at 11 percent.

Experts and analysts have expressed optimism that the Sunday general elections under the new system will pave the way for reforms to create an economy boost and a hike in the employment rate in the European country.

The official results of the elections are expected to be released in the early hours of Monday.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Macedonians Rally Against Name Change

RFE/RL's Balkan Service March 04, 2018

About 10,000 people have taken to the streets of the Macedonian capital to protest a possible change to the name of the former Yugoslav republic to comply with a demand by neighboring Greece.

The flag-waving demonstrators on March 4 gathered around a statue of Alexander the Great, the famed ruler of the ancient Kingdom of Macedonia, on Skopje's main square, chanting "We are Macedonians."

"We are not protesting, we are just defending our name. We are against changing the name, that's all. No one gave it to us, no one created it. That name is eternally Macedonian and should remain as it is," one demonstrator told RFE/RL.

"We will never not give our name away to anyone. There is one Macedonia and it will remain Macedonia forever," said another protester. "Macedonia is a great name, we carry it in our hearts, we love Macedonia, we are Macedonians, we love Macedonia, we won't give it up."

The rally was organized by the movement Our Name Is Our Right, as Skopje and Athens recently stepped up efforts to resolve a 27-year-old dispute over Macedonia's name.

The row has hampered Macedonia's efforts to join NATO and the EU. Greece is a member of both entities.

Greece objects to the former Yugoslav republic's use of the name Macedonia, which Athens says could imply territorial claims over its own northern region of the same name.

Negotiations between the two neighbors have been inconclusive since 1991, when Macedonia gained independence from the former Yugoslavia.

Macedonia has now said it is ready to add a geographical qualifier to its name to help resolve the dispute. An agreement could include Macedonia adding "Upper," "New," or "North" to its name.

The protesters in Skopje urged the government of Prime Minister Zoran Zaev to halt talks with Greece over the issue and demanded that the United Nations recognize the country under its constitutional name, Macedonia.

They also accused the Macedonian government of betraying the country's national interest.

Parallel rallies were staged by Macedonians in other cities around the world, including Washington and Sydney, Australia.

Many Greeks also object to any use of the word Macedonia in their neighbor's official name. A rally in Athens drew tens of thousands of people on February 4.

With reporting by Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/macedonians-rally- against-name-change/29078041.html

Copyright (c) 2018. 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





Putin: Russian Citizens Accused of US Election Meddling Did Not Represent Moscow

Sputnik News

19:21 04.03.2018

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Russian citizens accused by the United States of interfering in the 2016 US presidential elections did not represent the country's authorities, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the NBC broadcaster in an interview aired on Sunday.

"I know that they do not represent the Russian state, the Russian authorities. What they did specifically, I have no idea," Putin said.

The Russian president added that even if Russian citizens did what they are suspected of doing, the US authorities should share the information they have regarding this.

"Let them just not talk to the press, let them provide some materials, specifics and data. We'll be prepared to look at them and talk about it," Putin said.

Putin also stressed that Russia will never extradite its nationals, accused of the election meddling, to the United States.

"Never. Russian never extradites its citizens to anyone, just like the United States," Putin said, while answering Megyn Kelly's question on whether Moscow is going to extradite its citizens if Washington presents the evidence.

The interview comes after in February the US Justice Department revealed in court documents that the United States accused 13 Russian nationals and three entities of trying to interfere in the 2016 presidential vote. The 27-page indictment, a product of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe, alleged that those accused used fake personas to try to influence the outcome of the elections in US President Donald Trump's favor.

Russia has faced numerous accusations of interference in foreign elections, including the 2016 US presidential vote. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has called the claims groundless, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stressed that there was no evidence to substantiate the accusations.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Yemeni Houthi Rebels Release Dozens of Supporters of Saleh - Source

Sputnik News

02:33 04.03.2018

SANAA (Sputnik) - Yemeni Shia Houthi rebels released 69 supporters of former President Ali Abdullah Saleh killed last year by the Houthis, a source in security bodies told Sputnik.

"[The Houthis] released on Saturday 69 military, some of them are high-ranking officers of the Republican Guard and intelligence services," the source said.

The conflict between the Houthis and their former allies  units loyal to Saleh  escalated in late November. On December 4, shortly after reaffirming the end of his alliance with the Houthis, Saleh was killed by the rebels.

In January, a high-ranking source in the General People's Congress party founded by Saleh told Sputnik that the Houthis and supporters of Saleh decided to open a new page of cooperation to fight against their common enemies. As part of the agreement, the Houthi rebels promised to release the prisoners taken during the clashes with supporters of Saleh.

The situation in Yemen has been extremely unstable since 2015 when a civil war broke out. The war is being waged between the internationally recognized government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi movement once backed by army units loyal to Saleh. In March 2015, the Saudi-led coalition of mostly Persian Gulf countries launched airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Bahrain Seizes Weapons, Arrests 116 Members of Alleged Iran-Linked Terror Cell

Sputnik News

02:20 04.03.2018(updated 02:24 04.03.2018)

Bahrain on Saturday announced the arrest of 116 people accused of forming a terrorist cell allegedly tied to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, and said the country had averted a number of attempted terrorist attacks by the group on its security forces and its oil and other vital facilities.

State news agency BNA revealed that security services had seized a number of arms and 42 kilograms of explosives as part of their investigation.

"The roles of terrorist elements have varied in planning, preparation and execution between explosive carriers and field outlet, they were responsible for manufacturing, transporting and storing explosive materials," a Saturday statement from Bahrain's Interior Ministry said, according to Arab News.

"Iran's Revolutionary Guards worked to form these terrorist elements by uniting several terrorist organizations and collecting them in a single framework and are behind the support, funding and training of elements of terrorist organizations," the statement went on.

"Iran's Revolutionary Guards have intensified recruitment of terrorist elements and provided them with funds, firearms and improvised explosive devices." As many as 48 of those detained had been trained in using explosives, firearms, artillery and even grenade launchers at IRGC facilities in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, the Interior Ministry claimed.

Sunni-ruled Bahrain, with its Shia majority population, frequently accuses Tehran of secret destabilizing efforts, which Tehran consistently denies.

Since the mass uprisings of 2011, when Bahrainis clamoured for an elected government and were brutally repressed, Manama has cracked down further on dissent. The country frequently invokes the death penalty for charges of terrorism, as it did most recently on Monday, when a death sentence for what Bahrain described as an Iran-linked bombing targeting police was upheld. Those convicted of terrorism or similar charges are also often stripped of citizenship.

The tiny Gulf nation is home to the US Fifth Fleet.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Tillerson to Reaffirm Ties With Africa During Trip

By Nike Ching March 04, 2018

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's highly anticipated trip to Africa is an opportunity to position the United States to "play a significant role in supporting" the continent and to "highlight the important relationship," according to a senior American official.

"It's not only based on economic and commercial development, but in the context of building a strong institution, governance and security as well as human rights," a senior State Department official said during a background briefing Friday.

In his first trip to Africa as the top U.S. diplomat, Tillerson will meet with leaders from Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria during his travels from March 6-13.

Washington's vision of a genuinely inclusive political process in Ethiopia, Kenya and other African nations includes institution-building, peaceful transitions of power, and holding governments accountable to the people, the official said.

In Ethiopia, officials have declared a state of emergency amid widespread anti-government protests that have persisted for more than two years. In Kenya, there is a growing demand for political diversity.

Secretary Tillerson's trip next week is also seen as a good opportunity for the U.S. to reaffirm ties with African nations, particularly after U.S. President Donald Trump referred to the continent and Haiti in a derogatory manner earlier this year.

Former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Linda Thomas-Greenfield told VOA on Friday that Africans will welcome the top U.S. diplomat with open arms.

"His visit will be a reaffirmation of [the] U.S.-Africa partnership and U.S. commitment to Africa. Expectations will be high and the secretary will be pressed to give some substance to our policy towards Africa," Thomas-Greenfield said.

Tillerson's visit also comes after the recent mass kidnapping of schoolgirls in Nigeria.

Combating terrorism

State Department officials say finding ways to combat such incidents and promoting counterterrorism and security cooperation are high priorities for the top U.S. diplomat.

Secretary Tillerson "plans to discuss ways that we can work with our partners to counter terrorism," as well as to advance security, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said.

The United States recently put several affiliates of the Islamic State (IS) terror group in Africa on the terrorism blacklist in an effort to cut off any financial support they may have been getting from within the United States.

Among those designated as terrorist organizations include ISIS-West Africa, ISIS-Somalia, Jund al-Khilafah-Tunisia and ISIS-Egypt.

"Africa has traditionally been an area in which terrorist groups have operated. And part of the reason for that is because they assessed that they're able to move across borders undetected," State Department's Ambassador-at-Large for Counterterrorism Nathan Sales told VOA.

"What we've tried to do is stand up the capabilities. It's not just about military authorities in the region, but also border security authorities and law enforcement authorities in the region," Sales added.

Vast economic potential

According to the State Department, five of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies are in Africa. By 2030, Africa is expected to represent about one-quarter of the world's workforce and consumers. But experts note more must be done to take advantage of this growth.

"The continent needs to work more harmoniously in dealing with issues related to health care, to conflict, to strengthening trade, and breaking down tariffs and economic barriers that prevent the continent from realizing its potential," Johnnie Carson, senior adviser for the United States Institute of Peace, told VOA.

Carson said the work that the U.S. does in the areas of health care, education and agriculture are critical to Africa's development.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Exit Polls Indicate No Clear Winner in Italy Polls

By Jamie Dettmer March 04, 2018

Exit polls released as Italian polling stations closed Sunday suggested no one party will command a parliamentary majority but that populist parties scored major gains. The election was one of the most divisive in recent memory

According to the polls, the maverick, anti-establishment Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) had done well, especially in the south of the country where turnout was higher than expected. M5S may have secured 29 to 31 percent of the vote, which would mean it will be the largest party in the Parliament, but will fall far short of a governing majority.

The center-left Democratic Party managed to stay above 20 percent, with polls suggesting it might secure as much as 23 percent of the vote. But it was overhauled by Silvio Berlusconi's right-wing alliance, which will likely control the largest bloc in the lower house of Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. The right-wing alliance's performance marks a remarkable personal comeback by the 81-year-old Berlusconi, who is barred from office until next year but will clearly be one of the political ringmasters.

Analysts noted that exit polls in 2013 were inaccurate, but said they, too, expected Italy would have a hung Parliament.

A gray sky over much of the country reflected the gloomy mood of voters braving unsettled weather and intermittent rain as they turned out to vote. Many arriving at polling stations in the region of Lazio, which includes the capital Rome, said they were dissatisfied with the choices available to them even though there were 21 parties competing.

With no party likely to have secured a majority, Italians are now bracing for weeks of negotiations and horse-trading.

";I don't trust any of the options I am being given," said 38-year-old Agnese Rossi, an ecologist preparing to vote in Rome.

She said she expects the right-wing alliance led by former three-time prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Salvini of the anti-migrant, euro-skeptic Lega to emerge as the overall winners and will be able to form the basis of a coalition government  a prospect that frightens her

But she says she has no faith in any of the parties competing in the sprawling, messy election, including the maverick upstart Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), which analysts say may emerge as the largest single party. M5S has said publicly it will not participate in any backroom deal-making and won't join a coalition government, although its leader Luigi Di Maio, a suave, boyishly telegenic 31-year-old university drop-out, has hinted that it could enter into some kind of governing arrangement.

";We will end up with greater conflict and division after this election," said Rossi.

Migration concerns

Some other voters arriving at polling stations in towns just north of Rome complained the migration crisis had dominated the national debate too much and at the expense of other more pressing economic and social challenges facing the cash-strapped country. They said their greatest worry was over job creation.

The deep disaffection driving the national mood, real worry over the country's economic prospects amid high youth unemployment and dysfunctional public services was channeled into anti-migrant fervor, with the migration issue acting as a lightning rod for public despair, some voters grumbled.

Berlusconi's right-wing alliance, which includes his party Forza Italia, the Lega and the far-right Brothers of Italy, pushed a heavily anti-migrant agenda with the 81-year-old Berlusconi trying to keep up as the campaign unfolded with the more dramatic expulsion demands of his younger political partner, the 44-year-old Salvini. Both have said the 600,000 migrants, mainly from sub-Sahara Africa who have arrived in Italy the past two years, should be sent packing.

Other voters at the polling stations, though, argued migration is indeed the number one problem facing Italy and praised both the Lega and M5S for their tough anti-migrant rhetoric. In parts of the country during the campaign it has been hard to tell the difference between the far-right Lega and M5S when it has come to migration. M5S's candidate for president of Lazio, Roberta Lombardi, adopted the election slogan, ";More Tourists, Fewer Migrants," arguing that tourism boosted the local economy, while migrants ";weighed it down."

She disputed a study by the IDOS Institute, an immigration think tank, that suggested overall immigrants bring in up to $3.45 billion more into the country than they cost the Italian state.

";Migrants have brought crime with them," said Fabrizio Cannone, a 31-year-old farmworker and Lega supporter. ";They are changing Italy and they should go," he added.

The leaders of far-right and populist parties said as the polls opened they were confident of big gains. And certainly of all the Italians turning up at voting stations Sunday, supporters of the ruling Democratic Party (DP) appeared the gloomiest. ";I always vote for the left so I will vote for the PD," said Pino Barilla, a 60-year-old artist. "But PD voters are not fired up, not as enthusiastic as those of M5S or the Lega," he added.

Analysts are predicting that at least one-quarter of those eligible to vote Sunday will not do so.

Radical populism

Twenty percent of the Italian electorate remained undecided on the eve of a vote that may put radical populism back on the political map of Western Europe, reversing recent center or establishment election wins in France and Germany, and complicating life for a European Union mired in Brexit negotiations and facing challenges from populist leaders in the former Communist states of the east.

One foreign observer of the election, Donald Trump's former chief political strategist Steve Bannon told reporters Saturday that the Italian election result would mark another milestone on a populist and nationalist revolt roiling Europe and America. In his comments, he sought to link Italy's election with Trump and the Brexit referendum to leave the European Union, saying they are all part of an anti-globalist revolt against elites.

He described the Italian election as ";the most important thing happening politically in the world right now" and argued Italians are fed up with the EU and wanted to take back sovereignty, pointing out that whoever forms the government, probably two-thirds of Italians will have backed parties with populist views.

In fact, EU membership was not a major issue in the election and was largely avoided in the campaigning, even by the Lega. M5S played down its euro-skepticism during the campaign, and Berlusconi presented himself and Italy as pro-EU. Recent polling data suggests that 75 percent of Italians hold favorable views of the bloc.

Nonetheless, a rightwing coalition government  or one involving M5S  inevitably would clash with Brussels over the issue of migration and economic policies.

Byzantine ballot papers

Choosing whom to vote for was one thing Sunday, but actually making the selection was another. Voters at the polling booths were faced with exacting and byzantine ballot papers reflecting a new voting system that establishment' politicians designed, hoping it would lower the seat tally of M5S.

The voting system known as the Rosatellum, named after its chief architect DP senator Ettore Rosato, mixes first-past-the-post and proportional representation for the selection of lawmakers.

Voters cast two votes Sunday for the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies: One vote is to pick a directly-elected lawmaker and the other is for a party list. Of the 630 lawmakers in the lower house, 386 who take their seats are being elected via party lists on a PR basis; 244 will have been elected directly with 12 of those coming from overseas constituencies. The election of 315 senators also mixes PR and first-past-the-post.

The new voting system favors parties that have entered coalitions, boosting the effect of their combined votes.

Most analysts predict the rightwing coalition of Berlusconi will hold most parliamentary seats after the election, but will fall short of an overall majority. Should no clear winner emerge from the polls, negotiations will start after March 23 over forming a coalition.

If there is a hung parliament  the most likely outcome  negotiations could take weeks to conclude.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





China not to export "Chinese model": spokesperson

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 12:37, March 04, 2018

BEIJING, March 4 (Xinhua) -- China will neither import foreign models nor export a Chinese model of development, a spokesperson for the annual session of China's top legislature said Sunday.

China will follow its own path, and will not ask other countries to copy the Chinese practice either, Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the first session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), said at a press conference.

Zhang said there is no one-size-fits-all model for development, and each country should develop its own path based on its own conditions.

China does not seek to overturn or replace the current international order. Rather, it will continue to be a defender of and contributor to the order, said Zhang.

China is willing to actively participate in the global governance reform and construction, and promote the international order to evolve for greater justice and equity, he said.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Cooperation the only right option for China-U.S. ties: spokesperson

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 14:56, March 04, 2018

BEIJING, March 4 (Xinhua) -- China and the United States share more mutual benefits than differences and cooperation is the only right option for both countries, said a spokesman for the annual session of China's national legislature Sunday.

The stable development of Sino-U.S. ties serves the fundamental interests of people of both countries and is much anticipated by the international community, Zhang Yesui, former Chinese ambassador to the United States and spokesperson for the first session of the 13th National People's Congress, told a press conference.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Thursday that the United States would impose a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent for aluminum, raising concerns of escalating trade tension between the two countries.

"China doesn't want a trade war with the United States, but if any U.S. moves hurt China's interests, we will not sit idle," said Zhang.

Zhang pointed out that certain frictions are natural given the huge bilateral trading volume, while economic and trade ties between the countries are essentially mutually beneficial.

It's normal for China and the United States to have different ideas on certain issues, but such differences do not necessarily lead to confrontation, Zhang said.

The right approach is to open up market to each other, make the pie of cooperation bigger and work together to find solutions acceptable to both parties through dialogue and consultation, Zhang added.

Liu He, a senior Chinese economic and financial official met with U.S. counterparts this week and they have agreed that the two countries should settle their trade disputes by cooperation rather than confrontation.

The two sides also agreed to talk about related issues in Beijing in the near future, in a bid to create conditions for further cooperation.

It's imperative for two countries to perceive each other's strategic intentions objectively and accurately. Policies formed by misjudgment or wrong presumption will hurt the relations and bring about consequences neither side wants to see, he said.

China stands ready to work with the United States to follow through the consensus and outcomes reached by the two countries' leaders last year and work with mutual respect and strategic trust to properly handle differences and keep bilateral ties on track, Zhang added.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Blog Archive Sep 18 (1) Sep 17 (4) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (4) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (3) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (5) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (4) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (4) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (6) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (5) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (4) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (3) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (2) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (5) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (3) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (3) Jul 16 (3) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (5) Jul 12 (5) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (3) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (5) Jun 28 (2) Jun 27 (3) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (3) Jun 24 (3) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (3) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (3) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (5) Jun 07 (3) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (4) May 28 (4) May 27 (3) May 26 (5) May 25 (4) May 24 (4) May 23 (4) May 22 (3) May 21 (5) May 20 (4) May 19 (3) May 18 (3) May 17 (4) May 16 (3) May 15 (6) May 14 (3) May 13 (3) May 12 (5) May 11 (4) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (4) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (4) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (3) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (5) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (3) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (5) Apr 20 (6) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (4) Apr 16 (5) Apr 15 (6) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (5) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (4) Apr 04 (4) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (6) Apr 01 (4) Mar 31 (4) Mar 30 (4) Mar 29 (4) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (6) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (5) Mar 15 (3) Mar 14 (7) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (8) Mar 11 (6) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (6) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (3) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (5) Mar 04 (5) Mar 03 (7) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (3) Feb 27 (5) Feb 26 (6) Feb 25 (7) Feb 24 (4) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (7) Feb 21 (4) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (5) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (4) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (4) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (3) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (7) Feb 05 (7) Feb 04 (7) Feb 03 (9) Feb 02 (7) Feb 01 (9) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (6) Jan 29 (5) Jan 28 (6) Jan 27 (6) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (6) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (6) Jan 21 (6) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (4) Jan 18 (9) Jan 17 (5) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (6) Jan 14 (7) Jan 13 (7) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (7) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (7) Jan 08 (8) Jan 07 (11) Jan 06 (9) Jan 05 (5) Jan 04 (7) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (8) Jan 01 (8) Dec 31 (6) Dec 30 (6) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (7) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (5) Dec 25 (5) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (5) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (6) Dec 17 (6) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (5) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (5) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (6) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (5) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (6) Dec 02 (4) Dec 01 (5) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (6) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (4) Nov 25 (4) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (5) Nov 22 (7) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (6) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (3) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (4) Nov 14 (5) Nov 13 (6) Nov 12 (6) Nov 11 (6) Nov 10 (8) Nov 09 (8) Nov 08 (7) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (5) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (6) Nov 03 (5) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (4) Oct 30 (3) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (5) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (6) Oct 25 (6) Oct 24 (2) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (5) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (6) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (5) Oct 15 (2) Oct 14 (5) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (7) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (2) Oct 07 (7) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (6) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (8) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (6) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (4) Sep 24 (1) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (5) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (3) Sep 15 (4) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (4) Sep 12 (3) Sep 11 (3) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (4) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (5) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (4) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (2) Aug 28 (4) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (4) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (4) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (4) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (5) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (4) Aug 07 (3) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (3) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (4) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (4) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (5) Jul 19 (4) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (3) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (3) Jul 11 (3) Jul 10 (3) Jul 09 (4) Jul 08 (4) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (3) Jul 05 (5) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (4) Jul 01 (4) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (3) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (5) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (4) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (4) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (6) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (5) Jun 07 (3) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (5) Jun 04 (5) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (5) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (3) May 30 (5) May 29 (3) May 28 (4) May 27 (5) May 26 (7) May 25 (4) May 24 (4) May 23 (4) May 22 (6) May 21 (4) May 20 (3) May 19 (5) May 18 (4) May 17 (4) May 16 (5) May 15 (4) May 14 (4) May 13 (5) May 12 (4) May 11 (5) May 10 (6) May 09 (7) May 08 (3) May 07 (6) May 06 (4) May 05 (6) May 04 (6) May 03 (4) May 02 (4) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (4) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (6) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (5) Apr 22 (5) Apr 21 (7) Apr 20 (6) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (6) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (5) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (6) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (7) Apr 07 (4) Apr 06 (7) Apr 05 (6) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (6) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (6) Mar 31 (4) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (5) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (6) Mar 26 (6) Mar 25 (7) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (4) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (5) Mar 19 (4) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (3) Mar 15 (4) Mar 14 (5) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (5) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (4) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (6) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (5) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (3) Feb 29 (4) Feb 28 (4) Feb 27 (5) Feb 26 (5) Feb 25 (4) Feb 24 (5) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (5) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (4) Feb 19 (2) Feb 18 (5) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (4) Feb 15 (4) Feb 14 (4) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (5) Feb 11 (3) Feb 10 (5) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (5) Feb 06 (5) Feb 05 (5) Feb 04 (4) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (2) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (6) Jan 26 (4) Jan 25 (3) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (3) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (4) Jan 18 (3) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (5) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (5) Jan 04 (3) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (1) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (5) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (3) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (4) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (5) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (3) Dec 06 (5) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (4) Dec 01 (5) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (5) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (3) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (3) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (4) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (5) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (5) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (3) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (1) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (3) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (3) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (3) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (3) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (3) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (4) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (4) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (3) Oct 04 (4) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (4) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (4) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (3) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (5) Sep 20 (3) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (5) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (5) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (4) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (4) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (3) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (4) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (3) Aug 03 (4) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (3) Jul 20 (3) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (3) Jul 16 (3) Jul 15 (4) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (3) Jul 12 (3) Jul 11 (3) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (3) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (1) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (5) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (3) Jun 15 (3) Jun 14 (3) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (4) Jun 10 (3) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (3) Jun 06 (4) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (4) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (3) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (4) May 27 (6) May 26 (3) May 25 (3) May 24 (3) May 23 (3) May 22 (5) May 21 (3) May 20 (3) May 19 (3) May 18 (4) May 17 (3) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (4) May 13 (4) May 12 (5) May 11 (2) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (3) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (3) May 03 (3) May 02 (4) May 01 (5) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (5) Apr 25 (3) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (5) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (1) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (3) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (3) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (4) Apr 11 (5) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (3) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (2) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (3) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (3) Apr 01 (7) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (2) Mar 29 (1) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (4) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (6) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (5) Mar 17 (3) Mar 16 (3) Mar 15 (4) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (6) Mar 12 (7) Mar 11 (4) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (3) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (4) Feb 28 (5) Feb 27 (5) Feb 26 (4) Feb 25 (4) Feb 24 (3) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (5) Feb 21 (5) Feb 20 (5) Feb 19 (4) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (3) Feb 16 (4) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (6) Feb 10 (5) Feb 09 (3) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (6) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (6) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (3) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (6) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (4) Jan 27 (5) Jan 26 (4) Jan 25 (6) Jan 24 (3) Jan 23 (3) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (4) Jan 19 (3) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (4) Jan 12 (3) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (4) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (3) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (5) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (5) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (7) Dec 21 (4) Dec 20 (5) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (6) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (7) Dec 10 (7) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (4) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (5) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (5) Nov 28 (4) Nov 27 (5) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (4) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (3) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (3) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (3) Nov 14 (4) Nov 13 (5) Nov 12 (7) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (6) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (4) Nov 07 (4) Nov 06 (3) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (3) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (4) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (5) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (4) Oct 21 (3) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (4) Oct 18 (3) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (4) Oct 13 (4) Oct 12 (5) Oct 11 (3) Oct 10 (5) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (5) Oct 07 (6) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (3) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (4) Sep 29 (4) Sep 28 (5) Sep 27 (5) Sep 26 (5) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (5) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (4) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (4) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (4) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (4) Sep 10 (3) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (5) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (5) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (6) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (6) Aug 26 (5) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (7) Aug 22 (4) Aug 21 (6) Aug 20 (3) Aug 19 (7) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (4) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (6) Aug 12 (6) Aug 11 (4) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (5) Jul 28 (5) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (6) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (6) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (6) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (6) Jul 15 (4) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (3) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (4) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (3) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (4) Jul 01 (4) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (6) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (4) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (4) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (5) Jun 11 (5) Jun 10 (6) Jun 09 (5) Jun 08 (4) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (4) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (5) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (5) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (3) May 24 (6) May 23 (4) May 22 (5) May 21 (5) May 20 (4) May 19 (5) May 18 (6) May 17 (6) May 16 (4) May 15 (4) May 14 (5) May 13 (4) May 12 (3) May 11 (4) May 10 (5) May 09 (2) May 08 (4) May 07 (4) May 06 (4) May 05 (4) May 04 (4) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (6) Apr 28 (6) Apr 27 (5) Apr 26 (5) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (6) Apr 23 (6) Apr 22 (5) Apr 21 (6) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (4) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (7) Apr 16 (5) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (8) Apr 13 (5) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (6) Apr 07 (5) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (4) Apr 03 (6) Apr 02 (6) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (7) Mar 30 (6) Mar 29 (8) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (6) Mar 26 (8) Mar 25 (5) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (8) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (6) Mar 20 (5) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (5) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (5) Mar 13 (6) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (4) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (7) Mar 08 (4) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (4) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (4) Mar 03 (6) Mar 02 (3) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (7) Feb 27 (6) Feb 26 (8) Feb 25 (5) Feb 24 (8) Feb 23 (7) Feb 22 (8) Feb 21 (7) Feb 20 (7) Feb 19 (7) Feb 18 (5) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (6) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (5) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (7) Feb 11 (6) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (6) Feb 07 (5) Feb 06 (5) Feb 05 (4) Feb 04 (4) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (5) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (6) Jan 28 (4) Jan 27 (3) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (4) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (5) Jan 22 (7) Jan 21 (6) Jan 20 (6) Jan 19 (3) Jan 18 (6) Jan 17 (5) Jan 16 (7) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (7) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (7) Jan 11 (5) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (7) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (5) Jan 05 (5) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (4) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (6) Dec 31 (5) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (7) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (6) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (5) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (4) Dec 17 (6) Dec 16 (5) Dec 15 (4) Dec 14 (5) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (5) Dec 11 (7) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (6) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (4) Dec 04 (7) Dec 03 (6) Dec 02 (4) Dec 01 (4) Nov 30 (6) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (4) Nov 27 (7) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (4) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (5) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (5) Nov 17 (6) Nov 16 (7) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (5) Nov 13 (5) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (7) Nov 10 (6) Nov 09 (7) Nov 08 (4) Nov 07 (9) Nov 06 (7) Nov 05 (7) Nov 04 (7) Nov 03 (5) Nov 02 (6) Nov 01 (6) Oct 31 (7) Oct 30 (6) Oct 29 (7) Oct 28 (4) Oct 27 (7) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (3) Oct 24 (6) Oct 23 (10) Oct 22 (6) Oct 21 (5) Oct 20 (5) Oct 19 (5) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (6) Oct 16 (5) Oct 15 (6) Oct 14 (7) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (5) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (6) Oct 09 (8) Oct 08 (6) Oct 07 (5) Oct 06 (4) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (5) Sep 30 (6) Sep 29 (5) Sep 28 (5) Sep 27 (6) Sep 26 (7) Sep 25 (6) Sep 24 (6) Sep 23 (6) Sep 22 (7) Sep 21 (5) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (6) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (7) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (7) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (7) Sep 09 (7) Sep 08 (7) Sep 07 (6) Sep 06 (5) Sep 05 (3) Sep 04 (6) Sep 03 (7) Sep 02 (6) Sep 01 (6) Aug 31 (5) Aug 30 (5) Aug 29 (4) Aug 28 (5) Aug 27 (5) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (8) Aug 24 (5) Aug 23 (6) Aug 22 (7) Aug 21 (7) Aug 20 (6) Aug 19 (7) Aug 18 (5) Aug 17 (4) Aug 16 (6) Aug 15 (6) Aug 14 (6) Aug 13 (7) Aug 12 (6) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (6) Aug 09 (6) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (4) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (6) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (5) Aug 01 (5) Jul 31 (7) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (7) Jul 27 (6) Jul 26 (4) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (5) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (4) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (5) Jul 17 (5) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (5) Jul 12 (6) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (4) Jul 07 (7) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (5) Jul 02 (4) Jul 01 (4) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (5) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (3) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (3) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (5) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (4) Jun 17 (5) Jun 16 (4) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (7) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (5) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (6) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (5) Jun 03 (5) Jun 02 (5) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (4) May 30 (5) May 29 (5) May 28 (5) May 27 (8) May 26 (7) May 25 (7) May 24 (5) May 23 (2) May 22 (5) May 21 (4) May 20 (5) May 19 (5) May 18 (5) May 17 (5) May 16 (7) May 15 (7) May 14 (7) May 13 (5) May 12 (6) May 11 (8) May 10 (4) May 09 (6) May 08 (10) May 07 (8) May 06 (5) May 05 (6) May 04 (7) May 03 (7) May 02 (8) May 01 (6) Apr 30 (6) Apr 29 (6) Apr 28 (10) Apr 27 (6) Apr 26 (5) Apr 25 (8) Apr 24 (7) Apr 23 (8) Apr 22 (6) Apr 21 (5) Apr 20 (10) Apr 19 (7) Apr 18 (7) Apr 17 (8) Apr 16 (5) Apr 15 (6) Apr 14 (9) Apr 13 (11) Apr 12 (8) Apr 11 (5) Apr 10 (10) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (5) Apr 07 (9) Apr 06 (10) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (7) Apr 02 (6) Apr 01 (5) Mar 31 (3) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (1) Mar 28 (5) Mar 27 (7) Mar 26 (8) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (8) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (4) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (7) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (8) Mar 17 (8) Mar 16 (3) Mar 15 (6) Mar 14 (9) Mar 13 (6) Mar 12 (6) Mar 11 (7) Mar 10 (6) Mar 09 (8) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (9) Mar 04 (7) Mar 03 (6) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (7) Feb 28 (8) Feb 27 (7) Feb 26 (4) Feb 25 (9) Feb 24 (6) Feb 23 (6) Feb 22 (7) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (6) Feb 19 (5) Feb 18 (5) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (4) Feb 15 (5) Feb 14 (8) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (4) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (6) Feb 09 (7) Feb 08 (6) Feb 07 (6) Feb 06 (6) Feb 05 (5) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (10) Feb 02 (9) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (8) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (9) Jan 28 (6) Jan 27 (5) Jan 26 (6) Jan 25 (7) Jan 24 (6) Jan 23 (6) Jan 22 (5) Jan 21 (7) Jan 20 (8) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (5) Jan 17 (5) Jan 16 (5) Jan 15 (5) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (5) Jan 10 (5) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (3) Jan 07 (5) Jan 06 (5) Jan 05 (6) Jan 04 (5) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (4) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (5) Dec 25 (6) Dec 24 (7) Dec 23 (7) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (6) Dec 19 (10) Dec 18 (9) Dec 17 (10) Dec 16 (8) Dec 15 (4) Dec 14 (6) Dec 13 (10) Dec 12 (6) Dec 11 (5) Dec 10 (6) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (8) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (6) Dec 05 (6) Dec 04 (7) Dec 03 (7) Dec 02 (6) Dec 01 (9) Nov 30 (5) Nov 29 (9) Nov 28 (7) Nov 27 (6) Nov 26 (7) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (4) Nov 22 (7) Nov 21 (7) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (8) Nov 18 (12) Nov 17 (8) Nov 16 (6) Nov 15 (4) Nov 14 (11) Nov 13 (11) Nov 12 (9) Nov 11 (6) Nov 10 (9) Nov 09 (9) Nov 08 (7) Nov 07 (7) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (8) Nov 04 (6) Nov 03 (5) Nov 02 (7) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (7) Oct 30 (6) Oct 29 (7) Oct 28 (4) Oct 27 (7) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (7) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (7) Oct 22 (7) Oct 21 (6) Oct 20 (8) Oct 19 (7) Oct 18 (6) Oct 17 (6) Oct 16 (8) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (6) Oct 13 (7) Oct 12 (5) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (8) Oct 09 (8) Oct 08 (7) Oct 07 (7) Oct 06 (7) Oct 05 (8) Oct 04 (6) Oct 03 (8) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (10) Sep 29 (7) Sep 28 (10) Sep 27 (10) Sep 26 (11) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (6) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (5) Sep 21 (8) Sep 20 (8) Sep 19 (6) Sep 18 (6) Sep 17 (7) Sep 16 (5) Sep 15 (6) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (7) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (10) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (3) Sep 08 (8) Sep 07 (4) Sep 06 (7) Sep 05 (8) Sep 04 (7) Sep 03 (6) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (6) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (4) Aug 28 (5) Aug 27 (6) Aug 26 (5) Aug 25 (9) Aug 24 (7) Aug 23 (8) Aug 22 (5) Aug 21 (9) Aug 20 (8) Aug 19 (7) Aug 18 (6) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (8) Aug 15 (6) Aug 14 (5) Aug 13 (6) Aug 12 (5) Aug 11 (7) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (9) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (5) Aug 05 (6) Aug 04 (6) Aug 03 (7) Aug 02 (8) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (6) Jul 30 (7) Jul 29 (8) Jul 28 (8) Jul 27 (6) Jul 26 (9) Jul 25 (9) Jul 24 (7) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (7) Jul 21 (9) Jul 20 (6) Jul 19 (9) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (2) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (7) Jul 14 (7) Jul 13 (8) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (4) Jul 10 (7) Jul 09 (6) Jul 08 (6) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (8) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (7) Jul 01 (6) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (5) Jun 27 (6) Jun 26 (6) Jun 25 (7) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (5) Jun 22 (7) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (6) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (6) Jun 17 (5) Jun 16 (6) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (7) Jun 12 (8) Jun 11 (5) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (7) Jun 08 (6) Jun 07 (5) Jun 06 (7) Jun 05 (5) Jun 04 (6) Jun 03 (5) Jun 02 (8) Jun 01 (6) May 31 (7) May 30 (4) May 29 (5) May 28 (1) May 27 (5) May 26 (8) May 25 (5) May 24 (8) May 23 (8) May 22 (7) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 (9) May 18 (5) May 17 (9) May 16 (7) May 15 (5) May 14 (11) May 13 (6) May 12 (13) May 11 (5) May 10 (7) May 09 (7) May 08 (8) May 07 (9) May 06 (6) May 05 (5) May 04 (2) May 03 (6) May 02 (7) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (5) Apr 29 (7) Apr 28 (6) Apr 27 (6) Apr 26 (10) Apr 25 (7) Apr 24 (5) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (7) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (6) Apr 19 (6) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (10) Apr 16 (6) Apr 15 (6) Apr 14 (5) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (10) Apr 10 (6) Apr 09 (6) Apr 08 (10) Apr 07 (6) Apr 06 (6) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (4) Apr 03 (5) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (6) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (9) Mar 29 (8) Mar 28 (8) Mar 27 (7) Mar 26 (9) Mar 25 (11) Mar 24 (10) Mar 23 (6) Mar 22 (8) Mar 21 (3) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (2) Mar 18 (9) Mar 17 (7) Mar 16 (6) Mar 15 (10) Mar 14 (6) Mar 13 (6) Mar 12 (10) Mar 11 (7) Mar 10 (8) Mar 09 (6) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (6) Mar 06 (7) Mar 05 (6) Mar 04 (10) Mar 03 (2) Mar 02 (8) Mar 01 (9) Feb 29 (11) Feb 28 (8) Feb 27 (6) Feb 26 (8) Feb 25 (8) Feb 24 (9) Feb 23 (12) Feb 22 (10) Feb 21 (11) Feb 20 (6) Feb 19 (5) Feb 18 (9) Feb 17 (9) Feb 16 (10) Feb 15 (8) Feb 14 (9) Feb 13 (8) Feb 12 (9) Feb 11 (7) Feb 10 (7) Feb 09 (7) Feb 08 (9) Feb 07 (7) Feb 06 (10) Feb 05 (10) Feb 04 (6) Feb 03 (8) Feb 02 (7) Feb 01 (6) Jan 31 (10) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (6) Jan 28 (9) Jan 27 (7) Jan 26 (8) Jan 25 (8) Jan 24 (7) Jan 23 (6) Jan 22 (8) Jan 21 (6) Jan 20 (10) Jan 19 (8) Jan 18 (6) Jan 17 (7) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (8) Jan 13 (8) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (6) Jan 09 (8) Jan 08 (4) Jan 07 (5) Jan 06 (6) Jan 05 (9) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (7) Jan 02 (6) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (6) Dec 30 (9) Dec 29 (6) Dec 28 (2) Dec 27 (8) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (6) Dec 24 (5) Dec 23 (6) Dec 22 (8) Dec 21 (8) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (8) Dec 18 (6) Dec 17 (8) Dec 16 (7) Dec 15 (9) Dec 14 (7) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (4) Dec 11 (5) Dec 10 (6) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (5) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (7) Dec 01 (7) Nov 30 (5) Nov 29 (5) Nov 28 (6) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (8) Nov 23 (2) Nov 22 (6) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (5) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (6) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (6) Nov 12 (5) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (2) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (4) Nov 06 (8) Nov 05 (5) Nov 04 (6) Nov 03 (6) Nov 02 (5) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (6) Oct 30 (6) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (5) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (5) Oct 25 (8) Oct 24 (7) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (7) Oct 21 (5) Oct 20 (5) Oct 19 (5) Oct 18 (6) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (2) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (6) Oct 12 (9) Oct 11 (3) Oct 10 (6) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (5) Oct 07 (6) Oct 06 (6) Oct 05 (7) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (8) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (6) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (9) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (4) Sep 24 (5) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (6) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (4) Sep 19 (5) Sep 18 (7) Sep 17 (6) Sep 16 (7) Sep 15 (4) Sep 14 (8) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (7) Sep 11 (8) Sep 10 (5) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (8) Sep 07 (5) Sep 06 (6) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (7) Sep 03 (5) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (5) Aug 30 (6) Aug 29 (5) Aug 28 (5) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (7) Aug 24 (6) Aug 23 (6) Aug 22 (6) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (5) Aug 19 (5) Aug 18 (5) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (7) Aug 14 (8) Aug 13 (8) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (6) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (9) Aug 07 (6) Aug 06 (7) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (4) Aug 03 (6) Aug 02 (6) Aug 01 (6) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (6) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (6) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (5) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (2) Jul 19 (4) Jul 18 (7) Jul 17 (8) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (5) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (5) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (7) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (4) Jul 05 (6) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (10) Jul 02 (4) Jul 01 (2) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (3) Jun 26 (6) Jun 25 (3) Jun 24 (3) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (3) Jun 16 (4) Jun 15 (3) Jun 14 (4) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (2) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (2) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (1) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (2) Jun 01 (2) May 31 (2) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (5) May 27 (1) May 26 (1) May 25 (2) May 24 (2) May 23 (1) May 22 (2) May 21 (2) May 20 (3) May 19 (3) May 18 (2) May 17 (2) May 16 (2) May 15 (3) May 14 (2) May 13 (2) May 12 (2) May 11 (3) May 10 (3) May 09 (2) May 08 (3) May 07 (2) May 06 (2) May 05 (2) May 04 (2) May 03 (3) May 02 (2) May 01 (2) Apr 30 (1) Apr 29 (2) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (2) Apr 26 (2) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (2) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (4) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (2) Apr 17 (2) Apr 16 (2) Apr 15 (2) Apr 14 (2) Apr 13 (2) Apr 12 (2) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (2) Apr 08 (2) Apr 07 (2) Apr 06 (2) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (2) Apr 03 (2) Apr 02 (2) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (1) Mar 30 (1) Mar 29 (2) Mar 28 (2) Mar 27 (2) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (2) Mar 23 (2) Mar 22 (1) Mar 21 (1) Mar 20 (2) Mar 19 (2) Mar 18 (2) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (2) Mar 14 (2) Mar 13 (2) Mar 12 (2) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (3) Mar 08 (2) Mar 07 (1) Mar 06 (2) Mar 05 (3) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (8) Mar 02 (2) Mar 01 (1) Feb 28 (2) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (1) Feb 25 (1) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (2) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (2) Feb 20 (2) Feb 19 (2) Feb 18 (2) Feb 17 (2) Feb 16 (2) Feb 15 (1) Feb 14 (1) Feb 13 (1) Feb 12 (2) Feb 11 (1) Feb 10 (2) Feb 09 (1) Feb 08 (1) Feb 07 (1) Feb 06 (1) Feb 05 (5) Feb 03 (1) Feb 02 (1) Feb 01 (1) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (2) Jan 27 (5) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (3) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (4) Jan 18 (3) Jan 17 (2) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (5) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (5) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (4) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (6) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (4) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (4) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (1) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (5) Dec 20 (5) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (4) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (6) Dec 14 (4) Dec 13 (4) Dec 12 (5) Dec 11 (5) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (5) Dec 08 (4) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (5) Dec 05 (4) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (5) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (4) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (5) Nov 23 (4) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (4) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (4) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (3) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (4) Nov 06 (4) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (2) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (4) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (3) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (3) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (3) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (6) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (4) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (3) Sep 26 (5) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (4) Sep 23 (5) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (5) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (5) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (6) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (4) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (4) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (5) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (5) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (4) Aug 11 (3) Aug 10 (3) Aug 09 (4) Aug 08 (2) Aug 07 (2) Aug 06 (2) Aug 05 (2) Aug 04 (2) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (4) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (2) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (6) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (4) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (4) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (5) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (5) Jul 10 (5) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (2) Jun 29 (3) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (5) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (5) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (2) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (3) Jun 18 (3) Jun 17 (1) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (2) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (2) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (2) Jun 06 (2) Jun 05 (2) Jun 04 (2) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (5) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (2) May 23 (4) May 22 (4) May 21 (5) May 20 (6) May 19 (4) May 18 (3) May 17 (4) May 16 (5) May 15 (6) May 14 (4) May 13 (9) May 12 (4) May 11 (5) May 10 (5) May 09 (4) May 08 (3) May 07 (5) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (5) May 03 (1) May 02 (5) May 01 (7) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (5) Apr 28 (4) Apr 27 (1) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (3) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (3) Apr 14 (4) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (6) Apr 10 (1) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (5) Apr 04 (1) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (1) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (4) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (4) Mar 26 (2) Mar 25 (4) Mar 24 (6) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (6) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (4) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (4) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (5) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (5) Mar 01 (4) Feb 28 (2) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (3) Feb 25 (3) Feb 24 (4) Feb 23 (4) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (4) Feb 20 (4) Feb 19 (3) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (3) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (4) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (4) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (3) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (3) Feb 03 (5) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (4) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (4) Jan 25 (3) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (4) Jan 21 (3) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (6) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (4) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (6) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (4) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (4) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (5) Jan 02 (4) Jan 01 (3) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (2) Dec 29 (2) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (5) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (2) Dec 11 (6) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (4) Dec 08 (6) Dec 07 (5) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (4) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (4) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (5) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (2) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (7) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (4) Nov 15 (6) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (3) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (2) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (2) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (4) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (3) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (2) Oct 24 (2) Oct 23 (2) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (2) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (2) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (2) Oct 14 (4) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (2) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (4) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (3) Oct 02 (6) Oct 01 (6) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (7) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (5) Sep 23 (8) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (6) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (5) Sep 16 (7) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (4) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (5) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (5) Sep 09 (7) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (7) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (4) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (2) Sep 01 (2) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (3) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (4) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (3) Aug 22 (4) Aug 21 (4) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (5) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (5) Aug 12 (10) Aug 11 (5) Aug 10 (4) Aug 09 (5) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (5) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (5) Aug 01 (7) Jul 31 (5) Jul 30 (5) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (3) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (5) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (5) Jul 23 (5) Jul 22 (7) Jul 21 (5) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (5) Jul 18 (6) Jul 17 (5) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (6) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (3) Jul 12 (2) Jul 11 (2) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (8) Jun 30 (6) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (6) Jun 27 (6) Jun 26 (6) Jun 25 (6) Jun 24 (6) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (4) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (5) Jun 18 (8) Jun 17 (6) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (5) Jun 13 (4) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (6) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (5) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (3) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (2) May 30 (2) May 29 (2) May 28 (2) May 27 (4) May 26 (4) May 25 (3) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (5) May 20 (4) May 19 (2) May 18 (3) May 17 (3) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (5) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (3) May 10 (4) May 09 (4) May 08 (4) May 07 (3) May 06 (2) May 05 (3) May 04 (4) May 03 (2) May 02 (3) May 01 (3) Apr 30 (3) Apr 29 (4) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (4) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (4) Apr 19 (5) Apr 18 (7) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (10) Apr 15 (5) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (4) Apr 12 (5) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (7) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (7) Apr 04 (5) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (5) Mar 31 (5) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (7) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (5) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (6) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (5) Mar 22 (5) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (6) Mar 18 (6) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (5) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (5) Mar 12 (5) Mar 11 (4) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (2) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (3) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (6) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (6) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (4) Feb 25 (6) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (2) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (2) Feb 16 (3) Feb 15 (6) Feb 14 (6) Feb 13 (6) Feb 12 (9) Feb 11 (5) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (7) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (4) Feb 04 (5) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (4) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (2) Jan 27 (2) Jan 26 (3) Jan 25 (4) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (2) Jan 22 (2) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (4) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (4) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (3) Jan 11 (2) Jan 10 (8) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (2) Jan 07 (2) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (2) Jan 04 (2) Jan 03 (2) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (2) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (2) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (2) Dec 24 (2) Dec 23 (2) Dec 22 (2) Dec 21 (2) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (2) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (2) Dec 16 (2) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (2) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (5) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (2) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (4) Nov 29 (4) Nov 28 (2) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (2) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (2) Nov 23 (2) Nov 22 (2) Nov 21 (2) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (2) Nov 17 (2) Nov 16 (5) Nov 15 (5) Nov 14 (4) Nov 13 (2) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (2) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (2) Nov 08 (2) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (6) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (5) Nov 03 (5) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (5) Oct 31 (7) Oct 30 (5) Oct 29 (4) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (2) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (2) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (2) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (5) Oct 15 (4) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (5) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (5) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (5) Sep 30 (2) Sep 29 (2) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (6) Sep 26 (2) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (2) Sep 22 (2) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (2) Sep 19 (3) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (2) Sep 15 (4) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (5) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (6) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (5) Sep 08 (5) Sep 07 (5) Sep 06 (4) Sep 05 (4) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (2) Sep 02 (3) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (2) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (6) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (2) Aug 25 (2) Aug 24 (3) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (3) Aug 18 (2) Aug 17 (5) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (4) Aug 14 (5) Aug 13 (2) Aug 12 (2) Aug 11 (2) Aug 10 (2) Aug 09 (2) Aug 08 (5) Aug 07 (5) Aug 06 (6) Aug 05 (2) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (2) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (2) Jul 31 (4) Jul 30 (2) Jul 29 (2) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (2) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (2) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (2) Jul 21 (3) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (2) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (2) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (2) Jul 12 (3) Jul 11 (2) Jul 10 (2) Jul 09 (2) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (2) Jul 06 (2) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (2) Jul 03 (2) Jul 02 (2) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (7) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (2) Jun 26 (3) Jun 25 (1) Jun 24 (2) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (2) Jun 19 (2) Jun 18 (2) Jun 17 (2) Jun 16 (2) Jun 15 (2) Jun 14 (2) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (2) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (2) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (3) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (2) Jun 02 (2) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (2) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (2) May 26 (2) May 25 (2) May 24 (2) May 23 (2) May 22 (3) May 21 (3) May 20 (2) May 19 (2) May 18 (4) May 17 (7) May 16 (2) May 15 (3) May 14 (4) May 13 (3) May 12 (4) May 11 (4) May 10 (4) May 09 (3) May 08 (2) May 07 (2) May 06 (2) May 05 (1) May 04 (2) May 03 (4) May 02 (3) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (1) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (2) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (2) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (2) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (4) Apr 17 (5) Apr 16 (4) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (4) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (2) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (1) Apr 03 (1) Apr 02 (1) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (2) Mar 28 (3) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (2) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (4) Mar 20 (2) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (1) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (2) Mar 15 (1) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (1) Mar 12 (2) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (2) Mar 08 (1) Mar 07 (1) Mar 04 (2) Mar 02 (2) Feb 28 (1) Feb 24 (1) Dec 31 (4) Dec 30 (4) Dec 29 (4) Dec 28 (5) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (3) Dec 22 (4) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (3) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (3) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (3) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (4) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (3) Nov 22 (3) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (3) Nov 19 (3) Nov 18 (3) Nov 17 (3) Nov 16 (2) Nov 15 (3) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (4) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (3) Nov 05 (5) Nov 04 (4) Nov 03 (3) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (4) Oct 30 (3) Oct 29 (3) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (3) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (3) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (4) Oct 16 (3) Oct 15 (3) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (3) Oct 11 (3) Oct 10 (4) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (4) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (5) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (4) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (3) Sep 25 (3) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (3) Sep 20 (3) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (3) Sep 17 (3) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (3) Sep 14 (3) Sep 13 (3) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (4) Sep 10 (4) Sep 09 (4) Sep 08 (4) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (3) Sep 04 (3) Sep 03 (3) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (3) Aug 31 (3) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (3) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (3) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (4) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (5) Aug 22 (3) Aug 21 (3) Aug 20 (3) Aug 19 (3) Aug 18 (3) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (3) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (3) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (4) Aug 10 (5) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (4) Aug 06 (5) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (3) Aug 03 (3) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (5) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (4) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (3) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (4) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (5) Jul 11 (4) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (3) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (3) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (3) Jul 01 (6) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (5) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (5) Jun 21 (5) Jun 20 (4) Jun 19 (4) Jun 18 (5) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (5) Jun 14 (3) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (3) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (5) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (4) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (5) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (3) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (5) Jun 01 (3) May 31 (4) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (4) May 25 (4) May 24 (4) May 23 (4) May 22 (3) May 21 (3) May 20 (4) May 19 (3) May 18 (3) May 17 (4) May 16 (3) May 15 (4) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (1) May 11 (3) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (4) May 06 (3) May 05 (4) May 04 (4) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (6) Apr 30 (3) Apr 29 (3) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (5) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (3) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (4) Apr 16 (3) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (3) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (3) Apr 09 (3) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 04 (3) Apr 03 (3) Apr 02 (3) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (3) Mar 30 (3) Mar 29 (3) Mar 28 (4) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (3) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (3) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (3) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (3) Mar 18 (3) Mar 17 (3) Mar 16 (4) Mar 15 (3) Mar 14 (3) Mar 13 (3) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (3) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (3) Mar 07 (3) Mar 06 (4) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (3) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (3) Mar 01 (3) Feb 28 (3) Feb 27 (3) Feb 26 (3) Feb 25 (3) Feb 24 (2) Feb 23 (3) Feb 22 (3) Feb 21 (3) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (3) Feb 18 (3) Feb 17 (3) Feb 16 (3) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (3) Feb 13 (3) Feb 12 (3) Feb 11 (4) Feb 10 (3) Feb 09 (3) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (4) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (4) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (4) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (3) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (4) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (5) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (4) Jan 22 (3) Jan 21 (4) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (5) Jan 17 (4) Jan 16 (3) Jan 15 (4) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (5) Jan 12 (5) Jan 11 (4) Jan 10 (4) Jan 09 (3) Jan 08 (3) Jan 07 (3) Jan 06 (3) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (3) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (3) Dec 25 (3) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (3) Dec 19 (3) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (3) Dec 16 (4) Dec 15 (3) Dec 14 (3) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (4) Dec 10 (3) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (3) Dec 06 (4) Dec 05 (3) Dec 04 (3) Dec 03 (3) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (3) Nov 30 (3) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (3) Nov 27 (3) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (4) Nov 23 (6) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (5) Nov 20 (4) Nov 19 (4) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (4) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (2) Nov 14 (3) Nov 13 (3) Nov 12 (2) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (5) Nov 07 (3) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (3) Nov 03 (2) Nov 02 (4) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (2) Oct 30 (6) Oct 29 (5) Oct 28 (3) Oct 27 (5) Oct 26 (3) Oct 25 (4) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (4) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (5) Oct 20 (4) Oct 19 (4) Oct 18 (4) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (3) Oct 14 (3) Oct 13 (2) Oct 12 (2) Oct 11 (2) Oct 10 (3) Oct 09 (4) Oct 08 (2) Oct 07 (2) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (3) Oct 04 (2) Oct 03 (4) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (3) Sep 29 (4) Sep 28 (3) Sep 27 (2) Sep 26 (2) Sep 25 (2) Sep 24 (1) Sep 23 (1) Sep 22 (2) Sep 21 (2) Sep 20 (1) Sep 19 (1) Sep 18 (1) Sep 17 (2) Sep 16 (1) Sep 15 (2) Sep 14 (2) Sep 13 (1) Sep 12 (1) Sep 11 (2) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (1) Sep 08 (1) Sep 07 (2) Sep 06 (1) Sep 05 (1) Sep 04 (2) Sep 03 (1) Sep 02 (1) Sep 01 (1) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (1) Aug 29 (1) Aug 28 (1) Aug 27 (1) Aug 26 (1) Aug 25 (1) Aug 24 (1) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (1) Aug 21 (1) Aug 20 (2) Aug 19 (1) Aug 18 (1) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (1) Aug 14 (1) Aug 12 (1) Aug 09 (1) Aug 08 (1) Aug 07 (1) Aug 05 (1) Aug 04 (1) Jul 31 (1) Jul 30 (3) Jul 29 (5) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (3) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (4) Jul 20 (4) Jul 19 (3) Jul 18 (4) Jul 17 (6) Jul 16 (5) Jul 15 (3) Jul 14 (4) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (4) Jul 11 (3) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (3) Jul 08 (4) Jul 07 (3) Jul 06 (5) Jul 05 (4) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (4) Jul 02 (5) Jul 01 (3) Jun 30 (4) Jun 29 (6) Jun 28 (4) Jun 27 (4) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (4) Jun 24 (4) Jun 23 (4) Jun 22 (6) Jun 21 (3) Jun 20 (3) Jun 19 (6) Jun 18 (5) Jun 17 (5) Jun 16 (5) Jun 15 (4) Jun 14 (4) Jun 13 (5) Jun 12 (4) Jun 11 (3) Jun 10 (4) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (4) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (5) Jun 03 (5) Jun 02 (4) Jun 01 (5) May 31 (4) May 30 (4) May 29 (4) May 28 (5) May 27 (5) May 26 (5) May 25 (4) May 24 (5) May 23 (4) May 22 (4) May 21 (3) May 20 (6) May 19 (4) May 18 (4) May 17 (4) May 16 (5) May 15 (3) May 14 (3) May 13 (4) May 12 (3) May 11 (3) May 10 (3) May 09 (3) May 08 (3) May 07 (3) May 06 (3) May 05 (3) May 04 (3) May 03 (3) May 02 (3) May 01 (4) Apr 30 (4) Apr 29 (6) Apr 28 (3) Apr 27 (3) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (4) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (3) Apr 22 (3) Apr 21 (4) Apr 20 (3) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (3) Apr 17 (6) Apr 16 (3) Apr 15 (4) Apr 14 (3) Apr 13 (6) Apr 12 (4) Apr 11 (4) Apr 10 (5) Apr 09 (7) Apr 08 (3) Apr 07 (4) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (4) Apr 04 (6) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (4) Apr 01 (3) Mar 31 (4) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (5) Mar 28 (6) Mar 27 (5) Mar 26 (5) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (4) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (3) Mar 21 (5) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (4) Mar 17 (5) Mar 16 (5) Mar 15 (3) Mar 14 (6) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (4) Mar 09 (7) Mar 08 (5) Mar 07 (5) Mar 06 (6) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (4) Mar 03 (4) Mar 02 (6) Mar 01 (4) Feb 28 (4) Feb 27 (4) Feb 26 (5) Feb 25 (4) Feb 24 (5) Feb 23 (5) Feb 22 (6) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (3) Feb 19 (6) Feb 18 (7) Feb 17 (4) Feb 16 (5) Feb 15 (7) Feb 14 (5) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (6) Feb 11 (8) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (6) Feb 08 (4) Feb 07 (3) Feb 06 (6) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (6) Feb 03 (4) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (4) Jan 31 (5) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (6) Jan 28 (3) Jan 27 (6) Jan 26 (6) Jan 25 (4) Jan 24 (5) Jan 23 (5) Jan 22 (5) Jan 21 (5) Jan 20 (5) Jan 19 (5) Jan 18 (4) Jan 17 (6) Jan 16 (4) Jan 15 (3) Jan 14 (5) Jan 13 (3) Jan 12 (4) Jan 11 (5) Jan 10 (3) Jan 09 (6) Jan 08 (5) Jan 07 (4) Jan 06 (5) Jan 05 (6) Jan 04 (4) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (2) Jan 01 (4) Dec 31 (3) Dec 30 (3) Dec 29 (5) Dec 28 (3) Dec 27 (3) Dec 26 (4) Dec 25 (4) Dec 24 (3) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (5) Dec 21 (3) Dec 20 (4) Dec 19 (4) Dec 18 (7) Dec 17 (5) Dec 16 (5) Dec 15 (5) Dec 14 (5) Dec 13 (3) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (6) Dec 10 (4) Dec 09 (3) Dec 08 (5) Dec 07 (4) Dec 06 (3) Dec 05 (4) Dec 04 (5) Dec 03 (5) Dec 02 (3) Dec 01 (6) Nov 30 (5) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (4) Nov 27 (4) Nov 26 (3) Nov 25 (5) Nov 24 (3) Nov 23 (4) Nov 22 (4) Nov 21 (4) Nov 20 (5) Nov 19 (5) Nov 18 (4) Nov 17 (5) Nov 16 (3) Nov 15 (4) Nov 14 (4) Nov 13 (4) Nov 12 (4) Nov 11 (3) Nov 10 (4) Nov 09 (4) Nov 08 (3) Nov 07 (5) Nov 06 (4) Nov 05 (4) Nov 04 (5) Nov 03 (4) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (4) Oct 31 (3) Oct 30 (5) Oct 29 (4) Oct 28 (5) Oct 27 (5) Oct 26 (4) Oct 25 (3) Oct 24 (3) Oct 23 (5) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (4) Oct 20 (2) Oct 19 (4) Oct 18 (2) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (4) Oct 15 (5) Oct 14 (4) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (4) Oct 11 (4) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (5) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (3) Oct 05 (5) Oct 04 (3) Oct 03 (6) Oct 02 (4) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (5) Sep 29 (3) Sep 28 (6) Sep 27 (4) Sep 26 (4) Sep 25 (5) Sep 24 (3) Sep 23 (3) Sep 22 (4) Sep 21 (4) Sep 20 (2) Sep 19 (4) Sep 18 (4) Sep 17 (4) Sep 16 (4) Sep 15 (5) Sep 14 (5) Sep 13 (4) Sep 12 (4) Sep 11 (5) Sep 10 (3) Sep 09 (3) Sep 08 (3) Sep 07 (3) Sep 06 (3) Sep 05 (6) Sep 04 (5) Sep 03 (4) Sep 02 (4) Sep 01 (4) Aug 31 (4) Aug 30 (4) Aug 29 (2) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (2) Aug 26 (3) Aug 25 (3) Aug 24 (4) Aug 23 (4) Aug 22 (2) Aug 21 (5) Aug 20 (3) Aug 19 (4) Aug 18 (4) Aug 17 (3) Aug 16 (2) Aug 15 (3) Aug 14 (3) Aug 13 (4) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (4) Aug 10 (3) Aug 09 (3) Aug 08 (3) Aug 07 (6) Aug 06 (3) Aug 05 (4) Aug 04 (5) Aug 03 (4) Aug 02 (3) Aug 01 (3) Jul 31 (3) Jul 30 (4) Jul 29 (3) Jul 28 (4) Jul 27 (4) Jul 26 (3) Jul 25 (3) Jul 24 (4) Jul 23 (3) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (2) Jul 20 (3) Jul 19 (4) Jul 18 (3) Jul 17 (4) Jul 16 (3) Jul 15 (5) Jul 14 (3) Jul 13 (4) Jul 12 (5) Jul 11 (4) Jul 10 (4) Jul 09 (8) Jul 08 (6) Jul 07 (4) Jul 06 (3) Jul 05 (3) Jul 04 (4) Jul 03 (3) Jul 02 (4) Jul 01 (5) Jun 30 (3) Jun 29 (4) Jun 28 (3) Jun 27 (3) Jun 26 (4) Jun 25 (3) Jun 24 (3) Jun 23 (3) Jun 22 (2) Jun 21 (1) Jun 20 (2) Jun 19 (2) Jun 18 (4) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (3) Jun 15 (7) Jun 14 (3) Jun 13 (3) Jun 12 (5) Jun 11 (4) Jun 10 (3) Jun 09 (4) Jun 08 (3) Jun 07 (5) Jun 06 (3) Jun 05 (4) Jun 04 (4) Jun 03 (4) Jun 02 (3) Jun 01 (4) May 31 (3) May 30 (3) May 29 (3) May 28 (3) May 27 (3) May 26 (3) May 25 (4) May 24 (2) May 23 (4) May 22 (3) May 21 (2) May 20 (3) May 19 (2) May 18 (4) May 17 (4) May 16 (3) May 15 (2) May 14 (6) May 13 (4) May 12 (2) May 11 (3) May 10 (2) May 09 (3) May 08 (4) May 07 (4) May 06 (3) May 05 (3) May 04 (4) May 03 (3) May 02 (4) May 01 (3) Apr 30 (2) Apr 29 (5) Apr 28 (2) Apr 27 (2) Apr 26 (3) Apr 25 (3) Apr 24 (4) Apr 23 (4) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (3) Apr 20 (2) Apr 19 (3) Apr 18 (5) Apr 17 (4) Apr 16 (3) Apr 15 (2) Apr 14 (4) Apr 13 (5) Apr 12 (3) Apr 11 (3) Apr 10 (5) Apr 09 (4) Apr 08 (4) Apr 07 (3) Apr 06 (4) Apr 05 (4) Apr 04 (4) Apr 03 (4) Apr 02 (5) Apr 01 (6) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (5) Mar 29 (4) Mar 28 (4) Mar 27 (3) Mar 26 (4) Mar 25 (3) Mar 24 (5) Mar 23 (3) Mar 22 (4) Mar 21 (3) Mar 20 (3) Mar 19 (5) Mar 18 (3) Mar 17 (5) Mar 16 (2) Mar 15 (4) Mar 14 (4) Mar 13 (2) Mar 12 (4) Mar 11 (5) Mar 10 (3) Mar 09 (4) Mar 08 (4) Mar 07 (4) Mar 06 (5) Mar 05 (4) Mar 04 (4) Mar 03 (3) Mar 02 (4) Mar 01 (5) Feb 28 (4) Feb 27 (5) Feb 26 (6) Feb 25 (4) Feb 24 (5) Feb 23 (5) Feb 22 (4) Feb 21 (6) Feb 20 (6) Feb 19 (4) Feb 18 (4) Feb 17 (2) Feb 16 (4) Feb 15 (3) Feb 14 (4) Feb 13 (5) Feb 12 (4) Feb 11 (3) Feb 10 (4) Feb 09 (4) Feb 08 (3) Feb 07 (2) Feb 06 (3) Feb 05 (3) Feb 04 (4) Feb 03 (3) Feb 02 (3) Feb 01 (3) Jan 31 (3) Jan 30 (4) Jan 29 (3) Jan 28 (5) Jan 27 (3) Jan 26 (5) Jan 25 (3) Jan 24 (4) Jan 23 (2) Jan 22 (3) Jan 21 (4) Jan 20 (3) Jan 19 (4) Jan 18 (3) Jan 17 (3) Jan 16 (2) Jan 15 (2) Jan 14 (3) Jan 13 (2) Jan 12 (3) Jan 11 (3) Jan 10 (2) Jan 09 (4) Jan 08 (2) Jan 07 (2) Jan 06 (2) Jan 05 (3) Jan 04 (3) Jan 03 (3) Jan 02 (3) Jan 01 (1) Dec 31 (2) Dec 30 (2) Dec 29 (2) Dec 28 (2) Dec 27 (2) Dec 26 (2) Dec 25 (1) Dec 24 (2) Dec 23 (4) Dec 22 (3) Dec 21 (2) Dec 20 (1) Dec 19 (2) Dec 18 (3) Dec 17 (2) Dec 16 (2) Dec 15 (4) Dec 14 (2) Dec 13 (1) Dec 12 (3) Dec 11 (2) Dec 10 (2) Dec 09 (2) Dec 08 (3) Dec 07 (2) Dec 06 (1) Dec 05 (2) Dec 04 (1) Dec 03 (2) Dec 02 (2) Dec 01 (2) Nov 30 (2) Nov 29 (3) Nov 28 (2) Nov 27 (2) Nov 26 (1) Nov 25 (3) Nov 24 (1) Nov 23 (3) Nov 22 (1) Nov 21 (3) Nov 20 (2) Nov 18 (2) Nov 17 (1) Nov 16 (1) Nov 15 (1) Nov 14 (1) Nov 13 (2) Nov 12 (3) Nov 11 (2) Nov 10 (2) Nov 09 (1) Nov 08 (2) Nov 07 (1) Nov 06 (2) Nov 05 (2) Nov 04 (1) Nov 03 (1) Nov 02 (3) Nov 01 (2) Oct 31 (2) Oct 30 (2) Oct 29 (4) Oct 28 (2) Oct 27 (4) Oct 26 (2) Oct 25 (2) Oct 24 (4) Oct 23 (2) Oct 22 (3) Oct 21 (3) Oct 20 (3) Oct 19 (1) Oct 18 (3) Oct 17 (3) Oct 16 (2) Oct 15 (1) Oct 14 (2) Oct 13 (3) Oct 12 (2) Oct 10 (2) Oct 09 (3) Oct 08 (3) Oct 07 (3) Oct 06 (2) Oct 05 (4) Oct 04 (1) Oct 03 (2) Oct 02 (3) Oct 01 (3) Sep 30 (1) Sep 29 (2) Sep 28 (1) Sep 27 (3) Sep 26 (3) Sep 25 (2) Sep 24 (1) Sep 23 (2) Sep 22 (3) Sep 21 (1) Sep 20 (1) Sep 19 (2) Sep 17 (2) Sep 16 (2) Sep 15 (1) Sep 14 (1) Sep 13 (1) Sep 12 (3) Sep 11 (1) Sep 10 (2) Sep 09 (2) Sep 08 (2) Sep 07 (1) Sep 06 (1) Sep 05 (3) Sep 04 (2) Sep 03 (1) Sep 02 (1) Sep 01 (2) Aug 31 (2) Aug 30 (1) Aug 29 (2) Aug 28 (3) Aug 27 (2) Aug 26 (1) Aug 25 (1) Aug 24 (2) Aug 23 (2) Aug 22 (1) Aug 21 (1) Aug 20 (4) Aug 19 (1) Aug 18 (1) Aug 17 (2) Aug 16 (1) Aug 15 (2) Aug 14 (1) Aug 13 (1) Aug 12 (3) Aug 11 (2) Aug 10 (2) Aug 09 (1) Aug 08 (2) Aug 07 (1) Aug 06 (1) Aug 05 (1) Aug 04 (1) Aug 03 (2) Aug 01 (1) Jul 31 (2) Jul 30 (1) Jul 29 (4) Jul 28 (2) Jul 27 (3) Jul 26 (1) Jul 25 (4) Jul 24 (2) Jul 23 (2) Jul 22 (3) Jul 21 (1) Jul 20 (3) Jul 19 (2) Jul 18 (2) Jul 16 (3) Jul 15 (1) Jul 13 (2) Jul 12 (1) Jul 11 (2) Jul 09 (5) Jul 08 (1) Jul 07 (1) Jul 05 (2) Jul 04 (1) Jul 03 (2) Jul 01 (1) Jun 30 (1) Jun 29 (2) Jun 28 (2) Jun 27 (2) Jun 25 (2) Jun 24 (1) Jun 23 (2) Jun 22 (2) Jun 20 (1) Jun 17 (4) Jun 16 (1) Jun 15 (1) Jun 14 (3) Jun 12 (1) Jun 11 (1) Jun 08 (1) Jun 07 (1) Jun 05 (1) Jun 04 (1) Jun 03 (1) Jun 01 (1) May 31 (1) May 27 (2) May 25 (2) May 24 (1) May 23 (2) May 22 (1) May 21 (1) May 20 (2) May 19 (1) May 18 (1) May 17 (2) May 14 (1) May 13 (1) May 11 (2) May 10 (2) May 09 (1) May 07 (2) May 06 (1) May 05 (1) May 04 (1) May 03 (3) May 02 (1) May 01 (1) Apr 29 (1) Apr 28 (1) Apr 27 (1) Apr 25 (2) Apr 24 (3) Apr 23 (1) Apr 22 (2) Apr 21 (2) Apr 20 (1) Apr 19 (2) Apr 17 (1) Apr 15 (1) Apr 13 (1) Apr 10 (2) Apr 08 (1) Apr 07 (1) Apr 06 (3) Apr 05 (3) Apr 03 (1) Apr 02 (1) Apr 01 (2) Mar 31 (2) Mar 30 (1) Mar 29 (1) Mar 28 (1) Mar 25 (1) Mar 24 (1) Mar 22 (2) Mar 21 (1) Mar 20 (1) Mar 18 (1) Mar 17 (2) Mar 16 (1) Mar 14 (2) Mar 13 (4) Mar 12 (1) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (1) Mar 06 (4) Mar 05 (1) Mar 04 (1) Mar 03 (2) Mar 02 (2) Mar 01 (2) Feb 28 (2) Feb 27 (1) Feb 26 (1) Feb 25 (1) Feb 23 (2) Feb 19 (2) Feb 13 (1) Feb 12 (1) Feb 02 (1) Jan 31 (1) Jan 22 (1) Jan 18 (1) Jan 16 (1) Jan 09 (1) Jan 01 (1) Dec 20 (2) Dec 15 (1) Dec 13 (1) Dec 11 (1) Nov 30 (1) Nov 27 (1) Nov 20 (1) Nov 11 (1) Nov 10 (1) Oct 23 (1) Oct 20 (1) Oct 01 (1) Sep 30 (1) Sep 29 (1) Sep 24 (2) Sep 15 (1) Sep 13 (1) Sep 12 (1) Sep 08 (1) Sep 02 (2) Aug 31 (1) Aug 28 (1) Aug 27 (2) Aug 24 (1) Aug 21 (1) Aug 20 (1) Aug 18 (3) Aug 16 (1) Aug 15 (1) Aug 14 (1) Aug 11 (1) Aug 08 (1) Aug 07 (1) Aug 03 (1) Jul 27 (1) Jul 26 (1) Jul 24 (1) Jul 22 (1) Jul 21 (1) Jul 19 (1) Jul 15 (1) Jul 14 (1) Jul 13 (3) Jul 10 (1) Jul 08 (2) Jul 07 (1) Jul 06 (1) Jul 03 (1) Jul 01 (1) Jun 28 (1) Jun 24 (2) Jun 20 (1) Jun 19 (1) Jun 18 (1) Jun 15 (1) Jun 14 (2) Jun 11 (1) Jun 09 (3) Jun 08 (1) Jun 07 (1) Jun 06 (1) Jun 04 (2) Jun 03 (1) Jun 02 (2) Jun 01 (1) May 31 (3) May 30 (1) May 29 (1) May 28 (2) May 26 (1) May 25 (1) May 18 (1) May 17 (1) May 15 (1) May 09 (1) May 07 (2) May 02 (1) May 01 (1) Apr 30 (1) Apr 27 (1) Apr 26 (2) Apr 23 (1) Apr 22 (1) Apr 19 (1) Apr 18 (1) Apr 12 (1) Apr 11 (1) Apr 09 (1) Apr 07 (1) Apr 05 (1) Apr 01 (1) Mar 30 (1) Mar 27 (1) Mar 25 (1) Mar 22 (2) Mar 19 (1) Mar 18 (1) Mar 16 (1) Mar 15 (2) Mar 13 (1) Mar 12 (1) Mar 11 (1) Mar 10 (1)President: Tehran committed to JCPOA as others follow suit

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, March 4, IRNA -- President Hassan Rouhani appreciated Paris for its stances in favor of the JCPOA and re-emphasized the necessity for adherence of all sides to its provisions.

In a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, President Rouhani said Tehran will remain committed as long as other parties act on the agreement.

He said the Iranian government is determined to have stable ties with France and the decision will undoubtedly fall in line with very old and friendly ties between the Iranian and French nations.

President Rouhani asserted that the Islamic Republic of Iran is ready for consultations on all economic, cultural and political subjects and have solid cooperation with France.

'Seven countries have reached agreement as the UN Security Council endorsed it and Iran has fully abided by its JCPOA commitments, but the US has continuously created obstacles in the way of its implementation.'

He said Iran and Europe have had very good dialogue and cooperation on regional issues, but the cooperation has nothing to do with the JCPOA and the important point at present juncture is that the EU will move in line with the US' full commitment to the accord.

'As two friendly countries we are ready to consult and cooperate on issues of mutual interest. Campaign against terrorism and helping the people facing problems and invasions all over the world and especially in our region are among subjects that Iran is ready to cooperate with all the friendly countries.'

Also referring to contagious diseases in Yemen and consecutive bombardment of defenseless cities in the country, he urged serious gesture on part of Europe, especially France, to help the oppressed people of Yemen.

'In Yemen we are witnessing war crimes and in this respect, the countries sending arms to Saudi Arabia and Arabian coalition should be accountable.'

As for Lebanon the president stressed stability and peace there, and hoped that all Lebanese groups will have good and healthy elections through their cooperation.

'We are fully ready to have multilateral cooperation with other influential countries in terms of humanitarian assistance to Syria.'

As for French president's Iran visit, he said the visit is welcomed. 'We believe Tehran-Paris cooperation can affect bilateral, regional and international relations.'

The French president said, 'I am wiling to build a clear, firm ad stable relation. Paris has employed all is efforts to defend the JCPOA and the defense is the clear and explicit line of us'

He said Iran and France shoulder a heavy responsibility regarding ongoing regional conditions and cooperation between the two countries in regional issues especially in connection with Syria and Lebanon is necessary.

He noted, 'I have always emphasized that we do not seek fresh talks on the JCPOA, but are willing to talk on other subjects.'

He said his country is interested in promoting a plan in Syria to establish stability and tranquility in the country, while seeking cooperation with Iran to promote the objective.

He hoped that he would visit Iran in the first opportune time and meet the officials.

The two presidents underlined speedy restoration of peace and tranquility in Syria and said they are ready for continued multi-lateral movement to have stable Syria.

They assigned their foreign ministers to have more consultations on the plan whose first step is shipment of humanitarian aid to Syrian people.

1420**2050

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Iran, France presidents discuss nuclear deal, Syria's Ghouta by phone

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 05:22PM

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, have discussed the latest developments regarding Iran's nuclear deal with the P5+1 group of countries and the current situation in Syria's Eastern Ghouta.

The two presidents held a phone conversation on Sunday on the eve of French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian's scheduled visit to Tehran.

According to Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi, the French foreign minister is to arrive in Tehran Sunday night to hold talks with senior Iranian officials.

During his two-day visit, Le Drian plans to exchange views with President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on bilateral, regional and international issues, Qassemi added.

During the phone talk, Rouhani hailed France's stance on the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and once again urged all signatories to remain committed to their obligations under the deal.

"Tehran will remain committed to its undertakings as long as the opposite sides implement the JCPOA," the Iranian president said.

Iran and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council  the US, France, Britain, Russia and China  plus Germany signed the nuclear agreement on July 14, 2015 and started implementing it on January 16, 2016.

Under the JCPOA, Iran undertook to put limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of nuclear-related sanctions imposed against Tehran.

Rouhani pointed to some claims about holding complementary talks on the JCPOA and said, "Seven countries reached an agreement, which was also endorsed by the Security Council. Iran has completely fulfilled its commitments, but unfortunately the US has constantly created obstacles in the way of implementation of the JCPOA."

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly described the JCPOA, which was negotiated under his predecessor, Barack Obama, as "the worst and most one-sided transaction Washington has ever entered into," a characterization he often used during his presidential campaign, and threatened to tear it up.

Trump on January 12 reluctantly agreed to waive sanctions against Iran that were lifted as part of the landmark deal, but said it would be the last time he issued such a waiver unless his conditions were met.

The US president said he wanted America's European allies to use the 120-day period before sanctions relief again came up for renewal to agree to tougher measures and new conditions; otherwise Washington would pull out of the deal.

The Iranian president also welcomed dialogue and cooperation between Iran and Europe on regional issues, but emphasized that such cooperation would have nothing to do with the JCPOA.

The important point at the current circumstances is that the European Union make efforts to pressure the US to fulfill its obligations, he said.

France determined to defend JCPOA: Macron

The French president, for his part, expressed his willingness to establish strong and stable relations with Iran and said Paris had made utmost efforts to defend the nuclear agreement and was determined in this regard.

He added that Iran and France shouldered a heavy responsibility vis-a-vis issues in the region and urged cooperation between Tehran and Paris on the ongoing developments in regional countries, particularly in Syria and Lebanon.

Macron emphasized that France was not willing to hold talks about the JCPOA, but was keen to discuss other issues.

Meanwhile, a statement released by the French president's office earlier on Sunday noted that Rouhani and Macron also discussed in their phone call the current situation in Syria's Eastern Ghouta region, which is close to the country's capital Damascus.

According to the statement, the two sides agreed to work together in the coming days with the United Nations and the Syrian government and other countries involved to supply necessary aid to civilians in Eastern Ghouta and implement an effective ceasefire there.

The Syrian army is upholding a 5-hour daily humanitarian pause despite the major offensive it has begun in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta.

However, terrorists continue to block civilians from leaving the area by pounding aid corridors established by the Syrian government. Only a small group of people have so far been able to flee the dire humanitarian situation there.

On February 24, the United Nations Security Council unanimously voted in favor of a resolution demanding a 30-day truce in Syria 'without delay' to allow aid access and medical evacuations.

The resolution was adopted by 15 votes to none after several delays and a flurry of last-minute negotiations.

Eastern Ghouta, which is home to some 400,000 people, has witnessed deadly violence over the past few days, with foreign-sponsored terrorists launching mortar attacks on the Syrian capital in the face of an imminent humiliating defeat.

Western powers, however, blame the Syrian government and Russia for the crisis.

After losing most of the Syrian territories in their control, foreign-backed militants are now largely concentrated in Eastern Ghouta, causing one of the deadliest stages over the course of the years-long conflict in Syria.

Syrian government forces have been pounding terrorist positions in the area to retake it and free a large number of civilians who are trapped there and struggle with malnutrition and lack of basic medical supplies.

Syrian troops on Saturday took almost full control of the town of al-Shayfouniya in Eastern Ghouta.

According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, two neighborhoods and two military bases were also liberated from terrorists.

Terrorists are using Eastern Ghouta as a launchpad for near-daily attacks on Damascus. The Syrian army is currently in the midst of an operation to drive them out of the enclave, but it is facing a hostile West, which is threatening airstrikes to stop the push.

Western leaders were quick to point the finger at the Syrian government after reports of chlorine release in Eastern Ghouta last week.

On Friday, the French president and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, vowed there would be "no impunity" in the event of further chemical weapons use in Syria.

Macron "stressed there will be a firm response in the case of proven use of chemical weapons leading to the death of civilians, in close coordination with our American allies," a statement from the French presidency said.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





French FM Takes Tough Line On Iran's Missiles Before Visit

RFE/RL March 04, 2018

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said ahead of a March 5visit to Tehran that the country needed to address concerns over its ballistic-missile program or risked new sanctions.

"There are ballistic programs of missiles that can reach several thousand kilometers which are not compatible with UN Security Council resolutions and exceed the sole need of defending Iran's borders," Le Drian told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

"If not tackled head on, this country risks new sanctions," he added.

Iranian officials have repeatedly said that the country's missile program is aimed for defense purposes and is nonnegotiable.

Reacting to Le Drian's comments, the Iranian Foreign Ministry's spokesman told the semiofficial Fars news agency that France's concern over Tehran's ballistic missile program was "wrong."

"Iran is an independent country.... Its defensive missile work will continue," Bahram Qasemi said.

Le Drian said last month that Iran'smissile program and involvement in regional conflicts needed to be addressed if the country "wants to return to the family of nations."

His stance was criticized on March 3 by Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign policy adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"Iran's defense program is not the concern of other countries such as France, that they should come and tell us what missiles we can have. Do we tell France how it should defend itself?" Velayati told the semiofficial ISNA news agency.

"If Le Drian's visit is aimed at reinforcing our relations, he would do well to avoid negative positions," Velayati added.

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on March 4 that during his two-day visit to Tehran, Le Drian is due to meet with President Hassan Rohani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to discuss "bilateral, regional, and international issues," including the implementation of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers under which Tehran has signiifcantly limited its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

On March 5, the French minister is to inaugurate an exhibition at Tehran's National Museum of Iran that will display dozens of masterpieces from Paris's Louvre museum.

Iranian and French media reported that Le Drian's trip will prepare the grounds for a potential visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to Iran later this year.

Based on reporting by Reuters, Fars, AFP, ISNA, and Mehr

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/french-fm-tough-line-iranian -missiles-before-visit/29077755.html

Copyright (c) 2018. 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





Iraqi Parliament Adopts Year's Budget Amid Protests of Kurds

Sputnik News

05:09 04.03.2018

CAIRO (Sputnik)  The Iraqi parliament adopted amendments to the country's budget for 2018 despite protests of the Kurdish lawmakers, member of the Iraqi parliament's finance committee Masud Haidar said.

According to Haidar, the amendments were adopted by the majority of votes with 176 lawmakers having participated in the parliament's session.

"A total of 65 Kurdish lawmakers left the session, dedicated to the vote on the new budget, showing their protest against several provisions, the main of them is reduction of Kurdistan's share [in Iraqi's budget] from 17 percent to 12.6 percent," Haidar said on late Saturday.

Lawmaker Ashwaq Jaf told Sputnik that Kurdistan's political blocs decided to demand the regional authorities to withdraw from the talks with Baghdad after the parliament adopted the country's budget without the Kurds.

On September 25, Iraqi Kurdistan held an independence referendum, with around 93 percent of the voters supporting secession from Iraq. Baghdad called the referendum illegal and refused to recognize its results. In response, Iraq imposed sanctions on the Kurdish regional government and launched a military operation in the territories disputed between Erbil and Baghdad.

Meanwhile, Baghdad and Erbil have launched reconciliation negotiations, trying to avoid further escalation of tensed relations.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





South Korea 'to send high-level delegation to North'

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 09:08AM

South Korea has announced a decision to send a high-level political delegation to the North, raising hopes for a diplomatic solution to the decades-long conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

The South Korean presidential office announced on Sunday that a special 10-member government delegation was to visit North Korea on Monday.

"The special delegates will have extensive discussions over issues including creating conditions for North-US talks to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and improving inter-Korea ties," Blue House spokesman Yoon Young-chan told reporters.

The 10-member group comprises five top delegates, including top national security adviser Chung Eui-yong and intelligence chief Suh Hoon. It will fly to the North's capital, Pyongyang, on Monday afternoon before returning on Tuesday, Yoon said.

The delegation will then fly to the US to brief officials in Washington, he added.

The move comes just weeks after the North's leader Kim Jong-un sent a delegation to the South that included his younger sister, Kim Yo-jong.

During her stay, Kim Yo-jong personally delivered to South Korean President Moon Jae-in an invitation from her brother for a summit meeting in Pyongyang.

Peace advocate

President Moon, 65, who hails from the Democratic Party, rose to power last year vowing to ameliorate the broken ties between the two Koreas.

Last week, Moon advised US leaders to stop setting preconditions to hold talks with North Korea and make greater efforts for peace and stability. Washington needs to "lower the threshold for talks" with Pyongyang, he said.

On Saturday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman in Pyongyang called on the US to drop any precondition for talks.

"The US is taking preposterous action by continuing to trumpet an insistence that it will not have dialog unless a right condition is met," the unnamed spokesman was quoted as saying by the state-run KCNA news agency.

The US, which has imposed many sanctions on Pyongyang, has said that North Korea should denuclearize in order for negotiations to begin.

Late last month, the US imposed the "toughest ever" sanctions on North Korea.

The sanctions were imposed shortly after athletes from the North and South marched together in a show of unity at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, which ended February 25.

North Korea, for its part, says its nuclear arsenal is a deterrent against potential US aggression.

The US has substantial military presence in the region and has repeatedly threatened the North with military action.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





South Korea To Send High-level Officials To North For Talks

March 04, 2018

South Korea's president will send a delegation led by his national security director to North Korea this week for talks on how to ease nuclear tensions and help push for talks between Pyongyang and Washington.

The delegation, announced by Moon's office on March 4, comes amid a rare moment of detente between the two rivals stemming from the recent Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

The 10-member delegation is to fly to Pyongyang on March 5 for a two-day visit that includes talks with senior North Korean officials.

The discussions would deal with how to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula, improve ties between the Koreas, and foster an environment for the resumption of talks between Pyongyang and Washington, President Moon Jae-in's office said.

After the visit to North Korea the envoys will travel to the United States to brief officials.

U.S. President Donald Trump said last month that talks with North Korea would only take place "under the right conditions."

Speaking on March 3, Trump suggested that the United States will be meeting with North Korea but has told Pyongyang it must first "denuke."

It was unclear if Trump was joking or if formal U.S.-North Korea talks were imminent.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Pyongyang called on the U.S. on March 3 drop any preconditions for talks.

Last month, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to meet with North Korean officials, including leader Kim Jong Un's sister, while in South Korea for the Winter Olympics but the North Koreans canceled at the last minute, U.S. officials said in February.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and AFP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/south-korea-high-level -officials-north-talks/29077668.html

Copyright (c) 2018. 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





High-level South Korean Delegation to Hold Discussions With the North

By VOA News March 04, 2018

South Korean President Moon Jae-in will send a high-level special delegation to North Korea on Monday to discuss ways in which relations can be improved and to ease tension on the peninsula, South Korea's presidential Blue House announced on Sunday.

"The special delegates will have extensive discussions over issues ... including creating conditions for North Korea-U.S. dialogue," Moon's spokesman Yoon Young-chan told reporters.

That mission could be complicated by military planned drills, however, as a commentary published by North Korea's official KCNA news agency warned that Pyongyang would "counter the U.S." if it holds joint military exercises with South Korea in April.

The 10-member delegation will be headed by Suh Hoon, the head of the National Intelligence Service, and Moon's top national security advisor Chung Eui-Yong. Moon has yet to accept Kim Jong Un's invitation to visit Pyongyang.

After the two-day visit to North Korea, the South Korean special envoys will travel to the United States to brief American officials on their discussions in Pyongyang.

In sending his envoys to Pyongyang, Moon is seeking to reciprocate Kim Jong Un's decision to send a senior delegation, including his sister, Kim Yo Jong, to last month's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.

It was the first visit by a member of the North's ruling family to South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Those North Korean officials told Moon they were willing to restart talks with the U.S., but President Donald Trump responded by saying talks will happen only "under the right conditions.''

Speaking Saturday night at this year's traditional Gridiron Club Dinner, Trump said during his joke-filled monologue at the event with journalists that he would not rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un, but North Korea must first "denuke." It was unclear if Trump was kidding or if formal U.S.-North Korea talks were imminent.

In an unusual self-deprecating statement, Trump said, "As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that's his [Kim's] problem, not mine."

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Moscow will never extradite 13 Russians indicted by US: Putin

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 06:54PM

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed that Moscow will "never" allow the extradition of 13 Russian nationals who have been indicted by the US for alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election in favor of incumbent American President Donald Trump.

The Russian president made the remarks in an exclusive interview with NBC TV airing on Sunday, according to an English voiceover of his words, illustrating the long odds that the Russian operatives would ever appear in an American court to answer charges of purportedly meddling with the 2016 vote.

"Never. Never. Russia does not extradite its citizens to anyone," Putin confirmed, insisting even if they did not act on behalf of his government.

The two countries have no extradition treaty with each other and, hence, Washington cannot compel Moscow to hand over its citizens. Furthermore, Russia's constitution prohibits extraditing its citizens to foreign countries.

Last month, the US Justice Department's Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating the alleged Russian meddling, indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities accused of interfering in elections in the US as part of what is called a conspiracy to support Trump and disparage Hillary Clinton.

In late 2016, Washington alleged that Russia, through running an alleged massive, secret social media trolling and targeted messaging operation, had influenced the US presidential election in November that year to help Trump get elected, an allegation that Russia strongly denied.

Back then, the outgoing administration of President Barack Obama threatened that the United States would respond to the alleged Russian meddling "at the time and place" of its choosing.

Putin urged Washington to provide Moscow with hard evidence such as "some materials, specifics and data" to back their provocative claims, saying Russia would be "prepared to look at them and talk about it," as he repeated his government's insistence that it had no role in directing the operatives to act against the US. He mocked accusations to date as "yelling and hollering" in US Congress.

Furthermore, he asserted he knew "that they do not represent the Russian state, the Russian authorities." "What they did specifically, I have no idea," he added.

In November 2017, Putin strongly rejected as "fantasies" claims that Moscow interfered in the election in favor of Trump. The Russian president also in December renewed Russia's rejection of the same accusations, saying the claims were nothing more than "espionage mania."

There are currently multiple investigations by US security agencies into the case.

Despite lack of significant proof, the accusations of Moscow's alleged tampering with the election persist as a hot topic in Washington, contributing largely to the worst deterioration in Russian-American ties since the Cold War.

President Trump himself has repeatedly told Americans that the allegations of collusion between his campaign and Russia were not true. Back on February 16, shortly after the publication of Mueller's lengthy report, he said that "the results of the election were not impacted."

"The Trump campaign did nothing wrong - no collusion!" he added.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Syrian Army regains control over al-Nashabiye town in Eastern Ghouta

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Damascus, March 4, IRNA/SANA -- The Syrian Arab Army regained control over the town of al-Nashabiye as well as a number of villages and farms in Eastern Ghouta after inflicting heavy losses on Jabhat al-Nusra and groups affiliated with it, a military source announced on Sunday.

In a statement to SANA, the source said that during the past two days and outside the specified truce periods, Syrian Arab Army units carried out operations targeting the positions of terrorists in Eastern Ghouta in response to the terrorists' attacks on Damascus and its countryside.

The source said that the operations resulted in regaining control over the town of al-Nashabiyeh and the vilages and farms of Otaya, Hosh al-Salihiye, Hosh Kharabo, Haarma, Beit Nayem, and al-Ebb farms, in addition to the Air Defense Battalion, and the Transport Regiment.

The army units advanced from several directions, purging several towns and farms from terrorists in the direction of Harasta and Douma, eliminating large numbers of terrorists and destroying their bases, tunnels, trenches, and ordinance, the source added.

The source went on to say that along with these operations, the Syrian Arab Army is continuing to provide protection to the safe corridor set up for evacuating civilians via al-Wafidin Camp, in addition to making preparations to deliver food aid to civilians in Eastern Ghouta.

SANA's camera on Sunday morning toured al-Nashabieh town which has been liberated from al-Nusra.

9376**2050

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Syrian army forces secure humanitarian corridor in Eastern Ghouta

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 04:36PM

A Syrian military source says government forces have secured a humanitarian corridor for civilians to leave the militant-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta near the capital city of Damascus.

The unnamed source, in a statement released on Sunday, announced that army troopers were protecting the safe corridor set up for the evacuation of civilians via al-Wafideen checkpoint, stressing that preparations were underway to deliver food aid to civilians trapped in Eastern Ghouta, Syria's official news agency, SANA, reported.

The statement added that Syrian government forces had advanced on several fronts in the militant-held enclave, liberating a number of farms and villages from the clutches of foreign-sponsored Takfiri militant groups.

It pointed out that army troopers had wrested complete control over the town of Nashabiyah plus several villages and farms, including Otaya, Hosh al-Salihiyah, Hosh Kharabo, Haarma and Beit Nayem.

The statement further noted that the operation had inflicted heavy losses upon terrorists from the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham Takfiri terrorist group, formerly known as al-Nusra Front, and extremists allied with them.

A number of militant headquarters, tunnels and fortifications in addition to their equipment were destroyed as well.

The statement underlined that the counter-terrorism operations were being conducted outside the hours of a 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. ceasefire sponsored by Russia.

Later on Sunday, the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian government forces had seized roughly one quarter of the militant-held Eastern Ghouta, with director of the Britain-based monitor group, Rami Abdulrahman, adding, "Most of it is farms and there are few towns in (the captured area)."

Meanwhile, Russian Major-General Vladimir Zolotukhin stated on Sunday that terrorists who control Eastern Ghouta have imposed a curfew during humanitarian pauses, banning civilians from leaving the area through the designated humanitarian corridor.

"Civilians who violate the militants' rules are subjected to public punishment," he said.

The Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria also stated that Takfiri militants had shelled a medical aid post close to a checkpoint near Er-Rikhan neighborhood in Eastern Ghouta.

The projectiles, however, did not result in any casualties.

Eastern Ghouta, a besieged area on the outskirts of Damascus, which is home to some 400,000 people, has witnessed deadly violence over the past few weeks, with Takfiri terrorists launching mortar attacks on the Syrian capital in the face of an imminent humiliating defeat.

Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups that are wreaking havoc in the country.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Triangle plot in Syria has become 'abortive': Gen. Safavi

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 11:01AM

A senior Iranian official says a "triangle" plot carried out by the US, Israel and their regional allies to oust the Syrian government has become "abortive" after 85 months.

Yahya Rahim Safavi, a top military adviser to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, also said Sunday he was hopeful that the Syrian army and its popular allies would evict US troops from east of the Euphrates river.

"From the very beginning, the major objective of the Americans, the Zionist regime, the European Union, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Turkey was to create a crisis in the region and target Syria's independence, national identity and territorial integrity and destroy its infrastructure, but they suffered maximum defeat," he said.

The US has deployed troops to Syria without the Arab country's consent and a UN mandate, setting up a string of military bases which have turned to safe havens for militants fighting to topple the Syrian government.

US support for Kurdish militants in Syria has worried its traditional ally Turkey, which has launched an offensive to push the fighters back from the areas close to its borders.

Major General Safavi, who was the former chief of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), said US strategy was based on force but the policy has failed in West Asia.

The general hailed Ayatollah Khamenei, saying his "strategic measures paved the way for Russia to come to the Syria theater and provide good aerial support in the operations to liberate cities."

With the tide of the war having turned in Syria's favor, "the Syrian army and the resistance axis must continue their victorious operations, but in my view, the resistance government of Mr. Bashar Assad should also pursue a political solution in parallel with the armed struggle of the Syrian army and people," he said.

Safavi further praised Iran's military assistance to Syria and its missile attack on Daesh headquarters in the country last year.

He said the missiles precisely found their targets thanks to coordinates provided by IRGC drones which flew at night and staked out the structures. "This shows the high precision and power of our missiles."

On June 18, 2017, Iranian missiles hit Daesh headquarters in Syria's Dayr al-Zawr province in the first such attack on targets outside Iran, in which more than 170 Takfiri elements were killed and their heavy weapons and communication equipment destroyed.

The missile attack came in response to a terrorist assault on June 7 when Daesh terrorists opened fire at ordinary people in Tehran, leaving 18 people dead and over 50 others wounded.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Russia: Militants impose curfew in Eastern Ghouta

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 09:32AM

The Russian military says militants based in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta have imposed a curfew during humanitarian pauses to prevent civilians from leaving the enclave.

The militants have also banned mass gatherings of civilians, Interfax quoted Russian Major-General Vladimir Zolotukhin as saying on Sunday.

Russia has designated four safe passage routes in Eastern Ghouta after a ceasefire was declared across Syria by the United Nations Security Council.

On Saturday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov and Syria's Ambassador to Moscow Riyad Haddad discussed the ceasefire and its violation by the militants and their shelling of Damascus.

The Syrian government and Russia said terrorists fired 65 mortar shells at the capital and its surroundings in the day.

The state news agency SANA said the projectiles hit the al-Bairouni Hospital's vicinity, the al-Assad neighborhood, and the al-Qemariya neighborhood in the capital's Old City. According to the report, 49 of the shells were fired at residential structures.

The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the report, saying terrorists also opened sniper fire at the safe corridor, marked out by Moscow in Eastern Ghouta for evacuation of civilians.

Terrorists are using Eastern Ghouta as a launchpad for near-daily attacks on the capital. The Syrian army is currently in the midst of an operation to drive them out of the enclave, but it is facing a hostile West which is threatening airstrikes to stop the push.

Western leaders were quick to point the finger at the Syrian government after reports of chlorine release in Eastern Ghouta last week.

On Friday, French President Emmanuel Macron and his US counterpart Donald Trump vowed there would be "no impunity" in the event of further chemical weapons use in Syria.

Western leaders have been accusing the Syrian military of targeting civilians in Eastern Ghouta but they are generally silent on daily mortar attacks on Damascus, which take the lives of civilians.

In the northwestern Idlib province, as many as 8,000 civilians in the Shia villages of al-Foua and Kefraya have been under the siege of terrorist groups for three years now and subject to frequent mortar attacks.

Like Eastern Ghouta, the province holds large concentration of terrorists, which fled there after losing ground to the Syrian Army and its allies.

"The tragedy in the two besieged towns doesn't seem to have touched the conscience of the states and organizations that claim to care for the Syrian people, despite numerous letters related to this issue sent by the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry to the UN Secretary-General and the head of the Security Council," SANA said on Saturday.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Syrian forces take full control of town in Eastern Ghouta

Iran Press TV

Sun Mar 4, 2018 02:19AM

Syrian troops have taken almost full control of the town of al-Shayfouniya in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta.

According to the so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Saturday, two neighborhoods and two military bases were also liberated from terrorists.

The Syrian army is upholding a 5-hour daily humanitarian pause despite the major offensive it has begun.

However, terrorists continue to block civilians from leaving the area by pounding aid corridors established by the Syrian government. Only a small group of people have so far been able to flee the dire humanitarian situation there.

Earlier in the day, the Syrian army dropped leaflets informing civilians of safe places, humanitarian corridors, and giving them maps of area and medical points.

On Friday, A Syrian commander announced that pro-government forces are advancing methodically against militants in Eastern Ghouta.

Eastern Ghouta, which is home to some 400,000 people, has witnessed deadly violence over the past few days, with foreign-sponsored terrorists launching mortar attacks on the Syrian capital in the face of an imminent humiliating defeat.

Western powers, however, blame the Syrian government and Russia for the crisis.

After losing most of the Syrian territories in their control, foreign-backed militants are now largely concentrated in Eastern Ghouta, causing one of the deadliest stages over the course of the years-long conflict in Syria.

Syrian government forces have been pounding terrorist positions in the area to retake it and free a large number of civilians who are trapped there and struggle with malnutrition and lack of basic medical supplies.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Syrian Government Forces 'Seize Quarter Of Ghouta'

RFE/RL March 04, 2018

Syrian government forces have seized about one quarter of the rebel-held enclave of eastern Ghouta in recent days, activists say.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on March 4 that most of the captured areas were farmlands.

A spokesman for Jaish al-Islam, one of the main insurgent groups in Ghouta, said that the government's "scorched earth policy" forced rebel fighters to retreat and regroup.

State media earlier said the military advanced on several fronts, taking control of villages and farms in the besieged area just to the east of the capital, Damascus.

Hundreds of people were reported to have fled the bombardment by government forces.

Violence in eastern Ghouta has left more than 600 people dead since government forces and their allies escalated their offensive on the Damascus suburb on February 18, according to activists.

Neither a daily five-hour cease-fire ordered by Moscow, Syria's main ally, nor the ordering of a nationwide, 30-day truce by the UN Security Council have led to any humanitarian relief for the embattled enclave.

The UN says some 393,000 people are trapped in Ghouta.

The army has been accused of targeting civilians, but it says it is trying to liberate the area from those Damascus describes as terrorists.

U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May agreed in a phone call on March 4 that Syria and its Russian backers bore responsibility for the "heart-breaking human suffering" in Ghouta, Downing Street said.

May's office said the two agreed that "Russia and others with influence over the Syrian regime must act now to cease their campaign of violence and to protect civilians."

Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron urged his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rohani, to put the "necessary pressure" on the Syrian government to halt "indiscriminate" attacks on civilians in the enclave.

Macron made the call during a phone conversation ahead of Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian's trip to Tehran.

The French president underscored the "particular responsibility for Iran, because of its ties to the [Damascus] regime, regarding the implementation of the humanitarian truce" sought by the UN, his office said.

Russia and Iran have given Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government crucial support throughout the seven-year civil war in Syria, which began with a government crackdown on peaceful protests.

Moscow helped turn the tide of the conflict in Assad's favor by launching a campaign of air strikes in 2015 and stepping up its military presence on the ground.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and the BBC

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/syrian-government-forces- seize-one-quarter-ghouta/29077915.html

Copyright (c) 2018. 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





Assad: West Accuses Damascus of Chemical Weapons Attack on Syrian Army

Sputnik News

21:55 04.03.2018(updated 22:44 04.03.2018)

The arrival of the militia in Syria's Afrin, where Turkey is waging a military campaign against local Kurdish forces, is "natural," while the Syrian government forces are involved in other operations, Syrian President Bashar Assad said Sunday.

In late February, Syrian media reported that new militia units had arrived in Afrin.

Meanwhile, Western countries are accusing Damascus of deploying chemical weapons as a pretext for airstrikes on Syrian government forces, Syrian President Bashar Assad said Sunday.

"The issue of the chemical weapons became one of the entries in the Western dictionary of lies. This is simply blackmail, used only as a pretext for airstrikes on the Syrian Armed Forces," Assad said, quoted by the press service.

Moreover, the international US-led coalition is supporting the Daesh terrorist organization, the Nusra Front terrorist group and other terrorists, Assad said Sunday.

"This coalition supports the IS [Daesh], Nusra Front and other similar terrorist groups," Assad said, quoted by his press service.

Assad stated that the operation against militants in Syria's Eastern Ghouta would continue alongside measures to allow civilians to leave the enclave.

"Most in Ghouta want to leave terrorists for the cover of the homeland, so the operation against terrorists will continue, while simultaneously the possibility for the civilians to leave for the government-controlled territory will be opened," Assad said, quoted by the SANA news agency.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Militants Attack Humanitarian Corridor to E Gouta as Damascus Tries to Send Aid

Sputnik News

20:11 04.03.2018(updated 20:49 04.03.2018)

DAMASCUS (Sputnik) - The Syrian government has tried to send 46 trucks with humanitarian aid to Eastern Ghouta, but the attempt was undermined by the continuing shelling of humanitarian corridor by the militant groups, Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Fayssal Mikdad said late on Sunday.

"We have tried to deliver 46 trucks to Ghouta, but the militants continue to shell the corridor," Mikdad said, as quoted by the Al Mayadeen broadcaster.

The official noted that Damascus is ready to send humanitarian aid to the Rukban refugee camp, located on the border with Jordan.

"But the United Nations should provide guarantees that the deliveries will reach those to whom it is intended," Mikdad added.

On February 24, the UNSC unanimously adopted Resolution 2401 that urges all conflicting parties to immediately stop all hostilities and adhere to a long-term humanitarian pause across Syria in order to ensure the safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid, as well as medical evacuation of those injured. The ceasefire does not apply to ongoing military operations against the Daesh terrorist group or al-Qaeda and its affiliates.

Moreover, Russia proposed an initiative of organizing a five-hour daily humanitarian pause to ensure humanitarian supplies and evacuations from the area. However, militants, operating in Eastern Ghouta continue shelling and prevent the humanitarian operations from being implemented.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





About 600 People Killed in E Ghouta Since February 18, Over 2,000 Wounded - UN

Sputnik News

19:49 04.03.2018(updated 19:57 04.03.2018)

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - About 600 people have been killed in Syria's Eastern Ghouta since February 18 and over 2,000 have been injured, Panos Moumtzis, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, said in a statement Sunday.

"Since 18 February, close to 600 people have reportedly been killed in air and ground-based strikes on the besieged enclave, while over 2,000 people have been injured. At the same time, ground-based strikes and mortar shelling from eastern Ghouta have killed and injured scores of civilians in neighboring Damascus," Moumtzis said.

The UN coordinator stressed that he remained concerned for the safety of civilians in Syria even after the UN Security Council vote to adopt Resolution 2401 on February 24 for a one-month ceasefire across Syria.

"Not only has this not happened, in some cases the violence has escalated, particularly for the close to 400,000 men, women and children of East Ghouta. Instead of a much needed reprieve, we continue to see more fighting, more death, and more disturbing reports of hunger and hospitals being bombed," the statement read.

According to the UN, 385,000 people have been displaced since December. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Monday that a daily humanitarian pause was introduced in Eastern Ghouta, between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. local time (7:00 to 12:00 GMT).

According to the Russian military, militants have been preventing civilians from leaving Eastern Ghouta through the humanitarian corridor.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Militants in E Ghouta Impose Curfew, Ban Civilians' Mass Meetings - Russian MoD

Sputnik News

12:18 04.03.2018(updated 16:31 04.03.2018)

Over the past five days, only two children have managed to escape the terrorist-held Damascus suburb, despite the introduction of daily humanitarian pauses, according to the Russian military.

Terrorists who control Eastern Ghouta have imposed a curfew during humanitarian pauses and banned civilians from gathering in order to prevent them from leaving the area through the humanitarian corridor, Russian Major-General Vladimir Zolotukhin stated on Sunday.

"The civilians who violate the militants' rules are subjected to public punishment," he pointed out.

The Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Syrian reconciliation also said that the militants in East Ghouta shelled a medical aid post close to a checkpoint near the settlement of Er-Rikhan. The shelling, however, resulted in no casualties, the center added.

Meanwhile, the Syrian army said it continued to secure the humanitarian corridor for civilians, adding that militants tried to use residents as human shields. The state-run news agency SANA also reported citing anonymous sources that the government troops had advanced "on several fronts," liberating several villages and farms in the area.

The situation around the humanitarian corridor in East Ghouta has been tense recently, with militants who entrenched themselves in the area constantly violating the truce and preventing civilians from escaping the besieged suburb. The militants also shell Damascus from East Ghouta regularly, causing damage to buildings and injuring civilians.

Maj. Gen. Yury Yevtushenko, a spokesman for the Russian center for Syrian reconciliation, said that civilians complain about hard living conditions under militants and repressions via the hotline. The residents report about a lack of food, medical supplies, water and electricity.

On Saturday, snipers were firing at access routes to the humanitarian corridor to stop civilians from using it.

So far, six humanitarian pauses from 9:00 a.m. till 14:00 p.m. (07:00-12:00 GMT) have been declared in East Ghouta, with the latest one currently in effect. The residents are being informed via broadcasts, text messages, and leaflets about the ways to exit the areas controlled by militants and proceed to government checkpoints.

The aggravation of the situation followed the adoption of Resolution 2401 by the UN Security Council on February 24. The document that was passed unanimously calls on all warring parties in Syria to immediately stop fighting and implement a humanitarian pause so that humanitarian aid may be delivered to the areas affected by the clashes and injured civilians can be safely evacuated.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Aid convoy for Eastern Ghouta should arrive on Monday, UN and partners announce

4 March 2018 - The United Nations and its partners plan to deliver much-needed relief assistance to the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta this week, the global organization's humanitarian wing said on Sunday.

A convoy of 46 trucks carrying health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people, should arrive in the city of Duma on Monday, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, has reported.

"We hope that the convoy may proceed as planned and will be followed by other convoys. Our teams on the ground are ready to do all that is needed to make this happen," said UN Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Ali Al-Za'tari.

Nearly 400,000 people in Eastern Ghouta, located near the capital, Damascus, are trapped in what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has characterized as "hell on Earth."

On 24 February, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a 30-day nationwide ceasefire in Syria, in addition to other measures including the lifting of sieges, particularly in eastern Ghouta.

However, UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, Panos Moumtzis, who is based in Jordan, noted that one week later there has yet to be a cessation of hostilities, while violence has escalated in some areas.

"Instead of a much needed reprieve, we continue to see more fighting, more death, and more disturbing reports of hunger and hospitals being bombed. This collective punishment of civilians is simply unacceptable," he said in a statement issued on Sunday.

"The UN and humanitarian partners stand ready to assist the 13.1 million of people in need inside Syria, but cannot do it alone. We certainly cannot do this while the fighting continues."

OCHA reported that the UN and partners have received approval to deliver assistance for 70,000 people in need in Duma.

The UN has received assurances that the remaining supplies for all approved people in need will be delivered on 8 March, according to a press release issued by the UN office.

So far this year, the only UN aid delivery to eastern Ghouta was on 14 February, when a convoy with supplies for 7,200 people reached the town of Nashabiyah.

Meanwhile, the UN has called on all parties in Syria to facilitate unconditional, unimpeded, and sustained humanitarian access to all people in need throughout the country.

The Syrian conflict began in March 2011 and has generated what has been described as the worst humanitarian crisis of our time.

Despite the ongoing violence, the UN continues to provide millions of people in need with life-saving assistance on a monthly basis.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Trump, May Blame Syria, Russia for Eastern Ghouta Humanitarian Woes

By Ken Bredemeier March 04, 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump and British leader Theresa May agreed Sunday that Russia and Syria are responsible for the "heart-breaking human suffering" in the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta outside Damascus, the prime minister's office said.

The two leaders discussed in a telephone call what May's office described as the "appalling humanitarian situation" near the Syrian capital, even as the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian forces had seized control of more than a quarter of Eastern Ghouta.

"They agreed it was a humanitarian catastrophe, and that the overwhelming responsibility for the heart-breaking human suffering lay with the Syrian regime and Russia, as the regime's main backer," May's office said. There was no immediate White House statement on the phone call.

"Russia and others with influence over the Syrian regime must act now to cease their campaign of violence and to protect civilians," May and Trump agreed, her office said.

The Syrian advance has come after 15 days of airstrikes on the rebels, along with artillery fire and rocket attacks, with more than 640 civilians killed in the fighting.

A demand by the United Nations Security Council for a 30-day truce, which Russia voted for, has been widely ignored, even as Moscow initiated a daily five-hour "humanitarian pause" for civilians to escape and aid to be delivered. The U.N. said it would deliver humanitarian aid to the Eastern Ghouta enclave on Monday.

In another phone call, French President Emmanuel Macron urged Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to exert "necessary pressure" on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to halt "indiscriminate" attacks on civilians in Eastern Ghouta.

Macron's office said Tehran bore "particular responsibility for Iran, because of its ties to the [Syrian] regime, regarding the implementation of the humanitarian truce" sought by the U.N.

"The two presidents expressed their agreement to work together in the coming days along with the U.N., in conjunction with the Damascus regime and the main countries involved in Syria, to secure results on the ground, supply necessary aid to civilians and implement an effective cease-fire," Macron's office said.

The Syrian Observatory monitoring group said Syrian troops had advanced to within three kilometers of Douma, the main town in Eastern Ghouta, retaking "more than 25 percent" of the region in operations mostly run through farmlands.

The Observatory said at least 12 regime fighters had been killed in overnight clashes. But on Saturday, it said that 18 civilians, including three children, had been killed in regime bombardment of the region.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Syria's Assad: Offensive Against East Ghouta Rebels Will Continue

By Ken Bredemeier March 04, 2018

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed Sunday that his military's offensive against rebels in East Ghouta would continue, even in the face of criticism from U.S. and British leaders that he is creating a humanitarian disaster.

"The operation against terrorism must continue, while at the same time civilians will continue to have the possibility" to evacuate from the war zone, Assad told journalists in remarks aired on state television.

"There is no contradiction between a truce and combat operations," he said. "The progress achieved yesterday and the day before in Ghouta by the Syrian Arab Army was made during this truce."

But U.S. President Donald Trump and British leader Theresa May agreed Sunday that Russia and Syria are responsible for the "heart-breaking human suffering" in Eastern Ghouta outside the capital of Damascus, the prime minister's office said.

The two leaders discussed in a telephone call what May's office described as the "appalling humanitarian situation," even as the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Syrian forces had seized control of more than a quarter of Eastern Ghouta.

"They agreed it was a humanitarian catastrophe, and that the overwhelming responsibility for the heart-breaking human suffering lay with the Syrian regime and Russia, as the regime's main backer," May's office said. There was no immediate White House statement on the phone call.

"Russia and others with influence over the Syrian regime must act now to cease their campaign of violence and to protect civilians," May and Trump agreed, her office said.

The Syrian advance has come after 15 days of airstrikes on the rebels, along with artillery fire and rocket attacks, with more than 640 civilians killed in the fighting.

A demand by the United Nations Security Council for a 30-day truce, which Russia voted for, has been widely ignored, even as Moscow initiated a daily five-hour "humanitarian pause" for civilians to escape and aid to be delivered. The U.N. said it would deliver 46 truckloads of humanitarian aid to the Eastern Ghouta enclave on Monday and enough food for 27,500 people.

In another phone call, French President Emmanuel Macron urged Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to exert "necessary pressure" on Assad to halt "indiscriminate" attacks on civilians in Eastern Ghouta.

Macron's office said Tehran bore "particular responsibility for Iran, because of its ties to the (Syrian) regime, regarding the implementation of the humanitarian truce" sought by the U.N.

"The two presidents expressed their agreement to work together in the coming days along with the U.N., in conjunction with the Damascus regime and the main countries involved in Syria, to secure results on the ground, supply necessary aid to civilians and implement an effective cease-fire," Macron's office said.

The Syrian Observatory monitoring group said Syrian troops had advanced to within three kilometers of Douma, the main town in Eastern Ghouta, retaking "more than 25 percent" of the region in operations mostly run through farmlands.

The Observatory said at least 12 regime fighters had been killed in overnight clashes. But on Saturday, it said that 18 civilians, including three children, had been killed in regime bombardment of the region.

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Taiwan Reportedly Bids for Bigger Military Role in Asia

Sputnik News

00:58 04.03.2018(updated 01:05 04.03.2018)

BEIJING (Sputnik) - Taiwan is intending to increase its military expenditure in order to have more opportunities to promote peace in the region, Taiwanese media reported on Saturday.

Taiwan will remain committed to the decision to increase defense spending and follow the example of other Asian nations in this regard, the Taipei Times news outlet reported, citing Prime Minister Lai Chingte.

Lai also stressed that Taiwan would do everything in its powers to ensure that the UN Security Council's sanctions against North Korea were implemented.

The head of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, stressed the need for the boost in defense spending last year and promised that the island's military budget would grow by 2 percent each year. In October 2017, the Taiwanese administration proposed a $10.7 billion military budget for 2018.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Turkey, Russia Have No Disagreements Over Ankara's Afrin Operation - Erdogan

Sputnik News

13:24 04.03.2018(updated 14:01 04.03.2018)

ANKARA (Sputnik)  There are no contradictions over Turkey's Olive Branch operation in Syria's Afrin between Ankara and Moscow, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday.

"We have no disagreements with Russia over Afrin. In Idlib, a process of setting up the observation posts is underway. At the moment, we have already created eight such posts. A tripartite summit (Russia-Turkey-Iran), similar to the Sochi one, is planned to take place in Istanbul in the future. There, we will have an opportunity to assess and discuss all the issues," Erdogan said during the press conference, as quoted by the TRT broadcaster.

Ankara purchases the Russia-made military equipment and arms to ensure its security despite the disagreements with NATO over the deliveries, the official added and noted that Greece has acquired Russian arms as well, but no sanctions over the decision followed.

"We are not going to ask others how to ensure the security of our country," Erdogan said, while answering the question over Turkey's acquisition of Russia's S-400 Triumf air defense systems.

The Turkish president again criticized the United States over the latter's failure to fulfill its promises to withdraw the self-defense forces of the Syrian Kurds (YPG) from Manbij.

On January 20, Ankara launched operation Olive Branch in Afrin against Kurdish militia in order to "clear" Turkey's Syrian border of the terrorist threat. Turkey considers the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Kurdish political party in northern Syria, and YPG to be linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by Ankara.

The Syrian government has strongly condemned the operation conducted by Turkey as an assault on the nation's sovereignty. Russia, in turn, has urged all parties to exercise restraint and called for respect of Syria's territorial integrity.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





Turkish Army Claims to Have Neutralized Over 2,600 Militants During Afrin Op

Sputnik News

11:51 04.03.2018(updated 12:03 04.03.2018)

ANKARA (Sputnik) - The Turkish forces have neutralized 2,612 members of the terrorist organizations in Syrian northern district of Afrin since start of Ankara's operation in the region, the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces said Sunday.

"Since the start of the Olive Branch operation a total of 2,612 members of the terrorist organizations have been neutralized," the General Staff said on Twitter.

On January 20, Ankara launched operation Olive Branch in Afrin against Kurdish militia in order to "clear" Turkey's Syrian border of the terrorist threat. Turkey considers the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a Kurdish political party in northern Syria, and the People's Protection Units (YPG) to be linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by Ankara.

The Syrian government has strongly condemned the operation conducted by Turkey as an assault on the nation's sovereignty. Russia, in turn, has urged all parties to exercise restraint and called for respect of Syria's territorial integrity.

 Sputnik

NEWS LETTER Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list Enter Your Email Address





MAHINDRA Automotive Australia (MAA) has revealed its future product plans for the local market, with the next-generation XUV500 and Scorpio mid-size SUVs, Pik-Up utility and Thar off-roader launching within the next three years alongside an all-new small SUV model.



Speaking to journalists at the national media launch of the XUV500 Petrol last week in Gold Coast, Mahindra and Mahindra Limited chief of international operations Arvind Mathew stressed that the incoming product offensive is indicative of the Indian companys commitment to Australia.



Were here to stay. Its been a long journey, but were clearly invested, he said. We will continue to invest, more product will come out  whether its automotive or farm  we believe that youve got to keep investing in the country.



Specifically, Mahindra is currently co-developing three future platforms  including a small SUV, mid-size SUV and light-commercial vehicle (LCV)  with its subsidiary Ssangyong that will form the basis of the next-gen models from both brands.



Mahindra and Ssangyong will also share powertrains  including EV technology  with the only difference between the forthcoming models being their exterior and interior designs.



This collaboration was motivated by cost, as solely developing platforms is an expensive exercise. Mahindra wants its models to remain budget-friendly, stripped-back offerings that are not bloated with luxury features which would increase pricing, according to Mr Mathew.



Furthermore, these models will feature design input from Italian automotive design studio Pininfarina  another partner of Mahindra  who is also active in the development of the new platforms.



Pininfarina was previously involved in designing the TUV300 small SUV that is sold in India, but this model will not be introduced in Australia because it is not a good fit for the market, Mr Mathew said.



Mahindra drew motivation to overhaul its entire product line-up from the planned 2020 introduction of Euro6 emissions standards in its home market, making next-gen platforms a necessary move.



The all-new small SUV will be revealed in the next 12 to 18 months and uses the same platform as the Ssangyong Tivoli that has been sold in South Korea since 2015.



Additionally, it will be sold in short- and long-wheelbase forms, with the former to beat the latter to market by about 18 months.



Both will be five-seaters, with the short-wheelbase version intended for the urban commute, while the long-wheelbase variation will target families that need extra space when they leave the city for trips away.



No diesel-powered variants will be offered in the small SUV due to the aforementioned Euro6 regulations that are stricter for passenger cars, but LCVs, such as the next-gen Pik-Up, will still offer diesel.



MAA has considered launching the current-gen Thar off-roader in Australia, but it does not meet local safety regulations with its side doors unable to withstand significant impacts.



In North America, the Thar is also not road-legal for the same reason, but farmers can operate a non-registered vehicle on their farm provided it is not taken onto public roads.



Regardless, the Thar was made available to American customers last week for recreational use.



Mr Mathew said the next-gen Thar will meet international safety regulations while retaining its off-road ability that is inspired by old-school Land Rovers. Thus, the new-gen, road-going Thar is expected to be sold in Australia from around 2020.



Styling-wise, the existing Thar is an almost carbon-copy of its Jeep Wrangler rival, but this is a deliberate move given Mahindras history with building the Willys Jeep in India in the 1940s  a license it still possesses, even though Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) now owns the Jeep brand.



An agreement between FCA and Mahindra means the latter can use the five- or seven-slot grille design which has become a signature element of both the Wrangler and Thar.



Meanwhile, the next-gen Scorpio will be underpinned by the new small SUV platform when it is revealed within the next three years. It will be considered for a Australian launch.



Furthermore, the next-gen XUV500 and Pik-Up will ride on the new mid-size SUV and LCV platforms respectively, with Mr Mathew promising the former will come with a five-star ANCAP safety rating, eclipsing the current models four-star effort that will remain until its lifecycle ends.



As such, advanced driver-assist safety technologies, such as autonomous emergency braking and lane-keep assist, will not be ushered in until these next-gen platforms are introduced.



The reason for the delay is Mahindras primary focus on developing self-driving tractors, with automotive products a lower priority due to the challenging Indian road conditions that are central to development.



In the interim, an automatic version of the recently facelifted Pik-Up will be the next model to lob in Australia, arriving next year.



It was originally scheduled to launch earlier but was delayed as the Indian market is skewed towards manual offerings, making it a low priority.



Additionally, the Genio utility is currently in run-out, with the facelifted Pik-Up to carry the LCV load by itself in about six months time. The decision to axe this model was made because sales volumes were too low.



Similarly, the XUV500 Diesel is being phased out now that the XUV500 Petrol is on sale, with MAA citing that 70 per cent of the SUV market is skewed towards petrol offerings  a divide that is likely to increase.



When questioned if a traditional passenger car was in Mahindras plans, Mr Mathew said the company would continue to focus on LCVs, SUVs and EVs instead.



Mahindra has been producing EVs in India for the past eight years. Currently, it has five models ranging from a small car and a mid-size sedan, with plans to expand this further given the Indian governments mandate to sell only EVs from 2030.



However, before this lofty goal can be met, the Indian government would need to create an adequate charging infrastructure, similar to what China did, according to Mr Mathew.



He added that Mahindra would not look towards hybrids as a half-way step due to incentives for such vehicles being withdrawn in Europe, while India does not offer such schemes at all.



The priority is on pure-electric  at the very minimum 100km on battery, Mr Mathew said.



He explained that EVs will not be brought to Australia yet, because the market is not ready for them, with a lack of incentives and charging infrastructure to blame.

The Road to Recovery podcast seriesI walked into the state Capitol Wednesday and who did I see? A Tesla executive with lobbyists in tow, preparing to buttonhole a few lawmakers.

Are you kidding me? After three full years of trying, now entering its fourth year, Tesla still hasnt gained the right to open stores in Connecticut to sell the companys all-electric cars directly to residents.

Good morning, Connecticut! Its 2018! Time to get out of bed. This bill should have passed back in 2015, when Tesla was a newer brand and Connecticuts national reputation for tight business regulation less critical, less of an economic black eye.

Its like Groundhog Day, said Will Nicholas, policy manager for Tesla.

Groundhog Day was funny. This is idiotic. Its the auto dealers exerting political muscle to stop progress in a state that desperately needs to move forward.

To review, Tesla sells cars directly to buyers without going through franchised dealers. In many states, including Connecticut, manufacturers cant own auto dealer franchises, and new cars are only sold through franchises.

Naturally, Tesla wants the right to open stores in the nations richest state. It needs a new law to do so.

The Connecticut Auto Retailers Association, equally naturally, has fought the law. The association, headed by James Fleming, a former state senator from Simsbury, says the law requiring independent franchises is not a relic of the past.

Fleming says its a sensible protection for consumers to have a dealer thats on their side in case of disputes with giant, distant manufacturers.

Fleming says many of the 14,000 jobs at auto dealers could be at stake if the franchise system were to collapse. The dealers are pillars in every community where they operate.

Both sides have fought this battle honorably and reasonably since early 2015. Theyre willing to negotiate. For example, the association appeared to endorse a compromise in 2015 that would have limited Tesla to three stores in Connecticut.

That law would have allowed direct sales only for U.S.-based makers of electric cars, not manufacturers that make hybrid or gas-powered cars. Unless theres another Elon Musk, the billionaire Tesla founder, that pretty much means Tesla and Tesla only would be allowed to open direct-sales stores.

The 2015 compromise fell apart because too many legislators, including Sen. Beth Bye, D-Hartford, had promised their local auto dealers theyd vote against it. At least Bye admitted it; most dont.

The one time the Tesla measure has come to a vote, in the state House in 2015, it won overwhelmingly. But it hasnt come up for a vote since then. Thats politics and thats fine, in many disputes.

But in this case, three years later, blocking Tesla is hurting Connecticut for two reasons. First, it makes us look anti-modern; or rather, it reminds the rest of the country that our laws are sometimes stuck in the past without good reason. That alone hurts our already battered and partly unfair reputation as a business-unfriendly state.

Second, its costing us money. The sales tax on the 1,600 Teslas now registered in Connecticut would have yielded $5 million for state coffers, and thats just the start. Tesla would staff each dealership with at least 25 people, and would spend millions of dollars on new facilities.

Just last year, Tesla built a Northeast regional parts and distribution facility in Bethlehem, Pa. Connecticut missed the chance to compete for that because of its laws, Nicholas said.

The franchise system came with the start of the car revolution, early in the 20th century. Commerce was much more local in those days and the car industry was new enough that we wanted every sale to go through a dealer.

Auto dealers still serve an important purpose both as sellers and as community supporters. Many have public and nonprofit buildings named after them.

None of that should change if Tesla is allowed to sell cars directly. Unlike health care, cable TV, mobile phones and drugstores, the auto industry has enough competition that consumers would have real choices. If a dealer offers better service, car buyers would buy through dealers.

There is a hardball aspect to this honorable dispute. Tesla opened a non-sales gallery on Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich  leading to a dispute over whether that showroom is illegally selling cars without a franchise license. The auto dealers association cried foul and the fight is still in court.

But that shouldnt affect legislation going forward. Three years later, its clear that Tesla is here to stay, with a new model priced as low as $35,000, and electric cars are gaining market share. Thats a main reason Gov. Dannel P. Malloy cites for raising the gasoline tax.

Musk just blasted into space the heaviest rocket ever  a symbol of technological progress. This dispute over dealers isnt a symbol, its the real thing. Tesla would open a dealership a year, at least five in Connecticut, including at least two in Fairfield County, Nicholas said.

The future is here. We dont have to like all of it. I wish newspapers were still the only place to get news and we could stop out-of-state companies from posting local news on websites. Not gonna happen.

And its not gonna happen that Connecticut residents dont buy the cars they want.

The only question now is whether Tesla should be limited to three locations in the state. Years into a ridiculous dispute, that compromise  which dealers could have had in 2015  is starting to look like a quaint relic of the past.The most recent digital restoration of the 1965 David Lean classic Doctor Zhivago looked better than most contemporary films at a Hearst Movie & A Martini screening at the Bethel Cinema.

The film starring Omar Sharif and Julie Christie drew more than 140 movie fans on a damp February night and all but a few of the audience members stayed until the end of the three-hour-and-twenty-minute adaptation of the Boris Pasternak classic.

The romantic drama has been a broadcast television, and cable staple for decades, but everyone agreed the epic was meant to be seen on a large screen, with stereophonic sound.

I tried to show it to my children on television but they couldnt make it all the way through, one audience member said. I wish they could have seen it here.

Tom Carruthers who runs the weekly FilmFest 52 at the Bethel Cinema  a mix of new independent films and classics  said Doctor Zhivago has been a personal favorite since he saw it in his early teens.

I think its amazing to look at  you dont see cinematography with such detail anymore  and its one of the greatest love stories ever, he said of planning the movie as a special Valentines Day event.

The screening recalled the glory days of the 1960s Hollywood epic, when films were presented like plays, with reserved seats. The movies were always preceded by an overture and included a perfectly placed break for an intermission. Doctor Zhivago played in exclusive runs in major cities that lasted a year or more. The huge downtown theaters that booked the film only showed it once or twice a day.

Audience members were taken with Julie Christies star-making performance as Lara, the young woman who inspires the writing of the doctor/poet Yuri Zhivago, played by Omar Sharif.

Christie went from being a virtual unknown at the start of 1965 to major stardom by the end of the year thanks to the release of Darling in the early fall and Doctor Zhivago in December. In the spring of 1966 Christie won the best actress Oscar for Darling, but many industry observers believed she was given a big boost with the voters after the David Lean picture opened.

The scale of the movie impressed the Bethel audience, especially the fact that Lean had no access to the computer-generated backdrops that are now standard in Hollywood productions. A full scale set of many Moscow streets was built in Spain. Lean and his cameraman Freddie Young sometimes had to wait hours for the perfect lighting and cloud formations that they wanted in their vast landscape shots (those effects could now be achived through computer tweaking).

Alice Hutchinson, who runs Byrds Books in Bethel, spoke to the audience before the movie about the Boris Pasternak novel that inspired the film.

Like the character of Yuri in the movie, Pasternak was a poet whose work was suppressed after the Communist revolution of 1917. His writing was seen as being too focused on the personal aspects of life at the expense of the political changes in the country.

He started working on the novel in 1910, but it wasnt published until 1957, Hutchinson said of Doctor Zhivago. The manuscript was smuggled out of the country and then published all over the world to great acclaim and huge sales.

Pasternak won the Nobel Prize in 1958, but the Soviet Union would not allow him to travel to Sweden to accept it. Thirty years later, family members accepted the prize.

The novel only got into the country because of the CIA, Hutchinson said of copies of Doctor Zhivago that were smuggled into the Soviet Union after the books international success.These are the best offers from our affiliate partners. We may get a commission from qualifying sales.Nokia has announced a number of devices at the MWC last week including the re-booted classic: the Nokia 8110 4G, the Nokia 7 Plus, and the Nokia 8 Sirocco. Still, Nokia isnt done announcing phones for the year as were not even past Q1 yet.

A report from NokiaPowerUser claims that the Nokia 8 Pro isnt going to be the only Snapdragon 845-powered Nokia smartphone in 2018. The Nokia 8 Pro will be joined by a Nokia 9 powered by the same CPU.

Nokia 8 Sirocco

Theres also word that the Nokia 9 will have the best in-class smartphone camera. The report mentions that the Nokia 9 could have a camera even more powerful and innovative than the Nokia 8 Pros with its supposed Penta-lens setup.

There is rumor of the Nokia 9 featuring an in-display fingerprint scanner and a display that may be larger than the supposed Nokia 8 Pros. Of course, none of this yet confirmed. The Nokia 9 may also be quite an expensive phone as its price has been compared to that of the Samsung Galaxy S9+.

Based on the report, we can gather that the Nokia 8 Pro might be announced sometime in the summer while the Nokia 9 may launch later, sometime in September  perhaps in time for IFA.

SourceWeChats parent company, Tencent, announced at a Two Sessions briefing in Beijing that the popular messaging and social media app WeChat has reached 1 billion accounts thanks to the spike in social media activity and messaging during this past Chinese New Year.

WeChat, is of course, Chinas most popular messaging app which offers some social media features, the ability to order food, hail a car, access bank services, file a police report, and even offers VoIP calling rates to landlines. The app has seen growth in Southeast Asia, the EU, and the United States, especially among Chinese immigrants who use the app to communicate with their families back home.

The number does indicate the number of active accounts, not necessarily the number of active people. Whatever the case may be, WeChat parent companys valuation might grow a lot if local Government of Guangdongs pilot program is successful. This pilot program would allow citizens to carry a virtual ID card within the WeChat app which would have as much validity as state-issued ID cards.

Chinese dominance is thanks to a few other messaging apps being censored or blocked altogether in China. Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp was completely blocked last year while LINE and Facebook remain censored by the Government. These blocked or censored apps use end-to-end encryption, which the Chinese government doesnt like.

Source | ViaAs you may know, Xiaomi has been doing quite well in the smartphone space with its devices that offer great specs for their prices. However, the Chinese company has only been officially active in a handful of markets so far. One of the biggest omissions has been the US, but that's about to change if a new report from the Wall Street Journal pans out.

According to Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun, the company is looking to finally enter the US market either towards the end of this year or in early 2019. Unfortunately no more specific details are available at the moment, but he did say he's aware of the hurdles facing such a move - among which are adapting to American regulations and accommodating US customers' specific needs.

Xiaomi has had an online store in the US since 2015, but so far it has only sold accessories and fitness trackers. Entering the US smartphone market makes perfect sense for Xiaomi, especially now when it's looking for new avenues of growth. Yet given what has recently happened to Huawei's push to sell smartphones through carriers in the US, it's likely that Xiaomi devices will be available over there only in unlocked form.

Source | ViaPublished on 2018/03/04 | Source

The number of babies born in Korea fell below 400,000 for the first time last year. The total fertility rate -- the average number of children born to a woman aged between 15 and 49 over her lifetime -- fell to 1.05, according to figures released by Statistics Korea on Wednesday.

Advertisement

The rate is not only below the OECD average of 1.68 (as of 2015), but also those of Japan (1.46) and Singapore (1.24). Only Taiwan (0.89 as of 2010) and Hong Kong have lower total fertility rates.

Korea's total fertility rate dropped to 1.08 in 2005, but rebounded to 1.1 and 1.2 after the government announced a series of measures to boost childbirths. But as more and more people postpone marriage and married couples have fewer children, the rate started to fall again, dropping far below the point needed for Korea to keeps its current population level (2.1).

The problem has been accelerated by a decline in the number of childbearing women and the aging population. Only 357,700 babies were born in Korea last year, the first time the number has fallen below 400,000.

In contrast, the number of deaths last year (285,600) reached an all-time high. As a result, Korea saw a natural increase in population of only 72,000, which was also a record low. In December last year, the number of deaths outstripped the number of births, resulting in the first population decline for Korea on a monthly basis.

"Korea saw more than 500,000 births a year even during the Korean War, but it is unprecedented to see such a drastic decline in the number of births", said Cho Young-tae at Seoul National University. "Soaring unemployment among young Koreans and late marriages have resulted in a persistently low birthrate, so it is unlikely we will see the number of new births recover to above the 400,000 level".

A complex mixture of factors appears to affect the record-low birthrate, such as youth unemployment and an unfriendly working environment for pregnant women.

Lee Sang-lim at the Korea Institute for Health and Family Affairs cited a sharp decline in the number of marriages as the main culprit among many others. The number of childbirths among Korean women in their early 30s dropped to 97.7 babies per 100,000 last year, compared to 110.1 in 2016.

To make things worse, an increasing number of women are now choosing not to marry at all. The total number of marriages fell from 329,087 in 2011 to 264,600 last year. Also, as more and more couples get married later in their lives, the average age at which women have their first child rose to 31.6 last year, which is the highest in the world.

A researcher at Statistics Korea said, "If a woman has her first child when she is 32, it becomes difficult to have more than two children".Published on 2018/03/04

The Washington Post gets to know "Team Kim" (aka the "Garlic Girls") after their popular performance in PyeongChang, Lee Hyo-won explores the complex culture and history behind 'K-beauty', meet the man who helped create the two Winter Olympic mascots, and the Korea Herald explores the roots of Korea's thriving hip-hop subculture.

Advertisement

"South Korea's 'Garlic Girls' are Olympic curling heroes, even after losing out on gold"

South Korea's women's curling team (called the "garlic girls", because its top four players are from a region in Korea, Uiseong, known for its garlic-the team, however, prefers "Team Kim") became unlikely stars over the course of the recently concluded Winter Games. The team failed to succeed four years ago at the Sochi Games, so expectations were not high, but the team managed to win the hearts and minds of the country and eventually went on to a gold-medal match against Sweden. "During these Olympics, Team Kim has taken the country by storm, achieving a level of celebrity usually associated with K-pop stars", wrote Anna Fifield for the Washington Post.

...READ ON THE WASHINGTON POST

"The complex culture and history behind 'K-beauty'"

South Korea's "enormous beauty industry", writes Lee Hyo-won, "is fuelled by celebrity imitation and informed by western ideals". Over the past few years, Korea's cosmetic industry, along with its surging plastic surgery sector, has run alongside the country's K-pop phenomenon to become a notable feature of the so-called 'Korean Wave'. In this article on Asian Review, Lee investigates past and present features of 'K-beauty' by speaking to, among other people, a local psychologist and a plastic surgeon. What do you think about Korea's booming beauty industry? Share your thoughts with us and others in the comment section below...

...READ ON NIKKEI ASIAN REVIEW

"[Herald Interview] The man behind Soohorang the white tiger"

Did you see Korea's two Olympic mascots, Soohorang and Bandabi? The official characters for the recently concluded Winter Games in PyeongChang were created by Lee Hee-gon of Mass C&G. In this interview on the Korea Herald, journalist Bak Se-hwan asks the chief marketing officer about the design of his popular creations and their place in Korean culture. "The two appear in the myth of Dangun who is known as the legendary founder of Korea", said Bak, describing the story and cultural influence behind the two figures. "A tiger represents an adventurous and very courageous character in the myth, whereas a bear is seen to have patience and perseverance. Those characteristics are the main spirit for the Olympic athletes".

...READ ON THE KOREA HERALD

"[Weekender] Hip-hop: More than music"

"Subculture of hip-hop has grown to claim place in hearts of Koreans as way of life". In this feature on the Korea Herald, writer Yoon Min-sik explores Korea's thriving hip-hop culture since the 1990s, as well as some of the obstacles it has had to face since then. "For a long time, hip-hop has suffered a negative image in Korea, writes Yoon. "Many were offended by the language used in famous hip-hop tracks, and it did not help that some Korean artists used racially insensitive or offensive words in their songs".

...READ ON THE KOREA HERALDRep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., has introduced two bills in the U.S. House of Representatives that would release more than 690,000 acres in Wilderness Study Areas, including 74,650 acres within the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, and has drawn the ire of some conservationists.

A press release from Gianfortes office said Thursday that the Protect Use of Public Lands Act and the Unlocking Public Lands Act will open access to lands found not to meet the criteria for federal wilderness protection.

Nearly 700,000 acres of Montanas public lands have been in limbo for as long as 40 years, stuck in a perpetual study that was actually completed years ago. Congress didnt act then like it should have, and its about time we did, Gianforte said. Unlocking these lands and returning them to Forest Service and BLM management will increase Montanans access to their public lands.

Hugo Tureck, chairman of Friends of the Missouri River Breaks Monument and a public lands rancher, said Gianfortes bill is not the way to manage the land.

We ought to take a look at each piece (of land) individually and it should be the choice of the people, not the corporations, he said.

The Unlocking Public Lands Act, the release says, would release 24 Wilderness Study Areas in Montana that would total more than 240,000 acres the Bureau of Land Management found by 1980 not to be suitable for wilderness designation.

The legislation says the WSAs lifted would include the Woodlawk, Stafford, Ervin Ridge, Dog Creek South, Cow Creek and Antelope Creek, all within the Breaks.

Gianforte also introduced a second bill, the Protect Public Use of Public Lands Act, a version of which by Sen. Steve Daines. R-Mont., introduced in the Senate late year would release 449,500 acres of wilderness study areas all on national forest lands.

Conservationists criticized the bills. Montana Wilderness Association Executive Director Ben Gabriel said Gianfortes bills represent the single biggest rollback of public lands protections in Montanas history.

Today, Congressman Gianforte joined Sen. Daines in a full-on assault on the public lands that provide our communities with drinking water, enable our fish and wildlife populations to flourish, and serve as the foundation of our $7 billion outdoor recreation economy, Gabriel said in a release Thursday. Congressman Gianforte is following Sen. Daines incredibly unpopular and damaging lead with two bills of his own that fail to include the interests of the vast majority of Montanans who use and cherish these lands.

Tureck said the Breaks as a national monument already has some protections, but he is worried restrictions on oil and gas development, logging and off-road vehicles could be weakened. He added that he is also worried lands outside the monument would be developed.

If WSA protections are removed, Tureck said. it should be done after taking into consideration why it was set aside for a WSA, what has changed. how releasing that land from a WSA will affect wildlife on the land and the experiences of the people who want to use it, and after the public has offered input.



Information from the Associated Press was also included in this story.A Montana freedom of information attorney said the Hill County Commission should have been more

specific on Thursday's agenda about their decision to fire Great Northern Fair grounds manager Dave Brewer.

The decision to release Brewer because of the fairgrounds' financial problems was made during the "Employment

Review" portion of Thursday's meeting. The fair board is holding a special meeting Wednesday.

Attorney Mike Meloy of Montana's Freedom of Information Hotline Inc. said the matter should have been handled differently and a better attempt to allow public input should have been made.

"If there was significant public interest in the employment of the manager, the commission should have permitted the public to weigh in on the employment issue and the agenda notice was inadequate," Mike Meloy said.

Commissioner Mike Wendland said Friday the commissioners were not trying to hide anything by not being more specific about what would happen during that part of the meeting.

Wendland said the decision was made after Commission Chair Mark Peterson had extensive conversations with board members about releasing Brewer. It was unfortunate that it had to happen, Wendland said, but the fair board's money troubles are just too great.

Wages are one of the fairground's largest expenses, second only to utilities.

Brewer was a county employee whose duties included managing the fairgrounds and overseeing the Great Northern Fair. His wages were part of the Great Northern Fair Board's annual budget.

Despite the commissioner's mishandling, no one broke the law, Meloy clarified.

"Article II, Section 8 guarantees public opportunity to participate in decisions of significant public interest before a decision is made. The statutory provision exempts personnel decisions. So technically, the law was not broken. But a good case could be made that the commission still 'should' have permitted public input," Meloy said in an email Friday.

Brewer said in a Facebook message Saturday that he, too, believes his firing should have been handled differently:

"I believe that I should have been in the review process in a non-public session with the board chairman present, but on the other hand, since all sides had stated publicly that the decision to dismiss was based entirely on the lack of funding for the manager groundskeeper position; than the entire format was incorrectly worded right away in the agenda for the week of 26 February thru 2 March. The agenda line item should have been to meet with the Great Northern Fair Board about the budget/revenue issues and NOT an employment review. Otherwise there's just some 'back-pedaling' occurring since personnel issues aren't legally public information."

Personnel issues generally are considered confidential, although in the case of high-profile employees the case can be made that the public's right to know outweighs the employee's right to privacy.

Given the public outpouring as evidenced by social media since news broke Feb. 21 that the fair board discussed the possibility of seasonally shutting down the fairgrounds or going to an all-volunteer fair, the case for "public interest" is not a difficult one to make.

People have taken to social media - Facebook's page "Havre's Questions, Comments, & Concerns" especially - en masse with complaints and, ideas to "save the fair," ideas on how to make money during the offseason, as well as suggestions on how to improve a fair that, to many, has dwindled in quality for years.

Comments indicate that many plan to attend the special meeting during which board members and commissioners intend to dive into ideas for long-term solutions and create a blueprint for the future of the fairgrounds and the fair. The meeting will happen Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Bear Paw Veterinary Clinic's upper large animal clinic room. There are two items on the agenda, the Great Northern Fair financial state and planning solutions.

The fairgrounds manager position has been a roller coaster of firings, resignations and absenteeism for years.

Brewer was hired last March in an online vote that violated the state's open meeting laws because of the board's failure to publish an agenda notifying the public about holding a vote on hiring a fairgrounds manager. Brewer was one of six candidates.

The board held a public vote April 18 with two members, Chelby Gooch, and Ray Kallenberger, opposed to hiring him.

In September, after the 2017 fair, there was a closed session meeting that centered around Brewer's performance. Brewer had said after that meeting that board members did not give a "resounding we want Dave to stay," but it allowed him and board members to both raise issues.

"I was more than willing to walk away, but I don't think that would have solved anything," Brewer had said.

Before Brewer, the fair board had gone months without a fairgrounds manager because the previous manager, Bob Horne, had abruptly quit in November 2016. Horne resigned after nine months of holding the job, leaving the position vacant for the second time in the same year.

Longtime fairgrounds manager and Havre Mayor Tim Solomon resigned as manager in February 2015 after the board voted to change the requirements of the post. Solomon was subsequently replaced by Mike Sharp. Sharp submitted his resignation in October 2015 following a confrontational public meeting of the fair board.

The fairgrounds' money problems have persisted for at least the last eight years, McCann had said after the Feb. 20 meeting, and board member frustrations came to a head during that meeting after Finance Committee Chair Kallenberger went over the cash reserves budget that was, and still is, in the red.

The fairgrounds generates revenue from the fair - carnival proceeds and money from civic groups and concessions and exhibitors - fairgrounds facility rentals, camper storage, house rental, and schools who rent the grounds to train for rodeos. A small portion, about $5,000, comes from county tax coffers.

--

Tim Leeds contributed to this report.Staff and wire report

State officials are calling on Montana residents to help people struggling to deal with the record-setting winter this year, with Montana Department of Agricultures online system set up to help people donate hay including to ranchers on two Indian reservations and the governor setting up a system for general aid.

Due to the ongoing impacts of severe winter weather, there is currently a significant and urgent need for hay on both the Northern Cheyenne and Fort Belknap reservations, the Department of Agriculture said in a release.

Producers willing to donate hay and/or hauling services can contact emergency personnel at the following numbers:

Fort Belknap: John Young, 353-4874

Northern Cheyenne: Gene Small, 406-665-6290 or 406-477-8474

The Montana Hay Hotline is also available to producers as an online tool to donate, buy, or sell hay. Producers needing donated hay or producers wanting to donate hay can go to the site and create a donation listing by selecting Donation from the Forage Type dropdown menu. Users can also search existing listings to see what is currently available to purchase or create a new listing of hay for sale. Visit the online tool at http://agr.mt.gov/Hay-Hotline.

Gov. Steve Bullock encouraged Montanans across the state Friday to assist Montanans in need suffering from the impacts of severe winter weather across the state.

Bullock declared a winter storm emergency Tuesday in Northwestern and Southeastern Montana, including on the Blackfeet, Fort Belknap, and Northern Cheyenne reservations and in Glacier and Golden Valley counties.

In Montana we lend our neighbors a helping hand in times of need. Right now Montanans across the state are dealing with the impacts of severe winter storms and snowdrifts. So whether its food, firewood, hay or a small monetary donation, lets make sure our fellow Montanans stay safe and warm this weekend.

Bullock set up a Donations Management website to assist those in need. Montanans can donate through this link: http://www.readyandsafe.mt.gov/.

Items in greatest need include nonperishable food, firewood and hay. Cash donations are welcome. Areas in Northern Cheyenne and Blackfeet welcome assistance from area contractors for snow removal.

Organizations listed on the website are verified and are working with Donations Management to provide relief to those who need it here in Montana.Clint Bradbury, from left, Joe and Lisa Toth, Mary and Chad McKenzie, and Judy and Dave Molitor pose for a photo Saturday at Holiday Village Mall after the McKenzies donated money to the ranchers.

Thanks to a Nevada man and a new local church, a group of Bear Paw ranchers received money to help them recover from the ravages of the East Fork Fire just as spring, hopefully, comes around the corner.

Chad and Mary McKenzie of the Hi-Line Nazerene Worship Church handed out three checks Saturday afternoon of $1,133.33 to Dave and Judy Molitor, Joe and Lisa Toth, and Clint Bradbury, who works with his father, Bill Bradbury, on the family ranch.

We wanted to get it to them before April, Chad McKenzie said.

Dave Molitor said once the snow melts hell better be able to assess where the money would best be used. Joe Toth and Clint Bradbury said the money will probably be put toward fencing and weed control. The families lost hundreds of grazing acres and miles of fencing to the fire.

Ted Boyce, a member of a Nazarene Church in Elko, Nevada, sold a load of hay and sent the money to help people who were affected by the fires in northern Montana. The church had determined that Bear Paw residents had been provided with the least fire recorvery assistance. Boyce did this to show the love of Christ, a written release says.

Chad McKenzie said the church, whose members meet in their Havre home weekly, plans to help out and distribute more donations in the future. They are inviting people to a day of music and free food April 28 as they will pray for the livestock and crops in the area.

The three families said they were very appreciative of the donation.

The generosity has been amazing, Dave Molitor said of the many people who have donated to alleviate the burdens.

Molitor said having 2,300 grazing acres burned has changed his outlook to the point of even guilt. Sometimes hell look back, he said, at times before he was burned out, when he knew of other ranchers whod been affected by wildfires, and feel guilty about not contributing to help them out.

Looking forward, hell always remember his struggles, he said, when he hears of people like himself who are affected by fires.Press release

Independence Bank is seeking applicants for its 2018 Summer Internship program.

The student selected for this position will be located in Havre, gaining insight and experience with all aspects of a full-service community bank. The internship will begin May 30 and run through Aug. 10.

To qualify, students must have attained junior level academic classification, be in good standing at their college or university and have a minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA.Targeted degree fields include business and agriculture. This is a paid position.

Interested students should submit a cover letter and current resume to Internship Coordinator Denali Solomon at [email protected]

Deadline for applications is April 6.In 2016, the 7-Eleven head office set up a high-tech payroll system aimed at ensuring employees were paid lawful minimum rates.

After the payroll system was set up, it is alleged Lin tried to disguise underpayments of three employees by requiring them to pay back thousands of dollars in wages.

From 2016, Xia Jing Qi was required by the head office to use a biometric system that recorded hours of work by scanning employees fingerprints to sign in and out, with head office then processing the payroll.

Lin allegedly told the three employees in late 2015 they would be paid through this payroll system but then specified a weekly sum for each of the workers to pay back via a safe box in the store or to Lins bank account.

It is also alleged that after returning this portion of their wages, the employees were left with hourly rates between $8.53 and $26.52.The FWO commenced investigations into the network in late 2016 after receiving intelligence indicating an increase in compliance issues at Caltex outlets, including non-payment and underpayment of wages; cash payments made off the books; false records; and threats of termination or visa cancellation for any workers who complained.

Inspectors visited 25 retail fuel outlet sites operated by 23 Caltex franchisees in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. Only six of these sites were found to be compliant with workplace laws, equating to a non-compliance rate of 76%.

In the non-compliant sites, inspectors found evidence of underpayment of wages, non-payment of overtime and penalty rates as well as record keeping and pay slip breaches.

There were also concerns about the accuracy of the time and wage records provided by non-compliant franchisees, with legal action being taken against two franchisees for allegedly providing falsified records.

The FWO commenced proceedings against the former operator of the Caltex Five Dock service station in Sydney, Aulion Pty Ltd, and has also initiated proceedings against Abdul Wahid and Sons Pty Ltd, the former franchisee of a number of Caltex outlets in Sydney.Attracting and managing the people needed to foster a digital shift will differ from the ways of the past.

Employers can start encouraging a culture of collaboration through using technology in the right ways.

One example is to give people the tools they need to free up their time from administrative or mundane tasks, so teams can collaborate on creative initiatives, customer-centric improvements to the business, and experimentation.

Pring said there are many headlines claiming that robots and machines will take over jobs from people in the coming decades.

For the next generation of jobseekers, especially those with qualifications, competition between people and machines will indeed be fiercer than weve observed in the past.Daniel Danilowicz was jailed for four months and fined 200.

A banned motorcyclist whose bike was involved in a collision was nabbed for riding without insurance when he reported the accident to gardai.

Daniel Danilowicz (27) was riding through Malahide, Co Dublin, when he was involved in the accident, Swords District Court was told.

Judge Dermot Dempsey fined him 200, banned him from driving for 10 years and sentenced him to four months in prison.

Danilowicz, of Tara Cove, Balbriggan, admitted riding the bike without insurance or a driving licence last Aug-ust 7.

Gda Brendan Fitzpatrick said Danilowicz was riding through Malahide when a car collided with his bike, causing minor damage to it.

Danilowicz reported the accident to gardai four days later.

Convictions

Gda Fitzpatrick said the car driver told gardai he wanted the insurance companies to deal with the accident.

It was only then discovered that Danilowicz did not have insurance and was a banned motorcyclist.

He had 24 previous convictions, including five for uninsured driving.

Fiona D'Arcy, defending, said Danilowicz, who was working as a gym instructor, had no excuse for riding the bike without insurance.

She asked the judge not to jail him, saying he was fit and healthy and willing to do community service.

She added that gardai knew about the uninsured driving only because Danilowicz had reported the accident.

However, Judge Dempsey said Danilowicz had a deplorable record and had shown no regard for road traffic laws.Widespread water rationing in Dublin is a possibility as the thaw sets in across the country.

Widespread water rationing in Dublin is a possibility as the thaw sets in across the country.

Expand Close Tommy Thompson and his son Andrew shovel snow in Kilteel Road, Co Dublin / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Tommy Thompson and his son Andrew shovel snow in Kilteel Road, Co Dublin

In the Greater Dublin Area, Irish Water saw an increase of more than 10pc in demand from Friday until yesterday.

Three major bursts in the North Docklands, Infirmary Road and Skerries areas were wasting the equivalent of the daily water usage of Balbriggan, which has a population of more than 20,000.

However, they have been repaired.

Irish Water said it is working with local authorities around the county to minimise the risk to customers and restore full drinking water supply.

Expand Close Digger driver Patsy Dunne clears snow from Kilteel Road as Damien Lee looks on. / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Digger driver Patsy Dunne clears snow from Kilteel Road as Damien Lee looks on.

It is trying to minimise the impact of restrictions by confining them to night-time hours where possible.

The warning came as a Dublin woman, who said she had been forced to boil snow to make up bottles for her baby son after her water was cut off during Storm Emma, was finally reached by council staff yesterday.

Nappies

Rachael Collins (21) had been snowed in at her home in Bohernabreena, Co Dublin, with her parents, two brothers, boyfriend and seven-month-old son since Wednesday as up to eight foot of snow accumulated in their driveway.

However, council staff - assisted by members of Rachael's family - managed to reach her yesterday afternoon, allowing her to get to the shops for nappies and baby food.

"Once he's looked after I'm happy," she told the Herald.

The National Emergency Co-ordination Group (NECG) held a lengthy meeting at which a series of new snow-related problems emerged.

It will be far from business as usual today, though most schools and businesses are expected to re-open.

Business owners are being urged to stagger opening times in a bid to avoid normal rush-hour traffic volumes.

Many communities in the south-east, particularly in Wexford, are likely to remain cut off from main roads for days.

Massive snowdrifts are also creating problems in parts of Kildare, Wicklow and Waterford.

Public transport in Dublin was mostly expected to return to normal today, though there were still some disruptions to services.

Dublin Bus is operating its normal schedule, but warned that there will be some curtailments in place.

It advised passengers to expect delays this morning and allow extra time for their journey, especially at peak times.

"As curtailments remain in place on some routes, real time information is unavailable," the company said.

"It will return when full service is restored, to ensure the accuracy of information for customers."

It advised passengers to check its website, which is being updated regularly.

Irish Rail said Dart services are scheduled to operate normally today. For Luas passengers, full Red and Green Line services will be in operation.

The Red Line will operate a full-line service from The Point to Tallaght and Saggart.

However, the Belgard to Saggart stops will be served by a replacement bus service.

The Green Line will operate a full-line service from Broombridge to Brides Glen.

Caution

Meanwhile, there are fears that emergency services may not be able to reach an accident on the M7 motorway if it happens near Naas.

Motorists are being warned to use extreme caution when returning to the roads today, particularly on local routes.

The motorway network is open, but there are lane restrictions in many places.

Rush-hour traffic on the M7 poses "significant challenges" because the road is down to one lane between junctions eight and 10.

NECG head Sean Hogan said that if an incident takes place on this stretch of road today "there is a risk of lack of access for emergency services".

Assistant Garda Commissioner David Sheahan described the M7 as a "pinch point coming into Dublin".

Local authorities have made big progress in clearing routes, but many regional roads remain impassable due to snow drifts.

Wexford is particularly badly affected, with a substantial number of houses likely to remain cut off for some days.

It emerged yesterday that the treatment of a seriously ill man in the Tallaght area was affected by the weather, after emergency medical teams were forced to carry him over snow to an ambulance.

Response teams found the way to the scene had been impeded by heavy snow.

A spokesperson for the HSE National Ambulance Service said it received a call at 1.16pm from the Dublin Fire Brigade to say a man was in trouble and needed assistance.

The ambulance and an emergency response vehicle arrived on scene in Tallaght at 1.30pm and an advanced paramedic carried out advanced life support treatment.

The patient had to be carried 300 metres from a park in Killinarden to the ambulance as a result of the snow and arrived at Tallaght Hospital at 2.02pm.

His condition last night was unknown.

A spokesman for Dublin Fire Brigade said it had vehicles getting into difficulty in a number of locations around west Dublin.

South Dublin County Council said its teams were out all day working to clear roads and footpaths.

The HSE said it had cancelled all non-urgent surgeries planned for today.

However, outpatient appointments will resume across all hospitals, with the exception of Wexford General.

The Herald understands that up to 700 patients were effectively trapped in hospitals over the weekend despite being ready for discharge.She was in the dance-off for the second week running last night on Dancing With The Stars, but not even a searing samba could save model Alannah Beirne.

The Kildare woman (24) was praised by the judges for her performance with Vitali Kozmin and scored 24 points.

Expand Close Nathan Carter supporting his brother Jake. Pic: Kyran O'Brien / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Nathan Carter supporting his brother Jake. Pic: Kyran O'Brien

But unfortunately, it wasn't enough to save her and the judges opted to save Erin McGregor instead.

Pushed Speaking after her elimination, she said: "It's just been phenomenal. I've got so close to everyone the last couple of weeks. I've had the most amazing experience. I wouldn't change it for the world."

"I had Vitali as my dance partner and he pushed me," said Alannah. "I'm proud of us. I went out there every Sunday and gave it my all. It is what it is," she said.

The former Britain's Next Top Model star is now looking forward to the next stage of her career and is hoping to end up on the catwalk of Victoria's Secret.

"Every girl's dream is to walk on that catwalk. I would love to strut my stuff down Victoria's Secret," she told the Herald.

All the celebrities were praised for their performances this week. Despite landing in the bottom two, Erin received the top score of the week for her waltz with Ryan McShane, getting 29 points out of 30.

Jake Carter and partner Karen Byrne opened the show with an energetic jive that received a standing ovation from the audience and was given universal praise from the judges. He came in a close second with 27 points, with his brother Nathan Carter in the audience to show his support.

Deirdre O'Kane danced the charleston with John Nolan, receiving 26 points.

GAA star Anna Geary and Olympic walker Rob Heffernan joined Alannah in receiving 24 points each for their performances.

The remaining five celebrities are now entering the home stretch of the show, with just three weeks remaining before one of them is crowned winner.A Dublin woman has been warned that her life is under threat after a senior Hutch gang member sent her a letter from behind bars, the Herald can reveal.

Several days ago, the woman was given a Garda Information Message - also known as a GIM form - which is issued to an individual when gardai believe that there is a serious risk to that person's life. She was previously associated with the criminal but was also connected to Kinahan cartel mobster Liam Roe.

She is the latest woman to be warned that her life is under threat as a result of the Hutch/Kinahan feud, with dozens of innocent female relatives and girlfriends of the feuding mobsters being at risk over the past two years.

Gardai do not believe that this woman is involved in criminality linked to the ongoing feud but that she had been in a relationship with a feuding criminal.

The Hutch mobster linked to the latest threat being issued has also survived previous attempts on his life by the Kinahan cartel as part of the ongoing feud. In recent weeks the thug, who is in his 30s and currently in a Dublin jail, wrote to the woman, who is originally from the south inner city.

However, the letter was intercepted by Irish Prison Service members after going through a censorship process, before authorities were alerted.

Decision

The prison's Operational Support Group reviewed the contents of the letter before a decision was made to immediately contact gardai.

As a result, officers officially warned the woman last week that her life was at risk.

Sources have said that the decision to give the woman a GIM form was a direct result of the letter written by the senior Hutch mobster.

"The woman was served with papers on February 23, on the back of this letter.

"She never received the letter because it was intercepted by prison officers, but its contents deemed that there was a credible threat on this woman's life," the source said.

The dangerous Hutch mobster who penned the offending article has been connected to the organised crime group for more than a decade and has survived attempts on his life as part of the deadly gangland dispute which has so far claimed 15 lives.

A close female associate of this man has also been arrested by gardai investigating serious offences linked to the Hutch/Kinahan feud. Following the outbreak of the deadly feud, more than 50 women were identified as having links to the disputing factions.

Innocent

A number of females were in relationships with the feuding criminals while the list also included innocent relatives.

Among the women who gardai established are linked to the Hutch mob are the mother and girlfriend of one of the suspected Regency Hotel gunmen. He is believed to have been one of the criminals disguised as a garda and armed with an AK-47 assault weapon.1 / 3 Jose Perez, center, works with fellow Dixon Middle School Latinos in Action students prep tamales for cooking Saturday, March 3, 2018. Karissa Neely, Daily Herald 2 / 3 Dixon Middle School Latinos in Action students prep tamales for cooking Saturday, March 3, 2018. Karissa Neely, Daily Herald 3 / 3 Parents of Dixon Middle School Latinos in Action students prepare masa for tamales Saturday, March 3, 2018. Karissa Neely, Daily Herald  

Residents living around Dixon Middle School in Provo relished some homemade tamales Saturday, but also the cause their purchase helped.

The Dixon Middle School Latinos in Action class banded together this week for a fellow classmate. Lucy Ordaz, Latinos in Action teacher, said her 18 eighth-graders in the class heard about the loss of their classmates baby sister, who had just come home after spending a month in the hospital since birth. Her students wanted to do something more than just give the family a card, because they knew the family had significant medical expenses.

Without any encouragement from me, they initiated coming together to brainstorm ideas how they could best help, Ordaz said.

The class decided to make tamales and sell them to the community. The students contacted faculty, other students and residents in their own neighborhoods for pre-orders of the tamales. Through their efforts they had orders for 960 chicken tamales, 1,089 pork tamales and 218 Guatemalan tamales. Then they went to work.

On Friday morning, many of these students mothers came to the school to start the process of making the tamales. As soon as school got out Friday, the Latinos in Action students joined them, with the last students finally leaving the school Friday night at about 9:30 p.m. As Ordaz explained, it takes about six hours to make 200 tamales from start to finish.

Some of those mothers were here all day yesterday, and they are back here today working, Ordaz said Saturday morning as the students, their siblings and parents assembled tamales. The group had been working since 7 a.m. that morning to have all the tamales cooked and packaged by 2 p.m.

Jose Perez was one of the students who oversaw the project. When asked why his group chose tamales, he said even though he knew it was a lot of effort to make them, it was a good way for the group to work together.

We have so many people helping, and they are experienced at making the tamales because its a traditional Mexican dish, Jose said.

Thats the most amazing thing for me, is them all coming together and making friends. There are moms who didnt know each other who are now chit-chatting about their kids, Ordaz added. It is very touching seeing all of them come together.

Ordaz also was impressed by how much time, effort and materials the families gave. Some of the women work two jobs to support their families, but came in between work hours to help. Ordaz was able to purchase the meat through donated funds, but the students parents stepped in to provide the leaves, sauce ingredients and masa flour.

There are families here who dont really have money to do this, but they bought the costal (masa flour that comes in 50-pound bags), Ordaz said. Its so amazing.

Through their combined efforts, these students will be able to give their classmates family about $3,000 in funds from the tamales sale and other donations.

This is a teachers dream to see the principles of leadership, service and empathy spontaneously alive and in action in the hearts of loving inspired compassionate students, Ordaz said. Here is an example of a group of caring students needing no outside impetus, no reward to engage them in bringing relief and solace by offering to sacrifice their time, their week, their weekend to help a classmates struggling family.

The Latinos in Action group is still taking donations for their classmate. Donations can be made in person at Dixon Middle School, 750 W. 200 North, Provo, during regular school hours.Not since James Monroe left the presidency in 1825, 48 years after he fought in the Battle of Princeton, has America had political leadership with careers running so far back in the past. Our current government leaders have political pedigrees going back to the 1970s.

Consider the Senate. Democratic leader Chuck Schumer was first elected to the New York Assembly in 1974. Republican leader Mitch McConnell was elected Jefferson County judge  the county administrator for Louisville, Ky.  in 1977.

Consider the House. Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was elected Northern California Democratic Chairman in 1977. Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer was elected to the Maryland Senate in 1966 and was elected state Senate president in 1975.

And what about Californias leading Democrats? Senator Dianne Feinstein was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1970 and became mayor in 1978. Governor Jerry Brown was elected California secretary of state in 1970 and to his first term as governor in 1974.

Technically, President Trump is an exception, never having held public office until 2017. But his public career began in the 1970s, a terrible decade during which New York Citys population fell by 823,000. Thats when Trump refocused his fathers business from the outer boroughs, whose white ethnics were fleeing into Manhattan, where low real estate prices, other peoples money and political pull enabled him to flourish in anticipation of an eventual upturn.

When Trump developed his disdain for establishment liberal opinion and penchant for outrageous tabloid-style disparagement thereof he was left as the odd man out in the Reagan/Bush/Clinton high contentment years and a natural fit for post-2007 discontent.

Democrats with political roots in the 1970s have a different perspective. They have persevered in office even as political times changed. During the Reagan governorship and presidency, they pursued incremental leftward initiatives, like Henry Waxmans behind-the-scenes Medicaid expansion in the 1980s.

During the Obama presidency, they charged ahead. Even after Republican Scott Browns special election, victory deprived Democrats of their Senate supermajority and Pelosi pushed for enactment of a necessarily flawed version of Obamacare. She was willing to sacrifice some of her majority to achieve an important policy goal.

In California these days, and nationally, these veteran Democrats have to fend off extremists in their own party. Jerry Brown has been resisting legislative Democrats extravagant proposals like single payer healthcare. Pelosi has been cautioning Democratic candidates to stop talking about impeachment.

Nonetheless, the impeachment of former President Richard Nixon remains a central memory of these Democrats formative political years. It has inclined them to believe that the Russian collusion issue will result in Trumps removal some time soon. And to hope that it would be followed by Democratic victories as decisive as those of 1974 and 1976.

Donald Trumps experiences give him a different perspective, one firmly anchored in New York City. For him, the 1970s were a time of increasing crime and disorder, of manipulation of rules and regulations by political insiders  a time when modest-income white ethnics were disparaged and driven by the hundreds of thousands from the city.

In the 1990s, elite opinion was encapsulated when the editorial page of the New York Times relentlessly attacked Mayor Rudy Giulianis crime-fighting policies and welfare reforms. Liberals dismissed them as fascist and authoritarian, heading toward Hitlerism. Trump, who could see that Giuliani cut violent crime and welfare dependency by more than half, naturally dismissed such criticism, as he does similar statements about his own actions and policies today.

The 1970s saw the emergence of what Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg calls the coalition of the ascendant  blacks, Hispanics, feminists, gays, public employee union members. That coalition, much larger today, was enough to give presidential candidate Hillary Clinton a plurality of the popular vote in 2016.

The 1970s also saw the demotion of white working class and ethnic voters as what they had been since the 1930s, the central mainstays and honored heroes of the Democratic party. Increasingly, Democratic politicians scorn them as racist, sexist and deplorable. Trump identified with them and opposed establishment free trade and immigration policies that he thought were hurting them.

Those voters have largely disappeared from New York City and coastal California. But they were numerous enough in Florida, Pennsylvania, the Midwest and northern Maine to switch 100 electoral votes and elect Trump in 2016.

The result? Were still saddled with the politics and politicians of that slum of a decade, the 1970s.Fall is on the way, but don't unpack the sweaters just yetDepartmental leaders are among the most qualified public servants in the Federal Government. They are dedicated to ensuring the guidance and management necessary to support the health and well-being of the nation. Learn more about the Department's leadership:

Secretary and Deputy SecretaryTwenty-three years after the Guest House incident, where Samajwadi Party workers assaulted Mayawati and the latter swore to keep off the SP and its leader Mulayam Singh Yadav forever, the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the SP have indicated there could be a degree of rapprochement.

There are mixed signs at the moment. But if it happens, it would be a potentially dramatic shift in the politics of electorally crucial Uttar Pradesh with implications for 2019 polls.

Three questions are key to understanding the possibilities, motivations and limitations of this move.

Who do the SP and the BSP represent?

The Samajwadi Party began with a core constituency of OBCs and Muslims. But over the years, from being a party of different backward groups, SP ended up becoming a party of Yadavs. This Yadav plus Muslim equation, coupled with the caste votes brought in by candidates of different castes, was key to SPs political fortunes.

BSPs core constituency was Dalits, with a slice of the most marginalised backward groups. But over the years, the party shrank to being the party of Jatavs, a Dalit sub-caste to which Mayawati belongs. But to succeed, BSP has needed one more social group. In 2007, it was the Brahmans, which worked out. In 2017, it was the Muslims, which did not work out.

The SP and BSP were allies in the early 90s.

But it did not last. And the reason it collapsed, besides Mayawati and Mulayam Singhs clashing ambitions, were the contradictions between their respective social constituencies. There was often a conflict between landed OBCs, including Yadavs, and landless Dalits. The two began competing ruthlessly.

What brings them together?

SP and BSP are today on the verge of overcoming this history of acrimony.

The primary impulse is political survival. Mayawati has now lost three elections in a row: the 2012 assembly, 2014 Lok Sabha and 2017 assembly.

She has maintained a solid vote share hovering around 20 percent, but this has not translated into seats. This has led to desertions from the party, the weakening of the organisation, and one more electoral setback could well close the doors for her.

She is particularly vulnerable because BJP is aggressively targeting her own core base, Dalits. Non-Jatav Dalits shifted on a large scale to the BJP in 2017, and in the bypolls, in the absence of BSP candidates, there was a possibility that even Jatavs of Gorakhpur and Phulpur may move.

For the SP too, the 2017 loss has been devastating. With Yogi Adityanath consolidating and BJP aggressively wooing the non Yadav backward communities, the SP can see returning to power will be difficult. One reason why it lost was also because the Muslim vote got fragmented; BSP put up over 100 Muslim candidates.

The generational change in SP has helped. Akhilesh has always respectfully called Mayawati , Bua or aunt. He sought to reach out to her even before the last assembly polls. His overtures, and Mulayam Singh and Shivpal Yadavs absence from active SP politics, has probably made it easier for Mayawati to consider the alliance.

Will it work?

On paper, a unified SP-BSP alliance, with Congress as a junior partner, appears unbeatable. Going by the 2017 verdict, this would have a combined vote share of over 50 percent. It will unite the anti-BJP vote. Muslims, Jatavs, Yadavs and even a slice of upper castes could come together. It will energise the cadre and challenge the BJP machine. However, in practice, this will not be easy to translate on the ground.

The first challenge will be sharing of seats and distribution of tickets.

Two, these social groups have a lot of conflict. It is not obvious that BSPs Jatav voters will support SPs Yadav candidates  or SPs Yadav voters, prefer a BSP or Congress candidate over a BJP candidate.

Three, if the message goes out that this alliance is meant to unify the Muslim vote, as the BJP will definitely project, there could well be a counter Hindu consolidation. And finally, personality clashes on the ground, and one party machine going inert in seats where another party contests are inevitable.

UP will be at the centre of the 2019 election yet again. With the bypolls, and BSP-SP dalliance, the action has begun.Police have found illegally cultivated poppy plants spread over 22,000 square feet in seven spots in Manihari village, under Bargawa police station on Monday, Singrauli district police said.

Singrauli which borders Uttar Pradesh is situated some 675 km east of Bhopal.

A license from the Central Bureau of Narcotics is necessary for cultivation of poppy plants, from which opium is extracted. Opium, which is a controlled substance is used for medicines is also used for drugs like heroine, police said.

Singrauli SP Vineet Jain said four persons from the village have been arrested and 12 others are absconding.

It was thanks to a constable, Neelesh Jain, that this illegal cultivation was caught. Jain who hails from Neemuch district of Madhya Pradesh where poppy plants are grown in large swathes, noticed these plants when he had gone to serve a warrant in the village, the SP said.

The plants were concealed in the middle of other crops and the village itself is isolated giving the cultivators chance to hide their crop for so long. This is the first time that illegal cultivation of poppy plants has been caught in the region, and most of the locals were not even aware what poppy plants looked it. The poppy plants are fully grown and opium extraction would have started from the pods in another weeks time, SP Jain said.

When the police reached the first field with the team, word of the raid spread and some of the farmers attempted to uproot the poppy plants.

We dont know for how many years this has been going on. It is still a matter of investigation, Jain added.Five people allegedly set a man on fire in Madhya Pradeshs Damoh district on Monday after accusing him of bringing them bad luck, the police said.

The victim, Rajesh Ladiya, sustained 70% burn injuries and is battling for life at Damoh district hospital, the police added.

The crime was reported from Kishangunj village under Dehat police station limits of Damoh, located about 260 km east of state capital Bhopal.

Ladiya told local journalists at the hospital that he was alone at home in the afternoon when the five people, who often taunted him, came and argued with him. They would say my face was unlucky for them, he said.

Ladiya said the five poured kerosene over him and set him on fire. Hearing my screams, neighbours rushed in and doused the fire.

Damoh Dehat police station officer Vijay Mishra said he was on his way to the hospital for recording the Ladiyas statement. We will take action after registering a case, he added.Is the book better or its movie adaptation? Nothing divides a room full of bibliophiles and movie buffs into opposing camps faster than this question. Purists will tell you to never ever watch the movie before reading the book. Realists will point out the difficulty of ploughing through doorstopper classics in archaic English and historical settings. Aesthetes will complain about new editions that have the movie poster plastered on the cover. Some screen adaptations will get trashed and some lauded.

In our first Book vs Film edition, we talk about Kingsman: The Secret Service. Such a discussion is always subjective and so is ours.

But first, a word about the plot to refresh your memory.

The comic tells the story of Gary Unwin or Eggsy who lives in London with his mother, a baby brother and an abusive stepdad. Things change when Eggsys uncle, James London, steps into their miserable lives and takes him under his wing. London is a secret agent who gets Eggsy enrolled into the spy academy. London is investigating mysterious kidnappings of celebrities, and a billionaire eco-terrorist working on a rather extreme solution to climate change.

The movie tweaks the plot majorly and introduces new characters. In a win for gender and diversity, it makes the villain a black man (Samuel L Jackson as Richmond Valentine) and his henchman, Gazelle, a woman. It also gives a peek into the history of the Kingsman, a secret global spy agency, and makes Eggsy the kind of underdog youd want to root for. But the best thing about the film is Colin Firth, who plays the gentleman spy Harry Hart (no longer Eggsys uncle but his fathers former colleague).

Like most readers and cinema lovers we have our opinions on the comic and the movie, which we discussed in a Facebook Live.

Heres a slightly longer version of our debate over texts:

Colin Firth as Harry Hart in a still from the famous Church massacre scene. (IMDb.com)

Samuel L. Jackson plays Richmond Valentine, the billionaire-villain (Dr James Arnold in the comic) in the movie. (IMDb.com)

Sophie Cookson as agent Roxanne in a still from the film. (IMDb.com)

Sofia Boutella as Gazelle in a still from Kingsman: The Secret Service. (IMDb.com)

Next week well talk about Douglas Adams The HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy. If you have any thoughts/opinions on Kingsman: The Secret Service tweet to us @httweets.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for moreFintech startups have long had trouble turning feel-good rhetoric into profitable growth. Competition is intense, consumers tend to want things for free, and dinosaur banks are far from extinct. To make matters worse, finance just isnt as addictive as messaging or catching up with friends. That counts in an era where billions are made through monetizing attention.

Enter, Bitcoin.

Back in 2016, the cryptocurrency was on nobodys strategy white-board, but it turns out all that was needed was a 15-fold price increase in as many months. Rather than try and undercut banks, or chase millennial savers pennies at a loss, fintech firms are now leaping at the chance to make serious cash through a technology that most banks wont even touch. Whats more, Bitcoin has the power to take over peoples lives. One trader says its worse than gambling; Korea calls victims zombies.

Heres a roll call of recent converts: Mobile-payments firm Square Inc. has rolled out Bitcoin trading; social-payments app Circle splashed $400 million on Poloniex, only about 15 months after it had stopped offering bitcoin trading; and money-transfer company Revolut has started offering crypto trading facilities.

Given that Bitcoin wasnt always a part of the core value proposition of these businesses, it seems more than a little unsettling to see their slick marketing machines kick into gear. At Square, Jack Dorseys team offers a fairytale picture-book, My First Bitcoin, which buries all the health warnings right at the bottom. Revolut compares cryptocurrency exchanges to local farms trading juicy produce at the town market.

Still, if this is what customers and investors want, wheres the harm? Trading platform Coinbase booked more than $1 billion in revenue last year, according to Recode, which, if true, is more than peer-to-peer marketplace Lending Club and more than Square. On top of the money to be made from trading fees and asset-price gains, Bitcoin could also act as a lure, helping startups cross-sell their other products to a bigger audience.

The problem is that we dont know how long this boom will go on for. Startups may end up acquiring assets that fail to create long-term value, or that destroy it. We have seen investors miscalculate chip-makers ability to profit from cryptocurrency mining in the past.

There could also be reputational risks too. We dont know how the impact of potentially widespread investor losses would affect brands that rely on fuzzy, consumer-friendly values. Banks are used to paying out billions in compensation to victims of product mis-selling. Would smaller startups survive the same treatment?

And regulators, long the scourge of the risk-hungry entrepreneur, are beginning to crack down on the sector, with Bank of England Governor Mark Carney last week calling for an end to the cryptocurrency anarchy. The CFTC is subpoenaing Bitcoin exchanges; the IRS is collecting user information; the G20 is eyeing a global regulatory approach. If Bitcoin really does lead to greater financial access for all, as Dorsey puts it, it wont be without a fight from the authorities.

Many startups will feel like they dont have a choice but to ride the wave. Others will assume they can manage the risk. If they miscalculate, those old bank dinosaurs will have another day in the sun -- and less competitive pressure to boot. Bloomberg Gadfly

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.A 35-year-old man who worked as a cook in south Delhis Greater Kailash area was stabbed to death after a late-night chase on foot in Alaknanda on Sunday, police said.

The crime took place around 10 pm outside Yamuna Apartments when the victim, Dashrath Mukhiya, was walking back home after work.

Police said that a CCTV camera installed near Godawari Apartments recorded two attackers chasing Mukhiya along a footpath, though the stabbing was not captured in the camera because of poor lighting in the area.

Two people were taken into custody on Monday evening for questioning but no arrests were made till late night, police said.

In the footage, Mukhiya is seen running and falling on the footpath. He is then seen getting up, running, and finally falling in front of a security guard outside Godawari Apartments. The camera has recorded the attackers fleeing after Mukhiya falls on the road, said a police officer associated with the probe.

The investigators suspect that he may have been murdered over personal enmity because his cell phone was found intact and R450 were found on his person.

Praveer Ranjan, special commissioner of police (southern range), said that Mukhiya told the apartment security guard that he was stabbed by two men before falling unconscious. A native of Bihars Darbhanga , he had been living in Delhi for 14 years and stayed in a rented room in Tughlaqabad Extension. He was married and had two children. The family had moved to Delhi only three months ago.

Around 10pm on Sunday, the CR Park police station received information about an injured man near Yamuna Apartments. Spot enquiry revealed that the man was stabbed by unknown persons. He was rushed to AIIMS Trauma Centre where doctors declared him brought dead, said Romil Baaniya, deputy commissioner of police (south).

Mukhiya suffered two deep stabs in his chest. His body was later sent for autopsy. We have registered a case of murder and probing it from all possible angles, said Baaniya. One of the suspects seen in the footage may have been known to Mukhiya, police said.The brand of politics being practised these days has begun to alienate the people from the democratic process. A good example of this is the just-concluded elections in the three Northeastern states. Here, I will desist from analysing the victory or loss of any particular party or leader and, instead, focus on analysing the tendencies that have nurtured the gun-tantra (culture of guns) and dealt a number of blows to ganatantra (the republic).

Let me begin with Nagaland. This extremely-sensitive part of India has been struggling to overcome poverty and backwardness. The annual per capita income here is Rs 89,607 as compared to the national per capita income of Rs 1,11,782. Now consider the average wealth of candidates from Nagaland. Of the 196 poll warriors in the fray, 114 are crorepatis with an average personal wealth of Rs 3.76 crore. As many as 60 candidates have personal assets of more than Rs 50 lakh.

The story doesnt end there. Only five of the 196 candidates who filed nominations for the 60-seat assembly are women. An indicator of the sorry state of women in the states politics is that not a single woman candidate has been elected for the assembly, ever. Rano M Shaiza did become the states only parliamentarian in 1977 but no other woman has had this honour since. In a state that believes in giving equal rights to women, there was fierce resistance to reserving 33% seats for women in the municipal elections.

The condition of Meghalaya and Tripura, part of the Seven Sisters, isnt any better. Theres a predominance of the Khasi community in Meghalaya. It is a matrilineal society that believes in the pre-eminence of women in society. In the Khasi community, the husband has to move into the wifes ancestral home after marriage and their progeny take the mothers name. Not just this, the recipient of ancestral property is the familys youngest daughter. If a daughter is not born in a family, they adopt a girl child. There cannot be a better place in the country to be a woman, but look at the number of women in politics: Just 33 of the 372 candidates who fought the assembly elections are women. Here too, the candidates included 152 crorepatis with an average income of Rs 3.5 crore. The richest among these is Ngaitlang Dhar, the National Peoples Party candidate from the Umroi constituency, with assets worth Rs 290 crore (he lost). Researchers from the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) say that Tripura is better than other states in this regard. Only 35 of the 297 candidates are crorepatis and the average wealth is Rs 46.92 lakh. But representation of women is negligible here, too. Just 24 women candidates filed nominations for the assembly polls.

The results are actually irrelevant. The question is: Can such an assembly be considered a fair representation of an entire population? Has the politics of vested interests not worked against the regions socio-cultural traditions? How can an assembly full of crorepati legislators hope to take decisions in favour of the downtrodden? The disconnect between society and politics is dangerous for democracy.

These three states are also teeming with the germs of separatism. Therefore, for a long time, power from the gun has ruled in the name of democracy. While travelling through the remote areas of Manipur and Nagaland in the 1990s, I discovered that billions of rupees allotted by the Centre were not utilised for development; instead, they lined the pockets of bureaucrats and politicians. Rather than stopping them, the local police and paramilitary personnel were in cahoots with the corrupt. Clearly, when it comes to profit and loss, guns dont differentiate between separatist groups and those in uniform.

Thats why the issue of equality for tribal rights has been relegated to the background in the Northeast by the power brokers. If you so desire, you can compare this pristine region to Kashmir, known as heaven on earth. Here too, gun-tantra or the culture of guns has trampled on the rights of the common man in equal measure. The consequences are clear. Indian democracy has a bad record when it comes to helping women and the poor get their rights. But the conditions in these states, located in the lap of the Himalayas, are going from bad to worse.

So, before I congratulate the newly-elected legislators from the Northeast, Id like to ask them: What will they do to change things? It is politicians whove pushed these states into this quagmire. Only they can pull the Northeast out of this morass.

Shashi Shekhar is editor in chief, Hindustan

letters@hindustantimes.comOnce again highlighting the palling condition of state-run schools in Uttarakhand, the state child rights body on Monday asked the state government to enforce guidelines issued by the Centre for safety of students.

The Uttarakhand Commission for Protection of Child Rights (UCPCR), in a letter to chief secretary, also suggested a list of measures to be taken immediately to improve the safety of children in state-run schools, especially those in the hills.

Even 18 years after Uttarakhand got statehood, appalling conditions prevail in state-run primary and middle schools especially in the hills. The commission continues to get complaints to this effect and its own surveys confirm this, UCPCR chairman Yogendra Khanduri said.

Schools are being run in dilapidated structures risking the lives of children and the roads leading to it are so unsafe that students are always under the threat of slipping down or being attacked by wild animals such as leopards, Khanduri said.

The commissions chairman, in his letter, asked the chief secretary to ensure that immediate measures were taken by the school authorities for the safety of children.

Khanduri also suggested a list of 19 steps to be taken immediately to ramp up safety of children at schools including not permitting them to sit in dilapidated buildings, bringing the entire premises under CCTV camera surveillance and underground electric wiring among others.

It also said that schools should compulsorily have two gates and keep a first aid box always ready. Those being run in double-storey houses must have railings on the staircases, the panel said.

There should be no high tension overhead electric wires running over schools. There should be speed breakers in front of the school gates and roads leading to them should not either be slippery or overgrown with shrubs where wild animals can hide conveniently, the UCPCR said.

It said that there should be fire alarm and fire-fighting equipment, ramp for physically disabled students, and cleanliness in toilets, apart from periodic cleaning of drinking water tanks.

The commission also made a reference to directives issued by Ministry of Human Resource Development in this regard in 2014.

In addition, the letter also asks to ensure that children are not served food items prepared from products that are past expiry date. The meal should neither be cooked nor served in open areas, the letter read.

Routine medical check-up, limited time for prayer so that students do not have to stand for long, and lab equipment under strict observation should be ensured. Also, the Commission suggested, the students should not be scolded in public or in front of any other student.

Our team investigated the condition of several government schools and found lacuna in security of children and also lack of basic infrastructure. We have appealed CS to ensure the listed basic requirements till July, Khanduri said.

There are over 17000 government schools in state. In July last year, Nainital High Court had ordered to improve infrastructure of government schools. Following which the state government is engaging establishments under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to fill in the gaps.

We are working towards providing better facilities and infrastructure to students, Alok Shekhar Tiwari, director general (DG) school education said.

Earlier last month, the state government had imposed a ban on the use of loudspeakers at public functions, weddings, and religious places during the class 10 and 12 board examinations, which began Monday.

As per an order issued by additional secretary (Uttarakhand Administration) Ajay Rautela, music played at marriage ceremonies should not be louder than 45 decibel. The ban on the use of loudspeakers is in compliance with section 13 (1) (a) of the Protection of Child Rights Act, the government had said.

.A 35-year-old cook was chased and stabbed to death by unidentified men in the posh Chittaranjan Park area of south Delhi, the police said on Monday.

The incident took place on Sunday night.

The police said around 10pm, they were informed about an injured man lying on a footpath near a residential complex in the locality.

He was taken to a hospital where he was declared brought dead, they said.

The deceased was later identified as Dasrath Mukhia, a resident of Tughlakabad Extension, who was working as a cook in Greater Kailash, police said.

Footage gathered from CCTV cameras in the area showed the men chasing Mukhia and attacking him. Two deep stab wounds were found on his chest, they said.

Mukhias personal belongings such as his cellphone and money were taken by the assailants, indicating that robbery might not have been the motive behind the killing.

However, deputy commissioner of police, South, Romil Baaniya said that they are probing all angles and possible motives.As the Class 12 exams of Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) began on Monday with English, students and teachers largely said the exam was easy, but lengthy. Several students complained that they had to race against time to answer all questions.

More than 11 lakh students have registered for the Class 12 exam and over 16 lakh candidates are set to appear for the Class 10 board exams this year.

The Class 12 exam was held at 4,138 centres in India and 71 centres abroad on Monday. It started at 10.20am and lasted till 1.30 pm, officials said.

Though most students said they found the paper easy, they said that they struggled to answer all the questions on time.

Aman Khandelwal, a Class 12 student at Evergreen Senior Secondary School, Vasundhara Enclave, said, The paper was not at all difficult, though it was a bit lengthy. I could not complete it on time.

The paper was very easy, but a bit lengthy, said Anubhav Choudhary, a student at Amity International School, Mayur Vihar.

The English core paper had passages and questions about Swachh Bharat Mission, pollution, floods in cities and cases of aggressive behaviour by students in schools.

The paper had a good mix of questions based on recent events and general awareness. Students who are aware of whats happening in the city and country would have found it easier to relate to the questions and answer them, said Shalu Arora, who teaches English at Springdales School, Pusa Road.

Tripura Mulasi, who teaches English at Mount Abu Public School, Rohini, said the paper could be dubbed as well balanced. Students with good comprehension skills would have been able to attempt Section A with ease. Section B offered a good choice which could be easily tackled by the students. Literature section covered most of the chapters, Mulasi said. Questions in Section A test comprehension, while Section B focuses on grammar and Section C is for literature.

A section of Class 10 students also appeared for their first board exam on Monday. Paper in Information and Communication Technology, Dynamics of Retailing, Food Production, Beauty and Wellness and other vocational courses were scheduled on the first day. The Class 10 students will appear for the Hindi paper on Tuesday.

The Class 10 exams are scheduled to end on April 4 and the Class 12 exams will end on April 13.The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has decided to rope in school students from this year for the effective execution of its plan to control the outbreak of vector-borne diseases in the city.

From April, the civic agency will distribute dengue homework cards to over five lakh students in government, private and MCD schools under its jurisdiction.

The cards are meant to gather information related to precautionary measures taken at students homes to stop the breeding of mosquitoes. SDMC officials said the data would be treated as primary information, on which the prevention plans in neighbourhoods will be executed.

Officials said the card will be also used as a tool to disseminate information about the vector-borne diseases in each household.

It is a colourful card designed to grab the students attention and will be distributed in Classes 4-9 from the first week of April. To communicate properly, we have used photos showing the procedure involved in eliminating mosquito breeding such as cleaning of coolers, flower pots, eliminating standing water and spraying insecticides, said Dr BK Hazarika, medical health officer, SDMC.

The cards will also contain details on how municipal corporations can be accessed for help.

The SDMC has tied up with school principals, who will ensure that these cards are filled up on a weekly basis between May and August, the peak months for mosquito breeding.

Though filling up of cards will not give the students any additional marks, their teachers will disseminate information in a way that the task is taken seriously. Students will need to get these cards signed by their parents every week, said official.

The official said members from SDMCs health team can be present during the interactive sessions with kids, if the schools ask. Officials said SDMC had tried to introduce the project last year as well, but due to the delay in collecting information from schools, it got deferred.

But this year, things are implemented in formatted manner. We have gathered details of private and government schools and got the approval from their principals to support the programme, said the official.

Last year, though the number of chikungunya cases in the city was much less than the number of cases recorded in 2016, there was significant spike in recorded cases of dengue.

A total of 9,214 dengue cases were recorded till mid-December, of which 4,704 dengue patients were from Delhi. This is in comparison with a total of 4,305 cases recorded during the same period in 2016, of which only 2,966 patients were Delhi residents. The number of deaths due to dengue in both years was the same  10.

Though the outbreak of vector-borne diseases depends on factors like rain and humidity, we are leaving no stone unturned to control the spread of disease from beginning of this year, said the official.

This year, till the end of February, three cases of chikungunya, nine cases dengue and two cases of malaria have been reported.

In comparison, 34 cases of chikungunya, six cases of dengue and four malaria cases were reported in 2017 till this time. No cases of dengue and chikungunya and seven cases of malaria were reported in the same period in 2016.The Delhi government has directed all schools in the national capital not to deploy any male guard or sanitation worker in their primary wing.

The directive comes as an update in the check on safety measures guidelines issued by the government in November last year amid increased concerns about safety of children in schools in the wake of incidents of assault on students.

It has been observed that male guards or sanitation workers are not to be deployed in the primary wing in schools. No male guard or sanitation worker should be seen nearby toilet area in the primary wing, the Directorate of Education (DoE) said in a communication to schools.

The heads of schools have been asked to ensure that the entry and exit gates of the school/field/ office area are kept closed and any outsider should not be allowed to enter the premises without permission from authorities.

In case the boundary wall of the school requires further extension in terms of its height and or is under repair, the principals concerned should contact the PWD office of their respective area and get the work done expeditiously, the letter said.

The Delhi government had issued schools a 117-point checklist for ensuring student safety on their premises and warned that there would be zero tolerance for any violation.

The checklist, including everything from toilets to cyber security, was prepared in the wake of the brutal killing of a schoolboy in a Gurgaon school and the rape of a minor girl by a school attendant in Delhi.Concerned over the Delhi governments delay in approving phase four of Delhi Metro, the Centre has decided to implement it on its own, Union housing and urban affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Monday.

The 104-kilometre network proposed in phase 4 will connect Mukundpur with Saket and will benefit south Delhi residents. It has been pending with the Delhi government for over two years.

The AAP government had in May 2016 given in-principle approval but the Union housing and urban affairs ministry returned the file, saying it needed to get financial approval first. The Delhi government did not respond since then.

Puri said the government cant let commuters interest suffer if the Delhi government failed to approve projects.

You have to give the commuter a rational choice. What rational choice will you give that he uses his personal vehicle or public transport. But if there is a shortage in your public transport then how will it work. Even then with these constraints, we have tried to find a solution. Take for instance Delhi Metro Phase four. We have decided that we will implement the project ourselves after failing to get the support and cooperation of Delhi government, Puri said at a press conference on Monday.

Delhi transport minister Kailash Gahlot said: It is not that we do not want Metro to expand in Delhi. But, what can the government do if the file has not reached the ministers office till date? The Metro phase 4 file is yet to reach my office. Probably the file is yet to be cleared by the finance department.

A senior ministry official said modalities of how it planned to implement phase four is being worked out. We are on the job, said the official who did not want to be identified.

Puri said if the Delhi government did not cooperate, the Centre will also implement the high-speed rail corridor between Delhi and Ghaziabad.

Puri had earlier written to Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal that the delay in the commencement of phase four was not only causing health hazards but had also resulted in Rs 12,000-crore cost escalation in the project.

Because of the alleged delay by the Delhi government, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) had in January sought approval for phase four in two phases.

In the first phase, it wanted approval for the Mukundpur-Maujpur, Tughlakabad-Terminal 1 and Janakpuri (west)- RK Ashram sections.

The second phase will include Rithala -Narela, Inderlok -Indraprastha and Lajpat Nagar-Saket G-Block.

Earlier, the metro corporation was seeking approval for six corridors, with an estimated cost of Rs 48,000 crore. The three corridors, for which approval has been sought in the first phase, will cost about R 29,000 crore.The Oscar awards transcend cinema. They are not just about the arts and sciences that the Academy of Motion Pictures celebrates, they are the one night in show business when dreamers and dream merchants remark in unison about the problems of the day and the dominant issues of the time. The Oscars is by no means an apolitical event. Unlike film award ceremonies in India, Hollywood stars and film makers who gather for the ceremony are not averse to expressing their opinions on controversial subjects.

This year, the big theme at the Oscars was expected to be sexual harassment at the workplace  in the backdrop of the giant shadow that producer Harvey Weinstein has cast over the film industry. It was meant to be an occasion when, like the Golden Globe awards in January, #MeToo and #TimesUp would be the dominant themes. While that issue was addressed on Sunday, the Oscars picked up a different, not entirely unvisited topic with renewed vigour. Inclusivity emerged as the theme of the night, both in actions and words. A Chilean film, Una Mujer Fantastica (A Fantastic Woman), inspired by and starring transgender icon Daniela Vega, won the best foreign language film award. Vega also came on stage as a presenter; she was the first transgender person invited to do this in the 90-year history of the Academy Awards.

But it was Frances McDormand, the best actress in a leading role for Martin McDonaghs sparkling Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, who drilled the point home with a typically rad acceptance speech. Im hyperventilating If I fall over, pick me up because Ive got something to say! she started, before asking every single woman nominee in the audience to stand up, and pointing at them, said: Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects that need to be financed.

McDormand, who won her second best actress Oscar after Fargo (1996), finished her speech by saying, I have two words for you: inclusion rider. An inclusion rider is a clause in film contracts that allows A-list actors to insist that the cast and crew of their film meets a certain level of diversity. With those two words, the message was clear. Time is up, Hollywood was saying, not just for harassment, but also for exclusion.An All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) committee has suggested changes to the way students are tested in engineering colleges across the country along the lines of the system used in premier institutes like IITs and NITs, officials familiar with the matter said on Sunday.

In premier institutes, students are rarely grilled on theory, but on concepts and application with an emphasis on analysis and quants or quantitative problems. AICTE had setup the committee on exam reforms comprising of experts from various fields in earlier this year which submitted the draft report in March. Over 3,500 institutes are approved by the AICTE.

The AICTE, the apex body and regulator of technical education in the country, has called a meeting on Monday of vice-chancellors of technical universities, deans, directorate of technical education officials, and teachers, to discuss the report, according to an AICTE official, who did not want to be named.

The committee has suggested a number of measures including a focus on projects, training and situational questions, the official added.

Currently we have descriptive questions that encourage rote-learning rather than promoting the critical thinking of the students. It also focuses more on testing the subject knowledge of the student, the official said. The committees report also includes model exam papers prepared along the lines of the new method.

The plan now is to have clear-cut learning outcomes for each programme and have an exam to test each of those outcomes, said the official.

Explaining the new system, the official said that the committee modelled its approach on Blooms taxonomy, which is a tool to help develop learning objectives. The system classifies educational objectives in a hierarchy as cognitive, sensory and affective.

Experts think the move will help students develop thinking abilities. Its definitely a good step. For instance, Blooms taxonomy has been in existence for quite some time and the sensitisation that AICTE is doing is quite important. Framing of questions is significant as it can force a student to think, Even during the accreditation, institutes are currently also asked what outcomes have been achieved and how have you achieved it?... said Dheeraj Sanghi, a professor of computer science at IIT Kanpur.Many students across the country said the Class 12 Central Board of Secondary Examination (CBSE) English paper, held on Monday, was easy as compared to last year but they could not attempt all the questions because of lack of time.

The Class 10 and Class 12 board exams conducted by the CBSE began on Monday. Over 11 lakh students have registered for the Class 12 exam and over 16 lakh candidates will appear for the Class 10 tests this year.

The exams started with the English Paper for Class 12 students, and Class 10 students appeared in vocational courses such as dynamic retailing, info technology, security, etc.

The paper was quite easy but the comprehension section was a bit lengthy, Nitya Kashyap, a student of Evergreen Senior Secondary School in New Delhis Vasundhara Enclave, said.

In Dehradun, the first exam conducted by the CBSE this year was seen as a setback by many students.

Divyanshu, a student of Shri Guru Ram Rai Public School Race Course in Dehradun said he missed the last few questions as the paper was so lengthy.

I wish I could have more time, he added.

Tanya, a student of Dronas International School in Uttarakhands capital, echoed Divyanshus concern.

The difficulty level was average. But, there were so many questions to attempt in a limited time, she said.

Students in Rajasthans capital Jaipur also had the same complaint.

The paper was certainly lengthy but it was not tough as such. Section A of the paper, which assesses comprehension, had big passages, Surbhi Pansari, a student of Maharani Gayatri Devi School, said.

Harsh Das, a student of Jayshree Periwal High School, agreed with Pansari. The boards are not as difficult as they are projected to be, Das added.

Raghav Joshi, a student of Kendriya Vidyalaya No 4 in the Pink City, found Section C (literature) a little tough.

The other two sections were fine, literature was a bit tough. But the paper was lengthy, he said.

Students in Bhopal also felt that the three hours were not enough to answer the questions.

I had to spend a lot of time in completing Section A and thats why I found it difficult to complete the whole paper on time, Sunanda Sharma, a student of Kendriya Vidyalaya in Madhya Pradeshs capital, said.

Shubham Rana of Mansarovar Public School in the same city said the paper was very simple and straight and quite easy as compared to the last years.

Students in Patna, the capital of Bihar, also said that the questions were easier as compared to last year.

The paper was easy as expected. The passage section was a bit lengthy as always but other sections were very easy, Priyanka of BD Public School said.

For Smariddhi Shekhar of Notre Dame Academy, the questions from the novel and the literature sections were easy. The letter writing section was time-taking but overall the paper was simple, she said.

Teachers, however, said the questions were from the syllabus and simple. But some like the principal of Scholars Home in Dehradun, Chaya Khanna, said the paper was lengthy and it wasnt easy for students to attempt all the questions in the given time.

English teacher Tripura Mulasi at Mount Abu Public School in Sector 5 of New Delhis Rohini said the paper by all accounts can be dubbed as well-balanced.

All the three sets have the same set of questions and only the sequence of the questions is different in sections B and C. Overall, the paper was student friendly and amicably balanced and will prove to be a cakewalk for those who prepared the syllabus well, she added.

The principal of Bhopals Sagar Public School, Jayshree Kanwar, also said the paper was quite easy.

Questions were direct and the students, who had prepared well for the exam, didnt find it lengthy. We can expect good marks, she added.

Shabana, a teacher of English at Notre Dame Academy, said the questions were direct and nothing was beyond the syllabus.

My students were very happy with the paper, she said.

(With inputs from Heena Kausar in New Delhi, Nihi Sharma in Dehradun, Salik Ahmad in Jaipur, Shruti Tomar in Bhopal and Nandini in Patna)Around half-a-million students appeared in the Central Board of Secondary Educations (CBSE) Class 10 and 12 final exams in more than 150 centres across Jharkhand on Monday, officials said.

According to Manohar Lal, the CBSEs Ranchi coordinator, no case of students using unfair means or paper leaks were reported on the first day of the exams.

The exams were conducted peacefully at all centres. No complaints were reported from anywhere, he said.

Earlier in the day, chief minister Raghubar Das took to Twitter wishing all the examinees.

I wish good luck to all the students appearing for their board exams. Hope you all have a bright future, and make the state as well as the country proud, he said.

The exams will continue through the month and end on April 4 for Class 10 and April 12 for Class 12.

The Class 12 students wrote their English papers on Monday, while those appearing in the Class 10 finals had their optional paper for which they had a choice of 12 subjects, including information technology, food production and banking.

At least 10,000 Class 10 students and around the same number in Class 12 appeared for the exams in state capital Ranchi. The exams began at 10.30am at all centres in Jharkhand amid strict security.

The CBSE has done away with the cumulative grade point average (CGPA) system this year and decided to give marks and percentage to Class 10 students. This has added a bit of extra pressure on students, who will now compete among each other for higher percentage and positions, academicians said.

The practice of giving percentage to students is always better than giving grades or CGPA. I personally feel it keeps the competitive spirit alive in the students and helps them perform better, said AK Singh, the principal of Jawahar Vidya Mandir Shyamli, Ranchi.

The pass percentage for Class 10 students in the Patna region, which includes Jharkhand and Bihar, was 95.50% in 2017. Of the 173,628 students who took the exams in the region, a total of 164,547 secured pass marks.

This year, 185,825 Class 10 students and 93,376 Class 12 students are appearing for their board exams in the Patna region.Many students in Chandigarh are focusing on science and mathematics for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 10 board examinations, but teachers and counsellors suggest they also take time out to revise social science. It has a vast syllabus and giving the subject constant attention will help them complete their revision before the papers start.

So how should you plan your social science revision?

Students still have time to prepare for the exam, which is slated for March 22. Dheerja, social science teacher at the Government Model Senior Secondary School (GMSSS), Sector 16, says since Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) has been done away with students will have to cover the full syllabus. Under CCE exams were staggered through the year  into formative tests four times a year and summative tests twice a year.

A high score will add to a good total score

Students can solve sample papers to boost their confidence, says Anjali Kapoor, vice principal, Sharda Sarvhitkari Senior Secondary School, Sector 40.

Dheerja says, Students are anxious mostly about history as it takes a lot to remember events and dates. Many feel that geography is still easier. My suggestion to them is always to make point wise notes and revise them well. They need to create their own notes for short summaries of events for a quick read one day before the exam.

Its simple. The most important thing for scoring well in social science is to study the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) books. Reading each and every chapter is important as all the parts have been given equal weightage, she adds.

Dheerja, who has also been empanelled as counsellor to students for the board exams by the education department, Chandigarh, says that she has been getting calls from students in and outside the city and even from Delhi-NCR, Uttar Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh.

To score well, as all other subject experts say, start with what you easily understand, and then go tackle the difficult topics.

Start preparing for the one-mark questions. Economics is slightly easy, so cover that before you touch your history books, advises Dheerja.

Once youre on to history, study Indian Freedom Movement well as it was covered at length in the Class 8 syllabus and will be easy to remember. Afterwards study the other topics in history, she adds.

This GMSSS teacher has advice for parents too  Do not pressurise your children, talk to them and ensure they stay calm.Students of Class 12 appearing for Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) examination in Chandigarh on Monday found the first paper, English, easy but lengthy. Also, English teachers here found the question paper quite easy.

A majority of the students said that the literature portion of the paper was a cakewalk for them. They were asked direct questions in the paper and did not have much difficulty in answering them. A few of them shared that poetic devices were a little tough.

Tejas, a Class-12 student of The British School, said, The paper was a bit lengthy, however, the questions were as I expected.

Another student from St Annes Convent School said, The exam wasnt difficult, it was quite easy. It was beyond our expectations. There were mostly direct questions.

Teachers satisfied

Teachers from the city were satisfied with the question paper and said that it was as they expected it to be.

Anjali, a teacher at DAV Model School, Sector 15, said, All the questions were from the textbook. The novel part was quite easy. There were no surprises as all questions were from the syllabus.

She added, The paper was not lengthy but as students could not manage their time well, they found it to be long.

She said, Overall the paper was easy and the students are mostly happy with it as they were well-prepared for it.

Another teacher at Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 16, Ashu Walia, said, Section C (Literature: Textbooks and long reading text) was a bit tricky. Students had to give it a second thought before answering the questions. The answers did not come to them quickly. She added, Overall the question paper was easy, not difficult at all.

Science students unhappy with datesheet

Students of Science streams werent really happy with the datesheet and shared how they did not get enough time to prepare for the English paper as they were busy preparing for Physics which falls on Wednesday.

Balteshwar, a student of The British School, said, I am not at all happy with the datesheet. We should have given more days for the Physics exam. Most of the students outside the examination centre shared the same feeling.

A parent, Gurcharan Singh, also discussed the datesheet. There are not many holidays before the exams if we look at it for science streams. It should have been taken care of.

Traffic snarls

The traffic was halted from 1.30pm to 2pm at different centres as parents had come to pick their wards after exams.

Sanjeev Verma, a parent, said, In the morning, when I came to drop my child, I witnessed a traffic jam but traffic police were a great help as they assisted traffic to flow smoothly.KTET result 2017 was declared on Monday by Kerala Pareeksha Bhavan on its official website. Kerala Teacher Eligibility Test (KTET) was held in December, 2017.

Steps to view KTET December 2017 result:

1) Visit the official website of SSLC Examination Government Of Kerala at keralapareekshabhavan.in

2) Click on the link for KTET December 2017 result

3) You will be directed to the login page

4) Choose the category applied for and enter your register number and date of birth

5) Click on check result

6) Result will be displayed on the screen

7) Take a printout

Note: Visit official website regularly for latest updates.The Central Board of Secondary Educations (CBSE) school finals began on Monday with Class 12 students writing their English paper, which several examinees said was relatively easy, while those in Class 10 had their vocational exam.

Around 93,000 candidates have registered for the board exams in the Patna region this year. Anxiety levels were high among many students as the board-conducted Class 10 finals became mandatory from 2018 after a gap of seven years. The exams were optional since 2010.

The Class 12 exams, considered the stepping stone for college and higher education, began on a good note as several students Hindustan Times spoke to described the questions in the English paper as easy.

The paper was easy as expected. The passage section was a bit lengthy as always, but other sections were easy, said Priyanka, a student of BD Public School in Patna.

For Smariddhi Shekhar of Notre Dame Academy, questions from the novel and literature part were easy. The letter writing sections were time-taking, but the paper was simple overall, she said.

The questions were easier compared to last year. I saw the questions and they were simple. The questions were direct and nothing was beyond the syllabus. My students were happy with the paper, said Shabana, English teacher at Notre Dame Academy.

The Class 10 finals will be held till April 4, while the Class 12 exams will end on April 12.Angela Merkels very particular sense of style got some major catwalk cred Sunday on the day the German chancellor was guaranteed her fourth term in office. Fashions hottest designer Demna Gvasalia sent out more than a dozen jackets and coats with Merkel hips in his Paris fashion week show for Balenciaga. The Georgian-born wunderkind, who grew up as a refugee in Germany after fleeing his war-torn homeland, channelled the prudent bourgeois hausfrau look so beloved of the German leader.

One orange houndstooth coat, worn with a tight 1950s-style scarf, would have particularly pleased the thrifty Swabian housewives whose fiscal rectitude Merkel is so fond of quoting. The designer price tag, however, might make them blanch. Gvasalia -- the hippest creator in the world right now for his designs for Balenciaga and his own Vetements label -- has not officially acknowledged the chancellor as his muse.

Stasi meets hausfrau

But two stern suits in his autumn-winter collection last year also had Merkelesque attributes, although they conjured up more the Stasi secret police of her youth in the old East Germany than the chancellor herself. Sam Hine, of US GQ magazine, tweeted at the time that the last pillar of liberal democracy in Europe was now Balenciagas inspiration -- though doubted the link. Now there is little doubt.

Besides making Merkel hip, Gvasalia loves to appropriate other peoples logos. This time he borrowed the UN World Food Programmes to support its fight against hunger by putting it on his hoodies and bum bags. (luxury_trend_08/Instagram)

Gvasalia said he had re-engineered the sculptural tailoring of the trademark Basque jackets and coats created by the fashion houses Spanish founder Cristobal Balenciaga. He said that garments distinctive waistlines can be worn by both men and women thanks to high-tech moulding development involving 3-D body scanning and digital fittings -- or Vorsprung durch Technik (advancement through technology) as they say in Germany.

The 36-year-old creator, who has been accused of poverty chic for remaking the clothes of the poor for the rich, seemed to raid the wardrobes of the buttoned-up middle classes this time. Gvasalia had another matron model in a blue Barbour-style quilted jacket carry one of his leather Ikea shopping bags -- which retail for around 1,700 euros ($2,000) -- accessorised with a chain belt hung with keys. As well as the German property-owning classes, Gvasalia, now Zurich-based, also drew inspiration from Swiss ski culture, with a series of oversized anoraks with brightly coloured trompe loeil layered flaps at the front. The Teutonic theme dominated the day from the start with Givenchys British designer Clare Waight Keller dropping in on the end-of-the-world party that was West Berlin before fall of the wall.

Bowies Berlin

The show, called Night Noir, opened with a fantasia of fake fur and 1980s-style leather trousers and jackets through which Waight Keller evoked her memories of the raw and alluring... brutalist blaze of the German capital at the time, thick with sleaze and danger. Her dark and carnal world of the avant garde scene where David Bowie recharged his creative batteries would likely give Merkels Swabian housewives nightmares.

Besides making Merkel hip, Gvasalia loves to appropriate other peoples logos. This time he borrowed the UN World Food Programmes to support its fight against hunger by putting it on his hoodies and bum bags. Many thought the telephone number he plastered on two of his blue business shirts -- one of his many nods to Margiela where he used to work -- was for donations to the WFP. In fact, it turned out to be a Balenciaga hotline that has callers answer questions about their gender (male, female or trans), shoe size and whether they were more Paris, Berlin or London.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for moreTen men arrested in the aftermath of violent protests against Sanjay Leela Bhansalis Pamaavat have been cleared of attempt to murder charges. They were arrested by the local police in Bhondsi on January 24.

A group of 50-60 miscreants had attacked a bus of GD Goenka world school, Sohna Road, on January 24 and set a roadways bus ablaze at Bhondsi. Gurgaon police arrested 18 people, including eight juveniles from Bhondsi.

The arrested accused had been booked for attempt to murder, rioting, snatching, damaging government property and preventing government employees from discharging their duty. Apart from the 10 accused, eight juveniles were also apprehended by the police of which two were discharged and three have been granted bail.

According to official sources, the attempt to murder charge was removed from the case after Bhondsi villagers met Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar on February 28, requesting him to look into the matter. They alleged the Gurgaon police had implicated the villagers and were not conducting fair investigation.

The Gurgaon police have filed an application before the Juvenile Justice Board for discharge of the minor accused lodged in observation home since January 24. They have also removed the charges of attempt to murder from the case registered against them.

Charges under Section 307 of the Indian Penal Code were removed, as it was found during the course of the investigation that they were not involved in any kind of heinous crime. Also, we have filed an application for discharge of the five juveniles who are lodged in observation home. The board will hear our application on Tuesday, said Ravinder Kumar, Gurgaon police spokesperson.

Read I One more juvenile gets bail in the Bhondsi violence case

The Bhondsi villagers said the children were not involved in any kind of violence but were framed and arrested by the police.

Protesters had pelted stones at a school bus and set a state-run bus ablaze in Bhondsi on January 24.

We had met all the officials including Special investigation team, Gurgaon police commissioner, and deputy commissioner but none of them helped us. We finally met the CM and he passed directions to the police to conduct a fair investigation, said Sanjay Raghav, former village sarpanch.

A 12-member team had submitted its report in which they could not find evidence against the juveniles and adults, said police.

The sections under which the villagers were booked were unnecessarily invoked as there was no life-threatening injury to any police personnel or school student and none of the accused had any kind of dangerous weapons, said Om Prakash, a villager.You could call this years Oscars ceremony a dull affair as compared to last year but it wasnt without merits. Sure no one mixed up Best Picture envelopes, delivered fiery speeches or called the countrys president an idiot but we still had Jennifer Lawrence to keep things light and funny.

Here are our top picks of all things amazing that happened at the 90th Academy Awards:

Jennifer Lawrence mocks Emma Stone

Jennifer Lawrence rindo da Emma quando Jimmy Kimmel mencionou a gafe entre La La Land/Moonlight no #Oscars do ano passado!  #EmmaStone pic.twitter.com/DreyJqxpl2  Emma Stone Brasil (@StoneBRcom) March 5, 2018

Being best friends with Emma Stone was not enough to let go of a golden opportunity to mock her. JLaw pointed at Emma and laughed in her face when a presenter talked about the La La Land-Moonlight goof-up from last year.

Rita Moreno is the queen of fashion recycling

West Side Story star and Academy Award winning actor Rita Moreno decided to return to the Oscars in the same dress that she wore to the 1962 Academy Awards. She won the Best Supporting Actor award that year.

Jimmy Kimmel has a clever plan to keep the speeches short

Best Costume Design winner Mark Bridges rides a jet ski with Helen Mirren after he won it for the shortest Oscar acceptance speech of 2018. (REUTERS)

Jimmy Kimmel decided that the only way to keep speeches short is by luring the winners with a free jet ski. He announced that whoever keeps his/her speech shortest would win the jet ski. And it really worked! Jordan Peele, Sam Rockwell and several other winner rushed through their speeches in a bid to win the lucrative price but it went to Phantom Thread costume designer, Mark Bridges.

The marijuana theatre

When your parents stop by your dorm for a surprise visit #Oscars pic.twitter.com/CICXGNWdrG  UPROXX (@UPROXX) March 5, 2018

Jimmy Kimmel formed a posse of Gal Gadot, Guillermo delToro, Ansel Elgort, Margot Robbie, Emily Blunt, Mark Hamill, Lupita Nyongo to surprise a theatre full of movie-goers watching A Wrinkle In Time. Upon landing in the theatre, Kimmel noticed how much it smelled like marijuana and Gal ferociously agreed.

Hot dog guns

They have a hot dog gun because there weren't enough guns in America already#Oscars



LIVE updates here: https://t.co/BNMDoFJBuh

Red Carpet here: https://t.co/ApZeoxBZhq

Full Winner's list: https://t.co/3k4JzRTVIe pic.twitter.com/ec9MKYKR4F  HT Entertainment (@htshowbiz) March 5, 2018

Because there arent enough guns in America already, Ansel Elgort took a hot dog-flinging gun to the marijuana. He then went on to fling some hot dogs at the hungry, hungry audience.

Poe Dameron and BB8 reunite

Oscar Isaac just tickled presenter BB8 on stage



LIVE updates here: https://t.co/BNMDoFJBuh

Red Carpet here: https://t.co/ApZeoxBZhq

Full Winner's list: https://t.co/3k4JzRTVIe pic.twitter.com/1FuT8VhfX9  HT Entertainment (@htshowbiz) March 5, 2018

Oscar Isaac tickled his co-star from Star Wars and fellow presenter, BB8, at the Oscars stage. When Kelly Marie Tran asked him how he understood what BB8 says, he simply said, Because I can speak Yiddish.

Frances McDormands fiery speech

Frances McDormand asks women in the audience to stand as she accepts the Oscar for Best Actress for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. (REUTERS)

In what was perhaps the only rememberable speech of the night, Best Actress Awards winner France McDormand asked all the women in the audience, who had been nominated in any category, to stand up and show those around them what they represent.

Okay, look around everybody. Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed. Dont talk to us about it at the parties tonight. Invite us into your office in a couple days, or you can come to ours, whatever suits you best, and well tell you all about them.

I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: inclusion rider, she said referring to a need for a race and gender diversity clause in contracts.

Timothee Chalamet had an Interstellar reunion with Matthew McConaghuey

Matthew McConaughey and his wife Camilla Alves and Timothee Chalamet. (REUTERS)

Timothee Chalamet, nominated this year in the Best Actor category for Call Me By Your Name, ran into Matthew McConaghuey at the Oscars. McConaghuey played Timothees father in Interstellar.

This thing said by Kumail Nanjiani

Some of my favourite movies are by straight white dudes about straight white dudes. Now you can watch my movies and relate to me. Its not that hard, he said in a segment on diversity.

The Academy honoured Sridevi and Shashi Kapoor

#Oscars2018: Rishi Kapoor thanks the Academy for honouring Shashi Kapoor, Sridevihttps://t.co/e10laNFQ2R pic.twitter.com/uWAzFy0giV  HT Entertainment (@htshowbiz) March 5, 2018

Sridevi and Shashi Kapoor were honoured at the Oscars, in its In Memoriam section. Kapoor passed away at the age of 79 in December 2017 while Sridevi, aged 54, died in Dubai in February. The Oscars In Memoriam montage pays tribute to artistes who have died this year.

Guillermo del Toro checked the envelope

via GIPHY

The Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro decided to check the envelope bearing the Best Picture winners name after his film won the award. He didnt want a goof up like last time obviously.

And finally, all these pictures:

Meryl Streep congratulates Frances McDormand. (REUTERS)

Oscar winners Sam Rockwell, Frances McDormand, Allison Janney and Gary Oldman (L to R) pose backstage. (REUTERS)

Guillermo del Toro, right, winner of the award for best picture for The Shape of Water celebrates with Guillermo Rodriguez from Jimmy Kimmel Live! at the Oscars. (Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Follow @htshowbiz for moreJordan Peele on Monday became the first black screenwriter to bag the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Get Out at the 90th Academy Awards.

Peele was a surprise winner at the otherwise predictable award ceremony. He triumphed over front-runners The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Other nominees in the category were The Big Sick and Lady Bird.

This is the first Oscar win for the actor-turned-director, who was also nominated in the Best Director category for the horror film about a young African-American, who visits his white girlfriends parents for the weekend and realises there is something wrong going on there.

Jordan Peele picks up his Oscar as he attends the Governors Ball after the Oscars on Sunday. (Eric Jamison/Invision/AP)

This means so much to me. I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible. I thought it wasnt going to work. I thought no one would ever make this movie. But I kept coming back to it because I knew if someone let me make this movie, that people would hear it and people would see it. I want to dedicate this to all the people who raised my voice and let me make this movie, Peele said in his acceptance speech.

He also thanked the films team, his wife, mother and to everybody who went and saw this movie. Everybody who bought a ticket, who told somebody to buy a ticket, thank you. I love you for shouting out at the theatre, for shouting out at the screen.

Hollywood star Nicole Kidman presented the trophy to Peele. Soon after the announcement, various celebrities took to social media to congratulate the filmmaker.

I just won an Oscar. WTF?!?  Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele) March 5, 2018

Remember: Jordan Peele says he quit writing "Get Out" 20 different times.



And then he finished it.



And then he won the Oscar.  Julia Carpenter (@juliaccarpenter) March 5, 2018

So happy and proud for you @JordanPeele ! Thanks again for the great convo.#Oscars90  Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) March 5, 2018

Follow @htshowbiz for moreIt cost India Rs 2.86 lakh for the bear hug between Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif when the Indian leader made a surprise stopover in Lahore in December 2015, according to news reports. This was the route navigation charge imposed by Pakistan on Modis special aircraft.

On the Pakistani side of the border, the bigger question would be: How much did the visit cost Nawaz Sharif? Possibly his political career.

The day after Narendra Modis visit, a reporter on national television lambasted Sharif for allowing the Indian premier and 120 officials to enter Pakistan without a visa. Since then, the attacks have been unrelenting.

Recently, Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari hit out at Sharif for his pro-India policies and called for the implementation of the Kashmir Resolution. Mian Sahab (Sharif) went to Modis swearing-in ceremony without any regard for how many Muslims he had murdered in Gujarat, the young PPP chief said.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader Imran Khan, during a recent interview, observed that a new doctrine has surfaced in India whereby it is debilitating Pakistan from within as it cannot defeat the country militarily. Sharif is speaking Modis language. Whenever we pressure the government, a blast takes place, Khan said.

A former political aide to Khan, former information minister Muhammad Ali Durrani, was more candid: The nation will reject Sharifs recently declared Friendship with India manifesto in the 2018 elections and take his politics to the dustbin of history. The attacks have intensified after Sharifs ouster as Prime Minister. Analysts say millions of rupees are being invested by different quarters in discrediting Sharif and his PML-N party. For his part, Sharif has not backed down from his stance on regional cooperation, but has become less vocal as the elections approach. So far, his strategy has been successful. It remains to be seen how much this will damage his party in the general election later this year.

Read| With LoC on edge, hope dims on normalising India-Pakistan tiesRajasthan governor Kalyan Singh has been found positive for swine flu, but not before he underwent three tests due to contradictory reports and sought a probe into the matter.

The governor, who was diagnosed with swine flu at the state-run Sawai Man Singh Hospital, rushed to New Delhi to get a re-test done at the Apollo Hospital, where he was found negative for H1N1 virus, Rajasthan health minister Kalicharan Saraf told the assembly.

We again got the swab sample tested at the SMS Hospital, which confirmed he is swine flu positive, Saraf informed the House.

Earlier in the day, Singh had said in a statement: After being diagnosed with swine flu at the state-run SMS Hospital, a fresh test conducted at the Apollo Hospital was negative.

He then sought a high-level inquiry into the circumstances that led to the faulty report.

Saraf said a three-member inquiry committee comprising principal secretary (Health and Medical Education) Anand Kumar, SMS Medical College principal U S Agarwal and Dr R K Maheshwari had been set up.

It would submit the report in three days, he added.Social activist Anna Hazare said that he will resume his battle for Jan Lokpal Bill and agriculture reforms by starting a fresh agitation in New Delhi from March 23. The activist, who was in Kurukshetra on Sunday, asked his supporters to start working at the ground-level to make the protest successful so as to pressurise the government to bring a strict anti-corruption law.

Even after 70 years of Independence, the poor remain poor and corruption is at its peak, but nobody cares, he said, adding that the successive governments have failed to eliminate corruption or increase the income of farmers and labourers.

We have held 40 meetings in the country in the past three months and I have been travelling to several places to mobilise people against corruption, the activist said.

On BJPs victory in the recently concluded polls, Hazare said political parties should understand the publics sentiments or else people will teach a lesson to the politicians.

He, however, slammed his old associate and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal for forming a political party saying, I stopped talking to him (Kejriwal) since he formed a political party. I wont allow him to sit on the stage in Delhi during our protest.

To avoid the making of more Kejriwals in the future, we are taking affidavits from the participants of the Andolan in which they promise not to join any political party. So far, we have received 5,000 affidavits, Anna Hazare said, adding that if anyone of his supporter wants to contest the polls, he or she can do so independently.

Regarding the permission for the protest, Anna Hazare said that he had already applied for permission for protest at Ram Lila Ground and three other locations but no response has been received yet. If we dont get the permission for protest, we will start hunger strike from the jail, he added.

On BJPs victory in the recently concluded polls, he said that political parties should understand the publics sentiments or else people will teach a lesson to the politicians. He appealed to the youths to start thinking about the future of the country by learning from the sacrifices of the heroes of freedom struggle.The BJP was quick to tweak its strategy for the March 11 Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha bypolls after Mayawatis Bahujan Samaj Party on Sunday decided to back archrival Samajwadi Partys candidates.

Sanyasi banam swarthi gathbandhan (monk versus opportunistic alliance) would be the new campaign slogan, senior party leaders said, a reference to chief minister Yogi Adityanath who vacated the Gorakhpur seat after he was named the Uttar Pradesh chief minister.

His deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya was the Phulpur MP. Both the leaders are now members of the legislative council.

Though Mayawati said the move wasnt a support for the SP but a bid to help the party best suited to defeat the BJP, the ruling partys campaign managers are of the opinion that the slogan would resonate among voters and also counter the Other Backward Classes (OBC)-Dalit-Muslim arithmetic, the opposition camp is counting on.

The BJP will also highlight what it says are the inherent contradictions in the SP-BSP arrangement. It plans to play up the Lucknow guesthouse incident of 1995 when the BSP chief was manhandled by SP workers and the BJP had come to her rescue. Mayawati had sworn off SP after the incident.

It was the BJP that had saved Mayawatiji when she was targeted by SP. But such is the desperation that she is supporting the same party now, state BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey said.

Desperation of rivals is another theme the BJP will keep playing at during the remaining four days of campaigning. Party leaders are convinced that the tweaked campaign would be able to negotiate the caste buildup the opposition is banking on.

Mayawatis clarification made their task easier, they said. In the video clip released by the ANI news agency, the former UP chief minister talks of the SP supporting the BSP in March 23 Rajya Sabha poll and her party returning the favour by during the Vidhan Parishad, or legislative council, elections.

Its not an alliance, its a deal, BJP leader Chandramohan said.

The party could also ask the chief minister to hold more public meetings in Gorakhpur that sent him to the Lok Sabha for five successive terms despite an unfavourable caste equation.

Upendra Dutt Shukla is the party candidate from the constituency that also houses the Gorakhpur mutt, an important seat of Hinduism. Adityanath continues to be the chief priest of the temple.

BJP strategists believe that gangster Atiq Ahmed, who is in jail and contesting as an independent, will split the Muslim vote in OBC-dominated Phulpur , which will work to the partys advantage. Phulpur was a seat once held by Indias first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.Britain will raise the issue of alleged persecution of Christians and Sikhs in India during the April meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in London and Windsor, following demands by MPs to take it up with Prime Minster Narendra Modi.

During a lengthy debate at the Westminster Hall of the House of Commons on Freedom of religion or belief last week, MPs cited details of alleged persecution in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and elsewhere, and demanded that ministers discuss it when Commonwealth leaders are here for CHOGM.

A ministry of external affairs officer in India said the ministry would need to see the transcript of the debate before making any comments on the issue.

Martin Docherty-Hughes (Scottish National Party) mentioned the detention in Punjab of his constituent, Jagtar Singh Johal, allegedly without charge, and claimed that members of the Sikh community across the UK have become gravely concerned that they, too, may be detained on the simple premise of being a member of the Sikh faith.

Both Docherty-Hughes and Fabian Hamilton (Labour) raised the issue of alleged persecution of Christians; the former recalled the ancient roots of Christianity in India, but mentioned reports alleging that India was one of the most dangerous countries to practise Christianity.

Responding to the debate, Foreign Office minister for Asia Mark Field said: My frequent jousting partner, the hon. Member for West Dunbartonshire (Martin Docherty-Hughes), alluded to a consular case that we continue to work closely on.

He made some profound points about Prime Minister Modi and about Christian and Sikh minorities in India. We will do our best to raise some of those in an appropriate manner at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in mid-April, to ensure that Parliaments voice is properly heard.

He will appreciate that diplomacy sometimes needs to be done behind closed doors, rather than with megaphones, Field added, according to a transcript of the debate on Thursday that is now available.

Hamilton, who visited Kerala recently, mentioned alleged persecution of Christians, and said: Of course, we must also remember the plight of the Sikhs in Punjab. Many of us represent strong Sikh communities. I recently had the privilege to be in Kerala Kerala is home to the largest minority of Christians in India; many are from a Catholic background.

Docherty-Hughes added: The Republic of India, the worlds largest democracy, has a legal system based on common law, is a signatory to many UN declarations, including on human rights, and is a Commonwealth nation.

I hope that the Government, through the Foreign Secretary, will raise a few points with President (sic) Modi and his officials at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting here in London in April.

Modi is scheduled to attend the CHOGM, when the United Kingdom, as the chair of the group for the next two years, is likely to task New Delhi with a greater role, particularly in the area of trade and business. A regional trade hub is likely to be set up in India.

As the largest country by population in the Commonwealth, India, which has played a key role in the group since its founding in 1949, is seen as vital to Londons plans to enhance trade revenue when the UK loses access to the European Single Market after Brexit in March 2019.

Bilateral meetings are also expected to be held between Modi and Prime Minister Theresa May when he is in London for the CHOGM from April 16 to 20. It will be his second visit to London as prime minster after the first in November 2015.The second part of the budget session of Parliament is expected to commence on a stormy note on Monday with the Opposition set to raise the fraud at Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam and the government likely to counter the onslaught by highlighting the arrest of former finance minister P Chidambarams son Karti Chidambaram in a money laundering case.

Many in the opposition, including the Congress and the Left parties, have indicated that they will insist on the setting up of a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) to probe the fraud at PNB involving jewellery designer Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi who have since fled the country, and corrupt bankers.

The issue has united opposition parties such as the Congress, the Trinamool Congress, the Left parties, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Samajwadi Party.

Even the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), which has steered clear of confronting the BJP, is expected to take an aggressive stance against the government in the wake of BJP chief Amit Shahs remarks that the saffron partys golden period will start with poll victories in Odisha, West Bengal and Kerala.

With the BJP expanding its footprint across the country, regional parties are feeling threatened and likely to forge a broad-based alliance within and without Parliament to counter it, analysts say. While Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati has ruled out an alliance with the Samajwadi Party in the upcoming by-elections in Uttar Pradesh to take on the ruling BJP, she has kept the door open for a future partnership.

Senior opposition leaders will meet on Monday morning to discuss their floor strategy.

The other issues likely to be raised by the Opposition are the Rafale fighter aircraft deal and the alleged paper leak in the SSC Combined Graduate-Level (CGL) examination.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi will remain absent in the first week due to his visit to Singapore and Malaysia, starting March 8. Gandhi tweeted last week that he was going to spend Holi (March1) weekend with his grandmother who lives in Italy.

Upbeat after its wins in Tripura and Nagaland, the BJP has also kept its ammunition ready to attack the Congress on allegations of corruption against Chidambarams son and Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singhs son-in-law Gurpal Singh.

The Finance Bill and the Appropriation Bill will be on top of the governments legislative agenda as it seeks to complete the budgetary process after a three-week recess of Parliament.

It will also push for the passage of the Triple Talaq bill, and also try to get Parliaments assent to the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill that aims to safeguard banks against the flight of defaulters (much like Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, and Vijay Mallya did) by allowing the state to confiscate their assets.

A bill to provide constitutional status to the OBC commission and a new legislation against human trafficking are also expected to come up in the budget session.The Bharatiya Janata Party sought to corner former finance minister P Chidambaram on Monday, alleging that he granted seven private firms, including scam-accused Gitanjali Gems, gold import benefits on the day of counting of 2014 Lok Sabha poll votes and asked the Congress how much cut was given to whom for the decision.

Senior party leader and law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad targeted the Congress and Chidambaram, whose son Karti Chidambaram has been arrested by the CBI in a corruption case, at a press conference, which was described by the BJP as an expose on the politics of lies and deceit of the opposition party.

Prasad alleged that then Congress-led UPA government destroyed the economy by not letting the real stressed assets get reflected in banks books and said total advances given by banks in the last six years of its rule rose to Rs 52.15 lakh crore from Rs 18.06 lakh crore in 2008.

Only 36% of these advances were identified as stressed assets but they rose to 82%, he said, alleging that under the then so-called economist prime minister Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram, the banking system was sought to be derailed by interventions, patronage and pressure.

However, it was Chidambaram who was the main target of the ruling party.

Prasad alleged he gave seven private firms benefits under 80:20 gold import scheme on May 16, 2014, the day Narendra Modi-led BJP was swept to power, ousting the UPA.

What does it mean? On May 16, the Manmohan Singh government is losing, P Chidambarams chair is in danger... Chidamrabarm and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi should tell us why this order to benefit seven private firms was passed on that day. Is it corruption or jumla (rhetoric)? he asked.

They want true picture of Chidambaram to appear before the country, Prasad, said and also sought to target the Congress top brass as he claimed that the then finance minister was doing so with blessings of others.

It was the height of shamelessness to take such a decision on May 16, the BJP leader said, adding that the RBI had cleared it a few days later before the Narendra Modi-led government scrapped the decision within a few months of coming into power.

Mr Chidambaram please reply, is it jumla or blatant favouritism, mala fide conduct and rampant corruption? The Congress party should answer who were these people lobbying for Gitanjali and what was the cut, he asked.

No corrupt people will be spared by the BJP government, he said

Chidambaram has repeatedly used the term jumla to mock the BJP governments policies.

The Congress has been resorting to fear, lies, concoction and confusion to target the BJP government, he said, and spoke about the oppositions campaign on the Rafale deal and several other issues to claim that these were all baseless charges.

Blaming the Congress for scams which came to light recently, he said the party had planted so many land mines when it was in power than some of them kept exploding on and off.

He cited a recent case of fraud registered by the CBI against a son-in-law of Punjab chief minister and Congress leader Amarinder Singh and described it as a textbook case in this regard.

The Congress is anti-reform and that is why it is opposed to Aadhaar and the GST because these measures bring about transparency and curb corruption, he claimed.

Prasad reiterated the governments stand that no loan given under its tenure had turned into a non-performing asset (NPA).

He also said Jatin Mehta, a businessman who is also said to have fled India after defaulting on loans, had escaped India in 2012.

Rahul Gandhi must answer these questions when he returns from Italy, he said. Taking a dig at the Congress chief, Prasad said Gandhi can take his help in use of social media as he was also the IT minister and Gandhi was often found lacking in homework in his tweets targeting the government.While the defeat of the Left regime in Tripura after being in power for 25 years would likely undergo severe scrutiny by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) leadership in the days to come, the party, for now, finds itself increasingly getting drawn into a debate it doesnt appear to get its way around: whether or not to have Congress and regional parties as allies against the thriving Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Manik Sarkar, the outgoing chief minister who headed the Tripura government for 20 years, was opposed to such an alliance at the state or national level.

Two days after the BJP swept Tripura, the demand for an electoral understanding with Congress and regional forces got stronger inside the CPI(M)s West Bengal unit as it began its four-day state conference. The crucial meeting began in the presence of partys general secretary Sitaram Yechury, who supports the demand, and his predecessor, Prakash Karat, who vehemently opposes it.

Realising that sparks will fly at the conference, the CPI(M) exercised extreme caution. For the first time, the media was not allowed to enter the venue - Pramod Dasgupta Bhawan, headquarters of the partys Kolkata unit - to cover the inaugural address of the general secretary. The rest, however, followed tradition. The meet will continue behind closed doors.

CPI(M) West Bengal secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra placed his internal organisational report before the delegates on Monday. HT saw the report, in which Mishra referred to the current political crisis and stressed on the need to have a broad understanding with other political forces and even individuals.

Mishra has not named any party in his report because the electoral understanding we had with the Congress was nullified by the central committee after the alliance failed to yield any result in the 2016 (West Bengal) assembly elections, said a central committee member from the state on condition of anonymity.

The struggle to form an alternative government cannot proceed without the Left. We have to remove this NDA (National Democratic Alliance) government. These issues will be discussed at our party congress in Hyderabad next month, said Yechury before the conference began.

Interestingly, a sizeable section of Bengal committee members are happy to see Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao showing interest in forging an alliance by calling upon regional leaders.

Two days ago, Rao said at a press conference that he had a discussion with Yechury and on Sunday Mamata Banerjee called him up to offer her support. Even the Trinamool Congress chief knows that alliance is the only way to counter the BJP, the central committee member cited above said.

Other than Yechury and Karat, two other Politburo members sent as observers to Kolkata are Brinda Karat and M A Baby from Kerala where leaders reportedly dont want an alliance. The conference, which is being attended by nearly 500 delegates and observers from 23 districts, will continue until Thursday.The human resource ministry (HRD) clarified on Monday that it had not issued any guidelines to Kendriya Vidyalayas forcing students to recite morning prayers compulsorily with folded hands and closed eyes.

Minister of state for HRD Updendra Kushwaha gave the clarification in response to a written question in the Lok Sabha.

No guidelines have been issued to Kendriya Vidyalayas forcing the students to recite their morning prayers, which are of religious nature, compulsorily with folded hands and closed eyes, Kushwaha said.

He also maintained that the Supreme Court has not asked for any clarification in this regard from the ministry.

Contrary to Kushwahas statement, the Supreme Court in January had issued a notice to the Centre, asking it to respond to a petition that alleged that a prayer sung in Hindi during the morning assembly at 1,125 Kendriya Vidyalayas across the country violates the Constitution by promoting one religion.The Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) on Monday organised a conference aiming to clear distortions in Indian history.

Titled Indian History: Emerging Perspectives, the conference was inaugurated on Monday and was attended by ICHRs new chairman Arvind Jamkhedkar.

The keynote address was delivered by Padma Bhushan awardee Ramachandran Nagaswamy, a historian and an archaeologist.

Nagaswamy said there is an urgent need to study scriptures such as the Upanishads and the teachings of Buddha, Asoka and Manu, among others, in order to understand the theories that permeate the country.

He also said, When we talk of secularism in modern times, we mean only anti-Indian ism and portray minority virtuosity.

But all the great thinkers of India like Buddha, Asoka, Manu and other sutrakaras, for thousands of years, thought of equality, he said.

One of the greatest rulers of India was Asoka Maurya who lived in the 3rd century and in whose time there was all round prosperity and humanism... In his edit he expressively states that they were not quite successful, so he reflected and decided to propagate Dharma among the people.. he said.

However, the term was dismissed as a religious one and an imported term  secularism  has been pumped into our minds, he said.

He also presented a paper titled Listen to the voice of your ancient leaders at the event.

Failure to grasp the real import of the ancient thought makes some influential historians say the Vedic system is caste oriented, states the paper.

The event was coordinated by Dr Michel Danino, Indologist and guest professor, IIT Gandhinagar, and the member secretary of ICHR Rajaneesh Kumar Shukla.Security forces on Monday shot dead a top Jaish-e-Mohammad commander, Mufti Waqas, the mastermind of last months Sunjuwan army camp attack that killed seven persons.

An army spokesman said Waqas was killed in a joint surgical operation  between the army, police and CRPF  based on specific intelligence of his presence at Hatwar area of Awantipora in Pulwama.

Waqas, operation commander of Jaish-e-Mohammad, was eliminated in Awantipora. He was the mastermind behind several terrorist attacks on security forces, including the Sunjuwan attack. Weapons and incriminating materials like IED preparation material has been recovered. He is a foreign terrorist, SP Pani, IG Kashmir, told ANI.

Besides Sunjuwan, Waqas was involved in attacks in Lethpora, Pulwama district police lines and the BSF camp at Srinagar airport, tweeted Kashmir DGP SP Vaid.

There have been no civilian casualties or collateral damage. This has resulted in a major dent to the designs of the Jaish-e-Mohammad because after the elimination of their earlier operational commander, Noor Mohd Tantrey, in the same area in December last year, his successor too has been killed, the army spokesman said.

On February 10, a group of heavily armed Jaish-e-Mohammad militants entered the army camp in Jammu after hurling grenades and using automatic gunfire.

Three terrorists, all of them Pakistan nationals who managed to enter the Junior Commissioned Officers residential quarters, were killed in the anti-terror operation by the security forces.

The seven killed in the attack included six soldiers and one civilian.Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) president and chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday announced a series of meetings with various organisations and individuals to chalk out the agenda for the Third Front, which he says will be a political alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party at the national level.

A spokesperson from the chief ministers office (CMO) said that as part of the strategy KCR, as he is popularly known, would first meet retired officers from all-India services such as the IAS, IPS, IFS and IRS, who held important positions at the Centre in the past.

As these officials had seen political developments closely at the state and the central levels, the chief minister feels their input would be of great help in forming the alternative political front, which he is ready to lead, the spokesperson said.

KCR on Saturday mooted the plan to float the alternative before the next general election scheduled to be held in 2019. The 64-year-old leader said there was an urgent need for a qualitative change in Indian politics, as the two national parties, which have ruled the country for seven decades, had miserably failed to address peoples problems.

The Telangana Rashtra Samithi chief would also meet retired defence personnel, former judges and advocates, representatives of farmers and employees associations at the national and state level, leading economists of the country and retired officials of the finance department at the Centre.

He is also planning to have interactions with media houses, industrial houses and labour organisations to have a have a comprehensive understanding of the national issues so that he can chalk out the agenda for the proposed front, the spokesperson added.

The spokesperson said that the chief minister wants all those who have been thinking about the nation in various ways to become the participants in the process to bring qualitative change in politics.

These meetings will be organised in Hyderabad and as well as in cities like New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru etc.

An official from the CMO said that West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee called up the TRS president and conveyed her support to his proposal to form the third front.

Former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren also expressed his solidarity with KCR and welcomed his decision to play a key role in national politics.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, Jana Sena party chief Pawan Kalyan, a couple of MPs from Maharashtra were among a large number of political leaders who welcomed KCRs third front proposal, the CMO said.Two bodies, including of a militant, were found near the site of a shooting in Kashmirs Shopian district on Monday morning.

The body of Ashiq Hussain Bhat of Rakh Kapran and belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba was recovered from an orchard at Saidpora, eight kilometres from the site of Sunday nights shooting in Pahnoo, Shopian, police said, adding that his death is suspected to be connected to the shooting.

They also said that the body of Gowhar Ahmad Lone of Chitragam Shopian, was found with bullet injuries from a damaged car near the site of shooting at Pahnoo Shopian.

Police said they were investigating both the deaths. Witnesses told HT that the car Lone was found from was damaged on the front and right.

Security forces had killed a militant and three youths in a shootout on Sunday night after a mobile check post of the army was fired upon.

While the police have not identified the three youths killed on Sunday, locals identified them as Suhail Ahmad Wagay , Nawaz Ahmad Wagay and Shahid Khan.

The army called them over-the-ground workers or accomplices of the militants travelling in a Maruti Swift car, but locals said they were just civilians. A statement by police spokesman also referred to the three youths as individuals.

A relative of Suhail said the three were innocent and had nothing to do with militancy. Suhail was a 22-year-old man doing fruit business of his family. His father and brother were in Delhi for business. Suhail had hired the services of the other two boys to help him transport fruit carts into the cold storage. He had called them overnight and was taking them home so that they could start work early next morning, said Suhails relative, Fayaz Ahmad Mir.

Mir said that the three had bullet wounds in their backs. No militant was accompanying them. He had called his family minutes before the shootout saying he was reaching home with the two boys.

On the slain militant, the armys identification differed from that of the police. While the army said he was Shahid Ahmad Dar, a resident of Jamnagri Shopian, the police spokesman identified him as Amir Ahmed Malik, a resident of Harmeen Shopian, belonging to banned LeT outfit and active since July 2017.

The killings have triggered outrage in the Valley. Separatist leaders called a shutdown on Monday while authorities imposed restrictions in sensitive areas to prevent escalations of protests.

The government has decided not to open schools on Monday which would otherwise have opened after the culmination of two-and-a-half months of winter vacation.

Kashmir University also postponed its examinations in view of concerns expressed by students.When Conrad Sangma is not busy managing the National Peoples Party (NPP), he likes to read, listen to music, take long walks, travel and spend time with his family.

However, the NPP national presidents hobbies will have to take a backseat after he becomes Meghalayas 12th chief minister on Tuesday. The constitution of his cabinet remains hazy in the midst of negotiations with alliance partners, aides in Shillong said.

The youngest son of former Meghalaya chief minister PA Sangma, he was schooled at St Columbas in New Delhi and went on to complete his BBA from Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He then obtained his MBA degree from the Tanaka Business School, University of London, in 2004.

The 40-year-old entered Meghalaya politics as a Nationalist Congress Party candidate from Selsella in 2008. He served as the cabinet minister for finance, power and tourism in the United Democratic Party-led government from 2008 to 2009, before it was reduced to a minority and ousted from power.

From 2009 to 2013, Sangma was the leader of opposition in the 60-member Meghalaya assembly. However, he failed to win the support of voters in 2013, losing to the Congresss Clement Marak from Selsella by a margin of over 2,000 votes.

He returned to electoral politics in 2016, when the Tura Lok Sabha seat fell vacant following the sudden death of his 68-year-old father due to heart attack. Then, taking over the reins of the party founded by his father in 2012, he defeated Congress chief minister Mukul Sangmas wife Dikkannchi Shira by a margin of over 1.92 lakh votes  the highest in the states history.

Conrad is a very dynamic leader. After their fathers death, he and his elder brother James steered the NPP to greater heights, said Patricia Mukhim, editor of The Shillong Times.

Due to his keen interest in music, Sangma has organised several musical events in the northeast. A social worker and a successful businessman, he is active in the PA Sangma Foundation that functions in the education and environment sector and runs four rural colleges.The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the National Democratic Progressive Party (NDPP) are set to form the next government in Nagaland on March 8, with home minister Rajnath Singh expected to attend the swearing-in ceremony.

The modalities of the alliance government have been finalised. We are waiting for a confirmation from the Prime Ministers Office which date would be convenient for him to attend the swearing-in, Abu Metha, secretary general of the NDPP, said after senior BJP leader Himanta Biswa Sarma and BJP general secretary Ajay Jamwal met with Neiphiu Rio, the alliances chief ministerial candidate, in Kohima.

The BJP-NDPP alliance has the support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member assembly. BJP Nagaland unit president V Lhoungu said the partys MLAs decided to go with the pre-poll alliance partner, the NDPP, during a meeting in Dimapur on Sunday evening.

The legislators were scheduled to meet in Dimapur again late Monday evening to select the legislative party leader. Central observer and Union minister JP Nadda, BJPs in-charge for the state, is likely to attend the meeting, according to party leaders.

NDPP MLAs met on Monday and elected Rio as the leader of the legislative party. A letter in this regard was submitted to Governor PB Acharya. BJP leaders are likely to meet the governor on Tuesday and submit a letter expressing support to the NDPP.

Meanwhile, the Naga Peoples Front (NPF), part of the BJP-led North-East Democratic Alliance (NEDA), is hopeful that its old friend, the BJP, will leave NDPP to form the government in Kohima with 26 NPF legislators.

We helped the BJP in Manipur when they needed four MLAs to form the government. Now, they should help the NPF, which is also the single largest party, says Achumbemo Kikon, partys spokesperson.

Asked why outgoing chief minister TR Zeliang, who was scheduled to travel to New Delhi to meet the BJP leadership, cancelled his visit, Kikon said, NPF is not desperate. We dont need to run around.

Kikon, in line with the noises the NPP leaders have been making since the results came out, stressed on how an alliance with the NPF would be more stable since it has the numbers.

With 12 MLAs in a hung House, the BJP is clearly spoilt for choices in Nagaland. It is also not seemingly worried about four NPF MLAs in Manipur, who are supporting its government there.The Opposition, led by the Congress, targeted the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government inside Parliament for the fraud at Punjab National Bank (PNB) even as the latter returned the favour outside the House by blaming the former for bad loans in banks and for allegedly favouring some jewellers in 2014 by allowing them to import gold and sell it in the local market.

The disruption in Parliament meant no work got done. Opposition parties wanted the government to reveal the whereabouts of Nirav Modi, who, along with his associates, is accused of defrauding the state-owned PNB to the tune of around Rs 12,000 crore.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was present in the House.

Read: Chidambaram passed order on 2014 Lok Sabha counting day to benefit firms such as Gitanjali Gems: BJP

The question hour was washed out in the Lok Sabha and the Opposition was unrelenting when the House met again at noon. Speaker Sumitra Mahajan then adjourned the Lok Sabha for the day.

After Rajya Sabha resumed work at 2pm following two brief adjournments in the morning, deputy chairman PJ Kurien offered a a short duration to discuss frauds in public sector banks if the members wanted it, but Opposition members continued to shout slogans. Kurien then adjourned the House for the day.

Outside Parliament, law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad addressed a press conference on a decision taken by the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government on May 16, 2014, days before it was voted out of power. That decision allowed so-called star trading houses and premier trading houses to import gold and sell it in the local market. Previously, they were only allowed to import gold on the condition that they would work on it and export the value added product. Prasad alleged that Gitanjali Gems, promoted by Mehul Choksi, who has been named as Nirav Modis associate in the fraud, was a beneficiary.

Read: CBI questions PNB general manager in Nirav Modi fraud case

The minister added that the policy was scrapped a few months later by the NDA.

In a series of tweets, BJP president Amit Shah said non-performing assets (NPAs) on the books of banks were the biggest liability that the Modi government inherited. NPA crisis is UPAs legacy and biggest scam of the UPA. Congress in power granted loan out of common mans bank deposit and did not show it in banks balance sheet. NPA is the biggest liability that Modi government inherited from the UPA, Shah said in a tweet in Hindi.

The fraud at PNB wasnt the only issue that disrupted Parliament, though. Telugu Desam Party MPs resorted to slogan shouting in the two houses demanding special category status for Andhra Pradesh. The AIADMK and the DMK  the two rival parties in Tamil Nadu  also came together to demand implementation of the court order on constitution of Caurvey Water Management Board.More than a dozen protests erupted across Kashmir on Monday, with government forces firing tear gas and demonstrators hurling rocks as tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets after the army killed four civilians and two suspected militants.

In south Kashmir, hundreds attended the funeral of a slain Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander despite authorities restricting peoples movement across the Valley.

While security forces claim that all those killed were militants or their over-ground workers, separatist leaders and local residents alleged that four of them were civilians.

The first terrorist was from LeT, the second terrorist found this morning was from LeT too. Both of them are Class B terrorists, said DS Negi, Commandant of 12 Rashtriya Rifles.

The trouble began late Sunday night, when officials say a car refused to stop at a checkpoint outside a Shopian military base and militants inside fired at the soldiers.

Indian army spokesman Col. Rajesh Kalia said a rebel and three civilians were killed when soldiers fired back. A fourth civilians body was recovered from a nearby car, officials said, and the body of another rebel was found a few kilometers (miles) away. Authorities said hed been injured in the shooting and died later.

The car in which Gowhar Ahmad Lones body was found at Pahnoo village, Shopian district, some 60 Kilometres from Srinagar on Monday. (Waseem Andrabi/HT)

Four persons were confirmed dead on Sunday night and two more bodies were recovered on Monday morning, police said.

While the police have not identified the three youths killed on Sunday, locals identified them as Suhail Ahmad Wagay , Nawaz Ahmad Wagay and Shahid Khan.

Police said they recovered the bullet-ridden body of LeT militant Ashiq Hussain Bhat at Saidpora area in Shopian, about 6 km from the firing spot. He was missing since November 13, 2017.

Preliminary investigation suggests that Bhats death was part of Sundays gunfight in Pahnoo village. Further investigation is on, a police officer said.

The body of a civilian, Gowhar Ahmad Lone, 24, was found on Monday morning, some 250 metres away from the gunfight site.

Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said she was deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire in Shopian and expressed her heartfelt condolences to the deceaseds families.

Separatist leaders Syed Ali Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik called for a valley-wide protest shutdown against the killings.

Fearing street protests, the authorities imposed restrictions in parts of Srinagar city and south Kashmir region. Internet connectivity in south Kashmir was suspended while its speed was curbed at other places in the Valley.

Officials also ordered schools closed Monday and suspended rail service in the region.

The State Public Service Commission ordered the cancellation of Mondays civil services exams in the state. All university and school board exams scheduled on Monday were postponed.

People thronged Kapran village of Shopian to participate in the funeral of Lashkar commander Ashiq Hussain Bhat. Half a dozen militants were also seen offering the congregational Nimaz-e-Janaza of the slain commander. The militants then fired in the air to honour their dead colleague.

Protests also broke out in neighbouring Anantnag and Pulwama districts, north Kashmirs Bandipora district and Badgam in central Kashmir where youths clashed with the security forces.

Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief Malik was arrested from Srinagar on Monday during a protest march against the killings.

Police intercepted the Malik-led protest march and took the separatist leader and some of his supporters into custody.

Speaking to media persons, Malik said: It is the MLAs of the state who are responsible for the killings of these civilians. The Army has been given a free hand as no effort has been made by the so-called law makers of the state to repeal the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA).Over-enthusiastic fan clubs could end up marring the political ambitions of Tamil superstar Rajinikanth, who announced his formal entry into politics last December.

On Monday, ahead of his first big public rally at the MGR University in Chennai where he also unveiled the statue of the late chief minister MGR, the film star came in for criticism as huge, obtrusive posters lined the roads leading to the venue.

And the first to take potshots at Rajinikanth was his screen-and now-political rival, Kamal Haasan, who said, Change must come from within.

The offending hoardings and posters were erected by the Maduravoyal Rajinikanth Forum in clear violation of a Madras High Court order after death of a motorist in Coimbatore when a hoarding fell on him in November last year.

Social activist Traffic Ramaswamy said though the Chennai Municipal Corporation had told the high court that all illegal posters and hoardings had been removed, the ground reality was different.

The over 6 km stretch between Koyambdeu and Maduravoyal was chock-a-block with huge hoardings of different shapes and sizes, posing a risk to motorists and making it difficult for pedestrians to negotiate their way around the area.

Rajinikanth while announcing his entry into politics last December had pointed out the failure of systems and how he wanted to make a meaningful change to governance.

Strangely, Rajinikanth who speaks of sweeping out the old and bringing a refreshingly new manner of doing politics swears by the same old propaganda and publicity, and perhaps gets flattered by the size of the posters put up by his fans, said political analyst John Arokiaswamy.

Activist Traffic Ramaswamy, who has been fighting against illegal hoardings for the past several years and has also filed a petition in the Madras High Court, said these banners were clearly in violation of regulations and they must be removed.

It was in response to his plea that the Madras High Court on March 2 had ordered the removal of illegal digital banners with immediate effect. Ramaswamy also pointed out that often the police are reluctant to act against illegal hoardings and posters.

Said Arokiaswamy, If Rajinikanth wants to cleanse the system that he feels is rotten then he must start practicing what he preaches and get his fans to remove all the posters.

On February 28, Ramaswamy had written a letter to the Chief Justice of the Madras high court saying that on February 24 huge banners were erected by the ruling AIADMK and the BJP during the 70th birth anniversary celebrations of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa, near Kalaivanar Arangam. Prime Minister Narendra Modi also participated in the function.

Ramaswamy had alleged that the banners were erected without any permission from the civic authorities.The Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) government on Monday told the Supreme Court that Major Aditya Kumar was not named in the Shopian firing FIR, as the court put on hold till April 24 the probe into the incident.

Three civilians were killed when the army opened fire at a mob in Ganaupora village in Shopian on January 27, prompting chief minister Mehbooba Mufti to order an inquiry.

The FIR in the case accuses members of the 10 Garhwal Rifles unit of murder, attempt to murder and endangering life.

He is an army officer and not an ordinary criminal, a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said, fixing April 24 to hear the matter for final disposal.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Major Kumars father, lieutenant colonel Karamveer Singh, who wants the FIR against his son quashed.

The court had on February 12 stayed criminal proceedings against Major Kumar after Lt Col Singh said his son was performing his duty and had been wrongly and arbitrarily named. The courts order means police cannot summon the soldiers for interrogation or ask them to cooperate in the investigation. Senior advocate Shekhar Naphade, appearing for J&K government opposed the stay of investigation. Nobody has the licence to kill, he said.

Let the probe continue. The court has already protected the officer by saying that no coercive steps shall be taken against the officer. A lot needs to be found out, Naphade submitted.

The Centre came out in support of the petitioner, criticising the state for registering a criminal case against a serving army officer without its permission.

Attorney General KK Venugopal objected to J&Ks stand. Everyday soldiers are being killed. Mobs gather outside police stations to pelt stones. Do they have a licence, he questioned.

Earlier, Venugopal came out in support of the petitioner and quoted section 7 of Armed Forces Special Power Act of 1990, which provides that no prosecution or legal proceedings can be instituted against a serving army officer without the sanction of Central government.

The law officer said the interpretation of the law according to a five-judge bench judgement of the top court meant that even an FIR could not be registered against an officer.

Naphade countered saying Saying that Kumar was not even named in the FIR as accused, he said the Centres nod was not required to file an FIR. Permission would be needed only at the time of filing of chargesheet.

The FIR had created a huge uproar and pitted ruling partners PDP and BJP against each other in the border state. The army, in its statement after the incident had said it opened fire in self-defence after a convoy was pelted with stones by protesters who allegedly tried to snatch the weapon of a soldier and lynch him.A Rajasthan MLA from the ruling BJP has asked party workers to tie to a tree officials who slap penalty on farmers for power theft or overload, accusing them of hounding the poor and favouring the rich.

Ladpura MLA Bhawani Singh Rajawat defended the remarks on Monday, a day after he made the controversial statement which also goes against the governments efforts to improve the financial health of the state power board.

I stand by my statement. The discom officials are very lenient on industrialists but when they catch a farmer using four bulbs, they book him for overload and impose arbitrary penalties of up to Rs 1 lakh, he told Hindustan Times over the phone.

Rajasthan discoms are the biggest loss-making power distribution companies in the country. Power thefts are common in the state, where 40% of the electricity is consumed by the farm sector.

I have asked the party workers to tie the personnel who visit any village to issue VCRs to a tree. This is the only way to dissuade them in future, Rajawat said of the vigilance checking report that is issued when a consumer is caught stealing power or committing a similar offence.

The defaulter is asked to pay a penalty, and in some cases, an FIR is also registered. These are among the many steps that Rajasthan has taken to curb thefts and meet ever-growing demand for power.

In November 2015, when the Centre launched Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana (Uday) scheme to revive debt-laden state electricity boards, Rajasthan was the biggest defaulter with a debt of more than Rs 80,000 crore.

When asked if he had identified villages where such penalties were imposed, Rajawat said it happened across Rajasthan and the issue had been raised in the assembly as well.

The statement is unfortunate. We are working to reduce AT&C (aggregate technical and commercial) losses and turn profitable in the next financial year and curbing power theft in rural areas is high on our priority, a Jaipur discom official, who did not wish to be named, said.

After implementation of Uday, up to 75% of the debt was to be taken over by states that could issue long-term bonds to banks with state guarantee. While this took care of most of the debt, future funding was linked to performance.

Rajasthan has issued bonds worth Rs 70,525 crore, the highest among all states since the Uday scheme was implemented. However, it is lagging in meeting operational targets as mandated under the scheme.

The Jaipur Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd, also known as Jaipur discom, pared its losses to Rs 428 crore in the current financial year up to December 2017 as against Rs 1,714 crore during the corresponding period last fiscal.

Improved metering, strengthening of distribution network and billing had led to drop in the losses.The new government will be sworn in on Thursday (March 8) in Tripura, where the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance defeated the Communist Party of India (Marxist) government, which was in power in the northeastern state for 25 years.

The BJP and its alliance partner, the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), scripted history on Saturday by winning the assembly polls with a two-third majority in the state.

Biplab Deb, a young BJP leader with a background in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is expected to be the states new chief minister.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah are expected to attend the swearing-in ceremony.

Union minister Nitin Gadkari and tribal affairs minister Jual Oram would arrive in Tripura on March 6 to discuss with the winning candidates the name of the next CM and submit a report to the BJP parliamentary board to choose the new leader.

The party is also considering two indigenous names for the post, said BJP sources, after the IPFT sought its own nominees.

Outgoing chief minister Manik Sarkar, after being at the helm for 20 years, submitted his resignation to governor Tathagata Roy in Agartala on Sunday.The new government will be sworn in on Thursday in Tripura, where the Bharatiya Janata Party-led alliance defeated the Communist Party of India (Marxist) government in power in the northeastern state for 25 years.

The BJP and alliance partner, the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT), scripted history on Saturday by winning the Tripura assembly polls with a two-third majority in the state, ensuring India would now have 15 chief ministers from the party.

The BJP in 2013 had forfeited its deposit in 49 of the 50 seats it contested, bagging less than 2% of the vote. This time around, it swept to a comfortable majority winning 43 seats with an ally, ousting the long-serving Communist chief minister of the state, Manik Sarkar.

Biplab Deb, a young BJP leader with a background in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is expected to be the states new chief minister.

In Meghalaya d non-Congress govt I d by NPP-UDP-BJP+will take oath on 6th. To be followed by Nagaland and Tripura on 7-8th, BJP general secretary Ram Madhav posted on Twitter.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bharatiya Janata Party national president Amit Shah are expected to attend the swearing-in ceremony.

Union minister of road, transport and highways Nitin Gadkari and tribal affairs minister Jual Oram would arrive in the state on March 6 to discuss the name of the next chief minister with the winning candidates and place a report to the BJP parliamentary board to choose a the new leader.

The party is also considering two indigenous names for the post, said BJP sources, after the IPFT sought its own nominees.

Outgoing chief minister Sarkar submitted his resignation to governor Tathagata Roy in Agartala on Sunday.

He asked me to continue till the formation of the next government. I am grateful to the people from all sections of the state for extending cooperation to us for 20 years, Sarkar said after resigning.

The BJPs success came on the back of anti-incumbency against CPI(M), with a range of groups unhappy with Sarkar  government employees, young students, job aspirants, tribals.

The saffron party, led by general secretary Madhav and state in charge Sunil Deodhar, built a robust organisation, stitched alliances, imported leaders from other parties, occupied the entire opposition space vacated by Congress and snatched away even old Left loyalists.The prospects of a breakthrough in efforts to put India-Pakistan relations on an even keel have rarely appeared bleaker in recent decades than they do now  the Line of Control (LoC; effectively the border between the two countries) on fire with near daily clashes, political leaders snipping at each other and peopleto-people contacts virtually snapped.

There have been a few tantalising glimmers of hope  such as the secret meeting between the two National Security Advisers in Thailand last December and a move to free elderly and women prisoners  but experts and officials from both sides are ruling out the possibility of any sustained contacts till 2019, by when both countries will have held general elections.

Official data shows there were more than 400 ceasefire violations on the Line of Control this year, and January alone, recorded the highest number of violations since the two countries agreed to a truce on the 742-km LoC in 2003. Troops from both sides have clashed almost every day and Indian Army officers say Pakistan is taking advantage of the lack of snow on mountains to push more terrorists across the LoC to keep the pot boiling in Kashmir.

Worried by the violence, Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti said last month that there was no alternative to talks with Pakistan even though India has won all the wars fought by the two sides. Mufti, whose Peoples Democratic Party rules the state in alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party, acknowledged the perils of the stance she was taking when she said she would be labelled anti-national but added that she couldnt stand by as people die every day.

Days later, home minister Rajnath Singh made it clear there could be no talks as long as Pakistan backed terrorism. Talks and terrorism cannot go on concurrently, he said. With Pakistan set to hold a crucial general election within the next three months and polls scheduled in India next year, experts and diplomats in both countries believe there will be no movement in the stalled peace process till late 2019  largely because the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) in Pakistan and the Bharatiya Janata Party in India cannot upset their core domestic constituencies with any overture to the other side.

Talks and domestic political processes cannot and should not be linked. No matter how bad the situation is, the two should be kept separate. But I dont see anything moving till next year, said a top Pakistani diplomat involved in contacts between the two sides.

TCA Raghavan, a former Indian envoy to Pakistan, said the last long impasse in bilateral ties was in 2001-03, after the terror attack on Parliament, blamed on Pakistan-based groups. The current impasse has gone on quite long, though its not because of any conscious policy but for tactical reasons, Raghavan said.

But its different because in 2001-03, Pakistan had a stable political set-up, but now there is political instability and churning going on in Pakistan, he added, referring to developments such as the ouster of former premier Nawaz Sharif by the Supreme Court on grounds of dishonesty and the confrontation between the countrys civilian government, the judiciary and the military establishment.

Read| A Rs 2.86 lakh bear hug that may have cost Nawaz Sharif his job

Syed Baqir Sajjad, foreign affairs correspondent with Pakistans Dawn newspaper, agreed that the prospects of India-Pakistan normalisation still remain poor.

Pakistan is entering election mode. Though there is a near consensus in Pakistan about peace with India, during the election campaign India will not be a priority and neither the outgoing government nor the interim administration will be competent to start the process, he said. Once Pakistan completes the process, India will then enter its election phase, which is much longer. During that period it would be more unlikely for such a thing to happen, if the past is an indicator.

Raghavan also noted that the uncertainty in Pakistans politics, with the PML-N under pressure from the judiciary and military, made it all the more difficult for the Indian side to launch any peace initiative. At the same time, he cautioned, India shouldnt make the mistake of hitching its foreign policy line with that of the US, which has upped the ante on Pakistan to crack down on terrorism.

We should not link what were doing to what the US is doing. The US is increasing its pressure but it isnt sure what the result will be, he said.

Diehard peaceniks have taken comfort in the fact that India has invited Pakistans commerce minister to an informal WTO ministerial meet in New Delhi on March 19 and 20 and that external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj has kept issuing medical visas to Pakistanis even at the worst of times, but more cold-eyed observers say this simply isnt enough. The absence of bilateral engagement is costing both countries more than they are realising. It is complicating the already difficult situation and making rapprochement even more difficult. Neither India nor Pakistan seems to acknowledge that blaming each other, instead of maximising longer-term options, isnt a viable policy, said Sajjad.The Opposition Congress staged a walkout in the Rajasthan assembly Monday alleging that the state government was turning a blind eye to the woes of farmers whose standing crops were damaged due to rain and hailstorm on Sunday.

Mild to moderate unseasonal rain and hailstorm Sunday damaged standing crop in several parts of the state. State capital Jaipur, Alwar, Sawai Madhopur and Jhunjhunu were most affected. Chief minister Vasundhara Raje had later in the evening ordered officials to conduct an early survey of damaged crops.

During the Zero Hour, Congress chief whip Govind Singh Dotasara raised the issue saying that farmers were distressed as the hailstorm has damaged their entire crop. The state government, he said, seemed least concerned about the farmers.

In reply, home minister Gulab Chand Kataria accused the Congress of trying to hog the limelight.

Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje without any delay has ordered to prepare a report to estimate the crop damage. An immediate action was taken in the matter by the state government. Kataria said.

The opposition is just trying to remain in the headlines and is not serious over the issue, Kataria said, adding if the Congress was serious about the issue, it should have raised it in the House through adjournment motion.

The Congress legislators should be shameful of the motions that it moved in the House today. If they were serious, they should have moved a motion in the House as the government was ready to discuss the issue, Kataria said.

Speaker Kailash Meghwal asked the Congress legislators to let the House proceed, but they continued disrupting the proceedings and trooped into the well. Members of the ruling party and the opposition continued to exchange barbs and then the Congress walked out of the House.

Govt officials putting dignity of Assembly at stake: BJP MLA

BJP MLA Ghanshyam Tiwari Monday alleged that state government officials were putting the dignity of the assembly at stake by tabling annual reports in the House on the day of discussion on demands for grants.

Parliamentary affairs minister Rajendra Rathore assured the Chair that explanation would be sought from officials concerned for delay in tabling annual reports.

Raising a point of order in the assembly, Tiwari, who has been at loggerheads with the Vasundhara Raje government over various issues, objected to tabling annual report of the education department on the day of discussion on demands for grants and walked out of the House.

I had come prepared to speak on education scenario. Department officials have put the dignity of the House at stake by tabling annual report on the day of discussion on demands for grants. I will not speak today, he said before walking out of the House.

The state parliamentary affairs minister said, All officials concerned will personally give explanation before the Chair on March 12 and I will also be present.

On February 27, Deputy Speaker Rao Rajendra Singh had directed officials of over 70 departments to give a written apology for delay in tabling annual reports in the House saying it was becoming a trend.

Electricity supply will not get affected due to shortage of coal: Singh

Energy minister Pushpendra Singh Monday assured the state assembly that electricity supply will not be affected due to shortage of coal. He informed the House that all thermal power plants have stock of 6-7 days and on demand regular supply is being made.

During Question Hour, the minister informed that since last December, no thermal plant has been closed due to shortage of coal. The Central Electricity Authority guidelines say that plant at a distance from pithead should have 30 days reserve coal stock but due to lack of production and unavailability of railway rakes, the standard stock could not be maintained. We are in correspondence with the central government over the issue and even the CM has spoken to Union minister Piyush Goyal. State plants consume 16 rakes of coal whole regular supply of 17-18 rakes is maintained, he said.

He informed that the Rajasthan Rajya Vidhyut Utpadan Nigam, which had made Rs 2600 crore loss during previous government, has now shown profit of Rs 400 crore.Students of a private school in Bharatpur staged a rally on Monday, demanding the police and administrative officials to find out a missing class 8 student.

They handed over a memorandum to the district collector Narendra Kumar Gupta, superintendent of police, Anil Kumar Tank, seeking immediate action in the case.

12-year-old Akash Kumar, from Jiroli village, went missing on February 26 after he returned home from school. His classmate Brijesh Kumar said, Akash has been missing for the last seven days. We have all gathered here to urge the police to find him as early as possible.

Deewan Singh, the missing boys father said, My wife, Nirmala Devi and I had gone to the market to fetch a few things and had left our younger son Yush Kumar at home.

According to villagers, after coming back home from school, Akash had gone to a shop to buy biscuits and tobacco packets, from where he went missing. He must have been abducted, said Singh.

SP Anil Kumar Tank said that Akash has been missing for the last seven days. After a missing complaint was lodged, we directed all station house officers in the district, along with senior police officials, to look for the child.

Rammo Singh, Akashs uncle, said, We have provided the police with some contact numbers of miscreants who could have abducted him.

Akash was a class 8 student of a private school in Shyam Nagar colony of Bharatpur.West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday raised a Target Lal Qila battle cry to counter the Bharatiya Janata Partys Target Bangla call in the backdrop of the BJPs victory over the Left in the assembly elections in Tripura last week.

Hours after ending the 25-year Communist Party of India (Marxist) reign in Tripura on Saturday, BJP president Amit Shah had said that the golden era would begin only after the party emerged victorious in West Bengal, Kerala and Odisha.

Some are saying that their next target is Bangla (West Bengal). If that is the case, our target will be Delhis Lal Qila. So, lets march to Delhi, the Trinamool Congress chief said at a public rally in Purulia district.

Banerjee had earlier discussed the possibility of a federal front with the Congress, the Samajwadi Party in UP, the Biju Janata Dal in Odisha and the Rashtriya Janata Dal in Bihar.

She had also shared a dais with Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal of the Aam Aadmi Party. According to a release by the Telangana government, Banerjee spoke to CM K Chandrasekhar Rao on the phone on Sunday, supporting his call for a non-Congress, non-BJP front.

The BJP, however, said it was not worried. She should try and hold on to Kolkata. Let her conduct a free-and-fair election in the impending panchayat polls first, said Dilip Ghosh, the BJPs state president.Even as the Royal Bengal Tiger sighted in the former Maoist-dominated area of Lalgarh continued to elude traps, a herd of wild elephants heightened the panic of locals from Sunday, smashing cameras set up to track the big cat. The combination of the two has triggered a situation that, according to villagers, surpassed the panic even at the zenith of Maoist activity between 2008 and 2011, when automatic gunfire between the rebels and the security forces would erupt just about anywhere in this terrain covered with forests and hamlets.

In a sense, the pachyderms are helping the predator by smashing two of the seven cameras installed on February 27. This is the first time a tiger has been sighted in this area.

This image of the Royal Bengal Tiger was captured on March 2 in Madhupur forest near Lalgarh. (Photo courtesy: West Bengal Forest Department)

Forest officers think the tiger could have strayed from Odishas Simlipal that is about 190 km away. Villagers complained to the administration that at least five cows belonging to the locals vanished in about seven days prompting the forest department to set up cameras.

Read: Elephants and tigers kill one human a day in India, 25% deaths in Bengal

The tiger might have gone to other parts of the forest after sensing the presence of the elephant herd, said Rabindranath Saha, divisional forest officer (DFO ) of Midnapore on Monday.

The panic has reached an extent where roads are almost deserted during daytime and villagers are picking up weapons and taking neighbours along even to bathe in local ponds.

Road construction work has slowed down at a few places such as the Jhitka forest since workers are not willing to work after sundown.

Read: Tackling man-animal conflict: Bengal govt plans elephant museum

You cannot imagine how we are spending our days. Even during the height of Maoist activity, we did not suffer from this level of panic. For almost the entire day, we are staying indoors, said Manik Mahato, a farmer of Kumarbadh village about 8 km from Lalgarh.

We dont know when elephants will attack us, or the tiger will appear. Even going out to respond to natures call has become risky, said Laxmi Mahato of Amalaia, near Madhupur forest.

According to forest department officials about 20 elephants are moving in the area now.

The wild elephants have appeared at a time when forest officials have lost their sleep after the presence of a tiger was first recorded last week in this zone about 150-160 km away from Kolkata. Two baits were placed on March 2.

On Monday morning the forest department dispatched employees to Dherua, about 15 km from Lalgarh, where Sushil Mahato, a villager, said that the tiger attacked a cow in his house. Our people will try to determine the nature of the predator from thee pugmarks, said Saha.

The administration has already issued warnings for the locals. We are issuing advisories over microphone. The people are asked to remain alert and not to go in the forest,  said Debashis Mahimaprasad Pradhan, DFO of Bankura South division after they got the information that the big cat was sighted at Sarenga, another hotbed of Maoist activity.

We are at a loss. On the one hand, there is a full grown tiger and on the other, a herd of wild elephants. We did not face such a situation even when the smell of gunpowder pervaded the air in this belt, said Anil Mahato, who owns a tea stall in Choto Pelia village, one of the former nerve centres of rebel activity in Bengal.French President Emmanuel Macron will inaugurate Uttar Pradeshs largest solar power plant, at Dadar Kala village in Mirzapur district, during his proposed visit on March 12.

Mirzapur district magistrate Bimal Kumar Dubey confirmed the development.

French President Macron will arrive at the solar power plant at Dadar Kala in a helicopter. He will inaugurate the plant and address locals. He is likely to spend around 45 minutes at the plant. After the inaugural ceremony, he will fly to Varanasi, Dubey said.

In Varanasi, Macron will attend events with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is likely to accompany him to the plant for the inaugural ceremony. However, the district authorities said they have not received protocol communication in this regard.

The largest solar power plant of the state has been set up by a French company, Engie Solar.

Tushar Malik, construction head of the company, said the solar power plant at Dadar Kala village is all set to generate 75 megawatt alternating current (AC) and 101 megawatt direct current (DC).

In Varanasi, the district magistrate, Yogeshwar Ram Mishra said after receiving initial indications about the proposed visit, the district administration had started preparations.

Mishra recently held a meeting with top police and administrative officers at his office to discuss preparations for the day-long proposed visit of Modi and Macron, said an official who did not wish to be named.

Modi will host a lunch for Macron in Varanasi and the duo is likely to visit the Assi Ghat, people familiar with the matter said.Kanpur: The police on Sunday claimed to have solved the heist at a Union Bank of India branch here on February 19 in which masked men decamped with cash and jewellery kept in 32 lockers.

Doc admitted burglers in his hospital: Police Kanpur: Arrested for the Union Bank of India burglary, owner of Sajeevani Hospital Dr Sanjeev Arya got five people from Malda and Jharkhand admitted to his hospital before the crime was committed, police said. IG, Kanpur zone, Alok Singh said Dr Arya created their medical history and prescribed pathological tests to provide cover to them. Dr Arya provided them funds and vehicles to buy gas and metal cutters and wrenches. After the burglary, the gang moved into the hospital where five members were admitted for two days. The booty was also divided in the hospital, he said. The police will invoke the Gangster Act against the doctor and other gang members, Singh said.

Inspector general, Kanpur zone, Alok Singh said 11 people, including the owner of a hospital, had been arrested and 80% of the stolen cash and jewellery recovered.

Dr Sanjeev Arya, owner of Sanjeevani Hospital in Kakdeo area of Kanpur, is among the arrested people. Not only did he finance the heist, he even gave burglars a cover before and after the crime, Singh said.

He said the gang included professional criminals, who were involved in thefts across the country as well as in Bangladesh and Nepal.

The police recovered 4 kg gold, 18 kg silver, diamond jewellery worth Rs 35 lakh, Rs 4 lakh cash and vehicles used in the crime. The criminals had buried most of the jewellery and cash in a grave in Jharkhand, police said.

Seven people, including gang leader Bhanu Pratap, are from Kanpur. Burglars Feku Basad and Mithun Mandal are from Jharkhand, while Rajkumar Sharma is from Malda (West Bengal). One of the accused is from Lucknow, Singh said.

He said raids were on to arrest the remaining two criminals, Mamu of Malda and Krishna Ravi Das of Jharkhand, who were still at large.

The same gang was involved in gold burglary in Mallapuram gold loan bank in Kerala. Rajkumar Sharma was arrested for a robbery in jewellery showroom in 2010, Singh said.

According to police, Bhanu Pratap is a hardened criminal who has dozens of cases of burglary, murder and kidnapping against him, said Singh.

Bhanu and Raj Kumar were together in Kanpur jail where they became friends and worked together in number of cases of robbery, he said.

Senior superintendent of police (SSP), Kanpur, Akhilesh Kumar said the gang spent months planning for the heist.

They carried out a recce of more than 50 banks in and around Kanpur before zeroing in on the Pashupati Nagar branch of UBI, Kumar said.

Earlier, a team comprising inspectors Santosh Singh, Vinod Mishra, Rishikant Shukla and Satish Singh was formed which functioned under close supervision of the IG and the SSP.

The IG said the police team analysed several cases and found similarities in them. The clues led the police to Bhanu Pratap and the accused from Malda and Jharkhand, he said.

Singh said the accused told the police that they attempted to enter a branch of Gramin Bank in Etawah on February 17 but had to run away as a police patrol team reached there.

The gang examines banks and stores where security mechanism is weak. They executed their plan on Saturdays so that they have plenty of time to commit the crime and escape easily, Singh said.

The gang members would not contact each other for months after committing the crime, he said.

He said UP director general of police OP Singh had announced a cash reward of Rs 2.5 lakh for the police team comprising 35 members.Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath described his recent meeting with Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar  his second since November  as a personal meeting that had no political motive.

No politics should be seen behind the meeting, Yogi said at a press conference at the UP BJP office on Sunday without elaborating further.

The spiritual guru has been making efforts to thrash an out-of-court settlement on the Ayodhya issue and his meetings with Adityanath, a staunch votary of the temple at Ayodhya, but the CM has stayed clear of the subject.

Adityanath spoke of his long association with the AoL founder.

Earlier, the spiritual guru has visited Varanasi, Gorakhpur and Lucknow besides several other places as part of his dowry-free society campaign.

Last week, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar had held a meet at the residence of politician Luv Bhargava where he met Salman Nadwi, dean of Lucknow-based Islamic seminary Nadwatul Ulama, who was initially a part of his efforts to build a consensus on Ayodhya issue.

However, in a sudden U-turn, Nadwi pulled out of the Ayodhya initiative citing roadblocks to his peace moves. Earlier in November, the AoL founder had met Adityanath in Luckow before visiting Ayodhya. He had then described his meeting as a courtesy call.

The government is not a party to the Ayodhya dispute. We would welcome attempts to come to a negotiated settlement but we are very clear that if mediation fails, all must abide by the court verdict, an official had said after the meeting.In a bid to protect potato farmers from making distress sale, the Yogi government will procure 2 lakh metric tonnes of potatoes directly from them under the market intervention scheme (MIS) in the state this time.

The procurement will be made at a rate of Rs 5,490 per metric tonne besides an overhead charge of Rs 1,373 per metric tonne, says a recently issued government order.

The aim of the MIS scheme is to protect farmers from making distressed sales during peak season when prices fall to very low levels as this provides remunerative prices to farmers in case of glut in production and fall in prices. This is being implemented on request of the state government willing to share the loss with the central government on a 50-50 basis, the order says.

In a missive sent to all district magistrates as well as director, horticulture and food processing department on March 01, UP Agriculture Production Commissioner Raj Pratap Singh has conveyed the state governments decision in this regard following a letter from the Centre, also dated March 01, specifying the norms, said a senior official requesting anonymity in view of the model code in place for Phulpur bypolls.

HT is in possession of a copy of the order that comes with a detailed table of agency entrusted the task of opening purchase centres in districts and the set target for them.

The letter adds that overhead charges would cover expenses like transport, loading, unloading, gunny bag and other packing material, Mandi tax, purchase tax and godown charges etc. The purchases would be through agencies like UP Agro, Uttar Pradesh Cooperative Federation Limited, Uttar Pradesh Consumer Cooperative Society, National Cooperative Consumers Federation of India Limited (NCCF), UP State Horticultural Co-operative Marketing Federation (HOFED) etc, the official added.

As per the plan, Rs 2 crore each would be made available to the UP Agro, the PCF etc by the State Agricultural Produce Markets Board, UP, as an interest free loan for four months on their demands while the Uttar Pradesh Consumer Cooperative Society and NCCF would arrange for the money themselves, the letter adds.

These agencies would open procurement or purchase centres in different districts in consultation with the respective DMs with their numbers and targets being fixed as per local needs and circumstances. The purchase of potatoes would be made between March 2 and March 31, which, however, could be increased with the permission of the central government.

The order specifies that while one purchase centre should become functional in every district from March 1 itself, by March 6 at least one such purchase centre should start functioning in every tehsil of a district.

The procurement agencies should furnish a daily progress report to horticulture and food processing department through e-mail while the DM would ensure that a team of senior officials undertakes surprise inspection of the purchase centres, the missive says.

Uttar Pradesh is the largest potato producing state of the country accounting for about 35% of the countrys total output. As per some estimates, a whopping over 23 lakh farmers grow potatoes in the state. With very limited capacity to store the produce just 1,708 cold storagesevery harvest produces the challenge for the government to ensure proper returns to the farmers at a time when large number of its cold storages are already full with last seasons harvest.

In only its second cabinet meeting in April 2017, for the first time ever, the Yogi government had decided to fix minimum support price for potato to give fillip to potato growers who had been forced to sell their produce on throwaway prices in the past.

Last year, the government had decided to purchase 1 lakh metric tonnes of potatoes from farmers at Rs 4,870 per tonne to arrest the sharp fall in prices besides an extra Rs 1,217.60 per tonne or actual whichever is less for overhead expenses.The fear of the BJP poaching her party MLAs in the Rajya Sabha election and her supporters in Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats forced BSP chief Mayawati to reach a tacit understanding with arch-rivals SP for the upcoming Lok Sabha bypoll, Rajya Sabha and legislative council elections.

In the bypoll held on Sikandara assembly seat held in December after the demise sitting BJP MLA Mathura Prasad Pal, the BSP did not either field candidate or supported the SP candidate. Even as SP national president Akhilesh Yadav extended the olive branch to the BSP indicating his willingness for the pre-poll alliance, Mayawati remained averse to the proposal.

The lack of coordination between the two main opposition parties reflected on the floor of the legislative assembly and council as well. The state government had its say on various issues including controversial UPCOCA. Instead, Mayawati started finalising candidates for 2019 Lok Sabha election.

As the date of Lok Sabha by-poll and biennial election to Rajya Sabha drew near, churning started among the BSP leadership for the pre-poll alliance.

A senior BSP leader said zonal coordinators started building pressure on the BSP chief for pre-poll alliance with the SP.

They reminded the BSP chief that a fourth consecutive defeat after the 2012 UP assembly poll, 2014 general election and again 2017 UP assembly poll may prove to be a death nail for the party sending the cadre into disarray, he claimed.

The feedback from the ground as well as SP national president Akhilesh Yadavs attempt to forge alliance with the small parties like the NISHAD party and the Peace party and to build a backward alliance set the alarm bells ringing in the BSP camp.

Mayawati was working on dalit- Muslim-backward alliance in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election. The BSP chief knew if the formula failed to work, the BSP will be again marginalised in the 2019 general election, said political observer RK Gautam.

Mayawati wished to keep the door open for the Congress as well even as she was annoyed over former national general secretary Naseemuddin Siddiqui joining that party. In September last year, the BSP had expelled Siddiqui on the charge of anti-party activities.

On Sunday morning after the BSP zonal coordinators Ghanshyam Chand Kharwar (Gorakhpur) and Ashok Gautam (Allahabad) announced support to the SP in Lok Sabha by-poll, in a hurriedly called press conference Mayawati said she had not announced support to the SP but called on the supporters to vote for the strongest opposition candidate. She said the BSP will support Congress candidate for Rajya Sabha in Madhya Pradesh if the Congress supported the BSP candidate in UP.

She said the BSP wished to thwart BJP plan to capture maximum number of Rajya Sabha seats.

BSP state unit president Ramachal Rajbhar said, behanji (Mayawati) was trying to check the fascist forces by forging alliance with the opposition parties.

Working on the social engineering formula, the BSP will prevent the BJP from retaining power in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, he said.Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday cited Sufi poet Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khana, one of Akbars Navratnas, to play on the traditional rivalry between the states main opposition Samajwadi Party (SP) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) amid the buzz of the two joining hands to defeat the BJP in the March 11 by-polls.

Adityanath referred to the Lucknow guesthouse incident of 1995 when Samajwadi Party workers had targeted Mayawati, who was rescued by the BJP cadres, to play up the rivalry further among UPs two powerful regional players.

In December 1993, the BSP supported the Mulayam Singh Yadav-led government, but withdrew support after a year and 181 days, leading to the infamous episode in 1995, when the BSP chief locked herself in the guesthouse to save herself from a rampaging SP mob. She was rescued by BJP leaders and had formed a government with BJP but the alliance didnt last long.

For the last two decades, BSP and SP have remained sworn political adversaries and have taken turns at assuming power in UP until BJPs famous win in 2017.

Kahu Rahim kaise nibhe ber ker ko sang  (how can the good and the bad exist together), said Adityanath at the UP BJP office when asked to comment on the buzz that Mayawati had decided to direct cadres to support the SP in the by-polls.

The verse by Rahim which Adityanath cited uses the relationship between a ber (Indian jujube) plant and a banana one to drive the message about relationship between two opposite characters.

Kahu Rahim kaise nibhe, ber ker ko sang/Ve dolat ras aapne, unke faatat ang (If ber or banana exist by side by side, they are bound to harm each other as ber plant has thorns while the banana one is soft. So when ber sways, it damages banana), goes the couplet which Adityanath used to make a political point.

The BSP with its Dalit vote bank and SP with its Muslim-OBC vote formed a lethal political combination until the guesthouse incident after which the two became sworn enemies.

Political observers admit that efforts were on to bring the two together to stop the all-conquering BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The March 11 by-polls, where the BSP hasnt put up candidates, could be the first test of that unity. Mayawati, in the past, has done business with both the BJP and the SP.

To thwart the possibility of anti-BJP OBC-Dalit combination, Adityanath also mentioned previous threats by some Samajwadi Party leaders to blow up memorials that were constructed by former chief minister Mayawati in memory of Dalit icons.

Adityanath, who held the Gorakhpur Lok Sabha seat since 1998, made the comment just before leaving for campaigning in the Phulpur by-polls. The Lok Sabha by polls to Gorakhpur and Phulpur were necessitated after Adityanath and deputy chief minister Keshav Prasad Maurya quit their LS seats and became members of the UP Legislative Council to meet the constitutional provision.

Although the BJP is on a roll and buoyant, especially after its phenomenal success in the north east, the party is aware that is has suffered upsets in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh by-polls.

Thats why the BSP and the SP are desperately seeking a relationship to thwart the BJP, said political analyst SK Dwivedi.

On his part, Adityanath said that the BJP would win the Gorakhpur and Phulpur seats by a considerable margin, though party leaders admit that despite Modi wave, SP-BSP unity wont serve BJPs interests.

While the BJP is reasonably confident in Gorakhpur, a seat which Adityanath has been winning since 1998, its Phulpur, where Keshav Prasad Maurya opened the BJPs account in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, that the BJP could be jittery, especially if the Dalit-OBC-Muslim alliance of the SP-BSP comes about, say party insiders. Dismissing reports of resentment among BJP workers over the government not listening to their problems, Adityanath said, Unlike the SP, we are a disciplined party.Awards season draws to an end with the Oscars and the attendees are definitely in for a treat. Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck and his team prepared a scrumptious menu for the stars attending the 2018 Oscars Governors Ball at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood for the 24th consecutive year.

Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck's food creations for the Oscars are shown off on the Red Carpet. (REUTERS)

The A-listers attending the post-Oscars event, such as host Jimmy Kimmel, Nicole Kidman and Armie Hammer, will be feasting on dishes like chicken pot pie, macaroni and cheese with truffles, eggplant confit with salsa verde, ravioli and risotto with shrimp.

The 68-year-old chef revealed, You wont go home hungry. We have 300 people in the kitchen. Thank God I am not alone. 900 waiters in the dining room. They make 7,000 mini chocolate Oscars, Us Magazine reported. So, what is the cost of the wide-ranging menu? Well find out tomorrow, the restauranteur quipped.

Puck, who walked the red carpet with a chocolate tower and a few of his edible statuettes, also explained that any leftovers will be donated to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank.

People who dont really get anything, theyre going to have a meal just like the biggest stars in the world, he said.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for moreIf you are a bride-to-be or a bridegroom, or someone looking for anything that spells shaadi shopping, we have something to say to you  skip Chandni Chowk and head for Inderlok.

Unlike Chandni Chowk, the wedding wear market in Inderlok, northwest Delhi, is not a permanent one. It pops up every Thursday, offering everything from wedding saris to the smallest of wedding accessories. The location is the maze of congested lanes, behind the stretch from Inderlok Metro Station Gate No. 5 to a little further than the mosque on the main road.

The first look at the Inderlok Thursday market is a sight for sore eyes  theres a riot of colours everywhere, bling shining in the sunlight, and mannequins displaying the most festive range of lehenga and churidar-kurta sets. Theres a swarm of shoppers. This place isnt as well-known as Chandni Chowk, but being a hidden gem, the Inderlok Thursday market does attract hordes of loyal crowds.

As you make your way through the narrow passages, hemmed in by clusters of houses, you can see exquisite finery on display in small rooms  some of which are cubicle-sized!

Customers negotiating with a seller who has suits in an array of colours and designs. (Manoj Verma/HT Photo)

Win-win situation

Rashid, a seller who has been setting up his weekly shop here for the past 10 years, says, We bring suit pieces, lehengas, and saris from Surat (in Gujarat). The mills there send their stuff to big companies that reject pieces that have even negligible flaws. We buy these pieces at much reduced prices.

He goes on to reveal the profit that they usually make, unintentionally reflecting the scope of bargaining. Pointing at a beautiful sari in pink and blue, Rashid says, Im selling it for Rs 2,500. In Surat, its costing already is Rs 2,500. If you go to buy this stuff from Chandni Chowk, youll get it at a much higher price, as a lot of middle-men are involved, who keep their margins. But I got it for Rs 2,000, so, I directly make a profit of Rs 500. Jo Chandni Chowk mein jayega banda, use behter yahi mil jayega (Rather than going to Chandni Chowk, a person can get a better bargain here). As we pick 2,000-3,000 pieces together, it gets cheaper for us.

Hashim, another seller, who opened a permanent shop in the market three months ago, feels that the Inderlok Thursday market is good for business. Bill-vill sab banate hai hum (We give you bills and everything)! he says, proud to be doing business in a professional manner.

This shopkeeper, who gives his name as MD, sells laces and neck designs for Rs 5 and Rs 50, respectively. (Manoj Verma/HT Photo)

A lace and neck design seller, who goes by the name MD, tells us, I have neck designs in the range of Rs 50-100. The price goes up to Rs 350 if youre looking for bandhgala designs. And laces are available from Rs 5 per metre.

Getting kitted out for a wedding works out a lot cheaper at this market than at usual places. In a proper shop, you might have to spend Rs 1,000 on the dress material. Here, youll have to shell out just Rs 500 in total to buy the fabric, laces, and neck designs separately, says MD.

Fantastic fabrics

Another shop that caught our attention offers a variety of fabrics; the range of colours, textures, and price is very wide. Four brothers  Jainul Khan, Junaid Khan, Sohail Khan, and Faizal Khan  have been running the weekly business from their rented shop for some 15 years now. But what happens here when its not Thursday? Pointing at the mini-attic, where some metal plates are visible, Junaid says, Baaki din yahaan cooler bante hai. And we have a shop in Sector 48, Faridabad.

He adds, Here, we focus on earning from volumes. The margin here is very small. Some customers come from places like Meerut, Sonepat, Panipat, Rohtak, Haryana, Gurgaon. We set up the shop by 9am, but the customers are here even before we can finish setting up. The market remains open till 3-4pm. We have a lot of customers who are boutique owners, so we bring double pieces of all fabrics. The starting price of fabrics here is around Rs 90 per metre.

A customer selects fabrics for her dress. Putting a whole outfit together is very inexpensive here. (Manoj Verma/HT Photo)

A customer at their shop  a 19-year-old college student  says, One of my friends told me about this market. I am here to buy nice fabrics for dresses that Ill get stitched for my cousins wedding.

Thats not all!

Not all shops are weekly. Some sellers use the front portion of their home for business, and theyre open all week.

Other than wedding wear, you get seasonal stuff  socks, sweaters, overcoats, shoes, boots, woollen clothes for children, and more  at surprisingly low prices. Two pairs of good quality stockings, one full-sized and one for a toddler, cost only Rs 150, and that, too, without any bargaining. Readymade blouses, which can be altered as required, are available for Rs 150-350.

At one place, we spot a showcase of prints in velvet, a sought-after fabric in winter. Aashu, the seller, says, I offer cotton in summers and velvet in winter. On Thursdays, the market is buzzing with customers, as they get a lot of choices. Baaki din sannata pada rehta hai yaha (On other days, the place looks empty). He sells velvet fabric for Rs 30 per metre or more.

The Thursday market in Inderlok remains crowded well into the afternoon. (Manoj Verma/HT Photo)

Kulwinder Kaur, a 58-year-old boutique owner who lives in Model Town, north Delhi, says, Ive been visiting this market for many years now. This is my go-to destination whenever theres a family wedding. I get gorgeous fabrics here at such cheap rates. Talking about one of her favourite dresses, she says, I got the fabric at Rs 150 per metre from here, whereas I saw a seller in Chandni Chowk selling the same fabric for Rs 400 per metre!

Surprisingly, many sellers who stock ethnic party wear are reluctant to have their shops photographed. Why? Are dekho na, bazaar hata denge. Modi keh raha hai bazaar hatao. Modi yeh kehta hai na patri pe mujhe bheed nahi chahiye (See, theyll remove the market. [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi says that he wants markets like this removed. Modi says that he doesnt want crowds at roadsides), says a seller, on condition of anonymity.

Suits on display at one of the small shops in the Inderlok Thursday market. (Manoj Verma/HT Photo)

Pro tips

The earlier you go the better; the market opens at 9am.

Wear comfortable clothes and shoes, there are so many shop youd want to go to.

The market is very crowded, so remain alert and keep your cash and valuables safe.

Do not hesitate to enter the small rooms in the congested lanes; thats where some of the best goods are.

Parking might be a hassle, so it is best to commute via Delhi Metro.The Antop Hill police on Wednesday registered a case of voluntarily causing hurt, against a 13-year-old accused, who punched his classmate and broke his nose, on Tuesday.

The case was registered based on a medical report from Sion Hospital. According to the Antop Hill police, the victims sister, 27, approached the police on Tuesday to register a case against her younger brothers school and classmate.

In her statement, she said that her brother, studying in class eight of a school in Antop Hill went to school at 7am on Tuesday and was sitting in his class waiting for the teacher.

He saw that his classmate had put his head down on the desk. Worried that he would get punished, when the teacher arrives, he woke up his classmate and warned him. This was enough reason for the accused to abuse and punch my brother in the nose, said the 27-year-old, who works in a private firm.

She further said that authorities made her brother sit in the school till 12.30pm with a bleeding nose. The teacher or principal did not take any action and neither did they take my brother to the doctor.

On taking him to Sion Hospital, the doctor declared he had suffered a fracture on his nose.

I went to the police station and asked them to register an FIR. However, they filed a non-cognisable offence. When I presented my brothers medical and citi scan report, they registered a case against his classmate, she said.

She also said the police suggested her to lodge a complaint with the education board of Maharashtra. Since the accused is a minor, we will not arrest him, but file a charge sheet and send a notice to the his father, said a police official.Move over Eggs Kejriwal, another dish on the menu of one of SoBos toniest clubs, The Willingdon, has caught the fancy of the citys cognoscenti. Named Fish Curry a la Zubin Mehta and described rather prosaically as a black pomfret cooked with Indian condiments and spices with onion gravy served with chopped coriander, it is A tribute to one of Mumbais tallest sons, the LA-based Parsi conductor, who grew up in Cuffe Parade and is a celebrated foodie.

This practice of naming dishes after long-standing members is not unknown to the club. Eggs Kejriwal acquired its name because one of the members, a Mr Kejriwal, was not allowed eggs at home and would relish them cooked in his favourite style at the Club.

Other members would describe the dish to the stewards as get me eggs the same way as Kejriwal likes them, informs foodie and funny man Kunal Vijayakar, a veteran of many club meals. The Bombay Gym had a dish named after Jean Manekshaw, a Parsi-French member; and one of the most popular dishes on the menu of Ambassadors Society was its Steak Fernandes, named after its famous chef.

What dish would Vijayakar like to have named after himself given the chance? Going by my favourite, it would have to be a Bhujne Kunal Vijayakar. It is fish prepared in garlic and onion, with haldi, chilly and garam masala in the Pathare Prabhu style, says the scion of the traditional Maharashtrian clan, known for its nuanced cuisine.

Kunal Vijaykar (HT File )

Incidentally, friends of Mehta were bemused that the charismatic conductor had been ascribed with the pomfret preparation. As far as I know, he never spent time at the club during his Mumbai days and his favourite dishes are Goan fish curry and eggs Akuri, said one.

Which is what makes this a fishy tale.

True Lies

Stories of corruption amongst the high and mighty often make ones skin crawl, but none comes close to the alleged brazenness of this once-powerful CM, now enjoying just desserts in prison.

A visiting American former head of a large MNC recently in India narrated this incident: A deal and an MoU was signed almost a decade ago between his firm and the CMs government. It was known that the firm would earn huge profits from this. The executive was flown down to ink the deal and get a photo op with the CM.

When his plane stopped in Dubai for a layover, an Indian bureaucrat boarded and sat next to him, introducing himself as one of the CMs aides, and wasted no time before asking for a bribe. When the exec said his firm did not entertain such deals, the aide told him he had two hours before they landed in India to come up with an offer or the deal was off. Not taking it seriously, the exec proceeded the next day for the signing, only to find the state representatives hadnt showed up.

He was told the deal was off and was asked to take the next flight back to the US. The story doesnt end there; so enraged were his principals back home that a few months later he was sacked. And to think all this might not have ended so badly if hed taken the company jet!

Modern Dictionary

Happy (adjective): Deeply sad, downcast, miserable (eg: That Pharrell Williams looked downright happy playing Holi in India didnt he?)

Diamonds in the sun

Lisa Haydon and Nirav Modi (HT File )

Her tanned, lissome beauty, dwarfing beleaguered jeweller Nirav Modi, has been part of the breaking news loop ever since the fraud came to light, but his one-time brand ambassador model and actress, the London-based Lisa Haydon, has moved on quite emphatically with marriage and motherhood.

But this week was witness to Haydon returning to India, this time en famille with son Zack and husband Dino Lalwani for a celebration in Goa. The entire family has gathered to celebrate Dads birthday, she said, of her father-in-law, the tech and lifestyle tycoon, Phuket-based, Gulu Lalwani.

The gathering will also celebrate the birthday of Dinos aunt, entrepreneur and gypsetter Bina Ramani, which also falls this week. And so, even as Priyanka Chopra starts proceedings to disengage her association with the diamantaire, clearly, theres one person who has left the Nirav Modi episode far behind.Terming the Bharatiya Janata Partys win in the north-eastern states of Tripura and Nagaland as historic, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Sunday that the results are a reflection of the mood of the people for upcoming elections. The BJP is set to form the next government in Tripura and, most likely, Nagaland, two of three states for which elections results were announced on Saturday. Meghalaya will most likely be governed by a coalition of five parties, led by NPP, an NDA partner.

Fadnavis was speaking to the media in Mumbai on Sunday morning.

He credited Prime Minister Narendra Modis economic policies and party president Amit Shahs organisational strategy for the win. The BJP has not only won the elections, but secured a 45-50% vote share in the three states, showing that the mandate is in the partys favour, he said.

BJPs recent losses in the by-elections in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh had signalled that public sentiment could be shifting from the BJP to the Congress. Consequently, the BJP is making all possible attempts to project Saturdays win as a major electoral victory, especially in the backdrop of the speculation that general elections would be held by the end of 2018.

The main reason for this win is Prime Minister Narendra Modis Act East Policy, Fadnavis said. After coming to power, he acknowledged that states in the north east are important, and he brought stability to the region.

He added that the BJP would comfortably win the Karnataka assembly polls as well. The southern state is scheduled to go to the polls in the next two months. The BJP or the NDA will have 21 chief ministers in the country. Around 75% of the country is governed by a BJP or an NDA government. I am confident that the BJP will form the government in Karnataka, and in 2019, the NDA will form the government once again.

The chief minister, however, did not comment on the political equations in his home state. BJPs NDA ally Shiv Sena has decided to contest alone in the 2019 assembly and general elections.In a relief to students taking Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examination, around 72,000 teachers from junior colleges ended their boycott of paper assessment on Monday.

The Maharashtra Federation of Junior College Teachers' Organisations (MFJCTO), which represents these teachers, decided to start the assessment work after the state government accepted some of its long-standing demands, most of them relating to the service conditions of teachers, and assured to take a decision soon regarding some other demands. The federation said that the results of HSC examination will be declared on time.

The state education board is also hopeful of timely results. With the teachers withdrawing their boycott, theres no cause of concern, said KB Patil, secretary, Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education.

Over 3,30,000 students are appearing for the exam from Mumbai division, which consists of Mumbai, Thane, Raigad and Palghar districts, this year. The education board has not released data on the number of candidates from Maharashtra. Last year, 1.5 million students from the state appeared for the exam.

The assessment of HSC papers is expected to begin along with the examination, which started on February 21. However, for the last five years, the federation has been protesting during board exams to pressurise the government into accepting its demands. Last year, the teachers corrected only one answer sheet per day for around 15 days after the exams began.

The state government has decided to pay the dues of teachers and non-teaching staff as per the sixth pay commission and release Rs1,312 crore towards their retirement benefits. The government also said that the teachers won't be assigned any 'non-educational' work. Other demands of the teachers accepted by the government include providing grants for information technology (IT) subject and starting a cashless system for medical reimbursements.

Education minister Vinod Tawde said that the fate of some other demands, that have financial implications, will be decided in consultation with the finance minister after the state budget. These include making the administration of junior colleges autonomous, cancelling the 'shikshan sevak' scheme, providing free education to the teachers' children and increasing the retirement age to 60.

The federation has however threatened to renew its protest if the government does not accept its remaining demands, even as teachers will continue assessing the papers. If the orders of the decisions made in the March 10 meeting with the finance minister are not issued within 10 days, we will stage an indefinite hunger strike in front of Mantralaya. However, in the interest of the students, the paper assessment will go on, said Anil Deshmukh, president, MFJCTO.The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday obtained permission to interrogate former media Baron Peter Mukerjea in connection to a money laundering case registered in Delhi involving an INX media deal.

The agency on Monday approached the special CBI court, which was hearing the trial in connection with the Sheena Bora murder case. It sought permission to question Peter for two days in the jail.

The ED has alleged that the couple, Pere and Indrani Mukerjea, siphoned 90 million Great Britain pounds from INX media and sent to unidentified countries through hawala channels.

The funds were shipped to overseas destinations and then routed back to India and the United kingdom through Mauritius-based foreign investors, claimed the ED.

The agency further claimed that the funds purportedly held in the form of bonds in New Zealand are being handled by Peters son, Rabin.

According to the agency, INX Media had filed an application on March 13, 2007 with the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB), the Ministry of Finance, and the Government of India seeking permission to receive funds from foreign investors.

FIPB, on May 31, 2007, permitted it to receive foreign investments of Rs42.2 million approximately as total investment inflow, including premium.

INX Media, however, received foreign investment totalling to Rs3,053.6 million between August 22, 2007 and May 12, 2008.

Thus, INX media received excess foreign exchange equivalent to Rs3004.4 million from three Mauritius-based foreign investors.State education minister Vinod Tawde on Monday ordered a probe into the alleged frisking of Class 12 girl students at a school in Pune.

The alleged incident took place during the exams held between February 21 and 28 at the Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) Punes Vishwashanti Gurukul. The parents of the girls lodged a complaint against the school at Loni Kalbhor police station in Pune. In the complaint, the girls have alleged that they were asked to strip to ensure they were not carrying notes to cheat during the exams.

It is not correct to search girls in this manner. The board doesnt give such order. We are also planning to change the exam centre, said Tawde, adding, The centres chief and staff members have been transferred. A thorough inquiry will be conducted and the guilty will face action.

Tawde said there are proper guidelines to check students for cheating.

Sena legislator Neelam Gorhe submitted a memorandum to Tawde demanding stern action against the administration of the MIT and said that around 25-30 girls complained that they were asked to remove their clothes in the name of preventing students from cheating in the examination.

The legislators from both the Houses of the state legislature raised the issue after the state legislature got adjourned for the day. BJP MLA Medha Kulkarni said, It is a completely unacceptable behavior.

Senior Congress leader and Leader of Opposition in the assembly Radhakrishna Vikhe-Patil and NCP leader Ajit Pawar also demanded a thorough probe into the incident.

After the incident, the police had filed a case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) and under various sections of the IPC and against the two female guards involved.The superintendent of a government hostel for girls (ashramshala) in Talasari, Palghar, was arrested for allegedly molesting two girl students of Class 10. The hostel is run under the Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP), Dahanu. The girls hostel has no woman superintendent.

The accused, Suryakant Bagal, 35, had been sexually assaulting the girls since December 2017, but the issue came to light only on Friday. The parents of the girls reached the hostel along with the parents of other students, and thrashed Bagal, before handing him to the Talasari police.

According to one of the girls, Bagal would call her to his office at night when the other students in the hostel would be asleep, on the pretext of receiving a phone call from the girls parents. Bagal would then lock his office from inside, and force the girl to undress. He would also show the girl porn clips on his mobile, and talk to the girl in an obscene language, said Sachin Pandkar, Deputy Superintendent of Police (Dy SP) Dahanu.

Bagal would threaten the victim against revealing the act. He told the girl that he would fail her in the internal exams. The girl kept quiet worrying about the consequences, said Dy SP Pandkar. The issue came to light when one of the girls wrote a letter to her cousin, who then informed her parents about the act.

We arrested Bagal under Section 354 (molestation) of the Indian Penal Code. He is also charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012 and the Tribal Atrocity Act. He was produced before the Palghar court and has been remanded to the police custody till March 5. We have also seized the mobile phone which contained the porn clips, Dy SP Pandkar said.

There are 12 tribal students of Class ten who are residing at the hostel. So far, we have received complaints from two girls, but we are investigating further to find out if Bagal has molested any other girl, said Dy SP Pandkar.A 45-year-old assistant inspector posted at the Special Branch (SB) II of Mumbai Police died allegedly after a vehicle hit his bike on the Magthane bridge in Borivli (East) on Monday night.

The victim, Shatrugan Rane, 45, was a resident of Thakur complex in Kandivli (East). He suffered several injuries to his chest and legs. Senior police inspector Satish Raorane said, The accident took place on the bridge. We cannot ascertain exact sequence of events.

A passing motorist alerted the cops and Rane was rushed to Ambedkar Hospital in Kandivli (West). Zonal DCP Vinay Rathod said, He was a good officer. We are checking for CCTV cameras nearby and trying to get witnesses. An FIR has been registered against the unidentified driver under sections 279 and 304 A of the IPC.The University of Mumbai (MU) is looking into a complaint that a professor at the Mumbai School of Economics and Public Policy plagiarised part of his PhD thesis.

The university has appointed a committee to probe the allegations made by the complainant Swati Vora. In a letter to the governor, Ch Vidyasagar Rao, who is also the chancellor of all public universities in the state, she alleged that Neeraj Hatekar, a professor of econometrics, copied excerpts from the PhD thesis of his own wife Rajni Mathur, who is a professor at SIES College, Sion.

A spokesperson from Raj Bhavan said, We have forwarded the complain to the university to seek the opinion of the vice-chancellor.

Hatekar has denied the allegation, claiming rather that his wife has lifted excerpts from an academic paper he had written earlier for her thesis. However, she has attributed the paper in her dissertation, said Hatekar.

The complainant has highlighted only selected parts from our works, he said.

The professor said that while the parts of the PhD thesis are borrowed from his own working paper, certain extent of self-plagiarism is allowed in research work. However, he said that the university doesnt have any framework or policy to measure the extent of plagiarism.The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has restrained Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi and 62 others associated with the two diamond dealers from removing, transferring or disposing funds, assets and properties of entities and individuals, amid investigations into the Rs12,600 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud.

The ex-parte order was passed by the Mumbai NCLT bench of BSV Prakash Kumar and V Nallasenapathy after the Union corporate affairs ministry moved a petition seeking an order for Modi and Choksi, the two main perpetrators of the fraud, and their associates to disclose their moveable and immovable assets, including bank accounts, in India and elsewhere.

The bench noted that though trusts and individuals are not covered under section 221 of Companies Act, 2013, or section 43 of Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) Act, 2008, an ex-parte restraining order was necessary as the ministry had categorically stated that funds had been routed to individuals and trusts through various companies. To make investigations meaningful to crack this fraud, a restraining order is necessary against the assets lying with individuals and trusts, in addition to the companies and LLPs, the tribunal said.

The ministry also asked that the accused be restrained from mortgaging, creating charge or lien or third-party interest or alienating any of the assets so that the government can recover funds.

It also sought directions from the tribunal to restrain the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) from trading Modis securities.

Additionally, it requested that the Central Depository Service Limited and National Securities Depository Limited be directed to freeze the securities of Modi, Choksi and their associates.

In its petition, the government alleged that Nirav Modi, Nihal Modi, Ami Modi and Mehul Choksi, through various companies and LLPs maintained by them, committed fraud by conniving with some PNB officers and routing the banks money through letter of undertakings, entries of which were not made in the banks Core Banking Service (CBS) system to avoid detection. The funds received from overseas banks under buyers credit were credited to PNBs Nostro account and subsequently utilised as per the directions of the bank officers involved to repay imports used by the firms.

The bank officer issued fraudulent Letter of Credits by entering a small amount in the trade module of the CBS system to generate a reference number, and a SWIFT message was sent for the amounts. Later, the officer would modify the SWIFT message to the beneficiary bank with an enhanced amount.Seven railway stations across the city will soon receive infrastructural upgrades, which will include redeveloped entry and exit points, decongested booking offices, and construction of elevated decks.

In its effort to redevelop 17 railways stations across the country, the Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation Limited (IRSDC) will be revamping three suburban railway stations in the city. Those currently included in the list are Mumbai Central and Bandra stations, while the third station is yet to be identified.

In the meantime, the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC), which is responsible for executing rail infrastructure projects in Mumbais suburban network, also plans on undertaking the revamp of four stations in the city in Mulund, Virar, Chembur and GTB Nagar.

R S Khurana, acting chairman and managing director, MRVC, said, We will also undertake the improvement of other railway stations, apart from Mulund, Virar, Chembur and GTB Nagar. Discussions are going on to determine which railway station will be redeveloped by the MRVC and the IRSDC.

A budget of Rs900 crore has been approved by the railway ministry for the overall development of railway stations in India. However, funds to be alloted for the redevelopment of stations in the city is yet to be specified.

The revamp will include the provision of more space for commuters by constructing decks, improved entry and exit points, and better organisation of facilities.

In addition, there will also be a focus on the commercial development of the stations - including shopping complexes, multiplexes,and health centres. This will be modelled on the Seawoods railway station, which has an adjoining shopping complex, on the Harbour line in Navi Mumbai.

The IRSDC is surveying the suburban railway stations, which have more space, to build the commercial establishments. The proposed designs have been presented to the railway ministry.

In February, HT had reported that the railways plan to construct an elevated deck at Elphinstone Road railway station. The Western Railway had conducted a drone survey of the station and the report will be submitted to the IRSDC, as reported by the railway general manager to Union railway minister, Piyush Goyal.

The decision to revamp the railway station is a positive step. However, the development work should not disturb the movement of the trains. The railways should also construct residential hotels for the convenience of people who are not from the city, said Subash Gupta, President, Rail Yatri Parishad.The Maharashtra legislative council on Monday witnessed a ruckus over the suspension of Bharatiya Janata Party-backed legislator Prashant Paricharak.

Last week, the council had revoked the suspension of Paricharak, who had allegedly made derogatory comments about wives of Armymen in March 2017.

The House was adjourned once over the issue before it was adjourned for the day, just 40 minutes into the days proceedings.

Following the revoking of the suspension, the Shiv Sena took an aggressive stand over the issue. Sena legislator and partys group leader in the Council, Anil Parab said the proposal to revoke Paricharaks suspension was approved amid a din last week. Today I am moving a proposal for permanent termination of the membership of the legislator, he said.

Paricharak, who was suspended for 1.5 years in March 2017, had joked during an election campaign that soldiers posted at the borders distribute sweets on the birth of their babies, although they have not gone home in a year, indirectly implying that their wives are unfaithful.

The Opposition, meanwhile, demanded the government should once again clear its stand on Paricharaks statements. Revoking the suspension and allowing Paricharak in the House would set a wrong precedent, said Janata Dal (U) legislator Kapil Patil. the language used by him (Paricharak), are the views and ideology of the ones who are in power in the country, and hence this issue becomes a serious one.

State revenue minister Chandrakant Patil said, I am telling you at the beginning itself there is no need to link the issue with the ideology, repeatedly. Last time also this had happened; there is no need to say such things in the House. What is going on?

Meanwhile, Sena legislator Neelam Gorhe, who was on the 10-member committee to probe the incident, said the decision to revoke the suspension of Paricharak was not unanimous as told to the House by Chandrakant Patil. I cannot discuss the details of the committee in the House, but there was no consensus, Gorhe said.

Shiv Sena urges CM to come clear on Konkan refinery project

Mumbai Shiv Sena leader and industries minister Subhash Desai urged the chief minister Devendra Fadnavis to clarify the government stand on the proposed refinery project at Ratnagiri, on the backdrop of opposition from locals and landowners. The minister made a statement after his party faced embarrassment on the written reply in the lower house last week in which his own department had stated that there was no opposition to the project.

In his statement in the legislative assembly on Monday, Desai said nine gram panchayats governing the 14 villages to be rehabilitated due to the project have passed the resolution opposing the project. He said that amid the resistance from the villagers, the acquisition is going to be difficult under Maharashtra Land Acquisition Act 2013.

Even during his meeting with the CM, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had handed over the letters of resistance signed by thousands of farmers to him. The CM had clarified that the government will have a dialogue with the locals before taking any decision and the project will not be imposed upon the locals, Desai said.

CM Fadnavis had said in December that there was competition between two Sena MPs Anant Gite (Raigad) and Vinayak Raut (Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg) to take the project to their respective constituencies. Both the MPs denied the claim and clarified that the party was against the project as it will ruin ecology in the coastal districts.

Nationalist Congress Part y leader Jayant Patil took a dig at government for the differences within it over the project. In my parliamentary life of 28 years, it was for the first time I saw a minister in his statement urging the CM to take a call, he said.The Maharashtra government has finally selected a contractor for the grand memorial of Chhatrapati Shivaji that would be built in the Arabian Sea off Mumbai coast. Last week, the government gave formal intimation to reputed engineering company, Larsen and Toubro, to build the memorial on the lines of the Statue of Liberty in New York. The estimated cost of the project is Rs2,500 crore, after the contractor reduced its original bid of Rs3,826 crore during the negotiations with the government. The actual work may start in a few months. The government expects the first phase of the project to be ready in three years.

The speciality of the BJP-run governments, whether at the Centre or in the states, is that they do not waste time in taking up the projects that are significantpolitically or in some other way. Prime Minister Narendra Modi conducted the bhoomipujan for the project in December 2016. Little over a year after the same, the government has selected the contractor and aims to start the work on the project in the first half of 2018. This is sharp in contrast with the Congress-led governments. They could not do much despite announcing the project more than a decade ago. In the current regime, the leadership at the Centre takes an initiative and supports the decisions taken at the state level. This was seen in case of some other projects too. The long pending Navi Mumbai international airport is another example. Work on the much-needed second airport of Mumbai is expected to start soon after PM Modi laid foundation stone for the same last month.

Though it has tried to start work on the Shivaji memorial as early as it could, the Fadnavis government and all political parties in Maharashtra should still consider the concerns raised by various sections over the impact on marine ecology, the lives of fisherfolk and the cost involved. The current estimated cost of Rs2,500 crore may shoot up in the future considering the fact that project will take a few years to complete and there are chances of cost escalation. Is it late to look at other options?

The grand memorial is about Shivajis legacy. There are more than 300 forts in Maharashtra that are lying in bad shape. Many of them are built by King Shivaji. There have been demands from various groups that the government should pick a few of these ancient forts and turn them into magnificent monuments. There were suggestions for complete restoration of Raigad (which was Shivajis capital) and Shivneri (where the Maratha king was born) forts and make them major tourist attractions as well. It would have cost a small part of the money that would be spent on the mid-sea memorial.

The political parties are also keen on the memorial because the issue is sensitive for the Maratha community that reveres King Shivaji. In such a case, wouldnt it make sense to do something such as setting up a research centre in the name of the Maratha king to make farming more profitable, find out low cost methods for farmers and use technology to make their occupation better? Majority of Maratha community members are farmers and farming is no more a profitable occupation for most of them. The government can also consider setting up dedicated centers for training and guiding Maratha youths for jobs that are available. Thousands of Maratha youth sell their land or take loans to get admission in private professional colleges and pay their hefty fees. Still, it does not guarantee them jobs. That is a major reason why there is demand for reservation in government jobs. However, these kinds of suggestions will be considered by the government only if all political parties come together. It seems difficult now though it is still not late for the same.

When Sena is all praises for Deodhar

Following ally BJPs victory in the North East, Shiv Sena has lauded the efforts taken by BJP in charge of Tripura Sunil Deodhar in winning elections in the state. The Sena mouthpiece was all praise for the Mumbaikar Marathi manoos for ensuring partys victory in Tripura. Of course there is a catch. The Saamana editorial goes on to say: So far, only two persons were known for winning elections for the BJP. Now there is a third one

The remark is self-explanatory considering there is no love lost between Modi -Shah and the Sena.Six people were arrested on Monday for stealing cows from highways in Thane, Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.

The accused, who are butchers, have confessed to have stolen 30 cows in past two years.

Asif Yasin Quereshi, 24, Monish Fidahuddin Quereshi, 20, Irfan Ghulam Mohammed Mulla, 35, Fazal Ayub Qureshi, 22, Layk Yasin Qureshi, 32, and Shafiq Hanif Quereshi, 32, are residents of Kalyan and Mumbra.

On February 25, Sunil Yadav lodged a complaint with the Wagale Estate police station after two cows went missing from his cow shed.

During the investigation, police constable Rizwan Sayyed from Thane crime branch unit 1 got a tip-off about the accused and alerted his seniors.

We formed a team to nab the accused. We arrested the accused from Mumbra and Kalyan. They have been remanded in police custody. They have confessed to being involved in three cases. We are checking with the other police stations about similar complaints being lodged, said Datta Sarak, police sub-inspector from Thane crime branch.

Till now, they have confessed to stealing cows in Mumbai, Thane and Roha, Mahad and Chiplun. Yadav had seven cows, of which two went missing. We have arrested six accused. Four are on the run, said Sarak.

Shrishail Chiwadshetty, assistant police inspector from Thane crime branch, said, We have taken samples of the dead cows which were slaughtered. The skin, blood and flesh have been sent to the forensic lab for testing. All the accused are butchers.While there are speculations around the suspension of Ervad Merwan Nalladaru, a priest from Banaji Atash Behram, Charni Road, some members of the Parsi community have said that there will be fewer people to perform rituals in agiaries or fire temples.

The priest in question can perform Nirangdin and Vandidad ceremonies (performed after midnight), which are considered to be the toughest ceremonies to be performed in our religion. There are very few priests in the country, who have the kind of knowledge that Ervad Merwan does, said Rayomand Zaiwalla, lawyer.

Nalladaru was given a suspension notice last month on the ground that he was overfeeding the Holy Varasyaji (holy bull), and has been asked to step down by the end of this month. While the trustees of the agiary were unavailable for comments, BH Antia, a trustee of the agiary, in a letter written on March 4, in a Parsi publication, called the allegations levelled by the community against the trustees factually incorrect.

Since last year, the community has been trying to stop the rapid decline in the number of Zoroastrian priests through Jiyo Parsi and Jiyo Mobed Workshop. As part of the workshop, members of the priestly community were counselled and trained, so that they take can up a larger role in the affairs of the community.

Vada Dasturji Khurshed Dastoor, member of National Minorities Commission, said that the priest in the community were not given special preferences like that in other communities.

It is a thankless job with no special benefits such as PF or medical benefits, which is why not a lot of them do not want to opt for it. Also, considering our population is anyways dwindling, we have lesser priest left, said Dastoor.Showing his thumb nail that he has kept in a box as a keepsake for his first weight lifting act, Dinesh Shivnath Upadhyaya, 41, said he broke it after he attempted the record of lifting around 10kgs of weight with a fingernail in September 2017.

Upadhyaya, a science tutor, has received 108 record acknowledgments from the Guinness World Records team, ever since he started registering himself in April, 2012. His latest one being 79 blueberries stuffed in his mouth on December 2017, wherein he broke his previous record of 73 blueberries.

He has been termed as Maximouth for having the most number of attempts under the mouth stuffing category. He holds 14 mentions under it.

I dont want to be tagged as a record breaker under one particular category. I want to be called Mr Versatile, like Ashrita Furman is. Though, people in India might know me, but those around the world call me Maximouth, to do away with that generalisation, I am now trying records across various categories, says Upadhyaya.

Furman from New York is listed as Guinness World Records most prolific record-breaker after having set more than 600 records.

A resident of Goregaon, Upadhyaya spends 75% of his time in the day researching, planning, strategising and documenting his records, to ensure that the list keeps growing.

I usually attempt three records a month, but for that I need to be mentally prepared and keep a tab on all the active record breakers across the world, said Upadhyaya, while mentioning a list of his friends and competitors worldwide.

While most of his attempts are individual ones, there are some wherein he takes help from his family, bribing them after the record is set.

Bhagyashree Upadhyaya, Dineshs niece and a Masters student at Mumbai University, who holds two records with him, one of which includes stacking dice in towers, said she has been recording videos for Dinesh ever since her school days, and doubles up as his companion as and when required.

When uncle registers a record, if my brother and I have been a part of the record, we ensure that we party with him. But, the fact that he has registered a record internationally is in a way party in itself, said Bhagyashree.

His obsession to out-do himself started when after 12 years of hardwork to become an Indian Administrative Services officer, he failed.

I had always dreamt to be an IAS officer, but when I couldnt fulfill that, I started attempting records to avoid getting into a phase of depression. My family doesnt really support me and wants me to focus on teaching and not waste my time attempting records, because that doesnt get me any money. But, now records have become an integral part of my life and have made me confident, said Upadhyaya with a spark in his eyes, as his student waited for the class to begin.

No doubt his Facebook bio reads Professional World Record Breaker, and not a teacher.

However, his support system have been his niece and nephew Hemant Upadhyaya, with the help of whom he manages to he manages to get register his records by spending very little or no money.

It is an Indian mentality that you have done something great only if you are on television. They dont understand that uncle is representing India internationally, which is a great deal in itself. I have taken his advice and registered one record too, Hemant said.

It is not easy to break a record; at times people spend lakhs of rupees in the arrangement. But, I manage at zero cost by using household products, such as food items, matchsticks, candles, etc. And then as viewers, I usually have my students who support me, Dinesh said.

For just a moment of moment of fame and popularity, Upadhyaya has stuffed 22 lit candles in his mouth, for which he holds a record. Though, he attempts daring stunts while attempting records, he is cautious while speaking to us.

These attempts are not really safe, people shouldnt really try it, he cautions.

But, again goes on length to speak his passion, and the time when he ate peanut butter, though he had never heard about it in his life.

Once for a record, I had marshmallows. But, because I am vegetarian, I came back home and puked it all out, Upadhyaya says.

The officials from Guinness World Records have gone on to confirm that he is highest record holder in Mumbai, while one of the top record holders in the country.Whichever way you look at it, urban India is in a mess. With every passing day, we are sliding down the abyss further. Heres one more example: the Dr Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary in Pune, is almost dead thanks to uncaring civic and forest authorities. The 20-acre sanctuary was popular with birdwatchers but now both birds and birders have abandoned it due to garbage dumping in the area. Citizens allege that the place is not safe anymore because it has become a den of anti-social elements. Activists allege that a recent modification in the development plan has allowed construction of buildings inside the sanctuary, and that will destroy the green zone forever.

What is happening in Pune is not new; it happens almost every day in other cities. If this is the fate of a sanctuary in Pune today, tomorrow it will be the turn of a wetland in Chennai/Bengaluru/Kolkata, or a community park in Delhi. The destruction of green spaces has long-term ecological effects, but also deprives citizens of clean, green and secured community spaces where they can go for a stress-reducing outing without spending a fortune.

While authorities and citizens are nonchalant about saving these natural treasures, heres what another big city, Paris, is planning: It wants to build a forest five times larger than New Yorks Central Park. A report in Business Insider says that the area marked for this urban forest  Pierrelaye-Bessancourt (865 acres)  has been an unofficial landfill for trash. And how much time will it take to turn it onto a lush forest? For the trees to reach maturity, it would take 30 to 50 years! And here we are bent on destroying a mature, biodiverse city forest.

When the smart city programme started, the Centre drew up a plan for the management of urban green spaces because tree and forest cover are critical for ensuring ground water recharge, providing shade and conserving local biodiversity, improving the quality of life for city dwellers by providing recreational avenues besides other things. But why just smart cities? The same principle must apply to all cities (Pune is on the smart city list). In fact, as Alok Pandey, assistant professor, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, said recently, every Indian city needs a mini forest area.

These days, many people love to talk about Indias past. I wonder why then we dont we start treating these green havens, such as the Pune sanctuary, as urban sacred groves  communally protected forest fragments that had significant religious connotation for the people  and do all that is possible to protect and nurture them.

@kumkumdasguptaTwo female security employees of Vishwashanti Gurukul, Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) of Maharashtra Academy of Engineering and Educational Research (MAEER), Loni Kalbhor, were booked by Loni Kalbhor police on Saturday evening for stripping girls appearing for Class 12 examination and checking their private body parts for chits used for cheating in examinations.

Virendra Bawaskar, principal of Vishwashanti Gurukul, however, has denied the charges saying the students and their parents were reacting as the college authorities did not allow cheating to take place.

The girls approached their parents and then the local police. In their complaint they said, the checking happened first on February 21 and was repeated on February 26 and February 28 at the gates and campus of Vishwashanti Gurukul, MIT.

While four girls accompanied the complainant on Saturday, the complainant teen said that there were more from her college at the examination center who were taken to the room.

They made us take off our pants, aprons and kurtas and checked our private parts for chits. The girls who said they were on periods were taken to the washroom to check if they were really menstruating. I protested so they didnt touch me, said one of the complainant who is a local karate player.

A case under Sections 354 (sexual harassment) and 34 (common intention) of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 8 (sexual assault) and 10 (punishment for sexual assault) of Protection of Children against Sexual Offences (POCSO) was registered against the two female security guards. However, the number might increase as per the investigation, said assistant police inspector (API) MK Dhawaal of Loni Kalbhor police station. Shivaji Adhalrao Patil, Member of Parliament (MP) from Shirur, met the Loni Kalbhor police on Saturday and urged Shiv Sena leader Neelam Gorhe to raise the issue in the ongoing legislative assembly session.

We are investigating all the claims made in the complaint. We will ask all the girls if they were checked (inappropriately) in order to ascertain the total number of victims, said API Dhawaal.

In the light of the leak of English question paper in Solapur, Sudhakar Pakhare, an officer from the Education Department said, Checking is necessary but not in this manner. I will submit a report to the education officer while the police carry out their investigation.

I heard the boys teasing the girls and asked my daughter what had happened. Thats when she told me that such and such things had happened during the paper on February 28. When I asked the principal, he was rude told me to do whatever I possibly could against the college but the checking process will continue, said Chandrakant Salunkhe, father of one of the girls.

There is a married girl who was among the girls who were checked. Her husband and family are now forcing her to stop her education. Why do our girls have to face such humiliation? asked Vandana Kalbhor, Sarpanch of Lonikalbhor village. The girls are already under exam pressure and this incident added to it, Kalbhor added.

Im scared for my familys safety: MIT Principal

Virendra Bawaskar, Principal of the Vishwashanti Gurukul by Maharashra Institute of Technology (MIT) has denied all the charges made by female students of Class 12 of sexual assault by female security guards while checking for chits.

Bawaskar said that the parents and the students were doing this to take revenge for not allowing cheating at the examination centre. He claimed that the police case had put the lives of his family members, and the family members of the two female security guards named in the case, at risk.

I have 259 students appearing for board exams at my college which is an exam centre for the first time this year. We catch loads of chits everyday but we did not take formal action in order to save the students from severe action without letting them copy. The parents had asked me to not check the students for chits at all but I refused. They are getting back at me for that, Bawaskar said.

The squad had also caught one of the four complainant girls in possession of chits, Bawaskar said. He added that it was not possible to check those many students in the limited time they have between letting the students in and seating them.

A female police constable was also present at all time. She has seen how we checked the girls before the exam, Bawaskar added.The suspension of work by lawyers in Chandigarh on Monday to protest against the first information report (FIR) registered against lawyer of Dera Sacha Sauda chief, SK Garg Narwana, in an alleged land grab case added to the plight of litigants due to frequent no work days called by the lawyers.

Besides protesting against the lodging of FIR against lawyers, the District Bar Association (DBA), Chandigarh, has held no work day on multiple occasions in the last one year.

Given the increasing number of times lawyers have been boycotting work at the Chandigarh district courts, Sector 43, it has now become a joke among the court staff, police officials and even some members of the lawyer community about how they need a simple excuse to suspend work.

Reasons to suspend work

Here are some of the reasons for suspending work: In order to express disappointment over administration not declaring holiday in district courts on certain festivals, lawyers called off work. On three occasions  October, November and December  the latest in January 2018, the bar association suspended work when a judicial magistrate first class (JMIC) allegedly spoke in a rude way to a lawyer. In another case, another JMIC pronounced an order in the morning and when the defence counsel raised concern on it, the magistrate spoke rudely, post which work was suspended in March 2017.

Also Read | Rs 80-crore dispute: Dera Sacha Sauda chiefs lawyer, aides booked

As a mark of respect, work is also called off when a lawyer passes away. However, many have criticised the move stating that this only happens when a senior lawyer passes away and the rule doesnt apply to all.

Roster of proxy counsels is made

AK Verma, 69, man from Delhi had come to JMIC court here on Monday. Wth frustration writ large on his face, he said, This is my third trip in the last one week and the court was to pronounce order in my civil matter today, but Ive been waiting for my counsel since morning and then I heard of work being suspended.

Rakhi Sharma, 23, a student of a local college, said she skipped classes to attend a hearing in a case against her father, only to know that the matter had to be adjourned due to strike.

However, District Bar Association, Chandigarh, has a different story to tell. Aditi Shereon, joint secretary, DBA, said A roster of proxy counsels is made each time work is called off so that they can appear on behalf of the lawyers.

Ravinder Bassi, Bar president, believes other modes of protest dont invite as speedy a response as suspending work does, be it wearing black bands, blocking roads to mention a few.

Shereon said, Unlike doctors, cops who have senior authorities to raise their concerns, lawyers are independent. If we go to the district judge, we are told the judiciary is independent of the lawyers.

A senior advocate, on condition of anonymity, said, No lawyer, at least at district courts is paid on per hearing basis. These are stupid excuses.

The owner at one of the canteens at Sector 43 courts, said, In the past four years, never have so many strikes been held, to the extent that it has impacted our business here.

High court lawyers protest too

Notwithstanding the minor instances of suspension of work for half a day or few hours, at least four major instances of work strike at the high court have come to the fore since July 2016. No work could be transacted at high court from July 16 to July 19 in protest against arrest of a high court lawyer Jatin Salwan in a drug plant case. In October 2017, a Chandigarh court framed charges against the lawyer in the said case.

Then on January 25, 2017, high court lawyers suspended work after murder of a lawyer in Hisar. In fact, most courts did not function on that day in Punjab, Chandigarh and Haryana on the call given by Bar Council of Punjab and Haryana in protest against the murder.

On April 21, when lawyers of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh courts, including high court, boycotted work in the afternoon in response to the nationwide protest call given by Bar Council of India against the amendments proposed by the Centre in the Advocates Act 1961.

On Monday, high court lawyers abstained from work alleging frame up of senior advocate SK Garg Narwana in a property dispute case by Panchkula police.The sleuths of the Border Security Force (BSF) shot dead a Pakistan national, who had crossed the Indian boundary on the Indo-Pak international border in the Dera Baba Nanak sector of Punjab on Monday morning.

According to the police, on Monday morning, around 4.20 am, the BSF personnel of 164 Battalion saw a person moving near the Ghiana-Ke-Bet border outpost (BOP). He later crossed over to the Indian territory.

He was asked to stop, but when he did not respond, he was shot dead. Nothing objectionable was recovered from the deceased. The BSF believed that he was mentally retarded and crossed over to India by mistake.Universities should reform, perform and transform to become centres of excellence, M Venkaiah Naidu, Vice-President of India and chancellor, Panjab University (PU), said while addressing the 67th PU Annual Convocation on Sunday.

There were moments during the address when Naidu seemed to hint that PU needed to look for ways to generate revenues and improve its academic standards.

The Vice-President was on the campus at a time when PU is facing a financial crunch, its budget deficit increasing by Rs 100 crore over the years and the Centre asking it time and again to cut expenditure and increase income. No teachers have been recruited in the past two years, leaving departments critically short on faculty, lowering PUs ranking at national and international levels.

Occasional fee hikes by the varsity have also invited criticism from students.

Students in a jubilant mood after receiving their degrees in Chandigarh on Sunday. (Keshav Singh/HT)

Advice for senators

Naidu also had advice for the senate and the syndicate, saying these are forums where academic discussions should happen and which should give proper advice to enhance the academic standards of the university. The senators should take an interest in seeing ways in which the revenues of the university can go up, he said.

Adding that there was nothing wrong in looking up to the government of India for funds, he said the varsity at the same time should also generate revenues. Higher education in the 21st century cannot be attained without proper infrastructure and able support.

The vice president also mentioned the direct complaints related to the university submitted to the Chancellors office.

This is my second advice to all the senators sitting here and also the managing committee members. The exercise of freedom of thought is one of the fundamental rights but at the same time, I wish to tell you my friends, that freedom of expression also has limitations. Freedom of expression should not hurt the other mans freedom, other mans sentiments. Regulation is for proper civilisation. Dissent is acceptable but it should not hurt anybody.Uttarakhand Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on March 1 inaugurated the week-long 29th annual International Yoga Festival (IYF) in Rishikeshs Parmarth Niketan.

The IYF offers daily classes from 4 am until 9.30pm with more than 80 saints, yogacharyas, presenters and experts from nearly 20 countries around the world. There are also classes in meditation, mudras, Sanskrit chanting, Reiki, Indian philosophy and spiritual discourses to be held by revered spiritual leaders from India and abroad.

There will be 200 sessions over the next few days on topics such as Ashtanga yoga, Raja yoga, Bhakti yoga, Kundalini yoga, Iyengar yoga, Vinyasa yoga, Bharat yoga, Ganga yoga, and Somatics yoga.

The festival was inaugurated by Vice President of India, M Venkaiah Naidu. The inauguration saw a beautiful and colourful tapestry of participants representing the worlds faiths, nations, cultures, races and regions as Argentinians, Afghans, Israelites, Iranians, Japanese, Kenyans, Italians, Americans, Yemenis and people from numerous other nations gathered on the banks of the river Ganga.

Last year, Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji, president of Parmarth Niketan and founder of the International Yoga Festival, and Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswatiji, director of the International Yoga Festival, led International Yoga Day events at the United Nations in New York.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for moreThe first teaser trailer for the final season of House of Cards was released online by Netflix on Monday. Robin Wright takes over from the disgraced Kevin Spacey as the shows lead, after he was named among the several Hollywood personalities in the wave of sexual assault allegations that swept the industry late 2017.

The teaser reinforces Wrights ascension to the throne in a series of wordless shots that take the viewer throught the corridors of the White House and into the Oval Office, where the new President sits with her back to the camera. She turns around and says, Were just getting started, as the words, All hail the chief flash across the screen.

Spacey was fired from the show after actor Anthony Rapp accused him of having made advances when he was a minor. Rapps accusations were followed by others who accused Spacey of sexual misconduct. An investigation launched by Netflix and the Old Vic Theatre in London - where Spacey was programmer - revealed a history of misbehaviour.

Production was temporarily halted on the show, as writers scrambled to rework the story without Spacey, who played Frank Underwood, a devious politician who climbed his way to the top with the help of his wife. Greg Kinnear and Diane Lane joined the show as new cast members. The final season is scheduled to premiere this fall.

Follow @htshowbiz for moreIndian Embassy telephone lines have been spoofed by fraudsters in the US to cheat people for money, according to an advisory issued by the mission which warned against entertaining any suspicious calls.

The Indian Embassy in Washington has informed the US government about it and launched its own internal investigation. It also issued a rare public advisory on such fraud calls that has cheated people with money.

These fraudsters either seek personal information like credit card details etc. or try to extort money from Indian nationals by inter alia claiming that there are errors in their passports, visa forms, immigration forms etc. which could be rectified by paying money, and at the same time warning that the so called errors, if not rectified, could result in deportation of the individual to India or their imprisonment in USA, the Indian Embassy said in its advisory.

Some of the Indian nationals living in the US, who received such call, brought to the notice of the Embassy that some fraudsters are spoofing Embassy of India telephone lines to make calls aimed at cheating people.

Some of these calls are shown as being from the Embassy telephone numbers while others simply use Embassy identity.

In some cases, these fraudsters also claimed that they received such information from the Embassy or other authorities in India. Visa applicants have also received such calls purporting to be from the Embassy.

The Indian Embassy has started collecting information from the public, including details of the Western Union account number or bank account details where the money was transferred.

In its advisory, the Indian Embassy said none of its officials make any telephone calls seeking personal information from any Indian or foreign nationals.

In case of any additional documentation is required from an existing applicant, it is sought only through emails originating from the official domain, it said.

It urged people living in the US not to entertain any suspicious telephone calls made in the name of Embassy of India. It also advised people not to reveal any personal information or transfer any money in response to such calls.

This is for the first time probably that fraudsters have been spoofing Indian Embassy phone numbers.

According to informed US government officials, in the past they have received similar complaints from other diplomatic missions as well, in particular those from the European nations.

Officials said while the spoofing technology is easily available, it is tough to get to the origin of such phone calls. Americans have been frequent victims of such phone calls -from call centres in India - on behalf of the US Internal Revenue Service. In several joint operations in the last one year, Indian authorities have arrested scores of people making such fraud calls.Chinas decision to increase its defence outlay by 8.1% has more do with the situation in the South China Sea, the volatile Korean peninsula and modernising its armed forces than the threat perception from India, experts said on Monday.

Beijing announced the increase in military spending for 2018 against the backdrop of a large reduction of non-battle personnel and the streamlining of the number of group armies from 18 to 13.

The 2018 defence budget will be 1.11 trillion yuan (US$175 billion), said to a statement released before the opening of the first session of the 13th National Peoples Congress (NPC).

Chinas defence budget is now three times that of Indias and against the backdrop of last years military standoff at Doklam or Donglang near the Sikkim border, it raised questions about how much Beijing sees New Delhi as a threat.

Shanghai-based military expert Ni Leixong argued the increase was because of several security threats faced by China.

It is not surprising that Chinas defence budget is more than three times that of Indias. Thats because Chinas military threats are several times more than Indias, such as the development of Taiwan independence groups, the South China Sea dispute, the dispute with Japan over Diaoyu Islands and the situation in the Korean Peninsula, Ni said.

The increase in Chinas defence budget sends a signal of living in peace and avoiding military conflicts with neighbours like India, Ni added.

Delivering the government work report at the Great Hall of the People, Premier Li Keqiang said China has basically completed the task of reducing the armed forces by 300,000 troops.

We have undertaken major missions involving the protection of maritime rights, countering terrorism and maintaining stability, disaster rescue and relief, international peacekeeping, escort services in the Gulf of Aden, and humanitarian rescue, Li said.

Military equipment has been significantly modernised, and China has deepened military-civilian integration.

Ni added, The focus will be to further develop the PLA navy and air force, radar detection (and) missile defence.

The increase of 8% sends a signal that the Chinese government insists on the long-term and established principles of peaceful development and on long-term national policies based on domestic construction and a defensive national defence strategy, and not on hegemony.

A military expert, who wasnt named, told the nationalistic Global Times tabloid: The defence budget number accounts for less than 1.5% of the GDP and the per capita expenditure is also lower than other major countries in the world. This shows China insists on peaceful development and a defensive defence strategy.China on Monday said it has slashed three lakh troops, reducing the size of its 2.3-million Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) to just two-million-strong force, a move aimed at making the worlds largest army a mightier force capable of winning modern wars.

Chinese premier Li Keqiang made the announcement in his annual work report to the National Peoples Congress (NPC).

Li said the military had completed its goal of slashing three lakh troops, reducing the size of the 2.3 million PLA to just two-million-strong force.

The PLA Daily, official newspaper of the Chinese military, said non-battle personnel were downsized.

The troop cut was announced by President Xi Jinping in 2015.

The PLA which was 4.5-million strong till 1980 was first resized to three million in 1985 and later to 2.3 million.

PLA also announced last year that it would reduce its grounds troops to less than a million as part of Chinese military modernisation under which the navy has been given greater role to expand Chinas global influence.

The troops cut also came in the backdrop of massive anti-corruption drive carried out by Xi, who also heads the military, in which over 3,000 personnel including over 50 top Generals were removed and punished.

We will stick to Chinese path in strengthening our armed forces, advance all aspects of military training, war preparedness, and firmly and resolvedly safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, Li said.

He also said the military should function strictly under the command the ruling Communist Party and the Central Military Commission, (CMC) headed by Xi.

Commenting on the troops cut, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times that the military can allocate resources more efficiently and form a stronger battle capability. The key point will now be quality instead of quantity.

But that is an inevitable trend and the key to current military reform. The good ones will stay and the unqualified ones will leave, he said.A technology industry group said the delay of a Trump administration proposal to rescind work permits for spouses of high-skilled foreign workers isnt likely to lead to any change in plans to end the programme.

The Department of Homeland Security said this week its delaying issuing a proposal to remove work eligibility of H-1B spouses, citing the need to perform a new economic analysis, according to a February 28 court filing. The filing was in connection with a suit filed by an advocacy group, Save Jobs USA, which argued that DHS doesnt have the right to grant work permits without congressional approval.

In the short term, it helped. In the long run, we think they are still moving forward with the rescinding rule, said Andy Halataei, senior vice president of government affairs at the Information Technology Industry Council, which counts Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Google among its members. He said the delay shows the agency is refining their economic arguments for removing the work eligibility of spouses of H-1B visa recipients.

DHS had planned to rescind the rule, put in place by President Barack Obamas administration, in February. It would be one of the agencys early steps to regulate high-skilled immigration as President Donald Trump pushes his America First agenda.

The tech industry had lobbied against the change, saying that it would undermine US companies ability to attract foreign workers and that their spouses, who are granted H-4 visas under the programme, dont take jobs from American workers.

FWD.us, a tech industry group advocating for immigration, said in a statement that it was encouraged by the delay and urged the administration to take action immediately to keep this rule in place.

Under current rules, the H-1B programme allows companies to hire high-skilled workers from overseas, with 85,000 visas available annually. More than 104,000 spouses have been granted work authorization since the H-4 visa rule was enacted under Obama, according to DHSs Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The Trump administration has been moving to tighten the program with Trump directing federal agencies to award visas only to the most skilled and highest-paid applicants.Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Monday that Moscow had evidence that the United States was trying to interfere in the Russian presidential election, the RIA news agency quoted him as saying.

Russia holds a presidential election on March 18, which polls show incumbent Vladimir Putin should comfortably win.

The Interfax news agency cited Ryabkov as saying that the United States was trying to sow chaos in Russia and that US sanctions were aimed at destabilising Russia.

US intelligence agencies accuse Moscow of interfering in the 2016 US presidential election, something Russia denies. Moscow has been hit with new US sanctions as a result.Britain has said it is highly regrettable that members of a parliamentary committee were refused visas by Myanmar to visit the country as part of their inquiry into the Rohingya-related work of the Department for International Development (DFID).

The International Development Committee (IDC) of Parliament was scheduled to visit Myanmar and Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees have fled. Britain is one of the largest providers of aid for the refugees.

A report by the committee on the crisis published in January had expressed grave concerns over Myanmars treatment of the Rohingya, their mass displacement and plans to repatriate thousands of them back to Myanmar without safeguards.

Stephen Twigg, chair of the 11-member committee that includes senior Labour MP Veerendra Sharma, said: We are extremely disappointed. It is hard to escape the conclusion that this is a direct consequence of our report on the Rohingya.

The result is that planned meetings with government ministers and military personnel in the capital, Nay Pyi Taw, including with state counsellor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, have had to be cancelled.

The Foreign Office minister for Asia, Mark Field, told the House of Commons: Burmese officials have indicated three reasons for the refusal: first, that there is an extended public holiday in Burma; secondly, that access to Rakhine state remains restricted for security reasons; and finallythat they were unhappy that individual members of the IDC had signed a letter calling for the senior general of the Burmese army to be held to account for Burmese military behaviour in Rakhine.

London continues to refer to Myamar by its colonial name of Burma.

Field added that the UK government remained committed to support Myanmars poorest and most vulnerable people.Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Sunday that the chemical attacks allegations against the Syrian government are part of the Western dictionary of lies, state news agency SANA reported.

Assad made such remarks after his meeting with Hussein Jabri Ansari, Irans foreign ministers special assistant for Political Affairs, in the capital Damascus.

The allegations of the use of chemical weapons are a mere blackmail that the West resorted to strike the Syrian army, he noted.

The western countries recently reaccused the Syrian army of using chemical weapons in attacks against rebels, most recently in the rebel-held eastern Ghouta countryside of Damascus.

Assad also said the Western media and political campaign against Syria under humanitarian titles aim primarily at reviving terrorism and terrorists after the heavy blows they suffered.

The talk about humanity according to the Western logic means one thing that the Syrian army is advancing, Assad said, referring to the recent crescendo of international condemnation of the Syrian government about the worsening humanitarian situation in the country.

In fact, the US-led anti-terror coalition is supporting the Islamic State (IS) and the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front with no shame, the Syrian president noted.Being a mother is the toughest job in the world and it gets even more challenging for a working woman, who has to balance work and family.

But no matter how busy mothers get, they still manage to take care of the needs of their children. Its their motherly instinct as many call it.

A Pakistani advertisement for a cupcake brand, Peek Freans Cake Up, based on this idea has touched the hearts of many on social media. The ad is a collaboration between Ogilvy India and Ogilvy Pakistan. With more than 10 million views on Facebook, the video shows how a working mother lets her child know that she is always there for him no matter how busy she is.

It starts with the woman packing the lunch box for her son before she leaves for work. Her son tries to tell her something about the lunchbox but she kisses him and leaves in a hurry.

The boy, however, gets a surprise at school when he receives a lunchbox from his mother with a special note inside it. Through the letter, the mother tells him that she will always have the time to listen to him. The boy gets a note inside his lunchbox every day until one day he decides to surprise his mother.

The ending is the best part of the video as it perfectly sums up the message of the ad: Its the little things that make all the difference.

The video has garnered over 2,30,000 reactions, 63,000 shares and 7,900 comments so far.

This ad gets me teary every time I watch it, one Facebook user wrote. Loved it. Such a touching ad, with a great message, said another.

Watch the video here:The prospect of Chinese President Xi Jinping ruling indefinitely is dominating discussion as Chinas legislature opens its annual session Monday. The constitutional amendment to the two-term limit on the president underscores Xis standing as Chinas most dominant political figure in decades.

Thats raised concerns about a return to the one-man rule of past dictators such as Mao Zedong and what that could mean for Chinas domestic politics and international standing, with some warning of the possibility of capricious policy making and greater political repression. The ruling Communist Party allows no public debate, although some have registered their opposition in social media posts.

A look at some of the major issues on the table at this years meeting of the nearly 3,000-member National Peoples Congress:

A possible Xi presidency-for-life

The proposal to amend the constitution by lifting the limit of two consecutive terms for the president and vice president appeared without warning, even if few were surprised. Though its expected to pass with near-unanimous approval, some complaints have arisen from independent political commentators and internet users posting online.

One of the most popular images was of Winnie the Pooh  to whom Xi is said to bear a resemblance  hugging a pot of honey accompanied by the quote, Find the thing you love and stick with it. Xi had seemed to signal his intentions to stay on beyond the traditional limit of two five-year terms as president and party secretary by declining to appoint an obvious successor at last years Communist Party congress.

Implications for Chinas political system

While seen as offering stability in the near term, the prospect of Xi as president-for-life has many worrying about his long-term intentions and a return to one-man rule in the style of the Chinese emperors or communist Chinas founder, Mao Zedong. Along with reviving fears of dictatorship, greater political repression and policy-making on a whim, the move undermines a decades-long push for greater institutionalization of the levers of power and strengthened rule of law. It also throws up questions about the future succession process and appears to scupper any chance for political liberalization to keep pace with Chinas increasingly individualistic society.

On Sunday, the spokesman for the congress, Zhang Yesui, defended the constitutional amendment as necessary to ensure the unity of Xis three top positions as president, leader of the Communist Party and head of the Central Military Commission. The move is conducive to uphold the authority of the (Communist Party) Central Committee with Xi Jinping at the core, Zhang said.

Looking long term

By setting the stage to extend his rule by a decade or more, Xi seems to indicate that he believes hes the only one fit to see out his vision of turning China into a top innovative nation by 2035 and to realize his China Dream of a fully modern leading nation by midcentury. Hes also eager to carry forward his campaigns to end corruption and abuse through the establishment of a National Supervisory Commission, to end poverty and continue turning the Peoples Liberation Army into the dominant military force in Asia.

Other longer-term goals and prospects include eclipsing the U.S. as the worlds largest economy and pushing it out of the Asia-Pacific power sphere, managing Hong Kong until its 50 years of semi-autonomy run out in 2047 and engineering reunification with Taiwan  either peacefully or by force.

Turbulence ahead

Chinas embattled liberal intellectuals have universally panned the move. Theyve registered their opposition in brief postings on social media that have been heavily censored, comparing the situation to that of imperial China, North Korea or the Mao era. Though Xi, 64, has sidelined his opponents within the party elite, many rank-and-file members had come to believe in the institutionalized norms established during the era of reformist leader Deng Xiaoping and may find the possibility of Xi retaining a total monopoly on power for years or decades to come distasteful.

Cheng Li and Ryan McElveen of the Brookings Institution wrote that some may see the removal of term restraints as heralding a return to an era of vicious power struggles  a zero-sum game in which they will also ruthlessly engage in the years to come. Concerns have also been raised over the high-handed manner in which the amendment is being forced through, with little sign of a firm consensus in favor. There have been rumors of opposition from within the party even before its Feb. 25 announcement, which, in a highly unorthodox move, was first made in English on a Sunday afternoon.

Installing key ally Wang Qishan as vice president

Xi appears intent on making the bold move on term limits with his trusted ally Wang Qishan alongside as vice president. Wang has been Xis main enforcer in his trademark campaign against corruption, now well into its sixth year, and has helped take down potential rivals both retired and in office.

Though Wang, 69, is past standard retirement age and stepped down from the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee last year, he retained his seat as a member of the National Peoples Congress and stands to transform the traditionally ceremonial role of vice president. That will further consolidate Xis authority against Premier Li Keqiang and allies of former leaders Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, and shake up the status quo by which real power at the center derives almost exclusively from the Standing Committee.

New cabinet to handle slowing economy, other challenges

Along with the vice president, the congress will appoint a slew of Cabinet ministers and other top officials to oversee the running of the worlds most populous nation and second-largest economy. Among their key challenges is an economy whose growth slowed to 6.8 percent last year, the loss of some 2 million jobs in the public sector, widespread environmental degradation and trade frictions with key partners the U.S. and EU.

Having launched bold initiatives such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt and Road initiative, China is now charged with maintaining that momentum in the face of doubts from the West and some reluctance on the part of participants.

Trump, North Korea pose foreign policy challenges

Along with Chinas growing international status, foreign relations weigh ever more heavily on proceedings at the congress. Chinas fraught relations with North Korea, its dispute with South Korea over missile defense and perennial sparring with the US over trade and regional security are among the hot-button issues likely to be raised at the foreign ministers news conference held over the course of the congress.

Beijing has also been put on the defensive over accusations that it is meddling in the affairs of other nations to squelch critical views of China and control the affairs of overseas Chinese communities. Xis intention to rule indefinitely will enhance fear of the China threat, Chinese law expert Gerome Cohen wrote in a blog posting for the Council for Foreign Relations. Xis ever greater repression will make people think of Stalins decades-long centralization of power, Cohen wrote.Appointment

5 March 2018

Kelly Commerford was promoted from the director of sales and marketing at Kona Kai Resort & Spa, to regional director of marketing for the West Coast where he manages the overall sales, marketing and catering teams for Kona Kai Resort & Spa, The Portofino Hotel & Marina, River Terrace Inn, Hotel Zoe Fisherman's Wharf and The Argonaut Hotel. Commerford is responsible for overseeing the topline revenue for the properties as well as driving customer acquisition through strategic sales and marketing efforts including social media engagement. With thirty-three years of hospitality experience, Commerford's strong leadership skills have resulted in the promotion of highly motivated salespeople and ensured the success of multi-million-dollar conference centers, conventions, and resort hotel operations. His expertise spans across many travel sectors including corporate, national, regional, leisure, and convention and trade shows.

Prior to joining Kona Kai Resort & Spa, Commerford held the position of director of sales and marketing at The Commons Hotel in Minneapolis, a former Noble House Hotels & Resorts property. Commerford had increased the hotel's revenue from $12.4 million to $17.1 million since joining The Commons in 2013, and also significantly increased revenues in food and beverage operations along with group bookings. Commerford formerly served as director of sales and marketing for numerous celebrated properties including the Manchester Grand Hyatt in San Diego, Hyatt Regency Bonaventure Conference Center & Spa in Fort Lauderdale, and Dolce Hayes Mansion in San Jose.External Article

5 March 2018

In 2017, the growth of the European tourism sector exceeded that of the global economy for the seventh consecutive year, growing by more than 10.2% of the world's GDP. Despite the changes experienced throughout 2016 and 2017, the sector has managed to maintain and cope with currency fluctuations, the political uncertainty, weather disasters, and incidents related to terrorism.

In this turbulent environment, Europeans are still willing to travel, to the point that they decide to return to classic travel destinations such as London or Paris, and even explore remote places, such as the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Jamaica, China, South Korea or Turkey.External Article

5 March 2018

From the high rises of Brickell to Wynwood's galleries and murals and the luxury boutiques of the Design District, there's always a lot happening in Miami.

But if it's that glorious stretch of Atlantic Ocean and white sand you came for, South Beach is ready to greet you with a bien venido  and plenty of action to keep you busy all weekend long.

Before you travel here, about that beach: the best time to visit is in the morning. Few people, locals or visitors, are out and about before 11 a.m. in South Beach, and early birds catch the best beach chairs, not to mention a peaceful oceanfront scene for a swim, yoga session or run along the sand.

The beach path is also popular for jogging, power-walking, biking, blading or strolling  it runs from South Pointe Park, at the southern tip of the barrier island, north along the coastline, turning into a wooden boardwalk at 23rd Street, where it continues through Mid-Beach to 46th Street.Press Release

5 March 2018

Rosewood Hotel Group today announced its ambitious growth and development plans for the luxury hotel group's four distinct brands: Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, Penta Hotels, New World Hotels & Resorts and KHOS, the group's newest brand. The announcement was made on the heels of several high-profile global property announcements for the group's flagship ultra-luxury brand, Rosewood Hotels & Resorts, including Rosewood Half Moon Bay Antigua (2021), Rosewood Vienna (2021), Rosewood Munich (2023) and Rosewood Hotel (Grosvenor Square) in the former U.S. Embassy in London.

Advertisements

These recent announcements further underscore Rosewood's methodical and thoughtful global expansion, which began with the 2014 opening of Rosewood London  an instant classic and voted London's No. 1 Hotel by Conde Nast Traveler in 2017 and U.S. News and World Report in 2018. Since then, Rosewood's impressive European growth has continued with the addition of Rosewood Castiglion del Bosco, its landmark property in Tuscany owned by fashion magnate Massimo Ferragamo, and the iconic Hotel de Crillon, A Rosewood Hotel, in Paris, which reopened to great acclaim in July 2017 following an extensive, four-year transformation. Additional European hotels in development include Rosewood Vienna (2021) and Rosewood Munich (2023).

"The Rosewood brand today is recognised as a global tastemaker amongst an elite group of consumers, attracting the right kind of attention from developers globally and creating a desire to innovate and reinvent," said Sonia Cheng, Chief Executive Officer of Rosewood Hotel Group.

Rosewood is already off to a superb start in 2018 after an equally dynamic 2017 which also saw the addition of Rosewood Puebla, Rosewood Sanya, Rosewood Phuket, the group's first resort in South East Asia, and the Hotel de Crillon, a Rosewood Hotel, to the brand's global network. Thus far, the group has signed new deals in Antigua and Chengdu, and opened Rosewood Phnom Penh in Cambodia. These milestones underpin the brand's formidable global growth story which is only further amplified by several highly anticipated openings in 2018, including:

Rosewood Luang Prabang (Laos): The collection's first ultra-luxury tented encampment will open this spring as the only luxury vacation destination in the vicinity, serving as the perfect place to unwind and explore Laotian culture. Designed by Bill Bensley, the resort will feature 23 pavilions, suites and tented villas on a picturesque and lush hillside location with easy access to the UNESCO heritage site of Luang Prabang. The property will be home to Rosewood's first philanthropic hospitality school.

The collection's first ultra-luxury tented encampment will open this spring as the only luxury vacation destination in the vicinity, serving as the perfect place to unwind and explore Laotian culture. Designed by Bill Bensley, the resort will feature 23 pavilions, suites and tented villas on a picturesque and lush hillside location with easy access to the UNESCO heritage site of Luang Prabang. The property will be home to Rosewood's first philanthropic hospitality school. Rosewood Bermuda : The iconic resort in Tucker's Town will reopen this spring following an extensive $25 million renovation that will elevate every aspect of the award-winning resort. The renovation will include the complete redesign of the resort's guestrooms, Beach Club, Golf Clubhouse and Sense, A Rosewood Spa  , as well as enhanced meeting space and new food and beverage outlets and concepts.

: The iconic resort in Tucker's Town will reopen this spring following an extensive $25 million renovation that will elevate every aspect of the award-winning resort. The renovation will include the complete redesign of the resort's guestrooms, Beach Club, Golf Clubhouse and Sense, A Rosewood Spa , as well as enhanced meeting space and new food and beverage outlets and concepts. Rosewood Baha Mar (Nassau, Bahamas) : Set on Nassau's Cable Beach, the 233-room, five-villa Rosewood property will be one of three major hotels that form part of the $4.2 billion resort complex of Baha Mar. Opening spring 2018, the Wimberly Interiors designed hotel will exude a British colonial vibe.

: Set on Nassau's Cable Beach, the 233-room, five-villa Rosewood property will be one of three major hotels that form part of the $4.2 billion resort complex of Baha Mar. Opening spring 2018, the Wimberly Interiors designed hotel will exude a British colonial vibe. Rosewood Hong Kong (China) : Destined to become Rosewood Hotels & Resorts' new flagship property in Asia, Rosewood Hong Kong will be situated in the heart of Victoria Dockside, a new $2.6 billion, 3 million-square-foot art and design district on the promenade of Hong Kong's iconic Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. The Tony Chi designed 'vertical manor' will be an innovative expression of the Rosewood brand in one of the world's most dynamic urban capitals.

: Destined to become Rosewood Hotels & Resorts' new flagship property in Asia, Rosewood Hong Kong will be situated in the heart of Victoria Dockside, a new $2.6 billion, 3 million-square-foot art and design district on the promenade of Hong Kong's iconic Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. The Tony Chi designed 'vertical manor' will be an innovative expression of the Rosewood brand in one of the world's most dynamic urban capitals. Rosewood Miramar Beach Montecito (California) : Spread over nearly 16 acres of prime beachfront real estate, the resort will offer 124 guestrooms and 37 suites, many of which will be located in single-story cottages and bungalows. The resort's exclusive beach is considered to be one of the most beautiful and secluded beaches in Santa Barbara.

: Spread over nearly 16 acres of prime beachfront real estate, the resort will offer 124 guestrooms and 37 suites, many of which will be located in single-story cottages and bungalows. The resort's exclusive beach is considered to be one of the most beautiful and secluded beaches in Santa Barbara. Rosewood Guangzhou (China) : Set within the tallest completed building in Guangzhou's central Tianhe District, the property will further add to the portfolio's existing presence in Asia and will offer a host of luxurious amenities, including 355 longer-term Rosewood Residences, the highest situated bar in all of mainland China, and a two-story Sense  , A Rosewood Spa.

: Set within the tallest completed building in Guangzhou's central Tianhe District, the property will further add to the portfolio's existing presence in Asia and will offer a host of luxurious amenities, including 355 longer-term Rosewood Residences, the highest situated bar in all of mainland China, and a two-story Sense , A Rosewood Spa. Rosewood Bangkok (Thailand): The crowning jewel atop the Kohn, Petersen, Fox-designed mixed-use complex on Ploenchit Road in the heart of Bangkok, the 159-room, 33-storey property will feature some of the Thai capital's largest and most luxurious guestrooms including 64-square-metre Pool Sky Villas boasting private terraces and plunge pools. The hotel will also showcase Rosewood's signature event facilities with panoramic views over the city, Sense, A Rosewood Spa, and three innovative dining venues.

In addition to recent and upcoming property openings, Rosewood also recently launched the brand's new, holistic wellness concept, Asaya. Introduced at Rosewood Phuket in November 2017, Asaya will continue to be rolled out among both new and existing properties within the portfolio.

Measured and Meaningful Growth: The Strategic Priority

A thoughtful and ambitious strategy of growth and reinvention permeates Rosewood Hotel Group as it prepares to add 50 hotels globally in the next five years  a 70% increase in a portfolio spanning across the four design-led brands.

"Aided by good market fundamentals, visionary and approachable leadership, a strong and deep understanding of the new generation of travellers and consumers, and a genuine focus on relationship hospitality, our brands attract a disproportionate amount of developer interest" said Karl Bieberach, who joined the company in late 2017 in the newly-created role of global Chief Development Officer.

There are currently 22 Rosewood Hotels globally, with 17 additional projects in development spanning important global capitals and exotic resort destinations to open in the next 5 years. Even with its ambitious pipeline, great care is taken to ensure the global consistency of the brand and that each new hotel uniquely expresses Rosewood Hotels & Resorts' A Sense of Place philosophy.

In December 2017, Rosewood Hotel Group announced the launch of a new brand, KHOS an innovative concept for business hotels with a distinct lifestyle orientation inspired by the energy, art, innovation, creativity, style and dynamism of modern-day Asia. KHOS aims to turn the traditional notion of a business hotel on its head  designed specifically for the modern business traveller, for whom the conventional boundaries of work and play no longer exist, and who is no longer willing to sacrifice style, inspiration, socialising and wellness for the predictable functionality of a traditional business hotel. In keeping with the KHOS spirit, traditional hotel facilities and services will be re-conceived to create opportunities to spontaneously interact, relate and celebrate with fellow travellers. Wellness, public spaces, meeting facilities have all been reimagined, and event spaces ingeniously designed for greater flexibility and sociability facilitating personal interaction along with business purpose. KHOS will establish a global footprint, matching the footsteps of its guests to capital cities and urban portals, up-and-coming business centres, and resort destinations as well, with the first KHOS hotels to be announced and opened later in 2018.

"With our new KHOS concept, we are bringing our innovative DNA to a market-driven, conversion-friendly business lifestyle model. It is a concept that reflects how today's influencers work and play, that will foray into co-working alternatives depending on market needs, and which showcases inventive wellness experiences and a culinary array of the cuisines the world is craving" adds Sonia Cheng.

New brands and concepts like KHOS are fed by an intrinsic passion for innovation. "We entice our teams to think differently; we are an incubator of new ideas, and we invest in designing new concepts that position us differently versus much larger companies."

Rosewood Hotel Group is also reinventing its design-led, upper midscale Penta Hotels brand, with recent European signings in Moscow and an aggressive growth plan for Asia, where it operates four properties with three more in the pipeline. In 2017, as part of the continued reinvention of Penta Hotels, the group appointed Mr. Eugene Staal as President for Penta Hotels Worldwide, based in Frankfurt. Under his new leadership, a new growth strategy was developed with the goal of repositioning the brand as a genuine neighbourhood hotel and growing the network from 28 hotels today to 100 in 2021.

"We are committed to staying true to the brand's core identity as a neighbourhood lifestyle brand, which is very much aligned with the goals of today's traveller." Said Eugene Staal, President for Penta Hotels Worldwide.

Rosewood's fourth brand, New World Hotels & Resorts, continues to have a regional focus carving its own space as an upper-upscale alternative for the main gateways and getaway destinations in Asia. In January 2018, the group opened the New World Petaling Jaya, near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with an additional 10 New World properties under development in the region.Press Release

5 March 2018

"To engage the media and to recognize the work of journalists in the coverage of wildlife and sustainable tourism." This is the ultimate goal of the Media Award announced by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) on the occasion of Wildlife Day celebrated on 3 March. The UNWTO/Chimelong Initiative aims to promote the value of tourism for wildlife conservation and also includes training to tourism administrations and to media on the theme.

Advertisements

The UNWTO/Chimelong Media Award seeks to recognize the most committed and original purveyors of news and stories related to wildlife conservation and tourism.

"The engagement of media is as important as that of governments and private sector to address the role of tourism as a driver to foster wildlife conservation. Much of our activities in this area are focused in Africa and Asia. The African continent for example is a unique case with regard to wildlife and tourism. Supporting the role of tourism in wildlife conservation is critical for socio-economic development and the achievement of the SDGs and the Agenda 2030 in Africa" said UNWTO Secretary General, Zurab Pololikashvili.

The UNWTO/Chimelong Initiative is being implemented between 2017 and 2019 and aims at engaging key stakeholders like the media and tourism administrations in fostering sustainable tourism as a means to protect wildlife. Seven African countries (Republic of Guinee, Niger, Republic of Congo, Botswana, Benin, Gabon and Democratic Republic of Congo) hosted in 2017 activities of the UNWTO/Chimelong Initiative. Over 100 tourism officers and 50 media professionals have enhanced their capacities and understanding on wildlife through these activities.

The Jury of the Media Award is integrated by representatives from UNWTO, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), UN Environment and Lonely Planet.

John Scanlon, Secretary General of CITES commented "we welcome the initiative of UNWTO on occasion of the World Wildlife Day to highlight the role of the media in raising awareness of how well-managed tourism can support wildlife protection. Journalists can inform and educate the general public, and thereby help generate a positive change in how we view wildlife and sustainable tourism, both within governments and with the private sector". Scanlon invited journalists worldwide to take part in the competition, "join us in advancing the global cause for wildlife by participating in this years' Media Award on Wildlife and Sustainable Tourism", he said.

The role of sustainable tourism in fostering wildlife protection is stressed by Tom Hall, Editorial Director of Lonely Planet and member of the Jury of the UNWTO/Chimelong Media Award. "I'm pleased to be a part of the UNWTO/Chimelong Media Award judging process as the protection of wildlife and advocacy of sustainable tourism is vital to the positive future of travel," he said.

The Media Award welcomes articles, reports and interviews addressing the topic of wildlife and sustainable tourism published between January 2017 and June 2018 in any of the five UNWTO official languages (English, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic).

The deadline for submissions is 15th July 2018. The awardee will be designated at the Awards Ceremony that will take place in September 2018.Supplier News

5 March 2018

The best-laid plans  is there even such a thing when it comes to business travel? Last minute travel is not only unavoidable but inevitable. It is often out of your control  meetings change; flights are delayed or canceled; clients need you. According to a SAP Concur report released last year, these eleventh-hour bookings can cost you more for flights, but last-minute hotel bookings buck this trend. Looking at booking windows of 0 days, 03 days, 47 days, 814 days, 1530 days, and 30+ days, SAP Concur's 2017 hotel data for EMEA shows that the lowest median rates can be found 03 days out, but most rooms are booked 1530 and 30+ days out. Quite simply, travellers are losing money by booking earlier than when prices are at their lowest.

Booking Trends in EMEA

Figure 1 is a simple summary of the percentage of room nights booked, by days prior to the stay, for EMEA in 2017. The largest share of bookings is made between 1530 days before the stay. However, further data shows that the best rates are to be found when booking between 07 days before an intended trip, so there is a balance between inventory and price to be struck when booking.

Photo: SAP Concur

Figure 2 charts the pattern of room rates per quarter, relative to the median price in 2017. While booking 47 days before the intended stay may save money as prices dip below the average, if you book within Q1, the room rates are already below the median price and will only fall. The significant difference between Q1 and Q2Q4 is likely explained by the higher rate of travel towards the end of the year, as we found in our previous research around busiest travel days. The savvy traveller could save money by travelling in Q1.

Photo: SAP Concur

Last Minute Bookings for Quick Trips

From figures 1 & 2, we can see that people booking last-minute rooms are getting a good rate for doing so. Providing further context, the above (figure 3) details the average length of stay for each booking window. Those that are booking last-minute, between 03 days before a trip, stay on average only 1 to 2 nights, suggesting that these types of stays could be trip extensions. With the savings on offer, this data could prove the basis for full, slightly longer trips to be booked closer to the time rather than merely extensions  useful information for trips where room availability is expected to be high.

Photo: SAP Concur

Booking Habits in the U.K., Germany, and France

Below, we can see the breakdown of room rates for the U.K., France, and Germany by booking window. While the prices across all three countries gradually drop to around the median rate leading up to 814 days before booking, interestingly, rates in Germany hold slightly higher than the median until 47 days.

All three countries then experience a significant drop between 03 days. However, prices in Germany are only 13 percent below the median whereas the U.K. sees a larger drop to -26 percent. Germany certainly holds truer when it comes to price fluctuation, but travellers and travel managers would do well to book later there in comparison to France and the UK.

Photo: SAP Concur

City Breakdown

We can delve into this data on a more granular level by looking at the type of hotels that are being booked from 30+ to 0 days before a stay, splitting between high-end, medium and low-tier establishments in London (figure 5), Frankfurt (figure 6) and Paris (figure 7). We define high, medium, and low-tier hotels within each city by dividing the average daily rate into three equal tiers.

While prices in high-end Paris hotels see a consistent drop in prices with a slight peak at 0 days before a stay, the average rate is between 50 and 90 percent above the median  far higher than the percentage above the median in both Frankfurt and London and worth avoiding if possible.

By comparison, the rates in Frankfurt suggest that travellers who are booking late will opt for a mid-tier hotel, therefore driving up demand and bringing the average price up to within 9 percent below that of the price of a high-tier when booked at 0 days. With the duty of care balance in mind, it could fare travel managers well to bump those on the move into high-tier hotels.

For those looking at London, lower-end hotels are noticeably cheaper than the average price in either of the other two cities and hold a remarkable consistency in comparison too  making this a worthy option for travellers with the experience to find a good establishment in that bracket.

Photo: SAP Concur

Photo: SAP Concur

Photo: SAP Concur

Scoring the Best Prices, Last-Minute:

Despite travellers' best intentions, they don't always have control over how far out they book a room. Therefore, here are some things to keep in mind to get the best room rates:

- Book within the cancellation period: A hotel's cancellation typically falls between 24 to 48 hours in advance making more inventory available for lower rates.

- Sign up for hotel loyalty programs: Regardless of when you book, loyalty programs often offer upgrades not available to others.

- Avoid a one-size-fits-all approach. As the data shows, last-minute hotel trends vary from city to city, so use this data accordingly. Plan ahead for times of the year such as November, when last-minute travel is more likely.

By looking at this information, one trend stands out in terms of importance: the power of data. This is an overview of all SAP Concur bookings last year in these three countries and cities, allowing us to pull out some important, overarching trends.Supplier News

5 March 2018

ATLANTA -- Honeywell (NYSE: HON), a global leader in connected buildings, announced the launch of its next generation thermostat for the hospitality industry. Honeywell's INNCOM e7 Thermostat (e7) is the first enterprise grade environmental control and energy management solution that incorporates Amazon Alexa voice control for an effortless guest experience that includes room temperature, lighting, drapery and amenities services. With its modern design with easy-to-use controls, the e7 is based on a patent-pending Smart Wall Plate design that provides hotel staff with an easy and reliable back-up of the device configuration. This makes routine maintenance or replacement of the e7 energy management system simple, even for other staff which helps reduce ownership costs.

The e7 automatically reduces energy costs and is compatible with most HVAC solutions and equipped for Honeywell's Connected Guest integration. Now available for installation, the e7 can maximize guest comfort, energy savings, and operational efficiency. Honeywell's INNCOM hospitality solutions are used in more than 1.5 million guestrooms around the world.

Honeywell's INNCOM e7 Thermostat expands on its industry-standard energy management and network solutions. Honeywell integrated the newest voice-ready technology with an attractive flat panel to create a modern thermostat that goes beyond comfort. The e7's guest-centric user interaction detects a guest's proximity and displays appropriate information for guest interaction. The e7 Thermostat's easy-to-understand user interface gives guests straightforward controls for guest room comfort and other functions. The e7 also integrates with technologies from other companies including Crave and Intelity to control the entire guestroom environment from a designated tablet. These integrations and controls can even be expanded to any other in-room user interfaces such as smart TVs or video-on-demand boxes.

"The e7 is the first enterprise-grade voice-ready guestroom control solution," said Thurman Melson, vice president and general manager, Honeywell Home and Building Technologies. "The e7 thermostat is designed for hospitality and compatible with Amazon Alexa voice control for temperature, lighting, drapery and amenity functions."

The guestroom voice functionality of the e7 can also be deployed in conjunction with partner companies like Volara, the leading fully integrated voice-hub for hotel technologies. "Honeywell INNCOM is working with Volara to implement voice-based guestroom controls at multiple hotel properties," said Dave Berger, CEO of Volara. "Our solution - which runs atop the Amazon Alexa platform - integrates seamlessly with Honeywell's INNCOM. It enables guests and staff to control the thermostat, lights, drapery, and do not disturb signs from Honeywell, as well as other hotel technology. Volara provides the voice interface for these systems and the collaboration delivers a guest experience that is simply remarkable. We are proud of our work with Honeywell." Berger noted that Volara is currently working with 25 hotel groups to enable guests and staff to engage hotel systems by voice.

The networked e7 Thermostat integrates with all major property management systems (PMS) to create a seamless solution for energy savings and guest comfort. When rooms are unrented, the e7 automatically sets back the room temperature until the PMS signals a guest has checked in. While rented, the thermostat provides guests with functionality that delivers personalized comfort control. The e7 helps reduce the total cost of ownership by minimizing room downtime and automatically capturing the thermostat configuration. Its wired or wireless flexibility enables simplified installation in new-build or retrofit properties. For maximum flexibility the e7 also provides standalone HVAC control and occupancy-based sensing that customarily requires a door switch monitor and motion sensor.

With its connected building solutions, Honeywell designs, installs, integrates and maintains the systems that help keep facilities safe and secure, comfortable, productive and energy efficient. Honeywell's solutions are in more than 10 million commercial buildings, including more than 1.5 million guestrooms around the world.

About Honeywell Home and Building Technologies

Honeywell Home and Building Technologies (HBT) is a global business with more than 38,000 employees worldwide. HBT creates products, software and technologies found in more than 150 million homes and 10 million buildings worldwide. We help homeowners stay connected and in control of their comfort, security and energy use. Commercial building owners and occupants use our technologies to ensure their facilities are safe, energy efficient, sustainable and productive. For more news and information on Honeywell Home and Building Technologies, please visit http://www.honeywell.com/newsroom.

Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 software-industrial company that delivers industry specific solutions that include aerospace and automotive products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes, and industry; and performance materials globally. Our technologies help everything from aircraft, cars, homes and buildings, manufacturing plants, supply chains, and workers become more connected to make our world smarter, safer, and more sustainable. For more news and information on Honeywell, please visit www.honeywell.com/newsroom.Supplier News

5 March 2018

Given the increasing appetite and focus on China and Chinese customers, EyeforTravel have invited Kimberly Lee, Senior Marketing Manager, from Tencent International Business Group to deliver a keynote presentation on Day 2 of the summit. Kimberly will be addressing the topic: Reaching the Chinese Traveller.

The session will explore:

The pervasiveness of WeChat as a platform around the world, with 980 million active users worldwide  what does the WeChat ecosystem look like?

The different data points of the Chinese traveller

How can you maximize the WeChat platform to drive engagement and communication?

How brands can leverage the app to reach Chinese travelers, and use the platforms for successful advertising purposes

Furthermore, the summit will tackle topics such as the role of emerging technologies in travel, personalization, marketing strategies, utilizing data and technology to deliver an exceptional customer experience & much more!

Tim Gunstone, Managing Director at EyeforTravel said "Innovative customer engagement is at the heart of every successful travel brand  and we are at a tipping point where it is essential for travel brands to focus on the customer experience and deliver personalized messages and content. The proliferation of mobile has been a massive enabler allowing brands to engage and build loyalty with 'connected travellers' throughout the travel cycle.

The EyeforTravel San Francisco Digital Summit 2018 will be a two-day celebration of fiery innovation, and will provide the perfect platform for your business to adapt, grow and be ahead of the curve in times of disruption and change.

Attendees confirmed to attend include TripAdvisor, Fairmont Hotels, Singapore Airlines, Dorchester Collection, Hotel Tonight, IHG, Diamond Resorts International, Choice Hotels, Air Canada, Expedia, Virgin Hotels, Turkish Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Winding Tree, and so many more.

There are tickets still available, please contact Renu Kannu at [email protected]Opinion Article

5 March 2018

A 'leap year' happens every four years  an extra day is added to the calendar to align it with the solar year and in the span of just four years, it could be said that Preferred Hotels & Resorts has achieved many big leaps due to the strategic and cultural vision of its relatively new CEO, Lindsey Ueberroth.

Advertisements

Since joining the company in 2004, Lindsey has helped solidify the position of Preferred Hotels & Resorts as an iconic global hospitality brand, a preferred partner for independent hotels and resorts, and a trusted resource for travellers seeking an authentic, independent luxury hotel experience.

Today, Preferred Hotels & Resorts represents more than 650 independent hotels, resorts, residences, and small hotel groups across 85 countries.

Her special combination of perspective, energy, grit, and hands-on team play exemplifies a modern profile of women in leadership. For these reasons, executive search professionals might call her a "unicorn." That said, there is a strong foundation of humility in her. Indeed, Lindsey credits her success to the efforts of the talented individuals and teams that surround her. Not only is she empowering, Lindsey also exemplifies servant leadership in her commitment to mentorship and making those around her successful.

Take for instance Caroline Michaud, the Executive Vice President of Corporate Communications & Public Relations  a role with a big title and equally big responsibilities. Caroline also happens to be one of Lindsey's most visible proteges and arguably another "unicorn," with a wonderful success story of her own. Partnerships like Lindsey and Caroline illustrate the power and ROI of effective collaboration and proactive mentorship. This case study is really a tale of what these two unicorns have done together  of course, supported by the wealth of talented people throughout their organization.

Organizational Leaps & Bounds

Preferred Hotels & Resorts has realized many individual and corporate accomplishments in the span of four years, driven by the principles of collaboration and mentorship:

January 2014:

Lindsey was named President & CEO as part of a carefully planned and anticipated succession of leadership as the company entered its 10th year of private ownership by the Ueberroth Family. Almost immediately after the appointment, Lindsey announces a change in strategic direction  a rebranding to transition from a B2B-focused company to one that has a much stronger B2C positioning. This decision bucked industry trends, as well as went against the grain of the company's entire platform. A critical part of this rebranding was the need to craft the voice and positioning around this new B2C profile so that it resonated effectively with key global audiences. Here enters Caroline. Since joining the company in August 2012, she was promoted to the Director of PR, a role with global responsibilities for the PR team and one that reported directly to Lindsey. The partnership begins. Caroline worked to elevate Lindsey's profile in the hospitality and business space ahead of the rebranding to give a sense of strength and leadership. Lindsey learned the importance of a consistent, strong, and effective message in the marketplace, whereas Caroline learned quickly about the inner workings of the business and the broader machinations of the global market. It was in 2014 that Caroline became Lindsey's voice.

August 2014: The "voice" crafted by Lindsey and Caroline starts to be heard loud and clear. Their collective efforts lead to a high-profile review of Lindsey as a successful CEO in The New York Times' weekly "Corner Office" feature. This piece focused on Lindsey's leadership skills and her drive for cultural renewal and the realization of an innovative vision. The same year, Caroline secured full-page profiles about Lindsey and her leadership in Lodging Magazineand Business Traveler. It was a capstone for Lindsey to be selected as the keynote address at the Orange County Business Journal's "Women in Business" conference, which showed her skills in a different light and to different audiences.

October 2014:

Lindsey's guidance and mentorship of Caroline also pays dividends on individual and corporate-branding levels. Most notably, Hotel Management included Caroline in its annual "30 Under 30: Rising Stars of the Hospitality Industry" for her ability to boost Preferred's profile in such a strong way and in such short order. The organization is now starting to be recognized for its talent base, as well as Lindsey's leadership and vision.

January 2015:

Lindsey promoted Caroline to Vice President, Corporate Communications & Public Relations and appoints her to the EVP team.

March 2015:

After months of partnering on key messages, positioning, and media angles for the rebranding  and, despite the fact that the hard brands in the industry were doing the opposite  Lindsey and Caroline embarked on a 6-week, 10-country, 14-city tour to personally share the story of the company's rebranding with global media audiences. It was the largest and most successful media campaign in the company's history, generating nearly 600 media placements, more than 1 billion media impressions, and praise from editors-in-chief of publications like Travel + Leisure. Moreover, their partnership in crafting the company voice and executing the rebranding campaign produced strong industry accolades for Lindsey as "one of the top 10 most noteworthy hoteliers in the world" (and only female) by HOTELS Magazine, while Lodging Magazine named Lindsey among the 20 most influential females in the lodging industry.

2017:

Lindsey continued her push for cultural renewal by relocating 25+ positions from Chicago to the executive office in Newport Beach. The intention was to have key departments in the same office and thereby foster stronger, more efficient workplace dynamics, as well as allowing her to be a more hands-on and collaborative leader. This relocation push also brought Caroline to California. During all of this attention to Preferred's culture, Lindsey was recognized by Hotel Management as one of the 30 most influential women in hospitality, and if that wasn't enough, Caroline also helped her to be featured on the cover of Lodging Magazine as a testament to the success of Preferred's brand mission and dedication to be more nimble and innovative than ever.

2018:

Lindsey was named CEO of Preferred Hotels & Resorts and swiftly made a number of other strategic promotions within the female leadership of the company, including Michelle Woodley as President, Kristie Goshow as CMO and Caroline as Executive Vice President, Corporate Communications & Public Relations. These appointments were driven by Lindsey's desire to focus squarely on strategic issues and remain accessible to her global leaders, who complement her skill set and achieve the goals that bring the company's vision to life. In addition, this announcement signals her strategic decision to harness the skillset of experts in key functional areas outside of her family, a move designed to augment the company's existing strengths and better position it on a global scale.

Where to Grow from Here

These types of initiatives and internal partnerships have tangible ROIs and are not merely "feel-good" exercises. For example, during her tenure as President (June 2010 to February 2014), Lindsey's leadership helped the company's global portfolio of member hotels successfully emerge from the worldwide economic downturn by doubling total year-end reservations revenue and generating a 25% increase in Average Daily Rate (ADR).

Under her direction, the company also launched the innovative points-based I Prefer Hotel Rewards program; executed the introduction of three distinct brands that represented hotels and resorts in the design, boutique and serviced residences niche categories; marked first-time presence in more than 20 new countries; and formed strategic partnerships with small hotel brands that expanded the company's reach into key markets across the globe.

These are high-energy, standout accomplishments even for a company with a 50-year history like Preferred. The story of Preferred Hotels & Resorts is not tied to one person  it is a success story that is tied to a set of values that are grounded in servant leadership: Humility, Empowerment, Trust, Collaboration and Mentorship. Family-owned or operated companies can sometimes be too constrained by legacy, but this is one case where cultural renewal and innovation are being driven internally versus externally. Undoubtedly, Preferred has more "unicorns" than just Lindsey and Caroline; in fact, Lindsey is likely counting on it so she can take the company to even greater leaps in the next four yearsand beyond.Opinion Article

5 March 2018

With the Northern Hemisphere's winter soon to become spring, on some level tourism officials can take a sigh of relief that there were no major pandemics. This season was however in many parts of the world an extremely difficult flu season that resulted in a great deal of discomfort, days missed at work, and even in some extreme cases deaths.

Advertisements

Tourism is especially vulnerable to contagious illnesses. People are in close contact, often both tourism employees and travelers are subjected to filtered, rather than fresh air. Additionally we are all subject to issues of jet lag, disrupted sleep patters and irregular eating. In some of the less well paid tourism jobs employees fear losing a day's pay if they stay home when ill, come to work sick, and then infect others.

If travel were not hard enough on a person's body, there are still other problems that must be taken into consideration. For example, hygiene standards are not the same around the world. The traveler often has no way of knowing the level of cleanliness in a restaurant, if waiters and waitresses wash their hands enough and with soap and hot water. People staying at hotels have no way of knowing the quality of the mattress upon which they are sleeping or the condition of the air ducts that bring air conditioning into their room.

Additionally a sick chambermaid may infect a visitor's room while cleaning it or become ill from a person who is staying in the room and has infected that room by sneezing or coughing. Examples of some of these health and wellness challenges can be seen in problems experienced within the cruise industry due to the Nordau virus, or in tourism buildings due to legionary's disease,

Tourism promotes travel and schedules are built around the assumption of wellness. A traveler cannot change an airline reservation due to a cold or feeling sick, a person's hotel reservation may force that person to check out rather than rest, and often it is not easy to find a place to eat at odd hours of the day. Finally, in many parts of the world, it may not easy to find an international doctor, the local health agency may not accept foreign health insurance, and language problems may make it difficult for the ill person to describe his or her problem to the local health professional. These same problems do not only apply to leisure and business travelers, but also to first responders, international aid workers, and government agents. Often these people are so involved in their labors of love that they forget that they too are fragile human beings who are also subject to illnesses. In order to help you think about caring for your visitors and at the same time caring for yourself, Tourism Tidbits presents to you the following ideas.

- Develop a tourism health task force. Keeping visitors and tourism employees healthy is different from keeping local populations healthy. Visitors have less information and often more stress than the local population. The task force should consider everything from medical availability to problems of foreign health insurance. It should also look at local sanitation and hygiene issues, and how visitors can access pharmacies without having a local physician.

- Work with the local media. The can be great allies or become a major problem. There is always a need to have the media aid in spreading information, but this must be done in a way that neither panics the public nor become a problem in and of itself. The example of the SARS reporting a few years ago is a perfect example of what not to do. In that case, misreporting about an illness caused a great deal of economic damage and made the problem worse rather than better.

- Involve government agencies in your overall health plan. Many tourism related illnesses are interrelated to issues of clean air and water. Be mindful of where garbage is stored and even first world tourism locations often suffer from rodent infestations. These of course are also essential issues for the local population but the visitor is more prone to local diseases due to water and air pollution. Visitors often do not know if they can drink local water, how long water has been boiled before being served or if ice cubes have been made from purified water. It is the responsibility of the tourist industry to inform visitors of these precautions rather than assuming that a tired traveler will know to ask.

- Have a plan in place regarding the way that you will deal with travel related mental heath problems. Travel produces stress and stress may result in additional mental illnesses that may range from personal behavior issues to psychotic behavior. Often people believe that being in a new location will solve an anxiety or stress problem. The results are usually to the contrary. This means that tourism professionals need to know whom to call when faced with a person suffering from some form of mental health challenge. Often these problems are made worse by the fact that the person has no support system in place and that the visitor may not be able to communicate in the local language.

- Take care of yourself. The airline industry reminds us to put on our oxygen mask before helping others. Their advice is both sound and sage. The tourist professional cannot take care of others if s/he is sick. This means that tourism professionals need to take flue shots, eat correctly, assure that they have enough rest, and see a medical expert for regular check-ups. The better the tourism professional feels the better that person can handle the stress that comes with caring for others.Martin Shkreli has been making headlines over the past few years for upsetting the majority of people. Some of those people include Wu-Tang Clan, Lil Wayne and their respective fan base. Shkreli, for some reason, had both the rare Wu-Tang album that cost $2M as well as Lil Wayne's controversial Carter V album that he says he found in a Bugatti he bought. As part of his criminal sentence, Mr. Pharmabro himself has been ordered to hand over both albums to the federal government.

Shkreli's been ordered to hand over $7.3M in assets to the federal government as part of his criminal sentence, CNBC reports. Judge Jiyo Matsumoto said that he has to forfeit his interest from "substitute" assets. Included in these assets are both Lil Wayne's Carter V as well as Wu-Tang Clan's Once Upon A Time In Shaolin. Other assets include $5M in cash from an E-Trade brokerage account that he used for his release bond and his stake in Vyera Pharmaceuticals, a company previously known as Turing Pharmaceutical, which he started in 2015.

The seizure of his assets will then be applied to the rest of the amount he has to pay the government after "the resolution of any third-party claims to the assets," the judge said this morning in court.

Shkreli's official sentencing for fraud charges will happen this Friday in Brooklyn, NY. He was convicted last summer for misleading the finances in two hedge funds he ran to their group of investors as well as manipulating stock shares in drug company, Retrophin.More good news for advocates of legalized marijuana use in the United States as new studies have suggested more evidence of the benefits of cannabis. While we've seen links between improved conditions for those suffering ailments such as glaucoma and some cancers and cannabis use, new research also points to the plant as a viable solution to the ongoing opioid epidemic in the United States.

In new data released by the Minnesota Department of Health, numbers indicate that 63 percent of patients surveyed in a study were able to reduce or eliminate opioid usage after six months of being registered with the states medical cannabis program. But this is hardly the first time that such findings have been presented. Back in 2016, the state of Michigan reported similar findings, revealing that a 64 percent decrease in opioid usage was closely associated with marijuana treatment.

Overseas, more definitive research has supported this as well as such research is easier to conduct in nations where the substance is legalized. A recent study published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine showed that researchers from Israels largest medical marijuana provider found that cannabis could help stop opioid dependency before it starts.

"Cannabis is a very good alternative to reduce opioid consumption, to increase quality of life, and to reduce pain, nausea and vomiting," Lihi Bar-Lev Schleider, lead researcher on the study, told Rolling Stone magazine. Similar to other findings, a time frame of six months was all it took to reduce patients use and abuse of opioid painkillers.The iconic Ric Flair has always been respected in hip-hop. Last week, Offset, Metro Boomin and 21 Savage brought Flair into their world, enlisting him for a memorable appearance in the long-overdue "Ric Flair Drip" video. The clip continues to trend, currently sitting at 8.1 million views in a mere five days; if that's not a testament to Ric's longevity, I don't know what is. Clearly, the veteran wrestler still has a thing or two to teach the youngsters with regards to stylin' and profilin'. In the wake of the video's premiere, Ric Flair sat down with Revolt to discuss his foray into the hip-hop game, working with Offset, and more.

Apparently, Ric knew that Offset was a fan, which lead to their respective teams trying to make something happen. When Offset's camp asked if Ric wanted to be in the video, his answer was an immediate "Hell yeah." He goes on to drop heaps of praise on the Migos rapper, calling him "a phenomenal young man. So respectful, so just genuine. He's a real guy. Great music. He's just living that life; that life that I love."

The praise doesn't stop. In fact, it intensifies. "He's smart, he's articulate, and he got it all going on," says Flair. "The guy's got so much damn talent, it would be hard to hold him back even if they tried. He's a phenomenal guy."

For more from Flair, including his friendship with Snoop Dogg, John Cena, and Cardi B, check out the full interview here.The end of last week saw many people worried about the state of Rick Ross' health. It was reported on Friday that the Miami rap legend was hospitalized for pneumonia. Later in the day, reports became much more serious as it was claimed that Rozay was on life support. It appears as though Ross has recovered from the decline in his health, or is at least neglecting to comment on the issue, as he has gone back to social media to flaunt his wealth. His Instagram handle is @richforever after all...

Rozay shared a photo to his Instagram followers of his VVS jewelry, including a snazzy Rolex time-piece flashing on his wrist and three dazzling bracelets. Fans were expecting the rapper to comment on his current health situation, which has been up in the air over the weekend, but Ricky kept things simple in his caption, writing, "#FloridaBoy" in reference to his track with Kodak Black and T-Pain. While the Miami native has not made any official comments on the status of his health, the post assumes that he is doing well.

Ross is used to flexing on the 'Gram, showing off his exotic automobiles and jewelry all the time. This post is a promising sign for those who were praying for him. It's looking like the hospital bills aren't affecting Ross all too much.Tiffany Haddish thankfully secured a spot as a presenter during last night's Academy Awards ceremony. The Girl's Trip scene-stealer made sure she made a lasting appearance during her first trip to the Oscar stage, using her incandescent star power to make a statement in her own unique manner.

First off was Haddish's debut Oscar red carpet get-up, which paid homage to her roots. Upon making her arrival during last night's ceremony, the actress was decked out in a traditional Eritrean gown to honour her family heritage. Speaking to interviewers on the red carpet, Haddish reveals how her late-father "said one day I would end up here and if I ever ended up at the Oscars to honor my people so Im honoring my fellow Eritreans."

However, upon taking the stage with Maya Rudolph to present an award, Haddish noticeably switched out of her red carpet ensemble into something more familiar. The Last O.G. star was seen wearing an Alexander McQueen gown that she had also worn to the Girl's Trip premiere, as well as to her hosting gig during an episode of Saturday Night Live.

While it is seen as a Hollywood taboo to wear the same gown on multiple occasions, Haddish could clearly care less, once revealing how "if I die and even if I become fat as hell - if I'm the biggest, fattest - I don't care. When I'm laying in that casket, guess what's going to be laying on top of my fat-ass body? This dress."

Haddish purchased the Alexander McQueen frock with her own money, and for something valued in the thousands, she may as well get her money's worth.Upheaval in the modern maritime sector can be compared to changes in the 19th century, when relatively efficient steam-powered engines replaced giant sails dependent on gusts of wind.

Todays regulators and cargo customers, however, want it all: quick transport of goods and a low carbon footprint. Their demands are prompting ship owners to clean up emissions, use low-sulfur fuels and ponder a future with electric, autonomous ships.

Those who position themselves as environmental stewards on the front end of this transition will create a favorable reputation and secure their future, Joe Hughes, chairman of the North American Marine Environment Protection Association, said during a visit to Houston.

If you ignore this, then inevitably you will not succeed over the long term, Hughes said last week. You will be shunned, effectively.

His association was in Houston to discuss solutions to such challenges at an event hosted with the West Gulf Maritime Association.

One of the industrys more pressing challenges is removing sulfur from emissions. New global limits on sulfur levels in ship fuel go into effect Jan. 1, 2020. The International Maritime Organization, the United Nations specialized agency responsible for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution, came up with the rules to reduce sulfur oxide emissions.

Currently, ships can use fuel containing 3.5 percent sulfur when on the open waters and 0.1 percent sulfur when in an emission-control area, such as within 200 nautical miles from the North American coast. Its common to carry two types of fuel: the cheaper high-sulfur fuel for the open seas and the more expensive low-sulfur fuel.

The new regulations, however, will limit ship fuel to no more than 0.5 percent sulfur on the open waters and 0.1 percent sulfur in an emission-control area. This can be achieved by using low-sulfur fuels or by installing a scrubber system that removes sulfur from their exhaust.

Ram Vis, director of Viswa Lab and a proponent of scrubber technology, touted its quick return on investment and ability to help ship owners meet the forthcoming sulfur requirements.

Scrubbers can be controversial. Rear Adm. Paul Thomas, commander for the Eighth District of the U.S. Coast Guard, said open-loop scrubbers use seawater to remove sulfur from a ships emissions, then return that water  along with the sulfur  to the ocean.

Closed-loop scrubbers dont put sulfur in the water, but ship owners are less likely to use those systems because they require storing sulfur onboard and then properly disposing of it when in port.

Thomas said the industry needs to continue moving from a focus on preventing pollution by accident to a focus on reducing waste created during the normal operation of ships. Achieving it will take greater enforcement and more industry transparency.

In my mind, that truly is the sail-to-steam revolution that were talking about, he said.

Ships fueled by liquefied natural gas, or LNG, would also meet the 2020 requirements. Aziz Bamik, general manager for GTT North America, said there are 120 LNG-fueled ships in operation, up from 100 last year, and 134 LNG-fueled ships on order, up from 101 last year.

Ferries make up the majority of LNG-fueled vessels, but momentum is gaining among other ships. Eighteen cruise vessels are under construction, he said, and shipping company CMA CGM is building large LNG-fueled container ships.

Another game-changing technology discussed at the event was the use of big data. RightShip uses predictive analytics to help cargo customers select vessels that are less likely to break down and delay the delivery of their goods. It also identifies which ships have lower emissions and which ship owners have a history of not paying crew members in a timely manner.

Big data allow us to have a macro view, a holistic view, of the risk associated with the maritime supply chain and address those in a safe and sustainable manner, said Capt. Anuj Chopra, vice president of the Americas for RightShip.

If big data werent unwieldy enough, the conference also discussed autonomous shipping. This future is farther off, but there are some early developments.

A small, electric and autonomous container vessel, YARA Birkeland, is expected to sail between three ports in southern Norway and stay within 12 nautical miles of the coast. Similarly, technology group Wartsila has remotely controlled a ship off the coast of Scotland from its office in San Diego, Calif.

This is all real. This exists. It can be done, said Kevin Humphreys, business development manager of the Americas for Wartsila. Now all these other issues come into play.

That includes figuring out how autonomous ships fit into the industrys existing fundamental principles and international rules, said Jonathan Waldron, a partner at law firm Blank Rome. He said the International Maritime Organization is looking at which international standards should apply to autonomous vessels and which would need to be amended.

Its the first step in a long journey. He hopes early regulations are flexible and can evolve with the developing technology.

Autonomous vessels, were in the baby steps. The baby age, Waldron said. We have a long way to go.President Donald Trump had the weekend to reconsider his declaration of war on our most important trading partners.

Trump trumpeted his readiness for confrontation last week with the aplomb of a self-anointed general who has never heard a shot fired in anger.

When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win, he tweeted on Friday. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get cute, dont trade anymore-we win big. Its easy!

If only global supply chains and international trade were so simple. For the good of the country, the economy and the world, lets hope he changes his mind on levying universal tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum.

Regular readers will remember that I supported severe tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum and called on the Obama administration to scrupulously punish companies that try to skirt the sanctions. After President Barack Obama imposed tariffs, Chinese steel dropped to only 2.9 percent of U.S. imports in 2017.

Fair trade agreements worldwide forbid countries from exporting goods at prices lower than it costs to produce them or offering them at lower prices than charged at home. And thats exactly what China has done to take over half the global market for steel. The Communist government is keeping inefficient, polluting steel mills operating to keep people employed.

In January, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross gave Trump three options for fighting unfair trade in steel. Singling out cheaters was one option, but instead of a surgical strike, Trump chose to carpet bomb every foreign steel producer, including our closest partners who follow the rules.

The biggest exporters of steel to the U.S. are Canada, Brazil, South Korea and Russia, with European companies offering specialized products. For aluminum, the biggest suppliers are Canada, Russia, China and the United Arab Emirates.

Regular readers will also remember that 18 months ago I praised Frank Bernobich, president of Houston-based Boltex Manufacturing Co., for fighting a trade case against imports of steel flanges from India, Italy and Spain. Foundries in those countries were cheating, and Frank asked for tariffs against them and won.

The family-owned company makes pipe connectors for the oil and gas and petrochemical industries, as well as carbon steel parts for automakers. Trumps new tariffs, though, could cost the 225 employees at Boltexs two Houston facilities their jobs.

We are supplying flanges to a variety of pipelines in the United States, and the quality of steel required isnt available here. In our particular case, we are importing it from Italy. We transform it into forgings and then we machine it here, he explained. If these tariffs go into effect at these amounts, the cost of steel coming from overseas will be prohibitive.

Bernobich said steel makes up between 50 percent and 70 percent of the value of his products, so the tariffs will make him uncompetitive with overseas producers. And there are no equivalent tariffs proposed on imported semi-finished and finished steel products.

The parts we are making for Ford with Korean steel can also be made elsewhere at a much cheaper price. So, we stand to lose that business also, he said. We are a strong supporter of domestic products, but when it comes to the domestic steel that we are buying, we also dont know how much higher the tariffs will push up those prices.

Whats needed is a more targeted approach.

We know that the Chinese are cheating, they should be the ones who are sanctioned. But to paint everyone with a broad brush, it doesnt make sense, Bernobich said. Hopefully, the president will reflect, and they will come to some kind of agreement that is not so draconian.

And if Trump sticks to the plan he laid out last week?

I have two choices: I buy the steel and Im not competitive, or I dont have steel. What other choices do I have? he said. I have to shut down equipment, and I have to send people home.

The president has backed down from spontaneous remarks in the past. He promised to accept a bipartisan immigration deal and opined that due process was unnecessary for police to seize weapons from dangerous people. Trump flip-flopped quickly on both positions.

Lets hope that Trump will put forth a more reasonable trade strategy. Otherwise, our commander in chief will learn the hard way that no generals plan survives first contact with the enemy. And nothing about global trade is as easy as he thinks.From the helicopter, 17-year-old Logan Goudeau could see that only a wire fence stood between a herd of cattle and their salvation.

The ranch pastures were submerged beneath the swollen Colorado River. Flood waters had crept up to the cows shoulders, and if the herd didnt leave the fenced enclosure, they were certain to drown.

Michael Goudeau , Logans father, had only one option. He took a deep breath and jumped out the door of the helicopter. Diving beneath the water's surface, he used a pair of wire-cutters to open a gash in the fence. He peeled it back and guided the cattle through.

Now, six months later, the father-daughter duo are showing some of their beefiest Brahman cattle at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo  their only cattle to ride out the storm in the safety of a barn.

HARVEY ROUNDUP: Ranchers tally impact on soggy herds

Much attention has been paid to how Houston and its suburbs have struggled to recover from Harvey. Ranchers across southeast Texas have their own stories of devastation, heroism and rebuilding -- stories they have brought with them to the rodeo.

Houstons such a big city, theyre going to get all the publicity about it, Logan said. I just want people to realize this is what people were really going through. It wasnt just Houston - it hit the little towns like Hungerford and Wharton, too.

One Future Farmers of America student in East Chambers ISD, between Houston and Beaumont, broke into her schools barn and swam a group of pigs to safety. Caitlyn Fuechec, a classmate of Logan Goudeaus in East Bernard ISD, had hours to pack a trailer full of keepsakes, furniture and appliances before leaving her horses and cattle to brave an uncertain future.

Of the familys five horses, two died in the floodwaters, and one died shortly after from injuries sustained in the storm. They lost 20 head of cattle, and 2-foot-high flood waters gushed into their home.

Even though the house still lacks proper flooring in the bathrooms and most of the kitchen, Caitlyn will show a Brahman at the livestock show later this week.

"For about a month my dad and I thought we wouldn't be able to (show an animal) with all the stress going on with the house. We didn't think we would be able to do it," Fuechec said. "But now it does feel normal. It's just like a comfort zone. I can just relax and do what I love to do."

SEPTEMBER: Residents of flood-ravaged Wharton County feel forgotten in Harvey's wake

As a seventh-generation Texan whose family has been raising cattle since 1908, Logan is well-acquainted with life on the ranch.

Her family operates the J.D. Hudgins Ranch in Hungerford, located along Highway 59, north of Wharton.

"If you blink you're going to miss it," Logan said of the town. "There's a blinking traffic light, a post office, a feed store and a cafe."

Logan wasn't home when Harvey blew into Rockport on Friday, Aug. 26, opting to spend the weekend with friends in College Station.

Neither Logan nor Michael realized how devastating the flooding was until she returned the following Wednesday. The father and daughter drove about 15 minutes west to Egypt, Texas, where a cousin had called for help.

The entire town was swamped. Helicopters from as far away as West Texas hovered overhead, pushing cattle through flooded pastures to hilltops that had become islands. Airboats whizzed by, dropping off hay and ferrying stunned-looking farmers around their flooded fields.

Within 20 minutes of getting into town, Michael and Logan were scouting pathways to dry spots from a helicopter. About 30 minutes after that, Michael jumped out of the helicopter, wire-cutters in hand.

"You'd get one herd to dry land, turn around and see another herd swimming," Michael said. "You try to survive the next two hours, then the next six hours, then keep the cattle alive for the next 12 hours. You have to use short-term goals."

The rest of the week was blur. After the floodwaters receded in Egypt, they rose in Hungerford. Days later, Hungerford was drying out, but Brazoria County, home to more of the Goudeaus' ranching relatives, was flooding.

Logan and Michael were separated for much of the ordeal  she would ride around on airboats to push cattle and field phone calls from desperate neighbors, while Michael would be dispatched to areas where the needs was greatest.

Some moments are seared into their memories. Father and daughter grabbing onto tractors and fences, worried the current would push them into barbed wire. The sound of cows lowing so desperately they sounded like they were screaming for help. Watching cows' heads sink beneath the raging currents.

At one point, Logan saw a calf go under. She jumped out of an airboat into a bloated creek, sinking beneath the water before bobbing back up.

"I just got behind him and pushed him, just kicked behind him and started swimming with him," Logan said. "Once he got knee deep I said, 'He's safe, you're going to survive, you made it.'"

Most of the family's cattle also survived, including a pair found wandering two miles south of their ranch, apparently swept up in the flood's current.

The Goudeaus' efforts to save livestock didn't stop in Wharton or Brazoria counties. As one of the largest distributors of hay in South Texas, Michael loaded up trucks and headed to Beaumont, where bales were loaded onto Chinook helicopters and dropped to clusters of cows that had found dry land.

He and Logan raised $15,000 to help reimburse volunteers who arrived in Hungerford with helicopters and airboats and to help farmers who had lost everything.

At the rodeo on Thursday, the family flipped through photos Logan took during the storm as they waited for buyers to wander past their exhibit. Some showed cowboys atop nearly submerged horses, wading next to panicked cattle. Others showed airboats and helicopters working in concert to push a Brahman herd from a flooded pasture to a dry patch of Highway 59.

Logan had always considered life on the ranch somewhat dull. That changed after she watched her father risk his life to protect their livelihood.

"Being in the airboats and watching him do things, it's like  that's my dad, like we're doing this together," Logan said, her voice breaking with emotion. "Me and my dad, people said I was a sidekick. But I was  I never left him."

Michael bowed his head and rubbed his eyes.

"It's emotional, that's what's so cool about it," Michael said. "Just the time you spend in the war zone, and she's right here beside me. It was like, we got this, together we got this. It's going to be all right."Mindy Kaling has not left the building. In fact, she's barely had time for a short walk in the fresh air between the end of "The Mindy Project" and the launch of "Champions," a pretty irresistible comedy she created with Charlie Grandy, premiering on NBC this Thursday.

Kaling isn't the central character in the show but plays a pivotal role as Priya Patel, a former girlfriend of Vince (Anders Holm), who now owns a Brooklyn gym with his dim-bulb jock brother, Matthew (Andy Favreau). One day, Priya shows up at the gym with a 15-year-old kid named Michael who needs a place to live in New York so he can attend a high school for would-be performers.

Michael: Meet your dad, Vince, who is secretly planning to sell the gym and relocate to Florida and is overheard by Michael ranting about how inconvenient it is that his son just showed up.

Pay no attention to the well-worn setup. Kaling and co-creator Grandy use plot as a display case for consistently funny writing, sweet and credible performances by the ensemble cast and most of all, the exceptional skills of J.J. Totah, who plays Priya and Vince's proudly out son Michael. The writers give this kid dialogue that Bruce Vilanch could have written for Bette Midler, and Totah tosses it off with hilarious and lovable ease.

Yes, the show has a nice share of "oh, snap!" dialogue for Michael, such as taking one look at his style-challenged dad and announcing he looks like the abusive boyfriend in a Lifetime movie. But the genius of the script is that while Michael is outspoken and dramatic at times, it isn't unrelenting. He's also a nice kid, nervous about his new life and about having to audition to get into Manhattan Academy.

More Information 'Champions' When: 8:30 p.m. Thursday Network: NBC xxxx See More Collapse

In other words, he's just a normal kid who has a tendency to reference scenes from "Les Miz" to explain his moods or situations at any particular time. He can't resist telling Vince's current girlfriend, Brittany (Mouzam Makkar), how fabulous she is when she stages an over-dramatic hissy fit because Vince didn't tell her he has a son.

Kaling and Grandy also have worked hard to make this an ensemble show, with a democratic distribution of laugh lines through the entire cast, which includes comic Fortune Feimster as Ruby and veteran character actor Robert Costanzo. They also have worked hard to avoid preaching, in spite of the fact that a gay teen is about to have two dads.

But here's a twist: both of them are straight and they're brothers. What is this world coming to?

"Champions" is a winner.A man who told police he strangled his future sister-in-law while they were having sex in a southwest Houston hotel has been charged with manslaughter.

The Houston Police Department received a call about 7 p.m. Friday from a man who said he had killed a woman between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Thursday.PICK OF THE WEEK

2014 Alexander Valley Vineyards Alexander School Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon

Overall score: 18.5 (9 for quality, 9.5 for value)

Our tasters: Gave it a unanimous recommendation with seven scores of at least 9. "Cedar, leather and tobacco with chewy tannins." My score: 9. "Raspberries and cherries. Age-worthy."

Varietal/blend: 100 percent cabernet sauvignon. Alcohol: 14.2 percent.

Winery/vineyards/winemaking: Hank Wetzel founded the winery in 1975 on the site of Cyrus Alexander's homestead, and now a third generation of the family is in the cellar with Harry Wetzel IV assisting AVV's longtime winemaker, Kevin Hall. The fruit for this cab was harvested from a single 25-year-old hilltop vineyard on AVV's Alexander Valley property. The gnarly, low-yielding vines produce loose clusters of pea-size grapes that offered rich, concentrated flavors from the drought-impacted vintage. After harvest, they were destemmed, then aged in French oak for 24 months.

Winemaker notes: "This is a smooth wine with flavors of dark fruit, cassis, vanilla and chocolate. Silky with well-integrated tannins and flavors that linger for a long time."

More Information About our recommendations Eight to 12 tasters, a mix of industry professionals and knowledgeable consumers, convene once a month to sample 40 to 50 wines with Dale Robertson, the Chronicle's wine columnist. The grape varietals are identified, but the labels are covered. A 10-point scale is used, with a taster's score of 8.5 or higher considered a recommendation. The quality score is the average of the tasters' scores. The value score and, hence, the overall score are determined by Robertson once a wine has been selected to receive a recommendation. Value is based on the price listed. See More Collapse

Pairings: Prime beef, grilled medium rare

Price: $39.89 at Spec's

ALSO RECOMMENDED

2014 Stewart Nomad Cabernet Sauvignon

Overall score: 17.6 (9.1 for quality, 8.5 for value)

Our tasters: Gave it a unanimous recommendation with six scores of at least 9. "Well-balanced with a nice, long gripping finish." My score: 9.1. "Ripe blueberry flavors and black cherries. Rich and smooth." Houstonian Michael Stewart put down wine roots in Napa Valley, Calif., in 1999. The Nomad fruit, 100 percent cabernet, is from the Beckstoffer Las Piedras Vineyard near St. Helena. Paul Hobbs consults with the Stewart winery, working with resident winemaker Blair Guthrie.

Alcohol: 14.5 percent.

Price: $174.99 at Spec's

2016 Fetzer Shaly Loam Gewurztraminer

Overall score: 18.8 (8.8 for quality, 10 for value)

Our tasters: Gave it a unanimous recommendation with four scores of 8.9. "Ripe and fruity." My score: 8.9 "Sweet but crisp. Delicious." Fetzer dates from 1968, and its wines consistently overdeliver for their price points. The fruit, which was whole-cluster pressed, then fermented in stainless steel with partial lees contact, comes from cool-climate vineyards in Monterey County, Calif. John Kane, who spent 14 years working with California wine icon Kent Rosenblum, took over as the winemaker before the 2016 harvest.

Alcohol: 12 percent.

Price: $6.99 at Spec's

2015 Amici Cabernet Sauvignon Napa Valley Reserve

Overall score: 18 (9 for quality, 9 for value)

Our tasters: It didn't work for one taster, but four others gave it a score of at least 9. "Purple-black in color, smoky campfire notes. Huge!" My score: 9.3. "Big and extracted with layers of flavor. Soft tannins." Former Houstonian John Harris owns the winery, and Anthony Biagi oversees the cellar. There's a little cab franc and petit verdot in the blend, which fermented mostly in stainless steel, then aged 20 months in 85 percent new French oak. Received 93 points from James Suckling.

Alcohol: 14.7 percent.

Price: $64.13 by special order through Spec's

2016 Nine Hats Benches Vineyard Pinot Gris

Overall score: 18.9 (8.9 for quality, 10 for value)

Our tasters: Gave it a unanimous recommendation with four scores of at least 9. "Lovely floral notes with Meyer lemon. Round, rich fruit." My score: 8.9. "A lively, fresh, floral, tart wine. Pear and melon notes." From the Columbia Valley's Horse Heaven Hills Vineyard, the name refers to the Long Shadows' team of nine international winemakers. The Benches Vineyard near Walla Walla, Wash., is 1,400 feet above the Columbia River.

Alcohol: 14.1 percent.

Price: $14 from ninehatswine.comWhile the Oscar red carpet had some great moments Sunday night, you would hardly know it watching the coverage on E!, traditionally the go-to spot for fashion lovers and celebrity hounds.

It wasn't because of the lack of fashion, but because there wasn't much to see.

The red-carpet was all but pulled out from under Ryan Seacrest, who hosts "E! Live From the Red Carpet." Seacrest's ex-stylist has accused him of sexual harassment; he denies the claims.

Although he was live on the red carpet, he only had interviews with only a handful of Oscar nominees, including Allison Janney, Christopher Plummer and Mary J. Blige.

Seacrest's co-host, Giuliana Rancic, was posted at a nearby Los Angeles hotel with a motley crew of style experts who talked a lot but never really said anything about fashion  and barely a mention of #MeToo. Some TV watchers switched over to ABC's red-carpet coverage with Michael Strahan, while others were left scouring social media for glimpses of what A-listers were wearing.

Here's what they found: The biggest trend on the red carpet was white, blush pink and champagne-hued dresses.

ICYMI: Looks from the recent Grammys

The belle of the night was actress Gina Rodriguez in an alluring deep-V gown by Zuhair Murad. With her sleek ponytail, she looked Hollywood glamorous.

Actresses in pale gowns included Allison Williams in an Armani Prive princess gown, with a crystal-embroidered bodice and dramatic full skirt, and Mira Sorvino, an early Harvey Weinstein accuser, who talked about the Time's Up movement on the red carpet: "I want people to know that this movement isn't stopping. We're going forward until we have an equitable and safe world for women," she said. Her comments aired on ABC's Oscar pre-show, not on E!'s.

The parade of white gowns included Blige in a Versace corset covered in crystals, Margot Robbie in a jeweled Chanel Couture gown and Jane Fonda in a pearl-beaded Balmain gown from Olivier Rousteing's 44 Francois Premier collection.

There were some welcome pops of color on the red carpet: Viola Davis in a fuchsia Michael Kors Collection body-hugging dress and Nicole Kidman in a breath-taking cobalt-blue Armani Prive gown with a giant bow. Betty Gabriel stepped out in a stunning blue-green gown by Tony Ward Couture.

BOLD COLOR: Spring fashions go bold with color

Emma Stone ditched the gown dress code for a Louis Vuitton silk pant suit.

Yet there were a few misses, like Salma Hayek's Gucci gown that looked more like a Victorian lampshade than couture, and Tiffany Haddish, the breakout star of "Girls Trip," who wore a patterned gown that referenced her Eritrean roots. (It seemed out of place, until learning later it was a tribute to her late Eritrean father.)

Ironically, Haddish appeared onstage with Maya Rudolph wearing the same $4,000 Alexander McQueen white dress that she wore during her Saturday Night Live monologue and at the "Girls Trip" premiere. She's also likely the only person to wear Uggs on the Oscar stage. She and Rudolph walked on carrying their stilettos, joking that their feet hurt.

As for the men, London-born Daniel Kaluuya looked regal in a Brunello Cucinelli bronze velvet blazer. Timothee Chalamet donned a Berluti fitted white tuxedo and bow tie; at 22, the French actor is already turning heads with his red-carpet style.Neil Greentree/photographer

Rudyard Kipling suggested that Mehrangarh must have been "the work of angels, fairies and giants" when he saw the Rathore dynasty's "citadel of the sun" 400 feet above the city of Jodhpur, India, in 1899. Begun in 1459 as a military stronghold, the fort and its palaces - ornately carved from red sandstone - house treasures owned by the Mehrangarh Museum Trust of Jodhpur that have never left the site. Until now.

On March 4, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston launches an international tour of its landmark exhibition "Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India," featuring 250 lavish objects from the Trust and the royal family of Jodhpur. Representing about seven centuries' worth of artistic production that evolved during occupations by the Moghuls and the British, the objects include ceremonial tents and canopies, arms and armor, carved furnishings, textiles, golden paintings and jewels. And some of them are truly monumental: a Rolls Royce car, a Sentinel L-5 aircraft and a re-created elephant procession are among the must-sees.This year, women are poised to make great gains in congressional representation.

Across the country, women are running for office in greater numbers than ever before, in particular for seats in Congress. Including both incumbents and challengers, more than 500 women are running for seats in the House and the Senate. Currently, only about 20 percent of all members of Congress are women  22 of the 100 U.S. senators are female, as are 84 of the 435 members of the U.S. House.

The 2018 election is reminiscent of the year of the woman. In 1992, women ran for office in numbers previously unseen in American politics. The results were dramatic. After the elections, the number of women in the House jumped from 33 to 55, and the number of women in the Senate tripled to six.

Skeptics might wonder: Does the gender of the person who represents you in Congress really matter?

We argue in a new book that the answer is most certainly yes. Women have a harder time winning reelection than men do, and as a result they work harder in office to serve their constituents.

Working harder for votes

A large amount of research has shown that female candidates face many more obstacles when running for office than men.

For instance, the media treats female candidates for office differently than male candidates. The media generally does not give as much coverage to women as men, though some data show that disparity may be easing.

However, it is still true that the stories published about female candidates overwhelmingly focus on soft news aspects of the race, such as womens appearance or their family lives, as opposed to their policy positions. Simply adding information about a female candidates clothes to a news story  such as discussing Nancy Pelosis heels or Elizabeth Warrens glasses  has been found to decrease the likelihood of voters casting a ballot in their favor.

Female candidates often face well-funded and high-quality opponents. Typically, a strong challenger who enters a race will deter other challengers from running, or will clear the field. However, when a women enters a race  even if she is an objectively strong candidate  other candidates usually persist in running against them. Female incumbents are similarly more likely to face strong challengers, including primary challengers, than their male counterparts. Even now, eight candidates are running against 26-year incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein, even though she won her last election by over 20 percentage points.

Women must also contend with voters who hold gender stereotypes and interest groups or potential donors who often do not take female candidates as seriously as they do male ones. A recent experimental study finds that at least some voters explicitly prefer male candidates, even when evidence clearly indicates the female candidate is more qualified. Survey data also reveals a sizable segment of the population, 39 percent, explicitly favors a majority-male government  as opposed to only 9 percent who report a preference for a majority-female government.

Aside from these concrete electoral factors, there are a number of ways women both inside and out of politics are socialized to doubt their own abilities, leading them to perceive the electoral environment as being tilted against them, even more than it actually is.

We argue in our book that all these forces result in female politicians believing that they must spend more time guarding against opposition from constituents, potential challengers and even other politicians.

As a result, we demonstrate that female officeholders adopt a distinctly different approach to legislating than men  an approach that results in women providing better representation for their constituents.

Are women better representatives?

Heres the support for this argument weve found:

First, women spend more time and effort communicating with their constituents than men.

Even in the 21st century, old-fashioned snail mail is one important way that members inform voters of whats going on in Congress. Members of Congress send out well over 100,000 pieces of mail a year on average. They do so because it helps them curry favor with their voters and ultimately win elections. And, female House members send on average 17 percent more mail to constituents than men do.

Another important way members interact with constituents is by stationing staff members in offices in their home states and districts. These staff members perform casework and other services for voters. We find, after controlling for a number of alternative explanations, that female senators post an average of 3.5 more staff members in their home state offices than men do.

Second, women deliver more government spending to their districts than male representatives do. There are lots of ways members funnel money to their districts, such as in earmarks or via bureaucratic awards. Depending on the method, women direct anywhere between 20 percent and 100 percent more spending to their voters.

For example, we examined the money spent as a result of the stimulus package Congress passed in response to the 2008 recession. On average, even after controlling for factors such as population density and poverty level, we find that House districts represented by women received US$55 million dollars worth of stimulus funds. Meanwhile, House districts represented by men received only an average of $35 million.

Third, we find female Congress members more closely represent their constituents interests and needs when participating in the legislative process. When we crunched the data, we find that female members are more likely than male members to take on committee assignments that reflect the interests and demands of their districts. Women also introduce more bills related to policy areas that are important to their constituents, and, based on an assessment of the correspondence between district interests and member ideology, they are more likely to vote in ways that reflect their constituents needs.

The case for women in office

There are other intuitive reasons why electing women is important. For example, electing women makes Congress better reflect the number of women in the United States. Women make up 51 percent of the United States voting population, but currently only 20 percent of Congress members.

Electing women would likely also increase the amount of time Congress spends on so-called womens issues such as education, sexual harassment and family leave. Female legislators at all levels are significantly more likely to devote their time and energy to these issues, so electing more of them increases the amount of pressure they can put on the chamber as a whole to take them up.

However, electing women is not simply about identity politics. Yes, electing women is important for women. But we also find that across a wide range of activities, women take their constituents into account more than men do. This gives us a Congress that better represents America and its varied interests as a whole.

Jeffrey Lazarus is Associate Professor of Political Science and Amy Steigerwalt is Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Bookmark Gray Matters. It's been socialized to doubt its own abilities.SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  Police say an unlicensed daycare worker in Utah broke a baby's legs when she slammed the child on a bathroom floor.

Salt Lake City police say 66-year-old Elvira Ortega operated a day care at her home and was arrested after the child's parents brought him to a hospital on Feb. 23. Police say the child is less than a year old.The San Francisco public schools superintendent won over a divided Houston school board with what members described as his devotion to equity for all students, passion for the arts and willingness to collaborate.

The trustees, often split along ideological and racial lines, voted unanimously Wednesday to select Richard Carranza, an educator who has led the much smaller California district for four years, as the lone finalist for the superintendent's job here.

The former teacher and principal, who spoke Spanish growing up in Arizona and learned English in school, said he looks forward to taking the helm of the Houston Independent School District after his contract negotiation and the state's mandatory 21-day waiting period.

"We have come together as a team," school board vice president Wanda Adams said. "We have agreed to disagree on issues. But at the end, we were able to cross the finish line."

Before taking the final hiring vote, expected in August, several board members plan to visit San Francisco to continue the vetting process by visiting with his colleagues and local leaders.

More for you San Francisco educator fluent in Spanish top contender to lead...

Carranza, 49, will inherit a tough task in Houston, where student standardized test scores are lackluster and finances are tight. The district is about four times the size of San Francisco Unified School District and has a greater concentration of low-income students.

In a brief phone interview Wednesday, Carranza said he sees Houston schools as ripe for improvement. He touted his efforts in San Francisco to focus on students' social and emotional needs, in addition to academics.

"We never lower the bar for children, but we raise the level of support," said Carranza, who described himself as a "blue-collar superintendent," the son of a sheet metal worker and a hairdresser who was influenced by teachers to attend college.

"The role of the superintendent is to be in the community," he said. "People are going to see me and are going to understand I'm approachable."

The Houston Federation of Teachers released a statement expressing "cautious optimism" about working with Carranza. The union has been opposed to the Houston district's use of student test scores in teachers' job evaluations  a practice Carranza pledged not to support in San Francisco. The Houston board moved away from the practice on a 3-3 vote in June.

Carranza would be the Houston district's second Hispanic superintendent and one of an estimated 2 percent nationally. Abelardo Saavedra, superintendent from 2004 through 2009, was the first here.

Houston school board President Manuel Rodriguez Jr. said early in the search process that he hoped the new superintendent could speak Spanish. More than 60 percent of the district's 215,000 students are Hispanic.

The board apparently struggled behind closed doors to agree on a finalist after narrowing the pool from 35 applicants. Trustees "duked it out," trustee Jolanda Jones said. Some board members initially were resistant to an outsider and were leaning toward an African-American candidate, according to sources not authorized to discuss the board's deliberations. However, during a news conference after the vote to pick Carranza, board members offered unqualified praise of him.

Jones, for example, said she appreciated Carranza's work to reduce student suspensions in San Francisco. He called it an issue of equity, with students of color disproportionately punished. The Houston board voted 5-3 in January to ban suspensions of young elementary school students, becoming the first in the state to do so.

Jones and other trustees also applauded Carranza, an honored Mariachi musician, for using the arts to bolster academics and to keep students interested in school. He started in San Francisco in 2009 as the deputy superintendent of instruction, innovation and social justice. He previously worked as a high school principal in Tuscon, Arizona, and as a high-level administrator in Las Vegas.

As a parent advocate, Pretta VanDible Stallworth said she hopes the new superintendent is more accessible than Terry Grier, who retired in February, though she's worried San Francisco may not be similar enough to Houston.

"Hopefully, his approach is more open," said Stallworth, co-president of the local Parents for Public Schools group. "We can go from there."

San Francisco's standardized test scores in reading and math exceeded state averages, according to 2015 district data, though, as in cities nationwide, the scores of Hispanic and black students lagged behind their Asian and Caucasian peers.

Carranza said he differentiated funding in San Francisco to support schools with more disadvantaged students and formed partnerships with outside agencies to provide services such as mental-health counseling or help for homeless children.

Matt Haney, the San Francisco school board president, recalled asking Carranza his top priority this year. His response: improving the achievement of black students.

"For us that's the group that needs the most support," Haney said. "He operates under an equity framework. He doesn't want to leave anybody behind."

Last year, Haney said, some parents pushed back against the district's decision to eliminate certain math honors classes  an effort to level the playing field for students. However, Carranza, with the board's support, stood strong.

"He believes it's the right thing to do for all students," Haney said.

The San Francisco board and Carranza had a rare disagreement in May. Five of seven board members opposed continuing a contract with Teach for America, which helps staff schools in impoverished areas with novice teachers. Carranza pulled the agenda item.

"He wants to see his board united," Haney said. "He doesn't sow division on the board or play favorites."

Unlike in Houston, the San Francisco school board members are elected at large and do not represent different neighborhoods.

Ken Huewitt, the former HISD chief financial officer, has been serving as interim superintendent and had interviewed to keep the job permanently.

The HISD board had hoped to hire a new superintendent by July 1, but it ousted the first headhunting firm conducting its national search and ran into timing problems with summer schedules. Teachers report to work Aug. 8, and students return Aug. 22.

The district will be losing its chief academic officer, Drew Houlihan, who on Tuesday accepted a superintendent's job in Monroe, N.C.As Houston ISD officials wrestle with how to fill a $115 million budget shortfall, stave off a potential state takeover and work to recover after Hurricane Harvey, Superintendent Richard Carranza announced Monday he would leave the district after less than two years on the job, accepting an offer to lead New York City's school system.

Carranza appeared Monday afternoon at a press conference with New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio. Carranza's status with Houston ISD was not immediately available. De Blasio said those details are being worked out, but the outgoing chancellor is expected to remain on board until the end of March.

At a press conference announcing his appointment Monday afternoon, Carranza said the chance to take over the nation's largest school district and alignment with De Blasio's agenda were primary factors in accepting the job.

"There is no other New York City Public Schools," Carranza said. "It was an opportunity that I could not say 'no' to."

Houston ISD board members are expected to meet Thursday to discuss the district's next steps.

"We the board wish Carranza the best in his endeavors and appreciate the leadership he brought to this district," Houston ISD Board of Trustees President Rhonda Skillern-Jones said in a statement. "We are committed to continuing the work he began and moving the district forward."

Carranza's departure leaves Texas' largest school district leaderless as it faces consequential challenges. The district faces a $115 million budget shortfall and potential state takeover due to poor academic performances at a handful of the district's more than 280 campuses.

The district must rebuild four schools significantly damaged by Hurricane Harvey and is looking to dramatically change the way it funds its schools.

Zeph Capo, president of the Houston Teachers Federation, said he had to "pick (his) jaw up off the floor" when he learned of Carranza's departure Monday afternoon. He said he understands why Carranza would take the new job but fretted over the timing.

"There was this big pit in my stomach because we have such massively important decisions happening right now. Of all times to be without a leader I was thinking wow, this is not it," Capo said. "I'm really, really concerned about our school district not having a leader right now, with the big decisions with school finance and making sure pull schools out of (improvement required status)."

During his brief tenure with HISD, Carranza has announced sweeping proposals aimed at improving struggling schools, making campus funding more equitable, reshaping the district's magnet programs and improving special education services, among other things. While some of those plans have been enacted, such as the Achieve 180 campus turnaround plans, others are still in their planning stages.

Bob Sanborn, president and CEO of the statewide Children at Risk education nonprofit, said Carranza's proposals may now shift in scope without his oversight.

"Whenever a superintendent leaves, you see parts of their programs be dismantled, parts of them not implemented," Sanborn said. "I imagine that's what will happen with some of Carranza's plans."

De Blasio said he had spoken with Carranza about the job for about a month. De Blasio originally chose Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho for the job and publicly announced the choice, but Carvalho turned down the job Thursday. Carranza was the runner-up for the position behind Carvalho, De Blasio said.

De Blasio said he met with Carranza over the weekend, offering him the job late Sunday night.

"The decision was straightforward. Richard Carranza has done amazing work," De Blasio said.

Carranza, 51, said his values in education aligned with De Blasio, making it "very easy for me to say I would like to be part of this movement in New York City." His base salary in New York City will be the same as his Houston ISD salary, which was $345,000 in 2016-17.

Carranza came to Houston ISD, the nation's seventh-largest school district, from San Francisco Unified School District, where he served as superintendent from 2012 to 2016. Carranza took over from Terry Grier, who retired after 6 1/2 years atop Houston ISD.

Carranza arrived as a personable, well-received choice following Grier's tenure, which led to some acrimony among board and community members. He often spoke about promoting greater equity across the district and improving campuses in historically impoverished neighborhoods. His signature turnaround plan, Achieve 180, used about $15 million to improve educator quality and increase social services in long-struggling campuses.

However, some education advocates in Houston questioned whether Achieve 180 would significantly impact students. Carranza's plans for revamping the campus funding model and tweaking the magnet school system also drew criticisms from many community members, who argued the plans haven't been fully formed or vetted.

Now Playing: Houston ISD Superintendent Richard Carranza visits with Principal Kristy Love in Codwell Elementary's library Monday, Sept. 11, 2017, in Houston. Carranza visited the campus on the first day of school as hundreds of thousands of Houston area students have returned to their campuses since Hurricane Harvey devastated the region beginning on Aug. 26. Video: Houston Chronicle

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.Q: Several years ago, I developed asthma. I really thought that I would die from it one day. If I was late with my inhaler, I would start to wheeze.

Fast-forward to the following story. One day I saw the physician assistant at my doctor's office. I told her that I thought I might have a low-grade thrush infection in my mouth. She prescribed an antifungal oral troche. In less than 24 hours, I was off my steroid inhalers, never to need them again. I have been symptom-free for three years.

A: The underlying causes of asthma can be difficult to diagnose. Many people have breathing difficulties due to an allergic reaction. In some cases, the wheezing can be triggered by a fungal infection (Journal of Asthma, September 2016). Antifungal medication can be helpful in situations like yours.

Other research suggests that some hard-to-treat asthma could be related to a chronic bacterial infection in the airways (Immunology and Allergy Clinics of North America, August 2016). A placebo-controlled trial found that antibiotic treatment with azithromycin helped patients with persistent asthma (Lancet, Aug. 12, 2017).

Q: I've read that coffee can assist in staving off dementia. Since I am 70 years old and still have most of my mind, this is of interest.

However, documentation and experience indicate that caffeine aggravates my leaky bladder. My symptoms have markedly decreased since I totally gave up coffee and caffeinated soft drinks. Can I get dementia protection from decaffeinated coffee?

A: At least one study has linked higher-than-average caffeine consumption to a lower risk of dementia (Journals of Gerontology: Series A, Dec. 14, 2016). This was an observational study rather than a controlled clinical trial, though, so we can't infer a cause-and-effect relationship.

Another epidemiological study found that people in Taiwan were less likely to develop dementia if they ate fish and vegetables or drank tea or coffee (Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease, 2017).

Laboratory research suggests that other ingredients in coffee besides caffeine also may be protective (Neurobiology of Aging, October 2016). Quercetin, a compound that appears to be neuroprotective, is found in apples, onions, capers, tea and red wine, as well as coffee. It also might appear in decaf.

Q: I have suffered with nocturnal leg cramps for many years. Long ago, my doctor prescribed quinine pills, and they did the trick. No more cramps.

Then the Food and Drug Administration, in its wisdom, banned the sale of quinine. After much pain, I discovered that tonic water contains quinine. Every evening, I have a large glass of tonic water, and I have no more cramps!

A: Doctors used to prescribe 200-300 mg of quinine for nighttime leg cramps. A glass of tonic water would provide about 20 mg, one-tenth of the dose.

We suspect that the bitter taste of the quinine in tonic water may stimulate special receptors in the mouth, throat and stomach. Even a small amount might be sufficient to stop leg cramps quickly.Now Playing: The suspect was arrested Sunday while in the hospital for what police called a medical issue. Video: METRO Video

A Rosenberg man has been charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of another man wearing a bulletproof vest at a party in the Heights, Houston police said.

Jason Griffin, 39, has also been charged with felon in possession of a weapon and unlawful possession of body armor.In the six months since Hurricane Harvey battered the Houston region, local leaders have talked at length about not just restoring flood-damaged neighborhoods and infrastructure, but hardening the area against future disasters. Not surprisingly, much of that will depend on massive amounts of funding, much of it from the federal government. Houstons Hurricane Harvey recovery czar, former Shell president Marvin Odum, visited the Houston Chronicle editorial board Friday to discuss the citys recovery efforts. The following Q & A has been edited for length.

What do you see as the key accomplishments in the citys recovery process thus far?

Odum: Well tick off the one we just did, which was re-looking at the city ordinances and saying what needs to change to put the city in a better position going forward. So, theres a lot of work going on there and Chapter 19 (the city floodplain ordinance) has now been put on the table. The next stage of that one will be, what about outside the floodplain? The simple logic that I use is, not only did a lot of areas flood that arent in the floodplain, but the floodplain is meant to, of course, address riverine flooding and surge flooding. Its not actually meant to address just rainfall and buildup of water. Thats not what a floodplain is. Theres a lot of areas that need to be considered outside of Chapter 19, which is just a floodplain ordinance, but that was the right place to start.

SPEAK UP: There's still time to weigh in on Houston's proposed rules for building in the floodplain

What is happening on the housing recovery front?

O: The city of Houston has made the formal request to HUD for whats called technical assistance. This is basically us saying, We dont want to do this all on our own. HUD brings tremendous capacity, money for studies, resources, ideas. It helps keep the city, for all its different tugs and pulls for different priorities, on track with what it wants to do. (Broadly speaking) The money that comes wont be enough to meet the need, but it will be big enough to be transformative to the city. What that means is, how you strategically spend that money, how much its focused on what are you trying to get to in terms of affordable housing and where is that affordable housing and what are the characteristics of it. You cant lose sight of that by spending just very near term for assistance thats clearly there. You could use all of that money in just sort of spot areas where you need help here, you need help here, you need help here, and you dont transform the system at all.

RELIEF: Houston lawmakers swallow their budget differences to speed Harvey funding

When you say transformative, what does that look like for Houston?

O: The way I would describe it is, its the result of a strategic approach toward a designed outcome, as opposed to just a very organic, We have what we have. The sort of basic elements of affordable housing should be near to where the jobs are, along major corridors, with access to public transportation. Those kind of links are enormously important to the city functioning well in the future, and thats not what we have today. And without some guidance, its never going to get there.

Where does the recovery stand when it comes to mitigating future floods?

O: Theres lots of ideas out there. Some things that have been basically engineered and designed and are waiting for money, and then theres more new and innovative things outside of that. To me, it looks like theres an emerging set of just slam-dunk, go do these projects, period. The kind of things Id put into that category are the bayou projects. Then I think its debatable still what the situation is with the third reservoir. If you talk to the mayor, hed put that in the slam-dunk category, no question, so this is more of a personal point of view. What Id really love to see is the fixes on Barker, the fixes on Addicks, what impact does that have, and then what exactly do you need in terms of a third reservoir and where should it be. Then you have the coastal spine piece, which is the most cloudy for me. I dont doubt its importance. I dont have any difficulty recognizing the risk of a hurricane coming up the bay and the ship channel, but the mechanism by which that gets moved to the right place in the priority list in funding, that one is still in the cloudy area that we have to sort out. As that money starts to flow through, the confidence level that there will be enough to do those slam dunk projects is increasing pretty rapidly.

What about regulatory fixes on businesses so the mitigation work isnt undone?

O: Particularly as you think about that San Jacinto area, clearly something has to be done. My first question is, what regulations are in place around those mining operations that clearly arent being followed but now immediately have to be enforced. And what are the consequences of that? The question that will have to be answered as part of that is, can you prevent that migration of sand by doing it right or do those mining operations need to be somehow differently impacted? Its clear youve got to dredge through that area, but dredging has consequences too. Getting a studied answer to when to dredge, how to dredge, where to dredge, and then getting into the whole question of the levels of the two lakes and outflow capacity, this whole idea of a dam and a set of gates at the bottom of Lake Houston.

Are there regulatory steps the city needs to take so future development doesnt undo the mitigation investments?

O: We dont have zoning, of course, and we talk about unfettered development and no control over that. I see plenty of levers to do the right thing just through the ordinances and the rules of the road that we can put in place. You see us making that step on housing, new homes first, and some impact on existing homes in terms of expansion. But I think a very strong concern weve heard is, OK, if I have a house and Im going to add on a room and a bathroom because my mother in law is moving in with us or my parents are moving in with us, Im going to have to raise that section three feet in the air. I dont like that. I think what youll see is  Well shift to a footprint measure rather than a value measure. So, it will be a footprint-type measure and it will provide a lot of leeway for people in existing homes to do something with their home.

NEW RULES: After Harvey, Houston wants to change how it develops. Here's what you need to know.

Its just about moving houses to where theyre not going to flood. So were not going to negotiate on, OK they can flood a little bit. I dont consider that necessarily the compromise. It is important to understand the data were using and where were going. This is by no means stiff-arming the building community. But it is about moving them (the houses) out of harms way. I used to sit on the industry side and I understand exactly this approach. Theres a tendency at the very least to say, lets design to exactly that so if it didnt flood during Harvey, we sure shouldnt be touching it now. Thats not the perspective that were taking. Were saying, What do we need to prepare for in the future?

What keeps you up at night?

O: The No. 1 thing that worries me is a long-term funding strategy which is very much, How long does the door stay open where you have the enthusiasm to do this stuff? Not only do I want to see the projects in the various categories, I want to see them in rank-order and I want to see an open discussion around how do you fund these. The good news is a lot of them are going to get funded on the front end. Ultimately, at the bottom of that list is taxes. I dont think you can get there, ultimately, without having that be a part of it. (Also) how much control the city has on the money is a big hig- level issue for me because I do think the citys in the best pace to do it set that strategy and commit to that spending on achieving that strategy. But we need control over the money to do it.A new network of college students is hoping to ward off a terrifying prospect: Discovering a friend, blue lipped with shallow breathing, dying from an opioid overdose.

Students at the University of Texas at Austin began learning to use naloxone, the medication often known by the brand name Narcan that rapidly reverses an overdose, more than a year ago.

But this semester, the peer-to-peer network of students and faculty training one another plans to expand to the University of Houston and Texas A&M University at Kingsville.

The goal is to give students naloxone and teach them how to use it, so that they can save a life if they encounter a peer showing symptoms of an overdose. The new training comes even as many Texas public universities lack written policies on naloxone distribution, though the state has made the drug available over the counter thanks to 2015 legislation.

Supporters of the program compare the availability of Narcan to fire extinguishers or automated external defibrillators that are mainstays of campus and other buildings.

The majority of the doses are likely going to go unused  thats a good thing, said Lucas Hill, a UT-Austin pharmacy professor who directs a program called Operation Naloxone that UH students plan to expand into Houston this semester. Most fire extinguishers get tossed out without being used. This is similar.

Opioid abuse in Texas hasnt resulted in the overwhelming frequency of overdose deaths seen in West Virginia, Pennsylvania or New Hampshire, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But recent rises are statistically significant, CDC data show. In 2015, 2,588 people overdosed from drugs in Texas, the center said, and the figure rose to 2,831 in 2016. Harris County had between 14 and 15.9 deaths from drug poisoning per 100,000 residents in 2016, slightly higher than most other Texas counties, according to the CDC. That figure has increased since 2010.

Four percent of Texas college students misused opioids in 2017, including codeine, according to the states Health and Human Services Department.

Despite this, and despite state law passed by the Legislature in 2015 to increase the availability of the drug, at least 24 of 35 four-year Texas public universities do not have written policies related to the distribution of naloxone, according to a Houston Chronicle review of university policies from open records requests.

Texas A&M and Rice University allow EMS and student health services to use naloxone when needed, university representatives said.

At least 50 A&M medical and nursing staff members were trained this fall for the first time to treat overdosing students, and EMS staff have long carried naloxone, said Martha Dannenbaum, who directs A&Ms student health services.

We felt as a medical organization that it was best for us to ensure that everyone who might encounter this within our facility be trained, Dannenbaum said. Drug use, misuse and abuse exists everywhere. Its not just the homeless population or the poor, its everyone from the highest administrative areas to young people that are functional.

Hill said its difficult to know how widespread the issue is on Texas campuses, as families often keep overdoses private.

Joy Alonzo, a clinical assistant pharmacy professor at A&Ms health science center, said she hopes networks like Operation Naloxone get ahead of the issue before deaths in Texas spike.

But she acknowledges that pushback is possible as some perceive naloxone is enabling an addiction.

Some critics, including Mike Gimbel  a former drug czar for Baltimore County, Md., who now talks to college athletes about drug use  say addicts will simply overdose again without long-term treatment.

Gimbel, a former heroin addict who has been clean for more than 40 years, praises Narcan as a miracle drug but said distributing naloxone to friends and family of addicts is an expensive quick-fix solution.

Alonzo said this idea is naive, as there are already too few treatment facilities in the state.

Also, a person needs to be alive to move to long-term care, she added. I cant treat somebody whos dead.

Less intimidating

Trainings at UT-Austin started in small groups. Residence advisers  supervisors of each floor of UT-Austin dorms  received one-hour training sessions on how to respond to opioid overdoses with naloxone.

They asked key questions: Can you give someone too much? If you take this with other drugs, what happens? And they learned that they would have 24-7 access to naloxone in each residential facility.

Then, Hill said, he began training pharmacy students to lead their own overdose prevention training sessions. About 300 students in pharmacy, medicine and social work have received this training, he said, and they have taught more than 600 people in student and community groups to use naloxone.

Hill and instructors distribute naloxone, which is funded by grants and donations, at these sessions.

In the fall semester, Hill went to UH and trained dozens of pharmacy students, leaving behind 20 boxes of the drug to start outreach.

Goran Flajc, a UH doctoral pharmacy student, said his student organization is planning to train more students and distribute naloxone this semester.

Theyll start, he said, with meeting Cougars in Recovery, a support group for students who are recovering from addiction.

UH spokesman Mike Rosen said the universitys police chief reviews cases frequently and cannot remember the last overdose officers observed.

Flajc, of Houston, said peer-to-peer distribution and training sessions can make the information easier for students to absorb.

Its phrasing it in a way students understand, speaking to a population youre a part of, he said. It helps. Its less intimidating.

David Persse, city of Houston EMS physician director, said the drug is relatively easy to administer and cannot do harm if it is mistakenly administered on someone who is not overdosing.

Theres really not a problem putting it in the hands of laypeople, he said, noting, however, that the drug can be expensive.

Alonzo said putting the drug in students hands can save time  and potentially lives. The time that spans between an overdose and a students trip to a health center could prove fatal, she said.

Two Texas A&M at Kingsville students said they want Alonzo to train pharmacy students this semester. Then, the students hope to train resident advisers and others in early March.

Its an unfortunate problem to have, but it is a risk reduction strategy, said third-year pharmacy student Austin Bridges, of The Woodlands. And for now, its the best strategy we have in taking on this challenge.

State law, campus policies

Anti-overdose drugs became more easily accessible in Texas after Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 1462 in 2015. The bill allows for naloxone to be prescribed through a standing order to anyone at risk of overdose as well as family, friends or others in a position to assist those people, and a provision in the law allows nonprofits and other organizations to distribute the drug to people who may be able to use it to save lives.

It also indicates that people who act in good faith in deciding whether or not to prescribe or use the drug do not face criminal or civil liability. Not one lawmaker voted against the bill.

Its a significant step as many college students indicate that they would not know how to help an overdosing peer. A survey commissioned by the Hazelden Betty Ford Institute for Recovery Advocacy and The Christie Foundation found that more than 37 percent of 1,200 college-age adults surveyed said they would not know where to go for help in event of an overdose.

Universities say known opioid overdoses are rare on their campuses. UH police officers do not carry naloxone with them, Rosen said, in part due to the infrequency.

Hill said that to his knowledge one dose of the drug has been opened from the dorm distribution sites. A University of Texas police officer withdrew the drug for a person who became responsive without needing it, he said.

At A&M, alcohol is still the biggest problem in drug misuse, said Mike Middleton, A&Ms EMS manager.

New Hampshire, Virginia ... thats an epidemic, he said. Here on campus, were seeing alcohol and other types of abuse. It doesnt mean it doesnt happen here, (but) we dont see it.

Alec Mohr, a Texas A&M junior who leads a new Aggies in Recovery group, said A&Ms ability to distribute naloxone arent well known.

But he said hes intrigued by the possibility of training students more widely, comparing the drug to defibrillators.

If its something that simple, he said, I dont see why people shouldnt know how to use it.WASHINGTON  George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman, has hovered on the fringes of international diplomacy for three decades. He was a back-channel negotiator with Syria during the Clinton administration, reinvented himself as an adviser to the de facto ruler of the United Arab Emirates, and last year was a frequent visitor to President Trumps White House.

Mr. Nader is now a focus of the investigation by Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel. In recent weeks, Mr. Muellers investigators have questioned Mr. Nader and have pressed witnesses for information about any possible attempts by the Emiratis to buy political influence by directing money to support Mr. Trump during the presidential campaign, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

The investigators have also asked about Mr. Naders role in White House policymaking, those people said, suggesting that the special counsel investigation has broadened beyond Russian election meddling to include Emirati influence on the Trump administration. The focus on Mr. Nader could also prompt an examination of how money from multiple countries has flowed through and influenced Washington during the Trump era.

How much this line of inquiry is connected to Mr. Muellers original task of investigating contacts between Mr. Trumps campaign and Russia is unclear. The examination of the U.A.E. comes amid a flurry of recent activity by Mr. Mueller.

Last month, investigators negotiated a plea agreement with Rick Gates, Mr. Trumps deputy campaign manager, and indicted 13 Russians on charges related to a scheme to incite political discord in the United States before the 2016 election.

In one example of Mr. Naders influential connections, which has not been previously reported, last fall he received a detailed report from a top Trump fund-raiser, Elliott Broidy, about a private meeting with the president in the Oval Office.

Mr. Broidy owns a private security company with hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts with the United Arab Emirates, and he extolled to Mr. Trump a paramilitary force that his company was developing for the country. He also lobbied the president to meet privately in an informal setting with the Emirates military commander and de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan; to back the U.A.E.s hawkish policies in the region; and to fire Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson.

A copy of Mr. Broidys memorandum about the meeting was provided to The New York Times by someone critical of the Emirati influence in Washington.

Mr. Trump has closely allied himself with the Emiratis, endorsing their strong support for the new heir to the throne in Saudi Arabia, as well as their confrontational approaches toward Iran and their neighbor Qatar. In the case of Qatar, which is the host to a major United States military base, Mr. Trumps endorsement of an Emirati- and Saudi-led blockade against that country has put him openly at odds with his secretary of state  as well as with years of American policy.

Mr. Nader, 58, made frequent trips to the White House during the early months of the Trump administration, meeting with Stephen K. Bannon and Jared Kushner to discuss American policy toward the Persian Gulf states in advance of Mr. Trumps trip to Saudi Arabia in May 2017, according to people familiar with the meetings. By some accounts, it was Mr. Bannon who pushed for him to gain access to White House policymakers. Others said Mr. Kushner backed him.

Reached by phone last month, Mr. Nader said he had dinner guests and would call back. He did not, and attempts to reach him over several weeks were unsuccessful. Mr. Naders lawyer did not respond to messages seeking comment.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, a spokesman for Mr. Broidy said his memorandum had been stolen through sophisticated hacking.

We have reason to believe this hack was sponsored and carried out by registered and unregistered agents of Qatar seeking to punish Mr. Broidy for his strong opposition to state-sponsored terrorism, said the spokesman, adding that Mr. Broidy had also made the accusation in a letter to the Qatari ambassador in Washington.

Yousef al-Otaiba, the Emirati ambassador to the United States, declined to comment. Axios first reported Mr. Muellers questioning of Mr. Nader.

Mr. Nader has long been a mysterious figure. In the 1990s, he presided over an unusual Washington magazine, Middle East Insight, which sometimes provided a platform for Arab, Israeli and Iranian officials to express their views to a Washington audience.

On the magazines 15th anniversary, in 1996, a West Virginia congressman praised Mr. Nader on the floor of the House, calling him a recognized expert on the region and pointing out that the magazine had been a showcase for prominent figures such as President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel, and Yasir Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

He always struck me as a person who really thought he should be in the eye of the storm trying to make things happen, said Frederic Hof, a former top American diplomat who knew Mr. Nader in the 1990s.

Late in that decade, Mr. Nader convinced the Clinton administration that he had valuable contacts in the Syrian government and took on a secretive role trying to broker a peace deal between Israel and Syria. Working with Ronald S. Lauder, the American cosmetics magnate and prominent donor to Jewish causes, Mr. Nader shuttled between Damascus and Jerusalem, using his contacts in both capitals to try to negotiate a truce.

In the 1990s, George was a very effective under-the-radar operator in the peace process, said Martin S. Indyk, a former American ambassador to Israel and a member of a team put together by President Bill Clinton to negotiate peace deals between Israel and its neighbors.

Then, he disappeared.

Indeed, a man with a once very public profile in Washington effectively vanished from the capitals policy scene, and his magazine ceased publication in 2002.

During the middle part of the last decade, Mr. Nader appears to have spent most of his time in the Middle East, especially in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. He developed close ties to national security officials in the Bush White House.

Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater USA, the private security company now known as Academi, at one point hired Mr. Nader to help the company generate business deals in Iraq. In a 2010 deposition that Mr. Prince gave as part of a lawsuit against the company, Mr. Prince described Mr. Nader as a business development consultant that we retained in Iraq because the company was looking for contracts with the Iraqi government.

Mr. Prince said that Mr. Nader was unsuccessful in getting contracts, and that senior Blackwater officials did not work directly with him.

George pretty much worked on his own, he said.

At the beginning of the Obama era, Mr. Nader tried to parlay his ties to the Syrian government into access to senior members of President Barack Obamas foreign policy team, while also seeking to advance business deals with former advisers to President George W. Bush.

By the time of the 2016 election, he had become an adviser to Prince Mohammed of the U.A.E. According to people familiar with the relationship, it was around Mr. Trumps inauguration that Mr. Nader first met Mr. Broidy, the Republican fund-raiser, who is a California-based investor with a strong interest in the Middle East.

Mr. Broidys security company, Circinus, provides services to both United States agencies and foreign governments. Run by former American military officers, Circinus promises on its website that it can employ personnel worldwide to provide physical force protection to individuals, groups or facilities within austere, hostile environments, as well as conducting specialized operations, infrastructure protection and training.

Mr. Broidy, 60, had once stumbled into legal trouble over payments to a political figure. In 2009, he agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge for providing $1 million in illegal gifts to New York State pension authorities, including trips, payouts and a secret investment in a film called Chooch that was produced by an officials brother. In exchange for the gifts, the state pension fund invested $250 million with an Israeli-based investment management firm that Mr. Broidy had founded. He reimbursed the pension fund for $18 million in fees.

After the inauguration, Mr. Nader became friendly with Mr. Broidy and introduced him to Prince Mohammed. Circinus then signed contracts with the United Arab Emirates worth several hundred million dollars, according to people familiar with the arrangement.

By Oct. 6, Mr. Broidy had evidently become close enough to both the prince and Mr. Nader to send a detailed memorandum to an encrypted email address used by Mr. Nader recounting his advocacy on the U.A.E.s behalf during the meeting with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office amid an afternoon of stops throughout the White House.

An ally of the White House involved in one of the initiatives discussed  a counterterrorism task force  said Mr. Broidy sent the memorandum because he had been asked by the crown prince to seek the presidents views on the idea. Mr. Broidy believed that the creation of the task force would aid American security, this person said.

According to the memo, Mr. Broidy repeatedly pressed Mr. Trump to meet privately with Prince Mohammed, preferably in an informal setting outside the White House.

I offered that M.B.Z. is available to come to the U.S. very soon and preferred a quiet meeting in New York or New Jersey, Mr. Broidy wrote to Mr. Nader, using the crown princes initials. President Trump agreed that a meeting with M.B.Z. was a good idea.

Mr. Broidy wrote that he had twice told Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser, that the crown prince preferred an informal setting to meet one on one with President Trump. But General McMaster resisted. LTG McMaster smiled and replied that heads of state usually meet in the White House, as protocol dictates.

In his memorandum, Mr. Broidy recounted that he had told Mr. Trump that he recently returned from meeting with the crown prince about Circinus work for the U.A.E. Mr. Broidy had explained the exciting and transformational plan being constructed by M.B.Z. to develop a counterterrorism task force, which Mr. Broidy told the president was inspired by his speech at a conference in Riyadh.

Mr. Broidy was harshly critical of the crown princes neighbor and nemesis, Qatar. The U.A.E. has accused Qatar, an American ally, of using its satellite network Al Jazeera to promote political Islam, among other allegations.

Mr. Trump also asked about Mr. Tillerson  who had publicly criticized the isolation of Qatar  and Mr. Broidy said that the secretary of state should be fired. Rex was performing poorly, Mr. Broidy said, according to the memorandum.

In between the discussions of diplomacy, business and statecraft, Mr. Broidy wrote, he and the president spoke for several minutes about politics and the fund-raising efforts for the midterm elections as well as the state of affairs at the R.N.C., or the Republican National Committee.WASHINGTON  As Russias virtual war against the United States continues unabated with the midterm elections approaching, the State Department has yet to spend any of the $120 million it has been allocated since late 2016 to counter foreign efforts to meddle in elections or sow distrust in democracy.

As a result, not one of the 23 analysts working in the departments Global Engagement Center  which has been tasked with countering Moscows disinformation campaign  speaks Russian, and a department hiring freeze has hindered efforts to recruit the computer experts needed to track the Russian efforts.

The delay is just one symptom of the largely passive response to the Russian interference by President Donald Trump, who has made little if any public effort to rally the nation to confront Moscow and defend democratic institutions. More broadly, the funding lag reflects a deep lack of confidence by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in his departments ability to execute its historically wide-ranging mission and spend its money wisely.

Tillerson has voiced skepticism that the United States is even capable of doing anything to counter the Russian threat.

If its their intention to interfere, theyre going to find ways to do that, Tillerson said in an interview last month with Fox News. And we can take steps we can take, but this is something that once they decide they are going to do it, its very difficult to pre-empt it.

The United States spends billions of dollars on secret cybercapabilities, but these weapons have proved largely ineffective against Russian efforts on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere that simply amplify or distort divisive but genuine voices in the United States and elsewhere.

The role for the Global Engagement Center would be to assess Russian efforts and then set about amplifying a different set of voices to counter them, perhaps creating a network of anti-propaganda projects dispersed around the world, experts said.

There are now thousands of former Russian journalists who have been exiled or fired who are doing counter-Russian stuff in exile who we could help, said Richard Stengel, who as the undersecretary for public diplomacy in the Obama administration had oversight of the Global Engagement Center.

Concerted campaigns to highlight the roles of Russian troll farms or Russian mercenaries in Ukraine and Syria could have a profound effect, Stengel said.

At the end of the Obama administration, Congress directed the Pentagon to send $60 million to the State Department so it could coordinate governmentwide efforts, including those by the Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security, to counter anti-democratic propaganda by Russia and China. This messaging effort is separate from other potential government actions like cyberattacks.

Tillerson spent seven months trying to decide whether to spend any of the money. The State Department finally sent a request to the Defense Department on Sept. 18 to transfer the funds, but with just days left in the fiscal year, Pentagon officials decided the State Department had lost its shot at the money.

With another $60 million available for the next fiscal year, the two departments dickered for another five months over how much the State Department could have.

After The New York Times, following a report on the issue by Politico in August, began asking about the delayed money, the State Department announced Monday that the Pentagon had agreed to transfer $40 million for the effort, just a third of what was originally intended.

State Department officials say they expect to receive the money in April. In the meantime, Steve Goldstein, undersecretary for public diplomacy, said he would contribute $1 million from his own budget to kick-start the initiative quickly.

This funding is critical to ensuring that we continue an aggressive response to malign influence and disinformation, Goldstein said.

On Wednesday, Mark E. Mitchell, a top Defense Department official, said much wrangling remained before any of the promised $40 million is transferred to the State Department.

Were still a ways off, Mitchell said.

The delays have infuriated some members of Congress, which approved the funding transfer with bipartisan support.

It is well past time that the State Departments Global Engagement Center gets the resources Congress intended for it to effectively fight Kremlin-sponsored disinformation and other foreign propaganda operations, Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Wednesday.

Adele Ruppe, the centers chief of staff, defended the administrations broader efforts to counter Russian propaganda, pointing out that the State Department had provided $1.3 billion in assistance in 2017 to strengthen European resilience to Russian meddling. But that money was largely obligated during the Obama administration, and the Trump administration has proposed slashing that assistance by more than half for the coming year, to $527 million, and to $491 million for the next year.

While it waits for the funding transfer from the Pentagon, the center, which has a staff of around 60 people, including 23 contract analysts, will continue working on its original mission: countering jihadi and extremist propaganda.

Most of the centers leaders are working in temporary assignments, a product of Tillersons halt in promotions. The analysts work in a warren of cubicles in the basement of a tired building that once housed the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II predecessor to the CIA.

The analysts are divided into five teams that largely work in four languages: Arabic, Urdu, French and Somali. The analysts said in interviews that they had notched some significant victories, including a video montage proving that the Islamic State had itself destroyed Al Nuri Grand Mosque in Mosul, Iraq, and a widely seen cartoon in French depicting the miserable life of an Islamic State fighter.

Still, these efforts are a small fraction of what Congress envisioned. A 2015 internal assessment found that the Islamic State had been far more nimble on social media than the United States had been. In May, Congress more than doubled the centers budget, providing an additional $19 million over its earlier budget of $14 million. But by Jan. 1, the department had spent just $3.6 million of the additional $19 million, Goldstein said.

James K. Glassman, undersecretary for public diplomacy during the George W. Bush administration, said the centers uncertain funding and temporary leadership reflected the administrations lack of interest in countering either jihadi or Russian propaganda.

Theyve got the vehicle to do this work in the center, Glassman said. What they dont have is a secretary of state or a president whos interested in doing this work.

Tillerson is focusing his energies instead on drastically shrinking the department, leaving a significant part of its budget unused and hundreds of important decisions unmade.

Last year, the State Department spent just 79 percent of the money Congress had authorized for the conduct of foreign affairs, the lowest such level in at least 15 years and well down from the 93 percent spent in the final year of the Obama administration, according to an analysis of data from the Office of Management and Budget.

Because of the hiring and promotion freezes that have left large sums unspent, as well as Tillersons refusal to delegate spending decisions, the department had a backlog of more than 1,400 official requests for Tillersons signoff at the end of last year, according to a former senior diplomat who left the department then.It's a topic every election.

Will Texas turn blue?

There is no way to say for certain when or if it will turn blue based on analyzing three decades' worth of election data. Each year a new set of factors sway voters one way or another.

Maps and data analyzed by the Houston Chronicle, however, suggest Texas is becoming a battleground state  and the Houston region maps above exemplify just how close Texas is coming to trading its scarlet for violet.

The maps were created using state voter data. Each dot represents one voter within his or her respective voting district. Red dots are Republican voters and blue dots are Democrats.

Texas has 254 counties, but 80 percent of the Democratic vote in 2016 came from 20 counties.

Four of those counties were in the Houston region  Brazoria, Fort Bend, Harris and Montgomery. They represented a fourth of Hillary Clinton's votes and about a fifth of President Donald Trump's total votes in Texas.

To get a better sense of the centering pendulum, take the six counties that make up the Houston region  Brazoria, Fort Bend, Galveston, Harris, Liberty and Montgomery.

Those six counties show where the GOP still clings to its votes, but they also illustrate where Dems are finding them during its "blue wave." In 2016, for the first time in decades, Harris County was not the only county to turn blue within its region.

Fort Bend followed.

It was notable Democrats, who often trail in the greater Houston region. Though Houston's blue hue is deepening, the region is not as blue as one might think. It's a deep purple and it's the suburbs that may keep it that way, data shows.

In 2004, Former President George Bush won the Houston region with 58 percent of the vote. In 2016, Trump and Hillary nearly split the region 50/50.

And though Democrats have managed to budge Harris and Fort Bend counties in recent elections, the other four counties have remained somewhat unchanged in their allegiance since at least the 1990s.

Of those Montgomery and Brazoria are two of the fastest growing counties in Texas. Those counties, in addition to other fast growing suburban counties  such as Denton in North Texas, Williamson near Austin or Comal near San Antonio  could be the linchpins that keep Houston and Texas a battleground area  but it will be close.

In any given presidential election, the number of reported voters typically increases relative to the previous presidential election, largely as a product of increases in the size of the citizen voting-age population, according to the U.S. Census.

However, the statewide number of Democrats that voted in the 2016 election increased by 36 percent compared to 2004. Comparatively, the GOP only managed to increase by 3.4 percent, according to state data.

Furthermore, just over 800,000 votes separated Clinton and Trump. That gap is closing fairly quickly if you consider more than 1.6 million separated Former President George Bush and challenger John Kerry in 2004, and 950,000 separated John McCain and Barack Obama in 2008.

Still, the blue wave Houston and the rest of the state is experiencing could fizzle. Historically, voting rate levels have been associated with certain demographic characteristics, such as race, Hispanic origin, and age. And those differences have fluctuated depending on the year, according to the U.S. Census.

For instance, in 2012, voting rates for blacks  66.6 percent  were higher than non-Hispanic whites  64.1 percent  for the first time since the Census has tracked the data.. In 2016, turnout increased to 65.3 percent for whites, but decreased to 59.6 percent for blacks.

John D. Harden writes about demographics and neighborhoods for the Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. Send him tips at john.harden@chron.com .AUSTIN  Voters decide every four years whom they will trust to inspect eggs and lottery balls, run the federal school-lunch program and ensure gas pumps deliver what customers pay for.

On Tuesday, Republican voters will cast ballots for the states agriculture commissioner, a job that includes overseeing the accuracy of weights in barbecue restaurants, yogurt shops and grocery stores, regulating pesticides and ensuring the states storied agricultural industries live up to Texas-sized expectations.

This race is important because we all like to eat, wear clothes and put gas in our cars, said Trey Blocker, a candidate and conservative podcast host from Fredericksburg.

The contest is also significant as one of the hottest statewide races this election cycle  and possibly one of the most politically telling, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston.

I think it will tell us the degree to which the Republican voters would gravitate away from an ideologically matched candidate that has ethical problems, he said.

The election features current commissioner Sid Miller, a longtime rodeo cowboy from Stephenville. He is also a farmer and rancher who considers himself Trumps man from Texas.

Miller, a staunch conservative often spotted in a tall white hat and cowboy boots, is finishing his first term in office. He has found himself in the middle of several controversies in his first four years, catching heat for raising fees, for forcing barbecue restaurants to follow long-ignored rules that they keep certified scales where customers can see them and for doling out some $400,000 in bonuses to department employees in his first nine months. He has also made controversial political statements and jokes on social media.

Within weeks after taking office, Miller took also two out-of-state trips using taxpayer dollars: one to Oklahoma to obtain a so-called Jesus Shot, billed to take away all pain for life, the other to Mississippi to compete in a rodeo. Miller later paid back the money he used for the travel.

Texas Rangers investigated Millers spending but declined to bring charges. Miller justified the trip by saying he was trying to meet with other state officials. No one trained him about what he can and cant do as commissioner, he told voters at a candidate forum in Tyler, adding, They just hand you the keys and this is a $6 billion agency. Good luck.

Millers chief challenger is Blocker, a former Austin lobbyist who represented chemical giant Monsanto and other clients at the state Capitol. He also worked as an ethics attorney, taking on both Republican and Democratic clients, founded the Civil Liberties Defense Foundation to advocate for Second Amendment rights and hosts The Trey Blocker Show, a conservative podcast.

While Blocker argues voters cant trust Sid to keep taxes low, keep government small and behave ethically, Miller challenges Blockers conservative credentials. Millers campaign flyers refer to Blocker as a swamp-welling lawyer who contributed money to Democratic candidates campaigns and voted in a Democratic primary election. Blocker is a Republican in name only, Miller said, and lacks agriculture experience needed for the job.

Blocker counters that giving campaign contributions to members of both parties is often necessary for lobbyists. He said he voted in the 2008 Democratic primary as part of a push by conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh urging conservatives to keep Hillary Clinton in the presidential race because she was viewed as a weaker candidate to go against Republican presidential nominee John McCain. Blocker adds that he represented rural and agricultural clients while lobbying and came from a long lineage of cattlemen.

The third candidate is Jim Hogan, a retired insurance agent from Cleburne who farmed and raised beef cows. Hogan argues money has the potential to corrupt people in power and has thus decided against raising money or traveling throughout the state to compete in the race. Hes tight-fisted with money, he said.

Its a strategy that worked for him last time; in 2014, Hogan won the Democratic primary runoff with 54 percent of the vote. He went on to lose to Miller in the general election by more than one million votes.

We need people who run sincerely, Hogan said. I have no regard to parties.

Most states let their governors hire an agriculture commissioner. Texas is one of a dozen states that elect theirs instead. Because of the states vast rural space, the race is central to the Texas identity. Rural lands, including privately owned forest, make up 84 percent of Texas total land area, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture. However, only 12 percent of the states population lives in rural areas.

The departments main role is to administer the National School Lunch Program, which encompasses $5 billion of the states $6 billion budget. The department also encourages schools and communities to connect with local farmers and serve their locally grown foods. The department also tests for gasoline quality and pumps that deliver the proper amount of gas; regulates pesticides used on crops like corn fields, cotton fields and vineyards; and helps facilitate the export of cattle around the world.

The winner of Tuesdays Republican primary will go on to face retired Air Force Col. Kim Olson  a pilot, farmer, author and Democrat  in the November election.AUSTIN  For Texas Democrats, 2018 was shaping up to be a year of amazing opportunity, a time when a blue wave would roll across Texas and help them boot Republicans from office.

Record early voting turnout for nonpresidential election years, coupled with recent successes against Republicans in other states, has Democrats buoyed about their prospects in some congressional and legislative races.

But their efforts to unseat the top Republican in Austin  Gov. Greg Abbott  so far have fallen far short of the hype. And experts are wondering whether, come November, Democrats could be in for yet another rout.

RECORD: Democrats take early-voting edge for first time in 10 years

The campaign money trail for Democrats in a crowded field that once included 10 candidates has been anything but amazing. Fundraising so far has dipped to record lows, leaving the nine remaining contenders struggling to get their message out or generate any excitement. The money has been flowing much better for Democrats in congressional and legislative races.

In fact, political analysts predict that Texas Democrats running for governor  now down by as much as 90 percent over recent campaign cycles  could be on track to raise the least amount in at least 14 years. Abbott already is sitting on a massive $41 million-plus war chest.

More for you Abbott settles scores but the GOP could pay the price

The primary election is Tuesday, and a runoff is a distinct possibility for Democrats.

For their part, the Democrats campaigns attribute their fundraising drought to several factors: Most are running for political office for the first time or have run unsuccessful, low-budget campaigns in the past or were late-comers to the race. The two current front-runners, former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez and Houston entrepreneur Andrew White, joined the race in December, just before the filing deadline.

HAIL FROM THE CHIEF: Trump tweets support for Abbott, Cruz, Patrick, Paxton and Texas GOPers

Party insiders insist that the puny fundraising so far will pick up after a nominee is selected. Theyre hoping that faithful donors have simply been conserving their cash for the general election. Some of those donors, however, say they have tired of spending money on losing governors races in Texas.

The money so far in the governors race tells the story for Democrats, said Rice University political scientist Mark Jones, who has studied gubernatorial election patterns in Texas for years. People give candidates money if they think they are viable, and the fact that none of the Democrats has been able to raise much money says volumes about their chances after Tuesdays primary.

It just underscores why Greg Abbott is almost certainly going to win re-election, he added.

Despite that, even Republicans, including Abbott, continue to warn that a political shift could be underway in Texas, as President Donald Trump continues to energize Democrats and moderate Republicans in the states urban centers of Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, where most of Texas population growth is occurring.

State campaign-finance reports show that through February, Democrats running for governor have raised just over $1.6 million, with White at the top with $1.4 million  including a $1 million loan from himself, which filings show he has not yet spent. When he announced his campaign, he said he hoped to raise $3-4 million for the primary.

By contrast, former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez  who recent polls show is the front-runner in the race ahead of White  trails far behind him in donations with $181,881, including $25,000 in loans to herself.

The remaining seven candidates  minus one who was disqualified after writing a hot check for her $3,750 filing fee  have raised less than $40,000, roughly what Valdez has spent on advertising so far in her low-budget campaign.

The money will come

The same reason that the Castro brothers or a legislator or someone else with name ID didnt run for this office is the same reason these candidates are having trouble raising money in the primary. The donors dont think we have a snowballs chance, said Ed Espinoza, executive director of Progress Texas, a progressive group closely aligned with the Democrats.

He was referring to Julian Castro, former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, and his brother, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, of San Antonio.

But this is going to be a very good year for Democrats, and we have a team of replacement players that are refreshing, but the donors dont know them yet. When they get acquainted, the money will come  but it will come late, Espinoza said.

The lack of cash has meant that the Democrats have had to rely on social and free media to reach prospective voters, instead of paid television ads or direct mail pieces, and they have had to crisscross Texas by car, appearing at political forums and local get-togethers that have attracted just a few hundred people, at most, and often less.

You do what you can, and thats about it, said Joe Mumbach, a Houston electronics businessman who is on the primary ticket. You talk to as many people as you can, but Texas is a really big state.

White is the only one who has had enough money to run TV ads, which ran only in Houston, although other candidates have posted YouTube or online videos that have attracted several thousand views, far fewer than the millions who have seen political ads in past years in big-bucks campaigns.

Dallas businessman Jeffrey Payne, who has polled in the top four Democrats, has reached out in weekly FacebookLive videos. He has also put more than 29,000 miles on his silver Hyundai Sonata to visit 70 of Texas 254 counties, so far.

This has allowed me to meet Texans in person, so they know every one of them is important to me and that Ill remember them when Im elected governor, Payne said. If I had a lot of money, it would have been much different.

When Payne launched his campaign last July, he said he was ready to put in up to $2 million of his own money. So far, he has loaned his campaign more than $46,000.

Measure the Democrats total fundraising in the governors race so far this year to the $3.2 million that seven Democrats have raised in their primary fight to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, in the 7th Congressional District dogfight.

In fact, four of the Democratic candidates in that race have each raised more than everyone except White, if you include his loan. If not, all have raised more than the gubernatorial Democrats, campaign finance records show.

Apple Dumpling Gang

Its like the Apple Dumpling Gang movie in the 1970s, where nothing seemed to go right, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor. At this rate, these Democrats have raised only about what would be reasonable in a state House race or maybe a district judges campaign  not mount to mount a serious race for governor.

Indeed, state Sen. Wendy Davis four years ago had raised well over $10 million by this point in her race against Abbott. She eventually spent more than $36 million and lost by 20 percent. Abbott spent about $47 million, records show.

In 2002, when Democrat Tony Sanchez self-funded much of his campaign and spent more than $67 million  a record that still stands  he lost to incumbent Republican Rick Perry by 18 points. Perry spent only $28 million.

In the past 20 years, when Texas gubernatorial campaigns have grown more and more expensive, Chris Bell, a former Houston congressman, spent the least  $5.5 million  in 2006 and lost to Perry by 9 points.

Lets say Im hedging my bets right now in that one, an Austin business executive, who has contributed tens of thousands of dollars to Democrats in previous campaigns, including Davis unsuccessful run, said when asked about why his name is missing this year. Lets see what happens after the primary.

Instead of the five- and six-figure contributions of recent years to Democrats, by this point in the gubernatorial campaign, most to the current candidates are for less than $100, with the larger ones for a few thousand dollars  nowhere near the $1 million contributions that made headlines in the past.

Jones and Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University, think 2018 could set a new low bar in gubernatorial fundraising for Democrats, unless a surprise occurs before the November general election.

People lack confidence in their prospects, Jillson said of Democratic gubernatorial candidates low fundraising numbers, after a late start to the campaign because no high-profile candidate stepped forward early as party officials had hoped.

Most of the Democrats who entered the race early were political novices or also-rans from other races with little statewide name ID, a must to win a governors race. Even Valdez had name ID only in her home county and little beyond, and White, the son of the late Gov. Mark White who served during the 1980s, had never run for office before.

Valdez campaign sputtered from a slow start, despite the support of Texas Democratic Party elite. While White quickly bested her in fundraising, he has struggled to raise his name ID and distinguish himself as his own candidate apart from his fathers legacy.

In Houston, even steadfast Democrats who attended a meet-and-greet event a few weeks ago to introduce the partys statewide candidates admitted they really didnt know much about any of the gubernatorial contenders.

Im mostly focused on Democrats regaining control of Congress to oppose (President) Trump, Charlay Phillips said at the event. Im a Blue Dog Democrat to the bone, but Abbott has so much money were probably not going to beat him this year. But I do think we can take Congress.

Runoff likely

Recent polls have shown Valdez leads White in the primary race among likely voters, with the other candidates trailing far behind.

Last week, a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll showed Valdez holding a 43-to-24 lead over White, a margin that would put them in a May runoff if it holds.

The others were far behind: San Antonio businessman Tom Wakely and retired Flint Teacher Grady Yarbrough were at 7 percent; Payne and Flower Mound financial consultant Adrian Ocegueda were at 5, and Mumbach, former Balch Springs Mayor Cedric Davis Sr. and Austin businessman James Jolly Clark were at 4 or less.

However, a new poll released Wednesday by Dallas CBS 11 and Dixie Strategies showed White at 17 percent and Valdez at 12  with 54 percent of Democrats polled saying they were undecided just days before primary election day.

Brian Graham of Dixie Strategies said those numbers suggest a runoff is likely, with so many likely voters undecided across Texas because they dont know who their candidates are.

Case in point: Seventy-five percent of Democrats said they were still undecided about the two primary candidates running for lieutenant governor, with even the one who has raised a six-figure sum in donations registering a dismal 13 percent with likely voters.

It comes down to money, Graham said. If you dont have millions upon millions of dollars to advertise in a state like Texas, then youre not going to be as well known.

In all, 46 percent of those Democrats polled could name a specific candidate they would vote for  another hint about the problem a Democratic nominee will face in challenging Abbott in November.

Among Republicans, nearly 84 percent polled said they supported Abbott over two unknown challengers, with about 13 percent undecided.I sat down for breakfast with a friend the day after the Florida shooting and he said, Theres something really wrong when you see a headline that 17 people were killed, and youre not even curious enough to read the story. And yes, there is something really wrong, but its not a lack of curiosity; its that we already know the story but continue to not do anything about it.

Its a disease called fear, and it has plagued us since 1994, when a number of longtime Democratic lawmakers who had supported President Clintons assault weapons ban were targeted by the National Rifle Association and defeated in the midterm election that year. The Democratic Party recoiled in fear, and the belief ever since has been that it was better just to leave gun issues well enough alone. And so we did, and watched as insanity engulfed us.

EDITORIAL: While the president flip-flops, voters and local politicians need to push on concrete regulations

EDITORIAL: Parkland students give us hope that real change is coming to our nation's gun policy

EDITORIAL: No more moments of silence: Voters must speak out against firearms

The gun lovers tell us its not about assault weapons, even though almost all mass shootings involve assault weapons. They tell us that banning them would lead down a slippery slope to banning all guns, even though countless individuals who support an assault weapons ban have said they have no issues with people owning guns for sport.

I have heard a new excuse in the wake of Florida: You cant put the toothpaste back in the tube, meaning that there are now so many assault weapons in the hands of private individuals, you cant do anything about it. Tell that to Australia. In 1996, following the killing of 35 people by a deranged man with semiautomatic weapons, Australia banned assault weapons and undertook an expensive buy-back program so gun owners would not feel as if their property had simply been confiscated. The gun lobby fought the effort with everything it had and lost. One of the sponsors of the legislation was burned in effigy, and then was reelected.

2017 PULITZER FINALIST: We, the (gun) people

But what if he hadnt been reelected? So what What if lawmakers here did the right thing  sponsor meaningful gun control legislation  and are defeated? So what. I speak with a certain degree of experience. Following what I and many others believed was not only an unprecedented but also unfair mid-decade redistricting process, I lost my congressional primary. I had nine months left in my term, and when I returned devastated and depressed to Washington, I would routinely talk about losing my seat. Finally, a staff member with whom I was close said, It wasnt your seat. The seats in Congress belong to the people.

THIESSEN: Attacking the NRA is foolhardy

He was right, of course, but, like so many members of Congress do, I had come to see the seat as mine. At first, I couldnt imagine life without it. But when the day came that I was no longer a member, the sun still rose, I still had my wife, family and real friends, and still had a great deal of life to live. My jokes suddenly werent as funny and there werent nearly as many people acting as if they were my friends, but I was able to deal with that. The point is that Congress needs to stop acting like a self-preservation society. Besides, why would anyone too fearful to do the right thing want to keep serving?

Australia has shown us the way. There has not been a mass shooting there since they passed gun control legislation in the mid-90s. So the next time someone tells you there is no way to curb the insanity, tell them you support The 3 Bs  ban and buy back  because you know it will work. We can no longer be too frightened to do the right thing.

Bell, who has served on Houston City Council and in the U.S. Congress, is a trial lawyer.While Drury will be ceding control as CEO, he will remain involved in the operation of the business as a non-executive director of the board.

Im so proud of the Xero team, the community thats formed around us, the positive impact weve had on our customers, and the shareholder value weve created, he added.

Incoming CEO Steve Vamos has more than 30 years experience in technology and digital media including senior stints at IBM, Apple and Microsoft. He is also a non-executive director of Telstra and Fletcher Building.

What Rod and Xero have accomplished is rare and remarkable, said Vamos. Im excited to have this opportunity to lead Xeros growth and development going forward. I have really enjoyed the opportunity to work with the Xero leadership team and we have a clearly communicated strategy, which we are committed to executing.

Graham Smith, chair of Xero, said the appointment comes at an ideal time for the company and has been well prepared for.Company visions and values need to represent an organizations purpose and inspire employees to contribute to that mission, so its worrying that so many employees don't know what these are, added Julie Chakraverty, founder of Rungway.

The most critical of corporate jargon seems to be the generation now entering into the workforce  with 31% believing their company goes over the top with unnecessary language. Older workers are the least likely demographic to be able to recite their company values.

The research also shows more workers want to be more involved in contributing to vision and values, so companies need to work harder to engage their people in the process and think creatively to encourage everyone to find their voice, continued Chakraverty.

Boards are really focusing on employer branding, and in the fight for talent, companies must collaborate with their people to create compelling narratives that motivate the talent they have to stay on-side. Unengaged employees will walk away if nothing changes.Page Content



Montreal and Beijing, 5 February 2018  With the Asia and Pacific (APAC) air traffic market poised to become the worlds largest by 2022, ministers in charge of civil aviation representing 36 governments met together in Beijing last week to endorse a new declaration formalizing their shared commitments on high-priority aviation safety and efficiency objectives.

Gathering at ICAOs 2018 APAC Ministerial Conference, hosted by the Peoples Republic of China, the high-level officials agreed to pursue cooperative progress on objectives relating to aviation safety oversight, State Safety Programme (SSP) implementation, airport certification, the timely implementation of the Asia/Pacific Seamless Air Traffic Management Plan, and the sharing of information and best practices for air navigation and search and rescue services.

This new declaration will also reinforce your agreements and actions supporting the establishment of independent accident investigation authorities, as well as toward some additional and very critical objectives for human capital development and the training and retention of this regions next generation aviation professionals, highlighted ICAO Council President Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu.

And from a broader standpoint it should be appreciated as an unprecedented platform for high-level interaction between your States, a signal of the level of your safety and efficiency commitments to the travelling public and industry, and a tool to help foster long-lasting relationships in the areas of bilateral or multilateral technical cooperation and assistance.

ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu commented that the Asia Pacific today is seen as a very promising region with great potential, but there are also some serious challenges for many local governments. For example, while there is rapid growth with respect to your Regions traffic, operators, and fleets, there is also quite low corresponding growth in many of your regulatory authorities resources and capabilities.

ICAOs APAC Regional Office in Bangkok has been working through the UN aviation agencys No Country Left Behind initiative to drive a range of assistance and capacity-building projects regionally, with recent successes of its Combined Action Teams on raising five States levels of safety oversight compliance above the current target in ICAOs Global Aviation Safety Plan.

This brings to mind one of the key messages that ICAO is carrying around the world today regarding the direct links between the levels of ICAO compliance in States, and their ability to realize and benefit from the positive socio-economic impacts of air transport, stressed Dr. Liu.

The Ministerial Conference in Beijing was the first such high-level gathering in the ICAO APAC Region in recent memory. The historic event brought together not only very high-level government and aviation officials from Asia and Pacific ICAO Member States, but also a number of ICAO Council Representatives and leaders and senior officials from international aviation organizations.

In terms of the overall regional picture for international air traffic in 2017, Asia and Pacific Revenue Passenger Kilometres (RPK) grew by a very healthy 9.6 per cent according to ICAOs latest figures. The region continues to manage the second largest market share of international traffic at 29 per cent, with its overall air transport sector employing over 30 million people and contributing more than $630 billion in regional GDP.

Resources for Editors



About ICAO



A specialized agency of the United Nations, ICAO was created in 1944 to promote the safe and orderly development of international civil aviation throughout the world. It sets standards and regulations necessary for aviation safety, security, efficiency, capacity and environmental protection, amongst many other priorities. The Organization serves as the forum for cooperation in all fields of civil aviation among its 192 Member States.



Aviation Benefits Report

ICAO and Aviation Development

ICAO and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

ICAO's No Country Left Behind initiative



Contacts



Anthony Philbin

Chief, Communications

aphilbin@icao.int

+1 514-954-8220

+1 438-402-8886 (mobile)

Twitter: @ICAO



William Raillant-Clark

Communications Officer

wraillantclark@icao.int

+1 514-954-6705

+1 514-409-0705 (mobile)

Twitter: @wraillantclark

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/raillantclark/



Page Content



Recognizing her status as ICAOs first female Secretary General, and her active role in inspiring new generations of women and girls to have a stronger say in all spheres of activities and at all levels, the Women Heads of Diplomatic Missions of Ottawa invited Dr. Fang Liu to take part this week in a special Roundtable discussion on Parliament Hill focused on the "Role of Women in the Decision-Making Processes".

Dr. Liu underscored the importance of gender equality being among the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted under the UNs Agenda 2030, and also made clear the critical importance of gender equality to the future of the air transport sector globally.

We have a saying in China that women hold up half the sky, but in air transport today this is definitely not the case, Dr. Liu noted. Current statistics reveal that fewer than seven per cent of the aviation workforce is female, and at the CEO level that drops to less than five per cent. This helps to explain my profound dedication to removing barriers to womens participation in air transport, and to prioritizing their professional development opportunities.

The unique and timely gender event brought together women Ambassadors and High Commissioners accredited to Ottawa, female Members of Parliament and Senators, the Chair and co-Chairs of Canadas All Party Parliamentary Womens Caucus, as well as representatives of the federal government, academia, and civil society. The Speaker of the House of the Canadian Parliament, the Honourable Mr. Geoff Regan, P.C., M.P., was also in attendance.

Pakistan navy ship HIMMAT provides medical assistance to fishing boat

by Rukhshan Mir

March 03,2018 | Source: UrduPoint

The medical team of Pakistan Navy Ship (PNS) HIMMAT provided medical assistance to severely injured fishermen onboard a fishing vessel in the open sea on Saturday.



PNS HIMMAT immediately responded to the emergency call by a Pakistani fishing vessel "MASHALLAH", and provided medical assistance to injured fishermen onboard, said a statement issued by the Pakistan Navy.



The PNS HIMMAT medical team also provided medicines, bandages and edibles. The master of the fishing vessel and the fishermen onboard thanked them for the assistance rendered by the Pakistan Navy. Besides safeguarding the maritime interests of Pakistan, Pakistan Navy has always been at the forefront to provide humanitarian assistance at sea.

 1997-2018, UrduPoint Network

Theme(s): Others.Kohl's has a problem--and they're teaming up with Aldi supermarkets in what might amount to a really creative solution.

First the problem: There are too many Kohl's stores, and a lot of them are too big.

This is actually affects the entire retail industry, as big companies are learning that customers shop more online, and that some stores with smaller square footage actually wind up selling just as much as larger stores.

Hence, you have companies like Macy's and Lord and Taylor doing deals with WeWork "to lease or sell floors in their buildings," as Marketwatch explained.

So, back in January, Kohl's CEO Kevin Mansell said his company's plan was to start

"'right-sizing' its locations by creating smaller, more profitable stores within its 87,000-square-foot boxes, leaving unused space at some 300 locations that could benefit from traffic-generating retailers like those that sell food."

Newer Kohl's stores are less than half that size--about 35,000 square feet--but of course they still own the bigger, older stores.

At the time, there was speculation that the lead candidate for this kind of placement would be Whole Foods, since Kohl's already had a partnership with Amazon.

But a few days ago, Mansell said they're going to start with Aldi, the German-owned cult favorite among U.S. supermarkets whose parent company also owns Trader joe's.

They're starting with just 10 stores, but Mansell said in an earnings call that he has a vision of expanding the store-sharing idea as many as 500 Kohl's around the United States.

That's not to say they'd all be partnerships with Aldi, however.

"The filters start at places like groceries, supermarket chains, just because they drive a lot of traffic, but it's certainly not limited to that. There are other sectors that I think are good pairings with us," Mansell said.

Among them: fitness centers, he suggested. "I think are great combination with Kohl's, and there's many others. But it's traffic drivers, strong brands, strong balance sheets where we know that we can coexist together for a long time."

One of the big questions I'd wondered about was whether Kohl's and Aldi would actually merge their operations within these arrangements.

Would employees would work on both sides and customers could check out products at either company's registers--or whether they'd remain entirely separate operations?

Actually no, according to Julia Fennelly, a company spokesperson.

"We plan to lease separate retail space to Aldi to operate Aldi stores," Fennelly clarified to me in an email (shortly after this story went live). "These would be Aldi stores adjacent to Kohl's stores, not inside of Kohl's stores," she told me in an email."

Regardless of how things work out from an operational perspective, as Progressive Grocer points out, this isn't the first time Kohl's has had a grocery store behind its doors.

In fact, Kohl's started as a Wisconsin supermarket in 1946, became the biggest grocery chain in the Milwaukee area, and only launched its first department store in 1962.

A long, complicated series of acquisitions, sales, opens and closings followed, culminating with A&A buying all of the Kohl's Food Stores locations, and then deciding to close them.Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.

It didn't go down well.

When United Airlines announced that it was replacing its guaranteed performance and attendance bonus program with a lottery, many employees felt like passengers who had just been told their flight was canceled and there wouldn't be another one for a week.

After all, most could normally expect to receive around $1,200 a year and now they were being told that they could win $100,000.

Well, one employee could win $100,000 every quarter. Most of the 86,000 employees won't get a bonus at all. While United might save, oh, perhaps $40 million or more.

United's president, Scott Kirby, told employees in a memo that the idea of winning a lot of money -- or a Mercedes C-Class car! -- "will build excitement and a sense of accomplishment with more bang for the buck."

Well, excited isn't quite what I'd call it. More, fuming, raging, livid, appalled, horrified and, oh, sickened.

I was given access to some of the internal conversations that are currently flying around United eyes and ears.

On the internal communication system, FlyingTogether, and on the private Facebook page, Galley Gab, employees from all parts of United expressed their feelings with forthright fervor.

This, for example, from a captain:

This is an affront to every employee at United Airlines. The negative feedback isn't about 'big change.' It's about a policy change that is clearly about taking money out of the pockets of the people doing the hard work to make this airline run while waving a few shiny objects to distract those hard-working people. They're not buying it.

Then there was this, from a Flight Attendant:

New FA's live on a base pay of $2,081 per month before deductions. They get based in SF, one of the most expensive cities in the country..these people depend on a little extra to make ends meet. They live in crashpads with ungodly amounts of roommates..and this goes on for 6-7 years, long enough for them to climb the ladder to be able to make a livable amount of money. To take the incentives away seems unconscionable, especially since these same young people represent our best and brightest.

The deepest feeling, though, was that the new scheme would pit one employee against another.

As one Flight Attendant put it:

This is a horrible idea. Completely against what the word United means. It is obviously a method of cutting costs, but to come at the expense of employee morale is a wondrous thing to behold. It is beyond interesting to see you try to spin a fraction of a percent chance at winning anything as better than an actual quarterly bonus for our performance as a company.

Another Flight Attendant called it "team-splitting."

One Flight Attendant told me some were saying there was a more suspicious aspect.

"Some people also say this bonus change is just another way of thinning the herd. Make enough changes that hit the pocketbook and people at the higher end of the pay scale will want to leave," he said.

There was yet another painful difficulty brought up by a Flight Attendant.

"What's worse is, even if I win, the guilt of knowing that it comes at the expense of all my co-workers winning," he said.

These seem like thoughtful people, not gratuitously raging employees. These are the very people on whose work and goodwill the airline -- whose image took a vast hit after a paying passenger was dragged bloodied down the aisle of a plane -- depends.

On Flying Together, there were more than 2,100 comments. It's not hard to imagine what proportion was, well, excited.

Some employees claimed that United had closed the comments, however an airline spokeswoman told me: "Our system requires a person to go in and post each comment after it's submitted, and because it's the weekend, we have a smaller team on duty to do that."

United's VP Anthony Scattone tried responding on the perfectly-named FlyingTogether by saying that the scheme was a reaction to employees telling the airline they wanted "more significant, meaningful rewards."

A ramp service employee replied: "How does rewarding 2 percent of the employees achieve more meaningful rewards 'in a big way,' Anthony Scattone? ridiculous."

Scattone promised that there would be more conversations in the weeks and months ahead, "as everyone adjusts."

I asked the airline whether, given these sorts of reactions, it had given any thought to, well, adjusting this game-show style lottery.Dear United colleagues,

Since announcing our planned changes to the quarterly operations incentive program, we have listened carefully to the feedback and concerns you've expressed.

Our intention was to introduce a better, more exciting program, but we misjudged how these changes would be received by many of you.

So, we are pressing the pause button on these changes to review your feedback and consider the right way to move ahead. We will be reaching out to work groups across the company, and the changes we make will better reflect your feedback.

Appreciatively,

ScottWashington, D.C., area students and supporters protest against gun violence outside of the White House on Monday, Feb. 19, 2018, after 17 people were killed in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., last week. Getty Images

In the wake of the Parkland shooting, many companies are trying to navigate incredible pressure from consumers. Delta cut the group travel discount it offered the organization's members. In reaction, the Georgia legislature punished the Atlanta-based company by leaving in place an airline fuel tax originally planned to end that cost the carrier $40 million a year. And then yesterday came the news that only 13 NRA members had ever used the discount, according to the Washington Post. That was one expensive promotion.

No wonder brands scramble to find some safe ground between consumer demands and business realities. Throw in politics and you can damage your company with a single statement or photo op when you thought you were doing the right thing.

The current debate over guns and the NRA -- and dueling boycotts -- is an example of an extreme, but the issue arises for businesses time and again, particularly the more broadly they market. Try to reach everyone and you can rile large portions of your customers, no matter what position you take on public issues.

Pulling away from the NRA recently struck many as the proper thing to do. In a letter to company employees, Delta CEO Ed Bastian described the decision as an intent "to remain neutral," adding, "[o]ur decision was not made for economic gain and our values are not for sale. We are in the process of a review to end group discounts for any group of a politically divisive nature." The letter than said that "we are supporters of the 2nd Amendment, just as we embrace the entire Constitution of the United States."

If Delta prizes neutrality, why in all that is holy and airborne did it align itself with a group and topic that had proven politically divisive for decades? To anyone that sees themselves on the NRA's side, that isn't maintaining neutrality. It comes across like a politician caught on what appears to be the wrong side of a public issue. How many office holders who have long taken NRA contributions and have expressed their support for individual gun ownership and are now trying to find safe ground? No office holder outside of a "safe" district wants to be branded as someone "supporting the murder of students," whether or not that tag is not true.

Ty Montague, founder of consultancy firm Co:, points to the difference between reaction and leadership. "Responding to consumer pressure, which I think many of these companies are doing, is a typically good response but ultimately it's not leadership," he said in an interview. "There was a time when it was sufficient for a company to maximize shareholder value, so they would take whatever actions were necessary to do that. Smart companies are beginning to sense that they have a large societal role to play and some are beginning to lead."

The difference is "between doing what you think will make you the most money in the short term and doing the things because you believe in it and you'd never change your view on it," Montague said. The big problem happens when a company changes its apparent position and values -- not the ones it necessarily talks about at times, but the ones it supports through action.

Part of the problem is wanting to have it all: love from every consumer and an ever-growing bundle of revenue and profits. Vista Outdoor is a prime example. This holding company owns some well-known brands, like CamelBak watering systems, Camp Chef stoves, and Jimmy Styks paddle boards. It also has Bushnell (optics including riflescopes), Cascade Cartridge (ammo), and Federal Premium (more ammo).

That makes it hard for Vista to take a stand against guns and ammunition. Because it hasn't, outdoor products cooperative chains REI in the U.S. and Mountain Equipment Co-op in Canada have said they would end future purchases of any products from any company owned by Vista. Coops heard from their members in droves. No one in such a business wants to anger, as a colleague who fits this description put it, "Brooklyn moms" who set their kids up with CamelBaks.

Vista is between a rock and a hard place, as it has customers across the political divide on the gun issue. When you try to be all things to all people, there is nowhere to go but behind political cross-hairs.

There are also the problems companies will have because of past decisions. Berkshire Bank was listed as part of a syndicate of banks that lent to arms manufacturer Sig Sauer. Berkshire also appeared on the lists of banks that did business with the NRA (like with co-branded credit cards) or with gun manufacturers. Now it's being hailed by some as having "cut ties" with Sig Sauer last week.

And yet, in a statement provided to left-leaning political website ThinkProgress, Berkshire Bank Senior Vice President and Marketing Officer Elizabeth Mach said: "At one time, Berkshire Bank was a participating lender in a syndicate of banks that had a lending relationship with Sig Sauer. However, as of 18 months ago we are no longer part of this lending group and we have no further lending relationship with Sig Sauer."

A year and a half after ending a relationship, they have to mention the separation because the previous association colored their image to many. And people act as though it just happened because, hey, that's politics.

Granted, companies do many different things over time. However, they should start looking ahead -- and inward. If you own or run a company, decide what it should be. Think broadly and deeply, looking at all the controversies that are foreseeable. Have clear principles that can guide you in any decision and realize that you may not keep all your customers.

"If you have genuine beliefs that are strongly held, there are going to be people who like you and people who don't like you," Montague said. But when they do like you and trust your positions, "customers are incredibly loyal." They view such companies as more modern and the businesses enjoy greater employee satisfaction and retention as well as greater customer loyalty.In 2009, Sawyer Sparks turned down a $300,000 Shark Tank deal for his gluten-free modeling-clay startup, Soy-Yer Dough. Kevin O'Leary, in a very Mr. Wonderful move, had insisted Sparks move production to China. That would have killed Sparks's dream of creating jobs in his hometown of Bloomfield, Indiana. Nine years later, Soy-Yer Dough is still a small company, with just eight employees. Sparks says he has enough business to employ 20 but can't find enough good people locally. If he buys new equipment, that's three people he doesn't have to hire. But he's been hesitating. "The business side of me knows equipment is the proper way to go," says Sparks. "The humanitarian in me wants to be able to offer more jobs."

The data shows that fast-growing companies are hiring fewer people, even as revenue swells--and even while it's the credo of politicians, the press, and entrepreneurs that starting companies means creating jobs. Founders choke up talking about their full parking lots and how many employees' children they've helped put through college. In economically challenged regions, starting a business is considered among the highest of public callings.

But in 1997, about 3 percent of firms with 10 or more employees had notched at least 20 percent annual employment growth over three years, reports the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By 2012--the most recent year for which data is available--that share had fallen roughly one-third. That same year, the average number of employees added from a company's launch through year five hit the lowest level since the 1990s, according to the Kauffman Foundation. That level has risen since, but it's still far below where it was in the '80s. New and growing companies are the most prolific job creators, but the number of jobs they create is falling.

Despite the warm feelings generated by creating jobs, employees are a cost--something businesspeople want to minimize. What's changing is companies' ability to get by with fewer and fewer people thanks to the (growing) litany of tasks that can be digitized and automated. In 2018, building for success increasingly means building lean.

Job creation is lionized by politicians and society, so founders like to discuss it, says Scott Shane, an economics professor at Case Western Reserve University. But few understand the current math. "If you have a company that increased employment by 50 percent and tripled its revenue, and people ask, 'Did you grow employment?' the CEO's answer is yes," says Shane. But "what is not being captured in the discussion is that every additional dollar of revenue is being produced with fewer cents of labor."

Surveys of the Inc. 500 suggest reasons that go beyond dollars. Year after year, CEOs say their greatest obstacle to growth is finding and keeping good people. But founders figure out ways to do without when resources are scarce--and business models built for periods of low unemployment don't need to change when labor is abundant.

And, of course, founders don't like having to fire those they hired. In 2017, more than a third of Inc. 500 CEOs said that worry about employees' livelihoods weighed against their decision to start a business. (The only more common concern: fear of failure.) For leaders of small companies, who know each employee personally, such misgivings are keenly felt.

That doesn't stop founders like Sparks (who expects to employ another 20 to 30 people when he opens a brewery and brewpub in Bloomfield). But they can hire more staff only if their companies survive the competition.You want a diverse workforce, but discriminating against any single group is still illegal. A lawsuit filed by Arne Wilberg, who worked as a recruiter at YouTube for four years (and five years in other positions), claims that YouTube set quotas, and told recruiters to cancel interviews with candidates that didn't mean the company's diversity goals. This meant that white and Asian males were rejected on the basis of their race and gender alone.

Sometimes people think that only minorities and women are in a "protected" class, but the reality is that every human on the planet is in a "protected class" according to US law. The law prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and race, period. It doesn't just protect people of certain races.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Google (who owns YouTube) will "vigorously" defend it's hiring practices. A Google spokeswoman said:

"We have a clear policy to hire candidates based on their merit, not their identity. At the same time, we unapologetically try to find a diverse pool of qualified candidates for open roles, as this helps us hire the best people, improve our culture, and build better products."

Whether or not Wilberg's allegations are true is up in the air, as it is with all lawsuits at the beginning, but his allegations are serious. Refusing to consider a candidate because of race or gender (regardless of what that race and gender are), is a violation of Title VII.

Under Title VII, employers are allowed to make efforts to expand their applicant pool by promoting diversity, but the actual candidates have to be considered on their merit, and not their skin color.

The Wall Street Journal says that Wilberg's allegations are corroborated by others at Youtube. They write:

The lawsuit filed by Mr. Wilberg and people familiar with the hiring practices allege that since at least 2016, YouTube recruiters had hiring quotas or targets for "diversity candidates," including black, Hispanic and female candidates. For example, in the first quarter of 2016, recruiters were expected to hire five new employees each, all of them from underrepresented groups, the lawsuit alleges.

This isn't the only diversity lawsuit against YouTube's parent company, Google. James Damore claimed that the company discriminated against white males and conservatives. (Political views are protected in California but not according to federal law.) And in September 2017, three women filed a class-action lawsuit claiming gender and pay bias against women.

One plaintiffs, Kelly Ellis, alleged that she was assigned to a lower level than her similarly qualified male counterparts when she was hired as a software engineer on the Google Photos team in 2010. In the complaint, Ms. Ellis claimed she was brought in at a level typically given to new college graduates, despite her four years of engineering experience. She asked for a promotion after learning that she had equal or better qualifications than male engineers in a higher level, and after receiving "excellent performance reviews." She said she was denied. According to the complaint, Ms. Ellis resigned from Google around July 2014 due to "the sexist culture."

Regardless of what the truth is--and it's possible that Google simultaneously removes white and Asian men from the candidate pool and underpays female employees--it's clear that many people believe Google has a problem with how it treats employees and job candidates.

Remember, if you want to implement a diversity initiative, you certainly can do that, but you need to pay people fairly and hire the best candidate for every job, regardless of what the person looks like. If you don't, you're guilty of illegal discrimination.Dulce Garcia is an undocumented immigrant who was brought to the U.S. from Mexico at the age of 4. As a Dreamer, the name bestowed on people like Garcia, she was unable to apply for student loans, so she worked odd jobs selling flowers, waiting tables, and parking cars throughout high school, college, and eventually law school to pay off her debts. In 2016, Garcia fulfilled her life-long ambition of practicing immigration law when she opened her own firm in Chula Vista, California, where she has since hired six employees and two interns.

However, in the past six months, the uncertainty of whether she'd be allowed to remain in the U.S. has taken its toll. The Trump administration has vowed to dismantle Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an Obama-era program that offers short-term protections for undocumented immigrants like Garcia. As a result, the entrepreneur has laid off half of her workforce. She also plans to close an additional office location in the southern part of the city, where she serves the primarily Spanish-speaking population. Garcia adds that her license to practice the law is in jeopardy as well. "I have worked so hard to get to this place, and now I don't know what will become of me," she says.

Monday marks the date that President Trump had planned to end the DACA program full-stop. His order was blocked by a federal judge--which the Supreme Court declined to reconsider last week, effectively keeping the program running. However, hundreds of thousands of Dreamers remain in limbo, as Congress attempts to negotiate a longer-term fix that may offer them a path to citizenship.

Along with Garcia, dozens of Dreamers have started their own companies since coming to the U.S., and the uncertainty surrounding the DACA program has them girding for losses and, in the worst-case scenario, deportation.

For many of these immigrant founders, returning to their country of birth is not feasible, and perhaps even dangerous. Garcia, who has long been out of touch with her family in Mexico, notes that DACA recipients can travel abroad only in very limited circumstances-- for instance, if they are able to obtain an advance parole document from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The entrepreneur has not returned home since she left originally--not even for her grandmother's funeral last year. "I still don't know where she is buried, and it breaks my heart," she adds. And given that she obtained her license to practice law in California exclusively, it would be difficult for Garcia pick up and move her business to Mexico.

Diego Corzo, the founder of the real estate firm Nino Group in Austin, Texas, is in a similar situation. His company, which sells around 80 homes each year and solicits business for related services such as appraisers and home stagers, grossed around $200,000 in sales last year. Corzo immigrated to the U.S. from Peru as a small child, and points out that his skills are not transferable to the business climate in Lima. In the meantime, "I have people [Americans] who rely on me to get paid every month," Corzo says. Should his documents expire--which would cause him to lose his driver's license--Corzo says he would plan to hire someone to drive him around to rental properties, until and unless he is forced to flee the country.

A question of losses.

What often gets lost in the conversation surrounding DACA, analysts suggest, is the sheer productivity of these roughly 800,000 workers. Rescinding the program could mean the loss of as much as $460 billion in economic output over the next decade, according to a recently released report from the House Committee on Small Business, which was released by ranking member Nydia Velazquez (D.-N.Y.)

The report also points out that Dreamers start businesses at more than twice the rate of the general population, in large part because they are used to making ends meet without help from the government. "We are not only part of the workforce--we are also part of the entrepreneurial community," says Ivan Guzman, a Mexican immigrant and Dreamer who co-founded a restaurant, La Avenida, in the East Harlem section of Manhattan in 2016. His business, which employs eight people, generates around $240,000 in annual revenue selling authentic Mexican fare.

Meanwhile, Dreamers contribute some $2 billion in local and state taxes annually--including to programs (e.g., Social Security) from which they are not eligible to receive any benefits.

Garcia, for her part, has paid a generous sum to the U.S. government: "If you told me five years ago that I would be paying $10,000 a year in employer taxes, I would think you were crazy," she says.Half a century into an illustrious career, with its queens and detectives and other kaleidoscopic women, one thing still eluded Helen Mirren.

Ive always wanted to be in an Italian movie, she says, recalling her lack of fascination with the American films she saw growing up in Essex. What alerted to me the potential of film as an art form was Italian film.

So when the director Paolo Virzi asked her to star in The Leisure Seeker  his version of an American road-trip movie  Mirren climbed into a recreational vehicle with Donald Sutherland in the drivers seat and an Italian crew in the back, and set off in the sweltering Georgia heat.

Mirren and Sutherland play Ella and John Spencer, a long-married couple who defy their adult children by absconding in August 2016, during the early days of the presidential campaign, for one last journey in their decrepit RV. Destination: Key West, Florida, where John, a retired English professor whose failing mind clings hard to beloved literary quotations, can visit the home of Ernest Hemingway.

I like being a foreigner in this country and, in a way, this film is very gentle and loving but as foreign as I on a certain kind of America, Mirren says. Later this year, she plays Mother Ginger in Disneys The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, alongside Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy and Morgan Freeman as Drosselmeyer.

Mirren and Donald Sutherland as a runaway couple in the The Leisure Seeker (Sony Classics)

This is a road-trip movie, but its also something more.

I think its about love. So many movies are about love, but theyre about the beginning of love or sometimes about the middle of love. This is about the end of a love story  the trials and challenges of the happily-ever-after bit. Its much more difficult than the beginning.

The Clinton and Trump campaigns each get a nod in the film. A Vanity Fair headline from November suggested that youd like to play President Trump.

Oh no, I didnt say that. I think I may well have said thats an interesting character to play. These people who want to make that kind of a mark upon the world are always incredibly flawed and also incredibly self-delusional. They have to be.

You called him Shakespearean.

Whether its Timon of Athens or Macbeth or Coriolanus or Henry V, Shakespeare was brilliant at looking at the public figure, and then immediately underneath that human being full of insecurities or failures or paranoia or delusion. So on that level, I think all of these people are Shakespearean. I dont think Barack Obama was a Shakespearean. I have to say I look at Barack with very, very romantic eyes. Maybe hes Romeo.

Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up

Have you ever taken a road trip?

Yes, my husband [the director Taylor Hackford] and I drove across the South from Natchez to Charleston in a van. We were buying furniture for our house in Los Angeles, so the van got more and more filled as we drove with less and less room for us. We stayed in bed and breakfasts, and I learned about all-you-can-eat buffets  fried chicken, mac and cheese, grits, collard greens, total soul food. That was a fabulous trip.

Mirren in Winchester (Lionsgate/CBS Films)

How do road trips differ in Europe?

I think it is an American invention, actually. I was astounded when I first came to America how people would get in the car and drive for five hours without even thinking about it. I think 50 per cent of Americans dont own a passport because theres an awful lot of America to see. Theres a ubiquitousness that Europeans find quite difficult to deal with, the fact that you can drive for thousands of miles into a place that looks exactly the same, with a Marshalls, Staples, TJ Maxx, Home Depot. But I have yet to go to a part of America that is not unbelievably beautiful  New Mexico, the Smoky Mountains, South Dakota, the redwood forests, Yosemite, the bayou.

In Winchester, out now, you play a woman haunted by the ghosts of people killed by the Winchester rifle.

I was part of the Control Arms campaign created by Oxfam to limit the sale of small arms in the world. Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, America  all are making fortunes by selling armaments. In Yemen and the Arabian desert, people were getting their hands on guns to basically raid the next village. Its absolutely out of control.

She won an Oscar for her performance as Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen (AP)

Youre a longtime Hollywood sex symbol. What do you make of the #MeToo and Times Up movements?

Its an amazing moment, isnt it? Ive never wanted to be younger than I am, but the only thing that makes me think, God, I wish I was 18 now, is that 18-year-olds now are coming into a very different world. People often ask, What would you say to your younger self? And I say I would teach my younger self to say, F*** off with more alacrity and confidence, and more often. I think the movement will have its flaws and its backlash. The whole uncomfortable, wonderful-but-weird relationship between men and women has got a lot more unravelling to do. But Im thrilled the journey has started. Honestly, I thought it was something I went through when I was young but that it was over. I had no idea. Im an idiot.

 New York TimesFrances McDormand paid powerful tribute to the women at this year's Oscars ceremony during her acceptance speech for the Best Actress award.

The 60-year-old beat Meryl Streep, Saoirse Ronan, Sally Hawkins and Margot Robbie to be named the Best Actress at the 90th Oscars - for her role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

McDormand used her platform to champion all of the women in the film industry, from actresses to directors, screenwriters to cinematographers.

Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Show all 62 1 /62 Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Producer J. Miles Dale (L), director Guillermo del Toro (at microphone) and cast/crew accept Best Picture for 'The Shape of Water' onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards uillermo del Toro and Sally Hawkins take the stage to accept the Oscar for Best Picture for "The Shape of Water" from presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway Reuters Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway take the stage to present the Oscar for Best Picture REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actresses Sally Hawkins, Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie and Meryl Streep embrace after Frances McDormand's Best Actress acceptance speech Lucas Jackson/Reuters Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Frances McDormand wins the Best Actress Oscar for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Reuters Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actors Jodie Foster (L) and Jennifer Lawrence speak onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards British actor Gary Oldman delivers a speech after he won the Oscar for Best Actor in "Darkest Hour" during the 90th Annual Academy Awards show on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California AFP/Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actor Emma Stone speaks onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards David Malinowski and Armie Hammer attend the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Composer Alexandre Desplat (R), winner of the Best Original Score award for 'The Shape of Water,' motions in the press room to a video feed of director Guillermo del Toro accepting the Best Director award Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Guillermo del Toro accepts the Oscar for Best Director for "The Shape of Water" from presenter Emma Stone (R) REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Alexandre Desplat, winner of Best Original Score for the film The Shape of Water, is congratulated by the film's stars Sally Hawkins (L) and Octavia Spencer (R) REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Presenter Emma Stone walks on stage REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Jimmy Kimmel and Molly McNearney attend the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Call Me By Your Name stars Armie Hammer (L) and Timothee Chalamet embrace during the Oscars show REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Greta Gerwig gets touched up during the ad break at the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Jordan Peele accepts the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for "Get Out." REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Best Original Screenplay winner Jordan Peele (R) hugs Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya (L) REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actress Nicole Kidman arrives on stage to present the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Sam Rockwell and Taraji P. Henson attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Andra Day and Common sing Best Original Song nominee Stand Up for Something from Marshall REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards James Ivory wins the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Call Me by Your Name REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Ashley Judd (L), Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek (R) take the stage REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Tiffany Haddish (L) and Maya Rudolph take the stage to present the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Natalia Lafourcade and Gael Garcia Bernal attend the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Sebastian Lelio with his Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for A Fantastic Woman alongside Rita Moreno in the press room at the 90th Academy Awards held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood PA Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Coco wins the Best Animated Feature Film Oscar REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Kelly Marie Tran, Oscar Isaac and Mark Hamill present the Best Animated Short Film Oscar REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Margot Robbie gets emotional watching co-star Allison Janey accept her award Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Allison Janey accepts the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for "I, Tonya." REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Matthew McConaughey talks with Marcus Henderson REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Rita Moreno, wearing the same dress she wore to the ceremony she was awarded Best Supporting Actress in a supporting role REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Sam Rockwell poses in the press room with the Oscar for Actor in Supporting Role AFP/Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Gael Garcia Bernal performs on stage Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Miguel and Natalia LaFourcade perform a song from Coco REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Presenters Lupita Nyong'o and Kumail Nanjiani REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Kobe Bryant poses with his award for Best Animated Short Film Award for "Dear Basketball" REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Helen Mirren shows of a jet ski on offer to the shortest Oscars speech Disney ABC Television Group Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Daniela Vega presents during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski and Lucy Sibbick hold their gongs for Best Makeup and Hair in the 'Darkest Hour' Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actor/singer Mary J. Blige performs onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actor Taraji P. Henson speaks onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actress Eva Marie Saint presents the Oscar for Costume Design REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Presenters Greta Gerwig and Laura Dern take the stage to give out the award for Best Documentary REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Sam Rockwell accepts the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri AFP/Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actor Lakeith Stanfield takes on his Get Out role once again onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Viola Davis waits to present the award for best supporting actor Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Daniel Kaluuya and Timothee Chalamet greet photographers on the 90th academy awards red carpet Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Mary J. Blige, the first person to be nominated in both the acting and best song categories, arrives at the 90th academy awards REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Jennifer Lawrence attempts to find her seat in the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards The Shape of Waters' Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones embrace on the Oscars red carpet Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Tiffany Haddish attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards wearing a traditional dress from Eritrea Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Salma Hayek takes the red carpet at the 90th Academy Awards REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Diane Warren and Helen Mirren share a laugh at the 90th Annual Academy Awards Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards James Ivory arrives at the 90th academy awards in a custom made shirt featuring Call Me By Your Names' Timothee Chalamet REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Whoopi Goldberg attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Emma Stone arrives at the Academy Awards REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Andra Day arrives at the Academy Awards Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Solidarity sisters Ashley Judd, Mira Sorvino and Jane Fonda celebrate Times Up on the red carpet Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman arrives on the 90th Annual Academy Awards red carpet Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Patrick Stewart and Sunny Ozell display their Times Up pins REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Get Out's Allison Williams glides down the Oscars carpet REUTERS

Okay, so I'm hyperventilating a little bit. If I fall over, pick me up cause I've got some things to say," she began.

So I think this is what Chloe Kim must have felt like after doing back-to-back 1080s in the Olympic halfpipe. Did you see that? Okay, that's what it feels like.

I want to thank Martin McDonagh, look what you did. We are a bunch of hooligans and anarchists but we do clean up nice. I want to thank every single person in this building.

And my sister Dorothy. I love you, Dot. And I especially want to thank my clan, Joel and Pedro "McCoen". These two stalwart individuals were well-raised by their feminist mothers. They value themselves, each other and those around them. I know you are proud of me and that fills me with everlasting joy.

And now I want to get some perspective. If I may be so honoured to have all the female nominees in every category stand with me in this room tonight, the actors - Meryl, if you do it, everybody else will, c'mon - the filmmakers, the producers, the directors, the writers, the cinematographer, the composers, the songwriters, the designers. C'mon!

Okay, look around everybody. Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed.

Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up

Don't talk to us about it at the parties tonight. Invite us into your office in a couple days, or you can come to ours, whatever suits you best, and we'll tell you all about them.

I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: inclusion rider.

For all the details on what went down at this year's Oscars ceremony visit here. You can also check out the winners in full here.Police in Los Angeles said they have arrested a man on suspicion of stealing actor Frances McDormands Oscars trophy after the Academy Awards.

Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman Rosario Herrera, said Terry Bryant had been arrested on Sunday evening. He was being held on $20,000 bail.

McDormand received the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The award was apparently stolen during the Governors Ball after party. Ms Herrera said Mr Bryant had a ticket for the event, according to the Associated Press. It is not clear whether he has yet had an opportunity to enter a plea or if he has been assigned a lawyer.

McDormand had earlier made headlines for an acceptance speech in which she asked all the women nominees to get on their feet, which they did.

Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed. Dont talk to us about it at the parties tonight, she said.

 Oscars 2018: Mary J. Blige and Diane Warren explain why they stopped for an interview with Ryan Seacrest

Invite us into your office in a couple days, or you can come to ours  whichever suits you best  and well tell you all about them.

Later, she was seen distraught and in tears, and telling people that her statuette was missing.

Somebody tried to steal my Oscar at the Governors Ball, she told producer Jason Blum, according to the Los Angeles Times. Let me see someone try to pawn that.

Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Show all 62 1 /62 Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Producer J. Miles Dale (L), director Guillermo del Toro (at microphone) and cast/crew accept Best Picture for 'The Shape of Water' onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards uillermo del Toro and Sally Hawkins take the stage to accept the Oscar for Best Picture for "The Shape of Water" from presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway Reuters Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway take the stage to present the Oscar for Best Picture REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actresses Sally Hawkins, Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie and Meryl Streep embrace after Frances McDormand's Best Actress acceptance speech Lucas Jackson/Reuters Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Frances McDormand wins the Best Actress Oscar for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Reuters Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actors Jodie Foster (L) and Jennifer Lawrence speak onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards British actor Gary Oldman delivers a speech after he won the Oscar for Best Actor in "Darkest Hour" during the 90th Annual Academy Awards show on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California AFP/Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actor Emma Stone speaks onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards David Malinowski and Armie Hammer attend the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Composer Alexandre Desplat (R), winner of the Best Original Score award for 'The Shape of Water,' motions in the press room to a video feed of director Guillermo del Toro accepting the Best Director award Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Guillermo del Toro accepts the Oscar for Best Director for "The Shape of Water" from presenter Emma Stone (R) REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Alexandre Desplat, winner of Best Original Score for the film The Shape of Water, is congratulated by the film's stars Sally Hawkins (L) and Octavia Spencer (R) REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Presenter Emma Stone walks on stage REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Jimmy Kimmel and Molly McNearney attend the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Call Me By Your Name stars Armie Hammer (L) and Timothee Chalamet embrace during the Oscars show REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Greta Gerwig gets touched up during the ad break at the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Jordan Peele accepts the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for "Get Out." REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Best Original Screenplay winner Jordan Peele (R) hugs Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya (L) REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actress Nicole Kidman arrives on stage to present the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Sam Rockwell and Taraji P. Henson attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Andra Day and Common sing Best Original Song nominee Stand Up for Something from Marshall REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards James Ivory wins the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Call Me by Your Name REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Ashley Judd (L), Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek (R) take the stage REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Tiffany Haddish (L) and Maya Rudolph take the stage to present the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Natalia Lafourcade and Gael Garcia Bernal attend the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Sebastian Lelio with his Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film for A Fantastic Woman alongside Rita Moreno in the press room at the 90th Academy Awards held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood PA Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Coco wins the Best Animated Feature Film Oscar REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Kelly Marie Tran, Oscar Isaac and Mark Hamill present the Best Animated Short Film Oscar REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Margot Robbie gets emotional watching co-star Allison Janey accept her award Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Allison Janey accepts the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for "I, Tonya." REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Matthew McConaughey talks with Marcus Henderson REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Rita Moreno, wearing the same dress she wore to the ceremony she was awarded Best Supporting Actress in a supporting role REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Sam Rockwell poses in the press room with the Oscar for Actor in Supporting Role AFP/Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Gael Garcia Bernal performs on stage Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Miguel and Natalia LaFourcade perform a song from Coco REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Presenters Lupita Nyong'o and Kumail Nanjiani REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Kobe Bryant poses with his award for Best Animated Short Film Award for "Dear Basketball" REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Helen Mirren shows of a jet ski on offer to the shortest Oscars speech Disney ABC Television Group Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Daniela Vega presents during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski and Lucy Sibbick hold their gongs for Best Makeup and Hair in the 'Darkest Hour' Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actor/singer Mary J. Blige performs onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actor Taraji P. Henson speaks onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actress Eva Marie Saint presents the Oscar for Costume Design REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Presenters Greta Gerwig and Laura Dern take the stage to give out the award for Best Documentary REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Sam Rockwell accepts the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Three Billboards outside Ebbing Missouri AFP/Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Actor Lakeith Stanfield takes on his Get Out role once again onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Viola Davis waits to present the award for best supporting actor Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Daniel Kaluuya and Timothee Chalamet greet photographers on the 90th academy awards red carpet Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Mary J. Blige, the first person to be nominated in both the acting and best song categories, arrives at the 90th academy awards REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Jennifer Lawrence attempts to find her seat in the Dolby Theatre Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards The Shape of Waters' Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones embrace on the Oscars red carpet Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Tiffany Haddish attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards wearing a traditional dress from Eritrea Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Salma Hayek takes the red carpet at the 90th Academy Awards REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Diane Warren and Helen Mirren share a laugh at the 90th Annual Academy Awards Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards James Ivory arrives at the 90th academy awards in a custom made shirt featuring Call Me By Your Names' Timothee Chalamet REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Whoopi Goldberg attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Emma Stone arrives at the Academy Awards REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Andra Day arrives at the Academy Awards Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Solidarity sisters Ashley Judd, Mira Sorvino and Jane Fonda celebrate Times Up on the red carpet Rex Features Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman arrives on the 90th Annual Academy Awards red carpet Getty Images Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Patrick Stewart and Sunny Ozell display their Times Up pins REUTERS Oscars 2018: memorable moments from the 90th Academy Awards Get Out's Allison Williams glides down the Oscars carpet REUTERS

Reports said the statuette was quickly recovered after a photographer spotted it being taken.

After some brief time apart, Frances and her Oscar were happily reunited. They celebrated the reunion with a double cheeseburger from In-N-Out Burger, said McDormands publicist, Simon Halls.

The 60-year-old actress, who collected her second Oscar winner, previously scooped awards at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild, Independent Spirit and BAFTA ceremonies.

On Sunday night, she beat nominees Sally Hawkins for her role in the The Shape of Water, Margot Robbie of I, Tonya, Saoirse Ronan for her acting in Lady Bird and 21-time nominee Meryl Streep for her portrayal of Washington Post publisher Katherine Graham in The Post.

Her first Oscar came in 1996 for Fargo, directed by her husband Joel Coen and his brother Ethan.Rita Moreno went to the 90th Academy Awards wearing the same dress she wore in 1962.

The 86-year-old icon returned to the Oscars donning her memorable black and gold gown from the 1962 ceremony.

It was that year Moreno won the award for Best Supporting Actress for starring in West Side Story.

The legendary gown was designed the late Filipino designer Pitoy Moreno who passed away on January 15.

The dress stands out for its "obi" fabric, which was used in Japanese kimonos.

It's been 56 years since she wore the dress, but it's remained completely intact.

Recommended Taraji P Henson throws subtle shade at Ryan Seacrest

She did make a slight change: the dress, which was once a sleeveless and boat-neck was transformed into a strapless number.

"You think it would tarnish! Its been hanging in my closet," Moreno said of her look to Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet.

The One Day at a Time star was at the ceremony on Sunday night to present an award.

Moreno's look gained quite the attention on social media.

One user said, "Long live Rita Moreno."

While another said, "Rita Moreno is wearing the same dress she wore in 1962. Meanwhile I can't fit in 2017's pajama pants."

It's unanimous: Moreno's look definitely stole the red carpet.Arctic Monkeys have announced six new European live dates for May after being revealed as headliners for a string of summer festivals.

The rock band will kick things off at Columbiahalle in Berlin before travelling to Rome, Paris, Milan, Dusseldorf and Copenhagen - warming up at smaller venues before their headline series begins.

The full dates so far are below:

22 May - Columbiahalle, Berlin

26 May - Caver, Rome

29 May - Le Zenith, Paris

4 June - Mediolanum Forum, Milan

26 June - Mitsubishi Electric Halle, Dusseldorf

27 June - Royal Arena, Copenhagen

Tickets for the shows go on sale Friday 9 March at 9am (UK time). For more info head to the Arctic Monkeys website.

The Sheffield quartet had previously confirmed a further 14 dates across Europe as well as one UK date at TRNSMT in Glasgow.

The band - who are poised to announce details of their sixth album - will also play Flow Festival, NOS Alive, and Sziget in Budapest.

Fans flocked to their revamped website which showcased a brand new logo, expected to feature dominantly on the artwork of their next record and future live shows.

Arctic Monkeys full festival dates are as follows:

2 June - Primavera Sound, Barcelona

8 June - Best Kept Secret, Netherlands

14-17 June - Firefly Festival, US

22-24 June - Southside Festival, Germany

22-24 June - Hurricane Festival, Germany

1 July - TRNSMT Festival, Glasgow

4 July - Opener Festival, Poland

6 July - Rockwave Festival, Athens

8 July - Rock Werchter, Belgium

12 July - NOS Alive, Lisbon

13 July Mad Cool, Madrid

8 August - Oya, Norway

9-11 August - Way Out West Festival, Sweden

11 August - Flow Festival, Finland

14 August - Sziget Festival, Hungary

Follow Independent Culture on FacebookThe former head of the Irish police force ordered that a whistleblower be buried over malpractice claims, the alleged victim has said.

Sgt Maurice McCabe was left feeling isolated and alone after a smear campaign allegedly ordered by ex-Garda commissioner Martin Callinan. The handling of the long-running affair almost brought down the Irish Government last year.

Sgt McCabe faced unfounded and false allegations of sexual assault on a child and a Facebook post described him as Maurice the Rat after he made claims of wrongdoing among officers including the quashing of penalty points.

Mr Callinan has denied sending texts to be disseminated among other officers, journalists and politicians raising the fact he had been investigated for sexual assault.

Sgt McCabe told the Disclosures Tribunal in Dublin Mr Callinans messages to a press officer included: Do him down, use your phone and do him down. He has to be buried.

Sgt McCabe added: He would send it on to other senior gardai, ex-commissioner (Noirin) OSullivan, and he would send it on to journalists and he sent it on to a number of TDs (parliamentarians).

A Garda whistleblower whose case almost brought down the Irish Government has arrived at Dublin Castle to give evidence to the Disclosures Tribunal. pic.twitter.com/oQcRuYI19I  michael mchugh (@mmchugh02) March 5, 2018

The whistleblower also complained of alleged harassment, bullying, discrimination and victimisation at the hands of a superintendent.

He said: There are an element that would just blank you, not speak to you.

The culture is there, it is extremely hard to speak out.

He added: You certainly are isolated and alone.

The senior officer in the Garda, former Commissioner Noirin OSullivan, was determined to ensure a safe working environment and dignity at work, letters before the public inquiry into how police handled the whistleblower claims said.

The saga surrounding the treatment of his disclosure of alleged wrongdoing among police in the Irish border counties of Cavan-Monaghan contributed to the end of the careers of former Taoiseach Enda Kenny, two former chiefs of the Garda force and ex-justice minister and later deputy Prime Minister Frances Fitzgerald.

His case was raised with successive Garda commissioners and justice ministers.

Before Christmas, Mrs Fitzgerald resigned to avoid a snap election over her handling of the affair.

Expand Close Martin Callinan has denied sending texts to be disseminated among other officers, journalists and politicians (Niall Carson/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Martin Callinan has denied sending texts to be disseminated among other officers, journalists and politicians (Niall Carson/PA)

The Disclosures Tribunal headed by Judge Peter Charleton at Dublin Castle received oral evidence from Sgt McCabe about his harrowing ordeal on Monday.

That included dealing with rumours about children.

The officer struggled to keep composure as he recalled being told details of claims by the former chairman of a parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC), John McGuinness, which investigated the matter.

Sgt McCabe said: He said that I sexually abused children.

He was asked to meet Mr McGuinness at a roundabout on the outskirts of Dublin, adding: He grabbed my arm getting out of the car and said it was very, very serious.

Sgt McCabe said he could not believe what he was hearing and afterwards drove home in a daze.

The witness acknowledged 10 officers he worked with in Mullingar traffic corps had supported him 100% and he had received 300-400 letters, cards and emails of support and no hate mail.

Other documents before the Tribunal also showed that under former Garda commissioner Noirin OSullivan, dignity at work seminars were held demonstrating her determination to ensure a safe working environment.

Unprecedented attention had been paid to the McCabe case, the letter from senior management said.

The judge said: They are taking your position very seriously.

He added structures were put in place to address issues Sgt McCabe had outlined, the feeling he had not been listened to.A police whistleblower whose malpractice claims almost brought down the Irish Government said he was blanked and isolated by members of the force.

Sgt Maurice McCabe complained of alleged harassment, bullying, discrimination and victimisation at the hands of a superintendent. He also faced unfounded and false allegations of a sexual assault.

The saga surrounding the handling of his disclosure of alleged wrongdoing among police in the Irish border counties of Cavan-Monaghan contributed to the end of the careers of former taoiseach Enda Kenny, two former chiefs of the Garda force and ex-justice minister and later deputy prime pinister Frances Fitzgerald.

Expand Close Former justice minister Frances Fitzgerald (Niall Carson/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Former justice minister Frances Fitzgerald (Niall Carson/PA)

Sgt McCabe told the Disclosures Tribunal: There are an element that would just blank you, not speak to you.

The culture is there, it is extremely hard to speak out.

He said 10 officers he worked with in Mullingar traffic corps had supported him 100%.

But he added: You certainly are isolated and alone.

Before Christmas, Mrs Fitzgerald resigned to avoid a snap election over her handling of the whistleblower scandal.

She became embroiled after questions began to be asked about who knew what and when about an aggressive strategy being employed by lawyers for former Garda commissioner Noirin OSullivan against the whistleblower during a private inquiry.

Expand Close Former Garda commissioner Noirin OSullivan (Niall Carson/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Former Garda commissioner Noirin OSullivan (Niall Carson/PA)

She initially said she had forgotten an email which notified her of the approach.

Subsequently, it emerged she had received at least three emails on the issue in 2015. She was told not to intervene.

The Disclosures Tribunal at Dublin Castle, led by Mr Justice Peter Charleton, is probing how the Garda

handled Sgt McCabes whistleblowing.

Sgt McCabe had accused the force of malpractice including the quashing of penalty points.

He later made a complaint against former Commissioner Martin Callinan, the head of the Irish police force, which was brought to attention of former justice minister Alan Shatter.

Sgt McCabe said a serious error of judgment was made by placing Superintendent Michael Clancy

on a promotion list.

During the fallout from the matter, Messers Callinan and Shatter later resigned.

A previous closed inquiry, the OHiggins Report, has said Mr Shatter, Mr Callinan and the Department of Justice handled complaints made by Mr McCabe in a professional and appropriate manner at all times.

Part of the Disclosures Tribunals terms of reference is considering whether the false and unfounded

child sex abuse allegation made against Sgt McCabe in 2006 was used against him.

It is also investigating whether Mrs OSullivans lawyers advised that Sgt McCabes motivation should be challenged at the private OHiggins inquiry despite public support for whistleblowers.Theresa May has indicated she is looking at the customs arrangements between the US and Canada as a way of solving the Irish border issue created by Brexit.

But the Prime Minister, who has insisted she remains committed to avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic, was mocked over the comparison  with one MP telling her the US-Canada frontier has armed guards.

In Dublin, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar made clear a solution that resembled the North American border would not be acceptable in Ireland.

The issue of the border is one of the most complex problems to be resolved in the Brexit process and Mrs May said the Government was examining examples from around the world.

Updating MPs following her Mansion House speech on Brexit Mrs May said: There are many examples of different arrangements for customs around the rest of the world.

Indeed we are looking at those, including for example the border between the United States and Canada.

Anyone who's visited the US-Canada border will know that it's a very hard border indeed, with customs checks, barriers and armed guardsChris Leslie

Brexit Secretary David Davis has previously highlighted the operation of the frontier near the Ford plant in Detroit as an example of how cross-border trade can operate smoothly.

But when it was later pointed out to the Prime Minister by shadow Brexit minister Jenny Chapman that there were armed customs guards at the US-Canada border, Mrs May said the Government was looking at arrangements in a number of countries.

Labour MP Chris Leslie, a supporter of the pro-EU Open Britain group, said: The Government has repeatedly ruled out any return to a hard border on the island of Ireland, as well as any new physical infrastructure at the border.

But anyone whos visited the US-Canada border will know that its a very hard border indeed, with customs checks, barriers and armed guards.

Leave campaigners told us thered be no change to the border if we voted to leave the EU. That promise is looking less deliverable by the day.

The Taoiseach was asked about Mrs Mays remarks after a meeting with Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel at Government Buildings in Dublin on Monday evening.

Mr Varadkar recalled his own trip to the US-Canada border last year.

I visited the US-Canada border, I visited it back in August, and I saw a hard border with physical infrastructure, with customs posts, people in uniforms with arms and dogs and that is definitely not a solution that is one that we can possibly entertain, he said.

In the Commons, Mrs May received support from Tories on both sides of the Brexit divide, significantly including potential rebels who could inflict defeat on the Government over the plans to leave the EUs customs union.

Leading rebel Anna Soubry said no-one could doubt Mrs Mays determination to get the very best deal for our country in these most difficult of negotiations but warned there would be considerable administrative costs.

Among the prominent Brexit-backers, former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith urged the Prime Minister to send a message to Brussels: When she gets into negotiations with her European counterparts about trade arrangements, could she remind them that cake exists to be eaten and cherries exist to be picked?

Earlier on Monday, Mr Varadkar ruled out formal three-way talks between the UK, Ireland and the EU to look at Mrs Mays Brexit offer.

Updating MPs on her plans, Mrs May said the UK and Irish governments and the European Commission will be working together to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

But Mr Varadkar said it was not in Irelands interests to take part in formal three-way talks regarding the wider Brexit issues, and that what was needed was for Downing Street to produce more detailed proposals.

I have an ambition for our future with the EU - the right Brexit deal for Britain. Now let's get on with it. pic.twitter.com/zRCJzbWfyK  Theresa May (@theresa_may) March 4, 2018

Mrs May again told MPs there would be no return to a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

She has rejected Brussels proposals that would see Northern Ireland kept in an effective customs union with the EU as a fallback in case other solutions cannot be found.

As Prime Minister I am not going to let our departure from the EU do anything to set back the historic progress made in Northern Ireland, she said. Nor will I allow anything that would damage the integrity of our precious union.

The UK and Irish governments and the European Commission will be working together to ensure that we fulfil these commitments.

Before Mrs Mays statement, the Irish PM said: There wont be tripartite or three-way talks.

What will happen is that there will be talks between the EU 27 and the UK, and Ireland is part of the EU 27 and were much stronger by the way as one of 27.

Mr Varadkar added consultations could take place between the two governments about issues that are unique to Ireland.

We will of course have negotiations about what could be done to avoid a hard border, but what we wont be getting into is a negotiation with the UK, or a three-way negotiation, Mr Varadkar said.

Thats not in our interest and not the way that this can be concluded.

The Taoiseach told RTEs Morning Ireland programme that he gave Mrs Mays Brexit speech on Friday a guarded welcome, but that detail written down in black and white was now needed from the UK Government.

Amid the ongoing row over the border, Sinn Fein leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle ONeill travelled to Brussels to meet EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

Just arrived in Brussels with @MaryLouMcDonald for meeting with @MichelBarnier to discuss case for special arrangements on the island of Ireland & protection of the Good Friday Agreement #NoBorder  Michelle ONeill (@moneillsf) March 5, 2018

Mrs McDonald said: The Taoiseach is absolutely correct to say that the substantive negotiation is between the British government on one hand and the EU member states collectively on the other and in our view it is important to maintain that dynamic.

Mr Barnier, who is due to meet DUP leader Arlene Foster and deputy leader Nigel Dodds in Brussels on Tuesday, said his discussions with Sinn Fein had been positive.

Good meeting this morning with @MaryLouMcDonald and @moneillsf @sinnfeinireland - essential to listen to all voices in Northern Ireland. Meeting @DUPleader tomorrow. Working to ensure the #UKs orderly withdrawal #Brexit pic.twitter.com/ckNDwO1eeS  Michel Barnier (@MichelBarnier) March 5, 2018

He tweeted: Essential to listen to all voices in Northern Ireland.Theresa May was urged to give Boris Johnson a clip round the ear hole to force the Foreign Secretary to publish his Irish border memo.

Labours Wes Streetings suggestion was labelled very discourteous behaviour by Speaker John Bercow in the Commons.

It came after Ilford North MP Mr Streeting asked the PM to prod or jab as hard as necessary to ensure the full text of Mr Johnsons latest thoughts on the issue were released to the public.

Mr Johnson last week sent a letter to Mrs May in which he said the Government should focus on preventing the Irish border becoming significantly harder.

He later claimed his letter showed there are very good solutions that would prevent a hard border for goods crossing the Irish border, and accused Remainers of using the issue to try to frustrate Brexit.

Speaking in the Commons, Mr Streeting said: Tony Blair and Sir John Major both warned during the referendum of exactly the scenario facing the Prime Minister now in relation to the Northern Ireland-Republic of Ireland border, which is presumably why a majority of people in Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union.

If everything is as plain sailing as she suggests, why is the Foreign Secretary writing her memos entertaining the prospect of a hard border?

And given hes given an undertaking to publish that memo but hasnt found time to do so, perhaps she could prod him or maybe jab as hard as necessary to get that memo out of him as soon as possible.

The Foreign Secretary's absolutely clear that there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and IrelandTheresa May

Mrs May replied: The Foreign Secretary hasnt said that. Hes absolutely clear that there will be no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland  that is the position of the Government, it is what were working on.

Weve set our proposals out and I look forward to discussing them with the Commission and the Irish Government.

After the PMs answer, Mr Streeting could be heard jokingly shouting: Clip him round the ear hole  get the memo out.The warning signs were all there. Storm clouds gathered as far back as November, but there didn't seem to be a whole lot that the officials could do. Whether it was a status 'Red' situation may not have been clear, but the Government was worried.

The 'Buffoon from the East' was spouting vacuous hot air.

And as feared, the direction of his blizzard eventually swung from Brussels to across the Irish Sea last week as Boris Johnson set out about trying to dismantle all in his path.

The former mayor of London now sits as foreign secretary in a government clinging to power by its fingertips while simultaneously make some of the biggest decisions in British history.

And yet it seems he lacks the basic understanding of the issues at play.

His numerous interventions over recent days barely made front-page news here because a different kind of storm was wrecking havoc.

But if Johnson is allowed to go unchecked by Theresa May then, like the 'Beast from the East', he too could create a material threat to this country.

In case you missed it, here's a short recap of what Johnson had to say about the Irish border. Last Tuesday, he compared it to crossing between London boroughs.

"There's no border between... Camden and Westminster... but when I was mayor of London we anaesthetically and invisibly took hundreds of millions of pounds from the accounts of people travelling between those two boroughs without any need for border checks whatever," he said.

This simplistic view would be lovely - but, not having even visited the border region, perhaps the Foreign Secretary doesn't understand what he's dealing with.

There are more border crossings in Ireland than on the whole of the EU's eastern frontier. The land borders to the east stretch for around 6,000km but have only 137 crossings with places like Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Russia. On the island of Ireland, there are almost 300 crossings in the space of 500km. During the Troubles just 20 of them were open.

Asked why Johnson had not visited the border area since the Brexit vote, a source in Dublin replied: "He's the Foreign Secretary, he can visit the border of the UK any day of the week. Nobody is keeping Boris from the border so perhaps he's choosing not to go places where there's only one answer to the logical questions that would be asked."

Johnson's other big statement came in the form of a leaked letter to May.

The effort, entitled The Northern Ireland/Ireland border - the Facilitated Solution, was conveniently leaked to Sky News, which reported him as saying "it is wrong to see the task as maintaining no border" in Ireland after Brexit.

Johnson suggested the UK government should prevent the border from becoming "significantly" harder. And "even if a hard border is reintroduced, we would expect to see 95pc+ of goods pass the border [without] checks".

The statement made a mockery of the negotiations undertaken to date between the British prime minister and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Checks on 5pc of goods crossing the border means there is a border. It is not "frictionless" or "invisible".

Yet there was no immediate slap-down from the Government here for two reasons.

The first is that the Department of Foreign Affairs is keen not to spark further headlines about an Anglo-Irish war.

The second is that it hasn't really take Johnson seriously since he bounced into Iveagh House last November, making jokes about drinking Guinness in Nigeria.

The performance was part of what a letter writer to the The Guardian once described as his "carefully rehearsed amiable buffoon act".

The signs were bad from the start because it was decided that Johnson and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney would hold a joint press conference before their meeting rather than afterwards. The logic for that choreography was that they could answer every question by saying: 'Well, that's an important issue and exactly what we're here to talk about. We'll have a constructive discussion.'

Asked the same question post-meeting, they might have had to offer up some sense of how far they had got in reaching a consensus. But the press conference didn't go to plan as Coveney publicly demanded "parameters" for deciding the future of the border.

Asked by this reporter if he could give even a hypothetical vision of how a "frictionless border" might work, Johnson said the British government's view "is you can only really crack the problem" in the second phase of the talks.

Sources say things got even worse behind closed doors as Johnson told the Irish side: "From that press conference, they could only conclude that we don't agree."

"He didn't seem to realise that we were disagreeing on a very fundamental level," said one source.

During the meeting, civil servants repeatedly intervened to correct statements from the Foreign Secretary or insert "more diplomatic" language into his thinking. At the same time, sources say he is "very hard not to be OK with when you're around him".

"He's not rude. He's not sneering or looking down his nose. He's good company but his public utterances are the problem," one source said.

And that's why Dublin has decided to ignore them. It now listens for what May has to say, refusing to react to every thought that comes into Johnson's head.

Coveney is doing "a fraction" of the media requests he gets from the UK and when Johnson speaks, the plan is wait to hear what Downing Street has to say.

"When he made those comments during the week, they were torpedoed by No 10 within 12 hours. We could have been dragged into a diplomatic row but restraint is the order of the day," said one official.

And in a metaphor worthy of Johnson himself, they added: "If this was the supermarket and Boris was the child throwing the tantrum, Ireland is the parent that walked on".Suggestions by British Prime Minister Theresa May that she will enter bilateral discussions with Dublin on resolving the Irish Border question have been rubbished.

The Government is concerned that the UK is pushing the idea of a potential 'side deal' on what has become one of the most contentious elements of the Brexit negotiations.

Three times during press events to outline the latest UK position on Brexit last Friday, Mrs May referenced talks with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Again yesterday she told the BBC how "pleased" she was that the Taoiseach "has agreed that the UK and Irish governments and the commission can sit down and look in more detail at the proposals that we've put forward".

However, a spokesman for Tanaiste Simon Coveney categorically ruled out the possibility of three-way talks.

"The negotiation to leave the EU is between the EU and the UK. Michel Barnier is the chief negotiator and there will be no bilateral side negotiations," he said.

It is understood Mrs May's narrative evolved from a meeting she had with Mr Varadkar in Belfast last month.

While the two leaders were at Stormont to discuss the obstacles to restoring the Northern Ireland Assembly, the conversation did divert to Brexit.

Sources say Mr Varadkar offered to assist the UK in developing a credible way of preventing a hard Border on the island.

Mr Coveney's spokesman told the Irish Independent that this offer was "in the same way we will help in every aspect of the negotiations, by feeding into the overall process through the taskforce".

"Of course, our important bilateral contacts with the UK as our nearest neighbours continue and we want the least-damaging Brexit, but exit negotiations are not bilateral," he reiterated.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe will hold a series of meetings with senior UK politicians today, including Chancellor Philip Hammond and Minister for the Cabinet Office David Lidington.

A statement said the discussions were "part of the regular dialogue between the minister and his British counterpart and will provide an opportunity to review current international economic developments".

Mr Donohoe said: "My visit comes at an opportune time to review recent developments in relation to Brexit ... Ireland has always been clear that we want the closest possible relationship between the EU and the UK.

"In this regard, we will continue to work closely with our EU partners and with the UK on ensuring a good outcome to the Brexit negotiations that sees the impact on our trade and economy minimised."

It comes as Mrs May yesterday described the Border question as a "complicated subject".

"There are various elements of ensuring that we don't have a hard Border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. Part of it is the customs arrangements," she told Andrew Marr on BBC1.

Mrs May dodged a question on Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson's comparison between Ireland and the border line between Westminster and Camden in London.

But she did appear to slap down the former mayor of London when asked about a letter he sent her last week outlining a belief that "it is wrong to see the task as maintaining no Border".

She said: "He's clear that there won't be a hard Border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and we're working to that. We've got proposals as to how we can achieve that, now we're going to be able to sit down and talk with others about how we do that."

However, Mr Coveney told the same programme that Mrs May needs to spell out her approach. "She hasn't really gone into any more detail than we've already heard in terms of how she is going to solve the problem of maintaining a largely invisible Border on the island of Ireland," Mr Coveney said.

In a statement that will cause further alarm in Downing Street, the Tanaiste said he was "not sure that the European Union will be able to support" the plan.

"While of course we will explore and look at all of the proposed British solutions, they are essentially a starting point in negotiations as opposed to an end point," he said.US lawyers representing Garrett Kelleher have filed a lawsuit seeking damages of $1.2bn (975m) against Nama, alleging that the agency destroyed the developer's chances of building the Chicago Spire through a combination of "sheer spite" and "consistent incompetence" on the part of certain of its officials.

In a 60-page complaint lodged with the Federal District Court in Illinois last Monday, Kelleher's company, Shelbourne North Water Street Corporation, points the blame at Nama for the project's demise, citing its refusal to support his plans for the Spire following the collapse of its principal funder, Anglo Irish Bank.

Prior to the financial crisis and the collapse of the project's principal lender, Anglo Irish Bank, Kelleher had intended the Chicago Spire to reach to a height of 2,000 feet (610 metres), making it the tallest residential building in the world, the then tallest building in the western hemisphere and the then second-tallest building in the world.

In pursuing the developer's case against Nama, lawyers from the firms of Barclay Damon LLP and Freeborn & Peters LLP said in a statement that they will be seeking defined damages of over $1.2bn. The sum being sought includes some $525m in cash and equity which Shelbourne, and Kelleher claim to have invested in the Chicago Spire before the project was stalled.

According to Kelleher's complaint, the design, marketing, sales, foundation and substructure of the Spire was completed at a cost of some $300m alone. In terms of the project's design, Kelleher engaged the services of the world-famous Spanish architect, Santiago Calatrava.

Calatrava's involvement in the delivery of the tallest residential building in the world on the last major undeveloped site on Chicago's famed Lake Michigan shoreline unsurprisingly proved to be attractive to high net worth individuals around the world.

Prior to the onset in 2008 of Ireland's financial crisis and Anglo Irish Bank's difficulties, JP Morgan Private Bank had pre-approved purchasers for mortgages in Chicago, New York, London, Dublin, Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Cape Town, Abu Dhabi and Doha.

Anglo's inability to continue funding the Chicago Spire after August 2008 and the absence of alternative finance from a new lender saw the project grind to a halt. In a separate twist that many will now find ironic, Trump Tower in Chicago, which had begun construction six months earlier than the Chicago Spire, continued to receive funding from its main lenders, Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse, notwithstanding the fact that both institutions were also dealing with the impact of the financial crisis.

The successful completion of Trump Tower resulted in all loans extended by Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse being honoured, while the Chicago Spire project floundered.

But while Anglo was unable to continue funding Kelleher's plan, the developer later presented proposals to Nama which he believed would have led to the Spire's completion and the full repayment of all loans advanced by Anglo for the project. Kelleher claims that Nama dismissed his idea however, deciding instead to cause the Spire's debt to be sold to another third party for a price which he believes resulted in a loss of 57m to the Irish taxpayer.

Elsewhere in his complaint, Kelleher accuses Nama of failing to "adequately comprehend" the impact of its refusal to support his plan to develop the Chicago Spire for the city of Chicago itself.

Explaining this, he points in his complaint to the rights he obtained following negotiations with Chicago authorities allowing for the site of the Spire's foundations to extend beyond the 2.2 acres which had been in Shelbourne's ownership into the adjoining five acres owned by the City of Chicago. Without these 'Other Kelleher Related Rights', the developer says that portions of that $300m Spire substructure cannot be used.

He argues that this is one of the reasons the Chicago Spire site remains an unsightly hole in the ground to this day.

Kelleher's legal pursuit of Nama and its subsidiary, Natonal Asset Loan Management (Nalm), in Chicago comprises five claims. The Shelbourne chief is alleging that Nama is liable for the payment of damages arising from breach of contract, tortious interference with contract, tortiosu interference with prospective economic advantage.

Each one of these three alleged breaches represents a claim for defined damages exceeding $1.2bn according to the papers filed last week with the courts in Illinois.

Kelleher's fourth and fifth claims accuse Nama of being in breach of its statutory and common law duties to preserve confidential information, and of negligent spoilation of evidence.

The developer's legal team say they expect a full trial to take place in 2019 following initial procedural hearings, discovery of documents, subpoenas and preparation of affidavits.

As part of its case, Shelbourne expects to subpoena several current and former Nama officials including Nama chairman Frank Daly, Nama CEO Brendan McDonagh, Nama portfolio manager Peter Malbasha, Nama's former head of asset management John Mulcahy, and former senior executives Kevin Nowlan and Michael Moriarty.

It also expects to subpoena the IBRC's special liquidators, Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson of KPMG. Commenting on the Spire lawsuit, Barclay Damon partner and lead attorney in the matter, J Joseph Bainton, said: "This is a case close to the heart of the City of Chicago, because there remains an ugly hole in the ground that continues to scar the city in one of its most spectacular locations.

"In this case, it will not only become clear how Chicago has suffered because of the incompetence and spitefulness of Nama, but also of the grave damage done to Shelbourne and Garrett Kelleher, for which Nama is culpable and liable under US law. We will also show how Nama disadvantaged the Irish taxpayer by tens of millions of dollars.

"Whatever powers and influence Nama might enjoy in Ireland, it has no special status here. On the level playing field of the federal justice system Nama will be judged as to the facts by a jury of its peers based upon the evidence and nothing else.

"We are confident that a Chicago jury will return a verdict awarding Shelbourne damages in a sum that redresses in full measure the consequences of Nama's unlawful activities. That sum we believe will be in excess of $1.2bn."

Contacted by the Sunday Independent for a response, a spokesman for Nama said: "The Agency is currently assessing the lawsuit and considering its options but expects to mount a full defence to this case."Hundreds of cows and their calves were left exposed to the worst of Storm Emma in a farm part-run by Teagasc.

Agriculture chiefs are expected to review the operation of open greenfield farms in extreme weather in the wake of the challenges of the past weekend.

A number of calves were lost at a Kilkenny facility since the Beast from the East and Storm Emma hit Ireland, with the animals kept in roofless cubicles on a special concrete pad.

At one point, snow drifts of a metre covered the roofless cubicles in Kilkenny as staff worked around the clock in an effort to protect the exposed animals from the elements.

Dozens of other open greenfield farms are now operated by large-scale dairy producers across Ireland, particularly in Munster. Some farmers have questioned the suitability of such cattle systems to the Irish environment.

A well-placed Government source said that in the aftermath of this weekend a review was likely into the operation of such open greenfield farms in extreme weather conditions.

However, Teagasc dismissed suggestions that the farming practice was in any way cruel.

Workers had to repeatedly dig snow out from the open cattle storage area and trackways. They also had to dig the exposed milking parlour out of snow drifts. Cows were not milked for almost two days. Workers even had to battle to keep the milking machines defrosted.

They also worked to build a special wall of straw bales in a bid to protect the cattle from wind chill in the face of the bitter eastern gusts.

At the height of Storm Emma, the cows were huddled together for shelter and warmth.

But Teagasc pointed out that such units are commonplace in Canada and New Zealand, where cattle routinely deal with temperatures far lower than Ireland witnessed over the past week.

A Teagasc official denied that such open farming systems were cruel.

No, not at all, he said. Perhaps the single biggest factor in terms of animals being cold-stressed is their access to fodder.

Well-fed adult cows are hardy and capable of dealing very well with freezing temperatures, the official explained.

In our climate, if adult animals are well fed and have access to water, they will not be cold-stressed, he added.

But while the 270 animals had more than adequate supplies of fodder in Kilkenny, concern was raised over the fact that they were effectively exposed to the elements because of the roofless cubicles.

Locals stressed that workers on the farm did Trojan work to care for the cows and calves.

The experiment with the open greenfield farm complex began almost nine years ago.

Experts acknowledged that the key problem with such farms is their lack of flexibility in terms of dealing with very extreme weather events.

The facility is run as a demonstrator farm and has a three-way private ownership structure, with operational management advice from Teagasc. Teagasc does not own the facility, which is on a former tillage farm.Minister for State Andrew Doyle at work on his Wicklow farm over the weekend.

Hill sheep farmers will be counting losses from their flocks due to the major snowfall in the coming days.

The Irish Natura and Hill Farmers Association (INHFA) warned that the biggest risks were in cases where there were dangers of high drifts smothering sheep that had gone into valleys to seek shelter.

Sligo farmer Colm ODonnell said: In those areas, they would be susceptible to drifting. That would be a concern, that they would get caught up in it.

Mr ODonnell, who is president of the INHFA, said many hill sheep farmers do not have indoor accommodation for their sheep. I took a decision not to gather them and to leave them, he said, adding that farmers felt they would have better shelter.

However, Mr ODonnell said other areas were particularly hard hit, such as Wicklow, the Comeraghs and the Mourne mountain range.

The most important thing to alleviate the hunger situation would be the high heather, as they can browse on the tops of that until a thaw comes.

Where there is a blanket cover of snow on the hills, you could have up to a metre in some areas, he said.

Im sure there will be some losses; it is inevitable with the amount of drifts. They wouldnt be able to access them yet.

The INHFA called for stakeholders to meet again on fodder shortages as the cold snap would exacerbate problems in hard-hit areas.

Mr ODonnell warned it would also mean that there would be less fodder in southern areas for transport to the northwest.

Many farmers in hard-hit areas are facing severe difficulties, including getting water to livestock indoors due to

frozen pipes, coping with newborn lambs and calves in sub-zero temperatures and getting milk collected on snow-filled roads.

Farmers were trying to clear snow drifts with diggers and tractors, so that milk lorries would be able to collect.

There were concerns of major loss of revenue from milk being spilt due to lack of collections. Milk collections resumed over the weekend across most of the country; however, there were pockets that were proving difficult to reach.The DAA is planning to leverage data from tens of thousands of passengers in an effort to significantly boost the 400m-plus annual retail and ancillary sales generated at Dublin and Cork airports.

The semi-state agency is aiming to use existing data from 60,000 shoppers who have used its Loop retail space in both airports.

It also wants to exploit a data warehouse that contains details of about 50,000 customers who have booked car parking and other airport services online at Dublin Airport.

The DAA, headed since last year by CEO Dalton Philips, is also looking at ways to capitalise on the 700,000-plus unique visitors who sign onto Dublin Airport's free wifi every month.

A smaller number sign in at Cork each month.

The airport operator oversaw total retail sales of 303m generated last year at Dublin and Cork airports, including retail and food and beverage sales by concessionaires.

It also made 127.6m from other commercial activities, including its car parks.

Its total group revenue was 793m in 2016, while it generated an operating profit of 139m.

The DAA's retail operations are controlled by its ARI (Aer Rianta International) unit, which also oversees retail operations at a number of airports around the world.

Prior to joining the DAA, Mr Philips was CEO of UK grocery retailer Morrisons, a role he left in 2015.

He was previously the CEO of Brown Thomas, owned by the Weston family, and was also chief operating officer at Canada's Loblaw retail giant, which is also controlled by the Westons.

Wifi users at Dublin and Cork airports do not currently have to sign on or provide any other details in order to use the service.

Dublin Airport, which last year handled almost 30 million passengers, said it was "exploring ways to leverage the public wifi customer database and also provide real-time and location-specific offers to customers". Such offers could include food and beverage or other retail promotions, it noted.

It added: "It is also DAA's intention to ask the passengers that avail of Dublin and Cork Airport free wifi to opt in to receive campaigns on airport products and services."

The airport also noted that if marketing permission was sought and secured at the point of online purchases, such customers could receive newsletters and other communications to "drive return business".

The DAA pointed out that its online business, while contributing only a relatively small volume of sales, continues to grow.

"The average transactional value online is nearly double that of offline," it noted, adding that about 10,000 consumers every year use the Loop's click-and-collect service, where they can order goods online and collect them when they return from their foreign trip.

The DAA said that "given the scale of digital marketing and monetisation opportunity that exists in these businesses", it had developed a digital strategy that aims to "improve the overall passenger journey".

It wants customers to feel "engaged in an efficient, personalised and contextualised way".

Its digital strategy includes the development of "personal, timely experiences that delight customers driving engagement and revenue".

In the longer term, the DAA is also considering ways in which it can use its airport flight information displays and digital advertising pods as information-messaging conduits for customers.It is understood that the Irish Government has selected BNY Mellon to manage the back taxes that Apple allegedly owes to Ireland.

A spokesperson for the National Management Treasury Agency (NTMA), which along with the Department of Finance, is responsible for the contracting of the escrow management, refused to comment on reports by the Irish Times that BNY Mellon had been selected.

The search to find investment managers to look after the escrow is on-going.

Earlier this year John Hogan, assistant secretary in the tax division of the department, told the Public Accounts Committee that the 13bn in taxes would be paid in the coming months.

The Government and Apple have consistently insisted the tax was never owed, and both have appealed the controversial ruling.

EC Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager has in the past complained that she has been given "no indication" of when Ireland will start to repay the 13bn.

When asked by reporters to respond to reports that BNY Mellon has been appointed to oversee the escrow account, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe said that the successful conclusion of a tendering process in relation to an escrow custodian to oversee the account into which the Apple funds will be deposited is "a very important priority for myself and for the government.

"Were now entering the last number of days in relation to the cooling off period for this procurement process.

"When the cooling off period is complete Ill issue a statement then in relation to how that process will be concluded and who will be managing the escrow account."Walk down any street in Dublin or Cork today and there is a good chance you'll spot cranes, diggers and builders at work.

A decade ago, such scenes were rare. When the recession hit, hundreds of thousands of people were put out of work, some virtually overnight. The cranes disappeared. Nearly half of all job losses were in construction and many skilled builders and engineers had to emigrate.

The story now looks very different. The construction sector is buoyant and looks set to create as many as 112,000 new jobs by the turn of the decade.

Last year, 36pc of all permanent positions advertised on Hays Ireland were in the construction and property sector. Early indications suggest this figure will rise again in 2018.

This recovery is undoubtedly a good thing - but increased business demand and the rapid advance of technology have combined to create a perfect storm. Many construction and engineering companies don't have the supply of engineering professionals needed to service clients or take on new projects.

Some will plug talent gaps by seeking to attract overseas talent; others will spend vast sums re-educating their workforce to address immediate shortages.

Expand Close Aeronautical engineer Dr Norah Patten, guest speaker at Engineers Week last week / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Aeronautical engineer Dr Norah Patten, guest speaker at Engineers Week last week

But a more far-sighted, sustainable solution is to hire more skilled women.

As we move from Engineers' Week 2018 towards International Women's Day this Thursday, it's a reminder that female participation in engineering has traditionally been low.

According to the Higher Education Authority, females make up less than 17pc of all enrolments in third-level engineering, manufacturing and construction courses. In jobs that require STEM skills, less than a quarter are women.

Why is this? The answer is complex and the solutions challenge many deep-seated beliefs and conventions. In many cases, gender gaps can be traced back to subtle and often not-so-subtle influences in childhood and schooling.

There is a societal expectation that certain jobs are 'male' while others are 'female'. Jobs that involve building, making and physical labour tend to be the realm of men. Women, conversely, are often encouraged to take up jobs that involve care, nurturing and people skills, like education and healthcare.

Schools often perpetuate it - an all-girls school might not offer technical drawing or engineering because of a presumed lack of demand, for example. This career predestination has to be challenged if young girls are to get an equal shot at working in a technical field.

Changes can be made in the classroom too. For a start, Leaving Cert science and engineering students need to learn about the great female engineers, scientists and mathematicians of history, like Irish woman Lilian Bland, Stephanie Kwolek and Marie Curie. Despite their achievements, they are often forgotten or even unknown.

Many technical fields are dominated by men at third level and in the workplace. For young women, this can seem isolating, even intimidating.

Having real-world reference points will help young women understand that they won't be going it alone.

There are already many excellent programmes and initiatives doing stellar work in this area.

TeenTurn is a brilliant example of an internship programme looking to develop relationships between female students from disadvantaged backgrounds and businesses, all with a long-term aim of encouraging more females into tech careers.

Last year, DIT launched its ESTeEM programme that pairs off female third-level engineering students with female industry mentors. These and other outreach programmes should remain a long-term priority for industry, educators and the Government looking to increase female participation in STEM.

While encouraging females into STEM subjects is one obvious challenge, attracting and keeping female engineering graduates poses the next challenge. As it stands, too many are lost to careers in business consulting and finance.

In other industries, their problem-solving skills are highly desirable, but their technical skills go unutilised.

Employers need to do more to demonstrate their commitment to attracting female talent into the industry. While many large employers in the sector point to in-house diversity and inclusion programmes, the Hays Gender Diversity Report suggests 20pc of females were unaware if their organisation had such programmes in place.

Senior management should ultimately take responsibility for driving a workplace culture that embraces true diversity.

Developing a culture of greater diversity also goes hand in hand with a greater availability of flexible working options. Encouragingly, we noticed a significant increase in the number of female engineers we have placed in roles in the past 12 months.

Furthermore, study after study has shown that diversity is good for business. Different points of view, values and upbringings give companies more ways to approach problems and hash out solutions.

Ireland's economy is back on track, but without a constant supply of skilled talent, we risk losing our momentum - let's make sure we're giving women ways to help keep it going.

Maureen Lynch is a director at Hays Ireland.We have seen a few defining moments in business in Ireland over the past couple of decades, none more momentous than the banking crash.

There were also other moments that defined how the Irish public thinks about business, and one firmly remains under a Government tarpaulin, marked 'Beware - Do Not Touch'. That is the ill-fated privatisation of Telecom Eireann, which put paid to any vague hopes of a 'share-owning democracy' in this country.

For those of us who didn't rush to dispose of our Eircom shares, the legacy of that troublesome interlude was a bundle of Vodafone shares.

We generally hate to be reminded of moments of severe financial pain; there is no point in reliving the misery by detailing how we managed to get there in the first place. But just for the heck of it, I thought I'd have another look at Vodafone to see what we might be missing if we still held the stock.

For a start, we would be part of a very big outfit. Vodafone has over 550 million customers, and operates in 26 countries, and in 48 others with partners. It has 108,000 employees, 250,000 base stations, and nine million small-firm customers.

The market values it at 70bn, with an elevated price earnings multiple of almost 30.

Expand Close Click to view full size graphic / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Click to view full size graphic

Vodafone has been at the centre of some epic international deals down the years but it has also been through tough years.

Five years ago, it sold its 45pc interest in the US telecom group Verizon. This company at one time provided half of Vodafone's profits. A year later, it used some of its bounty to fund a major investment programme, including updating its services.

However, the programme also created its own strain on profits and cash flow. The result was a fall in earnings per share and investor concern over dividend payments.

There are, however, some small signs of improvements in key European markets and a return to growth in the UK.

Vodafone now has more than three-quarters of its total revenue generated in Europe, the remaining coming from Africa, Middle East and Asia Pacific (AMAP). Its main European markets are Germany, Italy, UK and Spain. These four combined contribute four-fifths of all European revenues and profits. Germany, with sales of 10bn, is the largest and most profitable market, with the highest margins after Italy. The Italian market has 23 million customers (UK has 18 million) with a market share of almost one-third. AMAP's main markets are Turkey, Egypt and India. It also has leadership position in South Africa and Kenya.

The markets the company operates in are highly competitive. In each of its main markets, it has at least three competitors, and they are highly regulated.

This resulted in its revenues falling to 47.6bn, and half-year results to September confirmed the trend. Operating profits were 3.7bn, a significant increase on the previous year.

This gain, however, was due to the formation of VodafoneZiggo, a joint venture with Liberty Global in the Netherlands. Due to a difficult business environment, the group's India operation was compelled to merge with its competitor last year.

With net debt falling, the company is in a better position than a few years ago. Dividends increased last year, continuing its tradition of increasing every year since 1999. Having completed investments of more than 70bn in the last four years, the company is now implementing a cost-efficiency programme, which it expects will drop to the bottom line. Vodafone share price has been broadly stable, but has underperformed the market.

Investors are still remaining faithful given its high dividend yield (6.4pc) and the likelihood of a deal with Liberty Global which would create a telecom and cable global giant worth 150bn. Even allowing for the dividend yield, this is not a share to invest in, pending clarity of the Liberty Global deal.

Nothing in this section should be taken as a recommendation, either explicit or implicit to buy any of the shares mentioned.Politics, from elections to trade wars, will overshadow the upcoming European Central Bank (ECB) policy meeting, keeping investors on the edge with markets now seen as prone to volatility after a recent equity rout.

Formation of a German government is set to end nearly half a year of post-election horse trading, but political wrangling in Italy, the Eurozone's third biggest economy, is only beginning as signs are of a potentially lengthy process to cobble together a new administration. It comes at a sensitive time, with the US administration appearing to launch a full-scale trade war last week.

That complicates life for the ECB when it meets on Thursday to discuss how to normalise policy after years of extraordinary stimulus. The bank is likely to keep policy firmly on hold, but a broader revision of its policy guidance is likely over the summer.

At home, Cairn Homes has results tomorrow, Irish Continental Group is due to report on Thursday, and Independent News & Media (INM) will report preliminary results on Friday.Frances McDormand accepts the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Actress Saoirse Ronan arrives for the 90th Annual Academy Awards on March 4, 2018, in Hollywood, California. / AFP PHOTO / Kyle GRILLOTKYLE GRILLOT/AFP/Getty Images

Irish actress Saoirse Ronan lost out in the Best Actress category to frontrunner Frances McDormand at the 90th Academy Awards.

This year marked the 23-year-old's third Oscar nomination, but the award went to McDormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, who had become the odds on favourite since sweeping the boards during awards season.

During her speech, McDormand, who has a Best Actress Oscar for Fargo in 1997, paid tribute to all the female nominees across categories asking them all to stand to honour their work over the last 12 months.

Her Three Billboards co-star Sam Rockwell took home the award for Best Supporting Actor, while Best Actor went to Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour and Best Supporting Actress to Allison Janney for I,Tonya, who joked by saying, "I did it all by myself."

Read More

Irish nominees from Cartoon Saloon lost out in the Best Animated Picture category for The Breadwinner to Coco.

Best Picture became the hardest-to-predict, but the honours eventually went to The Shape of Water. Director Guillermo Del Toro made fun of last year's Best Picture announcement blunder by checking the winners' envelope - which had been read out by Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty again this year - before accepting the award.

Read More

The Mexican directors moment was applauded by Oscars viewers, with one writing on Twitter: Guillermo del toro checking if the shape of water really won best picture of the most precious thing #Oscars.

Here is a list of all the winners:

Best Picture: The Shape of Water

Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney for I, Tonya

Best Actor: Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour

Best Actress: Frances McDormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Director: Giullermo del Toro for The Shape of Water

Production Design: The Shape of Water

Costume Design: Phantom Thread

Makeup and Hairstyling: Darkest Hour

Foreign Language Film: A Fantastic Woman

Animated Feature: Coco

Animated Short: Dear Basketball

Visual Effects: Blade Runner 2049

Film Editing: Dunkirk

Documentary Feature: Icarus

Sound Editing: Dunkirk

Sound Mixing: Dunkirk

Original Screenplay: Get Out

Adapted Screenplay: Call Me by Your Name

Foreign Language Film: A Fantastic Woman

Best Director: Guillermo del Toro for The Shape of Water

Documentary Short: Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405

Score: The Shape of Water

Song: Remember Me from Coco

Production Design: The Shape of Water

Cinematography: Blade Runner 2049Vince Power with his two daughters Nell, Evie and son Niall at their holiday home in Annestown, near Tramore, in 2008. Photo: David Conachy

A sunny Saturday afternoon in London, July, 2009. In a yellow 1950s American Cadillac with the top down, Vince Power is driving daughters Nell, Evie and son Niall - and yours truly, who had been a guest at their north London Victorian mansion for the weekend - through Hyde Park in the pleasant sunshine. The then-multimillionaire Waterford-born music mogul takes a call on his mobile from another daughter, Brigid. She is ringing from the zoo...

"I'm here with some deers, dad," she explained.

"Some old dears?" enquired Vince.

"Some old deers," Brigid laughed. "I thought you'd like to hear that, dad, because you are one. Old."

Expand Close Vince Power with his two daughters Nell, Evie and son Niall at their holiday home in Annestown, near Tramore, in 2008. Photo: David Conachy / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Vince Power with his two daughters Nell, Evie and son Niall at their holiday home in Annestown, near Tramore, in 2008. Photo: David Conachy

Nearly nine years later, their dear old dad, who turns 71 next month, is pondering the alleged wisdoms, or otherwise, of age. Vince says he has learned nothing from losing everything.

His life's philosophy is - "nothing is ever as bad as it seems". Be that as it may, he lost a whopping 9m when his giant music empire, the Vince Power Music Group, went under in 2010. A year later, his company Vince Power Music Festivals was floated on London's Alternative Investment Market at 66.5p per share.

The company was valued at 10m. In late 2012, those same shares were worthless - trading at 2.1p, and valuing Vince's company at less than 300,000. He was wiped out. Vince had to sell everything to satisfy some of his personal guarantees on his businesses.

Why did he sign the personal guarantees with such risk attached to them?

"Obviously, they are people who are probably a bit shrewder than me who would never sign the personal guarantees, but I always had the belief. You don't go into it thinking it is going to fail. I would never have done something if I thought it was not going to work out. Everything I have done - including marriages and relationships - I always thought they were going to work out. OK, I couldn't predict a recession in Spain, a recession in Ireland and a recession in the UK; all at the same time, and I had huge investments."

In the worst of the bad times, Vince used a guided meditation app on his mobile phone to help him go to sleep at night when he was suffering from extreme anxiety. He would wake up in the middle of the night - or if he was lucky, at dawn - with the phone on his chest. He had to sell his home in north London. Liam Neeson, he says, expressed an interest.

Vince now lives on a boat docked in London. This is a man who hates water, can't swim and is terrified of drowning. Money was never everything to him, he says. Vince adds that all he needs in life is a good shower that works and clean sheets to sleep on.

"I am not materialistic. I lost millions. I don't focus on the money. I lost it all, everything." (The last time I met Vince, three years ago, he had lost a lot of weight and looked ill; today in the Shelbourne he is back to his normal weight and the twinkle in his eye has returned.)

His businesses may have lain in ruins, however, but his priority was his family. "My kids were always the most important part in my life," Vince says in his almost whispery Waterford accent - "unmodulated", as the Telegraph put it, by 55 years' life in London. "I love my kids more than anything."

What is he like as a father? "I had my first baby at the age of 20," he says. "And my eighth baby at the age of 50. I think I've done better as a father as I got older."

Like a lot of Irish, Vince went over on the boat from Ireland to England in the 1960s in search of a better life. The son of a forester, he grew up literally without a pot to p**s in at a small cottage in Kilmacthomas, Co Waterford, with no hot water and the toilet was "any field you liked".

"I was born at home in the front room and delivered by Pinky Walsh," Vince says of the local midwife, "who delivered us all. I recently met Pinky's daughter in London", smiles Vince, who was one of 11 siblings, of whom four died in early childhood. Vince's twin sister died soon after she was born on April 29, 1947.

"She was never named because she was too young when she died. She wasn't buried in a proper grave because she hadn't been baptised. The Catholic Church said she wasn't entitled to have a proper funeral," he said. He doesn't believe in God. This is possibly related to the fact that his beloved sister was buried outside the churchyard in non-consecrated ground by the Church like there was something wrong with her. Many years ago the local grave digger showed Vince the area where the babies were buried, who weren't baptised. Vince went to visit her last Thursday, when he went home to Waterford.

"I only know the general area where she was buried," he says. "So I could never put up a marker or anything." His mother Brigid (who died on February 17, 1986) also had twins who died when they were very young. Vince can recall seeing his father Jack (who died on July 17, 1972) and his friend, John Mullins, making a coffin out of orange fruit boxes for one of the babies who had died.

In 1963, 15-year-old Vince was "sent" to his aunt Kitty Barry's boarding house in Hemel Hempstead where he lived in the same room as Kitty's 12-year-old son. Vince remembers that he also lived in a back room of the house of a Jamaican woman who treated him like her son. "I loved it," he says. Vince also loved it when he fell for an 18-year-old girl from Cork, Theresa Fitzgerald, whom he met at an Irish club in Harlesden in 1966. They married in 1968 and lived in a room in Bramshill Road, before relocating to a big house in Stonebridge Park.

In the 1960s, he says, there were some wonderful houses in that area "but they were knocked down to make way for the tower blocks. I know because I personally demolished some of them", says Vince, whose early career says "Woolworths, labourer and demolition worker".

Vince and Theresa had three children, Maurice, Sharon and Gail, but sadly were to divorce in 1978. In 1979, Vince started a seven-year relationship with London-Irish girl, Patsy Ryce. They had two children, Brigid and Patrick. In 1986, he started a relationship with Alison Charles (they broke up in 2003) which yielded three children, Nell, Niall and Evie. He is going to Alison's wedding in London in a few months. There was also a beautiful young lady called Gemma Philips, whom Vince dated from 2004 until 2008 (I met her in Spain with Vince in 2007 and they seemed inseparable) and whom he met in London last weekend. Post-Gemma, Vince dated "a famous hat designer" - whom he won't name.

Describing himself as "absolutely and hopelessly romantic", Vince, who is blessed amongst women, says he was last in a romantic relationship six months ago.

I ask Vince Power who was the love of his life. "All," he says, "my relationships were the love of my life".

Vince says he believes that "the profound psychological effect" of the split with Alison resulted in him selling Mean Fiddler organisation in 2005 for 38m to Clear Channel. He believes that sale, which he regrets to this day, set in motion a chain of future events which brought the once massively wealthy titan of the music industry to be living on a boat in London. When Vince lost everything, he smiles, his phone, which used to ring all day and night, stopped ringing. It was, however, he believes, "an awakening". A priceless awakening, perhaps, as Vince found out who his real friends were and, also, who his real enemies were, too.

"I have forgiven all my enemies. I have made up with everybody I ever fell out with. Life is too short," says the self-made Irishman who was given a CBE by the Queen in 2006 for his sterling services to the British Music Industry and who The Observer once bequeathed him the title of The King Of Music.

This sobriquet was qualified thus: "He is the man who revived the Glastonbury and Reading festivals; who took Bob Dylan and Van Morrison to Finsbury Park, and Johnny Cash, Paul McCartney and Roy Orbison to his Mean Fiddler venue; Neil Young and Prince to the Hop Farm in Kent; and organised James Brown's last performance," wrote Ed Vulliamy.

"I've had a bad run but show me a person who hasn't had a bad run," Vince says with characteristic candour. "But I had 27 venues and seven festivals at one point and all the bars and clubs I had in London."

How does Vince look back on that time when he was king of the world?

"I never saw myself as the king of the world. I am in a way as happy now as I was then. Money never made me happy. Clearly! My kids make me happy. Achieving stuff makes me happy. Listening to Johnny Cash and Van Morrison records at night makes me happy," he says. Despite his sometimes foreboding image, Vince is quite light-hearted and doesn't take himself too seriously. "My life is like a comedy. I laugh at myself more than at others. Father Ted never fails to make me laugh. I had this idea to start a dating site for the over 70s as Tinder is maybe for the under 70s. So my idea is Tender. Which is probably taken!" he laughs.

"I've had some great times in this industry, and I will continue to have some great times," he continues. Through it all, Vince stayed focused and he recovered, eventually, healing himself along the way as he did so. He is putting on a giant show, The Feis, on July 7 in Liverpool with his old pal Van Morrison headlining - along with Imelda May, The Chieftains, Damien Dempsey, Paul Brady, Hothouse Flowers, The Coronas, among many others.

How does it feel to be back?

"I never left," he belly-laughs.

Vince has been running Nell's, a music venue in West Kensington, for four years (no surprises that a certain Mr V Morrison plays regularly at Nell's) and "working away gradually on things".

"I've never thought I was the dog's you-know-what, even when I was running all the festivals and had a million venues across the UK and the newspapers were saying that I was the biggest promoter in Europe. I never believed it. I think I got that from my father. I was always frightened to look over my shoulder in case someone told me to get back in my place - 'you have no business here'. But I have always fought against that feeling. That is why I am always trying to do new things and new events, like The Feis in Liverpool," Vince says. "It is a celebration of Irish music and culture.

"I approached Paul McCartney with a sizable fee to perform in Liverpool. There is a lot happening in the future for me."

Vince has also bought back one of his famous former venues, Subterania, and has booked - who else - Van Morrison to play the opening night next month in London. "I have a great relationship with Van. I met him at the Mean Fiddler way back in 1983 or 1984. He used to come in all the time. Everyone used to come in to the Mean Fiddler in the 1980s. The Pogues. Elvis Costello. Christy. We knew them all."

Van and Vince appear to be kindred spirits, I say. "I think he knows that I'm a music lover, like him. And he knows that I don't do it for the money. We just get on."

What was it like to chat with Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash (both of whom the Irishman booked many, many times over the years)?

"Bob doesn't chat with me. We're on good nodding terms. Bob is a very quiet man. One time at the Fleadh Mor in Tramore" - the festival Vince put on in his home county in 1993 and lost over $1m - "the Bob Dylan Appreciation Society had 100 members present him with some Waterford Crystal. After a struggle with his manager for Bob to accept it, he finally came out of his dressing room and the members of the society were all lined up in front of him, expecting a handshake... He took the crystal and said, 'Thank you' and walked back into his dressing room. They were shocked and asked me, 'Is that it?' And that was it".

Vince's other hero Johnny Cash played the Mean Fiddler in 1986. "It was a great night. June Carter was also there with her sister. There was an argument onstage and June's sister walked off stage and out on to Harlesden High Street. I sent my security guard after her as it wasn't a place to go around on your own. So I never got to talk to him. However, when Roy Orbison played the Mean Fiddler he was a pleasure to talk to."

How does he put into context what he went through in the last six years?

"I'm 71 next month. I trust my instinct. That is the one truth that age has taught me," he smiles. "Look, I did go through a lot of stress. But you have to put things in perspective, because the most important thing is your family. You do realise that when your friends thin out. Fair-weather friends, I suppose."

What did that teach him about life?

"It didn't teach me much about life because I didn't have any expectations, and when you don't have expectations you can't be surprised or disappointed when that happens, he says.

"What annoys me more is that disbelief that people have when I say to them: 'I don't have money any more'. The favourite saying is, 'Oh - but you must have your own money'. 'No, it was all the same money'."

No quitter, Vince says he has been working in England since "my mother sent me over on the boat as a kid with nothing in my pocket. I was terrified but I got through the fear. You can't live your life in fear. It will kill you", he says.

"I have a small group friends who have stuck by me. I have done a lot in my life and I have a lot more to do in my life.

"I have 10 ideas every day. I'm not dead. I'm not down. I'm not out. I'm starting to sound like a Bob Dylan lyric. The festival in Liverpool is just the start."

More power to him.

The Feis with Van Morrison, Imelda May, The Chieftains, The Hothouse Flowers, Foy Vance, The Coronas, Aslan, Finbar Furey, Paul Brady, Hudson Taylor, The Stunning, Nathan Carter, Damien Dempsey, Dublin Legends (The Dubliners), Sharon Shannon, Mary Coughlan, and Jack L & Mundy is on July 7 at Liverpool Pier Head. For further details: www.feis1.comEmer O'Kelly sees a dreary socio-political chicken and egg situation.

The political situation in Somalia, as in some other African countries, is parlous to the point of tragedy. The human fallout would seem to be a dramatically ideal topic for a play: pain, loss, fear, displacement, death, even de-humanisation. How could you go wrong?

You could, can, and in the case of playwright Rosemary Jenkinson, did. Her play Lives in Translation purports to tell the story of Asha, a woman originally from Mogadishu, seeking refugee status on the island of Ireland for more than 10 years.

Her family (those not butchered at the hands of armed rebel militias) are scattered, with one daughter still hiding out in Mogadishu, another safe but displaced after escaping to Italy, and she herself shunted between Dublin and Belfast with the odd side trip to the UK mainland for the compiling of report and review after report and review: none successful. She falls between the stools of dual bureaucracy, indifference, misunderstanding and downright hostility.

It begins in Mosney. Asha had never heard of direct provision. Actually, she'd never heard of Ireland. She was trying to get to the US when she boarded a refugee boat on the shores of Libya, having walked there from her own country.

She has committed no crime, but is treated like a criminal, offered friendship only by a sympathetic religious pastor in Belfast. Finally, having taught herself English, she fights her own case, refusing to accept what she regards as the dubious qualifications of those supposedly working on her behalf, with her personal horror story, including rape at the hands of soldiers, emerging through the interviews.

Some of the people around her are successful in their cases and appeals. She is not; but she is not prepared to give up. She just wants the same rights as we have, she tells the audience: she too is a human being.

It should be enough to wring your heart. Instead, it is lifeless, even boring, and seemingly endless. There is no sense of anguish, none of loneliness, not even an engagement at the description of being forced to watch family members carried off , never to be seen again.

The last play of Rosemary Jenkinson's I saw was The Bonefire, a viciously penetrating black comedy of Belfast life on a housing estate on the eve of the Twelfth. Jenkinson knows her warring religious factions in her home territory - but her examination of an equal if not greater tragedy is without passion or drama.

Nor is this Kabosh production at the Civic Theatre in Tallaght (sponsored by among others, Belfast City Council, the Community Relations Council and the Arts Councils north and south of the border) helped by the appallingly static production values: three actors (not very good actors, if these performances are anything to go by) wandering on and off stage to stand in a straight line.

Raquel McKee is neither tragic, pathetic, nor feisty as Asha throughout, with Julie Maxwell and Tony Flynn playing all the other roles with what look like understandable levels of embarrassment.

Direction is by Paula McFetridge, and one can only say that public funding for the arts is meant to go to arts projects - not to what amount to prosy and sanctimoniously self-satisfied lectures.

*******

The production raises (not for the first time) the entire issue of what is generally described as community/political "engagement with the arts."

Translated, that effectively can mean the hi-jacking of art forms to serve an agenda which has nothing to do with art. Sometimes that agenda may well be worthwhile. Often the people bearing it are passionately convinced of their own moral high ground. They feel not merely entitled, but morally bound to "raise consciousness".

But the arts are not part of the social services. They are not there to keep people off the streets and out of the pubs; they are not there to further a particular political worldview.

They can, of course, do all that. Art is the greatest civilising influence in society, and increasing civilisation almost automatically leads to increased political awareness as well as increased social awareness.

But putting a sociological topic on a stage or in a film does not make that project art: the art must come first. Telling audiences that they have a duty to admire and applaud a play, film, painting, project, because it is worthwhile in intent will, more often than not, turn people away from the message itself.

Artists with what they believe is an important message must nurture it in good art: if the art is a play, the author needs to set out to write a piece of theatre art that is gripping, and dramatically effective, and let the message seep through. It doesn't work the other way round: it ends up being a sledgehammer

Increasingly we are seeing political/sociological campaigns that masquerade as art, and because we live in a politically correct era, they receive artistic subvention, and far too often that subvention comes from the public purse. The Arts Councils, north and south, need to remember that they are there to further good art. Political campaigns should be funded elsewhere.The Supreme Court will give its judgment concerning the extent of the constitutional rights of the unborn on Wednesday in Limerick.

The seven judge court has been working on its decision almost from the moment it reserved judgment on February 15.

It will be delivered this Wednesday during the historic first ever sitting of the Supreme Court in Limerick.

Although the timescale involved is unusually tight for a case raising such significant constitutional issues, the court previously indicated its awareness the outcome of the case could have implications for the planned referendum on whether to repeal the Eighth Amendment next May.

For those reasons, it agreed to fast-track the case, made directions for exchange of lengthy detailed submissions on the legal issues, and heard it over two days.

In a pre-hearing ruling refusing to allow the Pro Life Campaign be joined to the case, Mr Justice ODonnell also remarked, if the people are going to vote on the law, there should not be avoidable uncertainty on what that law is.

The case involves an appeal by the State against findings by the High Court the unborn has constitutional rights beyond the right to life set out in the Eighth Amendment, Article 40.3.3, which guarantees equal protection for the right to life of the unborn and its mother.

The High Courts Mr Justice Richard Humphreys said the unborn enjoyed rights under the personal or unenumerated rights provisions in Article 40.3.1 and Article 40.3.2. He also held the unborn is a child within the meaning of Article 42A, which requires the State to protect and vindicate the rights of all children.

Although the judgment was given in an immigration case, the findings, if upheld, have implications well beyond immigration cases.

In its appeal, the State has essentially asked the Supreme Court to find that the unborn has no constitutionally protected rights beyond the right to life in Article 40.3.3 and cannot invoke, or have invoked on its behalf, any other constitutional rights.

It argued the unborn has a constitutionally protected right to be born and any other rights only become effective on a live birth. Article 40.3.3, it submitted, recognises unborn as a distinct class from the constitutional terms citizens, persons and children.An 83-year-old woman who died following a fire at a house in Co Longford at the weekend has been named locally as Mary Ann McNerney.

Gardai from Granard were called to the scene at Camagh, near Abbeylara, shortly after 7pm on Saturday.

The blaze was extensive when the fire brigade arrived but was brought under control by Fire Service units from Castlepollard and Granard.

Locals raised the alarm and summoned help when smoke and flames were spotted at the remote rural house.

The body of Ms McNerney was recovered from the house during a follow-up search by the emergency services.

She lived alone in the house following the sudden death of her brother William there in February of last year.

William McNerney had a small farm, on which the old cottage was built. He and his sister had lived in the area all their lives, according to locals.

Local councillor PJ Reilly said the community had been left reeling by the news as he expressed his sympathy to the family and friends of the deceased.

"It's very unfortunate that a tragedy such as this has come upon the village of Abbeylara," he said. "It's all the more tragic when you consider that this was an elderly woman who lived alone and that she couldn't be saved," he added.

"Mary Ann was well known in Abbeylara. She had only done her shopping there a few hours before the fire.

"She got a taxi into the town and was dropped home," Cllr Reilly explained.

"She was a teacher in her working days and then lived with her brother. She has a sister in England and a niece and nephew, who will be coming to Abbeylara to make funeral arrangements. Our sympathies go out to them and to the local community."

No one else was in the house at the time of the fire, which is believed to have started in the fireplace.

"Mary Ann was trying to keep warm in the sudden cold, I suppose. It's very sad," said Cllr Reilly.

Ms McNerney's body was removed to Mullingar Hospital, where a post-mortem examination was due to be carried out.

The scene of the blaze was also preserved for a technical examination. However, foul play is not suspected.

Meanwhile, it is understood that a man was hospitalised following a suspected gas explosion in Waterford last night.

Gardai confirmed officers attended an incident alongside local fire fighters in the city.

It's understood the man was taken to University Hospital Waterford with burn injuries.

A spokesman for Gas Networks Ireland said it was asked to attend the scene at a house on Ballytruckle Road, Waterford city.

"The cause of the incident is unknown and an investigation is currently ongoing by an Garda Siochana and relevant authorities," he said.A mother of one has been sentenced to three years in prison for staging her housemates suicide in order to impede the prosecution of the man, who strangled her.

The judge took into account the fact that the accused was one of lifes victims and in an abusive relationship with the killer at the time.

That man, whom the judge said could undoubtedly be described as the murderer, was never charged. This was due to his limited brain function arising out of an injury sustained months later while fleeing gardai after a car he had hijacked crashed. A self-confessed neo-nazi, he is currently living in a care facility, where he is spoon fed.

However, his 34-year-old former partner was convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury earlier this month. She was found guilty of impeding the killer's apprehension or prosecution, knowing or believing him to have murdered Antra Ozolina (49).

Egita Jaunmaize, of no fixed abode, admitted placing a blue cord around her fellow Latvians neck so as to simulate her suicide in order to make it more difficult to establish that her death was suspicious.

She had pleaded not guilty to carrying out the offence, without reasonable excuse, at their home at The Old Post, Main Street, Kilnaleck, Co Cavan on or about June 27 or June 28 2014. The mushroom picker told gardai that she was in fear for her life and acting on her boyfriends orders at the time, having just seen him strangle Ms Ozolina.

Expand Close Antra Ozolina was found dead with a rope around her neck. Picture: Lorraine Teevan / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Antra Ozolina was found dead with a rope around her neck. Picture: Lorraine Teevan

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy noted that the authorities initial view was that the deceased had taken her own life, but that suspicion grew and tests were sought.

She was a lady, who had appeared happy in herself, had family, and there was no indication that she had any suicidal ideation, noted the judge.

The trial heard that a forensic autopsy showed that the deceased had sustained blunt force injuries, as well as the fatal asphyxia.

Read More

The judge accepted that the accused woman's involvement had sprung from her relationship with the assailant.

Theres little doubt but that, on perusal of the psychiatrists and psychologists reports, her relationship with the assailant, the man who could undoubtedly be described as the murderer, was an abusive one, he said, adding that the aggression had been extreme.

He said the accused might be described as a vulnerable person, noting evidence that this was due to her being the victim of a violent crime as a child.

Notwithstanding the abusive nature of the relationship, the jury held her fully responsible for her actions, he noted.

Read More

However, he pointed out that that sentencing was a subjective matter and he therefore had regard to the fact that she was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and was one of lifes victims so to speak.

He took into account her lack of a previous criminal record and the fact that she had worked hard in Ireland, as well as certain vulnerabilities of temperament and of personality.

He said that the true suffering of the deceased womans family could be attributable only to the death itself and that the impeding offence could not be regarded as having a significant effect.

He noted that the maximum penalty was 10 years in prison, but imposed a custodial sentence of three years, backdated to February 22 2017.Nine men appeared at a special court sitting yesterday after the looting of two supermarkets in south Dublin on Friday night.

The men appeared in the Criminal Courts of Justice yesterday morning after a Lidl store in Fortunestown Lane in Tallaght was raided and looted, and a Centra at Kiltalown, Tallaght, was broken into.

Six men were charged in connection with the incidents at Lidl and three at Centra.

John Kelly (48), of Allen Hall, Tallaght, is accused of handling stolen property at Lidl, namely a safe. The court heard he was a widower whose wife died of cancer in December and looked after two sons.

Paul Freeman, of Russell Green, Tallaght, was accused of trespass at Lidl. Keith Kelly (46), of Suncroft Park, Tallaght, was also charged with trespassing on the grounds of the Lidl store.

Edgar Cesynas, of Silken Park Drive, Citywest, was charged with theft at Lidl. Pouilas Gneizecius (20), from Clonsilla, was charged with possession of stolen property. Both are from Lithuania. Gerard Buggle (38), of Mac Uilliam Lane, Tallaght, was charged with theft.

The court heard gardai were called to the Centra store after 8pm on Friday and found the door smashed in.

Mohammad Smeu (25), from Santry, north Dublin, is charged with burglary and possession of a weapon, a sledgehammer. The court heard he was stranded on the south side "due to snow".

John Doyle (37), from Russell Square, Tallaght, and David Bernie (36), of Suncroft Park Tallaght, were both charged with burglary.

David Bernie said: "CCTV will vindicate us. We are not the ones who broke into that shop and CCTV will prove that."A DUBLIN taxi driver has been described in court as lazy and unwilling to get wet after he refused to take writer and television producer Maia Dunphy and her toddler in his car because she had a buggy.

The mum (41) and her toddler, aged two, had been caught in the pouring rain when she tried to hail Anthony Fannins taxi at a rank at St Stephens Green in Dublin on February 23 last year.

However, Dublin District Court heard Fannin, from Cappagh Road, Finglas, Dublin 11 told her the buggy would not fit into the boot of his Toyota Avensis saloon.

The case went to a full court hearing on Monday after he had refused to accept an 80 fixed penalty notice.

Expand Close Taxi Driver, Anthony Fannin from Cappagh Road, Dublin pictured leaving court today Pic: Collins Courts / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Taxi Driver, Anthony Fannin from Cappagh Road, Dublin pictured leaving court today Pic: Collins Courts

He was prosecuted by the National Transport Authority (NTA) on a charge of refusing to carry a passenger which can result in a maximum 2,500 fine. He had pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The 41-year TV presenter, who also appeared in the hit RTE reality series Dancing With The Stars, told the court she became angry with Fannin and reported him to the NTA, Judge John Brennan was told.

Former mechanic Fannin who has been a taxi driver for 25 years and hoped to retire next year claimed he was concerned her buggy along with her shopping would not fit in the boot of his car.

Judge Brennan found him guilty but noted he was a man of mature years and had no prior convictions. He told the taxi driver that if he donated 250 to the Irish Down Syndrome Sporting Organisation and paid 150 toward prosecution costs the case would be struck out, meaning he would be spared a recorded criminal conviction.

Adjourning the case until May, the judge warned Fannin that otherwise he would face a conviction with a 500 fine along with an order to pay 400 toward the NTAs legal costs.

Ms Dunphy, who is married to comedian Johnny Vegas, gave evidence about her 30-second interaction with the driver. It had been raining heavily and she had the buggy with her child and was also carrying a bag and a box. She had gestured toward his boot but, she alleged, he didnt get out of his car.

The court heard she left saying dont bother after he refused and recommended another taxi with more room.

NTA inspector Noel McNally told the court that Fannins type of car was popular in the taxi industry because it was a family saloon.

He took the report from Ms Dunphy and said he also questioned Fannin who told him that the buggy had a top that had to be removed and would not have fit in the boot. Mr Fannin told the NTA official I was a disgrace and this was a joke, the court was told.

The NTA official met Ms Dunphy and carried out a test to prove her foldable buggy would have fit in the boot of an Avensis and that there was ample room. Photos of his demonstration were handed in to the judge.

Ms Dunphy also said that it could fit in the boot of her mothers Nissan Micra.

In cross-examination with defence counsel Fiona Pekaar it was put to the NTA official that Fannin had not wanted to put her to the bother of having to dismantle her buggy. Mr McNally said that the driver had shown no willingness to do it and was a lazy driver unwilling to get wet to provide a public service that he was duly obliged to.

In evidence, Fannin accepted the buggy would have fit in the boot but there would not have been room for her shopping as well.

He told prosecution solicitor Jason Teahan he didnt want her box in the seating area in case there was an accident. The prosecution solicitor put it to him he had changed his story from the version in his interview with the NTA inspector.

The driver said he got out to find her a hatchback taxi but she said dont bother and left.

He said he had experience of loading buggies and went out in all weather including the recent snow storm.

His barrister argued that a taxi driver can refuse to take a passenger if there was too much baggage or that it could damage the vehicle.

Describing it as an unfortunate case, the judge found him guilty and noted that Ms Dunphy had become very angry so much so she made a complaint to the taxi authority. He was satisfied that it was "a lazy driver unwilling to get wet to and not willing to provide a service he was obliged to provide."

Ms Dunphy did not seek witness expenses.Cars were burned out in Tallaght on Friday, during a night of unrest that led to gardai being ferried in by the Defence Forces

Senior gardai are to review the deployment of the force's fleet of high-powered vehicles after they had to call in the Army to ferry personnel from across the capital to help deal with an outbreak of looting in Tallaght.

But officers said last night that the transport difficulties they faced on Friday evening were a "once-off" as a result of snow drifts and treacherous road conditions.

The decision to seek help from the Army and the civil defence was also taken as a result of time constraints, as reinforcements were badly needed after local officers came under attack from stone-throwing gangs.

The Army deployed a massive 6x6 Scania truck to ferry officers from outside districts to the main flashpoint area at Fortunestown Lane, while Civil Defence vehicles were used to deploy 16 gardai from the Public Order Unit to the scene.

An Garda Siochana has a fleet of 4x4 vehicles, which are located in each district and division and are available to the specialist units and the Traffic Corps.

After receiving initial reports of looting at the Lidl store in Fortunestown Lane, Tallaght gardai sent out a patrol in a 4x4 to investigate.

But heavy snow drifts and barriers, which had been erected to hamper their approach, meant that the patrol could not reach the scene.

The officers then attempted to gain access on foot, but came under attack.

Senior gardai initially considered sending reinforcements from the armed support units on duty in the city and public order units in their own vehicles.

But an officer explained last night that in the interests of safety and the need to deploy the reinforcements as quickly as possible to the scene, it was decided to ask the military and civil defence to help out with their transport vehicles.

He pointed out that in normal circumstances the gardai could have coped using their own resources, but the conditions and time constraints they faced in an extraordinary situation on Friday meant it was more practical and safe to seek help from the other agencies.

An overall examination of the difficulties they encountered and the resources they had available to them would be carried out, he said.

Meanwhile, the Defence Forces deployed 1,200 personnel and 350 vehicles to tackle a range of tasks in support of the civil authorities over the past few days.

An additional 33 vehicles, including 4x4s, 6x6s and snow ploughs, and 220 personnel were deployed yesterday morning, with back-up from troops in barracks around the country.

The main focus of the military operations was to ensure that the HSE could provide essential services. The Army provided doctor/paramedic support, patient transfer and logistical help in clearing snow and ice at critical locations.

Most of the military were deployed in Wexford, Kildare and Laois, with tasks including providing an ambulance service in Wexford, patient transfers and transferring essential medical and prison service staff.Gardai are planning major searches of forest and moorland in Co Cork for missing woman Tina Satchwell (45) in advance of the first anniversary of her disappearance.

The searches represent the first major operation undertaken outside the greater Youghal area where Ms Satchwell was last seen on March 20, 2017.

A property was searched by gardai in the east Cork town last year - and underwater searches were conducted in Youghal Bay.

Garda sources insisted that the planned searches, which are focused on sprawling woodland in east Cork, are not being conducted on foot of any new information.

Officers hit out at rumours which circulated over recent days in connection with the case, saying they were "unhelpful and potentially very upsetting".

Gardai received numerous phone calls on the basis of the rumours and social media speculation. The calls came at the height of the Garda response to Storm Emma when dozens of east Cork communities were cut off by snow and ice.

"To say it was unhelpful is putting it very mildly," one senior garda said.

The searches are expected to take place over the next week once weather conditions ease.

It is understood the searches were planned for late February but had to be rescheduled because of the heavy snowfalls. Ms Satchwell's husband Richard is adamant that she left home to deal with personal issues.

She did not have a passport, and a painstaking trawl of CCTV footage from Irish and UK ports and airports has yielded no clue as to her whereabouts or movements. She was reported missing by her husband after he had initially suspected she had gone to stay with family members in the Fermoy area.

Mr Satchwell also said he believes someone helped his wife with her disappearance - and he claimed 26,000 was missing from the family home.

However, he is adamant he does not believe that his wife is dead. The couple were 26 years married last November.

"She is my daylight - she has been my life since meeting her, even before I spoke to her."

Mr Satchwell has insisted he had nothing to do with her disappearance. "My wife is going to turn back up or she is going to get in touch with the gardai.

"One way or another this will all come out and, in time, it will [be shown] that I have done nothing," he has previously said.No one thinks they will get cancer. Just as none of us think we will be hit by buses or struck by lightning. A certain amount of magical thinking is necessary to get through life. Without it, we would scarcely dare to leave our houses.

The kind of bravado that says 'It won't be me', even when statistics suggest it well might, is a good thing. But, once that magical thinking disrupts the sane precautions we should all take to stay well and safe, then it's gone too far.

Sometimes, advice around precautions is complicated and we can be forgiven our confusion. At other times, the advice is simple and straightforward, but we don't listen.

The health advice around Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), cancer and vaccinations is just such an example.

The most recent research, commissioned by MSD Ireland and carried out by Behaviour and Attitudes on a sample population of 1,000 adults in Ireland, and given as a print exclusive to the Sunday Independent, shows that the levels of ignorance around HPV infection - what it is, who has it, what it can do, how to protect against it - are quite surprisingly high.

Almost two-thirds of Irish adults, 65pc, don't know that HPV can cause cancers in men and women. The majority, 87pc, think they have never been exposed to HPV. A third, 38pc, do not believe HPV can be transmitted from person to person. Over half, 59pc, don't know there are vaccines to prevent against HPV infections, in the same way we now protect against smallpox, polio and other once-fatal diseases.

Today is the first International HPV Awareness Day. So let's get aware. The point about HPV is that the virus is highly contagious and highly prolific. Almost all Irish adults will contract it at some point in their lives. The only certain way to avoid it is complete sexual abstinence. HPV infection has no clinical symptoms, so you won't know you have it.

For most men and women, the virus does no harm and will clear up by itself. However, where it doesn't, it can cause cancer.

The current estimate is that almost 5pc of cancers worldwide are caused by the virus. When it comes to cervical cancer, HPV causes 99pc of cases. In Ireland, 335 women are diagnosed with HPV cancers each year, of which 290 are cancer of the cervix. Around 90 of those women die each year; cervical cancer is the second most common cause of death from cancer in women aged 25-39.

For those lucky enough to live, treatment is painful and unpleasant - chemotherapy, radiation and usually surgery, all carried out on the most delicate parts of the female body, those parts involved in having children, a happy sex life and a secure identity as a woman.

Those who do not live, because of the age profile, are very often the lynchpins of entire family and community networks - they have children, ageing parents, a web of family and friends who love and rely on them.

The second most significant cases of HPV cancer, and these largely affect men, are oropharyngeal, head and neck cancers. These increased by 225pc from 1998 to 2004 and are estimated to outnumber cervical cancers by 2020. In Ireland, 85 men a year are diagnosed with HPV cancer of the head and neck.

HPV head and neck cancer is the one I had, specifically cancer of the tongue base. I was diagnosed in 2015 and treated with daily doses of radiation and weekly intravenous drug drips for seven weeks. It was by far the most painful and unpleasant experience of my life, and the toll it took on those around me - my children, my husband, my mother and siblings - was far more than I ever wanted to put them through. Before that diagnosis, I had paid zero attention to any HPV cancer information because I was certain it wouldn't be me. Frankly, given my overall commitment to healthy living, I would have put good money on getting through life without ever hearing the words 'You have cancer'.

Getting cancer, for me, was a completely random, unexpected happening. That HPV virus probably lay dormant in my system for 20-odd years. Then one day, it got busy, and the result was a tumour. That's the way it happens.

We are lucky enough to have a vaccine to prevent infection in the first place. The HPV vaccine has been offered free to all girls in their first year of secondary school in this country since 2010, as it is in 84 other countries. Protecting from HPV infection means protecting from cancer. In all vaccinating countries, a steady decrease in both pre-cancers and cancers is now being seen.

In Ireland, the vaccine was at first enthusiastically received, with uptake of around 80pc. That dwindled significantly to below 50pc but is now up at around 62pc again because of excellent efforts made by healthcare professionals to circulate clear and accurate information.

The Government is moving towards vaccinating boys as well as girls. Twelve countries, including Australia, the UK and Canada, have universal vaccination, which means direct protection for boys and men, rather than forcing them to rely on the herd immunity provided by vaccinating girls which clearly only works as long as our boys and men remain within the herd.

That, it seems to me, is clearly wrong and inefficient.

A government health technology assessment (HTA) into introducing the vaccine to boys is under way, with results expected by the autumn.

For anyone who worries about the safety of the vaccine, James Paul O'Neill, Professor of Otolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons, has a message: "The jury is not out on the safety of this vaccine. The jury is very much in. This vaccine is one of the most heavily-scrutinised vaccines of all time, and one of the safest.

"Believe in high-quality medical and scientific evidence - not social media anecdotes. It is essential we protect girls and boys and begin a vaccination programme immediately. We can beat cancer. Protect your children. Vaccinate them."

One thing about the HPV virus is that it only lives in humans. It cannot go off and incubate itself elsewhere.

This means that if we vaccinate fully against it, it would disappear from Ireland, just like smallpox and polio.

And if that happens, 420 people a year in Ireland, plus their families and friends, will be spared the misery of treatment for HPV-related cancer, and possibly death from it.Teams set up area to begin search connected to investigation of missing woman Tina Satchwell

Tina Satchwell was last seen almost a year ago

The husband of missing woman Tina Satchwell (45) said he is "shocked" at the major Garda search operation in Cork woodland for his wife but said he was still hoping and praying she would be located safe.

Richard Satchwell was personally briefed by Midleton Gardai on their plans for a major search for Tina in Mitchel's Wood outside Castlemartyr in east Cork.

The search is being led by Supt Colm Noonan and involves 60 personnel including Defence Forces engineering units and special dog search teams.

A 40 acre section of Mitchel's Wood is being searched in an operation expected to last for three weeks.

Expand Close Teams set up area to begin search connected to investigation of missing woman Tina Satchwell / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Teams set up area to begin search connected to investigation of missing woman Tina Satchwell

The forest was sealed off today and its entrance has been closed with steel security fencing.

Garda search teams have been provided with mobile generators to mobile portable lights.

The site has also been provided with a special garda communications unit, portacabins and portable toilets.

Mr Satchwell said the news of the search left him "shocked and numbed" and with "butterflies" in his stomach.

Expand Close Tina Satchwell has been missing from her home in Youghal since March. / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Tina Satchwell has been missing from her home in Youghal since March.

"I feel sick - I didn't sleep a wink last night".

Mr Satchwell said he "finds it difficult to put into words" how he feels given the potentially ominous turn in the Garda investigation.

The English-born truck driver also said he was "very upset" by false rumours and speculation on social media over the weekend that his wife's body had been found.

Some social media sites had tributes posted to Tina with comments like "RIP".

"I am extremely disappointed and upset," he told TV3.

"(But) I am still hoping Tina will be found safe and well."

"If you don't have hope, you don't have anything," he said.

Mr Satchwell also stressed that he had no involvement in his wife's disappearance.

He said: "I could never harm my wife, never, everybody who knows us knows that.

"My wife is out there somewhere, and I do believe shes going to turn up and we will be able to be put to bed.

Read More: Search begins for missing Tina Satchwell after 'credible information about movement of specific people'

Mr Satchwell also stressed that he had never been in the Mitchel's Wood area of Castlemartyr in his life.

The truck driver appealed for his privacy to be respected, warning that he was dealing with callers to his home from the early hours of the morning.

Mr Satchwell reported his wife missing four days after he last saw her on March 20 2017.

He left their home on an errand that day and his wife was not there when he returned.

Mr Satchwell said Tina was depressed at the time and he initially thought she had gone to her family home in Fermoy to spend time with her relatives.

He has repeatedly insisted that his wife would not attempt to harm herself though he acknowledged she was dealing with personal problems.

It was also claimed that 26,000 the couple had earned from the sale of a property had gone missing from their home in Youghal at the time of Tina's disappearance.

Mr Satchwell insisted he had nothing to do with his wife's disappearance - and said he believes she left Youghal to deal with personal issues, possible with the assistance of someone else.

"My wife is going to turn back up or she is going to get in touch with the Gardai. One way or another this will all come out and, in time, it will (be shown) that I have done nothing," he said.

"I have been with my wife for 28 years - (I have tried to provide) a good quiet, loving marriage and nothing else."

"I have never once in nearly 30 years of being together laid a finger on her - the most I have ever done to her is have a tight cuddle, loving the bones off her."

He has repeatedly appealed to her to return home and insisted he will welcome her with "open arms."

"She is my daylight - she has been my life since meeting her, even before I spoke to her."

"To be honest with you, my life altered (since she vanished)."

Gardai have appealed to anyone who may have witnessed activity in an east Cork woodland to assist their inquiry into the disappearance of Tina Satchwell (45).

"We are appealing to any member of the public who may have any information concerning Tina to contact us in strictest confidence," Supt Colm Noonan said.

"Particularly, I wish to urge anyone who has information relating to activity in our around the woods at Mitchel's Woods, Bridgetown, Castlemartyr, Cork at the time of Tina's disappearance in. Arch 2017 to contact the incident room at Midleton Garda Station."

Read more: Forest searches for missing Tina Satchwell 'were rescheduled because of heavy snowfall'

Supt Noonan refused to comment on what specific information the Gardai had obtained or why Mitchel's Wood was being targeted.

However, it is understood the information was received in recent weeks and involved the movement of specific individuals in the vicinity of the forestry.

Supt Noonan said Tina's family were being briefed on the operation.

"We are in regular contact with the Satchwell family and they have been informed of this search operation today."

"You will appreciate that this is a very stressful time for them and I would urge that they be afforded privacy at this time."

Searches of up to three weeks are planned for.

Search teams began a painstaking trawl of the woodland, located just outside the east Cork village, in advance of the first anniversary of Tina's disappearance.

The searches also represent the first major operation undertaken outside the greater Youghal area where Tina was last seen on March 20 2017.

A property was searched by Gardai in the east Cork seaside town last year - and underwater searches were also conducted by divers in Youghal Bay.

However, no trace of Tina was ever found.

It is understood the searches were planned in the woodland for late February but had to be rescheduled because of the heavy snow falls from Storm Emma.

Tina did not have a passport and a painstaking trawl of CCTV footage from both Irish and UK ports and airports has yielded no clue as to her whereabouts or movements.

She was reported missing by her husband after he had initially suspected she had gone to stay with family members in the Fermoy area.

The couple were 26 years married last November.

The couple got engaged two years after meeting and married in 1991 on Tina's 20th birthday.

Mr Satchwell has insisted he had nothing to do with his wife's disappearance - and said he believes she left Youghal to deal with personal issues.

Tina was well-known for her love of fashion and glamorous clothing.

"She loves posing. She loves her fashion. She loves going around second-hand shops looking for the one individual item so that nobody can go down to Penneys or Dunnes and have the same thing."

Gardai have appealed for anyone who may have information on Tina to contact Midleton Garda Station on (021) 4621550 or the Garda confidential line (1800) 666111.Ifrah Ahmed arrived in Ireland in 2006 when she was 17. She spoke almost no English, and was alone. "I came seeking asylum," she says. "I left Somalia because of the war, it was not safe. Women were raped, there was violence."

Later, she reveals the personal extent of this violence. "We went during the war outside Mogadishu to stay safe. Lots of soldiers came and took all our things and raped me." Ifrah was 13.

She arrived here with almost nothing. Now, through her quite astonishing eloquence and conviction, she has become an international activist and inspiration.

She was instrumental in bringing about the 2012 legislation banning the practice of female genital mutilation in Ireland, and is gender adviser to the Somali government, with the intention of bringing about an end to FGM in a country where 98pc of girls are cut. She has also just been announced as Rehab International Person of the Year.

"My life has changed," she says. "I am so pleased I received this award, it shows what Ireland thinks of the work I do." Ifrah was circumcised when she eight years old. There are three different types of FGM, depending on what exactly is done, and hers was Type 3, in which the vaginal opening is sealed, by cutting and sewing over the outer labia.

The closing over of the vagina and the urethra leaves women with a very small opening through which to pass urine and menstrual fluid, which can lead to serious infections as well as problems with sexual intercourse and even more so during birth.

"I was circumcised by my grandmother's brother, he was a doctor," Ifrah says. And in a way, she was lucky - she has, she tells me, met other girls with even more traumatic stories. "I meet with girls, also refugees, they tell me their stories; one girl told me she was circumcised with broken glass."

Even so, of the 10 or so girls operated on at the same time as Ifrah, one died, from blood loss, and she herself was left - as is common - with serious gynaecological problems.

These were worsened when, after the rape, she was re-circumcised. She has since had surgery to repair some of the damage done by her two circumcisions, but still suffers; "The pain is there always," she says.

When Ifrah came to Ireland, these problems eventually led her to hospital, and the revelation that was to form the basis of her crusade - the knowledge that what had happened to her was not necessary, and did not happen to all girls.

"There was a nurse who asked where I got such injuries, what happened? I felt 'this is not right. I realised that this never happens to Irish girls, and that is what made me so angry. That anger - I still have it. I really want to make a difference. It was not right this happened to me, and I don't want any other girls to go through this."

From there, Ifrah first approached the Somali community in Ireland, "I felt that girls who had been cut, they might need education on how to be treated well when they are having babies." From there, she began to talk to doctors, schools, social workers, gardai and eventually government. She was instrumental in ensuring that FGM is illegal in this country, although, she says, that does not mean it doesn't still happen. "It is silent, a hidden practice, nobody talks."

She also tried persuading other women she met to share their own stories. "I said to them, 'OK, now we have to do something,' but none of them were willing to stand up."

When she describes the kind of abuse she regularly puts up with, it is not hard to see why.

There is the ongoing social media abuse - "they say 'why do you talk about a woman's private area, are you not ashamed?' One guy said 'nobody likes you in Somalia. You think because you are in the Western newspaper, everyone is proud of you, no Somali people are proud of you", which is hurtful (although Ifrah's response "Why should I be ashamed? I don't need permission from you or anybody. I don't need anyone to be proud of me, except me, confidence in what I do," is magnificent).

But there is also the real threat of violence.

"In Somalia, no one talks about this. It is taboo. When I started working there, everyone I met said, 'go away, go back to Ireland, don't talk about this'."

And although Ifrah often works close to where her father still lives in Somalia, she does not contact him. "I cannot see him. It would not be safe for him. I never associate with him, or any of my family. I have taken the decision to be in danger, but I don't want to be the reason my family is attacked." Her father knows only that she does humanitarian work, and is proud of her; "I don't know, if he finds out the reality of what I am doing, what he is going to say?" Of her mother, she says "I never talk about her."

Even in Ireland, still her home, she is not entirely safe. "But I think now I feel safer here than in 2009/2010. Back then, I would get phone calls, anonymous, saying I shouldn't be speaking. I was scared. Now, I feel I have a lot of wings supporting me, including the Government."

As why she puts herself at risk of verbal abuse and worse, Ifrah says: "I believe that I am making a difference. I was given a life, a chance, in Ireland, but there are young girls who have not been given this chance for a better life, who have not been able to leave, who will be subjected to female circumcision, who are at risk, and they should be free. I feel if I save one girl's life, I am going to be happy."

She is very keen to point out that FGM is not, contrary to much popular belief, a religious issue. "Show me where in the Holy Quran it says this? I am Muslim. I practise, I respect myself. Whatever religion other people have is up to them, as long as they respect me. But I don't take bullshit from anyone. Why would I?"

Instead, FGM is a cultural practice, one largely policed by women, like Ifrah's grandmother. "My grandmother, she died, may God rest her in peace. But there was something I always wanted to ask her - 'why did you do it?' - and I never did. It was not easy, I tried and she said 'you have come to question me?' It happened to her, to her mother; everyone had to be cut. I have met with women who say 'it happened to me, why should it not happen to my daughter?' A mother thinks if she does not cut her child, she will not feel the pain that she felt. It's complicated, it's very hard."

So, does she truly think she can help to change this? "It will change," she says. "The only thing is a matter of time. My hope is that by the end of this year, we will have FGM legislation in Somalia. We are working, with UNICEF, with Trocaire, for this." When Ifrah first came to Ireland, she worked as a home help for the elderly. Now, thanks to a grant from UK organisation Amplify Change, to the Ifrah Foundation, she can concentrate on her activism; as she say "if you have no money, you can't do the work."

As for the idea that it will be hard to find a relationship because of what she does, she says, "I make a decision, I don't care who I date. If he becomes Muslim, I welcome it. He doesn't have to be Somali, it doesn't matter what he is if he is a good man."

The day we meet, Ifrah is busy with a feature film based on the story of her life. A Girl From Mogadishu is produced and directed by Mary McGuckian (producer of Intervention, with Charles Dance and Andie MacDowell, and This Is The Sea). Pat Kenny and Maggie O'Kane both have cameos, as themselves. Ifrah will feature in a tiny role. "I will be in the film, but in a way that people will have to find me and say 'where is Ifrah?' It won't be easy."

Maybe not, but I think they'll find her all right. She stands right out.

Ifrah Ahmed was named International Person of the Year at the Rehab Group/ People of the Year Awards. www.peopleoftheyear.com www.ifrahfoundation.org #MeTooFGMA MAN was injured in a suspected explosion at a house in Waterford city.

Emergency services rushed to the scene of the incident at an address in the Ballytruckle area of the city at around 8.45pm on Sunday night.

The man was rushed to University Hospital Waterford with non-life threatening injuries.

Gas Networks Ireland were also dispatched to the scene and remain on site.

Investigations are continuing and the cause of the explosion is not yet known at this stage.

Emergency services are attending the scene of a gas explosion at a private house in Ballytruckle Waterford City. More info to follow.... pic.twitter.com/pGoXylFnJQ  Beat 102 103 (@beat102103) March 4, 2018

It is understood that structural damage was caused to the house as a result of the incident and properties on either side were also damaged.

A spokesman for Gas Networks Ireland said:

"Gas Networks Ireland personnel remain on site, supporting emergency services at the site of an incident at Ballytruckle Road, Waterford City.

"The cause of the incident remains unknown and an investigation is currently ongoing by An Garda Siochana and relevant authorities."The storm over the handling of clerical child sex abuse that sparked the resignation of the Bishop of Dromore has led to the cleric's nephew coming to his defence.

Bishop John McAreavey announced he was standing down from his position last week amid growing controversy around how the Catholic Church dealt with paedophile Fr Malachy Finnegan.

Dr McAreavey had known about allegations of child abuse against the disgraced cleric as far back as the mid-1990s, and conducted Finnegan's funeral.

Finnegan has been accused of sexual abuse by 12 people. The allegations came to light in a BBC 'Spotlight' programme that also looked at the Church's response.

At the weekend the Bishop's nephew, also named John McAreavey, issued a statement on Twitter defending his uncle.

In it Mr McAreavey also made reference to criticism he had received for remarrying five years after his wife Michaela, daughter of Tyrone GAA manager Mickey Harte, was murdered on their honeymoon in Mauritius.

Mr McAreavey wrote: "In the past seven years, I've lived with people questioning my decision to seek life and love again, I've been accused of unspeakable acts, I've endured injustice of a great magnitude...but to see my uncle vilified like he has been causes great pain and anger.

"Uncle John has dedicated his life to God and to serving others. He has always acted with people's best intentions at heart.

"To see some media use vulnerable people to achieve a 'demonstration of perceived power' is both callous and vindictive. We need to care for people by listening and trying to right the wrongs of the past, not using their plight for personal gain.

"My prayer is that the innocent victims of the horrendous abuse caused by Malachy Finnegan will receive the healing they truly deserve."

A statement by Bishop McAreavey on his resignation was read out to parishioners at Mass yesterday.

In it he said he had "wrestled" with the decision to resign, and "following recent media coverage which has disturbed and upset many people, I decided on Thursday to resign".

"I would ask you first and foremost to continue to hold in your prayers those who have been abused," he said.Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin has called on Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to disband the governments Strategic Communications Unit because of concerns about the politicisation of the civil service.

Mr Martin said the centralisation of government communications through the Department of the Taoiseach was dangerous and not good for democracy.

He said it was clear the Strategic Communications Unit was being used to promote government and Fine Gael instead of working as a public information system.

We want to disband it and might put our own motions forward on it, Mr Martin said.

Essentially it has become a propaganda unit.

We cannot and should not be using civil servants to promote the ideas of a political party. This was always a danger as to where we were going to end up and we have ended up there.

Expand Close Leo Varadkar said his departments five million euro Strategic Communications Unit had become a 'distraction' (Niall Carson/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Leo Varadkar said his departments five million euro Strategic Communications Unit had become a 'distraction' (Niall Carson/PA)

Speaking on Today with Sean ORourke on RTE this morning Mr Martin said the confidence and supply arrangement his party has with government never anticipated the establishment of the Strategic Communications Unit but the deal does not prevent Fianna Fail shining a light on it.

However, the party had other options available separate from pulling out of the confidence and supply arrangement.

We want change and there are many ways one can effect change, said Mr Martin.

Read More

His comments came after the Taoiseach said the Government's controversial communications unit could be disbanded.

Leo Varadkar said his department's five million euro Strategic Communications Unit had become a "distraction" and scrapping it was one option that would be considered by an ongoing review into its functioning.

The unit has faced criticism after a furore around a public information campaign on the Government's "Project Ireland 2040" infrastructure plan.

On Monday, Mr Varadkar said scrapping the unit was one option being considered by the review.

"That's something that's going to have to be examined," he told RTE Radio One.

"The unit was set up with a view to modernising and professionalising government communications - it's had some success in that regard.

"It was set up as a unit to better explain the work of the government and now it's become a distraction from the work of government."

Read More

However, Mr Varadkar insisted there was "scant evidence" the unit was using public money to promote Fine Gael, and he accused rivals of focusing on the controversy as a way to distract attention from the benefits of the Project Ireland plan.

He added: "I think there were things that could have been done better so I issued very clear instructions as to how things should operate in the future when it comes to any paid-for advertising by government.

"Some things were too loose and that's why I have put in place those new rules so those things don't happen again and also we are carrying out a review, led by the sec gen, and all options are on the table for that review."Pressure on Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to scrap the 5m Strategic Communications Unit (SCU) in his department is set to rise further when the Dail returns this week.

Mr Varadkar has announced a "general review" of the unit in the wake of controversy over his awareness campaign for 'Project Ireland 2040'.

But Sinn Fein is now threatening to table a motion calling for the SCU's disbandment, which is likely to be supported by both Fianna Fail and the Labour Party.

Amid mounting claims that the unit has been used to promote Fine Gael's electoral chances rather than Government initiatives, Education Minister Richard Bruton said it was correct to spend taxpayers' money advertising the National Development Plan. He said it's important people understand the plan and "engage with it".

But Labour Party leader Brendan Howlin said it was evidence the "Taoiseach was set on self-advancement and self-promotion".

"It is clear from the outset that promoting the political agenda of Fine Gael has always been at the heart of this project," he said.

Similarly Fianna Fail's Darragh O'Brien described Mr Varadkar as a "media-obsessed and spin-obsessed Taoiseach".

He said the Government was "jeopardising the independence of the civil service in certain parts".

Sinn Fein's Eoin O Broin told RTE's 'The Week in Politics' his party was "seriously considering tabling a motion for that Strategic Communications Unit to be disbanded".

"Leo Varadkar needs to step up to the plate and say he's got this wrong. If they want to then put in place something else to review Government communications, that's fine," he said.FINANCE Minister Paschal Donohoe has said he is more convinced than ever that it is vital for the government to be able to communicate with its own citizens, despite the controversy over the Strategic Communications Unit (SCU).

Mr Donohoe was speaking as the opposition has called on the SCU to be disbanded amid claims civil servants have been used to promote Fine Gael in a PR campaign on the governments 116bn spending plan.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has rejected such allegations but has announced a review of the 5m SCU.

He said today that it had become a distraction and scrapping the unit was one option thats going to have to be examined.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin and Labour leader Brendan Howlin have called for the SCU to be disbanded.

Speaking to reporters in London Mr Donohoe was asked if it is time to shut down the SCU.

He noted that Mr Varadkar has instigated a review of the unit but added: I remain more convinced than ever that it vital for a government to be able to communicate with its own citizens regarding how they spend their money and implement their policies."

He referred to the way the government has delivered information about last week's snow storm.

I think we have seen the success of that kind of approach across a very difficult period where our country was dealing with the very, very harsh weather and the great difficulty that was created over the last number of days.

Mr Donohoe said; I think that success will be built upon and the Taoiseach has implemented a review to deal with some of the concerns that have been raised.Dublin Airport is set for a passenger boost after Aer Lingus and Ryanair signed a co-operation agreement, which will help build the capital as a transatlantic flight hub.

The airlines signed an accord, which will enable passengers to get connecting flights through their respective services.

Declan Kearney, director of communications for Aer Lingus, told the Irish Independent the idea was to attract passengers to Dublin to fly across the Atlantic.

"It has the possibility to be a win-win," he said.

"Due to the positioning of Ireland, connecting short-haul to short-haul wouldn't make much sense.

"The idea is to connect short-haul to long-haul. Ryanair fly to places in Eastern Europe where we don't fly."

For example, passengers will be able to fly from Eastern Europe to New York through Dublin Airport, checking their bags all the way through to their final destination.

Similarly, they will be able to fly from New York to Dublin with Aer Lingus and then connect to Eastern Europe with Ryanair.

As part of the agreement, customers will be able to book connecting Ryanair flights through the Aer Lingus website and vice versa.

"We are capitalising on and leveraging the fact that Dublin is a very good location for transatlantic travel," Mr Kearney said.

"This is one of many, many partnerships we have."

He added that Aer Lingus was happy to make the deal.

At present, the companies are working on 'marrying' their technology in order to allow the system to work.

While no specific date has yet been set, the service will be available to customers later this year.

It will be the first agreement of its kind for Ryanair.

The airline's CEO, Michael O'Leary, had long been opposed to selling journeys involving connecting flights, but the company started trials on Ryanair-only connections last year.

Last year, it ended talks with Norwegian Air Shuttle on a similar arrangement.

Insurance

However, Ryanair's chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said last week that the company hoped it would be able to start operating connecting flights with Aer Lingus this year.

It is expected that the service will be packaged by a third-party intermediary, which will also offer passengers connection insurance to cover missed onward flights.

In the past, concern about having to compensate passengers for missed connections was one of Ryanair's main reasons for shunning the idea of offering feeder flights for long-haul routes.The late Emma Hannigan pictured with fellow author Cathy Kelly launching breast cancer awareness campaigns during her cancer battle.

Bestselling author Emma Hannigan, who died on Saturday aged 45 following an 11-year battle with breast cancer

Author Emma Hannigan's husband Cian has paid tribute to his wife after she died on Saturday following a battle with breast cancer.

Cian took to her Facebook page to express his love for the Wicklow woman (45).

"Today, my Emma found peace. She bravely fought a battle against a foe with no mercy.

"Emma was the epitome of strength, love and generosity, beyond anything I have ever known," he wrote.

"She loved her family, loved her friends and she left a trail of glitter and joy throughout her life... with, of course, added tinsel at Christmas.

"She was my wife and soulmate. Mother of my beautiful children, a friend to many and an inspiration to thousands. A loving daughter, devoted mother.

"She was my guiding star and my hug to say everything would be okay.

"But mostly, she was just my Emma and I would need her wonderful gift with words to tell you just how much I will miss her."

Emma, who was mother to Sacha (17) and Kim (15), had been fighting breast cancer for several years and had fought it off 10 times before she finally passed away.

In 2005, the writer discovered that she was carrying the BRCA 1 cancer gene, which meant an 85pc chance of developing breast cancer and a 50pc chance of ovarian cancer.

To reduce her risk to 5pc, the author had surgery to remove her breasts, ovaries and fallopian tubes.

Despite this, she was still diagnosed with cancer in 2007, beginning her 11-year battle with the disease.

Emma's funeral service will take place in Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Church in Foxrock, Dublin, on Wednesday, followed by a burial in Shanganagh Cemetery in Shankill.

Tributes have poured in for the author since her death was announced.

President Michael D Higgins released a statement saying: "It is with great sadness that I have learned of the death of Emma Hannigan, a campaigner to the end.

"Emma Hannigan leaves a lasting legacy not only through her work as a much-appreciated author, but also through her exemplary courage in dealing with terminal illness.

"She will be remembered as a powerful advocate for Breast Cancer Ireland, a great cause, worthy of our support."

Businesswoman and TV personality Norah Casey said: "A wonderful courageous woman just left our world; my heartfelt condolences to her wonderful family."

'Fair City' actress and fellow author Claudia Carroll said: "Heartbroken to hear the sad news about our beautiful, brave Emma Hannigan. Tonight, there really is one more angel in heaven."

Emma announced on her blog two weeks ago that her cancer was terminal.

This prompted a successful campaign from fans that saw her latest book, 'Letters To My Daughters', reach the number one spot in Ireland.

Dubray Books said it was donating its profits on the book to the Irish Cancer Society.

Emma also raised over 100,000 for Breast Cancer Ireland (BCI), for which she was an ambassador.

People can donate to BCI by texting CURE to 50300.Karl's friends went to his favourite places and gathered stones from Donegal's riverbeds. They filled a bucket with the stones and drove them to Dardistown crematorium in Dublin.

Karl's funeral celebrant, interfaith minister Karen Dempsey, invited the hundreds of mourners to take some of the stones. "We asked people, when they were in a place of beauty, and when they felt connected to Karl, to cast their stone and release him back into the universe," says Roslyn, one of Karl's five older siblings. "People brought the stones on their travels and to special places. They've been cast into the lake at Glendalough and the beach at Antibes. People bring them to the beach so Karl can watch the surf. One of them is the foundation stone for a school in Zambia. And people have used them to begin a conversation about mental health; we don't want anyone to go like Karl did."

Karl Collins was only 30 when he died by suicide about a year ago. For his mother Irene, four sisters Aisling, Jennifer, Maria and Roslyn, and brother John, they needed a funeral that would celebrate his life, but they also felt strongly that it had to be a place where they could speak openly about his death.

"As a family, we are absolutely broken by Karl's death," says Maria. "Suicides are often disguised as a 'tragic circumstance' but we wanted to say: 'Talk to someone. Talk about this. We need to invest in mental health services and provide better supports'. We wanted to get that message out there and, with another type of funeral, I don't know if we could have."

In 2015, the Collins family lost their father, Pat, to cancer. For both their father and brother, they didn't want a church funeral.

"We knew Dad wasn't religious like that," says Maria. "I know it can be strange for people who are religious, but we felt it offered us more support, so he had a humanist service (which focused on celebrating Pat's life and remembering him through reflection, story and music).

"We got to play one of his favourite songs, 'Paddy McGinty's Goat' - which is a bit bawdy and probably not appropriate for church - but it summed up Dad's sense of humour."

The Collins family say they have spoken out to honour Karl's memory and to show the devastation that suicide can inflict on families; they point out that his death was a tragic waste which didn't have to happen. They are one of a growing number who are choosing non-religious funerals. Although Christian burial remains, by some distance, the dominant funeral form in Ireland, Mary Cuniffe, president of the Irish Association of Funeral Directors, says that about 15pc of funerals in Dublin are performed by a civil, humanist, interfaith, spiritual or other celebrant, and other funeral directors concur that alternatives are becoming more commonplace.

Expand Close Listening: inter faith minister Karen Dempsey who officiates at alternative funeral ceremonies pictured in Staffords funeral home, Portmarnock. Photo: Gerry Mooney / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Listening: inter faith minister Karen Dempsey who officiates at alternative funeral ceremonies pictured in Staffords funeral home, Portmarnock. Photo: Gerry Mooney

In smaller, subtle ways, our approach to funerals is changing. Where the wake had died out, it is being revived. It's not uncommon to hear families ask mourners to wear bright colours to a funeral but, says Dr Susan Delaney, bereavement services manager with the Irish Hospice Foundation, our move away from wearing black as an outward expression of mourning means that grief isn't always recognised.

This is why the Irish Hospice Foundation have developed a 'bereavement pin' which people can wear to acknowledge their loss and to convey the message that they are grieving; it can also open much-needed conversations.

Increasingly, families want the funeral service to focus on celebrating the person's life. In the Catholic tradition, however, this is anathema: funerals are about the person returning to God through the aid of the congregation's prayers. In recent years, this has occasionally caused tensions, with some families who rarely, if ever, attend Mass turning to the familiarity of the church when death comes only to find that they can't play the secular music of their choice or eulogise about the deceased.

Priests often don't know the family on a personal basis, as they may have in the past. Officially, church rules don't allow eulogies; in practice, most priests will quietly allow them. Father Alan Hilliard is a Dublin priest with over 30 years of service. "I remember in parishes many years ago, there could be three coffins in the church on a Saturday morning and not much sense that there was a funeral.

"Today, funerals that are deeply embedded into the faith tradition can be very different to what they see in films and soap operas.

"That said, people do have the choice to come to church or not, and I've never felt that anyone was disrespectful in a place of worship. Sometimes a family may have a different faith than, say, their late mother who regularly attended Mass, but I have to remember it is about the faith of the person who died. Ultimately, a funeral is about ministering in the face of loss."

The natural approach

Colin McAteer was born into death. He grew up in Fanad Head, on the northern tip of Donegal, surrounded on three sides by water. His grandfather was a funeral director, his father is still one, and he works as one himself. About 10 years ago, he started to make willow coffins which are more natural and environmentally friendly than traditional coffins.

"It wasn't a new idea," he says. "Willow coffins are some of the oldest ever unearthed." Demand took off. Most rural undertakers are part-time, as there are not enough deaths in small communities, so this has been an important source of income for McAteer's family.

However, it's his venture in Wexford which is really starting to change how we think about funerals. "Time and again, people would say the same words to me: 'bury me under a tree'. Simple, normal and natural. So I came up with the idea of a woodland graveyard."

Gradually, Woodbrook, a burial site in Killane, Co Wexford is being transformed into a natural woodland. Instead of rows of gravestones, people return to the earth and the plants. They encourage wildlife by not cutting the grasses. Deer, insects and birds are among the animals reclaiming the land. Native Irish trees are being replanted and wild flower seeds are being sown.

"The bodies contribute to the fertility of the soil," says McAteer. "There are over 100 souls in Woodbrook now, and at least 300 more who have paid for their plot with us. They come from all walks of life, all religions and none."

Separately, as a funeral director, McAteer says he has done "quite a few" non-religious services in north Donegal. "It's new to some of us but we listen to the families."

An inclusive funeral

For Karl's funeral, the Collins family wanted to show his nieces and nephews that he wasn't well, that he hadn't really wanted to die and that he had a great life.

"Karl was so much fun," laughs Jennifer through tearful eyes. "Oh, he lit up every room. A few years ago, he told his niece that he had climbed a mountain, plucked the tail of a phoenix and embedded it into the wand he was giving her. His nieces and nephews just idolised him. He lived life intensely and he loved to make people happy; he was always thinking of something special."

John says he is reminded of his little brother every day. He misses Karl desperately and mourns all the plans they had together: all the surfing they were going to do, all the rocks they had yet to climb. Jennifer and Maria took the stones on the Camino de Santiago a few months after Karl died, and laid one at a clearing that looked over the hills, along with some of their brother and father's ashes.

For ordained interfaith minister Karen Dempsey, her work is about being open to all beliefs and none, and above all, being inclusive. She invited the congregation to pause and let their emotions out. She spoke about Karl's relationships, about his love for his family and how he taught his nieces and nephews to skateboard, BMX and surf. She allowed the family to play songs that Karl loved and that meant something to him, including 'Society' by Eddie Vedder which is about the pressures society places on us all, and a saxophone recording which Karl made a few weeks before his death. "We wanted to be able to talk about the person we loved, and Karen came and listened to us," says John. "She cried with us and laughed at our stories. She wanted to know everything about Karl, and she knew our names and got a real sense of his spirituality."

Funeral directors and celebrants say that religious funerals are the default where the deceased person has not expressed their wishes - although it should be noted that most Irish people would still choose a religious service.

Bereavement services manager Dr Susan Delaney says that the funeral is a vital ritual for those left behind, and that we should not be afraid to talk about the type of funeral that we want.

"We do need more guidance around our options, and families need to be able to choose what is right for them.

"If they know what the deceased would have wanted, they are keen to follow their wishes. We've recently held some 'death cafes' where people can talk about what they want and the feedback has been so positive. Life is for living, and I'm not suggesting we sit and talk about death all day, but it is a conversation we should have at least once with someone. Writing down our wishes can bring comfort to the people left behind when the time comes."

The Samaritans are available around the clock for people suffering distress, upset or suicidal thoughts. Freephone: 116123 or see Samaritans.ie

The Irish Hospice Foundation provides a range of supports, including bereavement supports and 'Think Ahead', a booklet where people can write down their healthcare and funeral preferences. See HospiceFoundation.ieA hot-chocolate seller watches as ice skaters skate and walk on the frozen Prinsengracht canal during icy weather in Amsterdam. Photo: Reuters

Irish passengers stranded in Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, were exchanging war stories.

"We had a flight from Beijing to Dublin via Amsterdam on Wednesday," a young couple from Louth explained.

"The flight was redirected to Shannon but the pilot told us there was a chance we could get to Dublin. So we stayed on the flight, circling Dublin... literally up in the air. But they couldn't land so here we are back in Amsterdam."

Flights to Dublin, Cork and Shannon were cancelled for days while Storm Emma ravaged Ireland.

Expand Close Claire Murphy and her husband Gianmarco doing some impromptu sightseeing in Amsterdam / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Claire Murphy and her husband Gianmarco doing some impromptu sightseeing in Amsterdam

Thousands of passengers had to make alternative plans or simply wait for a new flight. Including myself and my husband, returning from our wedding and honeymoon abroad.

The man who came in from Beijing claimed "the weather conditions were worse there - heavy snow and freezing conditions but the planes continued to land all through the night".

The queue at KLM took us five hours. Rebooking new flights, arranging hotel accommodation, hotel transfers.

There were Mars bars, Snickers and bottles of water handed out.

It was cold comfort, because every day each passenger had to return to queue again at the airport to book a hotel for the next night. Tempers were frayed amid accusations of queue-jumping - everyone looking for someone to blame.

And some of the hotels were not ideal for weary travellers. One couple were forced to stuff towels into the broken window vent and safety pin the curtain to stop the howling freezing air coming into the room.

Finally, over the weekend, everything began running more smoothly and we are hoping to finally make it back to Dublin later today - several days behind schedule.

We got a few wry smiles when we eventually walked out of Schiphol Airport in light summer clothes in -5C.

We had landed from Havana, Cuba, and it was a shock to the system.

It could be worse - we could be in Dublin.Widespread water rationing is now a possibility as the thaw sets in across the country.

Irish Water has already limited night-time supplies to a number of parts of the country.

And its chief executive Jerry Grant has warned that this could be increased dramatically in the coming days.

Water usage in Dublin rocketed by 60 million litres in the past 24 hours due to an mixture of increased consumption and leaks.

"It'll be difficult to maintain that," Mr Grant said.

In Wexford, there are restrictions in Wexford Town from 7pm.

In Mayo, Louisburgh water supply will be restricted due to excessive demand from 11pm to 7am.

In Galway, night time restrictions apply in Carraroe while there is 'intermittent supply' in Tir an Fhia.

In Donegal, the threat that a number of schemes face having night-time restrictions has been lifted,

Around 12,5000 customers in East Meath also face disruption due to what irish Water call "critically low levels" in the Carnes and Balloy reservoirs.

Laois has also been affected, with restrictions in place from 6pm to the Swan, Newtown Doonane and Crettyyard areas from 6pm Sunday.

And large parts of Longford, including Newtownforbes, Clondra, Granard Town, Ballinamuck and Drumlish, will face restrictions from 99pm tonight until 8am tomorrow.

From 8pm tonight, customers in Brosna will be without water until Monday morning.

The National Emergency Coordination Group (NECG) held a lengthy meeting today at which a series of fresh snow-related problems emerged.

It will be far from 'business as usual' tomorrow although most schools and businesses are expected to reopen.

Commuters are being asked to avoid the M7 which still has only one lane open near Naas.

And business owners are being urged to stagger opening times in a bid to avoid normal rush hour traffic volumes.

Chairman of he NECG, Sean Hogan, said: "Where possible we are asking people to use public transport."

He said the M7 between junctions 8-10 "poses significant challenges".

Many communities in the south east, particularly in Wexford, are likely to remain cut off from main roads for days.

Massive snow drifts are also creating problems in parts of Kildare, Wicklow and Waterford.

And Met Eireann are now "quite worried" that a thick fog will descend tonight, making conditions even more difficult for emergency teams on the ground.

Temperatures are gradually rising though and the thaw will continue, with little frost predicted tonight.

Some concerns remain about the potential for flooding and people are asked to stay away from coastal areas at high tide.

More to followAn article on the front page of the Irish Independent on January 9, 1982, detailed the looting in the capital

It was an age before social media, but looting around Dublin dominated newspaper headlines the last time the country was hit with such massive snow.

Almost four decades ago, in 1982, the country was hit with a 36-hour storm on January 8 and 9 which affected the east of the country worst, including the capital.

The army was drafted in to deal with 'the Big Snow' which was wreaking havoc on the nation. There was "widespread looting and wrecking of abandoned cars" over the space of three days following the blizzard, according to the Irish Independent front page of Tuesday, January 12.

The Kevin Street area, as well as Clondalkin and Finglas, saw several incidents of vandalism.

Two CIE buses were burned in Finglas and there were reports of a significant number of car thefts.

Gerard O'Regan, who later became editor of this newspaper, wrote that it would cost local councils hundreds of thousands of pounds. Gardai at the time were said to be incredibly shocked at the wanton vandalism.

One Garda spokesman told the Irish Independent: "They behaved like wolves in the snow.

"I've lost all faith in human nature after what I've seen over the weekend."

The gardai were reportedly extremely hard-pressed due to the extreme weather and having to deal with a high volume of emergency calls in the severe conditions.

In one cruel incident, "most of the possessions of a Dublin family who had to abandon a removal van as they were moving house over the weekend were stolen leaving a husband, wife and three children without thousands of pounds worth of property".

The newspaper reported that gardai feared the extent of the damage would become even more apparent, once the deep snows thawed.

"Hundreds of cars and vehicles still lie abandoned - some for five days now - and their drivers have still to reach them. Many may well have been broken into in the meantime.

"In Dundrum, Co Dublin, teenagers were brazenly pulling a car apart in Taney Road as hundreds of people walked by, ignoring what was happening.

"At the Hole in the Wall in Donaghmede, gardai reported six cars looted after being abandoned in snow drifts," the report added.The mother of a frail infant who had to be airlifted to hospital from their snowbound home at the height of Storm Emma has nothing but praise for everyone who rallied to their aid.

Michelle ONeill (40), from Kilteel, Co Kildare, not only woke up to ten-foot high snow drifts lining the main street of the village on Friday, she became frantic with worry when her 12-week old twin son Kealan stopped breathing that night.

The infant and his twin Senan, were born six weeks prematurely, leaving them more frail than infants the same age.

And when Kealan stopped breathing for almost a minute, Michelle rang 999 for an ambulance, only to be told the snowdrifts and impassable roads would make it impossible for an ambulance to reach them.

While Kealan rallied overnight, Michelle insisted he get medical attention the next day following a sleepless night.

Yet the snow drifts were so high that she and her partner Richard Tyrrell, (44), had to dig their way out of their semi-detached bungalow just to get to the high street that was also buried in snow.

I was absolutely terrified in case something happened," Michelle said. I knew that nothing could get up to me.

She rang her local TD Bernard Durkan (FG) to see if anything could be done.

Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Picture taken on Monday shows extent of snow near Roundwood, Co Wicklow on Monday Snow this morning in Coollattin Co. Wicklow. Photo: Bill Nolan Despite only wearing shorts James Butterworth uses cardboard to dig himself out of the Snow drifts on Harbour road, Arklow, Co Wicklow. Photograph: Garry O'Neill / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Picture taken on Monday shows extent of snow near Roundwood, Co Wicklow on Monday

Although he too was snowed in at his Co Kildare home, he was able to arrange for help by phone.

I was in an awful state, she said.

Read More

But Mr Durkan, (Kildare North), reassured her that help was on its way, she said.

He rang up in ten minutes and said the Civil Defence would be up to me right away, she said.

However, the closest the two Civil Defence jeeps could get to their house on the main street was about a kilometre away from the village despite trying to reach them for over six hours.

Mr Durkan then enlisted the Coast Guard which dispatched a rescue helicopter to Michelles home.

But because it couldnt land anywhere nearby, Michelle and Kealan [taken first in the yellow carrier seen in the attached video] had to be winched 50 feet into the air.

It was terrifying, she said.

But when we were being lifted into the air all the neighbours were so good, she said of them rallying around the family.

She said her neighbours, including retired fireman Martin OBrien and A&E nurse Olive Granger, were also invaluable in the help and reassurance they gave the family during their ordeal.

After the terrifying ascent into the helicopter, they flew to Dublin Airport where they were met with an ambulance and taken to the Temple Street Childrens Hospital.

After undergoing a battery of tests and being kept in for observation, Kealan was released from hospital and returned home today.

Mr Durkan, meanwhile, praised the Civil Defence and Irish Coast Guard for their responses to the emergency.

You cant take a risk with a baby, said the father-of-five.

I want to give my full compliments to the Coast Guard for their understanding. It was a really bad day. It had been snowing the whole day and it was getting worse, he said.

He also praised the Civil Defence for their efforts to reach the family despite snowdrifts of up to 12 feet in places, he added.Irish Water had urged the public not to run taps

IRISH Water will reduce pressure in Dublin, parts of Wicklow, Kildare and Meath from 7pm tonight to allow reservoirs refill.

As the recovery operation in the wake of Storm Emma continues, the water supply is proving to be the major concern for the National Emergency Coordination Group.

Irish Water said that demand rose by 10pc over the weekend, and despite plants working a peak output, storage was severely depleted.

Demand is continuing to rise and our reservoir levels continue to drop. There is not enough water in our reservoirs to meet the current levels of demand, it said.

As a result, Irish Water will reduce water pressure in Dublin, parts of Wicklow, Kildare and Meath from 7pm tonight to 7am Tuesday when supply will begin to return to normal levels. This is essential to allow our reservoirs to refill as repairs to bursts and leaks are underway.

It said hospitals would be prioritised and would have water diverted to them, adding it needed to reduce water pressure to minimise the impact on homes, and in a bid to avoid widespread outages.

Homes will have storage in their attic tanks and businesses should also have storage on site. On high ground and on the extremities of the network, people may experience some outages, it added.

Irish Water, working with the four Dublin local authorities, is reviewing the situation on an hourly basis. Vulnerable customers are being contacted to provide advice and support.

Three bursts in the North Docklands, Infirmary Road and Skerries were repaired over the weekend, saving the equivalent of the daily water usage of Balbriggan which has a population of around 25,000.

Irish Water is appealing to homeowners and businesses to conserve water at this time. Advice on how to do so is available on water.ie. Any visible leaks should be reported to Irish Water on 1850 278 278.

The announcement comes as 7,500 people remain without a water supply as Irish Water and local authorities battle to repair hundreds of leaks across the network.

Trees had to be cut down in woodland in Wexford to repair a mains burst, with crews also forced to trek through three feet of snow to access pipes.

Despite the progress made to date, some 94,000 are also on a restricted service, down from 121,000 last night. These are in Cork, Galway, Kerry, Laois, Westmeath, Longford and Mayo.

Efforts are also continuing to clear roads in Wexford and Wicklow where some communities remain cut off.

Resources from other parts of the country are being diverted to the region as they become available.

A flood alert remains in place for many urban centres and the public are being asked to stay away from coastal areas along the east of the country at high tide.

Just 40 homes are waiting to be reconnected to the electricity network.

Much of the country is now back up and running, said Sean Hogan, the chair of NECG.

But he added that the health service is facing a myriad of problems and some schools have yet to reopen.

Irish Water boss Jerry Grant has this afternoon warned that the crisis facing his staff will continue for quite some time.

There will be significant numbers with water restrictions for the coming days and indeed weeks, he said.

Already households in parts of Westmeath, Meath, Kerry, Longford and Galway are experiencing interruptions in their supply.

And more than 1 million customers in the Greater Dublin Area will start to notice a reduction in water pressure from tonight.

Mr Grant said the restrictions would be as broad as possible and will apply between 7pm and 7am.

Water usage increased by 20 million litres in the past 24 hours. This is due to the combination of people returning to normal activities and leaks in the system.

Mr Grant urged people to prioritise water conservation, including taking shorter showers and not leaving taps running.

The health service is going to take at least two weeks to return to its normal routine.

Patients who have appointments in the coming days are being asked to wait for a phonecall rather than contacting their hospital.

The National Ambulance Service received 1,079 call-outs in the past 24 hours amid a spike in the number of people seeking treatment for fractures.

Most public transport is back in action but motorists are still being urged to use extreme caution. In particular drivers are being warned to watch out for pedestrians who may step off the footpath in search of better underfoot conditions.

Garda have also appealed for people who were forced to abandon cars on roadsides during the storm to collect them as soon as possible.

More than 1,300 Defence Force troops are still assisting with the clean-up.Courtesy Regan Arts(HARARE, Zimbabwe) -- Cecil the Lion was allegedly baited with an elephant carcass, drawing him out of a protected national park and into the crosshairs of a Minnesota trophy hunter perched in a tree stand nearby, according to never-before revealed details described in a new book on the beloved lion's death.



Wildlife Watch, an investigative reporting project from National Geographic, has published excerpts from a new book entitled Lion Hearted: The Life and Death of Cecil & the Future of Africas Iconic Cats. The author, biologist Andrew Loveridge, studied the cat for eight years at Oxford Universitys WildCRU, a conservation research unit.



Cecil was killed in July 2015 by a Minneapolis-area dentist, Dr. Walter Palmer, who allegedly paid $50,000 for the chance to kill the 12-year old lion on a hunting expedition to Zimbabwe. The killing provoked international outrage over big-game hunting and protests outside Palmers office that forced him to shutter his dental practice for several weeks.



To prepare for Palmers expedition, Loveridges book contends, his hunting guide Theo Bronkhorst and wildlife tracker Cornelius Ncube dragged the carcass of an elephant that had been killed a week earlier by another hunting client to "a suitable location" 300 meters behind a Land Cruiser -- and outside the protected Hwange National Park. They constructed a hunting blind in a nearby tree, overlooking the elephant carcass.



The scent of the dead elephant drew Cecil out of his normal habitat in the protected national park, allowing Palmer to shoot Cecil with a compound bow from the hunting blind, according to Loveridges book, and the lion was killed between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. on July 1, 2015.



"This was an easy lion to hunt -- a park lion, well-fed and habituated to people," Loveridge wrote.



GPS data transmitted from Cecils tracking collar in the overnight hours after he was shot show the lion only moved 160 meters from the place he had been shot before Bronkhorst advised Palmer to "finish the lion off" with a second arrow that would kill him.



Loveridges book claims the injured lion was killed 10 to 12 hours after he was initially shot, not the 40 hours that was reported by some media outlets in the weeks after his death, which is not to say the lion didnt suffer before dying.



Ncube, the tracker, said he recalled hearing the animal struggling to breathe in the hours after he was shot, in Loveridges book.

Loveridges team had been tracking Cecil via the GPS collar, which the lion was wearing at the time of his death. He said he based his book on the location data transmitted from that collar, as well as interviews with people involved in the hunt.



However, he alleges Palmers hunting guide removed the GPS collar from Cecils neck at some point and it was never recovered. Bronkhorst admitted removing the collar in a moment of panic and hanging it on a tree near where Cecil was killed, the book said.



Palmer was never charged with a crime for Cecils death and told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in a 2015 interview that no one in his guided hunting party knew the lion he killed was the beloved black-maned Cecil.



A high court in Zimbabwe dropped charges against Palmers hunting guide Theo Bronkhorst, ruling he didnt do anything wrong since the lion was killed just outside the protected Hwange National Park in a privately owned wildlife area called the Gwaai Conservancy.



Palmers legal adviser Joe Friedberg told ABC News he did not yet have a response to the new details contained in Loveridges book.



The Trump administration reversed a ban last year on the import of lion trophies from certain parts of Africa, arguing that regulated hunting benefits the conservation of the species. African lions were place on the endangered species list for the first time in 2016, when as few as 17,000 African lions were reported to remain in the wild.



Loveridges book will be published on April 10.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.Lidl supermarket on Fortunestown Lane in west Dublin, after a digger was reportedly used by looters to gain access to the store Photo: Chai Brady /PA Wire

Lidl has confirmed that 30 staff members will be redeployed to other stores in the Dublin area after a branch in Fortunestown, Tallaght was looted and damaged on Friday night.

A meeting was held this morning and a Lidl spokeswoman said the actions of others will not "impact the livelihood of our hard-working team."

"On behalf of the Store Manager Ruth and her team we would like to thank everyone for their kind words in the aftermath of this incident. The team are genuinely blown away by the swell of support from, not just the community that they serve daily, but from right around the country," the spokeswoman said.

A digger was used to smash into the supermarket on Friday, causing the building to partially collapse. Nobody was injured as the store was closed at the time.

A Centra store in the Tallaght area was also broken into on the same night, while six cars were also set on fire in the Jobstown area, in what was a chaotic night in west Dublin.

Armed gardai had to be deployed in the area. A uniformed patrol in a jeep was sent to the scene but had difficulty accessing the location because of heavy snow drifts.

The gardai attempted to approach the supermarket on foot but immediately came under attack from the growing gang of looters.

Councillor Cathal King said that those involved give a bad name to the Tallaght community.

"Everyone I know that has seen this video is extremely disappointed. It's a small minority of the community that's making us all look bad."Being asked to be a bridesmaid can provoke some conflicted emotions. While theres joy at what is truly a token of your friends love and esteem for you, thoughts can then rapidly turn to the practicalities of the role.

Horror stories of 'bridezillas' writing contracts for their bridesmaids whereby they must promise not to put on weight or drink more than a certain amount of alcohol at the wedding, and friendships ending over unreasonable behaviour on both sides also contribute to the fear that it could all go horribly wrong. However, you can navigate potential minefields from the beginning by laying ground rules and making some decisions early on.

1. Do I have to say yes?

The expert opinion on this is that while you dont have to accept an invitation to be a bridesmaid, your excuse for declining had better be good. Every bride wants everything to run smoothly and they dont want hitches, so they sit down with the dream list of what they want, what they can afford and who they want to invite, says Jillian Bolger, the editor of The Vow magazine. Bridesmaids are top of that list so I think unless you have a very legitimate excuse like pregnancy or a sick relative, you should accept. I think its an honour to be asked and to be given a star role in someones big day and sickness, death or distance should be the only reasons you cant make it work.

Orla Brosnan, founder and director of Etiquette School of Ireland, believes that there are ways around it, if taking on the role is not for you. You might be really busy in work, had a baby or other factors that make you not suitable. You mightnt be able to afford it and theres a lot of expense on bridesmaids in terms of cost of dress, jewellery etc, she says. But there are other ways of helping the bride, either before the wedding or on the day itself.

2. Im worried shell put me in a meringue

Stories about hideous bridesmaid dresses are endemic, and if its a case that your friend would like to see you don a taffeta concoction for her Big Day, urge her to look at the bigger picture  literally. Brides will say I dont want my bridesmaid to look too good and I will tell them that youre the bride, youre the one in the wedding dress, youre the star of the show here and it doesnt matter what theyre wearing, says wedding and event planner Tara Fay. If you had a beautiful picture, would you put it in an unattractive frame? By putting it in a beautiful frame, youre only enhancing whats inside it, so by having bridesmaids that complement your wedding dress and having hair and make-up that complements yours, youre only making yourself look better.

She adds: Its incumbent on brides to take on board that if the bridesmaid isnt comfortable in what theyre wearing, theyre going to look uncomfortable in the photos and the bride will look at those forever and think Why did I have her?

Its being about treading carefully and explaining gently that youd prefer to look at other options and there is a diplomatic way to handle it, says Jillian Bolger. Of course the bride gets final veto on the decision about the dress but its good to let the bridesmaids decide. Give them a colour palette or style, such as everyone wearing strapless, and within that you can work with it, so that someone could wear a shrug if theyre not comfortable being exposed. I think a bride needs to offer flexibility.

3. I'm not sure what the expectations are

No two weddings are the same, but the key role of any bridesmaid is to be a pillar of support and emotional rock for the bride on the day, and in the months and weeks leading up to the ceremony. From attending dress fittings, to spending weekends looking at hair jewels, giving advice on guest seating, invitations and food, and planning the hen party to the actual duties on the day itself  including helping the bride go to the toilet and having emergency plasters in your clutch bag  it can seem as though a bridesmaids work is never done. And the only person who can advise you on what your role is to be is the bride.

Wedding and event planner Tara Fay advises that brides need to be very clear in explaining what they expect from their bridesmaids. Some people just want the bridesmaid to turn up and be there on the day; sometimes its a more subliminal message of what they want, but they dont actually tell their bridesmaids and then thats where the problems start, and sometimes theyre really specific, she says. Brides need to communicate what they want the bridesmaids to do. Do you want them to organise your hen night? Do you want to know about it or not? And if they are organising then you have to let them do it and you cant keep asking about it. Do you expect them to fly halfway around the world to your dress fittings with you or to lose 2st?

According to Cathy O Shea, Wedding Executive at The Shelbourne Hotel, Dublin, bridesmaids have become more involved in the wedding planning process in recent times. Bridesmaids now come in for consultations for the couples, she says. They support the couples by attending menu tastings, floral consultations and many other aspects of pre-wedding day preparations. She suggests that bridesmaids should know the timings for the day and be familiar with the venue. I have found that it is a great help when certain jobs are delegated to the bridesmaids, such as rounding up guests for family photos, mingling with guests, making sure the parents of the couple are being looked after and enjoying the day, she says. My top tip for all bridesmaids out there is to have a bag with bride essential items, for example hair clips, baby wipes, lipstick and tissues.

The Vows Jillian Bolger believes that social media has made the job of being a modern bridesmaid more difficult. If you were to roll back pre-mobile phones youd have arrangements to meet up on a Saturday and go looking for dresses or scouting shoes and venues, she says. Nowadays a bride can be on Pinterest in bed at 1am and find something she likes and your WhatsApp is pinging in the middle of the night. Its harder for bridesmaids to take a break and say, Well talk about your wedding at the weekend. Once youre hired for the gig, I think theres a 24/7 expectation there that when I send you a message about the wedding Im expecting you to get back to me. Its a bigger job than it was before because its more demanding, even if you have a low-key bride.

4. Im not sure I can afford all of this

Its quite common that brides will pay for their bridesmaids dresses and hair and make-up, but its not a universal. Even if they do pay out for these, there are other associated costs from accessories, transport, hen parties, gifts and more. Conversations about finances can be uncomfortable but Etiquette School of Irelands Orla Brosnan says honesty is the best policy. If you cant afford the 500 dress or the 100 make-over, you absolutely say, This is what I can afford to pay. Have a chat with the other bridesmaids to come up with a budget at the very start  put money together and see what you can come up with.

Similarly, if the hen night is turning into a money pit, with the bride suggesting a girlie getaway in Ibiza or Berlin, Jillian Bolger suggests gently guiding the bride on this. If you want it to be a celebration of your best pals and you want it to be something special, there are loads of great things you can do in Ireland instead of jumping on a plane. Once you throw a plane into the mix, even if its Ryanair, its instantly another hundred quid, she says. The best thing to do is to say, What would you love to do and who are you going to invite? and if you have to, explain that this group of people isnt going to be able to afford that. Bridesmaids need to be vocal about this.

5. Where will I find the time?

Experienced bridesmaids will agree that taking on the role can be a very time-consuming affair, and that if you are time-constrained, to alert the bride to this when youre asked. Make sure from the outset to explain to her that maybe if she has a list of tasks, you can take on one or two but you cant take it on full-time and be very honest about the amount of time that you can spend with her. If shes happy with that, thats fine, says Orla Brosnan.

Its part of a bridesmaids job to be on this journey with her friend, and that may necessitate taking some measures to ensure that you dont become overcome with wedding fatigue. I think in the beginning everyone is carried away and excited and we all want to talk about the wedding  when are you going to do it, what do you think youll wear. As the time wears on, six months into it and that momentum is lost, maybe not for the bride but for other people involved, says Jillian Bolger. A demanding bride can put a strain on everyone and I think its important that the women decide, We are going to go out on Saturday night for drinks and were not talking weddings, in the same way we might say were not talking about kids or the new baby or the job that youre obsessed with. I recommend time out from wedding talk for brides and their grooms as well.

6. How can I be the best bridesmaid ever?

Wedding planner Tara Fay believes its important for bridesmaids to have patience, to listen and dont give an opinion unless asked for it  and then give it sparingly. I get away with saying a lot of things because Im an impartial adviser and theyre not going to hold it against me. But for a bridesmaid to say, You should consider those Spanx is not going to go down well.

Jillian Bolger advises that even if the bride is having a meltdown about something, to remember that it all comes together on the day. Ive read every story under the sun about disastrous weddings days. For my own wedding, my priest was incommunicado for a week, the peony crop in the Netherlands was damaged so I couldnt get the flowers I wanted for my bouquet and two weeks before my wedding, my pregnant bridesmaid didnt fit into her dress.

The bottom line is everything goes ahead, the wedding will happen and if theres a blip on the master-plan the bride and groom have to remember that theyre the only ones who knew the master-plan, so once they keep the cool head, the show goes on, she says.

A bridesmaid has to be a calmer voice and help find a solution. Anything  apart from a dress not showing up in time or a wedding venue going bust  is surmountable and tweakable, and the bridesmaid needs to get the bride up the aisle looking and feeling calm.Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the majority of babies in Ireland were fed formula.

In 1974 for instance, the breastfeeding initiation rate at the Rotunda hospital was 11pc.

But breastfeeding rates in Ireland are now climbing. Last year, 55.4pc of Irish babies were being breastfed at the time of the public health nurse's first visit, which usually takes place within days of the birth.

But Ireland still has the lowest rate for breastfeeding in Europe.

A study published in The Lancet in 2016 found Ireland had the lowest breastfeeding rates of 27 high-income countries.

The World Health Organisation says adolescents who were breastfed as babies are less likely to be overweight or obese. They are less likely to have type-II diabetes and they perform better in intelligent tests, the WHO says.

The Irish government's action plan on breastfeeding wants to increase breastfeeding duration rates by two per cent every year for the next four years.

Part of this strategy is to encourage the provision of supports for women breastfeeding in the workplace.

Internationally, politicians who were also new mothers have been - granted, sometimes inadvertently - raising awareness about breastfeeding in their parliaments.

In 2013, Victorian Labor MP and new mother Kirstie Marshall was asked to leave state parliament because she was breastfeeding her 11-day-old daughter.

A parliamentary rule did not permit "strangers" or unelected members in the house, she was told.

But Ms Marshall said: "I didn't come here to break the rules. Charlotte was due for a feed, so I whacked her on the breast and walked in and sat down. Then an official came and told me there was a room set aside for me to feed her."

Three years later, the Australian Parliament changed its rules to allow mothers to breastfeed in the chamber. Australia has a 90pc initiation rate for exclusive breastfeeding.

Also in 2016, Icelandic politician Unnur Bra Konrasdottir nursed her six-week-old daughter at the podium of the Alingi parliament, while explaining her vote on new immigration legislation.

Here, in Ireland, no one except elected members and officials are allowed inside the chamber. But there is no policy on breastfeeding in the Houses of the Oireachtas, a spokesperson says.

We have no policy on breastfeeding in the chambers as it has never arisen as an issue, but as it stands, only elected members and officials are allowed in the chamber.

There are no maternity or paternity leave entitlements for TDs and Senators in Ireland.

Many Irish female TDs and Senators have called for the rules to be changed.

Speaking to independent.ie, former education minister Jan OSullivan told Independent.ie that breastfeeding should be allowed inside the Dail and Seanad chambers.

Ms OSullivan said: I would be in favour of changing the rules to allow breastfeeding in the chamber.

I will take the opportunity to raise the issue of breast-feeding in the chamber(s) at the meeting of the Women's Parliamentary Caucus.

Social Democrats TD Roisin Shorthall said: For sure, I think breastfeeding should be allowed in the Dail chamber and indeed council chambers around the country.

Actually, we raised it as an issue for council chambers last year This was on foot of some work my colleague Cllr. Jennifer Whitmore was doing in this area.

Jennifer was the first councillor to breastfeed her baby during a county council meeting (Wicklow) in 2016."

We strongly believe that there needs to be a concerted effort to increase rates in Ireland and that its important that it is seen as the norm.

There are breastfeeding facilities in the Oireachtas for members of staff who wish to breastfeed. But breastfeeding in the chambers themselves has not been sanctioned.

Were it to be sanctioned, it would send a clear message to the Irish public, some TDs and Senators feel.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said the government's national maternity strategy should support women in their choice to breastfeed.

National health policy emphasises the importance of supporting mothers who breastfeed as well as taking action to increase breastfeeding rates in Ireland.

The National Maternity Strategy 2016-2026 states that in addition to practical supports which can be provided to mothers, such as support to continue breastfeeding on return to the workplace, a broader societal change is required in order to promote a more positive culture around breastfeeding. This should support women to feel confident about their choice to breastfeed.

In 2014, the journal Maternal and Child Health published a study looking at breastfeeding and maternal depression.

It found that mothers who planned to breastfeed and went on to do so were around 50pc less likely to become depressed than mothers who had not planned to, and who did not, breastfeed.

Senator Catherine Ardagh said Ireland has a long way to go before women feel confident to be able to breastfeed in the chamber.

The Oireachtas needs to become a more women-friendly environment, she says.

I believe all women who have children should get as much support as possible to breastfeed their babies. All of the research shows it benefits the baby and the low figures for women who breastfeed in Ireland has never been tackled on a constant basis. This is a shame. Breastfeeding should be the norm and not a rarity. Ireland has one of the lowest rate in the world.

At least under section four of the Maternity Act there are entitlements laid out to help mothers who return to work and who still want to breastfeed. These entitlements should be promoted more so that women are aware.

Unfortunately women who are elected to the Oireachtas do not have maternity leave and this needs to be corrected. Some colleagues who have had children have come back to work within a month or less and this is not fair. More women should be encouraged to make the choice to breastfeed and employers / workplaces should provide facilities to allow them to continue to do so when they return to work.

The Oireachtas should become more women friendly and it was good to see child care facilities opened in the last few years but we have a long way to go in relation to women to feel confident to be able to breastfeed in the chamber.

She added: I have requested this item be on the agenda at the next Seanad Committee on Procedures and Privileges and this request has been acceded to.

Senator Ivana Bacik, who was pregnant with her second daughter when she was first elected in 2007, says she was happy to use the Oireachtas creche facilities to breastfeed her baby when she returned to work. Having conveniently located breastfeeding facilities was key, she said.

In the Seanad, I am one of very few women for whom [breastfeeding in Parliament] might have been an issue, as I was pregnant with my second daughter when first elected back in 2007 - but I was really pleased then to learn that other women previously elected to the Oireachtas had campaigned for provision of on-site Oireachtas creche facilities, so I was able to use those both for part-time child care and for breastfeeding when my baby was small.

It was great as it meant I could still attend the chamber and participate in certain debates without being too far from my daughter and before I was ready to return to work full-time.

It is really important that provision is made for breastfeeding in workplaces, particularly given the very low rate of breastfeeding in Ireland - women need crucial supports both while on leave and when they return to work, in order to encourage greater take-up.

She added: I think the main thing is to have conveniently located breastfeeding facilities available in workplaces generally

Green party TD Catherine Martin, who breastfed her three children, said politicians are told quite categorically when theyre first elected that they are the only people allowed in the Dail chamber.

I think [breastfeeding in the chamber] should be allowed and Ive written to the ceann comhairle in the Dail, to the Dails committee on procedure and privileges, and the Cathaoirleach in the Seanad, to the Seanads committee on procedure and privileges, to see if they can make the change.

Who wouldnt support this?

Why our statistics are so low for breastfeeding is because they are rooted in cultural choices. If we had this changed in our national parliament, it would be a chance to lead and change the culture and it would be a signal by our national parliament for change.

I breastfed all my three children. The bond is incredible, and the bond is the bonus.

It maybe something we dont think about. But when you become a TD and youre elected, youre given a tour of the building in your first few days, and youre told quite categorically that you are the only person allowed into this chamber.

If you make the decision to breastfeed your child, you should be given the support to do so. Especially moreso now with more women represented.

Kildare Fianna Fail TD Fiona OLouhglin, who believes that some allowance should be made in the chambers for politicians who are breastfeeding, said times are changing in Irish politics.

The issue has not arisen before now possibly because of the lack of women elected - less than 100 hundred in 100 years, Ms OLoughlin told Independent.ie.

I certainly believe that some premise in the chamber should be made for mothers who are breastfeeding, especially around voting when presence is mandatory. I would support any such measures.

Sinn Fein Senator Maire Devine, who breastfed her three children, said she feels a facility for breastfeeding directly outside the Dail and Seanad chambers would be appropriate.

As a mother I would want to be able to have the freedom to do it but whether Id be brave enough to do it on camera is another thing. I breastfed all of my children, I didnt mind sitting in cafes, restaurants and bars, but Im not sure, if specifically knowing you were being filmed I just wouldnt feel comfortable.

For me, the anteroom would be an appropriate area to look at bringing in soft furniture and would accommodate breastfeeding and make women feel comfortable to bring the children in with them.

To breastfeed in front of cameras, I couldnt.

She added: If someone was in this position and wanted to bring the issue forward, I would support them 100pc.

Senator Grace OSullivan is the mother of three daughters, who were all born in the Netherlands, which has an 80 pc initiation rate in breastfeeding.

Traditionally, politics was so heavily male dominated. Now theres a slow increase in the numbers of women in politics, then possibly there will be more demand for women to have the opportunity to bring their baby in to the Oireachtas and go to the creche to feed.

She added: Were not in the chamber that often. Were here three days a week  Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and you have notice of when youll be sitting, so I dont know if theres any demand for the current members to bring their babies into the chambers.

But she added: Considering that we do expect to have more women in politics in time, in that case I think itd be great to have this discussion and see can we facilitate the needs of women and see could the Oireachtas be more favourable to women.

Former Tanaiste, Joan Burton, said she is strongly in favour of breastfeeding.

Of course that requires access to nice clean warm facilities for mother and baby, and yes that should be avail generally in the Dail building.

We have a reconstruction going on in the Dail but it should from part of the brief to have those facilities available.

Senator Alice Mary Higgins said Ireland needs more lactation consultants across hospitals and communities to support women breastfeeding and tackle the low national breastfeeding rate.

Beastfeeding is an important issue in many workplaces. You may be aware that currently workplaces are obliged to accommodate breastfeeding for up to six months after birth. However, in most workplaces, although not the Oireachtas, women are entitled to six months of maternity leave which makes the measure somewhat ineffective."

"I strongly support the recommendation from the National Women's Council of Ireland that this be extended to one year in all workplaces as part of an important shift in culture to encourage and support breastfeeding. I also believe that there is a pressing need for more lactation consultants in both our hospitals and communities to support women breastfeeding.Pauline Bewick was raised on a small farm in Co Kerry, Ireland. Her mother Harry took her two daughters to Ireland in the late 1930s after leaving Northumberland, England. Following their time in Kerry, they went on to live in England once again, moving from progressive school to school, living in a caravan, a houseboat, a railway carriage, a workman's hut, a gate lodge, back to Dublin and to Kerry again where she has settled for the last 44 years.

Bewick started to paint at the age of two and has continued throughout her life. On turning 70, Pauline donated 500 pieces of her life's work to the Irish Nation. She is a member of Aosdana and a Royal Hibernian academician and has two daughters; Holly who lives with her family in Italy, and Poppy who lives with her family near Pauline. Both are respected artists.

The Irish Cultural Centre and the Barbara Stanley Gallery will present an evening of film and conversation with Pauline, hosted by Dylan Haskins on Friday, March 9, as part of the Mayor of London's St Patrick's Festival. paulinebewick.ie

TV: Attenborough's Ark

Last night I watched David Attenborough (below) filling his ark. The creatures he chose, from the tiniest frog to crystal-making worm-like creatures, showed his breath of understanding and lack of sentimentality about all living creatures. Again, it was so refreshing to hear his non-judgemental ways.

Expand Close David Attenborough / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp David Attenborough

Music: The Wonder

On the feast day of St Brigid, also the night of the blue moon, shining on and off in the navy blue sky and the dark clouds covering its vividness, I hear accordion music and see a group of torchlights, nine or 10 young people wearing white shirts with a Brigid's cross pinned on each, they fill my studio, each wearing tall hats made from straw. Two women with even bigger straw hats encouraged the group to play a kerry set for me, then a brush dance, the music filled my studio. One piece particularly caught my heart - played on a small brown "bosca ceoil" - they called it, The Wonder by Orlaith Burke and Eadaoin O'Sullivan.

Artist: Henri Rousseau

Expand Close Henri Rousseau / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Henri Rousseau

One of the Henri Rousseau paintings that hangs in the Musee d'Orsay, Paris stands out larger than life; The Snake Charmer (above). Standing on the edge of a river in the twilight, the magic completely overpowers one. Sometimes the freshness is not there in a more correct and formal painting, it's made dull by its correctness.

Place: BBC Broadcasting House

It was there I met Jilly Cooper, we were both interviewed together by the great Libby Purves. The first thing I noticed was the gap between Jilly's front teeth - just like mine - and we could not stop talking. By the time we had left the gorgeous building we had become "best friends" that never met again!

Book: Alice in Wonderland

Expand Close Alice in Wonderland / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, illustrated by John Tenniel. In all of my 83 years it has never lost its subliminal philosophical magic. From childhood to old age, this book talks to you, it has a mystery the way life has a mystery.

Pauline Bewick Exhibition, at City Hall, London will be opened by Ambassador Adrian O'Neill on Wednesday, March 7-21, irishartinlondon.comThe furniture in the bedroom is from Vaughan's - the family business does everything for the home, down to bed linen and kitchenware

The bathroom is fitted out with a jacuzzi, which Jackie says they use all the time. They installed a TV, so its the perfect place for a combined soak and relax

Jackie in the main living room. The floor is smoked-oak laminate and the walls are painted in Mystic Fog, by Colourtrend. Note the units go to the ceiling - Jackie has done this throughout the house as she feels it creates a sleek, uncluttered look

The dining area, which is between the kitchen and the sun room. The dresser is ideal for displaying Jackie's collection of Nicholas Mosse ware - she loves it, particularly as a beloved aunt who has recently passed away, gave her her first piece

Jackie took out one of the four bedrooms and installed instead a well-designed dressing room, which has ample storage for her many shoes and bags

One of the three sitting areas in Jackie Vaughan's home. She designed the steel overmantel and her husband Stephen fabricated it for her. Photo: Tony Gavin

Interior architect Jackie Vaughan in her stunning kitchen. It was the first kitchen she ever designed, while her father's crew built the units. These are handpainted in French Grey by Little Greene. Photo: Tony Gavin

At the top of the stairs in interior architect Jackie Vaughan's delightful home in Moyvane, Co Kerry, hangs a crystal chandelier.

It's beautiful, but that isn't its only significance to Jackie - it's extra meaningful because it was one of the first presents from her then boyfriend, Stephen. "It was 13 years ago. We weren't going out very long, and we were only 17, if even that," Jackie recalls. "I loved going into furniture shops; I would stay in them for the day. We happened to be in a furniture shop one day and I said to Stephen, 'That chandelier is incredible, I love it'. He bought it as a gift for me, along with a huge mirror that's in the sitting room. They were in storage for 10 years until we bought the house."

There are several remarkable things about this story. For a start, most teenage romances fizzle out, particularly if the relationship, as in this case, has to be conducted at a distance, yet this young couple went on to marry - while still based thousands of miles apart - and are very happy.

The other remarkable thing is that despite her passion for furniture, and despite the fact that her father has always had his own kitchen and furniture company, Vaughan Kitchens & Furniture, it didn't dawn on young Jackie when she was leaving school that something in interiors would be the ideal career for her. "My family have been in the design business for 35 years. I have one younger brother, Jamie, who's in the family business too," Jackie says, adding, "I grew up in the business. I used to love arranging the furniture, but I never thought of it as a career; I never thought a career could be that enjoyable."

Expand Close One of the three sitting areas in Jackie Vaughan's home. She designed the steel overmantel and her husband Stephen fabricated it for her. Photo: Tony Gavin / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp One of the three sitting areas in Jackie Vaughan's home. She designed the steel overmantel and her husband Stephen fabricated it for her. Photo: Tony Gavin

Rather than emulating her younger brother, when Jackie left school, she decided to follow in her older sister's footsteps - Katrina had a beauty salon, so Jackie decided to also study beauty therapy. "I thought it would be quite convenient, easy to get a job," she notes, laughing at her younger self, "But I didn't love beauty, so I gave it up and I travelled for a while."

She went to London for a year with Stephen, who had become a welder. Then, when she came back, she went into the fashion business. "I opened up a bridal boutique, called Angel Couture Bridal in Tralee, and I had that for nearly five years. I opened it in 2009; it was the beginning of the downturn. It just wasn't a good time. I closed the shop in Tralee after about two years, but I relocated to my father's premises in Moyvane. It takes a long time to wind down a bridal shop, people have put in orders in advance and you have to fulfill them," Jackie explains.

Stephen was in Australia when she closed the business, so she joined him for nine months, before coming home and joining her dad and brother in the family business. It was through that, and then through doing up her own house, that it finally dawned on Jackie that her dream career path lay in interiors, and she signed up to do an interiors degree. She's just graduated as an interiors architect from Griffith College.

It was a four-year course, and while most 20-somethings at Jackie's stage of life would have their studies behind them and would be out socialising, it suited her to continue her studies, as Stephen, whom she met in Abbeyfeale on New Year's Eve when she was 15, works in mines on the other side of the world, and has done ever since he trained as a welder. He specialises in welding the pipes that take the gas in gas mines, and all the work in that field is in the Middle East and Australia.

After the year they spent together in London, Stephen went to Kuwait; Jackie didn't join him there as it was too restrictive for women, so they used to meet half-way. "For his week off, we would meet in cities in Europe; it sounds romantic, and it can be, but it can be hard too," she explains.

After three years in Kuwait, Stephen went to Australia, and for the last five years, he's been commuting. "He's home at the moment, and it's the first time in five years that he's been home for longer than six months," Jackie says. "He's been here for eight months - he was home for my finals, which was great. There would be no point in me living in Australia; that time I went to Australia, I was mostly by myself, except when he got time off. Otherwise, he'd be working in a mine and living on a campsite. He's never near a city, it's all camp work, very isolated."

Expand Close Jackie in the main living room. The floor is smoked-oak laminate and the walls are painted in Mystic Fog, by Colourtrend. Note the units go to the ceiling - Jackie has done this throughout the house as she feels it creates a sleek, uncluttered look / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Jackie in the main living room. The floor is smoked-oak laminate and the walls are painted in Mystic Fog, by Colourtrend. Note the units go to the ceiling - Jackie has done this throughout the house as she feels it creates a sleek, uncluttered look

The way it normally works is Stephen does a 28-day stint, then gets a week off. "Because of flight times and time differences, we'd only get four-and-a-half days before he'd have to go back again,"Jackie explains, adding that she doesn't mind the unusual lifestyle. "He loves it, he lives for his job, and that's most important. I'm very easy-going, and from such a young age, I'm used to him travelling. It makes no difference to me.There were the odd few phone calls, 'I never want to see you again' - but they never lasted long," she says with a laugh.

It helps that her parents, her brother and two sisters - both sisters have their own businesses, one has a beauty salon, the other owns a hair salon - all live nearby. "We live in each other's pockets, but it's lovely too," Jackie says.

Stephen and Jackie got married in 2012 - Stephen flew in for the wedding - and they weren't sure at the time where they would end up living. Would they emigrate to Australia, or would they settle in Ireland? "Stephen was living out of a suitcase for six years; we needed some place to call home," Jackie says. "Five days after the wedding, I saw this house, and I loved it immediately. Stephen had to fly back to Australia, so I took it on. It was never supposed to be our forever home, but I fell in love with it."

The house is one of five built in 2008 and taken over by the banks until 2012, when they were all sold. "Because of that, we got a deadly bargain," Jackie notes, "And it became my project. And I think that's when I really realised, 'I want to make interiors my career'. Two months after we bought it, I enrolled in Griffith College."

Maybe it was good that she trained relatively late; she now has the confidence to involve herself in changes to the family business, and even to spearhead some of the changes. "I've just graduated, and I'm going to be independent of them, but I'm based in their offices, and I'll be part of the family business for sure. We're relaunching in May this year as Vaughan & Co - new showrooms, new branding, it's very exciting," Jackie says, adding that she has encouraged the new identity. "I've been pushing them to be more forward-thinking and they're being very patient; they're going with me. We'll always be doing handcrafted kitchens, that's our bread and butter. But the business has developed over time to doing complete renovations, building works, and redesign. My father was always an amazing designer, and he's done it for years, so that's the direction the business is going to take - we're going down the route of full house design and hotels and bars," Jackie enthuses.

Her own house is a superb showcase for the kind of work they are capable of. The house was a shell; Jackie did all the interior design and Vaughan's crew did all the fitout. "I gutted the place; I took down walls, I dug up floors, and remodelled the whole house; I knew exactly what I wanted," Jackie says. "I wanted to bear in mind that it's a country house, but I wanted it to be modern, with a very clean palette; sleek and minimalist."

Expand Close The dining area, which is between the kitchen and the sun room. The dresser is ideal for displaying Jackie's collection of Nicholas Mosse ware - she loves it, particularly as a beloved aunt who has recently passed away, gave her her first piece / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The dining area, which is between the kitchen and the sun room. The dresser is ideal for displaying Jackie's collection of Nicholas Mosse ware - she loves it, particularly as a beloved aunt who has recently passed away, gave her her first piece

She designed all the kitchen units herself, and all the units in the different rooms. "I had the guidance of my dad, but it was my own work," she says.

She put in arches between some rooms, and she doubled the door size in other cases.There were four bedrooms, all of which were en suite, but Jackie felt the bedrooms were too small, so she took out all but one en suite, and enlarged the rooms. She converted one bedroom into a walk-in wardrobe. All the built-in units are finished to the ceiling, as she feels it makes the house seem more styled.

The decor is simple - all walls are painted Mystic Fog by Colourtrend, while all skirting and architraves are done in Loft White by Little Greene. Most fabrics in the house are by Ralph Lauren - she gets them from her friend Michelle Keane, who runs mibeau Interiors.

Most furnishings are from Vaughan's; she was able to source sofas, tables and chairs from them. "I was able to get everything down to cups, saucers and plates from Vaughan's," she notes with a smile.

However, there are a few pieces that can't be bought anywhere - including two sets of steel shelving. "I design lovely furniture, and when he's on leave, Stephen fabricates them," Jackie says. "So I'd be designing pieces, and when he comes home, I'd be begging him to make them for me."

It sounds as if when Stephen gets tired of all that commuting, there could be an opening at Vaughan's for him.

Vaughan Kitchens & Furniture, tel: (087) 972-4498, or see vaughans.ie

Edited by Mary O'Sullivan

Photography by Tony GavinStrapping on crampons, near the top of Mont Blanc on the Italian border with France, was, to say the least, a little disconcerting.

It slowly dawned on me, as I was being roped to the rest of the group, that, while this glacier was certainly spectacular, it mightn't be entirely safe.

At 3,500m, you could feel the altitude in your lungs, and the cold was a startling contrast to the glorious warm weather we had left behind in the Courmayeur valley - which now stretched out far below us.

The journey up Mont Blanc in the Skyway cable car had given us spectacular views. Now, as we set off slowly looking out for hidden crevasses, I was beginning to become anxious. The weather around us changes constantly, from the bluest of skies to snow-laden storm clouds. Walking wasn't easy in our spiked crampons, and the deep snow made our progress slow and painstaking. This is, however, the perfect pace to absorb all the wonderful ice formations and snow covered peaks.

Suddenly one of our party disappeared into a crevasse, its blue depths seemed to fall away endlessly below her. Her legs splayed out like Bambi's, but the speed of our guides' reaction ensured that she was safe within seconds. Pushing yourself to try this type of experience is something you are constantly encouraged to do in the beautiful Chalet Pelerin. A group called Eleven owns and runs this stunning hideaway buried deep in the French Alps. The company claims to base its ethos on the film Spinal Tap, in particular the scene where the guitarist shows his amplifier goes one step beyond the maximum volume of 10 - all the way to 11.

Members also quote that cult movie The Big Lebowski, regularly.This alone makes them worthy of serious consideration when planning an action-packed vacation. If you are looking for the unusual and unique, then you need to check them out.

Expand Close Deborah Spillane takes in the sights from the Alps / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Deborah Spillane takes in the sights from the Alps

Chalet Pelerin is well known as a spectacular winter ski destination, but we were visiting to see what it had to offer in late summer.

We flew into Geneva, and were met by Jean Noel, who was our guide throughout our stay. En route to the chalet, we passed through Annecy - a pretty town with an amazing lake. It seems that the glacier's meltwater refracts the light to give it a highly unusual turquoise hue. The snowy mountains and alpine air made a bracing and dramatic backdrop as we grabbed a great cup of coffee on the boardwalk.

Then we set off to drive high up into the looming mountains. Looking down, we could see a surging river, which Jean Noel told us we would visit later for a spot of whitewater rafting.

The roads continued to climb and twist as we approached the chalet in the Tarentaise Valley. The lush valley meadows are beautifully cultivated and I have seldom seen cattle looking more contented. The overall effect conveys a sense of great peace and tranquillity. The last hairpin turn revealed Chalet Pelerin - which, of course, means "Hawk" in French, and is the 'mot juste' for it.

Its traditional exterior sits well and unobtrusively in the pretty hamlet of Le Miroir. We were invited inside and made welcome. The interior was luxurious, but also typical of the region. The chalet compares favourably with the glamour of the best ski lodges worldwide, and the views were impossibly romantic. Champagne and canapes of fresh fruit, cold meats and cheese were the start of what was to be a wonderful gastronomic few days.

The chalet's friendly relaxed atmosphere is specifically created to make you feel as if the place is your own. Jean Noel is a local, and lives right next door. His wife Julie is the properties manager, and their evident pride and delight in the place adds hugely to the experience. It is designed for groups and families rather than individuals or couples. The house is let on a group basis, and could make the most remarkable and memorable holiday for any family or band of friends. It is no exaggeration to say that your every need will be catered for in an easy and relaxed manner.

As I unpacked, I looked around my room. It came with its own balcony - and glorious views - a comforting fireplace, a gorgeous bathroom, with a huge roll top bath and just what anyone would want in their boudoir - great bathroom products. There was also some wonderful scented candles and vintage Paris Match and Vogue magazines. I would have been happy to have stayed in that room for all of my four-day break.

However, other plans were afoot!

I dragged myself away to explore the chalet's other facilities. These included a stunning swimming pool, with a counter current that creates a wave that would test the strongest of swimmers. There was also a huge sauna, and an outside Jacuzzi with views to soak up while you enjoyed its bubbles. There was an embarrassment of riches, and I felt spoilt for choice.

Then, I realised it was fast approaching dinner time, and the mountain air had whetted my appetite. The food was prepared by the chalet's own chef.

We started with scallops and bacon in a delicious cream sauce, then succulent organic chicken. This was followed by a delightfully sinful chocolate brownie with creme anglaise sauce. The wine was a lovely Bourgogne Aligote which went down very well.

Over dinner the plans for the next day were impressive, in a sort of stomach churning way. We were to start off with some brisk mountain biking, followed by a picnic then 18km of whitewater rafting. We would all be definitely pushing the dial up to 11!

Now, I have loved rafting since I first tried it and had always wanted to try mountain biking. After a hearty breakfast from a bountiful buffet and fortified by some strong coffee, I was intrigued to learn that our bikes would be electric. If the truth were told, I was also more than a little relieved since I felt I could do with all the help I could get.

The bikes had small engines that actually kick in by themselves to help you up steep inclines. You still have to pedal, but you do feel a bit like a superhero as you head up whatever incline presents itself with new-found ease! Adding to this amazing feature were big soft bouncy tyres, as well as an option for adjusting your seat height as you cycled. All we had to do was flick a switch to lift our backsides. When the suspension kicked in, it felt a bit like riding a horse.

After the climbs, we benefited from a cooling breeze as we spun down the hairpin mountain roads towards the bottom of the valley and the river. Our picnic lunch awaited us there. Those happy Alpine cattle help to make a great tasting cheese called Beaufort. We gorged ourselves on it and a crumbly sheeps' cheese called Brebis. There was also a selection of charcuterie and fresh bread that went well with a delicious Bandol Les Baumes rose.

The soundtrack to this wonderful meal was the burbling sound of the river on which we were about to paddle down. I couldn't help notice that it was running very fast, and I suspected that it was also very cold.

I dislike wetsuits intensely. For me, getting into one is like struggling into a demented pair of highly restrictive super-small tights. But I was really glad of mine when I strode into the river to climb aboard our raft. The water was even colder, and faster, than I had thought. Eleven is super mindful of its guests so we were given a serious safety talk before pushing off into the spectacular rapids. We hit them straight away, and our screams and screeches were a good indication of the severity of the falls.

We worked hard in pairs following the lead of our guide. Instructions were given, and we repeated and put them into action immediately. The underlying fear of capsizing does wonders for one's ability to paddle - and paddle hard! I turned into a limpet on the raft as we bounced down the river. To put it mildly, it was an exhilarating experience.

The river is used for generating electricity, and is harnessed to a dam for most of the day, but between midday and late afternoon, it is allowed to run free, creating a torrent perfect for rafting. I had been told about a famous spot where you could jump 10m from a Roman bridge into the canyon. Good wine and plenty of it the night before had encouraged me to agree to make this jump. Strangely, when we arrived at the location, it didn't seem such a good idea. However, in the spirit of our hosts I decided to turn the dial to 11, and jump. It was such a good feeling that I did it again.

Getting out of the wetsuits was exhausting, but the promise of homemade pizza kept us going. And, when we arrived back at the chalet, a rigorous massage helped to restore our tired bodies. The night was clear and star-studded, and I slept like a top with my balcony door wide open to let in the fresh mountain air as I snuggled under my warm duvet. Already this felt like my second home.

Another delicious breakfast set us up for our trip up through the Col du Petit St Bernard into Italy, and a hike across its glacier. We descended to Auberge de La Maison in Courmayeur where we devoured homemade pasta with prawn tails and basil pesto and divine tiramisu. Needless to say, we felt the need to try a 2013 bottle of Grosjean from the Vallee D'Aoste as recommended to us by the ever-encouraging Jean Noel and Alex.

For our last evening, we hiked for 90 minutes up to another auberge - this one in a lovely mountain hamlet. It has been restored but there is no electricity and it has retained its original rustic beauty. A fire pit, candles and torches were burning comfortingly as we quaffed Champagne and local wine and ate fondue, followed by cote de boeuf and a delicious plum compote with local liqueur. The sensational evening concluded with a truly impressive and very surprising fireworks display.

I loved the whole Chalet Pelerin experience and hated leaving, but true to Eleven's mission statement on our final morning we hiked for two hours into a deserted mountain valley. The local fauna and flora are unique to the area, and are a source of great pride to Jean Noel and Alex. They genuinely love this place, and who can blame them? Eleven has certainly cracked the mould with its stunning and unusual retreats, and I would recommend everyone who can should take a trip to one of these lovely homes.

TAKE TWO: Top attractions

Cormet de Roselend

Try the rope bridge at the Cormet de Roselend. This involves a hike to the bridge and some serious rock climbing, but it is spectacular. The chalet can also organise paragliding, high ropes courses with zip lines and horse riding.

Fine cheese and wine

If thrilling activities are not your thing you could visit the Beaufort Cooperative to watch them making the wonderful cheeses that we indulged ourselves on. Wine tasting is another tour the chalet regularly organises.

Get there

Rates at Chalet Pelerin start from 365 per room per night (based on two people sharing). The price includes pre-arrival planning with an Eleven experience manager, breakfast, apres and dinner, and house alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages www.elevenexperience.comPremium

Colm McCarthy Opinion UK is not alone in its Covid failures

New cases, hospitalisations and deaths from the virus have all risen somewhat in the UK over the last week. Given the rapid roll-out of vaccination, the best in Europe, this should not have been happening. The reason seems to be the so-called Indian variant, more infectious and more widespread in Britain, and some experts are worried the government may be forced to pause, or even reverse, the lifting of restrictions.Premium

Eoghan Harris Opinion Misery media fails to give due credit to the Taoiseach

Taoiseach Micheal Martin must drive his advisers mad. Unlike Leo Varadkar or Donald Trump, he never bigs up success stories such as the effect of Level 3 Plus on Covid or his visionary Shared Island project. Last Friday, Tony Holohan and RTE cheerleaders seemed to imply Level 5 was responsible for the improved Covid situation. Not so.the European Union and all that Brussels bureaucracy has a great way of unifying the country nowadays. We all love to call ourselves Europeans and give two fingers to those traitors in London who want out of the Union.

Brexit has dramatically amplified the country's rivalry with our British neighbours. It's like Ray Houghton heading the ball past Peter Shilton in the Neckarstadion, Stuttgart, times 20.

EU agreements on post-Brexit trade relations are celebrated like Tommy Bowe cruising through England's defence to ruin their Grand Slam ambitions.

Leo Varadkar all but puts on a green jersey when he attends EU summits in Brussels.

We imagine Jean-Claude Juncker has become a Colm Meaney-type character in a Roddy Doyle novel who loves a drink and hates the Brits.

Even at home, politicians band together to slag off the likes of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg for their contempt of Brussels. Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein are practically one party when it comes to throwing digs at Westminster politicians.

There is certainly a new-found national glee over the ramshackle state of UK politics and society in general across the Irish sea.

On Twitter, the baying mob tut-tuts in unison when UK newspapers condemn judges and politicians on their front pages for their views on Brexit.

The usual folk on Twitter fall over themselves to condemn the likes of the The Sun, Daily Mail and Telegraph for their editorial stance on the referendum result which, we are told, will damn us all to hell in a handcart.

However, the same people turn a blind eye when British news organisations based here take clear positions on sensitive areas of public policy.

Last week, the Rupert Murdoch-owned The Times Ireland Edition was criticised for using its platform to essentially campaign for the introduction of abortion in this country.

The fledgling newspaper also faced questions over what were seen as pro-abortion stories from its sister newspaper, the Irish edition of The Sunday Times, which were promoted on Facebook. The content was aimed at Facebook users who showed an interest in the abortion debate.

Minister for Social Protection Regina Doherty said she would have concerns about any media organisation seeking to influence the referendum result when asked about The Times's overt support for abortion in Ireland. "I would have a concern that any media outlet would report in an impartial way," the minister said.

"With respect to your profession, there is a responsibility to provide a balanced approach and it isn't helpful that, I think, anybody needs to be told what to do from a media outlet or news organisation. I wouldn't welcome it but sometimes you can't control it," she said.

The British newspaper was accused of bias by pro-life TD Mattie McGrath for its stance on the repeal of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.

"The media is duty bound to be fair and impartial where issues like this take place," McGrath said. The newspaper's editor Richie Oakley defended the News Corp publication's decision to publicly back changing Ireland's abortion laws and insisted it would not affect the accuracy of its news stories.

Murdoch's views on abortion are unclear, although he said it was "refreshing" when Pope Francis stated that the Catholic Church was spending too much time obsessing about abortion, homosexuality and birth control.

However, Murdoch's views on the European Union are clear. At an event organised by The Times in London, the media tycoon described Britain's decision to leave the EU as "wonderful". It was like a "prison break", he said.

Writing in the Evening Standard, Andy Hilton gave a fascinating insight into why Murdoch is so vehemently opposed to the EU.

"I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. 'That's easy,' he replied. 'When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice'," Hilton wrote.

Murdoch's campaign to break up the EU has not been confined to his British titles, according former employees. After Ireland rejected the first Lisbon Treaty referendum, a former Sunday Times columnist said she was told by her editor Frank Fitzgibbon that the newspaper would not publish any articles backing further integration of the European Union.

The piece penned by Sarah Carey for The Irish Times did not state whether Fitzgibbon's alleged diktat was sent from London or if it was a decision taken by himself.

However, The Sunday Times in Ireland did print an editorial calling for Britain to leave the European Union, giving it the distinction of being the only Irish broadsheet newspaper to back Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg's Brexit campaign.

Brexit has the potential to severely damage our economy, yet a British-owned newspaper saw fit to publish a lengthy editorial calling for it.

Its sister newspaper, The Times Ireland Edition, has now decided the outcome of the abortion referendum before we even know what we are being asked to vote for. Since its inception, the newspaper has been publishing stories and analysis calling for the introduction of abortion in Ireland. Editor Richie Oakley has insisted his newspaper will be in favour of changing our abortion laws.

The legislation for unrestricted abortion up to 12 weeks of pregnancy has not been finalised. The referendum wording hasn't even been officially published.

But, yet again, a Murdoch title has decided what the Irish people should do before many of those people have had a chance to consider it ourselves.Whether or not newspapers can influence the outcome of an election or a referendum is arguable. But certainly the world's most powerful media mogul Rupert Murdoch believes they can, otherwise why would his newspapers continually intervene in everything from the Brexit referendum in Britain to the looming battle over the Eighth Amendment in Ireland?

Neither Brexit nor the Eighth Amendment are likely to sell a lot of newspapers but by taking a side, The Sunday Times, the Irish edition of The Times and The Sun, have again emphasised the cultural differences between Ireland and Britain.

Taking a side has been historically acceptable in Britain, where Murdoch has shaped the modern political landscape. His media interventions have influenced such diverse political issues as who forms the government to what way people voted on Brexit.

Not over here, though, where we do things differently, maybe not better, but differently.

Reviewing David McKnight's book, Murdoch's Politics, Conor Brady, former editor of the Irish Times, said: "McKnight paints a deeply disturbing picture of an organisation driven by contrived polarities, half-truths and ideology-based spin." The review continued: "He sees his media empire as shaping key international relationships, in particular strengthening the alliances between the US and Britain at the expense of the latter's relationship with Europe."

Murdoch has enormous power on an international scale and loves to use it.

A recent pro-choice story in The Sunday Times headlined: 'HSE used Eighth to try and force me to have a caesarean', appeared as a sponsored post from the paper in Facebook users' news feeds and has been interpreted by the Pro-life side in the abortion debate in Ireland as another strand of the newspaper's bias in favour of repealing the Eighth Amendment.

Now no one really considers that the billionaire owner of News Corp is actually in any way interested or concerned about whether or not Ireland repeals the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, but his philosophy of taking political stances on national issues has become ingrained in the mindset of his media outlets, and particularly his newspapers.

And he has taken the time and trouble from his international schedule to visit his Dublin outposts, so little escapes his beady-eyed attention.

A Guardian reviewer of the McKnight book told how the Australian tycoon "transmits his political desires" to his media empire.

"The eerily consistent ideology of his newspapers and TV commentators is maintained in a lovely, menacing phrase quoted here from a former Murdoch editor, Eric Beecher, "by phone and by clone".

Executives are chosen for their ability and willingness to anticipate Murdoch's thinking. On the rare occasions that more direct guidance is needed: "I give instructions to my editors all around the world," as Murdoch put it in 1982.

The Sun's campaign to "topple the Brussels bureaucrats" in the Brexit referendum is clearly the result of interpreting the proprietor's distrust of the hated EU chiefs, which has led to a long line of half-true stories of the restrictive rules they want to impose on the British - everything from straight bananas to Polish plumbers.

It influenced the outcome of Britain's disastrous decision to leave the European Union, a campaign in which it was aided and abetted, strangely, by the Irish edition of The Sunday Times.

The Sun, as it does, boasted about it afterwards while avoiding responsibility for the misinformation of its simplistic approach and twisted headlines.

Murdoch doesn't do balance and his newspapers (and his other media) toe the political line of their proprietor on a variety of issues, until he changes his mind. Then his media change to suit any new stance he might adopt.

During the Brexit referendum in Britain, Murdoch's favourite tabloid The Sun, along with the Daily Mail, led the charge by posing preposterous headlines to influence readers against the EU.

In what was a narrow victory, this intervention possibly changed the outcome of the referendum, the result of which already means so much to Irish people, north and south of the border and could indeed change our destiny in significant ways.

The Sun went so far as to second-guess Britain's Queen Elizabeth, with a front-page splash headed 'Queen backs Brexit'.

Nick Clegg, then the Liberal Democrat leader and deputy Prime Minister, who was supposed to have been present at a lunch when the Queen vented her ire at the EU, described the story as "nonsense" while Buckingham Palace insisted that the Queen remained "politically neutral as she has for 63 years".

The Irish edition of The Sunday Times took its cue from The Sun, telling readers in its editorial: "This Thursday, Britain should vote to leave.

Yes, it must be prepared for a bumpy ride, but this vote may be the only opportunity to call a halt to the onward march of the centralising Europe project. Such a state would be neither in Britain's interests, nor Europe's."

Whatever about calling a halt to the "centralising European project" the effect of exiting the EU is looking increasingly like a political and financial fiasco for Britain.

For his more discerning but fewer buyers of the London-based The Times, the bet was hedged.

They were told in an editorial in favour of the 'remain' side that Brexit could have "unknown and alarming consequences for the UK and Europe".

Well, they got that one right.

The question for us on this side of the Irish Sea is do we want Mr Murdoch telling us which way to vote in a general election or in a referendum?

Do discerning and well-informed voters need direction from the media, at home or abroad?

We can make up our minds and indeed change them if we see fit, as happened with the Lisbon Treaty.

But to the Murdoch media, this lack of a 'stiff upper lip' is repugnant, they feel that like Lord Cardigan and the Light Brigade, once the order is given to charge, it must be carried out and to hell with the consequences.

We like to make up our own minds in Ireland.

Both the Irish edition of The Times and The Sunday Times have seemingly decided that we don't.

Repealing the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution is a serious matter and stories favouring one side or the other should not be reduced to sponsored posts from newspapers.

Surely readers deserve better.'Last weeks publication of a review by the Garda Inspectorate into the forces handling of child abuse cases adds further fuel to that discontent.'

There's a black joke about a man who calls the police in the middle of the night to report a burglary taking place at his house. The dispatcher says they won't be able to get there straight away as no officers are available. The man calls back a few minutes later to say that there's no need to hurry because he's just shot the suspect. Within minutes, the house is flooded with squad cars, who catch the burglar, still in rude health, trying to creep away. "I thought you said you'd shot him," the police say to the caller.

His answer: "And I thought you said no one was available."

The story neatly encapsulates the feeling that the police are never there when needed. It's undoubtedly unfair. An Garda Siochana do what they can, but the impression of being alone in the face of threats to life and property certainly runs deep in rural areas, where, as the Director of Public Prosecutions told the Court of Appeal last week, people are living "in permanent fear or dread".

Last week's publication of a review by the Garda Inspectorate into the force's handling of child abuse cases adds further fuel to that discontent. The 256-page report admits that the Garda have implemented fewer than half of the recommendations made five years ago for dealing with child abuse. Suspects are not being recorded on file. The accumulation of open cases stretches back years.

Most worryingly of all, "inexperienced and untrained gardai are still involved in all stages of child sexual abuse investigations", an approach which is "not used in any of the other police services visited during this review and is not regarded as good practice".

The consequences of this were starkly laid out by One In Four, the charity helping those affected by childhood trauma. It noted that inadequate consultation between gardai and the child and family agency Tusla has led to children being left in situations that expose many of them to further sexual abuse, and that many offenders, even some of the most serious, are not being placed under supervision orders on release from prison. Even when cases are investigated, the review finds that fewer than 13pc of those sampled were subsequently referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions, and that, of this number, only a third resulted in a conviction. That translates to a conviction rate of just over 4pc of all reported child abuse.

As One In Four notes: "The vast majority of sex offenders can be confident they will never be called upon to answer for their crimes."

When it comes to the online exploitation of children, the situation is equally grim. Gardai trained by the FBI now have the technology to track computers accessing child pornography in real time but aren't using it because they don't have the resources to follow up on the intelligence. In one case, this led to a young victim of indecent assault not being identified and rescued for three years.

The review says that gardai need to go "on the front foot" to tackle online grooming, not least because, as One In Four also noted, these failures increase the risk that "vigilante groups will take the law into their own hands". The phenomenon of so-called paedophile hunters came to prominence shortly before Christmas when a Leeds-based group lured RTE producer Kieran Creaven to the city on the pretext of meeting a 14-year-old girl for sex. The girl did not exist, but Creaven didn't know that. He was confronted and held until police arrived, later pleading guilty to two offences, including attempting to incite an under-age girl into sexual activity.

Just last week, gardai in Louth were called in after another amateur group confronted a man they accused of sending explicit pictures to a girl he believed to be 13 years old. The Department of Justice has warned that evidence collected by these amateur sleuths "may not reach the evidential standard in a court of law", and there are concerns that such ugly confrontations could easily spill over into violence.

Live streaming showdowns with suspects can also make securing subsequent convictions more difficult. Of 110 cases presented to police by one such group in Northern Ireland, only three were found to be strong enough to submit to the Public Prosecution Service.

There are too many potential pitfalls from taking the law into one's own hands, and many groups which do so have involvement from some seriously shady characters, hiding behind fake identities, their real motives unknown, often sinister. But is it any wonder that some people continue to do so anyway?

Like the police rushing to the scene of a reported shooting in that earlier anecdote, officers will respond quickly when an alleged paedophile is cornered by vigilantes, but would they have been as pro-active if concerned citizens had merely handed on what information they have to the authorities? The Garda Inspectorate report does not inspire confidence on that score. Send details to the Garda, and sometimes they may be acted upon, but more often not.

That's still not a good argument for taking the law into one's own hands, and the Garda is right to discourage zealous amateurs from playing Dirty Harry on the streets. A more effective alternative is to make perpetrators of child abuse as afraid of the chances of being caught by gardai as they increasingly are of online stings.

Resources must be made available. That goes without saying. Money should be no object, but even if the Garda had unlimited means, those in charge would still need to ensure that the money was targeted to the right areas.

This latest review was overseen by Chief Inspector Mark Toland, who has over 30 years' experience with London's Metropolitan Police and took over at An Garda Siochana Inspectorate last November.

It makes 24 new recommendations, some of which ought to be relatively straightforward to implement, including that investigations should not be left in the hands of rookies fresh out of Templemore, as well as ensuring that joint interviewing by gardai and social workers should be introduced in child abuse investigations to avoid the necessity of victims needing to go through the trauma of being interviewed more than once.

An implementation group is to be established by Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan to ensure that the suggestions are met.

But there's no point pretending that another review in five years' time may not be equally "disappointed" with the follow-up as the current inspectorate is with the response to the previous one. Additional resources have been made available by the Government in recent years. Improvements have been noted. Back in 2012, the system was so chaotic that gardai were unable to even supply an annual figure for sexual offences against children. Now so-called protective service units are set to be in place in every garda division by the end of the year.

Knowing what needs to be done and doing it sometimes require different skill sets, however. Kathleen O'Toole, the former Garda Inspectorate chief, who now heads up the Commission on the Future of Policing in Ireland, said last month that An Garda Siochana should be run "more like a business".

She made the same point at last year's MacGill Summer School in Glenties. O'Toole has been somewhat vague on how that can be achieved, beyond wishing for a new Garda Commissioner with "extraordinary leadership and management abilities", but on both occasions, her comments attracted less attention than they deserved.

It may be overly simplistic to see the Garda as just another large enterprise, but it's also true that no private business would continue for long if it was run this badly and so consistently failed those who relied on its services.Jordan Peele praised a renaissance moment in Hollywood after becoming the first African-American to win the best original screenplay Oscar.

The director of the racism-tackling satire Get Out said the campaign had been a gruelling one, but he appreciates the victory is much bigger than me.

Peele said he almost did not get into directing because of a shortage of role models before him and those like Spike Lee and Boyz N The Hood Oscar-winner John Singleton seemed like the exception to the rule.

Its a renaissance, the 39-year-old said backstage.

I feel proud to be at the beginning of a movement where I feel like the best films in every genre are being brought to me by my fellow black directors.

On the path to his landmark victory, he said he sometimes questioned what the process was all about.

When the nominations for this came together, first of all I had this amazing feeling of looking at the 12-year-old who had this burning in my guts for this type of validation, he added.

I instantly realised that an award like this is much bigger than me. This is about paying it forward to the young people who might not believe they can achieve the highest honour in whatever craft they want to push for.

Expand Close Londoner Daniel Kaluuya stars in the racism-tackling satire (Handout/PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Londoner Daniel Kaluuya stars in the racism-tackling satire (Handout/PA)

He cited Whoopi Goldbergs 1991 speech for her best supporting actress Oscar win for Ghost as being a huge inspiration to me.

I want to thank everybody who makes movies, Goldberg said.

I come from New York. As a little kid I lived in the projects and youre the people I watched, youre the people that made me want to be an actor. Im so proud to be here, Im proud to be an actor and Im going to keep on acting.

Get Out, starring Londoner Daniel Kaluuya, was Peeles first attempt at directing a feature film and it also garnered a nomination for best picture.

He rose to fame as one half of the comedy duo in the Comedy Central series Key & Peele.Taxi firm Addison Lee swung to a loss last year after it was stung by investment and acquisition costs.

The group posted a pre-tax loss of 20.8 million in the year to August 2017, compared to a profit of 10.5 million the year before.

Addison put the fall down to intense long-term investment, acquisition integration and reorganisation, which culminated in 18.6 million exceptionals.

However, revenue rose by 31% to 345.8 million in the period, with the firm on track to post over 400 million in sales this year.

Sales were helped by a return to growth in London, which helped drive up UK revenues 11%.

The taxi firm has been looking to keep pace with the astronomical rise of Uber, which has radically shaken up the industry with its ride-hailing smartphone app.

As part of these efforts, Addison has expanded rapidly into the US, snapping up rival Flyte Tyme as well as boosting its global footprint by buying Tristar Worldwide, which has operations in 80 countries.

Boss Andy Boland said: For Addison Lee Group, 2017 was the year our London business returned decisively to growth and our focus became investing in and building the worlds leading managed ground transportation business.

Weve made a strong start to the new financial year, with first quarter revenues up 23% and set to top 400 million for the current financial year.

At the current rate of growth, we expect to double the size of Addison Lee Group in the next three years.

The group is also leading a consortium in London to evaluate the impact of new vehicle technology, including the introduction of autonomous vehicles, into the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

With the backing of Government funding from Innovate UK, Addison is partnering with autonomous vehicle technology firms to test inclusion of autonomous vehicles into its operating model.

Addison Lee, which is owned by US private equity firm Carlyle Group, was founded in Battersea in 1975 and has grown to become Europes largest private hire car service company, carrying out 10 million journeys per year.Prime Minister Theresa May during a speech in central London

Theresa May sent Twitter into a frenzy by giving her latest speech surrounded by a facsimile brick wall and facsimile brick lectern.

The UK Prime Minister, speaking on housing and planning issues in central London, was surrounded by a rather literal set which left spectators in no doubt as to the topic at hand.

Twitter users, never ones to miss an opportunity such as this, got to work  with many comparing her surroundings to an outdated Microsoft operating systems screen saver.

Why has Theresa May held her press conference in a Windows 95 screensaver? pic.twitter.com/qpcGNcNk41  Ben Skipper (@bskipper27) March 5, 2018

Recognise this?

The backdrop quite literally provided a canvas on which social media users could paint. Super May-rio, anybody?

Bob The Builder certainly would have been an appropriate spokesperson, although what he would have thought of the fake bricks

The Liberal Democrats meanwhile had their fun, referencing Pink Floyd song, Another Brick In The Wall.

All in all you're just another brick in the wall pic.twitter.com/IoHMlo5689  Lib Dem Press Office (@LibDemPress) March 5, 2018

The walls didnt close in on May during her speech

Theresa May prepares to leave after her housing speech. pic.twitter.com/aZ37fU11SA  Mikey Smith (@mikeysmith) March 5, 2018

Although she definitely bricked herself into a corner as far as the memes were concerned.The most senior Catholic Church leader to be charged with sexual abuse came close to confronting his accusers on Monday in a video-linked Australian court hearing to test the strength of the prosecutions case.

Cardinal George Pells alleged victims began testifying in the Melbourne Magistrates Court against Pope Francis former finance minister in testimony that cannot be made public.

But the complainants, who cannot be identified, are avoiding the intense media scrutiny focused on the cramped courtroom and the company of their alleged abuser by giving their evidence via a video connection from an undisclosed location.

The number of alleged victims has not been made public, and their testimony is scheduled to continue for up to two weeks.

The 76-year-old Australian cardinal has denied any wrongdoing and has foreshadowed pleas of not guilty if the committal hearing that is likely to run as long as a month finds there is sufficient evidence to warrant a jury trial.

Pell was charged last June with sexually abusing multiple people in his Australian home state of Victoria.

The details of the allegations have yet to be released to the public, though police have described the charges as historical sexual assault offences.

Pells lawyer Robert Richter did not object to the complainants appearing in court on a television screen Monday rather than in person.

But he did question why one would be allowed to appear with what prosecutor Mark Gibson described as a support dog while testifying.

I always thought that dogs were for children and very old people, Richter told the court.

Magistrate Belinda Wallington replied, No, theyre also there for vulnerable and traumatised people.

When Pell last lived in Melbourne, he was archbishop of Australias second-largest city.

Expand Close Australia Cardinal Charged / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Australia Cardinal Charged

He progressed to archbishop of Australias biggest city, Sydney, before moving to the Vatican as a prefect of the churchs economy ministry in 2014. He intends to return to that job once the criminal charges are resolved.

In 2016, it was Pell who was testifying by video to an official inquiry into sexual abuse.

He was in Rome and had health reasons for not making a long flight to testify in person to Australias longest-running royal commission, the countrys highest form of inquiry.

It had been investigating since 2012 how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over 90 years.

The inquiry issued its final report in December. Pell was questioned about his knowledge of and response to allegations of child abuse when he was a priest and bishop, but no allegation was made that he was a perpetrator.

Pells lawyers told the court last month that the current criminal charges stemmed from publicity surrounding the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The lawyers said the first complainant approached police in 2015, 40 years after the alleged crimes, in response to media reports about that inquiry.

Pell was silent as he entered and left the court to a crush of media cameras and police, as well as throughout the initial 25 minutes of the hearing that was open to the public.

The case places both the cardinal and the pope in potentially perilous territory.

For Pell, the charges are a threat to his freedom, his reputation and his career.

For Pope Francis, they are a threat to his credibility, given that he famously promised a zero tolerance policy for sex abuse in the church.President Donald Trump insists he is not backing down on his plan to impose stiff tariffs on imported steel and aluminium despite anxious warnings from House Speaker Paul Ryan and other congressional Republicans of a possible trade war.

The president said North American neighbours Canada and Mexico would not get any relief from his plan to place the tariffs on the imports but suggested he might be willing to exempt the two longstanding allies if they agreed to better terms for the North American Free Trade Agreement.

No, were not backing down, Trump said in the Oval Office, seated with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Weve had a very bad deal with Mexico, weve had a very bad deal with Canada  its called NAFTA, Mr Trump said.

The president opened the door to exempting the two countries from the planned tariffs, telling reporters: That would be, I would imagine, one of the points that well negotiate.

But he added: If they arent going to make a fair NAFTA deal, were just going to leave it this way.

Expand Close President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office (Evan Vucci/AP) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp President Donald Trump meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Oval Office (Evan Vucci/AP)

Mr Trump spoke shortly after a spokeswoman for House Speaker Ryan said the GOP leader was extremely worried about the tariffs setting off a trade war and had urged the White House to not advance with this plan.

Republican leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee, meanwhile, circulated a letter opposing Trumps tariff plan.

The administration says the tariffs are necessary to preserve the American industries  and that imposing them is a national security imperative.

But Mr Trumps comments and tweets earlier in the day suggested he was also using them as leverage in the current talks to revise NAFTA. The latest round of a nearly yearlong renegotiation effort is concluding this week in Mexico City.

He tweeted: Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed. Also, Canada must treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S.

In the meantime, Mr Trumps tariff plan has been branded absolutely unacceptable by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, has said the European Union could respond by taxing American goods including bourbon, blue jeans and Harley Davidson motorcycles.

The tariffs will be made official in the next two weeks, White House officials said Monday, as the administration defended the protectionist decision from critics in Washington and overseas.

Speaking on Fox and Friends, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said: 25% on steel, and the 10% on aluminium, no country exclusions  firm line in the sand.

Mr Trumps pronouncement last week that he would impose the tariffs roiled markets and rankled allies.

The across-the-board action would break with the recommendation of the Pentagon, which pushed for more targeted tariffs on metals imports from countries like China and warned that a wide-ranging move would jeopardise national security partnerships.

But Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose agency oversaw reviews of the industries that recommended the tariffs, said on ABCs This Week Mr Trump was talking about a fairly broad brush.

Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said the sweeping action would let China off the hook, adding the tariffs would drive a wedge between the US and its allies.

China wins when we fight with Europe, he said on CBSs Face the Nation, adding China wins when the American consumer has higher prices because of tariffs that dont affect Chinese behaviour.

Mr Trump has threatened to tax European cars if the EU boosts tariffs on American products in response to the presidents plan to increase duties on steel and aluminium.

Prime Minister Theresa May raised her deep concern at the tariff announcement in a phone call with Trump on Sunday.

Mrs Mays office says she noted that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity.

But Mr Ross rejected threats of retaliation from American allies as pretty trivial and not much more than a rounding error.

And Mr Navarro argued there are virtually no costs here, saying: If you put a 10% tariff on aluminium, its a cent and a half on a six pack of beer and its $25,000 on a $330 million (Boeing 777).

Trade politics often cut along regional, rather than ideological, lines, as politicians reflect the interests of the hometown industries and workers. But rarely does a debate open so wide a rift between a president and his party  leaving him almost exclusively with support from his ideological opposites.

Labour unions and liberal Democrats are in the unusual position of applauding Trumps approach on grounds it will bolster jobs in a depleted industry, while Republicans and an array of business groups are warning of dire economic and political consequences.

In the 2016 election, Trumps criticism of trade agreements and Chinas trade policies found support with working-class Americans whose wages had stagnated over the years.

Victories in big steel-producing states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana demonstrated his tough trade talk had a receptive audience.President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump walk across the South Lawn of the White House (Pablo

President Donald Trump has said North American neighbours Canada and Mexico will get no relief from his new tariffs on steel and aluminium imports unless a new and fair free trade agreement is signed.

The Trump administration says the tariffs are necessary to preserve the American industries and that doing so is a national security imperative.

But MrTrumps latest tweets suggest he is also using the upcoming tariffs as leverage in ongoing talks to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement. The latest round of a nearly year-long renegotiation effort is concluding this week in Mexico City.

The tariffs will be made official in the next two weeks, White House officials said, as the administration defended the protectionist decision from critics in Washington and overseas.

Speaking on Fox And Friends on Monday, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said: 25% on steel, and the 10% on aluminium, no country exclusions, firm line in the sand.

Mr Trumps pronouncement last week that he would impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, shook markets and rankled allies. The president appeared unbowed on Sunday, as he tweeted that American Steel and Aluminum industries are dead. Sorry, its time for a change!

The across-the-board action breaks with the recommendation of the Pentagon, which pushed for more targeted tariffs on metals imports from countries like China and warned that a wide-ranging move would jeopardise national security partnerships.

But US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, whose agency oversaw reviews of the industries that recommended the tariffs, said on ABCs This Week that Mr Trump is talking about a fairly broad brush.

Republican senator Lindsey Graham said the sweeping action would let China off the hook, adding the tariffs would drive a wedge between the US and its allies.

China wins when we fight with Europe, he said on CBSs Face The Nation. China wins when the American consumer has higher prices because of tariffs that dont affect Chinese behaviour.

Mr Trump has threatened to tax European cars if the EU boosts tariffs on American products in response to the presidents plan to increase duties on steel and aluminium.

Prime Minister Theresa May raised her deep concern at the tariff announcement in a phone call with Mr Trump on Sunday. Mrs Mays office says she noted that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity.President Emmanuel Macron is being urged to take action to put more English on French airwaves.

The French have long struggled to resist the tide of English expressions flooding into the language of Moliere, but a petition calling for TV programmes to be broadcast in English with subtitles is rapidly gathering support.

It was launched by Delphine Tabaries-Poncet, a language teacher in the southern town of Beziers who is concerned her pupils' imperfect command of English could hold them back professionally.

She realised the value of TV series and films in English when a 15-year-old Romanian boy joined her school, and could speak English far better than his French classmates.

He had achieved fluency mainly by watching television, which in Romania often broadcasts films and series in English. "He spoke so well the others couldn't even follow him," she said.

Concerned the failure of many French schoolchildren to master the global lingua franca handicaps their career prospects, she is now urging President Emmanuel Macron to take action to put more English on French airwaves.

Her petition to stop dubbing English-language programmes in French has gained thousands of signatures in only a few days.

But it is certain to provoke controversy in a country that tries to ward off the "Anglo-Saxon cultural invasion" by imposing quotas for French songs played on radio and French films screened in cinemas.

Alex Martin (55), an engineer, said: "Why should we be forced to watch programmes in English? Too many people already use English words like 'job' and say things like 'c'est fun'. We should be defending our language, not letting in more English."Voting took place in Italy yesterday in an election that could bring political gridlock after a campaign marked by anger over the listless economy, high unemployment and immigration.

Pollsters have predicted that former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and his far-right allies will emerge as the largest bloc in parliament but fall short of a majority.

Expand Close Matteo Silvini of the Northern League. Photo: Reuters/Stefano Rellandini / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Matteo Silvini of the Northern League. Photo: Reuters/Stefano Rellandini

The anti-establishment 5-Star Movement looks set to be the biggest single party, feeding off discontent over entrenched corruption and growing poverty, while the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD) is set to limp home in third place.

Many waited in line for more than an hour to vote, only to then be baffled by confusing ballots and the process to cast them - which for the first time required an anti-fraud check by polling authorities.

"You feel as if you have gone there prepared but it's not that clear," complained Sister Vincenza as she cast her ballot on Rome's Aventine hill, before heading off to Mass.

Some polling stations remained closed in Palermo two hours into election day because the wrong ballots had been delivered and 200,000 new ones had to be reprinted overnight.

Expand Close Luigi di Maio of the 5-Star Movement. Photo: Reuters/Ciro De Luca / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Luigi di Maio of the 5-Star Movement. Photo: Reuters/Ciro De Luca

Similar ballot glitches were reported elsewhere, forcing the suspension of the vote in two towns in Alessandria.

More than 46 million people were eligible to vote, including Italians abroad who had already mailed in their ballots. While final results are expected this evening, it might take weeks before a government deal is reached.

"Italy is, more than anywhere else in the world right now - even more than Brexit, even more than the Trump revolution in the US - the cutting edge of the sovereignty movement, of people saying we've tried to play by the rules, we've voted in centre-left governments and centre-right governments and none of that has worked," Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, remarked in Rome.

"So now people are looking at another alternative. What they want is power back to the people in a populist revolt."

Mr Bannon is in the Italian capital to observe the outcome of Italy's closely fought election, which he called "the most important thing happening politically in the world right now".

Heavily indebted Italy is the third largest economy in the 19-member eurozone and although investors have been sanguine ahead of the ballot, prolonged political stalemate could reawaken the threat of market instability.

"There was momentum for 5-Star in the final days of the campaign, but it is hard to see any party or coalition getting the 40pc needed to form a government," said Lorenzo Pregliasco, co-founder of YouTrend pollsters.

The campaign has marked the return to frontline politics of Mr Berlusconi.

The 81-year-old was forced to quit as prime minister in 2011 at the height of a sovereign-debt crisis and was widely written off following sex scandals, legal woes and ill health.

A 2013 conviction for tax fraud means that he cannot hold public office and he has put forward Antonio Tajani, the president of the European Parliament, as his candidate for prime minister.

Mr Tajani's moderate profile is aimed at allaying fears in Europe about his populist allies, notably the Northern League, whose leader, Matteo Salvini, has promised to deport the 600,000 boat migrants who have arrived in Italy over the past four years.

Some pollsters say the League could overtake Mr Berlsuconi's Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party.

Populist parties have been on the rise across Europe since the 2008 financial crisis, but mainstream parties in Italy have found it especially hard to contain voter anger, with the economy still some 6pc smaller than a decade ago and unemployment stuck at around 11pc.

The 5-Star, led by 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio, has been particularly successful at tapping into the disaffection in the underdeveloped south and has promised a monthly universal wage of up to 780 for the poor.

"I'm with Di Maio all the way," Enrico Ursini, a fishmonger in Pomigliano d'Arco near Naples, said.

"They're the new generation. If they win, we'll send Luigi a nice big box of seafood as a present."

Economists say that like many party pledges, Italy can ill afford the universal wage.

But many of the more wild campaign promises are likely to fall by the wayside if there is a hung parliament and a power-sharing accord then has to be hammered out.

Although all party leaders have ruled out any post-election alliances with rivals, Italy has a long history of finding a way out of apparently intractable political stalemates.

President Sergio Mattarella cannot launch any formal coalition talks until after the new parliament has sat on March 23 and the next prime minister will need to win votes of confidence in both houses before taking office. ( Daily Telegraph, London)

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]5-Star Movement Leader Luigi Di Maio speaks to reporters as he leaves home in Rome (Ansa/AP)

The leader of the 5-Star Movement, Luigi Di Maio, has said the partys strong showing throughout Italy means that it should run the next government.

Mr Di Maio spoke less than an hour after the head of the League made the same claim on the part of the centre-right coalition, which collectively has more votes than the 5-Stars.

The assertions underline the difficulties that President Sergio Mattarella will have in choosing someone to form a government, as neither of the blocs has enough to govern alone.

Mr Di Maio said that we are a political force that represents the entire nation. We represent the whole boot, from Val DAosta to Sicily. He said the successes of the other groups were more regional.

Expand Close Matteo Salvini's party ran on an anti-migrant platform (Luca Bruno/AP) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Matteo Salvini's party ran on an anti-migrant platform (Luca Bruno/AP)

He called the vote post-ideological. It goes beyond the left and the right, and instead turned on themes like immigration and work.

The 5-Star movement tripled the number of parliamentarians over the last election in 2013, when it was also the first party but only by a hairs breadth and the government went to the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, the leader of Italys right-wing eurosceptic League said his partys surge at the voting booths was due to its economic proposals, not its anti-immigration stance.

Matteo Salvini said the migrant issue was just one problem facing Italy and that the League has clear ideas on how to resolve that.

We are a political force that represents the entire nation. We represent the whole boot, from Val D'Aosta to SicilyLuigi Di Maio, 5-Star leader

Mr Salvini said voters were attracted by the idea that Italy recovers, works, that every once in a while stays home on Sunday to enjoy its own children, have grandparents who dont die in assembly lines.

Mr Salvini also cited his partys proposals to overturn pension reforms, introduce a flat tax and cut bureaucracy.

His group captured nearly 18% of the Italian national vote on Sunday, and the right-wing bloc of parties allied with the League won 37% overall.

With no faction winning a clear majority, the results confirmed that negotiations to form a new government that could win a confidence vote in parliament would be fraught.

Ungovernable Italy headlined daily newspaper La Stampa as the early numbers rolled in.

Mr Salvinis party appeared to be surpassing its coalition partner, the establishment Forza Italia party of ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi.

According to the partial results, the League captured around 18% of the vote, while Forza Italia had less than 14%.Syrian civil defence volunteers help wounded children to flee their homes in the town of Hamouria in Syrias besieged eastern Ghouta following reported air strikes. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Syrian troops and allied militia seized several villages in Eastern Ghouta over the weekend, in what appeared to be the start of a ground offensive to crush the besieged opposition stronghold.

Regime forces seized up to a quarter of the rebel-held enclave in fighting that sent hundreds of civilians fleeing, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday. Earlier, the Syrian armed forces said they had captured villages along the edge of the enclave.

More than 600 people have been killed and 2,000 injured since the Syrian regime launched an air and artillery bombardment of Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, on February 18.

The United Nations said yesterday that a 40-lorry convoy loaded with aid was denied permission to enter the besieged district, despite the escalation in violence.

"The convoy to east Ghouta is not able to proceed today," a UN official said, adding that the UN and its humanitarian partners "remain on standby to deliver desperately needed assistance as soon as conditions allow".

Just one small convoy with a month's worth of supplies for 7,200 people has been allowed to enter Ghouta so far this year, in mid-February.

The weekend offensive came as western governments called on allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to put pressure on Damascus to halt the attacks.

Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, yesterday called on his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani to put the "necessary pressure" on the Syrian government to halt "indiscriminate" attacks on civilians in the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta.

During a telephone call between the two leaders, Mr Macron underscored the "particular responsibility for Iran, because of its ties to the regime, regarding the implementation of the humanitarian truce" sought by the UN, his office said.

Mr Macron is expected to visit Iran this year.

Nearly 400,000 people are believed to be trapped in Eastern Ghouta, an opposition-held suburb that has been under siege since 2013.

Violence there has escalated sharply over the past weeks despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire.

The Syrian army said it was firing on militant areas in the enclave in response to the targeting of Damascus, just 15km away.

But photographs, videos and first-hand accounts from inside the enclave suggest civilians, and especially children, are paying the highest price.

Regime forces dropped leaflets on Eastern Ghouta before the offensive on Saturday night, informing residents of safe spaces, humanitarian corridors and medical points.Labour MP Frank Field, who has written to the Pensions Regulator over Sir Philip Green's Arcadia (Anthony Devlin/PA)

A powerful group of MPs has urged The Pensions Regulator (TPR) to reveal whether it has contacted Arcadia Group following reports the Topshop owner could be sold.

Frank Field, chairman of the Commons Work and Pensions Committee, wants the watchdog to outline any dialogue it has had with the trustees of Arcadias pension scheme, which had a deficit of 565 million at the time of the March 31 2016 valuation.

In a letter to the authority, he also pressed for more detail about the TPRs use of the voluntary clearance system, a process which allows companies to seek the watchdogs backing ahead of a potential sale.

Expand Close The letter was written after reports that Sir Philip Green's retail empire could be sold to a Chinese textiles company (PA) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The letter was written after reports that Sir Philip Green's retail empire could be sold to a Chinese textiles company (PA)

The move comes after the Sunday Times reported last month that Sir Philip Greens retail empire could be sold to Chinese textiles firm Shandong Ruyi.

Writing to the TPR chief executive Lesley Titcomb, Mr Field said: The voluntary clearance system has been used sparingly in recent times.

Could you please confirm that you believe that undergoing voluntary clearance is responsible corporate behaviour; that the sale of a sponsor () of a large pension scheme with a substantial deficit would be an appropriate transaction for which to apply for voluntary clearance; and that you have been in contact with the trustees of the Arcadia regarding the potential implications of the mooted sale.

Arcadia owns a string of prominent high-street clothing brands including Topshop, Topman, Dorothy Perkins, Burton Menswear, Miss Selfridge, Outfit, Evans and Wallis.

It is now perfectly clear there is no truth whatsoever that the business is being sold to Shandong Ruyi.Sir Philip Green

As part of the pension schemes recovery plan, Sir Philip has agreed to pay 50 million a year until August 2019 and 54.5 million from then until March 2026, in contrast to 24.3 million a year previously.

The renewed pressure on the billionaire retail tycoon comes after he was lambasted by MPs over the collapse of department store chain BHS.

In a letter released at the weekend, Sir Philip encouraged the veteran Labour MP to end their public spat and focus his attention on tackling Carillion or someone else.

He said: I think it is now perfectly clear there is no truth whatsoever that the business is being sold to Shandong Ruyi, whom I had never heard of before the article and who have also confirmed to the Sunday Times directly, this is not the case.

Mr Field, why dont we call a truce. You say it is not personal, it could not be more personal. Go and tackle Carillion or someone else.It was unclear if Mr Trump was joking or if formal US-North Korea talks were imminent. Photo: Reuters/Yuri Gripas

During a joke-filled monologue at a dinner with journalists, US President Donald Trump suggested the United States will be meeting with North Korea but has told Pyongyang it must first "denuke".

"Now we are talking and they, by the way, called up a couple of days ago. They said that 'we would like to talk'. And I said, 'so would we, but you have to denuke, you have to denuke'," Mr Trump told attendees at the annual Gridiron Club dinner.

"We will be meeting and we'll see if anything positive happens," he added.

It was unclear if Mr Trump was joking or if formal US-North Korea talks were imminent.

"I won't rule out direct talks with Kim Jong-un. I just won't," he said, referring to North Korea's leader.

Mr Trump did, however, make a joke at his own expense.

"As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that's his problem, not mine."

If a meeting were to come together, it would be the first between the Trump administration and Pyongyang, which are in a standoff over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States.

Mr Trump's remarks came shortly before South Korea's presidency announced yesterday that a high-level delegation of South Korean officials will travel to North Korea today to discuss improving relations on the peninsula and possible talks between Washington and Pyongyang. After the two-day visit to North Korea, the special envoys will travel to the United States to brief officials on their discussions in Pyongyang, South Korea's presidential Blue House said.

Last month, US Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to meet with North Korean officials, including Mr Kim's sister, while in South Korea for the Winter Olympics, but the North Koreans cancelled at the last minute, US officials said in February. They said the North Koreans had walked away after Mr Pence condemned North Korean human rights abuses and announced plans for new economic sanctions.US President Donald Trump, pictured with First Lady Melania Trump, said North Korea has to denuke. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose new tariffs on EU cars as anxieties escalate over a possible trade war that he has said would be a good thing.

Two days after he announced a 25pc levy on steel imports and 10pc tax on aluminium, Mr Trump responded to threats of retaliation from various countries by saying he would step up any tit-for-tat measures.

"If the EU wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on US companies doing business there, we will simply apply a tax on their cars which freely pour into the US," he said. "They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!"

The EU had warned on Friday it was considering imposing its own tariffs on a range of US products running from Levi's jeans to Harley-Davidson motorcycles and bourbon.

"We will put tariffs on Harley-Davidson, on bourbon and on blue jeans - Levi's," European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said on German television.

The United States imposes a 2.5pc tariff on cars assembled in Europe and a 25pc tariff on European-built vans and pickup trucks. Europe imposes a 10pc tariff on US-built cars.

German automakers Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW build vehicles at plants in the US. BMW employs more than 9,000 workers in South Carolina and is one of the state's largest employers.

The US accounts for about 15pc of worldwide Mercedes-Benz and BMW brand sales, while it accounts for 5pc of VW brand sales and 12pc of Audi sales.

The US had a $22.3bn automotive vehicle and parts trade deficit with Germany in 2017 and a $7bn deficit with the UK, according to US government data.

Mr Trump's announcement on steel and aluminium has drawn condemnation across the globe, with several countries threatening retaliation if he imposed the duties. Canada was one of several countries to promise it would enact similar measures, while China called for restraint.

Electrolux, the Swedish appliance manufacturer, announced that it was delaying a $250m (203m) investment to expand and modernise a plant in Springfield, Tennessee, while it awaited further details of Mr Trump's proposals.

The announcement was particularly noteworthy because Electrolux already purchases all the steel it uses for its American products in the US.

"We are putting it on hold. We believe that tariffs could cause a pretty significant increase in the price of steel on the US market," said company spokesman Daniel Frykholm.

Mr Juncker said: "We would like a reasonable relationship to the United States, but we cannot simply put our head in the sand."

READ MORE: President hints at Kim meeting as he jokes with journalists

'Fools'

Earlier yesterday, Mr Trump claimed on Twitter the US had an annual $800bn (649bn) deficit as a result of "very stupid" trade deals and policies.

"Our jobs and wealth are being given to other countries that have taken advantage of us for years.

"They laugh at what fools our leaders have been. No more," he wrote.

While many economists have warned of the dangers of a trade war and US stock markets tumbled after Mr Trump's announcement, the president has tried to claim it would help the country.

"When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to win," he tweeted on Friday.

Reuters said many economists believe rather than increasing employment, price increases for consumers of steel and aluminium, such as the auto and oil industries, will destroy more US jobs than they create.Candles left in tribute to murdered Slovakian investigative reporter Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina (Jakub Kotian/TASR via AP)

Slovakias Prime Minister Robert Fico has accused the countrys president of destabilising the nation after the killings of an investigative journalist and his fiancee.

Amid growing protests against his government, Mr Fico said in a televised statement theres no doubt President Andrej Kiska had over-stepped the mark when calling for changes to the government and for early elections to resolve the serious political crisis in the country following the shooting of 27-year-old Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova.

Mr Kiska said on Sunday the crisis gripping Slovakia was caused by declining public trust in the state.

In his last unfinished story before their bodies were found on February 25, Mr Kuciak reported on the influence of the Italian mafia in Slovakia and its possible ties to people close to Mr Fico.

Expand Close Relatives and friends attend the funeral of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak in Stiavnik (Bundas EnglerAP) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Relatives and friends attend the funeral of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak in Stiavnik (Bundas EnglerAP)

Mr Fico also suggested that Hungarian-American billionaire and philanthropist George Soros might be somehow involved in the destabilisation that he accuses the president of pursuing.

He said Mr Kiska and Mr Soros met privately in New York City on September 20 last year and publicly asked Mr Kiska to explain why he met Mr Soros, what they discussed and why he did not take any representatives of the Slovak Foreign Ministry to the meeting.

Mr Kiska beat Mr Fico to the presidency in a 2014 election.

Mr Kiska responded through his office by saying Mr Fico was using conspiracy theories to distract attention away from the crisis.

Meanwhile, Slovak protesters were planning to take to the streets again to demand a thorough investigation into the killings, as well as changes in government.

When tens of thousands of protesters marched on Friday to honour Mr Kuciak, many called on the government to resign.

Expand Close Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, right, gives a media statement, with Minister of Interior Robert Kalinak, left (Bundas Engler/AP) / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, right, gives a media statement, with Minister of Interior Robert Kalinak, left (Bundas Engler/AP)

More demonstrations, this time directly aimed at the government, are planned this week  including a rally in Bratislava scheduled for Friday.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the organisers called on foreign experts to join the local investigative team and for the creation of a new trustworthy government with no people who are suspected of corruption or ties to organised crime.

The first anti-government rally was planned for Monday evening in the second largest city of Kosice.

A junior party in the coalition government led by Mr Fico is supporting calls by the opposition for Interior Minister Robert Kalinak to resign.

The leadership of the party known as Most-Hid will meet next week to discuss the coalitions future.

Mr Kalinak is a key ally of Fico in their leftist Smer-Social Democracy party. Thousands rallied across Slovakia already last year to demand Mr Kalinaks resignation due to a corruption scandal.The incident occurred Monday morning on a train headed from New Jersey to New York (Lynne Cameron/PA)

New Jersey Transit has suspended a conductor for allegedly announcing on a morning train that immigration agents were on board looking for illegals.

The incident occurred Monday morning on a train headed from New Jersey to New York.

An NJ Transit spokeswoman did not identify the conductor but said he has more than 30 years experience at the agency.

He was suspended without pay on Monday, pending an investigation.

NJ Transit called the alleged conduct offensive, inappropriate and unprofessional.

NJ TRANSIT has taken swift action by immediately suspending, without pay, the crew member who made the alleged train announcement pending the outcome of full investigation. NJT will not tolerate such reprehensible conduct which stands in direct contrast with our agencys culture.  NJ TRANSIT (@NJTRANSIT) March 5, 2018

A spokesman for the Newark office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement said no agents were on the train.

He said agents conduct targeted enforcement of criminals and would have had to have been in pursuit of such a person to board public transportation.Energy Ensemble, the only comprehensive magazine from Eastern India, covering the entire spectrum of the energy sector, in association with Press Club, Kolkata and Environmental Education Media Project (EEMP) organised a a seminar titled Fuel Economy-The Road Ahead at Press Club Kolkata held recently.

Sobhandeb Chattopadhyay, minister in-charge of power & non-conventional energy sources, Government of West Bengal, graced the occasion as the Chief Guest.

Tim Patterson, CEO, Fuel Economy Soution, UK, gave the keynote address.

Tim was presented with the 2015 Global Green Future Leadership Award by the World CSR Congress in Mumbai.

In 2016, following a research finding by the World Sustainability Congress, Tim was presented with a 100 Global Sustainable Leaders award at their annual event in Dubai.

He has represented Fuel Economy Solution on 2 UK Government trade missions.

The first was the high profile inaugural Northern Powerhouse trip to SE Asia in July 2015 led by the UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Business Minister Sajid Javid.

The second is the current Technology specific trade mission, which he is with here in India this month. His company supplies liquid combustion catalyst technology and consultancy to help improve fuel efficiency, reduce operational costs and lower industrial GHG emissions.

Other speakers at the seminar included AmbarishDasgupta, Senior Partner, Intueriglobal Consulting LLP and member, State Planning Board (who was also former president Bengal Chamber of Commerce and former Head-Management Consulting Practice, KPMG in Inda), Kunal Bhattacharya, President-Business Strategies, Suncraft Energy.

Speaking at the seminar, Tim Patterson said, Fossil fuel are gradually fading out. This is also leading us to a paradigm shift in generation of electricity as we look forward to a Green World free from carbon pollution of any kind. The gradual depletion of natural resources despite the potential for discovery of fresh fields is an inevitable truth. The worldwide concern for the same coupled with our pledge to leave for a clean and pollution free world for the generations to come, have on the one hand marked the advent of innovative technologies and have provoked us to explore the most efficient use of fuel ensuring optimum efficiency at the most economic way. This includes better combustion efficiency and emission reduction among others.

He also pointed out that there are a number of areas where his company and West Bengal government can collaborate in promoting the causes of clean and green energy.

He said he would send a concept note and a concrete proposal to this effect to the West Bengal power minister soon.

In his address, Chattopadhyay delved at length on how West Bengal, under the leadership of chief minister Mamata Banerjee , is moving towards Electricity for All mission and more importantly how the state is executing its plan for generating one-fourth of its power requirement from renewables.

Energy Ensemble also instituted an award called Energy Ensemble Award for Corporate Excellence for entrepreneurs who would promote the causes of clean and green energy.

The seminar was attended by topnotch of industry including top representatives from Bengal National Chamber of Commerce, Eastern Chamber of Commerce, KPMG in India, Shrachi Group, Srei Group, DVC, West Bengal Electricity Regulatory Authority, CESC, Corbis, DCB Consultants, among others and a large number of representatives from media.

The seminar was followed by a cultural extravaganza, performed by MUSIX comprising Sageeta Das, AmitadityaSanyal, Aditya Narayan Banerjee, Kaustav (Rana) Sarkar, Sandeep Banerjee and GauravDatta.Srinagar, Mar 5 (IBNS): Four people, including one terrorist, were killed on Sunday evening in a gunfight with security forces in Shopian district of South Kashmir.

According to Defence spokesman a joint Mobile Vehicle Check Post (MVCP) was fired upon by terrorists near Pahnoo village in Shopian district of south Kashmir at 8 p.m.

In retaliatory firing, a terrorist, who was identified as Shahid Ahmad Dar, son of Mushtaq Ahmad Dar, resident of Jamnagri of Shopian, was killed and a weapon was recovered from his possession.

"Three OGWs/ accomplices in the car who were accompanying the terrorist were also found to be dead," said the spokesperson.

Police have reached the spot and started legal formalities, spokesman added.

The Army claimed the three killed persons were Over Ground Workers (OGW's) of terrorists.

Police, however, are yet to confirm their exact identity.

Locals claimed that the three slain persons were civilians without any militant connections.



(Reporting by Saleem Iqbal Qadri)New Delhi, Mar 5 (IBNS): The Trinamool Congress (TMC) staged a protest outside the parliament as the budget session resumed on Monday, media reports said.

The TMC MPs were seen protesting against the Modi government over the bank scams that unfolded in recent times.

The primary issue of the protest was the bank scam by diamond czar Nirav Modi who allegedly failed to repay a loan of rupees 12,000 crore.

Interacting with NDTV, TMC leader Saugata Roy said the protest is not about opposition unity but the raising of voices against scams.

This was the first time the two houses of the Parliament met after the landslide victories of the BJP in Tripura and surge in the northeast belt.

Following the ruckus inside the parliament by the opposition parties, Lok Sabha has been adjourned till 12 p.m. and Rajya Sabha till 2 p.m.

Earlier in the day, BJP President Amit Shah and other BJP MPs welcomed PM Narendra Modi in Parliament House, raising slogans on the party's election victory in the north eastern states, media reported.New Delhi, Mar 5 (IBNS): West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has backed her Telegana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao's call for a non BJP-Congress National Front ahead of the 2019 General Election, media reports said.

Banerjee reportedly told Rao that her party TMC will back the idea of the front to bring about a qualitative change in national politics.

Apart from Banerjee, AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi has also lent support to Rao.

Rao on Saturday said he is ready to play a role in the national politics and called for an alternative front.

He was quoted by NDTV, "People are looking for change. Can we expect something new to happen if Congress comes to power after BJP? It can be a third front or any front. Discussions are going on. There is no secret about it."

"I am asking the Centre to increase support price for crops by Rs. 500, so farmers' distress can be addressed. Will they do it? They won't. Think Telangana should show the way. Our schemes for farmers are progressive. We can give direction to the country," he added.

Rao has also stated the call for the front is not against Prime Minister Narenrdra Modi but the slow progress of the country.

Rao's call has once again stirred the national politics as days ago, BJP's ally partner TDP had expressed displeasure over the Union Budget 2018.

TDP chief and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu had said the NDA government's Union Budget deprived his state.

Raising concerns for the saffron brigade, other BJP ally Shiv Sena has said it will go solo in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

However, according to BJP sources, the party is highly confident after its sweeping win in Tripura and establishing itself as a dominant party in the northeastern belt.



New Delhi, Mar 5 (IBNS): The Apex Court on Monday has put on hold a probe against army personnel Major Aditya pertaining to the killing of three civilians in military firing in Jammu and Kashmir's Shopian in January.

The Supreme Court's order came after Jammu and Kashmir government said that Major Aditya wasn't named as an accused in the First Information Report though he was the Army officer leading the police convoy.

Three civilians were killed after the aforementioned convoy opened fire at a mob who threw stones at them.

Later, the Army said that the convoy was provoked to take such a step.

Chief Justice Dipak Misra ordered the state government to put the investigation on hold till April 24. The court will deliver its ruling on that day.

"After all, it is a case of an Army officer, not an ordinary criminal," Chief Justice Mishra said.Kolkata, Mar 5 (IBNS): Challenging the BJP, West Bengal Chief Minster Mamata Banerjee on Monday said if the ruling party targeted Bengal then her TMC will attempt to capture 'Red Fort'.

She inaugurated several projects for Purulia district on Monday.

He said: " Some people say their target is Bangla (Bengal). We say our target is Lal Kella (Red Fort). Chalo Dilli Chalo."

Targeting BJP, Banerjee said Bengal will never allow politics of riots.

"Bengal never bowed her head before anyone. Bengal always leads the way. Let them catch up with us and then talk.It is a crime to pit people against each other. Inciting religious riots, creating divisions is unacceptable.Bengal never allows the politics of riots. We want people to prosper," Banerjee said.

Banerjee said her party works to serve the people of the state.

"Our work is to serve the people," she said.



Mamata Banerjee has backed her Telegana counterpart K Chandrasekhar Rao's call for a non BJP-Congress National Front ahead of the 2019 General Election, media reports said.

Banerjee reportedly told Rao that her party TMC will back the idea of the front to bring about a qualitative change in national politics.

Image: Mamata Banerjee Twitter pageSrinagar, Mar 5 (IBNS): Top Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist was killed in an encounter with security forces and Jammu and Kashmir police in Pulwama district's Let Pora village on Monday evening, police said.

According to Srinagar based army spokesman, on a specific intelligence about presence of some terrorists, who are hiding in the area of Hatwar village of Awantipora, a joint specific operation was launched by 50 RR.

During the operation the mastermind of Sunjawan attack and Lethpora attack, Mufti Waqas was killed, officials said.

He was a top Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist

He was mastermind behind several terrorist attacks on security forces including Sunjuwan attack. Weapons & incriminating materials like IED preparation material recovered. He is a foreign terrorist," said SP Pani, Inspector General of Police.

Mumbai, Mar 5 (IBNS): Indian benchmark indices dipped on Monday, extending their losses over four consecutive sessions, with BSE Sensex down 300.16 points to close at 33,746.78 and NSE Nifty down 99.50 points at 10,358.90.

As expected, the metal trade reflected some impact following the announcement made by US President, Donald Trump, regarding tariff over steel and aluminium import, media reported.

The Indian market was also dented by the sell-off by foreign investors in February -- foreign institutional investors pulled out nearly Rs 12,500 crore from the equity markets during the month, reported moneycontrol.

Even BJP's win in the north east failed to boost market sentiments, according to media reports.

On Monday, key gainers included Tech Mahindra, Sun Pharma, TCS, SBI, Kotak Mahindra, M&M and UPL while Tata Motors, Tata Motors (D), Hindalco, Aurobindo Pharma, Tata Steel, Bajaj Auto, Reliance and Ambuja Cements were among the key stocks that declined.

The Reserve Bank of India, in two separate releases on Monday, announced that it has imposed, on February 27, 2018, a monetary penalty of rupees 30 million on Axis Bank Limited and a monetary penalty of rupees 20 million on Indian Overseas Bank for non-compliance with the directions issued by RBI on Income Recognition and Asset Classification (IRAC) norms.

This penalty has been imposed taking into account the failure of the bank to adhere to the guidelines issued by RBI, the release said.Bhuvneshwar, Mar 5 (IBNS): The Odisha government has launched a state-wide campaign to provide free sanitary napkins to every girl in government schools across the state.

The Odisha government will also provide sanitary napkins to women in rural communities at Rs.1 each.

Women empowerment is very close to my heart, said Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik. From Mission Shakti that has benefitted 5mn women to MAMATA Yojana and 50% reservation (in Urban local bodies), women have been the focal point of all our key interventions.

This most-recent campaign titled Khushi, will be implemented by the health and family welfare department of the state at a cost of 70 crore per year.

Odisha is the only state in India where 63.5 % women own immovable assets: land and homes, against the national average of 35%.

3.5mn women have been benefitted by Mamata Yojana: Indias largest cash-transfer maternity benefit scheme.Kohima, Mar 5 (IBNS): The troops of Assam Rifles on Monday apprehended two illegal arms fabricators and recovered huge cache of arms and ammunition in Nagaland, officials said.

Pro of HQ IGAR (N) Lt Col Amitabh Sharma said that based on intelligence input, Medziphema battalion of Assam Rifles under the aegis of HQ IGAR (N) launched an operation along with a police representative regarding presence of an illegal arms manufacturer in general area Sungratsu, Chumukedima, Dimapur.

During the operation, troops of Assam Rifles apprehended two arms fabricators along with huge quantity of weapons, ammunition and manufacturing tools.

The nabbed arms fabricators were identified as Takotoshi and Temjin and security forces recovered one 9mm revolver (USA made),one 12 Bore Rifle, one point 22 mm Rifle, four point 22 mm Rifles, four magazines of point 22mm Rifle, 8 Wooden Rifle Butt, one Rifle barrel and ammunition of various calibers.

Later the apprehends along with recovered items were handed over to Chumukedima Police Station, Dimapur for further investigation.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)Mumbai, Mar 5 (IBNS): Actor Irrfan Khan on Monday said he was suffering from a 'rare disease'

The actor, however, asked people not to speculate over the disease.

"Sometimes you wake up with a jolt with life shaking you up. The last 15 days, my life has been a suspense story," the Piku star wrote in a statement posted on Twitter.

"Little had I known that my search for rare stories would make me find a rare disease," he said.

"I have never given up and have always fought for my choices and always will. My family and friends are with me and we are working it out the best way possible. In trying times, please don't speculate as I will myself share with you my story within a week - 10 days, when further investigations come with a conclusive diagnosis. Till then, wish the best for me," he added.

Irrfan has worked in Bollywood as well as international movies.

He entertained fans with his performance in movies like Piku,Haider, Paan Singh Tomar, Jurassic World and Inferno.New York, Mar 5 (JEN): The United Nations and its partners plan to deliver much-needed relief assistance to the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta this week, the global organizations humanitarian wing said on Sunday.

A convoy of 46 trucks carrying health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people, should arrive in the city of Duma on Monday, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, has reported.

We hope that the convoy may proceed as planned and will be followed by other convoys. Our teams on the ground are ready to do all that is needed to make this happen, said UN Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Ali Al-Zatari.

Nearly 400,000 people in Eastern Ghouta, located near the capital, Damascus, are trapped in what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has characterized as hell on Earth.

On 24 February, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a 30-day nationwide ceasefire in Syria, in addition to other measures including the lifting of sieges, particularly in eastern Ghouta.

However, UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, Panos Moumtzis, who is based in Jordan, noted that one week later there has yet to be a cessation of hostilities, while violence has escalated in some areas.

Instead of a much needed reprieve, we continue to see more fighting, more death, and more disturbing reports of hunger and hospitals being bombed. This collective punishment of civilians is simply unacceptable, he said in a statement issued on Sunday.

The UN and humanitarian partners stand ready to assist the 13.1 million of people in need inside Syria, but cannot do it alone. We certainly cannot do this while the fighting continues.

OCHA reported that the UN and partners have received approval to deliver assistance for 70,000 people in need in Duma.

The UN has received assurances that the remaining supplies for all approved people in need will be delivered on 8 March, according to a press release issued by the UN office.

So far this year, the only UN aid delivery to eastern Ghouta was on 14 February, when a convoy with supplies for 7,200 people reached the town of Nashabiyah.

Meanwhile, the UN has called on all parties in Syria to facilitate unconditional, unimpeded, and sustained humanitarian access to all people in need throughout the country.

The Syrian conflict began in March 2011 and has generated what has been described as the worst humanitarian crisis of our time.

Despite the ongoing violence, the UN continues to provide millions of people in need with life-saving assistance on a monthly basis.



OCHA/Ghalia Seifo



Speaking on the trip, Foreign Ministry of Pakistan said in a statement: " Prime Minister will convey felicitations to the Nepalese leadership on the successful conclusion of its democratic process, resulting in the formation of a new government. Prime Minister will congratulate the newly elected Prime Minister of Nepal His Excellency Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli. During his visit, the Prime Minister will also call on the President of Nepal Her Excellency Bidya Devi Bhandari."

The statement further said: " Prime Minister's visit will provide an opportunity to further expand and strengthen bilateral relations across all areas of mutual interest including trade, education, tourism, defence and people to people contacts. Ways of invigorating SAARC as an important regional organization will also be discussed."

The Ambassador of Nepal Sewa Lamsal Adhikari called on the Prime Minister on 2 March 2018 and conveyed the message of welcome from the Nepalese leadership to the Prime Minister.

She also discussed how to further strengthen bilateral relations.

The Ministry further said: " Nepal is an important regional country and a close friend. Our ties with Nepal are characterized by cordiality, mutual respect and commonality of interests. Our support to each other at bilateral and multilateral fora has remained indispensible for both the sides."

Image: Wikimedia CommonsWashington/Ottawa, Mar 5 (IBNS): In a tone of blackmail, US President Donald Trump has warned his Canadian counterpart Justin Trudeau saying that Canada will only be exempted from the trade tariffs, which are planned to be imposed, if a fresh North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is signed.

Trump on Thursday announced an imposition of 25% and 10% tariffs on imported steel and aluminium respectively from any other country.

Trump has alleged that the US faced severe losses in trade pacts with Canada and Mexico, which is the other partner of NAFTA deal.

NAFTA is an agreement which came into force from January 1994 by Canada, Mexico and United States creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America.

With a tone of warning to Canada, Trump on Monday tweeted, "We have large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada. NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs. Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed. Also, Canada must.."

We have large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada. NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs. Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed. Also, Canada must..  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2018

Hitting out at Mexico, the US President tweeted, "...treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying.

...treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2018

Days ago, Trudeau had termed the imposition of trade tariffs as "unacceptable".

Trudeau was quoted by CBC News, "We will continue to engage with all levels of the American administration in the coming days so that they understand that this proposal is unacceptable."

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland had said "responsive measures" will be taken if Canada is not exempted at the last minute.

She said: "It is entirely inappropriate to view any trade with Canada as a national security threat to the United States. We will always stand up for Canadian workers and Canadian businesses. Should restrictions be imposed on Canadian steel and aluminum products, Canada will take responsive measures to defend its trade interests and workers.

Trump hopes the imposition of tariffs will help him to bring back jobs to the US which he alleged to have been stolen by other countries that acted unfairly.

Canada still can hope for a last minute exemption as it was done in 2002 when then US President George W. Bush had imposed a tariff on steel imports.



(Reporting by Suman Das)

Image: facebook/@POTUS"Prevent Unauthorized Transactions in your demat / trading account Update your Mobile Number/ email Id with your stock broker / Depository Participant. Receive information of your transactions directly from Exchanges on your mobile / email at the end of day and alerts on your registered mobile for all debits and other important transactions in your demat account directly from NSDL/ CDSL on the same day." - Issued in the interest of investors." | "KYC is one time exercise while dealing in securities markets - once KYC is done through a SEBI registered intermediary (broker, DP, Mutual Fund etc.), you need not undergo the same process again when you approach another intermediary." | "No need to issue cheques by investors while subscribing to IPO. Just write the bank account number and sign in the application form to authorise your bank to make payment in case of allotment. No worries for refund as the money remains in investor's account."

www.indiainfoline.com is part of the IIFL Group, a leading financial services player and a diversified NBFC. The site provides comprehensive and real time information on Indian corporates, sectors, financial markets and economy. On the site we feature industry and political leaders, entrepreneurs, and trend setters. The research, personal finance and market tutorial sections are widely followed by students, academia, corporates and investors among others.Gavin Yepa, 33, was sentenced to life in prison for the brutal rape and murder of Lynette Yazzie Becenti . The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed his conviction in a unanimous decision last July, noting that he gave "self-incriminating" statements during a search of his home on the reservation, where the crime occurred.

"What is striking from the recording is that defendants incriminating statements are scattered throughout, without any apparent connection to what is going on at the time, and that the officers are focused on performing their search, rarely reacting in any way to what defendant says about the offense," Judge Harris L Hartz wrote in the 16-page decision

Yepa then petitioned the Supreme Court to hear his case, questioning whether the statements he made during the interrogation should have been admitted into evidence. The Department of Justice , representing the United States, opposed review of the matter.

According to the government, "overwhelming evidence" presented at trial established Yepa's guilt, a February 7 brief stated.

The Supreme Court apparently agreed with that assessment. Though no explanation was provided, the justices denied Yepa's petition in an order list on Monday.

Yepa was prosecuted by the federal government as part of a Tribal Special Assistant U.S. Attorney project in New Mexico. The program was established to address the "epidemic" of violence against Native women -- data shows Native women are victimized at rates far higher any any other racial or ethnic group.

No one in this country deserves to be a victim of violence," Terry Wade, the Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's office in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said at the time of Yepa's sentencing. "Unfortunately, violence in our Native American communities ravages families, harming mothers, daughters and sisters. They and their loved ones depend on us for justice."

Becenti was 38 years old at the time of her murder in December 2011. She died as a result of a severe wound she sustained when Yepa sexually assaulted her, according to an autopsy presented in court.

Justice Neil Gorsuch , the newest member of the Supreme Court, did not participate in the handling of Yepa's petition, according to Monday's order list. While he served on the 10th Circuit, Gorsuch participated in one of Yepa's appeals, which resulted in the exclusion of a 911 call made by Becenti in which she asked for help because she was being raped.

The recording was submitted too late by federal prosecutors so a judge excluded it from the trial, which took place in July 25 through August 7, 2015. Witnesses would have testified that they heard Yepa's voice on the call.

Yepa is being held at Tucson USP in Arizona, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons . His release date is "LIFE."

10th Circuit Court of Appeals Decision: U.S. v. Yepa (July 17, 2017)

Prior 10th Circuit Decisions: US v. Yepa (June 17, 2015) US v. Yepa (July 16, 2014)

Relevant Documents:

Join the Conversation

Related StoriesThree tribal elders are planning an appeal in order to hold the federal government accountable for bulldozing a sacred site in Oregon.

The site, located near Mount Hood , was home to burial grounds, sacred artifacts and medicinal plants used in religious ceremonies. It was destroyed in 2008 when the federal government approved a highway widening project.

After attempts to address the issue with the government hit an impasse, Carol Logan, an elder from the Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde , along with Wilbur Slockish and Johnny Jackson, both from the Yakama Nation , filed suit in August 2015. They said the destruction of the site harmed the ability to practice their respective religions.

But in a recommendation on Friday, a federal magistrate said the elders aren't entitled to sue the government. The ruling has not yet been formally accepted by a judge but an appeal is already in the works.

For centuries Native Americans have endured the destruction of sacred places by the federal government, and its heartbreaking that the court would say this completely preventable destruction was okay, Logan said in a press release . All we want is the return of our sacred artifacts, the rededication of the area for our ancestors, and the promise that we can continue to worship as our tribes have done for centuries.

In the recommendation, Magistrate Judge Youlee Yim You relied on a disastrous case affecting the San Francisco Peaks in Arizona, where tribes and their citizens oppose the use of reclaimed wastewater on sacred grounds . Essentially, the government is free to do what it wants on its own land, according to the ruling.

With respect to the site in Oregon, "plaintiffs have not established that they are being coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs under the threat of sanctions or that a governmental benefit is being conditioned upon conduct that would violate their religious beliefs," You wrote.

The San Francisco Peaks dispute was decided by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals . Oregon is part of the 9th Circuit so the Mount Hood case would be heard there too.

The case is Slockish v. U.S. Federal Highway Administration . The elders are represented by Becket, a non-profit law firm that focuses on protecting religious rights.

Slockish v. U.S. Federal Highway Administration

All Photos by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty

According to Becket, the firm has a "100% win-rate" before the U.S. Supreme Court . That record includes the landmark decision in Holt v. Hobbs, which has been cited by Indian inmates to protect their rights, though not always with success

The firm also won Burwell v. Hobby Lobby and Zubik v. Burwell , cases which arose when religious groups objected to provisions of the Affordable Care Act . Hobby Lobby in particular has been seen by commentators as a key development in religious freedom cases but it did not help the elders in the Oregon case.

"The Supreme Courts decision in Hobby Lobby does not change the analysis here," You wrote in the recommendation on Friday. She said the decision did not change the need to determine whether "government coercion or compulsion" has impacted someone's religious rights.

Join the Conversation

Related StoriesArjun and Anshula Kapoor were strong pillars to father Boney Kapoor and stepsisters Jahnvi and Khushi during the demise of Bollywood icon Sridevi. In fact, the social media applauded Arjun for being such a doting son and brother despite their past history.

Twitter

And now after Arjun, his little sister Anshula bashed the trollers who used abusive and foul language for her stepsisters Jahnvi and Khushi. Anshula had posted a quote on her Instagram account, No matter how chaotic it is, wildflowers still spring up in the middle of nowhere," and captioned,  Strong-willed, they dare to blossom & hold their own, spreading their beauty wherever the wind takes them. Wildflowers dare greatly.

There were few trollers who wrote mean and bad things about her stepsisters in the comment section. Anshula deleted the comment and hit back at the haters by writing,

Twitter

Hi, I'm requesting you to refrain from using abusive language especially towards my sisters, I do not appreciate it and have therefore deleted your comments. While I am grateful for your passion and love for bhai and me, just a small correction  I was never working outside India. Let's please spread joy and good vibes. Thank you for the love.

Instagram

Well next time if you mess with any Kapoor sisters, you need to think twice. Sridevis untimely demise has clearly brought Jahnvi, Khushi, and Boney closer to Arjun and Anshula.

After Sridevi's death Boney had written an open letter where he mentioned how blessed he is to have kids like Arjun and Anshula, To the world, she was their Chandni... the actor par excellence... their Sridevi... but to me, she was my love, my friend, mother to our girls... my partner. To our daughters, she was their everything... their life. She was the axis around which our family ran."

He also added, "I am blessed to have the support and love of Arjun and Anshula, who have been such pillars of strength for myself, Khushi and Janhvi. Together, as a family, we have tried to face this unbearable loss.

More strength to them.

The biggest Award function on the planet and the biggest night in Hollywood, 90th Academy Awards have almost come to an end with the announcement of Best film of 2018. As they say, Oscar choices make movie history, heres the film that dominated the Oscars 2018 night this year.

Twitter

Among the nine nominations, The Shape Of Water has stood out to be the winner.



digg.com

Apart from The Shape Of The Water, other films that were nominated for the Best film category were Call Me by Your Name, Darkest Hour, Dunkirk, Get Out, Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, The Post, The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Get Out: Jordan Peeles timely horror movie is touted as savagely smart. With horror film rarely being nominated, Get Out was one of the of-the-moment nomination.





The Shape Of Water: The fantasy adventure drama narrates the story of how a top secret research facility and a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature who is being held in captivity.





Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: The black comedy with a revenge drama twist is a story of a mother who rents three billboards to call attention to her daughter's unsolved murder.

Lady Bird: The comedy-drama film is a coming-of-age story of a high-school girl and her turbulent relationship with her mother.

Dunkirk: The war film directed by Christopher Nolan showcased the the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II.

The Post: The American historical drama political thriller by Steven Spielberg depicts storyinspired by true eventsof journalists at The Washington Post making attempts to publish the Pentagon Papers, classified documents pertaining to the 30-year involvement of the US government in Vietnam War.

Call Me by Your Name: The coming-of-age romantic drama film is based on the namesake novel. The movie depicts how romance blossoms between a 17-year-old student and an older man who was hired as his father's research assistant.

Phantom Thread: The period drama film is a story of a renowned dressmaker whose life is disrupted by a strong-willed woman who becomes his muse and lover.

Darkest Hour: The British drama film depicts the account of Winston Churchills early days as prime minister who must decide whether to negotiate with Adolf Hitler or to fight on against incredible odds.

The Shape of Water, Dunkirk, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri were the most nominated films overall with 13, eight and seven nominations overall.Frances McDormand won the best actress award for her role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri at Oscars 2018. After bagging the best actress award, she made sure the moment was not all about her.

BollywoodLife

The actress requested all the female nominees to stand up during her award acceptance speech which left everyone supremely impressed.

She said, If I may be so honored to have all the female nominees in every category stand with me in this room tonight, the actors, Meryl if you do it everybody else will come on.

After Frances requested Meryl Streep immediately stood and rest the ladies followed. It was truly an honourable moment!

Twitter

She further said, I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentleman, inclusion rider. (An inclusion rider means that actresses can make stipulations in their contracts for things like a percentage of the cast and crew needing to be women or people of color.).

Twitter

This act of Frances has left the social media talking, they have fallen in love with her all over again. Take a look how Twitterati are showering their love on her.

Ive always loved her but now #francismcdormand is my new hero.  Je ladore tellement. Beau discours. #womenstandtogether  Maxim Roy (@MaximRoyreal) March 5, 2018

Francis mcdormand brought me to tears. I've dreamed of an oscar but been discouraged by lack of female nominees in my categories of interest. Thank you for recognizing the amazing women in this industry. It'll be an honor to work amongst you.  #oscars #francismcdormand  Sophie Koorhan (@sophunn) March 5, 2018The continued indiscriminate bombing raids on civilians in Syria has proved that the world is facing a humanitarian crisis like never before. The Syrian civil war of Assad's forces and the rebels has trapped thousands of Syrian civilians in between, and it is killing, injuring, maiming innocent men, women and children alike.

Here are some instances that prove that humanity is dying a slow death amidst the civil war in Syria. With lakhs of people are trapped in Syrias war-torn areas, they have little to no access to food, medicine or sanitary supplies.

1 Mass Executions

There were reports last year of mass executions inside Syria's prison complex that would remind one of the holocaust. The United States accused Syria of mass executions and burning of bodies in a crematorium built inside a prison complex. Reporters were given satellite pictures of the prison facility with additional structure said to be a newly built crematorium, to back the claims of mass executions of up to 50 people a day. an Amnesty International report that between 5,000 and 11,000 had died between 2011 and 2015 in the prison.

reuters

2. Children scarred for life

With bombs stealing away their innocence Syrian children, as young as six, have been photographed in Turkey as part of a project to show the horrors they face. Children as young as 5 year olds have been affected by the brutal bombings and have body parts full of burn scars and some are even handicapped for life.

6 year old fatema, image / anadolu

3. Landmines in homes

The Islamic State group was ousted from its de facto Syrian capital Raqa in October, but it left mines scattered across the ravaged city. However, the residents who are desperate to return home, are being maimed and killed by insidiously hidden and unexploded landmines. Under piles of rubble, behind old refrigerator doors, in blown-out buildings, IS has made sure that death marks its presence everywhere.

afp

4. Flesh trade

One may think that the war and violence are the main problems, but the horror does not end just there, but also extends to women and children. A shocking truth has come out with a report that suggests women in the conflict-torn Syria have been sexually exploited by workers delivering aid on behalf of the UN and international charities. Some aid workers informed BBC that the exploitation is so widespread that some women refuse to visit distribution centres because people would assume they had offered their bodies for the aid they brought home.

reuters

5. 500 deaths within just 7-days

In a week of bombardment, death toll recently rose to 500 within only 7 days in a Syrian bombing campaign in the rebel-held suburbs of Damascus known as eastern Ghouta. Seeing the sheer devastation within a week, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "immediately" implemented the Security Council's demand for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria. The council, along with backing from Russia, has voted unanimously to demand the truce without any delays.

reuters

6. Surviving on trash

Syrians that have been captured in Eastern Ghouta are suffering from acute shortage of food. Although the land in parts of Syria is fertile and agricultural, children are starving to the point of death. To survive, they are consuming expired food, animal fodder and refuse, spending days without eating, begging and engaging in high-risk activities to get food. The people are eating trash, fainting from hunger and forcing their children to eat on alternate days, said a report by the UN World Food Programme.

afp

7. Chemical warfare and starvation

Assads forces have destroyed hospitals, markets, mosques, and even schools. This has made it impossible for civilians to eat regular meals, receive medical attention, or pray where they want. According to a report by Vox, he regime has been leading a siege, starve, and surrender campaign for years. If starving children was not enough they have also introduced chemical warfare, fatally citizens in a country with little medical attention.

afp"I am Muhammed Najem

I am fifteen years old

I live in the eastern Gouta

I will convey to you all the events which is being commited by the Assad rigime in the Eastern Gouta through my own social media Facebook and Twitter."

This is a post shared by 15-year-old Muhammad Najem, who is dealing with life and death on a daily basis in Syrias eastern Ghouta region.

The fighting since 18 February in Syrias eastern Ghouta has left more than 600 people dead, many of them children. Latest media reports suggest that people are now fleeing the region as the situation there is described to be "beyond critical".

President Bashar al-Assad forces have now taken 25 per cent of the area just to the east of the capital, Damascus. While Ghouta has been surrounded by Bashar al- Assad forces since 2013, the last two weeks were the worst. According to the Syrian regime, the bombings in Ghouta are the final ground assault to reclaim the region from rebel groups.

Twitter

Civilians are facing the goriest form of horror in Ghouta, especially children whose parents are dead in bombings and have homes completely destroyed, with no other place to go.

A number of Syrian children have taken to social media to disclose the hard-hitting reality and the deadly state of affairs in the country. On one hand is Ghoutas harsh reality and on the other, a call for help.

Najem has been posting videos and photos of the destruction in Ghouta. Najem's videos shows the destructed houses and buildings. He has also shared some stories of friends and relatives.

In the latest post, Najem wrote that his school has become a target "for Putin and Assad's crimes".

It's my school which has become a target for Putin and Assad crimes it's the Church of my city has becoming a target for Putin and Assad air planes this is the Center of Syrian Arab Red Crescent in my city has becoming a target for terrorisme of Putin and Assad.

We know that you got bored from our blood pictures

But We will continue appealing to you

Bashar Al-assad, potin and khaminei killed our childhood

Save us before it is too late

What is the world, which can send machines to the martian and can't do anything to stop killing people pic.twitter.com/QtVVWidkzx  muhammad najem (@muhammadnajem20) January 15, 2018

It's my school which has become a target for Putin and Assad crimes

it's the Church of my city has becoming a target for Putin and Assad air planes

this is the Center of Syrian Arab Red Crescent in my city has becoming a target for terrorisme of Putin and Assad

#saveghouta pic.twitter.com/1K1XKsxaXt  muhammad najem (@muhammadnajem20) March 1, 2018

Russia is a state of occupation in Syria, and the failed truce that I talked about is just to cover up its crimes in the killing of children and women in the eastern Ghouta and to emerge as a state sponsor of peace, not war.#saveghouta pic.twitter.com/2kRlkTxnsP  muhammad najem (@muhammadnajem20) February 28, 2018

Here are the sons of Ghouta! ... Despite the hysterical bombing, despite the hell of death, despite the lack of life and lack of food and medicine ... always #smiling.#Life_in_Graves_(Shelters)

#EasternGhouta, #Syria pic.twitter.com/eX9twbR9dn  muhammad najem (@muhammadnajem20) February 27, 2018

Najem also called out the American people asking them to see the destruction, the killing and hunger in Ghouta.

Hello Amirecan people

We are people of Eastern Gouta

The world watching us die of hunger and bombing

Look at this destruction

This is similar to Europe before 80 years ago

But We live today in twenty first century #Help us and donot be like the rest of the world pic.twitter.com/EGi3FjQn4u  muhammad najem (@muhammadnajem20) February 26, 2018

Najem joined Twitter in December 2017 and has since been posting photos and videos of the horrors faced by the people of Eastern Ghouta.

People of Ghouta have been robbed off their rights as a human. They have lost the right to live peacefully, they have lost families and homes and the world has become a mere silent spectator.

A pair of young Syrian sisters Noor (10) and Alaa (8), have also been posting on social media about Eastern Ghouta. They have been documenting their lives in Eastern Ghouta while the Assad regime continues to bomb the region.

"To everyone who can hear me we are in danger please help us before it's too late," Noor and Alaa wrote on February 19.

To everyone who can hear me we are in danger please help us before it's too late #EastGhouta#Syria #SaveGhouta pic.twitter.com/321YhYjWow  Noor And Alaa (@Noor_and_Alaa) February 19, 2018

In #Ghouta, shops are distroyed and people become without work. We lose everything in ghouta and no compensation. Save us please#SaveGhouta pic.twitter.com/hrKYW6G3zb  Noor And Alaa (@Noor_and_Alaa) March 3, 2018

Now it's 12, 30 midnight

All children have slept but the warplanes over their heads#Ghouta#SaveGhouta#Syria pic.twitter.com/ino1jCz5VK  Noor And Alaa (@Noor_and_Alaa) March 1, 2018

"For 400,000 trapped people living in underground basements and cellars,

If you want to stand with us, please take a photo of yourself, like I have and post it saying:"I stand with you, #Iamstillalive"#SaveGhouta #Ghouta#Syria pic.twitter.com/LzDKew8LkJ  Noor And Alaa (@Noor_and_Alaa) March 1, 2018

Airplanes in the sky of #Ghouta,

Today no ceasefire. No safety. Bombs and Airstrikes. They bombed Douma with chlorine.

What is after? #SaveGhouta#Syria  Noor And Alaa (@Noor_and_Alaa) February 25, 2018

Since 6 days ago we are facing death everyday...

We were very terrified and sacred, you can't imagine the life here. #SaveGhouta#Ghouta#Syria pic.twitter.com/SH2xNUp88D  Noor And Alaa (@Noor_and_Alaa) February 25, 2018

The posts of these Syrian children are heart-wrenching, to say the least. The UN says that the "collective punishment of civilians is simply unacceptable".

The organisation said it had failed to obtain permission from Syrian officials to allow 40 trucks carrying humanitarian supplies to enter the key town of Douma.

"Instead of a much-needed reprieve, we continue to see more fighting, more death, and more disturbing reports of hunger and hospitals being bombed," UN regional humanitarian co-ordinator Panos Moumtzis said.

Residents, many of them women and children, are reported to have fled into the centre of the enclave to seek shelter.Fonterra signs Bangladesh distribution agreement

Fonterra says it is breaking new ground in South Asias rapidly growing dairy market, with the signing of a new distribution agreement that will make Anchor available to millions more consumers in Bangladesh.

Fonterra says it is breaking new ground in South Asias rapidly growing dairy market, with the signing of a new distribution agreement that will make Anchor available to millions more consumers in Bangladesh. The deal is part of the Co-operatives ongoing efforts to win in key overseas markets, by spreading the goodness of dairy nutrition.

The population of Bangladesh has grown by more than 10% in the last 10 years reaching over 160 million people and it now makes up over 2% of the worlds total population. Matched by strong economic growth, consumers in Bangladesh are looking for affordable healthy nutrition options, Fonterra believes, such as high-quality dairy.

Fonterras Managing Director of Sri Lanka and Indian Subcontinent, Sunil Sethi said Anchor is well placed to drive growth, while improving the wellbeing of Bangladeshis.

The Bangladesh market creates an exciting growth opportunity. Partnerships like the one were announcing today will enable us to bring dairy nutrition to even more consumers across the country, so we can do well, by doing good.

Our Anchor Full Cream Milk Powder, for example, comes with more than 23 vital nutrients including protein, calcium, vitamins and minerals. Anchor is specially formulated with NutriShakti, a nutri-bundle that supports growth, energy and immunity.

Managing Director, ACI Agrolink Limited, Dr. F H Ansarey said, Anchor is a renowned global dairy nutrition brand and we have a shared vision alongside Fonterra to enrich peoples lives by supplying safe, high-quality dairy nutrition to the people of Bangladesh.Chart of the Day: Blackstone Has My Attention Barchart - Sat Sep 18, 2:16PM CDT The Barchart Chart of the Day belongs to the financial services company Blackstone (NYSE: BX ). I found the company by sorting Barchart's All Time High list first by the highest number of new highs... BX : 133.63 (-1.04%)

December 2021 Lean Hogs Chicago Quant Technologies - Sat Sep 18, 10:48AM CDT Is there more downside on the horizon? We think so.

Protect wheat prices once inputs purchased Sidwell Strategies - Fri Sep 17, 11:07PM CDT Manage fertility and protect prices

Cigna  The Textbook Definition of Average The Smart Investor - Fri Sep 17, 7:35PM CDT At this point, we usually recommend the company for its dividend, However, the companys dividend has been notoriously inconsistent. It has a mountain of debt (a net debt position of more than $20 billion)...

Shootin' the Bull Swift Trading Company - Fri Sep 17, 4:48PM CDT In my opinion, there has been little to change this week in the cash markets, processing speeds of packers, cattle on feed, or consumer demand. Hence about the only thing to expect from this would be...One third of all Australian school students, or 1.3 million children, attend a private school  where fees have risen an astounding 64% in the last decade, Debelle said. This is creating enormous financial stress on ordinary families who pay between $6,000 and $40,000 a year to send their children to non-government schools. Those parents will now be able to take out school-fee insurance as a safety net if they lose their job, have an accident, or get sick. Consumers have always been able to insure their house, car, boat, and even their pet, but until now they havent been able to insure private education, which is often the second most expensive household spend after the family home.

Johnny Marchant, founder and managing director of School Fee Protect Insurance, said the product was developed in consultation with many headmasters and bursars from a wide range of fee-paying schools.

The overwhelming reaction has been that this is an incredibly useful initiative for both schools and parents in the current economic climate," Marchant said.

The insurer suggested that the School Protect Insurance may be the better option than income-protection insurance when it comes to protecting against the risk of defaulting on the school fees.

Unlike income-protection insurance, which may have lengthy waiting periods, will adjust benefit payments should you receive other income, and often excludes dangerous or hazardous occupations, School Fee Protect Insurance will pay benefits in addition to other income, has no waiting period, and does not consider occupation type, QBE said.

Related stories:The firm said it has ceased all underwriting of new business, including renewals. A day after the decision, Alpha Insurance general assembly also placed the company into solvent liquidation.

This means that Alpha Insurance from this date will be in run-off, it said. The company is solvent, and we, therefore, expect that all present and future obligations will be honoured.

The company said all claims will be paid and all policies on force will remain so until their contractual expiry.

We can confirm that Alpha Insurance continues to operate and all policies in force will be served as has been the case up to today, it added.

On February 23, CBL Insurance was placed into interim liquidation, following an application by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand to the High Court.

A week after the announcement, RBNZ said CBL Insurance breaching its directions prompted the regulators move against the insurer. The central bank, in an affidavit, said CBL Insurance made payments of $55 million to overseas companies despite doubts about the insurers solvency.

Furthermore, as stated in the affidavit, CBL Insurance paid nearly $42 million to Alpha for reinsurance claims on February 16, even with instructions not to make payments and declined permission from RBNZ.

Related stories:In addition to his fraud and forgery charges, Menough is also accused of second-degree theft. He posted a $5,000 cash surety bond and has been released. A trial will be set at a future date.

In a separate case, authorities have pressed charges against a former insurance claim representative from Des Moines.

Cora Harrington is said to have engaged in altering financial documents related to insurance claims in order to redirect insurance claim proceeds for personal use. She was arrested in February by the Pleasant Hill Police Department and booked into the Polk County Jail, and has been charged with fraud and second-degree theft.

Related stories:After a 12-day trial, the jury found that MassMutual never generated enough profit to warrant dividends under the policy agreements, according to a statement by the insurers law firm, Keller/Anderle LLP.

The case stemmed from claims by plaintiff attorney Christina Chavez that MassMutual breached its contracts with hundreds of people who had purchased participating 20-year term life insurance from 2000 to 2004 in the Los Angeles area. Chavez filed the suit in 2010, and claimed the firm owed a total of $717,000 in dividends.

In her trial statements, the plaintiff attorney argued that MassMutual was mandated to annually determine those policies contributions to the companys excess profits, or divisible surplus, and return their fair share in a dividend. Chavez also accused the firm of refusing to determine if the policies were entitled to dividends each year. Nevertheless, the jury said the plaintiffs failed to prove that the policies actually generated such profits.

Related stories:MassMutual International, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Companys international holding company, has announced that it will sell approximately 85.1% of MassMutual Japan to Nippon Life, Japans largest life insurer. MassMutual International will receive approximately $935 million and retain 14.9% ownership of MassMutual Japan. The deal is expected to close in the first half of the year.

At MassMutual, one of our distinct competitive advantages has long been our diverse portfolio of businesses both at home and abroad, including our international insurance affiliates, said Roger Crandall, chairman, president and CEO of MassMutual. This exciting announcement represents a milestone moment for our company and its policyowners by realizing the significant value that has been delivered through the long-term success of MassMutual Japan, which we acquired nearly 17 years ago. Just as important, our continued partial ownership of MassMutual Japan gives us the ability to join together with Nippon Life  the preeminent mutual life insurer in Japan  and expand our participation in the growing Asian markets.The two doctors arrested for the scam last week were Julian Omidi, 49, and Mirali Zarrabi, 55. Omidi was one of the owners of 1-800-GET-THIN. His medical license was revoked in 2009.

Omidi and Zarrabi were arrested on a 37-count federal indictment that included charges from mail and wire fraud to identity theft, according to the Los Angeles Daily News. Prosecutors say that when prospective patients would come to Omidis companies, patients would be convinced to undergo sleep studies designed to find medical conditions, which were then used to convince insurance companies to pre-approve Lap-Band surgery.

In some cases, however, the results of those studies were falsified to support the need for the surgery. Insurance companies shelled out at least $38 million for unnecessary surgeries, according to the Daily News. And if the insurers failed to authorize the surgeries, GET THIN would still bill them about $15,000 apiece for the sleep studies. All told, the company received millions of dollars in reimbursements, according to the US Attorneys Office.

Zarrabi participated in the scheme by allowing his electronic signature to be used by GET THIN to make it appear that he had reviewed the phony sleep studies, prosecutors said. Zarrabi allowed this despite allegedly knowing that the study results were being altered.

Patients were harmed as a result of this fraud scheme when they were subjected to unnecessary medical procedures, and insurance providers were harmed when they paid out tens of millions of dollars after receiving fraudulent bills, Acting US Attorney Sandra Brown said.

Omidi and Zarrabi face up to 20 years in prison for each of the 31 counts against them, according to the Daily News.

Related stories:The company maintains over seven billion nationwide vehicle sightings and grows that by over 165 million every month. DRN data suggests at least 1% of the average personal auto book has commercial use issues, with figures ranging as high as 3% in states where the problem is more prolific, such as California, New York and Texas.

Theres really no easy way for insurers to identify commercial use fraud of a personal vehicle, commented Alex Young, vice president and general manager, Insurance, DRN. Our product Picture Proof enables insurers to look at photographs of the vehicles in their personal books to determine whether they have commercial use attributes.

We have a VIN database of vehicles that have a high propensity for being used for commercial purposes. Carriers can cross-reference their personal auto book of VINs against our extensive database, and if any potential issues flag up, they can take a query to their personal auto policyholder, using our photographs to help support the discussion.

Insurers often only become aware of commercial use fraud at claims time. If carriers hand out underwriting discounts and then discover fraud upon claim, it might be too late to void the policy, and even if a policy can be nullified, they may still be liable for third party claims.

The aim is to eliminate the issue before it gets on to an insurers books, Young told Insurance Business. Picture Proof is used at point of sale so the insurer doesnt have to worry about a vehicle thats already on their books  they can avoid it being there in the first place.

Related stories:The small business market is big. The U.S. small commercial market represents about one-third of the total commercial lines market and generates between $99 billion and $103 billion in direct written premium, according to a 2016 McKinsey & Co. report.

It could be a much bigger market as more businesses are being started.

Since 1994, the United States has had an average of 400,000 business startups a year.

Business startup activity was up again in 2016, continuing a three-year ascension and reaching pre-recession levels, according to the 2017 Kauffman Index of Startup Activity, from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

A three-year upward trend in new business formation is a promising sign for the economy, said Victor Hwang, vice president of Entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation. Recent research demonstrates that more startups lead to higher productivity, wage growth and quality of life. Growing startups not only support individual entrepreneurs but lift surrounding communities.

In 2015, new startup firms that created 2.5 million jobs.

The number of startup firms  firms one year old or newer  rose to 415,226 in the year ended March 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Also, there is an insurance gap. Many small businesses have been caught without flood or business interruption insurance and many more report that they are not buying cyber insurance. But the gap is even bigger than that. The McKinsey report found that almost 40 percent of U.S. sole proprietorships dont carry any commercial coverage. Digital small business insurer Next Insurance surveyed 30,000 small businesses and learned that 44 percent who have been in business for at least a year have never had insurance.

The market is also very competitive. Again, according to McKinsey, the U.S. small commercial segment is divided among many carriers, with the largest accounting for only 6 percent of total premiums. Market share is particularly fragmented at the smaller end of the market (businesses with one to 29 employees).

However, the largest carriers are moving quickly to secure their positions, McKinsey said. In the past six years, the market share of large carriers with more than $2.5 billion in direct written premiums for U.S. small commercial has increased by 12 percentage points from 2009, suggesting that scale is an important driver of growth, McKinsey said. Large carriers now represent 51 percent of premiums in the one to 29 full-time employee group of small businesses.

For every incumbent insurer committing to agents and the small business market like Travelers, Chubb, CNA and The Hartford, there is one investing in or partnering with online platforms that bypass agents and brokers. In addition, there is a growing number of tech-oriented online brokers focused on small commercial lines including Embroker, Next, Bunker and CoverWallet to name a few.

Carrier positions vary within the small business segment because small business accounts range widely in size and scope, says Craig Welsh, distribution leader at Westfield Insurance Co., an Ohio-based independent agency property/casualty carrier, ranked No. 13 on Insurance Journals Super Regional P/C Insurers list developed by Demotech.

When you look at market size, small business is really the largest segment of commercial entities, mostly state-by-state, and overall, so theres huge potential, Welsh said. Its also an industry thats fairly fragmented. When you look at market share by carrier, theres no single carrier, or I should say group of carriers that tend to dominate the market. Thats because a lot of it is still handled through local agents.

Welsh sees plenty of opportunity for agents and their carrier partners in small business given the evolving definition of a small business account, a better economy, and the fragmentation of the insurance market serving small business.

Steve Tombarelli, vice president of SIAAs Business Insurance Advantage, sees opportunity for agents in the many new small businesses being opened. SIAAs insurance carriers are loving small business opportunity, too. Its an area they want to grow and expand, says Tombarelli. They all want to grow small commercial business.

The Hartford, which just bought the small business accounts of Foremost, has been committed to the market for a long time. It is a critical business for us, says Matt Kirk, head of sales and distribution for small commercial at The Hartford. Its very important that we support our agency partners in this space.

Kirk says from an agency perspective small business is an area with real opportunity. When you look at the economic data, and who drives a local economy, small businesses tend to be the ones hiring and buying equipment, he said. Plus, small businesses sometimes turn into large businesses. Its a great space but its very important from an agents perspective to ensure that their carriers bring product and capabilities that are going to be responsive to their agency and the small business owners.

Five Strategies for Small Business Success

Insurance Journal discussions with agents and carriers unearthed five strategies for succeeding in the small commercial lines segment today: rearrange and redefine; utilize service centers; specialize; upgrade technology and stay committed.

1. Rearrange and Redefine

McKinseys definition of small business includes businesses with up to 100 employees and $100,000 in annual premiums. But not everyone follows that formula.

Both agencies and carriers tend to define small business a little bit differently and theres some interesting aspects to that, according to Westfields Welsh. For a long time, small business implied smaller premiums, and oftentimes I think in our industry small premiums mean small service.

However, small business can be larger premium accounts, too, he said.

Minneapolis, Minn.-based Hays Companies has managed to grow its small business book by reorganizing its overall book to create a dedicated small business unit.

Erin Keys, Hays Companies Premier Programs practice leader, says the process began last year, and so far, it has improved the agencys profitability as well as its relationships with key carrier partners.

Its very transactional business, said Keys, noting that the agency understood it needed a better way to handle the many accounts it had on the books for small business. Prior to the transition, Hays had about 14 marketers on the property/casualty team, and everyone was handling a book that included both small to large national accounts even though small business is handled a little differently.

We wanted to get the proper procedures in place to handle small business and just keep everything together, get organized, she said.

Daily, transactional processing is now handled under the Premier Programs department. Keys says it helps to quickly turn around certificates of insurance and other endorsements, as well as answer any underwriting questions. They could immediately get ahold of someone to help in that front.

Producers and account servicers still interact with the clients to some extent, but the regular transactions are now concentrated within the new unit.

To make the change, Hays looked at its overall book of business and pulled out those accounts with $10,000 in revenue or less. Then we looked at how many different carriers we were using and who was receiving the bulk of the business, Keys said. We vetted each carrier, starting at the zero to $2,500 (range) in revenue.

Keys said that process made it clear that the agency could get by with fewer carriers to successfully run its small business and programs.

We went from utilizing about 35 carriers and excess and surplus lines brokers to consolidating to just three. We are now up to about five, she said. Keys says there are still a few outlier partners in small business, but now the agency tends to push the bulk of the business to its five partner carriers.

Its been great, she said. Theyre all national providers, with strong Hays relationships on the small business side as well as the middle market, large/national account side.

The move has helped profitability all-around, including growth in contingency income as well as improved loss ratios.

Carriers welcomed the change, Keys said. We said to them, Heres what our book looks like. We need to partner with you guys, and we need you to think a little bit outside the box, and not just write your typical, four-walls, in-office exposure. We might need you to help us on an account with a little meat on it.'

Keys has seen additional benefits of the move. The agencys carriers have been writing some accounts they may not have written without the consolidation. Hays is now well-positioned as more big name carriers are making the move to build their small business books. New carriers to small business, such as Chubb and Liberty Mutual, as well as traditional legacy small business carriers, like The Hartford and Travelers, are investing in online rating systems and expanding appetite, she said.

Keys advises other agencies to find the right partner that has a large breath of appetite and is willing to think outside the box. Then consolidate your book, she said. Its been successful for us, on the front-end and on the back-end.

Redefining the small business segment has worked for others as well. Herman S. Peery, senior vice president, at Insurance Office of America Inc. (IOA) based in Longwood, Fla., has selected a different way to refer to its small business.

Small business is a very broad term, Peery said. In fact, weve eliminated the term small in our definition of the clientele that would be identified for this group. We refer to them as select because it is a select group of clients that would fit into this category.

Rather than size of revenue, number of employees or even size of premium, IOA uses other criteria to define its select business. We look at it as a service need, he says. Once the account has secured coverage, and marketing is complete, select clients operate autonomously until the next renewal cycle comes up. We would consider that a candidate for our select division.

Deseriee Wanson, IOAs director of commercial sales and development, says select accounts range anywhere from $500 in premium all the way up to several hundred thousand dollars in premium.

We have a team here locally of 23 employees that are set up to support and provide a frictionless delivery of the policies to our clients, while maintaining our core coverages, and the high service levels that IOA as an organization displays to our clients, she said.

2. Utilize Service Centers

Agencies have also found success in the small premium segment by utilizing insurance carrier service centers.

Lou Mitchell, chief operating officer, at Sihle Insurance Group, an independent agency based in Altamonte Springs, Fla., says that over the past five years, Sihle has grown its small business book about 10 percent to 15 percent per year. According to Mitchell, the growth has been purely organic due more small companies starting up in Florida.

As a general rule, Sihle defines small business accounts as any account less than $15,000 in premium. If an account is on the smaller end of that, say less than $2,500 in premium, Sihle requires that the business go to a carrier service center.

Typically, small commercial would generate 15 percent commission, but using a carrier service center costs the agency one to two percentage points of commission. In Mitchells view, the cut in commission is well worth the cost to the agency. That eliminates us handling the $500, $600, or $1,000 policies that would put us in the red as soon as we do a certificate of insurance, he figures.

The service center handles all servicing needs and renewal activity. Plus, the carrier then assumes any errors and omissions exposure for that account, he said.

If that carrier decides they no longer want to write that type of business then they would give us proper notice at the agency level that its going to be non-renewed for whatever reason and then we get involved again and find another carrier to place it with, he said. Sihle remains the agent of record.

Mitchell admits some carriers are much better at service centers than others. But I think the overall key is that when a client is first written it has to go to the service center then. Its very difficult to write a client and give it the personal service that we deliver to our clients from an agency standpoint and then the next year say, Oh, well, youre going to a service center,' he said.

The ones who do it best offer extended hours, can handle changes efficiently, and have the know-how to determine how changes will affect policies of the client, added SIAAs Tombarelli.

Mitchell maintains that service centers are one reason Sihle has increased its small business book. Because of the volumes that we write we have with some carriers assign people and direct lines that all of our clients call to, he said. We even have one service center that answers the phone as Sihle Insurance and they have Sihle Insurance stationary and business cards. People have no idea that theyre actually being serviced by a carrier service center.

Mitchell particularly likes Westfields approach. Ive dealt with tons of them but theyre by far the most unique in the way theyre set up and how they execute day to day business, he said.

Sihle doesnt discriminate on the type of small business account, which has helped the agency grow its small business, too, Mitchell says.

We dont market the size as much as we market the general community itself, he said. We dont turn people away and we very seldom ever refer to somebody else. Thats why we use the service centers on the mini-accounts as we call them, so we dont have to turn somebody away.

3. Specialize

SIAAs Tombarelli says one of the most important things about succeeding in small business is to have a diverse book. We encourage agents to have a diverse book, he said. Each year, different segments of the economy go well or slow down. For instance, when the economy is strong, construction thrives and when the economy is weak, construction is one of the first industries to have cuts.

Connecticut, home state to Smith Brothers Insurance in Glastonbury, lags behind the nation in job creation and drumming up new small business accounts has taken a bit more planning, according to Jared Carillo, director of foundation accounts at Smith Brothers, a core agency partner for BroadStreet Partners Inc.

Connecticut is a challenging place to be attractive to bring new people in the door, Carillo said. In our world, where were growing is really by seeking out those clients that require the services of an advisor. To a degree, we are profiling those business that rely more heavily on the advice that we give them  businesses with a little bit more complexity than just vanilla.

Smith Brothers defines small business clients as those generating commission income of $5,000 or less. Carillo estimates that roughly 90 percent of new small commercial business is organic, new business. Most is being generated strictly through word of mouth via referrals, he said.

Carillo says that while a lot of new business stems from typical general insurance in the small commercial space, the agency has found some areas where specialization has helped drive growth.

We have three different spaces in our agency that we specialize in for small commercial  lawyers, trucking and transportation exposed risks, and jewelers, he said.

For Smith Brothers, the ideal small business client is one that will really listen and understand the risks that they face, as well as the valued advice of an independent agent. Thats the level of client that we desire and seek, he said.

According to the Connecticut agent, success in this market comes with being deliberate in profiling the type of client that the agency wants to interact with, as well as having a variety of specialties.

Its not just the size of the revenue, he said. Carillo says that its pretty easy to start throwing more money at advertising, go door to door, distributing pamphlets to get any client. But we are finding the best success by getting solicitations and networking within our current satisfied group of clients.

4. Upgrade Technology

Both carriers and agencies believe it is important to stay on the cutting edge of technology to make it in the small business market.

As we move into the future in small business, a real key component to being successful is to stay on the forefront of the technology thats available to us to deliver both product and service to our small business customer, says Chris Rooker, managing director of commercial property/casualty at Higginbotham, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas.

Rooker believes the industry lags at times in its delivery mechanisms for small commercial policies, which is a threat to agents. Were going to have to be able to utilize the technology thats becoming available both in our agencies and as we interact with our customers, and partner insurance carriers. In his view, the industry isnt quite there.

Today, most people like to do business on their iPhone, he says. But most small businesses right now, from an insurance perspective cant do their business off their iPhone. Rooker says that needs to change. I think if an agent is going be successful five years from now, or maybe less, theyre going to have to develop the technologies that allow these small business owners to access their insurance policies  their auto ID cards, their certificates of insurance, and other service related matters in an easy fashion, he said.

Some small business carriers and agency management systems provide some sort of mobile technology to meet customer needs, but most do not, according to Rooker. Theres a true gap in the ability to service customers via an iPhone or mobile device, he said.

5. Stay Committed

Whatever agencies do when it comes to being successful in small business they must be committed to the market, says Andy Wood, Insureons executive vice president of retail operations.

Headquartered in Chicago, Insureon provides online capabilities that connect small business owners with insurance providers. Insureon has made small business its only business by delivering fast, online insurance to micro-small businesses, or those typically with less than 10 employees.

Most agencies cannot invest in the type of technology it takes to write more than 200,000 micro-small business customers, like Insureon, but Wood says independent agents can still find success.

Youve got to be committed to it, he said. Its not something you can just jump into and jump out of.

Insureon is a high-volume agency that emphasizes efficiency. For us, that translates into imagining a funnel when somebody comes to our website and being able to drive them through the application process very quickly without a lot of people falling off, having processes in place to pick up those people who have dropped off to save them. Then once you get them in through the application process, get them quotes quickly and then bind quickly, he said. Youre not wasting lot of energy. Youre not wasting a lot of space. Obviously, there is money to be made, if you can do it efficiently and effectively.

Woods says some agencies struggle in small commercial because they dont have the economic mindset to invest in small business.

By necessity, they will jump to where the opportunities are, so they work on some health. They might work on some personal lines. They might run across a small commercial account here and there, he said. But if you really want to be successful at it, youve got to have resources that are dedicated to it, and youve got to have a very well-defined, clearly articulated marketing plan on how youre going to go after that small commercial space.

Economics drive success in small business, he added. Youve got to be super-efficient and super-effective.

Topics Carriers USA Agencies Commercial Lines InsurTech Business Insurance Tech Property Casualty Connecticut Startups Small BusinessCalifornia Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones has approved the first surety bond program for the cannabis industry in the California.

Continental Heritage Insurance Co. is the first insurer in the state to be approved to offer surety bonds for the cannabis industry, according to the California Department of Insurance.

Cannabis Surety Bonds are needed for various entities seeking licensure under the Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act. The state requires a surety bond of $5,000 for most licensing categories.

The new program from Continental Heritage is the first-of-its-kind for Californias new and evolving cannabis industry, according to Jones.

Cannabis businesses should have insurance coverage available to them just like any other California business, said Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones. As Insurance Commissioner, my mission is insurance protection for all Californians, which includes insurance for Californias legalized cannabis businesses. I encourage more insurance companies to file cannabis business insurance products with the department to meet the needs of this emerging market.

Jones launched an initiative last year to encourage commercial insurance companies to write insurance to fill coverage gaps for the cannabis industry. This first filing and approval of commercial insurance for the cannabis industry was announced in November 2017. Jones has convened meetings between commercial insurance company executives and cannabis business owners to educate the insurance industry about the cannabis industry.

Topics California Cannabis OklahomaAlthough clear challenges can come with the increasing cost and frequency of global natural disasters, there could also be untapped opportunity for insurers to tackle coverage gaps, according to industry experts.

One of the lessons coming out of 2017 is that theres still a tremendous amount of opportunity in the insurance industry, said Bill Churney, president of AIR Worldwide, during a panel discussion at the Insurance Information Institutes 2018 P/C Joint Industry Forum, held in January at New York Citys Marriott Marquis.

The cost of natural disasters has almost quadrupled over the last decade, with 2017 being the costliest year on record, according to research from the U.S. Department of Commerces National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Much of this increase has to do with changes in exposure and frequency and severity of events, said panelist Alex Kaplan, head of North America at Swiss Re Global Partnerships.

However grim it sounds, this increase in natural disaster cost could lead to untapped market share for the insurance industry, according to Kaplan, who presented research by Swiss Re during the panel discussion. Although 2017 preliminary numbers show there were approximately $300 billion in natural catastrophe losses across all perils, Kaplan added that only approximately $130 billion of that was insured.

The other $270 billion is on the back of taxpayers and not on the balance sheets of insurance companies, he said.

As an example, Churney pointed out that most of the risk seen in Hurricane Harvey was uninsured. Losses from Hurricane Harvey exceeded $125 billion, ranking second only to Hurricane Katrina  the costliest storm in the 38-year period of record, the NOAA reported.

One of the things that I think the industry will have to come to grips with is this whole idea of the one-in-100-year flood zone FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) map, Churney said. Its not a very good proxy for the risk, given that 40-50 percent of the loss in Harvey was outside of those areas. So, thats the opportunity thats out there. How does the industry insure the exposure there?

A tool that could assist the insurance industry in harnessing that opportunity is technology, according to Churney.

With a lot of the risks that weve talked about this year  wildfires and flood in particular  the common refrain [among insurers] has always been, Well, we cant insure that. Theres not the technology to do that,' he said. We obviously would argue against that.

As natural catastrophe models continue to evolve to better assess risk, and clearer aerial imagery allows companies to gather data without bothering the policyholder, the insurance gap can begin to close, Churney said.

I think companies are pushing forward on that front, he said. Theres a good distance to go, but I think its the collection of better data about the risk coupled with the ever-improving models that will help give people more certainty to hopefully take on more of that gap.

Kaplan added that another important aspect of closing the coverage gap is data collection and the ability to merge publicly available data with private market technical expertise.

[That] actually changes, I believe, the value proposition our industry can have in terms of getting money in the hands of the people that need it before the disaster occurs, he said.

According to Swiss Res research, 32.5 percent of Americans today said they couldnt pull together at least $2,000 in the event of a disaster. With 8 percent of the U.S. population affected by natural disasters in 2017, this means 8.5 million people not only were affected by disasters, but also didnt have cash on hand and likely didnt have flood insurance, Kaplan said.

We have to figure out as an industry how are we going to get money in the hands of the people that need it in a much faster way, he stated. I think technology and data are absolutely critical to that.

Rise in Presidentially Declared Disasters

Beyond an increase in natural catastrophe costs, presidentially declared disasters have also increased in frequency. Swiss Res research shows that while Ronald Reagan averaged 28 presidentially declared disasters per year during his presidency, and Bill Clinton averaged 90 per year, 2011 saw 242 disasters during Barack Obamas presidency, and the first year of Donald Trumps presidency brought 137 presidentially declared disasters.

With this in mind, panelists speculated the federal government could soon shift the burden of owning natural disaster risk to states and municipalities, giving insurers another opportunity to do more.

If theres any clear policy thats coming out of Washington holistically, I would call it a reallocation of burden, Kaplan said. We are finally beginning to come to a point where the federal government is going to say, You know what? This is not financially sustainable. We are not going to continue to provide bailouts to communities that are otherwise making bad decisions about land use, planning or building codes. You have to own your risk. Part of the solution is inevitably going to be insurance.

Panelists also predicted that U.S. states and municipalities may begin to realize the need for taking control of their own risk.

I also suspect that there are a lot of states and municipalities in our country who are going to start realizing, Wow. Its a huge burden, and it is fairly uncertain as to whether and how and when the federal government is going to respond,' Kaplan said.

Challenges and Lessons

However, one challenge for insurers in this environment is that there can be a perception that bailouts are bigger than they are, which can discourage assuming personal responsibility for natural catastrophe risk, Kaplan stated.

The largest check FEMA will write an individual family is $33,000, he said. And I think most people dont know that. Ive known risk managers of public entities across the United States that always say, Why would I pay for something I know Im going to get for free? So, theres this perception that the federal government is going to come and save the day.

Indeed, Julie Rochman, president and CEO at the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS), told Insurance Journal that she sees a lack of incentive to own risk with the current system of safety nets in place.

There are safety nets below safety nets below safety nets, so if you fall through one  the primary one, which is private insurance  you land in a federal agencys lap, she said.

If you fall through that, you might land in another federal agencys lap, and if you fall below that, you might land in some sort of state safety net, she said. If you fall below that, youve got Red Cross and all of the NGOs. So we have set up this system of like nine safety nets, which allows people to say, I dont have to take any personal responsibility. I dont have to own any of my own risk.'

Rochman also pointed to another problem  one she said she sees as a bit naive.

People also do not believe that bad things will happen to them, she said.

You hear it all the time after a catastrophe: We never thought it would happen here or to us.'

As insurers work to harness the challenges and opportunities the current natural disaster environment presents, Rochman said its important insurers send honest market-based signals and information to people, so that they truly understand the risk they face.

Insurers are strong proponents of honest conversations about relative risk, she said. Those signals essentially tell the property owner that they have choices about the buildings in which they live and work, but they should not fool themselves about their risk of flooding, or wildfire, or earthquake, or tornadoes or hurricanes. If the home or business owner ignores the relative pricing and availability signals, that is their choice, but its just not a good thing.

Kaplan said he believes learning from the events of last year is a good place to start in working toward change.

I think there are a lot of lessons in the last year, he said. I think its promising that we have so many governments around the world focusing on risk, the cost of risk and how to engage the private sector to shift more of the burden off of the back of taxpayers onto the balance sheet of the private market.

Rochman agreed, adding that she believes change is in the pipeline for 2018.

I do believe that peoples ears and eyes are now open to the concept of mitigation, and theyre open to having a conversation that would end in not repeating the same type of losses, she said. Youve got institutional investors, government agencies, academics, meteorologists and all of these people focused on resilience. Hopefully, 2018 will be the year when the switch flips, and people start seeing that mitigation is an investment; its not an expense.

Topics Carriers Catastrophe USA Flood Hurricane Market Swiss ReThe Supreme Court of New Jersey has ruled a city and its electrical inspector are not liable for claims resulting from a fatal fire within a multi-unit home that was allegedly caused by faulty wiring. The court stated in its opinion that public entities and their employees cannot be held liable for failing to enforce the law.

The case comes after a fire in the city of Paterson, N.J., on June 30, 2010, which consumed a multi-unit home owned by Florence Brown. The fire killed four residents and injured several others.

Seven lawsuits were subsequently brought on behalf of the four descendants estates and by several others who were injured escaping the fire.

During the proceedings, questions arose as to whether Paterson and its electrical inspector, Robert Bierals  alleged by the plaintiffs to be partially at fault for the fire  were entitled to qualified or absolute immunity under New Jerseys Tort Claims Act (TCA).

The TCA grants absolute immunity from liability to public entities and their employees for injuries resulting from their failure to enforce the law. In contrast, public employees are entitled only to qualified immunity when they are enforcing the law. The TCA also protects public entities and their employees from liability for injuries due to failure to inspect, or a negligent or inadequate inspection.

Because the Supreme Court of New Jersey found that in this case, the critical causative conduct was a failure to enforce the law, it ruled Bierals is entitled to absolute immunity. The city of Patersons liability is conditioned on that of Bierals, so the city is entitled to absolute immunity as well, the court found.

Background

On January 9, 2010, the Paterson Fire Department visited Browns multi-unit home to investigate smoke coming from a boiler. A fire inspector found improper wiring in the basements electrical panels and notified the citys electrical department for further inspection.

Bierals, an electrical inspector employed by the city, reviewed the electrical panels and determined the wiring did not comply with the building code. Bierals took photos of the wiring and told Brown it was extremely dangerous.

Through Bierals, the city of Paterson issued Brown a Notice of Violation and Order to Terminate, but Brown did not respond. The city then sent a Notice and Order of Penalty to Brown, citing specific violations of the Uniform Construction Code Act and various regulations.

When Bierals returned to Browns home to reinspect the wiring, Brown told him she had not altered or repaired it. Bierals told Brown to hire an electrician and have the wiring repaired within two weeks, asking her to notify him when the electrician arrived.

Although Bierals indicated in his report he had reinspected the wiring, he had not actually conducted a second inspection, according to the Supreme Court of New Jerseys opinion document. Instead, he relied on Browns indication that the issue had not been corrected.

After his visit to Browns home, Bierals contacted Francine Ragucci, an employee of Patersons Community Improvements Department. Bierals testified he showed Ragucci photos of the wiring and told her the problem needed to be fixed. Ragucci said she would speak with Sal Ianelli, another city official, and inform Bierals about the conversation. However, Bierals did not hear from Ragucci, according to the opinion document.

According to Bierals, the city can terminate electrical service to a home if a code violation means a hazard is imminent. Bierals testified that department policy required him to notify his supervisor, Alfonso Del Carmen, of an imminent hazard, and Del Carmen would determine whether to shut off power at Browns home.

Bierals did not contact Del Carmen because of a previous conflict between them when Bierals had recommended a shutoff in a separate situation. According to Bierals, Del Carmen had accused him of recommending a power shut-off to create work for an electrician friend. After the incident, Bierals decided to no longer go through Del Carmen to obtain a shut-off. Instead, he contacted Ragucci because he thought the situation at Browns property required immediate action, the opinion document stated.

On June 30, 2010, the faulty wiring caused a fire at Browns property, killing four residents and injuring several others.

Lawsuits Filed

After the seven lawsuits were brought, the city of Paterson and its employees moved for summary judgment.

The trial court initially ruled that all of the city of Paterson employees except Bierals were entitled to absolute immunity under the TCA and granted summary judgment in favor of those defendants. Bierals instead was determined by the trial court to have qualified immunity, as questions remained about whether he acted in good faith. The court also ruled that the city of Paterson was entitled to qualified immunity.

Bierals and the city of Paterson then moved for summary judgment before a different judge, arguing they were entitled to absolute immunity. The court granted the motion in March 2015. Plaintiffs moved for reconsideration, and the court held a hearing.

In April 2015, the court reconsidered and vacated the grant of summary judgment. In June 2016, a three-judge panel affirmed the trial courts order in an unpublished opinion, holding that Bierals and Paterson were entitled only to qualified immunity. Because plaintiffs alleged Bierals acted to enforce the law but did not act in good faith, the panel remanded to the trial court to decide the factual dispute.

N.J. Supreme Court Decision

In its opinion document, the Supreme Court of New Jersey stated plaintiff Hazel Hamrick Lee argued the city of Paterson and Bierals are entitled to qualified immunity because Bierals actions, including issuing violations and reporting the problem to Ragucci, constitute enforcing the law. Plaintiff Tyrone Byard, who was injured in the fire while escaping the building, agreed the city of Paterson and Bierals are only entitled to qualified immunity.

Amicus NJAJ (New Jersey Association for Justice) stated Bierals failure to shut off the homes power was a failure to enforce a city policy, not a law. Liability in this case, according to NJAJ, is predicated on action rather than inaction, the opinion document said. NJAJ also stated the court should recognize special circumstances and, even if it is decided that absolute immunity applies, the court should hold Paterson and Bierals liable, the opinion document said.

Alternatively, the city of Paterson asserted it is entitled to absolute immunity because the fire was caused by a failure to enforce the law or a failure to inspect. Bierals arguments were similar to the city of Patersons, contending that because he did not issue an Unsafe Structure Notice or tell Del Carmen about the issue and turn off the power, he is entitled to absolute immunity.

Amici NJSLM (New Jersey State League of Municipalities) contended absolute immunity is appropriate in this case, warning that public entities will be exposed to a flood of tort claims from which the legislature intended to insulate them if the court does not reverse the Appellate Divisions decision in this case, the opinion document stated.

Indeed, the New Jersey Supreme Court found in its opinion the TCA effectuates the legislatures intent to establish immunity for government action as the rule and liability as the exception.

The statute strikes a balance between allowing municipal governments to perform their necessary functions without an avalanche of tort liability while holding public entities accountable for injuries that are a direct result of their wrongful conduct, the court stated in its opinion.

With this in mind, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled the critical causative conduct in this case was Bierals failure to contact Del Carmen and secure an emergency power shut-off or to seek relief in court, not any affirmative action to enforce the law. The New Jersey Supreme Court decided the fire is alleged to have been caused by the faulty wiring on the electrical panels and was not the result of any corrective action taken by Bierals. Under its interpretation of the TCA, the court found Bierals prior conduct of inspecting and issuing notices of violation was not sufficient to subject him to liability.

There is no dispute that the citys liability is conditioned on that of Bierals, and thus the city is entitled to absolute immunity as well, the Supreme Court stated in its opinion.

The New Jersey Supreme Court concluded defendants Bierals and Paterson are entitled to summary judgment, reversed the judgment of the Appellate Division and remanded to resolve the remaining issues in the consolidated case.

Topics Lawsuits New JerseyAn Arkansas judge has dismissed a Monsanto Co. lawsuit aiming to stop the state from blocking the use of a controversial farm chemical the company makes, dealing a blow to its attempts to increase sales of genetically engineered seeds.

Monsanto, which is being acquired by Bayer AG, filed the lawsuit last year in a bid to halt the states ban on sprayings of the weed killer known as dicamba from the period spanning April 16 to Oct. 31.

Growers across the U.S. farm belt said last summer that dicamba drifted away from where it was sprayed, damaging millions of acres of crops that could not tolerate the herbicides.

St. Louis-based Monsanto, the biggest U.S. seed company, said it was disappointed with the judges decision and would consider additional legal action.

In the ruling, Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Chris Piazza cited a recent Arkansas Supreme Court decision that the state cannot be made a defendant in court, according to the Arkansas Agriculture Department.

Dicamba, also sold by BASF SE and DowDuPont Inc., is meant to be used during the summer growing season on soybeans and cotton that Monsanto engineered to resist the chemical.

Monsanto is banking on the herbicide and its dicamba-resistant soybean seeds to dominate soybean production in the United States, the worlds second-largest exporter. The company says dicamba, which it sells under the name XtendiMax with VaporGrip, is safe when used properly.

The Arkansas ban hurts Monsantos ability to sell dicamba-tolerant seed in the state and has caused irreparable harm to the company, according to Monsantos lawsuit. The state also limited use of Monsantos dicamba herbicide in 2017 but allowed sales of products by other companies.

David Wildy, an Arkansas farmer who served on a state task force that recommended the ban, said he supported the ruling. He said his soybeans suffered damage from the herbicide last year and that it threatens plants ranging from flowers to vegetables and peanuts when it drifts away from where it is sprayed.

If we cant keep products on target, then theres not a place for them in agriculture, Wildy said in a telephone interview.

Topics Lawsuits USA AgribusinessLouisianas attorney general is taking charge of a state lawsuit against drug manufacturers, under a deal that ends a dispute with the governors office over who controls litigation against the companies over the opioid crisis in Louisiana.

Gov. John Bel Edwards and Attorney General Jeff Landry said the lawsuit, initially filed through the state health department, will expand to more state agencies alleging damaging impacts from opioid use.

I am confident that the attorney generals office will be able to pursue these claims vigorously and will hold the opioid manufacturers responsible for flooding our state with these highly addictive drugs and misleading the public about their addictive nature, Edwards said in a statement.

Before the agreement, the battle between the Democratic governor and Republican attorney general had worked its way into court, with a state district judge asked to decide which official should handle the litigation.

I thank the governor for putting his faith in our offices leadership on this issue. We will work hard to hold drug companies accountable for contributing to the opioid abuse, misuse and addiction that have destroyed so many Louisiana families, Landry said.

The deal was a rare compromise between the governor and attorney general, who have quarreled repeatedly since taking office in 2016, over finances, contracts and the limits of their jobs. Landry is seen as a possible challenger to Edwards in 2019.

The Edwards administration filed the opioids lawsuit in September through the state health department against more than a dozen drug companies, accusing them of an orchestrated campaign to flood Louisiana with opioids to boost their profits. The lawsuit seeks damages for payments made through the Medicaid program for opioid prescriptions and for treatment costs tied to opioid abuse.

Landry wants to include opioids impacts on other agencies, such as increased costs to the states criminal justice and education systems and the impact on social services. He previously said the health department had no experience handling the type of complex litigation involved in suing a deep-pocketed industry.

Under the deal, no settlement with the drug companies could be reached without both the attorney general and the governors administration in agreement.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Louisiana DrugsAn oil and gas worker on a Talos Energy LLC platform in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico was killed on Feb. 17 while replacing piping, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said.

The worker, who was not immediately identified, was injured while removing out-of-service fire suppression equipment and later died. No other personnel were injured and there was no fire or release resulting from the accident, Talos said in a statement.

The Houston-based company said it initiated an investigation and was working with regulators in reviewing the accident, which occurred about 64 miles south of Lake Charles, Louisiana. The platform was being operated by Energy Resource Technology GOM LLC, a Talos subsidiary.

Offshore drilling accidents claimed 29 lives between 2009 and 2016, according to the latest data available from federal regulator BSEE, including 11 offshore workers in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion.

Taloss Energy Resource Technology reported a fatality on a production platform in October 2013, according to BSEE. That accident occurred just a few months after federal regulators placed the operator on a performance improvement plan.

In 2016, Energy Resource Technology (ERT) was ordered to pay $4.2 million and put on three years of probation for felony violations tied to its offshore activities.

ERT pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to comply with regulations covering hot work and blowout preventer testing. It also pleaded guilty to violations of the Clean Water Act by dumping pollutants into the Gulf of Mexico and for tampering with methods for collecting water discharge samples, U.S. prosecutors said.

Talos self-reported the violations that led to the settlement after it acquired ERT in 2013, the company said in a statement.

Topics LouisianaA former Mississippi insurance agent will serve 10 years in prison for embezzling $117,863.74 from a customer and converting the money for his own use, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood announced in January.

Charles Myrick Winstead, 54, an insurance agent from Terry, pleaded guilty Jan. 29 to one count of embezzlement. Madison County Circuit Court Judge William E. Chapman III sentenced him to 20 years in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, with 10 years to serve and 10 suspended.

While employed as an insurance agent, Winstead advised one of his customers to cash in an insurance policy with a face value of $117,863.74 and then purchase a different policy. The customer took his advice by cashing the policy and turning the funds over to him. Winstead deposited the money into his own personal bank account and spent the money instead of submitting it to Nationwide Insurance Co.

Upon learning of Winsteads actions, Nationwide reimbursed the customer $121,811.56, which represented the principal and interest.

Upon his release, Winstead will be placed on supervised probation for five years. He must also pay $121,811.56 in restitution to Nationwide Insurance Co. as well as court costs.

While there is no sentence that would truly rectify the dishonest guidance this agent provided to his customer, I am satisfied knowing we have one more con artist behind bars and appreciate the sentence handed down by Judge Chapman, said Hood.

This case was investigated by Jerry Spell and prosecuted by Special Assistant Attorney General Steven Waldrup of the Attorney Generals Public Integrity Division.

Topics Agencies MississippiA Georgia insurance agent from Pierce County has been arrested and charged with 28 counts of insurance fraud, according to a statement from Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens.

Dana Larson Bowen, 52, of Blackshear, Ga., is alleged to have misappropriated customers insurance premium payments for personal use. Bowen, a licensed agent in Georgia since 1988, owns and operates Management South Agency in Blackshear.

State fraud investigators found that between August 2016 and June 2017, Bowen accepted more than $250,000 in premium payments from her clients to obtain workers compensation, general liability and commercial insurance coverage. Evidence shows that on multiple occasions, Bowen failed to forward all the premiums to the insurance company, leaving many of her clients without valid coverage, Hudgens added.

Individuals victimized by Bowen operated various types of businesses in Bacon, Pierce and Ware Counties.

Hudgens Legal Division has taken enforcement action to revoke Bowens license to transact any insurance business in Georgia.

Fraud investigators are asking anyone that purchased insurance from Bowen and finds they do not have legitimate coverage to contact the GADOIs Consumer Hotline at 800-656-2298.

Topics Agencies Fraud GeorgiaLiberty Mutual Insurance has appointed Shelia Anderson to the newly created role of corporate functions chief information officer (CIO), reporting to Liberty Mutuals executive vice president and CIO, James McGlennon.

Based in Boston, Mass., Anderson will focus on enabling customer success for the corporate functions department, B2B (business-to-business) architecture and modernizing and digitizing core systems and processes. She and her team will work with Liberty Mutual Insurances internal corporate functions, such as legal, benefits, talent and enterprise services, to focus on system automation, moving to the cloud and applications designed to streamline work, according to McGlennon in a company press release.

Anderson has held senior level technology roles with several Fortune 500 global technology organizations, including HP and Electronic Data Systems. She most recently served as vice president and CIO for property and casualty insurance at USAA.

Liberty Mutual Insurance is a global insurer that has been in business since 1912 and is headquartered in Boston, Mass. It offers a range of insurance products and services, including personal automobile, homeowners, commercial automobile, general liability, property, surety, workers compensation, specialty lines and reinsurance.

Source: Liberty Mutual InsuranceA man who doesnt drink but was arrested on an impaired driving charge has settled his lawsuit against New York City for nearly $1 million.

According to the Daily News, Oliver Wiggins says he was charged in a cover-up after an officer ran a Brooklyn stop sign and hit his car in 2015.

He tested negative for alcohol and drugs. Three months later, prosecutors dismissed the charges.

Wiggins says he had his drivers license suspended and his insurance company wouldnt cover car repairs because of the arrest.

The New York Police Department referred a comment request to the New York City Law Department, which says settling the case was in the citys best interest.

Information from: Daily News

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Abuse Molestation New YorkExxonMobil Corp. said on Monday it would take about eight weeks to restore production at the Papua New Guinea liquefied natural gas project (LNG), following a powerful earthquake that hit the countrys energy-rich interior a week ago.

The 7.5 magnitude quake on Feb. 26 triggered landslides and flattened buildings, killing at least 31 people, and has affected the regional LNG market. The South Pacific nation has declared a state of emergency.

Exxon said in a statement on Monday that 300 non-essential personnel had been evacuated and work at the Hides gas conditioning plant in the highlands had turned to restoring camp and associated facilities.

While the gas conditioning plant was safely shut in, there has been some damage to various pieces of equipment and foundation supports that will need to be inspected and repaired, it said.

Initial visual inspections of the major processing equipment indicate that they may not have been significantly impacted, it added.

Exxon is the operator and largest shareholder of the project that includes a 700-km (435-mile) gas pipeline that connects gas reserves in PNGs jungle Southern Highlands to a coastal liquefaction plant. Oil Search Ltd and Santos are also project partners.

Oil Search said the Agogo production facility and the Moran field were the most affected by the quake, and major repairs will be required before production can restart. The timeframe to restart production through Agogo is still being reviewed.

Uncertainty around production from PNG has drained liquidity from Asias spot LNG markets with buyers and sellers taking a wait-and-see approach before committing to trade, a market source said.

The PNG LNG project is considered one of the worlds best-performing LNG operations. Exxon said earlier this month that together with its partners, Frances Total SA and Australias Oil Search, it plans to almost double the facilitys export capacity to 16 million tonnes per year.

(Reporting by Jonathan Barrett; additional reporting by Chris Thomas in Bengaluru; editing by Daniel Wallis and Richard Pullin)

Related:The U.S. Justice Department has asked a federal judge overseeing hundreds of lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors to give it 30 days to decide whether to participate in the litigation.

The department made the request in papers filed in federal court in Cleveland late on Thursday after earlier in the day U.S. President Donald Trump called for a federal lawsuit against companies over their roles in the opioid epidemic.

The Justice Department asked U.S. District Judge Dan Polster to give it time to evaluate participating in the litigation, citing the substantial costs that the federal government has borne as a result of the opioid epidemic.

It cited estimates made by the White House Council of Economic Advisers in November that opioid abuse cost the U.S. economy as much as $504 billion in 2015.

The economic burden from the opioid epidemic includes considerable costs associated with the medical treatment of opioid users, the Justice Department said.

As just one example of the costs federal agencies have incurred for treatment, the U.S. Defense Departments costs for care related to opioid use and dependence were $82 million in 2017, the Justice Department said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42,000 people died from opioid overdoses in 2016, the last year with publicly available data.

Thursdays filing came after U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions on Tuesday announced the department would file a statement of interest in cases consolidated before Polster, saying the federal government would seek reimbursement for the cost of the epidemic.

The judge is overseeing at least 355 lawsuits filed by cities, counties and others against opioid manufacturers and distributors generally seeking to recover the costs they had incurred grappling with the public health crisis.

Polster has been pushing for a quick, global settlement in the litigation, and has invited state attorneys general who have cases in state courts or who are conducting a multistate probe of the companies to participate in those talks.

The lawsuits have generally accused the drugmakers of deceptively marketing opioids and allege distributors ignored red flags indicating the painkillers were being diverted for improper uses.

The defendants include opioid manufacturers Purdue Pharma LP, Johnson & Johnson, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Endo International PLC and Allergan PLC and drug distributors AmerisourceBergen Corp., Cardinal Health Inc and McKesson Corp.

The first settlement hearing was held in January. A second one is expected on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Topics Lawsuits USA PoliticsInsurer American International Group Inc on Friday said that it has struck a deal with online travel services provider Brand Expedia Group to sell travel insurance to the companys global customers.

The move is part of a strategy by AIG Chief Executive Officer Brian Duperreault to grow the insurance giant and expand its global reach.

AIGs agreement with Expedia marks its second travel insurance deal in five months. In October, the insurer said it had reached an agreement to sell travel insurance to United Airlines customers.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In January, AIG said it would buy reinsurer Validus Holdings Ltd (VR.N) for $5.56 billion in cash, ending a long period of retrenchment for the insurer, which had dramatically shrunk since its near-death experience during the 2008 financial crisis.

Travel insurance is seen by industry sources as a low-risk business and steady revenue generator. But insurers need scale for it to significantly boost their bottom lines, said Sandler ONeill analyst Paul Newsome.

Its almost certainly not a material change, but its a really nice feather in (AIGs) cap, Newsome said of the Expedia deal. Its nice to have a high-profile transaction that maybe adds some confidence to people looking at AIG.

The latest deal gives U.S. Expedia customers the option to buy AIG travel insurance when booking flights, hotels, travel packages and cruises on Expedia sites, including Expedia.com, CheapTickets, Orbitz and Travelocity.

The companies plan to expand the offering worldwide.

A travel services business line of broker Aon Plc will continue to handle U.S. customer claims, the companies said.

(Reporting by Suzanne Barlyn; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Topics Mergers AIGSome Southeast Texas homeowners have raised concerns about houses in neighborhoods flooded by Hurricane Harvey being changed from residential to commercial zones.

Several displaced residents in Dickinson worry that businesses will buy flood-damaged homes and absorb older neighborhoods, The Galveston County Daily News reported.

Dickinson Mayor Julie Masters doesnt see that happening in the city of 20,000 located 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of Houston.

If we had more businesses in a growth mode, maybe, Masters said. We are trying to grow businesses. We really need that to survive.

Harvey hit South Texas last Aug. 25, leading to torrential rain that flooded numerous sites in the Houston area. Recovery efforts continue with some residents still out of their homes.

The Dickinson City Council has unanimously approved a zoning change to make two residential properties commercial areas.

Charmaine Rea opposes the loss of neighborhood homes and says many residents whose property flooded have given up and moved away.

The city needs businesses to generate sales tax revenue, but businesses are gobbling up neighborhoods, leaving residents out of the equation, Rea said.

They were flooded out and forced out, she said. The citys future land use map is shifting to reflect this, Rea said.

What irritated Rea about the meeting was that it started at 7 p.m. but the zoning change item did not come up until 10:30 p.m., she said. By that time, most of the people who were at the meeting had left, she said.

Im disappointed in Dickinson city government, she said. I know the city has to have businesses, but its not fair to residents.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Texas Flood HomeownersOklahoma residents who are suing oil and gas producers for earthquake damage to their homes and businesses must now wait for a federal judges decision in another case.

Judge Phillip Corley granted a stay with a provision for monitoring until Sept. 6 in the cases involving White Star Petroleum LLC, New Dominion LLC and plaintiffs from Payne and Logan counties, the Stillwater News Press reported.

Attorneys from both companies requested stays until a decision is made about certifying those who are suing in a federal class action case. The attorneys say their clients are spending large amounts of money to make appearances in multiple courts and hope to avoid inconsistent rulings.

The Oklahoma residents attorneys argued that the cases shouldnt be delayed because their clients deserve to be remedied without delay. The federal case has been in the pleading phase for two years and may take another 18 months before a decision is reached, said Scott Poynter, an attorney for the plaintiffs. Some of his clients suffered their damages in November 2016 and need to have their properties inspected sooner rather than later, he said.

Corley said hell review the cases in September and may decide to reinstate them if the federal case hasnt progressed.

If the federal class action case is certified, it would include all property owners in Oklahoma.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Catastrophe Natural Disasters Legislation Oklahoma EarthquakeA company building a crude oil pipeline in Louisiana has asked a federal appeals court to lift a judges order that temporarily halts pipeline construction work in a swamp.

Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC asked the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for an emergency stay that would suspend the judges ruling while it appeals. The company asked the New Orleans-based appeals court for a decision by next Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick has sided with environmental groups and issued a preliminary injunction stopping all Bayou Bridge pipeline construction work in the Atchafalaya Basin until the groups lawsuit is resolved.

In a court filing on Mar. 2, the company claimed Dicks ruling fails the basic requirements for issuing such an order.

Dick concluded the projects irreversible environmental damage outweighs the economic harm that a delay brings to the company.

The company says the work stoppage will cost it up to $500,000 per day in construction-related expenses and $6 million per month in lost revenue.

The judge has said the companys estimated losses arent supported by the underlying data.

The judge said the project potentially threatens the hydrology of the basin and poses the threat of destruction of already diminishing wetlands. She also agreed with environmental groups that centuries-old legacy trees cant be replaced once theyre cut down.

The company claims the sudden halt in construction work creates its own environmental risks. The company says Dicks order prevents it from implementing erosion-control measures to keep rising waters from washing away mounds of dirt from the digging it has done.

Lawyers for the environmental groups say theyre open to modifying the injunction so erosion control measures can be completed. But they say the company is asking for permission to complete the entire project.

There is no emergency that warrants immediate relief due to environmental harm, they wrote in a court filing.

Dicks order applies to the basin only and doesnt prevent the company from working elsewhere along the pipelines 162-mile-long (261-kilometer) path from Lake Charles to St. James Parish.

Sierra Club and other environmental groups sued the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in February, saying it violated the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws when it approved a permit for the project.

The Corps completed two environmental assessments for the project before issuing the permit. Dick, however, concluded the Corps didnt show it took a hard look at past, present and future cumulative environmental impacts.

The Corps and (companys) myopic view that they are only required to consider the impacts of this singular project is not consistent with the regulations or applicable jurisprudence, she wrote.

Company attorneys claim the judge ignored the Corps analysis and improperly substituted her own judgment for the agencys.

Construction in the basin began last month. The basin is the nations largest river swamp and includes roughly 880,000 acres (356,000 hectares) of forested wetlands, according to the groups lawsuit.

Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC is a joint venture of Energy Transfer Partners and Phillips 66. Energy Transfer Partners built the Dakota Access pipeline, a project that sparked a string of violent clashes between protesters and police in North Dakota in 2016 and 2017. The Bayou Bridge pipeline is the last link in a pipeline network connecting the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota with Louisiana refineries and export terminals.

Earthjustice attorneys filed the lawsuit on behalf of Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, Gulf Restoration Network, Atchafalaya Basinkeeper and the Louisiana Crawfish Producers Association-West.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics USA Louisiana Energy Pollution Oil Gas ConstructionBoston Insurance Brokerage LLC (BIB), a national wholesale specialty insurance agency headquartered in Boston, has added Jennifer Szalkay as vice president of Property & Casualty Division. In this role, Szalkay assumes responsibility for developing BIBs growing business in Florida and surrounding states.

Gordon Bewick, CEO of BIB, said Szalkay will head up the companys continued expansion into the southern region.

Szalkay joins BIB with more than 25 years of experience in the insurance industry as a writer, agent and broker, in both retail agency and brokerage/MGA sales and service.

She started her insurance career in 1992 at State Farm Insurance Co. In 1997 she joined Proudfit Insurance Agency, where she was an independent agent. In 2001, she joined MGA brokerage firm USG Insurance Services, Inc. as an underwriter and eventually rose to senior vice president. In 2014, Szalkay relocated to Florida to join Appalachian Underwriters, Inc. as a Property & Casualty broker.

Established in 2001, Boston Insurance Brokerage is a wholesale commercial broker with offices in Boston, Cincinnati, Denver, New York, Richmond, and now Sarasota, Fla. Boston Insurance Brokers LLC offers specialized tailored insurance solutions for insurance agents nationwide. The firm operates in five divisions: Property/Casualty & Environmental, Healthcare & Professional Liability, Workers Compensation, Executive & Professional Liability and High Value Personal Lines.

Topics Agencies Property CasualtyA judge awarded nearly $15 million in a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a one-time mortuary worker who was threatened with being cremated alive for revealing fraud, his attorneys said Thursday.

The judgment in favor of Barry Taul, made under a federal law that rewards people who report fraud and other crimes, goes against the owner of Abanks Mortuary and Crematory, where Taul once worked in Birmingham.

A jury ruled in Tauls favor last month in a whistleblower lawsuit. Taul can receive about $4 million of the judgment; the rest will go to the government.

A lawyer for the mortuary company and its owner, Jed Nagel, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

A statement from Tauls attorneys with the Montgomery-based Beasley Allen Law Firm said Taul reported a scheme where the mortuary paid kickbacks to two former officials with the Alabama Organ Center in exchange for business referrals. The funeral home collected tissues for the organ center.

Larry Golston, one of the attorneys who represented Taul, said the man was threatened with being cremated alive in an attempt to silence him.

This was one of the most horrifying cases Ive seen involving intimidation and retaliation against a whistleblower, Golston said in a statement. My client was just trying to do the right thing.

Nagel was acquitted on theft charges in 2016, but two one-time officials with the Alabama Organ Center pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison in 2012.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits Legislation AlabamaA former Tennessee school bus driver was found guilty Thursday of six counts of criminally negligent homicide in a wreck that killed six children.

A Hamilton County Criminal Court jury convicted Johnthony Walker of lesser charges in the Nov. 21, 2016, crash in Chattanooga. He had been charged with vehicular homicide.

He also was convicted of 11 counts of reckless aggravated assault and seven counts of assault, the Chattanooga Time Free Press reported. He also was found guilty of reckless endangerment, reckless driving and using his phone.

Sentencing is scheduled for April 24.

Jurors began deliberating Wednesday and continued Thursday morning before reaching their verdicts in the afternoon.

Walker was driving 37 children from Woodmere Elementary School when the wreck occurred on a winding Chattanooga road.

Prosecutor Crystle Carrion said Tuesday in court that Walker was driving 50 mph (80 kph) on the narrow road when the bus ran off the pavement, hit a pole and flipped into a tree.

She said Walker was driving too fast to navigate a tight curve safely and drifted into the oncoming lane, then overcorrected, leading to the crash.

Walker took the stand Wednesday and said he wasnt on his cellphone when the bus crashed. He also said he was traveling 35 mph (56 kph) when he approached a curve, and another vehicle dipped into his lane.

Chattanooga police officer Joe Warren testified Tuesday that no evidence suggested the second vehicle was in Walkers lane.

Defense attorney Amanda Dunn said police made assumptions and came to their conclusions before getting all the facts in the case.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Personal Auto Education TennesseePinnacol Assurance in Colorado has named Fiona Arnold, Brad Busse and Bill Lindsay to its board of directors for the term that began Jan. 1, 2018.

All three were confirmed unanimously by the Colorado Senate after appointment by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Arnold is president of MAINSPRING Developers, a Colorado company engaged in commercial and residential real estate development and retail business operations. She has held executive positions at Vail Resorts, Western Gas Resources Inc. (now Anadarko Petroleum) and Crown Media Holdings. From 2015-2016 Arnold served on Gov. Hickenloopers cabinet as executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, and she has served on state commissions on workforce development and experiential learning.

Busse started Busse Ventures in 2014 after 28 years with RBC Capital Markets. He has experience with mergers and acquisitions, equity and debt capital formation, and financial advisory engagements. Since 2000, Governors Owens, Ritter and Hickenlooper have appointed Busse to serve on commissions including the Colorado Commission on Early Childhood Leadership and the Colorado Commission on Science & Technology.

Lindsay is an expert in health care and insurance, especially in the small business sector. Before launching Lindsay3 Consulting, he served as the president of Lockton Companies Benefit Group in Denver. Bill has served on several state commissions addressing health care in Colorado, including chairing the Commission on Affordable Quality Health Care and the Blue Ribbon Commission for Health Care Reform. He has often provided testimony to the United States Congress on health care policy and financing.

Gov. Hickenlooper also reappointed Joseph A. Hoff to another term as an employer farm and ranch representative on the board.

Pinnacol insures a reported 57,000 Colorado employers.

Topics ColoradoThe stock market affects individual businesses in an economy in many different ways. In the United States there are just under 4,000 publicly-traded stocks that can be divided broadly into 11 global industry classifications (GICS). With daily movements across the board, there can be a multitude of effects.

Many analysts often zero in on the S&P 500 Index as a barometer for market performance overall and as such as one of the most influential drivers. Here we will look at two of the most basic affects for businesses: 1) consumer spending and 2) business operations.

The Stock Market and the Economy

Defined as the market in which equity shares of publicly-traded businesses are bought and sold, the stock market measures the aggregate value of all publicly-traded companies. Comprehensively, this can be represented by the Wilshire 5000, but generally, most analysts and investors focus on the S&P 500. Both indexes can be valuable tools for gauging the health of the overall economy, though occasionally stocks may be misleading.

Typically, stock market and economic performance are aligned. Thus, when the stock market is performing well, it is usually a function of a growing economy. Economic growth can be measured in several ways, but one of the most prominent is by following gross domestic product (GDP).

Image by Sabrina Jiang  Investopedia 2020

When GDP is growing, individual businesses are producing more and usually expanding. Expanding business activity usually increases valuations and leads to stock market gains.

Historically, steep market declines preceded the Great Depression in the 1930s as well as the Great Recession of 20072009. However, some market crashes, most famously Black Monday in 1987, were not followed by recessions.

The Stock Market and Consumer Spending

Often, consumers spend more during bull markets because they are making more from the effects of a strong economy and also feel wealthier when they see their portfolios rise in value. During bear markets, the economy is usually not doing as well and spending recedes. A simultaneous fall in stock values also creates fear for the loss of wealth and purchasing power as the value of investments contracts.

A rising stock market is usually aligned with a growing economy and leads to greater investor confidence. Investor confidence in stocks leads to more buying activity which can also help to push prices higher. When stocks rise, people invested in the equity markets gain wealth. This increased wealth often leads to increased consumer spending, as consumers buy more goods and services when they're confident they are in a financial position to do so. When consumers buy more, businesses that sell those goods and services choose to produce more and sell more, reaping the benefit in the form of increased revenues.

Stock market losses erode wealth in both personal and retirement portfolios. A consumer who sees his portfolio drop in value is likely to spend less. This reduction in spending negatively affects businesses--particularly ones that sell non-necessity goods and services, such as luxury cars and entertainment, that customers can live without when money is tight.

The Stock Market and Business Operations

The stock market's movements can impact companies in a variety of ways. The rise and fall of share price values affects a companys market capitalization and therefore its market value. The higher shares are priced, the more a company is worth in market value and vice versa. The market value of a company can be important when considering mergers and/or acquisitions that involve shares as part of the deal.

Share issuance decisions can also be affected by stock performance. If a stock is doing well, a company might be more inclined to issue more shares because they believe they can raise more capital at the higher value.

Stock market performance also affects a companys cost of capital. Companies must average the costs of both their debt and equity capital when arriving at a weighted average cost of capital, which is used for many analysis scenarios. The higher the expected market performance, the higher the cost of equity capital will be. As cost of equity capital rises, present value calculations lower because companies must use a higher discounting rate.

Companies may also have substantial capital investments in their stock which can lead to problems if the stock falls. For example, companies may hold shares as cash equivalents or use shares as backing for pension funds. In any case, when shares fall, the value decreases, which can lead to funding problems.

Lastly, positive increases in stock values can also potentially generate new interests for a particular company or sector. This can possibly add to revenue growth from sales or attract investors.Companies that have made a profit can do one of two things with the excess cash. They can (1) take the money and reinvest it to earn even more money, or (2) take the excess funds and divide them among the company's owners, the shareholders, in the form of a dividend.

If the company decides to pay out dividends, the earnings are taxed twice by the government because of the transfer of the money from the company to the shareholders. The first taxation occurs at the company's year-end when it must pay taxes on its earnings. The second taxation occurs when the shareholders receive the dividends, which come from the company's after-tax earnings. The shareholders pay taxes first as owners of a company that brings in earnings and then again as individuals, who must pay income taxes on their own personal dividend earnings.

Key Takeaways The double taxation of dividends is a reference to how corporate earnings and dividends are taxed by the U.S. government.

Corporations pay taxes on their earnings and then pay shareholders dividends out of the after-tax earnings.

Shareholders receiving dividend payments from a company must then pay taxes on that income as part of their personal income taxes.

Because of this requirement, some corporations opt to avoid paying dividends to shareholders and instead reinvest the money internally.

Paying Taxes Twice

This may not seem like a big deal to some people who don't really earn substantial amounts of dividend income, but it does bother those whose dividend earnings are larger. Consider this: you work all week and get a paycheck from which tax is deducted. After arriving home, you give your children their weekly allowances, and then an IRS representative shows up at your front door to take a portion of the money you give to your kids. You would complain since you already paid taxes on the money you earned, but in the context of dividend payouts, double taxation of earnings is legal.

The double taxation also poses a dilemma to CEOs of companies when deciding whether to reinvest the company's earnings internally. Because the government takes two bites out of the money paid as dividends, it may seem more logical for the company to reinvest the money into projects that may instead give shareholders earnings in capital gains. (For more on this subject, check out Investment Tax Basics For All Investors and Dividend Facts You May Not Know.)What Is a Dual Banking System?

A dual banking system is the system of banking that exists in the United States in which state banks and national banks are chartered and supervised at different levels. Under the dual banking system, national banks are chartered and regulated under federal law and standards and supervised by a federal agency. State banks are chartered and regulated under state laws and standards, which includes supervision by a state supervisor. The law that created the modern banking system is believed to be the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, which President Wilson signed. With this law, Congress established 12 District Banks to cover the country's banking needs.

Understanding a Dual Banking System

The dual banking system in the U.S. was born during the Civil War period. President Abraham Lincoln's Treasury Secretary, Salmon Chase, led the effort to create the National Bank Act of 1863, whose main objective was to raise money for the North to defeat the South. This had to be done via the issuance of a common currency at the national level. Up to that point, state banknotes were in circulation. The 1863 Act created competition to state banks, and the legislators went a step further the next year by passing an amendment to tax the issuance of state banknotes.

The number of state banks dropped dramatically, but a key innovation by state banks  demand deposits  in response to that existential threat led to a strong comeback in the number of state banks, so much so that within 10 years of the 1864 amendment to tax state banknotes, state banks claimed more customer deposits than national banks.

Key Takeaways A dual banking system requires national banks to be regulated on the federal level while state banks are regulated according to state laws under a dual banking system.

President Lincoln was a leader in the creation of the National Bank Act of 1863, which led to a dual banking system.

Most economists agree that a dual banking system is necessary to maintain balance, with both national and state banks having benefits.

The Dual Banking System Today

Today, the dual banking system allows for the co-existence of two different regulatory structures for state and national banks. This translates into differences in how credit is regulated, legal lending limits and variations of regulations from state to state. The dual structure has withstood the test of time, and most economists agree that it is necessary for a sound and vibrant banking system.

National banks offer efficiencies that come from economies of scale and product and service innovations derived from the application of greater resources. State banks, on the other hand, are more nimble and flexible in responding to the unique needs of customers in their own states. Their product and service advancements, subject to approval in a more timely manner by state regulators who have the interests of their residents in mind, could find their way to other states if they are value-added for bank customers.The Qatar Fund for Development (QFFD) will contribute additional $2 million to the UNESCOs Heritage Emergency Fund under an agreement signed last week.

More than ever, we need to respond quickly and efficiently to assess, secure and safeguard threatened heritage, said UNESCOs Director-General, Audrey Azoulay during the signing ceremony in UNESCO headquarters in Paris. The Heritage Emergency Fund is a key tool for doing this and I see this renewed contribution by QFFD as a call to the international community to join forces with UNESCO in this regard.

The initial contribution by the Qatar Fund for Development towards the Heritage Emergency Fund and the continued funding of this instrument reaffirms Qatars commitment to protecting and preserving the heritage of the world. We hope this donation will act as a catalyst that will trigger further contributions by other donors, affirmed GFED Director General Khalifa Bin Jassim Al Kuwari at the signing ceremony.

This latest installment of $2 million follows an earlier QFFD contribution of an equal amount, as part of a pledge Qatar made at the 38th Session of the World Heritage Committee in Doha in June 2014, a UNESCO release said.

During this session, Qatar committed a total of $10 million to support and strengthen UNESCOs ability to preserve cultural and natural heritage in areas that may be vulnerable to disasters or may be affected by armed conflicts.

So far, Qatar is the only Arab donor to the UNESCOs Heritage Emergency Fund.

The fund is a multi-donor instrument established in 2015 as a pooled, non-earmarked funding mechanism that gives UNESCO flexibility to respond quickly and effectively to crises to ensure safeguarding of cultural heritage.

To date, it has been used for activities related to the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, the earthquakes in Ecuador, Myanmar, Nepal and Iran, the hurricanes Matthew in Haiti and Irma in the Caribbean, as well as the floods caused by El Nino in Peru.What Is a Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP)?

A Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) is a retirement savings and investing vehicle for employees and the self-employed in Canada. Pre-tax money is placed into an RRSP and grows tax-free until withdrawal, at which time it is taxed at the marginal rate. Registered Retirement Savings Plans have many features in common with 401(k) plans in the United States, but also some key differences.

The growth of an RRSP is determined by its contents. Simply having money in an RRSP is not a guarantee that you may retire comfortably; however, it is a guarantee that the investments will compound without being taxed, as long as the funds are not withdrawn.

Understanding Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSP)

Registered Retirement Savings Plans were created in 1957 as part of the Canadian Income Tax Act. They are registered with the Canadian government and overseen by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), which sets rules governing annual contribution limits, contribution timing, and what assets are allowed.

RRSPs have two main tax advantages. First, contributors may deduct contributions against their income. For example, if a contributor's tax rate is 40%, every $100 they invest in an RRSP will save that person $40 in taxes, up to their contribution limit. Second, the growth of RRSP investments is tax-deferred. Unlike with non-RRSP investments, returns are exempt from any capital gains tax, dividend tax, or income tax. This means that investments under RRSPs compound on a pre-deferred basis.

In effect, RRSP contributors delay the payment of taxes until retirement, when their marginal tax rate may be lower than during their working years. The government of Canada has provided this tax deferral to Canadians to encourage saving for retirement, which will help the population rely less on the Canadian Pension Plan to fund retirement.

There are a number of RRSP types, but generally, they are set up by one or two associated people (usually individuals or spouses).

An Individual RRSP it set up by a single person who is both the account holder and the contributor.  

it set up by a single person who is both the account holder and the contributor.  A Spousal RRSP provides benefits for a single spouse and also a tax benefit for both spouses. A high-earner (spousal contributor) may contribute to a Spousal RRSP in their spouse's name (the account holder). Since retirement income is divided evenly, each spouse can benefit from a lower marginal tax rate.  

provides benefits for a single spouse and also a tax benefit for both spouses. A high-earner (spousal contributor) may contribute to a Spousal RRSP in their spouse's name (the account holder). Since retirement income is divided evenly, each spouse can benefit from a lower marginal tax rate.  A Group RRSP is set up by an employer for employees and is funded with payroll deductions, much like a 401(k) plan in the U.S. It is administered by an investment manager and affords contributors the advantage of immediate tax savings.  

is set up by an employer for employees and is funded with payroll deductions, much like a 401(k) plan in the U.S. It is administered by an investment manager and affords contributors the advantage of immediate tax savings.  A Pooled RRSP is an option created for small business employees and employers, as well as the self-employed.  

Approved Assets

Several types of investment and investment accounts are permitted in RRSPs. They include:

Mutual funds

Exchange-traded funds

Equities

Bonds

Savings accounts

Mortgage loans

Income trusts

Guaranteed investment certificates

Foreign currency

Labor-sponsored funds  

Contribution and Withdrawal

The RRSP contribution limit for 2020 is 18% of the earned income an individual has reported on their 2019 tax return, up to a maximum of $27,230, according to the Canada Revenue Agency. It is possible to contribute more, but additional sums over $2,000 will be hit with penalties.

An RRSP account holder may withdraw money or investments at any age. Any sum is included as taxable income in the year of the withdrawalunless the money is used to buy or build a home or for education (with some conditions).

Registered Retirement Income Funds (RRIFs)

In the year an RRSP holder turns 71, the RRSP balance must be liquidated or shifted to a Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF) or to an annuity. An RRIF is a retirement fund similar to an annuity contract that pays out income to a beneficiary or a number of beneficiaries.

Money withdrawn from an RRSP through RRIF account payouts is taxed at the account holder's marginal tax rate. If the account holder has $300,000 saved for retirement and is 65 years old, the RRIF will pay about $1,000 per month. If this $1,000 is the only source of income, the account holder will be taxed at a marginal rate of 15%, leaving about $850 every month. The account holder may also receive a monthly Canada Pension Plan.

Registered Retirement Savings Plan vs. 401(k)s

Despite their basic similarities, RRSPs and 401(k)s have differences too:Eleven people have been arrested as part of an ongoing child sexual abuse investigation.

Gardai from Newcastle West, Bruff, Henry Street, Mayorstone Park and Roxboro Road in conjunction with the Limerick Divisional Protective Services Unit made the arrests.

It follows an investigation into alleged sexual exploitation of children who were resident in the Newcastle West Garda District.

They were arrested in Limerick, Tipperary and Kerry this afternoon.

Those arrested include six females and five males, ages ranging from their 20s to 70s.

The people arrested are being detained at garda stations in Limerick, Cork and Clare under the provisions of Section 4  Criminal Justice Act 1984.

Digital DeskHealth Minister Simon Harris will seek a special cabinet meeting this week to sign off on the abortion referendum bill.

Publication of the bill was due to be finalised at tomorrow's cabinet meeting but has instead been delayed by a Supreme Court judgment.By Gordon Deegan

Private firms operating a countrywide network of direct provision centres for asylum seekers and refugees last year shared a 50m (including VAT) bonanza.

That is according to new figures published by the Department of Justice which show that the firm, Next Week and Co Ltd accommodating around 200 Syrian refugees in Ballaghaderreen, County Roscommon was last year paid 2.94m.

The figures show that the contractor to receive the highest amount from the Department of Justice was Mosney plc which received fees in excess of 8m.

Mosney plc operates a direct provision centre for 600 asylum seekers at Mosney in County Meath and the 8m it received last year brings to 127.4m the company has received from the State between 2002 and 2017 for its direct provision service.

The bulk of the 50.59m in 2017 was received by eight contractors in the system last year who shared 41m.

Currently, the direct provision system is coming under increased pressure as it tries to grapple with a 30% surge in asylum seeker applications in 2017 resulting in 5,200 asylum seekers living in 34 accommodation centres at the end of December last.

The surge was driven by more than a doubling to 545 Syrians seeking asylum making up 18.6% of the 2017 total of new applicants.

In response, the Reception and Integration Agency (RIA) is currently seeking to open as a matter of urgency a new direct provision centre in Lisdoonvarna for 115 asylum centres in spite of a vote in the Clare village showing that 93% of those who voted have said no the planned centre.

As a result of the surge, the overall cost of operating the direct provision system is set to increase this year and the Dept of Justice figures show that two other contractors last year received fees in excess of 6m, two receiving fees in excess of 5m with two other contractors receiving fees over 3m.

The figures show that a number of companies controlled by businessman Alan Hyde in the Barlow Group last year received fees of 6.89m. The group accommodates over 600 asylum seekers across Cork and Waterford.

Separately, a group of firms led by businessman, Sean Lyons received fees of 6.85m.

The Lyons companies include Fazyard Ltd and Old George Ltd who received payments totalling 4.14m with the two providing accommodation for around 500 asylum seekers in Dublin and Emo, County Laois.

In April of last year, a circuit court judge approved a 8,000 payout to two children who sustained bed bug bites during their stay in June 2013 at a Dublin hostel, the Georgian Court Hostel of Lower Gardiner Street owned by Fazyard Ltd.

Aramark now owns one of Irelands favourite food and lifestyle brands, Avoca and the Deptartment of Justice figures show that two other Aramark owned companies last year received 5.5m last year for operating State-owned direct provision centres at Knockalisheen, County Clare, County Cork and County Meath where over 825 asylum seekers are accommodated.

Bridgestock is led by businessman Shay Gillen and it caters for around 500 asylum seekers in Ballyhaunis, County Mayo and Sligo town and the 5m received last year brings to 91m the firm has received in payments between 2000 and 2017.

The new figures from the Department of Justices Purchase Order book for 2017 show that shows that Millstreet Equestrian Services which provides accommodation for around 380 in Cork and Waterford received payment of 3m.

Between 2000 and 2017, Millstreet Equestrian Services has received 76 million in fees from the State.

The figures also show that Onsite Field Management (OFM) received fees of 3m to provide services for 325 asylum seekers at four centres in County Kerry.

The most recent accounts for OFM show that it recorded pre-tax profits of 138,704 in the 12 months to the end of February 28th 2017 with its four directors sharing pay of 257,128.

A number of contractors operating in the system including Bridgestock and Millstream Equestrian Services have unlimited status and are not required to lodge annual accounts with the Companies Office here.As Maurice McCabe enters the witness box at the Disclosures Tribunal, will another series of errors be given as explanation for him appearing to be under attack, asks Michael Clifford

THE Disclosures Tribunal enters the bend for home this morning. The last module in the public inquiry into the alleged smearing of Sergeant Maurice McCabe begins today with evidence from the man himself.

This module, broadly known as the media module, will examine whether there were attempts to smear Sgt McCabe directed from Garda HQ.

It will also run the rule over an RTE broadcast of a leaked version of the OHiggins Inquiry, which Sgt McCabe claims was woefully biased and designed to discredit him.

The allegations are denied by both garda management and the personnel in RTE involved in the broadcast.

There will be evidence from a number of high-profile figures who claim they were told by former commissioner Martin Callinan that Sgt McCabe had questions to answer in relation to child sexual abuse.

This is completely untrue, but formed the basis for much of the alleged campaign of smearing of Sgt McCabe, who had made a series of complaints of malpractice within the force.

Mr Callinan denies the claims that he said anything to that effect, but at least three figures  Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness, the comptroller and auditor Seamus McCarthy, and RTE journalist Philip Boucher-Hayes  all claim that Mr Callinan did convey this information to them individually.

Sgt McCabe will be heard in public for the first time when he enters the witness box.

He is scheduled to give evidence for at least a day and a half, but this may well be extended, depending on what he has to say and to what extent he might be challenged.

He will be examined on his knowledge and the effect of various events on him and his family, related to all three modules of the inquiry.

This will include how he came to know about the generation of a false allegation of child rape against him within the child and family agency, Tusla, in 2013, and how it was dealt with.

The tribunal has already heard that the generation and processing of the false allegation was down to a series of errors within the agency.

There was also evidence of how management in An Garda Siochana failed to inform Sgt McCabe about the false allegation once it came into their possession.

He will also be asked about his role in and knowledge of what occurred in the OHiggins commission in 2015, when he felt compelled to produce a recording of a meeting from 2008 which he claimed exposed an attempt by senior gardai to smear him at the commission.

The tribunal has already heard there was an error in a crucial document prepared by senior gardai and lawyers for OHiggins, which was at the heart of the dispute.

He is also expected to give evidence on how he came into contact with Superintendent David Taylor, the former head of the garda press office.

Both men subsequently provided protected disclosures in which Supt Taylor admitted his role in a campaign to smear Sgt McCabe.

Supt Taylor has claimed he was acting on orders from Mr Callinan and that Noirin OSullivan was aware of the campaign.

Both former garda commissioners deny this allegation.

Supt Taylor will be a central figure in this module.

He was head of the garda press office between 2012 and 2014, when animosity towards Sgt McCabe from elements within the force was at its height.

He claims that he briefed journalists negatively about the sergeant, with particular emphasis on the allegations of child sexual abuse.

Supt Taylor says that this was done at the behest of then-commissioner Mr Callinan.

After Mr Callinan resigned in March 2014, Supt Taylor was transferred from the press office by Mr Callinans successor, Ms OSulllivan. He was subsequently suspended and arrested as a part of a criminal investigation into the leaking of the names of two Roma children who were at the centre of a media storm in 2013.

The DPP came to the conclusion that Supt Taylor had no case to answer.

While he was suspended, Ms OSullivan ordered that he also be the subject of a disciplinary investigation, which was conducted in parallel with the criminal investigation.

That also came to naught.

By the time Supt Taylor made his protected disclosure in October 2016, he says he was under the impression that elements in senior management were out to get him.

His evidence will be fascinating, as will the evidence related to his phone records and text messages, all of which are expected to feature.

The media will also come under the spotlight.

Taylor, OSullivan, and Callinan have all waived any privilege as a source for journalists, in order to assist the tribunals work. This puts the journalists concerned in a delicate position, as they cant claim privilege on these sources, but may well resort to invoking a broader journalistic principle of refusing to discuss anything to do with sources, irrespective of the sources waiving privilege.

The hearings are facing into a stop-start period between now and Easter, but are expected to conclude towards the end of April.

It will also be fascinating to observe whether or not another series of errors or misunderstandings is encountered in this module. So far, in both the Tusla and OHiggins modules, much of what occurred to give the impression that Sgt McCabe was under attack has been pitched as error.

A whole litany of errors uncovered in both modules involve child protection personnel, senior gardai, and lawyers, all of whom were engaged in serious work for the State.

None of the errors that were highlighted at the tribunal went to Sgt McCabes credit.

All of them involved him being cast in a nefarious manner, which presumably is just down to coincidence.Two Irish brothers are helping Irish and British investors in Spain get back sums to up 500,000, writes Dan Buckley.

Like thousands of Irish people with an eye for a good investment in the early noughties, Ollie Reel decided to invest in Spanish property, which was going through a boom at the time.

From Silverbridge in Armagh, he and his brother John were among almost 400 people who put money into a large development on the Costa Del Sol.

They couldnt have picked a worse time to make such a substantial investment.

Our development was in Estepona, called Estepona Beach and Country Club, says Ollie. There was nothing ever built in our development and 395 people lost their deposits.

Ollie was encouraged by a financial adviser to remortgage his home and use the equity to buy an off-plan property in Spain.

Like an idiot, I bought two and put down deposits totalling 145,000, he says.

As a UK resident, he was able to reclaim 70,000 through Britains financial services compensation scheme on the basis of getting poor financial advice. His brother, who lives in Louth, was unable to claim in Ireland as there is no such scheme here.

For years, they tried to get their all of their money back through the courts in Spain, to no avail.

We took a law case in Spain which cost us nearly 200,000 between 80 of us involved and we were still no further on after seven years.

Martin de La Herran takes a photograph of another unfinished off-plan development in Manilva, where many Irish victims lost deposits.

It was then that they heard of the work of Spanish lawyer Martin de la Herran, of Abolex lawyers in Benidorm. He is one of a small group of lawyers who took test cases against the banks that held deposits for holiday homes that were never built.

It was pointless pursuing the developers involved as they had all gone bankrupt.

Seven test cases were taken by Martin and the other lawyers between 2012 and 2015  all of which went all the way to the Spanish Supreme Court and each one was ruled in favour of the victims.

By March 2016, after the result of the final test case, a precedent was then set for everyone in a similar situation to claim.

Martin had already won more than 70 cases for UK-based clients before meeting Ollie in June 2016, with a 100% success rate in these complex cases.

We invited Martin to Ireland in June 2016 to see for himself the scale of losses here, says Ollie. He was confident he could help those who had lost money and, given his track record, so were we.

The brothers were instrumental in setting up an Irish agency, Reclaim In Spain, in Louth. Ollie and John operate as advisers, gathering information from Irish investors and liaising with Martin in Spain.

I left my teaching job of 24 years to help others throughout Ireland and the UK to try to reclaim their deposits, says Ollie. I hope to get the rest of my deposit back through Martin.

We have over 300 cases in court already for Irish/UK investors since we started working in June 2016. The first Irish cases were submitted in November 2016 and a couple in Galway became the first investors to get their money back last December. They were awarded 100% of their 54,000 deposit plus interest and court costs.

Two cases have been won and paid out to date for Irish victims with another six cases won after an initial hearing but awaiting payment. Another five cases have been asked for a second hearing but Martin is confident of success and feels the banks are just buying time.

We expect a steady rate of success in all our cases and expect more payments to be made this year.

An unfinished off-plan property bought by Irish investors in Canary Islands.

Martins success has spurred other lawyers in Spain to take on the banks on behalf of property investors.

Last year, Costaluz Lawyers, a firm based in Cadiz, won over 2.1m for clients taking action to reclaim lost deposits.

Six banks were ordered to compensate British and Irish investors: SGR, BBVA, Banco de Sabadell, Caixabank, Banco Popular, and Caja Rural. The highest payout in any one case was 958,000 plus interest.

Pauline McDonagh, a retired garda detective, was another Irish investor who lost heavily. She and her husband, Pat Forde, bought a property off-plan near Malaga.

We put a deposit on a place in Almeria which was going to be for our retirement, says Pauline. We looked at the glossy brochures and bought into the dream like so many others.

Because my background is investigating serious crime, I couldnt let this go. Since 2005, I have been following cases in the Spanish courts. Numerous cases were won and judgments were issued against the developers, but no money was returned mainly because the developers were bankrupt and didnt have the capability or willingness to pay.

Ive met people here in Ireland who are to this day paying back mortgages on what they borrowed. Ive spoken to people whose marriages have broken down as a result of this.

One woman who lost over 100,000, cant deal with it, cant even speak about it, and has handed it all over to her son. Most people wont talk about it because they feel theyve been duped, they feel foolish. People I have spoken to have lost between 15,000 and 500,000.

Like the Reel brothers, Pauline is optimistic for the future.

I am well on my way to getting my refund, she says. The banks are already beginning to settle. I have heard of substantial settlements. I met a woman outside Sligo who got 60,000 last July.

Other investors who thought all was lost also have reason to hope. The Reel brothers are working with a group, some from Dublin and some from Cork, who invested in a development in Manilva, close to Marbella on the Costa del Sol.

There were people from Norway and Dubai who invested in the same development and lost out as well and they have also turned to the Irish agency for help.

We are now helping those investors in Norway and Dubai to get their money back so things are pretty hectic at the moment, says Ollie.

Last month, there were five cases heard in court and between now and June there will be 32 cases getting their first hearing dates.

We have another 21 Irish cases with court hearing dates in Spain between now and June and Martin De La Herran is very confident of all of them being successful. We also have another 300 plus cases in the system awaiting court dates. It looks like finally there is light at the end of the tunnel for thousands who lost out.

Its all a far cry from Ollies days as a teacher in Armagh.

I was a PE teacher for 24 years and, between bad knees and ankles, I was coming to the end of my career anyway so something good has come out of something bad, he says. I am now making a living helping others and thats great.

What is not so great, though, is that Ollie and his brother are in a somewhat different position to many other investors. There is an ongoing criminal case against their developer who denies getting any money from them. Until those criminal proceedings are over, they cannot take a civil case against the bank that handled the payments.

We think that the developer and the UK agent were acting together, says Ollie. The money we paid was used to buy land in the Dominican Republic. That means I probably own a few grains of sand in the Caribbean.It is inconceivable that Gsoc would not recommend a major overhaul of the maze that is the Garda discipline process, writes Michael Clifford.

HOW difficult is it to discipline a member of An Garda Siochana?

Does the system have anything to do with the dysfunction in the police service?

The issue arose recently at the launch of an Irish Council for Civil Liberties submission to the Policing Commission. One of the speakers at the event was Judge Mary Ellen Ring, chair of the Garda Ombudsman Commission (Gsoc).

She displayed, on a projector, an image (see above) that she described as a maze, and which is reproduced here.

As a child, if you remember the maze thing, she said. This is how the (Garda Siochana) act says we must function.

The diagram in question is a road map that must be followed in dealing with any complaint against a member of the force, including disciplinary action against anybody found to have transgressed.

If we go out of any of these boxes, were told we cant. We are (trying) to put forward ways of making sense of the maze, which you, the community and the gardai, have to navigate.

She made the comparison with private sector companies, mentioning Dunnes Stores. Dunnes has to deal with complaints. It manages its personnel, it manages its complaints. Why have we not got a robust service that can deal with complaints to the satisfaction of the community?

One can only hope that Judge Rings point is drilled into the discussions, by the commission, on the shape of a new police force. A recurring theme in the scandals, which has bedevilled An Garda Siochana, is the lack of discipline throughout the organisation.

Arguably, much of this is attributable to the maze that must be negotiated to discipline a member who is simply not doing his or her job.

This issue was first touched on by the Morris Tribunal, 13 years ago, in the inquirys fifth report. Morris investigated widespread corruption and malpractice in the force in the Donegal area.

Referring to the general state of the force, which led to the problems in Donegal, Judge Frederick Morris stated: Members of the gardai, against whom any wrong is alleged, have the dubious, and often exploited, benefit of procedures that compare with those in a murder trial.

Garda discipline should be about accounting for how one has served the people of Ireland and about the truth. In ordinary employment, the criminal trial model is almost never available. Instead, people are given the right to be notified of allegations and the right to respond to them, before a decision is made.

Morriss comparison with a murder trial is instructive. The penalty, on conviction of the most grievous crime imaginable, is loss of liberty for the rest of ones life, nominally, at least.

Such a scenario requires the greatest protections to avoid a miscarriage of justice.

By comparison, the crime involved in some garda disciplinary actions involves something serious, like mislaying a file, or, perhaps through negligence, a failure to process an investigation within the statutory time allowed.

These are matters concerning ones capacity or willingness to do the job that one is employed to do.

There is no crime, there is no sanction imposed by the State, there is no prison sentence for anybody found to have transgressed. Yet, the process by which an errant employee is made accountable is laboured, complicated, and has one eye fixed on the court system, in the event of an outcome deemed by the member to be unsatisfactory.

Typically, a member might be suspected of having transgressed. Say he neglected to investigate a relatively serious incident.

In the first instance, his district officer must prepare a report. This is then adjudicated on at divisional level to determine if a disciplinary process should begin. An officer senior to the member being investigated is then appointed to investigate.

He or she investigates and determines if the member has a specific case to answer for breaching discipline. If so, another officer is appointed to determine what the breach is and what sanction should apply.

Apart from complicating what in every other walk of life is a straightforward process, the garda disciplinary maze takes up a huge amount of time and resources. This in a police service that we are constantly told is stretched.

The maze was referenced, recently, in the interim report of the Disclosures Tribunal into allegations made by Garda Keith Harrison. Those gardai accused of ill-discipline should be subject to correction by senior officers, without the need to resort to the elaborate structures that constitute what is, in effect, a private trial, using procedures akin to our criminal courts, Judge Peter Charleton wrote.

A simplified structure is called for. Private industry uses a system of simply taking a statement of what is wrong, passing it to the employee, and considering any response offered.

He pointed out how the system, again unlike practically every other employment scenario, blocks any attempt to impose what is often a relatively minor sanction on an errant member.

The discipline process, as it currently exists, is far too easily impeded by court applications. Citizens have a right to access the court and gardai are no different. They are different, however, in the elaborate nature of the disciplinary code and in the consequent invitation that it poses to resort to legal challenge, in what should primarily be a disciplinary structure. Such challenges are far too easily commenced under our system. Once commenced, years of delay result.

The Commission on the Future of Policing was established last year, in the wake of a succession of garda-related scandals. Its brief is to prepare a blueprint for the future, by learning from the mistakes of the past.

The Morris Tribunal produced a series of reports, which should be mandatory reading for anybody interested in the future of policing.

Currently, the Disclosures Tribunal is examining another raft of garda scandals and its insights should also be fed into the commissions deliberations. As shown above, both have identified a basic problem to which the source of so much trouble can be traced.

Gsoc is at the coalface of dealing with garda discipline. Its chair is quite obviously frustrated at a system that, to a large extent, makes Gsocs job all-but impossible in places.

In light of that alone, and apart from its own independent investigations, it is inconceivable that the commission will not recommend a major overhaul of the maze.The Lidl looting was a symptom of a working class community that is strained to breaking point, suggests Brian O'Flynn.

ON Friday night, in the midst of the worst blizzard to hit Ireland in decades, the worlds attention swivelled to the snow-covered suburb of Tallaght in Dublin.

Snow had confined virtually the whole country to their houses and somewhere in the heat of cabin fever, law and order broke down. A surreal spectacle unfolded as we watched a mechanical digger caving in the roof of a Lidl supermarket while looters made off with bagfuls of goods.

Universal condemnation swiftly followed, with a heated class debate at its core.

The use of loaded terms like scumbags and thugs were applied with suspicious uniformity to an incident which occurred in a largely working class area.

An equally vociferous contingent of online commentators defended their right to use the words, with one Twitter user stating: Looters are scumbags, its [sic] not a classist term  If it happened in a wealthy Dub suburb, theyd be scumbags.

Consensus was quickly consolidated around this neoliberal framing online, with the incident largely being characterised as a spontaneous eruption of senseless violence perpetrated by a few bad eggs, driven wild with cabin fever.

But the idea that this is a classless news story about mob violence is so naive as to be comical. This did not occur in a vacuum. Several other smaller stores around the area were looted on the same night, all in the Jobstown area of Tallaght, which notably was the site of protests in 2014 where then Tanaiste Joan Burton was trapped in a car by a large mob.

Uncoincidentally, those who attended that protest were also dubbed scumbags and thugs.

The protestors were rallying against the introduction of water charges, a distinctly working class issue. Once again, the government at that time were determined to frame the protests as individualised, classless and "disorganised".

Now, the looting of the Lidl was not a political protest (it will only hurt other working class people), and only a fantasist or anarchist would claim it was. But it was an event driven by class.

The idea that a looting of Lidl would ever occur in the wealthy postcodes of Dublin 2 or Dublin 4 is risible - the looting of an M&S would be more likely.

If this was really about gratuitous violence or material gain, why choose a budget supermarket?

What wealthy person would ever look at such an event unfolding and, after a quick cost-benefit analysis, make the assessment that the free groceries were worth the risk of criminal conviction? The answer is none.

But a large group of working class people made precisely that call Friday night. Were supposed to feign consensus that there is no explanatory variable here, but there is - its deprivation; its need.

The collective desire for this attack to be classless reveals a disturbing neoliberal urge to bury our heads in the sand, to deny that Dublin is a city of devastating class inequality, and that we are currently in the midst of the worst homelessness crisis the country has ever seen.

The statistics are there to prove it, but you dont need to look at graphs - it slaps you in the face.

On a freezing night this Christmas, I walked the length of the main street in my hometown of Cork and saw every single shop doorway filled with makeshift cardboard dwellings, blankets and shelters.

When I sit on the Luas heading into the suburbs, I see tents pitched at regular intervals along the tramline - commuters have slowly learned to look through them, to make them transparent. For a working class person like me, they are not so easy to dematerialise. They seem terrifyingly real.

In Ireland, homelessness is now inextricably linked with being working class.

It is a spectre which haunts our lives, a terrifyingly close possibility. The luxuriant morality of the middle class wonders: gosh, why would a simple snow day drive people to frenzied violence? Where did this explosion come from?

For working class people, the pressure is always there, bubbling below the surface, ready to ignite. The loss of ones home is now an anxiety which shadows us everywhere, a thought which surely would fill the mind of a person living on the breadline whos suddenly been forced to take two or three days unpaid leave, trapped, staring at the four walls of a house they have only precarious claims to (landlords suddenly imposing exorbitant rent hikes and then evicting long-time tenants has become common practice in the city).

I remember the crisis of 2008, when my factory labourer father was put on a three-day week in the strained economy. I remember the dark cloud that loomed over the house, the constant sense of dread, of insecurity. Losing a day of work is a worry that doesnt even occur to the salaried elite of Dublins affluent suburbs. Their snow days were free of such gnawing anxieties.

To be able to sit in quiet judgement and look with disdain at the loud vulgarity of Fridays violence is a luxury. Quietness is a privilege.

It is the privilege to be able to stay quiet about class inequality, to not mention it, to hush it up. It is the privilege of powerful men who left our country economically destitute with their quiet meetings, their quiet movement of funds, their quiet exploitation.

Their legacy of quietness lingers in the deafening silence of the uninhabited ghost estates that litter the country since the housing bubble burst, estates which stand empty while tents line our streets.

Words like scumbag and thug are unevenly applied; much like language, prison sentences too privilege the quiet, white collar criminal.

Fraudster bankers and tax defaulting businessmen serve prison sentences that are short, if at all.

How long will any persons convicted of looting serve?

Ireland continually attempts to silence the pain of working class people. On Friday, the sound of metal screeching on metal broke that enforced silence. The simmering anger of a working class stretched to breaking point bubbled over in a brief, destructive outburst.

While the violence achieved nothing, it lifted the lid on a class-torn Ireland - it ripped the roof off it.

* Brian O'Flynn writes on culture and social issues, and has been featured in such publications as the Guardian, the Independent and VICE. Follow him on Twitter @brianxflynnRussia has forces in Syria to show the world that it is still an influence, but any losses can be attributed to private operators, says Nina L. Khrushcheva

ON February 7-8, a US-led airstrike on forces aligned with Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, killed 300 Russians working for the private military firm, Wagner.

Russias foreign ministry claims only five Russian citizens, with no connection to Russias armed forces, were killed and a few dozen wounded. Foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has even condemned Western reports about the deaths as attempts to speculate on war.

Russias response is surprising. At a time of rising tensions with the United States, the attack amounted to a golden opportunity for the Kremlin to condemn its rival. And, typically, Russia seizes such opportunities: just recently, Russias United Nations envoy, Vasily Nebeznya, attacked his US counterpart, Nikki Haley, for calling Vladimir Putins legitimately elected government a regime.

Moreover, Russia is eager to hail its countrymen killed in battle as heroes. The military pilot, Roman Filipov, killed in battle a few days before the US airstrike, has been celebrated for his valour. Andrei Malakhov, a television personality on the Kremlin-affiliated Rossiya 1 TV network, is now in Syria shooting a documentary about Filipov.

Yet, in the case of the US-led strike, it was not Russian soldiers who died, but mercenaries, whose participation in the conflict reflects the Kremlins desire to maintain plausible deniability.

The Russian foreign ministrys statement, in response to the Western reports, says it all. Russian citizens were in Syria, it said, of their own free will and for different reasons, and the ministry does not have the authority to assess the validity and legality of their decisions. Russia has used such forces to do its bidding before, including during the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. The Kremlin could then argue that it was not a Russian invasion, but the will of the people in Crimea.

Similarly, in Syria, mercenaries enable the Kremlin to downplay Russias involvement, as well as its losses, which many observers predicted would be staggeringly high. Putin doesnt want to be accused of repeating the disastrous Afghan War of 1979-1989, which contributed to the Soviet Unions collapse.

That is why Putin has presented Russias military operation as a limited endeavour for the purpose of ridding the world of the Islamic State (ISIS).

In fact, last December, on a visit to the Russian airbase in Khmeimim, Putin announced the withdrawal of troops, precisely because that objective had officially been achieved.

The ministry of defence declared that the situation had been stabilised, following the elimination of 35,000 militants and 700 training camps.

So, officially, in Syria, there were only limited forces at Russias permanent military bases in Tartus and Khmeimim. These forces would carry out missions related to Russian national interests. Russian mercenaries, the authorities have insisted, are not Russian forces. But the intervention in Syria, including the mercenaries, has been primarily about defending Russian national interests.

Most obvious, propping up the Assad regime enables Russia to maintain a foothold in the Middle East, while sending the message that popular revolts aimed at overthrowing Russian allies will not succeed.

Russias showcasing of new military technology, such as high-precision rockets and other armaments, has reinforced that message. Just last week, in response to the deployment of US stealth fighters and bombers, Russia moved fifth-generation, Su-57 fighter jets to Syria, to test them in real action.

Another reason for Russias continued involvement in Syria is that 5,000 Muslim fighters of Russian origin, from Central Asia and the Caucasus, are fighting with ISIS there and elsewhere. The Kremlin is understandably concerned about radicals with combat experience returning to Russian soil.

The Western argument that Russias intervention in Syria only increases the likelihood of attacks on Russias territory holds little weight with Putin. If the US can defend its invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, in terms of national security, Russia can do the same in Syria.

Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, the president of the tiny Russian republic of Ingushetia, in the North Caucasus, recently declared that the operation in Syria restored Russias reputation as a world power. (Putin covets praise from the leader of Ingushetia, which, like neighbouring Chechnya and Dagestan, is often a breeding ground for Islamist radicalism.) He is right: key actors, including Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, are being forced to recognise that Russia must have a say in determining the regions fate. At a time when international sanctions are exacerbating Russias already-grim economic conditions, the Kremlin needs to ensure that its people  and the world  recognise this reality. It helps if Russians dont realise how high the cost of such influence really is. So, rather than admit to casualties numbering in the hundreds, the Kremlin needs to underscore Russias importance in Syria, its position as a victor over ISIS, and its ability to defend its allies. Before the presidential election on March 18, which Putin will win unchallenged, it needs Russians to understand that their choice is Putin or disarray.

Nina L. Khrushcheva is professor of international affairs at The New School and a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute.Saudi Arabias Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman showed generosity during his first visit to Egypt Sunday as the two nations have signed agreements to activate a 60 billion Saudi riyal ($16 billion) investment fund, agreed upon in 2016.

The Crown Prince and President Al-Sisi have also set up a joint fund to develop the planned megacity in the South Sinai and another deal on environmental protection.

In a meeting held at the presidential Palace in Cairo, the Crown Prince and President El Sisi reviewed strategic bilateral relations and discussed developments in the region, with focus on security and stability and the fight against terrorism.

Prince Mohammed is also scheduled to meet Prime Minister Sharif Ismail, the parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal, the grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Ahmed Tayeb and Pope Tawadros, the head of the Egyptian church.

After Cairo, the Crown Prince will visit the United Kingdom on March 7 to meet with British Prime Minister Theresa May.Donald Trump insists he has "never had a better time doing something" as president the day after calling a truce in his battle with the media at the Gridiron Dinner.

The US president dished out pointed one-liners and endured some barbs from political rivals and the press on Saturday evening.

The gala was "was great fun," he tweeted on Sunday. "I am accomplishing a lot in Washington and have never had a better time doing something, and especially since this is for the American People!"

During his remarks on Saturday night, the president largely put aside his criticism of the media.

"Nobody does self-deprecating humour better than I do," said Mr Trump, who skipped last year's bash. He also said: "I was very excited to receive this invitation and ruin your evening in person. That's why I accepted."

The annual dinner of the Gridiron Club and Foundation, now in its 133rd year, traces its history to 1885, when President Grover Cleveland refused to attend. Every president since has come to at least one Gridiron.

"Rest assured, Mr President, this crowd is way bigger than Cleveland's," Club President David Lightman, congressional editor for McClatchy News, told the white-tie audience. The organisation said the event attracted about 660 journalists, media executives, politicians, administration officials and military officers.

Members of the Washington press corps sharpened their wits for musical and rhetorical takedowns of the president, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama.

Mr Trump delivered several one-liners during his 30-minute plus speech:

-on his son-in-law: "We were late tonight because Jared (Kushner) could not get through security."

-on Vice President Mike Pence: "He is one of the best straight men you're ever going to meet ... he is straight. Man." Mr Trump also said, "I really am proud to call him the apprentice."

-on Attorney General Jeff Sessions: "I offered him a ride over and he recused himself. What are you going to do?"

-on The New York Times: "I'm a New York icon. You're a New York icon. And the only difference is I still own my buildings."

-on former chief strategist Steven Bannon: "That guy leaked more than the Titanic."

-on the first lady: Mr Trump said he does not understand why everyone says #freemelania. He said she's actually having a great time.

Toward the end of his comments, Mr Trump could not resist some of his favourite themes, revisiting his election night victory and chiding reporters to be fair.

He closed by saying: "I just want to say this, this is one of the best times I've had with the media, this might be the most fun I've had since watching your faces on election night."

- APRussian presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak's campaign office says she was doused with water and knocked to the ground in an assault today.

The incident came several days after Ms Sobchak threw water on nationalist presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky during a televised debate.

According to a statement on Ms Sobchak's campaign website, the man who threw water on her at the entrance of a Moscow hotel said: "This is for Zhirinovsky."

The statement said the man was detained by police and identified him as a staff member of the Moscow city council.

Ms Sobchak, who rose to fame hosting a TV reality show, casts herself as the candidate for Russians fed up with current politics but has largely avoided personal criticism of President Vladimir Putin.

Mr Zhirinovsky, the 71-year-old leader of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party, has won notoriety for his xenophobic statements. This will be the sixth time he has run for president.

Eight candidates are registered for Russia's March 18 presidential election, including Mr Putin.

With his approval ratings topping 80% and rivals trailing far behind, Mr Putin is set to easily win a fourth term. Mr Putin's most vocal critic, the 41-year-old opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has been barred from the race due to a criminal conviction that he calls politically motivated.

- APThe most senior Vatican official ever charged in the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis is set to appear in an Australian court on Monday, in a hearing to test whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to try him.

Australian Cardinal George Pell's committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court, before Magistrate Belinda Wallington, is scheduled to take up to a month - with testimony of alleged victims likely to be suppressed from publication.

Pope Francis' former finance minister was charged in June of last year with sexually abusing multiple people in his Australian home state of Victoria.

The details of the allegations against the 76-year-old cardinal have yet to be released to the public, though police have described the charges as "historical" sexual assault offences - meaning the crimes are alleged to have occurred decades ago.

The case places both the cardinal and the Pope in potentially perilous territory. For Pell, the charges are a threat to his freedom, his reputation and his career. For Pope Francis, they are a threat to his credibility, given that he famously promised a "zero tolerance" policy for sex abuse in the church.

Advocates for abuse victims have long railed against the decision to appoint Pell to the high-ranking position in the first place.

When Pell was promoted in 2014, he was already facing allegations he had mishandled cases of clergy abuse during his time as archbishop of Melbourne and later Sydney.

Pell has not yet entered a plea but his lawyer Robert Richter has told the court the cardinal plans to formally plead not guilty.

One of the charges was withdrawn last week because the accuser had died.

Pell's lawyers told the court last month the allegations stemmed from publicity surrounding a national inquiry into child abuse three years ago.

His lawyer, Ruth Shann, said the first complainant approached police in 2015 - 40 years after the alleged crimes - in response to media reports about Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Australia's longest-running royal commission - which is the country's highest form of inquiry - had been investigating since 2012 how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children in Australia over 90 years. The inquiry issued its final report in December.

Pell testified to the inquiry in a video link from the Vatican in 2016 about his time as a priest and bishop in Australia.

Ms Shann said the first complaint set off a chain of events with others making allegations against Pell. None had previously complained to anyone, she added.

After years of alleged cover-ups and silence from the church, abuse survivors and their advocates have hailed the prosecution of Pell as a monumental shift in the way society is responding to the crisis.

So far, Pope Francis has withheld judgment of Pell, saying he wants to wait for Australian justice to run its course, and has not forced the cardinal to resign.

Pell said he intends to continue his work as a prefect of the church's economy ministry once the case is resolved.

- APThe finding emerged from a national survey that also found six out of 10 people are unaware there are vaccines that can prevent HPV infections.

More than a third (38%) falsely believe that HPV cannot be transmitted from one person to another.

HPV infection usually clears up by itself, but if it does not, it can cause cancer. It caused 420 cancers in men and women each year between 2010 and 2014. Up to 130 men and women die in Ireland every year from cancers caused by HPV.

The research was commissioned by the pharmaceutical company, MSD Ireland, and supported by the Marie Keating Foundation and Irish Cancer Society. It was published yesterday to mark the first International HPV Awareness Day.

The HPV Vaccination Alliance said the 2017 vaccination programme indicated that vaccine uptake among secondary school girls had risen to 62%, partially reversing two years of decline.

Head of research at the Irish Cancer Society, Dr Rob OConnor, said they were very happy to see an increase in the vaccine uptake but were not happy with the level of uptake  it should be over 90%.

The society is one of the 37 members of the alliance formed last summer to present the facts about the HPV vaccine. We and other pro-health organisations will continue to do our absolute utmost to inform people of the facts and make sure they realise the life-saving potential of this vaccine, said Dr OConnor.

During the next two months, immunisation teams will visit secondary schools to administer the second dose of the vaccine and those who chose not to get the first dose last autumn will be offered it again.Her chances of making it through to next weeks quarter finals were always going to be slim as, after four other competitors were saved by the public vote, she was left to fight it out in the dance-off with Erin McGregor, who had been given a score of 29 out of 30 by the judges.

What was noticeable after the exit of crowd-pleasing but rather low-scoring Marty Morrissey last week, was that the average scoring across the competition last night was very high  the lowest mark given by the individual judges was eight.

Erin McGregors waltz even brought a tear to the eye of judge Julian Benson, who said it brought back memories of the dancing of his mother. Loraine Barry said it was elegance plus and that Conor McGregors sister and her partner Ryan McShane had taken something ordinary and made it extraordinary.

The night started with an energetic jive from Jake Carter and partner Karen Byrne which judge Brian Redmond described as excellent adding that they didnt need to pad the dance out because Jakes jiving was better than the padding. He scored 27 points. Next up was Rob Heffernan who started off by getting caught in partner Emily Barkers dress (in the most innocent sense). He managed to recover, pointing out afterwards, I can do the feckin steps blind now! On the week of his 40th birthday, he scored 24 points for his contemporary ballroom.

Alannah Beirnes performance also secured her 24 from the judges who, while concerned at the performance of her lower limbs  Brian said feet, Loraine said legs  were impressed with the electricity and party she brought to her samba with partner Vitali Kozmin.

It was another 24 for Anna Geary and partner Kai Waddington for their rumba which Julian described as pure sensual. Brian gave a backward compliment that, while not her best dance, it was still the best rumba of the competition so far.

Finally it was actress and comedian Deirdre Kane whose Charleston with John Nolan was described by Brian as her best dance so far. Loraine said it had Hollywood glamour, while Julian said it was a razzle dazzle Charleston. It scored her 26 points.

The dancers were divided into two teams, the Floor Fillers and Party Rockers. The Fillers, Jake, Deirdre and Alannah, wiped the floor with their opponents, with a perfect 30. Alannah had one victory at least, before Erin pipped her in the dance-off.The Irish Examiner understands the key stage in the referendum timetable will take place tomorrow alongside the linked publication of a detailed overview of the 12-week abortion access law should the referendum pass.

Speaking to this newspaper, a spokesperson for Health Minister Simon Harris said the minister will bring the exact referendum wording to the Cabinet tomorrow to ensure the timetable for the mooted May 25 referendum date can be met.

As previously revealed by the Irish Examiner and publicly confirmed by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, the Government intends to ask the public a straight repeal or retain question on the future of the Eighth Amendment, which equates the rights of the expectant mother with those of the unborn child she is carrying.

While the Government wants to wait until the outcome of an ongoing, separate court case on the rights of the unborn which is due to be ruled upon in the coming days  a timeline unlikely to be affected by the severe weather  it anticipates this will take place before the Cabinet meets.

The official referendum question rubberstamping will allow for the issue to be agreed before Taoiseach Leo Varadkar travels to the US this weekend for the start of the annual St Patricks Day celebrations.

It will also allow the Government to keep to its intended schedule of the Dail and Seanad debating the referendum question before the widely-expected agreement that it should be held in the middle of this month.

To ensure full transparency on the issue during the Dail and Seanad referendum debates, Mr Harris has said he will also publish a policy paper on the proposed law to allow access to abortion up to the 12th week of pregnancy should the referendum pass.

This document will not contain the full breakdown of the proposed law, as it is not constitutionally possible to publish the complete detail unless the referendum passes.

However, a spokesperson for Mr Harris said it will contain a significant amount of information about the proposed post-Eighth Amendment law so as to allow a genuine debate on its impact.Mr Donovan was nationally known and admired as a theatre actor, producer, and director  directing several world premieres of John B Keane works, and playing a huge role in the development of Corks emerging theatre scene in the 1950s.

He died at Mount Desert care home in Cork yesterday. He was 91.

Cillian Murphy told the Irish Examiner that he remembered Mr Donovan, a former teacher and deputy principal at Presentation College, Cork, from his time as a student there pacing the schoolyard and canteen silently mouthing lines.

I found this so exotic and fascinating, and now it is something I do myself. Perhaps without his grace, he said.

It was only later on that I learnt how multi-faceted his talents were and how much of a legend he was.

He had a very significant impact on theatre in Cork and in Ireland.

Mr Donovan helped establish the Southern Theatre Group in 1959 before he went on to form the Theatre of the South in 1969.

He was a founder of the Everyman Palace Theatre Group and played a major role in the theatres development. Presentation College also named their theatre in his honour. He was named 2006 Cork Person of the Year for his contribution to Irish theatre.

Conor Keane, son of the late John B Keane, described Mr Donovan as a formidable and gifted director who played a crucial role in his fathers career and who repeatedly took the country by storm with the Southern Theatre Group in much the same way Druid and Garry Hynes does today.

John B trusted the Southern Theatre Group under the late James N Healy, with Dan Donovan as director, to bring Sive to the professional stage for the first time, Mr Keane said.

John B owes Dan Donovan a great debt for the care, insight, passion and pure professionalism he brought to bear on a young playwrights early work.

The BBCs award-winning Africa Editor, Fergal Keane, who was taught by Mr Donovan, said: Dan was the most erudite and entertaining of teachers, a gentleman who offered his wisdom and example.

Mr Donovan, who was single and predeceased by his two sisters, will be buried after 10am Mass at the Church of Christ the King in Turners Cross on Thursday.Safety messages have been issued to farmers and road users, with gardai reporting treacherous conditions on several regional, secondary and minor roads.

The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) and the Road Safety Authority (RSA) said despite the thaw, people should exercise caution.

After such an extreme weather event many people will be facing conditions that they are not used to working in, said HSA CEO Martin OHalloran.

Following a number of fatalities due to falls from height after previous extreme weather, the HSA said many workers, particularly those involved in storm repair, construction, farming, and transportation, will face increased hazards. The HSA said roof repairs should only be done after snow and ice has been cleared and a risk assessment has been carried out. Farmers were told they should wear footwear with good grips, a hi-vis jacket, take a fully-charged mobile phone and torch, and tell someone their estimated time of return, even if just going out to feed animals or to carry out milking.

The RSA advised motorists to heed road condition bulletins, carry an emergency kit, including a fully charged mobile phone, and to be conscious that snow and ice may linger in sheltered spots and on bend.

Pedestrians and cyclists are advised to be aware of overhead hazards, and to wear hi-vis clothing.

In Cork, gardai said road conditions in the city have improved, but that icy conditions persist in hillier parts of the northside. In the county, secondary and minor roads are still badly affected, with rural properties in Cloyne, Killeagh, Midleton, and parts of Kinsale, Belgooly, and Ballinspittle still affected by lying snow.

Cork County Council said it is trying to clear roads as quickly as it can, and hoping to facilitate dairy farmers awaiting milk collections.A documentary aired Sunday on Doha-based al Jazeera held Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt responsible for the 1996 failed coup against the former Emir of Qatar, on grounds of testimonies by alleged participants in the coup.

The exclusive documentary, which took place amid the unprecedented diplomatic crisis between Qatar and its neighbors, named several coup leaders coming from the four anamneses and within the tiny Gulf country.

The documentary mentioned among those involved in the coup Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed, chief of staff of the UAE armed forces at the time of the coup and current crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa, then crown prince of Bahrain, Sheikh Sultan bin AbdulAziz, then Saudi minister of defense, and Omar Suleiman, the late Egyptian intelligence chief. Qatari nationals, led by Fahd al-Maliki, a former Qatari intelligence official, were also involved in the February 14, 1996 coup, Al Jazeera documentary showed.

Al-Maliki himself was arrested in the coup but was pardoned last year.

The coup was directed against former Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani who rose to the throne one year earlier. Planned to take place on February 16, the coup was advanced two days earlier at the demand of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince in view of preventing any uncovering of the plotted power takeover, al Jazeera notes.

The media, citing one coup plotter, notes that the plan was to take control of military and security installations and allow armed men to enter Qatar from the UAE or Saudi Arabia.

The documentary emerged amid eight-month old crisis between Qatar and the quartet which accused Doha of financing terrorism.

The Saudi-led quartet severed air, sea and ground links with Qatar, which dismissed the accusation arguing the diplomatic assault was aimed at the Qatari regime.

Saudi Arabia and its allies have not reacted to the Sunday documentary accusation, which hampers further calls to end the crisis by the White House and other global powers.

AFP reported that President Trump threatened to cancel hosting the Gulf allies at his Camp David retreat residence, in April, if they do not put an end to the crisis.It follows a decision by Cork City Council planners in recent days to declare as invalid last months planning application for the regeneration of Wilton Shopping Centre in the citys western suburbs.

The council declined to comment on the issue, given that the planning process is ongoing. But according to the publicly available planning file, the application, lodged with the council on February 2, has now been formally declared an incomplete application.

It is understood the issue relates to a technical error on the planning notices.

The planning application lodged by Montlake QIAIF Platform ICAV York Property Fund 11, sought a 10-year granting of planning permission for a mixed-use development at Wilton Shopping Centre, on a site of 4.82 hectares.

The ambitious Wilton Town Centre project proposes to retain the centres existing malls, while redeveloping the entire northern side of the complex, with a vast new mixed retail-use area, ranging in height from two to seven storeys, on the site of the Penneys outlet, which faces demolition. A 14-screen cinema with capacity for 1,500 patrons would be constructed, along with a 190-bed hotel, two new public plazas, and a multi-storey car park.

But the Irish Examiner has established that the applicants failed to comply with statutory regulations governing public notices.

It is understood that the wording on the notices omitted details in relation to making available an environmental impact statement in relation to the development for inspection or purchase. It means that a new planning application will have to be lodged.

Details of the revamp of Wilton Shopping Centre were outlined earlier this month by Clarendon Properties, the owners of the 1979-built complex which was one of Irelands first suburban shopping centres.

Its traders accept it is in need of significant investment but have expressed concerns about elements of the expansion project.

Larger-scale regeneration plans by the centres previous owners, approved by An Bord Pleanala in 2011, never proceeded. However, planning for that scheme is valid for another two years.

Clarendon is the same firm involved in the 160m HQ development on Horgans Quay in Corks docklands, which secured planning permission last week.News of the search operation of 40 acres at Castlemartyr woods, which comes just days before the first anniversary of Ms Satchwells disappearance, was confirmed in the wake of rumours and speculation which emerged on various social media channels over the weekend.

The rumours, which began circulating at the height of the emergency response to Storm Emma on Friday, suggested that gardai had sealed off the woodland in Castlemartyr following a discovery.

But senior gardai overseeing the missing persons investigation completely dismissed those reports, with one garda spokesman describing them as unhelpful and potentially very upsetting.

He insisted gardai are not in receipt of any new information in relation to the disappearance of Ms Satchwell, who was last seen in Youghal last March.

And he said gardai had always been planning, as is routine in such missing persons cases, to search areas of woodland and that the wooded area outside Castlemartyr had been identified for a search by specialist garda search teams.

But the severe weather of recent days resulted in the postponement of those searches.

Gardai will begin searching the area today and will hold a media briefing at 11.30am this morning.

Ms Satchwell, 46, was reported missing by her husband, Richard, on March 24 last. He said she was last seen at their home in Youghal, Co Cork, four days earlier.

Two suitcases were missing from their home and more than 26,000 in cash, the proceeds of the sale of their previous home, was missing from their cash box.

Mr Satchwell said he didnt report her missing sooner because he believed she had gone to stay with family in Fermoy to get her head straight.

Gardai searched their home and car but found nothing suspicious. They later conducted underwater searches of Youghal Bay, which yielded no clues.

There was hope of a breakthrough last July, when Mr Satchwell contacted gardai to say he had found two suitcases at a clothes bank in the Tesco carpark in Youghal, which looked like ones belonging to his wife.

However, following forensic tests on the suitcases, which were conducted at the Forensic Science Ireland laboratory, detectives said they were satisfied that they did not belong to Ms Satchwell and are not linked to her or her disappearance.

Mr Satchwell has repeatedly insisted he had nothing to do with his wifes disappearance. He told RTE in January that his wife was prone to mood swings, he believes someone helped her leave, and she could come back as suddenly as she left.

Anyone with information should contact Midleton Garda Station on 021-4621550.Two Traveller support groups said affected families had concerns that while some were being offered good quality homes, others were being offered older caravans, with single glazing and inadequate heating systems.

This, combined with poor communications, has led to frustration in some instances, the Traveller Visibility Group (TVG) and the Cork Traveller Womens Network both said.

Both groups also said they could not condone alleged harassment and intimidation of city council staff, or alleged receipt irregularities linked to emergency accommodation costs.

This is unfortunate. It is important to remember that these are isolated incidents and not a reflection on the Traveller community as a whole, TVG said.

The groups were responding to reports in the Irish Examiner last week which revealed that 631,000 has been spent replacing damaged or destroyed caravans at the Spring Lane and Carrigrohane Road halting sites arising out of Hurricane Ophelia last October, and Storm Eleanor in January.

A further 32,000 has been spent on providing emergency accommodation for some of the families.

But the accommodation payments to four families were ceased after issues arose with receipts.

Other families, who have refused offers of replacement caravans, have been told that their accommodation costs will be suspended if all reasonable replacement offers are rejected.

TVG spokesperson Ciara Ridge said many Travellers who have received mobile home replacements are happy with the city councils response.

But she added: The standard of mobile home replacements can vary however, and this does lead to frustration in some instances.

She also pointed out that the city spent just 97,000 of its 1.1m Traveller accommodation budget last year.

We are now in the middle of another severe weather condition, and the local authority has a responsibility to replace mobile homes in the event of serious emergencies, she said.

The Cork Traveller Womens Network said most of the replacement caravans are of a good standard, and families are generally very pleased.

But it said it has seen evidence that the standard of mobile homes offered to families can vary considerably.

Some of the homes were single glazing, which attracts dampness, and others had no proper heating systems, which would make them more difficult and more expensive to heat.

It is understandable that families being offered substandard homes would query it when others are being supplied with homes of a different standard, it said.

The group also pointed out that being homeless and having to avail of emergency accommodation is a very stressful situation for any family and is particularly hard on children.

The group also pointed out that both halting sites are overcrowded and outdated, and require massive upgrades.The report, published today, gathers the views of 120 young people who came together for a conference in Newry last November, with a focus on the possible impact of Brexit on child protection, future freedom of movement, health, and education, among other issues.

It calls for a soft border once the UK leaves the EU and for the Good Friday Agreement to be protected.Culture Myanmar Artists Works Tackling Identity, Displacement on Show in Chiang Mai

The War Zone section of the Diaspora: Exit, Exile, Exodus of Southeast Asia exhibition at the MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Chiang Mai, Thailand. / Lawi Weng / The Irrawaddy

CHIANG MAI, Thailand  Works by 18 established and emerging artists from Southeast Asia offering their personal experiences of global migration, notions of identity and ongoing humanitarian crises in Myanmar are on currently on display in a group exhibition in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand.

The contemporary art exhibition Diaspora: Exit, Exile, Exodus of Southeast Asia is open to the public at the MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Chiang Mai from March 4 until Oct. 1. It includes works in a range of media, including paintings, paper cut-outs, other visual arts and mixed-media installations.

Artists from Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan and Australia are participating.

At the opening of the exhibition on March 3, panel discussions were held in which the artists shared their experiences and thoughts. The discussion was led by exhibition curator Lorendana Pazzini-Paracciani, a writer and lecturer in contemporary Southeast Asian art.

Unrecorded moments of conflict

Artist Sawangwongse Yawnghwe  grandson of Myanmars first president, Sao Shwe Thaik portrays the conflicts in Myanmars ethnic areas in a section of the exhibition comprising four elements:

War Zone in Kachin State and Northern Shan State comprises two paintings from Missing Archives, the artists ongoing series dealing with what he describes as unrecorded moments of the ongoing war in northeast Burma.

The second element, the painting Shan State Army (2017), depicts his imagined impression of the ethnic Army as it existed in 1964.

The third and largest painting is Peace Industrial Complex ll (2017). Sawangwongse Yawnghwe explained that the title refers to the network of resource and financial flows among individuals, governments, corporations, organizations and institutions engaged in peace building within Burma.

A Spirit Vitrines (Memoirs of a Shan Exile) is the fourth piece. According to the artist, it is an installation of small figurines titled A Spirit Vitrine. I have created hundreds of small figurines as magical amulets to be carried on the body for luck during crossings, arranged in a long procession.

He explained to The Irrawaddy that The amulets, although used to protect [during] crossings, are arranged by myself as a representation of the crossing itself, resembling the hundreds of sights in our near history, of haggard refugees, walking in lines along the sides of highways; harassed, sometimes shot or beaten, as they walk in tired straggled lines to uncertain posts.

Sawangwongse Yawnghwe was forced into exile from his home with his father Chao Tzang Yawnghwe (or Euguen Thaik) at the age of 1, almost a decade after the 1962 military coup. He lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand, before migrating to Canada at the age of 12.

His art works are rooted in personal experiences and spotlight the ongoing humanitarian crises in Myanmar. Through his work he advocates for the recognition of minority groups identities.

During the panel discussion, he shared memories of his early childhood as a descendent of a Shan Saopha (ruler) who was ousted by the Burmese military dictatorship in 1962, and of his father. In my case, as an immigrant, one is shamed by poverty, by the traumatized father and mother.  Our roots are ripped out the place I left is no longer the same and I am no longer the same, he told the audience.

When Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy won the election in 2015, he said, he was happy to come back to the country. But since the military continues to stand alongside the government, We do not trust them; we continue to be persecuted.

He added that Aung San Suu Kyi does not represent the ethnic minorities of Burma; in her they have no voice. Aung San Suu Kyi has proved herself to be a bad leader.

During the panels discussion, he highlighted the governments oppression of journalists and the plight of over 600,000 Rohingya sheltering in Bangladesh, referring to the displaced Muslim populations of northern Rakhine State who have sought refuge over the border, following the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Armys attack on 30 security posts in Aug. 25 and the subsequent clearance operations by the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw.

He urged an end to the militarys persecution of and human rights violations against ethnic minorities and called for the public to devote themselves to giving witness so that responsibility for these actions is taken. He urged the public to continue doing so until the genocide in Myanmar stops.

Sawangwongse Yawnghwe also discussed his Yawnghwe Office in Exile, which works with young people in Myanmar and consciously addresses politically contentious historical events through visual exploration.

The country today is fraught with contradictions, he told The Irrawaddy. Still known by both its historical and revisionist names [Burma and Myanmar], this states leaders are following other neo-authoritarian Asian regimes by professing a modernist perspective toward the future while repressing awareness of the past. This strategy draws on the logic that economic growth and rising living standards will absolve the leadership of responsibility for decades of repression, corruption and economic stagnation. Such progress is unlikely to be achieved without broader national engagement and cooperation, yet this seems untenable until historical injustices are addressed.

Interactive installation

The show also features works by Myanmar visual artist and filmmaker The Maw Naing, whose installation made from 25 colorful nets titled The In and Out of Thin Layers is displayed in the main hall of the museum.

The Maw Naing told The Irrawaddy he wanted viewers to be able to participate in his artwork; to touch it, to feel it and to interact with his installations of mosquito nets, which are in colors of white, pink, black, grey, and red.

I want people to feel and interact [with the art], because we did not have such experiences while the people of Burma were always neglected under the military leadership.

He developed the original concept for a work using nets in 2006, but was not able to exhibit his art under Myanmars then-ruling junta. But he managed to use the idea in his 2014 film The Monk, which incorporated meditative practice in the nets and has been shown at international film festivals.

The artist said previous audiences had discussed the way the nets present a sense of spirituality and search for self. He also said he plans to expand the piece to include 50-60 nets.

The Chiang Mai exhibition follows a showing of The Maw Naings installation in Sweden in September 2016. It has not yet been shown in Myanmar, but the artist said he would try [to produce a] show in Myanmar in the future.Asia Indias Ruling Party Emerges Stronger After Polls in Northeast

Supporters of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) celebrate in front of a cut-out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi after learning of the initial poll results of Tripura state assembly elections, in Agartala, India, March 3, 2018. / Reuters

NEW DELHI  Indias ruling Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) on Saturday consolidated its position in the countrys northeast after a landslide election victory in Tripura, ending 25 years of communist rule in the state.

Prime Minister Narendra Modis BJP and its allies are also ahead in the Christian-dominated mountainous state of Nagaland, while opposition Congress-ruled Meghalaya is heading for a fractured verdict.

Elections were held only in the states of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, where about nine million Indians live, according to the 2011 census. The three states have about 5.6 million voters, according to the election commissions website.

With Saturdays victory, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will gain control over five of the seven northeastern states reshaping the political landscape of the region bordering Myanmar, Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Modi, who had extensively campaigned in the three states, attributed the win to the development work by his party and its allies.

Time and again, election after election, the people of India are reposing their faith in the positive and development oriented agenda of the NDA, Modi tweeted.

The NDA already controls Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh. Congress-ruled Mizoram will vote later this year.

Congress leader Kamal Nath told reporters that his party is hopeful of forming the government in Meghalaya with support from other parties.

With control of Tripura and Nagaland, the right-wing BJP and its allies rule 21 of Indias 29 states, boosting its prospects for a win in the federal elections scheduled for 2019.

Indias main opposition Congress party, which has ruled the country for most of the time since independence in 1947, is now reduced to ruling three states.

The southern state of Karnataka, one of the bigger states ruled by the Congress, goes to the polls later this year.

Victory after victory is a positive sign. This has boosted our confidence even more for 2019, BJP president Amit Shah said.Burma Harley-Davidson Opens Showroom in Mandalay

Harley-Davidson opened its first authorized showroom and service center in Myanmar on Saturday in Mandalay. / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy

MANDALAY  The American motorcycle manufacturer Harley-Davidson opened its first authorized showroom and service center in Myanmar on Saturday in Mandalay.

Mandalay has drawn the attention of motorcycle dealers, with numerous motorcycle clubs and riders.

With Myanmars recent economic development and a large community of riders in Mandalay, it was a logical place for us to start our business in the country, said Johan Kleinsteuber, managing director of Harley-Davidson Asia Emerging Markets.

At the authorized dealer in Mandalay, Harley-Davidson lovers can order their favorite bikes from the United States. Spare parts and other accessories including branded clothing are also available at the store.

A service center is also attached to the showroom, for easy access to maintenance and repairs.

Harley-Davidson is the top choice brand for Myanmar bikers and the quality is exceptional, but it is often difficult to repair and maintain the bikes, said Ko Lin Ko Ko Tint, an authorized dealer at the Harley-Davidson in Mandalay.

Before, when a biker wanted a Harley, it had to be purchased from Thailand, which was expensive. At the new showroom, motorcycles can be purchased at a reasonable price, including warranties, he explained.

Although the US ended sanctions, investment in Myanmar still remains low. Apart from Harley-Davidson, some major American brands such as Coca-Cola, Gap, KFC and Pizza Hut launched in the country in recent years.

Business ties between the US and Myanmar are increasing. Harley-Davidson is a favorite among US bikers and opening this showroom will strengthen those ties. I hope Burmese bikers will enjoy their rides, said Scot Marciel, the US ambassador to Myanmar, in his remarks at the showroom opening.Burma Kachin Locals Protest Draft Myanmar Gemstone Law

Locals staged a protest against the draft Myanmar Gemstone Law 2017 on Feb. 28. / M Kawn La / Facebook

YANGON  More than 500 locals in Kachin States Myitkyina took to the streets on Wednesday to protest the draft Myanmar Gemstone Law 2017, stating that the draft law does not consider the interests of local residents.

The protest was led by three Kachin partiesthe Kachin State Democracy Party (KSDP), Kachin Democratic Party (KDP), and Kachin National Congress (KNC).

There was neither consultation with locals nor negotiation with Kachin parties, said Bran Awng, a spokesperson for the three Kachin parties that led the protest.

The government has announced the draft law in government-run newspapers to seek public feedback and suggestions. So, we made suggestions. None were taken. Thats why we took to the streets, said Bran Awng.

Protesters held placards reading: Kachin States jade belongs to Kachin people and ethnic citizens, We dont want large-scale mines, and We want equal rights in the mining sector for Kachin people and ethnic citizens.

The draft Myanmar Gemstone Law does not provide rights or opportunities for local residents in jade- and gem-rich Kachin State and representatives of Kachin parties, Kachin literature and culture associations, law experts, and officials of the Myitkyina Gem Merchants Association held rounds of discussion in 2017 and submitted six recommendations to the Union Parliament, said Bran Awng.

Lawmakers of the Lower House and Upper House met Kachin delegates and discussed the proposed recommendations. But when the Parliament made public the draft law for feedback, those proposed recommendations were not included.

Among the proposed recommendations were the restriction of heavy machinery in mining and the use of small- and medium-scale machinery instead, the grouping of mining zones into small, medium and prospector zones, and mining monitoring committees at states and regional levels that would include 60 percent local representatives.

Recommendations also called for 30 percent local representatives on jade and gems evaluation committees, a reduction of tax on rubies, sapphires, jade and diamonds from 20 percent to 10 percent, and the inclusion of local representatives on the mining supervisory central committee and in state and regional level committees.

According to the draft law, a 20 percent tax is levied on rubies, sapphires, jade and diamonds and 10 percent on other gemstones.

The draft law has no provision regarding the restriction of heavy machinery in mining, said Dr. Manan Tuja, chairman of the KSDP.

Revenues from resources have barely been used to benefit locals. We want decentralization in the draft law. We intend to attract the attention of Parliament by staging a protest. I hope lawmakers will change their decision, said Dr. Manan Tuja.

The law was enacted in 1995 and was amended for the first time in 2003 under the State Peace and Development Council government and for a second time in 2016 under President U Thein Seins government. The third amendment is being debated in the Upper House.Burma Magwe Fire Leaves 900 Locals Homeless

The aftermath of a Saturday night fire in Magwe Region's Yesagyo Township. / Yesagyo Township Youth Network

YANGON  A large fire that broke out in a Magwe Region village in Myanmars dry zone on Saturday night burned more that 160 houses to the ground and left 900 people homeless, according to local sources.

The fire started at about 8:30 p.m. in Thit Gyi Taw village in Magwes Yesagyo Township and razed167 houses before it was extinguished at 2:30 a.m. on Sunday. No casualties have been reported.

U Kyaw Thura, a village administrator, told The Irrawaddy by phone that the fire started in the kitchen of a private home and quickly spread through the village as most houses in the area are made of bamboo and thatch.

He said the blaze destroyed 167 houses and displaced 900 people, including 37 students who will sit the matriculation exams starting Wednesday.

It was so quick because the houses are close together, and also there was a strong wind, the administrator said.

He said food and other supplies were being provided to the victims by the government and charity groups, but added that it would take some time to rebuild the destroyed houses.

Magwe is one of the most vulnerable regions to fire in Myanmar because of its hot and dry conditions.

On Feb. 26 a fire in Su Tat Gyi village, in Magwes Myothit Township, destroyed 31 houses and displaced 145 people, according to the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement. The ministry said it provided the victims with about 100,000 kyats ($75) each to help them rebuild their homes along with rice and other supplies.

U Tin Thaung, a Magwe Regional lawmaker representing Yesagyo, said the students will be supplied with books and accommodations by the regional government so they can study for their exams.

Because it [Thit Gyi Taw] is located in the northernmost part of the township, it is far from the center, including the fire stations. Besides that, it also had a water shortage problem, U Tin Thaung said.

He said the nearest fire station was 20 minutes away and that the townships main fire station was at least a half-hour drive.

When the hot season comes, there is a greater risk of fire. We cant say it wouldnt happen, but if there was a fire station nearby it would reduce the loss, the lawmaker said. The loss was worse because there is no fire station nearby.

U Tin Thaung said there were only three fire stations in his constituency and that he had asked Parliament for more but was turned town on the grounds that the region could not afford it.

I hope the fire now proves the need, he said.Burma USDP Denies Ties to Detained Ex-lawmaker Accused of Funding ARSA

Aung Zaw Win. / Myanmar Police Force

NAYPYITAW  The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) said it has nothing to do with a man detained by police last week for allegedly funding the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA).

Aung Zaw Win, 55, the owner of Yangon-based Shine Construction Co. Ltd., was arrested at the Yangon International Airport on Wednesday on his way to Thailand.

He was a USDP lawmaker representing Rakhine States Maungdaw Township in the Lower House from 2010 to 2015, during the government of U Thein Sein.

According to two suspects arrested in connection to the violence in northern Rakhine State in 2016, the Nga Khu Ya police station in Rakhine had opened a case against Aung Zaw Win for murder and causing grievous harm and other offenses under the Public Property Protection Act, the Arms Act and the Unlawful Associations Act.

USDP spokesman U Nanda Hla Myint said Aung Zaw Win had resigned from the party before 2015.

Aung Zaw Win and [Rohingya rights activist and former Lower House lawmaker for Rakhine States Buthidaung Township] U Shwe Maung have already resigned from the party. When I took my post [as USDP spokesman], they had already left the party, he said.

At Naypyitaws request, Dhaka handed over two suspects receiving medical care in Bangladesh who reportedly told investigators that Aung Zaw Win had funded ARSA, said U Zaw Htay, director-general of the Presidents Office.

Based on their testimony, the judge issued an arrest warrant for Aung Zaw Win. But he was at large and finally arrested on Feb. 28, when he tried to go to Bangkok, U Zaw Htay told The Irrawaddy.

He said police were still investigating Aung Zaw Win and had yet to hand him over to the court. The Maungdaw District Court issued the arrest warrant in 2016 and declared him a fugitive last year.

Ethnic affairs analyst U Maung Maung Soe claimed that all the necessities for the more than 700,000 Muslims in Maungdaw were being delivered directly from Yangon, though he was not sure whether ARSA was involved.

According to the information Ive gathered, trade in all necessary goods for all the Bengalis over the past six years since 2012 was controlled by Yangon. The government should conduct an in-depth investigation to find out who was involved and to what extent they were involved, he said.

Many people in Myanmar refer to the Rohingya as Bengali, implying they are not a distinct ethnic group with legitimate ties to Myanmar but illegal immigrants from Bangladesh even though many families have lived in Rakhine State for generations.

U Tun Kyi, a Muslim and a former political prisoner, said he denounced any form of violence and any individual, organization and religion that supports violence.

I grew up in this country and have decided to protect its independence and sovereignty at the cost of my life. So I accept no terrorist organization, he said.

Though Myanmar enacted a Counter-Terrorism Law in 2014, U Tun Kyi said it has rarely been applied. He cited the January 2017 assassination of prominent Muslim lawyer and NLD legal adviser U Ko Ni at the Yangon International Airport, in which case the alleged gunman, Kyi Lin, has been charged with murder but not under the Counter-Terrorism Law.

He also criticized the recent arrest of Arakan National Council executive committee member Ko Naing Soe over a bomb attack that injured a police officer in Rakhine State in late February.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.Bahrains Interior Ministry has announced of arrest of 116 men all allegedly members of a cell linked to Irans Revolutionary Guard, in an operation which enabled security forces to seize arms and ammunitions to be used in attacks against state officials, security establishment and key oil installations.

Comprehensive investigations revealed the suspected terrorists were members of a network formed and supported by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), the Bahraini ministry said in a statement.

The network was planning to target Bahraini officials, members of the security authorities and vital oil installations, with the objective of disturbing public security and harming the national economy, it said.

Several members of the cell, 48, were trained in IRGCs positions in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, the ministry added in the statement.

The men called terrorists were rounded up at their hideouts used as weapon factory and warehouse.

Authorities of the tiny Gulf kingdom have regularly blamed Iran for fomenting uprising and revolt against the state.

Authorities have since 2011 severely crackdowned on the Shia majority, which they believe receives support from Tehran. The crackdown has also targeted the main opposition party and critical activist.HP just had another stunningly successful quarter, with net earnings up a whopping 217 percent, in what is becoming a new success trend. Before this, there was some significant doubt the company would survive (scandal seemed to be the firms silent middle name). The irony is that much of the problem came from poorly thought through efforts by HPs past boards to save the firm. To say that HP has had a tough time would be an understatement.

Back in the late 1990s, the firms board decided that HP wasnt aggressive enough and hired Carly Fiorina as CEO to shake the company up. Shake it up she did and after a number of scandals, missed financial goals, a war with the families of the founders, and a near abandonment of her job to help a presidential election, she was fired. Next, with CEO Mark Hurd, HP had yet another scandal and another CEO was booted from the firm. The following CEO was in and out so fast it is doubtful they ever changed the lettering on the CEOs door, and finally the firm ended up with Meg Whitman who, after promising to keep the company together, broke it up. She stacked the deck so the part of the firm she got, HPE, had every advantage and so that the other part, HP, had little chance of success, being built around two then failing markets in printers and PCs.

But something magical happened. HP stepped up and got tons better, while HPE continued to struggle badly. Interestingly, Whitman left HPE and coincidentally, HPE just had a very strong quarter as well. There are huge lessons here that I dont think boards get. Id like to cover them because so much of HPs past pain was avoidable.

I think this is important for tech buyers because buying from companies in distress, or shortly to be in distress, puts the related technology and services at risk, and by proxy, the purchasing firm is at risk as well. In the end, healthy companies are far more likely to be able to execute than unhealthy ones.

Lets talk about what we should take away from this exercise.

A Company Is a Team and There Is No I in Team

Much of HPs problems historically were the result of hiring CEOs who werent team players. This isnt an uncommon problem. Often, people who rise to the top do so by being great self-promoters who take credit successfully for the success of their departments and divisions. The reality is that those departments and divisions are made up of more than one person and, often, the real credit for the success belongs to some unsung hero who isnt great at self-promotion or who has misplaced loyalty in a leader who isnt in turn loyal to them.

So, you take that executive who has taken credit and seems to discount the work of the folks who actually executed and then put them in as leader of a new team. That new team has no loyalty to that leader, resents the leader taking credit for their work, and the cohesive team you need never forms. You just have animosity between the major players, the smart people leave the company, and the CEO is left largely standing alone with responsibilities that vastly exceed the capabilities of any individual. And things go sideways.

CEOs Are Not Owners or Gods

Another issue that flows around HPs old failures and is also not unusual is that the CEOs felt they could do what they wanted. This is a misperception that seems to occur early on in a career due to a lack of understanding for the actual powers of a CEO but never gets corrected as they advance. What I mean is that it is common that a young new employee, particularly one who starts very low in a company, believes that the CEO has almost god-like capability, allowing them to wave their virtual wand and fix any problem. This translates into a belief that CEOs can make tons of money and do anything they want. This likely goes to the heart of why we have so much abuse being reported at the moment (everyone should read Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys Club of Silicon Valley to get a sense of how seriously twisted some of the top tech leaders are). Sexual harassment at scale, massive abuse, and behavior that should result in the termination of any employee, let alone someone who is the face of the firm, according to the book, is frighteningly common.

So many of HPs past CEOs just seemed to believe that as CEO they had ultimate power, that rules didnt apply to them, and that contributed strongly to their failure. HP is hardly alone. The tech industry is awash with stories of CEOs who bought new private jets, took huge salary increases, and pumped their benefits as they were massively cutting costs and laying off thousands of workers. Fiorina, who started this bad trend at HP, bought a new et fleet, drove around in a Maybach, and even replaced pictures of the HP founders while she was laying off huge numbers of HP employees. This bit her in the butt pretty hard (youll note the source of the link is one of her own people) when she tried, and failed, in her run for Congress in California and later the U.S. presidency. This behavior, which isnt at all uncommon, not only kept her from getting the loyalty she critically needed, it created a level of animosity between the rank and file and the HP executive office that Ive rarely seen in any company.

No Knowledge of the Industry the Firm Is In

In the area of knowledge, Hurd was the exception on the list of failed HP CEOs, as he came from NEC and he did know the industry HP was in. He also outperformed the other CEOs and wasnt removed for a failure to perform, but because of what appeared to be an abuse of power against a subordinate. What seemed really strange at the time was that rather than replacing Hurd with someone with a similar skill set but better behavior, HP went to a series of CEOs who increasingly had no background In HPs part of the business. Leo Apotheker, Hurds immediate replacement, was a failed software CEO, and Whitman was out of eBay, even more different, and had recently failed in politics.

It was as if the HP board at that time had no idea of HPs history and decided that the road forward was to double down on the mistake they made with Fiorina (she even had a Russian scandal). And HPs struggles got worse rather than better.

The New HP

I believe the reason the new HP is running so well is that these mistakes have finally been addressed. HP is a team again, and the executive staff clearly seems to like and enjoy working together. Presentations arent on how great Dion Weisler, the current CEO, is but on how great the team is performing. Shared credit rather than the CEO seizing credit. Weisler has showcased the best practice, which is common in other strong CEOs like Michael Dell, Satya Nadella and Bill Gates. He recognized that his success is tied to the company and praising his people, over taking credit, benefits both immeasurably. There is no subtext surrounding Weislers wealth and he is focused on building the company, not excessively focused on his own compensation (little hint, many CEOs dont seem to get that it isnt the salary that is important anyway, it is the equity. They generally make more from equity and pay less in taxes). And, of course, Weisler has years of relevant industry experience from similar firms like Lenovo and Acer.

The executive team is balanced and experienced in the areas within their spans of control. Cathie Lesjak, HPs CFO, is arguably one of the best in the industry and likely the reason there is even an HP. I believe she was the only thing keeping a series of bad CEOs from sinking the firm. Enrique Lores is passionate about printing and one of the industrys leading experts and instrumental in the successful effort to turn HP Printing from a liability back into a huge asset. Stephen Nigro, another printing expert, has been instrumental in making HP the leader in 3D printing at industrial scale.

Shane Wall is likely the strongest and most experienced CTO currently in segment, rivaling some of the best in the industry. Tracy Keogh is arguably the only HR manager who deserves star status, going beyond the typical compliance/enablement behavior of many of her peers into actually turning HR back into the huge asset it once was. Ron Coughlin has taken the flagging HP PC division and turned it back into a market leader aggressively using design to stand out in the segment and, like printing, changing the unit from a declining liability back into a growing asset. Antonio Lucio is interesting because his background isnt in tech but in banking and consumer goods, but IBMs turnaround was largely because Louis Gerstner built a team with similar leadership. Outside of Steve Jobs at Apple, tech tends to be light in marketing skills, and hiring Lucio was a best practice.

Wrapping Up:

Like any job, the position of CEO has skill requirements that, if ignored, will result in failure. HP is a showcase of what can happen when boards dont learn and adhere to those requirements and the amazing things that can happen when they do. HP is now a standing representation of how to rebuild a company. You start with a CEO who is an industry expert, a strong leader, knows how to build and lead a team, and doesnt show an inability to deal properly with power or new-found wealth. You assure they build a strong viable team of the best leaders they can find, with a particular focus on product leadership, marketing, research, HR and finance, to assure no unpleasant surprises crop up and to also assure the quality of your people.

In the end, HPs success is about understanding the basics and best practices and it continues to amaze me how many firms fail because their boards just dont seem to understand any of these concepts. The easy answer: Just do what HPs board did.

Rob Enderle is President and Principal Analyst of the Enderle Group, a forward-looking emerging technology advisory firm. With over 30 years experience in emerging technologies, he has provided regional and global companies with guidance in how to better target customer needs; create new business opportunities; anticipate technology changes; select vendors and products; and present their products in the best possible light. Rob covers the technology industry broadly. Before founding the Enderle Group, Rob was the Senior Research Fellow for Forrester Research and the Giga Information Group, and held senior positions at IBM and ROLM. Follow Rob on Twitter @enderle, on Facebook and on Google+Moves by the US to deny the spouses of H-1B visa holders the right to work, a privilege granted by the Obama administration, will go ahead though they will be delayed by a court case.

The case was filed by an advocacy group, Save Jobs USA, which claims that the Department of Homeland Security does not have the right to grant work permits without approval from Congress, Bloomberg reported.

The DHS said last week it was putting off issuing a proposal to get rid of the work eligibility for H-1B spouses as it needed to carry out a new economic analysis as per the court filing.

Plans had been made to get rid of the Obama era rule in February. It may now take until June to do so.

The technology industry has lobbied against dropping the rule, claiming that it would undercut their ability to hire foreign workers. The wives of H-1B holder have been given H-4 visas since they were allowed to be employed.

Since the rule was modified, a total of 41,526 people have been given work permits.

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services recently asserted its authority to limit the length of stay of an H-1B visa holder in the country.

Since the election of Donald Trump a year ago, the US has been clamping down on H-1B visas which are used to bring in about 85,000 people a year to work in the country. Many of them are Indians who work in the technology industry.

In October, the government issued new guidelines making it tougher for existing H-1B holders to renew their visas, specifying that they would have to go through the same process for renewal as they did to first obtain the visa.

The number of applicants for H-1B visas fell last year for the first time in four years. In April 2017, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services received 199,000 applications, compared to 236,000 received in 2016.

Another new stricture on H-1B visas, is that computer programmers would not be presumed to be eligible for an H-1B visa. Rather, details of qualifications need to be supplied so that it could be determined whether the individual is fit to do the specialised task for which the visa is sought.

This guidance means that H-1B visas will go to very high-skilled and higher-paid professionals, with low- and mid-level jobs presumably to go to American workers instead.

Applications for H-1B visas for 2019 will open on 2 April.The website for the Computer Emergency Readiness Team Co-ordination Centre has been shuttered with little fanfare, with the link to the site now redirecting to its parent group, Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon.

Will Dormann, a 14-year veteran of CERT/CC, tweeted the news on 21 February, the risk consulting company RiskBased Security said.

TFW the organization you work for decides to remove their website.

R.I.P. https://t.co/cS1QdPGLZw  Will Dormann (@wdormann) February 21, 2018

The CERT/CC was set up in 1988 by DARPA to respond to the first Internet worm, the Morris worm.

Over the years, it has acted as a clearing house for incident response information.

RiskBased Security said it had confirmed from Dormann that the CERTwould continue to operate.

The company commented: "For now, removing the CERT/CC website appears to be as simple as a consolidating Web presence effort with most of the content copied over, yet many are still pondering the question of what will come next for the organisation?

The KB subsite will continue to be updated. It's the main https://t.co/cS1QdPGLZw site that was apparently deemed to be unnecessary. No press release, but I suspect the phases are:

1. Remove site

2. Get de-listed by Google

3. World forgets that CERT is a thing

4. ???

5. Profit!  Will Dormann (@wdormann) February 22, 2018

"As we saw with the recent government shutdown and the National Vulnerability Database not processing vulnerabilities, there is a potential that organisations relying on such government-funded databases, will no longer have a reliable source of vulnerability intelligence.

"We believe that the biggest concern is ensuring that the Vulnerability Reporting Form remains available and that CERT/CC has the resources necessary to assist with co-ordinating the disclosure of vulnerabilities having widespread impact across multiple vendors."French economy minister Bruno Le Maire says the EU has plans to tax big multinational technology companies  like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon  between 2% and 6% of their revenue, with the figure being closer to the lower end.

In an interview with the French website JDD, Le Maire said that the measure was being proposed as companies were routing their earnings through countries which had a low rate of corporate tax in order to avoid paying their fair share of tax.

The move to tax revenue and profits was mooted last September, during a meeting of EU finance ministers in the Estonian capital, Tallinn.

The meeting took place shortly after reports that Google and Facebook may have paid anything from 5.1 billion (A$7.61 billion) to 5.4 billion less in taxes in European Union states between 2013 and 2015.

Le Maire also spoke about Amazon's operations in his own country, saying the company was welcome because it created thousands of jobs. He noted that the American behemoth most often recruited low-skilled or unskilled workers and in areas where it was difficult to attract business.

Last month, Amazon announced that it would be adding 2000 jobs at its France operations, which would take its headcount in the country to 7500 by the end of 2018.

But Le Maire also reiterated that the government would keep an eye on Amazon's alleged "abusive" practices towards small retailers.

In September, EU socialist lawmaker Paul Tang presented a report to the finance ministers' meeting on tax reform, saying that digital multinational companies "minimise the overall tax burden in the EU by routing all revenues to low-tax member states such as Ireland and Luxembourg".

Similar complaints have been voiced in countries outside the EU, including Australia. Multinational tech companies, including Apple and Microsoft, have faced questioning in the Australian Senate over tax minimisation.

Tang pointed out that Facebooks taxes as a share of their revenues recorded outside the EU is between 28% and 34%, whereas in the EU this is a remarkably low ratio of 0.03% to 0.10%".Art Exhibit Features Works by Wolf-Boze, Kronewetter 62, Tegeler

Feb. 20, 2018

Aaron Wolf-Boze

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.  Illinois Wesleyan Universitys Merwin and Wakely Galleries will feature the works of artists Aaron Wolf-Boze, Justin Kronewetter 62 and Helen Tegeler from Feb. 26 through March 22. Wolf-Boze and Kronewetter will discuss their work in a gallery talk on Monday, Feb. 26 at 11 a.m., which will be followed by a reception.

A joint exhibit by glass artists Wolf-Boze and Tegeler, transitions/transformations, will be displayed in the Merwin Gallery, and Kronewetter's exhibit of photographs, Seen While Looking, will be featured in the Wakeley Gallery.

A glass artist, Wolf-Boze takes great interest in surface and texture. He exercises patience and craftsmanship as he uses glass,-- a fragile and delicate material -- to create exquisite blown glass vessels that are then cut with ornate patterns. The work depicted in transitions/transformations showcases how he carves each piece of glass to leave a framework that is similar to a paper lantern or other ephemeral objects.

Having taught at institutions and studios throughout the U.S., Wolf-Boze currently works in Chicago as a studio engineer at Firehouse Art Studio, and as a lecturer at the School of the Art Institute. He received his bachelor of arts in crafts-glass from the University of Illinois and a master of fine arts in glass from Ohio State University. He has presented his work in many exhibitions, including his most-recent one in 2013 at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago.

Helen Tegeler

A glass artist based in New York, Tegeler has expanded to fibers and other materials in recent years to explore new visual and tactile qualities in her work. She is fascinated by nature in transition and seeks to examine moments of propagation, growth, adaptation and death. Her work in glass and fiber as shown in the exhibit transitions/transformations, combines her love of plants and humans desire to collect, classify, and ultimately, define life through their understanding of the world.

Tegeler earned her bachelors degree in art with a concentration in glass and printmaking from Bowling Green State University and a masters degree in glass from Southern Illinois University. She has exhibited her work internationally and has taught at institutions across the U.S., including the University of Louisville where she was a visiting faculty member in 2013. In 2015, Tegeler was an artist in residence at the Corning Museum of Glass. She currently works for the museum and maintains her studio in Corning, New York.

Justin Kronewetter 62

A painter and printmaker, Kronewetter focuses on bringing attention to things that are normally overlooked due to their presumed insignificance -- things that are typically "hidden in plain sight." His photographs showcase common things seen in an uncommon way, as he uses tightly cropped images to focus on one particular object instead of the chaotic everyday environment from which it is derived. In Seen While Looking, Kronewetter emphasizes the aesthetic value of art as a work of art, rather than its ability to inform or instruct.

An Indiana native, Kronewetter earned his bachelors degree in studio concentrating in painting and printmaking from Illinois Wesleyan in 1962 and later earned a masters degree in painting and printmaking from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 1966. Kronewetter worked as an instructor in art at multiple universities including Ohio Wesleyan University, where he served as director of the universitys Ross Art Museum before retiring in 2016. He currently devotes much of his time to creating a new series of photographs while traveling from border-to-border throughout the states of the Rocky Mountain West.

Both exhibits will be on display from Feb. 26 through March 22  except for March 10-18, when they will close for spring break  in the Joyce G. Eichhorn Ames School of Art Building (6 Ames Plaza West, Bloomington). Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m., Tuesday evenings 7 p.m. - 9 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday 1 p.m. - 4 p.m.

By Vi Kakares 20The Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group, Jamaa Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), has claimed responsibility for Fridays deadly attacks on the army headquarters and French embassy in Burkina Faso.

In a message released by the militant group through Mauritanian news agency, Alakhbar, the attacks were carried out in response to the killing of one of JNIMs leaders, Mohamed Hacen al-Ancari, in a recent raid by French forces.

The group, led by Malian jihadist Iyad Ag Ghaly, had already claimed responsibility for a February 21 attack near the border with Niger, which left two French soldiers dead and a third injured.

Security sources and officials say the Friday coordinated suicide car bombings targeting French embassy and the military headquarters in Burkina Faso capital Ouagadougou left over 30 dead including 8 soldiers.

The twin attack comes two weeks after a French army raid in northern Mali. According to French military sources, some 20 jihadists were killed or captured during the raid.

French government said there was no French casualties and described the situation in Ouagadougou as under control. The former colonial power has deployed 4,000 troops to support a five-country military force to combat jihadists on the southern rim of the Sahara.

The United Nations also has a 12,000-strong peacekeeping force in Mali called MINUSMA.Ambassador of Belarus A.Kupchyna meets the Adviser for European and International Affairs of the Federal President of Austria

05-03-2018

On March 5, 2018, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Belarus, Alena Kupchyna, met with the Adviser for European and International Affairs of the Federal President of the Republic of Austria, Ambassador Bettina Kirnbauer.

During the meeting, the sides discussed a number of issues on the bilateral agenda, prospects for the development of Belarus-EU relations, taking into account the Austrian Presidency of the EU in the second half of 2018.

The parties reaffirmed their readiness to further intensify the dialogue and strengthen constructive Belarusian-Austrian cooperation in various fields.

   

print versionSummerville, SC (29483)

Today

Partly cloudy skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. High around 85F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 73F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.Reddit Email 41 Shares

By Courtney C. Radsch | (Project Syndicate) |  

Laws meant to curb fake news may be well intentioned, but their implementation has been sloppy, with few mechanisms to ensure accountability, transparency, or reversibility. Governments are outsourcing censorship to the private sector, where maximizing shareholder value, not upholding journalistic freedom, drives decision-making.

WASHINGTON, DC  Many media analysts have rightly identified the dangers posed by fake news, but often overlook what the phenomenon means for journalists themselves. Not only has the term become a shorthand way to malign an entire industry; autocrats are invoking it as an excuse to jail reporters and justify censorship, often on trumped-up charges of supporting terrorism.

Around the world, the number of honest journalists jailed for publishing fake or fictitious news is at an all-time high of at least 21. As non-democratic leaders increasingly use the fake news backlash to clamp down on independent media, that number is likely to climb.

The United States, once a world leader in defending free speech, has retreated from this role. President Donald Trumps Twitter tirades about fake news have given autocratic regimes an example by which to justify their own media crackdowns. In December, Chinas state-run Peoples Daily newspaper posted tweets and a Facebook post welcoming Trumps fake news mantra, noting that it speaks to a larger truth about Western media. This followed the Egyptian governments praise for the Trump administration in February 2017, when the countrys foreign ministry criticized Western journalists for their coverage of global terrorism.

And in January 2017, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan praised Trump for berating a CNN reporter during a live news conference. Erdogan, who criticized the network for its coverage of pro-democracy protests in Turkey in 2013, said that Trump had put the journalist in his place. Trump returned the compliment when he met Erdogan a few months later. Praising his counterpart for being an ally in the fight against terrorism, Trump made no mention of Erdogans own dismal record on press freedom.

It is no accident that these three countries have been quickest to embrace Trumps fake news trope. China, Egypt, and Turkey jailed more than half of the worlds journalists in 2017, continuing a trend from the previous year. The international communitys silence in the face of these governments attacks on independent media seems to have been interpreted as consent.

In Turkey, the worlds top jailer of journalists two years in a row, the erosion of free speech has been particularly swift. Since a failed coup attempt in 2016, Turkeys courts have processed some 46,000 cases involving people accused of insulting the president, the nation, or its institutions. Each of the 73 journalists currently behind bars is being investigated for, or charged with, anti-state crimes. The most common charge against reporters is belonging to, aiding, or propagandizing for an alleged terrorist organization.

Vaguely worded laws that conflate reporting about terrorism with supporting it provide cover for regimes intent on preventing unfavorable news coverage. For example, attempting to write about the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in Turkey, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or Uighurs in China can quickly land reporters in jail for harboring terrorist sympathies. Nearly three-quarters of the 262 journalists in prison around the world are being held on anti-state charges, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists most recent survey.

Even when journalists arent arrested, autocrats are increasingly invoking the claim of fake news to discredit legitimate reporting. And here, ironically, efforts by some Western governments to sanitize social media of fake or violent material have played into the autocrats hands. While the goals of these cleansing efforts  to prevent the type of electoral interference that Russia has perfected, for example  are laudable, an unintended consequence has been censorship of honest journalists reporting on real stories in some of the worlds most dangerous places.

Consider what happened last year to video coverage of the civil war in Syria. In an effort to rein in extremist content, YouTube removed hundreds of videos related to the conflict, including many posted by Shaam News Network, Qasioun News Agency, and Idlib Media Center  all independent news outlets documenting the disaster.

Similarly, Facebook closed accounts of individuals and organizations that were using the platform to document violence against Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar, a crisis that the United Nations has called a textbook example of ethnic cleansing. Facebook said it acted in response to violations of the platforms community standards.

And in Egypt and Syria, Twitter has blocked citizen journalists from reporting on human-rights abuses, according to journalists whose accounts have been closed. Twitters censors have even hit the heart of Europe; in January, a German satire magazine was blocked from the platform after the Bundestag enacted legislation imposing fines of up to 50 million ($61 million) on social media firms that fail to remove illegal content in a timely manner. Other European countries are considering similar measures to compel Internet companies to battle misinformation and extremism.

Laws meant to curb hate speech, violence, or fake news may be well intentioned, but their implementation has been sloppy, with few mechanisms to ensure accountability, transparency, or reversibility. Governments are outsourcing censorship to the private sector, where maximizing shareholder value, not upholding journalistic freedom, drives decision-making.

Leaders of the worlds democracies must resist the illiberal assault on independent news organizations, and that means rethinking loosely crafted content laws that are vulnerable to abuse. A free, vibrant media is vital to the functioning of a healthy society, and misinformation can undermine it. But official remedies that end up silencing those reporting the news are worse than the disease. 2

Courtney C. Radsch is Advocacy Director at the Committee to Protect Journalists and author of Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital Dissidence and Political Change.

Licensed from Project Syndicate



Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Washington Post: President Trump cries fake news and the world followsReddit Email 298 Shares

By Shalom Goldman | (Informed Comment) |  

This season, the best-selling book in the U.S. is Michael Wolffs Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu are mentioned frequently in Michael Wolffs account of the chaos and confusion in the Trump White House. Wolff points out that for Steve Bannon, Trumps adviser who left the White House a few months ago, support of Israeli government policies was quite important  it was a test of toughness. For Bannon and his ideological allies, the farther Right you were, the more correct you were on Israel.

Other references in Wolffs book speak of the administrations ties to so-called tough Jews. This admiration for tough Jews find its strongest expression in admiration for Israeli military prowess and assertiveness. Wolff notes that Jews and Israel were a curios Trump subtext. Trumps brutish father was an often vocal anti-Semite. In the split in New York real estate between the Jews and the non-Jews, the Trumps were clearly on the lesser side  Trump had developed a sort of 1950s Jewish uncle (tough guy variety) delivery with assorted yiddishisms  Hillary Clinton, he declared has been shlonged in the 2008 primary  Now, (in 2017) his daughter was through her conversion, the first Jew in the White House.

As this pro-Israel stance maps on so well to Evangelical Christian Zionism it is worth examining the deep background of that now potent phenomenon.

American Protestants, from the colonial period onward, had a particular interest in plans to restore the Jews to their Promised Land. The biblical self-image of the early American colonists, a self-image reflected in the over two hundred biblical place names on the map of the United States, had a profound effect on American attitudes toward the Holy Land. By naming their towns and cities Salem, Hebron, Bethlehem, and Pisgah, Americans were declaring the New World a biblical area. They were also asserting an American connection to the places where Christianity originated. American scholars, foremost among them nineteenth-century biblical scholar Edward Robinson, were among the pioneers of discovery and archaeology in Palestine. Robinson, professor of sacred literature at New York Citys Union Theological Seminary, traveled to Palestine in 1836 and 1852. He was convinced that one could not fully understand the Old and New Testaments without a thorough study of the land of the Bible. Robinsons five-volume opus, Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mt. Sinai and Arabia Petraea, was widely read by American and European scholars and laymen. Before it was outranked by Uncle Toms Cabin it was one of the top bestsellers in W.S. publishing history.

Later in the Nineteenth Century, the founders of the Zionist movement were keenly aware of sympathy for Zionism among some influential Protestants. Zionist publicists wrote in Hamaggid and other Hebrew-language Zionist journals of earlier Christian settlement attempts, and they exhorted Jewish readers to act as bravely and resolutely as Christian Zionists had in their attempts to settle in the Land of Israel. The Adams colony of Jaffa, Clorinda Minors colony in Artas, and the German Templer colonies of Haifa, Jaffa, and Sarona were held up as examples of courage and industriousness by Zionist writers. The seven Templer colonies, built by German Christina Pietists between 1869 and 1907, were models of efficiency and productivity. As the Israeli historian Yossi Ben-Artzi had noted, these colonies, as the first truly planned settlements in modern Palestine, were exemplary models that inspired the local Arabs, the Turkish rulers, and most of all the Jews, who in 1882 began reaching Palestine in large numbers with a goal similar to that of the Germans; settlement in agricultural colonies.

Master strategist that he was, Herzl kept an eye out for potential Christian allies of influence and included them in what he was sure was a historic moment, the First Zionist Congress. Herzl had made a point of inviting Christian friends of the emerging movement to the congress. Among these guests was the Reverend Willian Hechler, chaplain of the British embassy in Vienna. Herzl understood something that many of his less assimilated Jewish associates did not  that the diplomatic success of the Zionist movement was dependent on the help of Christian sympathetic to Zionism. Once he became aware of potential Christian allies, Herzl was particularly prescient and active in garnering Christian support for his cause. His successors continued to cultivate that support. They understood, as did Herzl, that assistance was most likely to come from Protestants, and that it was essential to the success of Zionist political aspirations that Christians join Jews in the international campaign to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.

In the late 19th century, thousands of Americans of various Christian denominations traveled to the Holy Land. Mormons were among the most active and enthusiastic of these travelers. In 1836, the prophet and founder of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith, mentioned the actual physical return of the Jews to Zion in his dedicatory prayer at the Kirtland Temple in Ohio. Smith prayed that Jerusalem, from this hour, may begin to be redeemed; and the yoke of bondage may begin to be broken off from the house of David. Smith understood Zion as both the spiritual designation of a new American sacred space and a reference to the Zion of biblical Israel, a city that would soon be renewed. The East had its Zion, and now the West, in the United States, would have its Zion. Both Zions would experience the literal gathering of Israel and the restoration of the ten tribes. Mormons were eager to visit Jerusalem, to which Joseph Smith had sent his emissary Orson Hyde. For centuries, Catholics had visited the Jerusalems Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the many other holy places throughout the Holy Land. Many of the Christian pilgrims kept diaries of their journeys, and hundreds of Palestine travel accounts were published and eagerly read by nineteenth-century audiences.

Evangelical support for Zionism was not necessarily phil-Semitic. Rather, it saw Jews and their aspiration for a Jewish state in Palestine as instrumental in hastening the second coming. Another potent factor in the heady mix of religion and politics that shaped Christian Zionism was the long standing American Protestant antipathy to Islam.

In American Christians and Islam, Thomas Kidd, an American religious historian at Baylor University, notes that there is something unique about American antipathy to Islam; it differs substantially from earlier American Protestant campaigns against Catholics, Jews and other religious minorities. Arguing that the recent American Christian hostility towards Islam derives from a long historical tradition, he points out that even before the American Revolution Anglo-Americans were predisposed to hostility towards Muslims. According to Kidd, two elements were responsible for the hostility: the widespread notion that all Muslims had to be brought to Christianity and the rampant speculations about the End Time that saw Islam as the Antichrist.

In the mid-nineteenth century the American Protestant call to Evangelize the Worlda call linked to emerging American Imperial power aspirationsmet its greatest challenge in the Muslim world. In a 1906 meeting in Cairo twenty-nine American and European missionary groups met to plan the Evangelization of the Moslem world in this generation. A follow-up conference in Lucknow in 1911 called for the Christianization of the Muslims of India. More recently, the 9/11 attacks, according to Kidd, Re-energized those familiar themes of Muslim conversions and Islams place in the end times, two themes common in American Christian rhetoric, even before the American Revolution.

This deep background lies behind the emergence of overtly political forms of Christian Zionism in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The rise of the Christian Right and the infusion of Evangelical Christian activists and ideas into the Republican Party of the Reagan years made Christian Zionism a potent force in American life.

One of the surprising aspects of Christian Zionism is that Israel has become equally significant as religious symbol for many Christians. In the past few years this attachment has facilitated contracts between Jewish and Christian supporters of the Israeli government, most strikingly in the form of Christian Evangelical pilgrimages to Jerusalem  where the leadership and rank and file of the movement is addressed by the Israeli political leadership. As historian of religion Martin Marty had remarked, No American can understand foreign policy in respect to the Middle East, especially when Israel is the focus without having to deal with cohort of the population which is dispensationalist. For that growing group of Americans the current dispensation or age, is coming to an end, and the millennium is near. But the millennium can only be ushered in by great suffering, the period of Jacobs Tribulations. Israel is the place where these tribulations will begin, and where they will culminate in the Second Coming.

Strange bedfellows indeed have resulted from the politics of Evangelical support of Israel. In 1981 Israeli prime minister Menahem Begin awarded the Jabotinsky Prize to Evangelical leader Jerry Falwell. Like his predecessors in the office of prime minister, Begin knew that the Christian Zionist support was a powerful political force in the United States. The Evangelical idea that support for Israel was predicated on a vision of the End Time in which Jews suffer and accept Jesus was not taken seriously by Israelis. Two decades before Begin awarded a prize to Jerry Falwell, David Ben Gurion, Israels first prime minister, spoke before a delegation of visiting American Pentecostalists. He was unaware that the official theology of the Assemblies of God, then the larger Pentecostal group, was very explicit about the need to convert Jews to Christianity. Support for the State of Israel was central to their theology, as the restoration of the Jews to their land was the sign of the imminent Second Coming. A tract about the Jews published by of the Assemblies of God (the Pentecostalist movement) stated that the final blow upon this unfortunate and stubborn people will come during the Tribulation period; and it will be this awful time of suffering that shall break their will and turn the remnant to acceptance of the once hated Nazarene, the Lord Jesus Christ.

During the Clinton and Bush II administrations the political power of Christian Zionism grew exponentially  much of that power is now expressed by CUFI  Christians United for Israel, the Evangelical lobby founded by Reverend John Hagee of Texas. Since CUFIs founding it has attracted considerable financial and political power and as Evangelicals backed Donald Trumps candidacy, they have more access to power and influence than ever before. Trumps announcement about moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem was cheered at the recent National Prayer Breakfast where three thousand Evangelical pastors and lay leaders gathered to hear an address by President Trump. CUFIs supporters now call it The Christian AIPAC.

Similarly, the support that Donald Trump received from conservative Christians in his 2016 election campaign has been linked to his assertively pro-Israel stance. When in late 2017 the Trump Administration announced that it would fulfill its campaign promise to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capitol and move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem before the end of 2019, Evangelical Christians were jubilantmore jubilant in fact than many American Jews. While the vast majority of American Evangelicals approved of the administrations announcement concerning Jerusalem, only one third of American Jews voiced similar approval.

Shalom Goldman is professor of religion at Middlebury College. He has authored numerous books, including Zeal for Zion: Christians, Jews, and the Promised Land and Gods Sacred Tongue: Hebrew and the American Imagination. His most recent book, Jewish-Christian Difference and Modern Jewish Identity, has recently been featured in the Patheos Book Club.

-

Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Washington Post: What you need to know about evangelicals in the Trump eraReddit Email 168 Shares

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

Far right Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu will meet Monday with far right white nationalist president Donald J. Trump in an apparent effort to hurry up Trumps announcement of the Deal of the Century between Israel and the Palestinians.

The Arabic press is speculating that Netanyahu, who has faced large anti-corruption rallies at home and whose government may fall over his possible indictment on corruption charges, wants Trump to try to save his political career by making a splash over the Deal of the Century.

If so, it is a forlorn hope, since there is no deal to be had under Trump/Netanyahu terms.

The Palestinian-Israeli Peace Process is a charade that has the following sociological and political functions:

1. It provides a fig leaf to the Israeli far right as it daily steals more and more Palestinian land in the West Bank and continues to brutalize the civilian population of Gaza.

2. It allows the US government, which coddles Israeli expansionism on the West Bank, to have a form of deniability over Israeli colonialism and Apartheid, or at least something to tell reporters at press conferences, saying that all the disputes will be resolved in final status negotiations. This is like putting two people at a table with two big pieces of German chocolate cake, having one person dig in with a fork and gobble up not only his own share but begin attacking the other persons plate as well, while the other dinner guest is tied to his chair with his arms behind his back. And then saying, dont worry, in a few decades well untie the second person and figure out how to get him back some of his now-disappeared piece of cake.

3. The peace process hopes to pacify the Palestinian population, which has been divided up into cantons on the West Bank and intensively policed by jackbooted Israeli troops and is increasingly encroached upon by armed, fanatical, supremacist Israeli squatters on Palestinian land. By continually reassuring this beleaguered and long-suffering population that their Apartheid occupation is temporary and there is hope for a state in the future, US and Israeli officials hope to tamp down the militancy that might ensue if Palestinians lost all hope.

4. It allows the Israeli and US governments to blame the victims, since Palestinians who point out that there is no peace process and the entire operation is a sham can be sidelined publicly as obstructionists and even terrorists.

5. It creates a corrupt Palestinian professional bureaucratic class that lives off the crumbs of the peace process, essentially acting as collaborators in helping police the Palestinian population for the Israelis and reassuring them about the future. This bureaucratic class receives substantial European, Arab and even US aid and its representatives can be trotted out as the face of the Palestinians, when in fact almost all Palestinians are invested in resisting Israeli expansionism.

Trumps harsh rhetoric toward the Palestinians has ripped away some of the facade of the peace process. His announcement of a move of the US embassy to Jerusalem is a way of signalling that East Jerusalem will never be the capital of a Palestinian state and that there never will be a Palestinian state.

As a result, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority and primary exemplar of the Palestinian bureaucratic class has said he will refuse to negotiate through the Americans.

Trumps angry reply, that he will cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority if Abbas defies him, threatens to decimate the Palestinian bureaucratic class that lives off the peace process. But without them, the full catastrophe facing the 4.5 million Palestinians living under Israeli military occupation or permanent Israeli blockade will become abundantly clear to that population, leading to substantial unrest.

Netanyahu hopes that Trump will go even further, and simply put the weight of the US government toward full Apartheid and accelerated Israeli squatting, bestowing Washingtons seal of approval on current Israeli policies and so making it harder for the boycott, sanctions and divestment movement in Europe to become ensconced as general European Union policy (about a third of Israels trade is with Europe and it receives substantial technology and weapons transfers from that quarter, which are all endangered if BDS spreads there).

That is the so-called Deal of the Century, which would whitewash Netanyahus fascist expansionism in occupied Palestine, and which he hopes in vain might give him back his political standing in his own cabinet.

It is a desperate ploy and the entire enterprise is likely doomed in the medium to long term, though the rest of us will suffer a substantial degradation in our quality of life and our basic human rights as a result of this desperate quest to prop up the worlds last colonial mini-empire.



bonus video:

Press TV: Israelis demand: Netanyahu go home!Reddit Email 289 Shares

By Brian Whitaker | ( al-Bab.com) |  

False claims in the UN security council: Syrias Bashar Jaafari

At a meeting [last month] of the UN security council Syria claimed the US and France now doubt that the Assad regime has ever used chemical weapons. The claim was false but it provides an interesting example of how propaganda can be created.

Speaking on February 14, Syrias representative at the UN, Bashar Jaafari, told the council:

One of the most important political magazines, the American Newsweek, published an article on 8 February written by Ian Wilkie entitled Now Mattis Admits There Was No Evidence Assad Used Poison Gas on His People. The United States Secretary of Defence admits in that article that there is no proof of the use of toxic gas by the Syrian government against its people, neither in Khan Shaykhun [last year] nor in Al-Ghouta in 2013.

Mattis had said no such thing. In fact, he said the Assad regime was to blame for both attacks.

Laboratory tests by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) have previously established that the sarin involved was of a type manufactured by the regime.

Jaafaris claim arose out of a news conference at the Pentagon on 2 February where Mattis was questioned about reports of recent chemical attacks in Syria using chlorine.

Is this something youre seeing thats been weaponised? a reporter asked.

It has, Mattis replied, adding that the deadly nerve agent sarin may have been used too: We are more  even more concerned about the possibility of sarin use, the likelihood of sarin use, and were looking for the evidence.

Mattis explained that there were reports from the battlefield from people who claimed sarin had been used. but added: We do not have evidence of it. But were not refuting them; were looking for evidence of it.

He said the American suspicions of renewed sarin use arose partly out of the Assad regimes previous behaviour: they were caught using it during the Obama administration (a reference to the Ghouta attacks in 2013) and they used it again after Trump became president (Khan Sheikhoun in 2017).

Mattiss phrase, We do not have evidence, was clearly referring to the allegations of new chemical attacks but the Russian propaganda channel, RT, latched on to it and re-purposed it in a report which began:

Washington has no evidence that the chemical agent sarin has ever been used by the Syrian government, Pentagon chief James Mattis has admitted (italics added).

A few days later Newsweek magazine published a similar claim, with an article headed: Now Mattis admits there was no evidence Assad used poison gas on his people.

The articles author, Ian Wilkie, described Mattiss no evidence statement as striking and continued:

Mattis offered no temporal qualifications, which means that both the 2017 event in Khan Sheikhoun and the 2013 tragedy in Ghouta are unsolved cases in the eyes of the Defense Department and Defense Intelligence Agency.

This was completely untrue, as Wilkie would have seen if he had bothered to check the transcript of the news conference. Despite numerous people pointing out Wilkies error, Newsweek did not withdraw the article or add a correction. Instead, 10 days later, it published a second article from Wilkie claiming the Assad regimes culpability is vastly under-proven by the public evidence. Newsweek described Wilkie as an international lawyer and terrorism expert and a veteran of the US Army (Infantry).

Corroboration from France

In his speech to the UN, Jaafari then went on to claim Mattiss misreported words had been corroborated by France:

The French Minister of Defence, Florence Parly, also said yesterday, like her American counterpart, that there is no documented proof of the use of chlorine gas by the Syrian Government.

A closer look, though, shows that Parlys words had also been twisted.

Last May, shortly after becoming president of France, Emmanuel Macron said he viewed chemical weapons as a red line: Any use of chemical weapons would result in reprisals and an immediate riposte, at least where France is concerned.

In a radio interview on 9 February, armed forces minister Parly was asked, in the light of fresh reports about chemical attacks, if Macrons red line had now been crossed. (The original transcript in French is

here.)

Interviewer: Do you have confirmation, I mean confirmation, that barrels of chlorine have been used by Syrian regime forces against Syrian civilians? Minister: We have possible indications of chlorine use, but we do not have absolute confirmation, so it is this confirmation work that we are doing, with others elsewhere, because obviously the facts must be established. Interviewer: Last May Emmanuel Macron indicated that a very clear red line  Im quoting  existed on our side, on the side of France, and therefore use of a chemical weapon by anyone  Im still quoting the president  would be the object of reprisals and an immediate response from the French. We are there, arent we? Minister: Exactly, we cant say it with certainty, and that is what we must achieve. Interviewer: So, for the moment, for lack of proof, the red line has not been crossed? Minister: For the moment, for lack of certainty about what has happened, about the consequences of what has happened, we cannot say that we are there 

Use of chlorine as a chemical weapon is more difficult to confirm than sarin through laboratory tests, which may partly explain the French ministers hesitancy.

In 2014, however, a fact-finding mission from the OPCW concluded with a high degree of confidence that chlorine had been used:

Thirty-seven testimonies of primary witnesses, representing not only the treating medical professionals but a cross-section of society, as well as documentation including medical reports and other relevant information corroborating the circumstances, incidents, responses, and actions, provide a consistent and credible narrative. This constitutes a compelling confirmation that a toxic chemical was used as a weapon, systematically and repeatedly, in the villages of Talmanes, Al Tamanah, and Kafr Zeta in northern Syria. The descriptions, physical properties, behaviour of the gas, and signs and symptoms resulting from exposure, as well as the response of the patients to the treatment, leads the FFM [Fact-Finding Mission] to conclude, with a high degree of confidence, that chlorine, either pure or in mixture, is the toxic chemical in question.

A further report provided more detail.

Brian Whitaker is a former Middle East editor of the Guardian. He is the author of several books about the region, most recently Arabs Without God: Atheism and Freedom of Belief in the Middle East.

Via Al-Bab.com

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence.



Bonus video added by Informed Comment:

Al Jazeera English: Syria: Chemical attack suspected in Eastern Ghouta siegeVANCOUVER, March 5, 2018 /CNW/ - Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation ("Nevada Sunrise" or the "Company") (TSXV: NEV) is pleased to announce it has acquired options to purchase the historic Treasure Box and Boyer Mine copper properties, each located in the Stillwater Range of Churchill County, approximately 100 miles (150 kilometers) east of Reno. Under its area of interest agreement with the vendor of the Lovelock Cobalt Mine, Nevada Sunrise has the right to purchase a 100% interest in the Treasure Box property, and has also executed an option agreement with a separate vendor to purchase a 100% interest in the Boyer Mine property.

"This is the first consolidation of the Treasure Box and Boyer Mine properties in decades," said Warren Stanyer, President and CEO of Nevada Sunrise. "Our exploration in this mineral-rich area began with the Lovelock Cobalt Mine and we now recognize the hallmarks of a supergene-enriched deposit model that includes the potential for discovery of high-grade copper mineralization."

2017 Geochemical Sampling near Lovelock Cobalt Mine and at the Treasure Box

While conducting due diligence in late 2017, Nevada Sunrise collected grab rock samples southwest of the Lovelock Cobalt Mine and on the Treasure Box property further to the southwest. The analytical results of several of the rock samples taken from historical mine waste and other bedrock occurrences show strong enrichment in copper and anomalous values of gold and silver in certain samples, as shown in the analytical highlights below:

Sample No. Location Copper (%) Gold (g/t) Silver (g/t) LCoR-10 SW Lovelock Mine area 16.57 2.22 21.10 ENR-2 Treasure Box historical trench 11.86 trace 0.24 AZ Grab SW Lovelock Mine area 8.29 ND 11.57 LCoR-12 Treasure Box mine waste 4.54 trace 0.42 ENR1 Treasure Box float 4.09 trace 8.33

About the Treasure Box Mine and the Boyer Mine Properties

The combined area of the Treasure Box unpatented claims and the Boyer Mine patented claims total approximately 1,300 acres (526 hectares). The two properties are contiguous and some of the claim boundaries dating back to 1901 are still intact. The Treasure Box and Boyer Mine properties each host mine workings from limited copper production, which occurred until early into the 20th century. A historical diamond drill hole (circa 1910) drilled at the Treasure Box by the Boyer-Nevada Copper Company reportedly intersected 1.52% copper over 85 feet (25.9 metres) with mineralization beginning at surface. A reverse circulation hole drilled on the Treasure Box by Utah International in 1976 returned 1.55% copper over 40 feet (12.2 metres) from a depth of 85 to 125 feet (25.9 to 38.1 metres), and the hole was stopped in chalcopyrite mineralization. The core Treasure Box claims were held continuously for over 20 years by a private company but were relinquished in September 2017, leading to their acquisition by Nevada Sunrise.

The Boyer Mine was discovered by Alva Boyer who made the original discovery of high-grade oxide copper mineralization in the early 1860s. Some hand-sorted material was shipped to Swansea, Wales by wagon train through Sacramento ("Reconnaisance of Mining Districts in Churchill County, Nevada", Vandenburg, 1940). In the modern exploration era, Boxxer Gold Corp. carried out trenching in 2007, successfully outlining a mineralized zone at the Boyer Mine property but did not execute a long-term option agreement with the vendor. In 2014 and 2015, Discovery Harbour Resources Corp. carried out geophysical surveys, geochemical sampling and drilled 12 holes on the Boyer Mine claims and adjacent areas. The best intersections were in hole 2B14-06, which intersected a true thickness of 21 feet (6.4 metres) of mineralization grading 0.84% copper, including 4 feet (1.22 metres) of 3.22% copper, and hole 2B14-07, which intersected a true thickness of 60 feet (18.29 metres) of mineralization grading 0.37% copper, including 2 feet (0.61 meters) grading 1.09% copper and 5 feet (1.52 metres) grading 1.02% copper.

Boyer Mine Property Letter Agreement

The Boyer Mine property (the "Property") consists of seven patented claims (Azurite, Gardner, Nevada Queen, Colorado King, Mammoth, Lulla B and Snipe) covering an area of approximately 140 acres (56.7 hectares). Included in the option agreement are three non-contiguous patented claims (Lida G, Copper Glance and Maggie W) west of the Boyer Mine designated as the Copper Glance claim group covering an area of approximately 64.7 acres (26.2 hectares), and one isolated patented claim (Flora May) covering approximately 20.7 acres (8.4 hectares), all located in Churchill County, Nevada.

Nevada Sunrise may acquire a 100% interest in the Property subject to a 1.0% net smelter returns royalty ("NSR") in consideration for cash payments totaling US$2,500,000, as described below (all cash amounts listed are in US dollars):

A non-refundable $5,000 payment paid by Nevada Sunrise as a pre-option payment for an exclusive 45-day period during which Nevada Sunrise will conduct due diligence on the Property and shall receive and review a technical report for the Property dated March 1, 2016 ;

payment paid by Nevada Sunrise as a pre-option payment for an exclusive 45-day period during which Nevada Sunrise will conduct due diligence on the Property and shall receive and review a technical report for the Property dated ; Within 5 business days following the receipt by Nevada Sunrise of a fully-executed definitive agreement: $20,000 ;

; On or before January 1, 2019 : $30,000 ;

: ; On or before January 1, 2020 : $40,000 ;

: ; On or before January 1, 2021 : $50,000 ;

: ; On or before January 1, 2022 : $2,355,000 .

Nevada Sunrise will have the right to accelerate the timing of cash payments to the vendor at its discretion. The vendor shall retain a 1.0% NSR applicable to the Property, half of which can be purchased by Nevada Sunrise (i.e., 0.5%) at any time for $750,000.

During the option period Nevada Sunrise shall be responsible for (i) payment of the annual property taxes for the Property totaling approximately $660 per year, and (ii) payment of sample storage fees of approximately $1,600 per year.

The purchase of the Property by Nevada Sunrise is subject to (i) completion of a due diligence review for up to 45 days, which may including a site visit by its geological consultants, to its sole satisfaction, and (ii) formal approval by the Board of Directors of Nevada Sunrise.

Upon the execution of a definitive agreement and receipt of the $20,000 cash payment described above, Nevada Sunrise will receive access to a data archive and samples related to the Property collected by previous explorers at a historical cost of approximately $700,000.

Technical Advisor Appointment

Nevada Sunrise is also pleased to announce the appointment of Theodore ("Ted") DeMatties, CPG, PG., a U.S.-based consulting geologist with experience in exploring the geology and mineral deposits of the Stillwater Range in Nevada. His recent work in the Stillwater Range has led to the better understanding of the potential for iron oxide-copper-gold ("IOCG") deposits in the area. Mr. DeMatties is the author of a technical report for the Boyer Mine area entitled "An Evaluation of the 2BAR Copper-Oxide Property, Churchill County, Nevada, U.S.A." dated March 1, 2016.

During his 40-year career as a geologist, Mr. DeMatties has been responsible for planning, management, and execution of mineral exploration programs, and detailed mining and mineral property evaluations for numerous clients. Deposit-type experience includes volcanogenic and sediment-hosted massive sulfide deposits in Precambrian and younger terranes, shear zone and iron formation-hosted gold deposits, as well as copper-nickel-PGM deposits associated with mafic-ultramafic rocks. He acted as field manager for a major, long-term, multimillion-dollar joint-venture volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) exploration program in Wisconsin, which led to the discovery of the Bend copper-gold deposit.

In 2017, Mr. DeMatties published a paper in Ore Geology Reviews entitled: "The Jurassic  Tertiary unconformity: A new exploration target for supergene-enriched iron oxide copper-gold style mineralization in the Humboldt mafic complex, Nevada, USA", which specifically discusses the copper, nickel and cobalt deposits of the eastern Stillwater Range.

Geochemical analyses for the Treasure Box and Lovelock Mine samples were performed by Bureau Veritas of Vancouver, BC, Canada, with a 53-element analytical package by ICP-MS after modified aqua regia digestion, following sample crushing and preparation in the Bureau Veritas, Reno, Nevada facility. Over limit samples were reanalyzed by ICP-ES by HNO3-HCl acid digestion.

Robert M. Allender, Jr., CPG, RG, SME is the Company's designated Qualified Person for this news release within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical information contained herein. Readers are cautioned that some of the technical information described in this news release is historical in nature; however, the information is deemed credible and was produced by professional geologists of the eras discussed.

About Nevada Sunrise

Nevada Sunrise is a junior mineral exploration company with a strong technical team based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, that holds interests in gold, lithium and cobalt mineral exploration projects in the State of Nevada, USA.

The Company's two key gold assets include a 100% interest in the Golden Arrow project near Tonopah, currently the subject of a transaction with Emgold Mining Corporation (TSXV: EMR) and a 21% interest in a joint venture at Kinsley Mountain with Liberty Gold Inc. (TSX: LGD, formerly Pilot Gold Inc.) near Wendover, with each of the properties subject to certain production royalties.

Nevada Sunrise began acquisitions of Nevada lithium properties in 2015, which includes 100% interests in the Neptune, Jackson Wash and Aquarius projects, and a 50% interest in the Gemini project (Eureka Resources Inc. (TSXV: EUK) holds a 50% interest), and a 100% interest in the Atlantis project, currently under option to American Lithium Corp. (TSXV: LI). For further information on other Nevada lithium projects operated by the Company (Aquarius, Neptune, Jackson Wash and Gemini), including location maps, please visit the Nevada Sunrise website at: "Projects  Nevada Lithium": http://www.nevadasunrise.ca/projects/nevadalithium/

In November 2017, Nevada Sunrise announced an option to earn a 100% interest in the historic Lovelock Cobalt Mine property, located approximately 100 miles (150 kilometers) east of Reno.

Forward Looking Statements

All statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation ("Nevada Sunrise") within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, including statements that address future mineral production, reserve potential, exploration drilling, the future price of gold and other metals and minerals, potential quantity and/or grade of minerals, potential size of a mineralized zone, potential expansion of mineralization, the timing and results of current or future mineral resource estimates, or other study, proposed exploration and development of our exploration properties and the estimation of mineral resources. Forward-looking information is often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "seek", "anticipate", "plan", "continue", "estimate", "expect", "project", "predict", "potential", "targeting", "intends", "believe", "potential", and similar expressions, or describes a "goal", or variation of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "should", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievement of Nevada Sunrise to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information.

Such factors include, among others, risks related to the interpretation and actual results of historical work at the Lovelock Mine property, reliance on technical information provided by third parties on any of our exploration properties, including access to historical information on the Lovelock Mine property, current exploration and development activities; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; current economic conditions; future prices of commodities; possible variations in grade or recovery rates; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; the failure of contracted parties to perform; failure of Nevada Sunrise to complete anticipated work programs; labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals, financing or in the completion of exploration, as well as those factors discussed in the section entitled "Risk Factors" in the Company's Management Discussion and Analysis for the Three Months ended December 31, 2017, which is available under Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com

Although Nevada Sunrise has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Nevada Sunrise disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and accordingly are subject to change after such date. Except as otherwise indicated by Nevada Sunrise, these statements do not reflect the potential impact of any non-recurring or other special items or of any dispositions, monetizations, mergers, acquisitions, other business combinations or other transactions that may be announced or that may occur after the date hereof. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's current expectations and plans and allowing investors and others to get a better understanding of our operating environment. Nevada Sunrise does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements that are included in this document, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this release. The Securities of Nevada Sunrise Gold Corporation have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to the account or benefit of any U.S. person.Belarusian delegation participates in the UNECE Forum on Sustainable Development

05-03-2018

On March 1-2, 2018 in Geneva the Belarusian delegation headed by the Deputy Chairman of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus, the National Coordinator on the Achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, Marianna Shchotkina, participated in the Regional Forum on Sustainable Development for the UNECE Region.

The delegation also included the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Belarus to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, Yury Ambrazevich, the Deputy Chairman of the State Committee on Standardization  Director of the Department for Energy Efficiency, Mikhail Malashenko, and the Head of the Department on Multilateral Diplomacy of the Foreign Ministry, Larisa Belskaya.

The agenda of the Forum was devoted to the implementation of SDGs at the national, regional and global levels. A high-level segment meeting, as well as round tables on sustainable water, sustainable energy, sustainable cities, a rational model of consumption and production, rational use of forests and ecosystems, and policy development between these goals, were held during the Forum.

Marianna Shchotkina presented results of the Regional Forum of Sustainable Development Goals Coordinators Building a Partnership to Underpin National Sustainable Development Solutions, which took place in Minsk on February 21-22, 2018.

Members of the Belarusian delegation delivered their remarks to the participants of the round tables on improving the efficiency of the energy system and transforming energy in support of Agenda 2030, as well as side-events of the Forum Gender Equality as a Factor of Accelerating the Implementation of the SDGs and Sustainable Development in the Unified Energy System and Experience in Implementing the SDGs at the Sub-Regional Level.

Marianna Shchotkina held bilateral meetings with the Deputy Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Isabelle Durant, and the Executive Director of the International Trade Center, Arancha Gonzalez, to discuss prospective areas of Belarus' cooperation with these organizations, including with participation of the Belarusian Union of Women.

Meeting with the Executive Director of the International Trade Center, Arancha Gonzalez

Meeting with the Deputy Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Isabelle Durant

   

print versionTORONTO, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Montero Mining and Exploration Ltd. (TSX-V:MON) (Montero or the Corporation) has entered into a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Mr Esegiel Xamseb, a Namibian national, to acquire an 80% interest in the wholly-owned Exclusive Prospecting License 6162 (EPL6162 or the Property) for exploration of lithium, base, rare and precious metals in the Omaruru lineament hosted Lithium-Cesium-Tantalum Type (LCT-Type) pegmatites. The agreement provides Montero three months to complete legal and technical due diligence to its satisfaction and is also subject to regulatory approval.

Under the terms of the LOI, Montero immediately earns an 80% interest in the Property by committing to spend C$1 million in 3 years.

Dr. Tony Harwood, President and Chief Executive Officer of Montero commented, The acquisition of a lithium exclusive prospecting license, located on the Omaruru Lineament, has favourable geology to host Lithium-Caesium-Tantalum mineralization. The license has not previously been explored for lithium and is located in close proximity to existing lithium producers. The demand for lithium is being driven by the need for clean energy storage devices in the auto and technology sectors and a focus for Montero.

The Project is located in central Namibia, 20 km north of the town of Karibib, which is 211 km from Walvis Bay, Namibias largest commercial deep-water port and is connected by dirt and asphalt roads to the port.

EPL6162 hosts metasedimentary units of the Damara Mobile Belt, the northeast-trending branch of the Neo-Proterozoic, Pan African Damara Orogen in Namibia. It is located in one of the four belts of LCT-Type pegmatite fields previously mined for lithium-tantalum-tin. The area has never been investigated for lithium and has good potential for LCT-Type pegmatites in favorable Karibib marbles. There is known petalite mineralization in the area and the EPL is located 40 km north of a major lithium producer.

The target lithium mineral is petalite and spodumene and the initial phases of exploration will involve reconnaissance geological mapping and sampling to identify the size and extent of the pegmatite intrusions. More detailed work will follow to delineate and quantify any possible lithium, tantalum and tin mineralization and also any gold or copper mineralization on the license.

Nico Scholtz is currently reviewing available geological information on EPL6162. Recent field investigations revealed the license has lithium, gold and copper potential. The Navachab gold mine located 20km south of EPL6162 was the first gold producer in Namibia. As of 31 December 2012 (AGA, 2012), the Navachab gold mine quoted a total inclusive Mineral Resource of 4.41Moz and a total Ore Reserve of 2.01Moz. The marble-hosted gold skarn mineralization is related to multi-stage mineralization and pink Nosib formation quartzites and arkose occur on the eastern edge of the EPL.

Further confirmatory geological work is planned as part of the due diligence and updates will be provided.

Qualified Person's Statement

This press release was reviewed and approved by Mr. Mike Evans, M.Sc. Pr.Sci.Nat., who is a qualified person for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101 and a Consulting Geologist to Montero. A review was also undertaken by Nico Scholtz, Pr.Sci.Nat., is a qualified person for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101 and is a Namibian based geologist with more than 10 years experience. He has extensive experience in rare metal pegmatite exploration in Namibia having worked on LCT pegmatite intrusions.

About Montero

Montero is a mineral exploration and development company engaged in the identification, acquisition, evaluation and exploration of mineral properties in Africa. Currently these include the Soris lithium project in Namibia, phosphates in South Africa and rare earth elements (REE) in Tanzania. Montero is reviewing and evaluating other opportunities from its operating base in South Africa. Montero trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol MON.

For more information, contact:

Montero Mining and Exploration Ltd.

Dr. Tony Harwood, President and Chief Executive Officer

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Tel: +1 416 840 9197 | Fax: +1 866 688 4671

www.monteromining.com

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION: This news release includes certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements, projections and estimates. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as plans, expects or does not expect, is expected, budget, scheduled, estimates, forecasts, intends, anticipates or does not anticipate, or believes, or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results may, could, would, might or will be taken, occur or be achieved. Such information is based on information currently available to Montero and Montero provides no assurance that actual results will meet management's expectations. Forward-looking information by its very nature involves inherent risks and uncertainties that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance, or achievements of Montero to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Actual results relating to, among other things, results of exploration, project development, reclamation and capital costs of Monteros mineral properties, and financial condition and prospects, could differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements for many reasons such as: changes in general economic conditions and conditions in the financial markets; changes in demand and prices for minerals; litigation, legislative, environmental and other judicial, regulatory, political and competitive developments; technological and operational difficulties encountered in connection with Monteros activities; and other matters discussed in this news release and in filings made with securities regulators. This list is not exhaustive of the factors that may affect any of Monteros forward-looking statements. These and other factors should be considered carefully and accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Montero does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ashanti Gold Corp. (Ashanti, AGZ or the Company) - (TSXV:AGZ) announces excellent new results of its on-going exploration program at Kossanto East. Results for 450 soil geochemical samples have been received and are in addition to 386 samples reported in February (see News Release dated February 13, 2018). These results enhance the existing targets by improving the continuity within anomalous zones as well as enlarging target width and strike length (Figure 1). In particular, strong sample results define a new prominent gold zone parallel to and southwest of Gourbassi East. Here, numerous samples report values greater than 0.1 g/t Au in soil, with two samples (SGE10554 and SGE10556) reporting in excess of 5 g/t. These excellent results support the Companys contention that considerably more gold mineralization is present at and around the Gourbassi East and Gourbassi West targets, said Dr. Paul Klipfel, the Companys COO and Chief Geologist.

Put into context, the new prominent gold zone, identified by this soil sample campaign, parallel to and southwest of Gourbassi East, is approximately the same overall size as the Gourbassi East mineralized zone. Gourbassi East, outlined with a black oval in Figures 1, 2 and 3, extends approximately one kilometre. For further information on Gourbassi East, please see press releases from August 2, 2017 and August 10, 2017.

These results are part of the Companys comprehensive campaign of soil, rock, and trench sampling designed to advance the Gourbassi East and Gourbassi West mineralized areas as well as evaluate the potential of other targets on the property. Approximately 350 additional samples are currently being collected to further increase the fidelity within anomalous gold zones. These results will help guide drilling planned for next quarter and prioritize satellite targets for their potential to duplicate the mineralization identified at Gourbassi East and West.

A file accompanying this release is available at http://resource.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/bdbdfa44-2c32-492b-b23d-f5b7efcbf14c

Figure 1. Kossanto East concession map showing geochemical anomalies and the location of known gold mineralization at Gourbassi West and Gourbassi East.

A file accompanying this release is available at http://resource.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/bdbdfa44-2c32-492b-b23d-f5b7efcbf14c

Figure 2. Map showing strong soil geochemical anomalies that extend known gold mineralization at Gourbassi East and also demonstrate parallel zones of mineralization.

A file accompanying this release is available at http://resource.globenewswire.com/Resource/Download/bdbdfa44-2c32-492b-b23d-f5b7efcbf14c

Figure 3. Kossanto East concession map showing location of soil and RAB anomalies shown in Figures 1 and 2 in the context of both Ashanti (red dots) and historic (blue dots) drill holes. Historic drill holes (blue dots) outside of the Gourbassi West and Gourbassi East ellipses are RAB holes.

ABOUT ASHANTI GOLD

Ashanti is a gold-focused, exploration and development company that targets projects where it has a competitive advantage due to past work experience of the team and specific project know-how. The Company is driving forward its 100%-owned Kossanto East project in Mali on the prolific Kenieba Belt, which hosts such deposits as Loulo, Fekola and Sadiola. Ashanti is also working to advance, together with its earn-in partners, the Anumso project and the Ashanti Belt project in Ghana, which are near-adjacent to the Akyem deposit.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of

ASHANTI GOLD CORP.

"Tim McCutcheon"

Tim McCutcheon

CEO

For further information, please contact:

Ashanti Gold Corp.

2300  1177 West Hastings Street

Vancouver BC, V6E 2K3

Phone: 604-638-3847

Qualified Person and Historical Data

The information presented in this Press Release has been reviewed by Dr. Paul Klipfel CPG of Mineral Resource Services Inc. and a Qualified Person as defined by Canadian NI 43-101. Dr. Klipfel is not an Independent Person, as he is a shareholder of Ashanti. Historic data presented has been generated by historic explorers. The company has endeavored to check all data through resurvey of collars and check samples, but has not completed thorough, independent verification of historic data, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance thereon.

All drill, soil, rock, and trench samples are subject to standard QA/QC procedures with certified standards and blanks inserted into all sample streams at the rate of 1:20. Duplicate samples are also inserted at the rate of 1:50. All assays are performed by international known (SGS in Mali) and accepted laboratories which insert their own QA/QC samples into the sample stream. Their results and Ashantis results are monitored for bias and errors in absolute and temporal terms. Batches with certified standards or blanks that do not meet QA/QC requirements are reassayed.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Except for the statements of historical fact contained herein, the information presented in this news release and the information incorporated by reference herein, constitutes "forward looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws concerning the business, operations and financial performance and condition of Ashanti Gold Corp. (the "Company"). All statements, except for statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that management of the Company expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future including such things as future exploration plans concerning the Company's mineral properties, acquisitions, capital expenditures (including the amount and nature thereof), business strategies and measures to implement strategies, competitive strengths, goals, expansion and growth of the business and operations, plans and references to the future success of the Company, and such other matters, are forward looking statements. Often, but not always, forward looking information can be identified by words such as "pro forma", "plans", "expects", "may", "should", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates", "believes", "potential" or variations of such words including negative variations thereof, and phrases that refer to certain actions, events or results that may, could, would, might or will occur or be taken or achieved. Forward looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward looking information. Such risks and other factors include, among others, operating and technical difficulties in connection with mineral exploration and development and mine development activities at the Project, including the geological mapping, prospecting and sampling program being proposed for the Project (the "Program"), actual results of exploration activities, including the Program, estimation or realization of mineral reserves and mineral resources, the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production, capital expenditures, the costs and timing of the development of new deposits, the availability of a sufficient supply of water and other materials, requirements for additional capital, future prices of precious metals, changes in general economic conditions, changes in the financial markets and in the demand and market price for commodities, possible variations in ore grade or recovery rates, possible failures of plants, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated, accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry, delays in obtaining governmental approvals, permits or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities, changes in laws, regulations and policies affecting mining operations, hedging practices, currency fluctuations, title disputes or claims limitations on insurance coverage and the timing and possible outcome of pending litigation, environmental issues and liabilities, risks related to joint venture operations, and risks related to the integration of acquisitions, as well as those factors discussed under the heading "Risk Factors" in the Company's Management Information Circular (December 2016) and as discussed in the annual management's discussion and analysis and other filings of the Company with the Canadian Securities Authorities, copies of which can be found under the Company's profile on the SEDAR website at www.sedar.com.

Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward looking information. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any of the forward looking information in this news release or incorporated by reference herein, except as otherwise required by law.VANCOUVER, B.C., March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Volcanic Gold Mines Inc. (Volcanic) (TSXV:VG) is pleased to report that it has entered into a binding Memorandum of Understanding (the Agreement) to acquire up to 100% of JOFEMA Mineral Resources SARL (JOFEMA), a private company registered in the Ivory Coast. The assets of JOFEMA under option consist of near-adjacent exploration permits and exploration permit renewals known as La Debo and Soubre (the Properties), which together cover an area in excess of 600 sq km, and fall on a major mineralizing shear zone within one of West Africas fastest developing gold provinces (Fig 1). JOFEMA holds a direct 100% interest in the Properties.

This acquisition will complement Volcanics existing property holdings in the Mandiana district of Guinea, and allow the Company to benefit from a valuable consolidation opportunity in a leading African mining jurisdiction. The Company remains committed to the advancement of its Guinean assets.

JOFEMA has completed over 18,000 m of reverse-circulation and diamond drilling at La Debo, as well as nearly 40,000 m of RAB, air-core and auger drilling at the property. In 2016 an Inferred Mineral Resource1 of 9.5 million tonnes at a grade of 1.3 g/t for 396,000 ounces of gold was defined in two small isolated bodies. This Resource has not been verified by Volcanic and is therefore historic in nature. Over 7,500 surface geochemical samples were collected at La Debo, and on the basis of these data, in combination with limited RAB drilling results, a number of large, consistent targets are observable along strike from the historic Resource, and remain largely untested (Fig 2).

Of particular interest are extensive and continuous soil geochemical anomalies occurring within recognizable and persistent structural zones in proximity to igneous intrusions at La Debo, and Soubre (Fig 3). Importantly, such a combination of circumstances gives rise to gold mineralization of economic proportion elsewhere within the Birimian rocks of the Ivory Coast, a notable example being the nearby Bonikro Mine (Indicated Mineral Resource of 1.3 million ounces at 1.4 g/t Au and Inferred Mineral Resource of 0.77 million ounces at 0.92 g/t Au in 20102). The anomalies at La Debo and La Debo South cover a continuous area of approximately 10 sq km, and have been subject of minimal drill testing, which leave important mineralized structures open laterally and at depth. At La Debo, for example, four consecutive shallow RAB holes at 20 m intervals within the soil anomaly end in >1 g/t Au assays; however, to date no follow-up of this target has occurred, and elsewhere follow-up is minimal. Further extensive gold in soil anomalism is observed at Soubre, where it is similarly juxtaposed to geological structures. Each of these targets provides Volcanic with the opportunity to potentially grow its resource1 base using existing data and low-cost conventional exploration drilling techniques.

The Properties are located in southwestern Ivory Coast, approximately 140 km southwest of the capital, Yamoussoukro, and are accessible via all-weather roads. A power line crosses La Debo in the vicinity of the historic Resource. In 2016 the Fraser Institute ranked the Ivory Coast first in Africa for Investment Attractiveness (Click Here).

1 The reader is advised that these results are historic in nature and are yet to be verified by Volcanic.

2 http://www.newcrest.com.au/media/resource_reserves/2011/Bonikro_Mineral_Resource_Competent_Persons_Statement_250111.pdf

The Agreement

Subject to Volcanic completing satisfactory due diligence and to stock exchange approval, Volcanic will have the exclusive right to acquire up to 100% of the issued shares of JOFEMA, by incurring exploration expenditures (Expenditures) on the Properties over a period of three years totaling US$5 million, and making cash and share payments to JOFEMA. Within 90 days of the fulfilment of the Expenditures, Volcanic shall have the right to either:

(a) acquire an initial 65% interest in JOFEMA by paying US$2,000,000 in cash and US$2,000,000 in shares of Volcanic to JOFEMA, and thereafter, continuing to fund further exploration of the Properties. The other shareholders (the Minority Shareholders) of JOFEMA may elect to co-fund such exploration pro rata to their own shareholding. Where the Minority Shareholders do not co-fund further exploration, then Volcanic may dilute them to 10% by incurring an additional US$3,750,000 in Expenditures. If the Minority Shareholders are diluted to a holding of less than 10% of the total issued share capital of JOFEMA, then Volcanic may, at any time thereafter, purchase the remaining equity of the Minority Shareholders for US$2,000,000 in cash and US$2,000,000 in shares of Volcanic, or Volcanic must, at the Minority Shareholders election at any time after a period of 6 months from when their shareholding has been diluted, purchase the remaining JOFEMA equity for US$2,000,000 in cash and US$2,000,000 in shares of Volcanic. or: (b) acquire a 100% interest in JOFEMA by paying JOFEMA US$4,000,000 in cash, and US$4,000,000 in shares of Volcanic.

Qualified Person

Mr. Simon Meadows-Smith is Volcanics Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, and has approved the disclosure of the scientific and technical information contained in this news release. Mr. Meadows-Smith holds a BSc degree in geology from Nottingham University, England, and has been involved in mineral exploration since 1988, including 20 years of experience working in West Africa. He is a Fellow in good standing of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining in London.

About Volcanic

Volcanic brings together a deeply experienced and successful mining, exploration and capital markets team focused on building multi-million ounce gold resources in the underexplored West African countries of Guinea, the Ivory Coast and their neighbouring countries. Through the strategic acquisition of mineral properties with demonstrated potential for hosting gold resources, and by undertaking effective exploration and drill programs, Volcanic looks to become a leading junior gold resource company.

For further information, contact Alex Langer, the Companys VP Capital Markets, at 604-765-1604, or visit our website at www.volgold.com.

Volcanic Gold Mines Inc.

Jeremy Crozier, President and CEO

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Forward-looking statements

Certain statements contained in this news release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation. All statements included herein, other than statements of historical fact, are forward-looking statements and include, without limitation, statements about the Companys possible acquisition of an interest in the Properties. Often, but not always, these forward looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as estimate, estimates, estimated, potential, open, future, assumed, projected, used, detailed, has been, gain, upgraded, offset, limited, contained, reflecting, containing, remaining, to be, periodically, or statements that events, could or should occur or be achieved and similar expressions, including negative variations.

Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by forward-looking statements. Such uncertainties and factors include, among others, whether the Company will complete the acquisition of an interest in the Properties as planned; changes in general economic conditions and financial markets; the Company or any joint venture partner not having the financial ability to meet its exploration and development goals; risks associated with the results of exploration and development activities, estimation of mineral resources and the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; unanticipated costs and expenses; and such other risks detailed from time to time in the Companys quarterly and annual filings with securities regulators and available under the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended.

Forward-looking statements contained herein are based on the assumptions, beliefs, expectations and opinions of management, including but not limited to: that the Company will complete the acquisition of an interest in the Properties as planned; that the Companys stated goals and planned exploration and development activities will be achieved; that there will be no material adverse change affecting the Company or its properties; and such other assumptions as set out herein. Forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise, except as required by law. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

Figure 1: Location of the La Debo and Soubre properties in the Ivory Coast relative to major producing gold mines, and major mineralizing shear zones (represented as broken black lines).

1 The reader is advised that these results are historic in nature and are yet to be verified by Volcanic.

3,5 http://www.perseusmining.com/reserves_and_resources.66.html

4 http://www.randgoldresources.com/reserves-and-resources

6 https://www.endeavourmining.com/our-portfolio/reserves-and-resources/default.aspx

7 Click Here

Figure 2: Distribution of Historic Mineral Resources, large scale structures and principal targets at La Debo, notably the scale and extent of geochemical feature within the structural zone.

Figure 3: Distribution of Historic Mineral Resources, and principal mineralized targets relative to large scale structures and intrusive igneous features at La Debo and Soubre, noting that such a combination of circumstances gives rise to gold mineralization of economic proportion elsewhere within the Birimian rocks of the Ivory Coast.West Perth, WA / March 5, 2018 / JMN Wire / Cardinal Resources Limited (ASX: CDV) (Cardinal or the Company) is pleased to advise that it has completed an update to the Mineral Resource estimate for its Namdini Gold Project (Namdini) in Ghana, West Africa.

As a result of an additional 15,684m of HQ diamond drilling within 35 holes since the last Mineral Resource estimate in September 2017, the infill drilling program has been successful in delivering a substantial conversion of the Inferred category ounces into the Indicated Mineral Resource category which is now at 6.5Moz of Indicated Mineral Resources and 0.5Moz of Inferred Mineral Resources.

Cardinals Chief Executive Officer / Managing Director, Archie Koimtsidis stated:

We are extremely pleased that our intensive infill drilling campaign has significantly upgraded our confidence in the Namdini deposit with an overall lift in Indicated Mineral Resources from 4.3Moz to 6.5Moz. Further to this, we are confident that Namdini can continue to grow with more drilling given it remains open both along strike and down dip, with mineralisation intersected down to 650 vertical metres, and still open.

This upgrade to the Mineral Resource ismore than a 50% increase in the Indicated category from the estimate published in the September 2017 NI 43-101 technical report and supports a long mine life as demonstrated by the results of the recently announced Preliminary Economic Assessment.

With the majority of the Indicated Mineral Resource continuous from surface to an approximate vertical depth of 400m, we anticipate a conversion of Mineral Resources to Ore Reserves within a simple, single, large-scale open pit, with a very low strip ratio of 1.2 to 1 over the life of mine as the preferred mining method.

HighlightsMONTREAL, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Auxico Resources Canada Inc. (CSE:AUAG) is pleased to announce the acquisition of thirteen (13) properties located 75 km southwest of the city of Bogota, Colombia. These properties represent a total of 65,000 hectares with each property averaging approximately 5,000 hectares. This area is known for high-grade gold and cobalt, as well as other base metals.

Joel Scodnick, the Companys consulting professional geologist, visited the properties and validated the metal content from the samples. We are pleased to announce the first results of the Restopo property where volcanic boulders up to 1 ton in size, yielded results of up to 16.3% copper. A certified technician form Symtek, affiliated with SGS Laboratories in Colombia, analyzed the samples.

Further results from all of the properties are expected this week.

Qualified Person

This news release was reviewed and approved by Joel Scodnick, P.Geo., an independent consultant to Auxico, in his capacity as a Qualified Person, as defined by National Instrument 43-101.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Mark Billings

President, Auxico Resources Canada Inc.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Cell: +1 514 296 1641

About Auxico Resources Canada Inc.

Auxico Resources Canada Inc. (Auxico) in a Canadian company that was founded in 2014 and based in Montreal. Auxico is engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of mineral properties in Mexico. The Company has a 100% interest in the Zamora Silver-Gold Property in Sinaloa, Mexico. Auxico will continue to identify and potentially acquire additional property interests and conduct exploration and evaluation of these properties to assess their potential.

The Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or the accuracy of the contents of this release.VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 05, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Avrupa Minerals Ltd. (TSXV:AVU) (OTC:AVPMF) (FRANKFURT:8AM) is pleased to announce that it has signed a non-binding Letter of Intent (LOI) with a subsidiary of an international mining company to option out three exploration projects located in the Pyrite Belt of south Portugal. The funding partner will provide a first stage earn-in amount of 13 million euros (approximately C$20.3 million) for exploration programs over the next three years to acquire a 51% interest in the projects. The parties are currently finalizing a definitive agreement for each of the licenses.

Paul W. Kuhn, President and CEO of Avrupa Minerals, stated, We have worked for a long time to get to this point where we can move ahead rapidly on these VMS projects. Our new partner will provide funding and expertise for the exploration programs, and will provide superior technical experience to develop potentially large-scale mining operations. Our licenses cover some of the most prospective areas of the Pyrite Belt in Portugal, and we look forward to following up on our successful drill intercepts from three years ago.

The Letter of Intent includes the following earn-in terms:

Alvalade For 51% of the license , spend 10 million euros over the next 3 years (including 30,000 meters of drilling);

For an additional 24%, for a total of 75% , produce a feasibility study on any one particular project within the license area by the end of the pre-exploitation license period, or by the end of 2023, whichever is earliest.



Marateca For 51% of the license , spend 2 million euros over the next 2 years, including 10,000 meters of drilling;

For an additional 9%, for a total of 60% , spend 4 million euros over the following 2 years, including a minimum of 10,000 meters of drilling;

For a further 10%, for a total of 70% , produce a pre-feasibility study on any one particular project within the license area by the end of 2023.



Mertola For 51% of the license , spend 1 million euros by the end of the exploration license period in 2019, including at least 2,000 meters of drilling;

For an additional 9%, for a total of 60% , spend 2 million euros within two years of the start of the pre-exploitation license, including a minimum of 6,000 meters of drilling;

For a further 10%, for a total of 70% , produce a pre-feasibility study, within three years of the 60% earn-in, or by the end of the pre-exploitation license period, on any one particular project within the license area.



Avrupa considers the three license areas to be highly prospective for copper and zinc. The Iberian Pyrite Belt (IPB) of Spain and Portugal reportedly hosts/hosted approximately 2 billion metric tonnes of massive sulfide material from over 85 known prospects, former producers, and presently producing mines, all located within the VS (Volcano-Sedimentary) rock formation that runs from Seville, Spain to near Lisbon, Portugal. Large mining operations in the IPB are currently located at Neves Corvo and Aljustrel in Portugal, and Rio Tinto, Aguas Tenidas, Magdalena, Sotiel, and Las Cruces in Spain. Aznalcollar, in Spain, is currently in development status.

The Alvalade license contains past copper-zinc-iron producers at the Lousal and Caveira Mines, two Avrupa mineral discoveries at Sesmarias and Monte da Bela Vista, and at least 35 further, potentially drillable massive sulfide targets around the license.

The Mertola license covers past-producers at Sao Domingos and Chanca, brownfields targets at both locations, and greenfields targets at Serra Branca and Alcaria Ruiva, as well as a number of other locations. Much of the license still needs first-pass reconnaissance and prospect work.

The Marateca license is a greenfields exploration project with at least 10 known outcropping or sub-cropping target areas located across the property, along with long strike lengths of buried VS target rocks between the outcropping targets.

Avrupa Minerals Ltd. is a growth-oriented junior exploration and development company focused on discovery, using a prospect generator model, of valuable mineral deposits in politically stable and prospective regions of Europe, including Portugal, Kosovo, and Germany.

The Company currently holds eight exploration licenses in three European countries, including five in Portugal covering 2,911 km2, two in Kosovo covering 47 km2, and one in Germany covering 307 km2. Avrupa now has three active option and joint venture agreements, two in Portugal and one in Kosovo, including:

The Alvito Option Agreement with OZ Minerals Limited covering one license in the Ossa Morena Zone in southern Portugal, for IOCG deposits;

The Covas JV, with Blackheath Resources, covering one license in northern Portugal, for intrusion-related W deposits; and

Avrupas partner at the Slivovo Gold Project in Kosovo is fully funding the program, allowing Avrupa to dilute its ownership in the JV operating company Peshter Mining JSC. If AVU ownership goes below 10%, the interest in the project converts to a 2% NSR.

For additional information, contact Avrupa Minerals Ltd. at 1-604-687-3520 or visit our website at www.avrupaminerals.com.

On behalf of the Board,

Paul W. Kuhn



Paul W. Kuhn, President & Director

This news release was prepared by Company management, who take full responsibility for its content. Paul W. Kuhn, President and CEO of Avrupa Minerals, a Licensed Professional Geologist and a Registered Member of the Society of Mining Engineers, is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 of the Canadian Securities Administrators. He has reviewed the technical disclosure in this release. Mr. Kuhn, the QP, has not only reviewed, but prepared and supervised the preparation or approval of the scientific and technical content in the news release.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Pyrite Belt Mines and deposits

AVU projects in PortugalTanzania is one of the rare African countries known for being peaceful, democratic and multi-ethnic. Its revered former long-time president Julius Nyerere decided, unlike many of his counterparts, to withdraw from power in 1985. But since the election of President John Magufuli in late 2015, Tanzania is losing this positive image envied by its neighbours.

Murders and attempted murders of opponents, suspension of media deemed critical, disappearances of journalists, harassment of human rights activists and artists have reached an unprecedented level, writes JusticeInfo. We point to the case of opposition parliamentarian Tindu Lissu, head of the Tanzanian Bar, who was seriously injured by gunshots from unidentified attackers as he left parliament in broad daylight on September 7, 2017. Other opposition figures have been killed and arrested for daring to criticize President Magufuli.

On February 21, 105 non-governmental organizations joined together in an unprecedented move to denounce the stifling of democracy, freedom of the press and expression and the holding of by-elections stained with irregularities and bloodshed that put the peace of our country at risk, JusticeInfo continues. Tanzanias main donors have also broken their diplomatic reserve to express concern. The EU, in its statement, urged those responsible to safeguard the peace and security of democratic process, the country, its citizens and respect for the due process of law.

Tunisias fragile transition

Rule of law is also under threat in Tunisia, where the transition remains fragile and incomplete. As our correspondent Olfa Belhassine writes, a group of NGOs state in a report that four years after the adoption of a new Constitution on January 27, 2014  providing for freedom of conscience, equality for all before the law, the State as guarantor of individual and public rights and freedoms, human dignity, physical integrity and protection of privacy , police and magistrates continue to interrogate, arrest, sentence and jail people on the basis of a Penal Code which is in complete contradiction to the values of the Constitution and has still not been scrapped. Fundamental freedoms are still threatened by ideas and habits from the dictatorship era, infiltrating peoples private lives with undefined accusations such as offending good manners and homosexuality, says the report.

Still in Tunisia, a film called Voices from Kasserine brings a portrait of this poor, isolated region of the country, recognized as a victimized region under a classification unique to Tunisian transitional justice. The film is currently showing in cultural centres in Tunisia and provoking debate everywhere it is seen. It continues the work of research and investigation on Kasserine begun in 2012 by International Alert, an organization that works on peace-building in transition countries.

Voices From Kasserine seems to suggest that the greatest wealth of Kasserine lies in all its voices, says our correspondent. These voices are less and less audible in the Tunisian public space and media, says film director Michel Tabet. But, writes Olfa Belhassine, despite a difficult context, these voices continue to hope, create, sing and transmit from one generation to the next traditions of courage, determination and dignity in the face of injustice and exclusion.Slobodan Milosevic, the late Butcher of the Balkans who was a hero to many of his countrymen, is back in Kosovo, where a Serb-run theatre is staging a musical exploring the dichotomy.

The Slobodan Show premieres Tuesday in Gracanica, a Serb enclave in Kosovo, whose population of 1.8 million is predominantly ethnic Albanian.

All the cast members, like the bulk of the some 39,000 Serbs who lived in Kosovos capital Pristina before the war in the southern Serbian province, moved to nearby Gracanica after a NATO bombing campaign ousted Milosevics forces in 1999.

With this play, we wanted to deal with our own demons, with a merciless period for us, Nenad Todorovic, the plays 45-year-old director, said during a rehearsal in a small Belgrade theatre.

Weve opened a closet from which skeletons are suddenly coming out, he added.

Jelena Bogavac, who wrote the libretto, said she wanted to open a dialogue on the identity crisis of Serbs who failed to reach a consensus on the guilt or innocence of Milosevic.

The text is drawn from Milosevics speeches and books as well as his wife Mira Markovics diary, which she published in a Belgrade weekly in the 1990s.

The journal often presaged future decisions of the strongman who was widely thought to be heavily influenced by his wife.

The play opens with Markovic recalling that she told him: Dont go to Kosovo! and lamenting He didnt listen to me.

Many believe it was in Kosovo  then a southern province of Serbia and now a disputed territory  where the 1990s Balkan wars began as well as ended.

Milosevic, then a top Yugoslav socialist official, began visiting Kosovo in 1987, planting the seeds of Serbian nationalism.

While Kosovos Albanian majority were clamouring for more autonomy from Belgrade, Milosevic inflamed the passions of the Serbian minority, building an image of protector of his people with shouts of No one has the right to beat you!

Little more than a decade later, 200,000 or two-thirds of Kosovo Serbs, would be forced to leave.

Milosevic is widely considered responsible for the wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, which claimed more than 130,000 lives, while millions of people were forced to leave their homes.

The final conflict in Kosovo left 13,000 dead, mainly ethnic Albanians.

Last month the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo marked the 10th anniversary of its independence, which Belgrade refuses to recognise.

 Fond of creating chaos 

Wearing the kitschy tracksuits that were fashionable in Milosevics Serbia, the actors in the Slobodan Show recall a time of international isolation.

In the quiet of his office, he was fond of creating chaos out of order. He was a good communist, but a much better nationalist, they recite while walking in a circle.

In the eyes of his people, Milosevic, who died in 2006 while awaiting a verdict on charges of genocide and war crimes in The Hague, remains an ambiguous figure, said Bogavac, 45.

He was praised for calling post-communist Serbias first multi-party elections and for signing the 1995 Dayton peace deal that ended Bosnias war.

For a part of the Serbs he is still seen as a hero, Kosovo Albanian playwright Jeton Neziraj said in Pristina. Thats why I consider it important to involve artists in demystifying him and stripping him of the mantle of protector of Serbia.

Milosevic was ousted from power in a popular uprising in October 2000. For her part, Markovic, facing corruption charges, has lived in exile in Russia since 2003.The West African nation of Sierra Leone is among the worlds poorest countries despite its significant mineral wealth, and scarred by a brutal civil war and the deadly Ebola virus.

Here is some background about the country as it prepares to go to the polls on March 7.

 Brutal civil war 

Founded by Britain in 1787 for freed slaves evacuated from the Caribbean, Sierra Leone was a British colony until independence in 1961.

Thirty years later  after a series of coups and rife instability  it was plunged into a devastating civil war notorious for its mutilations, drugged child soldiers, sex slaves and rapes.

The 11-year conflict (1991-2002) was launched by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel army to overthrow the government and left around 120,000 people dead, according to UN estimates. Hundreds of thousands fled their homes.

A Special Court for Sierra Leone was created in 2002 to judge war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the war.

Among others, it sentenced the former president of neighbouring Liberia, Charles Taylor, to 50 years in prison for aiding the RUF in return for blood diamonds, so-called because of their link to the conflict.

 Economy battered, resilient 

The civil war devastated Sierra Leones agriculture sector, centred on rice, cocoa and coffee production, and destroyed much of its infrastructure.

But the country has mineral riches, including diamonds, gold, bauxite, titanium ore and magnetite iron ore, which have attracted massive investment.

The mining sector became a key driver of the economy after the discovery of iron ore in 2011, leading to unprecedented growth of 21 percent in 2013, according to the African Development Bank.

But by 2015 growth was -20.5 percent, slashed by Ebola and the collapse of iron ore prices.

Economic growth has resumed, however, and remains upward, supported by new investments in mining, agriculture, and fisheries, the World Bank says, projecting growth at 5.4 percent for 2017.

 Ebola hotspot 

Sierra Leone was among the countries hardest hit by the December 2013 Ebola outbreak, along with Guinea and Liberia.

It recorded more than 3,900 of the 11,300 deaths from the more than two-year epidemic, according to the World Health Organization.

The outbreak led to schools being closed between June 2014 and April 2015.

Over the past 15 years the country has also suffered four major floods which affected more than 220,000 people and caused serious economic damage, according to the World Bank.

The flooding in August 2017 was the deadliest with 1,140 people dead or missing, according to an official toll.

 Poverty, corruption 

With a population of 7.07 million, according to the 2015 census, Sierra Leone has high rates of youth unemployment and corruption, and weak national cohesion, the World Bank says.

Problems of poor infrastructure and widespread rural and urban impoverishment persist in spite of progress and reforms, it says.

It is one of the poorest countries in the world, ranking 179 of 188 on the human development index (2016) of the UN Development Programme.

Transparency International classed it in 2017 as 130 out of 176 of the worlds least corrupt countries.

The country also has the worlds highest maternal mortality rate at 1,360 deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the UN."That's why we're here today: to stop the incrementalism, to stop them from taking one piece at a time until there's nothing left (of the Second Amendment)," said Joshua McCulley, 36, from Vero Beach into the megaphone. There was no clear leader of the group, just groupings of people who had heard about the event through social media.

At the peak of the rally, there were about 250 people.

Marion Hammer, the NRA's Florida lobbyist, made clear this was not an official NRA-sanctioned rally.

"We had nothing to do with it and don't even know who they were," she said.An international aid convoy entered Syrias Eastern Ghouta on Monday to deliver much-needed supplies as regime forces seized more ground in a fierce offensive to retake the battered rebel enclave.

The United Nations said 46 trucks had entered Eastern Ghouta and arrived in the main town of Douma, in the first aid delivery since the start of the regime assault last month.

The aid arrived after fresh air strikes hit besieged Eastern Ghouta and regime troops were reported to have retaken a third of the enclave in a rapidly advancing offensive.

An AFP reporter in Douma said warplanes were flying overhead and explosions from further bombardment on the enclave could be heard even as the aid was being unloaded.

Western powers have piled pressure on Damascus and its Russian ally to end the offensive on Eastern Ghouta  one of the bloodiest assaults of Syrias nearly seven-year civil war  but President Bashar al-Assad warned there would be no let up.

More than two weeks of air strikes, artillery and rocket fire on the last major rebel-held enclave near Damascus have left more than 700 civilians dead and three quarters of housing damaged in the area.

More bombs, including crude improvised munitions known as barrel bombs, were dropped in overnight raids on Monday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

At least 10 people were killed in the town of Hammuriyeh, said the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

Another 19 died in Jisreen and other towns, the monitor said, bringing to 724 the number of civilians killed since the assault began, including at least 170 children.

The UN Human Rights Council on Monday ordered investigators to probe the latest violence, after the world bodys rights chief warned crimes against humanity had likely been committed and that its perpetrators would not get away with this.

 Advancing at high pace 

The resolution, tabled by Britain, specifically condemned the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons and aerial bombardments against civilians, and the alleged use of chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta.

Regime troops and allied forces pushed into the enclave from the east in recent days and by early Monday had retaken a third of Eastern Ghouta, according to the Observatory.

Regime forces are advancing at a high pace because operations so far are mostly conducted in farmland, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said, adding that they had advanced to two kilometres (1.2 miles) southeast of Douma.

The armed groups there, one of which is made up of fighters from Al-Qaedas ex-affiliate, have been lobbing mortar rounds and firing rockets on adjacent neighbourhoods of Damascus, killing around 20 civilians in two weeks.

The latest ground offensive sent hundreds of civilians fleeing from their homes to other areas farther from the moving front line, compounding a humanitarian crisis which has drawn comparisons with the devastating 2016 battle of Aleppo.

Over the years, Eastern Ghoutas estimated 400,000 inhabitants have depended for their survival on smuggling, local farms and rare aid deliveries as they have been trapped in a government siege.

Mondays convoy was delivering health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people in need, the UNs Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA) in Syria said.

 Missing trauma kits 

An OCHA spokesperson however said the UN and partners were informed that many of the planned health supplies intended for Douma were not allowed to be loaded and not permitted to be replaced with other life-saving items.

The items included trauma kits and other life-saving supplies, Linda Tom told AFP.

The UN has said it has approval to deliver aid to a total of 70,000 people among the most needy in Eastern Ghouta.

The United States issued a statement Sunday condemning the assault and accusing Moscow of ignoring a UN resolution calling for a 30-day cessation of hostilities.

It said Russia has killed innocent civilians under the false auspices of counterterrorism operations.

US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May said Russia and Syria were responsible for heart-breaking human suffering in Eastern Ghouta.

Moscow has offered safe passage to non-combatants wishing to leave Eastern Ghouta during daily humanitarian pauses, but no Syrian civilians have left the enclave since the first break in fighting took effect on Tuesday, the Observatory says.

Damascus and Moscow have accused rebels of preventing civilians from leaving to use them as human shields.

In remarks broadcast on state television on Sunday, Assad said his forces would push forward with the offensive.

The majority (of people) in Eastern Ghouta want to escape the embrace of terrorism. The operation must continue, he said.

Observers have said a further advance on the ground might spark fresh efforts to negotiate an evacuation to Idlib, a northern province where defeated anti-regime from across the country have been gathered.

I think there will be negotiations for the rebels to head to Idlib. They saw what happened in Aleppo, they dont stand a chance, said Fabrice Balanche, a visiting fellow at Stanford Universitys Hoover Institution.

I doubt they can hold out several months, he said.802 Shares Share

When my friend was in her fourth year of medical school, she and her boyfriend sat down with their dean to discuss their residency applications. Both have since gone on to have successful academic medicine careers, but on that day in the deans office, they were nervous. My friend asked the dean for reassurance.

Im sure it will all work out, she recalled the dean saying. After all, in 20 years your boyfriend will be running his department, and someone has to take care of your kids.

Medicine has long been a career path in the U.S. for women in science with women entering the field in nearly equal numbers to men for 20 years. But along the way, many women fail to advance and to earn the same recognition and salaries as their male counterparts.

These differences are often framed as individual failures, in spite of the robust evidence of gender discrimination. Women are told to advocate for themselves, to be better negotiators and, in private, not have children if they are going to succeed.

The medical profession must confront this sexism if we are to address why women have double the rates of burnout as male colleagues and among the highest levels of suicide in the country, at two-and-a-half to four times the rate of the general population.

As a culture and a profession, medicine continues to systematically disadvantage women physicians at every stage of their careers causing many to leave. As a result, we are losing some of our most talented doctors.

Since 1992, women have made up at least 40 percent of medical school students, peaking this year at more than 50 percent. At the time, many ascribed to a theory of critical mass where women would transform a culture created by and for male physicians through numbers alone.

But the top leadership positions in medicine remain predominantly male. Only 15 percent of department chairs are women, and 16 percent of medical school deans are female. For the past 10 years, according to an Association of American Medical Colleges report, women in academic medicine have received only 30 percent of new tenured positions.

If female doctors were on even playing field with their male colleagues, we should have reached parity long ago. Instead, women are at a disadvantage beginning in medical school. According to a survey by STAT News and Medscape, 41 percent of women in medicine reported a patient making an offensive remark about their gender  compared with six percent of men. About one in five physicians reported a patient making an offensive remark about their race.

As Dr. Huma Farid, a South Asian obstetrician at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, explained: When people look at a white woman, they think shes a nurse. When they look at me, they think Im there to collect their tray. Winning patients trust is the cornerstone of medical education and practice. When patients do not wish to be treated by women or minorities, it has serious consequences for our education.

Our medical educators are also affected by gender bias. Male medical students are more likely to be labeled as quick learners than women, and that gap actually grows through medical training. One study found that at the beginning of the residency, women residents were rated as slightly better on average than their male peers  but by the end of training were on average three to four months behind their male counterparts.

The pattern continues in practice. From the portraits hanging on an institutions walls to the names of medical societies to the number of women giving grand rounds, women are consistently under-represented.

Pay is the clearest indication of whom institutions value: one study of academic medical centers found women physicians earn $51,315 less, on average, than their male colleagues. With adjustments for factors such as faculty rank, years in practice and graduation from a top medical school, women still earned $19,878 less. This salary gap appears to be widening.

Dr. Jen Gunter, a San Francisco based obstetrician and gynecologist, left academic medicine in part because of persistent gender discrimination that she faced in her career. She had a complicated triplet pregnancy with her children requiring medical care in the ICU. I was the primary breadwinner, she said in an interview, but my children needed a mom and a doctor.

She found herself overwhelmed by her family responsibilities as she was applying for tenure. Though she had spent her entire career in academics and had four different board certifications, an administrator told her: Maybe academics are just not for you.

Nearly one in three physician mothers reported experiencing discrimination because of pregnancy or breastfeeding. Many women have only six weeks of federally mandated leave, and some trainees have no protected maternity leave. Women doctors have trouble following the same recommendations they give to new mothers because of these policies.

More open forms of sexism and sexual harassment are rampant in our profession. Dr. Sarah Candler, an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, told me a prominent colleague groped her during a dinner at a leadership conference. She tried to get the help of a male peer who remained oblivious. I didnt even know who to report it to, she told me.

Gunter had a similar experience at a different national leadership meeting, when a powerful colleague drunkenly groped her. I could not get his hands off of me, she said. Literally, Im peeling his hands off of me. I asked two male colleagues for help, and they said, What should we do? We cant control him.

All of these issues of discrimination, from sexual harassment to paltry maternity leave policies to salary discrepancies, are an institutional choice. Leaders who make a concerted effort to combat gender discrimination can advance women, and in the process, retain the widest pool of talent in their organization.

Think of the patients that we could treat, the diseases we could cure, the innovations in our dysfunctional health care system women could innovate if institutions stopped thwarting our talents.

Elisabeth Poorman is an internal medicine physician. She can be reached on Twitter @DrPoorman. A version of this article was originally published in the Guardian.

Image credit: Shutterstock.comAll roads lead to Graignamangh (via Brooklyn, New York) on Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the Duiske Players wonderful production of Arsenic & Old Lace. This production is being directed by group stalwart Helen Kavanagh who is putting the cast through their final rehearsals at the minute.

The play is a farcical black comedy revolving around the seemingly well-to-do Brewster family, who were descended from the Mayflower, but now composed of a host of other attributes!

The leading ladies - two spinster sisters Abby & Martha Brewster ( Edel Bolger & Stas Bolger) have developed very bad habits with their homemade elderberry wine, which some could only describe as lethal.

Their nephew Teddy Brewster (Paul Hickey), who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt, also lives with the sisters and assists them in their daily duties and is on hand to help when his brother Johnathan (Peter Prendergast) and his alcoholic accomplice, Dr. Einstein (Pat Kavanagh) come to visit.

Mortimer Brewster (Edward Hayden), is a dramatic critic who must deal not only with his crazy family but also the regular visits from the local police officers (John Meaney, Jim Whelan, Jim Kielthy, Nathan Dunne) in Brooklyn, New York, and also continue to make plans to marry the woman he loves, Elaine Harper (Brid Maloney), much to the disgust of her father Rev Harper (Tommy Prendergast). With all this action unfolding the chaos is accelerated by the respective arrivals of Miss Witherspoon (Lily Brennan) and Miss Gibbs (Anna Malone).

A wonderful authentic Victorian Set has been designed by Helen Kavanagh and Eamonn Doherty, Lighting is by Feekie OBrien, Sound is by Mark Bolger, Make Up is by Deborah Murray with Bonnie Prendergast, Maura Gahan, Marian Kielthy and Liz Whelan leading the front of house team.

Admission is 10 and doors open at 7pm. Large crowds are expected for these shows and seating will be allocated on a first come, first served basis.SCOTT KEELER | Times Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R- Land O Lakes and Senate President Joe Negron, R- Stuart, talk during a budget conference committee meeting in Tallahassee, Friday, 5/5/17

There's one week left in this year's Legislative session, and there's a lot of money left on the table to be bargained over between House Speaker Richard Corcoran and Senate President Joe Negron.

If lawmakers want to end by Friday, the leaders of both houses need to present a budget by Tuesday.

Here's what's been decided, and what's still up in the air:

MOSTLY DECIDED:

Response to Parkland: This has become the Legislature's top priority, and despite disputes over policies like arming teachers, lawmakers are set to spend $400 million on more school cops, stronger locks and windows in schools and mental health services for students, among other things.

Affordable housing: The House and Senate have agreed to spend $109 million on two affordable-housing programs. (The Senate wanted to spend $300 million.) $15 million of that will go to moderate-income residents in the Keys, which was hit hard by Hurricane Irma last year.

Florida Forever: More than $100 million will be spent on the state program that buys up land to be set aside for conservation. It's a big boost for the typically-underfunded program.

Visit Florida: Florida's tourism arm has been a constant source of drama lately, but despite resistance from the Senate, both sides have agreed to maintain its $76 million budget for another year. The only politician who seemed to feel strongly about it is Gov. Rick Scott, who wanted to spend $100 million.

Criminal justice issues: The Legislature agreed to dedicate $1 million for more cameras in juvenile prisons, the result of the Miami Heralds Fight Club series. But it made deep cuts to inmate re-entry programs, local courts and law enforcement.

Clemency money: After a federal judge ruled that Florida's system for restoring felons' voting rights was unconstitutional, the Senate wanted to spend $750,000 to process the backlog of 10,000 felons who have applied to have their rights restored. House leaders wanted to spend nothing, though, and their counterparts in the Senate eventually complied.

UP IN THE AIR:

Health care: The House and Senate have to negotiate how hospitals will be reimbursed for Medicaid care, as well as a proposed $130 million boost for nursing homes in the Senate budget through state and federal funds. Funding for the Healthy Start program, a risk screening program for pregnant women and infants, is also on the table. Senators had trimmed its budget by a third, believing its services are being done by other groups.

K-12 schools: The states per-student funding is largely still up in the air, as the Parkland bills will determine large chunks of new funds for more mental health professionals and other programs that will be doled out to districts based on their number of students.

However, it appears that the House has won in how the state will determine the Required Local Effort, or how local property taxes will be assessed to fund schools. The Senate had wanted to tax the increased property values, which have risen as the economy has improved. But it eventually conceded to the House, which saw that method as a tax increase and chose instead to just tax new development.

Colleges and universities: The Senate Higher Education Committee started the session calling for hundreds of millions in new money for universities, but it doesn't look like that will happen. In the most recent higher education budget negotiations, there were no increases in base funding for universities, and it appears the Legislature is stepping away from the Senate-backed idea of funding based on performance and faltering on boosts to preeminent, or highest-ranked universities like the University of Florida and Florida State. However, the House was convinced by the Senate to increase the funding awards for certain Bright Futures Medallion Scholars, who have strong GPAs but werent qualified enough to get the Academic Scholars award.

Environmental issues: Both houses were still at loggerheads Friday over giving more than $70 million to homeowners who lost trees to citrus canker or the state's canker eradication program. And they were also in disagreement over millions in hurricane beach recovery and other environmental issues.

The News Service of Florida and Times/Herald staff writers Emily Mahoney, Elizabeth Koh, Mary Ellen Klas and Steve Bousquet contributed to this report.The remains of a dead horse were discovered in a field in the Hebron area of the city yesterday evening.

Several members of the public raised concerns during the recent freeze as animals were seen left out in the sub zero conditions.

Cllr Andrew McGuinness reported a number of locations where horses were left without shelter or food in the freezing conditions to the gardai, the local authority and other relevant agencies.

The dead horse was discovered yesterday evening by a passer-by who informed Councillor Andrew McGuinness this morning. Cllr McGuinness had been monitoring and reporting various cases of what he believed to be animal neglect during the cold snap.

"I was disgusted to discover this today but I was not surprised. I had been highlighting this cruelty and reporting horses that I believed were in danger since the heavy snow began. I had received huge numbers of complaints from people who were genuinely worried about the animals welfare.

"There were dozens of horses left out in the severe weather with no shelter, many with no cover at all, some were tied up and the only food and water I saw was that left out by local residents out of concern.

"I found horses in two fields on the Hebron Road, more at Dalys Hill, one in a field on the Kells Road, and many more complaints from areas I did not get to myself. I kept regular check on each area, reported them to Kilkenny County Council, the KSPCA and the Guards.

"As I monitored them some were removed and taken to safety following contact from the councils liaison officer who did a fantastic job in locating and getting in touch with the owners. Unfortunately not every horse owner took responsibility for their animals and many were left out in appalling conditions and we see the results of that today with one horse left dead in a field that I had reported in time for the owners to take action.

"Its heartbreaking to see this happen and I believe the owners have a lot to answer for. If somebody does not have the space or capability to care for an animal in a responsible way then they should not have an animal in the first place.

"This issue needs to be dealt with once and for all. I am aware that Kilkenny County Council is drafting an animal welfare charter and a plan that will see a multi agency approach with monthly spontaneous checks on horses and strict enforcement. This needs to be brought forward as a matter of urgency.

Kilkenny gardai are investigating the incident.A very special event will take place at the Newpark Hotel on Thursday (March 8) to mark International Womens Day.

Special guests include Helen Carroll from RTEs Ear to the Ground, Michelle Long and Claire Cahill, the winners of 2017 Kilkenny People of the Year awards and founders of Scoliosis Advocacy Network and Julie Calderpotts from High Bank Orchard.

A journalist with over 25 years experience, Helen Carroll is best known as a presenter on Ear to the Ground, RTE Televisions Farming and Food programme. She has produced, presented, reported and researched on national radio and television for both RTE and TV3. Her work in the print media has seen her write news, features, reviews and a weekly column for both local and national publications.

Two mothers, Claire Cahill and Michelle Long, work tirelessly to raise awareness around a medical condition, Scoliosis, and who campaign for reduced waiting lists were announced as the overall winners of the Kilkenny People of the Year awards.

Julie Calder-Potts produces an award winning range of apple based products ranging from syrups and ciders, to vodka, gin and liqueurs. Julie was inspired and began experimenting with all the apples in her kitchen.

Network Ireland is a progressive, dynamic organisation supporting the professional and personal development of women. Tickets can be booked in advance at http://bit.ly/2CJQJDA

A journalist with over 25 years experience, Helen Carroll is best known as a presenter on Ear to the Ground, RTE Televisions Farming and Food programme. She has produced, presented, reported and researched on national radio and television for both RTE and TV3. Her work in the print media has seen her write news, features, reviews and a weekly column for both local and national publications. Two mothers, Claire Cahill and Michelle Long, who work tirelessly to raise awareness around a medical condition, Scoliosis, and who campaign for reduced waiting lists were announced as the overall winners of the Kilkenny People of the Year awards for their trojan work. The ladies founded the Scoliosis Advocacy Network to highlight the need for better access to treatment and to provide support to children living with the condition and their families. Julie Calder-Potts produces an award winning range of apple based products ranging from syrups and ciders, to vodka, gin and liqueurs. Julie was inspired and began experimenting with all the apples in her kitchen. She left a pot on the Aga one day as she went to answer the phone and, by accident or fate, Highbank Orchards Syrup was born. Julie puts the success of the award winning syrup down to the land where the apples are grown. Network Ireland is a progressive, dynamic organisation supporting the professional and personal development of women. Throughout the 11 nationwide branches of Network Ireland, membership is made up of a very diverse group of women, from budding entrepreneurs, SME owners, professionals and leaders in indigenous and multinational organisations, to non-profits, charities, arts and the public sector. As a voluntary organisation Network Ireland has many aims and objectives to promote women in business, including providing a forum where professional women can exchange ideas and increase business contacts, encouraging women to achieve more satisfying careers and to market the skills and expertise of Network members. These are achieved through their monthly events, national conferences, new Mentorship Programme and through their Awards Programme. Anyone who is interested in discovering what Network Ireland has to offer is encouraged to come along to this event. On the night guests will be introduced to Network Ireland and how the organisation can support, inspire and champion you and your business or career through the new Kilkenny Branch. It is essential that anyone interested in attending the talk books in advance. Tickets can be booked at http://bit.ly/2CJQJDAStuff reports:

The man who murdered a Christchurch sex worker arrived in New Zealand on a fake passport and was due to be deported. Sainey Marong, 33, was found guilty of murdering Renee Duckmanton in the High Court at Christchurch on February 23. He strangled her during a dispute after having sex in the back of his car on May 14, 2016. He dumped her body on the side of a rural road the next day and set her on fire. Stuff can reveal Marong arrived at Auckland Airport on a flight from Hong Kong using a fake British passport on January 10, 2014. He destroyed the passport at the airport.

I dont understand how he was living in NZ?

If he used the passport to get entry into NZ, then surely they could detect it was a fake?

If he destroyed it before the immigration check, then he should not have been allowed in.

Possibly he claimed to be an asylum seeker, but if so why is this not stated?

Share this: Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

More

Reddit

Pinterest



Print

Tumblr



Casey Lartigue Jr., co-founder of the Teach North Korean Refugees Global Education Center, compiled these statements from interviews with the refugees.



Q1. Is it a good idea for South Korea to send an envoy to North Korea in preparation for President Moon Jae-In possibly visiting North Korea?



Q2. How likely is North Korea to attack South Korea?



----------------------------------



Eunsoo, female, arrived in South Korea in 2014



This is a good thing. North Korea already sent a delegation and apparently is seeking ways to reduce tensions. It is better to have talks so there won't be misunderstandings about each other's actions. Moon Jae-In has said that he would like to have talks with North Korea, so he couldn't really reject the offer.



I was brainwashed when I was in North Korea that we had nothing to fear from the world, that we were so powerful that no one would dare challenge us. I remember that I was always ready to attack South Korea or the USA even though I was just a small high school girl.



Now I see that it was just propaganda so we wouldn't focus on our country's own problems. I hope my comment won't make South Koreans relax, young people here are not ready to fight and are so naive about how militaristic North Korea is. I don't believe North Korea will attack, but South Korea needs to show its tough side so the North won't be tempted.



Eunjoo, female, arrived in South Korea in 2013



I hope Moon Jae-In won't go to North Korea. North Korea hasn't and won't change, it will be a waste of time, a one-time political show. I support Trump's policy of isolating North Korea and ridiculing Kim Jong-un. Moon is so stubborn, trying to negotiate with a regime that only wants to destroy South Korea, not negotiate.



North Korea won't attack South Korea. The main target of its propaganda and threats is the USA, not South Korea. It would be stupid for North Korea to attack, and Kim Jong-Un knows it. They are trying a different strategy, such as sending Kim Yo-jong to the Olympics. She also came with Kim Yong-nam, he has a higher ranking and is the true frowning face of North Korea, but the media focused on Kim Yo-jong, making her look so glamorous.



Surely North Korea has studied South Korea enough to know that the media would go crazy over female leaders, cheerleaders and celebrities from North Korea.



Sunhee, female, arrived in South Korea in 2010



There needs to be talks so there will be clear communication. Summits may not yield strong results and humanitarian aid has not had an impact, but talks can maintain trust between the two sides. President Moon is correct to accept Kim Jong-un's invitation for talks, they should talk in a practical way about reunification, not about nuclear weapons.



Thankfully, President Trump is focused on nuclear weapons to deal with North Korea on that issue. The two Koreas can talk about ways to come together.



No way North Korea will attack South Korea. One, Kim Jong-un is not brave enough to attack. He may be a bizarre guy, but Trump looks unpredictable to him and he probably fears that Trump might assassinate him. That's why Kim always has a loud voice, threatening, sending missiles in strategic situations where he isn't directly challenging anyone.



Two, the elite know they would lose their power if there is war. They would stop Kim Jong-un from attacking, even though they will let him brag about walking around with his nuclear button. They know both Koreas would die with another war.



Chol-soo, male, arrived in South Korea in 2017



The impending threat of war on the peninsula has been escalating fast, and I predict that the United States and North Korea will engage in war in a year or two. The day war ensues on the Korean peninsula, a military coup would occur in the North. Most North Korean citizens have no real loyalty to the Kim administration.



Deep inside, they are hopeful for the regime to fall. The frequent missile tests conducted by the North are an attempt to parade the North's military prowess to the world. When the North completes its nuclear submarine, in the belief it can strike South Korea without US interference, it will attempt a strike. In a state of emergency, such as a war with America, Kim would have to delegate some of his power to his generals.



Armed with power and weapons, these generals would lead the nation in a military coup. The ensuing war doesn't mean disaster for South Korea. It will lead to a military coup, and will serve as the catalyst to reunify the peninsula.



For picture posts from 2010 and earlier, see the Earlier Picture Posts PageMar 5, 2018, 12:37pm ET

Trump threatens tariffs on European cars

Promised tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum are being used as leverage in the ongoing NAFTA negotiations.

President Donald Trump has issued fresh threats to implement tariffs on European cars.

Responding to talk of a "trade war" over his promise to introduce tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum, Trump argued he would respond to any EU retaliation by taxing cars.

"If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the US," he wrote on Twitter. "They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!"

The president also suggested the steel and aluminum tariffs would only be lifted if a "fair NAFTA agreement" is signed. It is unclear if the comments involve exemptions for Canada and Mexico or a broader promise to drop tariffs on imported metals from other countries.

Trump's proposed tariffs would place a global tariff of at least 24 percent on steel imports from all countries, with a tariff of at least 53 percent on steel imported from China, India, Russia, Korea and eight other countries.

The promised tariffs have not yet begun penalizing imports, suggesting the proposal could be a negotiating tactic as NAFTA negotiations drag on without any clear resolution.Doris Lalor - Timahoe and Ballinakill

The death took place on Saturday, March 3 of Doris Lalor (nee Lalor) of Cremorgan, Timahoe and Ballinakill.

Peacefully, surrounded by her loving family in Midlands Regional Hospital, Portlaoise. Predeceased by her husband Dan. Sadly missed by her heartbroken children, son Willie and daughter Trish. Deeply regretted by her mother Phil, father Patrick, brothers John, Colm, Declan and Eamonn. Sadly missed by her daughter in law Karen, grandchildren Ellie -Ann and Heidi, sisters in law, brother in law, uncle, aunts and nieces, nephews, relatives, neighbours and a large circle of friends.

Reposing at her residence from Sunday evening at 6.30pm with Rosary at 8pm. Removal on Monday morning at 11.30 to arrive to Saint Michael's Church, Timahoe for 12 noon Requiem Mass, followed by interment in Saint Michael's Cemetery, Timahoe.

Paddy Whelan - Errill

The death took place on Saturday, March 3 of Paddy Whelan of Coolowley, Errill.

Peacefully in the wonderful care of The Sacred Heart Nursing Home, Crosspatrick. Paddy, deeply regretted by his nephew Jim Curran (Rathdowney), relatives, neighbours and friends.

Reposing at O'Sullivan's Funeral Home, Rathdowney, on Monday evening with rosary at 8pm. Funeral Mass on Tuesday in Killasmeestia Church at 11am followed by burial in the adjoining cemetery.

Sean Rafter - Clough

The death took place on Thursday, March 1 of John (Sean) Rafter (Snr) of Boherard, Clough.

Peacefully, at his residence, surrounded by his loving family. Sadly missed by his devoted wife Josie, children Siobhan, Michael, Paul, Noreen, Majella and John, sister Kathleen, sisters-in-law, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, relatives, neighbours and friends.

Funeral arrangements to be announced later.A water reservoir has run dry in Laois as a result of Storm Emma Irish Water has confirmed.

Irish Water has been concerned about the supply in Laois since Saturday with an area in the south east of the county near the border with Kilkenny. Water restrictions were due to be introduced on Sunday evening but this was not possible.

The Wolfhill reservoir is an elevated and rural area and that access to it by road was an issue until this morning. It supplies approximately 1,783 customers.

"Customers in Moyo Doonane, Wolfhill and the Swan are impacted by a water outage today as the reservoir suppyling the areas is empty.

"There was no access to reservoir until today due to the volume of snow in the area. The water restriction that was planned last night did not take place.

"The reservoir was empty this morning and was shut off to allow the water level in the reservoir rise. Customers may have experienced a loss of water since mid-morning today. The reason for the restrictions is that the current water demand in the areas far exceeds the capacity of the water treatment plant. Restrictions will be necessary until the water demand is reduced," said a statement.

Irish Water and its agents Laois County Council said the plan to restore the water supply to all customers by 6am on Tuesday, 6 March.

"Customers should have 24-hour storage in their attic tanks which will facilitate sanitation needs. Customers will not have lost their water supply until mid-morning today and will have their supply restored quickly after 6am tomorrow morning, a period of less than 24 hours

"When the water supply returns all customers are being asked to continue to conserve water to water pressure to homes and businesses being affected. Irish Water also asks all customers to examine their own internal plumbing to ensure that they have no leaks, and if found to have them repaired as soon as possible.

"Irish Water asks customers in particular to examine drinking troughs to make sure that they are not overflowing or exposed pipe work has been burst," said the utility.

The company urged customers throughout the county to conserve water by not running taps unnecessarily, taking showers instead of baths and to refrain from using dishwashers and washing machines.

Irish Water working in partnership with Laois County Council would like to apologise to customers for the inconvenience this is causing.

Once further information is available we will issue another update. Updates will also be posted to the supply and service section of Irish Waters website at www.water.ie/water-supply/ supply-and-service-update/

Irish Water has also said it is in 'real trouble' with its water supply for 1.2 million people in parts of Dublin and surrounding countes of Kildare, Meath and Wicklow.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 subscribing to our ePaper and/or free daily Newsletter .

Support our mission and join our community now.A former Castledermot man was handed a 12-month custodial sentence at Athy District Court last Tuesday for being in possession of 49 images relating to child pornography.

Christian Hennessy (45) with an address listed as Knockfield, Rathvilly, was before the court on charges dating back to October 2010.

The court heard that the defendant had 31 images in category one and 18 in category two.

Category one was described in court as being the more serious where the child, aged from 5 onwards is engaging in explicit sexual activity or witnessing sexual activity, while category two was the child with genitals exposed.

The images were found on the defendants work computer which was seized from VQuip, Main St, Castledermot, where the defendant worked in the family business at the time.

Detective Niall Bambrick gave evidence in court. He said that the defendant made an admission in relation to the images while being interviewed.

The court heard that the defendant had an addiction to child porn, with girls only, which he used for stimulation to pleasure himself.

He said that he was very sorry for his actions which have caused him to lose his job, be exiled from his family and become an outcast from his local community.

He has lost his house and is now working and living in the UK where he has sought help for his addiction to child pornography.

Judge Desmond Zaidan said that the offence was very serious.

I hate to think about these children and the abuse they suffered in such a horrendous manner for the pleasure of this man on a regular basis, he said.

This abuse is vile  he wasnt the man carrying out the act but without people like this man who gets sexual gratification there would not be a market for this barbaric abuse of children.

He noted the guilty plea and the seven years it took for the case to come before the court but he said that did not reduce the significance of the incident.

It has the same effect on the victims. It is beyond words. The children are the silent victims here.

Judge Zaidan told the court that he was going to impose the maximum sentence possible.

I am going to impose the maximum 12 month sentence. I would like to impose far more than the 12 months I am allowed to impose. It doesnt get any worse than this.

The defendant was given 12 months and recognisance in the event of an appeal was fixed at 2,000.A man who was described as a blackguard and a pest was handed a six months suspended sentence at Carrick-on-Shannon District Court last Friday.

Joe Linnane, Enagh, Croghan, Boyle, Co. Roscommon appeared in court on charges of assaulting Garda Clement McCormack, engaging in threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour, and being intoxicated in public at Bridge Street, Carrick-on-Shannon on December 24, 2016.

The court heard Mr Linnane has 60 previous convictions dating back to 1983.

He was most recently convicted at Carrick-on-Shannon District Court in April 2017 where he was sentenced to two months in prison for criminal damage, assault, theft and possession of a knife.

Judge Kevin Kilrane said Mr Linnane has been causing quite a lot of trouble for a long time and described him as a pest around Carrick-on-Shannon.

He said that in the past Mr Linnane stole a bicycle and painted it crazy colours to try and disguise it, he was found with a nail bar concealed on his person, and he has threatened people.

The Judge said Mr Linnane sees himself as somewhat of a character. He's not a character in the old fashioned way, he's a blackguard and has no respect for law and order and wanders into court late, said Judge Kilrane.

On the assault charge, he convicted and sentenced Mr Linnane to six months in prison, suspended for two years.

He was convicted and fined 200 for the public order offence and he was also convicted of being intoxicated in public which was taken into consideration.

Judge Kilrane said he was suspending the sentence for two years on the condition the defendant will not be found guilty of any offence whatever other than Section 4 of the Public Order Act.

He told Inspector Denis Harrington he was anxious that the case would be re-entered if he is found to be in breach of that condition.

Recognisance of 500 cash was set in the event of an appeal. Peter Collins, solicitor, appear.A mother of one has been sentenced to three years in prison for staging her housemates suicide in order to impede the prosecution of the man, who strangled her.

The judge took into account the fact that the accused was one of lifes victims and in an abusive relationship with the killer at the time.

That man, whom the judge said could undoubtedly be described as the murderer, was never charged. This was due to his limited brain function arising out of an injury sustained months later while fleeing gardai after a car he had hijacked crashed. A self-confessed neo nazi, he is currently living in a care facility, where he is spoon fed.

However, his 34-year-old former partner was convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury earlier this month. She was found guilty of impeding the killer's apprehension or prosecution, knowing or believing him to have murdered Antra Ozolina (49).

Egita Jaunmaize, of no fixed abode, admitted placing a blue cord around her fellow Latvians neck so as to simulate her suicide in order to make it more difficult to establish that her death was suspicious.

She had pleaded not guilty to carrying out the offence, without reasonable excuse, at their home at The Old Post, Main Street, Kilnaleck, Co Cavan on or about June 27 or June 28 2014. The mushroom picker told gardai that she was in fear for her life and acting on her boyfriends orders at the time, having just seen him strangle Ms Ozolina.

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy noted that the authorities initial view was that the deceased had taken her own life, but that suspicion grew and tests were sought.

She was a lady, who had appeared happy in herself, had family, and there was no indication that she had any suicidal ideation, noted the judge.

The trial heard that a forensic autopsy showed that the deceased had sustained blunt force injuries, as well as the fatal asphyxia.

The judge accepted that the accused woman's involvement had sprung from her relationship with the assailant.

Theres little doubt but that, on perusal of the psychiatrists and psychologists reports, her relationship with the assailant, the man who could undoubtedly be described as the murderer, was an abusive one, he said, adding that the aggression had been extreme.

He said the accused might be described as a vulnerable person, noting evidence that this was due to her being the victim of a violent crime as a child.

Notwithstanding the abusive nature of the relationship, the jury held her fully responsible for her actions, he noted.

However, he pointed out that that sentencing was a subjective matter and he therefore had regard to the fact that she was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and was one of lifes victims so to speak.

He took into account her lack of a previous criminal record and the fact that she had worked hard in ireland, as well as certain vulnerabilities of temperament and of personality.

He said that the true suffering of the deceased womans family could be attributable only to the death itself and that the impeding offence could not be regarded as having a significant effect.

He noted that the maximum penalty was 10 years in prison, but imposed a custodial sentence of three years, backdated to 22nd February 2017.Irish Water working in partnership with Leitrim County Council is advising customers that due to ongoing mechanical issues at the South Leitrim Water Treatment Plant in Carrick-on-Shannon restrictions will be imposed on the scheme tonight (Monday) from 11pm until 7am.

Leak detection and repair crews are working continuously to find and fix leaks in the county as they arise and Irish Water would like to thank sincerely Leitrim County Council for their heroic efforts during this very difficult time.

Irish Water will continue to monitor water demand across the county over the coming days and decisions will be taken daily as to whether night time restrictions need to be implemented.

Customers are being asked to conserve water by turning off taps, both inside and outside, limiting usage of washing machines and dishwashers where possible and taking showers instead of baths, to avoid reservoirs emptying and water pressure to homes and businesses being affected.

Customers are also being asked to report any leaks they see on the public side to our customer care helpline on 1850 278 278.

Irish Water is appealing to any customers with external taps to ensure that these are securely turned off as we try to protect the levels of our reservoirs and secure drinking water for local communities.

A continuous flow from an external tap over a 24 hour period could use the equivalent of the daily water usage of 40 households.

Information on dealing with frozen pipes is available on www.water.ie and water supply updates are available at www.water.ie/water-supply/ supply-and-service-update/

Irish Water and Leitrim County Council would like to thank customers in advance for their co-operation in conserving water at this critical time. Irish Water would also like to thank the local authority staff for their efforts in keeping water supplies running in very difficult conditions.A YOUNG man has been sentenced to five years imprisonment for the manslaughter of another man in the city centre two and-a-half years ago.

Wayne Kennedy, aged 33, of no fixed abode had pleaded guilty to the single charge which related to a one punch assault.

Gerard Baba Freyne, who lived at Brother Russell House, Mulgrave Street, died at Cork University Hospital in the early hours of October 14, 2016  almost 36 hours after he was found with serious injuries on a footpath at Lord Edward Street near its junction with Lower Careys Road.

During a sentencing hearing last month, Detective Garda Shane Ryan said the assault happened at around 7.40pm following a chance encounter.

Judge Tom ODonnell was told both men had been drinking heavily on the day and that there had been an altercation between them at Parnell Street less than an hour earlier  necessitating the intervention of gardai.

Detective Garda Ryan said the fatal assault was witnessed by a number of people and was captured on CCTV. He said the two men can been seen on the footage interacting before Mr Kennedy throws a punch with his left hand knocking Mr Freyne to the ground.

John OSullivan BL, instructed by state solicitor Padraig Mawe, said a post mortem showed Mr Freyne, who was in poor health due to alcohol abuse, had sustained a brain bleed as a result of the assault.

Andrew Sexton SC said Mr Kennedy, who has more than 80 previous convictions, has expressed genuine remorse and had spared Mr Freynes family the anguish of a trial.

He said his clients difficulties stem from his alcohol addiction and that the father-of-three is now in a stable relationship and plans to move out of Limerick when he is released.

Imposing sentence this Monday, Judge ODonnell said a victim impact statement which was prepared by Mr Freynes family was one of the most remarkable and Christian he had heard.

In it they said they believed the defendant was in the wrong place at the wrong time and that they hope he will be able to address his alcohol and drug addictions.

While noting the 53-year-old victim was in poor health, Judge ODonnell said he was satisfied the defendant had intended to cause him injury when he struck him.

A life was extinguished in violent circumstances, he said.

He noted Kennedys difficult personal circumstances and that he had consumed a cocktail of drugs and alcohol on the day of the fatal assault.

He imposed a seven year prison sentence, suspending the final two years.LIMERICKS new multi-million euro courts complex at Mulgrave Street will be officially opened this Monday.

The Minister for Justice and Equality, Charlie Flanagan, will perform the officially opening while the Chief Justice, Mr Justice Frank Clarke, will also attend the ceremony.

Chief Justice of Ireland, Mr Justice Frank Clarke, speaking at Limerick's new multi-million courthouse which will be officially opened later today @Limerick_Leader pic.twitter.com/zwWQLIZLpA March 5, 2018

The new complex, which incorporates six courtrooms and various ancillary facilities, opened in the middle of February following almost two years of construction.

And so the new era at Limerick's new courthouse begins pic.twitter.com/WuPWksJBsA  David Hurley (@DHurleyLL) February 19, 2018

History will be made at the new courthouse this week as the Supreme Court sits in Limerick for the first time.

This is the first time ever that the Supreme Court has visited Limerick and only the second time in history that the Supreme Court has convened outside Dublin, having visited Cork a number of years ago, said Minister Flanagan.

The new courthouse, which cost in the region of 26m to build, contains six courtrooms, including the largest courtroom in Ireland  which will primarily host sittings of the district court.

Located on the site of a former 19th century artillery barracks, known locally as Costellos Yard, the courthouse is bounded by Mulgrave Street and Roxboro Road and is located close to Limerick Prison.

It is an additional courthouse for the city as the historic County Courthouse at Merchants Quay will also continue in use  primarily dealing with civil and family law matters.

Limerick, like other courthouses, engages daily with citizens dealing with criminal, civil and family law in both the District and Circuit Court. In 2016 alone, over 20,950 matters were dealt with across 408 court sitting days by the District Court sitting in Limerick city. In addition, the Circuit Court dealt with over 1,605 matters across 216 court sitting days, said Minister Flanagan.

User facilities such as a vulnerable witness suite, victim support room, legal practitioners room, enhanced custody facilities, jury reception room, media room and consultation rooms are a welcome addition at the new Courthouse. I am confident that this new courthouse will meet the needs of Limerick and the surrounding area for many decades to come, he added.A VARIETY of free events aimed at small business owners across Limerick will take place as part of Local Enterprise Week.

No fewer than 18 functions focusing on enterprise will take place between next Monday, March 5, and Friday, March 9, as part of the initiative backed by the Local Enterprise Office, which is aimed at supporting small to medium sized firms.

Award-winning entrepreneur Jamie White will be the keynote speaker at the launch of the week, at the Castletroy Park Hotel this Monday, at 6.30pm.

This will give an overview of other events to come throughout the week.

Highlights include a seminar focusing on the benefits and challenges of franchising a business in the Kilmurry Lodge Hotel on Thursday, March 8, from 6.30pm.

The enterprise office will also team up with Ballyhoura Development on the same day for an event focused on how to use social media effectively in your business.

In the same vein, workshops on digital marketing will also take place on Tuesday, March 6, as well as an introduction to tendering the same day.

On what is looking like a Super Tuesday, Leader company West Limerick Resources will kick off a four-week Start Your Own Business training programme.

The week will come to a conclusion on Friday, March 9, when Limericks Entrepeneur of the Year will be crowned at a special luncheon in the Strand Hotel.

A number of businesses are in the running for the award, which will see the winner represent Limerick at the National Enterprise Awards final in Dublin Castle next May.

For more information on Local Enterprise Week, telephone 061-407499A YOUNG man who repeatedly breached a barring order taken out by his former partner will have to complete community service to avoid a prison sentence.

The 20-year-old has pleaded guilty to four separate charges under the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act.

Limerick District Court was told the defendant called to the womans home in the Corbally area on three occasions while the fourth incident happened in the city centre.

Inspector Helen Costello said on one occasion in November 2016, the defendant was banging on the front door of the womans home when he called to the house at around 8.30pm.

Despite the existence of the barring order, the defendant called to the womans home twice in one week last April. On one occasion he was aggressive and kicked the front door.

Judge Marie Keane was told the defendant approached the woman at a shopping centre on May 18, last and asked if he could borrow 20 from her.

Solicitor Darach McCarthy said his client, who has two children with his former partner, has found it hard to accept the relationship has ended.

He said the defendant was suffering from addiction issues around the time and was in an exceptionally bad state when he committed the offences.

He said his client is now clean, is engaging with addiction services and hopes to be able to secure access to to his children in the future.

Judge Keane said the actions of the defendant were reprehensible and that the repeated nature of the offences was an aggravating factor.

She adjourned the matter to next month the facilitate the preparation of a community service report.

The judge indicated she is considering a penalty of 100 hours community service in lieu of a four month prison sentence.EDWARDS Lifesciences has announced that it is to locate a new plant in Mid-West with an investment totaling 80m and 600 jobs expected.

The US corporation, a leader in patient-focused innovations for structural heart disease and critical care monitoring, said this Monday morning that it has chosen the Mid-West of Ireland for the location of a new plant to manufacture delivery components for its transcatheter heart valve therapies.

Edwards is planning to hire approximately 60 people this year in various functions, such as production staff, engineering and professional management, to work at its initial site located in the Shannon Free Zone.

The company plans to complete a new, purpose-built manufacturing facility in the Mid-West of Ireland in 2020 that, once fully complete, it expects will employ approximately 600 people. Edwards said its investment in the project is expected to amount to approximately 80m.

Today is a wonderful day as we mark this very significant regional investment. The arrival of Edwards Lifesciences is a vote of confidence in the Mid-West region as a destination for high-end medical technology manufacturers, said Minister Heather Humphreys.

It will provide even more opportunities for local residents and communities to grow and thrive. My department, through the IDA, is committed to supporting Edwards as it establishes operations in Ireland and as the company continues to develop its innovative heart valve technologies.

Minister of State Pat Breen said: On behalf of everyone in the Mid-West, I would like warmly welcome Edwards Lifesciences to the region. Their presence here serves to highlight the attractiveness of the region as a destination for progressive, innovation-driven companies.

I would like to wish Edwards well in their future operations and assure them of our ongoing support.

The addition of a manufacturing location in Ireland is an element of Edwards global supply strategy to support future growth and reliability of supply, and continues the growth in employment Edwards has experienced both in the United States and around the world, said Joe Nuzzolese, Edwards corporate vice president, global supply chain.

Choosing this location included many considerations, but an important one is a talented workforce with experience in medical technology. We look forward to becoming an integral part of the local community through engagement and philanthropic support, and providing educational and professional opportunities for our employees.

We are excited to welcome these new associates into Edwards, with the shared goal of serving more patients around the world by delivering high quality life-saving technologies.

The company expects to begin hiring new employees in Shannon by June.

The announcement comes after Shannon Commercial Properties said that a 40 million investment in property at the Shannon Free Zone was to be accelerated due to the demand for commercial property in the region.

The company said that by year end it will have brought over 500,000 square feet of new or upgraded office, manufacturing and warehouse facilities to the market in the free zone over the last four years.

Jaguar and Land Rover announced recently it was to set up a base there, as did newly merged aviation company STS UJet.A SERIES of careers events are to take place across Limerick in the coming days to mark Jobs Week 2018.

The South Court Hotel will play host to the regions main event on Tuesday night, March 6, between 2pm and 7pm.

Jobseekers attending the Mid-West Jobs Fair will get an opportunity to meet with local companies actively recruiting, from multinationals to local small and medium sized enterprises.

A wide variety of positions will be available across many sectors.

Free career advice will also be on offer for jobseekers from a panel of qualified and highly experienced professionals.

Jobseekers needing assistance with their future career will have the opportunity to speak with one of a team of advisors who will help them identify suitable career options.

Local training and education providers will also be present providing guidance and advice.

Jim Lynch, the department of social protections divisional manager said: This year we are delighted with the support from local employers and training institutions. Now in its sixth year, the jobs fair is an established event with a wide variety of jobs on offer.

"This contributes to growing a stronger regional economy. We are delighted to partner with the Mid West regional skills forum, and the Limerick Chamber skillnet to offer this great opportunity to both the employers and the jobseekers of the Mid-West.

A number of other events will also take place, including an overview of how Jobs Ireland works in Kilmallocks Coote Hall on Tuesday morning, while the villages pastoral centre will play host to a fair offering opportunities in the healthcare sector the following day.

The West Limerick Resources jobs club in Newcastle West will host a fair on Friday, from 9.30am.WE live in a time when Limerick is witnessing an unprecedented level of growth, development and social change.

In under a decade we have gone from being a city struggling to overcome the problems of negative external perceptions to one now challenging for the title of Irelands second city. Over recent years, as regular readers of the Limerick Leader will be aware, I have engaged passionately in the local debate. I love my city. I love watching it grow and change. I live for the day when we look back at this period in Limerick history with pride for what it achieved.

Many of the readers of this new paper will be parents of young children; children whose future will be shaped by the experiences they gather in their home town. With any luck, they will never have to defend Limerick from the kind of stigma that many of us found so unpleasant for so long.

If trends are to be believed, our next generation of citizens will see an urban centre as their location of choice to live in. Our kids will probably see a time when the car is no longer the go-to method of transport.

The Limerick 2030, plan along with the recently launched Ireland 2040 National Development Plan, have set out a strategy for how our city will be developed over the coming decades.

We are already seeing tangible results in terms of Limerick 2030. Jobs are being created. Troy Studios, once knocked as a pipe dream, is real and now home to a major TV production company. Three significant sites within our city centre are in various phases of development. New homes are being built to cater for a quickly growing population.

But despite the many great achievements we have seen in Limerick over recent years, we must also acknowledge that problems do still exist. Large parts of our city still suffer the scourge of mass unemployment. Our city centre still struggles to shine as a retail destination of note. Our suburbs thrive as enviable destinations to live while our city centre continues to lag behind.

Patrick Kavanagh once said: Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder. When one is immersed in something every day we can forget to look for the beauty, the potential or the magic. How often do we ask a visitor to our city what they thought of the place? How often do we try something new in our home town?

It is all too easy to be complacent. All too often, debate across Limerick dwells on things that went wrong in the past. How many of us actively engage in determining the Limerick of tomorrow? Perhaps, now more than ever, we have the opportunity to get our opinions out there. We must ask questions. We must engage and show those who make decisions on our behalf that we care. We have recently seen the debate around the redevelopment of OConnell Street. What started as a discussion about a road leading through our city has led to a much broader debate around what really would make a Liveable Limerick.

At an event last week, I heard a young girl talk about her dreams for Limerick. Her passion was admirable. Of all the many commentators who engage in the Limerick debate, it is our young people who will reap the rewards of the seeds we are sowing today. They have a voice too and deserve to be listened to.

Mistakes have been made in recent Limerick history in terms of aspects such as planning, urban development and social exclusion. We all must constructively investigate where things went wrong in the past, to ask if we have really learnt from these mistakes and take every necessary step in our power to ensure we dont risk repetition.

As citizens it is the role of all of us to ensure the mistakes of the past are not repeated. We often forget the fact that every one of us has the power to help determine the direction our city takes into the future is a positive one.

Over the coming months I hope this column will offer ideas or opinions that will in some way stir debate and encourage you to play your part in shaping the Limerick of tomorrow.

If youd like to get in touch about the column, I can be contacted by email: nigeljdugdale@gmail.com.

Festivals that brought life and learnings to Limerick

It was so refreshing to see two Limerick festivals take place in the city recently, both of which saw all their events sold to capacity.

The Limerick Spring festival has gone from strength to strength since its inception and its organisers deserve great credit for their efforts and their passion.

Its theme this year was Hope in Uncertain Times and saw 23 events across the city including prestigious guest speakers like Vincent Browne, film screenings, lectures and the introduction of a new collaboration with UL, LIT and Mary Immaculate College.

The Limerick Literary Festival in honour of Kate OBrien has equally seen both its profile and the calibre of its events improving year on year. This year the festival welcomed speakers such as Billy Keane, Fergal Keane and the authors of Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling, Emer McLysaght and Sarah Breen.

Both festivals collaborated on Saturday night in Dolans with a joint reading and discussion by two superb local talents, Blindboy Boaclub and Kevin Barry. If this year was anything to go by Limerick has a lot to look forward to from both of these festivals over the coming years.Chameleons, such as <i>F. pardalis</i>, have long projectile tongues, independently movable eyes and two toes that point forward and two that point backward, according to the researchers of a new study.

The color-changing panther chameleon has long fascinated scientists, but there's more to the reptile than meets the eye: What was once considered to be one species is actually 11 distinct species of chameleon, a new study finds.

The colorful finding is the result of a long road trip around the island of Madagascar, in which researchers searched for panther chameleons (Furcifer pardalis) to include in the study.

"We travelled by car along paved and dirt roads and stopped each time an animal was spotted," the researchers wrote in the study. "In most cases, chameleons were spotted on the branches of trees and bushes along roads and rivers, as well as around villages." [See Photos of the 11 Distinct Chameleon Species]

The researchers found 324 panther chameleons in all. After taking a blood sample and a high-resolution photograph of each reptile, they released it back into the wild, the researchers said. (The researchers also included additional data from two panther chameleons found on Reunion Island, an island near Madagascar, and from 26 captive individuals that were part of the panther chameleon pet trade.)

The scientists did a genetic analysis, looking at the chameleons' mitochondrial DNA (the DNA passed down by mothers) and nuclear DNA (the DNA within the nucleus of a cell). They also did a mathematical analysis of each chameleon's colorful markings, based on the photos taken in the field.

The panther chameleon may actually be 11 species, not one as researchers initially thought. (Image credit: Michel Milinkovitch)

They already knew that panther chameleons lived in separate groups around Madagascar, but the genetic analysis showed just how distinct these populations were. Each of the populations had distinct lineages, and showed very low interbreeding between other populations, the researchers found.

What's more, the mathematical analyses showed that subtle color patterns could predict each chameleon's distinct genetic lineage, adding support to the idea that chameleons living in different geographic populations were distinct species.

The study shows that Madagascar still has hidden biodiversity, the researchers said. However, other studies have shown that the island is slowing down as a hotspot for new species evolution.

Furthermore, people in the pet trade may be putting the panther chameleon in danger. Many pet owners favor panther chameleons for their colors: Females and juvenile panther chameleons are tan-brown with hints of pink or orange, and adult males are larger and have several combinations of bright red, green, blue and yellow, the researchers said.

These striking colors, which are known to change prominently in males, "made F. pardalis a popular species on the U.S., European and Asian pet markets where color 'morphs' or 'locales' are often named after Malagasy villages and islands," the researchers wrote in the study.

But the new finding may help the newfound 11 different species survive. The researchers used their results to make a "simple visual classification key that can assist trade managers to avoid local population overharvesting," they wrote in the study.

To support research on chameleons and other small animals living in Madagascar, people can donate to Association Vahatra, a funding campaign managed by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago.

The study was published online Monday (May 25) in the journal Molecular Ecology.

Follow Laura Geggel on Twitter @LauraGeggel. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.A strange plant that needs no sunlight and sucks on underground fungi for nutrients has turned up in Borneo, Malaysia, 151 years after it was first documented.

Thismia neptunis is what's called a "mycoheterotroph," meaning it's part of a group of plant species that has given up photosynthesis entirely, in favor of living as parasites. They grow no functional leaves and do most of the work they need to survive underground. T. neptunis is most easily identified by its sexual organ: a small, 3.5-inch (9 centimeters) flower it pokes out of the ground, that looks like it might belong on an alien planet or perhaps deep in the ocean.

Instead, it grows in the wet dirt of a rainforest alongside a river in an area called Matang massif. [Gallery: Scientists at the Ends of the Earth]

The Italian botanist Odoardo Beccari first documented the little flowering weirdo in 1866, making beautiful drawings of its unusual shape that helped modern researchers identify specimens they found in the same region in 2017.

One of Beccari's original drawings of the flower (Image credit: Phytotaxa/Public Domain)

"To our knowledge, it is only the second finding of the species in total," the team of Czech researchers wrote in a paper published Feb. 21 in the journal Phytotaxa.

The flower is small enough to overlook, but strange once noticed. It belongs to the genus Thismia, a group of closely related plants colloquially referred to as "fairy lanterns." And the Czech team's photographs reveal that it looks remarkably similar to Beccari's original drawings.

Its smooth stem, "whitish or creamy," the researchers wrote, pokes up from a simple system of roots designed to goad nutrients from underground fungi. Its bulb has the shape of a bruised and swollen thumb  only it is sickly pale, striped with red, and has an opening at the tip like the mouth of a sea-worm. The most dramatic part of the flower is the trio of "red, hairy" appendages sticking straight up like a shrimp's long antennae from flat protrusions around the bulb  part of its pollen-producing organ.

These three photos of the flower appeared in the study. (Image credit: Phytotaxa/Creative Commons)

The researchers said they don't know precisely how the plant pollinates, but they did find two species of dead fly inside the flower, which they said might act as pollinators.

Mycoheterotrophs like T. neptunis are the gentler of the two sorts of parasitic plants that shun sunlight. The fungi they drink from do attach to nearby photosynthesizing plants, but the mycoheterotrophs don't invade those plants directly. That separates them from haustorial parasites, which sink hungry roots directly into the plants they live on, according to a fact sheetfrom botanists at Southern Illinois University[JB1] .

The researchers wrote that their rediscovery of T. neptunis is part of a broader pattern of biologists discovering new and long-lost species of plants in rainforests in the last decades, even as rainforests all around the world are shrinking and threatening collapse.

It's unknown, they wrote, the breadth of T. neptunis' range, or how that range has shifted since 1866. Beccari didn't leave detailed information on precisely where he found the flowers, though he was staying in a cabin near where the researchers spotted it recently.

The researchers wrote that the discovery makes them more hopeful that they might encounter two more plants Beccari described from his time in Malaysia that haven't been seen since, because the region of rainforest where he worked (and where T. neptunis was found) has remained largely undisturbed.

Originally published on Live Science.An scanning electron microscope (SEM) scan showing an adult female (pink) and male (blue) <em>Schistosoma mansoni</em>. The female worm lies in a groove on the male's back.

At a university hospital in the Netherlands, 17 students have a tropical parasitic disease.

But these individuals aren't travelers who recently returned from parts of the world where the parasite, a type of worm called a schistosome, is common. Instead, they're volunteers.

According to The New York Times, the 17 individuals volunteered to be infected with the worms as a part of research into a vaccine that could prevent the parasitic infection called schistosomiasis or bilharzia. [8 Awful Parasite Infections That Will Make Your Skin Crawl]

The research is taking place at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands, the Times reported on March 1. In exchange for $1,200, each volunteer was infected, through the skin, with 20 worm larvae. Because the larvae were all male, they can't reproduce inside their hosts, ensuring that the population won't increase beyond 20 per person.

Then, after eight weeks  during which the volunteers will be carefully monitored  the doctors will give the patients an anti-parasitic drug meant to wipe out the worms, and the study will be over.

The current trial isn't meant to test how well a vaccine works, according to the Times. Instead, the researchers want to see if infecting volunteers is a viable way to test future vaccines. Traditionally, vaccines are tested in parts of the world where the infection is common, and the drugs would be given to people already exposed to the disease.

The goal of the Dutch trial, therefore, is to demonstrate a way around that traditional path of testing vaccines. It aims to show that there could be an easier way to test the vaccine in people, and specifically, people who volunteered to safely be infected.

Schistosoma worms, also known as blood flukes, infect more than 200 million people worldwide, mostly in tropical and subtropical regions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The infection occurs when the worm's larvae, which live in freshwater snails, get into a person's skin, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Once inside a human body, the worms migrate to the blood vessels, where the parasites take up residence, the CDC says.

Symptoms are caused by the body's reaction not to the worms but to the worms' eggs, which are released by the females (in the Dutch study, only male worms were given to the volunteers), the WHO says.

These symptoms vary depending on where the worms congregate in the body; four of the five species affect the intestines, leading to symptoms such as diarrhea and abdominal pain; the remaining species affects the urogenital tract and can lead to blood in urine, pain and fertility problems, according to the WHO.

Praziquantel, an anti-parasitic medication, is used to treat schistosomiasis, according to the CDC.

Originally published on Live Science.About 4 percent of the people on Earth experience a mysterious phenomenon called synesthesia: They hear a sound and automatically see a color; or, they read a certain word, and a specific hue enters their mind's eye. The condition has long puzzled scientists, but a small new study may offer some clues.

The study, published today (March 5) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers insight into what might be happening in the brains of people with synesthesia.

Previous "studies of brain function using magnetic resonance imaging confirm that synesthesia is a real biological phenomenon," said senior study author Simon Fisher, director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands. For example, when people with synesthesia "hear" color, brain scans show that there's activity in the parts of the brain linked to both sight and sound, he said. (Not all people with the condition "hear" sights, however; the condition can also link other senses.) [10 Things You Didn't Know About the Brain]

Indeed, the brains of people with synesthesia previously have been shown to be more connected across different regions than the brains of people whose senses are not cross-linked, Fisher told Live Science. The question, however, was what causes this different brain wiring, he said.

To answer that question, Fisher and his team looked to genetics.

Synesthesia frequently runs in families, so the researchers decided to look for genes that might be responsible for the development of the condition. They chose three families, in which multiple members across at least three generations had a specific type of synesthesia, the so-called sound-color synesthesia, meaning that hearing sounds evokes perceptions of colors. Typically, a specific sound or musical tone is consistently associated with a specific color for people who have this type of synesthesia. However, different members of a single family can see different colors when hearing the same sound, Fisher said.

The scientists used DNA sequencing to study the participants' genes, Fisher said. Then, to identify genes that might be responsible for the condition, the scientists compared the genes of family members with synesthesia to the genes of family members without it, he said.

But the findings didn't yield a straightforward result: "There was not a single gene that could explain synesthesia in all three families," Fisher said. Instead, "there were 37 candidate variants," or possible gene variations, he said.

Because the study included only a small number of people, there wasn't enough data to single out the specific genes, of the 37 possibilities, that played a role in synesthesia. So, instead, the scientists looked at the biological functions of each gene to see how it could be related to the development of the condition. "There were just a few biological themes that were significantly enriched across the candidate genes identified," Fisher said. "One of those was axonogenesis, a crucial process helping neurons get wired up to each other in the developing brain." Axonogenesis refers to the development of neurons.

This is consistent with prior findings of altered connectivity in brain scans of people with synesthesia, Fisher said. In other words, the genes identified in the study play a role in how the brain is wired, offering a potential explanation for why the brains of people with synesthesia appear to be wired differently.

The researchers are now looking for more volunteers to participate in their future studies, which, they hope, will help them better understand how variations of certain genes alter brain structure and function. Studying synesthesia could essentially provide a window into how human brains in general create sensory representations of the outside world, Fisher said.

Originally published on Live Science.The U.S. may take over as the world's leading oil producer this year and continue to dominate crude growth for at least the next five years, the the International Energy Agency said Monday.

The problem is that global energy investments outside of U.S. onshore shale aren't keeping pace with worldwide oil demand growth trends and crude shortages could eventually emerge, said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol while speaking at the CERAWeek by IHS Markit conference in downtown Houston. Oil and gas spending internationally is yet to rebound from the 2014 bust in oil prices.

"Are we seeing enough (global) investments to provide the boosts?," he said. " Our answer is absolutely not."

The world isn't going to hit peak oil demand in the next few years, so more investment in production is needed, especially since about 3 million barrels a day are taken offline each year from as mature fields dry up, he said.

The U.S. projected to add more than 3.5 million barrels a day through 2023, the IEA said. Brazil, Canada, Norway, Iraq and Iran also are increasing production, but much more slowly, although some of that is offset by declines in Venezuela and other nations.

The IEA isn't projecting much crude production growth from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in part because of agreement to limit production to help boost global oil prices.

That's presumably good news for Houston-area energy companies hoping to churn our more oil and gas from Texas and beyond.

RELATED: As CERAWeek kicks off, energy industry focuses on technology, innovation

This so-called second wave of U.S. shale growth will see most of the oil exported to Asia, Europe and other locations as new pipelines from West Texas' booming Permian Basin to port hubs in Corpus Christi and Houston come online, Birol said.

"We cannot ignore the growth coming from shale," he said. "It is coming very strongly and it will affect not only the behaviors of the established producers but others as well. It will affect everybody."

This growing oil demand direction though is running into environmental goals from the recent Paris climate accord, which the U.S. is no longer supporting under the Trump administration.

"The trends are definitely not in line with the hardest climate goals," Birol said.

If anything, Birol said, the IEA may be underestimating oil and gas demand globally in the next few years, especially if oil prices remain higher and the petrochemical sector continues to surge, especially with growth along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast.

The U.S. mostly uses natural gas liquids to produce chemicals and plastics, but much of the rest of the world, including growing China, relies on crude oil feedstocks.

"The petrochemical sector is one of the blind spots of the oil markets debate," Birol said, when most of the conversation focuses on oil used to produce transportation fuels.Two vehicles in north San Francisco were set on fire within 30-minute span Sunday, authorities said.

Police are investigating whether the blazes are connected. In an annual city crime report released last week, police noted that arson reports increased by 18 percent from 2016 to 2017.

The first fire Sunday occurred about 11:10 p.m. near the intersection of Steiner and Filbert streets in Cow Hollow, said Officer Robert Rueca, a Police Department spokesman.

An unknown male fled on foot after allegedly starting the fire, which burned a 26-year-old mans vehicle.

Nearly a half-hour later, the vehicle of a 50-year-old woman was set ablaze a block away on the 3000 block of Pierce Street in Cow Hollow, said Rueca. Again the fire allegedly was set by a man who fled on foot.

With every crime that we have that might have any kind of ... common thread, we look at that, Rueca said. Our police investigators and fire investigators collaborate to investigate these types of crimes.

There was no immediate information on the amount of damage to the vehicles. The car owners names were not released.

So far, there are no suspect descriptions and no arrests have been made.

We are still canvassing the area for surveillance, as well as for eyewitnesses, Rueca said.SACRAMENTO  The voices rose and fell with the same regularity as the pint glasses during an Oscar party at the Sacramento dive bar Club Raven on Sunday, March 4.

Cheers erupted every time Sacramento native and filmmaker Greta Gerwig, who went to middle school across the street from the Raven, appeared on screen during the broadcast of the 90th annual Academy Awards. Or when anyone associated with Gerwigs Sacramento-set film Lady Bird appeared.

Each time the film lost out in its category  which was all five times  a low hum of disappointment filled the bar.

The Ravens eight televisions usually show sports, but on Sunday all were tuned to the Oscar telecast. This made sense, since this is kind of our Super Bowl, partygoer Bobby Castagna said.

Castagna withstood the standing-room-only crowd so he could root for Lady Bird among fellow Sacramentans in a bar whose distinctive neon sign makes a cameo in the film.

Castagna and his friend Keith Hart were pulling specifically for Gerwig to win the directing Oscar for her semi-autobiographical tale of a high school senior (Saoirse Ronan) who yearns to leave a hometown she finds provincial for an East Coast college.

What, is she like only the third woman ever nominated? Hart asked about Gerwig. She was the fifth, actually, and she lost Sunday to The Shape of Water director Guillermo del Toro.

I saw the trailer for The Shape of Water and I didnt need to see the movie because it gave away everything, said an unimpressed Castagna after Gerwigs loss.

The Raven crowd was not always partisan. Jordan Peeles original screenplay win for Get Out  over Gerwig  drew praise from Castagna, and a few cheers from elsewhere in the bar. And Frances McDormand (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) bested Ronan in the lead actress category but drew howls and wolf whistles (the good kind) from Raven patrons when she urged all the female nominees at the Oscars to stand up in solidarity.

Ava Hasher said Lady Bird will have a lasting impact despite its lack of Oscars. Hasher, who moved from Portland, Ore., to New York to attend medical school, said that when she arrived on the East Coast, nobody knew a thing about Portland. No one had heard of it until Portlandia, she said, referring to the long-running television comedy. Lady Bird similarly, has made people think about Sacramento who dont live here and did not know anything about it, Hasher said.An actress from San Antonio can be seen in three upcoming episodes of prime-time TV drama The Fosters.

Her recurring character is part of a highly emotional storyline keyed to the hot-button issue of immigration in this country.

Leticia Jimenez, a graduate of John Jay High School and Our Lady of the Lake University, plays Maria Theresa Sinfuego, an immigrant from Mexico, mother of two daughters, who entered the United States illegally with her husband many years prior to build a better life for their family.

RELATED: Did San Antonio cutie nail 'Master Chef Junior'?

Younger daughter Poppy was born in the United States while high school student Ximena (Lisseth Chavez), a close friend of series regular Callie Adams Foster (Maia Mitchell), is dealing with the fact that her DACA status is in jeopardy.

Callie and her foster parents, the Fosters of the title, passionately go to bat for the Sinfuegos, taking Ximena and Poppy into their home when their parents are arrested.

That happened during Jimenezs first appearance on the show in January, when hard-working Maria Theresa and her husband, Juan Sinfuego, were picked up by immigration enforcement officers and put behind bars.

In Tuesdays episode  at 7 p.m. on Freeform (the youth-oriented cable network, formerly known as ABC Family)  the Sinfuegos appear in court before a judge, who decides the familys fate.

While filming the hour and two more subsequent episodes, Jimenez said she cried a lot because the situation surrounding her character was extremely emotional.

The writing was so beautiful, and I wanted to do it justice, she said in a phone interview from her home in Los Angeles.

Tuesdays moving episode, made available to critics, is likely to inspire tears from viewers, as well.

RELATED: Bold new Lifetime series features San Antonio woman

My hope is that people empathize through the struggles of this one family and all they represent  and remember that this country was founded by immigrants for immigrants, who like the Sinfuegos, just wanted a better life for themselves and a better future for their children, Jimenez said.

Landing such an arc in the fifth and final season of The Fosters, an award-winning series, was a huge blessing, said the S.A. native. Its considered to be one of the most progressive family shows on television  diverse and frequently mirroring current issues at play in this country.

For those unfamiliar with The Fosters, a brief summary: The drama, which was embraced by Jennifer Lopez, who signed on as executive producer early on, revolves around a multiethnic family of adopted and biological teenage kids being raised by two moms.

Stef Adams Foster (Teri Polo), a police officer, and her wife, Lena Adams Foster (Sherri Saum), a school vice principal, have built a loving family with Stefs biological son from a previous marriage, Brandon; their adopted twins, Mariana and Jesus; and adopted siblings Jude and his half-sister Callie.

Jimenezs own route to The Fosters was full of twists and turns.

She graduated with a psychology degree from OLLU in 1998.

Her performing career began much earlier, however  as a dancer. As a child, she benefited from programs offered by the citys Parks & Recreation Department, learning ballet, classic Spanish dance and flamenco. She ended up moving to Spain and touring around the world for many years.

Around 2008, she got involved in movies, moving to New Orleans, home to many productions. She began taking on small roles in both short and feature-length films. Some of her notable credits are TVs Treme and the movie Pitch Perfect 2.

She also acted in a film she produced herself, Jakes Road.

Jimenez, who frequently visits her mom and brothers in San Antonio, considers The Fosters her biggest break thus far.

Shes particularly appreciative of the dramas sensitive handling of her illegal immigration storyline.

Too often the immigrant is categorized as a criminal when the reality is the majority of undocumented immigrants live a peaceful normal life and are law-abiding citizens, she said. They are not the enemy.Slayer announced Monday a San Antonio stop to the second leg of their final tour.

Tickets for the Aug. 15 show at The Freeman Coliseum will go on sale March 9 at 10 a.m. "Very limited" meet-and-greet packages are available, according to a news release.

Lamb of God, Anthrax, Testament and Napalm Death are also on the bill, the release said.

RELATED: Music festivals in San Antonio, around Texas in 2018

The second leg of the tour was prompted by an "unprecedented demand for tickets," according to the release.

"We were blown away by the speed of sales for the final run," President of Touring for Live Nation Rick Franks said in a statement. "Thirty-six years later and Slayer is bigger than ever before."

Madalyn Mendoza is a digital reporter for MySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| mmendoza@mysa.com | Twitter: @MaddySkyeThe Houston-born Sweet Paris Creperie & Cafe brand is about to bring more of its unique je ne sais quoi to one of the city's prime retail meccas.

The company has announced it will move into Highland Village in a portion of the former Kate Spade space at 2701 Drexel Dr.; the store, which will be the flagship location of its multi-unit brand, is expected to open in late summer 2018.

Sweet Paris founders Allison and Ivan Chavez are making the new store something special. They're hired the Rockwell Group, headed by American architect David Rockwell, to design the space.

The Rockwell Group is responsible for the look of high-profile restaurants including Nobu and Tao; hotels such as W in Singapore and Paris, the Ritz-Carlton in Boston and the New York Edition; and nightclubs including Jewel and Omni in Las Vegas.

The design group is planning a modern interpretation of a classic French cafe using Carrera marble, white bricks, grey wood, and black hexagon tile in the 136-seat restaurant that will also feature an outdoor terrace.

Allison Chavez said Rockwell Group will "elevate it to the next level with their expertise in lighting and design."

The menu will remain the same with its wide selection of sweet and savory crepes, soup and salad, waffles, egg dishes, and tea and coffee service. But Chavez said the Highland Village store will feature an expanded beer and wine program.

Sweet Paris is on an expansion track. The brand, which had its beginnings in 2012 with its first store in Rice Village, has since grown to include a second Houston store at CityCentre, and three more cafes scheduled to open this year in Katy, the Woodlands, and College Station.

Beyond that the Chavezes are eyeing locations in Dallas and San Antonio and beyond that in Southern California and Southern Florida.Jennifer Lawrence stopped attending public school in Louisville after eighth grade. Casey Seiler's column in Sunday's Perspective section incorrectly stated she attended high school there.

Accuracy is a fundamental of journalism, but mistakes sometimes occur. The Times Union's policy is to acknowledge errors as promptly as possible. Mistakes may be brought to the attention of the editors by calling 518-454-5420.David Paul Morris

South by Southwest in Austin this month -- including its education component this week -- will draw in higher education leaders from around the country. Here are a few noteworthy sessions Texas higher education followers may enjoy.

Open educational resources: Multiple panels will discuss this movement toward cheap textbooks. First, Monday at 11 a.m., Daniel Williamson of Rice University's OpenStax will talk about promising practices in the cheap textbook movement. Then, at 12:30 p.m., panelists will discuss quality control and other hurdles.The San Jacinto County Commissioners Court approved rebidding on the Community Development Block Grant project intended for use on the local senior centers during the Feb. 28 meeting.

The grant was awarded with the purpose of improving both the Coldspring Senior Center and the Shepherd Senior Center with refurbishments such as new kitchen equipment and other items.

Randy Blanks of Waxman and Associates recommended rejecting the bids opened on Feb. 15, 2018.

"We only have $144,563 left after we purchased equipment for the kitchens for both sites," he said.

The motion was made by Pct. 4 Commissioner Mark Nettuno to rebid the project with a second by Pct. 2 Commissioner Donnie Marrs. The motion was passed unanimously.

Discussion on the item wasn't finished as Blanks explained what each of the senior centers needs as far as refurbishments are concerned. Members of both senior centers spoke on the issue. Wanda Padlock of the Shepherd Senior Center voiced her concerns on the due date for the projects.

"Do we have enough time to get this done by Sept. 14? That is our deadline," she asked. "Now we're down to five months and we've got to hurry up and get this done."

Padlock emphasized that the five months is all that is left of nearly four years of time to complete the project. The court assured her that the project will be completed by that time.

Eagle Scout Ethan Benestante of Boy Scout Troop 845 made a presentation before the court regarding his "Made in the Shade" project.

"I think it's a very good thing," said Pct. 1 Commissioner Laddie McAnally.

Benestante described his project, which is to do a cover for one of the park benches over at the Head Start building.

"When I was younger we used to go work out at the Head Start and it was so hot and there was no shade over there," he said.

The project, according to Benestante, is to put a basic apron roof over the bench. Benestante needs this for one of his badges as part of the Eagle Scout program.

According to Assistant Scout Master and Benestante's father, Eric Benestante, the goal is to try and finish this project by mid-April.

"This is a permanent structure," said Eric Benestante.

The project was approved unanimously.

The court also discussed the approval of a complete upgrade of the technology infrastructure to facilitate the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) grant.

San Jacinto County Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy Joe Schultea discussed the item before the court stating that the request is for permission to apply for the grant.

"Last year they only would pay for the RMS items. Now they will pay for a complete upgrade of our technology infrastructure," said Schultea.

Schultea says the grant is estimated at around $300,000 total. The grant is 100 percent with no match.

"We've talked to about seven vendors," said Schultea. "One of the vendors that stood out back then, we're back into conversation with them."

The grant project is expected to affect areas Schultea says are in need such as records management systems, the jail system, dispatch systems and more.

The court approved authorizing a resolution going out for the grant.

In other news, the court approved a proclamation and declared March 18 as Care/Share Mission, Inc. Day to celebrate the food pantry's 30 years of service. The court also approved an agreement with the Texas Film Commission to certify San Jacinto County as a film certified community.We've all been there. Someone talks during the movie in the theater, and sighs permeate as everyone waits for someone else to confront the offender.

But most people let a 2-year-old girl slide.

That's not the case, however, with Keri Karman, police say, who is accused of raining popcorn and the empty tub on a child at an AMC movie theater in Levittown, Long Island. She and her father were arrested Friday after an investigation of the Jan. 2 incident, the New York Post reported.

The incident played out against a screening of the PG-13 rated "Star Wars: The Last Jedi," itself a movie that drew considerable debate and charged discussion amid its divisive reception.

Celia Riggs, 28, had settled into her seat with her husband, Scottie, and three children to watch the film, the Post reported. Her 2-year-old daughter asked for some popcorn and Karman, 25, told the girl to be quiet, police said.

Riggs "asked the unknown female not to talk to her daughter," a Nassau County Police Department incident summary said, referring to Karman.

"All she said was 'popcorn.' She didn't even say a full sentence," Riggs, 28, told the New York Post.

Then it got ugly, authorities said.

Karman allegedly began to curse at the girl and Riggs and placed her hand over the child's mouth. Then Karman showered the girl in popcorn and struck her with the empty container. Karman then fled with her father, Charles, as Riggs' daughter cried. The girl had a contusion from the incident, authorities said.

Police did not provide additional details about the arrest, including why the pair was arrested two months after the screening. Police spokeswoman Jean Deluca Scalone did not return an request seeking further details.

The Karmans were charged with endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor in New York, and issued tickets to appear in court, according to police. Keri and Charles Karman, 61, could not be reached for comment. Riggs declined an interview with The Washington Post.

Abby Levitt Ferrara, a friend of Keri, defended her on Facebook, calling the accusation out of character.

"Too bad you didn't hear the real story!! When asked to quiet the kid, the mother pushed Keri and the popcorn went flying," Ferrara wrote, according to the New York Post. "Keri never raised a hand in any way . . . there is not an aggressive bone in Keri's body."

Riggs disputed that version of events to the paper, denying she ever pushed Karman.

"No one else complained about her. If she was this screaming monster child, someone else might have said something, and between the adults she was with, someone would have taken her out," she said.ISTANBUL - A United Nations convoy carrying lifesaving assistance entered the besieged Syrian enclave of Eastern Ghouta on Monday, reaching civilians for the first time in weeks amid a punishing government assault that has created one of the worst humanitarian crises of the war.

Food parcels, nutritional supplements and some medical supplies were aboard the 46-truck convoy, which was organized by U.N. agencies, the International Committee for the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

The Syrian government, however, stripped the convoy of much its medical supplies, including surgical kits, insulin and dialysis equipment, U.N. officials said. On Monday, Syrian government forces continued to pound Eastern Ghouta with airstrikes and shelling, activists and aid workers said. Dozens of people were reported killed.

The White House also "condemned sharply the bombing in East Ghouta" on Monday.

In a readout of a Sunday phone call between President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May, the White House said that "the United States and United Kingdom will hold Russia accountable for compelling the Assad regime to halt attacks against civilian areas and for granting access to humanitarian relief in East Ghouta."

As many as 400,000 people are trapped in the enclave, which suffers from severe shortages of food and medical supplies.

"This assistance is a drop in an ocean of needs," said Marwa Awad, spokeswoman for the World Food Program in Damascus.

Awad, who was accompanying the convoy Monday, said WFP was carrying enough food assistance for 27,500 people, as well as supplies to treat 300 children for acute malnutrition.

"We're hoping everything goes as planned," she said, "so that we can reach those people in desperate need of humanitarian and food assistance."

The area's already decrepit hospitals have been overwhelmed by an influx of casualties in recent weeks, including more than 2,500 wounded residents. Nearly 600 people have died in Eastern Ghouta since Feb. 18, the United Nations said Sunday.

In a statement, the ICRC said that it was able to bring in surgical items such as dressing materials.

"The convoy is a positive first step and will lessen the immediate suffering of some civilians in the Eastern Ghouta region," said the ICRC's Middle East director, Robert Mardini. "But one convoy, however big, will never be enough, given the dire conditions and shortages people are facing. Repeated and continuous humanitarian access is essential, and more must be granted in the coming period."

The last time the ICRC was able to deliver aid in Eastern Ghouta was Nov. 12, the organization said.

Still, it remained unclear whether the convoy would be able to offload the aid before the fighting resumed Monday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose government backs Syrian forces, last week ordered a daily "humanitarian pause" from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. for aid distribution and medical evacuations. Russia has blamed the rebels for the lack of evacuations and accused them of violating the temporary cease-fire.

The United Nations has said that five hours is an insufficient amount of time to provide the level of food and aid needed in Eastern Ghouta.

It will probably take "many hours" to unload the aid Monday, said Ali al-Zatari, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Syria, Reuters reported. The convoy may need to stay until "well after nightfall," he said.As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared for a White House meeting with President Donald Trump that will focus on Iran and peacemaking, his troubles at home multiplied.

Coalition partners threatened to bring down the government and force early elections over ultra-Orthodox military enlistment. While the threats intensified, Israeli media reported that Nir Hefetz became the third Netanyahu confidant to agree to testify against the prime minister, who has become entangled in multiple corruption probes.

The agreement with Hefetz, Netanyahu's longtime spokesman, "makes it seem like we're moving one step closer to an indictment," said Dahlia Scheindlin, a pollster and political consultant at the Mitvim research institute. "We assume that if there's an agreement for him to be a state witness, then he has something to offer."

It is unclear whether the other two state witnesses have offered significant information regarding the three corruption cases in which Netanyahu has been implicated. Police declined to say if Hefetz had turned against his former boss, who is most recently suspected of helping Israel's largest telecommunications company, Bezeq Israeli Telecommunication Corp., win benefits in exchange for sympathetic coverage by a media unit. Police have already recommended charging Netanyahu in two other influence-peddling cases.

Hefetz's defection and the early elections talk put a damper on Netanyahu's visit to the Trump White House on Monday, which was seen as offering him an opportunity to divert attention away from domestic problems and to highlight his warm relations with the U.S. administration. If his government falls, elections could be held as early as this summer instead of late 2019, when the term expires, analysts said.

Early elections aren't necessarily a bad thing for Netanyahu, Israel's second-longest-serving prime minister. His Likud party has been polling well in recent weeks as his political base rallies around him while the allegations of corruption against him mount. Although it's not clear he wants early elections, if polls continue to show him faring well, that could influence him to seek a vote before he is weakened politically by a possible indictment, analysts said.

"According to the polls, he would win," said Chaim Weizmann, who teaches politics at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya. "After he won in 2015, he became convinced that he is the chosen one. It's him and then God. This is the order."

Ultra-Orthodox political party leaders are threatening to vote against the 2019 budget unless the coalition first passes legislation to exempt ultra-Orthodox men from military service. Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman has vowed to block such legislation, and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon has said his Kulanu party will quit the coalition and deprive it of its parliamentary majority if the Knesset doesn't approve the spending plan before going on Passover recess next week.

Polls show that most coalition parties have little to gain from an early vote. Some may be calculating that any indictment of Netanyahu is certain to spark political turmoil, and that it may be better to head into elections early standing up for an issue popular with their constituencies.

"Sometimes you wind up going to elections with no party really wanting them," said Shmuel Sandler, a Bar-Ilan University political scientist. "Nobody can gain from an election. The ultra-Orthodox have their ideal coalition and the other parties aren't polling much better than their current seat count."

Netanyahu said he is working to resolve the issue.

"There is no reason for this to happen, and with goodwill, it won't," he said before departing to Washington.

The debate over ultra-Orthodox military enlistment is highly charged and many secular Israelis resent the exemption, which had existed under other governments. Netanyahu's previous coalition passed legislation in 2014 requiring ultra-Orthodox men to serve, but ultra-Orthodox parties demanded its revocation as their price for joining the current government.

Their attempt at amending the 2014 law was struck down last year by Israel's High Court as perpetuating inequality.

- - -

With assistance from Bloomberg's Yaacov Benmeleh and Jonathan FerzigerBEIJING - China may have formally tightened the screws on Hong Kong on Monday by eliminating a reference to the people of the territory governing themselves, in a key report delivered by Premier Li Keqiang at the opening of the annual meeting of the country's parliament.

In a long address to the National People's Congress, Li set out the government's detailed report on its achievements over the past year, and the challenges ahead.

The text on many issues is usually very similar from one year to the next, but subtle differences in language sometimes yield important clues as to Communist Party thinking.

This year, there was one striking omission, quickly spotted by reporters from Hong Kong.

Describing the principle of One Country, Two Systems under which Hong Kong has been governed since the handover from British rule, the 2017 report said: "under which the people of Hong Kong govern themselves, the people of Macao govern themselves, and both regions enjoy a high degree of autonomy."

That entire phrase was eliminated this year.

Anson Chan, who served as the territory's top bureaucrat during the handover from British to Chinese rule, said the omission was significant, and yet another affirmation that "whatever autonomy Hong Kong enjoys is for Beijing to give and take away at will."

"With its growing economic and geopolitical clout, Beijing is not even bothering to keep up the pretense that 'one country, two systems' - with the Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong - is alive and well," she wrote in an email.

"I fear that with the institutional safeguard removed and the fact that Xi can serve indefinitely, he will tighten his grip over Hong Kong and continue to undermine the rule of law, our core values and way of life," she added. "Universal suffrage will recede even further into the future."

But Rita Fan, a member of the outgoing Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, said Hong Kong people did not need to read too much into the omission, because references to Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong and the high degree of autonomy were state policies and included the Basic Law governing the territory.

"It's not just reflected clearly in the Basic Law, but it's also from the constitution of our country. So there's no need to repeat this every year. In fact, it's not going to change," she told reporters. "President Xi himself has said on a number of occasions that 'one country, two systems' is the policy of this country and it will not change. So I don't think we need to worry about that or read too much into something."

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets of Hong Kong in 2014 to call for full democracy in the territory, but the "Umbrella Movement" failed to win any concessions from the governments of Hong Kong and China.

Since then, experts say, Beijing has steadily tightened its grip on Hong Kong, and chipped away at the autonomy it has enjoyed under One Country, Two Systems. Pro-democracy politicians said the latest wording was only another part of that process.

"It is an obvious gesture to solidify Beijing's increasingly intrusive role in Hong Kong's own domestic affairs and continue the erosion of Hong Kong's autonomy," said Avery Ng, a pro-democracy activist and chairman of the League of Social Democrats in Hong Kong. "This small omission is a big step backwards."

Andy Chan, the convenor of the Hong Kong National Party, called the "one country, two systems" model a trap.

"This is a plot written before 1997," he said. "The Chinese Communist Party is colonizing Hong Kong, and will eventually turn Hong Kong into China."

In both 2017 and 2018, the central government expressed support for the chief executives of both Hong Kong and Macao in exercising "law-based governance," growing the economy and promoting social harmony. In 2017, the list included the phrase "advancing democracy," and in 2018, "progressively advancing democracy."

But in reality, experts say, Beijing has decided that democracy in Hong Kong is a dangerous idea that needs to be quashed. The territory's chief executive, Carrie Lam, was elected last year by a 1,200-member Election Committee packed with Beijing loyalists.Minneapolis

Fifteen students in one Florida school district are facing felony charges and prison time for making alleged threats since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre. Meanwhile, an autistic Minnesota high school student whose alleged threat led to a six-hour lockdown is in juvenile court and has received an outpouring of sympathy.

The Feb. 14 killings of 17 people in Parkland, Florida, have ignited a wave of copycat threats, as happens after nearly every high-profile school shooting. Most prove unfounded, but cause big disruptions to schools while tying up police for hours or even days.

Experts say authorities' swift responses are underscoring a climate in which even idle threats will result in serious consequences.

"Kids make bad decisions and I think that in decades past those decisions would have been addressed behind closed doors with the principal and parents," said Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a Cleveland-based consulting company. "Now they're being addressed behind closed doors in the police station and the courtroom."

The Volusia County Schools system in east-central Florida isn't taking chances. Sheriff Michael Chitwood made it clear he had a zero-tolerance policy as threats began after Parkland. On Thursday, he went further, saying students or their families would have to pay the costs of the investigations  at least $1,000 and sometimes much more.

District spokeswoman Nancy Wait said the message is clear: We're not joking around.

"Unfortunately that word didn't get to the students and we started seeing more students making threats in the classroom, and that was frightening to their classmates," she said. "Most of the time these students didn't have access to weapons, but they were still making threats to shoot up their schools."

Don Bridges, president of the National Association of School Resource Officers and a veteran of 16 years on duty at Franklin High School in suburban Baltimore, said the number of threats goes down when districts send a strong message that they won't be tolerated.

The Educator's School Safety Network, which tracks reports of school threats and violent incidents across the country, has documented a spike since Parkland. The Ohio group counted 797 as of Sunday. Most (743) were for threats of various kinds, including gun and bomb threats. The threats were made mostly via social media (331) and verbally (119).

That amounts to about a sevenfold increase in the usual rate, director of programs Amy Klinger said.

"The mentality has shifted in a very short period of time from kids being kids to this is very serious stuff," she said. She expects consequences of post-Parkland threats to be harsher than before.

"They almost have to be," she said. "Do we want to do this for the rest of the school year? Do we want to have this constant chaos and fear, and people being upset? How much learning is going on?"

Tom Clark, a defense attorney in Santa Fe, New Mexico, represents a 14-year-old boy whose threat preceded Parkland but who faced tough consequences.

Clark said the boy had been having a bad day and wrote a list of people he wanted to shoot. After someone found the list in November, the boy, who had never been in trouble before, was jailed, facing hefty charges and a lifetime expulsion. He eventually was sentenced to probation.

"After the initial harsh reaction, at least the district attorney stepped back and the superintendent of schools stepped back and looked at it in a more compassionate light," Clark said.

"No one wants to be the judge or the police officer or the security guard who doesn't take action and something awful happens," Clark said.WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump said he may soon visit Israel to open a new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem as he offered a warm welcome Monday to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - one that did not include any public mention of the potentially career-ending inquiry that followed the long-serving Israeli leader to Washington.

"I may" go for the planned May opening of the embassy, Trump said. "We're looking at coming. If I can, I will."

Netanyahu said of Trump's decision to move the embassy to Jerusalem: "This will be remembered by our people through the ages. Others talked about it. You did it."

The relocated embassy Trump would inaugurate is actually a refitted office that will serve as the vanguard U.S. diplomatic headquarters until a permanent structure is built years from now.

Trump boasted Monday that he is building it for a mere $250,000, instead of what he said was a $1 billion government "order."

He appeared to be referring only to the initial office. The permanent structure is estimated to take roughly a decade to be built and could easily cost $1 billion.

The two leaders, who have formed a personal bond closer than any Trump has with other world leaders, gave no sign that the corruption allegations, which Netanyahu denies, were coloring their meeting. Trump has a cloud over his own administration as special counsel Robert S. Mueller III investigates his aides and others as part of an inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

"We have, I would say, probably the best relationships right now with Israel that we ever had," Trump said. "I think we're as close now as, maybe, ever before."

Trump noted that other presidents hesitated to move the embassy from Tel Aviv and said that his decision can clear the air for an eventual peace deal.

Palestinians disagree, saying the embassy decision spoils chances for peace, by appearing to write off their claim to East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.

Netanyahu arrived at the White House early Monday afternoon, just hours after reports from Israel said a former media adviser and confidant has turned state's witness in a far-reaching bribery case.

In what appeared to be a sign of the political importance of the session to Netanyahu, the White House changed plans Monday morning and announced that reporters and cameras would be allowed into what had been an Oval Office meeting closed to the media.

Netanyahu's praise of Trump and his upending of U.S. policy on Jerusalem was meant as a sign of political strength at home - it aired during the much-watched evening news period in Israel - and it hinted at the stakes for the veteran leader.

"I have been here for nearly four decades . . . talking, seeking to build the American-Israeli alliance," Netanyahu said, referring to his long career in Israeli politics. "Under your leadership, it's never been stronger, and the people of Israel see your position on Jerusalem, they see your position on Iran. They see your magnificent defense of Israel and the truth in the United Nations."

And as prime minister, he said, he sees something his citizens cannot in the deep and interdependent intelligence and defense networks the two allies have built. Trump nodded repeatedly as Netanyahu spoke.

"Thank you for your leadership. And thank for your tremendous friendship," Netanyahu said as Trump smiled.

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and Middle East adviser, attended some but not all of the lengthy session, Netanyahu said later. Kushner has lost his top-level security clearance.

Kushner's business dealings are also under special-counsel scrutiny.

Kushner heads an effort to broker what Trump has called "the ultimate deal" between Israel and the Palestinians, but the plan was a back-burner issue at Monday's session. It was shelved amid fierce Arab and allied opposition to Trump's decision in December to declare that the United States considers Jerusalem to be Israeli's capital.

Asked Monday about chances for peace, Trump seemed more optimistic than he has in other recent comments.

"We're working on it very hard," Trump said. "It would be a great achievement - and even from a humanitarian standpoint - what better if we could make peace between Israel and the Palestinians? And I can tell you, we are working very hard on doing that. And I think we have a very good chance."

He gave no date for when the United States might unveil its proposals.

"The Palestinians, I think, are wanting to come back to the table very badly," Trump said.

Pressed as to what he meant, given the hard line Palestinians have taken against any U.S.-brokered peace effort, Trump sounded matter-of-fact.

"If they don't, you don't have peace," he said.

Speaking to the media before setting off for Washington, Netanyahu told reporters that he planned to reiterate Israel's concerns over the Iranian nuclear deal and the growing prominence of Iran in Syria, and planned to discuss issues related to Trump's potential Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu's political career is dogged by at least three criminal cases at home and seems less stable than ever.

While the country's right-wing coalition has mostly rallied around the long-serving prime minister, there are signs of weakness as the investigations progress. Additional reports Monday of a faceoff between Netanyahu's coalition partners over the long-running issue of drafting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the state military seems to also suggest the possibility of snap elections.

They could come as early as June.

On Friday, Netanyahu was questioned by Israeli detectives about his role in a case involving Nir Hefetz, the man Israeli media refer to as Netanyahu's "spin doctor." Labeled Case 4000 by the police, it is said to involve the granting of regulatory benefits worth millions of dollars to Israeli telecommunications giant Bezeq in return for positive news coverage for the Netanyahu family on the Walla news website.

Israeli news reports Monday said that Hefetz has agreed to turn state's witness; police declined to comment.

At the center of the case is Shaul Elovitch, Walla's owner and a majority shareholder in Bezeq, who is said to have made millions in the easing of communication regulations. Netanyahu is linked to the case because he was communications minister at that time. Shlomo Filber, the former director general of the Communications Ministry, recently turned state's witness in the case.

The new developments in Case 4000 come weeks after police recommended indicting Netanyahu in two cases - Case 1000 and Case 2000, in police parlance. According to the police notes, Case 1000 involves gifts of cigars and jewelry amounting to more than $280,000 that the prime minister and his wife are suspected of receiving from billionaire benefactors.

Case 2000, police said, involved deals made between Netanyahu and Arnon Mozes, publisher of the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth. According to information leaked to the Israeli media, an agreement apparently would have allowed the prime minister to receive more favorable coverage from the newspaper if he agreed to weaken the status of a rival daily newspaper owned by U.S. casino magnate Sheldon Adelson.

Israel's attorney general must now decide whether to indict Netanyahu on those two cases.

In an additional case, dubbed Case 3000, involving a multibillion-dollar submarine deal with Germany, several members of Netanyahu's inner circle have been named as suspects, questioned or arrested. The case has not been linked to Netanyahu directly.

Iran and the 2015 international nuclear pact are expected to be Netanyahu's focus during an address Tuesday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Netanyahu told Israeli reporters traveling with him that he argued to Trump that the president should "fix or nix" the nuclear agreement signed three years ago limiting Iran's nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief.

Vice President Pence and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley addressed the hawkish pro-Israel group Monday evening. Both are among the Trump advisers who are deeply skeptical about the Iran nuclear agreement, which Trump has threatened to abandon in May. Both were also proponents of the embassy move.

"Standing up for your friends is critical," said Haley, a favorite at the conference who received extended rounds of applause.

The crowd loudly applauded her account of how the United States announced its withdrawal from UNESCO, the U.N. heritage agency that she accused of a history of bias against Israel.

"We're never going to put up with bullying."

She got even louder applause when she said "Jerusalem was, is, and will always be the capital of Israel."

On the eve of the session, Guatemala joined the United States in announcing that it will move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. No other countries have followed suit, despite Trump's prediction to the contrary.It took Warby Parker three years to figure out exactly how to sate its customers demands. At first, when it launched in 2010, the company was online only: It offered to mail people five different fashion-forward eyewear frames so they could try them on at home, decide what they like and mail the rest back. When sample inventory ran out after two days, customers called the co-founders -- who were then students at Wharton living near campus -- and asked to come to their apartment to try on the product. (They said OK.) Then in 2011, Warby Parker moved into a building in Manhattan, and thousands of people arrived to try on the in-demand glasses. The companys landlord threatened to evict it for monopolizing the elevator.

Related: 6 Steps to Building a Million-Dollar Ecommerce Site in 60 Days

So in 2013, the company finally found a solution. Though it had quickly become a famous ecommerce company, Warby Parker opened its first official store. By the end of 2016, it had 36 stores, and half of the companys revenue -- then estimated at $250 million -- came from brick-and-mortar sales. Today, it has a total of 63 locations across the U.S. and Canada, with plans to hit 90 by 2019.

This brick-and-mortar success comes at a time when the imminent death of retail is a regular news story. Real estate firm Cushman Wakefield estimates that 12,000 stores will shutter in 2018, up significantly from the 9,000 that already closed their doors in 2017. But Warby Parker isnt alone in its commitment to retail. Other ecommerce leaders like Birchbox, Everlane and Bonobos are staking their next round of growth on brick-and-mortar outposts.

What do these brands know that others dont? For starters: exactly where to find their customers.

As a digital-first merchant, Warby Parker has been gathering valuable information about its customers from day one -- first and foremost, where they live. That gives it an immediate edge in selecting locations for stores. To figure out if a space will maximize traffic and sales, Warbys team reviews a mass of data points that help them find the best block on the best street in the most ideal neighborhood. Population density, the number of eyeglass customers and preexisting ecommerce sales in the area all play a part in the comprehensive consideration of an area. So do comparative sales data on nearby stores, available retail space and the neighborhood landscape, including factors like whether or not having a cafe on the same block as a Warby store will impact sales.

Related: 67 Fascinating Facts About Ecommerce vs. Brick and Mortar (Infographic)

Most of that data comes from Warbys own documentation of customer behavior and a proprietary statistical model, but the company also taps anonymized data sold by cell carriers that track user movement. People dont always shop where they live; some shop closer to their work. Thats important to understand when selecting a site.

We are believers in deep data rather than big data, says Neil Blumenthal, who, alongside his co-founder Dave Gilboa, serves as co-CEO.

Of course, Warby Parker can afford to build out an in-house data team to pinpoint perfect locations. But even young brands can take a page from its book. Ecommerce platform Shopify, popular among startups and established companies alike, gives merchants access to consumer behavior data, which savvy users have relied on as they consider expanding to brick-and-mortar stores.

Sheena Brady, a Shopify employee who moonlights as the founder and CEO of Canada-based Tease Tea, launched an online store with plans to serve her small local market in Ottawa. A year later, she was surprised by orders placed by shoppers in the U.S. who had stumbled upon her site. Brady took a closer look and found Tease Tea had a strong fan base in the New York area. I used Shopify reporting data and decided to open a pop-up in New York City, Brady says. She set up shop in an indoor market in the Meatpacking District, and sales were so good, she opened a second location in the city with extended hours.

Similarly, U.K.-based athleisure brand Gymshark noticed a lot of orders coming in from Los Angeles. By digging into that sales data, as well as examining where their most active, engaged social media followers were based, the company decided to open a pop-up store in Santa Monica, which operated for a single weekend in January. It was a huge success -- record setting in terms of brand awareness, says Seb Mills, Gymsharks IT director. Despite the pop-up victory, Gymshark, which launched in 2012, is taking it slow before investing in full-time retail stores. Theres always potential to explore that avenue, and if and when we do, the locations will be data-driven decisions.

Meanwhile, traditional retailers are falling farther and farther behind their younger, more nimble competition. The nature of their business works against them: Most are saddled with inventory and pricey leases, and due to the nature of brick-and-mortar retail, theyre not gathering much useful data on their customers.

Still, retail insiders offer a word of caution: Unfortunately for them, were still in the early days of using deep-data science to make real estate decisions. At Foursquare, the social network that remade itself as an agency that helps retailers and marketers use location data, CEO Jeff Glueck says his team is actively exploring datas limits. Its working with several companies on a pilot program to deploy the extensive data in Foursquares arsenal -- including foot traffic by time of day and demographic info from more than 140 countries -- on a real-time basis. Thats powerful stuff, Glueck says. But it requires great sophistication. Top hedge funds use foot traffic to predict earnings for publicly traded companies, but they have the capacity to process it. Glueck says this kind of data wont be a part of the retail leasing toolbox for another five to 10 years.

Related: 4 Ways a 'Data-Driven' Approach Anticipates Buyer Behavior

Nevertheless, the companies that can blend online and brick-and-mortar seem to have an advantage -- gaining access to good data while also connecting with people in person. That way, online informs retail, and retail informs online, creating a symbiosis that pays off for those who can master the balance. Industry-wide, when a digital retailer opens a store, traffic from internet users in the region jumps between 25 percent and 100 percent, according to Frank Layo, a managing director at Kurt Salmon, part of Accenture Strategy. The physical stores, he says, solve a key problem for digital etailers: How do I get another touchpoint?

The physical store also creates data that no online store ever could. For example, Warby Parker recently tested a kiosk-style pop-up in the middle of Brookfield Place, a mall in lower Manhattan. (Malls are different animals from street-front stores -- they can require merchants to be open at hours that arent productive and serve a different clientele.) The company learned something unexpected: Customers dont like trying on prescription glasses in a public setting; its too intimate, Blumenthal says. But sunglasses sold well. Warby Parker has added that insight to its ever-growing collection of data.

If you believe in putting the customer first as a strategy, then you just find ways to create better and better experiences, Blumenthal says. Eventually that takes you to data.

Related:



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com

GLEN CARBON  In an effort to provide a more accurate estimation of how much tax money will be collected, the Village of Glen Carbon has changed its fiscal year dates.

At the last regular meeting of the full board, trustees voted to change the fiscal year from May 1  April 30 to a calendar year, Jan. 1  Dec. 31.

Director of Finance Scott Borror said with the non-calendar year fiscal year, a preliminary or faux budget would have to be created in the fall because the village relied on the budget for the purpose of setting a tax levy.

While I concur with the importance to improve upon the ability to make informed decisions on the levy setting process, it is logistically difficult to place more time and effort into the process under the current fiscal year timeline, Borror said. Auditing responsibilities during October and November dominate the Finance Departments time while also working to establish the tax levy.

Borror said that during his research of the subject he found many local municipalities have changed the dates of their fiscal years.

Ive spoken with or emailed five of the seven local governments that recently made the transition, Borror said. In retrospect, each of my colleagues from those locations is happy they made the change.

In addition to the benefit of having a more accurate tax levy, Borror said the change would align with the actuarial reports related to pension liability with the fiscal year; make budgeting for health insurance easier as most insurance companies follow a calendar year; fall in line with the states Motor Fuel Tax calendar; and eliminate confusion on what fiscal year the village is actually in for external users.

Borror said in the long-term the change will help, but said this transition year will provide challenges.

With our current fiscal year ending on April 30, the new fiscal year will only be eight months long, Borror said. The transition year will be difficult as staff will be auditing and budgeting at the same time during the fall.

Mayor Rob Jackstadt said the change will give the Village a more realistic view of how much money is needed from taxpayers.

There are a lot of reasons for doing this but I think it is a positive move forward in modernizing the village but especially to the extent that the village wants to know when they set the budget and puts in a request from tax money that we will know how much we are really going to need, Jackstadt said. Currently we are projecting our needs out five or six months. Now we will only be projecting out one month.

Jackstadt thanked all those involved in researching the change in dates.

I was pleasantly surprised that Illinois law did not prohibit the village from having a calendar year fiscal year because sometimes things that make sense arent allowed, he said.

The Board of Trustees approved the new ordinance unanimously. Trustee Micah Summers was absent from the meeting.North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held talks with top aides to South Korea's Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang on Monday, the president's office said, in the first meeting between the leader of the isolated nation and officials from Seoul since he took power in 2011.

National Security Office head Chung Eui-yong and National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon were in the North Korean capital to persuade Kim to start talks with the U.S. on denuclearization and stave off a potential conflict over his nuclear program. The envoys also planned to discuss with Pyongyang officials the release of three Korean-Americans detained in North Korea.

Kim hosted the envoys for a dinner that started at 6 p.m. Seoul time, a spokesman for Moon told a briefing. The delegation arrived around 2:50 p.m.

The South Korean envoys are due to travel to Washington later this week to discuss the results of their discussions with the Trump administration. Their two-day trip follows a visit by Kim's sister to South Korea last month, when she invited Moon to North Korea to meet her brother for what would be the first inter-Korean summit for 11 years.

The Winter Olympics -- including the Paralympics that run March 9-18 -- have provided a window to rebuild diplomatic ties after an escalating series of North Korean weapons tests last year prompted United Nations sanctions and threats of military action by U.S. President Donald Trump. While both the U.S. and North Korea say they're open to talks, it's unclear how much either side is willing to concede.

The meeting "shows Kim Jong Un wants to achieve his inter-Korean objectives laid out in his New Year's Day address," said Duyeon Kim, visiting senior research fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum in Seoul. "It places much importance on the envoys' visit while continuing his peace offensive tactics toward the South and portraying his country as normal, modern, and peace-loving."

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono told reporters in Tokyo that it's important for efforts to be made in the talks toward denuclearization, Kyodo News reported.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters in a regular briefing in Beijing earlier Monday that China hopes the interaction between the two Koreas could bring about talks between North Korea and U.S. He added that China stands ready to play a positive role to realize denuclearization and achieve lasting peace on the peninsula.

How North Korea Managed to Crash the Olympics Party

Trump and Moon spoke about the situation in a 30-minute phone call last week. The White House said the leaders "noted their firm position that any dialogue with North Korea must be conducted with the explicit and unwavering goal of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization."

Kim's government says nuclear weapons are necessary to deter any U.S.-led military action. A North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson told the official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday that the country wouldn't accept U.S. preconditions.

"We have intention to resolve issues in a diplomatic and peaceful way through dialogue and negotiation, but we will neither beg for dialogue nor evade the military option claimed by the U.S.," the spokesperson said.Black female voters drew national attention for their outsized performance in December's special Senate election in Alabama. In 2018 several African American women will try to make history as candidates for Congress and statewide offices.

In Georgia, Stacey Abrams, a former state lawmaker, hopes to become the first black woman elected governor in the country, and several candidates are running to become the first black women to go to Congress from their respective states, including Colorado, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

A new report says this year's midterm elections offer "a ripe opportunity to harness and expand black women's political power, both as voters and candidates." The report, issued by Higher Heights Leadership Fund and the Center for American Women and Politics, is titled "The Chisholm Effect: Black Women in American Politics," in honor of the 50th anniversary of Shirley Chisholm's election as the first black woman in Congress.

Nineteen black women hold seats in Congress, including one in the Senate. An additional two black women are nonvoting delegates in the House. Three black women hold statewide offices, including lieutenant governors in Kentucky and New Jersey. And in 2017, voters in New Orleans and Charlotte made history by electing black women as mayor.

Still, the report notes that black women remain underrepresented in elected offices at all levels. Although black women are 7.3 percent of the U.S. population, they make up less than 5 percent of officeholders in Congress, statewide executive offices and state legislatures.

Glynda Carr, a co-founder of Higher Heights, which encourages political engagement among black women, said the number of African American women running for higher office has grown steadily over the past several years. She cites a "role modeling effect."

"When black women see black women in leadership roles, it motivates us to run for office," she said in an interview. Carr also said that the current political environment, in which President Trump's rhetoric and policy positions are not viewed favorably by many women and people of color, "black women see themselves as part of the solution, and running for elected office is an important piece of that."

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who in 2016 became only the second black woman elected to the Senate, said in the foreword to the report that black women continue "to make important political gains even as our country struggles against some the most regressive, dangerous leadership and policies propagated since before Chisholm's emergence."

Chisholm, a New York Democrat, won a newly drawn congressional district consisting of racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Since her 1968 election, 38 black women have held seats in Congress, representing 16 states. Carol Moseley Braun, D-Ill., who was elected in 1992 and served one term, and Harris are the only two black women to have won election to the Senate. Rep. Mia Love of Utah, who was elected in 2014, is the first and only black Republican woman elected to Congress.

Kelly Dittmar, a scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute of Politics, noted that the majority of newcomers elected to Congress in 2016 were women of color. Still, she said, black women are underrepresented in elected office despite their strong participation in elections.

"Black women vote at the highest rate of any gender or racial subgroup," Dittmar said in a news release. "They did that in 2008, 2012, and in the Alabama special election last year. They're the most reliable of voters."

Higher Heights, which recruits and trains black women to run for office, has partnered with groups such as VoteRunLead to try to increase the number of African American women who are elected.

Jehmu Greene, chairman of the board of VoteRunLead, said that 60 percent of the women the organization has trained are women of color, and she called on other groups to "start prioritizing black women's political leadership."

She also said that in addition to focusing on big races, organizations and black women who want to serve should look to local offices.

"I think certainly the gains we have seen in recent election cycles have been higher for black women, and not just at the federal level like we saw in 2016, but also even more significantly in the state legislatures," Greene said.WASHINGTON - Republican congressional leaders stepped up their efforts Monday to stop President Donald Trump from implementing global tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, warning that the protectionist move would damage the economy and muddle the party's message in the run-up to November's midterm elections.

For much of the day, an extraordinary public debate over core economic principles played out between the president and leading members of his own party.

"We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan," said AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

Members of the House Ways and Means Committee circulated a letter urging the president to narrow the tariffs' focus, while high-ranking Senate Republicans voiced their own opposition. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, predicted that the president ultimately will scrap the trade levies.

"I think it would be a tragedy if they continue on the course that was announced," said Hatch, who blamed White House trade adviser Peter Navarro for steering the president toward protectionist policies.

The Republican lawmakers went public after several days of Trump airing his protectionist views. In an early morning tweetstorm and subsequent Oval Office remarks Monday, the president doubled down on his trade offensive, telling reporters: "No, we're not backing down."

At the White House, senior aides like Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council, sought to convince the president to reconsider even as colleagues labored over the legal work needed to implement the import taxes, senior administration officials said.

Trump vented his conviction that the United States has been "ripped off by virtually every country in the world" on trade while mainstream Republicans insisted that his tariffs would backfire on American businesses and consumers.

"My constituents are worried about the cost of their beer cans," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. "The price of cars. A tariff obviously is going to get passed on to the consumer eventually in the price of goods, and that ought to be everybody's concern."

White House tariff opponents have warned the president that the import levies will undermine the buoyant stock market and sap the strengthening economy, which Trump routinely celebrates.

Economists at High Frequency Economics said Monday that Trump's "trade warmongering" is now the biggest danger for an economy they expect will expand by 3 percent this year.

"We don't think this is a smart economic policy decision, and [it] could harm the economic progress that a lot of his policies have helped bring about," said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican.

Senior Republicans hope to convince the president to abandon his new import tax of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent of aluminum or at least exclude allies such as Canada.

But Trump threatened Monday to include both Canada and Mexico in the tariffs unless they make concessions to the United States in talks over revising the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"Canada must . . . treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying," he tweeted.

Hours earlier, he defended his moves to protect the domestic steel and aluminum industries, declaring them "dead" otherwise. Yet U.S. production of raw steel in the fourth quarter of 2017 was more than 50 percent above levels at the depths of the 2009 recession and higher than the 25-year average, according to Federal Reserve data.

Trump's comments also are likely to help countries that challenge the U.S. actions at the World Trade Organization, according to Edward Alden, a trade policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. By stating that he would exempt Mexico and Canada from the tariffs if they make concessions on NAFTA, the president suggested that measures billed as critical for U.S. national security actually were economic bargaining chips.

"This cuts the legs out from under the administration's claim this was being done for national security," Alden said. "This is as clear as signal as you can get that the national security premise here is a phony one."

Trump reiterated his long-standing complaints about the 1994 NAFTA pact, labeling it a "disaster" even as negotiators in Mexico City were wrapping up their latest round of talks aimed at overhauling it. The president says that Mexico and Canada have taken advantage of the United States and wants any new agreement to erase the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and return lost manufacturing jobs to the United States.

Negotiators in Mexico City reported limited progress. Only six of 30 chapters have been agreed upon, according to Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative.

"We have not made the progress that many had hoped in this round," Lighthizer said.

He later told reporters that the three nations "have a month or a month and a half or something to get agreement in principle."

Negotiations are complicated by a crowded political calendar in all three countries, notably including the Mexican presidential election in July.

Trump's saber-rattling will make it harder for the countries to reach agreement, according to Jorge Guajardo, a former Mexican diplomat now at McLarty Associates.

"Any trade deal has to be negotiated quietly, away from the spotlight," he said. "Anytime you make it public, you make it political. . . . It does make things very, very difficult."

The president's unconventional negotiating approach also alarms many Republicans, who fear it will disrupt $1.1 trillion worth of U.S. trade with its northern and southern neighbors.

Trump last week disclosed plans to impose the tariffs, following a Commerce Department finding that rising volumes of inexpensive metal imports threatened national security.

The chief problem for domestic steel and aluminum makers is excess production by China, which depresses global prices, most analysts agree.

Lighthizer said he spoke to Trump about the tariffs a couple of days ago and the president described a potential exemption for Mexico and Canada as an inducement to reaching a deal.

"His view is that this will help the process," Lighthizer said. "It was the president's idea, it was not my idea."

Eric Miller, president of Rideau Potomac Strategy Group, said that the president was mistaken in trying to address the effects of excessive Chinese metals production via the NAFTA talks. Instead, the United States should pursue remedies through the 33-nation global steel forum at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Talks there are scheduled to resume Wednesday in Paris.

"The forum with the best chance at a coordinated response to the problem has been largely ignored by the U.S.," Miller said.

Trump's proposed tariffs will hit U.S. allies much harder than China, according to Chad Bown, a trade analyst with the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Canada will lose an estimated $3.2 billion; the European Union, $2.6 billion; South Korea, $1.1 billion; and Mexico, $1 billion, he said, while China would lose $689 million.

White House officials have not decided precisely how the tariffs will be applied, two people briefed on the discussions said. There is still a debate over whether Canada, Mexico, and Britain should be exempt from the measures, with some aides arguing that these longtime U.S. allies do not pose a national security risk.

"They're going to have to find a way, or an avenue, to exclude allies in some way or another," said one Mexican official familiar with the internal administration debate.

The tariffs would take effect at a critical moment for economic policymakers. After nearly a decade of historically low interest rates, the Federal Reserve is gradually tightening monetary policy to head off inflation. The tariffs will nudge prices higher, and the trend could accelerate if a cycle of tit-for-tat retaliation takes effect between the United States and its trading partners.

If the Fed raises interest rates too quickly, it could steer the economy into its first episode of stagflation - sluggish growth coupled with fast-rising prices - since the late 1970s. "A round of protectionist measures can easily turn into a stagflation due to missteps by policymakers," High Frequency Economics economists warned in a research note.

All major world economies are expanding simultaneously for the first time since the end of the Great Recession.

In Geneva, Roberto Azevedo, the Brazilian diplomat who heads the World Trade Organization, echoed fears of a protectionist America imperiling the global recovery.

"We now see a much higher and real risk of triggering an escalation of trade barriers across the globe. We cannot ignore this risk, and I urge all parties to consider and reflect on this situation very carefully,' Azevedo said. "Once we start down this path, it will be very difficult to reverse direction. An eye for an eye will leave us all blind and the world in deep recession."

---

The Washington Post's Joshua Partlow, Joshua Dawsey and Philip Rucker contributed to this report.GREAT LAKES, Ill.  Zach Ellerbrook is enjoying the opportunity to be a full-time musician while serving his country at the same time.

Ellerbrook, a 1994 Edwardsvillle High School graduate and a 1999 SIUE graduate, is a Petty Officer 1st Class in the U.S. Navy, where he has served for 15 years.

He is currently stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes and is a trombone player for Navy Band Great Lakes.

When I was in my last year at SIUE, I got a steady job playing four nights a week at AJs at the Adams Mark Hotel (in downtown St. Louis), said the 42-year-old Ellerbrook, who majored in jazz performance studio music. It was a steady paycheck and it was great at first. But that gig ended once the contract ran out in March 2000.

For a while, Ellerbrook continued to play with various bands around the area while trying to make ends meet. He jokingly refers to getting tired of the rock and roll lifestyle.

When I say rock and roll lifestyle, were not talking Van Halen, Ellerbrook said, laughing.

Especially for trombone players, were not exactly the main piece to any rock and roll band. It makes it really hard for people to commit to us financially for us to be able to do our work, he said.

I was attracted to the discipline and professionalism of the Navy, not to mention the financial stability. People are always amazed when I tell them I support my family by performing on the trombone.

Not interested in becoming a music teacher, Ellerbrook started doing Internet research on other job possibilities, including the Navy.

The only Navy band I knew about was the one in Washington, which is their premier ensemble and the one that is going to perform at Edwardsville High School on March 8, Ellerbrook said. Their only job openings are when somebody leaves the band because they finished their enlistment or they retire from the Navy. There are up to 100 people auditioning for that one position.

With the style of music they do, I wasnt prepared for that. Its just not the type of musician I was.

Through his research, Ellerbrook found out about the Navy fleet bands, which include 11 bands around the world.

Instead of being in one band for my whole career, I could join the Navy like anyone else, except my job is to be a musician, Ellerbrook said.

Ellerbrook transfers to a new band every three years. He has also been stationed in Norfolk, Va., and Millington, Tenn. His first tour of duty at Great Lakes was from 2011 to 2014. He was a Navy recruiter for the next three years before starting his second stint with Navy Band Great Lakes in 2017.

While Ellerbrooks full-time job is as a musician, he is very much part of the military lifestyle.

Our role is essentially letting the public know that the Navy is out there to serve you, especially in the Midwest, Ellerbrook said. There are not exactly any ships sailing up the Mississippi River or any other states we cover, like North Dakota, South Dakota and Nebraska. We carry the Navys message to the people in this region.

Generically, you can say Im a petty officer 1st class, but when Im identified on a Navy base, my rank is musician 1st class. Thats one thing thats really unique to the Navy compared to the other branches of the military.

Navy Band Great Lakes is actually divided into various smaller ensembles, including a wind ensemble, a community/parade band, a pop music group, a brass band, a brass quintet and a woodwind quintet.

Overall, the band has 45 musicians, who provide musical support for military and public engagements throughout a nine-state area.

The bands versatility has allowed Ellerbrook to expand his musical horizons over the years.

If you had caught me at the beginning of my career, I could probably say there was a certain style of music I was most comfortable with, Ellerbrook said. But after 15 years in the Navy band, I can play whatever you want me to play. If there is a particular type of music that a sponsor wants us to play, weve got it covered.

Ellerbrook doesnt see himself leaving the Navy for any other job.

You can read about the benefits of being in the U.S. Navy from any recruiting poster, including the free college (tuition) and the steady pay, and thats all available for us as musicians, Ellerbrook said. Im one of those types who will be working all the way until retirement.The first primaries of 2018 in Texas on Tuesday could set the tune for six months of Democratic infighting.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been taking fire from the left since publishing opposition research on Laura Moser, a progressive candidate in a crowded Democratic primary field to take on Rep. John Culberson, R. The campaign arm for House Democrats concluded that Moser could not win the general election in a suburban Houston district that Hillary Clinton narrowly carried. Among other things, she wrote a piece for Washingtonian magazine in 2014 that said she'd "sooner have my teeth pulled out without anesthesia" than move to her grandparents' home in rural Texas.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez does not think the DCCC should have publicized that information. "I wouldn't have done it," he told me and USA Today's Susan Page in an interview that aired Sunday for C-SPAN's "Newsmakers" series. "We're at our best as Democrats when we talk about the issues. . . . I don't believe we should be anointing candidates. The people in Texas are the people who should be making the choices in Texas."

The public split showcased the diverging priorities of the party committees. The DCCC is willing to play the role of bad cop because leaders think it's the only way to pick up the 24 seats needed to win the House majority. The DNC, which Perez has now led for a year, is trying to restore trust that was lost in the national party during the contentious 2016 nominating contest between Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

"One thing we've learned at the DNC is that when you, in fact or in perception, are trying to put the thumb on the scale in a spirited primary, that can undermine public confidence in us," said Perez. "That's why we've been neutral."

A constellation of liberal groups - from Justice Democrats and CREDO to the Sanders-aligned Our Revolution - launched online petitions last week telling DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Lujan to "stop attacking progressives."

The DCCC anticipated this blowback. The veteran operatives who work there could have easily placed each of the "oppo hits" on Moser in the press with no fingerprints attached. The fact they didn't was as significant as the underlying content of the message. They were sending a signal about their willingness to wade into crowded primaries and gauging the reaction from the left as they plot strategy for looming primary fights.

These operatives expect that it will be imperative to intervene in California, where a jungle primary system means that the top two finishers in June will face each other in November, regardless of their party. If there are bunches of Democrats splitting the vote, that could allow two Republicans to make it to the runoff.

"As we've indicated all cycle, the DCCC is keeping all options on the table to work with our allies and ensure that there's a competitive Democrat on the ballot for voters to elect in November," Meredith Kelly, the DCCC's communications director, said on Sunday.

Republicans are hopeful that record numbers of Democratic primary candidates will lead to squabbling and push the eventual nominees to the left in places like Texas's Seventh District. The Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC backed by Speaker Paul Ryan, has been looking for opportunities to sow division. On Friday, the group published internal polling that showed Moser gaining since the DCCC's attacks.

Talking with Democrats over the weekend about the appropriateness of wading into primaries sparked a sense of deja vu because I had almost identical conversations with strategists at the Republican committees and outside groups when they were out of the White House. Republicans blew a lot of winnable races during the Obama years because unelectable candidates prevailed in primaries, from Christine O'Donnell and Sharron Angle in 2010 to Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock in 2012. Allies of Mitch McConnell became more aggressive in 2014, and it helped him become majority leader. On the other hand, going after tea partyers earned the enmity of the base - and helped lead to disenchantment with the party establishment that allowed for the rise of Donald Trump in 2016.

Just like his Republican counterparts used to, Perez argued that heated primaries make his party stronger. He noted that Ralph Northam won the Virginia governor's race last November despite facing a credible primary challenge from former congressman Tom Perriello on his left.

"Everybody who went to the polls felt like they had a fair shake, and their candidate had a fair shake," said Perez. "It has increased turnout and it has really put wind at our back going into general elections. . . . We have to be careful not to confuse unity with unanimity."

Because the DNC is staying on the sidelines, the DCCC is becoming a sort of boogeyman on the left. A black Democratic candidate in Pennsylvania last week even accused the committee of trying to nudge him out of the race in favor of white candidates, which the party denied.

-- Against the backdrop of this intraparty wrangling, there is growing evidence of especially strong Democratic enthusiasm:

For example, a record number of candidates are running for Congress this year. The Post's Paul Kane pulled the numbers for his Sunday column: "By Dec. 31, 2017, more than 2,100 people had taken at least the first step toward running for the House or Senate by filing the necessary paperwork, according to records kept by the Federal Election Commission. For context, that's almost twice as many candidates who launched congressional campaigns in 2015. It represents the most candidates at this stage of the election season since the FEC started keeping these records, in 1977. . . .

"By Dec. 31, some 1,133 candidates had filed to run as Democrats for House seats, easily the largest crop either party has ever assembled at that point of an election cycle. Even Republicans, with 689 declared candidates for the House in 2017, have their second-largest field ever, trailing only 2009. That massive crop of 745 candidates, the second-largest ever for any party, set the stage for the 2010 midterm wave that delivered Republicans the House majority."

In Texas alone, there are 111 House candidates. For the first time in 25 years, at least one Democrat is running in all 36 of the state's congressional district. In 2016, the party didn't even field a challenger against eight GOP incumbents. "On a state legislative level, Democrats have candidates in 132 of the 150 state House districts and in 14 of the 15 state Senate districts up for election this year," NPR's Jessica Taylor notes. "That includes four Senate districts where Democrats didn't field candidates in 2014 or 2012, and 20 new House districts where they didn't have candidates in either 2016, 2014 or 2012."

"Thanks largely to a huge surge in Democratic turnout, Texans in the 15 largest counties have smashed the record for early voting in a non-presidential year," Jonathan Tilove reports in Monday's Austin American-Statesman. "While there is no necessary correlation between primary and general election turnout, more than twice as many people voted early in the Democratic primaries in 2018 as in 2014, while Republican early voting crept up by 15 percent . . . Early voting this year in the Democratic contests was so high in Travis County [which includes Austin] that it slightly exceeded participation in 2016, a presidential year."

-- The primary season that begins Tuesday will not wrap up until September, when Massachusetts, Delaware, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island vote.

Purity tests could become a problem during the long stretch between now and then. A story on the front page of Monday's New York Times notes that even Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., is facing a serious primary challenge from his left in Boston. "Mr. Capuano, who is serving his 20th year in Congress, is a down-the-line progressive . . . But he has stirred a challenge from Ayanna Pressley, the first black woman elected to the Boston City Council," Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin report. "In a district once held by John F. Kennedy and Tip O'Neill, where college campuses abound and minority communities now make up most of the population, Ms. Pressley argues that voters should demand an activist lawmaker who is more than a 'reliable vote.' In an unusual show of deference to Ms. Pressley, two of the state's highest-profile Democrats, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Seth Moulton, said they would stay neutral rather than back their colleague in Congress. Representative Joseph P. Kennedy III . . . is behind Mr. Capuano."

The 66-year-old incumbent has voted twice to impeach Trump, but he could still lose anyway. "My district is upset," Capuano said. "They don't like the Donald Trump agenda, and I've been as vocal as I can be."

-- But while Democrats face pressure to lurch left, Republicans feel like they must wholeheartedly embrace Trump to win a GOP primary in this environment. The Post's Mike DeBonis and Eva Ruth Moravec report on the crowded GOP primaries in Texas: "One candidate's campaign signs declare 'MAGA,' referencing Trump's mantra of 'Make America Great Again.' Another's is promising to 'drain the swamp' and plays up his ties to a key Trump political adviser. And another's promises to 'Make America Like Texas,' a slogan spelled out in the Trump campaign's signature font. . . . With some notable exceptions, candidates in one especially raucous Republican primary - the 18-person contest to fill the 21st District seat being vacated by Rep. Lamar Smith - have been wary of showing any daylight between their position and Trump's. 'I think if you're not with the president, you're not going to have a chance of winning this race,' said Jason Isaac, a state representative who is running for the seat."

---

With Breanne Deppisch and Joanie Greve.In this ongoing column, The Digest, Entrepreneur.com News Director Stephen J. Bronner speaks with food entrepreneurs and executives to see what it took to get their products into the mouths of customers.

Pamela Jones says that her goal for her line of bottled sauces, under the brand name CharBoys, is to share a taste of the countries she has visited during her military days with people who may never have the opportunity to travel.

When I was in the military I cooked part time in different restaurants in different countries, says Jones, who grew up in Flint, Mich. That was really helpful for me to learn about herbs and some of the different spices in different lands."

Related: With $72 Million in Funding, the Entrepreneur Behind Beyond Meat Pursues Innovation Over Profit

After 18 years serving in both the Army and the Navy, with stints in countries such as Germany and Italy, Jones returned to the States and settled in Chicago. She eventually became a partner in restaurants, working in the kitchens. All the while, she was on a years-long campaign to get her father to divulge the family's 70-year-old barbecue sauce recipe. He finally relented, and she started serving the family sauce, along with others inspired by it, adding flavors from her worldly travels, at the restaurants. The condiments -- formulated to be lower in sodium, sugar, carbs and calories -- proved to be a hit.

Image credit: Courtesy Pamela Jones



"People were coming back asking for additional sauces," she says. "It was that kind of feedback from the consumers that helped me get going."

Jones says that she always had a vision to put the sauces in bottles, but their popularity at the restaurants really cemented her drive. Of course, serving sauce to a customer in a restaurant and selling sauce in a shelf-ready bottle are very different challenges. It's one that'd take up a lot of Jones's free time -- she continued working in restaurants until 2015 while building Charboy's -- and her bank account, as she was turned down for loans.

"I didn't have a lot of capital, so I used my credit card to get started and whatever additional money I had in my savings, which wasn't much," she says. "I started off with $10,000 and that can be [spent] really quickly when you start talking getting product sampled for shelf life."

From 2008 to 2010, she built the company's infrastructure, and from 2010 to 2012 she prepared to get the sauces ready for shelves. Jones went door to door and recruited 25 local stores to sell her sauces.

Eventually, she was able to secure a $12,000 loan. Now, Charboy's line of sauces, which include BBQ, Bourbon, Hot & Sweet Asian and Hot & Spicy Ketchup, are available in 450 retails stores in the midwest, including Kroger, Jewel and Whole Foods, and on Amazon.com. Next, she hopes to get Charboy's featured in grocery store food bars, restaurants and hotels and get over the $1 million mark in annual sales.

Related: This Founder Explains Why Success Isn't the Biggest Valuation or Fastest Growth; It's the People You Help

Entrepreneur spoke with Jones for her insights on seeing the world and building the business.

This interview has edited for length and clarity.

How has your military background helped you in business?

The leadership skills I learned helped me to be confident and to grow the business. Another thing is by being worldly, you learn to be diverse with people and respect their culture. When you've been living in different countries, you have a different perspective on the world. I think that helped me network with a lot of people in a way that some people may not be able to.

You got to be flexible. When you get told no, you can't get snappy. You keep going back, and you find a way. Sometimes you have to be a little patient and understand how to work with people. Relationship building in this business is key.

Talk about the point when you decided to go from serving just in restaurants to packaging the sauce. How did you approach it and what were the steps that you took?

Once I realized I was going to get the product to shelf, it was a process. I had to do a lot of research and development for a couple of years. The first thing I did was get incorporated as a business. I thought it would be a great idea to get certified as a minority business owner or certified as a women business owner. Banks are reluctant to give you money when you first start out, so you just have to have something in place and believe in that vision.

Related: 15 Crazy Facts About Walmart's History and Where It's Headed Next

You've got to make sure that the consistency in that product is the same. That took months, maybe a couple of years, before I was really ready to get it bottled. Another thing is you're taking a risk, because you don't know how many stores will take the product when you start. So, you have to do small batch runs, and then I had to go door to door to stores to see how many I could start off with.

How did you land your first big distribution deal?

After the 25 local stores I had enough leverage to approach a smaller chain. I went to a buyer of a smaller chain store, and they gave me 50 stores. After that, I approached a major grocery store chain, Jewel Stores, and the buyer started my company with 25 stores and after about a year of significant sales, the company expanded. That's when I landed my first big distribution of 250 locations.

Image credit: Courtesy Pamela Jones



That worked out so well that I ended up eventually with over 450 locations in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin. Most recently Whole Foods picked it up for some of their locations, and there's also Amazon.com.

What can entrepreneurs learn from your experience?

It's a matter of credibility, getting out there, building those relationships with the store buyers and showing sales. It's not an easy process, but it's worth it.

The biggest way entrepreneurs can gain distribution is through being one of the demonstrators, so they can talk to consumers about the product and build those relationships on the floor.

Related: How 2 Friends Quit Their Jobs and Pursued Their Dreams of Purple Ice Cream That Gets Thousands of Likes on Instagram

What is the big challenge in your industry and how were you able to overcome it?

Condiments are very competitive. The challenge is being able to handle the sales and maintain your shelf space once you get it. Big brand companies like Heinz and Kraft can get lower pricing, they have so much product going out there and they could pay for more shelf space. That means they can bring more profit to the grocery store. You've got to find ways to get yourself out of that sea of shelves. One way is building those relationships with store managers and having them agree to put you on the end caps of the aisles. Cut a deal and give a sale and come there and do demos and recipe cards. Doing innovative things like that is really helpful.

Related:

This Military Veteran Drained Her Bank Account to Build Her Sauce Brand

This Former Apple Employee Finally Fulfilled a Lifelong Dream and Created an Organic Betty Crocker

How An Odd Macadamia Nut Milk Company Caught Walmart's Attention Without Doing Any Marketing



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com

While Vladimir Putin boasted that his latest "invincible" nuclear weapons prove the U.S. and its allies have failed to contain Russia, the display of bravado risks a new arms race that his country is ill-equipped to win.

Putin earned a rare rebuke on Monday from President Donald Trump, who called him "irresponsible" for showing off the weapons in a speech to Russia's Federal Assembly last week that was laced with anti-American rhetoric ahead of the March 18 presidential election. He played videos of warheads targeting what appeared to be a map of Florida, as he complained the U.S. repeatedly ignored Russian objections to its missile-defense shield.

"This was a signal to the West, the U.S. in particular, that Russia is ready for nuclear isolationism," said Andrei Kortunov, head of the Russian International Affairs Council, a Kremlin-established research group. "Moscow is now openly stating that it's prepared for the destruction of the system of strategic arms control that it and Washington built up over 50 years."

With ties between Russia and the U.S. roiled by allegations of Kremlin meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections and deepening confrontation in Syria, the two powers risk a return to unbridled nuclear competition as the chances diminish of rescuing decades-old arms control agreements. Putin blamed the U.S. decision in 2002 to pull out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and develop its global defense shield for prompting Russia to develop its new arsenal.

He devoted more than a third of his annual address to the weapons, using videos and animated charts to present high-speed underwater drones, cruise missiles with "practically unlimited range," a nuclear-powered ballistic missile and hypersonic weapons capable of dodging U.S. defenses at up to 10 times the speed of sound.

Russia's seeking to maintain strategic parity and isn't threatening anyone, though "be sure that everything I have said today is not a bluff," Putin said.

The State Department called the video animation "cheesy" and said it was "unfortunate" that it depicted "a nuclear attack on the United States." The White House, which has announced defense spending of around $700 billion in the next fiscal year, said the speech showed Russia had developed weapons "in direct violation of its treaty obligations."

While Russia may have achieved a technological breakthrough, it's just as likely that "the Kremlin is counting on a miracle," said Alexander Golts, an independent defense analyst based in Moscow.

The Russian military budget, reduced to 2.77 trillion rubles ($48.5 billion) this year from 3.05 trillion rubles in 2017 amid belt-tightening because of a stagnant economy, is a fraction of U.S. defense spending. Still, "it's not important if Putin was bluffing," said Golts.

"Everything he said, whether it was for real or not, has to be treated seriously by policy makers," he said. "This is a very strong argument for those who want to develop the U.S. military potential."

The U.S. unveiled a new nuclear doctrine last month that envisages building more low-yield bombs and modernizing its strategic arsenal. The Trump administration also plans to expand its missile-defense program to counter threats from Russia and China, rather than just rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea, according to a draft strategy due for release this month, The Washington Post reported Friday.

While U.S. missile defenses are unlikely ever to be enough to counter a Russian attack, the military and the defense industry have convinced Putin "that this threat does exist and you need to throw all efforts and resources on eliminating it," said Vladimir Frolov, a former Russian diplomat and lawmaker who's now a foreign policy analyst.

The Soviet Union -- whose collapse Putin said Friday that he'd reverse if given a chance to change an event in Russian history -- ran its economy into the ground in the 1980s to keep up with the U.S. in a spiraling arms race, said Dmitri Trenin, head of the Carnegie Moscow Center. "Many will push the president in this direction," he said.

That will make the world "a more dangerous place," said Lisbeth Gronlund, senior scientist at the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Union of Concerned Scientists, which advocates for reducing the risk of using nuclear weapons.Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow and vice president for external affairs at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, is a former civics teacher and a brilliant writer on education issues. One of his most provocative recent pieces on educationnext.org is "Can a Redesigned AP Government Course Get Schools Back Into the Civic Education Game?"

Like him, I applaud the new Advanced Placement U.S. Government and Politics course. But I strongly disagree with his view that it could be the "means of getting back into the civic education game in earnest."

If we don't improve civics instruction, Pondiscio said, we must "resign ourselves to our poisoned national politics." He quoted another fine education writer, Rick Kahlenberg, saying that the election of Donald Trump represents a "Sputnik moment" for civic education. It forces us to confront our failure "at what the nation's founders saw as education's most basic purpose," readying students for thoughtful and competent self-government, Kahlenberg said.

I think they're wrong. Better civics classes won't help. Ignorance of American government and history is part of our culture. Our average scores on civics have always been low. It is not a popular course. The outrages of gerrymandering rarely come up in daily conversation. We are free to ignore elections, and more than 40 percent of us did in 2016. We'll always be more interested in getting our bills paid and finding time for fun than studying candidates' position papers.

Pondiscio and Kahlenberg told me they agree that improving civics instruction will not save the country, but they hope the renewed interest in governing caused by the election might lead to better teaching and improve democracy's image. Both were bothered by a survey showing the portion of young Americans saying democracy was a bad system jumped from 16 percent in 1995 to 24 percent in 2011.

History suggests even the best teaching won't fix that. Many Americans are under the impression that schools used to teach social studies better than they do now. Not so. A 1917 U.S. history test of 1,500 students in Texas yielded only 33 percent correct answers in high schools and 49 percent in universities. In 1943, only 6 percent of a national sample of 7,000 college freshmen could name the 13 colonies, and only 13 percent knew James Madison was president during the War of 1812. In 1976, a national sample of about 2,000 college college freshmen on average got only half of 42 multiple-choice questions right.

If our ignorance is to blame in part for the 2016 election results, which I have heard people say, what exactly should we have learned that would have kept us from electing President Trump? Were we overwhelmed because he said so many things that weren't true? My civics and history teachers taught me that presidents can and do lie. Was it his inexperience or nastiness? I know many A-plus civics students who voted for people like that.

Voting in America is very personal. It forces us to think as individuals not only about what we learned in school, but also our feelings about the candidates. Our personal knowledge and emotions may conflict. Frequently, we operate on blind faith that God or good luck will pull us through.

Some of us think Trump's win was a triumph of the ill-informed. That is hard to square with the numbers. He may have gotten only 43 percent of the votes cast by college graduates, but that is 22 million people. Some commentators have decried this as a failure of higher education, but they rarely say what the colleges should have taught that would have made a difference.

As Pondiscio wisely observes, there are no prerequisites for AP government in our high schools. Schools should urge many more students to take it. But no matter how much they learn, their votes are likely to be more influenced by their fears and ambitions. To restore our faith in democracy, we have to know much more about how to help one another than we did in 2016.A woman has been arrested for allegedly stealing an engagement ring and a wedding band worth a combined value of $3,000.

Maria Trinidad Perez, 58, was charged with felony theft.

READ ALSO: Homeowner allegedly threatened construction worker with bat

Laredo police said incident unfolded at about 6:30 a.m. Thursday in the 100 block of Coronado Avenue.

A woman stated that she last saw her engagement ring and wedding band in a box in her bedroom on Wednesday.

READ ALSO: Laredo police searching for elderly couple accused of theft

But on Thursday, she discovered the rings were missing. She confronted Perez, but she denied the allegations and attempted to leave the residence, according to LPD.

Perez then allegedly allowed police to search her purse. Officers said they found the wedding band in the purse.

Officers took her to the Webb County Jail. There, correctional officers said they found the engagement ring wrapped in a napkin inside a pocket of the purse, according to police.The final day of testimony in the trial of a Laredo man accused of killing his wife centered around conflicting medical assessments from psychologists who evaluated the defendant.

Gilberto Tello, 49, a former Border Patrol agent who also served in the U.S. Marine Corps, has been on trial since last Monday in the 49th District Court. He is accused of fatally shooting 39-year-old Marisela Flores. The couple was legally married but separated.

READ ALSO: Mugshots: 111 alleged San Antonio killers charged with murder in 2017

On Friday, one of the defenses key witnesses took the stand. Dr. John Fabian, a forensic psychologist and forensic neuropsychologist, said he examined Tello in January 2017. He was asked by the defense attorneys to determine whether Tello qualified for legal insanity or not being guilty by reason of insanity.

Were ultimately going to be looking at his mental state at the time of the offense, Fabian said. Its well-documented and not under question that he was severely mentally ill within a few months and even a few days before the offense.

Fabian said he reviewed Tellos records outlining his extensive mental health history as well as his background. He said the records showed that Tello had been diagnosed with mental illness by several psychiatrists and psychologists as well as being committed numerous times.

Mr. Tello has been examined by a number of individuals and they all basically said the same thing: schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, Fabian said.

Tello also served in the U.S. Marine Corps for four years and was part of Operation Desert Storm in Kuwait. He was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder in 1992, Fabian said.

In his report, Fabian stated that Tello worked as a Border Patrol agent for over 10 years before being fired from his job about a year prior to Flores homicide.

Its my opinion that he does meet the legal insanity requirement, Fabian told the court.

Fabian said that at the time of the homicide, Tello suffered from schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type with a manic episode. He presented symptoms such as hallucinations, disorganized thinking, insomnia, extreme paranoia and grandiose delusions, according to Fabians evaluation.

Tellos paranoia grew over time, particularly in the days leading up to Flores slaying, Fabian said. He added that Tellos behavior before, during and after the crime was consistent with behavior shown by individuals with a severe mental illness.

He wasnt fleeing. He wasnt outwardly trying to avoid detection. He told the officer, I killed the witch. Thats your insanity case. That is why hes not guilty by reason of insanity. The motive is psychotic and hes legally insane.

The prosecution presented a rebuttal witness, Dr. Timothy Proctor, to counter the defenses claims that Tello did not know what he was doing was morally or legally wrong.

Proctor, a forensic psychologist, said he examined Tello in May 2015. He testified that upon his psychological examination, he determined that Tello did have a severe mental disease at the time of the alleged offense.

However, Proctor said that having a mental illness did not mean that Tello was insane by legal standards.

READ ALSO: Teen charged with murder of boy found in park

After analyzing everything, I did not see sufficient evidence to prove to me that the did not know that what he was doing was wrong, Proctor told jurors. After hearing additional evidence, that continues to be my opinion.

Although he had a mental illness, he knew what he was doing was wrong and that would put him in the category of being sane.

Proctor said Tellos conduct indicated that he felt anger and resentment toward Flores. He said this was an important factor that he took into consideration when determining whether his actions were strictly based on his mental illness or if they were influenced by his animosity toward his wife.

Tello told Proctor that he felt that Flores was interfering with his relationship with his daughters and ruined their time together, Proctor said.

The trial will resume Monday.A plea deal has been reached for a Laredo man involved in a smuggling incident last year that killed 10 immigrants and injured many others who had been in a sweltering tractor-trailer.

Pedro Silva Segura, 46, is scheduled to plead guilty Thursday in federal court in San Antonio to conspiracy to transport undocumented immigrants resulting in death, and is to admit to loading only five of the 39 immigrants who were found outside a San Antonio Walmart, with the tractor-trailer that had transported them from Laredo. He faces up to life in prison.

His attorney did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

By the time police arrived in the wee hours of July 23, eight immigrants were dead and two later succumbed from the ordeal of being locked in the rig driven by trucker James Matthew Bradley. The remainder were treated at area hospitals for several days.

Several immigrants were picked up by sport-utility vehicles before police arrived, prior court documents said. Immigrants interviewed by investigators said that anywhere from 70 to 200 people were crowded into the overheated trailer, with only one small vent for air, according to the previous court documents.

Bradley, 61, pleaded guilty in October to one count of conspiracy to transport aliens resulting in death and one count of transporting aliens resulting in death. Bradley of Clearwater, Florida, is awaiting sentencing.

Silvas plea deal provides some new details about the matter. A factual basis within the plea agreement said many of the immigrants in the trailer were kept in stash houses in Laredo before being loaded in the trailer, including a house in the 1100 block of Reynolds Street run by Silva.

During the investigation, federal immigration agents pulled video surveillance from the Blue Beacon car wash in Laredo and saw Bradleys tractor-trailer park there about 8:30 p.m. on July 22. At about 9 p.m., several vehicles arrive, stop behind Bradleys trailer and deliver people who are loaded into the back of the trailer, the factual basis said.

On July 24  a day after the immigrants were discovered at the South Side Walmart in San Antonio  agents saw Silva at the Reynolds Street property in Laredo, moved in and found 18 undocumented immigrants there. According to court documents filed in another case in Laredo that was later dismissed, Silva Segura is originally from Mexico and does not have legal permission to be in the U.S.

Silva later admitted that he operated the stash house and that approximately five immigrants left that house the night of July 22 and taken to Bradleys truck to be transported to San Antonio, the factual basis said.

Silva was paid for his role in the smuggling operation and received numerous wire transfers related to his activities, the factual basis said.

Shane Folden, the special agent in charge for Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio, said the structure of human smuggling organizations is often fluid, sometimes involving a looser conglomeration of smaller groups.

It can be one tractor trailer load of individuals involved from a couple different criminal organizations, Folden said. You can have people come across (the border) and show up at stash houses on different days at different times using different smuggling methods, and then they get co-mingled into one tractor trailer and brought farther into the United States.A San Antonio man was arrested after police say he sent explicit photos of his ex-girlfriend to her new boyfriend.

John David Carrion, 31, is facing charges of unlawful disclosure of intimate material, a third-degree felony. A judge set his bail at $10,000.A Waco restaurant owner, a former deputy and a pastor were arrested after the McLennan County Sheriff's Office raided two Waco massage parlors, according to a report from the Waco Tribune-Herald.

Daniel Henderson and Stephen Johnson were arrested on March 1 on prostitution charges, according to the report.

Henderson, 64, is the owner of Uncle Dan's Bar-B-Que & Catering in Waco. Johnson, 44, was employed as a McLennan County Sheriff deputy prior to the raid, according to the report.

RELATED: Central Texas prostitution sting nets 30 arrests in two days

A day earlier, Edward Egnacio Espinosa, 41, was arrested on the same charge. Espinosa was a community outreach pastor at a local church that had anti-human trafficking initiatives.

The sheriff's office, which has targeted prostitution in recent months, believe hundreds of men engaged in prostitution at two massage parlors in the area ran by the same owner.

They raided the parlors in December, following an undercover investigation, and seized video evidence which reportedly revealed more than 300 videos of men paying for sex acts.

The men would reportedly pay $60 for an hour-long massage and then another $40 for the sex act.

Henderson and Johnson were captured on video at one of the parlors multiple times, according to the report.

Johnson, a distant cousin of McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara, resigned from his position in December after the raid, according to the report.

The massage parlor owner, Chun Yan Zhang, was arrested once in December and again in February, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported. She's facing multiple human trafficking charges.

In the reports, authorities say more arrests are coming in the following weeks.

The arrests come after several prostitution stings resulted in dozens of arrests each over the past year.

Fares Sabawi covers crime in San Antonio and Bexar County for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here. | fsabawi@mysa.comA man who defrauded a north Longford pensioner out of 500,000 of his life savings was spared jail after a number of people including his son asked the court to exercise leniency during sentencing.

PJ Devine, Ballybay, Co Monaghan appeared before Judge Keenan Johnson at Longford Circuit Court where he pleaded guilty to four charges that included the theft of 5,000 in November 2000 from Tommy Kyne, Derrycasson, Dring, Co Longford; appropriating a property, valued at 150,000 belonging to Mr Kyne without his consent in 2008 and dishonestly appropriating another property valued at 54,000 in 2004.

He also pleaded guilty to stealing 5,000 from another north Longford couple in May 1999.

Mr Kyne, the court was told, died in 2014 with losses of over 500,000 to his estate.

Outlining the evidence to the court, Mr Shane Geraghty, Counsel for the State said that Mr Kyne had invested a total of 700,000 with the defendant and only ever received, during his lifetime, one payout of 150,000 from Irish Life.

The court also heard that the total loss to Mr Kynes estate was, in fact, 506,031.

If growth was factored in, the losses would be substantially more, Judge Johnson remarked.

Mr Geraghty, meanwhile, also outlined the background to matters.

In April 2013, solicitor Mark Connellan attended a meeting with Mr Kyne at the nursing home in which he was resident to take instructions from the north Longford man about making his will.

The court heard that Mr Kyne, who was 80-years-old at the time, told Mr Connellan that he had invested sums of money over the years and wanted to get all his financial affairs in order.

Mr Geraghty went on to say that Mr Kyne gave details to his solicitor about the benefactors of his will, after he was gone, and indicated that the money he invested was in Irish Life policies.

Counsel for the State went on to say that Mr Kyne had asked his brother John to gather the various receipts and investment reports from Irish Life in respect of those policies but when he did so, it emerged that some of the policies did not exist.

The court also heard that at the time, Mr Kyne had accumulated a sum of 625,509 and an allocation of 150,000 had been paid out by Irish Life to him.

Detective Garda Jim Donaldson then told the court that when it emerged there was an issue with the Irish Life policies, he began an investigation into matters.

Detective Garda Donaldson informed Judge Johnson that he discovered investment bonds that appeared to be making money for Mr Kyne, but were in fact not genuine.

Other documents purported to be from Irish Life & Permanent, but they were not genuine either, he added.

When Mr Connellan sought clarification with Irish Life in respect of the policies, he discovered one in existence - valued at 150,770 - and this sum of money had already been paid out to Mr Kyne.

The court was then told that it was at this point that Mr Connellan contacted Mr Devine so that he could establish exactly what was going on.

Mr Connellan had a suspicion that there was foul play, added Mr Geraghty, before pointing out that a meeting was subsequently organised at the nursing home with Mr Kyne, his brother John and Mr Devine.

A request was made by Mr Kyne for 5,000 to tide him over and that money was handed over by Mr Devine - in cash.

It is not normal procedure for an official to hand over cash in this manner.

Judge Johnson was then told that Detective Garda Donaldson later met with four representatives of Irish Life and was informed that Mr Kyne had only ever made one investment with the insurance company.

I was then informed that Mr Devine had been employed by Irish Life back in the 1980s but his employment was terminated in 1998, added Detective Garda Donaldson, before indicating to the court that receipts issued by Mr Devine to Mr Kyne in respect of a number of investments were evident in the book of evidence.

Receipts for money handed over had been issued on Irish Life paper and purported to be genuine, but after further investigation these documents were found to be false.

We knew that this was fraudulent documentation.

I formed the opinion, then, that Mr Devine had stolen large sums of money from Mr Kyne.

Meanwhile, the court heard that Detective Garda Donaldson subsequently met with Mr Devine in September 2014.

Mr Devine, he added, had taken them to his office in the garage and produced 61 documents in respect of Mr Kyne.

Mr Devine was subsequently arrested and detained under section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act.

The court was told the defendant was interviewed twice by gardai in relation to matters and had made full admissions and fully cooperated with members.

Mr Geraghty then outlined the relationship that existed between Mr Kyne and Mr Devine.

He said the pair first met around 1988 when Mr Devine had encouraged Mr Kyne to set up a pension plan.

The court heard that Mr Devine got to know Mr Kyne well as the years went by and considered him to be a friend.

You say you were is friend, but the way you treated him, a clearly bewildered Judge Johnson said to the defendant.

The court was then told that during interviews with gardai, Mr Devine said; I took the money; I had debts and I used the money to pay those debts. I had intended to pay the money back.

Meanwhile, Counsel for the State said that the defendant acknowledged his role in taking the money and preparing receipts.

During gardai interviews, Mr Devine said; I gambled hard; I drank hard, I wasnt supporting anyone else.

The defendant also confirmed that he had designed Irish Life documents and brands on his computer and that he led Mr Kyne to believe they were genuine.

Mr Kyne was also led to believe that his investments through Mr Devine were also genuine.

He told gardai during interview; I took the money; I had debts and I used the money to pay those debts.

Detective Garda Donaldson then told the court that Mr Devines marriage has since broken up and he had turned his life around after spending time in Cuan Mhuire.

Mr Devine also pointed out that he would be willing to pay 50 per week from his social welfare into Mr Kynes estate.

The court heard that Mr Devine was deeply involved with Cuan Mhuire in Co Monaghan and was the organisations authorised fundraiser.

Do you handle the money?, asked Judge Johnson.

Yes, ironically enough, Judge I do, Mr Devine replied.

I want to express my deepest remorse and regret all the trouble I have caused through my own actions.

Mr Devines son Barry then apologised sincerely to the families impacted by his fathers behaviour.

My father has turned his life around and is a kind man who has suffered the evils of alcohol and gambling addiction, he continued.

He is loved by his family and I would like to appeal for leniency for him on behalf of my family.

Meanwhile, in mitigation, the defendants solicitor Mr Smith said his clients cooperation with the Garda investigation into the matter had resulted in a speedy conclusion to the case for the State.

He also pointed out that Mr Devine had addressed his difficulties and was now a serious advocate of Cuan Mhuire.

He has a sum of 60,000 in compensation here in court, counsel continued.

He has had a serious fall from grace and now lives in a flat over a pub; he is also in receipt of disability allowance.

During his deliberations on the matter, Judge Johnson said that the case before him was an outrageous case of theft, deception and the production of false receipts.



These offences carry a custodial sentence but taking into the account the interests of society and the Kyne family, the more compensation they can get will be of benefit, the Judge added.

Im not going to impose a custodial sentence.

The Judge ordered the 60,000 to be handed over to the family of the late Tommy Kyne and asked that a full affidavit of Mr Devines means be furnished to the court on May 3, 2018.Ireland has come a long way in terms of mental health and suicide prevention facilities. But according to Longford musician, Charles James Walker, we still have a long way to go.

The Edgeworthstown man recently released his debut single, 'Get In', a powerful song with an accompanying music video that deals with mental health struggles, alcoholism, depression and attempting suicide.

But Charles is not only addressing a stigma with this powerful single; he's recalling his own experience with mental illness and suicidal tendancies.

I was diagnosed with a personality disorder just last year, Charles told the Longford Leader recently.

Hindsight being 20/20, it wouldve changed a lot of stuff in my life if Id known about it 20 years ago.

Essentially, I have problems dealing with stress in general and I tried to deal with that right throughout my adult life, with the coping mechanisms that are thrown at us in modern society you know, drink a little bit more than usual; drugs done on the quiet, he said.

I guess I knew that there was something bigger and something deeper wrong. The job that I was doing was killing me and my marriage wasnt working. And I was dying. Id had 11 overdoses and I decided I had to run.

Travel was the temporary solution for Charles, who split up with his partner and left his entire life behind to go and see the world.

At that stage, I was pretty sure I was going to die anyway so I thought whats the one thing you want to do before you die? I wanted to hit the road. So I hit the road.

I went to Canada, Barbados, India, Thailand.

I met a girl and I started to enjoy life again. That was new. I didnt know what happiness was anymore and then it was here, he said.

But, lured into a false sense of security, he started drinking again and things started to go downhill.

I guess I thought I was okay, so I started to do it again, he explained. But he was far from okay.

I realised that I wasnt really dealing with problems at all. Id replaced the Monday - and every day - of life with excitement.

Long story short, I split up with the girl and I just I collapsed

And things only got worse from there, as Charles started to contemplate suicide.

I realised I didnt have the coping mechanisms to deal with the basics of stress. And I didnt think I was ever going to have that.

So I thought f*ck it, just kill yourself, man'.

I decided I was going to kill myself in Thailand. I remember lying in the bed, looking out the window and thinking that building there.

Fortunately, Charles decided to seek comfort in some friends back home, who convinced him to return to Ireland.

But the drinking continued and the suicidal thoughts remained until Charles decided, again, that he would take his own life.

The song ('Get In') is about what happened that day, he explained.

I woke up that morning, waited for my friend to go to work, went down the stairs. I had a knife picked out in my head already. I brought it upstairs, sat on the bed, looked in the mirror, went for it.

I couldnt get it in. I went for it loads of times and literally couldnt get it in.

I stabbed the mattress to see how much pressure it needed. It wouldnt go in.

I just started crying then. I had a bottle of bacardi and a bottle of valium and I threw them into me to see if I could get some courage. And I started daydreaming. I woke up later that day, he recalled.

He woke up from his twelfth overdose to the see the face of a loved one staring at him in horror and that was when things started to change.

It became pretty clear - not immediately at that moment - but pretty clear that I cant do this. I cant do it to me, I cant do it to the people around me, he said.

It just seemed like there was something else - something Im supposed to do, because I cant f*cking die at the minute.

That day I decided okay, Im not going to die. Next decision, how am I going to live?

So Charles started working towards getting better.

Using his own experiences as inspiration, he wrote his debut single, 'Get In', and started working on an EP, while also getting into a routine to improve his mental health.

Watch: Longford musician releases powerful single and music video highlighting mental health issues

I had learned little things when I was travelling; getting into daily routines; getting up in the morning and watching law of attraction videos on YouTube. It really does work. Its positive thinking; positive actions.

I started doing Yoga in the mornings; eating healthy food, because food is the fuel for your body. I cut out alcohol and, with the exception of coffee, all mind-altering drugs.

I was focusing on happier, more positive things; setting a goal in place of something I wanted to go off and achieve; and just working on these things kept me busy.

In doing those things, I started getting feelings of accomplishment again; of self-worth. I didnt have the negative opinion inside my head.

Over time, Charles' mind started to heal but, with the release of 'Get In' coming up, he found himself getting back into his previous mindset so that he could work on the video for the song.

The video, produced by Erik Thomsen, is a reenactment of that dark day - something which Charles admitted was extremely difficult for him.

It was dark, he said.

We were going to record the EP at my dads house and I had decided beforehand that I was going to go back into that headspace for a few days.

So I just sat on my own in the house, drinking, to put myself literally, physically and mentally back into that negative place.

But those moments when we were setting up scenes we werent setting up scenes, he said.

In fact, the pair were setting up memories, bringing Charles right back to the day he tried to take his life.

Everything that was picked out was all pre-selection. Nothing was by accident.

But we shot it all in a day. It was a dark day and honestly, Erik stayed in that headspace for over a month.

That fella is going to win awards. He was sitting up until five or six in the morning working on effects for the video and stuff.

He just lived there in that headspace for about five weeks, said Charles.

But he got it. We got it. And it was worth it.

Naturally, there was some apprehension when Charles was putting his story out for the world to see.

And, with such a stigma attached to mental health in the midlands and across the nation, it's understandable that he was nervous.

It was so naked, he explained.

But we decided to throw everything else away - all of the concepts that it might have been. It had to be exactly as it was that day, holding nothing back.

The feedback Charles got for his debut single was incredible.

The song itself addresses the stigma attached to suicide and mental health issues in Ireland and, after its release, Charles found himself inundated with messages from people with whom the song resonated.

Especially in the run-up to Christmas, there were a couple of messages week which for a small region..., he drifted off briefly.

Its big for this part of the world because nobody talks about it.

Everybody knows somebody who's done it. Its somewhere in everybodys family, but nobody talks about it.

In 2016, there were 399 suicides in Ireland. A whopping 80% of those lives lost were men, proving that it's harder for men to talk about their mental health issues.

I think there is even more of a stigma here in the midlands, Charles continued.

Would you blame somebody for having a broken arm? No.

But if youre depressed or have anxiety or a personality disorder, youre seen as a bit weaker than everybody else; youre not able to fight for your dinner as much as everybody else; you mightnt be able to hold a conversation as much as anybody else.

Youre not really entitled to the same respect as other people.

Certainly if you get diagnosed with something, youre one of the lucky ones because you know what it is thats wrong. But telling people about it? He shook his head.

Things are certainly getting better, Charles added, but there's a very long way to go in the midlands - especially when it comes to addiction services.

Which is worse, Charles asked, the gambler, the heroin addict or the alcoholic?

None of them, he answered.

Addiction is the problem. And what is addiction? Its trying to replace something that you dont have.

And thats generally a connection, or the fact that you dont know how to be happy anymore. It could be stemming from any one of a number of different mental illnesses.

Addiction, I think, is a major thing in the midlands. I think it comes from depression and can cause depression. And I think its ignored. And I dont think there are enough facilities here to deal with it or enough people to care about it.

Social stigma is still killing too many people in Ireland, who are afraid to talk about their issues and afraid to ask for the help that they so badly need.

Mental health in the midlands still has a long way to go, Charles explained.

The day when somebody can pick up the phone and call one of their friends and say I dont feel good about this... the day when a man can call somebody up and say I dont feel good about this situation... the day that that is not a weakness is the day when we start to win.

And I dont think were there yet.

Charles James Walker's debut single 'Get In' is available now via iTunes, Spotify and other digital platforms. The video is available now via Charles' YouTube Channel. For updates, follow Charles on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Read also:

Longford Lives: Longford Psychologist Paul MarsdenA jury has failed to reach a verdict on whether a 25-year-old drug dealer is guilty of the murder or manslaughter of another man in Longford more than two years ago.



Rihards Lavickis of Annaly Court, Longford had pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of Akadiusz 'Arek' Czajkowski at Rue Noyal Chatillon, Townspark.

The Central Criminal Court heard that the accused admitted stabbing the 31-year-old on November 1, 2016.



Mr Lavickis told his trial that the deceased came looking for repayment of a 300 drug debt and beat him with a knuckle duster several months before the fatal encounter.



He said that Mr Czajkowski and two other men chased him that Halloween night, and that he (Mr Lavickis) awoke the following morning to find his front windows had been smashed.



He said he believed that Mr Czajkowski was responsible and went looking for him, armed with a knife, saying he wanted to frighten him. He said he had a "kind of a black out" when he saw the deceased, and lost self control.



The jury was told that, if provoked, his conviction could be reduced from murder to manslaughter.



However, the prosecution described the accused as a "deliberate killer".



Patrick McGrath SC explained in his closing speech that provocation was intended as a defence in crimes of passion. He pointed out that there was a three-and-a-half hour gap between Mr Lavickis waking to find his windows broken and the fatal stabbing.



He said, in that time, the accused had time to call the gardai who arrived and took a report from him. He then took the knife, brought it to the deceased's apartment but couldn't find him, went back home, smoked cigarettes and thought about what he would do.



He went to meet a friend to do something in relation to drugs, sat in that man's car and saw the deceased. He opened his knife, got out of the car, went across the road, where he concealed himself and waited for Mr Czajkowski, before chasing after him with his knife held over his shoulder and stabbing him to death.



He said the accused had taken the law into his own hands and made a conscious decision to go after Mr Czajkowski with a knife. He described the claim that he had a blackout and lost control as a fabrication.



John Shortt SC, defending, said the accused had admitted his actions from the outset.



He told the jury in his closing speech that taking the knife was not proof of intent. His client had made no effort to conceal who he was, hide the knife or go on the run, but had gone home and waited for the gardai.



He told the jury that, following the stabbing, Mr Lavickis had stopped and walked away, rather than making sure the deceased was dead. That, he said, showed someone who suddenly regained reason as the enormity of what he had done came to him.



He said that this was an attack that went too far. He said his client's head was a "total mess" because of the persistent hostility from the deceased. He described a "tumult of emotion" as the accused, who had taken a cocktail of drink and drugs the night before, thought about why this was happening, that it would not end and what he was doing to do about it.



He told the jurors that they would have to get inside the accused man's head as this was happening, and asked for a verdict of not guilty of murder, but guilty of manslaughter.



The jury deliberated for four hours, before the foreman told the judge that the members did not think more time would be of any help. They could not reach a unanimous or majority verdict.



Justice Una Ni Raifeartaigh told him to write Disagreement on the issue paper, informing the six men and five women that there may be a retrial.



Its a matter for the Director of Public Prosecutions, she explained.



She thanked them and discharged them before putting the case into the next list to fix a date for another trial.

The trial as it happened:

Day 1, Thursday, February 8 (morning):

Longford manslaughter plea rejected at Central Criminal Court

Day 1, Thursday, February 8 (afternoon):

Jury sworn in for Longford murder trial

Day 2 Friday, February 10 (morning):

Longford murder trial hears man was stabbed after dispute over smashed window

Day 2, Friday, February 10 (afternoon):

Longford murder trial hears accused stabbed victim three times

Day 3, Tuesday, February 13 (morning):

Longford murder accused told garda he was going to 'sort out' deceased

Day 3, Tuesday, February 13 (afternoon):

Accused had blood on his trousers when he informed partner he stuck knife in victim's 'belly'

Day 4, Wednesday, February 14 (morning):

Partner of accused in Longford murder trial feared revenge

Day 4, Wednesday, February 14 (afternoon):

Longford murder accused owed deceased money for cannabis he received 'on tick'

Day 5, Thursday, February 15 (morning):

Single stab wound to the heart caused death of Longford father of two

Day 5, Friday, February 15 (afternoon):

Father of two had drugs and alcohol in system when he died from stab wound to heart

Day 6, Friday, February 16 (morning):

Drug dealer wanted to teach deceased a lesson

Day 6, Friday, February 16 (afternoon):

Longford murder trial hears drug dealer wanted to teach deceased a lesson

Day 7, Tuesday, February 20 (morning):

Accused tells Longford murder trial he didn't mean to harm deceased

Day 7, Tuesday, February 20 (afternoon):

Longford murder accused tells trial: 'It's not the kind of person I am, to stab anyone'

Day 8, Friday, February 23:

Closing speeches in Longford murder trial: prosecution suggests that killing was deliberate



Day 9, Tuesday, February 27 (morning):

Jury begins deliberating in Longford murder trial



Day 9, Tuesday, February 27 (afternoon):

Jury in Longford murder trial inform judge they are 'at an impasse'Longford musician Joe Regan is no stranger to the music scene, with his band State Lights making waves across the country.

The band has gone from strength to strength since 2015 when members Joe, Shane 'Shobsy' O'Brien, Paul Ridgeway and Noel Perry got together at music college, BIMM Dublin.

And they've recently released their new single, 'Peace Will Come', which sends a positive message into a world of war and unease.

We wrote Peace Will Come about a year and a half ago, off the back of an old song idea from our first few months as a band, Joe told the Longford Leader.

We thought musically it was quite powerful, and the natural lyric that flowed out of Shobsy was one that dealt with the political and social climate of that time.

The song was written during the US Presidential Election, he added.

Hearing what Trump and Clinton were saying to each other and how the whole thing turned super nasty was just such a bizarre thing.

We were asking each other 'how is this happening?'

So the song was inspired by that dark time, and ultimately is about spreading a positive message of faith and hope that we will see better times than ever before, once we emerge from the current era of politics.

The band has also released a video to accompany the new single.

The video features some famous faces and friends of ours who got behind our message and the song, such as Liam Cunningham (actor), Patrick Bergin (actor), Garry Ringrose (rugby player), Guggi (artist), Craig Fitzgerald (The Academic) and Kevin Thornton (Celebrity Chef), Joe explained.

The song itself was produced in Joe's studio in Granard, Studio CHR, and mixed by Mark Needham, who has worked with such artists as The Killers, Imagine Dragons, P!nk and Kodaline.

From there, the band got Ted Jensen, who has worked with the likes of Green Day, Kings of Leon, Muse and Florence + The Machine, to master the track.

So it's no wonder the result was a fantastic single that will appeal to the masses.

The video, 'Peace Will Come' can be seen on YouTube, but if you want more from the band, you're in luck, because they'll be back in Longford on March 24.

Were super excited to play in The Backstage Theatre again on March 24, said Joe.

Our gig there last summer was one of our most memorable gigs ever as a band. The crowd were so supportive and amazing.

It was really touching that I brought my band to Longford for the first time and we were received so well.

'Peace Will Come' is available via iTunes and other digital platforms.

Watch the video for 'Peace Will Come' below:

Read also:

Longford musician releases powerful single and music video highlighting mental health issuesLocal News, Crime, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: March 05 2018

Schneiderman: "Todays guilty plea and full admission sends a strong message to every elected official."

New York, NY - March 5, 2018 - New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman has announced the guilty plea and admission of former State Senator George Maziarz. Attorney General Schneiderman released the following statement:

Todays guilty plea and full admission sends a strong message to every elected official that if you abuse the public trust, you will be rooted out, and there will be a public accounting of your crime. This case stands for a very simple but important principle, which is that you cannot use your campaign account as a slush fund to avoid public scrutiny. No one, not even George Maziarz, can use campaign accounts to deceive the public, flout the law, and pay off friends.

Maziarz pleaded guilty to Offering of a False Instrument for Filing in the Second Degree, related to a pass-through scheme in which he used money from his campaign committee to funnel secret campaign payments to a former Senate staffer, Glen Aronow, who had left government service amid charges of sexual harassment. The plea was entered today in Albany County Court before Judge Peter Lynch.

In his allocution before the court, Maziarz admitted, in sum and substance, to wanting to continue to use the services of Glen Aronow without the public knowing, so he arranged for payment to Aronow through a series of intermediaries, including Synor Marketing, knowing that those payments would not be included on various public filings with the BOE, including the 2012 July Periodic disclosure, making them knowingly false. In addition to the admission of guilt, Maziarz will also pay a $1,000 fine plus relevant surcharges.

Assistant Attorneys General Christopher Baynes and Matthew Peluso of the Attorney Generals Public Integrity Bureau prosecuted this case under the supervision of Public Integrity Bureau Chief Daniel Cort and Deputy Bureau Chief Stacy Aronowitz. The Criminal Justice Division is led by Executive Deputy Attorney General Margaret Garnett.

This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Buffalo, along with Investigator David Buske of the Attorney Generals Investigations Bureau, which is led by Deputy Chief Antoine Karam and Chief Dominick Zarrella. Legal Analyst Sara Pogorzelski also worked on the matter.School & Education, Local News, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: March 05 2018

Kaminsky: "More guns does not equal safer schools."

Rockville Centre, NY - March 5, 2018 - Senator Todd Kaminsky unveiled legislation today to prohibit teachers from carrying guns in schools. Kaminsky was joined by Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Senator Todd Kaminsky unveiled legislation today to prohibit teachers from carrying guns in schools. Kaminsky was joined by Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Rockville Centre Schools Superintendent Dr. William Johnson, advocacy groups, Senator John Brooks, local teachers and students.

More guns does not equal safer schools, said Senator Todd Kaminsky. Calls to arm our teachers are merely a distraction from urgently needed, common sense gun safety measures, increased funding for mental health services, and funding for hardening technology for our schools. No one other than law enforcement has any business carrying a gun in a school. Our teachers want to focus on educating our students, and injecting more guns into our schools can lead to increasing dangerous situations and keeps us from enacting real solutions to reduce mass shootings and everyday gun violence in our state.

Spurred by calls following last months tragic school shooting to arm educators instead of passing common-sense gun control and mental health measures, Senator Kaminsky sponsored the legislation announced today in order to ensure New York teachers are not required to carry firearms in the classroom. Should federal restrictions on guns in school zones be lifted, current New York law would allow a pathway for teachers to carry firearms. Todays legislation would prohibit that.

Earlier this week, a teacher shot himself in a Georgia high school. The bill would amend the Penal Law, ensuring that only credentialed law enforcement officers and security guards may possess firearms on school grounds.

Arming teachers is absurd, and not the way we should be protecting our kids or our schools. Putting guns in the hands of our educators, and having the taxpayers shoulder the enormous costs involved is not the answer to this crisis. That is why I applaud Senator Kaminsky for advancing legislation to ensure that only public protection officers will be allowed to carry firearms on school grounds. Protecting our children will require smart gun laws, including ensuring only well-trained officers have access to weapons in any education institution, as well as keeping firearms away from dangerous individuals, said Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins.

Anything we can do to keep guns out of schools is a step in the direction of maintaining safety for all of our students, said Dr. William Johnson, Rockville Centre Schools Superintendent.

Its sad that we even have to have a conversation about keeping our schools safe from gun violence -- but we do, and Im glad Senator Kaminsky is stepping up with legislation that will ensure we don't embark on a path that will make matters worse, said State Senator Brian Kavanagh, chair of New York Legislators for Gun Violence Prevention. The fact is, New York has one of the lowest rates of gun-related deaths in the nation because we have some of the strongest gun laws, and because of effective police work and community anti-violence programs. Of course we can do more, and we have to make choices about security -- but we can't let our attention be diverted by misguided ideas from the core task of keeping guns out of the hands of those who would use them to harm children as well as adults. Even the best school safety plan is no substitute for strong laws -- and arming teachers certainly isnt the answer. The only things we should be arming our teachers with are better books, more supplies, and the other resources they need to educate our children. I look forward to working with Senator Kaminsky on this legislation.School & Education, Local News

By Long Island News & PR Published: March 05 2018

177 students were seen by representatives from 14 colleges, universities and trade schools, and 137 were accepted on the spot.

Mastic Beach, NY - March 5, 2018 - The William Floyd High School Counseling Center recently held its third On-Site College Admissions Day of the school year to provide students with the opportunity to have one-to-one conversations and meetings with admissions counselors from many local colleges and universities. Counselors were on hand to discuss students specific plans, each colleges offerings, as well as to evaluate the students transcripts and applications. At this event, 177 students were seen by representatives from 14 colleges, universities and trade schools, and 137 were accepted on the spot with the remaining pending for further consideration.

Earlier in the school year, the Counseling Center organized two specific admissions days with Suffolk County Community College admissions representatives with approximately 180 students gaining acceptance on the spot. So far this year, the Counseling Center has facilitated meetings between students and colleges for nearly 60 percent of the graduating class of 2018.

Colleges, universities and trade schools in attendance this year were: Suffolk County Community College, Farmingdale State University, Mount Saint Mary, BOCES, Hunter Business School, SUNY Albany, St. Josephs College, NYIT, LIU Post, SUNY Old Westbury, SUNY Delhi, Molloy, Five Towns and SUNY Fredonia.

Additionally, four of the private colleges  LIU Post, Mount Saint Mary, NYIT and St. Josephs College  confirmed the awarding of nearly $305,000 in scholarships to deserving students should they choose to attend those institutions.by Ray Schultz , March 5, 2018

AOL is back running after an outage on Friday that affected users -- mostly on the East Coast of the U.S. But some issues apparently have continued into Monday morning.

Down Detector reports that AOL is having issues since 7:55 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, with 64% of the complaints addressing email problems.

SMTP mail servers still not reachable in Silver Spring, MD. Since March 1st, writes one user in a post dated Monay morning. Pretty ridiculous considering there is still no notice or announcement from AOL (Verizon) anywhere on he web.

No mail here in Detroit, MI, writes another, also on Monday morning.

AOL did acknowledge the issue, according to Express. On Friday, it tweeted: Were aware that service is slow/inaccessible for some of our users when trying to access AOL Mail. We are working to fix it as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

advertisement advertisement

On Friday, Express reported that thousands of users had been affected by an outage, but that the AOL Customer Support Twitter account tweeted to say service was restored.

Down Detector had received almost 5,000 reports of AOL being down, with over half concerning email, according to Express.

Email marketing messages presumably would not have reached those users at that time.

AOL also suffered outages in February, with U.S. users reporting problems, and in November 2017. Yahoo Mail, its sister service under Verizons Oath brand, has also had periodic problems over the last several months.by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, March 5, 2018

Talon Outdoor, a UK-based independent Out-of-Home (OOH) agency, has expanded to the U.S. in the form of a joint venture with Holt Media. The ventures first U.S. office has opened in New York.

Irina Zeltser has been appointed managing director and will run the agencys U.S. arm. James Copley, a founding partner of Talon will be providing support and Ruth Schinn has been hired as director. The agency will continue to build its U.S. staff.

Zeltser joins Talon from OOH firm Project X, part of New York-based ADstruc and Schinn is an OOH veteran who has held senior positions at Posterscope and Kinetic.

This is an exciting time to be in the industry, with the advent of new digital technologies, audience targeting and measurement capabilities that continue to lift the medium as a whole, stated Zeltser. We intend to embrace the ongoing digital transformation in OOH, employing an approach that leverages all of the technological and creative assets at our disposal to smartly deliver the most effective and accountable integrated campaigns for our clients.

In the UK, the five-year-old Talon has worked with brands including Google, Disney, Sony Pictures and McDonalds.by Sara Guaglione , March 5, 2018

Media entrepreneur Steve Brill and former Wall Street Journal publisher Gordon Crovitz have launched NewsGuard, a startup that rates online news outlets on their reliability in an effort to fight fake news.

NewsGuard analysts will look at 7,500 news sites and assign green, yellow and red "reliability ratings." These sites selected by NewsGuard account for 98% of the news articles read and shared in English online in the United States, according to the company.

The idea is that the ratings will make it more clear to those who get their news via search engines or social-media platforms which sites are trustworthy. It will also whitelist news sites as safe spaces for advertisers to associate brands with, so that they can avoid advertising on fake news outlets.

NewsGuard raised $6 million in funding to launch this initiative. The startup has 18 investors, led by Publicis Groupe, a multinational ad agency.

advertisement advertisement

For us, NewsGuard is highly appealing because it is a concrete, actionable answer to our clients concerns  another layer of protection for them, stated Publicis Groupe chairman Maurice Levy.

Levy added: Advertisers are increasingly concerned about their brand safety and do not want to help finance and appear alongside fake news. NewsGuard will be able to publish and license white lists of news sites our clients can use to support legitimate publishers, while still protecting their brand reputations.

The ratings will pertain to each sites record as a news source, rather than a specific article or journalist.

A green rating will be given to sites with content produced by people who are trying to communicate news, information and opinion that they believe is accurate, and who adhere to practices aimed at assuring basic standards of accuracy, as well as accountability, according to the NewsGuard site.

Yellow sites require caution when consuming them, because content may be "extremely biased or inaccurate and usually adheres to an agenda that is supported by this biased or inaccurate content. Yellow sites may also have a biased, self-interested agenda that is not revealedindeed, it is often deliberately hiddenfrom the user.

And red sites are the deliberate purveyors of what has come to be called fake news, with the intention of deceiving readers.

Their goal is typically either profit (to reap advertising dollars by getting the most clicks from the most outrageous headline) or to advance disinformation or propaganda (the purposeful distribution of false reports to mislead the public), the site reads.

NewsGuards analysis will extend beyond those ratings to nutrition labels" as well. The labels will provide information about the news outlets' founders, ownership, editorial leadership, awards and relevant controversies or notable stories from the publication.

We are not going to make granular judgments about political leanings, or which of two legitimate news sitesBuzzFeed News or TheBoston Globe, for exampleproduces more reliable journalism, stated Crovitz. But we will tell readers TheDenver Post is a real newspaper and that the Denver Guardian exists only as a purveyor of fake news.

So far, NewsGuard has reviewed less than 10 sites, including: BaltimoreSun.com, DenverGuardian.com, NationalReview.com, Lawfareblog.com, GAO.gov, What-is-fracking.com, CommonwealthFund.org, NPR.org and RT.com.

Former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune James Warren will serve as executive editor. Eric Effron, formerly of Reuters, The Week and Legal Times, will be managing editor of NewsGuard.

Brill, founder of law magazine American Lawyer, Court TV and the former Brills Content magazine, told The Washington Post the company expects to hire three or four dozen staffers and freelancers.

Our goal is to help solve this problem now by using human beingstrained, experienced journalistswho will operate under a transparent, accountable process to apply basic common sense to a growing scourge that clearly cannot be solved by algorithms, Brill stated.

NewsGuard hopes the ratings will one day appear in Google search results, shared article posts on Facebook and Twitter, and on YouTube videos. Users may get to add a plug-in to display ratings for each news site they access, too.

NewsGuard will make money by charging licensing fees to social-media platforms, online search companies and aggregators.by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, March 5, 2018

Google has agreed to pay $11 million to settle a class-action by publishers who accused Google of wrongly withholding ad revenue.

The proposed settlement stems from a 2014 class-action complaint brought by small web site operators, including Free Range Content and Coconut Island Software, who said their accounts were wrongly disabled by Google over alleged policy violations. The publishers -- who said they had not engaged in click fraud or other activity prohibited by Google -- alleged that Google owed them revenue when they were thrown out of AdSense.

Google said in court papers filed last week that it agreed to settle the allegations because continuing with the litigation "would be burdensome and expensive." The company denies wrongdoing.

The deal calls for Google to reimburse some publishers between 30% and 100% of the money they were owed when their accounts were terminated. The settlement agreement comes almost two years after Google lost a key battle in the lawsuit. The company had argued that the case should be dismissed because its contract with publishers said the relationship could be terminated at any time. The publishers countered that those contracts were too unfair to be enforceable.

advertisement advertisement

U.S. District Court Judge Beth Labson Freeman sided with the publishers in May of 2016, ruling that they could proceed with their lawsuit. "Taking the allegations are true, the [agreements] are one-sided because they let Google withhold funds for up to two months regardless of the severity of the purported breach and even if the funds are earned through valid activity, notwithstanding Googles supposed ability to distinguish between valid and invalid ad serves," she wrote.

Freeman will hold a hearing on the deal next month.by Larissa Faw , March 5, 2018

Jarlsberg Cheese is out with a new campaignLifes Best Served With Jarlsberg--as the Norwegian-based food brand refreshes its global platform and aligns with outside creative agencies for the first time.

Digital Surgeons handled all of the creative, including digital elements, advertising, website and media buying. Bender Group is overseeing PR outreach.

The "Life's Best Served With Jarlsberg" creative--targeting older Millennials and baby boomers--is designed to highlight memories people build around the cheese. This message is designed to be adaptable to regional markets to address local customs, celebrations, and recipes.

The overhauled brand platform will be leveraged across digital ads, brand ambassadors/influencers, in-store mobile and digital coupons. Additionally, Jarlsberg will debut a first-ever dynamic out-of-home Times Square Billboard in New York City.

advertisement advertisement

All creative is meant to drive consumers to a new microsite where shoppers can find coupons and recipes.

As millennials and echo booms (aka older millennials) enter the peak ages where rituals around family life and cuisine are reestablished, we want to ensure theyre reminded of Jarlsberg, its great taste, and the pleasant memories they associate with it," says Valerie Liu, marketing manager, Jarlsberg.

The campaign runs through April 13 in the New York market with plans to expand nationwide and globally over the coming year.

While Jarlsberg is one of the most recognizable brands in Norway, it remains a niche brand in the U.S. Most of its previous communications have been smaller in scale and reach. For instance an in-house social media campaign was designed to celebrate the brands 60th anniversary two years ago.Depression has become a common mental health problem. For some, this condition lingers for many years, and scientists now strive to understand how that might affect the brain, and how treatments should be adjusted to address these changes. Share on Pinterest When depression doesnt loosen its grip for a decade, how does it impact the brain? According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), across the United States, 8.1 percent of people over the age of 20 have depression over any given 2-week period. For some people, depression might only be episodic and overcome within a matter of weeks or months. However, for others diagnosed with major depression, the condition could persist for years, affecting their lifestyle and quality of life. Looking at cases in which major depression lasts for over a decade, researchers from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Ontario, Canada wanted to investigate whether living with this condition for so long would significantly impact the brain, and if so, how. Dr. Jeff Meyer, from the CAMH, led a study focusing on that question. He and his team compared the brain scans of people who had lived with untreated depression for 10 years or longer with those of people with a shorter history of depression. The findings  published last week in The Lancet Psychiatry  suggest that specialists might want to change their approach to treating long-term depression as it progresses to match its increasing neurological impact.

Depression may be progressive Dr. Meyer and team worked with 80 people aged 1875. Of these, 25 had lived with depression for longer than 10 years, 25 had had the condition for less than a decade, and 30 were depression-free. This final cohort made up the control group. In a study from 2015, Dr. Meyer and his colleagues saw that during episodes of major depression, peoples brains would exhibit markers of inflammation. Based on that knowledge, in the new study, he wanted to explore whether the brain inflammation worsened over time in people with long-lasting depression. The scientists determined the severity of the neuroinflammation using a type of brain scan known as positron emission tomography (PET). This allowed them to monitor the activity of microglia, a type of cell found in the central nervous system, which are associated with the inflammatory response to injury. Active microglia produce translocator protein (TSPO), which is a key marker of inflammation. Through the PET scans, Dr. Meyer and team found that the concentration of TSPO was 2933 percent higher in the brains of people who had lived with depression for more than a decade. These inflammation markers were seen in three brain regions in particular: the prefrontal cortex, the anterior cingulate cortex, and the insula. Consistent with previous findings, the brains of those who had lived with untreated depression for shorter periods of time still had higher concentrations of TSPO than the brains of healthy controls.A newborn baby starts building its immune system early on. But before this early immunity is fully developed, a baby may be prone to catching and having to fight off viruses such as colds. Colds are less common in newborns because they have some immunity from their mothers. This immunity wears off by about 6 months, and then colds become more common. A newborn with a cold can be scary for a parent or carer to watch. But these illnesses are vital to help the babys body learn to fight the viruses that cause the common cold. Children will usually have numerous colds before their first birthday. There are some other symptoms to look out for to be sure it is a cold, and there will be times when a doctor should be seen. Treating a newborns cold requires especially gentle care but is often not a serious issue.

Symptoms of a newborn cold Share on Pinterest Jasmin Merdan/Getty Images Newborns may have excess nasal discharge that starts out runny and watery but progresses to a thicker, yellow to green discharge within a few days. This is the natural progression of the infection and does not automatically mean symptoms are getting worse. A slight fever may also follow, which could be another sign of their body fighting off the infection. Other signs of a cold in newborns include: sneezing

coughing

irritability or fussing

red eyes

lack of appetite

trouble sleeping or staying asleep

difficulty nursing due to a stuffy nose The signs of colds in newborns are similar to the symptoms of some other illnesses, including croup and pneumonia. These conditions are more serious, however, so parents and carers should contact a doctor or specialist pediatrician if a newborn shows signs of a cold. A doctor can do a thorough diagnosis and usually put troubled minds at ease. The parents or carers can then better focus on tending to their childs cold.

Is it something more serious? While many of the above symptoms are common for multiple disorders, newborns with flu, croup, or pneumonia will often show other symptoms. Flu A newborn with flu may have cold symptoms, but these are often alongside other signs that may include vomiting, diarrhea, or higher fever. The baby may also be especially fussy due to other symptoms they are too young to cannot express. A baby with the flu will often seem sicker than with a cold, but not always. Croup Babies with croup will have the typical symptoms of a cold, but these symptoms may quickly get worse. Babies may have a harsh, barking cough. They may have difficulty breathing, which could cause them to make straining, squeaking noises, or to sounding hoarse when they cough. Whooping cough Whooping cough, also called pertussis, begins as a cold, but symptoms can shift after a week or so. The baby may develop a severe hacking cough that makes it hard for them to breathe. The cough may make the baby take deep breaths immediately after coughing. These breaths make a whooping noise. The classic whoop, however, is more common in older children and adults and does not often happen in babies. An infant with pertussis often vomits after coughing or, more seriously, may briefly turn blue or stop breathing. Whooping cough is serious and requires immediate medical care. Pneumonia Babies may be more at risk than older people of a cold turning into pneumonia. This can happen quickly, which is why it is important to notify a pediatrician for a proper diagnosis. Pneumonia symptoms include: vomiting

sweating

high fever

flushed skin

strong cough, worsening over time

abdominal sensitivity Babies with pneumonia may also have difficulty breathing. They could breathe more rapidly than normal, or their breathing could sound difficult. In some cases, their lips or fingers may look blueish, which is a sign they are not getting enough oxygen and need emergency medical attention.

Treatment A newborn cold often has to be treated with patient care. The babys body is learning to protect itself, and the best assistance adults can offer is comfort and gentle care during the process. Over-the-counter cold medications are not recommended for babies, as they do not work and can have serious side effects. Doctors may recommend a few different home remedies to help babies through their early colds. Nasal saline drops are sometimes suggested to help with a stuffy nose. In some cases, they may also discuss the possibility of using fever-reducing medication. It may take up to 2 weeks for a babys symptoms to go completely. Home remedies The following home remedies can ease symptoms: Hydration : Babies should be well fed and hydrated when they are fighting off a cold, as mucus and fever can take away vital liquids and electrolytes.

: Babies should be well fed and hydrated when they are fighting off a cold, as mucus and fever can take away vital liquids and electrolytes. Clean nasal passages : Cleaning out a babys nose with a rubber syringe may help the baby breathe easier.

: Cleaning out a babys nose with a rubber syringe may help the baby breathe easier. Humidity : Using a gentle humidifier to moisten the area around the babys crib may assist them to breathe better and relieve congestion.

: Using a gentle humidifier to moisten the area around the babys crib may assist them to breathe better and relieve congestion. Steam : Standing in a steamy bathroom with the hot water running for 10 to 15 minutes may loosen mucus.

: Standing in a steamy bathroom with the hot water running for 10 to 15 minutes may loosen mucus. Rest: It may be best to avoid public places and allow the baby plenty of extra time to rest while they heal. Any worsening of symptoms should be discussed with a doctor, and home remedies should be used with caution.

Risks and prevention While newborns get colds infrequently, older babies and young children have a greater risk of getting a cold simply because they have not yet developed resistance to the viruses that cause them. A couple of other factors may increase this risk, such as exposure to older children or being around people who smoke. The viruses that cause the common cold can spread through the air or from contact with someone who has the virus. A person who is carrying the virus may not show any symptoms. A baby who has contact with such a person can easily become infected themselves. It is best to help an infant avoid a cold by taking steps to reduce their exposure. These includes: regular hand-washing by anyone who is in contact with the baby

avoiding people who are sick or have been around someone who is sick

limiting exposure to crowds

avoiding secondhand smoke

regularly cleaning toys and surfaces Nursing may also allow some of the mothers antibodies to be fed to the baby. It does not mean the baby will not get sick, but they may get sick less often, and it may be easier for them to fight off infections than formula-fed babies.

When to see a doctor A fever is one of the babys primary defenses against infections such as colds. In very young babies under 3 months, fever higher than 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit (F) would warrant a call to the doctor. Under 6 months, fever of 101F would be a sign they need a doctors attention. Very young babies may not have a fever even in the face of serious infection. If a newborn seems ill, even with no fever, medical care should be sought right away. In all cases, a young baby who has a fever that persists for more than a few days, or one that goes away for a day or two but then returns, should be seen by a doctor. It is also important to see a doctor if any other unusual symptoms show up in the baby. These include symptoms such as: trouble breathing normally

unusual sounding cry or cough

signs of physical pain or discomfort

trouble eating or refusing to eat

skin rashes

persistent diarrhea or vomiting

dehydration In some cases, a parent or carer may simply sense the baby just does not seem right. If there is any uncertainty about the symptoms a baby is showing, they should see a doctor straight away.You must have heard and experienced the concept of 'return gifts' or party favors, as the adults call it today. It's a token of appreciation and thoughtfulness that is gifted to the guests when they attend a party or an event. You know like the famous 'Koffee with Karan' gift hamper? If you thought that was posh, wait till you read about the Oscar 'swag bag' that is given to Oscar nominees every year. While the winners obviously take the golden trophy back home, nominees don't return empty-handed either.

It's been an annual ritual carried by a marketing company called 'Distinctive Assets', which is not actually affiliated by the Academy but indulges in hampers for the nominees in the top categories, namely; best actor, best actress, best supporting actor, best supporting actress and best director.

This year's swag bag is worth a whopping $100,000 dollars, which is around 65 lakh rupees! The contents are pretty interesting as well. It contains a freaking 12-night trip to Tanzania, a full week Hawaiian escapade in a resort, a health and ancestry service package, a levitating Bluetooth speaker, a gorgeous diamond necklace and some expensive collagen and gold masks thrown in. This is just the icing on the cake. If shenanigans interest you, here's the full list :

-Edible jewelry from Chocolatines

-Underarm sweat patches from Dandi Patch

-Lemonade-flavored moonshine from Southern Wicked Lemonade

-A 12-night Tanzania trip for two from International Expeditions

-A seven-day Hawaii trip at Koloa Landing Resort in Poipu

-A stay at Avaton Luxury Villas Resort in Halkidiki, Greece

-A weeklong spa retreat at Golden Door

-Pepperface, a lightweight pepper spray

-Chao Pinhole Gum Rejuvenation dental procedure

-23andMe genetic service

-A Luxura Diamonds "conflict-free" necklace

-NeverMissed dating app, available pre-launch

-A 10,000 bowl donation to an animal shelter of their choice and bags of pet food from Halo, Purely For Pets

-MZ Skin firming eye cream and golden treatment mask

-A lifetime supply of Oxygenetix foundation

-Locally grown oranges, courtesy of delivery app EpiFruit

-A memoir by Esther Fairfax about her mother, Lotte Berk, the innovator of Barre

-Healing Saint's skin serum and follicle stimulant

-Jarritos, the Mexican soda

-10 sessions with personal trainer Alexis Seletzky

-A one-year supply of ALLEL's skin care program

-Bangarang's Positive Cube, a wooden box filled with 199 cards of positive action and quotes

-Color-changing lipstick from Blush & Whimsy

-Charleston & Harlow soy candles

-Danish cookbook, Cook Yourself Happy

-Curlee Girlee children's book

-Organic, vegan and small-batch Delicacies lollipops

-Face It and Eye Love It facewash and makeup removers

-Happiest Tee's American-made T-shirts

-Weight loss supplement Hydroxycut Organic

-10-piece Inception of Beauty makeup set

-Justice for Vets symbolic coin

-An 18-minute phobia-relief session with Kalliope

-LE CE`LINE eyelashes products

-Liwu jewelry from Ireland

-Look Fabulous Forever makeup specially formulated for older women

-My Magic Mud toothpaste, which combines activated coconut shell charcoal and bentonite clay

-M.Y.O. cosmetic clutch

-99 Creative WOWs creativity kit

-Nurse Gigi skin rejuvenation procedures

-Oumere anti-aging skincare

-Paiva Aloe cleanser and mask

-PETA's cruelty-free bath bombs

-2 gourmet pretzel gift boxes from Posh Pretzels

-A.I. beauty startup PROVEN's personalized skincare products

-Quincy Herbals detox tea

-Quip's oral care kit

-Commissioned work from Reian Williams Fine Art

-Rouge Maple syrup

-Safi Kilima bracelet with oval tanzanite stones

-Shop Modern Innovations' levitating Bluetooth speaker

-The Green Garmento's multi-use Gigantote

-Vaya's Tyffyn lunchboxes

-Totalee hair care products

-Wetsleeve on-the-go hydration sleeve

-Youthblast anti-aging supplement and 24k Gold Facial

According to Forbes, the companies which participate to be a part of this bag pay out of their own will because the recipients have a high value attached with their name and stature of work. I think even KJO will need a minute to just digest all of that.

via GIPHY

The people getting these goodie bags already have a lot of swag of their own and while it a great marketing strategy for the brands, it is still unbelievably, insanely expensive for mere mortals like us.Anybody who's taken a train from New Delhi, or any other Indian railway station for that matter, knows the pain of battling it out in the crowd. At any given point in the day, you're sure to find to find a sea of humanity shuffling its way to nowhere. As if the torture of dragging your suitcase across platforms, steering through confused travellers wasn't enough, you find your train is 5 hours late. By now you probably have a phobia of railway stations. You are the anti-thesis of Geet from 'Jab We Met'.

 BCCL

What if we told you there is a swanky (as compared to the rest of the railway station) waiting lounge at the New Delhi Railway Station and it's been there for the past 6 years! The lounge has it all  deluxe suites for you to take a good nap in case your train is running way behind schedule, reclining chairs, free wi-fi, and a fine dining space.

 BCCL

The executive lounge is run by IRCTC and you need to pay Rs 165 for using it for 2 hours. Considering the mayhem outside, it's a pretty good deal we think. Of course, the deluxe suites come at an additional cost. Although bookings for the lounge are done online mostly, IRCTC offers a walk-in option too.

Access to these lounges is controlled by a smart card, which can track how many hours you have been inside. People usually use the suites when they have a train to catch the same day, an IRCTC official said.

The lounge is part of a pilot programme to offer lounge facilities on railway stations across the country and, true to the plan, more lounges are expected to open up in the next couple of years. Delhi, Jaipur and Agra are on the list of preferred cities where the railway lounges would be introduced.

While we desperately wish more lounges crop up at railway stations, we can't wait to try the one at New Delhi Railway Station! Have you seen it?!MIDDLETOWN  The citys state representative for the 100th House District hopes to be on the ballot for the 9th Senate District seat on Election Day.

State Rep. Matt Lesser (D-Middletown) is now exploring running for the district which includes Cromwell, Newington, Rocky Hill and parts of Middletown and Wethersfield. The post is now held by Sen. Paul Doyle, who is leaving the seat to run for Connecticut Attorney General.

Common Councilman Gene P. Nocera of Middletown will serve as treasurer.

Making big ideas work for our towns is what motivates me each morning, Lesser said in a press release. Ive worked for real change in Hartford and in our towns. Our next state senator should be an honest, effective fighter for working people. Thats why over the next few weeks, Ill be traveling around the district, meeting people and listening.

Lesser, who chairs the Banking Committee, has been a state rep for Middletown for nine years.

Our community was built on good jobs in manufacturing and skilled trades, and Matt Lesser knows these are vital for Connecticuts future, Shirley Dickes, a 28-year retired union machinist at Pratt & Whitney in Middletown, said in a prepared statement. Matt works harder than anyone to get things done.

Lesser champions Paid Family Medical Leave to ensure working people can take paid time off to care for a sick child or relative. The cancer survivor is also leading efforts to protect the Affordable Care Act and ensure access to womens health services, according to the release.

The Connecticut State Senate is split 18-18, making every open seat a closely-watched race for both Democrats and Republicans, according to Lessers statement. In his first election in 2008, Lesser said he knocked on 5,000 doors to talk directly with voters. When he took office nine years ago, Lesser was Connecticuts youngest serving legislator.

Lesser lives in the North End of Middletown with his wife Sarah and their dog Lucy.

For information, visit housedems.ct.gov/Lesser.DURHAM  State police charged a student at Coginchaug Regional High School Thursday for the second time in less than a week for reportedly making threatening posts on Instagram referencing the Florida school shootings.

Another student was charged Feb. 23 with second-degree breach of peace in connection with separate incident, during which his social media post caused annoyance and alarm and caused a disruption at the school, according to a release from police.

State police Troop F in Westbrook received a number of complaints Thursday just before 7 p.m. about a male student at Coginchaug Regional High School who allegedly published a threatening post on Instagram.

Authorities say the message, which had been viewed by 200 of his followers, referenced Nicholas Cruz, the suspect in the Parkland school shooting.

Troopers, who met with the student and his parents, said the student confessed to posting photos on Instagram and discussing plans for violence, but claimed he never planned to carry through on the threats.

The family is deeply saddened by the events that have occurred and are distraught about the impact this has had on other students and the school community, Regional School District 13 Superintendent Kathryn Veronesi wrote in a letter to parents. They have assured me that their child does not currently, nor has ever had, access to firearms. In addition, they further confirmed that their child did not intend to carry out any acts of violence.

The juvenile was charged with second-degree breach of peace March 1 and additionally March 2 for second-degree breach of peace and second-degree threatening. He is due to be arraigned at Superior Court in Middletown Wednesday.

An investigation into the Feb. 23 incident found no physical threat had been made, officials said. However, the student was charged with second-degree breach of peace and is scheduled to appear in Middletown court March 14.

In a letter posted on the districts website, Veronesi said the juvenile is no longer permitted on school property and there will be increased police presence at the high school.

We are asking that parents and school staff work together with the children for whom we are responsible to address unsafe behaviors and inappropriate communications as soon as adults become aware of such behaviors and/or communications, she wrote in the statement.

Veronesi also encouraged parents and students to report any threatening behavior or messages or those that make students feel unsafe by calling both 860-349-7200 and Troop F at 860-399-2100.

The school district also recognizes that members of the school community have been shaken by the recent events in Florida and other incidents of school violence. We want to let parents know that there is support available at each building to address any child who is anxious or fearful for any reason. Requests for support may be made to the building principal and/or counseling staff at the building level, Veronesi wrote.1. Navy Buys Ship Lasers to 'Dazzle' Drones

From Richard Sisk at Military.com:

"The Navy has awarded an initial $150 million contract to Lockheed Martin to develop shipboard lasers that can "dazzle" enemy drone swarms and take out small boats.

It's a 'watershed moment' in the Navy's decades-long effort to develop laser weapons for surface ships, Ian McKennie, Lockheed's business development leader for laser systems, said [March 2] of the $150 million contract that could go to $942.8 million with options.

Lockheed plans to deliver two of the systems to the Navy in fiscal 2020. One would go on board an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer for testing and the second would be used for land testing at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico."

2. Only Half of F-35s Are Flying

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter fleet is growing by the year, but availability rates for the defense department's brand-new 5th-generation fighter are surprisingly low. The director of the F-35 Joint Program Office, Vice Adm. Mat Winter, told reporters March 1 that 51 percent of all 280 operational F-35s are available for flight, and the availability rate drops to between 40 and 50 percent for aircraft in the earliest production lots.

The good news, Winter said, is that later production lots of the aircraft have much higher availability rates, thanks to hardware and software improvements. The F-35 program is now overseeing the creation of government maintenance depots, increasing production of spares, and pushing forward with an upgrade to the aircraft's autonomous logistics information system [ALIS] to increase efficiencies and bring up availability rates.

These steps are crucial. If maintenance costs continue at their current rate as the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy continue to accept more aircraft, the program will be "unaffordable," Winter said, even as the purchase cost of the F-35 continues to come down.

3. Reserve Rescue Unit Needs New Aircraft

From Military.com reporter Oriana Pawlyk's recent reporting trip to Patrick Air Force Base, Florida:

"The 920th [Rescue Wing] overall is responsible for 18 percent of all Air Force rescue missions, and officials here expect that percentage to rise in years to come.

'The Air Force needs to field out' the new helicopters, 'and we're towards the end of that fielding,' said Col. Kurt Matthews, commander of the 920th Rescue Wing. The commander also said the HC-130J Combat King II model -- intended to replace HC-130P/Ns across the fleet -- is long overdue.

'My concern is, we're already flying an aircraft that's beyond its normal lifespan, and for helicopters it's a lot different than fixed-wing,' Matthews said in a follow-up interview."

In addition to new HC-130J aircraft, the wing is waiting on new HH-60W "Whiskey" combat rescue helicopters to replace its aging HH-60G Pave Hawks. But despite operational wear and tear and an increasing tempo for the wing, the new helicopters could take up to a decade to arrive.

4. Hearings on the Hill

It's the busiest week of the year so far for the military on Capitol Hill, where leaders from every service are set to testify on a wide range of issues.

On Tuesday, panels of the House Armed Services Committee will hear from Marine Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of U.S. Africa Command on the state of military activities on the continent, and recent testimony from Navy and Marine Corps leadership in two separate hearings covering budget and readiness issues.

At the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, members will hear from Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Army Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley on worldwide threats and from the heads of Navy and Marine Corps aviation on budget issues.

HASC will tackle military service acquisition reform, the F-35 program and U.S. strategic forces posture and budget issues in separate hearings on Wednesday.

On Thursday, HASC will hear from leaders of the Maritime Administration and U.S. Transportation Command, then from administrators at Arlington National Cemetery. SASC will complete the week with a hearing featuring Army Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, Commander of U.S. European Command and NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

5. Navy Vets With Mental Illnesses Sue Over Discharges

From the Associated Press:

"Navy and Marine Corps veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan with mental health problems were unfairly given less-than-honorable discharges by the Navy, preventing them from getting Veterans Affairs benefits and other support, according to a lawsuit filed [March 2].

... The veterans say they were less-than-honorably discharged for minor infractions related to post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries and other mental problems they developed during their service.

They also say the Naval Discharge Review Board, which handles applications from former sailors and Marines, unlawfully denied their requests to change their discharge characterization. The board granted 16 percent of discharge upgrade applications involving PTSD last year, compared with 51 percent approval of such applications by Army and Air Force boards, the veterans say."

-- Oriana Pawlyk and Richard Sisk contributed to this report.What Is ISIS-K? Two Experts on the Group Behind the Kabul Airport Attack and its Rivalry with the Taliban

By 2018, the group had become one of the top four deadliest terrorist organizations in the world.WASHINGTON -- In the Queens, N.Y., neighborhood where he grew up, Harminder Saini never thought twice about having foreign-born parents. Half of the people in his diverse neighborhood did.

Saini was born in India but thought of himself as an American. He celebrated Halloween and the Fourth of July and at 7, he watched the plumes of smoke rise up from lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. Saini grew up with an appreciation for his country's history and a fascination with the U.S. military.

It was only after high school, when he wanted to get a job, that his parents told him a hard truth: He was undocumented. He had no passport or Social Security number; he couldn't get a driver's license. His future was suddenly in limbo.

"It was heartbreaking," he said. "I realized that on paper, at least, I wasn't American. That really hurt."

In 2012, when President Barack Obama instituted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, allowing children like Saini to remain in the U.S. legally and free from the threat of deportation, he seized on the opportunity.

He applied for and received DACA status, started college and, in February 2016, he signed a contract to join the Army after learning about the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest, or MAVNI, program that allowed documented immigrants with language or medical skills to enlist and to get on a fast track for citizenship.

But in an era of shifting politics over immigration and national security, the fast track has proven anything but.

Saini, 24, is among an estimated 300 DACA recipients who have been waiting months -- many for more than a year -- to pass a backlog of intensified background checks for MAVNI recruits. President Donald Trump's imposed Monday deadline for ending DACA has ramped up pressure on these military recruits who had thought they were well on their way to becoming citizens. Court challenges have delayed the president's plans, but the issue still looms.

So, Saini -- along with his fellow DACA recruits -- is back in limbo, wondering whether he's about to become a soldier or about be deported. He still believes the country he loves will come through for him.

He tries not to think about what could happen if it doesn't work out. He has no backup plan, he said.

"All these negative thoughts don't go anywhere," Saini said. "America is the plan. It's always been the plan."

The MAVNI program

More than 10,000 foreign-born recruits have joined the Army through MAVNI since the program began in 2009 as the Army faced a recruiting challenge. It was a way to attract documented foreigners with medical or language skills deemed vital to national interests. In exchange, these recruits were offered expedited citizenship, said Maj. David Eastburn, a Defense Department spokesman.

When DACA was rolled out in 2012, its recipients became eligible to seek enlistment only through MAVNI -- if they had the skills. About 900 of 690,000 DACA recipients or "Dreamers" as they are called, have joined the military through MAVNI, Eastburn said.

But security concerns heated up in late 2016, and the government has since repeatedly intensified requirements for noncitizen recruits. A Defense Department memo, released through a lawsuit brought by MAVNI recruits against the government, states that the program presents "counterintelligence and security risks" that vary based on military jobs, "risk of connections to foreign intelligence services" and the extent they'd been vetted.

That vetting now includes the same background check used for "top secret" security clearance even though MAVNI recruits are not eligible for any security clearance because they are not citizens, said former Army Lt. Col. Margaret Stock, an immigration lawyer and advocate who helped to create MAVNI and managed the program for several years.

The labor-intensive checks -- which apply not only to new recruits but retroactively to all 10,000 MAVNI servicemembers regardless of rank or years of service -- created a massive backlog and ultimately led the Pentagon to suspend MAVNI in August 2016. The program is still operational for those who joined before that, but it has stopped accepting recruits and its future is unclear. Without MAVNI, immigrants can't join the military.

DACA recruits waiting for their background checks worry they are in jeopardy of losing their "deferred" status and being subject to deportation. If Trump has his way, DACA would end today.

DACA recruits aren't the only MAVNI recruits on hold, but because they face termination, they are facing the most pressure.

Advocates say if DACA is terminated, recipients across the country will start to see their status expire at a rate of about 120 a day until ultimately, at some point in 2019, all of them would be subject to deportation.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in early February assured DACA recruits they would not be in danger of deportation while they wait for their background checks. Mattis said he spoke directly with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen who assured him that immigrants serving in the military as well as all honorably discharged veterans with no criminal actions against them are still protected. He said regarding DACA recruits, "it's clarified that they are not in any kind of jeopardy" and Homeland Security would work with the Pentagon on DACA issues.

Stock called that statement into legal question, saying it went against a 2016 Defense Department policy memo that required all recruits to have active deferred status before they can ship off to training. So, if the DACA program is revoked and recruits waiting for background checks lose their status, they could still face a Catch-22, Stock said. As an expert on immigration law, Stock worries that there are no leaders of the MAVNI program today who have a complete understanding of the complex legalities that affect its participants.

"When the secretary makes an oral statement at a press interview and there's official policy memos that contradict that, people tend to follow the memos," Stock said. "Secretary Mattis apparently didn't seem to know that he should have rescinded the memo."

Similarly, MAVNI recruits with other forms of visas have seen them expire while they wait out background checks. The military promised them deferred action status while they wait, and some have received that. But the Department of Homeland Security has denied others the status, Stock said.

"The whole thing is insane," Stock said.

"Some MAVNIs have been sitting for more than a year at various posts waiting for background checks, already on active duty," Stock said. "Nobody can go anywhere until this is done."

'Patriotic people'

As Trump's plan to end DACA made its way through the courts, Congress sought to heed the president's demand that legislators reach consensus on immigration reform.

It came close, with a proposal that seemed to have something for all sides -- funding for the border wall with Mexico that Trump wants and permanent protections for the Dreamers. In mid-February, the best hopes were scuttled when two bills failed.

Meanwhile, Dreamers and backers wrote op-ed pieces and open letters calling for the government to recognize the Dreamers as Americans -- particularly those who chose to serve in the military.

"We have a group of patriotic people who want to don the uniform and defend the only country they've ever known," said retired Marine Corps Lt. Col. Scott Cooper, director of Veterans for American Ideals at Human Rights First.

Cooper, who deployed five times to Iraq and twice to Afghanistan, said he didn't understand that for many years. Then one day during deployment in Iraq, he had a chance to witness a citizenship ceremony for a fellow Marine held in one of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's palaces.

The emotional scene was life-changing, Cooper said during a teleconference about Dreamers in late January.

"I did not know a lot about immigrants, but I realized they oftentimes cared for, loved and wanted to serve this country more than many of us who were born here," Cooper said.

"Deporting them to countries they don't know would be nothing short of cruel," he said.

Two such Dreamers are John and James Sena, twin brothers who were 10 when their parents brought them to the United States from the Philippines. They, too, had no idea that legally they weren't Americans until a Marine Corps recruiter came to their junior high school and was impressed with John Sena's fitness.

It was the realization of a lifelong dream, Sena said. Growing up as children of immigrants, he and James were raised with a sense of gratitude for the country that had adopted them. Their plan was always to serve. "If our parents didn't move here or didn't give us a life in American, we probably would have died from poverty in the Philippines," John Sena said. "Growing up, James and I talked all the time about how we felt we would have to repay our debts to this country."

But when he went home and asked his mom for his passport and Social Security number so he could pre-enlist in the Marines, he found out he wasn't a citizen.

After their initial shock, the brothers applied for DACA status and in 2015 applied for the MAVNI program. They signed their enlistment papers in January 2016 and waited for their background checks, growing alarmed when Trump said he wanted to end DACA.

"I'll be honest with you, there were days when I was like, 'Oh man,'" he said. "It just gets to you."

Then the brothers appeared on CNN to tell their story. By then, John Sena had passed his background checks. He is slated to ship out Monday, the same day Trump's deadline would have ended DACA had the courts not intervened.

James Sena was still in limbo, but received his ship-out date a few days later. Stock, their lawyer, believes the timing right after his appearance on CNN was not a coincidence, John Sena said.

Despite all the talk about deporting immigrants, he said he still has incredible gratitude.

"Even though there is conflict or arguments between political parties, this country pretty much took us under its wing and took care of us," he said.

"We just want to pay it back," he said. "Even if it (means) risking our lives or potentially dying, we are OK with that."

Last month, in an opinion piece published on the Politico website, Dreamer William Medeiro wrote about similar experiences and the hardship of being in limbo in the only home he's ever known.

Medeiro, who came from Brazil as a child and fluently speaks English, Spanish and Portuguese, grew up wanting to be a police officer. When he found out in high school that wasn't an option for foreign-born immigrants, he was devastated. Then came DACA and a chance to serve and become a U.S. citizen. He's been waiting for 18 months for his military background checks, as he worries that DACA might run out. He would be sent back to Brazil, a country where he has no ties or family.

He urged Congress to take action to not dash his dreams yet again.

"I want to fight for this country, I am willing to die for it," Medeiro wrote. "Do the right thing."The date was July 17, 1944. The place: the munitions facility at Port Chicago, California, 35 miles north of San Francisco. African-American Navy personnel units had been assigned to the dangerous work of loading munitions, with loading happening around the clock.

On the evening of July 17, empty merchant ship SS Quinault Victory was prepared for loading on her maiden voyage. The SS E.A. Bryan, another merchant ship, had just returned from her first voyage and was loading across the platform from Quinault Victory. The holds were packed with high explosive and incendiary bombs, depth charges, and ammunition - 4,606 tons of ammunition in all. There were sixteen rail cars on the pier with another 429 tons. Working in the area were 320 cargo handlers, crewmen and sailors.

At 10:18 p.m., an explosion ripped apart the night sky. Witnesses said that a brilliant white flash shot into the air, accompanied by a loud, sharp report. Flashing like fireworks, smaller explosions went off in the cloud as it rose. Within six seconds, a deeper explosion erupted as the contents of the E.A. Bryan detonated in one massive explosion. The seismic shock wave was felt as far away as Boulder City, Nevada.

The E.A. Bryan and the structures around the pier were completely disintegrated. A pillar of fire and smoke stretched over two miles into the sky above Port Chicago. The largest remaining pieces of the 7,200-ton ship were the size of a suitcase. A plane flying at 9,000 feet reported seeing chunks of white hot metal "as big as a house" flying past. The shattered Quinault Victory was spun into the air. Witnesses reported seeing a 200-foot column on which rode the bow of the ship, its mast still attached. Its remains crashed back into the bay 500 feet away.

All 320 men on duty that night were killed instantly. The blast smashed buildings and rail cars near the pier and damaged every building in Port Chicago. People on the base and in town were sent flying or were sprayed with splinters of glass and other debris. The air filled with the sharp cracks and dull thuds of smoldering metal and unexploded shells as they showered back to earth as far as two miles away. The blast caused damage 48 miles across the Bay in San Francisco.

Damage at Port Chicago following the massive blast that killed 320 sailors. The remnants of the SS Quinault Victory appear in the background.

The disaster sparked controversy in its aftermath. It was determined that inadequate training, hazardous conditions and irresponsible labor practices all contributed to the disaster. Many of the surviving sailors felt that their commanders had not properly addressed these issues when they asked them to continue to work. In response, they protested with a work stoppage.

Although no violence or threat of violence occurred, the Navy viewed the work stoppage as a mutiny. In September 1944, the Navy charged 50 of the Port Chicago sailors with disobeying orders and initiating a mutiny. A court martial found them guilty in October.

The disaster at Port Chicago and its aftermath are important moments in African-American history. The events caught the attention of civil rights activist and chief counsel of the NAACP, Thurgood Marshall. He believed that the court martial unjustly charged the sailors with mutiny. Furthermore, he called for a government investigation of the Navys practice of assigning African-American service members to segregated support roles, as well as the unsafe conditions that the sailors worked in. Bringing national attention to these issues contributed to the executive order that desegregated the military in 1948. The legacies of the Port Chicago sailors still resonate today.

The 50 sailors from Port Chicago charged with mutiny appear at their court martial in 1944.

Many of the sailors that died in the Port Chicago disaster are now buried at Golden Gate National Cemetery. Last year, the Veterans Legacy Program partnered with San Francisco State University to conduct research on Veterans buried at local national cemeteries. The students and faculty created a series of short films about the stories that they discovered at Golden Gate and San Francisco National Cemeteries. One of the films (embedded above) highlights the Port Chicago disaster and shares the legacies that came from it.

This partnership is one of the ongoing efforts to modernize the way that we memorialize veterans. In May 2016, the NCA launched the Veterans Legacy Program in order to engage students, teachers, and the public with stories about the lives and service of Veterans. To find out more about the Veterans Legacy Program, visit www.cem.va.gov/legacy/

More information about the Port Chicago disaster: Naval History and Heritage CommandVA Honors Vietnam War Veterans

In 2017, President Trump signed the Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act designating March 29 of each year as National Vietnam War Veterans Day. As a commemorative partner, VA joins nearly 10,000 organizations across the nation supporting the Department of Defense in this mission to honor and thank our Vietnam Veterans. The commemoration recognizes all men and women who served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces during the United States involvement in Vietnam from November 1, 1955 through May 7, 1975. Nine million Americans served during that period. For more information, read the VA VAntage Point Blog.

For more military history features, visit the Military.com History section.Native American actor Wes Studi, who discussed his Vietnam service with us earlier this year, appeared at the 90th Oscar Awards ceremony to introduce a video tribute to men and women in uniform. It's not the nomination (and win) Studi deserved for his performance in "Hostiles," but it's great to see a veteran on the Oscar stage.

The 90th #Oscars honor the men and women of the United States military. pic.twitter.com/DoaztJB7fS  ABC Network (@ABCNetwork) March 5, 2018

Studi stunned the crowd when he described his own service in Vietnam with Alpha Company of the 39th Infantry and then asked "Anyone else?" and got nervous laughter in response.

He then introduced a clip that "spotlights those who fight for freedom around the world" and we got clips from "A Few Good Men," "Full Metal Jacket," "Zero Dark Thirty," "American Sniper," "Dunkirk," "Saving Private Ryan," "From Here to Eternity," "The Deer Hunter" and "Patton." The video ended with this tribute screen:

The rest of the ceremony went pretty much as expected. Mexican director Guillermo del Toro won Best Director and his movie "The Shape of Water" won Best Picture. Military-themed films made a strong showing in other categories.

Dunkirk

"Dunkirk" won three well-deserved Oscars for Best Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing. Christopher Nolan's WWII masterpiece is probably best enjoyed on a giant screen and the director committed to a disorienting, complex structure that probably confused many of the academy's oldest voters. Hans Zimmer's innovative score would have made a better winner than Alexandre Desplat's music for "The Shape of Water."

Darkest Hour

As we predicted, Gary Oldman won Best Actor for "Darkest Hour" and the crew's incredible transformation of Oldman into Winston Churchill won for Makeup and Hairstyling. It's worth posting our video about that process again.

"Dunkirk" and "Darkest Hour" make an excellent double feature if you're looking to learn about the moment that both Britain's low point and high point during World War II. Watch "Dunkirk" first (on the biggest TV you can find) to get a sense of the confusion of soldiers who have zero idea what's going in a movie that's not interested in historical context or overall tactical decisions. Then watch "Darkest Hour" for a sense of just how fragile the government was in London and how Churchill's leadership was the only reason the amazing Dunkirk rescue happened at all.

Special note for our most loyal commenters: yes, it was surprising to see Jane Fonda at the Academy Awards so soon after the release of Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's documentary "The Vietnam War." That film's exposure of her actions in North Vietnam to new generations should've motivated her to stay home for at least a year.Wilmington, DE - Police have taken two suspects into custody in connection with the death of a 15-month-old child in Delaware.

The arrests were made Friday, nearly a week after the child's death.

The medical examiner ruled the 15-month-old died from blunt force trauma.

But police are not releasing the details about what exactly they think happened.

Family members of 15-month-old Chosen, are grieving after his death a week ago.

Saturday, Wilmington Police announced two people are charged with his death. 37-year-old Lavar Harris and 22-year-old Tameke Wright.

"They get what they deserve. He's a baby, he was so handsome," said Shawnnise Gasby of Wilmington.

Tonight Gasby and her fiancee, Stephanie Stewart remembered just seeing him.

"I saw him like two days before and I was looking at his eyes. He was just smiling than to find out two days later he's not here, it's just crazy," Stewart said.

According to police, the baby's mother left him with the suspects to babysit at their apartment in Compton Towers in the 300 block of East 5th Street in Wilmington.

Someone from the couple's apartment took the child to the hospital last Saturday, where the child died.

Wilmington Police began an investigation working with the Attorney General's Office and Child Services. The Medical Examiner's Office deemed this a homicide after discovering Chosen died of blunt force trauma.

A photo of Chosen's smiling face was seen with a message from his grandmother saying. "On 2/17 our life was forever changed with the loss of my beloved grandson."

Both adults are charged with murder by abuse or neglect, 1st degree.

They are being held on a $100,000 cash bail.Commercial

As much as 23,779 hectares of land, around 52 percent of the area marked for the development of special economic zones, is lying vacant, Parliament was informed on Monday.

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry CR Chaudhary said that 52 per cent of the notified SEZs land is presently vacant.

Out of the total notified area of 45,629 hectares in respect of 375 notified zones, 21872.71 hectares have been utilised and 23,779.19 hectares are lying vacant in these SEZs, he said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

"In respect of 375 notified zones, 93.47 per cent of land is waste/barren/dry/industrial, 5.28 per cent of land is single crop and 1.25 per cent is double crop," he added.

He said setting up of SEZ is a long term process and delay in commencement of commercial operations of the zone may be due to various reasons, he added.

As on September last, exports from these zones stood at RS 2.66 lakh crore.

In a separate reply, he said the Coffee Board has applied for registration of Araku coffee under geographical indications(GI) to protect the unique identity of the commodity grown by the tribal communities of Araku Valley in Visakhapatnam.

A GI is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin.

Such a name conveys an assurance of quality and distinctiveness which is essentially attributable to its origin in that defined geographical locality.

Darjeeling Tea, Mahabaleshwar Strawberry, Blue Pottery of Jaipur, Banarasi Sarees and Tirupati Laddus are some of the GIs.

"Arabica coffee from the Araku Valley area has gained popularity as a high quality speciality coffee internationally. The Coffee Board has developed exclusive logos for coffee grown in the country based on their geographical distinctiveness," he added.National carrier Air India will sell some of its prime real estate across the country to raise Rs 500 crore, Mint reported quoting unnamed officials.

The airline might sell properties like its 4-acre piece of land at Delhis Baba Kharak Singh Marg, a residential colony in Vasant Vihar, some land in Chennai and some plots in Mumbais Pali Hill region with 14 houses.

While some of the properties will be sold by Air India, the central government will sell other properties that were leased by the airline (from the government), the officials said.

They added that the government is in the process of identifying various properties bearing Air India's name that were earlier leased from the government on a long-term basis.

Minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha in February told Rajya Sabha that Air India had raised Rs 445 crores by selling land since the government in 2012 set a target to raise Rs 5,000 crore over 10 years by selling real estate.

Sinha said that Air India could not meet the target set by the government because of issues pertaining to title deeds.

Most of these issues have now been sorted in light of the airline's sale in 2018-19 after many private entities showed interest in its real estate assets.

The airline will not need cabinet approval to sell its land to public sector companies, while a cabinet nod would be required if properties were to be sold to private companies, said one of the officials mentioned above.

The government will create a special purpose vehicle for Air India to house its working capital debt of around Rs 35,000 crore and some land assets. It will have divested its stake in the airline by December.Anurag Saxena

In the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, there were a startling range of debates and discussions among the most influential and powerful leaders.

There were differences, and there was the consensus. There was broadly an agreement on the role of technology in driving inclusive development at scale. There was a focussed discussion on emerging technologies including blockchain. This was one theme that was hot in the snow-covered Davos.

Startups, political leaders, think tanks, and industry led the discussions creating a complete chain bringing in consensus that blockchain is out of beta.

It cannot be a coincidence that recently even the finance minister of India spoke about blockchain and artificial intelligence in his Budget speech.

India is keen to work on innovative solutions to promote inclusion, to empower masses and to do so at a faster pace. While the resistance to accepting cryptocurrency is quite visible, there has been a lot of action around blockchain in the past year in India.

Almost one year back, Indias first blockchain exploration consortium was launched for banks. This was also the time when the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT), an arm of the Reserve Bank of India, published a whitepaper on applications of blockchain technology in banking.

NITI Aayog has been encouraging discussions on leveraging technology platforms, and is keen to explore the potential of the blockchain. If we start connecting all the dots, a fertile ground for seeding innovation is ready in India.

With the experience of implementing Aadhaar and India Stack-based applications, we are best prepared to explore if blockchain, artificial intelligence, chatbots, virtual reality and other advanced platforms can be combined to address some of the problems faced by masses. These might include issues related to identity; privacy; food productivity, quality and origin; health advice and the quality and origin of medicines; literacy and numeracy; employment; and  the list is too long.

This list represents the canvas of opportunities to create scalable solutions to meet a range of the Sustainable Development Goals.

I strongly feel that blockchain or any other technology platform will struggle to solve all these problems while we lack much of the basic infrastructure required. At the same time, potential of such innovative platforms to solve some, if not all, problems of the world cannot be undermined. If a blockchain based platform can help us assess the quality of food grains with complete traceability across the value chain or give the farmer an incentive to share the farm equipment in a community, we are taking some steps towards a larger goal. We are also living in a world which is run by machines.

Blockchain also strengthens the application of Internet of Things (IoT) devices by providing a platform for authentication, connection and transaction. The log of all such interactions between devices can be maintained in a secured database. Some of us may stay in a Smart City with a shared pool of renewable energy  smart contracts based on blockchain could provide a way of optimising the use and efficiency of these (and indeed many other) resources.

Government will play a critical role in ensuring success of blockchain platforms. The ultimate objective of any blockchain platform is to build trust and offer an open, transparent and collaborative platform for users.

Government can provide the vision as well as right regulatory environment, enabling policies and mentorship to nurture the evolution of such platforms.

Dubai is aiming to be worlds first blockchain powered government.

According to Smart Dubai, which is conducting government and private organisation workshops to identify services that can be best enhanced by blockchain adoption, the strategy could save 25.1 million man hours, or USD1.5 billion in savings per year for the Emirate. Much of this enhanced productivity will stem from moving to paperless government. Blockchain must be an important link in the Digital India strategy.you are here:Bill Gates, Co-Chair of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on Monday committed USD 170 million to advance womens economic empowerment primarily focused in India, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, covering areas such as family planning and nutrition, as well as financial inclusion.

The Gates foundation is targeting its investments on four key priorities: financial inclusion, support, opportunities and assets.

Although more people overall have access to financial services than ever before, women are still being left behind, especially in poor economies, leaving a global digital financial gender gap, the foundation said in a statement.

One of the most profound ways a woman can make life better for herself and her family is to take control of her economic future, said Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. When women have money in their hands and the authority to choose how to spend it, they grow in confidence and power. They change the unwritten rules that say women are lesser than men.

These investments will focus primarily on closing that gap, and ensuring women have access to and can use digital financial services, including mobile bank accounts. Many governments send welfare or safety net payments to low-income families, but this money is usually controlled by men

We will work on systems in eight countries that will deposit these funds directly into bank accounts that are used and controlled by women, the statement said.

These investments will expand a new generation of self-help groups in India and Africa and that will empower women and adolescent girls with the skills and opportunities to imagine a different future and take bold steps that will transform their lives.

This self-help group 2.0 model will improve training modules for self-help group leaders as they equip women with a range of skills, from financial literacy to how to use new digital tools and voice their opinions in the company of men. In particular, we aim to reach the poorest, most marginalized women, it said.

In looking at where womens economic opportunities fall short, we are focusing on increasing the profitability of womens farming and ensuring women have the same ability as men to access and connect to agricultural markets, it said.

The foundation will invest in research to develop a deeper understanding of how land ownership affects womens access to resources and what this means for her  and her familys  ability to earn, save, and participate in her local economy.

The investments will build on the foundations previous financial commitments to advance progress on gender equality, including USD 80 million for gender data, advocacy and accountability, of which USD 20 million was dedicated to supporting womens movements.

The old saying a rising tide lifts all boats doesnt always hold true for women and girls. Economies arent automatically inclusive and women and girls dont necessarily benefit as they grow. We need deliberate tactics to ensure women arent left fighting the current, said Sarah Hendriks, Director, Gender Equality at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.India and Vietnam will explore "substantive and practical measures" to achieve the bilateral trade target of USD 15 billion by 2020, according to a joint statement issued here.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi held delegation level talks with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang yesterday, who is on a three-day India visit.

The joint statement further said both the sides agreed to hold the next Meeting of the Joint Sub-Commission on Trade in Vietnam's capital city Hanoi in 2018 at the earliest.

"In order to realize potential to both increase the volume of trade and diversify its composition, they (Modi and Tran) requested the relevant ministries and agencies on both sides to explore substantive and practical measures to achieve the trade target of USD 15 billion by 2020 including but not limited to utilising established mechanisms, strengthening exchanges of trade delegations, business-to-business contacts, regular organisation of trade fairs and events," the joint statement said.

As per the statement, both the sides urged leaders of business and industry of both countries to explore new trade and investment opportunities in identified priority areas of cooperation.

The Vietnamese president applauded Prime Minister Modi's efforts which improved India's ranking in the 'ease of doing business', it added.

Referring to defence cooperation, the joint statement pointed out that their cooperation in oil and gas exploration, thermal and hydroelectric power and renewable energy and energy conservation is registering remarkable progress.

The Vietnamese president "welcomed Indian businesses to expand their oil and gas exploration and exploitation activities on land and in the continental shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of Vietnam," the joint statement said.

It also pointed out that the Vietnamese side took note of the request by India on actively considering signing the Framework Agreement of the International Solar Alliance with a view to strengthening the cooperation in the renewable energy space.Iron & Steel | Imports from China, 2019: 4 percent. (Image: Moneycontrol)

India will not be much impacted by the US government's plans to impose hefty import tariff although there would be serious repercussions on international trade in the sector, industry today said.

US President Donald Trump had said last week that he has decided to impose 25 per cent import tariff on steel.

"In India it would not have significant impact as of its total steel imports, US imports only 2 per cent from India and the market for steel consumption in India is growing," Sanak Mishra, former Managing Director, SAIL's Rourkela Steel Plant told PTI.

According to Essar Steel, the US decision to levy tariff across board on steel products is not compliant with WTO regulations.

"Invoking Section 232 is far-fetched," H Shivram Krishnan, Director - Commercial, Essar Steel told PTI.

This measure, if approved by the President, will have serious repercussions on international steel trade.

"India exports constitutes less than one percent of total imports of US. The exports of European countries to US will be majorly impacted and this can affect Indias exports to Europe and other countries," Krishnan said.

The IMF has also warned that the US plans to impose heavy tariffs on import of steel and aluminium would cause damage not only outside the US, but also impact the American economy.

The decision will damage its manufacturing and construction sectors, which are major users of aluminium and steel, IMF spokesman Gerry Rice had said.

Former SAIL chairman Sushil Kumar Roongta said that the move may impact some of India's steel exports to the US.3:30 pm Market Closing: Benchmark indices continued to fall for fourth consecutive session, with the Sensex losing 300.16 points or 0.88 percent to 33,746.78 and the Nifty declining 99.50 points or 0.95 percent to 10,358.90.

About three shares declined for every share rising on the BSE.

3:12 pm Trade Wars impact: Tata Motors shares plunged more than 5 percent on weak JLR US sales and after US President Donald Trump threatens to a slap retaliatory tariff on European cars.

3:01 pm Buzzing: BEML shares rallied 10 percent after CNBC-TV18 report quoting agencies that the Government of India has given an in-principle approval to sell its 26 percent stake in the company.

Here are the top headlines at 3 pm from Moneycontrol News' Sakshi Batra

2:55 pm Crude Oil Update: Oil prices rose ahead of a meeting between OPEC and US shale firms in Houston, raising expectations that oil producers would discuss further how to clear a global oil glut.

Oil ministers from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other global oil players are set to gather in Houston as CERAWeek, the largest energy industry conference, begins today

International benchmark Brent crude was up 48 cents, or 0.75 percent, at USD 64.85 a barrel.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude rose 56 cents, or 0.91 percent, to USD 61.81 per barrel.

2:40 pm Buzzing: Vakrangee was locked at 5 percent upper circuit after hitting lower circuit in morning.

The stock price opened with a 5 percent loss but immediately bounced back in first half an hour of trade and continued to trade with 5 percent upper circuit.

2:30 pm Gold Update: Gold prices drifted lower by Rs 50 to Rs 31,450 per 10 grams at the bullion market owing to slackened demand from local jewellers despite a firm trend in the overseas markets.

However, silver advanced by Rs 70 to Rs 39,600 per kg due to increased offtake by industrial units and coin makers.

Marketmen said, gold dropped due to a subdued demand from local jewellers and retailers but a firm trend overseas as the dollar remained pressured amid fears of a global trade war following US President Donald Trump's decision to impose tariffs on imports of aluminum and steel, capped the fall.

2:17 pm Buzzing: Shivam Autotech shares gained 2 percent as the company informed exchanges that the company has achieved approximately 22 percent increase in sales in the month of February 2018 compared to corresponding month in the previous financial year.

2:10 pm Market Update: The market continued to reel under selling pressure as benchmark indices and midcaps declined around a percent each.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 298.35 points at 33,748.59 and the 50-share NSE Nifty declined 107.60 points to 10,350.80.

About four shares declined for every share rising on the BSE.

Hindalco, Tata Motors, Tata Steel, Aurobindo Pharma, Ambuja Cements, Reliance Industries, Vedanta, HUL, ITC and L&T were down 1-4 percent.

TCS, Sun Pharma, M&M, SBI, Tech Mahindra, UPL and Kotak Mahindra Bank were only gainers among Nifty 50 stocks.

Here are the top headlines at 2 pm from Moneycontrol News' Anchal Pathak

1:55 pm Europe Trade: European markets were mixed in morning trade, after an uncertain Italian election result left the country preparing for the prospect of a hung parliament.

France's CAC and Britain's FTSE were up 0.2-0.4 percent while Germany's DAX declined 0.1 percent.

1:40 pm Budget Session Update: The Lok Sabha was adjourned for the day after unrelenting protests by the opposition Congress over the Rs 12,700 crore PNB scam, and demands by the TDP for a special package for Andhra Pradesh.

On the first day of the second-leg of the Budget session, the House witnessed uproar as Congress, TDP, TRS as well as AIADMK members trooped into the Well.

Noisy protests disrupted the Question Hour which led to Speaker Sumitra Mahajan adjourning the House till 12 noon.

As the House reassembled, Congress members trooped into the Well with placards demanding a reply from the prime minister on diamantaire Nirav Modi's whereabouts. Trinamool Congress members too were seeking to raise the same matter.

1:30 pm Auto sales: Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) today said its highest selling model Alto has crossed the 35 lakh cumulative sales milestone.

Brand Alto has clocked a growth rate of 6 per cent in 2017-18, MSI said in a statement, adding that it has garnered a market share of 33 per cent in the ongoing fiscal.

The Alto has been the highest selling car in the domestic market for the past fourteen years, it said.

1:15 pm Buzzing Stock: Shares of Thomas Cook rose around 11 percent intraday on Monday as investors bet on the likely internal management rejig prospects.

The companys Board on March 1 gave its nod to explore internal corporate restructuring exercise. The move is aimed at enabling the company to focus on travel-related business.

Further, the rejig exercise could also be aimed at giving shareholders the direct exposure and shareholding of Quess Corp as well as enhancing shareholder value.

Here are the top headlines at 1 pm from Moneycontrol News' Sakshi Batra

12:56 pm Market Update: The market remained under selling pressure as benchmark indices fell 1 percent each while midcaps also declined in line with frontliners on weak Asian cues.

All sectoral indices were in the red.

Metals stocks extended losses, with the Nifty Metal index falling more than 3.5 percent after US President Donald Trump's announcement to impose 25 percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports. However, HSBC note says that direct impact on India is likely to be minimal.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 354.27 points or 1.04 percent at 33,692.67 and the 50-share NSE Nifty was down 122.70 points or 1.17 percent at 10,335.70.

About four shares declined for every share rising on the BSE.

12:45 pm Dividend: Kewal Kiran Clothing informed exchanges that the meeting of the board of directors is scheduled to be held on March 10 for considering the declaration of 4th interim dividend for the financial year 2017-18.

12:25 pm Fundraising: UPL Limited informed exchanges that wholly-owned subsidiary, UPL Corporation (formerly Biowin Corporation Limited) has successfully completed the pricing of its USD 300 million senior unsecured notes at 4.5% per annum, due 2028.

The Notes have been rated 'BBB-' by Fitch, and 'BBB-' by S&P. An application is filed to the Singapore Stock Exchange for the listing of the Notes.

The offering is scheduled to close on March 8, 2018, the company said.

12:10 pm Board Meeting: Goodluck India said a meeting of the board of directors will be held on March 8 to consider and approve, in-principle, the proposed corporate restructuring.

Here are the top headlines at 12 pm from Moneycontrol News' Anchal Pathak

11:55 am Ruckus at Parliament: The Rajya Sabha witnessed repeated adjournments of proceedings in the morning session after opposition parties created a ruckus over the PNB scam and constitution of the Cauvery Water Management Board.

Slogan shouting from the Well resulted in proceedings being adjourned first for 10 minutes and then till 1400 hours, which resulted in the Question Hour not being taken up.

While the TMC led the charge against India's biggest bank fraud, Tamil parties - the AIADMK and the DMK came together to demand implementation of the court order on constitution of Caurvey Water Management Board.

The TDP and a Congress member demanded implementation of the promise to give special status to Andhra Pradesh after Telengana was carved out of it.

11:40 am Buzzing: Shares of Aurobindo Pharma slumped more than 5 percent intraday amid reports that the company has received observations from the US health regulator for one of its Hyderabad units.

According to a media report, the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has issued Form 483 with 9 observations to Aurobindo Pharma's unit 4 in Hyderabad, citing serious deficiencies in maintaining the manufacturing quality standards.

11:30 am Acquisition: Wipro traded with mild gains after the company signed a definitive agreement with Denim Group, a leading independent application security firm, to acquire a minority stake in the US based company.

This partnership will bring together Wipros strong digital transformation and cybersecurity capabilities with Denim Groups application security consulting, assessments and implementation services including DevSecOps and secure development training services.

This, coupled with Denim Groups flagship product ThreadFix, the premier application vulnerability correlation and resolution platform, will offer customers significant value in mitigating cybersecurity risks.

11:16 am Buzzing: Shares of TVS Motor Company added 1.5 percent as company reported strong sales number for the month of February 2018.

The company reported 37 percent growth in its total February 2018 sales numbers increasing from 2,11,470 units in February 2017 to 290,673 units in the month of February 2018.

The company's two-wheeler sales were up 36.2 percent at 2.80 lakh units and three-wheeler sales were up 86.3 percent at 9,731 units.

The export was up 53.2 percent at 58,564 units. Its domestic 2-wheeler sales were up 33.5 percent at 2.30 lakh units. Scooter sales jumped 35.6 percent at 93,573 units and motorcycle sales rose 92 percent at 1.13 lakh.

Here are the top headlines at 11 am from Moneycontrol News' Sakshi Batra

11:06 am Services Industry Growth: Business conditions in Indias service sector deteriorated modestly in February. Activity and new work declined for the first time since November, with rates of contraction the fastest since August, Nikkei IHS Markit said in its report.

The seasonally adjusted Nikkei India Services Business Activity Index fell from 51.7 in January to 47.8 in February, its lowest level since August.

The headline figure signalled the first fall in output for three months, but one that was modest, the report said.

The seasonally adjusted Nikkei India Composite PMI Output Index fell from 52.5 in January to 49.7 in February, as the fall in service sector activity outweighed an upturn in manufacturing production.

This index was consistent with a marginal decline in overall output.

11:04 am Buzzing: Shares of Gitanjali Gems cracked another 5 percent after the CBI made four arrests in connection with the alleged Rs 12,636-crore fraud at Punjab National Bank (PNB) perpetrated by billionaire jewellers Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi.

The agency has also arrested two employees and an auditor of the Nirav Modi group of companies, while a director of the Gitanjali group of companies (owned by Choksi) has also been taken into custody.

Reacting to the development, shares of Gitanjali Gems slumped 5 percent, to hit its 52-week low of Rs 19.30.

This is the 13th straight session of fall for the stock. It has lost as as much as 70 percent since February 14, the day the PNB fraud came to light.

10:50 am Cut in Exposure: State-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has reduced its stake in Hinduja Group flagship firm Ashok Leyland by 2.04 percent after selling 5.97 crore shares in the open market.

As per a BSE filing, LIC, which held 5.16 percent stake in Ashok Leyland earlier, brought down the shareholding in the company to 3.11 percent.

LIC sold the stake between October 16, 2015, and March 1, 2018.

10:40 am Arbitration Notice: Reliance Infrastructure, along with its subsidiary issued an arbitration notice against founder promoters of Pipapav Defence and Engineering for claims aggregating to Rs 5,440.38 crore for breach of warranties under the purchase agreement.

On March 4, 2015, RInfra, its subsidiary Reliance Defence Systems (RDSPL) and the founder promoters of Pipapav Defence and Engineering entered an agreement for acquisition of shares of Pipapav Defence and Engineering, which is now being named Reliance Naval and Engineering Ltd (RNEL).

"The company, along with its subsidiary, RDSPL has issued an arbitration notice against Nikhil Gandhi, Bhavesh Gandhi and their companies, i.e. SKIL Infrastructure Ltd, Grevek Investments and Finance Pvt Ltd and SKIL Shipyard Holdings Pvt Ltd, all being the founder promoters of Pipapav Defence and Engineering Ltd... asserting the claims for breach of warranties under the purchase agreement dated March 4, 2015," Reliance Infrastructure said in a regulatory filing.

"The claims aggregate to Rs 5,440.38 crore," it added.

10:28 am Rupee Trade: The rupee firmed 14 paise to 65.02 against the dollar after the greenback came under pressure as US President Donald Trump's comments raised concerns of a global trade war.

Trump on Friday said trade wars were good and easy to win. His plan to put tariffs on steel and aluminium imports triggered a negative sentiments across overseas markets.

Forex dealers said weakness in the dollar against some other currencies overseas and foreign capital inflows in the domestic equity markets supported the rupee.

10:18 am Market Update: Benchmark indices extended sell-off on heavy losses in metal, auto, oil and Gas, banking and PSU stocks after US President Donald Trump fuelled concerns of a global trade war.

Asian markets too turned negative as the fallout from Trump's steel and aluminium tariffs continued to spook investors and dampen market sentiment here, brokers said.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 295.79 points or 0.87 percent at 33,751.15 and the 50-share NSE Nifty declined 102.30 points or 0.98 percent to 10,356.10.

All sectoral indices led by metal, auto, oil & gas banking and PSU stocks were trading in the negative terrain.

The laggards were Yes Bank, Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Coal India, Bharti Airtel, ONGC, HUL, Bajaj Auto, Dr Reddy's HDFC, Asian Paint, Power Grid, M&M and SBI.

Here are the top headlines at 10 am from Moneycontrol News' Anchal Pathak

10:05 am Buzzing: Shares of Fortis Healthcare declined nearly 5 percent as SFIO is seeking certain information and documents from the company by March 9, 2018.

The company has received a notice from Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), Ministry of Corporate Affairs, New Delhi, seeking certain information and documents as mentioned therein to be submitted by March 9, 2018.

The company is in process of collating the said information and will be sharing the same in due course.

The financial implication/compensation/penalty and quantum of claims has not been referred in the aforesaid letter and hence cannot be ascertained, company said.

9:55 am Market Outlook: "This the fifth year of a bull market which has been a slow steady one with very little volatility. There have been a few corrections and we are in the middle of one at present. For the long-term investor, this is still a buy on dips market," Dipan Mehta, Director, Elixir Equities Pvt. Ltd said in an exclusive interview with Moneycontrols Kshitij Anand.

"Whether this correction will deepen or not will become evident over the next 2-3 weeks. If a lower tops/lower bottoms formation get created and broad market indices trade below their 200 DMA (which they are not at present) then we may be in for an extended sell-off or a mild bear market."

News Live: HDFC Bank may raise Rs 15,000cr via share sale, HDFC AMC to file DRHP this week

9:46 am Market Update: The market extended opening losses despite BJP's landslide victory in Tripura. Weak Asian cues weighed on India.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 262.34 points or 0.77 percent at 33,784.60 and the 50-share NSE Nifty fell 91.10 points or 0.87 percent to 10,367.30.

About two shares declined for every share rising on the BSE.

The Nifty Midcap declined nearly a percent.

All sectoral indices were in the red, with Nifty Metal index falling most - down nearly 3 percent after Trumps import tariff order on steel, aluminium in US

9:40 am Buzzing: Shares of Laurus Labs advanced 3 percent as the company has received Form 483 with zero observations for Unit 2.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) has successfully completed the audit without observations - Zero 483 for its Unit 2 (the formulations unit).

The inspection was carried out from February 23 - March 1, 2018.

The company also received its maiden approval from USFDA for Tenofovir Disoproxil Fumarate tablets 300mg.

The tablet is therapeutically equivalent to VIREAD tablets 300mg of Gilead Science (GILEAD).

The tablets is used for treatment of HIV-1 infection in adults and paediatric patients 2 years of age and older.

9:30 am Asia Update: Markets in Asia traded lower as Chinese leaders headed into an annual parliament meeting while in Italy, exit poll projections indicated that no party is emerging with a clear majority in Sunday's election.

Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.68 percent while the Kospi index was down 0.75 percent.

Chinese mainland markets fell, with the Shanghai composite down 0.16 percent while Heng Seng declined 1.3 percent.

9:21 am US Import Tariff: Shares of metal companies were trading weak in morning as investors were wary of US President Donald Trumps decision to impose import tariffs.

Steel stocks such as SAIL, JSW Steel, Jindal Steel and Tata Steel, among others, corrected up to 2.5 percent. Aluminium stocks such as NALCO fell close to 3 percent. Meanwhile, firms involved in the business of other metals such as Hindalco, Vedanta, Hindustan Zinc, MOIL also fell up to 2 percent. The Nifty Metal index fell close to 2 percent.

The US President, on Friday, said that he would impose a 25 percent import tariff on steel and 10 percent on aluminium to protect US producers, a move that could trigger a trade war with China and Europe.

An executive order in this regard would be signed this week, Trump said after a meeting with executives of steel and aluminium companies.

"It'll be for a long period of time...And you'll have protection for a long time in a while. You'll have to regrow your industries, that's all I'm asking," Trump said in the presence of a pool of reporters.

Trump said the import tariff hike would create jobs in the US and benefit its industries.

9:15 am Market Check: Benchmark indices started off the week on a negative note despite BJP won Tripura elections, weighed by weak Asian cues and import tariffs on steel & aluminium in the US.

The 30-share BSE Sensex was down 193.88 points at 33,853.06 and the 50-share share NSE Nifty fell 66.10 points to 10,392.30.

Hindalco, Vedanta, Tata Steel, Aurobindo Pharma, Tata Motors, SBI, Mahindra & Mahindra, Coal India and Ambuja Cements declined 1-3 percent.

TCS, Infosys and IOC were early gainers.

Nifty Midcap was down half a percent.

PFC, Bank of India, Vakrangee, Bajaj Hindusthan, SAIL, JSW Steel, NALCO, Union Bank and Motherson Sumi were down 1-5 percent.

TVS Motor, Dilip Buildcon and VST Tillers gained 1-2 percent.February 28, 2020 | -1134.96 as of 1:36pm | Global slowdown due to coronavirus and selloff across sectors continued to hurt the markets lower

It was a bad start to the week on Monday after a long weekend. Benchmark indices extended losses for fourth consecutive session despite BJP's landslide victory in Tripura, falling a percent each on weak Asian cues after US President Donald Trump's tariff announcement raised concerns about a trade war.

The 30-share BSE Sensex dropped 394 points intraday but cut some losses in later part of the session after firm Europe trade. The index was down 300.16 points or 0.88 percent to close at 33,746.78 and shed nearly 700 points in four straight sessions.

The 50-share NSE Nifty closed below its crucial level of 10,400, falling 99.50 points or 0.95 percent to 10,358.90.

Midcaps also traded in line with frontliners as the Nifty Midcap was down 1 percent.

"First, local factors viz. banking fraud, mixed macroeconomic data were pushing the markets lower and now the global sentiment has turned sour," Jayant Manglik, President, Religare Broking said.

"We advise continuing with "sell on rise" approach and focusing more on the stock selection," he added.

The sell-off by foreign investors in February also dented sentiment. Foreign institutional investors pulled out nearly Rs 12,500 crore from the equity markets during the month.

On the global front, Asian markets ended lower. Hang Seng shed 2.3 percent while Kospi declined 1.13 percent and Nikkei lost 0.66 percent. European markets traded higher, with Germany DAX, France CAC and Britain FTSE rising 0.3-0.7 percent at the time of writing this article.

Back home, all sectoral indices ended in the red barring IT and PSU Bank.

Metals stocks hit hard as the Nifty Metal index lost 3.3 percent after US President Trump's announcement to impose 25 percent tariff on steel imports and 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports. NMDC, NALCO, Hindalco, JSW Steel, SAIL, Tata Steel and Vedanta were down 2.5-6 percent.

Tata Motors was the biggest loser among Nifty50 stocks, falling 5 percent weak JLR US sales and concerns about increase in US import duty on European cars. Motherson Sumi also fell over 3 percent.

Aurobindo Pharma slipped 3.7 percent on nine observations from the USFDA for Unit 4.

Select technology stocks like TCS (up 2.24 percent) and Tech Mahindra (up 3.10 percent) bucked the trend after Global Analyst Moshe Katri feels 2018 seems to be good year for entire IT space.

Reliance Industries, HDFC, ITC, Yes Bank, HUL, L&T and ONGC among other largecaps were down 1-2.7 percent while Sun Pharma, M&M and UPL gained 1-2.5 percent.

Thomas Cook rallied 5.6 percent as the companys board on March 1 has given an approval to explore internal corporate restructuring exercise. The move is aimed at enabling the company to focus on travel-related business.

BEML was up 10.5 percent after a CNBC-TV18 report quoting agencies that the Government of India has given an in-principle approval to sell its 26 percent stake in the company.

The market breadth was weak as about three shares declined for every share rising on the BSE.Market

live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

Impositions of long-term capital gains tax (LTCG) in the Budget, fears of extended rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve, as well as unfolding of Nirav Modi- PNB saga led to massive 1780 points or 4.9 percent fall in the S&P BSE Sensex in the month of February.

The correction was equally fierce in the Nifty50 index which corrected from the high of 11,000 levels to 10,492 levels on 28th February. The index lost 5 percent and is now trading below its crucial short-term moving averages.

But, there was plenty of action in the small and midcap stocks which rose up to 45-47 percent in the same period but the correction was equally fierce in this space as some stocks lost up 60 percent in the same period.

In the S&P BSE 500 index over 100 stocks outperformed the S&P BSE Sensex. Stocks which outperformed the index or rose in double digits include names like Venkys India which rose 45 percent, followed by Firstsource Solutions which gained 25 percent, and IDBI Bank rallied 24 percent in just one month.

The index is in the middle of correction and investors should not get overall worried about the recent decline was seen in the month of February which was just 5 percent after a 29 percent rally seen in the calendar year 2017, suggest experts.

It is a good opportunity for long-term players to accumulate quality stocks on dips as the index should be able to pick the pace and reclaim record highs of 11000 later in the year.

"This the fifth year of a bull market which has been a slow steady one with very little volatility. There have been a few corrections and we are in the middle of one at present. For the long-term investor, this is still a buy on dips market," Dipan Mehta, Director, Elixir Equities Pvt. Ltd told Moneycontrol.

"Investors should nibble into the bluest of blue-chip stocks. Companies which have missed in the bull market so far must be targeted for investment. Investors must endeavor to improve the quality of the portfolio," he said.

In the Smallcap index, as many as 171 stocks managed to outperform the index which includes names like Nelco which rose 47 percent, followed by MSR India which rallied 42 percent, and Infinite Computer Solutions gained 29 percent in the month of February.

In the midcap space, IDBI Bank, Endurance Technologies, Cholamandalam Investment & Finance Company Ltd, L&T Infotech, Ashok Leyland, 3M India, and Bharat Forge.

Midcap and smallcap indices have been hit the hardest post-budget correcting in excess of 5 percent each. However, following this sharp correction they have cooled off from overbought territory suggesting that incremental corrections from these levels can be used for buying, Aditya Agarwala, Technical Analyst at YES Securities (I) Ltd told Moneycontrol.

The strategy continues to be a 'sell on rallies' in the benchmark indices but a 'buy on dips' in midcap & smallcap Indices which could be a prudent strategy, he said.The battery sector seems to in fine shape except for the minor challenges coming from volatility in raw material prices. However, the noise around Electric Vehicles (EV) raises numerous questions about the prospects of these entities. Battery, being an essential component of an EV, would force a paradigm shift in the way these companies work and the fortunes can change radically depending on how well they adapt to the new reality.

In this article, we analyse the recent quarters performance of the two largest battery manufactures of India and the challenges ahead of them due to EV push.

3QFY18 Quarter snapshot

Amara Raja (ARBL): The net sales grew 17.1 percent (Year on Year) and 9.0 percent (Quarter on Quarter) on the back of growth coming in from auto both from OE (original equipment) and aftermarket segment. Except telecom segment, all other segments posted growth within industrial.

The companys EBITDA (earnings before interest depreciation and tax) margin has been under pressure due to increase in lead prices and the management indicated that this has been offset by pricing actions taken by the company, leading to 20bps expansion (YoY) in the margin.

Moreover, the improvement in the margins was on the back of better product mix with higher sales of inverter batteries and replacement market within automotive segment.

Exide Industries (Exide): The Company posted a strong net revenue growth for the quarter (32.7 percent YoY) on the back of growth coming in from 2W (two wheeler) and 4W (four wheeler) markets, UPS and infrastructure batteries.

However, the EBIDTA margin was marred by the significant rise in the raw material prices, and product mix tilted towards relatively low-margin OEMs (original equipment manufacturer) sales in automotive. The company took price hike of around 3 percent over the quarter which partially offset the rise in the lead prices.

The moot question is what are the challenges for the battery manufacturers in India due to EV push?

The biggest challenge for the battery manufacturers is the sourcing of raw material. Lithium is the key raw material for the batteries to be used in EVs and most of the reserves for Lithium are concentrated in South America (70 percent of all).The EV battery should have the following five capabilities: 1. High energy density  the weight of the battery should not weigh over the performance hence Lithium scores over others as it has high energy density 2. Design of the battery should be such that it gives maximum range per charge 3. How fast the battery charges 4. Number of cycles  the longevity and finally, the cost, at which all the above features come in.

Lithium has emerged as the preferred technology over last few years and there are multiple chemistries available. The choice of a battery design and the chemistry depends on vehicle type for which the battery is being made for.

The industry as of now is getting itself ready with various technologies to provide the optimum source of power to an EV and reduce the price difference between an EV and an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicle.

Currently, China is ahead on the curve in EV space and there are chances that the Chinese products could be dumped in India. Here again, the government needs to play an important role to put anti-dumping duty to promote indigenous battery manufacturing.In terms of valuations, ARBL is currently trading at 24.4 and 20.4 times FY19 and FY20 projected earnings and Exide is trading at 22.0 and 19.4 times FY19 and FY20 projected earnings.

While there is a perceived threat of EVs on the battery manufacturers, the companies are doing their homework to work on manufacturing batteries that is suitable for them. But they got to cover a lot of ground.

The perceived threat of EV along with the volatility in key raw material prices has led to temporary de-rating of these companies. This provides accumulation opportunity for investors as we got to keep in mind that the widespread adoption of EV is many years away and hence the conventional battery manufacturers will continue to have a meaningful growth in the medium term. Finally, these entities will also move up the learning curve with EV batteries and would eventually be EV ready.

For more research articles, visit our Moneycontrol Research PagePresident Donald Trump announced recently that stiff tariffs will be implemented on steel and aluminum imports into the US.

The policy development by the Trump administration remains an idiosyncratic risk. Calls to impose steep tariff on metal products seem to be another instance of what become a trade war going ahead. While markets are edgy and fearful of a situation similar to 2002-03 when equity markets plunged, careful analysis does not suggest any derailment in the revival of the steel and aluminum industry.

Higher tariffs can potentially support improvement in capacity utilisation for the US industry.

Import tariff to improvise US capacity utilisation

As per US President Donald Trumps statement, an import tariff would be levied for steel products (import tariff of 25%) and Aluminum (10%). While the decision is expected to be finalised this week, this is expected to improve capacity utilization for US-based companies in the metal space.

Chart: Capacity utilization of US Iron & Steel companies

US Iron and steel companies are operating at 74% capacity utilization, up from 64% from Oct 2016, but still behind the pre-recession operating efficiency. Case for aluminum industry is more striking where capacity utilisation is in the range of 39%-40% only. Steel imports to the US market is approximately 35% of the US demand wherein aluminum imports are more than 90% of domestic demand. Post tariff imposition, this situation is likely to change in favour of the US producers of metals.

Downstream industries of steel to face margin pressure

US downstream industry, particularly, car manufacturers would be impacted by this move due to higher burden of raw material prices. Interestingly, total vehicle sales seem to have peaked recently.

India: Only 2% of US imports

From the US perspective, imports from India dont carry much weight and constitute only 2% of steel and aluminum imports to the US market.

Major markets that may be affected include Canada, Russia, UAE and China which comprise 73% of the total aluminum imports into the US. Similarly Canada, Brazil, Korea, Mexico and Russia comprise 57% of total steel imports to the US.

India: Exports have been the key driver for these commodities

Aluminium and steel (Iron & Steel) constitute 7.6% of Indias total export and if we include vehicles export (another potential segment for Trumps trade war), it is 10.3%. Share of the US export in that commoditys export from India varies but in aggregate (for metals) has 12% share.

Having said that exports to the US market in these categories (Iron & Steel and Aluminum) constitute only 0.29% of Indias total exports.

Surge in exports of metals

Exports have also aided revival of Indian domestic metal industry. Both Aluminum and Iron & Steel exports have surged more than 50% YoY (Apr-Dec17). Protectionist measures as well as global demand revival and Chinas supply side reforms have lifted fortunes of Indian steel players. Here, one also needs to take note that bulk of India production 72.3 mn tonnes (Apr-Dec16) is utilised domestically (61.5 mn tonnes).

China supply reforms remains crucial

In case of both aluminum and steel industries, domestic capacity is ahead of current domestic demand. For instance, Aluminum domestic capacity is 4.1 MT but demand is about 3.3 MT making steady export market a need.

Interestingly, both China and Europe continue to face excess capacity and hence, Indian producers may face some challenge in finding a ready alternate market for exports. While China is pursuing supply-side reforms, point noteworthy is that imports of Iron & Steel and Aluminum from China still constitute about 17% of total imports in these categories. And imports of Iron and Steel, in value terms, have increased about 30% in last one year (Apr-Dec17). Though much of the increase is due to pricing effect.

So a further traction in Chinese supply-side reforms remain a crucial factor for both Indian and Global steel and aluminum industry dynamics. Overall, in our view, in the overall global and Indian demand scenario, Trump tariff may dent a bit but may not derail the revival of the sector.

Follow @anubhavsaysThe logo of Foxconn, the trading name

Taiwan-based Foxconn Technology is in advanced talks with the Tamil Nadu government to resolve a Rs 21,000-crore tax dispute, according to a report by The Economic Times.

The Nokia factory at Sriperumbudur has been defunct for over three years. Foxconn is keen to make the factory operational again, a source told the newspaper.

Operations at the unit stopped in late 2014 after it was left out the deal when Nokia sold its mobile handsets business to Microsoft.

Foxconn did not respond to a request for comments, the report said. But "the plan is to go further in this direction" a source at the company said.

The manufacturing unit had employed 8,000 people when it was operating at full capacity, according to a report by NDTV.

Nokia has been making efforts to sell the plant. Rising Star Mobile India, Foxconn's India manufacturing arm, has bought production machinery from the Nokia plant for an undisclosed amount, according to the report.

"Earlier this year, Nokia engaged with a buyer interested in purchasing production machinery," a Nokia spokesperson told The Economic Times. "Subsequently, we worked with the respective authorities and secured the necessary permissions for executing the sale of those specific production machinery."

Union Minister Ravi Shankar had said in December that the facility had been abandoned like an "orphan child". He added that the Centre is making efforts to revive the plant's operations.

"We (the government) were on the job... We tried with one-two companies.. It did not work out.. Let me concretise and then disclose it to you... But, we are on the job (to make it operational)." the Electronics and Information Technology Minister said.Jaypee

Several Jaypee homebuyers have now received notices that threaten to cancel the allotment of units in their name for defaulting on payment of EMIs (equated monthly instalments).



Sadly nothing concrete seems to be happening to #savejpwishtown. We are being threatened by banks to pay EMI whether we get the homes or not. Its a total injustice towards the homebuyers while Mr gaur lives peacefully after gulping crores.

 Shilpa Malhotra vij (@MalhotraVij) March 1, 2018

The notice asks them to clear the amount due to them within 15 days failing which the provisional allotment of the unit in your name will stand to be cancelled.

Heres another one:



Banks are hounding us threatening us if we are unable to pay one EMI due to financial crunch. But jaypee gulped so many crores and is still blissfully living in his mansion. total injustice #savejpwishtown  Shilpa Malhotra vij (@MalhotraVij) February 26, 2018

These are some examples of tweets posted by disenchanted homebuyers worried about the notices that they have started receiving for not having paid their EMIs to banks on time.

What does the notice say?

As per clause 7 of the tripartite/quadripartite agreement, signed with the bank and the company, on default by the borrower to pay loan installments to the bank, the bank can demand cancellation of the unit in the name of the allottee and take charge of the said unit, the letter says.

Our client has advised us that your address have defaulted in making the regular and timely payment of equated monthly installments in terms of the loan agreement and the same were not paid in time despite repeated requests, reminders and personal visits made by the officials of our client. Due to your financial indiscipline and delinquency to pay the equated monthly installments on time a considerable amount became overdue and outstanding against your address in your loan account if you fail to pay the equated monthly installment on time and regularise your account by paying the overdue amount then it shall be constrained to classify your account as non-performing assets in accordance with RBI guidelines and take recourse to legal remedy which may include the attachment and sale of the secured asset, ie the property available with our client as security against the loan, says another notice.

What should buyers do?

The buyers should approach the Supreme Court seeking direction either to banks to give moratorium or direction to the developer to pay EMIs like what happened in the Supertech case where such a direction has been given to the developer. If there is no likelihood of getting the property, expecting buyers to continue to pay EMI is unfair, says Sunil Tyagi of Zeus Law.

The Supreme Court had last week ordered real estate firm Supertech Ltd to deposit Rs 10 crore towards refunding homebuyers. The court was hearing petitions filed by the investors, who sought refunds after the Allahabad High Court directed that the Emerald Towers project, which has twin 40-storey residential buildings in Noida, be demolished.

The court had asked its registry to tak the assistance of amicus curiae in disbursal of interest to the homebuyers on pro-rata basis. It also asked the real estate company to keep paying the EMIs on behalf of those home-buyers who have not opted out of its housing projects in question. Having appreciated the controversy, we direct that the petitioner  Supertech Ltd shall pay the EMI, so that the home-buyers do not get any kind of notice from bank(s), it said.

Another legal expert Abhishek Dubey says that the subvention loan agreements are illegal because they are one sided and unfair on the buyers. While the builder and the banks have failed to fulfill their obligations under the contract, how is it that only the buyer has to fulfill his part of the obligations and keep paying the EMIs without any promise of the delivery of flats even after a decade. This is an unconscionable contract and such contracts are held to be illegal by the courts in India, including the Supreme Court," he said.

Most of these homebuyers had stopped paying their EMIs because they may have felt that there was no hope of getting a house due to insolvency proceedings currently on against the embattled company. While it is unfair, some legal experts are of the opinion that buyers should not have stopped paying EMIs on their own as that is equivalent to taking the law in their hands.

The ideal course of action should have been to first approach RBI, NHB or some court and get relief before stopping to pay EMIs altogether. Fearing that these would turn into NPAs, banks have started pressuring buyers to pay up.

RBI in a circular, a few years ago, had granted dispensation to infrastructure companies in the past where projects have been delayed for over two years. Considering the fact that dispensation could be granted to infrastructure companies, there is no reason why a similar dispensation cannot be granted to homebuyers who have put their life savings in real estate projects, say experts.

RBI and NHB could look at the issue from this perspective and consider granting exemption on similar lines if there has been a delay in completion of the project because of which buyers have stopped paying EMIs, says Ramakant Rai of Trilegal, adding buyers could consider writing to both NHB and RBI and even approach court.

It must be recollected that homebuyers who had invested in embattled real estate group Jaypee have time and again sought a moratorium on their existing home loans and have written to the banks asking that EMIs should not be deducted till such time that a resolution was hammered out on the delivery of flats.

"While you benefit from our regular payments of EMIs, we are left in the lurch and are forced to pay monthly EMIs for a property, which at the moment doesnt even exist and also housing rentals, it says.

While some of us had no option but to stop paying the EMIs because of extreme financial burden of rents and EMIs, they run the risk of adverse effect on their CIBIL scores, which would disentitle them for any future loan. In fact many of us have started receiving legal notices and threatening calls from you for payment of EMIs, the letter had said.

You are, therefore, requested to instruct your branches not to raise any further demand for the time being and keep the EMIs in abeyance and not to charge penal interest on the unpaid EMIs till there is some clarity on the issue of possession/refund with regard to the projects of Jaypee. Kindly do not treat the non-payments as defaults but only a necessary outcome of the peculiar circumstances and the present scenario, it said.

The banks, however, have said that they require the approval of National Housing Bank (NHB) before agreeing to it, lest the loans are classified as non-performing assets.

The National Housing Bank is examining the issue of EMI waiver, a major demand of troubled homebuyers who have invested in real estate projects against whom insolvency proceedings are currently on.

We are looking at it from all aspects. Will an EMI waiver solve the issue at this point, we are not sure. We are looking at all the aspects because EMI waiver may have an impact on other sectors as well, Sriram Kalyanaraman, MD & CEO, National Housing Bank (NHB) had told Moneycontrol.

On August 9 last year, the Allahabad bench of the NCLT had accepted lender IDBI Banks plea and admitted Jaypee Infratech as a case under insolvency resolution for defaulting Rs 526 crore. It appointed Anuj Jain as the insolvency resolution professional from BSSR & Co.

The SC ruling came after over 20,000 home buyers in the Jaypee Infratechs projects raised concerns of not getting back their money as the first right of dues would go to the banks and other operational creditors. While some buyers have paid the full amount to the company, there are others who may have paid either 60 percent or perhaps 90 percent of the amount.Punjab National Bank | ICRA revised rating on bank's Basel III Compliant Tier II bonds to AA (hyb) (Stable) from AA- (hyb) (Stable). (Image: PTI)

live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

The Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam worth Rs 12,700 crore seems to have impacted the banks business operations including bulk deposits and brokerage transactions as institutions wait for investigations to end.

This may see the bank taking a hit on their profitability for the January to March quarter, the fourth and the last quarter for 2017-18 which is usually a healthy quarter for most banks.

A senior executive with PNB said, Some institutions have been wary of doing business. Some corporates were hesitant to park their deposits with us. We have not seen any withdrawal of business as such...Yes, this scam has scarred our image even among individuals to park their deposits.

So this quarter may be weak. But we are hopeful this will pass. Being a government bank, some support should help things fall back in place, the executive added.

The share of term deposits for the Delhi-based bank stood at Rs 3.80 lakh crore, around 54 percent of total domestic deposits, which stood at Rs 5.88 lakh crore, up 5.9 percent over the corresponding period a year ago.

PNBs current and savings account (CASA) deposits stood at Rs 2.67 lakh crore.

The loan growth was at 17.2 percent as on December end 2017 as compared to the previous year.

We have not got any business to buy or sell shares from PNB since the scam has been out, said an official with a brokerage house, which otherwise did business worth Rs 1 crore on a daily basis with the firm.

On February 14, PNB informed the stock exchanges about the Rs 11,400 crore (later increased to Rs 12,700 crore) worth of fraud that took place at its Brady House branch in Mumbai, which had diamantaire Nirav Modi and his various company officials colluding with senior officials of the bank, receiving Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) without proper checks and securities.

According to PTI reports, the scam has also affected trade finance activities across the banking sector as lenders have become extra cautious, while the premium on Indian paper has shot up by 10-50 bps.

For PNB, the mammoth fraud may also see a hit on their capital raising plans even as PNB has announced Rs 5,473 crore capital raising from the government on preferential-issue basis.

Karthik Srinivasan, senior vice-president, ICRA ratings agency, said, With the size of fraud, the bank is now more focused on cleaning up its balance sheet, so depending on how much knock they take, there will be pressure on capital. And to that extent, they would also be going slow on credit (lending). So, they would not need much deposits but yes, the capital towards provisions and hence it will impact their profits.

PNB may also face PCA or the prompt corrective action by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which assesses banks on a banks capital adequacy ratio (CAR), net non-performing assets (NPAs) and return on assets (ROA).

The state-owned lenders NPAs are already above the RBI threshold (6 percent) at 7.55 percent.

Currently, 11 public sector banks are under PCA for breaching largely the NPA and capital ratios.live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

The CBI today made four arrests in connection with the alleged Rs 12,636-crore fraud at Punjab National Bank perpetrated by billionaire jewellers Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi, officials said.

The agency has arrested two employees and an auditor of the Nirav Modi group of companies, while a director of the Gitanjali group of companies owned by Choksi has also been taken into custody, they said.

Manish K Bosamiya, the then AGM (operations) of Firestarter International Ltd owned by Nirav Modi, and then Finance Manager Miten Anil Pandya were arrested for their alleged role in the preparation of applications for fraudulent Letters of Undertakings submitted to Punjab National Bank, they said.

Auditor Sanjay Rambhia, partner in the Chartered Accountancy firm Sampat and Mehta, Mumbai, has also been arrested in connection with the ongoing investigation, the officials said.

The CBI has also arrested the then Director of Mehul Choksi's company Gili India, Aniyath Shiv Raman Nair, in connection with the case.

It was alleged that besides being one of the directors of the Gitanjali group of companies, he was the authorized signatory for the applications submitted to PNB for issuance of purported LOUs and Foreign Letters of Credit (FLCs), they said.

It is alleged that Choksi and Modi got issued LoUs and FLCs of Rs 12,636 crore in favour of foreign branches of Indian banks based on fraudulent claims.

The accused officials of PNB did not enter the instructions for these LoUs and FLCs in their internal software to avoid scrutiny.

They were sent through an international messaging system for banking called SWIFT, which is used to pass instructions among banks globally to transfer funds.

An LoU is a guarantee which is given by an issuing bank to Indian banks having branches abroad to grant a short-term credit to the applicant.

In case of default, the bank issuing the LoU has to pay the liability to the credit giving bank along with accruing interest.

The PNB officials allegedly sent these messages to Indian banks -- Canara Bank, State Bank of India, Bank of India, Axis Bank, Allahabad bank -- located in Antwerp, Hong Kong, Bahrain, Mauritius, Frankfurt without making entries in the banking software about the LoUs.

Upon receiving the messages from PNB under SWIFT, the banks abroad transferred these amounts into NOSTRO account of PNB with them.A significant amount of unsold inventory, as much as 4.4 lakh housing units across the country at the end of 2017, is expected to ensure that capital values across most markets will be kept buyer friendly to ensure sales velocity, says a report by JLL India.

As many as 4.4 lakh residential units remain unsold across key cities of India at the end of 2017. The unsold inventory of completed (ready  to  move in) residential units is estimated at 34,700 units in the top cities of India. Delhi  NCR has the highest volume at around 150,654 units that remained unsold in 2017, while Chennai had the highest percentage of completed unsold inventory at close to 20 percent, the report said.

It also noted that Kolkata had the lowest volume of unsold inventory at approximately 26,000 units.

A significant volume of unsold inventory will ensure that the capital values across most markets will be kept buyer friendly to ensure sales velocity. Also, with a slowdown in launches, across the markets, we can expect to see more unsold inventory to get absorbed in the next few quarters. As a trend, end users have been inclined to enter the market closer to date of completion, which will further accelerate absorption of the unsold units. Capital values remain stable with a downward bias across most markets making it buyer favourable, the report said.

Noida-Greater Noida see close to 90,000 unsold units

Delhi  NCR saw the highest volume of unsold inventory of 150,654 units spread across the perimeter of Delhi, Gurgaon, Ghaziabad, Faridabad, NOIDA and Greater NOIDA. Upon analysis, NOIDA and Greater NOIDA together contributed to nearly 60% of the total unsold inventory, mostly in under  construction projects. NOIDA and Greater NOIDA have had a tumultuous past because of which, end users are circumspect in making their purchases. In the recent times, we have seen most of the sales to be happening closer to completion, leaving only a minimum percentage of completed unsold inventory.

For Delhi  NCR, Gurgaon saw only limited unsold inventory, most of which was situated in the peripheral locations of the city. Significantly a very limited amount of the unsold inventory was in the completed category, which was less than 4% of the total unsold residential units in the location. The rest of Delhi NCR including Delhi, Faridabad and Ghaziabad saw unsold inventory of approximately 37,000 units, the report said.

The residential market has been on a wait and watch mode for some time on account of many structural changes that have happened. From the beginning of 2016, the sector has witnessed changes like RERA, Demonetisation and GST, impact of which is not completely known. These have also led to a general slowdown in overall construction activities. On the flip side, demand too has been slow on account of these changes. We expect sales velocity to start picking pace in the second half of the year mostly on account of stable prices making entry attractive, said Ramesh Nair, CEO & Country Head, JLL India.

Chennai witnesses highest percentage of completed unsold inventory

The highest volume of unsold inventory was in Chennai has been the highest at close to 42,500 units of which nearly 8,500 units are in ready to move in conditions. This is exerting pressure on the market to keep its capital values end user friendly to attain sales velocity. A close scrutiny of the data shows that most of the unsold inventory is in locations that were impacted in the deluge of December 2015, which drastically brought down the attractiveness of such projects. Having said that, Chennai has seen strong trend in the uptake of commercial office space in the last few quarters indicating a healthy future trend. If the trend continues to remain strong, we should expect to see a simultaneous uptake in residential sector, albeit, the trend usually takes a few quarters to follow.

Bengaluru has close to 70,000 unsold units of which close to 10,000 are ready residential units

Bengaluru, which recorded nearly 70,000 units has seen an influx of new launches in the last few quarters of 2017 backed by a strong and stable economic condition. 2017 alone saw launch of over 20,000 new units. The scale of the market is large and is driven by end users therefore, a large part of the unsold inventory is situated in projects in peripheral locations or projects launched by companies that do not have a strong track record. Further, with the market still working out the details of Karnataka RERA, there is uncertainty from users to enter the market before the enforcement of RERA.

Thane saw lowest unsold inventory with only 163 completed units remaining unsold in 2017

For Greater Mumbai, Thane saw the lowest volume of unsold inventory with approximately 12,500 units almost entirely in under construction. Completed unsold units are at a very low 163 units. Thane has been seeing strong traction amongst end users due to high quality of construction, ease of commute and a general upgrade in the social infrastructure which has been proportionate to the growth of the location. Navi Mumbai on the other hand recorded over 24,000 unsold units of which over 10% (2,654) are in completed projects. Most of the projects launched in this cardinal of the city are in the peripheral locations of Kharghar and Panvel which are mostly investor driven markets with much lower end  user activities. Mumbai city has recorded close to 50,000 unsold units mostly in the under construction projects. Traditionally, Mumbai markets see sales velocity pick up closer to completion.

Pune records unsold inventory as 36,000

Pune, which has emerged as a strong and vibrant residential market, saw a total of 36,000 unsold units, hearteningly recorded only 500 units as completed and unsold. This is testament that the market is growing at an incredible pace, in terms of construction activities. However, being an end user market, Pune remains largely price sensitive. It is estimated that most of the unsold inventory are in projects that are in peripheral locations which are futuristic and targeted towards investors.

Kolkata and Hyderabad saw unsold inventories of approximately 26,000 and 28,000 respectively. Hyderabad market has been buoyant with strong trends in the office sector, leading to optimism amongst development companies to pick pace of residential construction activities. Hyderabad is going through a revival which is likely to lead to a growth in sales of residential units. Thus, we can see the velocity increase for Hyderabad in the latter part of the year. Kolkata, on the other hand, has been a strong investor market, where majority of the buying is by non- residents that are looking for investment or for usage post retirement. Majority of the launches are in the newly developed locations of the city of New Town Rajarhat which is an upcoming business location.business Smart cities report card: Has Thane gotten any smarter? Two years after Thane made the cut to receive Rs 1000 crore of government funding to transform itself, has it gotten any smarter?Bangalore -based mutual funds platform Kuvera has raised USD 250,000 from angel investors including Baskar Subramanian, co-founder, Amagi, Saket Kumar, Managing Director, Swank Capital and others.

The funds will be used in growing the technology.The total funds raised by the company is USD 500,000.

Baskar Subramanian, co-founder of Amagi, said, A fantastic team combined with a growing fintech market in India presents a large opportunity for Kuvera in bringing online financial services to the mass affluent.

Kuvera was founded in 2016 by Gaurav Rastogi and Neelabh Sanyal and Mayank Sharma.

Gaurav Rastogi, CEO, Kuvera said, This capital will go towards deepening our offerings and to double the size of our technology team. We see opportunities to build more value-added services for our users to make their financial lives easier."After investing over USD 300 million in globally recognised startups such as Shopify and Ecobee, the Government of Ontario now plans to invest up to USD 50 million in venture capital funds focused on life sciences.

The Ontario Capital Growth Corporation (OCGC), an agency that manages the Canadian province's venture capital equity interests, has issued an interest to identify fund managers to partner with other institutional investors such as corporations, banks and pension funds across the world including in India.

This healthcare fund will help life sciences firms access the capital they need to grow their business, creates jobs and compete globally.

"Providing much-needed capital to growing life sciences companies is a crucial step towards a strong and sustainable life sciences ecosystem. Supporting high-potential life sciences companies will create good jobs and help commercialise technologies and services for improved healthcare at home and around the world, "said Reza Moridi, Minister of Research, Innovation and Science.

Ontario's new venture capital fund focused on life sciences is designed to respond to the challenges faced in raising capital by innovative, high-potential life sciences companies to scale up and reach global markets.

It will also help businesses foster new discoveries, including new technologies, treatments and cures for illnesses while supporting high quality, knowledge-based jobs for people across the province. It will also drive Ontarios ability to attract and retain talent.

"Capital financing, including venture capital, is essential for many innovative companies. OCGC is pleased to play a role helping Ontario-based companies scale-up and succeed at home and in global markets, " said Steve Romanyshyn, OCGC President and CEO.

OCGC, the venture capital agency of the government of Ontario, was created to promote and develop the venture capital sector in Ontario, so that more high-potential technology companies have access to the capital needed to grow and prosper.By Satish Gupta of astrostocktips.in

Weekly planetary position: During the week, Moon will be transiting in Libra & Scorpio. Lord Saturn in Sagittarius. Lord Jupiter in Libra. Mars in Scorpio. Lord Ketu in Capricorn. Sun in Aquarius. Mercury & Venus in Pisces. Lord Rahu in Cancer. Pluto in Sagittarius. Neptune in Aquarius & Uranus in Aries. Mars will shift to Sagittarius on March 7.

Following sectors will be receiving astrological support:

Infra: NCC, IRB Infra, Supreme Infra, Dilip Buildcon, HCC, etc.

NBFC/housing finance: DHFL, Can Fin Homes, Indiabulls Housing, Cholamandalam Investment, Bajaj Finance, Capital First, etc.

Textile: SRF, Century Textiles, Bombay Dyeing, Raymond, Arvind, etc.

Liquor: UBL, United Spirits, IFB Agro, Pioneer Distillery, Globus Spirits, Som Distilleries, etc.

Telecom: Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular, MTNL, RComm, etc.

Pharma and information technology sectors will also be getting astrological support.

Buying stocks that can rise multifold in a short period is every investors dream. But it is not easy to identify and buy such stocks at right time and exit at right time. Timing is most crucial element in investing or trading. This timing can be known through Financial Astrology. Astrology is only science which can predict future correctly & guide us about sectors which have to outperform.

Every year with commencement of new Samvat (Hindu New Year), astrologically, based on planetary position, certain new sectors start getting strong astrological support & start outperforming, while some others sectors which were performing earlier start underperforming.

Some sectors/stocks remain laggards. Based on our experience of over 18 years as financial astrologer, stocks of astrological supported sectors outperform resulting in exorbitant gains irrespective of market behaviour, either bull market or bear market.

Predicting bullish sectors of next Samvat 2074

Every year we release sectors of new Samvat in the month of March/April when new Samvat starts. But this year, we shall prepone release of next Samvat sectors, which are going to get strong astrological support & stocks from those sector outperform markets. Purpose of releasing sectors of next Samvat earlier is that investors & traders should get maximum advantage of down trend of markets by good timing.

We firmly believe that these special astrological positions present very unique opportunities to investors and traders both. This opportunity, if utilized properly, can safeguard your existing portfolio and simultaneously optimize your future investments and trading also. So we request you not to wait till March 2017 but contact us early and subscribe or renew the Sectors of Samvat 2074. After all successful investing and trading is all about good timing only.

Needless to mention our innumerable past predictions, where most stocks from the Sectors of Samvat gave exorbitant returns & certain stocks appreciated by over 500 percent.

During Vikram Samavat 2073 among other sectors  dyes/chemical/sugar sectors received strong astrological support & outperformed and gave exorbitant return. Many stocks from dyes/ chemical sector appreciated by over 500 percent.

Sectors which get strong astrological support also start getting favourable news along with all kind of positive support by regulatory authorities in that industry, resulting in strong growth & super positive results. Most of problems also start resolving.

Sectors which get very strong astrological support are not normally affected by downfall in the market.

: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on moneycontrol.com are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

TVS Motor Company

Brokerage - Citi | Rating - Sell | Target | Rs 700

Citi has a Sell call on TVS Motor with a target price at Rs 700 per share as it feels margin expansion may be limited given aggressive price competition in scooter.

Ntorq launch should aid in volume growth and the company could gain market share over next few months, it said.

Aurobindo Pharma

Brokerage - Credit Suisse | Rating - Outperform | Target -Rs 750

Credit Suisse has upgraded Aurobindo to Outperform from Neutral rating with a target price at Rs 750 per share as the stock is attractive for low valuations at 13x FY19 EPS.

Company should benefit from volume gains as large players exit high competition products, it believes.

It has cut EPS estimates by 5.3/1.8 percent for 2018/19 due to one-off in Q3FY18 & lower US sales.

"Unit IV observations are milder than expected and has low chance of escalation. There are no repeat observations from the April 2017 inspection by USFDA and there are no observations related to out of specification," Credit Suisse said.

Unit IV accounts for 25 percent of pending ANDAs for company. Resolution could come within six months, it feels.

Dr Reddy's Labs

Brokerage - Nomura | Rating - Buy | Target - Rs 3,238

"DFN 02 could be transformational for proprietary product business. The company is expected to fule proprietary migraine drug DFN 02 In 3 Months," Nomura said while retaining Buy call on the stock with a target price of Rs 3,238 per share.

Stock trades at 20-30 percent discount to peers, it feels.

KNR Constructions

Brokerage - Nomura | Rating - Buy | Target - Rs 383

KNR is the lowest bidder in Tamil Nadu for project worth Rs 1,020 crore.

Nomura sees further upside to order inflows if company secures contiguous NHAI projects.

Auto

Brokerage - Macquarie

Macquarie expects auto industry to sustain healthy growth in 2018.

Maruti Suzuki is the top pick given its market-leading growth and Eicher Motors is the preferred pick amongst 2-wheelers as Royal Enfield is set for highest volume & PAT CAGR over FY18-20.

"We have outperform call on Maruti Suzuki, Eicher Motors, Tata Motors, Hero MotoCorp and M&M while we have underperform rating on TVS Motor, Ashok Leyland and Bajaj Auto."

In auto component space, the research house prefers Motherson Sumi and has, outperform call on Ceat.

Brokerage - Credit Suisse

Credit Suisse believes strong pick-up in volume is an indication of pick-up in economy. Early festive season helped tractors & 2-wheelers in February while passenger vehicle industry growth continued to disappoint, it said.

The research house has Neutral call on Maruti Suzuki, Bajaj Auto and Hero MotoCorp with target price of Rs 9,800, Rs 2,940 and Rs 3,560 per share, respectively.

"We have Outperform call on M&M, Tata Motors & Escorts with target price at Rs 940, Rs 560 & Rs 1,040. We have Underperform call on Ashok Leyland, TVS Motor & Eicher Motors with target price at Rs 103, Rs 510 & Rs 23,500 per share."

Metals

Brokerage - Morgan Stanley

Direct impact on metals from potential import restriction from US may be limited but the key to watch would be risk of countermeasures by other countries, Morgan Stanley said.

Indian steel and aluminium exports to the US are less than 1 percent of production and are 5 percent to total production, respectively.

Potential increase in steel imports into India is unlikely, according to the research house.Prakash Gaba of prakashgaba.com told CNBC-TV18, "I think it is hold for Apollo Tyres because structurally it is still positive, trading at new highs zones. Might see a dip, who cares if it comes, in fact I would say Rs 230 seems to be a very strong support zone, so stay invested."

At 15:25 hrs Apollo Tyres was quoting at Rs 258, down Rs 8.10, or 3.04 percent.

The share touched its 52-week high Rs 288.80 and 52-week low Rs 178.00 on 10 January, 2018 and 08 March, 2017, respectively.

Currently, it is trading 10.66 percent below its 52-week high and 44.94 percent above its 52-week low.Just a few hours ago, curtains came down at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles - the venue for the 90th Oscars, the biggest honour in Hollywood and arguably, one of the most significant exports from the United States to the world.

The US movie industry is worth over USD 120 billion - it is the world leader in cultural export with 8 percent market share according to the US National Endowment for Arts. That's not all, US runs a trade surplus with China on cultural exports.

However, President Trump wants more - last week, he slapped tariffs on steel and aluminium imports by the US - he took to twitter to defend the move saying, "We must protect our country and our workers. Our steel industry is in bad shape. If you don't have steel, you don't have a country!"

Many world leaders, like Angela Merkel and Justin Trudeau fear that a trade war would hurt not just the United States but the global economy as a whole. Perhaps the harshest response came from Jean Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission - he told a German TV channel, "We will now impose tariffs on motorcycles, Harley Davidson, on Blue Jeans, Levis, on Bourbon. We can also do stupid. We also have to be this stupid."

The tariffs on steel and aluminium will not have a major impact on India which accounts for only 2 percent of US exports - nonetheless, shares of Vedanta, JSW Steel and Tata Steel, took a sharp hit in trade.

That's not all, Trump has been taking a dig at India for high tariffs on Harley Davidson bikes. In a latest tweet he said, "When a country taxes our products coming in at, say, 50 percent, and we tax the same product coming into our country at zero, not fair or smart."

However it also must be noted that US runs a very small trade deficit with India compared to its deficit with countries like China and Mexico.

CNBC-TV18's Shereen Bhan caught up with Jayant Dasgupta Former Indian Envoy to WTO and Meera Shankar Former Indian Envoy to US to find whether India should fear tariffs on its major exports to the United States, like IT services? Whether China and Europe will retaliate and impose tariff restrictions on American goods? Whether the current trade skirmish, escalate into a full blown trade war that will hurt the global economy and finally - Donald Trump claimed on Twitter that "It is easy to win trade wars" - but will America really emerge a winner?20:25 The Oscars that celebrated change and diversity

Romantic fantasy "The Shape of Water" won the best picture Oscar on Sunday, the film industry's most prestigious honor, on a night where themes of female empowerment and activism almost overshadowed the awards.

The Fox Searchlight movie's Mexican filmmaker, Guillermo del Toro, won best director, dashing the hopes

of a rare win by a woman or a black filmmaker.

The movie about a mute cleaning woman who falls in love with a strange river creature had gone into the ceremony with a leading 13 nominations, and won a total of four Academy Awards.

Greta Gerwig's independent mother-daughter tale "Lady Bird" came away empty-handed while Universal Pictures' racial satire "Get Out" got just one award - for original screenplay - despite speculation that its bold take on modern race relations might take the top prize.

"I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible. I thought it wasn't going to work," "Get Out" director and screenwriter Jordan Peele said.

Britain's Gary Oldman won his first Oscar for playing World War Two leader Winston Churchill in Warner Bros.' "Darkest Hour," while Frances McDormand's woman in a vengeful fury was a popular best actress winner for Fox Searchlight's dark comedy "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."

19:17 Indian stars Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi, who passed away recently, featured in the In Memoriam section at the 90th Academy Awards today.

The In Memoriam segment of the Oscars pays tribute to artistes who have passed this year.

16:08 Quotes of the winners

Gary Oldman: "Winning an Oscar for playing one of the greatest Britons who ever lived makes this doubly special. This film, this company of actors and Joe Wright, has been an unforgettable experience and a highlight of my career."

Jordan Peele: "This is a renaissance. I almost never became a director because of such a shortage of role models; Spike Lee, John Singleton, the Peebles, the Hughes Brothers  the exceptions to the rule."

J. Miles Dale: "Its a great moment for Canadian filmmaking  more Oscar nominations than any other Canadian film. Were really proud.

Frances McDormand on @3Billboards: "It represents a good conversation about compassion and inclusion.

13:04 Gary Oldman: "The worst thing you can do as an artist is second guess yourself. But sometimes I still have that little demon on my shoulder trying to do that."

12:40 Gary Oldman: "Winning an Oscar for playing one of the greatest Britons who ever lived makes this doubly special. This film, this company of actors and Joe Wright, has been an unforgettable experience and a highlight of my career."

12:27 Gary Oldman: "Its easier to throw things out when something new comes along just because you can, but getting Kazuhiro Tsuji was contingent on my doing this role. Only he could do it."

12:15 Gary Oldman: "Makeup and clothes are things that are the closest to the actor. They actually touch you. The people who do that are the first ones you meet in the morning."

12:09 Jordan Peele: "This is a renaissance. I almost never became a director because of such a shortage of role models; Spike Lee, John Singleton, the Peebles, the Hughes Brothers  the exceptions to the rule."

11:59 Guillermo Del Toro: "When we started this, we talked seriously about doing this with department heads in Canada. We wanted to showcase the talent there, where you dont just go and use a rebate."

11:55 Guillermo Del Toro on the future of Fox Searchlight: "Its above my pay grade! But Im continuing conversations with them about future projects."

11:48 Guillermo Del Toro: "Every time we can demonstrate Mexican exports things like science, arts, culture, it brings important things to world discourse. It also helps us remember where were from, honoring your roots and country."

11:09 Frances McDormand: "We need to send a message to the public that we can make a difference as an industry. The commission being headed by Anita Hill is smart. Weve started a conversation that will change something."

11:05 Frances McDormand on 3Billboards: It represents a good conversation about compassion and inclusion.

11:02 The women described 2017, which included blockbuster and critically acclaimed films that were not centered on white men - from female-led action movie "Wonder Woman" to racial satire "Get Out" - as a move toward a more inclusive film industry.

"The changes we are witnessing are being driven by the powerful sound of new voices, of different voices, of our voices, joining together in a mighty chorus that is finally saying: 'Time's up,'" Judd said.

11:00 Women filmmakers and artists of color celebrated a year of diversity at the 90th Academy Awards on Sunday, saluting the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and urging under-represented artists to seize the momentum.

A segment dedicated to the issues was narrated by Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek and Annabella Sciorra, three of the dozens of women who have accused Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual misconduct, helping touch off the MeToo movement.

10:52 Frances McDormand, who won the Oscar for Best Actress for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, while accepting the award asked each and every female actor, director, cinematographer, writer, artist, to stand up to be acknowledged. She ended her speech with two words -- Inclusion Rider.

10:36 Here's a quick look at the winners of 90th Academy Awards

Best Picture:The Shape Of Water

Best Director: Guillermo del Toro, The Shape Of Water

Best Actress: Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Actor: Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney, I, Tonya

Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Original Screenplay: Get Out

Best Adapted Screenplay: Call Me By Your Name

Best Animated Feature Film: Coco

Best Foreign Language Film: A Fantastic Woman, Chile

Best Original Score: The Shape Of Water

Best Original Song: Remember Me, Coco

Best Documentary Feature: Icarus

Best Documentary Short: Heaven Is A Traffic Jam On The 405

Best Live Action Short: The Silent Child

Best Animation Short: Dear Basketball

Best Sound Editing: Dunkirk

Best Sound Mixing: Dunkirk

Best Production Design: The Shape Of Water

Best Cinematography:Blade Runner

Best Makeup And Hair:Darkest Hour

Best Costume Design:Phantom Thread

Best Film Editing: Dunkirk

Best Visual Effects:Blade Runner

10:30 The Shape of Water bags the award for Best Picture

10:13 Best Actress- Frances Mc Dormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

10:11 Gary Oldman wins Best Actor for Darkest Hour

09:58 Guillermo del Toro wins Best Director for The Shape Of Water

09:42 This is the second Oscar for Alexandre Desplat in this category. He had won an Oscar for Grand Budapest Hotel.

09:28 Roger A Deakins wins Best Cinematography for Blade Runner 2049

09:09 Original screenplay- Get Out. written by Jordan Peele

09:06 Oscar for adapted screenplay goes to - Call me by your name. Screenplay by James Ivory.

09:04 The stars of Hollywood sparkled on the Oscars red carpet with vibrant bursts of color, as the awards season's grand finale signaled that anything goes in fashion, as long as it's fabulous.

From the Louis Vuitton black trousers worn by Emma Stone to the electric pink Michael Kors gown wrapped around Viola Davis, this year's Oscar runway was a study in contrasts that celebrated individual flair.

Celebrating her first Oscar nod for her performance in "I, Tonya," best supporting actress nominee Allison Janney made a statement in a scarlet red gown from Reem Acra with a deep V neckline and dramatic flared sleeves.

08:52 At the Oscars, Jimmy Kimmel did not hesitate in calling out onetime Hollywood titan Harvey Weinstein, who was expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences after more than 70 women came forward to accuse him of sexual misconduct, including rape.

Weinstein has denied ever having non-consensual sex with anyone. "There were a lot of great nominees, but Harvey deserved it the most," Kimmel said of the expulsion, adding that the only other academy member thrown out of the organization was an obscure character actor punished for sharing confidential movie "screener" videos that ended up on the internet.

08:47 Live action short film goes to - The Silent Child (Chris Overton and Rachel Shenton)

08:40 Comedian Jimmy Kimmel launched his return stint as Oscar host by immediately confronting this year's elephant in the room - the campaign against sexual misconduct and anger at gender inequality roiling Hollywood in recent months.

In his opening monologue, Kimmel employed a sight gag centered on the larger-than-life but anatomically simplified Oscar statue standing on stage for the 90th anniversary presentation of the Academy Awards to make a point.

08:28 And the Oscar goes to-

Best Language Foreign Film- A Fantastic Woman

Production Design- The shape of water

Sound Mixing- Dunkirk

Sound editing- Dunkirk

06:19 There are nine films contesting for the Best Picture award. Guillermo del Toros dark fantasy The Shape of Water is heading the race with a total of 13 nominations, while Christopher Nolans Dunkirk and Frances McDormand-starrer Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri are not far behind, with eight and seven nominations, respectively.

05:41 What if you miss it?

In case you miss the morning show, you can tune in to the below mentioned channels at 20:30.

05:33 Where to watch Oscars 2018 live?

Indian fans can catch all the live action on Star Movies, Star Movies HD and Star Movies Select HD. It will also be live on Hotstar.

Oscars are here and it is time to know who all will get to hold the golden trophy. While we all know who the contenders are, fighting to win the 90th Academy awards, in no time we will also find out who the winners are.

A look at the nominees-

Best motion picture of the year nominees:

Call me by your name

Darkest Hour

Dunkirk

Get Out

Lady Bird

Phantom Thread

The Post

The shape of water

Three billboards outside Ebbing

Performance by an actor in a leading role nominees:

Timothee Chalamet in CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (Sony Pictures Classics)

Daniel Day-Lewis in PHANTOM THREAD (Focus Features)

Daniel Kaluuya in GET OUT (Universal)

Gary Oldman in DARKEST HOUR (Focus Features)

Denzel Washington in ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ. (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Performance by an actress in a leading role nominees:

Sally Hawkins in THE SHAPE OF WATER (Fox Searchlight)

Frances McDormand in THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (Fox Searchlight)

Margot Robbie in I, TONYA (Neon/30 West)

Saoirse Ronan in LADY BIRD (A24)

Meryl Streep in THE POST (20th Century Fox)Conrad Sangma, Meghalaya CM | Talking about challenges in connectivity, roads, social welfare and problems faced by the youth, he said, "We are working to solve it. It will not happen in one day. We have constraints, in monetary terms as well but those will have to be mitigated to work for the state's welfare.

A day after the results of Meghalaya Assembly Election were announced, NPP president Conrad Sangma met Meghalaya Governor Ganga Prasad on Sunday evening and staked claim to form the government in the state with the support of 34 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly.

Here is all you want to know about Sangma:

Sangma was born into an influential political family as his father Purno Agitok Sangma served as the CM of Meghalaya and also the speaker of Lok Sabha.

Born on 27 January 1978 in Tura town of West Garo Hills district, Sangma completed his schooling from St Columba's School, New Delhi. He completed his BBA (Entrepreneurial Management) and MBA in Finance from University of Pennsylvania and Imperial College London.

Sangma has keen interest in music and has also organised number of musical events in the north-eastern Region.

Sangma made his entry into politics in the 90s as the campaign manager for his father.

He was first elected to the State Assembly along with his brother James Sangma, both as NCP members in the 2008 state elections. After this at the age of 30, he became the Finance Minister of Meghalaya.

In 2016, Sangma elected to 16th Lok Sabha in a bye-election from Tura Parliamentary constituency.

After Meghalaya threw a fractured mandate, 40-year-old Sangma submitted a letter of support from 34 MLAs - 19 of the NPP, six of the United Democratic Party (UDP), four of the People's Democratic Front (PDF), two each of the Hill State People's Democratic Party (HSPDP) and the BJP and an Independent  to Governor Prasad.

It will be interesting to see whether Conrad Sangma will dethrone another Mukul Sangma as Congress faces anti-incumbency.

(With inputs from PTI)9 | Chennai | Average annual growth: 8.17% (Image: Reuters)

live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

The release of a Tamil movie allegedly produced from a loan granted for purchasing vehicles has been stalled by the Madras High Court, on an interim plea by the State Bank of India.

Justice CV Karthikeyan restrained White Screen Productions to release the feature film Aruva Sanda till March 16. The movie stars Kabaddi player Raja and Malavika Menon in the lead roles. The production house was represented by Raja in the court.

A per a New Indian Express report, 13 people who include Raja secured a total loan of Rs 3.3 crore to purchase various types of cars. The bank said, for that, all of them furnished credentials which include the KYC (know your customer) details to the bank via an auto loan counsellor D Chitra.

The bank said that Chitra had placed misleading facts and dubious documents before the bank. Additionally, the bank claimed that she had also got access to the operating system in the computers and misused it to process/sanction the loans without the knowledge of the bank officials from a different mode.

The branch manager of the Velachery branch of SBI discovered the irregularity in October last year and notified them to the higher authorities. On investigation, it was found that the loan proceeds were utilised for the production of the film.

The High Court had earlier, on the banks plea, ordered the police to register a case against all 13 people including the producer and actors of the film, however, the police did not take any action. The bank eventually filed another civil suit to stall the release of the film.

Before the bench, the bank also prayed that it was entitled to the first charge from and out of the sale proceeds of the movie Aruva Sanda produced in all languages, along with all audio, video, DVD, television and satellite telecasting rights.Congress

The recently-concluded assembly elections in Meghalaya spelt the end of a four-decade-long Congress rule in the state, despite the party emerging the single largest winner, winning 21 of the state's 60 assembly seats.

The Bhartiya Janata Party pulled the carpet from under the Congress' feet by formulating an alliance with the National Peoples Party and three other regional parties. The alliance won 34 seats in all, four more than the halfway mark of 30 needed to form a government.

NPP leader Conrad Sangma will be sworn in as Chief Minister of the state on March 6.

There have so far been 11 chief ministers of Meghalaya since the state came into being, of which 6 were from the Congress party. This includes the state's first-ever chief minister, Williamson A. Sangma.

In 1972, 1981, 1983, 1992, 2003 and 2009, the people of Meghalaya elected to power candidates from the Congress party, the latest of who was the incumbent CM Mukul Sangma who was in power between 2009 and 2018.

Reports of intrastate disagreements and citizens' disappointment with the state government have been doing the rounds for quite some time now. The Opposition lashed out at the ruling Congress, saying that even after 45 years of statehood, Meghalaya is still lagging on many fronts.

Many schemes, initiatives and policies that were promised to the people of Meghalaya were reportedly never implemented and the people's frustration with the Congress government was growing more and more pronounced.

Some of the Congress leaders in the state were accused by the Opposition of holding black money. Education and crimes against women under the Mukul Sangma government were also under the public scanner.

Recently, more than one lakh students dropped out of schools in Meghalaya and the government was accused of being unable to implement the Right to Education in the state.

The NPP presented data that showed the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, which helped reduce the dropout rate across India, to have not picked up at all in Meghalaya.

There were concerns raised about teachers training, lack of employment policies and failure of housing schemes of the government as well.

Many of Congress allies also turned their back towards the government and criticized its efforts pertaining to insurgency in the state, ensuring security of indigenous tribal people, and various other issues.

The Congress also suffered because of its ties with regional parties were not very cordial, according to a Financial Express report . Mukul Sangma offered UDP chief Donkupar Roy the chief ministers post for half the term but Roy rejected his offer and made an alliance with NPP and BJP instead.Tourists can now avoid long queues while visiting the Taj Mahal with the government deciding to open the ticket window 45 minutes before sunrise to enable them to get tickets well before the gates to the monument open, Parliament was informed today.

Minister of State for Culture Mahesh Sharma told Lok Sabha today that while the opening and closing time of the Taj Mahal has not been altered, the ticket window will open earlier to facilitate movement of visitors inside.

"The ticket window would open 45 minutes before sunrise and close 30 minutes before sunset to facilitate the entry of visitors of Taj Mahal," Sharma said.

As of the instructions issued on January 25, 2018, by the Archaeological Survey of India, the gates through which tourists enter the Taj Mahal open 30 minutes before sunrise and closes 30 minutes before sunset, he said.

The Mughal-era monument remains closed for visitors on Fridays.

Earlier both the gates and the ticket windows used to open between sunrise and sunset.

Recently, the government has not only fixed a time span of three hours for tourists to be allowed inside Taj Mahal, but also hiked the entry fee to Rs 50 from Rs 40.

It has also introduced an additional fee of Rs 200 for visiting the main mausoleum from April 1.

High Value Tickets" for tourists visiting the Mughal heritage site have also been hiked -- for foreign visitors, the ticket would cost Rs 1,250 and for domestic visitors it would be Rs 400.

As of now, there is no restriction on the number of people entering the iconic monument complex at any point of time. The average footfall at the monument has increased at a rate of 10-15 per cent per annum.Prime Minister Narendra Modi should tell the nation how many more Nirav Modis will run away from the country, Congress leader R P N Singh said.

Billionaire diamantaire Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi are accused in the nearly Rs 12,700-crore alleged fraud at Punjab National Bank.

According to the bank, Modi's jewellery firms and Choksi's Gitanjali Group used Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) fraudulently issued to them to take loans from overseas branches of Indian banks.

"The prime minister should tell how many Nirav Modis will run away from the country... He should also tell when will a befitting reply be given to Pakistan as the number of soldiers' deaths in his rule has surpassed the number of deaths in Kargil," Singh said at a press conference.

Modi had left the country on January 1 much before the CBI received a complaint from Punjab National Bank on January 29.

Singh claimed he approved the contract for the Gorakhpur fertilizer plant "when I was petroleum minister and the BJP is taking the credit of the Congress's work".

He criticized the Yogi Adityanath government over the deaths of a number of children at a Gorakhpur hospital allegedly due to a disruption in oxygen supply over unpaid bills to the vendor.

"Yogi Adityanath use to speak on the encephalitis issue when he was not the chief minister. Under his rule, a number of children died due to lack of oxygen at the BRD Medical college. The government cannot shirk the responsibility of the incident. The people of Gorakhpur will give answer to the BJP," he said.

On the BJP's impressive showing in the Northeast, Singh said, "Mostly regional parties have won in the region.IMA Ponzi scheme case: A multi-crore scheme run by Karnataka-based I-Monetary Advisory (IMA) and its group entities allegedly duped lakhs of people by promising higher returns using Islamic ways of investment. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is currently investigating the case and has filed at least three FIRs. (File image of the CBI headquarters)

Violation of norms for issuance of Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) to benefit billionaire jeweller Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi had been going on since 2010, the CBI told a court here today.

The agency, which secured a 12-day remand of four accused arrested yesterday, explained the modus operandi involved in the alleged Rs 12,636-crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud before the special CBI court here.

An LoU would be issued to one of the firms of Modi and Choksi, and after the money was credited to the applicants' account, a new LoU would be obtained to "adjust" the earlier one, the CBI lawyer said.

This had been going on since 2010, the lawyer said, while seeking remand of four accused including Aniyath Shiv Raman Nair, Director of Gitanjali Group of Companies of Choksi.

Nair had signed various applications to avail the LoU facility, and he was also a director at 19 other companies of Mehul Choksi, the CBI lawyer said. Manish K Bosamiya, then Assistant General Manager (Operation) of Firestar International Pvt Ltd (a Nirav Modi group firm), who was also produced before the CBI court, was responsible for day-to-day credit activities of the company, said the lawyer of the investigating agency.

Bosamiya was the one who was liaisoning with banks, especially PNB, for credit and disbursement, the CBI lawyer told the court.

Bosamiya used to visit the Brady House branch of PNB here, the CBI lawyer said. It is from this branch that the alleged scam started.

Documents for LoUs were submitted on the instructions of Bosamiya, as per the information given by co-accused Arjun Patil (senior executive, Firestar) to the interrogators, the CBI said.

Patil told investigators that he had prepared the documents on Bosamiya's direction, the CBI lawyer claimed.

Another accused Miten Pandya, who was finance manager at Firestar and was earlier assisting Bosamiya, had taken charge of all the activities which Bosamiya was doing earlier, the CBI said.

However, Bosamiya's lawyer told the court that he had left the company three years ago and that he was assisting the CBI in its investigation. Bosamiya had visited the CBI office for assisting the probe 8 to 10 times, the lawyer added.

Bosamiya was taken into custody around 11 am yesterday and was produced before the court around 4 pm today, after over 24 hours, he said, alleging that the CBI showed wrong time of the arrest and this was an illegal custody.

Under the law, an accused has to be produced before a court within 24 hours of the arrest.

The lawyer of Sanjay Rambhia, a partner of the firm M/s Sampat and Mehta which was auditing the company since 2001, told the court that his client had pointed out unsecured loans of Rs 5,100 and also brought them to the notice of the Income Tax department.

While sending the four accused to the CBI custody, judge S R Tamboli said there were voluminous documents which needed a probe, and with which the accused were needed to confronted.

More than Rs 6,500 crore were involved in the offence, the judge noted.

In order to find out the nexus (between firms and PNB officials), a fair chance needs to be given to the investigating officer, the judge said, sending all four to the CBI custody till March 17.

Bosamiya, Miten Anil Pandya, Sanjay Rambhia and Aniyath Shiv Raman Nair were arrested yesterday. It is alleged that Choksi and Modi got LoUs and Foregin Letters of Credit (FLCs) of Rs 12,636 crore issued in favour of foreign branches of Indian banks based on fraudulent claims.

Earlier today, the CBI court remanded six others, arrested in the case last month, in judicial custody till March 19. Vipul Ambani, President, Finance, the Firestar International; Kavita Mankikar, executive assistant and authorised signatory of three firms of Nirav Modi; Arjun Patil, senior executive, Firestar group, were arrested in the case related to the Modi group firms.

Kapil Khandelwal, CFO, Nakshatra group and Gitanjali group and Niten Shahi, manager, Gitanjali group, were arrested in the case related to Choksi's firms.

Rajesh Jindal was a senior PNB official.

All the six were produced before judge S R Tamboli after their CBI remand ended today.

Mankikar's lawyer said in the court that she suffered from diabetes, while Ambani's lawyer said he suffered from stomach pain and back pain. The judge, while remanding them in judicial custody, said they should be provided necessary medical help.Amit Shah

A day after the BJP's successful showing in the Assembly polls in three north-eastern states, party president Amit Shah visited the RSS headquarters here and held a meeting with Sangh chief Mohan Bhagwat and other senior leaders.

The saffron party won the Assembly polls in Tripura and performed well in Nagaland.

The topic of discussion during the four-hour long meeting could not be known as the BJP president did not field questions from the media once he came out of the RSS headquarters. He reached the venue at 2:55 pm and left around 6:40pm.

Shah also met senior RSS functionary Bhaiyaji Joshi.

Earlier in the day, the BJP president met Union minister Nitin Gadkari at his residence here.

Answering a query outside the Ravi Bhavan, a complex of government guest houses here, on the forthcoming Karnataka polls, Shah said, "You write it down. BJP will win in Karnataka."

The RSS' highest decision making body, the Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha, of which Shah is a part, will meet here between March 9 to 11.With the BJP putting up an impressive performance in the north east, party President Amit Shah received a rousing welcome by party MPs and ministers when he arrived in the Rajya Sabha today.

Wearing a Tangkhul Naga haora muffler, Shah walked in when Hishey Lachungpa of the Sikkim Democratic Front was taking oath after being re-elected to the Upper House.

As he walked towards his allocated seat, BJP members and ministers began thumping their desks. Some even rose from their seats to welcome Shah.

While the BJP trounced the CPM to win the Tripura Assembly polls, it is in alliance with local parties which won elections in Meghalaya and Nagaland.

Law and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and some others in the ruling dispensation too where sporting the traditional Naga muffler.

Shah was seated in his chair by the time Lachungpa finished taking oath in Hindi and signed off with "Jai Hind".

Members also thumped their desk to welcome Lachungpa.Rahul Gandhi

Breaking his silence on the party's defeat in three northeast states, Congress president Rahul Gandhi today said he respected the mandate of people in the region and was committed to winning back their trust.

Gandhi's reaction came two days after results for assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland were declared on Saturday. The Congress lost Meghalaya and failed to score a single seat in Tripura and Nagaland.

The party won 21 seats in Meghalaya, where it was in power, and could not garner the support of regional outfits to cobble together a coalition government.

Top party leaders Ahmed Patel and Kamal Nath rushed to Shillong to talk to regional parties but to no avail.

"The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya.

"We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people.

"My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party," Gandhi said on Twitter.

Gandhi had announced on Thursday that he would visit his 93-year-old grandmother in Italy over the Holi weekend.

Top party leaders had refrained from making any comment on the results.West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee addresses during Youth Trinamool Congress rally at Damurjala Stadium in Howrah district of West Bengal on Friday. PTI

Efforts to stich a non-Congress, non-BJP front appeared to be gaining momentum with the Trinamool Congress chief reaching out to the DMK, even as Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao continued to receive support for such a proposal.

Former Chhattisgarh chief minister Ajit Jogi today spoke to Rao over phone and expressed support for the plan to float a Third Front-like formation, the Telangana chief minister's office said in Hyderabad.

Rao, the leader of Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS), had said two days ago that he was keen to engage himself in national politics to bring about a "change" and was in talks with others to form a platform of like-minded parties.

Several leaders, including West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi, former Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and two MPs from Maharashtra, have extended support to Rao's proposal.

The BJP and the Congress slammed the efforts of the Telangana chief minister.

Rao's office today said he was planning to initiate a consultation process from a national perspective to take his idea forward.

The Telangana chief minister's idea is that all those who have been thinking about the nation in various ways are to be made participants in the process of qualitative change in politics, his office said in a press release.

"To begin with, the chief minister will meet retired IAS, IPS, IFS and IRS officers, who were part of administration of the country at various levels and have had a lot of experience," the release said.

As these retired officers have seen political developments closely at state and all-India levels, Rao felt that meeting them would be highly useful, it added.

Rao is busy chalking out the programme and coordination work is going on for the successful conduct of these meetings.

The chief minister would also like to have a meeting with prominent retired defence personnel and officers, legal luminaries and farmers' associations from all states, it said.

According to the release, Rao also plans to have meetings with economists and retired finance secretaries of central government, followed by interactions with media houses, journalists, industrial houses and labour organisations.

The meetings will be organised in Hyderabad and as well as in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and other places.

Rao's office today said in a press release that Ajit Jogi "told the chief minister that he will be with him in his efforts to form a front at the national level and expressed his willingness to join the front".

It quoted Jogi as telling Rao: "You (Rao) have proved to be a great leader and you will also prove to be a great leader in future." Jogi also told Rao that he would get the support of "like-minded people" for the proposed front, it said.

Banerjee, the West Bengal Chief Minister, leaders of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha and some other leaders have also expressed support to Rao's proposal to forge a non-Congress, non-BJP front, according to Telangana CMO sources.

Trinamool Congress MP Derek O'Brien today said in New Delhi that Banerjee has taken a lead in defeating the BJP by talking to 'federal' parties.

"We are on track", he added.

He said after calling up Chandrasekhar Rao, Banerjee held telephonic conversation with DMK leader Stalin.

During the nearly 12-minute conversation, Banerjee told Stalin that a good show by the TMC and the DMK in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu, respectively, would mean a block of nearly 75 MPs in Parliament, O'Brien said.

He said the West Bengal chief minister also spoke with Shiv Sena leader Uddhav Thackeray.

The two leaders had been in touch with each other, he added.

Though Shiv Sena is part of the governments in Maharashtra and at the Centre, it has been critical of the BJP and its leadership.

There was "good coordination" between TRS, TDP, SP, BSP, TMC and DMK in Parliament on various issues today, O'Brien said.

Responding to a question, O'Brien rejected the suggestion that the Congress has been "excluded" from the grouping Mamata Banerjee is working on.

Rao on Saturday last had said, "From morning, I have been receiving many calls from various places in India.

This afternoon West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee called me and said that I have taken the right decision and she will be supporting me and that we will go forward together."

Telangana BJP spokesperson Krishna Saagar Rao said Chandrashekhar Rao's pitch for a 'non-BJP, non-Congress front' at the Centre was aimed at "insuring himself against possible prosecution for corrupt practices".Elliot Alderson

A French security researcher going by a pseudo-name of Elliot Alderson is exposing security vulnerabilities in Indian government-run websites and apps which include Aadhaar, Bengaluru Police, and the latest BSNL.

In the most recent expose, Alderson bared open serious vulnerabilities which put personal details of BSNLs former as well as present employees, over 47,000 in number, under threat. Alderson discovered that the data could be accessed by a simple SQL injectionthe bread and butter of any professional computer hacker.

There was a SQL injection in their intranet website. It allows the attacker to dump all database of the BSNL intranet. It contains the information of 47K+ BSNL employees, Senior officers' information, BNSL administrators information, retired employee details and more, Alderson said in a tweet.

The researcher also shared screengrab of the dataset which tables the name, designation, fax number, phone and email address among other details.

Moreover, Alderson also discovered that BSNLs intranet websites had been attacked by a ransomware and allegedly, the IT department of the company had no knowledge about it.

After discovering, Alderson informed the state-owned telecom company about the flaw which it rectified over the weekend.



I found this issue a few days ago, but I'm not the first one to discover this issue. This issue had been discovered by a fellow Indian, @kmskrishna, 2 years ago. He sent mails to BSNL, even called senior officiers, but nobody answered him... pic.twitter.com/iN5mPr1EKs

 Elliot Alderson (@fs0c131y) March 4, 2018

Worryingly, the French hacker is not the first person to discover the security issue. An Indian engineering student had informed about the flaw to BSNL two years ago but the state-run telecom service provider didn't bat an eyelid.

Aldersons other exploits include a series of expose about security flaws in Aadhaar website as well as the app. After one of the expose, the mAadhaar app was updated to eradicate the vulnerability.

Alderson also pointed out the security lapse in Bengaluru City Police and Telangana government website which oozed out details of beneficiaries of the MNREGA, including their contact details and personal information.There are some long-distance road trips which we recall for a long time, and there are some long-distance trips which we may not recall at all. However, a US man had a ride of his life which he would not forget soon, though, a large part of it has no imprints on his memory, thanks to the alcohol flowing in his system!

After a night of partying with friends, West Virginia-resident Kenny Bachman hailed an Uber cab to drive him back to home and when he woke up, he was more than 480-kilometres away from home, in an entirely different state.

Monetarily, the ride cost him a hefty price too. It was more expensive for him as Bachman had booked an Uber XL which can ferry up to six passengers, however, it practically doubles the cost than a regular cab. A USD 3.94 base fare, a USD 2.35 booking fee, USD 696.95 for distance, USD 115.90 for time  a total of USD 1,635.93 or Rs 1.06 lakh. Had he booked a typical UberX, the ride would have cost him significantly lower, USD 819.14.

Bachman says that he passed out in the vehicle and woke up after two hours when the driver told him they were driving to New Jersey. "I just woke up," NJ Advance Media quoted Bachman. "And I'm thinking, 'Why the f--- am I in the car next to some random a-- dude I don't even know?"

"Afterwards I had it fully sink in. Once the ride ended and I saw how much it was when I was like 'Alright, this is insane, that's just crazy,'" Bachman added.

Bachman said that he never added the home address for the Uber. He, therefore, contended the charge but eventually agreed to pay the cost of the ride.

Notably, Bachman gave five stars to the driver!China today announced an 8.1 percent hike in its defence budget in 2018 to a whopping USD 175 billion, over three times higher than that of India, as an increasingly assertive Beijing focused on the modernisation and reach of the country's military, amidst simmering disputes with its neighbours.

The announcement of China increasing its military spending comes as President Xi Jinping, the commander-in-chief of the country's over 2-million-strong armed forces, focuses on cementing his status as the most powerful leader since Chairman Mao Zedong.

The 8.1 percent increase unveiled today is higher than last year's budget allocation, when China upped military spending by 7 percent over the previous year.

According to a budget report to be submitted to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament, the defence budget in 2018 will be 1.11 trillion yuan (USD 175 billion).

China last year increased the defence budget to USD 150.5 billion. China is the second largest spender on defence after the US. The Pentagon has requested a budget of USD 686 billion in 2019, up USD 80 billion from 2017.

The increase of China's defence budget by 8.1 percent this year, is three times higher than India's latest defence budget of about USD 46 billion.

China will "advance all aspects of military training and war preparedness, and firmly and resolvedly safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests," Premier Li Keqiang told the opening session of the NPC.

Faced with profound changes in the national security environment the absolute leadership of the military by the ruling Communist Party must be observed, and the unity between the government and the military, and the people and the military, must always bestrong as stone, he said.

The armed forces will firmly and resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests, Li said.

The increased spending is seen as an indication of China's strategic ambitions, as it continues to modernise its army - the world's largest - and develop its infrastructure in contested areas like the East China Sea, South China Sea and its Himalayan border regions with India.

China spent about 1.02 trillion yuan (about USD 161.87 billion) in national defense in 2017, about 1.3 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

The NPC is expected to pass the military budget during the two-week session which will also see the removal of the two-term presidential limit, enabling President Xi to remain in office indefinitely.

Though China announced its military spending at about USD 150.5 billion last year, observers say it is considerably higher, considering it is now building two more aircraft carriers in addition to the one already in service as well as addition of new jet fighters, including stealth fighter J-20.

The Chinese Navy also expanded its global reach with its warships sailing through the far-off oceans to expand China's influence.

The official media justified the increase to USD 175 billion, saying although slightly higher than the previous two years, the growth rate is the third time to dip into the single digit since 2013, following 7.6 percent in 2016 and 7 percent in 2017.

China's defence budget takes up a smaller share of its gross domestic product (GDP) and national fiscal expenditure compared with other major countries, Zhang Yesui, the spokesperson of the NPC told the media here yesterday.

China's military spending per capita is also lower than other major countries, Zhang claimed.

"A large part of the growth of the defence budget is to make up for the low military spending in the past and is mainly used to upgrade equipment and improve the welfare of servicemen and women and the living and training conditions of grassroots troops," he said.

Defending the 8.1 percent hike, a top Chinese defence expert said, a steady and appropriate growth of defense spending is necessary because the Chinese armed forces have been modernising to keep up with the country's development.U.S. President Donald Trump welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago state in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., April 6, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY - RTX34GO6

Praising his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for moving to abolish limits on his term in office, US President Donald Trump today suggested his country might try the same someday, a media report said.

Trump said this during a close-door meeting with top Republican fundraisers and supporters, according to CNN, which obtained a copy of his remarks.

"He's (Xi) now president for life. President for life. No, he's great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot someday," Trump said.

According to CNN, Trump's address to his fund raisers and supporters was full of jokes and was delivered in a lighthearted manner.

His remarks, likely made in jest, come days after the ruling Communist Party of China said it would abolish term limits on the presidency thus paving the way for Xi to possibly remain president for life.

In the US, a president can serve for a maximum of two four-year terms.

In his remarks, Trump decried the current electoral system which he had repeatedly slammed as being "rigged" in the 2016 presidential campaign.

"I'm telling you, it's a rigged system folks," Trump said.

"I've been saying that for a long time. It's a rigged system. And we don't have the right people in there yet. We have a lot of great people, but certain things, we don't have the right people," he was quoted as saying.President Donald Trump on Monday said he is willing to hold back on proposed US tariffs on import of steel and aluminium only if there is a "new and fair" North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

This week, Trump is scheduled to sign an executive order that would impose a 25 percent tariff on import of steel and another 10 percent on aluminium.

His announcements last week drew a sharp reaction from America's major trading partners including the European Union and Canada.

The new import duty on China is said to be aimed at Chinese steel, which is quite often dumped in the US market.

"We have large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada. NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for USA. Massive relocation of companies and jobs. Tariffs on steel and aluminium will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed," Trump tweeted.

Currently, the US, Canada and Mexico are renegotiating NAFTA.

In another tweet, Trump said Canada must treat American farmers much better.

"Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the US. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying," Trump wrote.Giving tax concessions to countries like Germany and China does not make sense anymore, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said today, noting that the America has unilaterally given away all kinds of concessions ever since the end of World War II.

"Think about it, we have unilaterally given away all kinds of concessions ever since the end of World War II. And in the beginning that was probably good policy to rebuild Europe and rebuild Asia after the ravages of the war," Ross told ABC News.

"The mistake that our trade negotiators made way back then and continued to make was not time limiting it, concessions that were perfectly reasonable to make to Germany in 1945 or China in 1945 don't make sense anymore. Those are now very mature, big, strong economies," Ross said.

"So, there's a lot of history that needs to be undone," he said ahead of President Donald Trump signing an executive order that would impose a flat 25 per cent import tax on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium.

Trump is expected to sign it next week.

There has been sharp reaction from countries with the European Union and China indicting retaliatory measures.

Trump in a series of tweets early this week said that it will not work and the US would impose additional tariffs on other items.

"If the EU wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on US companies doing business there, we will simply apply a tax on their cars, which freely pour into the US. They make it impossible for our cars and more to sell there. Big trade imbalance," Trump said.

In another tweet, Trump said that trade wars are good and easy to win.

"I think what the president had in mind was that unlike the Smoot-Hawley days in the 1930s, back then US had a big trade surplus and the world was in a depression. Now, we have a big trade deficit. Well, if we have big trade deficit with our other partners, they have a lot more to lose than we do, because those hundreds of billions of dollars are in their pockets now, not ours," Ross explained.

He refuted reports that increase in import tariff on steel would hurt American industries in particular the car manufacturing industry.

Similarly, all the other products, the total amount of tariffs we're putting on is about USD 9 billion in a year.

That's a fraction of one per cent of the American economy, he said.

"So, the notion that it would destroy a lot of jobs, raise prices, disrupt things is wrong.

As to the idea of retaliation, they may well be some sort of retaliation. But the amounts that they're talking about are also pretty trivial. It's some USD 3 billion-odd of goods that the Europeans have threatened to put something on," Ross said.

"Well in our size economy, that's a tiny, tiny fraction of one per cent. So, while it might effect an individual producer for a little while, overall it's not going to be much more than a rounding error," the commerce secretary said.

The Trump administration has argued that it is imposing such a tariff under national security interests.

Ross reiterated that there would be no exceptions to the rule.

"As of the moment, as far as I know, he's talking about a fairly broad brush," he said to a question.Representative Image

Pakistan is at risk of being put on a blacklist by the European Union (EU), according to a report by The Economic Times.

Such a move could hit Pakistan's textile trade and banking channels with Europe, Indian foreign ministry officials told the newspaper.

The EU, along with China and the United States, is among Pakistan's top trading partners.

The G7's Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has already placed Pakistan on its grey list for terror financing.

A FATF spokesperson last week pointed out deficiencies in Pakistan's policy on curbing terror financing.

"The government of Pakistan, over the last few years, has taken a number of measures to address these issues, including through enactment of legislation, issuance of regulations and guidelines by SBP and SECP to the financial sector, establishment of the Financial Monitoring Unit and implementation of UNSC 1267 sanctions on the entities of concern [JuD/FIF]. We will take further actions for addressing any remaining deficiencies," the spokesperson told The Hindu.

Pakistan has until June to submit to the FATF an action plan to control terror funding and give a political undertaking to implement the plan.

Pakistan was on the FATF grey list for three years until 2015, according to a Reuters report.Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi speaks during an interview with Reuters in Islamabad

Pakistan Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi today met his Nepalese counterpart KP Sharma Oli here and discussed bilateral ties besides ways to revive the SAARC process.

During the meeting, Abbasi said he was positive to take forward the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) process.

According to sources, the two leaders talked about reviving the stalled SAARC process.

The 19th SAARC Summit, which was scheduled to be held in Islamabad in November 2016, was cancelled after India announced to boycott the meeting citing Pakistan's involvement in the Uri terror attack. Three other SAARC members joined India, resulting in the cancellation of the summit.

"Prime Minister's visit will provide an opportunity to further expand and strengthen bilateral relations across all areas of mutual interest including trade, education, tourism, defence and people to people contacts. Ways of invigorating SAARC as an important regional organization will also be discussed," Pakistan's Foreign Office said earlier.

Abbasi also congratulated Prime Minister Oli for being appointed to the top executive post of the country and extended an invitation to him to visit Pakistan, sources said.

Oli hosted a dinner in honour of Abbasi.

Abbasi, who is in Nepal on a two-day visit at the invitation of Prime Minister Oli, was received by Finance Minister Dr Yuvaraj Khatiwada at the Tribhuwan International Airport.

He was accorded the guard of honour at Army Pavilion at Tundikhel Ground in presence of Prime Minister Oli.

Abbasi is the first high level foreign leader to visit Nepal after Premier Oli assumed office last month.

He will also call on President Bidyadevi Bhandari at Rastrapati Bhawan, Sheetal Niwas, Kathmandu tomorrow and will meet other high officials of Nepal.

This was the first official bilateral visit by any Pakistan Prime Minister to Nepal after a gap of 24 years.

In 1994, the then prime minister Benazir Bhutto travelled to Nepal on a bilateral visit.

Former premier Nawaz Sharif had visited Nepal to attend the 18th SAARC Summit in 2014.

Abbasi's visit will provide an opportunity to further expand and strengthen bilateral relations across all areas of mutual interest including trade, education, tourism, defence and people to people contacts, Pakistan's Foreign Office said.

The visit is a part of Pakistan's "pro-active and outreach efforts" to engage with regional countries, it said yesterday.BMO will move 3,500 employees to fill in the new offices, which will be located above a Nordstrom Inc. store, CEO Darryl White said.

This urban campus is central to the business transformation thats underway at BMO, White told Bloomberg. Were positioning the bank to be at the forefront of change and lead the industry. This new workplace will be a centerpiece for how we drive value.

The development of BMOs new office is part of an ongoing drive across Canada to redevelop malls into hip urban oases including stores, offices, and homes. Cadillac Fairview, the real estate arm of the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan Board, has been actively churning its malls into mixed-use properties to capitalize on an office boom in Canada amid the changing face of retail.

Read more: Pressure on Toronto drags down national home sales  report

We have a huge development pipeline and we view our malls as a huge landbank, Sullivan said, adding that space will be used for offices, residential, retail, and even assisted-living homes. Itll be a real mix, which is where the worlds going. If you think about it, thats what the Eaton Centre is. Its the ultimate mixed use.Howard follows strong 2017

Howard Bancorp will relocate its corporate headquarters from Ellicott City to First Mariners Baltimore City HQ, making Howard Bank the largest bank based in Baltimore.

The completion of the deal follows a good year for Howard, which organically grew assets by 12% to $1.15 billion, total loans by 14% to $937 million, total commercial loans by 21% to $360 million, total deposits by 7% to $864 million, and total common shareholders equity by 53% to $132 million.

This is certainly a transformational deal for us as a company, for the employees who at the end of the day are our strongest differentiator, and for our individual and commercial customers, said Scully, who will continue as Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Howard and Howard Bank. But we are just as thrilled about what this combination is going to mean for the communities that we serve which are geographically clustered around Baltimore from Annapolis and Columbia to Bel Air and Elkton.In a continuation of the board refreshment process that began last year in response to widespread criticism over multiple scandals, Wells Fargo has announced the retirement of four board members  three of them the boards longest-serving current directors.

John S. Chen, Lloyd H. Dean, and Enrique Hernandez Jr., the longest-serving current board members, and Frederico F. Pena, who was scheduled to retire in 2019, will all retire at the companys 2018 annual shareholders meeting next month, the bank announced. As a result of the retirements, the board will nominate 12 of its current directors for election at the shareholders meeting.

The retirements are part of Wells Fargos ongoing attempt to clean up its act after spending most of the last two years rocked by scandal. The bank announced in early February that four board members would be leaving. At around the same time, the Federal Reserve slapped the bank with a consent order that restricted it from growing more than its current asset size.In front of the Petroleum Club of Midland -- capital of the booming Permian shale region -- an electronic display flashes two crucial pieces of information: the oil price and the number of drilling rigs.

For the past year, both figures have been climbing as OPEC oil production cuts led to higher prices, spurring added drilling activity in the U.S.

But the rise in the latter inevitably threatens the former. With the number of rigs up almost a third over the last year, U.S. production has surged above 10 million barrels a day, surpassing the all-time high set in 1970. That, in turn, puts downward pressure on crude prices, disrupting OPECs plans. And a lot more shale oil is coming, both in 2018 and beyond, executives and traders said.

At current prices, the market is incentivizing U.S. shale companies to produce more, said David Garza, a veteran oil executive who runs the Houston office of energy trading house Gunvor Group Ltd.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has been struggling with U.S. shale for almost a decade now. For the first few years, it downplayed the production as a mere blip. Then, in 2014, with the market oversupplied, it decided to fight head-on, opening the spigots and sending oil prices to below $30 a barrel in a war of attrition. After a two-year pump-at-will period, OPEC blinked first and cut production in 2016 in an effort to revive prices.

Shale oil, I dont know how we are going to live together, former OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri told U.S. oilmen in 2016.

After downplaying and then attacking, OPEC has spent the last year making nice with its U.S. shale adversaries, in an effort to understand the magnitude of the problem and perhaps convince the rival producers to show restraint. But despite dinner invitations and behind-closed-doors conversations, shale continues to increase output and grab market share. Rising global oil demand has so far absorbed the extra U.S. crude barrels, limiting the impact on prices. But for the cartel, shale remains as intractable as in the past.

OPEC is struggling to understand shale, said Daniel Yergin, the oil historian and vice-chairman of consultant IHS Markit Ltd.

In part, OPEC created its own nemesis. After it flooded the market in 2014, oil prices crashed, forcing shale producers to reshape themselves into fitter, leaner and faster versions that can thrive with oil at $50 a barrel. As oil prices recovered, so did drilling.

A year ago, Mohammad Barkindo, the current OPEC secretary-general, invited his shale rivals for dinner in Houston during the annual CERAWeek industry conference. It was a first-of-its-kind event and both sides exchanged pleasantries. But if anyone expected that shale would help the cartel, its now clear that U.S. oil barons are fine with remaining free riders as OPEC seeks to instill market discipline. Since the salad-and-chicken dinner last March, U.S. output has risen roughly 1.1 million barrels a day -- the equivalent of OPEC member Libya.

Barkindo plans to meet his shale frenemies again for dinner during CERAWeek, which begins today and brings thousands of oil executives, traders, bankers and investors in Houston. One of the lessons learned from this oil-price cycle is that as producers we are all in the same boat, he said in an interview.

Others inside OPEC are sounding exasperated as the resurgence in shale output could force the cartel to prolong its output cuts beyond the end of 2018. Suhail Al Mazrouei, the United Arab Emirates oil minister, believes shale producers should show gratitude. If you are a shale oil producer, who brought you back? It was OPEC, he said at a recent industry conference in London. Without OPEC thered be chaos in the market.

In Houston, its unlikely shale producers will bow to OPEC. Instead, more discipline may come from pressure brought by company shareholders. Investors, tired of losses, are demanding shale companies focus on returns, rather than just growth. Moreover, the boom is hitting natural limits: drilling costs are rising, pipeline capacity is limited, and workers are more expensive. Now hiring signs abound in Midland as the state sees its unemployment rate dip back below the national average.

And yet, with oil trading about $10 higher than the average of 2017, the risk is still of more shale growth, rather than less. If U.S. government forecasts prove right, the industry will add another million barrels a day of extra oil production this year.

U.S. shale production is going to continue growing strongly, said Mike Loya, the Houston head of Vitol Group, the worlds top independent oil trader.

Kevin Crowley and Grant Smith contributed to this reportSome Illinois conservatives are fed up with their own partys governor.

The insurgent primary campaign of Republican state Rep. Jeanne Ives against GOP Gov. Bruce Rauner signals the rights weariness of a governor they say is all talk. And they complain the little action hes taken is a betrayal to Republican tenets. Hes signed public financing of abortions, approved restricting police interactions with immigrants and supported an education-funding overhaul they say is a bailout for Chicago Public Schools.

The 61-year-old Rauner must topple Ives, a three-term House member, in the March 20 primary before he could take on one of six Democratic hopefuls, including presumed front-runner J.B. Pritzker, who is even wealthier than Rauner, a private-equity investor who has poured $50 million of his own money into the race.

Gov. Rauner is unelectable in November, Ives, who lives in Wheaton, said in an interview with The Associated Press. Republicans need to take the fight to the Democrats and we cant do it with Gov. Rauner in charge, because hes not in charge. He has betrayed, literally, the core values of the Republican platform, from the public funding of abortions to creating a sanctuary state to crony bailouts.

A newcomer to political office when he took over as governor in 2015, Rauner, a Winnetka resident, promised fiscal discipline and no social-issue priorities. He stood on a turnaround agenda that called for 40 conservative, pro-business initiatives such as creating anti-union right to work zones, freezing local property taxes, limiting payouts for injuries under workers compensation, allowing local governments to crimp union collective bargaining, and making major changes to the way liability lawsuits are tried.

But Rauner ran into a buzz-saw in Chicago Democrat Michael Madigan, House speaker for all but two of the past 35 years, who has derided the governors plans as an extreme, right-wing agenda. Madigan refused to budge on any of the Republicans proposals. Rauner demanded his changes before he would agree to an annual budget and what inevitably would be an income-tax increase promoted by Democrats who control the General Assembly. The stalemate lasted two years when there was no spending plan but plenty of spending, either required by court order, spot expenditures approved legislatively, or money spent by Rauners administration without appropriation authority.

The result was billions of dollars in debt that each side blamed on the other. The showdown finally broke last summer when Democrats gathered enough Republican support to snub Rauner and override his veto of an increase in the income-tax rate from 3.75 percent to 4.95 percent.

This is a change election in Illinois because the fiscal state of Illinois is so bad, we need a leader who will resist all tax increases, control our spending and take on the corruption we see every day, the 53-year-old Ives said.

Rauners advisers did not make him available for an interview.

Rauner has focused his campaign recently on removing Madigan, with mentions of term limits and a property-tax freeze as a way to change the political culture.

Ives ridiculed Rauners all-out Madigan crusade in a face-to-face appearance before the Chicago Tribune editorial board last month, insisting that its fruitless to wish away a political obstacle. She has publicized Rauners now-infamous comment last fall that, Im not in charge, but is trying to take control from Madigan. She boasted that she has found ways to work with Madigan to achieve her goals. That resulted in advertisements from the Rauner camp declaring Ives Mike Madigans favorite Republican and Illinois worst nightmare.

Ives is at a tremendous funding disadvantage, although her Tribune performance gained her conservative plaudits  and more than $2 million from businessman Dick Uihlein, a previous Rauner contributor. Ives launched the campaigns most contentious ad shortly after, a parody of one Rauner used to denigrate Madigan. Ives version featured actors portraying a transgender woman, a woman who had a publicly financed abortion, and a sanctuary-state supporter thanking Rauner for backing their causes.

Ives, herself once a Rauner fan, wants to put a 1 percent hard cap on property taxes as a percentage of home value in answer to Illinois position as having the nations highest property taxes. She pledges to repeal the income-tax increase and make spending cuts necessary to sustain it. She promises to repeal laws Rauner signed on abortion and immigrants. The one expands Medicaid and state-employee health insurance coverage to abortions and the other prohibits police detention of immigrants and limits their interaction with them absent a criminal warrant. Ives calls that a sanctuary state law, although sanctuary typically refers to laws or ordinances that protect immigrants of any status, including those in this country without documentation.

Rauner promises to roll back the tax hike as well, but after promising to slice it to 3 percent within two years, he unveiled a budget plan last month that would reduce it by one-quarter of 1 percent only after a pension-program revamp which could save $1 billion annually but likely would be caught up in courts for years.Former employees of Mary Louise Enloe remember her as a tough businesswoman who knew how to make a deal.

Enloe owned and operated Enloe Motor Co., a Pontiac, Packard and GMC trucks dealership in Jacksonville from 1950 to about 1964. She was somewhat of a pioneer in the automobile business.

In 1950, she was credited with being the only woman among 4,000 Pontiac dealers in the United States who founded her own business.

She was a very good businesswoman who loved to meet and talk to her customers, said Paula Hudson in a 2001 interview. Hudson was a bookkeeper at Enloe Motor Co. from 1953 until the business closed.

Enloe was out for that dollar, and shed get it, too, recalled Bert Wiseman, an Enloe mechanic from 1955 to 1961. She had three or four businesses besides her investments, and she made money at every turn.

Enloe came to Jacksonville in 1943 and established Longstaff Motor Co., a Pontiac, Packard and GMC trucks dealership at 426-430 S. Main St., buying the business from German Bros., according to a 1950 Jacksonville Daily Journal story.

Longstaff Motor Co. was just one of several car dealerships Enloe ran during a career that began in her hometown of Eldon, Missouri, where she started as a bookkeeper at an auto dealership. Eventually, she ran dealerships in Clayton, Missouri, Taylorville and Macomb.

But it was during the booming post-World War II economic period when Enloe made her mark on Jacksonvilles auto business. The publics demand for new and improved cars and cramped space at Longstaff Motor Co. must have played a part in Enloes decision to build a larger and more modern building for her dealership in the summer of 1950.

Enloe chose a spot in the 900 block of South Main Street, just north of Morton Avenue, for her new building. The brick and steel building, with 12,000 square feet of floor space, was completed around December 1950. At that time, nearly all of Jacksonvilles new car dealers [there were about 13] were located downtown. Besides Enloe Motor Co., only Ray Eldridge Motors, a Lincoln-Mercury dealer at 1010 N. Main St., was not downtown.

Wiseman said garage employees had to wear clean, all-white uniforms to work every morning. We got six uniforms, so we always had a clean one to wear, he said. And since I did a lot of front-end and lube work on cars, I needed a clean uniform every day.

New styling, lots of trim and plenty of equipment on the 1951 Pontiac backed up the slogan, Dollar for dollar you cant beat a Pontiac. Enloes Pontiac sales records are not available for 1951, but nationwide, the Pontiac Motor Division sold 370,000 cars that year.

Enloe Motor Co. might even have sold some of those Pontiacs on a handshake and a hog.

I bought two pigs one time from Sid Elliott [an Enloes salesman], who had taken them in on a trade from some farmer, Wiseman said. The farmer had thrown the two pigs in with a vehicle he traded for a new car or truck. That happened occasionally in those days. Or at least Sid would take about anything in on a trade.

Wiseman said he had many good memories of working for Enloe. I can still hear [Enloe] clicking them heels across the shop floor. When you heard her coming, you better be working.

This Way We Were story was first published March 5, 2001.What will Neil Gorsuch do?

The Supreme Court Justice was mum last Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court debated an Illinois case that will likely affect organized labor for decades to come.

The case is Janus vs. AFSCME and it originated with an Illinois state worker.

At stake is whether government workers should, as a condition of employment, be compelled to pay money to a union.

Illinois is one of 22 states that allows this to happen.

Mark Janus, a 65-year-old child support specialist, lives in Springfield and thinks this is wrong. He filed the lawsuit that is now being considered by the high court.

Lawyers like to make things complicated.

But here is the bottom line: Should anyone be forced to fund political activity they dont agree with?

Lets say you support gun control. Would you want to have money taken out of your paycheck every week to fund the National Rifle Association?

I didnt think so.

Now, the unions will contend that workers can opt not to pay the portion of their dues that funds political activity.

Well, that is sorta, kinda true. But not really.

Yes, workers can opt out of the portion of dues that get funneled to the political war chests of politicians supported by unions by just paying agency or fair share fees to the union.

But the problem is that everything involving government is political.

Everything that is collectively bargained with the government is within the political sphere, the late Justice Antonin Scalia said during arguments in a 2016 case.

In that case which was brought by California teacher Rebecca Friedrichs identical arguments were made before the court.

Based on the questions asked by the justices, many courtroom observers believed the court would rule in her favor. And then Justice Antonin Scalia died.

The court ended up deadlocked with a four-four vote and failed to issue an opinion. Since the legal issues are the same, many legal observers believe Scalias replacement, Justice Neil Gorsuch, will cast the deciding vote in the Janus case.

All eyes were on the rookie justice Monday hoping to get an idea of how he might vote. He kept his cards close to his vest and didnt say a word.

The four liberal judges on the court, bemoaned what impact a ruling in Janus favor might have on organized labor.

Youre basically arguing, Do away with unions, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said.

Its a silly argument on her part. After all, organized labor exists and continues to have influence in the majority of states that do not have compulsory union fees.

But organized labor could lose influence if the high court rules in favor of Janus.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it would be natural for union members to say I would rather keep the money in my own pocket, which would cut union revenues.

Ginsburg is right that it would natural reaction of most workers.

So if the high court rules in favor of Janus, unions will have to prove to each of their workers that they are worth the money.

Is that such a bad thing?

Scott Reeder is a veteran statehouse journalist. He works as a freelance reporter in the Springfield area and produces the podcast Suspect Convictions. He can be reached at ScottReeder1965@gmail.com.In a hastily arranged press conference Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Madigan laid out nine more instances of sexual harassment his office has overseen in the past five years, with more potentially excluded.

But Madigans office doesnt have a sexual harassment problem. Just ask him.

What does this say about your office? asked Illinois News Network reporter Greg Bishop. Is there a culture within your office?

Madigan passed the buck. Theres no culture with me  we dont tolerate inappropriate behavior. We just dont tolerate it.

None of the cases listed in the speakers report resulted in Madigans office terminating or suspending an employee. In one instance, an outside lobbyist was removed from his position as a result of his conduct toward a staffer, which was his employers decision.

Madigans actions, or lack thereof, send a clear message: Those that engage in sexual harassment in the workplace will be tolerated. And eventually, they can even be rewarded.

Alaina Hampton, a former campaign worker for the speaker whose story forced the ousting of one state worker/Madigan political operative, Kevin Quinn, has witnessed this first hand.

She endured months of pathetic, inappropriate advances from Quinn, whose brother, a Chicago alderman, shares his ward office with Madigan.

I never wanted to do this but I know my silence only protects the perpetrator and the organization, which will allow this situation to happen to someone else, Hampton said.

I firmly believe they thought that I was too loyal to ever come forward.

Hampton shed a clear light on whats kept the toxic Statehouse culture afloat for decades: loyalty and fear.

Look at the bizarre remarks from Alderman Pat OConnor, Mayor Rahm Emanuels floor leader in Chicago City Council, when asked if Madigan should step down from his state Democratic Party chairmanship.

If the allies had pulled Eisenhower out of his position when the troops were landing on Normandy, you would take the head of those forces and throw those forces into disarray, he said.

If you look at the state party and feel that its important that we elect individuals that the party has backed, then you wouldnt take your leadership out when youre about to have the election.

Victims be damned, cant you see its an election year?

Notably, Madigans list only included cases within the legislature. It did not include any instances reported in the campaign world, where the speaker is the only legislative leader in the nation to also serve as the state party chairman.

Madigans deflection of responsibility regarding Statehouse culture is insulting to the men and women who have put up with a toxic work environment in Springfield and in political offices across the state.

Organizational culture comes from the top. And no one has been at the top longer than Madigan. He is the longest-serving state legislative leader in American history.

What does Madigans Springfield culture look like?

For years, participants in the states legislative intern program were gifted a piece of advice from their superiors at the start of their summers: Dont ever get into an elevator alone with a lawmaker.

Madigans limited disclosure this week explicitly excluded complaints by staff about a member regarding manner of treatment or derogatory comments.

The speaker protects his own. Despite the growing tally of victims, thats why so many lawmakers are still lining up to protect him.

This, of course, is the culture at work.

Austin Berg is a writer for the Illinois Policy Institute and wrote this column for the Illinois News Network. He is also the writer of the 2016 documentary Madigan: Power. Privilege. Politics.There is enough food to take ...Les lunettes de marque ne sont pas ce qui manque dans les commerces. Il y en a de toutes les sortes dont les lunettes de []OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)  A newspaper has found that an Oklahoma judge who approved probation for a man who admitted to raping a 13-year-old Texas girl at a church camp has approved similar plea agreements for other accused sex offenders who also received probation.

Marshall County District Judge Wallace Coppedge accepted a deal in which Benjamin Petty, a cook, was sentenced in January to 15 years of probation after pleading guilty to raping and sodomizing the girl at the Falls Creek church camp.The San Antonio Express-News is sponsoring the 8 Days of Giveaways. Beginning May 1 and each day through May 8, a different lucky person will receive a prize of $150 gift card to a San Antonio business.

The giveaway is open to legal U.S. residents 18 years of age or older living in Atascosa, Bexar, Bandera, Comal, Guadalupe, Kendall, Medina and Wilson counties.If only The Fairmount Hotel could talk, it would tell the story about how it took a six-day, world-record journey rolling on the streets of downtown San Antonio.

The painstaking move started on March 30, 1985, when crews lifted the 3.2-million pound hotel on wheels and transported it one-half mile south.

The task, given to Alamo Architects and Emmert International hauling, was to move the then 79-year-old hotel from the intersection of Bowie and Commerce streets to La Villita to save it from being demolished.

In 1984, the fate of the hotel was under debate in order to make room for retail and lodging, which later became the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel. The Fairmount Hotel was then purchased by C. Thomas Wright, Virginia Van Steenberg and Belton K. Johnson to save it from being razed.

Click through the slideshow to see the journey of The Fairmount Hotel, from preparation to transportation to the grand reopening.

The following year, crews began preparing the $1-million move, by removing furnishing, boarding windows, lifting it onto dollies, trussing it with bands of steel and reinforcing bridges. By the time the hotel was ready for transportation, it was a brick-and-mortar shell supported by huge I-beams and wooden boards.

At end of March, the hotel was on its voyage to its new home at 401 S. Alamo St., and all eyes were on San Antonio.

The structure was moved with a cable-and-pulley system that involved 36 rubber-tired hydraulic dollies, a crane for torque, and six fully loaded dump trucks with gravel for stability, according to a previous Express-News report.

The move made headlines nationally, as well as in over 30 foreign countries, according to The Fairmount Hotels website. It was even deemed the largest hotel to ever be moved by the Guinness Book of World Records, a title it still holds today.

RELATED: Sandra West's eccentric Ferrari burial still a spectacle in S.A. after nearly 40 years

When the structure arrived at its final resting place, it was conjoined with a new building to the south. Then, it was renovated into a 37-suite hotel and reopened on Sept. 5, 1986.

At one point, I was in a room meeting with 32 different agencies  CPS, Public Works  all arguing and saying it couldn't be done, Michael Lanford, an architect for Alamo Architects, told the Express-News before the firm was honored by the Texas Society of Architects last fall.

The developers didn't want it, Lanford said. But we were young and new and wanted to figure out what to do with it, how we could save it.

rsalinas@mysa.com

Correction: In a story Oct. 24 about the moving of the Fairmont Hotel in 1985, the Express-News reported erroneously that the hotel was conjoined with an existing building to its south. The hotel was conjoined to a newly constructed building.



Editor's note: This story is one in a continuing series celebrating the 150th anniversary of the San Antonio Express-News. To commemorate the milestone, mySA.com is looking back at the city's rich history with stories, photos, video and graphics, remembering some of the most noteworthy events that have taken place or were covered by this publication during those 150 years. To read more stories like this, visit the 150th anniversary section of mySA.com or the 150th anniversary section of ExpressNews.com.

On March 16, 1960, San Antonio became the first southern city to begin integration of its small restaurants, according to the book "African Americans in South Texas History."

The book chronicles the events leading up to the day and following. It states San Antonio never actually had segregation laws in place, but the police still enforced de facto segregation.

One of the essays in the publication, Racial Change on the Southern Periphery: The Case of San Antonio, Texas 1960-1965 by Robert A. Goldberg, gives insight to the atmosphere within the city during the controversial time. Goldbergs essay states that in town, civil rights has been granted, not won and voluntary desegregation  the 'Texas way'" was an example for other cities in the state.

San Antonio showed the way and the rest of the region, rejecting the example of the deep South followed, the essay adds.

As a response to the February event in which four African American college students in Greensboro, N.C. demonstrated a sit-in at a lunch counter when they were denied service, San Antonio downtown businesses agreed they would refuse service to African Americans who attempted the same type of demonstration.

With the backing of the San Antonio chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Our Lady of the Lake College freshman Mary Andrews sent letters to six city stores on March 7, asking for desegregation of their eating areas.

After Andrews sent the letters, conversations on racial policy fired up within the city led by church leaders and businessmen. The integration of lunch counters to avoid the problematic situations caused by the issue in other states was seen as motivation to move forward in granting Andrews wishes. But, businesses were hesitant, fearing there would be economic repercussions from the white community if they complied, according to the essay.

In the days leading up to March 16, a rally was hosted by the NAACP as conversations and exclusive meetings continued.

While the topic intensified, the city showed support for integration. Goldberg accredits city officials like Chief of Police George Bichsell and City Attorney Carlos C. Cadena for their remarks concerning potential sit-in demonstrations in the city. Bichsell told news outlets that police would not stop sit-ins, unless they created a disturbance. Cadena furthered the sentiment by declaring sit-ins would not be considered a breach of peace.

An agreement was finally reached. Store owners would comply and serve black customers without racial barriers if the church leaders helped mobilize their congregations to support the movement, in an effort to safeguard against backlash.

San Antonio clergymen were asked to speak from the pulpits on the topic and ask their respective community members to cooperate by commending the businessmen for their vision and action and ask them to show appreciation by continued patronage and in every other means of assurance.

Finally, on March 16, without much attention, four black people were served at once-segregated San Antonio lunch counters, according to Goldberg.

The only backlash from the decision businessmen were nervous to enact were a few cancelled charge accounts and hostile telephone calls, Goldberg wrote.

Although the changed policy seemed to go largely unnoticed, San Antonio basked in the spotlight as the first major southern city to integrate its lunch counters.

Goldbergs essay lists the San Antonio Express-News as a voice of support for integration during the time in saying, we are confident that everyone concerned in the present situation has come this far in good faith. It is incumbent upon us all to see that this good faith approach is allowed to continue.

In the days following, a banquet with both black and white attendees was hosted to celebrate the accomplishment. Since the integration of lunch counters was an initial step in desegregation, the San Antonio Interracial Committee was founded the next month with the goal of swaying public opinion against segregation.

Five years after the first movement of integration, city council integrated all public areas with the passing of an ordinance. Businesses that did not comply were fined, according to Glasrud.

mmendoza@mysa.com |Twitter: @MaddySkyeOn this date in ...

1918: Rathbone, Sard & Co. of Albany, a stove manufacturing company, was awarded two government contracts approved by the secretary of war amounting to $1.5 million (approximately $26.5 million in today's money), as well as calling for the hiring of a large number of new employees. One contract called for the manufacture of powder tanks while the other for the making of Stokes trench mortar shells.

1968: Albany, Rensselaer and Watervliet had not built new schools nor enlarged their school buildings in years. Schenectady and Cohoes were spending big on new buildings or additions which had resulted in higher school taxes there. This was mentioned in the third of a series of articles on aging area schools. Some educators and parents defended old schools saying the teachers were at the heart of the education system, not buildings. Others criticized that thinking saying outmoded schools made for low morale and poor learning.

1993: Don't expect the same old St. Patrick's Day parade in Albany this year. Capital District Irish Northern Aid, whose national chairman, Paul Murray, would be the parade's grand marshal, planned a consciousness-raising event focusing on the crusade to end British rule in Northern Ireland. "I think St. Patrick would probably be rolling over in his grave if he saw the injustice in Northern Ireland," Murray said. To get its message across at the parade, to be held March 13, Noraid was working to turn out its largest contingent ever. But leaders of at least two local chapters of the Ancient Order of Hibernians were not happy with the change in parade philosophy.

Want to read more about the Capital Region's past? Have any memories or thoughts about how our history relates to today's events? See http://blog.timesunion.com/history/Local citizens of San Jacinto County received the opportunity to learn more about medical care on March 3 at the Community Health Fair held at the Shepherd Community Center.

Hosted by the Health Center of Southeast Texas and the City of Shepherd, the Community Health Fair brought together more than a dozen different vendors from pharmacies, dentist offices, health insurance companies and others.Hundreds of celebrants gathered Saturday at the Hindu Temple of The Woodlands to take part in the annual Holi festival.

Holi is a Hindu festival focusing on welcoming the spring, of good conquering evil.Investigators first learned of a man named Abraham Riojos in 2014.

They believed Riojos was a Mexican from Tijuana who was illegally collecting Social Security benefits by using false United States addresses. One address, according to court records, was for a mailbox rental facility in San Diego near the U.S.-Mexico border. The other was a few miles north of the border, in Chula Vista, Calif., and belonged to a homeowner who told investigators that Riojos had never lived there.

An investigator with the Social Security Administration's Office of the Inspector General found that the man had, in fact, been living in the United States illegally as Abraham Riojos, a name that belonged to another man - a 59-year-old born in Texas and living in Florida.

For nearly four decades, Andres Avelino Anduaga, a 66-year-old man from Tijuana, assumed Riojos's identity - complete with a fraudulent birth certificate, Social Security number, identification number and a U.S. passport. The documents allowed Anduaga to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in government benefits under Riojos's name, starting in 1989. For the next 27 years, Anduaga collected nearly $361,000 in Social Security, disability, health and food benefits, according to a criminal complaint.

Anduaga, who also went by the names Jose Gonzalez-Cardoza and Jose Reyes, had been deported at least twice. Yet he managed to come back and travel freely between the United States and Mexico, crossing the border multiple times a week using Riojos's identity, court records say.

Anduaga was arrested and charged in November with theft of public property and illegally reentering the United States. As part of a plea agreement reached Thursday, he agreed to pay back the government benefits that he fraudulently obtained.

"The programs that this defendant stole from - for decades - provide benefits to America's most needy," Adam Braverman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, said in a statement.

Investigators did not say how Anduaga found Riojos's identity. It also does not appear that the real Riojos was aware that Anduaga had been using his identity for 37 years. Riojos, who lives outside Fort Myers, Florida, has never received any Social Security payments under his number, court records say.

The Washington Post was unable to reach Riojos on Monday, but court records say he provided investigators with his driver's license and birth certificate to prove he is the real Abraham Riojos. He also said he began using the last name Riojas in the 1980s after his father started going by that name.

Court records say Anduaga had been in the United States since at least the 1970s, when he would've been in his 20s. He was convicted of misdemeanor drunken driving in 1974 and forgery in 1978 - both in California's Kern County under the name Jose Reyes. He was convicted of multiple other crimes and served time in a California prison in 1989 and 1990, both while using Riojos's name.

He began using Riojos's identity in 1980, when a California Department of Motor Vehicles identification number and a Social Security number were given to Anduaga under his assumed name.

He applied for and was awarded Social Security and disability benefits in 1989, receiving monthly payments until Aug. 1, 2016, court records say.

Authorities say Anduaga was deported in 1994 and 2000, both under the name Jose Reyes.

He faces up to 12 years in federal prison and a fine of up to almost $972,000. He will be sentenced on May 29.BEIJING - China's premier warned about rising global protectionism and vowed a "bolder" approach to reform in a key address to parliament Monday, but experts said his government's actions belie such rhetoric.

China's Communist Party has barely missed an opportunity to claim the moral high ground over trade and globalization since President Donald Trump set the United States on a more inward-looking and protectionist path.

Last week, Trump announced sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, provoking sharp criticism from Canada and the European Union and sparking fears of a trade war.

At the opening session of the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, Li Keqiang painted a picture of a country on a courageous path of economic reform and trade liberalization, in the face of rising global protectionism.

China, he said, would open up its economy to foreign investors and open its markets more widely to foreign trade, echoing promises made in previous years' speeches. More generally, he vowed that China would be "bolder" in reform.

"Reform and opening was a game-changing move in making China what it is today," he said, adding it "remains a game-changing move" as China seeks to build what it calls a "great modern socialist country" by the centenary of the founding of Communist China in 2049.

"We must go further in freeing our minds, in deepening reform, and in opening up," he said. "We need to give full play to the pioneering drive of the people, and encourage all localities, based on their own conditions, to dare to explore, dare to try things out, and dare to confront the toughest of issues."

The irony is that, in some ways, China may be moving in the opposite direction, experts say.

Not only has its investment and trade opening largely stalled, with foreign investors increasingly grumpy at what they see as an uneven playing field, but the room for local officials to think freely, to adapt and explore - seen as a key factor in China's past economic success - may have shrunk in recent years. Meanwhile the space for free speech, academic debate and the advocacy has also been dramatically curtailed.

"They've said the same thing for the past five years, so it's difficult to take it seriously," said Christopher Balding, an associate professor at the HSBC Business School in Shenzhen. "But what they seem to have learned is that if you say the rhetoric, it gets people's attention, even if it is fundamentally untrue."

Balding was speaking by telephone from a Starbucks cafe in Shenzhen, because his Internet at home had been shut off, he said, an anecdotal example of a country that was closing to the outside world rather than opening.

Trump's protectionist rhetoric, however, had allowed China an opportunity to seize the high ground, "even if the reality is very different," he added.

Li's speech was also full of references to the need to rally even more closely around the "core" leadership of President Xi Jinping, and to follow Xi Jinping Thought even more closely. An anti-corruption drive that has dragged down tens of thousands of officials has enforced a much stricter loyalty to the president's ideas and orders, experts say.

In this two-week-long session, the National People's Congress is set to approve changes to the constitution that will remove the two-term limit on the presidency, and enshrine Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the Communist Party's guiding document, further cementing Xi's position as the most powerful Chinese leader in decades.

One of Xi's central ideas is that the Communist Party should play a leading role in every aspect of the nation's life, from culture to the economy.

Li vowed to "completely open up" the general manufacturing sector, and allow more access to sectors such as telecommunications, medical services, education, elderly care and new energy vehicles. But experts said the proof would come when those promises were acted upon.

"The premier's comments about deepening reform will need to produce tangible results to get the attention of the business community," said Kenneth Jarrett, president of The American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. "This means giving more play to market forces and addressing the long-standing market access issues that unfairly disadvantage foreign companies."

Despite the contrast between the rhetoric coming out of Beijing and Washington, the reality is that U.S. markets remain far more open than Chinese ones.

The World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index ranks the United States in sixth out of 190 countries and China 78th, while the Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Index ranks the two countries in 18th and 110th place respectively, out of 170. On Internet and press freedom, the contrast is even more marked.

In his speech, Li said China was "fighting three critical battles," to forestall economic and financial risks, to step up poverty alleviation and to make greater progress in addressing pollution. He vowed, as he has before, to cut taxes and red-tape for businesses, improve broadband Internet access, and make China "a country of innovators." But there was no cause for alarm on the economy, he said.

"The fundamentals of the Chinese economy remain sound, and we have many policy tools at our disposal," he said. "We are fully capable of forestalling systemic risks."

Last October, central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan warned that China needed to take action to forestall a "Minsky moment" - a sudden collapse of asset prices after a long period of growth.

That was an uncharacteristically blunt comment from a Chinese official that suggested deeper concerns behind closed doors about growing financial risks around rising levels of debt and high asset prices, Balding said. Meanwhile the just-announced bailout of Anbang Insurance Group could cost $50 billion, he said.

Nevertheless, Li noted that China's economy had grown at an annual average rate of 7.1 percent over the past five years, and set a target for growth of around 6.5 percent this year.Newly re-examined DNA evidence taken from beneath the fingernails of a victim in a notorious 1986 double homicide led Fremont police to charge a 57-year-old man with the slayings, authorities said Monday.

David Emery Misch, currently imprisoned for the 1989 killing of a woman near Hayward, will be arraigned this week in a case that baffled investigators for more than three decades.

Misch is accused of shooting and stabbing two young women before leaving their bodies on the side of the road, where they were found by a passing motorcyclist, police said. He was charged with two counts of murder.

To be able to bring closure to the family and to the community, its huge, said Fremont police Detective Jacob Blass, who specializes in cold cases. Its a good feeling. Its been a long time coming.

The bodies of Michelle Xavier, 18, and Jennifer Duey, 20, were discovered by the side of Mill Creek Road in Fremont early on Feb. 2, 1986. The two women had attended a birthday celebration the previous night and were last seen together in a 7-Eleven convenience store, according to a 1986 story in The Chronicle.

Xaviers 1984 Pontiac Sunbird convertible was found in a shopping center parking lot about 6 miles away from where their bodies were found. The two victims reportedly became friends while attending Notre Dame High School in downtown San Jose. Both graduated from the small, all-girls school in 1984.

Suspects in their deaths were questioned, leads followed and a reward was offered, but the trail went cold, Blass said. The case left Fremont residents puzzled, alarmed and fearful.

Not long ago, bits of skin found under the fingernails of one of the victims were linked to Misch through DNA analysis that was not available at the time of the slayings, Blass said. That, along with other evidence and statements from the suspect, enabled police to announce they had solved the case.

Misch, of Hayward, was known to be a local crook doing burglaries, Blass said. Police said they did not believe Misch knew the victims prior to the slayings.

Misch was convicted of the 1989 murder of Margaret Ball, who was stabbed to death in her home in an unincorporated area near Hayward, said Sgt. J.D. Nelson, a spokesman for the Alameda County Sheriffs Office. Misch has been denied parole three times.

He was charged Friday with the murders of Xavier and Duey and will be brought from Folsom Prison to Alameda County for an arraignment this week, Blass said.

The breakthrough came after Blass position was created in 2016 to focus on cold cases and missing persons. He said the work of previous Fremont detectives made his breakthrough possible.

Cold cases, Blass said, are not like other police work.

Youre the outside-the-box detective, he said. Youre taxed with thinking a different way. The technology breakthroughs are huge. They often take you down a different path.

Attempts to contact Mischs attorney were not successful.

Fremont Police Chief Richard Lucero said his department was grateful to be able to provide this level of closure and consolation to the victims and our community.

A statement from Xavier and Dueys families, issued through Fremont police, thanked all the officers and detectives who worked countless hours during the past 32 years  we know how deeply they care.ANNAPOLIS, Md. - The open letter - signed by almost every female lawmaker in the Maryland General Assembly - was supposed to refocus attention away from ugly allegations about sexual harassment in Annapolis and onto women's progress in the legislature and efforts to address inappropriate conduct.

But instead the missive released last week created a backlash, with the head of the women's caucus asking for her signature to be removed and alleged victims of harassment saying they felt blindsided and further marginalized.

"We are disappointed to learn so many legislators had disregarded the stories of current and former staffers," said a statement provided to The Washington Post last week by an advocate and two former Annapolis staffers, including Nina Smith, who testified before the caucus last month about being harassed by six lawmakers over eight years. "With this action, many of us have been forced to relive our traumatic experiences."

The letter signed by 57 of the 60 female lawmakers pushed back against part of a report by the women's caucus, in which an anonymous victim of alleged harassment describes the General Assembly as a "frat house." The characterization was "unfair and . . . is disrespectful to the work that we do every day," the letter said.

On Wednesday, Senate President Thomas "Mike" Miller, D-Calvert, had a clerk read the letter on the Senate floor, then thanked the women for writing it. The letter, Miller said, "shows that we're making progress. . . and if they recognize that it make everybody feel better that what we've been doing to protect the workplace has not been in vain."

Del. Mary Washington, D-Baltimore, one of three women who refused to the sign the letter, said she considered it the latest attempt by legislative leaders to control the narrative coming out of the state house on the topic of harassment. "It was more focused on protecting the institution rather than those who are experiencing sexual harassment," she said.

Washington said she was taken aback by a decision by Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch to form a commission to study the legislature's anti-harassment policy at a time when the women's caucus was already finalizing its recommendations on the same issue.

Del. Ariana Kelly, D-Montgomery, who is president of the women's caucus, said she initially signed the letter because she wanted to highlight that there "is more to the legislature than just the horrifying 'frat house' environment we described in our report." She said she also wanted to "keep peace among women legislators," including those who had circulated the letter in the first place.

She removed her name late last week because of what she said were unintended consequences. "Unfortunately some of the very victims we are working to support have communicated to us they feel betrayed by this letter," Kelly wrote in a statement. "Other have attempted to use this letter to support the idea of holding off on legislation to address these issues."

The House Rules Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing Monday on a bill sponsored Kelly that would strengthen anti-harassment policies, adding procedures to deal with lobbyists who might be victims or perpetrators and requiring the Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics to refer claims against lawmakers to an independent investigator.

But Miller made clear last week that while some procedural changes are possible, he does not expect any anti-harassment legislation to be approved before the commission he and Busch created comes up with its own report, which is expected by the end of this year.

Maryland's capital has been increasingly focused on allegations of harassment in recent months. Last week, Sen. Cheryl Kagan, D-Montgmery, accused a lobbyist of touching her inappropriately, and former lobbyist Sarah Love said Del. Charles Barkley, D-Montgomery, in the past had hugged and kissed her in ways that were not acceptable.

It was the first time women connected to the state house have publicly named men who they said were responsible for wrongdoing. Previously, women had spoken anonymously, or without naming alleged perpetrators, about what they called a pervasive culture of misconduct in the General Assembly. Both Barkley and the accused lobbyist, former delegate Gil Genn, denied behaving inappropriately.

The women's caucus report, released in mid-February, included numerous accounts of alleged harassment and assault, including one incident in which a woman said she had to "forcefully" push a co-worker away after he grabbed her breasts and stuck his tongue in her ear during a ride home from a work event.

Another woman is quoted saying, "It feels like a fraternity house." That description, which was picked up in news reports, is what prompted some female legislative leaders to propose the open letter and ask their colleagues to sign it.

Del. Kathleen Dumais, D-Montgomery, one of the women legislators who came up with the idea, said she never intended to appear to dismiss the accounts of the women who shared their stories.

"Under no circumstance would I ever do anything to minimize a victim's experience," she said. "I'm sorry if someone took it that way. Our concern was that the articles seemed to concentrate on the reports of pretty despicable behavior and the term 'frat house' was used . . . We just thought the stories were not balanced. That's what we were trying to address."

Dumais said the idea to write the letter came from conversations she had with Del. Maggie McIntosh, D-Baltimore, and House Minority Whip Kathy Szeliga, R-Baltimore County.

But while Szeliga said she doesn't think anti-harassment legislation needs to be passed - noting several new policies implemented over the past two years to expand the process for reporting harassment and tracking complaints - McIntosh seemed open to the option.

"Nobody who wrote the letter, signed the letter. . . viewed it as saying to the women who came forward 'shame on you,'" McIntosh said. "All of us are going to be supporting bills to try to address sexual harassment, not only in this workplace but in other workplaces. Rather than getting into the battle of the letters or the battle of the press, I'd rather get down to work on legislation or policy work, changes to our personnel practices."

In addition to Smith, the statement from the former Annapolis staffers criticizing the open letter was also signed by Jessica Semachko, who worked for an advocacy group until 2015, and Neal Carter, who worked at the statehouse from 2007 to 2009. Both had posted on social media about experiencing and witnessing sexual harassment.

In their statement, they and Smith said the letter from the female lawmakers has made them even more determined to push for changes in Annapolis.

"Those of us who have shared our stories won't be deterred," the statement said. "We'll continue to demand systemic change, and we're determined to use the legislative process to do so now more than ever."Vous etes confrontes a une infestation par la puce, la punaise de lit ? Voici plusieurs actions qui sont a mettre en uvre pour faire []TOKYO - Reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hosted a South Korean presidential delegation for "openhearted" talks over dinner in Pyongyang on Monday, according to the North's state media, the latest surprising development in a burst of diplomacy that both Koreas hope will stave off threats from the United States.

The 34-year-old North Korean leader has not met another head of state - including the presidents of historical allies China and Russia - since he took over the totalitarian country after his father's death at the end of 2011.

But now, possibly under pressure from U.S.-led sanctions and concerned about President Trump's unorthodox style, Kim Jong Un is suddenly willing to take the olive branches that South Korea has been offering him.

"This shows how desperate he is," said Choi Jin-wook, who was head of the South's Korea Institute for National Unification until last year. "His plan to become a nuclear state has almost become successful, but so what? He can't eat nukes. So now he's knocking on South Korea's door."

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday sent a 10-member delegation to Pyongyang to begin preparations for an inter-Korean summit, which would be the first in 10 years and the first since Kim Jong Un took over.

This follows a frenzy of visits linked to the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics last month, during which Kim Jong Un sent his younger sister to Seoul to hand-deliver the summit invitation to Moon.

To prepare for the summit, which Seoul hopes will happen quickly, Moon dispatched a delegation led by Chung Eui-yong, his national security adviser, and including Suh Hoon, chief of the South's National Intelligence Service.

"I plan to hold in-depth discussions on various ways to continue talks between not only the South and the North, but also the North and the United States and the international community," Chung told reporters before departing Seoul on Monday afternoon.

The delegation met with officials in the afternoon before having dinner with Kim, his wife Ri Sol Ju and his sister, Kim Yo Jong.

The South Korean Blue House did not release contents of the meeting but said it was "reasonable, educated speculation" to think they discussed denuclearization.

The North's Korean Central News Agency said only that the two sides reached a "satisfactory" agreement.

Chung, who speaks fluent English and regularly talks to his American counterpart, H.R. McMaster, was specifically chosen to lead the delegation because he would be viewed in Washington as a credible and trustworthy messenger, according to people close to the Blue House.

After returning to Seoul on Tuesday and briefing the president, Chung will immediately travel to Washington to tell Trump administration officials about the meeting.

Some other officials in Moon's inner circle, notably his chief of staff, are viewed with suspicion in Washington because of previous activities considered sympathetic to North Korea and hostile to the United States.

During his meetings in Pyongyang, Chung will almost certainly bring up the issue of denuclearization, the outside world's most pressing concern, especially since North Korea last year exploded what was widely agreed to be a hydrogen bomb.

But it is far from clear whether North Korea will be willing to discuss this issue even in the vaguest terms. Pyongyang has previously said that its weapons are aimed only at the United States and are not a matter of inter-Korean concern.

But the international sanctions imposed are now approaching an economic blockade, and experts say they are beginning to hurt North Korea.

China said it was "a good thing" that the South Korean delegation had traveled to Pyongyang.

"We look forward to a positive outcome of the meeting," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Monday during a news briefing, according to the Associated Press. "We hope all sides will bear in mind the larger picture of peninsular peace and stability."

South Korea's Moon has been increasingly seeking ways to engage with North Korea, diplomatically or economically, as talk in Washington about military options has grown louder. He has repeatedly said that the United States must not strike North Korea without the approval of South Korea, where half the population lives within Northern artillery range.

Trump, for his part, has vacillated between threatening to "totally destroy" North Korea and seeming open to dialogue.

Trump said Saturday that he "won't rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un."

"Now we're talking. They, by the way, called up a couple of days ago; they said, 'We would like to talk,' " Trump said during a speech at the Gridiron dinner. "And I said, 'So would we, but you have to denuke.' "

It was not immediately clear what Trump was talking about when he said that the North Koreans had called.

Vice President Mike Pence was set to meet the North Korean delegation at the opening of the Olympics, but the North Korean officials pulled out at the last minute, the White House said.

The White House has also said there were no meetings surrounding the closing ceremonies, when the National Security Council official responsible for Korea, Allison Hooker, traveled to South Korea with Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and adviser.

North Korea sent one of its top officials on American affairs to the event, and his schedule in South Korea during the three-day visit remains unknown."The dialogue we desire is the one designed to discuss and resolve the issues of mutual concern on an equal footing between states."

While Trump was making his remarks Saturday, North Korea said it would only talk to the United States if it were on an "equal footing," without any preconditions. The United States has previously insisted that North Korea commit to denuclearization before sitting down to talks.

"It is the consistent and principled position of the DPRK to resolve issues in a diplomatic and peaceful way through dialogue and negotiation," the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Saturday, using the abbreviation for the country's official name.Girard man dies in Scott accident

A Girard man died Sunday in a one-vehicle accident in Scott County, according to Illinois State Police.

A preliminary crash report said Howard L. Smith, 73, of Girard was going east on Interstate 72 near Hickory Lane about 7:38 a.m. when his van went off the road and up an embankment, where it struck a bridge support.

Smith was taken to Passavant Area Hospital in Jacksonville, where he was pronounced dead, according to police.



Calhoun County

Sheriff

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Nicholas C. Buchanan, 28, of Louisiana, Missouri, was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 4:54 p.m. Feb. 20 on a Calhoun County arrest warrant accusing him of aggravated battery.



Greene County

Sheriff

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 David L. Queen, 48, of Patterson was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 7:10 p.m. Thursday on charges of disorderly conduct and pedestrian under the influence of alcohol.

 Danny J. Newingham, 49, of Patterson was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 9:09 p.m.. Feb. 22 on charges of criminal drug conspiracy, possession of a controlled substance and delivery of a controlled substance.

 Jean M. Morgan, 43, of Patterson was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 8 p.m. Feb. 22 on charges of criminal drug conspiracy and possession of a controlled substance.

 Taylor A. Leonard, 22, of Roodhouse was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 8:50 p.m. Feb. 20 on charges of possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia.

 Krista L. Burrows, 24, of Rockbridge was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 8:20 p.m. Feb. 20 on charges of possession of methamphetamine and possession of a controlled substance.

 Donald C. Kassing, 22, of Roodhouse was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 5:52 p.m. Feb. 20 on charges of delivery of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance.

Greenfield Police

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Kirsten D. Bryant, 20, of Greenfield was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 1:09 a.m. Wednesday on charges of aggravated battery to a child and endangering the health of a child.

 Janice K. Woelfel, 43, of Greenfield was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 6:22 p.m. Feb. 25 on a Greene County arrest warrant accusing her of deceptive practice.

 Jonah L.M. Elliott, 21, of Greenfield was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 10:55 a.m. Feb. 21 on charges of theft and domestic battery.

 Kyle E. Kuhnline, 33, of Greenfield was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 10:15 p.m. Feb. 15 on a charge of driving while license is suspended.

Roodhouse Police

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Aaron J. Stelle, 25, of Springfield was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 16 on a possession of a controlled substance charge.

 Dalton L. Shirley, 22, of Mount Sterling was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 2:30 p.m. Feb. 16 on charges of driving while license is suspended and having a defective front windshield.

White Hall Police

ARRESTS, CITATIONS

 Rosemary D. Williams, 47, of White Hall was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 8:53 a.m. Feb. 23 on charges of disorderly conduct and criminal damage to property.

 William W. Copper, 42, of Roodhouse was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 1:22 a.m. Feb. 22 on charges of illegal transportation of alcohol by a driver, driving under the influence and squealing or screeching of tires.

 Kyle A. McDannald, 28, of White Hall was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 2:34 p.m. Feb. 20 on charges of driving while license is suspended, domestic battery and possession of methamphetamine.

 Mark A. Dawber, 34, of White Hall was lodged in the Greene County Jail at 1:50 p.m. Feb. 15 on a domestic battery charge.

Compiled by David C.L. BauerPresident Donald Trump has left Congress in the lurch once again, this time seeming to retreat just days after endorsing gun safety legislation to try to end the nation's grim succession of school-shooting massacres.

Trump's surprise embrace last Wednesday of gun-control measures opposed by the National Rifle Association, including a higher age limit for buying assault weapons, briefly reset the debate. Companies also raced to sever ties with the pro-gun lobby. Then the president's position seemed to melt -- just as it had on immigration legislation weeks earlier -- after a private Thursday dinner with the NRA's top lobbyist and Vice President Mike Pence.

Now senators who days ago were eyeing a speedy and narrow floor debate on gun-purchase background checks instead, under a timeline set by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., will consider an unrelated banking measure this week.

If Republicans let the issue slip away and do nothing "we're going to get hurt because most Americans believe we should solve problems that Americans are facing like gun violence and school safety problems," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." "If we don't take this up and Democrats don't work with us, we will all suffer, and we should."

The president and lawmakers are trailing national sentiment on guns. Companies have ended assault-weapon sales and backing out of offering deals for NRA members, while students from the Parkland, Florida, high school where 17 people were killed Feb. 14 plan a "March for Our Lives" this month in Washington.

Ride-hailing service Lyft said Friday it will provide free rides for participants in the March 24 gun control demonstrations. Dick's Sporting Goods and Walmart raised their firearms purchasing age to 21 and Dick's said it would no longer carry assault-style rifles. And companies including Symantec, Hertz Global Holdings and MetLife ended NRA-tied discounts. Outdoor goods retailers REI and Mountain Equipment Co-op said they're cutting ties to Vista Outdoor, whose holdings include firearm manufacturer Savage Arms.

"We believe that it is the job of companies that manufacture and sell guns and ammunition to work towards common sense solutions that prevent the type of violence that happened in Florida last month," REI said in a statement, adding that Vista so far hasn't articulated a "clear path of action."

Some companies are already seeing a backlash and at least one is shifting tack. Delta Air Lines said Friday it's considering ending discounts for all "politically divisive" groups after a firestorm over its decision to terminate a deal with the NRA. After Atlanta-based Delta's decision to end its marketing program with the NRA, Georgia lawmakers scuttled a jet-fuel tax exemption from legislation.

Risk grows on Capitol Hill that there may be no legislative response to the Florida shooting, although even the most ardent backers of gun control say the door remains open.

"Trump may not end up leading congressional Republicans to water on guns, but his willingness to buck the gun lobby in public, rule out the NRA agenda, and talk up background checks, has changed this debate nationally," Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said on Twitter after reports that Trump dined with NRA lobbyist Chris Cox. Murphy's state was the site of the 2012 massacre of 26 students and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Still, many lawmakers are complaining about the mixed signals. On Wednesday, the president stunned both sides during the meeting with Republican and Democratic lawmakers by endorsing steps opposed by the NRA -- including comprehensive legislation to expand background checks and raising the age limit to buy assault weapons to 21.

Trump even contradicted Pence on measures to seize firearms from those deemed mentally ill or dangerous by saying he wants to "take the guns first, go through due process second."

Trump suggested at the meeting that a background-check proposal by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., could be the backbone of a comprehensive measure. But White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Friday that he's not "fully on board" with it. She told Fox News that the president won't say what legislation he would sign until he sees what lawmakers produce.

"Until it gets in its final stage, we are not going to weigh in," she said.

In the House, Republican conservatives are keeping the pressure on party leaders to side with the NRA. Members are continuing to demand that any legislation also allow concealed-weapon permits to apply across state lines. Democrats reject that as a "poison pill."

"I think we'll be all right when this all shakes out," said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a founding member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

Rep. Brian Babin, R-Texas, said something should be done to make schools safer but is skeptical of gun-control measures. "Reactionary, knee-jerk gun-control legislation I think will do nothing to make our schools safer and will simply just take away some of our constitutional rights," he said.

Congress has done very little to respond to mass shootings that have gripped the nation since the 1999 attack at Colorado's Columbine High School killed 12 students and a teacher and left two dozen more injured.

In nearly 20 years since then, calls for stricter gun legislation have almost always been blocked. One exception to that came in response to the 2007 Virginia Tech shootings, when a senior suffering from mental illness killed 32 people and wounded 17 others. Congress passed a bill closing loopholes in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System that allowed the student to buy firearms even though a Virginia court had ruled him a danger to himself.

A number of measures failed after the Sandy Hook shootings, including the Toomey-Manchin bill mandating background checks for private gun sales and sales at gun shows and over the internet. Other failed proposals included an assault-weapons ban and measures to address mental illness and ban "straw purchasers" -- people who buy weapons for others.

Congress also didn't act after two 2015 non-school mass shootings, one during a Bible study session at a church in Charleston, South Carolina, and another at a Christmas party for public health-department employees in San Bernardino County, California.

The debate after the Columbine shootings initially seemed to have momentum. The Senate in 1999 voted 51-50 to add gun controls to a juvenile crime bill. That included a requirement that all guns have safety locks and imposing a three-day waiting period on sales at gun shows to allow background checks. Yet the proposals died in the House, even after the pressure of a "Million Mom March" in Washington and more than 70 other cities.

This time, Florida students who survived the slaughter of their classmates hope for a different outcome. So far, the website for their effort claims to have 320 events planned worldwide on March 24. Celebrities Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and George Clooney have said they've pledged $500,000 each to help fund it.

--With assistance from Michael Sasso Billy House and Justin SinkAs Houston ISD officials wrestle with how to fill a $115 million budget shortfall, stave off a potential state takeover and work to recover after Hurricane Harvey, Superintendent Richard Carranza announced Monday he would leave the district after less than two years on the job, accepting an offer to lead New York City's school system.

Carranza appeared Monday afternoon at a press conference with New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio. Carranza's status with Houston ISD was not immediately available. De Blasio said those details are being worked out, but the outgoing chancellor is expected to remain on board until the end of March.

At a press conference announcing his appointment Monday afternoon, Carranza said the chance to take over the nation's largest school district and alignment with De Blasio's agenda were primary factors in accepting the job.

"There is no other New York City Public Schools," Carranza said. "It was an opportunity that I could not say 'no' to."

Houston ISD board members are expected to meet Thursday to discuss the district's next steps.

Reporting by Jacob Carpenter, Ericka Mellon, Brian M. Rosenthal and Shelby Webb | Timeline by Jordan Rubio

"We the board wish Carranza the best in his endeavors and appreciate the leadership he brought to this district," Houston ISD Board of Trustees President Rhonda Skillern-Jones said in a statement. "We are committed to continuing the work he began and moving the district forward."

Carranza's departure leaves Texas' largest school district leaderless as it faces consequential challenges. The district faces a $115 million budget shortfall and potential state takeover due to poor academic performances at a handful of the district's more than 280 campuses.

The district must rebuild four schools significantly damaged by Hurricane Harvey and is looking to dramatically change the way it funds its schools.

Zeph Capo, president of the Houston Teachers Federation, said he had to "pick (his) jaw up off the floor" when he learned of Carranza's departure Monday afternoon. He said he understands why Carranza would take the new job but fretted over the timing.

"There was this big pit in my stomach because we have such massively important decisions happening right now. Of all times to be without a leader I was thinking wow, this is not it," Capo said. "I'm really, really concerned about our school district not having a leader right now, with the big decisions with school finance and making sure pull schools out of (improvement required status)."

During his brief tenure with HISD, Carranza has announced sweeping proposals aimed at improving struggling schools, making campus funding more equitable, reshaping the district's magnet programs and improving special education services, among other things. While some of those plans have been enacted, such as the Achieve 180 campus turnaround plans, others are still in their planning stages.

Bob Sanborn, president and CEO of the statewide Children at Risk education nonprofit, said Carranza's proposals may now shift in scope without his oversight.

"Whenever a superintendent leaves, you see parts of their programs be dismantled, parts of them not implemented," Sanborn said. "I imagine that's what will happen with some of Carranza's plans."

De Blasio said he had spoken with Carranza about the job for about a month. De Blasio originally chose Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho for the job and publicly announced the choice, but Carvalho turned down the job Thursday. Carranza was the runner-up for the position behind Carvalho, De Blasio said.

De Blasio said he met with Carranza over the weekend, offering him the job late Sunday night.

"The decision was straightforward. Richard Carranza has done amazing work," De Blasio said.

Carranza, 51, said his values in education aligned with De Blasio, making it "very easy for me to say I would like to be part of this movement in New York City." His base salary in New York City will be the same as his Houston ISD salary, which was $345,000 in 2016-17.

Carranza came to Houston ISD, the nation's seventh-largest school district, from San Francisco Unified School District, where he served as superintendent from 2012 to 2016. Carranza took over from Terry Grier, who retired after 6 1/2 years atop Houston ISD.

Carranza arrived as a personable, well-received choice following Grier's tenure, which led to some acrimony among board and community members. He often spoke about promoting greater equity across the district and improving campuses in historically impoverished neighborhoods. His signature turnaround plan, Achieve 180, used about $15 million to improve educator quality and increase social services in long-struggling campuses.

However, some education advocates in Houston questioned whether Achieve 180 would significantly impact students. Carranza's plans for revamping the campus funding model and tweaking the magnet school system also drew criticisms from many community members, who argued the plans haven't been fully formed or vetted.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.Calling all spring breakers  cities on Texas' Gulf Coast need you to visit, eat, drink and maybe stay for awhile this year.

As Spring Break nears, cities like Rockport and Port Aransas are still working to recover from Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm that swept through the area in August 2017.

"The only way we're going to get back on our feet is if people come in, attend our events, eat at our restaurants, stay at our hotels," said Sandy Jumper, vice president of marketing and promotions for the Rockport-Fulton Chamber of Commerce.

RELATED: These Texas Coast businesses, restaurants have reopened 5 months after Hurricane Harvey

Rockport businesses, homes and roads were hit heavily by Harvey. Mayor Charles Wax said Wednesday more than 3.3 million cubic yards of debris have been collected since the storm.

"It's getting better everyday," Wax said.

Jumper said more than 600 rooms are available for visitors to stay in, a decrease from 2017's 1,600 available rooms.

But she said for many Texans, Rockport is "less than a tank of gas away" and visitors should make the trip even if they can only stay for a day.

Port Aransas is also gearing up for spring breakers.

Mayor Charles Bujan said law enforcement officials had preparation meetings for Spring Break, which is set to kick off March 9.

"We will be up and running at Spring Break," Bujan said, adding Port Aransas beaches were largely untouched by the hurricane. "They are as beautiful as ever and we are planning for a good crowd."

Click through the slideshow to see what parks, restaurants and other Coast favorites are open.

Kelsey Bradshaw is a digital reporter for mySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| kbradshaw@express-news.net | Twitter: @kbrad5San Antonio's dream, a highly-anticipated IKEA store, is one step closer to becoming a reality.

On March 21, Live Oak Mayor Mary M. Dennis and City Manager Scott Wayman, along with IKEA representatives, will break ground on the 289,000-square-foot store set to open in Spring 2019 at the southwestern corner of Interstate 35 and Loop 1604.

RELATED: Photos show construction slated to start on San Antonio IKEA

The San Antonio-area location will house three model home interiors, "many" room set ups, a children's play area and a restaurant serving Swedish food like meatballs with lingonberries, a customer favorite, according to a news release.

The store will employ 250 workers, according to the release.

Madalyn Mendoza is a digital reporter for MySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| mmendoza@mysa.com | Twitter: @MaddySkyeA second suspect has been arrested in the shooting death of a man at a Northwest Side hotel last month.

Blandine Yvonne Idumbo, 17, is accused of shooting and killing 25-year-old Robert Leonard Patterson in an attempted aggravated robbery, an arrest affidavit said.

RELATED: 'They just killed him over a car'

Idumbos arrest came shortly after San Antonio Police apprehended their first suspect, 20-year-old Taariq Mike, on Friday. It is not clear when the second arrest was made.

Patterson was declared dead after being found with a single gunshot wound in a room at the Best Western Plus at 4803 Manitou Drive in the early morning of Feb. 21, according to previous reports.

His girlfriend, who was shot in the neck while lying in bed next to Patterson, said she heard the gunshot that killed Patterson before the male suspect pointed a gun at her and demanded her car keys, police said.

A warrant for Idumbos arrest came soon after Mike positively identified her through a photo on Facebook, police said.

RELATED: Arrest made in double shooting at a San Antonio hotel

Mike claimed in an arrest affidavit that both he and Idumbo originally went to Pattersons room to sell meth to the girlfriend. He contradicted the female victims account to police, saying Idumbo was the one with the semi-automatic handgun and shot the couple.

Both Mike and Idumbo each face one charge of capital murder.The trial for an alleged drunk driver began Monday in Hays County, nearly two years since officials charged the former Texas State University student in the death of a man and his unborn child.

Shana Elliott, 22, is charged with intoxication assault with a vehicle, a third-degree felony, and two counts of intoxication manslaughter with a vehicle, a second-degree felony.San Antonio police say a body was found floating in the San Antonio River Sunday afternoon near popular tourist hot spots along the River Walk.

Officers responded about 3:30 p.m. to the 700 block of E. Riverwalk Street after reports of a body were called in.One teenager shot another Sunday night after an ongoing dispute over a girl, according to San Antonio police.

Police were called out to the 2900 block of Rigsby Avenue shortly before 11 p.m.While lawmakers debate Americans health care on the state and local level, my family  and thousands like us  face fear and uncertainty for our loved ones lives.

As a member of organizations like Little Lobbyists, Protect Texas Fragile Kids and Health Care Voter  and most importantly, as a mom  I am one of the many activists across the country fighting for our right to affordable health care. While policy leaders continue to use us as pawns in negotiations and excuses for budgets, we need to remind them that there are people impacted by their policy choices.

To be clear: No one is ever prepared to depend on lifesaving medical care.

There were not any signs that my babies would face severe and constant medical challenges. Our family followed all the rules to prepare for their well-being; I took my prenatal care seriously, and did everything I could to prepare for a healthy birth.

Medical emergencies can happen to anyone.

Our beautiful twins, Camila Mila Jane and Rafael Felo Joseph, were born in our hometown of McAllen, on Aug. 15, 2013. They were born premature, at 26 weeks and three days, and weighing just 1 pound, 15 ounces each.

This is when our journey with Medicaid began.

For a few weeks, Mila and Felo appeared to be recovering from their early arrival. And then on Sept. 1, Felo fell ill. Doctors discovered that his small intestine had a hole in it, and predicted that he was not going to be able to survive the complication. On Sept. 17, my 1-month-old had nearly 20 percent of his small intestine removed.

The next months brought more sleepless nights as we continued to learn about Mila and Felos condition. Felo was admitted back to the NICU, and was diagnosed with necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, the leading cause of death in preterm infants. Mila continued to face developmental challenges.

Ultimately, our family spent over three months in a different NICU in Houston, desperately fighting for recovery.

The next few years saw our family traveling back and forth to Houston on a monthly basis. Currently, we have to make the trip only every three months, but the advanced care and fear for our childrens health continue.

We pay nearly $2,000 a month for our primary care insurance. Once this insurance stops covering our costs, Mila and Felo rely on Medicaid; there is no way that we could afford to keep our children healthy without it.

To put it in perspective: Without our secondary coverage, Felos therapy alone  the services that allow him to learn skills like eating and walking  would stop by February every year.

And yet despite the thousands of families who are in similar positions, our political leaders have continued to turn their backs on us.

About a year ago, Texas cut $350 million to Medicaid, delivering a direct and severe blow to families with children with disabilities. This cut meant that the state transitioned our Medicaid services for children with disabilities to managed care organizations (a group of private hospitals and organizations).

In instances like the failed skinny repeal, our national congressional leaders further attempt to undermine our health care. And on the ground, hundreds of children across Texas have seen longer wait times for medicine, fewer therapy lessons, and  in some cases  have been denied access to any Medicaid support at all.

While families and allies across Texas stood up in protest to these cuts, government officials and politicians decided to play politics with our childrens lives.

Recently, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, called people who supported the Affordable Care Act the stupidest, dumbass people Ive ever met.

Imagine having your childs life directly depend on lawmakers decisions. This is our everyday reality.

Join us by holding elected officials accountable for their actions against health care. Join us in speaking up for children  like Mila and Felo  who cannot speak up for themselves.

Like any parent, we want the best for our family. Like any citizen, we want the best for our community. We are asking our elected officials to do the same.Recently a non-profit developer gave a presentation on similar developments in different parts of town. One presentation was given to a group of residents in an economically depressed part of San Antonio, and another in a more upscale area. One neighborhood welcomed the 100 percent affordable housing development; the other neighborhood was staunchly against the development and the rhetoric became an ugly comment on the poor.

Often, neighbors have valid reasons for opposing affordable housing developments that have nothing to do with the potential residents, even if they couch their concerns in discriminatory language.

Both neighborhoods wanted the same thing: economic diversity that nurtures resilient neighborhoods, neighborhoods that are able to care for its most vulnerable residents. The more affluent neighborhood embraced the change that would work for both established and new residents. The economically depressed neighborhood opposed the development because residents felt overwhelmed by their own poverty.

Instead of working with the second community to find solutions, politicians and developers were quick to label residents NIMBYs and silence their objections.

NIMBY, an acronym for Not In My Back Yard, is a pejorative term. It conveys disrespect and is dismissive of resident concerns. The term NIMBY has been used to label dissent to any project. Rather than listening to the concerns that residents bring forth, the label of NIMBY is applied by those wishing to push the project forward, stereotyping and ignoring the complexity of community.

Any large development impacts neighborhoods and before the city incentivizes these developments or grants them zoning changes, the impact on community and neighborhoods should be assessed for such things as traffic, roads, the effects on local schools, environment (runoff), housing values, health issues, and quality of life issues for both current and potential new residents.

Often, developers approach neighborhoods when they are nearing the end of their planning phases. Drawings have been submitted, city approval has been gained, funding is in place. They bring these near-complete plans to the nearby residents and tell them what they are going to build. Residents are taken by surprise and find that there is no room for input into this process. When residents raise objections, the developer becomes frustrated. Tempers flare and concerns are dismissed. Residents cry foul and developers confirm their suspicion that neighborhoods are just against development.

Large developments that offer just a few units of affordable housing benefit developers more than future residents or neighbors. The residents of the surrounding area are left alone to solve the issues that often come with increased traffic, runoff, crowded schools, and a perception of falling housing values to people who have barely hung on to middle class.

These projects are seldom located in wealthy neighborhoods and the wisdom of crowding the poor into large developments without support often make the problems of poverty worse.

Rather than fighting the residents when the project is ready to break ground, why not garner resident support from the projects inception? Before funding is applied for or submissions are made, developers should reach out to neighborhood associations and community leaders. To be successful, there has to be more meaningful input from residents and that input should have the ability to create change.

Developers and politicians should take a proactive approach with neighborhoods. No one knows the neighborhoods better than the residents who live in them. Developers and city leaders may be surprised to find that communities can readily identify places where more housing is possible in their neighborhood, and what challenges may be faced when inappropriate development occurs in the wrong place.

Changing the framework of the discussion from one of blame and name-calling (NIMBY) to a positive discussion of community and solutions will help make the building of affordable housing in our neighborhoods possible.Dust you are  and to dust you shall return is a recurrent phrase during Lent. The idea of immortality is ingrained in our culture, which adores youth and scorns old age. But the H3N2 influenza does not discriminate, taking young and old alike as its mysterious cousin, H1N1, did during the Spanish flu of 1918. It killed nearly 100 million across the globe.

This years flu epidemic has claimed 4,000 Americans per week since January  97 of them children. According to a CDC report, an estimated 56,000 people will die in the U.S. by the end of the flu season.

The historical impact of the 1918 Spanish flu, which was overshadowed by World War I, is often overlooked by historians. The first World War was destined to end all wars on a global scale. An entire generation was lost in the blink of an eye to machine guns, land mines and mustard gas.

The Spanish flu would spread to six continents. Between 50 million and 100 million died, killing more than the two world wars combined, according to Laura Spinneys book,Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World.

What caused the Spanish flu to spread?

Three main factors contributed: the war, advancements in transportation, and misconstrued notions of modern medicine.

A common misconception suggests this virus originated in Spain. In fact, the flu already had been in America and spread to France before invading the Spanish borders.

Speculation points to the flu beginning its journey in Camp Funston, Kansas  a military training camp for the American Expeditionary Force. The forces traveled to Europe and set anchor on the ports of France in April 1918.

All was not quiet on the Western Front as the virus spread like wildfire across the French trenches and into Germany.

The term Spanish flu was politically motivated. Both the Central Powers and Allied forces didnt want outside forces to know their medical crisis during the war and did not censor their media outlets. Unfortunately, when 8 million Spaniards were reported dead from the flu, all fingers pointed to them as the culprit.

Advancements in transportation allowed the virus to slither its way across Europe and around the world. On both sides, coughing and sneezing soldiers huddled in cramped barracks, ships and trains, escalating the slaughter by the invisible enemy.

Skepticism toward modern medicine still existed around the globe, with doctors consistently misdiagnosing the flu as the work of a bacterial agent. Primitive microscopes could not identify the virus, and people around the world were cynical toward any form of vaccination or sanitary ordinances.

Distrustful of its political leaders, the people of Rio de Janeiro circulated inflammatory falsehoods about their health and sanitation department, claiming a scientific coup was emerging to suppress their rights.

South Africans saw white doctors, supplied with vaccinations, as untrustworthy, prolonging efforts to combat the illness, according to Spinney.

A sliver of ignorance prevails today toward modern American medicine. Many people brush off flu vaccinations as unnecessary, while others fall victim to conspiracy theories that vaccinations cause the flu.

As the sniffing, coughing specter rears its ugly head on this 100th anniversary, remain calm. Keep a bottle of sanitizer by your side, a canister of disinfecting wipes in your desk drawer, and make sure to vaccinate.Bexar County District Attorney Nico LaHoods last-minute attack ads on Joe Gonzales, his Democratic primary challenger, are so egregious, they warrant a last-minute response.

Yes, its election day. Its extraordinary to editorialize about a race or a candidate on election day, a time when media tend to go dark on politics to honor the sanctity of your vote.

However, in choosing to run tabloid attack ads over the weekend in this newspaper and elsewhere  graphic ads that inaccurately imply that Gonzales is supportive of sex crimes  LaHood has made necessary this break from precedent.

RELATED: LaHood denies knowing about early morning spoof call to voters on Election Day

Readers may have noticed one particular attack ad, which disingenuously calls Gonzales a sex crimes attorney who wont prosecute prostitution, if elected. The ad includes a photo of a woman in fishnet stockings and a miniskirt, which apparently is supposed to represent a prostitute.

The ad utterly distorts Gonzales record and positions. It also undermines a key principle of justice: All people, no matter the alleged crime, have a right to defense. Does LaHood, who frequently says Lady Justice is blind, not believe this?

For justice to truly be blind, there has to be a competent defense attorney.

We spoke with Gonzales about how much of his defense work includes people accused of sex crimes. He said it can change from year to year, but its roughly a quarter of his practice. He said these cases tend to go to trial because unlike other charges, a plea deal on a sex crime can have grave consequences for the defendants. Again, he is a defense attorney. He represents people accused  but not convicted  of crimes.

But LaHood was also once a defense attorney and his firm represented similar clients as recently as 2011, the Express-News has reported. This included a former law partner representing seven clients accused of sexual crimes against kids.

EDITORIAL: Joe Gonzales endorsed for DA in the Democratic primary

As for the charge of supporting prostitution, its a blatant distortion of Gonzales position. He said he views prostitutes as human trafficking victims and believes the district attorney is in a position to do more to change their lives.

Its more important to try to focus on the root of the problem thats causing them to commit the crimes, Gonzales said in an interview.

LaHood has also used the ads to attack Gonzales for accepting roughly $900,000 in campaign contributions from Texas Justice & Public Safety, a political action committee backed by liberal billionaire George Soros.

We are not fans of outside spending to influence any race, but LaHood is just as guilty of taking large sums of outside money. In 2014, local attorney Thomas J. Henry donated $1.2 million to LaHoods campaign.

These contributions were not exactly free from potential conflict or controversy.

For example, LaHood and Henry found themselves crosswise after Bexar County deputies shot and killed Gilbert Flores, who had raised his hands. LaHood vowed to investigate whether the deputies committed a crime, but failed to secure indictments. Meanwhile, Henry represented the Flores family.

Soros, at least, is not a local attorney with cases or potential contractual interests with the county.

RELATED: Billionaire donates nearly $1 million to Nico LaHood's challenger in Bexar County district attorney race

LaHood also recently accepted $100,000 from Martin Phipps PLLC, according to recent campaign filings. The law firm of Phipps Anderson Deacon LLP is the countys co-lead counsel on its lawsuit against opioid manufacturers. Bexar County commissioners chose the law firm in October based on a recommendation from LaHoods office.

We have already recommended Gonzales to voters over LaHood because he is clearly the superior attorney. He worked as a prosecutor in Harris and Bexar counties in the 1990s. LaHood lacked experience as a prosecutor when he was elected in 2014.

LaHoods actions over the weekend merely validate our recommendation.

Attack ads are nothing new in campaigns in Texas and elsewhere. But what LaHood did  essentially asserting an opponent is OK with sex crimes  goes beyond the pale.

Gonzales has handled himself with dignity in public. LaHood has berated constituents. Gonzales has interesting ideas about bail reform and diversion programs for low-level offenses. LaHood recently said he was instrumental in creating Bexars public defenders office, even though it was created before he took office.

LaHood once threatened to shut down Gonzales law firm, has used his office to trample the free press and drifted wildly off point by promoting anti-vaccination views. He has consistently shown poor judgment and inappropriate temperament for the job.

Bexar County residents deserve so much better. LaHoods below-the-belt attack ads are just the latest example why.The priority now for federal and state legislators is how best to provide safety and security for some of the most vulnerable while they attend school.

On the other hand, the priority for some on the left, especially the media, is whom to blame for the murder of 17 souls on Valentines Day. Many place the blame on the National Rifle Association and say nothing of the sicko who did the murdering. Or even the sheriffs department, which just stood and watched.

The NRA had zero involvement in the massacre. NRA members are the good guys.

Leo Q. Gomez

Revisiting the past

Re: Friendships created at Frost Bros, Pat Fedoruk Phillips, Another View, Feb 19:

Oh, memories! How refreshing  the column by Ms. Phillips. How informative and interesting to learn about the artists over the years.

My friends and I loved Frost Bros., which was above our pay grade, except for sales, but we loved to go to their upstairs cafe/tearoom and browse the beautiful arrangements and displays.

My thanks to Ms. Phillips; her commentary was a joy to read.

Bonnie C. Hester

Money well spent

Took my first bike ride down the Salado Creek trail recently. These, along with many others, were created by our separate line item on our property tax bill for Parks and Recreation. Worth every penny!

Proud to be from San Antonio.

Phillip Hooge

Forget Paris

If Mayor Ron Nirenberg is concerned about global warming or climate change, instead of joining with the Paris agreement, I suggest he start with timing the stoplights on Austin Highway. Even at 5 a.m. on Saturday or Sunday, one encounters more red lights than green.

David Gay

Evolving man

The aggressive male was one of evolutions methods of furthering the species.

Before I am dragged out and lynched, I hasten to add that evolution has now added logic and sensitivity to keep us going, so that we know that candy and flowers seem to work better than brutish behavior.

Clay McGaughy1 Mexico violence: Four gunmen burst into a hospital in the Mexican resort of Cancun and shot to death a drug gang suspect and his female companion, state police said Monday. The suspect was identified by local media as Alfonso Contreras Espinoza who purportedly headed Cancun operations for the Gulf drug cartel. The Jalisco cartel has been moving into the resort. The victim was being held at a local prison and had been allowed out under guard for treatment at the hospital for leg problems. State police said the attack was a possible settling of accounts between drug gangs.

2 Canada slayings: Toronto police have found a seventh set of remains related to the investigation into alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur. Detective Sgt. Hank Idsinga said Monday they could not identify the man and are seeking the publics help. Idsinga said officers have now found the dismembered remains of at least seven individuals in large planters at a home where McArthur did landscaping work. McArthur, 66, is charged with first-degree murder. He is believed to have met his alleged victims in the Gay Village district and on gay dating apps. McArthur, a grandfather and former mall Santa Claus, has not entered a plea.Audu Ogbeh, the minister of agriculture, On Friday, March 2 claimed that Thailand has accused President Muhammadu Buharis government of being responsible for the collapse of seven of its rice mills.

Ogbeh quoted the Thailands ambassador to Nigeria as saying that the federal government has dealt with his country.

The minister said this was because Nigerias importation of rice has fallen by 95%.

He further added that unemployment rate has risen by four percent in Thailand.

His words: Just like two weeks ago, the ambassador of Thailand came to my office and said to me that we have really dealt with them.

READ ALSO: Ethnic violence: 20 people reportedly killed, 300 cows stolen in fresh clash in Taraba

But I asked what did we do wrong and he said unemployment in Thailand was one of the lowest in the world, 1.2 percent, it has gone up to four percent because seven giant rice mills have shut down because Nigerias import has fallen by 95 percent on rice alone.

The agriculture minister has made two claims from this report: claim one; collapse of seven rice mills in Thailand, claim two; unemployment in Thailand has risen to four %.

Are these two claims true?

Legit.ng brings you the facts as checked by the Cable Newspaper.

Claim one: Collapse of seven rice mills in Thailand

According to the Cable, the ministers claim that seven rice mills collapsed in Thailand owing to Nigerias low patronage could not be verified.

Instead, Thailands export has reportedly continued to grow. The Nation Thailand reported that overall exports in January 2018 alone rose to 17.6% with an income of $20.101 billion.

Significantly, rice exports reportedly grew to 37.2% year-on-year.

This is an indication that rice mills are not collapsing in Thailand. Instead, rice producers in the country may need to build more mills to satisfy the demands!

Similarly, the Rice Exporters Association of Thailand reportedly said rice exports reached a record high in 2017.

The president of the association, Charoen Laothammatas, said they would be able to export around 9.5 million tons of rice in 2018.

Information on the associations website puts Nigerias import in 2017 at 23,192 metric tonnes. What Nigeria imported in 2015 and 2016 were 644,131 and 58, 260 metric tonnes respectively.

Though the information on their website indicates that Nigerias rice import has dropped significantly, one could understand that the quantity of rice imported from Thailand into Nigeria is not significant enough to lead to the collapse of any mill in the country.

Claim two: Unemployment in Thailand has risen to 4%

The Cable fact-checked this claim to be false.

Trading Economics, a firm that provides accurate information on economic indicators, exchange rates, stock market indexes, government bond yields, and commodity prices, puts Thailands unemployment rate at 1.3 percent as at January 2018.

The unemployment rate in Thailand inched up to 1.3 percent in January of 2018 from 1.2 percent in the same month a year earlier, information on the firms website read.

The number of unemployed went up by 26 thousand from the prior year to 475 thousand while the number of employed declined by 142 thousand to 37.07 million.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

In December 2017, the jobless rate was 1 percent. Unemployment Rate in Thailand averaged 1.45 percent from 2001 until 2018, reaching an all time high of 5.73 percent in January of 2001 and a record low of 0.39 percent in November of 2012.

Conclusion

The claim that seven mills collapsed in Thailand because of Nigerias low patronage cannot be verified. The claim that Thailands unemployment is at four% is false.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that President Buhari challenged the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI) to ensure availability of quality and affordable fertilizers to farmers at the right time as the nations journey to self-sufficiency and food security is not negotiable.

The president gave the challenge at a meeting with members of the PFI and Fertiliser Producers and Suppliers of Nigeria (FEPSAN) at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Friday, March 2.

The Presidency had in February inaugurated the PFI, which was approved by President Buhari in December 2016, to achieve the local production of one million metric tonnes of blended Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium (NPK) Fertilizer for the 2017 wet season farming.

Ebonyi state, Nigeria and West Africa's food capital on NAIJ.TV:

Source: Legit Newspaper- Pastor Bakare blasted President Buhari and 22 other governors who went to Kano for Gandujes daughters wedding

- The pastor said going for wedding just after Boko Haram abducted Dapchi school girls and killed UN aid workers shows the leaders are insensitive

- He asked if they would attend the wedding if any of them had lost a daughter in the Dapchi captivity

Pastor Tunde Bakare, the serving overseer of the Latter Rain Assembly (LRA), says he cannot comprehend what President Muhammadu Buhari and 22 state governors were doing at the Kano wedding, while 110 Dapchi schoolgirls are still in captivity.

On Saturday, March 3, at least 22 governors converged on Kano, to celebrate the wedding of Idris Ajimobi and Fatima Ganduje, the son and the daughter of Abiola Ajimobi, and Ibrahim Ganduje, governors of Oyo and Kano states, respectively.

Also in attendance was the president, and high-ranking members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), including Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos state.

READ ALSO: Nigerians criticise Buhari for attending wedding of governors children in Kano, presidency reacts

Bakare says the wedding, which came two days after Boko Haram killed some UN aid workers in Rann, and two weeks after the abduction of the Dapchi school girls in Yobe, shows the insensitivity of Nigerian leaders, the Cable reports.

Bakare said: Forgive my ill-mannerism, but I could not comprehend why a governor will celebrate the wedding of his daughter, and another governor of his son, on the front pages of newspapers, flashing it before our eyes, when other peoples daughters are in captivity.

If any of them had lost a daughter in that captivity, would they celebrate that way? I know the Bible says rejoice with them that rejoice, but I do not know what the president of Nigeria was doing there.

And somebody came to say, let me explain to you, it is Islamic tradition, before this time, about January, they had agreed, that he (Buhari) will be the one to give the bride away and (Bola) Tinubu will be the one to pay the dowry, and present the son, and they agreed long before now.

I looked at him and said the president of Nigeria wanted to come to my daughters wedding, and I said to him, sir, dont come. That is beneath your office. Face the work of the state and keep serving.

And 22 governors showed up to mark register, when 110 daughters of citizens of your nation were captured by Boko Haram that you said you have already technically defeated?

It just shows how insensitive our leaders are. We have gotten to a stage that our president has become a king and a monarch. That his son who rode his pleasurable bike that almost claimed his life, will be returning from an overseas trip, where he had received special healthcare that Nigerians cannot afford, that it took a whole minister of state to go and welcome him, because he has no job.

Speaking at the Latter Rain Assembly on Sunday, March 4, Bakare said anyone who knows the true state of things in Nigeria will weep for the country.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news

He said: If you truly know the truth, you will weep, if you know how much we are owing as a nation, you will weep. For 16 years of PDP they borrowed N6 trillion, for three years of APC, they borrowed N11 trillion.

And they are not going to pay the debt. You and I, and our children, and our childrens children will pay the debt, unless they write them off again.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Pastor Bakare stated that President Buhari can choose to stand for re-election in 2019 if he so desires.

The cleric made his comments on Saturday, February 3, during a town hall meeting in London.

He also stated that the presidents health condition had improved.

Bakare further commended former President Goodluck Jonathan for accepting the results of the 2015 presidential election even though it was not in his favour, and urged Nigerians to thank the ex-president for preventing a bloodbath in the nation by accepting the result.

2019: Should Buhari heed Obasanjo's advice? - on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit.ng News- Social Democratic Party said it's expecting an influx of politicians ahead of 2019 elections

- The party's national publicity secretary claimed that five governors and twenty senators will defect to the party soon

- He added that the party is expecting members of House of Representatives and prominent politicians

The national publicity secretary of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Alfa Mohammed, said on Sunday, March 4, that the party is expecting five governors and twenty senators and several House of Representatives members to join the party soon.

The party spokesperson, who spoke in Minna, Niger state, also said he will confirm in three weeks if former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, will be joining the party or not, Punch reports.

READ ALSO: 20 killed, 300 cows stolen in fresh ethnic battle in Taraba state

Mohammed said: I need two to three weeks to confirm the issue of the former vice president as it concerns our party. However, it may interest you to know that many prominent politicians from Adamawa State have joined us.

According to him, no less than five governors have indicated interest to join the party and will be defecting soon along with 50 Civil Society Organisations who had already joined the party.

He said: In the next two to three weeks, the mass movement into the SDP will become more pronounced especially at the national and state Houses of Assembly and I am sure that the party will soon become the majority at the National Assembly.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

Legit.ng earlier reported that the ex-information minister Jerry Gana, former education minister Tunde Adeniran and ex-Niger Delta minister Godsday Orubebe, are moving to the Social Democratic Party (SDP) which is merging with the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), Peoples Salvation Party (PSP) to form a formidable party ahead of 2019 general elections.

The former president Olusegun Obasanjo-inspired Coalition for Nigeria Movement (CNM) is in talks with the SDP to work together.

Nigerians share their thoughts exactly 1 year before elections - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng- The United Sate of America (USA) has spoken about the Nigeria's forthcoming general elections

- US declared that there is a political, ethnic, tribal and security issues in the country

- The country commended the most recent elections in Liberia, saying it was the first open, fair, and peaceful transition of governments in over 75 years

The United Sate of America (USA) has disclosed that Nigerias 2019 general elections and a peaceful transition, remained its major priority in view of the countrys strategic position in the region.

The US department of state said during a background briefing on the first trip of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Africa, monitored by the News Agency of Nigeria in New York.

Tillerson would meet with Nigerias President Muhammadu Buhari and other top government functionaries, and also leaders of Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya during his travels from Tuesday, March 6 to 13.

READ ALSO: National Assembly to override President Buhari on Peace Corps Bill

The department said over two decades ago, the number of countries in Africa with really democratically elected government were really very few only three or four.

It said, however, now we had over two dozen African countries with democratically elected governments and which are hopefully not going to have transitions in government through coup detats and other illegal methods.

The state department said: ''As we look at the 20 elections, obviously Nigeria, though its not this year  its going to be next year  that really is a major priority focus, because thats going to be the third most populous country in the world by 2050. It has really very complex political issues and ethnic and tribal issues and security issues.

''And thats an area that we really are focusing on how to do a peaceful transition, a democratic transition, but more important is how to hold governments accountable to the people.''

The department explained that obviously, a lot of those African countries were still fragile democracies and the US was trying to strengthen them.

The US commended the most recent elections in Liberia, saying it was the first open, fair, and peaceful transition of governments in over 75 years, saying that is a good thing.

It regretted what it called the ''horrendous rule of Charles Taylor and the degradation of the institutions there, but now well going back and theyre building, and I think with the election of George Weah thats going to be a positive thing.''

The US also noted the election of Nana Akufo-Addo in Ghana, Alassane Ouattara in Cote dIvoire and Macky Sall in Senegal, describing them as you positive developments.

It said, however, that Ethiopia remained a challenge for the US and a focus for it as well and an opportunity.

The US explained that it was looking at trying to build institutions, really strengthen institutions, and also have peaceful transitions and hold governments accountable to the people in Ethiopia.

It said it was also looking at how it could have reconciliation and dialogues between all of the different groups  the Oromos, the Amharas, the Tigrays, and also in Kenya with the opposition and with the ruling government.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

Accordingly, the department said building strong institutions and holding governments accountable are some of the things that are certainly going to be the subjects of discussion during Tillerson trip.

The state department said: ''How do we advance political and economic reform that will help in the transition process? Those are issues too that were working in Zimbabwe with the transition between Robert Mugabe and Emmerson Mnangagwa.

''And also were looking hopefully at South Africa with the election of Cyril Ramaphosa from Jacob Zuma and seeing how thats going to transition.''

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that the Independent National Electoral Commission said it will partner with the United Nations to ensure effective operations during the 2019 general election.

INEC said the partnership is focused on building capacity of its staff ahead of the election scheduled to hold in February 2019.

Nigerians want PDP back in 2019 - Goodluck Jonathan declares at PDP Caucus Meeting on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit.ng- The Niger state governor, Abubakar Sani-Bello, has advocated for President Muhammadu Buhari's re-election

- Sani-Bello said Nigeria's economy will fall back into recession should President Buhari fail to contest in 2019

- He called for total support for the president re-election ambition come 2019

Governor Abubakar Sani-Bello of Niger state has assured Nigerians that they will not regret re-electing President Muhammadu Buhari into power in 2019. He said President Buhari's re-election into presidency in 2019 will help stabilise Nigeria's economy.

He said if the president is not re-elected in 2019, Nigeria's economy will face challenges and may fall back into recession.

READ ALSO: Governor Dickson, Ibori begin advocacy for referendum

Receiving the people of Kontagra at the government house in Minna over the weekend, the governor said the support declared by the All Progressives Congress (APC) governors was to ensure continuity and sustainability of Buharis good work in Nigeria.

He said: If President Muhammadu Buhari does not contest in 2019, there will be problem in solving the enormous challenges facing the country because he is truthful, fair and just in administering the country.

The governor also urged Nigerians to support Buharis endorsement for Presidency in 2019. He said said Nigeria would continue to become a greater nation under President Buhari's administration.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

Legit.ng earlier reported that some youths from Urhobo and Isoko in Delta state endorse President Buhari for second term in 2019. The youths said the president deserves a second term in office.

They said the Buhari led administration has left no stone unturned in the fight against corruption and will do better than its has done if re-elected in 2019.

What must President Buhari do to regain the trust of Nigerians? - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- The Kebbi state governor, Abubakar Bagudu, has said that contrary to popular notions, the prevalent herdsmen-farmers clashes are results of climate changes in the country

- Bagudu said that the federal government should endeavour to understand the challenges faced by herders and make moves to support them with modern technology in agriculture

- The minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, said that Kebbi state has contributed massively to Nigeria's agricultural success story

Governor Abubakar Bagudu of Kebbi has said that the clashes between farmers and herdsmen across the country are not tribal but consequences of climate change.

Bagudu stated this in Birnin Kebbi when the minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, paid him a courtesy visit with a team of journalists.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the minister led journalists to Kebbi for on-hand assessment of the agriculture revolution in the state.

READ ALSO: MOSOP accuses FG of creating crisis in Ogoniland, calls for immediate resolution

The governor who said that the clashes were misunderstood in many quarters, challenged the media to carry out investigation to ascertain the truth and veracity of his claims.

He advised the minister to lead newsmen to some prone areas to interview the pastoralists and other concerned stakeholders in order to find out the truth and educate Nigerians.

Governor Bagudu said: It is environmental challenge caused by climate change. The occupational practice of pastoralists and even the fishermen are threatened. The water resources and grasses are not available and the pastoralists are forced to move toward the south."

Bagudu called for the understanding of the plight of the pastoralists and the need to gradually introduce the modern trend of ranches to them. He said that the average herders were not literate and because of the nature of what they were doing, they were prone to crime.

READ ALSO: Prominent politicians from Adamawa have joined us - SDP

He said: In Kebbi, the predominant prisoners in custody are the Fulanis; they are prone to crime because of lack of Education. On the other hand, they are also victims of cattle rustlers who attack them and take away their animals.

The governor said that the state was working with the federal ministry of information and culture to revive the Argungu fishing festival.

He thanked the minister for the initiative of leading newsmen to Kebbi to showcase the agriculture revolution in the state with partnership with the federal government.

The minister said the visit was necessary to let the world know what the government was doing to transform the agriculture sector was real and yielding fruits.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet!

The minister remarked: We are here to tell Nigerians and the world of the giant strides of Kebbi in the agriculture sector. The story of Agriculture revolution in Nigeria will be incomplete without Kebbi. The state has turned around the narrative in the agriculture sector to the extent that everyone wants to engage in agriculture in the state.

The minister reiterated the federal governments commitment to supporting the farmers to boost food production in the country.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that 19 governors from the northern region had held a meeting in Kaduna state to deliberate on the persistent crisis between herdsmen and farmers in that part of the country.

Among those at the meeting were the governors of Borno, Kaduna, Katsina, Bauchi, Sokoto and Kogi states.

Nigerian herdsmen vs Nigerian farmers - On Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng- The US, through its department of state has said that Nigeria is the key to the development and stability of West Africa

- Rex Tillerson, the US secretary of state said that the Boko Haram terrorism is both related to security and politics in Nigeria

- Tillerson said that the US has promised to assist the federal government in the fight against insurgency

The United States of America has said that Nigeria is critical to the stability of West Africa and the future engagement of the US in the subregion, pledging continued its commitment in the fight against the Boko Haram terrorists.

The US department of state officials said this during a background briefing on the first trip of the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, to Africa.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that Tillerson would meet with President Muhammadu Buhari and also leaders of Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya during his travels from Tuesday, March 6 to Tuesday, March 13. The official said: On Nigeria, this  fight against Boko Haram  is really an important issue.

READ ALSO: Involvement in police functions overstretching military - Army personnel

And I know that in the last administrations, even the last three, we have always said going to Nigeria is critical to stability and the future for the U.S. relationship in West Africa.

Tillerson stated: We are following the recent kidnappings of 110 school girls, which really kind of follows up on several years ago of the Chibok girls. And those are horrendous, theyre unacceptable and terrible.

But the issue that comes in, its not only a security issue  and it is a terrible security challenge  but its also political issue and really building those institutions and political dialogue between north and south, and also with the region.

And so those are some of the things that we need to look at. Its a comprehensive approach. The other issue, too, is on economic development and education.

The US noted recent UN reports about some of the extremist operations in the G-5 countries and the Trans-Sahel.

READ ALSO: Steel company reopens in Delta state, 20 years after collapse

The department, however, regretted that the operations of some of these criminal groups were about getting jobs. It also said: They are about looking at getting an income for families. And if terrorism or trafficking of persons, if thats going to get them the jobs, then thats unacceptable and we really need to find alternative ways to help the economic development in these regions.

"And so those are some of the issues and challenges that well be working on  political institutions, political dialogue, reconciliation, supporting community-based development, helping growth, education.

It said another issue was enhancing the security, particularly in the north. It remarked: It just cant be constantly a kinetic strike operation or bring in U.S. military.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet!

Thats not the answer. The answer has to be developing institutions and also providing good police training, military training, and having governments accountable to the people and having people really have faith in their institutions, and also having opportunities for job creation.

And what happens in Nigeria is going to affect the Lake Chad region, and that includes Cameroon as well as the G-5 countries. So those are some of the things that were looking at, much more broad-based, comprehensive, and really interrelated with security.

Earlier, Legit.ng reported that the US department of state had said that Tillerson was expected to visit Nigeria and some other African countries from Tuesday, March 6 to Tuesday, March 13.

The spokesperson for the department, Heather Nauert, said Tillerson would also travel to Addis Ababa, Djibouti, Nairobi and NDjamena.

How would you feel if Donald Trump bombed Boko Haram like Syria? On Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- A nurse with the International Committee of the Red Cross who was among those abducted at Rann by Boko Haram insurgents, sent a Whatsapp recording to her friend

- She sent the message just as the attack was underway; asking that her parents be informed of the situation

- Her family and friends have not heard anything from her since then

An audio recording sent by one of the midwives abducted during the attack by Boko Haram insurgents on the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camp at Rann, Borno state, has been obtained, Vanguard reports. The nurse, identified as Hauwa Mohammed, sent the message via Whatsapp as the attack unfolded on Thursday, March 1.

Legit.ng gathers that relaying her message in Hausa, she asked that her parents be informed that she was being kidnapped by the insurgents. While running and panting, she stated: We are under attack in Rann. They are shooting everywhere, please pray for me; please go and tell my parents that I am in trouble. Please, look for Fatima and tell her they are taking us away. They have entered here now

READ ALSO: Steel company reopens in Delta state, 20 years after collapse

At that point, a male voice was heard telling her to keep quiet and not move an inch.

Her friend, Fatima, stated that they had not heard from Hauwa since then.

Another friend, Abdulhameed Algarzali, a newspaper editor in Maiduguri, disclosed that Hauwa began work at the International Committee of the Red Cross two weeks ago. He said he had seen her the day before the attack, and that she told him she was going to spend two weeks in Gamboru-Ngala, headquarters of Ngala local government area of Borno.

According to Algarzali, her family and friends did not know she was working at Rann, where she was abducted, as they thought she was working at Gamboru Ngala. He stated: It seems she did not disclose that she was posted to Rann why she refused to do so is not clear.

I did not believe the story at first because the Hauwa Mohammed I met a day to her journey told me she was going to Gamboru Ngala for just two weeks. It is surprising, therefore, that this happened to her in Rann. I mean, how did she get there? Its possible she did it deliberately to avoid causing unnecessary panic, considering the situation in Rann, or to avoid being stopped by her family.

But another possibility is that her employer, the International Committee of the Red Cross, providing medical assistance to over 40,000 displaced persons, misinformed her of the true posting.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app

Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the United States of America on Friday, March 2, condemned the killings of four Nigerian humanitarian workers during the Boko Haram attack on the IDP camp at Rann.

In a statement posted on the website of the US embassy, the US government condoled with the families of the victims

The statement read in part: The US strongly condemns the killing of three Nigerian aid workers in a Boko Haram attack on a military installation in Rann, Borno state.

Boko Haram abducted my husband and the govt forgot about him - on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit.ng- The Alumni Association of the National Institute (AANI), has promised to help the federal government in recovering the missing 110 Dapchi girls

- AANI also said it is making moves to resolve the herdsmen-farmers clashes across Nigeria

- Governor Simon Bako Lalong of Plateau state urged the association to keep using different means in ending the clashes

The Alumni Association of the National Institute (AANI), has offered to assist the federal government in ensuring the safe return of the 110 girls recently abducted from the Government Girls Science and Technical College in Dapchi, Yobe state.

Khaleel Bolaji, the AANI president, said this at the 38th annual general meeting of AANI at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) in Kuru near Jos.

Bolaji also said the association was also making contributions to bring an end to the herdsmen-farmers crisis throughout the nation, Daily Trust reports.

READ ALSO: Abducted nurse sends chilling message to family during Boko Haram attack at Rann

He stated that cases such as the kidnapping of the girls by Boko Haram terrorists and the persistent herdsmen-farmers clashes were to be discussed during the business session of the alumnis meeting.

Jonathan Juma, the acting director general of NIPSS, had earlier said the institutes research directorate hosted a session on the conflict on the theme: Sedentary Farmers and Nomadic Herders Conflict in Nigeria: Towards a Strategic Response. Juma said the institute will send a policy brief to the government on the development.

PAY ATTENTION: Get the Latest Nigerian News Anywhere 24/7. Spend less on the Internet!

Governor Simon Bako Lalong of Plateau state urged AANI to use such forums to proffer solutions that will assist government at all levels to put an end to the crisis.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that the presidency had revealed why Boko Haram terrorists managed to abduct the 110 schoolgirls in Dapchi.

The personal assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on social media, Lauretta Onochie, said system failure led to the recent abduction of school girls in the northeast region.

What is the problem with Nigeria? | Street Gist On Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- Saudi Arabia has made a donation of $10 million to Nigeria government and the military

- The fund is to assist the Nigerian government in the fight against Boko Haram

- The money will also help in providing and protecting the internally displaced person in the Northeast Nigeria

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has donated $10 million (N3.6 billion) in cash, arms and relief material to tackle the humanitarian crisis in Nigeria., Vanguard reports.

The leader of the Saudi Arabian delegation announced the donation during a visit to the minister of defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, on Monday, March 5. Nasir Bin Mutlak said the aid package which is in cash and military equipment was aimed at assisting the displaced persons in the northeast and other essential needs of the military.

READ ALSO: Finally! Presidency reveals why 110 schoolgirls were abducted in Dapchi

Mutlak said: "Our country (Saudi Arabia) and Nigeria have continued to have very good relationship. Our mission in the ministry of Defence is to help our brothers in the IDP camps in the north east.

"The $10 million is from the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center and the Saudi Development Fund. It is meant to show solidarity with Nigeria in the fight against terrorism and to show support in aid of the IDPs who are going through some sufferings."

READ ALSO: Breaking: President Buhari to visit Benue, Yobe, Zamfara, Rivers, Taraba states

He also said that Saudi Arabian delegation would visit the various states in the northeast affected primarily by Boko Haram to assess the level of support to be provided for the region. He said the aim of the Saudi Arabia Kingdom is to ease the effect of the insurgency destruction on those states and report back to their country.

In his response, Dan Ali commended the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for the huge support to Nigeria. He said the $10 million will not only assist Nigeria in tackling the challenges at IDP camps but will also help the country acquire strategic military equipment needed to tackle the terrorists challenges.

Nigeria really values the alliance between our countries to fight terrorism. As you may be aware, we have the Multi-national Joint Task Force MNJTF, comprising Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Benin Republic fighting to stop the spread and advancement of terrorism in the region.

Consequently, the humanitarian crises goes even beyond Nigeria. We have refugees from Cameroon, Chad and Niger, worsening the already tough situation with IDPs in the country. Your intervention will go a long way in helping us tackle these challenges. However, I will still call on your government to consider other areas where you can still be of assistance because the challenges are enormous," Dani-Ali said.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app

Legit.ng earlier reported that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia rendered free eye surgeries and medical services to resident of Kano state.

The services were given to 515 pateints living Kano the the Saudi Arabia Kingdom in patenership with World Conference for Islamic Youths.

The team consisting of five Saudi Arabian eye surgeons, Saudi vice consul Yousef Ibrahem Alghamdisus said, succeeded in assisting many people to regain their sight after years of temporary blindness due to their inability to access medical treatment.

What is working well and what needs improvement in Nigeria? - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit Nigeria- President George Weah of Liberia has begged Nigeria to provide 6000 teachers to his country

- He made this plea after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja on Monday, March 5

- He said his government inherited many problems which can only be tackled with assistance from countries like Nigeria

President George Weah of Liberia has called on the Nigerian government to provide 6000 teachers to his country as part of the technical assistance agreement between the two nations.

Premium Times reports that while speaking Monday, March 5, shortly after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House Presidential Villa in Abuja, Weah said his government inherited many problems which can only be tackled with assistance from countries like Nigeria.

READ ALSO: I sell 6 sachets of Tramadol to pupils daily - Suspect confesses as police parade student, madman for robbery

Legit.ng gathered that Weah was inaugurated into office on January 22 after defeating immediate past vice president Joseph Boakai of the Unity Party.

Addressing journalists after his meeting with Buhari, the Liberian leader identified some of the urgent problems facing his country as youth unemployment, as well as the need to revive the education, agriculture, mining and health sectors.

Your sustained technical assistance for capacity building in these sectors is most welcome. For example, Nigerian teachers and medical volunteers to Liberia, under the Technical Assistance Corps TAC) agreement with Liberia, have been very crucial in boosting capacity development in Liberia, and it is my hope that this assistance can be considerably increased to address with urgency our most pressing socio-economic needs at this time.

More specifically, under the Bilateral Teacher Exchange programme, we are seeking 6,000 plus teachers to make up for the shortage of good teachers in our educational system, he said.

Weah thanked Buhari for the invitation extended to him and said his delegation was on a mission of gratitude and respect for the extraordinary and exceptional role that you, our Nigerian brothers and sisters, have played and continue to play in maintaining peace and stability in the West African sub-region, and more particularly, in Liberia.

He said although Nigeria is the largest economy in Africa, with the most powerful army in our sub-region, you have never used your wealth and military prowess to expand your territory, threaten your neighbours, or destabilise any sovereign nation in the region.

He also said the prices of Liberias two basic export commodities, rubber and iron ore, continue to fall on the world market, which have diminished the countrys foreign exchange earnings from the export of the commodities.

He asaid most export earnings of Liberia is used mainly to import food and other commodities, causing massive trade deficits while youth unemployment is at an all-time high, and prices of basic commodities continue to increase.

Our people have voted for change, and for hope. And change is finally here. But mere political change is meaningless without development, prosperity and growth.

Your Excellency, we need Nigerias help to jump-start our economy. You played a major role in bringing peace to Liberia, you reformed our Army and today it is performing its duties to the highest professional standards. As we speak, they are serving in a peace-keeping mission in Mali.

You have also built and expanded the capacities of Liberians in so many ways. For example, during our recent observance of Armed Forces Day in Liberia, we were informed that two of our military personnel will soon be graduating as pilots from one of your esteemed institutions.

We would like to see a continuation and expansion of that programme, for both men and women, he said.

Weah also declared that Liberia is now open for business to the Nigerian private sector.

He said there is a need to address the current volume of trade between the two countries, which is very low and does not exceed five million dollars, by some estimates.

Yet, the Liberian banking sector is dominated by Nigerian banks, and I am made to understand that their Head offices in Nigeria may be considering reducing their support or even shutting them down because of the recent downturn in our economy.

If this is true, I urge them not to do so, as l am optimistic that trade and commerce will increase in the near future.

There are also major shortcomings in the electricity and power sectors, in road construction, in housing, in mining, and in fisheries, to name a few, that could be of serious interest to Nigerian investors, either as individuals or companies, or through joint-ventures or public-private partnerships.

We invite all of you to come to Liberia and explore the many new opportunities for investment that abound to increase under this new political dispensation. I promise you that you will find a government that is not only business friendly, but ready to do business.

On a personal note, President Buhari, it is my intention, with all due respect and affection, to frequently seek your wise counsel and advice as we embark upon this arduous task of nation-building, reconstruction, and transformation of my country.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

Nigerias historical benevolence towards Liberia cannot be quantified. And once again, we seek your urgent and critical assistance, he said.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had earlier reported that Nigerian President Buhari on Monday, March 5, hosted the Liberia president George Weah at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

2019 Presidency: Nigerians reveal why they prefer Atiku to President Buhari - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng NewsThe official residence of a former acting director-general of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Dauda Mohammed, has been reportedly invaded by armed security operatives.

Premium Times reports that the armed security men were in black clothing typically used by Nigerias secret security organisations.

READ ALSO: One of my regrets in life is inability of my parents to witness my success story in life - Obasanjo

Legit.ng gathered that the property is located at No. 3 Osara Lane, off Osara close in Abujas Maitama district.

A source said the armed men were at the building to evict Mohammed.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, vowed to recover the missing National Intelligence Agency (NIA)'s $202million security intervention fund.

The acting EFCC head said this on Wednesday, February 28, when he met with members of the House of Representatives committee on public safety, national security and intelligence.

The meeting which is geared towards recovering the said sum which formed the total of the $289 million fund approved for the agency by the Jonathan administration, Independent reports.

The EFCC stages walk against corruption - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng- Nigerian workers have been assured by Chris Ngige that the new minimum wage is certain

- According to him, the minimum wage review committee will decide what the minimum wage will be

The minister for labour and productivity, Chris Ngige, on Monday, March 5, assured Nigerian workers that implementation of a new minimum wage in the country would be done.

He said the committee set up for that purpose by the federal government had already started work. Ngige gave the assurance while speaking with journalists shortly after witnessing the swearing in of newly-elected chairmen of the 18 local government councils in Edo at the Government House, Benin.

Council elections were conducted in the state on Saturday, and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) won all the positions.

READ ALSO: Breaking: President Buhari arrives Taraba (photos)

The minister said that the minimum wage review committee, with him as deputy chairman, would submit final report in the third quarter of the year to the National Assembly for due consideration.

This is a constitutional issue and the Constitution makes provision for the minimum wage to be reviewed every five years and we are on course.

The committee will decide what the minimum wage will be and it is a tripartite arrangement comprising the government, employers and employees. So, the Nigerian workers should hope that we have their issues at heart," he said.

He commended Edo governor, Godwin Obaseki, for saving up funds for the new councils chairmen to commence activities. Ngige described the act as benevolent and urged the chairmen to utilize the funds for the benefit of the masses.

The governor has done the ultimate for them; the ball is now in their courts to do the needful," he said.

PAY ATTENTION: Install our latest app for Android, read best news on Nigerias #1 news app

According to an earlier report by Legit.ng, the Nigeria Labour Congress and entire labour workforce has been assured by the federal government that the new national minimum wage will commence, latest by end of September 2018, Nigerian Tribune reports.

Senator Chris Ngige, the minister of labour and employment, on Monday, February 26, said that the federal government would announce the new minimum wage before the end of the third quarter.

Who should get higher salary - doctors or teachers? - on Legit.ng TV

Source: LegitLambert has remarked occasionally that one of the side effects of the Puerto Rico hurricane is that the US is in the midst of a saline bag shortage, an important hospital staple. The official story was that a plant that was knocked out was close to a monopoly supplier, forcing hospitals into cumbersome and costly work-arounds, like injecting saline solutions.

It turns out, by happenstance, that hed become the unwitting transmitter of partial information that is unduly flattering to big medical manufacturers who have been under scrutiny by the New York and California attorneys general and now the Department of Justice for possible criminal anti-trust abuses. As this Financial Times story explains, even though anti-trust law in the US is weak and not often enforced, the conduct at issue is a bulls-eye for Things Not To Do: tying or forcing customers to buy other products to get the ones they want and misusing monopoly/oligopoly power.

The reason that a product so commodity-like as saline bags would come to be an oligopoly is that they have significant economies of scale in production.

The squeeze in the saline bag market started well before the Puerto Rico hurricane made things worse. Three companies, Baxter Healthcare, Hospira Infusion Systems and B Braun, virtually own the market in the US. In 2014, shortages began, allegedly due to remedies that the manufacturers were required to implement to correct quality problems (like stuff in the saline, ick!).

Prices in the US have more than doubled in the last four years. A saline bag that once cost $1.77 is now $4.04, while the price has increased to only roughly $2 in the UK.

But the even bigger deal is that Baxter apparently used the scarcity as an excuse to withhold supplies unless hospitals agreed to buy certain (higher than theyd otherwise order) amounts of alternate saline delivery mechanisms. This is bad for patients in three respects. First, it imposes additional, unnecessary product costs. Second, as the hospitals pointed out, this forces nurses to use non-standard protocols. Even though delivering saline by injection is in theory as safe as setting up a saline drip (which entails a different sort of injection), having staff operate on a new routine increases the risk of mishap. But third, and I am surprised no one stressed this, is that having nurses make injections with syringes is far more time consuming than setting up a saline bag. The extra nursing cost is almost certain to be greater than the increase in the cost of supplies. That also means it is taking nursing time away from other duties.

Saline bags are a staple in hospitals and emergency rooms. For instance, when your humble blogger got a bad cornea scratch in July, my first stop on my West Coast emergency room tour was to Cedars Sinai. It felt like something was still way up high under my eyelid. The doctor had the nurse put a Morgan lens in my eye, which allowed her to flush it out, which took an entire bag of saline solution (not a comfortable process). And as you can see from this little instructional video, the alternatives arent so hot. But it never occurred to me that my use of a mundane saline bag could force another patient to have their saline solution administered in a much more cumbersome manner.

And when, might you ask, would this have been particularly acute? The article points out that outbreak of a particularly deadly winter flu in the US squeezed saline supplies even further. That among other things means ER nurses were scrambling not just to secure saline, but spending more time than they should have to administer it via injection, which could have led to patients being treated later than they would have otherwise. There were widespread reports of emergency rooms being strained to the max. People were dying this winter at much higher rates than usual from this flu. Its not a stretch to think that these saline suppliers have blood on their hands.

The Financial Times story quotes at length from reports from the Cleveland Clinic, as well as a large, unnamed New York hospital group. The accounts are damning:

At the peak of the crisis, the [Cleveland Clinic] hospital had the equivalent of eight full-time pharmacy employees battling the shortage. Technicians worked through the night to mix saline by hand, while nurses injected the solution of salt in water into patients using syringes  a task normally done by the metal stands and plastic bags used for intravenous drips. Sometimes weve had over 20 nurses at a time doing that, says Scott Knoer, chief pharmacy officer. Hospitals alleged that sales representatives from the company [Baxter] pressured them into buying higher margin products used to deliver saline and other intravenous solutions, such as pumps, tubes and catheters As the shortage became more serious in the winter of 2014, a sales representative from Baxter arranged a meeting with one of its major customers. According to a person who attended that meeting, the sales rep suggested Baxter would be unable to guarantee the hospitals existing supply of saline unless it signed a new five-year contract that required it to also buy other consumables used to deliver the solutions, like intravenous tubes and taps The hospital agreed to sign the contract, but the decision caused anger among some employees. They feared that forcing nurses to switch to unfamiliar products for solely commercial reasons would jeopardise safety and leave the group vulnerable to legal action .the hospital tried to delay the introduction of the contractThe exchanges show the Baxter rep becoming increasingly pushy as the hospital tried to stall. I really need to talk to someone, the Baxter rep wrote in an email to a hospital employee in February 2015. After receiving no reply, a few weeks later they wrote: I have no choice but to send a letter notifying [the hospital] that they are not in compliance with the agreement. Eventually, the hospital capitulated and made the switch. The agreement was not only inconvenient, it was also expensive: moving from its existing supplier will end up costing the hospital more than $1m or 10 per cent extra over the duration of the five-year contract

The Federal Trade Commission first got wind of these issues and started probing the big saline suppliers in 2015. In early 2016, New Yorks Eric Schneiderman saddled up, and in late May, issued subpoenas to several hospitals instructing them to preserve relevant records. A Financial Times source said the big saline players stopped their tying games when they got wind of the New York State investigation. The DoJ has taken over the matter and has subpoenaed Baxter plus the former and current owners of Hospira Infusion.

Normally, private litigants wait to piggyback the discovery findings of public prosecutors. The fact that private parties are filing suits suggests that they think they have such a clear cut case that they dont need to wait. Again from the Financial Times:

A group of hospitals from Alabama, New York, Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico launched a class-action lawsuit in 2017 against Baxter and Hospira Infusion, alleging they engaged in a conspiracy to artificially fix, raise, maintain and/or stabilise the prices of intravenous saline solution . . . under the pretext of a supply shortage. The lawsuit alleges the companies issued a series of voluntary product recalls to exacerbate the supply problems so they could push up prices.

Both defendants have filed motions to dismiss, arguing in effect that the facts presented didnt support the allegations.

Unfortunately, the medical industry is rife with abuses of monopoly/oligopoly power, and not just in the highly-visible area of drug prices. Industry incumbents and investors have been adept at identifying niches that are too small for anyone in DC to care about, even when the products are expensive and also serve relatively large numbers of patients.

A reader provided this case study in late 2015. We tried to get interest in DC with no success.

A particularly striking example of how private equity drives consolidation is found in the renal care industry, which provides dialysis services for approximately 500,000 Americans[1] at any given moment. The federal government, through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) spent $11.2 billion in 2014 on outpatient dialysis services[2], which gives taxpayers a direct stake in the competitiveness of the dialysis industry. Two companies dominate the outpatient dialysis market, each with approximately a third of total market share, while the number three company in size is more than ten times smaller than the second largest, and the overall one-third of the market not controlled by the top-two oligarchy remains very fragmented.[3] Both of the top two dialysis companies were created by multiple mergers over time. If one looks at the genealogy of each, one finds that private equity firms were involved in rolling up predecessor entities into the two dominant players. For example, the largest firm, Fresenius, came together, in part, in 2010, when two private equity firms, Bain Capital Ventures and KRG Capital, invested in Liberty Dialysis. In 2011, that firm then acquired Renal Advantage, which was backed by Welsh Carson, another private equity firm and sold the entire combined company to Fresenius.[4] Similarly, DaVita, the number two player several years ago the private equity-backed HealthCare Partners firm as part of its industry dominance strategy.[5] The number three dialysis industry player, U.S. Renal, is backed by multiple private equity firms and is pursuing an explicit strategy of rolling up the third of the market that remains unconsolidated into the largest two firms.[6] This strategy of private equity firms attempting to roll-up major spending nodes in the U.S. healthcare system can be found over and over. For example, the practice is so entrenched in the outpatient surgical center industry that entire newsletters exist simply to track private equity activity in that space.[7]

The ability for these firms to increase prices is almost certainly greater than the national picture suggests. Remember that patients typically get outpatient dialysis several times a week for 3-4 hours a day. That means they will need to go to a facility close to their home. That in turn means that the relevant market for pricing purposes isnt the US but local markets, like cities, even small ones if they are somewhat isolated geographically (think Charlottesville, Virginia, which sits in a valley and over an hour away from the nearest population center, Richmond). But who is ever going to look at the pricing power of dialysis centers even in cities as large as Los Angeles to determine whether they are abusing their position?

I hope readers will circulate this post widely. The public needs to understand how much the deck in medicine is stacked against them, and that is why half way measures wont make enough of a difference. The only way out is single payer, and we have plenty of examples around the world to show that literally any implementation in an advanced economy works better than what we have. We arent lacking in models. What the US lacks is the will to break some oversized rice bowls.

_____

[1] See http://www.nephrologynews.com/a-quiet-year-for-consolidation-among-largest-dialysis-providers/

[2] See http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20160624/NEWS/160629935

[3] See http://www.nephrologynews.com/a-quiet-year-for-consolidation-among-largest-dialysis-providers/

[4] See http://www.thehealthcareinvestor.com/2012/02/articles/healthcare-services-investing/private-equity-investing-in-the-dialysis-sector-part-i/

[5] See http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20120526/MAGAZINE/305269878

[6] See http://www.usrenalcare.com/article/us-renal-care-and-dsi-renal-announce-definitive-merger-agreement

[7] http://www.thehealthcareinvestor.com/2012/10/articles/healthcare-services-investing/private-equity-investing-in-ambulatory-surgery-centers-part-i/By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

We have got on to slippery ice where there is no friction and so in a certain sense the conditions are ideal, but also, just because of that, we are unable to walk. We want to walk: so we need friction. Back to the rough ground! Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

Election Day, 2018, is Tuesday, November 6, and 246 days is a long time in politics. Nevertheless, coverage is already so intense, and the outcome so potentially important  politically, economically, and in every way  that I feel the need to get my arms around the story now, rather than approach it, race by race, in onesies and twosies, over the coming months. Further, the power of what I can only call a reality distortion field, caused by the desire of many in the political and especially the professional classes to defeat Trump, is so great that I simply dont trust the coverage (any more than I trust the coverage of any other subject where factions have put themselves on a war footing[1]). Next, throw a Red Scare and War Fever into the mix. Finally, the 2016 election was such a debacle for the establishments of both parties, and their respective allies in the press, that theres no particular reason to do anything other than treat their views this time around with what filmmaker Sam Goldwyn called a dose of salts. And if Im feeling this queasy now, imagine what things will be like, closer to the date! So, if only to preserve what remains of my sanity, I need to work my own sums. Hence this worksheet, which I will periodically update and expand, as explained below.

Here are the basic numbers to watch. From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, this handy chart:

And so you dont have to count the dots:

Democrats must flip 24 seats to take over the U.S. House of Representatives. Republicans control the U.S. Senate, 51 to 49. There are 33 GOP governors, and their party controls 32 legislatures.

Just so were clear, I have a dog in this fight to the extent that I feel gridlock is our friend; if I had my druthers, the Democrats would win control of the Senate, and the Republicans would retain the House. Thats my preference because (by Article I, Section 2) the House has the sole power of impeachment, and impeachment (regardless of the outcome of the Senate trial), at least on my reading of the current, publicly available evidence, isnt worth tearing the country apart for, which it would assuredly do.[2] Unfortunately for me, the electoral map makes it more likely than not that the Republicans will retain the Senate, while the House really does seem to be in play. (Here is a prediction that the Democrats will win the House with around 40 seats; here is a scenario of how the Republicans will retain their hold on it.)

Thus, Ill scope the worksheet to cover only the House races (at least for now). But I can hardly cover all 435 House seats, so I need to limit my scope further; the obvious way to do that is to focus only on the seats the Democrats are likely to win. Readers know I have a weakness for old-time handicappers like Charles Cook or Stuart Rothenberg (and even, Lord help me, old-time operatives like Frank Luntz or Peggy Noonan, but thats another story). At least I know where I am with the bourbon and cigars crowd, so I can try apply a proper discount to their projections (and their guesswork, and their intuitions). So Im going to take a portion of the table developed by Rothenbergs Inside Elections (here is the February 28, 2018 version) as my starting point, rework it, and then adapt as I go along. Here is the portion of that table for toss-ups, seats that tilt and lean Democrat, and seats that are likely Democrat (leaving out all the safe seats).

Table 1: Worksheet on House Races, Election 2018 (2018-03-05).

State District Party Status Incumbent Status

AZ 1 D

OHalleran Tilt D

AZ 2 R Open McSally Tilt D

CA 7 D

Bera Likely D

CA 39 R Open Royce Toss-Up

CA 49 R Open Issa Toss-Up

FL 7 D

Murphy Lean D

FL 13 D

Crist Likely D

FL 27 R Open Ros-Lehtinen Lean D

MN 1 D Open Walz Toss-Up

MN 2 R

Lewis Toss-Up

MN 7 D

Peterson Lean D

MN 8 D Open Nolan Toss-Up

NH 1 D Open Shea-Porter Tilt D

NJ 2 R Open LoBiondo Toss-Up NJ 5 D

Gottheimer Tilt D

NJ 11 R Open Frelinghuysen Toss-Up NV 3 D Open Rosen Tilt D

NV 4 D Open Kihuen Likely D

PA 5 R Open Meehan Likely D

PA 6 R

Costello Tilt D

PA 7 R Open Dent Tilt D

PA 8 D

Cartwright Likely D TX 23 R

Hurd Toss-Up

VA 10 R

Comstock Toss-Up WA 8 R Open Reichert Toss-Up TOTAL







25



Toss-ups: 10; Tilt D: 7; Lean D: 3; Likely D: 5

Note that the races to watch are in Pennsylvania[3] and Minnesota (4 seats), California, Florida, and New Jersey (3 seats), and then Arizona and Nevada (2 seats), trailed by New Hampshire, Texas, Virginia, and Washington (1 seat each). Of course, as we know even from comparing West Virginia (say) and Oklahoma, political cultures and establishments differ significantly across and between states.

Now, the table as it stands has very little explanatory power. However, with scope limited to a manageable degree (only 25 races, give or take over time) I can add columns. Columns to add might include:

Primary challengers (illuminating intersections between DCCC/Blue Dog candidates, Sanders-inflected insurgents, etc.[4]) Whether the district flippped from Obama to Trump Dominant industries in the districts (to see if we can do any reverse engineering of Thomas Fergusons industrial structures, especially with respect to dark money) Donors, television and social media campaigns Demographic and social characteristics of the districts Strengths and weaknesses of the candidates

And of course, as we go along, we can add and subtract candidates, change seats from Tilt to Likely, etc.

So this is quite a program of research, but given that Ive scoped it properly and can plug away at it with periodic new releases (much as in 2016) we should have a reasonably nuanced view of the 2018 elections as we go along and fill out new columns. Readers, you can help in two ways. First, suggest areas for additional (and properly scoped) research. Second, if you live in any of these 25 districts, please share your views of the race from the rough ground. Thank you!

NOTES

[1] For example, when polling becomes a sort of performative speech, we really are in trouble, arent we?

[2] Assuming House Speaker Pelosi doesnt betray her base, as she did in the last Democrat wave election, 2006, and with unseemly haste, too.

[3] Hence Trumps recent fixation on steel?

[4] I do not know whether, in general, insurgents are challenging Blue Dogs, especially incumbents, or not.A Do Not Drink warning has been issued for the Fethard Public Water supply.

Irish Water warn that boiling the water, or using a domestic water filter, will NOT make it suitable to drink.

The warning was issued this evening (Monday) shortly after it emerged that a river in Mullinahone may be contaminated with kerosene.

Irish Water say that due to hydrocarbon contamination of the source supplying the Fethard Public Water Supply, Irish Water and Tipperary County Council, in consultation with the HSE, have issued a Do Not Drink notice for customers supplied by this scheme.

Areas affected include Fethard, Killenaule, Gortnahoe, Ballysloe, Ballynonty, Moyglass, Mullinahone, Drangan, Glengoole, Cloneen, Ballinure, Killusty and surrounding areas.

This water should not be used for

 drinking,

 drinks made with water,

 food preparation, washing or cooking of food,

 brushing of teeth, or

 making of ice.

In particular, pregnant women should not drink this water.

This water should not be used for making up infant formula for bottled fed infants. An alternative source of water should be used.

Bottled water can also be used to make up infant formula. All bottled water, with the exception of natural mineral water, is regulated to the same standard as drinking water.

It is best not to use bottled water labelled as Natural Mineral Water as it can have high levels of sodium (salt) and other minerals, although it rarely does. Natural Mineral Water can be used if no other water is available, for as short a time as possible, as it is important to keep babies hydrated.

If bottled water is used to make up infant formula it should be boiled once (rolling boil for 1 minute), and cooled in the normal way.

The water can be used for personal hygiene, bathing, flushing toilets, laundry and washing of utensils, however, if you are experiencing skin irritation you may wish to avoid using water for showering or bathing or washing clothes.

Domestic water filters will not render water safe to drink.

Caution should be taken when bathing children to ensure that they do not swallow the bathing water.

Discard ice cubes in fridges and freezers and filtered water in fridges.

Please note that boiling the water will not be sufficient to make it suitable to drink..

Water tankers will be provided to assist customers in these areas. Details of the locations of these tankers will be available on the Service and Supply Section of the Irish Water website at www.water.ie/water-supply/supply-and-service-update/

Irish Water is working with Tipperary County Council, the HSE and other relevant bodies to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. Our priority at this time is to safeguard public drinking water supplies and public health. Production at the plant has ceased until the issue has been resolved and it may be a number of days before a full supply is restored. We will continue to keep the public informed on the progress of this work.

Irish Water and Tipperary County Council apologise for the inconvenience caused as a result of this incident and wish to assure customers that we are making every effort to restore supply as quickly as possible once it is safe to do so.

Should customers have any concerns or queries, they should contact Irish Waters 24/7 customer care line at 1850 278 278.The NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg is currently visiting the Republic of Iraq.

In Besmaya, Mr. Stoltenberg will visit NATO's training facilities accompanied by the Base Commander Brigadier General Luis Cepeda Lucas. There he will engage with Canadian and Slovakian trainers, as well as Iraqi trainees, and witness counter-improvised explosive device, explosive ordnance disposal and de-mining training first-hand.

In Baghdad, the Secretary General will meet with Prime Minister, H.E. Mr. Haider al-Abadi and other high level officials. He will also engage with Commanding General, Combined Joint Task Force  Operation Inherent Resolve, Lt.-Gen. Paul E. Funk II, and senior Global Coalition commanders, as well as representatives from the United Nations, European Union, and Allied nations.

Media Advisory

13:15 (CET) Joint press conference with the Prime Minister  Official Palace

Still and video images of the visit will be available on the NATO website after the event.

Follow us on Twitter (@NATOPress and @jensstoltenberg)The NATO Secretary General, Mr. Jens Stoltenberg will visit the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan on Tuesday, 6 March 2018.

Mr. Stoltenberg will have meetings with His Majesty King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein of Jordan, the Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, H.E. Mr. Hani Al-Mulki and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, H.E. Mr. Ayman Safadi.

During his visit, the NATO Secretary General will also visit the King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (KASOTC) accompanied by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Jordanian Armed Forces, Lt-Gen. Mahmoud Freihat.

Still and video imagery of the meeting will be available after the event on the NATO website.

Follow us on Twitter (@NATOPress and @jensstoltenberg)Women make a difference in peace and security  including through science. Female scientists and experts provide their leadership and expertise and engage in knowledge-sharing and training initiatives through the NATO Science for Peace and Security (SPS) Programme in a number of fields in relation to todays security challenges. Discover some of these remarkable women.

To overcome stereotypes and prejudice, female leading scientists should take an active role in promoting science and careers in science, said Dr Ivana Capan from the Ruer Boskovic Institute in Zagreb, Croatia. But what is even more important, is to send a strong message to young girls, to not be afraid to go against the stereotypes, and to encourage them getting involved in science, technology, engineering and math from an early age.

Leading innovative research and development projects

Dr Capan is directing an international team of researchers from Australia, Croatia, Japan, Portugal and Slovenia who are engineering silicon carbide for enhanced border and port security. The aim of this cutting-edge project  known as e-SiCure  is to detect illicit trafficking of nuclear materials across borders using nuclear screening systems. Her leading role in this SPS project has also boosted Dr Capans career, who is on her way to become a professor.

Other tech-savvy women are leading innovative, security-related research and development projects for instance on cyber security. Prof. Dr Nazife Baykal is a specialist on communications and IT security and teaches mathematics and computer engineering at the Graduate School of Informatics, Middle East Technical University (METU) in Turkey. She instructed system and network administrators on network security, helping to build cyber defence capacity in Azerbaijan, Iraq, the Republic of Moldova and Montenegro. She provided participants with the expertise and technical knowledge to help increase the resilience of their national networks in the context of growing cyber threats.

Despite discouraging stereotypes, women in science achieve significant accomplishments every day, said Prof. Nazife Baykal. There is no doubt that the world needs female scientists enthusiastic contribution for an equitable, brilliant and constantly progressing future. We, as female scientists, have to encourage women all over the world to take action for a brilliant tomorrow.

Womens contribution to peace and security is not limited to the achievements of renowned scientists. Young female researchers, including PhDs and post-doctoral researchers, actively contribute to SPS multi-year research and development projects on topics such as sensors for the detection of harmful substances like chemical agents or explosives, forging international networks and empowering their peers.

At the Universite Libre de Bruxelles, Stefania Traettino is a young Belgian scientist working as part of an international team of researchers from Belgium, Italy, Japan and Spain on innovative methods for rapid skin wound healing. Stefania is responsible for creating human disposable skin or mucosa patches for immediate applications in case of emergency. These patches will provide fast relief to civilians and military personnel injured by chemical or physical agents destroying for example their skin or other surface tissues.

By working on the rapid wound healing project, I enhanced my knowledge and skills in the biomedical sector and enlarged my network in the scientific community by engaging with other young scientists from NATO partner countries, said Stefania Traettino. As a woman scientist, I am thankful to the NATO SPS Programme for giving me the opportunity to grow as a scientist and make a difference.

Working with women in partner countries

The contributions of female experts and scientists to SPS projects come not only from NATO nations but also from partner countries  and leave a practical and tangible security impact. Project director Mirnesa Softic from the Ministry of Security in Bosnia and Herzegovina  one of NATOs partner countries  is working to help improve emergency response and coordination in the Western Balkans. The objective is to customise and implement the Next Generation Incident Command System in these countries.

Working in civil emergency environment for a woman is challenging for many reasons, said Mirnesa Softic. You have to be committed, work very hard and be ready to face unexpected situations. Passion and love for our homeland obviously gives us a power which we are not even aware that we carry in ourselves. We can make a difference, we just have to believe in what we do.

This major project, which involves Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia* and the United States, enjoys high-level political and financial support from the US Department for Homeland Security, Science & Technology.

Supporting the Women, Peace and Security agenda

Over the years, many female scientists and researchers have contributed to the success of SPS Programme initiatives and benefitted from cooperation with the Programme, said Dr Antonio Missiroli, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges. SPS activities offer a platform for women to contribute to building peace and security at national, regional and international levels.

Beyond the active involvement of female scientists and young researchers in its activities, the SPS Programme also supports the Women, Peace and Security agenda, having launched 13 projects in this area since 2013.

A number of gender-related projects include, for example, initiatives to provide a set of comprehensive indicators to evaluate how well the principles of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 are implemented as well as to map the integration of women within different countries armed forces.

Another project focused on how to handle gender-related complaints in the armed forces, resulting in a comprehensive handbook on how to prevent and respond to gender-related discrimination, harassment, bullying and abuse.

About the SPS Programme

The SPS Programme enhances practical, result-oriented cooperation involving scientists, experts and government officials from NATO member and partner countries alike. Activities are based on scientific research, technological innovation and knowledge exchange.On 1 & 2 March 2018, the NATO International Military Staff hosted the first official Military Committee Working Group (MCWG) on Strategic Communications (StratCom). The 29 Allied Nations were invited to attend and share their perspectives on StratCom. They received briefings from senior military and civilian experts from the NATO International Military Staff, the NATO Public Diplomacy Division, SHAPE and ACT as well from the Director of the StratCom Centre of Excellence and several Allied Nations. The Director General of the NATO International Military Staff (DGIMS), Lieutenant General Jan Broeks officially opened the meeting on 1st March.



Lieutenant General Jan Broeks, Director General of the NATO International Staff addressing the MCWG(StratCom)

Strategic Communications (StratCom) has in recent years taken on a more prominent role within the Alliance. With the changing security environment characterised by hybrid threats and technological developments, NATO and Allies have been implementing a coordinated and comprehensive approach to StratCom. The Military Committee Working Group (MCWG) is one of the latest developments in NATO StratCom. In recent years, NATO has seen the implementation of a NATO-wide Communications Strategy, the development of a NATO Brand Guide, the promulgation of StratCom Frameworks and more focused StratCom efforts regarding NATOs operations, missions and activities. Nations have also seen the creation in January 2014 of the NATO StratCom Centre of Excellence, in Riga, which provides comprehensive analyses, timely advice and practical support to the Alliance in the field of StratCom.

More specifically, the MCWG will provide expertise, working capacity and advice on NATO StratCom to the NATO Military Committee and will be an interactive forum for Allies to help shape NATOs direction and guidance on StratCom. StratCom is an essential effort that supports effective deterrence of our adversaries and promotes the understanding of military actions by our populations and the populations in theatre, highlighted Lieutenant General Jan Broeks, Director General of the NATO International Military Staff.



Group photo: Lieutenant General Jan Broeks, Director General of the NATO International Staff (Centre) and participants of the MCWG(StratCom)

Over the course of the meeting, participants received updates on the StratCom capabilities, i.e. Military Public Affairs (Mil PA), Information Operations (InfoOps) and Psychological Operations (PsyOps) as well as ongoing work strands such as Information Environment Assessment, enhanced Forward Presence and StratCom training and education opportunities.

Lieutenant General Jan Broeks concluded his address by stressing the requirement for a StratCom mind-set and strategic thinking, we need to instil a mind-set whereby StratCom is the baseline consideration of all our activities rather than an afterthought.(Natural News) Massachusetts researchers have invented the first of a new breed of thermoelectric devices, reported Science Daily. Dubbed the thermal resonator, it can generate electricity from its surroundings on a 24/7 basis for years.

Thermoelectric devices convert heat from sunlight into electricity. A thermal resonator, on the other hand, taps the regular shifts in temperature that take place throughout the day to produce modest amounts of power.

Its something that can sit on a desk and generate energy out of what seems like nothing, explained Michael Strano, a chemical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

We are surrounded by temperature fluctuations of all different frequencies all of the time. These are an untapped source of energy, he explained.

The 10-man research team published their findings in the journal Nature Communications. Their study was partly funded by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

Thermal effusivity is key

The thermal resonator incorporates materials with high thermal effusivity. This relatively unknown property describes the ability of a material to absorb heat from its surroundings or release it.

Materials with high thermal effusivity are rare because they combine two opposed properties: Thermal conductivity (the speed at which heat can move through a medium) and thermal capacity (the amount of heat that can be stored inside a medium).

To get around this problem, MIT team developed a metallic foam coated with graphene and infused with octadecane wax. The metals and graphene are thermal conductors, while octadecane has high thermal capacity.

The thermal effusive foam keeps heat moving from one side of the thermal resonator to the other. Conventional thermoelectrics can harness this steady movement of heat.

A test sample of the foam could power tiny environmental sensors or simple communication systems using the 50-degree-Farenheit shift in temperature as day turns into night and vice versa.

Initial testing used ambient air temperature. But the researchers believe their thermal effusive foam could draw heat from other sources such as industrial machinery or the motors of a refrigerator.

Were surrounded by temperature variations and fluctuations, but they havent been well-characterized in the environment, Strano explained. This is partly because there was no known way to harness them.

Interest in thermal cycles for power generation have led to the development of pyroelectric devices and other methods. But the MIT researchers claimed their thermal resonator is the first system that can use specific periods of temperature variations. (Related: Renewable makeover: Michigan farmers switching from tobacco to solar arrays.)

Power for years on end

According to researcher Anton Cottrill, temperature variations are untapped energy that can complement other energy sources in a hybrid system that needs redundant power supplies.

The KAUST funded the MIT study with the intention that thermal resonators could one day help power sensor networks for oil and gas drilling fields.

They want orthogonal energy sources, Cottrill explained. If one part fails, youll have this additional mechanism to give power, even if its just enough to send out an emergency message.

Because the thermal resonator doesnt rely on sunlight for heat, it can provide power despite cloud cover, strong winds, sandstorms, and other environmental conditions. It can also work in tandem with a photoelectric device. Placed underneath a solar panel, the thermal resonator can absorb waste heat from its partner device, which raises overall efficiency.

Co-author Volodymyr Koman imagined thermal resonators could serve as long-lasting power sources for landers and rovers that get sent to remote environments like the bottom of the sea, the surface of the Moon, or other planets. He theorizes local materials could be mined to build new resonators as needed.

Keep an eye on ever-advancing scientific progress at FutureScienceNews.com.

Sources include:

ScienceDaily.com

Nature.com(Natural News) Hundreds of long-time Michigan residents have been forced to abandon their residences, businesses, and schools due to the prevalence of pernicious air pollution in those areas, reported The Detroit News.

Forced to stay in hotels and other temporary residences until the state and federal authorities finish cleaning up the source of toxic fumes, the refugees are wondering if it will ever be safe to come back, much less stay again.

For decades, they lived blissfully unaware of their proximity to Superfund sites, land so overrun by various forms of pollution that the Environmental Protection Agency needed to assist state decontamination efforts.

They only found out about their dangerous situation starting in May 2016, when clean-up workers hustled them out of the buildings. Evacuations continued as late as August 2017. The largest number of evacuees (224) came from the Vistas Nuevas Head Start preschool.

The primary culprit for the mass exodus are trichloroethylene (TCE) vapors. A key ingredient in metal degreasing agents, large doses of evaporated TCE have been proven to damage nervous systems and cause cancer.

Industrial chemicals like TCE are persistent pollutants that remain in the ground or water long after their initial introduction. Dangerous levels of vapor intrusion have been detected in apartments, homes, nonprofit locations. and a preschool in the Michigan cities of Detroit, Grand Rapids and Sturgis.

Owners and tenants were forced to leave the contaminated buildings, often on short notice. Many of those sites remained closed until further notice. (Related: New legal defense: The air pollution made me do it researchers say it triggers unethical behaviors.)

A significant public health threat

Director Heidi Grether of the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) warned state lawmakers about the significant public health threat posed by more than 4,200 potential vapor intrusion sites found in the state.

The DEQ confirmed 3,005 vapor intrusion sites across Michigan. More than 40 percent of the listed locations are in Metro Detroit, with the city of Detroit itself containing 362 sites (12 percent of the sites on the DEQ list).

The remaining 1,200-plus sites are the likeliest candidates out of an estimated 6,300 underground storage tanks that have sprung leaks.

To make matters worse, state environmental officials are seriously short on staff and funds. The DEQ must fight toxic vapor intrusion on a $2.6 million budget.

State regulators are forced to depend on reports from the owners of affected properties, complaints filed by neighbors, environmental assessments for new construction projects, or federally-mandated reviews.

Director Grether and Deputy Director Michael McClellan doubted theyll be able to test all 4,200 contaminated sites.

Vapor intrusion is just one of the many environmental problems plaguing Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder explained in an interview. Its not even the biggest one; that dubious honor goes to the far more famous per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contaminants.

Too little, too late?

Vapor intrusion wasnt considered a threat to human health until 2015, when new federal guidelines prompted the EPA to mandate testing for it. Environmental regulators realized that vapor levels they previously dismissed as harmless were the exact opposite.

Exposure to TCE, for instance, didnt just increase the risks of cancer and brain damage. Health experts believe its also linked to serious lung diseases.

The first evacuations related to vapor intrusion have been tracked to May 2016, when the Michigan health department evacuated 33 people from four buildings in Grand Rapids. But the pollution problems preceded that reaction by decades.

Sturgis, for example, was considered a national priority by the EPA in 1984. A Department of Health and Human Services Report in 1993 recommended air sampling near an underground plume.

The sampling only took place 23 years later, as Michigans Health and Human Services Department evacuated three Sturgis homes in 2016 and 2017.

Worried about chemical contaminants? Stay forewarned at Chemicals.News.

Sources include:

DetroitNews.com

EPA.gov(Natural News) Over the years, Natural News has drawn attention to certain environmental factors that are having a profound gender-bending effect on both human and animal life. But dont for a second think that this onslaught is an unintended consequence of big industry; as new reports suggest, that this was all pre-planned as a way for Big Pharma to rake in more profits.

Much of it is tied into the push for acceptance and normalization of transgenderism, which New York-based feminist Jenifer Bilek admits is a conspiracy, of sorts, to funnel money towards certain special interests groups. Among these are drug companies that supply hormones and other chemical concoctions that aid the process of gender conversion, as well as surgery companies and other key players in the healthcare industry.

More than $400 million, she says, has been given by donors and business groups to promote the transgender agenda, which really gained traction during the latter years of the Obama regime. Pro-transgender funding isnt often talked about, but its speaking volumes in the background, greasing the wheels of more profit flow for those also pushing more drugs and surgery for profit on the masses.

This is why questioning gender-trumps-biology dogma has almost become a prosecutable offense in politically-correct America, where stating facts about human nature is no longer accepted. Its also why those in charge of the narrative are pushing so hard for anything-goes bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms, as normalization of such perversion is the key to ensuring that Big Pharma obtains the profits it so desperately craves.

These men and others, including pharmaceutical companies and the U.S. government, are sending millions of dollars to LGBT causes, Bilek writes, noting that many doctors, reporters, researchers, and surgeons are too afraid to stand against this evil agenda.

Overall reported global spending on LGBT is now estimated at $424 million, she adds. From 2003-2013, reported funding for transgender issues increased more than eightfold, growing at threefold the increase of LGBTQ funding overall, which quadrupled from 2003 to 2012. This huge spike in funding happened at the same time transgenderism began gaining traction in American culture.

Victims of transgender programming receive little, or none, of this money

Whats perhaps even more disturbing are the victims of this evil campaign whove succumbed to the programming and undergone surgeries or hormone therapies in a futile attempt to change their genders. The LGBT mafia loves to pretend as though it raises funds to help these people, but as Bilek reports, very little  if any  of this money ends up in a place where it helps LGBT victims.

Virtually all of it, she says, goes towards government agencies, technology think tanks, and pharmaceutical corporations that are pushing an agenda. And that agenda is to institutionalize and normalize transgenderism as a lifestyle choice, as Bilek puts it.

They are shaping the narrative about transgenderism and normalizing it within the culture using their funding methods, she points out.

[Promoting] Bodily diversity appears to be the core issue, not [treating] gender dysphoria; that and unmooring people from their biology via language distortions, to normalize altering human biology. Institutionalizing transgender ideology does just this. This ideology is being promoted as a civil rights issue by wealthy, white men with enormous influence who stand to personally benefit from their political activities.

This is important to keep in mind the next time somebody tries to tell you that transgenderism is normal, and that the mass coming out of people in recent years is just an organic outpouring of people believing they finally have the freedom to be themselves. In reality, these people have been brainwashed by a massive social engineering experiment that, likes most other things in life, is being driven by greed and Big Pharma money-lust.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

NaturalNews.comLos Angeles police and private investigators continued to search Saturday for an aspiring 25-year-old model from Macedonia who went missing in Hollywood.

Adea Shabani last was seen about 11 a.m. Feb. 23, near the 1700 block of Wilcox Avenue, between Hollywood Boulevard and Franklin Avenue, not far from her home, police said.

She has not been seen or heard from and her family is concerned for her safety, according to the LAPD.

Police continued to search the Hollywood area for Shabani, Officer Luis Garcia of Los Angeles Police Department Media Relations said. Her family has hired private investigator Jayden Brant to help find her. He told City News Service his investigators are actively searching.

Shabani is described as white, 5 feet 5 inches tall, about 130 pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes.

Anyone with information regarding her whereabouts was urged to call the LAPD's Missing Persons Unit at 213-996-1800.

During non-business hours, calls should be directed to 877-LAPD-24-7. Anonymous tips can be submitted through Crime Stoppers by calling 800-222-TIPS.The Alameda County District Attorney's Office on Friday filed criminal charges against a 57-year-old man who is accused in the 1986 killings of two women in Fremont, police announced Monday.

David Emery Misch is accused of killing 18-year-old Michelle Xavier and 20-year-old Jennifer Duey back in February of 1986, according to police. Both women were found dead along Mill Creek Road about one mile east of Mission Boulevard.

"The Department is grateful to be able to provide this level of closure and consolation to the victims and our community," Fremont Police Department Chief Richard Lucero said in a statement. "Generations of investigators have carried this case and the interest of the families has never faded from their priority over time."



Misch is currently behind bars serving an 18-years-to-life sentence for a homicide that occurred in Alameda County in 1989, according to police. He will now be removed from his current location and taken to the Santa Rita Jail.

Misch is slated to be arraigned later this week, police said.

The families of the victims released the following statement, according to the police department:

The Xavier and Duey families wish to thank the Fremont Police Department and all of the officers and detectives who worked countless hours during the past 32 years on our daughters case. We have been in constant contact with them, so we know how deeply they care and how hard they work. We wish to extend our appreciation to our many friends in the community who supported us, stood by us, and prayed for us during those most difficult years. Numerous unexpected acts of kindness sustained us. We now wait for justice and hope you will continue to keep us in your thoughts and prayers.In a shocking development, the Carsons location in Matteson closed abruptly on Sunday, without any warning to employees or to village officials.

Carsons has been a fixture in Matteson for more than 40 years, but as employees and customers showed up to the store, they were greeted with signs saying the store was closed.

Being a good corporate citizen means taking care of your people, State Senator Michael Hastings said. Rolling into town at 7 a.m. and informing everyone that theyre going to be let go is not being a good corporate citizen.

A Carsons department store in Matteson closed abruptly on Sunday, leaving officials furious and employees out of work. NBC 5s Chris Hush has the details.

In a letter to employees, the company explained that it was a difficult decision to close the location.

After further analysis of our Matteson store with our assistance of our real estate team and financial advisors, senior management made the difficult decision to close the location, the company said.

Carsons had announced dozens of closures last year, but the Matteson location was not on the list of impacted stores.

According to village officials, the closure of the store will cost the area around $800,000 in revenue.

Toys R Us is beginning liquidation sales in Matteson, the third retailer to close in the village this year. NBC 5s Lauren Petty has more.

Sundays announcement came as a shock to customers and village officials, who criticized the company for closing on such short notice.

I am very concerned about the lack of notification to our village administration, Matteson Village President Sheila Chalmers-Currin said.

Employees were told that they could apply or be transferred to other nearby stores, with the closest locations in Hammond, Indiana and in Orland Park.

The Carsons closing is just the latest retail blow to the city, as the Toys R Us location in town will also be closing this year.Police say that three people, including two children, were shot in the 4900 block of West Rice on Sunday evening.

The victims were standing on a sidewalk just after 7 p.m. when they heard gunshots and felt pain, according to police.

A 13-year-old girl was shot in the upper leg, while a 13-year-old boy was shot in the left ankle. A 26-year-old woman was also shot in the upper thigh, and all three victims were taken to Stroger Hospital in stable condition, according to authorities.

The shootings were part of a weekend of gun violence in Chicago that saw one person killed and at least nine wounded.

The citys first fatal shooting occurred on Sunday morning in the 13200 block of South Riverdale, according to police. An unidentified man between the ages of 30 and 35 years old was found sitting in a vehicle with a gunshot wound to his head.

Authorities pronounced the man dead at the scene, and are still investigating.

Friday:

An 18-year-old was walking down a street in the 5000 block of North Keystone just before 5 p.m. when an SUV pulled up and an occupant fired shots. He was struck in the shoulder and was taken to Illinois Masonic Hospital in critical condition.

Saturday:

A 29-year-old man was shot in the arm and leg just before 4 a.m in the 6200 block of South Karlov, police said. He was taken to Holy Cross Hospital in good condition.

Two people were shot at approximately 1:23 p.m. in the 7200 block of South Merrill as they tried to buy a cellphone from someone they met via an online app, according to police. During the sale, multiple offenders tried to rob the duo, and one of them pulled out a gun and fired shots. A 19-year-old man was shot in the hip and was taken to Northwestern Hospital in unknown condition. A 39-year-old man was shot in the hand and was taken to Trinity Hospital in good condition.

Sunday:

At approximately 1:15 a.m., a 36-year-old man was sitting in a car in the 2500 block of West Chicago when another vehicle approached and an occupant fired shots at him. He was struck once in the leg, and he was taken to Norwegian Hospital in good condition.

A 25-year-old man was standing in the 2900 block of North Kedzie at approximately 2:30 a.m. when he was shot three times, police said. The man was taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition with three gunshot wounds to his leg.At the stroke of noon on Sunday, Indiana residents were able to do something that they couldnt do for 200 years.

For more than two centuries, Indiana residents were unable to purchase liquor on Sundays, but that policy came to an end this weekend as a new law took effect.

Ive never bought beer on Sundays, (but) man Im happy, Indiana resident Bill Wolfe said as he purchased a six-pack.

On Wednesday, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed a historic law lifting the Sunday sales ban, and residents in the state can now purchase alcohol between noon and 8 p.m.

I think its a great idea that they started letting people do what they want to do when they want to do it, resident Toni Calvin said.

People will be able to legally buy carryout alcohol from Indiana stores on a Sunday for the first time in living memory starting this weekend.

The new law brings Indiana in line with about 40 other states that no longer require dry Sundays, but not all retailers took advantage of the bill, as some stores remained closed.

However, a good number of places, including Briar East Liquors in Hammond, decided late last night to open their doors on a Sunday for the first time ever.

Its been pretty good. Weve probably done about 60 people in a couple of hours, employee Kim Andres said.Police searching for a Kentucky man who was reported missing Saturday during a recent trip to Chicago say that he has been located.

Polie say that 31-year-old Samuel Malone, who was on a weekend trip to the city when he went missing from the South Side, was found Sunday, but no further information was provided.In a remarkably public confrontation, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other Republican allies of President Donald Trump pleaded with him Monday to back away from his threatened international tariffs, which they fear could spark a dangerous trade war. Trump retorted: "We're not backing down."

The president said U.S. neighbors Canada and Mexico would not be spared from his plans for special import taxes on steel and aluminum, but he held out the possibility of later exempting the longstanding friends if they agree to better terms for the U.S. in talks aimed at revising the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"We've had a very bad deal with Mexico; we've had a very bad deal with Canada. It's called NAFTA," he declared.

Trump spoke shortly after a spokeswoman for Ryan, a Trump ally, said the GOP leader was "extremely worried" that the proposed tariffs would set off a trade war and urged the White House "to not advance with this plan."

Likewise, Republican leaders of the House Ways and Means Committee circulated a letter opposing Trump's plan, and GOP congressional leaders suggested they may attempt to prevent the tariffs if the president moves forward.

Trump's pledge to implement tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum imports has roiled financial markets, angered foreign allies and created unusual alliances for a president who blasted unfavorable trade deals during his 2016 campaign. Union leaders and Democratic lawmakers from Rust Belt states have praised the planned tariffs, joining with advocates within the administration including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.

But the president has been opposed internally by Defense Secretary James Mattis and White House economic adviser Gary Cohn, who warned against penalizing U.S. allies and undercutting the economic benefits of the president's sweeping tax overhaul.

Likewise, the statement from Ryan's office said, "The new tax reform law has boosted the economy, and we certainly don't want to jeopardize those gains."

Asked about that public rebuke, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "Look, we have a great relationship with Speaker Ryan. We're going to continue to have one, but that doesn't mean we have to agree on everything."

Canada is the United States' No. 1 foreign supplier of both steel and aluminum. Mexico is the No. 4 supplier of steel and No. 7 for aluminum.

Congressional Republicans say any tariffs should be narrow in scope, and they privately warned that Trump's effort could hurt the party's hopes to preserve its majority in the fall elections.

As the president dug in on his position, any potential compromise with foreign trading partners and Republican lawmakers was expected to still include some form of tariffs.

"Trump is not someone who retreats," said Stephen Moore, an economist with the conservative Heritage Foundation and a former campaign adviser. "He's going to need to be able to declare some victory here."

The tariffs will be made official in the next two weeks, White House officials said.

"Twenty-five percent on steel, and the 10 percent on aluminum, no country exclusions  firm line in the sand," said Navarro, speaking on "Fox and Friends."

Republican critics on Capitol Hill and within the administration argue that industries and their workers that rely on steel and aluminum for their products will suffer. The cost of new appliances, cars and buildings will rise for Americans if the president follows through, they warn, and other nations could retaliate.

Two dozen conservative groups, including the Club for Growth, FreedomWorks and the National Taxpayers Union, urged Trump to reconsider, writing in a letter that the tariffs would be "a tax on the middle class with everything from cars to baseball bats to even beer."

The Trade Partnership, a consulting firm, said the tariffs would increase U.S. employment in the steel and aluminum sector by about 33,000 jobs but would cost 179,000 jobs in the rest of the economy.

The end result could erode the president's base of support with rural America and even the blue-collar workers the president says he's trying to help.

"These are people that voted for him and supported him in these auto-producing states," said Cody Lusk, president of the American International Automobile Dealers Association. Lusk noted that of the 16 states with auto plants, Trump won all but two.

The administration has argued the tariffs are necessary to preserve the American aluminum and steel industries and protect national security. But Trump's comments and tweets early Monday suggested he was also using them as leverage in the current talks to revise NAFTA. The latest round of a nearly yearlong renegotiation effort is concluding this week in Mexico City.

At those talks, U.S Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Monday that progress has been less than many had hoped and "our time is running short."

"I fear the longer we proceed, the more political headwinds we will feel," he said. And he added that if three-way negotiations don't work, "we are prepared to move on a bilateral basis."

More upbeat about progress until now, Dan Ujczo, a trade attorney with Dickinson Wright PLLC in Columbus, Ohio, said, "We were moving toward the finish line in NAFTA." But he added, "This has the potential to throw the NAFTA talks off track."

He said neither Canada nor Mexico will want to be seen as giving in to U.S. pressure. Indeed, he said, Canada is probably already drawing up lists of U.S. products to tax in retaliation.

Separately, Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo tweeted: "Mexico shouldn't be included in steel & aluminum tariffs. It's the wrong way to incentivize the creation of a new & modern #NAFTA."

The president opened the door to exempting Canada and Mexico from the tariffs, saying, "That would be, I would imagine, one of the points that we'll negotiate." But he added, "If they aren't going to make a fair NAFTA deal, we're just going to leave it this way."

Trump has long threatened to pull out of the 24-year-old trade pact if it can't be overhauled and encourage manufacturers to bring factory jobs back the United States.

But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called the tariff plan "absolutely unacceptable."

Trudeau's office said he "registered his serious concern" about the tariffs in a conversation with Trump Monday, saying they "would not be helpful to reaching a deal on NAFTA."

And overseas, Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, said the European Union could respond by taxing American goods including bourbon, blue jeans and Harley Davidson motorcycles.

Trump threatened to tax European cars if the EU boosts tariffs on American products in response to his plan.

"If they want to do something, we'll just tax their cars that they send in here like water," Trump has said, lamenting European "trade barriers that are worse than tariffs."

For congressional leaders, those products hit close to home. The iconic motorcycles are produced in Ryan's home state of Wisconsin, and Kentucky, the home of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, is well-known for its bourbon.

Associated Press writers Paul Wiseman, Josh Boak, Zeke Miller and Kevin Freking in Washington and Mark Stevenson and Peter Orsi in Mexico City contributed to this report.There will be extra security and a police presence at Coginchaug Regional High School in Durham and other Regional District 13 schools after a student was charged with making threatening posts on social media.

State police said they started receiving calls about a concerning Instagram post Thursday. According to police, the post referenced the Florida school shooter and mentioned possible violence at Coginchaug High School.

Investigators traced the post back to a juvenile student, who admitted to making the post. He also told police he never planned to follow through on the threat.

On Friday, police were informed of another Instagram post, this was with a harassing message directed at a school employee. According to police, investigators identified the poster as the same student who made the previous post about violence.

The student was charged with second-degree threatening and breach of peace for the first incident, and second-degree harassment and breach of peace in the second incident. He is due on court on March 7.

In a message to the school community, Superintendent Kathryn Veronesi said the student would not be allowed back on school grounds for the time being.

I have had consistent communication with the students family since Thursday evening, Veronesi wrote. The family is deeply saddened by the events that have occurred and are distraught about the impact this has had on other students and the school community. They have assured me that their child does not currently, nor has ever had, access to firearms. In addition, they further confirmed that their child did not intend to carry out any acts of violence.

Police will be at Coginchaug High throughout the day Monday, and troopers will make visits at the districts four other schools throughout the day.

To read the full message from the superintendent, click here.

Coginchaug reported a similar incident last month. In that case, a student was charged with breach of peace.ICE is not enforcing the removal of a mother in Meriden who was supposed to be deported to Ecuador last week.

Nelly Cumbicos has lived in the United States for the last 18 years, most recently in Meriden.

She married a U.S. citizen in 2015 and applied for citizenship two years later. That is when she learned there had been a deportation order for her since 2002 for failure to appear in court. She said she was not aware of the court date she was supposed to appear for.

"Nelly Cumbicos is not at risk of being detained as ICE will not set a new departure date while her motion to reopen her case is pending," Meriden Councilman Miguel Castro said. "I am excited that this is a good step in the right direction. While she is safe for now, it does not mean this is over. We will continue to put in every effort that she gets due process and she can remain home where she belongs."

Two weeks ago, Cumbicos received a stay as a court reviewed her immigration status. Days later, she was told her stay had been reversed and she was due to be deported on Feb. 28.

Speaking in Spanish on Mar. 1, she said she left Ecuador after her family received threats there and her whole family, including her sister Flor, lives in the U.S.State legislators are hearing a bill that could change up Halloween celebrations by designating the last Saturday of October as "Trick or Treat Day."

It would allow all municipalities in the state of Connecticut to observe Halloween on a Saturday, instead of whenever October 31 falls each year.

Some parents in Durham said they thought it was a great idea and would be less stressful than observing Halloween on a school night.

It makes life easier for parents I think to get kids ready, to send them off to school and then they dont have to worry about waking up so early in the morning, including myself, said Bonnie Sirignano of Killingworth.

I think it might actually be easier for parents who during the week run home trying to get dinner on the table, the young kids are knocking at the door. It might not be a bad idea, said Kathy Nizen of Durham.

Others said a Saturday could be a safer option.

School nights make it difficult, with the time change it is dark. So a Saturday night does probably make more sense, said Debbie George, Durham.

But other parents said they thought legislators should not even be hearing bills like this.

I dont think Halloween should be on the list much less up for discussion. Thats not where our concerns are right now as parents, said Oanh Stephan of Durham.

Oanh Stephan has children in elementary and high school. She said the priority should be on keeping children safe, especially at a time when students are making threats against schools, like recent incidents at Coginchaug Regional High School where her two sons attend.

Theyre dealing with a lot of stresses growing up. Now theyre dealing with weapons and being afraid for their lives. Thats just completely wrong, Stephan said. Lets you know, get our time cracking putting some laws together that make a difference in their lives.Connecticut State Police are trying to identify a suspect accused of robbing the Tolland Country Market at knifepoint Sunday.

Police said they responded to a 911 call from the store at 404 Merrow Road (Route 195) in Tolland around 9:30 p.m. The caller reported that he had been robbed at knifepoint by a man wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt, sunglasses, gloves and a bandana.

The suspect demanded cash and the clerk complied. No injuries were reported.

Police said the suspect fled on foot.

Anyone who recognizes the suspect pictured above should contact Connecticut State Police Troop C at 860-896-3236.Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin is calling on state leaders to end the National Rifle Associations role in Connecticuts firearms permitting process.

He said he sent a letter Monday to state legislative leaders and Gov. Dannel Malloy.

State statute directs Connecticut residents to go through basic safety training certified by the NRA and similar groups before obtaining a firearms permit, according to Bronin, and he said he wants to ensure that the state is not inadvertently legitimizing or supporting or endorsing the NRA in any way.

You are required to complete a handgun safety course, which must consist of no less than the NRA's "Basic Pistol Course," prior to submitting the application. The NRA's "Home Firearms Safety Course" and "First Steps Pistol Orientation Program" are not approved courses, the guidelines on the state Department of Emergency Services and Public protection website say.

Hartford knows the tragedy of gun violence all too well, and its unacceptable that Connecticut law legitimizes the NRA  and effectively requires residents to support the NRA  even as the NRA blocks common-sense gun safety laws at the national level, Bronin said in a statement. Without common sense gun laws at the national level, residents of the City of Hartford and of our state as a whole will continue to see guns from states with weaker gun laws used in crimes.

Bronin, who is exploring a run for governor, said in his statement that the leadership of the NRA serves as lobbyists for the gun industry and the NRA is the single biggest obstacle to common-sense reforms.

NBC Connecticut has reached out to the NRA for comment about Bronin's proposal.

No organization in the world does more to promote the safe and responsible use of firearms than the NRA. The NRAs Basics of Pistol Shooting course is the best training available for anyone seeking to carry a concealed firearm for self-protection. By eliminating the NRA training and standards for Connecticuts permit holders, Mayor Bronin is putting politics above the safety of Connecticut citizens, Catherine Mortensen, NRA ILA spokesperson, said in a statement.



On Tuesday, Bronin issued another statement in response to the statement from the NRA.

If the NRA had its way, there wouldnt even be a permitting process in Connecticut. This is an organization that opposes permitting and universal background checks and would leave guns in the hands of domestic abusers. The idea that the NRA is an organization focused on gun safety is laughable. The NRAs main mission is to oppose common-sense gun laws and to threaten anyone who challenges the NRA agenda, Bronin said in a statement.What to Know Natural gas service stored Monday to 140 homes: Atmos

120 construction crews continue to work 24/7 on repairs

Atmos offering hotels & financial assistance to eligible residents

More than 100 Atmos Energy crews continue to repair gas lines in Northwest Dallas weeks after a 12-year-old girl was killed in a gas explosion at her home.

Over the last week, Patricia Vega and her four children have packed into her parents two bedroom apartment to wait out a mandatory evacuation.

Im wondering when we can go back to the apartments, especially for my kids, said Vega. They want their own toys. They know their routine, what time they go to sleep and now its different.

Vegas home at the Chapel Creek apartments on Hidalgo Drive has been off-limits since Feb. 26, when Atmos discovered a gas leak outside the complex. Firefighters told people in approximately 90 units that they had to leave.

Vega, with only minutes to evacuate, grabbed her kids school uniforms and has played the rest by ear.

You had to buy a lot of extra clothing or shoes, whatever you need for the kids. For me too, said Vega.

Sunday, Atmos Energy told NBC 5 it doesnt have information on when people at Chapel Creek can return home. The energy company said its continuing to provide hotel rooms and financial help during the evacuation and will cover rent for those who cant go back to their apartments.

The energy company has also warned residents of scam artists posing as Atmos agents.

Elsewhere in Northwest Dallas, crews continue to work on natural gas lines after 12 year old Linda Rogers was killed during an explosion at her home on Espanola Drive Feb. 23.

On Monday, Atmos said gas service has been restored to 140 homes that were evacuated prior to the March 1 planned outage. It remains unclear when repairs will be completed.



Last week, Atmos announced crews would spend up to three weeks replacing gas lines in a section of Northwest Dallas. Natural gas service to 2,800 customers would be shut off while the lines are replaced.

The area is bordered by Webb Chapel Road to the west, Walnut Hill Lane on the north edge, Lakemont Drive to the east, and W Northwest Highway along the southern border of the work zone. Most in this area do not have to evacuate, but Atmos says it will pay for hotel rooms if customers chose to leave. Some have chosen to stay home, others have gone to hotels because they dont have hot water or heat in their homes.

Atmos published a map on its website to allow people impacted by the natural gas outage to check back to see when service can be reconnected.

Atmos says residents can also call 972-964-4191. Information Centers set up at Bachman Recreation Center at 2750 Bachman Drive and Walnut Hill Recreation Center at 10011 Midway Road are open between 7 a.m. and 11 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Or, between 7 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Sunday.

Natural Gas Safety

Natural gas leaks are rare, but they can be deadly when they occur. Because of that, federal and state regulations require utility companies "odorize" natural gas so that it can be detected by people in normal circumstances. The smell added to natural gas is offensive, similar to that of a rotten egg.

The biggest threat of a natural gas leak is an explosion. The gas becomes extremely volatile when allowed to become concentrated in an enclosed area and a simple spark could cause a devastating explosion.

If You Think You Smell a Gas Leak

Atmos Energy recommends the following in the event you think you've detected a gas leak.

Leave the area immediately and tell other to leave, too.

Leave any doors open.

DO NOT turn on or off any electric switch; this could cause a spark, igniting the gas.

DO NOT use a cell phone, telephone, garage door opener, doorbell or even a flashlight.

DO NOT smoke, use a lighter or strike a match.

DO NOT start or stop a nearby vehicle or machinery.

DO NOT try to shut off a natural gas valve.

DO NOT assume someone else will report the leak. Once you're safely out of the area, call 911 and Atmos at 866-322-8667 to report the leak.

Gas leaks that occur outside the home are dangerous as well. Most gas lines are buried underground.

Before doing any digging, call 811 at least 48 hours before digging so that utility companies can mark where underground lines are buried in your yard. This service is free and it's the law.

Online: Atmos Energy: Recognizing a Gas LeakA North Texas auto dealership group is poised to become the first in Texas to offer a monthly subscription service for vehicles.

Park Place Dealerships will launch its subscription service Park Place Select on May 1. It will allow members access to one of three tiers of luxury vehicles, based on their needs and budget.

I believe that what you are seeing is you are seeing a dealership organization transform into a full-fledged transportation service, said Hesham Elgaghil, Vice President of Strategic Growth of Park Place Dealerships.

The monthly subscription fee will pay for an unlimited number of vehicle flips, insurance for the vehicles, any and all maintenance required for the vehicles, cleaning costs and a personal concierge.

The most intriguing thing it pays for is your own personal concierge. Somebody that says, 'I will drive to you when you need me to. I will deliver the product that is best for you and your family. I will pick up the vehicle that you have in your possession. I will return it. And, by the way, while I am there with your new product I will make sure you know everything about your new vehicle, all of your preferences are set, your garage door opener is set. So I'm here for you 24/7, Elgaghil said.

Park Place Select will offer three tiers; Prime, Plus and Premium. Each tier offers a different class of luxury vehicle, taken from the brands that Park Place offers at its 16 dealerships across North Texas.

Prime membership costs $895 a month and offers members access to the following vehicles: Mercedes-Benz C Class and GLC Class; Volvo S60; Lexus ES and IS; Jaguar XE; Land Rover Evoque and Discovery Sport.

Plus membership costs $1,395 a month and offers members access to the following vehicles: Mercedes-Benz E Class and GLE Class; Volvo XC90; Lexus, RS, GS and GX; Jaguar XF and F Pace; Land Rover Evoque Cabriolet; and Porsche Macan.

Premium membership costs $1,795 a month and offers members access to the following vehicles: Maserati Ghibli and Levante; Mercedes-Benz 43 and AMG models; Porsche Boxster and Cayenne; Land Rover Range Rover Sport and Velar.

In addition to the monthly fee, Park Place Select membership also requires a $750 one-time registration fee.

The dealership group believes Park Place Select could be a game-changer for it moving forward.

We can no longer just be an organization that has dealerships. So this is one way to begin to engage with clients in a new and unique way that enables us to transform our entire business, Elgaghil said.Immigrants living in the U.S. illegally will not automatically be registered to vote in California come April, despite online stories claiming that's the case.

At issue is a California law taking effect in April that will automatically register people to vote when they get a driver's license, an ID card, or update their address with the Department of Motor Vehicles. California allows immigrants living in the country illegally to obtain drivers licenses, leading some websites to falsely claim they'll be automatically signed up to vote.

California's new program has safeguards to ensure only U.S. citizens can go through the voter registration process. A DMV worker processing a drivers' license application for an undocumented immigrant, for example, will not be able to access the voter registration boxes, which will be greyed out.

"To be eligible, you have to be a U.S. citizen," said Jessica Gonzalez, a DMV spokeswoman.We are not exactly sure how it all started but socialite Huddah Monroe and flamboyant City lawyer Donald Kipkorir have a history.

The two apparent friends have had a good relationship that dates back to 2010 when the monied lawyer came to Huddahs rescue. As it turns out, the outspoken lawyer forked out a handsome Sh1 Million to have Huddahs teeth fixed.

She made the revelation over the weekend describing DBK as a God-sent angel.

Posting the revelation on Snap Chat, the petite beauty said her teeth had lowered her self-esteem as she could not afford a smile.

Huddah had lost four of her front teeth in a road accident when she was a kid. She stated that she had to endure years of torture and constant bullying from her peers because of her unattractive smile.

This is not the first time the two have made headlines. In 2016, Huddah caused quite the stir when she said she would be the first person to drive the lawyers brand new Range Rover.

My DREAMCAR.. Congratulations to my year in, year out Dear friend Donald Kipkorir. Great Lawyer, and The best life advisor one can have .. Ill be the first one to ride it before the owner .. . #Motivation #DBK007 #RangeRoverForLife, Wrote Huddah.

But Huddah was not the only one yearning for a ride in the Range Rover 2016 model. She faced competition from another of DBKs friends, Citizen TVs Lillian Muli.A former student was detained in connection with an unspecified threat that led a Southern California college to cancel Monday morning classes for the investigation.

A notice posted on the Cypress College websites said police received a report of possible violence on the campus. The threat came from a former student who was being questioned Monday morning, a school spokesperson said. The 24-year-old man was taken into custody in Pico Rivera, according to Whittier police.

He was detained for a mental health evaluation, according to Cypress police, who later said the threat was not credible.

The man's relatives reported the threat, received via text message, to authorities. The message indicated he planned shoot up a school, but it did not specify a campus, police said.

The relatives told police he last attended Cypress College. School officials then notified the school about the text message.

The college plans to conduct afternoon classes.

The two-year college in north Orange County enrolls about 15,500 students each semester.Gun store owners called it the "Trump slump." Sales of firearms slowed dramatically after the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016 allayed fears of a Democratic crackdown on gun owners.

That trend has continued in recent weeks even with talk of gun control in Congress and among business leaders following the Feb. 14 massacre of 17 people at a Florida high school.

In the past, gun massacres generally led to an uptick in sales as people worried about the government restricting access. But with Parkland, things are different.

"The day after the election, it's just like somebody turned a faucet off," said David Dobransky, 67, who owns Dobransky Firearms, a small gun shop in North Canton, Ohio. Since then, sales there have been cut in half, and nothing the president or Congress has done or said following the Florida shooting has improved business.

Gun owners apparently have faith that Trump won't impose more restrictions, gun show owners say. That's even with the confusing messages Trump has sent in the past week.

He has cast himself as a strong supporter of the National Rifle Association but on Wednesday criticized lawmakers for being too fearful of the NRA to take action. He also reaffirmed positions opposed by the NRA, such as banning gun sales to those under 21.

Then the next day, Trump met with NRA officials and tweeted they'd had a "Good (Great) meeting." The NRA's executive director, tweeting about the same meeting, said Trump and Vice President Mike Pence "don't want gun control."

At Rapid-Fire Firearms in Rapid City, South Dakota, business is "just like normal," owner Robert Akers said Thursday, contrasting business with the panic buying under President Barack Obama.

In an earnings conference call last week, American Outdoor Brands, which owns Smith & Wesson, said revenue fell by one-third over the past three months, consistent with a drop since Trump was elected.

Demand dropped in December and January, before the Florida shooting and the debates on gun laws that followed, he said. The company doesn't expect sales to improve much over the next year.

Sturm Ruger and American Outdoor Brands have both seen their stocks plunge since Trump was elected, as they have mostly reported disappointing sales in recent months. American Outdoor Brands has plunged 67 percent since the presidential election and Sturm Ruger is down 28 percent.

Potentially dampening sales further, four major retailers last week  Kroger, Dick's Sporting Goods, L.L. Bean and Walmart  announced they will no longer sell guns to anyone under 21.

In addition, outdoor retailer REI says it's halting future orders of some popular brands  including CamelBak water carriers, Giro helmets and Camp Chef stoves  whose parent company also makes ammunition and assault-style rifles.

Over the past 30 years, U.S. gun production has tripled. Nine million were produced in 2015, compared with 3 million in 1986, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Those figures don't reflect sales since Trump took office, bringing with him the perception he was friendlier to gun owners.

The U.S. also imports millions of guns annually.

At Duke's Sport Shop in New Castle, Pennsylvania, gun sales have gone up in recent days, but that's thanks to the annual infusion of tax refund checks, shop owner Wes Morosky said Thursday.

The family-owned business started by Morosky's father, Duke, has about 2,000 firearms in stock at any one time, including AR-15s, the assault-style rifle used in the Florida shooting and the main subject of new debate about an assault rifle ban.

After the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre, the store had a hard time keeping stock on shelves as fears arose that Obama would ban assault rifles through an executive order, Morosky said.

Today?

"Generally, people are still comfortable with the government that's intact right now," Morosky said.

On Friday morning, a few customers browsed shelves at L.E.P.D. Firearms & Range, a small gun shop on the northwest side of Columbus. In the back, a handful of people practiced target shooting at the shop's indoor range. A UPS driver dropped off a delivery while co-owner Eric Delbert awaited another package from FedEx. The store sells a full array of new and used firearms, including the AR-15.

After Trump's election, the drop in sales was almost "instantaneous," said Delbert, a part-time police officer, following nearly eight years of panic buying with a Democrat in the White House.

Recently, "We really haven't seen any uptick in sales, other than the normal trends for the time of year," Delbert said.What to Know In the lawsuit, the families of eight Bolivians who were killed claim the two officials planned to kill thousands of civilians.

The lawsuit was filed under the Torture Victim Protection Act, which authorizes suits in the U.S. for extrajudicial killings.

A former president of Bolivia and his defense minister are going on trial in a U.S. court over a lawsuit in which eight Bolivians claim their family members were killed in government slayings that left dozens of people dead in 2003.

Jury selection begins Monday in federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in the case against former Bolivian President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, and his former defense minister, Jose Carlos Sanchez Berzain, both of whom live in the U.S.

In the lawsuit, the families of eight Bolivians who were killed claim the two officials planned to kill thousands of civilians to crush political opposition. The lawsuit was filed under the Torture Victim Protection Act, which authorizes suits in the U.S. for extrajudicial killings.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.What to Know Richard A. Carranza has served as schools superintendent in Houston, Texas, since August 2016

Carranza "has a proven record of strengthening public schools and lifting up students and families," Mayor de Blasio said

The mayor's first choice to lead NYC schools, Miami superintendent Alberto Carvalho, turned down the job after first accepting it

Houston schools superintendent Richard A. Carranza has been named the schools chancellor in New York City.

Mayor Bill de Blasio made the announcement at City Hall Monday afternoon alongside outgoing chancellor Carmen Farina, who is retiring. It comes less than a week after de Blasio's first choice, Miami schools superintendent Alberto Calvalho, backed out of the job in an unusual, on-camera school board session the day after his hiring was announced.

"Richard Carranza understands the power of public education to change lives, and he has a proven record of strengthening public schools and lifting up students and families," he said in a statement, calling Carranza the "right person to lead our school system forward."



Carranza has served as schools superintendent in Houston, Texas, since August 2016; before that, he served as superintendent in San Francisco for four years, according to a biography on the Houston schools website.

Carranza said it will be an "honor" to serve the city's 1.1 million children in the public schools: "I will work every day to further the progress Chancellor Farina has made in strengthening our public schools for generations to come."

Farina said she was "thrilled" Carranza will be the new chancellor.

"We are philosophically on the same page and he has a proven track record as an educator with a laser focus on what's in the classroom," she said. "He's made critical investments in professional development, strengthened the leadership pipeline for principals and has immersed himself in the community to empower families."



Carranza led the successful effort to re-open Houston schools two weeks after Hurricane Harvey, coordinating transportation for students living in shelter and providing counseling for all students and staff, according to the mayor's office.

In San Francisco, he raised graduation rates for African-American students by 13.9 percentage points and for Hispanic students by 15.4 percentage points, significantly faster than the overall growth rates in California as a whole.

Farina took the top schools job in 2014 after a long career as a teacher, principal and superintendent.What to Know Hillary Clinton will participate in a public conversation at Rutgers University in March

Clinton will talk about her years in public life, the institutions of government, her political career and women in politics

Clinton will visit the university as the Eagleton Institutes 2017-2018 Clifford P. Case Professor of Public Affairs

Hillary Clinton will make a rare appearance at Rutgers University to talk about politics, American democracy, her career and womens role in the political movement.

The universitys Eagleton Institute of Politics will host the talk on March 29. The former secretary of state, senator, first lady and presidential candidate will speak at the College Avenue Gym at the New Brunswick, New Jersey, campus.

Clinton will talk with Eagleton director Ruth Mandel about her years in public life, the institutions of government, her political career and her role in shaping womens political history, according to the Eagleton Institute.

Clinton will visit the university as the Eagleton Institutes 2017-2018 Clifford P. Case Professor of Public Affairs.

Eagleton is proud to host the most important American political woman of our time, Mandel said in a statement, adding that as a public leader, Hillary Rodham Clinton has crossed traditional boundaries, making both history and headlines."

The Eagleton Institute is also home to the Center for American Women and Politics, a source of scholarly research and data about American womens political participation, founded in 1971.

Free general admission tickets will be available to Rutgers students, faculty and staff on March 6. Remaining tickets will be offered to the public March 12.

It is not the first time Rutgers University will host a high profile political figure.

Former President Barack Obama and Former Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the university in 2016 and 2017, respectively.A memorial has been dedicated to a Grossmont High School student who inspired his community while battling cancer.



Ryan Wilcox, who battled cancer throughout his time at Grossmont HS, has been honored with a memorial bench.

His parents said their hearts were "truly touched and filled with overwhelming gratitude knowing how much our son is loved and remembered. This means everything to us."

Team Ryan

Wilcox, whose birthday was Saturday, made headlines when his classmates posted a plea on Facebook to get the attention of his favorite superheroes from the "Captain America" films.

Ryan received a surprise visit from Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow, who portray, in order, Captain America, Iron Man and Pepper Potts.

The high school's student body rallied in honor of her Wilcox in May 2016.

During that rally, students dressed up in Captain America garb and held a banner that read: "#RyanStrong".

"Being in that gym that day, surrounding by all of that love, it was powerful," said Amy Wilcox.

She said she hopes when someone sits on the bench they are inspired by her son's story.

Wilcox died on Sept. 3, 2016, at the age of 18.

His family asks anyone who wants to honor Ryan and his spirit, donate to the RyanStrong Scholarship fund.



A San Diego teenager who is battling cancer welcomed Captain America, Iron Man and Pepper Potts into his home, just two weeks after his classmates stood behind him in support. NBC 7s Greg Bledsoe reports.

[[415630573,C]]In the aftermath of increased gun violence threats, the Sweetwater Union High School District (SUHSD) announced a new phone app that will allow students to submit threat tips to law enforcement anonymously.

The announcement came at a Monday meeting at Chula Vista High School where students, parents, and school and law enforcement officials shared an open floor and discussed school safety issues.

The app, Student Speak Out, will connect students with Crime Stoppers and local law enforcement and put tip submittal right at their fingertips.

While some parents were pleased with the implementation of the app, they're concerned that the police department's staffing shortage will bottleneck the app's effectiveness.

"If there's not enough people to follow through on the comments being made or address on how theyre going to prevent it in the future, that app is not going to be any good," parent Holly Alfaro said.



Police said they are dealing with extremely low staffing levels across the department that makes it difficult to provide extra school security. Chula Vista, the second largest city in San Diego County, is home to 61 schools and only has 10 school resource officers for all of them to share.

"It certainly presents a challenge because each officer has multiple schools responsible for," CVPD Capt. Vern Sallee said. "And they can't get to some of the schools as fast as they can to deal with some of the problems."

Those who attended heard from SUHSD Superintendent Karen Janney, Chula Vista Mayor Mary Casillas-Salas and CVPD Chief Roxana Kennedy.

Safety presentations by SUHSD security officials and CVPDs School Resource Officer Unit were also shared. Police said they would like voters to approve a new sales tax that will allow them to hire more officers.

"I think they needed to address more of how they're going to ensure keeping our children safe, not just giving me numbers," Alfaro said. "Honestly, the meeting as a whole did not meet my expectations. There were a lot of things I felt were not addressed."Taking a cue from the fight over immigration, some states that have legalized marijuana are considering providing so-called sanctuary status for licensed pot businesses, hoping to protect the fledgling industry from a shift in federal enforcement policy.

Just hours after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced on Jan. 4 that federal prosecutors would be free to crack down on marijuana operations as they see fit, Jesse Arreguin, the mayor in Berkeley, California, summoned city councilman Ben Bartlett to his office with a novel idea.

Berkeley was already the first city in the nation to formally declare itself a sanctuary city on immigration, barring city officials from cooperating with federal authorities. Why not do the same thing with marijuana? Last month, it did.

"We knew we had to do something," Bartlett said. "This is a new engine of a healthy economy."

Others may soon follow Berkeley's lead: Alaska, California and Massachusetts lawmakers are among those with similar bills pending, though the chances for passage is unclear.

Alaska state Rep. Adam Wool, who owns a movie, restaurant and concert venue with a liquor license in Fairbanks, said he introduced his bill as both a statement and a precaution.

"If the federal government wants to prosecute someone for breaking federal law, I guess they have every right to do that," said Wool, a Democrat from one of Alaska's major marijuana-growing areas. "I'm just saying, we will have no obligation to assist them."

Sessions' announcement invalidated a 2013 policy that allowed for legalized marijuana to flourish by limiting federal enforcement of the drug, as long as states prevented it from getting to places it was outlawed and kept it from gangs and children. His action also unsettled the industry and spooked potential marijuana industry investors. Marijuana is still illegal under federal law.

Casey O'Neill remembers helicopter enforcement raids of grow sites in California when he was growing up in the 1980s. It was then that his parents, carpenters who grew small amounts of cannabis, became school teachers, he said.

He now helps run a farm that produces vegetables and marijuana for medical use near Laytonville, California, and is glad lawmakers are looking at ways to push back against the federal government.

Over the years, enforcement "has been uneven, we'll say, and that's kind of one of the things about it. It just means that everybody's always afraid, and that's hard," he said.

Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, a marijuana advocacy group, said California has a lousy history with the federal government on marijuana enforcement.

"I don't think the feds care too much about marijuana in Alaska, to tell you the truth," he said. "But marijuana has been a big industry in this state, so we're sort of on the front lines."

There's no apparent panic in the industry over Sessions' change in policy, given limited federal resources and prosecutors having had discretion in bringing cases all along. But there isn't complacency, either.

"I don't think the federal government is going to effectively step in and wipe us out of business. I just find that hard to believe at this point. But they can make it hard for us," said Jennifer Canfield, who co-owns a state-licensed marijuana cultivation operation and retail store in Alaska's capital city, Juneau.

Peter Mlynarik, a police chief in Soldotna, Alaska, called the Alaska bill a terrible idea. He asked what would happen if a local agency were helping the federal government on a heroin bust but also found marijuana in the house.

"It's crazy to put that burden on, especially, police officers that are supposed to obey federal laws," said Mlynarik, who resigned from Alaska's marijuana regulatory board after Sessions' actions in January, saying it stripped the underpinning for the state's legal marijuana industry.

Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, said he can't see federal agents raiding businesses that are complying with state law.

"But you can't put it past them," he said, adding that new U.S. attorneys have been appointed by President Donald Trump in many states. "I wouldn't put it past at least a few of them to want to gain points with their boss. But I think, politically, it would be a disaster for them."

Massachusetts' sanctuary-style bill was prompted by comments from that state's U.S. attorney, Andrew Lelling, who declined to rule out prosecuting commercial marijuana businesses that are legal under state law. He later said his priority would be prosecuting opioid crimes, not marijuana.

U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman Lauren Ehrsam declined comment on the pending bills.

Associated Press writers Paul Elias and Bob Salsberg contributed to this report.The southbound lanes of Interstate 95 will reopen Sunday night after a leaning Potomac Mills Mall sign led to a days-long closure.

Forceful 60 to 70 mph wind gusts caused the 140-foot sign in Woodbridge, Virginia, to tilt forward Friday.

Structural engineers inspected the sign and found that it posed a significant threat to the area, Prince William County officials said online.

The Virginia Department of Transportation shut down the southbound lanes of I-95 at Prince William Parkway for fear that the sign would come down. Tolls were suspended on I-95 South Express Lanes over the weekend.

VDOT warned drivers Sunday night to avoid traveling on I-95 in Prince William County on Monday if the sign wasn't taken down by then and advised them to take alternate routes, carpool, take public transportation or telework.

Due to the ongoing situation with the Potomac Mills Sign, a collapse safety zone is in place. In addition, we are enforcing a security perimeter around the incident scene adjacent to Potomac Mills. Please avoid the area and follow police direction. #Advisory pic.twitter.com/9ULV7JHgMe  Prince William PD (@PWCPolice) March 5, 2018

While Sunday's blustery winds were nowhere near the strength of those that damaged trees, homes and cars throughout the region on Friday, the winds were still strong enough to prevent crews from fixing the sign, officials said.

Photos: DC 'Windmageddon' Sends Trees Crashing Onto Homes, Cars

Prince William County officials said earlier Sunday night that the Potomac Mills Mall was responsible for removing the sign.

"Potomac Mills Mall property owners noted that they will not attempt to remove the sign until winds die down enough to allow safe removal. They are hopeful that they will be able to remove the sign before the Monday commute, but it is unclear whether that will be able to occur. Should Potomac Mills fail to remove the sign by Monday morning, commuters should expect significant traffic delays," read a statement on the Prince William County government website.Thousands of people in Northern Virginia still don't have power days after strong winds ripped through the region and brought down trees and power lines.

As of 9:30 a.m. Monday, more than 17,000 Dominion Energy customers in Northern Virginia didn't have power - the majority being in Fairfax County. Some Dominion Energy customers may not see their lights turn on until 11 p.m. Tuesday, when the utility expects restoration efforts to be finished.

Fairfax County Public Schools said Sunday night the power outages are still affecting seven schools. The following schools will be closed Monday:

Canterbury Woods Elementary School

Crossfield Elementary School

Forestville Elementary School

Freedom Hill Elementary School

Lynbrook Elementary School

Parklawn Elementary School

Westbriar Elementary School

Photos: DC 'Windmageddon' Sends Trees Crashing Onto Homes, Cars

Prince William County Public Schools said power had been restored to all of its schools, but the schools would open two hours late Monday. All Fauquier County Public Schools will also open two hours late.

Pepco said Sunday night it had restored power to 95 percent of its customers. As of 8 a.m. Monday, 2,074 remain without power.

Fierce winds up to 60 to 70 mph wreaked havoc on the region Friday and three people died in Maryland and Virginia, including a 6-year-old boy.Media personality Doreen Gatwiri has proffered more details into the alleged physical assault by her husband Mwingi Central MP Gideon Mulyungi.

The former Ebru TV Swahili news anchor last week stunned Kenyans after exposing the honourable member on social media.

Read: My Life is in Danger! TV Girl Doreen Gatwiri Accuses MP Husband of Assault

According to Gatwiri, last Mondays assault incident was not an isolated case. She claims she has endured three years of domestic abuse and has attempted to quit the relationship, only for the MP to lure her back.

In June last year, it got so bad that I filed a case for separation and moved to my parents place. He agreed to the separation, but warned me that I will get nothing as alimony, says Gatwiri.

The matter was settled out of court and Mulyungi asked her to move back to their home and be by his side during last years campaigns.

She claims she wanted nothing to do with the lawmaker, but gave in to his overtures because her parents pleaded with her to give him another chance.

I thought he was not going to harm me again, but I was wrong, she told The Nairobian.

She claims that they got into a disagreement after Mulyungi forbade her to go to a fundraiser.

I reminded him that over the weekend I will be going to IPC Kiseveni church in Kalisasi area, Mwingi Central for a harambee. He got mad and said, Kwani sasa umekuwa mbunge unaanza kwenda kwa maharambee? pesa ya harambee sina 

He was leaving for a function at South Eastern Kenya University (SEKU) but came back into the house and started beating me. He punched me in the face and hit my ears, neck and knee, she narrated.

The screen siren further revealed how she was a prisoner in her own home.

I was locked in the house on different occasions. I once almost missed my oral law exams and on another day, received a warning letter for skipping work.

The beauty queen who met Mulyungi at a supermarket added, Everything looked okay during the nine months they dated, but over time, the MPs anger issues started showing.

He would overreact when dealing with his workers and would occasionally fly into fits of rage, she narrates.

One time, his driver accidentally hit a bump on Mombasa Road. He got so mad, asked him to stop and threw him out of the car.

Before long, she claims, the MP was subjecting her to emotional and physical abuse.

We continued dating. We even had a traditional marriage ceremony before tying the knot. But this did not stop him from abusing and hitting me. When things got out of hand, I would retreat to my parents home, but he would come for me, pleading for forgiveness, Gatwiri said.

The MPs wife further accused him of having extramarital affairs with a number of women and would even bring them to their matrimonial home.

One of the girls even posted photos while in my car and in the house and when I confronted him, he brushed me aside saying, When you leave the house unaexpect nikae aje? Kama haujui Mulyungi ni nani, nenda ukaulize, she said.

According to Gatwiri, she took too long to speak up because I was scared of what people would say. I was also ashamed because I am a learned person. Being in the media also didnt help. I value my marriage, but it is time for me to move on now. Enough is enough.

Doreen also disclosed that she never knew the MPs first wife and was shocked when she discovered.

One evening, while the couple was getting ready for a vacation to Maasai Mara, Gatwiri had to fetch extra bags from the guest room, where she stumbled on a funeral programme on the floor.

I was shocked to find out that my husbands first wife died 1997 and his son two years later. I was devastated that he never told me about this. Its then that I realized why he had been shielding his past, says Gatwiri.

When I confronted him he got mad and said I had no right snooping into his things. I got scared and even went for a medical examination fearing that he might have some kind of disease, explains Gatwiri.

Later, he said that his wife was poisoned by one of the workers and that his son died of suffocation in a car.

His second wife, a lawyer, divorced him due to irreconcilable differences.Under twin clouds of legal investigation, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a united front on Monday, Trump announcing he might travel to Jerusalem to preside over the opening of the new U.S. Embassy Netanyahu had wanted, and the Israeli lavishing praise on the American leader.

In a show of strong support for Netanyahu, who faces corruption allegations at home, Trump dangled the possibility of his second visit to Israel as president. However, he said nothing about whether he would use the trip to unveil his much-vaunted but still mysterious peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.

The president said his controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city had improved chances for ending the conflict, despite Palestinians' insistence otherwise. The two steps enraged the Palestinians, who claim part of Jerusalem for the capital of an eventual state and accuse Trump of abandoning the U.S. role of honest broker.

Trump and his wife, Melania, welcomed Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, to the White House just hours after Israeli police announced that a third confidant of the prime minister had agreed to turn state's witness in the burgeoning corruption case. Netanyahu and his wife were questioned separately by police for hours on Friday before their departure for Washington.

Monday's meeting also came amid the continuing U.S. investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign, a probe that may have implications for the president's Mideast peace point man, son-in-law Jared Kushner, who recently lost his top secret security clearance. And, it took place as profound turmoil in the Middle East threatens hopes of a resumption in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and attempts to restore stability in the volatile region more broadly.

Trump said his Mideast team, led by Kushner, was hard at work on a peace proposal that is nearing completion, but he offered no details on the plan that the Palestinians say will be dead on arrival and not worth discussing.

He said that despite their anger, "the Palestinians, I think, are wanting to come back to the table." There was no apparent evidence for the assertion.

But, Trump said he had actually given peace a chance by removing Jerusalem as an obstacle in long-stalled negotiations that have collapsed under successive U.S. administrations of both political parties. "Nobody could get past, No. 1 Jerusalem," he said. "We've taken it off the table. So this gives us a real opportunity for peace."

Trump said he was looking into the possibility of traveling to Jerusalem in mid-May, when the embassy is slated to move into a temporary location that is now an annex of the U.S. consulate. "We're looking at coming," he said. "If I can, I will."

With Netanyahu looking on, Trump said he had rejected a $1 billion plan for a new embassy in favor of the temporary facility, which would cost only $250,000. Eventually, however, that embassy would have to be expanded to accommodate more than a handful of diplomats. The cost of an expansion likely would run in the hundreds of millions of dollars, based on construction costs for U.S. embassies around the world.

For his part, Netanyahu lavished praise on Trump for the Jerusalem recognition and the embassy move, comparing him with the Persian King Cyrus, who allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem from Babylon 2,500 years ago; former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, who signed a declaration in 1917 supporting the creation of a Jewish state in what was then the British mandate of Palestine; and President Harry Truman, the first world leader to recognize Israel in 1948.

"Mr. President, this will be remembered by our people throughout the ages," Netanyahu said. He added that the U.S.-Israel relationship had never been closer than since Trump took office.

For all the warmth and bonhomie, misgivings are percolating under the surface over Iran, where Israel sees Trump's efforts to crack down on the Jewish state's archenemy as lacking.

Iran and its activities in Syria and Lebanon are a profound concern to Israel, and Netanyahu made clear Iran is his highest priority.

Trump has vowed to pull out of a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran in mid-May unless the U.S. and Europe agree on sanctions that would punish Iran for activity not covered by the accord or, in some cases, that would be eventually permitted under its terms.

Israeli officials are concerned Trump may not demand enough, particularly on Iran's ballistic missile program, and are wary the administration may be acquiescing to Iran's growing presence in Syria and influence in Lebanon  two Israeli neighbors.

"Iran has not given up its nuclear ambitions," Netanyahu said. "It came out of this nuclear deal emboldened and enriched."

"Iran must be stopped," he said.

Vice President Mike Pence, though, sought to assure Israel that the administration would not back down on Iran.

"Unless the Iran nuclear deal is fixed in the coming months, the United States of America will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal immediately," he told the annual pro-Israel AIPAC policy conference that Netanyahu will address on Tuesday. "The United States of America will never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon."

Josh Lederman contributed to this report.First responders in Salem, New Hampshire say theyre in desperate need of an upgraded communication system.

Both fire and police departments say the radio system has failed at least once during recent emergency calls.

In February, Salem police officers' radios failed during a drug raid that was aimed at combatting the opioid trade.

We were running an operation down by the state line," said Salem Police Captain Joel Dolan. "Being [stationed] both inside and outside the building, our officers couldn't communicate with each other. It led to an officer safety issue.

Salem Police say that with their current radios, their job becomes more dangerous.

Its very scary, Dolan said. It is not a want by us. It's definitely become a need.

Salem Police are joined by the Salem Fire Department and the Department of Public Works, who are also calling for upgrades to their communication systems.

If were inside of a building and we're using this radio, it's only six watts, as compared to the mobile radios in the fire trucks that are 100 watts, said Salem Fire Chief Paul Parisi. "The hand held radios dont reach far.

We have a lot of dead areas up at North Salem and a lot of dead areas down in South Salem, Dolan said.

Its scary for the first responders and for the people they're trying to help, said Patrick Vetere, a Salem Resident. During 9/11, one of the problems police had was that their radios didn't work under extreme conditions, so it certainly sounds like a good thing to support.

The first responders are asking for $1.6 million over the next three years to pay for the upgraded system.

Theres no cost to the taxpayer, because it's coming out of our savings account and there's no interest, Parisi said.

"I believe the fire department and the police department should have all the equipment they need, said Joseph Arcadipane, another Salem resident.

Help us keep our firefighters and police officers and municipal service workers safe, Parisi said.

Residents will be able to vote on funding the new system on Election Day, which is March 13.A registered sex offender is facing charges in New Hampshire in connection with two sexual assaults that allegedly happened more than three years ago.

Nashua police, along with Lebanon police and the U.S. Marshall Service, arrested 55-year-old Edward Goodwin of Lebanon on Friday.

Police began investigating Goodwin in 2014 after a juvenile victim under the age of 13 reported that she was inappropriately touched by the suspect at his home in Nashua.

In 2015, as the investigation continued, another juvenile victim came forward and said that Goodwin sexually assaulted him as well.

Goodwin had left the Nashua area during the time of these investigations. He was found and placed under arrest at his home in Lebanon.

He faces one charge of aggravated felonious sexual assault and one charge of felonious sexual assault.

He was held on $100,000 cash bail pending his arraignment on Friday. It is not clear whether he has an attorney.They crowded around the White House conference table this past week, lawmakers from California, Connecticut, Texas and Florida, eager to share their state's painful experience with gun violence.

One key state was not represented. No one from Nevada, home to the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history just five months ago, attended the televised discussion with the president.

But in the politics of gun control, even those who say the least have considerable sway. Despite a clamor for action in the wake of the Florida school shooting, a powerful group of vulnerable lawmakers  both Republicans and Democrats  have pointedly avoided the national conversation about guns.

They often choose strategic silence rather than get crosswise with the National Rifle Association's die-hard supporters on the right or the growing movement of passionate gun control advocates on the left.

The office of Nevada's senior senator, Republican Dean Heller, would not say why did he did not attend the White House meeting. Heller, who is facing a tough re-election fight, has avoided the spotlight in the subsequent days as well, declining to address specifics about his positions on gun legislation.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment about whether Heller was invited to the event. The state's Democratic senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, and its three Democratic representatives also did not attend.

Heller spokeswoman Megan Taylor declined to say whether the senator supported universal background checks, raising the age for gun purchases to 21, or provisions to ban high-capacity magazines and assault rifles, all ideas tossed out by lawmakers or President Donald Trump in recent days.

"He looks forward to continuing discussions with his colleagues as Congress explores ways to enhance compliance with existing law and keep our communities safe," Taylor said.

Heller has signed on to legislation known as "Fix NICS," a modest measure supported by the NRA and intended to encourage better participation in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. It was one of the few gun bills to find bipartisan support and appeared poised to move ahead, only to be sidelined.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who has said little about the gun debate in recent days, said Thursday that no gun-related legislation would be heard in the coming week.

Without this silent majority's support, there is little chance for significant gun control legislation to become federal law, no matter how loud the outcry from high school students and others who are pushing for action.

The stalemate infuriates Ryan Works, a 40-year-old father of two, who hid under a table at an October concert in Las Vegas as a gunman shot and killed 58 and wounded more than 800. A Republican, Works offered an emotional message to Heller and elected officials in both parties who are reluctant to take on gun violence.

"Step up and do something," he said in an interview, almost shouting as he described shopping for bullet-proof backpacks for his 5- and 8-year-old children. "Show us that you care and you're going to protect us."

Heller's muted response at an extraordinary moment highlights the weight of his political predicament.

Running for re-election in a state Trump lost, he must win over a significant number of independents and moderate Democrats in November's general election to earn a second term. But first, he must survive a primary challenge from a conservative firebrand in a state where GOP primary voters value gun rights above almost all else.

The challenge is easy to see in recent polls. Two out of three adults in the United States want stricter gun laws, CBS found in a poll conducted a week after the Feb. 14 shooting in Parkland, Florida. But among Republicans, 54 percent want gun laws left alone or made less strict.

That's likely why the most politically vulnerable elected officials have kept their heads down, leaving the heavy lifting to elected officials facing less political risk this fall.

On the Senate floor this week, blue-state senators such as Vermont's Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts' Ed Markey and New Jersey's Cory Booker offered fiery speeches about gun violence. Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, a swing-state Republican whose current term ends in 2022, re-emerged as the face of the push to expand background checks. Arizona Sen. Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican who is retiring at the end of this year, was partnering with California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein on legislation to move the age to buy long guns to 21.

Those Democrats running in Republican-leaning states this fall were far less conspicuous.

North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp and Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly, both Democrats running for re-election in states Trump won handily, have said nothing about gun violence from the Senate floor in recent days, but made statements honoring constituents who had recently passed away.

Heitkamp supports the "Fix NICS" plan and co-sponsored a bill that would prevent those on the terrorist watch list from buying guns, her spokeswoman said. The senator has previously opposed so-called bump stocks, which the Las Vegas shooter used to increase the firing speed of his semi-automatic rifle. But the spokeswoman did not clarify whether she would support universal background checks, higher age limits, or provisions to ban high-capacity magazines and assault rifles.

In a statement, Heitkamp decried "horrific mass shootings" and called for "a bipartisan conversation in Congress about long-term solutions to gun violence."

Similarly, Donnelly, who previously voted for universal background checks and backs "Fix NICS," said little more about the issue when pressed for specifics.

"I believe that Congress should take steps to reduce gun violence, while protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens," he said in a statement.

At the White House meeting, the Democratic Party's most vulnerable 2018 class was represented only by Sen. Joe Manchin, a former West Virginia governor, who encouraged the president to help promote the so-called Toomey-Manchin plan to expand background checks.

Trump seemed to embrace the proposal during the Wednesday meeting, but he hasn't mentioned it since a Thursday night meeting with the NRA, which opposes the plan.

Don't expect Heller to mention it either.

Should he win his primary, he will likely face Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen, who isn't shy about her support for virtually every gun control measure on the table. She was quick to note Heller's low profile in the debate.

"His silence speaks volumes," Rosen said. "How can you have tragedy in your own state, like the massive one we had here, and not have it forever change you, and not speak out, and not respond to these families?"

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Jill Colvin contributed to this report.Christian writer Catherine Ayre has had a book of poems published to encourage people to find out more about God.

Christian writer Catherine Ayre has had a book of poems published to encourage people to find out more about God.

Invite for Norfolk faith groups to help prisoners The Welcome Directory is a multi-faith charity that helps faith communities to offer welcome to people leaving prison. Norfolk churches are among those who are invited to register to make a commitment. Read more

YMCA Norfolk needs Business Support Administrator YMCA Norfolk is looking for a Business Support Administrator to provide business, co-ordination and administrative support for the communities team, based in Norwich. Read more

Women's Specialist Practitioner needed The Magdalene Group is seeking to employ a Womens Specialist Practitioner to provide gender and trauma-informed support to women experiencing multiple disadvantage and to provide specialist support to female sex workers and victims of sexual exploitation Read more

Norwich church art and concerts reflect on Covid-19 Until September 25, concerts and an art exhibition at St Stephen's church in Norwich city centre will continue on the theme of "After the Storm? a reflection on the Covid-19 pandemic." Read more

Tony to raise a laugh and funds for Norfolk kids charity Raise Kids Work has invited funny man Tony Vino to a cake and comedy event to raise funds for the charity. Read more

Name change for expanding Norfolk foodbank North Norfolk Foodbank is the new name for the Cromer and District foodbank, which has changed its identity to reflect its expanding reach into the community. Read more

Filling Station reopens on Norfolk-Suffolk border The Angles Way Filling Station has reopened this month after 18 months break, having changed its name from Ouse Valley Filling Station. Read more

Dinosaurs, evolution and religion lecture Nick Spencer will give a lecture in the Cathedral on Tuesday September 21, starting at 7.00pm on the question what does evolution say about human life? Read more

The Seven Real Reasons for Unbelief Regular columnist James Knight believes that understanding the reasons why many people choose not to believe will assist Christians in reaching out to them. Read more

Burn Norwich worship nights are back Non-stop worship movement Burn has been continuing online throughout lockdown. Local group Burn Norwich are meeting in-person on October 2 in Norwich. Read more

Holt charity holds prayer meetings for Malawi North Norfolk charity Aid Africa tells of a new toilet in Malawi, and invites everyone to a monthly on-line prayer meeting to pray for their work in that country. Read more

Integrate Youth for Christ hiring in South Norfolk Integrate Youth for Christ currently have two vacancies which could be combined if the applicant has suitable skills, one based in Thetford and one in Diss. Both roles are to commence as soon as possible. Read more

New air ambulance HQ in Norwich is blessed Faith leaders from across East Anglia took part in an official blessing at the official opening of the extended and renovated East Anglian Air Ambulance operational base and HQ at Norwich Airport on September 10. Read more

Communications Manager for Diocese of Norwich The Diocese of Norwich has an exciting opportunity for a dynamic Communications Manager to be responsible for the development and implementation of a multiplatform communications strategy, supporting the vision to be Transformed by Christ. Read more

Care Assistant at Corton House Corton House, a 42 bedded care home with a mission to provide excellent loving care and support for older people, is looking for a day care assistant to work a mixture of evenings and day shifts Read more

Marketing and Fundraising Co-ordinator Corton House are looking for an experienced individual to fill a newly created role working with Senior Management to develop and implement new marketing and fundraising strategies to further develop and grow the organisation. Read more

Norfolk gives generously to Afghan refugee fund Thanks to the generosity of people across Norfolk and Waveney, the Bishop of Norwichs Refugee Fund has received nearly 36,000 in the past fortnight, to help the arriving and expected new refugees from Afghanistan. The Diocese of Norwich is administering Read more

YMCA Norfolk communities team opens new office YMCA Norfolk communities team opens new office

YMCA Norfolk has thrown open the doors of its new Communities Team office on Waldegrave Road in Bowthorpe for an open day.

The Communities Team is made up of the Families Team, Youth & Community Team, SOS project workers and On Track project workers. The open day, on February 13, was the first time that the whole team had met together.



Following a shared breakfast and team building, the doors of the offices were thrown open to the local community and professionals from Sure Start, Bowthorpe Church, and the Matthew Project as well as YMCA trustees, patrons and staff.



Communities Team Manager, Louise Hinchley, said: We were really pleased with how much the local community in Bowthorpe supported the YMCA Norfolk Communities team open day. We have only just moved in, and we are really keen to build relationships with the local church and community.



"We are hoping to bring new opportunities for lots of young people and families both in the area and county-wide as we grow and develop our new team, and new office space.



The offices at 7/8 Waldegrave Road, Norwich NR5 9AW, also has a training room that will be used to deliver Mental Health First Aid as well as other in-house training.



Pictured is the YMCA Norfolk Communities Team outside its new offices in Bowthorpe.

Nowhere is there more pain for IT staff than in the ever-morphing healthcare market where the Internet of Things (IoT) has been gaining attention and traction.

The concept of IoT involves the use of electronic devices that capture or monitor data and are connected via wireless to a private or public cloud, enabling them to automatically trigger certain events.

In the healthcare context, a growing set of IoT devices have been introduced to patients and medical staff in various forms. Whether wireless bedside monitors, infusion pumps, or even voice/data-based clinician communication devices, the result is means better and more efficient patient care.

But these devices have more unpredictable user experience than their traditional wired counterparts and gaining visibility and insight into their performance has become a major issue for hospital IT staff.

For example, if bedside monitors arent transmitting data related to patient vital statistics to viewers and central stations viewing that data, then the patient could be distress without clinicians knowing about it. Similarly, if clinician communication devices are experiencing data loss or poor call quality, patient care can also be adversely affected.

Giving sight to the IoT blind

Recent technical advances in the areas of big data network analytics, machine learning and cloud computing are now poised to solve these problems, delivering much needed IT pain relief and unprecedented visibility into IoT network performance.

These innovations center on capturing, parsing and analyzing data emitted by healthcare IoT devices and automatically correlating this information across the full-stack of network data transactions experienced by any IoT client our group of IoT devices.

This approach stands in stark contrast to how traditional infrastructure management solutions have dealt with mission critical wireless IoT devices, such as bedside monitors.

Traditional infrastructure management has primarily used Wi-Fi infrastructure measurements to determine client behavior  often assuming that if the Wi-Fi infrastructure is performing well, then everything is operating properly. But this is not always the case as essential client device and application information is excluded from conventional infrastructure management models.

The key is having a big data analytics platform that collects application metrics around performance --- Are the viewers getting good, complete heart rate, oxygen level, etc. data from the bedside monitors without any of it being dropped? Are the clinician communication devices having good call quality? Next, collecting the data isnt good enough: the analytics system needs to automatically correlate this with client perspective data at lower layers, e.g. did the poor application performance occur when the client had poor signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio? Or when the access point it was connected to had high levels of non-802.11 noise?

"Hospitals are spending too much time and money introducing new critical care IoT devices into the infrastructure to risk flying bind about their performance on the network," said Brian Totten, Mobility Architect at Mission Healthcare System based in Ashland, North Carolina.

"If we don't know how these devices are behaving on the network, we simply can't use them with any sort of assurance. What's desperately needed is the ability to capture and measure specific protocols from these devices and simultaneously analyze them against everything else going on in the network. This gives us a much more complete picture of IoT device performance that, until now, we just haven't had," he said.

In other words, the administration and monitoring of the wireless network today is completely separated from the administration IoT devices and applications. To the wireless network engineer, IoT devices have become a big blind spot, and vice versa for those responsible for device performance on the wireless network.

New device performance management platforms change all this using advanced data analytics to determine how, when and why waveform data, among other things, is getting lost by a bedside monitor while correlating that loss with the clients current state on the wireless network.

By doing this, network staff can tell whether the data is getting lost because of poor RF conditions, the client just having roamed, or whether the issue is on the wired network or on the device itself.

These systems leverage machine learning algorithms to identify trends and patterns and cloud resources to perform all the heavy computing chores in real time.

The data, already running over the network but just not accessible in any meaningful manner to IT staff, is then aggregated over a longer time period to establish which bedside monitors are the most problematic, what kind of issues are occurring over and over again, and what can to be done to proactively fix any individual or systemic device performance issues.

Armed with new IoT insights, healthcare IT teams immediately gain a view into device performance not previously possible. These include but are not limited to: the automatic root cause analysis of monitor connectivity issues, problematic monitors, the baseline behavior of bedside monitor performance and the amount of traffic monitors are sending and receiving.

Can you hear me now?

Bedside monitors arent the only mission critical wireless IoT devices used in hospitals.

Today, physicians, nurses, assistants, and support staff often use a variety of different devices, such as pagers, multicast push-to-talk devices and even personal smart phones to communicate with each other. Managing the performance of every different device type on the network has become a massive challenge for IT staff.

Consequently, many healthcare institutions around the world are working to unify voice and data mobile communications among clinical staff using secure, purpose-built Wi-Fi-only voice and messaging solutions. Ensuring the best possible performance of these systems over the network is key to the successful integration, use and value of these new UC systems.

Many of these new systems, from vendors such as Ascom and others, now support the ability to output specific SYSLOG data from each Wi-Fi phone. This information can be used to quantify the quality and identify specific attributes of every call or communications made from those devices on the network. Access to and integration of this data into new network analytics platforms enables a similar client experience analysis and correlation with the wireless network for these devices alongside all the other devices analyzed.

This lets IT staff automatically determine, for instance, which clinician communication devices are experiencing poor voice call quality or frequent disconnections and if the problem was caused by the wireless network or some other client network transaction.

As more money and time is spent integrating IoT devices into enterprise access networks, it's never been more important to justify these expenditures while ensuring the best possible user experience. The confluence of machine learning, data analytics and cloud competing is making this not only possible, but probable.It's been one year since the tragic passing of actor Chadwick Boseman, best known for his portrayal of Black Panther. A look back at his life Goethe University Frankfurt can boast another EU-funded research project: With the appointment of Yee Lee Shing as Chair of Developmental Psychology her PIVOTAL research project has accompanied her to Frankfurt. Professor Shing's research work investigates how the brain makes predictions.

Imagine coming into the office in the morning. Within a split second you will be able to tell whether everything is in its usual place - the furniture, the computer, your files - or not, as the case may be, or whether something has been left on your desk that does not belong there, for example a box of chocolates. Behind this ability to assess our environment is the "predictive brain", i.e. the interaction of brain processes that lead to predictions. On what principles these predictions are based and how the interaction of the processes involved differ across the lifespan is the subject of research work being conducted by Professor Yee Lee Shing, who has held the Chair of Developmental Psychology at Goethe University Frankfurt since January.

According to Professor Shing, the brain is essentially a "prediction machine" that is constantly busy comparing new input from the environment with predictions generated by internal models of the brain. Only in this way is the human brain able to adapt to ever new situations and grasp new environments. To date, however, no researcher has examined the nature of the underlying internal models themselves or how new experiences influence these models. What is also so far unknown is how such a supposedly universal principle manifests itself in different brains - for example young or old ones. The long-term memory that may underlie the brain's internal models is potentially the episodic and the semantic memory, personal experiences on the one hand and learned knowledge of the world on the other. Whilst children are better at remembering episodic contexts - think how unbeatable they are when playing "Memory" - older people can rely more on their semantic memory.

Shing wants to investigate empirically the interaction of different types of memory and new experiences. Using the magnetic resonance facilities available at the Brain Imaging Center of Goethe University Frankfurt, she wants to learn more about which cognitive and neural interactions take place where in the brain, first of all with the help of healthy participants of different ages. In the long term, her research work could help to cast light on clinical conditions with aberrant prediction processing, such as autism and schizophrenia. The European Research Council (ERC) will support the project for five years with  1.5 million. This will fund two doctoral and two postdoctoral researcher positions.

Born in 1980 in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Yee Lee Shing moved to the USA at the age of 19 to study psychology. From 2004 to 2015 she worked at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. She also held a Humboldt Fellowship there at Humboldt University. "I found the broad perspective on the development of the human brain across the lifespan very interesting. In addition, the new International Max Planck Research School on the Life Course (LIFE) offered me an interdisciplinary and trans-Atlantic research context," she says, explaining her decision at that time to come to Germany. Shing's doctoral supervisors were Professor Ulman Lindenberger and Professor Shu-Chen Li. Shing was a lecturer at the University of Stirling in Scotland from 2015 onwards.

Professor Shing was still working in Stirling when she submitted her project proposal. Her decision to return to Germany and accept the appointment in Frankfurt is also partly due to Brexit: "My husband and my two children are German. We felt that our future in Great Britain was uncertain. After so many years in Europe I didn't want to live outside the EU," she says. Now she is looking forward to a productive working environment at the Institute of Psychology at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Source: http://www.uni-frankfurt.de/U.S. President Donald Trump kept up pressure on trading partners, threatening European automakers with a tax on imports if the European Union retaliates against his plan to slap tariffs on aluminium and steel.

Trump's tweet suggested he is refusing to yield to U.S. business interests and foreign trading partners alarmed at the prospect of a trade war that rattled financial markets this week.

"If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S.," Trump wrote on Twitter. "They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!"

If the E.U. wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S. They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 3, 2018

The United States imposes a 2.5-percent tariff on cars assembled in Europe and a 25-percent tariff on European-built vans and pickup trucks. Europe imposes a 10-percent tariff on U.S.-built cars.

Trump criticized Europe in remarks at a fundraiser, according to a video posted online Saturday, and suggested they would not increase tariffs.

"The European Union: brutal. They've been brutal to us," Trump said at a Florida fundraiser. "They've banded together in order to beat the United States in trade."

Trump did not respond to questions about tariffs or other topics upon returning to the White House.

In a speech, at Harvard University, European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager said the EU will respond to the tariffs "to defend European industry, and the world trading system," according to a copy of her remarks. She called the Trump action "one-sided protectionist measures, which hurt, not just jobs, but the whole system of rules that makes our global economy work."

German automakers Volkswagen AG, Daimler AG and BMW AG build vehicles at plants in the United States. BMW employs more than 9,000 workers in South Carolina and is one of the state's largest employers.

The United States accounts for about 15 percent of worldwide Mercedes-Benz and BMW brand sales, while it accounts for 5 percent of VW brand sales and 12 percent of Audi sales.

The United States had a $22.3 billion automotive vehicle and parts trade deficit with Germany in 2017 and a $7 billion deficit with the United Kingdom, according to U.S. government data.

Last year, Germany's automotive trade association said: "the United States would be shooting itself in the foot by imposing tariffs or other trade barriers."

Trump's threat comes amid mounting transatlantic tension on trade.

On Thursday, Trump said the United States would apply duties of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminium to protect domestic producers.

Major automakers say the move will hike the cost of cars and trucks.

The next day, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told German television that "We will put tariffs on Harley-Davidson (motorcycles), on bourbon and on blue jeans - Levis."

Canada also has said it will retaliate for any tariffs on steel and aluminium.

Trump had tweeted on Friday that trade wars are good and "easy to win," roiling U.S. financial markets.

In January 2017, Trump warned German car companies he would impose a border tax of 35 percent on vehicles imported to the U.S. market.

Also Watch:Barcelona (Spain): The government has started tuning spectrum for 5G services as part of its roadmap to become early adopter of the next generation services, which is expected to provide download speed over 1,000 megabit per second on mobile devices.

"On spectrum we are already more or less aligned with global position in 5G. Those bands we are harmonising in line with global community," Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan told PTI here in an interview. She was here to attend global telecom event Mobile World Congress and held meeting with key players in the sector, including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Nokia, Ericsson, Huawei, Qualcomm, Mediatek, NTT, Intel, etc.

The Department of Telecom has started harmonising spectrum in 3,500 megahertz band and 26 Gigahertz band along with E and V band, she said. At present 4G services are provided in spectrum band below 2,600 Mhz. with an increase in frequency band count, the signal coverage area reduces, but as per technology trend, speed of transmitting data has been increasing.

The government has already harmonised spectrum in 700 MHz band which can be used for 5G services. Telecom players are running trials to use 5G in automated cars, robotic surgery from remote locations, education, etc.

Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha has asked technology companies to look for using 5G services in agriculture sector as well, she said. "All the players are positioning themselves for India as a big 5G market. One of the leading chipset company in a meeting told us that India will have one of the biggest IoT (Internet of things) user base and the company is keen to partner with C-DoT for developing various IoT solutions. India is a forerunner and will be an early adopter of 5G," she said.

According to Bharti Airtel Chairman Sunil Bharti Mittal, 5G services in India will start once standards for the technology will be decided by global telecom body International Telecommunications Union next year. Sundararajan said before finalisation of standards telecom gear makers -- Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, NTT and Samsung have started deepening their work on 5G in India.

"Ericsson has plans to scale up a manufacturing facility. They are also going to set up 5G test bed in IIT Delhi. Huawei is going to set up their test lab for 5G," she said.

Chinese telecom gear maker ZTE, which has recently won major 4G contract from BSNL, is planning to start capacity building around new technology in India, the telecom secretary said. Finnish telecom firm Nokia will start smart village pilot in which they will showcase health and education using 5G.

Nokia will set up 400-500 centres and in third phase, pan India rollout will take place, Sundararajan said. She also said 5G is like steam engine and it will drive everything.

"Another significant message that came out here was that a lot of Indian software companies are behind of lot of the technologies in 5G. The corresponding software has to be made. Indian companies are developing software for that.

Already C-DoT has developed standard M2M platform," she said. When asked about timing for spectrum auction, she said that the government will decide on it only after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India submits recommendations to the government.New Delhi/Mumbai: Gokulnath Shetty, a middle-aged bank manager of middling rank, spent his days in the foreign exchange department on the mezzanine floor of Punjab National Bank's Brady House branch in Mumbai.

It was there, past the loan desk and up a flight of stairs that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) says Shetty hatched India's largest-ever bank fraud, which the bank values at nearly $2 billion and says was engineered between 2011 and 2017.

The room where Shetty worked was visited on a quarterly basis by external auditors approved by the central bank, who sifted through documents but failed to spot any problem, according to interviews with two bank employees with first-hand knowledge of the department's operations.

In the three weeks since details of the alleged fraud was disclosed, Indian authorities and the media have squarely blamed Punjab National Bank, and a group of high-flying jewellers including diamond tycoon Nirav Modi.

But Reuters has uncovered new evidence that shows the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) also failed for years to either detect the fraud, respond adequately to red flags in the banking system, or correct a breakdown of normal practices at the nation's second-largest state-run bank. The RBI is in charge of supervising lenders and meant to act as the bottom-line guarantor that the banking system is sound.

That heightens worries about what other problems might lurk within India's state-run lenders, which hold some 70 percent of the sector's assets in the world's fastest-growing major economy.

The RBI, presented with a list of findings and questions for this story sent to a spokesman, did not respond. Punjab National did not respond to a similar request. Shetty's lawyer, Vikram Sutaria, said his client "is not guilty".

HANDS-OFF APPROACH

Interviews with 12 current and former officials at the RBI and senior executives at some of the country's largest banks, and a review of dozens of pages of internal central bank circulars, reveal a system that in many cases had little hope of catching criminal activity.

The reporting shows:

- The RBI takes a hands-off approach: Its inspections concentrate on whether the broader systems are sound, not the details of what's happening in a particular banking operation.

- External auditors approved by the RBI, known as statutory auditors, in many cases only do top line reviews, not in-depth inspections. In Punjab National's case they have been changed regularly - 18 different firms used over seven years. Though the auditors swapped hand-off notes, no one auditor was able to delve into the bank's operations for any extended period.

- Those external auditors met with Shetty, but their audits of Punjab National published in the bank's annual reports from 2011 to 2017 did not raise alarms.

- The RBI knew by 2016 there was a laundry list of problems at Indian banks that the central bank said "exposed the bank to heightened risk of fraudulent activities".

- The central bank did not compel state banks to link their banking software with the SWIFT global interbank messaging network, a key vulnerability in the Punjab National fraud.

"SHETTY SIR"

A current senior RBI official involved in the scrutiny of banks acknowledged there were shortcomings. "This has been going on for six years and nobody pointed it out - not the auditors and not the RBI inspection," he said.

In Punjab National Bank's initial criminal complaint, and then court documents filed in February by the CBI, deputy manager Shetty is accused of having sent letters of undertaking, essentially credit guarantees, over the SWIFT network without logging those transactions in the bank's internal software.

Two internal auditors who sat with Shetty in the branch have also been arrested, among more than a dozen people picked up by law enforcement so far. Asked about the specifics of allegations against Shetty, who has been arrested but not charged, his lawyer, Sutaria, declined to discuss them.

The alleged beneficiaries of the transactions were companies controlled by Nirav Modi, whose diamond creations have glimmered across the flesh of film stars, and his uncle Mehul Choksi, who also owns a large jewellery operation. Neither man has been charged with a crime. Both are currently outside the country and have denied the allegations.

Two co-workers described Shetty as a socially taciturn man who, after starting the work day by moisturizing his face and hands with Pond's cream, began sipping a seemingly endless series of cups of tea and dialling up customers on his iPhone.

Shetty, they said, declined to show others how to operate the SWIFT system. "No one would work on SWIFT in his absence," said one of the co-workers. "Even customers used to say if 'Shetty sir' is not around let's not proceed with anything."

Representatives of Modi, the jeweller, would spend hours in the office, sometimes eating lunch there, two employees at the branch said. "It was as if they were bank employees," said one banker who still works in the currency exchange office.

AUDIT FRAMEWORK

The framework for auditing India's banks is set up to provide three levels of scrutiny: continuous monitoring by internal auditors, quarterly inspection by statutory auditors and an annual inspection by the RBI, according to interviews with officials at the central bank.

The bank's cornerstone internal, or concurrent auditors, are expected to run daily checks on all SWIFT transactions, according to RBI officials.

But a former senior RBI official with direct knowledge of the central bank's oversight of foreign exchange transactions said they often do not provide much of a backstop. "Sometimes the concurrent auditor just blindly signs whatever is given to him without verifying what is going on," the official said.

Asked about the RBI's annual audit, a current official who previously worked in its supervision division said the central bank has moved away from doing annual branch inspections, instead relying primarily on data from the lender's headquarters.

"Earlier, the branches of banks were at least scared that RBI might catch any malpractice," the official said. R. Gandhi, deputy governor at the RBI from 2014 to 2017, said the statutory audit process, which is carried out by private accounting firms, was not meant to be comprehensive.

"A 100 percent audit is specified only for high-risk areas," he said. Explaining the RBI's approach overall, he added: "We are supervisors. The prime objective of RBI's audit should be to see that systems and procedures are there and those are functioning."

Two of the RBI-approved statutory auditors who inspected the Mumbai branch confirmed they met Shetty in the foreign exchange room. One auditor, who inspected the branch on a quarterly basis between October 2011 and September 2012, said he raised the question of why Nirav Modi was getting so much credit.

The auditor, who asked not to be named, said his concerns were raised to the bank's audit committee but he was told by Punjab National executives: "Let this go this time, we will note this and take steps."

The details, he said, would have been available to RBI officials through his subsequent report, but as far as he was aware no action was taken.

Reuters called the other 16 accounting firms listed in the bank's annual report from the 2010-11 fiscal year to the most recent. The calls were either unanswered or met with refusal to discuss particulars of the audits.

WARNING SIGNS

Documents show that the RBI knew more than a year before the current scandal that there were warning signs about how Indian banks administered the SWIFT network.

Transactions such as the letters of undertaking sent by Shetty result in credit being given to a borrower in an account known as a "nostro", which is owned by the issuing bank - in this case Punjab National - but hosted by another bank overseas.

A letter on Aug. 3, 2016 from the RBI to bank executives warned of "a recent incident involving attempted unauthorized transfer of funds from the nostro account of a bank". The RBI asked the top management of Indian banks to not only ensure that appropriate controls were in place, but also to reconcile their nostro account transactions  that is, to check that they matched their banks' internal records.

A Nov. 25, 2016 letter from the RBI listed what it described as problems that banks reported after receiving the August communication - a number of which were to show up in the Punjab National case.

Several Indian state-run banks had followed a "decentralized set up for SWIFT", meaning that multiple branches and, as a result, "significantly higher number of users" had access to sending money across the global network.

In some cases, the RBI said, that meant more than 1,000 people being able to log on, which "exposed the bank to heightened risk of fraudulent activities". Several banks, the RBI wrote, had "no/little audit oversight on the SWIFT framework despite significant financial ramifications".

Last month, after the fraud was discovered, the reserve bank set a April 30 deadline for integrating banks' internal software and SWIFT.

Most big global banks began to connect SWIFT - originally standalone terminals like the telex machines they replaced - to their central systems in the 1990s.

Three executives with experience of the cash payments industry said this means transactions are automatically recorded and reconciled within the bank and, ideally, with counterparties. The chief executive officer of SWIFT from 1992 until 2007, Leonard Schrank, said: "I can't imagine not incorporating SWIFT payments as part of overall reconciliation."New Delhi: Twenty years after the crime was committed, the Supreme Court has agreed to consider a mans plea that he was a juvenile when the incident occurred and therefore, he could not have been jailed for seven years as an adult.

In a rare order, the top court indicated it was open to examining the plea and not dismiss it on the grounds that 20 years had passed and that the two subordinate courts had also convicted the man as a major under the charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

A bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and MM Shanatanagoudar gave liberty to the accuseds counsel to adduce the birth certificate to corroborate the claim that he was a juvenile at the time of the crime in question and should have been dealt under the juvenile justice law instead of IPC.

The learned counsel for the petitioner claims the juvenility at the time of the commission of offence on 5th February, 1998. He claims that his date of birth is 9th February 1980. The petitioner is directed to produce the birth certificate issued by the Registrar of Birth and Death and also the details of the members of his family, stated the Court order.

The bench gave the petitioner six weeks to come back with a proof of his age.

The man was sentenced to seven years in jail for hitting with a stick an old man, who intervened when the former was allegedly beating his mother on February 5, 1998. The old man later died of the head injuries. In April 1999, the accused was convicted by a court in Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh under Section 304 for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

In October 2017, the Allahabad High Court upheld the conviction and sentence in view of the direct evidence of the assault.

Notably, the only defence adopted by the accused before the trial court and the High Court was lack of motive but no arguments were made on the point of juvenility.New Delhi: Observing that Major Aditya cannot be treated like an ordinary criminal, the Supreme Court on Monday stayed all investigations into the Shopian stone-pelting case.

The incident had resulted in the death of three civilians after Army officers opened fire, reportedly in self-defence. The Jammu and Kashmir government subsequently lodged an FIR into the incident against the Army convoy under charges of murder and assault among others.

On Monday, Attorney General KK Venugopal supported the PIL filed by Major Aditya's father in the top court and said the FIR could not have been lodged.

"This cannot be done in view of the Army Act and in terms of the judgments by the Supreme Court. We are supporting the petition," the A-G told a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra.

Representing the Jammu and Kashmir government, senior lawyer Shekhar Naphade began by saying that Major Aditya has not been named as an accused in the FIR "till date".

When asked by the bench if the Army officer can be named later, Naphade said it would depend on the investigation.

"So you can rope him in later... no, you cannot proceed against him. He is the only officer identified in the FIR as well," the court told Naphade.

At this, the state government sought to assert its authority to register an FIR and investigate but the A-G opposed this, saying the judgments being relied upon by Naphade have ignored ruling by a Constitution Bench.

Naphade resisted an order to stall investigation into the matter but the bench said: "You cannot treat him like an ordinary criminal."

The state, however, retorted: "But does this give them a licence to kill?"

To this, Venugopal replied: "When hundreds of army men are being killed, state counsel should not make such arguments."

The court then passed its order, restraining the Jammu and Kashmir government from investigating the case any further until the bench hears this case next on April 24.

On February 9, the apex court had admitted the PIL filed by Major Aditya's father Lt Col Karamveer Singh. It had then said no coercive action can be taken against Major Aditya.New Delhi: The Centre can intervene in disciplinary cases by state governments against IAS, IPS and IFS officers, the Union personnel ministry has told the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

In an affidavit filed before the court, it said the central government has the power to relax any rule and regulation in certain cases if it causes undue hardship to such officers.

These power can be exercised for members of all India services  Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Indian Police Service (IPS) and Indian Forest Service (IFS), according to the ministrys reply.

Under Constitutional scheme, the subject of all India service is part of Union list. Further, President of India is the appointing authority in respect of all India services officers and only President/central government have the powers of dismissal, removal and compulsory retirement, it said in the affidavit filed recently in case involving IFS officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi.

The ministry said all India service officers are governed by a central Act -- All India Services Act, 1951 -- and rules framed therein, irrespective of their place of posting that is, even while serving in state government.

It said the central government has the power to relax relevant rules and regulations in cases it is satisfied that operation of such rules causes undue hardship in any particular case.

These regulations can also be relaxed to deal with the case in a just and equitable manner, the affidavit said.

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Changes, in its affidavit filed before the high court, also mentioned almost the same thing.

In their affidavits, both the ministries termed the petition of the Haryana government as false.

The case, in which the ministries were asked to give their affidavits, relates to a writ petition filed by the Haryana government against an order dated January 19, 2011 issued by President of India. The presidential order had quashed the departmental charge sheet issued to Chaturvedi by the Haryana government in September 2007.

According to the order, Officer appears to have been chargesheeted for implementing orders of the Supreme Court and upholding the rule of law.

Chaturvedi had approached the cabinet secretary in 2010 alleging harassment by the state government for exposing various cases of corruption.

The cabinet secretary had ordered an enquiry into the case which had recommended quashing of departmental charge sheet issued to Chaturvedi and a CBI investigation into the role of various functionaries of the Haryana government in his harassment.

In March 2014, Punjab and Haryana High court had issued a notice to the central government and Chaturvedi on a petition of the Haryana government challenging this enquiry and the presidential order.New Delhi: In a scathing attack on former Finance Minister P Chidambaram, Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has alleged that Chidambaram had aided diamantaire Mehul Choksis Gitanjali Group with his blessings in 2013-14 when UPA had introduced the 80:20 import rule for gold traders.

There was a scheme by the name of 80:20 that was introduced in August 2013 and repealed in November 2014. On May 16, 2014, the date of the declaration of 2014 election results, the then Finance Minister gave his 'aashirvaad' to seven private companies under 80:20 Scheme. One of those companies was Gitanjali, said Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, in a media address on Monday.

In August 2013, the then UPA government had introduced the 80:20 rule, which said traders would be allowed to import gold only after they had exported 20 percent of gold from their previous import.

The rule was scrapped in November 2014 after the NDA came to power.

Chidambaram and Rahul Gandhi must answer why this scheme was passed on the day of results to benefit these seven private companies? Chidambaram swayam nahi kar rahe theyy seedha aashirwaad tha (Chidambaram didnt do it by himself, but it was his direct blessings)," Prasad further probed.

According to a PTI report, finance ministry officials are likely to share all details related to the 80:20 gold import scheme with Parliament's Public Accounts Committee.

At a meeting of the committee last week, BJP members of the PAC had zeroed in on P Chidambaram, under whose tenure the government's 80:20 gold import scheme was launched.

Meanwhile, the former finance ministers son, Karti Chidambaram, has been arrested in the INX Media case for allegedly taking kickbacks for helping the media company with its business.Srinagar: The killing of six people, including four civilians, on Sunday night in a shootout with the Army has rocked Jammu and Kashmir.

While there was no confusion about the identity of the two Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militants killed on Sunday night in Shopian, several versions of events exist about the four civilians who were killed while traveling in two cars.

Amid public uproar since Sunday evening, the Army first described the four as overground workers (OGWs) or accomplices of the two militants but later stepped back to call them ''individuals'' from whose cars the militant opened fire on an Army vehicle check post.

Family members of the dead civilians have accused the Army of killing them in cold blood. The Jammu and Kashmir police said they will investigate the circumstances that led to their killing.

The incident, second in last six weeks where civilians have been killed in Army firing, has badly hit the chances of peace returning to the Valley.

Sources said the wave of civilian deaths, post the killing of Burhan Wani in the summer of 2016, had started to come down in last few months but few ugly incidents have again rattled the Mehbooba Mufti government. The government was hoping for tourists and some big ticket development projects like national highway, smart city and a few road tunnels leading to Ladakh to appease the people, they added.

The killings of four civilians offset that. Mufti contradicted the Army's version, saying that the civilians killed in Shopian were caught in 'crossfire'. She even expressed condolences to the families of the deceased.

Deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire in Shopian. My heartfelt condolences to the deceaseds families. Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) March 5, 2018

Army spokesman Rajesh Kalia said two militants, one at the site of the shootout and another in an orchard, and four civilians were killed when a mobile vehicle check post near Pohan in Shopian signalled a car to stop, but the driver refused.

He said the army men were fired upon and they retaliated, in which a militant was killed. He said a weapon and a pouch were found near the militant's body and three OGWs were also "found dead". "When police was called in, they found a car some distance away in which another boy was found dead," he said.

Early on Monday, body of another militant was found in an apple orchard in Saidapora village, some miles away from the spot.

The militant, Ashiq Hussain, was affiliated with LeT. Kalia said the three boys were OGWs and accomplices of the slain militants. An Army officer in Shopian told media that they want to appeal to locals to not accompany militants. ''We want safety of the youth and appeal to their parents to discourage their kids to mix with terrorists,'' he said.

The families of the dead civilians and local villagers refuted the army charges saying their kids were not remotely associated with militants. ''This is a blatant lie. The kids were innocent,'' an elderly relative told CNN-News18.

Family of Gowhar Ahmad Lone, a resident of Chitragam village, said he was travelling to his home after a regular medical check-up at a district hospital in Pulwama when he was shot.

When the car he was driving reached Pinzura, it came under heavy fire and he was hit by at least four bullets. He died inside the car and his body was found almost half a kilometre away from the site where the army said militants fired at a mobile checkpoint, his relative said.

Gowhar was a student pursuing an MPed degree from a college in Maharashtra.

Shabir Ahmad Lone, a cousin of Gowhar, said the Army killed his cousin who had "nothing to with militancy".

Locals told media that Sohail Khalil Wagay (22), a resident of Pinjura Shopian, had gone to drop his mother at his sister's home and was returning with some labourer when he was shot dead along with two others.

I want to know what his fault was, his neighbour said.

Mohammad Abbas, Sohails brother, said he had called home 30 minutes before the shootout, saying he had reached Pehlipora after dropping his mother.

"After half an hour, we heard about his killing along with two youth. The Army is lying that he or others were OGWs," he said.

On Monday, Peoples Democratic Party leader and Shopian MLA, Mohammad Yousuf Bhat, released a statement, saying, "When your heart bleeds and you are emotionally amputated, no condemnation is enough.''

''Every time a civilian is killed it (mere condemnation) is not enough and no circumstances can justify these civilian killings," he added.

Meanwhile, reacting to separatist bandh call, the authorities clamped restrictions in old city areas. Schools and colleges will remain shut for next two days. All examinations have been postponed. Internet speed was slowed down and train services halted across the valley.

Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik was arrested when he tried to take out a protest in Lal Chowk area of Srinagar. In his brief interaction with press, Malik blamed the local politicians for what he called strengthening the hands of Centre in carrying out genocide of Kashmiris.Bhopal : A man pronounced dead by doctors was resuscitated after a pathologist who was to perform the autopsy found the 'dead man' to have a pulse.

Himanshu Bharadwaj, a resident of Professor Colony in Chhindwara, suffered severe injury in a road accident on Sunday evening. He was admitted to a local hospital, but as his condition worsened, he was rushed to a private hospital in Nagpur. There, Bharadwaj was declared brain-dead.

He was brought back to Chhindwara District Hospital where he was pronouned dead and his 'body' sent for autopsy.

Luckily for him, pathologist Dr. Nirnay Pandey who was to perform the autopsy detected Bharadwaj's pulse. He was rushed to a ward in the hospital and given initial treatment.

Bharadwaj, however, continues to be brain-dead and was taken back to Nagpur for treatment.

"The man was declared brain-dead and upon his arrival at Chhindwara hospital his respiration was dysfunctional and the pulse was also missing. However, his respiratory organs began responding this morning," Dr C Gedam of the Chhindwara District Hospital said.

"At times, in brain-dead patients, the heart and the respiratory system stop functioning transiently, which seems to be the case here. Himanshu is still brain-dead. Thus, we have referred him to Nagpur due to lack of sufficient facilities locally," the doctor added.

A large crowd gathered in front of the District Hospital to protest against the negligence. However, Himanshu's family considers the incident to be a 'miracle'.

The Senior Administrative Officers of the hospital did not respond to questions from the media.Community Projects, Inc. reports that 2017 was a successful year in which they were able to award grants or pledges of $561,226.15 to the Napa community.

Major grants were awarded to Aldea, Inc., Cope, Hearts & Hands Preschool of Calistoga, Napa County Family & Foster Care, Napa High School, Napa Salvation Army, Napa Valley Education Foundation, Napa Valley Food Bank, Parents CAN, Project Graduation, Queen of the Valley Foundation, Share the Care Napa Valley, Teacher Resource Center of the North Bay, The Table at the Presbyterian Church, and Vintage High School.

Key recipients of grants are Napa Schools, Browns Valley Elementary School, Hearts & Hands Preschool of Calistoga, Napa High School, Napa Valley Language Academy, Northwood Elementary School, Redwood Middle School, River School, Salvador Elementary School and Vintage High School. In addition, many deserving Napa students were awarded scholarships.

Community Projects raises the money through sale of merchandise donated to its Thrift Shop at 715 Franklin St., Napa and disburses proceeds to worthy causes. Since it inception in 1941, Community Projects has donated about $12,843,760 to Napa County Schools and non-profits.

Members of the group volunteered about 39,084 hours of service during 2017 in support of the operation of the Thrift Shop and two special events, Putting on the Glitz and Treasures of Christmas Past.New Delhi: The ED has summoned some ex-Finance Ministry officials, who were handling FIPB issues in 2007, in connection with its money laundering probe in the INX media deal case that involves former Finance Minister P Chidambaram's son Karti and others, officials on Monday said.

They said summons for questioning have been issued to at least four officials and once they depose, their statements will be recorded under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

While some of these officials have been summoned by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in the past for questioning in the Aircel-Maxis FIPB case, some will be questioned afresh in connection with the INX case.

The officials, in various ranks, were posted in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) of the Finance Ministry in 2007 when the INX media came before the said division, they said.

The agency will also question Peter Mukerjea, former director of the media group, again at a Mumbai jail tomorrow in connection with the case.

Peter Mukherjea is in prison in connection with the Sheena Bora murder case and has been questioned by the ED last year.

The agency is also probing the transfer of about Rs 1.8 crore, in multiple tranches, from a Chennai bank account, allegedly belonging to Karti, to a senior political leader connected to him, they said.

The funds, they said, were allegedly transferred to Karti's account from a firm that the probe agencies have said was "indirectly controlled" by him.

Karti, arrested by the CBI in this case, was yesterday confronted by the sleuths with Peter's wife Indrani Mukerjea in a Mumbai jail.

Indrani had also been a director of the media company under scanner.

Karti was arrested by the CBI last week on the basis of confessional statements of Peter and Indrani who alleged that they paid USD 7 lakh to him on the instructions of his father P Chidamabaram, as quid pro quo for a FIPB clearance, officials had said.

Both Peter and Indrani had alleged, in their statements to the ED, that they met the then finance minister P Chidambaram at his North Block office, seeking clearance for foreign investments in their media company after the Income Tax department detected irregularities in these instances, in 2007.

The couple had also admitted that they subsequently met Karti at a five-star hotel in Delhi, where he allegedly made a demand of USD 1 million, they said, adding that this was reiterated by Indrani before the magistrate as well.

Indrani, they said, had confirmed in her statement to the CBI and ED that a payment of USD 7 lakh was made to the bank accounts of overseas firms linked to Karti.

Peter and Indrani, facing trial for allegedly killing their daughter Sheena Bora, had said in their statement that Karti "suggested" to them the names of firms such as Chess Management and Advantage Strategic for the payments.Amaravati: Andhra Pradesh Governor E S L Narasimhan on Monday asked the Centre to expedite resolution of all provisions in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014, including according special category status to the state.

Addressing a joint sitting of the Legislative Council and the Legislative Assembly on Monday morning on the opening day of the state's budget session, he said the state government "would not rest" till its dream of emerging as a power to reckon with in the Asia-Pacific region were realised.

His remarks came in the wake of the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) last month expressing disappointment over the resources allocated in the Union Budget 2018-19 for Andhra Pradesh and asserting that it would continue to fight for the state's due.

The governor said, "As per the AP Reorganisation Act, 2014, and the assurances made, the Government of India (GoI) has to fulfil commitments of the special category status, bridging the resource gap and completion of the Polavaram project with the funds of GoI."

The Centre also has to fulfil promises of formation of a railway zone, establishment of greenfield crude oil refinery and petrochemical complex and financial assistance to Amaravati (the state's new capital city), Narasimhan said.

The Centre has to establish the Duggirajupatnam port, increase seats in the Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly, resolve anomalies in taxation matters, construct a steel plant in Kadapa district and establish the Vizag-Chennai industrial corridor, he said.

The governor said the Centre needs to construct Metro rails in Visakhapatnam and Vijayawada, set up rapid rail and road connectivity to Amaravati, apportion Schedule IX and Schedule X institutions and establish a greyhounds training centre.

"My government has made rigorous and untiring efforts during the last three years and nine months to get all the issues listed implemented," he said, adding, "Hence, we reiterate people's demand to expedite the resolution of all provisions incorporated in the AP Reorganisation Act and assurances made in relation to it, including according the special category status."

Once a prosperous state, Andhra Pradesh is now faced with a severe drop in per capita income, leading to a decrease of Rs 35,000 compared to other southern states, requiring support of the Union government to the state till a level-playing field is achieved, the governor said.

He said this would be done by expeditiously implementing all provisions and entitlement incorporated in the Reorganisation Act and assurances made on the floor of the Rajya Sabha.

"My government will leave no stone unturned to get them resolved favourably," Narasimhan asserted.

Hailing the "astute leadership" of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, "who converted every crisis into an opportunity", the governor underlined that the vision of the government was to build a happy, inclusive and an innovative society.

"We -- the government and the private sector -- have to strive hard for a common cause of rebuilding our state by overcoming the pains of bifurcation," he said.

"Our state is endowed with vast natural resources, coastline, huge skilled man power as our strength to be exploited to realise our dream of being not only the foremost state in the country but also a power to reckon with in the Asia-Pacific region and a global destination," Narasimhan said.

"I reassure the people that my government will not rest till our dreams are realised to be a happy, inclusive and innovative society and till the fruits of development reach the last man," he said.

In his 58-page address, the governor highlighted the "success story" of the sate, saying it accomplished an average economic growth rate of 11.31 per cent in the last three years, as against the country's growth rate of 6.97 per cent.

"We are targeting a compound annual growth rate of 12 per cent till 2029 and a high level of human development index of 0.90 per cent through structural and social transformation and through macro-level planning and micro-level execution," Narasimhan said.

Referring to the Polavaram multipurpose project, he said the government was determined to "overcome all hurdles" to complete it in record time and get water into the right and left main canals through gravity by early 2019.

On law and order issue, the governor said the government has infused technology into policing, thereby streamlining police administration.

"Left-wing extremism has been brought under full control, spread of terrorism has been prevented and rowdyism fully brought under control. People are able to work and sleep peacefully," he noted.

"We are going to further reform administration of law and order machinery to make the state a model where police are invisible and policing is visible," Narasimhan said.

State Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu will present the budget for 2018-19 on March 8.New Delhi: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Monday tweeted an appeal to protesting students, urging them to withdraw their protest against the alleged paper leak in the Combined Graduate-Level (CGL) exam. Tharoor said he fully supported their demands but urged them to withdraw their protest since the government had agreed to institute a CBI probe into the alleged scam.

Spoke to @DrJitendraSingh in Parliament today. He has agreed to a CBI inquiry on all the issues raised by the students protesting the SSC-CGL Mains papers (leak, conduct of exams etc). I thank him for his willingness to listen to these legitimate demands w/an open mind. #sscscam, Tharoor tweeted on Monday morning, on the first day of the Parliament session.

I now urge the protesting students, whom I have supported all the way, to call off their agitation. It is time to acknowledge victory &move on. https://t.co/v9AN7rAFwS Shashi Tharoor (@ShashiTharoor) March 5, 2018

Minutes later, he tweeted an appeal to the protesting students and said, I now urge the protesting students, whom I have supported all the way, to call off their agitation. It is time to acknowledge victory &move on.

The Staff Selection Commission (SSC), which conducts examination for subordinate services, on Sunday, decided to recommend a CBI inquiry into the alleged paper leaks in one of its tests held on February 21.

This comes after several days of protests by thousands of SSC aspirants who have gathered outside the CGO Complex, where the SSC is headquartered, demanding a CBI inquiry into the Combined Graduate Level-Test Tier II examination held last year following allegations of irregularities and mass cheating.

They also demanded a CBI inquiry into the allegations of the leak of questions of the Combined Graduate Level (Tier-II) Examination 2017 held from February 17 to 22. The students have been protesting outside the SSC office at CGO complex here since February 27, seeking a CBI probe into the alleged paper leak in the Combined Graduate-Level (CGL) exam.Mumbai: Even as a political slugfest over the Rs 12,000 crore PNB fraud continues and CBI makes more arrests, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has proposed to move against fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi and his three companies for deception, falsification of records and misdeclaration of imported diamonds and pearls.

If the trial finds him guilty, Modi can face imprisonment of up to seven years, and/or fine.

While talking about the nature of the charges against Nirav Modi, a DRI official told CNN-News18, "There are several grave charges against him such as misdeclaration of value and quantity of the imported cut and polished diamonds to customs department; clandestinely diverting the duty exempted cut and polished diamonds to the domestic tariff area.

Also, falsification of documentation and submission of such documents to the customs department; violation of the rules of authorised operations of SEZ; and causing loss of customs duty to the government by their acts.

The case dates back to 2014 when the DRI observed deceptive records of Nirav Modi and his firms. The agency issued two notices to him while Modi paid a fine of Rs 48 crore in 2016.

The DRI has named Ms Firestar Diamond International, Ms Firestar International Pvt Limited and Ms Radhashir Jewellery Company Limited in its case against the billionaire jeweller.

NIRAVS MODUS OPERANDI

When asked about Modis modus operandi in evading the customs, a DRI official elaborated, "We had a tip off that Nirav Modi was overvaluing his diamond-studded jewellery. So, we investigated the matter and intercepted his export consignment of diamond-studded jewellery on December 5, 2014. A total of eight consignments were intercepted at the Air Complex Cargo of Sahar. One was headed for the USA, one for Canada, three for Hong Kong and three for Dubai."

"When we examined them, we found that except the consignments for USA and Canada, all others were grossly mis-declared in quantity and value."

Asked about the nature of over-valuation, the officer said, "Freight on Board (FOB) or the export value of cut and polished diamonds for the six consignments was declared as Rs 43.10 crores, whereas the value ascertained by the government-approved valuer was merely Rs 4.93 crore."

"On detailed investigation, it was revealed that units located in the SEZ Surat, namely M/s Firestar Diamond International Pvt. Ltd.(FDIPL), M/s Firestar International Pvt. Ltd. (FIPL) and M/s Radhashir Jewellery Company P.Ltd. (RJCPL) were diverting the imported duty exempted cut, polished diamonds and pearls from the SEZ to the Domestic Tariff Area (DTA) unscrupulously and substituting them with the low quality cut polished diamonds and pearls procured from the DTA, thereby causing loss of customs duty to the exchequer. During the course of the investigation, the declared value of the diamonds was Rs 1,112.3 crores while only Rs 74.63 crores worth diamonds were seized from Surat," the officer said further.

The DRI then issued two show cause notices to Nirav Modi's companies. These notices demanded duty, interest and penalty for the confiscated goods. Thereafter, the three companies paid Rs 48.22 crore.

An official statement by the DRI said, "Shri Nirav Modi, Ms Firestar Diamond International, Ms Firestar International Pvt Limited, and Ms Radhashir Jewellery Company Limited have been found to be fit to be prosecuted under Sections 132, 135(1)(a), 135(1)(b), 135(1)(i) of Customs Act, 1962 and Section 120-B of IPC, 1860. If convicted, the quantum of punishment as per Section 135(i)(D) of the Customs Act, 1962 is upto 7 years imprisonment. The draft complaint along with all relied upon documents have been forwarded to the jurisdictional Commissionerate in Surat for filing in the appropriate court of law. Trial is expected to be launched shortly."New Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research has organised a conference to clear distortions in Indian history.

The three-day conference, titled Indian History: Emerging Perspectives, was inaugurated on Monday, coinciding with the first day of ICHRs new chairman, Arvind Jamkhedkar.

The keynote address was delivered by Ramachandran Nagaswamy, a historian, archaeologist and epigraphist, who is known for his work on temple inscriptions and art history of Tamil Nadu. He has been awarded with the Padma Bhushan.

Nagaswamy said that dharma was not introduced by the Mauryan emperor Asoka, contrary to what left historians have written. He went on to say that the thought had been developed earlier and that there were many kings before him who wanted the people to follow a dharmic path.

He also said that modern India dismissed dharma as a religious term, and introduced an imported term secularism, which has been pumped into our minds.

Dharma was not introduced by Asoka Maurya but is a thought of all ancient thinkers. The dharma gunas as preached by Asoka are found in Taittriya Upanishad, teachings of Buddha, Manu and Gautama who were considered to have come much earlier to Asoka, he said.

He talked about Manus dharma and said, Manu defined dharma as something adored by learned scholars who are of sterling conduct, and who always remain impartial without pride and prejudices and who listen to inner voice is called dharma. This is the foremost definition given by Manu. Which has nothing to do with religion. But when we talk of secularism in modern times, we mean only anti-Indian ism and portray minority virtuosity.

Historians like Romila Thapar hold a view that Asoka expounded an idea new to Indian political and social theory, that Asoka did not see dharma resulting from the good deeds that were inspired by formal religious beliefs but as conformity to social ethics. According to these historians, Asokas dharma is not Buddhist in nature but it was a new and original idea to which he gave a definition. It is a distorted idea as Asoka himself repeatedly says (in his edicts) that what he thought was not his own, but the ancient paurani prakriti, he added.

Nagaswamy said that in this time and age, we must listen to the voice of ancient Indian leaders like Asoka in whose time there was all-round prosperity and humanism.

ICHR as defined the theme of the conference is to talk about the distortion of Indian History and how it was mutilated by a colonial perspective and motivation to belittle the achievements of this civilization and create a schism between communities.

Some of the colonial prejudices and stereotypes have persisted in post-colonial historiographies of India right up to this day, despite claims of ushering in scientific history, it added.

The conference aims to providing the much-needed corrective to the distortions and speculations of colonial historiography, it said

The event was coordinated by Dr Michel Danino, Indologist and guest professor, IIT Gandhinagar and the member secretary of ICHR Rajaneesh Kumar Shukla.

This is a very important conference of ICHR  an initiation towards history writing in the right direction. I am not saying that past direction was wrong but righteousness as a concept should always be taken care of. This conference is a step towards restoration of history from the historians having colonial perspective, Shukla said.

In the past attempts achievements about civilization were belittled by those historians, damage done before independence, after independence and continues till now. Sincerely believe that this three days conference brings us to new scientific investigation and recent studies based on originals historical sources which will encourage us think in right perspective, he added.New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Tuesday hear a fresh plea from Karti Chidambaram, son of former Union minister P Chidambaram, seeking to quash of the Enforcement Directorate's summons against him in the INX Media case.

In his fresh writ petition, Karti Chidambaram has challenged the summons on the ground that the ED has no jurisdiction to issue such notices based on the FIR lodged by the CBI.

The plea was mentioned on Monday by his counsel before a bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, which agreed to hear it along with related pending matters scheduled for hearing on Tuesday.

The apex court is likely to hear tomorrow the anticipatory bail plea of Karti Chidambaram, who is presently in CBI custody in the case.

The top court had earlier refused to stay the summons issued by the ED, saying he could make a request in this regard to the competent authority. It had posted the matter for hearing today after senior advocate Kapil Sibal, appearing for Karti Chidambaram, had sought time to file a proper application to challenge the ED proceedings.

An FIR, filed on May 15 last year, had alleged irregularities in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when P Chidambaram was Union finance minister.

The apex court was hearing pleas, including the CBI's appeal, challenging the Madras High Court order staying a lookout circular (LOC) issued against Karti.

The CBI had on September 1 last year said there were "good, cogent" reasons for issuing the LOC.

The Chidambarams, however, has denied all the charges made against them.

Earlier, a single judge bench of the Madras High Court had stayed the LOC issued against Karti Chidambaram and others in the graft case.

Later, the apex court considered the CBI appeal and stayed the operation of the high court order staying the LOC.

The Supreme Court, however, has kept to itself another batch of petitions related to registration of FIR in the corruption case.Bengaluru: After an expert committee recommended that Lingayat be declared a separate religion, the Jagrathika Lingayat Mahasabha  spearheading the movement for the religious status  welcomed the panels views.

The Lingayat Mahasabha members urged the state government to take forward the Karnataka State Minorities Commissions (KSMC) recommendations and recognize Lingayat as a separate religion.

"We welcome the recommendation. But this is only the first step as the state government has to recognize Lingtayats like they recognize Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists. The state government must also recommend to the central government to recognize us," said Chandrashekhar Patil, advisory committee member, Jagrathika Lingayath Mahasabha.

The Lingayat Mahasabha also stated that they were open to having the Veerashaivas under their umbrella but the nomenclature would remain Lingayat.

The Lingayat camp of the Akhila Bharatha Veerashaiva Mahasabha formally split with its parent organisation in January, following months of dispute over the demands of a separate religion and formed the Jagrathika Lingayat Mahasabha.

The expert committee appointed by the Karnataka government to look into the separate religion status demands of the Veerashaiva-Lingayat community submitted its report this week, two months after it had requested for six months time in January.

The approval of the committee's recommendation by the state government, if done prior to the state assembly elections, will be seen as a crucial move by the Congress government as Lingayats constitute 17% of Karnataka's population and both camps  Lingayats and Veerashaivas  have members of the ruling Congress party, including ministers.Bhopal: A minor rape victim sustained several injuries after she was pushed into a well for resisting a second attempt by the accused to sexual assault her in Madhya Pradeshs Shivpuri district.

The girl was admitted to a local hospital.

The victim was alone in her home when the accused, Jitendra Jatav, allegedly barged into the house and raped her. Jatav then dragged her to nearby fields and tried to sexually assault her again. When she resisted, he pushed her into the well, police said.

As the well was dry, the girl survived but sustained several injuries and cried for help. Hearing her cries, some children who were nearby informed the girls family who rescued her.

Police have booked Jatav under sections of Prevention of Children against Sexual Offences (POCSO). We have launched a manhunt and he will be arrested soon, Sub Divisional Officer of Police Kolaras Sujit Bhadauria said.Bhubaneswar: The disappearance of a Kashmiri medical student from here took a new turn after a handwritten poster was found claiming that he was kidnapped by Maoists.

The Odisha Police, investigating the disappearance of AIIMS-Bhubaneswar student Suhail Ajjaj, on Monday said they are verifying the authenticity of the poster. The poster, written on a plain paper, was found on the wall of the Baramunda overbridge here in the morning and local people informed the police.

"We are examining the authenticity of the poster and have started an investigation. The police have seized the poster," Bhubaneswar DCP Satyabrata Bhoi said. They demanded that Odisha Maovadi Party chief Sabyasachi Panda be released within a week, failing which Suhail would be killed.

While the subject matter of the poster is written in a blue ink and the name of the CPI (Maoist), Odisha State Committee, is in red. The poster also threatened to "blast police stations and the railway station in Bhubaneswar on March 11 and kill hundreds of people," they said.

Maoist leader Panda's wife Subhashree Panda said the disappearance of the Kashmiri student has nothing to do with her husband. "Sabyasachi Panda is no longer a member of the CPI (Maoist). Therefore, this poster should be fake one to mislead police," Subhashree told reporters.

She said Sabyasachi left the CPI (Maoist), Odisha Committee, 10 years ago. His father Ajjaz Ahmed Kataria, who is nowhere, said the police should take this matter seriously and make proper investigation. Suhail, a second-year MBBS student had left the hostel on February 9, informing his friends that he was leaving for a wedding ceremony in Chandigarh and would return in a week.

He said he would be travelling through Kolkata. But as he did not return even after nine days, his classmates informed the college authorities. A police team returned to Bhubaneswar from Kolkata without any clue about him. Former DGP Sanjeev Marik, however, said the poster does not appear to be of CPI (Maoist) party. They give the message in red letter and use letter heads. In this case, the letter is written on a plain paper, Marik pointed out.It's Hollywood's biggest night! The 90th Academy Awards are here.

Without pausing for breath, host Jimmy Kimmel, waded right into the various controversies hat surround this year's academy awards. From referencing last year's best film flub to the ousting of Harvey Weinstein as an alleged sexual predator, Kimmel didn't pull any punches.

Sam Rockwell has picked up the Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal as a racist cop in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

Follow the live updates here.

Here's a look at the other nominations.

National Peoples Party president Conrad Sangma is set to become the next chief minister of Meghalaya after forming a coalition with the BJP, and two regional parties. Sangma met Governor Ganga Prasad and staked claim to form the government in the state with the support of 34 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly. The oath-taking ceremony is likely to take place on Tuesday morning.

Soon after AIMIMs Asaduddin Owaisi welcomed Telangana CM K Chandrashekhar Raos idea of a Third Front, West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee dialed KCR and pledged complete support. According to sources, Banerjee agreed with KCR that there is a necessity for qualitative change in the countrys politics.

A committee of the Delhi Assembly accused Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash of "lying" before the Delhi High Court with regard to a breach of privilege notice issued to him for allegedly skipping a meeting called by the panel.

Four people, including a militant, were killed in a firing incident in Shopian on Sunday night after some militants started firing at an Army vehicle near Pohan in Shopian. The forces retaliated with more firing, resulting in four persons being killed. The retaliatory firing killed a militant identified as Shahid Ahmad Dar, a resident of Jamnagri in Shopian. However, three others were also killed in the firing, who the Army says were accomplices of Dar, but locals denied the allegation saying the three were civilians.

The Bahujan Samaj Party has announced its decision to extend its support to the Samajwadi Party candidates in the Phulpur and Gorakhpur byelections, hours after News18 first reported about the possibility of an alliance between the long-term rivals. The move is aimed at gaining backgrounds lost to the BJP after the 2017 Assembly elections.

An internal debate in the CPI(M) on the political line the party has to follow has become even more shrill after its crushing defeat in Tripura, with the camp supporting general secretary Sitaram Yechury blaming the former party boss Prakash Karat for not adapting to changing scenarios in the country. The incumbent Left government, in power in the state for 25 years, was routed by the BJP that earlier had less than a 2 per cent vote share in Tripura.

Meanwhile, the results have increased the clamour within the party for an "adjustment" with the Congress, ahead of a crucial party meet next month.

Outgoing Tripura CM Manik Sarkar brushed off questions about the results and when asked about his role and responsibility under the new government, said, My work will not be confined to Tripura alone. I will continue to work for the poorest of the poor. I will continue to raise issues which would enable the poor in Tripura to stand on their feet. Heres his interview with News18.com.

Neiphiu Rio has the majority and should form the government, Nagaland Governor P B Acharya said after a meeting with the NDPP leader, who claimed he has the support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly. Acharya said he has asked Rio to submit signatures of all the 32 MLAs supporting him by Monday.

A day after the arrest of an accused in the Gauri Lankesh murder case, the Bharatiya Janata Party in Karnataka has termed the arrest a political gimmick. KT Naveen Kumars arresthas termed the arrest a political gimmick. KT Naveen Kumars arrest on Friday is being seen as a breakthrough in the case, which comes almost six months after the shocking murder of the Karnataka-based journalist.

Krishna Kumari Kolhi from Pakistan's Sindh province has become the first-ever Hindu Dalit woman Senator in the Muslim-majority country. Kolhi, 39, from Thar is a member of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari-led Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). She won the election for the reserved seat for women from Sindh province.

Karti Chidambaram was taken to the Byculla prison in Mumbai and confronted with Indrani Mukerjea as part of the CBI's probe into the INX Media case. According to Indrani, Karti had demanded one million USD for Foreign Investment Promotion Board clearance to INX Media, but she had paid 7 lakh USD. Indrani levelled the allegation in presence of Karti, who later denied it and told the CBI that he never received any payments for any clearance.

Signing a range of memorandum of understanding (MoUs), Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang cemented Indias Act East policy on the concluding day of Quangs three-day visit. Both nations inked three agreements, including one on nuclear cooperation. They also resolved to work on an open Indo-Pacific region, considered among the highly globalised areas as of now.

The Narcotics Control Bureau in Kolkata seized psychotropic substances, including ecstacy, LSD blots and magic mushrooms from a house in Kolkata and arrested three people in connection with the drug haul. Deep Chakraborty, son of a well-known restaurateur and celebrity chef and Vivek Sharma, son of a Kolkata-based industrialist were among the three who were arrested on Saturday.

Agree or disagree?

There comes a phase in the life of every mass leader, when the values, ideals and the causes that they hold close to their chest are not in sync with their followers anymore. That is when change becomes inevitable and the masses look around for the most attractive alternative to dislodge the leader. For Manik Sarkar and Tripura, that moment has come. It has been a 20-year-long journey as the Chief Minister. Trapped in the Cold War era ideology, Sarkar missed the digital bus. Probably in his refusal to use a smartphone, he lost connection with the 'WhatsApp' generation. Now, his rule has been brought to an end by a party which made 'WhatsApp' communication their focal point of political messaging. his rule has been brought to an end by a party which made 'WhatsApp' communication their focal point of political messaging.

Out of Left hangover, will a BJP-led Tripura roll out red carpet for industries? The BJP during its campaign had made several promises to revive the economy, including one job opportunity to every family through reviving and establishing industries, promoting IT industry and bringing foreign and domestic investors.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the Gauri Lankesh murder has been working with its entire focus on just this one case for the last five months. But while the main perpetrators of the murder themselves are at large, the team has been able to solve (and in at least one case, prevent) other crimes, thanks to its crackdown on the arms traders. While on the track of where the guns and ammunition for the Lankesh killing came from, the police had questioned a gun-runner in December, who later led investigators to a supari contract killer Shashidhar Mundewari. But with leads not pointing to any role in the Lankesh murder, cases were handed over to the Crime Branch in the city. Deepa Balakrishnan writes on the trails that didn't lead to Gauri Lankesh's killers, but helped check other crimes.

(Get a fresh dose of the news that matters, delivered directly to your inbox, every morning. The perfect way, to get you started and informed, for the day ahead. Subscribe to News18 Daybreak here.)The authors wrote, It was no uncommon thing for the wife and children to remain alone for days, while the father and older sons were away on hunting or other expeditions. They (the wife and children) lived in a tent, which, or course, afforded no protection from the nightly intrusions of the grizzly. This brave woman was not one to succumb to the ravenous attacks of the huge monsters without adopting some expedient to escape an encounter from them.

They continued, At such times she would take the children and veritably roost in the trees, high above the reach of bruin. A scaffolding was prepared in the forks of a mammoth oak tree, and on this she would make her beds and she and the children would sleep safely, if not soundly.

From their treetop sleeping quarters, Mrs. Elliott and her children usually heard and saw the bears ransack their campground foraging for every last scrap of food. Kanaga and Wallace added, She did not fear the visit of the day time, for she could easily mount to her perch in the tree, and fetch his bearship to the ground with a well-directed shot from the rifle, which she could handle as well as a man.

In concluding the Elliott story, Kanaga and Wallace wrote an editorial that also applied to Hill, Sweitzer and all early Napa County women settlers and residents. Such was the life those pioneer women led, and all honor is their due for the noble courage they displayed in facing the dangers they did.Lucknow: The Shia Personal Law Board has rejected a compromise over the Ram Janmabhoomi  Babri Masjid case saying that a mosque should be built in place of the mosque. Shia Waqf board chairman, Waseem Rizvi had earlier written a letter to AIMPLB, mentioning nine mosques that needed to be given back to Hindus.

Any compromise of the Babri Masjid issue is unacceptable to the board. Only what the apex court says would be acceptable to us. Masjid is the house of God and the board has always been in favour of the Masjid, said All India Shia Personal Law Board spokesperson, Maulana Yasoob Abbas to News18.

Some people are unnecessarily talking about the issue to gain cheap publicity. All that they are trying to do is create a divide between the communities and disturb communal harmony, said Abbas.

A few days ago, Shia Waqf Board chairman Waseem Rizvi had written a letter to AIMPLB mentioning nine mosques around the country that should be given back to Hindus as they were built after razing temples.

Reacting to the letter, AIMPLB executive member Maulana Khalid Rasheed Farangi Mahali had said that the media was giving unnecessary attention to people like Rizvi, who were dampening the spirit of brotherhood between two communities. Both communities are happy and satisfied with their places of worship, but people like Rizvi are trying to create a communal divide in the country. Such people should be ignored, he had said.

Speaking about mediation efforts by Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Yasoob Abbas said, As far as the matter of Sri Sri mediating in the issue is concerned, then I would say it is of no meaning. He is meeting the wrong people and they are taking him for a ride. He never met the parties involved in the case. He even wanted to meet me, but I declined and asked for his formula instead. There was no formula, just verbal talks which do not mean anything.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar was in talks with evicted member of AIMPLB Salman Nadwi for an out-of-court settlement of the Babri issue. The Muslim leader, though, backed out of the peace talks after a recent meeting with the spiritual guru in Lucknow and said that he would also wait for Supreme Courts judgment like everyone else.Mar 05, 2018 11:04 (IST)

The second part of Parliament's budget session begins on a stormy note with the opposition ready to corner the government on the issue of bank frauds. As both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha meet after a month-long recess, the multi-crore PNB bank fraud and other financial scams are likely to dominate the proceedings in both the Houses. The opposition and the government are likely to lock horns over the issue.

What all has happened so far:

 JP Yadav, Naresh Aggarwal & D Raja have given notice over bank scam

 INLD and Pappu Yadav have given notice over SSC exam leak

 Vinay Sahasrabuddhe given the notice to suspend the business of house and discuss Karti & P Chidambaram INX case  Marya has done his tictac

 TDP protests in front of the Gandhi statue in Parliament. TDP MPs give adjournment notices in the Lok Sabha on the issue of Social Category Status to Andhra Pradesh.

 TMC protest against PNB scam in front of Gandhi statue

 After Northeast sweep, Amit Shah being welcomed in Parliament

 TDP MP Dr Shiva Prasad dressed as KrishnaNew Delhi: A Parliamentary Panel, while considering NITI Aayog's pitch to privatise Air India, said the government think-tank was acting like a spokesperson for the private sector.

The panel also termed NITI Aayog's arguments as "childish" and "without basis".

The remarks, which were a part of the 'Revised Draft Report on Proposed Disinvestment of Air India', said that the think-tank was acting like the spokesperson of the private sector and recommended privatisation of Air India without providing any basis or rationale.

The panels remark further said that NITI Aayog simply thought the government should not be in the airline business as there are many private airlines around. It is probably a childish argument. If we extend the theory to many other sectors of the governments functioning, we may have to close down many institutions of national importance".

In one of the sections in the draft, titled '11 Reasons Why the National Carrier Should Not be Disinvested', the panel also asked whether there were any documents or studies on which NITI Aayog based its argument.

As part of the rationale provided by NITI Aayog, which includes the fragile finances of the airline, it has said that Air India with 14% market share is not a strategic or priority business for the government.

The Union Cabinet had approved disinvestment of Air India in June 2017. A group of ministers led by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is working on the details of the process.Mumbai: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar will be reaching Mumbai around 6 pm on Monday to be admitted to Lilavati Hospital. Highly placed sources in BJP said that the former Defence Minister will be in Mumbai for three days, before he flies to the US for further treatment.

"He is suffering from a pancreas ailment and it will be better if he gets treatment in the US. That way, he will be able to recover better. Washington has specialised treatment facilities that are required for his ailment. He will go there for some time," a senior BJP leader told CNN-News18 on condition of anonymity.

Parrikar will reach Mumbai in a chartered flight on Monday evening.

Earlier in the day, Parrikars office had tweeted: "Honble Chief Minister @manoharparrikar will be travelling to Mumbai today for further medical checkup and based on doctors advice may travel overseas for further treatment."

Before heading to Mumbai, Parrikar had called for a meeting of senior ministers at his private residence in Dona Paula in Goa and formed a cabinet advisory committee to take administrative decisions in his absence. Parrikar also met the state chief secretary and the director general of police on Monday morning.

Speculations are rife in the political circles about his health. The chief minister was admitted to Lilavati Hospital on February 15 where he received treatment and was discharged on February 22. The same day he attended a session of the Goa Legislative Assembly, where he presented the state Budget and made a brief speech.

On February 25, Parrikar was admitted to Goa Medical College and Hospital after he suffered mild dehydration. He was discharged from the hospital on March 1.

"It is a shock. But he is a man of strong will power. He will definitely come out of it," a close friend of Parrikar's told CNN-News18.

BJP sources said that the Goa CM is likely to be in Mumbai till March 7 after which he will travel to US.Mumbai: An employee of diamond merchant Nirav Modi's firm on Monday moved the Bombay High Court contending that the CBI arrested her in the multi-crore Punjab National Bank scam in violation of law.

Kavita Mankikar, in her petition, claimed that she was arrested on February 20 at 8 pm by officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), contrary to the provision of law which says a woman cannot be arrested after sunset.

She was arrested along with five others, including Vipul Ambani, the president (finance) of Modi's Fire Star Diamond. Mankikar was remanded in CBI's custody till Monday. Mankikar was Modi's executive assistant and authorised signatory of three of his group firms - Diamond R US, Stellar Diamond, Solar Exports.

"The petition seeks the high court to hold the petitioner's (Mankikar) arrest as illegal and unconstitutional as it was done in gross violation of the provisions of law," her lawyer Vijay Agarwal said.

Agarwal mentioned the petition before the single bench of Justice N W Sambre which posted it for hearing on March 12. According to the CBI, Mankikar had fraudulently signed the applications for the issuance of Letters of Understanding (LoU).

On January 31 this year, the CBI had registered a case against Modi, his uncle Mehul Choksi, the owner of Gitanjali Gems, and several others including PNB officials.

In its FIR, the CBI had listed eight fraudulent transactions worth over Rs 280 crore. But, based on further complaints from the bank, the agency said the quantum of amount in the first FIR was over Rs 6,498 crore, involving 150 LoUs allegedly issued fraudulently.

The remaining 150 fraudulent LoUs worth over Rs 4,886 crore issued for Gitanjali group of companies were part of the second FIR registered later by the agency against Choksi and his companies Gitanjali Gems, Nakshatra Brands and Gili.Hyderabad: Nobody has come forward to claim the bodies of nine Maoists who were among those killed in the encounter in Chhattisgarh's Bijapur district last week, Telangana police said on Monday.

Ten Maoists including seven women were killed in the encounter with Greyhounds, the special anti-Naxal force of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, near Pujari Kanker in Bijapur district on March 2.

One Greyhounds personnel was also killed in the encounter. Nine unclaimed bodies have been kept in the mortuary at Government Area Hospital in Bhadrachalam in Telangana, police said.

Dadaboina Swamy alias Prabhakar, a divisional committee member of the banned CPI (Maoist) and a native of Warangal district, was among the dead Maoists. His family took possession of the body on Sunday, police said.

"(Other) Nine dead Maoists (all of whom have been identified) hail from Chhattisgarh. We have shared their photographs with local police in that state," said Ambar Kishor Jha, Superintendent of Police, Bhadradri-Kothagudem district.

"We are hopeful that their relatives or village elders will collect their bodies," the SP told PTI over the phone.Washington: A first-of-its-kind delegation of "culture diplomats" has been sent to the US to promote Indian culture in the country, officials said.

The culture diplomats, who are officially called teachers of Indian culture, have the mandate to spread various aspects of the rich culture of the country, in addition to holding yoga camps.

I want to hold yoga camps in all the 50 States. The objective is to have trained yoga teachers and volunteers in all American States, who would then train others, Mox Raj, Teacher of Indian Culture at the Indian Embassy in Washington DC said.

He has already started taking regular yoga sessions for the Indian Embassy officials in downtown Washington DC.

He is part of the first batch of 24 teachers of Indian culture who have been dispatched to various diplomatic missions across the world.

Including him, three of them have recently joined Indian diplomatic missions in Washington DC. The other two being sent to New York and Chicago.

While process is on to send Teachers of Indian Culture to more than 100 diplomatic missions, the first batch of cultural diplomats have been sent among others to Budapest, Suva, Brussels, Guatemala City, Reykjavik (Iceland), Mahe (Seychelles), Lilongwe (Malawi), Kingston (Jamaica), Maputo in Mozambique, Nicosia (Cyprus), Kiev (Ukraine), Hong Kong, Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, Bratislava in Slovak, Manama (Bahrain), Geneva and Minsk in (Belarus).

Before being sent to overseas missions, these cultural diplomats received orientation and went through training camps in Delhi, wherein they were told that their mandate is to develop Indian culture and teach yoga and Indian philosophy and Veda through holding camps, workshop, and lectures.Well if you thought repeating outfits wasn't cool, you need to think twice.

At the 90th Academy Awards, legendary actress Rita Moreno showed us how one could repeat an outfit that is almost over 50 years old and still manage to slay at the red carpet.

One of the only 12 people in history to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony, veteran actress Rita Moreno raised the fashion quotient and stunned at the Oscars 2018 red carpet when she turned up in the exact same attire that she wore to accept her Best Supporting Actress Oscar award in 1962 for West Side Story.

At the Oscars red carpet, during an interview, while mentioning that the dress had been hanging in her closet for years, Moreno explained that the dress, designed by Jose Moreno, was made out of an obi, a sash normally used as a part of traditional Japanese kimonos.

Moreno's iconic appearance earned her praises from fans and fashion police alike. And while the outfit remained the exact same, a major modification was done to the neckline, turning it into a strapless gown, giving the ensemble a more contemporary appeal.

The veteran star completed her look with a black headband, black velvet kid gloves and statement jewelry.

Take a look.

Hollywood actress repeated her Oscars' 1962 gown at the 90th Academy Awards. She said it was time for her gown from the 1962 Oscars to make a comeback, so she decided to wear it for Oscars 2018 while walking the red carpet. (Image: Reuters)

Moreno says she hopes he was watching and "gets to see this extraordinary dress again." (Image: AP)

Rita even remembered the dressmaker's name: Jose Moreno. (Image: AP)Whether those rights should be overhauled, or even abolished, has been kicked around in academic, political and agricultural circles for decades, the latter because farmers account for about three-fourths of Californias human water consumption.

Two unresolved issues dominate the discussions: whether the most senior rights are absolute, or can be legally modified, and if modified whether their holders are entitled to compensation.

Had the drought not been interrupted by last winters storms, both of those issues appeared to be headed toward showdowns.

The state Water Resources Control Board attempted to impose its conservation mandates on senior rights holders, and they worried aloud that it was a backdoor abrogation of those rights.

By law, they argued, they were exempt from such allocations, while the board said it could supersede water rights because of a provision of the state constitution barring waste or unreasonable use.

One test of the issue involved the Byron-Bethany Irrigation District, near Tracy, which was accused of taking water from the Delta for 13 days after it and other districts with senior water rights had been told to curtail pumping.On March 5, midway through the 90th Academy Awards 2018, Netflix decided to release the first glimpse of the much awaited final season of its political thriller House of Cards. With the new teaser, the makers released a revamped version of the sixth and the final season of the hit series, following Kevin Spacey's departure after multiple sexual assault allegations against him surfaced.

The 30-second video begins with a busy West Wing set, moving into the commander in chief's office. The camera gradually moves into the President's office, where Claire Underwood, who assumed power in the Oval Office towards the end of the fifth season, spins around in a swivel chair behind the President's desk, stands up and utters the words 'We're just getting started'. Soon after, Netflix's tagline reads, 'Hail to the Chief'.

With fans looking forward to see what ultimately happens in the popular series, this teaser seems to have piqued viewer's' curiosity to another level.

Take a look.Mumbai: Irrfan Khan on Monday said that he is suffering from a rare disease and will share details when there is a conclusive diagnosis.

In a Twitter post, the 51-year-old actor said he and his family were jolted by the knowledge of his illness, and requested his fans and followers not to speculate about his health.

"Sometimes you wake up with a jolt with life shaking you up. The last fifteen days, my life has been a suspense story. Little had I known that my search for rare stories would make me find a rare disease. I have never given up and have always fought for my choices and always will.

"My family and friends are with me and we are working it out the best way possible. In trying times, please don't speculate as I will myself share with you my story within a week - ten days, when the further investigations come with a conclusive diagnosis. Till then, wish the best for me," Irrfan wrote.

On February 21, the actor's spokesperson had released a statement, saying that he has been diagnosed with a severe case of jaundice.

Next day, director Vishal Bhardwaj, who was scheduled to begin the shoot of his next, starring Irrfan and Deepika Padukone, postponed the filming of the project citing health concerns of his lead actors.Oscar 2018: Hollywood Pays Tribute to Sridevi and Shashi Kapoor

Mar 05, 2018 10:20 AM IST Movies Movies Share

Los Angeles: The Academy awards paid tribute to Indian stars Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi at the Oscars In Memoriam section for their contribution to the world of cinema. Others who featured in the section include James Bond star Roger Moore, Mary Goldberg and Johan Johansson, John Heard and Sam Shephard. American rock band Pearl Jam's lead vocalist Eddie Vedder performed Tom Pettys Room At The Top during In Memoriam montage.



Sridevi breathed her last in Dubai and was given a state funeral with her body wrapped in the tricolour and a gun salute by the Mumbai police. The actor started out as a child artiste and went on to become the first female superstar of the Indian film industry. She worked in and conquered Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Hindi films with her acting prowess, comic timing and ethereal dancing skills.



Shashi Kapoor hit the spotlight at the age of four, acting in plays directed and produced by his father. He started acting in films as a child artiste in the late '40s. His best known performances as a child actor were in Aag (1948) and Awaara (1951), where he played the younger version of the character played by Raj Kapoor.



Last year, actor Om Puri was honoured at the prestigious ceremony. The veteran, who died in January 2017 at the age of 66, was popular in the international circuit for his performances in movies like East Is East, Gandhi, City of Joy and Wolf.Oscars 2018: Twitterati Fume as Ryan Seacrest, Accused of Sexual Misconduct, Hosts Red Carpet

Mar 05, 2018 06:23 AM IST Movies Movies Share

As Hollywood celebrities made their way to the 90th Academy Awards, the presence of E! host Ryan Seacrest, who has been accused of sexual harassment, as the red carpet host angered many.



Seacrest, 43, has been facing the allegation of sexual harassment from his former stylist. The woman, Suzie Hardy, who had written a letter in November last year detailing her abuse, recently said in an interview that on one particular occasion, Seacrest allegedly threw her on the bed and rubbed up against her. Hardy, who has worked for Seacrest as a stylist from 2007 to 2013, also said that her ordeal ended in 2013 after she reported about Seacrest's actions to human resources which terminated her employment at E! News.



However, Seacrest denied the allegations in a statement, saying, I have worked extremely hard to achieve my success and I don't take my opportunities for granted. I don't want to accuse anyone of not telling the truth but in this case, I have no choice but to again deny the claims against me, remind people that I was recused of any wrongdoing, and put the matter to rest.



At a time when Hollywood's heavy-weights are opening up about the sexual harassment in the industry, Seacrest's appearance at the red carpet has not gone down well with many viewers. Some of them have also taken to social media to express their displeasure writing, "Ryan Seacrest will experience his Darkest Hour and be told to Get Out."



This is a total failure for #ERedCarpet they screwed up sticking with Seacrest #MeToo #TimesUp and shame on @KellyRipa for sticking by him too. #SeacrestOut  Hippi (@Old_Hippi) March 5, 2018

Is he about to touch someone inappropriately, or has he done that already? #SeacrestOut #Oscars pic.twitter.com/rXb9yI7Wb7  Matty G Humbug (@mgaudett) March 4, 2018

One victim of sexual assault is one too many.



And judging by the persistence of Seacrest's behavior towards Hardy and the disgusting way in which his 'team' protected and shielded him, I'm guessing there were more.#SeacrestOut for good.https://t.co/EmyvPCPdv5  Stephen Black (@stephenablack) March 4, 2018

Red carpet #Oscars90 prediction:

Ryan Seacrest will experience his Darkest Hour and be told to Get Out. #SeacrestOut #MeToo  time travel lrd (@timetravellord) March 4, 2018

Some of the key nominees and stars including Timothee Chalamet and Margot Robbie did not stop for interviews and walked past him, as did Oscar winner Viola Davis. While Octavia Spencer told him he looked handsome, did not do an interview. Director Dee Rees seemed to wave no when someone asked if she wanted to stop.(With inputs from AP)Mumbai: Bollywood veteran Rishi Kapoor today thanked the Academy of Motion Picture and Science for paying tributes to Indian stars, Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi in the In Memoriam segment at the 2018 Oscars ceremony.

The 65-year-old actor took to Twitter to express his gratitude to the Academy on Twitter. The 54-year-old actor passed away on February 24 due to accidental drowning in a Dubai hotel. Rishi also said that Indians are taking the centerstage in international cinema and posted a video clip of the ceremony's closing credits which showed his father actor-filmmaker Raj Kapoor's namesake as a co-producer.

"Oscars. Thank you for remembering Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi. Thrilled to see the name Raj Kapoor as the executive producer of the show. We are on the threshold of world cinema," the actor wrote.

Oscars. Thank you for remembering Shashi Kapoor and Sridevi. Thrilled to see the name Raj Kapoor as the executive producer of the show. We are on the threshold of world cinema! pic.twitter.com/YMkqntZ4Xz Rishi Kapoor (@chintskap) March 5, 2018

He is the nephew of the legendary actor, who passed away last year in December after a prolonged illness. Rishi was a close associate of Sridevi, having acted opposite her in films such as Chandni, Nagina and Gurudev among others.Hyderabad: If you saw celebratory pictures coming out of Pragathi Bhavan, official residence of the chief minister of Telangana in the last two days, you would think K Chandrashekar Rao has scored an emphatic victory in an election. Many a politician have come calling, some have reportedly spoken to him over the phone while crowds have been arranged by the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) city leaders to listen to KCR.

The reason is  KCR has decided to go national. In a country where politicians are wishy-washy about their ambitions, KCR has come clean on what he has in mind. It is similar to the move made by the late Jayalalithaa in 2014, who through her campaign posters in the Lok Sabha elections that year, made clear that she wanted to be Prime Minister as well. Jayalalithaa would be an encouraging template for KCR as she, in the face of the Narendra Modi wave, bagged 37 of the 39 seats in Tamil Nadu.

The timing, you could say, was however rather strange. Earlier that evening, the BJP had scored an emphatic victory in the North-East and KCR launched into a tirade against both national parties. He announced that he wishes to lead a non-BJP, non-Congress alternative a.k.a. a Third Front at the Centre.

The desire is fuelled by some furious back-of-the-envelope calculation that suggests that if the BJP juggernaut could be stopped at around 200-odd Lok Sabha seats next year and the Congress does not get into three digits, an amorphous Third Front could take a shot at power. A bit like the failed United Front experiment of 1996-98.

While KCR's dream has been dismissed by BJP and Congress supporters as a flight of fancy, the important question is  why does KCR want to take the Hyderabad-New Delhi flight.

What has gone so horribly wrong between KCR and Narendra Modi that he has become the PM's harshest critic?

Rewind to November 2016, you will find that KCR was the first non-NDA chief minister to support demonetisation. He backed Modi on GST as well and so steadfast was he in support of the NDA presidential candidate Ramnath Kovind that he did not even agree to meet the UPA candidate Meira Kumar when she came to Hyderabad to canvass for votes.

The reasons now seem to be a combination of ambition, Telangana politics and some serious realpolitik.

Both in 2004 and 2009, the then united Andhra Pradesh delivered 29 and 33 Lok Sabha seats respectively to the Congress kitty, enabling the formation of UPA I and II. Chandrababu Naidu is now miffed with Modi for not helping him sufficiently with funds for Andhra, post-bifurcation, and would be a willing partner in any non-BJP, non-Congress formation. The calculation is, if between the two, the TRS and Telugu Desam can net between 30 and 35 seats in the two states, this Telugu axis can be the nucleus of a new political formation.

KCR, too, has his grouse against Modi. The Centre dilly-dallying on giving 12 percent reservation to Muslims in Telangana, the yet-to-be functional High Court, the non-transference of the Bison Polo grounds in Secunderabad to the state government to build a new secretariat, the delayed funds for select projects and the denial of permission to increasing the assembly seats in the state from 119 to 153, are all playing on KCRs mind.

Likewise, Naidu also wants Andhra's seats to go up from 175 to 225. This is party thanks to both leaders having admitted a number of turncoats from opposition parties in the last four years and come election time, will find it tough to accommodate so many ticket aspirants.

In the recent past, KCR's son, Industries minister KT Rama Rao, too has articulated his displeasure against the Centre's tendency not to think beyond Delhi-Mumbai and South India getting a raw deal when it comes to projects. Now, KCR has taken on Modi over agrarian distress, charging the NDA with not having its heart in the right place. KCR's critics could charge him with hypocrisy, as Telangana figures in the top three states when it comes to farmer suicides.

But what KCR has done is to create optics. He makes it seem like his task in Telangana is over one year ahead of schedule and therefore, he can claim a promotion. Those in the Congress cry foul and accuse him of playing out a charade. Their contention is that with rural Telangana slipping away from the TRS, this is KCR's ploy to create an illusion.

The Congress also suspects this is a BJP-sponsored move to weaken the party. If Modi falls short of numbers next summer, it would be easier for him to strike a deal with individual regional satraps like KCR, for whom it may end up becoming a win-win situation.

(Author is a senior journalist. Views are personal)New Delhi: After the disintegration of the Janata Dal in early 1991, the socialists in Uttar Pradesh were at sea.

Few months later, General Elections saw the return of the Congress government at the Centre, led by PV Narasimha Rao. In Uttar Pradesh, Kalyan Singh won a comfortable majority to lead the first majority BJP government in Uttar Pradesh.

A section in erstwhile Janata Dal which broke away to form Samajwadi Janata Party (SJP) led by Chandra Shekhar wanted to have truck with the Congress to take on the challenge posed by the BJP. But Mulayam Singh Yadav had other plans.

The Lok Sabha elections to Etawah had been countermanded in the face of violence and reports of massive rigging. By-elections were slated for the November of 1991. The BJP and SJP were in direct contest for a seat seen to be Mulayams pocket borough.

Interestingly, BSP founder Kanshi Ram, then trying to find his feet in the national politics, also filed nomination papers.

It was on polling day that we realised what had happened when our polling agents were seen mobilising votes for the BSP. Hamare baste pe hathi ko vote pad rahe the, recalled a close aide of Mulayam many years later. It later came to light that Mulayam had clandestinely transferred his party votes to BSP that elections.

Kanshi Ram, after many failed attempts, had won his first direct election to enter the Lok Sabha. Mulayam Singh Yadav in the process had successfully experimented with the OBC-Dalit-Muslim combination.

A year later, in October 1992, Mulayam formed his own party. In 1993, the Samajwadi Party and BSP came together to defeat BJP at the peak of the Ram Temple movement to form a coalition government.

Mile Mulayam Kanshi Ram, hawa mein ud gaye Jai Shri Ram was the common refrain among euphoric alliance supporters as the BSP tasted victory to win power in a decade since its formation in early 80s.

The SP-BSP government, however, could not complete its full term, with Kashi Ram withdrawing support after the infamous VIP guesthouse case in Lucknow to hoist Mayawati as the chief minister with BJP support.

The second time Kanshi Ram ever got into a pre-poll alliance was in 1996 with the Congress. A senior Congress leader, who won the assembly polls the same year, recalled how the committed BSP supporters would seek just basic help and support to ensure complete and total vote transfer to the Congress. The vice-versa, however, did not happen.

It was a lesson in electoral politics for the BSP. Which is why, for many years thereafter, the party never sought a pre-poll alliance with anyone  in UP and outside.

But in the last two decades, a lot of water has flowed down the Yamuna, skirting past Etawah.

The BSP, after reaching its pinnacle in 2007, has drawn a naught in the last Lok Sabha elections. The question is  will behenji Mayawati finally make tactical adjustments and seek pre-poll allies to stem the downslide?

Since she quit Rajya Sabha in a huff last year, Mayawati has kept a low profile. In the last one month, however, she has indicated her intent to do business with other parties and probe the plausibility of pre-poll alliances.

In Karnataka, Mayawati has agreed to play junior partner to the JD(S). In UP, she has lent support to SP candidates in Phulpur and Gorakhpur. But does that mean BSP is ready for a larger national coalition against the BJP at the centre? Because no two elections are the same and in electoral politics, two plus two is not always four.

Mayawati once famously called the BJP and Congress nagnath and saapnath. In the current political scenario, the BSP chief knows which is which and more detrimental to her party.

In politics, there are no free lunches. At the right time, probably closer to the elections, Mayawati like her mentor Kanshi Ram will take the larger call on alliance to suit the larger prospects of her party.Bengaluru: Kannada superstar Upendra, who wanted to upset political equations in the state assembly election, is facing a serious rebellion within his own party.

Many of his party colleagues have come out against him, calling him a dictator. There is also talk of him quitting the party, he founded a few months ago, to avoid further embarrassment.

According to sources, Upendra is likely to join the BJP on Tuesday by quitting or dissolving his party. His followers feel that he has already given enough hints and may finally go with Prime Minister Narendra Modi whom he idolizes.

The real results between prajaakeeya and Raajakeeya will reveal on 6th of this month. Wait and watch. Upendra Upendra (@nimmaupendra) March 3, 2018

Upendra had founded a political party called Prajakeeya, a few months ago. It was loosely based on the AAP ideology and had promised to weed out corruption and nepotism from the society. Ironically, on the very first day he had appointed his wife and brother to top positions in the party, upsetting many of his followers.

After the much hyped launch of the party, there was no activity at all, triggering a lot of speculation over his next move. Some had even stated that Upendras party launch was a gimmick and he actually had no interest in making it a political force.

On Monday, Shivakumar, vice president of Prajakeeya appeared before the media attacking his leader. Speaking to News18 he said that Upendra was behaving like a dictator and was busy promoting his wife and brother.

Upendra may be a big film star. But he is acting like a dictator. He is not ready to take us into confidence. He says that all the tickets will be decided by him and listens to no one. He is putting family ahead of party. Elections are just two months away. We dont even have a manifesto or action plan ready. We have questioned him on this. But he refused to react, he said.

According to Shivakumar, there was a heated argument between many leaders and Upendra at his partys national committee meeting two days ago.

Upendras spokesperson Anand said that all issues would be addressed by the superstar and there was no need for other leaders to go to media against him. Anand said, Revolution wont happen overnight. It takes time. Upendra is a revolutionary leader. These people must understand that. Election is not the only thing in which he is interested. He thinks beyond that.

On Sunday, Upendra had tweeted that March 6th would be his Agni Pareeksha Day.Chennai: Superstar Rajinikanth, who is yet to announce his political party, sounded the poll bugle in Tamil Nadu and said that he is here to fill the political vacuum in Tamil politics that was created with the demise of Jayalalithaa.

Addressing a massive gathering at a private medical college in Chennai, Rajinikanth said, Jayalalithaa is no more and Karunanidhi is ill. Tamil Nadu needs a leader. I will come and fill that vacuum. God is on my side.

Rajinikanth even warned the political parties of the state and said, I don't expect you to roll out the red carpet for me, but don't create hurdles for me.

Amid his next keenly awaited move in politics, Rajinikanth was received by fans and supporters and accompanied by some prominent faces from Kollywood. The actor unveiled the statue at the premises of ACS Medical College and Hospital in Chennai.

While he unveiled the statue, many thought he was trying to ride the MGR wave. But Rajini in his speech said no one can become an MGR but he will give a good governance like MGR.

"Many say all can't become MGR. Nobody can match MGR even in 1,000 years and that includes me. He's a yuga purush. I know the political journey is not easy. It is a journey through struggles and hurdles but I can give governance which they (MGR) gave to common people and I trust I can do that too," the superstar said, in his ode to M G Ramachandran.

He also addressed the criticism that actors like he faces on entering politics. Rajini admitted that he has learnt politics moving with DMK supremo Karunanidhi, late Cho Ramaswamy and Tamil Manila Congress founder GK Moopanar. "I don't expect a red carpet welcome. But why mock and discourage . Politics is strewn with thorns and snakes, Rajini said.

He added, "The present government and politicians are asking why are actors leaving their makeup and coming to take over their jobs as politicians. I am 67 years now, since you are not doing your duty I am stepping in."

The 67-year old superstar, who has a large fan following, said he would take recourse to technology besides assistance from experts and technocrats in delivering governance. He said he would follow spiritual governance that would have no discrimination based on caste or creed.

In his over 30-minute speech, which gave an insight into his political ideology and the priorities of his yet-to-be launched party, Rajinikanth acknowledged he was "not MGR" and "If someone says he will be (like) MGR, he will only be crazy."

This is Rajinikanth's first major public engagement since he revealed his political intentions on December 31, 2017. The veteran actor had then announced that he will join politics, and field candidates in all 234 Assembly segments in the next general elections.

Rajinikanth's speech on Monday comes days after his contemporary Kamal Haasan launched his political party Makkal Needhi Maiam in Madurai.Bengaluru: The Congress in Karnataka seems to be after candidates who can win them a seat or two. The latest to join the states ruling party is Ashok Kheny, a highly controversial businessman.

Kheny owns the Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE), which has built a ring road around Bengaluru city. He is an independent MLA from Bidar South assembly seat in HyderabadKarnataka region.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has welcomed Kheny to the Congress despite opposition from many party leaders. Ironically, the Siddaramaiah government had constituted a joint legislative committee to probe allegations of irregularities against Khenys company and had even recommended serious criminal action against him just a year ago.

Congress leaders from in and around Bengaluru had even demanded jail term for Kheny for allegedly grabbing precious farm lands for his road project. He is also accused of diverting land for private illegal townships along the NICE road, which circles southern and western parts of the city. The NICE scam is pegged at over Rs 1 lakh crore.

According to sources in the Chief Ministers Office, Kheny is likely to get Lingayat and Kuruba votes in Bidar for the party. While Kheny is from the Lingayat community and was once close to BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa, Siddaramaiah is a Kuruba by caste.

The late Dharam Singhs family has already opposed his inclusion into the party calling it a shocking development. The former CMs son-in-law and a Congress ticket aspirant from Khenys constituency, Chandra Singh, told News18 that he will go to party high command seeking justice.

Kheny is corrupt. He has no backing in the seat. He won because of his money power in 2013. We are shocked. I have already started the campaign and now they have taken him.

The induction offers the BJP and JD(S) yet another opportunity to target the Congress on issues of corruption. A BJP leader alleged that the Congress has inducted Kheny for his bottomless resources.

The Congress had faced similar criticism a month ago during party president Rahul Gandhis tour of HyderabadKarnataka region when it inducted two BJP MLAs close to mining baron Janardhana Reddy.Jacobs shot a screen test with Heston and Edward G. Robinson in full orangutan make-up and costume as Dr. Zaius. James Brolin was also in the screen test as Cornelius, but not in ape regalia. After reviewing the screen test, Zanuck found the ape costume suitable for the screen and gave the go-ahead with the Planet of the Apes project.

Filming would start in the spring of 1967. However, the main concern was the make-up for the ape characters. Studio makeup artist, John Chambers, was brought aboard the project. His specialty was in the area of creature make-up. He worked on such hit series as The Outer Limits, The Munsters and Lost in Space.

During the next four months, Chambers was responsible for transforming 200 extras into apes. Devices were used to make the mouths more animated, so facial expressions could be seen in the ape characters. Chimps were made to look more sympathetic with man; while the gorillas were part of the military and looked more fierce in nature than their counterparts. Aristocratic orangutans appearances were made to show off their nobility. Actors were able to express emotions through the ape mask.

Twentieth-Century Fox were now concerned Serlings script. Serling kept to Boulles original concept of a technological society, with apes driving vehicles and flying helicopters.Hyderabad: As Telangana chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao's idea of floating a Third Front as an alternative to Congress and BJP gains strength, the Telangana Congress termed the move a ploy to cover up the failures of the state and central government.

KCR has been an undeclared ally of the BJP for the last four years. Now, both BJP and Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) are jointly playing mind games to distract people from their failures. It is strange that KCR is calling Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his friend and rival in the same breath, said Telangana Congress president, Uttam Kumar Reddy.

The leader, who was addressing a public gathering at Nizamabad during the Praja Chaitanya Yatra, further said, KCR has supported the BJP government in all its moves. He supported the party during the Presidential and Vice Presidential elections. He preferred to back a candidate with RSS-background over Meira Kumar, who played a key role in the formation of Telangana. KCR did not allow opposition MLAs to speak against PM Modi on demonetisation and GST. Now, he is himself announcing a fight against Modi.

The chief minister was accused of using these tactics to divert peoples attention from his failures. KCR has failed miserably in resolving problems being faced by people in Telangana. Now, he is gearing up to launch himself into national politics. The call for a Third Front is an attempt to cover up the TRS governments failure to get justice for Telangana from the Centre. The party has failed to honour its promise of a Dalit CM, three acres of land for Dalit families, jobs for each household and the 12% quota for Muslims, STs, alleged Reddy.

The Congress leader went on to claim that neither KCR, not Asaduddin Owaisi have the capability to defeat Narendra Modi in the next elections.New Delhi: Amid a fresh unity bid by the Opposition to take on the BJP, the Trinamool Congress on Monday said its chief Mamata Banerjee had reached out to DMK working president M K Stalin for co-ordination in and outside Parliament.

Banerjee has taken a lead in defeating the BJP by talking to 'federal' parties. "We are on track", TMC Rajya Sabha member Derek O'Brien said. After calling up TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao, Banerjee held telephonic conversation with Stalin, O'Brien said, adding there was "good coordination" between TRS, TDP, SP, BSP, TMC and DMK in Parliament on various issues on Monday.

His remarks came in the backdrop of Banerjee again pitching for regional parties to come together to take on the BJP after the results of assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland. Responding to a question, O'Brien rejected the suggestion that the Congress has been "excluded" from the grouping Mamata Banerjee is working on.

He said the West Bengal chief minister also spoke with Shiv Sena Uddhav Thackeray. The two leaders had been in touch with each other. Though it is part of the governments in Maharashtra and at the Centre, Sena has been critical of the BJP and its leadership. The Lok Sabha saw frequent disruptions on Monday following vociferous protests by opposition members over the Punjab National Bank fraud and other issues while MPs of NDA ally TDP continued to raise their demand for a special package to Andhra Pradesh.

Soon after Speaker Sumitra Mahajan made obituary references, members from the Congress, TRS and other parties as well as from the TDP trooped into the Well raising various issues. O' Brien said that during her nearly 12-minute conversation, Banerjee told Stalin that a good show by the TMC and the DMK in West Bengal and Tamil Nadu respectively would mean a block of nearly 75 MPs in Parliament.

A day after he announced his entry into national politics, Telangana Rashtra Samiti supremo K Chandrasekhar Rao had received support from various political leaders, including Banerjee. "From morning, I have been receiving many calls from various places in India. This afternoon West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee called me and said that I have taken the right decision and she will be supporting me and that we will go forward together," Rao had said a couple of days ago.Agartala: Newly-elected MLAs of the BJP and its ally, the IPFT, will meet here on Tuesday to elect their leader amid hard bargaining by the tribal ally, which demanded "respectable" positions in the new ministry.

Tripura BJP president Biplab Deb, considered a front runner in the race for the chief minister's post, said Tuesday's meeting would be held at the state guest house in the presence of Union minister Nitin Gadkari.

BJP spokesperson Mrinal Kanti Deb said Union minister Jual Oram would also be present.

The swearing-in of the new ministry is likely to be held on March 8 at the Swami Vivekananada Maidan in the heart of the town.

It is likely to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, many Union ministers and chief ministers of BJP-ruled states, Biplab Deb said.

The BJP won 35 of the 59 seats that went to polls in Tripura and its ally, the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT), bagged eight seats.

Polling was countermanded in one seat due to the death of the CPI(M) candidate.

Meanwhile, the IPFT on Monday mounted pressure on the BJP, saying it would support the new government from outside if it was not given "respectable" positions in the ministry.

IPFT chief N C Debbarma also demanded that the chief minister be chosen from the indigenous MLAs.

It is a tradition in the northeast that a chief minister is selected from the indigenous community, he added.

The IPFT would also seek a separate block for its MLAs in the Assembly if it was not given "respectable" positions in the cabinet, he said.

Asked what he meant by respectable positions, Debbarma said it meant proportionate representation of IPFT MLAs in the cabinet and allocation of major departments to them.

"There is an apprehension that we may not be given proper representation in the cabinet and important portfolios would not be allocated to us as the BJP, the major constituent, has alone secured 35 seats," Debbarma told PTI.

The BJP and the IPFT, he said, had fought the elections in an alliance with the sole target of defeating the CPI-M and it was achieved.

"Now if we are not given respectable positions, we will support the government from outside," he said.

The BJP leadership did not make any comment on the IPFT's demand.

The IPFT had forged an alliance with the BJP before the elections on the basis of a common minimum agenda, which included formation of a high-power committee with representations from the central and state governments and the indigenous community to address the problems of the tribals.

The tribal party had come into being in the late '90s and had campaigned for a separate state for tribals by carving out the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) on the plea that the indigenous people had become marginalised due to the huge migration of people to this state after partition of the country in 1947.

The tribal council area comprises two-third of the state's territory and the tribals form one-third of the population.New Delhi: The ruling BJP, buoyed by its impressive performance in three state polls, and the opposition, armed with the issue of banking scam, are likely to lock horns over a number of contentious matters in Parliament which reconvenes on Monday.

Both houses of Parliament will meet after a month-long recess in the Budget Session, during which the passage of the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, which seeks confiscation of assets of absconding fraudsters and loan defaulters, and the triple talaq bill will be high on the government's agenda.

The Rs 12,700 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam case is the main weapon in the opposition's arsenal, as diamantaire, Nirav Modi managed to flee the country, despite a precedence set by liquor baron Vijay Mallya.

Talking to News18, leader of the opposition, Mallikarjun Kharge said, "We will raise the Bank scam issue in Parliament. BJP will not be able to win Karnataka that easily."

The government is ready to counter the charge by introducing the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill or Anti-swindler Bill. The bill to target economic offenders was approved by the government following the escape of Nirav Modi and other accused in the PNB scam.

The opposition has sought to pin the blame for the fraud on the government and mounted an attack on it by pointing out that Modi, after liquor baron Vijay Mallya, is the second big offender to flee India with a huge amount of money owed to public banks.

The BJP has claimed that the PNB scam had begun when the UPA was in power and its government has acted with alacrity after the fraud came out in the open. Treasury benches and opposition are likely to slug it out in Parliament over the matter.

The BJP, however, has been energised following its win in Tripura and impressive performance in Nagaland and Meghalaya elections coupled with a comprehensive defeat of the Congress. The ruling party is likely to be aggressive in Parliament and rake up scams that happened on the Congress watch to pin it down, party sources said.

The issue of Karti Chidambaram's arrest in the INX Media case is also a shot in the arm for the government ahead of the session.

The government has listed a few bills for consideration and passage in both Houses. In the Lok Sabha, it intends to bring The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill 2017, and The Specific Relief (Amendment) Bill 2017, and The Dentists (Amendment) Bill 2017.

In the Rajya Sabha, the government has listed The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill 2017, and The State Banks (Repeal and Amendment) Bill 2017, for the first day of the session.

The triple talaq bill, which seeks a jail term for Muslim men practising instant divorce, is another contentious issue. The BJP has made it clear that it will seek its passage in Parliament despite a strong opposition to it from parties like the Congress and the Left among others.

The passage of the OBC bill, which envisages constitutional status for the OBC commission, is another item on the government's agenda. Parliament will also take up a discussion on the Union budget, which was tabled in the first half of the session, and pass it.New Delhi: The BJP on Monday hit back at Rahul Gandhi over his remarks accusing it of "usurping" power in Meghalaya, saying the Congress president was "desperate" as his party's "moneybags" had failed to deliver a government in the state.

Breaking his silence on the defeat in three northeast states, Gandhi said the Congress was committed to winning back the people's trust and hit out at the BJP, accusing it of "usurping" power through proxy in Meghalaya.

Responding to Gandhi's accusation, BJP spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao tweeted, "Rahulbhai, You never seem to learn lessons. In Meghalaya, people have rejected the Congress and gave a mandate for anti-Congress govt."

"We understand your desperation as you shrink in political space and face the prospect of being reduced to power only in Puducherry," he said.

The Congress, despite being the single largest party in Meghalaya, was unable to stich up an alliance and failed to form the government in the state.

The National People's Party-led alliance which includes the BJP, United Democratic Party (UDP), the Hill State People's Democratic Party (HSPDP) , People's Democratic Front (PDF), and an independent, has been invited by the governor to form the government.

"We understand your frustration RahulG. Congress party's moneybags and the architects of infamous 'Cash for Votes' scandal whom you dispatched to Meghalaya have failed to deliver a govt to you in Meghalaya. In New India, Congress's old corrupt ways won't succeed. Think better!!," Rao said.New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi appeared to concede defeat in three northeast states that went to the polls, saying he respected the mandate of people in the region and was committed to winning back their trust.

Gandhi's reaction came two days after results for assembly elections in Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland were declared on Saturday. The Congress lost Meghalaya and failed to score a single seat in Tripura and Nagaland.

The party won 21 seats in Meghalaya, where it was in power, and could not garner the support of regional outfits to cobble together a coalition government.

Top party leaders Ahmed Patel and Kamal Nath rushed to Shillong to talk to regional parties but to no avail.

"The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people. My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party," Gandhi said on Twitter.

Gandhi had announced on Thursday that he would visit his 93-year-old grandmother in Italy over the Holi weekend.

Top party leaders had refrained from making any comment on the results.Mumbai: Veteran Congress leader Ratnakar Mahajan is one of the probables from the party for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections from Maharashtra, a senior leader said on Sunday.

Names of Mahajan and two leaders were recommended by the state unit of the Congress to its national committee for selection, he said.

The election for six seats from Maharashtra will be held on March 23.

Presently, the Congress and the NCP each hold two of these six seats while the BJP and Shiv Sena share the remaining.

Vandana Chavan and DP Tripath of the NCP, Rajani Patil and Rajiv Shukla of the Congress, Ajay Kumar Sancheti of the BJP and Anil Desai of the Shiv Sena will retire on April 2.

As the Congress has 42 MLAs in the 288-member state Legislative Assembly, the party can elect only one candidate.

"Mahajan is one of the three probables whose names have been recommended to Delhi. The rest of the two names are not yet declared but one of them could be Rajiv Shukla who is already a sitting member of the Upper House," he said.

According to the leader, former Union home minister and Sonia Gandhi loyalist Sushilkumar Shinde could be another probable.

"We have given three names. However, the party could nominate someone else as well," he said.

Mahajan, a socialist leader who joined the Congress along with Babanrao Pachpute of the Janata Dal in early 1990s, had left it in 1999 and switched allegiance to Sharad Pawar-led NCP.

He resigned from the NCP in 2010 after writing an open letter to Pawar suggesting the NCP's merger with the Congress.

The BJP, with 122 MLAs, can win three seats with the help of Independents while the Sena (63), the NCP (41) can win one seat each.

The notification for the polls would be issued on March 5 and the last date for filing nominations would be March 12.

The last date of withdrawing nominations would be March 15 and elections, if necessary, would be held on March 23.Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh cabinet minister, Nand Kumar Gupta Nandi has stirred fresh controversy by comparing Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav to Ravana and BSP supremo Mayawati to Surpanakha. The comparisons to the villains of Ramayana came during a public gathering in Allahabad, where UP chief minister Yogi Adityanath was present.

Addressing a gathering in Allahabad, Nand Kumar said, Lord Ram has said to Ravana that you would be named Mulayam during Kalyug and will become the states chief minister.

The minister further went on to rant that when Kumbhakarna and Meghnad asked Lord Ram about their future selves, they were told that they would become Shivpal and Akhilesh, respectively. Meghnad, you will fool the people of the state and become chief minister by cheating people, said Nand Kumar.

The ramblings did not just stop at SP leadership. When Surpanakha came running stating that Lord Ram had destroyed her family, he told her that she will rule Ayodhya during Kalyug as Mayawati. But she would not get married, said the BJP minister, adding to the story that modern-day Maricha was the 'dramebaaz, dhokebaaz' Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal.

To top it off, Nand Kumar called PM Narendra Modi an avatar of Lord Ram and likened Yogi Adityanath to Hanuman. The UP CM was looking into his mobile and smiling while his cabinet minister went on speaking.

Reacting to the statements, Samajwadi Party spokesperson said, Such comments reveal the upbringing and mentality of BJP ministers. They idolise Nathu Ram Godse, they are rattled by the unity shown by minorities against them. Only yesterday, they termed SP and BSP as saanp (snake) and newla (mongoose). They are disrespecting Dalits and backward castes by name calling their leaders.

BSP spokesperson Ummed Singh called for Nand Kumar to be thrown out of the party and the cabinet and said, The comments are condemned in the highest order. He should apologise for what he has said. I demand that the BJP throw him out. The BJP will face problems in the upcoming bypolls for these comments against Behen Ji Mayawati.

The ruling party, instead of taking action, tried to defend their minister. Personal attacks on any person is unacceptable. Although, I think Nand Kumar Nandi was only trying to represent the symbolic image of UP politics in the last 15 years. It was a political stage and Nand Kumar was only placing his view. Such things should not be unnecessarily blown out of proportion, said BJP spokesperson Shalabh Mani Tripathi.New Delhi: Hours after the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) staked claim to form government in Meghalaya, Union minister KJ Alphons said that ensuring the Congress lost in the North East was their priority.

Look at our campaign. We only wanted to ensure that the Congress got fewer votes. Of course, we wanted to win but simultaneously, we wanted that the Congress should not come to power. We didnt give much thought to which regional parties will win; we didnt say one word against them during our campaign, Alphons told News18.

Meghalaya threw up a fractured mandate on Saturday with the ruling Congress emerging as the largest party, marginally ahead of its rival, the National People's Party (NPP), an ally of the BJP at the Centre and in Manipur. NPP president Conrad Sangma is set to become the next chief minister of Meghalaya after forming a coalition with the BJP, two regional parties and an Independent on Sunday.

The announcement of the grand alliance came after a closed-door meeting between United Democratic Party (UDP) top brass and BJP leaders Kiren Rijiju, KJ Alphons and Himanta Biswa Sarma.

It was an expected coalition. Were very happy with the outcome, Alphons said. The minister was made head of elections in Meghalaya five month ago and was recently made an observer to facilitate formation of the government.

Commenting on BJP chief Amit Shahs statement of intent to defeat the Left Front in Odisha, West Bengal and Kerala, Alphons said that it was about time that people looked at the larger picture and see what the Modi government has done.

What this government has achieved in the last three-and-a-half years has not been accomplished in the 70 years of governance before it. Policies like Jan Dhan, Swacch Bharat has been revolutionary, he said, adding that the ruling party was only asking for a fair chance and evaluation of its work.

Alphons also said that while Kerala had great facilities when it came to healthcare, there was still so much that the state needed to be cleansed of. This false propaganda around the PM and the party is terrible. Every day, there is some video or audio doing the rounds. Look at the political killings taking in the state, he said, adding that people in Kerala have always swung between the Left and the Congress.

There is a reason why governments change in five years, thats because they fail. How long will one resist the PMs dream of every Indian living with dignity, he said.Elon Musk's prestigious SpaceX project could accelerate time to help a man walk on Mars in just another 20 years or so by 2040, said Tim Peake, a British astronaut, the media reported. Hailing that humanity is about to enter a "very exciting" era of space exploration, Peake, the first British astronaut to be sent to the International Space Station (ISS), said that private investment could speed up the first flight to the Red Planet.

Also read: Samsung to Launch New Lineup of QLED TVs in The US

"Humans on Mars - I think will be the late 2030s," Peake was quoted as telling express.co.uk reported late on Monday. "That's what the government space agencies and the International Space Exploration Group are working towards." "It could be that some of (these people's) programmes bring that date forward. But, the late 2030s would be a realistic time frame.

"What could throw a big bowling ball through all that is commercial space flight," Peake noted. Earlier in February, SpaceX successfully launched its world's most powerful rocket Falcon Heavy, into space. "We have seen the ambitions of people like Elon Musk, there are several other companies that also have ambitions to send people to Mars," Peake said.

Also read: Apple Takes Top Spot in Global Wearables Market: Report

"I think that we will end up working very closely with these companies in public-private partnerships when we eventually go to Mars," he added. In addition, Peake said that the Deep Space Gateway -- a space station project led by the ISS partners, including NASA, European Space Agency and Roscosmos (of Russia) -- that aims to launch manned missions to Mars will be vital for furthering space exploration.

"The Deep Space Gateway paves the way for both lunar landings and, because of the orbit it will be in, for a Mars transportation system," Peake said.

Also watch: Nokia 6 2018 First Look at MWC 2018In Lawrence Swaim's letter of Feb. 27 in referencing the Second Amendment ("The double-edged sword"), he said "if you read it from the beginning, it specifies that guns should be under the authority of a 'well-regulated militia."

The Second Amendment actually says, "a well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." There is no mention of guns under the authority of any one.

The term "right of the people" is also used in the First and Fourth Amendment. Would he suggest that freedom of religion, press, speech, and assembly, to petition the government be regulated by the government or the right of the people to be secure in their, persons, houses, papers, etc. only when the government decides?

The term "right of the people" was used to provide those rights to the people of the country without government interference.

In 1990, Chief Justice William Rehnquist reviewed the phrase "the people" as used in the Constitution and defined it with the concurrence of four other Supreme Court Justices:Beirut/Geneva: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed to continue an offensive in eastern Ghouta near Damascus on Sunday as his forces advanced into the last major rebel enclave near the capital.

The offensive is one of the deadliest in the war and one local insurgent group called it a "scorched earth" campaign.

The government is pressing on despite Western calls for it to abide by a 30-day, countrywide ceasefire demanded by the U.N. Security Council. "We will continue fighting terrorism ... and the Ghouta operation is a continuation of fighting terrorism," Assad said in comments to journalists broadcast on state TV.

The advances have forced thousands of civilians to flee deeper into the rebel-held territory, where some 400,000 people live, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a resident said on Sunday.

Government forces need to advance just a few more kilometres (miles) further to split the enclave in two, said a commander in the military alliance that backs Assad. The Observatory said government forces had seized a quarter of the territory.

Assad said there was no contradiction between daily, five-hour humanitarian ceasefires called by his ally Russia, and ongoing combat operations, noting that advances by government forces in the last few days had occurred during the truce.

The Russian ceasefire plan calls for five-hour pauses to allow for aid deliveries and evacuations of civilians and wounded. The U.S. State Department has called the Russian plan a "joke" and the White House on Sunday accused Russia of killing Syrian civilians.

Assad, in his first comments on the offensive, said most people in Ghouta wanted to return to state rule. "Therefore we must continue with the operation and in parallel open the way for civilians to leave," he said.

Russia and Damascus have accused rebels of preventing civilians from leaving eastern Ghouta during the daily ceasefires. Rebels have consistently denied this accusation and say people will not leave because they fear the government.

A U.N. humanitarian official said people in eastern Ghouta were being subjected to unacceptable "collective punishment", which is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. Assad dismissed Western statements about the humanitarian situation in eastern Ghouta as "a ridiculous lie".

With the war entering its eighth year, capturing the eastern Ghouta area would be a major victory for Assad, who has steadily recovered control of rebellious areas with Russian and Iranian support.

The White House, in its strongest accusations of Moscow's complicity in the offensive to date, said on Sunday that Russian military aircraft carried out at least 20 daily bombing missions in Damascus and eastern Ghouta between Feb. 24 and Feb. 28.

"Russia has gone on to ignore (a U.N. ceasefire's) terms and to kill innocent civilians under the false auspices of counter-terrorism operations," the White House said in a statement, saying the Russian aircraft had taken off from Syria's Humaymim Airfield.

French President Emmanuel Macron asked his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani to put pressure on the Syrian government to end attacks against the Ghouta region and to allow humanitarian aid to flow.

British Prime Minister Theresa May agreed in a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump that Russia must use its influence to make Damascus cease the eastern Ghouta campaign, May's office said.

Without decisive Western pressure to halt the offensive, eastern Ghouta appears on course to meet the same fate as other rebel areas retaken by Assad, such as eastern Aleppo, recovered using similar tactics of siege, bombardment and ground assaults.

Rebels eventually withdrew from eastern Aleppo in late 2016 in a mediated deal, leaving to opposition-held territory near the Turkish border.

The multi-sided war, which has killed hundreds of thousands of people since 2011, has escalated on several fronts this year, as the collapse of Islamic State has given way to other conflicts between Syrian and international parties.

"SCORCHED EARTH"

One of the main insurgent groups in eastern Ghouta, Jaish al-Islam, said the government's "scorched earth policy" had forced rebels to retreat and regroup, but vowed to recover lost territory.

One resident estimated that thousands of people were on the move and seeking shelter in areas further from the frontlines.

The Observatory estimated that between 300 to 400 families, which is likely several thousand people, had fled areas seized by government forces since Saturday. The pro-Assad commander said civilians were fleeing to the town of Douma.

The Observatory says government shelling and air strikes have killed 659 people in eastern Ghouta since Feb. 18, while rebel shelling of Damascus has killed 27.

U.N. regional humanitarian coordinator Panos Moumtzis said violence has escalated in eastern Ghouta and mortars fired into Damascus had killed and injured scores of civilians. "Instead of a much-needed reprieve, we continue to see more fighting, more death, and more disturbing reports of hunger and hospitals being bombed," Moumtzis said in a statement.

The United Nations later issued a statement saying it had received approval for a 46-truck convoy to the Ghouta town of Douma on Monday, carrying health and nutrition supplies, and food for 27,500 people. A second trip was planned for Thursday.

Earlier, a U.N. official in Syria told Reuters a humanitarian convoy carrying life-saving supplies would not enter eastern Ghouta as had been planned on Sunday, citing a lack of permission.

"DISTURBING REPORTS"

Moumtzis also expressed concern about the situation in Afrin, a Kurdish region under Turkish assault since January, saying there were "disturbing reports" of civilian deaths and injuries and restrictions on civilian movement.

Turkey, backed by Syrian militias, has gained ground in recent days in Afrin. The Observatory said the advancing forces could soon besiege Afrin city, where 1 million people live.

The Observatory said Turkish forces had advanced to within 12 km (7 miles) of Afrin.

Turkey's army said on Sunday it captured seven settlements including the town of Sheikh Hadid. Turkish forces have taken control of the roads from Rajo and Jandaris to Afrin, it also said in a statement.

Turkey has rejected Western calls for it to suspend the Afrin assault in line with the U.N. ceasefire, which does not apply to Islamic State, al Qaeda and groups associated with it, or other groups deemed terrorists by the Security Council.

Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade insurgency in Turkey and is deemed a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union and Turkey. The YPG has been an important ally for the United States in the fight against Islamic State.Beijing: China on Monday announced an 8.1 percent increase of its defence expenditure for this year amounting to $175 billion, which is over three times higher than India's defence budget.

China will raise its defence budget by 8.1 percent in 2018, according to a budget report to be submitted to the national legislature on Monday, which is up from last year's seven percent.

The 2018 defence budget will be 1.11 trillion yuan ($175 billion), state-run Xinhua news agency quoted the official documents submitted to the National People's Congress (NPC).

China last year increased the defence budget to USD 150.5 billion. China is the second largest spender on defence after the US. The defence budget of the US which is the highest in the world amounted to $602.8 billion.

The increase of China's defence budget to 8.1 percent this year, is three times higher than India's latest defence budget of about $52.5 billion.

Though China announced its military spending at about $150.5 billion last year, observers say it is considerably higher, considering it is now building two more aircraft carriers in addition to the one already in service as well as addition of new jet fighters, including stealth fighter J-20.

Chinese Navy also expanded its global reach with flotilla ships sailing through the far-off oceans to expand China's influence.

The official media justified the increase to $175 saying that, although slightly higher than the previous two years, the growth rate is the third time to dip into the single digit since 2013, following 7.6 percent in 2016 and 7 percent in 2017.

China's defence budget takes up a smaller share of its gross domestic product (GDP) and national fiscal expenditure compared with other major countries, Zhang Yesui, spokesperson of the NPC told media here on Sunday.

Its military spending per capita is also lower than other major countries, Zhang said.

"A large part of the growth of the defence budget is to make up for the low military spending in the past and is mainly used to upgrade equipment and improve the welfare of servicemen and women and the living and training conditions of grassroots troops," he said.Vienna: A collapse of the Iran nuclear deal would be a "great loss", the U.N. atomic watchdog's chief warned U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, giving a wide-ranging defence of the accord and his agency's work under it.

Trump has threatened to withdraw the United States from the accord between Tehran and six world powers, signed in 2015 before he took office, unless Congress and European allies help "fix" it with a follow-up pact. Trump does not like the deal's limited duration, among other things.

Iran has stayed within the deal's restrictions since Trump took office but has fired diplomatic warning shots at Washington in recent weeks. It said on Monday that it could rapidly enrich uranium to a higher degree of purity if the deal collapsed.

"If the JCPOA were to fail, it would be a great loss for nuclear verification and for multilateralism," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano said in a speech to his agency's 35-nation Board of Governors, using the deal's official name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Amano, whose agency polices the deal's nuclear restrictions, later gave his most wide-ranging defence of the accord to date, listing numbers of buildings inspected, images captured and even seals placed on equipment since the accord was put into effect.

"The IAEA now has the world's most robust verification regime in place in Iran. We have had access to all locations that we needed to visit," the veteran Japanese diplomat told a news conference after his speech.

Amano declined to comment on the position of the United States or any other country, but his remarks were clearly a response to Trump's threat to scupper the accord, which also lifted painful economic sanctions against Iran.

"We have carried out more than 60 complementary accesses and visited more than 190 buildings since JCPOA Implementation Day," he said, referring to a specific type of inspection under the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which Iran is implementing under the deal.

Washington is telling European allies it wants a follow-on agreement that "ensures strong IAEA inspections", according to a State Department cable obtained by Reuters last month.

That suggests that, from Washington's standpoint, there is something deficient about the current inspection system.

Trump and his ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, have made similar comments. But diplomats familiar with the IAEA's thinking have said the Trump administration's view arises from a poor understanding of how the IAEA does its work in Iran.

WARNING SHOTS

Iran said on Monday it could produce higher enriched uranium within two days if it were no longer bound by the deal.

"If America pulls out of the deal ... Iran could resume its 20 percent uranium enrichment in less than 48 hours," Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, told state-run Arabic language al-Alam TV.

Iran is not allowed to enrich uranium beyond 3.67 percent fissile purity under the deal, a level that is suitable for fuelling some civilian nuclear power stations and far short of the 80-90 percent that is considered weapons grade.

Kamalvandi, reiterating Tehran's official stance, said the nuclear deal is not re-negotiable. The other countries that signed the deal - Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China - are committed to preserving it.

As mentioned in a quarterly IAEA report on Iran last month, Amano said in his speech that the agency had requested clarification from Iran about its plans for nuclear-powered naval vessels, suggesting the IAEA has still not heard back from the Islamic Republic.

Iran has long said publicly that it intends to develop nuclear propulsion for naval vessels, though analysts and diplomats say that remains a distant prospect. It formally notified the IAEA of that intention in January in what was widely seen as a rebuff to pressure from Trump.Washington: Giving tax concessions to countries like Germany and China does not make sense anymore, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Monday, noting that the America has unilaterally given away all kinds of concessions ever since the end of World War II.

"Think about it, we have unilaterally given away all kinds of concessions ever since the end of World War II. And in the beginning that was probably good policy to rebuild Europe and rebuild Asia after the ravages of the war," Ross told ABC News.

"The mistake that our trade negotiators made way back then and continued to make was not time limiting it, concessions that were perfectly reasonable to make to Germany in 1945 or China in 1945 don't make sense anymore. Those are now very mature, big, strong economies," Ross said.

"So, there's a lot of history that needs to be undone," he said ahead of President Donald Trump signing an executive order that would impose a flat 25 per cent import tax on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium.

Trump is expected to sign it next week.

There has been sharp reaction from countries with the European Union and China indicting retaliatory measures. Trump in a series of tweets early this week said that it will not work and the US would impose additional tariffs on other items.

"If the EU wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on US companies doing business there, we will simply apply a tax on their cars, which freely pour into the US. They make it impossible for our cars and more to sell there. Big trade imbalance," Trump said.

In another tweet, Trump said that trade wars are good and easy to win.

"I think what the president had in mind was that unlike the Smoot-Hawley days in the 1930s, back then US had a big trade surplus and the world was in a depression. Now, we have a big trade deficit. Well, if we have big trade deficit with our other partners, they have a lot more to lose than we do, because those hundreds of billions of dollars are in their pockets now, not ours," Ross explained.

He refuted reports that increase in import tariff on steel would hurt American industries in particular the car manufacturing industry.

Similarly, all the other products, the total amount of tariffs we're putting on is about USD 9 billion in a year.

That's a fraction of one per cent of the American economy, he said. "So, the notion that it would destroy a lot of jobs, raise prices, disrupt things is wrong.

As to the idea of retaliation, they may well be some sort of retaliation. But the amounts that they're talking about are also pretty trivial. It's some USD 3 billion-odd of goods that the Europeans have threatened to put something on," Ross said.

"Well in our size economy, that's a tiny, tiny fraction of one per cent. So, while it might effect an individual producer for a little while, overall it's not going to be much more than a rounding error," the commerce secretary said.

The Trump administration has argued that it is imposing such a tariff under national security interests.

Ross reiterated that there would be no exceptions to the rule. "As of the moment, as far as I know, he's talking about a fairly broad brush," he said to a question.Washington: Russia stopped Mitt Romney from becoming US secretary of state, even though he was President Donald Trump's first choice as the country's top diplomat, a media report on Monday claimed.

The New Yorker magazine in an exclusive report sourced the sensational allegations to a second dossier authored by British spy Christopher Steele.

According to the report, Russia opposed Romney because the Republican leader during his 2012 presidential campaign had supported a tough line against the country.

The New Yorker said the second memo, which did not surface publicly with the others, is shorter than the rest, and is based on one source, described as "a senior Russian official".

"The official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what he had heard was astonishing: people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trump's initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney," The New Yorker report said.

During Romney's run for president in 2012, he was notably hawkish on Russia, calling it the single greatest threat to the US, the media outlet said.

"The memo said that the Kremlin, through unspecified channels, had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift Ukraine-related sanctions, and who would cooperate on security issues of interest to Russia, such as the conflict in Syria. If what the source heard was true, then a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over US foreign policy and an incoming president," it said.

The White House told the magazine that Romney was never Trump's first choice for secretary of state.

"As fantastical as the memo sounds, subsequent events could be said to support it. In a humiliating public spectacle, Trump dangled the post before Romney until early December, then rejected him," the report said.

"There are plenty of domestic political reasons that Trump may have turned against Romney. Trump loyalists, for instance, noted Romney's public opposition to Trump during the campaign. Roger Stone, the longtime Trump aide, has suggested that Trump was vengefully tormenting Romney, and had never seriously considered him," the magazine said.

Romney declined to comment on the report.TDP MP DR Shiva Prasad dressed as Krishna on the commencement of the second half of the Budget Session. During the previous session of Parliament, Shiva Prasad dressed as a tantrik and armed with a wooden pellet rattle joined his party colleagues in performing a puja outside Parliament for a special package to Andhra Pradesh. (Image: Network18)A worshipper put firecrackers on palanquin which would be carrying statues of Guan Gong, the Chinese God of War, during 'Beehive Firecrackers' festival at the Yanshui district, in Tainan, Taiwan. (Image: Reuters)Islamabad : Rights activist Krishna Kumari Kohli has became the first-ever Hindu Dalit woman to be elected to Pakistan's Senate, media reports said on Sunday. The 39-year-old Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) leader from a village in Tharparkar is also the first-ever senator from a scheduled caste, according to Geo TV.

Kumari's rise, however, wasn't easy. Born to a poor family in February 1979, she belongs to the Kohli community. Kumari hails from Nagarparkar where women are still deprived of basic facilities. She battled hunger and poverty as a child and was also a victim of bonded labour, reports Geo TV.

"We didn't have electricity so I used to study under the light of an oil lantern," she told Geo TV.

According to Dawn news, when Kumari was a grade 3 student, she and her family were confined to a private jail for nearly three years. The jail was allegedly owned by the landlord of Kunri of Umerkot district.

At 16, Kumari got married to Lalchand who supported her education and she got her masters degree in 2013 from Sindh University. As an activist, she worked against bonded labour, sexual harassment at workplaces, and for the rights of women and the people of her village.

After being elected to the Senate, Krishna told Geo News: "I will not only represent women of Thar but act as a representative for women across the country and speak for their rights.

"Many laws have been drafted for the rights of women but none of them has been implemented -- something I wish to change."

Stressing that the major issues faced by the people of Tharparkar are child marriages and forced conversions, she said these needed "to be addressed urgently". She thanked the PPP leadership for nominating her, and clarified she has won on the women's seat and not the minority seat.In a first, Dalit woman elected Pakistan senator

New Delhi : For the first time in history, Pakistan elected its first female senator from the lowest Dalit caste in weekend polls.

The election of Krishna Kumari Kohli for the post has garnered a major positive reaction on the social media.

I feel proud, I am thankful to Pakistan Peoples Party that they nominated me, Kohli told AFP Sunday.

Kudos to PPP for electing #KrishnaKohli. Our parliament should have representatives of all religions, classes & genders in pursuit of true democracy, tweeted rights activist Jibran Nasir.

In Pakistan, Hindus make only 2 per cent of the country's total population of 200 million people.

Last July the Supreme Court toppled PML-N supremo Nawaz Sharif from the premiership over corruption allegations.

Ahead of the Senate vote, the court also barred Sharif from leading his party, forcing all PML-N candidates officially to stand as independents because they had been selected by the axed chief.Le Forum culturel du Togo tient sa 1ere rencontre mensuelle d`echanges et de reflexion sur les "Enjeux de la Culture et du developpement: quels defis pour les industries culturelles et creatives au Togo"

Lome, le 03 mars 2018. Espace Level, Avenou Adjinamoto. Le Forum culturel du Togo tient sa 1ere rencontre mensuelle d`echanges et de reflexion sur les "Enjeux de la Culture et du developpement: quels defis pour les industries culturelles et creatives au Togo". Cette rencontre culturelle est initiee par l`APIC (Agence panafricaine d`ingenierie culturelle), en collaboration avec Level Espace. Cette rencontre a connu les interventions de Tam Akim Toutou (promoteur culturel), Jean-Luc Sonhaye (consultant et entrepreneur culturel), Hubert Arouna (Directeur de la promotion des Arts et de la Culture), avec la moderation de Leonard Yakanou (Directeur general d`ARTfrica Consulting Group)..DANBURY - City leaders on Tuesday will make their case for suing the pharmaceutical industry over the opioid epidemic.

A vote at the City Council meeting to hire a local firm to sue big pharma would make Danbury the latest municipality in Connecticut to seek damages from Stamford-based Purdue Pharma and other major makers of prescription drugs.

Connecticut reported more than 1,000 accidental deaths due to drug overdoses om 2017 - many of those from pain-killing opioids such as Purdues OxyContin.

A resolution to be voted on Tuesday at City Hall reads, (N)umerous claims against pharmaceutical companies and other manufacturers and distributors of OxyContin and related products have been brought in an effort to reverse the misleading, damaging and corrosive effect of opioid distribution, and to recover the direct and indirect costs resulting from that.

But unlike Newtown and 18 other cities and towns in Connecticut that have signed on with a national law firm to sue Big Pharma in state Superior Court, Danbury is hiring its own firm to look after its unique interests.

I have spoken with the leadership on both sides of the aisle about why we want a local firm representing us instead of a national firm, said Mayor Mark Boughton.

The next step for the law firm would be to deploy the staff to calculate the impact of the crisis on Danbury, Boughton added. There is a lot research that has to be done, so it is likely to be awhile before we file our suit.

The action Danbury lawmakers will take up Tuesday is part of a nationwide response to an opioid addiction crisis that claims 78 deaths each day in America.

Connecticut Attorney General George Jepsen and his counterparts in 40 states have ordered Purdue and other manufacturers to turn over sales information as part of an investigation in the industrys marketing practices.

Across the country, cities, counties and states have filed their own lawsuits against the industry on a scale that hasnt been seen since states successfully sued the tobacco industry two decades ago.

Purdue has denied the allegations but also said it shares public concern about the epidemic and is committed to solutions.

In Connecticut, where accidental drug overdoses have increased 250 percent since 2012, the state has climbed from 50th in fatal overdoses to 12th in 2017, according to attorneys representing Newtown and 18 other cities and towns in Connecticut.

That firm, Simmons Hanly Conroy, is also representing New York City and 120 other municipalities in New York, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin.

Other Connecticut towns, such as Ridgefield, are engaged in direct negotiations with Purdue for crisis-fighting funds.

In Danbury, the Main Street firm Ventura Law would represent the city on contingency.

Were not required to pay anything unless we win, Boughton said. So I dont anticipate any problems.NEW MILFORD  Veronica Ronnie Bradley  one of the first women to serve in the Marines and the subject of a recruitment campaign during World War II  died last week, leaving behind a legacy of service.

Bradley had a stroke and died the evening of Feb. 25. She was 95.

She always amazed us, said Bradleys daughter, Patty Coelho.

Bradley joined the Marines in 1942, just shy of her 20th birthday, making her one of about 25 women selected in New York for the first round of recruitment for the newly formed Maine Corps Womens Reserve. She was stationed at an air base in Santa Barbara, Calif., where she was assigned to aircraft repair.

A sharp-looking Marine Corps hat worn by a woman in a recruitment poster is what piqued Bradleys interest and led to her joining the Marines. About a year after she did, she was surprised to discover she had a recruitment poster of her own.

In the image, shes standing in front of a warplane in her Marine uniform and hat. The poster reads: Be a Marine. Free a Marine to fight.

Large replicas of the image still hang in several museums and it has been reproduced on postcards and other posters. It also appeared in documentaries about the war and womens role in it.

Coelho said her mother was very humble about her accomplishments with the Marines.

She never thought it was as big a deal as it was, she said.

In an interview with the News-Times in November, Bradley said she was proud to serve in the Marines and added that it was one of the best decisions she ever made.

I had a sense of being a good American, Bradley said in the interview.

The Marines plan to honor her with a ceremony later this month and Bradleys ashes will be placed at Arlington Cemetery.

Coelho described her mother as someone who would do anything for anyone and cared for her family.

She was a very kind soul, she said.

Coelho said her mother instilled this feeling of service in her family, even though she had a difficult life. Before she joined the military, Bradley grew up in an orphanage before eventually living with family.

I always felt she came into this world alone, but she wasnt going to go out alone, she said.

Bradley had six children, 12 grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren and two great-great grandchildren. Bradleys legacy lives on in the community as well, with many reaching out after her death.

Among them was Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, who tweeted her condolences.

Cpl. Veronica Byrnes Bradley recently received the WWII Victory Medal & CT Wartime Service Medal in a ceremony with fellow women Marines. Connecticut is grateful for her service during WWII & for setting the stage for women to serve in the military, Wyman wrote.MILFORD  After what they referred to as countless hours of investigating a threat on social media last week against Jonathan Law High School, police determined all claims were disproved and found to be false.

Yet, the story continued to spin on Facebook among adults in the community.

As strongly worded as the police disclaimer was, some parents wrote they were keeping their kids out of school Friday just in case  the day a threat was alleged to be present. And some alleged a cover-up by officials while others hinted at a downright conspiracy.

Thats why Facebook should be used for sharing family pictures and why Police Chief Keith Mellos reverse 911 system and other official communications should be the source of emergency information, said John DeCarlo, chairman of the University of New Havens criminal justice department.

Things like this take on a life of their own, when unfiltered information is spread, and social media exacerbates that human tendency, DeCarlo said.

He said the concept of social facilitation of information is nothing new and referenced a book as early as 1841 entitled: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

In its most basic form, that social facilitation of information starts with I tell you something, you tell someone else, and so on.

He said the stock market didnt have to crash in 1929, but everyone panicked at news and sold. He said the same was true of determining some people were witches  as fact mixed with opinions and unsubstantiated claims to twist perceived reality.

Now the ability to foster these extraordinary delusions is exacerbated by social media, DeCarlo said.

DeCarlo said social media has taken information distribution out of the hands of the government and mainstream media.

If people are afraid  as Jonathan Law parents might have been so soon after the school shootings in Parkland, Fla., and the Las Vegas concert shootings  the facts get spun by emotion, and take on a life of their own, DeCarlo said.

He said weather has become a victim of the extraordinary popular delusion syndrome because of how meteorologists handle the reporting. For instance, DeCarlo said, the weather is no different in Connecticut than its always been, yet, weve come up with terms such as superstorm, and everyone runs out at a snow forecast to buy bread, milk and other food  something that didnt happen years ago.

He said when someone calls a police department, police have to deal with fear of crime as well as actual crime.

That means the cost of services can add up based on popular delusions.

DeCarlo said that on a recent trip to England, he noticed signs that said: If you see something, say something, well sort it out. That last line sends the message to leave it to the experts.

In the case of the unsubstantiated threat at Jonathan Law last week, officials announced that since teachers, parents and students may still be uncomfortable, they would increase police presence at the school.

Superintendent of Schools Elizabeth Feser went to Jonathan Law Friday morning  not part of her regular routine  and noted attendance appeared to be lower, but no concrete attendance numbers were available, a school spokeswoman said.

She observed school classes going on, students engaged in their work, and students learning, as always, the spokeswoman said, referring to Feser.

DeCarlo said the financial burden of reassurance when there is no threat falls on local taxpayers.

Even the joint press release from Milford police and the Board of Education addressed the issue of keeping information under control, stating: We ask that you refrain from sharing any of this false information as this causes unnecessary alarm. 

But a Milford community Facebook page continued to light up, even after the reassuring press release was posted.

One mom wrote: Im having serious anxiety about sending my kid back to school.

A mother posted on the page:  Im having a conversation with both my kids tonight and I told them if anything goes down to get out of the school as soon as possible no matter what the teacher or principal or anyone says to them. My son tells me hed rather die on his own terms

Another woman wrote: Countless hours of investigation? They are actually fairly easily counted.

A man wrote: What they need to do is prosecute the kids who made up the story.

One woman wrote on Facebook, I understand the fact of being freaked out but, wait for all the details. People are jumping to conclusions.

A man wrote on the Facebook page: The final outcome was that it was completely fabricated on social media. Completely false alarm, the kid did absolutely nothing wrong. All made up by gossips on Facebook, etc.

It is unclear how the initial information was conveyed  police did not release those details  but it appears a group of students made up a false claim about another student being overheard talking about a plan and it was conveyed on several social media platforms.WASHINGTON  Two weeks after President Grover Cleveland was sworn into office for his second term, the Washington Supply Co. opened its doors on Calhoun Street to sell goods to local builders and farmers.

The business was established in 1893 by five local farming families that formed a partnership, each holding one $500 share. On March 20, it will celebrate its 125th anniversary.

Tax returns from 1917, when the business was already well established, show it was a popular place to go. Sales that year hit $120,654  well over $2 million in todays dollars. And the store is still a success, regularly topping $7 million in annual sales.

Were just one of those places that people turn to when they dont know where to go, said co-owner Valerie Sedelnick.

Sedelnick is one of five former employees who bought the business in 2006. Two have since retired, leaving Sedelnick, Jay Combs and Jim Bate to carry on the legacy.

In 2012, the group expanded the business, adding 900 square feet of retail space and five storage facilities. They also purchased a Moffett Truck to deliver to even the toughest job sites, according to its website.

Over the decades, the store has sold everything from coal to local railworkers to gas for drivers of early mass-market automobiles. All the while, it stuck to its core business of supplying area homebuilders and homeowners hardware and home goods.

We change with the times, Sedelnick said.

The business has survived world wars, economic booms and busts and even the Great Flood of 1955.

The flood killed nearly 100 people in Connecticut. And in Washington, the Shepaug River overran its banks, wiping out businesses and homes in the depot. Although flooding decimated its neighbors, the Supply Company was re-opened the next day thanks to residents who helped clean up.

A year later, the business donated several one-acre lots in Washington to residents who lost homes or businesses.

The key to sticking around, Sedelnick said, is customer service and unmatched employee trade experience. The stores staff boasts 555 years of combined experience in selling hardware, she said.

And it still attracts a loyal customer base, even after the proliferation of big-box stores, like Home Depot, Sedelnick said. The companys 100th anniversery was marked with a town-wide, two-day celebration.

Some current employees were around when the store was more of a general store, selling everything from big appliances to clothing.

But some things havent changed with the times: The store still allows customers to purchase on store credit and still sends out some 1,200 statements a month.

We pride ourselves on customer service, Sedelnick said. And we have a lot of community support.

blytton@hearstmediact.com; 203-731-3411; @bglyttonTurkey might buy new generation F-35B jump jet stealth fighters.

Turkey could join Japan and South Korea in using 20000 to 35000 helicopter carriers to base about 10-20 F35b with vertical takeoff and landing capabilities as mini-aircraft carriers.

Japan is buying 2040 F-35Bs over the next few years.

Japan can also operate the STOVL planes from commercial airstrips on isolated islands in case the countrys major military bases come under attack. Japan could refit its two Izumo-class helicopter destroyers to operate the F-35B. These ships are roughly 250 meters (820 feet) long and displace 24,000 tons.

The F-35B would have a combat range of about 450-500 miles and have fewer weapons than an F-35C that was launched with a catapult off of a large aircraft carrier. F-35C would have a combat range of about 690 miles.GUILFORD  Caring for the Earthis a vital part of the collective faith at the First Congregational Church in Guilford. The Churchs Environmental Ministry Team, co-chaired by Jon and Nancy Leckerling, has been pursuing environmentalism since its inception and through their efforts, the church recently went completely solar.

The churchs new solar energy system was designed and installed by Old Saybrooks Waldo Renewable Electric, whose owner-operators were able to finance the project through their own investment company, Regenerative Lending, LLC.

Members of the Environmental Ministry Team hope that the success of the recent conversion project moves church members toward environmentally friendly lifestyles and churches everywhere toward renewable energy.

Ginny King has been a part of Environmental Ministry Team for six years and when she proposed a church-wide conversion to solar energy in the fall of 2016, George Arnold, retired engineer, and fellow committee member, was immediately interested in pursuing the project. King, Arnold, and several members of the team formed a working group that recently brought the project to life.

We started this with a desire to preserve our environment and to set an example for our neighbors and encourage other churches and visitors to consider having solar panels, said King.

Ginny brought up solar energy and I was very interested. She reached out to several other churches in Connecticut who had installed solar panels and I followed up with one of her leads, said Arnold.

Arnold became the lead researcher and presenter for the project. His research and feasibility analysis of the energy conversion lead him to reach out to Waldo Renewable in February of 2017. Waldo Renewable had recently completed the installation of a solar system at First Congregational Church in Old Lyme.

We did competitive bids on the project and [Waldo Renewable] was the only company that had a proposal that made sense economically because [they] did provide the financing, said Arnold.

Rebecca Waldo, co-owner of Waldo Renewable, said that nonprofit organizations often do not have the funding to purchase a solar power system and that their nonprofit tax status makes them ineligible for the federal tax credits available to off-set the costs. Waldo also said that companies who are in the business of lending money for renewable energy projects tend to focus on larger-scale systems that bring them higher returns on their investments.

The Waldos, however, are focused on the niche market of small nonprofits seeking conversion to solar power systems and see it as a way to contribute to the environmental betterment of their communities while allowing them to maintain healthy investments.

The nonprofit solar niche is supported through tax incentives. The tax credit and depreciation help make the numbers work. We welcome the opportunity to discuss potential projects, said Waldo.

Installing solar panels is a way for me and Mark to utilize our talents and interests. He is an amazing master electrician, said Waldo of her husband and business partner, As for myself, I am passionate about most anything that has to do with living more sustainably.

The Environmental Ministry Team was met with the hurdle of getting approval from both the church council and Town of Guilford Historic District Commission. Arnold said that approval from both organizations didnt come for several months and based on the feedback from the historic commission, they had to alter the original design; first by spending more money to install all black panels for a sleeker, more discreet aesthetic and second to include a snow rail in the event of heavy snow fall. Once approval came in the fall of 2017, Waldo Renewable and the Church were ready to move forward with installation.

The solar system is fully functioning as of January 2017 and it is decreasing the churchs carbon footprint and saving them money on utility costs. The solar power system we installed will offset 100 percent of the church's current electric consumption, said Waldo, The solar panels produce power during the day, so the extra power is essentially stored on the electric grid until it is needed at night or in cloud-cover situations.

With the success of the energy conversion project, First Congregational Church continues to honor the environmental mission described on its website: We must articulate a sense of the sacredness of Gods creation powerful enough to replace personal consumption as our highest right and entitlement. We need to consider first the rights of a thriving sustainable whole.Linda Greenhouse, who spent 50 years on the media frontlines, is telling everybody that the days of he said, she said are over.

Greenhouse believes journalists have the right and the duty to participate in important issues as citizens, including making donations to causes in which they believe and even joining public protests  as long as it doesnt affect their coverage.

This idea of fair and balanced and he said, she said actually has bothered me for a long time, she told an audience at The Study at Yale last Wednesday night.

Wheres the boundary between journalist and citizen? she asked. Does a journalist give up the right as a citizen to having opinions?

Greenhouse, a former reporter for the New York Times and now a lecturer at Yale Law School, grapples with this issue in her new book, Just a Journalist (Harvard University Press).

When Greenhouse was introduced by WSHU Public Radio reporter Cassandra Basler at The Study, Basler said: Shell talk about how its going under the Trump administration. The name Trump drew groans from the crowd; these were Greenhouses people.

Baslers first question of Greenhouse got right down to it: What does it mean when the New York Times calls a presidential candidate a liar?

She was referring to the famous Times front page headline of Sept. 17, 2016, at the height of the presidential campaign: Trump Gives Up a Lie but Refuses to Repent. The story reported Trumps reluctant concession that President Barack Obama in fact was born in the United States.

Thats a major focus of my book, Greenhouse replied. She noted, There werent two sides to that. He wasnt telling the truth.

She said during that tumultuous presidential campaign, she watched with fascination as Times reporters and editors step by step grew more hard-hitting about Trump until, finally, the Times ran that headline.

If somebody years earlier had told me this would happen, I wouldve said: What are you smoking? Greenhouse remarked.

But she added, Trump pulled a fig leaf off of some of these journalistic norms.

Greenhouses assertion that journalists have rights and duties as public citizens hit home with me as a New Haven Register reporter and columnist. For many years, I have resisted the traditional strict rule enforced by some editors that reporters should not participate in any political protest. In the late 1970s and early 80s, I became so alarmed about the escalating nuclear arms race and the possibility of nuclear war that I joined large demonstrations in New York City and was even arrested with many others during a non-violent sit-in.

In January of last year, when masses of women marched for their rights in Washington, D.C. the day after Trump was inaugurated, I went with my wife to a related but much smaller protest on the Yale campus. I participated as a concerned citizen, not a journalist.

Greenhouse did the same thing in 1989. She recalled at The Study: There was a pro-choice march with half a million people, including me. My college friends and I went. I told everybody in my (New York Times) office I was going. Everybody was cool with it.

But as she wrote in her book, then Leonard Downie Jr., managing editor of the Washington Post, heard that some of his reporters had participated in that march. He announced that anybody who had attended the march would be barred from any future participation in coverage of the abortion issue.

This led to the Post reporters noting Greenhouses editors seemed to have no problem with her marching in that protest. Then New York Times Executive Editor Max Frankel ordered Washington Bureau Chief Howell Raines to tell her she needed to say she was sorry for what she had done and that she had made a mistake.

I wasnt sorry and I didnt think I had made a mistake, Greenhouse wrote. She didnt back down but it became a widely discussed journalism ethics issue that continued for years.

During her talk in New Haven, Greenhouse read out loud how Downie defined his journalistic code of ethics: I didnt just stop voting. I stopped having even private opinions about politicians or issues so that I would have a completely open mind in supervising our coverage.

Greenhouse reiterated what she said in her book: Can this accomplished man really have believed that the highest and best use of a journalists mind is to erase from it all judgment on, or even all response to, the times in which he lives?

She also wrote, of Downies view: I regard it as troubling, even frightening, to impose on journalists a sense of isolation from the civic life around them, from the very essence of citizenship.

Greenhouse retired from the Times in 2008 but the following year, she began writing twice-monthly opinion columns for the Times website. Usually, she writes about the U.S. Supreme Court, which was her beat for three decades.

While doing that daily work, she told us, My job was to empower my readers with information to let them come to their own informed judgment.

She also said, Reducing everything to a story that has two sides deprives us of civic discourse that we as a democracy need. It keeps reporters from telling listeners and readers what theyve learned, what they know.

During the question-and-answer portion of her talk, Greenhouse said shes worried about how younger Americans are getting their news. The really smart students I interact with at Yale dont take time to sit down and read the paper. The younger generation hasnt gotten the news habit.

She recalled that when she was a kid, being raised in Hamden, her parents made sure they got the New York Times mailed to them daily. In those days, you couldnt easily buy it, so it came in our mail.

I got the bug early, she said of her interest in newspapers and public issues. She worked for her high school newspaper and later wrote for the Harvard Crimson when she was at Radcliffe College.

In her book, Greenhouse praised Charles Lenahan, the editor and publisher of the Hamden Chronicle. She said people looked up to him in that town and the newspaper gave Hamden a sense of identity.

Greenhouse frequently drew applause from the audience at The Study, especially when she answered the question from a person in the crowd: Why does the press let politicians get away with it?

This was her response: Why arent we smarter when we go to the polls?NEW HAVEN  Members of St. Matthews Unison Free Will Baptist Church werent surprised when they walked into church one Sunday and saw an inflatable rowboat in the aisle.

Nor were they shocked when the sanctuary was set up like a hospital operating room.

Under the leadership of Pastor Kevin Hardy, who became St. Matthews spiritual leader in 2014 after growing up in the parish, anything is possible to get the message across.

As the members of St. Matthews celebrate the churchs 100th anniversary  with a gala celebration set for March 17  theyre confident that the parishs future will continue in that lively, spirit-filled tradition.

The inflatable boat was particularly amusing, said Margaret Burney of New Haven. Among those in the boat were two deacons, and theyre fairly large men and I thought, Hows this going to work? Its something that will help you get through the week.

This church is my family. When I come in on Sunday morning, its like Im coming home, and the pastors always got something encouraging to say, said Burney, a member since 1968.

The light touches bring home inspirational messages. Hardy said his sermon using the boat encouraged people to get out of the familiar things in your life, having the faith to do that with new challenges, believing that God is going to be with you.

The operating room, in which Hardys son, Jay Hardy, portrayed a patient covered by a sheet, was meant to teach that sometimes we pronounced death on our hopes, our dreams, our desires prematurely, and God has the power to resurrect those things in our lives if we just believe, he said.

Hardy comes by his preaching style naturally. Hes also a social studies teacher at Bailey Middle School in West Haven.

Theyre not surprised any Sunday by anything that could roll in here, he said of his congregation.

Coming to church at 400 Dixwell Ave. is about worshiping and praising God, but its also about celebrating and supporting each other.

They treat you like family, said Stephanie Roberts of New Haven, whos been attending St. Matthews since 1987. We have our differences, but were not going to let anybody mess with you.

Roberts said church members helped pay for her son Stevens trip to Europe, passing on cash gifts using the Holy Ghost handshake. Members said helping Steven Roberts go to Europe was like were able to go ourselves, Stephanie Roberts said.

Hardy, 48, who is the parishs ninth pastor, said its extremely surreal that he is leading the congregation after being born and bred here.

I have a lot of people who would consider me a son, which is a wonderful thing, he said. One of the proudest things that I have for this church  is that it remains a place that is multigenerational.

The span of generations includes 17-year-old Christopher Burney, Margaret Burneys grandson and a senior at Hillhouse High School, and 93-year-old Ruby Thigpen of New Haven, whos quick with a quip.

Chris Burney said he continues to attend St. Matthews mainly to hear the message that my pastor brings every Sunday.  As a senior, I have the college process  that can be very stressful at times, but thinking about what the pastor said on Sunday just keeps me rolling.

Having been raised a Methodist in South Carolina, Thigpen said she was reluctant to join her husband at a Baptist church.

I was not going to join this church when I came to New Haven in 1943 because somebody told me they dip you in the water, and I was afraid I was going to get drowned, she said.

But her two daughters would fight her every Sunday, wanting to go to St. Matthews, and finally their mother relented and joined her husband. The Bible says Im supposed to be by his side, not separated from him.

Shes never regretted her decision.

I get what I come here for. My spirit is filled every time I come, she said.

The parish has its roots in a prayer group formed in 1915 in the home of one of a group of black migrants from the South who longed for a Christian fellowship of their culture, according to a church history. The church was chartered three years later, meeting in a storefront at 148 Henry St.

Now, St. Matthews has about 600 members, but it doesnt seem that large, Roberts said. And Hardy said they include 16 members, including Thigpen, who will have turned 90 by this April.

The church for me brought all worlds together, Hardy said. It was how I learned not just about faith but about respect, about value for family and education and just about work ethic as well.

I had no idea as a little boy that I would be able to be the churchs ninth pastor  but Im extremely humbled to lead the charge at this point. But I always say that God always dreams bigger dreams than you can dream for yourself.

Since his installation on Dec. 7, 2014, the church has welcomed 114 new members, a 20 percent increase in membership.

Lillian Vinston of Hamden, chairwoman of the 100th anniversary celebration, said, I enjoy this church. It has been a real blessing for me.  This is where I come for refuge. This is my church family.

Its a family that reaches out too. We extend ourselves outside to other people, Vinston said, with a food pantry listed on the 211 help line and Thanksgiving baskets given out each year.

We get calls throughout the day, people in need of food, and we dont turn anyone away, said Naro Lee Jr., the third generation of his family to be a member of St. Matthews.

I remember coming to church and if I wasnt sitting on Mother Taylors lap, we would sit on the steps of the altar, Lee said. Mother Taylor was the wife of the pastor at the time, the Rev. Lloyd Taylor.

Lee said the parish also shares fellowship with Free Will Baptist parishes in North Carolina and New Jersey, hosting the other churches and traveling to those churches in return.

In planning their anniversary, We started out with prayer, Vinston said. Our primary focus for the anniversary was to recognize our seniors and to involve our youth.  We wanted to make sure that our seniors were recognized. We wanted to have a real contrast between our seniors and our youth.

Their semi-formal banquet on March 17 will be held at Woodwinds in Branford, but there are events planned for throughout the year, including a choir reunion in August, preacher appreciation month in October and a final celebration in December.Dear Emory community,

It is with great sadness that we inform you of the passing of H. Kenneth Walker, MD, beloved professor of medicine and neurology in the Emory University School of Medicine, and professor of global health in the Rollins School of Public Health.

Walkers connection to Emory ran deep. He earned his associates degree from Emory's Oxford College, graduated from Emory College, and then earned his MD from Emory School of Medicine.

His 60-year career included an unrivaled dedication to Grady Memorial Hospital. His connection to Grady began in 1958 when he was a third year medical student. He completed his residency training at Grady and remained there until 1965, only leaving to serve two years in the U.S. Air Force in southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. Walker returned to Grady in 1967 and became a faculty member in 1970, where he eventually served as the assistant chief of the Emory medicine service at Grady. He was honored during last years Grady White Coat Gala for more than 40 years of service to the hospital.

Walker was also committed to global health outreach. He worked in many countries and had a huge impact in the country of Georgia. For more than 25 years, as executive director of Partners for International Development, Walker led the Atlanta-Tbilisi Partnership, a collaboration between educational and health care institutions in the country of Georgia and Atlanta. The partnerships many projects were and continue to be instrumental in improving the quality of health care in the country of Georgia.

In addition to his skills as a physician, Walker was extremely dedicated to the education and training of medical students and directed Emorys internal medicine residency program, junior medicine clerkship, and sophomore clinical methods course. He personally trained more internal medicine residents than any other physician at Emory. Through his strong mentorship skills, numerous medical residents, students, and colleagues learned valuable lessons about dedication, professionalism and patient-centered medical care.

Ken was an educator and a mentor but, first and foremost, a doctor and an incredible patient advocate, says Carlos Del Rio, MD, Hubert Professor and chair of the Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health, professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and interim executive associate dean for Emory at Grady at the Emory University School of Medicine. It is impossible to calculate the number of medical students and residents that Ken mentored. I am privileged to have been one of them.

Walkers passing is a huge loss for the Emory community. He will be missed by all. We invite you to celebrate his legacy by viewing this video in which he talks about himself and his role in the Emory School of Medicine.

Walkers visitation and funeral arrangements are below.

Visitation

Monday, February 26 from 4 - 7 p.m

A.S. Turner and Sons

2773 North Decatur Rd. Decatur, GA 30033

Funeral



Tuesday, February 27

The family will receive friends again at 1 p.m.

Service starts at 2 p.m.

Fishing Creek Baptist Church

182 Floral Hill Road Tignall, GA 30668

You can also see his tribute wall and obituary at A. S. Turner & Sons website.

Memorial Fund

Memorial gifts can be made to the H. Kenneth Walker Resident Education Fund to help fund equipment, research, and attendance at national conferences for residents of the J. Willis Hurst Internal Medicine Residency program. Gifts can be made online or by check. Make checks out to Emory University with Ken Walker Fund in the memo line and send to the Office of Gift Records, Emory University; 1762 Clifton Road, Suite 1400; MS: 0970-001-8AA; Atlanta, GA 30322-4001. Please contact Andrew Christopherson, Director of Development at Emory University School of Medicine at andrew.christopherson@emory.edu or 404.727.8253 with any giving questions.



With sympathy,

Jonathan S. Lewin, MD, FACR, Vikas P. Sukhatme, MD, ScD, and David S. Stephens, MDJoye in Aiken's 10-year celebration will be full of familiar faces and new talent alike, bringing a medley of new and classical sound.

Many of the performers share an unapologetic love for music and performance along with a passion to bring it to others, including the community and area students who they've created a relationship with over a decade.

This year's Joye in Aiken festival takes place March 9-16. Artists are slated to perform at a number of local public venues, as well as participate in outreach to students during the week.

Elizabeth Joy Roe, artistic curator for the festival, played at Joye as a soloist at the inaugural festival in 2009 and has appeared at the festival several times over since with piano duo, the Anderson & Roe Piano Duo.

Roe, whose role deals with artists performing at the festival, said having been at the festival several times, she knows the festival not only values performance of the highest quality, but also educational outreach.

And, the festival has been working to continue to book artists at The Juilliard School but also expand the roster beyond. That has included artists like a cappella group Accent and Broadway star Norm Lewis, who headlined last year.

"It's been this wonderful journey to celebrate this history and rich legacy of the Juilliard connection, but also expand that and find artists of our generation who are energizing (and) inspiring," she said, adding she is also excited about the full roster this year.

'Spectacular finale'

Headliners for the 2018 festival are Time for Three, a trio made up of violinist Nicolas (Nick) Kendall, violinist Charles Yang and double-bassist Ranaan Meyer.

The three share their repertoire, including performing music "from Bach to Brahms and beyond." The trio plays original music, and also arrangements of modern pop music, according to their biography.

"Those guys just know how to rock," Roe said. "Theyll totally give the most spectacular finale of the week."

Before they hit the stage, Grammy-award winning organist, Paul Jacobs, will kick off the performance lineup at 8 p.m. March 9 at St. Thaddeus Episcopal Church.

The only organist to have won a Grammy (in 2011 for Messiaens towering "Livre du Saint- Sacrement"), Jacobs has been credited for combining "a probing intellect and extraordinary technical skills with an unusually large repertoire, both old and new," his credits state.

"Organists perhaps play the largest, continuous repertoire of any living musician, over five centuries worth, in fact, and of course the music of Bach, which I will play some of, is considered the cornerstone of every artists repertoire," Jacobs, faculty at The Juilliard School, told the Aiken Standard.

But, he says, there is plenty of music before and after his time that keep the artwork fresh and new.

"I would like to champion the exquisite work of many young contemporary composers for the organ," Jacobs said.

For organists, he says they must possess knowledge of the organ on hand. He's become well acquainted with the instrument at St. Thaddeus, which says he has become an "old friend."

Jacobs said his program that will include the likes of Bach will "fit this instrument like a seamless glove."

"I take enormous delight from performing solo recitals around the country and the world, and Aiken has become a very dear destination to my heart, having performed at St. Thaddeus on several occasions in the past," he added. "I am struck by the sophistication and enthusiasm of the audiences in Aiken toward music and deeply inspired by that, as well as the warmth and kindness of the community."

The Grammy-winner also regularly performs and has performed with a list of major orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra. That is also unusual for most organists, Jacobs said; but for him, it "stems from an intense desire to collaborate with other musicians and other types of musicians."

More artists

The Joye of Jazz will be returning for the second year at The Willcox. That event, which is already sold out, consists of three different bands; solo piano concerts; and listening parties where artists share the music they love, said Riley Mulherkar, artistic director for jazz who is also a member of The Westerlies.

The Westerlies will come back to perform for the first time since their beginnings.

"We've grown so much as a group over the years, and our music has developed and evolved, and were really excited to come back and share with the community that weve grown over the years, because they saw us when we were all students in the school," Mulherkar said.

"We tour all over the country all of the time; and our music, weve been very fortunate to have our music heard from audiences all over the country, but it makes it all the more special is to go back to the place where we were just getting going, experimenting and finding ourselves in the music. "

Juilliard 415, the schools principal period-instrument ensemble formed in 2009, will play at First Presbyterian Church on March 11 at 7:30 p.m. That program, said Ben Sosland, administrative director of the Historical Performance Department at The Juilliard School, will be a chamber music performance, including music of composer Georg Philipp Telemann.

"It's (a) baroque music performance by strings and string instruments, flute and harpsichord, and its a very sort of refined and elegant style of music very intimate and sort of at the pinnacle of the Baroque era," Sosland said.

Performers will join other Juilliard students to panel a discussion during the week as well.

On March 13, pianist Angie Zhang will perform at the AECOM Center for the Performing Arts. Zhang, a 22-year-old graduate student and Kovner Fellow at The Juilliard School, is described as "passionate about interpolating dynamic collaborate ventures with innovative recital projects," according to her bio.

The summary goes on to say the artist "enjoys performing works by established living and promising young composers." Zhang, who will also participate in a master class and panel before her solo recital, told the newspaper she began playing piano at age 4. Her mother was her first piano teacher.

She has curated her recital, so that the theme is centered around exploration. The title is, "Charting through Distant Lands and Unexpected Treasures."

Zhang said that she began curating programs that included composers who themselves were inspired by a painter or a work of art.

She's starting the Aiken program, and ending the first half, with visual art connections. After doing some research on Aiken, she said she found Aiken to be a "very fruitful place for visual and musical art" and thought that would be a good way to connect to an appreciative audience.

"That's because, once again, its multi-disciplinary," she said. "I also have had a strong interest in visual art since I can remember and know artists such as Caio Fonseca, John Currin and Rachel Feinstein." The pianist has played at the National Arts Club, Aspen Art Museum, and the Milwaukee Art Museum, and once played for Adam Weinberg, director of the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The St. Lawrence String Quartet will play at First Presbyterian Church at noon March 15; an alumni celebration concert will take place at the AECOM center later that day at 8 p.m. Roe has called the quartet "the most distinguished, important of our generation."

Joye in Aiken impact: 'A model for other places'

The annual festival is as beneficial for the artists as it is for the community, according to participants. In ways, they say it is a model of what can be done in other communities.

"What happens in Aiken is a model for what could occur in other communities around the country, and should serve as an inspiration to us all," Jacobs said, also joining others in complimenting the outreach component that has reached thousands of area students. "The milestone for Joye in Aiken is something to celebrate."

Many artists say the festival makes music accessible to all  as it should and is intended to be. And continuing to expose audiences to live, classical music while embracing modern sounds is also important to the artists, according to Roe.

"My hope is that people will continue to support the festival, because in our generation in this time, I think that live music, (the) live cultural experiences are essential of our civilization," Roe said.

"I hope that people within this community  and anyone who is intrigued about what music is or what classical music is or jazz or whatever and maybe hasn't experienced it  my hope is that someone who is reading this will give it a try, go to one concert and be open to the experience and who knows? You may get hooked."Many critics have found Audrey grating or ridiculous. Admittedly, shes had too many stereotypical aging-mom moments: In Episode 3, she reminisces about being catcalled and begs for Gregs desire. This week, she frets that shes accomplished too little in life, only to have her husband respond with the bromide that theres no greater task than holding a family together. But when she says, later in the same scene, I only remember my mistakes, we get a glimpse of her complexity, of how hard on herself she can be. What I like about Audrey (besides Holly Hunters humane performance) is that, for all her control-freak hovering and bourgeois-bohemian posturing, its genuine, intense feelings that fuel her many neuroses.

Emotions also run high at the Shokrani residence. In last weeks episode, Farid soothed his religious anxiety with marijuana before making an appearance at a Muslim wedding. This time, he brings his own bottle of wine to a dinner at the home of Laylas teetotaling white imam, Chuck (Michael Weaver), and picks a fight about Islam. I have a problem with Muslims, he announces, listing grievances like Sharia law and honor killings. When his harrowing experiences during the Iranian Revolution come up and Chuck suggests that he understands Farids pain because hes studied that period, Farid snaps: You studied it. I lived it.

Im still disappointed that weve learned practically nothing about the Shokranis beyond their religion. And the hints that Layla is growing uncomfortably close with the imam because of her husbands long-festering anger toward Islam arent subtle. But we are getting some real insight into the role this conflict plays in their marriage. Although the dialogue in these scenes leaves much to be desired (I groaned when Layla told Farid, You dishonored me), the revelation that she believes his embrace of reason over faith has made him spiritually bankrupt is intriguing. We dont often see this kind of marital dispute on TV.

Its also promising that Navid is finally getting his own story line. His interest in Kristen is obvious: He savors their every conversation, even when shes blowing up at him for no reason. When she visits the Shokranis house for a class project, only to find Navid in his hijab and eye makeup, she reacts to the news that hes gender fluid by gushing, Oh my God, I wish I was. Kristen is the quintessential bored teen, fresh off a humiliating sexual encounter with a cruel popular boy, and Navids secret life instantly gets her attention. Theres a lot of potential in this new friendship, especially if it blossoms into an unconventional romance.

If only every characters story could improve so much. Duc is still begging for his dads approval, proclaiming his celibacy and courting potential clients with all the disingenuous bravado of an infomercial pitchman. The scene in which a woman at the pool warns him, Pride goeth before a fall, belongs in the on-the-nose hall of fame. Meanwhile, in keeping with the episodes theme, Ashley and Malcolms marriage is put under the microscope. They spend the hour bickering over whose fault it is that none of the children they invited to their 4-year-olds birthday party are coming. What doesnt make much sense is that theyre not concerned about why all of Haileys friends  and their parents  want nothing to do with them.The three custody banks  Bank of New York Mellon, State Street and Northern Trust  would, when calculating how much capital to hold on their balance sheets, be able to set aside deposits they received from other banks and immediately gave to the Federal Reserve or another central bank for safekeeping.

Jennifer Hendricks Sullivan, a spokeswoman for Bank of New York Mellon, said in an email that the exemption was structured in a way that recognizes the unique business model of the custody banks.

Citigroup and JPMorgan argue that the exemption is not fair. They say that since they, too, take deposits from other banks and stash them at the Fed, they should get the same relief  even though that is not the primary focus of their business. Lobbyists for the two banks are hoping to persuade lawmakers to change the bill to allow all banks that accept custodial deposits to take advantage of the exemption, according to people familiar with the banks efforts who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss those efforts.

As Congress has sought to make a common sense change to the way capital rules treat custody assets, we have asked that they apply that change to all custody banks to maintain a level playing field in this important business, a Citigroup spokesman said in an email on Friday.

Spokesmen from JPMorgan and State Street declined to comment.

Whether the language is broadened or not, the presence of a carve-out has made supporters of the laws original capital requirement nervous. They say its purpose is to keep banks from convincing regulators that certain products arent dangerous when they may ultimately pose a risk.

This is not a tweak, said Sheila C. Bair, former chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. This could be a very significant weakening of bank capital rules.The Emory community is mourning the loss of Raymond Danowski, who contributed a vast collection of 20th-century poetry and related materials that has become a world-renowned resource for research and scholarship at the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library.

The Emory community is mourning the loss of Raymond Danowski, a generous benefactor of the Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library, who contributed a vast collection of 20th-century poetry and related materials that has become a world-renowned resource for research and scholarship.

Danowski, 74, died at his home in South Africa on Feb. 2 after a period of illness. At Emory, he will be remembered as the man behind the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library, a 75,000-volume collection of rare and first edition books, journals and other materials, considered the largest collection of 20th century English-language poetry in the world.

The legacy of Raymond Danowski has left an enduring mark on the Rose Library, Emory University and the broader scholarly community, says Rosemary M. Magee, former director of the Rose Library. We have learned from him that a passion for poetry may take us to all corners of the earth in order to make something truly meaningful happen. While we miss him, we continue to be blessed by his presence among us through the power of his life and library.

A love of poetry

Danowskis love of books and poetry started at a young age, and as an adult, he assembled the collection over a 30-year period without the use of a computer or filing system; the inventory of contents was all in his memory. As the collection grew, he first stored the books in a barn on his property, then in a warehouse. He knew he would need to find a new place eventually, and he had another goal  to share the collection widely with others.

Known for his generous spirit, Danowski began searching for an institution to take on his collection, one that would give undergraduates and members of the public access to the rare books and materials. He had trouble finding a place willing to meet his requirement, until he met Ronald Schuchard, professor of English at Emory (now emeritus). Schuchard told Danowski about the universitys rare book library (now the Rose Library), its collections of poets papers, and its welcoming access policy (anyone can look at these primary materials upon request)  all elements that Danowski was looking for. The Raymond Danowski Poetry Library was established at Emory in 2004.

Raymond Danowski was one of the great poetry lovers and bibliophiles of our time, Schuchard says. His unmatched universal collection of 20th-century poetry in English, which has continued to grow since its placement here in 2004, and which is accessible to all, is now a significant part of the identity of the Rose Library and the University throughout the world.

The Danowski collection

The Raymond Danowski Poetry Library at the Rose Library contains first editions, chapbooks, photographs, typescripts, literary journals and correspondence, as well as other materials related to counterculture, the civil rights movement, Vietnam War and other 20th-century issues thought to have influenced some of the poets. The holdings come from the U.S., Australia, India, Canada, South Africa, Ireland, Scotland and other parts of the U.K. Researchers have traveled from many of these same countries to use the collection.

Some of the most notable items include a signed first edition of Walt Whitmans Leaves of Grass, issued anonymously by the author in 1855; a first edition of T.S. Eliots Prufrock and Other Observations (1917), inscribed by the author to a close friend, and Anne Sextons personal, annotated copy of Sylvia Plaths Ariel (1965).

Materials also include more than 50,000 literary journals, several thousand broadsides, recordings, unique manuscripts, ephemera and other objects. It is a living library, regularly expanded with new acquisitions, publishing efforts, digital projects and exhibitions.

The collection inspired the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library Reading Series, which over the last 13 years has drawn distinguished poets such as Rita Dove, Seamus Heaney, Natasha Trethewey, Elizabeth Alexander, Paul Muldoon, Sonia Sanchez, Galway Kinnell and many others to the Emory campus to read their works.

In 2016, Emory recognized Danowski with an honorary doctor of humane letters degree at commencement, and the Rose Library named a seminar room for him when it opened its newly renovated space in the fall of 2015.The E! red carpet show at the Academy Awards felt as though it was on the brink of blowing up at a moments notice, with a sexual harassment claim against the host, Ryan Seacrest, hanging over the festivities.

Viewers wondered if a celebrity would turn the questions around on Mr. Seacrest, or if he would willingly address the accusation. But no such confrontation was broadcast, and his interviews with celebrities stuck to the typical fare of fashion and film. There were no immediate indications that celebrities were bypassing him for interviews. Mary J. Blige, Christopher Plummer, Allison Janney and other Oscar nominees talked to him. But as Us Weekly reported, none of the five women up for best actress stopped by.

While the Harvey Weinstein accusations made the red carpets at other award shows this year a primary platform for actors to voice support for sexual harassment victims and the fight against gender imbalances, Sundays preshow event could have fit in any prior year. Mr. Seacrest did not ask any questions about sexual harassment or pay equity. (His co-host, Giuliana Rancic, who was stationed at a Los Angeles hotel, did at one point discuss the #MeToo movement before the show segued back to Mr. Seacrest.)If it remains a hashtag and it remains a movement, then its going to die. Its got to become a part of our lives  that women should no longer be in silence about sexual assault. Its a crime. This is a really unusual moment in our history. Theres sort of a magic in the air, thats pushing systemic change. I think that the Academy can bring a little pressure to bear on agencies and studios. You know, I dont know who else really can. Tonight will be a continued message, a voice. Hollywood sets a standard and it helps raise the bar. And it has trickled out into other fields. But I think the focus has to shift at this point. Ive been a feminist for years, and we fought for many rights. But slowly it moves. As long as we continue to support each other as women, Times Up will never go away. And as long as the consequences remain, you know, people will stop doing what theyre doing. As I become more and more of a producer, its very important for me to continue to make sure that we hire not only women in front of the camera and as directors but women as cinematographers and all the other positions as well. And I think we just have to do that until we dont have to do it anymore. Until its equal. You know, generally we need to broaden the conversation. So white, straight men are asked to comment on this on the red carpet. You know, sometimes it works out where men talk about the craft, women talk about the issues. And I think men should be forced to interrogate their identity. Im constantly interrogating what it means to be a woman. Im constantly asked to figure out what it means to be black. Im constantly asked to interrogate what it means to be a lesbian. If you study ancient civilizations that have lasted a long time  its because they put women up in the society. We held women up. And I think that is something that we can learn from. And I think its a beautiful thing, you know? I love my mama. It makes me very excited for the new generations. And I hope they dont forget, so they can appreciate the opportunities, and they work harder than ever so that we can be proven right. That the female force, its an untapped potential that can really make a difference everywhere. Theres probably a lot of things wrong about Hollywood, but I stay away from that part. And I dont allow myself to be in places I shouldnt. Thats how you fix it. Know your surroundings. And if you dont know, wear a chastity belt. Legislation needs to be passed; people need to be held accountable for what theyve done. I cant think of what the legislative way would be. But I always think of same-sex marriage as, like, that was a really  they changed the law. And I dont know what came first, but the thinking and the law changed, and the world really changed around that. I hope #MeToo has the same effect. If we can continue to find purpose  and me at my particular age  purpose in what we do. That purpose, we carry that translated into another way, in which we deal with ordinary citizens and young actors and young producers and young directors and young actresses who are coming up. Thank you so much. Have a great night.Chaos.

That seemed to be the descriptor most tossed around last week to capture the circus around Donald Trump.

But I think chaos is the fruit of this poison tree, not the root of it. That is to say that I dont believe that Trump desires chaos because he feels most at peace when the world around him is experiencing pandemonium.

Rather, I believe that this chaos is the perpetual result of the absolute incompetence and idiocy of a preening philistine who has faked his way through life pretending that he knows more than he does and is tougher than he is.

He has two diametrically opposed impulses.

On the one hand, he latches on to outlandish ideas, or simple, emotional aspects of complicated issues, or conspiratorial drivel, and he vests the whole of his emotional energy into proving their veracity, often against overwhelming evidence to the contrary. President Obama wasnt born in America. Obama used the F.B.I. to spy on him. There were good people on both sides in Charlottesville. The fake news media is the enemy of the American people. The whole Russia investigation is a hoax. Hes doing a good job as president.So he quit. He wanted to build something that, at market rate, would be affordable.

When Mr. Dishotsky first tried to get a bank loan for his new type of pared-down housing, he was turned away by 40 lenders.

They were like, Who would live this way? he said. Were like, Its everybody, its normal people you know.

A couple blocks away was the Ellis Street building, a former bathhouse turned into medical offices that became a vacant property. Another developer had tried to turn it into 11 luxury condos. Mr. Dishotskys pitch was 52 dorm rooms.

The move was both idealistic and practical. Because of arcane permitting rules and neighborhood associations that push against new developments, building new housing in San Francisco is painfully slow. But workers keep flooding the city, so roommates jam tighter into existing housing, already sharing bathrooms and renting living rooms as bedrooms. Mr. Dishotsky said he decided to build for what was already the citys reality.

At the Ellis Street site, his team is digging down about a level and a half to make a basement lounge. Each floor has a communal kitchen for eight to 15 people. Hes working with his co-founder, Mohammad Sakrani, 30, on new beds that can be hoisted up and suspended from the ceiling during the day. They are also trying to design modular bathrooms and even entire bedrooms that can be plugged in to buildings.Rosealia Fabrisio is a young muckraking journalist in the making, and you get the sense that she didnt pick her outfit  the white eyelet dress, the big matching bow in her hair.

I am 13 and smarter than you, she says firmly by way of introduction in Jaclyn Backhaus and Andrew Neislers new musical Folk Wandering. And because Rosealia is both arrogant and charming, we tumble instantly into her world: 1911, the poor immigrant tenements of Manhattans Lower East Side, whose genuine horrors she is more than willing to embellish for the sake of a good story. Maybe her article needs a touch of leprosy, or a dead kid on the lawn?

We dont even have a lawn, Rosie, her sweet, awkward neighbor Harlan objects.

Im lifting our families out of the gutter with my journalism, Rosealia (Lena Hudson) thunders.Mr. Ross described the effect of the tariff as a fraction of a penny on a can of beer. Mr. Navarro clashed with Chris Wallace of Fox News, who tried to get the economic adviser to admit that those costs, when multiplied by all products that use steel and aluminum over the entire economy, would escalate into the billions of dollars. Mr. Navarro said he saw the costs as insignificant in the mission to preserve the steel and aluminum industries, which have seen factories pick up and move from the United States to cheaper parts of the world.

The White Houses plan continued to face fierce criticism, including from Republicans who believe free trade is in the interest of the economy.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, criticized the tariffs for falling more heavily on American allies than on China, which he said had earlier flooded the global market with steel.

Economists say the tariffs, if applied without exceptions, would harm allies like Canada, South Korea and the European Union, which export more steel to the United States than China does. Shortly after the tariffs were announced, the European Union responded by saying that it was already preparing to levy retaliatory tariffs on American products, including orange juice, bluejeans and Harley-Davidson motorcycles.

Youre letting China off the hook, Mr. Graham said on CBSs Face the Nation. China wins when we fight with Europe.

Joshua B. Bolten, the head of the Business Roundtable and chief of staff in the George W. Bush administration, called the tariffs a huge mistake.

Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Mr. Bolten acknowledged that the president was trying to fulfill his campaign promises and help American workers in the steel and aluminum industries. But Mr. Bolten said the tariffs would cause huge damage across broad sectors of the economy that use steel and aluminum in their products, or that face retaliation from angry trading partners.Hundreds of thousands of people remained without electricity on Sunday, after a fierce storm swept through much of the eastern United States on Friday. Some utility companies told customers that power may not be restored until later this week, around the time another storm could strike the region.

At least eight people died after heavy snow, winds and rain tore through the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic on Friday. Trains were halted, planes delayed and roads closed. At its peak, more than two million people were affected by power losses, from South Carolina to Michigan to Maine, the United States Department of Energy reported.

The potential exists for another noreaster to move in, probably Wednesday into Thursday, Marc Chenard, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Services prediction center, said in a phone interview on Sunday.

He said this storm could be less powerful, and was unlikely to match the strong winds that toppled so many trees on Friday. The snow may end up being the bigger thing to watch with this next system, he added.BEIJING  China faced critical battles in defusing economic risks and reining in pollution, the countrys premier, Li Keqiang, said on Monday in an annual state-of-the-nation report to lawmakers that has been overshadowed by a plan for President Xi Jinping to abandon term limits on his power.

Mr. Xi was among the Communist Party leaders who listened on the podium as Mr. Li laid out the governments goals for 2018 in his report to the legislature, the National Peoples Congress. Almost 3,000 handpicked delegates attending the congress in the Great Hall of the People also received an explanation of proposed constitutional amendments that included ending a limit of two five-year terms on the presidency.

Here are highlights from the opening day of the congresss annual meeting, which this year will last for more than two weeks.

Justifying Xi Jinpings power push

Just a week ago, the Chinese Communist Party abruptly revealed a proposed constitutional change that would lift the term limit on the presidency. That change would clear the way for Mr. Xi to stay in power as president and Communist Party leader well into the next decade, perhaps even longer. There is no term limit for party leaders.ROME  Italians registered their dismay with the European political establishment on Sunday, handing a majority of votes in a national election to hard-right and populist forces that ran a campaign fueled by anti-immigrant anger.

The election, the first in five years, was widely seen as a bellwether of the strength of populists on the continent and how far they might advance into the mainstream. The answer was far, very far.

After Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France beat back populist and far-right insurgencies in the past year, Europe had seemed to be enjoying a reprieve from the forces threatening its unity and values.

That turned out to be short lived.

In Sundays vote, preliminary results showed, the parties that did well all shared varying degrees of skepticism toward the European Union, with laments about Brussels treating Italians like slaves, agitation to abandon the euro and promises to put Italy before Europe.The format was a relay, with two pianos onstage. After one pianist played a few songs, another came on for a duet before embarking on his own set. Mr. Hyman, along with his high-finesse renditions of Scott Joplin ragtime and Fats Waller stride, dutifully inserted a tango bass line into All the Things You Are. Sullivan Fortner, from New Orleans, and Chano Dominguez, from Spain, both played habaneras beautifully. But why did Joey Alexander, the adorable and astonishingly skilled 15-year-old pianist from Indonesia, play original compositions with almost none of the three title elements?

Among the dancers, who joined in periodically, the outlier wasnt the Spanish flamenco dancer, Jesus Carmona (in town for the Flamenco Festival at City Center), so much as the New York salsero, Eddie Torres Jr. In his ruffled shirts and sequined spangles, the friendly Mr. Torres, snapping his fingers and shimmying, simply didnt have enough vocabulary

Whereas the tap dancers  Michela Marino Lerman on Friday, Jared Grimes on Saturday  proved fully equal to the pianist pyrotechnics. Ms. Lerman, deeply musical, was the most adaptive artist onstage amid Fridays getting-to-know-you awkwardness. Mr. Grimes is the greater showman. In his muscle T-shirt, he started with an imitation of Gregory Hines but advanced into maneuvers that Hines couldnt have dreamed of. Hes a flamboyant inventor, with giddily extreme steps all his own.

On the same program with these top-notch hoofers, Mr. Carmona gave an inadvertent lesson in differences between tap and flamenco. Hes a peacock, too, with impressive footwork, armwork as ornate as Arabic script, fishtail turns and a cat-who-ate-the-canary smile. But where the tap dancers every step was music, either rhythm or a rest, in flamenco the center of musical expression regularly alternates between the feet and the upper body, the percussion concentrated in climaxes like the rapid strumming of flamenco guitar. In the context of this concert, some of Mr. Carmonas multiple turns could seem like boilerplate, but he adapted to jazz syncopations with winning playfulness.

And that open spirit was ultimately what made the concert work, not in a historical sense but in the general jazz-as-an-international-language one. Nothing was more thrilling than to watch Mr. Carmona and Mr. Grimes trade phrases at the end, one-upping each others spins and on-the-toes tricks. Similarly, it made for a knockout and affecting finale when all four pianists played together, two to a piano. The eight decades and thousands of miles separating Mr. Hyman and Mr. Alexander shrank to a few inches as they sat side by side. As Mr. Hyman indicated, the musicians and the dancers had found much in common.Story Highlights 82% say North Korean nuclear weapons are a critical threat

Huge majorities also name cyberterrorism and international terrorism

40% or less see three other potential threats as critical

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Eighty-two percent of Americans say North Korea's development of nuclear weapons poses "a critical threat" to the United States' vital interests. A similar percentage (81%) think cyberterrorism poses a critical threat to the nation, putting these two at the top of a list of six possible threats.

International terrorism, which topped Gallup's lists of potential threats in five of six previous years, is something that 75% of Americans name as a critical threat this year. None of the three other issues in this year's list receives majority mentions from the public as a critical threat.

Americans' Views of Critical Threats to U.S. Vital Interests I am going to read you a list of possible threats to the vital interests of the United States in the next 10 years. For each one, please tell me if you see this as a critical threat, an important but not critical threat, or not an important threat at all. Critical threat Important, not critical Not important % % % Development of nuclear weapons by North Korea 82 14 3 Cyberterrorism, the use of computers to cause disruption or fear in society 81 16 3 International terrorism 75 22 2 The economic power of China 40 45 14 Large numbers of immigrants entering the United States 39 31 29 The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians 36 48 14 GALLUP, FEB. 1-10, 2018

The high level of concern about North Korea comes after months of heated rhetoric between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. However, widespread concern about North Korea's nuclear weapons preceded Trump's presidency, with virtually the same percentage of Americans in 2013 -- 83% -- calling them a critical threat as do now.

Though the overall percentage viewing North Korea's nuclear weapons as a critical threat has hardly changed in the past five years, the percentage who see North Korea as the greatest U.S. enemy has climbed, from 10% in 2012 to 51% in the current poll. The poll was conducted Feb. 1-10, before a flurry of recent diplomatic maneuvers involving the United States, North Korea and South Korea -- much of it during North Korea's participation in the Winter Olympics held last month in South Korea.

Americans Generally Less Concerned Than in Past About Potential Threats

Cyberterrorism, described in the poll as "the use of computers to cause disruption or fear in society," is the only one of the six potential threats in the poll seen as more of a threat now than when Gallup last asked about it. Eighty-one percent now see it as a critical threat, compared with 73% in 2016. U.S. intelligence officials have accused Russia of targeting the 2016 presidential election with cyberattacks, and Russian-backed operatives reportedly compromised state websites or voter registration databases in at least seven states during the election campaign.

Americans' levels of concern about four other potential threats were all at or below previous levels.

The percentage of Americans calling international terrorism a critical threat dropped from 84% in 2015 to 79% in 2016, and then to 75% this year.

Majorities of 52% in both 2013 and 2014 saw the economic power of China as a critical threat. It has dropped to 40% now.

In 2004, the only time before this year that Gallup asked about "large numbers of immigrants entering the United States," half of the public (50%) viewed it as a critical threat. That number has fallen to 39%.

Gallup asked in 2004 about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, and 58% said it was a critical threat. In five subsequent polls conducted between 2010 and 2016, the percentages ranged between 44% and 47%; this year's reading of 36% represents a further decline.

Republicans More Likely to Describe Potential Threats as Critical

Partisanship affects how Americans view several of the potential threats, though there is virtually no difference between Democrats and Republicans (including those who lean to either party) on cyberterrorism. The biggest difference is found on the question of immigration: 65% of Republicans think large numbers of immigrants entering the United States represent a critical threat, compared with 16% of Democrats. Gallup also finds statistically significant differences between the party groups on international terrorism and the economic power of China, with Republicans more likely to see both as a critical threat.

Partisan Differences in Views of Critical Threats to the U.S. Percentage who see each of these potential threats as a critical threat to the vital interests of the United States Democrats/Leaners Republicans/Leaners % % Development of nuclear weapons by North Korea 80 87 Cyberterrorism, the use of computers to cause disruption or fear in society 83 82 International terrorism 71 81 The economic power of China 34 47 Large numbers of immigrants entering the United States 16 65 The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians 33 39 GALLUP, FEB. 1-10, 2018

On the question of North Korean nuclear weapons, there appears to be general agreement among the parties that it constitutes a critical threat -- the seven-percentage-point gap between Republicans (87%) and Democrats (80%) is not statistically meaningful. However, Gallup polling last fall showed a wide gap in attitudes about actions that might be taken as a result of the threat. Eighty-two percent of Republicans in a Sept. 6-10 poll said they would favor military action against North Korea if peaceful means failed to achieve the United States' goals, compared with 37% of Democrats.

##SPEEDBUMP##

Bottom Line

Gallup has polled on lists of potential threats to U.S. vital interests seven times since 2004. In each of those surveys, at least one of the threats Americans were most likely to consider "critical" dealt with terrorism or the development of nuclear weapons by a country at odds with the United States. This year, the three potential threats most often named as critical all fit into one of these two categories, and at least three-fourths of the public describes each as critical.

For each of the three issues, there is little disagreement among the public about the severity of the threat; large majorities across all demographic groups agree that it is critical.

Such widespread agreement may matter little if various factions -- political and otherwise -- profoundly disagree on how to deal with the threat. But underestimating the threat facing a nation can have tragic consequences, as was the case when Europe and the United States ignored the dangers presented by Nazi Germany. The results can be just as tragic when a nation overestimates the extent of a potential threat and takes actions that lead to an avoidable armed conflict.LONDON  Artists studios are not often found in picturesque environments. They usually look out on dreary backyards, factory warehouses or parking lots. But the British painter Celia Paul has an atelier overlooking the columned facade of the British Museum.

Ms. Pauls small, top-floor apartment was bought for her in 1982 by Lucian Freud, her partner at the time. They met at the Slade School of Fine Art when she was an 18-year-old student and he a 55-year-old visiting tutor.

Both artists have work in a new exhibition at Tate Britain called All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life, a survey of representational British art of the postwar period. Mr. Freud, who died in 2011, has 17 paintings in the show, more than any other artist. Ms. Paul has two, but she is also the subject of one of the Freud paintings: Girl in a Striped Nightshirt (1983-85), a small and tender portrait.

After four decades spent in the shadows  as Mr. Freuds partner, as a woman artist and as a figurative painter when the genre was pronounced dead  Ms. Paul, now 58, is drawing attention for her soulful and melancholy portraits. Opening on April 3 at the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven is a Celia Paul show curated by the New Yorker writer Hilton Als. He has championed her before, in a display of her work at Gallery Met, the Metropolitan Operas art space in New York, in 2015.Fred Rogers first encountered a television in 1951 during his senior year at Rollins College. He hated it.

I saw people throwing pies in each others faces, and I thought: This could be a wonderful tool for education! Why is it being used this way? Rogers said in an interview in 1999.

Intrigued by the mediums potential, he told his parents that he wanted to postpone his plans to become a Presbyterian minister in order to pursue a career in television.

They said, Youve never even seen it! Rogers said. And I said, Well, Ive seen enough of it here that Id like to try.In 2016, the feminist press Emily Books held a panel in Brooklyn titled, a bit cheekily, What Is Womens Writing? There was no consensus, much laughter and a warm, rowdy vibe. Eileen Myles read from a memoir in progress and Ariana Reines read a poem, wearing a dress with a pattern of a city on fire. All of this felt exactly right.

But even if it puts your teeth on edge to see womens writing cordoned off in quotes, you cant deny the particular power of todays women writers  their intensity of style and innovation. The books steering literature in new directions  to new forms, new concerns  almost invariably have a woman at the helm, an Elena Ferrante, a Rachel Cusk, a Zadie Smith.

For Womens History Month, The Timess staff book critics  Dwight Garner, Jennifer Szalai and myself, Parul Sehgal  sat down together to think about these writers who are opening new realms to us, whose books suggest and embody unexplored possibilities in form, feeling and knowledge.

As we put together a reading list, we introduced a few parameters, for sanitys sake. We confined ourselves to books written by women and published in the 21st century. And we limited our focus to fiction, but not without some grief. Memoir has emerged as a potent political and literary force in recent years (see the terrain-shifting work of Maggie Nelson, for example). And poets like Claudia Rankine, Solmaz Sharif and Tracy K. Smith are some of the most distinctive voices working today.2. If I can, I will. President Trump told Israels prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, above center, that he might visit in May for the move of the American Embassy to Jerusalem.

Such a visit would probably further inflame Palestinian leaders, who broke off contact with the Trump administration over the presidents decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital.

Mr. Netanyahu, who was visiting Washington, saw his troubles grow back home. A former top aide became the third close associate to agree to testify against him in a career-threatening corruption case.The sazerac is a 180-year-old cocktail based on rye and bitters. Even if you dont imbibe, its certainly a fun name to say.

The story of the drink begins in mid-19th century New Orleans, where an apothecary owner, Antoine Amedie Peychaud, treated his friends to brandy toddies containing a French brandy called Sazerac and a dash of the bitters made from a secret family recipe.

By 1850, the sazerac became the first branded cocktail, and in 1873, the brandy was replaced by American rye whiskey, with a dash of absinthe.

Over the years, Herbsaint, another anise-flavored pastis, has been used in place of absinthe and the official sazerac recipe was modified to use Sazerac Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey.

Our Cooking section also features a version made with absinthe.

Chris Stanford contributed reporting.

_____

Your Morning Briefing is published weekday mornings and updated online. Sign up here to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning. You can also receive an Evening Briefing on U.S. weeknights.

Browse our full range of Times newsletters here.

What would you like to see here? Contact us at asiabriefing@nytimes.com.The educational component is important, Ms. Jewell said, because shifting climate conditions at significant American sites like Sequoia National Park, Joshua Tree National Park and Glacier National Park are endangering the very things those parks are named for.

Andy Biggs, who has led photographic safaris in Africa and other remote places for 15 years, said that while some of his clients are looking for a photographic trophy, others want the chance to experience the destination the way it is now. They want to see pristine places and threatened species, he said.

A survey of visitors to the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Australia, found that nearly 70 percent said their desire to see the reef before its gone was the primary reason for their journey.

Marilyn and Paul Schlansky of Cape Cod, Mass., said they liked to travel off the beaten path to destinations like Myanmar and Mongolia, where the cultures are changing. Its hard to predict when something will disappear, Mr. Schlansky said. Youre not sure how much is changing until you show up.

On trips with the travel company Overseas Adventure Travel, the Schlanskys have gone on Day in the Life excursions that included making yogurt tea in a yurt, collecting dung for fuel and weaving. Local tour guides also take time to point out how modernity is creeping in, seeing how, for example, plastic water bottles have been collected and used as building materials.

Travelers want to do more than witness the habitats and ways of life that are changing, Mr. Sankhala said, so they seek out immersive experiences like eating in someones home rather than in local restaurants. They dont want to just look at a monument, he said. They want to meet people attached to the history of that monument.It has been seven years since the Securities and Exchange Commission first advised public companies to tell investors if they had suffered a cyberattack deemed to be material. But even with the rising number of severe hacks, only a few companies report incidents each year to the S.E.C.

Now the S.E.C. has issued updated cybersecurity guidance. Again, it warned public companies to make timely disclosure, recognizing the grave threat that cybercrime poses to investors and the capital markets.

Yet, the S.E.C.s new guidance doesnt confront the practical quandary facing public companies victimized by a cyberattack: Going public with news of a cyberattack isnt always an easy call. Doing so can risk tipping off the bad guys and imperil investigations. Law enforcement often encourages, or even demands, that the incident not be disclosed. At the same time, companies know they have a duty to their investors to provide prompt information about any real risks to their businesses.

This tension between the need for discreet cooperation with law enforcement and the obligation to inform investors and the markets creates a dilemma for public companies. Unfortunately, the commissions updated guidance provides little direction to corporate leaders confronting these conflicting demands. While the guidance acknowledges that it will often take time to discern the implications of a breach and that it may be necessary to cooperate with law enforcement, it concludes that an active investigation would not on its own be a reason to avoid disclosure of a material cybersecurity incident.Martin Shkrelis prized Wu-Tang Clan album might end up on a government auction block.

A judge on Monday authorized the federal government to seize rare Wu-Tang and Lil Wayne albums owned by Mr. Shkreli, the former pharmaceutical executive convicted of fraud, if he cant come up with the $7.36 million he owes the government.

Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto of Federal District Court in Brooklyn ruled Monday that Mr. Shkreli owes the money to pay back what he made from his fraud.

Mr. Shkrelis lawyers had argued that he owed nothing.

Judge Matsumoto also authorized the government to seize Mr. Shkrelis assets, including his one-of-a-kind Wu-Tang album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin, for which he reportedly spent more than $1 million; a Lil Wayne album, Tha Carter V; a Picasso painting; his shares in Vyera Pharmaceuticals; and $5 million in an E-Trade account securing Mr. Shkrelis bond, which makes up the majority of Mr. Shkrelis liquid assets, according to a court filing by Mr. Shkrelis lawyers.

The government is allowed to access the other property because it showed that Mr. Shkreli had transferred, substantially diminished or commingled the direct proceeds of his fraud, Judge Matsumoto wrote.And insurance money is just trickling in. So far, 299,999 claims have been filed by homeowners and businesses but just $1.7 billion in payouts have been approved, according to the insurance department.

Much of the federal money is being dispensed as grants and loans that businesses and individuals apply for from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration, among others. The typical household FEMA grant is a few thousand dollars.

Lawyers and community groups complain that FEMA has rejected about 60 percent of the 1.1 million household applications it has received. The agency said that figure was misleading because some rejected applicants had received loans from the Small Business Administration or aid from other agencies.

One reason for the rejections is that many Puerto Ricans cannot prove that they own a home. Only 65 percent of properties in the territory are officially registered with the government. The problem is especially acute in small cities and rural areas where theres a custom of property owners not recording titles to homes.

In Loiza, an oceanfront community of 30,000, damage to homes and businesses was extensive. Many small businesses in the town were closed for months and may never reopen. Power was restored to most residences and businesses only in the first week of February.

Federal funds are only trickling into Loiza, and housing groups said one reason for the slowness was the small proportion of homes there, perhaps 20 percent, that are officially registered. In a makeshift FEMA center, agency workers allowed property owners to submit a written declaration that they owned their home. But advocates said some were still being rejected.

Nearby, stray horses ambled along the beach.

The halting pace of the economic recovery worries business leaders like Eli S. Sepulveda Morell, an executive vice president at Banco Popular, Puerto Ricos largest lender. His biggest concern is a shortage of qualified workers, especially in construction.

Mr. Sepulveda Morell cautioned against excessive pessimism about Puerto Ricos prospects. But, he said, its too early to be extremely positive.The world has those that follow and those that lead. And those that lead, some lead in the wrong direction and some lead in the right direction, Mr. Guterres said at a news conference Monday at United Nations headquarters. You are of those that lead and have always led in the right direction, he told Mr. Bloomberg, and it is an enormous privilege for me to be able to work so closely with you.

In a statement, Mr. Guterres said he had asked Mr. Bloomberg to help him encourage governments and private businesses to rapidly reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases to meet the targets of the Paris climate accord.

The Secretary General and Michael Bloomberg share the perspective that the emissions gap needs to be closed soon to limit global temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius, Mr. Guterress office said in a statement.

President Trump has said the United States will pull out of the Paris climate agreement. He has rolled back a host of regulations to protect the environment, appointed climate science deniers to key posts in the administration and championed the use of fossil fuels, defying the scientific consensus that emissions from those fuels are a major cause of global warming.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump described climate change as a hoax.

Mr. Bloomberg, who was mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, has teamed up with one of Mr. Trumps most outspoken critics, Gov. Jerry Brown of California, to press cities and states to reduce their own greenhouse gas emissions to help the United States meet its Paris agreement targets.SPECIAL POST  It has only appeared in The New York Times Crossword three times over the past few years, most recently in the Friday, March 2 celebrity puzzle co-constructed by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and veteran constructor Joe DiPietro. Perhaps that just means that the 180 year old rye and bitters based Sazerac cocktail is finally getting its due, at least in crosswords, where SAZERAC was one of the most revealed entries of the past week.

Even if you dont imbibe, its certainly a fun name to say.

The story of the Sazerac cocktail begins in mid-19th century New Orleans, where apothecary owner Antoine Amedie Peychaud treated his friends to brandy toddies containing Sazerac French brandy and a dash of the bitters made from a secret family recipe. By 1850, the Sazerac Cocktail became the first branded cocktail, and in 1873, the French brandy was replaced by American Rye Whiskey, with a dash of absinthe. Over the years, Herbsaint, another anise-flavored pastis, has been used in place of absinthe and the official Sazerac Cocktail recipe was modified to use Sazerac Kentucky Straight Rye Whiskey.

If youd rather use absinthe, theres always former Drinks columnist Rosie Schaaps recipe from New York Times Cooking.

How It Might Be Clued

Cocktail with rye whiskey, New Orleans cocktail, Official cocktail of New Orleans

Laissez les bon temps rouler!With the tailgate of his truck serving as our work surface, we separated some greenhouse romanesco into florets and tossed them into a Dutch oven. We cubed baby kohlrabi, did the same with the smoky brined lamb shoulder, then added the herbs, the hops and a half-dozen glugs of cream. As we worked, the geyser would blow its top every seven minutes, and we had to pause, retreating beyond the reach of its warm, misty spray.

Next, we poured the colostrum into ramekins that we set into our bain-marie  a roasting pan half-filled with water. Then Mr. Sigfusson brought out a two-pound brown trout he had caught himself (on a Hairy Mary salmon fly, he reported with pride). We stuffed the brightly spotted trout with sorrel, angelica and green onions, folded it up in parchment paper (en papillote is an ideal way to cook in a steam oven) and placed it in with the rest of our feast.

We left the oven to work its magic and, a few hours later, returned to unburden it of our meal. The bread, Jons own variation on this Viking staple, could have easily sufficed for the whole meal had we not exercised some restraint. The trout was flaky and herbaceous. The milk pudding, topped with a jam of green tomatoes, ginger, and honey was super-creamy.

But the star of the show was the lamb braise. The meat was salty and smoky, the creamy gravy enriched with the captured juices of lamb, romanesco and kohlrabi, and everything suffused with wild thyme, angelica and hops  which brought the sweetness-enhancing quality of fresh tarragon. I made a note to try it under the skin of my next roast chicken.

The breeze was gentle, and the ground was soft and dry enough to lie or sit on without getting damp. Late afternoon sun lit up the landscape formed by long ago by lava flows. It looked like pale-green velvet rippled by the breeze.

Ill admit to a tingle of schadenfreude as I looked over at Hekla to see to see if the soul of anyone on my hit list was plunging into hellfire, but I didnt dwell on it. The day was too lovely, the natural world too congenial and the food too satisfying to yield to uncharitable fantasies.

Follow NYT Food on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest. Get regular updates from NYT Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice.While the caseload is higher than last years, it is only a fraction of the population at risk, he argued.

Most of these new cases are occurring in areas where, until now, we didnt recommend immunization, he said.

To overcome suspicion of the vaccine and frustration with long lines at clinics, vaccinators have begun going door-to-door or using tents shifted from one neighborhood to another. There, they hope face-to-face chats will succeed where other efforts have failed.

Lucia Elena de Paula, 36, explained her fears to a nurse, saying, I saw a video on WhatsApp with a girl who said she was paralyzed after taking the vaccine.

But after a few soothing words from a staff member, she agreed to get the shot.

After dragging her 10-year-old grandson into a gym where the vaccines sat on an exercise bench, Aparecida Caldeira, 61, explained why she had hesitated.

When we went to the clinic in January, the lines were just too long, she said. Im so grateful they came here. But thats just typical in Brazil  waiting to do everything at the last minute.Funding tapered off through the first half of the 20th century. Staffs shrank, and in some facilities, a single doctor was responsible for hundreds of residents, who often lived in squalid, abusive, dangerous conditions.

For many, there was no path out, nowhere else to go. Hospitalization was a life sentence, or close to it.

It is hard to describe the smell, said Joseph Rogers, 66, executive director of the National Mental Health Consumers Self-Help Clearinghouse, who spent stretches of up to six months on locked wards, mostly in Florida, after a psychotic episode at age 19.

I guess it is the smell of caged humans. Someone once told me that part of the smell comes from the medication everyone is on.

He added: Youre told when to go to bed, where to go, what to eat and when. They take all your freedom away, and in my eyes theyre not placed where you get any help. He later founded the clearinghouse, which provides assistance and advocacy for people with psychiatric diagnoses.

By 1960, doctors had the first drug that could effectively blunt psychosis  chlorpromazine, brand name Thorazine  giving tens of thousands of residents a chance to live independently. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy initiated the Community Mental Health Act, intended to end institutional abuses and create a system of community-based care.

The idea was that those released from the institutions would move back into neighborhoods, with easy access to a doctor, therapists, at-home services if needed. The money saved by closing the hospitals would be used to support independent living.CLEVELAND  Here are a few choice mutterings from the scrum of lawyers outside Courtroom 18B, about the federal judge who summoned them to a closed-door conference on hundreds of opioid lawsuits:

Grandstander.

Pollyanna.

Over his head.

And the chorus: This is not how we do things!

Judge Dan Aaron Polster of the Northern District of Ohio has perhaps the most daunting legal challenge in the country: resolving more than 400 federal lawsuits brought by cities, counties and Native American tribes against central figures in the national opioid tragedy, including makers of the prescription painkillers, companies that distribute them, and pharmacy chains that sell them. And he has made it clear that he will not be doing business as usual.

During the first hearing in the case, in early January, the judge informed lawyers that he intended to dispense with legal norms like discovery and would not preside over years of unraveling complicated conspiracy theories. Then he ordered them to prepare for settlement discussions immediately.

Not a settlement that would be just moving money around, he added, but one that would provide meaningful solutions to a national crisis  by the end of this year.

I did a little math, he said, alluding to the rising number of overdoses. About 150 Americans are going to die today, just today, while were meeting.By the time Ralph Gibson paid $4,000 to publish his first photography book, The Somnambulist, in 1970, he owed nine months rent at the Chelsea Hotel and two of his three Leicas were in pawn. He was 30, and hed spent the three previous years  in his words  constantly very, very broke, reading Jorge Luis Borges, watching French New Wave films and meticulously crafting his surrealist collection of photographs at a time when art photography was not a viable commercial endeavor.

Nonetheless, it was the beginning of a long and successful career.

It was very strange, Mr. Gibson said. I went from an impoverished nobody to all of a sudden being on my feet. I was getting a lot of press, doing lectures and workshops, and selling the occasional print.If you ever win an Oscar, dont let it out of your sight. That was the lesson on Sunday night, when Frances McDormand saw her freshly engraved statue for best actress stolen for a short time at an Oscars after-party.

After a brief time apart, Frances and her Oscar were happily reunited, Simon Halls, a representative for Ms. McDormand, said in a statement on Monday. They celebrated the reunion with a double cheeseburger from In-N-Out.

A man accused in the theft, Terry Bryant, of Los Angeles, was in custody on Monday afternoon, a Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman said on Monday.

Mr. Bryant, 47, faces a charge of grand theft, which in California is a wobbler, meaning the crime can be prosecuted either as a misdemeanor or a felony, a decision left up to the district attorneys office. A felony grand theft conviction could mean up to three years in jail. He was being held with bail set at $20,000.I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: inclusion rider, Frances McDormand said Sunday night at the end of a rousing acceptance speech for the best actress Oscar in which she urged all other female nominees to stand up and reminded the audience that every woman standing had stories to tell and projects that needed financing.

So what is an inclusion rider? As Stacy Smith, who researches gender equality in film and television at the University of Southern California, has put it, its the idea that A-list actors have the ability to stipulate in their contracts that diversity be reflected both onscreen and in below the line positions, where women, people of color, and members of L.G.B.T. communities are traditionally underrepresented.In an Academy Awards ceremony centered on an exceptional number of gifted nominees over 40  many of them women  the standout fashion moment was unquestionably that of Rita Moreno. The 86-year-old actress belongs to a specific elite.

Beyond her gift for collecting statuettes (she is an EGOT  having earned an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony), Ms. Moreno is sharp-minded and witty, a longtime dancer nimble enough as an octogenarian to skitter across a stage in front of millions and to do it in heels.

Presenting the Academy Award for best foreign-language film  to the Chilean movie A Fantastic Woman  Ms. Moreno scored major style points by dressing in a repurposed version of an outfit she wore to collect her own Oscar, for West Side Story, in 1962.

The full skirt was made from the weighty brocade cloth typically used for a kimono obi. Before the ceremony, Ms. Moreno explained that it had been fashioned for her in Manila. Back then, actresses were expected to provide their own get-ups for award ceremonies, without the help of stylists.It doesnt end here, Ms. McDormand said backstage after winning the best actress Oscar for her Im-not-going-to-take-it-anymore character in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. The whole idea of women trending? No. Not trending. African-Americans trending? No. Not trending. It changes now, and I think the inclusion rider will have something to do with that. Right? Power in rules.

With that, she charged forth into the official Oscars after-party. Oh my god, mac and cheese, she said, as a waiter handed her a serving. After temporarily losing possession of her Oscar, her next stop was the Vanity Fair party, where she would commandeer an entire bucket of fried chicken. Dont like it? Too bad.

Inclusion riders  stipulations that A-list actors can place in their film contracts that gender and ethnic diversity be reflected among cast and crew members, with studios required to pay fees for failing  represent something specific that stars can do to make sure that Times Up is more than a moment. Asked at the Vanity Fair event if she planned to begin demanding inclusion riders, which she said she heard about for the first time at a dinner on Friday night, Ms. McDormand replied: Oh, yeah. Majorly. Were not going back.

But some Hollywood women were less optimistic.

How many times have we felt, Oh, theres going to be change, only to turn the corner and be let down? Sam Taylor-Johnson, the director of films like Nowhere Boy and Fifty Shades of Grey, said at the Vanity Fair party. In the end, however, she felt hopeful. The reason? She said her daughter, a student at Stanford University, had told her that she believed things were actually moving in a positive direction.Christopher Lane moved from Northampton, England, to the United States to study photography, and in 2002 he settled into Jersey Citys Powerhouse Arts District. He liked the area; it was less overrun than Brooklyn, and he had a wonderful view from his apartment right by the Hudson.

Then came the developers.

It became Condo City, Mr. Lane said.He had to grapple with daunting budget cuts. Hurricane Harvey struck the city in late August and caused major damage to the schools.

In an op-ed in The Houston Chronicle in January, Mr. Carranza said the Houston school district was in a financial storm unlike any the district has seen before. Damage from Hurricane Harvey could lower the areas property values, which would mean less money for the schools. Enrollment had fallen, he said, and was expected to continue its decline.

He was praised for his efforts after the storm to get the schools working again. About 80 percent of the citys schools opened after only a two-week delay. Mr. Carranza also secured donations from officials and philanthropists in San Francisco to help with the response, including a $1 million donation from the founder of Salesforce, Marc Benioff.

In recent months, Mr. Carranza has faced some turmoil in Houston, where he has proposed a new model of funding schools that he says is designed to create greater equity among the districts sharply segregated schools.

Jolanda Jones, the first vice president of the districts board of trustees, said there had been tremendous pushback to the proposal from people in affluent communities that have benefited from the current funding system, and their representatives on the board.

Hes really not going to leave a legacy of change or of anything positive, said Robert Sanborn, president of Children at Risk, a Texas-based research and advocacy nonprofit. Its a legacy of: He hung out in Houston for a while and now hes leaving.

Mr. Sanborn said that Mr. Carranza found himself hamstrung by the school board. He came in with a lot of great intentions, he said. In the whole scheme of things, the biggest obstacle for Carranza was a school board that did not want to change.Shoes function first as barriers between our bodies and the elements. We slip into and out of them as we do clothes, for protection and comfort, in adherence to social norms, but also to show our discernment.

For some, shoes are objects of fascination, collectibles worthy of walk-in closets and hours spent waiting in line to acquire.

Others see them as architecture, feats of engineering that we stand atop, connecting us to the world.Colonial discourse that praised Burmese Buddhists for their tolerance functioned in part to condemn the superstitious and backward practices of caste Hindus and Muslims in colonial Myanmar. This discourse was picked up by Burmese nationalists and is now invoked, tragically, to justify violence toward Rohingya Muslims.

There is a philosophically problematic presupposition that also figures in widespread surprise at the very idea of violence perpetrated by Buddhists  that there is a straightforward relationship between the beliefs people hold and the likelihood that they will behave in corresponding ways.

Even if we suppose that most Buddhists, or members of any other religious group, really do hold beliefs that are pacifist and tolerant, we have no reason to expect that they will really be pacifist and tolerant. As Immanuel Kant well understood, we are not transparent to ourselves and can never exhaustively know why we do what we do. We can never be certain whether or to what extent we have acted for the reasons we think we did (whether because, for example, it was the right thing to do), or whether we are under the sway of psychological, neurophysiological or socioeconomic causes that are altogether opaque to us.

That doesnt mean that we should (or can) jettison all reference to our stated beliefs, reasons, rationality; indeed, Kant also cogently argued that despite the efforts of all manner of determinists, we cannot coherently explain these away (for any attempt to explain away our rationality would itself represent a use of that faculty). But it does mean that we cannot infer from, say, a societys widely held belief in toleration and peace that the actions of people in that society will be strictly guided by those beliefs.

We should thus be wary of any narrative on which historical events are straightforwardly explained by the fact that the people in any society hold whatever religious beliefs they do. It just doesnt follow from the fact that someone is admirable  or for that matter, that she is vile  that it is because of her beliefs that she is so. Given this, we should expect that even in societies where virtuous beliefs are widely held, we will find pretty much the same range of human failings evident throughout history. Buddhist societies are no different in this respect than others.

Many of historys great Buddhist philosophers would themselves acknowledge as much. Buddhist thinkers have typically emphasized that there is a profound difference between merely assenting to a belief (for example, that all sentient beings deserve compassion) and actually living in ways informed by that belief. To be really changed by a belief regarding ones relationship to all other beings, one must cultivate that belief  one must come to experience it as vividly real  through the disciplined practices of the Buddhist path.

The reason this is necessary, Buddhist philosophers recognized, is that all of us  even those who are Buddhists  are deeply habituated to self-centered ways of being. Indeed, if that werent the case, there would be no need for Buddhist practice; it is just because people everywhere (even in Tibet, Myanmar and Japan) are generally self-centered that it takes so much work  innumerable lifetimes of it, according to many Buddhists  to overcome the habituated dispositions that typically run riot over our stated beliefs.The Chinese government approaches its spycraft differently from either Russia or the United States. It is often much more patient. The Chinese may take years to develop a source and plant one inside American intelligence organizations. But they have managed to do just that inside the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Pentagon and the State Department.

Some analysts attribute Beijings successes to an American lack of understanding of Chinas approach. Paul Moore, a former China analyst for the F.B.I., explains the difference this way:

If a beach were a target, the Russians would send in a sub, frogmen would steal ashore in the dark of night and collect several buckets of sand and take them back to Moscow. The U.S. would send over satellites and produce reams of data. The Chinese would send in a thousand tourists, each assigned to collect a single grain of sand. When they returned, they would be asked to shake out their towels. And they would end up knowing more about the sand than anyone else.

In other words, the Chinese have infinite patience. A real-life example is Chinas attempt to plant a man named Glenn Shriver as a mole in the C.I.A. Mr. Shriver grew up in a Michigan suburb, learned Mandarin in college and, while a student in Shanghai in 2004, answered an ad inviting an essay on United States-China relations. A woman who called herself Amanda paid him a small fee and later introduced him to a Mr. Wu and Mr. Tang. All three were agents of Chinas Ministry of State Security.

They asked him to apply for a State Department job. He flunked the Foreign Service examination twice but was paid $30,000 for trying. He was then paid $40,000 more to apply to the C.I.A.s clandestine service. By then, the Americans were on to him. Lured back to America in 2010 for what he thought was a final screening, he was arrested, convicted and sentenced to four years in prison after accepting a plea deal.

Chinas most startling and disturbing coup in penetrating American intelligence agencies occurred after the F.B.I. recruited Katrina Leung, a prominent Chinese-American in Los Angeles, because she was known to have extensive contacts in the Chinese government. But later, it turned out, she had affairs with two top F.B.I. counterintelligence agents in California, James J. Smith and William Cleveland Jr., and became a double agent for some 18 years, starting in 1984.This article is part of the Opinion Today newsletter. You can sign up here to receive the newsletter each weekday.

While we were sleeping, Putin won the Italian election, the Twitter user Southpaw wrote this morning.

Far-right and anti-Europe parties did very well in that election. Its still unclear who the new prime minister will be. But Italys new government will likely join the list of governments  including those in Hungary, Poland and, yes, the United States  hostile to immigrants and even to democratic values.

After Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France beat back populist and far-right insurgencies in the past year, Europe had seemed to be enjoying a reprieve from the forces threatening its unity and values, The Timess Jason Horowitz writes. That turned out to be short lived.When the SongwritingWith:Soldiers founder Darden Smith invited her to be part of a veterans retreat, she hesitated. I had a head full of stereotypes of what I thought a soldier was, she said.

What she learned is that the military is a microcosm of American culture. Its a lot of women, people of color, gay men and lesbians, Hispanic, all faiths, she said. It isnt the straight, white-guy conservative who likes guns. On songwriting weekends, politics is nowhere to be found.

Each veteran or family member is paired with a songwriter, a process that begins with the participants own stories. Some of the veterans take longer than others to arrive at a place of candor, but eventually the songwriters basic questions (When and where did you serve? What branch were you in? What did you see when you got there?) give way to harder questions (Is there something you feel deep inside you need to say?), and the shape of a song begins to emerge.

Once Ms. Gauthier picks up the guitar and begins fiddling with a melody, thats when the floodgates open. Melodys like tweezers that go into the infection and pull out the wounded part, she said. You can almost not stay silent in the face of a melody that matches your emotion. You feel seen. Theres a myth that soldiers dont talk. Well, this generation will.

My father-in-law, who served in Korea, often points out that the generation after his was the first not to face the draft, and I wonder if this is the difference Ms. Gauthier means, but she shakes her head. Theres before Oprah and after Oprah, she said. The willingness to voice vulnerability is just part of the American psyche now.

The songs in Rifles & Rosary Beads chosen from among the roughly 40 Ms. Gauthier has written with veterans during the last five years  reflect the full gamut of the military experience: fighting, injury, death, camaraderie, sexual assault, fear and moral trauma, which happens when service members cant reconcile what theyve done with the people they believe themselves to be. Many of the songs wrestle with the unexpected challenges of homecoming.

Soldiering On, written with a Marine veteran named Jennifer Marino, points out how the attitude that can save your life in wartime (Suck it up, shut it down / It dont matter how you feel) is the same attitude that will eat you alive when the war is over: But what saves you in the battle / Can kill you at home / A soldier, soldiering on.Over the Republican primary season, I was an outspoken conservative critic of then-candidate Donald Trump, and a torrent of hate rolled my way. I would later learn just how much: The Anti-Defamation League named me one of the top 10 Jewish journalists to be attacked by the alt-right during the election season. After years of receiving death threats for my conservative views, months of being attacked by the alt-right and then having our address published online by the neo-Nazi Daily Stormer, I pushed myself to finally go through the process of asking friends for letters attesting to my character, obtaining fingerprints and submitting to background checks.

I was given a reason to feel that I needed to defend myself and my family. And I acted on it.

In the wake of every mass shooting, there are renewed calls for gun control, and a demonization of the National Rifle Association (of which I was but am no longer a member). We are told that its not our guns  the guns of legal and responsible gun owners  that would be taken away, but those of the bad guys. But when those advocating bans dont even understand the mechanics and basic terminology of guns, it doesnt inspire confidence.

All Americans should expect law enforcement agencies, which missed opportunities to stop not just the Parkland shooter, but also the shooters in the Charleston and Sutherland Springs churches and the Orlando nightclub, to be able to protect us. You can forgive conservatives if we dont believe that giving federal law enforcement officials more authority is the solution to shootings they bear some responsibility for.

Thats, in part, why many gun owners insist the answer isnt a ban, but rather evaluating who can obtain these weapons. President Trump is now reportedly considering the idea of gun restraining orders, which have the ability to quickly take firearms away from those considered dangerous, like the shooter in Parkland. A variation of this law is already on the books in California. In 2016, 86 of these restraining orders were issued, and 10 were extended past the initial 21-day period they were granted for. Our side insists that people are the problem, not guns, and to make good on that we need to come to the table with ideas on how to keep weapons out of the hands of dangerous individuals who have no business holding them.

This idea, popularized in a piece by National Reviews David French after the Parkland shooting, isnt a panacea. But it is a middle ground for gun-rights supporters and gun-control activists to meet. Many supporters of the Second Amendment know something is broken, just as its opponents do, and ideas like Mr. Frenchs can bring many more to the negotiating table than calling for outright bans on guns or the notion that there are no legislative solutions to the gun violence issue.

But such a compromise will require gun-control activists to confront the lie of one of their favorite talking points: that gun-rights supporters care more about guns than children. For many, support for gun rights is motivated precisely by our devotion to protecting our kids.Some actions by political leaders are capricious. Some can be shortsighted. And some are sheer lunkheaded. President Trump hit the trifecta last week when he encouraged the House speaker, Paul Ryan, to scrap start-up money for an additional rail tunnel between New York and New Jersey, a project essential to the economic health not only of those two states but of the entire country.

Worse yet, the presidents action bore no relation to objective analysis of the regions infrastructure needs. Accounts in The Times and The Washington Post said he did it to spite the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, whose sin is failure to fall in lock step with Mr. Trump on a variety of issues.

This is foolishness. Republicans and Democrats alike broadly agree on the essentiality of the so-called Gateway tunnel, described by many officials as the most urgently needed infrastructure project anywhere in the United States. It will not come cheap, with $11 billion required for the first phase and an estimated $19 billion more needed to finish the job. People get frightened by the cost, said John Banks, president of the Real Estate Board of New York. But the alternative is worse.

Existing tunnels under the Hudson River are more than a century old and stressed by damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Losing one of those tubes would greatly reduce train capacity, to devastating effect. With the metro region said to account for about 10 percent of the national economy, it doesnt take a seer to appreciate that such a blow would be, to borrow from Mr. Trump when hes in high dudgeon, a disaster.[Read more on Joe Biden selecting Antony Blinken as Secretary of State.]

If Xi Jinping is the worlds most powerful man, conventional wisdom puts Vladimir Putin a close second. Hes made his own bare-chested virility synonymous with a resurgent Russia. Mr. Putin seems to be playing on every chessboard, from what Russia calls its near abroad to the Middle East, from Europe to America.

When it comes to sowing doubt about democracy and fueling dissension among Americans, Mr. Putin is eating our lunch. And Russia retains the worlds largest nuclear arsenal, with new weapons in the works that Mr. Putin saw fit to brag about during last weeks state of the nation speech  even if his rhetoric far outpaced their technical reality.

But elsewhere, Russias adventurism is feeding a growing, gnawing case of indigestion. And it masks a deep-set rot in Russia itself. Mr. Putin is a masterful painter of facades. But his Russian village looks increasingly less Putin and increasingly more Potemkin.

Lets start with Syria. Its true that Moscows in extremis intervention prevented the collapse of Syrias president, Bashar al-Assad, and preserved Russias sole foothold in the Middle East. But having put his finger in the dike, Mr. Putin cant remove it or Mr. Assad will drown. So Russia is stuck in the middle of multiple conflicts it cannot control  between the Assad regime and the rebels; between Turkey and the Kurds; between American-led coalition forces and the Islamic State; between Israel, Syria and Iran; between Sunni and Shiite. This Rubiks cube of conflicting interests makes partners on one front adversaries on another.Leah Clay Stone grew up in the shadow of Blair Mountain, the site of the largest of the 1920s West Virginia coalfield labor uprisings. In school, she recalls doing a project on Mary Harris Jones, known as Mother, the labor agitator often called the miners angel. She walked picket lines with her parents, a schoolteacher and a miner, as a child.

Along with nearly every other teacher in West Virginia, since Feb. 22, shes been on strike. The teachers unions in the state have gone, in the space of a few weeks, from being embattled and legally constrained organizations to the envy of the entire labor movement.

Strikes as broad as the one in West Virginia are vanishingly rare. But when they do happen, they prove that our labor history is not that deeply buried. If workers are pushed hard enough, those ghosts will rise.

West Virginias teachers, along with the rest of the states government workers, never got the legal right to collective bargaining, yet even without that right, teachers and school service workers have united across a largely rural state. The state capital, Charleston, has been a sea of red, as the teachers evoked the mine wars with red bandannas. By rising up against austerity, they have set an example for the rest of the labor movement and made it clear that they fight for the rights of all workers rather than special treatment for a few.Jane Walker will take over her brother Johnnys whiskey label this month  in honor of Womens History Month, were told  a temporary rebranding thats fueling comic riffs by Stephen Colbert and other cynical types. It might seem innocuous enough  an unsubtle attempt to lure skittish female drinkers to whiskey  but theres a back story to this relationship thats worth noting.

The liquor industry was once the most powerful opponent of granting women their civil rights. Jane Walker, in a sense, would have been an anti-suffragist. And over decades, the industry provided much of the dark money used to fight woman suffrage in Congress and in the states.

Temperance was a womans issue in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as women and children suffered physical and emotional abuse from inebriated men, often their own husbands and fathers. Families also suffered the financial toll of salaries squandered on booze, with not much left for bread. Early feminists took up the temperance cause, not just for moral reasons (though that was a rationale for some) but also as a public health issue and as a way to protect women from domestic violence and sexual harassment on the street.

Before she was an organizer for woman suffrage, Susan B. Anthony was an organizer for the Daughters of Temperance. Frances Willard and her Womens Christian Temperance Union advocated votes for women, and there was a natural alliance between the movements: Empower women with the vote so they can protect themselves by placing legal restrictions on liquor.Today, separatism is largely in retreat as poutine has become a global emblem of Canadian identity and French Canadian rappers rap in English and French. Quebec and the rest of Canada have mostly resisted the populist waves came to the United States and Europe. People around the world look to Canada  and Quebec  as models of liberal progressivism.

But I want to learn more. So I plan to drive across the province beginning on March 12, and to visit Montreal, Maniwaki, Herouxville, Quebec City and Saguenay  five places that tell very different stories about Quebec.

In Montreal, I intend to, among other things, chat with Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, 27, the charismatic co-leader of Quebec Solidaire, a left-wing party that supports independence for the province. He was one of the leaders of the student protests in 2012 against increases in university tuition fees, which energized a new generation of political activism in the province.Of all the things that are passed on in New York  the names of good hairstylists, restaurant recommendations, professional contacts and parking secrets  perhaps the rarest and most valued is a good apartment. Who, in need of a new home, doesnt thrill to the news of a vacancy in a friends building?

Two years ago, Nick Moran was on the receiving end of such good fortune. A friend with a two-bedroom in Astoria, Queens, was moving in with his girlfriend on the Upper West Side and asked if Mr. Moran, now 31, would like to take over the lease.

Mr. Moran, a musician who leads a nine-piece funky blues band, was delighted. He had been living rent-free as a caretaker at a Harlem property, which enabled him to record his first album, but the situation was coming to an end. And he hadnt relished the idea of returning to his previous living situation: occupying a closet in a Williamsburg, Brooklyn, share that cost so much he had to work nights as a hotel doorman to pay the rent.

The Astoria apartment, with its two good-sized, windowed bedrooms and large closets (occupied only by possessions, not people), seemed ideal. And the rent was a reasonable $1,800 a month.Dr. Boersma, also co-chairwoman of the Penguin Specialist Group for the International Union for Conservation of Nature, agreed that finding penguins in some of the more remote spots on earth is crucial. Now, she said, researchers need to watch them over time to track how theyre faring.

We expect many of these species are going to be severely harmed and some already have, said Dr. Boersma, noting that half the known population of Magellanic penguin chicks were wiped out in one storm. Continued government funding for satellites and other technology to track the animals is essential, she said.

One of the surprises of the study, Dr. Lynch said, was that the Danger Islands penguins dont nest in a circular pattern, as would be expected, to provide the best protection from predators. Instead, they seem to be faithful to individual nesting spots, prizing habit over safety, she said.

The Adelie are not recent migrants to the Danger Islands. Photos taken in 1957 by seaplane show colony boundaries in virtually the same locations  now that researchers know what theyre looking for.

The discovery of so many new animals has raised questions about how theyre finding enough food. What it is about the ocean right in that region that makes it so productive, is something wed like to figure out, Dr. Lynch said.If indeed the plans and expedited permits are approved as promised, manufacturing will begin this month. The materials will be delivered in June and the home should be ready by Christmas. (The men received a big advantage by jumping into the process early. According to Kaveh Khatibloo, Stillwaters co-chief executive officer, most new clients in the area are advised not to expect to begin construction until 2019 at the earliest.)

Because the men chose a panelized house  where the prefabricated parts are walls, roofing and floors, rather than three-dimensional modules with plumbing and electrical systems built into them  more work will be required to finish it on site. Expediting the project will be a general contractor and subcontractors that Stillwater Dwellings is recruiting from Reno, Nev. The crew will camp out on the property and build not just Mr. Patnodes and Mr. Smiths new home but also one for the couple next door. Both sets of neighbors will share the expense of hosting the workers.

Several North Bay fire victims said they were attracted to prefab for streamlining everything to do with home building. One Glen Ellen fire victim said he liked the idea of very sharp designers making most decisions regarding fixtures and finishes. Im not into looking into 20 different versions of a sconce or light switch, he said.

That resident, who asked not to be named out of concern that his choice of prefab might complicate negotiations with his insurance company, had picked a one-story model from Connect Homes, a Los Angeles company that was founded with the aim of making attractive prefab housing more affordable. The style, with its open layout and expansive glass, updates the midcentury ranch house he lost and is well suited to his 1.5-acre property, he said.

He also praised Connect Homes method of transporting modules through the intermodal system, drastically reducing shipping costs. Given a level lot, the price of a house, including design, production, installation and even appliances, ranges from $247,080 for 640 square feet to $826,160 for 3,200 square feet.Andrew Lloyd Webber knows exactly what you think about him.

In his memoir Unmasked, out this week from Harper Books, the composer behind The Phantom of the Opera and other earworm-rich Broadway musicals extensively quotes negative reviews of his shows. He even tells the story of how his mothers monkey threw a tantrum when she was pregnant and became the first person to take a dislike to Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Love him or hate him, you likely will hear Mr. Lloyd Webbers name a lot this month: The books release coincides with his 70th birthday and a four-disc compilation album. NBC plans to air the documentary Andrew Lloyd Webber: Tribute To A Superstar on March 28, ahead of its live TV performance of Jesus Christ Superstar on Easter weekend. (A revue of his theater music, also titled Unmasked, will be presented at Paper Mill Playhouse in September.)Over the last 40 years, the writer-performer John Kelly has explored the life and work of several wondrous real-life artists, both in raucous East Village clubs and in such temples of high art as Lincoln Center or the Brooklyn Academy of Music. There were the cross-dressing trapezist Barbette (Light Shall Lift Them) and the painter Egon Schiele (Pass the Blutwurst, Bitte). Mr. Kelly has channeled Joni Mitchell on a regular basis, and she was the subject of his evening-length piece Paved Paradise. As for the grand diva Dagmar Onassis, this renegade daughter of Maria Callas and Aristotle Onassis was fictional but deserved to be real.

If the protean Mr. Kelly has had one recurring theme through the years, it is the shaping of the self through art. In his new show at La MaMa, Time No Line, the subject is himself  but then, hasnt it always been, even when refracted through the creations of others?

Time No Line, which Mr. Kelly describes as a live memoir, draws from the diary he has been keeping since 1976. The narrative alternates between first and third person, with Mr. Kelly occasionally referring to himself as the artist, as if he were looking at his own past from a cool, outside standpoint. But as quiet as it is, this visually elegant show is anything but dispassionate.My relationship with Disney has always been a little fraught. I adore the movies. With Pixar, Marvel and the Muppets now under the Disney umbrella, I could probably list two dozen of them that we as a family love and watch regularly. But the companys ubiquity can also be unnerving. And thats just in general culture; once you board the boat, it is  fairly, I suppose  all Disney all the time.

The Disney Magic was the first of the Disney cruise ships, launched in 1998, and renovated in 2013; this month will see another reimagining, including a Rapunzel-themed restaurant. It may not be the biggest cruise boat on the seas (that became clear when we docked next to the real behemoths in the Bahamas) or even in the Disney fleet, but its dimensions are still impressive: 11 decks, 984 feet long, 171.5 feet tall.

Activities were legion. I had signed up for some in advance. (Not-at-all-pro tips: Sign up early and preregister your children at the Disney Cruise website  many events book up quickly. And download the Disney Cruise app before you leave  its how you will communicate with family members.) Other activities were noted on a daily schedule dropped off at our Deluxe Oceanview Stateroom With Verandah. At 3 p.m. on our first day, for example, we could have: caught the second half of Thor: Ragnarok in a state-of-the-art movie theater that seats 278; lined up to meet Minnie Mouse on Deck 4, or Princess Sofia (of the Disney Channels Sofia the First) on Deck 5; joined Game Show: The Feud on the promenade lounge; taken part in an (adults-only) origami session; or dropped Anna off at the Oceaneer Club  one of two activity centers open to kids for the bulk of the day and evening. It was all dizzying.

Or we could have gone ashore to Key West, our first stop. I couldnt convince Anna to join me, so I went solo. It turned out Anna had made the right call: It was sunny but cool and very windy; fellow passengers shivered down touristy Duval Street buying their T-shirted kids oversized sweatshirts. I headed to CVS to get some DayQuil for Nancy, who had picked up Annas chest cold, then stopped for a mediocre Cuban lunch.

I had signed Nancy and myself up for a couples massage later that afternoon  hey, we deserved a break even on day one, O.K.?  so we dropped Anna off at the Oceaneer Club and headed up to Senses Spa & Salon. The massage, given by two Serbian women (their nationalities, as with all crew members, were noted on their name tags), was a good one, if pricey ($170 per person). We passed on the products they had used during the massage, which were for sale. Almost every activity, it would turn out, ended with a gentle upsell.

It was time for dinner. There are two seatings nightly, and you are directed to one of four restaurants around the ship, the idea being that you get to try each one. Tonight was Cariocas, supposedly Brazilian-themed, though I couldnt quite figure out in what way. We were seated with a couple from Miami, whose daughter was about Annas age. The food was fine, but the service was stellar, as it was everywhere on the ship. I cant say that I was thrilled that my daughter was constantly being called Princess, but each crew member seemed genuinely enthusiastic and pleased to be on the boat, down to the person passing out sanitizing wipes to every passenger entering a restaurant. (Hygiene is, understandably, a huge deal on the ship. In addition to the wipes, the kid centers have devices that might best be described as washing machines for hands.)

Our servers at Cariocas at dinner were from Thailand and Scotland and introduced themselves as such, as all crew members did (there are 950 in total, of 80 nationalities, for an astounding customer-to-crew ratio of less than 3-to-1). I found all of this charming and touching.Over the next three to five years, Mr. Carson hopes to establish more than 3,000 of the centers to provide low-income families, especially young people, with one-stop access to educational, job training, mentorship and health care services. But Ms. Greenwood argued that Mr. Carsons team was not experienced enough to make it work, and it soon became apparent that there was little appetite in the White House for more than a pittance in funding  $2 million over the next year.

In response, Mr. Carson has turned to charitable foundations for funding. But he has not proved to be the best pitchman, according to a dozen attendees at a January meeting with potential donors at HUD headquarters. He began with a libertarian lecture, extolling the genius of the 19th-century robber barons who created the countrys philanthropic charities. They had spared the country from European socialism, he said.

One skeptical foundation officer countered by asking the secretary where the public part of the public-private partnership was coming from. Another asked, What does this have to do with public housing?

But his audience, mainly composed of community development specialists who believe that the government has an enduring moral responsibility to help the poor, was most put off by Mr. Carsons assertion that the goal of EnVision was to put HUD out of business.

There is nothing wrong with encouraging safe, inviting places for youth to grow, said Adrianne Todman, chief executive of the Washington-based National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials. But it is time for us to focus on the H in HUD  housing.Ms. Thomashow, 28, said she learned only in recent months that Mr. Dunningss office had declined several times to press charges in her case against Dr. Nassar, part of a series of delays that permitted the doctor to continue his behavior for two more years, until women began going public with their accounts of abuse.

When I heard that the police had tried to get charges and that Stuart Dunningss office had said no, I was not surprised, Ms. Thomashow said. He was busy doing his own thing.

A Report, but No Case

It is not clear whether Mr. Dunnings, then the top prosecutor in the county, was ever personally aware of Ms. Thomashows accusations against Dr. Nassar, though they were laid out in detail in a police report sent to his office.

According to the report, Ms. Thomashow, an athlete, went to see Dr. Nassar because of pain in her hip. During the exam, he began to massage her breast, removing his hand only when Ms. Thomashow told him to stop, she told the police.

Dr. Nassar then told a female resident in the room to leave and ordered Ms. Thomashow to lie face down on the table, the report said. Without wearing gloves, he put his hand down her pants and massaged her vagina with three of his fingers for one to two minutes. He was extremely close to inserting a finger in her vagina, the report said, adding: She told him to stop and that he was hurting her.

Ms. Thomashow had told her story in detail to Valerie OBrien, a university police officer, and Kristine Moore, a Title IX investigator, during an interview that May in a campus building, she said.

I left feeling like these women had really heard me, Ms. Thomashow said. They seemed really, genuinely concerned, like they were going to make sure it would never happen again.Before Philando Castile became a household name in July 2016, when his deadly encounter with a Minnesota police officer was streamed live on Facebook, students at J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School knew him simply as Mr. Phil. He was the school nutrition worker who often swooped in to pay for their lunches when they could not afford them.

Now, a year and a half after his death, a fund-raiser created in Mr. Castiles memory is continuing his legacy. Last week, the creator of the charity, Philando Feeds the Children, delivered a $35,000 check to St. Paul Public Schools  enough to finish paying off the debt owed by every student enrolled in the National School Lunch Program at the districts 56 schools, including Mr. Castiles former campus.

We are merely trying to continue Mr. Phils kind spirit, said Pamela Fergus, a psychology instructor at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul who started the fund-raiser. He loved those kids.WASHINGTON  The nations death rows are starting to look like geriatric wards. Condemned inmates in many states are more likely to die of natural causes than to be executed. The rare ones who are put to death often first spend decades behind bars, waiting.

It turns out that executing old men is not easy. In November, Ohio called off an attempt to execute Alva Campbell, 69, after the execution team could not find a suitable vein into which to pump lethal chemicals. The state announced that it would try again in June 2019, by which time he would have been 71.

But Mr. Campbell suffered from what one judge called an extraordinary list of ailments. He used a walker, could barely breathe and relied on a colostomy bag. He was found lifeless in his cell on Saturday, having died in the usual way, without government assistance.

In Alabama last month, state officials called off the execution of Doyle Lee Hamm, 61, also because they could not find a suitable vein. Mr. Hamm has at least two kinds of cancer, cranial and lymphatic, and he may not have long to live with or without the states efforts.They have requested a ridiculous amount of documents, Mr. Nunberg said. Should I spend 30 hours producing these? I dont know what they have. They may very well have something on the president. But they are unfairly targeting Roger Stone.

The subpoena also demands any documents related to Carter Page, a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser who was secretly surveilled by the Justice Department as part of the Russia investigation, as well as Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, and his deputy, Rick Gates. Mr. Manafort has been indicted on a string of money laundering and fraud charges, and Mr. Gates recently pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with Mr. Muellers investigators.

The list of people about whom Mr. Mueller is seeking information from Mr. Nunberg raises questions about his target, as does the time frame. Mr. Nunberg was fired by Mr. Trump during the summer of 2015 and thus was gone from the campaign in November. And he and Mr. Lewandowski are known to be combatants.

Still, Mr. Nunberg  whose mentor, Mr. Stone, goes by the motto that all press is good press  spent hours on Monday engaged in a media tour with The Times, The Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC, describing his plans to flout the subpoena and professing his lack of concern about what could happen to him.

I was fired within six weeks of the campaigns start, Mr. Nunberg told The Times, despite having saved Mr. Trump during a fight with Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, that summer after Mr. Trumps remark that Mr. McCain was not a war hero because he was captured in Vietnam. Mr. McCain was shot down during the war and imprisoned for more than five years in Hanoi, refusing early release even after being beaten repeatedly.Conservative critiques of Mr. Trump, from senators such as Jeff Flake of Arizona and Ben Sasse of Nebraska, have gone beyond policy disagreements, to temperament, defenses of democratic institutions and law enforcement, and the conduct of foreign policy. And other Republican leaders are speaking out. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, is giving almost daily speeches on the Senate floor pushing for action on a modest but bipartisan bill to fortify the existing background check system for gun purchases.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, the chairman of the Finance Committee and a loud supporter of Mr. Trump, nonetheless scorched his tariffs as a tax hike the American people dont need and cant afford.

Mr. Ryan has repeatedly urged Mr. Trump to abandon the tariffs in private, according to one person familiar with their conversations. In public, he has held his tongue. He declined to be interviewed.

I always imagined that there was room for an alternative conservative vision to Trumpism, and Paul Ryan was ideally suited to be that leader of a non-Trumpist conservative Republican Party, but hes chosen not to assume that role, Mr. Sykes said. Its very disappointing to see hes become so comfortable as an ally and an enabler of Trump.

For Democrats, the speakers deference to Mr. Trump is the stuff of ridicule  and a constitutional dereliction of duty by the man three steps from the presidency.

Can you imagine Tip ONeill or Sam Rayburn or any of the portraits in this gallery saying, I dont know whether I can be for that, Ive got to go down the street and ask permission of the president? asked Representative Anna G. Eshoo, Democrat of California, referring to previous speakers whose portraits hang just outside the House chamber.

To be sure, Mr. Ryan has had some achievements, notably the rewrite of the federal tax code, which for the speaker marked the realization of a long-held dream. He pushed a repeal of the Affordable Care Act through the House, only to see it die in the Senate. And he helped negotiate a two-year budget deal that should bring some peace to Washington even as it balloons federal spending.WASHINGTON  In the midst of his campaign, President Trump vowed to bring peace to the Middle East by playing it down the middle between Israel and the Palestinians. Let me be sort of a neutral guy, he said. Two years later, any hopes of being the neutral guy are long gone.

In a meeting at the White House on Monday, Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel put on display perhaps the closest relationship between leaders of their two countries in the seven decades since Israel declared independence. As for the Palestinians, they are no longer on speaking terms with the president, who is busy cutting their aid.

Few if any doubted that Mr. Trump came into office more supportive of Israel than the Palestinians and he trumpeted his pro-Israeli credentials, but any semblance of straddling the line between warring camps has vanished and the notion that he could bring them together appears more distant than ever. Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu lavished praise on each other on Monday, and the president said he might visit Jerusalem in May to preside over the politically potent transfer of the American Embassy to the disputed holy city.

Mr. Trump insisted that he still had a good chance of forging peace and expressed optimism that the Palestinians were ready to return to discussions. The Palestinians, I think, are wanting to come back to the table very badly, he said, despite evidence to the contrary. Then he acknowledged what would happen if he is wrong. If they dont, you dont have peace.WASHINGTON  Just hours after President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia boasted last week about producing invincible new nuclear arms designed to evade American missile defenses, President Trumps nominee to command the nations military cyberunits was being grilled at a Senate confirmation hearing about another vexing Russian threat.

Lt. Gen. Paul Nakasone, the nominee to run the National Security Agency and United States Cyber Command, acknowledged that plans were in place to strike back at Moscow for its election hacking. Those actions would require Mr. Trumps approval.

But General Nakasone said the Russians, as well as Americas other adversaries in cyberspace, seem unimpressed.

I would say right now they do not think much will happen to them, he said. They dont fear us.

The Russian muscle-flexing and the American hand-wringing captured a strategic vacuum that now envelops Washington as Mr. Putin pursues what he views as a complementary new-generation nuclear arsenal, as well as cyberweapons.Mr. Trump has shown no sign that he plans to retreat from the trade action. On Monday, he used the tariffs to threaten two of the United States closest trading partners, saying in a tweet that the tariffs would only come off of Canada and Mexico if a new and fair multilateral trade pact was signed.

The statement continued Mr. Trumps running Twitter defense of the tariffs, which he has positioned as necessary to help the United States protect itself against foreign competitors. But his administration continues to sow confusion over the breadth, scope and legality of the tariffs on steel and aluminum that Mr. Trump announced last Thursday. The White House has said those tariffs would apply to imports from all countries with no exemptions.

Mr. Trumps tweet came as the United States, Mexico and Canada are wrapping up the seventh round of talks over the North American Free Trade Agreement in Mexico City. Negotiators have continued to clash over provisions in the pact, including rules for auto manufacturing, and the United States has continued to insist on changes that its trading partners say are nonstarters.

We have large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada, the president tweeted Monday. NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for U.S.A.Children are dying. I will fight every single day. I just want to speak. We call B.S. These students survived a shooting at their school. Now theyre leading a national movement for stricter gun control. Just days after the shooting, they called for school walkouts around the country, traveled to the Florida State Capitol  You failed us  and planned a nationwide march. Some of them cant even vote yet. Its clear these students are doing things differently. Heres how. #NeverAgain is leveraging social networks to mobilize faster than most movements before it, according to experts who study the rise of social and political movements. One week after the shooting, the #NeverAgain Twitter handle is verified and has more than 81,000 followers. In just a few days, student leaders have crowdsourced more than $3 million through online campaigns and celebrity donations. Theyre also handling their own crisis control by directly responding to critics. I lost a best friend who was practically a brother, and Im here to use my voice because I know he cant. These survivors are presenting their personal stories of loss as part of their fight, converting grief into power by getting in the face of adults. So, Senator Rubio, can you tell me right now that you will not accept a single donation from the N.R.A. in the future? The #NeverAgain movement wasnt formed in a vacuum. Its riding on the most recent wave of youth activism, which picked up speed around 2010. Student protests ebbed after the antiwar movement of the 60s and 70s. We are fed up. Young people today are getting involved to change systemic inequalities they were raised to believe had already been taken care of. The Dreamers, students against sexual assault, Occupy Wall Street, and the Black Lives Matter movement all had strong involvement by college-educated millennials. These groups have had modest success. President Barack Obama made sure campuses did more to investigate cases of sexual assault. And he later protected Dreamers from deportation. You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. Its too early to tell if the #NeverAgain movement will sustain the momentum it needs to bring tangible change. But its an election year, so politicians might find their demands difficult to ignore.Melatonin secretion is usually low during the day, and then rises in the evening, causing the body clock to prepare for sleep. The melatonin comes from the pineal gland, located between the two hemispheres of the brain, which is neurologically connected to body clock central, the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the hypothalamus, which in turn is influenced by how much light gets through to the retina.

The lens is a lot clearer in preschool children, Dr. Akacem said. The pupils are larger, which allows more light to hit the retina and a stronger signal to the clock. The lens, which allows light into the eye, accumulates protein as we get older, which causes a kind of yellowing; by the time were in our 40s, our eyes are dimming the light for us a little.

Dr. Judith Owens, the director of sleep medicine at Boston Childrens Hospital, said preschoolers circadian profile and melatonin release is relatively earlier compared to adults.

One important takeaway is that parents should avoid having children exposed to very bright light before bedtime, Dr. Akacem said. This study lays the foundation, she said, for looking in more detail at young childrens sensitivity to light, so that researchers can make more specific practical recommendations to parents.

The same research group is starting a longer, larger study, looking at different light intensities and how they affect childrens body clocks.

And since bedtime resistance and difficulty falling asleep are the primary sleep problems in this age group, she said, its worth thinking about how this sensitivity to light may affect childrens behavior, even while further research is being done. Children whose melatonin response has been dampened may look tired and wired, Dr. LeBourgeois said. They are tired, but the clock is not sending the signals to the pineal in a way that would facilitate sleep.

Many toddlers and preschoolers, for example, do what Dr. LeBourgeois calls curtain calls, popping back up again with new requests. That means theyre in and out of the bedroom, and if possible, wherever they are, the light should be dim.16:48





Kavita Mankikar, in her petition, claimed that she was arrested on February 20 at 8 pm by officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation, contrary to the provision of law which says a woman cannot be arrested after sunset.





She was arrested along with five others, including Vipul Ambani, the president (finance) of Modi's Fire Star Diamond. Mankikar was remanded in CBI's custody till today.





Mankikar was Modi's executive assistant and authorised signatory of three of his group firms -- Diamond R US, Stellar Diamond, Solar Exports.





"The petition seeks the high court to hold the petitioner's (Mankikar) arrest as illegal and unconstitutional as it was done in gross violation of the provisions of law," her lawyer Vijay Agarwal said.





Agarwal mentioned the petition before the single bench of Justice N W Sambre which posted it for hearing on March 12. According to the CBI, Mankikar had fraudulently signed the applications for issuance of Letters of Understanding.





On January 31 this year, the CBI had registered a case against Modi, his uncle Mehul Choksi, the owner of Gitanjali Gems, and several others including PNB officials.





In its FIR, the CBI had listed eight fraudulent transactions worth over Rs 280 crore.





But, based on further complaints from the bank, the agency said the quantum of amount in the first FIR was over Rs 6,498 crore, involving 150 LoUs allegedly issued fraudulently.





The remaining 150 fraudulent LoUs worth over Rs 4,886 crore issued for Gitanjali group of companies were part of the second FIR registered later by the agency against Choksi and his companies Gitanjali Gems, Nakshatra Brands and Gili.

An employee of diamond merchant Nirav Modi's firm today moved the Bombay high court contending that the CBI arrested her in the multi-crore Punjab National Bank scam in violation of law, reports PTI.PANAMA CITY  A workman wielding a crowbar pried off the silver T-R-U-M-P name from the Trump International Hotel and Tower here in Panama City on Monday as the majority owner of the hotel declared victory in his fight to oust the American presidents family business as managers of the property.

The presidents company, the Trump Organization, fired back with its own statement disputing that it permanently lost control of the property, its only current hotel venture in Latin America. The developments on Monday, the company said, actually maintain the status quo.

The dueling interpretations of the days events reflected the chaotic nature of a dispute that has become an international spectacle and one of the biggest problems facing the presidents company.

The standoff has been playing out for nearly two weeks behind the scenes in Panamanian courtrooms and ministry offices as well as in plain sight in the hotels lobby and corridors.ISLAMABAD, Pakistan  A Hindu woman from a lower caste has been elected to the Senate for the first time in Pakistan, a Muslim-majority country where religious minorities have long suffered intimidation and violence. Her election to the upper house of Parliament is being hailed as a landmark moment for the countrys generally oppressed religious minorities, especially Hindus.

The woman, Krishna Kumari, 39, a human rights activist and member of the Pakistan Peoples Party, was elected as a senator over the weekend. The governing party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, emerged as the largest party in Saturdays Senate elections, ahead of the Pakistan Peoples Party.

Senators are elected by members of provincial assemblies rather than through a direct vote by citizens. The Senate is a body of 104 lawmakers, and 52 seats were up for election.

The results, months ahead of the general elections, left the governing party in control, although its leader, Nawaz Sharif, was ousted in a controversial court decision last year and faces corruption charges.BEIJING  One Sunday last month, Chinas leader, Xi Jinping, traveled to a village in the mountains of Sichuan Province. He wore an olive overcoat with a fur collar, which he kept zipped up even when he entered an adobe house to meet with villagers. Around an indoor fire pit, he sat among a circle of people wearing traditional clothes of the Yi minority group.

How did the Communist Party come into being? he asked at one point as he extolled the virtues of socialism. Without hesitating, he answered. It was established to lead people to a happy life, he said, and then he added:

Thats what we should do forever.

Mr. Xis remark  specifically its open-ended pledge  suddenly resonates more deeply than before. Barring the unexpected, delegates gathering this week for the annual National Peoples Congress in Beijing will rubber-stamp constitutional changes that will enable Mr. Xi to remain the countrys leader indefinitely by eliminating presidential term limits.

Mr. Xi, who will turn 65 in June, has done more than any of his predecessors to create a public persona as an avuncular man of the people, even as he has maneuvered behind the scenes with a ruthless ambition to dominate Chinas enigmatic elite politics.

The governments propaganda apparatus regularly depicts him as a firm yet adoring patriarch and leader who fights poverty and corruption at home while building Chinas prestige abroad as an emerging superpower.BRUSSELS  More than half of the Italians who cast ballots on Sunday voted for populist parties, largely abandoning the traditional mainstream parties, especially on the center-left, continuing a European trend.

Here are some other takeaways from a throw the bums out Italian election.

Migration matters

The issue continues to disrupt and inflame European politics, including in Germany, Greece, the Netherlands and now Italy. With Greece, Italy has borne the brunt of recent large movements of refugees and migrants into Europe from places such as Afghanistan, Libya and Syria.

There is a strong feeling that the mainstream parties have no answer and that Italy got little help from the European Union in Brussels or from other member states. Once Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany cut off the migrant flow through Central Europe by doing deals with Turkey, neither Berlin nor Brussels seemed to care any more, and a European policy on migration is still unresolved.

There was a sense in Italy of total abandonment over migration, which didnt become a crisis until Germany suffered, and then stopped being one, said Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations.JERUSALEM  A former top aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel turned states witness on Monday, the third close associate to agree to testify against him in a corruption scandal that threatens to end his career.

The deal came after days of feverish speculation in Israel that Mr. Netanyahu, beleaguered by police investigations and facing possible bribery charges, might call a snap election in hopes of a quick validation of public support.

News of the plea deal broke as Mr. Netanyahu was in Washington to meet with President Trump, diminishing any hope the Israeli leader may have held that his role on the international stage would overshadow the scandals back home.

Speaking to Israeli reporters in Washington, Mr. Netanyahu called the allegations nonsense and played down the importance of aides who have become government witnesses against him. But he declined to speak on the record about the case in any detail.GENEVA  Trucks laden with international aid edged into a besieged Damascus suburb on Monday, delivering the first relief its beleaguered and shellshocked residents had seen in over three months. But the convoy had to cut short its visit amid continuing fighting and left before some trucks could unload.

By the time the convoy of 46 trucks sent by the United Nations, the International Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent reached the town of Douma around midday on Monday, government officials had already removed many of the medical supplies.

Officials had expected that the trucks would stay overnight to complete the handover of aid to local residents. But nine hours after it arrived, as airstrikes and shelling pounded Douma and other parts of eastern Ghouta, the convoy pulled out  some trucks still laden with supplies.

We delivered as much as we could amidst shelling, Sajjad Malik, the United Nations refugee agency representative in Damascus, said on Twitter. Civilians are caught in a tragic situation.Following an historic first for the Rhode parish last year, organisers are delighted to announce that plans are at an advanced stage for Rhode's second St. Patrick's Day Parade with many groups and organisations taking part.

Everyone in the parish and beyond is encouraged to get involved by walking in the parade, dressing up or entering a float. 'Colour and Craic' is the theme of the parade.

All households along the parade route, which runs from Fr.Dowling Park to Killeen's Car Park, are kindly asked to decorate their houses/road with brightly coloured bunting and flags.

Grand Marshal for this year's Parade is the legendary Paddy McCormack, "The Iron Man from Rhode." The infamous fullback won five Leinster and two All-Ireland titles with Offaly.

RTE will also be joining the parish on the day to film the parade for national viewing on the RTE News programme.

The parade gets underway at 10am, so join us on March 17 in the little village for a morning of celebration and fun, followed by refreshments and music.

Further inquiries to Stephan Darby 086 8452132 or Peter Kilmurray 087 6457554.As KCR moots Third Front, BJP calls it a sob club

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

With the Congress failing to provide an alternative on the national level, several political parties are now mooting a third front minus the Congress and BJP.

The idea mooted by K Chandrasekar Rao, Chief Minister of Telangana got the backing of Mamata Banerjee his counterpart from West Bengal. In a telephonic conversation, Mamata told KCR that she would completely back this front. She said that she agreed with KCR's opinion that there is a need to bring about a qualitative change in the country.

Meanwhile, KCR is also said to have dialled the Shiv Sena and Telugu Desam Party regarding the alliance. Both are allies of the BJP but are currently sulking. KCR feels that it would add strength to the alliance if both Sena and TDP are roped in.

KCR has been getting the support of several persons. Pawan Kalyan of the Jana Sena and Asaduddin Owaisi also welcomed Rao's move.

The BJP, however, does not see this front getting much traction. G V L Narasimha Rao, the national spokesperson of the BJP told OneIndia that KCR is an unknown entity outside Telangana.

In the four years that he has ruled Telangana, it has been a golden period no doubt, but only for his family. The fact is that the rest of Telangana feels betrayed by KCR, Rao also added.

He further said the results in Northeast has sent panic waves across the political circles. This front is nothing but a case of survival instinct. When you start losing, all potential losers tend to come together and give each other moral support.

KCR himself is in the midst of a crisis. There are farmer suicides and the youth are up in arms. This has forced him to look for friends who are on the same ship as he is. In short, what I would call this Third Front is a 'sob club,' Rao also adds.

OneIndia NewsCBSE Board Exam 2018: Scribe notification released, what it says

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

The CBSE Board Exams 2018 start today. Just before the commencement of the exam, the board issued an important notification for the students of Class 10, 12.

Scribe will be provided to all those who are unable to write the exam due to a sudden illness. The same shall be certified by a medical officer of a rank not lower than an assistant surgeon. In case a student is unable to write the exam because of a sudden accident, the same should also be certified by a medical officer of the rank not lower than the assistant surgeon.

What Scribe notification says:

Centre Superintendent of the exam centre shall provide scribe in above-mentioned cases.

The scribe provided should be a student of class lower than the one for which the candidate is taking the examination.

Service of the scribe shall be provided free of cost.

A suitable room shall be arranged for such candidate availing scribe and one special assistant superintendent shall be appointed to supervise the examination.

OneIndia NewsChennai: Rajinikanth unveils statue of MGR at Dr MGR Educational and Research Institute

India

oi-Madhuri

Superstar Rajinikanth who has announced his intent to contest the assembly polls in the state, unveiled a statue of former chief minister and his super-senior in the film industry, MG Ramachandran, at the Dr MGR Educational and Research Institute in Chennai on Monday.

He is expected to give awards and also deliver a speech about MGR. Unveiling of MGR's statue is the first public function that Rajinikanth will participate after his announcement on his political plunge.

Rajinikanth has launched a website to enable people to register themselves as members of his Rajini Mandram (forum). His team is also busy appointing district wise office bearers.

This meeting also comes close to the release of his film Kaala next month, the teaser for which was released a few days ago.

Meanwhile, his co-star Kamal had in January interacted with students of Sairam Engineering College on the outskirts of the city and took political questions from the students. The ace actor also travelled all the way to the United States to address the India Conference at the prestigious Harvard University to share his vision for Tamil Nadu.

OneIndia NewsChidambaram on India giving 2.5 crore Covid jabs: 'Why did we have to wait until the PMs birthday?'

Chidambaram knocks on SCs door alleging harassment by ED, CBI

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Former union minister, P Chidambaram has moved the Supreme Court seeking to declare the probe by the CBI and ED as null and void. He has also alleged harassment by both the agencies which is probing the INX Media case in which his son, Karti is an accused.

He had also said that he needed the protection of his fundamental rights including the right to privacy. Chidambaram, who is also a senior advocate, has claimed in his plea that as part of "political vendetta", the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) have made "vexatious" searches and issued a repeated summons in these cases.

The writ petition is being filed to defend and protect the petitioner's fundamental rights under Article 14 (equality before law), 19 (freedom of speech and expression) and 21 (right to life and personal liberty) of the Constitution and to defend his right to privacy and the right to live, along with members of his family, in dignity," the petition said.

"The CBI and the ED, as part of political vendetta, have made vexatious searches, issued repeated summons, unreasonably questioned persons for unconscionably long hours, unlawfully attached fixed deposits, maliciously leaked false information to the media and otherwise caused extreme harassment, anguish and humiliation to me and my son, and to other persons who are normal business and social friends of my son," Chidambaram said.

The Congress leader said both he and his son have categorically denied any wrongdoing in the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approvals in these cases.

"Every government officer who has been examined by the CBI/ED has categorically stated that the approvals granted in these two cases were entirely in order," he said.

The former Union finance minister also said he was the "real target" of these "motivated actions" of the CBI and the ED, but these agencies have not accused him or other public servants of any offence in these cases.

Chidambaram raised a legal issue asking whether without an FIR naming him or his son, the CBI or the ED could probe the alleged offences against them.

He sought the top court's direction to prohibit these two agencies from continuing with "illegal" probe and acting in any manner causing repeated harassment to him, his son and family members.

An FIR, filed by the CBI on May 15 last year, had alleged irregularities in the FIPB clearance to INX Media for receiving overseas funds to the tune of Rs 305 crore in 2007 when Chidambaram was the Union finance minister. The ED has also registered a money laundering case.

The CBI is also probing the alleged irregularities in grant of the FIPB clearance to the Aircel-Maxis deal in 2006.

OneIndia NewsCompletely unexpected: Manik Sarkar taken aback by Lefts rout in Tripura

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Oneindia Staff

Agartala, March 5: Breaking his silence over the Left Front regime's electoral rout in Tripura, outgoing chief minister of the state, Manik Sarkar, said that it was "completely unexpected". Talking to NDTV, Sarkar, who held the CM's post for four terms, beginning from March 1998 to March 2018, said that the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) win in the recently held Assembly elections in Tripura had caught him off guard.

In the 60-member Tripura Assembly, the BJP bagged 35 seats and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) managed to get only 16 seats. The BJP's alliance partner, Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT), won eight seats. Thus the BJP without its alliance partner can also form the government in the state easily. The elections results of Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland were announced on Saturday. The polls in the three northeastern states took place in February.

The BJP's win in Tripura is historic as it has convincingly defeated the Left Front regime in its own bastion. The Left Front-ruled Tripura for the last 25 years. In the 2013 Tripura Assembly polls, the BJP did not even get a single seat.

With its defeat in Tripura, considered to be one of the last two citadels of the Left, the communist-ruled government remains only in Kerala. Over the years, the communist parties have been witnessing their steady decline. Many fear that the defeat in Tripura is the final nail in the coffin of the Left parties.

Sarkar submitted his resignation to governor Tathagata Roy on Sunday, a day after the CPI(M)-led Left Front was dethroned by the BJP-IPFT coalition after nearly 25 years in power. The governor advised Sarkar to continue until the new CM takes an oath.

Coming out of the Raj Bhavan, Sarkar told reporters that he and his ministers would not have been able to run the government for so many years unless the people and the employees extended their cooperation to them. He expressed gratitude to the people of the state and the staff members of the state administration.

OneIndia NewsDemise of the Left? Congress Jairam Ramesh pitches for strong rivals

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Oneindia Staff

Thiruvananthapuram, March 5: It was a shocking defeat for the previous Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M)-led Left Front government in Tripura after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won the state elections with 35 seats in the 60-member Assembly on Saturday. The CPI-M got only 16 seats. In fact, the saffron party created history by demolishing the Left regime which was in power for the last 25 years in the northeastern state. In the 2013 Tripura Assembly polls, the BJP did not even get a single seat.

With its defeat in Tripura, considered to be one of the last two citadels of the Left, the communist-ruled government remains only in Kerala. Over the years, the communist parties have been witnessing their steady decline. Many fear that the defeat in Tripura is the final nail in the coffin of the Left parties.

Amid growing concern about the Left's massive defeat in Tripura, senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Sunday said that its "demise" was a disaster for India. He added that a strong Left was necessary for the country. "The Left has to be stronger in India. The demise of Left is a disaster for the country", Ramesh said referring to the setback for the CPI-M-led Left in the Tripura elections.

"We are going to fight the Left and we are political rivals", he said, adding, "but I would say that India cannot afford the demise of the Left".

Left has to be strong in India, the demise of Left will be a disaster for India.We are political rivals but I am the first to say that India can't afford demise of the Left.The Left also has to change its mind,people's aspirations and society are changing: Jairam Ramesh,Congress pic.twitter.com/HPCfCuV2nz  ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2018

The Left also should change and learn people's aspirations, Ramesh said while delivering the keynote address at the centenary celebration of iconic architect Laurie Baker in Kerala's capital city, Thiruvananthapuram. He made these observations in the presence of CPI-M leader and Kerala Finance Minister TM Thomas Isaac.

However, Ramesh did not say anything about the "demise" of Congress in the Northeast region. In Tripura and Nagaland Assembly elections, the Congress did not even get a single seat. In Meghalaya Assembly polls, in spite of winning 21 seats, the highest by any party, the Congress has failed to form its government in the hill state.

The Assembly elections for Tripura, Meghalaya and Nagaland were held last month. The results were declared on Saturday (March 3). With its latest failures in Northeast India, now, the Congress is in power in Mizoram only. Once upon a time, the Northeast was considered as the Congress bastion.

OneIndia NewsFood for thought: Maharashtra govt hospital serves Rs 10 thali for patients, relatives

India

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Oneindia Staff

Mumbai, March 5: At a time when millions of Indians simply can't afford healthcare facilities because of lack of finances, the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in Nagpur, Maharashtra, has taken a noble step towards helping poor patients and their relatives during their hospital stay.

One major concern for patients, apart from the cost of medicines, doctor and others, is the food. Often hospital canteens don't provide healthy and hygienic food. Those that provide charge hefty money. Thus patients and their relatives either eat outside, again paying a good sum of money, or bring food from home, which again is difficult provided patients are from the same place where they have been hospitalised.

In order to solve the problem, Nagpur's GMCH has started providing Rs 10 thali (meal) for patients and their relatives. The initiative has been taken by Yuva Zep Pratishthan, a non-profit organisation. The NGO has named the meal, "Deendayal Thali".

"The GMCH in Nagpur provides food for patients and their relatives at an affordable price. The thali is being sold at Rs 10. Packed thali costs Rs 15," reported ANI.

Yuva Zep Pratishthan introduced Deendayal Thali at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in Nagpur to provide food to patients & their relatives at an affordable price; the 'thali' is being sold at Rs 10 & packed thali at Rs 15 #Maharashtra pic.twitter.com/I6T5GJvVVz  ANI (@ANI) March 3, 2018

The dishes under the Deendayal Thali scheme are being prepared inside the premises of the hospital, added ANI.

Deendayal Thali being prepared inside the premises of Deendayal Thali at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) in Nagpur pic.twitter.com/EFooYEUQEU  ANI (@ANI) March 3, 2018

Each thali consists of three rotis, rice and different curries. A big billboard outside the canteen states that it provides affordable food for patients and their relatives only. Another high point of the canteen is the amount of attention given to cleanliness.

"First, we want to provide affordable food to patients and their caretakers. Here we provide healthy, tasty and hygienic food to patients and their relatives," said a member of the NGO.

Regarding the feasibility of selling meals at such an affordable rate when prices of food items have touched a new high, managers at the canteen said that they are carrying out the difficult task with a lot of hard work.

The canteen with a modern kitchen houses a spacious dining hall for patrons. "My father is admitted in the hospital. My mother, brother and I are taking care of my father. We are eating food at the canteen where prices are very affordable for poor people like us," said Hari Das, a daily wage earner. Das added that every hospital in the country should have a similar canteen.

OneIndia News

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Monday, March 5, 2018, 8:12 [IST]Four persons including Nirav Modis auditor arrested in PNB scam

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Four persons have been arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation in connection with the PNB scam. They include an auditor of the Nirav Modi Group of Companies and a director of the Mehul Choksi led Gitanjali group of companies.

Manish K Bosamiya, the then Additional General Manager (operation) and Miten Anil Pandya, the then Finance Manager, both of Firestarter International, were arrested for their alleged role in the preparation of applications for the fraudulent Letters of Undertaking (LoU) submitted to PNB.

Auditor Sanjay Rambhia, a partner in the Mumbai-based CA firm Sampat and Mehta has also been arrested. The agency also arrested Aniyath Shiv Raman Nair, the then director of Gili India Ltd.

On Saturday, a Mumbai court issued non-bailable warrants against Modi and Choksi. Meanwhile, the Enforcement Directorate is pushing for a red corner notice against the duo in a bid to restrict their movements and also extradite them.

OneIndia NewsINX Media: In face to face questioning with Karti, Indrani says sought help for FIPB clearance

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

There was no change in the statement of Indrani Mukerjea who was brought face to face with Karti Chidambaram by the CBI while probing the INX Media case. Karti was taken to Mumbai and was brought face to face with Indrani who is currently lodged in jail on charges of allegedly murdering her daughter, Sheena Bora.

Karti's remand in CBI custody ends today. He will be produced before the court and the CBI would inform the judge about the statement made by Indrani during the probe. The CBI would seek further remand of Karti as he would need to be brought before the other accused in the case.

Indrani had recorded her statement under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

In her statement, she said that she had sought the help of Chess Management Service. Further, Indrani had said that she and her husband Peter had sought the help of Karti's firm once their FIPB clearance was rejected. They had sought for a clearance of Rs 305 crore, but the FIBP allowed only Rs 5 crore.

Once Chess Management was hired, the clearance came through and they had paid the firm Rs 10 lakh for its services, she had also said.

OneIndia NewsKarnataka: Will Congress not allow Kumaraswamy to be CM for full 5-year term?

Is it chief minister Kumaraswamy or chief manager of Congress Ktaka ATM? BJP has an answer

All is well between Congress, JD(S)? Kumaraswamy meets Rahul as Karnataka waits for full cabinet

Karnataka election 2018: Tapaal Ganesh, Reddy brothers' bete noire, joins JD (U)

India

oi-Staff

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Tapaal Ganesh, bete noire of mining baron Janardhan Reddy and brothers, has knocked the doors of Janata Dal (United) ahead of Karnataka Assembly elections. Ganesh has decided to contest from Bellary city assembly seat.

Ganesh survived an attempt on his life in Bellary when Reddy brothers were at the pinnacle of power during the BJP rule in the state. Also, he had lost his TNR mining company, located at the Karnataka-Andhra border, due to illegal and uncontrolled mining activities in Bellary.

Tapaal Ganesh spoke to Bellary correspondent of OneIndia about his interest in politics, politics in Bellary and state politics.

Ganesh said, " He is worried about the image of Bellary due to its notoriety for illegal mining. People think without money and muscle power it is difficult to fight elections. I am a fighter. I am confident of winning the election, not overconfident."

"I fought against Janardhan Reddy and his brothers in Supreme Court, who attempted to eliminate him, for destroying mining business. I am one of the men who put Jaradhan Reddy behind bars. As a common man, I fought against Reddy when both state and Centre dilly-dallying to take action against this powerful man. People and media support is my strength. I am in touch with people who stand me."

"I know I am not so resourceful to contest elections, but my financial condition doesn't deter me from fighting elections. There is no hard and fast rule only rich will contest elections. Late George Fernandes is role model for me to take a plunge in politics.

"I will reach out people in my constituency and create awareness against corruption. I will convince my objectives to voters to expand my support base," he further added.

Asked about his campaign against Congress government in Karnataka, he said, "Definitely I will campaign against BJP and the Congress. In the run-up to 2013 assembly elections, Siddaramaiah went on a 'padayatra' from Bengaluru to Bellary against illegal mining. My fight was a big source of strength for him.

After holding onto power, Siddaramaiah has forgotten about illegal mining case and demarcation of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh boundary. In fact, in December, Supreme Court has directed both state governments to submit survey report within 12 weeks. Both the governments are silent now."

"Still, the government has 15-20 days to submit the report to the SC. If he fails to do, I will call CM Siddaramaiah a 'bluffmaster' during my campaign."

In his final comment, Tapaal Ganesh says, " I am not saying I will definitely win the election. I'm an optimist, fighter. My conscience won't let me tolerate wrongdoings. I will seek vote for corruption-free administration. I do not discriminate between my supporters and people who did not vote for me. I am from Bellary, my fight will continue for the welfare of my district and state as well.

Karnataka Assembly Election dates Date of notification April 17 Last date to file nominations April 24 Last date to withdraw nominations April 27 Date of polling May 12 Date of counting May 15

Oneindia NewsKarnataka polls: BJP's promise to ban cow slaughter makes a comeback

India

oi-Anusha

A law to prohibit cow slaughter has made a comeback to propel the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Hindutva push ahead of Karnataka Assembly Elections 2018. Leader of opposition in Karnataka Legislative Council, K S Eshwarappa on Monday said that a bill banning cow slaughter will be the first to be passed by BJP government when it comes to power.

"Our government had banned cow slaughter but Siddaramaiah revoked it and allowed cow slaughter. We will come to power and assure that the first bill we pass will be prohibition of cow slaughter," K S Eshwarappa said. Cow slaughter as a theme featured prominently in a tableau which is part of the BJP's four-day Janasuraksha yatra.

While leaders of the BJP have been highlighting deaths of purported Hindu activists under the Siddaramaiah government, K S Eshwarappa raked up the cow slaughter issue a day before Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath is expected to address a gathering to mark the culmination of the Janasuraksha Yatra on Tuesday.

Interestingly, K S Eshwarappa shared stage with Udupi-Chikmagaluru MP Shobha Karandlaje who led Monday's Yatre. Eshwarappa, who was accused of engineering a rebellion against B S Yeddyurappa, reiterated the latter's position as BJP'S CM candidate.

"Siddaramaiah framing Hindus in Gauri Lankesh case"

Karandlaje who led the 5-km padayatra in Byndoor and Udupi alleged that the Siddaramaiah government is attempting to frame Hindu youths in slain journalist Gauri Lankesh case. "The government is unable to track down the murderers of Prof M M Kalburgi but is framing Hindu youth in Gauri Lankesh case," she said. The special investigation team probing the murder have taken a gun-runner into custody for questioning. The man identified as K T Naveen is said to be the founder of a pro-Hindu organisation.

The Janasuraksha rally- a two-pronged campaign against alleged killings of Hindu activists led by four MPs of the BJP- Shobha Karandlaje, Nalin Kumar Kateel, Pratap Simha and Anantkumar Hegde- in the communally sensitive coastal Karnataka and Kodagu is aimed at consolidating fragmented Hindu votes.

Karnataka Assembly Election dates Date of notification April 17 Last date to file nominations April 24 Last date to withdraw nominations April 27 Date of polling May 12 Date of counting May 15

OneIndia NewsKarnataka polls: "Murderous government, criminal CM", Anantkumar Hegde attacks Siddaramaiah

India

oi-Anusha

By Anusha Ravi

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has become the target of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that is currently holding Janasuraksha yatre across the state. Union minister and Uttar Karnataka MP Anant Kumar Hegde who is leading the coastal Karnataka leg of the campaign deemed the Congress government in Karnataka murderous and Siddaramaiah a criminal.

RSS functionary and BJP organising secretary B L Santhosh inaugurated Sunday's janasuraksha yatra from Bhatkal. Close to 2,000 BJP supporters- a number larger than day one of the rally- gathered in communally sensitive Honnavar and Bhatkal. Honnavar- the hometown of Paresh Mesta, whose death sparked off communal tensions, was chosen by the BJP strategically to push its agenda of deeming the Congress government anti-Hindu. "This is a murderous government with a criminal Chief Minister who can't ensure safety of its own officers," Hegde said while addressing a rally in Bhatkal after the Janasuraksha padayatra. The Union minister accused Siddaramaiah of doling out 'Bhagyas' (gifts) of death and torture to its bureaucrats invoking D K Ravi, DySP M K Ganapati, Former DySP Anupama Shenoy.

Eyes set on six seats of Uttar Kannada and eight seats of Dakshin Kannada ahead of the assembly elections, the BJP is going all out against the Siddaramaiah government with the Hindutva poll plank. Hegde minced no words in deeming the Siddaramaiah government anti-Hindu and pro-minorities. "We will begin Bengaluru Chalo over murders of Hindu activist and Siddaramaiah better leave his seat by then. Even Allah will be with us in this fight," Hegde said after an Azaan (a call for prayer) began from a nearby mosque during his speech. "We are with Hindus but every person born in Hindustan is a Hindu irrespective of what religion he belongs to," the union minister said asking if minorities were willing to accept that they were Hindus too.

The four-day janasuraksha yatre will culminate in Mangaluru on March 6 where Uttar Prades Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath is expected to address a rally. The end of Janasuraksha yatra will be the start point of BJP's next campaign- Bengaluru chalo. Leaders of the BJP intend to stage massive protests in the capital city over deaths of Hindu activists demanding the ouster of Siddaramaiah. The Congress has remained unfazed by the protests while the BJP will continue its yatra from Udupi and Mangaluru.

Karnataka Assembly Election dates Date of notification April 17 Last date to file nominations April 24 Last date to withdraw nominations April 27 Date of polling May 12 Date of counting May 15

OneIndia NewsKarnataka: Will Congress not allow Kumaraswamy to be CM for full 5-year term?

Is it chief minister Kumaraswamy or chief manager of Congress Ktaka ATM? BJP has an answer

All is well between Congress, JD(S)? Kumaraswamy meets Rahul as Karnataka waits for full cabinet

Karnataka: Actor Upendra likely to be ousted from KPJP, to join BJP?

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Sandalwood star Upendra, President of Karnataka Pragnyavantha Janatha Party (KPJP), likely to be ousted from his own party due to difference of opinions in the party.

According to reports, a difference of opinion has sprung up inside the KPJP over the selection of candidates for the upcoming Karnataka assembly elections. The party members are reportedly upset with the 'dictatorial attitude' of Upendra.

The real results between prajaakeeya and Raajakeeya will reveal on 6th of this month. Wait and watch. Upendra  Upendra (@nimmaupendra) March 3, 2018

Mahesh Gowda, the founder of KPJP, alleged that Upendra sidelined him from party programmes.

News18 quoting sources reported that Upendra is likely to join the BJP on Tuesday by quitting or dissolving his party. His followers feel that he has already given enough hints and may follow Prime Minister Narendra Modi whom he idolizes.

In August 2017, Upendra had launched a new political party 'Karnataka Prajnavant Janata Party' (KPJP) and announced 'auto' as the logo of the party at Gandhi Bhavan in Bengaluru. Always known for his maverick ideas, Upendra invited journalists to light the lamps.

KPJP was planning to field candidates in all the 224 constituencies in the next assembly elections.

More details are awaited.

OneIndia NewsKarti uses legal acumen to dodge CBI questionnaire in INX Media case

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Karti Chidambaram continues to be evasive in his answers, CBI sources say. Accused in the INX Media case, Karti the son of former union minister, P Chidambaram is currently in CBI remand.

He was brought face to face with Indrani Mukerjea a promoter of INX Media at the Bycualla jail in Mumbai on Sunday. She has alleged that she had had paid bribe to Karti for FIPB clearance.

The CBI had got 5 days custody of Karti. The CBI which will produce him before court on Tuesday will state that he has been evasive in his questioning. He is fully aware of the law and knows how to dodge questions, the source also said.

INX Media: In face to face questioning with Karti, Indrani says sought help for FIPB clearance

The questioning so far has not been easy for the CBI. He has been a tough nut to crack and is very evasive. He has always been evasive, the CBI source also informed OneIndia.

Even when brought face to face with Indrani, Karti denied all the allegations made against him. He said that the allegations made by her were baseless. I never asked or received any amount as is being claimed by her, he also said while also adding that this was a political vendetta.

OneIndia News'No more tareek pe tareek', says Bombay High Court

India

pti-PTI

Mumbai, March 5: An irked Bombay High Court said, "No more 'tareek pe tareek'. Enough is enough." The court while ruling out any more adjournments in a case imposed a fine of Rs 4.50 lakh on a public charitable trust for failing to file an affidavit since 2016.

Justice Gautam Patel last week passed the order directing 'Ram Nagar Trust' to pay Rs 1,000 per day for the 450-day delay ( Rs. 4.5 lakh in total) to the defendant in the suit filed by the trust in 2009.

The court noted that in September 2016, the high court had framed issue in the suit and directed both the plaintiff (trust) and the defendants to submit before the registry an affidavit of documents they would be relying on. Last week when the suit came up before Justice Patel, the trust's lawyer sought a week's time to submit the same.

This was opposed by the defendants who claimed that time and again adjournments were being sought by the plaintiff trust. Agreeing to this, Justice Patel in his order said, "No more adjournments. No more 'tareek pe tareek'. Enough is enough".

"That a court will endlessly grant adjournments is not something that parties or advocates can take for granted. Nor should they assume that there will be no consequences to continued defaults and unexplained delay," Justice Patel said.

The famous dialogue 'tareek pe tareek' from Bollywood movie 'Damini' starring Sunny Deol has virtually become synonymous with the plight of litigants who have to wait for years and even decades for justice due to frequent delays in the judicial process. Computing the delay from November 25, 2016 till date, the court said this was a period of around 450 days.

"Computed at Rs 1000 per day for each day's delay for 450 days, the costs work out to Rs 4,50,000. This amount of Rs 4,50,000 will be paid to the first defendant as costs by 7th March 2018," the court said.

The court added that fixing random figures like Rs 5,000 or Rs 25,000 was counter productive as parties think such costs are negligible.

"The costs must be real. They must be sufficient to convey the message that non-compliance with our orders brings consequences; that these consequences are inevitable and unavoidable; and the consequences are not some piffling trifle," Justice Patel said.

He refused to accept the contention of the plaintiff's lawyer that it was a charitable trust and that the suit pertained to land for educational purposes.

"This is even more shocking. That a trust should be so utterly negligent about its own case is reason enough to warrant immediate action against the trustees and have every one of them removed. A public trust has a higher duty of care, not a lower one," the court said.

"We will make exceptions for the poor, the illiterate, the helpless. They will receive our protection. But educated trustees charged with a solemn fiduciary duty will not get a free pass only because they claim to espouse some worthy cause," Justice Patel noted.

PTINaxals from Telangana were in the process of making grenade launchers, IEDs: NIA

Police detains Telangana BJP members protesting against KCR's comment

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Telangana BJP members have been detained by the Hyderabad Police during party's protest march against CM K Chandrashekhar Rao over his alleged abusive comments against Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Earlier, BJP MLC Ramchander Rao was taken into preventive custody by the Police ahead of BJP's protest march against Telangana CM KC Rao over his alleged abusive comments against PM Modi.

Dr K Laxman, Telangana BJP President, said, "BJP Telangana is demanding CM KC Rao to withdraw his words made against PM Modi. Today we have called for 'Gherao' of Pragati Bhawan. Police in Hyderabad have house arrested me. My fundamental rights have been curtailed by this government."

However, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao had denied the BJP's charge that he had used any abusive words against PM Narendra Modi. His comments come after the saffron party had alleged that the Chief Minister reportedly used a Telugu word during his public meeting in Karimnagar which was disrespectful to PM Modi.

"I haven't abused anyone. I'm PM Modi's best friend. I sought an appointment with him in Delhi, that itself shows I have nothing against him, but he couldn't accommodate the request for an appointment," KCR said, reported news agency ANI.

Oneindia NewsWho will be new Punjab Chief Minister? Congress' decision likely by afternoon after CLP meet

Rahul Gandhi returns to India from Italy, tweets on Northeast drubbing

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Congress President Rahul Gandhi returned to India from Italy on Monday. On his arrival, in a short message, Rahul Gandhi thanked Congress workers who toiled for the party in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya elections. This is the first reaction of Rahul Gandhi after drubbing in Tripura and Nagaland. In the 60-member Meghalaya assembly, though Congress has 21 seats, non-Congress parties ensured the incumbent party out of power.

Rahul Gandhi, tweeted, "The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya. We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people. My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party."

The Congress party respects the mandate of the people of Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya.



We are committed to strengthening our party across the North East and to winning back the trust of the people.



My sincere thanks to each and every Congress worker who toiled for the party.  Office of RG (@OfficeOfRG) March 5, 2018

During northeastern states elections results, Rahul Gandhi was in Italy to meet his 93-year-old grandmother.

BJP president Amit Shah while celebrating party's victory in the northeast, took a swipe at Rahul Gandhi. Shah quipped at a press conference, "Italy mein chunao bhi toh hai (Italy is holding elections too)."

In Meghalaya, the NPP-led coalition comprising of the BJP, UDP and HSPDP met Governor Ganga Prasad on Sunday and staked the claim to form a government in the northeastern state. NPP, UDP, BJP and HSPDP together have 29 MLAs, but the majority mark to form a government in Meghalaya Assembly is 31. Reports suggest that People's Democratic Front may also join them which means that the alliance would cross the majority mark of 30 needed for government formation.

In Tripura, Congress drew a blank. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) made a history in the state after the CPM suffered a humiliating defeat in its citadel of 25 years. The BJP won 34 seats on its own, while its ally, the Indigenous People's Front of Tripura (IPFT), was victorious in 8 constituencies. In 2013, the Congress had won 10 seats with a vote share of 36.53 per cent.

In Nagaland, the Congress failed to win a single seat and its vote share fell from around 15 per cent in 2013 to just above 2 per cent in 2018.

OneIndia NewsRed-corner notice against Modi, Choksi set to be issued by ED, CBI

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Armed with a court order which issued a non-bailable warrant against Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate are now pushing for a red-corner notice.

The duo accused in the Rs 12,000 crore PNB fraud case are abroad and have refused to join the investigation. ED and CBI sources informed OneIndia that the process of moving for a red-corner notice is underway. We will be getting in touch with the Interpol for the same, the source also added.

The red-corner notice will help the agencies locate the duo. This would also pave the way for an extradition process.

Four persons including Nirav Modi's auditor arrested in PNB scam

On Saturday a court in Mumbai issued non-bailable warrants against Choksi and Modi under the provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. The agencies informed the court that despite repeated summons, the duo has refused to join the probe. The court had also allowed the agencies to issue Letters Rogatory (LRs) to six countries - Malaysia, Armenia, France, China, Japan, Russia and Belgium 1 for obtaining information about the overseas business of the duo.

OneIndia NewsRs 1.8 crore transferred by Karti to influential political figure under ED lens

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Under the lens of the Enforcement Directorate is a huge money transfer made by Karti Chidambaram to the account of an influential political figure. The ED is probing the transfer of over Rs 1 crore made from Karti's account in the Chennai branch of the Royal Scotland Bank.

While the political figure will be summoned for questioning, the ED would also move a remand application seeking Karti's custody. He is currently in CBI custody and his remand ends today.

Karti was arrested on February 28 from Chennai by the CBI in connection with the INX Media pay off the case. He was brought face to face with Indrani Mukerjea on Sunday. INX Media which was promoted by Indrani and her husband Peter have been accused of seeking Karti's help for FIPB clearance.

INX Media: In face to face questioning with Karti, Indrani says sought help for FIPB clearance

The ED said that the discovery of this transaction amounting to Rs 1.8 crore was crucial. It is still unclear why such a huge amount of money had been transferred by Karti. Once the CBI custody ends, we will seek Karti's remand to question him in a bid to understand the money trail better, an ED official said.

OneIndia NewsWhat is pogonotrophy, Tharoors new word and why is he using it for PM Modi

Hopeful IT panel will take up Pegasus; officials may have been instructed to skip last meet: Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor appeals to students to withdraw protest as Govt agrees to CBI probe into SSC exam

India

oi-Shreya

The Government has finally given in to the demands of thousands of students protesting in the National Capital against the alleged paper leak in the Combined Graduate Level(CGL) exam, by agreeing to conduct CBI inquiry into the matter.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh said, "We have accepted demands of protesting candidates and have given orders for CBI inquiry, the protest should now stop,"

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who had extended his support to the protesting students also appealed to the students to call off the protest. He said, "Spoke to Dr Jitendra Singh in Parliament today. He has agreed to a CBI inquiry on all the issues raised by the students protesting the SSC-CGL Mains papers (leak, conduct of exams etc). I thank him for his willingness to listen to these legitimate demands w/an open mind.,"

"I now urge the protesting students, whom I have supported all the way, to call off their agitation. It is time to acknowledge victory &move on," he added.

However, the students have said that they will not move or call off the protest until the Government's decision is presented in a proper format.

We welcome Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's decision on CBI probe. We are not going to call off the protest until a proper format is released, we will see if our demands are being met or not," said Piyush, protesting SSC candidate in Delhi.

The students started with their protest on February 27 and said that until all their protests are made, the protest will not be called off.

OneIndia NewsShopian firing: Now J&K govt tells SC, Major Aditya not named in FIR

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

The Jammu and Kashmir government in its affidavit in the Supreme Court has said that it has not named Major Aditya in the FIR. The report was submitted after a petition challenging the FIR against the major was filed in connection with the Shopian incident.

The status report also stated that there are no allegations made against the Major either. The court while staying the investigation said that although the Major's name is not mentioned in the FIR, his name figures in the narrative. He could be roped in anytime and hence the investigation is being stayed, the court also said. Further the court also observed that Major Aditya is an Army officer and cannot be treated like an ordinary criminal by the police.

On the last date of hearing the Supreme Court had stayed FIR lodged against Major Aditya Kumar in connection with the Shopian incident.

The court also directed the police to file its response in two weeks in response to the petition filed by the Major's father Lt Col (Retd) Karamveer Singh.

While seeking to quash the FIR, the father also said in his petition that Army personnel should be spared from criminal proceedings. He further sought for the setting up of guidelines to protect the dignity of soldiers and also spare them from criminal proceedings.

The petition said the police cannot file cases against army officers in Jammu and Kashmir, since AFSPA (the Armed Forces' Special Powers Act) is operating in the state. The law gives special powers to the army in insurgency-hit areas.

My son was doing his duty to protect the soldiers who were being stoned and about to be lynched... He carried out the orders of his superiors," the petition contended.

The officer's father, who is also serving in the army, said he was compelled to move the Supreme Court directly because of the "extremely hostile situation in Jammu and Kashmir". This, his petition said, became evident in the "manner of lodging the FIR" and the way it was projected by the state's political and administration heads. It appealed that the investigation be carried out in another state with independent and unbiased authorities.

The J&K police had filed an FIR against Major Aditya and others following an incident of stone pelting in Shopian in which two persons had died. The stone pelters in large numbers attacked the Army following which the personnel were forced to retaliate. The Army came out in support of its men and said that they responded only when they were provoked.

OneIndia NewsA secret trip to an ISIS medical camp in Syria changed the course for this Bengaluru doctor

Bengaluru youth who joined ISIS suspected to have been killed in Syria

Desperate ISIS terrorist from Kerala who attempted to reach Syria twice sentenced

14 civilians killed in fresh air raids on Syria's Ghouta: Monitor

International

pti-PTI

Beirut, March 5: At least 14 civilians were killed overnight in fresh air raids by the Syrian regime on the besieged rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta , a monitor said on Monday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said barrel bombs -- crude, improvised munitions that cause indiscriminate damage -- were used, including on the town of Hammuriyeh, where 10 people were killed.

Assad's forces have seized over a quarter of the enclave on Damascus's eastern edges after two weeks of devastating bombardment, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.

Last month, the advance on the back of air strikes, artillery fire and rocket attacks that are reported to have killed more than 650 civilians, sent hundreds into the flight to western parts of the enclave.

PTIA secret trip to an ISIS medical camp in Syria changed the course for this Bengaluru doctor

Bengaluru youth who joined ISIS suspected to have been killed in Syria

Desperate ISIS terrorist from Kerala who attempted to reach Syria twice sentenced

44 killed in bombardment of Syria's Eastern Ghouta enclave

International

oi-Madhuri

Around 44 were killed in bombardment of Syria's Eastern Ghouta enclave on Monday. Earlier in the day, The United States condemned Syria's "brutal" Russian-backed assault on the Eastern Ghouta rebel enclave that has reportedly left hundreds of civilians dead.

The White House also called on pro-regime forces to "immediately cease targeting medical infrastructure and civilians" in Eastern Ghouta.

Assad's forces have seized over a quarter of the enclave on Damascus's eastern edges after two weeks of devastating bombardment, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.

The advance on the back of air strikes, artillery fire and rocket attacks that are reported to have killed more than 650 civilians, sent hundreds into the flight to western parts of the enclave.

PTI

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Monday, March 5, 2018, 21:27 [IST]Alisha Patel, first trans woman to be recognized by Gujarat govt, gets transgender identity card

Oscars: Award for A Fantastic Woman a boost for transgender rights movement

International

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Oneindia Staff

The Academy Awards--the Hollywood's biggest film event--has always stood for causes and rights of people across the world. The 90th Oscars award show held at the Dolby Theatre at the Hollywood and Highland Centre in Hollywood, California on early Monday morning (IST) was no different. The transgender rights movement across the world got a big pat on its back as the Oscars honoured the Chilean drama--A Fantastic Woman--which tells the story of the struggles of a young transgender woman.

The film won the coveted Best Foreign Language Film award at the Oscars. The role of the protagonist was played by trans actor Daniela Vega, making it a rare film as generally non-transgender actors play the role of transgenders in films.

Daniela, 28, has appeared in only one film before A Fantastic Woman. She became the first openly transgender presenter at an Oscar ceremony when she introduced a song during Monday's event.

The film, directed and co-written by Sebastian Lelio, marked Chile's first Oscar victory in the category. The Guardian has called the film "a bold and a moving love story".

"Beyond the high-profile title fight between The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Lady Bird, the most intriguing battle at tonight's Oscar ceremony will be for best foreign language film.

"The bookies' favourites, however, are Ruben Ostlund's Cannes Palme d'Or winner The Square from Sweden, and the Chilean entry A Fantastic Woman, a bold and moving love story from Gloria director Sebastian Lelio with a mesmerising central performance by rising star Daniela Vega," added The Guardian.

Calling the Oscars win for the film "a transgender watershed", The Hollywood Reporter writes, "The Spanish-language feature, about a trans woman who faces bigotry and intolerance after her partner dies, has become a touchstone for an entire movement, and the film's star, trans actress Daniela Vega, its spokeswoman."

Accepting the award, director of the film Leilo said, "Thank you so much. This is an amazing gift. Thank you to the Academy. I want to, well, thank my dear friends and producers, Juan de Dios Lorrain. I want to thank the cast of the film, especially the brilliant actor Francisco Reyes and the inspiration for this movie, Daniela Vega.

"This film was made by a lot of friends and artists - I share this with all of you tonight. I want to thank Aaron Brown and Sophie Dollen, everyone from Sony Classics, Tom Bernard, Michael Barker, Participant Media, Setembro Sine, Complacent Films and my wife, Verdinia - I love you forever. Thank you so, so much."

Twitter hailed the win for the film. Here are a few tweets:

The Chilean drama A Fantastic Woman, which tells the story of the struggles of a young transgender woman, wins Best Foreign Language Film at the #Oscars! pic.twitter.com/RTfPzFVkHL  Human Rights Campaign (@HRC) March 5, 2018

Congratulations to the cast and crew of 'A Fantastic Woman' for winning "Best Foreign Language Film" at the #Oscars. pic.twitter.com/6CdeNhr6eH  Pop Crave (@PopCrave) March 5, 2018

The Oscar winner for best foreign language film wouldnt have worked without its own Fantastic Woman, Daniela Vega https://t.co/J8Em0QhAUP  VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) March 5, 2018

a chilean movie about a trans woman PLAYED by a trans woman won best foreign language film today... VIVA LATINOAMERICA #Oscars   (@sslxoc) March 5, 2018

OneIndia NewsOscars mourns the death of Shashi Kapoor, Sridevi , pays glowing tributes to film icons

International

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Oneindia Staff

If on the one hand, the Oscars celebrate the best of cinema every year, on the other, the Hollywood's biggest film event also remembers the icons from the world cinema who have died.

On Sunday night, during the 90th Academy Awards ceremony, along with various well-known film personalities from Hollywood, who have died in the recent times, veteran Indian actor Shashi Kapoor and India's first female superstar Sridevi were remembered during the "In Memoriam" montage.

A musical tribute by Eddie Vedder was paid to all the departed souls from the cinema world. Vedder sang Tom Petty's Room at the top at the Oscars to remember the deceased film personalities.

Hollywood actress Jennifer Garner introduced the segment by paying tribute to late star Audrey Hepburn. "There is no joy without sorrow," Garner said, and then acknowledged the loss of film world with the departed souls.

Shashi Kapoor started his career as a child artist. His debut film as an adult was Bollywood drama, Dharmputra, in 1961. He passed away in December 2017. He was the son of Prithviraj Kapoor and younger brother of Raj Kapoor and Shammi Kapoor. All three of them died before Shashi Kapoor.

Shashi Kapoor, known for his cute smile and charming personality, also worked in some well-known international film projects. He was honoured with the Padma Bhushan--the third highest civilian honour--by the Indian government in 2011. In 2015, he was bestowed with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award.

India is still mourning the death of Sridevi, who died on February 24 at a hotel in Dubai. The superstar was an icon. Sridevi was known for her acting and dancing skills. She too started her career as a child artist and grew up to become one of the best actresses of all time. She died at the age of 54. Sridevi was honoured with the Padma Shri in 2013.

The other deceased stars who were remembered at the Oscars were John Heard, Tony Anne Walker, Jane Foray, Robert Osborne, Martin Landau, Glenne Headly, Roger Moore, George A Romero and Jerry Lewis, among others.

The 90th Academy Awards ceremony held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday night was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel.

OneIndia NewsPakistans Krishna Kumari Kohli creates history, becomes 1st Dalit woman Senator

International

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Oneindia Staff

Islamabad, March 5: Good news for women across Pakistan, especially those belonging to the minority communities in the Muslim-dominated country. Just a few days ahead of the International Women's Day--to be celebrated on Thursday (March 8)--Krishna Kumari Kohli became the first-ever Hindu Dalit woman Senator of Pakistan on Sunday. Kohli, 39, hails from a remote village in Nagarparkar district of Thar in Sindh province. She is a member of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari-led Pakistan People's Party (PPP). She won the election for the reserved seat for women from Sindh province, Dawn News reported.

"I feel proud, I am thankful to Pakistan People's Party that they nominated me," Kohli told AFP. "Kudos to the PPP for electing #KrishnaKohli.... Our Parliament should have representatives of all religions, classes and genders in pursuit of true democracy," tweeted rights activist Jibran Nasir.

Her election represents a major milestone for women and minority rights in Pakistan. Earlier, the PPP had elected first Hindu woman named Ratna Bhagwandas Chawla as a Senator. Born to a poor peasant, Jugno Kohli, in February 1979, Kohli and her family members spent nearly three years in a private jail owned by the landlord of Kunri of Umerkot district. She was a grade 3 student at the time when held captive.

She was married to Lalchand at the age of 16 when she was studying in 9th grade. However, she pursued her studies and in 2013 she did masters in sociology from the Sindh University. She had joined the PPP as a social activist along with her brother, who was later elected as the chairperson of Union Council Berano. Kohli also actively participated and worked for the rights of downtrodden people of marginalised communities living in Thar and other areas.

She is from the family of the valiant freedom fighter Rooplo Kohli, who had waged a war against the invading British colonialist forces when they had attacked Sindh from Nagarparkar side in 1857. Subsequently, he was arrested and hanged by the Britishers on August 22, 1858.

Pakistan's ruling PML-N of ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Sunday won 15 seats in the Senate and became the largest party in the upper house of Parliament, according to the provisional results. Provincial and federal lawmakers voted to elect 52 Senators in the Senate elections, according to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP).

Twelve seats each from Punjab and Sindh, 11 each from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, four from tribal region and two from federal capital territory were up for grab due to the retirement of 52 senators this month. More than 130 candidates, including those nominated by political parties and independent candidates, were in the contest.

Kohli's win was celebrated on social media with the hashtag--#KrishnaKohli. Along with Pakistanis, several Indians also cheered the 39-year-old Dalit woman's victory. Those who believe in gender equality and pluralistic society said it augurs well for Pakistan.

Here we bring you some tweets:

The best news amongst all was the win of #KrishnaKohli. It is indeed a step towards a progressive and pluralist Pakistan. #PPP deserves a round of applause for this.  Muzammil Kamran (@Muzi_Kam) March 4, 2018

OneIndia NewsA secret trip to an ISIS medical camp in Syria changed the course for this Bengaluru doctor

Save us, please: Is the world listening to SOS sent by Syrian children on social media?

International

oi-Oneindia Staff

By Oneindia Staff

They are all dying and crying for help. Since the last two weeks, a massive bloodbath is underway in Syria's Eastern Ghouta region because of the incessant bombing. More than 600 people have died in the military attacks conducted by forces of President Bashar al-Assad in the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta. Several children have died in these attacks, say reports. As the situation in the area is "beyond critical" residents have started fleeing Eastern Ghouta to save themselves from dying.

Thousands of residents have fled their homes in Eastern Ghouta and headed westward where the fighting is less severe, civilians inside the suburb told CNN on Sunday. "The situation on the ground is catastrophic," surgeon Hamza Hassan, based in Irbin in Eastern Ghouta, told CNN via WhatsApp. "There is massive internal displacement of 30,000 people from (the areas of) Beit Sawa, Otaya, the Douma villages," he told.

In spite of so many human losses, Assad remains defiant. The Syrian President declared that military operations in Eastern Ghouta would continue. The first-hand witnesses of the terror and bloodbath, the children of Eastern Ghouta, as a last resort, have sought help from the rest of the world on social media.

Every day they are tweeting and asking the international community to help them. The messages posted by the children on social media are truly heartbreaking. The children are also posting images of the devastation caused by the ongoing civil war in the country.

Muhammad Najem, a 15-year-old boy, has tweeted the pictures of his school and friend's house devastated by constant bombings. The youngster has blamed Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin for the irreparable damages caused to Eastern Ghouta and loss of innocent lives.

Like Najem, Syrian sisters, Noor (10) and Alaa (8), too are regularly seeking help on Twitter to rescue them. Their messages like "For God's sake help us!" are a reminder of the horrible situation in Syria. Hope the world is listening to these children, the future of Syria, and provides them with necessary help, either by evacuating them from the "war zones" or by stopping the deadly civil war started on March 15, 2011.

Read the tweets by Syrian children below to understand their plight.

It's my school which has become a target for Putin and Assad crimes

it's the Church of my city has becoming a target for Putin and Assad air planes

this is the Center of Syrian Arab Red Crescent in my city has becoming a target for terrorisme of Putin and Assad

#saveghouta pic.twitter.com/1K1XKsxaXt  muhammad najem (@muhammadnajem20) March 1, 2018

    

I am Muhammed Najem

I am fifteen years old

I live in the eastern Gouta

I will convey to you all the events which is being commited by the assad rigime in the Eastern Gouta through my own social media Facebook and Twitter. pic.twitter.com/BaVopMLJvV  muhammad najem (@muhammadnajem20) December 7, 2017

My friend's house was completely destroyed. He and his family were killed under the rubble of their house today after Russian aircraft hit several missiles near my house. We were playing together and today he left and left me alone without him.https://t.co/nWkm6iwPDx pic.twitter.com/Ct7hcq9OOX  muhammad najem (@muhammadnajem20) February 8, 2018

To everyone who can hear me we are in danger please help us before it's too late #EastGhouta#Syria #SaveGhouta pic.twitter.com/321YhYjWow  Noor And Alaa (@Noor_and_Alaa) February 19, 2018

In #Ghouta, shops are distroyed and people become without work. We lose everything in ghouta and no compensation. Save us please#SaveGhouta pic.twitter.com/hrKYW6G3zb  Noor And Alaa (@Noor_and_Alaa) March 3, 2018

Syrian regime soldiers are closer.



Bombing is increasing. We don't know what to do. We don't have but our love to each other. We love life but others don't love it for us#SaveGhouta#Ghouta #Syria  Noor And Alaa (@Noor_and_Alaa) March 4, 2018

OneIndia NewsGet $35 No Deposit at Tangiers Casino

Published March 5, 2018 by Florin P

Tangiers Casino offers a no deposit bonus worth $35 free exclusively to new players who'll play on IGT and Octopus Gaming games.

New players who join Tangiers Casino until Saturday, March 10 are in for a pleasant surprise. The casino has a $35 exclusively for them and this bonus comes with no strings attached. Theres no need to make a deposit to receive this nice bonus, so everyone can claim it right away. The only prerequisite to become eligible for the promotional package is to use the bonus code OCRTNG35ND when joining the casino.

How to Get It

It takes just a few minutes to sign up for a real money account and once you have one up and running you can start enjoying the $35 no deposit bonus. It comes with reasonable wagering requirements of 75 times the amount and recipients can use it on a broad spectrum of games. Only those developed by IGT and Octopus Gaming qualify for this offer, so players should focus on those games produced by them.

This exclusive no deposit offer at Tangiers Casino expires on Saturday, so players need to act quickly. The maximum winnings that can be cashed out after using the bonus are limited to $4100, which is a significant amount. Do not waste precious time and sign up for an account at Tangiers Casino today.Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.

Any sane US president would be up in arms speaking out against China allowing its current leader, Xi Jinping, to become a lifetime president.

Instead, we have our malignant narcissist and psychopath president Trump admiring Xi. Trump spoke to a group, saying"He's now president for life. And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll have to give that a shot some day."

Some are trying to frame Trump's words as humor. But any observer who has been paying attention knows that he was serious, that if he could, he'd go for becoming a lifetime president and dictator. And sadly, it is likely that the majority, even most Republicans who are benefitting from Trump being in the White House, would go along with him, perhaps even vote to support such legislation.

Of course, what I am saying is that these politicians are traitors to the constitution, to democracy and the United States.

A sane president would dispatch the state department to do all it could to help anyone in China who was opposing Xi's machinations. Instead we have a president who drools at the prospect, who fails Democracy, perhaps because Xi figured out how to massage Trump's ego.Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.

See original here

The first year of Donald Trump's presidency has seen innumerable crises develop domestically and throughout the world. There have been several shootings on school campuses. Our elections have been tampered with by Russia, and they're still doing it. Trump is threatening nuclear war with North Korea. And his proposal to impose tariffs (mostly on our allies) sent the stock market into a tailspin.

So what does Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Select Intelligence Committee, consider to be one of the most serious hazards facing America? Well, of course, it's late night television comedy, and specifically Stephen Colbert. Nunes was interviewed on Fox News by their resident Financial Distortion Anchor, Neil Cavuto (video below). The segment had nothing to do with the economy, but it did get to the bottom of the frightening assault on America by radical satirists. It began with this probing exchange:

Cavuto: "You mention that the media doesn't present a fair case of [Trump/Russia]. Maybe the indication of that is that you've recently become the butt of late night comic jokes. Particularly Stephen Colbert was up on Capitol Hill. I think making you the butt of some jokes. What did you think of that? Did Colbert make any effort to talk to you?"



Nunes: "Well, I think that this is the danger that we have in this country. The left controls not only the universities in this country, but they also control Hollywood in this country, and the mainstream media. So conservatives in this country are under attack and I think this is a great example of it."

Exactly. Stephen Colbert absolutely is "the danger" that America faces. And kudos to Cavuto for bringing up this looming peril. Where else but on Fox News could this travesty be exposed? Nunes points out that the reason the nation is undergoing such unprecedented turmoil is that leftists have seized control of the most powerful institutions in the country -- universities and Hollywood -- and are using them to enslave the minds of decent citizens. However, he doesn't explain why these scurrilous lefties allowed Republicans to control the Congress, the Supreme Court, and the White House.

Also unexplained is how the special counsel, Robert Mueller, managed to get (so far) 19 indictments and five guilty pleas connected to his investigation of Trump's unsavory connections to Russia. But rest assured, somehow it's the fault of universities, Hollywood, and Colbert. And Nunes isn't taking it lying down. He doesn't intend to be the butt of anyone's joke, no matter how much he deserves it. In fact, he likes it:

Nunes: "So I hope they continue to do it. Because on the one hand you'll see the left and the media running out there saying 'OMG, this is the end of the world. The Russians attacked our democracy. And we have evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.' However, they can't show it. They have no proof [...] they resort to going to their friends in Hollywood to make fun of people and attack people who are trying to get to the truth. I enjoy the attacks. If they want to continue to attack me, that's fine."

Well, we certainly wouldn't want to disappoint him, would we? Although it's puzzling that he says he enjoys it while simultaneously complaining that it's an unfair attack and a danger to the country. Is he an unpatriotic masochist?

Nunes' remarks were rife with allegations as to the identity of the real colluders -- naturally, Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. And when Cavuto asked him about allegations that he was "doing the President's bidding," he curiously replied "I don't know." Then quickly stammering to add "I mean, we don't get any orders from the White House." Which makes perfect sense. They are probably coming from Mar-A-Lago, where the President spends most of his time.

Nunes went on to praise his committee's work and insisted that he "follows the facts where they lead." So long as they lead to Clinton and the Democrats. He refused to allow his Democratic committee colleagues to call witnesses. And he wouldn't hold White House witnesses accountable when they refused to answer questions. Nunes falsely claimed that 'no one would know ... that Fusion GPS was paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party' but for his efforts. In fact, it was reported by the (fake?) media long before he ever got around to it.

Once again, Fox News uncovers the atrocities in Washington that are neglected by the "mainstream" media (which, for some reason doesn't include Fox News). And heroes like Devin Nunes are permitted time to inform the American people about what is really going on in this gawd-awful country. With journalism like this we will hopefully soon be rid of fake reporters like Colbert who are working tirelessly to destroy America.

Here is the Fox News segment with Cavuto and Nunes:

And here is video of Colbert's trip to Washington, D.C.:Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.

From No More Fake News

People Magazine has the word from on high: "Amid calls for her to consider a run for the White House -- from fans as well as her closest friends -- 'I went into prayer,' she tells PEOPLE in the magazine's new cover story. 'God, if you think I'm supposed to run, you gotta tell me, and it has to be so clear that not even I can miss it. And I haven't gotten that.'"

My article here isn't a scan of strange and questionable and revealing things Oprah has done over the years. It's about the God question, as in:

Why would anyone tell the public she will relay the word of God to them?

Might that not be a bit presumptuous?

The future of America hangs in the balance, and Oprah will let millions know what God has to say about it. He might say, "Run, Oprah, run." Or he might not.

This God is not just Oprah's private counselor, or worse, her subjective projection. No, to Oprah he is THE God. Therefore, what he confides to Oprah applies to everyone. She is the conduit, the priestess, and in this case, also the potential beneficiary of His Word.

My, my. That's some remarkable chutzpah. It sparkles.

It smacks of this: "I'm so important I know people will take my account of what God said as authoritative." Wow.

And also: "I would never make up my mind about running for the presidency on my own. That's out. I'm too humble for that. Instead, I'll refer to, let's see, uh, the Creator of the Universe and what he specifically tells me." Stunning hubris masked as humility. Nice trick.

Oprah is parlaying every tidbit of New Age wisdom she's accumulated and disseminated in her decades of broadcast history, in order to give this "God connection" story some serious legs. It's Oprah, Chapter 3,456: "The Presidency Conundrum and How I Handled It."

I'm trying to imagine myself as an Oprah fan, on the edge of my chair, day after day, waiting for her to come across with the mighty Message from The Lord.

And what would God be thinking? "This woman is now asking me whether she should run for the presidency of the United States? What makes her believe I respond to such questions? I mean, if that's part of my job description, wouldn't I have advised other candidates? Bernie Sanders? Marco Rubio? Jeb? George? Bob Dole? Kasich? What am I? A political pundit?"

Does God tell one candidate from each Party to run? Or does he favor only one candidate in each race? Maybe the Pope can supply some information. He's familiar with this type of higher communication.

Perhaps we should poll the leader of every organized religion in the world. "Should Oprah run?" Every religion believes it has the best (or only) line to God.

Next Page 1 | 2 | 3

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).Congress Switchboard: 202-224-3121

"Stressed? Oppressed? Isolated? Kall's Bottom-Up offers a lifeline for connecting with yourself, with others, and with your whole community or organization so that everyone thrives. He offers compelling science, stories, and insights from business, government, the arts, and more to make visible an unabashedly hopeful bottom-up revolution towards cooperation, compassion, and meaning. Join him."



Peggy Holman, author of Engagement Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity and coauthor of The Change HandbookWould you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.

From WSWS

The past week has seen an unprecedented escalation of the conflicts within the American ruling class, with the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, NBC and other leading corporate media outlets acting as the spearhead for a campaign to cripple the Trump White House.

Trump's inner circle -- his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his daughter Ivanka, his close personal assistant and communications director Hope Hicks -- have been the principal targets of leaked reports from the FBI and other intelligence agencies. These led Tuesday to the downgrading of Kushner's security clearance, the resignation of Hicks Wednesday, and the revelation Thursday that the FBI's counterintelligence unit had opened an investigation into Ivanka Trump's overseas business activities.

Press reports throughout the week have focused on Kushner, heir to a billion-dollar real estate fortune. The Post reported Tuesday that at least four countries, identified as Mexico, Israel, Qatar and China, had discussed using Kushner's business activities as leverage with the Trump White House. The Times published a report Thursday on how two financial institutions made large loans to Kushner real estate operations in 2017 shortly after their CEOs met with Jared Kushner at the White House over financial and tax issues.

The New York Times published Wednesday and Thursday an extraordinary, two-part, 3,000-word statement by its editorial board denouncing the White House role of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, focused on the nepotism of the Trump White House.

It has, of course, not been difficult to implicate the Trump administration in various corrupt and nepotistic themes. However, from the Times, and the sections of the ruling class for which it speaks, such criticisms are thoroughly hypocritical. Trump is a product of the American ruling class; his own personal and financial history exemplifies the financial oligarchy, for which corruption, insider-dealing and nepotism are standard business operations.

NBC News reported Thursday that the Mueller investigation into alleged Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election had begun to scrutinize whether Kushner's "business discussions with foreigners during the presidential transition" shaped White House policy. The network cited claims by witnesses that Mueller investigators had asked about Kushner's business contacts with investors from Turkey and Qatar, among other countries, contacts which could have no direct relation to the question of the alleged Russian hacking or other efforts to assist Trump during the 2016 elections.

Finally, the Washington Post carried a report on its web site Thursday night headlined, "'Jared has faded': Inside the 28 days of tumult that left Kushner badly diminished." The article described an atmosphere of mutual suspicion driven particularly by the Mueller investigation. "Some of his administration colleagues are just more reluctant to have conversations with him or in his company because they're not sure if he's a witness or a target of the Mueller investigation," one unnamed official told the Post.

The targeting of those closest personally to Trump indicates that the political warfare in Washington has reached an unprecedented level of intensity. It is necessary to cut through the personalized and sensationalized elements in the factional warfare in Washington to grasp the real underlying driving forces of this conflict.

As a result of his ever-expanding investigation into the White House, Robert Mueller, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the first 12 years of the "war on terror," has become the most powerful man in America. Mueller exemplifies the vast and sweeping powers that the state intelligence agencies are assuming in conjunction with the Democratic Party's conspiratorial drive to undermine or remove Trump.

As the WSWS has previously explained, the Mueller investigation originated in the opposition of sections of the military-intelligence apparatus, backed by the Democratic Party, to any softening of the anti-Russian national security offensive undertaken in the second term of the Obama administration, particularly in relation to US intervention to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia's main Mideast ally, and the US backing for the fascist-led coup that overthrew a pro-Russian government in Ukraine.

The conflict has broadened, however, to a considerable range of foreign policy issues, including this week's widespread backlash, both internationally and in Wall Street circles, over Trump's declaration Thursday that he intends to impose tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum, followed by tweets celebrating "trade war" as a positive good.

There is not the slightest progressive or democratic content to the campaign by the Democrats, the media and the intelligence agencies to cripple the Trump White House and, if possible, create the conditions to force Trump to leave office. They have not objected to Trump's ferocious attacks on democratic rights, his witch-hunting of immigrants, his attack on social programs like food stamps and Medicaid, or his militaristic threats against North Korea, Iran and China.

On much of the Trump agenda, particularly the tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, the slashing of health, safety and environmental regulations on business, and the record levels of military spending, there is bipartisan agreement in the ruling elite.

But there is mounting concern that Trump is too erratic a figure to be relied on as the "commander-in-chief" of American imperialism, particularly under conditions of a growing movement from below, from the American working class, to oppose the policies of big business and both of the political parties that represent and defend corporate America.

Next Page 1 | 2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.

From Robert Reich Blog



Ayn Rand Quote

(Image by flickr.com) Details DMCA



Donald Trump once said he identified with Ayn Rand's character Howard Roark in "The Fountainhead," an architect so upset that a housing project he designed didn't meet specifications, he had it dynamited.

Others in Trump's circle were influenced by Rand. "Atlas Shrugged" was said to be the favorite book of Rex Tillerson, Trump's secretary of state. Rand also had a major influence on Mike Pompeo, Trump's CIA chief. Trump's first nominee for Secretary of Labor, Andrew Puzder, said he spent much of his free time reading Rand.

The Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, required his staff to read Rand.

Uber's founder and former CEO, Travis Kalanick, has described himself as a Rand follower. Before he was sacked, he applied many of her ideas to Uber's code of values, and even used the cover art for Rand's book "The Fountainhead" as his Twitter avatar.

Who is Ayn Rand and why does she matter? Ayn Rand -- best known for two highly-popular novels still widely read today -- "The Fountainhead," published in 1943, and "Atlas Shrugged," in 1957 -- didn't believe there was a common good. She wrote that selfishness is a virtue, and altruism is an evil that destroys nations.

When Rand offered these ideas they seemed quaint if not far-fetched. Anyone who lived through the prior half century witnessed our interdependence, through depression and war.

After the war we used our seemingly boundless prosperity to finance all sorts of public goods -- schools and universities, a national highway system, and healthcare for the aged and poor (Medicare and Medicaid). We rebuilt war-torn Europe. We sought to guarantee the civil rights and voting rights of African-Americans. We opened doors of opportunity to women. Of course there was a common good. We were living it.

But then, starting in the late 1970s, Rand's views gained ground. She became the intellectual godmother of modern-day American conservatism.

This utter selfishness, this contempt for the public, this win-at-any-cost mentality is eroding American life.

Without adherence to a set of common notions about right and wrong, we're living in a jungle where only the strongest, cleverest, and most unscrupulous get ahead, and where everyone must be wary in order to survive. This is not a society. It's not even a civilization, because there's no civility at its core. It's a disaster.

In other words, we have to understand who Ayn Rand is so we can reject her philosophy and dedicate ourselves to rebuilding the common good.

The idea of the common good was once widely understood and accepted in America. After all, the U.S. Constitution was designed for "We the people" seeking to "promote the general welfare" -- not for "me the selfish jerk seeking as much wealth and power as possible."

Yet today you find growing evidence of its loss -- CEOs who gouge their customers, loot their corporations and defraud investors. Lawyers and accountants who look the other way when corporate clients play fast and loose, who even collude with them to skirt the law.

Next Page 1 | 2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).Quicklink Not Found

Sometimes, authors delete their quicklinks after publishing them.



To see if the quicklink was renamed or re-published, please click here.Progressive Content Not Found

Sometimes, authors delete their progressive content after publishing.



To see if the progressive content was renamed or re-published, please click here.Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.

From To The Point Analyses



Corporate Threat to Liberty

(Image by DonkeyHotey) Details DMCA



Part I -- Freedom as a Recent Idea

For much of human history, the idea of freedom had little meaning. This was because life was, as Thomas Hobbes put it, "poor, nasty, brutish, and short." And while he thought this descriptor applied to life outside of society, for a long time it did not really matter -- life within pre-modern societies often had the same limiting character. Religious belief in these same times reflected this depressing fact by asserting that there was no hope of meaningful freedom in this life. To achieve it you would have to die and go to Heaven. So, what set you free was death.

Around the end of the 18th century, progress in technology and science suggested an alternative to this "life is a vale of tears" scenario. It was at that point that different types of freedoms started to become viable goals. However, as the use of the plural implies, the idea of freedom manifested itself in discrete categories: political freedom, economic freedom (here defined as freedom from want), religious freedom, freedom of speech and press, and so forth. It really had to be this way. Total freedom produces anarchy and -- here is the irony -- anarchy will quickly make any particular freedom meaningless.

Thus it was that over time, as constitutions came into vogue, freedoms were written down, usually in the form of rights. Yet, not surprisingly, their translation into practice often ended up reflecting the needs and desires of the powerful and influential. This was the case whether we are considering democracies or more authoritarian forms of government. This customizing of freedoms by select groups inevitably led to less than satisfactory, and sometimes quite perverse, results.

Let's take a look at an example of such a conceptual deformity taken from the practice in the United States, "the land of the free."

Part II -- Gun Rights -- A Perversion of Freedom

Perhaps the most perverse American definition of freedom is the one that promotes largely unrestricted gun rights. The champion of this definition is the National Rifle Association (NRA). We are not just talking about guns used to shoot at targets or for hunting game. One can actually make an argument for ownership of the latter weapons along the same line as bows and arrows, slingshots and fishing rods. However, according to Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president, freedom demands more. His stand is that citizens have a fundamental right to own almost any firearm, including military-style assault weapons. His position is that this right is the sine qua non of American freedom. And only by exercising it can you really ensure individual freedom.

LaPierre insists that gun ownership is enshrined in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and the NRA has taken an out-of-context fragment of that amendment as its motto-- "The Right of the People to Keep and Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed." The fact that this phrase is part of a comprehensive statement that ties gun ownership to the government's need to maintain "a well regulated militia" is disregarded by the NRA leadership. In truth, if we are to take the Second Amendment in its entirely as describing a discrete "freedom," Mr. LaPierre and his buddies would have to join the National Guard in order to play with guns.

So here is a case where a definition of a freedom or a right has been customized to meet the demands of a politically powerful subgroup of society, and it has had predictably disastrous results. The largely open-ended access of U.S. citizens to military-style weapons has resulted in a prolonged bloodbath. It is estimated that between 2011 and 2014, there was a mass shooting (defined as the killing or wounding of four or more people) in the United States every 64 days. This rate has not slowed down in the last four years. As the world now knows, the latest of these massacres came on 14 February 2018, when 14 high school students and three teachers were shot dead in Parkland, Florida.

Soon after this massacre, Wayne LaPierre gave the NRA's response to those surviving students and their supporters who were demanding greater gun regulation laws. He accused them of being "socialists" who want to make "law abiding" citizens "less free." If these "leftists" manage to "seize power ... our American freedoms could be lost and our country will be changed forever."

LaPierre's answer to the bloodbaths caused by guns is to have more guns. "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun." In the case of the Parkland high school shooting, where, in fact, there was an armed guard present at the school, as well as with previous school shootings, LaPierre's formula translates into arming teachers as a way of "hardening the schools."

By the way, President Trump initially agreed with LaPierre. He too called for arming teachers, suggesting that if 20 percent of teachers were armed and "adept with the firearm, they could end the attack very quickly." Assuming Trump meant giving teachers a sidearm while the usual assailants continue to use military-style automatic weapons, one can only call such a suggestion naive. He also praised the NRA leadership and specifically LaPierre, saying that"they are great people and great American patriots who will do the right thing."

Subsequently, Trump suggested that the country may well need to toughen its gun laws, much to the dismay of all those "patriots" at the NRA. Twenty-four hours later he was back on track with the NRA. Perhaps his flip-flopping was a tactical maneuver. Throw out some reforms and then do nothing. Later he can then say to the general public, perhaps during a reelection campaign, that he proved more willing to sign off on gun control reform than any president in history. Trump is famous for such mendacious hyperboles.

In the end LaPierre and all the the other gun fanatics who whittle their definition of freedom down to the nearly unrestricted right to own weapons are archaic primitives whose idea of freedom harkens back to those pre-civilized times so well described by Thomas Hobbes. In a perpetually dangerous world, one that is "poor, nasty, brutish and short," the armed man is the only one with any chance of being "free." And so, he is the "real man," the man who can protect himself, his family and his country.

Next Page 1 | 2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).Reprinted from www.dailykos.com by Mark Pinsley

On Friday, I was in Harrisburg preparing to submit my petitions to become the Democratic nominee for the Pennsylvania Senate's 16th District. At the same time, news of an underhanded plot broke in the Washington Post about the DCCC's attempt to push a fellow progressive into the primary race against me. They swooped into the area and tried to convince Greg Edwards, the most outspoken progressive, and only candidate of color, to drop out of the PA 7th Congressional race. In an attempt to induce him to meekly surrender to the establishment, they offered him support in the state senate race against me. I am Mark Pinsley, a business owner and progressive activist running against the incumbent PA Senate GOP Appropriations chair from Lehigh County.

The DCCC has no ties or loyalty to the people of the Lehigh Valley. If they had, they would have known that Greg and I had supported each other's campaigns as a unified movement to change politics. The DCCC also called Susan Ellis-Wild's campaign, the only woman in the race who is second in fundraising only to Greg, non-viable without any explanation. They could care less about the children in the Allentown school district, one of the most economically disadvantaged school districts in the nation. They'll be long gone when their plan resulted in losses for the Democrats in the Lehigh Valley up and down the ticket. Their consultants would be wealthier, and they would move on to losing their next race.

The Lehigh Valley has long been the bell-weather of national politics. Lehigh County narrowly voted for Hillary Clinton while neighboring Northampton County elected Trump. In fact, Northampton is one of only 206 'Pivot Counties', places that voted for Obama in '08 and '12 and then swung for Trump in 2016. We are the swing area of one of the most important swing states. But the people of the Lehigh Valley are not moderate, the 2016 primary was a 50-50 split between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

Click Here to Read Whole Article

The chaos the DCCC tried to create here would have destroyed our chances at progressives taking both the Congressional Seat and a State Senate seat. Greg and I share the same progressive platforms. We would have been forced to waste our grassroots dollars on a primary and have nothing left to take on a well-funded GOP incumbent. This interference by the DCCC would have led to us to losing a D+7 State Senate seat in a wave year to a Republican who has voted to make abortion illegal, punish our communities for protecting DACA kids, and tried to bring back predatory payday lenders to Pennsylvania. The DCCC's plan would have suppressed Democratic votes and had painful costs for the struggling people who make Lehigh County their home.

The DCCC has been trying to get progressive candidates out of their congressional races without caring about the costs to the average people depending on them to deliver victories. My campaign and many others that the DCCC is attempting to sabotage are delivering devastating blows to the Republican Party that controls Washington D.C. and the overwhelming majority of State Legislatures across the country. This strategy is winning as evidenced by the many recent elections won by progressives.

But if you are encouraged by all the special election wins nationwide, don't get too excited just yet. The 2018 election cycle is here and all signs point to the Democrats being their own worst enemy. The Democratic party should have learned some lessons after their devastating loss in 2016, but like their GOP colleagues, they seem eager to double down on their failures.

The 2016 election was painful, but it was a symptom of a party that had become increasingly out of touch and tone deaf to its base. Yet in the honored tradition of failing upward in the Democratic party, the people and powerbrokers who failed us in the past found a new home at the DCCC. The DCCC uses the Democratic party label to fundraise and is supposed to use that money to get Democratic candidates elected to Congress. Instead, it funnels much of that money to wealthy consultants who have little connection with the people on the ground. This year they are interfering in Democratic primaries to pick their preferred winners, and it's no coincidence that their picks have consistently been those with deep pockets who represent no threat to the entrenched establishment and their own power.

Nowhere is that battle uglier than the one in the Lehigh Valley's 7th PA Congressional District. In the midst of a Federal trial that ended in the Mayor of Allentown being convicted on 47 of 54 counts of corruption, the DCCC made its preferences known. And it wasn't to support a progressive leading in fundraising as well as organic grassroots support. I know that there is a strong progressive base here after speaking with thousands of the voters at the doors. No matter what your take is on the voters' choices in 2016, there is one thing they all have common, they want government to start working for them and their neighbors. It's shameful and sad that the demand that government work for the people is now too progressive for the Democratic establishment. They need to start listening to their voters instead of talking at them via their wealthy consultants.

Whether you call them DINOs or "Republican-lite", the days of these types of Democrats winning races is over. It ended when they gave us Donald Trump as President. This is not a fight within the local Democrats between Bernie and Hillary supporters who are unified here. It's an attempt by an outside organization to clear the field and give the advantage to a "Democrat" who has been a vocal booster for Trump andis against sanctuary cities. His win would knock the energy out of the Democratic wave in this area. It's time to be bold or go home. I'm running because I believe we need legislators who will fight for the people, not the powerful, and that fight that extends to the corrupt and self-interested regardless of party. The DCCC is on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of this fight. They need to get on board or get out of the way.

Both Greg and I recognize that the system is rigged against us, the candidates representing the people. We're fighting a system that keeps the poor impoverished, makes the sick bankrupt and keeps the well-connected in power. The people of the Lehigh Valley can't afford any more of what the corporate Democrats are selling. Pennsylvania and the country are at a crossroads, and we need to elect fearless progressives and New Deal Democrats who will not take no for answer when we are told we can't have better schools, universal healthcare and stronger unions. We need to get money out of politics and we need to sweep the clean the Democratic party controlled by powerbrokers who want to control the outcome of elections before they even happen. That's why progressive candidates like me need the support of progressives across the country. We're fighting to build a movement but we can't do it without YOU. To support my campaign please visit www.votemarkpinsley.com

This is the fight for the soul of our party and one we cannot afford to lose.

Mark Pinsley

Democratic Candidate

Next Page 1 | 2

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com.

The warnings were stunning. Just six weeks before Nikolas Cruz killed 14 students and three teachers at his former high school in Parkland, Florida, a woman acquainted with him told the FBI tip line "I know he's going to explode" and expressed her fear that he might go to a school and begin "shooting the place up." Six weeks earlier, a family friend had called 911 and expressed fears about Cruz's gun collection. (He managed to accumulate at least 10 rifles, including the AR-15 he took to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.) "I need someone here because I'm afraid he comes back and he has a lot of weapons," said that friend. And late last year, even Cruz himself called 911 in an obvious bid -- at least in retrospect -- for attention and help. ("The thing is I lost my mother a couple of weeks ago, so like I am dealing with a bunch of things right now...")

As we know, none of these incidents, nor reports about Cruz to the local police, including a warning that he might "shoot up" a neighborhood school and that he could be a "school shooter in the making," resulted in the kind of action that might have stopped his future school rampage. But in Donald Trump's America, let me put my money on one thing: if his first name had been Ahmed, not Nikolas -- if he hadn't, that is, been a white male fitting the profile of a future school shooter but of Arabic background or had a name that had an Islamic ring to it -- the FBI and the local police would have been on his doorstep in no time flat.

From the moment Donald Trump rode that Trump Tower escalator into the presidential race in June 2015 and promptly attacked Mexican immigrants as rapists, drug-runners, and criminals, he's conducted a domestic shock-and-awe campaign all the way to the Oval Office and beyond when it comes to immigrants, refugees, and Muslims of more or less any sort. (Ban them!) On such subjects, the relentlessness of the president and his key aides and officials, including White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has nurtured fears of the foreign, the alien, the non-white, and the un-American in this country in a major way. (Note that Nikolas Cruz, too, evidently denigrated Muslims and reportedly mowed a 40-foot swastika into a community field.) All in all, it's been an impressive, all-fronts campaign against those tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free and, as veteran foreign correspondent Arnold Isaacs shows today in his first TomDispatch piece, it extends even to the statistics the administration likes to offer on immigration and terrorism. Tom

Using Fake Facts to Make Us Afraid

On Immigration and Terrorism, the Trump Administration Misleads About Its Own Misleading Data

By Arnold R. Isaacs When you see an immigrant or a foreign visitor, especially from a Muslim country, should your first thought be that you might be looking at a possible terrorist? Clearly, that's how the Trump administration wants Americans to react. It was the message in the president's first address to Congress a year ago last week when he declared that "the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country." At that time, he urged that the U.S. immigration system be reshaped because "we cannot allow a beachhead of terrorism to form inside America." There's a misleading omission in Trump's formulation, though: homegrown fanatics have killed many more Americans on U.S. soil than foreign-born terrorists have. The disparity grows much wider if you include mass killings carried out not for any religious or ideological cause but (as we have recently been tragically reminded) by mentally troubled individuals. Indeed, in just two such shootings in the last five months in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Parkland, Florida, deranged shooters with assault rifles killed more than three times as many people as all foreign-born jihadists have killed in this country in the last 16 years. Another key fact is missing, too: only a fairly small number of those "terror-related" convictions were for acts committed or planned in the United States. Many more involved support, in various forms, for terrorist activity in other countries. Still, Trump and his associates have repeatedly declared that terrorists sneaking into the country through a too-lax immigration system are a pressing threat to public safety in the United States. That was, for instance, the administration's principal headline earlier this year when it released a report from the Justice and Homeland Security departments, which claimed that nearly three out of every four individuals convicted in international terror cases in U.S. federal courts from 9/11 through 2016 were foreign born -- a total of 402, by their count. Announcing that report, Attorney General Jeff Sessions proclaimed that it highlighted the ways in which "our immigration system has undermined our national security and public safety." In the same press release, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen warned that the United States "cannot continue to rely on immigration policy based on pre-9/11 thinking that leaves us woefully vulnerable to foreign-born terrorists." Those and a long list of similar statements range from simply misleading to completely false. The deceptions occur in two stages. As a start, the data compiled within government agencies significantly overstate the incidence of Islamist terrorism in this country. Then the president and his associates regularly misrepresent what that already flawed data actually tells us, leaving the truth even farther behind. "Terror-Related Cases" That Have No Relation to Terrorism The basic database on which Trump and his associates rely is the "Chart of Public/Unsealed International Terrorism and Terrorism-Related Convictions." It's compiled and updated every year by the Justice Department's National Security Division and lists defendants convicted on federal charges in cases since September 11, 2001. Despite its title, the list includes a significant number of cases that are verifiably not terrorism-related and a good many more in which a terrorism connection was not only not proved but remains highly unlikely. Take Ansar Mahmood's case. It's far from the only example, but what makes it unusual is that the public record includes an explicit official acknowledgement that terrorism turned out not to be involved. Mahmood, a 24-year-old legal immigrant from Pakistan, came under suspicion a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks when he was noticed taking photographs at a scenic spot along New York's Hudson River. A nervous security guard called the police to report that a Muslim-looking man might be taking pictures of a nearby reservoir and water treatment facility. He was soon picked up, but investigators quickly concluded that he had no connection whatsoever to terrorism. They did, however, turn up evidence that he had registered a car and cosigned an apartment lease for a Pakistani couple who had overstayed their non-immigrant visas and were in the United States illegally. He was quickly charged with "harboring aliens," a deportable offense, and convicted. After a drawn-out appeal process, Mahmood was deported in 2005.

Next Page 1 | 2 | 3

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).Would you like to know how many people have read this article? Or how reputable the author is? Simply sign up for a Advocate premium membership and you'll automatically see this data on every article. Plus a lot more, too.

This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To receive TomDispatch in your inbox three times a week, click here.

The Ultimate Blowback Universe

A Planet Boiling With Unintended Consequences

By Tom Engelhardt

You want to see "blowback" in action? That's easy enough. All you need is a vague sense of how Google Search works. Then type into it phrases like "warmest years," "rising sea levels," "melting ice," "lengthening wildfire season," or "future climate refugees," and you'll find yourself immersed in the grimmest of blowback universes. It's a world which should give that CIA term of tradecraft a meaning even the Agency never imagined for it.

But before I put you on this blowback planet of ours and introduce you to the blowback president presiding over it, I want to take a moment to remember Mr. Blowback himself.

And what a guy he was! Here's how he described himself in the last piece he wrote for TomDispatch just months before his death in November 2010: "My own role these past 20 years has been that of Cassandra, whom the gods gave the gift of foreseeing the future, but also cursed because no one believed her."

He wasn't being immodest. He had, in many ways, seen the shape of things to come for what he never hesitated to call "the American empire," including -- in that 2010 piece -- its decline. As he wrote then, "Thirty-five years from now, America's official century of being top dog (1945-2045) will have come to an end; its time may, in fact, be running out right now. We are likely to begin to look ever more like a giant version of England at the end of its imperial run, as we come face to face with, if not necessarily to terms with, our aging infrastructure, declining international clout, and sagging economy."

You know how -- if you're of a certain age at least -- there are those moments when you go back to the books that truly mattered to you, the ones that somehow prepared you, as best anyone can be prepared, for the years to come. One I return to regularly is his. I'm talking about Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire.

The man who wrote that was Chalmers Johnson, a former CIA consultant and an eminent scholar of modern Asian history, who would in that work characterize himself in his former life as a "spear-carrier for empire."

Blowback was published in 2000 to next to no notice. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, however, it became a bestseller. There was so much to learn from it, starting with the very definition of blowback, a word he brought out of the secret world for the rest of us to consider. "The term 'blowback,' which officials of the Central Intelligence Agency first invented for their own internal use," he wrote, "refers to the unintended consequences of policies that were kept secret from the American people. What the daily press reports as the malign acts of 'terrorists' or 'drug lords' or 'rogue states' or 'illegal arms merchants' often turn out to be blowback from earlier American operations."

And if "unintended consequences" isn't a supremely appropriate title under which to write the misbegotten history of the years that followed 9/11 in the era of the self-proclaimed "sole superpower" or, as American politicians love to say, "the indispensable nation," what is? Of course, in the best blowback fashion, al-Qaeda's attacks of that day hit this country like literal bolts from the blue -- even the top officials of George W. Bush's administration were stunned as they scurried for cover. Of all Americans, they at least should have been better prepared, given the warning offered to the president only weeks earlier by that blowback center of operations, the CIA. ("Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." was the title of the presidential daily brief of August 6, 2001.)

Osama bin Laden would prove to be the poster boy of blowback. His organization, al-Qaeda, would be nurtured into existence by an all-American urge to give the Soviet Union its own Vietnam, what its leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, would later call its "bleeding wound," and to do so in, of all places, Afghanistan. In October 2001, 12 years after the Red Army limped out of that country in defeat and a decade after the Soviet Union imploded, in part thanks to that very wound, Washington would launch a "Global War on Terror." It would be the Bush administration's response to al-Qaeda's supposedly inexplicable attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. The Taliban's Afghanistan would be its first target and so would begin America's second Afghan War, a conflict now almost 17 years old with no end in sight. Yet in our American world, remarkably few connections are ever made between the present war and that blowback moment against the Soviets nearly 40 years ago. (Were he alive, Chalmers Johnson, who never ceased to make such connections, would have been grimly amused.)

Giving Imperial Overstretch New Meaning

Talk about the endless ramifications of blowback. It was bin Laden's genius -- for a mere $400,000 to $500,000 -- to goad Washington into spending trillions of dollars across significant parts of the Islamic world fighting conflict after conflict, all of which only seemed to create yet more rubble, terror outfits, and refugees (who, in turn, have helped fuel yet more right-wing populist movements from Europe to Donald Trump's America). Tell me it's not a blowback world!

As it happened, bin Laden's 2001 attacks brought official Washington not to its knees but to its deepest post-Cold War conviction: that the world was its oyster; that, for the first time in history, a single great power potentially had it all, a shot at everything, starting with Afghanistan, followed by Iraq, then much of the rest of the Middle East, and sooner or later the whole planet. In a post-Soviet world in which America's leaders felt the deepest sense of triumphalism, the 9/11 attacks seemed like the ultimate insult. Who would dream of doing such a thing to the greatest power of all of time?

In an act of pure wizardry, bin Laden drew out of Bush, Cheney, and company their deepest geopolitical fantasies about the ability of that all-powerful country and, in particular, "the greatest force for freedom in the history of the world," the U.S. military, to dominate any situation on Earth. The early months of 2003, when they were preparing to invade Saddam Hussein's Iraq, may have been their ultimate hubristic moment, in which imagining anything other than success of a historic sort, not just in that country but far beyond it, was inconceivable.

Until then, never -- except in Hollywood movies when the bad guy rubbed his hands with glee and cackled that the world was his -- had any power truly dreamed of taking it all, of ruling, or at least directing, the planet itself. Even for a globalizing great power without rivals and wealthy almost beyond compare that would prove the ultimate in conceptual overstretch. Looking back, it's easy enough to see that almost 17 years of ceaseless war and conflict across the Greater Middle East, Africa, and even parts of Asia, of massive destruction, of multiplying failed states, of burgeoning terror outfits, and of blowback of every sort, have given the old phrase, "biting off more than you can chew," new geopolitical meaning.

Next Page 1 | 2 | 3

(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).Clinical Results of Neurodegenerative Study

http://www.sympath-project.eu/

http://www.multisyn.eu/

www.affiris.com

http://www.affiris.com/

http://www.prd.at/

AFFiRiS Announces Results of a Phase I Clinical Study Using AFFITOPEs PD01A and PD03A, Confirming Safety and Tolerability for Both Compounds as well as Immunogenicity for PD01A in Early MSA patients AFFITOPEs PD01A and PD03A Safe and Well Tolerated: Primary Endpoint of Phase I Study Met Immune Response against AFFITOPE PD01A and Alpha-Synuclein Seen in Patients with Early Multiple System Atrophy (MSA), an Orphan Disease Prof. Wassilios Meissner, Principal Investigator of the Study and Leading MSA Expert, Presented Results at Todays "Disease Modifying Treatments in the Pipeline" Session of the 6th Multiple System Atrophy Congress in New YorkVIENNA, Austria, March 01, 2018  AFFiRiS AG, a pharmaceutical company developing specific active immunotherapies (SAITs) for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, announces results of their pilot phase 1 randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel group, patient-blinded, bi-center study, assessing the safety and exploring the immunogenicity and therapeutic activity of AFFITOPEs PD01A and PD03A, new SAITs against alpha-Synuclein (aSyn), in patients with early Multiple System Atrophy.The study was part of SYMPATH, a collaboration of eight academic and industry partners within the 7th framework of the EU, funded by an  6 Mio grant.AFFITOPEs PD01A and PD03A are synthetically produced alpha-Synuclein (aSyn)-mimicking peptide active immunotherapies. In study AFFiRiS009, 30 patients were randomized to either AFFITOPE PD01A (75g), AFFITOPE PD03A (75g) or to the placebo group treated with Alhydrogel (aluminium hydroxide) alone. Patients received 5 injections, 4 for priming every 4 weeks and the 5th as boost immunization 9 months after the first immunization in an outpatient setting. Key objectives were to show safety and tolerability as well as immunogenicity of AFFITOPEs PD01A and PD03A.Summary of key results: The data presented today by Prof. Wassilios Meissner at the 6th MSA congress in New York are from the pilot phase 1 study in patients with early MSA treated with 5 applications of either AFFITOPE PD01A or PD03A over a period of 36 weeks. The primary endpoint of the trial was safety and tolerability of repeated s.c. administration of AFFITOPEs PD01A or PD03A. A total of 30 patients were enrolled with 6 patients of the active treatment groups discontinuing early. At screening, the average time of MSA after first diagnosis was between 0.6-0.8 years. Patients were allowed to continue their standard of care MSA medication.Safety and Tolerability: Both AFFITOPEs PD01A and PD03A were locally and systemically well tolerated. Two patients died during study participation and one patient shortly afterward. This is in line with the safety results of other MSA trials reporting a mortality rate of up to 10%. No evidence of significantly more progression of motor impairment was seen in the active treatment groups compared to the placebo group. No other safety signals (including data from imaging and safety lab) were reported. Overall, the extensive monitoring of patient's safety during study AFF009 did not evidence any safety concern associated with AFFITOPE PD01A and PD03A administration. The majority of adverse events (AE), appr. 30%, were local reactions (LRs), the great majority of LRs being only mild.Immunogenic Profile: AFFITOPE PD01A showed a clear immune response against the peptide itself and cross-reactivity against aSyn targeted epitope over time, and showed antibody reactivation upon booster immunization. Regarding the immunogenicity of AFFITOPE PD03A, no significant differences were seen compared to placebo.Conclusions: AFFITOPEs PD01A and PD03A were well tolerated in early MSA patients. PD01A induced a clear immune response versus the peptide itself and aSyn epitope."The safety profile of both compounds are in line with our expectations and similar to what we have seen in other MSA studies with a follow-up period of 52 weeks" stated Prof. Wassilios Meissner, PI of the study, Chairman of the French Reference Center for MSA at the Bordeaux University Hospital, and leading MSA expert. "The immunogenicity profile of AFFITOPE PD01A looks encouraging and seems to indicate that patients with early MSA elicit an antibody response specific to alpha-Synuclein, a protein that is believed to be contributing to the pathogenesis of the disorder." Oliver Siegel, CEO of AFFiRiS AG explained: "Further clinical development of PD01A will focus on its pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic properties in synucleinopathies. The board will take a decision on the next clinical trial once we have further consulted with our key opinion leaders and after having evaluated the results of all our studies."About AFFITOPEs PD01A and PD03A:AFFITOPEs PD01A and PD03A target the protein aSyn, which plays a key role in the onset and progression of Multiple System Atrophy (MSA), as well as Parkinson's Disease (PD). Both AFFITOPE PD01A and PD03A are specific active immunotherapies and have been studied in phase I studies. So far, 98 PD and MSA patients have participated in studies investigating either AFFITOPE PD01A or PD03A. During these phase I studies patients were observed for up to 48 months (AFFITOPE PD01A) or 12 months (AFFITOPE PD03A), respectively, with regard to long-term safety, immunological and clinical parameters.About SYMPATH:AFFiRiS has launched the collaborative research project SYMPATH with funding from FP7 to forward the clinical development of the aSyn targeting vaccines AFFITOPE PD01A and PD03A together with experts from three European countries including Austria, Germany and France. SYMPATH implemented a tandem phase I program to evaluate the safety and explore the activity of these two active immunotherapy candidates in humans. A part of the program is devoted to the identification of biomarkers with diagnostic and prognostic values. The causes of both, MSA and PD, are not fully understood and currently there are no treatment options available to alter the courses of the diseases.About AFFiRiS AG:On the basis of its proprietary patented AFFITOME technology, AFFiRiS develops preventative and therapeutic peptide vaccines against chronic diseases. Its clinical pipeline consists of four vaccine candidates against PD, MSA and Atherosclerosis. Further vaccine candidates against Alzheimer as well as Huntington's Disease are in preclinical development. AFFiRiS has been able to attract funding of approx.  165 Mio to date, half of which comes from license income and government grants. AFFiRiS is part of a consortium receiving funding from the European Union's 7th Framework Programme under SYMPATH Grant Agreement No. 602999 () and MULTISYN Grant Agreement No. 602646 (). AFFiRiS currently employs 60 highly qualified staff at the Campus Vienna Biocenter in Vienna, Austria.Contact AFFiRiS AG:Bettina WessaKarl-Farkas-Gasse 221030 Vienna, AustriaT +43 / (0)1 / 798 15 75  300E bettina.wessa@affiris.comDistribution:PR&D  Public Relations for Research & Education Mariannengasse 81090 Vienna, AustriaT +43 / (0)1 / 505 70 44E contact@prd.at WAgency for Science and ResearchMariannengasse 81090 WienAutomotive Rubber Molded Components Market : Lucrative Opportunities Across Various Industry

Automotive Rubber Molded Components Market

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/automotive-rubber-molded-components-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=22214

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Manufacturing of rubber products has increased significantly across the world. Development of the rubber industry is ascribed to factors such as spatial distribution of resources, technological sophistication in manufacturing, and introduction of wide range of industrially focused products. The manufacture of rubber products can be divided into tire manufacturing and non-tire manufacturing. The non-tire manufacturing segment produces sophisticated and high technology products by molding the uncured rubber, while tire manufacturing segment comprises automotive tire production.Rubber molding can be defined as the process wherein uncured rubber, usually with inserts of textile, metal, or plastics is cured under high pressure in a mold of desired shape. Most automotive rubber components are manufactured through the molding processes. Generally, three types of rubber molding processes are used: compression, injection, and transfer molding. Under the compression molding process, the uncured rubber is placed in a mold with the sample under pressure for vulcanization. After vulcanization, cavity pressure is applied to the slightly overfilled mold. It is then held closely in a hydraulic press under heated environment to design the shape of the rubber. Injection molding is a semi-continuous process. Piston system and an extruder are combined with heat suppliers in a rubber reservoir, wherein curing of the rubber is done and piston system continuously extrudes the molded rubber out after undergoing all the process. Some basic instructions, such as optimization of the compounds before curing and pressure maintenance of the mold, should be followed during the injection rubber molding process.Browse Research Report With Complete TOC @The automotive rubber molded components market is expanding globally due to rapid industrialization and globalization and introduction of the latest and cost efficient technologies. The global automotive rubber molded components market is projected to generate revenue of more than US$75 Mn by the end of 2017. Recent growing demand for environmental friendly, and fuel efficient vehicles is driving the market for automotive rubber molded components. Many chemical companies are coming up with better molding processes for the automotive rubber molded components manufacturing and it is expected to generate the annual revenue of more than USD 50 billion by the end of 2022. Technological breakthroughs such as development of environmentally-friendly rubber parts using vegetable soy oil, and the use of EPDM rubber are boosting the market for automotive rubber molded components. Furthermore, implementation of stringent automotive emissions norms has compelled the automotive sector to produce more efficient vehicles with lower carbon emissions. This is expected to significantly augment the market for lightweight automotive materials made from rubber-molded components. EPDM rubber molds are more durable vis-a-vis the conventional molded rubber parts. They can also withstand high pressure conditions and offer excellent impact resistance and stiffness. This is likely to encourage automakers to adopt EPDM-based molded rubber components. Molded rubber components can significantly reduce the weight of the automotive product and also provide help in reduction of vibrations. Shortage of advanced raw materials in emerging economies and fluctuation in prices of raw materials are the major restraints of the automotive rubber molded components market.Request a PDF Brochure with Research Report Analysis @AB SKF, Continental AG, Cooper-Standard Automotive, DANA Holding s Corporation, and NOK Corporation are the key players operating in the global automotive rubber molded components market. Improvements in the EPA regulations and CAFE standards in The U.S. are also projected to boost the help automotive industry. The automotive rubber molded components market in Asia-Pacific is expanding due to the growth in the automotive industry in India and China; these countries have emerged as major global automotive components manufacturing hubs. Supportive government reforms in these countries have encouraged small and medium scale players to enter the rubber molding market.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Cellulose Ether Market : Rapidly gaining importance in the global industry 2016 - 2024

Cellulose Ether Market

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/cellulose-ether-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=786

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Cellulose ether is produced from refined, short cotton fibers or wood fibers. Cellulose ether is a water-soluble polymer, which has high molecular weight. It is produced through the chemical modification of cellulose. Cellulose ether has several characteristics such as water solubility, surface activity, binding, water retention, pH stability, and emulsification. These properties differ on the basis of the type of cellulose used for the production of cellulose ether. The manufacturing process of cellulose ether is a complex procedure, which starts with the extraction of cellulose from raw materials. The extracted cellulose is then converted into alkaline cellulose under the action of sodium hydroxide, which is then treated with etherifying agents to get cellulose ether. Cellulose ethers are known for their efficiency and they often give better performance at low concentration in comparison with other water-soluble polymers.Based on solubility, the cellulosic ether market can be segregated into water-soluble solvents and organic solvents. Based on product type, the market has been segregated into ethyl cellulose, methyl cellulose, carboxyl methyl cellulose, hydroxyl propyl methyl cellulose, and hydroxyl ethyl methyl cellulose. In terms of application, the market for cellulose ether can be divided into construction, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, daily chemicals, ceramics, paints & coatings, surface coatings, food & beverages, and detergents.Browse Research Report With Complete TOC @The market for cellulose ether is anticipated to expand at a significant pace during the forecast period, owing to unique properties of cellulose ether, which cannot be substituted with any other, economical alternative. Additionally, the availability of raw materials required for the production of cellulose ether and low cost of production can propel the global demand for cellulose ether during the forecast period. Properties of cellulose ether including surface activity make it act as a stabilizer as well as a thickener in aqueous solutions. This makes cellulose ether useful in various industries such as PVC products, cosmetics, construction, and petroleum.Among product types, the carboxyl methyl cellulose segment held a significant share of the cellulose ether market in 2015 and is projected to maintain its leading position during the forecast period. This is attributable to major uses of cellulose ether in pharmaceuticals, industrial, personal care, and food & beverages sectors. Among applications, construction and food & beverages segments are expanding at a significant rate, owing to the increasing population coupled with rising standards of living.Although demand for cellulose ether is increasing, some factors can hinder the growth of the cellulose ether market during the forecast period. Low-priced guar gum, which is used as an alternative for cellulose ether, can hinder its usage in several industries such as paints & coatings and food & beverages.Geographically, Asia Pacific held a key share of the global cellulose ether market in 2015. The market in the region is projected to expand at a rapid pace, owing to presence of emerging economies such as India and China in the region. Increasing population coupled with the availability of cheap labor required for the production of cellulose ether can fuel the demand for cellulose ether in Asia Pacific. Growth of application sectors such as pharmaceuticals, food & beverages, construction, and personal care is driving the cellulose ether market in Asia Pacific.Request a PDF Brochure with Research Report Analysis @The markets in North America and Europe are mature and are expected to witness moderate growth during the forecast period, owing to saturation of the markets. Major players operating in the market for cellulose ether are strategizing to shift their production facilities to emerging economies of Asia Pacific such as Malaysia, China, and India. This can be attributed to the low cost of production of cellulose ether and easy availability of raw materials in these countries.Major players operating in the global market for cellulose ether are The Dow Chemical Company, Ashland, Akzo Nobel N.V., and Shin-Etsu Chemical Co.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Barley Market Professional Survey and In-depth Analysis Research Report Forecast to 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=10736

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/barley-market.html

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Barley, a versatile, cereal grain that has a rich, nutlike flavor. The chewy consistency of the grain lends it a pasta-like appeal. The appearance of barley is akin to wheat berries, only a little lighter in color. When sprouted, barley is naturally very high in maltose. This sugar acts as the base for malt as well as syrup sweetener. When barley is fermented, it makes for a suitable ingredient in beer and numerous other alcoholic beverages. Over the years, several scientific studies have established that barley can help mitigate the risk of diseases and lend other health benefits.Barley provides many of the healthy vitamins and minerals that other whole grains do. It is also an important source of carbohydrates, vitamin C, fatty oils, and proteins. This makes it an ingredient with several uses in the food industry. Traditionally, was primarily used as a food grain but its other uses as a natural sweetener and a brewing ingredient became known. Today, barley malt is extensively used for producing alcoholic beverages.Download PDF Brochure @Global Barley Market: Drivers and RestraintsAn uptick in the demand for barley malt for the manufacture of alcoholic beverages is acting as a high-impact driver for the global barley market. This market is also propelled by the heightened demand for different kinds of convenience food products, emerging applications in the F&B industry, clean label trends, and an escalating demand for natural ingredients.With consumers becoming more health conscious, they are cutting back on the consumption of alcohol and spirits, which is causing an adverse impact on the demand for barley malt. This has hampered the overall demand for barley, tugging the market in the downward direction. Moreover, there are other negative factors at play in the global barley market. These include: declining soil fertility, pest and disease infestation, and drastic changes in the climate. All of these have affected barley yields.Global Barley Market: SegmentationThe global barley market can be segmented based on grade, type, application end use, and the method of barley cultivation. Based on type, the barley market can be segmented as hulless, covered, six-row barley, and two-row barley. Basis grade, the market for barley can be segmented into food grade, malt grade, and feed grade. Likewise, on the basis of application, this market can be segmented into: animal feed, food & beverages, seed industry, nutraceuticals, and pharmaceuticals. Similarly, based on the method of cultivation, barley beans have been segmented as organic and inorganic.Barley Market: Region Wise OutlookGeographically, the market for barley can be segmented into seven regions: Latin America, North America, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan, and the Middle East and Africa (MEA).As of crop year 2014-15, Australia stood as the leading producer of barley in the world. Its key trading partner was identified as China. The former supplied a major share of its barley produce to China. Besides China, Australia exported appreciable volume of barley in 2014 to Saudi Arabia, Japan, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates. France and Ukraine were also ranked among the leading suppliers of barley worldwide in 2014.Obtain Report Details @Barley Market: Key PlayersAmong the key players that operate across the barley market value chain are: Cargill, Incorporated, Axereal Group, Malteurop Group, Grain crop Limited, Crisp Malting Group, Soufflet Group, Ireks Gmbh, Global Malt Gmbh & Co. Kg, and Muntons Plc.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Dipyridamole Market : Structure and Overview of Key Market Forces Propelling Market | 2016 - 2024

Dipyridamole Market

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/dipyridamole-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=22253

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Dipyridamole is a yellow, odorless, and bitter-tasting crystalline powder. Dipyridamole is an oral antiplatelet drug. It is soluble in dilute acids, chloroform, and methanol but does not dissolve in water. Dipyridamole is a drug used in combination with blood thinners such as warfarin or aspirin to prevent the formation of clots after the replacement of the heart valve. Clots are a serious medical complication which could cause heart attacks, strokes, or blocking of blood vessels in the lungs. Dipyridamole is an anti-platelet drug which maintains a constant blood flow by stopping platelets from forming a clump and keeping the blood vessels open. Dipyridamole is used to treat and prevent myocardial reinfarction, blood clots in the brain, obstruction of blood vessels by blood clots, and transient ischemic attacks. Side effects of this drug include dizziness, stomach upsets, diarrhea, vomiting, headaches, and flushing.Browse Research Report With Complete TOC @Dipyridamole tablets are platelet inhibitors. Each tablet contains 25 mg, 50 mg, or 75 mg of dipyridamole. Inactive ingredients present in these tablets include colloidal silicon dioxide, hypromellose, lactose monohydrate, polyethylene glycol, sodium starch glycolate, pregelatinized starch, povidone, magnesium stearate, talc, and titanium oxide. Dipyridamole increases the power of prostacyclin by preventing the phosphodiesterase enzyme activity which increases the intracellular cAMP levels. It inhibits the cellular uptake of adenosine which acts on coronary vessels and is used to evaluate coronary artery diseases in patients who cannot exercise satisfactorily and increase the blood flow to their hearts, simulating exercise.Dipyridamole exhibits several side-effects on reacting with other medicines such as theophylline, adenosine, and anticholinesterases, which may decrease its effectiveness. There are several precautions that need to be followed while consuming the dipyridamole tablet, especially in cases of low blood pressure, drug allergies, while taking aspirin or vitamin doses, and in pregnancy. It could cause severe allergic reactions such as itching, difficulty in breathing, swelling of the mouth, tightness in the chest, swelling of the face, swelling of the lips or tongue, irregular or slow heartbeats, weakness, and chest pain. One of the adverse effect of using dipyridamole is that it increases the risk of bleeding, so in order to stop the bleeding it is taken in combination with aspirin. Dipyridamole tablets should be used cautiously by patients with hypotension as they can produce peripheral vasodilation. Dipyridamole is available on special cases for the patients who have prosthetic heart valves after coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG).Request a PDF Brochure with Research Report Analysis @North America and Europe are dominant in terms of drug production, and the dipyridamole market in these regions are predicted to develop vastly. According to a survey conducted by the national institute of health, Americans are at a severe risk of suffering from strokes over the forecast period. Therefore, a pharmaceutical company recently launched an aspirin/extended-release dipyridamole which is projected to reduce the risk of heart attacks. The consumption of this drug in Asia Pacific is also prominent, especially in China and India, in terms of registered diseases on a year-on-year basis. The rest of the world accounts for a minor share in the dipyridamole market; however, the market is anticipated to develop widely in the next few years.Key players operating in dipyridamole market are Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd, Taj Pharmaceuticals Limited, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., and Global Pharmaceuticals.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Malt Ingredients Market Estimated to Flourish by 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=5132

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/malt-ingredients-market.html

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Malting is the procedure of converting cereal grains such as barley and wheat into malt, which may be utilized in applications such as brewing, distilling, and in manufacturing foods. The cereal grains are germinated by soaking them in water and consequently allowing them to sprout. Following this, they are dried with warm air.During the malting process, grain starches are transformed in simple sugars including glucose and fructose. Malt components are utilized by leading food and beverage enterprises in the form of food additives, which impart a palatable taste and color to the end product. The use of this ingredient also facilitates the modification or stabilization of the texture of various F&B products. The rising number of new food products launched on the market, especially those containing organic and herbal ingredients, as well as the growing demand for completely natural foods is creating new possibilities in the malt ingredient marketplace.Download PDF Brochure @Global Malt Ingredients Market: SegmentationThe malt ingredients market can be segmented basis source into the following: wheat, barley, and others (such as rye). Barley is commonly used as a base ingredient in the malting process. Likewise, wheat grains are also used for malting as they feature more proteins. The malt ingredients market can also be segmented on the premise of grade into special grade and standard grade malts (which as are also referred to as base malts). Of these two types of malts, it is the base malts that have diastatic power, which helps them convert their naturally occurring starches. On the other hand, specialty malts have very little diastatic power  this makes them integral to the flavor and color of the end product.Based on type of malt ingredients, the market can be segmented into: flour, liquid malt, dry malt, and others (such as flakes). Dry malt powder is widely used in numerous powder premixes and bakery products. The use of liquid malts is commonly made in syrups and toppings used on ice creams. Furthermore, flakes are typically sprinkled on bakery products as toppings. The market for malt ingredients can also be segmented on the basis of end use applications into the following: bakery and confectionary products, food products, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, dairy and frozen products, and others (such as animal feed and pharmaceuticals).Malt Ingredients Market: Region-wise OutlookSegmented on the basis of region, the global malt ingredients market can be divided into: North America, Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, Western Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Japan. The global malt ingredients market has been projected to display vigorous growth all through 2025 on account of the rising demand for different packaged foods and ready-to-eat products. With an increase in the amount of packaged food consumed and an upswing in the sales of non-alcoholic beer, the market for malt ingredients worldwide is predicted to follow a steady growth trajectory. Europe, especially, is expected to perform well and dominate the global market through the forecast period. The markets of Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) will also register robust growth thanks largely to the mounting demand for non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks. New products under development in the dairy premixes and the soaring popularity of malt-based drinks formulated for kids will stimulate the malt ingredient markets growth.Global Malt Ingredients Market: DriversThe exploding population across the globe has positively impacted the demand for food, thus having a cascading effect on the demand for various ingredients used in the F&B sector. There is a spike in the number of health conscious consumers, too. This is helping the growth of the market.An uptick in the sales of malt beer and other dairy products that are malt-based will substantially drive the malt ingredients market, it is expected.Obtain Report Details @Malt Ingredients Market: Key PlayersThe top companies that have gained a foothold in the malt ingredients market are: Cargill Incorporated, Axereal, Global Malt GmbH & Co. Kg, Crisp Malting Group, Ireks GmbH, Muntons PLC, Malteurop Group, and Simpsons Malt Ltd.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Smoke Ingredients for Food Market- Competitive Landscape & Growth Opportunities 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=10757

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/smoke-ingredients-food-market.html

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

In order to lend a smoky flavor to various foods, smoke ingredients are used. These ingredients are typically added to foods that cannot actually be roasted or grilled but still need to carry a smoky flavor. Liquid smoke, which is, obtained through the combustion of different types of hard woods, including beech, maple, hickory plants, or oak, is thus an ingredient that is finding newer applications.During the combustion process, the process condensate is separately collected. This ingredient thus obtained is known as liquid smoke. In the food industry, processes such as barbequing and grilling also put the food at risk of burning. However, this issue can be allayed with the use of standard smoke ingredients. They thus help food manufacturers to lend different flavors to their products while optimizing production.Download PDF Brochure @Moreover, the use of smoke ingredients also ensures that taste remains consistent from batch to batch. These ingredients help expedite the maillard reaction, add roasted aromas, and help develop the right color.Smoke ingredients can include smoke, grill, natural hardwood sources, and hickory. These ingredients are widely employed in drenching or showering flavors, atomization, dry forms, and direct addition. Their use is seen at different processing stages. Some of the common products where smoke ingredients are used include: poultry, meat, sauces, seafood, seasonings, snacks, bread, dressings, and crackers.Smoke Ingredients for Food Market: Key SegmentsThe market for smoke ingredients can be classified based on the criteria of form (liquid, powder, oil and others such as concentrates and emulsions). Of the various forms of smoke ingredients, the use of liquid smoke ingredients is the widest. This can be ascribed to its easy handling and its high solubility in water. It thus generates the highest revenue share in the market.The use of smoke ingredients in the form of powders is made by combining them with spice mixes, salts, and colorants. Kosher salts are widely used in the form of powders. The use of concentrate smoke ingredients is typically made in extremely small quantities; when they need to be applied to meat products, they are usually sprayed on.The most commonly used medium for applying smoke ingredients is oil. The use of smoking oil is made for capturing fumes so as to trap the flavor in it. Moreover, the F&B industry also uses smoked oils in numerous barbeque flavored products, which are becoming popular worldwide. Products such as bacon, marinades, cheeses, and sausages are available in such flavors.By application, the market for smoke ingredients is further segmented into bakery and confectionery, dairy, meat and seafood, and others (snacks and sauces). Of all of these segments, the segment of meat and seafood has stimulated the highest demand for smoke ingredients. The share of the bakery and confectionery segment is projected to rise through the forecast period. The use of smoke ingredients to lend a unique flavor to hard boiled candy is the latest trend.Smoke Ingredients for Food Market: Region-wise OutlookBy region, the market for smoke ingredients for food comprises: Latin America, North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Japan, Asia Pacific excluding Japan, and the Middle East and Africa. The markets of Europe and North America have reached a stage of maturity. On the other hand, there is a growing demand for smoke ingredients in the food industry in Asia Pacific. There is a high demand in this region for ready-to-eat products.Obtain Report Details @Smoke Ingredients for Food Market: Leading PlayersThe top players with an international presence in the global smoke ingredients for food market are: Associated British Foods plc., Azelis, Dempsey Corporation, Besmoke, Kerry Ingredients , FRUTAROM Savory Solutions GmbH, Redbrook Ingredient Services, Red Arrow, and WIBERG GmbH.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Expanded Polypropylene (EPP) Foam Market : Rising Need for Business Agility 2016-2024

Expanded Polypropylene (EPP) Foam Market

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/expanded-polypropylene-foam-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/expanded-polypropylene-foam-market.htmle

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=22271

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Expanded polypropylene (EPP) foam is a form of polypropylene. EPP can resume its shape after several impacts. Thus, it has the ability to absorb massive impacts, which makes it an ideal material for the aviation modelling and radio-controlled vehicles, globally. EPP foam is produced by using the compression steam chest molding technique. Beads of different sizes are fused together through the use of this molding technique, resulting in a strong and lightweight product. Polypropylene, also known as polypropene, is a thermoplastic polymer. It is used in various applications in packaging and textile industries.EPP is highly versatile and fully recyclable. Its other properties include excellent energy absorption, buoyancy, impact resistance, thermal insulation, water and chemical resistance, and high strength-to-weight ratio. EPP can be manufactured with a wide range of densities ranging from 10 to 180 grams per liter. It can then be transformed by molding into EPP with densities ranging from 16 to 265 grams per liter. Properties of EPP such as absorption of high-magnitude kinetic impacts without breaking down and re-attainment of the original shape after the impact are factors driving the market for EPP in several applications, especially the aircraft modelling.Browse Research Report With Complete TOC @Specially designed aluminum molds are widely preferred, owing to their cost-effectiveness. Production of the EPP foam is a complex process, which requires both technical expertise and custom-made, special equipment. Under controlled temperature and pressure conditions, polypropylene resin is mixed with other ingredients in a multi-step process. Various other proprietary manufacturing techniques are also employed to produce variations in the final product. The EPP foam is first injected into the mold. EPP foams are extensively employed in the automotive industry, owing to the performance benefits that they offer when used in the manufacture of lightweight parts. These benefits include energy management, recyclability, and durability.The expanded polypropylene (EPP) foam market can be segmented on the basis of density, process, and application. In terms of density, the market can be divided into high, low, and porous. In terms of process, the EPP foam market can bsegregated into solid-state processing and melt-state processing. Based on application, the market can be divided into automotive, packaging, textile, furniture, food & beverages, and toys.A majority of manufacturers of the EPP foam are located in North America and Europe. Several established players are entering into the Asia Pacific market in order to grab an additional market share. Demand for the EPP foam in Chinas automotive and aviation industries is rising. This is driving the market in Asia Pacific and the same trend is expected to continue in the next few years.Request a PDF Brochure with Research Report Analysis @Emerging markets for the EPP foam in Asia Pacific such as India, China, South Korea, and Australia are attracting the established players to install their production bases in these countries. Increased investments in technological developments and the risen demand for quality products in aviation, automotive, packaging, textile, and food & beverages industries are factors driving the market for the EPP foam. The EPP foam market is also driven by applications such as packaging. The EPP foam is employed to protect highly sensitive, highest-quality, and fragile products from shocks and vibrations.Manufacturers and suppliers operating in the expanded polypropylene foam market include BASF SE, DOW Chemicals, Hanwha Corporation, Dongshin Industry Inc., Kaneka Corporation, JSP Corporation, The Woodbridge Group, SSW Pearl Foam GmbH, Sonoco Products Company, Lauren Manufacturing, Clark, and DS Smith Plastics.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Plant Growth Regulators Market Analysis, Trends and Future Outlook, Size, Strategies and Forecasts to 2026

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=1314

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/plant-growth-regulators.html

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Albeit there are few players that dominate the global market for plant growth regulators, nature of the market is highly competitive on account of numerous small vendors that hold significant market shares. The intense competition in the market can be mainly attributed to the widespread foothold of leading market players coupled with their huge production facilities globally. These players compete on the basis of product innovations, cost and quality.A new report of Transparency Market Research identifies key players underpinning growth of the global plant growth regulators market that include WinField Solutions, Dow Chemical Company, Valent Bioscience Corporation, Nufarm Limited, Syngenta AG, Xinyi Industrial Co., Ltd., Somitomo Chemicals Company LTD, Bayer Cropscience, FMC Corporation, and BASF SE.Download PDF Brochure @According to the report, an impressive expansion will be reflected by the global market for plant growth regulators between the forecast period 2017 and 2026. Sales of plant growth regulators around the world are poised to bring in more than US$ 3,000 Mn revenues by 2026-end.Adoption of New Farming Methods to Drive Adoption of Plant Growth RegulatorsIn a bid to curtail production costs and ensure crop protection, farmers are being prompted to employ new methods such as utilization of agrochemicals and organic farming, driven by increasing profitability concern. Adoption of these farming methods will create significant demand for the plant growth regulators, especially in agriculture-driven nations. In contrast, robust use of fertilizers in agriculture sector will constrain adoption of plant growth regulators upto a certain extent. Stricter regulations associated with use of pesticides will further restrain demand by shifting focus of farmers toward bio-based alternatives that are cost effective. Plant growth regulators seek extensive adoption in modification of the plant physiological processes, which include regulation of the plant metabolism and inhibition or stimulation of enzyme systems. Growth in textile industry in countries such as Turkey, India, Germany, Bulgaria, and China, will create high demand for cotton. Plant growth regulators are extensive used for the regulation of cotton metabolism, which in turn will augment the market expansion.Obtain Report Details @Tremendous surge in expansion of the organic industry is considered to be a major factor fuelling demand for plant growth regulators. Soaring awareness on health hazards apropos to utilization of chemicals in household and food products has been impelling individuals in shifting their preference toward organic food products. In addition, there has been a rapid growth of the pharmaceutical sector in the recent past, driven primarily by rising prevalence of chronic diseases, growth in aging population, unhealthy consumption patterns of consumers, and their changing lifestyles. Growing pharmaceutical industry entails the requirement for herbal medicines, owing to rising prices of their allopathy counterparts. Leading pharmaceutical companies have been making huge investments in research and development of plant-derived medicines for coping up with growing demand for herbal medicines. These instances will further create demand for plant growth regulators in the foreseeable future.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Transparency Market Research90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Human Immunodeficiency Virus Therapeutics Market : Outlook by Product Overview, Application and Regions 2025

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=B&rep_id=1187

https://www.tmrresearch.com/sample/sample?flag=T&rep_id=1187

https://www.tmrresearch.com/human-immunodeficiency-virus-therapeutics-market

Global Human Immunodeficiency Virus Therapeutics Market: SnapshotWith the noticeable surge in the incidence rate of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 infection, the market for HIV therapeutics market is gaining remarkable momentum across the world. The rate of demise from HIV-1 infection, however, is much higher than its occurrence rate. The number of people coming in contact with HIV is increasing at a fast pace, with emerging and under developed economies being severely hit as they lack adequate treatment facilities and prevention measures.Hitherto, no cure to HIV infections has been discovered. However, with appropriate medical intervention and therapeutics, their severity on infected humans can be controlled, providing new life lease to patients. Entry and fusion inhibitors, NRTIs, Non-NRTIs, integrase inhibitors, coreceptor antagonists, and protease inhibitors are the main drug classes of the therapeutics for HIV. With a large number of anti-retro viral drugs, the NRTIs segment has emerged as the most prominent drug class in human immunodeficiency virus therapeutics.Request Sample Copy of the Report @NRTIs slow down reverse transcriptase activities and eventually apprehend viral replication, which helps in reducing the effects of the infection on the human body. In general, the anti-retroviral regimen, used for the treatment of HIV patients, has a combination of anti-retroviral agents from diverse drug classes. Currently, over twenty FDA-approved drugs for the treatment of HIV are commercially available across the world.Global Human Immunodeficiency Virus Therapeutics Market: OverviewAIDS is perhaps the greatest threat posed by infectious diseases to human health in history. As this disease remains incurable at the moment, the development of anti- HIV therapies is crucial to slow down the progression of the virus. Therefore, the global market for HIV therapeutics will witness tremendous growth during the forthcoming period.Almost 36.7 million people were suffering from this deadly disease towards the end of 2015, according to the findings of World Health Organization (WHO). As the incidence of AIDS is not likely to reduce anytime soon, the global HIV therapeutics market is expected to exhibit a positive trajectory in the forthcoming yearsRequest TOC of the Report @The report by Transparency Market Research (TMR) discusses the trends, catalysts, opportunities, and deterrents of the global human immunodeficiency virus therapeutics market. The major vendors are studies in-depth, wherein their key business strategies, market shares, and product portfolios have been discussed. The market attractiveness, competitive landscape, market projections, supply and demand dynamics, and value chain analysis have also been revealed along with relevant statistical data.Global Human Immunodeficiency Virus Therapeutics Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe increasing prevalence of HIV infections, particularly amongst the youth worldwide owing to unprotected sexual activities, lack of awareness about the risk of transmission, and the usage of contaminated needles and syringes have been the most prominent growth drivers boosting the global HIV therapeutics market. The growing healthcare expenditures of governments and the gradual spread of awareness about the availability of anti-HIV therapies are also contributing towards market growth.Research conducted in novel scientific arenas such as pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics have been backing up the expansion of the market. The most awaited advent of personalized treatments wherein medications are optimized for every single patient considering the individual's genetic makeup has raised the hopes of HIV positive patients. Several community groups, national research groups, regulatory bodies, pharmaceutical companies and patients have joined forces against HIV, working towards the development of effective HIV therapies. All this has triggered the growth of the global HIV therapeutics market. Moreover, as several drugs are constantly being developed and are entering clinical investigation each day, it is likely that they will be easily available in near future, promoting the expansion of the market substantially.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report@Global Human Immunodeficiency Virus Therapeutics Market: Regional OutlookOn the basis of geography, the global human immunodeficiency virus therapeutics market can be segmented into Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and North America.Escalating incidence of this infection has been observed in Russia, Latin America, and several parts of Caribbean. Therefore, these regions are expected to display considerable demand over the coming period. The continents of Asia and Africa are plagued by this viral infection, with countries such as China, India, and Nigeria with high incidence of HIV infections. According to the WHO, 1 out of 25 people are suffering from HIV infection in the Sub-Saharan Africa, making up almost 70% of the entire global HIV population.Steps taken by governments to improve access to HIV therapies in these emerging economies are likely to boost the demand for HIV therapeutics in these regions. Moreover, numerous national and international initiatives across the globe by institutions such as the HIVNAT (The Netherlands, Australia, and Thailand) Network, Harvard AIDS Institute, and MSF (Medecins Sans Frontieres) have also been guiding growth.Companies Mentioned in the ReportSome of the major companies operating in the global human immunodeficiency virus therapeutics market are ViiV Healthcare, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Merck & Co., Cipla, Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, and AbbVie, Inc.About UsTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.comHolographic Versatile Disc Market - Rapidly Growing Dynamic Markets as a High Capacity and High Speed Versatile Disc Storage Technology

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=39002

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/holographic-versatile-disc-market.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=39002

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Technological changes have radically changed the way of storing data. This advancement has led to the shift from conventional discs to holographic versatile disc which gives assurances to be a potential successor to technologies such as DVD and Blu-ray. With a promising and considerable future market. Holographic versatile disc technology can store terabytes of data on an optical disc. The Blu-ray disc can hold up to data of 25GB, while holographic versatile disc can hold data similar to more than 100 ordinary DVDs and with a transfer speed of above 1 gigabit per second.Obtain Brochure For Latest Technology Advancements @Holographic uses beams of laser to store digital data in three dimensions, rather than in two dimensions as in DVD and CD media to increase transfer speed and storage capacity. Holographic data storage archives data by the use of a pattern of optical interference with a photosensitive, thick optical material. It also uses the light properties to store large amount of data onto a single plate.Obtain Report Details @The holographic versatile disc procedure uses a red laser beam, which is used for tracking and servo, and uses a blue-green laser beam which is used for writing and reading data.The technology is rapidly gaining attention as a high capacity and high speed versatile disc storage technology.Download TOC @The holographic versatile disc has more storage capacity than conventional optical disc, reads and writes quickly and prices are expected to be slashed down, all these factors can lead to growth of holographic versatile disc market. However, the technological differences between holographic versatile disc and other optical discs make them mutually incompatible. Additionally, changes in recording technologies might also make successive generations of holographic versatile discs incompatible with each other.About TMRTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information.Contact TMR90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Latest Trend of Commercial Elevator Market in Global Industry 2018

https://www.researchmoz.us/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1510906

https://www.researchmoz.us/global-commercial-elevator-sales-market-report-2018-report.html/toc

https://www.researchmoz.us/global-commercial-elevator-sales-market-report-2018-report.html

http://bit.ly/1TBmnVG

https://marketinfo247.wordpress.com/

Albany, NY, 5th March : Recent research and the current scenario as well as future market potential of "Global Commercial Elevator Sales Market Report 2018" globally.In this report, the global Commercial Elevator market is valued at USD XX million in 2017 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2017 and 2025.Get PDF for more Professional and Technical insights @Geographically, this report split global into several key Regions, with sales (K Units), revenue (Million USD), market share and growth rate of Commercial Elevator for these regions, from 2013 to 2025 (forecast), coveringUnited StatesChinaEuropeJapanSoutheast AsiaIndiaGlobal Commercial Elevator market competition by top manufacturers/players, with Commercial Elevator sales volume, Price (USD/Unit), revenue (Million USD) and market share for each manufacturer/player; the top players includingOtisMitsubishi ElectricSchindler GroupHitachiKoneThyssenKruppToshibaFujitecYungtay EngineeringSANYOHyundaiCanny ElevatorVolksliftSJECSyney ElevatorHangzhou XiOliftSicher ElevatorGuangri ElevatorCNYDEdunburgh ElevatorShenlong ElevatorSuzhou DiaoMeilun ElevatorIFE ElevatorsFEIYA ElevatorOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoElevator (Vertical)EscalatorMoving walkwayView Complete TOC with tables & Figures @On the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, sales volume, market share and growth rate for each application, includingResidential AreaCommercial OfficeTransportation Hub AreaIndustrial AreaOtherTable of Contents1 Commercial Elevator Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Commercial Elevator1.2 Classification of Commercial Elevator by Product Category1.2.1 Global Commercial Elevator Market Size (Sales) Comparison by Type (2013-2025)1.2.2 Global Commercial Elevator Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20171.2.3 Elevator (Vertical)1.2.4 Escalator1.2.5 Moving walkway1.3 Global Commercial Elevator Market by Application/End Users1.3.1 Global Commercial Elevator Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Application (2013-2025)1.3.2 Residential Area1.3.3 Commercial Office1.3.4 Transportation Hub Area1.3.5 Industrial Area1.3.6 Other1.4 Global Commercial Elevator Market by Region1.4.1 Global Commercial Elevator Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region (2013-2025)1.4.2 United States Commercial Elevator Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.3 China Commercial Elevator Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.4 Europe Commercial Elevator Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.5 Japan Commercial Elevator Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.6 Southeast Asia Commercial Elevator Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.4.7 India Commercial Elevator Status and Prospect (2013-2025)1.5 Global Market Size (Value and Volume) of Commercial Elevator (2013-2025)1.5.1 Global Commercial Elevator Sales and Growth Rate (2013-2025)1.5.2 Global Commercial Elevator Revenue and Growth Rate (2013-2025)Browse Report @2 Global Commercial Elevator Competition by Players/Suppliers, Type and Application2.1 Global Commercial Elevator Market Competition by Players/Suppliers2.1.1 Global Commercial Elevator Sales and Market Share of Key Players/Suppliers (2013-2018)2.1.2 Global Commercial Elevator Revenue and Share by Players/Suppliers (2013-2018)2.2 Global Commercial Elevator (Volume and Value) by Type2.2.1 Global Commercial Elevator Sales and Market Share by Type (2013-2018)2.2.2 Global Commercial Elevator Revenue and Market Share by Type (2013-2018)2.3 Global Commercial Elevator (Volume and Value) by Region2.3.1 Global Commercial Elevator Sales and Market Share by Region (2013-2018)2.3.2 Global Commercial Elevator Revenue and Market Share by Region (2013-2018)2.4 Global Commercial Elevator (Volume) by ApplicationResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.ResearchMozMr. Nachiket Ghumare,90 State Street, Albany NY, United States - 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074USA-Canada Toll Free: 866-997-4948Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn @Follow me on :Dried Spices Market Forecasted to Grow at Steady Pace During 2017-2027

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4615

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-4615

Dried spices are responsible for developing the aroma and taste related to the cuisine and convenience food products. Therefore, they are an integral part of any food products. A wide range of dried spices includes pepper, paprika, allspice, capsicum, cardamom, cloves, coriander, turmeric, cumin, caraway, nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, mace, juniper berries, fennel seeds, saffron, fenugreek, anise seeds, etc. The global dried spices market is expected to grow at a significant growth rate, attributed to growing food and beverages industry across the globe. The Europe dried spices market is expected to register a relatively high revenue share over the forecast period followed by Asia Pacific dried spices market, attributed to increasing demand for dried spices in the household as well as the commercial and industrial segment. Asia-Pacific is expected to account for relatively high volume share with a significant growth rate in the global dried spices market over the forecast period.Global Dried Spices Market: DynamicsThe factor driving the industrial segment in global dried spices market include increasing demand for convenience food including canned products, sauces, soups, snacks, etc. Growing food & beverages industry and medicinal benefits of dried spices are also some of the important factors driving the global dried spices market. Growing cuisine trend and high popularity for ready-to-use spice mixtures such as oregano are expected to bolster the dried spices market in developed as well as developing economy. Macroeconomic factors affecting the global dried spices market include increasing population, globalization, climatic condition, etc. Uncertain climatic conditions and inefficient logistics are some of the restraining factors for global dried spices market over the forecast period. Companies manufacturing dried spices products can leverage potential opportunities in regions such as North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, attributed to rapidly growing demand for food & beverages and medicinal products over the forecast period. Companies have a significant opportunity in the global dried spices market through collaboration with end-users i.e. food & beverages and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The changing food habits and trying new and expensive food items by the consumers are another important factor trending the global dried spices market.Request For Report Sample@Global Dried Spices Market: SegmentationThe global dried spices market is segmented on the basis of product type, distribution channel, end-use, and region. On the basis of product type, mixed and individual spices segment is expected to dominate the global dried spices market over the forecast period, owing to relatively high demand for the segment among all other segments in household as well as commercial and industrial segment. Online channel segment is expected to expand at a significant growth rate over the forecast period on the basis of distribution channel for household and food service application. Among the end-use segments, industrial segment is expected to account for around half of the overall dried spices market. The retail segment is followed by industrial segment and is expected to expand at a significant growth rate over the forecast period in global dried spices market. Catering segment is expected to account for relatively low revenue share of 10-20% in the global dried spices market.Based on the product type, the global dried spices market is segmented into:Mixed and Individual SpicesPepperPaprikaAllspice (Pimento)CapsicumCardamomClovesCorianderTurmericCuminCarawayNutmegGingerCinnamonOthers (Mace, Juniper Berries, Fennel Seeds, Saffron, Fenugreek, Anise seeds, etc.)Dried HerbsOreganoThymeParsleyMarjoramBay LeavesMintSavouryOthers (Rosemary, Basil, Dill, Tarragon, Sage, etc.)Salt & Salt SubstitutesOthersBased on the distribution channel, the global dried spices market is segmented into:Hypermarket/ SupermarketGrocery StoresOnline ChannelOthersBased on the end-use, the global dried spices market is segmented into:RetailIndustrialCateringBased on the source, the global dried spices market is segmented into:NaturalOrganicBased on the product form, the global dried spices market is segmented into:PowderWhole Dried SpiceGlobal Dried Spices Market: Regional OverviewOverall, the outlook for the global dried spices market is positive over the forecast period, attributed to varying medicinal benefits of spices, demographics & globalization, increasing trend of diverse cultural cuisine, increasing consumption of processed foods. On the basis of geography, the global dried spices market is fragmented into seven regions namely, North America, Western Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East & Africa and Japan. Among the regions, combining both Western Europe and Eastern Europe dominates the global dried spices market in terms of revenue contribution owing to the relatively high demand for dried spices from the food & beverages and pharmaceutical industries. Europe rank at the second position in terms of volume in global dried spices market. Europe is followed by Asia Pacific in the global dried spices market in terms of value whereas, rank at a top position in terms of volume in the market over the forecast period owing to developed standard of living which enable consumers to spend more on food products and increasing population in developing countries including India and China.Visit For TOC@Global Dried Spices Market: Key PlayersSome of the players identified in the global dried spices market include DS Group, The Kraft Heinz Company, Ajinomoto Co. Inc., Knorr Foods Co., Ltd., Nestle S.A., McCormick & Company, Bart Ingredients Company Ltd., Baria Pepper, MDH Pvt. Ltd., and Everest Spices company.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACTFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: http.futuremarketinsights.comGlobal Animal Clothing Market 2018- Indolingal Garmenz, Guts & Glory Leathers, Rubberplas Limited

Global Animal Clothing Market

https://goo.gl/Da6sri

https://goo.gl/NqVvVc

www.apexmarketreports.com

Apex Market Reports, recently published a detailed market research study focused on the "Global Animal Clothing Market" across the global, regional and country level. The report provides 360 analysis of "Global Animal Clothing Market" from view of manufacturers, regions, product types and end industries. The research report analyses and provides the historical data along with current performance of the Global Animal Clothing industry, and estimates the future trend of Global Animal Clothing market on the basis of this detailed study. The study shares "Global Animal Clothing Market" performance both in terms of volume and revenue.Get Free Sample Copy of Report Here:Top Manufacturers Analysis of This ReportIndolingal GarmenzGuts & Glory LeathersRubberplas LimitedStar Web IndustriesOrganic ApparelThe market research report explores the Global Animal Clothing market across the globe along with major regions and countries. The research report provides a detailed study on each and every aspect of "Global Animal Clothing Market". The research report studies the entire value chain from raw material to end user industries. The report also shares import/export statistics along with production and consumption for all major regions and countries. Moreover, the research study classifies the Global Animal Clothing market based on major product types, application and end users industries of Global Animal Clothing. Besides, the report also covers geographical segmentation for Global Animal Clothing market. The report further provides production, capacity, price per region, gross margin, production cost, for all major regions and countries listed in report.The competitive landscape of the global market for Global Animal Clothing is determined by assessing the major industry participants, production capacity, production capacity utilization rate, Global Animal Clothing market's production chain, pricing by each manufacturer and the revenue generated by each manufacturer in the Global Animal Clothing market globally.Enquire Before Buying @The Global Animal Clothing market 2018 is further analyzed on the basis of product pricing, Global Animal Clothing production volume, data pertaining to demand and Global Animal Clothing supply, and the revenue garnered by the product. The report provides upstream and downstream analysis covering major raw material used in manufacturing of Global Animal Clothing along with detailed manufacturing sources. The report also shares list of major raw material manufacturers along with their manufacturing locations. Detailed raw material price trend analysis along with manufacturing cost analysis is also incorporated into the report. Various methodical tools such as investment returns, feasibility, SWOT analysis and market attractiveness analysis has been implemented in the research study to present a comprehensive, detailed study of the industry for Global Animal Clothing across the world.About UsApex Market Reports offers elevating market research globally. We have collection of various syndicated reports of different categories. Apex Market Reports provides you to best services, weather youre searching for new trends in market or competitive scenario in emerging market.Customers can buys different reports across various categories such as Chemical and Material, Biotechnology, Healthcare, Food and beverages, Automobile and various sectors. Our Website offers safe and secure online ordering experience, convenient payment options.Contact UsFrank ValadezCorporate Sales Specialist155 North Wacker Drive, Suite 4250Chicago, IL 60606Phone: +17739042683Email id - sales@apexmarketreports.comWebsite -String Inverter Market 2018 by Global Leaders: SolarMax, Huawei Technologies, Sungrow Power Supply, Fronius International, KOSTAL Solar Electric, Schneider

Global String Inverter Market

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2083

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/string-inverter-market-2083

Industry AnalysisThe global string inverter market is estimated to be propelled by the higher demand for incessant electric supply. Alongside, strong maintenance should raise the demand for these products. Also, governmental initiatives for the usage of renewable energy in contrast to fossil fuels can enhance market sales. Implementation of different schemes, comprising feed-in-tariff and net metering would contribute more revenues for the industry.Reduction in the prices of components and the need for sustainable energy also drive market growth. Advancements in technologies have led to significant reduction in component prices, furthering their power density. String inverters are largely, the most utilized alternative worldwide. They constitute most of the global inverter industry. On the other hand, MLPE technologies are quickly gaining more popular and higher traction.Division/ClassificationThe worldwide string inverter market is classified into phases, products, applications, and geographical regions. Phases include three and single. The products are off-grid and on-grid. By applications, the industry is segmented into commercial, residential, utilities, industrial, etc. Various geographies encompass Asia Pacific, North America, the Middle East & Africa, Europe, and rest of the world.Get Sample of Report @Key PlayersThe major player operating in the market of Global String inverter are SolarMax, Huawei Technologies, Sungrow Power Supply, Fronius International, KOSTAL Solar Electric, Growatt New Energy Technology, Schneider, Ingeteam, Ginlong Technologies, Advanced Energy Industries, KACO New Energy.News/Innovative TrendsThe recently held Solar Power International in 2017 was a massive success. In this event, products, XGI 1500V utility and XGI 1000V commercial inverters were launched. They stole the limelight and were the first Solectria products made at a Buffalo Grove, IL facility. These products are expected to prove their remarkable abilities and serve as pioneers to further developments.Leading Sub-SegmentsWith respect to products, on-grid dominated in 2015. On-grid products find wide usage in medium to small scale manufacturing & commercial end-users. The same factor is boosting the sales of three phase string inverters. Three phase products are facing high-scale commercialization across Europe and Asia Pacific.Among applications, utilities are predicted to occupy the largest shares in the near future. Big utility scale projects are on the rise, considering the incorporation of renewable policies. On islands, energy storage systems adopt string inverters to deliver the best results.Manufacturers of inverters have been broadly endorsing the installation of three phase products in big power plants. This can lead the number of shipments worldwide to double in the coming 4 years. By geographies, Asia Pacific will lead the global industry over the forecast period. The region is likely to maintain supremacy due to the need for clean fuel electricity.Get Complete Report @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comGlobal Market for Lipolyzed Butter Fat Market to Incur Steady Expansion During 2017-2027

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-4617

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-4617

Lipolyzed butter fat usually used in bakery and dairy products. It is a yellow creamy liquid with a typical enzymolysis milk fat odour. Lipolyzed butter fat is derived by breaking butter fat using microbial lipase enzyme in order to provide flavour to the dairy and bakery products. The use microbial lipase enzyme is essential in lipolyzed butter fat, therefore it is considered as halal. As a result high demand for lipolyzed fat containing food products in countries including GCC countries, Israel, etc. This, in turn, leads to relatively high growth of lipolyzed butter fat market in Middle East and Africa over the forecast period.The global lipolyzed butter fat market is expected to grow at a significant growth rate, attributed to increasing application of the compound in bakery and dairy market. The market in Asia-Pacific lipolyzed butter fat market is expected to register a relatively high revenue share over the forecast period followed by Europe lipolyzed butter fat market, attributed to increasing health consciousness among the consumers.Global Lipolyzed Butter Fat Market: DynamicsMicroeconomic factors factor driving the global lipolyzed butter fat market include growing food and beverages industry and high demand for products such as dairy, bakery, etc. which have high demand across the globe particularly in regions such as North America, Asia-Pacific, and Europe. Approval for lipolyzed butter fat by the certified bodies such as Halal, Kosher, etc. leads to increasing demand for the product among the Muslim population. Companies manufacturing Lipolyzed butter fat products can leverage potential opportunities in regions such as North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific, attributed to rapidly growing demand for low-fat food products, and the trend is expected to continue over the forecast period. Companies have a significant opportunity in the global lipolyzed butter fat market through collaboration with end-users i.e. food and beverages manufacturers.Request For Report Sample@Global Lipolyzed Butter Fat Market: SegmentationThe global lipolyzed butter fat market is segmented on the basis of end-use and region. Among the end-use segments, dairy segment contributes for significant value share over the forecast period in global lipolyzed butter fat market, owing to high demand for the compound in products such as ice-cream, yogurt, and other frozen dairy products. Bakery segment is followed by dairy segment attributed to rapid growth the low fat bakery products including cakes, muffins, pizza, breads, etc.Based on the end-use, the global lipolyzed butter fat market is segmented into:DairyIce-creamYogurtOthersBakeryBreadsCakesMuffinsOthersConfectionariesOthers (Oils, Fats, Cereals, Snacks, etc.)Global Lipolyzed Butter Fat Market: Regional OverviewOn the basis of geography, the global lipolyzed butter fat market is segmented into seven regions namely, North America, Western Europe, Asia Pacific except Japan (APEJ), Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Middle East & Africa and Japan. Among the regions, Asia-Pacific dominates the global lipolyzed butter fat market in terms of revenue contribution owing to the relatively high demand for lipolyzed butter fat from the food and beverages industry. Asia-Pacific is followed by North America, attributed to increasing health consciousness among consumers in the region. Western Europe lipolyzed butter fat market is expected to account for significant growth rate, attributed to high growth of low fat food products over the forecast period. Eastern Europe and Japan account for a relatively low-value share in the global lipolyzed butter fat market. Latin America and Middle East & Africa are expected to represent a moderate opportunity in the global lipolyzed butter fat market, owing to the moderate economic as well as industrial growth in the region. Overall, the outlook for the global lipolyzed butter fat market is positive over the forecast period.Visit For TOC@Global Lipolyzed Butter Fat Market: Key PlayersSome of the players in the global lipolyzed butter fat market include Shanghai Fuxin Fine Chemical Co., Ltd.,Flavorjen group, Cargill Inc., and Dairyland Laboratories Inc.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACTFuture Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite: http.futuremarketinsights.comMobile Cardiac Telemetry Systems Market To Increase at Steady Growth Rate 2016-2026

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-1779

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-1779

www.futuremarketinsights.com

Cardiac monitoring is continuous monitoring of heart activity using electrocardiography techniques to understand the heart rhythm and find anomalies in the functioning of the heart. Cardiac monitoring is a critical part of healthcare diagnostics as several functions of the body can be understood by carefully analyzing the heart rhythm. Mobile cardiac telemetry is one of the newest technology in the cardiac monitoring which allows remote monitoring of the patients who are situated at far away distance from the physicians. Mobile cardiac telemetry (MCT) devices are small portable sensors that are worn by the patient for monitoring cardiac rhythm. In the case when an anomaly is detected in the heart rhythm the sensor records it and sends the data to the transmitter which transmits the data to the manned monitoring center using a mobile network. The data, which is sent to the monitoring center is analyzed by the trained healthcare professionals for reported to the physicians or the patients for further treatment. The real-time data provided by the mobile cardiac telemetry systems provides an edge over the other cardiac monitoring systems like Holter monitoring systems or event monitoring systems.Mobile Cardiac Telemetry Systems Market: Drivers and RestraintsThe demand for mobile cardiac telemetry systems is expected to grow significantly over the forecast period owing to the technology edge. Mobile cardiac telemetry systems provide mobility to the patient and real time data of the patient to the physicians. Increased diagnostic yield of the MCT devices is over standards cardiac monitoring devices is expected to create high demand from the patients. Moreover the increasing demand for cardiac monitoring in home care settings is increasing owing to rapid expansion in the geriatric population. Increasing incidence of cardiovascular diseases is expected to create high growth opportunities for the MCT systems manufacturers over the forecast period. According to the WHO estimates nearly 17.5 million people die from cardiovascular diseases each year worldwide. In past few years several new manufacturers have entered the MCT market owing to which the prices of MCT devices are expected to fall over the forecast period which in turn is expected to increase adoption of the MCT systems over the forecast period. However the stringent regulations and product recalls associated with product failure is expected to hamper revenue growth of the MTC systems market.Request Report Sample@Mobile Cardiac Telemetry Systems Market: SegmentationThe global mobile cardiac telemetry systems market is segmented into two key segments, by revenue channel and by regionSegmentation by revenue channelPatientsPhysiciansPayersMobile Cardiac Telemetry Systems Market: OverviewThe mobile cardiac telemetry systems market is expected to witness robust growth over the forecast period owing to increasing adoption rate and awareness among the end users. Moreover the technological developments and increasing disease burden of cardiovascular diseases is expected to boost revenue growth of MCT systems market.Mobile Cardiac Telemetry Systems Market: Region  Wise OutlookRegionally the mobile cardiac telemetry market is segmented into seven key regions, North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and Middle East and Africa (MEA)Visit For TOC@North America and Western Europe are expected to dominate the MCT systems market over the forecast period owing to high adoption rate of the mobile cardiac telemetry devices in these regions. Japan and APEJ region is expected to follow next owing to increasing incidence of cardiovascular diseases in these regions. According to the World Health Organization more than 75% of the cardiovascular diseases occur in low  middle income countries which in turn APEJ, Latin America and Eastern Europe regions are expected to witness significant growth in the MCT systems market over the forecast period. MEA region is expected to witness growth opportunities depending on the adoption of the cardiac telemetry systems in this region.Mobile Cardiac Telemetry Systems Market: Market ParticipantsSome key participants in the mobile cardiac telemetry systems market are, Medtronic, Digirad Corporation, Kyma, Boston Scientific Corporation, Biotelemetry, Inc., The ScottCare Corporation and Spectocor LLC.About Us Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:Biosensors Development and Demand Market 2017 by Global Leaders: Siemens Healthcare, LifeSensors, Abbott Laboratories, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Nova Biomedical, TiaDoc Technology, Bayer AG

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/833

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/global-biosensors-market-833

Market Research Future published a research report on Global Biosensors Development and Demand Market Research Report- Forecast to 2027  Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2027.Market ScenarioThe biosensors development market has seen a fast growth in the recent years with the increased applications in the field of medical analysis, food analysis and environmental monitoring. The medical analysis has witnessed a significant growth because of the rise in the cancer detection for early diagnosis by use of biosensors. These applications require higher accuracy, sensitivity and speed for measurement which again boosts the growth of the bio sensors development. Naturally available molecules such as antibodies, enzymes, nucleic acid and others are used as receptors for biosensors. Biosensors development is a combinational approach of both the computer modelling and natural receptors. Another factor that leads to the growth of the biosensors development is from the agricultural point of view for high quality crop production. Also due to rise in unhealthy living conditions and environment leading to the increase of the transmitted diseases and Point of Care Testing (POCT).The biosensors development and demand market is segmented under application, type, design methods, and regions. On the basis of Applications, the segmentation is further divided under Medical Diagnosis, Glucose Monitoring, Interferometric reflectance imaging sensor (IRIS), Food Analysis, Biodefense, Environmental monitoring, and others. The application of Biosensors development mostly focuses on the Medical Diagnosis, and food analysis. On the basis of type of biosensors, the market is segmented under Nucleic acid sensors, Trans-membrane sensors, cell network sensors, electrochemical biosensors, piezoelectric biosensors, and optical bio sensors. These biosensors include some new and old types to achieve better sensor stability and to achieve high throughput.Get Sample of Report @On the basis of design methods, the market is segmented under adsorption, covalent attachment, cross linking, self-assembled monolayers (SAM), and Entrapment within polymers.The biosensors development market is segmented under North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the world by region. Out of these regions, North America is expected to dominate the market for biosensors development because of the rise in diseases like diabetes and cancer which requires early detection and diagnosis. Following North America is Europe largely because of the aging population and increase in the risk of acquiring the diseases. However, Asia pacific is estimated to grow at a fast rate during the forecasted period because of the increased applications of agriculture in India and South East Asia. Also the risk of acquiring the transmitted diseases by low food quality. The competitive landscape of the biosensors development and demand market include many diversified organizations and many key players in the field of medical equipment manufacturing. The leaders make the development in the field of research to produce a cost effective portfolio.The Biosensors Development And Demand Market is expected to reach approximately USD 360 Million by the end of 2023 with 12 % CAGR during the forecasted period from 2017  2023.Key PlayersThe prominent player in the market of Biosensor are - Siemens Healthcare, LifeSensors, Inc, Abbott Laboratories, Inc, Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Inc, Nova Biomedical Corporation, F. Hoffmann La Roche, TiaDoc Technology Corporation, Bayer AG, SENS, Inc. with othersSegmentsFor the purpose of this study, Market Research Future has segmented the market of Biosensors Development and Demand into application, type, design method and region.Application Medical Diagnosis Glucose monitoring Interferometric reflectance imaging sensor (IRIS) Food analysis Biodefense Environmental MonitoringType Nucleic acid sensors Transmembrane sensors Cell Network Sensors Electrochemical Biosensors Piezoelectric Biosensors Optical BiosensorsDesign Methods Adsorption Covalent attachment Cross-linking Self-Assembled Monolayers Entrapment within polymersRegion North America Europe Asia pacific Rest of the worldGet Complete Report @Intended Audience Electronic Component providers Optical components providers Research firms Software investors Solutions providers Medical Devices manufacturers Healthcare IT enablersAbout Us:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Media Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.comThe Israeli Insurance Market 2018 by Current & Upcoming Trends

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/145852-governance-risk-and-compliance-the-israeli-insurance-industry-2633b3b5-1074-4bb3-bc23-0795deb4c88f

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/145852-governance-risk-and-compliance-the-israeli-insurance-industry-2633b3b5-1074-4bb3-bc23-0795deb4c88f

www.linkedin.com/company/4828928

https://twitter.com/WiseGuyReports

https://www.facebook.com/Wiseguyreports-1009007869213183/?fref=ts

Synopsis'Governance, Risk and Compliance  The Israeli Insurance Industry' report is the result of extensive research into the insurance regulatory framework in Israel.It provides detailed analysis of the insurance regulations for life, property, motor, liability, personal accident and health, and marine, aviation and transit insurance. The report specifies various requirements for the establishment and operation of insurance and reinsurance companies and intermediaries.The report brings together research, modeling and analysis expertise, giving insurers access to information on prevailing insurance regulations, and recent and upcoming changes in the regulatory framework, taxation and legal system in the country. The report also includes the scope of non-admitted insurance in the country.GET SAMPLE REPORT @SummaryThe report provides insights into the governance, risk and compliance framework pertaining to the insurance industry in Israel, including: An overview of the insurance regulatory framework in Israel. The latest key changes, and changes expected in the countrys insurance regulatory framework. Key regulations and market practices related to different types of insurance product in the country. Rules and regulations pertaining to key classes of compulsory insurance, and the scope of non-admitted insurance in Israel. Key parameters including licensing requirements, permitted foreign direct investment, minimum capital requirements, solvency and reserve requirements, and investment regulations. Details of the tax and legal systems in the country.Scope The report covers details of the insurance regulatory framework in Israel. The report contains details of the rules and regulations governing insurance products and insurance entities. The report lists and analyzes key trends and developments pertaining to the countrys insurance regulatory framework. The report analyzes the rules and regulations pertaining to the establishment and operation of insurance businesses in the country. The report provides details of taxation imposed on insurance products and insurance companies.Reasons to Buy Gain insights into the insurance regulatory framework in Israel. Track the latest regulatory changes, and expected changes impacting the Israeli insurance industry. Gain detailed information about the key regulations governing the establishment and operation of insurance entities in the country. Understand key regulations and market practices pertaining to various types of insurance product.Key Highlights The Israeli insurance industry is regulated by the Capital Markets, Insurance and Savings Division of the Ministry of Finance. 100% FDI is permitted in the Israeli insurance industry. Composite insurance is permitted in the Israeli insurance industry. Motor bodily injury insurance, oil pollution liability insurance for ships, health insurance and workmens compensation insurance are the key classes of compulsory insurance. Non-admitted insurance is not permitted in the Israeli insurance industry; however reinsurance business by a foreign insurer does not require a license.Table of Content: Key Points1 INTRODUCTION1.1 What is this Report About?1.2 Definitions2 GOVERNANCE, RISK AND COMPLIANCE2.1 Legislation Overview and Historical Evolution2.2 Latest Changes in Regulation2.3 Legislation and Market Practice by Type of Insurance2.3.1 Life insurance2.3.2 Property insurance2.3.3 Motor insurance2.3.4 Liability insurance2.3.5 Marine, aviation and transit insurance2.3.6 Personal accident and health insurance2.4 Compulsory Insurance2.4.1 Motor third-party liability insuranceContinuedACCESS REPORT @Get in touch:LinkedIn:Twitter:Facebook:Wise Guy Reports understand how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available. We also provide COTS (Commercial off the Shelf) business sector reports as custom exploration agreeing your particular needs.WISE GUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaGlobal Dumping Syndrome Market 2018 - Top Players are Medtronic (U.S.), Intuitive Surgical Inc. (U.S.), TransEnterix Inc. (U.S.), etc.

Market Research Future

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/5322

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/check-discount/5322

Global Dumping Syndrome Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of ~6.4 % during the forecast period, 2017-2023. Dumping syndrome is a condition which develops after the surgery done to lose weight by removing all or part of the stomach. It is also called rapid gastric emptying and dumping syndrome, occurs when food especially sugar moves from the stomach into the small bowel too quickly. In some cases dumping syndrome occurs after gastric bypass surgery. According to the University of Rochester Medical Center, the dumping syndrome can happen in at least 3 out of 20 patients who have had a part of their stomach removed for any reason.Mostly, people with dumping syndrome develop signs and symptoms, such as abdominal cramps and diarrhea, 10 to 30 minutes after eating. Whereas in some cases people have symptoms one to three hours after eating, few have also reported having both early and late symptoms. Early signs and symptoms include nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, diarrhea flushing, dizziness, lightheadedness, and rapid heart rate whereas, late signs and symptoms include sweating, hunger, fatigue, dizziness, lightheadedness, weakness, and rapid heart rate. The rising prevalence of upper GI diseases, changing lifestyle, and increasing demand for minimally invasive surgery are major drivers for the growth of the market across the globe. Furthermore, globalization in healthcare has increased the market growth. Established market players in the developed countries lead the globalization by pushing new products and services into the developing countries and emerging economies. On the other hand, side effects of dumping syndrome may hamper the market growth during the forecast period.Get Sample Copy @Dumping Syndrome Market Segmentations:The Global Dumping Syndrome Market is segmented on the basis of diagnosis, treatment, and end user.On the basis of diagnosis, it is segmented into blood sugar test, gastric emptying test, medical history, and others.Based on the treatment, it is segmented into medication, surgery, and others. Medication is further sub-segmented into imodium, lomotil, prevalite, colestid, welchol, octreotide, and others.On the basis of the end user, it is segmented into hospitals & clinics, research laboratories, and others.Dumping Syndrome Market Key Players:Some of key the players in the market are Medtronic (U.S.), Intuitive Surgical Inc. (U.S.), TransEnterix Inc. (U.S.), ALLERGAN (Republic of Ireland), USGI Medical Inc. (U.S.), Cousin Biotech (France), GI Dynamics Inc. (U.S.), Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc. (U.S.), Mediflex Surgical Product (U.S.), and others.Global Dumping Syndrome Market Regional AnalysisThe Americas dominate the Global Dumping Syndrome Market owing to increasing research & development activities and concentration of major market players boosting the market growth during the forecast period. Moreover, well-developed technology, increasing patient population with upper GI diseases, high healthcare spending, and increasing government support for research & development drive the market growth.holds the second position in the global dumping syndrome market owing to the government support for research & development and availability of funds for research. For instance, countries like Germany and France are increasing investment in the healthcare domain. Furthermore, this is expected to continue to drive the European market over the forecasted period. Pacific is the fastest growing dumping syndrome market owing to the presence of rapidly developing healthcare technology, huge patient population, and high healthcare expenditure. Moreover, increasing demand for new treatment methods for gastrointestinal diseases in countries like India and China is likely to emerge as the fastest growing market across the globe. Moreover, increasing demand for quality devices in the healthcare sector is projected to lead to the use of advanced equipment, which in turn, is anticipated to increase the market growth in the region.On the other hand, in the Middle East and Africa, limited market share due to gastrointestinal diseases have become a huge problem owing to limited screening, ignorance of diseases, and poor access to the treatment.Table of Contents Dumping Syndrome Market:1. Report Prologue2. Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope of the Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 Limitations3. Research Methodology3.1 Introduction3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary research3.4 Market Size EstimationTOC Continued!Get Discount @About US:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact Us:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comSterilization Equipment Market : Segmentation, Industry trends and Development to 2027

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2842

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2842

www.futuremarketinsights.com

Sterilization is the process of eliminating biological agents or any forms of lives, which include transmissible agents such as fungi, bacteria, spore forms, unicellular eukaryotic organisms and spore forms that are present in a specific surface, region, medication, fluid, etc. Sterilization is an unavoidable process in medical industry withefficacy and sterility of the sterilization equipment as prime factors. The serious issues over utilization of unsterilized equipment such as lethalhepatitis and HIV threatening public health, emphasise the importance for effective infection control. Sterilization equipment are thus a crucial part of the heath care setting owing to their extensive utilization for disinfecting and aiding in reprocessing tools and devices. With governments engaged in introducing productive measure to uplift and improve public heath, the scope of application of medical service, tools and devices has expanded significantly. Recent pandemics such as Ebola virus has emphasized the crucial need of hygienic environment and proper administration of medical faculties. Ultra high sterilization temperature equipment finds an extensive utilization in sterilization of food containers such as milk, juice & beer bottles.Global Sterilization Equipment Market: Market DynamicsWith the growth of geriatric population and increasing concern over post-operation acquired infection and diseases, the demand for sterilized equipment is increasing significantly. The increasing investment in healthcare infrastructure and focus over public health by introducing stringent regulations regarding medical equipment is positively influencing and propelling the global sterilization equipment market. However, in relatively emerging economies and countries, the high cost of sterilization equipment acts as a barrier and challenges revenue sales growth of the sterilization equipment market. Not only the utilisation is limited to medical application, but also the food and beverage industry is a prime application segment of sterilization equipment market. With prominent consumption in cleaning and disinfecting container and packages, the thriving sector is expected to create significant revenue opportunities during the forecast period. Sterilization equipment market participants are focusing over the development of equipment catering to a wider scope of tools and having extensive disinfecting properties. The sterilization equipment market is expected to witness a growing trend of outsourcing sterilizing services to independent operators during the forecast year.Request to Sample Report -Global Sterilization Equipment Market: SegmentationOn the basis of product type, the global sterilization equipment market can be segmented as following:Heat SterilizationLow Temperature SterilizationEthylene oxide sterilizationVaporized hydrogen peroxidePlasma sterilizationFiltration SterilizationRadiation SterilizationBeam radiationX-rayGammaThe global sterilization equipment market can be segmented on the basis of technology as:Steam-flush pressure pulseGravity displacementPre-vacuumGlobal Sterilization Equipment Market: Regional OutlookNorth America sterilization equipment market accounts for maximum revenue contribution during the forecast period. Followed by North America, Western Europesterilization equipment market is expected to contribute significant revenue share during the forecast period owing to increasing demand for medical devices from key markets such as Germany, France and Nordics. The evolving healthcare infrastructure in Asia Pacific spearheaded by India, China and ASEAN is expected to create significant revenue and unit sales opportunities for manufacturers in the region. Pivotal focus over healthcare spending and government initiatives to improve medical services is expected to moderately increase the consumption of sterilization equipment moderately in Japan. Likewise, increased investment for medical services in the Middle East and Africa has propelled the demand for sterilization equipment. Even though the revenue contributions of Eastern Europe and Latin America sterilization equipment market are relatively low, escalating number of small and medium medical facilities are expected to register relatively higher revenue growth during the forecast period.Request Report TOC @Global Sterilization Equipment Market: Market ParticipantsExamples of some of the market participants in the global sterilization equipment market include Tuttnauer, Steris Corporation, Cantel Medical Corporation, Matachana Group, Celitron Medical Technologies Kft, Getinge Group, Belimed Ag, which is a part of A Metall Zug Group, MME group Inc, Anderson Products, Inc, MMM Group and Nanosonics Ltd among other key participants in the global Sterilization Equipment Market.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite :Boston Round Glass Bottle Market : Potential and Niche Segments, Geographical regions and Trends 2027

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-2915

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-gb-2915

www.futuremarketinsights.com

Boston round glass bottles are also known as Winchester bottles, one of the indispensable product of the packaging industry which has been recognized for its versatile application across industries. Boston round glass bottles are preferred over other traditional plastic bottles, as these bottles are made up of glass which offers more strength, compatibility in comparison to plastic containers. Boston round glass bottles are mostly preferred in personal care and pharmaceutical industry, as these bottles can package high quality solid and liquid applications. Among the three categories of glass, the Boston round glass bottle comes in type III which are made of untreated commercial soda-lime-silica glass. These bottles are available in different styles and colors among which amber and flint color provide the opportunity to select the best packaging for dissimilar contents.The Boston round glass bottles provide robust resistance to successfully store any liquid, powdered specimens or solid samples. These bottles also allow to monitor filled levels as it provides complete clarity. Easy to use designs make these bottles compatible with several process. Assembled with the best material grade, the glass bottles frequently feature a broad-mouthed design for the practical addition and removal of materials.Request to Sample Report -Boston Round Glass Bottle Market: DynamicsThe pharmaceutical packaging industry is projected to witness an enormous growth and Boston round glass bottles are expected to primarily drive this growth. The Boston round glass bottles are being used for high quality liquid and solid applications and the market for these bottles will continue to grow as due to increasing research and development in biotechnology which is expected to fuel the growth in the pharmaceutical industry which in turn will accelerate the growth of the Boston round glass bottle market. Further, the increasing demand for biologics will fortify demand for innovative product packaging solutions such as Boston round glass bottles. Moreover, the broad application of these bottles across cosmetics and personal care industry will also escalate the growth in the Boston round glass bottle market. However, the price volatility of raw materials and varying health regulations together with rising competition from alternate products can act as hindrances for the growth in the Boston round glass bottle market.Boston Round Glass Bottle Market: SegmentationOn the basis of capacity, the global Boston round glass bottle market is segmented into, 15 ml  60 ml, 60 ml  177 ml, 177 ml  414 ml, 414 ml  950 ml. on the basis of cap style, the global Boston round glass bottle market is segmented into, dropper, fine mist sprayer, lotion pump, and others. On the basis of neck finish, the global Boston round glass bottle market is segmented into, 18  400, 18  410, 20  400, 22  400, 24  400, 28  400, 33  400. On the basis of neck width, the global Boston round glass bottle market is segmented into, 18 mm  22 mm, 24 mm  33 mm. On the basis of End use industry, the global Boston round glass bottle market is segmented into, personal care, pharmaceutical, Chemical Industrial, Food & beverage and others.Request Report TOC @Boston Round Glass Bottle Market: Region Wise OutlookOn the basis of geography, the global Boston round glass bottle market is divided into majorly five regions namely North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East & Africa. North America accounts the largest market share for the consumption of Boston round glass bottle market. Next Europe is one of the leading regions for the Boston round glass bottle market. Asia Pacific is expected to witness a significant growth in demand for Boston round glass bottle in the near future. Further, Latin America and Middle East & Africa are anticipated to witness sustainable growth over the forecast period.Boston Round Glass Bottle Market: Key PlayersSome of the major players in the global Boston round glass bottle market are The Cary Company, Salbro Bottle Inc., Cole-Parmer India Pvt. Ltd., MJS PACKAGING, BASCO, Inc., B.T.I. Packaging Co. Ltd, Empire Industries Ltd., Yiwu Huicheng Glass Products Co., Ltd. and many more.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite :Spatial Light Modulator Market 2018 Global Key Players: American Electric Power, Texas Instruments, Jenoptik, Forth Dimension Displays, Santec, PerkinElmer, Holoeye Photonics, Hamamatsu Photonics

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1721

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/spatial-light-modulator-market-1721

Market Research Future published a research report on Global Spatial Light Modulator Market Research Report- Forecast 2022  Market Analysis, Scope, Stake, Progress, Trends and Forecast to 2022.Market ScenarioSLM or Spatial Light Modulator is a component which imposes spatially varying modulation on beam of a light. Overhead projector in the institutes and organizations are the best example of a Spatial Light Modulator. Some factors which are driving the market of spatial light modulator are growing economy and expansion of organizations as well as implementation of advance technology in education sector. Technological advancement in the field of information technology is also one of the factor supporting the market. Global Spatial Light Modulator Market has been valued at US ~$215 million in the year 2015 which is expected to grow at US ~$553 million by the end of forecast period with expected CAGR of ~15%.Key Players:The prominent players in the market of Spatial Light Modulator are- American Electric Power (U.S.), Texas Instruments Inc. (U.S.), Jenoptik AG (Germany) Laser 2000 (UK) Ltd (UK), Forth Dimension Displays (UK), Santec Corporation (U.S.), PerkinElmer, Inc., (U.S.), Holoeye Photonics AG (Germany), Hamamatsu Photonics (Japan), Meadowlark Optics, Inc (U.S.) among others.Get Sample of Report @Industry News:April 13, 2017 - Hamamatsu Photonics K.K. has announced its new development of product which is a LCOS-SLM (liquid-crystal-on-silicon spatial light modulator) with heat sink. It offers lightfast performance for applications which includes laser marking with 100W class high-power lasers.Sept 2016 - Forth Dimension Displays, which makes fast binary spatial light modulators, has went into the collaboration with LightTrans to adapt of LightTrans's VirtualLab Fusion software. This software support to high-speed binary phase modulators.February 13, 2016 - Meadowlark Optics, a global provider of Spatial Light Modulators, has launched its new product which is two new analog SLMs with resolutions of 1920 x 1152 and large format 512 x 512. These Spatial Light Modulators are used to control incident light in amplitude and phase. This new high resolution system is responsible for handling high fill factor and high optical power.Spatial Light Modulator Global Market - SegmentationThe Spatial light modulator Market can be segmented in to 3 key dynamics for the convenience of the report and enhanced understanding; Segmentation by Type: Comprises Optically Addressed SLM and Electrically Addressed SLM. Segmentation by Application: Comprises Optical, Display, and Holographic among others. Segmentation by Regions: Comprises Geographical regions - North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World.Spatial Light Modulator Global Market - Regional AnalysisNorth America is dominating the global spatial light modulator market with the largest market share due to the implementation of advance technology in education sector, which is gaining demand in spatial light modulator market in these region, and is expected to gain growth by 2022. Global spatial light modulator market in Asia Pacific market is expected to grow at a substantial CAGR during 2016 to 2022 due to rapid due to due strong manufacturing presence in China and Japan. The European market for spatial light modulator market is expected to grow at a considerable CAGR (2016-2022).Get Complete Report @Intended Audience OEMs Technology Service Providers Investors in Technology and IT Government OEM Technology Solution ProvidersAbout Us:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Media Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.comBlepharitis Market Key Players  Allergan Plc, InSite Vision Inc Merck & Co Inc, and NicOx SA Analysis & Forecast 2017 to 2022

Blepharitis

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/sample-request/3031096-blepharitis-pipeline-review-h1-2018

https://www.wiseguyreports.com/reports/3031096-blepharitis-pipeline-review-h1-2018

BlepharitisOverviewBlepharitis is an inflammation of the eyelids, usually caused by an excess growth of bacteria that is ordinarily found on the skin, blockage of the eyelid's oil glands, and occasionally allergies. Blepharitis signs and symptoms include watery eyes, red eyes, itchy eyelids, sensitivity to light. Treatment includes antibiotics, lubricating eye drops and steroid eye drops or ointments.Click here for sample report @Major Key Players:Allergan PlcHovione FarmaCiencia SAInSite Vision IncKala Pharmaceuticals IncMarinomed Biotechnologie GmbHMerck & Co IncNicOx SABlepharitis Industry Major OutlookPharmaceutical and Healthcare latest pipeline guide Blepharitis - Pipeline Review, H1 2018, provides comprehensive information on the therapeutics under development for Blepharitis , complete with analysis by stage of development, drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type. The guide covers the descriptive pharmacological action of the therapeutics, its complete research and development history and latest news and press releases.The Blepharitis (Ophthalmology) pipeline guide also reviews of key players involved in therapeutic development for Blepharitis and features dormant and discontinued projects. The guide covers therapeutics under Development by Companies /Universities /Institutes, the molecules developed by Companies in Phase III, Phase II, Phase I and Preclinical stages are 2, 3, 1 and 6 respectively.Blepharitis pipeline guide helps in identifying and tracking emerging players in the market and their portfolios, enhances decision making capabilities and helps to create effective counter strategies to gain competitive advantage.Blepharitis - Competitive AnalysisKey players are making innovative developments in Blepharitis industry. The same will help in improving the market performance. Heavy investments are made by major players in the R&D sectorScopeThe pipeline guide provides a snapshot of the global therapeutic landscape of Blepharitis.The pipeline guide reviews pipeline therapeutics for Blepharitis by companies and universities/research institutes based on information derived from company and industry-specific sources.The pipeline guide covers pipeline products based on several stages of development ranging from pre-registration till discovery and undisclosed stages.The pipeline guide features descriptive drug profiles for the pipeline products which comprise, product description, descriptive licensing and collaboration details, R&D brief, MoA & other developmental activities.The pipeline guide reviews key companies involved in Blepharitis therapeutics and enlists all their major and minor projects.The pipeline guide evaluates Blepharitis therapeutics based on mechanism of action (MoA), drug target, route of administration (RoA) and molecule type.The pipeline guide encapsulates all the dormant and discontinued pipeline projects.The pipeline guide reviews latest news related to pipeline therapeutics for Blepharitis..ContinuedFor Detailed Reading Please visit @Wise Guy Reports understand how essential statistical surveying information is for your organization or association. Therefore, we have associated with the top publishers and research firms all specialized in specific domains, ensuring you will receive the most reliable and up to date research data available. We also provide COTS (Commercial off the Shelf) business sector reports as custom exploration agreeing your particular needs.WISEGUY RESEARCH CONSULTANTS PVT LTDOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersPune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaHandhelds and their advantages: UPB implements DENSOs BHT-1600

https://www.denso-autoid-eu.com/en.html

http://iodd.upb.lv/

https://www.denso-autoid-eu.com/en.html

https://www.denso-autoid-eu.com/en.html

http://iodd.upb.lv/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHp4Yboj7IccPlSeRxQ6yBQ

www.denso-autoid-eu.com

Industrial group UPB uses robust handheld terminals from DENSO, part of the Toyota group and inventor of the QR Code, in its manufacturing plant and optimizes processes.UPB is one of the largest industrial groups in the Baltic States, active in precast steel and curtain wall business areas. / Specialists for mobile data collection from DENSO offer the robust BHT-1600, the ideal Android handheld terminal for tough working environments in the manufacturing plant and warehouse. / UPB uses DENSOs BHT-1600 Android ruggedized devices for mobile data collection in the warehouse and in logistics. / Robust Android BHT-1600 combines smartphone and mobile data collection. / Android handheld terminal is equipped with NFC. / Further information on the secure handheld terminals and hand scanners with RFID or NFC, mobile data collection, the QR Code, and the DENSO Auto-ID Business Unit is available at./Dusseldorf. As one of the largest industrial groups in the Baltic States, UPB is active in precast steel and curtain wall business areas. UPB offers full cycle services including planning and production as well as delivery and construction. UPBs precast manufacturing plant is located in Liepaja in Latvia. More than 100 precast elements are manufactured there daily, including walls, stairs, and balconies. UPBs warehouse measures about 10,000 square metres and is located outside the plant. Every day, about 1,000 building elements are stored inside. It is easy to get lost in a large warehouse, but all procedures from planning and production to delivery and construction have to be managed trouble-free. Thus, UPB implemented the handheld terminal BHT-1600 with Android from DENSO, part of the Toyota group and inventor of the QR Code, in its precast manufacturing plant. Sina Haupt, Marketing Assistant at the DENSO Auto-ID Business Unit, explains: The employees use our robust BHT-1600 handheld terminals with Android in the manufacturing plant and the warehouse, starting from the manufacturing process to the finished products. The latter are later loaded onto trucks and delivered to the client. Further information on UPB and their precast steel and curtain walls are available at:The robust BHT-1600 from DENSO  the perfect mobile data collection device in the warehouseThe working environment in UPBs precast manufacturing plant is tough. Manufacturing processes are dusty, and working in the warehouse means that any weather condition can influence the mobile data collection devices. Thus, a robust solution was to be found for the processes in the warehouse and the manufacturing plant. The robust BHT-1600 handheld terminal in the ruggedized version is now used by UPB and the employees work with the Android handheld terminals for mobile data collection in the warehouse and in order to scan the manufacturing steps. The benefits of the BHT-1600 handheld are that it is not only robust, but also splash-proof and crash-proof. UPB can use both Wi-Fi and Cellular data, and the built-in camera of the robust BHT-1600 handheld terminal, which combines the advantages of a smartphone with mobile data collection, can save time when images are required for inspection tasks. Furthermore, DENSO, part of the Toyota group and inventor of the QR Code, provided device management software that allowed the industrial group to push updates to all the devices when applications had been updated. Those who are interested can find more information on the secure handheld terminals, hand scanners, solutions for mobile data collection in warehouses and logistics, the QR Code, innovative devices with RFID or NFC, and the DENSO Auto-ID Business Unit atHandheld terminals make quality assurance easier at the industrial group UPBDuring the manufacturing process in the manufacturing plant of UPB, every element goes through multiple steps. It is important to have quality checks at different manufacturing steps. Moreover, it is crucial for managers in charge to have correct information on the manufacturing process in order to plan the next steps in advance. Our robust BHT-1600 handheld terminals with Android are used in UPBs manufacturing plant to mark when a specific manufacturing step has been finished and when the element is ready for shipment, says Haupt. As the robust BHT-1600 Android handheld terminal for mobile data collection has an integrated camera, progress pictures are taken and sent immediately to the ERP system. That way, the work load of the quality assurance specialists at UPB is reduced. Further information on the secure handheld terminals, hand scanners, solutions for mobile data collection, the QR Code, innovations with RFID or NFC, and the DENSO Auto-ID Business Unit are available atDENSO's handheld terminals keep UPBs warehouse organizedWhen manufacturing has finished producing different elements, the latter are transferred to UPBs warehouse. Each element has a unique barcode, which is scanned respectively. Subsequently, the elements location in the warehouse is saved. This information is also sent to the ERP system so that every element can be easily located in the warehouse. During the planning process, it was essential to keep in mind that every element weighs a couple of tons. That means, it takes time to load them onto trucks, says Haupt. DENSO's BHT-1600 Android handheld terminals ensure that loading errors are eliminated, because the loading lists are downloaded directly from the ERP system, she adds. In order to verify that the loading has been done properly, every element is scanned individually. When the loading is finished, images are taken with the BHT-1600 from DENSO, part of the Toyota group and inventor of the QR Code, and uploaded to the ERP system. Hence, they can be used in case something happened to the shipment during the transport to the customer.Saving time and reducing errors  advantages of DENSOs robust BHT-1600After the implementation of the robust BHT-1600 Android handheld from DENSO, part of the Toyota group and inventor of the QR Code, UPB sees less paperwork for the warehouse managers and less mistakes made when elements are loaded from the warehouse onto the trucks. In addition, the easy image upload to the ERP system saves more time. And last but not least, another decisive advantage of DENSOs robust BHT-1600 handheld terminal is the fact that the respective element manufacturing information is updated immediately. We are very happy that UPB can work so well with our robust data collection devices in its warehouse and manufacturing plant. Positive feedback from our clients, some of whom we have worked with for more than 20 years already, is what drives us, says Haupt.Developing the application software of DENSOs robust BHT-1600 handheldAll the Android software used on the robust BHT-1600 handheld terminal from the experts for mobile data collection was developed by an internal IT branch of UPB that implemented this system into the manufacturing plant of the industrial group. In total, UPB developed three Android apps  one for quality assurance and two for warehouse management. That way, the employees can work perfectly with the robust BHT-1600 handheld terminal and profit from the advantages of the data collection device on a daily basis. Further information on UPB and their precast steel and curtain walls are available at:For the European market, the DENSO Auto-ID Business Unit is the contact window for all enquiries on QR Codes, mobile data capture, handheld terminals, and scanners. The durable and robust terminals and scanners manufactured by DENSO are to be found in storage, logistics, at the POS, in production, and field & sales automation applications. Short and informative video clips about the terminals, scanners, and solutions from the DENSO Auto-ID Business Unit can now be viewed on YouTube. The clips include the 20th anniversary of the QR Code, a company presentation, and introductions to the various devices for mobile data capture such as the BHT-1500, BHT-1400 and the GT20 scanner. For more information, click on the link below:QR Code is a registered trademark of DENSO WAVE INCORPORATED.DENSO is one of the worlds largest manufacturers of mobile data devices. We follow one mission: Driven by Quality  maximum quality in mobile data capturing. Decision-makers in the fields of retail, logistics and production rely on DENSO for their business requirements and in implementing the Internet of Things. DENSO is a member of the Toyota Group and is exclusively represented in Europe by the DENSO Auto-ID Business Unit of TT Network Integration Europe:DENSO Auto-ID Business UnitImmermannstr. 65 BD-40210 DusseldorfPhone +49 (0) 211 545547 450Managing Director:Takashi HaraMarketing Assistant:Sina HauptPhone +49 (0) 211 545547 403Email:Sina.Haupt@denso-autoid-eu.comWebsite:http://www.denso-autoid-eu.com/en.htmlPress Contact:PPR HamburgRafael R. Pilsczek, M. A.Sinstorfer Kirchweg 18D-21077 HamburgPhone +49 (0) 40 32 80 89 80Fax +49 (0) 40 65 58 43 58Mobil: +49 (0) 170 310 79 72Christian Podcast Aligns with Media Network

Voice of Reason logo

http://www.SlaveToTheKing.com

http://www.MuniakMedia.com

Cincinnati, Ohio, USA  March 5th, 2018  The Voice of Reason Radio podcast (with Chris Hohnholz and Richard Story) has joined the ranks of The Muniak Media Network (MMN). The network provides solid, Biblical content that entertains and edifies Christians across the globe.The hosts, Chris Hohnholz and Richard Story, look at news and current events through a Biblical worldview. They explore biblical theology and explain practical application of the Scriptures. Chris and Rich consider themselves to be unworthy rebels, redeemed by the King of Kings and made servants fit for His use. The only thing stranger than these two brothers are their hobbies.The Voice of Reason Radio podcast is willing to touch upon the meaty parts of Gods Word unashamedly, yet with gentleness and respect to those in other theological camps. Ephesians 4:1-3 sums it up nicely, Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.The Voice of Reason Radio podcast can be found online atand is available for download on all major podcast apps.Muniak Media seeks to Glorify God, Exalt Christ, and Proclaim Good News by providing biblical and entertaining content through various media outlets.Muniak MediaATTN: Ryan Muniak3450 Michigan AvenueCincinnati, Ohio 45208513-620-5964media@muniakfamily.comOptaglio moves towards gamification of anti-counterfeit protection

Time of boring holograms is over. People got used to advanced design. We cannot expect them to look for visual effects like those

www.optaglio.com

www.optaglio.com

Delicate colour scale, subtle visual effect and picture quality higher than usual printing. Optaglio, the global leader in high-resolution security holograms, demonstrated new features of its products to experts and journalists, passing another milestone to gamification of anti-counterfeit protection. These innovations are based on an enormous resolution of light diffraction structures.Time of boring holograms is over. Users have right to require that protection elements are interesting, funny and including unique effects. It is what companies should focus on now. The best technology vendors in the global market have reached sufficient technological advantage over falsifiers for some time. The personality of inspecting guard is the now the key element. The inspection should be easy and amusing for him or her, says Tomas Karensky, senior research manager in Optaglio. People got used to advanced design. We cannot expect them to look for visual effects like those of geekosphere of 70th.Optaglio applies the concept of gamification that already has worked in application development. User experience should be close to the one users know from gaming.Optaglio has developed several new visual effects during the past year, including unique 3D objects and small animation. Most of these innovations are based on a huge resolution of diffraction structures, which also enables finer colour scale. On the other hand, slower production and higher costs are disadvantages of extreme resolution holograms. Optaglio, therefore, develops computer simulation tools and organise special training for designers to mitigate this weakness.Behaviour studies show that if users focus on a single striking and exciting feature of protection element, he/she is usually able to spot even minor differences.The latest innovation is a result of the cooperation of Optaglio Laboratories, Optaglio Consulting Practice and an independent behaviour research centre. The consulting unit is settled in the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic. Optalio Labs is situated in Lochovice, Czech Republic, where all research activities of Optaglio were concentrated in 2015.Since its establishment in 1994, Optaglio has been a research organisation foremost. The culture and values of the company are framed by its founders from Czech Academy of Science. Experiments, new technologies and material research have always been key priorities for us, for business reasons but also because we simply like it. Now we understand that we need to cover also human behaviour in our research activities, adds Tomas Karensky.Optaglio is a research organisation and the global leader in high-resolution e-beam lithography security holograms. During almost 25 years of our history, we have delivered billions of holograms to governments, card manufacturers, security printing companies, premium brand producers and other organizations in more than 50 countries around the world.In 2015, a large scientific centre and production facilities were opened in Lochovice, Czech Republic. The company currently employs almost 100 people in the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic.Optaglio, certified to relevant international standards, operates under strict 24/7 security supervision. Our comprehensive security system covers people, processes, data and facilities. The company is a member of International Hologram Association (IHMA) through which it registers all its security devices and holograms in the central security register, in London.More information is available onOptaglioObora 20LochoviceCzech RepublicAgritech Expo Zambia

Agritech Expo exposes farmers to technology and keeps agri centre stage

http://www.agritech-expo.com

There are very positive steps being taken by the Zambian government to promote the agricultural market, with lower barriers to export and minimal intervention in the grain markets in 2017 and intentions to use market mechanisms to manage grain stocks in the future, are all welcome and must be encouraged. This is according to Rob Munro, Director of Strategy at Musika, a Zambian non-profit company that works to stimulate private sector investment in the smallholder market. Musika has been a key partner since the start of Agritech Expo Zambia, the outdoor farming expo which returns for its fifth edition in Chisamba from 12-14 April.Munro adds: the e-FISP initiative is a prime example of the government and the agricultural sector working together for the benefit of all players in the market, and the industry would like to see the same sort of collaboration in the commodity marketing sector.Opportunities in Zambias agri sectorAsked about the main current challenges in the Zambian agri sector, Munro lists the overdependence on rain-fed grain  and maize in particular - to drive the agricultural sector as well as grain storage. He continues: encompassing both issues is the issue of policy. It is critical that Government creates a stable and predictable agricultural policy environment that encourages market diversification and incentivises the sort of long-term investments in production, storage and value addition to allow agriculture to thrive in Zambia.With regards to the opportunities in the countrys farming sector, the Musika Director of Strategy says: the livestock sector, especially the smallholder dairy, beef and small livestock markets, have so much more to offer the economy than they currently do. The legume sector is also ripe for expansion and the irrigated crop market is still operating way under potential. What each of these sectors need is a combined effort of input and technology providers and traders and processors to offer a holistic market opportunity to both large and small farmers to make investments in these sectors. In terms of Zambias long term agricultural sector growth, the food processing sector has tremendous opportunity to play a key role.Musika projects and philosophyHighlights for Musika projects during 2017 includes the strong growth in the formal cassava markets of northern Zambia which Munro says demonstrates a key tenet of Musikas philosophy, that the creation of a strong private sector-led market opportunity leads to not only a robust supply response from smallholder farmers but also investment by those farmers in improved varieties, improved land preparation and so on that will lead to greater productivity and wealth creation in rural communities.The two headline areas that Musika will be focusing on in 2018 are:1. Market opportunities that exist for smallholders around combining agricultural growth and environmental protection and benefit, which includes the role of renewable energy in powering agriculture, and also agroforestry and biofuel and biomass production systems2. Structural market developments that can bring the benefits of transparent, efficient trade to all participants in the agricultural economy. In 2018, Musika will ramp up its support to the nascent commodities exchange and also explore opportunities for private investment in transparent, hygienic and efficient wholesaling structures in the fresh fruit and vegetable markets.Agritech Expo keeping agri centre stageMusika has been a key partner of Agritech Expo Zambia in Chisamba from the start five years ago, which Munro says has contributed to the development in agriculture in two ways: it has exposed farmers, large and small, and other industry players to a wide range of productivity-enhancing technologies, and all the other services that go with them. It has also  literally - brought agribusinesses together and helped develop commercial partnerships that have undoubtedly had an impact on the agricultural sector far beyond the few days of the event itself.He continues: the second contribution is less explicit but equally important, and that is through the sharp public focus that it throws on Zambian agriculture once a year. Through its strong media coverage, the attendance by high profile politicians and the surrounding positive publicity that it attracts, Agritech can rightfully claim to be a key contributor to keeping agriculture centre-stage to national development.The full interview with Rob Munro can on the event website.Industry supportThe multi-award winning Agritech Expo Zambia returns to GART in Chisamba from 12-14 April and is expected to bring more than 22 000 visitors, over 270 local and international exhibitors with 3500 VIP and large scale farmers and 150 members of the media. International and country pavilions from France, Germany, Zimbabwe, Czech Republic, Finland and the EU have already been confirmed Agritech Expo Zambia is free to attend for all visitors that pre-register.As in previous years, Agritech Expo enjoys extensive support from the agri industry with well-known suppliers AFGRI and John Deere returning as platinum sponsors once again. Confirmed gold sponsors are Gourock, SARO and Ursus.Agritech Expo Zambia 2018:Farmers Preview Day:Thursday 12 April 2018 | 09:00 - 17:00Open to all agricultural professionals:Friday 13 April 2018 | 09:00 - 17:00Saturday 14 April 2018 | 09:00 - 15:00Location: Gart Research Centre, Chisamba, ZambiaAgritech Expo Zambia is owned by the Zambia National Farmers Union (ZNFU) and is organised by Spintelligent, leading Cape Town-based trade exhibition and conference organiser, and the African office of Clarion Events Ltd, based in the UK. Another well-known agri event by Spintelligent is Farm-Tech Expo Kenya.Senior communications manager: Annemarie RoodbolMobile: +27 82 562 7844Office: +27 21 700 3558Email: annemarie.roodbol@spintelligent.comWebsite:Postal address: PO Box 321, Steenberg, 7947, South AfricaBasmati Rice Market to Set Phenomenal Growth from 2018 to 2022

Basmati Rice Market

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/sample-report/740500-global-basmati-rice-market-1

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/reports/740500-global-basmati-rice-market-1

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/enquiry-before-buy/740500-global-basmati-rice-market-1

https://www.htfmarketreport.com/buy-now?format=1&report=740500

HTF MI published a new industry research that focuses on Basmati Rice market and delivers in-depth market analysis and future prospects of Global Basmati Rice market. The study covers significant data which makes the research document a handy resource for managers, analysts, industry experts and other key people get ready-to-access and self-analyzed study along with graphs and tables to help understand market trends, drivers and market challenges. The study is segmented by Application/ end users [Direct Edible & Deep Processing], products type [Indian Basmati Rice & Pakistani Basmati Rice] and various important geographies like North America (USA, Canada and Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.) & Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)].Get Access to sample pages @"Basmati is a variety of long, slender-grained aromatic rice which is traditionally from the Indian subcontinent. Basmati rice has a typical pandan-like (Pandanus amaryllifolius leaf) flavour caused by the aroma compound 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline. Basmati grains contain about 0.09 ppm of this aromatic chemical compound naturally, a level that is about 12 times more than non-basmati rice varieties, giving basmati its distinctive spicy fragrance and flavour. This natural aroma is also found in cheese, fruits and other cereals. It is a flavoring agent approved in the United States and Europe, and is used in bakery products for aroma."The research covers the current market size of the Global Basmati Rice market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data along with company profile of key players/manufacturers. The in-depth information by segments of Basmati Rice market helps monitor future profitability & to make critical decisions for growth. The information on trends and developments, focuses on markets and materials, capacities, technologies, CAPEX cycle and the changing structure of the Global Basmati Rice Market.The study provides company profiling, product picture and specifications, sales, market share and contact information of key manufacturers of Global Basmati Rice Market, some of them listed here are LT Foods, Amira Nature Foods, Best Foods, KRBL Limited, Kohinoor Rice, Aeroplane Rice, Tilda Basmati Rice, Amar Singh Chawal Wala, Hanuman Rice Mills, Adani Wilmar, Galaxy Rice Mill, Dunar Foods & Sungold. The market is growing at a very rapid pace and with rise in technological innovation, competition and M&A activities in the industry many local and regional vendors are offering specific application products for varied end-users. The new manufacturer entrants in the market are finding it hard to compete with the international vendors based on quality, reliability, and innovations in technology.Global Basmati Rice (Thousands Units) and Revenue (Million USD) Market Split by Product Type such as Indian Basmati Rice & Pakistani Basmati Rice. Further the research study is segmented by Application such as Direct Edible & Deep Processing with historical and projected market share and compounded annual growth rate.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share and growth rate of Basmati Rice in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), covering North America (USA, Canada and Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.) & Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa) and its Share (%) and CAGR for the forecasted period 2017 to 2022.Following would be the Chapters to display the Global Basmati Rice market.Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Basmati Rice, Applications of Basmati Rice, Market Segment by Regions;Chapter 2, to analyze the Manufacturing Cost Structure, Raw Material and Suppliers, Manufacturing Process, Industry Chain Structure;Chapter 3, to display the Technical Data and Manufacturing Plants Analysis of Basmati Rice, Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, R&D Status and Technology Source, Raw Materials Sources Analysis;Chapter 4, to show the Overall Market Analysis, Capacity Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Analysis (Company Segment), Sales Price Analysis (Company Segment);Chapter 5 and 6, to show the Regional Market Analysis that includes North America (USA, Canada and Mexico), Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia and Italy), Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India and Southeast Asia), South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.) & Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa), Basmati Rice Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the Basmati Rice Segment Market Analysis (by Application) Major Manufacturers Analysis of Basmati Rice;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type [Indian Basmati Rice & Pakistani Basmati Rice], Market Trend by Application [Direct Edible & Deep Processing];Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of Global Basmati Rice;Chapter 12,13, 14 and 15, to describe Basmati Rice sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Enquire for customization in Report @What this Research Study Offers:Global Basmati Rice Market share assessments for the regional and country level segmentsMarket share analysis of the top industry playersStrategic recommendations for the new entrantsMarket forecasts for a minimum of 5 years of all the mentioned segments, sub segments and the regional marketsMarket Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimationsCompetitive landscaping mapping the key common trendsCompany profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developmentsSupply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancementsBuy this research report @Reasons for Buying this ReportThis report provides pin-point analysis for changing competitive dynamicsIt provides a forward looking perspective on different factors driving or restraining market growthIt provides a six-year forecast assessed on the basis of how the market is predicted to growIt helps in understanding the key product segments and their futureIt provides pin point analysis of changing competition dynamics and keeps you ahead of competitorsIt helps in making informed business decisions by having complete insights of market and by making in-depth analysis of market segmentsThanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.HTF Market Report is a wholly owned brand of HTF market Intelligence Consulting Private Limited. HTF Market Report global research and market intelligence consulting organization is uniquely positioned to not only identify growth opportunities but to also empower and inspire you to create visionary growth strategies for futures, enabled by our extraordinary depth and breadth of thought leadership, research, tools, events and experience that assist you for making goals into a reality. Our understanding of the interplay between industry convergence, Mega Trends, technologies and market trends provides our clients with new business models and expansion opportunities. We are focused on identifying the Accurate Forecast in every industry we cover so our clients can reap the benefits of being early market entrants and can accomplish their Goals & Objectives.Contact us :HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837sales@htfmarketreport.com+1 (206) 317 1218Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing Market : Key Growth Factors and Industry Analysis 2015-2025

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=B&rep_id=31508

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=T&rep_id=31508

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=D&rep_id=31508

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/antimicrobial-susceptibility-testing-market.html

http://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

Antimicrobial resistance is the ability of microorganisms to resist effects of a wide range of antimicrobial drugs. This condition leads to the ineffectiveness of standard treatments against microbial infections, persistence of infectious diseases, and their spread to others. It may require costly and toxic treatments. Antimicrobial resistance is one of the major challenges faced by health care professionals in recent years. Several clinical studies are under development for optimizing the therapeutic management of patients with infections. Antimicrobial susceptibility tests are conducted to detect the possible drug resistance by known microorganisms and to find out the most sensitive antimicrobial drug against the infective microorganism. Results of these tests help doctors optimize the therapeutic management of patients with infections. Different antimicrobial susceptibility tests and products have been developed including disk diffusion method, broth microdilution method, and rapid automated instrument method. Some of these methods yield qualitative results such as minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), while others provide the qualitative information in three different categories: susceptible, intermediate, and resistant.Get Brochure of Report @Increased usage of antibiotics in the treatment of microbial infections without proper indication and need is one of the most important reasons for development of antimicrobial resistance across the world. Emergence of several microorganisms resistant to antimicrobial drugs and high incidence rate of antimicrobial-resistant infections such as persistent sore throat, recurring urinary tract infection (UTI), and unresponsive case of pneumonia are some of the key factors driving the global antimicrobial susceptibility testing market. It has been observed that more than 50% of antibiotics are not optimally prescribed; sometimes they are prescribed when not needed. Also, spread of resistant strains of bacteria from person to person and from non-human sources into food, water, and natural environment increases the risk of antimicrobial resistance of pathogens. Development of automated testing equipment and newer tests and methods for detection of antimicrobial susceptibility would propel the antimicrobial susceptibility testing market during the forecast period. Automated testing equipment require a large number of viable organisms; they have limited organism spectrum; and they are quite costlier. This restricts the antimicrobial susceptibility testing market.The global antimicrobial susceptibility testing market can be segmented on the basis of method, product, test type, end-user, and region. Based on method, the market has been segmented into broth microdilution method, rapid automated instrument method, disk diffusion method, and gradient diffusion method. The rapid automated instrument method segment dominated the market in 2016 and is likely to account for a leading market share by 2025. Based on test type, the market has been divided into qualitative and quantitative tests. Based on product, the market has been classified into tests & kits, culture mediums, and automated test systems. End-users of antimicrobial susceptibility tests include biotechnology & pharmaceutical companies, hospitals & diagnostics centers, veterinary clinics, clinical research laboratories, and academic & research institutes.Request Report For TOC @In terms of geography, the global antimicrobial susceptibility testing market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. North America accounts for a major market share and is likely to hold a leading market share by 2025 as well. Europe follows North America, holding the second-largest share of the global market. The market in Europe is projected to be growing rapidly during the forecast period. High R&D expenditure by governments as well as private players, emergence of newer antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, and high incidence rate of antimicrobial resistance in the region are key factors estimated to drive the market in Europe during the forecast period.Key players operating in the global antimicrobial susceptible testing market are bioMerieux, Inc., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., HiMedia Laboratories, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., Laboratorios CONDA, S.A., Creative Diagnostics, Alifax S.r.l., Becton, Dickinson and Company, and Beckman Coulter, Inc.Enquiry for discount on this report The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Report Overview @About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA  Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Advanced GaN on Diamond Technology Market Will Fuel Market Growth : Industry Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2025

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/sample/1597789

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/sample/enquiry/1597789

https://www.marketresearchreports.biz/reports/1597789/gan-on-diamond-technology-market-research-reports

GaN is an essential wide bandgap material having the mobility of large electrons, enabling higher voltage operations for various power applications including RF and switching at much advanced frequencies than silicon material. GaN on diamond technology offers the reliability of a new generation for enhancing the power and efficiency with smaller electronics. A power density area of more than twice is achieved with the application of GaN-on-diamond technology enabled transistor devices as compared to the GaN-on-SiC semiconductor devices. Furthermore, a thermal barrier resistance between substrate and a gate junction for a given device power, can be minimized by approximately 50% compared to GaN-on-SiC devices. These peculiarities of the GaN on diamond technology produce substantial system-level advantages for commercial and defense applications including cellular base stations, satellites, and radar among others. Additionally, GaN-on-diamond RF power-amplifiers are very useful to lower the cost and the temperature of the semiconductor device to a certain degree, while enhancing the lifetime.Growing popularity of electronic devices worldwide and increasing application of GaN on diamond technology in the commercial and defense industry around the world is expected to fuel the growth of the global GaN on diamond technology market. Many players such as Akash Systems, Inc., from the semiconductor domain are innovating novel GaN on diamond technology based devices. GaN-on-diamond technology offers numerous advantages within the commercial and defense industry domain such as cellular base station deployment, satellite equipment for weather and communications, and apparatus for radar sensing. Furthermore, it is also used in making of converters and inverters typically used in hybrid and electronic vehicles. Many emerging players from the GaN on diamond technology domain are designing innovating systems by using this technology. For instance, in March 2017, Akash Systems, Inc., patented GaN-on-diamond technology, which is used to make compact, low cost, advanced, and lighter satellites. Additionally, many companies are entering into strategic M&A to capture the market and gain technological edge. For instance, in March 2017, South Korean company RFHIC Corp. signed an agreement with the member company of De Beers Group named Element Six to acquire its GaN on diamond technology.Request for sample copy of report @Many technological advancements pertaining to the GaN on diamond technology in recent times along with rise in funding to emerging players from the GaN on diamond domain is expected to create novel opportunities for the GaN on diamond technology market. For instance, dielectric deposited thickness amid GaN and diamond is minimized from 50 nm to 35 nm along with the thermal barrier resistance. Additionally, in January 2018, Akash Systems, Inc. raised US$ 3.1 Mn seed round funding; the funding was run by Khosla Ventures, and comprised Data Collective, Social Capital, Backstage Capital, Sriram Krishnan, and Ruvento Ventures,The GaN on diamond technology market is segmented on the basis of end-use industry and region. By end-use industry, the market is classified into military & defense, semiconductor, IT & telecom, aerospace, electronics, and others.Geographically, the GaN on diamond technology market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia Pacific, and South America. North America and Europe are expected to lead the GaN on diamond technology market owing to the presence of established players and technological advancement pertaining to GaN on diamond technology. However, the growing popularity of GaN on diamond technology in commercial industries across countries such as India, China, and Japan is expected to propel the growth of the GaN on diamond technology market in Asia Pacific.Get more information on this market :Some of the key players in the GaN on diamond technology market are Akash Systems, Inc., Qorvo, Inc., RFHIC Corporation, Element Six Technologies, TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc., Raytheon Company, MOUSER Electronics, Diamond Microwave Devices, and Nano Materials International Corporation among others.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.The study is a source of reliable data on:Market segments and sub-segmentsMarket trends and dynamicsSupply and demandMarket sizeCurrent trends/opportunities/challengesCompetitive landscapeTechnological breakthroughsValue chain and stakeholder analysisThe regional analysis covers:North America (U.S. and Canada)Latin America (Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and others)Western Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Spain, Italy, Nordic countries, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg)Eastern Europe (Poland and Russia)Asia Pacific (China, India, Japan, ASEAN, Australia, and New Zealand)Middle East and Africa (GCC, Southern Africa, and North Africa)The report has been compiled through extensive primary research (through interviews, surveys, and observations of seasoned analysts) and secondary research (which entails reputable paid sources, trade journals, and industry body databases). The report also features a complete qualitative and quantitative assessment by analyzing data gathered from industry analysts and market participants across key points in the industrys value chain.View full report here @A separate analysis of prevailing trends in the parent market, macro- and micro-economic indicators, and regulations and mandates is included under the purview of the study. By doing so, the report projects the attractiveness of each major segment over the forecast period.Highlights of the report:A complete backdrop analysis, which includes an assessment of the parent marketImportant changes in market dynamicsMarket segmentation up to the second or third levelHistorical, current, and projected size of the market from the standpoint of both value and volumeReporting and evaluation of recent industry developmentsMarket shares and strategies of key playersEmerging niche segments and regional marketsAn objective assessment of the trajectory of the marketRecommendations to companies for strengthening their foothold in the marketNote: Although care has been taken to maintain the highest levels of accuracy in TMRs reports, recent market/vendor-specific changes may take time to reflect in the analysis.MRRbiz supports your business intelligence needs with over 700,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository. Our document database is updated by the hour, which means that you always have access to fresh data spanning over 300 industries and their sub-segments. We have built a veritable reputation for our commitment to fulfilling our clients' exacting market research solutions. From Fortune 500 companies to SMEs, our clients place their trust in us for reports from verified publishers.State Tower90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.bizCar Security System Market Pegged to Surpass US$ 12,170.8 Mn Valuation by End of 2016-2026

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-gb-617

https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/askus/rep-gb-617

www.futuremarketinsights.com

Future Market Insights delivers key insights on the global car security system market in a new publication titled Car Security System Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment, 2016  2026. Global sales of car security systems is estimated to be valued at US$ 6,787.3 Mn by the end of 2016, witnessing a Y-o-Y growth of 4.8% over 2015. North America is estimated to account for a value share of 30.0% in the global car security system market by 2016 end but Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ) is anticipated to gain a higher growth rate throughout the forecast period. In this report, Future Market Insights analyses the factors and trends impacting the growth and performance of the global car security system market.Increasing sales of new vehicles, along with rising awareness among car owners and a robust aftermarket growth are bolstering the global car security system market. Automobile manufacturers are increasing the deployment of security systems in new vehicles to stand out in competition. Furthermore, increasing adoption of telematics across the globe is enabling easy car monitoring techniques and comfort to car owners with enhancement in car security. However high cost of product and high installation charges are limiting OEM and aftermarket opportunities. Automakers provide more options in their premium car variants which in turn is decreasing the adoption by new vehicle owners. Whereas establishment of new car production plants in countries such as Mexico, Turkey, India and China are increasing car security system market opportunities in these regions.Request For Report Sample@Segmentation highlightsThe global car security system is segmented on the basis of sales channel (OEM and Aftermarket), product type (immobilizer system, remote central locking system, alarm system and other systems) and car type (Economic cars, Mid-range cars and Premium cars).On the basis of sales channel, the OEM market segment is expected to dominate globally, but market share of OEM and aftermarket sub-segment is changing from one country to the other. In regions where less cars are produced such as Middle East and Africa, aftermarket segment is a major market and is anticipated to continue to dominate the market in terms of value and volume over the forecast period. There is a strong demand in OEM segment in the regions such as North America, Western Europe and APEJ owing to increasing production of cars and establishment of new production plants. North America has the largest aftermarket share which is expected to decrease over the forecast period.On the basis of car type, (Economic cars include mini and small cars- A & B segment cars as defined by EEC regulation and SUVs, MPVs & light trucks costing less than US$ 15000, midrange cars include C & D segment cars and SUVs, MPVs & light trucks costing between US$ 15,000- 30,000, and Premium segment cars include E & F segment cars and SUVs, MPVs & Light trucks costing more than US$ 30,000). Midrange cars are anticipated to dominate throughout the forecast period. Whereas economic cars segment are expected to exhibit the highest CAGR over the forecast period. Car security systems used in economic cars are of low value and adds less value to the market. And premium cars are loaded with many security system which increases the security systems value installed per car.On the basis of product type, the global car security system market is segmented into immobilizer system, remote central locking system, alarm system and other systems which include vehicle trackers, perimeter sensors, ultrasonic sensors and glass break sensors. Others segment is expected to register the highest CAGR in market whereas remote central locking system will continue to dominate in aftermarket and OEM market. Immobilizers are mostly sold in OEM market owing to their large penetration in all the car types.Regional projectionsThe global car security system market is segmented into the seven key regions of North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, APEJ, Japan, and Middle East & Africa (MEA)). North America is the largest market for car security systems owing to a large aftermarket and higher cost of products. APEJ will dominate the market by 2018 and will continue to increase its share in the future. Japans recent downfall in the realm of car production has affected the regional market, but increasing vehicle fleet and increasing car exports will increase Japanese market with a CAGR of 3% over the forecast period.Request For Report Table of Content (TOC):Vendor insightsKey players in the global car security system market include Valeo S.A., Continental A.G., Delphi Automotive PLC, Hella KGaA Hueck & Co., Tokai Rika Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Denso Corporation, Robert Bosch GmbH, Lear Corporation, Omron Corporation.ABOUT US:Future Market Insights (FMI) is a leading market intelligence and consulting firm. We deliver syndicated research reports, custom research reports and consulting services, which are personalized in nature. FMI delivers a complete packaged solution, which combines current market intelligence, statistical anecdotes, technology inputs, valuable growth insights, an aerial view of the competitive framework, and future market trends.CONTACT:Future Market Insights616 Corporate Way, Suite 2-9018,Valley Cottage, NY 10989,United StatesT: +1-347-918-3531F: +1-845-579-5705Email: sales@futuremarketinsights.comWebsite:Agrochemical Market Analysis 2018 | Global Leading Players, Industry Trends, Updates, Professional Survey and In-depth Analysis Research Report Foresight to 2023

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1267

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/agrochemicals-market-1267

Market Overview:With growing food demand due to rising global population, climate change and need of sustainable agriculture, easy availability and efficiency in agriculture production, the agrochemicals market is growing at an incremental pace of development on the global stage. Market Research Future, a firm which specializes in market reports related to the Food, Beverages & Agriculture sector among others, recently forecasted in its report on Global Agrochemicals Market Research Report- Forecast to 2023 that the market will demonstrate an exceptional CAGR while achieving good growth rapidly in the forecast period.In addition to the increasing population leading to growing demand for food, there have been efforts to augment crop production, increase soil efficiency, bring efficiency in land use, and high-quality yield are expected to drive the agrochemical market. Increased awareness about the agrochemicals due to government policies and rules towards the growth of agrochemicals has raised the bar for quality, which, in turn, increases the market share of agrochemicals globally.The market players are responding to new opportunities by expanding their service offerings/product lines, which has fueled up the share of agrochemicals in the global market. All such factors have opened new market opportunities for industrial players to tap the unexplored market horizons. Manufacturers invest in research and technical development and investigative activities to improve existing products and procedures to develop new products. Traditional farming, conventional farming equipment and practices have reached their limits of effectiveness to increase agricultural yield. With monumental challenges in form of increasing food demand coupled with shrinking farmland, mounting labor costs and shortage of labor force, it becomes imperative to address such problems in agricultural sector and take necessary measures to improve the quantity and quality of agricultural produce. Research and development will lead to development of new product or technology/techniques which will improve the resistance of crops to pests and diseases, soil nutrient uptake and crop robustness.For instance, key industrial players such as Arysta LifeScience which is a Platform Specialty Products company, invested in R&D in February 2017, added seven active substances to its product development portfolio in the last one year and five of them were obtained through in-licensing partnerships with other discovery-based companies. Also, BASF Group, in September 2016, focused on strategic investments for product innovation and offer customer-centric solutions. With this approach, companies will be able to create product differentiation and tap major market share.Also, government has been taking initiatives and fund programs to strengthen economic development by training farmers, providing extension services in rural agricultural areas, training in underserved communities with marketable job skills, offer small businesses and micro-enterprises with greater market access, and working closely with city governments to implement green technologies.Get a Sample Report @Latest Industry Updates:March 2017 SUL4R-PLUS, LLC, a provider of innovative fertilizer products for the agricultural market, has announced the addition of another optimized micronutrient product SUL4R-PLUS B+Z fertilizer with .5% boron, 1.5% zinc, 18% calcium and 16% sulfur. The new product SUL4R-PLUS B+Z fertilizer combines the companys existing boron and zinc options into one  delivering boron, zinc, calcium and sulfur in every granule to deliver immediate and complete nutrition to hungry cropsApril 2017 Earth Alive Clean Technologies Inc., a leading Canadian Clean-Tech company, developer and manufacturer of state-of-the-art microbial technology-based products for sustainable agriculture and mining, has announced the commercial sales launch of Dr. Marijane, the Company's specially formulated cannabis bio-fertilizerMay 2017 Insecticides India (IIL) has launched a revolutionary biological product Kayakalp that will transform the health of soil and rejuvenate it organically to improve plant health and productivity. The launch of KayaKalp marks a major leap for IIL into the organic products sector. The company intends to expand this product into the Asian market.June 2017 Sumitomo Corporation in collaboration with Roshni Crop Sciences Pvt Ltd. has launched Foliar Blend. It is a new generation technology, containing complex carbohydrates, essential plant micro-nutrients like Cobalt, Manganese, Zinc, Boron and Magnesium and nutritional supplements not found in ordinary N-P-K fertilizers.October 2017  BASF acquired significant share of seed and non-selective herbicide business of Bayer (a leading producer in agrochemicals). This acquisition would strengthen companys agriculture solution segment. This opportunity will help the company to address the need of seed and row crop in the marketNovember 2017 FMC corporation acquired part business of Dupont crop protection. The company must divest to comply with European Commission related to merger of The DOW chemical company and DuPont to form DOWDuPont. FMC corporation is fifth largest crop protection company with dense agrochemical portfolio and has more than 20 R&D sites worldwide.November 2017 Sumitomo Chemical acquired Botanical Resource Australia Pty Ltd and affiliated companies which major supplier of insecticidal compounds pyrethrin. Through this acquisition company aims to high business domain growth and contribution to resolving social issues.December 2017  The Dow AgroSciences subsidiary of Dow Chemical company now known as DowDuPont successfully divestment selective portion of corn seed business in Brazil to CITIC Agric Fund. With this divestiture, the agriculture solution division of DowDuPont can have concentrated business product offering across seed, crop protection and agriculture technology.Major Key Players:Agrochemicals market offers huge growth opportunities for the industrial players. The market is fragmented and marked by the presence of several large and small-scale vendors. The market participants are acquiring small players in the market and collaborating with distributors to meet the global demand. Market players are pouring in million dollars for product innovation. With the increasing demand for agricultural products, the demand for agrochemicals as a potential crop protectant is experiencing a surge. Companies are targeting to capture a substantial share of the market segment by capturing huge consumer base. Strategic product launch and innovations in the existing product line is the key strategy followed by the manufacturers to create product differentiation among their product offerings. Huge investments in R&D sector are also adding fuel to this market based on the quality product launch which helps the players in promoting their product. Government certification and approval also plays a very significant role to mark their significance on a global level.With manufacturers aiming to capture a considerable share of the market segment as early as possible, they are competing and experimenting with various advantage points from both supply and demand side. The key market players profiled in Agrochemicals are BASF SE (Germany), FMC Corporation (United States), Dow Agrosciences LLC. (United States), Agrium Inc (Canada), Bayer Cropscience AG (Germany), Yara International ASA (United States), Israel Chemicals Ltd. (Israel), Syngenta AG (Switzerland), PotashCorp (Canada), and Uralkali (Russia) among many others.Access Report Details @Regional Analysis:The global agrochemicals market is segmented into North America, Europe, APAC, and Rest of the World (RoW). Global Agrochemicals market is highly dominated by Asia-Pacific followed by North America and Europe. Asia-Pacific market is the largest market for Agrochemicals due to its major use in agricultural application. India and China are the largest country-level agrochemicals markets in the Asia-Pacific region in 2016. Increasing food demand in these highly populous countries resulted in huge demand for agrochemicals to increase the crop yield, leading to the overall increase in the agrochemicals market in these countries. Latin America is expected to be the forerunner in terms of CAGR in demand for agrochemicals.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comChilean cards and payments industry: Trends, Opportunities, Risk and Forecast by 2021

Market Research HUB

https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1607629

https://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/payments-landscape-in-chile-opportunities-and-risks-to-2021-report.html

https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=enquiry&repid=1607629

http://www.marketresearchhub.com/

https://www.industrynewsanalysis.com/

An up-to-date research report has been disclosed by Market Research Hub highlighting the title Payments Landscape in Chile: Opportunities and Risks to 2021 which provides detailed analysis of market trends in Chilean cards and payments industry. It provides values and volumes for a number of key performance indicators in the industry, including cash, payment cards, credit transfers, direct debit, and cheques during the review-period (2013-17).The report also analyzes various payment card markets operating in the industry, and provides detailed information on the number of cards in circulation, transaction values and volumes during the review-period and over the forecast-period (2017-21). It also offers information on the country's competitive landscape, including the market shares of issuers and schemes.Request For Free Sample Report:The report brings together Market Research Hubs research, modeling, and analysis expertise to allow banks and card issuers to identify segment dynamics and competitive advantages. The report also covers details of regulatory policy and recent changes in the regulatory structure.This report provides top-level market analysis, information and insights into the Chilean cards and payments industry, including -- Current and forecast values for each market in the Chilean cards and payments industry, including debit and credit cards.- Detailed insights into payment instruments including cash, cheques, credit transfers, direct debit, and payment cards. It also, includes an overview of the country's key alternative payment instruments.- E-commerce market analysis.- Analysis of various market drivers and regulations governing Chilean cards and payments industry.- Detailed analysis of strategies adopted by banks and other institutions to market debit and credit cards.Scope- More convenient and faster banking services are emerging as an important driver of the payment card market in Chile. With the aim of offering banking accessibility and a unique consumer experience, in 2016 Santander Chile introduced work/caf branches with an integrated banking space, a cafeteria, an open co-working space for meetings, and free Wi-Fi. The branches offer the normal range of banking products and services as well as customer assistance from bank executives. Likewise, BancoEstado provides Caja Vecina banking terminals which offer all the usual banking products and enable individuals living in remote areas to conduct various banking and payment transactions.- To improve financial literacy among Chilean individuals, in October 2017 the government-funded Solidarity and Social Investment Fund launched a financial education gaming app called You Decide in collaboration with BancoEstado. Players are provided with a virtual budget which they need to manage in the best possible way to meet their assigned financial goal, thereby helping them better understand the concept of finances and savings. Similarly, in the same month the National Consumer Service launched an educational campaign called Step by Step, better decision that focused on imparting financial literacy to elderly Chilean citizens. The program consists of carrying out workshops and talks on financial education.- As merchants recognize the benefits of switching from traditional POS terminals to ones with more features and mobility, uptake of mobile point-of-sale (mPOS) terminals is increasing. In November 2017, BancoEstado partnered with SumUp to offer mobile card acceptance to small businesses, collectively intending to serve 600,000 SMEs and 1.2 million sole proprietors. In May 2016 Transbank launched an mPOS solution that enables small businesses and service providers to accept card payments in Chile. The solution involves the conversion of smartphones into POS devices with the help of a wireless pinpad card reader that is connected to the smartphone via Bluetooth.Browse Full Report with TOC:Reasons to buy- Make strategic business decisions, using top-level historic and forecast market data, related to the Chilean cards and payments industry and each market within it.- Understand the key market trends and growth opportunities in the Chilean cards and payments industry.- Assess the competitive dynamics in the Chilean cards and payments industry.- Gain insights into marketing strategies used for various card types in Chile.- Gain insights into key regulations governing the Chilean cards and payments industry.Enquire About This Report:About Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of banking market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clientsContact Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email: press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:Read Industry News at -Tobacco Company Profile in North Korea: Retail Pricing, Trends and Forecast Sales Report 2017

Market Research HUB

https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=S&repid=1607625

https://www.marketresearchhub.com/report/tobacco-company-profile-nkgtc-2017-report.html

https://www.marketresearchhub.com/enquiry.php?type=enquiry&repid=1607625

http://www.marketresearchhub.com/

https://www.industrynewsanalysis.com/

An up-to-date research report has been disclosed by Market Research Hub highlighting the title Tobacco Company Profile - NKGTC, 2017 which provides an analytical company report by Market Research Hub that provides extensive and highly detailed current and future market trends in the cigarette market. It covers company size and structure along with brand data, retail pricing, prospects, and forecasts for sales and consumption.North Korea General Tobacco Company is the state owned tobacco monopoly organization in North Korea. The company focusses exclusively on this country and almost exclusively on cigarettes, although market leadership has been lost to a joint Chinese-North Korea venture from Jilin Tobacco.Request For Free Sample Report:Scope- NKGTC's net annual sales in 2016 were 8.60 billion pieces- The company is 100% state owned by North Korea- The company controls around 45% of the North Korean market, with the only exports being due to pirate activity- The North Korean State holds a share in all of NKGTC's competitors as wellReasons to buy- Get a detailed understanding of consumption to align your sales and marketing efforts with the latest trends in the market. Identify the areas of growth and opportunities, which will aid effective marketing planning.- The differing growth rates in regional product sales drive fundamental shifts in the market.- This report provides detailed, authoritative data on these changes - prime intelligence for marketers.- Understand the market dynamics and essential data to benchmark your position and to identify where to compete in the future.Browse Full Report with TOC:Table of Contents:1. Introduction 52. Key Company Facts 63. Corporate Structure 73.1. Ownership 73.2. Organisation 84. Business Profile Review 94.1. Overview 94.2. North Korea 104.3. International Markets 145. Company Strengths, Strategies & Performance 166. Appendix 186.1. What is this Report About? 186.2. Product Category Coverage 196.3. Methodology 206.4. About Market Research Hub 226.5. Disclaimer 236.6. Contact Us 24Continue@.......Enquire About This Report:About Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of retail market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Us90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 800-998-4852 (US-Canada)Email: press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:Read Industry News at -Crotonaldehyde Market - Global Industry Insights, Trends, Outlook, and Opportunity Analysis, 20172025

https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/insight/request-sample/543

https://www.coherentmarketinsights.com/ongoing-insight/crotonaldehyde-market-543

Crotonaldehyde appears as a clear, colorless to pale yellow liquid with a strong and suffocating odor. It is also known as 2-Butenal and 3-Methylacrolein. At room temperature it is extremely flammable and produces toxic vapors. Crotonaldehyde can be found naturally in emissions of specific vegetation and volcanoes and also many in foods in small amounts. Commercially crotonaldehyde is produced by aldol condensation from acetaldehyde. It has poor solubility in water. But it is easily soluble in organic solvents including alcohols and ether. Crotonaldehyde is mostly used in the manufacture of crotonic acid and sorbic acid by oxidation.To get holistic sample of the report@Crotonaldehyde is an excellent solvent for numerous mineral and vegetable oils, waxes, fats, natural and synthetic resins and for elementary sulphur. It is also used to detect gas leaks in pipes. Owing to solid bond within C-4 chain and bi-functional group of aldehyde, crotonaldehyde is effectually used as a starting product in many organic reactions and synthesis.Crotonaldehyde Market TaxonomyOn the basis of end-use industry, the global crotonaldehyde market is classified into:PharmaceuticalsRubberChemicalsLeatherAgricultureCrotonaldehyde is majorly used as a precursor to fine chemicals. Crotonaldehyde is also used in the production of quinaldines, thiophenes, pharmaceuticals, pyridines, dyes and pesticides. Crotonaldehyde has application in the production of crotonic acid and is used as a flow-promoting agent and comonomer for alkyd resins. Crotonaldehyde is used as a warming agent in fuel gases and in organic synthesis as a solvent. In the agricultural industry, it is used for crop protection and when reacted with urea forms crotonylidene ureas a slow-release fertilizer.Crotonaldehyde Market Outlook  Rising Demand in Chemicals and allied Industries to be the Major Market DriverAsia Pacific and North America are expected to be the most potential markets for crotonaldehyde manufacturers. According to IBEF, the Indian leather industry holds a major share of around 12.93 per cent of the total worlds leather production of hides/skins. During April 2016-January 2017 leather and leather goods worth US$ 4.72 billion were exported from India. The estimated size of Indian chemicals sector stands at approximately US$ 139 billion. India is the seventh largest producer of chemicals in the world worldwide and third largest producer in Asia. In 2015-2016 the total production of the major chemicals including petrochemicals was 23.9 million tons. The Indian chemicals industry has attracted various foreign investors such as Akzo Nobel, BASF, ADEKA, Mitsubishi Chemicals Corporation, Syngenta, DuPont, Henkel, Croda, Wacker Metroark, DyStar, and Rhodla. India Brand Equity Foundation (IBEF) is a Trust established by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Department of Commerce in collaboration with the Government of India with the purpose of promoting and creating international awareness of goods manufactured in India.To know the latest trends and insights prevalent in this market, click the link below:Wide array of applications in the chemicals and pharmaceutical industry is fueling the growth of crotonaldehyde market, especially in Asia Pacific and Middle East regions. Product innovation and expansion in various geographies is a key strategy adopted by the major players in the crotonaldehyde market. In June 2017, announced a Clenases Corporation announced a joint venture (JV) between Celaneses Cellulose Derivatives and Blackstones Rhodia Acetow businesses. This was intended for the creation of a global acetate tow supplier coupled with improved service to customers and more opportunities for productivity and innovation. Celanese and Blackstone will own 70% and 30% of the Joint venture, respectively. Some of the major companies operating in the global crotonaldehyde market include Finetech Industry Limited, Alfa Aesar, Sigma-Aldrich, GODAVARI BIOREFINERIES LTD., Tokyo Chemical Industry, Nantong Acetic Acid Chemical Co., Ltd., Ambinter, abcr GmbH, Celanese Corporation, Chemhere, Amadis Chemicals, MolCore, Haihang Industry Co., Ltd. and Vitas-M Laboratory.About Coherent Market Insights:Coherent Market Insights is a prominent market research and consulting firm offering action-ready syndicated research reports, custom market analysis, consulting services, and competitive analysis through various recommendations related to emerging market trends, technologies, and potential absolute dollar opportunity.Contact Us:Mr.ShahCoherent Market Insights1001 4th Ave,#3200Seattle, WA 98154Tel: +1-206-701-6702Email:sales@coherentmarketinsights.comAutomotive Robotics Market: Global Industry Size, Share, Key Player, and Growth Analysis To 2022

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/1989

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/automotive-robotics-market-1989

Automotive Robotics Market: 2018 Global Industry Size, Share, Growth and Trends Analysis Report provides Global Automotive Robotics Market Information by Product Type (SCARA Robot, Articulated Robot, and Cartesian Robot), by Type (Hardware, Software, and Service), by Application (Gripping, Stamping, Welding, Painting, Assembly, and Others), and by Region - Forecast to 2022.Get Sample Report of Automotive Robotics Market 2018 to 2022 @Automotive Robotics Key Players:ABB Group, Comau SpA, Denso Wave Incorporated, Durr AG, Fanuc Corporation, Harmonic Drive System, KUKA AG, Kawasaki Heavy Industries (Kawasaki Robotics), Nabtesco Motion Control, Inc., and Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp.Automotive Robotics Market Highlights:Automotive robotics system is used to assist the manufacturing process in the automotive industries such as assembling, welding, cutting, dispensing, painting and others. The usage of the automotive robotics in the manufacturing process helps reducing the operational cost as it helps improve quality & operational flexibility, decrease production & manufacturing errors, and also reduce wastage of the raw material. Moreover, Increased concerns for labor safety, the adoption of automation to ensure quality production, and to meet market demand on time are the main drivers which is expected to contribute in the growth of the automotive robotics market. The global automotive robotics market is expected to show a growth at CAGR of about 10% from 2016 to 2022.Market Segmentation:Automotive robotics market segmented by Product Type (SCARA Robot, Articulated Robot, and Cartesian Robot), by Type (Hardware, Software, and Service), by Application (Gripping, Stamping, Welding, Painting, Assembly, and Others), and by Region - Forecast to 2022.Regional Analysis of Automotive Robotics Market:In North America, automotive robotics market would grow rapidly due to the demand & adoption of robotics technology and in Europe the market is showing substantial hike due to presence of large number of automotive industry. However, Asia Pacific is expected to witness considerable growth due to rapid industrialization and rising automotive industries.Browse Full Report on Automotive Robotics Market @The report for Global Automotive Robotics Market of Market Research Future comprises of extensive primary research along with the detailed analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain the deeper insight of the market and industry performance. The report gives the clear picture of current market scenario which includes historical and projected market size in terms of value and volume, technological advancement, macro economical and governing factors in the market. The report provides details information and strategies of the top key players in the industry. The report also gives a broad study of the different market segments and regions.About Us:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact Us:528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, HadapsarPune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312sales@marketresearchfuture.comUnited States proton therapy market will exhibit growth by a CAGR of over 15% up to 2025

http://www.dpiresearch.com/research-report.php

www.dpiresearch.com

United States Proton Therapy Market (Actual & Potential), Patients Treated, Reimbursement, Clinical Trails, Proton Therapy Centers, Major Deals, Key Company Profiles & Demand Forecasts to 2018 - 2025 presents an in-depth assessment of the proton therapy market dynamics, opportunities, future roadmap, competitive landscape and discusses major trends. The report offers the most up-to-date industry data on the actual and potential market situation and future outlook for Proton Therapy in United States. The research includes historic data from 2012 to 2017 and forecasts until 2025.Longterm Growth Projection: United States proton therapy market will exhibit growth by a CAGR of over 15% up to 2025 United States is anticipated to be the most attractive market in the proton therapy market industry The potential United States proton therapy market is set to cross USD 7 Billion by 2025 In 2017, IBA accounted highest number of proton therapy centers in United States Hitachi has the second highest number of treatment rooms in United StatesThe report contains a granular analysis of the present industry situations, market demands, reveal facts on the market size, volume, revenues and provides forecasts through 2025. A comprehensive analysis has been done on market share of US proton therapy center (installed base) and treatment room by company. The report also provides information on the proton therapy current applications and comparative analysis with more focused on pros and cons of proton therapy and competitive analysis of eight companies.The report further sheds light on the number of treatment rooms, current and upcoming proton therapy centers. In addition, the report also provides essential insights on number of patients treated at US proton therapy centers.The report also includes assessment of US reimbursement scenario, proton therapy clinical trials and offers a clear view of the proton therapy center component analysis. Key trends in terms of venture capital investment, collaborations, partnerships, licensing and development agreements are analyzed with details. The report also explores detailed description of growth drivers and inhibitors of the US proton therapy market.The report concludes with the profiles of major players in the US proton therapy market. The key market players are evaluated on various parameters such as company overview, product portfolio, US proton therapy centers developed by the companies, recent development & trends of the proton therapy market.The Major Companies Dominating this Market for its Products, Services and Continuous Product Developments are:Hitachi, Optivus, Ion Beam Applications(IBA), Varian Medical Systems, Mevion Medical SystemsThe Latest Industry Data Included in this Report: Proton Therapy Market Size & Analysis (2012  2025) Proton Therapy Market Opportunity Assessment (2012  2025) Number of Treatment Rooms and Forecast (2012  2025) Proton Therapy Center (Installed Base) and Treatment Room Market Share: By Company Proton Therapy Center Infrastructure Analysis: Treatment Rooms & Proton Therapy Accelerator Major Deals in Proton Therapy Market Number of Patients Treated at Proton Therapy Center Proton Therapy Reimbursement Scenario Proton Therapy Current Applications Pros and Cons of Proton Therapy, Radiotherapy and Carbon Ion Therapy Proton Therapy Competitive Analysis: By Company Proton Therapy Center Component Analysis Proton Therapy Clinical Trail Insight by Phase, Institute & Country Key Market Drivers and Inhibitors Major Companies AnalysisRead More @DPI Research is a business solutions firm which offer bespoke market research reports, custom research solutions and consulting across multi geographies and industry verticals. We deliver wide range of cutting-edge research solutions that helps organizations in making better decisions of the business to business needs.DPI Research provides high standard of business research reports to the clients across industry verticals comprising Life Sciences, Information Technology, Telecom & Internet, Food Beverages & Agriculture, Travel & Tourism, Consumer Goods & Retail, Education and Social Sciences. We are committed to use advanced analytical tools and methodologies to help clients with crucial industry information for decision making.DPI Research approaches for the business research led by a team of dynamic industry experts. DPI Research provides a real insight for effective decisions to help business with the help of current source and accurate data available in the market. DPI Research reach across the globe with global standards from established markets in the North America and Europe to emerging markets in South America, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa to provide the best business solutions.Maria Raisales@dpiresearch.comPhone: 91-7289949987Web:Cardiovascular Monitoring and Diagnostic Devices Market to Reach Around US$ 3.1 Billion by the End of 2024

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=2385

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/crdiovascular-monitoring-diagnostic-devices.html

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=D&rep_id=2385

https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com

The rising prevalence of chronic disease and the increasing geriatric population are propelling the global market for cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices. Government, research, and healthcare bodies are focusing on the treatment of various cardiovascular diseases. The increased interest and investments from these bodies are fueling the development in the treatments of these generic diseases. The increasing number of people suffering from diabetes and obesity, heart muscle weakening, and increasing risks related to hypertension are other factors driving the market. Technological advancements have provided the devices with portability in conducting tests, which is further adding benefits to the market growth.Request for Sample Copy of Report @The overall market for cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices is witnessing considerable expansion across various product segments such as ECG Systems, Event Monitors, Holter Monitors, Implantable Loop Recorders, and ECG Management Systems. Of these, the ECG Systems segments is expected to dominate the overall market over the forthcoming years.The report on the cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices market offers a detailed assessment of key factors influencing the market, such as opportunities, challenges, trends, restraints, and drivers. The research report also provides company profiles of prominent market players operating in the market.The rising number of deaths due to cardiovascular diseases is the key factor driving the market for cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices. Various companies are utilizing the latest technologies and innovating products to improve their efficiency and effectively. Numerous medical institutes are initiating research and development programs, which could help the market transform over the forthcoming years. Furthermore, governments and not-profit organizations are starting awareness increasing programs, which is further anticipated to increase the adoption of highly advanced equipment among consumers.Report Overview @It is expected that the rise in the geriatric population across the world will fuel the prevalence of cardiovascular diseases. The market is further anticipated to grow exponentially due to low cost of procedure and availability of reliable and affordable labor in the countries such as Turkey, India, China, and Indonesia. The growing consumptions of tobacco and alcohol, lack of physical activities, unhealthy food habits, and high level of stress are other factors leading to the risks of cardiovascular diseases. These factors ensure the healthy growth of the market for cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices.Geographically, the global cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices market can be segmented into Latin America, Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, and rest of the world. Among these, the North America market is anticipated to lead the global market due to factors such as advanced healthcare infrastructure, rising awareness among consumers pertaining the availability of treatment and diagnosis methods, and the favorable policies initiated by the governments in the region. The Europe segment is following North America and is close to North America in terms of revenue owing to high incidence of cardiovascular diseases within the region. The Middle East and Asia Pacific are most likely to present potential opportunities for the market to grow due to developing healthcare infrastructure and adoption of various varieties of cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices.Enquiry for discount on this report @The market study presents profiling of prominent players operating in the global cardiovascular monitoring and diagnostic devices market. Key players in this market include GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, Spacelabs Healthcare, St. Jude Medical Inc., and Siemens Healthcare.Some of the leading vendors in the market are Siemens Healthcare, St. Jude Medical Inc., Spacelabs Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, and GE Healthcare.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Each TMR syndicated research report covers a different sector - such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, food & beverages, semiconductors, med-devices, consumer goods and technology. These reports provide in-depth analysis and deep segmentation to possible micro levels. With wider scope and stratified research methodology, TMRs syndicated reports strive to provide clients to serve their overall research requirement.US Office Contact90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:Global Avionics Market Expected to Grow with Major Industry Players Like-Honeywell International Inc, United Technologies Corporation, Thales Group

https://www.xpodenceresearch.com/Request-Sample/105629

https://www.xpodenceresearch.com/Reports/Avionics-Industry

Industry Scenario:Avionics, or aviation electronics, is a general word used for all types of electrical equipment utilized in missiles, aircraft as well as spacecraft. Avionics includes components that are directly used by the pilot such as radio communication, navigation and weather radar equipment. Additionally, avionics also consist of other electronic systems that not directly utilized by the pilot that control as well as monitor flight and performance of engine.The term avionics includes the electronic systems that are utilized in aircraft, artificial satellites, and spacecraft. The various avionic systems include communications, the display, navigation and management of multiple systems, along with several of the systems that are fixed to aircraft to conduct individual functions. These functions can either be simple or complicated such as a searchlight for a police helicopter or the tactical system for an airborne early warning platform. The term avionics is a combination of both the words aviation as well as electronics.Top Players:The major companies that provide avionics include: Honeywell International Inc United Technologies Corporation Thales Group Rockwell Collins, Inc. Thales Group and Cobham Plc.Download Sample Copy of Report @Industry OutlookThe global avionics Industry is expected to soar high in the forecast period. Factors such as rise in the number of aircraft deliveries, increased military aircraft spending by emerging countries, and the recent trend of airspace modernization are propelling the growth of this Industry. Also, high requirement of real-time flight plan information sharing, rising demand for UAVs for commercial applications, technological advancements of drone payloads are further fuelling the global avionics Industry growth.Industry Segments:The global avionics Industry can be classified based on sub-system, fit, platform and region. On the basis of sub-system, the global avionics Industry is classified into CNS, FCS, FMS, and IFE, military & tactical system, monitoring/glass cockpit system, and electrical & emergency system. On the basis of fit, it is segmented into line-fit and retrofit Industry. According to platform, the global avionics Industry is divided into commercial, defense and UAV.Browse Report @Among the Industry segments, the FCS segment is expected to command a large share of the avionics Industry during the future years owing to the rise in requirement of real-time flight plan information sharing. Based on fit, the line-fit Industry segment of the avionics Industry is anticipated to command the largest share and grow at the swiftest rate during the future years. The defense Industry segment is holding the major share of the avionics Industry and is expected to grow at fast rate over the future period.Regional AnalysisBased on regions, the global avionics Industry is divided into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East & Africa (MEA), and Latin America. The North American region is anticipated to command the maximum Industry share and would lead the avionics Industry during the forecast period. This is due to the massive investments by OEMs as well as component manufactures in research and development of advanced avionics systems.About us:Xpodence Research have the most extensive collection of Industry research reports of many categories. Xpodence Research provides the best Industry research solution for every industry by publishing the best possible results of great Industry research firms worldwide. For every particular problem, theres a particular solution, so according to the customer needs, we provide the best possible results to them from different Industry research organization, whether its a Custom Research or Syndicated Research reports because the product that wins is the one that bridges customers to the future, not the one that requires a giant leap.Every organization, whether it is related to Pharmaceuticals, Technology, Eatables, Consumable Goods and many more demands a Industry research results so that they can take important decisions for more productivity and better output in this swift world. Xpodence Research gives the best possible outcome, perfect forecast, analysis and insights of Industry research in the form of report which is beneficial for various organizations and also to the manufacturing companies in taking the best decisions for quality production.Contact us:Xpodence Research244 , Madison AvenueNew York City, NY - 10016United StatesToll Free +1- 844-445-2861Email: sales@xpodenceresearch.comHot Topic Intravenous Access Devices Use of Technology Will Help Healthcare to Deliver Enhanced Care

https://www.xpodenceresearch.com/Request-Sample/105771

https://www.xpodenceresearch.com/Reports/Intravenous-Access-Devices-Market

Market Synopsis:Intravenous Access Devices are used by physicians for the treatment of patients as well as testing blood after withdrawing it via intravenous route. These devices are used for governing all the classes of drugs including antipyretics, antibiotics, and analgesics. Mounting rates of different diseases like cancer, tuberculosis, others are the key factors that propels the growth of this market. Moreover, urbanization and growing geriatric population, will also boost the growth of the Intravenous Access Devices market.Growing research and development of new vaccines along with the advancements in technology, with respect to, designing new products are another factors that drives this market. However, supportive government norms for the approval of Intravenous insulin infusion pumps and risks connected with the application of needles are the major factors that restricts the growth of intravenous access devices market. Furthermore, rise in the number of patients and increased disposable incomes among emerging countries are the key opportunities for this market.Request a Sample Report @Key Players:Some of the key players in the global intravenous access devices market include: Baxter International Becton Dickinson And Company Braun Melsungen AG C.R. Bard, Inc. Covidien Plc Fresenius Medical Care Fresenius Medical Care AG & Co. Hospira, Inc. Smiths Medical Teleflex, Inc.Market Segments: On the basis of product types, IV catheter dominates the intravenous access devices market throughout the forecast period. On the basis of the types of catheters, the market is led by peripherally inserted central catheters throughout the forecast period. On basis of end-user, hospitals and clinics will govern the market with the highest CAGR rate, during the upcoming years.Browse Report @Geographically, North America contributes to the major market share during the forecast years, owing to the elevated incidence rate of cardiovascular disease and increasing adoption of intravenous access device.The global intravenous access devices market can be segmented on the basis of type and region. On the basis of Product Type, the global intravenous access devices market can be segmented into IV catheters, IV infusion pumps and IV needles. On the basis of catheters type, the global intravenous access devices market can be segmented into midline peripheral catheters, peripherally inserted central catheters, centrally inserted central catheters and others.On the basis of End-User, the global intravenous access devices market can be segmented into hospital & clinics, ambulatory surgery centers and others. On the basis of region, the global intravenous access devices market can be segmented into North America, Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America.About us:Xpodence Research have the most extensive collection of market research reports of many categories. Xpodence Research provides the best market research solution for every industry by publishing the best possible results of great market research firms worldwide. For every particular problem, theres a particular solution, so according to the customer needs, we provide the best possible results to them from different market research organization, whether its a Custom Research or Syndicated Research reports because the product that wins is the one that bridges customers to the future, not the one that requires a giant leap.Every organization, whether it is related to Pharmaceuticals, Technology, Eatables, Consumable Goods and many more demands a market research results so that they can take important decisions for more productivity and better output in this swift world. Xpodence Research gives the best possible outcome, perfect forecast, analysis and insights of market research in the form of report which is beneficial for various organisations and also to the manufacturing companies in taking the best decisions for quality production.Contact us:Xpodence Research244 , Madison AvenueNew York City, NY - 10016United StatesToll Free +1- 844-445-2861Email: sales@xpodenceresearch.comRehab Equipment Market Major Industry Players- Drive DeVilbiss Healthcare , GF HEALTH PRODUCTS, INC. ,Stryker Corporation ,Access Rehabilitation Group

https://www.xpodenceresearch.com/Request-Sample/105656

https://www.xpodenceresearch.com/Reports/Rehab-Equipment-Market

Market Scenario:The treatment designed to enable the recovery process from injury, illness, or disease to a normal condition either by therapy or counseling or both is referred to as rehabilitation. Large number of equipment is re-usable in nature, and their rate of adoption is increasing among customers.The rate of adoption of rehab equipment has increased after the enactment of long-term care insurance system in 2000. This trend has led into function improvements as well as design of such equipment, which provides advantages to the aged population and physically challenged people to attain independence and participate in society.Market SegmentsThe global rehab equipment market can be classified based on type, body support, exercises, living aids, application, and region. On the basis of type, the global market is classified into mobility equipment, body support devices, exercise equipment, and daily living aids. On the basis of body support, it is segmented into lift and sling. On the basis of exercises, it is divided into upper body and lower body. On the basis of living aids, it is divided into reading and writing. On the basis of application, the global market is divided into physiotherapy and occupational therapy (OT). On the basis of end user, it is divided into hospitals, clinics and home care among others.Request a Sample Report @Key Players:The major companies that provide rehab equipment include: Drive DeVilbiss Healthcare GF HEALTH PRODUCTS, INC. Stryker Corporation Access Rehabilitation Group Amigo Mobility International, Inc. Medline Industries, Inc. Argo Medical Dynatronics Corporation Invacare Corporation Caremax Rehabilitation Equipment Co. LtdAmong the major market segments, the mobility equipment segment is set to register the highest growth during the future period owing to the rise in number of elderly people suffering from orthopedic impairments resulting in a demand for mobility equipment across the globe. Also, the physiotherapy market segment is set to register the highest growth during the future years owing to the rising need for physiotherapy among the elderly population & disabled patients and the application of promising government policies.Browse Report @The global rehab equipment market is set to witness remarkable growth in the forecast period. Factors such as the rising incidence of disabilities that result from diseases, favorable healthcare reforms, and rise in geriatric population along with the high prevalence of chronic diseases are fuelling the growth of this market. However, high costs & maintenance expense of rehabilitation equipment is expected to hamper the market growth. The various technological advancements such as smart accessible gadgets tend to expand the growth opportunities for this market.Regional AnalysisBased on regions, the global rehab equipment market is divided into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Middle East & Africa (MEA), and Latin America. The North American region is anticipated to command the maximum market share and would lead the global rehab equipment market during the forecast period. The increased preference for an independent lifestyle, the need for elderly and physically challenged individuals to discover the world, rise in longevity, and the astounding cost of caregiver services have propelled the demand for mobility devices across the world. Moreover, the U.S. government is increasingly providing support and reimbursement facilities for these equipment.About us:Xpodence Research have the most extensive collection of market research reports of many categories. Xpodence Research provides the best market research solution for every industry by publishing the best possible results of great market research firms worldwide. For every particular problem, theres a particular solution, so according to the customer needs, we provide the best possible results to them from different market research organization, whether its a Custom Research or Syndicated Research reports because the product that wins is the one that bridges customers to the future, not the one that requires a giant leap.Every organization, whether it is related to Pharmaceuticals, Technology, Eatables, Consumable Goods and many more demands a market research results so that they can take important decisions for more productivity and better output in this swift world. Xpodence Research gives the best possible outcome, perfect forecast, analysis and insights of market research in the form of report which is beneficial for various organisations and also to the manufacturing companies in taking the best decisions for quality production.Contact us:Xpodence Research244 , Madison AvenueNew York City, NY - 10016United StatesToll Free +1- 844-445-2861Email: sales@xpodenceresearch.comFood Automation Market Overview, Highlights, Key Findings, Major Companies Analysis and Forecast to 2025

https://www.xpodenceresearch.com/Request-Sample/105799

https://www.xpodenceresearch.com/Reports/Food-Automation-Market

https://www.xpodenceresearch.com/Reports/Sweet-And-Savoury-Market

https://www.xpodenceresearch.com/Reports/Natural-Alternative-Sweeteners-Market

Market Overview:Food Automation market is expected to grow steadily over the forecast period owing to increasing inclination of the consumers for ready to eat and processed foods. Stringent international food safety regulations and technological advancements in automation is also projected to influence the food automation Market over the forecast period.Food distributors and producers operates with high quality standard and within narrow timelines and hence, for increasing their profit while providing a better quality product to consumers, food automation assists in meeting all the requirements. The food automation is the application of the control systems for operating various equipment and machineries without any manual assistance.Motor & generators are projected to experience steady growth in industrialized countries and occupy a major share in food automation market in Europe region. Efficient and smooth functioning of systems using the generators and motors are promoted in the Market. The continuous development in the process of production of beverages and new product launches in the Market is anticipated to boost the market growth over the forecast period.Request a Sample Copy of Report @Top playersMajor players in the market include: Rockwell Automation, Inc. ABB Ltd. Schneider Electric SE Siemens AG Mitsubishi Electric Corporation GEA Group Yaskawa Electric Corporation Fortive Corporation Emerson Electric Company Rexnord Corporation Nord DrivesystemsMarket Segments:The market is segregated based on the product, mode of operation and application. Based on the automation type, the Market is segmented into motors & generators, motor controls, discrete controller systems & visualization, rotary & linear products and others. Based on the function, the market is further segmented into packaging & re-packaging, sorting & grading, palletizing, picking & placing, processing and other functions. Furthermore, bakery, dairy, confectionary, beverage, fruits & vegetables, meat, poultry & seafood and others are few applications of the food automation market.Browse Report @Market OutlookEurope region is expected to hold the major share owing to the increasing demand for processed food & beverage in Italy, France and Germany is also projected to impact the market in the positive manner. Furthermore, Latin America and Asia Pacific are anticipated to witness significant growth over the forecast period owing to the changing consumer preferences & taste with the acceptance towards western foods and growing economies of the region.The increasing implementation or adoption of automation in food Market is owing to the growing requirements for productivity, quality and profitability. The technology in food Market has led to enhanced food quality, saves labor charges and enhances the process efficiency. The automation technology can be adopted by small or large scale players, and can be customized with additional components and machinery depending on the growth of the businesses.However, high initial investment with the installation of the technology is anticipated to restrain the market. Moreover, lack of training and skilled workforce has also significantly restricted the growth of the Market. Although, rising demand for the processed packaged food and increasing demand for automated systems is further expected to enhance the Market growth.Related Reports:Global Sweet And Savoury Market:Global Natural Alternative Sweeteners Market:About us:Xpodence Research have the most extensive collection of market research reports of many categories. Xpodence Research provides the best market research solution for every Market by publishing the best possible results of great market research firms worldwide. For every particular problem, theres a particular solution, so according to the customer needs, we provide the best possible results to them from different market research organization, whether its a Custom Research or Syndicated Research reports because the product that wins is the one that bridges customers to the future, not the one that requires a giant leap.Every organization, whether it is related to Pharmaceuticals, Technology, Eatables, Consumable Goods and many more demands a market research results so that they can take important decisions for more productivity and better output in this swift world. Xpodence Research gives the best possible outcome, perfect forecast, analysis and insights of market research in the form of report which is beneficial for various organisations and also to the manufacturing companies in taking the best decisions for quality production.Contact us:Xpodence Research244 , Madison AvenueNew York City, NY - 10016United StatesToll Free +1- 844-445-2861Email: sales@xpodenceresearch.comGlobal Carbon Fiber Market: Recent Study Including Growth Factors, Applications, Regional Analysis, Key Players and Forecast 2017-2024

http://bit.ly/2Ff94ym

http://bit.ly/2Fif6KL

http://bit.ly/2D1X3GO

http://bit.ly/2FeUjfd

http://databridgemarketresearch.com/reports/global-ransom-ware-protection-market/

Worldwide Carbon Fiber Industry 2017 Market Research Report has been examined in detail to help customers with all the fundamental information to outline strategic business judgments and propose vital development designs. The Global Carbon Fiber Market report offers a complete knowledge into the advancement approaches and designs notwithstanding fabricating procedures and cost structures.The Global Carbon Fiber Market accounted for USD 25.7 billion in 2016 and projected to grow at a CAGR of 11.10% during the forecast period of 2017 to 2024. The upcoming market report contains data for historic years 2014, 2015, the base year of calculation is 2016 and the forecast period is 2017 to 2024.Request for Free Sample Report @Global Carbon Fiber Market By Resin Type (Thermosetting CFRP, Thermoplastic CFRP); By Manufacturing Process (Lay-Up Process, Compression Molding Process, Resin Transfer Molding Process, Filament Winding Process, Injection Molding Process, Pultrusion Process); Raw Material Type; End-Use Industry; Geography (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Europe, South America, Middle East and Africa)  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Market Definition: Global Carbon Fiber MarketCarbon fibre is a black, smooth, and light-weighted textile fibers, it is specially used due to its lightness and strength at high temperature for reinforcing resins, ceramics, and metals, mainly in turbine blades and for fishing rods. It has its wide application in Aerospace & Defense, Wind Energy, Automotive, and others. Increase in demand for fuel-efficient vehicles may act as the major driver in the growth of carbon fiber market. On the other side, insufficient production capacity may hamper the market.Complete report on Global Carbon Fiber Market Research Report 2017-2024 spread across 350 Pages, profiling Top companies and supports with tables and figuresKey Questions Answered in Global Carbon Fiber Market Report:-Our Report offers:- What will the market growth rate, Overview and Analysis by Type of Global Carbon Fiber Market in 2024? What are the key factors driving, Analysis by Applications and Countries Global Carbon Fiber Market? What are Dynamics, This Overview Includes Analysis of Scope, and price analysis of top Vendors Profiles of Global Carbon Fiber Market? Who are Opportunities, Risk and Driving Force of Global Carbon Fiber Market? Who are the opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in Global Carbon Fiber Market? Business Overview by Type, Applications, Gross Margin and Market Share What are the Global Carbon Fiber Market opportunities, market risk and market overview of the Market?Request for Detaild TOC:Top Key Players: TORAY INDUSTRIES, INC. TEIJIN LIMITED Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation SGL Group Formosa Plastics Corporation Hexcel Corporation DSK Hyosung Pvt. Ltd. Koninklijke Ten Cate bv. DowAksa Cytec Solvay Group TAEKWANG INDUSTRIAL CO.,LTD. Gurit Plasan Carbon Composites SK chemicals Nippon Graphite Fiber Co., Ltd. kemrock Park Electrochemical Corp BGF Industries, Inc. Oyster Technology Crosby Composites DSM Aeron Composite Pvt. Ltd. ZhongAo Carbon Sigmatex Ltd Holding company Composite and others.Avail 10% Instant Discount on Purchase of this report Mail us on: sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.comMajor Market Drivers and Restraints: Increase in the use of carbon fiber and carbon fiber reinforced plastics in boeing and airbus aircraft Increase in demand for fuel-efficient vehicles Focus on production of electricity from renewable sources High cost of carbon fiber composites Insufficient production capacityFor more insightful information visit @Customize report of "Global Carbon Fiber Market" as per customers requirement also available.Market Segmentations:Global Carbon Fiber Market is segmented on the basis of Material Type Manufacturing Process Resin Type End-Use GeographyMarket Segmentations in Details:On the basis of Material Type into polyacrylonitrile (Pan-Based) carbon fibers, pitch-based carbon fiber, and rayon-based carbon fiber.On the basis of Manufacturing Process, the global carbon fiber market is segmented into lay-up process, compression molding process, resin transfer molding process, filament winding process, injection molding process, pultrusion process, and others.On the basis of Resin Type, the global carbon fiber market is segmented into thermosetting CFRP, and thermoplastic CFRP.On the basis of End-Use industry, the global carbon fiber market is segmented into aerospace & defense, wind energy, automotive, sporting goods, civil engineering, pipe & tank, marine, electrical & electronics, medical, and other applications.On the basis of geography North America South America Europe Asia-Pacific Middle East & AfricaCompetitive Landscape: Global Carbon Fiber MarketThe global Carbon fiber market is consolidated due to the presence of limited number of players concentrated in few countries. These major players have adopted various organic as well as inorganic growth strategies such as mergers & acquisitions, new product launches, expansions, agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, and others to strengthen their position in this market.Speak to Author of the Report@Other ReportGlobal Ransom Ware Protection Market  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Global Ransom ware protection Market, By Geography, Solution (Standalone Anti-Ransom Ware Software, Secure Web Gateways, Application Control, IDS/IPS, Web Filtering, Threat Intelligence), Service (Managed Services, Professional Services), Application, Deployment Mode, Organization Size, Vertical- Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Report Access:About Data Bridge Market ResearchData Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Contact:Data Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-2818Email: Sales@databridgemarketresearch.comSpain Foodservice: The Future of Foodservice in Spain to 2020

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW0001297981/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW0001297981/buying

http://www.reportsweb.com/buy&RW0001297981/buy/3200

The Future of Foodservice in Spain to 2020 Report published by Publisher Intelligence provides readers with a detailed analysis of consumer, operator and technology level trends in the Spanish Foodservice sector, analysis of market size, outlets and transactions in Spain and key players in the Spanish Foodservice market.This report offers detailed analysis of the Spanish Foodservice market with market size forecasts covering the next five years. This report will also analyse macro-economic factors that influence the foodservice market, key consumer, operator and technology trends and key players in the market. In particular, it provides an in-depth analysis of the following:- Macro-economic analyses and trends: detailed analysis of the macro-economic factors, GDP per capita, consumer price index, unemployment rate and age profile, that impact the foodservice market. It also provides insights into consumer, operator and technology trends in the Spanish Foodservice market- Foodservice market attractiveness: details and insights into the development of the foodservice sector within Spain for 2010-2020- Sector analysis: provides in-depth data on the valuation and development of both the profit and the cost sectors, details on the number of outlets, transactions, average price, foodservice sales, sales per outlet, and transactions per outlet across nearly 50 sub-channels- Competitive landscape: provides an overview of key players, together with insights such as number of outlets, business description and product profile- Regulatory scenario: insights into regulatory environment for foodservice operators in the Spanish market- To request sample pages or to purchase The Future of Foodservice in Spain to 2020Complete Report is Available@Key Highlights:- The Spanish Foodservice market is expected to experience a growth of 0.6% during 2015-2020- Improving economic condition coupled with falling unemployment rate will boost the Spanish Foodservice market- Although leisure and recreation are the major tourism driver, Gastronomy and Oenology tourism will gain popularity as major hotels, airlines and cruises have been launching various innovative culinary experiences to attract international tourists- Evolving tend of informal dining, which is prominent in the quick service restaurants and casual dining formats, will be trending to chef-owned fine dining restaurants as well- Accommodation will be the fastest growing Profit channel in terms of sales during 2015-2020, driven by continued growth in the in-bound tourism coupled with recent revival in the domestic tourismTop Players:Telepizza - Food Co PastriesS.L.Burger King EspaAaS.L.U.AreasS.A.McDonald's EspaAaGrupo VIPSGrupo ZenaInquiry for Report@Reason to Buy:- This report will give the user confidence to make the correct business decisions based on a detailed analysis of the Spanish Foodservice market and to identify emerging/declining markets over the next 5 years.- This report will give the user a thorough fact based analysis with information about value of the foodservice market across the channels in both the sectors and the underlying factors that are driving the channel sales. For example, despite revival in economy and improvement in employment rate, Spain has one of the highest percentages of population living under the poverty line, which will stimulate the Foodservice demand for Welfare & Services.- The analysts have placed a significant emphasis on the major trends that will shape the foodservice market and will provide the user with a clear picture about the future opportunities that can be tapped, resulting in revenue expansion. E.g. poor economic condition and high unemployment rate during recessionary period has affected the consumer behaviour of Spaniards, who look for more affordable options such as fast/casual foods while dining out which are perceived to be cheaper as compared to full service restaurants.- Brief profiles of the key foodservice companies in Spain with information about their business description, product profile and number of outlets wherever available. This will provide the user with a total competitive landscape of the sector.Buy Report@About ReportsWeb:ReportsWeb.com is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers. We provide best in class customer service and our customer support team is always available to help you on your research queries.Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@reportsweb.comDigital Currencies: The Future of Payments?

Reportsweb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW000139781/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW000139781/buying

Digital currencies - particularly bitcoin - have vast disruptive potential in payments. These currencies have their weaknesses, but even if bitcoin itself never becomes popular, the technology that underpins it will change financial services entirely in the longer term.Gain an understanding of the key aspects of how digital currencies such as bitcoin function, and their strengths and weaknesses.Learn what is being done with digital currencies currently, and how these implementations may be improved upon.Benefit from a strategic view of this emerging market, with a focus on how banks and payment providers should respond.Complete report is available@Reasons to Buy- What are digital currencies, and what impact might they have on your business?- How do digital currencies work and what benefits can they offer?- Can digital currencies be adopted by financial institutions, and is it worth doing so?- What action, if any, needs to be taken to remain relevant in the changing market?- What are the challenges facing digital currencies, and how might they be overcome?Inquire before Buying@Key Highlights-Bitcoin can offer faster and cheaper domestic and - most significantly - international payment services than the majority of alternatives in the market, threatening to displace the incumbents.-Bitcoin has numerous weaknesses including the diminishing returns of the mining system, its complex security requirements, its volatility as a currency, and the lack of regulation in the market.-Blockchain technology is the most important aspect of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, and can be adapted to numerous purposes both within financial services and in the wider technology market. Within the payments market, blockchain technology offers banks advantages in terms of speed, cost, and transparency.ReportsWeb is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers.533, 5th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028HNW Offshore Investment: Booking Center Preferences 2016

Reportsweb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW0001375535/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW0001375535/buying

This report draws on our 2015 Global Wealth Managers Survey to analyze the performance of key booking centers over time. It has a particular focus on HNW individuals. In particular it examines the propensity to invest offshore and booking center preferences for 20 key markets.Specifically the report will help you to:- Understand which the largest offshore centers are and how this breaks down by asset class- Compare the performance of the offshore centers and what is driving this performance- Understand how much wealth HNW individuals hold offshore and how this varies by country- Understand what the preferred centers for HNW offshore investments are and how this varies by country2015 was a weak year for the global offshore market. However, there have been clear winners and losers as the dynamics of the offshore markets continue to shift. The recent focus of most Western governments on tackling offshore tax evasion has affected certain traditional offshore centers more heavily, while the so-called mid-shores that combine on- and offshore traits have experienced strong fund inflows in recent years. The key centers for HNW individuals are the US, Singapore, Switzerland, the UK, India, Luxembourg, and Hong Kong, followed by more "traditional" centers such as the Isle of Man and Malta.Complete report is available@Report Scope- After a strong 2014, 2015 was a weak year for the offshore market. Non-resident liquid assets among the 10 largest booking centers for each asset class recorded a growth rate of 1.6% over 2014.- However, performance varied significantly across the four asset classes. Offshore mutual fund holdings, for example, grew strongly, while growth in offshore deposits stagnated.- Pressure exerted by Western governments is diminishing the importance of traditional offshore centers such as the Bahamas and the Cayman Islands.- Mid-shore centers such as Singapore and Hong Kong are rapidly growing in prominence, particularly Hong Kong thanks to its status as a renminbi hub. Yet Singapore remains the booking center of choice among HNW investors in Asia.- HNW individuals across the world hold on average 22.7% of their liquid wealth offshore.- At a global level the US, Switzerland, Singapore, and the UK are the most important booking centers for HNW offshore wealth.EXECUTIVE SUMMARYOffshore market growth slowed in 2015Key findingsCritical success factorsTHE GLOBAL OFFSHORE MARKET IN CONTEXTOffshore market growth has been slowing downThe total size of the offshore market across the 10 largest offshore centers reached $56.7tn in 2015Non-resident deposit holdings have been mutedNon-resident mutual fund holdings recorded a CAGR of 9.9% between 2011 and 20152015 was a weak year for non-resident equity holdingsNon-resident bond holdings growth was also subdued in 2015Safe havens and the mid-shores are rising in prominence at the expense of traditional offshore destinationsThe largest offshore centers are OECD countries, not small tropical islandsPressure from Western governments is diminishing the importance of traditional offshore centersThe so-called mid-shores have experienced strong fund inflows in recent years, but Singapore is slowing downThe performance of traditional safe havens has varied greatly across asset classesRetail non-resident deposit holdings performed poorly in Europe in 2015BOOKING CENTER PREFERENCES OF HNW INDIVIDUALSHNW individuals are an important part of the global offshore marketHNW individuals across the world hold on average 22.7% of their wealth offshoreThe propensity for HNW offshore investment varies greatly by countryAt a global level, the US is the preferred booking center for HNW wealthThe US, Switzerland, and Singapore are the most important offshore destinations for HNW individualsHNW booking center preferences vary significantly depending on nationalityHNW individuals in the Americas make use of a range of booking centers for different reasonsExpatriate flows are an important determinant for booking center preferences among US and Canadian HNW individualsBrazilian HNW individuals predominately invest in the USHNW investors in Asia Pacific are less geographically diversified than in the pastHNW investors in Asia Pacific are increasingly considering wealth hubs close to homeSoutheast Asia tends to book much of its wealth in SingaporeAustralian HNW individuals make use of regional booking centers and the UK and the USChinese HNW investors invest in safe havensEuropean HNW individuals tend to invest close to homeGerman HNW individuals invest predominantly in Switzerland and the UK, but this is about to changeShared borders and a common language are also important considerations among French HNW investorsThe Isle of Man is the preferred offshore destination among UK HNW investorsRussian HNW individuals prefer well-established offshore centers, after suffering steep losses following Cyprus's bailoutHNW individuals in the Middle East and Africa predominately invest in their country of origin, Switzerland, and the UKThe UAE's sizable expat population maintains strong financial links with their countries of originAPPENDIXAbbreviations and acronymsSupplementary dataDefinitionsAffluentDouble taxation convention (DTC)High net worthLiquid assetsMass affluentInvestmentsResidencyExchange of informationTax Information Exchange AgreementsMethodologyPublisher's 2015 Global Wealth Managers SurveyPublisher's 2014 Global Wealth Managers SurveyBibliographyFurther readingAbout PublisherDisclaimerInquire before Buying@Reason to Buy- Understand how to best promote your offshore proposition.- Understand HNW investors' booking center preferences and how this is expected to change.- Learn how different offshore centers have performed in recent years and adjust your offshore proposition accordingly.List of TablesTable 1: Non-resident retail holdings in Switzerland, 2006?15Table 2: Non-resident retail deposits and mutual funds in Hong Kong and Singapore, 2010?15Table 3: Top 10 non-resident deposit holdings in the largest booking centers ($bn), 2010-15Table 4: Top 10 non-resident bond holdings in the largest booking centers ($bn), 2010-15Table 5: Top 10 non-resident mutual fund holdings in the largest booking centers ($bn), 2010-15Table 6: Top 10 non-resident equity holdings in the largest booking centers ($bn), 2010-15List of FiguresFigure 1: Offshore market growth slowed down in 2015Figure 2: Non-resident deposits among the top 10 offshore centers have performed weakly over the past few yearsFigure 3: Non-resident mutual funds have performed strongly in recent yearsFigure 4: Non-resident equity holdings growth stagnated in 2015Figure 5: Non-resident bond holdings rose by a mere 1.5% in 2015Figure 6: The US attracts a large proportion of non-resident fundsFigure 7: Traditional offshore centers have struggled to performFigure 8: Non-resident deposits in the Bahamas have declined over the past two yearsFigure 9: Wealth managers in Hong Kong and Singapore agree that funds are incoming due to the scrutiny that other traditional offshore centers haveFigure 10: The US remains the largest offshore market, but growth can be found in JapanFigure 11: A bearish market performance saw US non-resident retail holdings contractFigure 12: In 2015, non-resident deposit growth slowed in EuropeFigure 13: The tendency to allocate money offshore varies greatly among countriesFigure 14: The US is the preferred booking center for HNW wealthFigure 15: Booking center preferences vary greater depending on HNW investors' backgroundsFigure 16: US HNW individuals tend to book their wealth in their former country of residenceFigure 17: The economic bailout in 2013 hit Cyprus's offshore deposits market hardFigure 18: Investec provides non-resident mortgages to South African HNW investorsReportsWeb is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers.533, 5th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Blockchain: An Emerging Digital Platform for Insurers

Reportsweb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW0001404137/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW0001404137/buying

Publisher's "Blockchain: An Emerging Digital Platform for Insurers" provides an in-depth analysis of blockchain technology and its potential application to the insurance industry. The report discusses how blockchain could revolutionize many of the long-standing systems and processes within general insurance, and how insurers could benefit from the characteristics offered by the tech. The brief also provides an overview of the limitations of blockchain and the challenges insurers are likely to face going forward.Blockchain is a distributed ledger that is broadly discussed as a technology with huge innovation potential in all areas of financial services. To date, it is largely in the banking arena where blockchain use cases have been identified. However, blockchain technology also offers potential use cases for insurers, including innovating insurance products and services for growth, increasing effectiveness in fraud detection and pricing, and reducing administrative costs. In these application areas insurers could address some of the main challenges they are facing today - such as limited growth in mature markets, and cost reduction and regulatory pressures. The implementation of blockchain is a long-term project as it largely depends on network/system effects as well as on defining the regulatory conditions. In addition, before initial implementation steps are taken the benefits and limitations of the technology need to be fully addressed and understood. Considering all of this, and with many other financial services investigating its prospects, now is the best time for the insurance sector as a whole to further explore blockchain technology and its potential.Complete report is available@Key Finding-Blockchain ultimately provides access to secure, decentralized transactions, offering an improved basis for non-repudiation, governance, fraud prevention, financial and personal data, and reporting.-Insurers see blockchain as an opportunity to integrate the ecosystems of trusted third parties to reduce the costs of their global platforms, improve customer and market reach, and develop new propositions.-Blockchain provides more scope for insurers to maximize governance through improved data access, third-party controls, and more sophisticated management of the risks associated with their products and services, including resilience services and cyber insurance.EXECUTIVE SUMMARYBlockchain is both an opportunity and a threat to insuranceKey findingsCritical success factorsTHE IMPLICATIONS OF BLOCKCHAIN FOR INSURERS AND THE INDUSTRYIntroduction: what does blockchain technology mean for insurers?Blockchain is a tagging system designed to prove the time, integrity, and identity of dataThe evolution of blockchain is redefining certain aspects of the insurer business modelThe evolution of blockchain presents new technical dynamics for insurersKeyless signatures assist in the authentication and preservation of claimsBlockchain could provide a means to manage claims in a transparent mannerInsurers are looking beyond algorithms to establish a customer-focused claims modelOPPORTUNITIES FOR INSURERSThere are three main areas of opportunity for insurers in the use of blockchainFraud detection and risk prevention are the primary solutions for the industryCollaborating with payment systems developers would help expand market knowledgeBlockchain technology offers a new level of cyber resilienceInvestments in digital tech are becoming more commonplace among insurersAXA is considering the integration of blockchain technology into its business practicesAviva has partnered with Plug and Play to help transform ideas into productsBlockchain's potential presents the use case for innovative smart insurance contractsTHE OUTLOOK FOR BLOCKCHAIN AND THE NEXT STEPS FOR INSURERSThere are limitations insurers must consider before applying blockchainBlockchain: An Emerging Digital Platform for InsurersAPPENDIXAbbreviations and acronymsDefinitionsBig dataMethodologyPrimary and secondary researchBibliographyFurther readingAbout PublisherDisclaimerInquire before Buying@Reason to Buy-Gain a detailed insight into the functions of blockchain technology. Discover how blockchain could be applied to general insurance, including the potential benefits and limitations.-Be informed of the insurers investing in the technology and looking to develop blockchain-centric propositions in the coming years.List of TablesTable 1: Non-resident retail holdings in Switzerland, 2006?15Table 2: Non-resident retail deposits and mutual funds in Hong Kong and Singapore, 2010?15Table 3: Top 10 non-resident deposit holdings in the largest booking centers ($bn), 2010-15Table 4: Top 10 non-resident bond holdings in the largest booking centers ($bn), 2010-15Table 5: Top 10 non-resident mutual fund holdings in the largest booking centers ($bn), 2010-15Table 6: Top 10 non-resident equity holdings in the largest booking centers ($bn), 2010-15List of FiguresFigure 1: Blockchain was initially designed to facilitate the transfer of currenciesFigure 2: A full audit trail of transactions in a blockchain makes transaction fraud difficultFigure 3: Keyless signatures are used to verify electronic data stored in the blockchainFigure 4: Some versions of blockchain technology offer insurers advanced cyber coverageReportsWeb is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers.533, 5th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028U.S. 3D Printing Market by Top Manufacturers with Production and Rear Excessive Growth During 2020

Reportsweb

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW0001298826/sample

http://www.reportsweb.com/inquiry&RW0001298826/buying

Globally, burgeoned investment in Research and Development (R&D) across industries like aerospace, automotive, healthcare, oil and gas etc. will fuel the additive manufacturing industry. Following the same trend, the US 3D printing industry is poised to experience astonishing growth in the future.A shift from designing prototypes to producing end-user products can be seen in various U.S. industries. As a result, the 3D printing industry is anticipated to touch USD 17.2 billion by 2020. Increased government initiatives for small and medium enterprises would further help in increasing exports to international geographies.While defining the industry by segment, it is seen that printers sector will grow at highest CAGR of 29% through 2015-2020. Continuous falling prices of 3D printers would increase the installation numbers in households and small offices. In contrast, the maintenance segment will show the slowest growth rate from 2015-2020. The service and maintenance segment is hoping to expand at a CAGR of 22% to reach USD 3.46 Billion over the next five years from 2015 to 2020. The reason for the slow growth can be attributed to decrease in 3D printer prices. It is expected that people would prefer buying new printers with advanced technology at a comparatively lower rate rather than getting them fixed for any technical issue.An expanded demand for 3D printing from aerospace is expected, especially from civil aircrafts and space-crafts. U.S. aerospace industry rose at a CAGR of 3% from 2011 to 2015, under which space craft showed highest growth 7% y-o-y, followed by civil aircrafts at 6% annually. The scientists in space research agencies are continuously looking for methods to develop parts that can be developed on-site in the space for any emergency repair. Additionally, in automobile and aerospace industry there is huge demand for equipment that can develop heavy-duty parts and accessories from light-weight material and in an inexpensive way in no-time.Complete report is available@In additive manufacturing industry the consolidation is trending to acquire more number of patients and innovative technologies. However, many big players are facing legal issues while implementing new technology and services. For instance, government rules doesn`t allow any of the business to develop the armaments or destructive elements/equipment like guns. There are other rules imposed by FDA, EPA and related, to safeguard the society interest. For instance, developing functional kidney, heart and liver through bio-printing is possible but the permission has to be granted by government agencies to transplant these organs. Similarly, there are various hurdles being faced by aerospace industry while implementing the newly developed products in the aircrafts as the safety and security of the civil society needs to be addressed first.Currently, all the major players in the additive manufacturing are trying to tap sector like education to increase the awareness about the technology and its benefits. In order to follow this, various labs have been set-up by the companies for students, small businesses and civilians. Furthermore, the players are now focusing upon the mass customization that would attract more acceptance and interest of customers/clients.Table of Contents:1. List of Figures2. List of Tables3. Executive Summary4. Research Methodology5. 3D Printing - An Introduction5.1 Process5.2 Technology5.2.1 Stereolithography (SLA)5.2.2 Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)5.2.3 Selective Laser Sintering (SLS)5.2.4 Selective Laser Melting (SLM)5.2.5 Electron Beam Melting (EBM)5.2.6 Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM)5.3 Materials Used6. Global 3D Printing6.1 Introduction6.2 Patent landscape7. US 3D Printing Industry an Overview8. US 3D Printing Market Segmentation8.1 By Products8.1.1 Printer8.2 By Materials8.3 By Services9. Opportunities in US 3D printing market9.1 Aerospace9.2 Healthcare9.3 Automotive9.4 Oil & Gas9.4.1 Upstream Opportunities9.4.2 Downstream Value10. Porter's Five Force Model Analysis11. Industry Growth Drivers11.1 Increasing Research and development expenditure11.2 Increasing Government Support11.3 Increasing Demand From Manufacturing & Healthcare11.4 Mass customization12. Restraints12.1 High Cost12.2 Unavailability of Skilled Labor12.3 Lack of Export assistance12.4 Access to capital13. Legal challenges14. Government Initiatives for Small and Medium Businesses14.1 Research Expenditure14.2 America Makes14.3 The National Institute of Standards and Technology's Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)14.4 RFP-EZ14.5 Challenge.gov14.6 SBA Loan Process14.7 Government Venture Investing14.8 The Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act of 2012 (JOBS Act)14.9 Export Control Initiative14.10 Export.gov14.11 State Trade and Export Promotion (STEP) Grant Program14.12 National Export Initiative/Next (NEI/NEXT)14.13 Income-Based Repayment Plan14.14 Rhode Island Plan14.15 Venture for America (VFA)14.16 Entrepreneurship Student Loan Deferment14.16.1 National Science Foundation (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Program14.16.2 NSF Engineering Research Centers14.17 Executive Action14.18 The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WOIA)14.19 Manufacturing Universities Act of 201415. Regulating 3D Printing by Various Bodies15.1 Food and Drugs industry15.2 Aerospace Industry16. Competitive Landscape16.1 Stratasys16.1.1 Company Overview16.1.2 Key Financials16.1.3 Recent News & Developments16.2 Exone16.2.1 Company Overview16.2.2 Key Financials16.2.3 Recent News and Developments16.3 3D Systems16.3.1 Company Overview16.3.2 Key Financials16.3.3 Recent News and Developments16.4 Optomec16.4.1 Company Overview16.4.2 Key Financials16.4.3 Recent News & Developments16.5 DisclaimerInquire before Buying@List of TablesTable 9- 1: US 3D printing service providersTable 17- 1: Stratasys Revenue by Product and ServicesTable 17- 2: Stratasys Revenue by Region (USD Millions)Table 17- 3: Stratasys - Key FinancialsTable 17- 4: ExOne Revenue by product, materials & services (USD Millions)Table 17- 5: The ExOne Company - Key FinancialsTable 17- 6: 3D Systems - Revenue (USD Millions), 2012-2014Table 17- 7: 3D Systems - Revenue by Geography (USD Millions), 2013-2014Table 17- 8: 3d Systems - Key FinancialsList of FiguresFigure 3- 1: US 3D Printing Market Size (USD Billion) & Y-o-Y Growth %, 2015-2020 5Figure 6- 1: Top 3D Printer ManufacturersFigure 6- 2: Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) Working ModelFigure 6- 3: Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) Working ModelFigure 6- 4: Selective Laser Melting (SLM) Working ModelFigure 6- 5: Electron Beam Melting (EBM) Working ModelFigure 6- 6: Laminated Object Manufacturing (LOM) Working ModelFigure 7- 1: Global 3D Printing Market Size, 2015-2020 (USD Billions) & Y-o-Y GrowthFigure 7- 2: Global 3D Printers Shipments, 2014 (Percentage)Figure7-3: Percentage share of Additive Manufacturing in Other Industries, 2014Figure7-4: Percentage share of Additive Manufacturing in Industrial Products, 2014Figure 7- 5: 3D Printing Application, 2014 (In Percentage)Figure 7- 6: Factors affecting 3D Printers & Services Purchase, 2014Figure 7- 7: Global 3D Patent Distribution, 2013 (By Percentage)Figure 8- 1: US 3D Printing Market Size (Billion USD), 2014-2020Figure 9- 1: Types of Printer Purchased (In Percentage), 2014Figure 9- 2: Price Range of Household and Small Industrial 3D Printers (USD), 2014Figure 9- 3: US 3D Printer Market Size (USD Billion) & Y-o-Y Growth %, 2015-2020Figure 9- 4: US 3D Printer Material Market Size (USD Billion) & Y-o-Y Growth %, 2015-2020Figure 9- 5: US 3D Printing Service & Maintenance (USD Billion) & Y-o-Y Growth %, 2015-2020Figure 10- 1: Aerospace Industry Sale by Product Group (In USD Billion), 2011-2015Figure 10- 2: % Share of Groups in Total Sales, 2014Figure 10- 3: Current & Future Application of 3D Printing in Civil Aerospace, 2014Figure 10- 4: Current & Future Application of 3D Printing in Space-craft Industry, 2014Figure 10- 5: US Government Spending on Healthcare (USD trillion), 2013-2017Figure 10- 6: US Healthcare Expenditure, By Segment (USD Billion), 2014Figure 10- 7: Additive Manufacturing share in Automotive Industry (USD million), 2013Figure 10- 8: Current & Future Application of 3D Printing in Automotive, 2014Figure 11- 1: Porter`s Five Force Model Analysis, 2014Figure 14- 1: Legal Requirements in Business StepsFigure 17- 1: Stratasys - Revenue (USD Million), 2012-2014Figure 17- 2: ExOne - Revenue (Millions USD), 2012-2014Figure 17- 3: 3d system - Revenue (Millions USD), 2012-2014ReportsWeb is a one stop shop of market research reports and solutions to various companies across the globe. We help our clients in their decision support system by helping them choose most relevant and cost effective research reports and solutions from various publishers.533, 5th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028Goose Creek, SC (29445)

Today

Partly cloudy skies this morning will become overcast during the afternoon. High 86F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Overcast. Slight chance of a rain shower. Low 73F. Winds ENE at 5 to 10 mph.Kendall P. Stanley: The heroes

Remembering the heroic firefighters who responded to New York's World Trade Center following the 9/11 attacksWords by Carson Storch

MCGAZZA FEST

FARM JAM

NO SCHEDULE, JUST RIDE

I flew down to New Zealand on January 20th and had two and a half solid weeks of unbelievably good NZ summer, especially when back at home in Oregon we're stuck in full on winter. It's all about riding every day, hanging with my buddies, and having an incredible time!I took last year off of competing in the FMB World Tour to film for a couple full-length movie projects and I've basically lost my position in the overall rankings which has put me near the bottom of the totem pole. To be able to compete in the first large slopestyle contest of the year, which is Crankworx Rotorua, I would have to fight my way back up the rankings which means competing in small events all across Europe.Dont get me wrong, I love competing and being a part of the slopestyle scene, but focusing on a different path is something that I feel fortunate to be able to do. Grassroots events such as Mcgazza fest and farm jam are so much fun to attend and be a part of. Film projects are something Ive been passionate about my whole riding career, and now Im in the position to focus on them. So going on a trip like this is perfect chance for me to gain momentum for the year, and prepare for the bigger film projects and events I plan on attending.New Zealand is one of my favorite places in the world. There is so much to do and has an amazing riding scene. For me, trips like these are a way to pick up right where I left off from the previous season, and a good excuse to chase good weather, get some riding in.McGazza Fest is special to me in so many ways Kelly was a great mentor, and an even better friend. His passing was so hard on the whole MTB community, but especially to his family and those that new him personally. Being a part of McGazza Fest and seeing it grow so much since the inaugural event has been amazing to see. Having a massive crew of friends riding the best spots around Queenstown for a whole weekend in honor of Kelly's memory is pretty epic! I love every minute of it, and I plan on attending for years to come!This years' Farm Jam was a new experience for me, although I've been following the event for a while now. I've known Brett and Dan Frew for a handful of years now, but for some reason I've never actually made the trip down to ride the Jam until this year. I loved the camaraderie between Moto, BMX, & MTB. Everyone is there to have good time, and just shred. It's an event with such a good vibe, with everyone charging at a super high level of riding.Adventuring around the epic terrain that Queenstown and the South Island has to offer was something that started last year while filming for "Dear Kelly". My photographer buddy, Tyler Roemer, and I had the goal of getting one banger a day, on whichever bike, riding anything that was sweet. When you have a fun goal like this, it really opens up the options of what you can do.This year we found ourselves trying to shoot fresh zones every day, and the highlight of the trip was definitely the heli mission above Glenorchy. Thanks to Heli Glenorchy, we got to check out some insane terrain with tons of potential for big mountain lines. I definitely want to explore more in that zone. We just got a small taste of the potential, and it was pretty rad to get my tires in the dirt on a couple big lines.Joe Barnes - Greased Palms:

RyyS Action Reel 2018:

Atomic Dog Trail with Jeff Kendall-Weed:

Mitch Chubey - Rotorua Slopestyle Lap:

Reece Wallace - Shore Schlarp:

Chile 2018:

Maydena Fangin' - Baxter Maiwald:

Jonny Eden Around The World

Daniel Self - 2018:

Weird & Revered - Rural Ruckus:

Lonely Island Ft. Matt Hunter:

The Art of Adventure - Chapter 3: Joey Schusler's Time to Reflect:

Ty Morrow - Eclat:

Dak Roche - Leftovers:

Swell - A Sailing Surfer's Voyage of Awakening:

The Refuge:

The Eternal Beauty Of Snowboarding:

Nyjah Huston - Fade to Black:

Nyjah Huston's - OMFG:

Nyjah Huston - 'Til Death:

Joe rides a classic rut track in Fort William.Here's our new Action Reel for 2018, with our favourite shots from last year. Filmed in Austria, Canada, Chile, Lebanon, France, New Zealand, and Poland. Thank you everyone, who helped us along the way, who trusted us, did some unbelievable things in front of our cameras, or just had some laughs with us!Atomic Dog trail on Galbraith Mountain is a south side classic! Thanks to Transition Bikes for maintaining the trail, and HUGE thanks to the WMBC for supporting all of us riders on Galby! Support the WMBC here. I am excited to be heading back to New Zealand this week! One of the best courses I have ever ridden, created and designed by the the late McGazza is going to be one of the many highlights this year! Looking forward to all the fun and excitement.Reece Wallace for Muc Off.We always wanted to go to Chile, this summer the oportunity showed up so we packed our bikes and headed west! Riders: Mario Saavedraa, Luiz Renato, Thiago Xavier, and Vinicius Gushiken. Thanks Bruno Salas for the hospitality and all the locals for the great time we had.Filmed: Flinders Johnsten. Edited: Baxter Maiwald.: Jonny Eden riding across New Zealand and Whistler during his 2017 season.Daniel Self, a Rotorua based Enduro racer, tearing up his favourite trails in New Zealand. Video: Josh Umbers.Somewhere in the prairies of rural Alberta lies a backyard full of ramps and a revolving group of two wheeled visitors.Madeira, Portugal is where the legend Matt Hunter sent it around every corner of the beautiful island on his Specialized Enduro while myself and Etienne Van Rensburg chased him for five days, shooting what we could in order to make a short film for the Madeira Film Festival. If you are a fan of mountain biking or even just mountains, Madeira is definitely a place you should consider visiting!Adventures are often glorified as wild missions to exotic places, but that doesnt always have to be the case. The Colorado River and its surrounding terrain is a natural wonder not far from Joeys house and the perfect place to escape on a solo, multi-day bike rafting trip. Theres no better way to step back from the whirlwind of daily life than by sleeping under the stars.Combining his signature style, power, and burliness in one banger of a video part, its fair to say no one else does it quite like Ty.Dak stays in the streets daily, everyday looking for something new. He stacked up some heavy clips for the DVD already but here's a taste of what didn't make it.Embarking on a life of freedom and exploration that most only dream about, Liz Clark set sail for the South Pacific as captain of her 40-foot sailboat, Swell. More than 12 years and 20,000 miles later, shes still out there.For hundreds of generations, the Gwichin people of Alaska and northern Canada have depended on the caribou that migrate through the Arctic Refuge. With their traditional culture now threatened by oil extraction and climate change, two Gwichin women are continuing a decades-long fight to protect their land and future. The Arctic Refuge is an important symbol of the wild, and a cornerstone of the hope and peace of mind that can only be found in connecting with nature. It is a truly special home to lands and wildlife vital for the subsistence way of life of Alaska Native communities; and it serves a vital role as a remaining link with the unspoiled natural world and a source of hope for future generations, even for those who may never set foot there. The Gwich'in people have thrived in villages along the migration path of the Porcupine Caribou Herd since time immemorial, and consider the Coastal Plain where calves are born sacred.A snowboard photographer for almost 10 years, I have been filming everything I take a picture of (and much more) for the past four years. I am now putting together a supercut style edit, taking you behind the scenes of snowboard movie making, as well as raising existential questions such as: "what are we doing here?!" In the style of a philosophy exam, the movie will try to answer the question: "Is there anything truly beautiful in what we do, and what we are - pro snowboarders?''A classic.What happens when you ask Nyjah if he has any footage laying around? You get 4 minutes you won't soon forget.Perhaps the best rail part ever.Title Photo by: emrikjanssonphotography To check out videos submitted by fellow Pinkbike members that didn't quite make Movie Mondays here888poker LIVE Bucharest: Stefan Fabian Leads Final Eleven Players

March 05, 2018 Christian Zetzsche

The first-ever 888poker LIVE Festival in Bucharest saw 120 players out of a field of 469 entries return to the tables in the Grand Ballroom of the JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel. 888poker was looking to reach the official nine-handed final table on Day 2 of the 888 Main Event. That goal was narrowly missed as 11 hopefuls remain in contention after the scheduled ten levels of play.

The event easily surpassed the guarantee of 288,000, and the top 54 spots earned a portion of the 360,192 prize pool.

Stefan Fabian thrones atop the counts with 2,460,000. His fellow countrymen Madalin Cornel Petraru (1,450,000), Bogdan Diaconu (1,415,000), Marian Strachinescu (1,365,000), Andrei Racolta (1,225,000 ), Ferenc Csaba Pal (900,000), Catalin Pop (895,000), Radu Pitic (475,000) and Andrei Alecu (315,000) will aim to keep the trophy on home soil too. Pop already knows how it feels to lift a trophy on the 888pokerLIVE circuit after winning the Main Event at the King's Casino in Rozvadov for 80,000 and emerging victorious in the 2,200 High Roller in Barcelona in 2017.

Only three countries are represented in the final 11, as the nine Romanians take on the two 888poker online qualifiers Krzysztof Chmielowski from Poland (2,000,000) and Sinisa Radovanovic from Serbia (1,590,000), who are second and third respectively in the overnight counts. Radovanovic qualified for the event after starting his journey in a $5 satellite, in which he won a seat to a $109 qualifier before securing the trip to the capital of Romanian. He has already locked up 5,700 for his efforts.

Seat Assignments for the Final Day

Seat Table 2 Country Chip Count Big Blinds Seat Table 3 Country Chip Count Big Blinds 1 Stefan Fabian Romania 2,460,000 82 2 Ferenc Csaba Pal Romania 900,000 30 3 Madalin Cornel Petraru Romania 1,450,000 48 4 Marian Strachinescu Romania 1,365,000 46 4 Radu Pitic Romania 475,000 16 6 Sinisa Radovanovic Serbia 1,590,000 53 6 Bogdan Diaconu Romania 1,415,000 47 7 Krzysztof Chmielowski Poland 2,000,000 67 9 Andrei Racolta Romania 1,225,000 41 8 Andrei Alecu Romania 315,000 11 9 Catalin Pop Romania 895,000 30

The 888poker qualifiers Sinisa Radovanovic and Krzysztof Chmielowski are 2nd and 3rd in chips for the final day

Day 2 Action

Within the first two levels, 40 players their hope of securing a min-cash of 1,800 vanished. Among the early casualties of the day were Ran Azor, Manfred Sierke, Ozgur Arda, Dimitrios Kalaroutis, Marius-Alexandru Gicovanu, and Iulian Iacob. The Pokerfest hosts and 888poker announced a bad beat promotion with shots of vodka as consolation and Iacob was the first to do so after his aces failed to hold up against the pocket queens of Ivan Stankov. Both big stacks heading into the day ended up on the rail before the money.

Romania's very own WSOP bracelet winner Alexandru Papazian also departed before the money bubble after a three-way all in. 888poker ambassador Natalie Hof lost a flip with ace-king versus pocket tens to bust too. Mihai Manole and Luca Moschitta were among those to leave the Grand Ballroom empty-handed as well, and 888poker Vivian Saliba all but sneaked into the money after losing a big pot with kings versus aces. On the money bubble it was all about Stefan Fabian, who was the first player above a million in chips after busting Aurel Iovan in a huge pot with queen-jack for flopped top two pair, then busted Dorin Rauta as bubble boy minutes later when his jack-eight suited hit a runner-runner straight against ace-queen.

Saliba had to settle for 53rd place and 1,800, and she was soon joined on the rail by such familiar names as Dan Murariu (46th place for 1,800) and Tudor Purice (41st place for 1,800). Purice was ousted in a three-way all in when his massive isolation shove with ace-queen versus pocket eights was called by Ferenc Csaba Pal with king-jack suited. Ana Marquez (39th place for 2,150) lost several flips, the final one being pocket sevens versus ace-queen.

Marius Pertea racked up several deep runs in the last few months and it all started here in Bucharest when he won the Unibet Open Main Event for 90,925 at this very venue. This time, the local businessman had to settle for 24th place and 2,850. The final three levels reduced the field from three to two tables, and Fabian claimed the top spot after taking the entire stack of Radu Danut in the final two hands of the night.

2,200 High Roller Draws 32 Entries so Far

The 2,200 High Roller with single re-entry drew a total of 32 entries thus far, of which 20 players bagged up after seven levels of 40 minutes each. Registration remains open until the restart at 12 p.m. local time, and all new entries will receive 30 big blinds worth with upcoming blinds of 500/1,000 and a running ante of 100.

Among those that busted were Alexandru Papazian, Mihai Niste, Danut Chisu, and Marius Pertea. Papazian re-entered successfully and bagged up 43,000. Leading the field into Day 2 is Razvan Bordei with 97,700, narrowly ahead of Narcis Gabriel Nedelcu (94,800). Nedelcu won the 230 Opening Event and cashed in 28th place in the Main Event before immediately jumping into the High Roller action.

Other notables in contention include Ana Marquez (74,400), 888poker ambassador Sofia Lovgren (65,400), Ran Shahar (58,100), Marius-Alexandru Gicovanu (49,800), and 230 Opening Event runner-up Eduard Norel (29,300). Lovgren celebrated her birthday during the festival and was presented flowers and champagne by 888poker before the restart of the Main Event Day 2.

The High Rollers will be back in action as of 1 p.m. local time and the 11 Main Event finalists take their seats at 12.15 p.m. local time. The action recommences in level 22 with blinds of 15,000/30,000 and a running ante of 5,000 and the PokerNews live updates will be published right away before switching over to a 30 minutes delay according to the live stream with commentary and hole cards displayed once the official final table is set.

The PokerNews live updates for the final day of the 888poker LIVE Bucharest Main Event will be according to the 30 minutes delay, and you can watch the stream with commentary and hole cards displayed right here until a champion is crowned.Final Day of the partypoker KO Series Hit With Connection Problems

March 05, 2018 Frank Op de Woerd

The final day of the $10 million guaranteed KO Series at partypoker was plagued with technical problems, which resulted in dozens of tournaments being canceled.

Players took to social media at approximately 8:30 p.m. CET to ask for information about the connectivity problems they were experiencing and to vent their frustrations.

A tweet from the official partypoker Twitter account was posted at 9:05 p.m. CET stating the site was aware of technical issues and that they were working on resolving those issues as quickly as possible.

The partypoker team then paused all tournaments that were in play. Another tweet was sent out informing players that these tournaments were being canceled and that players would be refunded or the prize pools distributed according to the running status of the tournament.

Please accept our sincere apologies for the issues experienced this evening. All tournaments scheduled for 9PM GMT https://t.co/7h9DqbrX4c  partypoker (@partypoker)

Tournaments scheduled to begin at 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. CET were also canceled after partypoker tweeted that the site was still experiencing technical issues with MTTs, although cash games were back online.

Unfortunately we are still experiencing technical issues with MTTs and cannot yet confirm when these will be restor https://t.co/voFXXxJTf2  partypoker (@partypoker)

partypoker Managing Director Tom Waters released a statement, offering his apologies and making promises on future events and guarantees.

It was a disaster for us as well as the players, the night of our biggest ever PKO tournaments and on the eve of the launch of our new Power Series. I understand that some players may not immediately return to partypoker given their experiences in the last 24 hours and I expect to see some sizeable overlays in the new Power Series MTTs that run from today. We will run the new Power Series as advertised and will not be reducing guarantees.

The full statement can be read on the partypoker blog.

A lot of disgruntled players took to the Official partypoker/bwin Thread in the Internet Poker sub forum on poker forum 2+2 to share their concerns.

The problems at partypoker came only a couple of days after it published a video highlighting the massive live poker tournament guarantees, the $20 million guaranteed MILLIONS Online event, and the brand new updated poker software.

On Monday morning, partypoker tweeted their apologies and made a new announcement about it's upcoming Sunday schedule.

partypoker apologises for last night's downtime and adds almost $2,000,000 to next Sunday's schedule. Click the lin https://t.co/Fc5Iw7K2Eh  partypoker (@partypoker)

Update 6:27 PT: this article originally included a sentence that was misleading, and has been removed.

The Stars Group owns a majority share in iBus Media, PokerNews' parent company.864 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

A new Emerson College poll of the House special election in PA-18 shows that Democrat Conor Lamb has taken a 48%-45% lead over Republican Rick Saccone.

Here is the graphic from Emerson College Pollin:

According to a release from Emerson College Polling, When asked about level of excitement among voters about the election, 63% of Lamb voters reported being very excited compared to 53% of Saccone voters. Lamb voters also are paying more attention to the race, with 47% reported paying a lot of attention, compared to 42% of Saccone voters. Lamb has a positive image in the district, with 48% saying they have a favorable opinion and a 33% unfavorable rating  15% of voters had heard of him but had no opinion. Saccone is not as popular with a 44% favorable and a 40% unfavorable rating  15% of voters had heard of him but had no opinion. Lamb leads 57% to 40% in Allegheny County, which is expected to account for about 42% of the vote. Saccone leads in Westmoreland County 51% to 42%, a county that comprises about 33% of the vote. Saccone leads in Washington County 46% to 41%, which make up about 22% of the vote.

3 key points about the PA-18 poll

1). The poll is still within the statistical margin of error  The margin of error for the poll was 4.8 points, which means that Conor Lambs lead is a statistical tie. The poll doesnt show Lamb with a lead over the margin of error, which makes this election to use an election night results term, too close to call. Trump won this district by 20 points in 2016, so if Lambs lead is 3 points, it will represent a 23 point swing from less than two years ago.

2). Lamb has the momentum  Conor Lamb is the candidate with all of the momentum in the district. Momentum doesnt necessarily equal victory, especially in a red district, but Lamb has Republicans worried. The tone of the Republican advertising has shifted from touting the GOP tax cuts to relentless personal attacks on Conor Lamb. Republicans can see from their own polling that he is the more personally popular candidate, and whether or not they hold on to this seat will be determined by their last-minute push to lower Lambs approval ratings.

3). Trump is an anchor on Republicans as the change message is working  Conor Lamb isnt campaigning against Donald Trump. His ads never make mention of Trump. Lamb is running a locally based campaign. There is more than a slight hint of the strategy that Doug Jones used in Alabama in Conor Lambs approach to the campaign. Donald Trump isnt an issue by name, but his presence is always here and hanging over the Republican effort to keep this seat. Trump is having a depressing impact on these special elections for Republicans. He isnt firing up the GOP base. He is motivating Democrats and voters who want change to get involved.

The blue wave is surging in PA-18

As someone who knows the district and the region intimately and personally, I can tell you that PA-18 was solidly Republican real estate, not just in votes, but in attitude and perception. Conor Lambs performance signals that there is something real bubbling up in the United States. People are demanding change and getting involved in ways that havent been seen in decades. From the students standing up for change to the nations gun laws to Times Up, and Me Too, people are standing up for change, and a Conor Lamb win would be sign that the cultural storm that is powering the blue wave is coming for Trump and his party this November.Since 2009, millions of monthly readers rely on and trust PoliticusUSA for real independent liberal news. We arent owned by a corporation, we dont take any special interest money. We have no shareholders, and we are here to deliver you the unfiltered truth that the mainstream media and their corporate owners dont want to talk about.

PoliticusUSA is completely independent, and our goal is to bring you the news with truth and integrity. We are committed to keeping the news free to every reader, but we could use your help. For as little as $1, you can support PoliticusUSA, and keep delivering the message to the corporate media that both sides dont do it. The facts still matter, and truth rises above all.

Please give today, and if you cant donate subscribe to our newsletter.Though Javanka  Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner  once seemed to be the two least likely people the president would ever want to leave the White House, recent events have made their departure a real possibility. Talking Points Memo reports that sources close to the president have heard him wondering aloud whether his daughter and son-in-law would be better off returning to their former life in New York City.

Trump is apparently frustrated with the continual negative headlines Kushner attracts, whether they be about his complicated business dealings with foreign entities or, most recently, the embarrassing stripping of his top secret security clearance.

The couple has also found themselves in a battle of sorts with chief of staff John Kelly, who they reportedly see as carrying out deliberate efforts to limit their access to the president. Kelly, who was hired to bring order to the White House, is apparently fed up with Javankas tendency to change the presidents mind about different matters at the last minute. Kelly also reportedly wonders what exactly it is that the two do with their time.

Not only might Trump soon become fed up with the presence of his daughter and her husband, but they themselves might also come to the conclusion that their diminished roles are too much of an indignity to bear. Kushners inability to get his hands on top secret information will make his ambitious project for achieving peace in the Middle East nearly impossible. Ivanka, as the self-appointed champion for womens rights in the administration, continues to invite ridicule every time she speaks in favor of womens advancement while turning a blind eye to her fathers own misogynist past and the long list of ways hes attacked womens rights while in office.1.3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

John Oliver watched hours of NRATV and exposed the fact that the NRA isnt interested in gun rights at all. The NRAs mission is to scare people and sell guns.

Video:

Oliver said, Holy shit. Theyre using the same techniques as an infomercial. Is human traffic getting you down? Do you have ISIS sympathizers in those hard-to-reach places? Are you tired of getting 9/11d? Theres got to be a better way! Try the ar-15! Available at way too many stores near you. Now, to watch NRATV is to watch a constant stream of stories like those  many real, but amplified to terrify you and sell you products. And there may be a good reason it sounds like an infomercial  because it is. Many of NRATVs shows are sponsored by gun brands like Smith & Wesson. And behind the scenes of NRATV is an ad agency. Its called Ackerman Mcqueen. Theyve worked with the NRA for decades, and the Ackerman Mcqueen website proclaims, Every brand must be its own media company. And thats what the NRA have done with their TV arm. Theyve got a product to sell, and they employ people who can sell that product. Even Dana Loesch, the clenched fist of truth, when shes not warning of the drug cartels and human traffickers in every single American city, is selling you some other shit.

NRATV is QVC for guns

NRATV isnt interested in protecting the rights of gun owners. The network is set up to do one thing, and that is to motivate people to buy more guns. The NRA hides behind the Second Amendment and bogus claims that they are a membership organization for gun owners, but what kind of membership organization is only interested in moving more merchandise?

After Last Week Tonight aired, the NRA showed that they are sticking to the propaganda:

Thanks for the coverage on @LastWeekTonight, @iamjohnoliver. Keep watching #NRATV and you might learn why America has a Second Amendment. #NRA pic.twitter.com/xCuM10Lvwi  NRATV (@NRATV) March 5, 2018

Fewer people are buying the NRAs use of the Second Amendment as a shield to hide their motivation, which is selling guns and making money. NRATV is propaganda, and any streaming service that leaves them on the air will have the blood of future mass shootings on their hands.

liticsUSA has positions open for writers. Click here to apply.

To discuss this story and more join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.1.3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

A second Christopher Steele memo says that Russia blocked Romney from becoming Trumps Secretary of State because they wanted someone who would lift the sanctions.

Jane Mayer of The New Yorker reported:

One subject that Steele is believed to have discussed with Muellers investigators is a memo that he wrote in late November, 2016, after his contract with Fusion had ended. This memo, which did not surface publicly with the others, is shorter than the rest, and is based on one source, described as a senior Russian official. The official said that he was merely relaying talk circulating in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but what hed heard was astonishing: people were saying that the Kremlin had intervened to block Trumps initial choice for Secretary of State, Mitt Romney. (During Romneys run for the White House in 2012, he was notably hawkish on Russia, calling it the single greatest threat to the U.S.) The memo said that the Kremlin, through unspecified channels, had asked Trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift Ukraine-related sanctions, and who would cooperate on security issues of interest to Russia, such as the conflict in Syria. If what the source heard was true, then a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over U.S. foreign policyand an incoming President.

If Russia blocked Romney, Trump is a Putin puppet

If the Russians have this degree of influence over Trump, then it confirms what the circumstantial evidence shows. Putin is running Trump, and the Kremlin is firmly in control of much of US foreign policy. There is a reason why Trump still has not implemented the new sanctions against Russia that Congress passed. It is the same reason why Trump hasnt lifted a finger Russian election interference, or why the president has refused to say a single bad word about Putin.

The Russians wouldnt want Romney to be Secretary of State. Mitt Romney views Putin as a threat to the US, and he would have taken the job at State seriously and not gutted the department as Rex Tillerson has done.

PoliticsUSA has positions open for writers. Click here to apply.

The second Steele memo comes from a single source, so it has not been verified, but if this chatter in the Kremlin is true, the Russian infiltration of the US government is an act of war that needs to be dealt with immediately.

To discuss this story and more join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.724 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

The Russia scandal is causing Trump to crack as he went on a rant about trade that was deranged and out of touch with reality.

Video:

Trump's just went on a White House rant about that showed why he is going wreck the US economy. pic.twitter.com/uXVNipxUZy  Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) March 5, 2018

Trump said, Were not backing down. We have had a bad deal with Mexico. Very bad deal with Canada. Its called NAFTA. Our factories have left our jobs have left our country. For many years, NAFTA has been a disaster. We are renegotiating NAFTA, as I said I would. If we dont make a deal, I will terminate NAFTA. But if I do make a deal thats fair to the workers and the American people, that would be I would imagine one of the points well negotiate. There will be tariffs on steel for Canada and for Mexico. Well see what happens. But right now, 100%. But it could be a part of NAFTA. And I just got a call from the people who are right now in Mexico City negotiating NAFTA. Mexico and Canada want to talk about it. But if they arent going to make a fair NAFTA deal, were just going to leave it this way. People have to understand. Our country on trade has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world. Whether its friend or enemy, everybody. China, Russia, take people that we think are wonderful, the European Union, we cant do business there. They dont allow. They have trade barriers that are worse than tariffs. They also have tariffs, but they have trade barriers far worse than tariffs. And if they wanna do something, well just tax their cars. If they send it here like water. We may have friends but remember this. We lost over the last number of years $800 billion a year. Not a half a million dollars, not 12 cents, we lost $800 billion a year on trade. Not going to. Happen. We have to get it back. And the biggest problem is China. We lost $500 billion. How previous presidents allowed that to happen is disgraceful. But were going to take care of it. Thank you all very much. Thank you. I dont think youre going to have a trade war. I dont think so.

The Trump rant over trade is really all about the Russia investigation. Trump cant fight the Russia investigation. He is angry and depressed, so he is lashing out on trade. Trump is picking fighting with Republicans because he feels like they havent protected him from the Russia investigation.

Trumps trade outburst is his way of venting his anger and trying to appeal to his base.

The problem is that this is actual US economic policy, and it will have consequences for the American people. Trump doesnt think that there will be a trade war, but he is wrong. A trade war is a certainty if he continues down this path, and the reason why countries dont fight trade wars is that they kill economies. Trump cant handle the heat from the Russia scandal, so he is going to start a trade war.

The president is out of control, out of his mind, and may soon find himself out of office.

PoliticsUSA has positions open for writers. Click here to apply.

To discuss this story and more join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin made the statement during his annual address to the Russian parliament on March 1 and used videos to showcase five other new weapons systems he says are capable of piercing U.S. defenses.

The systems include the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, the Avangard nuclear-tipped hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, the Status-6 nuclear-armed unmanned undersea torpedo, the Kinzhal air-launched hypersonic cruise missile, and a short-range directed-energy weapons system (laser).

But it is the news of a nuclear-powered cruise missile that alarmed media observers and military experts. Im still kind of in shock. My guess is theyre not bluffing, that theyve flight-tested this thing, said Edward Geist, a researcher on Russian affairs at RAND, a U.S.-based think tank.

The video showed the launch of the missile and a simulation of its trajectory as it was flying around South America toward the west coast of the United States while evading U.S. missile defense systems.

Putin said cutting-edge scientific achievements made the development of the missile possible.

Russias advanced arms are based on the cutting-edge, unique achievements of our scientists, designers and engineers. One of them is a small-scale heavy-duty nuclear energy unit that can be installed in a missile like our latest X-101 air-launched missile or the American Tomahawk, he stated, adding that the missile is invincible against current and prospective defense systems.

As he boasted of the weapons, Putin called on the U.S. to engage in a dialogue on global security. This comes as both sides accuse each other of breaching arms control treaties that underpin strategic stability. Russia has criticized the U.S. for withdrawing from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and deploying anti-missile defense systems in Europe and Asia. The U.S., in turn, has accused Russia of developing a new cruise missile in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, invading Ukraine, and threatening smaller European NATO allies.

During his speech, Putin said he was not bluffing. But some experts say the speech was aimed less at reflecting on the true state of Russias military capabilities than boosting his ratings ahead of the March presidential election and encouraging the U.S. to negotiate a new global security. This especially concerns the claims about the nuclear-powered cruise missile -- the development of which, if confirmed, would be considered a major technological breakthrough shrouded in secrecy.

According to Russian experts, Russias Novator experimental design bureau is developing the missile. Tests of the missile, code-named 9730, allegedly involved the Il-976 testbed aircraft and took place at Zentralny (Central) range in Nenoks, a village in Arkhangelsk province. Once developed, the missile could be mounted on Tu-160 and u-95 strategic bombers and carry a nuclear warhead with an explosive yield potentially exceeding 100 kilotons, about ten times more powerful than the yield of the nuclear bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima during World War II.

Unlike ballistic missiles, which enter the atmosphere before descending and hitting a target, cruise missiles fly low to the ground and are harder to detect by radar. In the case of a nuclear-powered cruise missile, a key challenge is to develop a miniaturized nuclear propulsion system and imbed it within the missile without exposing the environment to radioactive fallout. The mini nuclear-power station is supposed to boost the cruise missiles range and maneuverability to evade anti- ballistic missile defenses that are not designed to counter cruise missiles. Soviet and U.S. scientists tried but failed to develop a similar missile during the Cold War.

The know-how behind the Russian design is classified. But the general principle, according to some Russian experts, comes down to this: the missiles edges contain capsules with heaters powered by the nuclear power unit that heat up incoming air. The release of that air provides the thrust needed for the missile to fly with a heavy payload for a virtually unlimited period. Other experts suggest that the Russian design relies on a fast reactor which, while more efficient, is less safe.

According to the deputy head of the Russia-based Institute of Nuclear Physics and Technologies, Georgiy Tikhomirov, it is theoretically feasible to develop a nuclear-powered propulsion system. But it is unclear how far Russian scientists have advanced in developing one. Tom Plant, director of proliferation and nuclear policy at RUSI think tank, concurs that it is feasible, but says the idea is insane.

Other experts are more skeptical. The head of Russias Space Policy Institute, Ivan Moiseyev, says such system is neither feasible nor necessary.

One cannot install a nuclear engine on a cruise missile. Nor do such engines exist, he argues, calling Putins claims confusing.

Robert Schmucker, a missile scientist at the Technical University of Munich, says it will be a while before Russia develops the system. The missile has, in fact, crashed several times during trials in the Arctic, raising concerns about the environmental impact, according Pentagon officials in U.S. media reports.

Curiously, radioactive particles were detected over northern Europe this past January and Alaska in 2016. Similar reports surfaced in early 2017, but the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, which monitors compliance, then said it had not detected any elevated levels of radioactive isotopes.

James Acton, a nuclear expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, says Russia already has sufficient capabilities to reduce the U.S. into a pile of radioactive soot. That assessment is shared by Ian Williams, a missile defense technology expert with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, who underscored that the U.S. has only 44 homeland defense interceptors vs. 1,500 Russian nuclear warheads. Russias missiles could overwhelm U.S. missile defenses.

According to experts, Russia is concerned that U.S. global missile defense plans could undermine its second-strike capability, thus reducing strategic stability, which rests on the concept of mutually-assured destruction.

So it totally makes sense for them to try and find ways to defeat not what it is now, but what it may become, Plant noted, commenting on U.S. missile defense plans.

According to Kingston Reif, a disarmament expert at the Arms Control Association, Russias new weapons would still not alter the core strategic balance, as the U.S. relies on its powerful nuclear triad. Notably, the Pentagon does not appear alarmed about the weapons that Putin showcased, saying they have been in development for a long time and that the U.S. military is prepared.

Meanwhile, the U.S. says it is moving forward with modernizing its nuclear arsenal to ensure it has unmatched capabilities. In February, the U.S. administration completed a nuclear posture review, calling for the development of two new systems in response to Russias growing capabilities -- a submarine-based nuclear cruise missile and a tactical submarine-launched ballistic missile.

The administration is also investing in the development of a new air-launched nuclear-capable cruise missile (the Long Range Standoff weapon) and has requested almost $24 billion to modernize and sustain the nuclear triad as well as $13 billion for missile defense, according to its 2019 budget proposal.

Experts worry that, absent new arms control treaties and compliance with existing ones, the development of nuclear armaments threatens an arms race that could upend strategic stability.Underrated. Such was the synopsis a friend gave of the UK pop band XTC as we chatted one afternoon in 1992. Nonsuch, the bands 10th studio album proper, had just been releasedand my friend and I, despite being friends for years, were delighted to discover that we were both great devotees. Unfortunately, 26 years later, his single-word assessment still accurately describes the band and their place in the history of pop music. How does it happen that such a creative, original band, with a career that lasted over 20 years and an output of more than 12 full-length albums, earn so little mention?

Forty years ago, in 1978, Virgin released two albums by XTC, a newly signed band from Swindon. White Music, released that January, was their full-length debut (3D-EP, containing three songs, appeared the year before)and Go 2, their second, came out in October. The band at the time was comprised of Andy Partridge (vocals, guitar), Colin Moulding (vocals, bass), Terry Chambers (drums), and Barry Andrews (keyboards). Musically, they were post-punk at a time when punk had not yet ended. White Music contains short songs  the longest cut, at 5:43, is a squared-off cover of Dylans All Along the Watchtower  but the lyrics are not political enough to be punk, and the musicianship  complex rhythms, time signature changes, unusual chords and pairings  is too competent to be cool. Perhaps this was the first indication that XTC would never quite fit in.

Listening today to White Music (and its quickly written and recorded follow-up, Go 2), one is struck not so much by the music having aged well but rather by Barry Andrews keyboards. Andrews left the band shortly after Go 2 (he would go on to co-found Shriekback; guitarist and arranger David Gregory would replace him in XTC), so his keyboard playingwhich Andy Partridge described, with affection, as the sound of someone repairing a flying saucer engineoften feels like a part of the music on the verge of sailing off. His eclectic, frightened keyboards never particularly defined the bands sound.

Still, White Music is of a time: manic, overflowingyet contained by rhythms comparable to Devo, Oingo Boingo, or early Wall of Voodoo: mechanistic, tensed-up. Go 2, by comparison, and despite rating low on Best of XTC lists, feels more fleshed out, roomy. It also features one of the great segues in rock music, Battery Brides / Buzzcity Talking (Partridge / Moulding, respectively penned), as memorable and essential to this ear as The Cars Shoo Bee Doo / Candy-O (1979). Together, White Music and Go 2 include songs no XTC fan would dare imagine the world without: This is Pop, Statue of Liberty (curiously, the BBC would ban the single, Statue of Libertyyes, that Statue of Libertyfor the suggestive lyric, In my fantasy/ I sail beneath your skirt but controversy never would be, with the exception of 1986s Dear God angering the US Christian faithful, part of XTCs make-up), Meccanik Dancing (Oh We Go), the aforementioned Battery Brides / Buzzcity Talking and, from the same era, released as a non-album single, Are You Receiving Me?

I found my way to XTC, probably like many other listeners, slowly. FM radio in my formative neck of New Jersey in the late 70s and early 80s was hardly daring. Punk had no airplay at all, and by the time New Wave trickled in, the genre was scattered and slotted into formula radio. One could hear, for example, The Police on a certain type of station, the Go-Gos on another, but never X, the Surf Punks, or The Cramps. XTCs Making Plans for Nigel (from 1979s Drums and Wires), as well as Generals and Majors (from 1980s Black Sea), both written by Colin Moulding, amazingly saw airplay beside the likes of Peter Gabriels Games Without Frontiers (1980) and Rushs Tom Sawyer (1981)but XTC songs were little more than curiosities, never charting particularly high in the singles-driven radio wasteland. (Generals and Majors briefly reached #28 on Billboards Album Rock Tracks.)

However, XTC is the kind of band that sneaks up on you. It wasnt until much later, after their appearance in the 1982 concert film, Urgh! A Music War (how could the subtle brilliance of Partridges Respectable Street compete, upon first viewing, with the audacity of Dead Kennedys or the wonderful strangeness of Klaus Nomi?), after English Settlement (1982) and Andy Partridges breakdown (more on that in a minute), after Mummer (1983) and The Big Express (1984), and even after Skylarking (1986), that XTC would arrive at my doorstep and let itself in.

Rattling off the years of XTCs albums, its important to note what was happening, musically, in the US. After New Wave, the scene completely shifted: by 1983 Heavy Metal became commercially-viable, and a proliferation of those bands, seemingly pre-packaged and microwaved into three-minute MTV videos, dominated airplayand MTV itself became the arbiter of trends: Michael Jackson, Wham!, Madonna, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Hall and Oates, Huey Lewis and the News. In a peculiar mainstream split into Ray Parker, Jrs and Judas Priests, it was difficult to find XTC or the Smithsor even to find ones way back to Tom Waits. Consider that Partridges fabulously pastoral Love on a Farmboys Wages (from Mummer) or the darkly up-tempo All You Pretty Girls (The Big Express) seem of a different time altogether from Kajagoogoos Too Shy or Van Halens Jump from the same respective years. XTCs music is marked by a certain timelessness that never did find a time among its contemporaries.

Perhaps we might owe that to Andy Partridge, XTCs primary songwriter. Partridgeeven from song to songdefies the ordinary, the straight up and down. Theres nothing one expects in his compositions, excepting some structure of verse/chorus/bridgeand its difficult to say just what makes an Andy-song Andys. Sometimes I think its his vocalizing (try Living Through Another Cuba from Black Sea or Leisure from English Settlement), other times his striking song titles (Holly Up on Poppy, Shake You Donkey Up) or the variety of subject matter in his lyrics. No matter, its his evolution as a songwriterand his uncanny ability to be both sui generis and accessible at precisely the same time.

Then, somewhere along the US leg of the 1982 tour for English Settlement, Partridges wife-at-the-time flushed his supply of Valium down the toilet. Partridge had been taking Valium since he was 12 or 13 years old. As Valium had become part and parcel of his body chemistry, the sudden withdrawal manifested into physical ailments, panic attacks, and an incurable stage frightand the rest of the tour had to be cancelled. XTC never toured again. (Or Partridge hated touring and never wanted to tour again. Choose your favorite story.) Its been posited that the 1982 tour, buffered by the single Senses Working Overtime, would have pushed XTC into superstardom, but lets not kid ourselves.

Whats crucial about Partridges breakdown, however, is its outcome: XTC became a studio band. Although Terry Chambers would leave, XTC evolved into a band ever more lush and multilayered. Whats crucial, too, is that Partridge, who could not control his stage fright, began to exert control over the process of songmaking and studio recording. Mummer and The Big Express mark this shift to the studio-as-instrument. Virgin/Geffen, however, was never so generous to allow Partridge full control and, perhaps as an insurance policy or punishment, always paired the band with a producer. Partridge, rather infamously and without victory, butted heads with producer Todd Rundgren during the making of Skylarking, arguably XTCs best album. But without touring, could XTC ever really break through?

Despite numerous high chart placing on Billboard (the perfect pop song Mayor of Simpleton from 1989s Oranges and Lemons, hit #1 on the Modern Rock Chart, and Nonsuchs bizarre The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead was also #1), XTC never had a gold record in America. (Drums and Wires went gold in Canada, Black Sea and English Settlement silver in the UK.) XTCs relationship with Virgin, especially after they quit touring, seems to have been a tenuous one. (Had Skylarking not done well, said Colin Moulding in Showtimes recent documentary, XTC: This Is Pop, Virgin would have dropped them.) No one could quite figure out how to market a band that had no sex appeal or adherence to a specific category. Andy Partridge said that XTC, in their struggles with the label, crusaded for no image, a successful crusade at that. But without an image, without predictable and shiny music videos, and without albums that all pretty much sounded the same, XTC never could achieve mass popularity.

Underrated? Dont let XTCs absence from serious conversation about pop music deter you from discovering, or rediscovering, their catalog. From the post-punk beginnings of White Music and Go 2 to the great musical leaps of Drums and Wires and two subsquent, stage-friendly rock albums, Black Sea and English Settlement, to the multi-track middle-period of Mummer and The Big Express, and onward to their great homage to 60s psychedelia as The Dukes of Stratosphear, through Skylarking, Oranges and Lemons, Nonsuch, and their last two albums, Apple Venus Vol. 1 (1999) and Wasp Star: Apple Venus Vol. 2 (2000), XTC amassed an impressive and varied oeuvre, including a number of B-side compliations, experimental EPs, Peel Sessions, and a terrific live album, BBC Radio 1 Live in Concert.

Could they do no wrong? Admirers have their least favorites ( Mummer, for me, was a dud sonically, until a remaster brought out its charms; later albums, specifically formatted for CD rather than album sides, always feel a couple of songs too many; and Wasp Star, bearing the absence of David Gregory, who left after the masterful Apple Venus Vol. 1, is painfully hit or miss), but for a career so lengthy and diverse, the magic is surprisingly consistent.

The magic is in the songwriting. Partridge is incomparable: his sense of melody, and his talent for writing so damn many good songs seems both natural and considered. Partridge, in XTC: This Is Pop, explains his approach to composition a product of synesthesiaand certainly this mixing of the senses brings to the music a poetic sensibility. Like well-made poems, the music means as much as the words do and, as a lyricist, Partridge is so often aint bad: Now the son has died / the father can be born (Easter Theater), See the children with baskets / See their hair cut like corn / Neatly combed in their rows (Harvest Festival), River of orchids winding my way / want to walk into London on my hands one day (River of Orchids), Its down in my pocket with the sunlight folded there (I Cant Own Her)this just a random handful from one album, Apple Venus Vol. 1. Colin Moulding, the other songwriter in XTC, wrote much less, usually two or threes songs per album, but his contributions are no less than Partridges, but rather gorgeously astride.

One hopes that XTC, at some point, will achieve a more prominent place, or for that matter any place at all, in the pop rock canon. But for those of us already in the know, even if we dont talk about it with each other, XTCs music is deeply sacred stuff: discovered and rediscoverable, and arriving, after long having already arrived.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.Angie Jackson covers crime and breaking news for The Post and Courier. She previously covered the same beat for the Grand Rapids Press and MLive.com in Michigan. When shes not reporting, Angie enjoys teaching yoga and exploring the outdoors.Charleston, SC (29403)

Today

Partly to mostly cloudy. High around 85F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies early, then off and on rain showers overnight. Low near 75F. Winds E at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.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.Political Reporter

Caitlin Byrd is a political reporter at The Post and Courier and author of the Palmetto Politics newsletter. Before moving to Charleston in 2016, her byline appeared in the Asheville Citizen-Times. To date, Byrd has won 17 awards for her work.PR-Inside.com: 2018-03-05 15:39:05

FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for California Gold Mining Inc.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Toronto, Ontario (FSCWire) - California Gold Mining Inc. (TSX Venture:CGM). has issued a press release with the following headline:California Gold Announces Further Positive Assays from Queen Specimen Zone - Intersects 29.1 m of 1.25 g/t Au, Including 4.0 m of 4.12 g/t Au at Its Fremont Gold Project**To view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on California Gold Mining Inc., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/California Gold Mining Inc.Source: California Gold Mining Inc. (TSX Venture: CGM, OTCQX: CFGMF, ISIN: A14ZUC, WKN: CA1302641040)Date: March 05, 2018Time: 9:34 AM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of California Gold Mining Inc. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2018 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)PR-Inside.com: 2018-03-05 02:02:02

LikeCoin Issues First 30,000 Tokens to Activate New Blockchain-based Ecosystem for Content Creators

ANX Digital

Pheobe Poon

anxdigital.pr@anxintl.com

LikeCoin today announced the genesis of more than 30,000 new tokens over the Chinese New Year period after a successful Red Packet program that resulted in more than 2,000 people in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asian countries receiving freshly-minted LikeCoins as part of their festive celebrations.

The Red Packet campaign helps LikeCoin in its mission to create a new digital currency for freelance photographers, artists and designers, and grow an innovative blockchain-based ecosystem that rewards content creators globally. During the Chinese New Year period in February, content creators including Kit Man, Horyuken and Yansquare received LikeCoins for their works, showcasing the effectiveness of the LikeCoin platform in equitably incentivizing creativity.

Leveraging the power of blockchain technology, LikeCoin will tokenize the creative output of artists across the world as their works are appreciated and shared, said Kin Ko, Founder of LikeCoin. Creativity and reward had been decoupled for too long, and LikeCoin is designed to rectify current inefficiencies and encourage increased creativity in a reshaped industry ecosystem.

During the Red Packet campaign in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore, recipients of newly-minted LikeCoins were free to keep or transfer their Ethereum ERC-20-based tokens to their designated artists and content creators in recognition of their works including photographs, graphic designs and videos.

LikeCoin creates unique fingerprints for all creative contents and tracks footprints of all derivative works along with creators and distributors of the content. Powered by a global, decentralised and resilient IPFS-based technology, LikeCoins proprietary Like Button and LikeRank algorithm enable attribution and collaboration of content across multiple platforms and applications, allowing content creators and content adopters to curate contents and record the data on blockchain for other distributors to use.

The LikeCoin ecosystem will support creative content in many formats including photos, illustrations, videos and articles. Original content may be distributed by content distributors directly or modified, forming derivative work which can be adopted for use by content adopters. In the LikeCoin ecosystem, original creators and content adopters potentially receive LikeCoin from audiences on their own service providers, from content adopters further downstream, and from content distributors. LikeCoins unique Proof of Creativity mechanism and blockchain Smart Contract are proven to incentivize creators and will help drive broad adoption by distribution platforms and service providers in the ecosystem.

For more information on LikeCoin

Sign up on LikeCoin Store: likecoin.store

Join LikeCoin Facebook group: fb.com/groups/likecoin

Join LikeCoin Telegram group: t.me/likecoin

About LikeCoin

LikeCoin aims to reinvent the Like by realigning creativity and reward. We enable attribution and cross-application collaboration on creative contents. With a reinvented Like button and our unique LikeRank algorithm, we trace content footprint and reward creators by Proof of Creativity mechanism.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201803040050PR-Inside.com: 2018-03-05 15:00:17

FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Minfocus Exploration Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Toronto, ON (FSCWire) - Minfocus Exploration Corp. (TSX Venture:MFX). has issued a press release with the following headline:Minfocus Exploration Extends MVT Zinc Portfolio in Newfoundland with Agreement to Earn 100% Interest in Round Pond Zinc ProjectTo view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Minfocus Exploration Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Minfocus Exploration Corp.Source: Minfocus Exploration Corp. (TSX Venture: MFX)Date: March 05, 2018Time: 9:00 AM EST--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Minfocus Exploration Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2018 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)PR-Inside.com: 2018-03-05 07:02:01

Mobidiag Implements High Throughput Manufacturing Lines to Answer Growing Needs for Novodiag Cartridges

Mobidiag Ltd

Dorothee Allard, +33 1 55 25 17 13

marketing@mobidiag.com

or

Ginolis

Teijo Fabritius, +358 40 565 1782

CEO

teijo.fabritius@ginolis.com

Mobidiag Ltd, a Finnish molecular diagnostics for infectious diseases company, today announced it has signed an agreement with Ginolis, expert in assembly automation and high precision liquid handling solutions. Through the implementation of cutting-edge production lines from Ginolis, Mobidiag will be able to answer growing needs in molecular diagnostics for routine use and anticipate the production of upcoming Novodiag test cartridges.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201803040050

Novodiag disposable cartridge for diagnostics of infectious diseases (Photo: Mobidiag)

Launched in December 2017, the new Novodiag solution allows direct analysis of a patient sample placed in a disposable cartridge and delivers comprehensive results in about an hour, compared to days with well-established culture methods. Novodiag helps make treatment decisions faster and more accurate, avoiding for example the unnecessary use of antibiotics.

The innovative Novodiag cartridge has been developed at Mobidiag thanks to the combination of multidisciplinary teams and expertise. The cartridge includes state-of-the-art technologies such as qPCR and microarray, bringing with them some specific requirements and constraints. We then needed to successfully automate our processes and move from a small scale production capacity to industrial volumes without compromising quality and costs. Thanks to its cutting-edge modular platforms and expertise in diagnostics processes, we are confident that Ginolis will bring the most relevant solution to support us in our growing activity, says Tuomas Tenkanen, CEO at Mobidiag.

The manufacturing solution developed for Mobidiag is based on Ginolis modular Xanthia automation platform. Its compact and modular design allows for high quality automation within a small footprint, saving valuable space in the clean room environment. In addition to Ginolis patented dispensing technology, the line is equipped with laser welding, precision assembly, ultrasonic welding and line confocal imaging (LCI) for quality inspection.

The demand for molecular diagnostics is on the rise and we are proud to continue our long-standing cooperation with Mobidiag. Both companies share a dedication to innovation and high quality, says Ginolis CEO Teijo Fabritius. This line is a testament to the scalability of our flexible modular solutions and ability to integrate the entire manufacturing process on one platform.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the greatest threats to the world's health. According to the World Health Organization, the number of antibiotic-resistant bacteria grows at an alarming rate worldwide and all efforts should be taken to stop this development. Fast and reliable diagnostics are needed to detect resistance and thereby reduce the use of antibiotics.

With rapid tests and high-capacity production lines, Mobidiag is able to respond to rapidly growing requirements for infection diagnosis, including antibiotic resistance. A Novodiag cartridge currently under development and planned to be released in mid-2018.

About Novodiag

The Novodiag solution allows direct analysis of a patient sample placed in a disposable cartridge and delivers comprehensive results in about an hour.

Combining qPCR and microarray technologies, Novodiag offers an all in one solution for on-demand targeted and syndromic testing.

This molecular diagnostic solution offers an easy to use and cost-efficient method, with very limited hands-on-time and without the need for much technical expertise. Novodiag is particularly suitable for low volumes and on demand testing for clinical laboratories.

Learn more about Novodiag.

About Mobidiag Ltd.

Established in 2000, Mobidiag develops and commercializes innovative solutions to advance the diagnosis of infectious diseases and serves the European clinical diagnostics market since 2008. Mobidiag is headquartered in Espoo, Finland, with an R&D center in France and subsidiaries in UK and Sweden.

Combining Amplidiag and Novodiag solutions, Mobidiag offers a comprehensive line of products for fast, reliable and cost-efficient diagnostics for infectious diseases and antibiotic resistances. Mobidiag is able to cover all laboratories requirements no matter their size, throughput and centralized/ decentralized organization.

To learn more, visit www.mobidiag.com

About Ginolis Ltd.

Ginolis specializes in providing high-quality automation, liquid handling and quality control solutions for the production and processing of healthcare consumables. The company is privately owned and headquartered in Oulu, Finland, with sites in Uppsala, Sweden, San Diego, USA and Suzhou, China.

To learn more, visit Ginolis.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201803040050ADVERTISEMENT

Nigerias Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, on Sunday urged taxpayers to be wary of fake tax officials purportedly moving around in the guise of officials of the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS).

Mrs. Adeosun urged Nigerians to request written documents whenever they receive phone calls from tax officers.

The minister said this in a statement released by the finance ministry on Sunday.

She said, My attention has been drawn to reports of some unidentified tax officials requesting for bank details and address of taxpayers.

If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be from the tax office, do not panic. Ask them to send you a written notice. Do not provide any details like your address or bank details.

The finance ministry has in recent time intensified its sensitisation efforts on the need for Nigerians to pay their tax for societal development.

The ministry had earlier implored tax defaulters to take advantage of VAIDS initiative.

Last week, the finance ministry vowed that it will ensure that tax defaulters who failed to embrace the VAIDS initiative are named and shamed after the programme ends on March 31.ADVERTISEMENT

Property owners in highbrow areas across the country are now targets of federal and state governments tax agencies determined to stop tax evaders.

Presidency sources told PREMIUM TIMES on Monday in Abuja that government searchlight was now beamed on this class of property owners seen as the worst tax offenders.

The source who requested not to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the press on the matter said attention would be on properties located in prime locations like Asokoro, Maitama, Garki 2 and Wuse 2 in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

Other locations also targeted, the source said, include those in Banana Island and environs, Victoria Island, Lekki Peninsula, Ikoyi and Magodo in Lagos State.

Property owners in choice locations in states in the South-east and South-south geopolitical zones would also be affected.

On July 1, 2017, the federal government launched a tax amnesty programme for taxpayers who defaulted in their obligations.

Under the Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS), the affected taxpayers were granted nine months grace period to regularise their status.

The amnesty period is expected to end by March 31.

Already, Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun said last week government was not contemplating any extension of the deadline.

The Minister said government was determined to begin the prosecution, naming and shaming of tax evaders who fail to utilise the tax amnesty window to regularise their status beginning April 1.

But, the Presidency source said the federal tax authorities were liaising with the various state governments through their data-mining agency, Project Lighthouse to collect title documents on property owners across nationwide.

The state governments have realised they would be the prime beneficiaries of an enhanced tax revenue expected from the VAIDS exercise, the source said.

Therefore, they are enthusiastic and willing to put at our disposal all tax records and bank account details of these property owners. These documents are currently being reviewed by the Project Lighthouse team, he said.

Besides, the source said some state governments have also provided electronic searchable database of individual and corporate property owners in their domains, including key information like name of property owners, plot numbers, locations and Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) numbers.

He said the decision to go after property owners in highbrow areas across the country was informed by the observation that most owners of these assets hardly maintained lifestyles reflecting their current tax payment status.

The decision to stretch the searchlight to property owners followed the discovery by the government that the bulk of these assets were linked to Illicit Financial Flow (IFF) activities.

Most of these people divert their incomes into the development of these properties, which they are not paying taxes on, the source said.ADVERTISEMENT

Nollywood actor, Kenneth Okonkwo, has declared his intention to run for Governor of Enugu State at the next general election.

The 52-year-old actor also revealed that he will be contesting on the platform of the All Peoples Congress.

He said the immediate past governor of the State, Sullivan Chime, has endorsed his bid.

He disclosed this on his official Instagram account on Monday morning.

I just declared my intention to contest for the Governorship candidate of APC in Enugu State. It was heart warming to receive the blessings of the immediate past Governor of Enugu State, His

Excellency, Gov Sullivan Chime. To God be the glory, he wrote.

Speaking on the motivation behind his political ambition, the actor who ho started his acting career in 1991 said, Its time for Nollywood to produce an Executive to fulfill our Nollywood dreams. The entire APC structure attended the declaration. God is awesome.

If Kenneth wins the election, he will join fellow actor, Desmond Elliot, who is currently a member of the Lagos State House of Assembly.

Another actor, Yul Edochie, also contested for and lost the gubernatorial seat in Anambra State.

A veteran, he rose to fame after starring in the Nollywood blockbuster movie Living in Bondage in 1991.ADVERTISEMENT

An international research project on Monday accused armed groups in the Central African Republic (CAR) of raping men and boys for years in an emerging pattern of sexual violence that isunder-reported and largely ignored.

Experts said the study by the All Survivors Project, was one of the first to document sex crimes against males in the war-torn country, where responders tend to focus on female survivors.

In a report, the All Survivors Project identified dozens of cases of men and boys being raped during armed attacks when they were captive, or because they refused to join armed groups.

Findings point to a discernible pattern of male sexual victimisation that warrants urgent attention, the group said.

CAR has been riven by sectarian conflict since Muslim-majority Seleka rebels ousted President Francois Bozize in 2013, triggering a backlash by mostly Christian anti-balaka militias.

Fighters have used sexual violence against men and boys as a tool tohumiliate, emasculate, and terrorise perceived enemies, said All Survivors Project director Charu Lata Hogg.

Our research only gives a glimpse into what is happening, she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Numbers are hard to come by, but one survey found that 14 per cent of gender-based violence victims in the country were male in 2016, according to humanitarian organisations.

She said the figure was likely low, said Hogg, since shame and stigma prevent men from speaking up, and aid workers often do not seek out male victims.

Ms. Charu said for the same reasons, male survivors rarely receive medical care or psychological support.

Youre looking at a situation where no ones asking men if they were abused, she said.

Human Rights Watch has documented hundreds of cases of women and girls being raped in CAR, but researcher Lewis Mudge said he had encountered onlya handful of male victims.

Mr. Mudge said more research would be needed to show whether rape of men and boys had been systemic, but it was possible.

In many ways we dont tend to think of sexual assault as being something that can affect males, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

I hope that this report gets people to start thinking about that.(Reuters/NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

Immigration authorities in Zambia on Monday said 46 Ethiopians and a French national had been deported for entering the country illegally.

Immigration Department spokesperson, Namati Nshinka, said in a statement that the deportation was conducted between February 23 and March 1 after the affected foreigners concluded their prison sentences for unlawful entry into Zambia.

The 46 Ethiopians were among 70 people from Ethiopia arrested on October 15, 2017 in an operation conducted in Lusaka, he added.

According to him, 24 other Ethiopians are still serving their various prison sentences in the country.

(Xinhua/NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

Washington should be held responsible for the failure to implement the UN Security Council resolution regarding a ceasefire in Syria and for the continuation of hostilities in Eastern Ghouta, a Russian official has said.

First Deputy Chairman of Federation Council Committee on international affairs and former Ambassador of Russia to the U. S., Sergey Kislyak, made this known on Monday.

On Sunday, the U. S. blamed Russia together with the Syrian government and Iran for the failure to implement the UNs Syrian ceasefire resolution.

According to the White House, the U. S. condemns the ongoing military offensive that Syrian President Bashar Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, is conducting against the people of Eastern Ghouta and demands that the Syrian leader adhere to the UN resolution.

This statement shows the U. S. counteracting the legitimate government of Syria and the states supporting it. Washington holds those who suffer the attacks in Eastern Ghouta responsible for what is happening there, but should instead ensure cessation of hostilities and implementation of the UN Security Council resolution by those who are fighting in Eastern Ghouta, Kislyak said.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution on February 24 demanding that all parties cease hostilities for a humanitarian pause for at least 30 days to ensure the safe delivery of aid and medical services.

Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, was seized by militants in 2012. According to the Syrian Army estimates, there are 10,000-12,000 militants in the region.

In spite of the recent UN resolution, the fighting has not stopped, even when the humanitarian pause was in place, the Russian Defence Ministrys Center for Syrian reconciliation said.

According to the centre, because militants constantly target all exits from the enclave, civilians have been unable to leave the area.

(Sputnik/NAN)The State Security Service has demanded that a Nigerian journalist must disclose his sources as a precondition for his freedom.

The secret police detained Tony Ezimakor in Abuja on Wednesday after honouring an invitation over a story he wrote detailing how the Buhari administration paid millions of dollars as ransom to Boko Haram for the release of some Chibok girls.

Mr. Ezimakors story also uncovered how ransom payments have become a lucrative source of extra income for Nigerian and Swiss intelligence officers who participated in the negotiations for Boko Haram hostages.

In May 2017, Boko Haram released 82 girls said to be amongst the over 270 girls abducted by insurgents in April 2014 at their school in Chibok, Borno State.

The Buhari administration was tight-lipped about how the terms of the girls release, despite demands for transparency. Several news reports, first by the BBC and later The Wall Street Journal, detailed how the Nigerian government paid between two 2-3 million to secure the girls.

The government avoided giving details about whether a ransom was paid or not, but admitted a prisoner swap deal with the terrorists.

Two days after the latest mass kidnap of schoolgirls in Dapchi, Yobe State, Daily Independent ran a behind-the-scenes story about the release of the 82 Chibok girls which was written by Mr. Ezimakor, its bureau chief in Abuja.

The frontpage story cited intelligence sources as saying that negotiations with Boko Haram for the release of hostages had become a cash cow for some officials, working in concert with negotiators to squeeze scarce dollars from the government.

But now the journalist is being locked up for his revelations and might not be released unless he unmasked his sources, Don Okere, editor of Daily Independent, told PREMIUM TIMES Sunday.

Theyre asking him how he got the story and want him to release his source, Mr. Okere said by telephone based on the ongoing negotiation between their lawyers and the SSS.

Mr. Okere said the SSS had also demanded that the story be retracted with an apology or the matter would be charged to court.

We asked them to charge the matter to court because were not retracting our story but they have refused to do that, he said.

The secret police first disclosed its displeasure about the story in a letter to Mr. Okere seeking the editors presence at its headquarters in Abuja.

They said I should come and see the director of operations at the SSS in Abuja. But when I told them I am based in Lagos where we have our head office, they started looking for me, he said.

The editor said the SSS sent agents to look for him at the office in Lagos twice, but he was unavailable at both times.

They later asked if we have a reporter in Abuja and I told them yes. I then asked our bureau chief to honour the invitation which he did last Wednesday and was detained, he said.

Mr. Okere said based on their exchanges, it was clear that the SSS operatives did not know that the story carried Mr. Ezimakors byline.

The SSS has not issued any statement about Mr. Ezimakors arrest, and PREMIUM TIMES could not reach the agency for comments because it has declined to name a spokesperson since September 2016 when Marilyn Ogar left the service. Text messages sent to Lawal Daura, head of the SSS, on Sunday afternoon were not replied as at the time of filing this report Sunday night.

ADVERTISEMENT

Similarly, Lai Mohammed, Nigerias Information Minister, did not respond to PREMIUM TIMES requests for comments about the journalists detention.

Mr. Okere said Daily Independent and Mr. Ezimakors family are worried about his health. He is said to be treating hypertension and ulcer.

He demanded an immediate release of his colleague.

The Citizens Advocacy for Social & Economic Rights (CASER) said the SSS has violated the Nigerian Constitution by holding Mr. Ezimakor in its custody for more then 48 hours without filing charges.

If Mr. Ezimakor is not charged to court after four days of detention and a needless raid on his house by armed state security men, it would then be clear that he has become a victim of government tyranny and official intimidation, the group said in a statement signed by Frank Tietie, its executive director.

It is in the interest of all Nigerian citizens, including the officials of State Security Service and, a progressive future, to adhere to the clear principles of law and justice as contained in the Nigerian Constitution, in order to guarantee freedom, liberty and a sustained practice of democracy in Nigeria, the group said.

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) described continued detention of Mr. Ezimakor without trial as draconian, tyrannical, illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional.

We, therefore, demand his immediate and unconditional release, MURIC said adding that the SSS had violated the Nigerian constitution and international charter on human rights.

The group said the Buhari administration may suffer credibility and human rights issues if it failed to rein in the SSS as the agency carries out maltreatment of journalists which could amount to stifling of sources of information, undue censor, repression of activists and suppression of freedom of speech.

The SSS has gone after journalists under successive Nigerian administrations for the past three decades.

In the 1990s, the military governments cracked down on journalists using the SSS, a tradition that continued under civilian governments.

Since July 2016, the SSS has detained Jones Abiri, a journalist based in the Niger-Delta, for alleged ties to militants. But the agency has neither charged nor allowed the journalist access to his lawyers and family members

In December 2017, Mr. Abiri was one of the two Nigerian journalists that the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said were part the 262 journalists detained across the world in 2017.

A month before in November 2017, the CPJ launched a major push to compel President Muhammadu Buhari to prevail on the SSS to release Mr. Abiri, whose detention would soon hit 600 days.ADVERTISEMENT

Months after an attack killed over 70 people on New Years Day in Benue State, President Muhammadu Buhari is set to visit the state, his office has said.

The president will also visit other states affected by terrorism, armed brigandage, and communal violence including Yobe, Taraba, Zamfara and Rivers.

Mr. Buhari has been criticised by many Nigerians for not visiting these states despite his governments failure to protect scores of people who were killed in the violence.

Read the presidencys statement announcing the visit below.

In view of recent terrorist attacks, criminal activities and communal clashes in some States leading to tragic loss of lives and kidnapping of 110 schoolgirls, President Muhammadu Buhari immediately tasked the Armed Forces and other Security agencies to compile comprehensive reports on the various incidents.

Having received and studied the Reports, the President has decided to undertake an on the spot assessment of the various occurrences and to meet and console the communities affected.

From today, March 5, he will visit Taraba, and subsequently Benue, Yobe, Zamfara and Rivers States.

President Buhari has been receiving daily briefings, and has been in constant touch with the Governors, and has been updated with situation reports.

The President calls on all Nigerians especially those in the affected areas to cooperate fully with the Security Agencies to enable them curb the spate of crimes, bring those responsible to justice and prevent further occurrences.ADVERTISEMENT

Ahead of the 2019 general elections, the National Publicity Secretary of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Alfa Mohammed, has said five serving governors, 20 senators and some members of the House of Representatives are expected to join the party.

According to a report by Punch, Mr. Mohammed said this on Sunday in an interview with the press in Minna, Niger State.

He also said 50 Civil Society Organisations had embraced the party to work together towards removing the ruling All Progressives Congress in 2019.

The Nation had earlier reported that ex-Information Minister, Jerry Gana, ex-Education Minister, Tunde Adeniran and ex-Niger Delta Minister Godsday Orubebe, were moving to SDP.

Mr Mohammed said the five governors who indicated interest in joining the party have been sending representatives to its negotiation meetings, as discussions have been on for some months with the governors.

In the next two to three weeks, the mass movement into the SDP will become more pronounced especially at the national and state Houses of Assembly and I am sure that the party will soon become the majority at the National Assembly.

He also said that the national secretariat of the party has directed all state offices to commence registration of new members at ward levels from March 5.

Although he declined to confirm whether former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has joined the party,he said the party was home to the ex-Vice-President.

I need two to three weeks to confirm the issue of the former Vice-President as it concerns our party. However, it may interest you to know that many prominent politicians from Adamawa State have joined us.

We will also provide credible and honest leadership to Nigerians in 2019, he said.A former governor of Kano State, Ibrahim Shekarau, has urged the federal government to take appropriate measures to end the conflicts between farmers and herders across Nigeria before they degenerate into religious conflicts.

Mr. Shekarau warned that the rampant conflicts are already affecting the unity of Nigeria.

He made the remarks on Monday while speaking with journalists at a two-day round-table discussion on herdsmen and farmers conflicts organised by Ahmadu Bello Memorial Foundation (SABAM) in Kaduna.

Mr. Shekarau, who is the Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the Foundation, said it is worried about the conflicts in the northern regions of the country.

The former governor who was also a former Minister of Education warned that unpatriotic individuals were already trying to give the conflicts a tribal colouration.

The conflict is affecting the unity of the country. You see, there are suspicions. Herdsmen being suspected, farmers being suspected to the point of killings.

It is not just the issue of herdsmen/farmers. You can see in some communities it has degenerated to tribal. Very soon, some people will make it look religious or sectional and therefore it will become a problem for the country.

He said the foundation does not want the conflicts to be politicised.

We will not allow anybody to politicise the issue because it is a matter of life and death. Lives are being lost, properties are being lost. Even if you want to come and govern people, if people are dying, their properties and houses being burnt; who are you going to govern?

So this issue is very important to all of us because it can even affect the economy. If there is no peace there can be no buying and selling, which means poverty will increase.

He attributed 90 percent of conflicts in Nigeria to suspicion among different groups of people in the country.

As a trained teacher in Guidance and Counselling, I know that 90 percent of conflicts are as a result of suspicions. When any group suspects that it is being denied its rights and nothing is being done, it will take the laws into its hands.

This is partly the reason government must see these things as its own business in total. And the communities too themselves, the traditional institution, local governments and everybody must take it serious.

Mr. Shekarau said the Foundation organised the round-table discussion to listen to the views of the issue from the representatives of different groups affected by the conflicts and how to come up with practical solutions.

We are not here to call names or apportion blames to anybody. This herdsmen and farmers are in millions and there is no way you can reach out to them at a time, but they have leaders and groups.

So we decided to bring in their representatives like Miyetti Allah, we have farmers associations and other organisations that do relate with them on almost day to day basis.

We have involved the governments and local governments, civil societies. So its like going through all the organised bodies through their leaders to discuss the problem.

I am sure at the end of the day we are not going to live it at that, because last week we were in Benue and we asked the government to assemble all stakeholders and we listened to all of them.

ADVERTISEMENT

The same thing, about three weeks ago, I was in Ekiti in the delegation of the Kano Emirate Council. We even went to the extent of signing agreement between the government, herdsmen, communities, farmers associations, etc. We identified the causes and where the problems are and we are making progress.

Asked if the foundation was getting the cooperation of state governments, he said: Yes, because from our experience from all states visited the governors gave us their cooperation, they gave us their understanding.

This matter goes beyond legislation. Yes, there should be a law but laws dont operate on their own. You have to make the people understand why the law is being introduced because you are dealing with human beings.

In some of the states that made the laws, the people dont even understand the law. This is why we are trying to carry the governors along. But we decided to leave them out of this meeting now so that the people here will talk to us freely.

But definitely we need the governors and the federal government and we are getting their cooperation, he said.The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on Monday said Africa must intensify efforts at improving transmission grid for renewable energy to be effectively developed on the continent.

The minister spoke at the opening of a two- day Conference on Renewable Energy Development organised by the Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law (CEPEEL ) of the University of Ibadan.

The theme of the conference is  Developing Renewable Energy in Africa; The interplay of Technology, Economics and Law.

Represented by the Director of Renewable and Rural Power Access Department in the ministry, Farouk Yusuf, the minister said Nigeria as a committed member of both the United Nation, African Union and ECOWAS has adopted several international treaties and policies which promote the use of renewable energy.

This, he said, was in line with the national vision to provide incremental power, and then steady and uninterrupted power.

The minister said that the Federal Government recently approved an integrated energy MIX targets under Electricity Vision 30:30:30 which targets generation of 30 GW in 2030, with 30 per cent from renewable energy sources.

Africa has trillions standard cubic feet of natural gas reserves, billions of barrels of crude oil reserves and billions of tonnes of coal.

But Africa has an even greater abundance of renewable energy resources. Unfortunately, of the nearly 1.5 billion people estimated to lack electricity supply world over, half live in Africa.

Nigeria alone is estimated to have over 90 million people living without electricity supply, according to the World Bank, he said.

Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola

The minister, who also said power generation capacity in the country currently is about 7000 MW, added that government was making efforts to complete and inaugurate some renewable energy projects.

He listed the projects to include the 10 MW Katsina wind farm, 30 MW Gurara Hydro Power, 29 MW Dadin Kowa Hydro Power and 40 MW Kashimbilla Hydro Power.

The minister further disclosed that large projects such as the 3050 MW Mambilla Hydro Power and 700 MW Zungeru Hydro power initiatives as well as the 14 Solar IPPs were expected to come on stream.

Governor Abiola Ajimobi, while declaring the conference open, said Nigeria needs to allocate huge funds to renewable energy development in Africa

Represented by his Chief of Staff, Gbade Ojo, the governor said African countries must set their minds to improving the level of energy efficiency that would enable the country to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.

Then we must propel our ship to move at full speed in proactive solution for scaling up renewable energy,  he said.

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Idowu Olayinka, said that the theme was relevant and critical given the current energy challenges.

The significance is not just for the town but also for the gown as the university spends a very considerable amount of money to ensure stable electricity supply that can support research, training and other activities, he said.

The Director of the centre, Adeola Adenikinju, said that the provision of energy infrastructure engenders multidisciplinary perspectives to solve energy challenges.

ADVERTISEMENT

According to him, a multidisciplinary approach is needed for providing adequate and reliable energy infrastructure.

The conference has been organised to learn from experiences in tackling energy challenges in the West Africa subregion.

The conference is also aimed at showcasing the findings on renewable energy from the technological, economic and political perspective in the continent, he said.A lawyer, Nkereuwem Akpan, has filed a suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja, seeking to be joined as party in a suit instituted by the EFCC against former Minister of Interior, Abba Moro.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Mr. Moro was minister during former President Goodluck Janathans administration.

He is standing trial with three others over alleged N676 million recruitment fraud.

Others charged along with him are the former permanent secretary in the ministry, Anastacia Nwobia, and a deputy director in the ministry, F.O. Alayabami.

The suit brought pursuant to Section 6(6) (a) (b) of the 1999 Constitution and dated January 28 was made available to NAN on Monday in Abuja.

The applicant is seeking an order to be joined as a defendant to the suit.

He is also seeking the leave of the court to allow him file his preliminary objection, counter affidavit, written submission and all other processes in the suit.

Mr. Akpan has asked for alternative order for the court to take judicial notice of an appellate courts decision on the legality of Ibrahim Magu to still remain Acting Chairman of the EFCC.

The applicant avers that Mr. Magu in the exercise of his functions under the EFCC Act has negatively impacted on the rights of the party seeking to be joined.

He submits that the plaintiff has been adjudged by a court of competent jurisdiction to have violated Section 35 in suit No.CT/HC/CV/494/2010 delivered May 25, 2011.

Mr. Akpan argued that Mr. Magus continuous stay as the head of the anti-graft commission was also invalidated by the Court of Appeal, Abuja in suit No. CA/A/282/2013 delivered Aug. 14, 2013.

He further avers that he has been negatively affected by the continuous exercise of the functions of office as Acting Chairman of the EFCC by the plaintiff therein.

He therefore, said the plaintiff could not while in contempt of the orders of court approach the same court seeking equitable reliefs.

The applicants propriety interest is the right to life, personal liberty and freedom from illegal incarceration including his rights to public apology ordered by the court of appeal on August 14, 2017.

The party seeking to be joined has a claim against the plaintiff who has oppressed and continues to oppress the party seeking to be joined using his office.

I am therefore seeking the intervention of this court to compel the plaintiff to stop this malfeasance and impunity by a grant of this application and the reliefs sought.

This honourable court owes a sacred duty to safeguard its independence and prestige by shutting its doors on the plaintiff pending when he is purged of his contempt for the extant Orders of court.

It is an immutable principle of law that a party in contempt cannot approach the same court for equitable reliefs while labouring under said contempt, he said.

ADVERTISEMENT

NAN reports that the suit is yet to be assigned to a judge. (NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, has described President Muhammadu Buharis visit to Taraba and planned visit to Benue, Zamfara, Yobe and Rivers states, as an after-thought and not altrusitic.

The states have been ravaged by insecurity and carnages that have claimed many lives in recent months.

Mr. Buhari has been criticised for not visiting the affected states which may have prompted a recent announcement by the presidency that he would be visiting the states.

Obviously, the president is more concerned about his reelection in 2019 and his visit to those states that he abandoned during their times of trouble is to seek for votes, not to sympathise with the people of the states on their loses, Mr. Fayose, a notable critic of Mr. Buhari, said.

He likened the president to a selfish king who went on making merry while his people were in agony only to show up when the people had already buried their loved ones that were gruesomely murdered, gotten over their anguish and moved on with their lives.

In a statement issued by Monday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Governor Fayose said it was the height of cruelty that the same President Buhari, who promised

to lead from the front in the fight against Boko Haram could not visit Dapchi, Yobe State where 110 school girls were abducted by the insurgents, elected to go on merry making in Kano.

On January 9 and 12, this year, 88 victims of herdsmen attacks were given mass burial in Taraba State. Also on January 11, 2018, another 73 persons killed by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Benue State were buried in a mass grave in Makurdi, the state capital.

Meaning that in Taraba and Benue States alone, 161 Nigerians were given mass burial within three days! This never caught the attention of our President. Rather, it was a visit to Nasarawa, a neighbouring State to Benue that was important to him.

To further demonstrate his lack of compassion for Nigerians, while the entire nation, especially parents of the 110 abducted school girls in Dapchi, Yobe State are still in anguish, President Buhari went to Kano last Saturday to attend a social function, thus sparking negative reactions from Nigerians.

Apparently, it was the negative reactions of Nigerians, especially on social media and the effects on the presidents reelection bid that necessitated his hurried visit to Taraba State today, and planned visits to Benue, Zamfara, Yobe and Rivers States.

I am sure the people of Taraba State wont be hoodwinked by the Presidents cosmetic sympathy, show of concern and crocodile tears, which he never bothered to shed when hundreds of indigenes of the State were being killed by suspected herdsmen, the governor said.

While declaring the visits as belated and afterthought, Governor Fayose said; Nigerians can no longer be deceived by a president who never cared for them when they needed him most. Therefore, no amount of hurriedly organised campaign visits will sway the people.ADVERTISEMENT

An Ikeja Chief Magistrates Court on Monday remanded a 13-year-old secondary school student in a correctional centre for allegedly raping his neighbours daughter.

Chief Magistrate Taiwo Akanni, who gave the ruling, said the teenage boy should be kept at Borstal Correctional Centre, Adigbe, Abeokuta in Ogun State.

She, however, did not take the plea of the juvenile.

The accused, who lives with his parents at 24, Mosobalaje St., Alagbado, a suburb of Lagos, was arraigned for defilement.

The prosecutor, Clifford Ogu, told the court that the offence was committed at the residence of the accuseds parents on February 23.

Mr. Ogu said the accused raped his neighbours five-year-old daughter while her mother was not at home.

The complainant (name withheld) had entrusted her daughter into the hands of her neighbour.

When Duru returned her daughter, she complained of pains in her private parts.

The mother asked her daughter what happened and she told her that the accused put his we we (male organ) in her private parts, he told the court.

The offence violated Section 137 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that offence carries life imprisonment in Lagos State.

The magistrate adjourned the case until April 16.

(NAN)A Federal High Court, Lagos, has adjourned continuation of trial until March 6 in the N3.2 billion fraud charge slammed on former governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The EFCC had on October 31, 2016 preferred a 34-count charge bordering on N3.2 billion fraud against Mr. Kalu and his former Commissioner for Finance, Ude Udeogu and Kalus company  Slok Nigeria Ltd.

All the accused had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

At the resumed trial of the case on Monday, the EFCC Prosecutor, Rotimi Jacobs (SAN), commenced the cross-examination of the second prosecution witness, an officer in First City Monument Bank.

The witness, Olusegun Adesomoju, swore with the Holy Bible.

Jacobs: What is your occupation?

Witness: I am a compliance officer in FCMB. I received a subpoena to appear in court and produce the statement of account of the third defendant (Slok) in his bank.

Mr. Jacob tendered the statement of account and the certificate of identification from the bank attached to it. The document was labeled Exhibit N to N50.

Counsel to the first defendant, Awa Kalu (SAN), told the court that he did not object to the document, but that it was his first time of seeing it.

Joseph Ochu (SAN), counsel for the second defendant and Mr Kingsley Nwofo, counsel for the third defendant, both agreed to the submissions of Kalu.

As Mr. Jacobs continued the examination-in-chief, the witness identified 95 cheques deposited in the bank account of the third defendant between August 16, 2001 and August 10, 2005.

Jacobs: Where were you in 2005?

Witness: I was doing my National Youth Service Corps.

Jacobs: So why are you giving evidence for the bank?

Witness: It is part of my duties as a compliance officer.

Jacobs: Which department of the bank has records of customers accounts?

Witness: Both the compliance department and the IT department.

After the conclusion of the examination-in-chief, Mr. Kalu addressed the court that it was the first time the defence was seeing the document and they needed a stand down to go through it.

ADVERTISEMENT

In response, Mr. Jacobs told the court: We have tendered this document since 2007, it is not a new document and I object to the stand down.

Justice Idris, in his ruling, said in the interest of justice, let us come back tomorrow for cross-examination.

The court adjourned until March 6 for continuation of trial.

Mr. Kalu was alleged to have utilised his company to retain in the account of a First Inland bank, now FCMB, the sum of N200 million.

The sum is alleged to have formed part of funds illegally derived from the coffers of the Abia State Government.

Slok Nigeria Ltd and a man, Emeka Abone, who is still at large, were also alleged to have retained in the companys account the sum of N200 million on behalf of the first accused (Kalu).

They allegedly used Manny Bank, (now Fidelity Bank Plc), Spring Bank Plc, the defunct Standard Trust Bank and Fin Land Bank, now First City Monument Bank (FCMB).

The accused were alleged to have retained about N2.5 billion in different accounts which funds were said to belong to the Abia State Government.

Cumulatively, the accused were alleged to have diverted over N3.2 billion from the state governments treasury during Kalus tenure as governor.

The offences contravened the provisions of Sections 15(6), 16, and 21 of the Money Laundering (Prohibitions) Act, 2005.

The offences also violated the Money Laundering Act of 1995 (as amended) Act No.9 of 2002 and Section 477 of the Criminal Code, Laws of the Federation, 1990.ADVERTISEMENT

The Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights (CASER), a Civil Society Organisation (CSO) has called on the State Security Service (SSS) to release Tony Ezimakor, a journalist in its custody.

The CSO made the call in a statement signed by the Executive Director of CASER, Frank Tietie on Monday in Abuja.

Mr. Ezimakor is an editor with the Daily Independent Newspaper and was arrested on February 28 over a publication he wrote.

Mr. Tietie said that Mr. Ezimakor was arrested over the publication of an article in February alleging that Swiss Foreign Service agent connived with Nigerian government officials to steal millions of dollars to secure the release of the Chibok girls.

According to him, the article is said to reveal the intrigues surrounding the payments of millions of dollars by the Nigerian government as ransom for the release of some kidnapped Chibok School girls.

Mr. Tietie said that the writer of the article mainly expressed his opinion about the payment that it had empowered Boko Haram to wreak more havoc on Nigerians.

He said that such opinionated report should not have resulted to the arrest of the journalist for doing his work, according to the provision of the constitution.

The professional journalist has a constitutional mandate by the provision of sections 39 and 22 of the Nigerian constitution; therefore, he is an authority in a democracy.

He uses the journalistic privilege to write a news story that are opinionated and that makes him a big threat to corruption and bad governance.

Mr. Tietie called on the government and Nigerians at large to accord journalists the respect they deserved by promoting democratic governance through the dissemination of information.

He called on the SSS to summon courage and approach a court of law to seek an order against Mr. Ezimakor who is being compelled presently to disclose his source of information as against the ethics of the profession.

This is the procedure as against the cheap use of state might to oppress a law abiding citizen who is merely discharging his constitutional duty, he said.

He, however, called for the immediate release of Mr. Ezimakor without any condition pending the time the DSS would approach the court.

(NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

President Muhammadu Buhari has received the recently inaugurated President of Liberia, George Weah, in his office at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Mr. Weahs motorcade arrived the forecourt of the presidents office at about 12:30 p.m.

The two leaders are currently holding a meeting behind closed doors inside the presidents office.

Mondays visit is the first by Mr. Weah to Nigeria since he was elected president. He was sworn in as president on January 22 after defeating immediate past vice president Joseph Boakai of the Unity Party.

Mr. Weah ran under the platform of Coalition for Democratic Change.

He won the first round of election with 38.4 per cent forcing a run off.

In the second round of the election, Mr. Weah was elected President of Liberia with more than 60 per cent of the votes.

His swearing-in in January marked Liberias first democratic transition in 74 years.There was chaos on Saturday at a housing estate in the suburb of Abuja, as a security official allegedly assaulted a woman he was trying to stop from building a perimeter fence around her house.

Loice Benjamin-Anyawueze was allegedly beaten in front of her house at the Redeemer Excellent Men Housing Estate, Pyakassa Lugbe, by two officials of the private outfit securing the estate, Pentho Security Guard Limited.

The Redeemed Christian Church of God last year published a disclaimer of the management of the estate in some national dallies following complaints by subscribers that the church committee appointed to administer the private housing development scheme was mismanaging the funds.

Mrs. Benjamin-Anyawueze said she was later escorted by a police officer to a medical centre in Pyakassa for treatment after she reported the incident at the Lugbe divisional police headquarters in Abuja.

Narrating the incident to PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday, Mrs. Benjamin-Anyawueze complained that security authorities had refused to act on her report of the incident .

I decided to run to the press because the security agencies, police and Civil Defence which are meant to protect me are failing me. I am no longer safe and I am scared for the lives of my family, she told Premium Times on Saturday.

The security agencies are saying they are investigating, and I am asking how long the investigation will take? Is it until they kill me?

Picture of Benjamin-Ayanwueze after being assaulted by Redeemers estate security guard

According to the house owner, the problem started two weeks ago when she brought in workers to erect a perimeter fence around her house because her home had been experiencing security challenges.

She said that unknown people had on several occasions intruded to harrass members of her family in her house.

Though we have security men manning the main estate gate, other places are porous because the estate is not fenced. This is not the first issue of insecurity in the estate and we residents use another security agency to guard our homes.

Mrs. Benjamin-Anyawueze said problem started immediately the self-acclaimed management of the estate realised she was erecting a fence.

She said although she received no information from the management not to build the fence, some security guards soon arrived and claimed they were sent to stop the work because the house owner was owing the infrastructure development fee.

She said the management charges house owners infrastructure fee to carry out any development such as roads and drainages in the estate.

I had refused to pay them any money ever since the Redeemed Christian Church of God published a disclaimer of the management of the estate in national dallies, saying anyone doing business with the unscrupulous people was doing so at their own risk.

The Redeemer Excellent Men Housing Estate sprouted from the Excellent Men Fellowship (EMF), a group in the Resurrection Chapel Parish of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) in Lugbe.

The scheme has been enmeshed in allegations of irregularities, fraud, misappropriation of funds and hi-jacking of ownership by members of the committee appointed by house owners to administer.

This led to a fracas among subscribers of the scheme which prompted the national headquarters of the RCCG to wade in.

The church later washed its hands off the scheme and published a disclaimer in some dailies that the scheme should no longer be associated with the church.

ADVERTISEMENT

According to Mrs. Benjamin-Anyawueze, due to the development, many subscribers to the scheme who had been allocated land resolved no longer to do business with the indicted management committee of the estate.

They therefore decided to unleash terror on people who do not agree with their dealings and had been asking for accountability. Moreover, why should I pay when we cannot see what they did with previous money paid? Everybody dug their drainage themselves, so why should I pay? she said.

Mrs. Benjamin-Anyawueze alleged that the estate management had on a previous occasion induced a security agency to harass her.

She said the security head of Pentho Security Guard, Solomon Salako, once got her arrested six times within 24 hours, through three different police stations.

They have stopped many people from working on their properties by recruiting the security personnel to unleash mayhem to enforce their laws and orders. The guards that beat me up said they have order from Salako to stop me from doing any work on my property. In fact, one of the guards said Salako gave them orders to beat me and tie me up if I resist, she added.

She said she reported the assault to the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) because it is in charge of private security agencies.

The NSCDC called for a meeting twice but the security agency refused to show up, she said.

An eyewitness to Saturdays incident, Valentine Ihieri, who is a neighbour of Mrs. Benjamin-Anyawueze , told PREMIUM TIMES that the problem which led to the assault was not a new development in the estate.

Mr. Ihieri said he was on his way out of his home when he saw two Pentho guards conversing with Mrs. Benjamin-Anyawueze.

According to him, he parked his car to join the conversation as they were telling her to stop building.

He said the divisional police officer had earlier told all parties to go and settle things amicably in the estate or go to court.

I was still explaining to them that they do not have the jurisdiction to stop her when two other staff of the security outfit joined them. They came and said they had orders from their boss, Salako, to stop her from building and descended on her. 

PREMIUM TIMES had previously reported a crisis in the estate last year when management committee locked out some residents in a bid to force them to pay a controversial police security fee.

Many of the residents had refused paying the fee, saying they could not see the effect of the security service as they were still being robbed.

The residents said they were responsible for security in the estate using local vigilante and police officers, when they suspected discrepancies in the deals of the estate management with the police.

The DPO Lugbe Divisonal Headquarters, Tunde Kabiru, in a telephone interview with PREMIUM TIMES, confirmed Saturdays alleged assault on Mrs. Benjamin-Anyawueze.

He however said he could not give much information on the case because the file of the case was not yet on his table.

When PREMIUM TIMES contacted Mr. Salako on Sunday, he said he does not comment on official matters at the weekend.

He however did not pick calls or respond to text messages to his phone on Monday.

Officials of the management committee of the estate also did not pick their calls or respond to text messages from the reporter.

Management of the estate has been a source of controversy as some residents alleged that fees they paid for infrastructure upgrade like roads and drainage construction were misappropriated. It was the complaint that prompted the disclaimer of the entire scheme and its management by RCCG, the Nigerian Pentecostal church to which the initiators of the scheme belong.ADVERTISEMENT

The Police and the Nigeria Security Civil Defense Corp (NSCDC) on Monday assured female students in Borno and Yobe states of improved security around their school premises.

This assurance was made in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, when the deputy inspector general of police (DIG), Habila Joshak, and the Commandant General of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corp (NSCDC), Abdullahi Gana, visited in respect of the Dapchi schoolgirls recently abducted by suspected Boko Haram insurgents.

The two officers, who arrived Saturday, said they have gone round schools in Borno and Yobe to ensure that the presidential directive, that ample security presence be deployed in all schools, is effected.

Addressing students at Yerwa Government Girls College, Maiduguri, the DIG assured the students that never again will the police be taken unawares by the Boko Haram in any of the schools in North-east Nigeria.

We are here in compliance with the presidential directive to ensure adequate security is provided in all schools within the North-east region, DIG Joshak said.

We came in here in furtherance of capacity building and security assistance of the students that are here following the incident that happened in Dapchi secondary school in Yobe state.

The president has directed the inspector general of police and the commandant general of the NSCDC to relocate here and guarantee the safety of students and staff of the northeast, especially Borno and Adamawa.

Now we have come to ensure a detailed and well-implemented enforcement of the presidential directive.

He said the issue of manpower will not pose any challenge to the task of deploying personnel to every school in the affected areas.

The issue of manpower will always be there, but I want to assure you that the two security agencies involved will prioritise our demands to ensure that flashpoints are well covered.

The directive and intentions of Mr. President is to ensure that we provide security in all schools and we assure Nigerians that we have the capacity to do so.

Meanwhile, the NSCDC commandant said adequate plans have been perfected to cover schools even in the remote places.The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said it trained over 150 displaced youths, women and men from the Northeast in various entrepreneurship skills, competences and behaviours.

The UNDPs Country Director, Samuel Bwalya, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Monday that the training, which was conducted in the three most affected states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, was to help them start their small businesses successfully.

He noted that the Northeast had witnessed widespread destruction of both infrastructures and livelihoods by the Boko-Haram.

Mostly drawn from communities ravaged by the nine-year long crisis, the trainees either had their businesses destroyed by Boko Haram or have found themselves residing in new locations with no means of sustaining themselves and their families.

UNDP, with support from the Government of Norway, has provided vocational skills training in metal fabrication, tailoring, catering and decoration, mobile phone repairs, computer repairs, mechatronics, spray painting, among others to victims of insurgency.

The provision is part of efforts aimed at providing catalytic ingredients for communities to thrive again and lay a foundation for long term development to take place in a region, he said.

He said the beneficiaries were also supported with start-up equipment so that they could secure alternative means of livelihoods beyond humanitarian handouts.

Mr. Bwalya said that over 1.7 million people remained displaced across the region while hundreds had fled into neighbouring Cameroon.

Not only have skilled labour become rare in communities because of mass displacement, victims have either lost their sources of livelihood or have their breadwinners killed by the insurgent group.

Many have remained dependent on humanitarian aid. Entrepreneurship skills are needed to ensure that those with vocational skills, who wish to either own businesses or to start anew, run their enterprises successfully, Mr. Bwalya said.

Mr. Bwalya said UNDP was investing in these initiatives so that beneficiaries could apply knowledge acquired from these trainings to establish new businesses or expand existing ones and employ others within their communities.

This will consolidate UNDPs ongoing efforts in meeting urgent early recovery needs in communities affected by Boko Haram crisis.

UNDP has been investing in early recovery interventions in the region to prepare communities for the days after the crisis.

Prolonged development deficit in the region exposed millions to different kinds of vulnerabilities, a reality also attributable to the root causes of the crisis, he said.

He said UNDP was in the process of developing a comprehensive programme aimed at promoting entrepreneurship in Nigeria.

According to him, the programme will be anchored on three pillars; employable through market driven skills acquisition, innovation and entrepreneurship including financing for small businesses.

Once launched, this programme will support the development of entrepreneurship and promote innovation in the country, to address unemployment, especially among youths, he said.

Nahyani Waraya, one of the trainees, at the end of the six-day entrepreneurship training workshop said that her life as a business woman would never be the same again.

ADVERTISEMENT

I will not run my business the way I did it before UNDP trained me on how to become a successful entrepreneur, she stated.

Another trainee, Susannah Geoffrey, a 39 year-old mother of five, said that she was teaching in a primary school in Madagali before the place was attacked in 2015.

She commended UNDP and said that the training helped her to understand how to do business and succeed, adding that she would impact the knowledge acquired on others.

Another beneficiary, Mohammad Murtala, from Maiduguri said the training was first of its kind and thanked the UNDP for impacting knowledge on him.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony, Haruna Furo, the Permanent Secretary of Adamawa State Emergency Management Agency, urged the graduates to apply their newly acquired knowledge for their businesses to succeed.

Mr. Furo commended UNDP for the initiative, stating that the intervention would go a long way in changing lives of people in the state.

Thank you, UNDP for the support and for investing in our people and our communities, he added.

(NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

The Controller-General of the Nigerian Prison Service, Jaafaru Ahmed, has appointed Dalyop Patrick as the new Controller of Prisons in Nasarawa State Command.

Stephen Abene, the Public Relations Officer, Nasarawa Command, said this in a statement in Lafia on Monday.

According to Abene, Mr. Patrick, who hails from Plateau, takes over from Aliyu Achor, who recently retired from the service.

He said that until his recent posting, Mr. Patrick had been the Controller in Charge of Administration at the Zonal Office in Makurdi, Benue.

The new Controller of Prisons in Nasarawa State also once took charge of Serti Prison in Taraba and was also once a second-in-command to his predecessor, Achor, when the latter was Controller of Prisons in Gombe.

The officers and men of the Nasarawa State Command wish to express their profound appreciation to the outgoing Controller for his exemplary leadership qualities and services to the command.

We wish him well in his future endeavours, Mr. Abene said in the statement.ADVERTISEMENT

The Federal Controller of Works in Kwara State, Omotayo Awosanya, on Monday said federal government had paid N10.9 billion to contractors handling three ongoing federal road projects in the state.

Mr. Awosanya made this known in Ilorin, the state capital while addressing journalists at the end of on-the- spot assessment visit to the project sites in the state.

The three projects are Michael Imoudu -Amayo Road which was awarded at the cost of N1.6 billion; Afon-Aboto-Oyo State Boundary awarded at N3 billion and llorin-Jebba Road awarded at N14.5 billion.

The controller was accompanied on the visit to the project sites by the Director of Highways in the Federal Ministry of Works, Bolar Aganaba.

Mr. Awosanya said that the contractor handling the 3.8 kilometres Michael Imoudu-Amayo Road had been paid N450 million.

He also said that contractor handling the 26 kilometres Afon-Aboto Oyo State Boundary took N576 million, while N9.9 billion was paid to contractor handling Ilorin-Jebba Road.

The Controller of Works expressed satisfaction with the execution of the three road projects under construction in the state.

He also expressed readiness of the Federal Government to settle the contractors promptly whenever another certificates were raised to aid early completion of the projects.

The Director of Highways also expressed satisfaction with the quality of work on the projects, promising that the federal government would release more fund for early completion of the work.

A community leader in Ganmo, Mashood Lawal and Bale of Afon, lbrahin Bale, expressed their gratitude to the federal government for embarking on the construction of the roads.

The residents of Ganmo staged a peaceful protest during the visit, calling for constant wetting of the road to save them from health hazard of dust.

(NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

Governor Abubakar Bagudu of Kebbi says the state will work together with farmers and millers under the Federal Government Anchor Borrower Programme to deliver local rice below N10,000 per bag.

The governor gave the assurances Sunday night in Birnin Kebbi at a dinner hosted in honour of the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed.

The minister is on a two-day working visit to Kebbi with a team of journalists to showcase and assess the governments agricultural revolution.

Mr. Bagudu who commended the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government policy on rice called for more investments by the public and private sector.

The governor said that the mobilisation of 70,000 farmers and N11 billion spent on the pilot scheme had yielded so much dividends and attracted national and global attention to the state.

He said in addition to the two major rice milling factories  Labana and Walcot  , there were so many small and medium scale millers springing up in the state.

Mr. Bagudu disclosed that Labana and Walcot rice milling factories had N55 billion demand for paddy.

The governor also disclosed that the Dangote group recently visited him and were concluding plans to set up a rice milling factory in the state.

He said the partnership between Kebbi and Lagos states on rice value chain that produced the Lake rice had solved the challenge of glut by providing ready made market for farmers.

The governor, who is the Chairman Presidential Task Force Committee on Rice and Wheat Production, noted that the level of investment in the state had proved that agriculture is the easiest sector for diversification

He said the huge investments had also shown the confidence the investing community had in the Buhari administration.

For his part, the minister appreciated the governor for honouring him and members of his entourage.

He said Kebbis goal is to be a trailblazer in using the Anchor Borrowing Programme to transform the agriculture sector.

Mr. Mohammed said the programme aimed at food production, job creation, income generation and self sufficiency had been a tremendous success the state.

The minister said he led the media to the state to show to the world that the government agriculture policy is working and yielding results contrary to the claims of naysayers.

Besides agriculture, the state commissioners gave score cards of the giant strides of the governor in roads, health, infrastructure development, culture and information technology.ADVERTISEMENT

The federal government has pledged to rebuild houses destroyed during herdsmen-farmers clashes in parts of Southern Kaduna, an official said on Monday.

The pledge was made when the Presidential Committee on Herdsmen-Farmers Clashes headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo assessed the level of destruction in affected communities in the area.

James Akujobi, who led the assessment committee to Kaduna State, told journalists in Kafanchan that the aim was to ensure that victims resume back their normal lives.

Mr. Akujobi, an Executive Director at the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said the team was in Southern Kaduna to evaluate level of destruction recorded with a view to rebuilding affected structures and rehabilitate those affected.

It is the intention of the government that all those affected by the conflicts are rehabilitated by way of rebuilding the structures destroyed so that they can come back to their homes and continue with their normal lives, he said.

The official assured that the federal government would fast-track action to ensure that members of the affected communities, especially farmers return to their normal activities.

Also, Executive Secretary of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Ben Kure, said the agency would provide the necessary assistance to the presidential committee to achieve its purpose.

As a host agency, SEMA is playing the role of providing the needed logistics that would make the work of the visiting team easier.

We will assist the committee to arrive at a comprehensive and detailed assessment of the affected locations, he said.

Earlier, Tanko Tete, the Tum Ninkyob of Kaninkon Chiefdom, said at his palace in Bakin Kogi, that the setting up of the committee demonstrated federal governments concern for the people.

He said that members of the community had been praying for such intervention which would bring succour to victims.

It has not been easy with the victims even though some were already making plans to rebuild their structures, he said.

NAN reports that the committee plans to visit Ninte, Ungwan Ajo, Golkofa, Godogodo, Dogon Fili, Gadabiyu, Anton, Pasakori, Kario, Dalle, Asso, Goska, and Dangoma in Jemaa local government.

It will also visit Tachira, Tsonje, Adu, Tafan, Kukum Daji, Kukum Gida, Agban, A. A Abbas Filling Station, Takad, Garaje, Ashim, Mifi and Zilan in Takad Chiefdom all in Kaura local government.

In Zangon Kataf local government area, communities to be visited included, Samaru Kataf, Katsit and Zonkwa while in Kauru local government the committee will assess damages in Ungwan Magaji, Ungwan Rimi, Kaziti, Kigbeni and Kigam communities.

(NAN)Security officers at Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) on Monday paraded two suspected kidnappers, allegedly terrorising the university community and its environs.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the two suspects identified as Halliru Sani, 25, and Abdullahi Musa, 30, are resident of Samaru and Bomo respectively.

Addressing journalists in his office at the main campus, Samaru, Zaria, the Chief Security Officer of the university, Jibril Tukur, said it took them time to trace and fish-out the suspected kidnappers.

We got a report from one Dr Keku Philip whose life had been threatened by a group of suspected kidnappers, though we dont call them suspects now but accused because they have already confessed to the crime.

All these successes wouldnt have been possible without the assistance and synergy that we have with the State Investigation Bureau; we are very grateful to them, they have done wonderfully well.

Also our security men that were involved in this operation have also shown professionalism, this shall continue by the grace of Allah, he said.

Mr. Tukur assured that the security unit would not relent its efforts towards flushing-out bad eggs out of the university community.

He recalled a similar case of kidnapping outside the university campus, involving the wife of one Mr. Salisu, and that of a professor from Jos, where ransom was paid separately for both.

We are tired of this rubbish and thats why we said, we must bring an end to it, however, we cannot prosecute, we are now going to hand them over to the police for further inquiries, he said.

One of the suspects, Sani, said he was dragged into the kidnapping business not long ago but promised not to continue if he regains his freedom.

This is just the second time I committed this crime and I will never do it again if I am freed. It is not my job, I have my job I am a butcher, Sani said.

On his part, Mr. Musa said he supplied the phone number of the kidnapped victim, but denied participating in the act.

Actually, I was the one who gave Halliru Sani the doctors telephone number but I didnt know what he was going to do with it, I am a vulcaniser.

The principal suspect, Halliru Sani, said he had threatened his uncle, Bala Aminu, a student of History Department on telephone and forced him to send recharge cards worth N40,000

The gang also said they had threatened two other people; Ayuba Abubakar from Danja Local Government Area of Katsina State and Ayuba Yero-Bomo, a butcher from Bomo.

Narrating his ordeal, Keku Philip of Crop and Forestry Programme, National Agricultural Extension Research and Liaisons Services (NAERLS) said, on February 26 he saw a strange number calling him, telling him that he would call later around 5:00 p.m.

I told him that let him tell me what is all about so that I will not be left in suspense but he refused, insisting that he will call later.

Subsequently, the same number was threatening my life. It has been long I have not been sleeping in my house because of this threat.

ADVERTISEMENT

I reported the case to the security office that swung into action immediately. Glory be to God, these people have finally fall into the security net.

I am appealing to my colleagues and all other people to be conscious of what they do and whom they relate with and to report any suspicious act to the security agencies for necessary action, he advised.ADVERTISEMENT

The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has directed the Senate ad-hoc committee on security to visit Zamfara for an assessment of the violence that recently occurred in the state.

He announced this on his official Twitter account on Monday where he also stated that the panel will return to plenary to give its reports.

The directive came weeks after a senator from the state, Kabir Marafa, lamented the repeated mass killings by armed bandits in the state.

Mr. Marafa, while calling for a Senate investigation, said hundreds of people had been killed and scores of women and girls raped by armed persons in the state.

The Senate had in November 2017 set up the ad-hoc Committee on the Review of Security Infrastructure in Nigeria, chaired by Ahmed Lawan, the Senate Majority Leader.

The committee has since visited Benue following the New Year day killings in the state, and is now set to visit Zamfara to assess the situation in the North-west state.

In a tweet, Mr. Saraki said: I have directed the Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on Security to visit Zamfara on Tuesday in order to get a first-hand assessment of the security situation in the state and report back to plenary.

He also commended the response of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, to the attack in Rann, Borno State, describing the commitment of the world body to stay in Northeast Nigeria as commendable.

I commend the @UN Secretary-General @AntonioGuterres for his commitment to remain in Northeast Nigeria following the recent attack on civilians, humanitarian workers and security operatives. Those responsible must be brought to book, he said.

Mr. Saraki is currently in Ghana on the invitation of Aaron Ocquaye, the Speaker of that countrys parliament, and is scheduled to address the parliament on the commemoration of 25 years of uninterrupted parliamentary democracy in Ghana, on the topic The Future of Good Governance in Africa.ADVERTISEMENT

Prominent businessman and philanthropist, Arthur Eze, on Monday put smiles on the faces of about 20 pupils of the Prisons Staff School, Abuja, with a gift of N20 million.

Mr. Eze, who immediately presented a cheque for the amount to the school management, said the money was meant for the payment of the beneficiaries school fees for seven years.

The gesture came after the pupils had participated in a drama presentation at the inauguration of the newly-completed third phase of the school in Abuja.

The donor, who is the Chairman of Atlas Oranto Petroleum and Special Guest of Honour at the occasion, also promised to equip the new classrooms with air conditioning sets.

The school, with a current population of 189 pupils, is run by wives of officers of the Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS) under the aegis of the Prison Officers Wives Association (PROWA).

The institution is open to children of NPS staff and members of general public, who pay between N10,000 and N20,000 as school fees per child every term.

In a short speech, Mr. Eze commended PROWA for its commitment to the education of Nigerias future leaders through the school project.

He urged other privileged individuals, organisations and corporate bodies to emulate the PROWA example and assist government in the nations educational development.

The Controller General of Prisons, JaAfaru Ahmed, said the NPS would continue to assist the association in its efforts at extending the school to all formations across the country.

To this end, Mr. Ahmed disclosed that he had sent circulars to all state controllers to give PROWA the needed support in its drive to establish primary and secondary schools in their respective commands nationwide.

In her address of welcome, the National President of PROWA, Gwamma Ahmed, said the school was established in 2013 to produce future leaders of not only great learning but of sound character.

The inaugurated building, according to her, houses a mini conference room, a library, the administrative office of the school and some classrooms to complement existing ones.

NAN reports that 41 widows of prison officers who died in active service as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East were empowered with starter packs for small scale businesses.

The items include: ovens, sewing machine and pepper grinding machines.

The PROWA president said the gesture was one of the numerous avenues through which the association continues to reinforce her motto: We care too.

She also solicited support from public spirited individuals and corporate organisations to PROWA in the discharge of its Corporate Social Responsibility.

(NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

The Olubadan of Ibadan land, Saliu Adetunji, on Sunday debunked claims that he endorsed Oyo State Governor, Abiola Ajimobi, for a third term.

The Ibadan monarch described the comment he made about the governor as deserving a third term as mere sarcasm and a remark that was pregnant with meaning.

The Oyo state government had in a statement last week said the Olubadan endorsed Mr. Ajimobi for another term due to his outstanding performance in office.

But the monarch, who filed a suit against the governor over the controversial review of the Olubadan chieftaincy declaration, said the people misunderstood his comments because they could not read between the lines.

In a statement by Adeola Oloko, the monarchs spokesperson, the Olubadan said this while receiving hundreds of Ibadan indigenes who came to pay him homage at his Popoyemoja, Ibadan palace as part of the on-going Ibadan week.

The monarch noted that what appears simple and straight forward could sometimes be pregnant with meanings, stressing that only the discerning minds could understand complexity in simplicity.

As a monarch, I have no power over the election and re-election of anybody, let alone tenure extension that is unconstitutional, he said.

Besides, when I was exchanging banters with the Governor, I was only cracking a joke with him as a son and subject.

Even, if Ajimobi offended us, it would be indecorous on my part to address him harshly. Besides, there is a subsisting judgement over the controversial chieftaincy review which awaits compliance. About four or five suits relating to the matter are still in court and have not been withdrawn.

The monarch also debunked insinuations that he received gratification from Mr. Ajimobi for the third term statement, saying anyone with demonstrable evidence should come forward and present it.The Lagos State Government and a United Kingdom firm, Low Energy Designs (LED) Ltd., on Monday signed a N2.52 billion Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the construction of 10,000 LED street lights.

Speaking at the signing of the MoU held at the Lagos House, Alausa, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode said that the development was a major milestone and a positive paradigm shift in the provision of street lighting for the state.

Mr. Ambode, represented by the Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources, Olawale Oluwo, said that successful commencement of the partnership signals a positive progress to the Light Up Lagos Project.

He said that this was a special initiative of his administration comprising street lighting, community electrification and embedded power programme.

With this agreement we are signing today, we are setting a new chart for the future of what street lighting, installation, management and control will be like in Lagos. It is a major paradigm shift.

We have about 33,000 street lights in Lagos under the Lagos State Electricity Board. Now, the LED UK, based on this 300 kilometres, will give us about 10,000 street lights.

So, technically, they are going to be having about 31 per cent of our entire street light infrastructure and this is a major significant development, he said.

Mr. Ambode said that with the partnership, there would no longer be any fixed costs with regards to management of street light installations across the state.

He said that all challenges hitherto associated with street lighting would now be a thing of the past.

As a government, what we are doing is that we are not installing poles; we are not providing security; we are not bothering ourselves with diesel.

We are not worried on Fridays and Saturdays about people coming back from clubs knocking down our poles.

All those have been outsourced now. We are not going to be worried about that. We just buy light from investment of this LED UK with all their installations.

They manage it, they provide the security, they power it and as long as we see the light, we pay; that is what has changed today, he said.

Earlier, Alan Parker, the Chief Executive Officer of LED UK Ltd., said that his firm was greatly honored to partner the state government to deliver the project.

Mr. Parker said that over the next 12 months, a British and Nigerian consortium would work to retrofit major roads in the state with urban regeneration project in Ikoyi, Ikeja and Victoria Island.

As part of this project, we will be employing over 500 local people here in Lagos and investing seven million dollars in the construction and setup of a LED lighting and Hybrid Energy Power Assembly Plant in Epe.

This facility will offer ground breaking testing, training and education programmes on renewable technologies, while providing the future for all lighting and hybrid energy power systems in Nigeria.

These high quality products will be built by Nigerians with the support, experience, knowledge and technology supplied by LED UK for all commercial indoor and outdoor applications for the African market, Mr. Parker said.

ADVERTISEMENT

(NAN)ADVERTISEMENT

A Lagos Division of the Federal High Court on Monday froze a Zenith Bank account belonging to the Lagos State Government Number Plate Production Authority over an alleged N3 billion fraud.

Mohammed Idris, the judge, granted the freeze order following an application brought by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

The judge said the bank account would remain frozen pending the conclusion of EFCCs investigation into the alleged fraud.

The freezing order also affects 32 other bank accounts belonging to companies which were allegedly used to divert the funds from the Lagos State Government Number Plate Production Authority.

In an affidavit attached to the ex parte application, the EFCC said its preliminary investigation revealed that the funds were diverted while Folorunsho Coker was the Managing Director of the Lagos State Government Number Plate Production Authority.

Mr. Coker was appointed the Director General of the Nigeria Tourism Development Corporation last year by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Among the companies whose accounts were also frozen include a law firm, Rimi and Partners, which, the EFCC said, had Mr. Cokers wife, Aisha Rimi, as the sole proprietor.

Others companies also affected by the freeze order are Ekosina Investment Limited; SW Properties Limited; Imira Trade and Global Services Limited; Lofty Investment Nigeria Limited; Pure Technical Services Limited; and Cablepoint Limited.

An investigator of the EFCC, Olamide Sadiq, who deposed to an affidavit in support of the commissions ex parte application, said the probe into the alleged N3 billion was informed by an intelligence received sometime in 2017 by the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit.

According to him, the intelligence revealed suspicious transactions on the account of Rimi and Partners, as there were heavy inflows in excess of N3 billion from the Lagos State Government Number Plate Production Authority into the account.

Mr. Sadiq said investigations by the EFCC revealed that Rimi and Partners had 10 bank accounts with Guaranty Trust Bank.

The investigator said, Mr. Folorunsho Coker was, as at that time, the Managing Director of the 1st respondent (Lagos State Government Number Plate Production Authority) and also the husband of Aisha Rimi, one of the signatories to the accounts of the 2nd and 3rd respondents  Rimi and Partners and Ekosina Investment Limited, respectively.

Further to the depositions contained in the paragraph above, I know as a fact derived during my investigations that the said Mr. Folorunsho Coker was also a signatory to the Zenith Bank account number 1011424889 of the 1st respondent.

Investigations revealed that Aisha Rimi is the major partner in Rimi and Partners and she is also in control of Ekosina Investment Limited, a company seen to have received huge transfers from the Lagos State Government Number Plate Production Authority.

From preliminary investigations by the commission, the 2nd and 3rdrespondents were used to divert funds from the Lagos State Government Number Plate Production Authority with the influence of Folorunsho Coker, who was the Managing Director of the Lagos State Agency.Company plans to reach 1 million consumers with its innovative healthy range of products

By: Global Food Industries

Contact

Prem A. Ramachandran

***@whitewaterpr.com Prem A. Ramachandran

End

-- World-class value-added frozen food manufacturer, Global Food Industries (GFI) was the proud recipient of the UAE Innovation Award. Part of Albatha Holding, one of the largest conglomerates in the UAE, GFI was the only food company to win the prestigious award, despite strong competition from well-known organisations from all verticals of the private sector, including education, energy, finance, healthcare, manufacturing, real estate, retail, sports, technology, tourism & hospitality, transport and non-profit. The UAE Innovation Award, organised by the Dubai Quality Group, is a unique award to recognize innovation in private sector companies throughout the UAE.Speaking at the event, Jacek Plewa, General Manager, Global Food Industries, commented, "We are extremely proud to be the recipient of the UAE Innovation Award. Being recognized for our innovation capabilities is extremely gratifying. We, at Global Food, always strive to provide the most rewarding culinary experience for our consumers. It is through our relentless efforts and the utilisation of innovative processes that we are able to provide products that are a healthy alternative. The UAE Innovation award complemented along with the two major awards at Gulfood is a great start to the year. It will set a positive tone for the rest of the year in terms of meeting and exceeding consumer expectations"Held at the Le Meridian, the UAE Innovation awards under the patronage of HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority & Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline & Group, are a step in support of the UAE National Innovation Strategy. These awards were created to acknowledge and propagate a culture that promotes innovation in private sector organisations in the UAE. Celebrating the Innovation month, the aim of the award is to raise the level of innovative practices that strengthen the capabilities to create sustainable value for the industry as well as the customers.Earlier this month, Global Foods Industries bagged two awards during this year's edition of the Gulfood Innovation Awards held at the Dubai World Trade Centre. The company's deliciously tasty and healthy 'Chicken Quinoa & Kale Burgers' and 'Super Chicken Quinoa & Kale Nuggets' won in the 'Best Halal Food' and 'Best Meat or Poultry Innovation' categories, besting other local and international brands. The awards were given in recognition of the company's contributions to the rapidly thriving food industry and its achievement as the first company in the Middle East region to launch a pioneering range of healthy chicken burgers and nuggets, which are being produced and manufactured under the Healthy Farm brand. These awards are proof that GFI stands firmly behind the Healthy Farm brand promise - 'Nothing to hide, the choice is yours'. GFI plans to reach more than a million consumers with the new brand, within a year's time. Healthy Farm products would soon be available in all local stores and hypermarkets in the UAE.On the way forward for Global Food Industries, Plewa commented "At GFI we aim to improve and augment health standards in every market we operate. The award demonstrates our continuous efforts at creating innovative products that address the growing health challenges for our customers. Through intensive research programmes and interaction with our customers, we create products that not only deliver unparalleled nutritional value, but also delicious taste that is unmatched in their respective categories. Our processes undergo auditing frequently so that we are able to ensure our products are congruent with our brand values and we are in a perpetual state of innovation to serve our customers in the UAE and the rest of the Middle East".Global Food Industries is the manufacturing arm of Albatha Consumer Group of Albatha Holding, which is one of the leading private business groups in the UAE, consisting of more than 25 autonomous companies in diversified sectors such as automotive, healthcare, manufacturing, FMCG, engineering, electronics, food and real estate.Albatha is the Arabic word for 'valley', inspired by the notion of growth and progress. Headquartered in the United Arab Emirates, Albatha was founded in early 1950s by Sheikh Mohammed Sultan Al Qassimi, whose vision and entrepreneurship has resulted in formation of a widely diversified group. Today, under the leadership of its Chairman, Sheikh Ahmed Mohammed Sultan Al Qassimi, the group is comprised of over 25 autonomous companies - specializing in sectors as diverse as automotive, healthcare, manufacturing, engineering, electronics, FMCG, food and real estate. For more information, kindly log on to www.albatha.comThrough R.I.S.E. (Recognizing and Inspiring Student Expression) America, NBC has awarded each of the 50 winning schools with a $10,000 grant that will cover the critical needs of their theatre programs ranging from production expenses to technical equipment and master classes. NBC is facilitating the program in partnership with the Educational Theatre Foundation (ETF), a non-profit organization dedicated to shaping lives through theatre education.

"It is a dream come true for me that 'Rise' will have a genuine impact on 50 high school drama programs throughout the country," said Jason Katims, the show's creator and executive producer. "It has never been clearer that the future of our country rests on the shoulders of the next generation of young leaders. I am excited about the notion that the R.I.S.E. America grants will help support, inspire and nurture creative young minds throughout the country, especially at a time when arts in education is under-valued and under-funded. I am blown away by the generosity of NBC and Bob Greenblatt, along with the efforts of the Educational Theatre Foundation, who have made this all possible."

"Seeing the need school-by-school was both inspiring and a wake-up call," said Julie Cohen Theobald, President of the Educational Theatre Foundation. "The way these dedicated educators are impacting kids' lives, against the odds and without the necessary resources, is heroic. Every school was deserving, and their stories reinforce the need to continue this momentum until every school in America has a well-funded theatre program."

To qualify for the grant, high schools were required to have an existing theatre program or a champion of theatre arts in their teaching staff in cases where a school's theatre program was cut because of budget constraints.

Each school submitted a video celebrating their theatre program and a 500-word essay explaining why their school should be awarded the grant and how they will use the $10,000 should they win. They also submitted a letter of recommendation from a school principal or administrator endorsing the application.

The 50 winning high schools (in alphabetical order by state) are:

Charles Henderson High School ( Troy, AL ) American Canyon High School ( American Canyon, CA ) Henry J. Kaiser High School ( Fontana, CA ) Mariposa County High School ( Mariposa, CA ) Vaughn Next Century Learning Center ( San Fernando, CA ) Seaside High School ( Seaside, CA ) Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy ( Denver, CO ) Enfield High School ( Enfield, CT ) School Without Walls ( Washington, D.C. ) Hallandale High School ( Hallandale Beach, FL ) Plant City High School ( Plant City, FL ) The Howard School ( Atlanta, GA ) Nanakuli High and Intermediate School ( Waianae, HI ) Jefferson High School ( Cedar Rapids, IA ) Glenbard West High School ( Glen Ellyn, IL ) Scecina Memorial High School ( Indianapolis, IN ) Leavenworth High School ( Leavenworth, KS ) Boyle County High School ( Danville, KY ) Alfred Bonnabel Magnet Academy High School ( Kenner, LA ) The Baltimore City College ( Baltimore, MD ) Hamtramck High School ( Hamtramck, MI ) Pine Island High School ( Pine Island, MN ) Grand Center Arts Academy ( St. Louis, MO ) Gautier High School ( Gautier, MS ) Park High School ( Livingston, MT ) Malcolm Public Schools, District 148 ( Malcolm, NE ) Belmont High School ( Belmont, NH ) Bound Brook High School ( Bound Brook, NJ ) Union Senior High School ( Union, NJ ) Digital Arts & Technology Academy ( Albuquerque, NM ) Equipo Academy East Las Vegas College Prep ( Las Vegas, NV ) Hastings High School ( Hastings-On-Hudson, NY ) Peekskill High School ( Peekskill, NY ) James N Gamble Montessori ( Cincinnati, OH ) Dublin Scioto High School ( Dublin, OH ) Henryetta High School ( Henryetta, OK ) Regis St. Mary Catholic School ( Stayton, OR ) Harry S. Truman High School ( Levittown, PA ) Mastery Charter Schools Foundation ( Philadelphia, PA ) Central Falls High School ( Central Falls, RI ) Deubrook Area School District 5-6 ( White, SD ) Jackson County High School ( Gainesboro, TN ) John Overton Comprehensive High School ( Nashville, TN ) Alice High School ( Alice, TX ) Jack Yates High School ( Houston, TX ) Pharr San Juan Alamo North Early College High School ( Pharr, TX ) Heritage High School ( Leesburg, VA ) Rainier Beach High School ( Seattle, WA ) Hudson High School ( Hudson, WI ) Martinsburg High School ( Martinsburg, WV )

About "Rise"

From Jason Katims, executive producer and showrunner of "Friday Night Lights" and "Parenthood," and "Hamilton" producer Jeffrey Seller comes a heartening new drama about finding inspiration in unexpected places. When dedicated teacher Lou Mazzuchelli (Josh Radnor) sheds his own self-doubt and takes over the school's lackluster theater department, he galvanizes not only the faculty and students but the entire working-class town. The series stars Josh Radnor, Rosie Perez, Auli'i Cravalho, Damon J. Gillespie, Marley Shelton, Rarmian Newton, Ted Sutherland, Amy Forsyth, Casey W. Johnson, Taylor Richardson, Joe Tippett and Shirley Rumierk.

Jason Katims serves as creator and executive producer. Jeffrey Seller, Flody Suarez and Michelle Lee executive produce.

"Rise" is produced by Universal Television, True Jack Productions and Seller Suarez Productions. It premieres on NBC on March 13 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Visit NBC.com/Rise for more information.

About the Educational Theatre Foundation (ETF)

ETF provides essential financial support to enhance excellence in theatre education and to expand access to school theatre programs for every child, putting them on a more positive life path. ETF is focused on three areas: JumpStart Theatre  to create sustainable musical theatre programs where there previously were none; need-based grants to schools  to provide teaching and performance resources and equipment in under-resourced schools; and, merit and need-based grants to individuals - to nurture the next generation of theatre teachers and artists.

Contacts:

Allison Rawlings, [email protected], 818-777-3051

Dupe Bosu, [email protected], 818-777-9356

Sandra Lundgren, [email protected], 914-325-6733

SOURCE NBC

Related Links

https://www.nbc.com

NEW YORK, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Datagran, which is reinventing the digital advertising model worldwide through a combination of artificial intelligence and human ingenuity, announces its further expansion into the U.S. market via the launch of a new office in New York City's financial district. Datagran already has a presence in Los Angeles, Houston, Warsaw, Istanbul, Bogota, Buenos Aires and Mexico City.

Datagran has achieved rapid success with some of the world's most iconic brands including Coors Light, Subway, Audi, Bic and Honda. The company did it by uniquely combining computer logic with human creativity to bypass traditional, cumbersome ad and media agencies. Instead, it delivers real-time insights and impactful creative to marketers, finally letting them take control of their campaigns while cutting costs.

The advertising industry is facing serious challenges. The volume of data that companies generate now surpasses the ability of any human to interpret, and many companies are not leveraging this data in the right way. At the same time, media and agency costs continue to rise, but only large brands enjoy economies of scale, and campaign learnings and optimizations can often be implemented only after media budgets are spent.

Datagran - backed by some of the same early investors that funded Uber and Airbnb - changes everything. Its toolkit continually optimizes audiences, CPR, creative and channel mix, provides audience-based insights before ad buys are placed, and unlocks data patterns and trends based on a company's business performance - including audience clusters, price points and more.

All of these insights are then fed into Datagran's game-changing adCreator service, which uses its inhouse network of several dozen award-winning creative professionals to deliver creative including photography, visuals, videos and copywriting, at some of the lowest costs in the industry.

"Entrenched industries such as retail, transportation and hospitality have been disrupted in recent years through advanced technology. It's long overdue for ad and media agencies to also be replaced by a better approach," said Carlos Mendez Solano, founder and CEO of Datagran. "With Datagran, brands or media agencies no longer need traditional agencies to create and deliver groundbreaking, impactful campaigns. We encourage anyone who feels they can do better to enter the Gran Challenge - in fact, I'm so confident that our AI is unbeatable, I'm prepared to double or even triple the prize."

To win, challengers must achieve a lower cost per click using their own methods than with Datagran's tool. To enter, entrants must create and run two concurrent seven-day campaigns with the same criteria: creative/copy URL, platform, targeting and budget. They must run one campaign using their own methods and another using Datagran's adOptimizer tool. The contest ends on March 26th. Winners may receive prizes including a grand prize of $10,000, a first prize of $5,000 or two second prizes of an iPhone X. To enter, please visit https://optimizer.datagran.io/adoptimizer-challenge/. Complete rules can be found here: https://optimizer.datagran.io/adoptimizer-challenge/clkn/https/optimizer.datagran.io/adoptimizer-challenge/terms-and-conditions/.

About Datagran

Datagran makes it easy to become a marketing genius. Selected by JP Morgan Chase and Endeavor as a "High Potential Startup," its unique advertising campaign toolkit improves results while helping most companies cut ad spending by an average of 20 percent. Datagran has 80 employees and is in twelve locations across Europe, North, South and Central America. Investors include Telefonica and Quake Capital partners. To learn more visit www.datagran.io.

SOURCE Datagran

Related Links

http://www.datagran.io

Additions to Support Growth in NARCAN (naloxone HCI) Nasal Spray Distribution and Advance R&D Pipeline of Five Addiction Focused Programs

DUBLIN, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Adapt Pharma (www.adaptpharma.com) announced today Phil Shanahan, PhD will be joining as Vice President of Technical Operations and Ryan Loughlin, PhD has joined as Director of Drug Development. Both will report to Fintan Keegan, who was recently promoted to Chief Technical Officer.

These appointments will add significant experience to the existing technical and development team, allowing Adapt Pharma to advance the company's addiction-focused research and development pipeline while continuing to support the growing distribution of NARCAN (naloxone HCI) Nasal Spray 4 mg.

Phil was most recently Vice President, Quality Operations at Alkermes, plc. and brings more than three decades of technical and quality experience from a range of pharmaceutical companies, including Elan Corporation, Servier and Janssen. He obtained his doctorate in analytical biotechnology and his Bachelor of Science in chemistry from University College Cork, Ireland.

Ryan joins Adapt Pharma from Teva Pharmaceuticals where he most recently served as Director of Formulation Development. He obtained a Master of Pharmacy and a PhD in Pharmaceutics from Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland.

"I am delighted to welcome Phil and Ryan to Adapt Pharma where we successfully developed and launched NARCAN Nasal Spray 4 mg  the leading community-use naloxone in North America. Phil and Ryan are central to our goals of progressing the development of new treatment options to support important public heath requirements in the area of addiction treatment while supporting the growth of NARCAN Nasal Spray distribution," said Seamus Mulligan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Adapt Pharma. "Our pipeline now comprises four programs targeting the emergency treatment of opioid overdose with expected regulatory submissions ranging from 2018 to 2020 and our pre-clinical opioid dependency treatment program."

NARCAN Nasal Spray 4mg is the first and only FDA-approved, needle-free formulation of naloxone for the emergency treatment of a known or suspected opioid overdose. It does not require assembly or any specialized medical training and is also the highest concentrated dose of intranasal naloxone currently available. NARCAN Nasal Spray is not a substitute for emergency medical care, and additional doses of NARCAN Nasal Spray may be required until emergency medical assistance arrives. Seek emergency medical assistance immediately after initial use, keeping the patient under continued surveillance.

Please see Indications and Important Safety Information below.

Indications

NARCAN (naloxone hydrochloride) Nasal Spray is an opioid antagonist indicated for the emergency treatment of known or suspected opioid overdose, as manifested by respiratory and/or central nervous system depression. NARCAN Nasal Spray is intended for immediate administration as emergency therapy in settings where opioids may be present. NARCAN Nasal Spray is not a substitute for emergency medical care.

Important Safety Information

NARCAN (naloxone HCI) Nasal Spray is contraindicated in patients known to be hypersensitive to naloxone hydrochloride or to any of the other ingredients.

Seek emergency medical assistance immediately after initial use, keeping the patient under continued surveillance.

Risk of Recurrent Respiratory and CNS Depression: Due to the duration of action of naloxone relative to the opioid, keep the patient under continued surveillance and administer repeat doses of naloxone using a new nasal spray with each dose, as necessary, while awaiting emergency medical assistance.

Risk of Limited Efficacy with Partial Agonists or Mixed Agonists/Antagonists: Reversal of respiratory depression caused by partial agonists or mixed agonists/antagonists, such as buprenorphine and pentazocine, may be incomplete. Larger or repeat doses may be required.

Precipitation of Severe Opioid Withdrawal: Use in patients who are opioid dependent may precipitate opioid withdrawal characterized by body aches, fever, sweating, runny nose, sneezing, piloerection, yawning, weakness, shivering or trembling, nervousness, restlessness or irritability, diarrhea, nausea or vomiting, abdominal cramps, increased blood pressure, and tachycardia. In some patients, there may be aggressive behavior upon abrupt reversal of an opioid overdose. In neonates, opioid withdrawal may be life-threatening if not recognized and properly treated and may also include convulsions, excessive crying, and hyperactive reflexes. Monitor for the development of opioid withdrawal.

Risk of Cardiovascular (CV) Effects: Abrupt postoperative reversal of opioid depression may result in adverse CV effects. These events have primarily occurred in patients who had pre-existing CV disorders or received other drugs that may have similar adverse CV effects. Monitor these patients closely in an appropriate healthcare setting after use of naloxone hydrochloride.

Adverse Reactions: The following adverse reactions were observed in a NARCAN Nasal Spray clinical study: increased blood pressure, constipation, toothache, muscle spasms, musculoskeletal pain, headache, nasal dryness, nasal edema, nasal congestion, nasal inflammation, rhinalgia, and xeroderma.

To report SUSPECTED ADVERSE REACTIONS, contact ADAPT Pharma, Inc. at 1-844-4NARCAN (1-844-462-7226) or FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088 or www.fda.gov/medwatch.

Please see full Prescribing Information at: https://www.narcan.com/pdf/NARCAN-Prescribing-Information.pdf.

For additional information on NARCAN Nasal Spray, please visit www.NARCAN.com.

For questions regarding NARCAN Nasal Spray distribution, please call 1-844-4NARCAN (462-7226).

ABOUT ADAPT PHARMA

Adapt Pharma is a privately-held company committed to expanding affordable access to Narcan (naloxone HCI) Nasal Spray and to progressing treatment options in the field of addiction. Adapt Pharma's company headquarters is in Dublin, Ireland with U.S. headquarters in Radnor, Pennsylvania. For more information, please visit www.adaptpharma.com.

SOURCE Adapt Pharma"Angie will have a pivotal role in driving our future success," said Judy Meleliat, president of Aegis Living. "We're very excited that she brings experience with a premier, nationally-recognized customer-centric retail brand. We believe that her skills will complement our team with fresh, inventive strategies that continue to grow the Aegis Living brand and excellence in service."

Snyder comes to Aegis Living after more than a dozen years with Nordstrom, where she most recently served as the company's vice president of marketing. As a highly-regarded leader, Snyder supported aggressive growth and expansion for Nordstrom and Nordstrom Rack and led numerous change initiatives to better compete in the evolving retail industry. Snyder's contributions at Nordstrom spanned disciplines to include consumer insights and brand strategy to corporate strategy and finance. Prior to Nordstrom, she led the repositioning of the Renaissance Marriott brand. She holds a bachelor's degree from Willamette University and MBA from the University of Maryland.

As chief marketing officer, reporting to the company president, Snyder will direct strategic initiatives for the corporate entity and all 29 assisted living properties across three states. She will also be instrumental in launching new Aegis Living communities, including two that are planned in the greater Seattle area this year, and another eight over the next several years.

"I feel privileged to lead the Aegis Living brand forward and excited to bring my experience to help drive continued growth and innovation," said Snyder. "I was drawn to the company by its warm culture, impressive leaders and true dedication to making seniors' lives better."

About Aegis Living

Aegis Living is a national leader in assisted living and memory care. The privately-held company founded in 1997 is headquartered in Bellevue, Wash., and operates 29 communities in Washington, California and Nevada with 10 new communities in development. Follow the company on Twitter @aegisliving and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AegisLiving. Visit the company website at https://www.aegisliving.com/.

SOURCE Aegis Living

Related Links

http://www.aegisliving.com

Allison Janney took home the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in I, Tonya wearing 128 carats of sparkling Forevermark diamonds. This award season, Janney had already won the BAFTA, SAG Award, Golden Globe, and Critic's Choice Award, and previously, she had won seven Emmys and Screen Actors Guild Awards, and received two Tony Award nominations throughout her illustrious career. This was her first Oscar nomination and she accepted the award channeling timeless Hollywood glamour in a classic diamond Riviera necklace, stud earrings, stacked diamond line bracelets and an 18 carat Forevermark Exceptional Diamond cocktail ring which complemented her dramatic red gown.

"Being at the Academy Awards in stunning Forevermark Diamonds makes me feel incredibly special. I also feel good knowing that they help to support women's health and education programs in their diamond producing communities," said Janney.

Mary J. Blige made Academy Award history as the first person ever to receive double nominations for Best Original Song and Best Supporting Actress for Mudbound. The undisputed Queen of Hip Hop Soul marked her arrival as a movie star on the Oscars red carpet wearing oversized statement diamond earrings and two diamond cocktail rings paired with her white gown. She then changed ensembles for her moving performance of "Mighty River" wearing another pair of ornate Forevermark diamond statement earrings and ring.

Academy Award presenter Gina Rodriguez also dazzled on stage in a pair of oversized starburst diamond stud earrings and stackable rings. Rodriguez's stylist, Lauren Rodriguez said of her look, "Diamonds are always a classic choice, but Forevermark Diamonds seem to have an extra sparkle that stands out on the red carpet, just like Gina does."

Forevermark diamond looks at the 90th Annual Academy Awards include:

Who: Allison Janney, Best Supporting Actress Winner, I, Tonya

The Look:

Forevermark by Rahaminov Diamond Riviera Necklace set in Platinum 55.26 ctw

Diamond Riviera Necklace set in Platinum 55.26 ctw Forevermark Exceptional Diamond Asscher Ring with Side Baguettes set in Platinum 18.10 ctw

Asscher Ring with Side Baguettes set in Platinum 18.10 ctw Forevermark by Rahaminov Diamond Line Bracelet set in Platinum 27.02 ctw

Diamond Line Bracelet set in Platinum 27.02 ctw Forevermark by Rahaminov Diamond Line Bracelet set in 18k White Gold 10.12 ctw

Diamond Line Bracelet set in White Gold 10.12 ctw Forevermark by Rahaminov Diamond Line Bracelet set in 18K White Gold 6.80 ctw

Diamond Line Bracelet set in White Gold 6.80 ctw Forevermark by Premier Gem Round Brilliant Diamond Studs set in Platinum 11.13 ctw

Who: Mary J. Blige, Nominee for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Song, Mudbound

Red Carpet Look:

Forevermark Large Drop Earrings set in White Gold 12.28 ctw

Large Drop Earrings set in White Gold 12.28 ctw Forevermark Diamond and Pave Marquise Shaped Ring set in 18k Oxidized Gold 3.90 ctw

Diamond and Pave Marquise Shaped Ring set in Oxidized Gold 3.90 ctw Forevermark Exceptional Diamond Cushion Halo Ring with Split Shank Band set in Platinum 6.93 ctw

Performance Look:

Forevermark Drop Earrings set in White and Rose Gold 16.35 ctw

Drop Earrings set in White and 16.35 ctw Forevermark Deco Diamond Ring set in 18k White Gold 3.36 ctw

Who: Gina Rodriguez, Academy Award Presenter

The Look:

Forevermark by Rahaminov Starburst Earrings set in 18k White Gold 6.42 ctw

Starburst Earrings set in White Gold 6.42 ctw Forevermark by Natalie K Stackable Diamond Eternity Bands set in 18k Rose Gold

Stackable Diamond Eternity Bands set in Forevermark by Imagine Bridal Stackable Eternity Band set in 18k White Gold

Stackable Eternity Band set in White Gold Forevermark by Imagine Bridal Stackable Eternity Band set in 18k White Gold

Who: Giuliana Rancic, E! Live from the Red Carpet Host

The Look:

Forevermark by Susan Eisen Hanging Floral Earrings with Princess, Marquise, Pear and Round Diamonds 6.00 ctw

Hanging Floral Earrings with Princess, Marquise, Pear and Round Diamonds 6.00 ctw Forevermark by Premier Gem Cushion Diamond Ring set in 18k Rose Gold 10.11 ctw

ABOUT FOREVERMARK

Every Forevermark diamond undergoes a journey of rigorous selection. The unique Forevermark inscription is an assurance that every Forevermark diamond meets the exceptional standards of beauty, rarity and is responsibly sourced. Forevermark goes beyond the standard 4Cs to hand select diamonds that are among the most beautiful in the world. Less than one percent of the world's diamonds are worthy of the Forevermark inscription.

Each Forevermark diamond is responsibly sourced and embodies Forevermark's principles of integrity, support for opportunities for women and dedication to the protection of the natural world. The inscription is an assurance of the physical integrity of a Forevermark diamond throughout its journey. Invisible to the naked eye, the inscription features a unique identification number and is just 1,5/000th the width of a human hair, made using bespoke technology from The De Beers Group of Companies.

Forevermark is the diamond brand from The De Beers Group of Companies and benefits from over 128 years of diamond expertise. For more information and to find your nearest Authorized Forevermark Jeweler, visit www.forevermark.com.

SOURCE Forevermark

Related Links

http://www.forevermark.com

NEW YORK, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today from HIMSS18 Booth #8324, Ambra Health, makers of the leading cloud-based, medical image management suite, announced the launch of embedded integrations with drchrono and Modernizing Medicine as the latest Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) platforms to have image-enabled medical records powered by Ambra. They join leading EHR platforms Epic and athenahealth, which are already integrated with Ambra medical image management solutions. Also unveiled were new patient portal capabilities that give healthcare providers the ability to allow patients to access medical imaging online, in a secure manner that eliminates reliance on outdated CDs or DVDs.

Electronic Health Records capture the medical history of an individual, yet many EHR systems only display text-based radiology reports, and not actual diagnostic images-- half the picture is, literally, missing. From a patient perspective, 80% of healthcare consumers expressed interest in receiving access to both the diagnostic imaging and a radiology report after tests, according to a study conducted by Ambra Health. And for providers faced with increased regulatory mandates to maintain comprehensive patient records within the EHR system, there are significant benefits in productivity and delivery of better patient care if diagnostic imaging is deeply embedded into administrative workflow.

"We have been able to save time and increase efficiency tremendously when importing outside images thanks to integrating Ambra into our Epic EHR workflow and image management operations," said Dr. Christoph Wald, Chair of Radiology at Lahey Hospital & Medical Center. "The Ambra integration has also been a key component in our ongoing efforts to reduce our risk of patient misidentification errors."

drchrono and Modernizing Medicine's EMA for orthopedics are among the latest EHR platforms to integrate with Ambra medical imaging solutions, providing more streamlined access to view and order imaging directly from links within the patient record.

drchrono provides a technology platform and medical billing service that streamlines the administration and delivery of care for healthcare providers. With Ambra Health's integration, physicians have one click access to patient records and imaging, all in one place. With a single click, physicians can launch the Ambra FDA 510(k) cleared medical image viewer directly from the drchrono EHR patient jacket. Together, the two provide end-to-end cloud-based software that seamlessly integrates scheduling, clinical workflow, patient engagement, records, patient imaging, and medical billing. See the associated press release for full details.

Ambra Health is also seamlessly interfaced with Modernizing Medicine's EMA, the specialty-specific EHR system in the modmed Orthopedics suite that also includes Practice Management, Analytics and more. Built by practicing orthopedic surgeons, EMA intuitively adapts to the unique style of the physician, remembers preferences, and aids clinical collaboration to streamline the provider's entire process. And now with Ambra, imaging can be accessed directly from within the patient record as well, virtually eliminating CDs and upgrading medical imaging processes with better interoperability, archiving and accessibility. See the associated release for full details.

"Providers and software vendors alike are tackling interoperability and medical record access with a new sense of urgency. Patient medical records are complex documents and medical imaging is a particularly critical piece of the puzzle," said Morris Panner CEO of Ambra Health. "The cloud has been a key technological innovation for the storage of large imaging sets and easy access for patients and providers alike."

Ambra also launched a new capability that allows providers to offer patients direct access to their medical imaging through a secure, HIPAA-compliant, online portal. Patients who have had imaging done at a facility that has deployed the new Ambra Patient Portal would automatically receive an alert once their medical imaging studies are available. Patients can then securely log-in to their profile online to access their current results or any prior medical imaging studies they had done. The imaging can be viewed, downloaded and shared directly from the portal, allowing patients to self-serve should they wish to procure a second opinion and saving administrative staff from having to rely on CDs or DVDs when making imaging available to patients.

Ambra Health is at the forefront of the transformation of medical imaging through cloud technology. The company was recently recognized by KLAS Research as the top medical image exchange vendor for the fourth year in a row, and named Startup-of-the-year in the SIIA Company CODiE Awards. Today, more than 1,500 healthcare organizations use Ambra Health for best-in-class image exchange and cloud VNA. Ambra's network is growing at a rapid pace of two new provider gateways per day, resulting in more than three billion images now managed through the platform.

About Ambra Health

Ambra Health is a medical data and image management SaaS company. Intuitive, flexible, scalable and highly interoperable, the Ambra cloud platform is designed to serve as the backbone of imaging innovation and progress for healthcare providers. It empowers some of the largest health systems such as Memorial Hermann, Stanford Children's Health and New England Baptist Hospital as well as radiology practices, subspecialty practices and clinical research organizations to dramatically improve imaging and collaborative care workflows. As expert partners, we listen to our customers, understand their needs, and apply our extensive knowledge to deliver innovative medical image management solutions for the future of healthcare, now. Discover what the Ambra medical imaging cloud can do for you at www.ambrahealth.com.

Media Contact:

Ceci De La Montanya

Ambra Health

[email protected]

888-587-2280

SOURCE Ambra Health

Related Links

http://www.ambrahealth.com

ROHNERT PARK, Calif., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Leaving college with no degree and saddled with student loans can have devastating effects on a person's financial life. But what about people who leave graduate school with loans and no advanced degree? The effects are different, but these borrowers still may face a unique set of obstacles, including contending with student loan repayment. Ameritech Financial, a private document preparation company which assists federal student loan borrowers in applying for and recertifying enrollment in repayment plans, recognizes the challenges of borrowers who left graduate school before completion.

"There's no one reason why students leave grad school, but if they have student loans, they might be facing unexpected challenges and a financial situation they need to quickly adapt to," said Tom Knickerbocker, executive vice president of Ameritech Financial. "Ameritech Financial provides support to borrowers in repayment who may not know all of their options."

When graduate students with federal loans leave their programs, they face a host of repayment choices. For those who may need more affordable options, help is available. Ameritech Financial helps federal student loan borrowers select, apply for and maintain enrollment in income-driven repayment plans (IDRs) offered by the Department of Education. Ameritech Financial helps borrowers parse often confusing guidelines and requirements regarding repayment and certain types of loan forgiveness. IDRs are usually beneficial for borrowers who may be struggling to repay their loans because monthly payments are calculated based on income and family size, and qualified borrowers may see their payments reduced significantly. IDRs also position borrowers for loan forgiveness after a period of 20 or 25 years.

While former graduate students likely face better job prospects because, by definition, they have an undergraduate degree, those who do not finish their advanced degree might be losing out on greater future earnings. They also might be facing high loan balances which are common for master's and professional degrees. Beyond finances, there may be a distinct set of psychological or emotional hurdles to clear after the life they envisioned changes when they leave school before graduating. This isn't to discourage borrowers, but rather acknowledge what they may be facing. In fact, many people who leave their grad school programs are happier for doing so.

"Whether they are happy, upset or maybe both because they left graduate school, these borrowers face a period of change," said Knickerbocker. "And regardless of whether they're excited about this new chapter of life, they have opportunities and can call on support. Ameritech Financial can step in to assist when it comes to student loans, applying for repayment options and taking control of your financial life."

About Ameritech Financial

Ameritech Financial is a private company located in Rohnert Park, California. Ameritech Financial has already helped thousands of consumers with financial analysis and student loan document preparation to apply for federal student loan repayment programs offered through the Department of Education.

Ameritech Financial is a member of the Association for Student Loan Relief (AFSLR) and each representative on the phone has received the Certified Student Loan Professional certification through the International Association of Professional Debt Arbitrators (IAPDA).

Ameritech Financial prides itself on its exceptional customer service.

Contact

To learn more about Ameritech Financial, please contact:

Ameritech Financial

5789 State Farm Drive #265

Rohnert Park, CA 94928

1-800-792-8621

[email protected]

Related Links

Ameritech Financial home page

SOURCE Ameritech FinancialATLANTA, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Applied Software, a leading systems integrator to the AEC, fabrication and manufacturing industries, announced today its acquisition of CAD-1, an Autodesk Gold Partner and Autodesk Authorized Training Center (ATC) with extensive expertise in consulting services delivery, software, training and support.

CAD-1's specialists have a deep understanding of the industry's design needs and decades of experience developing effective solutions for customers. The acquisition expands Applied Software's deep bench of skilled developers, trainers and service professionals with the additional skills of the CAD-1 team.

"The acquisition will enable us to better serve our customers throughout North America in many ways, including enhanced services delivery, as well as access to more robust consulting resources," explained Richard Burroughs, president of Applied Software. "We're very excited to bring these two quality organizations together for our customers."

CAD-1 is headquartered in Thornton, Colorado, and is the leading provider of automation services to the AEC industry in the Mountain States. Established in 1990 by Sirko Associates, Inc., a structural engineering consulting firm, over the years CAD-1 has expanded its service deliverables to include GIS, civil, infrastructure, mechanical and plant, with clients throughout the United States.

"We're confident about what this acquisition will bring to our customers and to the industry," said Clint Sirko, operations manager of CAD-1. "Our customers can anticipate a seamless transition in working with our new, combined team and a significant expansion of the resources available to them."

"This acquisition will provide greater access to training, consulting and a larger team for our clients," said Jim Sirko, owner of CAD-1. "Applied Software and CAD-1 both have a natural dedication to client success."

For more information, visit www.asti.com/cad-1.

About Applied Software

Applied Software is a premier, full-service systems integrator firm serving the AEC and manufacturing industries, as well as a leading Building Information Modeling (BIM) services provider and is a leading Autodesk Platinum Partner. Applied Software provides delivery and support in North America for fabrication and construction solutions. The firm works with industry leading solutions developers and is the developer of industry specific solutions such as eVolve for electrical prefabrication. Since 1982, it has helped more than 10,000 clients achieve high-performance and competitive advantage through its broad range of world-class solutions and services. Applied Software further distinguishes itself with the depth of real-world experience of its developers and service professionals. The firm has been the recipient of numerous industry recognitions and awards. For more information on Applied Software's solutions and services, please visit www.asti.com.

Applied Software has a national network of partners serving all aspects of construction industry technology and process needs. For more information, contact Applied Software at [email protected] or call 800.899.2784.

Applied Software is a registered trademark of Applied Software Technology, Inc.

Media Contact:

Todd F. Weyandt

Applied Software

404-564-1843

[email protected]

SOURCE Applied Software

Related Links

http://www.asti.com

The UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development consists of 17 Goals and the issue of water resources is the key to achieve all SDGs. At the 3 rd UN Environment Assembly held in Dec 2017, HSDHG, as an official partner and Steering Committee Member of the UN Science-Policy-Business Forum on Environment, presented its world's pioneer technology on Atmospheric Water Generation. It has become the most popular and focused project on sustainable innovation and was acknowledged by President of the UN General Assembly, the President of the UN Environment Assembly as well as politicians and scientists of various countries.

Claudia Assmann, Programme Officer of Economy and Fiscal Policy Unit of the UNEP hosted the meeting. Steven Stone, Chief of Resources and Markets Branch of the UNEP chaired the meeting and delivered an opening speech. The trilogy reports were distributed to provide data, theoretical information and specific advice to policymakers to help countries to pilot projects and to achieve transformation.

At the meeting, Frank Van Rompaey, Head of the UNIDO Office of Geneva; Tilman Altenbury of German Development Institution; Jorge E. Vinuales, Professor of Cambridge University and Editor of the "Green Industrial Policy and Trade: A Toolbox"; H.E. Alvaro Cedeno, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the World Trade Organization, respectively addressed on stage.

Dr. Johnny Ip, Vice President of HSDHG has introduced the integration of atmospheric water generation projects for sustainable development on water resources and green industries. The Atmospheric Water Generation Technology invented by Dato' Sri Prof. Ng, Tat-yung has been adopted to more than 80 international patents within PCT System of 152 Contracting States in WIPO. It converts air into safe drinking water efficiently with no water consumption, no pollution, no additive and its water quality meets WHO's guideline for drinking water and other international standards. Series of Heaven Springs Atmospheric Water Generator can produce 30 litres to 5 tons of water daily. A typical water generation plant that produces 100 tons of water daily would provide drinking water for tens of thousands of people. Its process does not produce waste water meanwhile purifies the air. This "black technology" could ease the water scarcity and pollution problems. It can be used in military, agricultural, industrial and domestic areas.

For more details, visit: www.heavensprings.com

Dato' Sri Prof. Ng, Tat-yung travels a lot all over the world and has lived in South Korea for 10 years, United States for 7 years and Australia for 5 years. He is dedicated to international charity and public diplomacy. He has received more than 120 honor titles and awards granted by the US Congress, California State Senate, and various cities of the US since 2013 and has been invited to National Day Reception of PRC for continuously 8 years. Dato' Sri Prof. Ng, Tat-yung is a Visiting Professor & Honorary Fellow at The Canadian Chartered Institute of Business Administration and Honorary President of Board of Directors at Asian College of Knowledge; Executive Vice-President at West China Economic and Trade Research Institute of The Association for Promotion of West China Research and Development, Committee member of the UN Science-Policy-Business Forum on Environment; Founders of World Trade United Foundation and Member of the US President Club.

SOURCE Heaven Springs

Related Links

http://www.heavensprings.com

AUSTIN, Tex., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Beyond, a digital design and technology ideas company, celebrated the opening of their newest studio located in Austin, Texas, at the end of 2017.

Founded in 2010, Beyond serves clients such as Samsung, Google, West Elm, and Instagram, and has offices in London, New York, San Francisco, and Mountain View. Their team of 200+ digital experts build technology-based solutions that shape ideas into market value and establish the methods and mindsets that move companies forward.

With a fast growing company, the need for a new city to expand the Beyond presence had become more apparent over the last year. Beyond sought a city that would inspire employees with its creativity, innovation, and superb talent. While many locations possess these qualities, Austin truly stood out as the obvious next choice for a new Beyond home.

"Austin is a magnet for tech innovation and a burgeoning design community. You can see and feel all of this when you visit," said Matt Iliffe, a Partner at Beyond. "The city's rich supply of young talent, mixed with experience from a well-established design and technology community, is fueling its status as a growing startup hub. Inbound migration is bolstering the city's talent pool and helping business thrive."

Beyond credits its passionate people for enabling them to build and fuel their company, define a unique culture, and shape guiding processes. As Beyond continues to grow, the dedication to passionate people is more important than ever.

If you're ready for your next adventure (Beyond is hiring!), want to learn more about Beyond, or just want to say hello, visit us online at Bynd.com.

Beyond is a design and technology ideas company in London, New York, San Francisco, Mountain View and Austin. Partnering with ambitious companies like Google, Samsung, and Moneysupermarket, Beyond creates market value with design- and technology-based products and strategies, and establishes the methods and mindsets that move businesses forward.

SOURCE Beyond

Related Links

https://www.bynd.com

NEUSTADT (WIED), Germany and NEW YORK, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today the Footwear Plus magazine announced the winners of the 19th annual Plus Awards. As in the previous year, BIRKENSTOCK has been awarded twice: this time Germany's original global comfort shoe brand has been named as "Brand of the Year" and for the second consecutive year has won the award for "Excellence in Design Sandals". Created by Footwear Plus, the industry's leading fashion trade magazine for nearly 30 years, the annual Plus Awards are the only accolades determined by the votes of industry members and consumers. The winners are determined by thousands of online voters within and outside the industry who could place online votes from November 29 to December 31, 2017. The prizes are co-sponsored by the Fashion Footwear Association of New York (FFANY) and Jones & Vining.

"We are proud to be recognized with not one, but two Plus Awards  especially Brand of the Year. To be recognized by the industry for what we are accomplishing is very satisfying. In the year ahead, we will take Birkenstock to an even higher level as we focus on serving our retail partners and our consumers with more innovative product and great service," said David Kahan, BIRKENSTOCK Americas CEO.

"Congratulations to Birkenstock on winning the Plus Award for excellence in the Sandals and prestigious Brand of the Year categories," said Greg Dutter, Editorial Director of Footwear Plus. "The legendary brand continued to fire on all cylinders in 2017: offering exciting designs and innovative retail concepts as well as positioning itself for solid growth in the years ahead. In a time of great industry upheaval, BIRKENSTOCK has been a brand its retail partners can bank on," added Greg Dutter, Footwear Plus Editorial Director.

BIRKENSTOCK has already been honored with six Plus Awards in total, including the recent accolades. The category "Excellence in Design Women's Comfort" for instance, was granted to the German heritage brand for the three years in a row from 2014 to 2016.

The award-winning Footwear Plus magazine is the leading B-2-B fashion publication of the footwear industry. In a world of instant messages, texting, daily e-mail blasts, junk mail, 24-hour news outlets and tickers across the bottom of countless TV channels, Footwear Plus is commonly being valued as a magazine in the truest sense of the format: in-depth, comprehensive and analytical, not to mention beautiful. Industry leaders rely on Footwear Plus to educate, inform, provoke and inspire.

About BIRKENSTOCK

BIRKENSTOCK is a global footwear brand that stands for quality, function, and all-round well-being. With more than 3,800 employees worldwide, this traditional, sixth-generation family-run business is also one of the German footwear industry's biggest employers. The company's historic roots can be traced as far back as 1774. BIRKENSTOCK was already using the term "footbed" in the 1930s, giving it the meaning which is commonly understood by consumers all over the world to this day  as a synonym for outstanding comfort when walking and standing. By the early 1970s, BIRKENSTOCK had become a global player. Manufactured in Germany, the sandals are now sold in more than 100 countries on all continents. BIRKENSTOCK also has a growing range of enclosed shoes, children's shoes, and occupational footwear, as well as specialist products for orthopedic retailers, socks, bags, and belts. In 2017, BIRKENSTOCK added sleep systems and natural cosmetics (BIRKENSTOCK NATURAL SKIN CARE) to its portfolio of products. The company is headquartered in Neustadt (Wied). BIRKENSTOCK has ten sites in Germany, in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse, Bavaria, and Saxony. The long-standing family-owned enterprise also operates its own sales offices in the United States, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Denmark, Slovakia, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

Birkenstock GmbH & Co. KG

Burg Ockenfels, Linz

Further information is available at www.birkenstock-group.com

The online shop can be found at www.birkenstock.com

SOURCE Birkenstock

Related Links

http://www.birkenstock.com

TEMECULA, Calif., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Candace Webb Henderson has written a moving account of her mother Joni's incredible true story of growing up in a large, loving foster family, who accepted Joni as a five-day-old infant on a street corner in Pennsylvania in 1936. Candace's inspiring book, entitled Blessed to Be Unwanted, tells a beautiful story of kindness and compassion sure to touch the hearts of every reader, especially those children who are adopted or fostered as well as existing or prospective adoptive and foster parents. The book's relevancy is especially evident when you consider that over 135,000 children are given up for adoption in the United States each year.

Author profile photo

The forward is written by Rev. Dr. Kimberly Marooney, founder of Gateway University, and sums up the theme of the book this way: "Blessed to be Unwanted teaches us to honor the love we have experienced in life; after all, love is the most powerful force in all of creation." Michael Bernard Beckwith, author of Spiritual Liberation, says in his review, "Candace Henderson's Blessed to Be Unwanted is an extraordinary testament to how her mother transformed tragedy into a triumph of the human spirit and now, through Candace, delivers a remarkable message to adoptive and foster children about their limitless potential for fulfilling their life purpose. I highly recommend this book as well to foster and adoptive parents."

The story begins with the day Candace's mother, Joan "Joni" Doyle Webb, was given away at just five days old by her biological mother. This seemingly tragic event puts Joni literally into the hands of Dorothy Doyle, who with her husband Frank were known in the community as extraordinary foster parents. Ultimately, the Doyles lovingly raised Joni and 28 other foster children during and after the years of WWII. Many decades later, Joni's daughter writes that she is forever grateful that her mother, wrapped in a pink blanket with $5, was put in the arms of the Doyles. Candace hopes that by telling this compelling story she will raise awareness around the topic of children who are in foster care and adopted, while celebrating those who have met the challenges and opportunities of fostering and adopting.

Blessed to Be Unwanted is available on Amazon in paperback or for Kindle.

Contact: Candace Webb Henderson (949) 584-7618 or [email protected]

Related Images

candace-webb-henderson.jpg

Candace Webb Henderson

Author profile photo

blessed-to-be-unwanted.jpg

Blessed to Be Unwanted

Book image

Related Links

website

SOURCE Candace Webb HendersonSAN JOSE, Calif., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

New Connection Simplifies Data Integration and Improves Supply Chain Efficiencies

Bristlecone Inc., the premier supply chain consulting company, today announced the release of its SAP Ariba Cloud Connector for Informatica Cloud. The new connector will simplify data integration, helping reduce complexity in the procurement process and improve the efficiency of supply chain operations for Informatica customers.

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/491101/Bristlecone_Logo.jpg )



Bristlecone, part of the $19B Mahindra Group, has built accelerated industry solutions and integrations for the past 20 years, helping organizations maximize ROI from their existing enterprise technology landscape leveraging best of the breed solutions in the cloud.

"As organizations move to a cloud based delivery model, they are facing challenges in continuing to operate and leverage their existing infrastructure investment, while also working to adopt new cloud based point solutions," said Irfan A. Khan, CEO and President of Bristlecone. "On premise and multi-cloud integration can be difficult for companies to undertake. The new Informatica connector will simplify the process of sharing information in real-time, facilitating collaboration between partners, vendors and customers through Ariba, allowing businesses to realize the value of their investments."

"Connectivity between Informatica and Ariba will address a long-standing global customer requirement that will bring supply chain efficiencies to our joint customers," said Ronen Schwartz, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Big Data, Cloud and Data Integration, Informatica. "We are excited to begin our collaboration journey with Bristlecone and leverage their industry domain expertise in the extended supply chain space, building integration solutions that will deliver cross platform connectivity."

When we discuss Industry 4.0, Data is a core to its theme. New generation connected devices and smart applications are generating and gathering data of all kinds. Sharing that data across heterogeneous systems to drive better operations is key, enabling faster decision making with minimum disruptions. The need for data integration is acute in this environment. Increased and real-time access to data can lead to more flexibility and responsiveness for business. The integration between Ariba and Informatica will facilitate and enable this visibility and exchange of information.

About Bristlecone

Bristlecone, a subsidiary of the $19B Mahindra group, is a premier supply chain advisory firm focused on enabling digitally connected and anti-fragile supply chains. It has been rated by leading industry analysts as one of the supply chain management firms consistently over the last decade, with a singular focus on successfully addressing customer's Procurement, Supply Chain and Analytics challenges.

Headquartered in California's Silicon Valley, Bristlecone also has offices located across the United States, Germany, Switzerland, Singapore, Malaysia, UAE, Australia and India.

To learn more visit: http://www.bcone.com

Media Contacts:

Prashant Mendki

Bristlecone

+1-650-386-4090

[email protected]





SOURCE Bristlecone Inc.Bruce Murphy, who joined the company in 1990, has been Head of Corporate Responsibility since 2013 and has made significant contributions to the company by establishing KeyBank as a leader in responsible banking, operations and citizenship. "Bruce's focus on balancing mission and margin has spanned across many areas of Key including the KeyBank Foundation, fair and responsible products and community development lending," said Beth Mooney, Chairman and CEO of KeyCorp. "Key is a stronger bank and community partner thanks to Bruce's tireless work. He will leave a lasting legacy at KeyBank."

Among Murphy's many accomplishments include the development and execution of the $16.5 billion National Community Benefits Plan. The first of its kind, the National Community Benefits Plan set a new standard in the industry and includes commitments for community development lending and investing, mortgages to low-to-moderate income families, small business lending and transformative philanthropy.

Often recognized for his broad circle of influence and civic footprint, Murphy is a member of Leadership Cleveland, board member of A.M. McGregor Foundation, and Bank Administration Institute. He also serves on the FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion.

Don Graves joined Key in 2017 as Senior Director of Corporate Community Initiatives & Relations. In this role, Graves has worked to integrate Key's strategies between community outreach efforts and public officials, trade groups and agencies that support the opportunities and obligations of the National Community Benefits Plan. Prior to joining Key, Don served as Counselor and Domestic and Economic Policy Director for Vice President Biden, providing advice on a range of policy issues including ways to create jobs and opportunity for the American people. Don was previously appointed by President Obama as Executive Director of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness at the White House and was also appointed by the President to lead the federal government's efforts in the city of Detroit.

"Don's focus on community transformation and engagement has given him the depth and breadth of experience to effectively lead Key's Corporate Responsibility organization. I'm excited Don will be bringing his passion for both creating value and transforming communities to his new role. I look forward to Bruce and Don partnering closely over the next several months to ensure a smooth transition," said Mooney.

About KeyCorp

KeyCorp's roots trace back 190 years to Albany, New York. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Key is one of the nation's largest bank-based financial services companies, with assets of approximately $137.7 billion at December 31, 2017. Key provides deposit, lending, cash management, insurance, and investment services to individuals and businesses in 15 states under the name KeyBank National Association through a network of approximately 1,200 branches and more than 1,500 ATMs. Key also provides a broad range of sophisticated corporate and investment banking products, such as merger and acquisition advice, public and private debt and equity, syndications, and derivatives to middle market companies in selected industries throughout the United States under the KeyBanc Capital Markets trade name. For more information, visit https://www.key.com/. KeyBank is Member FDIC.

SOURCE KeyCorp

Related Links

www.key.com

Oceanstar, headquartered in Southern California, will help guide customers across the globe with reliable freight forwarding, intermodal transportation, and sourcing services. With supply chain management expertise across a broad range of industries  from food to manufacturing to oil and gas, Oceanstar has continuously applied best practices developed from specializing in fragile, perishable goods to deliver everything it touches both intact and on time. "Oceanstar has been an industry pioneer for many years. I've followed their operations closely and am looking forward to them joining the Seldat family," says Daniel Dadoun, CEO of Seldat.

Oceanstar provides seamless global transportation and sourcing services. Oceanstar's clients can expect zero interruptions in ongoing operations and will enjoy additional services moving forward. Seldat's global supply chain network and technology solutions will provide new opportunities for customers seeking a competitive business advantage. "I'm very excited that Oceanstar is now a part of the Seldat family. Daniel's vision for the future will require the very best from all of us. The entire Oceanstar team is ready to make that vision a reality," says Paul Conolly, Oceanstar's founder and Managing Director. Paul will focus his efforts on strengthening carrier and customer relationships as well as guide the company toward future growth and innovation. Oceanstar by Seldat is committed to delivering the highest standards of service for all customer shipments.

About Seldat: Seldat Distribution Inc. provides innovative, scalable solutions and services that help companies in every link of the global supply chain grow and prosper. Our mission is to empower businesses and consumers worldwide to find, buy, and sell anythingwithout the limitations of borders and logistics challenges. Headquartered in South Plainfield, New Jersey, Seldat employs more than 2,200 people across North America, LATAM, EMEA, and APAC. To learn more, please visit www.seldatinc.com, tech.seldatinc.com, and oceanstarinc.com.

Contact:

Anne Journick

Global Marketing Director, Seldat Distribution Inc.

Phone: 908.315.5979 Ext. 112

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Seldat Distribution Inc.

Related Links

https://seldatinc.com

"Shrimp farming has inherent weather and disease risks," said Neil Wendover, Cargill's digital insights product line director for aquaculture. "By working directly with shrimp farmers, our data scientists can use machine learning to deliver insights to inform decisions that directly impact the growth and economics of their operations."

The iQShrimp software captures data from shrimp ponds through mobile devices, sensors and automated feeders to record data about shrimp size, water quality, feeding patterns, and health and weather conditions. The system then combines production and environmental information into a "live operations dashboard" to provide insights and recommendations, such as feeding management strategies and optimal harvest dates.

"Producers get a world-class software solution that is ready to connect to any device and provides the foundation for leveraging data as a competitive advantage without having to make a large technology investment," Wendover said.

The technology will be available to customers globally, and is tailored to meet the needs of local producers. Today, iQShrimp is available for producers in Mexico, Central America, Ecuador, New Caledonia, Southeast Asia and India, and will expand to other geographies in the coming months.

As part of its commitment to digitalization and analytics, Cargill collaborates with IoT partners and other industry disruptors to bring technology innovations to customers across species. Over the next several months, Cargill will expand iQuatic offerings to other species, including tilapia and salmon. The iQShrimp launch comes on the heels of the company's introduction of Dairy Enteligen and its recent equity investment in Cainthus, a machine-learning vision company.

"Cargill will continue to aggressively grow its capability in the technology, digital and analytics space to help farmers make quicker, faster decisions that directly impact their productivity and profitability," said SriRaj Kantamneni, managing director for Cargill's digital insights business.

"We are changing the industry by using machine learning, algorithms and data science to deliver more accurate and precise information for our customers."

About Cargill

Cargill provides food, agriculture, financial and industrial products and services to the world. Together with producers, customers, governments and communities, we help people thrive by applying our insights and 150 years of experience. We have 155,000 employees in 70 countries who are committed to feeding the world in a responsible way, reducing environmental impact and improving the communities where we live and work. For more information, visit Cargill.com and our News Center.

About Cargill Animal Nutrition

Cargill's animal nutrition business has more than 23,000 employees at more than 275 facilities in 40 countries. Fuelled by our innovation and research, we offer a range of products and services to feed manufacturers, animal producers, and feed retailers around the world, helping put food on the plates of nearly one billion people around the world every day. Cargill's animal nutrition business offers a range of compound feed, premixes, feed additives, supply chain and risk management solutions, software tools and animal nutrition expertise that is unmatched in the industry. For more information about Cargill Animal Nutrition, visit: http://www.cargill.com/animal-nutrition.

SOURCE Cargill

Related Links

http://www.cargill.com

Families, students and CCCS teachers and administrators were in attendance as the participating students recited speeches, memoirs, poems, and "spoken word," in classroom groups, to pay homage to the works of great African-American writers, authors, and orators (Video available at chestercommunitycharter.org ).

First-, second-, and third-place prizes were awarded after two preliminary rounds. Top honors went to Ms.Tiffani Osborne's first-grade class, for their recitation of "Harriet Tubman," by Eloise Greenfield; second place was awarded to Ms. Jessica Albrittain's Life Skills class for their performance of "My People," by Langston Hughes; and the third-place winner was Amber McHugh's kindergarten class for "Life Doesn't Threaten Me," by Maya Angelou.

CCCS's judges for the competition included: Ms. Susanne Cianfaro, student services coordinator/social worker; Dr. David Clark, CEO; Dr. Benita Jessup, director, English Language; Dr. Linda Portlock, deputy superintendent; Ms. Annette Ray, executive assistant to Dr. Clark; Dr. Kwame Williams, principal, Freedom Hall, and Ms. Stephanie Wright, student services coordinator.

"The school's kindergarten and first-grade students worked very hard to produce a fitting tribute for Black History Month," said Principal Nicole Patterson. "I promise this event will become an annual tradition."

About Chester Community Charter School

Chester Community Charter School opened its doors on September 9, 1998, serving 97 students from its modest, four, meeting rooms, in the lobby of the Howard Johnson Hotel, in Chester, PA. Since that time, the school has steadily grown to include more than 4,200 students in 12 state-of-the-art-buildings, spanning four campuses. Through collaboration with the Gureghian Charitable Foundation, and CCCS' High School Search and Selection Program, more than $9.5 million in scholarships and financial assistance to prestigious private secondary schools has been awarded to 350 of the school's graduates, since 2016.

http://chestercommunitycharter.org

Contact: A. Bruce Crawley

Millennium 3 Management, Inc.

Tel: 215-751-0140

Email: [email protected]

Social: Twitter/Instagram: @M3M_PR

SOURCE Chester Community Charter School

Related Links

http://chestercommunitycharter.org

CHICAGO, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Conagra Brands, Inc. (NYSE: CAG) today issued the following response to the decision by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to challenge the pending sale of the Wesson oil business to The J.M. Smucker Company:

"Today, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it will challenge our pending sale of the Wesson oil business to The J.M. Smucker Company. After working diligently for the last eight months to respond to the FTC's inquiries about the transaction, we are very disappointed by and disagree with the Commission's decision. We are working with The J.M. Smucker Company to review all of our options."

In May 2017, Conagra Brands announced the definitive agreement with the J.M. Smucker Company to divest the Wesson oil business.

About Conagra Brands

Conagra Brands, Inc. (NYSE: CAG), headquartered in Chicago, is one of North America's leading branded food companies. Guided by an entrepreneurial spirit, Conagra Brands combines a rich heritage of making great food with a sharpened focus on innovation. The company's portfolio is evolving to satisfy people's changing food preferences. Conagra's iconic brands, such as Marie Callender's, Reddi-wip, Hunt's, Healthy Choice, Slim Jim and Orville Redenbacher's, as well as emerging brands, including Alexia, Blake's, Frontera, Duke's and Angie's BOOMCHICKAPOP, offer choices for every occasion. For more information, visit www.conagrabrands.com.

Note on Forward-looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. These forward-looking statements include, among others, statements regarding the completion of the proposed divestiture of the Wesson oil business. We undertake no responsibility for updating these statements, except as required by law. Readers of this press release should understand that these statements are not guarantees of performance or results. There is no assurance that the potential transaction will be consummated, and there are a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements made herein. These risks and uncertainties include: the timing to complete a potential divestiture of certain assets related to the Wesson oil business; the ability and timing to obtain required regulatory approvals and satisfy other closing conditions for the transaction; Conagra Brands' ability to achieve the intended benefits of acquisitions and divestitures, including the transaction described in this press release; and other risks described in the reports filed by Conagra Brands from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We caution readers not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements included in this press release, which speak only as of the date of this press release.

For more information, please contact:

MEDIA:

Kristine Mulford

312-549-5522

[email protected]



INVESTORS:

Brian Kearney

312-549-5002

[email protected]



SOURCE Conagra Brands, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.conagrabrands.com

JACKSON, Mich., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- More than 140 Consumers Energy employees and contract personnel are responding to a winter storm that left nearly 2 million residents in the Northeast U.S. without power.

Consumers Energy crews, including lineworkers, damage assessors, safety personnel and other field employees, are scheduled to depart the company's Jackson Service Center, 1955 W. Parnall Road, by 5 p.m. today. Media are invited to arrive after 3:30 p.m. to see crews assemble, conduct interviews with company officials and observe the departure of up to 15 large Consumers Energy bucket trucks and other service vehicles.

The Consumers Energy contingent is initially headed for Philadelphia, to assist with PECO utility. The crews expect to begin restoration work later Tuesday.

"We are ready and willing to assist our colleagues out East as they recover from this significant storm," said Guy Packard, Consumers Energy vice president of electric energy operations. "In the past, we were fortunate to be supported by out-of-state crews following major storms. This is an opportunity for us to return the favor to our fellow line workers."

Packard said the decision to release both Consumers Energy employees and about 30 Michigan-based contractors who work on its electric system was made after analyzing weather forecasts. He said enough crews remain in-state to address any future weather related outages. The contractor crews left Saturday and Sunday and are working in New Jersey.

Additional details of the mutual assistance effort include:

Storm Impact:

The "Nor'easter" is the same storm which clipped southeast Michigan late last week, with strong winds and heavy, wet snow causing more than 1,000 Consumers Energy customers to lose power for several hours.

late last week, with strong winds and heavy, wet snow causing more than 1,000 Consumers Energy customers to lose power for several hours.

Gaining strength as it moved eastward Friday, the storm cut power to 1.9 million customers in the Mid-Atlantic, Northeast and New England regions. As of Sunday, nearly 200,000 customers were still without power, including more than 70,000 PECO customers in the greater Philadelphia area.

area. Mutual Assistance Coordination: The North Atlantic Mutual Assistance Group, a collection of more than two dozen regional electric utilities, is requesting mutual aid from utilities across the Eastern U.S. Consumers Energy is a member of the Great Lakes Mutual Assistance Group, one of the organizations contacted for assistance.

The North Atlantic Mutual Assistance Group, a collection of more than two dozen regional electric utilities, is requesting mutual aid from utilities across the Eastern U.S. Consumers Energy is a member of the Great Lakes Mutual Assistance Group, one of the organizations contacted for assistance. Michigan Crews: Lineworkers from 15 different Consumers Energy service centers across Michigan are expected to make the trip. Other employees include zone managers and field leaders, mechanics, damage assessors and safety representatives. The crews are expected to remain out East for up to two weeks. While out East, all of Consumers Energy's costs are paid for by the host utilities.

Consumers Energy, Michigan's largest energy provider, is the principal subsidiary of CMS Energy (NYSE: CMS), providing natural gas and/or electricity to 6.7 million of the state's 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties.

For more information about Consumers Energy, go to www.ConsumersEnergy.com.

Check out Consumers Energy on Social Media

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/consumersenergymichigan

Twitter: https://twitter.com/consumersenergy

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/consumersenergy

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/consumersenergy

SOURCE Consumers Energy

Related Links

http://www.consumersenergy.com

NEW YORK, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cota Inc., a real-world data and analytics company that bridges precision medicine to population health, today announced the third version of Cota Real World Analytics (RWA). This latest version of RWA helps physician leaders extend industry-proven best practices to oncologists across their provider networks, identifying optimal processes, treatments and outcomes that drive practice transformation. The company will be demonstrating the enhanced solution at booth 11334 at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Annual Conference & Exhibition (HIMSS18) in Las Vegas, Nevada from March 5-9, 2018.

RWA is a web-based solution that leverages Cota's oncology expertise, combining pre-built analyses, the patented Cota Nodal AddressTM (CNA) precise disease classification system and benchmarking from Cota's Real-World Evidence (RWE). Composed of nearly 2 million patient records, Cota's RWE is the most comprehensive collection of research-grade, longitudinal oncology patient data available on the market. RWA draws from this immense data set to help providers measure performance and identify variation in treatments, outcomes and quality metric performance. The solution suite embeds analytical insights within existing workflows and enhances user interface which makes it easier than ever before to improve patient outcomes. Baptist Health South Florida, which recently announced a multi-year agreement with Cota, is one of the early provider partners that will leverage RWA version 3 this year.

"To drive improvement at the practice level, oncology leaders need access to a bird's-eye view of physician decision-making and outcomes across the network that they can then compare to a reliable industry benchmark," said Andrew Norden, M.D., chief medical officer for Cota. "Whether you are a chief or director of oncology spearheading an ongoing professional practice evaluation (OPPE) process, a hospital chief quality officer or a healthcare system leader implementing value-based reimbursement models, RWA empowers clinical and administrative leaders with the insights they need to identify quality improvement opportunities and ensure optimal, cost-effective decisions for every patient, every time."

RWA's key features include:

Extensive, on-the-fly cohort creation by patient demographics, disease characteristics, genomic markers and treatments, with filtering by oncologist and site

CNA-driven analysis, which permits comparisons of clinically similar patient cohorts and their treatments and outcomes across physicians and sites of care

Reporting of meaningful, cohort-specific quality metrics based on ASCO's Quality Oncology Practice Initiative, NQF and other standards

Population comparisons that display performance of individual physicians against their peers as well as the host institution against all of Cota RWE

Presentation of multiple longitudinal outcome measures such as overall and progression-free survival, response to treatment, side effects, functional status and more

As the industry shifts toward value, providers need a way to think about patients in the context of value-based care. Cota helps healthcare organizations navigate this change towards value-based payments, quality metrics and performance improvement with Cota Provider, its end-to-end oncology analytics solution that includes RWA, Research, Point-of-Care and Value-Based Tracking. This latest solution suite is designed to support health systems and physician groups across community, academic and for-profit lines to improve quality and outcomes.

To schedule a demonstration or meet with Cota representatives to learn more about RWA or other Cota Provider solutions, please contact [email protected].

About Cota

Cota is a real-world data and analytics company that enables providers, payers and life science companies involved in diagnosing and treating complex diseases to optimize the outcomes of individual patients and lower the overall cost of the patient population served. It is powered by the patented Cota Nodal Address (CNA) system, a unique digital classification methodology built by leading physicians and data scientists. The CNA is the first and only system that precisely categorizes patient factors, their diseases and intended therapies, enabling precision medicine at scale. Cota's real-world evidence sets are being used by life science companies to expand the application of precise clinical data to broaden the efficacies and lower the costs of clinical trials.

Cota's technology enriches medical records to create research-grade data and joins it with a suite of analysis, visualization and management tools. This enables providers, payers and life science companies to analyze, report on and research outcomes, costs, treatments and quality at any granularity and stage of the patient journey. The result is a constantly improving system that merges technology and medicine to improve the lives of patients everywhere. For more information, go to www.cotahealthcare.com

Media Contacts

Victoria Khamsombath

SHIFT Communications for Cota

[email protected]

415.591.8464

SOURCE Cota

Related Links

http://www.oncota.com

SOUTH PLAINFIELD, N.J., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Craig McGraw of Marlboro NJ, the national sales director for Trans American Trucking & Warehouse, South Plainfield NJ, has been accepted into the Forbes Business Development Council, an invitation-only community for senior-level sales and business development executives.

Trans American Trucking & Warehouse, established in 1976, provides customers throughout the United States and Canada with transportation, warehousing, packing and export services. The weight of the cargo ranges from 300 to 300,000 pounds.

Craig McGraw, Forbes Business Development Council/Photographer: Neil van Niekerk Photography

McGraw joins other Forbes Business Development Council members, who are hand-selected, to become part of a curated network of successful peers and get access to a variety of exclusive benefits and resources, including the opportunity to submit thought leadership articles and short tips on industry- related topics for publishing on Forbes.com.

Forbes Councils combines an innovative, high-touch approach to community management perfected by the team behind Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) with the extensive resources and global reach of Forbes. As a result, Forbes Council members get access to the people, benefits and expertise they need to grow their businesses.

Craig McGraw, National Sales Director of Trans American, says "I'm honored to be joining such a well-respected Forbes Council and look forward to being involved with something that will help me reach people in my industry as well as supporters of the non-profit boards which I serve."

Scott Gerber, founder of Forbes Councils, says, "We are honored to welcome Craig McGraw into the community. Our mission with Forbes Councils is to curate successful professionals from every industry, creating a vetted, social capital-driven network that helps every member make an even greater impact on the business world."

Media Contact: Vincent Brnjas, Trans American Trucking 908-755-9000

About Trans American Trucking:

Trans American, 115 St. Nicholas Avenue, South Plainfield, N.J., ships within the contiguous United States and Canada. The company was one of the first Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) and Free and Secure Trade (FAST) certified carriers. Trans American workers hold the Transportation Worker Identification Credential (TWIC). The company is a member in good standing of the Railway Industrial Clearance Association (RICA), the Specialized Carriers & Rigging Association (SC&RA) and the NY/NJ Foreign Freight Forwarders and Brokers Association. www.transamer.com

About Forbes Councils:

Forbes partnered with the founders of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) to launch Forbes Councils, invitation-only communities for world-class business professionals in a variety of industries. Members, who are hand-selected by each Council's community team, receive personalized introductions to each other based on their specific needs and gain access to a wide range of business benefits and services, including best-in-class concierge teams, personalized connections, peer-to-peer learning, a business services marketplace, and the opportunity to share thought leadership content on Forbes.com. For more information about Forbes Business Development Council, visit forbesbizdevcouncil.com. To learn more about Forbes Councils, visit forbescouncils.com.

SOURCE Trans American Trucking

Related Links

http://www.transamer.com

ATLANTA, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Dana Incorporated (NYSE: DAN) today introduced its new Spicer S172 series single drive axle for Class 7 and 8 vehicles. The new product retains the robustness and strength of the existing S170 single drive axle, but weighs more than 60 pounds less. It is yet another example of Dana's commitment to optimizing fleet uptime with lightweight but durable product offerings.

The axle is crafted for 4x2, 6x2, and 8x2 applications up to 25,000 lbs. (11,340 kg) GAWR. It offers a broad range of gear ratios, from 3.07 to 6.14, and features a low hypoid offset with High-Power Density AdvanTEK gearing to drive maximum efficiency. The high-strength pinion bearings allow for greater lifespan under heavy loads, improving durability and overall performance. In addition, a passive lube management system requires less lube while utilizing a patented meter to optimize the amount of lube flow to the high-efficiency bearings.

The single drive axle can also be paired with the Dana tag axle as part of the Spicer EconoTrek tandem axle, a durable, lightweight 6x2 configuration that offers increased fuel economy, improved performance, and reduced maintenance for heavy-duty linehaul tractors. This system is up to 3 percent more efficient and up to 380 pounds lighter than typical 6x4 offerings.

"Dana engineers are continuously examining innovative ways to improve our existing products," said Mark Wallace, president of Dana Commercial Driveline Technologies. "We were able to build upon the advanced features of the S170 and make it lighter without sacrificing its industry-proven durability and efficiency. We remain a company committed to finding a better way to address the needs of our customers and the commercial-vehicle market."

Dana will present a comprehensive lineup of driveline technologies and other solutions for commercial vehicles in booth 1005 at the 2018 Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) Annual Meeting & Transportation Technology Exhibition this week.

About Dana Incorporated

Dana is a world leader in highly engineered solutions for improving the efficiency, performance, and sustainability of powered vehicles and machinery. Dana supports the passenger vehicle, commercial truck, and off-highway markets, as well as industrial and stationary equipment applications. Founded in 1904, Dana employs more than 30,000 people in 33 countries on six continents who are committed to delivering long-term value to customers. The company reported sales of more than $7.2 billion in 2017. Based in Maumee, Ohio, the company's operations were selected as a Top Workplace in Northwest Ohio and Southeast Michigan by The (Toledo) Blade for the last two years. Dana is ranked among the Drucker Institute's listing of the 250 most effectively managed companies. For more information, please visit dana.com.

SOURCE Dana Incorporated

Related Links

http://www.dana.com

AKRON, Ohio, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC), a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE), announced its Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Oak Harbor, Ohio, shut down at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, March 3, for scheduled refueling and maintenance.

While the unit is offline, about a third of the unit's 177 fuel assemblies will be replaced. Preventative maintenance and safety inspections to ensure continued safe and reliable operations also will be performed on major components including various pumps, valves, reactor vessel, steam generators, turbine generator and the cooling tower. In total, more than 1,200 work activities will be completed during the refueling outage.

More than 1,000 temporary contractor workers and FENOC and FirstEnergy employees will supplement the Davis-Besse workforce during the outage. The additional workforce will provide a multi-million-dollar boost to the local economy as workers stay in area hotels, eat in local restaurants and frequent area stores.

The 908-megawatt Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station has operated safely and reliably, generating more than 13.8 million megawatt hours of electricity since the completion of its last refueling in May 2016.

FirstEnergy is dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. Its FENOC subsidiary also operates the Beaver Valley Power Station in Shippingport, Pa. and the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Perry, Ohio. Visit FENOC on the web at www.fenoc.com, and follow the nuclear plants on Twitter @DavisBesse, @Perry_Plant, and @BVPowerStation.

Forward-Looking Statements: This release includes forward-looking statements based on information currently available to management. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. These statements include declarations regarding management's intents, beliefs and current expectations. These statements typically contain, but are not limited to, the terms "anticipate," "potential," "expect," "forecast," "target," "will," "intend," "believe," "project," "estimate," "plan" and similar words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, assumptions, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, which may include the following: the ability to experience growth in the Regulated Distribution and Regulated Transmission segments and the effectiveness of our strategy to transition to a fully regulated business profile; the accomplishment of our regulatory and operational goals in connection with our transmission and distribution investment plans, including, but not limited to, our planned transition to forward-looking formula rates; changes in assumptions regarding economic conditions within our territories, assessment of the reliability of our transmission system, or the availability of capital or other resources supporting identified transmission investment opportunities; the ability to accomplish or realize anticipated benefits from strategic and financial goals, including, but not limited to, the ability to continue to reduce costs and to successfully execute our financial plans designed to improve our credit metrics and strengthen our balance sheet; success of legislative and regulatory solutions for generation assets that recognize their environmental or energy security benefits; the risks and uncertainties associated with the lack of viable alternative strategies regarding the Competitive Energy Services (CES) segment, thereby causing FirstEnergy Solutions Corp. (FES) to restructure its substantial debt and other financial obligations with its creditors or seek protection under United States bankruptcy laws (which filing would include FirstEnergy Nuclear Operating Company (FENOC)) and the losses, liabilities and claims arising from such bankruptcy proceeding, including any obligations at FirstEnergy Corp.; the risks and uncertainties at the CES segment, including FES, its subsidiaries, and FENOC, related to wholesale energy and capacity markets, and the viability and/or success of strategic business alternatives, such as pending and potential CES generating unit asset sales or the potential need to deactivate additional generating units, which could result in further substantial write-downs and impairments of assets; the substantial uncertainty as to FES' ability to continue as a going concern and substantial risk that it may be necessary for FES and FENOC to seek protection under United States bankruptcy laws; the risks and uncertainties associated with litigation, arbitration, mediation and like proceedings, including, but not limited to, any such proceedings related to vendor commitments, such as long-term fuel and transportation agreements; the uncertainties associated with the deactivation of older regulated and competitive units, including the impact on vendor commitments, such as long-term fuel and transportation agreements, and as it relates to the reliability of the transmission grid, the timing thereof; the impact of other future changes to the operational status or availability of our generating units and any capacity performance charges associated with unit unavailability; changing energy, capacity and commodity market prices including, but not limited to, coal, natural gas and oil prices, and their availability and impact on margins; costs being higher than anticipated and the success of our policies to control costs and to mitigate low energy, capacity and market prices; replacement power costs being higher than anticipated or not fully hedged; our ability to improve electric commodity margins and the impact of, among other factors, the increased cost of fuel and fuel transportation on such margins; the uncertainty of the timing and amounts of the capital expenditures that may arise in connection with any litigation, including New Source Review litigation, or potential regulatory initiatives or rulemakings (including that such initiatives or rulemakings could result in our decision to deactivate or idle certain generating units); changes in customers' demand for power, including, but not limited to, changes resulting from the implementation of state and federal energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; economic or weather conditions affecting future sales, margins and operations such as a polar vortex or other significant weather events, and all associated regulatory events or actions; changes in national and regional economic conditions affecting us, our subsidiaries and/or our major industrial and commercial customers, and other counterparties with which we do business, including fuel suppliers; the impact of labor disruptions by our unionized workforce; the risks associated with cyber-attacks and other disruptions to our information technology system that may compromise our generation, transmission and/or distribution services and data security breaches of sensitive data, intellectual property and proprietary or personally identifiable information regarding our business, employees, shareholders, customers, suppliers, business partners and other individuals in our data centers and on our networks; the impact of the regulatory process and resulting outcomes on the matters at the federal level and in the various states in which we do business including, but not limited to, matters related to rates; the impact of the federal regulatory process on Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)-regulated entities and transactions, in particular FERC regulation of wholesale energy and capacity markets, including PJM Interconnection, L.L.C. (PJM) markets and FERC-jurisdictional wholesale transactions; FERC regulation of cost-of-service rates; and FERC's compliance and enforcement activity, including compliance and enforcement activity related to North American Electric Reliability Corporation's mandatory reliability standards; the uncertainties of various cost recovery and cost allocation issues resulting from American Transmission Systems, Incorporated's realignment into PJM; the ability to comply with applicable state and federal reliability standards and energy efficiency and peak demand reduction mandates; other legislative and regulatory changes, including the federal administration's required review and potential revision of environmental requirements, including, but not limited to, the effects of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Clean Power Plan, Coal Combustion Residuals regulations, Cross-State Air Pollution Rule and Mercury and Air Toxics Standards programs, including our estimated costs of compliance, Clean Water Act (CWA) waste water effluent limitations for power plants, and CWA 316(b) water intake regulation; adverse regulatory or legal decisions and outcomes with respect to our nuclear operations (including, but not limited to, the revocation or non-renewal of necessary licenses, approvals or operating permits by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; issues arising from the indications of cracking in the shield building at Davis-Besse; changing market conditions that could affect the measurement of certain liabilities and the value of assets held in our Nuclear Decommissioning Trusts, pension trusts and other trust funds, and cause us and/or our subsidiaries to make additional contributions sooner, or in amounts that are larger than currently anticipated; the impact of changes to significant accounting policies; the impact of any changes in tax laws or regulations, including the Tax Cuts and Job Act, or adverse tax audit results or rulings; the ability to access the public securities and other capital and credit markets in accordance with our financial plans, the cost of such capital and overall condition of the capital and credit markets affecting us and our subsidiaries; further actions that may be taken by credit rating agencies that could negatively affect us and/or our subsidiaries' access to financing, increase the costs thereof, increase requirements to post additional collateral to support, or accelerate payments under outstanding commodity positions, letters of credit and other financial guarantees, and the impact of these events on the financial condition and liquidity of FirstEnergy Corp. and/or its subsidiaries, specifically FES and its subsidiaries; issues concerning the stability of domestic and foreign financial institutions and counterparties with which we do business; and the risks and other factors discussed from time to time in our United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, and other similar factors. A security rating is not a recommendation to buy or hold securities and is subject to revision or withdrawal at any time by the assigning rating agency. Each rating should be evaluated independently of any other rating. These forward-looking statements are also qualified by, and should be read in conjunction with the other cautionary statements and risks that are included in our filings with the SEC, including but not limited to the most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and any subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q. These risks, unless otherwise indicated, are presented on a consolidated basis for FirstEnergy; if and to the extent a deconsolidation occurs with respect to certain FirstEnergy companies, the risks described herein may materially change. The foregoing review of factors also should not be construed as exhaustive. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for management to predict all such factors, nor assess the impact of any such factor on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. We expressly disclaim any obligation to update or revise, except as required by law, any forward-looking statements contained herein as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.

Related Links

http://www.firstenergycorp.com

The regional premiere of this exhibition is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see authentic Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient manuscripts that include the oldest known biblical documents dating back over 2,000 years. Ten scrolls will be displayed when the exhibition opens. Due to strict preservation requirements, 10 different scrolls will arrive halfway through the run to replace the 10 initial scrolls. This will make it possible to see a total of 20 scrolls while the exhibition is in Denver. Each rotation includes a scroll that has never before been on public display.

In addition, more than 600 authentic artifacts from the ancient Middle East will immerse guests in historic traditions and beliefs that continue to impact world cultures today. The authentic objects include inscriptions and seals, weapons, stone carvings, terra cotta figurines, coins, shoes, textiles, mosaics, ceramics, jewelry and a three-ton stone from the Western Wall in Jerusalem, believed to have fallen in 70 CE. The exhibition is organized by the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA).

The Dead Sea Scrolls represent one of the most significant archaeological discoveries of all time. As the story goes, in 1947 young Bedouin goatherders wandered into a cave along the shore of the Dead Sea, near the site of the ancient settlement of Qumran, perhaps in search of a stray goat. Whatever the reason, they made a remarkable discovery: an assortment of clay jars containing scrolls wrapped in linen. Over the next nine years, archaeologists and Bedouins searched the surrounding caves. Around 900 remarkably preserved scrolls were recovered, leading to decades of extraordinary scrutiny, preservation, debate and awe, providing an incredible window to the past.

Timed tickets for "Dead Sea Scrolls" will be required and advance reservations are strongly encouraged. For tickets and information, visit dmns.org/deadseascrolls or call 303-370-6000.

The IMAX 3D film "Jerusalem," now showing in Phipps IMAX Theater at the Museum, is the perfect complement to "Dead Sea Scrolls." IMAX tickets and schedule are available at dmns.org/imax.

For more information, contact Maura O'Neal, public relations manager, at [email protected] or 303.370.6407.

SOURCE Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Related Links

http://www.dmns.org

LAS VEGAS, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- As the owner of United Nissan and now Tustin Nissan, Don Forman of Las Vegas together with others, power the Fox5 Surprise Squad in giving back to the community since 2014. His philanthropy knows no boundaries and he puts his business needs aside to assist other people.



There is a long list of philanthropic surprises that Don Forman and the Fox5 Surprise Squad has done since its inception in 2014. One of these touching stories was the gifting of Glen Zani with money and the equipment for building and transporting crosses to the chosen sites. Glen Zani, a man without many resources, constructed crosses and delivered them to the sites where people had lost lives such as at the Route 91 Harvest Festival, Sandy Hook Shooting, and Colorado Movie Theater Shooting venues among others.



Additional philanthropic acts by Don Forman and the Fox5 Surprise Squad include the gifting of a young lady who volunteered to take an autistic boy to a homecoming after he was rejected by others. The said boy was given an education scholarship. In November 2017, Las Vegas shoppers were the recipients of Don Forman's and Fox5 Surprise Squad's kind acts when this team surprised them with Thanksgiving turkeys at Albertsons. Two young boys got to meet their bull-riding icons and attend a bull-riding match courtesy of Don Forman's support of the Fox5 Surprise Squad.



During the 2017 shooting that took place in Las Vegas, near the Casino and the Mandalay Bay Resort, Don Forman's United Nissan's workers halted their business transactions and concentrated on ferrying the victims of the shooting and their loved ones to the hospitals and then set-up camp. Don Forman worked with the other teams in mourning the lost lives and helping the injured persons. The team at United Nissan was also given time off to attend to their families if they were affected by the shooting incident.

About Don Forman and Fox5 Surprise Squad



Don Forman is one of the powering forces behind Fox5 Surprise Squad. He lives in Las Vegas Nevada and, together with others including Vons and American First Credit Union, finances Fox5. The Fox5 Surprise Squad's crew comprises of different personalities and hands including the camera team and the reporters who air the philanthropy videos on YouTube. Don Forman participates in person in some of the giftings that the team does. Millions of people around the world have watched this amazing team's humanitarian videos.

Don Forman

Owner

United Nissan

(714) 352-0996

[email protected]

This release was issued through WebWire(R). For more information visit http://www.webwire.com.

SOURCE United NissanBOSTON, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new Emerson College poll finds Pennsylvania's 18th District Special Congressional election with Conor Lamb at 48% and Republican Rick Saccone at 45%, 7% of likely voters are undecided. The data was collected between March 1-3 and used an online and landline sample of 474 likely voters with a CI of +/- 4.8 percentage points. Full podcast listen here http://bit.ly/2FiLxZG.

Emerson ePoll: PA USC 18, Lamb 48%, Saccone 45%

This election has garnered a lot of voting excitement with 56% saying they are very excited to vote, and 7% not excited at all. It's voter excitement that might put Lamb over the top. When asked about level of excitement among voters about the election, 63% of Lamb voters reported being very excited compared to 53% of Saccone voters. Lamb voters also are paying more attention to the race, with 47% reported paying a lot of attention, compared to 42% of Saccone voters.

Lamb has a positive image in the district, with 48% saying they have a favorable opinion and a 33% unfavorable rating  15% of voters had heard of him but had no opinion. Saccone is not as popular with a 44% favorable and a 40% unfavorable rating  15% of voters had heard of him but had no opinion.

Lamb leads 57% to 40% in Allegheny County, which is expected to account for about 42% of the vote. Saccone leads in Westmoreland County 51% to 42%, a county that comprises about 33% of the vote. Saccone leads in Washington County 46% to 41%, which make up about 22% of the vote.

Trump won the district 58% to 39% in 2016, and Mitt Romney fared equally well in 2012 with 58% of the vote to 41% for President Obama. Trump currently has a 47% job approval in the district with 43% disapproving, despite 46% of the district being registered Democrat. Similarly, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi only has a 20% approval rate, with 57% disapproving.

When it comes to issues, 47% said that they are less likely to vote for someone running on an impeach Trump platform, compared to 38% saying they are more likely to vote based on that issue, and 10% claiming it makes no difference. Arming teachers in classrooms has become a hot topic with 48% opposing the idea and 40% supporting it.

This will be the last election for this configuration, as new district maps will be implemented for the 2018 primary in May. Voters were asked about the recently redrawn Congressional district map and based on what they knew, 37% said it favored Democrats and 11% said it favored Republicans. 31% thought it was fair to both parties.

Methodology:

The PA USC 18th district Emerson College epoll was conducted March 1-3, 2018 under the Supervision of Professor Spencer Kimball. The sample consisted of only registered voters, n=474, with a Credibility Interval (similar to margin of error) of +/- 4.8 percentage points. The data was weighted by party affiliation, gender and county. Data was collected using both an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system of landlines only and an online panel provided by Survey Sampling International (SSI). Full methodology available at theecps.com

Emerson College Polling Weekly podcast is available on iTunes, Stitcher and the CLNS Media Mobile App. Visit our website at http://www.emersoncollegepollingsociety.com.

Follow us on Facebook and Twitter @EmersonPolling.

Media contact:

Nikolas Emack-Bazelais

[email protected]

617-824-3491

SOURCE Emerson College Polling

Related Links

http://www.emersoncollegepollingsociety.com

DALLAS, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Expedia CruiseShipCenters, the top cruise retail travel agency franchise in North America, has announced targeted expansion plans to bring additional travel franchise locations to Texas. Joining four locations already open, and an additional seven under development, the leading travel franchise brand plans to have a total of 23 locations open and operating in Texas over the next three to five years.

Folded into an overall growth vision for the brand, the new Texas development efforts are key to Expedia CruiseShipCenters' goal to reach its 500-location milestone in North America over the next five years. In addition to the four locations already in operation throughout Texas, Expedia CruiseShipCenters has seven locations currently in development in Dallas, McKinney, Houston, San Antonio and Waco, which are all projected to open over the next three to nine months.

"The strength and rapid growth of our brand is influenced by the increased popularity of the cruise industry which has continued to rise over the last decade," said Bob Tipple, Senior Director of Franchising. "As the third largest state for cruise embarkations, Texas provides enormous potential for cruise vacation sales and is the perfect market for Expedia CruiseShipCenters to continue its growth."

According to Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), over one million cruisers originated from the Lone Star State in 2016 accounting for nearly 10 percent of all North American cruise passengers. As driving distance to port is a key decision-making factor for cruisers, Expedia CruiseShipCenters has identified the state of Texas as a prime market for its retail travel franchise opportunity due to its significant source of cruisers and cruise port in Galveston.

"Texas is the second most populated state in Americaand with over 28 million residents residing there, we have room to add over 100 new Centers," said Tipple. "Our current franchise development plan hones in on the next three years as we look to add 12 more Centers in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area, as well as in several other growth markets."

Additional target markets for Expedia CruiseShipCenters' franchise development in Texas includes the greater Houston area, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, Corpus Christi, and several markets in between.

Expedia CruiseShipCenters' growth is in part driven by the continued expansion of the cruising industry. As noted in the recent CLIA report, cruise travel is expected to rise in 2018, boosting the global economy. An estimated 27.2M passengers are expected to cruise (demand has increased 20.5 percent in last five years). Additionally, 27 new ocean, river and specialty ships are scheduled to debut. After years of stagnant performance, the cruise industry is coming back with a vengeance, contributing more than $126B in total output worldwide.

For more information about franchise opportunities with Expedia CruiseShipCenters visit www.expediafranchise.com.

About Expedia CruiseShipCenters

Expedia CruiseShipCenters provides exceptional value and expert advice for travelers booking cruises and vacations through its network of over 250 retail travel agency franchises. As part of the Expedia group family of brands, the company's more than 5,000 Vacation Consultants sell a wide range of vacation products including cruises, flights, hotels, vacation packages, tours, excursions and more. The company has been navigating spectacular vacation experiences for customers across North America for 30 years. For more information on Expedia CruiseShipCenters, visit www.expediafranchise.com.

Expedia and CruiseShipCenters are trademarks or registered trademarks of Expedia, Inc. or its affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other logos or product and company names mentioned herein may be the property of their respective owners.  2018 Expedia, Inc. All rights reserved. CST # 2029030-50 and CST # 20893-43

Media Contact: Kathryn Frakes, Fishman Public Relations, 847-945-1300 or [email protected]

SOURCE Expedia CruiseShipCenters

Related Links

http://www.expediafranchise.com

Currently, she is Chief Marketing and Communications Officer for Girl Scouts of Central & Southern NJ where she has successfully leveraged partnerships with several national and local brands to increase opportunities for girls as well as expanded membership and volunteerism in underserved New Jersey communities. Over the last 12 years, she was selected four consecutive times to serve on the Girl Scouts USA National Convention Action Team. She is also Co-Leader of a 32-member multi-level troop in Plainfield.

"We support Girl Scouts from the Delaware to Hudson Rivers. The counties served by GSHNJ range from some of the most rural areas to the most densely and demographically diverse in the nation. Hemmings joins GSHNJ at a critical juncture for the council as we seek to make Girl Scout leadership programs accessible to all girls, in language and in culture," said Lydia Whitefield, Board Chair, GSHNJ. "Hemmings has a deep understanding that success comes when adult volunteers are well supported in their efforts to serve their troops. She possesses the leadership, experience, and passion needed to promote and provide innovative and relevant programming for girls in every part of our council."

GSHNJ serves over 17,000 girls, ages 5-17, and 10,000 adult members in the counties of Hudson, Essex, Union, Somerset, Hunterdon, southern Warren and parts of Middlesex.

Hemmings, who resides in Piscataway, is looking forward to the challenge and said, "I am very thankful for this opportunity and extremely excited about partnering with the staff, board, volunteers, and community to make a positive impact on the lives of girls. I am also looking forward to expanding our network of G.I.R.L. Champions (Go-getters, Innovators, Risk-takers, and Leaders) throughout the region."

GSHNJ's mission is to help build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place by providing girls access to premier leadership programs and mentors throughout New Jersey. Leadership programs focus on four key areas: outdoor experiences, life skills, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and entrepreneurship.

GSHNJ owns and operates three American Camp Association Accredited Summer Camps: Residential Camp Lou Henry Hoover in Middleville, NJ, and day camps The OVAL in Maplewood, NJ, and Camp Agnes DeWitt in Hillsborough, NJ.

For more information about joining, volunteering, camping, or donating to Girl Scouts Heart of New Jersey, please visit www.gshnj.org.

SOURCE Girl Scouts Heart of New Jersey

Related Links

https://www.gshnj.org

FLUSHING, N.Y., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --After working in the medical research industry for a few years, Shalini Outram decided to stay home to raise her kids until they were ready for school. During that time, she enrolled her preschool daughter in the Kumon Math and Reading Program. Little did she know, her daughter's experience would inspire her to become a small business owner and open Kumon Math and Reading Center of Flushing-North.

"Seeing the immediate success that my daughter experienced in the Kumon Program really struck me," said Outram, owner and instructor of Kumon Math and Reading Center of Flushing-North. "For two years, I watched my daughter continue to advance beyond her grade level, noticed how all of the children looked up to the instructor and observed just the overall culture of the Kumon Center and knew it was something I wanted to be part of. When I expressed interest in the business, the instructor really encouraged me to look into opening my own center."

The Kumon Method empowers preschool to high school aged children to become self-learners and is designed to advance math and reading skills while fostering a love for learning. It goes beyond traditional tutoring by actively developing critical thinking skills as children progress independently through a carefully crafted curriculum.

There are 42 Kumon Math and Reading Centers in New York City, including 12 in the borough of Queens. Kumon Math and Reading Center of Flushing-North is part of Kumon's 2018 expansion plan of welcoming 100 new franchisees nationwide.

"With New York City having one of the most competitive educational landscapes, it is apparent now, more than ever, that there is a high demand for supplemental education opportunities," said Larry Lambert, vice president of franchise recruitment at Kumon North America. "We've seen a great deal of success meeting that demand and are committed to continuing to deliver the highest quality of education that parents want for their children."

Kumon sparks critical thinking, establishes a pattern of success and builds confidence that can lead to accelerated learning throughout life. Learn more about the Kumon franchise opportunity today.

About the Kumon Franchise Business

Kumon is an ideal small business for professionals. Kumon Franchisees must have a four-year college degree, be proficient in math and reading, have investment capital of $70,000 and a net worth of at least $150,000. Founded in 1958, Kumon celebrates its 60th year serving children worldwide. Kumon has over four million students enrolled in nearly 25,000 learning centers in 50 countries and regions.

SOURCE Kumon North AmericaVANCOUVER, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - GoldMining Inc. (the "Company" or "GoldMining") (TSX-V: GOLD;OTCQX: GLDLF) is pleased to announce that, further to its news release dated February 22, 2018, the Company has completed its acquisition of 66.66% of the existing 4.0% net production royalty on the Company's Cachoeira Project. Under the transaction, GoldMining paid US$133,320 in cash and issued 698,161 common shares of the Company to the vendors. As a result of the transaction, the existing royalty on the Cachoeira Project has been reduced to 1.33%.

About GoldMining Inc.

GoldMining Inc. is a public mineral exploration company focused on the acquisition and development of gold projects in the Americas. GoldMining is advancing its Titiribi and La Mina Gold-Copper Projects located in the Department of Antioquia, Colombia, its Sao Jorge and Cachoeira Gold Projects located in the State of Para, northeastern Brazil, its Whistler Gold-Copper Project located in the State of Alaska, United States of America, and its Rea Uranium Project in the western Athabasca Basin in northeast Alberta, Canada.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange, the Toronto Stock Exchange nor their Regulation Services Providers (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

SOURCE GoldMining Inc.

Related Links

www.brazilresources.com

Moving into its 21 st year, Heather James Fine Art is expanding their national and global reach  and their reputation for offering significant 19th-century, modern and contemporary art  with a series of major solo exhibitions including work by Louise Bourgeois, Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol, among others.

Last year, Heather James Fine Art celebrated its 20th anniversary with special exhibitions of Alexander Calder and leading Latin American artists as well as the opening of their new private gallery in New York City. Additionally, as part of its mission, Heather James Fine Art is dedicated to bringing great art to museums nationally and internationally through loans and acquisitions:

Heather James will loan Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads: Gold to the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, on view from March 24  December 30, 2018. Ai Weiwei's sculpture installation re-envisions the ornate fountain clock featuring 12 animal symbols from the traditional Chinese zodiac, which was originally located in the Yuanming Yuan (Old Summer Palace), an imperial retreat outside of Beijing. In Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads he engages issues of looting, repatriation, and cultural heritage while expanding upon ongoing themes in his work of the "fake" and "copy" in relation to the original. This will be the first presentation of the internationally-known artist's works in Maine, and the first New England showing of this gilded series.

PALM DESERT, CA

This year, Heather James Fine Art will feature a number of major exhibitions at its popular Palm Desert location on view through May 31:

Louise Bourgeois Holograms: This suite of eight holograms created in 1998 - 2004, envisioned as one piece by the artist, contains imagery including a pair of lovers, chairs, and a bell jar. These recurring elements found in many of Bourgeois installations reflect the artist's interest in domesticity, sexuality and the body, along with physical and emotional isolation. The holographic image is formed by using laser beams to record the light field reflected from an object, and then burning that image onto a plate of glass, scaled at a one-to-one correspondence with the original material.

Art of the Wyeth Family: Features paintings by N.C. Wyeth and his descendants Andrew and Jamie Wyeth, spanning three generations. The Wyeth family has strong roots along the East Coast, in coastal Maine and in rural Pennsylvania, which are reflected in their naturalistic representations of the landscape, wildlife, and area inhabitants. The family members illustrate varied style and technique, but all of the works are united by an unwavering dedication to capturing the transcendent beauty of their subject matter.

Wojciech Fangor: The Early 1960's: This first U.S. gallery exhibition in the last 40 years of Poland's preeminent Post-War abstract artist features Op Art paintings from his most ground-breaking period. Known for work that explores how color and light can create optical illusions, Fangor situates viewers within a realm of uncertainty, oscillating in a single painting between light and darkness, color and colorlessness, form and formlessness.

Ed Ruscha: A Survey Show: This exhibition will showcase paintings and works on paper in various styles such as his iconic word pieces including a large-scale oil painting (59 x 145  in.) from 1985 titled Things Oriental. The California-based artist, associated with the Pop Art movement and also a central figure in Conceptual Art, is known for works which incorporate words and phrases that are philosophical or culturally irreverent.

Herb Alpert: A Visual Melody: Herb Alpert is an American Jazz musician who maintains a second career as an abstract expressionist painter and sculptor. The exhibition consists of abstract mixed-media paintings from the early 90s through 2017 and large and small-scale bronze sculptures of the same period. Alpert's expressive use of various media engage the viewer with a captivating sense of movement and form, translating into a lyrical and unforgettable experience.

JACKSON HOLE, WY

This year, Heather James Fine Art will feature major exhibitions at its spacious Jackson Hole location through May 31, 2018.

Andy Warhol: Cowboys and Indians: This exhibition features the full set of 10 screen prints (36 x 36") created by Warhol in 1986. In this series, portraits of well-known American "heroes"  John Wayne, Annie Oakley, Teddy Roosevelt, and General George Custer  are combined with Native American images and motifs including kachina dolls to form an ironic commentary on Americans' collective mythologizing of the historic West.

Edward S. Curtis: The Copper Plates of the North American Indian Series: Presents a selection 25 of Edward S. Curtis' copper photogravure plates created for "The North American Indian" paired with photogravure the plates were used to create. Covering more than 100 Native American tribes, the 20-volume text accompanied by photogravure images was published by Curtis between 1907 and 1930. As a photographer, Curtis dedicated much of his career to idealized recording of traditional American Indian customs. Each plate represents a one-of-a-kind work of fine art and a valuable historical artifact.

Additional artwork featured at the Jackson Hole gallery include selections by Marc Chagall, Frank Stella and Sam Francis.

NEW YORK, NY

Opened in 2017, Heather James Fine Art is located in Manhattan's Upper East Side. Offering the eclectic range of artworks Heather James is known for, the appointment only gallery is currently featuring works by Wojciech Fangor, the Wyeth family and Salvador Dali.

Additionally, Heather James Fine Art has also recently sold several important pieces from preeminent artists to museums including:

Morris Louis , Submarine acquired by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

, acquired by the National Gallery of Art, Elaine de Kooning . Michael Sonnabend acquired by the Currier Museum of Art

. acquired by the Currier Museum of Art Juan Sorriano Bull acquired by the Cincinnati Art Museum

acquired by the Cincinnati Art Museum Jules Olitski Embraced: Yellow and Pink acquired by The Barry Art Museum at Old Dominion University

ABOUT HEATHER JAMES FINE ART

Heather James Fine Art presents a rare look into art history's past and present, offering important works from a cross-section of periods, movements, and genres  including Impressionist and Modern, Post-War and Contemporary, American and Latin American, Old Masters, and antiquities.

In 21 years, Heather James Fine Art has expanded into a global network with galleries located in Palm Desert, California; Jackson Hole, Wyoming; and New York, New York, and consultancies in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Austin.

Each year, its galleries present an array of museum quality exhibitions exploring historical and contemporary themes or examining the work of individual influential artists.

Heather James Fine Art is dedicated to bringing exceptional art to private clients and museums across the world, with the utmost personalized logistical, curatorial, and financial services.

LOCATIONS :

PALM DESERT, CA

45188 Portola Avenue

Palm Desert, CA 92260

Phone: (760) 346-8926

JACKSON HOLE, WY

172 Center St., Suite 101

P.O. Box 3580

Jackson Hole, WY 83001

Phone: (307) 200-6090

NEW YORK, NY

42 East 75th Street

New York, NY 10021

Phone: (646) 858-1085

By Appointment Only

SAN FRANCISCO, CA

49 Geary Street

San Francisco, CA 94108

SANTA BARBARA, CA

1298 Coast Village Road

Santa Barbara, CA 93108

Press Contact:

For media inquiries or to arrange an interview with HJFA Owner Jim Carona,

please contact The Busby Group at [email protected] or (310) 439-9400.

For details about other upcoming exhibitions, please visit www.heatherjames.com. Follow HJFA on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

Media Inquiries:

The Busby Group

Scott Busby

[email protected]

Parinaz Farzin

[email protected]

310.439.9400

SOURCE Heather James Fine Art

Related Links

http://www.heatherjames.com

Forty industry experts, innovators, healthcare companies and thought leaders from San Francisco and Chicago attended the events, which featured panelists Takashi Shimada, former president of Medtronic Japan, and Hiroshi Menjo, managing director for Net Services Ventures.

The events discussed the impact of the new wave of science, technology, consumerization and personalization sweeping Japan, how the country is adapting its policy and regulatory framework to welcome United States investors and deliver predictable conditions for growth and what makes Japan an attractive and intelligent market for healthcare companies looking to expand their business abroad.

Japan boasts the world's third largest economy and has seen seven straight quarters of stable macroeconomic growth. Japan is also the second largest single-country pharma market at 13 percent following the U.S., and the medical device sector continues to grow in the country. Driven by a transformation of the market by means of deregulation and international free trade deals, Japan is designing an efficient and productive environment that welcomes foreign business for future opportunities in healthcare.

"Device and drug lag used to be an inhibitor to foreign companies entering the Japanese market," said Takashi Shimada, former president of Medtronic Japan. "However, these delays have been reviewed and shortened dramatically since 2009. Additionally, the early approval system for innovative medical devices was introduced in 2017, and this is improving the approval period for products. We hope this encourages companies to invest with confidence in our market."

In the healthcare sector, Japan's aging society points to a global trend where longevity is connected to enhanced business opportunity. Over 20 percent of Japan's population is aged 65 and above. The Japanese senior population will continue growing until 2040, while the overall population is decreasing. The implication is that medical costs will increase with the aging population, as patients develop more chronic diseases. This is forcing the country to evolve patient needs in the coming years while creating an exciting testbed for the healthcare industry.

"Japan's large aging population presents foreign companies with an excellent model for innovation to assist not only our citizens, but also the elderly population globally," said Hiroshi Menjo, managing director for Net Services Ventures. "Japan is well known for and already using AI and robotics to address the aging market. We are shifting the use of robotics from the industrial setting to helping people in everyday life."

Japan is quickly becoming an anti-aging 'Center of Excellence' through its advancement of regenerative medicine, which can improve an individual's overall health and wellness by reducing the effects of aging. Through deregulation (the passage of key legislation and the introduction of a provisional license system), the country now has the shortest approval time for regenerative medicine commercialization.

"Disruptive technologies have the ability to address the future of health. Investment in start-ups can increase the speed of growth to create the next wave of incredible products," Menjo continued. "This is where the U.S. companies can really pick and choose their scientific innovation in Japan."

The Government of Japan continues to transform its market into a quality business environment to meet the needs of worldwide businesses through strategic investments and international partnerships. By providing world-leading, high-value business capital that enables companies to expand and thrive, the country is generating new and exciting opportunities in an economy that is syncing its regulations with those of other advanced economies to enable seamless transition for companies ready to expand into new growth markets.

CONTACT:

Yoshiro Taguchi

Counsellor, Office of Global Communications, Prime Minister's Office

[email protected]

+81-3-3581-0101

For more information on setting up business in Japan,

please contact JETRO* offices in the USA below.

*JETRO: the Japan External Trade Organization https://www.jetro.go.jp/en/

JETRO New York

O Tasaki

Director of Business Development

[email protected]

212-997-0400

JETRO Los Angeles

Lena Yoneyama

Business Development

[email protected]

213-624-8855

JETRO Houston

Kaori Uchida

Director

[email protected]

713-759-9595

JETRO San Francisco

Tomoya Suzuki

Director of Business Development

[email protected]

415-392-1333

JETRO Chicago

Akira Kawachi

Director

[email protected]

312-832-6000 ext.105

JETRO Atlanta

Reiji Ishida

Director

[email protected]

404-658-0600

SOURCE The Government of JapanMORRISTOWN, N.J., March 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Service has been restored to more than 131,000 Jersey Central Power & Light (JCP&L) customers who lost power following the massive winter storm that pounded the entire Mid-Atlantic and New England region this weekend.

One of the hardest hit areas was JCP&L's northern New Jersey service area that experienced 60 mph wind gusts and more than a foot of heavy, wet snow. Currently, approximately 90,000 customers remain out of service in Essex, Hunterdon, Mercer, Morris, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren counties.

More than 1,600 JCP&L linemen, damage assessors, hazard responders, forestry personnel, dispatchers and contractors are working to restore customer outages. In addition, more than 430 line workers from other FirstEnergy utilities and contractors are on-site or in transit to assist with restoration efforts in northern New Jersey. These crews recently completed work restoring customers in Ohio and West Virginia who lost power because of the winter storm.

"Large parts of the eastern seaboard were slammed by this winter storm and unfortunately our northern New Jersey area got hit extremely hard," said Jim Fakult, president of JCP&L. "The high winds were a big challenge to our initial restoration efforts since it was unsafe for our crews to go up in buckets and make repairs. Plus, the wet, heavy snow and hundreds of road closures made it almost impossible to travel to some damage locations. JCP&L crews and other personnel will continue to work round-the-clock to make repairs and deploy resources as needed until all customers are restored."

An additional 200 hazard responders also are in transit to New Jersey to assist with restoration efforts. Hazard responders investigate downed wires and inspect damage locations to determine what equipment might be needed to make repairs. Helicopters and aerial drones also are being used to inspect damaged power lines, especially in more remote areas.

JCP&L expects the majority of customers to be restored to service by late Tuesday. However, some customers in the hardest hit areas of northern Morris County and Sussex County will be restored by late Wednesday night.

To handle the influx of outside workers, JCP&L has set up a staging site at the Sussex County Fairgrounds in Augusta, N.J. A JCP&L mobile command center also has been set up at the fairgrounds to direct the outside workers to where they are most needed.

As part of its storm restoration process, JCP&L has taken the following steps:

Ramped up storm updates on social media and on the company website. Follow JCP&L on Twitter @JCP_L, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JCPandL or online at www.jcp-l.com

Aired radio ads telling customers how to prepare for storms

Initiated update calls with officials

Activated its Emergency Command Center

Activated its Incident Command System

Communicated with emergency management, officials, state officials, regulators, and local officials about storm restoration efforts

Staffed additional dispatchers and analysts at regional dispatch offices

JCP&L reminds customers to immediately report downed wires to their utility at 888-LIGHTSS (888-544-4877), or to their local police or fire department. Customers should never go near a downed wire even if they think it is no longer carrying electricity. Extra caution should be used in areas where downed lines are tangled in trees or other debris.

FirstEnergy customers also can subscribe to email and text message alert notifications to receive billing reminders, weather alerts in advance of major storms, and updates on scheduled or extended power outages. Customers can also use two-way text messaging to report outages, request updates on restoration efforts, and make other inquiries about their electric accounts.

More information about these communications tools is available online at www.firstenergycorp.com/connect.

JCP&L is a subsidiary of FirstEnergy Corp. (NYSE: FE). JCP&L serves 1.1 million New Jersey customers in the counties of Burlington, Essex, Hunterdon, Mercer, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, Union and Warren. Follow JCP&L on Twitter @JCP_L, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/JCPandL or online at www.jcp-l.com.

FirstEnergy is dedicated to safety, reliability and operational excellence. Its 10 electric distribution companies form one of the nation's largest investor-owned electric systems, serving customers in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and New York. The company's transmission subsidiaries operate more than 24,000 miles of transmission lines that connect the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. Visit FirstEnergy online at www.firstenergycorp.com and follow on Twitter @FirstEnergyCorp.

SOURCE FirstEnergy Corp.

Related Links

http://www.firstenergycorp.com

The campaign has four components, including an online quiz, a Kizuna AI Come to Japan Sweepstakes, an Instagram campaign, and a lottery to be held at Japan Week in New York with details to be announced. Users who obtain a high score on the online quiz can enter the sweepstakes that offers a pair of round-trip plane tickets to Japan as its grand prize. Campaign details, as well as rules and regulations, can be found shared through the 'Come to Japan' website and social media.

JNTO New York Executive Director, Mr. Ken Iwata, stated, "In the United States, digital marketing is an effective way to engage potential travelers, particularly millennials, who are showing a great deal of interest in Japan. This is why we chose a campaign that uses anime, 'Cool Japan' content to engage Americans, starting with the millennial generation. Anime has attracted more than 20 million users to American video streaming platforms like Crunchyroll, so we believe it can help us reach a broad audience in a new and exciting way, while also showcasing Japan's innovative nature."

About the Kizuna AI Come to Japan Sweepstakes

No Purchase Necessary. Open only to legal residents of the U.S. who are at least the legal age of majority in the jurisdiction of their residence at the time of entry. Begins on March 1, 2018 and ends on March 25, 2018. Visit http://us.jnto.go.jp/cometojapan/entry.php for official rules and complete details.

About the Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO)

Japan National Tourism Organization (JNTO), an independent agency of the Japanese government, promotes Japan as a leisure and business destination to further exchanges between Japan and the world. JNTO disseminates information, conducts publicity and exhibitions, develops tours, carries out research and much more, utilizing its international network of 20 offices. http://us.jnto.go.jp/

SOURCE Japan National Tourism Organization New YorkVANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

LiCo Energy Metals Inc. ("the Company" or LiCo") (TSX-V: LIC) (OTCQB: WCTXF) is pleased to announce that it has formally completed its obligations to Glencore Canada Corporation under the Mineral Property Acquisition Agreement ("Property Agreement") dated August 31st 2017 and announced on September 5, 2017 by the Company. The Mineral Rights were owned originally by Glencore ppCanada Corporation (subsidiary of Glencore plc) ("Glencore") of Baar Switzerland (LSE: GLEN). The Property Agreement allows LiCo to acquire a 100% interest in mining rights for patent #585 (the "Glencore Bucke property") situated in Bucke Township, 6 km east-northeast of Cobalt, Ontario. The Purchase Agreement includes a back-in provision, production royalty and an off-take agreement in favor of Glencore.

Glencore is one of the world's largest producers of cobalt as a result of by-products created from its copper assets in the DRC and nickel assets in Australia, Canada and Norway.

"We are very excited to formally acquire this strategically located cobalt property from Glencore. Its purchase agreement allows LiCo to expand upon one of Glencore's longstanding Canadian cobalt assets. If all goes as planned, we could be selling all our cobalt produced back to Glencore in the future. As I have mentioned before, not only is this a great cobalt asset, but we have also found a significant future customer in Glencore," states Tim Fernback, LiCo's President & CEO.

Strategically, the Glencore Bucke property consists of 16.2 hectares and sits along the west boundary of LiCo's Teledyne Cobalt Project that covers the southern extension of the former producing 15 Vein on the past-producing Agaunico Mine Property. Historically, the Agaunico Mine produced 4,350,000 lbs. of cobalt and 980,000 oz. of silver during the mining boom of the early 1900's (Cunningham-Dunlop, 1979).

In the early 80's the Glencore Bucke property was explored by 36 surface diamond drill holes totaling 3,323 m. The drilling program outlined two separate vein systems hosting significant cobalt and silver values. The two zones are known as the Main Zone, measuring 152.4 m in length, and the Northwest Zone, measuring 70.0 m in length. The Main Zone had a north-south strike, which is hypothesized as the southern extension of the #3 vein from the Cobalt Contact Mine located immediately to the north of lease #585 (Bresee, 1982). Additional work was recommended but never completed due to a downturn in cobalt prices at the time. LiCo has recently completed the Glencore Bucke Property Phase 1 diamond drilling program. During the fall of 2017, LiCo completed 21 diamond drill holes totaling 1,900 m. A summary of the results of the Glencore Bucke Property Phase 1 diamond drilling program can be found in LiCo's news release dated January 26, 2018.

On LiCo's adjacent Teledyne property, historical drilling also encountered two zones of cobalt/silver mineralization extending from the boundary of mined zones at the Agaunico Mine in a north-south direction. In 1980, Teledyne completed a 700 m long production decline to reach the mineralization encountered in their surface drill program. Both the surface and underground drilling programs confirmed the extension of the Agaunico cobalt zones onto the Teledyne property for a strike length of 152.4 m. In addition, the drill program encountered a second zone with a strike length of 137.2 m. The most significant results included 0.644% Co over 16.9 m, 0.74% Co over 8.7m, and 2.59% Co over 2.4 m (Bresee, 1981). LiCo has recently completed a Phase 1 diamond drilling program on the Teledyne Property in the fall of 2017, whereby LiCo completed 11 diamond drill holes totaling 2,200 m.

Terms of the Acquisition

Purchase Price - The Purchaser shall pay to the Vendor the sum of $150,000 on the Approval Date; and pay to the Vendor the sum of $350,000 within 6 months after the date of the Agreement (the "Closing Date"). In addition, prior to the Closing Date during the Acquisition Period, the Purchaser shall incur $250,000 in Exploration Expenditures on the Property.

Offtake Agreement - Prior to the commencement of Commercial Production, the Purchaser shall enter into an off-take agreement with the Vendor for all ores and/or concentrates produced from the Property and/or the Teledyne Property. The off-take agreement shall be on such terms and conditions as are commercially reasonable and at prevailing market prices;

Production Royalty - The Royalty will consist of a 3.5% of Net Smelter Return calculated on a quarterly basis on all Products extracted from, processed and sold that originate from mining operations on the Property from and after Commercial Production. One-half (1/2) of the Royalty can be purchased for $1,000,000 payable to the Vendor or its assignee;

Back-In Option - from and after the Closing Date, subject to Glencore or an affiliate, determining that a discovery of one or more ore bodies having a minimum aggregate in-situ value of $100M or more from which minerals can be feasibly extracted, the Purchaser grants to the Vendor or its nominated affiliate an irrevocable, sole and exclusive right and option to acquire from the Purchaser a 51% interest in the Property and all Property Rights, free and clear of all burdens of any nature or kind. Once the Back-in Option is exercised a joint venture will be formed and a management committee established with representatives of both companies.

About Glencore:

Glencore plc is a leading integrated commodity producer and trader, operating worldwide with diversified operations comprising around 150 mining and metallurgical, oil production and agricultural assets. Glencore's industrial and marketing activities are supported by a global network of more than 90 offices located in over 50 countries where they employ around 155,000 people, including contractors. Glencore trades in and distribute physical commodities sourced from third party producers as well as their own production. The company also provide financing, processing, storage, logistics and other services to commodity producers and consumers.

About LiCo Energy Metals: https://licoenergymetals.com/

LiCo Energy Metals Inc. is a Canadian based exploration company whose primary listing is on the TSX Venture Exchange. The Company's focus is directed towards exploration for high value metals integral to the manufacture of lithium ion batteries.

Glencore Bucke Cobalt Project ( Cobalt, Ontario ) : The Company has purchased a 100% interest from Glencore Canada Corporation (subsidiary of Glencore plc) in the Glencore Bucke Property, situated in Bucke Township, 6 km east-northeast of Cobalt, Ontario, subject to a back-in provision, production royalty and off-take agreement. Strategically, the Glencore Bucke Property consists of 16.2 hectares and sits along the west boundary of LiCo's Teledyne Cobalt Project. The Property covers the southern extension of the #3 vein that was historically mined on the neighbouring Cobalt Contact Property located to the north of the Glencore Bucke Property. Diamond drilling in 1981 on the Glencore Bucke Property delineated two zones of mineralization measuring 150 m and 70 m in length.

Ontario Teledyne Cobalt Project (Cobalt, Ontario) :

The Company has an option to earn 100% ownership, subject to a royalty, in the Teledyne Project located near Cobalt. Ontario. The Property adjoins the south and west boundaries of claims that hosted the Agaunico Mine. From 1905 through to 1961, the Agaunico Mine produced a total of 4,350,000 lbs. of cobalt and 980,000 oz. of silver. A significant portion of the cobalt that was produced at the Agaunico Mine located along structures that extended southward onto the Teledyne property. The Company completed a total of 11 diamond drill holes totaling 2,200 m in the fall of 2017. The drilling has confirmed cobalt mineralization present on the Property which is consistent with historical grades as reported historically by Cunningham-Dunlop (1979) and Bressee (1981), disclosed in earlier news releases. These reports are available in the public domain through MNDM's AFRI database.

NI 43-101 Reports for both the Teledyne and Glencore Bucke Properties, are publicly available on http://www.SEDAR.com as well as the Company's website. LiCo's recently completed diamond drilling program (September to December 2017) consisted of both twinning and infill drilling of the historical drill holes located on both the Teledyne Cobalt and Glencore Bucke Properties.

Purickuta Lithium Project (Chile) :

The Purickuta Project is located within Salar de Atacama, a salt flat encompassing 3,000 km2, being about 100 km long, 80 km wide and home to approximately 37% of the worlds Lithium production and Chile itself holds 53% of the world's known lithium reserves (Source: Bloomberg Markets - June 23, 2017, "Lithium Squeeze Looms as Top Miner Front-Loads, Chile Says"). The property is 160 hectares large and is enveloped by a concession owned by Sociedad Quimica y Minera ("SQM") and lies within a few kilometers of a property owned by CORFO (the Chilean Economic Development Agency) where its leases land to both SQM and Albermarle's Rockwood Lithium Corp. ("Albermarle") for lithium extraction. Together these two companies, SQM and Albermarle, have a combined annual production of over 62,000 tonnes of LCE (Lithium Carbonate Equivalent) making up 100% of Chile's current lithium output. As reported in The Economist (June 15, 2017 - A battle for supremacy in the lithium triangle), the Salar de Atacama has the largest and highest quality proven reserves of lithium. The combination of the desert's hot sun, scarce rainfall, and the mineral-rich brines make Chile's production costs the world's lowest. This together with a favourable investment climate, low levels of corruption, and the quality of its bureaucracy and courts makes Chile a favourable place to conduct business.

Dixie Valley Lithium Project (Nevada, USA) :

The Company has an option to acquire a 100% interest, subject to a 3% NSR, on a large lithium exploration project at the Humboldt Salt Marsh in Dixie Valley, Nevada. Some important geological similarities exist between various lithium brines, notably geothermal activity, a dry climate, a closed basin, an aquifer, and tectonically driven subsistence exist at Dixie Valley along with Clayton Valley and various lithium bearing salars in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia.

Black Rock Desert Lithium Project (Nevada, USA) :

The Company has entered into an option agreement whereby the Company may earn an undivided 100% interest, subject to a 3% NSR, in the Black Rock Desert Lithium Project in southwest Black Rock Desert, Washoe County, Nevada.

The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved Joerg Kleinboeck, P.Geo., an independent consulting geologist and a qualified person as defined in NI 43-101.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

Tim Fernback, President & CEO

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Disclaimer for Forward-Looking Information:

This news release may contain forward-looking statements which include, but are not limited to, comments that involve future events and conditions, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Except for statements of historical facts, comments that address resource potential, upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt and security of mineral property titles, availability of funds, and others are forward-looking. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may vary materially from those statements. General business conditions are factors that could cause actual results to vary materially from forward-looking statements.

Contact:

Phone: +1(236)521-0207

LiCoEnergyMetals.com

SOURCE LiCo Energy Metals Inc.SAN DANIELE DEL FRIULI, Italy, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

LimaCorporate will be present at the upcoming American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Annual Meeting, held in New Orleans from March 6th to March 10th, 2018. This year, the AAOS has selected Italy as the Guest Nation and LimaCorporate will be in the spotlight as a leading Orthopaedic company.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/637371/Lima_Corporate_Logo.jpg )



LimaCorporate was one of the first Italian companies to start processing Titanium over 40 years ago. At the time, LimaCorporate used Titanium for the manufacturing of surgical instruments as well as mechanical components in the automotive and aeronautical industries. Following many years of state of the art, technological innovation and timely investments in Orthopaedics, LimaCorporate took the decision to focus all efforts solely on the medical applications of Titanium. Conceived, patented and produced inhouse, LimaCorporate 3D prints Titanium to uniquely create Trabecular Titanium (TT) which is used in many LimaCorporate implants. TT has been available on the market since 2007, making LimaCorporate the only company with over 10 years of clinical heritage in 3D printing.

LimaCorporate is honored to co-host the AAOS 2018 Guest Nation Reception and take advantage of this opportunity to further highlight the potentialities of its innovative technologies which put our Company at the forefront of the Orthopaedic sector.

About LimaCorporate

LimaCorporate is a global medical device company providing reconstructive and custom-made Orthopaedic solutions to surgeons who face the challenges of improving the quality of life of their patients. Based in Italy, LimaCorporate is committed to the development of innovative products and procedures to enable surgeons to select ideal solution for every individual patient. LimaCorporate's product range includes large joint revision and primary implants and complete extremities solutions including fixation.

For additional information on the Company, please visit: limacorporate.com

Limacorporate S.p.A.

T: +39 0432 945511

E: [email protected]

SOURCE Limacorporate S.p.ASOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Lyric Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Lyric), a biopharmaceutical company, today announced the completion of enrollment of PROMOTE, an international, multicenter, randomized, controlled Phase 2 study of LP101 (ulimorelin) for the treatment of enteral feeding intolerance (EFI) in critically ill patients. LP101, a macrocyclic agonist of the hormone ghrelin, is under development for the treatment of EFI and other disorders affecting critically ill patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

EFI is a common ICU condition in which impaired gastric emptying prevents adequate enteral nutrition from being delivered. Published reports indicate an EFI prevalence of greater than 30 percent in patients receiving enteral nutrition in the critical care setting. EFI is associated with significant morbidity and mortality and no drug is approved for EFI in any market. Currently in the U.S. and E.U. off-label medications such as metoclopramide, the clinical standard of care, are prescribed approximately one million times per year to manage EFI, yet these drugs have well characterized and widely recognized toxicities. Ghrelin agonists such as LP101 may offer both gastrointestinal pro-motility and pro-metabolic effects in critically ill patients with EFI and their use may also mitigate muscle loss in these and other ICU patients.

PROMOTE, a double blinded study, enrolled 120 mechanically ventilated critically ill patients ages 18 years and above in whom EFI manifested as a gastric residual volume measured to be 500 mL or greater. Patients were randomized to receive either LP101 or metoclopramide. The study was conducted at sites in the United States, Canada, Spain and the Netherlands. In addition to safety assessments, the primary efficacy objective was to assess feeding success as measured by the proportion of patients' daily protein prescriptions received through enteral nutrition. To learn more about this study, please click here.

"Enteral feeding intolerance is associated with significantly higher morbidity and mortality in patients with critical illness," said Daren Heyland, M.D., M.Sc., FRCPC, professor and director, Clinical Evaluation Research Unit, Kingston Health Sciences Centre, Kingston, Ontario, and lead investigator on the PROMOTE Trial. "Patients with EFI have lower nutritional intakes, fewer ventilator-free days, longer ICU stays, and higher 60-day mortality. There is a serious unmet medical need for new drugs to treat this condition and ulimorelin holds considerable potential for these patients."

"PROMOTE is a landmark study, the first of its kind to study a ghrelin agonist not only for EFI but also in the ICU setting," said M. Scott Harris, M.D., chief medical officer of Lyric. "LP101 has been observed in Lyric clinical trials to be a highly active prokinetic agent which could enable physicians to meet prescribed nutritional goals for their patients. The anti-inflammatory and pro-anabolic effects of ghrelin agonism could also offer this population of highly catabolic patients additional benefits that differentiate LP101 from other prokinetic agents currently prescribed for EFI," he added.

"Lyric anticipates data from PROMOTE by mid year. With enrollment now completed, our focus is on planning the next EFI clinical study with LP101," said David Wurtman, M.D., M.B.A., chief executive officer of Lyric. "EFI is a large unmet medical need and Lyric is well positioned to develop both the first-in-class and best-in-class compound to treat this condition," he added.

About LP101 (Ulimorelin)

Lyric's proprietary product candidate, LP101, is a potent intravenous ghrelin agonist under development for the treatment of EFI and other disorders of critical illness. Lyric has previously completed two Phase 1 trials of LP101 demonstrating statistically significantly accelerated gastric emptying in healthy volunteer populations, versus placebo. LP101 has been administered to over 1000 patients and healthy volunteers with a favorable safety profile. LP101 is currently under assessment in PROMOTE, a Phase 2, randomized, multinational and multicenter trial, in the treatment of EFI. The FDA has granted Fast Track designation to the investigation of LP101 for the treatment of EFI.

About Enteral Feeding Intolerance

EFI is an acute disorder of gastric motor function which develops in critically ill, enterally tube fed patients. EFI prevents patients from receiving prescribed enteral feeding. Critically ill patients are highly dependent on prescribed feedings to preserve their nutritional status and they develop EFI at a time when such nutrition is needed most. While EFI is of diverse etiologies, patients express similar clinical features that result from profound abnormalities in gastric emptying. EFI patients are severely catabolic and may lose as much as 22 percent of their skeletal muscle mass over a 10-day ICU stay. As a result, EFI patients follow similar paths of hospitalization, including longer ICU and hospital stays, increased time on ventilator, and higher mortality. EFI is a worldwide disorder that affects approximately eight to 10 percent of all ICU patients. No safe and effective therapy is available or approved to treat the condition. Prokinetic agents such as metoclopramide (and domperidone ex-U.S.), as well as the antibiotic erythromycin, are commonly prescribed off-label but have been associated with significant toxicities and studies do not support their effectiveness in this use.

About Lyric (WWW.LYRICPHARMA.COM)

Lyric is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutics to address unmet medical needs affecting critically ill patients admitted to the intensive care unit. Lyric is developing an intravenous ghrelin agonist, LP101 (ulimorelin), for the treatment of enteral feeding intolerance, currently being evaluated in a Phase 2 clinical trial. Lyric investors include Third Point Ventures, RiverVest Ventures, Sante Ventures and Aperture Ventures. The company is based in South San Francisco, California.

Lyric Forward-Looking Statement

Any statements contained in this press release that refer to future events or other non-historical facts are forward-looking statements that reflect Lyric's current perspective of existing trends and information as of the date of this release. For instance, any statements in this press release concerning prospects related to Lyric's strategic initiatives are forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from Lyric's current expectations depending upon a number of factors affecting Lyric's business. It is possible that the assumptions about these factors made by management for purposes of such statements may not materialize. Actual results may differ materially from those projected or implied in any forward-looking statements. Except as expressly required by law, Lyric disclaims any intent or obligation to update these forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Lyric Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.lyricpharma.com

RENO, Nevada, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Magellan Gold Corporation (OTCQB: MAGE) ('Magellan' or 'the Company') announced that it has rehired employees and is restarting its 100% owned SDA Mill, Nayarit State, Mexico. Initially, operations will reprocess tailings located at the mill site. The tailings are waste products left from previous processing of ore but still contain low values of gold and silver. Recovery of a portion of these remaining precious metals is expected to defray holding costs of the mill while new ore sources are acquired. The mill last operated in November 2017 and processed third-party ore on a toll basis. The Company completed acquisition of the SDA Mill in November 2017.

"The reprocessing operation will offset holding costs and allow the mill to remain in a fully operational status," said Pierce Carson, CEO. "Meanwhile, we are continuing to focus on securing sources of high-grade gold and silver ore that can be trucked to the mill for processing. We are close to being able to announce the acquisition of an attractive property that will allow us to resume mining operations, build production and increase cash flow."

About Magellan Gold Corporation

Magellan Gold Corporation (OTCQB: MAGE) is a US public enterprise focused on the exploration and development of precious metals. In November 2017, Magellan completed the purchase of the SDA Mill in the State of Nayarit, Mexico. Magellan also owns an advanced silver exploration property located in Arizona.

The SDA Mill is a fully operational flotation plant that also includes a precious metals leach circuit and associated assets, licenses and agreements. The mill has the capacity to process ore at a rate of up to 200 tons per day. The mill has a ten-year operating history. Historically, its operation has been based on sales of flotation concentrates to smelters, and payment for precious metals content. The mill lies within the rich Sierra Madre Occidental mineralized belt, which historically has yielded millions of ounces of precious metals and offers multiple high-grade gold and silver epithermal vein opportunities.

The Company's 100% owned Silver District Property in southwest Arizona comprises over 2,000 acres covering the heart of the historic Silver District. The property contains a near-surface historical drilled resource of 16 million ounces of silver and exhibits exploration promise for significant expansion.

To learn more about Magellan Gold Corporation, visit http://www.magellangoldcorp.com.

Cautionary Statement

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission permits mining companies, in their filings with the SEC, to disclose only those mineral deposits that a company can legally extract or produce. Under SEC Industry Guide 7 standards, a "final" or "bankable" feasibility study is required to report reserves. Currently, we have not delineated "reserves" on any of our properties. We cannot be certain that any deposits at our properties will ever be confirmed or converted into SEC Industry Guide 7 compliant "reserves." Investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of any "resource" estimates will ever be confirmed or converted into reserves or that they can be economically or legally extracted.

Forward Looking Statements

This release contains "forward-looking statements." Such statements are based on good faith assumptions that Magellan Gold Corporation believes are reasonable but which are subject to a wide range of uncertainties and business risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from future results expressed, projected or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ from those anticipated are discussed in Magellan Gold Corporation's periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contacts:

Magellan Gold Corporation

Pierce Carson: +1(505)463-9223

John Power: +1(707)884-3766

Peter Nesveda (INT IR): +61-4-1235-7375



SOURCE Magellan Gold CorporationSEATTLE, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Milliman, Inc., a premier global consulting and actuarial firm, today announced that Samie Moore is joining the company's Health & Welfare group as an end-to-end life, absence, and disability (LAD) consultant. Moore, formerly of Mercer and Hewitt, is a nationally recognized expert in LAD with 14 years' industry experience consulting to Fortune 500 companies, with deep subject matter expertise in Family Medical Leave (FML), vacation, Paid Time Off (PTO), disability and parental leave.

As a LAD consultant, Moore will partner with employers on financial analyses, program implementation, claim audits, design strategy, and vendor management. She has supported companies in a wide variety of sectors, with significant experience in the areas of healthcare, retail, media, high tech, and pharma. She has also supported manufacturing, petroleum, transportation, communications, utilities and financial services employers. Moore joins Milliman as demand grows for the firm's health and welfare consulting services.

"Samie is a well-known name in the industry and a trusted LAD advisor to numerous Fortune 500 companies," says Dan Skwire, a principal and consulting actuary with Milliman, who specializes in LAD work. "Her expertise in end-to-end LAD consulting is an exceptionally valuable addition for Milliman as we seek to broaden the scope of the health and welfare services we provide to large employers."

"Milliman is known throughout the industry for its high-quality work and strong actuarial foundation - something I place great value on," says Moore. "Combining that deep financial expertise with the full range of other LAD services we can now offer makes Milliman unique and differentiates the firm's solutions from the rest of the marketplace."

About Milliman

Milliman is among the world's largest providers of actuarial and related products and services. The firm has consulting practices in healthcare, property & casualty insurance, life insurance and financial services, and employee benefits. Founded in 1947, Milliman is an independent firm with offices in major cities around the globe. For further information, visit milliman.com.

SOURCE MillimanBLOOMING PRAIRIE, Minn., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- After seeing and experiencing the value firsthand, Minimizer has once again agreed to serve as the series sponsor for the Bandit Big Rig Series.

"It is a no-brainer," Minimizer Director of Marketing Steve Hansen said. "The Bandits are a huge spectacle and we're along for the ride."

Citing the branding, advertising and R&D opportunities, Hansen said Minimizer is excited to be a part of something fun.

"The Bandits draw kids and adults, young and old. It's a diverse crowd, and practically every single person is connected to the heavy duty trucking industry in some way," Hansen said.

Last year, the Bandits kicked off their inaugural season by running races in eight different states. This year, only two of those tracks remain on the schedule, as the Bandits hope to introduce their event to countless new fans.

"Unfortunately, we can't just scratch out '2017' on last year's schedule and replace it with '2018,'" Bandit General Manager Jason Johnson said. "We're a grassroots start-up trying to create new fans."



"We were really excited to see new tracks on the 2018 schedule," Hansen said. "It gets our products in front of countless new eyeballs, which is what we want. And we can appreciate the Bandits goal. We've been in business awhile now, but a few decades ago, we were that start-up looking to build our brand."

The first Minimizer Bandit Big Rig Series event of 2018 is at Mobile International Speedway on March 10th.

Fans that are unable to attend events in person can watch the live stream on the Bandit Facebook page or the Bandit YouTube channel.

About Minimizer

Leveraging more than 30 years of manufacturing expertise at its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, Minimizer is not just the leader in poly semi truck fenders: We invented the category. Minimizer poly fenders and integrated bracket kits are nearly indestructible and are guaranteed for life.

Our research and development team constantly "tests and tortures" each of our products to make sure what goes on, in or is used to fix the truck meets the rigors of our tough industry.

We also manufacture industry-leading light kits, mud flaps, tool boxes, tire masks, work benches and other accessories. Our most recent innovations include the ONLY Custom Molded Floor Mats in the world for semi trucks, the revolutionary 'whole body' Minimizer Truck Seat System, and the recently released Long Haul Series Mattress.

Minimizer has been family owned and operated for three generations. The company manufactures its products in the USA and makes everything tough enough to please tough people in a tough industry.

For more information or to contact a Minimizer distributor, call us at (800) 248-3855 or visit our website or email us at [email protected].

About Bandit Big Rig Series

The Bandit Big Rig Series returns big rig tractor truck racing to the short track in the United States. The series was designed to be affordable and accessible for anyone wishing to put together a race team.

For additional information, please contact Jason Johnson at (507) 676-1987, or email [email protected].

Contact:

Steve Hansen

Director of Marketing

Minimizer

(800) 248-3855

SOURCE Minimizer

Related Links

http://www.minimizer.com

WASHINGTON, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- MPOWER Financing (www.mpowerfinancing.com), an innovative fintech company and provider of educational loans to high-promise international students, has been named as one of the 2018 Best Places to Work in Financial Technology by American Banker and Best Companies Group.

The 2018 Best Places to Work in Financial Technology award is designed to identify, recognize and honor the best employers in the fintech sector, benefiting the industry's economy, workforce and business. The award is based on a two-part survey process that includes evaluating each nominated company's workplace policies, practices, philosophy, systems and demographics and an employee survey to measure the employee experience. It is given to 20 companies in the United States. To read the full American Banker article detailing MPOWER Financing and the 2018 Best Places to Work in Financial Technology award, visit https://www.americanbanker.com/slideshow/top-fintech-companies-to-work-for.

MPOWER Financing, headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a public benefit corporation whose mission is to remove the financial barriers to education for aspiring global citizens who do not fit the traditional credit criteria of banks or lenders. The company works with 262 top universities and colleges across the nation helping them increase or maintain international student enrollment. Since 2014, MPOWER Financing has received over $400 million in loan application volume on its platform and provides financing to students from over 180 countries.

"We continually strive to create a positive, open and diverse work environment within the company and measure the success of our team of global citizens on the impact we have on society," said Manu Smadja, MPOWER Financing CEO and co-founder. "To be named one of the 2018 Best Places to Work in Financial Technology is an honor; we're humbled to be recognized for our hard-working and fun-loving team and our mission to remove barriers to education by providing access to much needed financing."

For more information on American Banker's Best Places to Work in Financial Technology program, visit www.BestPlacestoWorkFinTech.com.

About MPOWER Financing

MPOWER Financing, headquartered in Washington, D.C. and with offices in New York City and Bangalore, India, is an innovative fintech company and provider of educational loans to high-promise international students. MPOWER Financing helps students build their credit histories and provides them with personal finance, education and gateway financial products to prepare for life after college. The team is backed by Zephyr Management, Goal Structured Solutions, 1776, Village Capital, VARIV, DreamIt, Fresco, Chilango, K Street and University Ventures. For more information, please visit www.mpowerfinancing.com, or follow MPOWER Financing on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Media Contacts:

Richard Anderson / Cara Johnson / Henry Feintuch

Feintuch Communications

718-986-1596 / 212-808-4904 / 212-808-4901

[email protected]

SOURCE MPOWER Financing

Related Links

http://www.mpowerfinancing.com

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Mayor Ethan Berkowitz and Vera Whole Health President and CEO Ryan Schmid announced the grand opening of the Municipality's Vera Whole Health Clinic, which will serve municipal employees and their dependents as a primary and preventive care provider.

"We looked for ways to improve health outcomes and reduce costs, which is why we are pleased to join the Anchorage School District in offering a Vera Whole Health Clinic for municipal employees and our dependents," said Mayor Berkowitz. "This is the kind of innovation that should improve access and availability to health care, and lead to substantial savings."

The City anticipates cost savings from the clinic's opening. Employers who partner with Vera see a significant reduction in employee healthcare claims, up to 25% in the first year alone through the reduction of high-cost urgent and emergency services, and the coordination of specialty care and follow-up.

Approximately 70% of the adult population on the Municipality of Anchorage health plan has not had a physical or wellness exam in two years. The opening of the Vera clinic will remove barriers to wellness care for employees and their families, providing access to high-quality care with less waiting and more time spent with providers.

"Vera Whole Health is delighted to support the Municipality of Anchorage, its employees and their families," said Schmid. "By aligning financial incentives and providing social, mental, and physical care, we can support individuals to reach optimum health and the Municipality to save money. It's immensely humbling to be part of a win-win-win solution."

The City's clinic is the second Vera clinic to open in Anchorage, following the Anchorage School District's employee clinic's opening in fall 2017. School district and municipal employees will be able to use the clinic of their choice as part of a cooperative agreement.

About Vera Whole Health

Established in Seattle, Wash., in 2008, Vera Whole Health is the leading direct-to-employer primary care provider in the Western United States, operating clinics in Washington, Oregon, California, Alaska and Arizona. Vera is the first on-site clinic provider in the United States to earn a Certificate of Validation by the Care Innovations Validation Institute. The endorsement substantiates Vera's claims that its on-site clinics reduce overall healthcare spending for employers as much as 25% in the first year, justifies Vera's 100 percent money-back guarantee, and recognizes Vera for its sound population health outcomes. On March 1, 2018, Vera received the 2018 Innovation in Health Care Delivery Award from Seattle Business magazine. For more information go to verawholehealth.com, or call (206) 395-7870.

SOURCE Vera Whole Health

Related Links

http://www.verawholehealth.com

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- NuuED, Inc. announced today that it has released an enhancement to its online service designed to reveal a user's individual learning personality. The Learning Objective Guide can be used to discover early indicators of a person's strengths, aptitudes, and growth opportunities while tracking improvement in those areas.

NuuED's Learning Objective Guide, provides a baseline showing the aptitudes and growth areas of the individual learner. The guide reveals the best approaches and applications of content, tools, and processes which will improve the user's skills and levels of learning.

Innovations such as robotics, artificial intelligence, and digital platforms are shifting the fundamental nature of work, and an increasing number of common, everyday jobs are undergoing automation. As technology advances, students of all ages face the need to rapidly adapt and learn new skills.

NuuED's approach to adaptive learning begins with a simple, brief, and engaging analysis, available for free online, which uses advanced technologies to highlight each user's individual learning personality. The analysis requires only a few minutes and takes into account the user's learning styles, cognitive skills, and environmental factors.

The resulting information about the user's unique learning personality can then be used to create a Learning Objective Guide for each individual learner. The Learning Objective Guide differs from other educational tools in several areas, primary of which is the customization of its results based on an individual's unique learning personality, rather than relying on the comparison of each student to a broad, impersonal standard.

As learners continue to use solutions from NuuED, the technology platform automatically adapts and expands to meet the changing needs of each user. Customized content is delivered to each learner, based on their unique ability to process and retain information.

The NuuED approach to adaptive learning grows out of advanced cognitive analysis technologies and proven principles of instructional design. Educators and parents who engage with NuuED solutions on behalf of their students find that the service meshes smoothly with established methodologies, curriculum, and assessments.

"We offer the advantage of flexibility in learning and the opportunity for successful growth," said Derrick O'Neal, founder and Chief Relationship Officer of NuuED. "Whether the job of the future involves 3D simulations, video, or new ways of communicating with technology and each other, NuuED's adaptive learning platform can help students secure their own future."

NuuED technology and methodology have been proven via use case studies which demonstrate an average of 70% increase in skill and level improvement.

The Learning Personality Analysis from NuuED, Inc. is available immediately. Visit www.nuued.com for details.

About NuuED

NuuED Inc. provides a platform for online services which help learners, students, and trainees of all ages improve their skills. Tools and services from NuuED help in all aspects of education by discovering and recognizing areas of positive diversity in learning and applying advanced technologies to help the learner.

NuuED is a privately held company headquartered in Mountain View, California, with a global delivery platform serving learners of all ages, everywhere. For more information, visit www.nuued.com.

Press Contact for NuuED:

Ben English

[email protected]

+ 1.650.318.3985

Related Links

Free Learning Personality Analysis

NuuED Company Website

Related Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBA7YbNAG_o

SOURCE NuuED, Inc.TULLAHOMA, Tenn., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- When Nicole Austin was hand selected by distilling icon Dave Pickerell to be the first employee for his spirits consulting firm in 2012, the spirits industry took note of her fresh thinking and strategic vision. When The New York Times dubbed her "Bourbon's Master of the Craft" in 2014, the industry applauded her distilling expertise. When the rye whiskey she helped create won Double Gold at the 2015 San Francisco Spirits Competition, they celebrated her creativity and innovation. And, this week, when she was named General Manager and Distiller for the newly formed Cascade Hollow Distilling Co., Austin knew she'd found a home in Tennessee.

NICOLE AUSTIN NAMED GENERAL MANAGER AND DISTILLER OF CASCADE HOLLOW DISTILLING CO.  THE HOME OF GEORGE DICKEL TENNESSEE WHISKY.

What was formerly known as the George Dickel Distillery will now be called Cascade Hollow Distilling Co.  the home of George Dickel Tennessee Whisky and future innovation spirits. George Dickel's "Handmade the Hard Way" approach to making whisky will remain the same and Austin will be charged with overseeing the brand's 148-year legacy of making Tennessee's smoothest, award winning craft whisky. As General Manager of Cascade Hollow Distilling Co., she will establish the vision of what this new company can be and ignite commercial and innovation strategies for the flagship George Dickel brand, future innovation spirits and the distillery.

"There are so many reasons why I know this position will be a great fit for me  from the jaw dropping beauty of Cascade Hollow to the incredible history of George Dickel," said Austin. "But, ultimately, it is the freedom to make Cascade Hollow Distilling Co. my home that made up my mind. As a distiller, strategist and mentor, I've worn a lot of hats in my career which have prepared me for this moment. Now, it's time for me to draw from those experiences and build a business that creates a fundamental step change in how people think about Tennessee Whisky. I'm proud to be here and ready to get to work."

"Nicole is absolutely perfect to lead Cascade Hollow Distilling Co. because she brings so much to the table," said Sophie Kelly, SVP of North American Whisk(e)y for Diageo. "Not only is she an established chemical engineer and distiller, she has a real business mind, an entrepreneurial spirit and a true vision for the future of the company, its brands and the category. Most importantly, she has all the energy, passion and tenacity to make it real. George Dickel is a hidden gem in our whisk(e)y portfolio and we're confident Nicole will take it to the next level as she transforms Cascade Hollow Distilling Co. into something truly special."

Austin graduated from Manhattan College with a major in Chemical Engineering in 2006, before landing her position as a Master Blender for Kings County Distillery in 2010. She then joined The Oak View Spirits consulting firm where she handled everything from raw material sourcing to contract negotiations. Most recently, Nicole served as Project Commissioning Engineer for William Grant & Sons at the Tullamore Distillery in Ireland. She's also been a fierce advocate for the distilling industry as a founding board member of the American Craft Spirits Association and co-chair of Legislative, Convention and State Guild Committees.

About George Dickel Tennessee Whisky

Since George A. Dickel bottled his first batch of whisky in 1870 using the fine water from Cascade Springs, adult consumers have been drawn to this Tennessee whisky. Handmade the Hard Way, all whiskies produced at the George Dickel distillery in Tullahoma, Tenn. are hand crafted with an actual human being present at every step of the process. This personal touch continues to be the backbone of the brand and every bit as important as the rye, corn and barley that make up its Tennessee whiskies. For more information, please visit www.GeorgeDickel.com and always remember to drink responsibly.

About Diageo

Diageo is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands including Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, Bulleit and Buchanan's whiskies, Smirnoff, Ciroc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.

Diageo is listed on both the New York Stock Exchange (DEO) and the London Stock Exchange (DGE) and our products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world. For more information about Diageo, our people, our brands, and performance, visit us at www.diageo.com. Visit Diageo's global responsible drinking resource, www.DRINKiQ.com, for information, initiatives, and ways to share best practice.

Follow us on Twitter for news and information about Diageo North America: @Diageo_NA.

Celebrating life, every day, everywhere.

Media Contacts

Allison Fleischer

DIAGEO

[email protected]

803-984-6434

Joe Clarkson

Taylor Strategy

[email protected]

704-644-6912

SOURCE DiageoCLEVELAND, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The announcement of the Auto Express Awards is a much-anticipated and prestigious annual event highlighting the best automotive products in their respective categories. On Feb. 26, the U.K.-based automotive media conglomerate released its selections for Best Car Battery Charger, with the NOCO Genius brand occupying two of the top three positions. According to Auto Express, the "standout producers here were CTEK and its US rival NOCO." Although CTEK retained its number one ranking, Auto Express noted that its performance was "very close" to NOCO.

A 12-volt and 24-volt 7.2-amp smart battery charger. A 6-volt and 12-volt 3.5-amp smart battery charger.

The NOCO Genius brand was awarded two of the top three positions with its G7200 and G3500 models, making it the top automotive battery charger brand. "CTEK just hangs on to its title with the CT5, but it was very close with NOCO's big G7200. However, NOCO gets the nod among the smaller chargers, with the versatile G3500 coming out ahead of CTEK's MXS 3.8." Despite narrowly missing out on the top spot, there's "lots to like about this US import that came so close to toppling CTEK. It's supplied with leads that are almost a metre longer than its Swedish rival's and has the widest clamps on test at 35 mm. It just topped the CT5 in the charging test, hitting the 80 percent ready-to-start point around 40 minutes sooner, in just over nine hours."

The result of the Auto Express Awards is a testament to NOCO's product innovation and market strategy for the U.K. market, as it also outperformed incumbent U.K. brands Sealey, Optimate and Ring Automotive. "This is a significant achievement for NOCO and a recognition well-deserved," said Gary Vincent, NOCO's International Sales Manager for the United Kingdom and Isles. "Our investments in a localized salesforce, logistics plan and marketing activities have not only been effective but also well-received by distributors and consumers."

These recent accolades are just a microcosm of what the NOCO brand has achieved within the past year. The brand has also been featured in some of the U.K.'s most prestigious industry and consumer magazines, such as CAR, Autocar, Bike, Classic Bike, Classic Cars, Car Mechanic, Commercial Fleet, Aftermarket and CAT. In addition, it has been awarded opportunities to partner and sponsor several industry-wide events. Vincent declared that NOCO "will continue its investment in the U.K. market by bringing the highest-quality, best-performing and most innovative products to the U.K. consumers" and "aggressively capture market share" with the "goal of occupying the top three positions in the Auto Express 2019 Awards."

About NOCO

The NOCO Company ("NOCO") is a global leading designer and maker of innovative consumer battery products. Founded in 1914, NOCO operates seven international distribution and manufacturing locations and supplies many of the world's leading brands. For more information, contact Brittany Chou at (800) 456-6626 or via email at [email protected].

Related Files

G3500UK_Sell_Sheet.pdf

G7200UK_Sell_Sheet.pdf

Related Images

g3500uk-smart-battery-charger.jpg

G3500UK Smart Battery Charger

A 6-volt and 12-volt 3.5-amp smart battery charger.

g7200uk-smart-battery-charger.jpg

G7200UK Smart Battery Charger

A 12-volt and 24-volt 7.2-amp smart battery charger.

Related Links

Auto Express

SOURCE The NOCO CompanySCOTTSDALE, Ariz., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Nuverra Environmental Solutions, Inc. (NYSE American: NES) ("Nuverra" or the "Company) announced today that its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Mark. D. Johnsrud, is leaving the Company, effective March 2, 2018. Charles K. Thompson, a current member of the Company's Board of Directors (the "Board"), has been named Chairman of the Board and Interim Chief Executive Officer and will continue to serve on the Board.

Mr. Thompson has served on the Board since August 7, 2017. He is currently a Managing Partner of PinHigh Capital Partners, a Houston-based family office affiliated investment partnership with a focus on smaller private oil service and exploration and production ("E&P") investments. Mr. Thompson recently spent two years at Nomura Securities building the oil and gas investment banking business. From 2004 to 2014, he was an original partner of Legacy Partners Group, a boutique mergers and acquisitions firm based in New York that was sold to FBR Capital Markets ("FBR") in the fall of 2007. Mr. Thompson remained at FBR to run the energy investment banking practice where the focus was small cap oil service and E&P mergers and acquisitions and capital raising. From 1995 to 2003, he worked at CSFB in the energy investment banking group. Mr. Thompson began his career as a commercial banker at Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company. He holds a B.A. in geology from Williams College and attended Columbia Business School.

In connection with the appointment of Mr. Thompson as Interim Chief Executive Officer, the Board also appointed current Board member, Michael Y. McGovern, to replace Mr. Thompson on, and to serve as Chairman of, the Compensation and Nominating Committee. Mr. Thompson will not serve on the Compensation and Nominating Committee or the Audit Committee while he serves as Interim Chief Executive Officer.

The Board has commenced the search for a permanent successor to Mr. Johnsrud as Chief Executive Officer.

About Nuverra

Nuverra Environmental Solutions, Inc. is among the largest companies in the United States dedicated to providing comprehensive, full-cycle environmental solutions to customers in the energy market. Nuverra focuses on the delivery, collection, treatment, and disposal of restricted solids, water, wastewater, waste fluids, and hydrocarbons. The Company provides its suite of environmentally compliant and sustainable solutions to customers who demand stricter environmental compliance and accountability from their service providers. Find additional information about Nuverra in documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") at http://www.sec.gov.

602-903-7802

[email protected]

SOURCE Nuverra Environmental Solutions, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.nuverra.com

PARSIPPANY, N.J., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- PBF Energy Inc. (NYSE:PBF) announced today that the company's management will be participating in meetings with investors at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2018 Refining Conference on March 8, 2018 taking place in New York, New York.

Company presentation materials will be available on the Investor Relations section of the PBF Energy website at www.pbfenergy.com.

About PBF Energy Inc.

PBF Energy Inc. (NYSE:PBF) is one of the largest independent refiners in North America, operating, through its subsidiaries, oil refineries and related facilities in California, Delaware, Louisiana, New Jersey and Ohio. Our mission is to operate our facilities in a safe, reliable and environmentally responsible manner, provide employees with a safe and rewarding workplace, become a positive influence in the communities where we do business, and provide superior returns to our investors.

PBF Energy Inc. also currently indirectly owns the general partner and approximately 44% of the limited partnership interest of PBF Logistics LP (NYSE: PBFX).

SOURCE PBF Energy Inc.

Related Links

http://www.pbfenergy.com

LAS VEGAS, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- 2018 HIMSS Conference and ExhibitionAn Apple Watch messaging notification app, Round Robin scheduling and advanced patient-centered care team access are PerfectServe's newest capabilities unveiled today at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society's Annual Conference & Exhibition (HIMSS18) March 5-9 at the Venetian  Palazzo  Sands Expo Center.

In booth 8023, PerfectServe will give HIMSS18 attendees their first look at its latest innovations designed to optimize clinical communication and collaboration and meet the needs of care team members and their patients. The innovations position PerfectServe as the only clinical communication solution providing complete access to the entire care team while being fully integrated into their workflow.

PerfectServe's Apple Watch app alerts clinicians to critical messages

Physicians who wear the Apple Watch can soon access PerfectServe's new app to view notifications of voice and text messages. The healthcare professional can simply tap the notification to open the app, read the message and prioritize responding without having to pull out an iPhone.

Clinicians also have three ways to reply to messages. They can use the microphone's speech-to-text function, access Scribble to write messages using a finger on the Apple Watch screen, or use pre-written responses for faster interaction with colleagues.

"A substantial number of our clients have asked for a PerfectServe app to complement their Apple Watch experience," said Terry Edwards, President and CEO of PerfectServe. "We've listened to them and are excited to roll out the application this spring. Healthcare professionals lead active lives and, like most people, check their smartphones on average up to 80 times daily according to one study. We're working diligently to increase their connectivity to PerfectServe in innovative ways, and put more access and control into their hands to improve quality of care."

Journalists: Click to access first screenshot and second screenshot of PerfectServe's new Apple Watch app.

Round Robin scheduling replaces manual tracking of heavy patient load

PerfectServe's new Round Robin workflow algorithm enhances physician scheduling. Commonly used by large groups of physicians and residents in the hospital or medical practice, the functionality automatically distributes a high volume of new admissions and consults, such as emergency department on-call services.

Round Robin scheduling assigns patients equally to individual physicians or specialist groups through a time-sharing rotation process that helps balance the patient load. This new feature accommodates physicians' day and night work shifts and replaces the time-consuming manual tracking of schedules. As well, physicians can view and manage their shift schedules and keep abreast of who is next on rotation.

"Round Robin scheduling easily and quickly rotates new patients and consults to practitioners such as hospitalists, a cardiology specialist group or groups of internal medicine physicians manning ED service calls," said Mary Hatcher, PerfectServe Vice President of Product Development. "This circular first-in-first-out order balances the distribution of patients in any care setting."

Patient-centered care team access transforms communication

Provider organizations are using PerfectServe's patient-centered care team access to identify and communicate with a patient's entire care team, including attending and consulting physicians, nurses, therapists, case managers and more.

How it works: PerfectServe pulls the assigned care team members from PerfectServe's assignment tool, the patient's electronic health record (EHR) or from nurse call systems  like Rauland Responder  and then displays that information to any healthcare professional wanting to communicate regarding the individual. What's more, all communication to any member of that care team is routed accurately to the right provider via Dynamic Intelligent Routing.

Using advanced patient-centered care team access, care team members can initiate a voice or text conversation by selecting the patient, viewing the assigned care team, and choosing which care team members with whom to initiate communication. All patient-related context is retrieved in real time.

About PerfectServe

PerfectServe is healthcare's most comprehensive and secure care team collaboration platform. The platform is unique in its ability to improve communication process accuracy and reliability via its proprietary Dynamic Intelligent Routing capability, which automatically identifies and provides immediate connection to the right care team member for any given clinical situation at every moment in time. More than 400,000 clinicians in forward-looking organizations across the U.S. rely on PerfectServe to help them speed time to treatment, expedite care transitions, enhance the patient experience and reduce HIPAA compliance risk. Headquartered in Knoxville, Tennessee, with offices in Alpharetta, Georgia and Chicago, PerfectServe has helped clinicians provide better care since 2000. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and subscribe to our blog.

PerfectServe Contact:

Heather Dorsett, MBA

Director, Content Strategy and Marketing

855.871.7299

[email protected]

Media Contact:

Angela Jenkins

Executive Director of Public Relations and Content Strategy

303.877.0115

[email protected]

SOURCE PerfectServe

Related Links

http://www.perfectserve.com

DUBLIN, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Philippines Lubricants Market by Type, by Application (Automotive - Passenger, Commercial, Marine & Aviation & Industrial - Mining, Construction, Manufacturing, Iron & Steel, Agriculture, Electricity & Medical) - Outlook to 2021" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

The Philippines lubricants market is undergoing rapid growth, majorly driven by boosting crude oil imports, thus assisting market players to offer more lubricants in the country. The stakeholders of this report include lubricant manufacturers, dealers, companies involved in research, automotive workshop owners in the Philippines and the new entrants and venture capitalists who wish to invest in lubricant market in future.

Detailed comparative analysis of major lubricant market players has also been provided. Various marketing analysis factors such as trends and developments and SWOT analysis are also added in the study. The future analysis of the overall Philippines lubricants market has also been discussed along with recommendations from analyst view.



Key Topics Covered in the Report:

Philippines Lubricant Market Size by Consumption Volume and Revenue

Market Segmentation - By Type of Lubricants (Mineral-Based, Semi-synthetic and Synthetic); By Application (Automotive and Industrial)

Philippines Automotive Lubricant Market Size by Consumption Volume

Automotive Lubricant Market Segmentation - By End Users (Commercial Vehicles, Passenger Vehicles, Marine and Aviation); By Distribution Channels (OEM Workshops/Service Stations/Local Workshops, Dealer Network, Supermarkets And Online)

Philippines Industrial Lubricant Market Size by Consumption Volume

Industrial Lubricant Market Segmentation - By Type (Hydraulic Oil, Gear Oil, Grease, Metal Working Fluids And Others); By End Users (Mining, Construction, Manufacturing, Iron And Steel, Agriculture, Electricity And Medical); By Distribution Channels (Distributors, Workshops And Others)

Value Chain Analysis for the Philippines Lubricants Market

SWOT Analysis for the Philippines Lubricants Market

Trends, Developments, Growth Drivers and Restraints in the Philippines Lubricants Market

Lubricants Market Market Share of Major Players in the Philippines Lubricants Market

Lubricants Market Company Profiles of Major Lubricant Market Players

Future Outlook for the Philippines Lubricant Market

Analyst Recommendation

Macro-Economic Factors Impacting the Philippines Lubricant Market

Companies Mentioned



Castrol

Chevron

Exxon Mobil

Gulf Oil Philippines

LE (Lubrication Engineers)

PTT Philippines

Petron

Phoenix

Raimol

Seaoil Petroleum Corporation

Shell

Sinopec Lubricants

Valvoline

For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/wgs6db/philippines?w=5

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com

"Today is a day for celebration for all parties involved in the E2 program: Embraer's employees, our customers and suppliers. In programs with the level of complexity of the E2, to receive Type Certificate perfectly on schedule is a testament to outstanding teamwork. In that context, I want to especially recognize Pratt & Whitney's central role and support in this process and congratulate our friends there on the outstanding capabilities of the GTF engine which will power the E2 for decades to come," said John Slattery, President and CEO, Embraer Commercial Aviation.

"We send our congratulations to Embraer on this historic accomplishment, and thank all of the dedicated individuals at Embraer and Pratt & Whitney for their hard work," said Tom Pelland, vice president of Commercial Engine Programs at Pratt & Whitney. "We are honored to power the E190-E2 aircraft and look forward to the many advantages it will bring to our customers and their passengers for years to come."

About Pratt & Whitney

Pratt & Whitney is a world leader in the design, manufacture and service of aircraft engines and auxiliary power units. United Technologies Corp., based in Farmington, Connecticut, provides high-technology systems and services to the building and aerospace industries. To learn more about UTC, visit its website at www.utc.com, or follow the company on Twitter: @UTC.

This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning future business opportunities. Actual results may differ materially from those projected as a result of certain risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to changes in levels of demand in the aerospace industry, in levels of air travel, and in the number of aircraft to be built; challenges in the design, development, production support, performance and realization of the anticipated benefits of advanced technologies; as well as other risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those detailed from time to time in United Technologies Corp.'s Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Pratt & Whitney

+1 (860) 565-9600

[email protected]

SOURCE Pratt & WhitneyNEW YORK, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Below are experts from the ProfNet network who are available to discuss timely issues in your coverage area.

You can also submit a query to the hundreds of thousands of experts in our network  it's easy and free. Just fill out the query form to get started: http://prn.to/queryform

EXPERT ALERTS

President Trump's Plan to Impose Steel and Aluminum Tariffs

CEO Pay Ratio

Finance Professionals With CMA Certification See Higher Salaries

March 9 , National Day of Unplugging: Calm Your Anxious Mind

MEDIA JOBS

Metro Editor  The Seattle Times (WA)

(WA) Graphics Editor  The Wall Street Journal (NY)

Writer/Editor, Electronics  Consumer Reports (NY)

OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES

The New Era of Immersive Journalism: Taking Advantage of Augmented Reality

5 Questions With Andrew Harper

Blog Profiles: Alternative Music Blogs

-------------------------------------------------------------------

EXPERT ALERTS:

President Trump's Plan to Impose Steel and Aluminum Tariffs

Raj Bhala

Brenneisen Distinguished Professor

University of Kansas School of Law

Bhala can discuss President Trump's announcement to impose 25 percent tariffs on steel and 10 percent tariffs on aluminum imports: "The tariffs mean more than whacking foreign steel and aluminum imports with 25 and 10 percent tariffs, respectively. Deploying Section 232 is the most aggressive unilateral trade move President Trump has made, and very possibly the start of a trade war. Surely this scenario was not what President Kennedy had in mind when he signed the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which contains Section 232."

Bhala has studied tariffs and international trade deals for decades and has written dozens of books and journal articles, including "TPP Objectively: Law, Economics and National Security of History's Largest, Longest Free Trade Agreement," the textbook "Modern GATT Law," "International Trade Law" and "Understanding Islamic Law (Shari'a)." He has worked in more than 25 countries and practiced international banking law at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before entering academia.

Contact: Mike Krings, [email protected]

CEO Pay Ratio

John Trentacoste

Partner

Farient Advisors

Effective Jan. 1, U.S.-listed companies were required to disclose CEO compensation, median employee pay and the pay ratio between the two. Trentacoste argues that if the intention of the pay ratio is to shed more light on the mechanics of CEO compensation, it has fallen short: "We live in a free-market system where the cost of talent is based on the market in which it operates. When it comes down to brass tacks, there is scarcer supply of talent that can effectively run a global business, so the market pays more for it. All the CEO Pay Ratio has done is give businesses unnecessary headaches that require them to explain internally why some people might not be paid at the median."

Trentacoste is head of the New York Office of Farient Advisors, which is based in Pasadena, Calif. He has been a speaker at and roundtable participant for the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Compensation Committee Chair Advisory Council. He was also featured as a speaker at the NACD's "Leading Minds of Compensation," and World at Work. He has been quoted in various publications, including Agenda, Bloomberg, Compliance Week, Reuters, and The Washington Post and others. He is based in New York.

Note: Additional partners are also available for comment.

Website: www.farient.com

Contact: Brian Hyland, [email protected]

Finance Professionals With CMA Certification See Higher Salaries

Kip Krumwiede, CMA, CPA, Ph.D.

Director of Research

Institute of Management Accountants

Global salaries are down slightly, but finance pros in the Americas and Europe are generally making as much or slightly more than last year, especially if they have a CMA, says Krumwiede: "Finance professionals who earn the CMA certification continue to reap the benefits of it. Employers are willing to pay more for those with skills like risk management, strategic planning, and decision analysis that CMAs bring to an organization."

Krumwiede is available to discuss the results of a new Global Salary Survey by IMA (see full survey results at https://tinyurl.com/yanfdzua). Krumwiede received his Masters of Accounting degree from Brigham Young University and his Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, and has published many articles in both practice and academic journals. He is based in Montvale, N.J.

Website: www.imanet.org

Contact: Brian Hyland, [email protected]

March 9, National Day of Unplugging: Calm Your Anxious Mind

Laurie Cameron

Founder and CEO

PurposeBlue

Author, Mindful Leadership Expert

"Take these characteristics of our evolutionary biology -- we have minds that are wandering, scanning, and getting distracted -- and then equip us with smartphones, laptops, and the internet. The effects are magnified. And to complicate our tech-saturated scene, we are connected more than ever in a world that is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Mindfulness brings wisdom from the past to provide a remedy for today. That means you can train your mind and body to optimize your experience, even in this modern world."

A mindful leadership expert, Cameron is the author of "The Mindful Day: Practical Ways to Find Focus, Calm, and Joy From Morning to Evening" (March 27, 2018). She is founder and CEO of PurposeBlue, an organization that brings evidence-based mindful leadership programs to companies, change makers, culture-shifters, universities and federal agencies.

Online Press Kit: http://lauriejcameron.onlinepresskit247.com

Website: http://purposeblue.com

Contact: Jennifer Thomas, [email protected]

****************

MEDIA JOBS:

Following are links to job listings for staff and freelance writers, editors and producers. You can view these and more job listings on our Job Board: https://prnmedia.prnewswire.com/community/jobs/

Metro Editor  The Seattle Times (WA)

(WA) Graphics Editor  The Wall Street Journal (NY)

Writer/Editor, Electronics  Consumer Reports (NY)

*****************

OTHER NEWS & RESOURCES:

Following are links to other news and resources we think you might find useful. If you have an item you think other reporters would be interested in and would like us to include in a future alert, please drop us a line at [email protected]

THE NEW ERA OF IMMERSIVE JOURNALISM: TAKING ADVANTAGE OF AUGMENTED REALITY IN 2018. Augmented reality (AR) has benefited from recent advancements in smartphone technology, and is positioned to become an important factor in today's media. As news continues to shift into a digital format, AR offers new opportunities for in-depth reporting. Here's how: http://prn.to/2FhXIc5

5 QUESTIONS WITH ANDREW HARPER. Vacation. There's nothing more serious -- and more relaxing -- than taking time off. We've all got our processes nailed down: figuring out where we're going, whether we're taking the kids along, scheduling the time off from work, putting in the extra time so our teams aren't impacted by our absence, and packing for our destination. We spoke with Crista Bailey, CEO of Andrew Harper , about the magazine and its future direction: http://prn.to/2HD9igp

, about the magazine and its future direction: http://prn.to/2HD9igp BLOG PROFILES: ALTERNATIVE MUSIC BLOGS. Each week, PR Newswire's Audience Relations team selects an industry/subject and profiles a handful of sites that do a good job with promoting and contributing to the conversation. This week, they look at a few alternative music blogs: http://prn.to/2CTytI1

****************

PROFNET is an exclusive service of PR Newswire.

To contact ProfNet: [email protected] or 800-776-3638, ext. 1

SOURCE ProfNet

Related Links

http://www.profnet.com

Rare Pediatric Disease Designation granted for the treatment of patients with necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC)

NEC accounts for approximately 19% of the US's annual neonatal medical expenditures as well as an estimated $5 Billion in annual hospitalization costs in the US

LAVAL, QC, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Prometic Life Sciences Inc. (TSX: PLI) (OTCQX: PFSCF) ("Prometic") today announced that the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted a Rare Pediatric Disease Designation to its Inter-Alpha-Inhibitor-Proteins ("IaIp") for the treatment of Necrotizing Enterocolitis ("NEC"). In addition to the Rare Pediatric Disease Designation, IAIP has also been granted an Orphan Drug Designation by the FDA.

"This is the second pediatric designation which our plasma-derived therapeutics have received from the FDA, demonstrating the capacity of our plasma purification platform to generate a variety of drug candidates targeting unmet medical needs for children with rare diseases," said Mr. Pierre Laurin, President and Chief Executive Officer of Prometic. "The combination of pediatric and orphan drug designations provides us with valuable commercial incentives to continue expanding our pipeline of orphan drugs. We look forward to working closely with the FDA to bring this innovative therapy to pediatric patients. The costs associated with this clinical program will not impact our FY2018."

IaIp are endogenous proteins that control excessive inflammatory responses to toxins, infectious organisms, tissue and organ damage. An inverse correlation between IaIp levels in blood plasma and disease severity / mortality has been demonstrated in humans with sepsis. In a gold-standard animal model proven to emulate NEC in humans, the supplementation of IaIp significantly increased the study subjects' survival rates.

The FDA grants Rare Pediatric Disease Designations for serious or life-threatening diseases wherein the serious or life-threatening manifestations primarily affect individuals aged from birth to 18 years, including age groups often called neonates, infants, children, and adolescents. If and when approved, Prometic's IaIp replacement therapy could be eligible to receive a rare pediatric disease priority review voucher.

NEC is the most commonly acquired gastrointestinal disease diagnosed in premature neonates and is one of the leading causes of death in neonatal intensive care units. The economic cost of NEC is high, accounting for approximately 19% of neonatal expenditures and an estimated $5 billion per year for hospitalizations in the United States alone. Even when surgery can be avoided, the average cost of hospitalization has been estimated at around $73,000, with a length of stay exceeding 22 days longer than that for other premature infants. However, if surgical care is required, there is an average additional cost of approximately $186,000, and infants require a length of stay 60 days longer than other premature infants.

About Inter-Alpha-Inhibitor-Proteins (IaIp)

Inter-alpha inhibitor proteins (IaIp) are serine proteases inhibitors that modulate endogenous protease activity. Severe sepsis results in reduced IIp with the loss of protease inhibitory activity. Treatment with IIp is protective in numerous preclinical sepsis models

About Necrotizing Enterocolitis

Necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) is a devastating inflammatory bowel condition that affects predominantly premature infants. NEC can ultimately destroy the wall of the bowel (intestine) and lead to perforation of the intestine and spillage of stool into the infant's abdomen, which can result in an overwhelming infection and death. The cause of NEC is not well understood but appears to involve bacteria, injury to the bowel lining, inadequate oxygen supply to the bowel, and an abnormal immune response. Overall, NEC affects an estimated 8,000-12,000 live births each year in the USA. The disease has been reported to affect about 11 percent of very low birthweight infants born before 29 weeks of age. Mortality rates are high, and range from about 15% to 30%.

About Prometic Life Sciences Inc.

Prometic Life Sciences Inc. (www.prometic.com) is a biopharmaceutical corporation with two drug discovery platforms focusing on unmet medical needs in the field of fibrosis and orphan diseases. The first platform, small molecule therapeutics, stems from the discovery of two receptors GPR40/GPR84 acting as dual master-switches which are at the core of the healing process as opposed to fibrosis. The second platform, plasma-derived therapeutics, leverages Prometic's vast experience in bioseparation technologies to address unmet medical needs with therapeutic proteins not currently commercially available, such as Ryplazim (plasminogen human). Prometic is also leveraging the second platform higher recovery yield advantage to develop some more established plasma-derived therapeutics with significant growth in demand such as Intravenous Immunoglobulin (IVIG) and provides access to its proprietary bioseparation technologies to enable pharmaceutical companies in their production of non-competing biopharmaceuticals. Globally recognized as a bioseparations expert, the Corporation derives revenue from this activity through sales of affinity chromatography media which contributes to offset the costs of its own R&D investments. Headquartered in Laval (Canada), Prometic has R&D facilities in the UK, the U.S. and Canada, manufacturing facilities in the UK and commercial activities in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Asia.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements about Prometic's objectives, strategies and businesses that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements are "forward-looking" because they are based on our current expectations about the markets we operate in and on various estimates and assumptions. Actual events or results may differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements if known or unknown risks affect our business, or if our estimates or assumptions turn out to be inaccurate. Such risks and assumptions include, but are not limited to, Prometic's ability to develop, manufacture, and successfully commercialize value-added pharmaceutical products, the availability of funds and resources to pursue R&D projects, the successful and timely completion of clinical studies, the ability of Prometic to take advantage of business opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry, uncertainties related to the regulatory process and general changes in economic conditions. You will find a more detailed assessment of the risks that could cause actual events or results to materially differ from our current expectations in Prometic's Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2016, under the heading "Risk and Uncertainties related to Prometic's business". As a result, we cannot guarantee that any forward-looking statement will materialize. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statement even if new information becomes available, as a result of future events or for any other reason, unless required by applicable securities laws and regulations. All amounts are in Canadian dollars unless indicated otherwise.

SOURCE ProMetic Life Sciences Inc.

Related Links

http://www.prometic.com

Jameson Weber joins QuadReal as Global Head of Special Situations. He focuses on global investments across technology-enabled and alternative real estate, companies and special situations. He formerly held senior positions at Hightower, Oaktree Capital Management and Cerberus Capital Management.

"Global Cities are the foundation of QuadReal's acquisition and development strategy around the world," said Dennis Lopez, CEO, QuadReal. "Jay and Jameson bring deep industry experience to QuadReal, particularly from living, working and doing business internationally. Their knowledge, personal networks and demonstrated expertise will help us continue to unlock opportunity and create value in the world's most economically powerful metropolitan areas."

Mr. Kwan and Mr. Weber join an accomplished group of proven industry leaders on the QuadReal international team, including: Timothy Works, recently promoted to Managing Director, Americas; Peter Kim, welcomed as Managing Director, Asia in November 2017; and Lucy Fletcher, International Portfolio Manager.

Led by CEO Dennis Lopez and President, International Real Estate Jonathan Dubois-Phillips, the QuadReal international team members represent decades of combined experience and expertise in QuadReal's key global markets.

"I am very pleased to introduce Jameson and Jay, who complete the build-out of our international senior investment team," said Mr. Dubois-Phillips. "Since QuadReal's inception, we have built a strong team with deep and successful investment experience. In parallel, we have developed transparent, clearly defined investment processes that enable us to be nimble and act quickly on opportunity, and therefore position ourselves globally as a best-in-class partner."

QuadReal is pursuing global growth through programmatic joint ventures and direct investment with local partners that offer proven track records and the potential for scalable, long-term relationships. Today, the international portfolio is diversified by sector and location with real estate assets in New York, London, Paris, San Francisco, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Vancouver, among other Global Cities.

"At QuadReal, we plan to balance the portfolio in coming years by looking outside Canada while also increasing our presence at home," said Remco Daal, President, Canadian Real Estate. "Our goal is to ensure that our portfolio is actively managed and has a foundation of income-producing properties and programs that deliver attractive returns across economic cycles."

For more information on QuadReal, please see quadreal.com.

About QuadReal

Headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, QuadReal Property Group is a Canadian real estate investment, development and management company operating on a global scale. The company's $24.5 billion portfolio spans 23 Global Cities across 17 countries. Owned by bcIMC, one of Canada's largest institutional investors, QuadReal was established to manage its real estate investment portfolio. QuadReal aims to deliver prudent growth and strong investment returns, and to create and sustain environments that bring value to the people and communities it serves. Now and for generations to come.

SOURCE QuadRealSpillane, an Army officer who had made a career in commercial banking and was re-activated after 9-11, was put in charge of a team at the heart of the U.S. Army's plan to rebuild Sadr City.

"General Petraeus wanted to ensure a lasting peace," Spillane said, explaining the mission. "If the schools re-opened, if the water and electricity worked, the U.S. believed it would bring about a sense of normalcy."

As his brigade's deputy civil military affairs officer, he was responsible for overseeing a team of seven project purchase officers. He supervised the negotiations, management and the closings of more than 350 service contracts and more than 900 micro grants that were used to supply electrical micro stations, re-establish businesses, build roads, re-open schools and create jobs.

"Our brigade purposely immersed itself among the people of Sadr City, which was devastated once the heavy fighting subsided," Spillane said. "We were really trying to rebuild its shattered economy as quickly as possible."

Spillane worked 20 hour days and ran each night to clear his head. The job required more than a knowledge of finance. Spillane had learned Arabic, but he also had to learn Muslim culture. Working closely with the mukhtars  the leaders of the city's neighborhoods  was essential. "Nothing got done without the local mukhtar's approval. It was like dealing with the patriarch of a family who was also the mayor," he said.

Find out how a Rutgers MBA can help you. Attend a Graduate Admissions Open House on Saturday, March 10, at Rutgers Business School on the Livingston Campus in Piscataway.

Spillane drew on his experience in banking as well as the skills he had learned in his MBA classes. "Rutgers makes us adept problem solvers," he said, "and enables us to be forward-thinking and pragmatic."

But the fact that he was in the Rutgers MBA program also gave him an incredible credential.

When he arrived at the John F. Kennedy Warfare School at Fort Bragg, Spillane looked older than many of the high-ranking officers. When he was introduced, it was often followed by: "This is that Rutgers MBA I told you about."

It also happened when he was in Iraq, requesting funds for one of the hundreds of micro-grants that would be used to repair water treatment plants or rebuild medical clinics. He became known as "that Rutgers MBA guy."

His association with the Rutgers MBA program, he said, became "a very powerful factor in accomplishing my mission."

Sadr City's vulnerability didn't lessen even as the economy was rekindled and services were slowly restored. Stability, the presence of the U.S. and even a sense of collaboration between the U.S and Iraq caused anti-coalition forces to find new ways to disrupt the reconstruction efforts.

"It wasn't a comfortable life," Spillane said.

The threat of improvised explosive devices was ubiquitous. At times, Spillane and his team had bounties on their heads, and meetings could be cancelled abruptly if an intelligence officer or trusted interpreter advised against it.

During his service in Iraq, Spillane turned 44. He also became a father. When the Red Cross notified him that his pregnant wife's condition had deteriorated, threatening the health of both her and their twin daughters, he was sent home to be with them.

Meanwhile, his colleagues were continuing their work, which included weekly meetings with the Sadr City Honor Council. He and his team always assembled along a wall in front of a large map. As they gathered in their usual spot before the start of the meeting one day during Spillane's trip to the U.S., an improvised explosive device, planted behind the map detonated. Four of his close friends  "brilliant, smart, wonderful people"  died.

In 2009, Spillane finished his service and returned to the U.S. The banking industry was still recovering from the effects of 2008 Financial Crisis. Spillane returned to his commercial banking career, but for only a brief time. "It was a fulfilling career before I left," Spillane said of his commercial banking work, "but after such a transformative experience (in Iraq) I felt the need to change my life's work."

He began working as a civilian Army contract specialist at the Picatinny Arsenal in Morris County where he ensured that contracts and purchases complied with federal acquisition regulations. "The work was much more fulfilling as I was supporting my friends who were still actively serving in the Army," Spillane said.

The work also gave him the flexibility to complete his MBA studies. He didn't continue his studies in finance though. He changed his focus, opting to concentrate on international business based on his experience in Iraq.

While he was still completing his MBA, he spotted an interesting job posting with the Small Business Administration. He applied and got the job as a lender relations specialist just before he graduated. In the job, he works with former banking colleagues to help them structure loans to entrepreneurs. He also works with entrepreneurs who are trying to grow their businesses and veterans who are starting businesses.

"Every day I can solve problems and I find that to be a profoundly satisfying experience," he said. "Rutgers has given me a very effective tool box in which to help people who drive the economy in New Jersey."

In his work, Spillane often encounters representatives from the Small Business Development Centers across the state.

"Eugene is always armed with a smile and ready to lend a helping hand," said Brenda Hopper, state director and chief executive officer of the New Jersey Small Business Development Centers. "He continuously works to help small business owners prosper, especially veterans. We truly value our relationship with him."

Spillane said he is moved by the business people he meets. "There are all of these beautiful business ideas that I encounter every day," he said. "I meet entrepreneurs that have gone through thick and thin and family businesses that have endured for generations. You can get really inspired."

After he completed college, Spillane did a tour in the Army, following in the footsteps of his father and other family members who served in the military. Like other Americans, he felt a surge of patriotism after the terrorist attacks on the U.S. in 2001. He contacted the Army and volunteered to mobilize if he was needed.

"I just did what my family has done for generations," he said, "Quietly serve."

SOURCE Rutgers Business School

Related Links

http://www.business.rutgers.edu

TOKYO, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Daiwa Securities Group Inc. is pleased to announce the formation of DCS Advisory. DCS Advisory combines the operations of Sagent Advisors and Signal Hill to form a new North America-based advisory firm that will focus on providing M&A advice and private capital raising for companies powering the growth economy.

DCS Advisory will operate out of seven offices in the US including Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, New York, Northern Virginia and San Francisco and two offices in India, Bangalore and Mumbai. The firm is led by senior bankers with deep sector knowledge over a broad span of industries including Aerospace, Defense & Government Services, Business and Tech-Enabled Services, Industrials, Consumer, Retail and Leisure, Media and Telecom, and Technology and Software. As part of the Daiwa Securities Group, DCS Advisory (North America) in combination with DC Advisory (Europe), Daiwa Securities Group, Inc. (Asia), and other alliance partners, will have more than 900 professionals in 37 offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia.

DCS Advisory will be led by an Operating Committee consisting of leadership from each of Sagent's and Signal Hill's management. Scott Wieler, the Founder and Chairman of Signal Hill, will serve as Chairman; Eric Edmondson, a Managing Director of Signal Hill, will serve as Vice Chairman; and Joe Donohue and Bill Kohr, Sagent's Co-CEOs, will serve as Co-Presidents.

"We congratulate the DCS Advisory team on a successful launch. DCS Advisory is an important milestone in our goal of expanding our company's M&A advisory business in North America and beyond. The firm will be a complementary fit with our operations across Asia and Europe. Expanding our company's M&A advisory business continues to be core to our strategic growth. Cross-border M&A involving Japanese corporates has grown significantly over the past 10 years and we believe DCS Advisory will bolster our global advisory capabilities across the Asian, European and North American markets," said Toshihiro Matsui, Head of Daiwa's Global Investment Banking Division.

"The launch of DCS Advisory marks the entrance of a scaled player in the market, one with all the benefits of well-established heritage and experience alongside a deepened suite of domain expertise. With our combined capabilities, we can meet clients' demands and exceed their expectations like no other advisory firm," said Mr. Wieler.

"What has made this combination so successful is our core common culture that prioritizes client service above all else. As DCS Advisory we are well-positioned to advise clients across nearly all sectors of the economy with an even greater global reach, and we're excited for the possibilities afforded by our expanded team," said Mr. Donohue and Mr. Kohr.

"The launch of DCS Advisory is the culmination of our strengthening cross-border partnership. Our clients have already benefited from our firms' close relationship and becoming fully aligned through the Daiwa global platform provides even greater opportunities with deepened industry expertise. We look forward to continuing the momentum and achieving even more together," said Richard Madden, CEO of DC Advisory, UK.



About DCS Advisory

DCS Advisory LLC is a leading investment bank specializing in M&A and private capital raising. DCS Advisory is a wholly owned subsidiary of Daiwa Capital Markets America Holdings Inc. and is an indirect subsidiary of Daiwa Securities Group Inc. Along with sister company DC Advisory, other Daiwa affiliates, and alliance partners, DCS Advisory is part of an established global brand with more than 900 professionals in 37 offices throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. DCS Advisory covers a broad range of industries including Aerospace, Defense & Government Services, Business and Tech-Enabled Services, Industrials, Consumer, Retail and Leisure, Media and Telecom, and Technology and Software. For more information please visit www.dcsadvisory.com.

About Daiwa Securities Group Inc.

Daiwa is one of the leading, comprehensive financial service firms in Asia with a 115-year history. It provides a wide range of products and services to individual investors, primarily in Japan, as well as to corporations, financial institutions, governments, municipalities and governmental agencies both inside and outside of Japan. It conducts its business in four segments: the Retail Division, the Wholesale Division, which comprises of Global Markets and Global Investment Banking, the Asset Management Division and the Investment Division.

About DC Advisory

DC Advisory is a leading corporate finance adviser with specific expertise in cross-border transactions. As a subsidiary of Daiwa Capital Markets, the investment banking arm of Japan's Daiwa Securities Group, and alongside sister company DCS Advisory in North America, DC Advisory is part of an established global brand with more than 900 professionals in 37 offices throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas. DC Advisory provides tailored independent advice on M&A, debt raisings and restructurings. For more information please visit www.dcadvisory.com.

Contact: Madeleine Rouse, (914) 500-3189, [email protected]

SOURCE DCS Advisory

Related Links

http://www.dcsadvisory.com

MILWAUKEE, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- School of Rock has entered into a worldwide agreement with Hal Leonard whereby Hal Leonard, via its website SheetMusicDirect.com, will be the preferred supplier of digital sheet music for all of School of Rock's students and faculty. School of Rock is a rapidly growing international franchise operating more than 200 schools in 10 global markets, teaching and preserving rock n' roll in the next generation with more than 27,000 students. The announcement came from Rob Price, CEO of School of Rock and Doug Lady, Senior Vice President of Hal Leonard.

The ground-breaking, first-of-its-kind program will make customized charts available to School of Rock's students and teachers for classes taught in their programs and camps. The students will have access to the content in the school, at home, or via mobile devices through subscription and a la carte programs. The two companies are partnering to create customized teaching materials as well.

"Our unique performance-based music education program relies on a vast catalog of high-quality sheet music. Our students and instructors will now have unparalleled access through SheetMusicDirect.com as well as a conduit for our own content distribution," says Price. "We are also excited to be a strong voice in support of copyright protections for the composers we so admire. We invite all music educators to stand with us on this effort."

"Hal Leonard is thrilled to be working with an innovator like School of Rock through this unique program," added Lady. "Our collective goal is to make more music makers by providing accurate, legal print music to their students to help them learn the songs, jam together and then perform!"

The companies plan to launch the new program in Spring 2018. For more information on School of Rock's music lessons, performance programs or franchising opportunities, visit www.schoolofrock.com or http://franchising.schoolofrock.com

About School of Rock

School of Rock helps aspiring musicians master skills, unleash creativity and develop tools they need to thrive in life. Founded as a single school in Philadelphia, PA in 1998, School of Rock has grown its student count from 4,000 in 2009 to over 27,000 today. School of Rock has proudly been ranked among children's franchises as the No. 1 Child Enrichment Program by Entrepreneur magazine in 2017 and 2018. Follow School of Rock on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SchoolofRockUSA and on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SchoolofRockUSA. For more information on School of Rock visit www.SchoolofRock.com or call 866-695-5515. To learn more about School of Rock franchise opportunities head to http://franchising.schoolofrock.com/

About Hal Leonard

Hal Leonard Corporation is the world's largest educational music publisher, with the #1 methods for learning guitar (the Hal Leonard Guitar Method), piano (the Faber Piano Method), and school music instruments (Essential Elements for Band and Strings), plus publications for learning virtually every instrument imaginable. In its catalog of more than 200,000 available titles, Hal Leonard represents many of the world's best known and most respected publishers, artists, songwriters, arrangers and musical instrument manufacturers. Its products are sold in more than 65 countries throughout the world through Hal Leonard offices and a large network of distributors. Domestically, the company markets to more than 7,500 music stores in the United States and Canada through a team of 50 in-house sales representatives.

SOURCE School of RockBARCELONA, Spain, March 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Scytl, the global leader in online voting and electoral modernization, today announced that it has appointed Holger Taubmann as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO). The current CEO Pere Valles has been appointed Chairman of Scytl's Board of Directors.

Holger Taubmann is a senior executive with over 25 years of international experience in the technology space. Taubmann has spent most of his professional career at the Amadeus IT Group, holding various senior roles. His most recent leadership position being Executive Board member heading the global agency business which accounts for a large part of the Amadeus business.

After 14 years as Scytl's CEO, Valles has been appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors with responsibility for the overall strategy of the group, investor relations, and governance. Valles will also continue to represent the company in industry forums and key strategic partnerships.

"Holger is a great addition to the team and I am sure that he will have a significant contribution not only to the company but also to the industry as a whole," said Valles. "His seniority and experience will prove invaluable in expanding the election modernization market and strengthening Scytl's leadership position. His expertise in the Enterprise market will be especially valuable as we move into the private election market space."

"I am very excited to be joining a global leader such as Scytl with the important mission of transforming the election industry," said Taubmann. "Scytl's leading technology combined with its electoral experience in 47 countries positions the company as the clear reference in the election modernization industry, creating a solid foundation for strong growth."

About Scytl

Scytl is the global leader in secure online voting and election modernization solutions. Scytl's technology is protected by over 40 international patents built up over 20 years of research. Scytl's election solutions have been successfully used in 47 countries across the globe, including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Switzerland, Brazil, South Africa, India and Australia. Scytl, headquartered in Barcelona, is backed by leading international VC investors such as Vulcan Capital, Balderton Capital, and Nauta Capital. For more information, visit www.scytl.com.

Media Contacts

Gwendoline Savoy

Director of Marketing

[email protected]

+34 934 230 324

SOURCE Scytl"There have been many positive changes in the sign industry in the last 20 years that have helped our franchise locations succeed," said Evan Foster, National Director for Signarama Australia. "The future promises to be even more exciting as we embrace new technologies and product lines to strengthen our network even more across the country."

Franchisees who started twenty years ago say their success has less to do with simply making and selling signs and more to do with building strong relationships with their valuable customers to help meet their needs.

"I opened my store in 1998 and we've gone from focusing on installers and simple signs to today's world of multi-million dollar locations with experts in all fields of signage within our ranks," said Ross Wade, Signarama Dandenong, Vic franchisee.

The same milestone is also being celebrated in New Zealand, where Master License partner, Grant Archibald now has 25 locations under the "Speedy Signs" name. Grant and his wife, Sarah were privileged to be able to meet with Prime Minster, Jacinda Ardern on the actual 20th anniversary date. Ms Ardern congratulated them on their success in creating the country's largest network of sign companies.

"While the 20 years have passed quickly, I still remember the day we opened in Penrose, Auckland," said Archibald. "Our eldest son was only a baby in our grand opening photos, and now, in a few more months, he's getting married. The Penrose business as well as our other New Zealand locations continue to perform strongly with no signs of stopping. We are now planning on opening another half dozen franchised locations in some of the smaller provincial centres like Gisborne, Napier, Wanganui and Timaru."

The Signarama brand continues to grow worldwide with locations now in more than 60 countries and hundreds of new locations slated for opening in 2018 worldwide. Signarama consults with business owners to develop impactful signs, messaging, and marketing tactics that result in higher sales and increased business. To learn more about Signarama's products, services and locations, go to signaramafranchise.com.au.

About Signarama

Signarama, the world's largest sign franchise, offers branding and messaging solutions in addition to comprehensive sign and graphic services to consumers and commercial customers  from business signs, vehicle wraps, and digital signs, to advertising and marketing services. Signarama is part of a successful system of business-to-business franchise brands and development services under the United Franchise Group (UFG). As part of the $49-billion-plus worldwide sign market, Signarama has been at the forefront of the sign industry for more than two decades. Signarama was ranked Number 35 on Entrepreneur Magazine's Top Global Franchises list in 2016. With over 800 locations in 60 countries, the company expects to have more than 1,500 locations worldwide by the end of 2020. For more information, visit SignaramaFranchise.com.au.

About UFG

Led by CEO Ray Titus, United Franchise Group is home to a variety of internationally recognized brands including Signarama, Fully Promoted, Experimac, Jon Smith Subs, Venture X, SuperGreen Solutions, Transworld Business Advisors and Paramount Tax & Accounting CPAs. With over three decades in the franchising industry and more than 1400 franchisees throughout the world, United Franchise Group offers unprecedented leadership and solid business opportunities for entrepreneurs.

SOURCE SignaramaMADISON, N.J., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- ERA Real Estate, a leading global real estate franchisor, announced that Simon Chen has assumed the position of president and CEO of ERA Franchise Systems LLC, effective today. Chen is a widely respected technology expert with decades of experience in real estate brokerage investments, marketing and operations.

In his new role, Chen is responsible for leading the ERA brand's growth strategy focused on enhancing agent recruitment, productivity and market share. He most recently served as the brand's chief operating officer, a position he was recruited for and has held since May 2017.

"Simon Chen's appointment takes advantage of our deep stable of leadership talent to further our growth strategy," said John Peyton, President & CEO, Realogy Franchise Group. "His unique entrepreneurial background in technology and real estate will help ERA continue to serve and support agents by implementing innovative technologies that take advantage of our deep data resources."

"I am thrilled to lead the ERA brand and to serve the agents and brokers that we call family," said Chen. "I look forward to continuing our leadership with technology and digital tools that drive our agent-centric mission. Continual innovation in today's real estate industry is the best way we can help agents serve their clients, their communities and their career aspirations."

Since joining ERA, Chen has worked to champion tools designed to enhance productivity, with specific focus on processes and services that drive growth for agents and franchisees. He was instrumental in the expansion of the ERA Sellers Security PlanSM which gives sellers of qualified homes the peace of mind of knowing that their home will sell after listing it with an ERA agent, and the addition of a new pilot program, ERA Express SellSM, which expands this initiative to a "sell now" program.

Chen also played a significant role in ERA agent development and retention programs, promoting wider use of the company's Zap platform, a way for agents to better predict customer needs, and the ERA learning platform, which provides curated access to ERA training material. His culture-forward approach is driving a new energy and excitement into the network as well.

Chen is a licensed broker in California and a member of the Beverly Hills and Santa Clara real estate boards. He mentors with the National Association of REALTORS Second Century Ventures' REach program and Moderne Ventures, two real estate technology incubators.

Prior to joining ERA, Chen was the COO at Realty One Group. He founded global real estate brokerage and technology consulting firm Century Pacific Group, and served as senior director of corporate development and strategy at realtor.com.

About ERA Real Estate

ERA Franchise Systems LLC (www.ERA.com) is a global leader in the residential real estate industry with more than 40 years of experience in developing consumer-oriented products and services, delivering value through innovation and collaboration. The ERA Real Estate network includes more than 39,000 affiliated brokers and independent sales associates and approximately 2,300 offices throughout the United States and 31 other countries and territories. ERA Franchise Systems LLC, which operates the ERA Real Estate system, is a subsidiary of Realogy Holdings Corp. (NYSE: RLGY), a global provider of real estate services. ERA Real Estate information is available at www.ExploreERA.com.

Media Contact:

Maggie Rohr

973-407-4027

[email protected]

SOURCE ERA Real Estate

Related Links

http://www.ERA.com

STAMFORD, Conn., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Sonitor, the global leader in ultrasound-based indoor positioning technology, announced today its program for the HIMSS Annual Conference & Exhibition in Las Vegas, Nevada, March 5-9, 2018. Visitors to the Sonitor booth #7213 will have the unique opportunity to experience live demonstrations of the Sonitor Sense and newly introduced Forkbeard indoor positioning platforms. The powerful, unique combination of Forkbeard and Sense delivers unparalleled indoor positioning accuracy through the 1 billion smartphones on the market today and through SmartTags, SmartTag Minis and SmartBadges.

At HIMSS18, the company will feature live demonstrations of their Forkbeard and Sense technologies, showcasing the importance and proven performance of Sonitor's highly accurate and reliable indoor positioning data supporting wayfinding, room, bay and sub-bay environments. On display at HIMSS18:

Forkbeard : This new, patented technology platform represents a new paradigm in indoor positioning.

: This new, patented technology platform represents a new paradigm in indoor positioning. Lyra : Lyra allows smart devices (phone, tablet, smartwatch, etc) or PC's to be positioned accurately using Fast Ultrasound Echo Location (FUEL) technology.

: Lyra allows smart devices (phone, tablet, smartwatch, etc) or PC's to be positioned accurately using Fast Ultrasound Echo Location (FUEL) technology. ultraBeacon : ultraBeacons are the location transmitters used in the Forkbeard platform. The ultraBeacon is a small (approximately the size of an AppleTV), battery operated (4 AA alkaline cell batteries) device combining RF, including BLE, and ultrasound technology.

: ultraBeacons are the location transmitters used in the Forkbeard platform. The ultraBeacon is a small (approximately the size of an AppleTV), battery operated (4 AA alkaline cell batteries) device combining RF, including BLE, and ultrasound technology. Sense : The proven Sense technology platform reliably delivers room, bay and sub-bay level accuracy. A single Sonitor Sense Location Transmitter (LTs) can be used to create up to 4 RTLS zones.

: The proven Sense technology platform reliably delivers room, bay and sub-bay level accuracy. A single Sonitor Sense Location Transmitter (LTs) can be used to create up to 4 RTLS zones. SenseVIEW: SenseVIEW is a state-of-the-art software program that provides customers with immediate, visual confirmation that their system is working optimally. System health and performance of both Forkbeard and Sense can easily be monitored and managed through SenseVIEW.

Sonitor's technology launch partners STANLEY Healthcare (booth #2243) and Honeywell (booth #3408) will also demonstrate the company's Forkbeard technology platform in their booths at HIMSS18.

Follow Sonitor throughout HIMSS18 on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About Sonitor

Sonitor is a leading provider and innovator of accurate and reliable ultrasound-based Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) and Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS) linking the physical world with the Internet of Things (IoT) to provide real-time visibility and connected intelligence. As the first and only company to use proprietary ultrasound technology as the primary technology for indoor positioning, Sonitor's SenseTM and ForkbeardTM platforms work seamlessly together to help users navigate indoor environments and automatically determine the real-time location of moveable equipment and people. With its open integration platform, Sonitor provides the flexibility to leverage best-in-class software application solutions covering use cases such as wayfinding, nurse call, patient flow, workflow and capacity management, hand hygiene, infection control and asset and inventory management.

SOURCE SonitorKNOXVILLE, Tenn., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- TeamHealth, a leading clinician services organization, announced the acquisition of the clinical operations of EmergiNet. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, EmergiNet provides emergency medicine staffing for Piedmont Henry Hospital and Piedmont Rockdale Hospital. EmergiNet's approximately 25 physicians and 25 advanced practice clinicians provide care to more than 135,000 patients each year.

"For nearly 30 years, EmergiNet has maximized patient care and facility resources as well as educated, facilitated and integrated the delivery of healthcare for the benefit of the community," said Michael Bourland, MD, president and CEO of EmergiNet. "We continually seek ways to enhance the level of excellence and quality we provide to our patients and our clients, and this forms the basis of our new relationship with TeamHealth. Together, we will continue to provide superior care to patients and excellent service to clients."

"TeamHealth and EmergiNet share the same core valuewe believe better experiences for physicians lead to better outcomesfor patients, partners and physicians alike," said Leif Murphy, TeamHealth president and CEO. "This new partnership highlights our ongoing commitment to safe, quality patient care, and we look forward to serving patients and families in the greater Atlanta area."

About TeamHealth

At TeamHealth, our purpose is to perfect our physicians' ability to practice medicine, every day, in everything we do. Through our more than 20,000 affiliated physicians and advanced practice clinicians, TeamHealth offers outsourced emergency medicine, hospital medicine, critical care, anesthesiology, orthopedic hospitalist, acute care surgery, obstetrics and gynecology hospitalist, ambulatory care, post-acute care and medical call center solutions to more than 3,200 acute and post-acute facilities and physician groups nationwide. Our philosophy is as simple as our goal is singular: we believe better experiences for physicians lead to better outcomesfor patients, hospital partners and physicians alike. Join our team; we value and empower clinicians. Partner with us; we deliver on our promises. Learn more at http://www.teamhealth.com.



The term "TeamHealth" as used throughout this release includes Team Health Holdings, Inc., its subsidiaries, affiliates, affiliated medical groups and providers, all of which are part of the TeamHealth organization. "Providers" are physicians, advanced practice clinicians and other healthcare providers who are employed by or contract with subsidiaries or affiliated entities of Team Health Holdings, Inc. All such providers exercise independent clinical judgment when providing patient care. Team Health Holdings, Inc. does not have any employees, does not contract with providers and does not practice medicine.

SOURCE TeamHealth

Related Links

http://www.teamhealth.com

ROCKVILLE, Md., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- This year's flu season is one of the most severe and that will drive testing markets, according to in vitro diagnostics market researcher Kalorama Information. The firm assesses market sizes and growth for healthcare products. At the height of the influenza or flu season, up to 6% of all U.S. outpatient visits can be for influenza-like illness (ILI). And that can be even greater during a heavy flu season. This has lead to a large market for influenza testing products, which is nearly a one billion dollar market, according to IVD market researcher Kalorama Information, who just completed its Infectious Disease Testing: World Market Analysis.

Although common, influenza is a dangerous, virulent and unfortunately, constantly-changing virus. The WHO has indicated that respiratory tract infections are among the top four causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In the United States, viral respiratory infections are the 7th-leading cause of death costing the lives of 60,000 people each year. Upper respiratory tract infections also represent one of the most common reasons for patients to seek outpatient care. Influenza tests are an important part of the point-of-care testing market. There's point-of-care or rapid tests, there's also lab-based immunoassay and molecular testing for influenza, and depending on the place of care various methods are used.

"When a patient seeks treatment for a potential infectious disease, such as influenza or others, that patient does not want to be told to wait a couple of days until a test result is available from the laboratory before treatment is started," said Bruce Carlson, publisher of Kalorama Information.

For some diseases such as influenza, physicians cannot wait very long before starting the antiviral therapy because the available influenza therapies must be started within a short period following infection. An example is Flumadine (rimantadine), which must be administered within 48 hours following onset of signs and symptoms of the flu. This has fueled the market for rapid influenza tests.

The relatively high prevalence of influenza and other respiratory pathogens has supported a voluminous global rapid immunoassay market, particularly in the United States. Abroad, Japan is one of the more significant rapid influenza diagnostic test (RIDT) markets due to the country's routine rapid testing protocol for Tamiflu prescriptions in primary care. The U.S. RIDT market features roughly 50-50 demand between hospitals and outpatient points of care such as POLs. The global rapid flu test market fluctuates with the severity of the flu season and pandemic activity in East Asia (2009 was a leading year for rapid test sales).

Kalorama Information reports on more than just flu, the firm reports on 30 different medical test products and their expected size and growth rates in 2018 and forecasted out to 2025.

About Kalorama Information

Kalorama Information, a division of MarketResearch.com, supplies the latest in independent medical market research in diagnostics, biotech, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and healthcare; as well as a full range of custom research services. Reports can be purchased through Kalorama's website and are also available on www.marketresearch.com and www.profound.com.

We routinely assist the media with healthcare topics. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and our blog on our company website: https://www.kaloramainformation.com/.

Press Contact:

Bruce Carlson

212 807 2262

[email protected]

SOURCE Kalorama Information

Related Links

https://www.kaloramainformation.com

BOSTON, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Boston Architectural College (BAC) was awarded a two-year, $489,000 grant from the U.S. Department of State, through the American Embassy in Islamabad, to support a partnership between the BAC and Pakistan's National College of Arts (NCA) in Lahore, Pakistan. Program activities began in January 2018 and will focus on faculty training in heritage and conservation methods and curriculum development.

The BAC-NCA partnership began in 2013, when the BAC received its first State Department grant in Pakistan. Over the past four years, NCA has sent 26 students and faculty to the BAC to learn about the school's historic preservation curriculum. BAC faculty and staff have also traveled to Pakistan to conduct workshops for NCA students and faculty, as well as for students and faculty of other universities and institutions of higher education in Pakistan.

"We are honored and excited to have been selected by the American Embassy in Islamabad to receive a second grant," said Eleni Glekas, director of Historic Preservation at the BAC. "It's a testament to our strong academics and our productive relationship with NCA. We look forward to continuing to share our knowledge with our NCA colleagues, as well as other Pakistani professionals working in the field of heritage and conservation in this culturally rich country."

"The partnership between the NCA and The Boston Architectural College has already led to new and dynamic programming and instructional approaches at NCA and to collaborative studies in the field of heritage preservation," said Arlissa Reynolds, Country Cultural Affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. "The new grant will build on the existing relationship, begun more than four years ago between these two esteemed institutions, and will result in continued joint site studies and significant changes in a strengthened curriculum in heritage preservation studies for Pakistan students and faculty, and in more substantive collaboration between Pakistani and American scholars in this sector."

The BAC faculty will train NCA faculty in technical documentation techniques, materials conservation, and course development. NCA recently created a bachelor's degree in cultural studies and will utilize the BAC expertise to help develop courses for the program.

NCA faculty and students will take online BAC courses in historic preservation and themes in architectural theory relating to contemporary architecture and public housing, as well as the use of heritage-related digital documentation programs. NCA faculty and advanced students will participate in short workshops at the Boston campus and in Pakistan to build technical skills in laser scanning, photogrammetry, and materials conservation. Pakistani participants will attend the 2018 National Trust for Historic Preservation conference in San Francisco, and will also travel to New Mexico to study interpretation techniques at multicultural living heritage sites.

NCA, like the BAC, has a mission to ensure gender parity and diversity in its student body and to recruits students from all over Pakistan. NCA Lahore began as an institution dedicated to preserving and teaching specialized local artistic methods and traditions, and has grown to include the country's leading programs in fine arts, architecture, film and television, textile design, product design, multimedia arts, and cultural studies.

Founded more than 125 years ago, The Boston Architectural College was established to make design education accessible to diverse communities. The college offers bachelors and master's degrees in architecture, interior architecture, landscape architecture, and design studies.

SOURCE Boston Architectural College (BAC)For 2018's challenge, a public vote will determine the semi-finalists, and from there, ICE chef-instructors will select the finalists, who will appear on The Chew and compete in a series of challenges for the coveted scholarships. Carla Hall, Clinton Kelly and Michael Symon will host the finals as four celebrity chefs serve as mentors, while ICE's chef-instructors teach the contestants skills and judge the finalists.

"We never dreamed that what began as a creative way to award scholarships would become a worldwide sensation. Then, to have some of the biggest names in the food industry  like Marcus Samuelsson, Ted Allen, Duff Goldman and Donatella Arpaia  get behind us, millions of votes and the 26 lives we've already changed through these scholarships is very gratifying," said Rick Smilow, ICE's president and CEO. "And now having the finals air on the number one food and lifestyle show on TV, takes our scholarship program to a whole new level. The school has helped more than 14,000 alumni find their culinary voice and this year, we're going to add to that in a big way."

"Culinary school is an important step for those eager to enter the food industry," said Gordon Elliott, executive producer, The Chew. "The Institute of Culinary Education was named the best culinary school in America for a reason, and we are very excited to showcase this fantastic opportunity for aspiring chefs on The Chew where we celebrate food and cooking every day."

Eligible entrants must upload an original video up to one-minute in length to ice.edu/CULINARYVOICE, demonstrating their creativity and passion for food, who or what inspires them and what they hope to achieve in the culinary industry. They'll tell the world why they deserve a scholarship and the chance to study at the ICE  named America's best culinary school by The Daily Meal (2016). Entrants can select from two of ICE's career training programs  Culinary Arts or Pastry & Baking Arts  as well as their campus of choice  New York City or Los Angeles.

Important Dates:

March 5 : Entries Open

: Entries Open March 26 : Voting Begins (new entries are still accepted during voting)

: Voting Begins (new entries are still accepted during voting) April 15 : Entries and Voting Close

: Entries and Voting Close May 10 : Finalists Announced

: Finalists Announced June 15 : Winners Announced on The Chew

For more information and to enter the challenge, visit ice.edu/CULINARYVOICE

The 2018 #CulinaryVoice Scholarship Contest is open only to legal residents of the 50 U.S. & D.C., 18 or older. No purchase necessary. Official Contest Rules: ice.edu/CULINARYVOICE/RULES

About the Institute of Culinary Education

The Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) is one of the largest and most diverse culinary schools in the world with campuses in New York and Los Angeles. Established in 1975, ICE offers award-winning six to 13-month career training programs in Culinary Arts, Pastry & Baking Arts, Restaurant & Culinary Management, Hotel & Hospitality Management, Bread Baking and Cake Decorating  with more than 14,000 successful alumni, many of whom are leaders in the industry. ICE also offers continuing education for culinary professionals, hosts more than 500 special events each year and is home to one of the world's largest recreational cooking, baking and beverage programs with 26,000 students annually. ICE's 74,000-square-foot, cutting edge campus in New York City and its new west coast campus in Los Angeles were designed for inspiration, creativity and community. Visit us at ice.edu or join us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at @iceculinary to find your culinary voice.

CONTACT:

Stephanie Fraiman

Public Relations Director

Institute of Culinary Education

(212) 847-0703

[email protected]

SOURCE The Institute of Culinary Education

Related Links

http://www.ice.edu

HELSINKI, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Tieto has licensed Wirepas Mesh for Empathic Building service. Tieto Empathic Building is using Nordic Semiconductor nRF52 radio hardware with Wirepas Mesh network in customer buildings.

Tieto Empathic Building service is solving end-user problems in modern working and learning environments like activity-based offices. Relevant data in right location drops unwanted administration and increases user wellbeing and performance. Wirepas Mesh is a de-centralized radio communications protocol for large scale Industrial IoT applications such as smart metering, lighting, asset tracking, logistics and environmental sensoring. It enables limitless scale, ultra-low power operations, high reliability, and it is easy to deploy.

"Real-time reliable data without annoying delays is needed to cater superb user experience. We wanted to introduce service to our customers that does not need any ICT competence. Our solution is as easy to implement as a microwave oven," says Tomi Teikko, Head of Tieto Empathic Building

Wirepas matches well to Empathic Building's application requirements. It is scalable, reliable, easy to deploy and efficient in terms of total cost of ownership. It is also radio spectrum friendly, which is of great importance in a building and office environment where several networks need to co-exist without interference.

"The partnership with Tieto is a great proof-case of the versatility of Wirepas Mesh. The fact that we are able to do trade-offs between different network parameters, even run-time, guarantees that we can ensure a fit-for-purpose connectivity for different use cases and applications. We are proud that Tieto has chosen our technology for their new service platform," Wirepas CEO Teppo Hemia says.

Wirepas

Wirepas is focused on providing the most reliable, optimized, scalable and easy to use device connectivity for its customers. Wirepas Mesh is a de-centralized radio communications protocol that can be used in any device, with any radio chip and on any radio band. With Wirepas Mesh there is no need for traditional repeaters because every wireless device is a smart router of the network. The connected devices form the network - easy as that. Wirepas has its headquarters in Tampere, Finland and offices in France, Germany, South Korea, the UK and the United States.

Things connected - Naturally

www.wirepas.com - Twitter - LinkedIn



Tieto

Tieto aims to capture the significant opportunities of the data-driven world and turn them into lifelong value for people, business and society. We aim to be customers' first choice for business renewal by combining our software and services capabilities with a strong drive for co-innovation and ecosystems. www.tieto.com

For more information, please contact:

Teppo Hemia

CEO

phone +35850-561-0198

[email protected]

Sebastian Linko

Vice President

Marketing and Communications

+35840-023-6607

[email protected]

Tomi Teikko

Head of Tieto Empathic Building

+358-405009400

[email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/wirepas/r/tieto-empathic-building-relies-on-wirepas-mesh-connectivity,c2464564

SOURCE Wirepas

Related Links

http://www.wirepas.com

SALT LAKE CITY, March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Ready to sharpen your BBQ skills and grill like a pro? Traeger Shop Class has returned to help people across North America master the art of outdoor cooking.

Traeger Grills, inventor of the original wood pellet grill, has assembled an all-star roster of pitmasters to instruct the grilling community on the vital BBQ and outdoor cooking skills and smoky recipes they need to perfect cooking on their grill. BBQ pros Matt Pittman, Danielle Bennett, Chad Ward, Curtis Nations, Doug Scheiding, Hank Shaw and Jason Stucki will traverse the continent to craft the ultimate outdoor cooking creations and teach classes on how they can do the same.

Each 4-hour outdoor cooking workshop is carefully crafted to demonstrate how to harness the versatility of cooking meat, vegetables, pizza, desserts and even cocktails over wood fire. Two different class options are available: Barbecue Classics, featuring a varied menu from ribs and wood-fired pizza to steak and dessert, and a Meat Master class that tackles all the major proteins. Attendees will learn techniques on how to trim, rub, inject and smoke authentic and delicious barbecue.

Open to cooking enthusiasts of all levels, from novice grillers to competition pitmasters, all attendees will receive interactive instruction on how to grill, smoke, bake, roast, braise and BBQ with wood fire, as well as tips and tricks for preparation, best practices, demonstrations and even a few secret ingredients.

Attendees have the opportunity to experience Traeger's most advanced grill to date, The Timberline, which uses patented WiFIRE technology to allow users to remotely control their grill from the palm of their hand. The Timberline makes wood-fired cooking more customizable than ever before, unlocking the capability for users to program the grill to remember and repeat cook cycles from anywhere. From prep to finish, attendees will learn the ins-and-outs of The Timberline.

Each Traeger Shop Class includes:

3-4 hours of instruction from a pitmaster

Wood-fired samples cooked by the pros

A take-home BBQ manual with pitmaster-approved recipes and tips

Traeger grill swag pack

Entry to win a Traeger Tailgater grill

Beginning on March 26 and continuing into October, Traeger will take the Shop Class Tour to 30 cities throughout North America, including Dallas; San Jose, California; Green Bay, Wisconsin; and Toronto, Canada.

To sign up for Traeger Shop Class and learn more about the 2018 tour, visit traegergrills.com/shopclass and join the #TraegerShopClass conversation on social media.

2018 Shop Class Tour Schedule

United States

Jackson, Missouri: March 26-27

Emporia, Kansas: March 30-31

Fort Worth, Texas: March 31

Midland, Texas: April 5-6

Chandler, Arizona: April 10-11

Dallas: April 12, 22 and May 10

Fresno, California: April 20-21

San Jose, California: April 24-25

Las Vegas: April 30-May 1

Huntsville, Alabama: May 17-18

Gray, Georgia: May 22-23

Rock Hill, South Carolina: May 31-June 1

Wake Forest, North Carolina: June 4-5

Ashland, Virginia: June 8-9

Lancaster, Pennsylvania: June 13-14

Yonkers, New York: June 18-19

Hilliard, Ohio: June 22-23

Royal Oak, Michigan June 27-28

Mankato, Minnesota: July 27-28

Bozeman, Montana: August 3-4

Great Falls, Montana: August 8-9

Spokane Valley, Washington: August 29-30

Meridian, Idaho: September 4-5

Highlands Ranch, Colorado: September 20-21

Lincoln, Nebraska: September 26-27

Sioux Falls, South Dakota: October 1-2

Minot, North Dakota: October 5-6

Canada

Elora, Ontario: July 9-10

Toronto, Ontario: July 13-14

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan: August 20-21

Edmonton, Alberta: August 24-25

About Traeger Grills

Traeger Grills, headquartered in Salt Lake City, has been revolutionizing BBQ grilling and outdoor cooking for 30 years with one simple, all-encompassing cooking solution. Traeger pellet grills use 100% all natural hardwood fuel to infuse food with flavorful smoke, making food taste delicious and most of all, memorable. As the inventor of the original and world's top selling wood-fired grill, Traeger utilizes wood-fired convection power to provide 6-in-1 versatility; grill, smoke, bake, roast, braise and BBQ meals to perfection every time. Visit www.traegergrills.com for more information and to purchase Traeger grills and accessories.

Connect with Traeger

Press Contacts

Zachary Allen

801-461-9751

[email protected]

SOURCE Traeger Grills

Related Links

http://www.traegergrills.com

"We are incredibly proud of our work with UNICEF and are honored by this award," said Jenny Lewis, vice president, Kimberly-Clark Foundation. "Kimberly-Clark's social impact programs aspire to have a positive impact on communities where we live and work. UNICEF is a natural partner to provide the world's most vulnerable children with the support and services that protect them in times of crisis and enable them to thrive."

UNICEF works in more than 190 countries to save and improve children's lives, providing health care and immunizations, education, clean water and sanitation, nutrition, emergency relief and more. Since 2000, Kimberly-Clark has contributed nearly $10 million in product and cash donations to UNICEF in 15 global markets.

In 2017, Kimberly-Clark supported UNICEF on emergency response efforts following extreme weather events, providing safe drinking water and health services to communities devastated by flooding in Peru and mudslides in Columbia. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, the company donated more than 500,000 diapers and baby wipes and more than 100,000 feminine care pads to UNICEF's relief efforts in Puerto Rico.

In addition to contributing to emergency relief efforts, Kimberly-Clark works closely with UNICEF on ongoing initiatives to improve access to clean water, basic toilets and good hygiene practices, which are essential for the survival and development of children.

Through its Toilets Change Lives program, Kimberly-Clark is teaming with UNICEF to improve sanitation for communities in need. First launched in the UK in 2014 under Kimberly-Clark's Andrex brand, a portion of product sales go to supporting UNICEF's efforts to empower communities in Angola to build their own clean, safe toilets. Since its inception, the program has given over 240,000 Angolans access to basic sanitation facilities.

In South Africa, Kimberly-Clark is working with UNICEF to improve access to clean water and safe sanitation in over 290 schools in the eastern province of Mpumalanga. Funding from Kimberly-Clark has helped UNICEF map sanitation facilities in 393 schools and train school personnel and educators in effective water, sanitation and hygiene practices. The partnership will directly help keep over 38,000 children safe from dirty water and disease with hygiene promotion in schools. Overall, the money raised will help UNICEF to reach more than one million children and 35,000 teachers in South Africa.

"This initiative is another step towards achieving Kimberly-Clark's Sustainability 2022 goal to improve the wellbeing of 25 million people in need," added Lewis. "The challenges are great, and we look forward to building on our partnership with UNICEF to make a difference."

About Kimberly-Clark

Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) and its trusted brands are an indispensable part of life for people in more than 175 countries. Fueled by ingenuity, creativity, and an understanding of people's most essential needs, we create products that help individuals experience more of what's important to them. Our portfolio of brands, including Huggies, Kleenex, Scott, Kotex, Cottonelle, Poise, Depend, Andrex, Pull-Ups, GoodNites, Intimus, Neve, Plenitud, Viva and WypAll, hold the No. 1 or No. 2 share position in 80 countries. We use sustainable practices that support a healthy planet, build stronger communities, and ensure our business thrives for decades to come. To keep up with the latest news and to learn more about the company's 146-year history of innovation, visit kimberly-clark.com or follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

[KMB-S]

SOURCE Kimberly-Clark Corporation

Related Links

http://www.kimberly-clark.com

"Grady knows serviceevery year the Marcus Trauma Center sees up to 7000 activations, and our Emergency Department has more than 145,000 visits. We treat everything from the routine to the extreme. It's a unique and challenging experience for the SOCM community," Shapiro said.

Officially called Mountain Path, medics are deployed on several rotations in the hospital, including burn, emergency medicine, orthopedics, surgical critical care, and trauma.

Grady takes up to two 18 Delta's or combat support medics at a time, who stay for a two to four-week period, covering shifts ranging from 12 to 30 hours.

"During my four weeks at Grady, there was never a moment where I was just standing around. There was so much to see, do and learn," said a Green Beret who completed his training at Grady in November 2017 and asked not to be identified.

Green Berets often endure prolonged missions, and have additional training in veterinary care, anesthesia, and surgery. When in austere environments, their amenities and equipment are very limited, and Grady teaches how to stabilize casualties until they can be brought to definitive surgical care, a spokesperson for SOCM said.

"My training here was an incredible refresher. The pace and expertise of everyone  especially the nurses  was impressive," the Green Beret said.

Through this partnership with Grady, Shapiro's leadership provides training in prolonged field care. This is an intensive medical course designed to challenge small teams of medics by deploying them in remote locations without nearby surgical support or rapid access to air medical evacuation.

Shapiro recently instructed a 72-hour course with 15 medics, who performed multiple invasive procedures under challenging conditions in coastal, mountain and rural environments.

"Medics' skills can atrophy when they go months without being in a medical environment. With direct supervision, education and feedback, as well as the hands-on practice, their skills set is kept active," said Shapiro.

About Grady Health System

Grady Health System is one of the largest safety net health systems in the United States. Grady consists of the 953-bed Grady Memorial Hospital, six neighborhood health centers, Crestview Health & Rehabilitation Center, and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta at Hughes Spalding, which is operated as a Children's affiliate.

With its nationally acclaimed emergency medical services, Grady has Atlanta's premier Level I trauma center - Metro Atlanta's only nationally verified Level 1 center - and serves as the 911 ambulance provider for the city of Atlanta. Grady's American Burn Association/American College of Surgeons verified Burn Center is one of only two in the state. And the Marcus Stroke and Neuroscience Center is a Joint Commission designated Advanced Comprehensive Stroke Center.

Other key services/distinctions include Grady's Regional Perinatal Center with its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Georgia's first Cancer Center for Excellence, The Avon Comprehensive Breast Center, the Georgia Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center, and the Ponce de Leon Center - one of the top HIV/AIDS outpatient clinics in the country. Grady is one of an elite group of hospitals to earn the Baby-Friendly USA international recognition as a Baby-Friendly Designated birth facility. In 2017, Grady earned the prestigious Stage 7 on the HIMSS Analytics Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model, becoming Georgia's first adult acute care hospital to earn the highest rating for improving patient care and safety through health information technology.

SOURCE Grady Health SystemMOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 5, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Waterline Data, a global leader in data cataloging solutions and applications, today unveiled the Waterline Metadata Discovery Platform, a highly scalable solution designed to help the petabyte enterprise dramatically accelerate the discovery, governance and use of big data. Based on advanced data virtualization technology, the new solution serves as a platform for multiple applications, from data cataloging for analytics to the newly launched GDPR compliance application.

"As the second largest bank in Germany, Commerzbank has a huge data estate spanning multiple business units across multiple countries," said Kerem Tomak, EVP and Divisional Board Member, Big Data and Advanced Analytics at Commerzbank. "The Waterline Data platform is crucial to our enterprise-wide big data initiative. By discovering our petabytes of data with automation and machine learning, Waterline Data makes it possible to surface, organize and use the bank's data across all our business entities, so that we can gain new insight where it wasn't possible before."

The Waterline Metadata Discovery Platform was designed to resolve the challenges of high volume and dissimilar data by creating a real-time, virtual view of the enterprise's entire data estate as new data pours in. Waterline's new platform is able to power a host of applications and use cases. The Smart Data Catalog, the first application available on the platform, is already deployed in some of the largest organizations in the world. It provides an easy to use "shop for data" interface to the enterprise's data estate to help business analysts find the data sets they need for self-service analytics without having to rely on IT.

Waterline's GDPR Application, a new app specifically built for the platform and available now, provides the Data Privacy Officer (DPO) and data stewards with deep-level assistance in complying with GDPR and other regulations by automatically identifying regulated subject data along with its contextual use and lineage. In addition to enabling integrated access control mechanisms that render data compliant at scale, the GDPR Application can quickly generate highly complex GDPR compliance reports and workflows that align with specific GDPR articles to immediately satisfy auditor requests.

"With the GDPR due to come into effect in a matter of days, many global enterprises are looking for shortcuts to ensure that they can fulfill their requirements by May 25," commented Matt Aslett, Research Director, Data Platforms and Analytics, 451 Research. "Automatic detection of regulated data, as well as its usage and lineage, is a potential key capability in enabling enterprises to quickly respond to GDPR reporting and audit requirements and identify compliance risks."

"With this discovery platform, we are uniquely enabling customers to analyze and classify high volumes of complex data and leverage the results across many different applications," said Waterline Data CEO Alex Gorelik. "The Waterline Smart Data Catalog and GDPR Application, which address two of today's most critical use cases, will be followed by additional applications in the upcoming months. Altogether, our new platform and growing suite of apps can connect the right people to the right data by giving anyonedata privacy officers, data engineers, data scientists and business analystsself-service access to trusted, high quality data that's fully governed and GDPR-compliant."

For more information about the Waterline Metadata Discovery Platform, please visit: https://www.waterlinedata.com/product-overview/. For more on the GDPR Application, see: https://www.waterlinedata.com/gdpr-compliance-solution/.

About Waterline Data:

Waterline Data customers spend less time looking for data and more time using it while complying with ever changing data governance mandates such as GDPR. Waterline Data automates data discovery, compliance and the ability to take action on data by using a combination of machine learning, ratings and reviews, and tribal knowledge to deliver the most comprehensive data catalog solutions on the market. The company is funded by Menlo Ventures, Jackson Square Ventures, Partech Ventures, and Infosys, and implemented in large enterprises around the globe. Founded in 2013, the company is headquartered in Mountain View, California. For more, visit www.waterlinedata.com.

Media Contact: Zachary Vito, MSR Communications, [email protected]

SOURCE Waterline Data

Related Links

https://www.waterlinedata.com

With no added sugar, and only 10 calories per 12oz can, Zola's NEW Organic Sparkling Energy Waters deliver the caffeine equivalent of 1 espresso shots with 100mg of plant-powered caffeine from green coffee, green tea, and yerba mate extracts. Additionally, each refreshing flavor delivers plant-based antioxidants, providing a good source of Vitamins C & E.

Zola's Organic Sparkling Energy Waters are launching with four naturally refreshing flavors: Pink Grapefruit, Blackberry Cucumber, Blood Orange, and Lemon Lime --available June 2018 with an SRP of $2.49 per 12 fl oz sleek aluminum can.

Chris Cuvelier, Zola's Founder & CEO, says, "We are proud of our Organic Sparkling Energy Waters that deliver the refreshment, energy and focus you need to crush your day. With no added sugar, and only 10 calories, these delicious drinks are sure to unlock your inspiration from within."

Zola's entire line of natural, great-tasting Coconut Waters, Organic Acai Juices, and Organic Hydrating Energy Drinks are now Non-GMO Project Verified, showing Zola's commitment to using only the highest quality ingredients. In addition, Zola has transitioned to vegan and gluten-free ingredients across all product lines.

Pete Brennan, Zola's Chief Growth Officer / Marketing GM said, "Our NEW Organic Sparkling Energy Water line and our entire Non-GMO Project Verified Plant-Powered Hydration portfolio are supported by our 'Live Zola' integrated marketing campaign, consisting of engaging social promotions & advertising, strategic customer partnerships, in-store shopper marketing programs, and lifestyle event sponsorships."

Chris Cuvelier, Zola's Founder & CEO, went on to say, "At Zola, we celebrate that feeling of exhilaration when you achieve something amazing and are inspired to raise your arms up high. Our 'Live Zola' campaign invites you to drink Zola, experience Plant-Powered Hydration, and show us what inspires you!" Chris added, "Surfing is my passion. At the end of a really fun wave, I often turn around, look towards my friends, and raise my arms up high as I fall back into the ocean. That is my moment of inspiration."

As part of the new campaign, Zola is developing a team of brand ambassadors who live the 24/7 lifestyle to tell the Zola story. Zola's first brand ambassador is Luca Padua, the youngest person to ever surf Mavericks, the legendary big wave located off the coast of Half Moon Bay, CA. Luca surfed Mavericks at age thirteen, and today, is recognized globally as one of the top up and coming big wave surfers. Luca relies on Zola and Plant-Powered Hydration to take his performance to the next level.

About Zola

Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Zola was founded in 2001 by CEO, Chris Cuvelier, who launched Zola as the world's first bottled Acai juice. Chris has been driving category innovation ever since, with the introduction of Coconut Water in 2011, and most recently in 2017, a line of Organic Hydrating Energy drinks made with sparkling coconut water to hydrate and organic plant-powered energy sources including green coffee and green tea extracts to re-energize and replenish. Zola's NEW Organic Sparkling Energy Waters, launching June 2018, round out the portfolio, delivering plant-powered caffeine and antioxidants with only 10 calories and no added sugar.

For More Information

For more information visit www.livezola.com and join our community on Facebook at facebook.com/livezolaus and Instagram at @Livezolaus.

SOURCE Zola

Related Links

http://www.livezola.com/

The St Ives Shopping Centre in East Ipswich, southwest of Brisbane, has sold to the Sydney-based Mintus for $30,450,000.

The deal, negotiated by Savills agents Peter and Jon Tyson in conjunction with Shane Sax of Pace Property, included six adjacent properties.

The 38,200 square metre shopping centre with parking for over 500 cars includes a Woolworths as well as food outlets including Domino's, Red Rooster and Subway.

There are 49 speciality tenants in total.

Jon Tyson said that the sale followed an expressions of interest campaign conducted late last year.

"The centre attracted strong interest from the market. The sale was well contested resulting in multiple bids, primarily from private investors," he said.

The main centre was marketed with six adjoining properties included an 11 shop strip retail centre, two freestanding commercial buildings, two vacant mixed use development sites and a vacant house, each on separate titles.

The combined sites total over 6.25 hectares, situated alongside the Ipswich Motorway in Brisbane's western growth corridor. The Woolworths Supermarket is the only full line supermarket in an expansive trade area.

Peter Tyson said that the St Ives Shopping Centre and the adjoining holdings were amalgamated over many years.

The Centre has been tightly held with the transaction following over two decades of ownership by the same group," Tyson said.

"Buyers were attracted to the value-add potential of the large scale land holding which featured significant embedded real estate value and a flexible "Major Centres" zoning which allows for mixed use development up to 12 storeys.

Mintus director Mel Hazzouri said that the St Ives Shopping Centre and its land holding was the perfect fit for their portfolio.

The centre allows for plenty of value add and redevelopment for the future. We look forward to significantly adding value in the short term, working with the retailers and the community to bring St Ives back to its full potential, Hazzouri said

The market is showing ongoing demand in early 2018, with tighter stock levels expected to ensure competition from cashed up investors and drive momentum well into the New Year, Tyson said.The biggest name in fast food, McDonald's, has moved into apartment development in western Sydney's Parramatta, teaming with developer Stockland.

The project is at its Parramatta restaurant site at 355-375 Church Street.

Some 350 apartments are proposed along with 1565 square metres of new retail space, a car park and the new restaurant.

The fast food group will retain ownership of the restaurant stratum lot, which is proposed to have two levels of seating, a PlayPlace, McCafe and a dual-lane drive thru.Guest Observer

The Western Sydney City Deal is a major shaper for the Greater Sydney region and represents a significant investment to implement the Greater Western Sydney Parkland City of the 'Sydney Three Cities Regional Strategy'.

PIA NSW congratulates the Federal Government, NSW Government and the eight local councils for working together strategically and committing to the Western Sydney City Deal package. The package delivers six broad priorities, namely:

Connectivity  connecting Western City with a North South rail, digital linkages, road and bus Jobs for the future  Western Sydney Airport to drive investment and employment growth Skills and education  coordinating education and training to support skills development and training for jobs, particularly local opportunities, including for indigenous and aboriginal communities. Planning and housing  actions for planning and improving housing supply and affordability Livability and environment  working to create a great place with respecting agriculture, celebrate natural assets and heritage Governance  a shared vision, Implementation Board and development of an implementation Plan with Greater Sydney Commission coordinating land sue and infrastructure

PIA together with UDIA NSW recently joined together writing to the Prime Minister and NSW Premier calling for the Western Sydney City Deal to include funding for a north- south railway line, and the South West Rail Line Extension to enmesh the Western Sydney Airport in the economy of Western Sydney - and connect it with the Central and Eastern Cities of Sydney.

The announcement today outlines the commitment to funding the first stage of the North South Rail from St Marys to Western Sydney airport with a rapid bus between Penrith, Liverpool and Campbelltown, which is a fantastic start, said the NSW PIA President. This will be a huge step in creating a focus for the Western Parkland City in a way that links health, education and a range of other industries and jobs vital for this city to achieve its full potential.

The other strategic priorities are also important for Sydney communities including the concentration of funding to improve community facilities and open space.

Jenny Rudolph is the President of the Planning Institute of Australia's NSW division.

She can be contacted here.GUEST OBSERVER

The real estate sector has been a key driver of Chinas economic growth in recent years, helping to support the economy during the transition away from growth led by investment in heavy industry towards domestic consumption.

However, this growth has also built a sizeable debt burden which will have to be carefully managed in coming years to avoid a major downturn.

This is the first of two parts looking into the real estate sector. This part provides a high level view of the importance of the sector and recent trends, while part two will look at the risks related to the sector going forward.

PROPERTY SECTOR A CORE COMPONENT OF CHINAS ECONOMY

Private ownership of real estate has a short history in China. Prior to the period of opening up that commenced in 1978, all property was state-owned. Two decades of gradual reforms saw the introduction of commodity houses in 1998  private properties that could be bought and sold at market prices. Chinese residents embraced home ownership  with surveys conducted by Peking University showing that around 90% of households own their home.

The property sector is a critical part of Chinas economy, and has been a major driver of growth over the past decade. In 2017, the broad sector (accounting for construction and real estate services) comprised 13.2% of Chinas economy  compared with 10.8% a decade earlier, highlighting above average growth over this period. The IMF estimates that when combined with upstream and downstream demand (including cement and steel, along with furniture, electronics and automobiles), real estate drives around a quarter of the Chinese economy.

Similarly, investment in real estate (as a share of GDP) rose sharply from the start of the century  peaking at almost 15% of GDP in 2014, before easing back to 13.3% in 2017. The residential sector accounts for over two-thirds of this total. The trend over this period was supported by the mass migration of Chinese residents from rural areas to cities, as well as a substantial improvement in the quality of housing for existing urban residents.

Property a major part of the economy

Real estates importance to the financial sector has also increased in recent years. Outstanding loans to real estate have rapidly increased over the past decade  from around RMB 4.8 trillion to over RMB 32 trillion in Q4 2017. This increase has outpaced lending growth to other sectors as well as the broader economy with real estate lending (as a percentage of GDP) increasing from 18% a decade ago to around 39% at the end of last year. Although this share is not particularly high when compared with advanced economies  particularly Australia (where it is around 90% of GDP) and the United States  its rapid growth poses some concern.

The key contributor to the increase in real estate lending has been residential mortgages  with the mortgage share of total real estate lending rising to 74% in December 2017, up from 63% in December 2007. In addition, the property sector has lured funds from the shadow banking sector (although data on this sector is patchy at best). In Q3 2017, around 10% of funds from the trust sector (one component of shadow banking) were invested in real estate.

Property loans have grown rapidly

Finally, the sector has been extremely important to government balance sheets  with land sales a major source of revenue for the often highly indebted local governments. In 2016, land sales accounted for almost 26% of the total  although this share varies widely across the country. Governments also benefit from tax revenue from the real estate sector  although at present there are no residential property taxes. The sector is also been a major employer  around 27 million people were employed in construction in 2016, with a further 4 million in real estate management, which together accounts for almost 18% of urban employment (and with it income tax revenue).

Land sales still a major source of funding

This implies that there are various bodies  both state and private  that benefit from continued growth in construction and property development, despite growing concerns around oversupply once again. This incentive to continue to expand increases risks around Chinas economy.

RECENT TRENDS IN PROPERTY

Chinas previous residential property cycle peaked in April 2014  following a period of domestic and international concern around potential price bubbles and overbuilding (particularly in so-called ghost cities). Aggregate prices for 70 major cities fell over the next twelve months before the recovery commenced (led by the largest Tier 1 cities  Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou).

During this period, there was a substantial slowdown in investment in the real estate sector  with the rate of growth down from around 15% yoy (on a three month moving average basis) to -0.6% yoy (3mma) by November 2015. This resulted in a drop in construction activity, with residential starts (measured in square metres of floor space) falling considerably between February 2014 and January 2016. These weaker conditions flowed through into the next link in the chain  local government revenues from land sales fell 24% in 2015 on weaker demand from developers.

PROPERTY PRICES BY TIER - Vast disparities between Chinas cities

However, investment in real estate recovered in 2016  as easing property purchase restrictions allied to a credit boom, fiscal stimulus and poor performance in other asset classes supported a fresh surge in property demand and construction activity. Much of the attention was focussed on the extraordinary price increases in tier 1 cities  by September 2016, prices in these locations were 40% above their April 2014 peak  however these cities accounted for just 8% of real estate investment in 2016 (IMF). The majority of investment (59%) occurred in smaller tier 3 and 4 cities (where prices in December 2017 were only 4.0% above the previous peak), where concerns around oversupply have been higher.

This growth provided a major boost to Chinas economy in 2016  at a time where fears of a hard landing were elevated. In real terms, real estate and construction grew by 8.6% and 7.2% respectively in 2016, well above the rest of the economy.

Growing fears around overheating property markets have seen a tightening in property policies since this time including higher down payments, restrictions on finance and tighter eligibility for purchases  however these policies have varied across the country. Prices stabilised in tier 1 cities and growth slowed substantially in tier 2 ones. As a result, the strong growth in construction starts and property sales in the first half of 2017 slowed considerably in the second half.

CONCLUSIONS

We anticipate the slowing trends generally exhibited across the property sector in late 2017 will extend into this year. Slowing sales and softer price trends should flow through into weaker construction activity  which would have downstream effects for steel and cement demand (along with Australian iron ore) and local government revenues (with land sales likely to fall as well).

Gerard Burg is senior economist - Asia Group Economics at National Australia Bank.The latest data from the Reserve Bank (RBA) shows that the expansion of housing credit is occurring at a historically sluggish pace as tighter credit policies and slower housing market conditions dampen investment participation in the housing market.

The RBA releases its financial aggregates on the last working day of each month and it provides valuable insight into outstanding credit to all mortgage lenders in Australia.

The latest data shows that in January 2018, housing credit expanded by 0.5% which was actually greater than the 0.4% expansion the previous month. Splitting the data by owner occupier and investors, owner occupier credit expanded by 0.6% compared to 0.2% for investors.

The first chart shows the monthly change in housing credit for owner occupiers and investors, while owner occupier credit expansion is tracked fairly steady, there is a clear slowing of credit expansion to investors currently. The slowdown is being fueled by switching of investor loans to owner occupier and macroprudential policies which limit credit growth to investors.

The macroprudential policies have come in two waves, the first wave limited lenders from growing investor credit by more than 10%pa while the second wave limited new interest-only lending (which is largely utilised by investors) to 30% of new originations. The first chart suggests that the first wave actually tightened investor credit growth more than the second wave, highlighted by the fact that in December 2015 investor credit recorded no change while the slowest rate of expansion since the second wave of policies has been 0.2% which is not as severe of a slowdown as that experienced following the first wave of macroprudential policies.

The second chart focusses on the annual change in housing credit and shows the benchmark for the 10% speed limit for investor lending which was introduced by APRA in late 2014. This chart also highlights a relatively steady expansion in owner occupier credit but a slowing expansion of investor credit.

At the end of January 2018, the total value of outstanding housing credit was $1.731 trillion which was an historic high. As a share of the total value of credit outstanding to lenders, residential housing accounts for a record-high 62.0%. The data shows a clear preference for lending for residential housing over recent years especially when you consider at the end of 2007, just prior to the GFC, housing accounted for a much lower 51.9% of total outstanding credit.

The fourth chart highlights outstanding investor credit as a share of total outstanding housing credit. In January 2018, outstanding credit to investors was recorded at $587.9 billion which represented 34.0% of total housing credit. Although investors make up a significant proportion of outstanding credit, as a share investor credit has been falling since its peak of 38.7% in June 2015. In fact, the share of credit to investors is at its lowest level since May 2013.

Based on the most recent data from APRA, Australian lenders have comprehensively met the macroprudential targets for investment credit growth and interest only lending. Considering annual investment credit growth, at 3.0%, continues to track well under the 10% speed limit and interest only lending is also well under the 30% benchmark, its possible investment credit growth could lift over coming months.

Investors do face other headwinds though, with capital gains cooling, yields tracking well below average and depreciation benefits less appealing since the federal government budget last year.

Overall, the expansion in housing credit is now largely being driven by the owner occupier segment of the market. With mortgage rates expected to rise some time over the next two years and dwelling values falling, it will be interesting to see how long the steady expansion in owner occupier credit can last.

Cameron Kusher is head of research for CoreLogic. You can contact him here.If you are new to iQ you can schedule a demo and learn more about this opportunity.

PSFK iQ - Where Innovators Turn for Research. Our professional-grade research platform is designed specifically for Retail and CX leaders who want to know whats next. Whether youre staying current on trends or need a real-time research partner to help you get ahead, count on PSFK iQ to deliver the info you need to make your next move.The education ministries in all Canadian provinces and territoriesexcept for British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebecand the school board of Ontario have filed a lawsuit against Access Canada, the organization that licenses and collects fees for third-party use of creative content. The ministries are seeking to recoup C$27.5 million ($21.5 million) they paid between 2010-2012 for materials used in K-12 classrooms.

During that period, universities were expected to pay C$26 per student and colleges C$10 per student as a flat fee for the reproduction of publishers' copyrighted material. But, after a revision to the copyright law, called the 2012 Copyright Modernization Act, effectively expanded fair use for materials in an educational context (in Canada, this is called fair dealing), Access Copyright set a reduced fee, which was agreed to by the government, at effectively C$2.50 per student for K-12, starting January 1, 2013. Under the lawsuit, the educational institutions, which number more than 90 in all, are essentially trying to have the reduced fee applied retroactively by claiming to have overpaid C$4.81 per student per year from 2010-12. (The exact value of the fees are complicated by several extreme fluctuations in the value of the Canadian dollar over those years)

In the years since the Modernization Act, many educational institutions have paid Copyright Access nothing at all, taking advantage of the vague language of the act. The result has been an unmitigated disaster for Canadian educational publishing, with estimated losses of some C$50 million in payments to publishers over the last five years. For 2017, Access Copyright estimated payouts dropped from C$11 million in 2016 to C$5 million. Most education publishers have also claimed a reduction in textbook orders, some as much as 90%, over the same period. Meanwhile, Access Copyright estimates that the education sector copies 150 million pages from copyright-protected works each year.

Last year, publishers felt some hope about revising the Modernization Act after Copyright Access won a lawsuit against York University for non-payment of fees. With the Act up for a five-year government review this year, the win was seen as a good omen for impending change, but the news of the lawsuit has shocked many in the publishing industry.

In a statement to the press, Glenn Rollans, president of the Association of Canadian Publishers, which primarily represents small and medium-sized publishers, called it a disturbing attack. He added, We have no choice but to interpret this suit as the intimidating action that it is. The idea being that the ministries have more financial resources than Access Copyright and can outlast them in court, and likely make any discussion of potential changes to the Act all the more complicated for legislators.

Alexander Finbow, president of the Book Publishers Association of Alberta, wrote a letter to the education minister of Alberta asking the ministry to withdraw from the lawsuit. It is hard for us not to view this action as an overt attempt to harass and intimidate Canadian creative workers, and to exhaust our energy and resources to fight for our rights and livelihoods," he said.

John Degen, executive director of the Writers Union of Canada, told the book trade publication Quill & Quire that the lawsuit was an extreme move, and symbolic of a dysfunctional system. Anybody with kids from K12 in Canada is fully aware of the abysmal state of educational-material funding in Canada right now. All the work we do to show our value, to get our work in front of students, and to have this be the tactic from the other side is quite appalling, he said.Readers of cozy mysteries, or cozies as they're affectionately known, tend to be insatiable. They can't get enough of these lighthearted, comedic murder mysteries featuring amateur sleuths. To meet readers' ravenous demand for new cozies, and to grow and strengthen the cozy fanbase, Kensington is expanding its commitment to the genre in 2018, publishing at least eight print and three e-original cozies per month and launching retailing partnerships and regional miniconventions across the country.

These bookswhose sleuths include knitters, cooks, pet lovers, and moreare like catnip for readers who share the characters' hobbies or jobs. This year, Kensington is publishing baking cozies, such as The Raspberry Danish Murder, the just-published 22nd installment in Joanne Fluke's beloved Hannah Swensen culinary mystery series. There are also cozies focused on particular places, such as Murder in an Irish Churchyard by Carlene O'Connor, an established women's fiction author who moved into the cozy genre with her Irish Village Mysteries. Fans of adult coloring books will love the coloring cozies by Krista Davis, who is joining the Kensington list with Color Me Murder and The Coloring Crook, the first two books in her Pen & Ink series, which feature covers readers can color in.

Beyond being wonderful reads, these books encourage readers to engage with beloved pastimes. And the range of topics enables Kensington to do promotion well beyond the traditional book-related channels, including knitting publications, via special content sites such as yourbookrx.com, created for Ellery Adams, and in "all the places where dog and cat lovers are getting their cuteness fixes," says Kensington communications director Vida Engstrand.

The array of writers whose books are part of the Kensington cozies program includes longtime Kensington authors such as Lee Hollis; established authors joining the Kensington list, such as Adams and Sally Goldenbaum, and debut writers such as Devon Delaney, whose Expiration Date kicks off her Cook-Off Mystery series. Kensington will launch more than 30 new cozy series this year, more than doubling the number of cozies the house published just three years ago. Each book will be supported by a dedicated marketing campaign.

In the process of envisioning the future of its cozy program, Kensington identified an interesting problem: while readers know they love books with all the cozy attributes, many of them don't realize that those books are actually called cozies, and that they're dipping into a vast and clearly defined subgenre of mysteries that has its own community of fellow fans. And they don't necessarily know where to look for more books.

So building awareness around cozies as a genre is top priority for Kensington this year. With Barnes & Noble, Kensington is currently running a "Buy 3, Get 1 Free" sale, and plans to grow the partnership with additional promotions and even a line of proprietary series. Kensington is actively looking to partner with indie booksellers, who will receive special discounts. Kensington is even sending stores that order 25 or more cozies a "CozyBowl" gift pack "filled with all kinds of the things that make cozies so fun, from baking utensils to adorabowl toy dogs and cats, to puzzles, crafts, candy and more," says Engstrand.

But the rollout of Kensington's regional Cozy Club minicons is likely to be the most exciting aspect of the program for readers, authors, and booksellers. For these minicons, Michelle Addo, Kensington's communications manager, says, "We're bringing in 1025 authors plus tasty refreshments from local businesses and tons of great swag. Readers are invited to come meet the authors, mingle with fellow readers, get exclusive sneak peeks at upcoming releases, learn more about the genre, and get autographed books while enjoying plenty of treats, goodies and prizes." Details about participating authors, as well as more info on the cozies program, are available at kensingtoncozies.com.

Altogether, Kensington is turning 2018 into a watershed year for cozies.

Kensingtons 2018 Cozy Club Miniconventions:

April 10: Portland, Maine, at Print: A Bookstore

July 11: Richmond, Va., at Fountain Bookstore

September 1: Forest Park, Ill., at Century and Sleuths Bookstore

November 3: Scottsdale, Ariz., at the Poisoned Pen BookstoreMumbai-based cable operator JPR Network is planning to launch an over-the-top (OTT) video service following a tie-up with digital technology provider Falcon Media House.





Working with Mumbai-based Media Nucleus for systems integration, Falcon will supply Quiptels Q-Flow live and on-demand streaming service. JPR Network will pay a base cost plus fee per subscriber, although exact figures have not been disclosed.Falcon claims that Q-Flow can overcome the challenges of congested and slow connections to deliver content to the end consumer using the most efficient and cost-effective route. It also forecasts JPR Network will be able to increase penetration with its existing 150,000 subscribers by streaming content to the mobile devices of its existing 150,000 subscribers, and extending its geographical reach.The explosion of the smartphone market, and with it the increase in demand for streaming video content, requires a robust and reliable OTT service both inside and outside the home. The combined strength of both companies products offers a tailored solution to the MSOs and we look forward to announcing more wins in the very near future, said Santosh Nair, co-founder and director, Media Nucleus.Together we already have an immediate pipeline of MSOs, who represent over two million subscribers, and we are looking forward to enabling them to deliver a world-class OTT service using Q-Flow that will help them to grow in a cost-efficient manner, avoiding the huge costs of building infrastructure .Falcon Media House executive chairman, Gert Rieder, added: Having a presence in India is key for success and with our strategic partner Media Nucleus we can provide local support and implementation to enable a timely cost-effective solution to other MSOs looking to provide value added services to their existing subscribers.Media Nucleus broadcast and pay-TV customers include Fox Movies in the Middle East and Zuku in East Africa, while Falcon has existing deals in Nigeria, South Africa, Canada and Mongolia.An alliance of terrorist groups loyal to Al-Qaeda and led by Malian Jihadist Iyad Ag Ghali claimed responsibility for the simultaneous attacks on the military headquarters of Burkina Faso and the French Embassy in Ouagadougou.

The group said that the attack is a retaliation against France, which has launched an operation against terrorists in northern Mali.

Eight armed forces personnel were killed in the terrorist attack, while a French security source said 12 more were seriously injured.

Eight attackers were also killed and 80 people, including civilians, were wounded, officials said.

The government said the attack on the military HQ was a suicide car bombing and that a regional antiterrorism meeting may have been the intended target.

Four terrorist groups operating in the Sahel announced their merger into one group Jamaat Nasr Al islam wa Al mouminin (Group for the Defense of Islam and the Muslims) and pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda and its Jordanian leader Azarkawi in March 2017.

The four terrorist groups were brought together under the command of Iyad Ag Ghali, the leader of Ansar Eddine terrorist group based in Mali.

The merging groups are: Ansar Eddine, Al Mourabitoune- led by Algerian notorious terrorist Moukhtar BelMokhtar-, the Macina brigade, and AlQaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) led by another Algerian Abdelmalek Droudkel.

Regional experts explained that the unification of the four groups under the banner of Al Qaeda was in response to the rise of Daech (IS) in Libya and a fear of being overshadowed by it, notably after leaders of the Unity and Jihad in West Africa (known as MUJAO) broke away with AL Qaeda to join IS in 2015.Australian pay-TV operator Foxtel is adding a linear channel showcasing what it claims to be some of the greatest films of all time, along with a library of 'movie masterpieces' available on-demand.





The new channel, Foxtel Movie Greats, will launch on 23 March and will also be available to stream on Foxtel Now. It will feature films from every decade and span all genres."Foxtel Movie Greats will be carefully curated with a wide selection of outstanding motion pictures from every major Hollywood studio, including 20th Century Fox, Disney, Warners, Sony, Paramount, Universal and MGM," explained Brian Walsh, executive director of television, Foxtel "The channel will feature titles from Hollywood's illustrious past through to modern classics. It will mean that Foxtel customers will now have the choice of ten dedicated movie channels, including our incredibly successful Pop-Up Movie channel."All time classics such as Cleopatra, My Fair Lady, The Great Escape, Ben-Hur, War & Peace, Saturday Night Fever, The Godfather, Chariots of Fire and The Ten Commandments will be joined by titles including King Kong, An Officer And A Gentleman, Kramer vs. Kramer, Greatest Show On Earth, Escape from Alcatraz, Death On The Nile, Murder On The Orient Express and Pretty In Pink."We have secured brand new digitally remastered prints of many of the titles, which look stunning. For a great many of the movies, this is the first time they will be seen in glorious HD, which will add to the magic," added Walsh.The Foxtel Movie Greats channel will be available in HD to Foxtel Movies and Foxtel Platinum subscribers. Over 60 of the key films from the new channel will be available to watch from Foxtel's On Demand library and will be streamed on Foxtel Now.Foxtel has also announced that veteran movie critic, Bill Collins, will be part of an expanded On Demand library service available to subscribers, also from 23 March. Collins' Golden Years Of Hollywood will be supported by an On Demand library including masterpieces such as All About Eve, All That Heaven Allows, Sunset Boulevard, The Wizard Of Oz, Singin' In The Rain, An American In Paris, Casablanca, The Philadelphia Story, The African Queen, Auntie Mame, The Postman Always Rings Twice and Magnificent Obsession.Adam Ni is a researcher at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University. His areas of interest include Chinas foreign and security policy. He can be found on Twitter @adam_ni. Divergent Options content does not contain information of an official nature nor does the content represent the official position of any government, any organization, or any group.

National Security Situation: The Peoples Republic of China (China) is facing the (re)emergence of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, known as the Quad, consisting of the United States, India, Japan and Australia. The unstated aim of the Quad is to constrain Chinas growing power in Asia through possible military and economic cooperation that would raise the cost if Beijing challenges the status quo.

Date Originally Written: February 28, 2018.

Originally Published: March 5, 2018.

Author and / or Article Point of View: The author is a scholar of Chinas foreign and security policy. The article is written from the point of view of Chinese decision-makers considering policy options in response to the Quads challenges.

Background: The Quad can be traced back to 2007 when diplomatic efforts culminated in a multilateral naval exercise off the Bay of Bengal. While the countries involved contended that their activities were not aimed at China, it was clear that these activities were largely a response to Chinas growing power. However, the Quad was short-lived with Australia pulling out in February 2008 under Chinese pressure[1].

Recently, the Quad has been revived in the face of an increasingly powerful and assertive China with expanded geopolitical ambitions. In November 2017, officials from the Quad nations met on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in the Philippines and agreed that a free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific region is in the interest of all countries[2]. This meeting was followed in January by the meeting of the Quad navy chiefs at the Raisina Dialogue in India. During the meeting, Admiral Harry Harris, the Commander of U.S. Pacific Command, characterized China as a disruptive, transitional force in the region, and urged Quad nations to take measures against Chinas unilateral ways to change the use of global commons and uphold rule-based freedom of navigation[3]. This sentiment was echoed by the navy chiefs of the other three Quad nations.

Significance: While it is still too early to tell what the Quad would entail, in theory, it aims to constrain Chinas growing power and to ameliorate Chinas behavior by altering Beijings strategic calculus. The military dimension of the Quad could take the form of expanded military cooperation that would raise the cost for China to use or threaten the use of force, including in relation to the East and South China Seas. The economic dimension could take the form of expanded economic and infrastructure cooperation that would compete with Chinas Belt and Road Initiative, a grand plan to reshape the world economy with China at the center.

Option #1: Reassurance. China continues to emphasize to the Quad nations its intent to develop peacefully through public statements and diplomatic channels.

Risk: Without pushing back against the Quad, the Quad nations and others in the region may believe that China is unwilling to impose a cost on them for challenging Chinas security and economic interests. This lack of push back may lead to further coalescence of the Quad and may even draw in other states in the region that have become wary of Chinas growing power, including those that have territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea.

Gain: Option #1 may help to undermine the narrative of an ambitious China with a willingness to adopt coercive means to protect and advance its interests. This option would strengthen the arguments of domestic forces in the Quad nations that advocate a softer approach in responding to Chinese power.

Option #2: Punishment. China applies a high degree of economic and diplomatic pressure on Quad nations to demonstrate the cost of challenging Chinas interests and thus deter further challenges. This option could take the form of economic coercion, formal diplomatic protests, and the downgrading of bilateral cooperation in key fields.

Risk: Option #2 would strengthen the rationale for the Quad and the argument for constraining Chinas power in the first place by demonstrating Chinas willingness to adopt coercive measures against those that challenge its interests. This option may further exacerbate the negative perception of China among the Quad nations, especially where there is already a lively debate about Chinas influence (such as in Australia and the United States). In addition, economic coercion may damage the Chinese economy and in the long run make the target economies less dependent on China.

Gain: China demonstrating strength and resolve early on may lead to the collapse of the Quad if the Quad nations are not willing to pay the high cost of challenging Chinas interests. For example, Australia is highly dependent on China for trade and investment flows. The Chinese government could put in place measures to reduce Chinese tourists or students from going to Australia and link these restrictions to Australias involvement with the Quad. Such measures may also deter other regional countries from cooperating with the Quad against Chinas interests.

Option #3: Reassurance and caution. China continues to emphasize its peaceful intent while also signaling its willingness to impose an economic and political cost on the Quad nations should they continue to challenge Chinas interests.

Risk: Option #3 may not be effective due to a lack of concrete cost imposed on the Quad nations, through, for example, coercive economic measures. At the same time, the cautioning may be interpreted as an aggressive warning of Chinas coercive intent, further exacerbating public anxiety in the Quad nations.

Gain: This approach may be enough to forestall the further development of the Quad through providing reassurance but also signals Chinas resolve to protects its interests. Option #3s key benefit is that it does not incur large political or economic cost for China immediately, but hinges Chinese retaliation on further Quad activities.

Other Comments: The revived Quad is still in the early stages of its development, and it is too early to tell what the Quad would entail. The above options are presented on the basis that the Quad may involve military and economic dimensions that challenge Chinas interests, including its territorial claims in the South China Sea as well as its Belt and Road Initiative. Given the diversity of strategic interests between the Quad nations in relation to China, there is a likelihood that the Quad will not develop beyond a mechanism for dialogue.

Recommendation: None.

Endnotes:

[1] Indrani Bagchi, Australia to pull out of quad that excludes China, Times of India, February 6, 2008. Available at: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Australia-to-pull-out-of-quad-that-excludes-China/articleshow/2760109.cms.

[2] India-Australia-Japan-U.S. Consultations on Indo-Pacific (November 12, 2017), Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, November 12, 2017. Available at: http://mea.gov.in/press-releases.htm?dtl/29110/IndiaAustraliaJapanUS_Consultations_on_IndoPacific_November_12_2017

[3] China a disruptive power, say navy chiefs of Quadrilateral nations, Times of India, January 19, 2018. Available at: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/china-a-disruptive-power-quad-nations-navy-chiefs/articleshow/62562144.cms.

This article appeared originally at Divergent Options.Were in Tokyo this week for the fifth Quadrilateral Plus track-two dialogue, along with think tanks from Japan, India and the U.S. With the Quad starting to get a bit of momentum behind it, its time to start thinking about what it might actually dorather than just talk aboutto address the big security issues of our time. This article is adapted from a paper we presented at the meeting.

At the top of the list of issues for the Quadindeed one of the major reasons the Quad cohered in the first placeis the increasing assertive and at times coercive behaviour of China. Chinas militarisation of the South China Sea, an increasingly threatening tone towards Taiwan, border incursions in the Himalayas, and the frequent and often aggressive incursions around the Senkaku Islands are the most obvious practical demonstrations of its emboldened foreign and strategic policy. None of those are helpful in positioning China as a non-revisionist power.

To be fair, when we take a more global view of Chinas actions, it doesnt look as threatening as it does nearer to homebut it isnt a particularly reassuring picture either. Chinese money talks loudly in the developing world, and its used as leverage to get Chinese companies into new places, often as a consequence of soft loans made to governments with little power to resist the funds on offer. Looking at the South Pacific, for example, there are many instances of loans being given for economically marginal ventures, with the locals getting only modest flow-on benefits.

Much of Chinas global activity is positive. China is currently the biggest contributor of troops to UN peacekeeping missions, for example, and it would be a stretch to say that selfish motives underlie the current rate of effort. Similarly, the Chinese navy has worked with multinational maritime forces to help police against piracy. China does some things because it wants to be seen as a major power, with the ability to contribute to global efforts, rather than with narrow self-interest as the motivation.

So the aim of any interactions with China should be to encourage behaviour that helps build common goods, while providing disincentives for the more aggressive and unhelpful applications of Chinese power. In recent years China has been very successful in achieving its geopolitical goals, but we should remember that it isnt an invulnerable colossus.

Weaknesses in elements of Chinas power provide potential points of leverage for the Quad countries, especially if we can take a consistent and strategic approach. Its fashionable in the Western press to talk about how dependent we are on China. Thats especially true in Australia, where the narrative now is that our 26 years of uninterrupted growth are the result of economic ties with China. But that cuts both ways: China needs the rest of the world at least as much as we need itand may become more dependent as some of its internal structural problems become more obvious. It might be productive for Quad members to think through ways of making those interdependencies clearer. It would certainly help balance a lot of unthinking rhetoric about having no choice but to placate China.

But theres also a downside risk to the rest of us in Chinese weaknesses. The Communist Party (CCP) has quite skilfully used a combination of appealing to Chinese nationalism and providing economic benefits to strengthen its hold on the country. For most of the past 20 years, the economic element took precedence. Nationalism could be stirred up when it suited and, while an imprecise implement, it probably suited the CCP quite well to have a backdrop of angry nationalists when asserting its position on contested spaces.

But vehement nationalism is a deeply unattractive thing, especially when its accompanied by anger at perceived social injustices, and it can lead to disaster if a nation is swept along by it. So the question becomes what happens when theres a confluence of factors that conspires to release the shackles on Chinese nationalism. An economic downturn, especially one that impacted heavily on Chinas relatively newly wealthy middle class, could cause the CCP to try to turn attention away from internal issues towards external ones.

So far Chinas assertiveness and unilateral ways have been calculated to not cross the threshold where open conflict is a predictable outcome. China has effectively annexed the South China Sea by never doing anything precipitous, for which a robust military response would be appropriate. Similarly, Beijing backed off the angry rhetoric regarding the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands after President Barack Obama said that the U.S.Japan Treaty provisions extended over the islands. They didnt, however, stop the low-level incursions, and in fact have ramped up their frequencyalways slowly enough that a big pushback isnt likely. That calibration depends on Chinese authorities being able to manage and control outbursts of nationalism. Growing public confidence in Chinas strength, combined with a desire by the PLA to show what it can do could result in the failure of managed calibration.

Its now clear that President Xi Jinping sees himself continuing to preside over China for many years to come. His status seems assured, and he has overseen a new level of monitoring and control of public discourse to ensure that his effective takeover is unchallenged. Party control seems solid enough for now, but it might be that the centralisation of power in the person of Xi turns out to be overreach in the party, or overreach in the partys management of China. It certainly makes it hard for Xi to be associated with failures, and a geopolitical setback might be hard to manage, especially if the economy slows further.

The Quad countries have many strengths as well, and our collective military and economic clout is more than a match for China. We think the Quad can collectively put a bit of a brake on Chinas geopolitical ambitions, but there are dangers here. Humiliating China plays into its nationalist narrative, and runs the risk of the CCP acting in response to internal agitation. That shouldnt stop us from acting in our interests, but we need to factor the risk of inadvertently sparking unrest in China into the calculus of what we might do.Now that the PyeongChang Winter Olympics is over, both South and North Korea can be satisfied with what they gained from the sporting event.

South Koreas Moon Jae-in administration scored a major diplomatic victory with the attendance of Kim Jong-uns sister, Kim Yo-jong, at the opening ceremony, an invitation for President Moon Jae-in to visit Pyongyang. North Korea was granted a sense of security, after a year of sanctions and isolation, by the delay of annual U.S.South Korea joint military exercises and by mass coverage of the North Koreas Olympics team in South Korean and international media.

North Koreas latest signal to hold talks with the U.S. without preconditions, and plans to send a delegation of South Korean officials to Pyongyang, might be a harbinger of further progress in denuclearisation. Given how far Pyongyang has come with its nuclear program, however, the international community should not expect it to be dismantled anytime soon.

Due to North Koreas weak conventional force, the country has long adopted an asymmetric escalation strategy for its nuclear arsenal. This requires a large nuclear force with dependable first-use capability to thwart both nuclear and conventional attacks. Records of North Koreas sixth nuclear test and intercontinental ballistic missile launches in the past year indicate that it has made significant progress on increasing the range and the yield of its weapons.

To further improve the survivability of its weapons, North Korea continues producing weapons-grade uranium and plutonium in its reactors in Yongbyon. Experts believe the North has enough plutonium to make seven bombs per year. Now it has a relatively sufficient stockpile of fissile material and a working boost-phase technology, North Koreas next step is to focus on developing a re-entry system and enhancing the accuracy of its missiles.

North Koreas friendly gestures towards the South and the U.S. come at a moment when Pyongyang needs more time for its scientists to collect and analyse data from last years missile tests. Currently, even though the North has not been able to build a warhead that can survive re-entry into the Earths atmosphere, the U.S. believes the country can perfect this at some point in 2018 by conducting more tests on a standard trajectory instead of a lofted trajectory (the kind of tests conducted in 2017). It can be assumed North Korea will be ready to resume testing its new missiles in April, once the U.S.South Korean joint exercises have started.

In addition, North Koreas goodwill may be a result of the country starting to feel the brunt of the latest round of international sanctions. Kim Jong-un wants to use his gains during the Olympics to continue driving a wedge between South Korea and the U.S. and to raise the possibility that Seoul will help Pyongyang evade sanctions through inter-Korean projects.

Pyongyang also has reasons to be afraid of a U.S. bloody-nose strike given Donald Trumps temper and growing support, expressed in Western media outlets and policymaking circles, for a military solution. If North Korea can invite Moon to Pyongyang or begin talks with the U.S., it can calm down its critics before restarting its nuclear and missile tests at a future date.

The continued delay of the U.S.South Korean joint exercises, as well as Moons recent decision to send a special envoy to North Korea after the Olympics, suggest that both Washington and Seoul value Pyongyangs diplomatic outreach highly and may seek to begin the talks as a means of building mutual trust before discussing denuclearisation.

However, this approach can only succeed as long as Pyongyang agrees to freeze its nuclear program and the U.S. freezes its military exercises during the talks. Given North Koreas resolve to perfect the re-entry technology as soon as possible, the U.S. may choose to withdraw from the talks if it detects any new North Korean attempts at missile or nuclear testing.

Seoul and Washington have engaged in dialogue with Pyongyang many times, and none of the meetings led North Korea to denuclearise. The failure of the Agreed Framework, the Six-Party Talks, and the Leap Day Agreement is testament to the values of nuclear weapons in the North Korean military doctrine, which South Korea and the U.S. cannot simply buy-off by handing out economic aid or security guarantees.

However, this does not mean that the two allies should not pursue dialogue with North Korea. Having a channel of communication with Pyongyang certainly lowers the risk of miscalculation and preventive wars. As Victor Cha argued, engagement with North Korea should be seen as an attempt to prevent the crystallization of conditions under which the North Korean regime could calculate aggression as a rational course of action even if a [North Korean] victory was impossible.

South Korea and the U.S. can go along with North Koreas latest gesture. But they should rely on deterrence rather than Pyongyangs promises to maintain the peace.

Khang X. Vu is a Master's candidate at Dartmouth College, where he focuses on East Asian politics and U.S. East Asia policy.

This article appeared originally at Lowy Institute's the interpreter.Who are the 'Big Dogs' in 2017  our list of the most highly compensated public employees in Illinois local government? It's a who's who of public servants  but most you've never heard of  who learned how to game the system for personal gain.WASHINGTON (AP)  Its taken just two weeks for Washingtons immigration battle to fade from blistering to back-burner. Lawmakers now seem likely to do little or nothing this election year on an effort thats been eclipsed by Congress new focus on guns, bloodied by Senate defeats and relegated to B-level urgency by a Supreme Court ruling.

Talks have gone dormant that sought a bipartisan package: A chance for citizenship for young immigrants brought to the country illegally and $25 billion for President Donald Trump to erect his treasured wall with Mexico. Even a proposal dangling modest wins for both sides  a three-year renewal of a program protecting hundreds of thousands of those young immigrants from deportation in exchange for a $7.6 billion down payment for the wall  seems a longshot.

The prospects for immigration legislation, big or small, are very, very bleak, concedes Frank Sharry, executive director of Americas Voice, an immigrants rights group.

Distrust between the two parties has intensified, with each suspecting the other of weaponizing the impasse to rouse loyal voters for Novembers contest for congressional control. There are tactical rifts between Democrats and the coalition of liberal and immigrants rights organizations over how aggressively to force the issue, and differences between conservative organizations and some Republicans over the wisdom of even a narrow accord.

Looking to furnish political cover to rank-and-file Republicans, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., only want to consider immigration bills that have Trumps support. Democrats say Trumps portrayal of immigrants as threats who commit crimes and steal jobs, plus his vulgar references to their countries, shows hes not serious about compromise  yet leaves him pivotal for any deal.

There are certain people and certain countries that Donald Trump does not envision as part of Americas future, said No. 2 Senate Democratic leader Richard Durbin of Illinois. Until the president and the Republicans in Congress believe that deporting the Dreamers is so much of a political negative that they must do something, I think its unlikely that well move forward.

Rather than making new offers, Trump is blaming Democrats for the stalemate.

Im the one thats pushing DACA and the Democrats are nowhere to be found, he tweeted days ago, referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Hoping to recapture attention, immigrant and civil rights groups plan demonstrations in Washington and elsewhere on Monday. When Trump announced last year that he was terminating the program, he gave Congress until that date, March 5, to replace it.

The program, which President Barack Obama created administratively without enactment of a law, lets immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children get jobs for renewable two-year periods. Its currently protecting 680,000 of them.

The Supreme Court this week erased that deadlines impact with a ruling that requires the administration to renew DACA permits while lower court challenges to Trumps action continue. Those lawsuits could drag on for months, easing pressure on Congress to act quickly.

Lawmakers are now fixated on last months shooting deaths of 17 students and faculty members at a high school in Parkland, Florida. The shift accentuates how rapidly priorities shift in Congress, fueled by todays hyper speed news cycles and a president whose tweets and utterances add additional volatility.

Last month, the Senate rejected a Trump proposal offering citizenship to people protected by DACA, fully financing his wall, cutting legal immigration and ending a visa lottery for people from countries with low U.S. immigration rates. A bipartisan plan backed by nearly all Democrats included potential citizenship for DACA recipients and money for Trumps wall, barred the young immigrants from sponsoring their parents and left the visa lottery intact.

Neither side is showing any indication of sweetening its offer.

Weve offered the sun and the moon and that wasnt enough, said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, the second-ranking GOP leader. I guess well see what happens.

Democrats face pressure from liberal groups like Indivisible and United We Dream to use coming budget legislation to crimp money for immigration enforcement programs. But with several Senate Democrats facing tough re-election fights in Trump-friendly states leery of that stance, the party has little leverage.

Clarissa Martinez, a policy chief for UnidosUS, an immigrants rights group, said Democrats should force votes on the issue any to drive home how immigrants bolster the economy. She cited the repeated, doomed votes Republicans forced under President Barack Obama to repeal his health care law because they had a narrative they were building.

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., whos joined bipartisan efforts to forge compromise, says hell try forcing a vote next week on his plan to extend DACA for three years and supplying three years of financing for Trumps wall.

But many Democrats oppose it, saying they abhor financing the wall in exchange for merely a temporary DACA extension. Groups like the Center for Immigration Studies that favor tight restrictions are also opposed, saying it would inscribe DACA into law, and conservatives such as Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, seem certain to block Flake.

Flake said hed keep trying anyway.

At some point were going to want to put this behind us, even if theres no deadline. I dont think this plays into our favor in the midterms, he said.

In the House, Republicans are hunting votes for a conservative package that cuts legal immigration, requires employers to verify workers citizenship and makes it easier to deport immigrants who are drunk drivers or gang members. Facing solid Democratic opposition, GOP leaders remain short and its unlikely theyd consider more moderate alternatives that lack majority Republican support.As a teenager in 1941, William F. Buckley, Jr., heard his father and Albert Jay Nock, the eloquent libertarian essayist who was a family friend, discuss politicians endemic failings. William Sr., his son later recalled, expressed regret for suspending his boycott of the voting booth to cast a ballot for the 1940 Republican presidential nominee. Wendell Willkie, the father asserted, had turned out to be a mountebank.

They are all mountebanks, Nock replied, which made an impression on his young listener. It was about that time that I began reading Albert Jay Nock.

It was also about that time that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. One can carry disdain for politicians too far, as Bill admitted during the Cold War when he found reasons to admire Ronald Reagan. But suspicion, usually good-humored, of politicians as a guild of snake-oil salesmen used to be part of conservativeindeed Americanantistatism. It still is among many voters, but not so much among the Never Trumpers.

From the moment Donald Trump declared his presidential candidacy in June 2015, American progressives and conservative Never Trumpers have poured vituperation on him. The effect is less muckracking than muck curating, however, as growing invective has yielded diminishing insight.

Trumps vices, real and alleged, have been chronicled more assiduously than Neros or Caligulas. In the Weekly Standard Matt Labash called Michael Wolffs Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, the book that ate Washington. If so, it was an act of cannibalism. The same journals editors, reviewing Trumps first year in office (in the Jan. 29, 2018 issue), concluded that he was a serial liar, a singularly dis- honest figure, an egomaniac who cant help boasting that his nuclear button is bigger than Kim Jong-uns (or do his small hands just make it look bigger?), a policy ignoramus, an ingrate, an adulterer, a president distinguished by the sheer volume of his crazy statements and actions. Their list is not so different from Wolffs.

Still, we can observe changes in the corpus of Trump criticism, one on the Left and another on the Right.

Updating It Cant Happen Here (1935), by Sinclair Lewis, Andrew Sullivan pioneered the Lefts interpretation of Trump as a proto-tyrant. In a long, interesting New York magazine piece in May 2016, Sullivan dusted off his graduate school notes on Platos description (in the Republic, Book VIII) of the best regimes degeneration into extreme democracy and, finally, tyranny. Sullivan saw America, a country that has never been so ripe for tyranny, following the same path, with Trump as the upper-class traitor rallying the envious, frustrated masses against the political establishment in order to make himself ruler.

Sullivan is sounding a different alarm these days. The danger Trump presents is not fascismhe is too scatter-brained for thatbut incompetence and buffoonery. By January 2018, in the same magazine, he was seconding Wolffs warning of the White Houses chaos and dysfunction and comparing the President to a drunk driver lucky enough not to have crashed...yet. From Mussolini to Teddy Kennedy in 18 monthsI suppose thats progress.

As for the Rights reassessments, every conservative publication has been forced to admit, however grudgingly, that President Trump had significant accomplishments in his first year. The Weekly Standard called his record reasonably impressive. But this bombshell appears alongside their default position: Trumps character and temperament made him unfit for office. How to reconcile these?

Partly through wishful counterfactuals. [S]imilar ends, the editors assure us, would have come from almost any Republican president given a Republican Congress. Really? That seems far from inevitable. More importantly, one must first become president to be a good or bad one. We know that Trump won the presidency by carrying states that had eluded Republican presidential nominees since the 1980s. It is not only uncertain but unlikely that a more conventional politician would have duplicated this success against Hillary Clinton.

The other part of the Standards answer is better by virtue of being empirical and comparative: Trumps administration will be a mix of good and bad, and citizens should keep an accounting. The editors seem to reckon that the harm President Trump has done in his first year outweighs the benefit, but do not positively assert it. I think they are very wrong, but at least they are now using double-entry bookkeeping, which makes meaningful disagreements possible.

There is always enough mountebankery to go around. The Never Trumpers violent aversion to the 45th president has been the flip side of a somewhat credulous adherence to the Bush dynasty and its McCain and Romney branches. Perhaps the search for mountebanks should, like charity, begin at home.

This essay appears in the new Winter issue of the Claremont Review of Books.When a toxin enters a biological ecosystem, its effect is magnified as it moves up the food chain. Even if it can be cut off at the source, the ever-widening distribution of its increasingly harmful form can cause problems for decades.

Misinformation functions in a similar fashion, gaining traction as its repeated by increasingly high-profile individuals who venture ever further from the source material. In this manner, distortion about the facts of sexual assault has affected the training of judges, prosecutors, and other law enforcement officials. It is how misleading assertions become embedded in criminal and military law.

This is a story of how a theory without merit, derived from highly questionable statistics, imperils the most basic tenets of due process and risks turning every unproved accusation into a verdict of guilt.

The example discussed here began with a small study by an associate professor at a commuter college in Massachusetts. The 12-page paper describing the study barely created a stir when it was published in 2002. Within a few years, however, the papers principal author, David Lisak, a University of Massachusetts-Boston psychologist, began making dramatic statements that extrapolated far beyond the studys conclusions. He created, virtually out of whole cloth, a theory that undetected serial rapists are responsible for 90 percent of assaults on college campuses, that they premeditate and plan their attacks, and that they are likely to have committed multiple acts of violence.

When speaking on campuses, to the military, and to law enforcement, Lisak started showing a highly disturbing video that he claimed was based on the transcript of an actual interview with a campus rapist to whom Lisak gave the name "Frank." The authenticity of the video has been seriously questioned, raising grave doubts about Lisaks contention that it illustrates the typical campus perpetratorin his view, an unrepentant sociopath who cannot be reached or educated.

A news search for mentions of Lisak finds only a single one prior to 2009, in which he revealingly opined in an urban policy magazine about the Duke lacrosse rape hoax. He was interviewed again by CBS News in November 2009 about non-stranger rapes. He increasingly became the draw at conferences on sexual assault and his calendar filled with campus presentations. The media began to fawn over him, whether due to the drama of the notion of campuses being stalked by serial rapists or to the failure of campus administrators, blinded by the appeal of an identifiable villain, to point out the disconnect between Lisak's portrait and their own observations. (A sociopath responsible for the majority of assaults can be removed from campus. The reality of college drinking and the still-developing adolescent brain, and the relationship of both to behavior fueled by poor judgment and peer pressure, provide no such easy fix.) By the end of 2010, Lisaks status was on the rise. Within a few years, his was arguably the most high-profile name on the topic of sexual assault.

Lisaks serial-rapist theory was reflected in the 2011 letter in which the Department of Education ordered universities to adopt specified, guilt-presuming disciplinary procedures for alleged sexual assaults and, in the process, gave credence to the probability of repeat offenders. Lisak's theory also found its way into a January 2017 report by the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault, which simultaneously criticized a more recent, nationally representative study that had been subject to far more rigorous statistical analysis. Lisak was quoted so often as to make him a central figure in the pseudo-documentary "The Hunting Ground." As his celebrity grew, the gap between documented facts and his status as an expert became almost inconsequential.

Criticism did eventually catch up to David Lisak. His serial predator model of campus rape has been compellingly debunked by scholarly researchers and well-regarded publications, including investigative articles and a book. His claims regarding the psychology of campus perpetrators were revealed to be based on nonexistent interviews. A key component of his presentations, an unedited transcript of an interview with a college rapist presented as timely and typical was revealed to be not only highly edited but based on an interview from three decades ago with a subject who was clearly an atypical outlier -- as documented by Lisaks own publications.

A 2008 paper, in which he linked undetected serial rapists with a propensity to commit serial and crossover acts of violence such as interpersonal attacks unrelated to sex, was shown to have provided no basis for such a generalization. His assertions, allegedly supported by a study he co-authored in 2010, that false accusations of sexual assault are exceedingly rare, have been shown to violate basic math by counting as true cases that didnt qualify as sexual assault, had insufficient evidence to make a determination, or were referred for prosecution but about which the outcome was unknown.

As for Lisak's vague statements about having interviewed "hundreds" of serial rapists (occasionally styled as thousands when others talk about him), in truth no evidence exists that Lisak has interviewed any undetected rapists, serial or otherwise, since his dissertation research 30 years ago.

His claimed years of research turned out to be a handful of actual research publications, reviews full of editorializing about others research, rehashing of the dissertation he completed in 1989, and a website that deceptively merges that dissertations 1980s-era research on 12 college students with unrelated data from the 2002 paper on repeat offenders.

Yet all of these devastating exposes have barely dented Lisak's popularity. In spite of his own warning in that 2002 paper that the non-random nature of the sampling procedures precludes interpreting the data as estimates of the prevalence of sexual and other acts of violence," he has built a career doing exactly that. His original researchthe ostensible basis of his expertisefits on a single page of his curriculum vitae. In spite of this limited output, he continues to be a featured speaker and forensic witness based in large part on the very distortions that have been so convincingly exposed.

Were the damage wrought by David Lisak's popularity confined to his college-circuit road show, there might be some hope that his toxic influence would be worn down by the critical thinking ostensibly prized by the academy.

Instead, that has not happened. The list of invited presentations, workshops, and media appearances in which he has hawked his unsubstantiated theories runs an additional 40 pages on his curriculum vitae. Among the most worrisome aspects of Lisaks presentations and workshops is how they appear to be gaining influence among professionals close to the investigation and adjudication of sexual assault. His debunked serial predator theory and wildly extrapolated statistics on the false-accusation rate form the core of the training materials he has developedand in some cases sold to law enforcement, prosecutors, judges, and the military.

Whenever Lisak presents his serial predator theoryinvariably accompanied by his claims about the low rate of false accusations of rape--his toxic influence spreads. A small sampling shows its range:

S. Air Force. Special training for the Office of Special Investigations: The Behavior and Characteristics of Non-stranger Rapists: Implications for Investigation and Prosecution.

Joint U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Mobile Training Team conference, Naval Air Station Jacksonville. The Undetected Rapist.

Delaware Judicial Education Retreat. Sex Offenders: Myths and Realities.

S. Marine Corps. Special training for JAG officers: How Predators Pick Their Prey.

California Administrative Office of the Courts. Handling Sexual Assault Cases: Sex Offender Characteristics and Evaluating Evaluations.

Wisconsin Office of Justice Assistance Statewide Sexual Assault Response Team Conference. False Reports of Rape: What Do the Numbers Tell Us?

Special Law Enforcement Training, State University of New York. The Behavior and Characteristics of Non-stranger Rapists.

Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan Sexual Assault Summit. Rapists: Myths and Realities.

Again, were the damage limited to misinforming attendees, it might not be so large as to warrant concern about the damage wrought by Lisaks influence. Unfortunately, thats not the case, either. For example:

A project funded by the U.S. Department of Justice compiled a list of 25 facts that judges who attended seminars offered by the National Judicial Education Programa company for which Lisak has served as a faculty member and that continues to sell materials he createdsaid they wished theyd known before presiding over sexual assault cases involving adult victims. Although the fact list includes some reasonable and factual assertions, it also includes Lisaks unfounded claims about serial predators and false reports. As part of its curriculum, NJEP advises judges to use voir dire to gauge prospective jurors' familiarity with these facts.

Especially frightening was one judges conclusion that when evaluating sex offender risk, actuarial assessments are more accurate than clinical assessments. That is, a psychologists judgment of the danger the defendant represents should take a back seat to the statistical likelihood, based on Lisaks research, that the defendant has committed other acts of undetected violence.

Lisaks misinformation has been passed on to law students, practicing attorneys, and judges through a number of influential sources, including Cornell's Law School, the Judicial Education Center, the Florida Court System, the National Center for State Courts, and the American Bar Association. In every case, the benefit is to the prosecution.

Even the National Academy of Sciences has used Lisaks unsupported serial rapist theory to weigh in on police mishandling of rape accusations that has allowed serial rapists like those in Lisak and Millers research to perpetrate again and again without detection.

A 2016 amicus brief filed with the Supreme Court of Ohio made a similar charge but upped the ante by invoking Lisaks (equally unsupported) claim that these serial offenders had a propensity for other violence as well.

Most troubling of all, Lisaks material is being codified in law enforcement policies, legal precedents, and judicial guidelines at the local, state, and federal levels.

The Sexual Offense Bench Guide for judges in the state of Washington, for example, draws liberally from Lisaks 2008 publication Understanding the Predatory Nature of Sexual Violence. His claims have been similarly incorporated into New Mexico's Sexual Assault Bench Book, the Tribal Court Judges Bench Book on sexual assault, the Missoula County Attorney's Office Policy and Procedure Manual, the Pennsylvania Crimes of Sexual Violence Benchbook, New York State's Judicial Symposium, Wisconsin's Prosecutor's Sexual Assault Reference Book, and the Judge Advocate General Corps Criminal Law Desk Book.

The relationship between prosecutors, judges and the juries who will ultimately arrive at verdicts in criminal trials is further tainted by recommendations that prosecutors and judges incorporate into the jury selection process: namely, Lisak's claim that false accusations are rare and his unsupported theory about serial offenses.

JAG guidelines for prosecutors, for example, advise that myths about the frequency of false reports be challenged directly, in voir dire and in argument. Prospective jurors whose information does not align with the (inaccurate) information provided in guidelines influenced by Lisak could then be dismissed and/or a seated jury could be told of the supposedly true facts. Recommendations from the NYU School of Law related to prosecuting sexual assault invoke Lisak to justify investing resources to pursue less credible cases because each represents an opportunity to catch a serial rapist. Prosecutors can, the recommendations continue, uncover juror rape myth acceptance via voir dire and educate the jury pool about sexual assault.

Once so codified in judicial and law enforcement guidelines, this toxic mixture of misinformation is extremely difficult to dislodge. Skewed jury pools, erroneous decisions at trial, and the weight of distortion have real consequences. A judge in Montana, for example, denied a request to have a case dismissed on the grounds of a Missoula police department requiring officers to presume the guilt of the accused when investigating sexual assault. The judge stated that she based her ruling on Lisaks (baseless, and thus misleading) testimony about the low rate of false reports. When such decisions are made, when presumptions of guilt are part of the training of judges and prosecutors, or reflected in jury instructions, innocent defendants are put in harms way.

Even those ostensibly in the business of impartial news coverage have been tainted by their own guidelines, as when the media have been fed the same misinformation, masquerading as insight. Their contribution to the problem is further amplified when they are further advised not to use the phrase rape allegation because allegation is not a neutral term and strongly implies doubt, and they fail to see that the alternative suggestedreported rapeimplies an act that has, indeed, happened, distinguished only by the fact that it is on record.

Where does that leave those for whom accuracy, integrity, and truth matter?

The unfortunate reality is that the greatest potential harm of the current environment accrues to the accused. Therefore, defense attorneys already burdened with a state of affairs in which accused defaults to perpetrator and accuser defaults to victim need to equip themselves to take on not only expert witnesses citing bogus "research" but also the underlying studies.

This is not an easy assignment, but the use of good lawyering to dismantle bad "research" can be powerful, and good courtroom theater as well. When faced with a Lisakian claim that only 6 percent of rape allegations are false," the defense attorney can ask what percent, then, are true? David Lisak himself would have great trouble answering that question without being exposed as a statistical manipulator, because his writings have never even addressed it. Rather, he has used misleading language to imply that almost all rape accusations have been proven true. Indeed, a good defense lawyer could fairly ask: "Isn't it a fact, Mr. Lisak, that the number of rape accusations that have been proven false may well be larger than the number that have been proven true?"

When the assertion about Lisaks serial sociopaths is repeated, the defense attorney can point to the fact that Lisaks study never established a single serial crime, nor that any of the rapists were undetected, and to Lisaks own statement that his findings cannot be generalized beyond the limited scope of a single study. When Lisaks interviews are invoked, the defense attorney can ask: How could anyone interview survey participants whom he never met and whose identities he never learned? Weren't the only interviews Lisak actually did those with the 12 subjects of his three-decades-old dissertation research? And were not the highly impulsive subjects described in his dissertation wholly unlike the portrait he later painted of sociopaths with excellent impulse control who premediate and plan their crimes?

Lisaks claims are wrong and the experts who tout them are vulnerable when asked direct questions. The discrediting of Lisak must become part of the court record, in case after case, before the far more difficult task of correcting the effects of his bogus claims on criminal justice policies can be accomplished.

The focus here has been on one particularand particularly problematicconveyer of misinformation. David Lisaks high profile and willingness to depart from even his own published papers in service of an agenda makes him the embodiment of the attack on due process. But Lisak is not alone. He has recently been joined by other experts straying even further afield from verifiable data and often in direct contradiction of known science.

The difficulty of fighting the toxic distribution of misrepresentation and statistical sleight-of-hand is partially a function of high-profile purveyors and enablers. The codification of myths in law enforcement procedures; in the training of prosecutors and judges; and in policy at the town, county, state, and federal levels all but guarantees insidious and continuous regeneration. The roadmap such myths provide is wrong but concrete, offering up sociopathic villains in place of a continuum of offenders, permission to presume guilt in the absence of evidence, and a philosophy that accusers not only dont lie but are never mistaken. Few combinations are more immune to objective inquiry than fear of monsters and the comfort of easy answers for taking them down.

But objective inquiry is called for and those who put obstacles in its way must be confronted. Neither law enforcement nor the courtroom should be a conducive environment for misinformation. It should not be intentionally introduced or passively tolerated. For now, a disproportionate burden will fall to defense attorneys. The battle against misinformation starts one case at a time.

Linda LeFauve is a college administrator and a contributor to Reason.Germany's chancellor will get a fourth term after her junior partners, the SPD, voted for a coalition deal. The new government could be in place in less than two weeks' time, ending months of uncertainty.

More than five months after Germans went to the polls in the September 24 national election, Germany will be getting a new government. The final hurdle was cleared when the Social Democratic Party (SPD) rank-and-file sanctioned the coalition deal that party leaders had negotiated with Angela Merkel's conservatives.

Sixty-six percent of party members who voted supported a continuation of the grand coalition, while 34 percent opposed it  a clearer margin than many in the party had expected.

More than 450,000 SPD members had been called upon to cast their votes in a mail-in ballot. The outcome was announced at party headquarters in Berlin on Sunday morning.

"This wasn't an easy decision for the SPD," said acting party Chairman Olaf Scholz. "In the discussion [about the deal], we've come closer together. That gives us the strength for the process of renewal we are embarking upon."

The coalition agreement can now be signed, and the Bundestag will elect Merkel chancellor of Germany for the 19th legislative period. That vote is set to take place on March 14. It will be the third grand coalition in Merkel's 13 years as German leader, but it only came about after efforts to form a coalition with the Greens and center-right Free Democrats (FDP) failed.

Former SPD Chairman Martin Schulz initially ruled out another grand coalition and was forced to resign after he flip-flopped on the issue. Social Democratic leaders were persuaded to conclude another deal after winning key concessions from Merkel and her Christian Democrats (CDU), as well as earning consent on ministerial posts from the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). The SPD will have control of Germany's powerful Finance Ministry, among other things.

Conservatives have already named their ministers in the new government, while Social Democrats are expected to announce their picks for the party's six cabinet positions this week. Party Chairman Scholz did not specify names on the topic of who would be filling the six posts, but he did say that the SPD team would consist of three men and three women, and would be a mixture of familiar and new faces.

Social Democrats now need to heal old wounds

The decision about whether to form a new partnership with the conservatives divided Social Democrats, many of whom blame the SPD's participation in grand coalitions for the party's slide to historic lows in opinion polls.

The yes campaign in the members' vote was led by Scholz and designated party Chairwoman Andrea Nahles, who is expected to take over the SPD party reigns in April. The no camp was spearheaded by the head of the SPD's youth wing, Kevin Kuhnert.

"I and many young SPD members are more disappointed by the result than anything else," Kuhnert said after the outcome was made public. "But this is a democratic decision, and we accept it. We're not sore losers."

Kuhnert also promised that he and the SPD youth wing would continue to press for reforms within the party. But there was no overlooking the obvious irritation on the face of the youth wing leader as he fielded reporters' questions in front of party headquarters.

"We'll continue to voice criticism  in particular of our partners, but also of our own people," Kuhnert said. For their part, party leaders assured no-voters that their voices would be heard.

Conservatives breathe sigh of relief

Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) sanctioned the coalition agreement last week at a party conference. And the chancellor was quick to express her pleasure at Sunday's announcement.

"I congratulate the SPD on this clear result and look forward to further cooperation for the welfare of our country," the CDU tweeted in Merkel's name.

In a statement, CDU General Secretary Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer welcomed the Social Democrats' vote.

"This is a good decision by the SPD and especially for our country," Kramp-Karrenbauer wrote. "With it, after the conservatives, Social Democrats have declared that they're willing to accept responsibility for the country in a joint government."

Designated conservative Economy Minister Peter Altmaier also gave the SPD decision a thumbs up via Twitter  but not all the messages on that platform were positive.

Opposition parties lob scorn via social media

The far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) mocked the SPD's decision, predicting that the Social Democrats' decline would continue when Germany holds its next national election.

"In 2021 at the latest, they'll pay the price," the party tweeted in a message that contained cartoons of Nahles and Merkel and the caption "four more nightmare years for Germany."

The other parties were more respectful but hardly any more positive.

"The SPD voted as expected," tweeted FDP General Secretary Nicola Beer. "They were more afraid of new elections than of being further marginalized in another Merkel coalition. Merkel's worries are over. She stays in the Chancellery, but Germany is only moving sideways."

Left Party co-Chairwoman Katja Kipping wrote that the SPD and the conservatives were returning to the seats of power "weakened and apathetically."

Green Party co-Chairwoman Annalena Baerbock commented: "It's good that the political impasse is finally over. We'll have to fill the holes regarding the climate, care for seniors and child poverty from the parliament."

Reprinted with permission from Deutsche Welle.The underlying causes of mass shootings will not go away simply by banning the most popular gun for a mass shooting. Another gun will always fill its place.Chinas largest oil and gas producer and distributor, PetroChina has signed up with the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) to buy Libyan oil, few months after Shell and British Petroleum (BP) signed similar deals.

The deal is the first ever since 2013, Bloomberg reports.

The deal comes as oil production knows a revival following several years of chaos that ensued the death of former leader Muammar Gaddafi, killed in a NATO-backed revolution in 2011.

Oil outflow moved up to 1.19 million barrels a day last month, Bloomberg reports. Oil production was put at 969,000 barrels per day in January.

The US-based media has been tracking tankers from the country since July 2014.

The annual contract with PetroChina, one of the companies with the biggest sales revenue in China, and one of the largest oil companies in the world, followed similar deals signed in January by BP and Shell.

The return of these oil giants implies trust in Libya that has been dogged by security and political domestic fighting between rivals.Got some scoop for our reporters or editors? Click on the link below to send us your information.

Send your newsBRANFORD  Renewable energy supporters recently pushed state Rep. Lonnie Reed, D-Branford, pretty hard.

Reed is a chairwoman of the General Assemblys Energy and Technology Committee, and more than 80 people attended a recent renewable energy forum at Stony Creek Brewery. One in particular, Chris Lenda chief executive officer of Branford-based Aegis Solar, let Reed know he felt she had gone back on promises that she had previously made to the renewable energy community.

This represents a paradigm shift, Lenda said referring to legislation being proposed by the Energy and Technology Committee.It seems like a power grab by the utilities. Connecticut is going from being a (solar energy) leader to being regressive.

Lenda was especially agitated about Governors Bill No. 9, also known as An Act Concerning Connecticuts Energy Future. The proposed legislation, he said, would eliminate any opportunity that consumers might have to take electricity generated by roof-top solar panels and send it into an energy storage system for later use.

Reed had heard enough. Even though Lenda is one of her constituents, she responded forcefully.

Its not true, its not happening, Reed said. It has been rewritten.

Reed said after the meeting that she spoke with Lenda at length about what happened at the meeting the evening before.

Ive worked very hard to help that company and I dont take to being manhandled very well, Reed said. I was giving him some heat because these are tough times and we dont need disinformation out there.

That exchange, and several other comments made at the meeting, seem to suggest that the states renewable energy community is going to be more forceful in the current legislative session than it has been in the past.

The only reason that we accept dirty power plants now is that they were built 40 years ago and are still running, said Ben Martin of Wallingford, a member of the leadership team of 350CT, an organization focused on reducing the use of fossil fuels to produce energy. We have to work toward transitioning the system to something cleaner and safer.

Among the tools that could move the state closer to that goal is a carbon tax, renewable energy advocates have said.

The tax is often referred to as a pollution tax because it places a fee on the production, distribution or use of fossil fuels based on how much carbon is produced from their use to produce energy . The government sets a price per ton on carbon, and converts it into a tax on electricity, natural gas or oil.

Another key issue for renewable energy advocates is shared solar, which involves setting up photovoltaic solar panels at a remote location and distributing the electricity generated by them to those who sign up for the service. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection picked three projects, including one in Shelton, last June to be part of pilot program.

Claire Coleman, climate and energy attorney for the New Haven-based Connecticut Fund For The Environment, said the time has come for the state to have a full-fledged shared solar program.

Theres no need to wait any longer for this, Coleman said.

Reed said the economic issues currently in play, namely the states fiscal problems and the already high cost of energy in Connecticut, may not allow the state to move as quickly toward that goal as renewable energy advocates would.

I've been fighting for renewable energy all my life, she said.

Coleman said renewable energy advocates are marshaling their forces to fight for what they believe in.

We have a lot of work to do in terms of shifting the conversation, she said.The Chambers Government Relations Committee plays a vital role as the group that develops our annual Legislative Agenda. The committee, chaired by Timothy Waldron, is comprised of dedicated individuals who are committed to ensuring the concerns of the business community are heard by our representatives in Hartford.

The Chambers Board of Directors voted unanimously at the January meeting to approve the following 2018 Legislative Agenda:

Northwest Connecticuts Chamber of Commerce members recognize that our state is faced with a historic fiscal crisis that threatens our quality of life. Neither government nor employers can continue to do business as usual if we are to solve this problem.

Consequently, the Northwest Connecticut Chamber of Commerce 2018 Legislative Agenda is different. The following sets forth principles that our members believe are essential for Connecticut to begin digging out of the ongoing fiscal nightmare. Additionally, it identifies specific issues that are important to our Northwest Connecticut region.

Principles

 Fiscal predictability and reducing the increase in both the cost of living and doing business in Connecticut are essential to reviving our economy.

 Government must prioritize services and deliver them more efficiently. Our spending policies must distinguish between wants and needs.

 The process for setting public sector employee contracts, including pensions and benefits, must be improved. Without change to existing contract approval and arbitration procedures, we will bankrupt our state, municipalities and future generations.

 Re-examine the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition agreement to achieve savings that will reduce the state budget deficit.

 Whenever essential state and local services can be provided more efficiently and cost effectively, public-private partnerships or privatization should be supported.

 Reduce transportation administrative costs prior to increasing taxes and spending related to the Special Transportation Fund.

 Support balanced unemployment compensation reform to reduce costs.

 A new Education Cost Sharing formula that cost effectively addresses the needs of all students throughout Connecticut must be adopted.

 Continue to improve the provision of mental health and opioid abuse services.

Northwest Connecticut Issues

 A member from Northwest Connecticut should be added to the State Board of Regents.

 Meaningful course offerings and programming by Northwestern Connecticut Community College are crucial to our region and must be supported.

 Torrington should be reimbursed for the state reduction to its motor vehicle taxes.



Chamber teams up with CBIA for Connecticut Business Day

The Government Relations Committee will, once again, attend Connecticut Business Day on March 14th and invites all members of the Chamber to join them. Connecticut Business Day, organized and sponsored by the Connecticut Business & Industry Association, is held annually at the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.

Hundreds of business leaders attend the event. Legislators need to hear from the business community as they look to help employers grow the economy and create more jobs. The morning begins with a plenary session, followed by breakouts that offer the opportunity to meet with lawmakers to discuss issues that impact you as a business owner in Connecticut.

For more information or to register, please contact Adam Ney at 860-244-1933 or adam.ney@cbia.com.

The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a fast-tracked challenge brought by President Donald Trump's administration to a federal ruling allowing a program for young immigrants who came here illegally to continue -- for now.

Known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, it was enacted by President Barack Obama in 2012 and granted provisional work permits and protection from deportation to about 700,000 youth, including 124,000 in Texas.

Many Republicans assailed it as an executive overreach, and Trump campaigned on ending it. He repealed it in September, giving Congress until March to come up with a permanent legislative fix for so-called Dreamers in exchange for tougher limits on other forms of immigration.

SEE MORE: Dreamer immigrants caught in middle of debate over reform

EXPLAINER: Why can't immigrants here illegally just apply for citizenship?

The issue has roiled Capitol Hill for months. Democrats briefly forced a government shutdown over it in January, which ended after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised a debate on the matter. But the Senate failed this month to pass any of the four immigration bills put to the floor.

Many advocates blamed the White House for issuing a veto threat during the debate against a bipartisan bill that some said stood the best chance of gaining the needed 60 votes.

Now, with Congress at an impasse, the fate of Dreamers dangles in the air.

The program is set to expire on March 5, but two federal courts in California and New York have issued an injunction against terminating it, allowing those young immigrants who already have such permits to keep applying for renewals. The Supreme Court declined Monday to take up an expedited challenge of the California case.

But no new applicants are eligible.

The courts will rule in the next several months on whether the Trump administration violated an administrative procedure in repealing the program.

Yet even if the program is allowed to continue, it will only exist for those original recipients.

If Congress does want to protect all such young immigrants, as Trump has said he does, calling them "good people ... people that should be able to stay in this country," lawmakers will have to come up with a solution.

Or, Trump will have to issue an executive order on the matter, which is exactly what he lambasted Obama for doing.

If not, thousands of young immigrants whose parents brought them here as children will soon be eligible for deportation and unable to work.

It's all very confusing, so here's a brief primer:

What happens on March 5?

Basically, nothing.

Trump told Congress to come up with a DACA fix by this date, or young immigrants would start losing their two-year permits as they expire.

But because of the two court rulings allowing the program to continue, all of the 700,000 young immigrants who previously had the permits can keep applying to renew their permission.

But no new applicants, young immigrants who turned 16 after September making them eligible for the program or others who didn't yet have the required high school certification, can apply. That puts them at risk of deportation and leaves them unable to legally work.

What are the two court rulings about?

Two federal judges, in California and New York, have ruled the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act by ending it in an "arbitrary and capricious matter," meaning the agencies didn't give adequate and accurate reasons for the decision to end DACA, according to Josh Rosenthal, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, a national nonprofit that represents immigrant plaintiffs in the New York case.

Interestingly, it's similar to one of the main complaints Republicans, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, had against another of Obama's immigration programs, known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans.

SEE: Supreme Court to hear Texas' challenge to DAPA

That program, based on a similar legal concept as DACA, would have granted temporary work permits and protection from deportation to roughly four million immigrants here illegally.

RELATED: Beatles' John Lennon and the concept of deferred action

But led by Texas, Republican attorneys general argued in part that the Obama administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act in announcing the program by not allowing public comment on the matter.

A Texas federal judge blocked the program in 2015 and the Supreme Court in 2016 split 4-4 on leaving the ban in place.

What happens next on DACA?

It's all up to the courts, unless Congress acts on the matter soon. That seems increasingly unlikely, given the division over immigration and the ticking clock to the midterm elections. About a dozen Senate races are contested, which could give Democrats a majority in the chamber. Both parties use immigration as a wedge issue to rally their base.

But any decision by the courts would still only apply to the 700,000 current DACA recipients. That's why a permanent solution protecting such young immigrants, which polls show most Americans support, will ultimately depend on Congress.

Across the nation, current DACA recipients contribute a net $3.4 billion to the U.S. treasury annually, according to a study last month by the American Action Forum, a Washington D.C. nonprofit.

In Houston, where about 70,000 immigrant youth have the DACA permit, they contribute $2 billion in economic activity every year, and about $6 billion in the state, according to a study by the Migration Policy Institute, another Washington think tank.

RELATED: Houston Dreamers in health care despair about DACA debate

Hispanic chamber urges permanent DACA solution

But those opposed to solutions for such young immigrants, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a Cuban immigrant born in Canada, argue any sort of what they call "amnesty" for people who have violated the law by coming here illegally is wrong.

SEE: Ted Cruz cast lone vote against advancing 'Dreamer' legislationEgypt and Saudi Arabia agreed Sunday to set up $10-billion joint fund for the development of the Egyptian side of NEOM city in the South of the Sinai restive Peninsula.

The agreement took place in the presence of Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman, or MBS, who is paying a three-day visit to Cairo.

The Egyptian city, an extension of Saudi Arabias future and ultra-technological mega-city called NEOM that will cost around $500 billion, will be developed in South Sinai, and will cover 1,000 square kilometers, Reuters reports.

MBS in October inaugurated plans to build the future city to cover 26,500 sq km, to be located near the border region of Jordan and Egypt. The North African country will be linked to the Saudi city via proposed bridges across the Gulf of Aqaba.

The young royal chose Egypt for his maiden international tour since becoming Crown Prince in June last year and since driving anti-graft campaign against the kingdoms business people and top officials in November.

Saudi Arabia has been economic pillar of support to the Egyptian economy and an important ally of President Fattah al-Sisi.

Egypt joined Saudi Arabia in its military campaign in Yemen seeking to overcome Iran-backed Houthi rebels who have seized capital Sanaa and much of the territory since the conflict began three eyes ago.

Both allies also ganged up along with United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain to severe ties with Qatar in June after accusing it of supporting terrorism.China's heavy reliance on trade may make it less likely to launch tough retaliatory measures in response to U.S. tariffs on steel, experts say.

According to World Bank figures, the value of China's trade accounted for 37 percent of its gross domestic product in 2016, compared with 26.5 percent for the trade ratio of the United States.

The numbers suggest that China would sustain more economic damage if retaliatory measures lead to a trade war following President Donald Trump's announcement of tariffs on imported steel and aluminum last week.

That calculation could influence China's decisions on what types of retaliatory steps to take or whether to bring a complaint to the World Trade Organization for settlement under a lengthy process.

Experts say China's greater vulnerability to trade restrictions would likely be only one of several factors that could temper its response to U.S. tariffs, but it may put Beijing at a disadvantage in the event of a showdown with Washington.

"With equivalent retaliation, China has more to lose than the United States, both because China is more dependent on exports to the United States than vice versa, and because the United States is better positioned to find alternative markets than is China," said Gary Hufbauer, nonresident senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

On March 1, Trump surprised U.S. trading partners by announcing plans to slap tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum from all countries.

While China ranks only 11th among steel exporters to the United States and fourth among aluminum exporters, it is seen as a primary target of the tariffs due to its huge production and influence over world prices.

China produced 49 percent of the world's crude steel and 56 percent of aluminum, according to industry groups.

Markets have been on alert for retaliation since last April when Trump ordered the Commerce Department to investigate steel imports from China and other countries under provisions of a 1962 trade law dealing with national security risks.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross submitted his findings in January that current imports "threaten to impair the national security," setting the stage for tariff and quota decisions by April 11 for steel and April 19 for aluminum.

Under the Commerce Department recommendations, tariffs on steel could have risen to "at least 53 percent," while aluminum tariffs could have reached 23.6 percent.

Retaliatory threats

Last week, Trump jumped the gun by announcing his tariff decision at a White House meeting with industry officials.

"You will have protection for the first time in a long while and you're going to regrow your industries," he said.

The statement drew angry responses and retaliatory threats from the European Union and other trading partners. But initial reactions from China were more cautious and restrained.

The U.S. move "seriously damages multilateral trade mechanisms represented by the WTO and will surely have huge impact on normal international trade order," said Wang Hejun, who heads the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) trade remedy and investigation bureau.

"If the final measures of the United States hurt Chinese interests, China will work with other affected countries in taking measures to safeguard its own rights and interests," said Wang in a statement cited by the official Xinhua news agency.

The MOC issued a similar statement on Feb. 28 after the Commerce Department made a final determination calling for anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Chinese aluminum foil in response to petitions from U.S. producers last March.

China's greater dependence on trade for its economy may moderate its retaliatory measures and keep its responses from mounting into a trade war.

"China is not about to enter a trade war," said Dale Jorgenson, Harvard University economics professor.

"Quite the contrary. China's five-year-old administration has announced that they plan to increase their role in the global economy both in terms of trade and in terms of investment," said Jorgenson, speaking before the tariffs were announced.

"I don't think the determining factor is going to be the trade share. I think it's the policies that are involved," he said.

China expects big gains from its "One Belt, One Road" initiative to develop trade routes and infrastructure through Asia and Africa to Europe with projects and investments in more than 60 countries.

But those anticipated gains could be at risk from the unpredictable consequences of a trade war.

Subsequent statements from Chinese officials have been relatively restrained ahead of a formal U.S. announcement this week, perhaps in hopes that terms of the tariffs may be modified.

"China urges the U.S. to use trade protection tools with restraint and comply with multilateral trade rules so as to make a positive contribution to international trade order," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said Friday.

Speaking on Sunday before the start of China's annual legislative sessions, Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the National People's Congress (NPC), tempered a warning with a call for cooperation.

"China doesn't want a trade war with the United States, but if any U.S. moves hurt China's interests, we will not sit idle," Zhang said. He added that "differences do not necessarily lead to confrontation," according to Xinhua.

On Monday, Premier Li Keqiang steered clear of invective as he addressed the opening of the NPC.

"China calls for trade disputes to be settled through discussion as equals, opposes trade protectionism and will resolutely safeguard its lawful rights," said Li, as quoted by The Sydney Morning Herald.

Chinese workers walk past arrays of solar panels at a solar power plant in northwestern China's Qinghai province in a file photo. Credit: ImagineChina Tit-for-tat moves

In a Washington Post opinion piece last month, Peterson Institute senior fellow Chad Bown raised concerns over the risk of a trade war after China responded to U.S. tariffs and quotas on solar panels and washing machines by launching an investigation into U.S. sorghum exports.

"Beijing's reaction resembles a similar retaliatory move in 2009  and one that ultimately saw U.S. chicken farmers lose out," Bown wrote. If tit-for-tat retaliation breaks out, "matters could quickly escalate beyond U.S. sorghum farmers and pose a far greater threat to both economies," he said.

Three weeks later, in a possible sign of moderation, the MOC announced that it had ended anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties on U.S. broiler chickens, first imposed in 2010, after finding that the measures were "unnecessary."

Reuters reported that the move followed a WTO ruling against the duties in January, but the Communist Party-connected Global Times quoted an industry official as saying that China's decision "will help relieve tensions over trade between the two countries."

The World Bank's trade-to-GDP data can be read as a map of China's development over time. While trade is still a major contributor to China's economy, it plays a smaller role than it did in 2006, when its share of GDP peaked at 65.6 percent.

The declining share of trade over the past decade coincides with the rise of consumption and services as factors in China's GDP growth. But these may be only partial explanations for the drop in the trade share to 37 percent.

Based on the raw numbers, China might seem more willing to risk retaliation on trade than it would have been a decade ago.

But Gary Jefferson, a Brandeis University professor of international trade and finance, points to the complex forces of development behind the numbers.

Jefferson draws a distinction between the ways that the trade and GDP numbers are influenced by manufacturing for export as opposed to assembling products such as mobile phones.

If a country manufactures a product like steel, using all the domestic inputs it needs such as energy, iron ore, labor and technology, it can then export the total value of the product, reflected in both trade and GDP.

"Basically, what it's exporting is all the value added of that steel, starting from scratch," Jefferson said.

In assembly operations for high-tech goods, a country may import semiconductors or other electronic components and export the finished product, which is highly valued as trade but not so much as GDP.

"Their value added is perhaps only 10 percent of what the total eventual value is," Jefferson said.

As time passes and the country develops and originates more of the high-tech components used in assembled exports, its economy climbs up the value chain, causing GDP to rise while the trade ratio declines.

That process may account for the steep drop in China's trade-to-GDP ratio over the past decade, making it a less reliable clue to what China will do.

Aside from such indicators, the trade tensions are taking place in a larger context.

"There are so many other issues swirling around the trade debate that it may be that the tariffs and quotas themselves aren't going to decide the issue," Jefferson said.

China's growing access to Belt and Road countries may make U.S. restrictions on steel imports less of a problem than they would have posed a decade ago, he suggested.

Political cards on the table

Political factors such as China's willingness to enforce sanctions on North Korea may also play a part in the trade dispute, Jefferson said.

One likely option for China in the event of U.S. trade measures on steel and aluminum would be to bring a complaint to the WTO, where a resolution typically takes two years or more, allowing both sides to cool off.

"They've got to do something. They've got a lot of political as well as economic cards on the table," Jefferson said, adding that the WTO process would be consistent with China's efforts to project the image of a responsible player in world trade.

Dale Jorgenson agreed that China is likely to see the WTO process as an appropriate recourse.

"China has worked through the WTO, so I think they will continue to do that. It's one of their principle means," he said.Plans to amend China's constitution to allow President Xi Jinping to remain in office indefinitely have prompted vocal opposition in the former British colony of Hong Kong, where many fear a more authoritarian leadership style in Beijing could spell the end of the city's traditional freedoms.



Dozens of protesters took to the streets at the weekend, marching to the ruling Chinese Communist Party's central liaison office in the city, calling for the two-term limit on presidential office to be retained.



Hong Kong lawyer Albert Ho, head of protest organizers the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of the Patriotic Democratic Movement in China, called on members of China's National People's Congress (NPC) to vote against the amendments during its current annual session.



"A system of lifelong tenure with no limits would be a return to imperial China," Ho told the rally. "We are outraged at this, so we have come to make our voices heard to delegates."



Delegates to the NPC and its advisory body, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), are currently meeting for their annual session in Beijing.



"We want them to vote against this," Ho said. "In particular, the NPC delegates from Hong Kong. They should lose all their authority with the people of Hong Kong if they come back and say that they blindly voted along with this."



But Hong Kong NPC delegate Peter Wong told reporters on that the proposed changes were "a step forward."



"You have a supervisory committee to check on all government public servants, including the president and the vice-president," he said in comments quoted by government broadcaster RTHK.



"If they are not doing their job, the supervisory committee should act. So it is a more enhanced democratic system."



And outgoing NPC standing committee member Rita Fan said there currently aren't any alternatives to Xi.



"I don't think we can see anyone on the horizon who can pick up this leadership role other than President Xi," Fan said. "So to remove that limitation on two terms, which therefore allows Xi possibly to have a third term, I think is very important for China's development at this stage."



Hong Kong labor union leader and veteran rights activist Lee Cheuk-yan said the Alliance is implacably opposed to lifelong tenure for China's president, however.



"We have come here to oppose lifelong tenure, to oppose the restoration of imperial rule," Lee told protesters. "We hold to the ideals of democracy ... and we must now stand up, not just to authoritarian rule, but to a dictatorship."



'One-man imperialistic rule'

He noted that the CPPCC's annual report had failed for the first time since the 1997 handover to Chinese rule to allude to Hong Kong's special status and "high degree of autonomy" that formed part of a 1983 Sino-British treaty on the city's future.



"We have lost one country, two systems, and lost the high degree of autonomy," Lee said. "Now we can see what kind of dream Xi Jinping's Chinese dream is going to be: it's a dream of one-man imperialistic rule."



Premier Li Keqiang's annual work report to the NPC on also left out any reference to Hong Kong's autonomy, focusing instead on integration with the mainland Chinese "hinterland."



"The practice of 'one country, two systems' was continuously enriched and developed, the authority of the Constitution and the Basic Law was further highlighted, in-depth promotion of exchanges and cooperation between the mainland and Hong Kong and Macau was achieved," the premier said.



"We must support the integration of Hong Kong and Macau into the general development of the country ... We firmly believe that Hong Kong and Macau will surely develop and thrive together with the hinterland of the motherland," Li said.



Democratic Party lawmaker Andrew Wan said he believes that the change in wording is no accident.



"If words are missing from the work reports for the CPPCC and the NPC, this doesn't happen accidentally," Wan said. "My own feeling is that this is a matter of huge concern for the people of Hong Kong."



"This is a warning signal ... telling us that the high degree of autonomy of Hong Kong people in administering Hong Kong is now less important to the central government than it was," he said. "I wish it wasn't so, but the message seems obvious."



He said Li's reference to the "authority" of the central government likely means the recent debarring of six pro-democracy lawmakers from the city's Legislative Council, after their oaths were ruled insufficiently "solemn and sincere" by the NPC standing committee.



Joshua Wong, one of the student leaders of the 2014 pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, tweeted on that Beijing is now taking a tougher line across the board.



"Weve already known about Beijings new approach to governing HK: hardline control," Wong wrote on his Twitter account.



"The Chinese Governments recent decision to remove presidential term limits  allowing Xi to stay in power indefinitely  signals an even sharper turn back to Chinas darkest days of autocracy," he said.



Reported by Lau Siu-fung and Lam Kwok-lap for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Qiao Long for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.The ruling Chinese Communist Party is continuing to detain and otherwise persecute members of the country's embattled legal profession, who have expressed public opposition to its plans to remove limits to the president's terms in office, lawyers said on.



In an open letter this week to China's minister for justice Zhang Jun, dozens of lawyers called on the government to end its targeting of lawyers, especially those who criticize the planned changes to the constitution, which will pave the way for indefinite rule by President Xi Jinping.



Peng Yonghe, one of those who signed the letter, said the situation has only worsened in the wake of a nationwide police operation targeting more than 300 lawyers and their families, that began in July 2015.



Peng said the plans to remove limits to the number of terms a president may serve is an indicator that things are only going to get worse in future.



"If they succeed with this constitutional amendment to do away with the two-term limits for the president and vice president ... I think we will see wave after wave of political movements that change in direction from one day to the next," Peng said.



"If we see such huge power wielded in our society, I think there is going to be very little space left indeed for lawyers," he said.



Lawyer Chen Jiahong said he had also signed the letter.



"I think if something happens and we don't speak out, then we are really no better than animals ... to be slaughtered by them," Chen said. "[The proposals are] really frightening, terrifying, and we wanted to remind the authorities of what is in the interests of the people, and to speak out in favor of democracy and the rule of law."



An official who answered the phone at the ministry of justice declined to comment.



"I can't let you have internal phone numbers, so you'll have to find some other channel," the official said.



Hunger striking lawyer

The announcement by the party's Central Committee that it wants to remove a two-term limit from the posts of president and vice-president, paving the way for incumbent Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely, has provoked strong opposition among the country's more outspoken dissidents, including rights lawyers, and sparked a surge of renewed interest in overseas emigration.



The proposed constitutional amendments will come before the annual session of China's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress (NPC) when it convenes in Beijing on , and political analysts say they will almost certainly be ratified.



Meanwhile, a human rights lawyer detained in the northeastern Chinese province of Liaoning has begun a hunger strike in protest at her prolonged pretrial detention, the rights group Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch reported on its website.



Rights lawyer Li Yuhan, 60, was formally arrested last November, 37 days after she "disappeared" from her home in the provincial capital Shenyang formal arrest, and began refusing food on Feb. 24, the report said.



Her lawyer Ma Wei declined to comment on the report when contacted by RFA. "You should understand why," he said, before hanging up the phone.



Li went missing on Oct. 9, and is "at risk of torture and other ill-treatment" in the police-run No. 1 Detention Center in the northeastern city of Shenyang, London-based Amnesty International has said.



Reported by Wong Lok-to for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Gao Feng for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.

The ruling Chinese Communist Party has stepped up nationwide security measures targeting people pursuing complaints and long-running grievances, intercepting petitioners en route to the capital, and sending those who arrive there back home, ahead of its annual parliamentary sessions this week.



As 5,130 delegates, 153 of whom are listed the Hurun Report as "super-rich," headed to Beijing for the National People's Congress (NPC) and its advisory body the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), police were waiting with additional patrols and checkpoints to stop anyone with a complaint from getting into the capital.



Guizhou petitioner Huang Qihong said he was detained while going through a police security checkpoint at Beijing railway station and taken alongside fellow petitioners to an unofficial detention center at Jiujingzhuang on the outskirts of the capital.



"We were in Jiujingzhuang for an hour or more, until officials from our local government came to collect us," Huang told RFA. "An official surnamed Yang from the Guanling county police department took us to a guesthouse, and he had six or seven unofficial security guards with him."



"They took us there, and then they confiscated everything we had on our persons," Huang said. "Then they dragged us onto a minibus. Somebody was pulling on my neck from behind."



"Once we were on the bus they, they beat me around the head and grabbed my neck," he said. "It still hurts when I swallow."



Huang said the petitioners were taken straight to the local police station when they arrived back in Guanling county, where some were locked up again, including his brother, who received a 15-day administrative sentence, the maximum term that can be handed down by police without a trial.



A petitioner from the northeastern province of Liaoning, Li Ping, was also detained en route to the capital to file complaints.



Tight security

Police in Liaoning's provincial capital Shenyang detained several more petitioners on , Beijing petitioner Xu Chongyang told RFA.



"Not so long ago, an order went out to all administrative and judicial and law enforcement departments nationwide, calling on them to step up patrols and surveillance," Xu said.



"Security is a whole lot tighter than it has been in the past," he said.



Meanwhile, Chongqing petitioner Li Qun said guesthouses and hostels in Beijing have been ordered not to rent rooms to petitioners.



"The managers of guesthouses in Beijing, particularly the smaller ones, basically won't let petitioners stay in them any more," Li said.



"Security has been exceptionally tight in Beijing, and there are ticket checks at all of the railway stations targeting petitioners," she said.



Li said there is a much stronger presence of security personnel -- known as "interceptors" -- hired by local governments to bring back anyone who travels elsewhere to complain about local officials.



Authorities in the southwestern megacity of Chongqing also detained a group of people as they prepared to head to Beijing ahead of the parliamentary sessions, activists told RFA.



Beatings, harassment and extrajudicial detention

Petitioners Xiao Jianfang, Fu Shuqing and Guo Xingmei were among those detained en route to Beijing, while a fourth petitioner, Tang Yunshu, is currently incommunicado.



China's army of petitioners say they are routinely targeted for beatings, harassment and extrajudicial detention, including in pyschiatric facilties, if they persist in their complaints.



Guo had recently signed a letter of complaint to the Chongqing authorities over enforced psychiatric detention for petitioners.



She told RFA at the time: "Things weren't as serious before, but last year the Chongqing authorities started carrying out psychiatric diagnostic tests on people in detention."



The state prosecutor has tried to crack down on the inappropriate use of psychiatric treatment, citing "loopholes," and prosecutors should turn down cases where people are committed to mental health hospitals without any sign of risk to themselves or society.



Guangzhou-based rights activist Liang Songqi, who recently tracked down a fellow activist incarcerated with no sign of mental illness, said the order was unlikely to have much impact on the ground, however.



"Right now I can't see any indication that this order is being effectively implemented," Liang told RFA.



The CPPCC opened in Beijing on , and the NPC on .



Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.China's premier on Monday called on the country's parliament to unite behind President Xi Jinping, calling for loyalty and unity ahead of a key vote on proposed constitutional changes that could see the president continue in office indefinitely.



"We must unite more closely around the [ruling Chinese Communist] Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core," premier Li Keqiang told delegates to the annual meeting of the National People's Congress (NPC). "We will unite, gather strength, and work solidly to create the future."



In his annual work report, Li also called on delegates to "resolutely protect the core status of General Secretary Xi Jinping, resolutely safeguard the authority of the party Central Committee and [a] centralized and unified leadership."



His words came after the Central Committee last month put forward constitutional amendments that would remove the two-term limit for the president and vice president.



The planned changes, which will almost certainly be approved by the rubber-stamp body, will pave the way for President Xi Jinping to remain in office beyond the end of his second term in 2023.



Public opposition to the move has been swiftly extinguished by government censors online.



Li's phrasing echoes that already used by officials in conjunction with the proposals, and will likely be interpreted as a direct call for delegates to back the amendments.



At a press conference on Sunday, vice foreign minister Zhang Yesui said that the constitutional amendments would be "conducive to safeguarding the authority and unified leadership of the party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core."



Wu Qiang, former lecturer in the department of political science at Tsinghua University, said he believes the amendments are sure to be approved.



"With no binding power or checks and balances, [Xi Jinping] will be a 'super-president'," Wu said. "This is actually a tremendous distortion of the original intention behind the constitution."



"It is a fundamental subversion and destruction of the political legacy of the Deng Xiaoping era," Wu added, in a reference to the late supreme leader who oversaw the birth of the 1982 constitution, including the two-term limit.



Military budget



The removal of limits also looks set to apply to the posts of party general secretary and the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission, the crucial trio of powers already held by the most powerful leader in China, Wu said.



The government has also unveiled the biggest rise in defense spending in recent years, with a rise of 8.1 percent in military spending this year, to U.S. $175 billion.



Premier Li said China will "advance all aspects of military training and war preparedness, and firmly and resolvedly safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests."



The boost in the defense budget comes as China is "faced with profound changes in the national security environment," Li said.



The increased spending has sparked fears in Taiwan that an increasingly hard-line government under Xi could step up military pressure on the democratic island, which has never been ruled by the Communist Party.



But analysts said China's military spending is still fairly low by the standards of developed countries.



"This is not a big increase," former Taiwan defense minister Lee Chong-pin told RFA on Monday. But he said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is definitely upgrading.



"We can all see that the recent and rapid increase in China's military spending has been on the production of naval destroyers and fighter aircraft, especially the J20," Lee said. "Also on special technologies like quantum satellite communications and so on."



"The concern in the West is, what does it intend to do with it?"



Domestic security



Bruce Lui, senior journalism lecturer at Hong Kong's Baptist University, said the government had once more left out a total spending figure for domestic security, known as the "stability maintenance" regime that shores up the ruling party's grip on power by targeting dissidents, rights activists and other critics of the government.



"It's a numbers game," Lui said. "The government doesn't publish full and complete figures for stability maintenance spending, which is absolutely huge, across the whole countrymore than a trillion yuan (U.S. $157.5 billion)."



He said the published military spending figure doesn't reflect all expenditure on defense, either, because some of the military budget is published under technological development.



There were also indications on Monday that former anti-corruption czar Wang Qishan has made a political comeback after leaving the party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection last year. Wang, a long-time close ally of the president, sat on the leadership podium not far from Xi.



"This isn't a surprise, although I didn't think it would be quite so fast," a party history scholar surnamed Wang told RFA. "Also, I saw it as a slightly unorthodox move, rather than indicating a change to the entire system."



"It looks as if Xi will be president and Wang will be his vice president. They'll make a pair," he said.



Some analysts have predicted that State Councilor Yang Jiechi will take the vice president's job, however.



Reported by Gao Feng and Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Wen Yuqing for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.The majority of residents of northeast Laos Xiangkhouang province likely contain residue from pesticides or herbicides in their blood, officials confirmed recently, adding that further tests are needed to determine the level of contamination that has affected the public.



In January, the Lao Upland Rural Advisory Service (Luras) a non-government organization (NGO) under Swiss aid group Helvetaspublished a report which said preliminary tests had found contaminant residue in the blood of 96 percent of Xiangkhouang residents.



Lurass findings showed that 960 out of 1,000 people tested in July 2017 had some level of residue in their system from pesticides or herbicidesnearly 50 percent of whom are consumers of market produce.



Speaking to RFAs Lao Service last week, a Ministry of Public Health Food and Drug Department official, Soubin Phimmahthut, said that additional testing is needed to conclude how much contamination Xiangkhouang residents have been exposed to.



We have sampled blood in the first stage through test-kits [in the field] to verify whether or not contamination exists, he said.



But we still dont know what level of residue is there, so we will need to undertake further tests in the lab.



According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, more than 100 metric tons of pesticides and herbicidesincluding Cypermethrin, Carbaryl, Glyphosate, Atrazine, Paraquat, and Metsulfuronwere imported into Xiangkhouangs Nonghad and Kham districts alone between 2004 and 2015 as part of a bid to improve the commercial yield of the provinces 20,000 hectares (49,400 acres) of maize.



The chemical substances  were mainly used in maize cultivation, and less applied for other crops, Ianlang Phanthanivong, head of the crops division for Xiangkhouangs Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, told RFA.

Ianlang said that officials from his ministry had recently tested 600 samples of fruits and vegetables from local farmers and markets throughout Xiangkhouangs seven districts and found more than half of them to be contaminated by pesticides and herbicides.



The reality is that the residue [in residents blood] comes from consumptionnot from the use of pesticides and herbicides directly, he said.



The main factor is that people consume contaminated vegetables, fruits, meat, fish and other foods that are locally produced and distributed.



According to Ianlang, provincial authorities have launched a campaign providing support to regional farmers in cultivating crops without the use of chemical substances.



We are working to support crop cultivation without chemical substancesmeaning organic agriculture with locally available compost, and clean agriculture production with the use of chemical substances that can be controlled, he said.



National issue



The bid to end pesticide and herbicide contamination in Xiangkhouang follows the Lao governments passage of a law to control the use of chemical substances and a decree by Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith limiting the use of pesticides and herbicides in November 2016 and August 2017, respectively.



Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Bounkhouang Khambounheuang told RFA that the government had worked to implement the decree on the control of pesticides and herbicides throughout the countrys target provinces.



This is to promote good agriculture practices, and we have sent the list of all prohibited pesticides and herbicides to the relevant provincial departments so that they can be controlled, he said.



We are currently monitoring all pesticides and herbicides, and have completely prohibited those lacking certificates of safety standards. In particular, Paraquatwhich is prohibited globallyis not allowed to be imported to Laos.



In 2016, the Ministry of Public Health took blood samples from 700 students and teachers throughout the country and found that nearly half tested positive for residue from pesticides or herbicides at levels considered unacceptable or dangerous.



That same year, the ministry took blood samples from 400 secondary students and teachers in the capital Vientiane and found that 58 percent of those tested showed residue at the same levels.



The ministry said at the time that the use of pesticides and herbicides in Laos had increased by around 200 percent over the previous decade as local farmers worked to increase crop production to commercial levels.



It expressed concern that the substances posed a serious danger to the brain development of the countrys children, noting that consumers are more likely to be affected by contamination than the farmer who use them.



Reported by RFAs Lao Service. Translated by Max Avary. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.Morocco and Azerbaidjan reiterated their firm stands against separatism as they both continue to struggle against separatist militias funded and armed by neighboring countries.

The two countries have fought separatist militias operating outside international legality for decades. Morocco managed to neutralize the Algeria-based Polisario separatist front, after the UN brokered 1991 ceasefire agreement, while Azerbaidjan claims a quarter of its territory is under the occupation of the self-proclaimed Nagorno Karabakh state.

As Morocco and Azerbaijan continue to urge a negotiated solution under their national sovereignty, the two countries have joined efforts in their battle against separatism.

The final statement signed Monday (March 5) during the visit to Bakou by Moroccos Foreign Minister, Nasser Bourita, comprises an outspoken support for Moroccos autonomy initiative as a lasting solution to the Sahara issue.

Morocco, for its part, has expressed its outspoken support for Azerbaidjans territorial integrity in the face of the aggression and non-compliance of separatists with UN resolutions.

We consider it extremely important to observe the principle of territorial integrity and we support the efforts of fraternal Azerbaidjan for a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Bourita told the press in Baku at a joint news conference with his Azerbaijani peer Elmar Mammadyarov.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaidjan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaidjan, 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 visit by Bourita was also an occasion to discuss a set of issues of mutual concern, notably economic cooperation and sharing expertise on the advocacy of moderate Islam.

At the press conference, Bourita said that both countries have extensive experience in the development of modern Islam, the fight against terrorism and Islamophobia.Htay Oo, an NLD lawmaker in the upper house of Myanmar's parliament, discusses proposed amendments to the Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law in Naypyidaw, March 5, 2018.

About 500 farmers, workers, and political activists marched in Yangon on Monday to oppose proposed changes to the countrys public assembly law, arguing that the amendments will limit free speech in the emerging democracy.

The Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law, which was enacted in 2010 under a military-backed government, allows public demonstrations only if organizers first obtain permission from local authorities. Those who violate the law are subject to three to six months in prison and a 30,000-kyat (U.S. $22) fine.

When the law was passed, legalizing street rallies and demonstrations which had been outlawed under previous military juntas, it was embraced as an improvement.

But in recent years, rights groups have called for changes to the law, which they say is routinely used to jail activists, by adding amendments to better protect rights to peaceful assembly and free expression, while ditching criminal penalties and vague restrictions on speech contrary to international standards.

In February, the civilian government under de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party proposed adding a phrase that anyone who instigates, tempts or persuades others intentionally or knowingly [joins a demonstration] to disrupt national security, the rule of law, tranquility and public morale can be punished by up to three years in prison and a fine.

Those who participated in the march said they fear the loss of democratic gains under the current government should the amendments be approved.

We are protesting today because we see the possibilities of losing our democratic values, Naw Ohn Hla from the Democracy and Peace Womens Group told RFAs Myanmar Service during the march.

Nyo Nyo Thin, a former Yangon regional lawmaker who participated in the rally said two of the three amendments in the draft law contain unclear wording.

If this law is approved, authorities can charge people easily whenever they want, he said.

Nearly 200 Myanmar civil society organizations signed a petition against the proposed changes that would also require protest organizers to notify local authorities 48 hours before the event and to provide funding details and identify the person or organization financing their activities.

Under discussion

Myanmars upper house is discussing the proposed amendments which are expected to be submitted to the lower house for debate next week.

Three lawmakers from the NLD and two from the Arakan National Party (ANP), which represents the interests of the ethnic Rakhine people in western Myanmars Rakhine state, held an initial debate on the proposed changes on Monday at the parliament building in the capital Naypyidaw. Four of them rejected the document.

Htay Oo, an NLD member of the upper house, cited the broad definitions of concepts that could be used by authorities to prohibit legitimate demonstrations.

He also noted that some NLD members had been detained in the past under the law by the previous military regime simply because they were from the opposition party and had been accused of threatening state security and the rule of law.

Protesters will be jailed if the authorities think the protest harms security, the rule of law and stability of the state, and public morale, Htay Oo told lawmakers in the upper house. The law also cannot protect people because it doesnt reflect democratic standards and the NLDs objectives. The NLDs mission is to wipe out any act that supports a dictator and hurts the people.

Despite Aung San Suu Kyis pro-democracy stance and expectations that the NLD would enact further democratic standards in Myanmar after it came to power nearly two years ago, rights groups have noted indications that the government is backpedaling on freedom of expression and peaceful protest.

In January, police in the town of Mrauk U in western Myanmars Rakhine state shot dead seven people and wounded 13 others during a crackdown on demonstrators when authorities attempted to stop the celebration of a Buddhist anniversary.



Reported by Win Ko Ko Latt and Thiri Min Zin for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.A member of Myanmars security forces keeps watch along the Myanmar-Bangladesh border as Rohingya refugees stand outside makeshift shelters near Tombru, in the Bangladeshi district of Bandarban, March 1, 2018.

Myanmar pulled back security personnel and weapons from near a no-mans land along Bangladeshs southeastern frontier, as border-guard officials from both countries met Friday after Dhaka complained about a troop build-up by Naypyidaw, officials said.

Representatives from Myanmar said during the meeting that Naypyidaw had deployed additional troops and weaponry in the area for internal security reasons and these were not targeted at Bangladesh, according to Bangladeshi officials. The meeting took place in Ghundam, in Bangladeshs Bandarban district.

Their explanation is not acceptable, Khurshed Alam, Bangladeshs acting foreign secretary, told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service, when asked how Dhaka viewed the claim about internal security made by Myanmars Border Guard Police (BGP).

Dhaka had summoned Myanmars ambassador the day before to lodge a diplomatic protest, when it accused Naypyidaw of increasing its troop presence and deploying heavy weaponry, including mortars and machine guns, near the no-mans land by the Tombru crossing point, where more than 5,000 Rohingya refugees have been stranded for months.

Myanmars military build-up is aimed at pushing in the Rohingya living in the no-mans land to Bangladesh, Alam said.

Lt. Col. Majurul Hasan Khan, a Border Guard Bangladesh commander who led the Bangladeshi delegation, spoke to reporters after Fridays meeting.

On Friday, Myanmars BGP pulled back their additional personnel and weaponry. The Rohingya living in the no-mans land are unharmed, Khan said.

The BGP officials informed us that they very often deploy army and BGP [personnel] on the border for their internal security. As part of this, they said they brought in heavy weaponry. They said it was completely for Myanmars own security, Khan said.

In addition, the BGP denied that its personnel had fired off blank shots or there was any shooting from the Myanmar side of the border on Thursday night, Khan told BenarNews. He was responding to questions based on eyewitness accounts from refugees in the no-mans land, who said they had heard Myanmar troops fire off rounds.

Some refugees had also complained that Myanmar troops had used loudspeakers to order refugees to clear the no-mans land.

Khan said the Myanmar delegation sought clarification from the BGB about why Bangladesh had installed CCTV cameras along the frontier.

We have told them that it is for our internal security. This is not targeted at Myanmar, Khan said.

Rohingya refugees in the area confirmed that Myanmar scaled down its troop presence near the no-mans land following Fridays meeting.

Today, they reduced troops and weapons. They also removed some military vehicles, Dil Mohammad, a Rohingya sheltering in the no-mans land near Tombru, told BenarNews.

Bombs in Sittwe: Myanmar

On the Myanmar side of the border, government officials said that extra troops had been deployed along the frontier with Bangladesh to guard against what they described as a potential attack from the other side by Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) insurgents.

In recent days, there were bomb explosions in Sittwe, and it is known there are ARSA terrorists mingling with people [along] this border line of the two countries. According to this report, we increased security, and already replied about this to Bangladeshs Foreign Ministry, U Myint Thu, Myanmars permanent secretary of foreign affairs, told the Myanmar Service of Radio Free Asia (RFA), a sister entity of BenarNews.

He was referring to blasts in the capital of Rakhine, the home state of Myanmars stateless Rohingya minority.

The build-up was in response to new intelligence reports about movements of Rohingya insurgents along the border, Zaw Htay, spokesman for Myanmars government, told Agence France-Presse.

It was not aimed at antagonizing Bangladesh, he said, according to AFP.

Zaw Htay told the Associated Press: This is not like we are trying to invade Bangladesh and fight against them. These are only actions taken against the terrorist groups based on information we received.

Myanmar has blamed ARSA insurgents for launching attacks on police and army outposts in northern Rakhine in late August 2017 that provoked a brutal military crackdown. This, in turn, forced at least 671,000 Rohingya to seek refuge across the nearby border in southeastern Bangladesh.

The U.N. and U.S. have accused Myanmar of carrying out an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Rohingya. But Myanmar officials have denied allegations that government security forces and Buddhist militias committed atrocities against the predominantly Muslim Rohingya.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.The young daughter of an ethnic Uyghur man who is languishing in a political re-education camp in northwest Chinas Xinjiang region is in need of urgent medical treatment after suffering serious burns when a stove overturned at her home in Hotan (in Chinese, Hetian) prefecture, according to sources.



A public notice from the Residents Committee of the Qagha village government, in Guma (Pishan) countys Kokterek township, which was only recently posted to social media, states that Esma Ahmet was injured on Feb. 18 after she was scalded by an upended pot of boiling water, causing severe burns to nearly 60 percent of her body.



Ahmet requires urgent medical treatment in the Xinjiang capital Urumqi that would cost some 300,000 yuan (U.S. $47,250), the Feb. 21 notice said, adding that her father Ahmet Abliz is being held in a re-education camp and calling on area residents to help raise funds for the family of seven.



No details were provided about Ahmets agealthough she is believed to be eight years oldwhether there were any adults present when the incident occurred, or the reason for her fathers detention.



Since April last year, Uyghurs accused of harboring extremist and politically incorrect views have been detained in re-education camps throughout Xinjiang, where members of the ethnic group have long complained of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under Chinese rule.



Sources have told RFA that Uyghur children have been left without guardians after their parents were detained in the camps, and that many are sent to overcrowded orphanages in the region where they are held in terrible conditions.



An officer at the Kokterek township police station confirmed the incident to RFAs Uyghur Service during a recent telephone call, but said it was unclear whether Ahmet had since received treatment.



She may be in the hospital, said the officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, adding that he was unsure of what had since happened to Ahmet because he and other policemen dont often stay in the office as we are mostly on patrol, and hadnt heard any further details about her condition.



The officer handed the phone to Tursunjan Mehmet, who he said was the policeman in charge of the Qagha village station, but Mehmet referred further questions about Ahmets situation to higher level authorities, before hanging up.



A staff member who answered the phone at the Hotan Prefectural Emergency Hotline said he was unaware of the incident and referred inquiries about Ahmets condition to a local surgical unit.



RFA was unable to contact the Kokterek township hospital to determine whether Ahmet had received treatment there.



Another officer who answered a follow-up call to the Kokterek township police station also confirmed Ahmets injury, but declined to say whether any adults were present when the incident occurred or how many members of her family are currently being held in re-education camps, saying the information is confidential.



We must obey the policy of confidentialitywe cant reveal anything which is deemed confidential, said the officer, who also declined to provide his name.



When contacted for further details, residents of Qagha village refused to speak with RFA about the incident.



A notice issued by the Residents Committee of the Qagha village government calls for donations to help pay for Esma Ahmet's medical treatment. Credit: WeChat Camp network



Prior reporting by RFAs Uyghur Service found that as arrests in Xinjiang increased around the sensitive 19th Communist Party Congress in Beijing in October, the regions re-education camps have been inundated by detainees, who are forced to endure cramped and squalid conditions in the facilities.



Chinese authorities have not publicly acknowledged the existence of re-education camps in Xinjiang, and the number of inmates kept in each facility remains a closely guarded secret, but Uyghur activists estimate that up to 1 million Uyghurs have been detained throughout the region since April 2017, and say nearly every Uyghur household has been affected by the campaign.



Since Xinjiang party chief Chen Quanguo was appointed to his post in August 2016, he has initiated unprecedented repressive measures against the Uyghur people and ideological purges against so-called two-faced Uyghur officialsa term applied by the government to Uyghurs who do not willingly follow directives and exhibit signs of disloyalty.



China regularly conducts strike hard campaigns in Xinjiang, including police raids on Uyghur households, restrictions on Islamic practices, and curbs on the culture and language of the Uyghur people, including videos and other material.



While China blames some Uyghurs for "terrorist" attacks, experts outside China say Beijing has exaggerated the threat from the Uyghurs and that repressive domestic policies are responsible for an upsurge in violence there that has left hundreds dead since 2009.



Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFAs Uyghur Service. Translated by RFAs Uyghur Service. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.Programs run by some European Union countries to sell visas and citizenship to wealthy foreigners are vulnerable to abuse and corruption, watchdogs say.

At least 10 European countries in the Schengen free-movement area have applied programs to trade citizenship or residency rights for investment. They are Austria, Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Hungary, and Switzerland.

Hungary suspended its scheme last year. Similar programs are also run in other EU countries outside the Schengen zone, including Britain, Bulgaria, and Cyprus, and non-EU members Armenia, Montenegro, and Moldova have also proposed similar schemes.

"There is growing concern about the risks these schemes pose to the integrity of the Schengen area," Transparency International EU director Carl Dolan told a news conference in Brussels on March 5.

Visas obtained in a Schengen country can be used to travel and reside in other states of the bloc.

New investigations by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a media consortium, documented cases of faulty scrutiny of individuals who were granted EU passports or residence permits.

Transparency said new EU citizens under such schemes include Russian nationals in Malta who are believed to be close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"It is clear that due-diligence procedures in some EU countries, such as Hungary and Portugal, have not been rigorous enough," said Casey Kelso, advocacy director at Transparency International.

The European Commission is due to release a report this year on so-called golden-visa programs run by EU states. A spokesman said on March 5 the report would give "guidance" to EU countries on how to implement such schemes.

With reporting by ReutersThe failure of a landmark 2015 agreement between Iran and world powers to restrict Tehran's nuclear program would represent a "great loss," the head of the UN's atomic watchdog has said.

"As of today, I can state that Iran is implementing its nuclear-related commitments" under the deal, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Yukiya Amano said in a speech opening a quarterly meeting of the IAEA's board of governors.

U.S. President Donald Trump has been a harsh critic of what he calls the agreement's "disastrous flaws."

Trump in January set a 120-day deadline for U.S. lawmakers and European allies to "fix" the agreement or face a U.S. withdrawal.

A U.S. exit could kill the agreement, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Tehran has refused to renegotiate.

The U.S. administration is concerned that parts of the agreement will begin to expire from 2026 and that it fails to address Iran's missile program, its actions in the region, or its human rights abuses.

Amano said the accord "represents a significant gain for verification" and that if it "were to fail, it would be a great loss for nuclear verification and for multilateralism."

Last month, an IAEA report concluded that Iran was continuing to abide by the deal's key measures.

Amano said inspectors had had "access to all the sites and locations which we needed to visit."

The IAEA had requested "further clarifications" over the notification Iran gave the agency in January that it intended to construct "naval nuclear propulsion" at some point in the future, Amano told the closed-door meeting of 35 member states.

Iran has long admitted publicly that it plans to develop nuclear propulsion for naval vessels.

While Iran has seen massive economic benefits from the JCPOA, notably by being able to resume oil exports, it still subjected to U.S. sanctions in other areas.

French Diplomacy

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian visited Tehran on March 5, to pursue "a frank and demanding dialogue with Iran," according to France's Foreign Ministry.

Le Drian said there was "still a lot of work to do" on Iran's missile program after meeting with top Iranian officials, including President Hassan Rohani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Rohani expressed hope that the nuclear deal could be preserved.

"It would be a point of regret for everyone" if the accord was not honored, Rohani said, adding that his country was "ready to deal with any situation that is not agreeable to Iran."

Zarif told his French counterpart that Europe must play a more constructive role to preserve" the nuclear deal, Iranian media reported.

State media quoted Zarif as saying that Europe "must put pressure on the United States to meet its commitments under the deal and not to allow it to present illogical and illegal demands."

Zarif slammed the European Union for "extremism" in relationship to Tehran in an interview published ahead of his meeting with Le Drian.

"In order to keep the United States in the Iran nuclear deal, European countries are suffering from extremism and this will ultimately undermine Europe's policy," Zarif told the reformist newspaper Etemad.

Le Drians one-day trip to Tehran was originally scheduled for January, but it was delayed after student-led street protests broke out in many Iranian cities.

Ahead of the trip, he told the AFP news agency that he had informed Tehran that he was no "emissary of Donald Trump."



But the French minister did tell Tehran that the country needed to address concerns over its ballistic-missile program or face new sanctions.

Iran insists its ballistic missile program is for purely defensive purposes.

However, Le Drian said last week that Iran's ballistic missile capacity and position worries the West "enormously."

"Having such tools is not uniquely defensive, given the distance they can reach," Le Drian said.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, AP, and PressTVThe daughter of one of the Iranian dervishes reportedly arrested in Tehran last month amid security troops' clashes with worshipers of that mystical Sufi order says her father died after being taken in custody.

Tayebeh Raji told RFE/RL's Radio Farda on March 4 that authorities had informed her family that Mohammad Raji died after falling into a coma caused by "bleeding and injuries."

The elder Raji, a war veteran, was among some 300 dervishes arrested on February 19 following skirmishes with security forces.

More than 80 Iran-based political and rights activists said in a statement issued on March 3 that they were concerned over unpleasant reports concerning conditions for the so-called Gonabadi dervishes -- Sufis named for the native city in Iran's Khorasan Province of one of the order's leaders -- and their situation behind bars.

The statement published by opposition websites, including Kalame, called for fair legal processes concerning indictments filed against the detained Sufis. "We expect the judiciary to respect the laws and the civil rights of [detainees] fully," the statement said.

Raji's death was first reported by a website that covers news and information related to Iran's largest Sufi order, the Gonabadi dervishes, who claim to have millions of members in Iran and abroad.

Majzooban.org reported on March 4 that Raji, who the website says was a former Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander injured in a chemical attack during the 1980-88 war with Iraq, died as a result of "blows sustained during interrogations." That account has not been independently or officially confirmed.

The website cited the family as the source of its news.

Tayebeh Raji said authorities contacted the family several times on March 3 and asked them to bring a photo of their father for identification purposes.

"After one of our relatives went to [the police station], they said an individual is in a coma as the result of bleeding and injuries and we want to see if that person is Raji or not,'' she said.

The relative was later contacted by authorities and told that Raji had died, she said.

"After [our relative] came back, the police called and said, 'Yes, the picture matches, and he has died in a coma.'"

Rajis daughter said she had last seen her father on the night of his arrest.

Fatal Clashes

The dervishes had been protesting outside a police station over the arrest of one of the members of their community. Later, more clashes were reported outside the home of Gonabadi Sufi leader Nurali Tabandeh, where dervishes had staged sit-ins to protect him.

"I saw him that night," Tayebeh Raji said. "I saw that as a result of beating and bleeding, he was in a critical condition; but he waved his hand and I saw that he was alive."

She said no information had been provided by authorities for the past two weeks.

"We would go to the police station, to the prison; authorities wouldn't tell us anything," she said. "If my father was in a coma, the least they could do in terms of our rights was to tell us to go and see our father for the last time."

She said a difference of opinions had forced her father to retire from the IRGC in 2004.

"My fathers mentality didnt fit. He would say that he fought during the war to defend his country and for his beliefs and that he didn't want any post or [privileges]."

She said that her father had turned to work as a farmer.

Tayebeh Raji said her brother, Mohammad Ali, had also been arrested last month. Ali, who she said had helped to look after her father since the chemical attack in the Iran-Iraq War, had been "acquitted" and was due to be released next week.

Authorities do not appear to have commented on Rajis death.

Judiciary spokesman Gholam Hossein Ejei said last month that apart from several police members killed on February 20, "an individual" had died.

"I dont know if he was among rioters or not," Ejei was quoted by Iranian media as saying on February 25.

Reports suggest at least five security troops were killed in clashes sparked by the tensions with dervishes on February 19, three of them when a bus was driven into their ranks.

The Gonabadi dervishes, who are regarded warily by Irans clerical establishment, have come under increased pressure in recent years.

Radio Farda broadcaster Vahid Pourostad contributed to this report.

ASTANA -- Amid persistent speculation that he may be preparing for a political transition, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev has suggested he is not going anywhere soon.

"I have worked, I am working, and I will continue to work so that our people will look to the future with confidence," Nazarbaev said at a joint session of parliament on March 5.

Nazarbaev told members of the Senate and the Majlis that "the time has come to focus on large social projects" and that he will continue to lead such programs.

The remarks came a month after parliament said it was working on a draft law that would allow Nazarbaev to lead Kazakhstan's Security Council for life and change its status from consultative to constitutional, increasing its clout.

Many in Kazakhstan see that move as a sign that Nazarbaev is seeking to ensure that he will maintain his grip on power if he steps down as president.

Nazarbaev, 77, has been in power in the energy-rich Central Asian country since before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

He was last elected in 2015, securing a new five-year term after moving the vote up from 2016 in what was widely seen as a move to strengthen his control.

Rights activists and critics say he has persistently suppressed dissent, prolonged his time in office through undemocratic votes, and used the levers of power to neutralize potential opponents.

In January 2017, Nazarbaev announced plans to delegate some of his sweeping powers to parliament and to the government, transforming his own leadership into a role he described as "supreme arbiter."

But while constitutional amendments adopted later in 2017 brought some cosmetic alterations to power sharing between the president, government, and parliament, no major changes occurred.BISHKEK -- At least 200 protesters have rallied in downtown Bishkek, demanding judicial reforms and the dismissal of "corrupt judges."

The protesters rallied in front of the Supreme Court on March 5 and then marched to the building that houses the Kyrgyz parliament and presidential administration.

The demonstrators had a list of more than 20 judges they alleged are corrupt and urged President Sooronbai Jeenbekov to replace them. They also demanded the resignation of the chief of the State Committee for National Security, Abdil Segizbaev.

Some protesters held portraits of opposition politicians jailed on charges that are widely seen as political.

Police did not interfere.

One of the demonstrators, prominent human rights activist Rita Karasartova, said that since neither presidential representatives nor lawmakers had met with the protesters, an anticorruption movement will be established.

March 5 is marked in Kyrgyzstan as the Day of the Workers of the Judicial System.President Vladimir Putin has claimed that Russia thwarted nearly 500 spies in 2017, and urged the Federal Security Service (FSB) to step up cybersecurity efforts and strengthen measures to protect secret communications.

Putin spoke to senior FSB officials at a meeting on March 5, less than two weeks ahead of an election that appears certain to hand him a new six-year term.

His remarks came amid acrimony between Moscow and many Western countries over what the United States and others say are Russian efforts to use cyberattacks as one of several tools to sow discord and interfere in elections abroad.

"In recent years, as you know very well, there has been an increase in foreign intelligence agency activity," said Putin, who critics accuse of using government meetings to campaign ahead of the March 18 vote.

"They are working diligently on Russia, using the most modern methods, spy craft, and technical espionage means," he said, adding that "last year alone, the activities of 72 career intelligence officers and 397 agents of foreign spy services were thwarted."

Speaking at a separate meeting on March 5, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov repeated Russian accusations that the United States was seeking to meddle in the Russian election.

Ryabkov asserted that the United States was using "totally biased and baseless" allegations of Russian meddling as a pretext to interfere in the Russian vote. The United States denies it has done so.

Protection Against 'Radicalism'

In his comments, Putin said that "Russia's information space must be protected from modern cyberthreats," Russian news agencies reported."

"It is necessary to improve the state system for detecting, preventing, and dealing with the aftermath of computer attacks against Russia's information resources," he said.

The FSB must "increase the reliability of confidential communication networks in bodies of public authority and defense and security structures," Putin said.

Putin, a former Soviet KGB officer who headed the FSB during his rise to power, has brought many people with similar backgrounds into high-level positions.

He has frequently portrayed Russia as a country encircled by Western adversaries bent on weakening it, undermining its sovereignty, and setting some of its citizens against the government.

At the FSB meeting, he said that young Russians must be protected from "radicalism" of all kinds, a remark that critics are likely to interpret as aimed at least in part against political foes.



"It's necessary to protect people, but primarily young people, from those trying to infect society with aggression and intolerance, xenophobia, and nationalism," Putin said.

"Whatever its political and ideological tinge might be, radicalism is destructive in its essence, and we have to safeguard the country and the people's future from this threat," he said.

Russian officials have portrayed Aleksei Navalny, a prominent opposition leader who has been barred from the ballot because of a criminal conviction he contends was engineered by the Kremlin, as a radical.

Putin's popularity, his control over the levers of power, and what critics say have been years of steps to suppress dissent and marginalize opponents virtually ensure his victory in the election.Reports from Britain say a man who is critically ill after being exposed to an unknown substance is the alleged former Russian spy Sergei Skripal.

Authorities did not identify the man, but British media identified him on March 5 as Skripal, who was convicted in Russia of passing state secrets to Britain and sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2006.

The retired Russian military intelligence colonel, who is 66, was one of four prisoners released by Moscow as part of a "spy swap" with the United States in 2010.

British police declared a major incident on March 4 after a man in his 60s and a woman in her 30s were found unconscious on a bench at a shopping center in Salisbury, western England.

They were being treated for "suspected exposure to an unknown substance" and they remained critically ill, police said.

Skripal and the woman were said to be in intensive care at a Salisbury hospital.

Britain's National Health Service said it had only limited information about the patients, but there "doesn't appear to be any further immediate risk to public health."

The substance has not been identified, but local media reported that emergency services suspect the powerful synthetic opiate fentanyl may have been involved.

"They looked like they'd been taking something quite strong," the BBC quoted an eyewitness as saying.

"She was sort of leant in on him, it looked like she had passed out maybe," the eyewitness said. "He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky."

Skripal was arrested in Moscow in December 2004, and convicted by Moscow's military court in August 2006 of "high treason in the form of espionage."

He was found guilty of passing the identities of Russian intelligence agents working undercover in Europe to Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6, in return for $100,000.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) alleged he had begun working for MI6 while serving in the army in the 1990s.

Skripal pleaded guilty, reports said at the time.

The death of former FSB officer Aleksandr Litvinenko in London in 2006 has strained relations between Britain and Russia.

British investigators have accused Andrei Lugovoi, a member of Russia's lower house of parliament, of carrying out the poisoning of Litvinenko at a hotel in the center of the British capital.

They concluded that Litvinenko ingested the highly radioactive isotope polonium 210 while drinking tea with Lugovoi and his alleged accomplice, Dmitry Kovtun.

Moscow has dismissed the inquiry as "opaque" and "politically motivated."

Kovtun and Lugovoi have denied involvement despite traces of polonium that British investigators say the two left across London.

With reporting by the BBC, Reuters, and the Press Association

Every Wednesday, Aleksei Nesterenko stands outside building No. 23 on Moscow's Nikolskaya Street with a sign calling for it to be turned into a branch of the city's GULAG museum. On September 12, 1938, Nesterenko's father was executed inside that building, which at the time was home to the Military Collegium of the Soviet Supreme Court.

Nesterenko and a handful of other children of "enemies of the people" are waging an uphill battle, pushing for a law against lionizing Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Nesterenko, 79, told his story to RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Dmitry Volchek on the eve of the 65th anniversary of Stalin's death:

In March 1953, I was finishing school and on the day [Stalin's death was announced] I had stayed home sick. When they announced that Stalin was dead, everyone went out into the streets. I walked down to the Lenin Library. Gorky Street was blocked off, so I couldn't go in that direction since there were cars blocking the street. So I went back home to Krasin Street.

There was a portrait of Stalin in our home -- a simple photograph that was probably taken from Ogonyok or some similar magazine. That portrait had always stood on a small cupboard in the main room. But when I got home, I could see the portrait had already been turned facedown.

I recently read some memoirs by Danil Granin in Novaya Gazeta. He wrote about how everyone was really upset and how they poured out onto Palace Square [in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg] when the news was announced. He says that a few years later, no matter who you asked, no one would admit that they were out crying on Palace Square. They were too ashamed. Granin talks about how it took a long time for him to stop thinking of Stalin as an idol. We all went through that.

In 1954 I graduated from school with a gold medal, and only then learned that I was the son of an 'enemy of the people.' I had to fill out the application for the institute, and that's when my mother told me for the first time. Before that, I thought that my father had died during the war, like the fathers of many people. I wrote on my application that my father had been arrested by the NKVD and sentenced by the Military Collegium of the Soviet Supreme Court to "10 years in prison without the right of correspondence."

I had a hard time getting into an institute. They refused to take my documents. I even wrote a letter directly to [Marshal Kliment] Voroshilov [who was then the chairman of the presidium of the Supreme Soviet]. Then 1956 was the year of rehabilitation; I was an 'enemy of the people' for just two years.

'Every Torture You Can Imagine'

Only now am I beginning to understand the horror that my mother lived through. When my father was arrested, all our relatives vanished. Some changed their name. My mother was almost entirely alone with three children. My father was arrested when he was an official at the Civilian Aviation Institute.... He was held for nearly a year and underwent every torture you can imagine. But over the course of eight months, he didn't confess to anything. He was arrested on September 10, 1937, and on September 20, 1938, he was executed on the order of the Military Collegium of the Soviet Supreme Court.

I really like Karl Schloegel's book Terror And Dream: Moscow 1937. All the craziness is reflected there -- how in 1937 and 1938 there would be celebrations in one part of town and tragic nightmares in another.

When my father's "10 years without the right of correspondence" was over in 1947, when Stalin was still alive, my mother began writing to the authorities. My older brother completed his service in the army and was an active member of the Komsomol. But because he was an 'enemy of the people,' he was not allowed to attend a military academy. He completed a trade school and got a job in radio. At that time, there were radio sets wired into every apartment in Moscow, and he checked them and repaired them. Later, after my mother's letters to Stalin, he was summoned to the Interior Ministry for a talk and was then allowed to apply to an institute.

'Slandered And Libeled'

My father spent one year in the Lefortovo and Butyrka prisons in Moscow. I have read his file in the archive with the permission of the Federal Security Service -- the archive on the Frunzenskaya Embankment. I made copies of several pages  they only allow you to make 13 copies out of the hundreds of pages. I made my choice and later gave copies to all my sons and nephews.

The impulse to do more came from my grandson, who was 10 years old in 2005. One day, he said, "Grandpa, let's make a family tree." I was horrified that I couldn't do that. In 2007, from Memorial I got a large book with 4,000 names, the list of victims shot [at Nikolskaya Street No. 23]. That's where my father, slandered and libeled as an 'enemy of the people,' received his sentence [after Stalin had signed off on the execution lists]. I heard about the long story of how Memorial had struggled to open a museum in that building. But [dissident and Memorial co-founder] Arseny Roginsky told me, "Unfortunately, I do not believe we will see a museum there in our lifetime."

In 2010, some friends of my eldest son helped us to make a film called The Shooting House: Nikolskaya 23. It has been viewed several thousand times.

WATCH: The Shooting House (in Russian, no English subtitles)

The building used to be privately owned. In 2005 the Defense Ministry sold it, and in 2016 it was sold again and is now owned by state pharmacy No. 1, which also owns Nikolskaya 21. Now the facade is being restored. I will stand in front of this building every Wednesday as long as I have the strength. We are now calling on the authorities to mark the 80th anniversary of the Great Terror by erecting information stands. Next week, I am going to the authorities to ask for permission to put up two stands with Stalin's execution lists, and my application will be considered by people who think that everything was fine in the Stalin period and that Stalin's execution lists are fake.

'Information Vacuum'

We, the children of 'enemies of the people,' get together and discuss how Russia will never move forward without an understanding of these tragedies, even though 65 years have passed since Stalin died. The Germans have expended enormous efforts [to come to terms with their Nazi past] -- in fact, that process is constantly ongoing. They talk about this all the time.

But we have an information vacuum. That is we -- the still-living children of 'enemies of the people,' of the slandered and executed -- can't let anyone stop us. We haven't been able to get a meeting with [President Vladimir] Putin, but we keep going to the presidential administration to demand a meeting at least with [first deputy head of the presidential administration Sergei] Kiriyenko.

Since the presidential election campaign started, we have held two Wednesday pickets, despite the cold. Last time there were two women with me; the fathers of both of whom had been executed. For the sake of our children and grandchildren, we have to force the authorities to speak out.

There are those who say that we shouldn't talk about this, that we've had enough, and it is all in the past. For instance, [Communist Party presidential candidate Pavel] Grudinin. It is simply shameful to listen to him. A person who pretends to the presidency but all the time he's saying, "All that is in the past. We need to move forward."

People don't understand that we cannot move forward with this law.

People come up to me [when I'm picketing] and they are supportive by a ratio of about 10:1. Sometimes people try to tell me that Stalin's execution lists are fakes, even though I show them copies with Stalin's signature on them. Sometimes there are truly horrific scenes when people begin to tell me that "they didn't shoot enough of your type." All I can do is shrug and smile at them.

Translated by Robert Coalson

The brother of Gulmurod Halimov, the fugitive Tajik colonel who joined the Islamic State (IS) group, has resigned from his post at Tajikistan's department of prisons after three of his close relatives were sentenced on terrorism-related charges, Tajik government sources say.

Saidmurod Halimov, who is a lieutenant colonel, resigned in late 2017, but his resignation wasn't announced, an official at the ministry told RFE/RL on March 5. The official requested anonymity as he wasn't authorized to brief media.

Halimov's younger brothers, Komil and Nazir, and his nephew Al, were sentenced to prison terms ranging from seven to 18 years on charges including attempting to join IS and trying to illegally cross the border.

The three men were arrested in July 2017 when they were allegedly trying to cross into neighboring Afghanistan to fight as mercenaries there.

Tajik law enforcement officials say the men were detained in a police operation that killed four other members of Halimov's extended family.

In a separate case, Gulmurod Halimov's eldest son, Behruz, was arrested in April 2017 and charged with attempting to join a foreign militant group.

Another official at the ministry told RFE/RL on March 5 that after the sentencing of his relatives, "it became legally impossible for Saidmurod Halimov to continue working" at the department overseeing prisons.

"According to law, an employee can no longer work at this agency if they have a relative in prison," said the official who requested anonymity.

Saidmurod Halimov first submitted his resignation in 2015, when his brother Gulmurod, a former commander of the Tajik Interior Ministry's special forces, joined IS.

However, his resignation was rejected, with Tajik authorities saying they were satisfied with Saidmurod Halimov's performance and that he shouldn't be held responsible for his brother's actions.

In August 2016, the U.S. State Department named Gulmurod Halimov as a key member of IS and offered a reward of $3 million for information on his whereabouts.

Iraqi media reported that he had become the militant group's "minister of war."

There were several claims that he was killed in Iraq, but Tajik officials have not been able to confirm the reports.President Donald Trump has said he is considering travelling to Israel for the planned opening in May of a new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.

"Well be talking about that," Trump said at the White House at the start of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We are looking at coming. If I can I will."

Netanyahu told Trump his decision to move the embassy "will be remembered by our people throughout the ages."

Trump angered the Arab world as well as allies and adversaries elsewhere when he announced last year that the United States was recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of their future state.

Israel has annexed East Jerusalem and declared the entire city as its capital, a move not recognized by the international community.

Based on reporting by dpa, AP, and ReutersTurkish police have detained four suspected members of the Islamic State group as part of an investigation into a possible attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey's state-run media said March 5 .

The U.S. Embassy has announced on its website that it would be closed on March 5 because of an an unspecified security threat.

Security was heightened outside the U.S. Embassy building, and police searched pedestrians before allowing them to enter a street where the main gate is located.

The Anadolu news agency said police detained four suspects on March 5 -- all of them Iraqi nationals. Two of them were detained on a bus at a security check on a highway linking the Black Sea port of Samsun to Ankara. Two others were detained in Samsun.

The Turkish capital saw a wave of attacks in 2015 and 2016 in which hundreds were killed.

Based on reporting by AP and dpaThe Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is calling on Ukrainian authorities to investigate allegations that police attacked journalists covering a protest in the capital last weekend.

The New York-based media watchdog said on March 5 that at least two journalists were injured in Kyiv two days earlier, when police dismantled a protest camp near the national parliament building.

More than 100 opposition supporters were also detained amid clashes that left at least 20 people injured.

We call on all Ukrainian police to respect the right of journalists to cover political events without fearing for their safety, CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said in a statement.

Ukrainian authorities must investigate attacks on journalists and punish those responsible to send a strong message that they support and protect a free press, she added.

A reporter covering the event for RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service said police used pepper spray against him during the police raid on the tent camp near the Verkhovna Rada.

The Kyiv Prosecutor's Office said it had opened a criminal investigation into possible police obstruction of the journalists professional activities.

Another journalist working for the independent television channel Hromadske said that a police officer kicked him and swore at him, the Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group reported.

Both journalists said they clearly identified themselves as members of the press.Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has suggested that Russia was behind recent attacks on a Hungarian cultural center in the western city of Uzhhorod.

"Russian ears are sticking out everywhere," Klimkin wrote on Twitter on March 5, in a reference to incidents on February 4 and February 27 in which Molotov cocktails were thrown into the building.

Klimkin thanked police for apprehending suspects and expressed concern that what he called "attempts to destabilize" the situation in Ukraine.

The chief of Ukraine's National Police, Serhiy Knyazev, wrote on Facebook on March 4 that three suspects in the February 27 incident -- which caused a fire that destroyed much of the first floor of the center -- were detained in Ukraine.

Without naming a country, he said that a foreigner suspected of being behind the attack remained at large.

Knyazev also said that two men suspected in the February 4 attack had been arrested in neighboring Poland.

Ukrainian police said earlier that the two Polish suspects arrested in Warsaw belonged to a radical group and that some of that group's members have fought alongside Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The attacks led to tension between Ukraine and Hungary, which has accused Kyiv of failing to protect ethnic Hungarians.

More than 100,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Zakarpattya, Ukraine's westernmost region, mostly in towns and villages close to the Hungarian border.KYIV -- The Ukrainian military has accused Russia-backed separatists in the eastern region known as the Donbas of violating a new cease-fire agreement shortly after it went into force.

The cease-fire, agreed by in talks including representatives of Russia, Ukraine, and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, took effect on March 5 just after midnight.

But Kyiv's headquarters for military operations in the east said that the separatists targeted government positions near the city of Shchastsya in the Luhansk region with grenade launchers, mortars, and other weapons at about 1 a.m.

It said that those attacks lasted about an hour and a half, and that separatists fired at another government position around daybreak.

The Ukrainian military said that its forces did not return fire.

The conflict in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions has killed more than 10,300 people since it erupted in April 2014, after Russia fomented unrest across much of Ukraine following the ouster of Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych.

It has persisted despite the Minsk accords, Western-backed cease-fire and peace deals signed in September 2014 and February 2015, and several additional agreements to cease hostilities.

With reporting by TASSRussia has proposed that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meet with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this week in Ethiopia, which both diplomats are scheduled to visit during trips to Africa.

Speaking on March 5, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said there were a growing number of issues that it is "necessary" for the two countries to discuss.

Ties between Russia and the United States were severely strained since 2014, when Moscow seized Crimea and stoked a separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, and irritants have been piling up ever since.

The United States accused Moscow of brutal complicity in civilian deaths in Syria's eastern Ghouta region, saying on March 4 that Russian aircraft have flown bombing missions targeting the rebel-held enclave in defiance of a United Nations cease-fire.

Ryabkov said that the U.S. assessment of the situation in eastern Ghouta, that Syrian government strikes that have killed hundreds of civilians have caused an outcry, "did not correspond to reality."

President Vladimir Putin boasted in a speech on March 1 of new nuclear weapons he said Moscow was deploying, testing, or developing, and Russian officials have stepped up calls for talks with the United States on global-security issues since then.

Ryabkov said it was not yet clear whether the schedules of Lavrov and Tillerson would allow for a meeting.

"But we believe such contact would be useful. The questions that must be discussed are only growing," he said, adding that Russia has proposed a meeting and is awaiting an answer.

Lavrov will be in Ethiopia on March 9 during an Africa tour that began on March 5 and was also taking him to Angola, Namibia, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.

On his first official trip to Africa, on March 6-13, Tillerson is planning to visit Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Nigeria.

With reporting by TASSFrench President Emmanuel Macron has urged his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to ensure that Syria accepts "without any ambiguity" a UN resolution calling for a 30-day cease-fire, the French presidency says.

Macron's office said he made the call during a telephone conversation on March 5, the day after the White House made some of the harshest comments directed toward Russia for its support of President Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria's seven-year civil war.

It also comes after Assad vowed to press ahead with a military offensive on the rebel-held enclave of eastern Ghouta that has left more than 600 civilians dead since February 18, according to activists.

Some 393,000 people are trapped in the besieged area just to the east of the capital, Damascus.

Aid Convoy

On March 5, trucks carrying urgently needed supplies entered Ghouta  the first aid to reach the besieged enclave in weeks despite a call by the UN Security Council for a nationwide, 30-day cease-fire and a local, daily humanitarian truce ordered by Moscow, Syria's main ally.

During his phone conversation with Putin, Macron "stressed that humanitarian convoys must be able to reach all populations in need unhindered and without further delay," according to the Elysee Palace.

The French president acknowledged that "armed opposition groups have accepted the humanitarian truce, and the inadequacy of the five-hour humanitarian pause decided by Russia," a statement said.

Earlier, dozens of aid trucks entered Ghouta as continued bombardment killed at least 45 more civilians, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

"With thousands in need of life-saving aid, today's 46-truck convoy will provide some relief," the Red Cross said on Twitter. "Aid includes food parcels for 27,500 people, flour bags, and medical supplies."

However, the UN's humanitarian office said that the Syrian government did not allow 70 percent of the health supplies to be loaded, and would not allow them to be replaced by other items.

'Brutal Complicity'

Referring to the daily five-hour truce, which the United States has dismissed as a "joke," Assad said in comments broadcast on March 4 that there was no contradiction between a truce and combat operations.

We must continue with the operation in parallel with opening the way for civilians to leave," he also said.

The United States later accused Moscow of "brutal complicity in civilian deaths in eastern Ghouta, saying that Russian aircraft have flown bombing missions targeting the enclave in defiance of the UN call for a cease-fire.

Russia, along with Iran, has given Assad's government crucial support throughout the Syrian war, which began with a government crackdown on peaceful protests.

Moscow helped turn the tide of the conflict in Assad's favor by launching a campaign of air strikes in 2015 and stepping up its military presence on the ground.

"The United States condemns the ongoing military offensive that the Assad regime, backed by Russia and Iran, is perpetrating against the people of eastern Ghouta," the White House said in a statement.

It said Russian military aircraft launched from Hmeimim airfield in Syria and carried out at least 20 bombing missions a day near Damascus and eastern Ghouta between February 24 and February 28.

"Russia has gone on to ignore [a UN cease-fire's] terms and to kill innocent civilians under the false auspices of counterterrorism operations," it said.

Responding to the U.S. accusations, Russia's Defense Ministry said on March 5 that the United States was the one breaching the UN resolution calling for a nationwide, 30-day cease-fire, saying it had done nothing to stop rebels from launching attacks on the Syrian Army in Ghouta and shelling Damascus.

"Washington does nothing to tame militants under its control in eastern Ghouta," a statement said.

Also on March 4, Macron urged Iranian President Hassan Rohani to put the "necessary pressure" on the Syrian government to halt "indiscriminate" attacks on civilians in the enclave.

During a phone conversation, the French president underscored the "particular responsibility for Iran, because of its ties to the [Damascus] regime, regarding the implementation of the humanitarian truce" sought by the UN, his office said.

According to the Iranian presidency's website, Rohani told Macron that countries selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and its allies must answer for "war crimes" being committed in Yemen.

France is one of the biggest arms exporters to Saudi Arabia, which since 2015 has been leading a military coalition backing the internationally recognized government in Yemen against Shiite Huthi rebels and their allies.

With reporting by Reuters, AFP, and TASS

Country living as a springboard for roaming and rambling. With occasional music and light exercise. Now with more Kyoto!The trial of an Uzbek journalist who says his jailers tortured him and told him his children would be raped or killed has been postponed until later in the week.

Journalists, opposition activists, and human rights advocates gathered outside a Tashkent court on March 5 in anticipation of the trial of Bobomurod Abdullaev and three co-defendants, but it was postponed until March 7.

The judge, Zafar Nurmatov, gave no reason for the postponement of the trial of Abdullaev, blogger Hayot Hon Nasriddinov, and businessmen Ravshan Salaev and Shavkat Olloyorov.

A freelance journalist who has contributed to the news agency Fergana and other media outlets, Abdullaev is charged with "conspiracy to overthrow the constitutional regime," which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

His lawyer, Sergei Mayorov, said he was tortured into making self-incriminating statements.

Mayorov, who met with his client in jail on March 3, said that Abdullaev was tortured for several days after he was detained on the street in the capital by the National Security Service (MXX) on September 27.

"They beat him on his back, his legs, and along his left arm with a meter-long plastic pipe. The worst torture was that they forced him to go six days without sleeping. For the entire duration of the six days, they didn't allow him to sit or lie down," Mayorov said. "The third form of torture was beating him on his back and head with a computer cable."

According to Mayorov, Abdullayev was kept naked in his cell for several days and subjected to psychological torture including threats that his daughter who lives in Russia would be raped, his other children living in Uzbekistan would be killed, and his wife would be jailed.

The charges against Abdullaev and his co-defendants stems from a series of articles under the byline Usman Haqnazarov, which has been used by more than one person. The articles touched on issues related to circles close to late former President Islam Karimov, who ruled the Central Asian country with an iron fist for more than a quarter-century before his death in 2016.

The trial is seen as a test of President Shavkat Mirziyoev, who has promised reforms, and of his government's commitment to overhauling the justice system and addressing widespread allegations of abuse by the MXX -- which enforced Karimov's autocratic rule in the former Soviet republic.

In February, 12 human rights groups called for Abdullaev's immediate release and an independent investigation of allegations that he was tortured.

Last month, Abdullaev's case was transferred from the MXX to the Prosecutor-General's Office. Around the same time, Abdullaev, was granted the right to a lawyer after being denied access to an attorney for months.

Mirziyoev, a longtime prime minister who came to power after Karimov's death was announced in September 2016, has been shaking up the government structures, in particular the powerful MXX and Interior Ministry.

In October, Human Rights Watch said that Uzbek authorities had taken "some positive steps" during Mirziyoev's first year but still needs to make "sustainable" improvements on human rights.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Uzbek Service, Fergana.ru, and Eurasianet.orgAnother Los Zetas gang leader arrested in Cancun

Cancun, Q.R.  Another drug cartel leader from the notorious Los Zetas gang has been captured in the city of Cancun.

Officers from the Mexican army along with the Criminal Investigation Agency captured Jose Giraldo Garcia, who went by the alias El Cubano. The wanted gang member has been identified by the federal government as the alleged leader of Los Zetas from the state from Veracruz.

The search and seizure of a known address is what led to the arrest. Along with Jose Giraldo Garcia was the arrest of a second person. A search of the home found numerous packages of drugs, radio communication equipment, computers and an out-of-state vehicle.

Federal officials said that Jose Giraldo Garcia is considered a generator of violence in the states of Veracruz and Quintana Roo and that he is considered responsible for drug trafficking, extortion and oil theft.

Officials report that those arrested were likely subordinates of gang leader Hernan Martinez, who was taken into custody on June 29, 2017 by elements of the Criminal Investigation Agency.

In early February, another key Los Zetas member, American Jose Maria Guizar, was arrested by federal forces in Mexico City. Beatriz Moguel Ancheyta, judge of the Federal Criminal Justice Center, ruled that for security reasons, Jose Maria Guizar should remain in the maximum security prison of Altiplano in the State of Mexico.Beach access road at Club Akumal Caribe permanently closed

Akumal, Q.R.  As of Monday morning, the road used to access the beach at Club Akumal Caribe will be ordered permanently closed by the municipality mayor.

A judicial order to close the road and reinstall the fence that was torn down with machinery last year was defied by the mayor until a February judgement left Tulums mayor with an ultimatum. To restore the property or risk contempt.

Romalda Dzul Caamal, mayor of Tulum, has ordered the restoration of the property with assistance from security personnel who will see the vendors removed and the road closed as of 8:00 a.m. March 5.

Staff from the General Directorate of Public Safety and Transit of Tulum, in addition to officials of the Directorate of Revenues, will arrive at the property to ensure complete compliance.

The order to close the beach access road was given to the director of municipal Public Safety, Commander Gabriel Gonzalez Ornelas, via a letter signed by mayor Romalda Dzul Caama.

Last month, the lawyer representing Club Akumal Caribe warned Romalda Dzul Caamal that she is not in a judicial position and that by refusing to close the road used to access the beach, could put her job in jeopardy.

Last year, a judge ruled that the road used to access the beach by the public was on private property belonging to Hotel Club Akumal Caribe, SA de CV and the Ukana I Akumal Center, AC.A 22 percent fatality rate was confirmed in this country. The incubation period for Lassa is up to three weeks. Most people who catch Lassa will have only mild symptoms such as fever, headache and general weakness. They may have none at all.



People in Nigeria

Women who contract the disease late in pregnancy face an 80% chance of losing their child, or dying themselves. The only way to confirm a diagnosis is to analyse a blood or tissue sample in one of small number of specialized laboratories. The disease was first identified in the Nigerian town of Lassa in 1969 but the current outbreak is unprecedented, spreading faster and further than ever before. Multimammate rodents spread Lassa virus via their urine and droppings. It can also pass from person to person through bodily fluid. Authorities have also banned the consumption of raw garri, a popular Nigerian food, which it says can spread Lassa fever. WHO is on site to provide enhanced surveillance, contact tracing, and to strengthen the regions diagnostic capabilities and communication.With increasing incidents of multiple punctures reported across Pune in the last couple of years, this may be the first time theres video evidence of how the scam is carried out. By a stroke of good luck, Ajay Mahajan captured the puncture scam episode on his GoPro.

Upon viewing the footage much later, he was able to see a miscreant at work. His job was to ensure multiple punctures become a reality. The earlier modus operandi was to purposefully drop nails on roads and point out to bikers punctures they were unaware of. At the time of counting, an absurdly high number of punctures would be found, and the charge to fix them was Rs 100 per puncture with slight negotiations possible. Its always been difficult to understand how so many punctures were found at a time. Its now easy to see how. The punctures are created, and a random number picked, and the multiple puncture scam is brought to life.

In his words  Last week I went to Pune and there I noticed that my bikes rear tyre is having less air in it. So, I decided to check whether there is any puncture of not. But then they tricked me into talking and manually attacked my rear tyre with more punctures purposefully.

I couldnt notice this thing that time, but when I came back home I saw the footage I recorded and I can clearly see what they did.

On 25th Feb 2018, I went again to Pune and told everything to police. I literally had only 1500 rupees in my pocket at that time and they made 15 punctures on my Tyre. And I had to give them all the money I had.

The situation could have been more complicated, the consequences could have been so bad. I was lucky, nothing happened with me, and I came back safely. Watch the full video below. Hat tip to Ajay Mahajan for clicking this video and sharing with us.Angela Merkels remarkable political career isnt over. Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Angela Merkel is set to lead Germany for a fourth term after she and her political party, the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), were once again able to form a governing coalition with the countrys second-largest party, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD). The SPDs vote to join forces with the CDU on Sunday ended almost six months of political deadlock after Merkels party fared more poorly than expected in Septembers election. As a result, the SPD discontinued its coalition with the CDU, denying the centrist Merkel the majority she needed to form a government.

Contentious negotiations between the countrys political parties dragged on fruitlessly for months, while Germanys allies looked on nervously. Following the rise of Donald Trump in the U.S., along with the political chaos caused by the Brexit vote in the U.K., many now see Merkel as the de facto leader of the free world, particularly at a time when far-right nationalists are rising across Europe.

Its good news for Europe, French president Emmanuel Macron said in celebration of the vote on Sunday.

The CDU originally tried to form a coalition with two other parties, but those talks collapsed in November, leaving the SPD as its only possible partner. The SPD, however was itself divided over whether to work with Merkel again, with the younger, more-radical wing of the party opposed to it. Without a coalition to form a government, the impasse could have led to new elections.

Instead, two thirds of SPD members voted to reconstitute the two parties Grand Coalition on Sunday, though the Reluctant Coalition might be a better name at this point. The swing toward working together was the result of a deal which granted the SPD control of Germanys finance, foreign, and labor ministries in exchange for agreeing to limits on the number of migrants who will be allowed into the country. Immigration has been a particularly turbulent political issue in Germany, and the countrys far-right nationalist party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD), was able to win 13 percent of the vote in September  as well as seats for a nationalist party in parliament for the first time. The anti-immigration AfD is now the leading opposition party in the country, and continues to gain support in polls.

Germanys parliament is expected to elect Merkel to her fourth term on March 14. She has led Germany for 12 years, and by the end of this new term, she will be tied with Helmut Kohl for the longest tenure as Germanys chancellor. The Wall Street Journal reports that advisers close to Merkel say she intends for this term to be her last.The mining industry in the Philippines is in a life-and-death struggle with environmentalists led by environment and natural resources minister, Gina Lopez. The fight presages what is likely to happen across the Asia-Pacific.



At the moment, the Philippine mining sector is on the back foot, with Lopez ordering closure of 23 of the countrys 41 mines and suspending another five for destruction of watershed areas and indiscriminate mining.



Of the mines facing closure, 17 are involved in nickel production. These firms represent about half of the countrys annual nickel output, Lopez said. The Philippines has been the worlds biggest supplier of nickel since 2012, following Indonesias ban on mineral exports.



Lopez has also ordered the cancellation of 75 mineral production sharing contracts (MPSCs) in watershed zones, many of which are in the exploration stage and none in production yet. The latest action by Lopez suggests that she will not allow them to be developed further, though the mining companies plan to appeal in court.



Lopezs decision, which followed a month-long audit of the mines, disregarded recommendations by a government team that suspensions and fines were enough. She explained that as environment minister she has the power to go beyond suspensions.

You kill watersheds, you kill life. Gina Lopez, Philippines



You kill watersheds, you kill life, Lopez told a televised news conference called to announce the closures and suspensions. She added that her announcement, made on 14 February, was her Valentines gift to the Filipino people.



The writing on the wall



Environmental awareness is a global phenomenon, snowballing in the West and in some of the regions stronger economies such as China, Indonesia, Mongolia, Myanmar and the Philippines. The green voice is louder and politicians have now introduced policies aimed at protecting the environment.



John Miller, editor of The Miner, a trade journal for the mining industry in the Asia-Pacific, has warned that the industry as a whole will be in trouble if it does not read the writing on the wall. [1] Mining companies are facing increased compliance risks nowadays and other countries, including Indonesia, are taking keen interest in the Philippines move.



The Philippine case is a microcosm of what is happening elsewhere in Asia Pacific and it comes at a time when the mining industry is at the crossroads. To quote The Miner: With the short-term outlook for commodities remaining negative there is little likelihood of any relief for the next 12 months, which means more belt tightening, more mine closures and job losses, more financial hardship and more pain.



In China, the government plans to raise environmental standards in its highly-polluting mining sector, which is generally positive. The mining sector has been a crucial part of Chinas rapid economic expansion, but poor regulations and weak enforcement of standards have contaminated much of the countrys soil and left parts of its land and water supplies unfit for human use, not to mention the chronic air pollution, says Miller. [1]



According to Thomson Reuters GFMS [precious metals survey], the worlds top 10 miners have lost around half their market value in 2015, wiping out an estimated US$280 billion.



[The credit agency] Fitch Ratings outlook for the mining sector in 2016 is negative, reflecting its view that Chinese demand will weaken further and that commodities will remain unpopular with investors . . . the slowdown in Chinese demand has created substantial oversupply in some commodities. [2]



Environmental costs



However, the mining industry cannot be allowed to collapse since modern societies need minerals  from aluminium to zirconium  that are processed from the earth in various forms.



The roads we drive on, the buildings we live and work in, the equipment we need and the products we use in our daily lives are made of or contain minerals. The problem is that extracting these minerals creates a lot of waste and pollution, and destruction of the environment. This is why environmentalists go ballistic against the mining industry.

Disciplining the industry

The mining industry claims that the business brings profit and prosperity to national economies. But, this is always at the cost of environment, and the health and well-being of the poor who work and live where the mines are located.To quote Sven Haertig-Tokarz, web editor of the financial monitoring network bankwatch.org: In Kyrgyzstan, the Kumtor gold mine has already generated  toxic spills that have injured local people  the Centerra Gold has been contaminating local waters and glaciers while hiding evidence of such negative impacts from public oversight. [3]



Lopez has summed up the mining-environmentalist tug-of-war in the Philippines by doing a cost-benefit analysis as part of her audit of the Philippine mining industry. She found the cost outweighing benefits 3:1.



The destruction of the environment is far greater than the taxes paid to the national government by the mining companies. In presenting her audit reports to the media at the Valentines Day press conference, Lopez showed watersheds barren and mangled by open-pit mining, and asked repeatedly, Is it worth it?



To answer Lopez question, I say yes and no. I propose a compromise  reduce the number of mines drastically and make sure that they follow mining and environmental rules to the letter. It starts with industry discipline and ends with political will to discipline the industry.



Crispin C. Maslog, a former journalist with Agence France-Presse, is an environmental activist and former science professor at Silliman University and University of the Philippines Los Banos, PHILIPPINES. He is a founding member and currently Chair of the Board, Asian Media Information and Communication Centre (AMIC) based in Manila.



This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Asia & Pacific desk.

Magnetism and light have been combined in a test that can diagnose malaria in under two minutes without the need to take blood.

The new test, which has yet to undergo clinical trials, won a prize for entrepreneurs hosted by Britains Prince Andrew last week (28 February).

What were trying to do is to bridge the gap between local communities and effective diagnosis, Shafik Sekitto, an engineer from Uganda and co-founder of the device, told SciDev.Net in an interview.

[email protected] Africa 2.0, an event hosted by The Duke of York in partnership with the Royal Academy of Engineering Africa Prize, was launched in 2014 to help connect entrepreneurs who use technology and engineering with potential supporters such as CEOs, mentors and business partners.



During the award event at St. Jamess Palace in London, 15 innovators from across the continent each had three minutes to make a case for support to develop their product  inventions targeting developing world challenges in healthcare, farming, energy, education and finance.

 This is really a paradigm shift for malaria, to make diagnosis in the community rather than the clinic  Philip Rosenthal

Sekitto, an engineer from Uganda, developed the winning innovation, Matibabu, to make malaria diagnosis easier. Africa bears the brunt of the global malaria burden, accounting for some 90 per cent of cases and deaths.

He worked on the device with six friends from Makerere University in Uganda. They built a prototype by combining their skills in research, engineering, computer science and business  and backed by advisors with expertise in parasitology and physics.

Matibabu uses light and magnetism to differentiate between the blood of an infected and a healthy person. Unlike gold standard tests that work by detecting molecules produced by the malaria parasite, it deploys polarised light to detect hemozoin crystals, which are by-products excreted by the parasite.

It does this in less than two minutes four times the speed of the fastest among current tests on the market, according to Sekitto. The results are sent from the device, which clips onto a patients finger, to a mobile phone. Its just plug and play, he told SciDev.Net.

Rapid malaria tests can already give results with good speed and without specialised equipment, according to Philip Rosenthal, professor at the University of California School of Medicine and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Committee at the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network.

But the real key to Matibabu is that it doesnt require a blood sample, he says, so a patient could potentially test for the disease on their own, at home.

This is really a paradigm shift for malaria, to make diagnosis in the community rather than the clinic, says Rosenthal. That could be fantastic, but I think we should move slowly and carefully in that direction.

In the meantime, the priority is to rigorously evaluate the device against other diagnostics used across Africa. As it stands, the device can accurately pick up four out of five cases of illness, which Rosenthal says is concerning, because 20 per cent of cases would be missed. Its crucial to have a detailed evaluation of sensitivity and specificity, he stresses.

The possibility of diagnosing malaria quickly with a non-invasive technique would be very exciting, according to Kevin Marsh, professor at the University of Oxford, chair of the WHO Malaria policy advisory committee and former director of the KEMRI Wellcome Programme in Kenya. Marsh agrees that the key now is to show in carefully conducted trials that this approach has comparable performance to the current widely used methods.

The team behind Matibabu is aiming to commercialise the kit in the next year. Were heading for clinical trials in the next few months, where well validate our device and be able to obtain the right medical certificates and licences for commercialisation, says Sekitto.

According to [email protected], previous winners have expanded their revenues and reach, or made valuable connections. Ive met very many people that can help me push this product to the market, Sekitto said after the event.

All 15 start-ups who took part in the event have received guidance and are to be entered into the Royal Academy of Engineering Africa Prize with a winner due to be announced in Spring.[MUTARE-ZIMBABWE] Using podcasts and short message service (SMS) delivered to smallholder farmers is transforming farming production among rural Zimbabwes population, a project shows.



The use of these technologies is cutting travelling distances and helping to increase agricultural yields and alleviating poverty, SciDev.Net heard during a field tour last month (2 February) of districts involved in the project.



The Improved Nutrition and Sustainable Production for Increased Resilience and Economic Growth (INSPIRE) project being implemented by the UK-headquartered Practical Action, was initiated in December 2014 and ended in January this year, says Martha Munyoro, information and knowledge management officer, Practical Actions, Zimbabwe.

We are enabling farmers to access up-to date and timely information on crops and livestock production. Martha Munyoro, Practical Actions, Zimbabwe

The project is aiding agricultural information dissemination using simple technologies  SMS and podcasts to enhance farming production, and thereby increase food security in the districts.



The UKs Department for International Development funded the almost US$1.6 million project.



Munyoro says that the main objective of INSPIRE project is to enhance access to agricultural knowledge content to smallholder farmers.



We believe that information is power and the use of new media technologies to communicate agricultural messages in this digital age is pertinent, says Munyoro. We are collaborating with locally trained knowledge workers as well as agricultural specialists from the countrys Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Resettlement to use such technologies to empower rural farmers in Zimbabwe.



Munyoro adds that the INSPIRE project has trained and capacitated more than 100 knowledge workers who are responsible for disseminating agricultural knowledge content to farmers.



In Mutasa, Mutare and Makoni districts, over 74,000 farmers have hugely benefited from INSPIRE since its inception in 2014, says Munyoro. We are enabling farmers to access up-to date and timely information on crops and livestock production. Apart from facilitating easy follow ups on their farming practises, podcasts are fighting poverty, increasing productivity and food security in the districts.

Farmer Amos Mufanochiya, testifies: Podcasts are ensuring that we get information educating us on how our livestock should be protected from diseases, how we should keep and upgrade our kraals and knowledge in applying chemicals in our farms.Nobbert Ngongoni, an agricultural researcher with Zimbabwe Open University, says that whilst technology is greatly assisting farmers in Zimbabwe and Africa, information and communication technology uptake is generally low among the populations and more so very limited in agricultural communities.ICT uptake is slow in Zimbabwe and most African populations and in activities they do, especially in agriculture , he says.African governments , Ngongoni notes, need to prioritise technology development and help farmers link it to businesses, customers and markets across Africa.

This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Sub-Saharan Africa English desk.Klas Tybrandt, principal investigator at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics at Linkoping University, has developed new technology for long-term stable neural recording. It is based on a novel elastic material composite, which is biocompatible and retains high electrical conductivity even when stretched to double its original length.

The result has been achieved in collaboration with colleagues in Zurich and New York. The breakthrough, which is crucial for many applications in biomedical engineering, is described in an article published in the prestigious scientific journal Advanced Materials.

The coupling between electronic components and nerve cells is crucial not only to collect information about cell signalling, but also to diagnose and treat neurological disorders and diseases, such as epilepsy.

It is very challenging to achieve long-term stable connections that do not damage neurons or tissue, since the two systems, the soft and elastic tissue of the body and the hard and rigid electronic components, have completely different mechanical properties.

"As human tissue is elastic and mobile, damage and inflammation arise at the interface with rigid electronic components. It not only causes damage to tissue; it also attenuates neural signals," says Klas Tybrandt, leader of the Soft Electronics group at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Linkoping University, Campus Norrkoping.

Klas Tybrandt has developed a new conductive material that is as soft as human tissue and can be stretched to twice its length. The material consists of gold coated titanium dioxide nanowires, embedded into silicone rubber. The material is biocompatible -- which means it can be in contact with the body without adverse effects -- and its conductivity remains stable over time.

"The microfabrication of soft electrically conductive composites involves several challenges. We have developed a process to manufacture small electrodes that also preserves the biocompatibility of the materials. The process uses very little material, and this means that we can work with a relatively expensive material such as gold, without the cost becoming prohibitive," says Klas Tybrandt.

The electrodes are 50 m in size and are located at a distance of 200 m from each other. The fabrication procedure allows 32 electrodes to be placed onto a very small surface. The final probe, shown in the photograph, has a width of 3.2 mm and a thickness of 80 m.

The soft microelectrodes have been developed at Linkoping University and ETH Zurich, and researchers at New York University and Columbia University have subsequently implanted them in the brain of rats. The researchers were able to collect high-quality neural signals from the freely moving rats for 3 months. The experiments have been subject to ethical review, and have followed the strict regulations that govern animal experiments.

"When the neurons in the brain transmit signals, a voltage is formed that the electrodes detect and transmit onwards through a tiny amplifier. We can also see which electrodes the signals came from, which means that we can estimate the location in the brain where the signals originated. This type of spatiotemporal information is important for future applications. We hope to be able to see, for example, where the signal that causes an epileptic seizure starts, a prerequisite for treating it. Another area of application is brain-machine interfaces, by which future technology and prostheses can be controlled with the aid of neural signals. There are also many interesting applications involving the peripheral nervous system in the body and the way it regulates various organs," says Klas Tybrandt.

The breakthrough is the foundation of the reseach area Soft Electronics, currently being established at Linkoping University, with Klas Tybrandt as principal investigator.The archaeological site of Sedeinga is located in Sudan, a hundred kilometers to the north of the third cataract of the Nile, on the river's western shore. Known especially for being home to the ruins of the Egyptian temple of Queen Tiye, the royal wife of Amenhotep III, the site also includes a large necropolis containing sepulchers dating from the kingdoms of Napata and Mereo (seventh century BCE-fourth century CE), a civilization[1] mixing local traditions and Egyptian influences. Tombs, steles, and lintels have just been unearthed by an international team led by researchers from the CNRS and Sorbonne Universite as part of the French Section of Sudan's Directorate of Antiquities, co-funded by the CNRS and the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.[2] They represent one of the largest collections of Meroitic inscriptions, the oldest language of black Africa currently known.

The necropolis of Sedeinga stretches across more than twenty-five hectares and is home to the vestiges of at least eighty brick pyramids and over a hundred tombs, dating from the kingdoms of Napata and Meroe (seventh century BCE-fourth century CE). The research programs carried out since 2009[3] have focused on the chronology of the construction of this necropolis, which is difficult as there is very little remaining historical information on this civilization. The researchers have shown that most of the pyramids and tombs are buildings dating from the era of the Napata kingdom that were later adjusted by the Meroitics. These adjustments were thus made five centuries after the initial building on the site, which the Meroitics supplemented with new chapels built out of brick and sandstone blocks on the western side of the pyramids, and which were intended for the worship of the deceased. This practice was particular to the Napatans and Meroitics, who veritably revered the monuments of the past, unlike their Egyptian neighbors.

Pieces of decorated sandstone, such as steles as well as lintels and door surrounds, have been discovered at the surface, providing magnificent examples of Meroitic funerary art. For example, pigments -- mainly blue in color -- have been preserved on a stele found lying on its side. This is rare for objects of this kind, which typically are subjected to the vagaries of time. Another exceptional find: a chapel lintel representing Maat, the Egyptian goddess of order, equity, and peace. This is the first extant representation of this goddess depicting her with African characteristics. During the last excavation campaign in late 2017, the researchers discovered a stele in the name of a Lady Maliwarase. The stele sets out her kinship with the notables of Nubia (in the north of the kingdom of Meroe): she was the sister of two grand priests of Amon, and one of her sons held the position of governor of Faras, a large city bordering the second cataract of the Nile. The archeologists have also unearthed a lintel inscribed with four lines of text describing the owner of the sepulcher, another great lady, Adatalabe. She hailed from an illustrious lineage that included a royal prince, a member of the reigning family of Meroe. These two steles written for high-ranking women are not isolated examples in Sedeinga. In Meroitic society, it was indeed women who embodied the prestige of a family and passed on its heritage.

All these discoveries advance our knowledge of Meroitic civilization, which was born of the cultural intermixing of Egypt and black Africa that still characterizes Sudan today. These funerary objects represent the largest collection of texts in Meroitic, the oldest language of black Africa, written in characters borrowed from ancient Egyptian.

[1] The kingdoms of Napata and Meroe formed one and the same civilization, known as the "Kush kingdom" by their ancient Egyptian neighbors.

[2] The director of the mission, Claude Rilly, is a CNRS researcher at the Langage, Langues et Cultures d'Afrique Noire laboratory (CNRS/Inalco). He is co-leading this mission with Vincent Francigny, director of the SFDAS (MEAE). This research has been funded by the excavation commission of the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs (MEAE) and the Orient et Mediterranee -- Textes-Archeologie-Histoire laboratory (CNRS/Sorbonne Universite/Universite Pantheon-Sorbonne/EPHE/College de France). The campaign carried out between November, 14 and December 19, 2017, the last to date, was awarded the Fondation Jean et Marie-Therese Leclant prize.

[3] Excavation work on the site began in 1963 and recommenced in 2009. It will continue until 2020 and is divided into three four-year plans, the last of which began in November 2017.Researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology have successfully tested a new material that can be used for cheap and large-scale production of hydrogen -- a promising alternative to fossil fuel.

Precious metals are the standard catalyst material used for extracting hydrogen from water. The problem is these materials -- such as platinum, ruthenium and iridium -- are too costly. A team from KTH Royal Institute of Technology recently announced a breakthrough that could change the economics of a hydrogen economy.

Led by Licheng Sun, professor of molecular electronics at KTH, the researchers concluded that precious metals can be replaced by a much cheaper combination of nickel, iron and copper (NiFeCu).

"The new alloy can be used to split water into hydrogen," says researcher Peili Zhang. "This catalyst becomes more efficient than the technologies available today, and significantly cheaper.

"This technology could enable a large-scale hydrogen production economy," he says. Hydrogen can be used for example to reduce carbon dioxide from steel production or to produce diesel and aircraft fuel.

It's not the first time a cheaper material has been proposed for water splitting, but the researchers argue that their solution is more effective than others. They published their results recently in the scientific journal Nature Communication.

"The high catalytic performance of core-shell NiFeCu for water oxidation is attributed to the synergistic effect of Ni, Fe and Cu," Zhang says.

Zhang says that copper plays an interesting role in the preparation of the electrode. In an aqueous solution, surface copper dissolves and leave a very porous structure to enhance the electrochemically active surface area. "The porous oxide shell with its high electrochemically active surface area is responsible for the catalytic activity, while the metallic cores work as facile electron transport highways," Zhang says.

Sun has previously made progress in this field of research, including the construction of artificial photosynthesis (Nature Chem. 4/2012), and a catalyst based on nickel and vanadium (Nature Com. 7/2016). His and colleagues' research was one of the reasons that US President Barack Obama went to KTH in 2013 during the second-ever state visit of an American president in Sweden.In February 2001, before the Olympic cauldron in Salt Lake City roared to life and focused the world's spotlight on Utah, scientists at the University of Utah placed the first of several carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) sensors atop a building on campus.

CO 2 is a key greenhouse gas leading to anthropogenic climate change, with cities around the world as major emitters of CO 2 . Now five CO 2 sensors monitor the air at sites on the Salt Lake Valley floor. It's the only multisite urban CO 2 network in the world with more than a decade of continuous measurements- and it's showing how urban and suburban growth impacts a metro area's CO 2 emissions.

In a study published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by atmospheric scientists Logan Mitchell and John Lin report that suburban sprawl increases CO 2 emissions more than similar population growth in a developed urban core.

"The general thought is that more compact cities on a per capita basis emits less carbon," Lin says. "Some of these cities also have these expanding fringes. These places are less 'green', so to speak. That expanding frontier is moving."

Building the network

From the first sensor, placed atop the eight-story William Browning Building on the U campus, the network has expanded to include sensors in the Sugarhouse (placed in 2005), Murray (2005) and Rose Park (2009) areas, all well-established urban and suburban neighborhoods in the northern Salt Lake Valley. A sensor placed on Hidden Peak, at the top of the Snowbird ski resort in the Wasatch Mountains, measures background CO 2 levels.

advertisement

CO 2 sensors require resource-intensive maintenance and calibration, factors that may explain why few other cities have multisite networks. Lin says the primary driving force in creating the network, however, was a forward-thinking vision among U researchers led originally by Jim Ehleringer, Diane Pataki and Dave Bowling in the biology department. Because of that vision, Lin says, "We know more about CO 2 in the Salt Lake Valley than any other urban area. We are one of the leading urban CO 2 networks, and the U is at the center of that."

Suburban Growth

An additional sensor was placed in the southwest corner of the valley, intended to represent rural areas. But that sensor, located just west of South Jordan, has yielded some of the most interesting results. Although the area consisted of open fields when the sensor was first placed in 2004, it is now a bustling, developed area. The sensor picks up emissions from a wide swath of the region, as far east as Draper and as far south as Lehi.

"That part of the valley is a really important part of the story," Lin says.

"You're going from a land surface type where there's no people around and you have suburban expansion into this undeveloped land," Mitchell adds. "It's changing the CO 2 emission framework quite a bit."

The sensor in the southwestern corner of Salt Lake Valley provided an opportunity to directly compare the effect of population growth on emissions in different land-use areas. Over the same time that population in the southern part of the Salt Lake Valley and neighboring Utah Valley exploded, Salt Lake City grew by around 10,000 people. But the growth in CO 2 emissions wasn't comparable with the growth associated with suburban expansion in the southern end of Salt Lake Valley.

advertisement

The research team concluded that growth in CO 2 emissions around the valley was more influenced by the type of neighborhood than by the total number of people moving into that neighborhood.

"In the more urban area, there's population growth there, but it's in the mature part of the city, not associated with growth in CO 2 ," Mitchell says. "If you add more people into downtown Salt Lake City, they're going into an existing place. But it's this population growth in rural areas that is seeing an increase in CO 2 emissions."

Comparing to global data

The team compared their results to four inventories of global carbon emissions to see if the same trend held. Just as with the U data, the inventories showed that population growth was not directly correlated to emissions growth. But the inventories showed a constant rate of emissions over the Salt Lake Valley, failing to capture the high CO 2 growth rate in suburban areas.

Global inventories are getting better and more refined, Mitchell says. "This is the bleeding edge of inventory construction -- starting to look at spatial structures in cities in these inventories. Because no other city has a long-term record, no one's been able to look at the evolution over time across a city."

Lin and Mitchell are now leading a project called CO 2 -USA (CO 2 -Urban Synthesis &Analysis network) to link CO 2 monitoring networks in urban areas across the country. "Some might have three to five years of data," Lin says. "We're hoping to join forces and to compare and contrast cities."

Locally, the team's next focus is on looking at the relationships between air quality and CO 2 measured at their tower sites (now numbering 12 and situated in surrounding basins) as well as incorporating the air quality data collected since 2014 on mobile sensors that ride along with light rail TRAX trains. The trains, operated by the Utah Transit Authority, crisscross the valley, and the data they collect fill in the gaps between long-term stationary CO 2 monitoring sites.

Lin also plans to use their data to make projections about Salt Lake's emissions future, including the city's goal to reduce CO 2 emissions by 80 percent by the year 2040. "The hope is that we or others who use these tools can help inform where the most bang for their buck is or whether 80 percent is even realistic given the projected population growth."

"Salt Lake City is one entity in the valley, but it's not the only one," Mitchell says. "If you reduce emissions by 80 percent and everyone moves out further from work and commutes in, it's not actually solving the problem."

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Department of Energy.Discovered in liquid helium about 80 years ago, superfluidity is a counterintuitive phenomenon, in which quantum physics and particle-wave duality manifest at the macroscopic level. Since then, it has yielded many advances in understanding quantum matter, yet leaving mysterious some of its features. A hallmark of superfluidity is the existence of so-called "quasi-particles," i.e. elementary excitations dressed by interactions.

The behavior of such a special fluid is mainly dictated by two types of excitations at low temperature, as their moderate energy cost allows to easily excite them. The first ones are the phonon modes, the well-known long-wavelength sound-wave quanta. The second ones, much more bizarre and intriguing, are massive quasi-particles named rotons. They have large momenta, and, contrarily to the common (quasi)particles for which the energy increases with the momentum, the roton dispersion relation exhibits a minimum at a finite momentum, called roton momentum. This unusual behavior expresses the tendency of the fluids to build up short-wavelength density modulation in space, precursor of a crystallization instability. This behavior arises from a remarkable crosstalk (or correlations) between the particles, owing to the extremely high density of the fluid.

Ultracold quantum gases and, in particular, Bose-Einstein condensates, first realized in 1995, offer another paradigm of superfluidity, where, because of the much lower densities, the roton mode is absent. However, in 2003, theoreticians suggested that roton excitations might also occur in gaseous condensates for special types of interactions among particles.

In their view, magnetic atoms with their long-range and anisotropic dipole-dipole interaction would make possible to introduce remarkable correlations between the particles, leading to a roton dispersion relation. Now, thanks to the theory input from Luis Santos's research group at the University of Hannover and from Rick van Bijnen of the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the team led by Francesca Ferlaino at the Department of Experimental Physics of the University of Innsbruck and the Institute of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences has demonstrated roton excitations in a dipolar quantum gas for the first time.

Roton observed in dipolar quantum gas

In an international first the Innsbruck scientists realized a Bose-Einstein condensate of erbium atoms in 2012. The strong magnetic character of these atoms leads to an extreme dipolar behavior of the quantum system. With this model system, they have already been able to detect several dipolar few- and many-particle effects. The group has now succeeded in preparing a Bose-Einstein condensate of about 100,000 erbium atoms in such a way that a roton mode arises. "We use a cigar-shaped trap of laser light and orient the atomic dipoles transversely to it thanks to a magnetic field," explains first author Lauriane Chomaz. In this geometry, the atomic dipoles attract each other when they sit along the short direction of the cigar and repel when they sit along the long one. "The long-range character of the dipolar interaction introduces a cross-talk between the different directions of the cigar trap and the attractive/repulsive features of the interaction in this trap." This energetically favors a modulation of the cloud along the long direction of the cigar, with a wavelength matching the cigar short length. This is the roton excitation. "By additionally quenching the strength of the interparticle interactions, we can populate the roton mode," says Chomaz.

New focus on supersolidity

The successful detection of this long-awaited quasiparticle paves the way for further research into superfluidity. In addition, it also creates possibilities to explore a paradoxical state of matter that simultaneously shows both the properties of solids and superfluids. The first evidence of supersolid states was presented last year in hybrid systems of atoms and light. Magnetic atoms could offer a different perspective to direct access supersolid phase of matter, the Innsbruck researchers are convinced. Finally, this breakthrough confirms the potentialities offered by dipolar gases toward new paradigms of quantum fluids, as also previously demonstrated with the discovery of dipolar quantum droplets in the group of Tilman Pfau in Stuttgart.

The work by the Innsbruck scientists was financially supported, among others, by the Austrian Science Fund FWF and the European Union.

Further information on roton and superfluidity: In the 1940's, when superfluid helium was a fresh puzzle, the Soviet physicist Lev Landau made a big step forward in the understanding of superfluidity when he introduced the concept of quasiparticles to describe how this quantum fluid gets excited. The quasi-particles correspond to collective states of excitations of the fluid and, similarly to the photons being excitations of the electro-magnetic field, they behave as particles, carrying a well-defined momentum and energy. The inverse of the momentum defines a wavelength corresponding to the period of the spatial modulation associated to the excitation. The quasiparticles are mostly characterized by the relation connecting their momentum and their energy, so called dispersion relation. With a remarkable intuition, Landau postulated the existence of two distinct types of quasiparticles, the phonons and the rotons, that he distinguished phenomenologically by the different dispersion relation. While the energy typically increases with the momentum, as it does for the phonons, the rotons are the special excitations that have a large momentum but exhibit a minimum of energy. This indicates that the system is more preferably excited with a modulation of wavelength corresponding to the energy minimum, the roton wavelength. Landau's intuition was topic of an intense debate, in particular with colleague Fritz London, and was confirmed and further explored by numerous experiments since the 60's.

Since the mid-1990s, research into superfluidity has taken a new boost with the creation of gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates in the laboratory. Quantum gases underpin the universality of the superfluid behavior first observed in liquid helium. Liquid helium and ultracold gases share numerous properties, yet, in contrast to dense liquid helium, quantum gases typically only support phonon excitations and no roton. This is because the much dilute character of gases makes the cross-talk between the particles very weak. In helium, the interaction between the particle are so strong that they make the particles tend to separate with a specific distance, giving rise to a privileged wavelength of excitation, the roton wavelength.The Securities and Exchange Commission has obtained a final judgment against a hedge fund manager the agency charged with falsely inflating assets in portfolios he managed. The SEC also barred him from the securities industry.

According to the SEC's complaint, filed June 15, 2016, Stefan Lumiere and fellow hedge fund manager Christopher Plaford engaged in a fraudulent scheme to falsely inflate the value of securities held by a hedge fund advised by their firm. For an 18-month period, Lumiere and Plaford used sham broker quotes to mismark as many as 28 securities per month, surreptitiously passing their desired prices along to brokers via his personal cell phone or a flash drive delivered by a courier. The fund consequently reported artificially inflated returns and monthly net asset values, and paid out millions of dollars in inflated management and performance fees to its investment adviser.

Lumiere and Plaford were also charged criminally for their alleged conduct. Lumiere was convicted after a trial and was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment followed by three years' supervised release and a $1 million fine. Plaford pled guilty but has not yet been sentenced. The SEC's action against Plaford has been stayed pending the completion of the criminal case.

The final judgment against Lumiere, entered on February 20, 2018 by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, enjoins Lumiere from violating Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and Sections 206(1), 206(2), and 206(4) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1940 and Rule 206(4)-8 thereunder. Based on the entry of the judgment and Lumiere's criminal conviction, the SEC barred Lumiere from the securities industry.

The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.Everyone seems to agree that Democrat Conor Lamb is closing in on Republican Rick Saccone in a special congressional election in Pennsylvanias Trump Country. Photo: Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

For many reasons, the March 13 congressional special election in southwest Pennsylvania should be a yawner. Its venue, the 18th Congressional District, has been trending toward the GOP for many years. The Republican incumbent who resigned in December after it transpired that he was encouraging an extramarital lover to get an abortion, Tim Murphy, didnt even draw a Democratic opponent in 2016 or 2014, and only failed to obtain 60 percent of the vote in the Democratic wave election of 2006.

And unlike previous Trump-era special elections in historically strong Republican jurisdictions, theres no obvious asterisk making this one perilous for the GOP. Last years big House special election, in Georgias Sixth, was in a district full of highly educated suburbanites that only went for Donald Trump by a single point. Trump carried Pennsylvanias 18th District by 19 points. And in 2017s other big Democratic upset, the special Senate election in Alabama, Republicans were yoked to a wildly controversial candidate who hated raising money, and who immediately became embroiled in a sexual misconduct scandal. Eighteenth District GOP candidate Rick Saccone aint all that, but hes a reasonably orthodox and scandal-free candidate with a decent resume, running against a first-time candidate, former prosecutor Conor Lamb.

Unlike Georgias Karen Handel and Alabamas Roy Moore, Saccone also has had a solid financial advantage, thanks to an estimated $9 million in spending by outside groups. And given the 18ths close proximity to Washington and its Trump Country characteristics, the administration has also been able to fully deploy its stars on Saccones behalf, with half the Cabinet and the vice-president making appearances, and Trump himself preparing for his second visit to the district this week.

All these factors make this assessment of the race from Axioss Mike Allen quite remarkable:

Top Republicans sound increasingly resigned to losing a special House election in Pennsylvania Trump Country a week from today, after party-affiliated groups spent more than $9 million on a race that should be a gimme.

You have to assume this pessimism reflects private polls by the Republican groups who are financing Saccones campaign. But the trend lines are pretty clear in the public polling as well.

In early January Gravis had Saccone up by a 46/34 margin. In mid-February the same pollster showed Saccones lead as halved (46/40). At about that same time a Monmouth survey came out giving Saccone a mere three-point lead. And today Emerson College has the first public poll with Lamb in the lead (48/45).

This is scattered polling from firms using very different methodologies (Monmouth is a traditional live-caller poll while Gravis and Emerson are both automated call polls with online supplements to reach cell-phone users) in a kind of contest that is traditionally difficult to poll. But its probably worth nothing that Emerson, the pollster showing Lamb in the lead, conducted six polls of the Alabama U.S. Senate special election and had Roy Moore leading in all of them. FiveThirtyEights analysis shows Emerson as having a slightly larger than one percent pro-Republican house bias.

In any event, no ones expecting a GOP blowout despite all of Saccones advantages. And particularly if Lamb wins, the contest could be the most significant straw in the wind weve seen yet of what might happen in November.

No, the outcome wont have any literal impact on the balance of power in the House come 2019: The 18th is about to be reconfigured as part of the Pennsylvania Supreme Courts remapping of the states House districts to reverse GOP partisan gerrymandering, and will probably be significantly less Republican than it appeared to be in 2016. But if Republicans cant win this sort of district, the list of competitive contests for November may need to be expanded significantly. And thats not good for the GOP. According to the Cook Political Report, Republican-controlled districts already account for 45 of the 50 races they consider competitive. An even larger map of vulnerable GOP districts could spell disaster.

Coverage of the race has dwelled a lot on Conor Lambs careful centrism on controversial issues (hes reluctant to embrace even modest gun control, hes personally opposed to abortion) and his promise to vote against Nancy Pelosi as Speaker if Democrats regain control of the House. Hes also stayed away from Trump-bashing. If he wins, you can expect eager centrist Democrats to claim hes found a template for victory in red states and districts.

But the reality is that Lamb would not be in a position to reach out to the districts small group of swing voters if not for the anti-Trump enthusiasm among Democrats that is giving them a turnout advantage. It helps that despite the 18ths recent Republican voting habits, Democrats actually have a party registration edge, which means voting for a Democrat is not a completely alien experience. And unions that once routinely endorsed Tim Murphy are now backing Lamb. A turnout surge for one party can be especially crucial in special elections, where turnout for the opposition party is relatively low.

Theres a week left in this contest, and its possible Trumps visit (in which he is likely to brag about his decision to impose steel and aluminum tariffs in a district where protectionist sentiment has long been powerful) will make a difference, and that Democrats will have sharply raised expectations dashed the way they were last year in Georgia. But if a generic Republican candidate with massive party and White House backing cant make it in a place like Pennsylvanias 18th District, a lot of GOP candidates will have to reassess their self-confidence.San Francisco Supervisor London Breed will no longer be described as the citys acting mayor when she runs for the top seat in June.

Breed will now be identified as president, Board of Supervisors in all voter pamphlets and materials for the June 5 ballot, according to an order and stipulation that will be heard in San Francisco Superior Court Tuesday. It settles a lawsuit filed by one of Breeds opponents, Mark Leno, who said the acting-mayor title was misleading.

Leno, Breed and Deputy City Attorney Jon Givner all agreed to the change and signed the agreement Monday.

San Franciscos election rules require candidates to list the jobs they hold on the day of filing deadline, which was Jan. 9 in this case. Breed was serving as acting mayor and as the Board of Supervisors president at that time. She was ousted from the mayors office two weeks later, when six of her board colleagues voted to install Mark Farrell as mayor.

Leno, a former state assemblyman and senator, is designated on the ballot as a small businessman.

Lenos campaign spokesman, Jim Stearns, expressed satisfaction with the order and took the opportunity to criticize Breed for taking money from independent expenditure committees. Leno disavowed donations from such committees in January and has made financial transparency the centerpiece of his campaign. He persistently badgers Breed on social media, urging her to join him.

Now that Breed has withdrawn her attempt to deceive voters using the ballot, maybe shell take a second look at the dishonest Super PACs supporting her candidacy and denounce, renounce and reject all Super PACs, Stearns said in a statement, referring to committees that accept unlimited funds and may obscure their origin.

Breed spokeswoman Tara Moriarty said the supervisor had always been willing to change her ballot designation.

Lets get back to the real issues facing the city, she said.

 Rachel Swan

Early days no more: A controversial sculpture in San Franciscos Civic Center that critics call a racist celebration of the subjugation of American Indians by European colonists will be taken down, following a unanimous vote by the citys Arts Commission on Monday.

The sculpture, titled Early Days, is one of five bronze statues that make up the Pioneer Monument between the Main Library and the Asian Art Museum. It depicts a vaquero and a missionary standing over a fallen and nearly naked Indian man. Its been the subject of fierce debate for decades, but a renewed push to remove the sculpture surged after the deadly demonstrations in Charlottesville, Va., last year at the site of a Confederate statue.

The Arts Commission voted to begin the process of removing the statue last October, but it needed the support of the citys Historic Preservation Commission to move forward because the sculpture is located in a historic district. The preservation commission blessed the request to remove the statue, but with the condition that a plaque be installed in its place to let passersby know why it was taken away.

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.

Just before the vote, Arts Commission President J.D. Beltran said the statues critics were justifiably offended by its presence in a public square because it signals a municipalitys implicit endorsement of the racism with the statue. Putting the sculpture in a museum, where it would be surrounded by other artifacts of history, would nullify that endorsement, she said.

Where the statue will be stored is not yet clear, but Kate Patterson-Murphy, a spokeswoman for the Arts Commission, said it would be removed sometime this year. Tom DeCaigny, San Franciscos director of cultural affairs, said the commission has already received inquiries from museums and other institutions about housing the statue.

The Arts Commission estimates the cost of removing the sculpture  a process that will require a sculpture conservation specialist and a crane  at $160,000 to $200,000.

This statue coming down is huge for the Native American community, not just in San Francisco, but around the country, said Mariposa Villaluna, who organized a citizens campaign to bring the statue down.

 Dominic FracassaSan Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed a lawsuit on Monday accusing five people of running an illegal gambling den for years in the citys Excelsior neighborhood.

The suit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, alleges that the property owners and managers of the building at 4182 Mission St. have been operating illegal video gambling machines since at least 2014.

According to the citys complaint, the property attracted criminal and nuisance activity to the surrounding community, necessitating police intervention. Those activities include the use and sale of methamphetamine and stolen vehicles, and den patrons wanted on outstanding warrants.

Residents who lived nearby described the building as a magnet for alarming and at times apparently illicit activities.

It was the worst place in the world, said a man who would only give his first name, Ed, out of concern about potential retribution from the buildings owners. He has a clear view of the building from his home on Ney Street. In the middle of the night, there would be people coming out yelling and screaming, I dont know what went on in there. Im just so happy its closed, he said.

San Francisco police executed search warrants at the building twice, in November 2016 and October 2017, seizing gambling machines and making arrests, but the alleged operation kept cropping back up, Herrera said in a statement.

Its been an ongoing problem for years, said Supervisor Ahsha Safai, who represents the Excelsior. Weve gotten a lot of complaints, and were very, very happy that the city attorney is sending a strong message here.

Patricia De Fonte, who serves as captain of the Ney Street Neighborhood Watch, said in a text message that she and her community group were thrilled that the operation had been shut down, after years of what we thought was drug and gambling activity taking place there.

She said she hopes a new business will eventually set up shop at 4182 Mission, maybe a coffee shop or a bakery  a place for neighbors to meet, and a business we would be proud to support.

The city believes that gambling operations have ceased since the October raid, but Herrera said he hopes to make the closure permanent by going after the building (the defendants own) and their wallets.

This gambling den is like a weed, he said. It has been cut down before. Now were pulling out the roots to ensure it doesnt come back. Herrera has taken a similar approach in the past to enforcement efforts against alleged brothels in the city.

The building, known as the Silver Shack, had been registered with the city as a thrift store under other names, including Jhec of All Trades and later Leisure Time. A phone number listed online for Jhec of All Trades had been disconnected.

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.

Looking through the buildings smeared windows, the interior appeared bare save for some art on the walls, orphaned office furniture and a soda vending machine. A sign posted on the front door directed anyone interested in renting the building to call someone named Angelica. The number led to a voice mail for Jhec of All Trades. A message seeking comment was not immediately returned.

According to the city attorney, anyone wanting to visit the Silver Shack needed only to knock on the front door, which was generally manned by a security guard. Patrons would then be led next door to the gambling terminals.

In addition to accusing the five defendants  building owner Eduardo Bato, and managers and operators Angelica Bato, Malcolm Vasquez, Kenneth Gurriere and Orlando Leonor  with violating gambling laws, Herreras suit also asks the court to close down the Silver Shack for one year or for damages equal to the fair market value of the building for one year. The defendants are also accused of violating city building and planning codes.

The city is seeking $25,000 in civil penalties against each defendant and a number of additional penalties.A key backer of San Francisco granting noncitizens the right to cast ballots in school elections now wants the city to spend as much as $500,000 a year to warn undocumented residents that registering to vote could point the feds their way.

Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer was on the school board when she urged voters to pass Proposition N in November 2016, arguing that it would give immigrants more of a say in their childrens education. Its passage made San Francisco the first California city to give noncitizens the right to vote in any election.

Of course, something else happened in that election  Donald Trump won the presidency. His anti-immigration policies are at the heart of Fewers switcheroo.

Those who choose to vote should know some of the risks involved, Fewer said.

The first election in which noncitizens will be able to vote is in November. City elections Director John Arntz says his office is looking at creating a form for noncitizens that would require them to give their address before they could cast a school-board ballot.

Fewer worries that the feds could subpoena voter registration rolls, looking for undocumented immigrants, and we would have to turn them over  addresses and all.

An estimated 44,000 undocumented immigrants are living in the city. Even though Prop. N applies only to noncitizens who are parents or guardians of children in public schools, thats still a lot of people to warn that immigration agents might come calling if they sign up.

Under guidelines being drawn up by the Board of Supervisors, warning notices to prospective noncitizen voters would have to be translated into as many as 48 languages and circulated not just to schools, but also preschools and community resource centers. The warnings would alert those thinking of signing up that the feds may have access to their personal information.

Fewer estimates that the city may need as much as $500,000 a year to keep everyone informed on the issue. That money covers everything from administrative costs and materials to grants for nonprofits to hire outreach workers. But even her call for an initial $125,000 to get the ball rolling drew a less-than-enthusiastic response from Mayor Mark Farrell.

If the Board of Supervisors believes another outreach program is needed, they should work with the Department of Elections, he said.

Farrell was the lone supervisor to oppose putting Prop. N on the ballot in 2016, calling it a slippery slope.

By the way, we asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement whether it would really go after noncitizen voters, looking for undocumented immigrants. The agency sent us to the U.S. attorneys office in San Francisco, where spokesman Abraham Simmons said, No comment.

Judicial mess: The whip is coming down on Contra Costa County prosecutors who dont clean up after lunching grand juries.

The message: Get out the dish rag, or someone else is going to be pitching indictments to the panels.

Not only is this a responsibility, it is a matter of common courtesy, Senior Deputy District Attorney Mary Knox wrote in a recent memo to the staff.

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.

At issue: the community room where prosecutors make their arguments for indictments to 19-member criminal grand juries. The meetings can last for hours, so jurors often bring their lunches or use the rooms small kitchen area.

But they havent been cleaning up after themselves, so a staffer has been doing the job and hauling out the stinking trash, Knox wrote.

This is not acceptable and will not continue, she said.

Knox said she sent out what she called the mean mommy memo because the room, which other groups also use for meetings, was becoming an embarrassment.

Since the cutbacks of the 2007 recession, we have only one janitor working two half-days a week to clean an entire four-story building in downtown Martinez, she told us. The janitors dont even clean the offices  we have to do that.

So prosecutors can ask grand jurors to pick up after themselves, Knox wrote, or the lawyers can do it. But if nothing happens, shell find other prosecutors to lead the cleanups  and make the cases.Google has sold the restaurant-review company Zagat to the Infatuation, an online restaurant review site.

The purchase price was not disclosed. The move comes nearly seven years after Google acquired Zagat for $151 million.

The Infatuation, which is based in New York City, said in a statement that it hopes to create the largest, most influential, and most useful restaurant discovery platform in the world. The two brands will remain separate, with the Infatuation maintaining its core of expert reviews and guides, while Zagat will focus on user surveys and crowdsourced content.

Founded by Tim and Nina Zagat as a survey of their friends opinions on New York City eateries, Zagat and its quotation-mark-laden reviews  appearing in the companys distinctive burgundy-colored dining guidebooks  once made the publisher synonymous with searches for restaurants.

In 2011, Google bought the company  under the direction of Marissa Mayer, who went on to become Yahoos chief executive  to integrate it into its mapping service. The idea was that Google could bring the company  which at the time was more than three decades old  into the modern digital era, and use it to enhance Googles local offerings.

Since then, however, some observers have criticized Googles handling of Zagat. For the first several years of the partnership, changes to Zagat and its app were minimal, as Google tried to incorporate the restaurant information into its ill-fated Google+ Local efforts, once meant to rival Facebook. The company overhauled the Zagat website and the outdated smartphone app in 2016, but in recent years, Google has emphasized its own user reviews in searches, not Zagat reviews.

Zagat has helped us provide useful and relevant dining results for users across our various products, Jen Fitzpatrick, a vice president of product and engineering at Google, said in a statement. The Infatuation is an innovative company that will be a terrific home for the Zagat brand.

The Infatuation was founded in 2009 as a restaurant and bar recommendation site by onetime music executives Chris Stang and Andrew Steinthal. It has an estimated audience of 3 million people per month and has gained particular traction among Millennials in its New York hometown, in large part due to efforts such as the popular #EEEEEATS branded hashtag on Instagram. It is currently active in 18 cities around the world, including San Francisco, Chicago, Tokyo, Sydney, Mexico City and Rome.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

The company said it became profitable last year. It plans to keep Zagat as a separate brand, using it as a user-generated-content counterpart to the Infatuation. One possibility is integrating Zagats content into other products and platforms.

Were just trying to build something that takes this powerful brand and continues to grow it, Stang said.

The New York Times contributed to this report.The arrests of five employees of a tiny Central Valley water district last month exposed a huge problem in efforts to keep toxic agricultural runoff from polluting a major California river and San Francisco Bay. That is, the purported solution  treating the toxic water on site  doesnt work. Without effective treatment, there is no way Congress should approve an already questionable $375 million settlement between the federal government and the politically powerful Westlands Water District.

The Panoche Water District is key to that settlement. Panoche is, with federal financial assistance, building a water treatment demonstration project. It was hoped the technology, if successful, could be scaled up so Westlands and other irrigation districts could clean hundreds of thousands of acre feet of polluted water as promised. The state attorney generals indictments of the Panoche employees for embezzling district funds and burying 86 barrels of toxic waste on district land, however, suggest the model project is no model.A female coyote who was rescued in February after spending more than two weeks roaming the ranch land of the Sierra foothills with a plastic jar over her head was released back into the the wild on Sunday evening.

Gold Country Wildlife Rescue returned her to her home territory near Cool, Calif., four weeks after she was found in a dehydrated, emaciated state.

"She came to us in critical condition, weighing barely 15 pounds. Upon release she weighed a smidge over 21 pounds," Sallysue Stein, who founded the volunteer rescue program 25 years ago, wrote in a statement.

VIDEO: Rescued coyote released on March 4, 2018

The group in Auburn first got a call on Jan. 26 reporting the animal near Cool, as reported previously on SFGATE.

After that, Stein says they received at least two calls each day from people who saw the coyote. Some commented they'd seen the animal several days before Jan. 26.

Others called in saying they were concerned the animal couldn't eat and one person saw her fully immersing her head into a pond to drink water.

"There's no way she could have eaten," Stein said. "But she had to have been getting water."

Gold Country Wildlife Rescue and Sierra Wildlife Rescue volunteers scoured El Dorado and Placer counties for the coyote daily, and Stein was out on Saturday until 2 a.m. Traps were set in the areas she was spotted; a volunteer from Elk Grove brought dogs trained in search-and-rescue to help.

"Then there was no sighting no Sunday," Stein said. "Nothing. I thought she was down, or, even worse, we'd lost her."

The news improved Saturday morning when someone called in with a sighting and a crew of volunteers was able to surround her as a drone flew overhead.

"She was cold, wet, emaciated, dehydrated," Stein said. "She'd been skunked and she was covered in fleas and ticks. Miserable conditions."

She added, "Her ears were a mess. She was scratching at this thing trying to get it off her head. She was clawing at her ears."

Back at the rescue center, the 15-pound coyote was given IV fluids and warmed up with blankets and a heating pad.

"About two and a half hours later, I went to peek in at her and she lifted her head up," Stein said.

With electrolytes, vitamin B shots, mammal formula smoothies and extra care, the coyote who is thought to be about 9-months-old, was nursed back to life.

"Her recovery took 4 weeks...Stein said. "Towards the end, she was very unhappy with us, which we take as just one measure of success (our goal is always to keep them wild)."Observers have welcomed the entry of Kenyan airline, Jambojet, into the Ugandan airspace, saying this is likely to reduce the cost of travelling between Entebbe and Nairobi.

The airline launched recently and will operate double daily flights with departures from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) at 09:10hrs and 17:30hrs. They will also have two flights from Entebbe International airport for Nairobi at 11am and 19:20hrs every day.

Jambojet is expected to bring competition among airlines plying the Entebbe-Nairobi route, a move that will lower air prices for frequent travellers.

The airline has an introductory fare of Shs 400,000 per route, which is among the cheapest. Currently, the cheapest ticket on that route has been going for Shs 525,000.

Speaking during the launch at Entebbe airport, Jambojet chief executive officer, Willem Hondius, said the price was intended to encourage more people to travel by air both in Uganda and the region.

In East Africa alone, we have a market of over 100 million people and we have barely scratched the surface in air travel. We believe that Jambojets entry into Uganda will make air travel more affordable to majority of people who travel for business or leisure in the region and beyond, Hondius said.

He noted that there is a huge opportunity for the tourism sector to develop too.

In particular, we expect the tourism industry to reap maximum benefits from facilitation of an EA circuit which would give tourists an opportunity to visit scenic attractions in Uganda such as the source of the Nile, Murchison Falls national park, Queen Elizabeth national park and the rare Mountain gorillas in Bwindi impenetrable forest, he said.

The ministry of Works director of transport, Benon Kajuna, who represented government, said the growth of the air transport sector was important for the entire economy since it created opportunities for investment, capacity building and employment, including creating linkages for better intra-regional trade.

We need to build capacity to allow our local businesses to have greater access to foreign markets. Air transport and connectivity support exports and simultaneously increases competition and choice in the home market from foreign-based producers, he said.

kamogajonathan50@gmail.comThe first significant bipartisan attempt to alter rules established after the 2008 financial crisis is turning into a battle on Capitol Hill, as some of the biggest Wall Street banks seek to weaken a crucial requirement aimed at ensuring that they can withstand financial losses.

The Senate plans to vote this week on a bill aimed at allowing hundreds of smaller banks to avoid some of the stricter federal rules ushered in as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, while leaving the toughened regulatory regime largely intact for the nations biggest banks.

But a little-noticed provision, which creates a small exemption to a capital requirement meant to prevent banks from running into the same type of financial crunch that helped tip the economy into the Great Recession, is being seized on by major banks including Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase. They are pushing to expand the exemption in a way that analysts and former government regulators say would undermine a central pillar of the Dodd-Frank law.

Even though this fight hasnt garnered as much attention, its impact is significant, said Isaac Boltansky, policy research director for Compass Point, an investment bank. It signals the next round in the Dodd-Frank wars.

The push marks a political turning point for the big banks, which have largely kept a low profile after the financial crisis while they worked to regain favor with the public and with lawmakers. The few prominent attempts they made to raise their heads and influence policy quickly turned ugly. Citigroup, for example, was heavily criticized in 2014, when it became clear that the bank had heavily influenced language in a spending bill that would have rolled back certain post-crisis rules related to derivatives. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., blamed the banks sway over Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives for nearly shutting down the government.

Now, less than four years later, the big banks are buoyed by a White House and Congress that sees deregulation as an overarching goal.

That has helped fuel efforts to relax some post-crisis rules that toughened oversight on all banks, regardless of their size and the risk their stumbles could pose to the financial system. The current push involves one such rule, which requires banks to hold a certain level of capital on their balance sheets based on their total asset size, regardless of how risky those assets are. For instance, cash or customer deposits held at the Federal Reserve are treated the same as riskier assets like subprime mortgages or junk bonds. The rule, known as the supplementary leverage ratio, is aimed at keeping banks from being able to take big risks without properly preparing for a disaster.

The Senate bill, sponsored by Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, would create a small exemption. As it is currently worded, it would most likely apply to just three banks, all of which take deposits primarily from large asset managers and other banks, rather than Main Street customers, and are known as custody banks.

The three custody banks  Bank of New York Mellon, State Street and Northern Trust  would, when calculating how much capital to hold on their balance sheets, be able to set aside deposits they received from other banks and immediately gave to the Federal Reserve or another central bank for safekeeping.

Jennifer Hendricks Sullivan, a spokeswoman for Bank of New York Mellon, said in an email that the exemption was structured in a way that recognizes the unique business model of the custody banks.

Citigroup and JPMorgan argue that the exemption is not fair. They say that since they, too, take deposits from other banks and stash them at the Fed, they should get the same relief  even though that is not the primary focus of their business. Lobbyists for the two banks are hoping to persuade lawmakers to change the bill to allow all banks that accept custodial deposits to take advantage of the exemption, according to people familiar with the banks efforts who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss those efforts.

As Congress has sought to make a common sense change to the way capital rules treat custody assets, we have asked that they apply that change to all custody banks to maintain a level playing field in this important business, a Citigroup spokesman said in an email Friday.

Spokesmen from JPMorgan and State Street declined to comment.

Whether the language is broadened or not, the presence of a carve-out has made supporters of the laws original capital requirement nervous. They say its purpose is to keep banks from convincing regulators that certain products arent dangerous when they may ultimately pose a risk.

This is not a tweak, said Sheila C. Bair, former chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. This could be a very significant weakening of bank capital rules.

Even if the bill fails, the Fed could ease the burden on banks. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said in congressional testimony last week that he favored changing the way the entire leverage ratio is calculated, which would naturally benefit the three custody banks, without making any special exceptions for them.

An aide to a Democratic senator who supports the legislation insisted that no changes would be made to benefit big banks like Citigroup. But members of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party have been mounting resistance to the entire bill.

Warren took to Twitter on Friday and warned that the bill, which she called the bank lobbyist act, benefits only big banks and said she was planning a series of public events to decry the legislation.

And Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, said in an interview that lawmakers who support the bill were suffering from collective amnesia about the financial crisis.

Dozens of my colleagues think its important for banks to make more money, Brown said. The public is not calling for us to deregulate Wall Street.If you've ever been confused by the parade of corporate and lodging brands from Minneapolis-based Carlson, a new rebranding campaign is bringing the Radisson name back to the forefront, revamping its loyalty program, and renaming its division of independent hotel affiliates.

First, we should note that Carlson Companies got out of the lodging business in 2016, when it sold its hotel operations to China's HNA Tourism Group. That included its Carlson Hotels unit (whose brands include Radisson Hotels, Radisson Blu, Radisson RED, Park Plaza, Park Inn by Radisson, Country Inns & Suites by Carlson, and the Quorvus Collection, along with the Club Carlson rewards program) and a majority stake in Brussels-based Rezidor Hotels, which licenses Carlson Hotels brands in Europe and elsewhere.

Anyway, the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group announced this week that it has changed its name to Radisson Hotel Group. It says it's the world's 11th-largest lodging operation, with 1,400 hotels open or under development.

Most of the brand names stay the same, although Country Inns & Suites by Carlson has changed to Country Inns & Suites by Radisson, and the group's customer loyalty program is now called Radisson Rewards instead of Club Carlson. Later this year, the company said it plans to launch RadissonHotels.com as "a new global, multi-brand digital platform."

Good news: Along with the name change from Club Carlson to Radisson Rewards, the company's guest loyalty program also has some new enhancements, including changes to its elite status requirements. Gaining Silver status now requires nine nights or six stays; it was formerly 15 nights or 10 stays. Gold status now requires 30 nights or 20 stays, down from 35 nights/20 stays. And earning Platinum status (formerly Club Carlson Concierge) now takes 60 nights or 30 stays, down from 75 nights/30 stays.

"New (elite level) thresholds will be applied in 2018 based on 2017 activity, so many of our most loyal guests would be delighted to find themselves at a higher tier than expected," a spokesman said. The loyalty program also has a new web address: www.radissonhotels.com/rewards.

Meanwhile, the company is also overhauling its Quorvus Collection, a brand of independent but affiliated luxury and boutique hotels that benefit from Radisson's reservations and loyalty network. It's now called the Radisson Collection, and it includes 14 properties in foreign locations, including the May Fair in London, the Strand in Stockholm, the San Marco in Venice, the Royal Copenhagen in Copenhagen, and the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, among others.

Are you a regular at Radisson? Why or why not?

Read all recent TravelSkills posts here

Get twice-per-week updates from TravelSkills via email! Sign up here

Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis.San Francisco police officers and school security guards will limit access and step up patrols at Rooftop Elementary School in San Franciscos Twin Peaks neighborhood Monday after the release from jail Sunday of an adult who allegedly made threats against the school and staff last week.

An adult community member issued threats of violence Tuesday against the school, which has two campuses for about 600 prekindergarten to eighth-grade students, district spokeswoman Gentle Blythe said. The school kept students in classrooms immediately after the threats, then eased the restrictions slightly, allowing students to move between classrooms but limiting access to the campuses.

The suspect reportedly made multiple threats in person at the district office and in phone calls to the school, Blythe said. The suspect was arrested Tuesday night, Blythe said, but was released Sunday. A court arraignment is scheduled in about two weeks.

There is no reason to believe these threats are credible, but we are certainly taking them seriously given what the current climate is, she said.

San Francisco Police Department spokesman Sgt. Michael Andraychak said Sunday night that he was unable to provide the name of the suspect or details on the threats. But he said police would be present at the school as well as the district offices on Monday.

Blythe said the school district has been working with police to develop a security plan for Monday and possibly beyond. It restricts the number of points students and staff members can enter the school and involves the deployment of extra security and police officers.

We believe we have the conditions for a safe learning environment, she said.

The district and police considered other security measures, including canceling classes, Blythe said, but given all of the information we have, we believe continuing with minimal disruptions to students is the best approach.

While Monday will be a normal school day, Blythe said, she acknowledged it may be frightening for some students and families.

They can see there is an increased police presence, she said, and that can be alarming to some of the kids and parents.

She declined to speculate whether many parents would keep their children home from school Monday but said, We will support whatever they decide to do.The man shot and wounded by Santa Rosa police last week during a hold-up at an armored vehicle facility was identified as a 41-year-old convicted felon, authorities said.

Milton Gamez-Fierro, of Santa Rosa, was transported to the hospital Friday with two gunshot wounds after pointing his firearm at an officer, said Lt. John Cregan of the Santa Rosa Police Department.

He will be booked at the Sonoma County Main Adult Detention Facility upon his release from the hospital on felony charges for robbery, assault on a peace officer, false imprisonment and kidnapping.

Jesus Gomez-Rosales, 29, of Lynwood (Los Angeles County), was also arrested and faces the same charges, Cregan said. Gomez-Rosales is being held on a $1 million bail.

The armed robbery reportedly occurred at 2:56 a.m. Friday at the GardaWorld facility, a security and armed vehicle company located at 1650-B Northpoint Pkwy.

Dressed in a ski mask, Gamez-Fierro attempted to flee the facility when he came face to face with the first responding officer, Cregan said.

The officer reportedly fired his weapon multiple times when Gamez-Fierro pointed his gun directly at the officer. Gamez-Fierro was shot twice and transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. He was reportedly armed with a handgun and an electronic Taser.

Moments after the shooting, Cregan said, officers found Gomez-Rosales hiding inside the facility with a handgun and latex gloves.

Officers had difficulty identifying Gamez-Fierro and Gomez-Rosales because both men gave false names and identification cards, police said.

A search warrant issued 9:30 a.m. Sunday at Gamez-Fierros residence on the 1300 block of Zachary Place in Santa Rosa helped link him to the robbery, Cregan said.

Gamez-Fierro was on federal felony probation for robbery charges at the time of Fridays incident and is prohibited from possessing a firearm, Cregan said.

Gomez-Rosales was also on felony probation for possession and sales of narcotics. He is also prohibited from possessing a firearm.

The officer involved in the incident was not identified. No one else was injured during the shooting.The Uganda National Examinations Board (Uneb) releases results every first quarter of the year.

The results are from exams sat in the last quarter of the previous year. Uneb is concerned with primary and secondary school exams. These exams are national in nature, which means that kids in Karamoja sit same exams as those in Kampala.

Kids in Universal Primary Education (UPE) schools in Kyanamukaka sit the same exams as their counterparts in private schools in Wakiso.

Education minister Janet Museveni and Uneb chairperson Prof Mary Okwakol

And if I am not mistaken, they are graded the same way though there might be some lenience. National exams of this nature have overtime created a population of crammers that is unable to think and solve problems.

The issues affecting the people of Moyo in West Nile such as poverty could be the same as those in Kabale in Western Uganda but the solutions are different. Education is supposed to help solve problems a society faces.

Yet the benchmark in education standards is performance in national exams, which dont necessarily reflect the issues that affect those particular communities where students come from.

There might be things that are universal but isnt learning supposed to be contextual to a mixture of local, national, and global issues? Isnt learning supposed to help us solve the problems that affect us?

National exams as they are today are creating schools that only teach students how to cram so that they can answer exams and pass with flying colors.

I am told that from around primary five, a child is taught the same things over and over again by some schools so that they can remember them when they are in primary seven two years later. That partly explains the rate of failure of students once they are subjected to aptitude tests.

There arent many debates in schools anymore. All efforts are geared towards passing national exams. That is how I ended up with a university student who was perplexed to learn that Ssese Islands exist and very different from Ssese Gateway Beach. True story.

It is the same reason Makerere University, which isnt short of applicants, wants to have pre-entry exams. Any head of department tells you that. They have realized that results of national exams are, for a lack of a better word, deceptive.

This means that Uneb can actually adopt a model used by universities. No national exams. Uneb and the National Curriculum Development Centre (NCDC) should be merged into one and then mandated with coming up with curriculum that is specific to particular regions.

Regions must be involved in this and, therefore, develop courses that address their needs. If the people of Karamoja are cattle keepers, course content should reflect that.

Basically, the regional curriculum should combine both general and vocational studies putting in mind the economic activities of the region or what that region needs. (The public universities being built in all regions should then concentrate mainly on courses that are related to the specific needs of the region).

However, schools should be free to make changes to this curriculum by applying their creativity on how to teach and impart this knowledge and then submit this to Uneb for accreditation.

This will call for stringent supervision measures, something a freed Uneb from managing national exams can easily do using the same resources. This model isnt new actually.

Universities in Uganda use a similar one. Of course universities have their own issues but they also admit what somebody once called half-baked students. This affects the entire education model in Uganda. The model where each university teaches what they consider relevant is the right one that should be adopted by the country albeit with changes such as regional guiding curricula.

Because universities arent bogged down with a national curriculum, there is less competition in whose students get most As and Bs. That is why some of them come up with innovative ideas all the time. The employers are starting to prefer students from certain universities.

That is putting pressure on universities to think through their courses and their teaching methods. It is still a long way to go but in a few years time, the job market will determine which universities people go to. Those that teach students how to use a typewriter will inevitably close.

Students will then be required to sit pre-entry exams to join secondary schools and universities as opposed to basing their admission entirely on deceptive national exams. This model is actually relevant today because advancements in technology mean that national exams can easily leak to anybody throughout the country like it happened with O-level in 2017.

Uneb will no longer be able to guarantee the credibility of their exams. A paper stolen in Fort Portal can within minutes be available to every school within seconds through Whatsapp. Uneb wont be able to immediately issue a new paper countrywide.

I predict more exam leakages that are country spread in the future and Uneb will be hapless to stop them. Also Uneb is facing petitions from an educationist who claims they set wrong exams.

This model will ensure that schools dont focus on Uneb results anymore rather concentrate on ensuring that their students have the capacity to think, have the skills necessary to solve the problems of our time and ultimately be able to answer any questions thrown their way during pre-entry tests when joining another level.

Pre-entry assessments are the norm in many schools and universities the world over. Schools will now know that they will have to teach kids to think as opposed to cramming because they wont have an idea what kind of test is expected.

That is why students in Uganda who wish to join the Law Development Centre (LDC) have to learn to think and be conversant with world affairs. The last time I checked, nobody could cram and pass LDC pre-entry tests. That explains the high failure rate at LDC.

The writer is a media consultant and businessman.

djjuuko@gmail.comIt's not really clear what the Academy thought they would be getting when they asked the Lonely Island  the musical trio of Berkeley-bred comedians Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer and Jorma Taccone  to pen a song for the 90th Oscars ceremony.

As anyone who has ever seen their videos on "Saturday Night Live" knows, all of their videos and performances have one thing in common: They're over-the-top ridiculous.With Pixar Animation Studios based in the Bay Area, it only makes sense that inspiration comes from the movie company's location.

Places in and around the Bay Area have previously served as fodder for different scenes in Pixar movies and despite 2017's "Coco" being set in Mexico, a custom boot shop in Sebastopol makes a cameo.The 90th annual Academy Awards, hosted again by late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, packed some surprises in its three-hour runtime Sunday night.

Kimmel opened the show with jokes about Hollywood's diversity issues and sexual harassment, nodding to the Time's Up movement.If the legion of Twitter users watching this year's Academy Awards get their way, actors Kumail Nanjiani and Lupita Nyong'o will take the stage for the 91st Academy Awards as co-hosts.

The two stars, who both recently starred in their own lauded projects  Nanjiani for "The Big Sick" and Nyong'o for "Black Panther"  scored some laughs with a few zingers as soon as they walked onstage to present the award for best production design.

"We are the actors you keep hearing about, but whose names you have trouble pronouncing," Nyong'o said.

Nyong'o is a Kenyan woman born in Mexico, and Nanjiani grew up in Pakistan and Iowa, which, as he joked, are "two places that no one in Hollywood can find on a map."

The two used the moment to speak to immigrants and DREAMers who hope to one day work in the movie business.

"We are dreamers," Nyong'o said. "We grew up dreaming of one day working in movies. Dreams are the foundation of Hollywood. And dreams are the foundation of America. And so to all the DREAMers out there, we stand with you."

Twitter blew up with appeals to the Academy to book the pair as next year's hosts.

"Let Lupita and Kumail host the Oscars next year please," tweeted one Vice writer.

"Is it just me or should Lupita and Kumail be teamed together to host a whole award show one day?" added another writer. "She'll bring all the style, he'll bring all the lols."

See other reactions in the above gallery.

Alyssa Pereira is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at apereira@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @alyspereira.

Speaker Rebecca Kadaga

The speaker of parliament Rebecca Kadaga today declined to delve into the debate of whether Uganda is ready for a female president.



Kadaga who was meeting a group of journalists from Sweden was asked for her opinion on whether Uganda was ready for a female president. Kadaga declined giving a direct answer. The cautious Kadaga simply replied that Africa was changing as well as the world, and that anything was possible.

She concluded her statement saying that the former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first elected woman president in Africa who retired in January this year after serving two elective terms, has been a good role model and that slowly by slowly, things will get there.



The speaker's statement comes ahead of the 8th March celebrations to mark International Women's Day. The group of journalists who were paying Kadaga a courtesy call was led by the Ambassador of Sweden Per Lindgarde.



"I think Africa is changing, the world is changing. Anything is possible. As a pioneer [Ellen Johnson Sirleaf] she has been a good role model. After her, were thinking of Pierre Banda. Then something happened and Banda had to go. I think well get there," said Kadaga.



The Swedish journalists also asked Kadaga about the 2017 chaotic scenes in parliament during the debate and passing of a law removing presidential age limits, with them demanding to know whether the debate had any positive outcome for the country and whether it strengthened the institution of parliament.



Kadaga responded saying that the amendment of Article 102(b) in the Constitution pitted people against parliament, describing the processing of the bill as one of the most difficult times for the country. Asked if the process and the amendment strengthened any institution in the country, Kadaga said,



"I dont know, you know there is only one parliament that has to do this work. You may not like it but someone has to do it. This is parliament, if a bill is there somebody has to do it. You cant take it to the market, you must do it. I think it was one of those most difficult things that a member of parliament has to do. Actually right now, there are members who are unable to go back to their constituencies because the people out there did not like the decision that they took." she said.



In December 2017, parliament removed the age limits for person's seeking the office of the president and local government offices, eliminating the last hurdle for President Yoweri Museveni to seek re-election when his term of office ends in 2021.



The amendment to Article 102(b) followed chaotic scenes with plain-clothed security personnel raided the chambers to forcefully eject MPs who had been suspended by the speaker. The move saw fighting ensue between the security personnel and MPs. A number of MPs were injured and others detained at different police stations and later released with no charges as parliament debated the then controversial bill.



Eventually 317 MPs voted in favour of the bill and recently held a party in Kiboga district. The celebrations went on despite criticism from the Opposition legislators who have since petitioned court to challenge the amendments.A student was viciously stabbed in the chest by another student at North Monterey County Middle School in Castroville Monday morning, according to deputies.

The victim and assailant are both just 12 years old, Monterey County Sheriff's Deputy Joseph Banuelos said.

The stabbing happened in the school's quad at 8:30 a.m., minutes before classes were scheduled to begin.

After stabbing the boy, the attacker threatened to stab other classmates if they came near him, Banuelos said.

Staff members subdued the attacker and he was taken into custody. The school went on lockdown.

The victim was flown to a Bay Area trauma center. Banuelos said the boy's stab wounds are life threatening.

More than 100 parents went to the school to take their children home. By 11:30 a.m., parents began voicing frustrations that the reunification process was taking too long. Some parents had to wait more than three hours.

"It's ridiculous. To me it's like a jail that our kids are getting out of," parents Dennis Keldsen said. "They won't let us go see our kids. I've been here for two hours and I finally got to see my son."

More for you Arson suspected in 2 San Francisco car fires just 30 minutes...

Investigators said the motive behind Monday's school violence remains unclear.

With the accused attacker in custody, deputies said they do not think any more students are in danger.

The student is facing attempted murder charges. His name was not immediately released.A cross-country group of 227 legislators, representing 17 coastal states, delivered a blunt message Monday to U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke: The Trump administration's planned offshore oil and gas leasing will hurt our economies and our environment.

They applauded Zinke for removing Florida's coasts from the program, which would allow drilling in more than 90 percent of America's Outer Continental Shelf waters.

"Given that one state has been removed from the program, we strongly urge you to grant other states the same opportunity to protect their economy and coastal and marine resources," said the lawmakers' letter.

The letter, signed by 45 members of the Washington Legislature, was drafted by State Sen. Kevin Ranker, D-Orcas, and California Senate President Kevin de Leon.

"California, Oregon and Washington alone represent the fifth largest economy in the world, a level of prosperity that would not be achieved without our ocean-dependent industries," Ranker said in testimony prepared for an Olympia hearing on Monday.

MORE FROM JOEL CONNELLY: Keep oil drilling rigs off coasts, senators tell Interior secretary

"An oil spill will shut us down economically and devastate our environment! It will detrimentally impact our iconic species -- Orca whales and salmon -- and quite possibly wipe them out."

The legislators' letter drew bipartisan signatures. The Trump administration's oil leasing program has, in Washington, drawn bipartisan opposition. Two Republicans members of Congress, Reps. Dave Reichert and Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., have called on Zinke to spare the Washington and Oregon coasts from lease sales.

Two anti-oil drilling protest hikes are planned up the coastline of Olympic National Park this summer. One will be led by state Attorney General Bob Ferguson and the other by 2016 Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Bryant.

Both are embracing the legacy of U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who led hikes in 1958 and 1964 to keep the coastline wild.

In their letter, the 227 lawmakers cite recent environmental disasters that have spanned America's coastlines.

"The significant impacts associated with offshore oil and gas development pale in comparison to the impacts associated with those of oil spills," they wrote. "Examples from across the country highlight the irreparable damage inflicted upon coastal communities and ecosystems due to these accidents.

After the Exxon Valdez oil tanker crashed in Alaska's Prince William Sound in 1989, 11 million gallons of oil spilled and polluted over 1,000 miles of coastline."

Oil from the Exxon Valdez spill fouled coastlines of Kenai Fjords and Katmai National Parks as well as the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, and killed thousands of sea birds and marine mammals.

"The 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico alone -- which resulted in 210 million gallons of oil entering the Gulf and caused billions of dollars in damage to local fisheries and tourism industries -- provides ample evidence that accidents can and do happen," the legislators told Zinke.

The Trump administration's proposed leasing program "will ultimately hurt coastal economies', and that of their entire states, more than it will benefit them," they added.

During his Senate confirmation hearings last year, Secretary Zinke identified himself as a Theodore Roosevelt-style conservationist.

Roosevelt, the Republican Party's greatest conservation president, designated offshore national wildlife refuges on the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf Coasts -- including such refuges as the Quillayute Needles in Washington and Cape Meares in Oregon that would be vulnerable to spills from offshore oil drilling.NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas  George P. Bushs campaign flyers in Texas declare that hes standing beside our president  the one who called his dad, Jeb, an embarrassment to his family and a pathetic person.

At a political forum outside San Antonio, another Republican candidate brags about his bigly wins over Democrats. A hopeful in Houston, just days after a mass shooting at a Florida high school killed 17 people, sent voters a photo of herself holding an assault rifle  below the words Kathaleen Wall stands with Trump.

Texas holds the nations first 2018 primary elections Tuesday, and the campaign is providing a vivid exhibition of the Trump effect in GOP politics. Some races are playing out in a roadshow of one-upping emulation of the combative president, in which theres no such thing as cozying up too close or too ardently, regardless of his rough edges or low approval ratings nationwide.

Im Robert Stovall, and like President Trump, I realize the swamp is the problem, begins a campaign ad for a San Antonio Republican Party leader now running for Congress. He stands in a literal swamp wearing a Make America Great Again hat and cocks a shotgun at the end.

Its like nothing seen before in Texas politics, even when a Texan was in the White House. Love of George W. Bushs style of big government conservatism wasnt a staple of campaigns here. A decade later, his nephew George P. Bush, the Texas land commissioner, is thanking Trumps son, Donald Trump Jr., for endorsing him in his bid for re-election.

Texas candidates arent alone in courting Trump diehards who make up the GOP base  and who can be counted on to show up in typically low-turnout primary elections. Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, who is running for governor, has trumpeted Trumps endorsement, while an outside group accuses his GOP rival of abandoning the president. In Indiana, three Republicans running for Senate are all portraying themselves as his most steadfast ally.

The impression of a Trump White House at war with its enemies is stoking the atmosphere.

Its about hes our Republican president and if we dont stand together and we dont defend the party and conservative ideas, no one is, said Brendan Steinhauser, an Austin-based Republican strategist.

As Republicans brace for a difficult election this November  the presidents party typically loses congressional seats in the midterm cycle  they could not have asked for a gentler warm-up than Texas, where the GOP holds such a commanding edge that most election-year drama dissolves once the primaries are done. Democrats havent won a statewide race since 1994 and are not seen as favored to flip any of six congressional seats opened up by GOP retirements on Capitol Hill.

Among those leaving is Rep. Lamar Smith, who in January lauded Trumps physical fitness and said Americans were better off getting their news straight from Trump than from the media. Some of the 18 Republicans trying to replace him dont stop there: Outsider candidate Mauro Garza says he is running because Donald Trump said I could be here.1 Teachers strike: The West Virginia teachers strike entered a new week Monday with no immediate resolution in sight. Teachers are waiting for state lawmakers to agree on a pay raise. The House approved a 5 percent pay hike last week, but the Senate cut it to 4 percent. The two chambers now must resolve the difference. The walkout over pay and benefits shuttered classrooms Feb. 22. Since then, angry teachers have gone to the Capitol in Charleston to lobby legislators. The strike affects 277,000 students and 35,000 employees.

2 High surf: Waves nearly 30 feet high slammed Puerto Rico on Monday, forcing authorities to evacuate dozens of homes and close roads and schools across the U.S. territory. The huge waves downed palm trees, knocked over cement benches and forced curious crowds to flee as saltwater flooded streets and homes along Puerto Ricos northern and western coasts. More than a dozen streets remained closed, along with several beaches and two dozen schools in low-lying areas, a move that affected more than 6,000 students. The heavy swell also destroyed several docks and part of a government-owned boat terminal in Catano.A 21-year-old man was arrested on Sunday in Bangladesh for allegedly stabbing a secular writer multiple times during a university seminar, deeming him an "enemy of Islam", police said.

A Bangladeshi professor known for his secular activism and science fiction writing was attacked at a university in the city of Sylhet in northeastern Bangladesh, local officials said on Saturday. The attack is just a latest episode in a series of stabbings of secular or atheist authors and bloggers in the Muslim-majority country.

The prime minister gave the directives while visiting Zafar Iqbal at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in Dhaka this afternoon.

PM's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina stayed at the CMH for almost 45 minutes and enquired about the condition of Prof Zafar Iqbal.

"The prime minister was at the hospital for almost one hour when she also spoke to the medical board formed for his care and asked for all required measures for his quick recovery", Karim said.

Mueller probe subpoenas documents from Trump, top campaign aides

The report comes as Mueller continues to probe alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russian election meddling. Michael Cohen , a personal lawyer for Trump who testified before congressional investigators in October.

Colonel Ali Haider Azad Ahmed from the elite Rapid Action Battalion unit said Hasan told investigators it was "his duty as a Muslim to resist those who work against Islam".

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today asked the authorities concerned to do whatever necessary for the better treatment of eminent writer and educationist Professor Zafar Iqbal.

Bangladesh has been waging a war against extremists in the wake of numerous attacks by radical groups in recent years.

Hasina urged Bangladeshis to remain alert to the threat of extremism.WASHINGTON  They spent their first year in Washington as an untouchable White House power couple, commanding expansive portfolios, outlasting rivals and enjoying unmatched access to the president. But Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have undergone a swift and stunning reckoning of late, their powers restricted, their enemies emboldened and their future in the West Wing uncertain.

Kushner, long the second-most powerful man in the West Wing, is under siege. President Trumps son-in-law has lost influential White House allies. He remains under the shadow of the Russia probe and has seen his business dealings come under renewed scrutiny. He has been stripped of his top security clearance, raising questions how he can successfully advance his ambitious agenda  including achieving Mideast peace, a goal that has eluded presidents for generations.

Kushners most powerful patron, the president himself, has wavered recently on whether his daughter and son-in-law belong in the White House anymore.

A frustrated Trump has griped about the wave of bad headlines generated by probes into Kushners business dealings and the status of his security clearance, according to two people familiar with the presidents thinking. The president also has wondered aloud if the couple would be better off returning home to New York.

At the same time, though, Trump has said he believes many of the attacks against Kushner are unfair and has lamented that the couple is going through such a turbulent time, according to the two people close to the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity.

I think hes been treated very unfairly, Trump said late last month.

Kushners woes mushroomed in the past month, when accusations of spousal abuse emerged against White House staff secretary Rob Porter. Initially, the resulting firestorm  including questions about how Porter had interim clearance for top-secret information despite red flags in his background  threatened to engulf Chief of Staff John Kelly, the retired Marine hired to bring order to Trumps chaotic West Wing.

Kelly seemed to stabilize his own standing, in part by ordering a reform of the White House security clearance process. And among senior aides, that change fell the hardest on Kushner, who had been working with interim access to top-secret information. And he was doing that as investigators worked through his familys complicated real estate dealings and as special counsel Robert Mueller probes Russian connections to the Trump team.

A week ago, Kushners security clearance level was downgraded, leaving White House aides to wonder just how many indignities Kushner and Ivanka Trump are willing to suffer. Even if recent events and revelations dont trigger a departure, they have demonstrated that the West Wing clout of Javanka, as the couple is often referred to, is a far cry from what it once was.SAN BRUNO (BCN)

Four San Francisco residents including three youths were arrested following a stolen vehicle investigation Saturday afternoon in San Bruno, San Mateo County sheriff's officials said.

An investigation was underway at 2:53 p.m. at Sneath Lane and El Camino Real at The Shops at Tanforan when a county vehicle theft task force allegedly saw several people run out of the mall and into a stolen vehicle in a parking lot.

Sheriff's officials said the vehicle was allegedly stolen out of Benicia.

Before task force members approached the vehicle, the driver allegedly sped out of the parking lot and the vehicle struck numerous other vehicles.

Sheriff's officials said the vehicle ended up at a Shell gas station at Sneath Lane and El Camino Real and all the occupants got out and allegedly tried to run away.

A Daly City police K-9 apprehended one suspect and two others were arrested after a short chase.

Daly City police arrested the fourth suspect, who was allegedly driving the vehicle, later in the evening on the roof of a neighboring business.

The driver of the vehicle, a 17-year-old from San Francisco, was arrested on suspicion vehicle theft, possessing a stolen vehicle, resisting arrest and for multiple hit-and-run crashes.

San Francisco resident Charles Bradshaw, 18, was arrested on suspicion of possessing a stolen vehicle, possessing drugs, resisting arrest and committing a felony while on bail.

A 16-year-old San Francisco youth was arrested on a warrant for allegedly making terrorist threats and a fourth occupant, a 15-year-old from San Francisco, was arrested on a warrant for an alleged assault with a deadly weapon and trespassing.

Investigations are underway in several jurisdictions in San Mateo County to find out whether the suspects were involved burglaries and/or robberies in those areas.

###SAN LEANDRO (BCN)

A suspect in a brutal assault in San Leandro was arrested the day after the attack took place, police said.

Maxwell Littleton, 32, of Oakland, was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and booked into Santa Rita Jail Tuesday, according to police.

The case began when Littleton and a friend got into an argument, and Littleton allegedly brandished a gun at his friend inside a grocery store and threatened him, police said.

Later, Littleton approached his friend outside the store and hit him with a large wooden stick, knocking him to the ground, according to police. The assault was captured on surveillance video, police said, helping investigators looking into the case.

The victim suffered minor injuries and was able to help police in the investigation. The next day, police detectives found Littleton near his home and took him into custody, police said.

###SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

Police and San Francisco Unified School District officials are taking extra steps today to ensure the safety of students and staff at Rooftop School after a person who made threats against the school was reportedly released from jail Sunday.

Police did not provide the name of the suspect but did say he was affiliated with the school but not an employee.

At about 8:30 a.m. last Tuesday, the suspect made threats to a school district employee about another employee and Rooftop School located at 443 Burnett Ave. in the Twin Peaks neighborhood.

Police and school district officials said parents and staff were notified and the school was placed on temporary lockdown, which means students remained in the building and all outside doors were locked.

The school stayed on lockdown throughout the day.

Normal school activities continued throughout the day without interruption.

Police said they conducted an investigation and at about 9:15 p.m., the suspect was arrested on suspicion of criminal threats and was taken to the county jail.

Today, access points to the school's Burnett and Mayeda campuses are being watched closely.

School district security is present on campus and is assisting in identifying visitors to campus at the school's main access points, according to school district officials.

School officials are working closely with police but don't believe the person is going to carry out the threats.

School district officials said they are providing extra emotional support to students and staff because of the fears raised by the threats.

###SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

A woman from Rome who was struck and killed by a vehicle early Sunday morning on an on-ramp to Interstate Highway 80 in San Francisco was identified today by the San Francisco medical examiner's office.

Monica Aghetoni, 46, was killed when a car hit her on the Fifth Street on-ramp to eastbound Highway 80. A Sig-alert was issued at about 5:50 a.m. as a result of the collision, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Aghetoni was hit by one car and as her body was in the roadway, other vehicles hit her, CHP officials said.

The driver of the first vehicle stayed at the scene and cooperated with investigators.

The drivers of the other vehicles may not have realized they struck her, CHP spokesman Officer Vu Williams said.

###SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)

A man was struck and seriously injured by a vehicle in San Francisco's Glen Park neighborhood on Friday evening, police said today.

The collision was reported around 6 a.m. in the area of San Jose Avenue and Randall Street.

The 47-year-old man was hit while crossing the street. He was taken to a hospital to be treated for injuries that police described as life-threatening.

The driver of the vehicle that struck the man stayed at the scene and was not arrested.

More information about the collision was not immediately available.

###A woman was killed when she was hit by a car at the Fifth Street on-ramp to eastbound Interstate Highway 80 early Sunday morning, a California Highway Patrol spokesman said.

The woman was struck by one vehicle, and as her body lay in the roadway, she was struck by other vehicles whose drivers might not even know they hit her, according to CHP Officer Vu Williams.

The driver of the car that initially struck her remained at the scene and cooperated with officers, Williams said. The other drivers left, and may not have realized they hit the woman, according to Williams.

An Oakland Raiders player was allegedly involved in a domestic violence offense Saturday night in San Francisco and police are asking him to call them, police said.

Outside linebacker Aldon Smith, 28, of Oakland, is being asked to call police so they can interview him about an alleged offense at a home in the 600 block of Bush Street sometime before police went to the home at 8:30 p.m.

Police said the victim suffered injuries not considered life-threatening. Smith allegedly left the home before officers arrived.

Last month San Francisco 49ers player Reuben Foster, 23, was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence, possessing an assault weapon and making threats.

Smith is asked to call police at the department's 24-hour operations center at (415) 575-4444.

A fatal shooting Sunday afternoon in Salinas is being investigated as gang-related, police said.

Officers responded at about 12:15 p.m. to ShotSpotter activity near Eisenhower and Arthur streets.

As officers were on their way, police received several calls from people who said someone had been shot.

Officers arrived and found 32-year-old Salinas man Gabriel Avalos suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police said it appears that Avalos was talking with another man when two suspects approached them.

The suspects pulled handguns from their waistbands and shot at both men, hitting Avalos.

After the shooting, the two suspects ran east on Eisenhower Street toward Barcley Drive.

Police said they don't know where the suspects went from there.

Avalos had been living in Salinas for only about a year. Police said neither Avalos nor the other victim appear to have had any gang involvement.

A shooting investigation has begun after good Samaritans helped a man they found shot and walking Sunday evening on northbound Interstate Highway 880 in Oakland, California Highway Patrol officials said.

A little after 6 p.m. the CHP received reports of a two-vehicle collision on Highway 880, CHP Officer Matthew Hamer said.

When CHP units arrived they found one vehicle abandoned on the right shoulder of the highway near the Oakland Coliseum.

CHP officers did not find a collision but they received a call from Oakland police that good Samaritans had picked up the victim of a shooting walking along Highway 880.

Hamer said the good Samaritans were taking the man to a hospital when they saw Oakland police.

They flagged down police and police took the man to a hospital.

Hamer said where the shooting occurred is under investigation.

San Francisco Bay Area residents getting ready for work this morning should dress for the cold, with chilly temperatures expected early in the day, National Weather Service officials said.

Morning lows today will be in the mid 20s to low 30s for far inland and mountain locations, while coastal areas will be in the mid to upper 30s, according to the weather officials.

People are advised to dress in layers and make sure pets have a warm, dry shelter with plenty of food and water.

Also, sensitive plants should be protected, according to the weather officials.

A Santa Clara County supervisor announced Friday that he is proposing the county ban gun shows as a response to numerous instances of gun violence across the United States.

Ken Yeager, the former president of the board of supervisors, said many of his constituents are alarmed by billboards advertising local gun shows.

The Santa Clara County Fairgrounds currently hosts two gun shows a year. The most recent show generated $6,000 in profit for the county, according to Yeager's office.

Yeager referenced the recent mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida to describe the negative impact of gun violence.

He said Santa Clara County came close to its own tragedy in 2001, when a 19-year-old De Anza College student was arrested for creating an elaborate mass-bombing plot in Cupertino.

Yeager will present his proposal during a board of supervisors meeting on Tuesday in San Jose.

He said his proposal does not infringe on gun owners' right to legally possess firearms.

"Allowing firearms to be sold at the Fairgrounds is contrary to one of the County's main missions: promoting the health and well-being of our residents," Yeager said in a statement.

The Oakland Unified School District has secured a $1.8 million grant to support refugee, asylee and newcomer students.

California will give OUSD $611,840 this school year - the second highest grant the state is awarding - according to OUSD. The total grant will be distributed evenly over the next two years.

OUSD will use the funds to hire bilingual counselors, connect students with career training, and streamline the processing of foreign transcripts and transfers.

Schools will arrange mentoring programs and work with community organizations to combat neighborhood safety issues for students.

The California Newcomer Education and Well-Being Project guides students to succeed academically and socially, according to OUSD.

"Newcomers can face daunting obstacles when they arrive in our district and this grant will allow us to tear down those barriers making the students' transition into life in Oakland significantly easier, allowing them to focus more of their attention on education," OUSD superintendent Kyla Johnson-Trammel said in a statement.

Salinas police arrested three men Sunday night for allegedly possessing stolen weapons and having an outstanding warrant.

Police stopped a black Ford for not having front license plates at Del Monte Avenue and Towt Street at 8:36 p.m. Police said a rear passenger was also not wearing a seat belt.

The driver of the vehicle had been drinking alcohol, police said, and officers asked the man to step out of the vehicle.

Police said the driver, Jaime Beltran, 18, was found to be in possession of a loaded handgun.

The front passenger, Ivan Alcala, 21, was then arrested for having an outstanding warrant.

The rear passenger, Joshua Garcia, 19, was also allegedly in possession of a loaded handgun.

Both Beltran and Garcia's weapons had been reported stolen, according to police, and all three men were booked into Monterey County Jail.

This morning will be sunny with highs in the upper 50s. Northeast winds at 5 to 15 mph will increase to northwest winds at 10 to 15 mph in the afternoon.

This evening will be clear but tonight will see cloudy skies with temperatures in the low 40s.

Tuesday morning will start off mostly cloudy and become partly cloudy in the afternoon.

Tuesday will warm up with highs in the lower to mid 60s, and winds moving northeast at 5 to 15 mph.

###San Mateo County sheriff's deputies are asking for information from the public about the death of a man found last month in the parking lot of a beach near Montara.

The body of San Francisco resident Gilberto Rodriguez Jr., 53, was found at about 11:30 p.m. on Feb. 13 in a parking lot of Gray Whale Cove State Beach.A beloved Houston daycare teacher is readjusting to a new life after his foot was amputated due to a flesh-eating bacteria.

Raul Reyes, 26, went to a clinic for a blister on his foot where he learned it was actually a flesh-eating bacteria. He was then hospitalized on Feb. 23.

Reye's wife, Joseline Reyes, told Chron.com that due to the nature of the infection, doctors had no choice but to amputate his foot to stop it from spreading through his bloodstream and potentially killing him.

ANOTHER CASE: Texas woman dies from flesh-eating bacteria after eating raw oysters

"[Raul] hurt his foot at work, so he thought the swollenness was due to the injury. After a few days, it was still swollen and he has a blister on his foot, which he thought was caused by his shoe," Reyes' wife told Chron.com. "He woke up the next day and the blister was covering his entire foot so he went to the clinic, where they told him to get to the emergency room immediately."

An orthopedic surgeon at Ben Taub took some X-rays and determined that an emergency surgery had to be performed.

"The surgeon came to me and told me that they were going to take him up to surgery because they have to check how [his foot] looked inside. They said that there was a chance that they may have to amputate, but they were going to try their hardest not to," said Reyes. "Thirty minutes pass and I see the doctor come out. She tells me that she tried to get as much bacteria out but that they had to amputate his foot in order to save his life."

This flesh-eating bacteria is usually found in brackish waters. Doctors believe he contracted the infection through an open wound from an ingrown toenail. Reyes is not sure where her husband would have caught the infection.

After mourning the loss of his foot, Reyes said her husband is determined to get his life back on track.

"He is very eager to start therapy for a prosthetic. He tells me that he's not letting anything stop him from advancing," Reyes said.

Reyes told Chron.com they are not sure when her husband will be able to leave the hospital, but their attitude towards recovery remains positive.

"He's improving more every day," said Reyes. "He just really wants to get back to work and go back to a normal life."

The family has sent up a GoFundMe account to raise money to pay for a prosthetic so Reyes can get back to his normal, happy life as soon as possible.

Take a look through the gallery above to see photos of Reyes' foot and recovery, but be warned - some of the images are graphic.

Daniela Sternitzky-Di Napoli is a digital producer at Chron.com. You can read more of her stories here and follow her on twitter at @Dani_DiNapoli.After a month-long recess, Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha today resumed for the second half of the Budget Session 2018. The opposition parties are expected to take on the government over multi-crore PNB scam involving Nirav Modi. Congress deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, Anand Sharma, submitted a notice for a discussion under Rule 267 of the House on the PNB fraud case. He said: "We will demand answers from the government on the bank fraud scam. We will also demand answers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the scam happened right under his watch."

Not only Congress but other opposition parties are set to corner the Modi government over the so-called 'Niravgate'. CPI leader D Raja in a statement to PTI said: "We will demand answers from the government on how the fraud happened. The banking sector is in a deep crisis and its credibility is under stake." The Congress is likely to raise the issue of vendetta politics. This comes in the wake of the CBI arresting former Finance Minister and Congress leader P Chidambaram's son Karti Chidambaram in the INX Media money laundering case. The CBI last week arrested Karti for not cooperating with the agency and later sent him to 5-day judicial custody. The Congress party has accused the BJP of doing 'vendetta politics' and deviating the focus from bank fraud.



LIVE UPDATES

12:15 pm:Lok Sabha adjourned till tomorrow

Minutes after Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan read obituaries, the opposition members walked into the Well of the House to protest over PNB fraud and other issues.



11:30 am: Rajya Sabha adjourned till 2 PM

Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu adjourned the house after N Chandrababu Naidu-led Telugu Desam Party staged a protest over Andhra Pradesh special category status. YSR Congress Party MPs also protested in the national capital demanding 'Special Category Status' to Andhra Pradesh.

Rajya Sabha adjourned till 2pm after protests over Andhra Pradesh special category status and #PNBScam#BudgetSessionpic.twitter.com/zqCZI3o3kb - ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2018

Matter of #NiravModi and #MehulChoksi is connected to Congress, the problem started during their time, they cannot mislead the nation on this issue: Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal #BudgetSessionpic.twitter.com/IoFq1rP4vb - ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2018

Matter of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi is connected to Congress, the problem started during their time, they cannot mislead the nation on this issue: Railway Minister Piyush Goyal.In the Lok Sabha, the government listed: The Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, 2017, and The Specific Relief (Amendment) Bill, 2017 for discussion and passage. In the Rajya Sabha, the government listed: The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Bill, 2017, and The State Banks (Repeal and Amendment) Bill, 2017 for passage.In the African-American Shakespeare Companys take on Tennessee Williams A Streetcar Named Desire, want is always the twin of fury, and both feelings sit in the New Orleans air like mugginess before a hurricane. Punching your wife doesnt make you a bad person any more than pawing at her does. Both moves draw the same encouraging smiles from neighbors. (And boy, are they monitoring you; the wooden scaffolding that dominates Kevin August Landesmans set design makes it seem as if eyes are always peering in through the cracks.)

But no smiles come from out-of-towner Blanche (Jemier Jenkins), who registers in her core every noxious atmospheric vapor as she creeps into the French Quarter apartment of her sister Stella (Santoya Fields) and her brother-in-law Stanley (Khary Moye). Its a flat so sordid that only Mr. Edgar Allan Poe could do it justice, Blanche says, but after her own plummet from grace in Laurel, Miss., its the only place left to go.

Of course, Blanche doesnt just detect the peculiar chemistry of the city and the apartment. She explodes it, and one of the chief strengths of L. Peter Callenders production, which opened Sunday, March 4, at Marines Memorial Theatre, is how necessary that explosion feels. Its not merely that Blanches Southern belle affectations, whimsies and entitlements chafe at Stanleys aversion to pretense, his brusqueness, his coarse manners. Its more that theyre both accustomed to making the loud noises that others have to absorb, to having their wills expand to shape everything and everyone around them, to putting on a show that others must delight in or indulge.

Moyes Stanley feels novel because he doesnt drip with menace. No matter the role he plays, Moye exudes likability, and his Stanley is less irascible than curmudgeonly, like the neighborhood crab who charms because he grouses only to jest. That both complicates his characters path to detonation and raises the shows stakes. You cant help but like Stella and Stanleys marriage, despite his abuse of her, which means that when Blanche threatens their equilibrium, much more might be lost than just lust.

If Jenkins is at home in Blanches congenital tremulousness, she doesnt mine a range that would fully express it, delivering line after line at the same catastrophic pitch  which means that, after a while, nothing feels catastrophic  and with such sloppy enunciation as to wash out much of Williams poetry.

From everyone in the ensemble, lines often pop out at arbitrary volumes, like the actors are trying to hit preordained peaks and troughs rather than listen to each other in the present moment. Everett Elton Bradmans sound design is equally artificial, awkwardly piping in with Romantic piano to underscore a poignant monologue, just in case you didnt know you were were supposed to feel sad.

Callender excises Blanches references to Stanley as a Polack, which make the show feel less about race than about class. That gives audiences treats that are rare at most companies outside of African-American Shakespeare: to see a story told by black artists in which theyre not constantly required to talk about blackness; where black characters get to fight the cosmic fights  for love, home and family, for autonomy, imagination and artistry  that we still give mostly to white characters; and to reimagine our foundational dramatic literature and its titanic characters as speaking from and to all of humanity, not just one subset of it.

Lily Janiak is The San Francisco Chronicles theater critic. Email: ljaniak@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LilyJaniak

A Streetcar Named Desire: Written by Tennessee Williams. Directed by L. Peter Callender. Through March 18. Three hours. $35. Marines Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter St., S.F. (800) 838-3006. www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3066498Actor and director Edward Norton is selling his two-story surf shack in Malibu, CA, for $5.2 million, less than a year after spending nearly $12 million across town for a striking, 1960s-era home with a curved cement roof.

The house he purchased, designed by renowned architect John Lautner, is a far cry from Nortons beachside duplex, built in 1982, which is currently up for sale.

Exterior realtor.com

Norton, 48, bought the house in 2008 for $2.7 million, which means hell net a cool $2.5 million in profit if the house sells for full asking.

The home has no front yard to speak of, with just a short shoulder separating it from the Pacific Coast Highway. Its one of dozens of homes that form an impenetrable barrier designed to keep the public off the beach below. Norton has put up a yellow warning sign on the front of the house: Smile: Youre on Camera.

Norton owns 43 feet of frontage on Las Flores Beach, and his house is designed to maximize those Pacific Ocean views. Theres a wide deck, a half-dozen palm trees, a Tiki hut with thatched roof, a surf rack, and a plastic, molded hot tub.

Backyard realtor.com

The homes upper unit is painted stark, beachy white throughout, with carpeting, wood paneling, a brick fireplace in the living room, a rental-grade micro-kitchen, and a deck overlooking the backyard and ocean beyond. There are two bedrooms upstairs.

Upstairs living room realtor.com

Upstairs kitchen realtor.com

Upstairs bedroom realtor.com

The interior design of the homes downstairs unit is dramatically different, with hardwood floors, a soaring ceiling, and exposed wooden beams. Theres a yellow fireplace in the living room, an upright piano, beachy art, and a surfboard mounted on the wall. The kitchen downstairs isnt much larger than the one above, but its appliances have been updated.

Downstairs living room realtor.com

Downstairs kitchen realtor.com

Downstairs bathroom realtor.com

The downstairs bedroom has French doors that open to the deck, and is about 10 steps away from the sand.

Downstairs bedroom realtor.com

In the listing, agent Chris Cortazzo suggests that the next owner could convert the house into a single-family unit, or keep it as a duplex producing monthly income. Before listing it, Norton rented the house out for $15,000 per month.

Norton is currently shooting his latest movie, Motherless Brooklyn, in New York City. He lent his voice to Wes Andersons latest animated film, Isle of Dogs, which will be released later this month.

The post Edward Norton Hopes to Get $5.2M for His Bohemian Duplex on the Beach in Malibu appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.Neighborhood: Pacific & Laurel Heights

When to go: Midweek when its crowd-free and just local WFHers (work from home) and SAHMs (stay-at-home moms).

Who its for: Urban chic families and trendy creative types with a knack for mixing coveted name brands with one-of-a-kind pieces.

The vibe: Preppy with a West Coast edge.

Best-kept secret: Cult-favorite menswear brand Label Under Construction designed a limited womens collection of luxe knitwear at the behest of Cristina Nicoletti, sold exclusively at elu.

Buy this: The Wit Dorsay Oxford in Cocoa Snake ($395) from Freda Salvador.

Fuel up with a cup of Four Barrel Coffee and a kouign-amann at B. Patisserie (2821 California St.)  this nationally acclaimed pastry is worth waiting in line for. Prefer something savory? Cross the street to B on the Go, the bakerys new spinoff cafe, where you can order from a menu of delectable salads and sandwiches.

From Divisadero Street, make a left onto Sacramento and stroll into (1) March (3075 Sacramento St.). Amid its selection of inspiring tabletop, kitchen and interior decor (Italian-made splatterware dish sets, architectural glass hurricane lanterns), youre likely to discover the next big designer in home goods. Rub elbows with artists and design-industry types two doors down at (2) elu by Cristina Nicoletti (3091 Sacramento St.) while browsing luxurious leather goods and edgy fashion pieces imported from European artisans.

Continue strolling westward through Laurel Heights until you reach (3) Jessie Black (3252 Sacramento St.), a boutique specializing in world-class textiles, including sumptuous cashmere sweaters and dreamy Egyptian cotton sheets. Fashion-forward mamas should cross the street to (4) Moms the Word (3385 Sacramento St.), where youll find a collection of contemporary styles for during and after pregnancy, like must-have J. Brand maternity jeans and Tees by Tina bodycon maxi dresses (a celebrity fave). Ogle the estate jewelry at (5) Meriwether (3524 Sacramento St.), which includes museum-quality pieces from the Victorian period to Van Cleef & Arpels.

Loop back east, locate the old Victorian at the corner Sacramento and Divisadero and pull back the foliage at its base to reveal the entrance to Lion Pub (2062 Divisadero St.). Any buyers remorse will melt away as the bartender squeezes a grapefruit to create the pubs signature Greyhound cocktail.

When youre done imbibing, continue east to Fillmore Street. Stock up on updated preppy staples at (6) Black Fleece (2223 Fillmore St.), one of just two boutiques in the world dedicated to the Brooks Brothers x Thom Browne collaboration. These impeccably constructed pieces (Italian wool cape with lace overlay, plaid cashmere sport coats with horn buttons) will be on heavy rotation in your closet for years to come.

Cross to the far side of the street and continue north to (7) Curve (2360 Fillmore St.) for first dibs on sleek designer looks fresh off the runways (Balmain beaded mini skirt, Christopher Kane applique top). At the new (8) Freda Salvador flagship boutique (2416 Fillmore St.), swap your tired ballet flats for a pair of the Sausalito-designed, Spain-manufactured brands super-hip ankle booties or supremely walkable leather oxfords.

Catch your breath and continue uphill to Posh (2444 Fillmore St.). This salon and blow-dry boutique has been a neighborhood staple for nearly two decades and is a Zen alternative to the boisterous Dry Bar chain.

On your way back downhill, visit (9) Rebecca Minkoff (2124 Fillmore St.) to check out its innovative smart mirror, and leave with an on-trend fringe leather backpack. Next door is (10) Credo Beauty (2136 Fillmore St.): If Sephora had a discerning, health-conscious cousin, this would be it. The shop stocks a carefully curated selection of the best natural, nontoxic beauty products. Pop in to revive makeup that has faded during your shopping trek and sample one of their on-site Tata Harper skin-care services.

Maggie Winterfeldt is a San Francisco freelance writer. E-mail: style@sfchronicle.comSANTA CRUZ  Steve Kerr munched on dinner in the front row, enjoying his respite as a spectator. The capacity crowd numbered 2,476, not more than 19,000, in a fieldhouse-like gym two blocks from the beach.

Even if this wasnt the NBA by any stretch, Jordan Bell wanted a good run  so he got one in Santa Cruz.

Bell, six days removed from returning to action after missing nearly six weeks with a sprained ankle, played for the G League Santa Cruz Warriors on Sunday night. He and Kerr figured it made sense for Bell to work on his conditioning and try to regain his rhythm in a game setting.

And thats how Golden States dynamic rookie found himself in Kaiser Permanente Arena, on Pajama Night, facing a team called the Memphis Hustle. Santa Cruz won 132-120, fueled by guard Quinn Cooks 41 points.

The story of the night really was Bell, hoping to rediscover his mojo before the Warriors head into the final 19 games of their season. He soared for two alley-oop dunks and one impressive blocked shot.

Bell finished with 14 points (on 7-for-9 shooting), six rebounds and five assists in 28 minutes. He savored the assists most of all, insisting slick passes  not dunks or blocks  fill him with adrenaline.

I didnt want to come here and take anybodys shots, Bell said after the game. These guys are still hungry for a job. I came in telling myself to pass the ball.

Bell labored at times, given all the uncommon trips back and forth downcourt. He played only 13, six and seven minutes in his three appearances with Golden State last week on its Eastern trip.

The Warriors returned home after Friday nights victory in Atlanta, without another game on the schedule until Tuesday night. Kerr gave his players Saturday and Sunday off, though he also asked Bell his thoughts on playing in Santa Cruz

As it turned out, Bell had been contemplating the possibility in conversations with teammates Damian Jones (who started alongside Bell on Sunday) and Patrick McCaw.

For Jordan to want to come down here and get back in rhythm says a lot about his character, said Cook, who has bounced between the NBA and G League all season. He could be up there drinking the Kool-Aid, getting comfortable. He wants to get back to where he was before the injury.

Bell looked as active as ever at times Sunday night. Midway through the first quarter, he leaped high and took a lob pass from guard Jeremy Pargo for an authoritative dunk.

Then, in the second quarter, Bell showed off his passing skills. He whipped one pass to college teammate Chris Boucher for a dunk, and twice Bell made nice dishes to a cutting Damion Lee for easy baskets.

But the play on which Bell sparked the biggest crowd reaction came with 4:59 left before halftime. Memphis 6-foot-9 Austin Nichols seemed to have a wide-open path to the basket, until Bell caught him from behind, jumped quickly and blocked the shot.

Thats the kind of play Warriors fans crave.

Obviously, its hard to get minutes like these with the Warriors, Bell said. I felt like my conditioning was good. At some points, I got tired, but I kept pushing through. They didnt want me to go too crazy and kill my legs.

Bell, 23, injured his ankle Jan. 17 against the Bulls in Chicago. He left the court in a wheelchair and missed the Warriors next 14 games, at a time when he had become an impactful part of the rotation.

Hes averaging 4.9 points and 3.8 rebounds in 41 games this season (including 11 starts), but those numbers dont convey his value. Bell gives the Warriors flexibility at power forward and center, magnified by his ability to defend several positions.

The Warriors recalled Bell from Santa Cruz about an hour after Sunday nights game. He will rejoin his Golden State teammates for practice Monday in Oakland. The Warriors host Brooklyn on Tuesday night.SRINAGAR, India  Tens of thousands of angry protesters poured into the streets in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Monday, hurling rocks after soldiers killed four civilians and two suspected militants. Government forces responded with tear gas.

The overnight shooting at a military checkpoint threatened to spark even more unrest in a region that in recent years has seen renewed rebel attacks and repeated public protests against Indian rule.LONDON  British media reported Monday that a former Russian spy was in critical condition after coming into contact with an unknown substance, a case that immediately drew parallels to the poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.

Authorities did not identify the man, saying only that he and a woman had been found unconscious on a bench in a shopping mall in Salisbury, about 90 miles west of London.Non-Resident Indians' (NRIs) net inflows jumped to USD 5,039 million between April 2017-December 2017 compared to net outflows of -15,065 USD millions in April 2016-December 2016. Looking at the constituents of BSE500 index, there are 32 stocks where non-promoters NRIs have consistently increased their stake in the last five quarters between December 2016 and December 2017. The average returns of these 32 stocks between 30 December 2016 and 1 March 2018 was 40.1 per cent. BSE500 delivered 32.4 per cent in the same period. Let us look at the five favourite stocks of NRIs that have delivered highest returns in the last 14 months.



Dilip Buildcon: A infrastructure company with business verticals in road construction, irrigation, urban development and mining. Company's clients includes National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), state governments and private companies. NRIs have increased their stake from 0.05 per cent in December 2016 quarter to 0.25 per cent in December 2017 quarter. In December 2017 quarter, the company's operating profit and net profit grew by 25 per cent and 51.6 per cent respectively. The stock delivered 316 per cent point to point returns between 30 December 2016 and 1 March 2018. It outperformed the market by over 9.8 times. BSE500 delivered 32.4 per cent returns during the same period.

A diversified financial services company with business segments across equity capital markets, M&A advisory, corporate finance and advisory, primary and secondary debt placement, project finance and corporate debt restructuring. NRIs increase their stake in the company from 0.12 per cent in December 2016 quarter to 2.39 per cent in December 2017 quarter. The company reported decline in top line growth in Q3FY18 by over 20 per cent. However, helped by decline in depreciation, interest and tax costs, it posted a healthy bottom line growth of 182.3 per cent. The stock outperformed the market by four times between 30 December 2016 and 1 March 2018. It delivered a point to point return of 135.9 per cent. BSE500 delivered 32.4 per cent in the same period.

Himachal Futuristic Communications: The company is a manufacturer of optical fibre cables, optical transport, power electronics and broadband equipment for telecommunications industry. It has production facilities in Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Tamil Nadu. NRIs' stake in the company went up from 0.44 per cent in December 2016 quarter to 0.54 per cent in December 2017 quarter. In Q3FY18, company reported top-line and bottom-line growth of 93.2 per cent and 116.3 per cent respectively. The stock delivered 137 per cent point to point returns between 30 December 2016 and 1 March 2018 and outperformed the market by over 4.2 times.

Aegis Logistics: An oil, gas, and chemical logistics company that operates a network of bulk liquid handling terminals, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) terminals, filling plants, pipelines, and gas stations. NRIs have increased their stake in the company from 0.76 per cent in December 2016 to 1.31 per cent in December 2017 quarter. In Q3FY18, company's top line grew by 15.6 per cent supported by nearly 16 per cent growth in gas terminal division. The net profit margin jumped to 3.9 per cent in Q3FY18 from 3.3 per cent in Q3FY17. The stock delivered 94.7 per cent point to point returns between 30 December 2016 and 1 March 2018. It outperformed the market by 2.9 times.

KRBL: Integrated rice processing company with a comprehensive product chain. It is engaged in seed development, contact farming, procurement of paddy, storage, processing, packaging, branding and marketing of basmati rice. NRIs have increased their stake from 0.86 per cent in December 2016 quarter to 7.88 per cent in December 2017 quarter. In Q3FY18, the consolidated top line of the company fell by -1.8 per cent. Helped by substantial increase in other income and decline in interest costs, the company posted bottom line growth of 10.9 per cent. The stock outperformed the market by over 2.6 times between 30 December 2016 and 1 March 2018. It delivered a point to point returns of 85.1 per cent.WASHINGTON  Under twin clouds of legal investigation, President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu presented a united front on Monday, Trump announcing he might travel to Jerusalem to preside over the opening of the new U.S. Embassy and Netanyahu praising the American leader.

In a show of strong support for Netanyahu, who faces corruption allegations at home, Trump dangled the possibility of his second visit to Israel as president. However, he said nothing about whether he would use the trip to unveil his much-vaunted but still mysterious peace plan for Israel and the Palestinians.

The president said his controversial decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israels capital and move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to the holy city had improved chances for ending the conflict, despite Palestinians insistence otherwise. The two steps enraged the Palestinians, who claim part of Jerusalem for the capital of an eventual state and accuse Trump of abandoning the U.S. role of honest broker.

Trump and his wife, Melania, welcomed Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, to the White House just hours after Israeli police announced that a third confidant of the prime minister had agreed to turn states witness in the burgeoning corruption case. Netanyahu and his wife were questioned separately by police for hours on Friday before their departure for Washington.

Their meeting Monday also came amid the continuing U.S. investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign, a probe that may have implications for the presidents Mideast peace point man, son-in-law Jared Kushner, who recently lost his top secret security clearance. And, it took place as profound turmoil in the Middle East threatens hopes of a resumption in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and attempts to restore stability in the volatile region more broadly.

Trump said his Mideast team, led by Kushner, was hard at work on a peace proposal that is nearing completion, but he offered no details on the plan that the Palestinians say will be dead on arrival and not worth discussing.

He said that despite their anger, the Palestinians, I think, are wanting to come back to the table. There was no apparent evidence for the assertion.

Trump said he was looking into the possibility of traveling to Jerusalem in mid-May, when the embassy is slated to move into a temporary location that is now an annex of the U.S. consulate.

Were looking at coming, he said. If I can, I will.

For his part, Netanyahu praised Trump for the Jerusalem recognition and the embassy move, comparing him with the Persian King Cyrus, who allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem from Babylon 2,500 years ago; former British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour, who signed a declaration in 1917 supporting the creation of a Jewish state in what was then the British mandate of Palestine; and President Harry Truman, the first world leader to recognize Israel in 1948.

Mr. President, this will be remembered by our people throughout the ages, Netanyahu said.ANKARA, Turkey  Turkish police detained four Islamic State suspects as part of an investigation into a possible attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, the countrys state-run news agency reported on Monday.

The arrests came as the embassy was closed on Monday over an unspecified security threat.

The Anadolu Agency said police detained four Iraqi nationals. Two were detained on a bus at a security check on a highway linking the Black Sea city of Samsun to Ankara. Two others were detained in Samsun by police acting on information they provided, the report said. The agency identified the suspects only by their first names.

Security was high outside the U.S. embassy on Monday, and police searched pedestrians before allowing them to enter the street where the embassy and other buildings are located.

The U.S. embassy said on its web page late on Sunday that the mission would be closed due to a security threat, and urged U.S. citizens to avoid the location as well as large crowds. It also advised citizens to keep a low profile.

Embassy spokesman David Gainer said the mission would open on Tuesday but would not provide visa services or services to American citizens  in an apparent measure aimed at limiting visits and minimizing risks to the public.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said the U.S. embassy had shared intelligence with Turkeys authorities, leading to important results. He said the U.S. diplomatic missions in Istanbul and the southern city of Adana remained open for business.SEOUL  Top aides of President Moon Jae-in of South Korea arrived in North Korea on Monday and met its leader, Kim Jong Un, moving to improve inter-Korean relations and help start a dialogue between the North and the United States.

Moons national security adviser, Chung Eui-yong, and the director of the National Intelligence Service, Suh Hoon, were the first South Korean officials to meet Kim since he took power six years ago, a spokesman for Moon said. The two hope to learn directly from Kim whether the North is interested in negotiating an end to his nuclear weapons program through a dialogue with the United States.

After arriving, the South Korean envoys were invited to a meeting with Kim, Moons spokesman, Kim Eui-kyeom, said during a news conference in Seoul. Kim was also hosting a dinner for the men, the first South Korean envoys to visit his country in 11 years, the spokesman said.

Moon and Kim both have said they want to use an opening created by the Norths participation in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, last month to improve inter-Korean ties.

But Washington remains deeply skeptical of any such attempt by the South without any progress in international efforts to end the Norths nuclear weapons program. Although he advocates dialogue with North Korea, Moon acknowledges that those two sets of efforts must move in parallel and has been urging the United States and North Korea to start negotiations on the nuclear program.

The aides two-day trip to the North reciprocates an earlier visit by Kims sister and special envoy, Kim Yo-jong, who met with Moon in Seoul last month and invited him on her brothers behalf to visit the North.

After returning home from Pyongyang, the South Korean envoys will fly to Washington for follow-up discussions with the Trump administration.

Washington and Pyongyang remain far apart over the terms under which they would start such a dialogue, a gap that South Korea seeks to narrow.

The Trump administration says it is determined not to repeat what it calls the mistakes of its predecessors, who tried both dialogue and sanctions but failed to stop the Norths nuclear program. Washington now says it will enter negotiations with North Korea only after it commits to discussing denuclearization.

U.S. officials fear that North Korea is more interested in weakening sanctions that have begun biting the impoverished country than engaging in serious negotiations. Even if talks begin, they say, Washington will not stop its campaign of maximum pressure and sanctions until the North dismantles its nuclear weapons program.

But North Korea rejects any preconditions for talks, saying Washington must treat it like an equal nuclear power. It also insists that any talks with Washington would have to deal not only with its nuclear program but also with hostile U.S. policies, like the United States annual joint military exercises with the South.To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.

We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.

A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means youre helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!PPP in contact with all opp parties to bring their candidate 05 March, 2018



Related News Imran Khan distributed loan cheques under Kamyab Jawan Programme PTI govt to face all challenges coming its way: Imran khan More on this View All Top 2021 Accessories We Know You Will Love

Types of Casino Payment Methods

Tips for Taking Incredible iPhone Travel Photos

Are Slot Developers Important for players?

Best Poker Hands ever played on a Casino

Hand Wash and Toiletries in Pakistan And the Role of DUPAS in Reshaping the Industry

Woke Bingo KARACHI/ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Sunday said that his party was in contact with all the opposition parties to bring a candidate for the top slot in the Upper House of parliament.



We will try to get elected our chairman in Senate with the support of other opposition parties, he said while addressing a press conference in Karachi. However, no contacts have yet been made with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) in this regard, he clarified.



The PPP chief said the winning candidates in the Senate election the PML-N has claimed to be theirs are actually independents. Hence, PPP has the largest representation in the Senate, he said, adding the PML-N should bring its chairman if it had majority in the Upper House.



Rejecting the reports of massive horse-trading in Saturdays election, especially in Sindh, the PPP chairman said the overall electoral process was free and fair in the province. The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) has also declared the Sindh Assemblys election as the most transparent, he said. These are mere allegations on PPP. They are trying to cover up their own weaknesses by hurling allegations of horse-trading on PPP, he responded, when asked if his party took advantage of infighting within the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) and bought some of its MPAs.



The PPP chief said the MQM-P was finished after Saturdays polls. When the MQM-P announced a day earlier that they stand united, then how the PPP can be blamed for buying their lawmakers  instead of pointing fingers at others, they should address their own problems first, he suggested.



Ruling out reports of his party being behind the conspiracy to oust the previous Balochistan government, Bilawal said the PPP and its leadership was used to listening to such criticism against it in the past. Balochistan senators have decided to remain independent and we will also talk to them to support us in election for the Senate chairman, he added.



Responding to the allegations hurled by Imran Khan, Bilawal urged the PTI chairman to bring ideological candidates for the elections rather than ATMs, in an apparent reference to Jahangir Tareen. If you dont vote yourself, how can you blame others for not voting for you? he remarked, taking a jibe at Khan who did not turn up to cast his vote in Saturdays Senate election.



Bilawal said the PPP was the only party focusing on tackling issues being faced by the masses. He vowed to perform even better and try to meet peoples expectations if elected to power in the upcoming general elections.



Later, the PPP chief extended congratulations to the newly elected senators from Sindh at a meeting held at the Bilawal House. The meeting was attended by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, Outgoing Senate Chairman Raza Rabbani, senators-elect Maula Bux Chandio, Dr Sikandar Mandharo, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, Mohammad Ali Shah Jamote, Imamuddin Shauqeen, Rukhsana Zubairi, Krishna Kolhi, Qurratul Ain Marri and Anwar Lal Deen.



Separately, talking to a group of women activists of the PPP hailing from different tribal agencies who called on him at the Zardari House in Islamabad, Bilawal Bhutto said that delay in extending the jurisdiction of superior courts to the tribal areas amounted to denying the people of the area their fundamental rights. Any further delay in this regards is criminal and not acceptable, he stressed.



The PPP chairman said that the bill recently passed by the National Assembly and sent to the Senate contained some serious anomalies which needed to be rectified in the Upper House. The jurisdiction of the Peshawar High Court and the Supreme Court must be extended to the tribal areas in one go, not in parts and without requiring any notification by the bureaucracy, he opined.



Bilawal said that initially the superior courts did not have jurisdiction even over the provincially administered tribal areas (PATA) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, in 1973 this jurisdiction was extended though an act of parliament without requiring any government notification. The people of tribal areas have waited for 70 long years to get access to justice and fundamental rights and must not be kept deprived any longer on various pretexts, he said.



The PPP chief rejected the objections of some political parties against extending the jurisdiction of superior courts to FATA. Article 175(2) and 247(7) provided that legislation could be made by parliament for extending jurisdiction of superior courts to tribal areas, he said.



He said the PPP had extended the political parties order to FATA opening doors for all political parties to engage people in alternate political narratives. We also opened the door for reforms in the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) and it was now time to undo the FCR and extend regular laws of Pakistan to the tribal areas. If coercive laws are extended to the tribal areas through a presidential ordinance, why cant the progressive laws be extended to these areas to protect the fundamental rights of its people, he asked.Fewer than a third of young Australian working women believe they are treated equally to men, according to a landmark new survey.

Ahead of International Womens Day on Thursday, an inter-disciplinary team of researchers from the University of Sydney will on Tuesday release the findings of the first ever survey of attitudes to work by Australian women aged 16 to 40.

The survey has unearthed 'shocking' levels of sexual harassment at work and an alarming trend for women to delay childbirth, or give up on having kids altogether, to safeguard their careers.

The national survey of more than 2100 women and 500 men asked respondents to nominate what matters a lot to their working lives.After a dry year that hit crop production and cut farm incomes in some key growing regions, prices for major Australian agricultural commodities of wool, wheat, cotton and dairy are tipped to rise next financial year and boost farm returns.

Wool prices are tipped to rise further in 2018-19. Credit:Joe Armao

The federal governments chief agricultural economics forecaster tips healthy prices rises for the already strong wool price of a further 4 per cent in fiscal 2019 to a hefty $17 per kilogram, with sheep meat prices tipped to rise 3 per cent.

The average farmgate milk price paid to dairy farmers is tipped to rise 3 per cent to 48 cents per litre, while wheat prices are tipped to rise 6 per cent, but off a low base, to an average of $US234 per tonne in 2018-19.

But the latest forecasts from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences reveal the scale of the hit to the farm sector in fiscal 2018 from the dry conditions that cut farm revenues as crops withered in key grain growing regions of New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.Less than a decade after it first began, former lawyer Damian Griffiths once-charmed run of hospitality successes has come crashing down with the sale of his national Doughnut Time empire.

Amid looming personal bankruptcy and a fresh Supreme Court suit claiming a debt of $400,000, almost half of the chains remaining stores have been shuttered as Griffiths former top lieutenant takes over.

The Doughnut Time store in King George Square busway station in Brisbane was also closed on Sunday. Credit:Jorge Branco

From the smallest imaginable hole-in-the-wall next to a bar and a pizza joint, to 26 stores and 400 jobs nationwide, then back to seven shops and a changing business model, the Doughnut Time story has been a rollercoaster.

Speaking after telling staff the bad news on Sunday, Griffiths freely admitted the Instagram-friendly chain grew too quickly and he ran out of money.Jewellery chain Michael Hill International will close 80 per cent of its struggling Emma & Roe stores at the cost of up to $7.9 million, with just six outlets surviving the cull.

The Brisbane-based company on Tuesday said it expected to close 24 stores by June 30, with the remainder to be repositioned in a previously announced move to service the "demi-fine" jewellery segment.

It did not say how many people would lose their jobs, but said some staff could be relocated to Michael Hill stores.

Michael Hill said it would now formalise the non-binding in-principle lease exit terms it had negotiated with most landlords.

"The company considers that the six-store footprint will provide the opportunity to iterate the new model at speed," Michael Hill said in a statement to the ASX.Shares in the troubled owner of the Gloria Jeans and Donut King chains, Retail Food Group, plunged more than 50 per cent after the company last week booked heavy writedowns and revealed store closures.

The stock was savaged when it resumed trade on Monday morning after a two-day trading hiatus as it worked through a dispute with its auditors. It plunged 50 per cent to $1.055 when the market opened at 10am, before clawing back some ground to close down 36.5 per cent at $1.295.

Also driving the share price fall was RFG's announcement on Friday that it was under pressure from its bankers after booking $138 million in writedowns.

RFG's writedowns and banking issues follow Fairfax Media reports that the group was using a brutal business model that had sent hundreds of franchisees within its network to the wall financially. The investigation also uncovered rampant underpayment of staff by store owners.Xeros founder Rod Drury is stepping down as chief executive of the accounting software company to be replaced by Steve Vamos.

Mr Vamos will take over on April 1, 2018 while Mr Drury will stay on Xero's board as a non-executive director.

Xero co-founder and chief executive Rod Drury is stepping down but will remain on the board.

As the founder of Xero, Mr Drury built the business from four people in a Wellington apartment to a team of over 2000 people across eight countries.

Xero has 1.2 million subscribers which are mainly small businesses and is listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.ExxonMobil, Santos and Oil Searchs gas project in Papua New Guinea will take around eight weeks to get back to production following a devastating earthquake.

A 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck the PNG highlands late last month, devastating the local area and shutting down the PNG LNG project.

Following early inspections of the project, the operators ExxonMobil and Oil Search are forecasting it will take up to eight weeks to get the gas flowing safely once more, after which the joint venture partners will revise their initial production guidance released earlier this year as well as the likely impact on their 2018 earnings and capital.

ExxonMobil said despite the severity of the earthquake, the project as a whole remained relatively undamaged and no oil or gas leaks have been recorded, with the main pipeline intact and unaffected.The government-owned Snowy Hyrdo 2.0 could flood the market with cheap energy, curbing investment in dispatchable capacity or storage in a few years' time, analysts say.

Energy analysts and generators are concerned that Snowy 2.0's new ownership regime, following a $6.2 billion federal buyout earlier this month, means that changes in price may be driven more by political issues rather than commercial motives.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during his tour of the Snowy Hydro Tumut 2 power station during his visit to the Snowy Mountains region to give an update on Snowy Hydro 2.0. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"Its got the private sector worried as the government doesnt operate by the same rules," Grattan Institute energy director Tony Wood told Fairfax Media.

"You end up with a weird game if the government can set prices and move the market. It really has the potential to distort the market; it doesnt have to act economically to bring the prices down.BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie has said US President Donald Trumps plans for steel tariffs will harm the global economy.

Speaking at the AFR Business Summit on Tuesday, Mr Mackenzie called Mr Trumps steel tariffs "a black day for the world and business".

He used the summit to slam Mr Trumps protectionist moves as a way to prop up an uncompetitive industry.

"BHP will never seek to hide behind trade barriers to shield ourselves from our lack of competitiveness," he said.From Greg Swank, 12-4-2 You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As...Whether the ATAR system is discouraging hard work, why some of the top Australian students have declining results and whether families need to play a bigger role in education are some of the thorny questions a new high-profile group of education experts and industry leaders is hoping to answer.

The University of NSW's Gonski Institute for Education, which is led by former NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli and includes and Finland's Pasi Sahlberg, will hold its first advisory board meeting on Monday.

"One of the aspects that makes us a little bit different is that we'll use the best people from different faculties and take an interdisciplinary approach, because some of the problems we're dealing with are not just limited to schools," Mr Piccoli said.

A new high-profile education institute led by former NSW education minister Adrian Piccoli will meet for the first time on Monday. Credit:Kate Geraghty

"An element is what is happening in parenting because you can't land every problem at the feet of teachers alone.Lee Smith had been hoping it was "lucky number three" at the 90th Academy Awards.

And after previous nominations for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World and The Dark Knight, the Australian editor won for his masterful work with three different timeframes in the World War II epic Dunkirk.

"This is the most awesome thing that can happen to a guy like me," Smith said as he accepted the award. "Dunkirk was an incredible film and I was truly lucky to work on it."

The win from a field that included fellow Australian editor Paul Machliss for Baby Driver continues the exceptional Australian record at the Oscars in the past decade.A day after President Trump called his impersonation "terrible", Alec Baldwin returned to Saturday Night Live.

In the cold open of Saturday's show, Baldwin let loose on the president and his tumultuous week that saw resignations and head-scratching statements amid America's gun violence problem.

"I have one of the healthiest mentals," Baldwin as Trump said, after stressing the importance of mental health in the wake of the Florida school shooting.

He then imagined himself running all the way from the high school to North Korea, to tackle both the shooter and Kim Jong Un in a solo sprint.A startling 30 per cent increase has seen the total number of complaints to the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman hit a record high.

The Ombudsman has revealed complaints rose by 30 per cent to 5750 in 2016-17, and while issues ranged from incorrect direct debits to hospital exclusions, much of it was driven by Medibank.

"[The] increase of over 1300 complaints within one year ... is the largest rise we have experienced over the past 10 years," its latest State of the Health Funds report reads.

Medibank accounted for 23.5 per cent of all complaints. Credit:Glenn Hunt

Australians remain frustrated with private health cover, with funds hiking up premiums by 70 per cent over the past decade, increasing the number of exclusions, and increasing gap fees.But doctors suffer from greatly from the expectation that they should be perfect. The countless tragic stories of depression and suicide emerging from Australian hospitals highlight the pressures and pitfalls of trying to meet this expectation, to take it on the chin and not complain.

The desire to have your skill properly recognised is only human. And contrary to popular medical dramas and the opinion of some doctors themselves, doctor are not people with superpowers in the Marvel sense. They are not perfect people, but they are often expected to be. They are not expected to complain about trivial things. After all, they earn lots of money. Paraphrasing US journalist Laura Ingraham, maybe they should just "shut up and doctor".

Some anaesthetists in Australia would like to change their title to anaesthesiologists to better represent their degree of specialisation as doctors. Responses have varied from empathy to ridicule. Admiration has not been a common response - but it should be.

No one in medicine wants to appear weak in front of their peers and superiors. For one thing, it's embarrassing. To avoid embarrassment some doctors project an air of superiority and an attitude that can become bullying. The undesirable consequences of this has led to the College of Surgeons in Australia launching its Operating with Respect program, which in part seeks to address bullying.

But the anaesthetists are being honest. They want more recognition and at the risk of embarrassment and appearing human, they are asking for it. It takes courage to speak the truth, even about something trivial. They could have easily said the name change was in order to align with international terminology. Or even just changed the name without fanfare.

When working in a life-or-death profession, excuses, in place of honesty, risk a lot more than just embarrassment and ridicule. People are not perfect, and doctors are people. It takes courage to challenge a stereotype, and confess deficit, even if it is simply admitting you want more recognition from patients.

Doctors could benefit from honesty about some less trivial matters such as admitting to fault and when something is beyond their skills.

In Shakespeare's play about star-crossed lovers, Juliet remarks that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. An anaesthetist by any other name would still save lives. However, being honest about the desire for a name change should be applauded as it indicates a healthy approach to their vocation. Other doctors would all do well to smell these roses too.If you're an actress who is part of the #metoo and #timesup movements but you don't want to wear black (now deemed too political, natch), of course you wear the next best thing: white.

All white ... Margot Robbie in Chanel at the Oscars. Credit:AP

Jane Fonda, Laura Dern, Mary J Blige and Margot Robbie, after a slight wardrobe malfunction when one of her straps on her Chanel gown came undone, went sans colour for Hollywood's biggest night.

And it was with the blessing of the Time's Up organisers, of which Dern is one, that colour returned to the red carpet.A celebrated former ACT public servant received a bizarre legal demand for more than $20 million after a $1 billion property deal involving the Malaysian government fell through.

Nic Manikis is a former senior official at the Community Services Directorate, and is widely credited as the driving force behind the National Multicultural Festival, among other achievements.

Former ACT public servant Nic Manikis has been caught up in a $1billion property deal saga with the Malaysian government. Credit:Jamila Toderas

Until November last year when the business was wound-up, he was also a listed director for Ladylaw Securities, a property development company incorporated in Singapore.

In 2014, while also working as a public servant, Mr Manikis said he met representatives from the Malaysian government, including the state-controlled Employees Provident Fund, to discuss a lucrative proposal.A collaboration between The Goulburn Regional Conservatorium and The Street Theatre, The Weight of Light deals with the return of an unnamed soldier from service in Afghanistan to his family on a farm in the Southern Tablelands. Much of its power comes from the delicate way the combination of Nigel Featherstone's spare text and James Humberstone's dark and carefully mournful music touches on issues of masculinity and trauma.

Baritone Michael Lampard's soldier comes home from service in Afghanistan to the shock of his young brother's death and its circumstance. Further, he comes home to news of an unexpected pregnancy. But he is also carrying his involvement in the death of a young girl in Kandahar, caught in fire meant for the 'enemy'.

Lampard's intense performance catches a real sense of the pressure that the soldier is under. He not only plays the soldier but also his mother, calling for him to come home, shifting there into a falsetto that was so wonderfully different from that of a baritone, it caused me to look for another performer's name on the program. He is also effortlessly the voice of the father, of the woman who has news of a pregnancy and of the dead brother, who dies perhaps because his version of masculinity is too gentle to survive.

Alan Hicks at the downstage piano underpins the whole in a careful performance full of the tensions of Humberstone's music and including unexpectedly altering of the sound of the instrument by putting paper on certain strings or bowing them with cords or striking them with mallets.

The sense of the song cycle form is intensified by a very conscious use of those moments in a concert hall in between movements (or songs) where the well-behaved classical music audience does nothing more than cough quietly and ease their positions. There's a weight to such moments, however, that becomes an emotional marker and a taking of breath for the piece as a whole.

The added theatrical elements of a sparse set (by Imogen Keen) (suggesting huge dead branches and the entangling wires you might find about a farm) and selective lighting (by Linda Buck) strengthen the mood with its sombre concerns. It should be noted that Lampard finds even the smallest scrap of light and uses it to the advantage of the performance.The announcement that the United States intends to impose tariffs on steel and aluminium imports should come as no great surprise to Australia.

US President Donald Trump's protectionist tendencies have been on display for all to see since the election campaign, where his message of "America First" carried with it an implied promise to put the interests of its trade partners, even allies like Australia, second.

One of his first acts as President was to pull the US out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, part of a wider anti-globalisation stance, warning trade liberalisation had cost Americans jobs and market share.

The US also has form in this area, having slapped tariffs on steel imports in 2002, causing widespread retaliation from major steel producing nations.No Canberra-based MPs will claim expenses for attending parliament on sitting days after Assistant Minister for Science, Innovation and Jobs Zed Seselja announced he would no longer claim the $90 a day payment.

In the latest disclosure released by the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority, almost $1000 worth of expenses had been claimed by Senator Seselja to attend parliamentary sitting days between August and December last year.

Zed Seselja will no longer claim expense for parliamentary sitting days. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The $90 daily expense claim is available to all Canberra-based MPs, and is claimable for "meals and incidental expenses" for any MP whose electorate is in the ACT, or has an electorate bordering the ACT and whose home base is in Canberra.

The rate was increased from $87 a day to $90 a day in August last year, with Seselja claiming $960 for 20 sitting days and one day of Senate estimates.Min. 10,000 Mts / month , CIF UK, Target = 80-95 USD pmt, 2 Years contract, Bulk, Moisture 22-24% max. G35. Origine: FSC certificate required. Please send you offer and we go into further details.The Australian government has been ordered to pay $35,001 to the alleged head of a Sydney-based Triad crime gang, know as the "Big Circle", after he was wrongly locked up in immigration detention.

It is the second time Qi Guang Guo, 60, has been compensated by the Commonwealth for wrongful imprisonment after he won $100,000 when he was illegally detained for 132 days between 2004 and 2005.

About 50 alleged gangsters, including this unidentified person, were arrested in this raid on a Chinese restaurant in 2002. Credit:Steve Lunam

However, the win has not saved Mr Guo from plans to deport him to his native China after his visa was cancelled on the grounds he was not of good character.

Mr Guo has been fighting a running battle with the authorities about his right to stay in Australia ever since his application for a permanent entry visa was denied in 1996 on the grounds police intelligence indicated he was involved in organised crime.Amy Jayne Everett had been the young face of Akubra hats. Credit:AP

On 1 January 2018, the Network Enforcement Act came into effect in Germany. Under the laws, online platforms like Google, Facebook and Twitter face fines of up to $50 million euros if they do not remove obviously illegal hate speech within 24 hours of notification. The laws had an immediate effect, prompting Facebook to hire 1200 additional staff to monitor its website in Germany.

Just days later, Amy Jayne Everett, a 14-year-old Australian girl, committed suicide after enduring protracted cyber-bullying. Her death spawned an outpouring of grief and with a grim irony, a social media campaign, #doitfordolly . In 2011, following the tragic death of a young hospitality worker, Brodie Panlock, a campaign for stronger laws against workplace bullying prompted the Victorian state government to act. Brodies law, as it is now called, is one of the weapons deployed against workplace bullies. Regulating workplaces is one thing; the internet is quite another. To date, there has been no suggestion of legislative reform in the wake of the death of Amy Jayne Everett.

Loading

Big Tech monopolies have enormous financial muscle and political clout. Google was founded in 1998 and now enjoys 88 per cent of the online advertising market. Facebook is even younger, emerging in 2004. It now owns 77 per cent of mobile social traffic.A man is suing the state of NSW for up to $290,000 in damages after he was violently arrested by police in the aftermath of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras five years ago.

Bryn Simon Hutchinson, 37, had been watching the parade on March 2, 2013 with his boyfriend, sister and another friend. When the parade was over, the group began to walk back towards the city.

Bryn Hutchinson leaves the District Court in Sydney on Monday. Credit:AAP

At about 11.25pm, at the intersection of Crown Street and Oxford Street, Mr Hutchinson said crowds of revellers densely packed the footpath. He noticed the footpath on the opposite side of Oxford Street was much clearer.

He began to cross the road, which was being cleaned by street sweepers, however he was grabbed by police officers. An altercation unfolded, with Mr Hutchinson attempting to negotiate with the officers to continue across the road.Six teens, aged between 15 and 19, have been arrested following a series of aggravated robberies and fraud offences across Sydney.

The teenagers have been charged over a string of incidents in Ashfield, Clyde, Homebush West, Hurlstone Park, Marrickville, North Strathfield, Enmore and Padstow.

Detective Superintendent Gary Hutchen described the string of incidents as "street level attacks on defenceless people, walking the streets, going about their normal day-to-day business."

In the Enmore robbery, a 64-year-old was left with life-threatening injuries after he was assaulted on February 24. Now in a stable condition, the man is still undergoing treatment.The Electoral Commission of Queensland could issue more than $900,000 in fines after almost 25 per cent of residents failed to vote in a Brisbane City Council byelection.

The Morningside byelection held on January 20 had 30,684 residents registered to vote for a new local councillor following the shock resignation of Labor councillor Shayne Sutton in October.

Kara Cook won the byelection for Labor.

About 16,800 people voted at a polling booth, 2586 people voted at a pre-poll centre and 3929 postal votes were returned.

While Labors Kara Cook retained the ward for her party, about 7369 people did not cast their vote.A Chinese detainee at Sydney's Villawood immigration detention centre has been rushed to hospital after being on hunger strike for eight days.

Refugee Action Coalition (RAC) spokesman Jamal Daoud said that Ms Yuan Huimil, 54, was still refusing to eat despite being hospitalised.

"She is very frail and weak and her health is deteriorating rapidly," Mr Daoud said.

"She was taken to hospital about six o'clock tonight."

Mr Daoud said Ms Huimil, a Falun Gong practitioner, was taken by NSW Ambulance to an unspecified hospital.The second dog, which had also been seized, is a bull mastiff. Neither of the dogs was registered with the City of Casey, the council said. On Monday, the council requested that the owner authorise that the dog responsible for the attack was destroyed. The council confirmed just before 4.30pm that the dog had been euthanised with the owner's consent.

Neighbours rushed to the home after hearing screaming and seeing the girl's sister, 7, calling for help about 8pm on Sunday night. The girls' mother had left them home alone while she went to the gym, neighbours said. Jimmy Baird, one of a group who rushed to the girls' aid, said he was confronted by a "massive" dog, "going berserk". He said he feared for his own safety as he and other neighbours tried to distract the frenzied dog to rescue the girl. The house in Berwick where the attack occurred. Credit:Justin McManus

"I opened the door and just saw this big frothing head coming through the door," he told radio station 3AW. "I managed to get door closed again but the girl was still out there. "We couldn't get her out because [the dog] was just going berserk. It was just massive. It was shaking the whole window frame". The animal was one of two dogs in the backyard. Only one is reported to have attacked. Jimmy Baird, one of several neighbours who rescued the girl. Credit:Justin McManus

Neighbours worked together to distract the dog while the girl was retrieved from the backyard. But Mr Baird said she'd been badly mauled. "The poor girl was in a bad way," he said, with bite marks "from her ears down". The girl's sister described her sibling being thrown around the backyard "like a rag doll," Mr Baird said. He said she was covered with blood and dirt and her injuries were so extensive, the neighbours had difficulty carrying her.

"We didnt realise how bad it was until they started cutting her clothes off, he said. A neighbour drove the younger sister to several gyms in the area in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the girls' mother following the attack. Kerrie Baird said the mother and a male friend arrived home about an hour later. Mr Baird said he was glad he and the other neighbours had been home because the dog "obviously wasn't going to stop, you know". He told 3AW he had heard the family's two dogs at the property but had never seen them.

"I don't want to see them again either," he said. Another neighbour, who didnt want to be named, said he often heard the dog - which he described as very large - barking, but said it lived inside and he had never seen it taken for walks. The attack comes just days after the death of a one-year-old girl, killed by her family's dog in northern New South Wales. The baby died on the way to hospital after being attacked by the family's Rottweiler. Senior lecturer in Animal Behaviour and Veterinary science at the University of Adelaide, Doctor Susan Hazel, said there was no single reason why dogs attack people.Victorian Attorney-General Martin Pakula. Credit:Eddie Jim A magistrate has been stood down while a specially selected panel probes serious sexual assault allegations levelled against him. The Age understands Melbourne magistrate Raj Malhotra is being investigated for allegedly sexually assaulting a junior colleague at a work Christmas party and inciting violence against a male staff member. The attorney-general Martin Pakula and the chief magistrate Peter Lauritsen had each referred a magistrate to the Judicial Commission of Victoria. Mr Pakula referred a magistrate to the commission in December, and Mr Lauritsen made another referral about a magistrate a month later.

In a statement on Monday, however, the Judicial Commission of Victoria said it had decided to refer allegations to an investigating panel, which included two senior retired judges and a non- legal person of high standing in the community. The panel was selected from a pool of people appointed by the Governor in Council. The move comes after Mr Malhorta was reportedly shifted between two suburban courts, which allowed him to continue to work after the serious allegations came to light. Judge Lauritsen confirmed on Monday that a magistrate had been stood down pending the outcome of an investigation. The matter is believed to be the first referral Mr Pakula has made to the commission, an independent body set up to investigate complaints about judicial officers, since its establishment in July.A man who lost sight in one eye after he was viciously assaulted in a Brunswick bar last May says he regularly drinks himself to sleep, endures constant nightmares and has been unable to work since the attack.

At a County Court pre-sentencing hearing for his two assailants, their victim Elliot Harvey, 26, demanded they look at him while he told the court of how the assault had ruined his quality of life.

I have regular panic attacks. Life is hard to enjoy and all my relationships are laboured. I often cannot sleep, Mr Harvey said as his partner wept openly.

I no longer enjoy the life I used to.New Slow Down, Move Over (SLOMO) laws designed to protect roadside workers "miss the mark" in their current form and will be almost impossible to enforce, according to the WA Police Union.

The union has raised several concerns with the soon to be introduced laws, which will come into effect from March.

WA Police Union president George Tilbury. Credit:ABC News

The laws will require drivers to reduce their speed when approaching a stationary emergency or incident response vehicle and pass at a maximum speed of 40kmh.

Drivers who fail to adhere to the new rules will cop three demerit points and a $300 fine.We are talking about Thomas Pikettys Capital in the Twenty-First Century, including its extraordinary publishing history and its subsequent fade from grace. I reviewed the various problems with Pikketys theses as they have been noted in the economics literature, and I also proposed my own view of the books central problem: that its author is a naif.

Two of Pikettys naive errors, discussed last week, include mistaking a truism for a fundamental law of capitalism, and failing to account for the very large costs people with capital to invest almost always incur.

This week well focus on the worst of Pikettys errors: Naive error #3: Ignoring risk.

Lets refer back to the early nineteenth century, the era of Jane Austens novels and the starting point for Pikettys argument that wealthy people over very long periods of time can easily earn 4% or 5% on the value of their capitalin this case landholdings. As I pointed out last week, if those people were able to achieve such returns, they did it only by overcoming serious costs. But, more importantly, nobody gets 5% net except by exposing their capital to very significant risk.

Some of those risks are idiosyncratic. In Austens time, land was passed down from generation to generation, almost always following the rules of primogeniture, via which the land went to the eldest son. How long would it be before such a system produced a complete neer-do-well as the heir?

Some families lucked out, of course. Consider Sir Edward Phelips, Master of the Rolls under Elizabeth I and, not so incidentally, the prosecutor during the trial of the Gunpowder Plotters (including Guy Fawkes) who intended to blow up the House of Lords. Sir Edward was knighted for his service to the crown, and he built a large country house called Montacute, in which his descendants resided for 400 years. (Alas, the end came in the early twentieth century when the family finally ran out of money.)

Far more commonly, though, only a few generations would go by before an incompetent eldest sonor his inattentive trusteewould badly mismanage the familys land. Farmers and tenant farmers would abuse the soil, over-planting and over-grazing, wearing out the land for generations and impoverishing the family. Or a dishonest steward would rob the family blind. Poofthe capital was gone.

Other risks affected land owners generally. Consider very bad weather, leading to poor harvests. A well-managed nineteenth century estate would have maintained a cushion of capital just for such exigencies, but more poorly managed families would be wiped out. Even well-managed estates were unlikely to survive several years of bad weather in a row.

But there were much worse risks just over the horizon. In the mid-nineteenth century British agriculture was the envy of the world. But a few thousand miles to the west the U.S. Congress was passing the Homestead Act (in the midst of the American Civil War, of all things), which awarded people free land in the American Midwest if they would agree to farm it. More than 1.5 million people took Congress up on its offer and American farm production soared.

To make matters worseif you were trying to compete with the vast American agricultural machinesmart entrepreneurs were inventing much more efficient ways to farm, including, of course, Mr. John Deeres famous steel plough. Other entrepreneurs were reinventing the transportation infrastructure necessary to get American farm products to their markets, including railroads and steamships.

The result was that Britain was soon flooded with huge quantities of cheap American grain and meat, driving prices down in Britain far below anything the landed gentry could compete with. The Great Depression of British Agriculture began in 1873 and prices continued to fall until 1896, lasting more than twice as long as Americas Great Depression of the 1930s. Farm production in Britain wouldnt reach its 1872 level until after World War II, 80 years later.

The Agricultural Depression decimated the aristocracy and the landed gentry in Britain. Burkes Landed Gentry, a peerage that began publishing in the 1830s and that required a family to own at least 500 acres to be included, fell on hard times. Burkes was forced to keep reducing the amount of acreage required for inclusion, eventually settling on 200 acres.

Then it got worse. The Great Agricultural Depression was followed by the devastation of World War I and the high taxation of the next few decades, further undermining whatever was left of the gentry. By 1972 a family could be included in Burkes even if they were penniless, as long as their ancestors had been landowners.

In their prime, the British aristocracy and landed gentry were known as the 10,000, i.e., the 10,000 wealthiest families in Britain. Suppose each of those families had no more than 20,000 eachroughly $50,000 American dollars at the time. If Pikettys analysis were correct and the families could simply compound their wealth at 5% infinitum, there would be, today, 200 years later, tens of thousands of billionaires in the UK. ($50,000 compounded at 5% for 200 years is worth almost exactly $1 billion.)

In fact, how many billionaires are there in Britain in early 2018? Precisely 54. And not a single one of them is related to the (formerly) wealthy landed gentry, and not a single one of them made their money on farmland. And 200 years hence, how many of the descendants of the 54 billionaires will still be wealthy? Zero. Far from the rich getting ever richer and hogging all the wealth in the world, wealth gets recycled every half century: shirtsleeves-to-shirtsleeves in three generations.

Pikettys theory that, thanks to r > g, once a family becomes rich they will forever become richer and richer, is exactly the opposite of how the real world actually works. He would know this if he had ever tried to invest capital, had ever known a multigenerational wealthy family, had ever pulled himself away from his econometric models far enough to come up for air and look around at the real world.

Piketty wants to create a society in which people can still become rich by doing useful things, but also in which that wealth will then be taxed into oblivion so that that the children and grandchildrento say nothing of more remote descendantswont be rich. As Ive tried to show, he neednt botherthe rich are perfectly capable of becoming poor again all by themselves. More importantly, Piketty and his supporters massively misapprehend the real value of private capital. Well look at that issue next week.

Next up: On r > g, Part IVThere's no doubt summer has left its run extremely late this year, and Perth is now in the bizarre position of recording one of its hottest 2018 days in autumn.

Perth didn't experience a 40 degree day for summer for the first time in 16 years this year, with the temperature only managing to climb to 38 degrees back on January 14.

Perth's beaches will be packed this week. Credit:Erin Jonasson

While the cooler temperatures were a welcome relief to some Perth locals, those who were craving the heat can count their blessings as the second week of March promises to be a scorcher.

Monday is set to heat up to a balmy 36 degrees with a 44 per cent chance of humidity, and Tuesday's maximum has been forecast at 38 degrees.An obscure government agency plans to indirectly support Adanis controversial mega-coal mine by financing a business that will supply the project, it has emerged.

The Export Finance and Insurance Corporation, which provides loans to exporters, is also considering inquiries from other Adani suppliers, and held discussions with Adani representatives as recently as last month.

The Adani Carmichael project has encountered strong public opposition. Credit:AAP

The revelations raise questions over whether the government is using back-door routes to prop up the Adani project, and will fuel debate over public funding for mining projects in Australia.

EFIC did not respond to Fairfax Medias questions over what firms would receive or had applied for funding, the level of funding provided or the implications for the loans if the mine did not proceed.One of Australia's largest political donors, the Manildra Group, has been fined $107,000 for failing to disclose some of its donations while making planning applications in NSW.

The fine, issued by the Land and Environment Court to Manildra's Shoalhaven Starches subsidiary, followed compliance investigation into the lack of disclosure on five company applications, the Planning and Environment department said.

Manildra's Dick Honan (right) showing then prime minister John Howard around the company's ethanol plant in Bomaderry. Credit:Edwina Pickles

The fine excludes $40,000 in legal costs and the order for the company to publish notices in various newspapers.

The fines relate to applications by Shoalhaven Starches to expand its Bomaderry plant.A scathing Human Rights Commission report has uncovered everyday sexism and a hyper-masculine culture in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, and has warned that workers could be exposed to further harm under an industrial agreement pushed by the Andrews government.

Key details of the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission inquiry, which the firefighters' union has taken legal action to suppress, were provided to the brigade board and the government in briefings in January, The Age can reveal.

Credit:Paul Jeffers

Leaked MFB files from those briefings reveal that entrenched bullying and harassment are significant issues for Victorias fire services, and led to a recommendation by Equal Opportunity Commissioner Kristen Hilton that the proposed enterprise agreement needs to change because it entrenches discrimination.

But despite the warnings, Emergency Services Minister James Merlinos office urged the brigade to back the enterprise agreement, which it did days later, prompting the immediate resignation of board president Andi Diamond.Australian millennials are turning their backs on the big screen in the lounge room, for the first time watching more video on their devices than broadcasts on television.

Australian broadcasters are the masters of burying the lede when it comes to talking about viewing figures, while using myriad different metrics to make it difficult to compare apples with apples.

The most telling statistic in the latest industry report is buried on page 13, where you dive into figures which make it clear that rusted-on seniors are all that's stopping Australia's viewing figures plunging into free fall.

The amount of broadcast television Australians watch continues to fall across the board, but 18-to-24 year-old viewers have passed a major milestone which is likely to spook broadcasters.Rome: Italians registered their dismay with the European political establishment on Sunday, handing a majority of votes in a national election to hard-right and populist forces that ran a campaign fuelled by anti-immigrant anger, early results showed.

The election, the first in five years, was widely seen as a bellwether of the strength of populists on the continent and how far they might advance into the mainstream. The answer was far, very far.

The results were not just a disconcerting measure of Italy's mood, but also a harbinger of the troubles that may yet lay ahead for Europe. Far-right and populist forces appeared to gain more than 50 per cent of the vote in Italy, where the economy has lagged, migration has surged and many are seething at those in power.

But with no one party or coalition appearing to win enough support to form a government, the election offered up an outcome familiar in Italy: a muddle. It may take weeks of haggling to sort out who will lead the next government, and who will be in it.Skripal, a retired army colonel, had been jailed in Moscow in 2006, having been convicted of spying for Britain. He was arrested in 2005 after his cover was blown and charged with 'high treason in the form of espionage'. Skripal was found guilty of passing the identities of Russian secret agents operating throughout Europe, to MI6. He appeared in a high profile trial in Moscow's main military court in August 2006, paraded before the cameras on Russian TV. Prosecutors claimed he had been spying for Britain since the Nineties and had taken tens of thousands of pounds in payments from MI6 agents for information. Skripal was reportedly caught by agents from Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) passing intelligence to MI6's James Bond-style "spy rock" - a fake stone packed with receiving equipment - in a Moscow park. He pleaded guilty to all the charges and reportedly cooperated fully with the FSB.

He was initially sentenced to 15 years in prison, but the term was later reduced to 13 years, because of his willingness to cooperate. Branded a traitor and a disgrace to his country, Skripal was also stripped of all his military decorations and honours. Despite being in poor health he was sentenced to serve his time in a tough maximum security prison in Moscow. The main entrance of Salisbury District Hospital, England, where a former Russian spy is in critical condition after coming into contact with an "unknown substance." Credit:AP But in 2010, in an extraordinary development, he was pardoned by Dmitry Medvedev, then the Russian president. In a scene straight out of the Cold War, he and three other Western agents, were exchanged for 10 Russian spies being held by the FBI in the US.

His apparent poisoning incident bears similarities to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former Russian agent who was killed by radioactive polonium in a London hotel. "It looks similar to what happened to my husband but we need more information. We need to know the substance. Was it radioactive?," Litvinenko's widow Marina said. Skripal and his female companion were discovered on Sunday afternoon. A witness said she walked past the pair who appeared to have "taken something quite strong". "On the right hand side on the bench there was a couple, an older guy and a younger girl, she was sort of lent in on him. It looked like she had passed out. He was doing some strange hand movements looking up to the sky," Freya Church said. The pair were taken to Salisbury District Hospital where authorities declared a major incident and its emergency unit had to be closed.

Alexander Litvinenko in his hospital bed before his death. Credit:Reuters/File Police wore protective suits to examine the area around the bench where they had collapsed . One well-placed source said a number of police officers who had initially attended the scene had also been treated for possible contamination, although London's Telegraph was unable to verify that. One report suggested a "specialist chemical response unit" had removed an "unknown substance" which had been wrapped in several protective layers. The prospect of a state-sponsored assassination on Skripal was immediately raised by opponents of Vladimir Putin. Garry Kasparov, the former chess world champion and high profile critic of the Russian leader, tweeted: "After the UK's pathetic response to Litvinenko's assassination with polonium in London, why wouldn't Putin do it again?"

Igor Sutyagin, a Russian nuclear expert who had been convicted of spying in 2004, was also sent to the UK with Skripal as part of the spy swap. Now of the Royal United Services Institute in London, Sutyagin said he only knew Skripal for the duration of their flight from Moscow. Asked about Russia's possible involvement, he said: "If everything points to these people, then that's a problem for them." Andrew Foxall, director of the Russia and Eurasia Studies Centre at the Henry Jackson Society, said: "While it is too soon to attribute responsibility, it would be foolhardy if the authorities were not to explore the Russia connection." In a statement, Craig Holden, temporary assistant chief constable of Wiltshire Police, said: "The pair, who we believe are known to each other, did not have any visible injuries and were taken to Salisbury District Hospital. They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance. Both are in a critical condition in intensive care."

The incident raises concern that Russian assassins had struck again, 11 years after Litvinenko was murdered. Mark Galeotti, an expert on Russia's secret services, said "the Russians have more animus towards 'traitors' than dissidents." But he said it would be unusual to target an ex-spy who had been jailed, debriefed and exchanged. "One thing that made Alexander Litvinenko a target was that he was still working with the security services." "If there was a belief, rightly or wrongly, that Skripal was working for the security services or did something else to make him a person of interest, it would put him back in the crosshairs."Berlin: German Chancellor Angela Merkel has her work cut out now that she's finally on track to start her fourth term.

President Donald Trump's threat of tariffs on European cars, China's global investment push and Emmanuel Macron's calls for a closer-knit euro area all demand a German response following more than five months of political stalemate in Europe's biggest economy. Merkel, 63, is expected to be sworn in by mid-March after the Social Democrats voted to stay in her government.

"Europe can't move forward without Germany", and the "clear result" of the SPD members' ballot bolsters Merkel's position, said Holger Schmieding, chief economist at Berenberg bank.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel smiles at the party convention of the Christian Democratic Union CDU in Berlin. Credit:AP

While Merkel leading another four-year coalition of Germany's two biggest parties suggests continuity, global challenges are accelerating and the next government -- possibly her last -- may be more fractious than the previous one. There are many issues in play.Jerusalem: As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived at the White House for talks with US President Donald Trump, one of his former top aides turned state witness, the third close associate to agree to testify against him in a corruption scandal that threatens to end his career.

The prosecution deal came after days of feverish speculation in Israel that Netanyahu, beleaguered by police investigations and facing possible bribery charges, might call a snap election in hopes of a quick validation of public support.

News of the plea deal broke as Netanyahu was in Washington, diminishing any hope the Israeli leader may have held that his role on the international stage would overshadow the scandals back home.

Benjamin Netanyahu waves as he leaves the White House on Monday after meeting with Donald Trump. Credit:AP

Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing, but the accelerating pace of the investigations and the pile-up of state witnesses are casting a cloud over his political future.Novartis wins the SAMS Award 2018 for Software Asset Management

Posted by Publisher Software

Aachen, Germany, March 5, 2018  Novartis Pharma AG was honored with a SAMS Award in the \Overall Project/Strategy\ category at the SAM Strategies Conference in Berlin last week. Their \Top 100 Cost Reduction Initiative\ project aimed to save significant money, gain software compliance transparency, and improve processes in software procurement and software usage.

The IT and Procurement department worked closely together to examine 1,200 software vendors and determined that the top 100 vendors were responsible for 90% of the software spend at Novartis. As a next step, the project team reviewed over 400 active software contracts and verified their usage.

\This project was very innovative, because we linked the procurement data with SAM information group-wide for the very first time. We achieved considerable savings by combining the capabilities of both departments and with the support of Aspera SmartTrack,\ says the Project Manager Jutta Hangater, Global Head of IT Procurement Software at Novartis.

Jochen Hagenlocher, Global Head of SAM at Novartis confirms, \This Project has set new standards-not only for procurement but also for optimizing existing contracts. We were able to improve our SaaS contract conditions for example.\

\Congratulations to our customer Novartis for this well-deserved award. Their strategic project confirms the status of SAM and demonstrates innovative ways a SAM solution can be used and provide value for other enterprises,\ states Olaf Diehl, Managing Director at Aspera.The Laurel Highlands. The very name hints of a special place. Its boundaries lie in the eye of the beholder, but most agree that the Highlands are east and south of Pittsburgh in Somerset, Fayette and Westmoreland counties. Thousands of skiers, hunters, hikers and rafters enjoy this unique geography, but do they ever ponder how it came to be?

Its hard to imagine, but the land once was flat and largely covered by a shallow, inland sea. Thick layers of sediment on the sea bottom slowly solidified over time to form what geologists call Pottsville sandstone. Then, about 480 million years agogive or take a few millionforces deep in the earth triggered a collision of the massive tectonic plates that form the outer earth. The collision forced the plates leading edges up into mountains and ridges thousands of feet high. And that was the dramatic birth of what would become the daring ski trails, plunging rapids, steep rock cliffs and tranquil valleys of the Laurel Highlands.

The miles-long, narrow mountain strips we call Laurel and Chestnut ridges lie under a mantle of rich green in summer, blaze with color in fall, then turn quietly white with winter snow. It is a year-long show Pittsburghers love. Its true, much of western Pennsylvania abounds in hills, valleys and rivers, but there are appealing differences in the 100-mile footprint of the Highlands.

I fell in love with the area over 30 years ago when we acquired a modest cabin along Laurel Hill Creek. Traveling the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Donegal, I became fascinated with the places where the Turnpike cuts through the mountains. Like slicing into a giant layer cake, you can see how the various strata of thick rock that had stretched horizontally for miles suddenly bent sharply upward. I became puzzled by the giant boulders dotting the Highland hills. Some were the size of railroad cars! How did they get there? Over years of trout fishing and hunting in those hills, I marveled at this unusual land only a relatively few miles from Pittsburgh. I decided to seek some answers.

Paul Wiegman is a writer and naturalist who knows well the history of the Laurel Highlands. In a recent essay, he put it this way: Here in Western Pennsylvania, we are blessed with the oldest mountains on the planet. The folds of these mountains were created when two great land masses, known as crustal plates, collided. The mountains then were jagged and craggy like the Rockies of the west. However, over an enormous stretch of time, the landscape was eroded and smoothed by wind and rain to the more gentle rolling ridges we know today.

University of Pittsburgh geologist Thomas Anderson is both a student and teacher of how the Highlands came to be, and he described how water further shaped that creation. The Youghiogheny River cut down through the underlying rocks the way an overhead saw cuts through a stack of boards. Where resistant layers were met, falls and rapids were formed. The lower Yough is famous as a wild, wet roller coaster, and the whitewater enthusiasts drawn to it are riding geologic history. But in the distant future, Anderson said, the dramatic ride will disappear. Eventually the river will cut through the sandstone layers forming the falls and rapids, and the river will become a smooth one throughout its length.

And what of the enormous boulders on the hillsides? They were once part of the 100-foot-thick crust of Pottsville sandstone that millions of years ago broke apart as the colliding plates thrust it upwards. Over time, some of those giant pieces slid down the ridges, and the same freeze-thaw cycle that destroys our roads had its way with those boulders, cracking and splitting them into unusual shapes.

Slowly but surely, those boulders are creeping their way from the peaks down to the valleys, Wiegman said, at the rate of only millimeters per year under the relentless pull of gravity. So dont worry, you still have a few hundred million years to enjoy the Laurel Highlands just as they are.On the easternmost tip of New York state, the galactic core of the Milky Way offers a beautiful backdrop to the Montauk Point Lighthouse. Astrophotographer Chirag Upreti captured this image of the Milky Way on Feb. 18, 2018, shortly after it became visible from North America for the first time this year.

Every year in mid-February, the starry core of the Milky Way galaxy reappears in the night sky above the Northern Hemisphere after hiding below the horizon for nearly four months. Astrophotographer Chirag Upreti captured this stunning view of the Milky Way's annual debut near the Montauk Point Lighthouse, a National Historic Site on the easternmost tip of Long Island, on Feb. 18.

"On the East coast, clear skies are a luxury in February," Upreti told Space.com in an email, adding that this cloudless night offered an opportune moment for imaging the night sky. Upreti reveled in photographing this first image of the "Milky Way season." The galactic core of the Milky Way was visible just above the horizon for less than an hour before it faded away at sunrise. [Stunning Photos of Our Milky Way Galaxy]

"As night gave way to civil twilight, I began packing my gear, when a couple walked onto the beach, wrapped themselves in a blanket and sat on the same bench to witness the sunrise," Upreti wrote. "A warm moment on a cold morning, [this] brought a smile to my face as I wished them good morning and made my way out."

Both light pollution and the Milky Way's proximity to the horizon can make it difficult to photograph the galactic core in all its bright, starry glory, but Upreti was still able to get a clear view. "Fortunately, this time of the year, the Milky Way rises directly over the Atlantic Ocean," Upreti wrote. "Therefore, there are no light domes on the horizon  something I assumed was favorable for a low-lying Milky Way galactic core."

Despite glowing brilliantly near a cliffside on Turtle Hill, the Montauk Point Lighthouse wasn't bright enough to outshine the Milky Way during Upreti's photo shoot. The fully illuminated tower offers a stark contrast to the dark beach with the lone bench. Light pollution in this area ranks as "Class 4" on the Bortle Dark-Sky Scale, which means that the rural/suburban area has enough light pollution to obstruct some features of the Milky Way, according to Sky & Telescope.

Upreti used a Sony 7R III camera with a Tamron SP 15-30mm lens to shoot 10 panoramic images that he stitched together to create this composite image.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.This photo shows one of the Apollo 16 sample boxes being opened in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory on Earth. The box contains a large rock and many small sample bags.

Between 1969 and 1972, Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth a total of nine containers of moon material that were sealed on the lunar surface.

Two of the larger sealed samples were collected by Apollo 17 moonwalkers in December 1972. Three sealed samples from Apollo 15, 16 and 17 remain unopened.

According to several key lunar researchers, now is the right time to consider opening at least one of the still-sealed sample containers. [NASA's 17 Apollo Moon Missions in Pictures]

Protected, preserved and processed

Home for the Apollo geological samples  specimens that are physically protected, environmentally preserved and scientifically processed  is the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility, a special building at NASA 's Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston.

The Apollo collection consists of lunar rocks, core samples, pebbles, sand and dust from the lunar surface. Thanks to the six Apollo landing expeditions, 2,200 separate samples made it back to Earth, snagged from six different exploration sites on the moon.

Returned lunar samples have shown that they are the gifts that keep on giving. For instance, water from the moon's interior was detected recently by sensitive mass spectrometric analysis of basaltic glasses brought back to Earth by the Apollo 15 and Apollo 17 missions.

Apollo astronauts used hammers to break small chips off large moon rocks and to drive core tubes into the ground. (Image credit: NASA/Johnson Space Center)

Careful planning

"Samples were intentionally saved for a time when technology and instrumentation had advanced to the point that we could maximize the scientific return on these unique samples," said NASA's Ryan Zeigler, Apollo sample curator and manager of the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office in Houston.

But such investigations require careful planning and execution by a consortium of experts with experience in handling and analyzing lunar samples, Zeigler told Space.com.

"Given the recent renewed interest in the moon, and specifically about the volatile budget of lunar regolith, these sealed samples likely contain information that would be important in the design of future lunar missions," Zeigler said.

"Volatiles" are substances with relatively low boiling points  materials such as water, hydrogen and methane. Understanding lunar volatiles could improve the productivity and value of future human involvement with the moon, scientists have stressed.

New insights

Zeigler isn't the only researcher who'd like to unseal some of the remaining Apollo samples. He's joined in this advocacy by Charles Shearer of the Institute of Meteoritics, Department of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of New Mexico and Clive Neal at the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering & Earth Sciences at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

They'll be making their case later this month at the 49th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, which is organized by the Lunar & Planetary Institute in Houston, an arm of the Universities Space Research Association. The conference will be held in The Woodlands, Texas, from March 19 through March 23.

"Given the new emphasis on the lunar volatile story, having these unopened samples will, apart from yielding new lunar science insights, allow us to plan the sampling, return and analysis of volatile-bearing lunar samples," Neal told Space.com. "Hence a consortium approach in analyzing these and similar samples is the only way to go."

Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke collects lunar samples during a moonwalk. (Image credit: NASA/Johnson Space Center)

Pristine and unstudied

Apollo's set of unopened samples contain pristine and unstudied lunar material. Moreover, given that the total sample mass within the unopened containers of moon specimens exceeds projected masses returned by future robotic missions, each of the unopened samples should be treated as an individual lunar mission, the lunar experts contend.

For example, the researchers point to "unopened treasures" in the Apollo 17 sample collection.

The Apollo 17 mission in December 1972 was a "J-style" mission. That means it was capable of a longer stay time on the moon and greater surface mobility via a wheeled vehicle. The expeditionary crew of Harrison "Jack" Schmitt and Eugene Cernan chalked up a total distance of 23 miles (36.9 kilometers).

Thanks to their moon rover, the lunar twosome gathered samples over a wide area in Taurus-Littrow Valley. The Apollo 17 mission returned 244 lbs. (110.5 kilograms) of a variety of sample types. This was approximately 30 percent of the total sample mass returned by the Apollo program, which collectively added up to 840 lbs. (381 kg). [Apollo 17: NASA's Last Apollo Moon Landing Mission in Pictures]

Seal status

But there's a bit of a catch.

The unopened containers appear to be sealed based on their outward appearance. However, it's doubtful that the containers still retain the level of vacuum that exists on the moon. It is expected that the containers retain a more modest vacuum and that the samples have not come in contact with the terrestrial atmosphere.

The bottom line is, nobody knows for sure the status of the seals until the containers are opened.

On one hand, the containers used during the Apollo program were a reasonable attempt to preserve many characteristics of the lunar regolith. But more important, these types of sample-containment concepts not only are expected to be used during future human missions to the moon, but may be applicable to robotic missions to the moon and other planetary bodies.

Zeigler and his associates suggest it would be prudent to assume that analytical techniques will continue to improve in the future and science goals will change with additional observations and data.

"Therefore, we are advocating opening a single sample container and saving the remaining two samples for future generations of lunar scientists," Shearer, Neal and Zeigler wrote in a paper they plan to present at the upcoming conference.

The Apollo 17 mission in December 1972 surveyed the Taurus-Littrow highlands and valley area. This site was picked as a location where rocks both older and younger than those previously returned from other Apollo missions might be found. (Image credit: NASA/Johnson Space Center)

On a personal note

A lot of serious thought over the past decade has gone into why and how to study the unopened lunar samples, said Carlton Allen, former astromaterials curator at JSC. He, too, is a supporter of opening one of the Apollo sample collections now, giving the following reasons:

Technology: Techniques are available to examine sealed samples before opening and to open them with minimal terrestrial contamination.

Microanalysis: We can analyze trace gases and volatiles with the precision and accuracy needed to address fundamental questions in lunar science, such as the trace water in pyroclastic glass returned from the moon.

Lunar science: We understand many of the remaining gaps in lunar knowledge prior to a new era of exploration, and the precision/accuracy needed to address these gaps, such as existence and history of near-surface water and ice at a range of locations and temperatures.

Finally, Allen said there's a personal note, too.

"Some of the astronauts who collected these samples, technicians who opened and documented core tubes and scientists who studied samples all the way back to Apollo are still with us and professionally active," Allen said. "We should not overlook these irreplaceable human resources."

Editor's note: This story was updated March 6 to correct the name of Ryan Zeigler, NASA's Apollo sample curator and manager of the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office in Houston.

Leonard David is author of "Mars: Our Future on the Red Planet," published by National Geographic. The book is a companion to the National Geographic Channel series "Mars." A longtime writer for Space.com, David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.Alex Damianos awakened from a troubled sleep at 3 a.m. on a hot July night in 1959 to find his smiling father standing at the foot of his bed, staring down at him.

Alex, I told you to learn how to make the sauce, Jim said playfully to his oldest son. Now, think about the one ingredient that you keep missing think hard.

Suddenly, the final ingredient popped into Alexs head. He fumbled for his clothes, dressed quickly and ran out the door toward the familys sandwich shop. By 4 a.m., he had made a perfect batch of Jims Famous Sauce.

Jim Damianos had died suddenly one week before this unexpected appearance in Alexs room. Until that time, Alex had tried to get the familys secret recipe just right, but all anyone could say was, Theres something missing from the sauce.

No one was surprised that Jim had returned to his son in a vision to fine-tune the family business. A WWI doughboy, he returned to America the first time with his French war bride and lifelong partner, Melanie.

After going abroad for four more years, Jim settled here for good in 1927, scraping together $50 and opening a sandwich shop in McKeesport, a steel town bursting with immigrants and opportunity. He put every sandwich he could think of on the menu and over time eliminated those that did not sell.

The hot dog emerged as king from that simple marketing survey, and just when you think you have tasted every permutation of the humble dog, along comes Jims.

First, the skinless hot dog is grilled and placed in a traditional soft bun. Then comes that famous sauce, a mildly spicy, slightly sweet, caramel-colored tomato-based concoction, surely alchemy. Next are the toppings, chopped sweet onions being the most popular, and then strips of American cheese are laid on top.

For the piece de resistance, the fully dressed dog is put into a hot salamander, to broil until the cheese bubbles and slightly browns. The bun emerges crispy on the outside and still velvety soft inside. It is a sublime creation.

There are other offerings, including kolbassi, Italian sausage, grilled chicken and hamburgers, each one dressed with the sauce, and nothing costing more than $3.59. And old-fashioned, 20-ounce milkshakes, with hand-dipped ice cream, are $3.49.

In 1948 the shop moved to West Mifflin, where Jim continued his mysteriously enterprising ways. One day, when Alex and his kid brother, Syl, arrived for work, all the booths had been tossed into the parking lot, followed by the counter and stools a few weeks later, and in short order, business tripled.

Now, as then, you eat in your car or at the picnic tables in the side yard. And out of respect for their hot dogs, take-home orders are tenderly placed in little white pastry boxes, so they will not be squished under their own weight in a bag.

Alex is 91 now and still runs the show. Two full-time employees, Tim and Mike, have been there for 18 years, earning a stake in the business. Like middle brother Gus and nephew Brian Homoki, both of whom worked there for years, they are like family.

Syl, 77, a renowned Pittsburgh-based architect, will soon rejoin his older brother to focus on marketing Jims Famous Sauce, now available in small bottles for $6.

And if any problems arise, no one would be surprised to see Jim again, gently prodding, providing that final piece of the puzzle.

Jims Famous Sauce, 2600 Skyline Dr., West Mifflin, PA 15122.In the not-too-distant future, NASA astronauts might conduct their video interviews from the International Space Station (ISS) while wearing Nike-supplied T-shirts, with a giant Toyota logo visible on the module wall behind them.

NASA is developing a commercial-use policy for the orbiting lab, to open up more opportunities for private companies, agency officials said.

"Today, there's a number of activities that are prohibited. They can't do advertising and marketing, and fly trinkets  things that are pure for-profit activities," NASA ISS Deputy Director Robyn Gatens said Wednesday (Feb. 28) during a presentation with the agency's Future In-Space Operations working group. [Building the International Space Station (Photos)]

"We would like to broaden that, but we need to explore what policy or legal or programmatic changes we would have to make in order to do that," Gatens added. "So, we're starting to dive into that and develop that policy so that we can allow these commercial entities to use the ISS to begin experimenting with a broader set of market possibilities."

That's not to imply that there's no commercial activity associated with the ISS now. The private companies SpaceX and Orbital ATK already launch robotic cargo missions to the orbiting lab. And SpaceX and Boeing hold multibillion-dollar NASA contracts to ferry agency astronauts to and from the station; if all goes well, these taxi flights could begin in the next year or so.

In addition, an inflatable module built by Nevada company Bigelow Aerospace has been attached to the ISS since April 2016. And a great deal of commercial research is conducted aboard the U.S. segment of the station, an officially designated national laboratory that's managed by the nonprofit Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS).

"They've been very busy developing demand for commercial research and technology development through the national lab," Gatens said of CASIS. "Over 50 percent of their new projects are commercial entities now, versus other government agencies or academia."

This push to commercialize the ISS lines up with a broader desire to privatize activities throughout LEO in general, a stated priority of President Donald Trump. For example, the White House's 2019 federal budget request, which was released last month, eliminates direct funding for the ISS in 2025 and allocates $150 million "to encourage development of new commercial low-Earth orbital platforms and capabilities for use by the private sector and NASA," according to NASA's budget overview.

The budget request still must pass both houses of Congress, and some notable folks on Capitol Hill have already voiced opposition to the ISS defunding plan. But even if the broad outlines of the proposal go into effect, we shouldn't rush to carve "2025" into the $100 billion orbiting lab's tombstone, Gatens stressed.

"That doesn't necessarily imply that the platform itself will be deorbited in 2025," she said. "It's possible that industry could continue to operate certain elements of the ISS, or the entire ISS, as part of a future commercial platform. But the key is that the way we're running [the] station today, as far as the government role  the administration would like for that to be transitioned to a more commercial model."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.Optimization

Are you frustrated with a slow pc or a hard disk not performing as it should?

Try SLOW-PCfighter to speed up boot time on a slow PC, or try a free scan of FULL-DISKfighter to recover space on a full disk. The latest offering is DRIVERfighter to update your driver updater. Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools.



The episode aired on HBO Sunday, February 25



There is one more episode left in season two of this show, and I hope HBO isnt pressed to renew it. I can say I have enjoyed watching these people live their lives selfishly, but the material they have been giving me for the last two episodes just shows they need to end it hopefully on a high. I know the showrunners could not move away from the idiotic storyline of sex and the city, but I did not sign up for this. I enjoyed season one because it was fresh and I hated everyone equally. Going,Going...Gone was an episode of sex and the city in my opinion. It had the same tone and story arc that was just crafted to fill episode seven. Majority of HBO shows get only eight episodes, so a filler is hardly necessary especially a terrible one, but here we are. This episode was so bad that I chose just to write what I liked and what I didnt like.Robert and Jackie's tag teaming to show their house to buyers and get rid of a dead raccoon was a great partnership. It was an excellent introduction to their relationship that they decided to be in from the last episode. It was also nice to see Robert handle a situation under pressure and not be shitty to his partner as is usually his norm. Robert also had a perfect character development when he agreed to join Jackie in a real estate venture. Even though Robert still wanted things done his way to protect himself, it did show his vulnerability and fear of getting screwed up again. Walking away from conversations that annoy him is something he doesn't do, but choosing to not fall for Nicks jab about Jackie looking like Frances was a big moment for him. I am not a fan of Robert although I might say being with Jackie has made my heart soften a little bit where he is concerned. He still supported Frances at her gallery event and did not create a scene so what more can we ask of him?I liked that Nick stood up for Diane when he felt that her insecurities were about to get the better of her at Francess show that she put together for Sylvia. Nick is a time bomb that can go off anytime and create chaos, but he knows how to deal with Diane when she's stressing. He does the sweetest things that make you understand kind of why she is still with him even though they have a crappy relationship. I do have to mention though that Diane is a wreck who likes attention and it gets on my nerves so much. The fact that the writers of this show couldnt focus on her relationship with Nick is dumbfounding. I understand that SJP is the star of the show, but sometimes a good storyteller can see the direction their story is heading organically and just letting it happen, but I digress.Dallass storyline was terrific in this episode, of cause she was doubting if Ted was serious since he keeps bringing his ex-wife around but he reassured her that he wanted to be with her. I understand the difficulty from her point of view, she's older than him so why would he want to be with her. In many cases we hardly see a genuine relationship develop between an older woman and a younger man. The audience has always gotten the same trope that older women chase after the men, but this was not the case here. Ted was the flirtatious one and did the chase, and it was lovely for her to take down her walls and get some loving.Do you see the sex and the city pattern yet or do you think I am reaching?If you have watched this show since the premiere episode in season one, you know Frances was the one that strayed from her marital abode, but Robert is still awful. It was great seeing her in a relationship with Andrew that would have probably meant reflection and growth; that it combusted so fast was shocking. She manages to screw up things when she approaches Skip Zakarian a famous gallery owner and invites him to Sylvia's opening night. Skip somewhat was able to decipher that he could mess with her and she fell for it. Andrew was instantly jealous since Frances didnt help the situation by the way she was ogling at Skip. The competition to outbid each other during the gallery auction was so cliched that I skipped over it the second time.Cue more sex and the city; Skip asks her out, and she rejects his advances, then he does the obvious and poaches Sylvia to bring her paintings to his gallery instead. How many times did we see Carrie Bradshaw go through this same storyline where a rival screws her? Frances is not one to give up on this, so she confronts Sylvia who admits that this was just a business decision and nothing personal. She hands back the gift from Skip that he had sent to Frances after outbidding her.Are you bored yet? Well, that was it we are left with one more episode before we say goodbye to season two.

Sometimes simple is better. That seems to be the case this week on Scorpion.



Paige and Walter have a disastrous game night with her friends where Walter's Pictionary drawings stump everyone. (He draws a topographical map of the Moon River in Georgia for a card referencing the song Moon River. Meanwhile, Happy and Toby are meeting with different fertility specialists, and Toby has become extremely indecisive about which one they should choose. Sly is getting nowhere in his battles with corporations to reduce the local usage of plastic water bottles. And Ralph is off to a science convention with Florence, where he plans to talk up Sly to her.



The rest of the team has to put their issues on hold as they head out to Colorado to the Particle Accelerator Neutrino Detection Station, where they're to confirm that the station scientists have detected a WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Particle). The station also so happens to be the world's deepest lab, located three kilometers under an old gold mine.



Once there, Walter, Sly, Toby, and Happy head down to the lab via the old mine elevator while Cabe and Paige go with the station scientist to the above ground control room. The station scientist warns that they need to be out within four hours, as being that far underground for longer then that will start to cause serious cognitive difficulties.



The team confirms the WIMP by the end of the four hours, but reasoning that their high IQs will cause it to take longer for them to be affected, decides to stick around for a few more minutes and check out the station's particle collider. As they head around on their little tour, Paige and Cabe realize they're all starting to get stupid.



They go to leave when the nozzle from one of the hydrogen gas tanks pops off, which could cause the whole place to go up in flames. Apparently, one of the prairie dogs they keep down there for observation got lose and messed with the lab's wiring. Walter vows he can fix the wiring and get them on their way quickly, but in his newly deficient state, he just messes things up more and accidentally activates the particle collider to full capacity, meaning that although they might still blow up, they also might create a black hole and destroy the universe.With his intelligence rapidly decreasing, Walter comes up with a plan for him and Sly to try to hack the particle collider, while Happy and Toby work to vent out the hydrogen through the elevator shaft. Unsurprisingly, Walter and Sly fail to hack the system as they dive closer to Dumb and Dumber. Although Happy and Toby are able to start venting out the hydrogen by using a water bottle to hit the button they need to get to, Toby passes out from the pressure and the water bottle lights the elevator certificate on fire, which causes the mind shaft to explode, leaving them trapped.Raja the station scientist realizes he can get the miners to lower a rope down another mine shaft and rescue the team. Unfortunately, plasma has entered the collider, and destruction of the universe is still imminent. Oh, and Toby's still getting closer and closer to biting it.Paige reasons that if they vacuum-seal Toby like you would dinner leftovers, they can get rid of the pressure that's pushing the toxins into his brain. As the team gets to work saving him, a seriously dopey Walter starts to connect with Paige in a way he normally can't.They're able to bring Toby (genius IQ and all) back, and he quickly comes up with a plan to prevent universal destruction by using argon to super-cool the plasma and shut down the next big bang. Walt is sent to cut a pipe and divert the argon down toward the collider. He, however, doesn't think to make sure he's secured before he cuts the pipe and ends up hanging directly above the collider on a broken pipe. Toby tells him he has to let go and try to miss the collider when he falls because when the argon hits the pipe he will freeze to death. As the team races to catch him, he lets go and begins to fall, with them making it there to cushion his landing just in time.With the end of the world prevented, the miners are able to rescue the team and bring them back to the surface, where their IQs are restored. Back in LA, Sly decides to take a new approach to his project and builds a water filtration system mimicking the taste of the spring water on Cabe's grandfather's farm. He wants to get one in every house in West Altadena, knowing that people will then start using tap instead of bottled water because it'll taste better. Ralph conveniently brings up having Florence use her chemistry knowledge to help him with his project. Toby and Happy, meanwhile, finally decide on a doctor. And Paige, inspired by the dopey Walter moments, finds a show for them to go to, hoping to teach Walter more about music. Now back to his usual emotionless self, Walter rebuffs her, saying he has too much work to catch up on and ends up spending the night working on a new electric feedback mechanism for the particle accelerator with Florence.Random Thoughts: - The team chanting the Pi digits to make sure they were smart again was funny.-I really don't like this love triangle/square thing they're coming up with. It seems like a cheap move. Put Florence with Sly, he deserves some happiness.-Best lines go to Florence and Paige about Ralph. Florence: "Normally I dislike children. But, he's an abnormal child." Paige: "Thank you. I think."Do ya'll imagine they're going to continue with this Walter/Florence thing? Are Happy and Toby going to be parents soon? Let me know what you think below!





This weeks previously on focuses on Hondo, Jessica, and Michael Plank  and I find myself filled with growing anxiety before the episode even begins. Hondo and Jessica are my favorite TV couple right now. Nothing good can come from a recap like that.



Oh, this isnt good, Jessica says, her eyes on her phones screen. Did she just youtube the previously on?

Actually, someone has leaked the accountability proposal to the press. Someone? My money is on Plank.

And the leak is bad because Jessica wasnt ready for it to go public.

Shes going to have to be ready now.





Heads-up, guys: the writers are getting ready to pounce on you in your weakened emotional state.

Street might have to suddenly be ready too. Hes filmed by a group of bystanders, tackling a runner to the ground and then handing the mans ID over to ICE, who suspect hes an undocumented alien and haul him off.SWATs working with ICE to track down Ochoa.Street asks Hondo, and suddenly I dont expect this episode will be much fun for any of these characters.Mumford walks and talks with Hondo, mentioning Jess is,Hes seen her leaked accountability proposal. Hondo keeps his cool despite Mumfords frustrations, and suggests they hear Jess and Plank out. Hondo has a knack for making his super supportive boyfriend side seem nothing but professional, but it is professional too. He has faith in her, he trusts her, respects her, in the bedroom and at work.Can someone get Luca? I think Im going to need one of his hugs before the end of this episodeFootage of Street handing Carlos ID over to ICE hits the news, and Street can only stand and watch as he learns Carlos is being deported.Theres a lot at stake here. Theres a lot of trust currently being lost. And with the Feds now off the case, SWATs taking the heat.In retaliation for Jess proposal, her car is trashed, and its looking likely it was a cop.Hondo:Jess:Hondo:He pulls her into a hug on a city street, just as Plank pulls up, and theres no calling this anything other than what it is: the embrace of two people in a romantic relationship.Im just going to say it: I hopereally did trend on twitter during this episode.The team give Street a bit of a ribbing as they exit SWAT headquarters, but theyre also supporting him. Luca (and his awesome hugs, which Street doesnt quite receive here but maybe next time) remains one of my favorite characters.Street:Luca:Outside, people are protesting Carlos deportation. Street walks over to Carlos sister, Ariana, but Chris is close behind him, keeping him from saying something he might regret. He listens, both to Ariana, when she briefly speaks, and to Chris when she says one word:Its an order, and I love Streets character growth here, and the growth of the relationship between these characters, because the Street we met back in the pilot mightnt have been so willing to keep his mouth closed and walk away.SWAT isnt scared to discuss difficult subjects, and the writing team tackle it from both the POV of the police and the protestors with sensitivity and grace.Plank and Jessica speak in her office about Hondo. He knows about their relationship. He saw. He gives her the opportunity to truthfully answer his questions, but she effortlessly evades.Plank finally tells her.And then he hits her with the worst kind of ultimatum:That sound? That was my heart breaking  because I know not only what her decision will be, but Hondos too.The team heads to where Ochoa is. Hes not there, but two other men are, who claim Ochoa just left. The twist: theyre part of a group called Promise Guards and were there to arrest him too.In an interrogation room, we learn more about Scott and Andy Clark, who got a lead on Ochoa and attempted to make a citizens arrest. They use vacation time to hunt undocumented aliens.Deacon slips in some education for the brothers when one tries to argue US citizens pay more to go to college, and the argument is so flimsy the man quits before hes completely schooled by Deacon.Its here, at the midway point of the episode, that Jess informs Hondo that Plank knows about them. Hondo wont let her go that easy though, and, with his usual cool, calm, Hondo determination, he tells her,Im rooting for these two. Come on, Hondo. Theres gotta be a third option here. There has to be.Jess meets with Ariana. She can connect better than most she works with, having moved to the US when she was fifteen and becoming a citizen at twenty-two.a protestor asks.Jess replies.The protestor calls it a bunch of political B.S, but its not. Its 100% Jess. She means it.Inside, the team clashes over immigration. Chris keeps the full force of her emotions in check as she challenges the team to voice their opinions, but she cant suppress it completely.Hondo diffuses the situation growing between the team, agreeing its a difficult subject, and one they can discuss later over beers (or slap some gloves on and take it out on one another in the ring).I was hoping for a parallel, where a fired-up Chris is calmed by one word from Street. It doesnt happen though, because Street is meeting with Ariana in Jess office.In her office, Jess has some words of advice for Street and Ariana.she tells them. Both sides need to be heard.And Street listens, as Ariana tells him of everything her brother sacrificed to make sure she had a safe future. Shes studying to be a pediatrician, because of Carlos, and he isnt a criminal. He just wanted them to have a better life.Hondo arrives with bad news for Ariana: he has photos of Carlos and Ochoa together.But Carlos has his reasons. Ariana is DACA. Shes a DREAMer. And she now faces the threat of deportation. Carlos needed a safe place to hide her if anyone ever came for her  and Ochoa overheard this, needing a safe place himself.Knowing Ochoa could be hiding out with Arianas contact, Gregory McGahan, Chris is sent in. While speaking to McGahan she spots Ochoa in the house. With Chris intel, the team breach the house. Ochoa runs outside, armed with a knife, but Hondo, after a little hand-to-hand, disarms him.And hes arrested.Hondo confronts Plank.Plank admits.Hondo has the same suspicion I did right from the start: Plank leaked the proposals. Plank proceeds to remind Hondo, and us, of the double standard society holds for men and women. The story will end up being her and Hondos relationship, and not what shes trying to do for the city.And that look in Hondos eyes? Thats what the beginning of the end of a relationship looks like.With the promise guards looking to make an example of Ariana, SWAT moves in to protect her. The team makes quick work of Andy and his followers and get the protest back under control.Street has a nice moment where he helps Ariana to her feet and shes grateful for his support.As with real life, not everything is tied up in a neat bow. Theyre yet to hear if they can stop Carlos deportation, and having liked Ariana as a character I hope this means we get to see her again in a future episode.Meanwhile, a relationship is ending.Hondo tells Jessica.My hearts already breaking, and then Hondo delivers the emotional line that destroys me:Id really hoped maybe there could have been a way, that maybe Hondo could have found an answer other than ending this relationship.Jessica tells him.Hondo replies.Im fine. No, really. Im completely fine. Its normal to wash down a gallon of ice cream with a bottle of wine. See. Fine.Because SWAT doesnt let up, the writers throw one more heart-breaking scene at us. Carlos deportation is imminent, and Streets struggling.he tells Ariana.These characters are written with more heart than I anticipated when I dove into the pilot episode, and I fell in love with them quicker than I was expecting to. It breaks my heart when I watch them struggling, because theyre all trying so hard to just do good.Luca, buddy, about that hug?



Interview with David Rodriguez from Showtime's Original Show, THE CHI

From THE CHI to SCANDAL, David Rodriguez has been directing and producing incredible content for nearly two decades and I am thrilled to be conducting his first official interview with SpoilerTV!

David, thank you so much for granting SpoilerTV an interview! We have enjoyed watching your work on THE CHI, ANIMAL KINGDOM, CHICAGO MED, and my personal favorite, ROSEWOOD. For those who are new to your latest project, THE CHI, what can you tell us about working on this epic American drama?

As the Co-Executive Producer and Director of THE CHI, what are your favorite aspects of working on this show?

You directed three episodes on THE CHI, Alee, Ghosts, and The Whistle. What did you enjoy most about working on these episodes and did you face any challenges while filming them?

Do you have any favorite cast members? They are all amazing. Incredibly talented and committed. To the neighborhood and the everyday is exciting to go work.

The writers and cast of THE CHI are incredibly talented! How has their content influenced your work directing and producing the show?

Chicago is an incredible city! What was it like filming on location? Do you and the cast have any favorite local hangouts?

Before joining THE CHI, you worked on a long list of amazing shows. Which have been your favorite to work on and if you could pick one episode of any show you directed or produced, for new fans to watch, what would you recommend?

Talk us through your creative process? How do you prepare for directing or producing an episode of a television show?

In addition to THE CHI, what other projects are you currently working on and what can we look forward to watching in the future?

When you aren't directing or producing, how do you kick back and relax?

Any favorite places to ride?

Is there anything that we haven't covered today, that you would like to share with your fans?

***





In addition to my questions, several of David's fans submitted questions for the interview! Check them out below.





FAN QUESTIONS:

Considering the depiction of Chicago through the media's lenses, displayed to the rest of the world. What was the greatest challenge in shedding a more positive light on the city?

The show appeals to a wide audience. When creating it, did you have a specific target group of viewers?

Are the events depicted on the show based on actual cases?

Some of the characters are good people, getting caught in difficult situations. It seems like their emotions can conflict their morals. Do you (David) personally feel empathetic for the characters that he is directing? Have there been times when it was hard to direct a specific scene?





Okay, this one is actually from me (Kelly). I was devastated when Rosewood was canceled! What was it like working on that show and do you think Rosewood and Villa would have ended up together?

(I'm going to go ahead and agree with David on this one! I'm team #Rosilla all the way!)



I read that you used to be a corrections officer. What was that like?



What is your dream project to direct/produce?







David, thank you so much for your time! We have really enjoyed our time with you and we look forward to watching your work on THE CHI, as well as your future projects!



Be sure to follow David Rodriguez on Twitter, Instagram, and check out his website!





Interview Conducted By:







SpoilerTV Writer

USA TODAY Bestselling Author

http://www.spoilertv.com/search/label/KA Kelly Anne BlountSpoilerTV WriterUSA TODAY Bestselling Author

THE CHI is the most cinematically and directorially rewarding experiences I've had so far. It's been great to be such an integral part of this amazing show as a producer and director. Being responsible for launching the show, as well as maintaining the authenticity of the show and Lena Waithe's vision, is a huge responsibility that I've really enjoyed.The story is about hope and the tragedy that surrounds a community on the south side Chicago. Being from South Bronx, I have a unique understanding of that experience and journey that these characters are going through.It all starts with great writing and we have excellent writers working on this show. Script after script, the writers were amazing.In addition to working with a talented cast and crew, I inspired every director to film their best episode. I approached being the co-executive producer and director of this show with the thought that every episode should be better than the next. They should all be elevated, they should all be great.What I enjoyed most about it was getting to direct a cast that was going to go straight through for nine episodes. They were in these characters perpetually for the next four to five months. They were committed to being there day in and day out. It was great to be a part of that in the second and third episode.Going into the seventh episode, we already had momentum. I'm really proud of this episode and it's probably the best thing I have ever directed.As the producer and director, you're on the ground day in and day out. You are constantly on the set and making sure everyone is getting the support that they need. You end up having a cast that become like your children. In real life, I have four boys. They are all special in their own way and I don't love one any more than the next. In regard to the show, I was really lucky to have a cast of amazing actors. They were incredibly committed to the roles, the neighborhood, and to the spirit of THE CHI. Every day was exciting to go to work. I loved them all.I was very fortunate and blessed to experience and read some of the best television writing that I've ever read. That together with incredibly talented cast members bringing those stories to life, it makes my job so easy. It inspires me to do more, to do extra, to think about it just a little bit more. The extra shot, the extra take. The actors were all so talented, they gave me so much to work with. The incredible writing made my job so easy!I relish in the show's success and I'm excited to see what happens next season.Due to my work on Chicago PD, Chicago Med, and Chicago Fire, I was very familiar with the city when I took the job on THE CHI. I knew that the crews there had this really amazing Midwestern work ethic. They had a great, "let's get it done at any cost" attitude. They worked exceptionally hard during filming, which allowed people to enjoy their time off. People want to enjoy their families and the weekends; this cast and crew made that possible.In regard to hangouts, I lived at Gibson's. I was probably there three times a week. That became my hang out as well as the hang out for several cast and crew members.I would recommend episode seven,, of THE CHI. I think it's the best episode of television that I've ever directed. If you took the essence and the soul of what it's like to direct one hour of a dramatic piece, I think that the seventh episode encompasses everything.I also just finished episode two of Animal Kingdom, which is going to be huge and epic.As I continue to work on incredible shows, I'm hoping that every year, I can say that I've directed my best episode.Preparation includes diving into the script and understanding what is happening in the script. It's a long journey told over multiple episodes. I need to understand the characters, where they are and where they are going. Really understanding the character's journeys and whose stories I'm telling is incredibly important.Then, I focus on putting all of the pieces together. That includes everything mentioned above as well as costumes, props, etc. The prep process is so short, there is a lot to pack in before you start shooting.Once I understand what story I'm telling and where I'm telling that story, everything seems to fall into place really well. I think both geometrically as well as with a lot of emotion, which is helpful.I'm currently working on season three of Animal Kingdom, which will premiere in June.I also directed episode six of The Resident and episode eleven of Chicago Med, which airs in a few weeks.Riding my Harley Davidson.Any mountain, any canyon. I've also enjoyed riding the back country of Illinois and Wisconsin. Sturgis is on my bucket list. I've been working so much, I haven't had an opportunity to take a long vacation or trips.Keep following my work. At some point, I'm hoping to create a couple things on my own. No spoilers or sneak peeks at this time.I love the one-hour drama format and serialized shows. I gravitate toward things that are grounded in reality. That said, I'd be interested in the science fiction world, as long as it's grounded in the real world.I don't know if I ever had a challenge in shedding a positive light on Chicago. I think the media tends to polarize certain situations, especially the gun violence in Chicago. There's gun violence everywhere. The show wasn't about that, it's about people.Drawing on my own background, I came up in a good neighborhood with good people wanting to do good things. I used that to inspire the actors to take a more responsible approach to the characters they are portraying.I also had a conversation with them about the n word. It seemed to be the go too word as a filler for some of the actors. I said, "Let's not be that show that's dropping the n word every other sentence. Let's be the show, that shows the community of people watching at large that this is not what we're all about. The well is deeper. The wants and desires are positive."I never felt like it was a challenge to depict Chicago in a positive light. It was an inspiration to take the community and the people living there and try to create the most positive characters possible, especially with all of the negativity surrounding them.We wanted to put a great story on film, that people wanted to watch. Regardless of race, age, etc. People across the board are really enjoying the show.Generally, the show is about many of Lena's experiences, but I can't answer that specifically. I don't know if the show is a depiction of one specific situation.For sure. Emotions and past decisions can cloud anyone's judgement, including mine. The difficult scenes lead to longer discussions. We talked about every scene.To give a specific example, when Jason calls his friend at the restaurant and tells him that he needs to get the gun, it was a jump. It was a big jump. Where does it go next? I think that when you saw episodes three and four, it's obvious what happened. The better parts of Brandon motivated his thought process, but it was definitely a conversation that we had. This was a big leap for Brandon. I think that we all, as an audience member, understood the pain that he was going through.Oh man. *Laughs* I don't know. Maybe they get married?That was a fun part of my life. I was a corrections officer and then a police officer on the streets for a short time.That part of my life impacted how I work as a director and how I deal with people. Ultimately, everybody needs attention and to be loved. Serving as a correctional and police officer helped shape me as a director.I'd love to direct a ginormous Marvel or DC Comics movie, one with all of the bells and whistles. I really like Punisher a lot as well as Spiderman. I loved the Spiderman cartoons from the late seventies and early eighties and a movie focusing on that version of Spiderman would be great story to tell!That said, I'm already experiencing my dream right now. I wake up every day and drive to the Warner Brother's lot. I love what I do and I love going to work!Catalina Horak is uncertain as to what factor produced a doubling of donations for her Building One Community last week on Fairfield Countys Giving Day, whether the Trump administration upping the stakes on immigration reform, or she and her staff increasing their own efforts to get the word out.

But Building One Community has more than $14,000 more in the bank today thanks to donors who gave as little as $20 each to the Stamford agency that helps steer immigrants to organizations that can help their families for any number of needs.

Held on March 1, the day before home Internet connections across southwestern Connecticut were knocked out in a noreaster, Fairfield Countys Giving Day helped 415 nonprofits raise $1.4 million from more than 13,000 donors.

I think one of the things we tried to emphasize this year is that no gift is too small, Horak said. As a matter of fact, we created a (Twitter) hashtag that was #FCGives20  like $20  so that people would know they could give that amount.

For a fifth straight year, Curtain Call led all participants with more than $66,000 in donations, which coupled with $21,000 in prizes awarded by organizer Fairfield Countys Community Foundation gave the Stamford theater company $87,000 in total proceeds.

The only Stamford nonprofit generating more prize money was the Stamford nonprofit Kids Helping Kids, which captured $22,000 by being the top fundraiser during a power hour segment during the day, with the prizes backed by Bank of America and other sponsors.

Jennifer Kelley, the organizations executive director who credits her daughter Lexi with the idea for the nonprofit, said the teens that drive the organizations efforts perked up after hearing about the prize money that could be had. Kelley said she did not know whether this years donations may have been influenced as well by high school students nationally making their voices heard on the issue of violence prevention and gun control after the school attack in Parkland, Fla.

Kids Helping Kids has come a long way on Fairfield Countys Giving Day  Kelley recalls the organizations first effort that resulted in 13 donors chipping in.

The kids certainly came up with some great ideas, Kelley said. Weve got so many kids from so many different schools with amazing ideas and our philosophy really is, a lot of people doing a little can make a huge difference in someones life.Staff Sgt. Todd Pouliot / 40th Public Affairs Detachment

Boeing reportedly won a key endorsement from the Israel Defense Forces in a competition to replace a fleet of more than 20 large Sikorsky helicopters in use for nearly 50 years.

The IDF Ground Forces Command reportedly recommended a variant of the Boeing Chinook helicopter as the military arms new heavy-lift helicopter, according to a Monday report in the Jerusalem Post citing an unnamed military source, with Sikorsky competing with the CH-53K King Stallion it is developing for the U.S. Marine Corps.BROOKFIELD  Emily Goncalves often dreamed of a California vacation during the 11 months she endured intensive chemotherapy, surgery and physical therapy.

On Saturday morning, the 19-year-old found her dream coming true when a limo pulled up to her home in Seymour.

Now, that was a surprise, she said.

The limo delivered the whole Goncalves family to Chick-Fil-A in Brookfield  Emily and her brother Matthews favorite restaurant  to meet with the volunteer team from Dream Come True of Western Connecticut, the Danbury-based nonprofit that helps fulfill the dreams of children and young people battling serious or terminal illnesses.

The final package was even more than the Goncalves had hoped: An all-expenses-paid, five-day package to Los Angeles and Universal Studios Hollywood, including VIP passes to Universal and a rental car to tour southern Californias most famous spots.

The vacation will be the Goncalves first in five years and will help conclude the most trying time the family has experienced, they said.

Last April, Emily was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a common form of cancer that begins in the bones.

It was at the end her first year at Southern Connecticut State University, and after experiencing several months of knee pain, she wound up visiting doctors at the Yale New Haven Hospital. An X-ray revealed a mass in her femur above the left knee and within weeks she had begun radiation treatments.

The treatments were brutal, said Tracy Goncalves, her mother. The two would spend days at a time at the hospital, shuttling back and forth from home on the weekends to pack things for an entire week. Goncalves, who works for the Tauck touring company, would work remotely from Emilys bedside.

They went through 10 weeks of treatment before knee surgery in August  replacing all but Emilys left kneecap in the process, Tracy Goncalves said. Then more treatments through the rest of 2017.

Its been an overwhelming and long year, Tracy Goncalves said. Im glad its over ... Obviously, you think something like this will never happen to you, so youre shocked when it does, but the support from friends and family is very nice.

Around Halloween, the Goncalves were referred to Dream Come True of Western Connecticut to discuss the possibility of the group offering the family a vacation.

Since 1984, the group has helped more thn 250 children and young people in Fairfield, Litchfield and New Haven counties. Volunteers Melinda Fall and Heather Perrault met with the family several times and talked with Emily about what her dream vacation would look like.

The family has traveled up and down the East Coast, but had never made it out west, Emily told them. Dream Come True had never sent an entire family to the West Coast, but after some research, it became clear the organization could fulfill Emilys plan after all, Fall said.

Time is so important to these families and theyre dealing with so much, said Fall, who has volunteered for four years. We want to be able to make their dream come true and handle it all for them. They wake up and theres nothing to worry about. and the plan is all taken care of. Its just them and their time together.

Its been two months since Emilys last round of chemotherapy and shes now working through several months of physical therapy. She still meets with her doctors regularly to make sure the cancer hasnt returned and she is still being treated for cardiomyopathy caused by the radiation treatments, Tracy Goncalves said.

Emily is most excited to see the tourist spots across Los Angeles, like the Hollywood Walk of Fame and Hollywood Wax Museum. Her dad, Joe, is thrilled to return on vacation to the state hes traveled to on business before and her 20-year-old brother, Matthew, hopes to sneak in some skateboarding at the famed Venice Beach Skatepark.

But when Emily returns, shes most excited about pursuing her next dream: Her career as an oncology nurse.

Emily already had begun her pre-nursing coursework last year, but the past year has made her even more determined to graduate and pursue a masters degree, she said.

Ive always wanted to be a nurse, but after my experience, I want to go back on the floor and be that same nurse for someone else.Not all the thousands of people who regularly pass beneath her glance up, but occasionally, one will stop for a better look. She hangs from the ceiling of the Landside Terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport with her name, Miss Pittsburgh, written on her nose.

Further back, on the fuselage of this very old airplane, are the words U.S. MAIL.

Once, she represented the very beginnings of successful, commercial aviation in this part of the country. It is no exaggeration to claim that this 85-year-old, single-engine, canvas-covered Waco 9, along with her identical, open cockpit hangar mates Miss Youngstown and Miss McKeesport, were the planes that helped launch an industry. Two of todays best-known airlinesUS Airways and United Airlinestrace their growing years to Pittsburgh.

It took a rare combination of personalities and events starting in the early 1920s to create the air industry we know now. Two local men with an intense interest in aviation came together at the right time. Clifford Ball, a McKeesport automobile dealer, had been fascinated by aerial demonstrations at a field on a hill above Dravosburg, across the Monongahela River from McKeesport. The field was 40 acres owned by D. Barr Peat, who invited pilots to come and entertain folks who hardly knew what airplanes looked like.

In 1924, Ball mortgaged everything, borrowed the rest, and bought the property from Peat for $35,000. He erected a building that was a combination machine shop and hot dog stand. Peat, now a partner in the operation, cut down trees, ran the tractor, and molded the property into what they first called Pittsburgh/McKeesport Airport and later simply Bettis Field, in honor of World War I army pilot Lt. Cyrus Bettis. (The site is now the Bettis Westinghouse Atomic Facility.)

With no clear plan, activities at the airport were limited. They had two old airplanes, and offered rides for $5, flying lessons, parachute jumps, fireworks launched from airplanes, and hot dogs. They charged visitors 25 cents to watch the planes cavort in the air. Balls secretary, Helen Stinner, served as gatekeeper and ticket taker and was surprised that a good day could produce $500. However, both men wanted something more than running a weekend flying circus. A political connection of Balls would pay off in dramatic fashion.

The advent of airmail

U.S. Congressman Melville Clyde Kelly had published newspapers in McKeesport and Braddock. Popular and ambitious, he served two terms in the Pennsylvania Assembly, and in 1917 won election to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he chaired the Post Office committee. With help from the influential Aero Club of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Chamber of Commerce, Ball convinced his friend Kelly to sponsor federal legislation changing the delivery of airmail.

Earlier airmail attempts had proved inefficient and dangerous. Of the initial 40 Army Air Corps pilots involved, three died in crashes in 1919 and nine more in 1922. Limited pilot experience, dangerous weather, and flying at night over unfamiliar territory were to blame, as was the mail must go through mentality. When the Kelly Airmail Act became law in 1925, not one Pennsylvania city had airmail delivery.

The new law authorized the federal government for the first time to designate airmail routes and to contract with private parties for their operation. Historians call it the cornerstone of the modern air carrier industry. Ball received airmail route No. 11the 127-mile flight between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. The first official flight took off from Bettis Field at noon, April 21, 1927, a few months before Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic.

Purchasing airplanes and meeting growing payroll and operational costs were expensive, but one flight in a Waco 9 loaded with mail bags could return as much as $1,500. Balls pilots included men with such marvelous names as Curly Lovejoy, Merle Moltrop and Dewey Noyes. Ball called his airline Path of the Eagle and soon began carrying passengers to a growing number of cities. His first passenger was vaudeville entertainer Will Rogers, who paid $20 for a Miss Pittsburgh flight to Cleveland, sitting on a pile of mail bags.

It was about this time that Helen Stinner became a one-person public relations dynamo. She visited post offices in McKeesport, Youngstown and Pittsburgh, set up a portable booth, chatted with postal patrons, and explained how they could send airmail letters for 10 cents an ounce. By the end of 1927, Balls little airline had carried almost 10 tons, and in the next two years, it soared past 91 tons. Ball purchased some Fairchild FC-2, four-person, closed-cabin aircraft and in August 1929 began the first scheduled passenger service to Washington from the west. Pittsburgh-area businessmen, noting Balls success, began forming new airline companies to compete in the growing industry.

A new industry

Enter prominent Pittsburgh attorney George R. Hann. In 1928, he arranged a meeting with A.L. Humphrey, president of Westinghouse Airbrake Corp., to discuss commercial aviation. Hann brought in University of Pittsburgh professor Bedell Monro and his brother-in-law Fred Crawford. Together, they attracted more than $1 million in investments and started the Pittsburgh Aviation Industries Corp. (PAIC). Envisioning a national airline, they soon combined with Transcontinental & Western Air (T&WA, which became TWA). PAIC got 5 percent of the stock in the new creation, which they called Pennsylvania Airlines (PAL). After carrying 7,000 passengers in 1931, they purchased 12 Tri-Motor Ford Airliners, and by 1933 had 14,000 passengers.

The economic engine helping to drive the business was the profitable airmail contract. In 1930, Ball, citing what he called economic and political pressure, reluctantly sold his airline interest to PAIC for $130,000. His valuable airmail contract was part of the deal. He was given a position as vice president of operations, but soon quit. He and Helen Stinner, now married, went to Florida for six lazy months to regroup.

Meanwhile, the airline industry was about to weather a series of disturbing events. Amid charges (some valid) of industry-wide fraud and corruption, President Roosevelt cancelled all airmail contracts in February 1934. The Air Corps was again called on to deliver airmail, but with the same handicaps and tragic results of 1919 and 1920. In the first week, five pilots died. Of 26 ensuing crashes, 12 were fatal. The government retrenched, announcing that all airmail contracts would be rebid. Previous contractors were barred from the process, so PAL stockholders simply reorganized the company, calling it Pennsylvania Airlines and Transport Co. Heated competition and confusing name changes became industry norms.

Pittsburgher Jim Condon and brothers John H. and Richard W. Coulter created Central Airlines. With the reorganized PAL and Central flying similar routes out of the new Allegheny County Airport, the infighting became bitter. Fares were cut and cut again. Each company accused the other of stealing passengers when departure times coincided. Neither made profits, so the obvious solution was a merger, and in 1936, Pennsylvania Central Airlines (PCA) came to be. By the end of 1938, the airline had carried 85,000 passengers.

PCA replaced its fleet of 10 passenger Boeing 247Ds with state-of-the art DC-3s, the iconic airplane that made commercial flying not only more profitable but safer and faster. It moved its headquarters to Washington National Airport, but economic pressures continued. New management changed the name to Capital Airlines in 1946 and enjoyed several years of success, becoming the fifth-largest domestic carrier. The wild series of mergers continued, culminating in the 1961 merger of Capital into United Airlines, creating the worlds largest commercial airline with a route network spanning the country. A relative stability followed, which ended only with the terrorist attack of 2001, from which the industry has never fully recovered.

Balls legacy

Cliff Ball must have watched western Pennsylvanias dizzying aviation history with a degree of bitter amusement. Although without an airline of his own, he came home to play a huge leadership role in the local industry. During World War II, he was director of Graham Aviation in Butler, which trained Air Corps pilots. He became the first superintendent of the Greater Pittsburgh Airport when it opened in 1952, later serving as director of the Allegheny County Department of Aviation until 1958. He long presided over the prestigious Aero Club of Pittsburgh, whose membership included not just pilots but the captains of many local industries. Despite his influence, he remained humble. Ball, who died in 1972, never acquired a pilots license, but his wife Helen did. Ever an active aviation enthusiast, she counted among her friends such luminaries as Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. She often flew to Washington to visit with Ernie Pyle, who was an aviation writer there before he became famous as a roving World War II newspaper columnist.

The grande dame returns

In 1960, Kingston, N.Y. businessman Marty Horan saw an old airplane being used for advertising at Floridas Tamiami Airport. It was Miss Pittsburgh. Horan bought the aircraft and flew her for fun for several years. Later, he had Miss Pittsburgh dismantled and shipped to the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in Rhinebeck, N.Y. for use in vintage airplane air shows. Apparently, however, she was never reassembled.

In 1992, Frank Gustafson of Swissvale spotted the letters BURGH on a piece of an old airplane amid odds and ends in a corner of a hangar at Rhinebeck. He then found the wingless fuselage, still on wheels. Gustafson told former airline pilot Jim Taylor of Bethel Park what he had seen, and word spread. Soon, local aviation enthusiasts combined to bring what was left of Miss Pittsburgh back home, and in 2000, Horan agreed to sell the old plane to the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania for $62,000.

Kent George, then the Allegheny County Airport Authority director, committed $25,000 to a fundraising campaign launched by local aviation groups. The two-year restoration of Miss Pittsburgh began, manned by experts, students and volunteers alike.

Of the airplanes that carried the early mail in this region, Miss McKeesport resides in a Columbus, Ohio museum. Miss Youngstown has simply disappeared. But on April 28, 1995, a bright nylon covering was pulled away at the Pittsburgh International Airport, and there, hanging from the ceiling, was Miss Pittsburgh.

Shes in the air again in the city where she helped launch commercial aviation. Outside, sleek, loud, wide-bodied jetliners climb steeply into the sky while little, twin-winged Miss Pittsburgh hangs silently, frozen in time.STAMFORD  With more than 67 languages spoken at the homes of its public school students, its safe to say Stamford is a diverse city. Now native speakers and language scholars alike will have a chance to prove their skills with a newly offered seal of biliteracy.

Superintendent Earl Kim announced last month that Stamford Public Schools will offer the seal, which recognizes students who read and speak two languages. The imprint will go on student transcripts and diplomas and is available to students who pass an assessment proving proficiency in their language of expertise.

This is the first time that the district is offering the certification to students at all three Stamford public high schools, after Connecticut became one of 27 states to adopt the Seal of Biliteracy program in June 2016.

Kristina Lawson, department head of the English Learner and World Language programs at Stamford High, said she had a line of students out the door of her office last week who were interested in signing up to take the test before the March 9 deadline.

Its very impressive to me because this was a very short timeline for kids, Lawson said. The info went up over February break. To have kids turn around something that fast and be so excited about it is great for us.

Lawson will meet with all applicants over the coming weeks and review their eligibility to take the assessment. Should they pass, the students will get an embossed gold seal on their diploma, plus a gold medal to wear at graduation. Lawson said some colleges also offer credit for having the seal which can also prove biliteracy to future employers.

The seal will be available to any senior in a world language course who can score a 3 or higher in the reading, writing, listening and speaking parts of the Assessment of Performance toward Proficient in Language exam that will be offered in April. Juniors who score a 3 or higher on an equivalent Advanced Placement exam and heritage speakers who pass a language assessment will also be eligible for the seal. Applicants are required to have four years of English credits and meet the districts English, Reading and Writing Performance Standards.

Students who are native language speakers and interested in getting the seal need to take an assessment as a measure of consistency. According to Lawson, the district will offer assessments covering 98 percent of the languages spoken at home by senior students, including Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. The district will offer assessments in Hindi and Italian next year.

One reason were not just using pathway of AP exams is because so many students come to use already literate in their first language and theyre not taking it as an AP class in high school, Monica Hoherchak, a curriculum associate for professional development for English language instruction in Stamford. Some are taking it outside high school. We celebrate the fact theyre maintaining a native language.STAMFORD  City students will join a nationwide walkout this month to raise awareness to school gun violence in a similar demonstration to protests held last year to Betsy DeVos getting appointed as secretary of education.

On February 23, 2017, Stamford High School students rushed out of classrooms and took to the streets to protest the DeVos appointment.

Students of all backgrounds came together on the front steps of SHS, holding picket signs with raging remarks like: Listen to the people and DeVos is hurting our future, as well as ones that poked fun at some of the obscure remarks DeVos had made during her confirmation hearing in 2016, such as:DeVos is unBEARable, which derives from the discussion she had at the hearing as to why she believes guns belong in our schools, claiming they are imperative in order to protect students from potential grizzly bear attacks in classrooms.

DeVos has spent much of the past year advocating for an increase in charter school accessibility to American school children, a platform she has stuck to since President Donald Trump nominated her in 2016 for the position.

The perception that DeVos continues to neglect public school systems has frustrated students like Jared Barrientos (SHS class of 2017) and Samantha Heller (SHS class of 2019), who have spoken out about what has been happening in schools like theirs.

Barrientos and Heller reflected on the rally and their thoughts on DeVos first year.

Round Table: If you guys could go back in time to the weeks leading up to the protest, what, if anything would you have done differently and why?

Heller: Overall, I think the rally was effective in getting the overall message across. I feel like at the end of the day, thats all that matters: we informed people about the overarching issue that we were rallying against and we were able to get students to participate.

Barrientos: I agree, but I do feel like there are steps we could have taken in order to have made it even better and more successful than it already was; like planning out the walk-out beyond just standing in the front lot and holding up signs.

Heller: We also could have better educated people about DeVos policies and genuinely inform them as to why they were bad rather than just having angry people come outside and yell over something theyre angry at, however arent entirely sure as to why they are angry, like how she isnt a genuine supporter of the public school system.

Round Table: I think many of us can agree that we havent heard much about DeVos lately, but do you guys think shes the powerhouse behind all of these budget cuts that Stamford High, along with other schools across the state, have encountered during this current school year?

Barrientos: No. Thats all Hartford and Gov. Malloy that have resulted in the defunding of Connecticut schools. Thats not DeVos agenda.

Heller: Exactly. Initially, I also thought that these cuts, and the elimination of educational programs like the number of para-media educators in our school libraries, was the work of DeVos. Im sure if you had told me back in February, at the time of the protest, that these cuts would happen, I would have definitely blamed them on DeVos. But now I know that its all Hartford.

Barrientos: Yeah, which again reiterates that we should have known, at the time of organizing the protest, whats in DeVos control and what isnt.

Round Table: Going forward, what do you guys expect to see from DeVos in terms of helping and hurting the public school system?

Barrientos: I think only hurting is what were expected to see out of DeVos. I mean were talking about someone who completely undermines and opposes a public school education. And thats the problem right there: regardless of whether or not she personally supports the public school system, its not the secretary of educations job to be openly opinionated and allow these opinions to influence her decision-making. The secretary of education needs to be someone that is willing to put their thoughts and opinions aside in order to improve the education system/curriculum in our nations schools

Heller: But it is critical that the secretary of education be a supporter in of our public schools, given that her main objective is to improve the public school system, not to have the mindset that public schools are failing our students and therefore we should be going to charter schools and putting our nations revenue into the construction of more charter schools.

Barrientos: Yeah, education is struggling as it is, and shes only going to make it worse.

Heller: Overall, Im just glad that we did something.

Barrientos: I agree. At the end of the day, all that matters is that we did something, rather than just staying silent, and by doing the protest we also showed the SHS community that everyone has a voice in society, and that everyone has the opportunity to let their voices be heard.The role of women in the workplace has assumed enormous proportions. The Economist named the economic empowerment of women as one of the most remarkable revolutions of the past 50 years. Women contribute more than $3 trillion to the economy and own over 36 percent of all businesses. Companies with women founders have performed 63 percent better than all-man teams and have also received higher valuations.

Despite these remarkable statistics, startups with women founders received only 2 percent of the entire venture capital funding last year. While no startup has it easy with funding, women seem to have it particularly hard. Here are a few reasons why.

1. Women are asked different questions.

The unconscious bias between men and women has been hard to quantify until the Harvard Business Review team decided to analyze conversations of VC decision-making conversations behind closed doors. After analyzing 125 applications and nearly 36 hours of decision-making time, the team concluded that potential male founders were questioned along the lines of the potential of growth and future possibilities of the venture they were pitching.

Related: 50 Ways Women Entrepreneurs Can Fund Their Businesses

Conversely, questions to the female founders centered around being cautious with money and the associated risks. This distinction in use of language led to a different perception of personas, thereby leading to a much lower success rate for women founders.

2. VC networks are men's clubs.

Much of the ecosystem in the VC world is built around networks -- the number of contacts you can readily reach out to for support. Womens networks suffer because women tend to be more conscious of work-life balance and bear a greater share of child-care responsibility. (No wonder the Can women have it all? debate is still hot.)

Also, male founders have another natural advantage. The VC community is predominantly male. Communities tend to look out for their own.

3. The default profile of a successful entrepreneur is male.

According to Candida Brush, a professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College, one of the reasons women dont receive funding is that the generic profile of the successful entrepreneur is almost always male. When asked to picture the image of a successful male, Brushs students require 6-10 tries to get to a successful female entrepreneur. It is always a Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg before an Arianna Huffington or Sara Blakely, which may be the cause for an unconscious bias against women entrepreneurs approaching venture capitalists. Brush urges the need for this default image to be consciously changed.

Related: 4 Things Women Entrepreneurs Need to Know Before Approaching Angel Investors and VCs

Another study led by Harvard professor Alison Wood Brooks established that entrepreneurial pitches delivered by men were viewed more favorably than those by women, even when the content of the pitch was exactly the same.

4. Women tend to be more cautious, and it backfires.

Amanda Brown, executive director of the National Womens Business Council, states that the issues of funding for women-owned companies mirror the chicken-and-egg problem. According to Brown, women tend to bootstrap longer, and that dents their credit scores.

Since procurement of loans on a bad credit score is hard, bootstrapping begins to stifle the growth of business because infusion of funds into the company is at a much slower rate. This creates an image of the woman entrepreneur being complacent or unsuccessful, in comparison to their male counterparts.

5. Women must brave a big power imbalance.

The recent deluge of the #MeToo campaigns has helped articulate the problem that women are much more likely to face than men. Being a venture capitalist places men (already a majority in the VC circles) in a position of power that could help them get away with heaping indignities on women, without as much as a scratch to their reputations or their businesses, placing women in incredibly vulnerable positions.

6. Women lack a tribe.

There arent enough VC firms with women to help women founders feel naturally understood. Men funding women founders are more open to funding companies by women that provide girly services -- like womens clothes or baby stuff after checking with their wives. No man would ever hear that. The battle gets that much harder when pitching for tech ideas.

Related: Being a Female Entrepreneur Can Be Incredibly Lonely. This Founder Is Changing That.

The more women we bring to the decision-making side of the table, the more the skew of the male VC ecosystem is offset. VC firms with more women determined to see women entrepreneurs succeed are the need of the hour.

Related:

6 Disadvantages Confronting Female Entrepreneurs Seeking Venture Capital

This Military Veteran Drained Her Bank Account to Build Her Sauce Brand

Need to Negotiate? Here's the Best Way to Advocate for Yourself for Maximum Impact.



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com

STAMFORD  City police seized 72 pounds of high-grade marijuana during a North Stamford drug raid that also broke up a THC vape cartridge factory.

Capt. Richard Conklin said the raid took place during the height of the noreaster that lashed Stamford Friday evening.

The investigation, which is ongoing, led to the arrests of seven people and the estimated worth of the confiscated marijuana alone was $250,000 to $350,000, he said.

Uniformed officers and the Special Response Team (SWAT) helped officers from the Narcotics and Organized Crime squad with the search of the large home on Briar Brae because they became aware that weapons were involved in the alleged drug operation, he said.

Along with the marijuana and 200 vape cartridges, police found $6,572 in cash, as well as an illegal assault weapon called a Tech9, with a high capacity magazine. A 2007 Bentley automobile, apparently purchased with the profits of drug dealing, was also confiscated, according to Conklin.

Delroy Anderson, 51, who was renting the property, had the graphic materials and parts necessary to assemble the vape cartridges inside the home, according to Conklin.

Andersons criminal defense attorney Mark Sherman said the people arrested were friends getting together for a birthday party. It is unclear at this point where this contraband was found and where it came from.

Anderson was an honorably discharged Air Force veteran, Sherman said, and we are going to review the police reports and move quickly toward a fair resolution.

Stephen DeLeo, who is representing Odane Levy, 34, of Bronx, New York, said the states theory of the case appears to be constructive possession, requiring more than mere presence to be found guilty of possessing the marijuana or the assault weapon.

We will have to see what is going on through the discovery process, DeLeo said.

Levys birthday of Feb. 22 was the most recent birthday of any of the defendants swept up in the raid. Three of the others had birthdays earlier in February.

This was a very large seizure and a very interesting investigation, Conklin said. This very large house had a lot of comings and goings while it was under surveillance.

Anderson and Levy, along with Ricardo Dempster, 33, of Queens, New York; Mario Dudley, 48, of Norristown, Pennsylvania; Gavin Elphie, 31, of Queens, New York; Garth Tyme, 50, of Kennesaw, Georgia and Abdullah Young, 40, of Norristown, Pennsylvania, were charged with possession of an illegal assault weapon, possession of a high capacity magazine, possession of more than a kilo of marijuana, operating a drug factory and sale of a controlled substance.

Conklin said many of those arrested had extensive criminal backgrounds involving drugs, weapons and other offenses.

All but Anderson were held in lieu a $250,000 cash court appearance bond. Anderson was held on a $350,000 cash bond. Judge Gary White changed the bonds to surety bonds and Anderson was released after posting a $400,000 bond.STAMFORD  Reality show host Steve Wilkos made a brief appearance at the Stamford courthouse to put in his application for a court diversionary program that could erase a drunk driving charge that he picked up in Darien in January.

Wilkos, 53, swore to Judge Richard Comerford that he has not participated in the Alcohol Education Program in the past 10 years, but left the rest of the talking to his attorney Eugene Riccio.

Wilkos, who lives in Darien, is scheduled to return to the courthouse on April 16, when a decision is expected to be made on whether or not he will be allowed into the program.

Sitting on a court bench at the rear of the courtroom in a seat closest to the exit door, Wilkos appeared to be nervous. A woman sitting next to him used Wilkos handkerchief to dab sweat off his brow and trademark bald head just a moment before his appearance before the judge.

Wilkos and his attorney declined comment as he left the courthouse.

If allowed to participate in the program, Wilkos will be evaluated by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. Wilkos may be assigned to a 10-week educational program or a 15-week program or a treatment program. He may also be required to participate on a panel with drunk driving victims.

If successfully completed, the charges against Wilkos would be dismissed.

The charges against Wilkos came after he flipped his Lexus SUV on West Avenue, near Turnabout Lane in Darien on Jan. 21.

With his car resting on the passenger side of the vehicle, the windshield had to be removed and Wilkos was pulled out, his arrest affidavit said. The first officer on the scene said he could smell alcohol coming from Wilkos, who was unable to answer any other questions.

Later after police executed a search warrant for Wilkos medical records, it was determined he had a blood alcohol content level of .29, or more than three times the limit of .08  the point at which one may be charged with drunk driving in Connecticut.There once was a dog named Stormy. When he was very young, a man became his friend and carefully introduced him to all sorts of people, places and situations. He kept little Stormy away from frightening things, and Stormy grew up to love people and the world.



Every morning of his life, he jumped as far onto his friends side of the bed as he was allowed, excited to see his friend again and eager to start the new day.

Every time visitors came, Stormy bounced all over. Lie down! said his friend, and Stormy obeyed but couldnt lie still and crawled to the guests, his tail thumping the floor.

Stormy was an Airedalethe king of the terriers. He was 65 poundstough, strong, fast, and sweet. He loved other dogs, and he loved chasing deer in the big yard. But when the deer realized he wouldnt hurt them, they stopped running and just looked at Stormy. And he looked back, not sure if hed rather chase them or play.

Stormy and his friend went everywhere together: the farm in Ohio, the beach in Florida, even some big cities. But their favorite thing was fishing on Lake Huron in Michigan. They often left before sunrise, and Stormy was the first in the boat.

One fall day, his friend took Stormy duck hunting. Stormy stayed out of sight as his friend and the other men hid, waiting. When the ducks flew in, the men stood and flames shot from their guns, and thunder shattered the air. And some of the ducks who had been flying moments before now floated dead in the water.

Stormy didnt like it. And from then on, whenever his friend carried a gun, Stormy shied away. His friend, however, hadnt noticed, and the next time he fired his gun on the island, Stormy ran as far away as he could, deep into the woods, where coyotes and wolves lived.

His friend searched and searched and was very happy when he finally found Stormy the next day. And that was the last time he carried a gun around Stormy.

For Stormy, the years passed happily with a similar rhythm. Late winter and early spring meant trips to the farm. Summer and fall meant life on the island in Michigan and fishing. He loved roaming free on the farm and the island.

Then came the holidays, the happy times when the three children returned home. January was the toughest. It was too cold for Stormy to stay outside long, and it was his friends busiest work month. We just need to make it through January, he told Stormy.

On one January morning, Stormy woke his friend as usual, and they went downstairs. His friend stopped at the bottom stair and sat down with Stormy. He did that sometimes, giving Stormy a little hug and saying nice things. But on this morning, he gave Stormy the longest hug of his life, and he said the nicest things hed ever said. His friend was surprised by it himself and smiled and said, Hmm.

On that day, under the snow, Stormys electric fence didnt work as he reached the edge of the yard. So Stormy decided to visit the dogs hed often heard barking. Maybe some new friends. As he crossed the road, something big and fast and hard hit him. And the last thing he remembered was lying down to rest.

Some people say an angel came and took his spirit to heaven. His body, however, lay there peacefully, waiting for his friend, who searched and searched and finally found him.

He carried Stormy back to the yard and together they climbed the long hill to the house one last timeright to the spot where Stormy always sat, surveying the broad expanse below. The man said a prayer and buried Stormy there. The man also remembered something his grandmother had once said, and he said, Well, we were fortunate to have had him as long as we did.

Word spread across the neighborhoodmany others had searched for Stormy tooand even across the country. And family, friends, the garbage maneven people whod never met Stormy were sorry to hear that he had left the world.

And in the next week, something unusual happened. A procession of animals came to the spot where he was buried. First, it was birds, then squirrels, then a rabbit. And finally, a herd of deer came right to the spota place theyd never been when Stormy was alive. And they paused for a few minutes, as if to say farewell, before slowly descending the hill.GUILFORD  One person has died and seven others were rescued from the waters of Guilford Yacht Club after a barge capsized, a U.S. Coast Guard spokesman out of New York said Saturday.

U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Hunter Medley said although his agency assisted both by helicopter and boat, the Guilford police and fire departments took the lead on the rescue and recovery.T he weekends floods and water shortages in London inevitably renew angry calls to nationalise our utilities.

While Im no apologist for Thames Water and the rest, I cant see how bringing this infrastructure back into the bosom of the state will spur the increase in investment they need to prevent such crises next time.

If state funding cant be found for hospitals when the sick and injured are being treated in corridors at A&E, its hard to believe much will be found to replace old water pipes that may or may not burst in a once-every-decade cold snap.

But water companies must be more responsive to public anger at their sins and shortcomings. And there have been plenty of those: offshore tax structures, huge dividends going to short-term shareholders, fat-cat pay, all exacerbate public anger at leaks and river pollution.

In fairness to Thames, it is nowadays owned by long-term investors and isnt currently paying a dividend. But given repeated leaks and reports from Londoners about their appalling treatment by its customer service staff over the weekend, it has a long way to go yet.

So heres an idea. Why not tie the pay of chief Steve Robertson and his team to the companys record on customer service and leaks, rather than profit?

A sure way to focus minds.

Sorry development

Another day, another set of government speeches shirking responsibility for the lack of housebuilding in the UK.

Theresa May today blames property companies for being too slow to develop their land, but experience in London suggests state landowners are far more sluggish than the private sector.

Down at the vast regeneration of Battersea and Vauxhall, its the old Royal Mail sorting office that remains undeveloped, not the projects owned by Berkeley, Barratt, Bellway and the like. Transport for London is sitting on more undeveloped land awaiting building than any private builder.

May  who recently intervened to block a development in her own constituency  blames builders for not developing when they get planning permission. What she doesnt say is that there are two stages to planning: outline permission  approval in principle  and detailed permission  only granted after developers have achieved certain conditions. Outline permission may be given, but councils have laid off so many planning officers there are few people left to sign off detailed approval. Housing is in a tangle that requires wide ranging thought. Just attacking developers gets us nowhere.

Picture perfectH es an unlikely figure to cause Ministers of the Crown to tremble in their pinstriped kecks, isnt he? You struggle to imagine a frisson of fear as John Bercow approaches you in a corridor with designs on your lunch money. Oy! Whos that? Me. Down here. Hand over the cash or Ill headbutt you in the nuts. Bless! OUCH! etc.

Yet ministers are now complaining to newspapers that the Speaker of the House of Commons is a bully. Reference is made to a couple of recent sharp remarks  telling the Chancellor, for instance, to stick to your abacus, man  with the implication that a sarky remark is in some way a threat to the self-esteem or even mental health of MPs.

With a magnificent lack of self-awareness, one of Bercows anonymous accusers is quoted as saying: How can you say you want there to be zero tolerance of bullying and then go around calling people names and belittling them? Its classic small-man syndrome. I think you can high-mindedly object to snide jibes and stereotypes, or you can call the Speaker a jumped-up little short-arse, but not both in the same quote. I know which position I prefer.

Taking accusations of bullying seriously is, of course, something to be done these days with solemn piety. But who speaks up for the bullies? Some of them do a valuable job. Take your standard-issue regimental sergeant-major of the Well both call each-other Sir but the only difference is that you will mean it type. He does not call his spittle-flecked victims orrible little men for his own amusement but to batter them into some sort of usefulness.

And does not the Speaker have, in the context of the Commons, something of the role of that old-school RSM? His job  as it has been since the 13th century  is to call to order a noisy rabble of pompous, shouty, order-paper-waving, perma-interrupting and occasionally drunk MPs so that some sort of civilised, sensible debate on the direction of the country can take place.

Sam Leith / Daniel Hambury

He is no longer, if he ever was, simply allowed to belt them with a stick when they stray off-topic, refuse to shut up, drown out the speeches of female MPs and waste the Houses time with cheap divagations on the inadequacies of those on the facing benches. Would that he were. It must be a hell of a difficult job, and the occasional withering remark is  its reasonable to expect  part of the toolkit for getting it done.

But MPs in general, and ministers in particular, dont like being told to be quiet or be made to look small. So you bet they complain. You bet they call him pompous, and remark about his stature, odd hair and frisky wife, and whine that his style is bullying. Every sullen schoolboy grumbles about teacher.

But he bullies  if bullying is what you want to call it  because he needs to. The highest-elected chamber shouldnt need there to be some bloke shouting Order! Order! every other minute just to keep the conversation on track. But it does, and good on him. Long may his bullying continue, and tall may he stand as he does it.

Meghans giant step forward for C of E

AFP/Getty Images

With Anglican congregation numbers on the slide, theres much to rejoice in news that Meghan Markle plans to be received into the church before marrying Prince Harry. Every little helps. Its said shell be formally baptised by the Archbishop of Canterbury at a private ceremony in Kensington Palace this month.

Miss Markles childhood seems to have been Episcopalian, her schooling Roman Catholic and her first marriage to a Jewish man. Now shes to be C of E. Its obviously a step forward in civilisational terms that, only a few hundred years after citizens were prepared to be burned at the stake over their religions, changing faith is now regarded as a relatively unremarkable pre-wedding formality. At the same time, it must be a melancholy Archbishop who recognises that changing faith is now regarded as a relatively unremarkable pre-wedding formality. Will the Archbishop shed an inward tear at the thought that his bailiwick seemed more important when eternal damnation was one of the things you pondered before deciding to change team?

Perhaps he prefers a quiet life.

* Theres something infinitely touching in reports that, when asked to name his favourite book as a child for World Book Day, Chancellor Philip Hammond plumped for George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-Four.

This has a ring of truth about it, it tells us something about Hammond, and it promotes a book that children might not otherwise come across. So how depressing if, as is reported, an irony-challenged Downing Street insisted he instead claims it was something by Dr Seuss (Would you, could you, with a rat? Not fine, OBrien, no, not that!).S o, after last years mishap, it was business as usual at the Oscars. The frocks were back in full colour, if tending to the white and metallic. #MeToo and Times Up were judiciously mentioned and accommodated, without dominating proceedings. A film insert congratulated the Academy on its own growing diversity. And the big prizes went absolutely to plan, fully predictable from all of the years previous ceremonies.

Perhaps it was not quite a foregone conclusion that The Shape of Water would take best picture over Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. But it always seemed likely, given the films dreaminess about cinema itself, the way it vaguely (since preposterously) favours female empowerment and embrace of the other.

The more adventurous, almost surprising, choices were Jordan Peele for Original Screenplay, triumphing over Martin McDonagh, with his ultimate Black Lives Matter horror story, Get Out; and for Best Foreign Film, the groundbreaking transgender drama, starring Daniela Vega, A Fantastic Woman  not as great a movie as Andrey Zvyagintsevs devastating Loveless maybe, but irresistibly timely too.

All in all, it was a triumph of management, essential for the Academy this year, since last years viewing figures, at 32.9 million, were the lowest since ratings started in 1974  and the ceremony generates 80 per cent of the organisations revenue.

Audiences want glamour from the Oscars, not homilies. Perhaps the Times Up leaders spontaneously decided to abandon the monochrome mourning rule that dominated the Golden Globes and the Baftas  or perhaps this outcome too had been negotiated? Ava DuVernay and Shonda Rimes emphasised that although Times Up was launched on the red carpet, it was never intended to live there, so maybe they had realised themselves that it was time to move on?

Oscars 2018: Show - In pictures 1 /32 Oscars 2018: Show - In pictures Jennifer Lawrence arrives for the 90th Annual Academy Awards AFP/Getty Images British actress Helen Mirren arrives with a shot of Tequila on the red carpet at the 90th Annual Academy Awards AFP/Getty Images Sam Rockwell (Best Supporting Actor) Frances McDormand (Best actress) Allison Janney (Best Supporting actress) and Gary Oldman (Best Actor) with their Oscars in the press room at the 90th Academy Awards PA BB-8, actors Oscar Isaac, Mark Hamill and Kelly Marie Tran speak onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Jennifer Lawrence climbs over seats with a glasss of wine at the 90th Annual Academy Awards Kevin Winter/Getty Images Best Costume Design winner Mark Bridges rides a jet ski onto the stage with actress Helen Mirren on the back after he won it for the shortest Oscar acceptance speech of 2018 Reuters Backstage at the Oscars with Kumail Nanjiani and Lupita N'yongo The Academy Frances McDormand leaves the stage after she won the Oscar for Best Actress in "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri" during the 90th Annual Academy Awards show AFP/Getty Images Margot Robbie congratulates Allison Janney, winner of the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya" at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Guillermo del Toro and the cast and crew of "The Shape of Water" accept the award for best picture at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence present the Best Actress Osca Reuters General view of the stage as host Jimmy Kimmel presides over the show Reuters Jimmy Kimmel hosts the show Reuters Sally Hawkins, Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie and Meryl Streep react after Frances McDormand's Best Actress acceptance speech Reuters Backstage at the Oscars Lin-Manuel Miranda The Academy Nicole Kidman surprises Sdandra Bullock on the red carpet during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Sandra Bullock asks to dim the lights to make her look younger as a joke whilst on stage Reuters Gary Oldman poses in the press room with the Oscar for best actor during the 90th Annual Academy Awards AFP/Getty Images Gisele Schmidt kisses husband Gary Oldman, winner of the award for best performance by an actor in a leading role for "Darkest Hour" at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Meryl Streep reacts whilst in the audience during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty speak onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Diane Warren and Helen Mirren attend the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Sally Hawkins, Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie reach out to Meryl Streep, as they all react after Frances McDormand's Best Actress acceptance speech Reuters Allison Janney bumps into BB-8 from Star Wars at the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Ashley Judd, Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek speak onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Common and Andra Day perform onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Host Jimmy Kimmel and Gal Gadot appear on screen via satellite at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Backstage at the Oscars with Viola Davis The Academy Frances McDormand accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" as Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster look on from right at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Chuck Berry appears on screen as Eddie Vedder performs during an In Memoriam tribute at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Keala Settle performs "This Is Me" from "The Greatest Showman" at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Nicole Kidman and Chadwick Boseman backstag at the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images

McDormands clarion call for inclusion

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

The star of the ceremony was, as at the Baftas, Frances McDormand. With just two cryptic words, she took the headlines: Inclusion rider. Nobody in the audience had a clue to what it meant.

Backstage, she explained that it meant that in taking on a contract, you can ask for or demand at least 50 per cent diversity in not only the casting but also the crew. She admitted she had only come across the idea two weeks ago.

It has since emerged that its a concept that was developed in a 2016 TED talk by Stacy Smith, the founder of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California.

She says its a way of A-list stars using their power, to ensure proper representation and inclusion of women, people of colour, LGBT people and people with disabilities.

Inclusion is self-evidently good. But representation? Is Hollywood henceforth also to be a fully representative system, like everything else? Grand!

Those A-list stars surely wont mind if the groups most obviously excluded from their business  the dull, the plain and the talent-free  are at last granted the strong, indeed overwhelming, representation that their numbers demand.

Frances McDormand's rousing feminist Oscar acceptance speech

Weinstein swept under red carpet

Perhaps the most remarkable accomplishment of this years Oscars was how lightly its entire association with Harvey Weinstein was elided. Host Jimmy Kimmel deftly made his expulsion from the Academy a joke: The Academy took action last year to expel Harvey Weinstein from their ranks. There were a lot of great nominees, but Harvey deserved it the most.

That was the skimpiest possible acknowledgement of how deeply embedded in the Oscars the mogul was before his disgrace. Over the past 30 years, Weinstein films have scored more than 300 nominations and 81 winners. Weinsteins manipulative and aggressive campaigns for his films changed the very nature of the awards  and became one of the key means by which he asserted his dominance not only over the industry but directly over his individual victims.

But then all of the dominant producers of the great studio era  Louis B Mayer, Harry Cohn, Jack Warner, Cecil B DeMille, Darryl Zanuck  are now known to have been Weinstein-like abusers of their positions. What to do? Apologise? Forget?

John Bailey, the new president of the Academy, has offered this stressful formulation: The fossilised bedrock of many of Hollywoods worst abuses are being jackhammered into oblivion. Not a statement easy to construe but it appears to mean these historic crimes are being reduced to shards that can be swept under the carpet. The red carpet.T he news that the Prime Minister has telephoned President Trump to try to persuade him not to impose trade tariffs on steel and aluminium from around the world, including Europe, emphasises how serious the consequences could be. Trade wars in which countries are then obliged to retaliate by raising their own tariffs against the initiator undermine growth and hurt consumers. Far from being expressions of strength they highlight the failure of the initiating countrys economic sector to compete in the global market place.

The United Kingdom has in the past 150 years been one of the worlds principal advocates of free trade. But before we get carried away with self-congratulation, it is worth remembering that we took to it at a time when our manufacturing and trading dominance was so great that we worried little about competition.

As that grew and our economic dominance declined we were willing to take refuge in Imperial Preference, which sought to create an internal market out of our Empire and to restrict the access of the goods of outside competitors. But since joining the EU we have returned to being its best promoters.

It was Margaret Thatcher who pushed hardest for the creation of the single market that has removed most barriers to trade in goods within the EU. It is also successive UK governments that have sought to use our influence in the EU to make it engage collectively to reduce barriers to trade with third countries and to move to create a single internal market in services.

None of this is easy. Most states, for all their rhetoric in favour of free trade, are adept at trying to manipulate markets to protect and advantage their own producers. Some subsidise to reduce prices in the hope of cornering a market to put competitors out of business. Others abuse regulations to exclude or restrict imports. It took a case brought by Britain to the European Court of Justice to force France to accept our beef exports, a ban the French were maintaining after the BSE scare without any scientific justification.

In the aftermath of the Theresa Mays Mansion House speech on our future outside the EU, the news from the US is a reminder of the risks we are going to run in this area once we are gone. We may aspire to using our future freedom to secure better trading arrangements with the US than we enjoy collectively as a member of the EU. But when dealing with overt protectionists such as Trump, or the restrictions on free trade prevalent in India or China, our leverage is going to be reduced to that of the size and importance of our domestic market of 65 million, rather than that of a market of 450 million.

I have yet to be persuaded how such trade deals will be easier to negotiate or to sustain. The US in particular is the principal market with which we currently enjoy a trading surplus. It is rather more likely that we are going to find ourselves under pressure to lower our regulatory standards for their exports to us, as part of Trumps populist agenda.

It may be an uncomfortable truth for supporters of Brexit, but the risk of moderate retaliatory tariffs by the EU collectively on a range of products is more likely to get him to change his mind than any attempts at persuasion by ourselves, whether backed by an ability to retaliate unilaterally or not.

We keep on being assured that Brexit will bring us greater freedom to generate wealth from trade once we have escaped the stifling regulatory embrace of the EU.

It is certainly far from perfect in its mechanisms, which reflect a level of compromise between its members. But it has at least sought to establish and maintain a more level playing field than anywhere else, in order to enable business competition to take place without unfair advantage, while at the same time protecting workers and consumers. It has been active in making external trade deals, as we have seen with Canada.

Rather than regain sovereignty, we risk replacing a trading system that works with one that doesnt

But of course the way this has been achieved is through the existence of an effective system of enforcing common rules through the European Court of Justice and the working of the single market and the customs union, which we are repeatedly told must all be jettisoned for the sake of recovering our sovereignty. In doing this we will also put at risk the 20 per cent of our total trade that is through the EUs existing free trade agreements with third countries, unless we can replace them all identically.

In her Mansion House speech the Prime Minister set out for the first time in detail her ideas for alternative structures to replace those that must go. This was welcome. But I was struck by their complexity.

In place of a single market, there would be micro-sectoral agreements. We would mirror many EU regulations voluntarily but have some system to allow us to diverge from them when our sovereign will required it. There would have to be special tribunals to cover areas of mutual co-operation. Some but not all European Court of Justice decisions might have to be followed. Our freedom to trade with others would have to be reconciled with our partial market access into the EU itself.

Leaving aside whether we can secure this, it sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare and very costly to administer. The truth is that every trade deal imposes some restriction on sovereignty. Rather than regain sovereignty, we risk replacing a trading system that works with one that doesnt.While the Oscars red carpet is a fabulous display of voluminous, haute couture gowns, attendees of the Vanity Fair Oscars After-Party often choose to swap their formal awards ceremony attire for something a little racier.

And this year, thigh-split dresses emerged as a major trend.

The leg-baring look was made famous back in the 2012 Oscars, when Angelina Jolie wore a black velvet gown with a thigh high split and, determined to bare leg, struck a somewhat awkward pose.

Social media was set ablaze with discussion about her exposed limb, and a parody Twitter account called Angies Right Leg' was even set up, garnering 38,000 followers.

Angelina Jolie at the 2012 Oscars Awards / Getty Images

People. Fashion. Power. Delivered weekly. Email Sign up Sign up I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice {{message}} {{permutiveUid}} {{message}}

One look at the red carpet fashion from last night's Vanity Fair party however and the enduring power of the thigh-split dress is clear.

Gal Gadot looked gorgeous in a low-cut, red sequinned thigh-split gown.

Gal Gadot Vanity Fair Oscars Party 2018 / Getty Images

While Ashley Graham oozed confidence in a silver lame bustier dress.

Ashley Graham Vanity Fair Oscars Party 2018 / Getty Images

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley meanwhile gave the trend an uber chic twist in an ethereal mint green Ralph & Russo couture creation.

Rosie Huntinton-Whiteley at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party 2018 Getty Images) / Getty Images

In an evening that saw colour and embellishment return to the red carpet, the prevalence of thigh-split dresses signalled a return to old school Hollywood glamour.

Scroll the gallery above for all the stars baring leg at the Vanity Fair 2018 Oscars party.Y ou know his paintings are worth millions and you know he had a penchant for cubes  but how much do you really know about Pablo Picasso?

As a blockbuster new show of his work opens at Tate Modern this week, we thought it best to brush up on the life, loves, and groundbreaking work of this artistic juggernaut.

Heres our guide to the must-know facts on arguably the most influential artist of the twentieth century.

Picasso was a child genius

Cecil Beaton, Pablo Picasso, rue La Boetie, 1933, Paris (The Cecil Beaton Studio Archve at Sotheby's ) / The Cecil Beaton Studio Archve at Sotheby's

Pablo Ruiz Picassos father was also an artist, a professor at a nearby art school in Malaga, Spain, as well as the curator of a local museum. Picassos first word was said to have been piz, a shortening of the Spanish word for pencil. By the age of 14 he was producing quite extraordinary artwork, including a superb naturalistic painting of his sister Lola attending communion, and a beautiful pastel drawing of his mother.

His Blue Period was provoked by a real-life tragedy

In 1901, poet and art student Carlos Casagemas shot himself in the head in Paris, broken-hearted after the repeated rebuttals of his unrequited love  who he also shot and injured in the incident. He was a friend of Picassos, who was devastated by the loss. It was in the following months that Picasso began to create paintings characterised by cool blue tones and depicting emaciated, poverty-stricken subjects, in a stretch referred to many as his Blue Period.

...But his Rose Period was inspired by love

Three years after Casagemass death, the monochromatic cloud that haunted Picassos painting began to lift, as rusts and roses slowly trickled back into his painting. Artworks depicted circus performers, floral backgrounds and summery light, with the malnourished mother and child that frequented his Blue Period paintings replaced by well-fed counterparts. Many have attributed this to Picassos new relationship with artist and model Fernande Olivier, who appeared in more than 60 of his portraits.

He wasnt short of female muses

Pablo Picasso, Portrait of Olga in an Armchair (Portrait d'Olga dans un fauteuil), 1918 / Succession Picasso/DACS London, 2017

Loves in Picassos life werent exactly few or far between  nor were lusts for that matter. Picasso married twice, once to Olga Khokhlova and again to Jacqueline Roque in 1961. Yet in between and often overlapping these marriages were a multitude of affairs with women who frequently appeared in Picassos work. These included photographer Dora Maar, artist and writer Francoise Gilot (with whom he shared two children) and Marie-Therese Walter, portraits of whom are prevalent in the Tate exhibition. Picasso may have painted near countless portraits of his lovers, but his attitude to women was not always admirable: he once told Gilot that women were either goddesses and doormats.

African art was a major influence

Pablo Picasso, Girl before a Mirror (Jeune fille devant un miroir), 1932 / Succession Picasso/DACS London, 2017

In 1906, everything changed for Picasso again, when an introduction to African art flipped his approach to portraiture on its head. He became fascinated by African tribal masks and the way they simplified, exaggerated or reshaped body parts, often for the purpose of communicating spiritual attributes. They were immensely influential in Picassos move towards abstraction, and it was these experiments that would form the basis of cubism.

He created several different types of cubism

Pablo Picasso, Woman on the Beach (Nu sur la plage), 1932 / The Penrose Collection/Succession Picasso/DACS London, 2017

Inspired by works by Paul Cezanne and the African masks, Picasso began to address the physicality of his subjects. Working with fellow artist Georges Braque, he simplified their forms into geometric shapes, before structuring all three of their dimensions on a flat canvas. Cubism was born  but that wasnt the end of the story. Picasso initial experiments are described as Analytical cubism: rigidly structured investigations breaking down an object into its myriad viewpoints, all patchworked in tones of grey and brown. Later, this shifted into Synthetic cubism, when Picasso moved towards simpler forms, brighter colours and elements of collage.

He painted 58 versions of Diego Velazquezs Las Meninas (yes, really)

Later on in his career, Picasso became obsessed with certain Old Masters paintings. He painted 15 versions of Eugene Delacroixs Women of Algiers in their Apartment, but it was Diego Velazquezs Las Meninas that became his most fervent fixation. The painting by the Spanish master depicts the court of King Phillip IV of Spain, and is revered by historians for its ground-breaking investigations into multiple viewpoints and reflection. From large scale copies of the entire scene to individual portraits of the paintings various characters, Picasso made 58 versions of Las Meninas in 1957 alone.

15 exhibitions to look forward to in 2018 1 /15 15 exhibitions to look forward to in 2018 Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up V&A Museum, June 16 - November 4; vam.ac.uk Aperture All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life Tate Britain, February 28 - August 27; tate.org.uk The Estate of Francis Bacon Hope to Nope: Graphics and Politics 2008-2018 Design Museum, March 28 - August 12; designmuseum.org Bristol Street War Modern Couples: Art, Intimacy and the Avante-garde Barbican Centre, October 10 - January 27; barbican.org.uk John Kasnetsis RA Summer Exhibition Royal Academy, June 13 - August 20; royalacademy.org.uk John Bodkin Picasso 1932 - Love, Fame, Tragedy Tate Modern, March 8 - September 9; tate.org.uk Tate Aftermath: Art in the Wake of World War One Tate Britain, June 5 - September 16; tate.org.uk The estate of Winifred Knights Michael Jackson: On the Wall National Portrait Gallery, June 28 - October 21; npg.org.uk David LaChapelle Andreas Gursky Hayward Gallery, January 28 - April 22; designmuseum.org Andreas Gursky/DACS, 2017 Monet & Architecture National Gallery, April 9 - July 29; nationalgallery.org.uk President and Fellows of Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts Charles I: King and Collector January 27 - April 15, Royal Academy; royalacademy.org.uk Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017 Edward Bawden Dulwich Picture Gallery, May 23 - September 9; dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk Estate of Edward Bawden Joan Jonas Tate Modern, March 14 - August 5; tate.org.uk Joan Jonas / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London Artists at Work Courtauld Gallery, March 28 - August 12; courtauld.ac.uk/gallery Somewhere in Between Wellcome Collection, March 8 - August 26; wellcomecollection.org

His Guernica painting is one of the art worlds most enduring symbols of war

When Picasso was asked by the Spanish Republican government to create a mural for the 1937 Worlds Fair, he was initially making studies of his own studio. Yet when he heard about the tragic destruction of the Basque city of Guernica by Nazi bombing during the Spanish Civil War, he was moved to create the chaotically composed, heart-wrenching mural that remains a worldwide symbol of the horrors of war. So powerful was it that the UN even commissioned a tapestry version of the painting to be displayed at their New York headquarters.

He hung out with Surrealists

Way before the art that will be shown in the exhibition, back in the 1920s, Picasso reverted back to his realist roots and entered a Neo-Classical phase of painting, with figures alluding to Greek and Roman art. Being Picasso, this was never going to be a boring move  this switch in direction was coupled with an intrigue into the work made by Surrealist artists. Sex and the subconscious began to infiltrate his work, with Surrealist pioneer Andre Breton even referring to Picasso as one of ours in a 1925 article.

...And he really loved making pots

Succession Picasso/DACS London, 2017

Picasso wasnt all about painting. In his later career from the late 1940s onwards, Picasso took up ceramics. Initially he intended for it to be a relaxing activity to enjoy during his summers on the French Riviera, but the material soon grew to be of crucial artistic importance to Picasso. It is estimated that he made 2880 ceramic pieces. It may sound like a lot, but consider that Picasso was remarkably prolific. He is estimated to have made 50,000 works of art in his lifetime, including 1885 paintings, 1228 sculptures and a plethora of drawings, prints, rugs and tapestries. In other words, he worked pretty hard.Review at a glance









T his year marks the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the state of Israel, and with it the tumult of the end of the British Mandate for Palestine and the uprooting of so many Palestinians. This elegiac new play, adapted from the 1969 novella by acclaimed Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani (killed in 1972 by a Mossad car bomb) traces the impact of that time and its aftermath on one Palestinian family. Its worth noting that this adaptation was originally commissioned by New Yorks Public Theater, who subsequently abandoned the planned production after political pressure.

Its 1967 and, for the first time in years, borders are open, which leads Palestinian couple Said (Ammar Haj Ahmad) and Safiyya (Myriam Acharki) to do as the title suggests. In the chaos of 1948, they were forced to abandon their home and, for reasons that arent adequately explained, their five-month-old son. Returning to see whos/whats left, they find elderly Jewish Miriam (Marlene Sidaway), allocated their house as a refugee from Poland.

Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallaces adaptation has a fluid, somewhat fugitive take on time and place, as the action slides back and forth between Said and Safiyyas younger selves and the present day. The tempo is too often novelistic - leisurely, reflective  rather than dramatic and director Caitlin McLeod allows too many drops in momentum. There is one particularly ill-judged and lengthy section in which Said recounts to Safiyya a story she has surely heard already.

The climactic meeting doesnt quite have the impact it should; overall this piece requires more dramatic meat on its bones.

10 shows you need to see this March 1 /10 10 shows you need to see this March The Inheritance Audiences seem to be keener than ever to watch theatre of epic proportions. Last years Angels in America (from Tony Kushner) ran at almost 8 hours long. Now, The Inheritance, a play in two parts, is following in those footsteps in more ways than one. While Angels in America was set mid-AIDS crisis, this world premiere from playwright Matthew Lopez follows the generation after, asking what it is like to be a young gay man in New York. Stephen Daldry directs the Young Vics production, which wonders why there is no right word for the description of gay love.



March 2  May 19, Young Vic, youngvic.org Fanny & Alexander The Old Vic is celebrating 100 years since the birth of film auteur Ingmar Bergman with a new production based on one of his films. Fanny & Alexander follows two children whose happy lives are plunged into melancholy when their father dies and their mother remarries the stern local bishop. Starring Penelope Wilton and Kevin Doyle, the script has been adapted for stage by Stephen Beresford, who won a BAFTA for his writing on 2014 film Pride.



Until April 14, Old Vic, oldvictheatre.com Macbeth Theres no shortage of the Bards tragedies on stage this month, with the National Theatres opening of The Scottish Play. Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff fall ever deeper into darkness and despair as they are drawn towards the crown. The production is directed by Rufus Norris. If you miss out on tickets, the play will be broadcast to cinemas in May.



March 6  June 23, National Theatre, nationaltheatre.org.uk Summer and Smoke Patsy Ferran stars as Alma in Tennessee Williamss classic play about love and self-destruction. The winner of 2015 Evening Standards emerging talent award, Ferran is joined by Matthew Needham as John, and finds herself torn between passion and obligation.



Until April 7, Almeida Theatre, almedia.co.uk Misty Follow Arinze Kenes path through London for this spoken word, theatrical journey across the city. His latest play, which he also performs in, will explore assumptions around who gets to tell a story. Listen to one of the songs here.



March 15 - April 21, Bush Theatre; bushtheatre.co.uk Hamlet The RSC production was met with critical acclaim during its first run in Stratford-Upon-Avon in 2016, so many are delighted for its move to Hackney. Paapa Essiedus award-winning performance as the tragic prince has been crying out for a transfer, directed by Simon Godwin. Incorporating Essiedus Ghanaian heritage, the pair joined forces to re-conceive Shakespeares Denmark as a state influenced by the customs of west Africa.



March 6  31, Hackney Empire, hackneyempire.co.uk Caroline, or Change Nominated for six Tonys and winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Musical more than ten years ago, it was a wonder Tony Kushners creation never reached the West End. Originating off-Broadway, Jeanine Tesoris eclectic score of blues, Motown, classical and Jewish klezmer music drew critical acclaim early on. Sharon D. Clarke stars as Caroline Thibodeaux, a maid in the Gellman household in 1963 Louisiana, where the destruction of a Confederate statue may signal a change for civil rights.



March 12  April 21, Hampstead Theatre, hampsteadtheatre.com Black Men Walking Eclipse Theatres artistic director Dawn Walton brings a new work by Testament to the Royal Court stage. The play, about a black mens walking group who go out on every first Saturday of the month, has already opened to great reviews following its premiere at the Royal Exchange earlier this year.



March 21 - April 7, Royal Court; royalcourttheatre.com The Plough and the Stars This acclaimed production from the Abbey Theatre in Dublin was first staged in 2016 as part of the Easter Rising centenary celebrations, and now is your chance to see it in London. Sean Holmes directs one of the most famous Irish plays ever written, in a new version reimagined for a modern audience.



March 15 - April 7, Lyric Hammersmith; lyric.co.uk Br'er Cotton You get two rising talents for the price of one ticket with this new show at Theatre503. Roy Alexander Weise, soon to head up Nine Night at the National, directs brilliant new playwright Tearrance Arvelle Chisholms first UK production. It follows a 14 year old Black Lives Matter activist who is confused by the random killings of young black men that he sees happening all around him.



March 7-31, Theatre503; theatre503.comA side from deciding whether you think a Jaffa Cake is a biscuit or a cake (lets not go there), theres something else to think about when enjoying one - what is the best way to eat it?

Thankfully the makers of Jaffa Cakes have stepped up to settle the debate once and for all. To answer the question, McVities partnered with food science expert, Dr Stuart Farrimond, to put the age-old debate to bed by discovering the optimum ratio of chocolate, zesty orange and sponge, which in scientific terms, is called the hedonic breakpoint.

The McVities Zest Report, which uses four scientific research methods, hundreds of Jaffa Cakes and a panel of Jaffa Cakes fans to assess the ratio of the three layers, including analysis of the flavour, texture and overall appeal, has now conclusively found the best way to eat the citrusy treat.

After hours of scoffing, it was found The All Rounder - the technique of nibbling around the edge first, before enjoying the middle portion - came up trumps. Science concludes that this eating technique gives the almost perfectly optimised balance of zesty orange, slightly bitter chocolate and sweet airy sponge.

Food. Bars. Going out. Delivered weekly Email Sign up Sign up I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice {{message}} {{permutiveUid}} {{message}}

Baking essentials - in pictures 1 /21 Baking essentials - in pictures Scroll to see our edit of the best baking essentials... Mark Bourdillon/BBC John Lewis Rolling Pin Made from FSC-certified beech wood, this lightweight design allows you to have more control when rolling out pastry dough and wont take up too much space in your kitchen drawers. 4, John Lewis, Buy it now Kitchen Craft Colourworks 5 Piece Measuring Spoon Set In five bold colours, these handy spoons will be easy to spot in your cutlery drawer and are dishwasher safe. Measurements include 1/4 tsp, 1/2 tsp and 1 tbs for accurately measuring small amounts of ingredients, such as baking powder. 3.99, John Lewis, Buy it now Great British Bake Off Measuring Cup Set This colourful measuring set ought to get you in the baking spirit. The Bake Off-inspired cups come in a quirky teacup shape and are ideal for measuring precise quantities of both liquid and solid ingredients. The markings appear clearly in large lettering. Also microwave safe. 13.49, Lakeland, Buy it now OXO Good Grips Oven Thermometer Its highly important for bakers to know the true temperature of their oven  especially when cooking desserts such as cheesecake. This easy-to-use thermometer will help you avoid hot spots and incorrect temperatures, so none of your creations will be spoiled. 6.74, Amazon, Buy it now Tesco Tea & Treats Oven Glove Part of Tescos new Tea & Treats kitchen range, this vintage-inspired glove will keep your paws safe when your treats are ready to come out of the oven. Its machine washable and made from pure cotton and polyester. 5, Tesco, Buy it now Marks and Spencer 23cm Non-Stick Sandwich Cake Tin This circular baking tin is crafted with a premium non-stick coating and loose base that makes it easier to remove your bakes. The dishwasher-safe tin is 5cm deep and is perfect for whipping up a Victoria Sponge. 7.50, Marks and Spencer, Buy it now Tala Retro Design Round Cake Tins Essential items for every cake maker, Talas colourful trio of cake tins features different sizes for all kinds of bakes  from biscuits to Lemon Drizzle sponges. The retro-style designs will also help brighten up your cooking space. 9.99, Amazon, Buy it now Mary Berry with Lakeland Flour Sifter Say goodbye to those annoying lumps with this nifty flour sifter. Not only does it come with a lid to keep contents fresh, but its see-through design also makes it easy to see levels. Use it to dust flour over working surface or to finish off a cake with icing sugar. 2.99, Lakeland, Buy it now Pyrex 3 Piece Bowl Set Pyrexs sturdy glass bowls will last for years to come and feature three different sizes - small, medium and large  for beating eggs, mixing batters or preparing whipping cream. They also stack together nicely for easy storage. 9.99, Argos, Buy it now VonShef Professional 300W Hand Mixer With five speed settings, this powerful little machine will make mixing thick batters a doddle. Its lightweight size means its a breeze to move around, while the provided chrome beaters are ideal for creating light cake mixtures. The mixer also comes with 2 dough hooks for fuss-free kneading and a balloon whisk for whipping up cream. 16.99, Amazon, Buy it now OXO Good Grips Balloon Whisk A large whisk is ideal for blending big quantities of liquid ingredients and comes at a pocket-friendly price. This one is designed with sturdy handle for breezy round-the-bowl action. 7.49, Amazon, Buy it now Auntie Mims Personalised Wooden Spoon Every baker needs a humble wooden spoon in their kitchen to mix things up. This quirky beech wood option can be personalised with your name and an engraved image, so everyone knows who the star baker of the house is. Perfect as a gift for your favourite cook. From 6, Notonthehighstreet, Buy it now Sous Chef Natural Bristle Pastry Brush This high-quality Italian brush, made with natural bristles and a cherry wood handle, is just the ticket for spreading melted butter over pastries or adding delicate glazes to cakes. 3.95, Sous Chef, Buy it now Tala Icing Syringe Set A must-have for sugarcraft beginners, this vintage-looking tin is packed with a traditional icing syringe, six chrome-plated nozzles and an instruction booklet for learning how to decorate cakes like a pro. 19.99, Currys, Buy it now Wedgwood Cuckoo 2 Tier Cake Stand A luxurious way to present your finished bakes. Crafted from bone china, Wedgewoods gorgeous design takes inspiration from the English tradition of afternoon tea, with pastel tones and floral prints taken from its archive pattern books. 65, John Lewis, Buy it now Apollo 3-Tier Chrome Cake Cooling Rack A cooling rack is important for letting air circulate to stop your treats from going soft or mushy. This 3-tiered cooling rack is great for those cooking large batches and is easy to store away. 12.99, Littlewoods, Buy it now Mary Berry with Lakeland Cake Lifter Handling cakes isnt as simple as Mary Berry makes it look. This robust lifter measures at 10 inches and is the ideal tool for transferring large cakes or pies while keeping them in one piece. 11.99, Lakeland, Buy it now Ciroa 12 Assorted Coloured Silicone Cup Cake Cases Create a colourful spread of fairy cakes using these assorted pastel cases. The reusable set of twelve is made from sturdy silicone and allows the easy release of your bakes. 5.99, Amazon, Buy it now Lakeland 50 Round Cake Tin Baking Parchment Paper Liners Non-stick and reusable, these round paper liners can be used to line the base of cake tins for simple and mess-free removal. Each measures at 18cm and is oven proof up to 230 degrees. 4.79, Lakeland, Buy it now OXO Good Grips Angled Measuring Cup As baking recipes require several liquid ingredients, a measuring cup is ideal for achieving the right quantities. This angled design features a soft, non-slip handle for more control and bold markings for accurate measurements. 12, House of Fraser, Buy it now

The four runners up were The Half Mooner  full moon, half moon, total eclipse  enjoyed in two bites is the technique preferred by 35% of Brits. The All Rounder  nibble around the edge, saving the best for last, was chosen by 28%. The Scoffer  down all in one - came third at 20% and The Jelly Lover  head straight for the orange jelly - came last with only 6% of people stating it as their preference.P olice have launched a manhunt after a black cab driver was repeatedly stabbed in north west London.

The taxi driver was attacked in Harrow town centre on Sunday morning, police said.

He had been waiting in a taxi rank on College Road at around 5.30am when two men opened his cab door and demanded money.

When the driver tried to close the door, one of the men stabbed him in the leg and arm. The suspects then fled empty handed.

Scotland Yard said the victim, who is in his 50s, did not suffer life threatening injuries.

He was rushed to a central London hospital, where he was treated for his injuries and has since been discharged.

One of the suspects is described as white, aged about 20 and speaking with an eastern European accent.

Any witnesses or anyone with any information is asked to call Harrow police on 101 or contact via Twitter @MetCC.A King's College London building was evacuated after masked anti-fascist protesters stormed an event featuring a controversial 'alt right' speaker.

Hundreds of students had turned out to listen to the speaker Carl Benjamin, who goes by the name of 'Sargon of Akkad' online, in a talk hosted by the KCL Libertarian Society.

Dramatic video footage shows the moment a group of masked men enter the lecture theatre waving an Antifa flag.

Demonstrators are said to have forced their way into a building before setting off its fire alarm and smoke bombs.

King's College London building evacuated after masked protesters storm talk featuring 'alt right' Vlogger

Mr Benjamin is a self-described 'classical liberal' Vlogger, known for his supposedly 'anti-progressive' views.

He has been described by various outlets as a member of the 'alt right' movement.

Antifa is a self-styled left wing anti-fascist group known for engaging in militant protest tactics.

A spokesman for the KCL Libertarian Society told the Standard: "We will continue to pursue our goal of resisting any threats to freedom of speech.

"By continuing to plan the range of events and campaigns we have in store, in order to encourage productive dialogue on a wide range of topics.

"The event has now been cancelled and evacuated after threats to the moderator. Speech, no matter how controversial, should never be met with violence."

The Met Police confirmed they were called to the university, in Westminster, just before 7pm on Monday night. They told the Standard the group had been dispersed by the time they arrived.A young man has been left with life-changing injuries in the latest of a spate of violent acid attacks in east London.

Scotland Yard said the 24-year-old was attacked by a group of four men in their late teens or 20s, who got out of a silver Lexus car in East Ham, Newham.

They hit him with a brick before throwing acid at him, leaving him with injuries to his face, arms and torso, and making off from the scene in Burges Road towards High Street North, police said.

DS John Macleod of Newham CID said: "This young man has been through a traumatic experience, one which will leave him with permanent reminders of the distress inflicted upon him.

The victim remains in hospital three weeks after the attack, at about 4pm on February 12.

Police said three men have been arrested, and two have subsequently been charged.

However, detectives are still seeking information about the whereabouts of the Lexus car involved, which had the number plate Y56 PWJ.

Were keen to speak to anyone who may have been in the surrounding area at the time of the attack, or may have seen a silver Lexus heading in the direction of High Street North, DS Macleod said.

The incident comes after figures showed the number of violent acid attacks in London soared by more than 78 per cent in the past two years.

Statistics released by the Met in January showed there were 465 violent corrosive liquid offences recorded in the capital in 2017, up from 260 in 2015.

Newham was identified as the worst borough for violent acid attacks with 289 offences since 2015.A herd of thousands of digital elephants is preparing to begin its march around the world to boost support for the fight against poaching.

Starting this Thursday, the virtual herd  part of global movement #MarchforGiants  will be seen on digital billboards in iconic locations, including Londons Westfield Stratford City shopping centre, to highlight the crisis facing elephants.

One third of Africas elephants have been wiped out, with an average of 55 killed each day. Every digital elephant in #MarchforGiants represents an elephant in the wild that has been protected by a person during this campaign.

Joanna Lumley has lent her support, saying: March for Giants presents a one-of-a-kind opportunity for people everywhere to make their voice heard. It is a truly transformative moment for the conservation of Africas elephants.

Londoners can join the herd by donating 5 by either texting GIANT to 70025, or online. Each sponsor customises their elephants design before it joins the ever-growing herd.

The funds raised go to Space for Giants, the conservation charity of which Evening Standard proprietor Evgeny Lebedev is a patron. An elephant bearing this newspapers logo will be among the herd.

Following the success of 2017s inaugural #MarchforGiants, this years campaign promises to be even bigger. Once the herd has marched across global billboards and social media, it will head to Africa, arriving at a conservation event called the Giants Club Summit in Botswana on March 16.

Held in the presence of Botswanas President Khama, the Giants Club Summit brings together African leaders, conservationists and global influencers to chart the next steps for ensuring elephants and their landscapes are protected, forever.

The #MarchforGiants herd will boost momentum as African leaders lend their names to an Avaaz petition  with over one million signatures  that demands the European Union end its ivory trade. Now that China has closed its ivory market, the EU is the largest legal ivory exporter.

Max Graham, CEO of Space for Giants, said: There have been a number of huge gains in the fight to protect elephants, but theres a danger we could become complacent. Poaching is not over. Elephant habitats are not secure. The job is not finished.

Joining the global movement that is the March for Giants is a way to loudly add your voice to thousands of others demanding we all keep the pressure up to secure a future for elephants and the landscapes they depend on.

The digital elephant project is made possible through the generous support of many organisations. The screen space is donated by Ocean who formed The Alliance, a network of like-minded global digital out-of-home media owners who can offer both full-motion imagery and integrated technology in their screens, allowing campaigns such as March for Giants to have global reach.A n amateur photographer from the US has released a series of fascinating photographs capturing life in London during the 1960s and 70s.

The extraordinary photos show iconic landmarks such as Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace as well as scenes from everyday life in the capital.

The roads seem almost empty compared to todays heavy traffic and the advertisements include Wrigleys chewing gum and Embassy cigarettes long before tobacco billboards were banned.

Sohos busy Berwick Street can be seen filled with market stalls selling fruit and vegetables while another photo shows Camdens Good Mixer pub which later counted Amy Winehouse and Britpops Oasis and Blur among its drinkers.

Piccadilly Circus in June 1966. / Richard Friedman

California-based Richard Friedman, 73, took the photos during three visits to London as a young man in 1966, 1973 and 1977.

He said the last time he visited London was 2002  more than two decades after his previous visit  and said a lot had changed, so many new buildings and so much more expensive.

He added: These pictures weren't intended as art, but more to document where I was and when.

Interest in them started after I put some of them up on my website and later on Flickr. Perhaps it's nostalgia for times past.

Berwick Street Market in Soho in June 1966. / Richard Friedman

The same thing happened when I started taking pictures of Berkeley, where I moved in 1968 from New York City.

I think what's going on is that even though many people had cameras in the 60s and 70s, and took lots of pictures, very few knew what to do with them and even fewer put them up on websites.

Today, however, everyone is a photographer with a digital camera in their phone, and are documenting their lives - however trivial - on sites like Instagram.

When I was taking pictures, one had to be frugal and choose what to photograph in a meaningful way.

Coming home from a trip with 50 rolls of 36 exposure film meant a great expense in processing all those images. Very different from today where you can shoot a few thousand images in just a few minutes. Not sure that's really an advantage.

He said if he had a message for young photographers today it would be: Take the time to record the world immediately around you, the places you go to every day, your neighbourhood, where you work. And save them.

Because in 25 years or so it will all be different. And you'll regret not being able to see all that you've missed and can't remember.U p to 10,000 homes across London and the south east of England remain without water after a thaw resulted in multiple burst pipes across the region.

Householders and businesses are having to use bottled water while leaking and burst pipes are fix amid milder conditions which followed last week's 'Beast from the East'.

By 2pm on Monday, Thames Water, which has customers across London and Thames Valley, said somewhere under 10,000 properties were still affected.

Affinity Water, which serves parts of north west London and the home counties, was working to restore full supply to around 1,000 properties experiencing disruptions in the past 48 hours.

A spokesman for Thames Water told the Standard: "This is, of course, an ever changing situation.

A bottled water station set up by Thames Water in London / PA Wire/PA Images

"We can't put an exact figure on how many people are without water at this stage. A number of customers have running water, just at a lower pressure.

"We advise customers, where possible, to take showers rather than baths, not to leave taps running unnecessarily, and only run washing machines and dish washers when you have a full load."

Alongside South East Water and Southern Water, the companies have urged customers who do have running water only to use it if essential.

Neither South East Water nor Thames Water, which said the worst affected areas for its customers were Streatham and Hampstead, could say when supplies would be back to normal.

"We're sorry to all those customers who are without water. We know how infuriating this is and want to assure them that the whole company is working flat out to fix the problems," Thames Water said.

Hundreds of people also complained on social media, claiming they were not receiving information or updates from their suppliers.

One wrote: I have a seven week old baby and all shops nearby have now ran out of bottled water. Need an idea of what is happening please.

UK Weather: Beast from the East freeze - In pictures 1 /64 UK Weather: Beast from the East freeze - In pictures Snow storm over London NPASLondon/Twitter The frozen canal at Little Venice, London Jeremy Selwyn A multi-car collision on the M66 NEAR Ramsbottom and Bury Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) Ice climbers at Kinder Downfall, High Peak in Derbyshire PA RFA Tidespring battles powerful weather conditions sparked by the Beast from the East EPA/Ministry of Defence Members of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards take part in a snow ball fight prior to the combined St David's Day celebration and pre-deployment service at Elizabeth Barracks, Pirbright, Surrey PA A police car on fire on the M62 near Huddersfield. PA Andrea Geile skies along Princes Street in Edinburgh PA Heavy snowfall hits St Paul's Cathedral Zuma / Splash News Storm clouds over Dublin Bay PA Paddington Station today Jeremy Selwyn The M876 to Glasgow is closed PA A man walks in the snowy conditions in Larbert PA Edinburgh Castle in the snow PA Members of the public make their way through snow the streets in Alexandria, Scotland Getty Images Jock the Shih Tzu plays in the snow Getty Images Waterloo Station tracks covered in snow Jeremy Selwyn A man clears snow in Alexandria, Scotland Getty Images Snow-covered members of the public walk through heavy snow in Westminster Getty Images A stranded car covered in snow in Whitley Bay in Tyne and Wear PA Police push a car on the on the M80 Haggs in Glasgow PA A blizzard hit Trafalgar Square School children from Wearhead Primary School, in County Durham, which stands more than 1,100 feet (335m) above sea level and which remained open despite blizzards thanks to teachers battling through the elements and a parent with a digger PA Snow continues to fall in Westminster Jeremy Selwyn A man clears snow from a car in Larbert PA Fabio Fodaro cycles during a blizzard at Helix Park in Falkirk PA The scene on the M80 Haggs in Glasgow PA Police push a car on the on the M80 Haggs in Glasgow PA Huge crowds outside Oxford Circus Tube station @_kathyharvey People walk in the snow on Horse Guards Parade Reuters Whiteout: Londoners brave the snow in Piccadilly Circus Tony Villalon Three-year-old Wilfred Martin, enjoys sledding in the snow in Richmond Park, Londo PA Victor the polar bear enjoys the snow at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster PA Giant waves crash over Seaham lighthouse near Durham as the "Beast from the East" brings heavy snow and freezing temperatures to much of the country PA Spectacular sunrise over Canary Wharf James Burns/London from the Rooftops Vehicles get stuck on a hill on the A30 near Land's End in Cornwall following heavy snow that made driving conditions difficult PA Battersea looking beautiful in the snow Hatty Collier People walk their dogs on Blyth Beach in Northumberland PA A swimmer braves the snowy conditions at King Edwards bay near Tynemouth PA Frozen foutains at Trafalgar Square Jeremy Selwyn Stationary traffic on the M20 near Ashford, Kent PA Pedestrians cross Whitehall as snow falls AP Pedestrians walk across millennium bridge in front of St Paul's as heavy snowfall hits London AFP/Getty Images A snow-covered Tube train early today Londoners woke to wintry scenes Jeremy Selwyn A lorry shed its load on the M20 overnight Kent Police RPU Snow falls on Wimbledon Common Alex Lentati A London bus travels through the snow in Oxford street EPA Snow surrounds the Angel of the North in Gateshead PA People walk past Buckingham Palac PA People walk along Bankside, London in the snow PA Snow at Horse guards in London Jeremy Selwyn Rare snow seen at Brighton Beach James Mayes Toby Stanton walks to school in Ashford, Kent, as heavy snowfall is affecting roads across the UK PA Highways England/Twitter Cars travel through Great Chart in Ashford, Kent PA A Eurostar train passes through Ashford, Kent PA Vehicles on the M20 between Junctions 8 and 9, as heavy snowfall is affecting roads across the UK PA A double decker bus carefully makes it way through the snowfall in London Jeremy Selwyn Cars drive through falling snow on the A41 in Hemel Hempstead Jeremy Selwyn Parents walk their children to school in Ashford, Kent PA Newcastle Quayside following heavy overnight snowfall PA Walkers in the snow near to Another Place by Anthony Gormley, on Crosby Beech near LiverpooL PA Fishing boats moored in Scarborough harbour PA Commuters battle the snoiw across London Bridge Jeremy Selwyn

Another said: Absolutely disastrous after just a few days of cold weather. This is ridiculous.

Helen Hayes, the Labour MP for West Norwood and Dulwich, added that the situation was just not acceptable.

Labour MP for Tottenham David Lammy wrote: No water in N4 Finsbury Park area in Haringey. Lots of my constituents without water.

Thames Water said residents in the Forest Hill, Sydenham and West Norwood areas should see pressure returning to normal by 5pm on Monday.

By 6.30pm, the number of Thames Water customers without water or experiencing low pressure had been reduced down to around 5,000.

In a joint statement from Thames Water, South East Water, Southern Water and Affinity Water, the suppliers said: Weve seen an increase in leaks and bursts on our network, which we are urgently dealing with as fast as we possibly can.

"But the sudden and widespread surge in demand, coinciding with the rise in temperatures, means we also need to urge all our customers to check their own pipes for bursts and call a plumber if necessary.

Right now we really need our customers support and understanding to help us to get everyone back into supply quickly by avoiding non-essential uses of water.

Temperatures rose over the weekend after the 'Beast' and Storm Emma brought a deep cold snap throughout the previous week, with highs of 11C in London on Monday.T heresa May showed a dangerous lack of realism in her latest speech on Brexit, according to a damning assessment by a top EU lawyer.

Jean-Claude Piris, who served as head of the EU councils legal service for more than 20 years, launched an attack on the Prime Minister in which he demanded honesty from the government on Brexits consequences.

He added that the EUs doors are still open, hinting at an acceptance in Brussels that the UK could remain in the bloc despite the referendum result.

His comments came in response to the Prime Minister's speech last week where she laid out hard facts on Brexit, warning that no-one will get everything they want from the negotiations.

While Mr Piris welcomed aspects of the speech, he criticised the governments insistence that the UK will leave the single market and customs union.

Brexit intervention: Jean-Claude Piris

Illusions continue that U.K. might have rights and benefits without accepting duties and costs, he wrote in a series of posts on Twitter.

Warning the government of the impact on Ireland of Britain leaving the single market and customs union, he added that there is no solution which would permit no hard border with Northern Ireland.

Thus the responsibility to find a solution to a problem which was well known before the referendum is a British responsibility. So, what solution? When? he asked.

Mr Piris said: "This would have been a  normal  speech one year ago, when triggering art 50 procedure. At this late stage, It looks like showing dangerous irrealism! [sic]".

That UK is still hoping, at this late hour, that the three baskets and a bilateral tribunal will do the trick and would allow a pick and choose of the most precious cherries is a huge mistake. U.K. continues to lose precious time with irrealist [sic] requests.

Theresa May wants 'deepest and broadest' trade agreement with EU

This is a political choice made by the U.K., not by the EU, which [sic] doors are still open, he added.

Mr Piris, from France, served as director general of the EU councils legal service from 1988 until 2010.

He made the intervention after the PM set out her hopes of a UK-EU partnership after Britain is due to leave the EU in March 2019.

She said the UK could choose to remain in step with EU regulations in areas such as competition and workers rights.

I think it is pragmatic common sense that we should work together to deliver the best outcome for both sides, she added.

Mrs May's de facto deputy, Cabinet Office minister David Lidington, said her high-profile Friday speech was an "ambitious opening bid" and suggested the proposals on the Irish border could be tweaked.I reland's prime minister Leo Varadkar today ruled out three-way talks between Britain, Ireland and the EU about Brexit.

Instead he insisted that Ireland would only stage detailed talks on the border issue as a representative of the 27 remaining EU states. There wont be tripartite or three-way talks, the Taoiseach told broadcaster RTE. We will, of course, have negotiations about what could be done to avoid a hard border but what we wont be getting into is a negotiation with the UK, or a three-way negotiation.

His comments come after Theresa May announced, in her keynote speech on Friday, that Mr Varadkar had agreed to begin detailed talks at official level on ways to prevent a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Her words were taken by some to mean Dublin and London would try to settle the problem between them. In an interview yesterday Mrs May then suggested that there would be three-way talks with the EU  prompting Mr Varadkar to make clear Ireland would not take part separately from the EU side. Thats not in our interest and not the way that this can be concluded, he said.

He added that more detail was now needed from the UK Government, saying: What we want is not so much principles and aspirations and red lines. What we want is detail, written down in black and white, that can be codified into law and that is what is required.

Meanwhile a Labour MP has said the Prime Minister and Jeremy Corbyn want to have their cake and eat it on Brexit. Ian Murray has founded new group Scottish Labour for the Single Market with Kezia Dugdale, former leader of the party in Scotland, and MEP Catherine Stihler. Mr Murray said: Its very difficult as the EU keeps saying to have your cake and eat it and thats what the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition seem to want to do.

The MP for Edinburgh South said Mr Corbyn was further ahead of Theresa May in his Brexit position, and welcomed the recent announcement that Labour would seek to form a new UK-EU customs union to ensure tariff-free trade after Britain leaves the union.

The Grenfell Tower fire shows that renters should not be treated as lesser persons by landlords, the Prime Minister said in another major speech.T hough neck and neck with Labour in national polls, the political picture looks pretty grim for Conservatives in London. My latest research, published today, finds just a quarter of London voters, and only six in ten Tories, saying they approve of the Governments record.

Londoners gave Mrs May an average performance score of 35 out of 100, compared to 47 for Jeremy Corbyn and 53 for Sadiq Khan, who topped our table. Some admired her stoicism, but she tended to arouse sympathy rather than anything more positive (Im surprised she hasnt had a nervous breakdown, as one of our focus group participants put it). And those were the charitable views.

But how much does this matter in a local election? Whatever else is going on, surely Londoners associate the Tories with good services and value for money?

Well, up to a point. Even in Conservative authorities, I found only a third of voters, and less than half of 2017 Tories, associating the party with lower council tax; fewer than one in five, and one in three Tories, think of them as offering both.

People in Tory council areas were more likely than those in Labour areas to think their council was well-run  but fewer than half thought it made much difference which party ran the council when it came to the quality of its services or the amount it charged in council tax.

We found people in Westminster who were well aware their Band D council tax was the lowest in the country. But they were at least as inclined to put this down to the gold seam of usurious parking charges and traffic fines as they were to credit any Tory genius for financial management. If a council happens to be good at its job of dealing with bins and potholes, what has that really got to do with party politics?

Many in Westminster and Wandsworth, including some previous Tory voters, felt there had been a price to pay for years of low council tax. Since austerity played a big part in driving many away from the Tories nationally, they were often alert to its effects in their neighbourhoods. If a modest rise in council tax under Labour would mean more social housing and better services for people in need, some argued, then maybe it was about time.

Others who had abandoned the Tories last year to vent their displeasure over Brexit were happy with their low bills and clean streets. They would have to balance the possibility of putting these things at risk against the chance of giving the Government another good kicking.

Council tax ranked only fifth when we asked what would matter in their voting decision. Only 23 per cent of Londoners named it, fewer than those who mentioned Brexit. Top of the list was local health services, followed by housing (the biggest single issue for voters aged up to 49) and crime. Police station closures were often mentioned; local Tories may struggle to argue they are not responsible.

The folk memory of loony Left Labour councils with high taxes, shambolic services and extremist policies has all but disappeared, too. Londoners who voted in large numbers for Corbyns party last summer have few qualms about seeing the party assume power locally.

The other is election territory. Our analysis identified two key types of ward. We called these Liberally Affluent, made up of highly qualified professionals and students, and Village London, comprising settled professionals and families. These voted heavily for Remain, were decisive in the lost Tory seats of Battersea, Kensington, Kingston and Twickenham, and helped give them a nasty scare in Putney. They will be returning to the polls in the blue boroughs of Kensington & Chelsea, Kingston, Richmond, and of course Wandsworth and Westminster.

Nationally, even those who are not inclined to punish the Tories for Brexit see an embattled PM and a government divided by Europe, which seems to lack the energy to deal with other urgent issues. We have seen before what happens when the Tories look like this and people look beyond Labours traditional shortcomings.

The Americans like to say all politics is local. In the London elections, the Tories will hope voters see things that way. They have two months to convince them.T heresa May has been mercilessly mocked for delivering her latest speech on housing in front of a bizarre backdrop of fake bricks.

Political journalists poked fun at the Prime Minister and said it looked as if she was peeking out of the top of a chimney as she stood in front of a lectern that was also covered in a printout of bricks.

Some critics said the set design showed Mrs May with her back against the wall in reference to the constant speculation over her leadership and control of the Tory party.

Others joked that she was actually delivering a speech on "bricksit".

Charlotte Morgan tweeted: Theresa May showing her full commitment to solving the housing crisis by delivering her speech popping out of a chimney.

The BBC's Michael Cowan wrote: "In other news, Theresa May is addressing the nation from inside a chimney this morning #buildingbritain."

Rachel Schraer tweeted: "Theresa May floating surreally in a sea of fake bricks as she delivers her housing speech."

Another person joked: "Not sure Theresa May's brick theme for her housing speech is enough... She should have given her speech on Brick Lane to make sure we got the reference to BRICKS"

Bloomberg politics reporter Thomas Penny tweeted: "Theresa May with her back to the wall.... Not sure Number 10 thought this through properly..."

Mrs May was delivering a speech on her plans to tackle "the national housing crisis" at a planning conference in London on Monday.

She was announcing plans to make it tougher for developers who "sit on land and watch its value rises" to get planning permission among a host of other new measures.

Letters begin to fall off the backdrop as Theresa May delivers her keynote speech at the Tory party conference in October 2017 / Getty Images

It is not the first time the Tories have run into set design problems. Back in October, the stage started to fall apart as Mrs May delivered her keynote speech at the Conservative Party conference.Many voters who took part in the study were gloomy about national politics  and angry about Brexit.

Comments about Theresa May included sympathy for the pressure she was under. Im surprised she hasnt had a nervous breakdown, a voter said. One added: Shes doing as well as she can. Shes got a lot of half-baked people around her.

Some people said spending cuts felt deeper. Before 2015 they were aiming to balance the books, said one. After that ... they werent fair cuts.P olice have seized CCTV of a man and woman walking through an alleyway in their investigation into the alleged poisoning of a Russian double agent in Wiltshire.

Police took away an image, shot at 3:47pm on Sunday, of the pair from a camera at a gym near the scene where Sergei Skripal and a woman were found seriously ill in Salisbury.

The gym's manager Cain Prince, 28, said: "Police had a good look at the footage and were interested in these two people. It was the only image they took away.

"They wanted a list of everyone in the gym between 3pm and 4pm as well."

Police seized this CCTV footage taken from a gym (Snap Fitness 24/7 ) / Snap Fitness 24/7

Mr Prince added police said Skripal was "wearing a green coat".

The 66-year-old is critically ill at Salisbury District Hospital after being found unconscious in the Wiltshire city.

Onlookers said he was found shaking on a bench along with a woman aged in her 30s, said to be known to Mr Skripal.

A forensic tent stands over the bench where the pair were found unconcious / Getty Images

Police declared a 'major incident' and specialist crews in full protective body suits cleaned the area where they were found, along with a hospital A&E department, which was forced to close.

Last night, police shut down a branch of the Italian restaurant chain Zizzi in the city 'as a precaution' in connection with the incident, leading to fears one or both of them may have dined there before they were taken seriously ill.

Loading....

Police were also searching the home of Skripal, who sold state secrets to MI6.

Officers arrived at Mr Skripal's home in Salisbury, yesterday evening to begin their search for clues, neighbours said.

Mr Skripal was convicted in 2006 of passing state secrets to MI6 before being given refuge in the UK in 2010 as part of a spy swap with the US including Anna Chapman, who went on to become a model and TV personality.

Police inside a Zizzi restaurant near to where the pair were discovered in Salisbury / PA

One Russia expert said there would be few scenarios other than a poison plot that would require "a full-scale decontamination of the street and the hospital."

Keir Giles, director of the Conflict Studies Research Centre, told the Daily Mail: "It's hard not to see a pattern of attacks becoming more and more brazen."

Police next to a forensics tent at the scene in Salisbury / REUTERS

Freya Church, who saw the couple on the bench, said they 'looked so out of it', adding the younger woman was leaning on the man.

Salisbury 'Russian spy' incident: Eyewitness describes couple

She told the BBC: "On the bench there was a couple, an older guy and a younger girl. She was sort of leaned in on him. It looked like she had passed out, maybe.

"He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky," she said.

The widow of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident who died after drinking tea laced with radioactive Polonium at the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, central London, in 2006 said the whole thing was like "deja vu."

Comparisons have been drawn with the death of Russian dissident Alexander / AP

Marina Litvinenko told the BBC: "It's like deja vu, (like) what happened to me 11 years ago."

"In Russia it is still (an) old-fashioned and old-style KGB system... It's still all the same. If there is an order to kill somebody it will happen."

The UK's top counter-terrorism officer said his specialists were supporting the investigation.

Met Police assistant commissioner Mark Rowley told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "If you look back at other cases like (Alexander) Litvinenko, if necessary we will bring that investigation into the counter-terrorism network.

"At the moment the key is, though, to get to the bottom of what caused this."

Mr Skripal, a former colonel in the Russian military intelligence, was sentenced to 13 years in prison in his homeland in 2006.

Marina Litvinenko drew comparisons with her husband's death in 2006 / PA

But he was among four convicts who were given pardons and one of two sent to Britain in 2010 in a deal said to have been the largest spy swap since the Cold War.

Wiltshire Police said officers were "unable to ascertain" whether the pair, who are both in critical condition in intensive care, have been victims of a crime.

Probe: Police cordoned off part of Salisbury city centre after the incident / PA

A nearby branch of the chain restaurant Zizzi was "secured as a precaution", the force said, adding Public Health England believed there was no risk to the public. It was unclear whether the pair had eaten there.

Officers in regular uniforms and plain clothes spoke to staff inside and worked in tents in the area the pair were found.

A member of Zizzi staff who answered the phone declined to comment. Police are still at the Salisbury restaurant which was closed in the wake of the contamination scare.

An officer sat in an unmarked car outside Zizzi in Castle Street , which was "secured as a precaution" on Monday night.

Wiltshire's Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Craig Holden said: "The pair, who we believe are known to each other, did not have any visible injuries and were taken to Salisbury District Hospital.

"This has not been declared as a counter terrorism incident and we would urge people not to speculate. However, I must emphasise that we retain an open mind and we will continue to review this position."

The pair were found by the Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury / PA

Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion and critic of Vladimir Putin, was among those who drew comparisons with the death of Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko in 2006.

But Igor Sutyagin, who was part of the same swap deal as Mr Skripal and is now a research fellow at think tank the RUSI, urged caution.

He said: "There are lots of former security officers that deserted to the West. It is necessary to balance this information."

A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in the UK, when asked for comment on the incident, said: "Neither relatives nor legal representatives of the said person, nor the British authorities have addressed the embassy in this regard."

A forensics tent at the scene in Salisbury / Getty Images

Salisbury District Hospital declared a major incident but told patients to attend appointments as normal unless advised otherwise.

A spokesman for Public Health England said anyone exposed to the unknown substance had been decontaminated "as is standard practice in situations like this".

Among the Russian agents deported from America as part of the spy swap deal was Manhattan socialite and diplomat's daughter Anna Chapman, who was married to a British man and lived in London for several years.

While the incident in Salisbury is shrouded in mystery, it comes at a time of major tension in UK-Russian relations.

A report from the Commons Foreign Affairs committee last year describing the relationship between the two countries as being at "its most strained point since the end of the Cold War".

And in evidence to the Commons Intelligence and Security Committee, MI6 described the Russian state as "formidable adversaries".

Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson yesterday told the Commons that Russian President Vladimir Putin has "hostile intent" towards Britain, adding: "We have to wake up to the threat and we have to respond to it."

In 2006, Mr Litvinenko died in London after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210.P remier Inn has today hit back at claims it turned away homeless people from rooms that had already been booked and paid for during the big freeze.

Almost 3,000 had been spent on a booking for a young farmers group at the Weston-Super-Mare East hotel on Friday night but they were unable to go to the town after Storm Emma hit the area.

Sarah Parker-Khan, who made the booking, got in touch with local homeless charities in the hope that the rooms could provide shelter for those in need as temperatures plummeted but she claimed that two rough sleepers who were sent to the hotel were turned away.

Premier Inn denied the claim after reviewing CCTV footage. On Wednesday, the hotel chain said that the homeless charity involved had admitted the two rough sleepers were sent out alone and that they were seemingly given the wrong hotel address.

Premier Inn said there was no record of the homeless people being turned from another hotel two miles away and that no-one presented booking details.

No-one was turned away, a spokeswoman for the hotel chain said.

The Standard has asked Charity Comfort and Warmth, which is the organisation involved, for further comment.

The Newton Abbot Young Farmers Group, who were unable to use the hotel rooms

Premier Inn said in its original statement on Monday: "We are a business that works extensively with all disadvantaged groups with a track record of getting homeless people off the streets and back into work so were very disappointed that vulnerable people feel let down through absolutely no fault of their own.

"We will be reaching out to the two homelessness organisations involved."

Mrs Parker-Khan, 38, had said: I am involved in a young farmers group and had booked 19 rooms.

Airport police rescue baby hare from the snow

Because of the weather the roads were closed, the trains were cancelled, so we couldnt get there and decided to give the rooms to homeless people in the area, let them have a night in the warm, a shower.

We contacted a couple of homeless charities who were struggling for space so they could give the rooms to anyone who was in need."

UK Weather: Beast from the East freeze - In pictures 1 /64 UK Weather: Beast from the East freeze - In pictures Snow storm over London NPASLondon/Twitter The frozen canal at Little Venice, London Jeremy Selwyn A multi-car collision on the M66 NEAR Ramsbottom and Bury Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) Ice climbers at Kinder Downfall, High Peak in Derbyshire PA RFA Tidespring battles powerful weather conditions sparked by the Beast from the East EPA/Ministry of Defence Members of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards take part in a snow ball fight prior to the combined St David's Day celebration and pre-deployment service at Elizabeth Barracks, Pirbright, Surrey PA A police car on fire on the M62 near Huddersfield. PA Andrea Geile skies along Princes Street in Edinburgh PA Heavy snowfall hits St Paul's Cathedral Zuma / Splash News Storm clouds over Dublin Bay PA Paddington Station today Jeremy Selwyn The M876 to Glasgow is closed PA A man walks in the snowy conditions in Larbert PA Edinburgh Castle in the snow PA Members of the public make their way through snow the streets in Alexandria, Scotland Getty Images Jock the Shih Tzu plays in the snow Getty Images Waterloo Station tracks covered in snow Jeremy Selwyn A man clears snow in Alexandria, Scotland Getty Images Snow-covered members of the public walk through heavy snow in Westminster Getty Images A stranded car covered in snow in Whitley Bay in Tyne and Wear PA Police push a car on the on the M80 Haggs in Glasgow PA A blizzard hit Trafalgar Square School children from Wearhead Primary School, in County Durham, which stands more than 1,100 feet (335m) above sea level and which remained open despite blizzards thanks to teachers battling through the elements and a parent with a digger PA Snow continues to fall in Westminster Jeremy Selwyn A man clears snow from a car in Larbert PA Fabio Fodaro cycles during a blizzard at Helix Park in Falkirk PA The scene on the M80 Haggs in Glasgow PA Police push a car on the on the M80 Haggs in Glasgow PA Huge crowds outside Oxford Circus Tube station @_kathyharvey People walk in the snow on Horse Guards Parade Reuters Whiteout: Londoners brave the snow in Piccadilly Circus Tony Villalon Three-year-old Wilfred Martin, enjoys sledding in the snow in Richmond Park, Londo PA Victor the polar bear enjoys the snow at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster PA Giant waves crash over Seaham lighthouse near Durham as the "Beast from the East" brings heavy snow and freezing temperatures to much of the country PA Spectacular sunrise over Canary Wharf James Burns/London from the Rooftops Vehicles get stuck on a hill on the A30 near Land's End in Cornwall following heavy snow that made driving conditions difficult PA Battersea looking beautiful in the snow Hatty Collier People walk their dogs on Blyth Beach in Northumberland PA A swimmer braves the snowy conditions at King Edwards bay near Tynemouth PA Frozen foutains at Trafalgar Square Jeremy Selwyn Stationary traffic on the M20 near Ashford, Kent PA Pedestrians cross Whitehall as snow falls AP Pedestrians walk across millennium bridge in front of St Paul's as heavy snowfall hits London AFP/Getty Images A snow-covered Tube train early today Londoners woke to wintry scenes Jeremy Selwyn A lorry shed its load on the M20 overnight Kent Police RPU Snow falls on Wimbledon Common Alex Lentati A London bus travels through the snow in Oxford street EPA Snow surrounds the Angel of the North in Gateshead PA People walk past Buckingham Palac PA People walk along Bankside, London in the snow PA Snow at Horse guards in London Jeremy Selwyn Rare snow seen at Brighton Beach James Mayes Toby Stanton walks to school in Ashford, Kent, as heavy snowfall is affecting roads across the UK PA Highways England/Twitter Cars travel through Great Chart in Ashford, Kent PA A Eurostar train passes through Ashford, Kent PA Vehicles on the M20 between Junctions 8 and 9, as heavy snowfall is affecting roads across the UK PA A double decker bus carefully makes it way through the snowfall in London Jeremy Selwyn Cars drive through falling snow on the A41 in Hemel Hempstead Jeremy Selwyn Parents walk their children to school in Ashford, Kent PA Newcastle Quayside following heavy overnight snowfall PA Walkers in the snow near to Another Place by Anthony Gormley, on Crosby Beech near LiverpooL PA Fishing boats moored in Scarborough harbour PA Commuters battle the snoiw across London Bridge Jeremy Selwyn

Mrs Parker-Khan, from Dartmoor, who is mayor and a councillor in the town of Ashburton, added: We just wanted them to use the rooms that were paid for.

It was such a cold night, Arctic conditions, -10C."

Charity Comfort and Warmth had originally said it sent the two rough sleepers down with the booking reference.

In a Facebook post its chairman, Jon Codd, had claimed: "We sent two rough sleepers down at around 7pm.S hoppers were left outraged by empty supermarket shelves across the UK days after freezing conditions caused by the Beast from the East and Storm Emma finally cleared.

Customers likened conditions to that of a zombie apocalypse as aisles were bare on Sunday night and Monday morning, even after a bitter Siberian blast that blanketed the country with snow had passed.

People had been panic-buying supplies as the severe weather hit Britain last week.

Lorry drivers had also struggled to deliver their loads to supermarkets across Britain after heavy snow and treacherous ice blocked the roads.

UK Weather: Beast from the East freeze - In pictures 1 /64 UK Weather: Beast from the East freeze - In pictures Snow storm over London NPASLondon/Twitter The frozen canal at Little Venice, London Jeremy Selwyn A multi-car collision on the M66 NEAR Ramsbottom and Bury Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service (GMFRS) Ice climbers at Kinder Downfall, High Peak in Derbyshire PA RFA Tidespring battles powerful weather conditions sparked by the Beast from the East EPA/Ministry of Defence Members of 1st Battalion Welsh Guards take part in a snow ball fight prior to the combined St David's Day celebration and pre-deployment service at Elizabeth Barracks, Pirbright, Surrey PA A police car on fire on the M62 near Huddersfield. PA Andrea Geile skies along Princes Street in Edinburgh PA Heavy snowfall hits St Paul's Cathedral Zuma / Splash News Storm clouds over Dublin Bay PA Paddington Station today Jeremy Selwyn The M876 to Glasgow is closed PA A man walks in the snowy conditions in Larbert PA Edinburgh Castle in the snow PA Members of the public make their way through snow the streets in Alexandria, Scotland Getty Images Jock the Shih Tzu plays in the snow Getty Images Waterloo Station tracks covered in snow Jeremy Selwyn A man clears snow in Alexandria, Scotland Getty Images Snow-covered members of the public walk through heavy snow in Westminster Getty Images A stranded car covered in snow in Whitley Bay in Tyne and Wear PA Police push a car on the on the M80 Haggs in Glasgow PA A blizzard hit Trafalgar Square School children from Wearhead Primary School, in County Durham, which stands more than 1,100 feet (335m) above sea level and which remained open despite blizzards thanks to teachers battling through the elements and a parent with a digger PA Snow continues to fall in Westminster Jeremy Selwyn A man clears snow from a car in Larbert PA Fabio Fodaro cycles during a blizzard at Helix Park in Falkirk PA The scene on the M80 Haggs in Glasgow PA Police push a car on the on the M80 Haggs in Glasgow PA Huge crowds outside Oxford Circus Tube station @_kathyharvey People walk in the snow on Horse Guards Parade Reuters Whiteout: Londoners brave the snow in Piccadilly Circus Tony Villalon Three-year-old Wilfred Martin, enjoys sledding in the snow in Richmond Park, Londo PA Victor the polar bear enjoys the snow at the Yorkshire Wildlife Park in Doncaster PA Giant waves crash over Seaham lighthouse near Durham as the "Beast from the East" brings heavy snow and freezing temperatures to much of the country PA Spectacular sunrise over Canary Wharf James Burns/London from the Rooftops Vehicles get stuck on a hill on the A30 near Land's End in Cornwall following heavy snow that made driving conditions difficult PA Battersea looking beautiful in the snow Hatty Collier People walk their dogs on Blyth Beach in Northumberland PA A swimmer braves the snowy conditions at King Edwards bay near Tynemouth PA Frozen foutains at Trafalgar Square Jeremy Selwyn Stationary traffic on the M20 near Ashford, Kent PA Pedestrians cross Whitehall as snow falls AP Pedestrians walk across millennium bridge in front of St Paul's as heavy snowfall hits London AFP/Getty Images A snow-covered Tube train early today Londoners woke to wintry scenes Jeremy Selwyn A lorry shed its load on the M20 overnight Kent Police RPU Snow falls on Wimbledon Common Alex Lentati A London bus travels through the snow in Oxford street EPA Snow surrounds the Angel of the North in Gateshead PA People walk past Buckingham Palac PA People walk along Bankside, London in the snow PA Snow at Horse guards in London Jeremy Selwyn Rare snow seen at Brighton Beach James Mayes Toby Stanton walks to school in Ashford, Kent, as heavy snowfall is affecting roads across the UK PA Highways England/Twitter Cars travel through Great Chart in Ashford, Kent PA A Eurostar train passes through Ashford, Kent PA Vehicles on the M20 between Junctions 8 and 9, as heavy snowfall is affecting roads across the UK PA A double decker bus carefully makes it way through the snowfall in London Jeremy Selwyn Cars drive through falling snow on the A41 in Hemel Hempstead Jeremy Selwyn Parents walk their children to school in Ashford, Kent PA Newcastle Quayside following heavy overnight snowfall PA Walkers in the snow near to Another Place by Anthony Gormley, on Crosby Beech near LiverpooL PA Fishing boats moored in Scarborough harbour PA Commuters battle the snoiw across London Bridge Jeremy Selwyn

In their latest updates, Tesco said it was not aware of any shortages throughout the country, while Lidl and Asda said they are working to restore normal availability.

Despite this, one woman, known as @RelzBelz on Twitter, tweeted on Monday morning: Walked in Tesco and walked back out again youd think were in the middle of a zombie apocalypse the way the shelves are empty.

While Hannah Hardwell, from Clevedon, Somerset, said it was the end of the world as she posted pictures of her local Tesco branch bereft of bread and vegetables on Monday afternoon.

The south-west of England was struck by heavy snow during last weeks freezing cold snap with a red Met Office weather warning issued on Thursday.

Guy Trezona tweeted yesterday: I went to Tesco today in Ledbury Herefordshire  no food, bread, vegetables, or dairy! And dangerous snow/slush in car parks so went to Aldi in Ledbury no snow, full shelves and food available  why??

A Tesco spokeswoman tweeted back explaining the store had been struggling to keep up with demand from customers during the recent weather.

But Mr Trezona replied: Sorry Beth but it does not help at all. We don't live in Russia ... yet!

I presume they have been buying bulk at Aldi too in Ledbury?

There is no excuse for the state of the car park... its a disgrace.

He added: There was NO bread for the last TWO days  no fresh meat/chicken  80 per cent of fresh vegetables not stocked  NO ready meals  most shelves empty!

Beast from the East: Cold weather in numbers

Meanwhile, others throughout the UK reported empty shelves in Lidl, Aldi, Asda and Morrisons as the cold snap finally passed.

Customers suggested there had been a mass stampede on bread, fruit and vegetables.

Marc, from Manchester, shared an image on Twitter of bare meat shelves in Aldi.

He said: Why does Aldi ALWAYS look like this.

Its like they dont want me to spend any money there.

A spokesman from Tesco told the Standard: "We are not away of any stores that are lacking in any way of any particular products. There's good availability in all our our stores."

A spokesman from Asda said: Despite the snow creating some pretty difficult conditions, our colleagues have worked really hard to get deliveries through and keep our shelves stocked for our customers. We are getting everything back into shape this week, with milk to be delivered into every store today.

A spokesman from Lidl said: "With the adverse weather conditions last week, our teams have been working hard to maintain product availability in the parts of the country most affected by the weather. Despite the challenging circumstances and thanks to the extraordinary commitment from our warehouse and store colleagues, we are now returning to normal availability in all stores."

A spokesman from Aldi said: Some stores experienced significantly increased demand as we helped customers cope with the severe weather conditions, which led to some temporary shortages on a small number of products.

"We are working hard with our suppliers to keep disruption to a minimum and ensure customers can get everything they need from our stores.S hocking photos show tens of thousands of dead starfish, sea urchins and mussels washed up on UK beaches after the bitter cold snap wreaked havoc for marine life.

A hammer blow was dealt to marine life as Siberian blast the Beast from the East and Storm Emma brought ice and snow to Britain last week.

Dead crabs, starfish, mussels and lobsters are lying, ankle-deep in places along the Holderness coast in Yorkshire, while similar scenes have been reported along the coast of Norfolk and Kent.

Last week saw a 3C drop in sea temperatures, causing sea animals to hunker down and reduce their activity level, according to Bex Lynam, North Sea marine advocacy officer at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust.

Beast from the East sparks mass sea-life die-off 1 /10 Beast from the East sparks mass sea-life die-off Beaches in Yorkshire were blanketed with dead sea life Bex Lynam/Yorkshire Wildlife Trust A 25cm quadrat shows the scale of devastation Bex Lynam/Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Crabs, mussels and starfish died Bex Lynam/Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Wildlife experts called the mass die-off "carnage" Bex Lynam/Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Walkers on the beaches shared spectacular scenes Bex Lynam/Yorkshire Wildlife Trust The Yorkshire Wildlife Trust battled to save lobsters that were still alive Bex Lynam/Yorkshire Wildlife Trust The mussels, starfish and crabs died after the sea temperature dropped by 3C Bex Lynam/Yorkshire Wildlife Trust The Beast from the East was responsible for the die-off Bex Lynam/Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Thousands of starfish carpeted the beaches Bex Lynam/Yorkshire Wildlife Trust The Big Freeze killed off many kinds of marine life Bex Lynam/Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

"This makes them vulnerable to rough seas - they became dislodged by large waves and washed ashore when the rough weather kicked in.

"Larger animals such as dolphins are more mobile and can save themselves by swimming away when this sort of thing happens," she said.

Most of the animals on the Yorkshire coast are dead, except for lobsters which Yorkshire Wildlife Trust have been working with local fishermen to rescue, the charity said.

Lobsters that were still alive were gathered in buckets and taken to tanks in Bridlington for care, before being put back into the sea as the weather improves.

Ms Lynam added: "Lobsters are one of the few species still alive - that's why we're saving them with local fishermen.

"This area is very important for shellfish and we work alongside fishermen to promote sustainable fisheries and protect reproductive stocks. It's worth saving them so that they can be put back into the sea and continue to breed."

The phenomenon was also seen on beaches in Ramsgate, Kent, where photographs of the spectacle were shared on a Facebook page called London Mudlark.

Lara Maiklem, 47, wrote on the Facebook page: "I managed to pull the twins out of bed early to catch low tide and see this starfish spectacle.

"Hundreds of thousands of starfish, sea urchins, crabs, sea anenomies and fish, killed and washed up by the Beast from the East.

"We saved a few crabs but most of them were dead. A sad, but incredible sight."

Chris Constantine meanwhile tweeted a video of devastation seen in Ramsgate with the caption: "#Starfish armageddon in Ramsgate, Kent. This was my Sunday stroll along our beach."

Temperatures plunged last week across the UK with roads and railways heavily disrupted by heavy snow and ice.

The mercury began to creep up on Saturday, with meteorologists warning the thaw could bring floods.T he threat to Britain from returning Islamic State fighters is being underestimated because European extremists fleeing Syria are free to travel here, a terrorism expert warned today.

Richard Walton, a former head of Scotland Yards counter-terrorism command, said everyone is assuming the danger came from British IS supporters arriving back in this country.

But he said free movement between Britain and the rest of the EU meant several thousand more foreign fighters who would also be able to enter.

The risk was greater because of the ability of extremists to avoid detection through the use of fake passports or identity cards acquired on the continent or even made by IS.

Mr Waltons comments come ahead of his participation in a World Counter Terror Congress which begins in London tomorrow [tues].

Others taking part include Met Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley, the countrys most senior counter-terrorism officer, Sir Julian King, the EUs security commissioner, and security officials from the Gulf, Asia, and other parts of the world.

One aim of the event is to improve international cooperation and to allow countries to share knowledge about the terrorist threat.

Around 300 of the 850 or so British residents who went to Syria are still estimated to be overseas. Of these, around two thirds have been deprived of their citizenship because they were either foreign-born or are of overseas heritage with access to another nationality.

That leaves around 100 who might still try to return.

But Mr Walton said the danger was much greater because of the ability of foreign fighters from other parts of the EU to travel here.

He said: About 30,000 to 40,000 people from 100 nation states went to Syria and a proportion of those are coming back. But they are not necessarily returning to the countries of origin, they are returning to regions of origin.

A French national may not return to Paris, he may return to London. No-ones considered that yet.

Everyone is assuming its your own nationals coming back but, of course, with the common travel area in the EU, it could be any European thats gone in the last five or six years. If you tot that up for Europe, there are several thousand.

The concern is foreign fighters .. using common travel areas and their passports to travel around. You hop into one EU country and youve got the liberty to get around all the others. Unfortunately, freedom of movement provides freedom of movement for terrorists as well.

People dont realise. They think its only our British jihadis who have gone and are coming back but its not.

Mr Walton said that if jihadis did seek to return, they should be prosecuted and that Britain had a sophisticated counter-terrorism machine capable of using evidence gathered overseas to secure convictions.

He also praised Britains counter-terrorism police and intelligence agencies, saying that they remained outstanding despite the wave of attacks last year.A former Russian double agent is critically ill in Salisbury following his suspected exposure to an unknown substance.

Sergei Skripal, 66, was found unconscious on a shopping centre bench with an identified woman, aged in her 30s, on Sunday.

But who is Mr Skripal and how did a Russian spy end up in Wiltshire?

Sergei Skripal was a colonel in Russian military intelligence before he was convicted of spying for the UK.

A forensic tent stands over the bench where the pair were found unconscious / Getty Images

He was accused of working for MI6 over several years, in particular disclosing the names of several dozen Russian agents working in Europe.

He was sentenced to 13 years in a high-security prison in Moscow in August 2006, but was later freed in a 2010 deal which saw 10 Russian sleeper agents expelled from the US.

Mr Skripal was one of four agents pardoned and released by Moscow in what was said at the time to be the biggest spy swap since the Cold War.

He was flown to the UK along with another of the men freed by Russia in the exchange - military analyst Igor Sutyagin, who was serving a 14-year sentence for spying for the US.

The spy swap took place on July 9, 2010 on the tarmac at Vienna's airport and a Boeing 767-200 carrying the four agents was understood to have later touched down at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire.

The Foreign Office refused to comment at the time on whether the men would remain in the UK.

But it appears Mr Skripal settled for a quieter life in the medieval cathedral city of Salisbury, Wiltshire for several years until it emerged he was understood to be critically ill in hospital after what police said was suspected exposure to an unknown substance.

Neighbours told the BBC police arrived at his home at around 5pm on Sunday and have been stationed there since.

The pair were found by the Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury / PA

They added he was friendly and had lost his wife in recent years, the broadcaster said.

Meanwhile, his compatriot Mr Sutyagin, who always protested his innocence, told the Associated Press in an interview in August 2010 he wanted to return to Russia, saying: "It's my country. I am not on the run."A nti-establishment parties were celebrating major gains in Italy after elections left the country facing a hung parliament.

A surge in support for the populist Five Star Movement left it as the countrys biggest single party with an estimate 30 per cent of the vote.

The eurosceptic Northern League, which fought an election campaign defined by anti-immigrant rhetoric, also made significant gains to win more than 18 per cent of the vote.

The two parties, which previously lay outside the political establishment in Italy, attracted a combined vote share of almost 50 per cent.

Meanwhile, the centre-right coalition backed by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi - who is barred from office due to a conviction for tax fraud - attracted about 36 per cent of the vote, but remained short of an overall majority of seats.

The centre-left Democratic party, led by former prime minister Matteo Renzi suffered major losses with a projected vote share of about about 19 per cent.

Forza Italia party leader Silvio Berlusconi arrives to cast his vote at a polling station in Milan / REUTERS

But it was the strong showing for anti-establishment parties which was the most telling trend.

Five Star lawmaker Alfonso Bonafede said: If these figures are confirmed it would be historic and extraordinary, Five Star will be the pillar of the next legislature.

Matteo Salvini, the nationalist leader of the Northern League, tweeted early on Monday: My first words: THANK YOU.

The hung parliament raises the prospect of a eurosceptic coalition, giving the European Union a fresh headache. Campaigning in Italy was marked by neo-fascist rhetoric and anti-migrant violence that culminated in a shooting spree last month that targeted African migrants and injured six.

"Italy is far from having sorted its long-standing problems, and now it will have new ones. Be prepared for long and complex negotiations that will take months," said Lorenzo Codogno, a former chief economist at the Italian Treasury.

Topless protester confronts Berlusconi at Italian elections

Led by 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio, the Five Star Movement was formed in 2009 and has fed off public fury over corruption in the Italian establishment and economic hardship.

It massively increased its vote share from four per cent in 2013 to end up as the single biggest party - but some analysts have questioned whether other parties would be able to work with it.

"Di Maio wins, Italy ungovernable," was the front page headline on the first edition of La Stampa newspaper.

The Five Star Movement in principle opposes allying with other parties in government, and wants to rule alone if it wins its first premiership.

But its candidate for premier, 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio, has shown some openness to potential partners.

"Nobody will be able to govern without the Five Star Movement," said senior party member Riccardo Fraccaro. "We will assume the responsibility to build this government, but in a different way, talking with all the parties about what this country needs."N orth Korea may have banked up to 150 million in digital cryptocurrency transactions last year and avoiding financial restrictions on its nuclear and missiles programmes, an analyst fears.

Cyber security official Priscilla Moriuchi estimated the country has raked in 11,000 Bitcoins in an interview with Radio Free Asia.

Had the nation monetised these when Bitcoin hit its peak of $19,343 (14,016) in December, it would have made $212 million (152m), according to data from CoinDesk. However, that value falls to $120m (87m) by January.

Ms Moriuchi, who has led cyber security in the Asia-Pacific region at the US National Security Agency, claimed North Korea gathered the cryptocurrency by mining  a process of earning Bitcoins using a number of computers to solve complex mathematical problems.

Kim Jong Un observes a nuclear missile launch

Ms Moriuchi, now director of strategic threat development at Recorded Future, told Vox.com, said: I would bet that these coins are being turned into something  currency or physical goods  that are supporting North Koreas nuclear and ballistic missile programme.

It comes as North Korea faces tough international sanctions over its nuclear programmes.

In February, US president Donald Trump said he was targeting the nation with the heaviest sanctions ever imposed on a country before.

Loading....

These targeted dozens of ships, shipping companies and other firms that allegedly help Pyongyang fund its weapons.

The Trump administration is seeking to starve North Korea of funds until it is potentially open to negotiations over the programmes.

But Ms Moriuchi claims the state could potentially dodge these financial restrictions with cryptocurrencies.

She said North Korea has built a network of operational bases in foreign countries including China and in Southeast Asia where it carries out cyber operations, according to research.

Ms Moriuchi said the international community should increase regulations on cryptocurrency exchanges.A n Australian airline has reportedly issued guidelines advising employees not to "manterrupt" women and to use gender-neutral language.

Qantas airline released the information on its corporate intranet as part of its "Spirit of Inclusion" month detailing a list of potentially offensive terms.

Staff were also allegedly advised to avoid words such as "mum" and "dad" and "husband" and "wife" as they could be seen to exclude same-sex couples and single parent families.

Employees were also recommended to "minimise manterruptions" in which men in the workplace "interrupt or speak over women" and to avoid words like "love, honey and darling."

The advice was leaked to the Sydney publication The Daily Telegraph.

According to the newspaper, the intranet page read: Language can make groups of people invisible. For example, the use of the term chairman can reinforce the idea that leaders are always men.

One section apparently urged staff to recognise reality and suggested that staff describe the arrival of the British in the continent from the late 1700s as colonisation, occupation or invasion.

It explains: Describing the arrival of the Europeans as a settlement is a view of Australian history from the perspective of England rather than Australia.

Tony Abbott, former Prime Minister of Australia told 2GB Radio that he thought the pack was political correctness gone too far.

Qantas staff are very good people theyve got to deal with just about every possible type of person, and they dont need this kind of nonsense, they really dont, he added.

But others praised the airline for its inclusive policies.

Catherine Gillespie wrote on twitter: Congratulations @Qantas information pack marking the start of the #qantas Spirit of Inclusion month. Everyone has the right to a work environment free of harassment and offence. Please use the same inclusive language with customers too

Lisa Annese, from the Diversity Council of Australia which helped to design the guidelines, told The Australian: I really give credit to Qantas who do a lot of work to make their employees feel included and valued and respected, especially now when were seeing stories of bad behaviour.T he right pan really does make all the difference. Whether youre wanting to slow cook, grill fast, griddle to get that seared colour on your meats or sweat down some onions, a good pan should help you achieve the results you want without too much sticking or burning.

Cast iron pans and casseroles are solid and enduring - the kind of pans to use daily and keep for life. Theyre good for stews, casseroles, chillies and curries, ideal both on the hob and in the oven, and many are stylish enough to go straight to the table too. All this means that they can also be especially expensive, so its definitely worth considering which style, size and price point suits you best. We have tried and tested a selection of some of the best on the market across the spectrum to help inform your decision.

Denby Cast Iron 28Cm Oval Casserole Dish

A real looker of a pan which comes in numerous shiny colour options including this vibrant red. It has a capacity of over 4 litres and can be used either on the hob or in the oven. Its shape is ideal for cuts of meat such as lamb shanks and large roasting joints as well as casseroles, stews and bakes. It has a great non-stick coating which really does work - perfect for jobs like browning onions - and its lid comes with built-in basting rings to collect and recirculate moisture as it evaporates. A quality pan with a look to match, and a price point that is more reasonable than some of its equally high quality counterparts - a winner.

Le Creuset Signature Cast Iron Round Casserole

You cant think about cast iron pans without thinking of Le Creuset. The French brand dating back to 1925 is a chefs favourite as well as the market leader when it comes to high-end kitchenware. The range comes in 14 colours, from meringue cream to deep cassis, and most classic bright orange volcanic shade, and in sizes from 20cm to 28cm wide. From look to feel, to how it cooks, it exudes class and perfectionism. It comes with a slightly domed lid, which works like a mini tagine to recirculate moisture into your dishes as it evaporates. A decorative stainless steel knob does well to resist excess heat making it easy to remove the lid, while small handles on each side of the pan make lifting it easy despite its size and heavy build. Seriously hard to beat, but with a price tag that knows it.

Shadow Cast Iron Round Dutch Oven

One approach to competing with the tour de force that is Le Creuset is to offer a similar product for a lower price. And youve got to give it to them, this broadly similar casserole dish is far less expensive and still cooks well. Making use of the famous French brands trademark orange colour, it is a nice looking, versatile and sturdy piece of kit. Placed side-by-side with the original it looks less stylish, and it doesnt benefit from as nice a non-stick surface, but depending on how much youre looking to spend these could be sacrifices worth making.

Chasseur Cast Iron Casserole Dish

A high quality enamel finish and smooth cooking surface make this casserole dish a clearly premium offering - and it looks as good on the table as it does on the stove. Its wide and shallow design, though still with plenty of depth, makes it ideal for everything from stews, casseroles and curries to pastas, risottos and eggs. On testing we found that food tended to stick to the bottom a little more than with the Le Creuset and Denby alternatives, so despite an overall great cooking quality thats a reason we have to mark it down.

Stellar Cast Iron Grill Pan

The true test of a grill pan is how it cooks steaks, and this one does them very well indeed. Of course, its useful for many more dishes than that, but getting a darkened, slightly crisped outer layer on your meat without it sticking and burning, and getting it quickly enough so that the centre of your steak isnt overcooked, is pa-work at its most precise. To that end, this pan has a great non-stick coating, and sharp-edged ridges for that chargrill effect. Extra flourishes include a pouring lip for collecting your juices, and its made to withstand heat all around meaning you can even use it on the barbecue.

Skeppshult Traditional Cast Iron Frying Pan

This carefully engineered Swedish pan is a bit of a looker with a natural beech wood handle and gently curved edges. The sides of the pan slant outwards, which isnt just for appearance but also makes it easy to slide pancakes or fried eggs onto your plate. Natural is the key theme, so its the most non-stick of pans, but it cooks evenly and conducts heat brilliantly - plus if anything does stick, you'll do no harm when scrubbing away at it. While the handle looks great - and doesnt get remotely hot while cooking, it does mean the pan isnt suitable for the oven, which is a shame.

Staub Universal Pan

This is a premium piece of kitchen kit from a brand synonymous with the best of cast iron pans. In our mind, if youre going to invest in the top end then you want a pan that can be somewhat multifunctional so you get the most use out of it - which is where this so-called universal pan comes in. It works just as well for cooking on the hob as it does in the oven, and designed to fit joints of meat so it can be used as a roaster. Its convex lid also helps retain both moisture and flavour with what it calls an Aroma Rain feature which means condensation is evenly distributed onto the dish below. In essence, it does the same thing as a tagine. A pan thats lovely to use, and gives you lots of opportunity to use it.

Netherton Foundry Iron Wok

Even though woks are traditionally made from iron, really good cast iron versions are not the easiest to come by. This version from Netherton Foundry in the Midlands changes that, offering a super-thin 1mm base for fast frying, along with a durable, comfortable oak handle. It comes pre-seasoned with a little flax oil to give a non-stick element, too. This is a classy, well-crafted pan that performs well and is made to last. Fantastic for its price, and given that many of the top-end of cast iron pans come from France and beyond, nice to have such a great offering made artisanally in the UK.

Judge Sizzle and Serve Platter

This unique pan-meets-platter is not the most versatile, but its a nifty piece of kit that youll probably end up using more than you think. Its composed of an oval iron skillet, detachable handle and wooden base and allows you to cook up a dish on the hob and then serve it at the table, still sizzling, on its wooden plinth. The thick cast iron maintains its heat for a long time to keep steaks and dishes hot, and it brings a bit of restaurant-style dining to the home.

Mors Griddle Cocotte

Mors from Denmark is behind this cleverly designed flexible pan, which utilises typically cunning Scandi design. A deep 10.5cm high cocotte-style pan is topped with a lid that doubles as a griddle pan. Whats more, the ridged griddle, when used as a lid, becomes self-basting, adding moisture throughout cooking. As a griddle, it then becomes ideal for cooking steaks and other meat, with the large ridges and heavy duty iron creating plenty of smoky flavour. A clever combination.

Verdict:F rances McDormand reportedly had her Best Actress Oscar statuette stolen at an afterparty.

The actress is said to have taken her prize to the Governors Ball where she had it engraved, but was seen crying outside of the party after realising it was missing.

According to USA Today, McDormand left the party without the award, but was later reunited with it after security managed to track it down.

Fran and Oscar are happily reunited and are enjoying an In-N-Out burger together, McDormands rep, Simon Halls, told the publication.

Meanwhile New York Times reporter Cara Buckley tweeted that security at the bash were searching for a man believed to have grabbed the Oscar and ran out with it.

Frances McDormand's rousing feminist Oscar acceptance speech

Wolfgang Pucks photographer stopped him, got the Oscar back, and the guy disappeared back into the ball. Apparently Frances has said to let him go, Buckley alleged.

McDormand won the Best Actress Oscar for her role in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, using her speech to call for better representation for women in Hollywood.

And now I want to get some perspective. If I may be so honoured to have all the female nominees in every category stand with me in this room tonight, the actors  Meryl, if you do it, everybody else will, cmon  the filmmakers, the producers, the directors, the writers, the cinematographer, the composers, the songwriters, the designers. Cmon! she said.

Okay, look around everybody. Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed.

Oscars 2018: Governors Ball Party - In pictures 1 /10 Oscars 2018: Governors Ball Party - In pictures Frances McDormand and Pedro McDormand Coen REUTERS Allison Janney, winner of the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for 'I, Tonya', attends the Governors Ball after the Oscars Eric Jamison/Invision/AP Mira Sorvino and Ashley Judd Reuters Academy Award Winner for Best Supporting Actor, Sam Rockwell and Leslie Bibb attend the 90th Annual Academy Awards Governors Ball Getty Images Academy Award Winner for Best Supporting Actress, Allison Janney, attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards Governors Ball Getty Images Mark Bridges, winner of the award for best costume design for 'Phantom Thread' and Laura Dern attend the Governors Ball after the Oscars Eric Jamison/Invision/AP Best Supporting Actress laureate Allison Janney attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards Governors Ball AFP/Getty Images Kobe Bryant and Danny Glover. Reuters Best Animated Short Film winner Kobe Bryant and Mary J. Blige Reuters Jordan Peele Reuters

Dont talk to us about it at the parties tonight.

Invite us into your office in a couple days, or you can come to ours, whatever suits you best, and well tell you all about them.

She ended her speech: I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: inclusion rider.F rances McDormand referenced the Grenfell Tower tragedy after collecting her award for Best Actress at the Oscars.

The US star said that campaigners had been inspired by her film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri to put up their own signs in the wake of the tragedy.

A series of billboards were paraded through central London last month to highlight the "lack of progress" made since the fire, saying "71 dead", "And still no arrests?", "How Come?".

Speaking about the power and relevance of billboards, McDormand said that she found the movement exciting.

Movement: Protesters used the Three Billboards concept in London last month

She said: "I think the idea that activists are taking that kind of statement and putting it out there. Billboards still work, so I think that it's really exciting.

Frances McDormand's rousing feminist Oscar acceptance speech

"It started actually with the Grenfell Tower fire investigation then it leap-frogged to (the) Miami gun control situation, it was outside the UN... that's the kind of power that an image can have and that's what we're making, we're making powerful images."

Oscars 2018: Show - In pictures 1 /32 Oscars 2018: Show - In pictures Jennifer Lawrence arrives for the 90th Annual Academy Awards AFP/Getty Images British actress Helen Mirren arrives with a shot of Tequila on the red carpet at the 90th Annual Academy Awards AFP/Getty Images Sam Rockwell (Best Supporting Actor) Frances McDormand (Best actress) Allison Janney (Best Supporting actress) and Gary Oldman (Best Actor) with their Oscars in the press room at the 90th Academy Awards PA BB-8, actors Oscar Isaac, Mark Hamill and Kelly Marie Tran speak onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Jennifer Lawrence climbs over seats with a glasss of wine at the 90th Annual Academy Awards Kevin Winter/Getty Images Best Costume Design winner Mark Bridges rides a jet ski onto the stage with actress Helen Mirren on the back after he won it for the shortest Oscar acceptance speech of 2018 Reuters Backstage at the Oscars with Kumail Nanjiani and Lupita N'yongo The Academy Frances McDormand leaves the stage after she won the Oscar for Best Actress in "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri" during the 90th Annual Academy Awards show AFP/Getty Images Margot Robbie congratulates Allison Janney, winner of the award for best performance by an actress in a supporting role for "I, Tonya" at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Guillermo del Toro and the cast and crew of "The Shape of Water" accept the award for best picture at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence present the Best Actress Osca Reuters General view of the stage as host Jimmy Kimmel presides over the show Reuters Jimmy Kimmel hosts the show Reuters Sally Hawkins, Saoirse Ronan, Margot Robbie and Meryl Streep react after Frances McDormand's Best Actress acceptance speech Reuters Backstage at the Oscars Lin-Manuel Miranda The Academy Nicole Kidman surprises Sdandra Bullock on the red carpet during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Sandra Bullock asks to dim the lights to make her look younger as a joke whilst on stage Reuters Gary Oldman poses in the press room with the Oscar for best actor during the 90th Annual Academy Awards AFP/Getty Images Gisele Schmidt kisses husband Gary Oldman, winner of the award for best performance by an actor in a leading role for "Darkest Hour" at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Meryl Streep reacts whilst in the audience during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty speak onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Diane Warren and Helen Mirren attend the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Sally Hawkins, Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie reach out to Meryl Streep, as they all react after Frances McDormand's Best Actress acceptance speech Reuters Allison Janney bumps into BB-8 from Star Wars at the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Ashley Judd, Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek speak onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Common and Andra Day perform onstage during the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images Host Jimmy Kimmel and Gal Gadot appear on screen via satellite at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Backstage at the Oscars with Viola Davis The Academy Frances McDormand accepts the award for best performance by an actress in a leading role for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" as Jennifer Lawrence and Jodie Foster look on from right at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Chuck Berry appears on screen as Eddie Vedder performs during an In Memoriam tribute at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Keala Settle performs "This Is Me" from "The Greatest Showman" at the Oscars Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Nicole Kidman and Chadwick Boseman backstag at the 90th Annual Academy Awards Getty Images

In Three Billboards, McDormand plays a mother who challenges authorities over finding the culprit for the rape and murder of her daughter.

Speaking on stage as she collected her award, McDormand called on her fellow female nominees to stand in a bid to highlight the lack of women in the 24 categories.

She said: I want to get some perspective. If I may be so honoured to have all the female nominees in every category stand with me in this room tonight, the actors  Meryl, if you do it, everybody else will, cmon  the filmmakers, the producers, the directors, the writers, the cinematographer, the composers, the songwriters, the designers. Cmon!

She finished by leaving the audience with the words inclusion rider  a clause in an actors contract that requires the cast and crew be diverse in order to retain the actor.Countries & Areas

Search for country or area A Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan B Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burma Burundi C Cabo Verde Cambodia Cameroon Canada Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Costa Rica Cote dIvoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czechia D Democratic Republic of the Congo Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic E Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Eswatini Ethiopia F Fiji Finland France G Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana H Haiti Holy See Honduras Hungary I Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy J Jamaica Japan Jordan K Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan L Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg M Madagascar Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique N Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea North Macedonia Norway O Oman P Pakistan Palau Palestinian Territories Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Q Qatar R Republic of the Congo Romania Russia Rwanda S Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Korea South Sudan Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Suriname Sweden Switzerland Syria T Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand Timor-Leste Togo Tonga Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu U Uganda Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom Uruguay Uzbekistan V Vanuatu Venezuela Vietnam Y Yemen Z Zambia ZimbabweFormer prime minister Nawaz Sharif has said that despite absence of the election symbol of Lion his partys candidate won the Sargodha by election with a margin of 20 thousand votes.

Talking to media after hearing in accountability court on Monday, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader asked,snatching our election symbol will they erase us from contention? The people will support us more as more decisions will come against us, the PML-N leader said.

Sharif continuing his narrative against the judiciary said an elected prime minister was thrown out of the office without any reason. The people would not tolerate this now, he said.

The deposed prime minister also urged for accountability of those involved in horse trading and used money in the Senate elections.Resuming suo motu hearing of Naqeebullah murder case today, Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Mian Saqib Nisar sought progress report in the case from inspector general Sindh and it transpired that no significant progress could not be made in the case while accused cop in fake encounter Rao Anwar is still at large.

The Intelligence Bureau presented a report in court, whereas State Bank of Pakistan official informed the court that all bank accounts of Anwar have been frozen.

Former SSP Malir Rao Anwar, who is facing murder charges for allegedly leading the encounter in which Naqeeb was killed, has gone into hiding as the law enforcement agencies are struggling to find him.

The chief justice inquired from the IG Sindh reasons of Rao Anwars still not being collared. The provincial police replied that the police had call data of absconding Anwar but it could not be prove sufficient to trace the accused cop.

The court also sought reported from civil and military agencies about Rao Anwar.

Anwar was issued a contempt notice for failing to appear before the court despite having been granted protective bail.

The apex court had taken a suo motu notice of the murder of 27-year-old Naqeebullah Mehsud from South Waziristan who was killed in a staged encounter led by Rao Anwar in Karachi on January 13.

The murder triggered widespread outrage on social media when the family of aspiring fashion model rejected claims that Mehsud was a member of a terrorist outfit and had any criminal record.

In a letter to the chief justice, the fugitive officer professed innocence, claiming he was not present at the site of the encounter, where Naqeeb was killed.

He demanded that a free and fair joint investigation should be constituted to look into the allegations against him.

The court had asked Rao Anwar to appear in the next hearing of the case and restrained police from arresting him. But he didnt appear, drawing ire of the court.

The hearing of the case continues.Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has arrived in Nepal on two-day visit. He was received by Nepalese Minister for Finance Yuba Raj Khatiwada upon arrival at Tribhuvan International Airport, Kathmandu.

The Prime Minister will convey felicitations to the Nepalese leadership on the successful conclusion of its democratic process, resulting in the formation of a new government.

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will congratulate the newly elected Prime Minister of Nepal His Excellency Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli who will be welcoming the Prime Minister at the Guard of Honour Ceremony today.

During his visit, the Prime Minister will also call on the President of Nepal Her Excellency Bidya Devi Bhandari. Prime Ministers visit will provide an opportunity to further expand and strengthen bilateral relations across all areas of mutual interest including trade, education, tourism, defence and people to people contacts.According to a statement released by the PM Office, the Prime Ministers visit will provide an opportunity to further expand and strengthen bilateral relations across all areas of mutual interest including trade, education, tourism, defence and people to people contacts.

PM Abbasi urges setting aside political differences for Kashmir cause

Ways of invigorating SAARC as an important regional organization will also be discussed, the statement says.

In the statement, PM Abbasi has stressed that Nepal is an important regional country and a close friend.Our ties with Nepal are characterized by cordiality, mutual respect and commonality of interests, Abbasi is quoted as saying.

Abbasi meets Ghanis envoys amid rising tension

Our support to each other at bilateral and multilateral fora has remained indispensible for both the sides, the premier adds.Ways of invigorating SAARC as an important regional organization will also be discussed. Nepal is an important regional country and Pakistan`s ties with Nepal are characterized by cordiality, mutual respect and commonality of interests. The two countries also support each other at bilateral and multilateral fora.

Earlier, the Ambassador of Nepal in Islamabad Sewa Lamsal Adhikari had called on the prime minister on March 2 and conveyed the message of welcome from the Nepalese leadership to him.Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Monday said the way forward for Balochistan is through bringing about development and stability in the province, said a statement released by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).

During the visit, General Bajwa also inaugurated work for the Turbat- Bulaeda road and performed the earth breaking for construction of Cadet College Awaran at Jhao.

The army chief is on a two-day visit to the province.

"Cadet College Awaran initially will be for 800 cadets with plans to enhance its capacity subsequently. CCA would have hostel facilities for 300 cadets and faculty and will be constructed by Pakistan Army Engineers. The project will be completed in the quicker timeframe of two years for its planned initial capacity," said the ISPR.

The army chief was also given a detailed briefing on recent security measures taken in the province and support given to the government on socio-economic projects. He also interacted with local elders and troops in the area.

COAS at the ground breaking ceremony. -ISPR

Speaking at the occasion, the army chief appreciated progress through joint working by security forces and the civil administration.

Chief Minister Balochistan Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo accompanied COAS throughout the visit and discussed various coordination aspects to successfully carry on the execution of Khushal Balochistan program.

Commander Southern Command Lieutenant General Asim Salim Bajwa and other civil and military officials were present on the occasion, said ISPR.Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) candidate Mian Abdul Bari Pitafi clinched victory in the by-poll held for PS-7 constituency in Mirupur Mathelo, Ghotki, according to unofficial results.

Pitafi defeated Pakistan Muslim League - Functional's (PML-F) Mian Majan.

Pitafi secured 48,114 votes while Majan got 36,986 votes, according to unofficial results.

The PS-7 seat was vacated after the death of Sindh Assembly's member Ahmed Ali Khan.

As many as 179,000 people were expected to exercise their right to vote, by casting their votes at 163 polling stations in the constituency.

The election monitoring officer Noor Muhammad had imposed a fine of 50,000 rupees each on both candidates on Sunday for violating election rules.

Law enforcement agencies, including the Rangers, were deployed in the constituency for ensuring a smooth voting process. Nearly 3,500 police officers including six SPs, 2 ASPs and 11 DSPs were deployed at polling stations.Just days after suffering a setback in the Senate elections, senior Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM-P) leaders Faisal Sabzwari and Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hasan said they were disappointed by party voters and activists, and that show cause notices have been issued to parliamentarians who did vote for the party.

Addressing a press conference at their head office in Bahadaradabad, Sabzwari said that they have issued show cause notices to those renegade members who did not vote for the party in the Senate elections and thereby inflicting severe loss to the partys position in the upper House of Parliament.

Explaining the reasons for the partys setback, he said in the 2013 elections they won several reserved seats after coordination with several parties. However, this time around the party wasted the opportunity due to internal rifts and conflicts.

Those activists and public who were thinking that the MQM is up for sale, this is not so. In the present scenario, the MQM is ashamed of its voters and members, said Sabzwari.

He said that out of the MQMs 51 members of parliament, four are out of the country while nine others have defected to other parties.

The defenders of democracy have spoiled democracy, he said taking a jibe at the Pakistan People Party alleging it luring their party members. PPPs attitude is not democratic, but the MQM is not up for sale.

Responding to question, Sabzwari said that the rift within weakened the party and benefited their opponents, and called for the rival Bahdaurabad and PIB factions to reunite to make the party functional as it suffers further political and organizational losses.

PIB and Bahadurabad should come together make the party functional again, so that the political and organizational losses can be reclaimed, he said adding that political opponents will take full advantage of their weaknesses.

Leader of the Opposition in the Sindh Assembly Khawaja Izhar-ul-Hasan said those vulnerable can be easily tempted and lured away, and that the disgruntled party members voted for their opponents who use state power to quash them.

He said that party members who objected to their nominated candidates should have rather refrained from voting rather than voting for their opponents.

Responding to a question, he said that horse-trading was rampant in the Senate elections, not just in Sindh but rather in all four provinces. He said the rigging and horse-trading was rife in the elections, and that real strength of the MQM does not lies in its coordination committee or parliamentarians, but rather its activists.Lawyers for four men accused of New Zealand largest cocaine smuggling operation have raised concerns about the lack of evidence being presented against them.

Deni Cavallo, 46, Matthew Scott, 44, Benjamin Northway, 35, and Mario Habulin, 46, are accused of smuggling an estimated 46kg of cocaine into New Zealand via a cargo ship at the Port of Tauranga.

They were arrested on November 2, 2017 and have been in custody on remand since.

At an AVL appearance in Tauranga District Court today, lawyers complained about a lack of disclosure from The Crown.

Cavallos lawyer Matthew Bates says his client is concerned at a continuing remand in custody on thin evidence and there is no further disclosure.

Northways lawyer Bruce Hesketh echoed the concerns which were noted by Judge Louis Bidois.

The four men are further remanded to April 10 for a case review hearing.

Two others charged with money laundering in connection with the case, a Mr Yang, 25, and Ms Thi Li, 35, appeared in person.

Judge Bidois further remanded Yang on bail. Li was further remanded in custody also until April 10.

The court heard that Li failed to appear at an earlier hearing in Auckland in December and was arrested in Australia, from where she returned voluntarily to New Zealand.

The four men have entered not guilty pleas to the charges filed so far and the case is expected to go to a High Court jury trial.Finland Wary About EU VAT Rate Reforms

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

05 March 2018

The Finnish Government has said that while it supports the general objectives of the European Commission's proposals on EU VAT rates, the plan's details should be subjected to further examination.

According to a statement released by the Finnish Ministry of Finance on March 1, Finland is in favor of bringing the rules on VAT rates up to date. However, it warns that a more flexible position on reduced rates must not impede the functioning of the single market and increase the VAT compliance burden.

Under plans unveiled by the EC in January 2018, member states would be given greater powers to vary VAT rates and to relax VAT rules for small businesses. The proposals are part of a broader overhaul of the EU's VAT system, which aims at the creation of a single VAT area.

Under the current rules, EU member states can apply a reduced rate of as low as five percent to two distinct categories of products in their countries. A number of member states also apply specific derogations for further reduced rates.

The Commission has proposed that, in addition to a standard VAT rate of a minimum 15 percent, member states should be able to put in place:

two separate reduced rates of between five percent and the standard rate chosen by the member states;

one exemption from VAT (or "zero rate"); and

one reduced rate set at between zero percent and the reduced rates.

The current list of goods and services to which reduced rates can be applied would be abolished. It would be replaced by a new list of products to which the standard rate of 15 percent or above would always be applied.

"The danger of the model proposed by the Commission is that it could lead to growing use of reduced rates and a more complex system at EU level," the ministry stated.

Finland is also opposed to the proposed negative list approach whereby items to which reduced rates do not apply are listed, preferring instead the principle of listing those goods and services to which reduced VAT rates apply.

In a communication to the Finnish parliament on the matter, the Government warns that the EU proposal could erode domestic tax revenues, distort the internal market, and increase business costs and legal uncertainty, leading to more litigation on cross-border VAT issues.France's Le Maire Expects Digital Tax Of Around Two Percent

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

05 March 2018

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has said that digital companies will pay a special tax on their revenue in the range of two to six percent under plans being formulated by the European Commission.

Le Maire told Journal du Dimanche in a report published on March 4 that a European Union directive will be unveiled in the coming weeks and that the proposed rate of tax will be in the range of two to six percent, although it is likely to be closer to two percent.

According to Le Maire, the tax will be based on digital companies' turnover in each member state.

"Since September 2017, France is at the forefront of this battle for the GAFA (Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon) to pay their taxes at the appropriate level," he said.

Le Maire's comments bear similarities to last month's reports that the European Commission is preparing to propose that the revenues of large digital companies be taxed based on where their users are located.

Reuters said that it had seen a draft Commission document in which the Commission argued that the tax should be applied to companies with revenues of more than EUR750m (USD924m) worldwide and with EU digital revenues of at least EUR10m a year.

According to Reuters, the tax would be calculated on the "aggregate gross revenues" of a business and would be charged at a rate of between one and five percent. Revenues would be taxed based on where the company's users are located, rather than on where the company is headquartered.365 Threat Monitor scans all emails as they reach your users' mailboxes to detect ransomware, phishing and spam. Receive real-time phone alerts, get real-time security breach updates and instantly delete threats with just one click - for free! Learn More.

Apple lawyers on Wednesday sent a copyright violation notice to Github, following the publication of leaked iOS 9 source code on the site. Though iOS 9 is a dated version of the companys mobile operating system, its possible that the leaked code could be used to jailbreak older devices or worse.

Publication of the code violated Apples rights under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the attorneys wrote, demanding that the iBoot source code be removed.

Old source code from three years ago appears to have been leaked, but by design the security of our products doesnt depend on the secrecy of our source code, Apple said in a statement provided to TechNewsWorld by spokesperson Fred Sainz. There are many layers of hardware and software protections built into our products, and we always encourage customers to update to the newest software releases to benefit from the protections.

Ninety-three percent of users have downloaded iOS 10 or later, and 65 percent have downloaded iOS 11, which includes the latest protections, according to the company.

Source code can be leaked in a number of ways, Apple acknowledged  voluntarily, accidentally or through malicious intent.

It contributes source code to the open source community, Apple pointed out.

Partial Release

While only a portion of the iOS 9 code was released on GitHub, the part that was made public is important to the overall security structure of the operating system, according to Ryan Spanier, director of research at Kudelski Security.

While the source code could have been leaked using malware on a developer machine, the more likely scenarios range from a mistaken leak, or a deliberate leak by an employee or a third-party who had access to the code, he told TechNewsWorld.

Protecting such large repositories of source code is difficult when many employees have access, Spanier said.

No company is 100 percent secure, so its not surprising this happened even at a company like Apple, he told TechNewsWorld.

However, this is a big blow to iOS security as iBoot is critical to the secure boot process on the phone, Spanier continued. The code is for an older version of iBoot, but still could be used to help people jailbreak the system and find new ways to bypass controls or allow an attacker to develop an exploit against a vulnerability.

Having access to the source code also makes it easier for researchers to find bugs, according to Brian Gorenc, director of vulnerability research at Trend Micro. Thats applies to this case in particular, since the leaked source code is said to contain documentation.

If the documentation contains some crucial pieces  say file formats, interfaces or even Apples fuzzing methodology  the impact could be even greater, he told TechNewsWorld. An attacker can look at how Apple has documented their fuzzing process and look for bugs outside of that process, specifically so that the bugs they find will last longer.

Since the code that was leaked handles loading the OS, the bugs can be used for anything from enabling jailbreaks to loading something prior to the OS, Gorenc noted.

Thats why Trend Micro spent US$225,000 for iPhone-related bugs at Mobile Pwn2Own last year, he said. [*Correction  Feb. 12, 2018]

Boot Vulnerable

Leaking even part of the source code can facilitate the search for vulnerabilities in the boot loader, which can lead to new ways to jailbreak the device, said Leigh-Anne Galloway, cybersecurity resilience lead at Positive Technologies.

It also could open up access to data on the device, she told TechNewsWorld.

Seventy percent of iOS devices are highly vulnerable to such exposure, recent research suggests.

*ECT News Network editors note  Feb. 12, 2018: Our original published version of this column incorrectly stated that Apple spent $225,000 for iPhone-related bugs at Mobile Pwn2Own. We regret the error.365 Threat Monitor scans all emails as they reach your users' mailboxes to detect ransomware, phishing and spam. Receive real-time phone alerts, get real-time security breach updates and instantly delete threats with just one click - for free! Learn More.

Dell recently collaborated with the Institute for the Future  an interesting think tank largely driven by futurists, which focuses on helping firms ride future waves rather than being killed by them  on a survey that creates a frightening view of 2030. It could be far closer to Terminator than the utopia we once hoped for.

I think more companies should go through a process like this. The reason is that it could help overcome what has become an overwhelming trend to ignore the future and instead focus excessively on quarterly results.

That trend has proven to be a company killer, driving short-term decisions  like massive layoffs and cutbacks  that spike income but eventually kill the firm. Dell and the institute surveyed both futurists and thousands of business leaders to assess what the future likely will be and how well prepared we are for it. Their responses are fascinating, and Ill summarize them here.

Ill close with my product of the week: Blade Shadow PC, a new PC in the Cloud service that may represent the future of personal computing.

Half of Business Leaders Are Clueless

One of the big takeaways from the survey is that business leaders collectively had no real clue about the future. Responses were so close to 50/50 on every major question as to be worthless. Business leaders have not been thinking about and discussing the future enough to get to consensus; thus they are inconsistently  and likely incorrectly  guessing about the future that will come.

This does not bode well for the long-term strategic investments they are making. A question as simple as Will automated systems free-up our time? should have gotten a resoundingly positive response. Yet exactly 50 percent disagreed, suggesting that in their shops, this was not the case, and they doubted it ever would be.

If automation hasnt been freeing up time, then someone clearly has done something very wrong  and if 50 percent of firms have been deploying technology badly, as this survey suggests, then perhaps some focus should be placed on fixing that.

One particularly frightening response came up in a query about artificial intelligence. When asked for their response to the statement, Well learn on the job with AR, 46 percent agreed, implying that they would deploy autonomous machines but only learn how to use them after they were deployed.

If you do not know how to use a thing, how do you select the best thing in the first place? If you were going to create Skynet (the evil AI in the Terminator movie franchise) thats probably how youd do it. Gee, lets deploy an AI over our weapons systems and then learn how to  oops, were dead

Another troubling response was that only 42 percent believed that offloading undesirable tasks to machines would result in a gain in job satisfaction. So, 58 percent believed that our future  the future those very folks will be helping to create  will suck. Im not even sure how you get there without bad intent.

Think about it: Create a scenario in which a machine does all the stuff you hate about your job, but as a result, your job satisfaction drops. What is implied is that the machine must also be affecting your work in ways youd like even less. However, the implication is that fixing that just isnt a priority for the majority of business leaders. On the contrary, they seem to expect that with their guidance, employee job satisfaction will degrade.

The survey results also imply that 50 percent of the businesses surveyed not only would fail by 2030, but also that their leaders expected them to fail and werent prioritizing ways to avoid that outcome. More importantly, if an individual, group or company believes strongly enough that there is no chance of success, then failure likely will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. About half the business leaders appeared to need an attitude adjustment.

Businesses Will Spend Billions to Put Themselves out of Business

Where the survey shows clear intent is with respect to change. Recall that half the companies not only had no real clue about the coming technology but also believed it would make things worse. More than 85 percent indicated that in five years R&D would drive their organization forward, that they would convert to a software-defined business, that they would deliver their product as a service, and that their cybersecurity defense would become effective.

This brings to mind a survey and task force I was part of right before Y2K. We discovered a bunch of companies that appeared underprepared but were reporting they were ready. It made no sense until someone came up with the idea to look at the retirement dates for the related CIOs.

There was a high correlation between the CIOs in the firms that werent ready but were reporting they were ready and retirement dates prior to 2000. Fortunately, much of this was caught, and we didnt end up in a Mad Max world, but it was a surprisingly close thing. This survey indicates that a lot of business leaders think they will be ready by 2030, but they arent doing what it will take to be ready. Might want to check their retirement dates.

Heres the thing: Anyone running a race intuitively knows that you have to know where you are going before you start running. Otherwise, there is a high probability that youll accelerate away from the finish line rather than toward it. This survey indicates that around half of the companies are going to spend a ton of money without knowing where they are going, making things worse.

Missing Advice

The report covering the survey has some great advice on how to go fast, but it lacks advice on where to go. In short, it is strong on executing but weak on strategic direction. That is not unusual. Dell, like any vendor, is focused on what it does  and what it does isnt what its customers do.

Dell wouldnt be a good place to go to for advice on the future of healthcare. It would, however, be good at helping a healthcare company get where it wanted to go.

In a way, technology firms are like mechanics in a car race. They can help a good driver win a race, but if the driver doesnt know which way to go, or sucks at driving, the mechanic likely will just help the driver get lost or dead faster.

What I find interesting, however, is the embedded advice from Karen Quintos, the chief customer officer at Dell: Stronger human-machine partnerships will result in stronger human-human relationships, as companies take a customer-first approach and lead with insights. By applying machine learning and AI to customer data, companies will be able to predict and understand customer behavior like never before. This sounds like an excellent place to start to build an idea of where a company should be focusing to evolve into the future. Using machine learning and AI to begin to determine direction would be a powerful first step, but youd still need to learn how to use those tools before you deployed them. Otherwise, youd still end up pointed in the wrong direction.

Wrapping Up: Dell as an Example

A company like Dell isnt a good place to go for advice on direction  only for advice on how to get there faster and more efficiently. However, one of the things that makes Dell unique is that it is private, and therefore has significant resistance to the excessive quarterly focus that plagues most other firms. This suggests it can be used as an example of how to determine that direction.

Eliminate the excessive focus on quarterly results (go private if you have to), ensure that leadership is both competent and aligned with the goals of the firms strategic future (too many CEOs are excessively focused on their own short-term compensation), and create a relatively diverse organization focused like a laser on customer values. Thats Dell, and it makes a very nice example of a firm that has set a good direction and is executing against that vision.

Michael Dells aspirational statement that were entering the next era of human-machine partnership, a more integrated, personal relationship with technology that has the power to amplify exponentially the creativity, inspiration, intelligence and curiosity of the human spirit needs one addition. My suggestion is this: If you dont set the right goals, all this seemingly wonderful stuff will just put you out of business faster.

Put a different way, putting a rocket on your car could guarantee that you win a race  unless you are facing a brick wall rather than the race course. So, pointing the car in the right direction first should be a major plan requirement. This study suggests that about 50 percent of the firms plan both to buy rockets and to face them in the wrong direction. If that isnt fixed, it wont end well.

By the way, one final thought: Were I running a team to set strategic goals, Dells partner in this study would be one of the places Id go to start. The Institute for the Future is one of the better resources to help you plan for the future you want to live in.

Eventually I am expecting personal computing to move to the cloud, primarily because the aggravation of upgrading, patching and staying ahead of cyberthreats is going up sharply, while the limitations surrounding computing in the cloud are dropping like a rock.

Blade Shadow PC, a service out of France currently in limited release in California, promises a near-term view into that future. For around US$420 a year, you get access to what is basically a dedicated gaming class machine running Windows 10 (Intel Core i7 Xeon, 12GB of Ram, Nvidia GTX 1080 graphics) in the cloud to use as you want, with 4K resolution and some VR support.

While I doubt the dedicated hardware model will be used long term, it provides a stronger performance solution than shared resources now do, thus better anticipating the performance of the future.

Blades Shadow PC

This is targeting people who want to play PC games, but folks can use the service for anything from running desktop apps to engineering programs.

I expect platform companies like Apple and Microsoft, and major cloud providers like Amazon and Google to enter this space once the technology matures. You can run the service on an older (Windows 7) PC, Android, or its $140 thin client terminal.

Accessories arent yet where they need to be, and there are some teething issues being reported. It will need 5G to ensure adequate remote (non-WiFi support) to work properly. Still, given that we were talking about the future and Dell, it seemed appropriate to highlight a service that anticipates one aspect of that future. Thus, Blade Shadow PC is my product of the week."The Joint Declaration is a call to consolidate our voice, our weight to do positive things, to cooperate, and to make our way in the unjust world we live in today," Mexico's... | Read MoreThe majority owner of President Donald Trump's only hotel in Latin America said Monday that Panamanian authorities had allowed him to take over management of the hotel - ejecting the Trump Organisation, after a weeklong standoff over control of the property.

Orestes Fintiklis, a Cypriot businessman now based in Miami, said that a Panamanian legal official - who visited the hotel with a contingent of police on Monday - had allowed him to take over the hotel's administration.

The legal official herself did not say anything to reporters on the scene, so the exact nature of her decision was not clear. The Trump Organisation did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

But, in a brief press conference at the hotel, Fintiklis appeared to believe he had won a legal battle with the Trump Organisation, which he blames for the hotel's declining revenues and low occupancy rates.Running out of bread for her kids' sandwiches led Miriam Mulcahy to Aussie Farmers Direct and its door-to-door delivery convenience.

Having used the company for years she is now one of 100,000 registered customers who will have to find a new way to fill their cupboards after the fresh food delivery service went into voluntary administration on Monday morning.

Mulcahy, like many customers left scrambling at the news, was unaware the business was facing difficulties in the first place.

Miriam Mulcahy used Aussie Farmers Direct as a convenient way to feed the family. Credit:Louie Douvis

I was very surprised. I had no idea there was any problem, I thought they were doing fine, the 47-year-old Sydney mother says.Tom Waterhouse's online sports-betting company, William Hill Australia, has been rebuked by its regulator for potentially "systemic" failures to comply with responsible gambling regulations.

William Hill's struggling Australian outpost, which is currently up for sale, was brought before the regulator after complaints about its recent dealings with a problem gambler.

Tom Waterhouse is CEO of global bookmaker William Hill's Australian business. Credit:Louise Kennerley

The problem gambler, who was trying to stop betting, had attempted to "self-exclude" from William Hill and ban himself from betting with them again. But despite his requests the company twice failed to close his accounts, and continued to send him gambling promotional material.

The Racing Commission in the Northern Territory, the jurisdiction in which William Hill is licensed, heard that in the first instance after the customer had self-excluded, he was later allowed to re-open one of his accounts and place more bets.The troubled owner of the Gloria Jeans and Donut King chains did not tell its shareholders that it was doing business with a private company run by a former executive who was also partner of the companys long standing boss.

The deal between Retail Food Group and Alicia Atkinsons Exit 57 Investments has been laid bare after the private company collapsed last month under the weight of a $1.6 million debt owed by an RFG subsidiary.

Under the deal Exit 57 would temporarily manage stores, including some that had been abandoned by franchisees.

Former Retail Food Group executive Alicia Atkinson, centre, disputes the tax bill the ATO slapped on her private group Exit 57 Investments.

Ms Atkinson, RFGs former bakery cafe division director, has been in a long relationship with RFG former chief executive Tony Alford.The Los Angeles Police Department has made an arrest in the case of best-actress winner Frances McDormand's stolen Oscar.

Public Information Officer Norma Eisenman confirmed that the LAPD arrested a suspect named Terry Bryant and that he is in the process of being booked for grand theft. She did not offer any more details.

McDormand was reunited with the trophy on Sunday night after it went missing during the Governor's Ball, where she was celebrating her second career best-actress win for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

While the Oscar was still missing in action, McDormand was spotted crying emotionally outside the ball after giving up the search for the statuette on the premises and departing with her husband, filmmaker Joel Coen.We know that good things come in small packages, but lately we're also discovering they come with a bit of a hike. The rent crisis in Sydney and Melbourne isn't just punishing people who want to live there. It's absolutely squeezing restaurants already suffering staff shortages and crippling competition.

No wonder, then, that some of the best dining fun you can have right now is out of town. Every smart eater's list should have Geelong's Igni, Anglesea's Captain Moonlite and Ballarat's weekend-only newcomer Underbar right up top. To that they can now add Greasy Zoe's  the deceivingly named house of smart, sustainable cookery, fun wines and good times at the end of the Hurstbridge line.

A selection of snacks at Greasy Zoe's. Credit:Eddie Jim

Those good times are coming to you courtesy of chef Zoe Birch, possibly known to you from her time at the Courthouse and Healesville hotels, and who has established this 15-seat, set-menu operation with partner Lachlan Gardner in a former grocery store in her home town.

It's true testament to the tiny-mighty model. Birch's kitchen, which she runs solo, occupies one corner of the pitch-roofed timber and brick room reminiscent of a ski chalet, and it's only Gardner on the floor. But they're playing it smart. It's the old Gerald's Bar rule on wine: the first drinkers of the night decide which three reds and whites are on pour. For $85 and a zone two Myki ticket, you get nine-courses, largely delivered in snack form.Similar studies conducted by the research institute show that women in film reflect a dire workplace imbalance. Female characters in popular movies account for less than a quarter of all characters with jobs, which is a far cry from the 40 per cent of women that make up the global (paid) workforce (remembering of course that the vast, vast majority of the worlds unpaid labour is performed by women.) And while boys might have been encouraged to see Hidden Figures because of the rocket on the poster (excuse me while I jettison myself into space), its still one of the few films that shows women performing integral roles in the STEM, tech and science based industries with men in these fields outnumbering women on screen at a ratio of 7:1.

But as I said, Randolphs view isnt all that uncommon. In 2011, Disney Pixar announced it would be changing the title of their upcoming release, Rapunzel, to the more oblique Tangled. "We did not want to be put in a box, explained Ed Catmull, president of Disney Animation Studios. Some people might assume it's a fairy tale for girls when it's not. We make movies to be appreciated and loved by everybody."

In You Play The Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Princesses, Trainwrecks and Other Man-Made Women, the film critic Carina Chocano explores how the idea of girlhood is shaped by stories so often constructed by men. Chocano writes about her first foray into movie critique, when her work required her to spend hours upon hours watching movies in the dark, consuming, as she says, toxic doses of superhero movies, wedding-themed romantic comedies, cryptofascist paeans to war, and bromances about unattractive, immature young men and the gorgeous women desperate to marry them.

Isnt it funny how movies that centre the stories (and voices, and jobs, and importance) of men are never tailored to appeal to women beyond including one or two of us (maybe) somewhere along the way as a plot device? And yet women still see these movies, and are equally able to appreciate the purpose of them?

This, despite the fact that it's always been made explicitly clear to us that our presence in, or outside of them is most properly defined by male storytellers who all too often seem to have never actually met a real life woman in the flesh.Almost all of this comes down to failures to manage conflicts of interest effectively, whether those conflicts are real or perceived. It hasn't helped that, until recently, there was a lack of clarity about how to approach the most common of potential conflicts: friendships (whether sexual or not). In 2014, the Auditor-General's office reported on how government agencies were managing staff conflicts of interests. In many workplaces, it was unclear whether mid-level and junior officers needed to declare them. The audit also found that agency heads' instructions to staff "usually contained very little information". Yet since then, the Public Service Commission and the Finance Department have made their guidelines clearer. And it may be surprise some public servants, but their advice is unequivocal: if you're on a selection panel and you've slept with someone who applies for a job, promotion or contract, you need to tell your departmental secretary, or at least one of your managers. It doesn't matter whether the sex was a week ago or a decade ago. Imagine just how messy this could become, especially in hopelessly conflicted workplaces like the Defence Department. There, it's extremely common for public servants and ADF personnel to move from working for government to working for the businesses that supply the military. Not only do public servants find themselves negotiating across the table with former colleagues, who are often good friends, but in many parts of Russell they then share the same offices; contract managers and contractors working side by side on the same project. Consider the hypothetical case of Wendy, an EL2 officer whose section works on naval missile-guidance software with an industry partner, Very Big Guns Pty Ltd. She had a big night with a Big Gun, Warren, a few years ago at a trade expo. It was a one-off, but Warren still comes into the office regularly and they have working lunches occasionally. The Big Guns are seeking a contract extension, and Wendy is a subject-matter expert in a very specialised field. It's not feasible for her to withdraw from the panel that will discuss the Big Guns contract; she's needed. The Public Service Commission (indeed, the law) offers no wriggle room: "where a material personal interest cannot be avoided, the employee must disclose that interest so that it can be managed".

We befriend those we work with, buy from and sell to. And then, occasionally, we decide whether to award them a job or a contract. This isn't a fanciful example. Russell is its own community, where everyone kind of knows everyone else. In fact, most government workplaces in Canberra operate in similarly small circles. We befriend (sometimes intimately) those we work with, buy from and sell to. And then, occasionally, we decide whether to award them a job or a contract. Depending on the nature of that relationship, we might improperly favour them or even be biased against them (maybe Warren's presence makes Wendy feel uncomfortable these days). But does anyone really believe Wendy is willing to pick over the details of that night at the expo with her branch or division head? More likely, she'll keep it to herself and believe herself entirely capable of dealing with the conflict sensibly. Yet that shouldn't be her decision. Disclosure is the new legal norm (even if no one does it). Home Affairs Department chief Mike Pezzullo told a recent Senate estimates hearing that he expects to be told (or his delegates to be told) of all office relationships that could affect his portfolio's work. "As to relationships within the workplace, we have a general policy that is applicable to everyone, from myself down  the [Border Force] commissioner down  that all such relationships are to be declared to ensure that there is no conflict of interest." So more of a bonking broadcast than a bonking ban. The commission is still loathe to map out exactly what public servants like Wendy should do; a spokeswoman said it depended on the case.

"In general terms, the employee should disclose the relationship to a senior decision-maker and discuss what steps are required to manage the conflict. This may involve them excusing themselves from the process altogether," she said. And who should decide whether Wendy (or whoever) should leave the panel? Again, "it depends", though the spokeswoman told the Informant that the legal onus was on the employee to stand aside "if that is the reasonable approach". "In practice, this is likely to be discussed with a senior decision-maker and an agreed approach reached between them." In other words, an awful lot of faith is placed in public servants, who are expected to talk about something they'd almost certainly rather no one knew. In Wendy's case, she'd especially rather her Defence colleagues not be told, as most of them know Warren. The integrity of the system relies on extraordinary individual integrity. Hmm. There's a solution to this mess. It would help to expose a wide range of nepotism, cronyism and "green-lighting". It would cost nothing, and would be an enormous deterrent to anyone considering hiding a conflict of interest.EDITOR'S NOTE: The High Court overturned Cardinal George Pell's conviction for historic child sex offences in a judgment handed down April 7, 2020. In a unanimous decision all seven High Court judges found Victoria's Court of Appeal should not have upheld Pell's conviction It found the evidence could not support a guilty verdict.

George Pell's barrister has taken a swipe at Victoria Police, saying they presumed the Cardinal was guilty while investigating allegations of sexual assault against him.

Cardinal Pell's high profile defence counsel Robert Richter, QC, also told Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday the brief of evidence against his client contained material that was favourable towards the former Archbishop.

Cardinal George Pell arrives at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday morning. Credit:Eddie Jim

Mr Richter said the police probe against the Cardinal went against protocol for the way prominent people should be investigated.A home owner who allegedly shot dead his housemate with a rifle during an argument over rent suffers from anxiety and an acquired brain injury, his lawyer says.

John Pozzebon, 56, is charged with murdering a 44-year-old tenant at his Sunshine North home by shooting him in the head with a hunting rifle on Saturday morning.

Police at the scene in Sunshine North on Saturday. Credit:Daniel Pockett

It's alleged Mr Pozzebon had been drinking before a heated argument broke out with the victim in the kitchen over unpaid or delayed rent.

Police say Mr Pozzebon retrieved bullets from a shed and a rifle from a safe and returned to the house with the loaded gun, hitting the tenant over the head with it.Hundreds of new police will soon begin work at stations across Victoria as part of a rollout of 825 additional officers.

About 300 officers have been allocated to outer suburban areas including Wyndham, Melton, Hume, Cardinia and Geelong where populations are fast expanding.

The full rollout will include 208 specialist family violence officers, who will be deployed across Victoria, while 103 parental leave replacement positions have also been created.

New officers will also be sent to specialist areas, including counter-terrorism, roads, professional standards and legal services.A former VicRoads manager has pleaded guilty to accessing private information from a government database which was passed on to a notorious Melbourne accountant and loan shark.

Peter Kassinidis, 28, of Fawkner appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday facing six charges, including unauthorised access and disclosure of restricted data, following an investigation by Victoria's anti-corruption watchdog.

Mr Kassinidis admitted to abusing his position at VicRoads' Kew office by disclosing the address of a man involved in a financial dispute with self-described "forensic accountant" and high-interest lender, David Graer.

Magistrate Duncan Reynolds was told the transfer of private information had been organised by Mr Kassinidis' father, Theodore Kassinidis, 60, who is an associate of Mr Graer.The first job at a Russell Street watch repair shop went without a hitch, and the boys piled into their getaway car after causing $70,500 in stock loss and damage. The loot was dropped off to Taha before Mayoum, Mawien and three others drove across town to a jewellery shop on Sydney Road in Coburg. They used the same blunt but effective method, smashing their way through the glass front doors with hammers, terrorising those inside. But this time there was a problem. Bystanders stepped in, holding the doors to shop closed to trap the teenagers inside. Two escaped, but the bystanders managed to tackle Mawien and Mayoum to the ground and hold them until police arrived.

Some heroes grabbed them, was what one the escapees told Taha in the aftermath, the court heard. There was another problem, too. Police had been intercepting Tahas phone calls. They were listening when Taha was arranging the robberies the night before, they had heard about the plans to reward the boys with hotels and girls after the jobs were done. They had also pulled Tahas internet search history, revealing he had been searching gold buyers in Melbourne and had checked Victoria Polices website for any news of the crimes he had arranged. Almost three weeks later, they nabbed him. Though $75,000 in jewellery was recovered from a backpack when Mawien and Mayoum were tackled, more than $130,000 in gold pieces have never been found. At first Taha, who was already on a community corrections order for an assault, denied he was involved. But with a trial approaching and a significant amount of time in remand behind him, he pleaded guilty to the two armed robberies and another one from two months earlier.

In the first robbery he had driven a stolen Mercedes for a fee of $10,000 when two of his outlaw friends robbed a cash collections officer of more than $200,000. One of the robberies at a Sydney Road jewellery shop in 2016. Credit:Channel Seven Taha spent his earnings on cocaine and designer clothes. Judge Wendy Wilmoth told the court Taha had become addicted to cocaine and began stealing cars to support his habit. He told a psychologist he couldnt extricate himself from his crimes and addiction and said when he tried, his house was shot up and he was kidnapped. You were involved in a criminal lifestyle in which stealing cars seemed to be tantamount to an everyday occurrence and the offer of being paid a lot of money for committing several serious crimes appears to not have caused you a moments hesitation, Judge Wilmoth said.A man police wish to speak to regarding a break in at the children's court. Credit:Victoria Police

Sensitive data may have been stolen during a robbery at the Melbourne Children's court earlier this year.

A burglary at a CBD building was reported by Victoria Police in January, however, it can now be revealed the robbery occurred inside the Children's Court.

A man gained entry into the Little Lonsdale Street building about 1.45am on January 8.

Once inside, he rummaged through staff drawers and left the building with an undisclosed amount of cash, police said.Despite warning drivers they would be out in full force over the long weekend, WA Police still caught out dozens of motorists breaking the law over the three day break  including a motorcyclist who thought it was a good idea to do a burnout in front of an unmarked police car.

In a series of sobering tweets made by police working throughout the long weekend, officers posted about some of the more serious and dangerous offences.

The hoon had their car impounded for doing 170km in a 110km zone. Credit:Hannah Barry

"Harley Davidson V-Rod impounded by TEG1 in Casuarina last night after the rider decided to perform a burnout in front of the unmarked Police vehicle... that with the two drink drivers apprehended and numerous infringements led to a busy shift... and that was just #TS209."

The driver certainly wasn't the last offender for the weekend, with police offering a timely reminder for those travelling over the long weekend break.On Monday the former deputy prime minister told reporters in Tamworth it was "nobody else's business".

Mr Joyce told Fairfax Media on the weekend there is a "grey area" over the paternity of his partner Vikki Campion's baby, but he will care for it regardless.

A day after telling the world he's not sure if his partner is carrying his baby , Barnaby Joyce says personal questions are "nobody else's business".

"Anything that's personal in nature is nobody else's business but mine and Vikki's, nobody else's business. So we're not here to be part of some ongoing litany of discussions about this," Mr Joyce said.

On Sunday Mr Joyce said he had "no choice" but to confront the rumours about the paternity of his partner's unborn baby head-on, lashing out at the media for continuing to pursue him despite his resignation as deputy prime minister.

Mr Joyce said he was contacted by multiple media organisations last week asking whether Vikki Campion's boy - due to be born next month - was actually his, prompting his extraordinary interview with Fairfax Media on Saturday.

Mr Joyce announced his resignation as Nationals leader and deputy prime minister in late February after weeks of fallout over his affair with his former staffer.

He resigned the day after it was reported that a sexual harassment complaint had been made against him to the Nationals.Facebook and Twitter will be warned to act on trolls who try to shame women who lodge sexual harassment claims in a federal government move to prevent the social media platforms making a traumatic experience worse.

The Minister for Women, Kelly ODwyer, has written to the two biggest social media companies and others in a bid to lift their standards in handling posts that turn private complaints into public disputes.

A key concern is the power of social media users to target those who lodge complaints, denying them natural justice and discouraging others from coming forward.

Minister for Women Kelly O'Dwyer. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

The move comes amid a political storm over the leaking of a harassment complaint against former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, heightening concerns about the problem of identifying complainants against their will.A Turnbull government frontbencher has publicly urged Barnaby Joyce to withdraw from the public spotlight, as the former deputy prime minister called for privacy to let his family prepare for the birth of a baby boy.

The plea came just a day after the former Nationals leader was seen to intensify the storm around him by acknowledging doubts over whether he's the biological father of the child being carried by his former media adviser and now partner, Vikki Campion.

Appearing at a road project announcement in his New England electorate, Mr Joyce showed signs of the strain from weeks of public scrutiny on his marriage breakdown, his resignation from cabinet, and the widespread public criticism he triggered by discussing the paternity issue.

Asked about that controversy on Monday, he declared the pregnancy and the couple's relationship was "nobody else's business".Turnbull has lost an extraordinary amount of skin for a scandal that is not his.

Dios help Malcolm Turnbull if Barnaby Joyce turns out to have an evil twin, because its hard to imagine who could wreak more damage on him than the original.

Our government has become a Mexican telenovela. Over the last three weeks the nation has gasped its way through all the main soap opera tropes, played out on the political stage. The scandalous, boundary-crossing affair. The scorned wife. The pregnant mistress. On Sunday we woke to questions over the paternity of the love child.

The government he leads looks chaotic and self-absorbed. An atmosphere of decadence and depravity engulfs the whole of Canberra, particularly when you stir in questions over expenses entitlements together with the sex.

Loading

The policy agenda of the government has been drowned out. The government MPs main political strategy, to impugn the Leader of the Oppositions reputation, doesnt seem to be working, because the glass house they are standing in is so transparent they may as well be all walking around buck-naked.

Whats more, the Prime Minister has received no credit for the attempt he made to control the situation - his announcement of the so-called bonk ban after the Joyce scandal had already run unstoppably downhill for several days. Turnbulls effort to assert some moral authority has demonstrably failed.

Any claim he might have had to being a protector of working women is shot. Remember that, in announcing the sex-ban changes to the Ministerial Code of Conduct on February 15, Turnbull said the code needed reform because it did not speak strongly enough for the values of  workplaces where women are respected. He said there was a real gender perspective here when you considered most bosses in Parliament House were men.Seoul: A South Korean delegation met North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on his patch on Monday, a South Korean official said, on a visit aimed at encouraging North Korea and the United States to talk.

Both North Korea and the US have expressed a willingness to hold talks, but the US position has been that they must be aimed at North Korea's denuclearisation, something Pyongyang has rejected.

A group of high-level South Korean officials has left for North Korea for talks on North Korea's nuclear program and ways to help resume talks between Pyongyang and Washington. Credit:AP

It has been developing nuclear-tipped missiles and has vowed never to give up what it calls an essential deterrent against American hostility.

Pyongyang is also concerned about joint US-South Korea military exercises, which it sees as preparations for war.Both Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have recently expressed the desire for more stringent screening of investments into Europe, effectively targeted at Chinese investment, Bergsen said. They also want their countries to pay more into the EU to match the flow of Chinese funds into southern and eastern European infrastructure. Last month Chinese investment in Germany became a hot issue when Chinese billionaire Li Sufu bought a 7 billion ($11 billion) stake in Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler AG  becoming the luxury carmakers biggest shareholder. The German government is also examining a bid from China for a 20 per cent stake in a German renewable energy grid, 50Hertz. And concerns go beyond Germanys borders.

Two weeks ago Merkel, in a joint press conference with Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, said China must not link its investments in the western Balkans to political demands. China has invested in highway infrastructure in Macedonia, prompting thanks from Zaev for helping his countrys modernisation. The question is  are the economic relations being linked with political questions? Merkel said, saying this would not be in the spirit of free trade. Also in February, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel gave a blunt speech accusing China  alongside Russia  of constantly trying to test and undermine the unity of the European Union, seeking to influence individual states with sticks and carrots. Germanys ambassador to China Michael Clauss told the South China Morning Post that Germany was concerned that parallel networks connecting China with eastern and southern Europe were somewhat inconsistent with a commitment to a coherent and strong EU. It was a reference to the 1+16 group, an initiative by China and 16 central and eastern European states including 11 EU members and five Balkan countries. The groups stated aim is for greater economic cooperation in infrastructure and technology.

China has invested heavily in projects including a high-speed railway from Belgrade to Budapest, which will be both financed and built by the Chinese. It also has a controlling stake in Greeces major port of Piraeus, which is being aggressively developed to capture more Mediterranean trade. Clauss told the Post that Chinas Belt and Road Initiative could help build economic growth and political stability  but other countries observe closely how China is wielding its great economic clout and whether it is trying to exert political pressure. They notice how countries like Singapore, Mongolia, South Korea or Norway are being treated. A map showing China's One Belt, One Road strategy, where yellow is to be the new maritime route and red the new land connections. Credit:AFR Macron recently said European countries were becoming open to Chinese interests, sometimes at the expense of a European interest. Merkel hasnt talked explicitly about her legacy, though she campaigned for another term on the grounds she wanted to finish the job of managing Germanys response to the 2015-16 migration crisis.

Mark Leonard, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations think-tank, wrote earlier this year that Germanys grand coalition would play a key role in healing European divisions on migrants  moving the debate from a clash between open v closed proponents, into the construction of a humane but ordered common migration system. Its hard not to imagine that theres some legacy thinking going on about what she will leave behin, Bergsen said. If she had left last year she would have left behind almost a decade of very competent management of the German economy but no big achievements, for example on Europe. Thats one of the reasons why she seems to be very enthusiastic about the reform push, together with Macron, to really get something done in terms of EU reform. Merkel still commands respect and influence around the world  not just because of her experience and personal standing, but thanks to Germanys position as Europes biggest and most successful economy. She tends in crunch time to step up and dictate what needs to happen, Bergsen said.

Bergsen said he didnt expect to see a big difference in domestic policies in Germany from the last four years. Most of the coalition agreement is on how to divvy up the surplus, he said. However the countrys domestic politics will be more turbulent. [Merkel] has been slightly weakened by this whole episode, he said. The SPD will be a bit louder, they will demand a bit more. They have realised they need to be more visible and distinguish themselves much more from the CDU. They will be a more prominent and difficult partner - there will be more tensions within the coalition. SPD treasurer Dietmar Nietan, center left, and temporary party leader Olaf Scholz, centre right, announce that the members voted for a new coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative block. Credit:APAuthor Launches ISRAEL @ 70 Series at Manhattan East Synagogue







By Martin Barillas

Editor

Spero News

MIAMI - March 4, 2018: New York Times best-selling historian Edwin Black, author of IBM and the Holocaust, appears March 20 at 7 PM at Manhattan East Synagogue to launch a 15-city lecture series outlining Israels history from ancient times to its most recent diplomatic dilemmas. No PowerPoint or slide show is used. Instead, as many as 80 live URLs are used to display that is settled knowledge that anyone can access on the Internet.

The presentation, Israel and International Lawthe Historical Underpinnings, was described in one newspaper with this comment: It was nothing short of spectacular. I thought I had a pretty good amount of knowledge  In reality, I knew almost nothing. Mr. Black gave us an education beyond anyones expectations.

Black has assembled an impressive panel of expert questioners to lead the Q-A session afterword. Manhattan East Synagogues Rabbi Elie Abadie will head up the panel, followed by Israel lecturer Ken Abramowitz, and Rambam Mesivta High School Principal Rabbi Yotav Eliach, the author of a forthcoming exhaustive book chronicling the history of Zionism.

Black says, Bring on the experts. The history projected onto the screen delves deep, and brings numerous threads together in a way that will change the very fabric of understanding most people have for Jewish State and its place in the geo-political word. Even the experts will learn. I myself am constantly updating the visuals. Award-winning author Black has delivered versions of the presentation to university campuses and synagogues across America, but has freshly updated it to include the latest developments on Jerusalem recognition and Palestinian finance, as well as the significance of Israel at 70.

To reserve a place at the March 20 presentation, contact office@mesny.org.Viola Davis, Adam Rippon, Agnes Varda. Photo: Getty Images

Coming off an awards season defined by all-black fashion protests, it was no surprise that the 2018 Oscars red carpet seemed vibrant in comparison.

But there was something else in the air. The actors, directors, presenters, and Olympians like Adam Rippon werent just wearing color  they had a sense of humor with their wardrobe choices. They showed some style, not just fashion. And in addition to new, young faces, those over 70 also showed how its done. As a result, the red carpet was the most fun its been in years.

Honestly, there were so many good looks it was hard to choose the standouts. Below, our attempt to rank the best, worst, and weirdest looks from the 90th Academy Awards.

Best Harness: Adam Rippon

The Olympic skater with perfect brows wore a Moschino suit by Jeremy Scott with cold shoulder detailing. We give this leather daddy a ten-out-of-ten.

Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Best-Looking Cast: Black Panther

Winston Duke looked dapper in Etro, Lupta Nyongo beamed in Atelier Versace, and Danai Gurira oozed elegance in Gabriela Hearst. Chadwick Boseman (not pictured) also killed it in Givenchy couture. Wakanda forever!

Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Most Goop-y: Saoirse Ronan

There was so much blah blush on the red carpet this year, but Saoirse Ronan rose above the rest. As the internet dutifully pointed out, her Calvin Klein gown was reminiscent of Gwenyth Paltrows 1999 Oscars dress by Ralph Lauren.

Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Best Turt: Maya Rudolph

Were way past first-date turtlenecks; we want to marry this Valentino look.

Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Hottest Hot Pink: Viola Davis

Wed like to bottle up this stunning Michael Kors look and highlight important documents with it.

Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Best Pussy Bow: Nicole Kidman

[Claps oddly for Armani Prive.]

Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Best Repeat: Rita Moreno

The 86-year-old actress wore the same dress she wore to the 1962 Oscars, when she won for her starring role in West Side Story. Translation: shes still got it.

Photo: VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images

Best Newcomer: Beanie Feldstein

Will you go to prom with us, too?

Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Best Sleeve: St. Vincent

Who needs a date when you have f-a-s-h-i-o-n!!! This pouffy Saint Laurent sleeve definitely needs its own seat.

Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Most Regal: Tiffany Haddish

The Girls Trip actress honored her late fathers wishes by wearing an authentic Eritrean princess dress.

Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Best Lads: Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer

Berluti, Berluti, Berluti. Armani. Armani. Armani.

Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Shirt Most Likely to Make Us Cry: James Ivory

The Call Me by Your Name screenwriter made us relive that scene all over again by wearing Timothee Chalamets sad face on his shirt.

Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Best Color: Greta Gerwig

The Lady Bird director brought some Sacramento sunshine to the red carpet in Rodarte.

Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Most Iconic: Agnes Varda

The 89-year-old feminist filmmaker and style icon wore a full silk Gucci set, proving that the Italian brand isnt just for millennials.

Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

How Far is Hollywood From Achieving Equality?2 Children Killed, Pregnant Mother Wounded After Being Hit by Car in New York City

Two children were killed and a pregnant woman was left injured after being hit by a driver in New York City on Monday.

The driver then attempted to flee the scene, according to eyewitnesses.

The latest crash leaving pedestrians dead in the city took place around 12:40 p.m. in the Park Slope neighborhood in the Brooklyn Borough.

Pix11 reported that a group of people got off a bus onto the sidewalk when a driver who appeared to be speeding up to make it through a light slammed into them.

The driver then attempted to flee the scene but crashed into another vehicle.

The driver was arrested.

The accident happened at 9th Street and Fifth Avenue, reported ABC7.

Two children were rushed to the hospital but were soon pronounced dead.

Councilman Brad Lander, whose office is at the intersection, said the children were just 2 and 4 years old.

Truly the worst nightmare imaginable. A 2-year-old & a 4-year-old were killed. Their pregnant mom is in critical condition. Driver is in custody. Unimaginably horrible.  Brad Lander (@bradlander) March 5, 2018

Truly the worst nightmare imaginable. A 2-year-old and 4-year-old were killed. Their pregnant mom is in critical condition. Driver is in custody. Unimaginably horrible, he said on Twitter.

Lander said the pregnant woman, who was also hit, is the childrens mother.

She is at the hospital in critical condition.

My office is closely monitoring the situation involving a pregnant mother and her two young children who were involved in a horrific incident with a speeding driver at Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street in #ParkSlope. I send my deepest condolences to the victims' family.  Eric Adams (@BPEricAdams) March 5, 2018

Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, said via Twitter that hes monitoring the situation.

My office is closely monitoring the situation involving a pregnant mother and her two young children who were involved in a horrific incident with a speeding driver at Fifth Avenue and Ninth Street in #ParkSlope. I send my deepest condolences to the victims family, he said.

Two other people were also hit by the car but their condition is unclear.

It appears they didnt sustain severe injuries because they werent taken to the hospital.

Police officers told CBS that theyre checking to see if the driver was under the influence while operating the vehicle.

From NTD.tv

Recommended Video:

Corvette ChaseBoy Sleeping on Top Bunk Killed After Tree Crashes Into Home During Storm

A 6-year-old boy has died after a tree fell onto his familys home at Chester, Virginia, on Friday.

Anthony Hamilton was sleeping on the top bunk bed shared with his siblings when strong winds knocked down a tree, according to CBS affiliate WTVR.

The tree came crashing into their mobile home at the spot where the boy slept.

#BREAKING 6 year old boy in critical condition at @VCUHealth after tree falls through the roof and on his bed as he slept in Chester, according to @CCPDVa @CBS6 pic.twitter.com/z3m3zPzdfD  Brendan King CBS 6 (@ImBrendanKing) March 2, 2018

The powerful winds, fueled by a strong noreaster, has downed trees and knocked out power for many across Friday and the weekend in Virginia.

She [Anthonys mom] got the girls out. She tried to get the tree off of Anthony by herself and she just couldnt do it, Anthonys grandmother, Dawn Summerfield, told WTVR. Shes guilt ridden. She said, I just couldnt get it off of him, I tried.'

Police responded to the home located in the 800 block of Cliffside Drive, at about 2 a.m., according to NBC4.

Rescue crews pulled the boy out of the mobile home before he was rushed to the hospital with critical injuries.

Hamilton died at the hospital later that morning.

I saw his face and it wasnt moving, neighbor Jeffrey Bustillo told WTVR.

Chesterfield 6 year old pinned by tree in his bed has died. Family says Anthony Hamilton, was a bright and shining light. @CBS6 pic.twitter.com/A4AMNAj0zo  Laura French (@lfrenchnews) March 2, 2018

The tree also damaged the Bustillos family home, but there were no injuries.

If it fell in the middle of the trailer, I dont know if I would be standing here right now, Bustillo told the network.

According to WT$VR, Summerfield called her grandson selfless, bright, and a shining light.

Hes your typical six-year-old he loves race cars, minions, anything to do with video games, Summerfield told WTVR. Hes got the biggest heart of any six-year-old youll ever meet.

Hamilton lived in the home with his brother, two sisters, mother, and two roommates, according to NBC affiliate WWBT. He went to the Elizabeth Scott Elementary School.

A GoFundMe campaign has been created for the family. As of writing it has gained $19,450 out of the $25,000 goal.

From NTD.tv

Recommended Video:

45-Year-Old Woman Unexpectedly Gives Birth After Not Realizing She Was PregnantChina Boosts Defense Spending Amid Military Modernization

BEIJINGChina on Monday unveiled its largest rise in defense spending in three years, setting a target of 8.1 percent growth over 2017, fuelling an ambitious military modernization program amid rising concerns over its security.

The 2018 defense budget will be 1.11 trillion yuan ($175 billion), according to a report issued at the opening of Chinas annual meeting of parliament.

The defense spending figure is closely watched around the world for clues to Chinas strategic intentions as it develops new military capabilities, including stealth fighters, aircraft carriers and anti-satellite missiles.

China will advance all aspects of military training and war preparedness, and firmly and resolvedly safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests, Premier Li Keqiang told the opening session in an address.

Faced with profound changes in the national security environment the absolute leadership of the military by the ruling Communist Party must be observed, and the unity between the government and the military, and the people and the military, must always be strong as stone, he said.

Li also said China had basically completed efforts to cut back the size of its armed forces by 300,000, a move President Xi Jinping announced in 2015 to improve efficiency that had caused unease in the ranks.

The pace and scale of this build-up is really dramatic. It is extremely alarming for Australia and many other countries in the region, said Sam Roggeveen, a visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University in Canberra.

There is every indication that China wants to expand what it will call defense capabilities in the South China Sea. I expect eventually we will see warships and aircraft there regularly, if not based there permanently. What is unclear, however, is whether the United States will want to rise to that challenge.

Hidden Spending

China does not provide a breakdown of how it allocates its defense budget, leading neighbors and other military powers to complain that Beijings lack of transparency has added to regional tension.

Diplomats say Chinas defense numbers probably underestimate true military spending for the Peoples Liberation Army, the worlds largest armed forces, which are in the midst of an impressive modernization program overseen by Xi.

One senior Asia diplomat, speaking before the announcement, said the real rise would probably be at least double what China revealed, considering its efforts to build up the industrial-military complex and deepen military-civilian integration.

Some spending will be hidden in civilian spending, said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Chinas military build-up has rattled the nerves of its neighbors, particularly because of its increasingly assertive stance in the East and South China Seas and over Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own.

We would like to see China be more transparent about its defense policy, including spending and the direction of its military power, Japans Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told a regular briefing.Daycare Employees Fed 2-Year-Olds Laced Gummy Bears to Calm Them Down

Three daycare employees were arrested in Illinois last week after police said they were caught feeding children gummy bears laced with a drug.

Police officers were called to the Kiddie Junction Daycare Center in Des Plaines on Friday afternoon over a suspicious incident, reported NBC.

Three teachers there admitted to giving 2-year-olds gummy bears laced with melatonin.

According to WebMD, melatonin is a hormone found naturally in the body.

Melatonin used as medicine is usually made synthetically in a laboratory. It is most commonly available in pill form, but melatonin is also available in forms that can be placed in the cheek or under the tongue. This allows the melatonin to be absorbed directly into the body, the website stated. People use melatonin to combat jet lag and also when unable to fall asleep or unable to stay asleep for long periods of time.

Police officers said that the use of melatonin at the daycare was not approved by parents.

Allegedly, this was done in an effort to calm [the kids] down before nap time, a release from Des Plaines police read.

The employees told police they didnt think that giving the kids melatonin was inappropriate since it can be obtained over-the-counter.

Daycare employees gave 2-year-olds laced gummy bears to calm them down for nap time: Police https://t.co/jJXKRei1xa pic.twitter.com/jkZMD8HxSz  NBC Chicago (@nbcchicago) March 5, 2018

The parents of each child at the daycare were contacted by police about what happened, reported ABC7.

Kristen Lauletta, 32, of Niels; Jessica Heyse, 19, of Des Plaines; and Ashley Helfenbein, 25, of Chicago were each charged with two counts of endangering the life or health of a child and two counts of battery.

They are expected to appear in court in Skokie on April 4.

The management at Kiddie Junction cooperated with police officers, who said they were helpful.

Kiddie Junction didnt comment publicly on the arrests and charges.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that a separate investigation will come from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

From NTD.tv

Recommended Video:

Kangaroo Attacks CyclistEmma Watson at the 2018 Vanity Fair Oscar Party at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on March 4, 2018, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

Emma Watsons Times Up Tattoo at the Oscars Was Grammatically Incorrect

It may have been just a temporary tattoo but the criticism of Emma Watsons grammatical gaffe came thick and fast.

The star had the tattoo on her arm when she was pictured on the red carpet at Sundays Vanity Fair Oscars party.

It read Times Up in support of the movement against sexual harassment.

But it seems the tattooist (or, more likely, designer) left out one important factor: the apostrophe was missing between the E and S, making the phrase grammatically incorrect.

Twitter was soon swamped with tweets about the erroneous tattoo.

Last month Watson donated $1.39 million to a fund for victims of sexual harassment. She was also one of the first to speak out against producer Harvey Weinstein, who is facing numerous accusations of sexual harassment.

She also recently backed an open letter signed by over 200 female stars calling for an end to sexual harassment across all industries.

The Oscars itself was dominated by stars using the awards to speak about movements such as Me Too and Times Up.

Before clips of some of this years Oscar-nominated films, actress Miro Sorvino said, This entire fall, the Me Too, the Times Up movements, everyone is getting a voice to express something that has been happening forever, not just Hollywood but all walks of life.Falling Mirror Kills 2-Year-Old at Shoe Store

A family demands answers after their 2-year-old daughter was fatally injured by a falling mirror at a shoe store in Georgia.

The girl, Ifrah Siddique, was with her family at a Payless ShoeSource store in Riverdale on Friday, March 2, around 8 p.m.

Police tell me this little girl died after a mounted mirror fell on her inside a @PaylessInsider in Riverdale last night. Relatives say she suffered a fatal head injury. We are speaking with them and a witness @FOX5Atlanta pic.twitter.com/LgV1xzUlNW  Marissa Mitchell (@MarissaMFOX5) March 3, 2018

While they were trying on shoes, a mirror mounted at the end of an aisle toppled over and fell on top of the toddler, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.

Police, fire department, and EMS were called to the scene and found the child severely injured. Medics rushed her to the Southern Regional Medical Center where she died, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

I feel dead like I am no more  that was my little girl, said Mohsin Siddique, the childs father.

"She was our little angel." The father of 2 y/o Ifrah Siddique tells me the mirror wasn't secure in @PaylessInsider store in Riverdale. Police say it fell on the toddler, killing her Friday night. The latest from her family @FOX5Atlanta at 11 pic.twitter.com/dAmtYTwJb4  Marissa Mitchell (@MarissaMFOX5) March 5, 2018

The family now demands answers and justice, Fox 5s Marissa Mitchell tweeted. The father believes the mirror wasnt properly fastened.

I dont want any money. Im not going to any People are saying theyre going to [do] a lawsuit money, money. I dont need money. I need my daughter. I just want justice for this who did this bad things, the father told WSB-TV.

A FATHER'S HEARTBREAK. The father of the little girl, who police say, died after a mirror fell on her inside a Payless store in Riverdale speaks with @FOX5Atlanta . The toddler's relatives demand answers and justice. pic.twitter.com/1VA7EXboX3  Marissa Mitchell (@MarissaMFOX5) March 5, 2018

The store manager allowed the family to go to a back room where the mirror was placed after the incident. The family took a picture of the mirror after it was cleaned and provided the picture to media. They also provided a picture showing where the mirror was originally placed.

Some of you are asking abt placement of mirror that police say fell on/killed a toddler in Riverdale. The family sent @FOX5Atlanta pics. They say the mirror was mounted at end of the aisles. Payless says it is investigating nature of accident @FOX5Atlanta https://t.co/7eXoCx3N0k pic.twitter.com/zpl4K3koxv  Marissa Mitchell (@MarissaMFOX5) March 4, 2018

The store closed early on Saturday and was closed Sunday.

A mirror and window repair truck was spotted outside the store Saturday.

At least they are fixing it, but still the question is why wasnt it secured in the first place, said the girls cousin Aqib Iftkhar.

Payless ShoeSource released the following statement:

Our deepest sympathies go out to the family of Ifrah Siddique during this time of incredible loss. We are devastated by this tragic event and are fully cooperating with authorities to research and understand the nature of this accident. Out of respect for the family, no further information will be provided at this time.

Recommended Video:

Officer Saves Woman Who Was PinnedThe European Commission has said that at the end of March it will present an overhaul of its tax rules, which allow USA digital giants to report their income from across the bloc in any member state.

Bruno Le Maire, France's minister for the economy, has revealed that a plan to levy a special tax on Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon will soon be revealed by European authorities.

However, he explained that it is likely to be closer to two per cent, at least to begin with, than six per cent.

"A European directive will be unveiled in the coming weeks", Le Maire told French newspaper Le Journal de Dimanche on Sunday. It will be a considerable step. "The (tax rate) range is two per cent to six per cent [but] we will be closer to two per cent than six per cent", he said. He responded by claiming that it is "a starting point".

Walmart to sell meal kits at stores nationwide

Consumers can either buy directly in store, or order kits online and pick them up later that day. Walmart's convenience meal options serve two people and range in price from $8 to $15.

Rechazan un nuevo pedido para excarcelar a Jones Huala

El lider mapuche esta acusado en ese pais de realizar un ataque incendiario a la casa de un puestero en Pisu Pisue en enero de 2013.

LG Elections: No evidence of underage voting in Kano - INEC

The committee is expected to meet with politicians on Monday and then followed by security personnel and other stakeholders.

As Le Maire said, it's easier and faster to implement a lower rate and tweak it later, rather than to go for a higher rate from the start and risk longer negotiations.

After coming across a draft EC document detailing the plans, Reuters reports that officials had also been exploring a tax option that focuses on the location of companies. That's what these companies have been taking advantage of.

The proposal aims at increasing the tax bill of firms like Amazon.com AMZN.O , Alphabet's GOOGL.O Google and Facebook FB.O , which are accused by large European Union states of paying too little by rerouting their European Union profits to low-tax countries such as Luxembourg and Ireland.Father Accused of Driving While High on Drugs With Two Young Daughters in Back Seat

A father was arrested and charged after he crashed a car outside a Sydney police station on Saturday, March 3, while carrying two young children and allegedly high on drugs, according to a police statement.

Matt Holford, 29, was driving his ute at about 10:30 p.m. in Mt Druitt in Sydneys west when he failed to stop after a collision at the intersection of Duke Street and Luxford Road.

He continued to drive along Luxford Road where he allegedly almost hit an officer and police car, before mounting the curb and stopping on the footpath outside the police station, according to the police statement.

A witness told 7News: The ute was inside and he was trying to get out very quickly.

During Holfords arrest, police officers noticed two small girls  aged five and seven  unrestrained in the back seat of the car in a distressed state. The two girls were found without injuries and the incident has been reported to Family and Community Services (FACS), according to police.

The 29-year-old was taken to Mt Druitt Hospital for mandatory drug testing where his results are pending. He was then taken into custody at the police station.

This was Holfords second encounter with police that day. Earlier, he was on travelling on the New England Highway at Liddell in the Hunter Valley at around 11.50 a.m. when he was stopped by police.

After a positive roadside drug test, Holford was arrested and taken to Muswellbrook Police Station. A secondary test was conducted which also returned a positive result and was sent for further analysis, according to police.

He was subsequently issued with a suspension notice prohibiting him from driving for 24 hours and then left the station in a taxi, according to police.

However, police allege the 29-year-old failed to comply with the prohibition when he took his ute and drove to Sydney while allegedly high on drugs.

He was charged with driving recklessly and negligently, and for failure to comply with a prohibition.

Holford was refused bail after appearing at Parramatta Bail Court on March 4.

The two young girls are now with family, while their father remains in jail, reported 7News.

From NTD.tv

Recommended Video:

How Doctors in China Turn into MurderersIn Another Win for Trump, Kim Jong Un Meets With South Korean Envoys in Pyongyang

North Korean communist dictator Kim Jong Un met with top aides to South Korean president Moon Jae-in in Pyongyang on Monday.

The meeting is the first of its kind since Kim took power in 2011 and the strongest indicator yet that President Donald Trumps campaign to end North Koreas nuclear weapons program is working.

South Koreas National Security Office head Chung Eui-yong and National Intelligence Service chief Suh Hoon met with Kim during a dinner banquet at North Koreas capital in an effort to persuade the dictator to start talks with the United States about denuclearization, Bloomberg reported.

The envoys also planned to discuss the release of three Korean-Americans imprisoned in North Korea.

Mondays meeting is the second engagement between high-level officials from the two Koreas in less than a month. Kim Jong Uns sister, Kim Yo Jong, traveled to South Korea last month for the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics and met the South Korean president.

Moon credited Trumps aggressive foreign policy for bringing about the talks where North Korea agreed to send a delegation to the Olympics.

During her Olympics visit, Kim Yo Jong, the head of the communist regimes propaganda and agitation department, invited President Moon to visit Pyongyang for a summit. Moon has not yet agreed but sent a delegation to discuss that possibility, Wall Street Journal reported. The South Korean envoys planned to travel to the United States to relay the content of Mondays meeting.

Kim has not met with any officials from South Korea or any foreign heads of state since taking power in 2011.

The two Koreas held two summits between their leaders in 2000 and 2007. Kim Jong Uns father met the South Korean president in Pyongyang on both occasions.

Mondays meeting started at 6 p.m. Seoul time, according to a spokesman for the South Korean president. The envoys arrived in North Korea via a special direct flight at 2:50 p.m.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono told reporters that denuclearization should be part of talks with North Korea. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters that China is ready to play a positive role to reach the goal of denuclearization and lasting peace in the Korean peninsula.

The United States and North Korea have both indicated a willingness to meet, but have been unable to agree on the terms of the engagement. The United States demands that discussion of complete denuclearization must be part of any talks, which has been a non-starter for the reclusive communist state.

Tensions between the United States and North Korea escalated last year after Pyongyang carried out a series of ballistic missile launches and tested what it claims to have been a hydrogen bomb. In response, Trump threatened military action and spearheaded a series of stringent international sanctions.

Trump views communism as a failed and destructive ideology and has highlighted the stark difference between the two Koreas as proof.

From NTD.tv

Recommended Video:

President Trumps First State of the Union AddressJodi Ariass Lawyers Seek Motion to Appeal Murder Conviction

Lawyers representing convicted killer Jodi Arias want a three-month extension after missing a crucial deadline.

The attorneys filed a request in the Arizona Court of Appeals on behalf of Arias on Thursday, March 1, who is in prison for the killing of her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander.

Court records indicate that the lawyers missed a crucial deadline to appeal the 2013 murder conviction, reported The Arizona Republic.

The lawyers said they missed the deadline because of a computer problem.

They also faced staff shortages and one of the lawyers faced a chronic health issue, they said in the motion requesting the extension.

If the extension is granted, a panel of three judges will consider the appeal after its lodged.

Issues with transcripts of the 125-day trial have been common, including one court reporter who complained of health problems while another said it was too much work.

The transcripts werent completed until April 2017.

Arias was convicted of first-degree murder in 2013.

She killed Alexander in 2008. Alexander, 30, was found dead in the shower of his home in Mesa, Arizona in June 2008. Hed been shot in the head and stabbed nearly 30 times, noted USA Today.

His throat had also been slit.

The trial was one of the most publicized in recent history.

Sentencing was held up after a jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether to sentence Arias to death or to life in prison.

A second jury was convened but after five months that jury was also unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

Judge Sherry Stephens then sentenced Arias to life in prison.

The crime was especially cruel, the judge said. It involved substantial planning and preparation.  The defendant destroyed evidence  and went to great lengths to conceal her involvement.

Shes serving her sentence in Perryville Womens Prison in Goodyear, Arizona.

From NTD.tv

Recommended Video:

Cookie-Crazed Squirrel Attacks New York PolicemanBlank Social Security checks are run through a printer at the U.S. Treasury printing facility in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Feb. 11, 2005. (William Thomas Cain/Getty Images)

Mexican Man Deported Twice From US Stole $361,000 in Government Benefits Over 37 Years

A Mexican native who was deported twice from the United States had been using a stolen identity to illegally obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars in government benefits.

A man whose name may be Andres Avelino Anduaga committed identity theft over the last 37 years to rack up $361,000 in government funds.

Most of the time Anduaga was receiving social security benefits, he was living in Tijuana, reported The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Anduaga admitted Thursday to assuming the identity of a U.S. citizen in 1980 and illegally obtaining around a quarter-million dollars in Supplemental Security Income benefits and over a hundred thousand dollars in health benefits, authorities said in a press release.

The programs that this defendant stole fromfor decadesprovide benefits to Americas most needy, said U.S. Attorney Adam Braverman. This prosecution demonstrates the commitment of the United States Attorneys Office to protecting the integrity of our welfare programs and punishing those who prey on the goodwill of our nation and its taxpayers.

U.S. Border Patrol Spokesman Michael Scappechio said, Criminal cases in the border region oftentimes have an immigration nexus. In the spirit of law enforcement collaboration, the U.S. Border Patrol supports local, state and other federal partners in the prosecution of people who violate our nations immigration laws.

Using a fake birth certificate, Anduaga applied for a California drivers license, Social Security number, and U.S. passport.

The official documents identified the man as Abraham Riojos, born in Alpine in Texas in 1958.

The documents enabled Anduaga to move freely between the United States and Mexico, and he spent most of his time living in Mexico.

Social Security benefits can only go to U.S. citizens of valid visa holders, and they must live in the United States.







Investigators unraveled the scheme after the Social Security office in Chula Vista alerted its Inspector General that some private mailboxes near the U.S.-Mexico border may be linked to residency fraud.

Rijos was summoned in 2015 after a routine check into his benefits and told investigators that he was renting a room in the San Diego area.

The investigation continued into 2016, when investigators visited the home that Riojos claimed to be renting but was told by the landlord that Riojos actually lived in Mexico.

Investigators found that Anduaga was linked to 21 different names and six dates of birth, and had committed a number of crimes that prompted two deportations, including a firearms violation, forgery, and cocaine possession.

Anduaga was deported in 1994 and 2000.

They also found that Anduaga had tried to sign up for disability benefits in Oceanside under the same Abraham Riojos name, but with a fake birth certificate with the same date and place of birth.

Anduaga agreed to pay full restitution for the $361,000 he fraudulently obtained. He faces up to 12 years in a federal prison and a fine of up to $917,000.

Sentencing is set for May 29.

Authorities said the man who Anduaga stole the identity from didnt appear to know Anduaga.

From NTD.tv

Recommended Video:

Texas Sheriff Talks About Why Sanctuaries Dont Help Public SafetyNew Yorks Utica College on Lockdown After Credible Threat

Utica College, located in Upstate New York, was placed on lockdown due to a real, credible threat, the school stated on Monday.

The college initiated a shelter in place order just before 12 p.m.

Armed uniformed officers will be clearing buildings as soon as possible. Comply with all law enforcement instructions. If you are sheltered in place, you will be evacuated and escorted to a safe location. Please stay where you are until directed by law enforcement, the school tweeted after 12 p.m. on Monday.

DEVELOPING: Utica College in upstate New York on lockdown "due to a real, credible threat," the school says. https://t.co/CSxEy966aa pic.twitter.com/ilv9n6YKP5  ABC News (@ABC) March 5, 2018

Utica College is currently under a lock down due to a real, credible threat. Everyone on campus is to remain sheltered in place. Please get to a safe place and remain there until you are told the shelter in place direction has been lifted, the college wrote on Twitter at 11:49 a.m. on Monday.

Police told Fox News that they got a call about a person with a gun on the campus. No shots were fired.

Meanwhile, a caller apparently phoned the school saying he was armed inside the Gordon Science Center.

Come get me, the caller said, according to the college newspapers Twitter feed.

UPDATE: UC remains in lockdown. College is urging campus to comply with all campus law enforcement, per email. Those sheltered in place will be evacuated to a safe location #lockdown #UticaCollege pic.twitter.com/4vC2OlYfP1  The Tangerine (@UC_Tangerine) March 5, 2018

Armed uniformed officers will be clearing buildings as soon as possible. Comply with all law enforcement instructions. If you are sheltered in place, you will be evacuated and escorted to a safe location. Please stay where you are until directed by law enforcement.  Utica College (@uticacollege) March 5, 2018

UC ALERT: Utica College is currently under a lock down due to a real, credible threat. Everyone on campus is to remain sheltered in place. Please get to a safe place and remain there until you are told the shelter in place direction has been

lifted.  Utica College (@uticacollege) March 5, 2018

UPDATE: UC remains in lockdown. College is urging campus to comply with all campus law enforcement, per email. Those sheltered in place will be evacuated to a safe location #lockdown #UticaCollege pic.twitter.com/4vC2OlYfP1  The Tangerine (@UC_Tangerine) March 5, 2018

Utica College, a private university, is located about 52 miles east of Syracuse, and has about 4,400 studentsundergraduate and postgraduate.

Recommended Video:

How Doctors in China Turn into MurderersThe witness room facing the execution chamber of the "death house" at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, in November 2009. (Caroline Groussain/AFP/Getty Images)

Ohio Death-Row Inmate Who Survived Injection Dies in Cell

Convicted murderer, Alva Campbell, who survived an attempted execution by injection just four months ago died in his cell.

The death-row inmate in Ohio had avoided his execution for 20 years. When the time finally came on Nov. 15, a vein could not be successfully tapped to administer the lethal injection and the execution was abandoned.

On Saturday, March 2, Campbell was found unresponsive in his cell. The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections said he was pronounced dead at a hospital around 5:30 a.m. reported WCMH.

Campbell, 69, had been convicted of two homicides, over 20 years apart.

After serving 20 years of a life sentence for first-degree murder, he was released in 1992.

In 1997, he was arrested on armed robbery charges. Faking paralysis, he managed to escape custody, hijacking a car and taking the 18-year-year-old driver with him.

He shot and killed the 18-year-old driver and was subsequently sentenced to execution.

Alva Campbell, who survived the state's execution attempt last year, died this morning in his prison cell:https://t.co/aPd43wzN9n pic.twitter.com/VGEdJj7gYv  NBC4 Columbus (@nbc4i) March 3, 2018

Franklin County prosecutor Ron OBrien tweeted, Due to 20 years of frivolous post-conviction litigation, he successfully ran the clock out on justice due to the state and the victims family.

Campbells attorney, David Stebbins, said he suffered from lung cancer, COPD, prostate cancer, and other ailments and required oxygen treatments four times a day, according to NBC.

He wanted to live but he also recognized his time was running out, Stebbins, said in a phone interview, according to NBC.

Campbells ex-wife, Sharol Kelly said it was probably better that he died of natural causes, according to NBC, because it meant there could be no repeat of the abandoned execution.

That was not good for anybody, not even the victims family, she said.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich had set Campbells new execution date for June 5, 2019.

According to Reuters, 24 more inmates after Campbell are slated for execution in Ohio through 2022.

The last execution in Ohio was in September, after a three-year hiatus due to legal challenges and difficulties obtaining lethal injections, when double-murderer, Gary Otte was put to death.

Recommended Video:

Surveillance Footage Shows Robber Attack Virginia Store EmployeePresident Donald Trump meets with bipartisan Members of Congress to discuss school and community safety in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington on Feb. 28, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Top 10 Jokes from Trumps Speech at the Gridiron Dinner

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania attended the annual Gridiron dinner with members of the press on Saturday.

The dinner is a night of comedy and performances where members of the media roast the president and politicians and the president gives a humorous speech.

Trump declined to attend last year and accepted this time around. The presidents speech poked fun at his administration, members of the media, and his opponents. Below are the top 10 moments from the speech.

The Opening

I know the Gridiron is really an old tradition in Washington, been around a long time, and one thats important to many of you in the media. So, I was very excited to receive this invitation and come here and ruin your evening in person.

On Attorney General Jeff Sessions

But Attorney General Sessions is here with us tonight.  I offered him a ride over and he recused himself.  But thats OK.

Note: Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation on Russian election meddling.

On The New York Times

We also have some of the leading lights of the media here including some folks from the failing New York Times. That sucker is failing!

After all, you the New York Times are an icon. Im a New York icon, youre a New York icon, and the only difference is, I still own my buildings.

On CNN and Steve Bannon

And its been a very tough year. Jeff Zuckers here.  CNN, it lost a tremendous amount of credibility this year, but they also lost one of their true stars, the guy who got you the most scoops, inside info  your really very best reporter. There was nobody like himSteve Bannon. That guy leaked more than the Titanic.

Note: Steve Bannon is a former member of the Trump administration.

On the Media

It might be hard for you to believe, but I do enjoy gatherings like these. They give me a chance to socialize with members of the opposition party.  Also great to see some Democrats here.

But I do want to say this is one of the best times I can ever remember having with the media. This might be the most fun Ive had since watching your faces on election night.  I apologize. Years, years, years taken off your life.

On Democrats Who Didnt Stand at the State of the Union

I probably could have found a way to get the Democrats to stand and clap.  They didnt. They were like frozen. I said black unemployment is at the lowest point in history. No emotion. They sat other than Manchin. He stood up. Thank you, Joe. Hes still paying the price for that. I said Hispanic unemployment is at the lowest level in history, record. There was no emotion. But I decided I wasnt going to change anything. I wasnt going to get them to stand. I didnt know how.  I was not going to include a salute to Fidel Castro. They would have stood up. They would have cheered.

On Nancy Pelosi

But we had, Drain The Swamp, we had, Lock Her Up, we had, Build The Wall. Build the wall! Nancy Pelosi has been trying to come up with a line thats equal. And her line that she announced last week is, Mow The Grass! It doesnt work.

Mow the frickin grass.  Thats going to stop MS-13.

And its true  Nancys worth tens of millions of dollars and shes a populist.  You know, she really considers herself that. And I really try to tell her that you cant be a true populist unless youre worth at least ten billion dollars  people like you better.

On Dreamers and Democrats 2020 Hopes

I really believe the Republicans want to solve this problemDACAmore than the Democrats, and certainly faster. So, were all working together and I hope that somethings going to happen. I really do. I hope that somethings going to happen.

Were talking about the Dreamers and, quite honestly, Democrats can fantasize all they want about winning in 2020. Those are the Dreamers.  Im a Dreamer also.

Note: Dreamers is a term used to refer to illegal aliens who entered the United States as children. DACA refers to a temporary amnesty program for these illegal aliens.

On Kim Jong Un

I wont rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un. I just wont. As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, thats his problem, not mine.

Comparing Reality TV With the White House

Many people have asked me how my time as a reality TV star prepared me for the presidency, the truth is theres very little overlap between the two. Very little. In one job, I had to manage a cutthroat cast of characters desperate for TV time, totally unprepared for their  jobs, and each week afraid of having their asses fired. In the other job, I was the host of a smash television hit.  Televisions so easy compared to this.

A full speech transcript was published by The Hill.

From NTD.tv

Recommended Video:

President Trumps First State of the Union AddressTrump Questions Why Obama Administration Opened Investigation Before Elections

President Donald Trump has questioned why the Obama administration opened an investigation into the Trump campaign months before the November 2016 elections, while not addressing the real-life threat of Russian interference.

The FBI under the Obama administration opened an investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia as early as July 2016, and the CIA also conducted its own investigation.

A crucial part of the FBI investigation was the so-called Trump dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

A declassified House Intelligence Committee memo published in February shows that the FBI used the unverified claims in the dossier to prepare the case presented by the DOJ to obtain a FISA spy warrant on Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page. The FISA warrant could then have been used to spy on other members of the Trump campaign who were in contact with Page.

Former FBI Director James Comey testified under oath in June 2017 before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the dossier was both salacious and unverified.

Former CIA Director John Brennan has publicly said that the CIA did not rely on the Trump dossier for its report. However, many of the claims contained in the CIA report closely resemble those in the dossier.

(Click on the map to see it in full)

The NSA had been reluctant to consider the CIAs assessment with high confidence, given the fact that it in part relied on intelligence from another country.

This other country could have been the United Kingdom, which has an agreement with the U.S. to share intelligence under its Five Eyes program. A key author of the Trump dossier, former British spy Christopher Steele, was also providing information to British intelligence, however, so that information would have been no more reliable than the unverified information Steele fed the FBI.

Brennan briefed both Obama, as well as select members of Congress on the contents of the dossier. Following the briefing, then Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) sent a letter to FBI Director James Comey calling on him to take action against alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign. The letter was posted on Reids website and spurred numerous media reports.

Despite over a year of congressional and law-enforcement investigations and media reporting, no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government has been found.

Last month the office of Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals for using social media in an attempt to sow discord in the United States and influence public opinion. However, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said that the Russians worked on their own initiative and that no American knowingly colluded with them.

Meanwhile, the investigations into the Trump campaign have raised significant questions about whether they were politically motivated.

Text messages obtained by the Department of Justice Inspector General, showed high level FBI officials discussing an insurance policy in case Trump was elected president.

The text messages sent between Peter Strzok, who led the investigation into both Hillary Clintons use of a private email server to transfer classified information as well as the investigation into the Trump campaign, and high ranking FBI lawyer Lisa Page make reference to then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

(Click on image to enlarge map)

McCabe was forced to resign late January after his boss, FBI Director Christoper Wray had read the House Intelligence Committee memo.

McCabe had signed off on one of the FISA applications by Carter Page.

On Twitter on March 5, Trump asked why the investigations into his campaign were begun.

Why did the Obama Administration start an investigation into the Trump Campaign (with zero proof of wrongdoing) long before the Election in November?, Trump wrote.

Wanted to discredit so Crooked H would win. Unprecedented. Bigger than Watergate! Plus, Obama did NOTHING about Russian meddling, Trump wrote.

Why did the Obama Administration start an investigation into the Trump Campaign (with zero proof of wrongdoing) long before the Election in November? Wanted to discredit so Crooked H would win. Unprecedented. Bigger than Watergate! Plus, Obama did NOTHING about Russian meddling.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 5, 2018

The House Intelligence Committee is currently investigating why top Obama officials, including former National Security Adviser Susan Rice and US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power, made hundreds of so-called unmasking requests on the identities of members of the Trump team.

Unmasking requests refer to the practice of requesting the identities of Americans whose identities are censored to protect privacy, and for Fourth Amendment reasons, by default. Once the identities are revealed, then transcripts of their conversations picked up by NSA surveillance can be identified.Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says New Zealand will make an initial contribution of $500,000 to help with the emergency response following the 7.5 magnitude quake in Papua New Guinea's Highlands region last Monday.

Whole villages have been flattened and water sources spoiled in the 7.5 magnitude quake which killed at least 20 people in the remote and mountainous Southern Highlands last Monday.

A Royal New Zealand Air Force C130 Hercules aircraft carrying emergency relief supplies will depart for Port Moresby on Monday morning, carrying family hygiene kits, shelter kits, jerry cans, and tarpaulins, Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters says.

With a message against armed violence the appearances on the Oscar night

According to Everytown , which boasts 4 million members, there have been nearly 300 hundred school shootings since 2013. A group of celebrities also previously worked with Everytown for this public service announcement in October.

Republica Dominicana implementa nuevo plan de seguridad en frontera con Haiti

En torno al tema, el Ministro de interior y Policia, Carlos Amarante Baret, dijo que tienen suficientes controles migratorios en las fronteras.

TherapeuticsMD Inc (TXMD) Expected to Announce Quarterly Sales of $4.21 Million

Finally, California State Teachers Retirement System increased its holdings in TherapeuticsMD by 4.5% during the 4th quarter. Virtu KCG Holdings LLC acquired a new stake in shares of TherapeuticsMD in the second quarter valued at about $157,000.

A State of Emergency had been declared for the quake disaster areas in Hela, Southern Highlands, Western and Enga Provinces.

"New Zealand stands ready to assist Papua New Guinea".

Mr. Elluh said a major hiccup in receiving timely reports was the communication lines in the province after reports of telecommunication towers damaged across the affected areas in the Highlands region.U.S. President Donald Trump announces that the United States will impose tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on imported aluminum during a meeting at the White House in Washington, U.S. on March 1, 2018. (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)

Trump Suggests Canada, Mexico Could Win Tariff Exemption

WASHINGTON/MEXICO CITYU.S. President Donald Trump on Monday appeared to suggest that Canada and Mexico could win exemptions to his planned sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminum if the two countries sign a new NAFTA trade deal and take other steps.

He made the comments as the United States, Canada, and Mexico were wrapping up their latest round of talks on revamping the 1994 NAFTA deal, and as world shares dipped again, partly on concerns that Trumps tariff plan could spark a global trade war.

We have large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada. NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs. Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed, Trump tweeted.

A representative for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the presidents statement.

Trump has touted the planned tariffs, which he announced last Thursday, as a way to revive the U.S. steel and aluminum industries. This point was repeated on Monday by White House Director of Trade and Industrial Policy Peter Navarro, who told Fox News, As the president said, we cant have a country without an aluminum and steel industry.

Related Coverage Canada Fires Back at US Steel and Aluminum Tariffs

However, Navarro indicated he had not seen Trumps tweets on Canada and Mexico being exempted if a NAFTA deal was achieved.

That would be a great thing for the American people, but at this point in time 25 percent on steel, 10 percent on aluminum, no country exclusionsfirm line in the sand, Navarro said.

Trump, a Republican, has long bucked his partys broad support for free trade, promising both on the campaign trail and in the White House that he will seek deals that better favor American workers.

That has included the threat that Washington will withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement if it is not satisfactorily renegotiated, and his unexpected, market-rattling announcement of plans for hefty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

NAFTA Talks

Trump is expected to finalize the tariffs later in the week, posing a tough challenge for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Canadas Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo. They are meeting in Mexico City on Monday to wrap up the latest round of discussions.

In another comment on the talks tweeted on Monday, Trump reprised two running criticisms of Canada and Mexico.

Also, Canada must treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying.

The Mexican and Canadian ministers are likely to press Trumps trade envoy for more details on how their countries could be excluded from the blanket tariffs.

Officials have so far been evasive when asked how the three nations can continue trying to update NAFTA at a time when the U.S. president is about to take a highly protectionist measure.

Recent events have again put equity markets, barely recovered from their February selloff, under a cloud. The European Union, Canada and China are among those threatening to retaliate with tit-for-tat duties if Trump goes ahead with the steel and aluminum tariffs.

Reporting by Susan Heavey and Adriana BarreraU.S. aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is seen in the Pacific Ocean on May 27, 2017. (Torrey W. Lee/Courtesy U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters/File Photo)

US Aircraft Carrier Arrives in Vietnam on Landmark Visit

DANANG, VietnamA U.S. aircraft carrier arrived on March 5 in Vietnam for the first time since the end of the Vietnam War, dramatically underscoring the growing strategic ties between the former foes at a time when Chinas regional influence is rising.

The gray and imposing silhouette of the USS Carl Vinson could be seen on Monday morning from the cliff tops just outside the central Vietnamese city of Danang, where the 103,000-ton carrier and two other U.S. ships begin a five-day visit.

The arrival of the Vinson marks the biggest U.S. military presence in Vietnam since 1975but it also illustrates Hanois complex relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) over disputed territory in the South China Sea.

Vietnamese envoys had been working for months to ease the concerns of their giant Chinese neighbor over the visit and the prospect of broader security cooperation between Hanoi and Washington, according to diplomats and others familiar with the talks.

As China seeks a greater presence in the region, U.S. carriers have frequently plied the South China Sea in a rising pattern of naval deployments. The CCP is building a series of artificial islandsdesigned to serve as air and naval basesin the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. The developments have alarmed Vietnam and other regional governments as China seeks to enforce its claims to much of the disputed waterway, through which some $3 trillion in trade passes each year.

Vinsons visit was announced when U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis traveled to Hanoi in January, followed by months of backroom military diplomacy between Hanoi and the Pentagon. The carriers arrival demonstrates the U.S. and Vietnams strengthened military ties, and is likely welcome news to neighboring countries that are nervously eyeing Chinas military rise in the region.

Although no U.S. aircraft carrier has been to Vietnam since the end of the war, other, smaller U.S. warships have made high-level visits as ties improved in recent years.

That includes a 2016 visit by submarine tender USS Frank Cable and guided-missile destroyer USS John S. McCain to Cam Ranh Bay, a crucial logistics complex during the Vietnam War.

A U.S. Navy band will play a concert in Danang during the Vinsons visit, and sailors from the carrier are scheduled to spend time at a treatment center for people who were exposed to Agent Orange chemicals during the war.

From Reuters. Epoch Times staff member Annie Wu contributed to this report.

Recommended Video:

How Doctors in China Turn into MurderersWang Qishan (R), former head of the Chinese Communist Party's anti-corruption agency, attends the opening session of the National People's Congress, China's rubber-stamp legislature, in Beijing's Great Hall of the People on March 5, 2018. (Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images)

Wang Qishan, Chinas Former Anti-Corruption Czar, Is Back

This weekend, the Chinese Communist Party kick-started its two weeks-long series of political meetings known as the Lianghui. Most of it will be a ceremonial act of the Partys rubber-stamp legislature approving decisions already made by the Party leadership. However, there are several appointments to top positions that have not been formally announced.

One question that remains unanswered is what role Wang Qishan will play. He was Chinese leader Xi Jinpings right-hand manuntil this past October, when an unofficial rule about top officials retirement age forced Wang out of the upper echelons of the Party.

Wang spearheaded Xis anti-corruption campaign to purge the Party of political enemiesnamely, officials who were loyal to former leader Jiang Zemin. He helped Xi clean house, but perhaps that made him an enemy of the opposition Jiang faction. During Octobers Party leadership reshuffle, when the Xi and Jiang camps jockeyed for power, Wang did not make it out with a top appointment.

Everyone wondered if that would be the last China would ever see of Wang. But in January, Wang was unexpectedly named a representative to the National Peoples Congress (NPC), a ceremonial body that mimics a parliament. The news fueled speculation that Wang would soon return to politics.

Sources close to Beijing recently told Reuters that Wang is likely to become vice-chair of the NPC, with a portfolio focused on Sino-American ties.

When the Lianghui meetings commenced this week, it became clear that Wang would come backand in full force.

On March 4, during a preparatory meeting for the NPC, Wang was named to the presidium, a group of VIP officials, along with Xi, vice premier Li Keqiang, and other members of the Politburo Standing Committeethe Partys most powerful decision-making body.

He was seated near the Committee members, in the front row. Hong Kong newspaper Sing Tao Daily analyzed this seating arrangement, suggesting that it represented Wangs ranking within the Partyhe would be the next most powerful after the Politburo Standing Committee.

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Economic Times noted that it was unusual for Wang, a retired Politburo Standing Committee memberhe was in the powerful elite until the leadership reshuffle in October 2017to become a Congress delegate, and to skip ahead and become a presidium member right away.

The following daythe first day of Congress meetingsWang was again seated with the most powerful, to the left of Zhao Leji, the anti-corruption czar who succeeded Wang in October.

Hu Ping, political commentator and honorary editor-in-chief of Beijing Spring, a New York-based Chinese-language magazine, said the positioning signaled that Wang would be equal status to the Politburo Standing Committee members, like an eighth member. He will assume a very important role, he said in an interview with The Epoch Times.

Hu also predicted that Wang would become the most powerful vice chair in Chinese Communist history, given that he is a trusted confidant of Xi. Since the position was created in 1982, the vice chair has been a mostly ceremonial position, having little actual powers within the Party. Because Xi Jinping trusts him, Xi will give him lots of important tasks, Hu said.

Political commentator Xia Xiaoqiang also noted that Wangs resurgence is a setback for the Jiang faction, given Wangs role in taking down many of its members.

Gu Qinger, Zhang Dun, Luo Ya, and Lin Shiyuan contributed to this report.A decade after the project was conceived, renovations on several Old Greenwich commercial buildings are at last nearing completion.

Greenwich native John Nolan owns a handful of properties along Sound Beach Avenue and Acadia Road that house businesses including Alpen Pantry, Village Barbers and Wheelock. His family has owned the real estate portfolio since the 1920s, he said, and the buildings have been in need of a face lift for a long time.

In coming weeks, finishing touches will be in place, marking the end of months worth of renovations, according to property manager Anthony Matteis Jr. of AJM Real Estate Services in Stamford.

Nolans properties are interspersed with those owned by others but, following the face lift, theyre easy to identify. Now, they all boast wide windows, gray siding, black-lettered signs and fresh, white finishes.

We kept with a uniform look, because its better than having them all over the place, Matteis said, though businesses can put branded logos on their front windows. We did want to give them a little individuality, he said.

Upgrades include the new, better insulated windows, permanent black awnings, siding, doors and signs. Nolan described the work as the most significant exterior work theyd done in decades. They were looking old and tired and needed the work for sure, Matteis added.

Originally, Nolan wanted the renovations done years ago, but the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis put the project on hold, he said. Wed heard a few complaints (about the buildings) over the years, so we began planning back in 2008.

As the economy started to rev again, We took the sketch wed had done back then, dusted it off and started to get back into it in 2015 and 2016. We thought an extensive renovation was overdue, Nolan said.

Last summer, scaffolding went up and workers began the transformation. For some business owners, the scaffolding covering their entrances was a hassle, but we tried to tell all tenants from day one that this wasnt going to be totally seamless, Matteis said. We tried to make them as visible as possible with banners and not hurt them while the work was going on. ... It sure looks a million percent better now.

Though Nolan has moved to Ohio, he said hes proud of what he can do to beautify his hometown. Weve done our bit to spruce up business there, he said.Damon Calderwood / Contributed photo

It could just have been a story shared from one generation to the next. But, when you are actress and writer, you turn it into a one-woman show.

Libby Skala, who grew up in Darien and is now based in New York City, will perform Lilia, at the Norwalk Library this week. It is a play she wrote about the life of her grandmother, the late actress Lilia Skala, who is probably best remembered for her Oscar-nominated performance as the mother superior in Lilies of the Field, the 1963 film that earned Sidney Poitier his best actor Oscar.In what has been dubbed the "big bitcoin heist", 600 computers used to mine cryptocurrencies have been stolen in Iceland. "This is a grand theft on a scale unseen before", said Olafur Helgi Kjartansson, the police commissioner on the southwestern Reykjanes peninsula, told AP. "Everything points to this being a highly organized crime". That seems to have been the guiding philosophy for a bunch of thieves in Iceland who are reported to have stolen bitcoin mining servers worth $2 million from data servers. Three of the thefts happened in December and one in January.

However, the stolen iron was not yet found, and now, the police have monitored the areas with high energy consumption. Police decided not to announce the crimes in an effort to find the thieves.

11 people - including one security guard - have been arrested as part of the scandal, and a judge at the Reykjanes District Court ordered two of the alleged culprits to remain in custody in a ruling last Friday.

Met Eireann issue fresh status orange weather warning for Leinster counties

A status yellow alert for snow-ice for Connacht, Donegal, Clare, Kerry and Limerick will also remain in place until noon tomorrow. That warns of lying snow and ice continuing to cause hazardous conditions.

Gary Oldman, Oscar al mejor actor por "El instante mas oscuro"

Era la segunda candidatura del actor a los premios de Hollywood, despues de la que logro por su gris espia britanico Smiley del film de 2011 "El Topo".

UBC resident dead after Mercedes crashes into tree

Anyone who may have witnessed the collision, and has not yet spoken with police, is asked to call investigators at 604-717-3012. The vehicle crashed into a tree, and the driver died at the scene.

A computer owned by a bitcoin miner must solve a mathematical problem, for the transaction of even a single Bitcoin.

Cops have been monitoring energy use in the country and asking electricians and power companies to report any unusual surges in a bid to track down the stolen machines. Three of them occurred in December of past year, one in January 2018, however, for more effective investigation and capture of criminals, the police did not do then what happened to the public domain.

Iceland, thanks both to its cheap geothermal electricity supplies and its colder temperatures, has become a large center for bitcoin mining.Midterm elections usually reflect strong opposition to the party in the White House, and the 2018 elections do not seem to be any different. Women, many who see themselves as targets of the current political environment, have achieved great success in special elections since 2016, and they seem to be heading to even greater success in this years elections.

According to Emilys List, the largest national organization devoted to electing female candidates, in the 10 months before the election in 2016 about 1,000 women contacted that organization about running for office or getting involved in other ways.

Since the election, the number has exploded to more than 25,000. And something similar is happening with higher education.

According to 314 Action, a D.C.-based nonprofit advocacy group formed two years ago to encourage scientists to engage in politics, at least 60 scientists are bidding for seats in the U.S. Congress this year.

Some 200 people with science and engineering backgrounds are also running for state legislative seats, with a similar number vying for school board and other local and county level positions.

Here are some examples of academics (all of them happen to be Democrats) who have already thrown their hats into the ring.

Julia Biggins, a biotech scientist, is challenging freshman representative Barbara Comstock (Republican) in Virginias District 10, considered a purple, or tossup, seat. Democrat Chrissy Houlahan, an industrial engineer with very good fundraising skills, is challenging Republican Ryan Costello for District 6 in Pennsylvania. Jason Westin, a clinical oncologist, will be running against nine-term incumbent Republican John Culberson in the purple District 7 in Texas. Molly Sheehan, a biophysics postdoctoral student at the University of Pennsylvania, is vying for the open seat in District 7 of Pennsylvania. For Illinois District 14 (suburban Chicago) Matt Brolley, a young engineer, is looking to unseat Republican Randy Hultgren, a social and fiscal conservative. The list goes on and on.

By the way, women make up the majority of scientists planning a run for Congress this year.

These academics have many different reasons for seeking a political career after a life in academia.

Molly Sheehan, for example, knows she does not have the money or the networking connections that lawyers, industrialists, or political operatives usually have. Yet, she has raised more than $35,000 and loaned herself $170,000. That is a lot of commitment for a postdoctoral student. She said that given the anti-science and anti-intellectual environment in which we live, she needs to do something.

Randy Wadkins is a professor of biochemistry at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, near where he grew up.

Wadkins has been public about his distaste for Trumps and the Republican majoritys policies in Congress.

But what chance do these first-timers and political neophytes with science and engineering backgrounds really have of making a dent in the policies of this highly partisan Congress? There are many obstacles.

At a minimum, a run for a Congressional seat costs, on average, about $4 million. If your district is in an urban or suburban area, we are talking several millions more because of television costs. You may win millennials (they rarely watch TV) but attracting an older, more disciplined electorate may be a different story.

It is also difficult for a first-time Democrat to win in a traditional red district. You will also have to contend with the fact that the Republican-election machine is well adept at demonizing and ridiculing people whose credentials are as intellectuals.

One of the things they used to say about Barack Obama was that he was too professorial. On the Democratic side, on the other hand, they are very bad communicators, particularly when it comes to the defense of intellectualism. Finally, to run a campaign you need professionals supporting you. If you have never run or been involved in a campaign, you will have a hard time figuring out how to do it effectively.

How about the positives? This year some conventional wisdom may not apply. Not only is it a midterm election, which usually leans against the party in power, Trump has become a figure who has energized a large opposition.

Further, Republican candidates elected in primaries seem to be more and more leaning towards the far right, which makes them look more extremist in the eyes of even moderate Republicans.

With the Trump Administration, known for its scandals and incompetence, Republicans might prove an easy target for people who are just different, who can show they are rational or just normal in comparison.

The crux of the matter will be at the communications level. Not only are Democrats bad at constructing effective messages, but people in academia may not have the training to present themselves as likable individuals capable of showing that they understand that the general public is not their captive classroom audience.

These candidates need to be able to connect themselves with people who really do not care much about science, while being able to explain the facts in simple terms.

These facts, in a world of lies and alternative facts, sometimes are not easy to convey in the form of a talking point. Also, they may not be very adroit at dealing with personal attacks and in how to counter them.

But, as they say, time will tell.

Dr. Aldemaro Romero Jr. is a writer and college professor with leadership experience in higher education. He can be contacted through his website at: http://www.aromerojr.netThe following companies are subsidiares of Sysco: 2234829 Alberta ULC, 2234842 Alberta ULC, A. M. Briggs Inc., A.M. Briggs, Almacen Fiscal Frionet Caldera S.A., Almacen Fiscal Frionet Limon S.A., Appert's Foodservice, Arnotts (Fruit) Limited, Asian Foods, Bahamas Food Holdings Limited, Bahamas Food Services Limited, Brake Bros, Brake Bros Foodservice Ireland Limited, Brake Bros. Foodservice Limited, Brake Bros. Holding I Limited, Brake Bros. Ltd., Brakes Foodservice NI Limited, Buchy Food Service, Buckhead Beef Co., Buckhead Meat & Seafood of Houston Inc., Buckhead Meat Company, Buckhead Meat Midwest Inc., Buckhead Meat of Dallas Inc., Buckhead Meat of Denver Inc., Buckhead Meat of San Antonio LP, Buzztable Inc., CAKE Corporation, Central Seafood Co., Christys Wine & Spirits Limited, Clafra Aktiebolag, Colorado Boxed Beef Co - Specialty meat-cutting division, Corporacion Frionet Sociedad Anonima, Crossgar Foodservice, Crossgar Foodservice Limited, Crown I Enterprises Inc., Cucina Acquisitions (UK) Limited, Cucina Finance (UK) Limited, Cucina French Holdings Limited, Cucina Fresh Finance Limited, Cucina Fresh Investments Limited, Cucina Lux Investments Limited, Curleys Quality Foods Limited (Third Party), Davigel Belgilux S.A., Davigel Espana S.A., Desert Meats & Provisions, Distagro, Doerle Food Service, Doughtie's Foods Inc., Dust Bowl City LLC, Eko Fagel Fisk o mittemellan AB, Enclave Insurance Company, Enclave Parkway Association Inc., Enclave Properties LLC, European Imports, European Imports Inc., Figg Inc., Freedman Meats, Freedman Meats Inc., Freedman-KB Inc., Fresh Direct (UK) Limited, Fresh Direct Group Limited, Fresh Direct Limited, Fresh Holdings Limited, FreshPoint, FreshPoint Arizona Inc., FreshPoint Atlanta Inc., FreshPoint California Inc., FreshPoint Central California Inc., FreshPoint Central Florida Inc., FreshPoint Connecticut LLC, FreshPoint Dallas Inc., FreshPoint Denver Inc., FreshPoint Hawaii LLC, FreshPoint Inc., FreshPoint Las Vegas Inc., FreshPoint North Carolina Inc., FreshPoint North Florida Inc., FreshPoint Oklahoma City LLC, FreshPoint Pompano Real Estate LLC, FreshPoint Puerto Rico LLC, FreshPoint San Francisco Inc., FreshPoint South Florida Inc., FreshPoint South Texas Inc., FreshPoint Southern California Inc., FreshPoint Tomato LLC, FreshPoint Vancouver Ltd., Freshfayre Limited, Fruktservice i Helsingborg AB, GHS Classic Drinks Limited, Gilchrist & Soames Inc., Gilchrist & Soames UK Limited, Guest Packaging LLC, Guest Supply, Guest Supply Asia Limited, Guest Supply Singapore Pte. Ltd., International Food Group, Isakssons Frukt & Gront AB, J & M Wholesale Meats, J. Kings Food Service Professionals, J. Kings Food Service Professionals Inc., Kent Frozen Foods, Les Ateliers Du Gout, Liquid Assets Limited, M&J Seafood Holdings Limited, M&J Seafood Limited, Manchester Mills LLC, Mayca Autoservicio S.A., Mayca Distribuidores S.A., Menigo Foodservice AB, Mitshim Etatu Supply LP, Newport Meat Company, Newport Meat Northern California Inc., Newport Meat Pacific Northwest Inc., Newport Meat Southern California Inc., Newport Meat of Nevada Inc., North Star Holding Corporation, North Star Seafood, North Star Seafood Acquisition Corporation, North Star Seafood LLC, PFS de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Palisades Ranch Inc., Pallas Foods, Pallas Foods Farm Fresh Unlimited Company, Pallas Foods Unlimited Company, Pauleys Produce Limited, Promotora del Servicios S.A. de C.V., Restaurangakdemien AB, Restaurant of Tomorrow Inc., Rohan Viandes Elaboration SAS, SMS Bermuda Holdings, SMS GPC International Limited, SMS GPC International Resources Limited, SMS Global Holdings S.a.r.l., SMS International Resources Ireland Unlimited Company, SMS Lux Holdings LLC, SOTF LLC, SYY Netherlands C.V., SYY Panama S. de R.L., Serca Foodservice, Servicestyckarna I Johannes AB, Servicios Ameriserve S.A. de C.V., Shenzhen Guest Supply Trading Co. Limited, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) Bianchi Montegut, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) De Boiseau, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) De Garcelles, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) J.D. Lanjouan, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) Le Dauphin, Specialty Meat Holdings LLC, Stockflag Limited, Stockholms Fiskauktion AB, Supplies on the Fly, Sysco Albany LLC, Sysco Asian Foods Inc., Sysco Atlanta LLC, Sysco Autoservicio S.A., Sysco Baltimore LLC, Sysco Baraboo LLC, Sysco Bermuda Partners L.P., Sysco Boston LLC, Sysco Canada Holdings S.a.r.l., Sysco Canada Inc., Sysco Central Alabama LLC, Sysco Central California Inc., Sysco Central Florida Inc., Sysco Central Illinois Inc., Sysco Central Pennsylvania LLC, Sysco Charlotte LLC, Sysco Chicago Inc., Sysco Cincinnati LLC, Sysco Cleveland Inc., Sysco Columbia LLC, Sysco Connecticut LLC, Sysco Corporation, Sysco Corporation Director's Deferred Compensation Plan Trust, Sysco Corporation Employee's 401(k) Plan Trust, Sysco Corporation Executive Deferred Compensation Plan Trust, Sysco Corporation Good Government Committee Inc., Sysco Corporation Retirement Trust, Sysco Corporation Supplemental Executive Retirement Trust, Sysco Corporation Supplemental Unemployment Benefits Plan Trust, Sysco Detroit LLC, Sysco Disaster Relief Foundation Inc., Sysco EI VI S. s.r.l., Sysco EU II S.a.r.l., Sysco EU III S.a.r.l., Sysco EU IV Capital Unlimited Company, Sysco EU IV S. s.r.l.., Sysco EU V S. s.r.l., Sysco Eastern Maryland LLC, Sysco Eastern Wisconsin LLC, Sysco Foundation Inc., Sysco France Holding SAS, Sysco France SAS, Sysco George Town II LLC, Sysco George Town Limited S. s.r.l.., Sysco Global Finance LLC, Sysco Global Finance LLP, Sysco Global Holdings B.V., Sysco Global Resources LLC, Sysco Global Services LLC, Sysco Grand Cayman Company, Sysco Grand Cayman II Company, Sysco Grand Cayman III Company, Sysco Grand Rapids LLC, Sysco Guernsey Limited, Sysco Guest Supply Canada Inc., Sysco Guest Supply Europe Goods Wholesalers LLC, Sysco Guest Supply Europe Limited, Sysco Guest Supply LLC, Sysco Gulf Coast LLC, Sysco Hampton Roads Inc., Sysco Hawaii Inc., Sysco Holdings II LLC, Sysco Holdings LLC, Sysco Indianapolis LLC, Sysco International Food Group Inc., Sysco International Inc., Sysco Iowa Inc., Sysco Jackson LLC, Sysco Jacksonville Inc., Sysco Kansas City Inc., Sysco Knoxville LLC, Sysco Labs Europe Limited, Sysco Labs Pvt. Ltd., Sysco Leasing LLC, Sysco Lincoln Inc., Sysco Lincoln Transportation Company Inc., Sysco Long Island LLC, Sysco Los Angeles Inc., Sysco Louisville Inc., Sysco Memphis LLC, Sysco Merchandising and Supply Chain Services Canada Inc., Sysco Merchandising and Supply Chain Services Inc., Sysco Metro New York LLC, Sysco Minnesota Inc., Sysco Montana Inc., Sysco Nashville LLC, Sysco Netherlands Partners LLC, Sysco North Central Florida Inc., Sysco North Dakota Inc., Sysco Northern New England Inc., Sysco Philadelphia LLC, Sysco Pittsburgh LLC, Sysco Portland Inc., Sysco Raleigh LLC, Sysco Resources Services LLC, Sysco Riverside Inc., Sysco Sacramento Inc., Sysco San Diego Inc., Sysco San Francisco Inc., Sysco Seattle Inc., Sysco South Florida Inc., Sysco Southeast Florida LLC, Sysco Spain Holdings SLU, Sysco Spokane Inc., Sysco St. Louis LLC, Sysco Syracuse LLC, Sysco Technologies Cayman Ltd., Sysco Technologies LLC, Sysco UK Holdings Limited, Sysco UK Limited, Sysco UK Partners LLP, Sysco USA I Inc., Sysco USA II LLC, Sysco USA III LLC, Sysco Ventura Inc., Sysco Ventures Inc., Sysco Virginia LLC, Sysco West Coast Florida Inc., Sysco Western Minnesota Inc., The SYGMA Network Inc., Upsys, Victua SAS, Walker Foods Inc., Waugh Foods, and Wild Harvest Limited.|

Welcome Guest! You Are Here:

In next five years, NHAI's annual toll income will rise to Rs 1.40 lakh crore from current level of Rs 40,000 crore: Gadkari.

India's national highways infrastructure world-class success story; NHAI is gold mine and will never be in debt trap: Gadkari.1+ days ago

3 Stocks Close to Record Highs to Buy Now

Although the market has been pulling back over the past few weeks, the good news is that there are still pockets of strength that stand out as potential buying opportunities. In fact, some stocks are trading close to their all-time highs and have barely budged during the recent market weakness, which tells us that there is heavy demand for their shares.

Read ArticleRussian women yet to face Phuket coral charges in court

PHUKET: The two Russian women charged with illegal possession of corals that they say they bought from a man selling by the pack at a beach in Phuket have yet to have their case heard in court more than a month after their arrest.

tourismenvironmentRussianmarinecrimepolicenatural-resources

By The Phuket News

Monday 5 March 2018, 04:39PM

Some of the dead coral and shells found at the bungalow of Liliya Karmanova and Polina Likman. Photo: DMCR Phuket office

The women  Russian university student Liliya Karmanova, 20, and her friend Polina Likman, 21  were arrested by the Karon Police and then taken to be detained at the holding cells at Phuket Provincial Court on Feb 1 following a complaint filed by the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) Phuket office.

The complaint was filed after a tip-off  from a person who the DMCR and the Karon Police at the time identified as a neighbour who saw Ms Karmanova pouring toilet bleach onto the corals at their rented bungalow in Karon.

However, the neighbour ended up being the landlady of the units where the Russian women where staying. The landlady objected to the smell of the corals and shells, hence the dousing of bleach on them. (See story here.)

Both women were later released on what the DMCR said was B40,000 bail  but later clarified by the women themselves as B150,000 (see story here)  and had their passports held pending their case being heard at Phuket Provincial Court.

If found guilty, the women each face a fine of up to B20,000 or up to a year in jail, or both.

Yet more than a month after their arrest, the women have yet to have their case heard in court for no other reason than the police have yet to hand the case file to the Public Prosecutor.

Capt Channarong Prakongkue of the Karon Police admitted to The Phuket News today (Mar 5), Police have yet to hand the case details to the court. I am checking the criminal records of the two Russian women.

With any luck Ms Karmanova and Ms Likman will soon have their forced extended stay in Phuket draw to a close.

It (having the womens criminal records checked) will take about two more days. Then the case will be good enough to send to prosecutor, Capt Channarong said today.

However, Capt Channarong did not elaborate on what prompted the criminal history check, or if the check uncovered and criminal history at all.

Meanwhile, in addition to fear of going to prison, Ms Karmonova has expressed her concern about her university studies, as she will need to prove why she has been unable to attend classes.

Further, Ms Polinas father claims that both families have had to take out bank loans in order to cover all legal expenses and rising costs of the two students forced extended stay in Thailand.

Polina and I are so grateful to our parents for their help and support. We miss them greatly, Ms Karmonova said. (See story here.)Over the past two years, most everyone has applauded the motion picture academys decision to add nearly 1,500 new industry professionals as a long-needed step toward diversifying the groups ranks.

But the ever-increasing enrollment has created one small problem:

Its almost impossible to get a ticket to the Oscars these days unless youre willing to beg or engage in some serious wheeling and dealing.

The Oscars have always been the toughest ticket in town, and, as the academy has promised to keep adding new members in an effort to double the number of women and minorities in its ranks by 2020, the seating inventory will be squeezed even tighter with each passing year.

Unfortunately, its only going to get harder, says an academy spokesperson who was not authorized to speak on the record about ticketing.

The reason is simple math. The Dolby Theatre, which has hosted the Oscars since 2002, seats 3,400 people on four levels and 20 opera boxes.

Oscar nominees  there are 200 this year  each receive a pair of tickets and can request an additional pair. Most do. Lead actor nominee Timothee Chalamet, for example, is bringing his parents and sister. Ive always been very lucky to have their support, so it only feels right to get to go with them, the first-time nominee says.

Lady Bird writer-director Greta Gerwig will be attending with her parents, her partner, Noah Baumbach, and her childhood best friend.

After nominees account for about 800 tickets, blocks are reserved for the shows broadcast network (ABC), the telecasts sponsors, the production team, the accountants, the legal team, media (including The Times), academy museum donors and various dignitaries, such as Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.

Movie studios receive a fair share too, proportional, in theory, to the number of nominations their movies earn. But in practice, executives from indie studios complain that the major studios  Warner Bros., Disney, Fox, Sony, Paramount, Universal  receive more than their fair share.

Paramount has zero nominations, and they still get a lot of tickets, griped a veteran publicist, adding that she had to scramble to find extra tickets for people connected to her films.

Presenters  and there are more than usual this year with the shows producers pulling out the stops for the 90th ceremony  each get a pair of tickets as well.

I always love going to the Oscars, Nicole Kidman, a presenter this year, tells The Times. Its nice to be invited.

Add it all up, and remove the spots that have obstructed views owing to the television cameras (seat fillers occupy those), and theres only a few hundred seats left for a group totaling 8,298 people.

Snagging those tickets involves a process that will be familiar to anyone who has tried to score Dodgers playoff tickets in recent years. Members receive an email around the holidays, inviting them to enter a ticket lottery. And while the academy has embraced online voting, the lottery is conducted the old-fashioned way. Names are written on slips of paper and then pulled out of a drum.

We dont use a hat, but its close, says an academy worker familiar with the process. And there are lots of slips of paper.

Should their name not be pulled, academy members say they move quickly past the first two stages of grief  denial and anger  and go directly into bargaining mode, calling studios, publicists and friends, faux and real. Dump your date. Ditch your spouse. Take me. Please!

Ticket-scrounging veterans emphasize the need to check egos and not get hung up over seat location. Thats because the seating chart follows a traditional hierarchy. Recognizable stars dominate the first few rows of the orchestra level, with big-category nominees placed near the aisle or the very front. Nominees in the crafts categories  production design, costumes, sound and the like  are seated farther back, typically resulting in a hike to the stage.

A few years ago, the producers floated the idea that the stars should be seated a longer distance from the stage because itd be more interesting to watch them make that minute-long walk, notes a studio executive. That proposal didnt get much traction.

Then there are three mezzanine levels, with the highest one, Mezzanine 3, containing the most seats. (Oh, man, if youre afraid of heights or have any kind of panic anxiety, thats a scary place, an academy employee says.)

But beggars cant be choosers. The increase in membership, plus the move into the cozier Dolby (the Shrine Auditorium, a former home of the Oscars, seats 6,300), has crunched the inventory. If you want to go and youre not nominated (or the designated Mayor of Hollywood as front-and-centre Jack Nicholson was for many years), you have to be OK with the thinner oxygen, says a member who annually enters the lottery.

Of course, nominees and A-listers have their own set of concerns when it comes to the seating chart. Exes  spouses, lovers, partners, colleagues no longer on speaking terms  cannot be placed near each other. You wont see a reunion of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at the Oscars or Pitt and Jennifer Aniston or Pitt and Gwyneth Paltrow or ... well, you get the idea.

There are a lot of ways this can go wrong, an academy spokesperson says.

Perhaps thats why the late Otto Spoerri held the job for nearly 25 years, dispensing tickets for the ceremony and the after-show Governors Ball and drawing up the seating chart until he retired in 2002. Spoerri is credited with creating most of the broadcast-friendly traditions still used today  spotlighting stars, placing nominees within the same category at a respectful distance from each other  and was handicapping races long before Oscar pundit sites existed so he could seat likely winners in a way that would get them to the stage in a timely manner.

He was the most easygoing guy with enormous responsibility that I had ever met, former academy President Sid Ganis told The Times upon Spoerris death in 2008. Everybody in Hollywood and way beyond was at his doorstep in trying to get him to give up some of his treasure.

That treasure, which has become even scarcer, is just another reason why its a thrill to be nominated.

It is amazing, Gerwig says. The filmmaker and actress has hosted her own annual Academy Awards party for years. This is the first time shell attend the actual ceremony, having wanted to wait until she was nominated.

Im excited to be sitting there and have the lights dim and hear the Welcome to the 90th annual Academy Awards!  she adds. I am excited for the commercial breaks because what happens during the commercial breaks? And speeches always make me cry, so Ill have plenty of opportunities for that.

And rest assured, shell be seated in a place where the camera can capture each and every teardrop as it falls.

Times staff writer Justin Chang contributed to this story.For several years, researchers have struggled to explain the obesity paradox. This is the observation that, after being diagnosed with cardiovascular disease, people who are overweight or obese live longer than people who have a healthy weight.

How is it possible for those extra pounds to provide extra years of life? The answer, it turns out, is simple.

They arent.

A new study shows whats really going on: People who are overweight or obese are being diagnosed with cardiovascular disease at younger ages. Although they do spend more years living with the disease than their slimmer peers, they do not live longer overall.

Indeed, one of the main effects of carrying around too much excess weight is that you get fewer years of disease-free life.

A team of researchers led by Dr. Sadiya Khan of Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine figured this out by examining data from the Cardiovascular Disease Lifetime Risk Pooling Project.

They pulled medical information on 190,672 Americans who did not have cardiovascular disease when they began being tracked by researchers. All of them had their height and weight measured at least once, and all of them were followed for at least 10 years. Altogether, they provided researchers with 3.2 million years of health data.

The researchers grouped the study participants according to their age and their weight status. Starting with people between the ages of 40 and 59, they saw that those who were overweight or obese had a higher risk of a heart attack, stroke or congestive heart failure than did those with a normal weight.

For instance, among middle-aged men, 37 per cent of those who were overweight (that is, with a body mass index between 25 and 29.9) experienced some type of cardiovascular event after joining a study. So did 47 per cent of men who were obese (with a body mass index between 30 and 39.9) and 65.4 per cent of those who were morbidly obese (with a BMI of 40 or above). By comparison, 32 per cent of men with a BMI in the normal range (between 18.5 and 24.9) suffered a cardiovascular event.

Among middle-aged women, 27.9 per cent of those who were overweight had a heart attack, stroke or congestive heart failure after joining a study, as did 38.8 per cent of those who were obese and 47.6 per cent of those who were morbidly obese. Among women with a normal weight, 21.5 per cent experienced one of these cardiovascular events.

After adjusting the data to account for risk factors like age, race, ethnicity and smoking status, Khan and her colleagues found that the higher the BMI, the greater the lifetime risk of some type of heart problem. For example, compared to middle-aged men with a normal BMI, the risk of a heart attack (either fatal or nonfatal) was 18 per cent higher for men who were overweight, 42 per cent higher for men who were obese and 98 per cent higher for men who were morbidly obese.

For middle-aged women, the risk of a heart attack was 42 per cent higher for those who were overweight, 75 per cent higher for those who were obese and 80 per cent higher for those who were morbidly obese.

The researchers found that middle-aged adults with a normal weight lived the most years free of cardiovascular disease. For instance, men who were morbidly obese experienced their first cardiovascular event 7.5 years sooner than men with a normal BMI. For women, the difference was 7.1 years.

In addition, a normal weight was associated with a longer life overall. Middle-aged men with a normal BMI lived 5.6 years longer than men who were morbidly obese, while women with a normal BMI lived 2 years longer than women who were morbidly obese.

All of these patterns were similar in younger and in older adults, the researchers found.

By looking at peoples health over a longer period of time  not just after theyve been diagnosed with a heart problem  the true significance of the obesity paradox comes into view.

The obesity paradox  appears largely to be caused by earlier diagnosis of CVD, the researchers wrote, using an abbreviation for cardiovascular disease.

Adults who were obese had an earlier onset of incident CVD, a greater proportion of life lived with CVD morbidity (unhealthy life years), and shorter overall survival compared with adults with normal BMI, they concluded.

The study was published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Cardiology.You cant find wines like these anywhere else in the world but California, Chris Cottrell proclaimed to anyone who would listen  at least, anyone with an outstretched hand holding a wine glass. Cottrell, partner in the Bedrock Wine Company, was pouring samples of Evangelho Heritage Red, a single-vineyard wine from Contra Costa County made primarily from zinfandel, at one of several crowded tastings during the annual Zinfandel Experience in San Francisco in January.

Cottrell was preaching the gospel of zinfandel. His statement was nearly identical to what his business partner, Morgan Twain-Peterson, told me three years earlier when I visited Bedrock Vineyard in Sonoma Valley. Yet in the context of ZinEx, as the three-day event was colloquially called, the statement seemed almost as defensive as celebratory. Zinfandel, after all, has a bit of an identity crisis.

Zinfandels uniqueness stems from two factors: its status as Californias grape, without an Old World paradigm like Cabernet Sauvignon to Bordeaux, or pinot noir and chardonnay to Burgundy; and the old vine vineyards scattered throughout California, which give the wines a romantic connection to the frontier days. The trade group Zinfandel Advocates and Producers, or ZAP, which sponsors ZinEx, was formed in 1992 to promote and preserve these distinctions. (And, well, to fight the then-prevalent misconception that zinfandel is a white grape.)

But those old vineyards arent entirely zinfandel. Vintners knew there were other varieties mixed in, such as Alicante bouschet, petite Sirah, mataro (a Spanish name for mourvedre) and carignane. But DNA testing, a science that has developed dramatically over the past 20 years or so, has identified many more varieties and determined that zinfandel is actually the minority in some of these vineyards. Yet the wines are often better than 100 per cent zins.

Zinfandel clusters tend to ripen unevenly, so the wine has a peculiar ability to taste underripe and overripe at the same time. The immigrant farmers, mostly Italian, who planted those vineyards in the late 1800s and early 1900s understood that a diversity of grape varieties would produce a stronger, more cohesive wine. Some would add colour, tannin and structure for endurance. Some would ripen early and be a hedge against harvest rains, while late-ripening varieties would contribute depth in good vintages.

The DNA science also took zinfandel on an Ancestry.com-style quest for its roots in Europe. And like those people in the commercials who find out they arent really who they thought they were, the results were surprising. Zinfandel was determined in the 1970s to be identical to the primitivo grape of southern Italy. (Primitivo is now considered to be a distinct clone of the variety.) The search then turned to Croatia, where an initial identification with a grape called plavac mali turned out to be false. Subsequent testing finally identified zinfandel as an obscure Croatian grape called tribidrag. Its no longer in commercial production in Croatia, and no wonder. Who wants to order a glass of tribidrag? Well stick to zinfandel, thank you.

Meanwhile, back home in California, the founders of ZAP had a quandary. Those old vineyards can be spruced up and restored to health, but they cant last forever. Nurseries lacked high-quality plant material for new zinfandel vineyards. So along with the Viticulture and Oenology Department at the University of California, Davis, ZAP created the Heritage Vineyard Project in 1995. Cuttings from old-vine vineyards throughout California were planted at Davis and later in Oakville, in Napa Valley. The original 90 selections were whittled down to 20 that were virus free. Of those 20, four were selected to represent heritage zinfandel  from the Moore, Teldeschi, Zeni and Lytton vineyards. These selections were planted in experimental heritage vineyards around California, and their cuttings are available to growers planting new vintages.

The differences among the four selections are subtle, says Joel Peterson, founder of Ravenswood Winery and one of the most famous zin producers. (He is also Twain-Petersons father.) And the differences seem to be dependent on where the vines grow. We now know how zinfandel expresses itself and the important role site plays in that expression.

The answers arent yet definitive. We believe the Heritage Vineyard Project is 20 years into a hundred-year effort, says Rebecca Robinson, ZAPs executive director. Our goal is that zinfandel will thrive for many more generations, even though the original vineyards will one day be a distant memory.

Theres also a style question: Zinfandel tends to be high in alcohol. If its not made carefully, the burn from the alcohol can overwhelm the fruit. Tradition-minded producers strive to make a restrained claret-style zin. Producers of this style to seek out include Bedrock, Carlisle, Limerick Lane, Robert Biale, Ravenswood, Ridge, Frogs Leap and Peachy Canyon.

The heritage zinfandels will never be able to replicate the old-vine vineyards. Just as successive generations of immigrant families become more American while preserving elements of their heritage, these vineyards will evolve zinfandels expression. All the more reason to enjoy the wines we have now.

-  -

McIntyre blogs at dmwineline.com. On Twitter: @dmwine.

vintagesWhile 20 North American cities watch Seattle-based Amazon for any sign of favour, Amazon officials are quietly visiting those cities, including Toronto, sizing up their headquarters hosting potential.

Mayor John Tory recently told reporters that Amazons research on the only Canadian contender in the 20-city battle to host the companys HQ2 second headquarters is limited to a very, very narrow circle of people mostly at the Toronto Global inter-governmental agency co-ordinating the regional bid.

Amazon officials are visiting the cities, and theyre not doing it with a lot of fanfare, Tory said. Theyre visiting the cities that are on the shortlist and they are asking for more details of the things that were contained in the bid books and theyre going about a very methodical process of making their selection.

Share your thoughts

The hush around this phase of the Olympic bid-style process is by design. The 19 U.S. contenders, which include Boston, Austin, New York, Atlanta and Indianapolis, and Toronto have all signed secrecy agreements. The prospect of up to 50,000 new jobs and $5 billion (U.S.) in investments, plus the myriad of spin-off benefits from the booming online conglomerate, is keeping a virtual cone of silence firmly in place.

What is known is what stopped some cities from making the top-20 list, thanks to feedback they got from the decision-makers. Amazon told Cincinnati economic development officials their city didnt have enough software developers, computer programmers and other tech specialists to be a HQ2 finalist, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

Talent was the most important factor out of everything they looked at, Ed Loyd, a spokesman the agency that co-ordinated that citys bid, told the newspaper.

Toronto Global will only say that its discussions with Amazon go beyond the 185-page bid book released last fall that trumpets the regions wealth of tech talent, cultural diversity, cosmopolitan culture and more.

Were still working away at providing Amazon with the detailed information that flows from our bid book and that they have requested of all 20 shortlisted cities, said Toronto Globals Erika Thompson. The positive thing, from our perspective, is that we actually have a number of new things to add, since the bid book was submitted, to further bolster Toronto Regions appeal as a virtually unmatched engine for high-quality talent and people.

They include Ryerson DMZ ranked as a top university-based tech incubator; Toronto listed as having the most cranes in North America, demonstrating the pace of development and growth in the Toronto region; and another record-breaking year for tourism.

Amazon has given no firm timetable for an announcement, only that it expects to name a winning city sometime in 2018. Meanwhile, people are trying to read the high-tech tea leaves.

When Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently starred in a Superbowl ad, many viewers read a lot into the fact that commercial opened with an Alexa virtual assistant saying the weather in Austin, Texas, ranked by many as an HQ2 frontrunner.

Its a big ol clue, as far as were concerned, Texas Monthly drawled.

The fact that no signs have pointed directly at Toronto yet will be a relief to some who say the city doesnt need a massive new office complex that would send local housing costs even higher, squeeze the almost-zero vacancy rate like an orange, and create a talent shortage for smaller tech companies.

Whatever happens in the weeks or months ahead, just being in the Amazon spotlight has already made Toronto a winner, observers say.

Tory recently said Torontos HQ2 bid book has been downloaded about 12,000 times and we hope that 11,999 other people besides Amazon decide to come here and invest.

Rana Sarkar, who as Canadas consul general in San Francisco keeps a close eye on Silicon Valley, says Amazon is aware of Canada and Torontos leadership in artificial intelligence, and that knowledge is spreading thanks to Toronto Global taking the unusual step of making its bid fully public.

The level of knowledge about whats taking place in Canada right now is rising as a result of the prominence of this bid, Sarkar said in an interview. That form of knowledge circulation and advertising is an invaluable good.

Its a validation of Toronto hitting critical mass and theres a sense were now at an inflection point for growth. Theres a bit of buzz around Toronto right now and thats a good thing. This isnt just Amazon related.

Sunil Gupta of the Harvard Business School said Toronto certainly has a shot at winning HQ2 despite being outside the U.S. and not offering huge tax breaks or other incentives like many U.S. contenders.

Toronto being the only city from Canada will perhaps get more of a spotlight than say Boston or many of those places, said Gupta, Harvards Edward W. Carter Professor of Business Administration, adding that many of his Seattle friends have a love-hate relationship with Amazon.

There is the pride in the city because lots is happening and they can see the innovation in the city, lots of jobs created, every second person probably works for Amazon in one form or another, he said. The hate is now given the stock prices going through the roof you have lots of millionaires who are buying property like crazy which raises prices and maybe you cant live where youd like.

Toronto is a long shot at winning this particular sweepstakes, according to Paddy Power. On Wednesday the Dublin-based bookmaker reported that Toronto is trading at 16 to 1 putting Toronto well behind other cities.

The odds-on favourites, according to Paddy Power, are Atlanta, Austin and Boston.

Read more about:A Canadian who admitted to plotting a terrorist attack on New York City is pleading for a second chance in a letter submitted to the court ahead of his upcoming sentencing.

In the letter filed to a New York court on Friday, Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy of Mississauga outlined his personal history with addiction and mental illness, and explained that he felt American airstrikes against the Middle East drove him to jihadism.

The 20-year-old wrote that he felt that Americans were trying to disrupt the lives of people in the Middle East with airstrikes and he thought it was appropriate to use similar methods back until and unless they stop.

Read more:

Mississauga teen pled guilty in 2016 over alleged terror plot to attack New York

Authorities tried to keep Mississauga teens terror arrest secret, court documents reveal

Mississauga man linked to NYC terror plot suffered from drug addiction, mental health issues, documents show

The 24-page handwritten letter, addressed to the judge in his case and partially redacted, is part of a package his lawyers submitted ahead of his sentencing for multiple terrorism-related charges that he pleaded guilty to last year.

El Bahnasawy described his disenfranchisement with western society, including so-called democracy and freedom.

He said he chose to go to the U.S. to carry out the plan because Canada had recently stopped its airstrikes, and it didnt make sense to transgress back against them in such a way.

Police secretly arrested El Bahnasawy, then 18, in what they said was a plot by Daesh sympathizers to attack New York City concert venues, subway stations and Times Square. He was arrested after travelling from Canada to New Jersey in 2016. The records in his case were sealed for more than a year as police tried to hunt down his accomplices.

Authorities announced the charges against him after two other suspects were arrested in Pakistan and the Philippines.

The Canadian didnt discuss the specifics of the plot in the letter, instead focusing on why he decided to go to such extremes.

My detailed reasons about this is in no way a justification for it, I merely am explaining my thought process at the time, he wrote, adding that he no longer believes extremism is the answer.

There are many issues in this world but I dont want to lose my life or freedom to try fixing them, and I definitely do not want to resort to violence or harm to fix them. I sincerely apologize for my (behaviour) and I only ask for a second chance.

El Bahnasawy also used the letter to outline his struggles with addiction and mental illness, including several trips into hospital psychiatric wards and rehab centres. He said he spent a month in a psych ward in Kuwait, and eight months in rehab in Egypt. Court records show he also spent time at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

I want to experience life away from drugs and away from war and violence, he wrote.

He wrote that he wondered where he would be if anyone who knew about his plans had encouraged him to find a more productive way to fight the injustice he saw in the world.

The young mans lawyers, in a submission included in the package with the letter, requested the judge impose a sentence no greater than necessary to comply with (the law).

They suggested that his release might coincide with the onset of Abdulrahmans mid-twenties when his cognitive development will be complete.

El Bahnasawys sentencing hearing is scheduled for April 9.

Read more about:While consistently dismissing critics who accuse her of cashing in on her family name, Caroline Mulroney has recruited her famous father to shore up support as she fights to seize the reins of Ontarios Opposition.

Former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney denied Monday that he was brought in to add clout to his daughters campaign as she falls behind in the polls with only days to go before the Progressive Conservatives choose a new leader.

The former politician said he has been stumping for his daughter for weeks at fundraisers and other events, and said her bid for the leadership has been gaining momentum.

Im here because Im her father. Thats all, he told reporters after a lunchtime event in Ajax  one of three such events he is scheduled to speak at this week while his daughter campaigns in other parts of the province.

Read more:

Ontario PCs extend deadline for members to sign up to vote in leadership race

Mulroney says its time for a generational change at Queens Park

Caroline Mulroney has raked in $700K in her bid to succeed Patrick Brown

He pushed back against suggestions that Caroline Mulroney, a Toronto lawyer and businesswoman, isnt qualified for the job, saying he was also criticized as too green during his campaign to lead the federal Conservative party in 1983.

Thats goofy stuff. I had no political experience and look what happened: I won the two largest back-to-back majorities since Sir John A. Macdonald, he said.

Polls had him lagging in third place days before he won the leadership, he said. I won that and I feel the same way about Caroline. Shes growing and the others are drawing anemic crowds with very little enthusiasm that I can see.

Former Tory legislator Christine Elliott, former Toronto city councillor Doug Ford and parental rights activist Tanya Granic Allen are also vying to replace former Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown, who resigned in late January amid allegations of sexual misconduct.

Brown has repeatedly denied the allegations and briefly campaigned to reclaim his job before dropping out of the race.

While Mulroney appears to be bringing out the big guns in the last stretch of the campaign, having her father in the spotlight could send mixed messages, said Genevieve Tellier, a political science expert at the University of Ottawa.

Mulroney has so far positioned herself as a fresh face outside the political establishment, and having her father there instead reinforces her connection to the old guard, Tellier said.

It could also undermine her efforts to establish herself as a leader in her own right, Tellier said. The fact that the two are appearing separately rather than together suggests Mulroney is trying to strike a balance, she said.

Mulroneys camp said she is grateful for her fathers support as she criss-crosses the province meeting party members.

Most know (Brian Mulroney) as a lifelong Conservative whose commitment to public service continues, said spokesperson Melissa Lantsman. Hes someone she turns to for advice and shes grateful for his support.

Caroline Mulroney says constantly being referred to as former prime minister Brian Mulroneys daughter bothered her as a teen. Mulroney is running for leadership of the Ontario Progressive Conservative party. (The Canadian Press)

While the 43-year-old mother of four has faced the most scrutiny over her high-profile family connections, two of her rivals also have ties to well-known politicians.

Elliotts late husband, Jim Flaherty, was a one-time provincial Tory legislator and went on to become the federal minister of finance under former prime minister Stephen Harper. Fords late brother, Rob Ford, was the mayor of Toronto until 2014.

Mulroneys family may have been more of a focus because she was relatively unknown before launching her bid for the leadership, while the other two candidates were already public figures, Tellier said.

Even Brian Mulroney had been in the public eye before he became leader of what was then called the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, because he had made an unsuccessful bid for the job a few years earlier, she said.

He was not somebody coming out of the blue, Tellier said.

The son of another famous Tory could also be running under the partys banner in the spring election. Mike Harris Jr., son of former premier Mike Harris, told the radio station 570News he plans to seek the party nomination in Waterloo, a riding currently held by the New Democrats.

The Ontario Tories announce their new leader on Saturday.

Read more about:A network of doctors has developed a new Canadian guideline for managing opioid use disorder, including a recommendation of which replacement medication should first be used to treat those addicted to the powerful narcotics.

The guideline, published Monday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, was created for a wide range of health-care providers to address the urgent need for treatment of opioid use that is causing a crisis of overdoses and deaths.

In 2016, there were 2,861 opioid-related deaths in Canada. As of last June, another 1,460 deaths had been attributed to the drugs and the total number for 2017 was predicted to reach about 4,000, fuelled by a combination of over-prescribing by doctors and an influx of synthetic opioids, such as illicitly manufactured fentanyl and carfentanil.

Read more:

Opinion | How Canada can properly deal with the opioid crisis

Opinion | Flying under the radar of the big opioid crisis is another opioid crisis

Patients need more support to manage opioid prescription use, report states

Opioid use disorder is a public health emergency nationwide and this guideline provides a blueprint for health practitioners to step up and provide evidence-based care, said Dr. Julie Bruneau, a physician at the Universite de Montreal and lead author of the guideline.

The guideline recommends that Suboxone (buprenorphinenaloxone) be used as a first-line treatment whenever possible to reduce risk of toxicity and death.

The drug is used as a replacement for opioids to prevent severe withdrawal symptoms, but has a much safer side-effect profile than methadone, the medication traditionally prescribed for opioid addiction.

In British Columbia, in about one in four prescription opioid overdose deaths, methadone is actually the culprit, said Dr. Evan Wood, director of the BC Centre on Substance Use and senior author of the guideline.

Those prescribed methadone must visit a pharmacy daily to ingest their dose in the presence of a pharmacist and the drugs side-effects include a sedating effect, both of which make it challenging for those trying to work or otherwise carry on with their lives, Wood said from Vancouver.

So as a first-line medication, it doesnt make a lot of sense.

Suboxone is an oral medication designed for at-home use and has a minimal risk of overdose, even if taken in a large quantity at once, he said, adding that it allows those being treated to better function in life, attend a recovery program or hold down a job.

The network that developed the guideline included 43 health-care practitioners who are part of the Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse (CRISM) and also involved people with opioid use disorder to consider patient preferences.

Other key recommendations:

In people who respond poorly to buprenorphinenaloxone, consider transitioning them to methadone treatment.

Start with methadone when buprenorphinenaloxone is not the preferred option.

In patients who do not respond to either buprenorphinenaloxone or methadone, consider slow-release oral morphine, prescribed as daily witnessed doses.

Avoid withdrawal management alone without transition to long-term treatment to reduce the risk of relapse and death.

Beyond recommending the use of buprenorphinenaloxone as the first-line treatment whenever possible, the guideline also identifies how certain common practices should be avoided  specifically, offering withdrawal management as an isolated strategy, which can increase overdose rates.

For those who choose to go into a detox program, in which the person reduces their reliance on opioids with the goal of abstinence, Wood said a better system needs to be developed to refer people immediately to an in-patient recovery program or intensive outpatient treatment.

If they go into a detox program, then you want to make sure theyre linked to ongoing addiction treatment and close followup because the likelihood of relapse is so high, he said.

In a related CMAJ commentary, Drs. Joseph Donroe and Jeanette Tetrault of the Yale University School of Medicine, say the expansion of access to care for opioid use disorder requires primary-care providers to take the lead, as they do with other chronic diseases of similar complexity, such as diabetes.

This national guideline describing the pharmacologic management of opioid use disorder is timely and needed to address the expanding epidemic of opioid use disorder and overdose, they write.

Importantly, the guideline is geared toward front-line providers, who are vitally important to decrease the existing treatment gap.MONTREAL The sound coming out of the NDPs backrooms on Monday morning was that of a collective sigh of relief.

On the weekend, Jagmeet Singh rolled the dice and made his maiden appearance on Quebecs much watched but somewhat high-risk talk show Tout le monde en parle.

Outside of election debates, opportunities for an out-of-province federal leader to reach a francophone audience as large as that of TLMEP are virtually non-existent. Because of the size of that audience, appearances on the show tend to be of the make-or-break variety.

For many Quebec viewers, it was a first opportunity to watch Thomas Mulcairs successor in action. That turned out to be true in more ways than one.

Over the course of 15 minutes, the NDP leader discussed his sartorial choices and the color of his turban.

There were clips of his leadership campaign encounter with a demonstrator as well as of his marriage proposal.

He was asked to reconcile the place of religion and the vestments associated with ones faith with the insistence of a majority of Quebecers on a secular political sphere. He was quizzed on the prime ministers recent travails in India and on the pipeline issue.

Later on in the program, some dancing other than rhetorical was also involved.

Inasmuch as one does not get a second opportunity to make a good first impression, the rookie NDP leader made the most of his time on the set.

In the column he devotes to every TLMEP installment, Le Soleils TV critic Richard Therrien awarded Singh this weeks star for most interesting interview.

That may not translate into the bump in the polls the NDP is desperately hoping for as it contemplates a tough byelection contest in Mulcairs Outremont riding later this year but from a Quebec perspective, it was the best night of Singhs leadership to date.

It may also have been the first time many Quebecers caught more than a glimpse of a Sikh politician.

In contrast with Ontario and B.C., Quebec is not home to a large Sikh community and none of its members are active on the federal level and only one its members Liberal MP Anju Dhillon who represents Dorval-Lachine-LaSalle is active on the federal scene.

Indeed, until a few weeks ago, the Quebecs election authorities still required candidates for provincial office to submit official photographs that featured no religious headwear.

It is possible that the notion that the leader of one of Canadas main federal parties would not qualify to run for a seat in the national assembly on account of his turban contributed to making the rule change an overdue necessity.

From Singhs perspective, the timing of the TLMEP interview could not have been better.

Two of the big federal issues on the Quebec radar these days pertain to fiscal evasion and to the notion that digital giants are dispensed from the sales tax collecting obligations of their domestic competition. Heritage Minister Melanie Jolys credibility has yet to recover from a failed attempt to sell her deal with Netflix on TLMEP last fall.

Criticism of the Liberal governments perceived inaction on either front has only increased since last weeks federal budget. This is one high-profile issue that finds the NDP on the winning side of Quebecs public opinion.

And then, Sundays show also featured an interview with beleaguered Bloc Quebecois Leader Martine Ouellet. Despite having lost the confidence of a majority of her caucus, she maintains there are no grounds for her to resign or to submit to an early confidence vote of the partys membership.

Ouellets defensive performance probably did not make her many new friends. With every interview, more Quebec voters are getting to see why seven of her 10 MPs have bolted from her caucus to sit as independents.

At this rate, many BQ supporters could be looking for an alternative political home in the next election. The opportunity to contrast her performance with Singhs could not have come at a more propitious moment for the NDP.

At the time of Singhs leadership victory last fall, there were concerns in some New Democrat quarters that he might not be able to hold on to his Quebec caucus. There was fear that some might bolt to the Bloc or opt to sit as independent MPs for the remainder of their mandate. No one then foresaw that the shoe would soon end up on the other foot.

Liberal strategists are banking on gains in Quebec  largely at the expense of the NDP  to hold on to power and a majority government in next years general election. They may want to remind themselves that the provinces most reliable federal trend over the past few elections has been its capacity to spring surprises on the rest of the country.

Correction - March 6, 2018: This column was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said there are no members from the Sikh community in Quebec who are active in provincial or federal politics.

Chantal Hebert is a national affairs writer. Her column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Read more about:OTTAWA -The justice system has seen a slight drop in crime rates and a boost in legal aid funding relative to a year ago, but these improvements have been overshadowed by an increase in costs, lengthier court delays and the persistent over-representation of Indigenous people in prison, new research has found.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute's second annual justice system report card, released Monday, calls on the government to invest in more data collection and monitoring to better identify and track problems that have, for too long, gone unacknowledged or unaddressed.

"A well-functioning, fair and just criminal justice system is vital to Canadians," the report says. "It is crucial that better data, performance monitoring and accountability become not only accepted, but expected, as part of our criminal justice system."

The Ottawa-based think tank began its assessment in 2016, tracking various justice system metrics to rank the provinces and territories in the areas of fairness, efficiency, cost, public safety and access to justice.

The 2017 analysis dubbed Ontario the most improved jurisdiction after it rose to fourth place from seventh, while Quebec and British Columbia each dropped two rankings.

Prince Edward Island continued to lead the pack, while Manitoba remained the lowest-ranked province, thanks in part to having one of the lowest victim restitution rates in the country and the highest proportion of accused offenders on remand while awaiting trial.

The report also found a "shockingly high" rate of violent crime in the territories  in some cases 10 times greater than their provincial counterparts.

The assessment highlighted some areas of improvement, noting that between 2016 and 2017 Canada as a whole saw a slight drop in crime rates, fewer police officers required per capita and rising support for legal aid.

Among the many differences identified between Canada's various jurisdictions, a much higher proportion of accused people were found to be unlawfully at large in Quebec and Prince Edward Island compared with Nunavut, New Brunswick, or Ontario.

Public confidence in the justice system and the courts were found to be lowest in Manitoba, B.C. and Quebec and highest in New Brunswick and Ontario. As for public confidence in police, the highest levels were observed in Saskatchewan, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador, and lowest in Prince Edward Island, B.C. and Quebec.

While the rates of police solving non-violent crimes has declined in most parts of the country over the last five years, B.C. earned the distinction of having the lowest rates of resolving both violent and non-violent crimes, at about 52 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.

While Indigenous incarceration rates are disproportionately high everywhere in Canada, they are especially high in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario, B.C. and Alberta, the report notes.

The assessment also calls for more research into how Canadians view the police, courts and justice system at large, as well as more information on victims of crime, including referral rates for victim services.

"We hope this report card will spur necessary reforms to make our criminal justice system more efficient, fairer, and better serve the needs of victims," said report co-author Benjamin Perrin, a law professor at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver who once worked as a legal adviser to former prime minister Stephen Harper.

Perrin pointed to the need for more data collection and analysis by Statistics Canada in areas such as recidivism rates, the proportion of Indigenous offenders who are incarcerated and the number of criminal cases that are stayed due to unreasonable delay.Paving over porous paradise, or any absorbent ground, increases the risk of basement flooding, say researchers using City of Toronto data.

Their study could help GTA homeowners make sense of the sometimes-ridiculed notion that the amount of land people cover with buildings, parking pads, parking lots and more, is linked to the costly rising tide of urban flooding that is expected to worsen in coming years.

From what we have seen, areas with less green space  mostly developed areas, without any consideration for pervious or green areas  are more likely to have this kind of basement flooding, says Yekenalem Abebe, a University of British Columbia engineering PhD candidate who co-authored the study with UBC civil engineering professor Solomon Tesfamariam and Golam Kabir, a University of Windsor assistant professor in engineering.

Other factors make basements prone to invasion from pluvial flooding  rainwater unable to soak into the ground, as opposed to fluvial flooding, which occurs when bodies of water overflow. They include aging, deteriorating sewer pipes and other infrastructure meant to steer rainfall away from homes. In Toronto, some of those pipes are more than a century old and, when overwhelmed by big storms, send untreated sewage from downtown into Lake Ontario.

Images of residential flooding, including Brantford in recent weeks, Toronto Islands last summer and across the U.S., are becoming more common.

The researchers didnt get all the data they wanted while developing a flood vulnerability index that any city can use. But even if they had, Abebe said, I would still expect pavement and impervious surfaces to be one of the most important factors, in basement flooding risk. Urbanization is accelerating the loss of absorbent ground, communities are being hit more frequently with intense storms, and costly-to-replace infrastructure is failing to handle the runoff.

The researchers divided Toronto into 760 grid cells, each about one square kilometre. Using city data they assigned each grid a probability of risk.

At very high risk for basement flooding, according to the study, is an area spreading north from Humber Bay and widening to include neighbourhoods around High Park, Swansea and The Junction, and the downtown core. Safest is the high ground in Scarborough from the Bluffs north.

The findings of the study, published late last year in the Journal of Cleaner Production, come as no surprise to Shawna Peddle, a director of Partners for Action, which promotes flood resiliency and is based at the University of Waterloo.

Were definitely seeing an increase in urban flooding everywhere  its not just Toronto, its everywhere across the country and its because we are paving over what would normally soak up the water  the water has nowhere to go, Peddle said in an interview.

Even if were having just a little more rain than we used to, the water ends up in basements and flooding roadways, flooding parks. The weather is changing, we are seeing more rain events more often. That combined with increased development, infrastructure thats aging, us paving over areas that used to be able to soak up the water  the result is more (flood) events and bigger losses, too.

Partners for Action offers homeowners tips, including how to check on the flood risk for their homes, on keeping valuables upstairs and checking with their insurance companies on the kinds of water damage they cover.

Cities are encouraging green roof construction, which sees rooftops covered with vegetation, downspout disconnections, and the use of porous hard surfaces and cisterns to capture and reuse rainwater.

They are also trying to figure out where to find the canyons of cash needed to replace and upgrade storm sewer systems and fund flood-risk-reducing incentive programs. Toronto last year paid $7.1 million just to subsidize homeowner installation of backwater valves and other measures to reduce the chance of residential basement flooding, up from $3.1 million in 2013.

Two years ago, Mississauga added a stormwater charge on Peel region water bills ranging from $50 to $170 per year, depending on the size of the roof and runoff potential. More than $30 million in annual revenues are being pumped into a dedicated fund to pay for stormwater infrastructure maintenance and upgrades.

Torontonians pay for pipe replacement and other parts of a stormwater management plan through water consumption fees. City staff had suggested shifting more of the costs to home- and business-owners with the biggest hard surfaces, including parking lots and roofs.

But last May, Toronto Mayor John Torys executive committee shelved indefinitely a staff recommendation to propose options for a stormwater charge.

The idea of such a charge had been ridiculed by councillor Giorgio Mammoliti and former councillor Doug Ford, who is now seeking the leadership of Ontarios Progressive Conservative party, as a roof tax, an attack on suburban homeowners and a measure to get into peoples pockets.

For basement damage, the cost is borne by homeowners and their insurers. A massive thunderstorm that hit Toronto in July 2013 became one of Canadas most expensive insured losses at almost $1 billion, mostly from sewer backup claims.

The head of one of Europes largest insurers recently warned the World Economic Forum that, if climate change advances, basements in some cities could be uninsurable, Bloomberg news agency reported.

But GTA homeowners have more options for flood coverage than ever because the risk is top of mind, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

Water is the new fire because, in the past, fire damage to someones home used to be the predominant peril or event that people wanted to protect their property or homes from, said Pete Karageorgos, the bureaus Ontario director of consumer and industry relations. Now its water damage of all sorts, from plumbing fixtures and internal leaks, but now more so from external type of water, that might require special coverage.

People are recognizing there are severe weather events such as rainstorms that are occurring that are depositing larger amounts of rain in shorter amounts of time and impacting our communities.

Read more about:From mobile grocery stores to hostage rescue training, donated TTC vehicles are being used in new  and unexpected  ways.

Donating vehicles allows us to help local charities, emergency services and other cities, and to preserve TTC history, said TTC spokesperson Stuart Green. Its a win-win for everyone and, wherever possible, we try to fulfil these requests.

Green said the TTC receives around three to five donation requests a year. Donating the vehicles serves as an alternative to selling or scrapping the vehicles after theyre decommissioned.

Requests are considered on an individual basis and require approval from the TTCs CEO. The vehicles are stripped of logos, Presto equipment and the bus stop announcement system before theyre donated free of charge.

In December, the TTC donated a bus to Hygiene on Wheels to create a mobile shower and laundry facility to serve Torontos homeless.

Vehicles have even gone overseas, to the Republic of Liberias Ministry of Transport and South Sudans capital city, Juba.

The Belka Enrichment Center turned a bus into a mobile computer lab and the Toronto Transportation Society received a bus for preservation and historical purposes.

FoodShare Toronto, a non-profit centred around healthy food and food education, transformed two donated Wheel-Trans vehicles into Mobile Good Food Markets.

The mobile markets travel to 10 different locations across Toronto and sell low-cost and beautiful, fresh produce, executive director Paul Taylor said.

FoodShare delivered more than 72,000 pounds of fresh vegetables and fruit to nearly 7,000 people across Toronto in 2016.

If you dont have a lot of money for transit . . . and theres a vehicle that shows up with beautiful, fresh produce through this travelling community market, it really saves you some money, Taylor said.

Because of the mobile markets real roots in the communities it serves, Taylor said the program can be responsive to its clients wants and needs.

(If) someone jumps on the Mobile Good Food Market, and says, you know, I cant find okra anywhere, or I cant find my scotch bonnet peppers anywhere, then what we do is purchase some okra or scotch bonnet peppers, he said. And thats on the vehicle the next time were around.

The mobile markets look completely different from TTC Wheel-Trans vehicles that youd spot on the street, Taylor said.

Its been completely redesigned, he said. Inside of it, we have shelving for the produce. I dont think youd recognize it as a former Wheel-Trans vehicle.

The Greater Toronto Airports Authority received two full-size buses from the TTC in December.

Both buses will be used for training purposes, according to Phillip Bott, division chief in the GTAAs fire training division.

The first bus will be used to simulate a high-occupancy vehicle thats been involved in a motor vehicle crash for fire training students.

The second bus is going to be coupled with a Boeing 737 aircraft that we have in the training area, Bott said. So it will be simulating that we have a passenger transport vehicle on the airfield and then we can have it simulated that it ran into the aircraft.

The bus will also be used for mimicking police operations and fire rescues.

It could be that there was a perpetrator on the bus and a hostage situation, Bott said. We could use it for an additional spot where firefights have to search and potentially provide rescue.

The GTAA buses still resemble transit vehicles, Bott said.

Basically the only thing that has been removed from it is the change box, he said. Other than that, the seats are there, the handles are there, everything is present.At several locations in the 50-year-old Toronto Superior Court of Justice building, lead was found to be in excess of provincial standards

High levels of lead have been found in the drinking water at the downtown Toronto Superior Court of Justice building, according to a new report obtained by the Star.

Lead was identified in several locations inside the 50-year-old building in excess of Ontario Drinking Water Quality Standards, reads the executive summary of the report prepared by Pinchin Ltd., an environmental engineering consulting firm.

There may be multiple sources of lead throughout the buildings potable water system, says the report dated Feb. 9, 2018.

Read More:

More than 640 Ontario schools and daycares failed lead tests in the past two years

Ontario commits $85 million to clean up gross neglect at Grassy Narrows

Toronto students invention aims to solve lead in water issue

The property manager retained Pinchin after its client, the Ministry of the Attorney General, expressed concerns regarding the quality of the water pouring through the taps, the report states.

Construction of the building was completed in 1967.

Given the age of the building, it is possible that there are sources of lead in the sites potable water system, including lead solder, and/or brass fittings that are contributing to the exceedances, or excessive amounts.

Historically, lead pipes were used in the citys drinking water distribution networks. It is possible that lead pipes may be connecting the City of Torontos distribution network to the base building, contributing to the exceedances.

Pinchin recommends the property manager post signs on the identified faucets advising the sites occupants, who include court staff, lawyers, judges, police officers, jurors and prisoners, not to consume the water.

The company is also advising the property manager install 53 certified water filters on the sources where the samples exceeded Ontario drinking water standards. Alternatively, water coolers should be added, the report says.

The building receives its potable water from municipal supplies and is not a regulated facility under the Safe Drinking Water Act. And because it is not a school or nursery, it is not subject to the Acts regulatory requirements.

Water was sampled from a range of sources including the basement cafeteria, Toronto police and Crown attorney lunchrooms, a judges lounge, cell area kitchen faucet and various water fountains throughout the building.

Test results identified lead concentration levels exceeding the Safe Drinking Water Act in two group cell faucets on the eighth floors and four drinking fountains on the fifth and sixth floors.

The report says a discussion on the potential exposure and health effects of lead in drinking water was outside the scope of this investigation.

The Ministry of the Attorney General did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

MAG and Infrastructure Ontario recently awarded a $956.5-million contract to EllisDon Infrastructure to design, build, finance and maintain a new Toronto courthouse located across the street from the existing court building.

The new courthouse will unite many of Torontos satellite Ontario courts. But the Superior Court, or 361 as its commonly known, will continue to operate as one of the worlds busiest trial courts.

Construction on the new building is expected to start in the next few months. Its scheduled completion date is the spring of 2022.After years of chickening out on backyard hens, Toronto is now allowing the pets with benefits to legally nest in four wards.

The new pilot project, Urban Hens TO, began Friday in Ward 5 (Etobicoke-Lakeshore), Ward 13 (Parkdale-High Park), Ward 21 (St. Pauls) and Ward 32 (Beaches-East York). Residents can keep as many as four hens, but no roosters, per backyard, and must register the hens with the city and comply with regular inspections.

We ended up with two (hens) and are loving it, said Trish Tervit, an Upper Beach resident, who first dabbled in chicken raising with her two daughters more than five years ago. Im so glad that its finally legal. The eggs taste great.

The fight for the hens stalled in 2012, when councillors shelved a motion for staff to study the feasibility of a backyard pilot.

Last fall, council (in a 23-14 vote) went against a staff recommendation and approved the pilot, which will run until 2021.

Chickens can transmit infectious diseases such as Salmonella to humans, said a city staff report from October. The project could pose a public nuisance problem with hens potentially creating noise and odour, or pose animal welfare risks if theyre not looked after properly.

But hens are well-suited to the urban environment and a lot of behavioural problems are caused by large, crowded, industrial farming situations, not quiet backyard existence, said Lorraine Johnson, author of City Farmer: Adventures in Urban Food Growing.

A lot of people think of backyard hens as pets with benefits. They are amazing creatures, a lot of fun, and their eggs are delicious, Johnson said.

She and urban farmer Adam Dirks will be hosting information sessions throughout March and April so future hen owners dont wing it.

Backyard hens are not a lot of work, but definitely require as much thought as youd give to getting a dog, she said.

Residents need to build an insulated, waterproof coop with roofs and doors that lock, nesting boxes and perches, as required by the city. They also have to manage the feed, so as to not attract pests such as racoons, foxes and coyotes, Johnson added.

Do they want to keep a hen after she stops laying eggs consistently? Have they found a farmer who will take her back? Johnson said.

There are services for residents who dont want to commit to hens 365 days of the year. With a location near Milton, Rent the Chicken provides its GTA customers with two to four hens from May to October, along with a coop, feed, tutorial, and delivery and pickup.

The big benefit is people can chicken out, said co-founder Jen Tompkins. If its not a good fit, no harm, no foul.

Rent the Chicken provided 200 chickens to Toronto backyards last year.

As part of the pilot project, hens must be at least 4 months old (so they arent confused with roosters), and are to be used for egg production and not to eat, according to the city. Eggs must be for personal consumption and not sold or given away. Manure can be composted or disposed of in the green bin.

With files from Betsy PowellThe phrase brilliant teaching features prominently in recent newspaper ads for Toronto-based private high school Blyth Academy.

Our students tell us over and over that the best teaching theyve encountered is here, says promotional material from one of the schools 14 Ontario campuses.

The company, also known for high school credits it offers in exotic locations abroad, proclaims that great teachers and small classes are behind its ranking as Canadas #1 private high school in the Huffington Post.

But, according to documents filed in a proposed class action against Blyth Academy, accolades for those teachers dont necessarily translate to fair pay, work conditions or job security.

Karen Walmsley, who taught at Blyth Academys Yorkville campus from 2015 to 2017, launched the legal proceedings over what she described in an interview as precarious employment, with some teachers allegedly overworked, underpaid and hired contract to contract.

I care about justice for every teacher who works there, Walmsley said in an interview.

At the heart of the claim is the allegation that the school systematically misclassified teachers by hiring them as independent contractors instead of employees, leaving them without protection under the Employment Standards Act, including the right to earn minimum wage or overtime pay.

Blyth Academy denies all claims in its statement of defence filed in January and says terms of employment were clearly laid out on all contracts signed by Walmsley and other teachers.

It argues that because the school doesnt provide a traditional academic schedule and offers an array of part-time, full-time, group and private classes, it does not have a traditional academic staff or faculty.

The class action will only proceed if certified in court, and a hearing date is scheduled for early December.

If certified, it could include anywhere from 100 to 200 teachers per year who have worked at the school since it was founded in 2002, says labour lawyer Stephen Moreau, of Cavalluzzo LLP, a reputable firm with a track record in employment law.

The proposed lawsuit is claiming $20 million, plus an unspecified amount for unpaid overtime, vacation and holiday pay.

Walmsley says she taught up to three courses a day in English and social sciences, each for two hours and 15 minutes. She taught primarily in groups, though sometimes in private or semi-private classes, and was paid a flat rate of between $2,650 and $3,200 per 10-week group course and $1,500 for private. Each required 110 hours of teaching, Blyth Academy says in its statement of defence.

But once work outside the classroom was factored in  including preparing lesson plans, tests and assignments, marking and corresponding regularly with parents and students as required by the school, and providing extra help  it sometimes amounted to well beyond a 40-hour work week, says the claim.

The defendants required or permitted Walmsley to work between approximately 60 and 80 hours a week, it says. As a result of working said hours Walmsley routinely earned income that was below or well below the minimum wage.

As an example it cites her first term in the fall of 2015, when Walmsley earned $7,000 over 10 weeks and worked in excess of 80 hours per week, which translates to $8.75 an hour, below the minimum wage of $11.25 at that time.

But Blyth Academys statement of defence denies that carrying out required teaching duties could have reasonably resulted in Ms. Walmsley working in excess of the overtime threshold, or a number of hours such that her remuneration was less than the applicable minimum wage.

In emailed responses to questions from the Star, Blyth Academy president Patrick Shaw said because the average class size is seven students this greatly reduces the amount of time required to mark assignments and meet with students outside of class hours.

As an independent contractor, Walmsley did not receive vacation pay or pay for statutory holidays, according to the statement of claim, filed in October and amended in February to also include those teaching private classes.

Walmsley left Blyth Academy in June 2017 before her contract ended and now teaches elsewhere. Shaw declined to comment on the circumstances, citing privacy laws and company policy.

Similar class actions over job classifications have recently been launched against companies in other industries, ranging from Just Energy to GoodLife Fitness.

Under Ontario law, a worker is generally considered an employee if their employer decides what they do, how and where they complete their work, sets their rate of pay and has the ability to discipline them. If the nature of the job meets this test, the Ministry of Labour  or the courts  may find that an independent contractor is actually an employee, regardless of their agreement with their employer.

Blyth Academy said in its statement of defence it hires teachers as both independent contractors and employees and that 45 were classified as employees in 2017. But it didnt indicate the total number of teachers hired last year.

Shaw said in an email the vast majority of our full-time teachers at our largest schools, including Yorkville in downtown Toronto, are employees.

The school currently has about 1,200 full-time high school students in Ontario, who pay annual tuition starting at $13,795. It also operates schools abroad, offers online credits and part-time and summer courses in Canada and overseas.

Blyth describes itself as a network of boutiques offering everything from full-time classes to a la carte courses taught in groups or privately and argues it has a right to hire independent contractors because of its unique business model and the fluid nature of its enrolment.

For those reasons, we have always relied on a mix of full- and part-time teachers to accommodate our flexible structure, Shaw said.

The case comes at a time when new teachers face an uphill battle to land employment in a saturated market after a decade of teacher surpluses, particularly in urban centres such as Toronto.

Application forms on the website for Blyths Yorkville campus say Blyth Academy attracts thousands of teacher applications every year, allowing us to be very selective.

Teachers are the key to the success of our program and students, it adds.

Working conditions and staff turnover in any school have implications for students, says Charles Pascal, professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto.

When teachers are well supported and well prepared, students will benefit, and if they arent, not only will the teachers suffer, so will the education of the students, Pascal, a former deputy minister of education with the province, said in an interview.

He noted there is a lack of oversight of private high schools in Ontario, an issue raised in 2013 and 2015 by the provinces auditor general, who noted Ontario has one of the least regulated private school sectors in Canada.

Currently the only requirement is that private schools follow provincial curriculum. With respect to anything else, buyer beware, says Pascal.

The lack of job security was a major reason that teacher Michael McNeely says he left Blyth after teaching private classes for four years.

McNeely, who is deaf-blind and can hear with the assistance of a cochlear implant, taught one student at a time at several Blyth Academy sites between 2013 and 2017 after earning his Masters degree in teaching. He says he earned $1,600 per 10-week course and taught up to four at a time.

I loved the students, says McNeely, 29, who qualifies as a member of the class action. They had an impression on me, and I think I had an impact on them because I was an educator with a disability.

But he says he was not given an opportunity to teach group classes.

I was always scared about the next contract, says McNeely, whos now a first-year law student at York Universitys Osgoode Hall Law School and hopes to specialize in disabilities law.

There was never a guarantee Id be back. As a person with a disability, I cant live in that circumstance.

The class action claims Blyth was unjustly enriched as a result of hiring teachers as contractors and that it continues to breach duties of care and good faith to properly characterize the employment relationship and advise teachers of their rights to minimum wage, overtime pay, vacation pay and public holiday and premium pay.

The defendants were in a position of power over vulnerable employees and owed them duty of good faith, it says.

But the statement of defence says teachers are aware of the terms under which they are hired and each is educated, sophisticated and fully understood and understands the nature of each contract he or she entered into.

Walmsley, 39, has a Masters degree in anthropology and graduated from teachers college in the spring of 2015. By the time she was hired on contract by Blyth that September, I needed to make rent as soon as possible, she said in an interview.

Walmsley said she didnt understand the implications of the contract or her classification as an independent contractor.

She said she loved the Blyth students and described a strong sense of community among them and her fellow teachers, most of whom were young, new to the profession and dedicated to the kids.

But the threat of burnout loomed because of the job demands, which included designing courses from scratch, she added. When teaching a full course load, she says a typical day would involve arriving at school at about 8 a.m., teaching until 4 p.m. and then working until 8 p.m. on marking and prep.

Lawyer Moreau says he has heard from well over 100 teachers regarding the proposed class action, which could affect anyone who has taught a course at Blyth Academy since it was founded in 2002 by Sam Blyth, a former travel company operator.

If successful, the case could be significant in helping define situations in which it is appropriate for employers to hire people as contractors instead of employees, he added.

We have a lot of confidence in the strength of the case overall.

agordon@thestar.caCrowds saying goodbye to Toronto Zoos roly-poly royalty are expected to swell until March 18 when the five-year panda visit ambles to an adorable end.

Mayor John Tory and his 4-year-old granddaughter, Piper, were among those lining three and four deep at the enclosure Sunday to spy giant pandas Da Mao and Er Shun, who arrived in March 2013, and their cubs Jia Panpan and Jia Yueyue born in October 2015.

Tory reminisced about getting to hold the Toronto-born cubs when they became part of the public exhibit two years ago.

Its like holding two little teddy bears, and they were hardly moving, you could sort of feel that they were breathing but otherwise you wouldnt really know they were real. Its exciting to see them grow up and its been exciting to have them here for five years, he told reporters.

I just hope they come back  not these ones necessarily, but some other time because its a great education for kids. There are 1,600 pandas in the world in the wild  that is indicative of something weve done wrong but hopefully people can be educated about that, the mayor said, adding he hopes many visitors learned from the interpretative centre about habitat conservation abroad and at home.

The pandas were loaned by the Chinese government to Canada for a decade as part of an international breeding program. They will fly to Calgary for the second half of their Canadian stay at a newly constructed Panda Passage enclosure. During the Toronto visit giant pandas were downgraded from endangered to vulnerable status after a census found 1,864 of the animals in the wild in China.

Toronto Zoo is extending visiting hours during March break to 6 p.m., with the last people allowed to enter daily at 5 p.m.

The beasts were a hit on YouTube, frolicking in snow and comically tumbling about, but big expenses made them a financial flop for the zoo.

That didnt matter to panda superfan Emily Lippa, who made the pilgrimage to Scarborough with her parents and big sister Libby.

Theyre fun, theyre cute, Emily said of the pandas. Im happy that they came in the first place and I wish they would stay longer.

Read more about:Toronto police are asking for the publics help in locating a missing woman after her missing child was returned home.

Alicia Badger, 31, and her 16-month-old daughter Erica Brown were reported missing on Saturday. Police said they were last seen around 4 p.m. in the area of Kingston Rd. and Bellamy Rd.

Police believed Badger was driving a car when she disappeared. On Monday, around 11:30 a.m., she returned her daughter home before she fled on foot, police said.

She was last seen in the area of McCowan Rd. and Eglinton Ave. E. Police said she was wearing blue jeans, a long black jacket with fur-trimmed collar, black runners, and a black purse.

Police are concerned for her safety.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police or Crime Stoppers.The investigation into Stacy DeBungees death was mishandled from the start, according to a scathing report into the conduct of the Thunder Bay Police officers who investigated the death of a Rainy River First Nation man.

The report to be made public Monday says officers came to premature conclusions about how he died because DeBungee was Indigenous. It also confirms allegations from DeBungees family from the time of his death on Oct. 19, 2015 that police failed to properly investigate.

His case kick-started an wider probe into the entire Thunder Bay Police Services force for systemic racism into Indigenous death and disappearance cases.

The body of DeBungee, 41, was discovered during the inquest into the deaths of seven Indigenous students who died while at school in Thunder Bay. The Thunder Bay police were under fire at the inquest for prematurely issuing press releases into the deaths of some of the students before autopsies were completed.

Between 2000 and 2011, seven First Nations students died while attending high school in Thunder Bay  five of the students were found dead in the river.

A 126-page report by Office of the Independent Police Review Director found sufficient evidence to establish neglect of duty and discreditable conduct by Const. Shawn Whipple, neglect of duty and discreditable conduct by Detective Shawn Harrison, and neglect of duty by Acting Insp. Susan Kaucharik.

This sudden death should have been treated as potential homicide  and investigated as such, the report states.

There was no basis to affirmatively rule out foul play based on observations made at the scene or even after the autopsy examination.

Investigators speculation that DeBungee fell down drunk and rolled into the river was no substitute for an evidence-based and informed investigation, the report states, adding that a coroners determination that DeBungee drowned and that intoxication was a contributing factor is compatible with both accidental or criminal activity.

Other findings include:

Officers, including Harrison, showed a deeply troubling misconception about what a deeply troubling misconception about what a criminal investigation entails. Several officers said because there was no evidence of foul play, it remained a non-criminal matter with no need for further investigation unless other evidence was discovered.

No formal statements were taken from any of the people who were with DeBungee shortly before his death, something the report calls remarkable. Police spoke to some briefly in a group setting but they should have been formally interviewed, and recorded, at the earliest opportunity.

A media release issued by police on the day DeBungees body was found stated that an initial investigation didnt indicate a suspicious death. Another issued a day later said his death was deemed non-criminal. Those media releases presupposed, even before the autopsy had been performed, that the death was not a criminal matter. A potential homicide should be treated as a serious matter.

Police investigators provided inadequate or no direction to the forensics identification unit. No video was taken at the scene and no photos were taken of the body or the riverbank close to where DeBungee was found. No measurements were taken.

Only sporadic efforts were made to contact a man who some said was the last person to see DeBungee alive. He was eventually interviewed.

Police failed to conduct a broad canvas of businesses and homes as was standard fare for a potential homicide.

Exhibits were returned to DeBungees family without any forensic examination done on them.

The reviews author accepted that Harrison and other officers believed they do not engage in differential treatment based on race.

However, the evidence overwhelming supports the inference that Detective Harrison and Det-Const. Whipple prematurely concluded that (DeBungee) rolled into the river and drowned without any external intervention, the report states. It can also be reasonable inferred that this premature conclusion may have been drawn because the deceased was Indigenous.

Julian Falconer, the lawyer for Rainy River First Nation, is expected to release the report at a Monday news conference with DeBungees family.

With files from Tanya TalagaAfter denying use of the controversial technology, documents obtained by the Star show that the Toronto Police Service has used the cellphone data-capturing device known as an IMSI catcher, or Stingray, in five separate investigations.

IMSI catchers capture identifying data from all mobile devices being used in a given location  including, in the context of a police investigation, the data of innocent citizens in the vicinity of the target.

In December 2015, a Toronto police spokesperson told the Star: We do not use the Stingray technology and do not have one of the units.

The documents, which took more than two years to obtain through an access-to-information request and subsequent appeal with the provinces information commissioner, say otherwise. They show that Toronto police used the technology in investigations ranging from a major drug and gun case to a bank robbery to a missing person case, starting in 2010.

Asked why the spokesperson, Const. Craig Brister, said Toronto police did not use the device and then why police failed to correct the record, Mark Pugash, head of communications for the service, said: We should have.

Brenda McPhail, a privacy, technology and surveillance expert with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA), said there has been a long-standing lack of transparency surrounding police use of the devices.

.

Its troubling that it took a freedom of information request to confirm, despite past denials, that the (Toronto police) have been using IMSI catchers, McPhail said.

An IMSI (international mobile subscriber identity) catcher, also known as a mobile device identifier, is a controversial tool because it is indiscriminate in whose mobile device is affected. The technology essentially mimics a cellphone tower, tricking all phones within a particular range to go through it. It can be used to pinpoint the location of a specific phone with far more accuracy than data that can be obtained from a mobile provider like Bell or Rogers.

The device also has the ability to capture other data such as numbers dialed from a phone or text messages, and some can eavesdrop on calls and jam phones to prevent them from being used. Police services that have admitted to using the technology, including the RCMP, have claimed their equipment does not capture private communications, and documents obtained by the Star suggest the same is true for Toronto police.

Although police say its a vital investigative tool that has been used in cases involving national security, serious organized crime and more, privacy experts have long decried the secrecy surrounding the device and its use.

This is a form of mass surveillance, said Chris Parsons, of the University of Torontos Citizenlab.

Its a far more intrusive and invasive technology as compared to other tools that are available to law enforcement.

Asked what Toronto police does with any data from citizens captured through the use of an IMSI catcher, Pugash said the service does not get third-party data.

When the Star questioned Pugash further, given that the devices temporarily attract data from cellphones other than those used by the intended target, he said he was unable to answer because the service does not own such a device.

Pugash would not say whether the force had partnered with another police agency that owns the device, such as the RCMP. The Mounties admitted, in a rare press briefing on the devices last year, to owning 10 IMSI catchers.

Documents obtained by the Star suggest that Toronto police requested the RCMPs IMSI catcher on at least two occasions. (An RCMP spokesperson would not confirm to the Star that their device has been used by Toronto police, citing a policy not to disclose techniques used in specific investigations).

The documents released to the Star through access to information legislation state that Toronto police have used the device on five occasions. Specifics were not provided for two of those uses because one of the incidents is currently before the courts and the other is still under investigation.

The service also released a general warrant form that they say was used in at least one of the cases, a three-page document that sheds some light on the steps police say they take when using IMSI catchers.

Its unclear if Toronto police had a warrant in all five cases. Pugash said the service would not use a IMSI catcher without judicial authority or urgent circumstances to prevent the loss of life.

Details for the remaining three incidents are sparse. The documents have been largely blacked out.

Available details, however, show the device was first used on May 2010. Officers put a trace on a phone of a missing man through Bell Mobility, locating it in Pickering. Durham police then checked the area with negative results, according to the documents. The man was later found.

In April 2013, following a bank robbery that involved two suspects armed with a rifle and a handgun, police tracked a cellphone stolen during the heist by using tracking software installed on the phone. After tracing the phone to an area near Eglinton Ave. and Weston Rd., one officer noted that the RCMP attended the area and attempted to locate the phone but were unsuccessful.

For the third occasion, Toronto police used the device in gang and gun investigations dubbed Projects Rx and Battery, probes that ran in 2013 and centred on two rival street gangs, the Asian Assassins and Sick Thugz. The documents note that Toronto police were granted a warrant authorizing the use of an IMSI catcher.

The general warrant, used by police to get permission from a judge to use the device, answers some questions about how police are proposing to employ the device, including their suggested solution to the issue of third-party data.

According to the document, police say that if the warrant were granted, a trained member of the RCMP would operate the device. That person would ensure investigators were given access to information only about the persons of interest, the warrant states.

What the warrant does not detail, however, is what would happen to the information about every other innocent individual in the area every time it is activated, McPhail said.

The public deserves reassurance that that information is not retained, she said.

Last year, a senior RCMP officer said all the data captured by their IMSI catchers is considered evidence and will be kept  though nothing except the target information would be accessed. The Ontario Provincial Police, which owns at least one IMSI catcher, has a similar protocol.

The OPP seals and then destroys any collected data from non-targets (third parties) following court proceedings, including appeal periods and regulatory requirements for retention, OPP Staff Sgt. Carolle Dionne wrote in an email.

Dionne would not confirm to the Star whether the OPP has ever worked with Toronto police on an investigation involving its IMSI catcher, but said the agency does assist our municipal policing services when requested.

The warrant also states that the device would be used as close as possible to the target to limit the range of the surveillance device as much as is reasonably possible.

This will reduce the number of mobile telephones which will be affected by the use of the (device), the warrant states.

The device would also not receive voice or audio communications and will not receive text messages or emails.The voting age should be lowered two years, to 16, to boost turnout in elections and better engage youth, backbench Liberal MPP Arthur Potts proposes in a new private members bill.

Scotland and Argentina are among the places where teenagers are allowed to cast ballots at that age, a time when many are taking on other responsibilities such as getting behind the wheel of a car, said Potts (BeachesEast York) on Monday.

They can drive. They can work, Potts told a news conference at Queens Park. This proposal is not a stretch from where we are today.

Share Your Thoughts!

The push follows a panel discussion on voter engagement of young people attended by 300 people at Ryerson University last week, moderated by Star Queens Park columnist and visiting professor Martin Regg Cohn.

To address the phenomenon of low voter turnout, at just 51 per cent in the 2014 provincial election, Green party Leader Mike Schreiner advocated a voting age of 16 to build a lifelong habit of heading to the polls.

Potts said voting at 16 comes with the advantage that teens can discuss their choices at home with parents or at high school in civics classes, and this provides valuable support and a good sounding board.

I think theyre quite capable of making a reasoned choice for a political party, he added, noting two high schools in his riding already hold mock elections to mirror real-world elections.

I cant imagine a downside.

When it comes to policies on climate change and other issues, they have the most at stake, he said of teens.

Potts acknowledged he will not get a slot for the bill to be introduced and debated before the legislature rises for the June 7 provincial election, but he pledged to revive it if voters return him to Queens Park. He hopes to spur public debate on the idea.

Well see how people respond.

Opposition parties expressed interest in the idea.

Progressive Conservative Deputy Leader Steve Clark, who was elected mayor of Brockville at 22, said hes always been focused on getting young people more engaged in the political process.

Any measure that gets young people involved needs serious consideration by the three parties, he told reporters.

Its worthwhile having a conversation about, added New Democrat MPP Teresa Armstrong (London-Fanshawe).SALISBURY, EnglandBritish media reported Monday that a former Russian spy was in critical condition after coming into contact with an unknown substance, a case that immediately drew parallels to the poisoning of former Russian agent Alexander Litvinenko.

National and local authorities said only that a man and a woman were found unconscious Sunday afternoon on a bench in a shopping mall in Salisbury, an English city about 145 kilometres west of London.

British media identified him as Sergei Skripal, 66, who was convicted in Russia on charges of spying for Britain and sentenced in 2006 to 13 years in prison. Skripal was freed in 2010 as part of a U.S.-Russian spy swap.

Wiltshire Police, which is responsible for the Salisbury area, gave the approximate ages of the unconscious pair and said they appeared to know one another and did not have any visible injuries.

They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance. Both are currently in a critical condition in intensive care, the police department said in a statement.

The discovery of the two people led to a dramatic decontamination effort. Crews in billowing yellow moon suits worked into the night spraying down the street, and the Salisbury hospitals emergency room was closed.

The BBC, which first identified Skripal as one of the victims, quoted eyewitness Freya Church as saying it looked like the woman and man had taken something quite strong.

On the bench there was a couple, an older guy and a younger girl. She was sort of leaned in on him. It looked like she had passed out, maybe, Church said.

He was doing some strange hand movements, looking up to the sky, she said.

Public Health England said in a statement that it had only limited information about the patients, but there doesnt appear to be any further immediate risk to public health.

PHE understands that those exposed to the substances have been decontaminated, the health agency said.

Public records list Skripal as having an address in Salisbury.

Skripal served with Russias military intelligence, often known by its Russian-language acronym GRU, and retired in 1999. He then worked at the Foreign Ministry until 2003 and later became involved in business.

After his 2004 arrest in Moscow, he confessed to having been recruited by British intelligence in 1995 and said he provided information about GRU agents in Europe, receiving over $100,000 in return.

At the time of Skripals trial, the Russian media quoted the FSB domestic security agency as saying that the damage from his activities could be compared to harm inflicted by Oleg Penkovsky, a GRU colonel who spied for the United States and Britain. Penkovsky was executed in 1963.

Skripal was pardoned and released from custody in July 2010 as part of a U.S.-Russian-spy swap, which followed the exposure of a ring of Russian sleeper agents in the United States.

The circumstances surrounding Sundays incident were still murky and police urged the public not to speculate. But few could avoid invoking the name of Litvinenko  the former Russian agent who died after drinking polonium-210-laced tea in a swanky London hotel in 2006.

His bizarre illness was initially treated as unexplained; evidence eventually emerged indicating he had been deliberately poisoned.

A British judge wrote in an 2016 report that Litvinenkos death was an assassination carried out by Russias security services  with the likely approval of President Vladimir Putin. The Russian government has denied any responsibility.

Keir Giles, the director of the Conflict Studies Research Center in Cambridge, England, said he would be surprised if this were not linked back to Russia in some direct way.

He said he could not rule out an overdose or some other kind of accidental poisoning  but found it hard to picture such a scenario that would lead to a full-scale decontamination of the street and the hospital.

Giles also invoked a string of suspicious deaths of Russian government opponents in Britain since Litvinenkos slaying.

Its not just Litvinenko, he said. Its hard not to see a pattern of the attacks becoming more and more brazen.

Igor Sutyagin, who was part of the same spy swap as Skripal and now is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London, said there was not enough evidence to point fingers in any direction.

There are lots of former security officers that deserted to the West, he said, urging caution until more is known. It is necessary to balance this information.WASHINGTONFormer Trump aide Sam Nunberg said Monday that he has been subpoenaed to appear in front of a federal grand jury investigating Russias interference in the 2016 election but that he will refuse to go.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Nunberg said he was asked to come to Washington to appear before the grand jury on Friday. He also provided a copy of his two-page grand jury subpoena seeking documents related to President Donald Trump and nine other people, including emails, correspondence, invoices, telephone logs, calendars and records of any kind.

Nunberg forwarded an email from the office of special counsel Robert Mueller seeking his appearance in front of the panel on Friday.

Among those that the subpoena requests information about are departing White House communications director Hope Hicks, former White House strategist Stephen Bannon, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and adviser Roger Stone.

Nunberg said he does not plan to comply with the subpoena, including either testimony or providing documents.

Let him arrest me, Nunberg said. Mr. Mueller should understand I am not going in on Friday.

Nunberg said he was planning to go on Bloomberg TV and tear up the subpoena.

It is unclear what actions Mueller would take if Nunberg does not appear in front of the grand jury. Nunberg, an early campaign aide, was dismissed by Trump and no longer is in his good graces.

The Russians and Trump did not collude, Nunberg said. Putin is too smart to collude with Donald Trump.

Im not spending 80 hours going over my emails with Roger Stone and Steve Bannon and producing them, Nunberg said. Donald Trump won this election on his own. He campaigned his ass off. And there is nobody who hates him more than me.

Nunberg repeated his vow to not cooperate with Mueller in a Monday afternoon interview on MSNBC, where he also suggested that the prosecutor may have evidence against Trump.

I think they may, Nunberg said. I think that he may have done something during the election.

Read more about:WASHINGTONCongressional Republicans are manoeuvring to stop U.S. President Donald Trump from levying harsh tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, arguing the move runs counter to the core of their economic agenda and could even cause political problems heading into the 2018 mid-terms.

We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan, AshLee Strong, a spokeswoman for Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement Monday. The new tax reform law has boosted the economy and we certainly dont want to jeopardize those gains.

Members of the House Ways and Means Committee were also circulating a letter arguing against the tariffs, and high-ranking Senate Republicans have voiced their opposition.

Its unclear whether the GOP pushback will have any effect on Trump, who surprised fellow Republicans Thursday when he announced tariffs of 25 per cent on steel imports and 10 per cent on aluminum imports. He has since dug in deeper on the plans, defending them in a string of posts on Twitter.

The U.S. president is embracing the possibility of a trade war after announcing planned tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. (The Associated Press)

For all of the controversies Trump has faced, the tariffs decision is one of few times hes taken a step that runs directly counter to Republicans legislative and economic goals. Many Republicans have voiced concerns the move will undermine the $1.5 trillion tax cut bill they passed in December.

They also said it could cause political problems ahead of 2018 mid-terms. Democrats hope to take back control of the House and Senate in November, while Republicans planned to run on an economic argument to defend their majorities.

But its difficult to predict how far Republicans would go to stand up to Trump.

The tariff decision has not yet been finalized, but thats expected to happen in the next week or two. The goal of congressional Republicans is to keep that from happening; but if that fails, other options remain on the table, according to a congressional aide who spoke anonymously to discuss the private deliberations.

The Constitution gives Congress the authority over taxation and tariffs, but Congress has delegated trade negotiation and tariff authority to the president over recent decades. Congressional leaders believe that approach has worked well  until now.

A spokeswoman for House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady said in a statement that the administration and Congress must work together on trade policies that build off the momentum of the Presidents tax cuts, which is why any tariffs should be narrow, targeted, and focused on addressing unfairly traded products, without disrupting the flow of fairly traded products for American businesses and consumers.

Read more about:BRATISLAVA, Slovakia  Slovak protesters were planning to take to the streets again Monday to demand a thorough investigation into the slayings of an investigative journalist and his fiancee as well as changes in government.

More than a week after the bodies of 27-year-old Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova were found in their house, President Andrej Kiska says Slovakia faces a serious political crisis due to a drop in public trust in the state.

In his last unfinished story, Kuciak reported on the influence of the Italian mafia in Slovakia and its ties to people close to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Read more:

Police in Slovakia raid houses owned by alleged Italian mafia in connection with killing of journalist

Slovak investigative journalist shot dead in attack likely linked to his reporting on tax evasion

Slovak journalists slaying likely linked to his investigative work, police say

After tens of thousands of protesters marched on Friday to honour Kuciak, more demonstrations  this time directly aimed at the government  are planned this week, including a rally in Bratislava scheduled for Friday.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the organizers called on foreign experts to join the local investigative team and for the creation of a new trustworthy government with no people who are suspected of corruption or ties to organized crime.

The first anti-government rally was planned for Monday evening in the second largest city of Kosice.

A junior party in the coalition government led by Fico is supporting calls by the opposition for Interior Minister Robert Kalinak to resign.

The leadership of the party known as Most-Hid will meet next week to discuss the coalitions future.

Kalinak is a key ally of Fico in their leftist Smer-Social Democracy party. Thousands rallied across Slovakia already last year to demand Kalinaks resignation due to a corruption scandal.

President Kiska called Sunday for substantial changes in the countrys coalition government or for an early election.

Fico rejected his proposals.WASHINGTONAs far as Canada is concerned, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Monday, the matters of NAFTA and President Donald Trumps steel and aluminum tariffs are quite separate.

Trump disagrees.

Adding still more complexity to a long and rocky NAFTA negotiation that was already proceeding slowly at best, the president said Monday that Canada and Mexico would be exempted from his threatened tariffs if and when they accepted a fair new version of the continental free trade pact.

The ultimatum came as another round of NAFTA talks was concluding without any major developments. While Freeland said negotiators were beginning to make headway on their big differences, her American counterpart, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, said progress in Mexico City had not met his expectations, and he warned of trouble ahead.

Still, Canada enjoyed some good news in Washington: its position on the tariffs was being pushed not only by its diplomats but by members of Trumps own party. Offering unusually pointed criticism of the president, Senate and House Republicans urged him not to go through with his plan to apply the tariffs to every country.

Read more:

Bushs steel tariffs in 2002 didnt crush the economy, but they didnt work for him either

Rep. Kevin Brady, chairman of the powerful House ways and means committee, specifically called on Trump to leave Canada alone. Sen. John Cornyn, the second-ranking Senate Republican, called for committee hearings. And a spokesperson for House Speaker Paul Ryan said they are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan.

But it was unclear whether their words would matter to a president who has long endorsed trade protectionism. Trump repeated his tweeted statement at an afternoon White House appearance, saying, If they arent going to make a fair NAFTA deal, were just going to leave it this way.

Lighthizer warned that our time is running very short to make a NAFTA deal. He noted that the Mexican presidential campaign and U.S. congressional midterm campaigns will soon intensify, and he suggested it would be harder to get a revised deal through the next Congress  which may be controlled by Democrats more skeptical of trade than the Republican caucus.

I fear the longer we proceed, the more political headwinds we will feel, he said.

In a phone call with Trump on Monday evening, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau registered his serious concern about the tariff plans and emphasized that the introduction of tariffs would not be helpful to reaching a deal on NAFTA, his office said in a summary.

Lighthizer has expressed more public frustration with Canada than with Mexico, which was initially thought to be the target of the administrations ire. On Monday, he floated a possibility Trump has raised in the past: doing separate deals with Canada and Mexico if it proves impossible to preserve the 24-year-old three-country pact.

Freeland, conversely, repeated Canadas preference to keep the continent bound together. She reiterated her statement from last week on the tariffs, calling them absolutely unacceptable and promising that Canada would take appropriate responsive measures if not protected.

The U.S. president is embracing the possibility of a trade war after announcing planned tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. (The Associated Press)

Canadian trade lawyer Lawrence Herman said Trumps linking of the tariffs to NAFTA cant help but hurt the negotiations.

It throws everything into turmoil. You cant settle an already tense and complex set of NAFTA auto issues when exports of Canadian hot-rolled steel  a major part of vehicle production  are caught up in this latest bit of Trump unilateralism, Herman said.

Observers were divided on the overall state of talks. Herman said, Dark clouds have descended on this exercise. Lighthizer is trying to rush the un-rushable. Eric Miller, president of the Rideau Potomac Strategy Group consultancy, said he sees slow, griding progress. Dan Ujczo, a Canada-U.S. trade lawyer at Dickinson Wright in Ohio, warned of the U.S. getting closer to Mexico and Canada getting left behind.

Trumps tweets came before 7 a.m. As usual, it was not clear whether he was communicating a firm decision or a fleeting thought that had just occurred to him.

We have large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada, he falsely began his tweet (the U.S. has a surplus with Canada). NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs. Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed.

He continued: Also, Canada must treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying.

Some observers saw a glimmer of hope for Canada in the tweets. Trump had not previously said he was open to exemptions for any reason. It is possible, said Miller, that the tweets suggest Trump is feeling the heat a little bit.

But Miller cautioned against overreading Trumps words. And many pro-trade experts were aghast. The tweets appeared to undermine Trumps own official justification for the tariffs, a national security threat from steel and aluminum imports. It seemed possible that Trumps tweets could be used against him in a World Trade Organization complaint.

Trumps tweets came as NAFTA negotiators were ending a round in which they failed to resolve a difficult impasse over trade rules governing the auto industry, which happens to be a major user of steel.

Robert Fisher, a U.S. negotiator in the original NAFTA talks and now managing director of trade consultancy Hills and Co., said it would be unwise for Canada to link the two in negotiations that are already thorny.

If you tie enough string together, sooner or later you end up with a Gordian knot that no one can untie, he said.

Read more about:WASHINGTONU.S. President Donald Trump makes a large number of false claims at his campaign rallies, when he is speaking to voters who may not know the ins and outs of government policy.

But he also makes a large number of false claims in basically every other context. That includes his meetings with people as knowledgeable as U.S. governors.

Trump held a televised White House meeting with governors last Monday. He made 23 false claims over the course of one hour.

About gun violence. About motorcycle imports from India. About car exports to Japan. About his tariffs on washing machines. About the court system. About a bunch of other things. It was, all in all, a wide-ranging display of dishonesty.

Trump made 13 more false claims over the rest of the week, for a total of 36. He is now up to 1,254 false claims for the first 409 days of his presidency, an average of 3.1 per day.

If Trump is a serial liar, why call this a list of false claims, not lies? The answer is that we cant be sure that each and every one was intentional. In some cases, he may have been confused or ignorant. What we know, objectively, is that he was not telling the truth.

Read more about:Everyone in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) agrees that traffic congestion is a huge problem. We complain about traffic in the GTHA in the same way that Canadians complain about the weather.

Many people agree that we need more trains and buses to get cars off the roads. There is, however, less agreement about who should pay for those trains and buses. While most Canadians never question why taxpayers should pay for roads, many feel that they should not have to pay for public transit unless they use it.

As health professionals, we see things differently. We see public transit as an essential service that benefits everyone  transit users and drivers alike. That is because public transit provides so many public health benefits.

Transit improves air quality. Traffic-related air pollution in the GTHA gives rise to about 1,000 early deaths and 3,000 to 4,000 hospital admissions each year for strokes, heart attacks, lung infections, and asthma.

With the population growth anticipated in the GTHA over the next decade, traffic-related air pollution is expected to substantially increase. By investing in public transit across the region, we can reduce air pollution, save lives, and reduce health care spending.

Transit reduces chronic diseases. Each year, approximately 7,000 residents in the GTHA will develop heart disease and another 60,000 will develop diabetes.

These and other diseases, such as colon cancer, can be prevented by increasing levels of physical activity. Studies have found that people who take public transit have higher levels of physical activity because they walk or cycle at one or both ends of their transit trip.

By investing in public transit in the GTHA, we can reduce chronic diseases, prevent hundreds of premature deaths each year, and produce significant health care savings.

Transit reduces travel time for drivers. Drivers in the GTHA lose, on average, an extra 50 hours a year to commuting because of traffic jams. That is 50 hours that could be spent with family, friends, or at the gym.

With the population growth expected over the coming years, that lost time is expected to grow substantially. By investing in public transit, we can reduce traffic congestion and save time and stress for drivers across the region.

Transit slows climate change. As health professionals, we agree with the World Health Organization (WHO) that climate change is the greatest public health threat of the 21st century. In Ontario, the transportation sector is the largest source of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change.

As a rule, travel by transit generates far fewer greenhouse gases than travel by car. By investing in transit, we can create a more certain future for our children while meeting our commitments under the Paris Climate Agreement.

There are many costs associated with a transportation system that relies heavily on cars. We pay with our time, our health, our health care system, and our climate. By investing in public transit, we all save in the long run.

Kim Perrotta has a masters degree in health science and is currently the executive director for CAPE  the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment.Donald Trump has a beef with China over trade. So, naturally, hes taking action by threatening to impose punitive measures on... Canada.

Its a ludicrous, self-defeating action. But the world has become so accustomed to nonsense coming out of the Trump White House that this latest volley seems almost par for the course.

In fact, Trumps credibility is so low that the biggest point of debate among the experts is whether he will actually carry through on his threat to impose punishing tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum into the United States.

Will it really happen this week, as the president has insisted in the last few days? Or will something quite different emerge from the cloud of bluster and the blizzard of tweets? No one knows  including, it seems, Trumps Republican allies and his own senior staff, who have been fighting among themselves on this very issue.

For the moment, though, the trade hawks in the White House have the upper hand. And with their support Trump is promising to deliver on one of his campaign promises  to revive the metal-producing industries that were once a mainstay of the industrial economy of the northeast.

The big complaint from Trump and other American economic nationalists involves China, whose state-subsidized steel producers, they say, have been flooding the world market and driving down prices to levels where U.S. companies cant compete.

Thats the ostensible problem. The supposed solution that Trump proposes is an across-the-board 25-per-cent tariff on steel imports and a 10-per-cent tariff on aluminum, all in the name of national security.

It turns out the biggest target of such a move would actually be Canada, which is the largest exporter of steel to the U.S., sending $5.1 billion (U.S.) worth south of the border in 2017. Other leading suppliers of steel to the U.S. are South Korea, Mexico, Germany, Japan and Taiwan  American allies all.

Far down on the list, at number 10, is China, the cause of all this Trumpian wrath, which sold just $1 billion worth of steel to the United States last year.

To make Trumps move even more illogical, Canada is actually a net importer of steel from the U.S., as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pointed out in a refreshingly firm rejection of the threatened tariff. Imposing such tariffs on Canadian steel or aluminum, he said, is absolutely unacceptable.

And this is setting aside the effect of such tariffs inside the United States itself. It might save some steel- and aluminum-producing jobs, but as many economists point out, there are far more workers in industries that consume metals. The tariffs would just make their products more expensive and therefore less competitive.

So if Trump does carry through with his threat, the result would be almost uniquely self-destructive.

He would manage to alienate his closest allies; make key U.S. industries like auto-making less competitive; raise prices for American consumers; potentially set off a trade war; undermine the rules-based international trading system under which the United States has flourished as the worlds preeminent economic power for decades; and divide his own political base, which includes both free-trade Republicans as well as economic nationalists.

All this while inflicting barely a scratch on the Chinese and their state-subsidized steel makers.

Well done, Mr. President.

Still, the week is young. Theres time for many more tweets and reverses of policy. And its far from clear that when the details are announced they will be as menacing as Trump seemed to promise on Friday when he tweeted with a breath-taking degree of ignorance that trade wars are good, and easy to win.

There is, first of all, the question of whether some countries will be exempted from the threatened tariffs. When the administration of George W. Bush imposed a similar measure in 2002, Canada was excluded.

Given how integrated the U.S. and Canadian metals industries are, theres an excellent argument for such an exemption this time. That argument would be particularly strong since Trump invoked national security as justification for the new tariffs. Theres absolutely no basis for claiming that relying on Canadian steel and aluminum threatens American security.

Trump has already rejected the idea of excluding some countries from the tariffs. But some of his top trade advisers are already musing about bringing in certain industry exemptions that might accomplish essentially the same goal and tailor the tariffs to hit the real target  China.

Trump himself is adding to the uncertainty by suggesting that Canada and Mexico might be excluded if the U.S. gets a better deal on NAFTA, which is being renegotiated. The tariff threat, in other words, might turn out just to be another bargaining tactic.

Canada should hang tough amid all this confusion. It has both facts and logic on its side in arguing against a pointless trade war. It also has plenty of influential allies on this issue in the United States itself, many of them in Trumps own party. This is the time for Canada to draw the line and reject a plunge into mutual economic self-destruction.

Read more about:Should people be allowed to eat their pets? Its a question that has come to the fore after the Vancouver Island owners of a pot-bellied pig named Molly recently butchered and ate her.

Its also a question that raises the issue of animal rights in general, pet ownership in particular and whether pets should be accorded special legal status.

The story of Molly is short and sad. She was one of 57 pet pot-bellied pigs rescued in 2017 by local officers of British Columbias Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

According to the Cowichan Valley Citizen, their owner was no longer able to care for them.

Molly was nursed back to health and eventually put up for adoption. The couple who adopted her in January promised to care for her. Specifically, they promised not to slaughter her.

Within a month they had changed their minds on both counts. They explained they did so because Molly didnt get along with the family dog.

There was an immediate outcry following Mollys death. The SPCA came under attack. The couple who had slaughtered her reported receiving death threats.

But according to Camille Labchuk of the advocacy group Animal Justice, what happened to Molly was perfectly legal in Canada.

Animal owners are free to kill and eat their pets. The only stipulation is that the animal must be slaughtered humanely which, according to the SPCA, Molly was.

Indeed, the great irony of the Molly story is that thousands of pigs that are not pets suffer the same fate every day  without causing a great hue and cry.

The fundamental problem is that animals are treated under Canadian law as mere property whose lives are at the mercy of their owners.

There is nothing in Canadian law to prevent a farmer from slaughtering his livestock. Similarly, there is nothing to prevent a pet owner from killing and eating the family dog.

The debate over whether animals should be treated as sentient beings with innate rights rather than mere property is a fraught one. In Parliament, modest attempts to improve animal welfare have been derailed by interest groups fearful that these represent the thin edge of the rights wedge.

But as Labchuk, a lawyer, points out, there are intermediate steps government could take to deal with situations such as Mollys  steps that need not invite a backlash from the animal use industries.

She suggests a law banning the unnecessary killing of animals. This would exempt the farming and meat-packing industries. It would also exempt pet owners who euthanize their animals in order to prevent suffering. But it would catch people like Mollies faithless owners.

Virginia has such a law, she says. California has another version that makes it an offence to kill any animal traditionally or commonly kept as a pet or companion.

It shouldnt be too difficult for Canadian lawmakers to come up with something similar.

Finally, the Molly story underscores some of the problems connected with keeping pets.

Pets, or animal companions as they are sometimes called, can perform a useful function. For most of us, they are the only window into the rich world of non-human animal life. They remind us that we are not the only beings on this Earth with both intelligence and emotions.

If we pay attention, they usually have something to say.

But pets can also be the object of fads. Pot-bellied pigs, for instance, became popular after movie star George Clooney adopted one. Those who buy pets on a whim are not always prepared to care for them.

Last summer, the Cedar Row Farm Sanctuary near Stratford publicly appealed to Ontarians to stop buying pot-bellied pigs. Too many were being dropped off at the sanctuary by owners who found that they could not deal with them.

Thats because pot-bellied pigs are physically strong, opinionated and in some municipalities (including Toronto) illegal to keep as pets.

This also plays into the Molly story. Certainly, her owners should not have eaten her. More to the point, they never should have offered to adopt her in the first place.

Thomas Walkom appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.Its amazing how dangerous life can be in a city obsessed with safety. Nowhere more so than on the streets of Toronto where so far this year, 14 pedestrians have been killed. Thats an average of more than one death every week.

Even Mayor John Tory calls this a crisis.

Hes right, but crisis though it may be, it is not, as we pretend, accidental. More often than not, these (preventable) fatalities have causes wed rather ignore. On closer inspection, its obvious that many Toronto streets are designed less to protect pedestrians than keep them out of the way, especially in the postwar city where roads are too wide and too fast to be safe for those on foot. It doesnt help either that opportunities to cross these streets are few and far between.

In fact, street safety in Toronto is little more than a cover for an embedded civic culture that favours cars over all other forms of mobility. This extends well beyond the physical layout of our roads and encompasses, most egregiously, a justice system that makes no effort to hide its vehicular bias.

Superior Court Justice Shaun Nakatsuru gave the city a rude reminder last week dismissing charges against a driver accused of killing a teenage cyclist, Immanuel Sinnadurai, in 2014. Despite evidence the defendant was involved in an illegal street race, the judge said his hands were tied by lack of evidence. But as Ryerson Universitys transit expert Murtaza Haider tweeted, Driving at 90 km/hr on a 60 km/h street constitutes an implicit intent to harm.

Not that speed limits make much difference. When introduced, lower limits are greeted with howls of outrage and then ignored. When Toronto reduced the speed on residential streets, it had little effect on driving habits. Motorists take their cues from street design not signs. The cyclist was killed on Sheppard Ave. E., a largely unencumbered multi-lane highway that encourages high-speed driving. No surprise that one-third of pedestrian deaths occur on the freeways of Scarborough.

None of this means were serious about safety. At the very moment Tory is bemoaning the carnage on Toronto streets, hes also fighting a proposal to narrow Yonge between Sheppard and Finch from six lanes to four. That would slow traffic. Hes certainly not the first politician to want it both ways, but his policies  to cut the carnage and congestion  reveal our ambivalence about safety.

That ambivalence was on full display in 2016 when the city introduced its Vision Zero plan to reduce pedestrian deaths by a shockingly unambitious 20 per cent by 2026. Overwhelmed by public anger, Tory and public works chair Councillor Jaye Robinson were forced to revisit the scheme. But faced with this years figures, Robinson blamed the weather and lamely insisted things are going in the right direction.

For Toronto police, things are simpler. They never hesitate to blame pedestrians, even those who are dead and buried. Their clothing wasnt bright enough, they werent wearing reflective vests, it was raining, it was snowing, it was dark, it was bright, it was cold, it was hot ... The forces impatience with pedestrians dates back years. One of its finest moments came in 2010 when it launched a safety blitz at Union Station. It consisted mainly of handing out jaywalking tickets to lawless pedestrians. Who cared that the hordes coming and going by subway, train and bus had to struggle with some of the citys most hostile conditions, including one of the most dangerous intersection in Toronto, the southeast corner of Bay and Front? That sidewalk is as narrow as Bay is wide. The road has five lanes, one for drivers turning left on Front.

These street deaths, however awkward for politicians, are the price we are willing to pay to keep traffic moving  the faster the better. It hurts when the victims are children or, more often, seniors, but these accidents rarely get as much attention as the cellphone that caught fire on an Air Canada plane last week, a non-story that made headlines across the country.

Safety regulations are a useful tool, but not because they serve their intended purpose. They are a form of control, created as a means of denying access, keeping people away, shutting them out, maintaining privilege, empowering one group over another.

Recently, there are signs this has started to change, but not at the top. Until that happens, safety will remain a danger to us all.

Christopher Humes column appears weekly. He can be reached at jcwhume4@gmail.comAre you really that stupid? A university education makes you smarter but not necessarily a better person, an irate reader told me in response to my Feb. 28 column suggesting that new hires in the Toronto police force should have a mandatory university degree. My readers are often quite cross, I note. Is it me or a sign of the times?

Shes right, of course. And so were thoughtful retired police officers who told me that the quality of policing is on the decline, that a cultural shift is needed, but also that many officers who struggle with a written exam are brilliant in simulations and other kinds of testing. They need idealism and solid instincts but I still say a young officer needs more than Grade 12. University credits are a tool, much more useful than a gun.

Policing sounds a lot like journalism, a crucial industry struggling to modernize after decades of neglect. Journalists dont have tasers but have been bonded to their cellphones since the 1980s. Toronto police officers are only being given cellphones now.

It seems unreal. The force has begun to hand them out this year, having previously relied on radios and computer systems in their cars. Cops are heartbreakingly happy to have them, especially as they do more beat policing that takes them out of their cars, often those unhappy grey stealth things. Now they can quietly check mug shots on their phone and call each other, imagine that.

For good or ill, a university degree has become almost basic in Canadian life. I sorrow for millennials who graduate and find themselves unable to find jobs or afford housing in this city. Have they considered policing? An officer with Grade 12 can easily earn more than $100,000 a year. The Ontario Sunshine List for 2016 shows that of its 7,700 employees, 4,762 made at least that.

But, my reader asks, what good is a university education? In the best sense, it makes students aware of the vast expanse of their own ignorance, a lack of knowledge that could fill the ocean beds. I remember the despair of this moment but it does spur a young person on. Chastened, you spend the rest of your life open to learning, staying current and wondering endlessly about Kants unsynthesized manifold, a.k.a. everything.

I heard from one smart former cop who listed the jobs miseries, including few chances at promotion, public unpopularity, being constantly second-guessed, boredom, the intangibility of success in neighbourhood policing, and the lack of praise.

So its just like my job and yours too but with the Grim Reaper hovering. Will you kill someone or be killed? He didnt mention that policing is still a boys club, a scarring place for women, but so are most workplaces.

Toronto police should have welcomed that July 2017 call from Sasha Reid, a University of Toronto PhD candidate with a national missing persons database and a profile of a killer that turned out to closely resemble alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur. Her field of study? Sexually motivated, psychopathic serial killers.

Assembling and understanding data is a crucial skill, especially in policing, yet police never contacted her again after her initial meeting. Data is golden, as resistant Vancouver police learned to their cost in the Pickton serial killer case, and artificial intelligence will be invaluable in predictive policing and information-sharing.

The police need a variety of officers with different skills, and yes, I do love cops on bicycles. Theyre so cool. Thanks to its recalcitrant old-school union, the Toronto force cant get rid of its bad apples  violent authoritarian cops fed by shamelessness  but needs new officers with people skills, courtesy, and an innate respect for the art of policing and those policed.

The recent case of CTVs Marci Ien being pulled over after running a stop sign in a school zone is a case in point. She blames racism, the police say otherwise, and as usual, the police union turned vicious.

Is there no way Ien and the police could sit down together in a spirit of understanding, study the video of the encounter, and just talk? Thats how a university seminar is conducted. It works.

hmallick@thestar.caGermany's powerful automotive union said Monday that a trade war with the United States must be avoided "at all costs" as the home of the world's biggest carmarker scrambled to react to a weekend threat of trade tariffs from President Donald Trump.

"Punitive duties can't be the answer," said VDA president Bernhard Mattes in a statement ahead of this week's Geneva Auto show in Switzerland. "A trade war between the USA and Europe must be avoided at all costs. In such a trade war there are only losers on all sides."

The plea for calm followed an escalating war of words between European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and President Trump over the weekend, both of which threatened specific sectors in each other's economies as potential targets for tariffs and trade barriers after Trump reveal his intention to slap a 25% levy on steel imports late last week.

"If the Americans impose tariffs on steel and aluminum, then we must treat American products the same way," Juncker said Friday when he detailed a package of tariffs that could impact $3.5 billion in U.S. exports. "So now we will also impose import tariffs. This is basically a stupid process, the fact that we have to do this. But we have to do it. We will now impose tariffs on motorcycles, Harley Davidson (HOG) - Get Harley-Davidson, Inc. (HOG) Report , on blue jeans, Levis, on Bourbon."

Trump fired back the following day with a Tweet that vowed reciprocal tariffs on European cars as he alluded to a $22.3 billion "automotive vehicle and parts" trade deficit last year with Germany.

Germany's DAX performance index gained 0.86% by mid-day in Frankfurt even as gains were held down by notable declines for Volkswagen AG (VLKAY) , the world's biggest carmaker, which fell 1.19% to 157.60. Rival Daimler AG (DMLRY) slid 1.41% to 66.90 while BMW AG (BMWYY) slumped 1.65% to 83.00 each. The benchmark Stoxx Europe 600 Automobiles & Parts index was marked 0.04% to to downside at 605.01 points.

Non-EU automobiles are subject to a 29% tariff when brought into the bloc, of which 19% is a value-added tax and 10% is a tariff based on current World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. Cars imported into the United States from countries that don't have existing pacts with Washington are subject to a 12.5% levy, while pickup trucks are subject to a 25% tariff.

However, some of the largest production facilities of Europe's biggest carmarkers are located in the United States, with plants in Vance, Al. and Spartanburg, S.C. and Chattanooga, Tn., that assemble around a third of the German cars sold domestically.

Last year, the VDA said that its members employed more than 110,000 people across 265 plants active in the United States, noting that "investment in the U.S. and the international exchange of goods are inseparable for us."

However, German carmakers have also been ramping up production in Mexico, with output rising 46% after Audi launched a new assembly facility in Puebla, just a few miles south of Mexico City. In fact, of the 1.4 million light vehicles made in North America last year, 44% were produced in Mexico.

At present, only Volkswagen and Audi have operations in Mexico, but BMW plans to launch a new pant in San Luis Potosi next year, just a few months after Daimler cuts the ribbon on a joint production facility with Nissan in Aguascalientes.Apple's ecosystem could help insulate the company's business against potential escalation of a trade war with China.

The S&P 500 has turned positive after an early session slide on Monday. Fears over an escalating trade war continue to linger around the market.

Investors are worried about companies that do business with China, with some stocks coming under pressure as a result. However, one stock that should be fine despite its China business segment is Action Alerts Plus holding Apple Inc. (AAPL) - Get Apple Inc. (AAPL) Report .

On CNBC's "Mad Dash" segment, TheStreet's Jim Cramer pointed to a survey by Baird analyst William Power. The company's ecosystem remains strong, the analyst contends, while the Apple Watch continues to market share. Further, the company's new HomePod product looks promising.

From a headline perspective, we don't know what will happen with the developing trade situation, Cramer reasoned. As a result, the markets could remains more volatile than investors have grown used to.

"It's a new risk," he continued, and "it's being priced into stocks."

For Power's part, he reiterated his overweight rating and $200 price target.

Another analyst, Piper Jaffray's Michael Olsen, also reiterated the same rating and price target Monday morning. He's optimistic about the company's "super-long" iPhone cycle following a survey from current customers.

Apple stock is well off its session lows and ended higher by 0.35% to $176.82 Monday.

At the time of publication, Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS had a position in AAPL.Lawyers focusing on cross-border transactions say they have never seen a situation where the U.S. government panel charged with reviewing cross-border mergers asked a company to postpone its annual meeting.

The Trump administration's request Sunday, March 4, to have Qualcomm Inc. (QCOM) - Get QUALCOMM Incorporated Report postpone its annual meeting by 30 days so it can review a $79 a share hostile bid for the chipmaker by Broadcom Ltd. (AVGO) - Get Broadcom Inc. Report on national security grounds is an extremely unusual, possibly unprecedented, move, experts say.

At issue is a move by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., an interagency panel of regulators headed by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin that cross-border review deals on national security grounds. Cfius ordered Qualcomm to postpone its annual meeting, which had previously been scheduled to take place Tuesday, by 30 days so it could review the deal.

"This measure will afford Cfius the ability to investigate fully Broadcom's proposed acquisition of Qualcomm," the Treasury Department said in a statement. The Treasury Department chairs the panel, which includes members from a variety of agencies including the Commerce Department and Defense Department.

However, the move was met by Cfius lawyers with shock and surprise, especially considering that Action Alerts Plus holding Broadcom is seeking to install a change-of-control slate of six dissident director candidates to Qualcomm's board at the annual meeting in an attempt to drive the chipmaker to accept its hostile bid. It's possible that the meeting will take place in early April now, though it could be delayed further. That said, the Trump administration has been unconventional in other matters, so a review before a deal, maybe shouldn't be a surprise.

"I've never seen Cfius ask a company to postpone an annual meeting to conduct a review," said Clif Burns, an attorney at Bryan Cave in Washington.

Burns argued that unless Cfius had its own irrefutable evidence to say that a deal would harm the U.S. national security, it would be challenging for the interagency panel to conduct a thorough review of a transaction that has not taken place yet. Qualcomm argued on Monday that Broadcom has been interacting with Cfius for weeks and has already made two written submissions to the interagency panel.

Even so, Burns pointed out that without a formal deal on the table it is impossible to know precisely what mitigating steps Broadcom might take to structure the company and its board to protect national security interests. "If there is no deal they [regulators] may not have enough information," Burns said.

He noted that the 30-day review is the timeframe usually allotted by Cfius for its examination of a cross-border transaction that has already been struck when both the buyer and seller are seeking to consummate a merger that may pose national security risks. Burns added, based on the statute that it was possible that Cfius could ask for an additional 45 days to review the deal after the 30-day initial review runs out, followed by another 15 days for a presidential examination.

"This looks like uncharted territory," he said.

A vital issue likely being debated by Cfius members involves concerns raised by at least two lawmakers that Broadcom acquisition of Qualcomm would result in divestitures and reduction of the chipmaker's R&D activity, which would be an advantage for Chinese rival Huawei in the race to develop critical 5G communications technologies.

Burns said that it has been clear since 2003 when U.S. regulators pressured Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. to end its attempt to buy bankrupt Global Crossing with its partner, Singapore Technologies Telemedia that telecommunications infrastructure was critical to national security. "It is an entirely plausible argument that there are national security interests in U.S. companies developing and maintaining 5G technology," Burns said.

Broadcom has some connections to Chinese companies, which one of the lawmakers, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said creates the opportunity for China's security agencies to "access and utilize Qualcomm's technology in defense-critical situations."

However, a key impediment to a securities review is the fact that Broadcom is in the process of reincorporating from Singapore to the U.S., a process that it expects to complete by May. Cfius experts contend that should the reincorporation be completed that there would be no statutorily-mandated basis for Cfius to review the deal. In a statement on Monday, Broadcom said that once it is redomiciled in the U.S. that the deal would no longer be a Cfius covered transaction.

Burns said the Cfius request has some parallels with an effort by opponents to a 2000 Deutsche Telekom-VoiceStream Wireless deal to seek a Cfius review as a means of blocking a transaction they believed to be competitively threatening. However, in that transaction, which was approved, both parties were seeking to combine. "Competitors to the deal marched to Capitol Hill to get Cfius to kill the proposed transaction," Burns said.

A Treasury official did not return a request for comment.EDWARDSVILLE  The case involving possible hacking of Madison County computers will be heard by a judge in a different circuit, according to court documents.

The records show that Chief Judge David Hylla asked the Illinois Supreme Court to have the case heard by a judge in a district other than the Third Judicial Circuit, which is primarily made up of Madison County.WOOD RIVER  From checking inspection scores to quickly refrigerating leftovers, a few simple tips can make a big difference in helping consumers avoid food-borne illnesses when eating out.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently sent out tips to avoid problems, and the Madison County Health Department recently updated its food codes, including criteria for restaurant inspections. The county department is also conducting ongoing training in the new requirements.

The CDC estimates that each year 48 million people get sick from a food-borne illness. Symptoms may take several hours to several days to develop, depending on the specific germ. The most common symptoms are: upset stomach, stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and fever.

Most illnesses are mild, lasting from a few hours to several days. However, according to the CDC 128,000 people are hospitalized with food-borne illnesses each year, and about 3,000 die.

According to the CDC, several ways to avoid food-borne illness are:

 Check inspection scores: Many state health departments make restaurant health inspection scores available on the web. Check the score before going to the restaurant or check when you get there.

 Make sure the restaurant is clean: Confirm that restaurant tables, floors, and utensils are clean. If not, you may want to take your business elsewhere.

 Check that your food is cooked thoroughly: Meat, fish, poultry, and eggs should be cooked thoroughly to kill germs. If food is served under-cooked or raw, send it back.

 Properly handle your leftovers: Taking your food to go? Remember to refrigerate within 2 hours of eating out. If food is left in a hot car or temperatures above 90F, refrigerate it within 1 hour. Eat leftovers within 3 to 4 days.

For more information visit www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/prevention.

This year the Madison County Health Department begins implementation of new sanitation codes, known as the FDA 2013 Model Food Code, including restaurant inspections.

Health Department spokesperson Amy Yaeger said there have been some technical issues with the Illinois Department of Public Health that has delayed implementation.

However, she noted that many food handlers are already using the new standards.

While the main focus remains cleanliness and personal hygiene, and food time and temperature, some of the procedures, requirements and priorities have changed.

The Madison County Health Department has been training food handlers in the new regulations for some time, and additional sessions are available.

The department has held a series of 90-minute training programs on the changes.

Daytime presentations will be held at 2 p.m. April 2, 10 a.m. June 4, 2 p.m. Aug. 6 and 10 a.m. Oct. 1 at the Madison County Health Department, 101 East Edwardsville Road, Wood River.

Seating is limited and pre-registration is recommended at 618-296-6079 or by e-mail at kasemanisin@co.madison.il.us.

Information is available at www.co.madison.il.us/departments/health, under Environmental Health. Information about restaurant inspection scores is also available at that site.EDWARDSVILLE  Southern Illinois University Edwardsville will host a free Community Health Clinic from 3:30-6 p.m. Thursday, March 15 at the Fairmont City Library Center located at 4444 Collinsville Road in Fairmont City.

A similar event will be held from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, April 7 at the Technology Learning Center located at 111 South Appleknocker Drive in Cobden.

Services will include diabetes, hearing, cholesterol, oral health, and height, weight and body mass screenings, as well as blood pressure measurement, diabetes A1C screening and diabetes foot inspection. Nutrition, dental care and public health education will also be offered.

The interdisciplinary event involves University experts and students in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Schools of Nursing, Pharmacy, Dental Medicine, and Education, Health and Human Behavior. The project received $10,300 in funding through SIUEs Excellence in Education program that supports innovative projects in undergraduate education.

This is the first time that the range of different professions are involved in providing services to an underserved Hispanic community, while also learning to collaborate as a team, said Project Director Terri Poirier, PharmD, MPH, professor of pharmacy practice and senior scholar in the SIUE School of Pharmacy.

We are excited to bring different professional students together to learn about meeting community health needs, she added. The evaluation will provide data that will not only demonstrate the value on student learning, but also the impact of the program on the community served.

The high impact community engagement practice will enact a co-curricular and experiential learning model, and provide students with the unique opportunity to gain experience working with medical interpreters.Could this be a sign that legislators finally get it?

Two lawmakers on different sides of the political aisle in Springfield have arrived at the same logical conclusion: the state spends too much.

Sure, its something exhausted taxpayers have known for years. Its just refreshing to think the message is starting to be heard.

We would like to be optimistic about the chances of East Dundee Republican Allen Skillicorn and Villa Park Democrat Tom Cullerton pushing through their vision of spending caps.

History, though, tells us not to get comfortable just yet.

The message from the Capitol has long been that revenue is at the heart of the financial problems the state is facing. That has resulted in a constant deeper drilling into taxpayers wallets. Its a vicious cycle that has become more pronounced as the state loses population and those who remain are tapped to cover the financial losses from the out-migration.

Look no further than the disastrous decision last year to override Gov. Bruce Rauners rejection of a massive personal state income tax hike to see a good example. Democrats, fearful of going against powerful House Speaker Michael Madigans wishes, bumped the tax from 3.75 percent to 4.95 percent  an increase of 32 percent.

That will account for a lot of new money toward the states estimated $37.5 billion in general revenue this year  an amount about $800 million more than the last fiscal year.

It still is not expected to cover the states spending plans, despite that most taxpayers are paying double what they were 10 years ago.

Taxpayers know the dire conditions that exist in Illinois. Most also want to do what is necessary for the state to succeed, but have grown frustrated with being gouged and gouged with no change in the problem. Lawmakers, who ultimately call the shots, see things differently and myopically. Rather than admit there is a problem and showing a willingness to fix the problem of out-of-control spending, they rely on taxes and insist it is the only solution to the financial problems in the state.

Now, Skillicorn and Cullerton are saying enough.

Their plan would make amendments to the state constitution that would cap spending based on the states economic output.

The talking point that we need new revenue is false and over 10 years, weve doubled the amount of revenue weve collected, actually more than doubled the amount of revenue weve collected. Its a spending problem. Its a significant spending problem, Skillicorn told the Illinois News Network.

Finally, a sign that at least two people in Springfield are listening.

Is anyone else?A bride and groom were forced to undertake an epic journey via planes, trains, buses and ferry to make it to their wedding in Roscommon on Saturday.

Aine Kilgannon, from Dromore West in Sligo, and her South African fiance Heath Bateman, were due to be married at the church in Aine's hometown at 3.30pm followed by a reception at the stunning Kilronan Castle in Roscommon.

Living in the UK, they were scheduled to fly to Ireland separately on Wednesday and Thursday, but the arrival of Storm Emma across the UK and Ireland played havoc with their plans.

"Heath, his mum and dad and his brother were all getting the plane on Wednesday from Heathrow to Knock, which was delayed four hours but they managed to get on, but then Aer Lingus said 'everyone off the plane' and then the flight was cancelled, so that was very stressful," Aine told Independent.ie on Friday.

Aine was due to fly on Thursday from Heathrow to Knock, but felt they would have more luck flying from Heathrow to Shannon so they changed their flights. However, both those flights were cancelled within an hour of each other.

On Friday Aine, Heath and members of his family took a train to Holyhead to get the ferry with Stena line. Two hours into the four hour journey they learned that the ferry they were due to catch at 2.10pm had been cancelled. The next one, at 8pm, was then cancelled too.

Expand Close The group at Stena Line / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp The group at Stena Line

"I told everyone my story so the whole of Stena Line customer care knew our story at this stage!" said Aine. "We got on the boat and everyone had a drink and we prayed the 2.40am ferry would sail. In fairness Stena Line treated us like royalty. They gave us Prosecco and the captain came to see us. And they gave us a cabin per couple so we could get some sleep."

Eventually the ferry departed Holyhead at 6am and a relieved Aine spoke to Independent.ie from Michael Finnegan's bus which had waited patiently for many hours for them in Dublin to transport them up to Sligo for the wedding.

Expand Close Aine about to set off on the final leg of her epic 36 hour journey / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Aine about to set off on the final leg of her epic 36 hour journey

"It's so much easier to talk about this now that we're finally getting somewhere," admitted Aine as she sipped a well-earned glass of Prosecco. "I think our family and friends really love Heath and I because they were all willing to do a stressful 24 hour trip to get to this wedding. It's very humbling."

However, there were other hurdles to overcome. Due to the delay, there was no time to get to Dromore West so the staff at Kilronan Castle organised an alternative church near the venue, at Keadue. Their priest, Father Anthony Gillespie, made the trip from Sligo to Roscommon to marry them.

Expand Close Aine and Heath: Photo by Jimmy Kilgallen Photography / Facebook

Twitter

Email

Whatsapp Aine and Heath: Photo by Jimmy Kilgallen Photography

"God bless Kilronan Castle. They really made so much effort to accommodate us," said Aine. The staff were prepared to change the day of the wedding for the couple. When it looked like Aine and Heath were going to make it they organised food for them and their party of 30 on their arrival.

Their band, Transmitter, had stayed in Enniscrone since Tuesday night to make sure they could make it to the wedding. And at the last minute Philippa Breheny hair designs stepped in and drove to the castle for their late arrival.

"I'm literally getting my hair and make up done and just running up the aisle. If I was wearing no make up I'd still be going up the aisle, and I'm vain. I'm a very vain woman!" laughed Aine.

On a more serious note, she added, "Not getting married was not an option, because so many members of Heath's family had travelled so far from South Africa. Unfortunately about 20 other friends and family members have been unable to make it to Roscommon.

"It's very sad but at least we can say everyone tried and we'll still have a decent turnout for the wedding. It's still bittersweet though."

They finally made it to Kilronan Castle at 3.15pm on Saturday and Aine walked up the aisle at 6pm.

"Pulling up to Kilronan to see the staff waiting with the red carpet rolled out for us made it feel real," she said the morning after the big day. "We'd made it! The relief made us all tear up.

"After that though smiling and laughing started to find us again. Heath went with his groomsmen to get ready and I went with my bridesmaids. From there everything rolled by in a relative blur. Before we knew it we were being summoned for our first dance.

"The combination of the stress being gone and seeing all our friends and family made it one of the most amazing, epic tales that we may ever experience. Hollywood couldn't write this!"

Aine would like to thank all 30 of her friends and family who travelled 36 hours to get to the wedding, Father Gillespie who had to change church and travel, Keadue church for the last minute ceremony, Jimmy Kilgallen photography (who stayed until 1am), Philippa Breheny hair designs, singer Rosie Connolly, Transmitter, make-up artist Aisling Leydon, Philomena Davitt for the flowers, Kilronan Castle and her mammy Una Kilgannon who was "on the phone updating everyone on changes and reorganising".Rogers Communications Inc. operates as a communications and media company in Canada. It operates through three segments: Wireless, Cable, and Media. The company offers mobile Internet access, wireless voice and enhanced voice, device and accessory financing, wireless home phone, device protection, text messaging, e-mail, global voice and data roaming, bridging landline, machine-to-machine and Internet of Things solutions, and advanced wireless solutions for businesses, as well as device delivery services; and postpaid and prepaid services under the Rogers, Fido, and chatr brands to approximately 10.9 million subscribers. It also provides Internet and WiFi services; smart home monitoring services, such as monitoring, security, automation, energy efficiency, and smart control through a smartphone app. In addition, the company offers local and network TV; on-demand television; cloud-based digital video recorders; voice-activated remote controls, and integrated apps; personal video recorders; linear and time-shifted programming; digital specialty channels; 4K television programming; and televised content on smartphones, tablets, and personal computers, as well as operates Ignite TV and Ignite TV app. Further, it provides residential and small business local telephony services; calling features, such as voicemail, call waiting, and long distance; voice, data networking, Internet protocol, and Ethernet services; private networking, Internet, IP voice, and cloud solutions; optical wave and multi-protocol label switching services; IT and network technologies; and cable access network services. The company also owns Toronto Blue Jays and the Rogers Centre event venue; and operates Sportsnet ONE, Sportsnet 360, Sportsnet World, Citytv, OMNI, FX (Canada), FXX (Canada), and OLN television networks, as well as 55 AM and FM radio stations. Rogers Communications Inc. was founded in 1960 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

Read MoreNational Bank of Canada provides various financial products and services to retail, commercial, corporate, and institutional clients in Canada and internationally. It operates through four segments: Personal and Commercial, Wealth Management, Financial Markets, and U.S. Specialty Finance and International. The Personal and Commercial segment offers personal banking services, including transaction solutions, mortgage loans and home equity lines of credit, consumer loans, payment solutions, savings and investment solutions; various insurance products; and commercial banking services, such as credit, and deposit and investment solutions, as well as international trade, foreign exchange transactions, payroll, cash management, insurance, electronic transactions, and complimentary services. The Wealth Management segment provides investment solutions, trust and estate services, banking services, lending services, guaranteed investment certificates, mutual funds, notes, structured products, and other wealth management solutions through internal and third-party distribution networks. The Financial Markets segment offers risk management products and services; and debt and equity underwriting; advisory services in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, and financing. The U.S. Specialty Finance and International segment provides specialty finance expertise; financial products and services to individuals and businesses in Cambodia; and the activities of targeted investments in certain emerging markets. The company also offers credit cards. It provides its services through a network of 483 branches and 1,573 banking machines. The company was founded in 1859 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

Read MoreAegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a marine fuel logistics company that markets and supplies refined marine fuel and lubricants to vessels in port, at sea, and on rivers worldwide. The company offers fueling services to ocean-going and a range of coastal vessels, including oil tankers, container ships, drybulk carriers, cruise ships, reefers, LNG/LPG carriers, car carriers, and ferries, as well as to marine fuel traders, brokers, and other end-users of marine fuel and lubricants. It also markets and distributes marine lubricants under the Alfa Marine Lubricants brand; and provides a range of shipping services, such as technical support and maintenance, insurance arrangement and handling, financial administration, and accounting services. As of December 31, 2016, the company owned and operated a fleet of 46 bunkering vessels, including 45 double hulls and 1 single hull special purpose vehicle; 15 double hull bunkering vessels with an aggregate carrying capacity of approximately 292,400 deadweight ton (dwt); operated 10 land-based storage facilities with an aggregate storage capacity of approximately 1,075,000 cubic meters; and operated 2 vessels as floating storage facility with a cargo carrying capacity of approximately 86,800 dwt. Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc. was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Athens, Greece.

Read MoreLos Angeles

The debut season of "Atlanta," the FX series created by polymath Donald Glover, will probably be remembered for its most ambitious, inexplicable gags: an athlete's invisible car; a mischievous child in whiteface; a black man playing Justin Bieber.

But the comedy, which was rapturously received by critics in 2016 and went on to win two Emmys and two Golden Globes, was also far from slapstick. It used its music-business trappings  a Princeton dropout tries to manage his drug-dealing cousin's budding rap career  to get at distinctly American ideas about ambition and identity. At once trippy and pointedly mundane, "Atlanta" played in the space where the indignities of being black and poor meet the indignities of striving to get rich.

Nearly a year and a half later, "Atlanta" returns to a different world. Donald Trump is president. The rap trio Migos, mascots for Season 1, are pop stars. And the show's cast members are no longer underdogs, breaking out with forthcoming roles like "Solo: A Star Wars Story," "The Lion King," "Deadpool 2," Sundance favorite "Sorry to Bother You" and the Kenneth Lonergan play "Lobby Hero."

Led by Glover, who stars in "Atlanta" as the rookie manager Earn, the new episodes maintain the show's knack for naturalistic storytelling. And they flesh out an ensemble that includes the rapper Alfred (or Paper Boi, played by Brian Tyree Henry), the blunted sidekick-philosopher Darius (Lakeith Stanfield) and the straightwoman Van (Zazie Beetz). Retitled "Atlanta Robbin' Season"  alluding to the time of year before the holidays when "everybody gotta eat" ("or be eaten")  the show builds on an idiosyncratic foundation without becoming too predictable in its unpredictability.

Leaning into its lived-in sense of place  most members of the all-black writer's room are Atlanta natives  the new season moves easily between Tarantino-esque (a scene-stealing Katt Williams and his domesticated alligator) and straightforward satire (a debasing visit to a Spotify-like tech company).

Before the show's late-February premiere, the cast, along with Glover's brother, Stephen, a lead writer on "Atlanta," convened to discuss the show. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Q: When did you start conceptualizing what Season 2 could be?

Stephen Glover: Not too long after the first season started airing, we had ideas that we wanted to do. But some of them were older ideas that we decided not to use once we nailed down a concept for Season 2.

Donald Glover: The show always feels like it's changing a lot while it's happening. Hiro always talks about how we want the show to be punk, so it has to be reactive. Punk doesn't age well because it is reactive  it's all emotion. A lot of things got thrown out because they felt almost too adult, too linear. We knew people were going to expect us to talk about Trump.

Q: Did you sit down and have that talk? The finale was early November 2016, right before the election.

Donald Glover: I think it started with us asking: "Do poor people even care? Are poor people even being affected by this?" It's not like oh, things were great for poor people under Obama, and now they're way bad. If you're poor, you're still at the bottom.

Stephen Glover: There's something funny about the idea that when you're poor it doesn't matter who's president. We talked about the possibility of doing a bit where you show the night Obama won and they're super happy, and then you show later and everything's exactly the same. Nothing ever changes.

Q: How did "Robbin' Season" become the overarching motif?

Stephen Glover: The concept of "Robbin' Season" just felt cool because we'd done a lot of summer stuff in the first season  it felt really hot. I started to remember what it's like to live there during the wintertime; the city just has a vibe that's very dark. People think it's a party city, but there's this side where there's a lot of crime and grittiness. I think that goes with the Trump vibe, too. People were just feeling a little less optimistic at the time. "Robbin' Season" encapsulated all of that.

Donald Glover: We wanted to show character development in people having their backs against the wall. We talked a lot about how people  specifically white people  would be like: "Man, I want to hang with Paper Boi. He seems like a cool guy!" In real life, you wouldn't hang with Paper Boi!

Brian Tyree Henry: They think he's accessible. But you should probably not get that comfortable.

Q: When we pick up, Paper Boi's career has progressed, but all the growth happens off-screen, and we just see melancholy parts of his rise: the lack of dependable income, bad fan encounters. As people who have been around the music business, is it important for you to puncture the fantasy of the quick come-up?

Donald Glover: It's not important to me. I hate preachy shows, especially black preachy shows.

Q: Since 2016, Atlanta rap has risen again in popular culture. The Migos cameo would play differently than it did back then. Do you think the show will be received differently now because people feel they know that world more?

Lakeith Stanfield: I don't care about expectations. Atlanta is constantly moving and changing. If expectations are a balloon, "Atlanta" is a knife.

Zazie Beetz: Deep. (Laughter)

Q: You've had a run of great cameos  Migos, Jaleel White, Katt Williams in the new season. How many people did you have to turn down this time around?

Stephen Glover: (Laughs) There were a lot of people who wanted to be in this season, of course. I remember Chris Rock told me, once people like him start asking to be on the show, don't let anybody do it.Albany

A sudden change in the way the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services hands out visas for summer employees is threatening to upend much of the backstretch workforce at the Saratoga Race Course this summer, as well as seasonal employment at other local businesses.

"I'm really nervous," said Maggie Sweet, the manager for Todd Pletcher, one of the top horse trainers at Saratoga.

For years, Pletcher's training facility has brought in about 50 hotwalkers and grooms, mostly from the Mexican state of Jalisco, to work with their horses.

Traditionally, the USCIS has used a first-come, first-serve system to apply for the H-2B visas for seasonal non-agricultural jobs.

But with demand for the visas exceeding supply, USCIS announced last week that it would run a lottery in which only a set number of employers will get the visas. The reason for the lottery is that a few years ago, Congress restricted the number of visas by no longer exempting returning workers from the 66,000 annual limit  33,000 in summer and 33,000 in winter.

"My clients have been calling me all day," said L.J. Darrigo, an immigration lawyer with Whiteman Osterman & Hanna, who represents numerous seasonal employers in the Capital Region, including horse trainers and landscape companies.

Darrigo has for many years filed for the visas just after midnight every Jan. 1. "That was New Year's Eve for me and other immigration attorneys," he said.

But with the new restrictions, many other applicants have done the same, causing USCIS to get flooded with applications.

For horsemen who employ scores of Mexican and Central American groomers and hotwalkers at the Saratoga Race Course, the prospect of not getting enough visas presents a serious problem.

If Sweet doesn't get the approximately 50 workers she needs, they may end up fielding fewer horses at the track. Multiply that by other short-handed trainers and the race program could shrink.

Like other seasonal employers, Sweet stressed that it's actually costlier to hire foreign workers because of the paperwork.

But trainers are unable to get native-born U.S. workers to do manual seasonal jobs required in the backstretch.

The same holds true for plant nursery owners.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

"As a small-business owner, it's costly but it's also become necessary," said Anita Daly, who runs Clifton Park's Blue Spruce Nursery landscaping service.

A combination of state labor laws that restrict what teenagers can do and the hours they can work  along with, Daly notes, the fact that many simply do not show up on a consistent basis  means that each summer Blue Spruce brings in about a dozen visa holders from Mexico and Guatemala.

Other businesses, Darrigo said, include masonry firms, as well as resorts and hotels in places like Lake George that bring in Eastern European teens as housekeepers.

He noted that employers were blindsided by the sudden announcement of the lottery.

Many should know this week whether or not they will have their needed visas. "We're going to find out when they send out emails that we've either won the lottery or lost," Daly said.

"We'll either have 50 workers or we'll have zero," said Sweet. "If we don't get them, that's a huge chunk of our workforce that can't be replaced."Veteran actress Eva Marie Saint, 93, presented the Oscar for costume design in Sunday's Academy Awards.

Saint, a Bethlehem High graduate, has been on the stage before  she won an Oscar for best supporting actress in "On the Waterfront" in 1954. It was her first film. Five years later she would star opposite Cary Grant in "North by Northwest."

During Sunday's presentation, she came to a realization: "I'm older than the Academy." The line drew a lot of applause.

She also saluted her late husband, Jeffrey Hayden, to whom she was married for 65 years. Hayden died on Christmas Eve in 2016 at age 90.

The award she was presenting went to "Phantom Thread."ALBANY - Another 100 members of the New York National Guard were deployed to Dutchess, Putnam, Sullivan and Westchester counties on Sunday to help in recovery efforts after Friday's winter storm left 360,000 New Yorkers without power.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo also declared a state of emergency in the four counties. This follows Saturday's initial deployment of 100 National Guard members to assist state, county and local officials with clearance of debris from roads.David Ogden Stiers, the tall, balding, baritone-voiced actor who brought articulate, somewhat snobbish comic dignity to six seasons of the acclaimed television series "M.A.S.H," died Saturday at his home in Newport, Oregon, a small coastal city southwest of Salem. He was 75.

His death was announced on Twitter by his agent, Mitchell K. Stubbs, who said the cause was bladder cancer.

Stiers joined the cast of "M.A.S.H" in 1977, when Larry Linville, who had played the pompous and inept Maj. Frank Burns, left the show. The series, a comedy-drama set in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, required a foil for its raucous, irreverent, martini-guzzling leads, Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) and B.J. Hunnicutt (Mike Farrell), and Stiers' imperious Maj. Charles Emerson Winchester III seemed to fit the bill.

Winchester's upper-class Boston priggishness, however, turned out to be balanced by impressive medical skills, a heartfelt appreciation of the arts, real wit and a surprising level of compassionate humanity. Winchester was, unlike Frank Burns, a worthy adversary.

The role earned Stiers two Emmy nominations (in 1981 and 1982). He was nominated a third time, in 1984, for his lead role in "The First Olympics: Athens in 1896," a dramatic miniseries.

Loretta Swit, who played Maj. Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on "M.A.S.H," called Stiers "my sweet, dear shy friend," adding, "Working with him was an adventure."

David Allen Ogden Stiers was born Oct. 31, 1942, in Peoria, Illinois, the son of Kenneth Stiers and the former Margaret Elizabeth Ogden. The family later moved to Eugene, Oregon, where David graduated from high school.

After briefly attending the University of Oregon, he headed to California to pursue an acting career and worked with the Santa Clara Shakespeare Festival in California for seven years. In the late 1960s, he moved to New York to study drama at Juilliard.

He had made his film debut with a small role in Jack Nicholson's counterculture classic "Drive, He Said" (1971). That year, his voice was heard as the announcer in George Lucas' debut feature film, the dystopian sci-fi drama "THX 1138."

Voice roles went on to become an important part of Stiers' career. He was in the cast of about two dozen Disney animated films, including "Lilo & Stitch" (2002), as the villain Jumba Jookiba, and "Beauty and the Beast" (1991), in which he was the voice of Cogsworth, a strong-willed pendulum clock. That character, often described as "tightly wound" and "ticked off," suggests to the Beast at one point that he woo his love with "flowers, chocolates, promises you don't intend to keep."

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

Other movie work included roles in "Oh, God!" (1977), "The Man With One Red Shoe" (1985), "The Accidental Tourist" (1988) and four Woody Allen films (he was a peculiar hypnotist in "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion"). His last screen appearance was in "The Joneses Unplugged," a 2017 television movie about technology overload.

Like his "M.A.S.H" character, Stiers was a devoted fan of classical music. He conducted frequently and was the resident conductor of the Newport Symphony Orchestra (formerly the Yaquina Chamber Orchestra) in Oregon.

He never married. Some reports have suggested that he is survived by a son from an early relationship.

In early 2009, at 66, Stiers announced that he was gay and "very proud to be so" in a blog interview that was reported by ABC News. His secrecy, he said, had been strictly about the fear that openness about his sexuality might affect his livelihood. Now he regretted that.

"I wish to spend my life's twilight," he said, "being just who I am."A father and son from Greene County were indicted on multiple felony charges following an eight-month investigation into the sale of heroin in the area, State Police said Monday.

Andrew P. Robinson Jr, 25, of Catskill, was indicted on four counts of felony criminal possession of a controlled substance and four counts of felony criminal sale of a controlled substance on Feb. 23, police said.Albany

In New York state government and political news, Republicans say they're confident they'll hold on to control of the state Senate after two special Senate elections next month and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo says that while he favors new restrictions on firearms, they need to come at the federal level.

A look at stories making news:

GOP bullish on Senate

Democrats are feeling good about their chances of taking over the state Senate by winning two upcoming state Senate seats next month  a familiar feeling to the Republicans who now control the 63-seat chamber. Several times in recent years, Democrats thought they had a good shot at taking control only to see the GOP pull out election wins or retain power by exploiting Democratic disunity.

Two special Senate elections will be held April 24. A race in the Bronx looks like a lock for Democrats. The party has a 20-1 registration advantage over the GOP in the district, and Democrat Luis Sepulveda, a state assemblyman, doesn't yet have a Republican opponent. The second race, pitting Republican Julie Killian against Democratic Assemblywoman Shelley Mayer in Westchester, is expected to be much more competitive, though Democrats are betting that President Donald Trump's unpopularity will help.

If Democrats win both seats they'll have the majority, though they'll also have to resolve the schism between the mainline Democrats and the eight-member Independent Democratic Conference that broke with mainline Democrats years ago to empower the Senate's GOP leaders. The two sides have agreed to reunify, however, if the Democrats win both seats.

You'd think Republican leaders night be sweating, but Sen. Catharine Young, R-Olean, said she is "very confident" the GOP will retain its majority. She said voters like having Republicans in charge of the Senate as a bulwark against Democrats in the Assembly, who Republicans often accuse of focusing too much on New York City.

Cuomo on guns

Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo favors stronger gun control, but says it must be done at the federal level.

Cuomo pushed through the state's SAFE Act five years ago following the Sandy Hook school shooting. There's no new effort in Albany to pass further restrictions following last month's school shooting in Parkland, Fla. Democrats last week tried to force a vote on four gun control bills in the state Senate, only to be blocked by Republicans.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

On Friday, Cuomo stopped short of endorsing the maneuver and said that it should be up to Congress to pass any meaningful restrictions.

"I support more protection for New York on the gun laws  there's no doubt about that," he said on WNYC's Brian Lehrer show. He then added: "We already have the best gun laws in the country. A state, by definition, cannot handle this issue because the guns come in over the border."

Cuomo has blasted federal inaction on guns, and said recent calls to restrict access to those under 21 are "incremental at best."

Coming up

Republican Sen. Marty Golden celebrates Lunar New Year Sunday in Brooklyn; the Legislative Commission on Rural Resources meets Tuesday in Albany; and the Senate and Assembly are in session Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. It's the first three-day work week of the year, and a sign that work on the state budget is ramping up ahead of the April 1 deadline.ALBANY  Outdoor conservation groups face an uphill fight in convincing state lawmakers that hunting curriculums should be offered in high schools.

Following Februarys fatal mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., the groups are also acutely aware of the need to explain to lawmakers, especially those from downstate and other urban areas, that traditional hunting rifles are a far cry from assault weapons.

Some of us realize that but some of us dont, said Bill Gibson, legislative vice president for the NYS Conservation Council, which promotes hunting and fishing as well as conservation across the state.

Tuesday is a lobbying day for hunting and fishing enthusiasts who will be visiting lawmakers office with a list of their priorities.

One of the items on that list is legislation that would facilitate the ability of schools to include units on hunting and fishing as part of their physical education programs.

Sponsored by two upstate Republicans, Sen. John Bonacic of Middletown and Assemblyman William Barclay of Pulaski, the measure would instruct the state Board of Regents, who set education policy, to work with the state Department of Environmental Conservation and develop a curriculum guide for hunting and fishing that could be used in high school classes.

It doesnt specifically state that firearms would be used however. Items such as the history of hunting and fishing, rules for taking game and how to get a license would be covered.

Gibson conceded that the measure has come up for several years and while it has passed in the Republican-controlled Senate it hasnt gained traction in the Assembly, where Democrats, many from New York City, control the majority.

Anti-gun and animal rights groups oppose the idea, and these days, they point to tragedies like Parkland and other school shootings as additional reasons to keep hunting activities out of the curriculum.

Its absurd to include hunting in a physical education course, said Samantha Suiter, a spokesman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA. The group opposes both hunting and use of animals for food.

Still, there are a number of proposals aimed at educating youngsters on hunting.

The state Senate in January passed a bill that would lower to 12 from 14 the age at which youngsters can hunt deer with a rifle. But that proposal has stalled in the Assembly.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

Tom Williams, who serves on the state's Conservation Fund Advisory Board, which oversees wildlife conservation dollars generated by hunting license sales, says New York is the sole state with the 14-year-old age limit.

Like Gibson, he said many downstate lawmakers aren't aware of the long tradition of hunting among many upstate residents. "The traditions of hunting and fishing are embedded and ingrained in a lot of people," he said.

The lack of an official curriculum guide doesnt mean that schools cant offer programs on hunting.

Cuba-Rushford Central School District in Alleghany County, for instance, has a fisheries and wildlife class where students learn about fish and game. They operate their own fish pond and practice marksmanship with a laser shooting range.

We think anything that works with the kids would be helpful, Gibson said.

rkarlin@timesunion.com 518 454 5758 @RickKarlinTUALBANY  Jon Romano was 16 years old when he brought a pump-action shotgun to Columbia High School in East Greenbush.

Just days after that 2004 incident was the subject of a recent Times Union column, Romano made an urgent plea for changes that would reduce gun violence in a letter from prison.

Romano wrote to Times Union Executive Editor Rex Smith in response to Chris Churchills Feb. 21 column, which featured an interview with retired Columbia principal John Sawchuk, who tackled Romano and disarmed him before anyone at the school was killed.

John Sawchuk is a hero who I owe my life to, Romano said in a neatly handwritten letter from Coxsackie Correctional Facility. I know whenever another horrible shooting happens, he and all of my victims are hurt all over again from what I did to them. I want to take away their pain but knowing that I cannot, I want to prevent others from experiencing this pain.

The letter also praised the students at Parkland, Fla., who have become gun control activists in the wake of the Feb. 14 mass shooting that killed 14 students and three faculty members.

"I believe the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland are courageous and inspiring for demanding action from politicians," Romano wrote. "Everyone nationwide should accept nothing less than meaningful, life-saving policy changes from their politicians."

Columbia went into lockdown around 10:30 a.m. on Feb. 9, 2004, after Romano began firing shots. The school's 1,400 students huddled on classroom floors, some making cellphone calls to their parents. Romano shot a teacher in the leg as he was being subdued by Sawchuk, but no one else was seriously hurt.

Churchill's column posed the question of what might have happened if Romano had been armed with a weapon like an AR-15 assault-style rifle, which was used by Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz, 19.

"I think a lot of people would have been dead," Sawchuk said.

Romano, who was convicted of attempted murder and reckless endangerment, will be eligible for parole in March 2021. In his letter, he says he intends "to advocate for gun safety and mental health reform" after his release.

While Romano's letter is not specific about policy changes, the Parkland massacre has revived debate about whether weapons such as the AR-15 should be banned. The same weapon was used during the December 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where 27 were killed, mostly children.

Parkland's student activists are calling on politicians to reject donations from the National Rifle Association. They proposed raising the age requirement to 21 for buying guns and a ban on sales to convicted domestic violence abusers. And they are asking Congress to pass legislation making background checks more efficient.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

Here is the full text of Romanos letter:

Feb. 24, 2018

Dear Mr. Rex Smith, Vice President and Editor,

I wanted to respond to the column written by Mr. Chris Churchill on Feb. 21st. First, John Sawchuk is a hero who I owe my life to. I know that every time another horrible shooting happens, he and all of my victims are hurt all over again by what I did to them. I want to take away their pain, but knowing I cannot, I want to prevent others from experiencing this pain. I have taken the steps toward this that I can do from prison, and I intend to advocate for gun safety and mental health reform after my release in 2021.

Also, I believe the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL are courageous and inspiring for speaking out and demanding action from politicians. Everyone nationwide should follow and accept nothing less than meaningful, life-saving policy changes from their representatives. Only then could this generation be the last generation that lives in a nation plagued by gun violence.

Jon Romano

Coxsackie Correctional Facility

Coxsackie, NYAlbany

A fast food job may be a rite of passage for teenagers, a first dip into the workplace.

It can also be fraught with danger; 79 percent of fast food non-managers suffered serious burns on the job. And a third of the wounded said their bosses recommended futile remedies such as smearing the burns with mustard or mayo, according to a recent survey by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health.

Those workers might have benefited from some training at NENYCOSH (North East NY Coalition for Occupational Safety & Health), the nonprofit's executive director Matt London observed.

"We have a pool of experts we can dip into so we can tailor the courses to fit the specific hazards of most occupations," London said. "We have people who know what toxic chemicals manicurists need to protection from in a nail salon. "We have experts in the construction industry and farming."

Albany-based NENYCOSH also advises teenagers and immigrants what their workplace safety rights are under New York law. The advice is free. NENYCOSH education and training coordinator Rossana Coto-Batres says grants can usually be found to fund worker training if an employer can't afford to pay for it.

Founded in 2014 by area health professionals, NENYCOSH offers safety training for a wide array of workers from college-educated, full-time staff nurses nurses to temps, teenage part-timers and day laborers. Normally, the organization doesn't approach individual employers directly to discuss safety training. Most classes are arranged through a third party like a city or state agency, labor union, nonprofit or charitable organization. Teenagers in Albany's summer jobs program get NENYCOSH training.

Each year, NENYCOSH helps plan a memorial service for New Yorkers who died on their jobs. London and Coto-Batres feel the heart-breaking ghost of Justus Booze haunting this year's memorial preparations.

According to all his neighbors and colleagues, Booze was a hard-working family man who deserved a long happy life rather than a horrible death at age 23. Booze grew up in the foster care system and had no money for college. But he took every honest job he could, from apple picking to landscaping, to help support his fiancee. He enthusiastically embraced the role of father to her small children who adored him.

On May 4, 2016. Booze accepted a job with a tree trimmer who offered him $65 for a day's work in Guilderland. Booze was dragged into the blades of a woodchipper and killed. A U.S. Labor Department Occupational Safety and Health Administration investigation concluded last year that Booze was given no safety goggles or helmet and no crucial training on the equipment. OSHA fined Booze's employer that day, Countryside Tree Care, $141,000. But the Countryside owner is already thousands of dollars in debt and appealing the fines.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

Countryside owner Tony Watson did not have workmen's compensation when Booze was killed. Booze's family got no financial settlement. Watson is appealing the OSHA fines. Even if Watson pays the fines one day, the law does not require that any of the money be given to Booze's fiancee or the children he loved.

Although a statewide landscapers' association offers safety training and certification, there is no legal requirement forcing businesses to participate.

Coto-Batres wants all workersincluding temps, freelancers, day laborers and the undocumentedto know they can call NENYCOSH for help.

"There are things we can do for workers as an advocate," she said. "Some workers don't know they have rights. We can help them understand what is illegal. Anyone can call or email us. Even if a worker gets fired because he refuses to do some illegally dangerous task, we may be able to help. State law offers a mechanism to appeal a firing if unsafe work conditions were at the root of the dismissal."

For example, London notes that New York forbids teenagers under age 18 to use their cars for work. If a 17-year-old works in a pizza parlor were the delivery driver, the restaurant owner can't simply order the teen to hop in a car and deliver pies.

"It's hard for a worker to have the confidence tell a manager politely but firmly that what he is asking you to do is against the law," Coto-Batres conceded then adds that training sessions include role playing so students can practice saying exactly that.SARATOGA SPRINGS  The city is considering a ban on the sale of guns and ammunition at the City Center, Mayor Meg Kelly announced Saturday in a welcoming speech to Local Progress New York.

Kelly's speech at the Saratoga Hilton comes just two weeks after the Feb. 14 mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., in which a gunman killed 14 students and three faculty members with an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle. The event has sparked a student-led campaign to call on elected officials around the country to legislate tough gun laws.

On Monday, neither Kelly nor City Center Executive Director Ryan McMahon could give any details on the plan, except that it would require a lease amendment for the city-owned building.

"I don't know enough about it yet to comment," McMahon said.

City Supervisor Tara Gaston supports the proposal. "There are a number of concerns," she said. "In part, it's the environment gun shows encourage. I think it's an appropriate idea to limit guns and ammunition as much as possible on city-owned property."

Dave Petronis, who has organized gun shows at the facility, said he has heard talk of the amendment. But he has already signed two contracts for shows on Memorial Day weekend and one in January 2019.

"I didn't think I would have any difficulty scheduling shows at the City Center," said Petronis, president of New Eastcoast Arms Collectors Association. "The new mayor told me she wasn't anti-gun. She seems reasonable. I don't want to see (the shows) banned because it's part of our way of life. If you are an American, you own a gun."

Petronis acknowledged the most recent school shooting could be behind the new push to eliminate the shows.

"Those 14- and 15-year-olds are the most intelligent people on earth," Petronis said sarcastically. "They know what we should be doing. They can voice their opinion, but when all the liberal Democrats join them, there are future problems for me."

Since 1984, Petronis had hosted two shows a year at the City Center. After the December 2012 Newtown, Conn., school shooting that killed 26  mostly 6- and 7-year-olds  there was a similar call from Saratogians for Gun Safty for Petronis to take his show elsewhere. He held on, hosting one show a year until 2016, when he was told that no future dates were available.

That's when state Sen. Kathy Marchione got involved, pressuring the City Center and its board to allow the show to continue. The Halfmoon Republican was successful and the show returned in May of 2017 and then again in January of this year.

On Monday, Marchione said the push to ban Petronis' show "would deny individuals their Second Amendment right to legally purchase a firearm."

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

"Firearms are already legally available for purchase at gun stores and sporting good stores, and gun shows should be no different as they are one of the safest, most regulated avenues," Marchione said. "The men and women who attend the Saratoga Springs gun show and purchase firearms are patriotic, law-abiding citizens who deserve to have their constitutional rights protected."

Petronis has said he needs the City Center because it's his largest exhibition space in the region. He also wants to expand the May show into another room in the City Center to display military firearms. Last year, he wanted to display Adolf Hitler's desk and other Nazi artifacts at the City Center, along with Confederate memorabilia.

"It's part of our history," Petronis said. "You can't ban history."

McMahon nixed the items from being exhibited, saying "we need to be sensitive to the needs of the community."

Petronis said business was brisk at his most recent show in Rutland, Vt., which was held after the Florida killings. "We were very, very active," Petronis said. "It's a small show with about 75 vendors but we had over a thousand people."

Susan Steers, a founding member of Saratogians for Gun Safety, said her organization will get behind any move to ban the sale of guns on city property.

"We are supportive of every effort to get rid of the gun shows in Saratoga," Steers said.Hundreds of thousands of people remained without electricity Sunday, after a fierce storm swept through much of the eastern United States on Friday. Some utility companies told customers that power may not be restored until later this week, around the time another storm could strike the region.

At least eight people died after heavy snow, winds and rain tore through the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic on Friday. Trains were halted, planes delayed and roads closed. At its peak, more than 2 million people were affected by power losses, from South Carolina to Michigan to Maine, the U.S. Department of Energy reported.

The potential exists for another nor'easter to move in, probably Wednesday into Thursday, Marc Chenard, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service's prediction center, said in a phone interview Sunday.

He said this storm could be less powerful, and was unlikely to match the strong winds that toppled so many trees Friday. "The snow may end up being the bigger thing to watch with this next system," he added.

Among those without power by midafternoon Sunday were more than 67,000 in Maryland, 89,000 in New Jersey, and 157,000 in Massachusetts.

In New York, state officials said 182,000 people remained without power as of Sunday afternoon, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo declared a state of emergency in Dutchess, Putnam, Sullivan and Westchester counties in the Hudson Valley.

"This is an all-hands-on-deck situation and the people of the Hudson Valley should know that New York state is doing everything we can to restore power and help them recover as quickly as possible," he said in the statement.

Con Edison, which serves New York City and Westchester County, said in a statement Sunday morning that the pace of power restoration was picking up.

Crews restored power to about half of the 124,000 customers affected Friday by the storm, which "packed the biggest wallop since Superstorm Sandy," the utility said, referring to the storm that pummeled New York City and the East Coast in 2012.

When her neighborhood in Stafford, Virginia, went dark on Friday, Trisha Christian made the most of it. She and her boyfriend cooked some of their frozen and refrigerated food  spinach, beef, risotto and shrimp  before it could spoil.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

"It was a nice evening. You light the fire, every single candle that you own," Christian, 53, said in a phone interview Sunday. "Definitely put the layers on."

Things got trickier Saturday when they began rationing  and then boiling  water. Christian said she thought power might be restored Monday, but was unsure because she could not access internet data on her phone  that service was down, too.

Power restoration schedules varied by utility company and the extent of damage. Some areas were expected to be restored by Monday, while others may have to wait until as late as Saturday.

Richard Rodriguez, 53, of Stillwater, New Jersey, lost electricity Friday.

"You go outside and you hear this symphony of generators," he said in a phone interview Sunday. Rodriguez has one, too, but the line to buy gas was long. He, his wife and his children were doing their best to conserve energy: no microwave, no dishwasher and no washing machine.On the evidence of an October 2017 vote  concerning legislation that would have restricted abortions after 20 weeks' gestation  there are three pro-life Democrats in the House. On the evidence of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's decision not to endorse one of those representatives  Dan Lipinski of Illinois  many Democrats wish the count was zero.

This is not, of course, the official Democratic position. When Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez declared last April that support for abortion rights was a litmus test for Democrats, some elected members of the party pushed back, forcing the head of the DCCC to say, "there is not a litmus test for Democratic candidates."

But this is done with a theatrical wink and nod. According to a January count by Vice News, there isn't a single, serious pro-life Democrat running in the 91 House districts that Democrats hope to flip to their column this year. The 2016 Democratic platform called for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which prevents federal funds from paying for most abortions. And there are only three Democratic senators  Indiana's Joe Donnelly, West Virginia's Joe Manchin and Pennsylvania's Bob Casey  who have less than a 100 percent lifetime score from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

Does this pro-choice orthodoxy hurt Democrats politically? In some places, surely. It is a safe bet that a pro-life Democrat running in the recent Alabama Senate election would have beaten the epically tainted Roy Moore by a healthier margin.

But Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report points out two complicating factors:

First, the heterodoxies of local candidates seem to matter less and less in the way Americans make political choices. Increasingly, Walter says, "all politics is national." Voters believe that support for any Democrat  even a more conservative Democrat  is actually support for the Nancy Pelosi-Chuck Schumer team. "Somewhere along the way," argues Walter, "the idea that each district is different went by the wayside." She calls this the "Starbucksization" of American politics. Voters are choosing a national brand instead of a local variant.

Lipinski's primary challenger, activist Marie Newman, is particularly explicit on this point. "No matter how you feel personally [on abortion]," she says, "you have to vote to support the Democratic Party values." Think on that a moment. Newman is contending that Democrats, whatever their deepest moral beliefs on a matter of life and death, have an obligation to toe the party line. It is the complete triumph of political tribalism.

Second, Walter points out that the political battlegrounds in American politics have shifted. The Democratic targets of opportunity in the 2018 midterms are generally not, for example, in the rural House districts of Georgia; they are in the upscale suburbs of Atlanta. As they are in Charlotte, Richmond, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Orange County. "The action is among suburban Republicans," says Walter, which makes outreach to social conservatives less urgent than it might otherwise be.

The Democrats' solidification as a pro-choice party is, in the end, a function of the ideological polarization of both parties. At one point, the GOP and the Democratic Party both had liberal and conservative wings. Now they generally flap wildly with one. The geographic sorting of the parties also figures heavily. President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore, who learned to win elections in relatively conservative border states, wanted abortion to be "safe, legal and rare." With the effective collapse of the Democratic Party in such places, fewer rising Democratic officials gain office through moderation on cultural issues.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

The end of two-wing parties encourages a certain attitude toward politics, which Walter summarizes as: "We shouldn't have to sacrifice anything to win." In this ideologically unforgiving environment, it is difficult to imagine, say, abortion-reduction measures  conceding the likely continued legality of the procedure while encouraging (and funding) practical help for women who wish to keep a child  gaining much legislative traction.

This trend also narrows the ideological range of American politics. The absence of a pro-life option in the Democratic Party leaves some compassionate and reform conservatives utterly homeless as they wait on the recovery of GOP sanity. And it leaves no place for many Catholics wishing to be consistently faithful to their church's social teaching  pro-life and pro-poor, against euthanasia and against the dehumanization of migrants. It is not a small thing that neither party cares to accommodate the social agenda of Pope John Paul II and Pope Francis.

Meanwhile, the partisans count another achievement: Making American politics more generic and bitter. Enjoy your political Starbucks.

Michael Gerson's email address is michaelgerson@washpost.com.Before she was Chris Jansing of MSNBC, Chris Kapostasy was a longtime Capital Region news anchor who shared that duty at NewsChannel 13 with Ed Dague.

Local television news anchors come and go, moving to new stations and new markets. Sometimes, they don't go anywhere, but branding campaigns and new ownership give the stations new names.As the county was blanketed in snow Red Cross units across the county worked with health service personnel using Red Cross 4x4 ambulances to aid isolated communities in very challenging circumstances in the snow.

The Irish Red Cross has a fleet of 14 vehicles in County Tipperary and three of these are 4 wheel drive ambulances based in Cashel, Tipperary Town and Roscrea respectively. With road conditions, especially on tertiary roads, being impassible for many cars and standard road ambulances, these 4 wheel drive ambulances responded to over 11 calls across the county in the days past.

Among the calls carried out by the Red Cross included the Nenagh Red Cross Unit transporting a patient by ambulance at the request of the State services from Borrisokane to University Hospital Limerick after a local digger cleared a route to the patient's house. Other Red Cross calls including taking by 4x4 ambulance a palliative care nurse to an essential call in the Ardfinnan area, taking a theatre nurse to Nenagh General Hospital, transporting a public health nurse on upland calls in the Thurles district, and transporting a public health nurse in the Ballingarry / The Commons district and offering 4x4 transport to a specialist Carer in the Dundrum area. In addition the Clonmel Branch assisted with welfare calls and household contacts and Nenagh Branch transported people to a scheduled trad session in Nenagh.Due to hydrocarbon contamination of the source supplying the Fethard Public Water Supply, Irish Water and Tipperary County Council, in consultation with the HSE, have issued a Do Not Drink notice for customers supplied by this scheme.

This water should not be used for

drinking,

drinks made with water,

food preparation, washing or cooking of food,

brushing of teeth, or

making of ice.

In particular, pregnant women should not drink this water.

This water should not be used for making up infant formula for bottled fed infants. An alternative source of water should be used. Bottled water can also be used to make up infant formula. All bottled water, with the exception of natural mineral water, is regulated to the same standard as drinking water. It is best not to use bottled water labelled as Natural Mineral Water as it can have high levels of sodium (salt) and other minerals, although it rarely does. Natural Mineral Water can be used if no other water is available, for as short a time as possible, as it is important to keep babies hydrated. If bottled water is used to make up infant formula it should be boiled once (rolling boil for 1 minute), and cooled in the normal way.

The water can be used for personal hygiene, bathing, flushing toilets, laundry and washing of utensils, however, if you are experiencing skin irritation you may wish to avoid using water for showering or bathing or washing clothes.

Domestic water filters will not render water safe to drink.

Caution should be taken when bathing children to ensure that they do not swallow the bathing water.

Discard ice cubes in fridges and freezers and filtered water in fridges.

Please note that boiling the water will not be sufficient to make it suitable to drink.

Areas affected include Fethard, Killenaule, Gortnahoe, Ballysloe, Ballynonty, Moyglass, Mullinahone, Drangan, Glengoole, Cloneen, Ballinure, Killusty and surrounding areas.

Water tankers will be provided to assist customers in these areas. Details of the locations of these tankers will be available on the Service and Supply Section of the Irish Water website at www.water.ie/water-supply/ supply-and-service-update/

Irish Water is working with Tipperary County Council, the HSE and other relevant bodies to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. Our priority at this time is to safeguard public drinking water supplies and public health.Production at the plant has ceased until the issue has been resolved and it may be a number of days before a full supply is restored. We will continue to keep the public informed on the progress of this work.

Irish Water and Tipperary County Council apologise for the inconvenience caused as a result of this incident and wish to assure customers that we are making every effort to restore supply as quickly as possible once it is safe to do so.

Should customers have any concerns or queries, they should contact Irish Waters 24/7 customer care line at 1850 278 278.Fresh from the UK, Australian and US tours of his award-winning show, 'Selfie', Pat Shortt returns with a brand new show, Hows Tings to the Rackett Hall Hotel, Roscrea on Friday, March 16th. In his inimitable high energy anarchic style of performance Pat brings his unique comic look at every day Irish characters and turns the normal to abnormal. In Hows Tings, Pat introduces us to a variety of new characters. Such as Eugene, the chairman of the local drama committee and every other committee in the parish who shares with us his mundane insight into parish politics and Sr Eucharia with her hilarious look at religious life in small town Ireland.

Pat Shortt is a multi-award winning actor both in Ireland and abroad for his film , TV and stage roles. He has in the past few years won critical praise for his stage appearances in the West End in London and on Broadway in New York for his portrayal of Johneen Pateen Mike in Michael Grandage's production of  The Cripple Of Inishmaan.

Following that Pat toured to packed theatres in Australia and North America and won awards for his one-man show Selfie. Back home he recently won critical acclaim for his role in the TV Drama Small Town and will shortly be seen in cinemas playing the lead role of Harry Hambridge in the hilarious comedy caper movie The Flag.

Pat Shortt started as one half of the comedy duo DUnbelievables , and has been a solo comedy performer since 2002. How's Tings places Pat in his preferred role. That is in front of a live audience. Dont miss this latest dose of madness from Irelands most popular comedian.The prolonged, often anti-consumer war between Amazon and Google has a new chapter.

A report from Business Insider states that late last year, the retail giant reached out to Google smart home subsidiary Nest to let it know that Amazon wouldn't sell any of its newest products, including Nest Cam IQ and a new smart thermostat.

(Image credit: Jeremy Lips/Tom's Guide)

The report says that Amazon representatives told Nest that the decision "came from the top," which implies this goes all the way up to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, though no report has concluded that with any certainty. BI writes that it had nothing to do with Nest's user ratings or popularity, which were stellar. In response, Nest opted to cease selling its older wares through Amazon, which should disappear once stock runs out (as of this writing, several Nest products are still listed, though several of them have warnings of low stock).



"Its definitely not pro-consumer, but companies favoring their own ecosystems or distribution channels rarely have the consumers best interests in mind," said Avi Greengart, research director for consumer devices at GlobalData. "It is, however, understandable from a strategic perspective. Amazon and Google are both trying to build a solution set around AI and the digital home, and the more a consumer is locked into one ecosystem, the less likely they are to be as deeply engaged with the other." He pointed out that Barnes & Noble, for instance, doesn't sell Amazon's Kindles, and Apple is also very selective of which third-party brands it puts on shelves in its own stores.

This is just the latest development in a battle between two tech titans that leaves consumers left in the crossfire. You can't buy a number of Google products on Amazon, including Google Home, which competes with Amazon's own Echo products, and the Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones. And while the online store said it would start healing the rift late last year by stocking Google's Chromecast, it's still not available (that competes with Amazon's Fire TV).



Google has its own issues here. It pulled YouTube from Amazon's Echo Show and Echo Spot citing issues with how the company utilized the app on those devices, leaving users without the most popular video service on the web.

Just last week, Amazon announced it is buying Ring, a company that makes an extremely successful video doorbell, for roughly $1 billion. That's likely a place where Amazon will compete with Google's Nest. Nest spent a few years spun out from Google under its parent company Alphabet, but was recently brought back into the Google fold.



In the meantime, users will have to carefully select where they buy their products and what services they support, because either could change at any moment as massive tech companies and e-tailers pull the strings.Automakers rely heavily on global trade. Cars built here in the U.S. are exported into other markets while cars built in other parts of the world are sent here. In a perfect world, things would balance out but our world isnt so perfect is it? Never has that been more evident than now with Donald Trump preaching a potential tariff war, all of which started with the suggestion of taxing imported steel and aluminum. Now, according to a recent tweet, he has his mind set on taxing European vehicle imports as a way to retaliate against any further increase in Tariffs toward U.S. companies in Europe.

Donald Trumps Tariff War

If Donald Trump does increase the tax on European cars, you can expect to see some significant price increases on some of your favorite luxury vehicles.

This isnt a joke, folks, and, if Donald Trump does increase the tax on European cars, you can expect to see some significant price increases on some of your favorite luxury vehicles. And, you dont have to take it from me. Arndt Ellinghorst, the head of global automotive research grim, Evercore ISI, told CNBC that the Germans, in particular, are very, very exposed.

Were talking about German brands like BMW, Audi, Porsche. Bmw, for example, sells more than a quarter-million cars in the U.S each year, some 70 percent of which are imported. According to Ellinghorst, an increase of 5 to 10-percent in tax on each model could cost the automaker as much as $800 billion  Some of that cost, naturally, would have to be passed onto the customer.

U.S.  Europe Tariff Balance

Trump may simply be talking about balancing out the system, but its clearly too soon to say.

Its not all cut and dry, either, and Trump may be onto something. See, cars that are built here in the states and shipped over to Europe have a 10-percent tax right off the top. Meanwhile, cars coming the other way see just a 2.5-percent tax. These are taxes that automakers have to pay for each vehicle that comes in. Clearly, the balance is way off, with U.S. automakers having to pay considerably more than their European counterparts. With any luck, and as Ellinghorst pointed out, Trump may simply be talking about balancing out the system, but its clearly too soon to say.

Trumps View on Germany and the Facts

German automakers have invested in more than 250 plants and employ more than 100,000 American workers

This drama goes further back than the past couple of weeks, though. At one point in 2017, Trump said referred to Germany as bad, very bad over its importation of cars sold in the U.S. Of course, he wasnt enlightened, or just didnt care, that German automakers have invested in more than 250 plants and employ more than 100,000 American workers, all of which contribute to building more than 850,000 German-branded vehicles right here at home  a figure that has more than tripled since 2010.

Should We Worry About Trumps European Tariff?

Its other brands, however, that will be hit harder and will likely see even bigger increases.

Yes! Trumps Tariff War wont just affect Brands like BMW or Volkswagen  both have one plant here that do manufacturer some cars for the U.S. market. Of course, if BMW and Volkswagen are taxed on that extra cost will be spread across the whole lineup, ultimately causing an increase across the board. Its other brands, however, that will be hit harder and will likely see even bigger increases. Im talking about brands like Land Rover, Audi, Jaguar, Porsche, and Fiat  none of which produce any vehicles here in the U.S. Even Volvo will be hit hard, with just six percent of its vehicles being built in the U.S. (figure accurate as of 2016)

So, if Trump ends up having his way, you could see the price of every imported luxury vehicle out there going up, and it could be as much as five or ten percent  now thats a serious price increase for a number of vehicles that already sit outside the range of affordable for a large chunk of the population.

Trumps Tariff War Affects the Whole World

Next, the EU will tax American car imports even more; then more American brands will be taxed

Sure, some EU automakers will absorb some cost of increased import taxes, but they post massive profits each quarter  its not going to hit them where it really hurts. Those that will be hurt are the consumers. And, not just U.S. consumers either. See, well undoubtedly have to pony up for the increased import taxes on cars, but Trumps little war will have a serious global effect, and it will begin to hurt European consumers as well. As soon as Trump mentioned a 25-percent tariff on steel imports, EU Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, suggested increasing tariffs on American imports to the EU, including brands like Harley Davidson, Kentucky Bourbon, and Levis jeans.

It wont stop there, folks. Next, the EU will tax American car imports even more; then more American brands will be taxed. Eventually, prices for those of us at the mercy of being consumers will find its too expensive to purchase anything that wasnt built right here at home. Those living in Europe will be forced to purchase products made in Europe or imported from places other than the U.S. because its just too expensive. Brands will begin to lessen their presence in both markets and eventually, the process of trade will completely break down.

In the short term, you can expect to see vehicle costs rise for anything not built in the U.S. And, it may even happen sooner than you think as automakers could increase prices ahead of time to help cut their losses. But, in the long term, should this thing play out with the E.U. and U.S. engaging in an all-out trade war, products could end up getting very expensive for all of us. Thats bad for us, thats bad for businesses, and ultimately, its bad for the global economy.

References

Read more Donald Trump news.

Source: CNBC2018 Genesis Essentia Concept

If this is the GT car we can expect from Genesis, sign us up!The Minister of Finance, Martin G. Dlamini, has presented to Parliament the National Budget 2018/19

It is once again my honour to present to the fifth session of the tenth Parliament, the National Budget for 2018/19 Fiscal Year. I am truly delighted that this budget is presented during the most auspicious period for the Kingdom of Eswatini as the Nation looks forward to celebrate the Golden Jubilee  50 years of independence.

This is my last Budget presentation in our term of office as well as the end of the tenth Parliament. As I look back in the last four years, I have come to the conclusion that one must always strive and hasten to do good works and God will make straight your paths. I believe I have given my absolute ability, and I thank God for the graces he has bestowed upon me. In that spirit, I acknowledge with gratitude the achievements that we have made as Government.

Milestones

In spite of the severe fiscal challenges, Government managed to achieve the following milestones during the course of 2017/18:

Government has successfully concluded two trade agreements; the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement, and the SADC Protocol on Trade in Services. New Tinkhundla Centres have been constructed and completed at Lugongolweni, Mayiwane, Lobamba and Mhlambayatsi and completed installation of Local Area Network (LAN) in 50 Tinkhundla Centres Government approved and implemented a total of 101 projects under the Regional Development Fund. Of these, 12 were income generating and 89 were infrastructural projects. Government rehabilitated rural water systems whereby 57 boreholes were refurbished and 60 were cleaned for harnessing and constructed 8 dip tanks across the country Launched the high technology dairy farm at Sidvokodvo, known as Swazi Milk that will produce over 25 million litres of milk a year. Completed the feasibility study for Mpakeni and Ethemba Dam. Improved maize yield from 33,000 metric tons in 2016 ploughing season to 83,000 metric tons in 2017 ploughing season. Government was able to extend electricity coverage to 2,444 households, 8 schools, one clinic and one hammer mill. Completed the upgrading of the access road to Phuzumoya Strategic Oil Reserve Facility.

Creating Fiscal Space for Inclusive Growth

As I have alluded earlier, the public sector has grown at a much faster pace over the years creating significant dependency in the economy and compromising growth and employment creation. This has led to the large size of government, increased the wage bill significantly, and limited the space for social and infrastructure spending. The model where government is the employer of first choice has to be changed in order to create space for investment spending on critical infrastructure projects, that would encourage private sector activity and job creation.

The widening of the budget deficits without adequate financing is exerting pressures on the domestic economy. Government spending continues to outpace its ability to raise enough revenues resulting in cash flow challenges and accumulation of arrears. The cash flow challenges experienced in 2016/17 continued into 2017/18, and this has negatively affected local businesses. It is therefore, very important that Government restores fiscal sustainability to ensure macroeconomic stability and unlock the countrys potential to place growth on a higher growth trajectory.

In His Speech from the Throne, His Majesty The King commanded Government to prepare a budget that is based on available resources. Indeed, in this budget we have initiated fiscal consolidation measures in order to reduce the unfinanceable deficits. This would allow us to prudently address fiscal challenges, which are now exerting pressures on the economy and depriving the country from realizing growth dividends. Fiscal consolidation will be reenforced in the medium term to strategically interrogate all budget items including the wage bill and transfers to public enterprises.

The role of Government in the economy cannot be emphasized enough. However, Government spending should not come at the expense of economic growth. In recent years, Government has not been able to raise enough revenues to cover the everincreasing expenditures, which is a clear indication that the current Government model cannot be sustained in the medium-term.

Budget Strategy for 2018/19

Fiscal Consolidation

Significant effort will be required to reduce the wage bill, rationalize spending and prioritize growth enhancing capital spending. If well planned, high-quality public investment could augment private sector initiatives, especially in infrastructure.

The country is facing significant fiscal challenges. Restoring fiscal sustainability is critical to ensure macroeconomic stability and unlock the countrys potential to place growth on a higher trajectory. The Government is therefore looking at adopting a fiscal consolidation, reform and recovery strategy that will address the fiscal challenges and create the needed fiscal space for investment and social spending.

One critical element of the consolidation and recovery strategy is to establish the right size of the public sector that would make Government more agile and efficient in delivering public goods and services.

The size of the adjustment we need to restore fiscal sustainability is significant as the vulnerabilities have accumulated over time. Therefore, the fiscal consolidation will have to be spread over the medium-term. In this regard, the success of the planned adjustment and recovery strategy will require a combination of revenue, expenditure and structural reform measures. At the same time, the implementation of the newly enacted Public Finance Management Law will be crucial in ensuring efficiency and accountability in the use of public resources.

As part of the consolidation strategy and in line with His Majesty The Kings Pronouncement, for the 2018/19 Budget, upfront measures have been adopted to make the budget realistic, ease the cash flow challenges and reduce arrears. These include a freeze on hiring across all sectors of the Government, reducing recurrent spending and slowing capital investment.

Promoting Inclusive Growth and Industrialization for Job Creation

While Governments primary objective in this budget has been fiscal consolidation we have attempted to balance our efforts without infringing on our commitments to the promotion of inclusive growth.

Financial Inclusion

His Majestys Government intends to ensure access to affordable, appropriate and quality financial services & products, since this is a key component of inclusive economic growth. Not long ago, Government led by His Excellency the Right Honorable Prime Minister officially launched the National Financial Inclusion Strategy for Swaziland (NFIS) covering the period 2017-2022. This strategy will provide the framework for an effective partnership between policy-makers, financial regulators, and financial institutions as well as the mobile network operators to enhance access to financial services for micro and small and medium businesses, as well as those segments of the Swazi population that have, hitherto, been unable to access financial services.

During the course of 2018/19, Government and partners will establish a Centre for Financial Inclusion (CFI), which will coordinate all issues of financial inclusion. This represents Governments commitment to creating an enabling environment, therefore making it easier for Swazis to save, invest, do business and mitigate risks, as well as access appropriate financial products in order to enhance sustainable livelihoods.

Government through the Central Bank of Swaziland has launched the Financial Sector Development Implementation Plan (FSDIP). This is a three-year national strategy, that will guide the development of the financial sector. Implementation of this strategy is facilitated with the help of the World Bank with a grant amounting to approximately E5.4 million. This strategy will also promote Governments agenda for financial inclusion.

Tourism

Tourism continues to be one of the sectors that have a potential to stimulate economic growth. As such the country has advanced its efforts in ensuring the development of the tourism industry, safeguarding the environment, conserving wildlife and culture. Mr. Speaker, the Ministrys efforts to market the country as a preferred tourist destination has resulted in an increase in tourist figures.

Public Enterprises

Government is concerned with the ever-increasing numbers of public enterprises. Most of these entities are fully dependent on Government funding and very few are self-sustaining. Therefore, the Government of Swaziland through the Ministry of Finance, has secured technical assistance from the World Bank to conduct a study to streamline, enhance performance and self-sustenance of these entities. Within the assistance from the World Bank there will be development of policy guidelines for the establishment and management of Public Enterprises.

Information, Communication and Technology

The opportunities unveiled by the advancement of Information Technology also present a challenge for Government to not only keep abreast with the constant changes, but put in place policies that address the present scope and also seek to protect the country from cybercrimes going forward. In this regard, in 2017/18 Government began the development of a new Broadcasting and Media Policy in order to harmonize the industry developments with improvements and innovations in the broadcasting and media sector. This policy will therefore guide the diversification of the media industry as it opens up for entry by the private sector.

The banking industry and telecommunications companies are partnering in efforts that will make movement of funds easier, in the promotion of financial inclusion. As a country, we will endeavor to mitigate the threats that come with a development of this nature. In this regard, we have started the process of enacting cybersecurity laws to prevent cyber-crime and other related incidents.

Government is also continuing to work towards the full operationalization of the Royal Science Parks which will drive cross cutting research and encourage innovation through access and applications of new technologies. I am happy to report to the Honorable House that in 2017/18, the Advanced School of IT housed at the Innovation Park, enrolled its first batch of students; the incubator for IT business start-ups also admitted ten start-up companies; and a Service Agreement with the Swaziland Posts and Telecommunications (SPTC) for the management of the National Call Centre was signed. Moreover, the National Data Centres infrastructure, which will allow for the effective roll-out of E-Government has been completed.

Government is committed to ensuring that the nation benefits from the efficiencies that come with technology for improved service delivery. In this regard, Government has automated the tracking of road transport permit licenses through mobile phone services, implemented fingerprint live scan for the Royal Swaziland Police in the Shiselweni region, as well as completed developments for the use of Point of Sales (POS) at revenue offices.

Infrastructure

Roads

Efficient transport systems are the drivers of economic growth and development. The Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland continues to place roads infrastructure as key in moving the economy forward. Over the years, huge investments have been made in connecting the Kingdom, as well as with neighboring states. The onus now is that of keeping these roads in quality, which is why we have allocated E50 million for roads maintenance. Government will continue to explore financing options to invest further on our road infrastructure.

Government received a technical assistance from the African Development Bank in 2014 for preparation of the establishment of the Roads Fund and Roads Agency, I am happy to report that extensive work has been done along these lines and the revised Draft Roads Agency and Roads Fund Bill are now ready to be presented to Parliament. Once this Bill has been passed, Government can expect increased service delivery from the Agency which will emanate from the efficient collection of road user fees that will be used for the maintenance of our existing and upcoming roads infrastructure.

Railways

The SADC region is promoting regional integration in order to enhance trade among Member States. One of the ways in which the regional integration agenda can be implemented is through providing connectivity between neighboring states, and railways can facilitate connectivity. Railways can play a major role in integrating markets and increasing trade. It is a fact that we trade a lot with our neighboring South Africa, as a result, the two countries saw it appropriate to initiate the Joint Railway Strategic Initiative between Transnet and Swaziland Railways. This venture is expected to create 2,700 jobs related to construction on commencement, and over 300 permanent jobs on completion.

Aviation

As a landlocked country, air transport provides an alternative mode of transportation. It could also complement tourism by bringing visitors to the country. Our own state of the art airport, the King Mswati III International Airport (KM III IA) presents an opportunity for growth both in aviation and tourism. It has the capacity to handle sizable volumes of passengers, as well as cargo, hence we have the obligation of utilizing it to its full capacity.

In that regard, Government is working on strategies to revive the Royal Swaziland National Airways Corporation (RSNAC), and it will be tasked with the mandate of providing air transportation services of the highest quality and efficiency, that will suit both local and international travelers. We are aware of the costs associated with this endeavor, but we expect the benefits in return to be worth the investment.

Private Sector Private Sector Confidence

The country has made great strides in economic development supported by a vibrant private sector that is characterized by both local and foreign economic players. Despite the recent developmental challenges faced by the country, there has been some improvement in both domestic and foreign investment. Public investment in infrastructure and ICT will continue to improve the countrys competitiveness and this is expected to contribute to accelerated growth rates in the productive sectors such as manufacturing, mining, retail and services.

The Government of the Kingdom of Swaziland is continuing with efforts to create employment through the implementation of the Industrial Development Policy (2015- 2022). The development of the Sidvokodvo Industrial Estate of 301 hectares will alleviate the shortage of land for investors and create employment for Swazis. We are projecting that this investment will open up over 84,000 job opportunities when the Industrial Estate is fully operational.

Small and Medium Enterprises

The Government of Swaziland is cognizant of the role played by small and medium enterprises (SMMEs) in promoting economic growth. We are also aware that this sector is not growing fast enough. Accordingly, in 2017 the Ministry of Finance conducted a financial scoping survey on SMMEs The Swaziland SMME National Survey 2017 (FinScope) which sought to provide us with numbers of existing SMMEs in the country. The study revealed that only 10 percent of the adult population owns a business. Therefore, the hindrances to this entrepreneurial spirit among our population need to be analyzed and a system of incentives needs to be formulated to encourage our population to set up new businesses.

On the other hand Government is continuing with other initiatives aimed at promoting growth within the SMME sector. For instance, we have reviewed the Smallscale Loan Guarantee Scheme in order to align it with the Graduate Enterprise Programme. This will allow our graduates who want to start businesses access leverage from this Scheme. We have also taken the initiative to re-capitalize and increase the leverage value from 3 to 5 times the value of an investment. Graduates are therefore encouraged to visit the Ministry of Commerce Industry and Trade for advice on how they can benefit from this initiative.

Government is cognizant of the existence of many businesses that are not within the formal structures of Government. These businesses have challenges accessing assistance even with finance for investment. In 2014, Government initiated the Informal Sector Fund, however, to only service the Manzini region. This Fund has since been rolled out to the other three regions, and it is now accessible to all.

In order to further support the Informal Sector, Government has initiated construction of a trade hub within Manzini City. Construction of this hub is expected to commence within the financial year. On completion, the trade hub will accommodate 2,000 traders with storage facilities

Revenue and Expenditure for 2018/19

Revenue

Revenue is expected to increase by two percent in 2018/19 to E16.7 billion excluding grants. The increase is attributed to policies expected to be implemented in 2018/19, which are aimed at reducing reliance on SACU revenue. These include:

Collection of license fees from mobile companies

Review of the VAT Act to allow taxation of electricity at the standard rate in order to encourage domestic electricity generation

Increasing the VAT standard rate from 14% to 15% to align with the new rate announced by the Republic of South Africa and to maintain the Sekulula refund arrangement

Introduction of a levy on bank revenue

Amendment of the Income Tax Order

Review of user fees and fuel tax

Introduction of an import levy on non-SACU used vehicles

Expenditure

Total expenditure for the financial year 2018/19 is estimated at E21.6 billion. This estimate includes an amount of E2.2 billion which is reserved for public debt payments and other statutory obligations. Appropriated recurrent expenditure is set to grow by 0.3 percent standing at E14.8 billion. I am pleased to announce that Government has been able to deliver on His Majestys directive from the Throne regarding a realistic budget.

Government has conducted a thorough analysis of our expenditure in order to prioritise only the most pressing concerns. Thus, the total expenditure for this year is E183 million below the budgeted expenditure for 2017/18. This marks a decline of 1% in total expenditure, from 2017/18 to 2018/19. A similar pattern can be observed in capital expenditure which is expected to grow at a rate of 1 percent resulting from a E36 million increase from the previous year. The capital budget allocation is E5.6 billion in 2018/19.

Overall Balance

With the support of this August House Government has embarked on medium term fiscal consolidation exercise to rein in the deficit. Governments debt servicing costs have increased exponentially as a consequence of the arrears position. Domestic debt markets have been stretched due to the issuance of multiple bonds which were earmarked for arrear-clearance, namely the infrastructure and suppliers bonds. A fiscal adjustment to the tune of 11% of GDP has been targeted in the medium term, the first step in this exercise has been to curtail Government expenditure where possible and identify additional sources of revenue to increase the scope of our resource envelope.

The budget deficit for the financial year 2017/18 is contingent on the passage of newly identified revenue measures. If these proposed measures are passed the budget deficit is projected to stand at 6.7 percent of GDP with financing for 2.4% of GDP pending policy direction. This figure is in line with the SADC Macroeconomic Convergence targets of single-digit deficit levels and, in the medium term, Government intends to lower it further. Failure to pass these revenue measures would lead to a budget deficit of 8 percent of GDP and would imply a 3.8 percent of GDP as a financing gap, which would add E2.4 billion to the ballooning arrears stock.The sixth Tokyo International Conference of Africas Development, TICAD, took place for the first time in Africa in Kenya in August 2016, and opened doors for more business between Kenya and the Asian nation. Mr Toshitsugu Uesawa, Japanese ambassador to Kenya, reflects on the impact of the meeting.

I first came to Kenya as a young diplomat way back in 1982. And I returned to serve as the ambassador on May 2016.

With the knowledge that comes from this depth of exposure to a country, I can confidently predict that Kenya will rise to the status of a newly industrialised country.

And when the history of this achievement is written, I believe that August 2016 will go down as one of the significant milestones in Kenyas economic transformation.

That is when Nairobi had the honour of hosting the Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development  Ticad VI.

It was the first time that a Ticad summit was being held in Africa. Since the inaugural one in 1993, Ticad conferences were always held in Japan.

And Ticad VI proved to be a historic event, which took relations between Japan and Africa to a whole new level.

Development agenda

The Ticad summit has met regularly to promote high-level policy dialogue involving Japan, African leaders and development partners.

This way, Ticad serves as an international platform to raise global awareness as well as ensure continued support for Africas development efforts.

The conferences are underpinned by the twin principles of international partnership and African ownership.

Ticad VI was an overwhelming success. It brought together 35 Heads of State from all over Africa.

And, of course, the Prime Minister of Japan, Mr Shinzo Abe, was in attendance.

There were more than 11,000 accredited participants, including technocrats from international institutions and the private sector.

Targets

And at the end of it came the Nairobi Declaration  a three-year plan to promote structural economic transformation, resilient healthcare systems and social stability through shared prosperity.

The declaration outlines areas of engagement such as promoting economic diversification and industrialisation; a renewed focus on agriculture; innovation and ICT-led economy; quality infrastructure; and skills development.

The three-year plan also includes collaboration on peacebuilding, cross-border security and preventing violent extremism.

Such, then, are the ambitious targets we have in mind when we speak of the Ticad VI Nairobi Declaration.

It is about 18 months since the declaration was signed.

Monitoring and evaluation

And so, we thought that the time had come to have a workshop in Nairobi to review its progress, as well as to see how best to align the Ticad VI targets to President Uhuru Kenyattas Big Four development priorities.

To illustrate, let me give one example of how Japan-Kenya development works:

I explained in an opinion article a few years ago that, while Kenya is one of the worlds leading producers of geothermal power, Japan is proud that this success has come in collaboration with Japanese companies that supply most of the turbines.

One remarkable fact is that Olkaria 1 unit 1-3 started operating 36 years ago and is still generating power on the same set of Japanese turbines.

This is because when Japan supplied those turbines to Kenya, we gave the very best that we had.

That is the kind of win-win outcome that Japan always aims for in its dealings with African nations.

Employment

But inexpensive geothermal energy is not an end in itself. It should be a catalyst for industrialisation, and job creation.

For what Kenya needs is to create jobs for its hundreds of thousands of youth who graduate from various levels of tertiary education every year.

The ongoing Special Economic Zone project and its associated Mombasa Port expansion project, both supported by Japan, are also key initiatives in job creation.

The SEZ concept offers the perfect combination of facilities to attract investment (both foreign and local) to encourage manufacturing industries, which will create many jobs for Kenyans.

Technology

My embassy has been facilitating visits by trade missions from all over the world who hope to take advantage of the opportunities that the SEZ project will provide.

The day will soon come when you will see a world-class SEZ in Mombasa, supported by a modern port, beautiful access roads and other quality infrastructure.

It will embody the best and the most advanced of Japanese technology  just as the Olkaria geothermal plant did in its time.

Results of JETROs 2017 survey on business conditions of Japanese-affiliated firms in Africa

Between August and October 2017, the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) conducted its latest survey on business operations of Japanese-affiliated firms in 24 countries in Africa. The survey received a record-high 315 replies.

Summary of results

1. Operating profit forecast and future business outlook: Morocco stands out

Results vary largely depending on the destination country. The ratio of the companies reporting surplus ranges from over 60% in South Africa and Morocco to 25% in Kenya. Morocco has had the highest ratio in the past four surveys. When asked about their future business forecast, 90% of all respondent companies in Morocco answered that they will expand business. Among the reasons behind expanding business, the highest was increased sales (70.6%) and the high growth potential of the local market (70.6%). (Page 6 to 7 and 12 in the attached document)

Morocco has been focusing efforts on cultivating exports mainly in the fields of automobiles and aircraft and proactively drawing foreign direct investment. Approximately 50 Japanese companies are active in Morocco as of 2017, and the largest foreign employer is a Japanese parts manufacturer.

This is the fourth year in a row in which over half of respondents across Africa reported intentions to expand business, meaning that the trend toward expansion will continue. Over 40% of all respondent companies plan to increase the number of local employees. (Page 12 to 13 in the attached document)

2. Change in business environment: Market entry in pursuit of private-sector demand, reduction of ODA from Japan by half

Among the reasons for entry to Africa, there was in increase in answers of growth potential and market scale in what is believed to be pursuit of private-sector demand. In comparison with 10 years ago, the ratio for natural resources and ODA from Japan were down by half. (Page 17 in the attached document)

The number of companies taking advantage of FTAs, such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC), has steadily increased. (Page 18 to 19 in the attached document)

Progress has been seen in the Initiative of the African Economic Community (AEC), which aims at establishment in 2028. (Page 18 to 20 in the attached document)

3. Change in business environment: While Competition has intensified through Chinas entry, some Japanese companies consider it as benefits

Regarding Chinas strengthening of economic ties with Africa, 44.4% of respondents reported that it has intensified competition and had an impact on their business. (Page 21 in the attached document)

On the other hand, 15.7% of all respondents answered that the situation is bringing about business opportunities and benefits. Comments from them included Chinas speedy and aggressive entrance into Africa has led to the creation of new business by spotlighting overlooked needs in the local region, and there is a sense that new markets are taking shape.

Looking at the greatest competitors by nationality, European companies (26.8%), Japanese companies (20.5%), local companies (17.8%) and Chinese companies (14.1%) were cited. (Page 22 in the attached document)

Conversely, regarding potential partners by nationality, France (21.5%), India (20.2%) and South Africa (18.5%) were ranked in the top. Japanese companies have placed great expectations on collaboration with French companies in the markets of francophone countries in Africa, where Japanese companies have had a late start. (Page 22 in the attached document)

4. Problems in administration: Concern over political situation and governance extremely higher than other regions

As befoe, the most commonly cited problem was establishment and implementation of regulations and laws (80.6%).

While political or social instability was the next most cited concern across the region (77.4%), over 85% of companies in South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria and Kenya considered it the biggest issue. (Page 23 in the attached document)

It is believed that these results reflect the following events: the ruling partys presidential race for the upcoming presidential election in 2019 in South Africa, deterioration of peace and order in Egypt and Nigeria (concerns about terrorism, abductions and actions of armed insurgents) and the presidential election in Kenya (from August to October in 2017).

The ratio of respondents answering establishment and implementation of regulations and laws and political or social instability as big concerns (%):

Problems in administration Africa Middle East Russia Southwest Asia ASEAN Legal system 80.6 61.7 45.7 42.8 33.3 Political instability 77.4 40.7 51.1 39.2 28.7

5. Countries of note: Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa rank top three years in a row

Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa were highly rated from the following perspectives: Kenya as a business hub in Eastern Africa, Nigeria as Africas largest country in terms of economy and population and South Africa as having the most developed economic infrastructure. (Page 24 in the attached document)

The evaluation of Morocco by Japanese companies rose to sixth place from eleventh in the previous year. The reasons were high expectations toward enhancement of investment incentives, peace and order and excellent human resources capable in both English and French.

Read more and download the summary report on the JETRO website.Treehugger and our third-party partners use cookies and process personal data like unique identifiers based on your consent to store and/or access information on a device, display personalized ads and for content measurement, audience insight, and product development. To change or withdraw your consent choices for Treehugger.com, including your right to object where legitimate interest is used, click below. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. List of Partners (vendors)"I have read in some post that is advisable to have Jamaican dollars to pay for food and things while in the Island."

You do not say where you are staying in Negril. If you are staying at an all inclusive resort then you may never see a Jamaican dollar bill as most things at the AI are paid for and everything else is priced in US dollars. If you stay at a regular hotel or leave the tourist areas you may need Jamaican dollars.

"What is the conversion rate that apply between them and where I can obtain the Jamaican dollars?"

Today 'official' (aka interbank) exchange rate is 1 US dollar equals 127 Jamaican dollars. This rate is for those who wish to exchange a few million US dollars at once. The 'tourist' rate will give you fewer Jamaican dollars for each US dollar. The exchange rate changes every day so get an update every day.

Exchange you money at any Jamaican bank or at any cambio on the island (except the one at the airport which you should avoid).

"Are regular banks in USA offer that type of transaction?"

They are poor places to exchange into Jamaican dollars. It is almost always better do do the exchange in Jamaica.My family has visited JRB about four times now, returning again this Nov. Our daughter will turn 11 the day we arrive.

We were married at Sandals Royal Bahamian and I would not return to a Sandals. I believe it's way overpriced. However, the Jewel resorts are a great value, especially with the kids being free. I did research the Beaches resorts in Jamaica and would never spend that amount of cash for a beach vacation in Jamaica. JRB has everything you need and more.

We stayed in the Turquoise building on our first trip and were spoiled rotten as the rooms in the other buildings can't compare. It's a newer building which makes a huge difference. The rooms are super quiet and all mechanicals are in much better shape than the other buildings. Plus the small pool over there is rarely used and great for the kids to enjoy. Plus the beds they would add to the room are regular beds, they will appreciate their comfort.

There are so many options on the buffet. Fresh made everything as well as chafing dishes with pancakes, french toast, etc. I always saw plain pasta, fries and nuggets. Also, JRB is one of those places that if you need something you just ask and it appears. It's also a great place to take the picky eaters and introduce them to new foods as we did with our daughter and now she asks for curried goat, kidney bean rundown, and more.

As we travel in off-season I have never seen the resort in full capacity. However, it's large enough that I don't think there would be much of a problem anyway.

Trip from airport was on an A/C bus and their was also a tour guide on board so I felt like we got a free tour on the way to the hotel. Takes a little over an hour and once we stopped at an outside bar area for a potty break or to grab a smoke or a drink and once we stopped at another resort to drop off passengers. Nothing out of the ordinary or time consuming,

Tipping. I take $100 for a full week. $3 each day for housekeeping. $2 for breakfast, $2 lunch and $3-$5 for dinner, $1 here and there for cocktails and a few $$ for the ladies at the kids camp. And $5 for Clive on the beach, another $5 for Joseph the lifeguard. Who I recommend you find and you will be taken care of dearly.

I hope you enjoy your trip. I am looking forward to our trip back this year. We really love the place and it's like visiting family, but better because we actually look forward to seeing them!Lots of British & European kids do gap year here, Jinea -and a fair number of ours shoot off somewhere between end of high school & University, too.

I think it makes a lot of sense. After 12years of school, give them a refresher - and a look at the world outside their own - before they knuckle down to another 4-6 years of study. If they leave it until after Uni to start travelling, the lure/ pull of a job or moving in/ marrying someone & taking on a mortgage ( or possibly all 3) will put a stop to any travel for a good long time.

And the opportunity of solo travel; self discovery while exploring places that are, hopefully, a bit out of their comfort zone, depth & breadth, while they are young enough to see what they see, unfettered by too much of their own cultural conditioning, is lost. I think we are better for travelling  while the sap is still rising and before responsibilities & the influence of others shackle us. You cant get that back.

I met a young chap from Wyoming in Thame, a small village in the Khumbu region of Nepal a couple of years ago. Hed been on a trek with his parents when he was 9 or 10, loved it and came back to spend 6 months learning & teaching before he started Medicine. The owner of our tea house accommodation was a volunteer Doctor at the hospital started by Sir Edmund Hilary in Kunde. This young lad worked as a volunteer doing what ever was needed at the hospital & taught English at the hospital & at the local school.

Hes going to be a pretty interesting & well grounded Doctor.

I digress. Send your kid off around the world. Send him/ her down here to us for a start ;)Hello everyone,

I am in the process of planning our itinerary for a trip May 26-Jun 3. I have a few questions:

1-we arrive at 3:30pm to San Jose and planning to rent a car. Is it better to stay in SJ overnight and then go to our hotel near Arenal, or should we aim to go there straight from the airport? According to Google maps, it's about 2hours drive, but everyone's warnings about roads and driving, makes me worried about driving late in the evening....

2-If we stay in SJ, what would be a good area to stay?

3-Is Poaz or Arenal volcano be more interesting to visit?

4-Is 3 days at Arenal/La fortuna a good chunk of time?

5-At Dominical, so far, I only have the Nauyaca Waterfall trip and the beach in terms of things to do, what would you recommend?

6-We have a late afternoon flight back and driving from Dominical to SJ. Is it reasonable to have a stop over somewhere on the way back and if so, what would you recommend?

7-For the drive SJ-Arenal-Domincal - Is a 4x4 a must or any regular sedan will do?

TIA!

MarinaIf you look here, you will see that July is the wettest month on that coast, both by the average number of rainfall days and the amount of precipitation: .

We spent 2 wks there in July, incl. staying in Cahuita, and enjoyed our trip, but it was cloudy a lot, rained on and off at any time of the day and night, two separate days was pouring rain, and a few days were without any rain, with blue sky and white clouds.

No one knows for sure how it will be the days you will be there, but bringing rain gear is a good idea.

Many recommend bringing fast drying clothes.

We found the humidity was so high, that it did not matter what clothes we were trying to dry. Nothing dried for days, incl. swimwear, whether inside or outside the house, on an open terrace under the roof.

One hotel we stayed at included daily laundry, if needed, so getting things dried (washed, but mainly dried) this way was a big plus.

Wearing rain ponchos during jungle hikes, if it started raining, was not very good, as it just made us too hot, and the rain was getting in any way.

We used a lot of repellent and the hotels we stayed at all had mosquito nets over the beds.-:- Message from Tripadvisor staff -:-

This topic has been closed to new posts due to inactivity. We hope you'll join the conversation by posting to an open topic or starting a new one.

To review the Tripadvisor Forums Posting Guidelines, please follow this link: http://www.tripadvisor.com/pages/forums_posting_guidelines.html

We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.I think I am having difficulty communicating with the staff at the Norfolk Mansion Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. We have booked a 2BR/2BA apartment with 2 beds, a single and a king, for 3 of us. Now a friend has asked to join us, so we requested an additional bed. The hotel is charging $54/night for the extra bed (no breakfast included) which seems high, and they say the measurements of the bed are 1.2m x 1.1m which seems very small (approx 4' x 3.5', a child bed?). Since our guest is in her 60s, that won't do. Even though I've asked many times if this is a cot or regular bed, I am not getting an answer that makes sense.

This is frustrating, because I booked this apartment nonrefundable through Agoda. It's costing $170/night, but I later learned it would have been $160 for an upgraded apartment with breakfast through the hotel. My mistake. Now, with the extra bed, we'll be paying nearly $225/night!

I'd appreciate suggestions on how to fix this. We arrive in late March for our 3-day stay in HCMC.

Many thanks.my husband and I travelling o Japan for the first time.

We are arriving to Tokyo on the 12 Th of October 2018 at 7 am and departing on the 24th of October. There is a festival in Kyoto on the 22nd of October which we would like to attend. Therefore I would like to plan accordingly.

We would like to stay in Tokyo ( hotels in Shinjuku), to visit Takayama, Kamikochi, Shikarawa-go, Ainokura, Toyama, Kanazawa ( Nouhi bus), Matsumoto, Magome, Tsumago, The Alpen route, Kyoto ( experience - turn yourself into a Maiko or Geisha), staying in downtown, Nara, Koya-san (1 night ),Mt Fuji,Osaka . We would like to stay one night at Ryokan, visit onsen. Anymore suggestions please ? Also i would like more presice itinerary with travel advise. We will have a hans luggage only.

The last night we would like to spend at royal park Hotel The Haneda Tokyo

I would really appreciate your help!

Kind regards

ZoeHey guys,

Apologies for another train question but I've looked at lots of threads and sites and I'm still really confused as to what is the best option for my trip. I've posted my general itinerary below so you can see the kind of train use I'll need - any input into the itinerary would be greatly appreciated too.

The main train journeys we will be taking are from:

Haneda airport - Tokyo

Tokyo - Kyoto

Kyoto - Nara

Nara - Kyoto

Kyoto - Osaka

Osaka - Kansai airport

I have entered these into the website calculator and it says it is not worth buying a JR pass, but what about the local city trips within Tokyo, Kyoto and Osaka? We will be visiting a lot of the tourist locations in Tokyo so does the JR pass cover this and potentially make up the cost? I know in Kyoto it's recommended to use local buses so it might not be as much of a question for there, but if I had one pass that pretty much covered trains that might be better than having to buy several different tickets for each location.

Day 1 Tues: Land in Haneda airport at approx 11pm at night - need to get to Shinjuku.

Day 2 Weds: Asakusa shops, Senso-ji temple, Tokyo SkyTree and Water Bus trip to Odaiba.

Day 3 Thurs: Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Shibuya and Shinjuku areas.

Day 4 Fri: Chidorigafuchi moat, Imperial Palace, Akihabara area.

Day 5 Sat: Go to either Ueno Park or Shinjuku Gyoen Park to see Cherry Blossom, night cruise.

Day 6 Sun: Catch the high speed train to Kyoto in the AM, arrive in Kyoto at lunchtime, go to the Golden pavilion (Kinkaku-ji), spend the evening exploring Kyoto.

Day 7 Mon: Arashiyama and monkey park, Sagano scenic train, Nijo castle

Day 8 Tues: Day trip to Nara and Fushimi Inari.

Day 9 Weds: Catch the train from Kyoto to Osaka in the AM, Osaka castle and river cruise, Dotonbori area.

Day 10 Thurs: Open to any suggestions - our flight would be very late that night. Train from Osaka to Kansai airport.

Thanks so much,

SusanHave just organised another trip to Fiji. here are a few tips on getting the cheapest fares;

Fares can vary a lot on different days. In our case going one day earlier made a big enough saving to have two nights at Tokatoka Resort instead on one night.

Prices can vary a lot between airlines. Even though Qantas and Fiji Airways code share, their prices are not the same. It can pay to check both. Also check Jetstar and Virgin if flying from Australia. Make sure you factor the cost of checked luggage, food and drink into the Jetstar quote so you have a proper comparison.

Don't just book with an airline because you are a member of their frequent Flyer club. The points you earn may not be worth as much as you save be using another carrier. Qantas frequent flyer points are worth about 1.5 if you use them to fully book an economy flight (more if a business class flight) but only half that if used for "points+pay" option, hotel or hire car booking. Qantas frequent flyer members also earn points, but not as many, when booking with Fiji Airways.

Investigate booking ONE WAY TICKETS INSTEAD OF A RETURN TICKET. Flying from Australia this can give a saving of several hundred dollars. Both Qantas and Fiji Airways quote Nadi to Australia tickets in Fiji dollars. When that is converted to Australian dollars it is often much cheaper than the return flight component of a return booking. If booking this way do this booking first -before the outward flight- otherwise the booking system might try to "upgrade' you to a single return booking.

I don't know how much of this advice applies with other airlines and flying from other countries but it would be worth a quick check anyway.

I hope you find this information useful. Why spend more on a ticket when you can make a saving to spend in Fiji once you are there?

Jeff2 weeks trip to Japan for the first time

2 weeks trip to Japan for the first time

Hi everyone, I have just got a quote from travel agent to Japan for the first time and I am still so confused of how to go in between city, also places to visit during day/night time and whether the hotels are good. So my trip will look like this

Australia--> Tokyo --> Kyoto--->Kobe--> Mie --> back to Tokyo to Haneda Airport

In Haneda, they suggested us to take their transport to Tokyo for $138/2 people

2 nights in Tokyo at Hotel Gracery Shinjuku 1191 Kabukicho Shinjukuku,

The tours suggested are Mt Fuji- Hakone @ 9am for 11.5 hr ($452/2 people) OR Walking tour Harajuku ($222/2 people)

Then, Kyoto for 2 nights at Hotel Gracery Kyoto Sanjo: 406 Sakuranocyo, Shinkyogokudo

The tours suggested are Hiroshima and Miyajima @ 7.45am ($1,240/ 2 people) or

Then, Kobe for 2 nights at Ana Crowne Plaza Kobe: 11 Kitanocho, Chuoku, Hyogo Kobe 6500002

No tours are suggested at this stage

Then back to Tokyo for 2 nights

The hotel suggested is Hotel Gracery Shinjuku as same as the first day arrived.

Then be picked up to Haneda aiport for $138/2 people

So my questions are:

1. Is there any cheaper ways to travel from and to the Haneda aiport but still convenient?

2. How do I travel between Tokyo, Kyoto, Kobe and Mie (Tsu city)? Do I need to purchase the Japan Rail pass ? as this is not cheap at about $500 each for 14 days so I just want to know if its good to use for the whole journey

3. Is there any hotel close to Mie University that we can stay for around 1 week there which is close to the public transport or walking distance? Also is that a safe area?

4. they suggested that from Mie we can go back to Tokyo stay for 2 nights (so no rush) before taking a flight in Haneda back to Australia. Is that good to do so? or if not, what is the altenative way we can take to fly back to Australia from Mie?

5. what can we do in Tsu city for 1 week? as we will have family time so any kind of outdoor activities /restaurants etc is good

Thank you so much for reading my topic. any recommendations are greatly appreciatedSo, if I understand your Qn correctly, you are required to have a visa to enter CR, but you do not have it, so you would not be able to exit the SJO airport. See (the site of the airport, FAQs):

"If I land at the SJO airport as transit, can I leave the airport without losing my status, or should I pay the departure tax in order to re check-in?

You can exit the airport, provided there is a minimum of 5 hours between your flights. If your citizenship requires a visa to enter the country, you will be asked to provide it.

The maximum period of time you can stay as transit is twelve hours. During this period, you are exempt from paying the departure tax, unless you are returning to the same country of origin. For example, if your flight is coming from Panama, and you stay in Costa Rica for eight hours, and then return to Panama, you will have to pay the departure tax."As the horrors of Syrias war continue to escalate, world leaders have called for a cease-fire. Efforts by the United States and other world leaders to help Syria reach an amicable political agreement since 2016 have failed to substantially reduce the dozen humanitarian laws characterized by the Syrian civil war. According to statistics produced by Syrian Center for Policy Research, as of 2016 Syrian civil war has resulted in a death toll of 470,000. If you arent sure exactly sure what is happening in Syria, then read on to stay updated.

What is happening in Syria?

Over 6.1 million Syrian citizens are internally displaced, and another 4.8 million are seeking asylum in neighboring countries. Most of these refugees have to travel by foot for long distances in hostile condition to seek refuge.

After one of the bloodiest week ever seen on the Syrian war where about 500 civilians were killed, several world leaders have called for a cease-fire. Russian president Vladimir Putin has called for a temporary cease-fire in eastern Ghouta where about 393,000 people are trapped. The temporary daily ceases fire will run from 9 am to 2 pm. Red Cross has said that they have been unable to deliver the needed aid to eastern Ghouta despite claims by Russia that the 30 days cease-fire holds.

READ ALSO: A highlight of the most corrupt countries in Africa: Is Kenya there?

The move comes after Putin was accused of supporting the Syrian regime and delaying the UN vote for a 30-day cease-fire. Just last week the Syrian government was accused by the UN of using chlorine gas attack on the same part of eastern Ghouta that was hit in 2013. The Syrian Observatory for Human rights reported that more than 21 civilians displayed symptoms of a chlorine attack. The Syria Russia relationship has always been called in question as Assad has faced multiple accusations of using chemical weapons on civilians.

Syrian regime use of chemical weapons

Since 2013, the Syrian army under the command of President Bashar al-Assad has been accused of using chemical weapons on unarmed civilian more than a dozen times. After investigating the attacks and numerous people appearing in Syrian hospitals with symptoms indicating exposure, the UN confirmed the use poisonous chemicals. In 2012, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi confirmed that Syria government has chemical weapons, but they dont intend to use it on Syrian civilians.

Other encounters where Assad is accused of using chemical weapons include April 2017 where a Sarin gas dropped by military aircraft attack killed over 80 people in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun. Following the Sarin attack, Russian officials and Assad went on to claim that they were not aware there was Sarin gas because they had used military strikes used to destroy the rebel weapons depot.

What started the war on Syria?

After the al-Assad family ruled for 45 years without bringing any favorable changes to the economy and political reforms, many Syrians rose up against the regime in April 2011. It started out as a simple antigovernment peaceful protest encouraged by the Arab spring uprising revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. After a while, it escalated into a country challenging the removal of a dictatorship.

The government responded with an equal measure of force where most activists were either killed, disappeared or tortured. Tired of the civilians not backing down, Syria army started opening fire on protests. The civilian started shooting back, and the fighting escalated into a civil war.

Russia has a strong relationship with Syria

On numerous occasion, Russia has been called out for supporting the Assad regime and not putting a stop to his merciless killing of unarmed civilians. However, if it's anything that might hurt the Assad regime, Russia is unwilling to cooperate as Syria is one of its important allies. The Syria bombing is made possible because Russia is the number one supplier of weapons to Syria as well as North Korea.

Syria bombing continues in eastern Ghouta

Syria bombing has continued despite Russia president calling for a temporary cease-fire. The temporary ceases fire which was supposed to take effect daily from 9 am to 2 pm to allow the trapped people to go out and for convoys to go in. However, the UN humanitarian spokesperson Jens Laerke confirmed that there is still continuous fighting in Ghouta. The current Syria bombing in eastern Ghouta has been termed by many as the bloodiest in the entire Syrian civil war.

Syrian war with Hezbollah

It is reported by the UN that more than 700 combat fighters have traveled from Somalia to Lebanon to help fight alongside Hezbollah where they are expected to get advance military training. Hezbollah has long been an ally of the Assad family and thus has been involved in the Syria war ever since it started in 2011. Over the years Hezbollah has deployed thousands of fighters in Syria to prevent rebel penetration to Lebanon.

Is Syria at war with Isis? And if so who is in control?

At the moment, Syria map continues to show that Afrin is under the control of Kurdish forces, eastern Ghouta under Syrian government, Damascus is under ISIL control while Idlib is under the control of rebel forces. However, Afrin and eastern Ghouta is still an ongoing conflict zone, so its not yet clear on who has the control.

Turkey deploys more special forces

In other news about what is happening in Syria, the Turkish army has sent more troops to help fight against the Kurdish militias in the northern part of Syria. While talking to Turkish Television, Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag explained that the sent police special forces are part of the reinforcements in Afrin to help squash the Syrian Kurdish fighters on the border region.

The one-month operation termed Operation Olive Branch was termed as a preparation for the coming battle. While the eastern Ghouta in Syria is part of the UN ceasefire decision, its alleged that the cessation doesnt apply to Afrin which is located south of the Turkish border as well as any groups designated as terrorist organizations including al Qaeda.

More news on Syria is that Russia has deployed new breakout to Syria which is intended to help overpower the ground and air targets that have been eluding radar. The flight tests which began in 2010, were tested in Syria in near combat conditions so as to evaluate their defense and electronic warfare systems.

Currently, on whats happening in Syria Breakout news is that United Nations Security Council diplomat who was talking to CNN anonymously said that North Korea has been sending supplies that have been helping make ballistic weapons and chemical weapons in Syria. The North Korean missiles experts have been visiting Syria since 2016 and its believed that they are still operating in various areas including Hama, Barzeh, and Adra.

Source: Kenyan Breaking NewsSamsung; a Korean technology giant that includes mobile technology has launched its latest pioneering smartphones, Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 plus. These phones can fix their fingerprint reader placement and get variable aperture cameras. Additionally, they maintain a familiar feel and look just to mention a few of the major Samsung S9 specs with Galaxy S9 having a 5.8-inch screen while Galaxy S9 Plus as a step-up model having a 6.2-inch screen.

Samsung S9 price in Kenya

Samsung S9 price in Kenya is expected to range from Ksh. 75,000 to Ksh. 76,000 once it has hit the market. For a pre-order to Kenya upon its release, the price is around Ksh. 140,000. Compared to Samsung Galaxy Note and iPhone 8, Samsung Galaxy S9 in no doubt has more innovative features than its predecessor. It allows for more modular accessories and has a powerful 845 chipset and a 4GB RAM. Samsung S9 for sale in Kenya will be available by March 23, 2018 after the launch at the Mobile World Congress, Barcelona.

READ ALSO: Top 7 List of Online Shops in Kenya: Where to Get Fair Prices

Samsung S9 review

Other notable features in Samsung S9 review include 12 and 8-megapixel cameras for the rear and front. It also includes the 4GB and 6GB random access memory for S9 and S9 Plus respectively while the storage options include 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB. Hence, Samsung has over time been investing in improved cameras and the social media growth to accelerate the sale of its equipment. In 2017, the company dominated about 21.7 percent of the global smartphone market with Oppo, Huawei, and Apple following with 7.6, 10.6 and 14.8 percent respectively.

Despite its massive success as the worlds largest smartphone and memory chip manufacturer, Samsung has faced some challenges since 2017. These include a recall of its groundbreaking Galaxy Note 7 handsets and issues of corruption that befell its leader. Nevertheless, the company has witnessed a profit tide turnaround after establishing a $10 billion equivalent to Ksh. 1.04 trillion during the 2017 third quarter. This followed the immediate reshuffle of its top leadership.

Samsung S9 vs iPhone X

When Microsoft unveiled its Windows 8 replacement, it intentionally skipped the number 9 going straight to Windows 10. Apple followed the same trend and released iPhone X or ten to follow its iPhone 8. Samsung, on the other hand, refused to follow the trail and ensured that Galaxy S9 follows Galaxy S8. When it comes to Samsung S9 vs. iPhone X, therefore, it is crucial to note the huge difference between their features and performance. For instance, photos captured on S9 are significantly better than photos captured by iPhone X. This is more pronounced when the photos are taken using the two phones in a low light scene. Samsung S9 edge over iPhone X is in the dual apertures that bring out the difference in both cases like the DRAM chip does too.

On display, Samsung Galaxy S9 and Samsung S9 plus features an OLED display. For users who like the top cutout of iPhone X display, however, this feature is missing in Galaxy S9. The ratio of screen to body in iPhone X is about 82.9 percent. Samsungs Galaxy S9 screen-to-body ratio is 84.2 percent, and this means that it is more all-screen than iPhone X.

Furthermore, Samsungs latest AR Emoji is an obvious rip-off of iPhone Xs Animojis introduced in 2017. AR Emoji and Animoji are features that allow you select a character from the options and send animations as characters. With AR Emoji, you can make your 3D character by scanning your face, and Galaxy S9 creates a digital character like you. Thus, you can send animated characters of yourself in various scenes.

As the mobile phone technology is taking a new dimension, no manufacturer wants to lag behind. That is why Samsung S9 launch was not a big surprise having seen Samsung S9 full specifications. The S9 and S9 Plus will be available in Titanium Gray, Lilac Purple, Coral Blue, and Midnight Black. Where to buy Samsung S9 in Kenya will be well-known once it has arrived in the country. Meanwhile, the company is receiving pre-orders from across the world online.

Source: Tuko- A Central Kenya musician took incitement to another level after releasing an online video targeting a particular community

- This follows the ongoing saga in which a lorry from Kiambu county ferrying charcoal was controversially reduced to ashes by irate youths in Kitui County on orders from Governor Charity Ngilu

- Ngilu is alleged to have given the controversial order which angered business people from Kiambu after a lorry belonging to one of them got burnt

- The video which seems to ridicule the Kamba community has attracted massive criticism with fears that it might fuel unnecessary tension

- Senator Mutula Kilonzo Junior has called for the arrest of the musician for incitement

The ongoing feud between the traders from Central Kenya and Kamba community after a lorry from Kiambu county was reduced to ashes by irate youths in Kitui, is not likely to end soon.

This is after a Kikuyu musician released an online video targeting the Kamba community.

In the video, the musician by the name Eric Ndemange is heard calling the Kamba community witches who will eat dogs and birds once the mango season is over.

READ ALSO: Jamaa ajuta baada ya kupatikana 'akichota maji katika kisima cha wenyewe'

Kitui Governor Charity Ngilu . Photo: Citizen TV

This follows the ongoing saga in which a lorry from Kiambu county ferrying charcoal was controversially torched by irate youths in Kitui County on orders from Governor Charity Ngilu.

The video has received massive criticism from Kenyans across the board including some politicians who have called for the arrest of the artist with fears that it is likely to fuel unnecessary tension.

But some say they see nothing wrong with the song arguing that those calling for the prosecution of the song's composer were quiet when Ngilu was caught on tape asking Kitui residents to burn any lorry found ferrying charcoal.

READ ALSO: Moses Kuria asks charcoal and sand traders to pick guns from his office before going to Kitui

Makueni Senator Mutula Kilonzo Junior has also threatened to move to court over the video purporting to insult the Kamba community and said he will launch a complaint with the DPP and National Cohesion and Integration Commission(NCIC).

At the same time, the Director of the Kenya Film Classification Board Ezekiel Mutua has called on the ban against the song stating that it mocks the Kamba community and disrespects Ngilu.

As reported earlier by TUKO.co.ke, business was brought to a standstill at the Naivasha- Nairobi highway after business people from Limuru demonstrated the burning of the lorry which they said belonged to one of them.

READ ALSO: Traders block Nakuru-Naivasha road demanding compensation after truck was torched in Kitui over charcoal

Ngilu has banned any charcoal business in the county as well as sand harvesting in a bid to protect the environment.

The NCIC Chairman Francis Ole Kaparo has said he will investigate the video and its contents in a bid to take action.

Source: Tuko.co.ke- Deputy President William Ruto said the multi-sectoral task force will review forestry management across the country

- Ruto told the taskforce that sacrifices must be made to restore the lost forest cover in the country

- He said the team which will present its interim reports in 14 days will among others recommend ways of conserving heavily depleted forests in efforts to attaining a 10% forest cover in the country

Deputy President William Ruto on Monday, March 5, launched a 10 member multi-sectoral taskforce that will review forestry management across the country.

Speaking from his Karen office, Nairobi, the Deputy President said the taskforce would also give recommendation on the importance of working together with communities living around forests to conserve and restore the water catchment areas.

This taskforce has a clear mandate. We have close to 120,000 plantations that have no trees. We have another similar of indigenous plantations that have no trees. There is also 3 million acres of land that need to be planted with trees. The taskforce has a duty to tell us and recommend to the Government on how all deflated areas are planted with trees, said Ruto.

READ ALSO: Jamaa ajuta baada ya kupatikana 'akichota maji katika kisima cha wenyewe'

He said the Governments plans to have a 10 percent forest cover by 2030 was still on course. Photo: William Ruto/ Facebook

We want to hear from the taskforce if it is tenable to continue having plantations inside gazetted forests or relocate outside gazetted areas. These are among the options we expect this committee to give us within the stipulated period, said Ruto.

He said the taskforce to be headed by the Green Belt Movement chairperson Marion Wakanyi Kamau was also expected to come up with recommendations on how to raise more resources for better management of the forests and environment.

But we want to make it absolutely clear that we are ready and willing to make tough sacrifices if the taskforce recommends tough measures to be taken to recover the lost forest areas, he said.

Ruto said the Government would do everything it could to ensure the exercise doesnt become a Public Relations (PR) one as has been in the past.

In the past, some people launched such exercises by simply going to the forest areas, plant some few trees and that becomes the end of the story. We will not do that, he said.

READ ALSO: Uhuru casts doubts on his support for Ruto's 2022 bid

He said the Governments plans to have a 10 percent forest cover by 2030 was still on course, saying the efforts were part of the measures being undertaken to mitigate climate change.

Ruto said different corporate sectors, Kenya Forests Associations and Community Conservation groups would work together to plant more indigenous trees including in 120,000 plantations that have no trees as a measure to boosting the forest cover in the country.

He said the Government was committed to working closely with communities and ensuring there were enough seeds for them to establish tree nurseries in their farms.

At the same time, Ruto said those focusing on his 2022 presidential bid can turn the gesture to forest conservation bid so as to attain the forest cover of 10 percent.

READ ALSO: Uhuru atilia shaka uungaji mkono wake kwa azma ya Ruto 2022

The ongoing focus on my 2022 presidential bid can be turned to a crusade of attaining 10 percent forest cover by 2022. It will greatly help reclaim our forest cover, said Ruto.

Environment and Forestry Cabinet Secretary Keriako Tobiko and Principal Secretary Charles Sunkuli were also present.

Tobiko said the formation of the taskforce followed last weeks ban on logging in all public and community forests by the Deputy President.

We have formed the taskforce following your directive last week. You instructed me to institute it within seven days but I have done it within three days because of the seriousness of the matter, said Tobiko.

This taskforce will coordinate stakeholders engagements as well as undertake fact-finding survey on forest resources, he added.

He said he was optimistic that the taskforce will come up with lasting solution to the problem, saying they had support in terms of resources and political goodwill from the leaders led by President Kenyatta and the Deputy President.

Small business Ideas for Kenyans with low investment - on TUKO TV

Source: Tuko NewsJust over 40% of the nation's schoolchildren have received their first dose of COVID vaccineRussian-backed militants launched seven attacks on positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the anti-terrorist operation (ATO) area in Donbas over the past day.

This is reported by the ATO Headquarters press center.

In Luhansk direction, illegal armed formations fired 120mm mortars on Ukrainian positions near Luhanske (59km north-east of Donetsk). ATO troops outside Shchastia (23km north of Luhansk) came under 82mm, grenade launcher and anti-aircraft mount fire.

In Donetsk direction, militants used 120mm mortars, weapons on tanks and infantry combat vehicles, heavy machine guns and small arms to launch attacks near Pavlopol (30 km northeast of Mariupol). Ukrainian strongholds came under 120mm mortar fire outside Shyrokyne (20km east of Mariupol) and Marinka (35 km south-west of Donetsk).

No losses among Ukrainian troops as a result of the enemy attacks were reported.

The Trilateral Contact Group and other signatories to the Minsk peace accords reached the agreement on resumption of the ceasefire, which is expected to enter into force on March 5 starting from 00:01.

olUkraine and Sweden will develop a new agreement on the joint cooperation in defense sector.

Defense Minister of Ukraine Stepan Poltorak stated this at a joint briefing with Defense Minister of the Kingdom of Sweden, Peter Hultqvist, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"We have agreed on the need to develop a comprehensive agreement between the governments of Sweden and Ukraine, between the Defense Ministry of Ukraine and the Defense Ministry of Sweden on defense cooperation," Poltorak said.

According to the Ukrainian minister, the defense cooperation between Ukraine and Sweden is currently being built on the basis of the International Protocol signed in 2001.

The Ukrainian minister stressed that this protocol should also be revised.

iySweden is ready to participate in the peacekeeping mission in Donbas, if the UN Security Council approves an appropriate decision.

Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist stated this at a joint press conference with Ukrainian Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak in Kyiv on Monday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"If the UN Security Council approves an appropriate decision, Sweden will consider the possibility of participating in the peacekeeping mission," he said.

Stability in Ukraine is very important for the Baltic countries, Hultqvist emphasized.

As the Swedish Defence Minister noted, the peacekeeping mission should be created in accordance with the international norms.

The Minister also said that Sweden argued against any "frozen conflicts."

As reported, Finland and Belarus earlier expressed their willingness to join the UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas.

olSweden is willing to join the international operation UNIFIER to train the Ukrainian troops.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Stepan Poltorak stated this at a joint press conference with Swedish Defence Minister Peter Hultqvist in Kyiv on Monday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"We have discussed the continuing cooperation in training of the personnel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, particularly, the involvement of the armed forces of Sweden in the operation UNIFIER in the international peacekeeping center at the Yavoriv training ground in Lviv region," Poltorak said.

As the Swedish Defence Minister stressed, the possible involvement of representatives of the armed forces of Sweden in the training mission is very interesting, and this issue will be discussed with the partners, in particular, with the representatives of Canada, who participate in the operation UNIFIER.

olGazprom's decision to terminate contracts with Naftogaz and stop supply of natural gas has caused concern in Germany and Europe.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said this at a briefing on Monday, Ukrinform's correspondent in Germany reports.

"The federal government has taken with concern the announcement that Gazprom intends to terminate its contracts with Ukraine's Naftogaz. The fact that gas is not supplied to Ukraine causes even greater concern," Seibert said.

At the same time, he recalled that there were two decisions of the Stockholm arbitration court on the dispute between the two energy companies, dated late December 2017 and late February 2018. Berlin is convinced that both companies now need to comply with these rulings, which set out the rights and obligations of the parties, he said.

"If Gazprom now wants to prematurely announce the termination of contracts, it causes irritation not only here in Germany, but also in other EU countries and in the European Commission," Seibert said.

According to him, it is in the interest of the EU, Russia and Ukraine that both these countries show themselves to be reliable partners in European gas supply and guarantee continuous supplies.

He welcomed the fact that Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission's Vice-President for the Energy Union, is now trying to resolve this conflict by contacting both countries. The "federal government" is in "close contact" with all parties to the talks and supports all steps that can help resolve the dispute, Seibert said.

As reported, on February 28, the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce obliged Gazprom to pay NJSC Naftogaz $4.63 billion in compensation for the failure to meet its gas transit obligations. According to Naftogaz, this ruling means that Gazprom must pay Ukraine about $2.56 billion, taking into account the final payment for gas supplied in 2014 and 2015.

Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said that Russia's Gazprom, after the Stockholm arbitration decision not in its favor, had launched the process of terminating contracts for the supply and transit of gas with Ukraine's Naftogaz.

In February 2018, Naftogaz made a prepayment to Gazprom, waiting for the start of gas supplies from March 1. However, the Russian company returned the full amount and refused to supply gas.

opTrade between Ukraine and Finland has increased by 17%, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said.

He stated this at a joint briefing with Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini on Monday, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Our turnover has grown by 17%," Klimkin said.

In addition, he said that a meeting of the joint Ukrainian-Finnish commission on trade and economic cooperation was scheduled for September this year.

opOn March 5, a considerable avalanche danger is expected in Zakarpattia and Ivano-Frankivsk regions of Ukraine.

The State Emergency Service has reported this with a reference to the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Center's forecasts.

On March 5, a considerable (III) level of avalanche risk is expected for mountainous areas in Ivano-Frankivsk and Zakarpattia regions, reads the report.

iyChairman of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Stanislav Shevchuk supports the proposal by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to secure in the Constitution of Ukraine the country's aspirations for membership in the European Union and NATO.

"Yes, I support it, it's very important. This will make the path of our European changes, transformations irreversible," Shevchuk said in an interview with Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.

He said that it would be an additional reminder to parliamentarians of next convocations about where Ukraine should move.

"Politicians change in power and parliaments change, but the Constitution must be stable and protected from constant change. When a new convocation of parliament comes, deputies must remember what we are doing and what we will do more to bring Ukraine closer to Europe and become part of European and, possibly, Euro-Atlantic institutions," Shevchuk said.

Poroshenko said at a press conference on February 28 that he was considering securing Ukraine's desire to join the EU and NATO in the Constitution.

"When raising anti-European political forces that seek revenge, in my opinion, amendments to the Basic Law could insure against any unexpected," said Petro Poroshenko.

In his opinion, Ukraine's aspirations for membership in the European Union and NATO could be fixed in the preamble of the Constitution, which requires support from two-thirds of the constitutional composition of the Verkhovna Rada.

opThere are still a large number of people devoted to Ukraine in the occupied territory of Donetsk and Luhansk regions, according to Ukrainian scientist Ihor Kozlovsky, a former hostage of "DPR" militants.

He said this at a round table meeting organized at Ukrinform by the Ministry of Information Policy of Ukraine and the Donbas Factory of Thought think tank.

"After I was arrested, in those basements, in a pre-trial detention center, I constantly met people who constantly emphasized by their attitude and behavior that they are patriots of Ukraine. They risked, and this risk led to the fact that they were arrested. Arrests are being made there, but there are still people who are constantly working to change the situation," Kozlovsky said.

At the same time, he added, there is a certain part of citizens who have already managed to get disappointed at their choice not in favor of their fatherland. "I met people in prisons who took part in the seizure of administrations in Donetsk, Makiyivka. It was interesting to talk to them, to find out who was there during these seizures. They were mostly criminal offenders, thieves who received information from thieves in Russia, and they created such groups and seized [buildings]," he said.

He noted that he had recorded their conversations about those events, especially when they said there were Russians who paid money for such a "job." In his opinion, this should be constantly discussed. "We have accumulated a lot of facts about Russian armed aggression. They should become the property of the public," Kozlovsky said.

opPreviously, Ukrainian-Crimean prosecutors called Ukraines citizens to ignore Russian elections held on the peninsula and not to vote.

Ukrainians who will help organize or execute Russias upcoming presidential elections on March 18 will be charged with state treason and can be sentenced for up to 15 years in prison, Oleksander Udovychenko, deputy head of prosecutors office in the region said.

Udovychenko also said that citizens of other countries who help conduct elections might face up to 12 years in prison on charges of seizure of state power and of undermining the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the Kyiv Post wrote citing Crimea.Realities.

Previously, Ukrainian-Crimean prosecutors called Ukraines citizens to ignore Russian elections held on the peninsula and not to vote. They warned that 10,000 members of election commissions in Crimea may face criminal charges.

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a note of protest to the Russian Federation in connection with the presidential elections in the territory of the illegally annexed Crimea. Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said that everyone involved in organizing the voting process in the presidential elections in the occupied Crimea would be put on a sanctions list.Petro Poroshenko outlined the tonality of his future presidential campaign, of which he has not yet spoken out loud. Yulia Tymoshenko called the huge price of the Ukrainian GTS a couple of days before the new round of gas war with Russia. The nationwide #turnitdown campaign helped Naftogaz while running the risk of getting lost in a series of similar appeals. Viktor Yanukovych resurfaced in Moscow. Protesters' tent camp outside the Verkhovna Rada has been dismantled. The Tripartite Contact Group in Minsk announced a general truce starting March 5. The Kivalov-Kolesnichenko language law was declared unconstitutional.

Poroshenko's meeting with the prsss on the last day of winter traditionally lasted two hours, bringing no trouble to the head of state and allowing him to convey his main messages. Among them was distancing himself from the idea of early Rada dissolution, expressing hope for effective cooperation of all branches on the reform path, and reflecting on the consolidation in the Constitution of Ukraine's course toward European and Euro-Atlantic integration. The idea so no obvious opposition from the democratic camp, while possible changes in the Constitution testify not only to the strategic character of the initiative, but also about the long-term nature of the problem. It is unlikely that Ukraine's politicians will publicly admit that both NATO and EU don't expect Ukraine's accession before 2030. It is actually possible that the pace of the country's European and Euro-Atlantic integration will be even slower.

The Verkhovna Rada did not justify the president's hopes, failing to vote for the new National Bank head and new composition of the Central Election Commission. At the same time, the deputies adopted in the first reading a long-sought draft law on the Anti-Corruption Court. Now the legislators will try to assume more obligations and accept the document required by the Western partners before the end of spring. Hopefully, they will succeed.

Yulia Tymoshenko in the fervor of the struggle for the preservation of state-owned gas transmission system claimed its sky-high price was $300 billion. It remains a mystery where the former "gas princess" took such a figure from. Anyway, the new round of the notorious Russian-Ukrainian gas war, which broke out after the Stockholm Arbitration ruled in favor of Naftogaz in a gas transit dispute, quickly smeared the effect of Tymoshenko's weird calculations. The Russian energy monopoly "took offense" and reduced by 20% the pressure in export pipelines, seeking to make the Ukrainian side tremble not only from the cold. Naftogaz urged the country to cut gas consumption with a "turnitdown" hashtag... and won another battle with the Russian blackmailer, promptly finding a partner in the face of the Polish PGNiG. Both Petro Poroshenko and Naftogaz top managers have assured the public that the peak of the energy crisis has been overcome, while PM Volodymyr Groysman might regret that he did not find an opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder with a winner of the week, Naftogaz CEO Andriy Kobolyev.

It's unclear what prompted Viktor Yanukovych's Russian hosts to allow him to resurface at a Moscow press conference since he voiced no sensational statements. The ex-president of Ukraine looks worn off as well as deprived of objective information on the latest developments in Ukraine, however hard he tries to prove otherwise.

Kyiv riot police forces dismantled a tent camp outside the Verkhovna Rada, detaining more than a hundred protesters (some of them  after desperate resistance on their part). An already traditional debate ensued in social media drawing parallel lines between the reformed police and notorious Berkut forces of the Yanukovych times An inappropriate posting by Interior Minister Arsen Avakov spilled more oil into the fire. Opposition parties promised to have police forces punished once they "come to power," while Mikheil Saakashvili said he was planning to set up a mass rally on March 18, which can hardly be seen as a rapid response.

The Tripartite Contact Group in Minsk announced yet another truce in Donbas, starting March 5. Both the Ukrainian military and Russian proxy forces announced their readiness to observe it, while Kurt Volker's appeal to liquidate the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk "people's republics" may not make things easier for all. However, before the next inauguration of Vladimir Putin, hardly anyone seriously expects a change to a better in the Donbas crisis.

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine declared illegitimate Law "On the foundations of the state language policy," aka the "Kivalov-Kolesnichenko" law, over violations of the adoption procedure. The first decision the Court handed down under its newly-appointed chief will significantly raise the bar of expectations. Meanwhile, Ukraine needs a new language law that will not only ensure the dominance of the state language but also provide for an actual development of the rights of national minority languages, especially in the context of the promised European integration.

Yevgeny Magda

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterSources claim the warlord is facing no threat of liquidation at the moment.

Former leader of the self-proclaimed "Luhansk People's Republic" ("LPR") Igor Plotnitsky was detained by Russian security forces after fleeing Donbas and forced to testify in Moscow for about two weeks.

It remains unclear what helped Plotnitsky have himself released from jail, however his movement is reportedly restricted to within Moscow city limits. He is not in custody, while remaining "monitored", sources close to the leadership of Luhansk militants told Apostrophe.

"As far as I know, as of today, Igor Venediktovich [Plotnitsky] remains in Moscow," a source in the so-called "Council of Ministers of the LPR" said. "Indeed, he has no complete freedom of movement, namely, he cannot leave the Russian capital. Nevertheless, he is not limited [to move freely] within its borders."

Read alsoRussia's FSB arresting Plotnitsky's allies in occupied Luhansk  UA Def. Ministry"I think today he is facing no danger, because he is still under the so-called patronage of his curator [perhaps, this is a Russian presidential aide Vladislav Surkov] and the main key to preserving his life and freedom is that he knows how to keep other people's secrets. Silence is gold; and in his case, silence is life. But this silence concerns information of global nature. As for the machinations on the ground, those involved have already been testified on," the source said.

At the same time, almost all sources of the media outlet claim that Plotnitsky is unlikely to be afraid of liquidation. Moreover, it is reported that he even has the opportunity to contact Luhansk and receive updates on the latest developments there.

"He keeps in touch through the officials that retained their posts after the 'coup', as well as through some representatives of the local press still loyal to him, including the so-called 'LPR state television and radio company'. By the way, as for the former director of the company, Anastasia Shurkaeva, she was less fortunate than Plotnitsky, so she remains in custody over a multi-million theft, although they shared Russian money together," the source said.The decision is based on the annual review of restrictive measures.

On Monday, March 5, the Council of the European Union prolonged sanctions against former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and his associates, while lifting restrictions against two persons, namely former Justice Minister Olena Lukash and Member of Parliament Serhiy Klyuyev.

"On March 5, 2018, the Council extended until March 6, 2019 the asset freezes against 13 persons identified as responsible for the misappropriation of Ukrainian state funds or for the abuse of office causing a loss to Ukrainian public funds. The restrictive measures against two persons were not extended. This decision was based on the annual review of the measures," according to a press release of the European Council.

Read alsoBrussels prolongs sanctions against Yanukovych, alliesIt is reported the measures were initially introduced in March 2014 and extended on a yearly basis since then.

The legal acts will be published in the Official Journal on March 6, 2018.The Hungarian government and security apparatus are regarded as untrustworthy.

The reason of the recent arson attack on the Hungarian culture house in Ukraine's Zakarpattia, committed by a recently detained group of Poles, lies in the Russian ties of a far right radical group, Falanga, the perpetrators are part of.

Members of Falanga have traveled to Donbas, the embattled east of Ukraine, to support and, as some allege, fight forthe Russian-backed militants there. The organization also has links to a marginal Polish pro-Russian political party Zmiana, whose leader is in jail on suspicion of espionage for Russia.

They seem like typical fodder for such operations. Its the type of thing I would see back in my old days, says the former Western counterintelligence official, according to The Daily Beast.

The incident in Uzhhorod, experts and officials suggest, was a small part of a much wider Russian campaign bent on fomenting ethnic tensions within Ukraine, with the goal of destabilizing the country and antagonizing its NATO-affiliated neighbors, especially Poland and Hungary. And it seems to be working.

Read alsoPoland's security forces bust group involved in arson attack on Hungarian culture center in ZakarpattiaAccording to Ukrainian authorities, a broader campaign focused on vandalization of Polish, Bulgarian, and Hungarian cemeteries and monuments was generally orchestrated by the so-called Ukraine Salvation Committee, based in Moscow, headed by fugitive former Ukraine Prime Minister Mykola Azarov.

What theyre really implying is that the real force behind it are the Russian intelligence services, which is likely, says Robert Cheda, a former Polish intelligence officer and an analyst at the Pulaski Foundation in Warsaw. It is no secret that the nationalist milieux are heavily infiltrated by Russians.

Much as with Russias influence campaign in the United States, which was aimed at exploiting political and racial divisions, Moscows agents worked to inflame and exacerbate the existing tensions and cleavages.

Read alsoHungary's language row with Ukraine about "sucking up to Russia"  mediaAfter the Ukrainian Parliament passed in September a new education bill, which Hungary believes would hamper language rights of its minority in Zakarpattia, the Hungarian governmentpossibly the most Putin-friendly among EU member statesswore that the consequences will be painful for Ukraine and suggested it will stand in the way of the countrys integration with the West.

The recent attacks in Uzhhorod only made the crisis worse. In the wake of it, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto summoned the Ukrainian ambassador to issue a sharp rebuke over growing extremist tendencies and the alleged intimidation of diaspora leaders. He also appealed to the European Union to defend Zakarpattias Hungarian minority.

Read alsoHungary blocks NATO-Ukraine Defense CommissionIts sheer propaganda, and the claim of intimidation is exaggerated. Everybody knows these are Russian-initiated provocations, yet the Hungarian government never acknowledged it, says Janos Szeky, a Hungarian journalist at Elet es Irodalom, a political weekly. They say these are the results of a centrally directed anti-Hungarian hate campaign. Which is a vicious lie.

Basically, what were seeing in these spats is a clash of populist, assertive governments who consider themselves to be regional powers, and who pander to nationalist sentiments, concludes former intelligence officer Robert Cheda. For Russia this is a perfect environment.

As earlier reported by Politico, NATO allies are worried about expanding Russian intelligence operations in Hungary. Officials from allied countries say Russia increasingly sees Hungary as an operational backdoor into Europe.

"There is tremendous concern that Russia is basically using Hungary as an intel forward operating base in NATO and the EU," said a former official at the U.S. Embassy in Budapest, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Western officials say Russian intelligence agencies have boosted their presence over the past few years in Hungary, which is a member of Europe's border-free Schengen zone, to launch a variety of intelligence and sabotage operations in the EU. "Back in 2014-2015 [the Russians] went from maybe 50-100 intelligence officers up to 300 plus" in Hungary, said the former embassy official. Read also Hungary summons Ukrainian ambassador over arson attack  media "Generally we expect they are openly capturing telecoms, running HUMINT [human intelligence] sources all over Europe, planning and staging all kinds of cyber sabotage, linking up with organized crime and supporting folks in parties like [the far-right] Jobbik with fat sacks of cash and maybe even some intel-sourced dirt," this person added.Given the status of the breakaway, unrecognized territory, the perpetrator is unlikely to appear before a Ukrainian court.

Zakarpattia Governor Hennadii Moskal has stated that a resident of Transnistria, an unrecognized strip of land that broke away from Moldova, is the man behind an arson attack on the Transcarpathian Hungarian Cultural Association in the Ukrainian town of Uzhgorod.

"The identity of the organizer has been established  this is a resident of Transnistria, who immediately fled home once the crime was committed. According to our information, he is an officer of the Ministry of State Security of Transnistria," Moskal wrote on Facebook.

Read alsoPro-Putin right-wingers from EU behind arson attempt at Hungarians Union building in Zakarpattia  GovernorHe noted that, given the status of the breakaway, unrecognized territory, the perpetrator is unlikely to appear before a Ukrainian court.

"I regret to say that there is an ATO veteran among the detainees, residents of Cherkasy and Kropyvnytsky, who set on fire the office of the Transcarpathian Hungarian Cultural Association on the night of February 27," Moskal added.

According to him, the detainees are not members of political parties or movements, but "went to this provocation for the sake of money".

"No one has any doubts that the second arson at the culture center was organized by the Russian FSB (as well as an earlier arson on the night of February 4, committed by citizens of Poland, members of the right-wing pro-Russian Falanga organization)," Moskal said.

Read alsoPoland's security forces bust group involved in arson attack on Hungarian culture center in ZakarpattiaHe also stressed that the Russian intelligence services had attempted to recruit local "activists" to do the job, but after they failed to find any, they attracted people from other regions of Ukraine.

Moskal has no doubts that the Russian intelligence "will continue setting up various provocations to try to saw discord between Ukrainians and Hungarians, and undermine the situation in Zakarpattia region on interethnic grounds." Using explicit language he is notorious for, Moskal stressed there is no way for a "Donbas scenario" to unfold in the region.

As UNIAN reported earlier, an attack with the use of a Molotov cocktail that was hurled at the building of the Transcarpathian Hungarians Union in the west Ukrainian city of Uzhgorod was reported on February 4.

The center was attacked again on February 27: it caught fire after an explosion of an improvised explosive device.The Russian proxies resorted to 82mm mortars, grenade launchers, machine guns, and small arms.

Russian-led forces have violated a newly agreed ceasefire from 00:01 on March 5, 2018, having mounted three targeted attacks on Ukrainian positions in Donbas, eastern Ukraine.

"Despite a joint decision by the Trilateral Contact Group on the ceasefire, the Russian occupation troops have not stopped shelling the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine today. During the day, the invaders have mounted three targeted attacks on the Ukrainian army's strongholds," the press center of the headquarters of Ukraine's military operations said in an evening update as of 18:00 on March 5, 2018.

Read alsoMilitant with Russian passport captured in Donbas warzoneOver the period under review, one Ukrainian soldier was wounded in action (WIA).

In the Luhansk direction, the enemy used 82mm mortars, automatic heavy-duty grenade launchers and small arms to attack Ukrainian troops stationed near the town of Shchastia. The truce near the village of Troyitske was violated with the use of 82mm mortars and large-caliber machine guns.

In the Donetsk sector, the Russian proxies resorted to grenade launchers and small arms near the village Novotroyitske.

As UNIAN reported earlier, participants in the Minsk Trilateral Contact Group on the settlement of the Donbas crisis on February 28 agreed on a full-ceasefire in Donbas from 00:01 on March 5.The incident is not the first of a kind in Poland over the recent period.

Two perpetrators who are yet to be identified have attacked a Ukrainian man on a tram in Wroclaw, Poland, in an apparent ethnic crime.

"Two men attacked the Ukrainian on tram No. 31 in Wroclaw. They beat him and fled," the Polish Center for Monitoring Racict and Xenophobic Behavior wrote on Facebook.

The attackers were heard shouting out nationality-charged slurs at their victim.

Read alsoGermany could owe Poland $850 bln in war reparations: MP  mediaAs UNIAN reported earlier, on February 20, a local man assaulted two Ukrainians on one of the city buses of Warsaw over their nationality.Skripal was sentenced in Russia to a 13-year prison term before he was pardoned in 2010 as part of a spy swap with the United States.

Former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal, who was convicted in 2006 of spying for Britain, was critically ill on Monday after exposure to unidentified substance in Britain, a source close to the investigation told Reuters.

Skripal, once a colonel in Russia's GRU military intelligence, was convicted in Russian of betraying agents to British intelligence before he was later swapped as part of a Cold War style spy swap in Vienna in 2010, Reuters said.

Police said two people had been found unconscious on a bench on Sunday in the city of Salisbury. They were being treated for "suspected exposure to an unknown substance" and they remained critically ill, police said.

Read alsoThe Washington Post remembers 10 Putin critics who died violently or in suspicious waysIt was unclear what the substance was.

The two people were a man aged in his 60s and a woman aged in her 30s and did not have any visible injuries, police said in a statement.

"Because we are still at the very early stages of the investigation, we are unable to ascertain whether or not a crime has taken place," the statement said.

A hospital in Salisbury said earlier on Monday it was "dealing with a major incident involving a small number of casualties." It said staff and patients should come to the hospital as usual.

Relations between Britain and Russia have been strained since the murder of ex-KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London in 2006, a killing which a British inquiry said was probably approved by President Vladimir Putin.

Skripal was sentenced in Russia to a 13-year prison term before he was pardoned in 2010 as part of a spy swap with the United States.

The swap took place on the tarmac of Vienna airport where a Russian and a U.S. jet parked side by side before the agents were exchanged.(@rukhshanmir)

Greece's economy grew by 1.4 percent last year, the national statistics agency Elstat said Monday, only the second time in a decade of crisis the eurozone nation has managed any growth.

Athens, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Greece's economy grew by 1.4 percent last year, the national statistics agency Elstat said Monday, only the second time in a decade of crisis the eurozone nation has managed any growth.

The country's economy shrank by a quarter during an eight-year long recession, aggravated by spending cuts and tax hikes required under its international bailouts.

Debt-laden Greece managed 0.7 percent growth in 2014, but the recovery was squelched by a period of brinkmanship that nearly led to a default and the country exiting the euro before a third international rescue was agreed.

The 1.4 percent growth rate is below the 1.8 percent estimated by the government in the 2018 budget it submitted in December.(@FahadShabbir)

Chairman, State Engineering Corporation (SEC) Syed Kaukab Mohyuddin on Monday urged that the local industry should focus on its upgradation to establish effective joint ventures and partnerships in China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) with Chinese counterparts.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Chairman, State Engineering Corporation (SEC) Syed Kaukab Mohyuddin on Monday urged that the local industry should focus on its upgradation to establish effective joint ventures and partnerships in China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) with Chinese counterparts.

He said this during his visit to Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) , along with his team. He said the industry in world had adopted 5th generation technology and machinery to grow fast, but industry in Pakistan was still operating with 2nd generation technology due to which the country was lagging behind in industrial development.

He said that to catch up with the world in trade and exports, local industry should adopt latest technology and machinery otherwise it would perish in the race for progress. Highlighting the role of his organization, he said that SEC was working to promote industrialization through developing indigenous manufacturing of capital goods and heavy machinery utilizing local resources and through acquisition of technology.

He said Heavy Electrical Complex, Pakistan Machine Tool Factory, Pakistan Engineering Company and ENAR Petro-tech Services Limited were working under SEC. He said these companies have developed a strong engineering base for the design, engineering and manufacturing of variety of light, medium and heavy engineering products.

He stressed that SMEs and local industry should take benefit of the infrastructure and expertise of these companies to improve their productivity.

He said that SEC in collaboration with ICCI was ready to support SMEs in up-gradation so that they could achieve better growth. Speaking at the occasion, President ICCI Sheikh Amir Waheed, said that most of the industries of this region including pharmaceutical, steel, flour and light engineering belonged to SME sector and emphasized that SEC should help in adaption of latest technology and machinery by these SMEs so that they could improve productivity and enhance exports.

He said over 600 pharmaceutical units were operating in the country but there were only 4 to 5 raw material producing industries in the country due to which most of the pharmaceutical companies were importing raw material.

He said SEC in collaboration with private sector should consider setting up raw material producing industries to meet the needs of pharma industry. Sheikh Amir Waheed said that SMEs were the backbone of the economy, but most of them were depending on old technology and machinery due to which they could not achieve growth up to their real potential.

He urged that government should provide tax concessions to SMEs on import of latest technology & machinery that would help in accelerating industrial growth and promoting exports. He assured that ICCI would work with SMEs so that they could take benefit of SEC infrastructure and facilities for upgradation and growth.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Cotton stakeholders met here on Monday and discussed off-season and pre-season management of cotton crop for enhanced production.

MULTAN, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Cotton stakeholders met here on Monday and discussed off-season and pre-season management of cotton crop for enhanced production. The meeting was chaired by director pest warning and quality control of pesticides, cotton zone, Chaudhry Muhammad Farooq, at Mango Research Institute, says an official release.

Chaudhry Farooq said that campaign to manage cotton sticks was being expedited to kill pink bollworm. He, however, appealed all the stakeholders to cooperate with the officials in this campaign so that pink bollworm or its Pupae get killed either by lack of food or by rising temperature before the cotton sowing.

He said that off-season cotton management had showed good results last year and added that PCPA, CropLife, APTMA, PCGA and farming community were extending full support to government's cotton management plans.

He said that ginning factories and oil mills were ensuring proper disposal of cotton waste. Director agriculture extension Rana Ahmad Munir said that officials were giving guidelines to farmers on pre-season and off-season cotton management plans under his own supervision.

PCPA representative Asif Majeed said that private sector stood shoulder to shoulder with the government for success of the cotton management campaign for welfare of farmers and to protect national interests.Pakistan Mathematical Society organized 44th National Seminar in five universities simultaneously through video streaming.

BAHAWALPUR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Pakistan Mathematical Society organized 44th National Seminar in five universities simultaneously through video streaming. On this occasion, internationally renowned researcher and analyst Dr.

Ijaz Shafi Gillani delivered an extensive lecturer on topic of "Influence of Science in Society". Prof. Dr. Qaiser Mushtaq, Vice Chancellor, the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, President and Founder Pakistan Mathematical Society also attended the seminar.

Dr. Ijaz Shafi Gillani got his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Political Science in 1977 and served at Quaid e Azam University Islamabad as Chairman Department of International Relations.

Currently, Dr. Gilani heads Gallup Pakistan which specializes in opinion and marketing research.

He served as adviser to the Prime Minister and was Chairman of the Prime Minister's Committee for Research and Analysis.

Currently, Dr. Gillani is an honorary Senior Fellow at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics Islamabad. He is former Dean of International Islamic University Islamabad and served as member of the board of Governors of Bahria University.

It is important to mention that Pakistan Mathematical Society is dedicated to supporting and encouraging those involved in research, teaching and learning of mathematics at all levels. PakMS organizes and supports seminars, workshops, lectures and conferences aimed at promoting mathematics in Pakistan.

The Pak Council of Science and Technology has merited PakMS as one of the top ten NGOs of Science and Technology in Pakistan.The OPEC+ countries are not yet discussing the possibility to change the oil production cuts deal conditions for August, since they await 100 percent fulfillment of obligations by the signatories, a source in an OPEC+ delegation told Sputnik on Tuesday

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told Sputnik on Tuesday, ahead of his talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, that the country will work to strengthen the economic cooperation with Syria amid the looming sanctions under the US Caesar Act

The imports of plastic materials into the country witnessed decreased of 11.64 percent during the first ten months of financial year (2019-20) as compared to the corresponding period of last year

The global oil supply decreased by 11.8 million barrels per day in May due to a record production cut by the OPEC+, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday in its new Oil Market Report

The compliance of the OPEC+ states with the oil curtailment agreement in May has stood at 89 percent, as the oil output was cut by 9.4 million barrels a day, while the OPEC+ leaders Saudi Arabia and Russia have showcased almost 100 percent compliance, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday

The world's oil production in June will decline by a further 2.4 million barrels a day to 86.4 mbd, which would be the lowest level since early 2010, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday in a monthly oil market report

US oil production is set to fall by 0.9 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2020 and a further 280,000 bpd next year due to low oil prices, weak demand and limited storage availability, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Tuesday

After approval of the historic railway project for up-gradation of main line (ML-1) from Karachi to Peshawar by the Central Development Working Party (CDWP), the government is expecting that groundbreaking of the project would be held by February-March 2021

Sales of environmentally friendly vehicles sold by Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. have remained robust this year, data showed on Monday, with the ratio of such vehicles exceeding 7 percent of their total sales

Records 15276 To 15300 (Total 65331 Records)

Business news

Business news is important part of the news. World business news, Pakistan business news, and top business news are available on this site. Urdu Point provides you finance news, economic news, stock market news, gold rates, silver rates etc. For all types of business news visit Urdu Point. Business news matters a lot as they directly link the economy. CPEC news, PSX news and BTC news are also found on Urdu Point. You can have the today currency rates, today gold rates and today business news on the same page. All types of news about Bitcoin, Bitcoin Pakistan and business news are available here. You can get the information about the petroleum prices, gold rates, gold and silver prices, and CNG prices on Urdu Point.

If you want to learn bullion rates, bullion rates in Pakistan go for Urdu Point. Urdu Point is best for all kinds of business news, business news Pakistan and business news today. If you want the search results for the dawn business news, latest business news, international business news and world business news you can find here easily. We also give information about good news messages in business communication and bad news messages in business communication. International business news is normally latest business news. For all the latest business news and Pakistani business news visit us. Urdu point has news about currency rates, gold rates and silver rates. Urdu Point also gives you information about good news letter in business communication and bad news letter in business communication.

To improve the business communication you must have the business news, latest business news and top business news. You can read business plus news and dawn business news here. We provide latest business news in Pakistan and world latest business news. If you are looking for the bad news messages in business communication and good news messages in business communication go for Urdu Point. We also have information about PSM news in business recorder. To get the updates about gold rates, gold rates in Pakistan, gold rates in Karachi and today gold rates visit Urdu Point. Gold jewelry is popular among women and gold rate does not matter when women fell in love with jewelry. Gold rates vary daily. Stock exchange and economy directly depend on gold rates. Gold rates in Pakistan and gold rates in the world are different. Live gold rates and live currency rates in Pakistan can also be searched.

There is much difference between currency rates in Pakistan and foreign currency rates. This site provides you all information about open market currency rates, open market currency rates in Pakistan and currency exchange rates. International currency rates and open market currency rates are found here. Business news contains the information about gold rates, currency rates, foreign currency rates, currency rates Pakistan, bitcoin news and bullion rates in Pakistan. Daily business news and today business news can be read here. Urdu Point provides top business news for the readers. Open market currency rates and foreign currency rates matter in business news. To read all types of business news, top business news, latest business and currency news, bitcoin news and gold rates visit Urdu Point.A laborer was killed while blasting stone at hills in Sillanwali police limits.

SARGODHA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :A laborer was killed while blasting stone at hills in Sillanwali police limits. Police said Monday that Musharraf,18, of Chak 112/SB was operating a compressor machine for blasting the hills when his shirt entangled in the machine belt and he died on the spot.

Police handed over the body to the heirs after necessary legal formalities.Assistant District Health Officer & focal person of Dengue in Sindh, Dr. Ahmed Hyder on Monday advised that the people should be timely informed about the ways and means for preventing outbreak of dengue epidemic in the country

HYDERABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Assistant District Health Officer & focal person of Dengue in Sindh, Dr. Ahmed Hyder on Monday advised that the people should be timely informed about the ways and means for preventing outbreak of dengue epidemic in the country.

Talking to APP , he said Dengue was a dangerous disease and it could be controlled by adopting preventive measures. Dengue is a mosquito-borne infection which in recent decades has become a major international public health concern.

The incidence of the disease has grown dramatically around the world and nearly two fifths of the world's population are now at risk from this deadly virus. Dr. Ahmed Hyder emphasizes the need to implement the Strategy for Prevention and Control of Dengue which identifies all necessary actions to prevent and reduce the spread of dengue and dengue hemorrhagic fever.

Dr. Ahmed Hyder informed Dengue and DHF (Dengue Hemorrhage Fever) is endemic in more than 100 countries in the WHO Regions of Africa, the Americas, the Eastern Mediterranean, South-East Asia and the Western Pacific.

He said that South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions are the most seriously affected. Dengue has also gripped Pakistan with an unprecedented intensity and magnitude from the last few years, added.

Dr. Ahmed Hyder said that the dengue virus is transmitted to its host during probing and blood feeding. The mosquito may carry the virus from one host to another host and the mosquito is most active in the early morning and later afternoon.

About the signs and symptoms of Dengue fever Dr. Ahmed Hyder informed that fever, Chills, Headache, Red eyes, pain in the eyes, Enlarged lymph nodes, Deep muscle and joint pains (during first hours of illness), Loss of appetite, Nausea and vomiting, Low blood pressure and heart rate and extreme fatigue, he added.

About the treatment Dr. Ahmed Hyder has said that there is no specific treatment to shorten the course of dengue fever.

He said that medications are given to alleviate the signs and symptoms. Aspirin should not be given to patients.

It will cause severe bleeding. He said that in this case the bed rest is essential to a speedy recovery and the patient should consume plenty of water, which will help to alleviate the illness. About the precaution he said that the people avoid wearing dark and tight clothing because mosquitoes are attracted to dark colors.

Wear loose, white and long clothes, which cover the whole body. Mosquitoes find it difficult to bite through loose clothes than tight fitting clothes, he said. Dr. Ahmed Hyder informed that the Sindh Health Department acted well before that time and Fumigation drive and Mass Awareness drive has started.

Dr. Ahmed Hyder suggested in the in environmental conditions that people to sleep under mosquito netting or in a room, which has mosquito screens on the windows. Mosquitoes are unlikely to bite in an air-conditioned room and under strong fans.

He said that the mosquito coils are also useful to help prevent mosquitoes from entering the room. He further advised that avoid reduce outdoor activities during morning and late afternoon because Aedes mosquitoes are daytime feeders.

Dr. Ahmed Hyder also emphasized that the best solution to get rid of this deadly Dengue virus, is to create awareness among the people. Sindh government has recently taken different steps in this regard, as it has issued different pamphlets, carrying the precautionary measures and symptoms of the disease, Dr.

Ahmed Hyder added. He said that currently the only effective way to avoid dengue infection in areas where the disease is endemic or epidemic is to avoid being bitten by injected mosquitoes through the use of insect repellent and other insect barriers.

Dr. Ahmed Hyder also emphasizes the importance of circulating awareness via the media, through information leaflets and manuals, because once an epidemic starts to wean off, people tend to forget.(@FahadShabbir)

HYDERABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 04th Mar, 2018 ) :The Sindh Abadgar board (SAB), a farmers' lobbying group, Sunday demanded of Sindh government to announce a package for setting up solar plant on 12 to 25 acres of land for tube wells.

A meeting of the SAB here, chaired by its President Abdul Majeed Nizamani, proposed that the government should provide 70 percent subsidy for the projects while the farmers would contribute remaining 30 percent.

The meeting also pointed out that 90 percent of the tube wells installed under SCARP project in the catchment of Ghotki Feeder Canal had developed faults and should be rehabilitated.

The farmers at the meeting expressed concern that despite the Federal and Sindh governments' subsidy of Rs 20 billion to the sugar mills, the sugar farmers were not being paid the government fixed price of the crop.

The meeting demanded that subsidy should be withdrawn from the mills which were not paying the official rate to the farmers.Muhammad Shareef Qureshi, Mehmood Nawaz Shah, Dr Zulfiqar Yousfani, Shabir Nizamani, Azam Rind, Muhammad Omar Bughio and other office bearers and members of SAB attended the meeting. APP/zmb/ali(@rukhshanmir)

The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has established Food Safety and Halal Food Authority (FS&HFA)to ensure availability of safe and healthy food for human consumption.

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has established Food Safety and Halal Food Authority (FS&HFA)to ensure availability of safe and healthy food for human consumption.

KP Food Authority kicked off its activities by arranging a media briefing here at its Directorate General on Monday. Director General Riaz Khan Mehsud told media that in an attempt to ensure provision and sale of standard food items in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the KP Food Safety and Halal Food Authority (FS&HFA) has been established to ensure availability of safe and healthy food for human.

Riaz Khan Mehsud said today the authority has started training of its staff after which they will be deputed in divisional offices to execute food safety act 2014. Riaz Mehsud while talking about the newly constructed office told that the government has initiated all-out efforts for smooth functioning of KP Food Authority.

In the first phase, the authority is trying to functionalize Directorate General Office at Peshawar along with its seven Divisional offices.

He said that KP FS&HFA will formulate standards, procedures, processes, and guidelines in relation to any aspect of food including food business, food labeling, food additive, and specify appropriate enforcement systems.

Mehsud further said that we have a qualified and expert team of food scientist beyond that we are in process with livestock department to utilize their fourteen mobile and stationary milk testing labs.

"We are establishing offices in seven divisions and with the passage of time the authority will extend its offices to all districts of KP" he said. KP Food Authority will issue licenses to food operators under the aforementioned categories of food.

DG said that KP FS&HF has three types of laboratories including scientific laboratory, appellate laboratory and medical laboratory, field teams will conduct on the spot medical test for food handlers at production units, food outlets and kitchens.Accountability Court here Monday awarded five years imprisonment and imposed fine of Rs. 9.2 million to Syed Mohsin Ali, accused involved in Fake Housing Scheme case while co- accused Rohi Mohammad Achakzai sentenced 3 years in prison and fined Rs 0.9 million.

QUETTA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Accountability Court here Monday awarded five years imprisonment and imposed fine of Rs. 9.2 million to Syed Mohsin Ali, accused involved in Fake Housing Scheme case while co- accused Rohi Mohammad Achakzai sentenced 3 years in prison and fined Rs 0.9 million.

According to NAB press release, the accused Mohsin Ali Khan established fake housing scheme named Gulshan Hasan Housing Scheme in Brewery Road area of the city. The accused after having received handsome amount from the local people did not hand over the piece of land to them.

NAB Balochistan initiated probe into the fake housing scheme and filed reference in the accountability court after thorough investigation. The Accountability court judge Abdul Majid Naseer in light of the investigations conducted by the Nab sentenced five years imprisonment and impose fine of Rs.9.2 million to Syed Mohsin Ali.

Besides, court also awarded 3 years imprisonment to Rohi Achakzai and fined Rs 0.9 million.President SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry Suraj Vaidya on Monday termed Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi two-day visit to Nepal a gold opportunity to explore new avenues of bilateral trade and said that improved regional trade will not only trigger pace of development in the whole SAARC region but also help promoting further bilateral business relations between Pakistan and Nepal

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :President SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry Suraj Vaidya on Monday termed Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi two-day visit to Nepal a gold opportunity to explore new avenues of bilateral trade and said that improved regional trade will not only trigger pace of development in the whole SAARC region but also help promoting further bilateral business relations between Pakistan and Nepal.

Surej Vaidya who is also a leading industrialist of Nepal expressed these views while talking to SAARC Chamber Pakistan Chapter Vice President Iftikhar Ali Malik by telephone here today from Kathmandu," says a press statement issued today.

He said that Prime Minister visit to Nepal would provide an opportunity to strengthen bilateral relations across all areas of mutual interest, including trade, education, tourism, defence and people-to-people contacts.

PM Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is on two-day tour to Nepal where he would congratulate the newly elected Prime Minister of Nepal Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli and would call on President Bidya Devi Bhandari.

SAARC Chamber Chief said Nepal and Pakistan can explore products of comparative advantage favoured by specific climatic zones in both countries. The direct air link between Nepal and Pakistan, increased exchange of business delegations and establishment of display centers in each other's countries will boost the trade ties and enable both the countries to enjoy increased profits.

He also stressed the need of expanding role of Pakistan and Nepal for the betterment of the people of South Asia besides promoting peace in the region especially between India and Pakistan. Highlighting the role of SAARC Chamber in this regard, he said SAARC Chamber has been proactively advocating stronger commercial and economic relations, for a prosperous and integrated South Asia.

He further said that SAARC should adopt a global approach and should focus on a wide range of activities like poverty alleviation, improvement of the health sector, trade and commerce in the region.

SAARC Chamber Pakistan Chapter Vice President Iftikhar Ali Malik said Nepal and Pakistan hold excellent political relations but the existing trade relations between two countries does not reflect true potential .

He emphasized the need for exchanging business delegations for enhancing trade and promotion of investment opportunities between Nepal and Pakistan and assured his full support in this regard. Iftikhar Ali Malik also appreciated the dynamic role of Suraj Vaidya as president of SAARC Chamber for promoting of trade among the member states in the region.Federal Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique on Monday said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had always respected the constitutional institutions and would continue to do so.

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Federal Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique on Monday said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had always respected the constitutional institutions and would continue to do so.

Addressing an award distribution ceremony at a local hotel here, he said the PML-N would come into power again with two third majority in the upcoming 2018 elections. He said former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had not committed any corruption, adding, "You can not end love for Nawaz sharif from the hearts of people." Khawaja Saad Rafique said Nawaz Sharif made Pakistan an atomic power and gave motorways, adding Nawaz Sharif was called a hijacker in past and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was declared a murderer and hanged but no body believed in this narrative, stressing democracy should not be halted.

The PML-N government had changed Lahore and it would also change Karachi, Peshawar and Quetta in future, he said.

The PML-N would come in power with people's support and the conspiracy to set the lion up by false cases would not succeed, he maintained.

He said Nawaz Sharif was fighting the war of the rights of people and the masses would win this war. Khawaja Saad Rafique said politics was a powerful weapon and people should understand this, adding whenever Nawaz Sharif came into power he set new standards of development and progress.

He said a politician would remain a politician even if he was buried in a grave. Appraising the presence of a large number of women came across the Punjab, he said that skilled women had made their mark in society.

Provincial Minister for Health Khawaja Imran Nazir, PML-N professional wing Sadia Taimor, MPA Majid Zahoor, Mayor Lahore Mubashir Javed and others were present on the occasion.Punjab Minister for HR&MA Khalil Tahir Sindhu has said that under the leadership of Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif, the province is on the path of rapid progress and its GDP is continuously moving up-wards.

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Punjab Minister for HR&MA Khalil Tahir Sindhu has said that under the leadership of Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif, the province is on the path of rapid progress and its GDP is continuously moving up-wards.

After the Senate elections and the victory of the PML-N's candidate in the election of Sargodha has proved that the graph of PML-N reached at the top. He expressed these views in a meeting with elected representatives of minorities here on Monday.

The Minister said that Imran Khan did not cast his vote for Senate elections due to ego, which is example of non-democratic attitude.

He said that Shahbaz Sharif came to Punjab assembly to promote the democratic process being a true leader and Punjab has made a strong development under the dynamic leadership of Shahbaz Sharif.

The Minister said that due to Shahbaz Sharif, China, Turkey and other friend countries were investing in Punjab's mega projects and there was no doubt that the economy had become much strong in the rule of Shahbaz Sharif.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Prime Minister of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Raja Farooq Haider called on Federal Minister for Defence, Khurram Dastgir Khan in his office at Ministry of Defence, Rawalpindi on Monday.

RAWALPINDI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Prime Minister of Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Raja Farooq Haider called on Federal Minister for Defence, Khurram Dastgir Khan in his office at Ministry of Defence, Rawalpindi on Monday.

The minister appreciated the resilience of the brave citizens, living along the Line of Control in AJK for facing the unprovoked attacks by Indian forces on daily basis, said a statement issued here.

Dastgir reiterated Pakistan's undying commitment to support the cause of Kashmiri freedom, morally and diplomatically. The AJK Prime Minister informed the minister that the people of AJK were resolute in their desire to join Pakistan and would not refrain from any sacrifice while facing Indian aggression.

He appreciated the minister for his recent visit to the Line of Control and invited him again to visit and meet the citizens, being targeted daily by unprovoked attacks by Indian Forces.Senate Standing Committee on Interior on Monday recommended strict punishment for criminals supplying drugs in educational institutions.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Senate Standing Committee on Interior on Monday recommended strict punishment for criminals supplying drugs in educational institutions.

The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Senator A. Rehman Malik here at the Parliament House. It was attended among others by Senator Javed Abbasi, Senator Shahi Syed, Senator Dr. Jehanzeb Jamaldini and Senator Seher Kamran.

Secretary Interior, Inspector General Islamabad, DIG Security Islamabad and officials from Ministry of Law also attended and briefed the meeting. Chairman Committee Senator A. Rehman Malik recommended clinical tests for the drugs of the students in different educational institutions at least once a year, and directed the Ministry of Interior for arrangement in collaboration with administration of schools, colleges and universities.

He also directed the Police and Ministry of Interior to form a team, comprising of school staff, ministry and police for narcotics control in the educational institutions. The Committee also recommended amendments in the Blue Book for the purpose of tightening security in the capital.

The Senate Body was concerned to know that the 'Compensation money for the martyrs of Islamabad Police' is much less than the money for the martyrs of Punjab police. Senator A. Rehman Malik directed the Ministry of Interior to enhance the package and compensation money for Islamabad Police's martyrs and directed that compensation for Shuhada families of police should be equal across the country.

The Committee decided to move a Private Bill in the House seeking 'same and equal' package for martyrs of police across the country. It recommended and directed the Secretary Interior to acquire land of 50 kanal for Islamabad Jail and a Training College from Capital Development Authority.

Chairman Senate Standing Committee recommended special grant for Islamabad police to meet their basic requirements in terms of equipment and others. Islamabad Police has also sought recommendation for APC vehicles which the ICT Police is lacking.

The Chairman Committee also directed to move a resolution in the house seeking requirements of Islamabad Police, jail requirement and to enhance the capability of Islamabad police. The Chairman Senate Standing Committee also took serious notice of the matter wherein National Database & Registration Authority(NADRA) has instructed its staff in written to "send Pashtoo speaking towards help desk for proper interview before token issuance" terming it derogatory and condemnable.

Senator Shahi Syed had taken up the issue of issuance of instructions by NADRA to its staff wherein they are directed to send Pashtoo speaking towards help desk for proper interview before token issuance.

Terming it highly condemnable and derogatory, Chairman Senate Standing Committee Senator A.

Rehman Malik directed Secretary Interior to investigate into it, take back the instructions immediately.

He also directed Chairman NADRA to appear before the committee and explain as to why such instructions were being passed. The committee considered and discussed different Bills in detail, however "The Criminal Laws (Amendment) Protection of Rights of Transgender Persons Bill 2017, moved by Senator Rubina Khalid was withdrawn by the mover and was disposed off.

The committee also considered "The Islamabad Capital Territory (Prohibition of Interest on Private Loans) Bill, 2017" moved by Senator Sirajul Haq. With the consent of the mover, the bill was referred to the Council of Islamic Ideology (CII); the Bill was deferred and forwarded for next, considering the importance of the Bill.

The FC Balochistan submitted a detailed report on Gharang Check Post of FC in Balochistan due to which long queues of vehicles is a daily routine causing problems for the people of the areas". The issue was moved by Senator Maulana Hafiz Hamdullah and the committee was satisfied by the briefing of FC as the road was extended and the trouble of the people was minimized after the issue was taken by the Committee.

FC briefing pointed out that a hospital was also established near the check post for facilitation of the passengers. The matter is disposed off and Chairman appreciated the FC Balochistan for addressing the public issue.

Chairman Committee Senator A. Rehman Malik has asked the Islamabad Police to brief the committee on the achievements of the Islamabad Police for the last two years and also capacity building resources including pending request of police in enhancing the capacity building with Finance or Interior.

Inspector General Police Islamabad Dr. Sultan Azam Taimori and DIG Security Waqar Chohan briefed the committee about the achievement for which Chairman appreciated Islamabad Police. Senator A. Rehman Malik said that Islamabad being the capital of the country needs to be made fully protected and free of drugs and riots.

He said it gives a bad name to the country when mobs or political parties besieged the capitals therefore every kind of protest and political gatherings should be restricted to a particular place like the then Interior Minister had limited such activities to F-9 Park.

He said in this regard if legislation is required, this committee will move in the House. Chairman Senator A. Rehman Malik directed the IG Islamabad police that police must show zero tolerance for drug smugglers particularly those who are supplying the drugs to the educational institutions.

He said the committee had earlier taken a very serious notice of the drugs in educational institutions and resultantly operations were conducted in different institutions of the capital.Former prime minister and PPP central leader Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani Monday urged people of South Punjab to vote for those who supported the idea of a separate province in order to empower local people.

MULTAN,(UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) -:Former prime minister and PPP central leader Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani Monday urged people of South Punjab to vote for those who supported the idea of a separate province in order to empower local people.

Talking to media on the occasion of Seraiki Ajrak Day, at Multan Arts Council here, Gilani observed that blue colour of "Ajrak" was cultural identity of Seraiki region. He said "It is my prayer and wish that there should be a separate province of the people of the region".

He also suggested observing Seraiki Ajrak Day at government level and added when PPP would come to power, it would mark the day at government level. Responding to a question,Yusuf Raza Gilani said elected representatives should not criticize judicial verdicts.

He said the matter of PML-N top leader was sub-judice and it was the purview of the court to decide it. To another question about horse trading in Senate elections, he observed if there was so, then PPP would have secured seats from Punjab.

He,however, commented that PTI won seat from Punjab despite its small number of legislators. When questioned about any chance of delay in holding general elections, Gilani observed that the polls should be held on time. About PPP preparations for the next elections ,Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani informed that Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari would visit all provinces very soon for this purpose.Minister of State for Information, Broadcasting, National History and Literary Heritage Marriyum Aurangzeb while speaking as chief guest at inaugural ceremony of Early Childhood Education Training Course for teachers at Quaid-e-Azam Academy for Educational Development Monday urged the teachers to come-forward and play their proactive role in combating the tendency of intolerance in the society.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Minister of State for Information, Broadcasting, National History and Literary Heritage Marriyum Aurangzeb while speaking as chief guest at inaugural ceremony of Early Childhood Education Training Course for teachers at Quaid-e-Azam academy for Educational Development Monday urged the teachers to come-forward and play their proactive role in combating the tendency of intolerance in the society.

She said that only those nations make progress that held their teachers in high esteem as educators had critical role in character building and training of the students and children after the parents.

The minister said that Punjab Chief Minister, Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif had introduced revolutionary reforms in key sector of education during past few years. CM Punjab had taken practical measures such as quality training programmes for teachers, improved infrastructure of schools and colleges, digitalized curriculum upto matriculation, established Punjab IT board GIS system to monitor attendance of students and to take update on the performance through SMS service.

Marriyum said that Punjab had taken lead in educational and other public sectors including health and time has come that other provinces should emulate what had been accomplished by Punjab. Under the vision of former Prime Minister, Muhammad Nawaz Sharif an educational reforms programme was commenced for up-gradation and infrastructure development of schools in the Federal capital.

She informed that in the first phase 200 schools had been renovated and upgraded out of 422, whereas computer labs had been provided to 170 schools so far. It was after 40 to 45 years an attention was paid on the improvement of infrastructure of the schools of Islamabad and a committee to this affect was constituted under Marriyum Nawaz of which she was also a member.

She said that it should be the right of the people of Pakistan to elect the representatives of their choice on the basis of performance. She reiterated that masses would reject those who had been creating chaos, anarchy and intolerance in the country round the clock.

Marriyum Aurangzeb also called for steps to promote national urdu language as it was sine quo non to promote core values and cultural heritage of Pakistan. The minister also applauded the level of participation by women teachers at early childhood training course and hoped that women would continue to play their role for the betterment of society.

She said that different political parties were ruling in their respective provinces and they must take concrete measures to meet the expectations of the masses.The ability test, based on MCQs in advertised qualification for the post of deputy forest ranger in Forest Department will be held on March 19 at 09:15 am, said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Service Commission Peshawar here on Monday

PESHAWAR, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :The ability test, based on MCQs in advertised qualification for the post of deputy forest ranger in Forest Department will be held on March 19 at 09:15 am, said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Service Commission Peshawar here on Monday.

Moreover, the detail of examination center and roll numbers will be uploaded on Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Public Service Commission's website www.kppsc.gov.pk and candidates can download their roll numbers with respective examination center from the website before the conduct of exam/test.

No individual admission letter/roll number slip would be issued or posted to any candidate.

If a candidate does not get intimation through website, SMS and E-Mail regarding his or her exam/test, he/she may get status confirmed from computer section before the conduct of exam or test, on Number 091-9212976/ 091-9214131-9212897-9213750-9213563 (Ext: No 1082) 091-9212688.

The KPPSC further said that carrying and use of mobile phone or other electronic devices in examination hall is strictly prohibited. Any candidate found in possession of these devices shall be liable to strict disciplinary action.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Criminal Investigation Agency (CIA) of Islamabad Police has arrested three persons allegedly involved in killing of a Chinese woman during dacoity at her house and also looting foreigners, said Inspector General of Police Islamabad Sultan Azam Temuri here on Monday.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Criminal Investigation Agency (CIA) of Islamabad Police has arrested three persons allegedly involved in killing of a Chinese woman during dacoity at her house and also looting foreigners, said Inspector General of Police Islamabad Sultan Azam Temuri here on Monday.

Addressing a press conference also attended by Security Officer Chinese Embassy Peng Yunfei and people from Chinese Community, the IGP said that unidentified persons barged into the house of Chinese woman on December 29, 2017 residing in the Ramana police area.

They took away cash and other valuables from the house and killed her on offering resistance to them. Ramana police station registered the case (no.364) under section 302/379, he said adding that case was transferred to CIA police and a team was constituted under supervision of SP (Investigation) Zubair Ahmed Sheikh to trace the killers.

This team included DSP CIA Muhammad Ashraf Shah, ASI Suleman Shah, Constables Waseem Iqbal, Fahad Ameen, Ali Asghar and Shehzad. This police team, the IGP said, scrutinized the criminal record, started investigation into the issue on technical grounds and succeeded in arresting three persons involved in this crime.

They have been identified as Syed Tehseen s/o Syed Gul Hussain Shah, Syed Zulqarnain s/o Syed Kamal Hussain Shah and Khurram Ibrahim s/o Ibrahim Satti.

He said that police team recovered two pistols, steel hammer, iron rod, veils, cash Rs1,60,000, two laptops and one mobile phone from them.

During the preliminary investigation, Temuri said these criminals confessed to have killed Chinese woman and looting foreigners including Chinese national in sectors F-8, F-10, G-10, G-9 and G-11.

They used to observe Chinese people during their shopping activities in market, chase and mark their houses and plan to loot them. Further investigation is underway, he said, adding one of the accomplice of these nabbed persons is yet absconding.

The ring leader of this gang Syed Tehseen had visited Germany in 2014 and stayed there illegally. He returned to the country after not getting visa from there and started criminal activities on his return.

Security Officer Chinese Embassy Peng Yunfei appreciated the performance and hard work of Islamabad police in tracing this murder. He also lauded the steps taken by Islamabad police to ensure protection to the Chinese people residing in Islamabad.

IGP Islamabad Sultan Azam Temuri also appreciated this performance and announced cash prizes and commendation certificates for members of police team. He said that effective steps have been taken to ensure protection of the foreigners residing in Islamabad.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Dr. Yousef A. Al-Othaimeen strongly condemned massive attack carried out by Boko Haram terrorist group on a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the town of Rann in Borno State, Nigeria

JEDDAH (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Dr. Yousef A. Al-Othaimeen strongly condemned massive attack carried out by Boko Haram terrorist group on a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the town of Rann in Borno State, Nigeria, in which three humanitarian aid workers were killed, one critically injured and three others missing.

The attack also claimed the lives of eight Nigerian security personnel. The tragic incident has led to the suspension of all humanitarian activities in the area. Al-Othaimeen expressed outrage at the cowardly attack, describing it as a violation of the international humanitarian law.

He called on the Nigerian authorities to apprehend those responsible for this reprehensible act against innocent civilians and bring them to justice. The secretary general conveyed his deepest condolences and sympathy to the families of the affected aid workers and to the government of Nigeria.

He also reiterated the OIC's firm solidarity with Nigeria in its efforts to combat the menace of Boko Haram and restated the principled position of the Organization against terrorism and violent extremism in all their forms and manifestations.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Angolan President Joao Lourenco on Monday in Luanda met Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov. According to a press release from the President's Civil Office, they discussed different issues related to the strengthening of bilateral relations during the meeting.

LUANDA, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Angolan President Joao Lourenco on Monday in Luanda met Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov. According to a press release from the President's Civil Office, they discussed different issues related to the strengthening of bilateral relations during the meeting.

The Angolan statesman expressed interest in seeing the Russian Federation participate in more areas of the Angolan economy, such as gas production apart from diamond mining. A package of agreements was also discussed by both parties, including validating the equivalences of academic diplomas.

The agreements under discussion are expected to be concluded and signed at the time of the visit by President Joao Lourenco to Russia later this year.

The relations between Angola and Russia reached a high point in 1976, when the two countries signed the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation.

From 1976 to the present, relations between the two countries have undergone different stages of cooperation, and are currently significant in the sectors of Energy, Geology and Mining, Higher education, Training, Defense, Interior, Telecommunications and Information Technology, Fisheries, Transport, Finance and Banking.

Currently, an estimated 1,000 Russians live in Angola, while at least 1,500 Angolans live in Russia. After Angola, the Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation will visit Namibia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Ethiopia.The Azerbaijani delegation led by the minister of economy, chairman of the Coordinating Council for Transit Freight, Shahin Mustafayev is visiting Kars,

BAKU, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) ::The Azerbaijani delegation led by the minister of economy, chairman of the Coordinating Council for Transit Freight, Shahin Mustafayev is visiting Kars, Turkey.

The Azerbaijani delegation visited the monument of the National Leader Heydar Aliyev and laid flowers. Afterwards, at a meeting with the Minister of Transport, Navigation and Communications of Turkey Ahmed Arslan, both the sides discussed the possibilities of developing cooperation in all spheres, including in the transport and transit area.

It was noted that the number of trucks moving from Turkey to Central Asia and vice versa has increased in transit traffic.

The infrastructure (railway, the international sea trade port of Alat, motor roads, etc.) opens wide opportunities for further increasing cargo transportation.

The sides stressed the importance of promoting the Trans-Caspian transit and East-West trade corridor. They also discussed expansion of economic relations between the two countries, in particular, in the sphere of transport and transit.

Then, the Azerbaijani delegation left for Georgia, where they will hold a series of meetings with the country's officials. The meetings will focus on economic cooperation, as well as prospects for expanding relations in the transport and transit sphere.(@FahadShabbir)

Villagers in a remote Indonesian community disemboweled a critically endangered Sumatran tiger and then hung the big cat from a ceiling after it attacked a pair of locals, a conservation official said Monday.

Medan, Indonesia, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Villagers in a remote Indonesian community disemboweled a critically endangered Sumatran tiger and then hung the big cat from a ceiling after it attacked a pair of locals, a conservation official said Monday.

Human-animal conflicts are rampant in the vast Southeast Asian archipelago, especially in areas where the clearing of rainforest to make way for palm oil plantations is destroying animals' habitats and bringing them into closer contact with people.

Locals from Hatupangan village in North Sumatra had initially suspected the tiger was a supernatural creature so they followed it to its jungle lair, the official said. The tiger -- which has been seen around the village since last month -- attacked the curious group Sunday, leaving two villagers seriously injured.

They later announced plans to kill the animal, despite warnings by conservation officials not to hurt the endangered cat. "Unfortunately they would not listen. They insisted on killing the tiger," local conservation agency head Hotmauli Sianturi told AFP, adding that a conservation officer was blocked from preventing the death.

"After killing the animal, the locals hung up its body for display. It's very regrettable." Some internal organs were missing from the tiger's body, said authorities, who are investigating the killing. Sumatran tigers are considered critically endangered by protection group the International Union for Conservation of Nature, with 400 to 500 remaining in the wild.General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) strongly condemned the terrorist attacks on France's embassy and cultural institute, as well as the headquarters of the armed forces in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso.

JEDDAH, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) strongly condemned the terrorist attacks on France's embassy and cultural institute, as well as the headquarters of the armed forces in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso.

OIC Secretary General Dr. Yousef bin Ahmed Al-Othaimeen described this act as "criminal" and urged the local authorities in Burkina Faso to make every effort to arrest the perpetrators and those who stand behind them and bring them to justice.

He also extended his deepest condolences to the families of the victims and to the government and people of Burkina Faso over the tragic loss of precious lives, and wished a speedy recovery for the wounded.

Al-Othaimeen reiterated the OIC's position against all forms of violent extremism and terrorism. He also reaffirmed the Organization's firm solidarity with the Burkinabe government in its determination to combat terrorism.

The secretary general emphasized the need to increase the international partnership to support the efforts of Burkina Faso and the Sahel region countries to defeat the menace of terrorism.Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will skip the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Australia summit this month,

MANILA, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) ::Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte will skip the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-Australia summit this month, his spokesman said on Monday, Xinhua reported.

"The president regrets that he will be unable to attend the ASEAN-Australia summit this month. Developments at home continue to require the President's presence in the Philippines," said presidential spokesperson Harry Roque during a briefing at the Malacanang presidential palace.

He said Duterte needs to be in the country to attend the Philippine Military academy on March 18 "as he considers this an opportunity to have a dialogue with younger military officials.

" The commemoration of the 14th anniversary of ASEAN-Australia ties is scheduled from March 16 to 18.

Roque said Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano will represent Duterte to the high-level meeting that will be held in Sydney. "The special designation will help ensure that the Philippines continues to be engaged with ASEAN and Australia in advancing shared interest in the same region," he said.Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Monday was accorded guard of honour at Nepal's Army Pavilion as he arrived here in the capital of Himalayan country on a two-day official visit.

KATHMANDU, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Monday was accorded guard of honour at Nepal's Army Pavilion as he arrived here in the capital of Himalayan country on a two-day official visit.

Nepal's Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli received Prime Minister Abbasi on his visit to the Pavilion in Tundikhel ' one of important historic landmarks situated in the heart of Kathmandu.

The two prime ministers were escorted by Nepalese Chief of Army Staff General Rajendra Chhetri to the saluting dais. A contingent of Nepal Army presented salute to the Pakistani leader. National anthems of Pakistan and Nepal were played and the canons boomed a 21-gun salute at the venue.

Prime Minister Abbasi reviewed the parade along with his Nepalese counterpart Khadga Prasad Oli. Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is the first world leader who has been accorded guard of honour at Nepal's Army Pavilion.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

A delegation of CEOs and editors from Nepal's leading national dailies and television channels called on Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi here on Monday.

KATHMANDU , (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :A delegation of CEOs and editors from Nepal's leading national dailies and television channels called on Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi here on Monday.

The editors showed keen interest in learning about progress on China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) since Nepal had also joined One Belt-One Road (OBOR) project in 2016. The Prime Minister said participation of Nepal in OBOR would usher in a new era of prosperity for the country.

Abbasi shared with editors the success of Pakistan in war against terrorism and apprised them that peace had been restored in all cities including Karachi that suffered law and order situation in the past.

He also mentioned the country's high economic growth rate and the construction of 17,00 kilometre network of roads and motorways across the country. He stressed that progress was the result of political stability and democracy.

The media representatives shared the state of media in Nepal, which they said had undergone a massive change with transition of democracy in the country. He said the media of Pakistan was quite dynamic and vibrant as democratic norms in the country ensured its independence. The media chiefs represented the ABC news Nepal, Janata Television, Gorkha Express and Nayapatrika National Daily.The United Nations and its partners plan to deliver much-needed relief assistance to the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta this week, the global organization's humanitarian wing has said.

UNITED NATIONS, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) :: The United Nations and its partners plan to deliver much-needed relief assistance to the besieged Syrian enclave of eastern Ghouta this week, the global organization's humanitarian wing has said.

A convoy of 46 trucks carrying health and nutrition supplies, along with food for 27,500 people, are expected to arrive in the city of Duma later today, the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, has reported.

"We hope that the convoy may proceed as planned and will be followed by other convoys. Our teams on the ground are ready to do all that is needed to make this happen," UN Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator in Syria, Ali Al-Za'tari, said.

Nearly 400,000 people in Eastern Ghouta, located near the capital, Damascus, are trapped in what UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has characterized as "hell on Earth." On 24 February, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a 30-day nationwide ceasefire in Syria, in addition to other measures including the lifting of sieges, particularly in eastern Ghouta.

However, UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, Panos Moumtzis, who is based in Jordan, noted that one week later there has yet to be a cessation of hostilities, while violence has escalated in some areas.

"Instead of a much needed reprieve, we continue to see more fighting, more death, and more disturbing reports of hunger and hospitals being bombed.

This collective punishment of civilians is simply unacceptable," he said in a statement issued on Sunday.

"The UN and humanitarian partners stand ready to assist the 13.1 million of people in need inside Syria, but cannot do it alone. We certainly cannot do this while the fighting continues." OCHA reported that the UN and partners have received approval to deliver assistance for 70,000 people in need in Duma.

The UN has received assurances that the remaining supplies for all approved people in need will be delivered on 8 March, according to a press release issued by the UN office. So far this year, the only UN aid delivery to eastern Ghouta was on 14 February, when a convoy with supplies for 7,200 people reached the town of Nashabiyah.

Meanwhile, the UN has called on all parties in Syria to facilitate unconditional, unimpeded, and sustained humanitarian access to all people in need throughout the country. The Syrian conflict began in March 2011 and has generated what has been described as the worst humanitarian crisis of our time.

Despite the ongoing violence, the UN continues to provide millions of people in need with life-saving assistance on a monthly basis.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Unidentified armed men set a school on fire overnight in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, Xinhua quoted local television channel Ariana News report here Monday.

KABUL, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 05th Mar, 2018 ) ::Unidentified armed men set a school on fire overnight in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province, Xinhua quoted local television channel Ariana news report here Monday.

Citing a local official Attaullah Khogyani, the media outlet reported that "four armed men entered Eimal Khan school in Mohmand Dara district at midnight and set it on fire," during which all the documents and books inside the school building were burned.Austin, TX (UroToday.com) Over the course of its existence, Urinary Incontinence Treatment Network (UITN) trials have been performed over 9 clinical sites and a digestive disease center. It has developed and conducted 4 major randomized controlled trials over 10 years, with its data archived in the NIDDK repository. Regarding surgical treatment of stress predominant urinary incontinence in women, we now have level 1 evidence for short and medium-term efficacy and safety of burch vs sling and retropubic vs transobturator tape (TOT) midurethral mesh slings. It has also produced level 1 evidence about value of preoperative urodynamics.Dr. Michael Albo discussed the SISTEr trial, which proved the midurethral sling provided better efficacy than the burch colposuspension. Satisfaction rates were similar between the two groups, but slings had higher complication rates. The TOMUS trial was conducted to examine if the TOT sling was inferior to the retropubic sling. At 12 and 24 months, the differences between the two were minimal. There were more adverse events in RP sling (bladder perforation, voiding dysfunction, UTI), and the TOT sling had more neurologic symptoms. There was no difference in mesh complications between the two. Quality of life improvements occurred rapidly after surgery and were sustained at 24 months in both groups.UITN trials were performed on UDS in order to standardize and give reference values, as well as provide predictive value of baseline parameters. Most importantly, this work was able to provide evidence for the value of preop UDS. Through this, researchers were able to determine predictors of success and adverse events. The VALUE trial found that in patients desiring surgery for SUI, office evaluation alone for SUI was not inferior to office evaluation plus UDS. There was no difference in severity of incontinence, quality of life, and satisfaction measures between the two groups. In the BE-DRI study, researchers found that the addition of PME to anticholinergic therapy does not improve outcomes in OAB.Dr. Albo concluded that the UITN has demonstrated that patients are willing to be randomized and surgeons are willing to standardize outcomes and procedures. He also makes note that patient study populations may not be diverse in these trials and because of this, may not be generalizable to the general population.Presented by: Michael E. Albo, MDWritten by: Cristina Palmer, DO. Female Urology, Pelvic Reconstruction, Voiding Dysfunction Fellow, Department of Urology, UC Irvine Medical Center, Orange, California at the Society of Urodynamics, Female Pelvic Medicine & Urogenital Reconstruction Winter Meeting (SUFU 2018), February 27-March 3, 2018, Austin, TexasPage Content

These days, drones have many uses, from personal to professional. One of its more controversial uses is striking terrorism suspects outside of war zones. Learn more about the ethics of this practice at a free lecture offered by the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

"The Morality of Drone Warfare" will be held at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 13, presented by David Chan, professor in the Department of Philosophy. Held in the Pinery Room of the Portage County Public Library, 1001 Main St., Stevens Point, this is the sixth talk in the eight-part College of Letters and Science 2017-2018 Community Lecture Series. The public may attend free of charge.

"Some of the controversy concerns the legality of drone strikes under U.S. and international law," Chan said. "In this talk, familiar ethical arguments for and against drone strikes will be discussed, and new arguments proposed."

Chan earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford University, a master's degree from National University of Singapore and bachelor's degree from the University of Melbourne. His research interests include moral psychology, virtue ethics, the ethics of war, medical ethics and Greek philosophy. Chan teaches classes on contemporary moral problems, ethics and medicine, ancient Greek philosophy and the ethics of war.

For more information on the Community Lecture Series, visit www.uwsp.edu/cols/lectureseries or email stappa@uwsp.edu.





The government has launched a new award for tech-savvy women who actively contribute to the growth of the technology sector in Cambodia.



Women working in technology or developing community projects using innovative tech solutions can nominate themselves for the Cambodian Women in Tech award, which will be given out on March 7.



The award was created to try and narrow the gender divide in the technology sector.



Tan Sodany, Cambodias director of information technology policy, said: We want more engagement from women in the tech sector, and we want more contributions from them to develop the tech sector. It also allows Cambodia to step forward and become a digital economy.



Tan Eng Kachnith, an engineering student at Phnom Penhs Institute of Technology, said that her parents had not been happy when she told them she wanted to pursue a technical subject at university.



They are afraid that a woman will not be able to find a job in the tech sector as society views men as better, she said.



More than 50 percent of Cambodians are women. We need more professionals in the tech sector, so if women do not get involved, it will be difficult for the country to develop.



Sok Sopheakmongkol, CEO of Codingate, said the award would help young women with potential find mentors. Women are interested in it, but theres no-one for them to look up to. No-one has become a star or role model in the tech industry.



So far, twenty-six women have been nominated for the award. Three winners will be selected for three separate awards: the ICT Engineer Award, the Cambodian Woman ICT Entrepreneur Award, and the Cambodian Woman ICT For Community Award.



The winners will receive support from the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and become ambassadors for the sector.Editors Note: The United States and ASEAN recently celebrated its 40 years of a partnership in which they have built economic engagement, security, the rule of law, sustainable development and people-to-people relations. But in recent years the region has seen the growing influence of China in trade and development. At the same time, ASEAN nations traditionally allied with the United States and professing democratic principles have shied away from their commitment to promoting democracy and human rights. Jane Bocklage, charge d'affaires of the U.S. Mission to ASEAN in Jakarta, spoke to VOA Khmer reporters Aun Chhengpor and Sun Narin during a recent visit to Cambodia to preside over the Young Southeast Asian Leadership Initiatives STEM Education Workshop.



VOA: In general, where does the relationship between the U.S. and ASEAN stand now?

Bocklage: Absolutely, weve started this relationship as you said more than 40 years ago. And it has grown dramatically in that time. It is a strong, growing, striving, and deepening relationship. About seven years ago, we opened the US mission to ASEAN in Jakarta. We were the first dialogue partner with the resident ambassador in Jakarta. That was one of the first steps to show the depth of our commitment to ASEAN and the region as a whole. And then moving forward in 2015, we established the strategic partnership and we now have the strategic plan of action that guides our relationship going forward. So we see the relationship as hugely positive. The United States and ASEAN both have benefited diplomatically, and economically, from a national security perspective and from people-to-people relations. So we are very positive and looking forward to an even deeper relationship going forward.



VOA: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has stressed the ASEAN principle of consensus. What do you think about that?

Bocklage: We think ASEAN consensus is important to the organization. It is up to ASEAN to decide how to organize itself, lets say that to begin with. ASEAN has decided on the consensus principle. We respect that. That is ASEANs choice. Obviously, we see challenges. But we understand from working with ASEAN that the ASEAN countries very much view the consensus principle as what has helped them stay together for the last 50 plus years. And so if that is the guiding principle that ASEAN has chosen for its organization, then we also support that.



VOA: Do you think it is an obstacle for ASEAN agreement on certain issues?

Bocklage: Of course! But I would suggest in any family of ten that disagreements are going to happen, and that if one member of the family is disagreeing or two members of the family are disagreeing about how things go forwards  well, obviously its challenge the organization. As the organization tackles issues that are important, and difficult and complex, there will naturally be disagreements among the ten. But consensus is important to ASEAN and so were supporting the organization as it goes forwards.

VOA: What are the challenges posed by Chinas growing influence to US-ASEAN relations?

Bocklage: China is a natural partner of many countries in ASEAN. There is an economic relationship. There is a history there and that is as it should be. We are not in competition with China for ASEANs love, if you will. This is a striving, growing, developing region. All of us have a stake in it. So we dont see Chinas influence or Chinas growth as necessarily a negative. We have some disagreements with China. That is natural. But we dont have significant objection to China having a relationship with ASEAN. That is not what it is about. ASEAN countries all have their own relationship with China. Our role is not to dictate to ASEAN countries what the relations with China are. We think there is a room for both of us.

VOA: Many ASEAN countries have been criticized lately for backtracking when it comes to democratic principles and human rights. What is the US reaction to this?



Bocklage: So a couple of thoughts on that. First of all, weve been with the Pacific nations for a hundred years. The United States understands that the region evolves, and that we will see progress and we will see steps backwards. We are still in it to be a partner with ASEAN. We are not going anywhere. So we are committed to the region and committed to helping Southeast Asia progress and develop and move forwards. In terms of each individual country, those are the things we tackle on the bilateral basis. I would say that the United States stance on democratic values is well-known. We will always promote the values that we feel strongly about.

VOA: What is the vision of President Trumps administration towards Southeast Asia?



Bocklage: So you have probably heard quite a bit about the Indo-Pacific strategy. You heard a lot of people talk about what that might be. The United States is very interested in engaging across the region. Looking at the Asia-Pacific, president Trump and his administration has taken a more extensive view than we had in the past and wants to include some of our Southeast Asian partners in that conversation. I would defer to Washington on what are President Trumps views on Southeast Asia and how that is coming about. But I will say that we have seen no significant changes in how important the region is as a whole, and no significant changes in the importance of ASEAN at its center.



VOA: The major Indo-Pacific nations -- the US, Japan, Australia and India -- are said to be planning a major infrastructure initiative similar in scope to Chinas Belt and Road Initiative. What might this look like?



Bocklage: So a couple of things that were buried in that question. One is the issue of the four countries: Australia, Japan, India, and ourselves. We have partnership with all of those countries. We meet with them. We discuss with them but in no way does this mean to be a four-country-led effort that leaves others behind or excludes anyone. Its one way that we engage with our partners. So we talk to the four, we talk to the three, we talk to ASEAN, we talk with China, and we meet a variety of constructs to discuss how to best tackle our shared challenges in the region. In terms of an alternative to China, one of the things that we see when we look at Southeast Asia and that we have been told by our ASEAN partners is that infrastructure as a priority. And there is sufficient work to do on infrastructure, and connectivity, in Southeast Asia that we dont have to be an alternative to China. We can share the region with China and others who are interested.

VOA: The USS Carl Vinson recently visited the South China Sea, where China has constructed numerous military bases and other installations in disputed territory. Do these moves pose a strategic challenge to the security order in the region?



Bocklage: So I think the United States position is quite well-known on this. We do not take the side of any of the claimants. The claims on the South China Sea are the claimants disputes among themselves within the adherence to international law. With regards to aircraft carriers, our military conduct operations under international law within those confines across the region and throughout the South China Sea up and down from Singapore, Japan, Korea on a regular basis. The United States thinks it is vitally important to keep the sea open and free where international law allows and respect claims as long as under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. So we do that in a number of regions around the world and all over, not just in the South China Sea.



VOA: The Trump Administration has been perceived by many as inward-looking when it comes to trade, demanding fair trade over free trade, exemplified by the withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. How does this affect the U.S. engagement with ASEAN?



Bocklage: So I think in economic engagement it certainly affects our relations with ASEAN. I would paint it in a more positive light. We have an immense amount of economic engagement with ASEAN on a variety of fronts. Weve talked just a bit ago about the U.S. investment in a region, as well as things that we are working with ASEAN on, such as ASEAN Single Window, regulatory environment, statue-economy, energy policy, innovation and entrepreneurship. There is a whole-hose of economic engagement that goes well beyond the trade aspect of the relationship. In terms of trade, on specific trade policy from the United States that is the per-view of our U.S. trade representative colleagues and I would not speak out of turn. But the United States is definitely exploring ways to continue our already-strong trade relationship with region.Despite criticism from the U.S. and other Western leaders, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed Sunday that his military's offensive against rebels in East Ghouta would continue. More than 600 civilians have been killed in the fighting over the past two weeks. VOAs Jesusemen Oni has more.An international convoy of humanitarian aid trucks cut short its mission to Syrias besieged eastern Ghouta region after government forces continued their aerial bombardment and ground assault against the rebel enclave.

The convoy of more than 46 trucks left the regions main town of Douma Monday evening to return to Damacus without being able to fully unload its supplies due to the violence.

We delivered as much as we could amidst shelling, UNHCR's Syria representative Sajjad Malik tweeted. Civilians are caught in a tragic situation.

U.N. officials said all the aid workers are safe.

In addition to the shortened mission, the United Nations and International Red Cross says Russias government blocked the rescue workers from loading most of the medical supplies they had planned to transport to the embattled region and would not allow them to be replaced by other items. They say the items included trauma, surgical and dialysis kits, insulin and other items.

It was the first aid shipment to reach the area outside Damascus since mid-February, when a deadly Russian-backed assault began on the rebels, branded as terrorists by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The U.N. Security Councils demand for a 30-day cease-fire has yet to take hold, with Assad and his allies claiming the truce does not apply to the attacks on eastern Ghouta.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 68 people were killed Monday in the latest attacks, even as the aid was arriving. That pushed the death toll to 760 in the last three weeks.

Syrian troops have reclaimed a third of eastern Ghouta, according to the Observatory, and are advancing further in an apparent attempt to split the rebel stronghold in two. The Observatory said one airstrike hit the region a kilometer away from where aid trucks were being unloaded.

The United Nations says 400,000 people are trapped in besieged eastern Ghouta, which it says was already running out of food and medical supplies before air strikes began two weeks ago.

Assad vowed Sunday to continue the assault, telling journalists, The operation against terrorism must continue, while at the same time, civilians will continue to have the possibility to evacuate from the war zone.

There is no contradiction between a truce and combat operations, he said. The progress achieved yesterday and the day before in Ghouta by the Syrian Arab Army was made during this truce.

In comments aired on state television, Assad dismissed Western complaints about a humanitarian crisis in eastern Ghouta as a ridiculous lie.

Russian President Vladimir Putin last week ordered a daily five-hour humanitarian pause in the fighting to allow people to to escape eastern Ghouta, but it does not appear anyone has left.

U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May agreed Sunday that Russia and Syria are responsible for the heart-breaking human suffering in eastern Ghouta, May's office said.

They discussed in a telephone call what Mays office described as the appalling humanitarian situation.

They agreed it was a humanitarian catastrophe, and that the overwhelming responsibility for the heart-breaking human suffering lay with the Syrian regime and Russia, as the regime's main backer, May's office said.

A White House statement did not mention the phone call, but said Russia was ignoring the U.N. resolution demanding the 30-day cease-fire across Syria. The statement said Russia, which voted for the resolution, is killing innocent civilians under the false auspices of counterterrorism operations.

This is the same combination of lies and indiscriminate force that Russia and the Syrian regime used to isolate and destroy Aleppo in 2016, where thousands of civilians were killed, the statement said.The al-Qaida-linked extremist group based in Mali that claimed responsibility for Friday's attacks that killed eight people in Burkina Faso's capital has released a photo that it says is of a suicide bomber before he detonated his vehicle at the army headquarters.



SITE Intelligence Group says the militant group Jama Nusrat Ul-Islam wa Al-Muslimin, known by its acronym JNIM, issued a photo of Yunus al-Fulani on Monday. The al-Qaida affiliate on Saturday said it carried out the attacks, which also hit the French embassy, in retaliation for the killing of one of its leaders in a recent raid by French troops, according to the Alakhbar Mauritanian news agency.



A car bomb exploded inside the army headquarters and a former Burkina Faso is believed to have participated in the attacks.Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday rejected a request from opposition leader Sam Rainsy for talks about the country's political problems, denigrating his archrival as a traitor and a convict.



Hun Sen was responding to a message posted Sunday on Twitter by Sam Rainsy, a founder of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, which called for negotiations to end a political crisis that has quashed many aspects of democracy, with the opposition party dissolved and its members thrown out of parliament.

Cambodian courts, generally considered to be under ruling party influence, last November sustained a government claim that the opposition party had conspired with foreigners to overthrow the ruling party.



A general election is scheduled for July, but with the absence of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, Hun Sen's Cambodia People's Party faces no credible challengers.



"I am always open to meeting with Hun Sen's government in order to find a peaceful solution to this unprecedented crisis, a solution that would be acceptable to both sides, with international guarantees," Sam Rainsy tweeted Sunday.



Hun Sen said he was open to talks, but not with Sam Rainsy and his group.



Speaking at a Buddhist ceremony on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh, Hun Sen said he has spent more than half of his life negotiating for an end to conflict, an evident reference to his role in ending the threat posed by the communist Khmer Rouge, who after being ousted from power in the late 1970s carried out a guerrilla war. He said he was willing to hold talks for the sake of the country's peace and stability, but not with ``convicts'' and "traitors."



Hun Sen also denounced foreign countries promoting talks with Sam Rainsy, accusing them of interference in Cambodia's internal affairs.



In recent years the opposition party has faced an onslaught of legal challenges from Hun Sen's government. Court rulings forced Sam Rainsy to remain in exile to avoid prison and pressured him into resigning from his party.



The attacks on the opposition culminated last November, when the Supreme Court ordered the Cambodia National Rescue Party to be dissolved for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government. Independent media have also been forced to shut down.



Kem Sokha, Sam Rainsy's successor as opposition leader, has been charged with treason for allegedly conspiring with the United States to topple the government, and now faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted. He was arrested on the basis of videos from several years ago showing him at a seminar where he spoke about receiving advice from U.S. pro-democracy groups. The opposition party denied the treason allegation, saying it was politically motivated.

Hun Sen said Monday he will not ask King Norodom Sihamoni to grant an amnesty to Kem Sokha, who is in detention awaiting trial.



Choung Chou Ngy, a lawyer for Kem Sokha, said Sunday his client has high blood pressure and diabetes, and has fallen sick and weak in prison.



The lawyer said his defense team submitted a request two weeks ago for the court to give Kem Sokha permission to go to Singapore for medical treatment, but there had been no reply.



Hun Sen has been in power for three decades, maintaining a framework of democracy while exercising near-total control. His grip seemed shaken in 2013's general election, when the Cambodia National Rescue Party mounted a strong challenge, winning 55 seats in the National Assembly and leaving Hun Sen's party with 68.The opening session of Chinas annual meetings for its top legislature began with familiar pomp and pledges on Monday; however, what many will be watching in the coming days is a proposal that paves the way for Chinese leader Xi Jinping to become president for life.



Much like previous years, a work report from Premier Li Keqiang highlighted the need to limit financial risks posed by growing debt and to keep Chinas economic growth stable. Li says this year, China will spend 8.1 percent more on defense and that the communist-led government expects the economy to expand by 6.5 percent.



Last year, the economy grew by 6.9 percent, but Beijing faces a range of challenges from a looming trade war with the United States to mounting local government debt.



Just as Washington readies to slap stiff tariffs on steel and aluminum, Li said Beijing will cut its overcapacity in steel by 170 million tons.



China will unswervingly promote the globalization of the free economy and protect free trade, Li said. We are ready to work with all relevant parties to advance multilateral trade negotiations.

Although Li did not mention proposed constitutional amendments in his report, another speech at the opening session did. The speech revealed for the first time that the push to pass some 21 amendments during this years meetings  including the article on Xis term in office - began in September.

The Trump administration has accepted the move to end presidential term limits with little objection. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the administration supports term limits in the United States but in the case of Beijing, "that's a decision that would be up to China."

The State Department gave a more traditional response.

We believe strong institutions are more important than individual leaders. Promoting human rights and democratic governance is a core element of US foreign policy  its an essential foundation of a stable, secure, and functioning society."

China's Communist Party says the proposal to scrap the two-term limit on the presidents time in office was a response to calls from across the country and party cadres.



Plans to amend the constitution were only announced last week, just days before the meetings of the National Peoples Congress began. The announcement sparked a backlash online despite heavy censorship of the topic.

Communist party members reportedly have been told to not even discuss the topic and yet state media have repeatedly said the proposals have the publics broad support.



Xi is increasingly known as the chairman of everything because of a large number of government work groups that he heads, but his key positions are that of communist party chairman, head of the partys central military commission and president.



The party says scrapping the limits on the terms the president can serve in office is needed to put the countrys constitution in line with the partys constitution. The partys constitution has no restrictions on terms in office for party chairman or head of the central military commission.



The changes, if approved, will end what has become a regular succession of leaders every 10 years that began well over two decades ago.



Some delegates with whom VOA spoke during Mondays meetings were unaware of the proposal. And while all voiced support for the move, they also said they expect the party would address concerns and questions about how long Xi may remain as president.



One delegate whose name badge was tucked under his coat said that China needs Xis leadership to ensure that his policies continue to be promoted.



That question [of tenure] will eventually be resolved appropriately, but what the government needs now is stability and continuity; what China fears the most is a flip-flop [of policies], he said.



Another delegate, Zhang Bainan, from Chinas northeastern province of Liaoning, said discussions this week would help determine whether the proposal was reasonable and necessary.

He says the proposal has his support and brushed aside concerns that the move could mark a return to the days when Chinas founder Mao Zedong ruled the country for decades.



I believe that the Communist party of China will not revert to its old paths and create a personality cult, regulations in the party constitution are clear on that, Zhang said.



Zhang Jianping, a delegate from neighboring Hebei province, agreed.



I am sure the party has taken this into consideration and has made plans [for this], Zhang said.



Delegates to the congress will discuss proposed amendments this Wednesday and a final vote will be held on Sunday. The vote, party officials say, will include booths, ballot boxes and even a backup counting system.The deadline for resolving the fates of hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants known by some as "Dreamers" came and went Monday with no action by Congress or the White House.

President Donald Trump announced in September he was terminating Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an Obama administration program that provided temporary work and study permits to immigrants brought to America as children.

However, Trump gave Congress until March 5 to come up with a better idea or he would "revisit the issue."

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday it is "absolutely terrible that Congress failed to act," and called the situation "pathetic."

But Democrats blame Trump and the Republican leadership for failing to pass any immigration bills in the Senate and Speaker Paul Ryan for not bringing the matter to the House floor.

"Without a permanent solution, Trump's cruel and reckless decision will tear more families apart, shatter communities, drive immigrants into the shadows, and make us all less safe," Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez said Monday.

But the more than 700,000 immigrants once covered by DACA are in no immediate danger of being deported.

U.S. Supreme Court

The Supreme Court declined to rule in January on a lower court ruling that blocks the White House from ending DACA.

The Supreme Court is not expected to take up the issue again in the near future, and Congress does not appear to be in any rush to pass further legislation on the topic.

This gives the immigrants whose protections have expired time to reapply for a two-year extension.

Sanders said the White House expects to prevail if Trump's decision to end DACA reaches the Supreme Court.

The president has said he is open to giving the DACA beneficiaries a path for citizenship in exchange for ending some legal immigration to the U.S. and funding for a wall along the Mexican border. Many Democrats are not keen on either proposal.Eight people were arrested in Brussels after counter-terror raids as part of an investigation into an alleged attack plot, a source close to the probe said.

All eight were arrested Sunday in Molenbeek, an immigrant district linked to the Paris and Brussels terror attacks, following the raids, the source told AFP.

The eight were taken for questioning before a judge investigating an alleged terror plot, the source said, confirming a report in the Belgian daily La Derniere Heure.

The source said investigators suspected an attack was in preparation, but gave no other details.

The judge will decide late Monday whether to formally charge them and whether to continue holding the suspects or release them, the source added.

The arrests took place following raids in Molenbeek, but also in Geraardsbergen and Mechelen, both in northern Dutch-speaking areas of Belgium.

Molenbeek was home to several members of the cell that carried out the November 13, 2015 attacks on Paris and the March 2016 suicide bombings in Brussels.The Venezuelan extremist known as Carlos the Jackal went back on trial Monday for a deadly 1974 grenade attack on a Paris shopping arcade.



A Paris court convicted Carlos, whose real name is Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, last year and handed him a life sentence.



He appealed  even though he's already serving two life sentences for murders and attacks he was convicted of perpetrating or organizing in the 1970s and 1980s on behalf of the Palestinian cause, or of communist revolution.



One of his lawyers, Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, said Carlos hadn't been able to see the case dossier for the appeals trial, and might ask for a delay in Monday's opening proceedings.



Carlos, now 68, has long denied involvement in the attack on the Drugstore Publicis shopping center in the French capital's Latin Quarter, which killed two people and injured 34.



The case was initially dismissed for lack of evidence. Carlos, the only defendant in the original trial, was found guilty of throwing the grenade.



Lawyer Francis Vuillemin said the defense team will plead for acquittal.



"It's a very tough fight but the hardest battles are sometimes the most beautiful," he said. "Ilich Ramirez Sanchez is still his old self, in great shape, despite being 68 years old. He is going to fight like he always does, at each trial."



Ramirez Sanchez was once the world's most-wanted fugitive, before intelligence agents captured him in Sudan in 1994 and smuggled him to France in a sack.



In one of his most dramatic operations, he led a commando that attacked a meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna, Austria, in late 1975. He took more than 60 hostages, including 11 OPEC ministers, and three people were killed.A former Russian spy is in critical condition after being exposed to an unknown substance in the English town of Salisbury.

British media have identified the man as Sergei Skripal, who was given refuge in Britain after a spy swap between the United States and Russia in 2010.

British broadcaster BBC said Skripal, 66, and a woman in her 30s were found unconscious on a bench at a shopping center in Salisbury on Sunday afternoon.

Wiltshire Police, which is responsible for the Salisbury area, only identified the two by their approximate ages and said "the pair, who we believe are known to each other, did not have any visible injuries and were taken to Salisbury District Hospital."

Craig Holden, temporary Assistant Chief Constable of the Wiltshire Police, said "They are currently being treated for suspected exposure to an unknown substance. Both are currently in a critical condition in intensive care."

He said the police force "received a call from a member of the public who was concerned for the welfare of two people."

Holden said because the investigation is in its very early stages, "we are unable to ascertain whether or not a crime has taken place."

Skripal was convicted in Russia of spying for Britain's MI6 intelligence agency and was sentenced in 2006 on charges of espionage. He was pardoned in 2010 as part of a U.S.-Russian spy swap.

Relations between Britain and Russia have been strained since former KGB-agent Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in London in 2006. A British inquiry concluded Litvinenko was probably killed on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin.Hundreds of rights activists marched through Yangon City Monday to oppose proposed amendments to a bill that regulates peaceful protesting in the Southeast Asian nation.



VOA Burmese reports that around 500 protesters marched through the city Monday, while nearly 200 civil society groups in Myanmar signed a petition against the amendment.



Amendments to the 2011 Peaceful Assembly and Peaceful Procession Law would make it easier to charge demonstrators with crimes and increase penalties for violations.



"Anyone who instigates, persuades others intentionally or knowingly to contradict national security, the rule of law, tranquility and public morale" can be punishable by up to three years in jail, the clause reads.



The current civilian government, led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, proposed adding the clause last month, which would also require protest organizers to provide details on their budget, including the source of their funding.



The bill is being discussed in the upper house of Myanmar's parliament Monday, where some MPs, even from the ruling party, oppose the amendment.



The 2011 law was welcomed at the time for promoting free speech suppressed under the previous military regime, most notably allowing street protests if permission was obtained beforehand.

VOA Burmese contributed to this report.An Instagram post by an outspoken, internationally acclaimed filmmaker and activist triggered a new debate among Iranians on whether Tehran should continue its strong presence in Syria.

Comments by Tahmineh Milani, 57, were construed as a mockery to the "Shrine Defenders," a term Tehran uses for its fighters stationed in Syria.

"The presence in Syria is a matter of discord and dispute by many Iranians," wrote Milani, who in 2001 was arrested, jailed and charged with misusing the arts in support of counterrevolutionary and blasphemy. Following support from fellow filmmakers and international pressure, she was released after two weeks.

Conservative news outlets and websites close to the government started a smear campaign against Milani, calling her "the fifth column of the enemy in the cloak of an artist."

The Iranian conservative newspaper Kayhan called her "an aide to the terrorists within borders." Online website Mashregh News  which has close ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the key military force defending Assad regime in Syria  called Milani a" bombastic psycho."

The Iranian government is very sensitive about people's reaction to the presence of its forces in Syria.

"After recent protests against Tehran's involvement in Syria, authorities are very sensitive about this issue," Ali Najafi, an exiled Iranian movie critic based in Stockholm, told VOA. "This is the main reason they are taking this serious on a single social media posting."

He added, "Most artists do not want to put themselves in trouble, due to the sensitivity of the topic, and do not want to be seen opposing national security."

Nationwide protests in Iran in early January, which started over the price surge on some essential goods, ended up in an unforeseen opposition to Tehran's increasing involvement in Syria. Irritated protesters chanted "Leave Syria alone. Think about us," a reference to Tehran's support for Assad's regime.

History of controversial postings

Milani's social media postings and comments primarily focus on touchy topics  from women's struggles in a male-run society to sexual harassment and feminism, and have received wide support from fellow filmmakers. However, her comments about the war in Syria are being used against her by critics.

A short video clip showing many famous actors, directors and filmmakers supporting the "Shrine Defenders" went viral in the Persian blogosphere.

"Our soldiers are performing their duty by serving in Syria," Mohammad Reza Golzar, an Iranian male superstar and one of Iran's most revered stars, stated in the clip.A confidant of Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday agreed to turn state's witness in a burgeoning corruption case, becoming the third former aide to testify against the Israeli leader in a series of scandals and casting a shadow over a high-profile visit to the White House.

Various media outlets said longtime Netanyahu family spokesman Nir Hefetz had agreed to turn state's witness in return for a more lenient punishment. Police placed a gag order on the case and refused to comment.

Hefetz was arrested two weeks ago on suspicion of helping promote regulation worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Israel's Bezeq telecom company in return for favorable coverage of Netanyahu and his family by the company's popular news website.

He was released on Sunday, a day before Monday's dramatic development. Shlomo Filber, another long-time confidant to Netanyahu, has also agreed to be a state witness in the case.

Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing and has not been named a suspect in the case, but he was questioned by police on Friday ahead of his trip to Washington.

The White House meeting with Trump provides a welcome diversion for Netanyahu and a chance to shore up his base, which remains firmly behind him.

But even with an embrace from Trump, and an expected warm welcome at the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC's annual conference on Tuesday, Netanyahu will have a difficult time escaping the growing scandals back home.

Israeli police have already recommended indicting Netanyahu for bribery, fraud and breach of trust in two separate cases. Netanyahu is suspected of accepting lavish gifts from billionaire friends, and promising to promote legislation to help a major Israeli newspaper against its free rival in exchange for favorable coverage. Longtime aide Ari Harow is a state witness in one of those cases.

In addition to the Bezeq case, police are investigating reports that Hefetz attempted to bribe a judge with an offer to become attorney general if she dismissed a case against Netanyahu's wife, Sara Netanyahu.

The prime minister has denied wrongdoing in all of the cases, saying he is the victim of a politically motivated witch hunt aimed at toppling him.The big winners in Italy's election are a rival pair of populist and stridently anti-European Union political forces: the Five Star Movement and The League. But neither gained enough support to govern the country alone, confirming that negotiations will not be easy to form a new government that can win a confidence vote in parliament.

Regardless, Sunday's populist victory is not good news for migrants from Africa or those trying to enter Europe through Italy as winning factions have been clamoring for measures to stop migration and increase deportations.

Ungovernable Italy headlined one daily newspaper as the results rolled in. Another one ran the headline: Everything will change.

As the results came during the night after the polls closed, it became immediately clear that no party or bloc would gain the 40 percent majority of seats needed in the Italian parliament to be able to govern the country.

It was also clear from early on that the ruling center-left Democratic party was the big loser in these elections.

Maurizio Martina, a minister in the outgoing government, said this is a very clear and evident defeat for the left.

The center-left failed to convince voters with its pro-European message of gradual economic recovery while the anti-immigrant and euro skeptic League party of Matteo Salvini gained huge ground.

Claudio Borghi, the Leagues economic adviser, spoke of a historic result and a turning-point because from today the League has become a national party and the center-right will be led by Matteo Salvini. These, Borghi said, are two very important results.

The League surpassed its coalition partner, the establishment Forza Italia party of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Observers noted how the results confirmed the defeat of the two main political forces that have dominated the Italian political landscape for decades  Forza Italia and the Democratic Left.

As the results came in, French far-right leader Marine Le Pen celebrated, saying Europe was having a bad night. Celebrating the strong showing of Italys League party, she tweeted: "The spectacular advance and top showing of the League coalition led by our ally and friend Matteo Salvini is a new stage in the awakening of the people!"

But the League was not the only major winner in these elections. The populist and anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which did not exist 10 years ago and is headed by the 31-year-old Luigi Di Maio, obtained the highest number of votes of any single party by far.

Alessandro Di Battista of the Five Star Movement, said: "Everyone is going to have to come and speak to us". He added that this will be for the best guarantee of transparency for the Italian people because the other political forces will have to come and speak with them about the proposals and solutions for the country, using their methods of transparency, correctness and credibility.

Former White House adviser Steve Bannon  the man who helped Donald Trump ride a populist wave to the U.S. presidency  characterized the Italian election as pure populism. Bannon called a possible post-election deal between the Five Star Movement and the League the ultimate dream.

The outcome of the vote, which effectively delivered a hung parliament, paves the way for a prolonged period of political instability. The Italian parliament will meet for the first time on March 23 and President Sergio Mattarella is not expected to open formal talks on forming a government until early April.Ibrahim, a 35-year-old Moroccan who hawks bracelets weaved out of multi-colored fabric in front of Milan's cathedral, teared up when he spoke of the family he left behind and which relies on the money he sends home.

"I really hope they don't make it even more horrible to stay in this country," he said. "I want to stay here."

Up and down Italy on Monday, migrants, both legal and not, were pondering their future after the anti-immigrant League surged in popularity in elections the day before.

Ibrahim, who declined to give his last name, is one of the lucky ones. He has permission to stay because he once worked in a factory, but it comes up for renewal every two years.

"It often happens that we have problems, that people shout at us 'go back to your country'," he said.

That is precisely what the League, which shot up 14 percentage points from the 2013 national election, and its three center-right coalition partners, would like to see happen: immigrants going back where they came from, by force if necessary.

The center-right has vowed to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants if they are able to form a government, even though that promise will be hard to keep.

Surveys show Italians are increasingly uneasy after more than 600,000 migrants reached Italy by boat in four years. Last month, a neo-Nazi wounded six migrants in a shooting spree in central Italy.

'Pick them up'

"These 600,000 people, we will pick them up using police, law enforcement and the military," former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, of the Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party, said during the campaign.

League leader Matteo Salvini said irregular migrants would be rounded up and sent home "in 15 minutes" if he and his allies take power.

League supporters were thrilled that they had overtaken Berlusconi's party as the largest in the center-right bloc for the first time since he entered politics nearly a quarter of a century ago.

"With Salvini in government, the problem of immigration can and must be resolved," said Severino Damiolini, 43, an office worker from Sellero, near Brescia in northern Italy.

The immigration debate also highlighted splits between immigrants who have been in Italy for years or decades and more recent arrivals, with the former fearing that their reputations are tainted by the newcomers.

"The League should not lump all of us together - Indians, Asians, Africans," said Kris Sumun, 35, who came from Mauritius when he was five years old and has worked as a concierge in a Milan building for 11 years.

"They have to understand that there are many people like me who have been here for years and are a resource for the country.

People who have a different skin tone are all treated like we are all wretched and poor," he said. "I think it will get worse now."

Next to Rome's Tiburtina train station on Monday, buckets of rain poured onto tents that are home to hundreds of migrants who made their way to the capital after making the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean from North Africa.

"Very few politicians have told the truth about migration," said Andrea Costa, who oversees the site for a charity.

"There is no invasion in Italy. It's not a siege. It's not a crisis. It's an issue that has to be governed like all other issues," he said.The U.N.'s new envoy for climate action, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Monday that President Donald Trump can become "a great leader" if he changes his mind about global warming and keeps the United States in the Paris climate agreement.



The billionaire media mogul expressed hope that Trump will listen to his advisers, look at the data on climate change, and support the 2015 Paris accord aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.



Bloomberg spoke during a ceremony at which U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres gave him the new title of U.N. special envoy for climate action, handing him the job of spurring international action to help curb global warming.



A longtime activist for clean energy and a green economy, Bloomberg was appointed U.N. special envoy on cities and climate change by then U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon in January 2014. Since then, he has been traveling around the United States and the world campaigning for a reduction in carbon emissions.



Guterres announced that Bloomberg will help support a U.N. Climate Summit that he is planning at U.N. headquarters in 2019 to mobilize more ambitious action and start implementing the Paris climate agreement now.



Countries agreed in the Paris accord to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) and do their best to keep it below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), compared with pre-industrial times. But the agreement starts after 2020  and at U.N. climate talks in November over 170 countries stressed the importance of implementing ambitious climate actions before 2020.



Trump announced last June that he was withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris agreement, fulfilling a campaign pledge to quit the world's chief effort to slow planetary warming.



He framed his decision as "a reassertion of America's sovereignty" and argued that the agreement had disadvantaged the U.S. "to the exclusive benefit of other countries," leaving American businesses and taxpayers to absorb the cost.



Under terms of the agreement, the U.S. cannot officially pull out until 2020.



Bloomberg has urged world leaders not to follow Trump, and has pledged to save the Paris agreement.



Last October, for example, his foundation donated $64 million to a Sierra Club program seeking to phase out coal-fired power plants and reduce planet-warming carbon emissions.



Bloomberg said Monday that his foundation is interested "in spending a lot of money in helping us understand that climate change is real and it's measurable."



As examples, he said that for the first time the North Pole in the middle of the winter had temperatures above melting, oceans over the last 20 or so years have risen, and there are more frequent and powerful storms. In addition, Bloomberg said, there are floods where there used to be droughts  and droughts where there used to be floods.



He said the solution is for people everywhere to get together and change the way they live, "and we have to be a little smarter about how we generate energy."



Guterres said last July that Bloomberg is convinced the United States will reach the Paris goals  despite Trump's decision to abandon the Paris agreement.



Bloomberg expressed hope that Trump will change his mind.



"And if that's the case, that shows a great leader who when facts change, and they recognize something different, they're not bound to what they did before, they're willing to change," Bloomberg said. "And I think it's fair to say this president does change his views  generally it's one day to the next, but over a longer period of time."



Guterres also stressed the evidence of global warming.



He said temperatures in the atmosphere and at sea level are rising faster than expected, glaciers are receding more quickly, and the Arctic ice cap is "shrinking much more quickly and dramatically than in the past  so climate change is running faster than we are."



But the U.N. chief said there are two pieces of "very good news," the secretary-general said: "Today, the cheapest energy is green energy" and the "green economy" is the economy of the future. And there is "enormous capacity" to mobilize civil society, the business community and cities.



Guterres pointed to the work Bloomberg has done in all those areas, saying: "I am very confident that this battle will be won, because the realities of today's economy are such that the wise decision is the green decision."Native Americans took to social media to express gratitude to Hostiles star Wes Studi, Cherokee, who, during the 90th Academy Awards ceremony in Los Angeles last night, spoke Tsalagi, the language of the Cherokee people.

The Cherokee Nation itself took to Twitter to express gratitude.

As a veteran, I am always appreciative when filmmakers bring to the screen stories of those who have served," Studi said, introducing a filmed tribute to Hollywood's portrayal of the military. "Over 90 years of the Academy Awards, a number of movies with military themes have been honored at the Oscars. Lets take a moment to pay tribute to these powerful films that shine a great spotlight on those who have fought for freedom around the world.

Studi has enjoyed a long career in movies, appearing in such classic movies as Dances With Wolves and The Last of the Mohicans, and most recently, he played Chief Yellow Hawk, co-starring with Christian Bale in Scott Cooper's new western Hostiles.

Studi is affiliated with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, based in Tahlequah, the largest of three federally-recognized Cherokee tribes. The other two are the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, also headquartered in Tahlequah, and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, North Carolina.

Between 1836 and 1839, the U.S. military removed the Cherokee Nation from their lands in Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas and forced them west into Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in the Western U.S.

Native Americans have served in every branch of the U.S. military and in every war and conflict since the Revolutionary War.

Studi is a veteran himself. Born in Nofire Hollow in rural Oklahoma, he joined the National Guard during his senior year at the now-defunct Chilocco Indian School, a boarding school in north-central Oklahoma. He later volunteered for the U.S. Army and served 18 months in Vietnam.

"Amongst themselves, Native Americans are treated with a lot more honor for having served the people," he told the Military Times in January. "Our culture values the fact that our young men are willing and ready and able to put their lives on the line to protect others."They kicked us out of our home and stole our furniture and valuables, said Rugya Saleem, a mother of six, plucking at the carpet of the tent in a desert refugee camp.

She said her husband was forced to join Islamic State militants, and then was later killed by victims of the group. They said our things belonged to IS. But they didnt. It was all we had.

Going home again, she added, is not an option. Like many other people across northern Iraq, she fled her home recently, months after Iraqs battle with IS militants was declared victorious. And while people are returning to their homes in droves, in many camps, the population is growing.

It's not just the families of captured or killed IS militants being forced to flee their homes. The majority of the newly displaced are fleeing extreme poverty and desolate, destroyed houses without electricity or water, according to Ardalan Maroof, a camp manager for the International Organization for Migration in northern Iraq.



In recent weeks, Maroof said, hundreds of people have been arriving at his camp daily, and, on average, less than half the number of people depart. Other northern camps, he said, have reported similar numbers.



Its mostly financial problems, lack of services and security problems, he explained. Many families are scared for their lives.



Children of IS



For the children of IS in camps, the confusion was palatable. All born of dead or gone fathers, they appeared grief-stricken when asked, but seemed genuinely confused as they thought of what to say.



Adults speak only poorly of IS in public and children try to follow suit; yet, they often have very little understanding of what exactly their fathers did, and it is rarely discussed.



They dont talk about it, said Reem, 13, whose father was an IS member killed by local forces. They tell us that IS was bad and you should never think that way. But we didnt say it was good.



She doesnt know why her father joined IS, or what he did for them. He didnt tell me, and I didnt ask, she said. What she did know about her dad was that he loved spending time with her and her siblings. He took us everywhere, she added, with some reluctance.

The Iraqi government says tens of thousands of IS fighters have been captured or killed in the past year-and-a-half, but the majority of their wives and children committed no crimes.

In a country that has been at war for 15 years, communities often blame entire families for the crimes of individual members who were violent extremists. And aid workers say large-scale recovery programs for children of IS members could create a violent backlash.



Mental health care in Iraq is also lacking professionals and shrouded in stigma, according to Doctors Without Borders.



Some children at the camp defended their fathers, saying they were never extremists like others they saw. Others grew tearful when asked about their fathers, and said nothing.



Do you want revenge on the security forces who killed your father? asked Hatam Mohammad, a local community leader, to Ahmed, an 11-year-old, son of an IS member who may be in jail, but is presumed dead by his family.

Ahmed ducked his head, but appeared to already have thought about this question.



I want my father back, he said. But I dont want revenge on the Iraqi forces. Only on the person who killed him.



Priority is closure



In December 2017, families displaced by the IS battle began to leave camps en masse.

During the course of the three-year battle, nearly 6 million people fled their homes in Iraq, and now 3.3 million have returned, according to a report published last week by the Danish Refugee Council, the International Rescue Committee and the Norwegian Refugee Council.



Some families leave camps because of poor living conditions or incentives, the report said.



Others are not allowed to choose, it reads. They have been coerced or forced to return against their will. Some have been blocked from returning, or evicted and displaced once more when they finally return to their areas of origin.



Nearly 9,000 people in northern Iraq were evicted from camps in western Iraq in November and December 2017, according to the report.



And some relatives of IS fighters in northern camps said they would never return to their homes by choice. This is the only safe place, said Faiza Ahmed Khalef, a mother of five, who believes her husband, an IS fighter, is in jail. Here, no one harasses us.

Aid workers say the government has made planning the closure of the camps a high priority since the war ended. If cities, towns and villages were provided more services and humanitarian aid, it would go a long way to encouraging some families to return, added Maroof, the camp manager.



We will stay as long as the people stay, he said. But we need a plan to facilitate the peoples return.Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari will visit the state where 110 schoolgirls were abducted by suspected Islamist militants last month, his office said, as his security record comes under scrutiny less than a year before elections.

The 75-year-old former military ruler will also tour other hot spots from Monday onward, including areas hit by bloody clashes between semi-nomadic herders, the presidency added.

The former general, who came to power in 2015 vowing to crush Boko Haram's jihadist insurgency, has not stated whether he will seek re-election in Feb. 2019. But a surge in violence has cast a shadow over his term.

He has repeatedly declared the insurgents' defeat for more than a year. That was undermined by mass abduction in the town of Dapchi in Yobe state on Feb. 19 and an attack on Thursday that killed at least 11 people, including three aid workers in another part of the northeast.

His tour will begin in the "Middle Belt" state of Taraba, where herdsmen and farmers have fought over dwindling arable land, his office said.

He will also visit the central state of Benue and Zamfara in the northwest  both hit by fighting over grazing in recent weeks  along with Rivers state in the south, and Yobe.

"The president has decided to undertake an on-the-spot assessment of the various occurrences and to meet and console the communities affected," the presidency said.

Dapchi visit?

The presidency did not say whether Buhari would visit Dapchi on his trip to Yobe.

Buhari's predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, was criticized for failing to quickly visit Chibok, the scene of another mass abduction of schoolgirls in 2014. That was seized upon by his detractors in the 2015 election campaign

The opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP) had already called on Buhari to visit Dapchi in the days following the abduction.

Boko Haram, which has killed tens of thousands of people since 2009 in its bid to create an Islamic state, lost most of its territory in the face of an offensive by Nigeria's army backed by troops from neighboring countries in early 2015.

But factions of the group have continued to carry out suicide bomb attacks and gun raids in the northeast, Cameroon, Niger and Chad since then.

The violence linked to grazing rights has killed more than 100 people since the start of the year.Philippine police announced on Monday the arrest of a suspected pro-Islamic State jihadist accused of killing civilians in last year's deadly siege of the southern city of Marawi.

Hundreds of gunmen flying black IS flags seized Marawi in May last year, triggering a five-month battle that claimed more than 1,100 lives, in a bid to establish a caliphate in the largely Catholic country.

Nasser Lomondot was arrested on Saturday in Manila, months after he fled the fighting in Marawi.

"He participated in the killing of innocent civilians and committed violence against female and child hostages," regional military spokesman Major Ronald Suscano told reporters.

As government forces battled to wrest back control of Marawi, Lomondot directed a diversionary attack by pro-IS gunmen in the neighbouring town of Marantao, Suscano added.

"He was one of the key planners of the attack in Marantao town ...while the firefight was still ongoing" in Marawi, Suscano said.

Lomondot was arrested with a second pro-IS suspect, Manila police chief Oscar Albayalde said in a statement.

The Philippine military warned last month that the remaining militants from Marawi have mustered a force of about 200 gunmen to launch a second attempt to put up a caliphate in the country's south.With no outright winner and the Italian parliament appearing to be hung based on early seat projections Monday, the already fractious country will be thrown into weeks of tortuous backroom deal-making and behind-the-scenes horse trading as coalition negotiations drag on, prolonging political instability in one of Europe's biggest economies.

On the face of it, Italy underwent a political revolution with voters ditching the center and riding a populist wave. Nearly half of all Italians who voted Sunday supported populist candidates, many of them once considered extremists or catalogued as fringe. The biggest beneficiaries appear to have been the upstart Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S), a maverick, anti-establishment party, that seeks to upend the Italian political system, and the xenophobic Lega party, which wants migrants expelled.

On early projections  and completing the full seat distribution could take days  M5S will emerge as the largest single party with about 32 percent of the vote but the right-wing alliance of Silvio Berlusconi, which includes the Lega, looks like it captured a 36 percent share of the vote, which will give it the largest number of seats in the lower house, from 248 to 268, short of the 316 needed to govern.

Voters clearly rejected claims by the center-left Democratic Party (PD) that things had improved under its government and the party suffered historic setbacks in its strongholds of the north and center of the country. Voters have spoken very clearly and irrefutably. The populists have won and the Democratic Party has lost, admitted PD lawmaker Andrea Marcucci on his Facebook page.

Italian daily newspaper Il Fatto Quotidiano announced Monday: Everything will change.

But political insiders say that isn't necessarily so. If M5S and the Lega formed a government, which theoretically may be possible, then we would be facing a political revolution, said an adviser to Italys President Sergio Mattarella. But I think that isn't likely, despite the alarm in Brussels. Many in M5S just won't sit at the same table as the Lega..

The voters may have spoken but it isn't clear that Italys political system won't just adapt  it may just absorb the upheaval, much as it did in the 1990s when a sprawling judicial Clean Hands investigation collapsed the then dominant Christian Democrat and Socialist parties, only for Italys political patronage system to reassert itself and for many of the same political faces to reappear.

President Mattarella will start the formal process to form a government after March 23 and he has wide scope on how he does it and who he approaches. The president is under no obligation to hand a mandate to the biggest party, and may first seek to establish whether parties can get together a coalition with enough seats to govern, noted Wolfango Piccoli of the risk analysis firm Teneo Intelligence on the eve of the polls.

And at the end of it, Italy may be left with the same prime minister as before the polls, the PDs Paolo Gentiloni.Analysts and establishment politicians say coalition politics and parliamentary gridlock will restrict populist politicians delivering on their carefree campaign promises of tax cuts and benefit increases and mass migrant expulsions.

Gentiloni will continue on as caretaker prime minister while Mattarella oversees negotiations. And he is being tipped as the most likely to be picked by Mattarella, to head subsequently a grand coalition, if the parties can't sort out a deal among themselves.The 63-year-old Gentiloni is widely seen as one of the few politicians with the diplomatic finesse to oversee a so-called government of the president to stabilize Italian politics.

Dont you you know your Lampedusa? said the Mattarella adviser, referring to Giuseppe Tomasi de Lampedusa, one of Italys well-known 20th century writers. He wrote, If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.



The political Rubik's Cube Mattarella now has in his hands would try the patience of a puzzle-master.

Various coalition combinations are possible  in theory  but they involve pushing together odd bedfellows and the M5S and the Lega are likely to prove the most awkward in their demands. Coalition negotiations risk triggering party schisms and breakaways, making the puzzle-solving for Mattarella even more challenging. Along with that, personal animosities, even among formal allies, and unchecked ambitions will complicate coalition building.

The wily, 81-year-old Berlusconi may well seek to woo defectors from others parties to see if his alliance can form a government without having to rely on it being underpinned by Mattarella. And Lega leader Matteo Salvini has already expressed his suspicion that the former three time prime minister, who had to resign in disgrace amid sex and Mafia scandals, could betray him and seek to form a government with the PD.

Gentiloni, who was thrust into the prime ministers job in December 2016 after his predecessor Renzi suffered a humiliating defeat in a plebiscite over constitutional reforms, has the trust of other European leaders and in recent weeks Italys elder statesmen, including Giorgio Napolitano, a popular former president, have been heaping praise on him, as if preparing for the eventuality of his returning to steady Italy.

Napolitano describes Gentiloni as essential for governability.

Domani, dopo colazione, nulla sara cambiato (Tomorrow, after breakfast, nothing will have changed), said Roberto, a waiter from Rome, clapping his hands for emphasis Monday as the early projections of seat distribution were released.

As they headed to the polls Sunday, many voters in the towns and villages north of Rome said they expected little would change after the election, even though they expected a populist surge.

A survey published last week by the Pew Research Center, a U.S. think tank, found that more than three quarters of Italians suspect politicians do not care what ordinary people think.

For Italys neighbors, weeks of party wrangling and political gridlock poses both risks and benefits. Gridlock will restrict much of what parties promised on the campaign they would do, which will come as relief to Italys European neighbors and to many Italians.

Nonetheless, Italys main stock exchange crashed Monday as the markets absorbed the still incomplete election results. Traders said they were unnerved by the voterss spurning of traditional parties and their flocking to populist and far-right parties.

That, they say, will give the European Union another political challenge to absorb, and they worry that at the heart of a new government, euro-skeptics will rule the roost, challenge EU budget restrictions and undermine French President Emmanuel Macrons push for greater European integration. Political observers also fear that any coalition government will be friendlier to Russian President Vladimir Putin, threatening European unity when it comes to Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia.

For migrants from Africa  or those planning on trying to reach Europe via Italy  Sundays election won't be good news. Any government likely to emerge will be riddled with politicians and factions pressing for tougher action against asylum-seekers already in Italy and for every effort to be made to stop migrants from reaching the shores of Italy. That will likely include continuing to maintain previous deals reached with Libyan warlords to block migrants from setting off and to deterring NGOs from rescuing migrants at sea.

Following Sunday's election, Italian migrant organizations say they expect a dramatic increase in deportations of failed of asylum-seekers.

While old guard Italian politicians argued Monday that gridlock and coalition-building will result in the populists from M5S and the Lega having to moderate their euro-skepticism as well as their suspicion of free markets and open societies, populists across Europe and in America welcomed the election upheaval. Marine Le Pen, a friend of Lega leader Matteo Salvini, applauded the results, tweeting: The spectacular progression and the arrival at the top of the Lega led by our ally and friend @matteosalvinimi is a new stage in the awakening of peoples! Warm congratulations!

European populists say populists in Italy will be further enabled and strengthened, if Sundays election upheaval does turn into much ado about nothing, as it will just build up more frustration that they willbe able to feed off.

European and American populists say that the weakening of the center in Italian politics will further rattle the European Union, which has already been shaken by Britains decision to leave the bloc as well as the electoral weakening last year of Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany.

On Tuesday, Donald Trumps former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who observed the Italian elections, will point to the electoral performances of M5S and the Lega in a speech in Switzerland as marking a further major stage in the building of a broader populist movement throughout Europe and America, one that will change the Wests relationship with the rest of the world, including Asia and Africa, by changing the terms of trade and reshaping international institutions, from the UN to the EU.More than a dozen protests erupted across Kashmir on Monday, with government forces firing tear gas and demonstrators hurling rocks as tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of the disputed Himalayan region after soldiers killed four civilians and two suspected militants.

The overnight shooting at a military checkpoint threatened to spark even more unrest in a region that in recent years has seen renewed rebel attacks and repeated public protests against Indian rule.

The authorities had put parts of the densely militarized region under lockdown after the late Sunday night shooting, deploying soldiers and riot police, shutting schools and internet service and ordering people off the streets in some places in an attempt to derail protests.

But widespread anger, along with funerals for the six killed and separatist calls for a business shutdown, helped ignite angry demonstrations, with thousands shouting slogans against India's army and demanding the end of New Delhi's rule over Kashmir.

Many protests centered around the town of Shopian, where the shooting occurred, an outwardly bucolic region of mountain forests and apple orchards.

There were no immediate reports of injuries from the protests.

The trouble began late Sunday night, when officials say a car refused to stop at a checkpoint outside a Shopian military base and militants inside fired at the soldiers.

Indian army spokesman Col. Rajesh Kalia said a rebel and three civilians were killed when soldiers fired back. A fourth civilian's body was recovered from a nearby car, officials said, and the body of another rebel was found a few kilometers (miles) away. Authorities said he'd been injured in the shooting and died later.

Kalia called the slain civilians "over-ground workers," a term that Indian security forces use for people who give support to the rebels.

Police, though, were careful not to use that term, calling them simply "young men" and saying they were investigating the incident. However, Kashmir's top elected official, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, termed them "civilians." In a tweet, Mufti said she was "deeply distressed by more deaths of civilians caught in the crossfire in Shopian."

But across the region, most people believed all were killed in cold blood. The soldiers "shoot even at shadows, and they're employing every tactic to suppress people," said Bashir Ahmed, a Shopian resident.

Separatists challenging Indian sovereignty over Kashmir called for a strike after the shooting, and shops and businesses slammed shut across the region.

Top separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq called the army's version "propaganda and lies" and said the soldiers had "let loose mayhem" at Shopian.

Authorities cut cellphone internet services in the most restive towns, and reduced connection speeds in other parts of the Kashmir Valley, a common government practice to calm tensions and prevent anti-India demonstrations from being organized.

Officials also ordered schools closed Monday and suspended rail service in the region.

At one of the funerals for the dead rebels, army soldiers resorted to aerial firing to disperse thousands of mourners in a village in the Shopian area. No one was reported injured.

In January, anti-India protests erupted across Kashmir after army soldiers shot and killed three civilians during clashes in the same area.

Indian troops are covered by controversial powers that shield them from prosecution while serving in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, army and paramilitary officers can search homes and make arrests without warrants, shoot at people suspected of being separatists and blow up buildings or homes on suspicion that insurgents are using them.

Rights activists accuse Indian troops in Kashmir of routinely misusing their power, killing civilians in staged confrontations for promotions or rewards and to suppress public sentiment against Indian rule.

Kashmir is divided between Pakistan and India with both nations claiming the entire region.

Rebels have been fighting Indian rule since 1989, demanding Kashmir be made part of Pakistan or become an independent country. India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, a charge Pakistan denies. Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Coptic Pope Tawadros II at Cairo's largest Coptic cathedral on Monday in what state media said was an unprecedented visit by an official from the conservative Muslim kingdom.

The visit was part of a three-day stay in Egypt for Prince Mohammed, his first public trip abroad since he became heir apparent last year. He will head for Britain and the United States later this month.

Cairo and Riyadh have strengthened ties in recent years and Egypt has received billions of dollars in aid from its rich Gulf Arab ally. The two countries on Sunday set up a $10 billion joint fund to develop a planned mega-city.

Prince Mohammed and Pope Tawadros walked together through St. Marks Cathedral late on Monday, footage on Saudi TV channel al-Arabiya showed. Egypts state news agency MENA said it was the first visit of its kind, without elaborating.

The Gulf Arab kingdom is trying to shed its reputation as a global exporter of an ultra-conservative brand of Islam which critics say has inspired Islamist militants worldwide. Promoting a more moderate form of Islam is one of the more ambitious promises made by Prince Mohammed under plans to transform Saudi and reduce its reliance on oil.

Egypt has suffered from Islamist extremist violence in recent years, including attacks on churches often claimed by the ultra-violent Islamic State group. A bombing next to St. Marks cathedral killed at least 25 people in December 2016.

Prince Mohammeds visit comes as his close ally President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi prepares to run in an election he is virtually guaranteed to win.

Alongside posters urging people to vote for Sisi, large banners were put up in central Cairo on Monday with images of the Egyptian president, Prince Mohammed and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz.

Welcome to your second country, said one; another read Saudi and Egypt are one hand, one nation.

Egypt has sided with Saudi Arabia on a number of foreign policy issues, including a diplomatic and trade boycott of tiny gas-rich Qatar, and the support of forces battling Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen.Decked in red, green, and yellow, supporters of Sierra Leones biggest parties wrapped up their campaigns this week, before general elections on Wednesday. Up for grabs is the presidency, parliament, and local council positions.

Current President Ernest Bai Koroma of the All Peoples Congress party must step down after serving two terms.

The APCs new flag-bearer, ex-foreign minister Samura Kamara, faces challenges from opposition stalwart Julius Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party and upstart candidate Kandeh Yumkella of the newly formed National Grand Coalition party, along with 13 lesser-known candidates.

In Port Loko, a northern town, the APC enjoys wide support. On Saturday, party faithful waved red flags, blowing vuvuzelas and whistles at a rally, one of many that have drawn huge crowds.

Pharmacist Al Haji Seidu Kamara says the current APC government has brought much needed infrastructure, which he'd like to see continue.

"Electricity, for the past 20 years we never have light in Port Loko. We only used small solar lamp, but now we have electricity," he says.

He says roads have been paved, and the government has also clamped down on counterfeit drugs. We have seen a lot of improvement in our country, says Kamara.

Even so, Koromas government has been criticized for mishandling the deadly 2014 Ebola epidemic, and the government has been hit with corruption and financial mismanagement allegations. The International Monetary Fund has withdrawn some funding from the government.

Election preparations

Andrew Raka, the electoral officer for Port Loko district, said preparations for the poll have gone smoothly. Ballot papers for the districts 236,125 registered voters sit under armed guard in rooms where only Raka has the key.

Outside the electoral commission headquarters, youth lined up to see if they had been selected for more than 4,000 temporary jobs to work at polling stations on Wednesday.

There's no shortage of people who need jobs in Sierra Leone, which is plagued by chronic youth unemployment, but Raka said he still needed to bring in staff from the capital Freetown due to lack of skilled workers.

WATCH: Elections

He said five percent of voters who tried to register in Port Loko had their registration affected by clerical errors made by staff, though some of these errors were fixed.

Campaigning across the country has been largely peaceful, reflecting the stability that has held in Sierra Leone since the end of a civil war more than 15 years ago.

But Raka wouldnt rule out the possibility of unrest. Already, Port Lokos roundabouts are littered with smashed and torn billboards of various candidates, ripped down by their political opponents.

(Violence) could not be far fetched based on the tension I'm seeing going around the campaigning, and even some of the unacceptable things that are not really good for our country, especially people tearing other candidates' banners and posters, that one is just like a recipe for chaos, Raka said.

Opposition to APC

In the southern town of Bo, members of the opposition Sierra Leone Peoples Party wear green hats, shirts, and pins in support of their presidential candidate, retired army general Julius Maada Bio.

Bio once seized power in a coup before handing power to a civilian government, and lost the 2012 election to the current president.

At the SLPP headquarters, youth leader Foday Abduli says he is confident that this time Bio will win.

The whole of eastern province and southern province is for the SLPP, the western area, we go 50-50. So the north, we have districts that [are] ready to vote for us, overwhelmingly, said Abduli. We are ready to kick them (APC) out of power, trust me.

But Sierra Leones longstanding regional and ethnic political calculus may be changing.

The NGC, led by former U.N. official Yumkella, only formed last year, but has made inroads in the backyards of the two major parties, which have dominated Sierra Leone politics since the 1960s. Preaching for better education and development, Yumkella has found support in urban areas and among youth like Luseni Aboucar, a 24-year-old college student who voted for SSLP's Bio in 2012.

Im a Mende, a southerner, I should cast my vote for Maada Bio, but I will not do it, Aboucar says. Ive done research on all the candidates and I find Kandeh Yumkella to outstand the rest of them.

With so many presidential aspirants in the race, analysts predict no single candidate will receive the 55 percent of votes needed to win Wednesdays poll, making a run-off very likely.They crowded around the White House conference table this past week, lawmakers from California, Connecticut, Texas and Florida, eager to share their state's painful experience with gun violence.

One key state was not represented. No one from Nevada, home to the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history just five months ago, attended the televised discussion with the president.

But in the politics of gun control, even those who say the least have considerable sway. Despite a clamor for action in the wake of the Florida school shooting, a powerful group of vulnerable lawmakers  both Republicans and Democrats  have pointedly avoided the national conversation about guns.

They often choose strategic silence rather than get crosswise with the National Rifle Association's die-hard supporters on the right or the growing movement of passionate gun control advocates on the left.

The office of Nevada's senior senator, Republican Dean Heller, would not say why did he did not attend the White House meeting. Heller, who is facing a tough re-election fight, has avoided the spotlight in the subsequent days as well, declining to address specifics about his positions on gun legislation.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment about whether Heller was invited to the event. The state's Democratic senator, Catherine Cortez Masto, and its three Democratic representatives also did not attend.

Heller spokeswoman Megan Taylor declined to say whether the senator supported universal background checks, raising the age for gun purchases to 21, or provisions to ban high-capacity magazines and assault rifles, all ideas tossed out by lawmakers or President Donald Trump in recent days.

"He looks forward to continuing discussions with his colleagues as Congress explores ways to enhance compliance with existing law and keep our communities safe," Taylor said.

Heller has signed on to legislation known as "Fix NICS," a modest measure supported by the NRA and intended to encourage better participation in the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. It was one of the few gun bills to find bipartisan support and appeared poised to move ahead, only to be sidelined.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who has said little about the gun debate in recent days, said Thursday that no gun-related legislation would be heard in the coming week.

Without this silent majority's support, there is little chance for significant gun control legislation to become federal law, no matter how loud the outcry from high school students and others who are pushing for action.

The stalemate infuriates Ryan Works, a 40-year-old father of two, who hid under a table at an October concert in Las Vegas as a gunman shot and killed 58 and wounded more than 800. A Republican, Works offered an emotional message to Heller and elected officials in both parties who are reluctant to take on gun violence.

"Step up and do something," he said in an interview, almost shouting as he described shopping for bullet-proof backpacks for his 5- and 8-year-old children. "Show us that you care and you're going to protect us."

Heller's muted response at an extraordinary moment highlights the weight of his political predicament.

Running for re-election in a state Trump lost, he must win over a significant number of independents and moderate Democrats in November's general election to earn a second term. But first, he must survive a primary challenge from a conservative firebrand in a state where GOP primary voters value gun rights above almost all else.

The challenge is easy to see in recent polls. Two out of three adults in the United States want stricter gun laws, CBS found in a poll conducted a week after the Feb. 14 shooting in Parkland, Florida. But among Republicans, 54 percent want gun laws left alone or made less strict.

That's likely why the most politically vulnerable elected officials have kept their heads down, leaving the heavy lifting to elected officials facing less political risk this fall.

On the Senate floor this week, blue-state senators such as Vermont's Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts' Ed Markey and New Jersey's Cory Booker offered fiery speeches about gun violence. Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, a swing-state Republican whose current term ends in 2022, re-emerged as the face of the push to expand background checks. Arizona Sen. Sen. Jeff Flake, a Republican who is retiring at the end of this year, was partnering with California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein on legislation to move the age to buy long guns to 21.

Those Democrats running in Republican-leaning states this fall were far less conspicuous.

North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp and Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly, both Democrats running for re-election in states Trump won handily, have said nothing about gun violence from the Senate floor in recent days, but made statements honoring constituents who had recently passed away.

Heitkamp supports the "Fix NICS" plan and co-sponsored a bill that would prevent those on the terrorist watch list from buying guns, her spokeswoman said. The senator has previously opposed so-called bump stocks, which the Las Vegas shooter used to increase the firing speed of his semi-automatic rifle. But the spokeswoman did not clarify whether she would support universal background checks, higher age limits, or provisions to ban high-capacity magazines and assault rifles.

In a statement, Heitkamp decried "horrific mass shootings" and called for "a bipartisan conversation in Congress about long-term solutions to gun violence."

Similarly, Donnelly, who previously voted for universal background checks and backs "Fix NICS," said little more about the issue when pressed for specifics.

"I believe that Congress should take steps to reduce gun violence, while protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens," he said in a statement.

At the White House meeting, the Democratic Party's most vulnerable 2018 class was represented only by Sen. Joe Manchin, a former West Virginia governor, who encouraged the president to help promote the so-called Toomey-Manchin plan to expand background checks.

Trump seemed to embrace the proposal during the Wednesday meeting, but he hasn't mentioned it since a Thursday night meeting with the NRA, which opposes the plan.

Don't expect Heller to mention it either.

Should he win his primary, he will likely face Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen, who isn't shy about her support for virtually every gun control measure on the table. She was quick to note Heller's low profile in the debate.

"His silence speaks volumes," Rosen said. "How can you have tragedy in your own state, like the massive one we had here, and not have it forever change you, and not speak out, and not respond to these families?"Officials in Seoul say North Korean leader Kim Jong Un hosted a dinner late Monday to welcome top aides of South Korean President Moon Jae-in, in the latest diplomatic effort that some hope will pave the way for direct talks between the U.S. and North Korea.

The 10-member South Korean delegation headed by Moon's top national security advisor, Chung Eui-Yong, arrived in Pyongyang after a rare direct flight from Seoul to convey Moon's message concerning denuclearization and a permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Speaking to reporters in Seoul before his departure, Chung said that he would deliver President Moon's strong determination and willingness for denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, and making genuine and permanent peace (on the Peninsula)."

Chung also said he will push for "in-depth" talks to find ways to help arrange the restart of dialogue between Pyongyang and Washington.

"For this, we plan to have in-depth discussions not only on South-North talks, but also ways to continue talks between North Korea and the international community, including the United States," Chung said.

When asked about the South-North meeting, State Department Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs spokeswoman Katina Adams said Monday Washington is in close contact with Seoul on a "unified response to North Korea, including the need to maintain maximum pressure to achieve a denuclearized Korean peninsula."

"We are not going to make the same mistakes as previous administrations," Adams said in a statement. "We are willing to engage North Korea to emphasize our position that the complete and verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is non-negotiable."

The State Department also announced Monday that U.S. and South Korea will begin negotiations this week on sharing the cost of stationing more than 28,000 American troops on the peninsula.

The current agreement that has Seoul paying almost half the costs expires at the end of this year.

The goal of a broader dialogue on North Korea could be complicated by planned military drills, however, as a commentary published by North Korea's official KCNA news agency warned that Pyongyang would "counter the U.S." if it holds the exercises with South Korea in April.

The special delegation the head of the National Intelligence Service, Suh Hoon, who is a veteran in dealings with the North. Hoon is known to have been deeply involved in negotiations to arrange two previous inter-Korean summits in 2000 and 2007.

After the two-day visit to North Korea, the South Korean special envoys will travel to the United States to brief American officials on their discussions in Pyongyang.

In sending his envoys to Pyongyang, Moon is seeking to reciprocate Kim Jong Un's decision to send a senior delegation, including his sister, Kim Yo Jong, to last month's Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang. Moon has yet to accept Kim Jong Un's invitation to visit Pyongyang.

Those North Korean officials told Moon they were willing to restart talks with the U.S., but President Donald Trump responded by saying talks will happen only under the right conditions.''

VOA's State Department correspondent Nike Ching contributed to this report.Greta Gerwig screamed with delight and relief as she hugged a group of friends once she got into the Vanity Fair Oscar party.

The "Lady Bird" director and Oscar nominee had just walked down the last red carpet of her long awards season. She quickly pulled up her long flowing gown, kicked off her high heels and put on a pair of checkered Vans sneakers so she could run through the room in comfort.



On the surface, Hollywood's after-Oscar parties are held to celebrate the winners and almost-winners at the Academy Awards. But their real purpose, for many anyway, is to recognize that the entire exhausting epic of the awards season is finally over.



Nowhere is this more true than the Vanity Fair party, where the tables are stacked with junk food made with highbrow flair, and an endless stream of In-N-Out burgers are served in overflowing boxes by the chain's workers in uniform, all of it telling partiers that the time to starve yourself to fit into tuxes and gowns is over. It's time to eat again.



Gerwig was all smiles as she walked into the room in her Vans, saw Octavia Spencer, nominated for best actress for "The Shape of Water," sitting on a couch and trotted over to give her a hug.



Saoirse Ronan, the star of Gerwig's movie, went even more casual, walking the room and even the sidewalks outside while barefoot.

In the outdoor patio of the party hosted by Vanity Fair editor Radhika Jones at the Annenberg Space for Photography on the border of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, best actress winner and rousing speech-giver Frances McDormand was struggling to get through an In-N-Out Burger because of a steady stream of well-wishers that included a fawning Jon Hamm.



McDormand, with her husband the director Joel Coen having an easier time of eating nearby, held her burger in her left hand while she hugged and shook hands with her right, posing for pictures with dozens of doting fans.



She repeatedly joked "I lost it" to all who asked where her Oscar statuette had gone.



While the nominees make it a regular stop, the Vanity Fair party, whose atmosphere with its dim lighting and throbbing music feels like a night club, prides itself on hosting A-list guests that had no part in the Oscars or movies at all.



At one point Sunday night Drake and Diddy, major figures representing two generations of hip-hop, ran into each other and made a scene with a giggle-filled hug.



Moments later across the room, "Spider-Man: Homecoming" star Tom Holland by chance bumped into his on-screen aunt and guardian Marisa Tomei, and the two also shared a happy hug to the delight of onlookers and photographers.



Sarah Silverman, Donald Glover, Emily Ratajkowski and Kate Upton all chatted with groups of friends over tables stacked with truffled popcorn and buttermilk fried chicken nuggets.



Kendall Jenner drew gawkers and

compliments with a short black dress whose huge, multi-layered levels resembled a building designed by Frank Gehry.



The party's first phase earlier in the evening was a dinner for a smaller group of invitees, who dined on slow-poached dover sole and grilled beef calotte as they watched the show, where "The Shape of Water" was the big winner.



A similar viewing party was going on back in Hollywood at Elton John's annual AIDS Foundation soiree, where star party-goers cheered on the biggest moments of the Academy Awards.



Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth, Ricky Martin, Billie Jean King, Lionel Richie, Caitlyn Jenner, Lea Michele and Judith Light were among other celebs who cheered loudly during some of the show's bigger moments.



Allison Janney's best supporting actress win for "I, Tonya" got wild applause, as did McDormand when she called for an "inclusion rider" during her acceptance speech celebrating diversity and women storytellers.



The 26th annual event features an elegant dinner during the show, then later, a silent auction to raise funds for the charity and a concert featuring the rock band Greta Van Fleet.

Janney showed up late at the Vanity Fair party, also holding no Oscar, and took over the toast-of-the-room role earlier played by McDormand.



She had traded her red gown for a more comfortable outfit with a white blouse. And after sweeping nearly every award since the Golden Globes in January, she could not have looked happier as she took in the love of the room.The U.S. government would find it easier to exchange high-level visits with diplomatically isolated Taiwan after approval of a new congressional bill, but experts say the legislation will just turn Taiwan into a bargaining chip in Sino-U.S. relations.

If U.S. President Donald Trump signs the Taiwan Travel Act  and analysts say little is holding him back  the advisory bill that passed the Senate February 28 will give a legal basis to any uptick in official visits between the two sides.

China, which sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory rather than a state entitled to foreign relations, has protested to the United States against the Act.

Because the bill is advisory rather than binding, Washington could use it selectively, analysts say. Trump, for example, might send a department head to Taipei to put pressure on China over an unrelated issue, and hold off allowing any visits when trying to get along with Beijing, they say.

It would primarily be symbolic, a signal of U.S. government unhappiness with some of China's policies, said Denny Roy, senior fellow at the East-West Center think tank in Honolulu. The argument against it is that it would irritate China, and the argument for it is also that it would irritate China.

Call in Congress for stronger Taiwan ties

The bill says U.S. officials at all levels should per government policy travel to Taiwan for meetings with Taiwanese counterparts and let Taiwanese officials enter the United States under respectful conditions and to meet with U.S. officials, according to the Senates website. The Act encourages military exchanges, among others.

Members of the House of Representatives had pushed for the bill since last year to support Taiwan, which co-sponsoring Congressman Ed Royce called a strong friend and critical partner to the United States.

Republican Party lawmakers generally advocate Taiwan ties. They now control both houses of Congress, making the Act easy to pass, said Raymond Wu, managing director of Taipei-based political risk consultancy e-telligence.

U.S. officials have visited Taiwan six times since the two sides cut formal ties in 1979 as Washington established diplomatic relations with Beijing. When a Taiwan president visits the United States, Washington allows layovers of just 24 to 48 hours and bars formal meetings with federal officials.

The United States prizes economic ties with China but remains a staunch supporter of democratic Taiwan as one of several West-leaning Asian governments.

The Act omits any requirement for high-level visits, leaving it open to the discretion of the president.

The Taiwan Travel Act provides the legal basis upon which high-level visits between the governments can happen, but that does not necessitate that it must happen, Wu said. If, for example, the relations between China and the U.S. turn sour, then this may become an option.

Anger in Beijing

Beijing protested March 1 to the United States, calling the Act a violation of Washingtons consent to a one-China policy. Washington gives no formal diplomatic recognition to Taipei.

China and Taiwan have been separately ruled since the Chinese civil war of the 1940s, when the Nationalists fled the mainland and based their government in Taiwan. China insists on eventual unification, by force if needed, despite widespread opposition among Taiwanese.

China condemns overtures abroad that cast Taiwan as a state with the right to foreign diplomacy.

The Communist leadership will make sure the bill allows no pickup in U.S.-Taiwan visits but cannot stop Trump from signing it into law, said Alex Chiang, international relations professor at National Chengchi University in Taipei.

If something comes up, and the meeting is required, and then probably they will meet, but I dont think it will become a routine or regular meeting, Chiang said.

The bill stands to hurt chronically strained China-Taiwan ties as well as Sino-U.S. relations, said National Chengchi Universitys international affairs college vice dean Huang Kwei-bo.

Beijing resents Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen for refusing to see both sides as part of China. It has used a series of economic and diplomatic measures to vent against Taiwan since Tsai took office in mid-2016.

For Taiwan, the chance of being a bargaining chip of the U.S. administration and encountering greater diplomatic isolation caused by China will increase, while mutual trust between the U.S. and China will decrease once the U.S. administration has hinted or considered the application of the Act, Huang said.

China would lash out especially hard at Taiwan if it invites a U.S. leader and take on the United States if it either initiates a visit or eagerly accepts an invitation, said Yun Sun, East Asia Program senior associate at the Stimson Center think tank in the United States.

We know that the Chinese speculate that Trump loves transaction and Trump at each time has one priority, Sun said. And I think most likely theyre going to speculate that Trump wants something in return, or wants to see some compromise or concessions out of Beijing.U.S. President Donald Trump said Monday the United States is not backing down on its decision to impose 25 percent tariffs on steel imports and 10 percent tariffs on imported aluminum products, despite growing pressure from political and diplomatic allies and U.S. companies to pull back from a policy that could spark a trade war.

Before a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump suggested Mexico and Canada could be exempted from the planned tariffs if a new and fair North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is reached.

For many years, NAFTA has been a disaster, Trump said. We are renegotiating NAFTA as I said I would, and if we dont make a deal I will terminate NAFTA. But if I do make a deal which is fair to the workers and to the American people, that would be, I would imagine, one of the points that well negotiate. It will be tariffs on steel for Canada and for Mexico.

WATCH: Trump tariff

The three countries are currently working to revise NAFTA, with the latest round of talks wrapping up in Mexico City.

Economist Gary Hufbauer of the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics told VOA that people in Canada and Mexico see the Trump approach as bullying, and that their officials are less likely to make concessions that look like giving in to a bully. He also said those asking Trump to back off the tariff plan are right to fear a trade war.

"Whether we get to a trade war will depend very much on the reacting of other countries," Hufbauer said. "The tariffs alone arent a trade war, but if other countries react by putting fairly strong restrictions on U.S. exports you can say were edging into a trade battle and it may escalate to a trade war."

Trumps decision to impose steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports has drawn strong condemnation from some in his own Republican party and from U.S. trading partners around the world. Analysts warned the tariffs will hurt many U.S. allies.

Ryan 'extremely worried'

In a rare break with the White House, House Speaker Paul Ryan and other key Republican lawmakers are trying to convince Trump to change his mind and not impose the tariffs. Ryan and the others say the tariffs would hurt consumers because they could lead businesses to impose higher prices and undercut any positive effect the recent Republican-approved tax cuts would have on the U.S. economy.

The motorcycle maker Harley-Davidson Inc. is headquartered in Ryan's home state and is being targeted by Europe in retaliation for Trumps plan to impose steel and aluminum tariffs.

Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in a statement, We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan. The new tax reform law has boosted the economy and we certainly dont want to jeopardize those gains.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said the administration has a great relationship with speaker Ryan, but that doesnt mean we have to agree on everything. Sanders added, the President has been committed and talked about this for many years, particularly on the campaign trail, and the people came out loud and clear and supported this president, therefore supporting the policies he campaigned on.

Sanders said the administration is still finalizing the details of the measure, and she did not want to provide more information on the decision ahead of the final announcement.

President Trump tweeted last Friday that trade wars are good, and easy to win. When asked to elaborate, Sanders said the President feels if we ended up in a trade war, the President is confident we will win, but that's not the goal, the goal is to get free, fair, and reciprocal trade, and hope other countries will join him.

Trump told reporters he does not believe his plan to impose the aluminum and steel tariffs will spark a trade war.

'Absolutely unacceptable'

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the tariffs are absolutely unacceptable.

In 2016, the last year with complete government statistics, the United States reported it sent $12.5 billion more in goods and services to Canada than it imported, while it had a $55.6 billion trade deficit with Mexico.

Canada is the largest U.S. trading partner and last year shipped $7.2 billion worth of aluminum and $4.3 billion of steel to the United States.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Junckers threatened the European Union could respond by taxing iconic American-made products, such as bourbon whiskey, blue jeans and Harley-Davidson.

To this, Trump responded, People have to understand, our country, on trade, has been ripped off by virtually every country in the world, whether its friend or enemy, everybody. China, Russia, and people we think are wonderful, the European Union, we cant do business in there, they dont allow.

$800 billion lost a year

Trump contended the EU has trade barriers far worse than tariffs. He said, If they want to do something, well just tax their cars that they send in here like water.

Trump added, the U.S. lost $800 billion a year on trade, and the biggest problem is China. He said, we lost $500 billion. How previous presidents allow that to happen is disgraceful, but were going to take care of it.

In 2017, Canada, Brazil, South Korea and Mexico accounted for nearly half of all U.S. steel imports. That year, Chinese steel accounted for less than 2 percent of overall U.S. imports.

VOA's Ken Bredemeier contributed to this reportU.S. President Donald Trump says Mexico and Canada would be exempted from his planned tariffs on steel and aluminum imports if they can reach a "new and fair" trade agreement with the United States.

The three countries are currently in negotiations on revising the North American Free Trade Agreement, with the latest round of talks wrapping up in Mexico City.

Trump contended Monday on Twitter the 24-year-old agreement "has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs." He added, "Canada must treat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying."

He said that "To protect our Country we must protect American Steel! #AMERICA FIRST."

In 2016, the last year with complete government statistics, the United States said it sent $12.5 billion more in goods and services to Canada than it imported, while it had a $55.6 billion trade deficit with Mexico.

Canada is the largest U.S. trading partner and last year shipped $7.2 billion worth of aluminum and $4.3 billion of steel to the United States.

The tariffs - 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum - would hit other U.S. allies: Britain, Germany, South Korea, Turkey and Japan. But China, the world's biggest steel producer would be less affected, it only sends two percent of its supply to the United States.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Sunday that Trump is not planning to exempt any countries from the tariff hike.

Navarro told CNN that final details on Trump's anticipated 25 percent tax on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum should be completed by later in the week or early next week at the latest.

Trump's new tariffs for the key metals have drawn wide condemnation from business-oriented Republican lawmakers in the U.S., as well as Canada and the European Union. But Navarro said the tariffs are needed to "protect our national security and economic security, broadly defined."

He dismissed concerns from Defense Department officials who voiced support for targeted tariff increases aimed at specific countries but not increases on the imported metals from throughout the world.

Navarro called it "a slippery slope" to target only some countries with increased tariffs while exempting others. He said there would be a mechanism to exclude some businesses, on a case-by-case basis, from having to pay higher prices for the imported metals.

Navarro said the message to the world on U.S. trade practices is simple: "We're not going to take it anymore. We don't get good results," Navarro said, adding that U.S. trade overseas is "not fair and reciprocal."

In another news talk show appearance, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told ABC News that Trump has talked with "a number of the world leaders" about his trade tariff plans.

British Prime Minister Theresa May's office said that in a Sunday phone call with Trump she had "raised our deep concern at the presidents forthcoming announcement on steel and aluminum tariffs, noting that multilateral action was the only way to resolve the problem of global overcapacity in all parties interests."

U.S. Commerce Secretary Ross said the total value of the impending U.S. tariffs amounts to about $9 billion a year, a fraction of 1 percent of the annual $18.6 trillion U.S. economy, the world's largest.

"So, the notion that it would destroy a lot of jobs, raise prices, disrupt things, is wrong," Ross said.

Ross dismissed European Union threats of imposing retaliatory tariffs on such prominent American products as Harley Davidson motorcycles, bourbon and Levi's jeans as unimportant and a "rounding error."

In response on Saturday, Trump threatened European automakers with a tax on imports if the European Union retaliates against the U.S.

Ross called the possible European levies a "pretty trivial amount of retaliatory tariffs, adding up to some $3 billion of goods. In our size economy, that's a tiny, tiny fraction of 1 percent. So, while it might affect an individual producer for a little while, overall, it's not going to be much more than a rounding error."

Trump weighed in Saturday on his rationale for the tariff hikes with a pair of Twitter comments.



"The United States has an $800 Billion Dollar Yearly Trade Deficit because of our 'very stupid' trade deals and policies," he said. "Our jobs and wealth are being given to other countries that have taken advantage of us for years. They laugh at what fools our leaders have been. No more!

"If the EU wants to further increase their already massive tariffs and barriers on U.S. companies doing business there, we will simply apply a Tax on their Cars which freely pour into the U.S.," he added. "They make it impossible for our cars (and more) to sell there. Big trade imbalance!"



In 2017, the U.S. imported $151 billion more in goods from Europe than it exported to EU countries.Iran must be stopped; that is our common challenge, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House on Monday.

The two leaders, sitting alongside each other in the Oval Office, discussed how to thwart Iran's military advances in the Middle East and the 2015 international accord designed to curb Tehrans nuclear weapons development. Both Trump and Netanyahu have deemed it inadequate.



Trump has been unsuccessful in winning support from the pact's other signatories - Britain, France, Germany, the European Union, China and Russia - to renegotiate the deal.

WATCH: Stopping Iran



"Iran has not given up its nuclear ambitions" said Netanyahu, adding that Tehran "came out of this nuclear deal emboldened, enriched. Its practicing aggression everywhere, including on our own borders"

The growing presence of Iranian forces in Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad is of particular concern for the Israeli leader, who has accused Tehran of seeking a permanent base in Syria.

Since the nuclear pact in 2015, Iran has been able to strengthen everything they needed to strengthen, put every logistical and operational network in place to be able to get to this point where we are talking about inevitable war between Israel and Iran, according to Hudson Institute adjunct fellow Michael Pregent.

Iran is showing their true intentions with every increase in their capabilities, whether it be rocket systems or the ability to deploy militias from Iraq to Syria and into Lebanon if need be, Pregent, a Middle East analyst and former U.S. intelligence officer, told VOA.

Trump, in his remarks, did not mention Iran by name but said the United States and Israel are very, very close on military and terrorism and all of the things that we have to work together on. The relationship has never been better.

Irans foreign minister on Monday told his visiting French counterpart the Europeans need to pressure Trump to comply with the nuclear deal.

Mohammad Javad Zarif, during the meeting with Jean-Yves Le Drian, also blamed the United States for stoking tensions by turning our region into a gunpowder store by selling weapons, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Jerusalem Embassy



During the Oval Office meeting Trump said he may travel to Jerusalem to open the U.S. embassy there, prior to the 70th anniversary of the State of Israels May 14, 1948 independence declaration.



"We're looking at coming" Trump replied to a question from a reporter. "If I can, I will."



Netanyahu effusively praised Trump for making the controversial decision to move the embassy from coastal Tel Aviv to the hilly ancient city which most countries consider disputed territory, subject to negotiations with the Palestinians.



This was a historic proclamation followed by your bold decision, said Netanyahu, noting, The Jewish people have a long memory and Trumps action to move the embassy will be remembered by our people throughout the ages.

Mideast peace



The U.S. president expressed optimism about the chance for a Middle East peace deal.



It would be a great achievement -- and even from a humanitarian standpoint -- what better if we could make peace between Israel and the Palestinians?" He added, And I can tell you, we are working very hard on doing that.



The president said he thinks the Palestinians want to come back to the table, but, if they dont, you dont have peace he added, noting that any breakthrough to reach what he called the hardest deal would come after years and years of opposition and, frankly, hatred.

Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, whose security clearance has been downgraded, is still leading the administration's effort to bring peace to the Middle East, according to the White House.

At the daily press briefing Monday, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked whether Kushner's downgraded security clearance had any effect on his role in that process.



None at all that I am aware of, Huckabee Sanders replied. His role wasnt impacted today.



Kushner is a strong supporter of Israel, and Netanyahu is a longtime friend of the Kushner family.

Trump spoke to a small media group before the two leaders met on Monday. Reporters, however, did not have an opportunity to formally question Trump and Netanyahu, as no joint news conference was scheduled, unlike when the two met at the White House in February of last year.



Corruption investigation

This trip by Netanyahu is somewhat of a respite from his troubles at home, where he faces a string of corruption investigations.



Israels justice ministry announced Monday that the prime ministers former spokesman signed a states witness deal in one of the corruption cases swirling around Netanyahu.

Israeli investigators questioned the prime minister and his wife, Sara, for hours Friday in one of the probes.

In two of the cases, police have recommended that Netanyahu be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

There is speculation that the Israeli leader could call a snap election to attempt to renew the mandate for his Likud party and as a way to delay the legal proceedings against him.



Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing, calling the allegations a witch hunt and "fake news," the same terms Trump often employs to describe the investigations into allegations his campaign colluded with Russia to help him win the 2016 U.S. presidential election.There's much to celebrate but plenty of cause for trepidation, too, as President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet Monday at the White House.

For all his talk about brokering the "ultimate deal" between Israelis and Palestinians, Trump's long-awaited peace plan has yet to arrive, even as Palestinians and other critics insist it will be dead on arrival. And although Israel's government is overjoyed by Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital  with a U.S. embassy set to open in the holy city in May  misgivings are percolating under the surface over Iran, where Israel sees Trump's efforts to date to crack down on Israel's arch-enemy as lacking.

One major, growing concern: that the United States is acquiescing to Iran's growing presence in Syria and influence in Lebanon  two Israeli neighbors.

"If we don't come up with a strategy against Iran, we're going to make Israel go to war here pretty soon," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

Swirling legal investigations distracting both leaders at home, and a stunning fall from grace for Trump's son-in-law and would-be peace negotiator, Jared Kushner, have added to the mix of politics, personalities and historical grievances that have always hindered Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts. An already volatile situation now looks even more combustible than normal.

Netanyahu arrived in the United States over the weekend as Washington was gearing up for the annual conference of AIPAC, the powerful pro-Israel lobby. He planned to hold a meeting and working lunch with Trump on Monday before speaking at the conference later in the week. Top-ranking U.S. officials including Vice President Mike Pence and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley will also address the conference.

In a poignant reminder of his troubles back home, Netanyahu and his wife were questioned separately by police for hours on Friday before the prime minister left the next day for Washington. Those interviews were part of an investigation into a corruption case involving the country's telecom giant, and police have recommended indicting Netanyahu on corruption charges in two other cases as well.

The Trump family has legal problems of its own. Kushner, Trump's point-man for the Mideast, is under intense scrutiny over his business dealings as special counsel Robert Mueller barrels forward with his Russia probe. Kushner has also been stripped of his top security clearance in another blow to his credibility as an international negotiator.

Kushner's peace proposal is near completion, U.S. officials have said, but Palestinians have already written off Trump's administration as a viable mediator following his decision last year to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and move the U.S. embassy there from Tel Aviv. A ribbon-cutting for an interim facility is being planned to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Israel's independence.

Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, speaking at AIPAC on Sunday, said that the Jewish people will "forever" remember Trump's decision.

But while the visit may give Trump a chance to bask in Israel's delight, Netanyahu also comes with serious concerns to raise about the president's broader approach on the Middle East.

Israel is increasingly worried that Trump is backsliding on a pledge to "fix" or dismantle the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Of particular concern is that Trump may push new restrictions to prevent Iran from developing intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of hitting the U.S., but will allow Iran to keep developing medium-range ballistic missiles that could strike Israel.

The Europeans have balked at the possibility of medium-range missile restrictions, arguing that existing U.N. resolutions on Iran only focus on longer-range projectiles. U.S. officials negotiating with Britain, France and Germany appear to agree with the Europeans, prompting the Israeli concern.

At least publicly, Israel is still giving Trump some political cover, while gently reminding the president that he's long vowed to scrap the deal if it can't be sufficiently strengthened.

"I have no doubt whatsoever that this president is willing to walk away," Dermer said.Turkey has detained four Iraqis in connection with a security threat to the U.S. embassy in Ankara, Turkish media reported.

The reports came as the U.S. embassy said it was closed Monday due to a "security threat."

"The Embassy will announce its reopening, once it resumes services," the U.S. embassy wrote in a statement on its website, advising Americans in Turkey to "keep a low profile".

Turkish media said the four Iraqis, who have been linked to Islamic State, were arrested in the Black Sea province of Samsun.

In 2013, a suicide bomber detonated outside the U.S. embassy in Ankara, killing himself and one Turkish security guard on duty. The attack was blamed on domestic leftists.

Turkey suffered a number of attacks linked to Islamic State in 2015 and 2016. A gunman attacked a nightclub during New Year's celebrations on January 1st, 2017, killing 39 people.A Turkish court on Monday rejected lawyers' request for two Greek soldiers arrested in Turkey to be released from custody.



The two were arrested last week for allegedly entering a Turkish military zone and on suspicion of attempted espionage. Greece said the two soldiers  a lieutenant and a sergeant  accidentally strayed into Turkey due to bad weather during a patrol of the Greek-Turkish border.



The development has added further tensions to already strained ties between the NATO allies.



Lawyers for the two Greek soldiers filed a demand Monday for their release at the court in the northwestern Turkish city of Edirne. The court however, ruled that they must remain in custody on grounds that they did not have permanent residence in Turkey and because the court was still examining the ``digital data'' seized from them, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported



Earlier in Athens, Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias renewed a demand for their swift release.



"Turkey must observe procedures prescribed by international law, and not turn a routine incident into a big political and legal issue," he said.



A river marks most of the Greek-Turkish border, while a fence runs along much of the land section. However, some parts aren't clearly marked.



Relations between neighbors Greece and Turkey have soured in recent weeks over longstanding disputes over boundaries in the Aegean Sea and natural gas drilling rights off the coast of war-divided Cyprus.



Last month, a Greek coast guard vessel was rammed by a Turkish patrol boat off disputed islets in the east Aegean, and Turkish warships prevented an exploratory gas rig from drilling near Cyprus.



"The main problem that we are facing in the region is called Turkey," Kotzias said. "It would be good for Turkey to respect international law and maritime law."The U.S. government on Sunday ordered Qualcomm Inc. to delay its March 6 shareholder meeting, a highly unusual request that will allow time for a national security review of the deal, but that also cast new doubt on Singapore-based Broadcom Ltd's $117-billion bid for its U.S. semiconductor peer.

The intervention highlights U.S. concerns about safeguarding semiconductor technology. The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews deals for potential national security concerns, does not typically review mergers before companies have clinched an agreement.

CFIUS asked Qualcomm to postpone its shareholder meeting, that had been scheduled for Tuesday, by 30 days. Reuters had reported last week that CFIUS had begun looking at Broadcom's bid amid growing pressure from politicians, including senior Republican Senator John Cornyn.

"This measure will afford CFIUS the ability to investigate fully Broadcom's proposed acquisition of Qualcomm," the U.S. Department of Treasury, which oversees CFIUS, said in a statement.

As the semiconductor industry is locked in a race to develop chips that power so-called 5G wireless technology that allow the transmission of data at faster speeds, San Diego-based Qualcomm has emerged as one of the biggest competitors to Chinese companies vying for market share in the sector, such as Huawei Technologies Co., making it a prized asset.

A CFIUS review in itself does not mean a deal will be halted. CFIUS, under former President Barack Obama and current President Donald Trump, has soured on high-tech deals, particularly involving semiconductors, or involving sensitive information about American citizens.

Part of the CFIUS' current concern, which is echoed in a letter Cornyn sent to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, could lie in the fact that Broadcom has failed to strike a deal with Qualcomm and has resorted to what is essentially a hostile takeover by putting forward a slate of six Broadcom nominees for Qualcomm's 11-member board.

Broadcom shares edged down 0.8 percent in morning trading, while Qualcomm fell 0.5 percent.

Broadcom has struggled to complete its proposed deal to buy Qualcomm as the San Diego-based chipmaker has raised several concerns including the price offered and potential antitrust hurdles, while at the same time a Qualcomm's bid to buy NXP Semiconductors NV has complicated the negotiations further.

Broadcom said on Monday that CFIUS' intervention was the result of secret moves made by Qualcomm on Jan. 29 to seek an investigation into the offer, which Qualcomm's board has said significantly undervalues the company.

But Qualcomm, in a press statement, said "Broadcom's claims that the CFIUS inquiry was a surprise to them has no basis in fact" and that Broadcom had been interacting with CFIUS "for weeks."

Before Broadcom disclosed its buyout offer for Qualcomm in November, President Donald Trump announced Broadcom's plan to shift its headquarters back to the United States after a White House meeting with Chief Executive Hock Tan.

Trump praised the move at the time, calling Broadcom "one of the really great, great companies."

U.S. Senator Tom Cotton said on Monday he backed the panel's decision to delay a Qualcomm shareholder meeting, saying "Qualcomm's work is too important to our national security to let it fall into the hands of a foreign company."

Moving back to the US

Broadcom said on Monday it is run by a board and senior management team consisting almost entirely of Americans and is largely owned by the same U.S. institutional investors that own Qualcomm.

"Broadcom continues to pursue the redomiciliation process as expeditiously as possible," Broadcom said. "Upon completion of the redomiciliation, Broadcom's proposed acquisition of Qualcomm will not be a CFIUS covered transaction."

Qualcomm, which has told shareholders it is open to the merger at the right price and terms, had said last week it had no intention of delaying the annual shareholder meeting.

"Qualcomm now has their excuse to postpone their critical vote, giving them some breathing room to work on its acquisition of NXP Semiconductors NV, attempt to make progress on their Apple licensing issues, and attempt to build a stronger case for shareholders," said Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon.

Qualcomm on Monday extended its $44-billion tender offer for NXP to March 9, as it awaits clearance from China's MOFCOM, the only regulator globally required to approve the deal that has yet to do so.

Qualcomm is in a legal battle with Apple over licensing and allegations that it has not delivered on promised rebates  seen by analysts as an effort by Apple to undermine Qualcomm's strong position in mobile chips.Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said his country would fight and defeat militants despite being hit by Islamist insurgents in the capital last week in an attack which eight people were killed and dozens wounded.

Roche was joined by the presidents of neighboring Togo and Niger in a show of solidarity with each other and with former colonial master France, whose forces intervened five years ago to stop militants taking over neighboring Mali.

An al-Qaida affiliate claimed responsibility on Saturday for the attacks on the army headquarters and French embassy in Ouagadougou that also killed eight gunmen.

"The fight against terrorism is a long one and in this combat no sacrifice will be too high in the defense of our fatherland," said Burkina Faso's president.

"Recent events have shaken the Burkinabe people, but I assure you they will remain standing and end terrorism no matter what," he added.

The double assault highlighted the growing risk from jihadists in the Sahel five years after the French intervention.

France is pinning hopes on the so-called G5 Sahel force  comprising the armies of Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad  to enable it to start withdrawing the 4,000 troops it still has stationed in the region.

The G5 permanent council, chaired by Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou, met in Ouagadougou on Monday, although Togolese President Faure Gnassingbe was the only other president at the meeting.

"Terrorists ... seek to undo our alliance. ... They say our allies are foreign troops. For us they are not foreign troops, they are allies fighting for the same cause," Issoufou said.

Jihadists have regrouped since the French intervention in 2013. They have expanded into central Mali, which they have used as a launchpad to hit Burkina Faso, Niger and Ivory Coast.Ibrahim Alhasbani is like generations of Middle Eastern immigrants in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn: He fled war, came with dreams and worked for others until he could strike out on his own.

Now, like an increasing number of people from Yemen who have come the U.S., he sees a long-term future outside the country he left and seeks to bring aspects of his native country into America.

"Here you build; over there you have memories," said Alhasbani, owner of Qahwah House, a cafe that serves coffee made from beans harvested on his family's farm in Yemen's mountains. "I live here, so this is the main thing. This is what's going to help first build my career, build my business ... and help the people over there."

Yemeni have been coming to the U.S. for more than a century  especially since the 1960s  but in recent years they have been planting stronger roots, raising their profile and looking outward  opening upscale restaurants and cafes and running for political office. And, in cases like Alhasbani, they are making Yemeni culture a key part of the business proposition.

It's a path that's not unusual for first- and second-generation immigrants in the U.S. For Yemeni, the shift is also a reaction to chaos in their homeland, where a devastating war has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced 2 million.

"People are coming here and bringing their resources here," said Sally Howell, an author and associate professor of Arab American Studies at University of Michigan-Dearborn. "In the past, they weren't really committed to here. Now the situation has been so bad in Yemen for so long, they're doing what other refugees and exiles do: They're acknowledging their future is here."

The highest U.S. population of Yemeni is in the Detroit area, where Syrian and Lebanese immigrants had already settled and became more prominent in business. Unlike their Arab neighbors, many Yemeni men came alone and didn't have relatives follow them, so they were more likely to go back and forth between the U.S. and their homeland.

"We're not going back to Yemen like we did before," said Rasheed Alnozili, publisher of The Yemeni American News. "We learn from Lebanese. They built here then they built there. We made a mistake: We built there, now we built here. ... We learned late, but we're still in process."

The New York City, San Francisco, Chicago and Buffalo, New York, areas also have Yemeni communities. About 43,000 people of Yemeni ancestry are in the U.S. according to a 2015 census survey. However, advocates say the number is much higher because of historical undercounting, and has significantly increased since that last survey because of deteriorating conditions in Yemen, which fell into chaos following its 2011 Arab Spring uprising that removed longtime autocrat Ali Abdullah Saleh, now allied with Shiite rebels who occupy much of the country. A Saudi-led coalition has been battling the rebels and Saleh's forces since March 2015.

Dearborn and the Detroit enclave of Hamtramck have several sit-down restaurants specializing in Yemeni cuisine. In Hamtramck, where a Yemeni serves on the majority-Muslim City Council, there are also shops devoted to Yemeni sweets and sub sandwiches.

"The real difference today is that Yemeni are representing Yemen to the public, not just having ethnic Yemeni restaurants in tightly knit Yemeni enclaves," Howell said.

At Qahwah House, the goal is not only to serve Yemeni-style coffee, with its alluring tastes of cardamom and ginger, but also to impart information about Yemen's history and culture. The country is, as the National Coffee Association notes, where coffee cultivation and trade began, though Ethiopia boasts being the birthplace of the discovery of coffee.

"That's why I want to ... be like a messenger for my country give the right picture about the people over there, and the coffee," said Alhasbani, whose brother was blinded after a bomb exploded near his family's home several years ago.

In Hamtramck, Abraham Aiyash, a first-generation Yemeni who is running as a Democrat for state Senate, is inspired by those who have struggled and recalls an uncle who died last year in Yemen after an airstrike.

"I'll always remember that in the work that I do. ... I'll be reminded that people before me kind of had to toil and sweat to make this possible."If you havn't done it yet,to get one of the fastest volcano news online:

Overall, no significant changes have occurred in the volcano's activity, but after a 2-day long lull, mild explosive activity resumed the day before yesterday (24 Feb), generating intermittent phases of ash emissions and ejections of incandescent tephra to up to a few hundred meters in single explosions. ...

Selection of images taken during our eruption special tour in Feb 2018: aerial photos of Mayon stratovolcano, lava flows and glowing rockfalls observed during 22-24 Feb 2018. ...

During 24-26 Feb, explosive activity resumed and at times became comparably intense and frequent, but decreased again a lot towards the end of our stay near the volcano from 22-27 Feb. ...

One of the world's most active volcanoes, Sakurajima on Japan's Kyushu Island is famous for its frequent vulcanian explosions, often accompanied by eruption lightning.

We travel to volcanic areas worldwide: from Greece and Italy, Iceland, to Hawai'i, Japan, Indonesia, Vanuatu. We even offer a Round-The-World tour to volcanoes.

"One of the most eye-catching guides to the world's volcanoes ever published.

A growing list of often illustrated explanations and definitions of geological terms and keywords, with focus on volcanology and seismology.

Support us - Help us upgrade our services!

Maintaining our website and our free apps does require, however, considerable time and resources.

We're aiming to achieve uninterrupted service wherever an earthquake or volcano eruption unfolds, and your donations can make it happen! Every donation will be highly appreciated.

Improved multilanguage support

Tsunami alerts

Faster responsiveness

Earthquake archive from 1900 onwards

Detailed quake stats

Additional seismic data sources

Download and Upgrade the Volcanoes & Earthquakes app to get one of the fastest seismic and volcano alerts online:

Android | IOS to get one of the fastest seismic and volcano alerts online:

We truly love working to bring you the latest volcano and earthquake data from around the world.We need financing to increase hard- and software capacity as well as support our editor team.If you find the information useful and would like to support our team in integrating further features, write great content, and in upgrading our soft- and hardware, please PayPal or Online credit card payment )., these features have been added recently:Please enable cookies on your web browser in order to continue.

The new European data protection law requires us to inform you of the following before you use our website:

We use cookies and other technologies to customize your experience, perform analytics and deliver personalized advertising on our sites, apps and newsletters and across the Internet based on your interests. By clicking I agree below, you consent to the use by us and our third-party partners of cookies and data gathered from your use of our platforms. See our Privacy Policy and Third Party Partners to learn more about the use of data and your rights. You also agree to our Terms of Service.Meanwhile: Do you like clips of old movies? Clips and clips and clips of great movies made before the current enlightenment? Clips that are already permanently implanted on your movie-loving brain? The 90th Oscars, always elated at the sight of a round number, spent a lot of Sundays show with that kind of stuff. Some viewers would watch three hours of clips, but a far more memorable way of celebrating the past comes in the form of Hollywoods amazing octogenarians and nonagenarians  Rita Moreno, in the same dress she wore in 1962. Eva Marie Saint, at 93, as grand a presence as she was when she won a best supporting actress Oscar for her role in 1954s On the Waterfront.Virginia Democrats are following the lead of party chapters in several other states, who started abandoning the name in recent years amid a new reckoning over Confederate symbols. What remained of Jacksons reputation probably went down the tubes with Democratic activists when President Trump declared himself an admirer by hanging his portrait in the Oval Office.Xi has locked in his right to rule for life by moving to abolish the two-term limit on Chinas presidency. But neither Putin nor Sissi has yet dared to take that step. Officially, Putin will be ineligible for election after his next term expires in 2024, while Sissi said as recently as November that he would not try to lift Egypts two-term limit, which could force him from office in 2022.Todays Headlines

The most important news stories of the day, curated by Post editors and delivered every morning.

Email address

By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy PolicySteve Bannon

Italians want change and they want change now

Steve Bannon has been in Italy witnessing the elections. Before his first public speech in Europe, in Zurich Switzerland, the former White House security advisor, analyzes the first results of the elections. He talks to Weltwoche foreign editor, Urs Gehriger.

Von Urs Gehriger

Italians have voted, its the day after. What is the biggest take away from these elections for you?

Certain people in Italy think that these were just provincial elections, that their politics doesnt mean anything on a global basis. They couldnt be farther from the truth. This was an earthquake yesterday, this was even more stunning than I thought it was going to be, and thats the reason I came over here, to really learn more. You could argue that the entire establishment, the populist vote or even people that tended toward populism is over 60/70 %. In particularly if you look where these parties came from, if you look at the size that the Five Star Movement was a couple of years ago, if you look at the size that Lega was a few years ago and look at how theyve grown so rapidly. This is just a populist victory and should send a massive signal to the permanent political class in Rome and more importantly to the permanent political class in Brussels that people want change.

The populist movements who won, from the Fratelli dItalia to the Five Star Movement, lie very far apart. What do they have in common?

What they have in common is the opposition against the entire establishment. They want the sovereignty of Italy, they want the sovereignty of the Italian people, the common thread. And what is so important is that the Lega campaigned in the south, right and across. Five Stars campaigned all over, more importantly what the Lega did in certain areas. They got 20% of the votes in Tuscany which is traditionally a turf of the left, or the central left: This is equivalent to Wisconsin going to Trump. So, you just see across the country a rejection of the way things are. I said this before the election, there are definitely policy differences between the Five Star Movement and the Lega and also some of the other populist movements on the right, but I think what is much more powerful: There is a strong signal to the permanent political class in Europe that people, and particularly people in Italy, want change and they want change now.

Whats the signal for Europe?

The signal for Europe is that the commentators and the Financial Times of London and the Wall Street Journal and what I call the party of Davos, the globalist elite, have been dismissing ever since the French elections. Theres really a populist national revolt, its building steam. This is a global phenomenon. Italy is the third or fourth biggest economy in Europe, an incredibly important country, its one of the founders of the European project, nobody has been more engaged in the European project than the political leads in Italy. Yesterday, what you had was a total rejection by the Italian voters, and I think that was the earthquake, the tremor is going to continue, this shift of tectonic plates is going to continue over the next couple of weeks or months as they put together a government.

You have been in Italy for the elections, whats your most striking observation?

I went around, I had meetings with many of the people in the political process. I was having the chance just to go around and engage with basic citizens and Ive got to tell you, people want change, they just dont think the current system is working. They want change and they want change now. They dont want to have any more political happy talk. They really want change and in Italy to me whats so important is that they want the sovereignty of the country back. Italian citizens want Italians making decisions for what they think is in the best interest of Italy. So I think yesterdays it was a bigger earthquake than even people were prepared for and I think if you aggregate up the votes, as we said when you and I talked in New York, about two thirds of the people have kind of voted for an entire establishment populist amending.

If you look at the results on the right-hand side: The Lega was much stronger even than expected and much stronger than Silvio Berlusconis Forza Italia. Is Berlusconi over?

Well, look, Berlusconi was Trump before Trump. So, never count Berlusconi out. Anybody who says Berlusconi is ever over, is making a big miscalculation. But actions have consequences: the Legas victory over Forza Italia means Salvini replaces Berlusconi as de facto leader of the right. Certainly, yesterday was a vote of confidence in Matteo Salvini who really took the party over when it was about 3 percent. And look at the results he was able to deliver! It is obvious, though, that it is getting more difficult for Berlusconi to play kingmaker. Because, as this plays out  and we dont have final results  it looks like Five Star is going to have the mandate to at least try to form a government.

There is an option that Five Star Movement could form a government with Forza. What is your thought about this?

All these possibilities will come up. But the key thing that I believe is going to happen: Part of Five Stars foundational legends is that they would never form a coalition government. But we'll have to see! I think that now that they have got the ability. Particularly, because they did so well: over 30 percent, the largest party: this is very impressive! They are going to have a mandate to form a government and they will try to put together a coalition.

You have spoken out in favor of a coalition between Lega and Five Stars. Do they have a common ground to govern? Are they too far apart?

The two populist upstarts that essentially didn't register a few short years ago  Five Star and the Lega  effectively replaced the PD and Forza Italia centrist system. Five Star toned down some of the euro-sceptic rhetoric. But I think there is a communality among the voters of both that they are euro-sceptics. They really question what is going on in Brussels. They are both populist in nature. Some of their policies are far apart. One is a little more on the centrist or center-left, the other is more to the right. Definitely, the Lega is more aggressive about the migrant issue. I think, what binds them together is more than what separates them. And what is important: If they were to come together or you see them coming together with other populist parties, it really gives you a bigger mandate to govern. Step 1 was the winning: Put something together that can actually win. The second part is how you govern. Italy still has massive problems. They have massive problems about their economy, they have massive problems on debt, they have massive problems on foreign illegal migrants. The problems facing Italy are pretty daunting. In that regard, you definitely need a governing coalition that can really have a mandate. If you see these populist numbers - like I said, over 60 percent voted for the rejection of the establishment - thats the communality and its more powerful than what separates them.Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 5/3/2018 (1293 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BOARDS

Manitoba Theatre for Young People

has added four new board members as of January 2018. Louise McMurray, retired teacher from Pembina Trails School Division; Tyler Seman, assurance services; Chris Sigurdson, Sigurdson Law Office and a trustee with the Louis Riel School Division; and Taras Wasyliw, business faculty at Red River College. Also recently joining the board as of November 2017 is Louise Pujo (secretary), independent consultant. They join returning members of the MTYP Board, which includes Valerie Shantz (chair), Laurel Repski (past-chair), Vince Dancho (vice-chair), Carla Goncalo (treasurer), Charlotte Duggan, Alastair Komus, Elizabeth Mitchell, and Bonnie Talbot.

United Empire Loyalists, Manitoba

announces its 2018 executives: Robert Campbell, president; Wendy Hart, vice-president; Mary Steinhoff, secretary; Dianne Nerbas, treasurer; Alice Walchuk, genealogist; Bob McConomy, past-president; Margaret Carter, member-at-large. The United Empire Loyalists of Canada is a non-profit organization. The mission of the Manitoba branch is to identify and unite descendants of Loyalists living in Manitoba, offer assistance with loyalist ancestry research, and raise awareness of the contributions made by the loyalists and descendants to the formation and growth of Canada.

APPOINTMENTS

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.

Lung Association, Manitoba

is pleased to announce that Kyle Mason has recently joined its team as director of development. Mason is the founder and executive director of the North End Family Centre.

AWARDS

Chartered Professional Accountants of Manitoba (CPA Manitoba)

have named the following as the recipients of the Fellow CPA (FCPA) designation: Kirsten Albo, Jo-Anne Findley, Robert Friesen, Deborah Grenier, Cindee Laverge, Joel Lazer, and Peter Miller. The Lifetime Achievement Award went to Gary Hannaford. The Early Achievement Award went to Kenton Doerksen, Brigitte Lazarko, Kyle McMurtry, Pamela Miller, Ryan Rawluk, and Sara Stasiuk. The Community Service Award went to Richard Pope, Scott Sissons and Lorraine Taraska. And the Meritorious Service Award went to Dean Austin.

Got a promotion or a new contract? Email your submission to: bizlistings@freepress.mb.caI dont wish to cause widespread panic, but it has come to my attention that almost everything on the planet is potentially lethal, especially grooming products.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 5/3/2018 (1294 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

I dont wish to cause widespread panic, but it has come to my attention that almost everything on the planet is potentially lethal, especially grooming products.

This unexpected hazard leaped out at me when I read a shocking report in the Baltimore Sun newspaper about a car that blew up last week in the normally quiet community of Woodland in Baltimore County, Md.

According to the newspaper, the car exploded (prepare to furrow your eyebrows and perspire heavily) after the young guy driving the vehicle gave himself a liberal spritzing with an aerosol body spray.

The story does not explain why the man chose to douse himself with body spray, but, as a veteran guy, I can take a wild guess  he was trying to make himself irresistible to women.

(WARNING: Irrelevant digression ahead.)

Guys of my particular era (the Jurassic) can understand the concept of trying to turn themselves into a James Bond-style hunk of burning love via the tactic of coating their pasty bodies in cologne. Lots and lots of cologne.

Back when I was a teenager, my friends and I, instead of bathing on a regular basis, would cover up our toxic teenage stench by shamelessly slathering our pimply little bodies with gallons of something called Jovan Musk Oil.

This had the effect of rendering us invisible to women because we were cloaked in an impenetrable fog of ultra-sexy musk molecules. The intense fragrance rays also caused any woman within a three-block radius to run away because exposure to a cloud of undiluted muskiness is like having bear repellent sprayed directly into your eyes.

(ALERT: Irrelevant digression ends, regular column resumes.)

Getting back to our story about the potential dangers of grooming products  according to police, the Maryland driver was running his cars air conditioner with the front windows rolled down when he decided, for whatever reason, to apply the aerosol body spray.

When he was finished spritzing  prepare to say "AHA!"  he lit a cigarette.

Heres what Baltimore County police spokeswoman Jennifer Peach says happened next: "I would say, it would be best to describe as a sudden and violent expansion of the air molecules in that vehicle."

In other words, it created a boom that blew the Chevys doors open, pushed the roof up and shattered the front window. Fortunately, Peach said, the driver appeared unharmed, but was taken to the hospital to check for hearing damage.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: "Wow, Doug, smoking sure is dangerous, isnt it?"

Well, you could not be more correct, but that is not the point. The point is we have to move on to our next example of a popular modern grooming product causing an alarming explosion inside a motor vehicle.

According to a news story I am holding in my hands, a woman in Vancouver, Wash., got the shock of her life last summer when she walked to her car after work and discovered her windshield was severely cracked and something was sticking out of the glass.

The thing that was lodged in Karmen Ayres cracked windshield was, in fact, a can of hairspray the woman had left in her car on the rear passenger-side seat on a wickedly hot summer day.

What happened was the overheated can exploded, then slammed through her windshield.

"It launched like a rocket," the insurance salesperson told reporters at the time.

For those keeping track, what we are talking about here are two alarming examples of grooming-product-related explosions that could have had lethal repercussions.

Again, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: "Hey, Doug, do they happen to have video of either of these explosions, because I would literally pay to watch something like that."

Sadly, there is no video evidence, which is unfortunate because, to my conservative way of thinking, these are easily the second- and third-most bizarre in-car explosions I have heard about in recent memory.

Neither of them, however, can hold a candle (this would be a potentially dangerous lit candle) to an explosion I read about in a New Jersey Star-Ledger story that appeared under this ominous headline: "Flaming kamikaze squirrel ignites car."

This deeply concerning story states that a buck-toothed New Jersey squirrel was gnawing on some overhead power lines that were connected to a transformer directly above a 2006 Toyota Camry.

Doug Speirs | Uplift A weekly review of funny, uplifting news in Winnipeg and around the globe that is delivered to your inbox each Wednesday. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

Heres what the cars owner told the newspaper: "The squirrel chewed through the wire, was set on fire and fell down directly to where the car was. The squirrel, on fire, slid into the engine compartment and blew up the car."

At this point, the question is: Where do we go from here if we are going to protect innocent motorists from having their vehicles explode?

I think there is only one logical course of action  for the time being, everyone should park their cars in their garages, and either walk or take public transportation whenever they need to leave the house.

It should be obvious we cant ban flaming squirrels, because that would be nuts. And, as anyone who owns hormone-riddled teenagers can tell you, banning aerosol body spray would create a huge stink.

I have more thoughts on this burning issue of public safety, but I have to run, because Im sure I can see smoke wafting out of the can of musk oil in my cars glove compartment.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.caThe people around Carman say they desperately need a new personal care home, even if it takes outside-the-box thinking.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 5/3/2018 (1294 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The people around Carman say they desperately need a new personal care home, even if it takes outside-the-box thinking.

The southern Manitoba town and four surrounding municipalities hope theyre close to getting a 100-bed personal care home and 30-bed transitional centre built, said Carman Mayor Bob Mitchell.

Its a similar story in Lac du Bonnet, where a new style of "homey" personal care home may finally get 120 beds built, Mayor Gordon Peters said.

The Carman area has been waiting for a personal care home project since Theresa Oswald was the NDP health minister, Mitchell said. (Oswald held that role from 2006 to 2013. The NDP was voted out of power in 2016.)

"They werent prepared to fund the stuff. They didnt have the money," he said. "The Pallister government says now it wants to put up 1,200 (personal care home) beds. They dont have any money."

The area has taken what Mitchell acknowledged is an unusual approach, committing five municipalities (including Roland and the RMs of Dufferin, Grey and Thompson) to raise $3.5 million through taxation, to fundraise another $3.5 million and to borrow $10 million. They will count on the province to contribute its announced $133,000 a bed to build a complex that could cost $215,000 a bed.

"This is unique, we were thinking outside the box. They were quite happy to work with us," Mitchell said.

Carman, which is 80 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg, will tax its residents for its share, while the RM of Dufferin passed a local improvement levy that distributes the cost equally.

Not everyones delighted. Area farmer Pat Roth was unhappy when one days mail informed her shell pay $101.43 a year to the RM of Dufferin through 2032 to help build a new personal care home in Carman.

Every one of the 879 dwellings in the RM will pay the same amount regardless of size or value of the property.

"Why cant our local politicians consider that there are constituents who have limited resources?" Roth wrote in a letter to the Free Press.

Mitchell said the planned transitional beds give people a place to stay other than a hospital as they await a personal-care-home bed.

"Its about $850 a day to keep someone in hospital, $250 a day to keep someone in a personal care home," he said.

The municipalities have set up a non-profit corporation to take out the $10-million loan, he said. The homes residents fees will cover off the loan payments. In Lac du Bonnet, some 100 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, the loan is $15 million, Peters said.

Its probably Manitobas most-well-known prospective personal care home because it was placed in limbo when Tory Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen postponed $1 billion worth of health-care capital projects.

Two weeks ago, Peters said, a recommendation went to Manitoba Health, and theres talk of approval in April.

"From a funding standpoint, the RM and the town, weve put forward $2.5 million," Peters said. "Weve already spent some of our money, putting in roads, water and sewer, the land.

"Wed borrow the rest. Its about $15 million," which would be paid back through the revenue the home generates.

It would have 120 beds, although "our waiting list is longer than 200," Peters said. "Were in the $265,000 range. They have put out a new standard: its less institutional and more homey."

Peters said earlier designs had many unnecessary features, which did not add to safety and comfort, citing the example of costly stainless-steel grills running the full length of shower stalls. "They were total overkill."

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.

"The goal of personal care homes now is to personalize them. Theyve dubbed them small house design. We could be the first in Manitoba," he said.

NDP health critic Andrew Swan said his former government had paid 90 per cent of the cost of personal care homes once the community had raised 10 per cent.

"Thats a new one" in Carman, Swan said. "It shows the lengths communities will go to to get personal care homes built in their communities. Im concerned personal care homes will be built (only) in communities that have the capacity" to raise money.

"The need for personal care homes is there, and its going to grow," said Jan Legaros, executive director of the Long Term and Continuing Care Association of Manitoba, adding "it remains to be seen" if Carman can deliver at $215,000 and meet all regulations.

The Pallister government is funding "half of what it really takes to build a bed," Legaros said. "Everyones looking at creative ways."

nick.martin@freepress.mb.caWinnipegs craft beer scene may be buzzing, but Janel Bortoluzzi has opened a different sort of taproom.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 5/3/2018 (1294 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Winnipegs craft beer scene may be buzzing, but Janel Bortoluzzi has opened a different sort of taproom.

The West St. Paul resident is the founder of Tapportunity, a free, drop-in tap-dance program for youth between the ages of six and 12. The classes take place weekly at the West End Cultural Centre.

Bortoluzzi was inspired to start the program after an encounter with one of her students at a local dance studio where she teaches.

The student explained that her family was facing financial challenges, and that she might not be able to continue taking dance lessons as a result.

"This didnt sit well with me," Bortoluzzi says. "I wanted dance lessons to be more accessible and inclusive for all youth."

The 21-year-olds dream to start Tapportunity began to unfold in 2016 when she posted a Facebook status, asking people to donate their gently used tap shoes.

With support from the Spence Neighbourhood Association and the centre, Bortoluzzi began offering the class last June.

The class takes place every Friday from 4 to 4:45 p.m.

Tap shoes are provided and no experience is necessary.

"What I enjoy most is getting to see the kids who come to class every week, and witnessing how excited they are to be in tap class," says Bortoluzzi, who has seven years of experience teaching dance. "Its inspiring to see how far theyve come in such a short time. You almost witness their self-confidence grow, too."

Bortoluzzi started dancing at the age of four. She credits dance with helping her maintain her mental health and well-being.

"Dance has been a really good stress-reliever, especially throughout high school," she says. "I faced some hard times and I was bullied, and I found dance was an outlet for me (to) express my emotions in an artistic way."

Youth can learn a lot from dance, Bortoluzzi says. They can improve their strength, stamina, flexibility, balance and co-ordination.

Dance also helps facilitate communication skills, teaches youth about teamwork and can create a sense of community.

Engaging in a dance class requires students to practise discipline and focus, which can help them succeed in school, Bortoluzzi adds.

Shes found that to be the case for herself. Bortoluzzi is in her fourth year of a psychology program at the University of Winnipeg.

When she isnt in class or working at one of the handful of part-time jobs she maintains, Bortoluzzi is busy volunteering with the University of Winnipeg Students Association in a variety of capacities.

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.

She also volunteers with the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the MS Society of Canada, the Canadian Cancer Society and the United Way of Winnipeg.

Bortoluzzi aspires to someday work as a speech pathologist.

In the meantime, she looks forward to the weekly Tapportunity classes, and hopes more young people come check it out.

Anyone interested can visit facebook.com/tapportunity for details.

"It takes a lot to change the world, but I think it only takes one person to make a significant difference in the community," Bortoluzzi says. "I want to do whatever I can to promote equality and provide equal opportunities for people."

If you know a special volunteer, please contact aaron.epp@gmail.com.For the second year in a row, the performance of Manitoba's criminal justice system ranks dead last among Canadian provinces.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 5/3/2018 (1293 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For the second year in a row, the performance of Manitoba's criminal justice system ranks dead last among Canadian provinces.

And unless the provincial government takes steps to address the situation, things will continue to deteriorate, says Benjamin Perrin, co-author of an annual report assessing the criminal justice system of each Canadian province and territory.

The report -- released Monday by Ottawa-based think tank Macdonald-Laurier Institute -- paints a grim picture of justice in Manitoba, highlighting costly and cumbersome courts; low public perception of police; disproportionate numbers of Indigenous people locked up; and metrics for "fairness" and "access to justice" on the decline.

"The Manitoba criminal justice system is the worst provincial criminal justice system in the country. Thats not an opinion: this is based on hard data from Statistics Canada that the provinces provide," said Perrin, an associate professor of law at the University of British Columbia.

When asked to sum up Manitoba's performance, Perrin said: "Its dismal. Abysmal would be another good word for it. Manitoba is continuing to decline. It was doing very poor, and its getting worse."

Macdonald-Laurier has been tracking data on the criminal justice system since 2016, ranking the provinces and territories on five areas: public safety; support for victims; costs and resources; fairness and access to justice; and efficiency. The think tank's first report ranked Manitoba last among provinces and ahead of only Yukon nationally. In 2017, Manitoba came in ahead of Yukon and the Northwest Territories, but still last among provinces.

Following the release of the first report, Manitoba Minister of Justice Heather Stefanson said a full review of the provinces system would be undertaken.

On Monday, Perrin called on the province to confirm it had followed through on that promise.

"This is a very serious situation. Manitoba finds itself as the worst performing provincial criminal justice system in Canada for the second report in a row. The reasons for that performance are very serious and must be addressed," Perrin said.

"Were calling on the province to release information on what measures theyre taking to deal with these issues, as they promised to do back in 2016. Were calling on them to publicly release the results of the review."

When reached for comment, Stefanson said it was unfortunate these issues were not addressed by the previous government. The Tories took power following the April 2016 election.

"Since (2016), our team in Manitoba Justice has worked tirelessly to evaluate the criminal justice system and identify opportunities to improve outcomes in the system and enhance overall public safety. That work continues, and we look forward to sharing our plans to modernize the criminal justice system with Manitobans very soon," Stefanson said.

Two major issues raised by the 2017 report include low public perception of police and high incarceration rates for Indigenous peoples.

"Public perception of the police in Manitoba is among the lowest in Canada, with dismal ratings for enforcing the law, ensuring safety, satisfaction with safety, supplying information, being approachable, being fair, and responding promptly," the report reads.

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 addition, while there is disproportionately high levels of Indigenous incarceration everywhere in Canada, the study found the situation was particularly bad in Manitoba, where the incarceration rates are four times higher for Indigenous people than their percentage in the general population.

Perrin said many of the issues found by the report were first raised by the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry a quarter-century ago. The AJI was commissioned in 1988, and presented its final report in 1991. Its stated purpose was to examine the relationship between Indigenous people and the justice system.

"What was found back in the 1990s was Indigenous people were more likely to be arrested, more likely to be charged, more likely to go to court, less likely to have a lawyer, more likely to be denied bail, more likely to be found guilty, more likely to be sent to prison and more likely to serve the entirety of their sentence before being paroled. These are not new issues. These have been around for decades. There needs to be accountability," Perrin said.

Despite the reports indictment of the provinces criminal justice system, the news wasnt all bad. The report highlighted a few positives, including: a high non-violent crime clearance rate and low rates of people failing to appear in court and being unlawfully at large.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @rk_thorpeOTTAWA  The head of the military says there is no role for soldiers in Churchill, adding a wistfulness is behind a call to station soldiers at Manitobas only seaport.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 5/3/2018 (1294 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  The head of the military says there is no role for soldiers in Churchill, adding a "wistfulness" is behind a call to station soldiers at Manitobas only seaport.

"I dont have a military task in Churchill," chief of defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance told the Senate defence committee last week.

Churchills town council has named government services as one of five areas to pursue to bolster the northern towns economy, including suggesting an increased role for the military. The town of 900 used to house more than 6,000 people, largely driven by Cold War-era rocket testing by American and Canadian troops.

The town, located 1,600 kilometres north of Winnipeg, had its land link cut when the rail line was flooded out and damaged last May. Prices for necessities such as food and fuel have soared and families have moved away.

Vance said he is not aware of any plan to station soldiers in Churchill. He also doesnt see the wisdom in such a move. "Sometimes, theres a wistfulness there, that Churchill doesnt have a military base or that somehow we should be there more," he said.

He described the question that governments and the military have to consider: "What does the government need to get done up there, and how much military do you need to do that at any point in time?"

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.

Vance said the militarys role in the Arctic is to conduct search-and-rescue operations and ward off foreign encroachment. The Canadian Rangers operate patrol vessels in the North and take part in Norad missile defence. He said a naval refuelling site in Nanisivik, Nunavut, will help when it opens this year.

"From a military perspective, there is a certain posture that we need to take to get the job done. I think were at that posture," he said. "We have tremendous capacity to sense whats coming into the Arctic."

Vance was responding to questions from Manitoba Sen. Marilou McPhedran, who asked about a media report on how Canadas army and navy presence in the town has withered, to the point of leaving only "wind-hollowed remains of a large military base" and centuries-old fortifications.

Meanwhile, NDP MP Niki Ashton, who represents northern Manitoba, raised Churchills railway crisis in the House of Commons Thursday.

"People in Churchill are facing skyrocketing food prices. They are going hungry because of the kind of policies and incompetence of the government that has led to the loss of the rail service," Ashton said.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.caA 18-year-old woman was sexually assaulted early Sunday morning after shed been robbed and then chased after her assailants, police said Monday.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 5/3/2018 (1293 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A 18-year-old woman was sexually assaulted early Sunday morning after shed been robbed and then chased after her assailants, police said Monday.

Police said they were called to the area of Home Street at Ellice Avenue just after 7:15 a.m. The 18-year old reported shed been walking in the area when two men approached her, showed her a weapon and then robbed her of her purse.

She reported she'd chased after both of them, following them into a nearby back lane, where she said she was sexually assaulted by both men.

The woman was treated in hospital and released. She reported both men were strangers to her. Police did not say what kind of weapon was involved.

The suspects are described as black men, both with slim builds, in their 20s and both with short black hair, shaved on the sides.Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 5/3/2018 (1293 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Nearly $19K of cocaine seized following Osborne Village raid

Winnipeg police have arrested and charged a man with multiple drug trafficking offences following a raid in Osborne Village.

On Feb. 24, police say officers  including members of the tactical support team  executed a search warrant for a suite in a residential complex in the Roslyn neighbourhood and a garage in the St. Johns area.

Police seized the following:

 9.3 ounces of cocaine (valued at $18,500);

 21.9 grams of marijuana (valued at $220);

 115 suspected MDMA pills (valued at $1,150);

 25 Tylenol 3 pills;

 Gang paraphernalia;

 Brass knuckles; and

 Packaging materials.

James Keith Goodmanson, 34, is facing charges of possession of a scheduled substance for the purpose of trafficking - cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy, and codeine; possession of a prohibited or restricted weapon,possession of firearm, restricted/prohibited weapon or ammunition contrary to probation order, and failure to comply with a probation order.

He was detained in custody.

Over $100K in illegal drugs and cash seized in South Pointe

Winnipeg police have taken about $76,000 worth of meth off the streets following two raids in South Pointe and Richmond West.

Police say on Feb. 25, officers executed a search warrant for a hotel room in Richmond West and residence in South Pointe.

During the raid police recovered the following:

 38.3 ounces of methamphetamine (valued at $76,600);

 32.1 ounces of cocaine (valued at $22,470);

 61 grams of marijuana (valued at $900);

 259 morphine pills;

 $22,765 in Canadian currency;

 Packaging materials; and

 Scales.

Two men, whose names have not been released, are facing charges.

A 27-year-old from Winnipeg is charged with possession of a scheduled substance for the purpose of trafficking - methamphetamine, cocaine, and morphine; possession of scheduled substance - cannabis; and possession of proceeds or property obtained by crime over $5,000.

A 21-year-old man from Winnipeg is charged with failure to comply with a probation order (warrant).

Both were released on a promise to appear.

Riverview, FortWhyte Alive get cash for commercial kitchens

The Riverview Community Centre and FortWhyte Alive will each receive grants from the provincial government to upgrade the commercial kitchens on site.

Riverview (90 Ashland Blvd.) was awarded a grant valued at over $8,600 to purchase a commercial dehydrator and freezer. FortWhyte Alives farm program received $13,200 for a 20-quart mixer, tilting kettle, commercial freezer and food processor for the teaching kitchen.

In total, the province announced $84,000 in funding for eight projects across the province on Feb. 23.

"Community centres are often the launching pad for new food products, giving Manitobans access to the space and equipment needed to grow from a home-based business into something more," agriculture minister Ralph Eichler said in a statement. "This is an important investment in community-led economic development and local value-added processing."

Escaped inmates found at warm sleep program in Osborne Village

Two inmates who escaped from Stony Mountain Penitentiary were located in the Osborne Village area on Feb. 27, RCMP said.

According to the RCMP, Winnipeg police officers received information that the two missing inmates were believed to be at the Just a Warm Sleep drop in centre in Augustine United Church. Officers attended the area and located the two men who were arrested without incident, RCMP said.

William Hunter-Garrioch and Dale Gilchrist were remanded into custody on charges of being unlawfully at large and returned to Stony Mountain.

Pan Am Clinic to get funding for roof replacement

The province has announced funding to support the replacement of the roof of the Pan Am Clinic.

The project, which is estimated to cost over $150,000, was part of a $30-million capital health care spending announcement made on Feb. 26.

Health minister Kelvin Goertzen said 120 projects were approved across the province.

"Its important that we regularly invest in the maintenance of our health-care system to make sure repairs are done and the most up-to-date equipment is used to support quality care," Goertzen said in a statement. "These investments will ensure that sites continue to meet provincial, national and international standards and keep facilities in good repair."

The Victoria General Hospital was also approved to receive funding to replace the floor, install domestic hot water and copper ionization systems, install barricade and ligature prevention for the mental health unit, and water temperature valve replenishment. These projects are estimated to cost less than $150,000.

The province says project requests are submitted each year by regional health authorities, CancerCare Manitoba, Diagnostic Services Manitoba, and the Addictions Foundation for funding.

Putting kids in charge of the city

Mayor Brian Bowman is putting the call out to the community for a "kid mayor."

Bowman is looking to appoint Winnipegs first kid mayor, who during the course of one day, will get to shadow Bowman, pitch city councillors on an idea to make Winnipeg a better place to live, cut a ribbon, and host a press conference.

No experience required.

"This is a fun, but at the same time educational initiative that I hope will build a greater appreciation for and understanding of municipal government," Bowman said. "As well, it will be a great opportunity for elected members to learn from our kids who can sometimes say the darndest things and are rarely shy about what they think and feel.

"I hope kids across Winnipeg can find time to share what they think it means to be mayor, and if given a chance what they would do to make Winnipeg an even greater city."

Applicants wanting to become Winnipegs first kid mayor need to explain what they think mayors do, and what they would do to make Winnipeg an even better place to live and why. Submissions need to be under 250 words, can be made into a video if applicants have the means to do so, and can be submitted either online or by mail.

Permission from a parent or legal guardian is required to apply. Entries will be received until April 3 and can be submitted online at: www.mayorbowman.ca

Foundation hosts Bollywood dance fundraiser

The Womens Health Research Foundation of Canada is raising scholarship money with an evening of dance.

The foundation will host "Dance for Your Health" on March 12 at Charisma of India Restaurant (83 Sherbrook St.).

Organizers say the event will include dinner and a Bollywood dance demonstration, followed by an open dance floor. Proceeds from the fundraiser go toward graduate students working on various womens health issues. Tickets are $100 with partial tax receipt. Dinner is served at 6:30 p.m. For more information go to www.whrfcinc.com or call 204-783-0116.

Stay informed The latest updates on the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 delivered to your inbox every weeknight. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.Warsaw  New York, January 13th, 2018

To Polish American Leadership Summit Patrons, Attendees, Supporters, and Partners:

As organizing members of the Honorary Program Council and Co founders of RTMx (Round Table Mixer), we would like to extend our warmest invitation to the inaugural Polish American Leadership Summit in Miami, Florida.

In devising this event, we have aimed to deliver the first ever bilateral Polish and American business-centered conference that endeavors to strengthen the commercial and economic ties, as well as the security ties, of this important geopolitical and historical alliance.

It is well understood by students of history that the Polish and American alliance effectively dates to the American Revolution, and is thusly Americas first notable trans-national alliance. When Polish freedom fighters Tadeusz Kosciuszko and Casimir Pulaski joined the American revolutionary war effort and came to the aid of the fledgling democracys fight for self-determination, a relational mark had been set. This was the sort of existential battle that Poles had fought for, and would have to continue to fight for, throughout Polish history. Soon after shedding the yoke of imperial tyranny, the newly minted United States of America guaranteed natural rights, those rights ordained by God, not government, by codification in the first post-enlightenment constitution (1789). Poland adopted this framework merely two years later (1791) in the creation of its own constitution, which was the first in Europe to uphold these universal values.

This seminal alliance proved integral to both nations security and larger geopolitical stability many times over. In 1918, the American-devised Fourteen Points plan, as the adjudicating framework after the First World War, gave Poland its independence for the first time in the industrial age. Two years later, in 1920, American fighter pilots flew alongside their Polish counterparts in the Battle of Warsaw to beat back the Russian Bolshevik scourge hellbent on installing global communism against the will of free nations. During the Second World War, America fought, sacrificing much and suffering greatly, to liberate the European continent from the German Nazi designs on continental despotic hegemony. Over the entire length of the multi-generational Cold War, America consistently labored to set free those nations behind the Iron Curtain suffering under the jackboot of Soviet oppression with Poland serving as ground zero for the cultural information war strategy of promoting freedom and resistance via Radio Free Europe. And just recently, newly elected President Donald Trumps first visit to a sovereign capital to meet with a national government was to Warsaw in July 2017 to stand in solidarity with a government elected on the same thematic platform as he was- that of nation state sovereignty preservation and conservative patriotic values. This historic visit reinforced the Polish and American commitment to bilateral relations around joint security issues but also focused on the deepening bilateral economic relations between Poland and the United States which is key to evolving this relationship in the 21st century.

In this inaugural Polish American Leadership Summit, we aim to serve this integral component of contemporary global diplomacy and societal advancement- that of interdependent free trade between allies. Since 1989, when Poland liberalized from a communist command economy to a market based one, the economic ties between the nations have continued to strengthen. But we believe that the surface has been barely scratched and the potential for commercial and intellectual transfer exists far more than what has heretofore been consummated- accruing to the material benefit of both economies and societies writ large.

It was not coincidental that President Trumps Warsaw visit coincided with the opening of Europes newest large-scale LNG offloading depot in Swinoujscie. President Trump and his administration recognized what then-Minister of Development (and now Prime Minister) Mateusz Morawiecki believed in bringing this facility online- that energy policy, and the security which comes from raw energy source diversity, is an integral guarantor of safety and stability with direct security implications. In contemporary Europe, there exists a dominant continental supplier willing to use their capacity to trade energy as a political weapon in contravention of market based incentives with the clear goal of destabilizing their adversaries in order to gain an upper hand in revanchist military operations. This clear and present danger, ignored by the previous Polish and American governments, but now astutely appreciated by the Trump and Morawiecki administrations, is best countered by free and robust trade in the energy sector.

Poland, as a growing counterparty for the consumption of American goods and services, technology transfer, OEM industrial production, knowledge-based service sector employment, and education exchange, is also uniquely positioned to become the leader of the developing Three Seas Initiative regional trade and security bloc. This project enthusiastically ties together a dozen sovereign European Union member nations, between the Baltic, Black, and Adriatic Seas in Central/Eastern Europe. This multilateral arrangement aggregates 112 million Europeans of the fastest growing economies who worry about the undermining risk to their sovereignty from the politically centralizing and oftentimes coercive spheres of power that lay both to their East and to their West. Poland has asserted itself from inception as the political and economic anchor and driver of this project as the largest nation state by both economic output and population and the primary public stock exchange listing marketplace in the region.

Given these evolving dynamics, we believe this is the perfect moment to bring together Polish and American business interests from the energy, defense, technology, telecommunications, and consumer sectors, as well as economic thought leaders, defense and security strategists, investors with access to capital pools, and all those interested in the economic growth story of the Polish Miracle and the historic and ever-developing Polish-American alliance.

We hope you join us in Miami in February 2018, the 100th anniversary of Polish independence, to increasingly develop, for mutual benefit, the economic ties that can further secure our two nations prosperity and bind our two societies ever more tightly together- politically, economically, and in the perpetual shared desire for peaceful stability for the coming generations!

Micha Maciej Lisiecki & Matthew Tyrmand

RTMx Co-Founders & Honorary Program Committee Chair & Co-Chair Polish American Leadership Summit 2018More than 1,400 West Virginia Frontier Communications workers facing job cuts and corporate restructuring went on strike Sunday morning. The walkout began as more than 33,000 teachers and public employees continued their strike across all 55 counties in the state.

The Communications Workers of America (CWA), the bargaining agent for the Frontier workers, announced on Saturday that the strike would proceed. The union said it had been unable to reach an agreement with the company in contract talks.

Workers have been without a contract for more than seven months. In addition to workers in West Virginia, the strike has halted operations in Ashburn in neighboring Virginia.

In a statement released on Sunday, Frontier made clear it was determined to continue its cost-cutting program to meet the profit demands of shareholders and lenders. Since Verizon sold its West Virginia operations to Frontier in 2010, the company has wiped out more than 500 jobs across the state, including more than 50 since December 2017, as part of a national restructuring.

Chris Levendos, executive vice president of field operations, said Frontiers objective was to preserve good jobs with competitive wages while addressing the needs of our ever-changing business.

The statement declared that Frontier had already activated its strike contingency plan with strikebreakers from members of the management team, outside contractors and representatives from other Frontier organizations. The company would continue to engage in constructive negotiations with CWA and resolve this matter quickly.

World Socialist Web Sitereporters spoke with picketing workers outside the companys retail store in Charleston. The building is located within clear view of the state Capitol, where thousands of public school employees and students have been gathering to demand a decent wage and affordable health care.

Vince (left) and Kurt

The workers expressed support for the striking teachers. Vince and Kurt, who have worked for 17 and 18 years, respectively, for Verizon and then Frontier, explained the issues in their fight.

Vince said, The teachers in West Virginia dont make enough money. My dad was a schoolteacher in Fayette County for 40 years, and I know how much a teacher makes. Im glad they are out with us.

He continued, Frontier has gotten rid of 200 jobs and now the company is going after our health care just like the state government is doing to the teachers. They want to force us to pay more for insurance. It started with the coal companies declaring bankruptcy to get out of pensions and health care, and its spread all throughout West Virginia.

A lineman job in West Virginia is not easy. You have to deal with the weather and terrain, and climb mountains and walk half a mile down a railroad track to fix a phone. And the infrastructure has not been kept up.

We dont really know what is being discussed in negotiations, but the union says were fighting for jobs, health care and against contracting out.

Another Frontier worker pointed out that Republican state Senate President Mitch Carmichael had been employed by Frontier as a middle manager and the companys chief lobbyist in the state legislature.

Tina, another veteran telecom worker on the picket line, said, Im proud of the teachers. It was a long time coming. My sister is a teacher in Boone County and she had to take half of her tax return to pay doctor bills.

My son works in the mines, and they have to put up with a lot of stuff they never used to. He works six days a week without any Saturdays off. I asked him why he didnt he go to the UMW (United Mine Workers) to get a Saturday off. He told me the union didnt care. All they wanted to do was put money in their pockets.

He is 37 and going in for a Black Lung test. He probably has it. He makes $28 an hour, which is more than the $14 you get in a nonunion mine, but he has no life. He works night shifts and by the time he wakes up on Sunday, its time to go to work again. Hes at his wits end. With a daughter to support, payments on a vehicle to get to work, its hard to save any money.

Frontier, which has a market value of nearly $700 million, operates in 28 states across the US. In 2010, Verizon, the second largest US telecommunications giant after AT&T, sold off what it considered its landline systems in 14 rural states to Frontier. In 2015, Verizon sold its operations in California, Texas and three other states to Frontier for more than $10.5 billion.

These acquisitions have been accompanied by a wave of restructuring. In November 2016, Frontier announced that it was laying off more than 1,000 workers over the next year.

This assault is being driven by the profit interests of the global financial institutions that dominate over corporations and governments around the world. Frontier is renowned for its particularly generous dividend payments to shareholders. In 2008, for example, its dividend-to-net-income ratio was 175 percent, meaning it paid out to shareholders nearly double the total income earned by the company that year. These payouts have been financed by taking on more and more debt, which now totals close to $18 billion.

The companys main lenders include JP Morgan, Citibank, Bank of America, Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. In the first nine months of 2017, Frontier paid off more than $1.5 billion in debt to these institutions. The company is expected to pay over $828 million servicing its debt in 2019, $1.1 billion in 2020, and more than $2 billion in 2021 and 2022.

This money has been generated from the increased exploitation of Frontier workers and the neglect of line infrastructure.

The fight by Frontier workers against this assault can be developed only by expanding the struggle, including by uniting with teachers in West Virginia and with other telecommunications workers across the country.

The CWA is deeply opposed to any such fight. The union has raised no opposition to the wave of corporate restructuring by Frontier across the country. Instead, it has promoted the most extreme parochialism to divide workers, presenting the companys attacks as a purely West Virginia issue.

The CWAs sole concern is that Frontiers job shedding and use of contract labor is undermining the dues payments that pad the salaries of the union bureaucrats. The CWAs attitude to the workers was made clear in its isolation and sellout of a seven-week strike by Verizon workers in 2016.Yesterdays general elections in Italy have produced a hung parliament and a historic collapse of the ruling social-democratic Democratic Party (PD). Initial projected returns show a surge of right-wing parties including the populist Five-Star Movement (M5S) and the far-right League (formerly the Northern League), and uncertainty reigns as to what government might emerge.

Official election results will only be announced this evening. However, current results show the M5S winning 31.93 percent of the vote, the right-wing coalition winning 37.12 percent of the vote, and the PD and its allies winning 23.23 percent. Inside the right-wing coalition, the League won 17.97 percent of the vote, while Forza Italia of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi won only 13.91 percent, and the fascistic Fratelli dItalia won 4.35 percent.

Prime Minister Paolo Gentilonis PD obtained only 18.98 percent of the vote, and its various political satellites won even less. The social-democratic Free and Equal (LEU) party won 3.35 percent, and the petty-bourgeois Potere al Popolo (Power to the People) party won 1 percent.

All indications are that a hung parliament will emerge, followed by negotiations between the various parties over how to form a governing coalition. Previously, rules over the attribution of seats in the Chamber of Deputies meant that a party winning 40 percent of the vote received an absolute majority of 54 percent. The election law adopted last year removed the bonus. Experts estimate that at least 40 percent of the vote are necessary to receive a majority of the seats. But now it appears that none of the parties will even reach this.

The M5S appears to have done particularly well in the Mezzogiorno, the economically devastated, primarily agricultural areas of southern Italy. It has reportedly won over 40 percent of the vote in the region of Puglia, with over 45 percent in the regions capital, Bari. Former Prime Minister Massimo DAlema has reportedly lost his seat.

The M5S has repeatedly said it refuses to make alliances with other parties, and uncertainty reigns as to what government could emerge. Germanys Sueddeutsche Zeitung raised the possibility of an alliance between the M5S and the League, calling it a horror scenario for Europe and for the financial markets, insofar as both of these parties are critical of the European Union (EU).

In France, L  Obs raised a possible M5S-League alliance, an unlikely PD-Berlusconi alliance, a technocratic government, and concluded that the most likely scenario is a big mess followed by new elections. Le Monde called the result an electoral earthquake, while La Depeche wrote that its main fear was that Italy will become an ungovernable country.

The election result testifies to the political bankruptcy of the PD and to the vast popular anger with the EU. It comes less than a year after the electoral collapse of both the German Social Democratic Party and Frances Socialist Party.

Not only did the PD supervise years of EU social cuts and mass unemployment in Italy, but Gentiloni called for Italy to join the plans of Berlin and Paris to militarize the EU and aligned himself on NATOs reckless war threats against Russia. Gentilonis government also led the EU intervention in Libya, a former Italian colony devastated by the 2011 NATO war, to set up prison camps for refugees. The PDs unpopular and reactionary policies paved the way for a degraded, anti-immigrant campaign.

There is broad social opposition, and mass protests erupted against a fascist shooting in Macerata of six African immigrant youth. Nonetheless, it is right-wing or far-right parties that benefit. They were able to rise in the polls and carry the election, by presenting themselves as the best populist protest alternative to the PD and the EU.

In the face of their partys historic collapse, PD sources are reporting that former prime minister Matteo Renzi is preparing to tender his resignation as PD national secretary. He is scheduled to make an announcement on the elections at 5 p.m.

As for Potere al Popolo, its score reflects the fact that the petty-bourgeois pseudo-left parties offer no alternative to their social-democratic allies. It is drawn from various Stalinist and petty-bourgeois factions of Rifondazione Comunista that have made their hostility to the working class very clear over decades by working with the PD and its forebearsincluding by voting credits for the Afghan war and pension cuts under the 2006-2007 social-democratic Union government.

Workers are profoundly disillusioned with such parties, which are neither capable of nor interested in appealing to workers opposition to austerity and war.

Potere al Popolo s campaign demonstrated that it offered no alternative to the right-wing policies of the PD, with which it has at most tactical differences. It is allied with Syriza (the Coalition of the Radical Left), which is running a pro-austerity, pro-EU government in Greece in alliance with the far-right Independent Greeks (Anel) party. It also received support from Jean-Luc Melenchon, whose Unsubmissive France (LFI) party has announced its support for stepped-up military spending and is calling for a return to the draft in France.

What is clear today is that the Italian election has resolved nothing. Like the 2015 and 2016 elections in Spain and the 2017 elections in Germany, which all led to hung parliaments and long governmental negotiations, it has revealed the profound instability and crisis of European bourgeois politics.

It has also confirmed the assessment in the World Socialist Web Sites analysis of the Italian elections. The critical question is the construction of a truly socialist and internationalist alternative to the PD, the anti-worker pseudo-left parties, which means the construction in Italy and across Europe of sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International.Thousands of striking West Virginia teachers and school employees are gathering at the state capitol in Charleston today to press their demands for livable wages and the right to high-quality health care. The strike by more than 33,000 teachers and support staff has entered its eighth day and a new and decisive stage.

The mass protests today take place as 1,400 Frontier Communications workers have gone on strike across West Virginia and in parts of Virginia. The workers, who are members of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), have been working without a contract since August 5 of last year, and are fighting job cuts and efforts to destroy their health care coverage.

On Saturday night, the Republican-controlled state Senate carried out a calculated provocation against the striking teachers, voting to reduce the pay offer to teachers and school employees from five percent to four percent. Senate President Mitch Carmichael and the powerful energy, chemical and other corporate interests that stand behind him have thrown down the gauntlet to teachers and public employees.

The actions of Carmichael have exposed the bankruptcy of the West Virginia Education Association (WVEA), the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia (AFT-WV) and the West Virginia School Service and Personnel Association (WVSSPA), which have told strikers to put their faith in backroom deals between the unions and state Democrats and Republicans.

From the beginning, the WVEA, AFT-WV and the WVSSPA were opposed to any strike. They were forced by rank-and-file educators to call limited statewide strikes and then extend them. Then the unions sought to shut down the strike last week based on a worthless promise from Jim Justice, the states billionaire governor, for a five percent raise and the convening of yet another task force to address the chronic underfunding of the state-run Public Employees Insurance Agency (PEIA).

Teachers met across the state and decided to reject the unions deal and defy their instructions to return to work on Thursday. Since then, as teachers, students and other workers continued to rally at the state Capitol, the union leaders and state Democratic politicians have been plotting to end the strike on the basis of a rotten compromise that does nothing to address rising health costs and near-poverty wages for educators, school employees and other state workers.

In the days following the teachers rebellion, the unions, with the backing of local and national media, have sought to reestablish their control of the strike and direct it behind the Democratic Party. They are bringing forward figures such as state Senator Richard Ojeda, a right-wing Democrat and supporter of Trump in the last election, to lower expectations and convince teachers that their whole battle has been fought for one more percentage point. At the same time, fixing the PEIA has been dropped by the unions and the state legislature.

In response to Saturdays events, WVEA President Dale Lee announced that the strike would continue indefinitely until the bill passes at 5 percent.

While declaring the strike illegal, Governor Justice has thus far refrained from seeking an injunction and has relied on the unions to break the strike. He warned that failure to reach a deal on Saturday, however, would throw the government into no mans land. This followed comments to the Charleston Gazette Mail February 23 when he said, I really dont want to go to DEFCON 15, referring to military preparedness for all-out war.

Signaling the contempt of the Democrats for the teachers strike, US Senator and former West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin said nothing about this critical battle during interviews on nationally televised Sunday morning news talk shows. At the same time, he defended his pro-corporate tax cuts that have starved the PEIA of funds.

With the teachers facing threats of injunctions, fines and possible arrests, and resistance spreading to other sections of the working class, including the Frontier telecom workers, the conditions are growing for a broader struggle, including a general strike, to defeat any attempt to break the teachers strike.

There is enormous support for the striking teachers. On Friday, thousands of high school and other students participated in a demonstration to support their teachers, and there are growing calls among state workers for united action. Teachers and public-school workers in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Arizona, California and other states are pressing for strike action.

In Madison, Boone County, a state worker told the World Socialist Web Site, I grew up the son and grandson of coal miners, and West Virginians are used to fighting for rights, wages and benefits. I dont think the teachers will settle, or should settle, for anything less than they deserve. The coal miners, the teachers, the working class, we are the one that make them rich, and its ridiculous that money is controlling our education system.

Pointing to the statements of support from teachers in Africa, Europe and other continents, the worker said, Its amazing that this little state of West Virginia, that people across the world are getting behind them. People in every country understand that if you work you should have a decent wage and health care. It doesnt matter what country youre from.

In Logan County, a young mother and the wife of a surface miner said, Everyone should be striking, not just the teachers, everybody is in struggle. My husband worked as a postal worker, and now hes on a surface mine, making $14 an hour. And then you have the ones who are rich, and they dont have to worry about stuff, about taking their son to special needs doctor or to therapy. They dont care about that as long as they are getting paid.

The World Socialist Web Site and the Socialist Equality Party are urging educators to form rank-and-file strike committees to take the conduct of the struggle out of the hands of the union officials and expand the movement throughout the region and nationally.

These committees should issue appeals to other state workers, educators, health care workers, miners, chemical workers, unemployed workers and youth to join the struggle and fight for the right of all workers for secure and good paying jobs, quality health care and other social rights.

The workers of West Virginia, the United States and the entire world are the real allies of the teachers and telecom workersnot union bureaucrats and bribed political representatives of the corporations and banks! Mass meetings and demonstrations should be called and discussions held on preparing a general strike to defend teachers against injunctions and threats of firings, fines and jail time. This will lay the basis for an industrial and political counteroffensive nationally against austerity and social inequality.

The WSWS Teacher Newsletter and the Socialist Equality Party will do everything in our power to assist teachers and other workers in carrying out this strategy.In the midst of the ongoing strike of 30,000 West Virginia teachers and school employees, one local Democratic Party politician, Richard Ojeda, is being given favorable attention in the corporate media.

On Wednesday, Ojeda was interviewed in the US edition of the British Guardian. On Friday, he was the subject of a flattering feature-length profile in the Washington DC-based website Politico.com. Both portrayed the current West Virginia state senator and 2018 Democratic congressional candidate as someone whose statements in support of teachers and 24 years in the United States military make him a fighter for the working class.

In reality, Ojeda is a capitalist politician whose cheap talk about supporting the teachers is aimed at giving Democrats and the union leaders influence over the strike so they can keep it under control and shut it down. His political career is being supported by a powerful group within the Democratic Party leadership who fear the growth of social opposition among workers and who believe the Democrats must make verbal appeals to workers to prevent them from taking up a political struggle against the two-party system.

Ojeda portrays himself as someone whose military past proves his populist bona fides. His five-paragraph campaign biography deals entirely with his record in the US Army Airborne, which includes multiple tours and commendations in Iraq, Afghanistantwo countries that have been devastated by American involvement, with over one million dead. Ojeda rose from second lieutenant to major in the course of more than two decades as an army officer.

In boasting of his record of service to the Pentagon, which carries out brutal wars abroad to defend the interests of American corporations, Ojeda marks himself as an enemy of the working class, both in the countries ravaged by American imperialism, and within the United States itself. This is also proven by his final position in the military: as the Executive Officer overseeing Army recruiting from Beckley, WV to Virginia Beach. In other words, Ojedas job involved convincing impoverished youth, the children of miners and teachers, to join the military and become cannon fodder for American imperialism.

Furthermore, for all Ojedas talk about taxing corporations, increasing workplace safety regulations, and funding social programs, he supported the billionaire Donald Trump in the 2016 elections. If he does twenty percent of what he promises, hell be a decent president, Ojeda told the New Yorker magazine just after Trumps election win. And maybe he just will make America great again.

Trump ran on a platform of gutting regulations, slashing taxes for the corporations and the billionaires, and Senator Ojeda cannot be surprised that Trump has carried these plans out. During Trumps first year in office, deaths at US coal mines doubled after the president eliminated safety regulations and appointed a former coal executive to head the Mine Health and Safety Administration. The federal government has done nothing to stop the devastating consequences of drug companies pouring opioids into the state. Ojeda bears political responsibility for the impact of Trumps policies on the working class.

Ojedas justification for voting for Trump changes depending on his audience. For example, in a January 2018 appearance on the progressive YouTube program Young Turks, he tried to downplay his 2016 vote for Donald Trump, saying this was about my neighbors and that he was upset over high unemployment in Logan County, a coal mining area in which he grew up. He explained that he could not vote for Hillary Clinton after supporting Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary.

But when he was running for state senate in 2016 in a district that voted heavily for Trump, he struck a different tone, advancing xenophobic and racist sentiments in a cynical effort to win votes. In a language reminiscent of Trumps fascist current and former advisers Stephen Miller and Steven Bannon, Ojeda told the New Yorker in October 2016:

When you hear about illegal aliens getting benefits and you have people here starving to death and cant get nothing, its just a slap in the face. When you start talking about bringing in refugees and when they get here they get medical and dental and they get set up with some fundswhat do we get? So when people hear Donald Trump saying were going to take benefits away from people who come here illegally and give them to people who work, that sounds pretty good.

No worker can support a politician who calls for taking benefits away from the roughly 12 million members of the working class who happen to be in the United States without proper documents. How can any worker trust a politician who claims he supports the poor and working class, but supports forcing immigrant workers to live in total poverty with no public support? By pitting workers against one another based on race and national origin, Ojeda is employing a classic divide and conquer tactic of the corporations.

When Ojeda speaks to left-wing audiences like Young Turks, he changes his tune again. In an attempt to build his name recognition and raise money, Ojeda said in the January 2018 interview that his policy regarding immigration is that open arms is what we should be all about. Lets show people love regardless of where theyre from. During this interview, Ojeda made not one criticism of the policies, deregulations, corporate tax cuts, and war policies Trump has initiated.

With such chameleon-like political shifts, it was not difficult for Ojeda to appear in public to support striking teachers with a primary election for the Democratic nomination for Congress just two months away. But those on strike in West Virginia have good reason to wonder what Senator Ojeda tells Governor Justice and Republican legislators in closed-door meetings at the capital.

Ojedas real purpose is to provide the Democratic Party with a pro-worker veneer so that it can better carry out its pro-corporate program. This was on display during the interview with the Young Turks, when Ojeda said he was a Democrat because I believe in what the Democratic Party is all about. He rejected the views of those who say the Democratic Party is falling from grace, and said to me the Democratic Party is all about taking care and looking out for the working class citizen  taking care of the sick, the elderly, the veterans, helping people who live in poverty elevate themselves out of poverty.

West Virginians reading these lines must wonder what planet Ojeda has been living on for the last several decades!

The Democratic Party has run the state of West Virginia for most of that time. Democrats, working with Republicans, have gutted social programs, deregulated the industries, forked over trillions of dollars in tax cuts to the corporations and the super-rich, and broken numerous strikes. Was the Democratic Party looking out for the working class when counties began using injunctions under Democratic Governor Gaston Caperton to force teachers back to work under threat of jail time during the 1990 strike? What about when Democratic President Jimmy Carter filed an injunction against striking miners in the nationwide coal strike of 1977-78?

The Democratic Party is a capitalist party whose job is to enforce the interests of the banks, corporations, and the military-intelligence agencies. Democratic administrations have spent trillions on wars to open up Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and countless other countries to exploitation by American companies.

Ojeda opposes any questioning of the right of the military-intelligence agencies to take from the poor and working class in order to fund these wars of corporate plunder abroad. His campaign website says: The best way to keep Americans safe is to let our military do their job without muddying up their responsibilities with our political agendas. This could be interpreted as a call to overturn the constitutional requirement that civil authorities exercise control over the military. Ojeda is calling for the military to dictate the policies of the government. He calls for the military to be relentless and says that in Syria and Iraq we must be consistent with airstrikes.

Ojeda is just like the rest of the Democratic and Republican politiciansalways willing to boast about Americas ability to kill abroad (in his words, the US has a military that could kick everybodys ass), but never interested in asking in whose interests the wars are being fought or how that money could be put to use, not for killing on behalf of the oil companies, but to provide health care, education, infrastructure, jobs, and other social programs that workers need.

These right-wing, anti-worker, pro-capitalist positions have earned him praise from the leadership of the Democratic Party and the powerful corporate interests that back the party. Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan, who last year made a bid to unseat Nancy Pelosi as House Minority Leader, told Politico: these are the kinds of candidates that we need to recruit.The UK government cut off its aid budget to the Oxfam charity, amid a two-week media frenzy over alleged sexual misconduct by some of its staff in Haiti.

The attack on Oxfam was followed by the resignation of UNICEF deputy executive director Justin Forsyth, following accusations of inappropriate behaviour toward female aid workers during his time as chief executive of Save the Children. Forsyth admitted sending inappropriate texts and made comments to female staff about their appearance in 2011 and 2015.

At the same time Brendan Cox, widower of murdered Labour MP Jo Cox, resigned from charities set up in his wifes memory following allegations of sexual harassment while he worked at Save the Children. Forsyth and Cox worked together at 10 Downing Street when Gordon Brown was Labour prime minister from 2007 to 2010.

The moves against Oxfam began when the Times, owned by billionaire oligarch Rupert Murdoch , reported in a front-page article that four Oxfam aid workers had been sacked and three had resigned following an internal inquiry into alleged sexual exploitation, downloading pornography, bullying and intimidation. These were alleged to have occurred during the relief operation after the Haiti earthquake in 2010.

The media widely reported that Oxfam gave a reference to an alleged perpetrator, though it later transpired that it was written by an employee who had himself been dismissed. The campaign went into overdrive with claims made that Oxfam staff on its mission to Chad also used prostitutes in 2006. The Sunday Times reported that more than 120 workers from UK charities were alleged to have committed sexual abuse in the past year.

Oxfams own inquiry concluded there was a culture of impunity among some staff in Haiti. Oxfam allowed country director in Haiti, Roland Van Hauwermeiren, to resign after he admitted using prostitutes in his home in Haiti.

In 2011, Oxfam informed the charities watchdog, the Charities Commission, of its investigation. It would seem that the commission was indifferent to any possible abuse at the time, as it did not even request a copy of the findings.

However, seven years later, the commission has lambasted Oxfam for not disclosing the full details and making no mention of potential sexual crimes involving minors. The commission cynically declared, Our approach to this matter would have been different had the full details ... been disclosed to us at the time.

Penny Mordaunt, secretary of state for the Department for International Development (DfID), followed suit, declaring on the BBCs Andrew Marr show that Oxfam had failed in its moral leadership and did absolutely the wrong thing by not disclosing all the details.

The immediate fallout of the revelations was the resignation of Oxfams deputy chief executive Penny Lawrence. Then DfID, which awarded contracts worth 31.7 million to Oxfam last year, announced that it was stopping future finance until the charity could fulfil the high standards government ministers expect. The Haitian government temporarily revoked Oxfams authorisation to work on the island.

No one can take at face value the claims of the government and its right-wing media backers to be concerned with the welfare of young women in disaster zones.

The campaign by the government and its right-wing media backers is aimed at bringing Oxfam to its knees. Newspapers including the Daily Mail trumpeted on their front pages the fact that Oxfams chief executive, Mark Goldring, disclosed that 7,000 direct debits out of more than 30,000 personal donations had already been cancelled.

Goldrings initial response was an angry retort to Oxfams critics, whom he decried as disproportionate and gunning for his organization which had not murdered babies in their cots. Many of those targeting Oxfam, on the other hand, do indeed have blood on their hands having supported the wars and so-called structural adjustment programmes that have destroyed entire countries and continents.

While Oxfam itselflike other anti-poverty charitiesis the beneficiary of countless hours of voluntary work in Britain by people deeply opposed to poverty both at home and abroad, it too operates overseas as a major corporation carrying out multimillion government contracts, with offices alongside the banks and global financial consultants.

Goldring later apologised to the International Development parliamentary committee for his remarks and offered humblest apologies to the Haitian government. Oxfam issued a full-page apology in the Guardian over events that took place seven years ago for which no one was arrested, let alone charged.

The New Statesman noted that if Mordaunt were to cut all government funding to Oxfam, as threatened, it would definitely notice. Of its 409 million income last year, 7 percent came from the UK government. Thats in comparison to donations and legacies which accounted for 26 percent of funding and trading sales which make up just over a fifth.

It is necessary to stand back from the screaming headlines and make a sober appraisal of the timing and targeting of this unprecedented attack on Oxfam, alongside the forces involved and their motives. As with the #MeToo campaign, its purpose is to engineer political shifts of a reactionary character.

Part of Oxfams popularity is its detailed annual reports showing that capitalism is an increasingly irrational system, in which a tiny minority of the obscenely wealthy expropriate the wealth created by the labour of billions, the vast numbers of whom are condemned to live in abject poverty.

Last Januarys report was particularly damning. As well as citing the growing inequality, it pointed out that the key factors driving up rewards for shareholders and corporate bosses at the expense of workers pay and conditions  include the erosion of workers rights; the excessive influence of big business over government policy-making; and the relentless corporate drive to minimize costs in order to maximize returns to shareholders.

It was immediately after this that the campaign against Oxfam began, with government ministers attacking the charity for being too political and demanding that it be brought to heel.

The offensive demonstrates that even Oxfams mild criticisms and palliatives can no longer be tolerated. It is bound up with the concerted shift by the ruling elite to militarism and war, and away from the soft power toolsincluding the various charities it used in the past to push through its geopolitical interests.

While the ruling class has long perpetuated the myth that foreign aid is spent on alleviating poverty and mitigating the consequences of war, the reality is that most of the UK governments 13.4 billion aid budget, 0.7 percent of GDP, is spent securing Britains commercial and geostrategic interests.

Much aid has now been securitised, with aid money used to prevent migration from Africa and the Middle East, and to provide security, meaning military, and police operations and training, channelled through a handful of corporations.

Last year, the BBC exposed how a multimillion-pound foreign aid project, ostensibly aimed at training a civilian police force in rebel-held Aleppo, Idlib and Daraa provinces in Syria, ended up in the hands of jihadi groups. The UK government, after briefly suspending the project, soon resumed its funding.

The most rapacious sections of the ruling elite, including those in the hard Brexit faction, are now demanding the slashing or ending of the foreign aid budget, with senior military and government figures calling ever more stridently for a substantial increase in military spending.

As part of the offensive against Oxfam, party leadership contender and hard Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg delivered a petition to Downing Streetsupported by the right-wing Daily Expresswhich demanded a crusade to Stop the foreign aid madness. The Sun, also owned by Murdoch, editorialised that the Government must strip Oxfams cash ... and ditch [the] foreign aid spending target.

The author also recommends:

Oxfam: Bottom half of worlds population received none of the wealth created in 2017

[23 January 2018]The strike by West Virginia teachers and public school employees is at a crossroads. Democratic and Republican politicians, fronting for corporate interests, are presenting teachers with a choice between two unacceptable alternatives.

Over the weekend, the State Senate, presided over by Republican Mitch Carmichael, passed a bill reducing the five percent proposed pay increase backed by Republican Governor Justice and passed by the House of Delegates to four percent. Speaking as a representative of DuPont, Dow, Patriot Coal and other energy, chemical and pharmaceutical giants, Carmichael has thrown down the gauntlet to teachers and is preparing to forcefully suppress the strike to set an example to the entire working class.

This has exposed the bankruptcy of the West Virginia Education Association (WVEA), the American Federation of Teachers-West Virginia (AFT-WV) and the West Virginia School Service Personnel Association (WVSSPA). The unions have told workers to place their faith in backroom maneuvers with the state Democrats and Republicans, who are all bought and paid for by big business.

The response to Carmichael by Justice, the Democrats and the trade union leaders is: Not four percent, but five percent! As if this makes a significant difference! With the ploy of fighting for an extra one percent on wageswhile ignoring the teachers main demands on health care coststhe unions and their Democratic allies are seeking to retake the initiative from the rank-and-file and channel the struggle behind futile protests to the Republican leadership in the state Senate.

This is a strategy to contain, isolate, dissipate and end the strike on the basis of a sellout deal. Moreover, Justice, while working with the unions, has threatened to go to DEFCON 15that is, all-out war against the teachersif they dont submit.

Last week, teachers took a courageous stand. By overwhelmingly rejecting the deal brought back by Justice and the unions, they expressed their determination to fight not only for their own interests, but for the interests of the entire working class. The question now is: What way forward?

Mobilize the entire working class! Form rank-and-file committees to take control of the strike!

There is enormous popular support for the striking teachers and public school employees. Workers all over world see in the demands of the teachers their own demands, and in this lies the potential for immensely strengthening the strike. Working-class support is not limited to West Virginia. Teachers and public school workers in Oklahoma, Pittsburgh, New Jersey, Minneapolis, Arizona and other cities and states have been inspired to press for strike action.

Frontier telecommunication workers walked off the job on Sunday morning in opposition to job cuts. Workers from Britain to Ghana have expressed their support for the West Virginia teachers.

This support must be mobilized and organized. To the threats of court injunctions and firings, the working class should respond with preparations for a statewide general strike.

No confidence can be placed in the WVEA, AFT-WV and WVSSPA! At every turn, the strike has been waged in opposition to the efforts of the unions to contain and end it. Facing mass anger and a spreading wave of local strikes, the unions called a two-day walkout. Then they hailed a rotten agreement as a great victory and ordered the teachers to return to work. When the agreement was overwhelmingly rejected and teachers organized to continue the strike, the union officials are again seeking some way of pushing through a sellout.

The Socialist Equality Party urges striking teachers and school employees to go from impromptu meetings and rallies to the election of rank-and-file strike committees, independent of the unions, comprised of the workers themselves. These committees should issue urgent appeals to the entire working classin the US and internationallyand organize delegations of strikers and student youth to go out to the all the major workplaces to encourage workers to join the struggle.

These committees will create the framework for advancing the demands to meet the needs of teachers and the entire working class. Every worker has the right to a good-paying job, health care, public education, and a secure retirement. Urgent measures must be taken to provide treatment for the opioid epidemic, address the growth of black lung disease, and rebuild the states infrastructure.

A political struggle against the capitalist system

The politicians, Democrats and Republicans, will of course declare that there is no money for such elemental rights. This only demonstrates the class interests that they represent, and that teachers are engaged in a struggle against the entire political establishment.

Those who say the strike is not political and demand that politics be kept out of the struggle are doing the bidding of the corporations and the government. In the name of no politics, they are promoting the politics of the ruling class.

Arrayed against the teachers are the Democratic and Republican politicians, who are opposed to any measures that encroach on the profit interests of the corporations that run the state. Behind Justice, Carmichael, Ojeda and company stand the big-business politicians in Washington, who all agree on the need to force the working class to pay for an endless infusion of wealth into the corporate and financial elite.

The strike raises the most basic political question of all: Whose interests will determine social and economic policy? Those of the corporate and financial elite that controls both big-business parties, or those of the workers who produce all of societys wealth but are everywhere exploited and oppressed?

Three billionaires in the US control more wealth than the bottom half of the population. More than $700 billion is spent every year on the US military. Trillions have been handed out to the banks to fuel stock market bubbles and increase the fortunes of the rich. The ruling class has just implemented a $1.5 trillion tax cut for the corporations and the wealthy. And they claim there is no money!

The resources exist, but they are monopolized by the rich. The vast wealth created by the labor of generations of workers must be taken out of the hands of the privileged few and put at the disposal of the people as a whole. The SEP calls for a radical redistribution of wealth, including a massive tax on the rich. The giant banks and corporations must be transformed into publicly owned and democratically controlled utilities, operated on the basis of social need, not private profit.

This means the fight to replace capitalisma system in which the vast majority labor for the profit and wealth of the fewwith socialism, a society based on equality and the material and spiritual liberation of mankind from war, oppression and want.The strike by lecturers, librarians and administration staff against the attack on pensions by Universities UK (UUK) is entering its third week. Drawing lessons from the ongoing strike by 30,000 teachers in the US state of West Virginia is crucial in politically arming education staff here in the UK.

The West Virginia teachers are fighting over issues familiar to workers the world over: cuts in wages, deteriorating social infrastructure, attacks on public education, growing social inequality and rising health care costs.

The unions involvedthe American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Associationhave not sought to spread the strike and to mobilise other workers behind it. Instead, from the outset they have sought to suppress, limit and redirect the opposition of teachers behind support for the Democratic Party and bankrupt appeals to state legislators.

The role of the unions as an industrial police force for the bosses was made clear last week when, behind the backs of the teachers, they negotiated a sell-out deal with West Virginias Republican billionaire state governor, Jim Justice.

The proposed deal did not meet any of the teachers demands but was held up as the basis for calling off the strike.

But the teachers refused to accept the sell-out and voted to stay out. They held impromptu meetings in the state capitol rejecting the call to end the strike, followed by votes in every school district in the state ending with the same result.

The strikes by the West Virginia teachers and university workers in Britain are an expression of a resurgent movement by workers globally in defence of their jobs, wages, pensions and livelihoods. Since the beginning of the year, there have been strikes of metalworkers in Germany and Turkey and airline workers in France. Mass protests have erupted in Iran, Tunisia, Morocco, Greece and other countries. In the Czech Republic, Skoda autoworkers are threatening to strike. Here in Britain, strikes have been held by bus workers, railway workers and other sections of the working class.

In every instance, workers are being brought face to face with common issues of a fundamental character.

 Workers confront governments, of all political stripes, intent on imposing savage austerity measures and doing away with historically won social gainsincluding decent health and education provision and the right to pensions and a secure retirement.

 Workers confront so-called opposition political parties that offer no genuine alternative. For the Republicans, who control the White House and Congress, and the Democrats, who are the minorityin Britain substitute the Conservatives, who are in power, and Labour, which is in opposition.

 Every single struggle of workers to defend their livelihoods brings them into direct conflict with the pro-capitalist, nationalist, trade union apparatus. All experience internationally testifies to the fact that the unions are intent only on suppressing social opposition to the ruling elite and betraying struggles in their role as allies of government and management.

The unions cannot be considered as organisations that defend workers interests.

Just one day before the West Virginia teachers voted down the unions call to return to work, a lawyer for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees set outbefore the US Supreme Courtthe axis on which the unions operate. The lawyer, David Frederick, declared that union security is the trade-off for no strikes. He declared that without financial mechanisms to guarantee the stability of the unions, there would be an untold spectre of labour unrest throughout the country.

Some workers may have confidence in the University and College Union (UCU) due to its current rhetoric about fighting the pension cuts, but the record of the UCU belies this demagogy.

The UCU has demonstrated repeatedly that it will not wage a serious fight. The Tory government of David Cameron was able to impose the first attacks on pensions in 2012 with the unions throughout the public sector putting up hardly any resistance, despite the determination of millions of workers to fight. By 2015, the employers were emboldened to close the final-salary pension scheme and transferred lecturers onto the career average scheme. The UCU organised no resistance with only a token two-day strike over pay, pensions and conditions held in 2016.

Due to its refusal to fight, the UCU has lost 16,000 memberswith numbers declining from 120,000 in 2007 to 104,000 by 2016. The UCU has already signalled that it is preparing another sell-out with its offer of further concessions to UUK last week.

This is a universal process, with the unions in the public and private sector barely lifting a finger to oppose the destruction of jobs, wages and pensions carried out by successive government since 2008. Only two years ago, 50,000 junior doctors fought in a bitter yearlong dispute against the imposition of a vastly inferior contract. No other health union mobilised a single worker in the doctors defence and the strike was sold outwith the contract imposedby the British Medical Association (BMA). Many doctors left the BMA in disgust.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn issued platitudes in defence of the doctors, while insisting that the only way forward was for talks between the BMA and an employers body backed tooth and nail by the Tory government.

In the US, massive pressure is now being brought to bear upon the teachers, with threats of fines and injunctions against them. Lecturers in the UK face similar threats. At the University of Kent, strikers have been warned that failure to reschedule lectures or classes lost due to industrial action would see them lose 50 to 100 percent of their pay for each day lost. At least three other universities have made similar threats.

The attacks being imposed on pensions are government backed and are integral to the marketization of the education sector. Labour is as desperate as the Tories to get the strike off the agenda, with the only statement made by Corbyn urging once again that the UCU and UUK reach an agreement.

In their revolt against the unions, the West Virginia teachers point the way forward. Left in the hands of the union bureaucracy, the UK lecturers strike will go down in defeat, with disastrous consequences for this and future generations of workers. To win, the formation of new fighting organisations that are independent of the unions are required.

Rank-and-file committees must be elected at every university, democratically controlled, and the strike directed by the workers themselves.

The struggle must be broadened out to encompass lecturers and university staff in the many other universitieswho have not been called out by the UCUand further education workers in colleges who are demanding better pay.

To prevent the isolation of the strike, workers throughout the education sector must be mobilised, as well as millions of workers throughout the public and private sector who face similar attacks.

This is the programme fought for by the Socialist Equality Party. We urge workers to join the SEP as the only party representing the interests of the working class.Pokhara, Nepal: Two police personnel have been killed in a road accident at Bijayapur of Pokhara Lekhnath Metropolitan city on Monday.



Dhaka Tribune, March 04, 2018

The attack on Zafar Iqbal is symbolic of a larger danger

Saturday was a dark, dark day for Bangladesh.

Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, one of the leading progressive intellectuals and educationists of the country, was stabbed multiple times by a bearded man while on stage at an event he was attending as chief guest in Shahjalal University of Science and Technology (Sust) campus, Sylhet.

The assailant, who is aged about 25 and identified as one Foyzur Rahman hailing from Jagannathpur upazila, Sunamganj, attacked Dr Iqbal from behind with a sharp weapon and can be seen lurking behind Dr Iqbal on the stage minutes earlier in a picture that was later released in the media.

During his interrogation, Rahman said: aZafar Iqbal is an enemy of Islam. That is why he attacked him,a according to RAB-9 Commander Lieutenant Colonel Ali Haider Azad Ahmed. Rahman also stated that he was a student of Sylhetas Alia Madrasa, but this has not yet been confirmed by the madrasa administration.

While official investigations are underway to confirm the precise affiliations of the assailant, certain facts may help contextualize the attack.

This has happened before

Dr Iqbal has been an open critic of outlawed Islamist group Jamat-e-Islami (members of which were allegedly involved in his fatheras killing during the Liberation War). Additionally, he has been a staunch and outspoken opponent of the epidemics of militancy, extremism, and communalism, the sort of which are increasingly plaguing our country.

For these political stances, he has frequently received death threats in the past. For instance, in 2016, Dr Iqbal and his wife received death threats from an unidentified person claiming to be affiliated with banned militant outfit Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), which read: aHi unbeliever, we will strangulate you soon.a

It is crucial to understand that this is not only an attack against our freedom of expression and thought, it is part of an ongoing and co-ordinated attempt to permanently cripple our free thinking intelligentsia a attempts which continue to be done with complete impunity and go wholly unpunished.

When the machete-wielding murderers of Avijit Roy and his many counterparts walk scot-free, is anyone surprised by continuous attacks of this kind?

It is crucial to understand that this is not only an attack against our freedom of expression and thought, it is part of an ongoing and co-ordinated attempt to permanently cripple our free thinking intelligentsia

Crimes unpunished

Every time the murder or attempted murder of a secularist goes unpunished, we essentially sow the seeds for similar attacks in the future. What kind of message does a series of unpunished murders give to potential extremists who know that all they have to do is ostensibly invoke the name of Islam to avail immunity?

How much longer are we, as a state and society, going to allow these self-appointed barbarians to use Islam as a cloak to legitimize their political violence?

At what point do we say aenough is enough,a and adequately penalise militant zealots driven by selfish and political interests so they are no longer able to bastardise religion to institute violence?

While it is a relief to hear that the doctors have declared injuries to Dr Iqbal as non-life threatening, it is incumbent upon us to ruminate as to how close we were to losing one of the brightest minds in our country and how we may not be so lucky the next time, unless we do our very best in eliminating the possibility of there ever being a next time.

In closing, it is pertinent to call out those insensitive news outlets that were shamelessly running the scene of a wounded and bloodied Dr Iqbal being rushed on a stretcher over and over again, showing him at his most vulnerable. To them, I ask: Where is your sense of proportion and integrity? They should know that they are doing the very thing the attackers want.

Taqbir Huda is currently working as a researcher at Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (BILIA) and volunteers at Bangladesh Society for the Enforcement of Human Rights (BSEHR).The Wire, 25 February 2018

by Vishnu Sharma

The merger has given the anti-India voice in the country a strong platform.

The long-awaited unification of Nepalas two big communist parties, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre), has concluded. The two parties have signed a seven-point agreement that accepts Marxism and Leninism as guiding principle and calls for establishing the partyas hegemony through peaceful means.

According to the agreement, the Maoist Centre leader Prachanda and UML leader K.P. Oli will hold party president and prime ministeras posts by turn. This marks an end of official Maoism in Nepal, one of the most exciting chapters of the countryas Left history. Now there is no official communist party in the country that is guided by Chairman Mao Tse Tungas thought or Maoism.

What Prachanda gains from the merger

By merging his party with the UML, Prachanda has, in a way, put a full stop to his own political career as a supreme leader of the party. From this point, he will not have the last words, as he is used to, in the partyas affair, but will have to acquiesce to the collective decisions of more influential leaders, including three current and former prime ministers Oli, Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhala Nath Khanal.

Another leader, Bam Dev Gautam, is also no less powerful. In the party, these leaders lead factions. Although Prachanda is entering with his own set of loyalists, their number will be reduced sharply. As per the understanding, the highest decision-making body of the new party will have less than 100 central committee members and proportionally, Prachanda will not be able to merge his party with more than 15-20 members.

This is a catch-22 for him because even if he becomes the president of the new party today with the promise of being made the prime minister after three years, the central committee might rule out this understanding and let Oli continue to head the government for the full term.

It will be interesting to see how Prachanda deals with the new situation. Can he cultivate his influence in the new party or will he be cornered to the point of no return? This question has no certain answer but currently, the odds are against him, and by the looks of it, by accepting the merger, Prachanda has, in fact, signed his own political death warrant.

Merger helps UMLas disgruntled leaders

In the UML, there are leaders who dislike Oli. The feelings are so strong that they are ready to trust the outsider Prachanda as the party president. Oli became the prime minister in 2015 as a compromise candidate of three strong party factions of Nepal, Khanal and Gautam.

However, his elevation coincided with the unofficial economic blockade by India. It gave him the chance to enhance his clout inside and outside party by playing nationalist. When Nepal was hit hard and its markets, which are completely dependent on Indian goods, emptied, he used the situation to market himself as the staunchest nationalist leader who was ready to brave Indiaas pressure.

He fanned the hill-plain divide by blaming the Madhesi movement as India sponsored. In UMLas history, no other leader ever had such mass appeal as Oli has today. This has threatened the other three leaders and they have been looking for his replacement for long. By importing Prachanda, they have found one. Even for Prachanda, this is home ground. His whole career as a politician is an act of balancing contradictory views and taking forward his party. He will be hoping to use this expertise to remain relevant in the new party.

Lessons for India

The merger of two parties has given the anti-India voice a strong platform. In the last three years, Indiaas cult in Nepal has shrunk. Its eroding base in Nepal is its own doing. The 2015 economic blockade is a wound that will take a long long time to heal.

That painful blockade taught its people that total dependence on India has a cost. It is a lesson that clichAs like along-lasting friendshipa, aunique relationshipa donat exist in new India of Narendra Modi.

Consequently, it has forced Nepalas leaders to look north for a reliable partner. Last May, Nepal joined Chinaas Belt and Road Initiative. Along with this, Chinaas investment in the country has increased manifold while India has reduced its aid budget to SAACR countries by almost 30-50% under Modi.

In 2016 Indiaas aid to Nepal saw a 30% cut even when the country was recovering from the devastating earthquake of 2015 and was looking for more help from friend India. However, this year it has increased its development aid to Nepal but that might not help now and Oli, with Prachanda onboard, is expected to keep sailing north.

Vishnu Sharma is a journalist based in New Delhi. He has written on India-Nepal relationship and other issues related with democratic transition in Nepal. He tweets @hellovishnu.

Vishnu Sharma(Photo: Getty Images)

When it comes to the Oscars, so much of the action inside the Dolby Theatre takes place when the cameras arent rolling. From Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone redefining #FriendshipGoals to Adam Rippons scene-stealing outfit, here are five things you didnt see on TV during Sunday nights 90th Academy Awards.

Jimmys jokes land.

The audience was clearly behind host Jimmy Kimmel during his opening monologue, with the A-list crowd enjoying his balance of silly and sweet. However, there was a distinct chill in the room at the mention of Harvey Weinstein. A handful of the disgraced producers alleged victims were inside the Dolby, including Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino, who arrived together. It looked like the Weinstein reference was about to go south, but mentions of #TimesUp, #MeToo, and the March for Our Lives got big pops  as did Jordan Peele, Lupita Nyongo, and any mention of Black Panther.

J.Law has a Stage 5 clinger.

The Oscar winner was holding court with Emma Stone and Octavia Spencer at the bar on the main floor when she attracted the unwanted attention of a mystery man. This creeper started making advances and wouldnt stop, with it getting so bad that Stone grabbed Jennifer Lawrences hand and led her away. Lawrence snarked at him, I get chiropractic adjustments! as she made a beeline out of there. The guy kept following her, so security had to step in to shoo him away. Once that was defused, the actress headed back inside the theater, but not before hugging Woody Harrelson. As they broke away from each other, she called to him, Ill text you! She was also stopped by Margot Robbie who looked her up and down, and said, Look at you! What is this sexy thing? while admiring her dress. We think J.Law appreciated Robbies admiration more than the creeps.

Margot Robbie had some issues with her Chanel dress. (Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)

Margot has a wardrobe malfunction.

While hanging at the downstairs bar, the Best Actress nominee contended with a slight dress issue. Some of the beads on the bodice of her dress started coming loose, so she was forced to do a fast fix, tucking them into the top of her gown while she chatted away with her I, Tonya co-star (and Best Supporting Actress winner) Allison Janney. Eventually, one of the straps popped off, but Robbie tracked down a sewing kit and repaired it herself. Talk about multitasking!

Story continues

Adams look puzzles the older crowd.

Figure skater Adam Rippon has one of the more fashion-forward outfits, with one older gentleman remarking about Rippons modern suspenders when the Olympic medalist passed by. We later shared that comment with Rippon, who had a good laugh over it, saying, I love it! Rippon is happy to be following up his trip to South Korea with a trip to Los Angeles. Im so excited. Im having a lot of fun, he told Yahoo. I think its going to be a really good night. Im looking forward to all of it!

People freak for Peele, del Toro, and McDormand.

Remember when we said any mention of Jordan Peele got big cheers from the crowd? Imagine what the room was like when he won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Get Out. The entire theater exploded. Everyone from attendees to staffers jumped up and down, whooped and clapped when his name was read. Although Peele lost out on Best Director to Guillermo del Toro, the latter was a crowd favorite, too. People were screaming their love for him, jumping to their feet and stomping around. Del Toro didnt just win Best Director, he won the audience. However, it was Best Actress winner Frances McDormand who really brought the house down. The crowd reaction to her acceptance speech was so raucous that you couldnt hear her speak after a while.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:After an intensive manhunt, authorities confirmed this weekend that a teenager has been apprehended for allegedly fatally shooting his parents, Friday, inside his dorm room at Central Michigan University.

Authorities further said that 19-year-old James Eric Davis Jr. allegedly used his own fathers gun in the killings.

During a press conference on Saturday, police confirmed that the CMU sophomore was detained early Saturday morning after someone on a train reported seeing Davis walking along the railroad tracks in Mount Pleasant.

Detectives allege Davis fled the scene soon after shooting his dad, James Eric Davis Sr., and his mother, Diva Jeneen Davis, triggering the manhunt. Davis Sr., authorities said, was a police officer in Bellwood, Illinois.

Security footage recovered as part of the investigation allegedly shows Davis left his dorm and headed for the parking lot. He allegedly returned from the parking lot, and was carrying the murder weapon.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

Authorities said they would not speculate as to whether Davis father brought the weapon to campus, leaving it in his car. A motive for the killings also has not been discussed.

Davis parents were at the school to pick him up ahead of the start of spring break, investigators said Saturday.

During the press conference, detectives said officials at CMU told them Davis had been exhibiting unusual behavior the day before the killings.

Chief Bill Yeagley of the Central Michigan University Police said Davis approached a community police office in his dorm very frightened and not making a lot of sense.

Yeagley continued: He said someone was out to hurt him, someone was going to harm him, and the officer calmed him down and tried to gain more information about what was going on. Mr. Davis was very vague and he kept talking about someone having a gun.

Story continues

Davis allegedly said he never saw a gun, but said he had been in a dorm elevator with the person, and police went to talk to the individual he had identified. Yeagley said that officers determined that the person posed no threat and that video footage from the elevator showed Davis and that person laughing.

When confronted with the footage, Davis allegedly said he was fine and planned to leave campus Friday for spring break.

Yeagley said officers spotted Davis hours later in a dorm hallway with his suitcases, and was acting in a fashion that isnt reasonable or logical. They had Davis call his parents, and an officer spoke to Diva Davis, asking if her son had a history of drug use and detailing their interactions with him.

The mother said she too was concerned this could be drugs, he said of the call  which happened before the suspects parents came to campus. Yeagley refused to discuss if drugs were found in Davis system.

Davis has been hospitalized since his arrest, and has been receiving treatment for hypothermia.

Davis has two siblings, who could not be reached by PEOPLE for comment. They have reacted through social media.

 For more compelling True Crime coverage, follow our Crime magazine on Flipboard

Today I lost my parentsthe only people that loved me unconditionally, the Davis daughter, Alexis, posted to Twitter on Friday. Im thankful for every single thing theyve done for me  All I ask is for everyone to keep me and the rest of my family in your prays (sic).

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Russell, the couples oldest son, took to Facebook to caution the public and the media from rushing to judgements.

Please dont make a villain of my brother that is not who he is, Davis posted. Despite the circumstances, he also lost a mother and father  And I love him. Consider that!Since the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke last fall, its deservedly been #TimesUp for a lot of men in Hollywood, but at least one has come through these tumultuous months with his reputation still intact. Were talking, of course, about Oscar, the little gold man that the industrys biggest event  the annual Academy Awards ceremony  is all about.

And second-time host Jimmy Kimmel made sure to give the dude his due during his opening monologue. Oscar is 90 years old, Kimmel remarked during his monologue, before reeling off the reasons why hes still the most beloved and respected guy in Hollywood. He keeps his hands where you can see them, never says a rude word. And most importantly, no penis at all! He is literally a statue of limitations. Thats the kind of men we need more of in this town.

For what its worth, Kimmels monologue, which alternated neatly between serious sentiments and silly one-liners, establishes him as the kind of Oscars host the industry needs more of in this time of seismic change. It also allowed him to exorcise the demons left over from the wrong envelope fiasco that closed out last years ceremony, an incident that was acknowledged right off the top.

This year, when you hear your name called, dont get up right away, Kimmel joked, before letting us all in on a little secret. Ive not told this story in public: Last year, about a week before the show, the producers asked me if I wanted to do some comedy with the accountants. I was like, I dont want to do comedy with the accountants. Then the accountants went ahead and did the comedy on their own!

Sorry, PricewaterhouseCoopers  Kimmel definitely didnt need any help in the comedy department. Watch the entire monologue above and check out our half-dozen highlights from his opening act below:

1. Much as we would have loved to have seen Celebrity Street Fights With Mario Lopez, the black-and-white introduction to Kimmels monologue was a technical K.O., successfully marrying the patter of 1920s newsreels with 2010s jokes. Opining on Armie Hammer, the absurdly handsome star of Call Me by Your Name, for example, the narrator revealed that the actor was born when a witch put a curse on a Ken doll. As for Salma Hayek Pinault, being seated next to The Shape of Waters Fish Man inspired the perfect pitch of a hybrid sequel: Fishy Shades of Grey.

Story continues

2. To illustrate how much the #TimesUp movement has changed Hollywood in only a few short months, Kimmel invited all of us to think back to the kinds of movies that were being made and marketed to that demographic in the year 2000. Heres how clueless Hollywood is about women: We made a movie called What Women Want and it starred Mel Gibson. Thats kinda all you need to know.

3. While Black Panther wasnt up for any Oscars  this year, at least  the cast of the Marvel blockbuster lit up the red carpet, riding high on their films muscular $500 million and counting box-office gross. And Kimmel knew he couldnt avoid the panther in the room. Our plan is to shine a light on a group of inspiring and outstanding films, he said of the nights Best Picture nominees, before adding each one of which got crushed by Black Panther this weekend.

4. Back in the 1980s and 90s, Jack Nicholson was the Oscar regular the host loved to call out from the stage. These days, perennial nominee Meryl Streep has assumed that role, if not Nicholsons sunglasses. And Kimmel paid tribute to the grande dame of American cinema, hinting at her history as a not-so-secret badass. Her film career started in 1977. The longest she went without a nomination is from 1992 to 1995, and thats only because those were the years where she was in prison.

5. Kimmel didnt hesitate to poke fun at the president. Pointing out the stunning Lupita Nyongo, Kimmel noted, She was born in Mexico and raised in Kenya. Let the tweetstorm from the presidents toilet begin! Kimmel then observed that Get Out mastermind Jordan Peele is only the first person in 90 years to be nominated for directing, writing and best picture for his debut film. What a debut it was! None other than President Trump called Get Out the best first three-quarters of a movie this year.

6. While we love long, heartfelt acceptance speeches, Kimmel came up with an inspired way of coaxing victors to keep their thank-yous short and sweet: a Jet Ski presented by another grande dame of cinema, Helen Mirren. But he did come up with one unique wrinkle: In the unlikely event of a tie, the Jet Ski will go to Christopher Plummer.

Helen Mirren presents a fabulous new Jet Ski. (Photo: ABC)

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:Khloe Kardashian Says She Still Hasn't Decided on a Baby Name: 'It's So Hard'

Whats in a name? A tough decision, if you ask Khloe Kardashian.

The 33-year-old reality star may be eight months into her pregnancy, but she revealed on Twitter that shes still trying to come up with a name for her first child with boyfriend Tristan Thompson.

Have you picked a name yet for baby Thompson, a fan asked the mom-to-be on Twitter over the weekend.

I have a few that I like, but nothing is picked, Kardashian replied on Saturday. Its so hard.

Want all the latest pregnancy and birth announcements, plus celebrity mom blogs? Click here to get those and more in the PEOPLE Babies newsletter.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

In January, the Revenge Body host appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, where she seemed to have a better idea of what moniker shed settled on  should she welcome a baby boy.

I think if its a boy Ill go with Junior  Tristan Jr., she said. Then for a girl, I dont know where to begin.

Though she didnt have any girl names picked out, Kardashian shared she wanted the initial to be a K or a T, after mom or dad.

Although multiple sources previously confirmed to PEOPLE that Kardashian and Thompson, 26, are expecting a baby boy, the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star has been dropping hints that she could be adding another girl to the mix. Already this year, sister Kim Kardashian West welcomed daughter Chicago via surrogate, while fellow first-time mom Kylie Jenner gave birth to daughter Stormi on Feb. 1.

Fans also speculated that her tweet of six blue hearts had a significant meaning on Saturday, one day ahead of the sex reveal on the familys reality show.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

RELATED: Konnichiwa, Kardashians! All the Photos from Kim, Kourtney and Khloes Tokyo Trip So Far

Kardashian just returned home from a babymoon in Tokyo, Japan, with her sisters Kim and Kourtney. They documented all aspects of their trip, from touring sightseeing spots and to tasting various local delicacies.

During the trip, the Good American founder shared she was nearing her due date with a selfie captioned, 8 months Bumpin.

Kardashian officially announced her pregnancy in December 2017, and PEOPLE previously confirmed in October she is expecting a son with Thompson, who is already a father to 14-month-old son Prince.90th Academy Awards  Oscars Governors Ball  Hollywood, California, U.S., 04/03/2018  Gary Oldman and Gisele Schmidt. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

It was a big night for the British at the 90th Annual Academy Awards with four Brits picking up Oscars at the glitziest awards show.

This was a marked improvement from 2017 which saw Brits picking up just one Academy Award -Orlando von Einsiedel and Natasegara won Best Documentary Short for White Helmets.

59-year-old Londoner Gary Oldman won Best Actor for his portrayal of Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour. Oldman was transformed into the British politician by some of the most astonishing prosthetic make-up work ever seen on screen, and follow Brit  special effects make-up artist Lucy Sibbick  won an Oscar in the make-up and hair category for her work on the film along with two non-Britons Kazuhiro Tsuji and David Malinowski.

90th Academy Awards  Oscars Backstage  Hollywood, California, U.S., 04/03/2018  Kazuhiro Tsuji, Lucy Sibbick and David Malinowski with their award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for the film Darkest Hour REUTERS/Mike Blake

Famed cinematographer Roger Deakins also won an Oscar for Best Cinematography on Blade Runner 2049. The 68-year-old filmmaker from Torquay finally won after 14 nominations, receiving recognition for his stunning work on the sequel to Ridley Scotts sci-fi classic.

90th Academy Awards  Oscars Backstage  Hollywood, California, U.S., 04/03/2018  Roger Deakins poses with the Best Cinematography Oscar for Blade Runner 2049 REUTERS/Mike Blake

The final British Oscar-winners on the night were former Hollyoaks stars Rachel Shenton and Chris Overton who triumphed in the live action short category for their film The Silent Child. Shenton delivered part of her speech in sign language in tribute to Maisie Sly the young deaf star of their film.

90th Academy Awards  Oscars Arrivals  Hollywood, California, U.S., 04/04/2018  Actors Rachel Shenton, Maisie Sly and Chris Overton REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Overall, Brits received 30 nominations at the 2018 Oscars including nods for Daniel Kaluuya, Lesley Manville, Sally Hawkins and more. See the full list of winners from the 90th Annual Academy Awards here.





Read more

5 things you didnt see at the Oscars

Films that should have been nominated

Frances McDormand steals show with stirring speech



The 90th Academy Awards played out Sunday night with the usual mix of spectacle, stardom, and suspense (like, would Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway get the right Best Picture envelope this year?). But with a ceremony approaching four hours, there were bound to be some misfires along the way. Here are the highs and lows from Hollywoods biggest night. By Ethan Alter, Nick Schager, and Gwynne Watkins

HIGH: Jimmy Kimmels triumphant return

Although a certain envelope snafu brought a sour end to his inaugural hosting year, Kimmel dusted himself off for Round 2 and delivered a command performance that acknowledged the serious issues facing the film industry, while also leaving room for smartly written silly gags.

Watch: Jimmy Kimmels full opening monologue:



He also came up with the brilliant idea of tempting winners to keep their acceptance speeches short and to the point by dangling a Jet Ski in front of their faces, and even upped the stakes later in the evening with the promise of an all-expenses-paid trip to Arizonas Lake Havasu. Heres our one-word speech about that: Awesome.

Helen Mirren presents a fabulous new Jet Ski. (Photo: ABC)

(For those keeping score at home, Mark Bridges, the winner for Best Costume Design for Phantom Thread, scored the Jet Ski.)

LOW: That stage design

While the stars shone brightly at tonights Academy Awards, their radiance was somewhat undercut by the design of the shows stage, which was surrounded by giant crystals and featured several ornate architectural backdrops that were gaudy to the point of distraction. They made us feel the entire telecast was taking place inside last years Beauty and the Beast remake, crossed with Supermans Fortress of Solitude. Cracked Kimmel, Each of the 45,000 Swarovski crystals on the stage represents humility.

Host Jimmy Kimmel hosting the Oscars. (Photo: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Or as Jane Fonda put it: Theyre just like the Orgasmatron in Barbarella.

HIGH: Sam Rockwells giddy gratitude

Not only did Best Supporting Actor winner Sam Rockwell profusely thank his fellow nominees and his Three Billboards co-stars, he also thanked his movie-loving parents and everyone whos ever looked at a billboard. In a charming speech, Rockwell recalled the time his dad pulled him out of school when he was 8 years old, telling the principal that they had to go because of Sams grandma. We got in the car and I said, Whats wrong with Grandma? recounted Rockwell. And he said, Nothing, were going to the movies. After a few more heartfelt thank-yous, Rockwell ended his acceptance speech by dedicating the win to his late friend Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Story continues

HIGH: The lovers, the dreamers, and Lupita

While presenting the Oscar for Best Production Design, Lupita Nyongo and Kumail Nanjiani took a moment to speak directly to all the dreamers (and Dreamers) watching at home. Observing that they both hail from places no one in Hollywood can find on a map  Kenya and Pakistan/Iowa, respectively  the duo spoke in heartfelt terms about the journey that led them from overseas to these shores. Dreams are the foundation of Hollywood, and dreams are the foundation of America, Nyongo eloquently stated.



LOW: Star Wars  The Awkward Jedi

Its hard to get the comic timing right when youre bantering with recorded droid sounds. Thats the awkward situation that Oscar Isaac, Mark Hamill, and Kelly Marie Tran found themselves in when they presented the Best Animated Short and Best Animated Feature Oscars. As fun as it was to see the Star Wars: The Last Jedi stars reunited (on the 40th anniversary of the first Star Wars Oscars), their jokes fell flat  particularly a cringe-inducing one about how no designers would dress BB-8. (Get it? Because hes round! Size discrimination is hilarious.)

From left; BB-8, Oscar Isaac, Mark Hamill, and Kelly Marie Tran present the Best Animated Short Film Oscar. (Photo: Reuters/Lucas Jackson)

At least the actors improvised lines landed better: Hamill got a laugh from muttering Dont say, La La Land when he opened the envelope, and it was impossible not to smile when Isaac (born in Guatemala) announced Cocos win by shouting Viva Latin America!

HIGH: The Tiffany and Maya show

We already wanted to see the Tiffany Haddish-Maya Rudolph team-up that Paul Thomas Anderson has planned, but watching their incredible comic chemistry as Oscar presenters makes us think they should just star in every movie made going forward. Oh, and Meryl Streep totally has to play Haddishs mom in each of those movies, too.

Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph at the 90th Academy Awards. (Photo: ABC)

HIGH: Roger Deakins for the win

It took 23 years and 13 nominations, but legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins finally has his Oscar, for Blade Runner 2049, which brought the Dolby Theatre to its feet. Funnily enough, film nerds seemed more thrilled about his victory than Deakins, who seemed more concerned with ensuring that he didnt win the Jet Ski that everyone else was gunning for.

Cinematographer Roger Deakins receives a standing ovation. (Photo: ABC)

LOW: Jimmy Kimmel throws hot dogs at innocent moviegoers

In a variation on last years tour-bus prank, host Kimmel recruited some of the most famous Oscar guests  including Gal Gadot, Mark Hamill, Ansel Elgort, Armie Hammer, Lupita Nyongo, Margot Robbie, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and Guillermo del Toro  to barge in on unsuspecting filmgoers during a preview screening of A Wrinkle in Time (ABC needs to feed the synergy machine, natch) across the street. Before Kimmel had even passed out the hot-dog cannons (really), Twitter was letting out a collective groan.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Sure enough, the overlong stunt was complete chaos, with celebrities throwing food at an amused but baffled audience of people who were probably wondering how A Wrinkle in Time ended.

Jimmy Kimmel and Gal Gadot appear on screen via satellite after highjacking a nearby movie theater. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

HIGH: Music of the night

Apart from Gael Garcia Bernal  whose stripped-down rendition of Cocos standout number Remember Me fell a little flat (at least until Miguel arrived and took things up a notch)  the live renditions of the five Oscar-nominated songs pretty much rocked the house.

Mary J. Blige slayed Mudbounds moving ballad, Mighty River, Common and Andra Day brought the crowd to their feet when they tag-teamed on Stand Up for Something from Marshall, Sufjan Stevens made us shimmy like Armie Hammer while listening to Mystery of Love from Call Me by Your Name and Keala Settle earwormed us with The Greatest Showmans This Is Me all over again. Forget the Oscar  these performances deserve a freakin Grammy. Watch them all below:

HIGH: Movies for everyone, by everyone

In the wake of #OscarsSoWhite, the Academy made a commitment to represent more diverse films and filmmakers. That goal became even more imperative in light of #MeToo, and was reinforced throughout the ceremony  particularly in an inspiring segment featuring interviews with groundbreaking actors and directors, as well as leaders of the #TimesUp movement, discussing representation. The passion of people like Geena Davis, Ava DuVernay, Greta Gerwig, Yance Ford, Salma Hayek, and Barry Jenkins shone through as they urged viewers at home to put their own stories on film. And Kumail Nanjiani landed one of the best lines of the night: Some of my favorite movies are by straight white dudes, about straight white dudes. Now you can watch my movies and relate to me. Its not that hard. Ive been doing it my whole life.





HIGH: Frances McDormands inclusive speech

No one was surprised that the heavily favored Frances McDormand won Best Actress for her fiery lead performance in Martin McDonaghs Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. But she still managed to wow the crowd with a passionate speech. So I think this is what Chloe Kim must have felt like after doing back-to-back 1080s in the Olympic halfpipe. Did you see that? OK, thats what it feels like, she began, before asking all of this years female nominees  in every category, regardless of whether they had won or not  to stand with her in solidarity.

Look around, everybody. Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed. Dont talk to us about it at the parties tonight. Invite us into your office in a couple days, or you can come to ours, whatever suits you best, and well tell you all about them. I have two words to leave with you tonight, ladies and gentlemen: inclusion rider.

Watch McDormands full speech:



(An inclusion rider is a contract provision that requires that a production hire a diverse cast and crew, which McDormand later explained in more detail backstage.)

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Said Kimmel afterward: I really hope Frances McDormand wins an Emmy for the speech she gave at the Oscars, because that was absolutely unbelievable. No argument here.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:We are going to build that wall with Oscars, five-time winner Alejandro G. Inarritu joked when I ran into him at the Governors Ball after Sunday nights Academy Awards.

I pointed out that, with Guillermo del Toros big win, Mexican directors have won four of the past five Best Director Oscars. Del Toro, Inarritu and Gravitys Alfonso Cuaron, best friends and longtime collaborators and colleagues all, are affectionately known as the three amigos. With The Shape of Water and Coco triumphs, Inarritu noted it was a very big night for Mexico. I am just waiting to see what Trump tweets about this, he said while promising to get del Toro drunk as soon as he could find him.

I didnt catch the big winner of the night at the ball but eventually did when he made a triumphant entrance into the Fox celebration at nearby Taos restaurant at nearly 1AM where it was a true hug-a-thon for del Toro with just about everyone in the room as he held up his two Oscars for Best Picture and Director. It has been clear to me all season that there is simply no one nicer or more genuine in this business that del Toro, and this was a victory well-earned. He told me over the weekend that he will be going back to Mexico on Wednesday to visit his very ill father, who certainly must be proud he was able to see this moment for his son.

Among those at the Fox party overjoyed with the results were Fox Searchlight Presidents Nancy Utley and Steve Gilula as well as 21st Century Fox President Peter Rice, who at one time ran Searchlight and began its remarkable Oscar Best Picture streak with Slumdog Millionaire in 2009. Has any other studio had this kind of a run, with four Best Pictures in that short a time? I dont think so, Rice told me while heaping praise on Utley and Gilula. With 12 Years a Slave, Birdman and now Shape, it certainly is an impressive record. Amidst all the merriment last night (or actually early this morning), I asked Rice how he thinks Searchlight will be impacted by the Disney-Fox merger. They are going to be just fine, he predicted, and certainly yet another Best Picture doesnt hurt.

Story continues

At that Governors Ball I congratulated new Academy President John Bailey on the groups 90th anniversary show, especially for getting so much great history via film clips and presenters into it all, even though it ran a whopping 3 hours, 49 minutes, one of the longest ever. I actually wanted to do more, and in fact we had a great documentary film package that had to be cut because we were running so long. They were cutting things throughout the show, but I am very happy with what we had. We have to honor our past, he told me just as Oscars co-producer Mike De Luca walked up with one of his young children who was eager to get to bed. Bailey told him the response at the Ball had been great, especially for the military and troops salute with great war films that was one of the many stirring clips packages on the show. I asked De Luca, who produced with Jennifer Todd for the second year in a row, if he would consider coming back for a third go-round and, pointing to Bailey, he said, Its up to him. Considering that this time, with no envelope snafus to suck the air out of the room, the show, in my opinion, hit all the right notes striking just the right tone in a politically charged year. I would say they should be back.

RelatedOscar Moments: The Good The Bad & The Ugly

Immediate past-AMPAS President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, who presided over the previous four shows during her reign, told me she really hopes the producing pair will do it again but wasnt sure if they would want to. It clearly is a big job, almost a no-win in some ways, but to honor the 90th  with the idea of putting the main emphasis on the impact of movies themselves, and those who made them  was inspired. I loved the inclusion of some Hollywood greats and past winners like 86-year-old Rita Moreno (wearing the exact same dress she wore when she won her West Side Story Oscar in 1962), and 93-year-old Eva Marie Saint as presenters was terrific. They received two of the many standing ovations this show elicited throughout the night. As she entered the elegantly designed Ball with daughter Laurette, Saint told me the touching tribute to Jeffrey Hayden, her late husband of 65 years, was completely unplanned and not on the teleprompter. When I got that ovation, I dont know quite what hit me, but I just decided right then to say those things about him, she said. It was one of the most touching moments of the night. And then listening to her reminisce about working with Brando, Hitchcock and Cary Grant before presenting the Costume Design award (where she also talked about the great designers she worked with like Edith Head) was pure gold itself. These are the Oscar moments we will remember, and this show was full of them.

Speaking of that Costume Design winner, Phantom Threads Mark Bridges was the winner of the shortest speech of the night, clocking in at 32 seconds . That meant he won the Jet Ski and Lake Havasu Days Inn vacation that were at the butt of one of host Jimmy Kimmels best gags, a Price Is Right game show takeoff complete with a stunning Helen Mirren as the prize model. It paid off beautifully as he rode out on it with Mirren at shows end. At the Ball I interrupted his conversation with his director Paul Thomas Anderson to ask if he really did get to keep the prizes. You bet. I just had to sign the papers for them backstage! he said. Like all game show prize winners does that mean he has to pay the taxes on them too?

Jimmy Kimmel Oscars

Between that bit and the star-studded trip to the nearby Chinese Theatre multiplex in the Hollywood and Highland complex  to the surprise an audience watching a special screening of A Wrinkle in Time  Kimmel proved again he was born to be the Oscar host. He has just the right touch that the best hosts like Hope, Carson, and Crystal brought to the Oscars. The Wrinkle in Time bit by the way was not only funny, it was a publicity bonanza for Disney (which conveniently owns Oscar network ABC) and took lots of planning on the part of Disney to pull it off since the whole H&H complex is shut down for the Academy Awards. A Disney source said they had to recruit the audience for the screening and bring them in from the back entrance to the Chinese, which normally would be closed.

RelatedOscars TV Review: Jimmy Kimmel Ignores Trump, Hollywood Survives Just Fine

The lunch boxes with goodies under every seat at the Dolby Theatre also were a nice touch. Each box had a different Best Picture nominee on it. Mine was Phantom Thread, and it included a handwritten note from Kimmel that read: It wouldnt be right to make you sit through this without snacks. Please dont throw them at me. P.S. a donation to the L.A. regional food bank has been made for each box. Get Out co-star Catherine Keener told me she desperately wanted the Get Out box, but there werent any in her row. I managed to hunt down The Post, Call Me by Your Name, The Shape of Water and Dunkirk left behind by audience members who arent as avid a collector as I am. Maybe I can find the other four on eBay.

Speaking of Dunkirk, I caught up with a very happy Christopher Nolan at the Govs Ball and showed off my lunch box. His brilliant WWII epic took three Oscars, earning him many shout-outs from winners onstage. It was the second-best haul of the night after Shapes four, even though there was disappointment that Hoyte van Hoytemas cinematography wasnt one of them. So whats gonna win next year? Nolan asked me half-jokingly. He predicted Black Panther will be among the Best Picture nominees in 2019, which would make it the first comic-book movie to break that ceiling with the Academy. I reminded him that it was because of The Dark Knights exclusion that the Academy went to 10 (and now up to 10) nominees to get movies like that included, but to no avail so far. A top Disney exec told me flat out that they would be campaigning not only Black Panther for the big prize but also the upcoming Mary Poppins Returns (from director Rob Marshall), which he was raving about, particularly for star Emily Blunt. who he says knocks it out of the park in the role for which Julie Andrews already has an Oscar. Lin-Manuel Miranda co-stars. and he says there are a lot of great new songs in it as well. The teaser trailer broke in the first segment of last nights show, but we have to wait until Christmas to see if the film lives up to Disneys early prediction. The first Mary Poppins wowed Oscar in 1964, when it received 13 nominations, winning five but losing Best Picture to My Fair Lady. Other than through its one-time association with Miramax, Disney remains the only major studio not to have a Best Picture winner of its own, yet another reason to make sure they dont mess with Fox Searchlights Midas touch.

RelatedMary Poppins Returns: Watch The First Teaser, Which Aired During The Oscars

If I have any complaints about the Oscars these days, it is that by the time we get to them they seem pretty predictable. How many times have we heard all those winning actors this season give speeches at the Globes, Critics Choice, SAG, BAFTA, Indie Spirits and so on? Thank God for Frances McDormand, who made it all seem new, and electrified the room with her call for all the female nominees to stand up and be counted.

Still the six-month-long awards season takes its toll, and that can be partially reflected in the ratings, I suppose. In terms of winners, Oscar dutifully followed the script he was handed. PGA winner Shape of Water wins Best Picture. DGA champ del Toro takes Best Director. SAG winners McDormand and Sam Rockwell win. WGA honorees Get Out and Call Me by Your Name repeat at the Dolby (with the latters James Ivory becoming Oscars oldest competitive winner ever at age 89). ASC, ACE, CAS and other guilds all followed suit for the most part. Two months ago the increasingly predictive Critics Choice Awards (for which I vote) already had foretold the eventual Oscar outcome in every single major category right down to Best Song.

RelatedFrances McDormands Oscar Stolen & Recovered; Police ID Jailed Suspect, Who Posted Video On Facebook

At Saturday nights The Night Before benefit pre-Oscar party at Fox, the man who would be named Best Actor just 24 hours later was a little weary. I just want to get my life back, Gary Oldman said about the campaign journey that started Labor Day weekend in Telluride. He suggested that the endless season needs to change in the future. It can be grueling, and it is a long and winding road for these nominees and winners, almost tougher than making the movies themselves. They were all richly deserving, but in a wide-open year that this started out to be, it might have been nice to have at least one surprising winner just to shake things up.

Oh well, maybe next year. Did I mention we are already starting to talk about the 91st Oscars?

Related stories

President Donald Trump Gloats Over Oscar Ratings, Doesn't See Stars

Byron Allen's Entertainment Studios Oscar Gala Raises $1.5M For Children's Hospital L.A.

Oscar Ratings Down Double Digits As Viewership Hits All-Time Low With 26.5 Million - UpdateAfter picking up his first Oscar for his turn in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Best Supporting Actor winner Sam Rockwell memorably ended his acceptance speech with a shout-out to departed fellow Oscar winner, Philip Seymour Hoffman. This is for my old buddy, Phil Hoffman, Rockwell said. For my old buddy, Phil Hoffman!

When the newly minted Oscar winner hit the backstage interview room, he was asked to expand upon his remarks. Clearly pleased that his dedication to Hoffman was heard  he worried that the music was already playing  the actor offered a heartfelt answer.

Read More:2018 Oscars Winners List: Sam Rockwell, Icarus, and More  Updating Live

I guess you want to start making me cry, but yeah, he was an old friend of mine, and he directed me in a play at the Public Theater, Rockwell said. He was very close to me. He was an inspiration to all of my peers, people like Jeffrey Wright, Billy Crudup, Liev Schreiber, everybody. Mark Ruffalo, Josh Brolin, whoever was in my age range.

Rockwell pointed to Hoffmans dedication to multiple disciplines and styles of art for why he served as a great inspiration.

Phil Hoffman was the guy, and he was a great director, and he believed in doing theater, because he vowed to do a play a year, which I dont know if he really got to do, because he was very busy doing movies, he said. But he was a great inspiration and a great theater director. He inspired me, and I could go on for an hour about Phil Hoffman.

Read More:Sam Rockwell Wins the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor at the 2018 Academy Awards

Philip Seymour Hoffman was a good friend, and he was a huge, huge inspiration on me, Rockwell concluded.

Additional reporting by Jenna Marotta.

Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.

Launch Gallery: 2018 Oscars: Red Carpet Gallery

Story continues

Related stories

2018 Oscars Winners List: Sam Rockwell, 'Icarus,' and More -- Updating Live

'Icarus' Wins Oscar for Best Documentary Feature

Jimmy Kimmel Takes on Envelopegate, Sexual Harassment and Pay Inequities in Topical Oscar MonologueAt the end of what has been a chaotic and unexpected week in Donald Trumps administration, the president offered up his biggest surprise yet when he seemingly laughed at his own troubles during the Gridiron dinner on Saturday night.

Much like the White House Correspondents Dinner  which Trump has previously chosen not to attend the yearly dinner is attended by hundreds of journalists and filled with jokes and laughter. But many wondered whether the notoriously thin-skinned president would be able to join in on the fun  especially in light of the scandal surrounding former communications director Hope Hicks surprise resignation on Wednesday, one day after she had admitted to a congressional investigative committee that she told white lies on behalf of Trump.

But Trump surprised everyone by seemingly attempting to gloss over the drama and poke fun at his troubles, according to pool reports from the White House Press Office.

Its been a really calm week at the White House, Trump remarked at the start of his speech, before joking that his wife Melania, with whom he is rumored to have an icy relationship, might be the next person to leave the White House, reported CNN.

RELATED: Hope Hickss Tearful Resignation Came After President Trump Berated Her for Being Stupid: Report

So many people have been leaving the White House, Trump continued, according to CNN. Its actually been really exciting and invigorating cause you want new thought. So I like turnover. I like chaos. It really is good.

Now the question everyone keeps asking is, Who is going to be the next to leave? Steve Miller or Melania?  he added, reported the outlet.

But the president then seemed to backtrack on this remark by sincerely adding that his wife is actually having a great time in Washington, D.C., according to the pool reports.

Trump also went on to tease his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who recently lost his access to confidential White House information after his top secret security clearance was downgraded.

Story continues

Apologizing for the dinner starting a little behind schedule, Trump explained that he was late because Jared couldnt get through security, according to the pool reports.

Ivanka, youve got to do something! Trump added, referencing his daughter  and senior advisor  whose own security access is unknown.

Although he sincerely went on to call Kusher a great guy who has suffered.

RELATED: Jared Kushner Loses Top Secret Security Clearance, Ivanka Trumps Access Status Unknown

In what might have been the joke that hit closest to home, Trump also made light of the ongoing investigation into potential Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign, joking that Vice President Mike Pence began everyday by asking, Is [Trump] impeached yet?

But despite making jokes about himself, the portion of the evening Trump seemed to enjoy the most came at the expense of one of his favorite rivals: Hillary Clinton.

Following a song performed by journalists which mocked the former presidential nominee, Trump applauded vigorously, according to The New York Times.EXCLUSIVE: Concerns that sexual harassment allegations against Ryan Seacrest could see things become uncomfortable or even confrontational today on E!s pre-Oscars Live From the Red Carpet show is leading the NBCUniversal outlet to be less than live in their broadcast.

As claims by a former personal stylist of misconduct by Seacrest have resurfaced in recent days, E! is now strongly weighing instituting a delay of up to 30 seconds and more on its coverage outside the Dolby Theatre co-hosted by Giuliana Rancic, weve learned. A major element in the possible decision for the 2 PM PT-starting show co-produced by Ryan Seacrest Productions is the tension potential tension that emerges between celebrities and Academy Award nominees will want to make the standard Seacrest pit stop today in the first place, what they may say, and how a lot of what happens could occur quickly and live almost.

The plan being considered is to mainly ensure plenty of time to either cut to Giuliana or to pull the plug altogether unnoticed if an on-camera encounter with Ryan goes into tricky territory, an insider tells Deadline. Another executive with knowledge of the situation confirms that the longer than usual delay is one of several defensive scenarios E! has on the regarding Seacrest on Sunday afternoon.

Its business as usual, an E! spokesperson told Deadline this morning. As always, we tape multiple sources of content simultaneously to deliver the best possible show, and there are often brief delays between interviews.

While delays of around five seconds or so are not uncommon at live events like awards shows or their preamble, the pause on the table for Seacrest would be much greater. As it comes down to the wire for the red carpet show this afternoon, it looks like the ultimate decision will be made in the truck and by producers on the ground at the event.

Regardless, the length in discussion is in no small part revealing of the entanglement E! find themselves in as one of their marquee names for one of their signature events faces renewed scrutiny and face-to-face meetings with declared #MeToo movement and #TimesUp activist and supporters on soul-searching Hollywoods biggest night.

Story continues

The potential drama before ABCs airing of the 90th annual Oscars comes just a week before American Idols much promoted and backed-on resurrection now on the Disney-owned net kicks off on March 11.

With sordid details of crotch-grinding, buttocks-slapping and more by Seacrest, ex-stylist Suzie Hardy went public last week after growing frustrated by the results of an E! investigation of her initial allegations of last fall. The investigation, conducted by outside counsel, found insufficient evidence to support the claims against Seacrest and therefore could not be substantiated, E! declared on February 1, less than two months after Seacrest first made the allegations known in a preemptive move amidst assertions of a big-bucks shakedown.

As claims began to swirl about who exactly the probe spoke to and how much they may or may not have dug into Seacrests behavior, Hardy and her attorney spoke to our sister publication Variety on February 26 and tore into the whitewashing by E!, as the 2007-2013 employee termed it. In a segment aired on Today on February 28, an unnamed colleague of Hardys backed her story.

Oscars Logo 2018

Still, E! last week reiterated its support for Seacrest, its investigation and his anchoring the Red Carpet show. However, if E! isnt going to make a change, Hollywood in general is promising to. As lawsuits, claims and police investigations come forward, Tinseltown is still reeling from the revelations of allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Brett Ratner and others in the past five months. In that context of this era of the #MeToo and Times Up movements and promises of greater discussion of gender discrimination, the Jimmy Kimmel-hosted 90th Oscars plan to spotlight the issue Sunday with silence breakers like Ashley Judd and Annabella Sciorra taking center stage. All in all, thats obviously an environment where the often effervescent Seacrest now is looking more and more like someone high-powered publicists would want their clients to avoid on their way in, and E! fears the co-host himself could be the one answering the questions.

Hence, the potential enlarged delay to keep any pronounced snubs or awkward moments off the air.

In some part, having become the story himself, Seacrest could be the beneficiary of Rancics uncomfortable interaction with Debra Messing at Januarys Golden Globes. Thats when the Will & Grace star took up the topic of E! News host Catt Sandler having recently left the outlet over pay inequity issues with the clearly shocked Red Carpet co-host. Shifting to respond to the new normal of Hollywood, E! and the LIVE With Kelly and Ryan co-host does not want to be left red in the face on the Oscar carpet today  even if that means going off the air in some fashion.

RelatedJimmy Kimmel Is Enveloped In Getting The Oscars Right This Time: Q&A

Related stories

Oscars: The Good The Bad & The Ugly

Oscar Ratings Down, Eye All-Time Low In Early Estimates

Frances McDormand And #InclusionRider Go Viral After Oscar Speech - ReactionsWomen in Hollywood are fed up  with discrimination, unequal pay, and unwanted sexual advances  and they're using their platforms at award shows to push the Time's Up and #MeToo movements forward. One such woman was activist Emma Watson, who attended last night's Vanity Fair Oscars party with a (likely) temporary tattoo of cursive script that read, "TIMES UP."

But rather than focus on the important message emblazoned across her forearm, Twitter's self-appointed grammar police zero-ed in on something they deemed much more important: the lack of an apostrophe.

To start, the obvious glossy sheen around the letters indicates that the tattoo is most likely a stencil applique that Watson washed off at the end of the night  so let's hold the outrage directed at her tattoo artist. And second, do you actually think a woman who started her own feminist book club while serving as an ambassador for the UN and advocating for human rights really doesn't understand proper punctuation? Would it matter this much if she didn't?

At the end of the day, what Watson elects to put on her body is her choice  grammar mistakes and all. And, who knows? Maybe she even purposefully left off the punctuation to make headlines, as one Twitter user hypothesized. (This is Hermione Granger we're talking about.) But regardless, we're never going to hear anyone's message if we're nitpicking the delivery to this extent. Standing in solidarity for women's rights at the biggest award show of the year? That's what's worth talking about. Period.

Read these stories next:

I Tried Every Single Product In Emma Watson's Beauty Routine

Emma Stone Got A Perm  & We Have Questions

How To Make This Unexpected Hair Trend Work For You

Emma Watson Declares That The Mistreatment Of Women Has To Stop

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

The Best Beauty Products Used At The Oscars Were All Under $25

Story continues

The Hidden Meaning Behind Danai Gurira's Oscars Hairstyle

The Best Behind-The-Scenes Beauty Moments From The Academy Awards

Related video:Talk about show-stealers! Oscars presenters Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph tore the roof off the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles by simply standing together on stage and being their hilarious selves. The two comediennes were on hand to present the trophies for Best Live Action Short and Best Documentary, but viewers are already campaigning for them to have a bigger role next year  as hosts of the 2019 Academy Awards.

After slipping out of her gorgeous traditional Eritrean dress and into her go-to Girls Trip number, Haddish marched on stage with Rudolph, both in Ugg slippers and carrying their Jimmy Choos. Riffing on everything from their sore feet (Rudolph: My pinky toe fell off) to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy from a few years ago, the actresses had a natural chemistry and banter between them.

We are so happy to be here, but a little nervous too, because a few years ago, people were saying that Oscars were so white. And since then, some real progress has been made, Rudolph said, setting up Haddish for the punchline: But when we came out together, we know some of you were thinking, Are the Oscars too Black now?'

They went on to do a whole bit about white people with clipboards before joking about their respective bathroom scenes in Girls Trip and Bridesmaids.

Immediately, there were calls for the two to star in a movie together, with some pointing out that Rudolphs husband, Paul Thomas Anderson, could just write one for his wife and her co-presenter.

Others considered a Rudolph-Haddish reboot of a classic.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Some pointed out how much better the show could be if we had more of the dynamic pair.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

But many realized the ultimate goal: having Haddish and Rudolph co-host the 2019 awards.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Imagine how much shorter this four-hour show would seem!

Do you want to see Tiffany Haddish and Maya Rudolph host the Oscars? Let us know @BritandCo!

(photos via Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

You Might Also LikeThroughout Frances McDormands incredible three-decade career, her husband Joel Coen has been by her side. In fact, Joel, a director himself, gave Frances her first gig on the big screen. Now, the actress is nominated for Best Actress at the 93rd Academy Awards for the film Nomadland. This marks her sixth Oscar nomination, two of which she won with Joel cheering her on.

On Sunday night, viewers may just catch a glimpse of Joel again. During their 36 years of marriage, Frances and Joel have worked together, created a family and continue going strong.

They met during an audition.

Photo credit: Getty Images

The couple met when Frances auditioned for Blood Simple, the directorial debut of the Coen Brothers. She auditioned for the role of Abby, a bar owner's wife who finds herself embroiled in a murder-for-hire plot gone wrong. But Frances played a little hard-to-get during the audition process. When the directors asked her to come to a callback audition, she said no because she had promised to watch her boyfriend's two-line debut in a soap opera.

Years later, Frances teased Joel in an interview at the Rome Film Festival, saying, "That's why you hired me, because I said no." Joel says that although it was her talent that won her the role, they did appreciate her boldness. "We really liked that. It was so guileless  just what we wanted for Abby," he later told The New York Times.

Literature brought them together.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Although they're obvious film enthusiasts, the two are also passionate about literature. While filming Blood Simple in Austin, Texas, Frances brought only one book with her. She asked Joel if he had any recommendations, and he brought her an entire box of books by James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler.

"I said, 'Which one should I start with?' And he said, 'The Postman Always Rings Twice,'" she told The Daily Beast. "A couple of nights later, I said, 'Would you like to come over and discuss the book?' That did it. He seduced me with literature. And then we discussed books and drank hot chocolate for several evenings."

Story continues

Frances got married to Joel with a unique wedding ring.

Photo credit: Getty Images

The couple got married in 1984, and Frances's ring wasn't what you'd expect. It had actually belonged to Joel's ex-wife, whom he'd divorced in the late '70s. Many women would take issue with that, but Frances didn't mind. According to The New York Times Magazine, she had simply seen it as a matter of practicality, saying that the ring shouldn't go to waste.

They adopted a son from Paraguay.

Photo credit: Getty Images

In 1995, Frances and Joel adopted a son from Paraguay named Pedro McDormand Coen. He's now an adult working as a personal trainer, but Frances recalled his early childhood as she prepared to play a grieving mother in Three Billboards.

"As a mother, you live on the edge of disaster," she told Belfast Telegraph. "You just do. I didn't give birth to my son, I met him at six months old, but from the minute I held him and smelled him, I knew it was my job to keep him alive."

They enjoy working together on projects.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Joel has said that when he begins working on a new project, he's often had his wife in mind as he writes female roles. She hasn't starred in every single Coen Brothers film, but she's done her fair share, with roles in Raising Arizona, Mississippi Burning, Barton Fink, Fargo, The Man Who Wasn't There, Burn After Reading and Hail, Caesar!.

Frances says their chemistry and bond makes their working relationship special.

"It was a revelation that I could have a lover who I could also work with and I wasn't intimidated by the person," Frances told NYT Magazine. "It was: Wow! Really! Oh, my God! I can actually love and live  not subvert anything, not apologize for anything, not hide anything."

New stories keep their marriage strong.

Photo credit: Getty Images

In a 2015 interview at the Rome Film Festival, the duo revealed the key to their strong marriage.

"I think it's having different stories to tell each other," Frances said. "Although we have often collaborated on films, we have both had really autonomous careers and so we have always had new things to tell each other."

They encourage each other to take on adventures.

Photo credit: Getty Images

Although it won her Best Leading Actress at the 90th Academy Awards (and was written specifically with her in mind, according to director Martin McDonagh), Frances almost turned down the lead role for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.

"When I first read it, I loved it, I thought Mildred was amazing. I was very flattered, but then I said, 'No, I'm sorry, I'm too old,'" she said on a film panel in September. In the 2017 movie, she plays a grieving mother whose teenage daughter has been murdered.

"Because at the time he gave it to me I was 58  I was concerned that women from this socioeconomic strata did not wait until 38 to have their first child," she explained to the panel.

Thankfully, Joel encouraged her to take the role. "Finally my husband said, 'Just shut up and do it,'" Frances laughs.

Frances and Joel prove that with a little bit of chemistry and a gentle nudge every once in a while, a power couple can take on the world together.

You Might Also LikeJennifer Garner's voluminous hairstyle for the 2018 Oscars may look like the big, bouncy blowouts we've seen on the red carpet for what feels like forever, but according to her hairstylist Adir Abergel, the star's style isn't like all the rest. Instead, it's an ode to all the famous old-Hollywood styles that have come before it. "I pulled a lot of images of Sofia Loren, early Elizabeth Taylor, where the hair was big and sexy yet effortless," Abergel tells Allure. "The key to the style is shiny, healthy hair."

Before jumping into the look, Abergel says he turned up the music (George Michael, for those wondering) and got emotional. (Yes, really.) "Jennifer Garner is one of my favorite human beings on the planet," he says. "Getting her ready, I get very emotional. We laugh, we cry. The ambience is really cool."

Courtesy of Adir Abergel

The look, which featured an unexpected deep side part (a far cry from Garner's go-to center part) paired with mega volume, movement, and bounce, began with a solid wash and condition. (Abergel used the Virtue Full Volume Shampoo and Conditioner, with conditioner only on the ends of the hair.) Once washed, Garner's hair was wrapped into an Aquis Hair Turban to "absorb excess moisture without roughing up the cuticle," says Abergel.

Courtesy of Adir Abergel

Because Abergel wanted to give Garner's hair a shiny, soft finish, he raked the Virtue 6-In-1 Styler from the midlengths to the ends before blow-drying. Abergel then pinned sections into barrel curls until hair was cool to "maximize memory and volume."

Courtesy of Adir Abergel

Between steps, he ran back and forth between clients, including Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan. "It was a crazy-exciting day for me," Abergel says. "I got Jen mostly ready, then ran back to finish Saoirse, and then ran back to put the finishes touches on Jen."

Courtesy of Adir Abergel

To create the soft, bouncy volume seen in the final look, the hairtylist brushed out the hair and added subtle waves with the GHD Gold 18K Pro Styler. As a final step, hair was swept to the side in a deep side part and sprayed with Virtue's Finale Shaping Spray.

Story continues

More on the 2018 Academy Awards:

Now see the best Oscars red-carpet dresses of all time:

Follow Sarah on Twitter and Instagram.

Jennifer Lawrence and the Oscar statue are twinning.

The actress stepped onto the red carpet for Sunday nights awards show glowing in a gunmetal Dior gown. The sequined dress was floor length and featured a bra-like top. It was formfitting until the hips, where it loosened up just a touch, and it transformed her into the shiny award everyone is vying for tonight. The golden gown matched her loose, wavy blonde locks, which, not to detract from the sparkly gown, was accessorized with minimal (yet no less sparkly) jewelry.

Jennifer Lawrence on the red carpet at the 90th Annual Academy Awards (Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images)

Not to be mistaken for an actual Oscar, Lawrence, who was styled by Jill Lincoln and Jordan Johnson, broke up the gold hues with a red lip and dark eye.

However, while Lawrence looked amazing, that wasnt what caught social medias attention. Rather, it was the fact that she clutched onto a wine glass all night and even deftly climbed over seats without spilling a drop.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Lawrence was on hand to present the Best Actress award alongside Jodie Foster, in a departure from Academy Awards tradition. The award is typically presented by the previous years winner for Best Actor  but Casey Affleck turned down the opportunity of presenting, in order to avoid becoming a distraction due to two sexual harassment lawsuits, according to Variety.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.



At every awards show, there's one red carpet arrival that always has us on the edge of our seats: Lupita Nyong'o. She consistently delivers with her beauty and style, and the 2018 Oscars are no exception.

Just when you thought you'd seen all of the "OMG"-worthy hairstyles the Black Panther cast had to offer, Lupita hit the red carpet with a braided updo decorated with gold chains. She stayed on the metallic theme with her makeup, too, serving face in metallic blue eyeshadow, bronze highlight and rose gold lips.

Lupita has been all about accessorizing her natural strands with metallic accents recently. She fastened her ponytail with silver string at the Black Panther premiere in London last month, and wore a delicate gold headband around her show-stopping warrior-inspired 'do at the Hollywood premiere in January.

And natural hair played a major role in in Black Panther, too. " We were inspired by the women warriors of Senegal, the Himba from Namibia, the Ashanti tribe from Ghana, and the Zulu people, says Camille Friend, the film's hair department head told Teen Vogue. We used many authentic African hair styling techniques and products like mud, ties, grasses, and beads to create the world of Wakanda. In fact, Lupita wasn't the only Black Panther star to hit the red carpet with metallics in her hair: Co-star Danai Gurira showed up with a silver design pained on her head, channeling her Black Panther character Okoye.

After all, who needs jewelry when you've got a hairstyle that gives you all the glitz you could possibly need?

Related:Every Beauty Look Worth Copying from the Oscars

Check this out:How much has "Black Panther" made? After opening nationwide Friday, the numbers are already impressive  and on their way to breaking box-office records.

March 4th, 2018 update: How much has Black Panther made so far? Has the film broken records based on how much money its made? According to Deadline, when it comes to the money the movie has garnered worldwide, the Marvel film is about to make over $900 million. Specifically, Black Panther has brought in $897.7 million, globally. As for the money the film has made in North America, it comes out to $501.1 million, with $396.6 million internationally.

After much anticipation, Black Panther officially opened nationwide on Friday, and its already breaking box-office records. But exactly how much has Black Panther made so far? Were glad you asked.

On Friday alone, Black Panther made more than $76 million. That includes the $25 million or so it brought in during Thursday night previews. As of now, its anticipated the film will have the biggest February opening of all time, a distinction that currently belongs to Deadpool, which made $152 million in its opening weekend in February 2016.

Black Panther is also poised to have the sixth-best opening of all time, regardless of month, with an estimated $186 million box-office haul over three days, according to Deadline. The movie is expected to bring in more than $213 million by the end of Presidents Day on Monday.

The Marvel Studios movie follows King TChalla, aka Black Panther, as he returns home to the fictional African nation of Wakanda. When enemies threaten his sovereignty, TChalla must protect his home from potential war.

Of course, none of these box-office predictions are a total surprise. Weve been hyped about the movie since the trailer first dropped in June, and the buzz has only continued to grow since then.

Not to mention Black Panthers Rotten Tomatoes score was at 100% for weeks leading up to its release, and has since only dropped to 97%.

In addition to being part of the Marvel movie series, the film is being celebrated for its majority-black cast. The cast is seriously stacked, with Chadwick Boseman as TChalla, Lupita Nyongo, Michael B. Jordan, Letitia Wright, and Angela Bassett, just to name a few.

Story continues

Black Panther may even end up having the highest-selling weekend of any superhero movie, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Also impressive? The fans who have been dressing up in amazing costumes for the premiere. Tickets may be hard to score, but you can still celebrate the people of Wakanda in style.

And if you do happen to snag a ticket for opening weekend, be sure to stick around for the credits.The 2018 awards season started off with a red carpet blackout and culminated at tonight's Oscars with a powerful display of bold, GAF fashion. Instead of resting on their laurels, male attendees and nominees showed up with their clothes, their words, and yes, their lapel pins, playing the part of woke Hollywood stars with everything they had. In short, it was a very good year for suits. Velvet suits. Bright color suits. Suits made out of sustainable silk. Adam Rippon even wore a harness (though he didn't make it on this list, we applaud his bravery). Here, our favorite looks of the night.Of all the couples that walked the Oscars red carpet together on Sunday night, its likely none had the same symbolic significance as Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino. The actresses were among the earliest to come forward with their stories of being sexually harassed by Harvey Weinstein, bringing into stark relief the impact Weinstein had on their careers and on Hollywood at large. Sorvino, who won an Oscar in 1996 for the Weinstein-released Mighty Aphrodite, told The New Yorker she believed that, by turning down Weinsteins advances, he had actively discouraged other filmmakers from working with her. Judd, who spoke to The New York Times for the first blockbuster story about Weinstein, said at the time, Women have been talking about Harvey amongst ourselves for a long time, and its simply beyond time to have the conversation publicly. (Weinstein has denied all allegations of nonconsensual sex.)

In December, Peter Jackson told New Zealands Stuff that executives at Miramax told him about both Judd and Sorvino, they were a nightmare to work with and we should avoid them at all costs. This was probably in 1998. At the time, we had no reason to question what these guys were telling usbut in hindsight, I realize that this was very likely the Miramax smear campaign in full swing. I now suspect we were fed false information about both of these talented womenand as a direct result their names were removed from our casting list.

Sorvino tweeted an emotional response to Jacksons revelation:

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Speaking to Vanity Fairs Krista Smith on the red carpet, Judd and Sorvino spoke about the goals of the Times Up movement: I want people to know that this movement isnt stopping, were going forward until we have an equitable and safe world for women, Sorvino said:

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

During the ceremony, Judd will present an award alongside two other women who have accused Weinstein: Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek. As Rebecca Keegan reported from the Oscars rehearsals, Sciorrawho claimed to The New Yorker that Weinstein raped her, and that her career suffered as a resultseemed visibly overwhelmed to be onstage.

Story continues

Though the Times Up movement, which announced its presence forcefully with pins and an all-black dress code at the Golden Globes, announced it planned to look beyond the red carpet in its activism, Judd and Sorvinos united presence was a reminder of how striking, and symbolic, a red carpet appearance can be.

Oscars 2018: All the Red Carpet Looks

Jennifer Lawrence By Chelsea Lauren/REX/Shutterstock.

Greta Gerwig By Kevin Mazur/WireImage.

Margot Robbie By David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock.

Timothee Chalamet By Steve Granitz/WireImage.

Lupita Nyongo By Kevin Mazur/WireImage.

Chelsea Peretti and Jordan Peele By Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Viola Davis By David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock.

Allison Janney By David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock.

Elisabeth Moss By David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock.

Sam Rockwell and Leslie Bibb By Kevin Mazur/WireImage.

Rita Moreno By Kevin Mazur/Getty Images.

Kelly Marie Tran By Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Allison Williams By David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock.

Beanie Feldstein By David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock.

Betty Gabriel By Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic.

Zendaya By Kevin Mazur/Getty Images.

Tom Holland By David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock.

Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos By Chelsea Lauren/REX/Shutterstock.

Janet Mock By Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Michael Stuhlbarg By Valerie Macon/AFP/Getty Images.

Darrell Britt-Gibson By Steve Granitz/WireImage.

Zooey Deutch By David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock.

Jane Fonda By David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock.

Eva Marie Saint By Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Adam Rippon and Mirai Nagasu By Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Eiza Gonzalez By Kevin Mazur/WireImage.

Lindsey Vonn By Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Giuliana Rancic By Kevin Mazur/WireImage.

Salma Hayek By David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock.

Mary J. Blige By Steve Granitz/WireImage.

Helen Mirren By Kevin Mazur/WireImage.

Gina Rodriguez By Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP.

Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon ByKevin Mazur/WireImage.

Lin-Manuel Miranda By Steve Granitz/WireImage.

St. Vincent By Steve Granitz/WireImage.

Daniel Kaluuya By Kevin Mazur/WireImage.

Taraji P. Henson By David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock.

Chadwick Boseman By Kevin Mazur/Getty Images.

Jennifer Garner By Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Armie Hammer By Kevin Mazur/WireImage.Gusting winds made crew and passengers of United Airlines flight throw up. (Photo: Getty)

Flying can be an unpleasant experience, with long waits, delays, and of course turbulence. Its no wonder that many people dread getting on a plane. But after a particularly turbulent flight to Washington, D.C., a group of United Airlines passengers seem to be still recovering from the flight where everyone threw up.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

The flight departed from Charlottesville, Va., en route to Washington Dulles International Airport and faced winds gusting at more than 70 miles per hour, which caused a rough landing because of the storm. The extreme bumpiness of the flight, thanks to the particularly nasty storm, gave passengers and crew an upset stomach.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

In the pilots report to the Aviation Weather Center, he wrote, VERY BUMPY ON DESCENT. PRETTY MUCH EVERY ONE ON THE PLANE THREW UP. PILOTS WERE ON THE VERGE OF THROWING UP.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

United Airlines released a statement saying that the passengers from the Friday morning flight did not require medical attention.

Air Wisconsin Flight 3833 operating as United Express from Charlottesville, Va. to Washington Dulles International encountered turbulence because of high winds, United said in a statement. A few customers onboard the regional jet became ill as the aircraft was preparing to land. The aircraft landed safely and taxied to its gate. No customers required medical attention because of the turbulence.

It is unknown how many passengers were in the aircraft, but according to Air Wisconsins website, the aircraft was a Bombardier CRJ200 with a passenger capacity of 50 and a crew of three.

Perhaps it was the small size of the jet that caused it to be rocked especially hard by the storm.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

The noreaster slamming the East Coast has caused thousands of flights to be canceled across the country. To avoid a similar incident, were thinking that next time, delaying the trip might not be such a bad thing.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.



Sixth-grade student Diamond Johnson was suspended from school for unknowingly eating a cookie laced with pot. (Photo: WSBTV)

A sixth grader who was hospitalized for unknowingly eating a baked good laced with marijuana has been suspended from school.

On Friday, after eating a cookie given to her by a female classmate, 11-year-old Diamond Brooks, a student at Columbia Middle School in Decatur, Ga., felt disoriented and had weakened vision.

I didnt pay attention when I was getting it, so I just got it and ate it, Diamond, whose family Yahoo Lifestyle could not reach for comment, told Atlanta local news station WSB-TV. If she told me what was in it, I never would have got it from her.

The school sent Diamond to the hospital, where doctors said she had consumed marijuana. The DeKalb County School District is conducting an investigation, but in the meantime, Diamond is suspended for five days, a punishment that her father claims is unfair.

She didnt know what it was. She didnt intentionally do no drugs, Gary Johnson told the station. He added, When you spike somebodys drink, they dont know, so they are supposed to get punished for what happened? That dont make sense.

The school said it would send Yahoo Lifestyle a comment but has not yet done so; however, on Friday, it told WSB-TV, The student ingested a dessert, but it cannot confirm if it was laced with a drug. Our investigation will shed more light on what occurred.

Consuming marijuana in the form of edibles such as pot brownies can deliver a more powerful high than from smoking the drug. (Photo: Getty Images)

Marijuana contains a chemical called tetrahydrocannabinol, aka THC, which provides that mind-altering buzz. According to LiveScience, the brain houses cannabinoid receptors in areas associated with thinking, memory, pleasure, and coordination. When TCH is smoked or otherwise consumed, it fastens to the receptors and affects how a person thinks, feels, and moves.

THC releases a euphoric neurotransmitter called dopamine, making the user feel giddy. But it can also cause anxiety, forgetfulness, and impaired motor skills, affecting actions such as driving. According to Childrens Hospital Colorado, due to a childs height and weight, its easier to overdose on marijuana, and as a result, most need to be hospitalized, although the long-term effects are unknown.

Story continues

Its surprisingly common for kids to accidentally get high from pot-laced desserts. In January, Newsweek reported that a 9-year-old from Albuquerque brought gummy bears to school to share with her three friends, not knowing that the sweets (which she took from her grandfather) contained THC. All four children required medical treatment after reporting blurred vision and dizziness.

In May 2016, two high school students were hospitalized after purchasing pot-laced brownies from a classmate, causing one to have a laugh attack and increased heart rate, which doctors said could have resulted in a stroke. And in 2013, seven children between 10 and 12 years old experienced vomiting and difficulty breathing after unknowingly consuming a brownie baked with pot.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the amount of THC in edibles, food cooked or ingested with the chemical, is estimated to be much higher than in a traditional joint and therefore poses more dangers. After one consumes an edible, it can take anywhere from 30 minutes to two hours to feel the effects, a wide and dangerous time gap that can cause one to eat more to obtain a high.

Its also harder to monitor the potency of, say, a sheet of pot brownies than a single joint. For example, in states where recreational marijuana use is legal, one cookie or brownie might contain multiple servings in the product or package, per the CDC website. That means a single marijuana cookie or brownie, or any other marijuana edible, might contain as much as 100 mg of THC. So if someone ate an entire cookie or brownie  each one a single serving  it would be like taking many hits of a marijuana cigarette at one time.

One study from the University of Colorado that observed an increase in unintentional consumption of pot-laced edibles after the state legalized pot found that kids were eating stuff their parents had left lying around. The caretakers were leaving these in plain sight of children and outside of child-safe packaging, study author Genie Roosevelt, MD, told CBS News. Wed like people to think of these products as medication. Stored out of sight and away from children, like your aunts diabetic medication. We need to make that cultural leap.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.



Paris (AFP) - The success of the anti-immigrant League party and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy's general election is the latest in a series of blows to the political establishment around the democratic world.

Over the past two years voters in the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Austria have all challenged the political status quo:

- Britain: Brexit -

In June 2016 Britain's voters defied polls and much of the political and media elite in voting by a majority of 52 percent to quit the European Union.

Populist Nigel Farage led the anti-EU UK Independence Party into the bitter campaign, becoming the face of a movement to "take back control" of Britain's borders and immigration policy.

Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron, who initiated the referendum and campaigned for his country to remain in the bloc, stepped down. He was replaced by Theresa May, who then went on to lose her parliamentary majority in snap elections in June 2017.

Her government remains deeply divided over its Brexit strategy, due to culminate with Britain's departure from the EU on March 29, 2019. Her ministers, as well as those in the opposition Labour Party, are at odds over what level of relationship to maintain with the EU after the divorce.

- US: Trump -

Despite never having held public office, billionaire Donald Trump won the US election in November 2016 after one of most bitter campaigns in memory.

He defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton and stirred deep divisions within his own Republican party.

Trump's pledge to "Make America Great Again" and restore jobs to middle- and working-class Americans won him support among non-college-educated white voters.

He insulted Hispanics, Muslims and women, promising to protect domestic production against foreign trade and to put national interests over international agreements.

- France: Macron -

In May 2017 pro-EU centrist Emmanuel Macron, then 39, beat far-right rival Marine Le Pen in France's presidential election.

Story continues

France's parliament underwent a transformation with Macron's En Marche party wresting hundreds of seats from the left and right.

Unknown to the public three years ago, Macron says the En Marche movement which he founded is "neither of the right, nor the left".

His rise ended decades of government by the Socialists and the centre-right party now known as the Republicans.

- Austria: far right -

In the April 2016 presidential election the candidates of Austria's two main parties -- the centre-left Social Democrats (SPOe) and the conservative People's Party (OeVP) -- were eliminated in the first round.

Green candidate Alexander Van der Bellen narrowly won the run-off against Norbert Hofer of the eurosceptic and anti-immigrant Freedom Party (FPOe). He won again when the election was re-run due to procedural irregularities.

The FPOe, one of Europe's most established nationalist parties, was founded in 1956 by ex-Nazis.

It came third in 2017 legislative elections, and entered the coalition government of the OeVP's Sebastien Kurz.

The FPOe provided six ministers, including the interior, defence and foreign affairs portfolios.

- Germany: immigration backlash -

The September 2017 elections were a setback for the two traditional parties -- Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU and the Social Democrats (SPD).

Both sides had been weakened by voter anger about the arrival of more than a million asylum seekers in Germany since 2015.

The far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) made a historic entrance to parliament, winning nearly 13 percent of the vote.

In early March, 2018, the CDU and the SPD renewed their coalition partnership, ending a political impasse that had plagued the country since September's inconclusive election.Actress Amber Tamblyn faces backlash after Tweeting that Hasidic Jews in New York City are targeting her.

The former Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants star wrote Sunday that a Hasidic man in a van attempted to hit her in Brooklyn as she pushed her baby in a stroller.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

But it was her follow-up post that sparked the controversy. Tamblyn wrote that this is not the first time a man from the Hasidic community in NYC has attempted to harm me or other women I know. Any woman riding a bike through South Williamsburg can attest.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

While some people on Twitter agreed with her, others interpreted her complaint as an unnecessary generalized attack on Hasidic Jews.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Neither Tamblyn nor a rep immediately responded to HuffPosts requests for comment.

The actress defended herself in a tweet of support to a man who said that he, too, had been targeted by Hasidic Jews. Tamblyn, whose husband, actor David Cross, was raised Jewish, wrote she will not be bullied or intimidated by anyone who wants to twist my words.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

HuffPost wasnt able to immediately get word from the NYPD on whether Tamblyn had filed a complaint about the van driver.

H/T Page Six

Also on HuffPost

Satmar Hasidim

In this Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2013 photo, Ultra-Orthodox Jews gather for traditional Jewish wedding of the granddaughter of Satmar Rebbe of Williamsburg, Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum, in the Israeli town of Beit Shemesh, near Jerusalem, Israel. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Chabad Hasidim

In this photo provided by Chabad.org, Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis reflect at the grave site of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, who died in 1994, in the Queens borough of New York on Friday, Nov. 25, 2011. The rabbis were among nearly 4,000 rabbis from around the world in New York for the International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries, an annual event aimed at reviving Jewish awareness and practice around the world. (AP Photo/Chabad.org, Jonathan Alpeyrie)

Breslov Hasidim

Ultra-Orthodox Jews of the Bratslav Hasidic sect, dance as they celebrate at Yad Mordechai, in southern Israel close to the Israel Gaza Strip Border, Thursday, Nov. 22, 2012. A cease-fire agreement between Israel and the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers took effect Wednesday night, bringing an end to eight days of the fiercest fighting in years and possibly signaling a new era of relations between the bitter enemies. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

German Orthodox Jew

A wearing a kippah sits in a bench prior to a ceremony to ordain four rabbis at the Synagogue in Cologne, western Germany, on September 13, 2012. The ordination of the four rabbis will be attended by German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and the president of the World Jewish Congress Ronald Lauder amid a furious debate in Germany over the legality of circumcision. (PATRIK STOLLARZ/AFP/GettyImages)

Satmar Hasidim

Woman looks on as Ultra Orthodox Jews belonging to the Satmar Hasidic group headed by Satmar Rebbe of Williamsburg, Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum, gather in the conservative Mea Shearim neighbourhood of Jerusalem on January 20, 2013, two days before nationwide voting for the general election gets underway on January 22. (MARCO LONGARI/AFP/Getty Images)

Haredi Boy

In this photo provided by VosIzNeias.com, Ultra-Orthodox Jews who believe that the Internet threatens their way of life fill New York's Citi Field for an unprecedented gathering on how to use modern technology in a religiously appropriate way, Sunday, May 20, 2012, in New York. (AP Photo/VosIzNeias.com) MANDATORY CREDIT

Modern Orthodox Jews

House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., talks with Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, director Straus Center of Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University, during a recess of the committee's hearing: "Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion & Freedom of Conscience," Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Religious Jews

Religious Jewish men dance with others, while a few hold up Torah scrolls during the celebration of Simhat Torah in Kfar Chabad, Israel, Monday, Oct. 8, 2012. Simhat Torah commemorates the end of the annual cycle of the reading of the entire Torah and the beginning of the next cycle of rereading it. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Haredi Jew

In this photo taken Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011, an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man reads pashkevilim, posters used to publicize news and important messages in the ultra-Orthodox community, in Jerusalem's religious Mea Shearim neighborhood. An ultra-Orthodox collector has teamed up with Israel's National Library to bring this old-fashioned form of communication into the 21st century by scanning more than 20,000 of the posters into a digital online archive. The project offers a glimpse into one of the main media used by a group trying to hold the line against the march of modernity. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Orthodox Jewish Settler

An Israeli Jewish settler women leaves a polling station after casting her vote in the West Bank town of Hebron, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013. Israelis began trickling into polling stations Tuesday morning to cast their votes in a parliamentary election expected to return Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to office despite years of stalled peacemaking with the Palestinians and mounting economic troubles. Polls indicate about a dozen of 32 parties competing in Tuesday's election have a chance of winning seats in the 120-member parliament. Most parties fall either into the right-wing-religious or center-left camp, and surveys indicate hard-line and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties will command a majority. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)

Jewish Women

Jewish women pray inside the Tomb of the Patriarchs also known as the Ibrahim Mosque, a shrine holy to Muslims and Jews, in West Bank town of Hebron on Sept. 27, 2010. (Daniel Bar-On/AFP/Getty Images)

Breslov Hasidim

Ultra-orthodox Jews play the drums and sing for Israeli soldiers, near Kibbutz Yad Mordechay in southern Israel, Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Ultra Orthodox Jews dance as they celebrate the holiday of Sukkot at a yeshiva in the Ultra Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, Monday, Oct. 1, 2012. (AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner)

Jewish Woman

Jewish woman prays at the Western wall in Jerusalem.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.David Hutt

Economics, Asia

The president may finally be sold on the merits of the deal.

Is America Getting Ready to Rejoin the TPP?

The United States has thrown a spanner into the works of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the successor multilateral trade agreement to the once US-backed TPP. The liberalizing pact is expected to be formally signed this week without America.

In January 2017, US President Donald Trump derailed the original pact when he withdrew America on his first day in office. On an America First campaign trail, Trump referred to the free trade deal  initiated by then President Barack Obama as the economic plank of his pivot to Asia policy  as the rape of our country.

After one year in office, however, Trump has said he might be interested in rejoining the revised pact after all.

Speaking on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in January, Trump was clear on what could tempt him to reconsider joining the pact. I would do TPP if we were able to make a substantially better deal. The deal was terrible; the way it was structured was terrible, he said, without elaborating.

Recommended: America Has Military Options for North Korea (but They're All Bad)

Recommended: 1,700 Planes Ready for War: Everything You Need To Know About China's Air Force

Recommended: Stealth vs. North Koreas Air Defenses: Who Wins?

In late February, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced during an investment summit organized by the US Chamber of Commerce: Ive met with several of my counter-parties and other people, and weve begun to have very high-level conversations about TPP. He said renegotiating the trade agreement was again on the table.

Americas renewed interest in the pact comes as Trump moves to impose new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, a lurch towards protectionism many analysts view as a first trade war salvo towards China, although Chinese products represent a mere 2% of USs total steel imports.

Story continues

China has nonetheless threatened retaliation, as has Canada and the European Union.

Those bubbling tensions may also explain Trumps renewed interest in the CPTPP as the deal was always an attempt to exclude China from preferential regional trade, says Sophal Ear, associate professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College at Los Angeles.

Its not immediately clear how Trumps flip-flop on the pact would hurt him politically after rising to power on a nationalistic platform that questioned the benefits of free trade on the American working class. His presidential candidate rival, Hillary Clinton of the Democrat Party, also opposed TPP.

The pacts Pacific signatories, especially the four Southeast Asian participants  Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam  would no doubt warmly welcome Americas return. The CPTPPs other signatories are Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand and Peru.

The inclusion of the largest economy in the world in the trade pact will greatly boost the its clout, and [boost] trade and investment gains that the other smaller members are looking for, says Yeah Kim Leng, professor of economics at Malaysias Sunway University Business School.

Americas participation meant the TPP-12, as the original pact is now known, would have accounted for almost 40% of the worlds gross domestic product (GDP) and about 30% of all global trade. Without the US, the CPTPP now only accounts for 14% of global GDP and a little over 16% of global trade.

Expectations were that the original TPP-12 would have boosted Vietnam and Malaysias GDPs by around 8%. Without American participation, the revised pact will only augment them by 2.2% and 3.1% respectively, media reports said.

In January, the 11 remaining nations agreed in principle to the CPTPP and its final version, which is largely the same as the TPP-12 but with the removal or suspension of a few dozen provisions, mostly on intellectual property (IP) protections that included patent regulations on pharmaceutical products that particularly irked some Southeast Asian nations.

However, the revised CPTPP retains strict requirements for labor rights and environmental protection, as well as tougher government procurement procedures for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) that aim to create a more level playing field for private firms which will particularly affect Malaysia and Vietnam.

The pact is expected to be officially signed on March 8 and its highly unlikely that Americas renewed interest in the deal will delay the ceremony. But Trump has made clear that he would only rejoin if further significant changes are made that benefit America.

Some analysts think the CPTPPs suspension of certain provisions found in the TPP-12, chiefly about intellectual property which Washington lobbied hard to include in the original document, would possibly be reinstated if America decides to rejoin.

Whether these would be enough for Trump is yet to be seen. Chilean President Michelle Bachelet told the Nikkei Asian Review in late February that the CPTPPs members would welcome the US return but Washington would have to accept the revised agreements terms.

It is probably not acceptable to try to start all over again from zero, Bachelet said, given that the CPTPPs 11 members had worked for almost a year on the revised agreement. But restarting those negotiations isnt completely out of the question considering the heft of Americas markets.

The attraction of TPP was Japan and the US as anchors to the deal. Without the US, or with the US under Trump, theres really no telling what the deal would mean, says Sophal Ear, associate professor of diplomacy and world affairs at Occidental College at Los Angeles. If youve seen Trump in meetings, its not clear what he wants or even knows what he wants.

But what is becoming clear is that Americas renewed interest in the pact is not simply down to economics.

Mohd Nazari Ismail, a professor of business and economy at the University of Malaya, says its quite obvious that Trump is now rethinking the CPTPP because he realizes that [Americas] absence from the TPP will mean China will be more influential in the future.

Vietnam shows how strategic assurances alone arent enough to counterbalance Chinas growing hegemony in the region. Hanoi has enjoyed close ties to Trumps White House, with military co-operation between the two nations as strong as it has been for years.

At the same time, analysts say that unless strategic relations also have an economic cornerstone, Southeast Asian nations will quickly fall into Chinas orbit, especially given the exorbitant funds Beijing is offering up under the US$1 trillion One Belt, One Road initiative.

As Vietnamese, we are always trying to find a way to balance Chinas powerFor us, TPP isnt just an economic issue. Its also about geopolitics and social issues, Nguyen Ngoc Anh, a professor at the Foreign Trade University in Hanoi, said in a media report last year.

After Trump withdrew America from the TPP-12 early last year, the baton was taken up by Japan, which has always been the agreements biggest advocate after the US, in large part to counterbalance Chinas rising economic influence in the region.

Japans lurking fear is that pan-Asianism excluding the United States could push America to be further inward-looking, Yoichi Funabashi, chairman of Asia Pacific Initiative, a Tokyo-based think tank, wrote in media last month. Deeper US engagement in Asia is indispensable to balance China. TPP desperately needs the US market to have strategic significance.

Another possible Trump realization is that in the coming years the current CPTPPs signatories might not be as desperate for American participation as they seem to be now.

In recent months, there has been renewed speculation that the CPTPP could soon be joined by the likes of Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as Taiwan and South Korea.

Peterson Institute for International Economics, a US-based think tank, contends that if these five nations join the CPTPP, creating a possible CPTPP-16, it would boost their collective economic gain from trade and rising incomes by US$486 billion by 2030  more than expected gains of the TPP-12.

This article originally appeared on Asia Times.

Image: Reuters

Read full article(An American Express credit card is seen on a computer keyboard in this picture illustration taken September 6, 2017. REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer/Illustration)

If youre used to hearing no from small businesses when you ask do you take American Express? you may soon be in for a surprise.

An agreement has been reached with the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB) and Chase Merchant Services that will lower American Express fees for member businesses.

Notorious for having high interchange fees, Amex charges stores who accept their cards a fee of between 3 and 3.5 per cent on every customer transaction with the card. Visa and Mastercard charge an average of 1.5 per cent for non-premium cards.

Many of our members could see significant savings with the new offer, for some this could represent a rate reduction of almost 50 per cent, said CFIB President and CEO Dan Kelly in a press release. This will benefit CFIB members by lowering the cost of offering Amex as a payment option, while ultimately providing value to consumers with greater access and payment choice.

Its a huge win for small businesses who deal with these fees. Large companies are in a better position to negotiate with the credit card companies for better rates. The most notable and public example of this took place in 2016, when Walmart temporarily stopped accepting Visa credit cards in a dispute with the company over fees.

But without the clout of a multi-million dollar corporation, most small businesses are left paying the fees as they are. In 2011, a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of small business owners, seeking to reduce the fees paid by businesses for accepting cards.

Some work has been done by the credit card companies themselves  Visa and MasterCard, in a 2014 deal with the Canadian government, agreed to voluntarily reduce the fees on their cards for five years, bringing them to their current rates.

And Amex has been actively involved in the reduction of rates through the CFIB-Chase deal.

This is part of our ongoing commitment to the small business community, designed to make it easier for them to do business with us by enabling acquirers like Chase to provide payment processing, servicing and pricing to small merchants, said Kerri-Ann Santaguida, Vice-President & General Manager, Merchant Services, American Express Canada in a press release.

Story continues

However the solution is limited, as it only applies to CFIB members, and those who adopt Chase payment systems. And it doesnt fix the fact that Canadas interchange fees remain high compared to other countries. In Britain, for example, interchange fees are capped at 0.3 per cent, according to The Globe and Mail.

The Retail Council of Canada has said that it is waiting for a national strategy to better manage interchange fees from credit card companies. Finance Minister Bill Morneau has previously said that hell be looking into credit card fees, however there was no mention in the most recent budget of any national strategy.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.Sarajevo (AFP) - Eli Tauber, a pillar of Sarajevo's Jewish community, waited anxiously for worshippers to arrive at the synagogue as there must be at least 10 men present before starting the Sabbath prayers.

To the historian's great relief 11 men and a woman, most of them elderly, turned up for the service led by a local man who represents the Jews on Bosnia's ecumenical council.

The rabbi lives in Israel and only comes to Sarajevo for the Jewish Passover and New Year holidays.

No more than 800 Jews still live in the Bosnian capital, according to their community's 74-year-old leader, Jakob Finci.

Before World War II they numbered around 12,500, accounting for 15 to 20 percent of the city's population, but many were killed during the Holocaust.

Still Jews remain part of the multi-cultural and religious identity of Sarajevo alongside Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats and Bosnian Muslims.

The symbol of the story of Bosnia's Jews is a 14th-century treasure -- the famous Sarajevo Haggadah holy book, containing the biblical text of Exodus read by Jews at Passover.

The ancient manuscript on bleached calfskin, illuminated in copper and gold, has been on permanent display at Bosnia's National Museum since last month.

- Flames of the Inquisition -

The ancestors of Sarajevo Jews first found refuge in Bosnia, then part of the Ottoman Empire, after being expelled from Spain by the Roman Catholic royals in 1492.

The Haggadah came with the Sephardic Jews fleeing Spain, originating most likely from the region near Barcelona. According to Tauber, it was brought to Sarajevo in the 17th century, escaping the flames of the Inquisition.

Then in the late 19th century a Jewish family in financial difficulty sold the holy book to the national museum.

During World War II, Sarajevo was terrorised by the Ustasha, Croat allies of the German Nazis who controlled Bosnia.

When a German officer came to the museum to seek the Haggadah, "its director Jozo Petrovic, a clever man, replied that another officer took it away the day before," historian Enver Imamovic, 77, told AFP.

Story continues

The Haggadah had been hidden from the Nazis under the threshold of a mountain hut near Sarajevo.

The city's Jews however were rounded up and grouped in the synagogues "before being transported to the concentration camps," said Zanka Dodig, curator at the Jewish Museum housed in Sarajevo's oldest synagogue.

The names of some 12,000 Jews who never returned are listed in a large book hanging on a rope from the ceiling of the Great Temple, the synagogue constructed in 1581 next to the city's famous Bey's Mosque.

After surviving centuries of turmoil, the Haggadah was stolen by an indebted national museum employee in 1954, but the medieval treasure was recovered "on the border with Italy," Imamovic said.

In June 1992 during the Bosnian war following the break-up of Yugoslavia, when Serbs began shelling Sarajevo in a three-and-half-year-long siege, Imamovic took the Haggadah and put it in a safe at the national bank.

When the conflict ended in 1995, the Haggadah was put on display only on special occasions.

But now, a secured and air-conditioned showcase financed by the French government has put the holy book on permanent display.

- 'A good sign' -

Yugoslav Nobel literature laureate Ivo Andric famously wrote that Bosnia, "where four different religions live close to each other, would need four times more love, mutual understanding and tolerance than other countries."

That dream has rarely been the reality, but Sarajevo Jews still express optimism.

"I really consider Sarajevo a Jewish city since the Jews found some peace here," Tauber said.

The doors of the four-tower Ashkenazi Synagogue, built in 1902 on the banks of the Miljacka river are "always open... No one asks for an identity card, unlike (synagogues) in Zagreb or Belgrade," he said.

Although few worshippers can be found at services, community leader Finci wants to believe that the history of Sarajevo Jews will go on.

Admittedly, he said, "for the first time in more than 450 years, there are fewer than 1,000 Jews in Sarajevo."

During Bosnia's inter-ethnic war, in the 1990s, two-thirds of the estimated 1,500 Jews fled the country.

But 40 percent of those have since returned and there are no more departures, Finci noted.

"In 2016, there were 12 newborns, in 2017 a little less, but it's a good sign."By Alexis Akwagyiram LAGOS (Reuters) - When Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari took office three years ago, eradicating the "mindless, godless" militants of Boko Haram and rescuing the hundreds of women and children they held captive was one of the main pledges in his inaugural address. Another mass abduction of schoolgirls in the dusty and remote northeast has exposed how little progress has been made. It also shows that security is a major weakness for the former military ruler with less than a year to go before elections which he is widely expected to contest. The kidnap of the 110 girls, mostly aged 11-19, in the town of Dapchi almost two weeks ago bears uncomfortable similarities to Boko Haram's 2014 abduction of more than 270 schoolgirls from Chibok, less than 300 km (180 miles) away. That case drew global attention to the jihadist group, which has sought to create an Islamic caliphate in Nigeria's northeast. Then-President Goodluck Jonathan's listless response helped Buhari to win the presidency a year later with vows to eliminate the militants. "The Chibok girls' kidnapping came to symbolize all that was wrong with Goodluck Jonathan's administration, and the danger Buhari faces is that this mass abduction could do the same to him," said Antony Goldman, of Nigeria-focused PM Consulting. Buhari has declared the Dapchi abduction a "national disaster". He sent troops to help with the search, and the head of the air force has temporarily relocated to the region and directed more than 100 reconnaissance sorties. A series of administrative missteps has exposed what critics say is a lack of co-ordination between Nigeria's various security agencies and state governments, however, and there are no signs authorities are making progress in finding the girls. Dapchi residents celebrated in the streets after the state governor said the military had rescued almost all of the girls three days after they were taken. A day later, his spokesman was forced to rescind the statement and apologize. The army and police have also traded blame over the security arrangements in place when the attack happened, prompting questions about their ability to fight an insurgency which Buhari had repeatedly said was defeated. "The (federal government) should stop lying concerning the fight against Boko Haram," said Peter Fayose, a member of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and governor of the southern state of Ekiti. "It has now become the tradition that whenever the government boasts of defeating the insurgents, greater havoc is wrecked on the country," he wrote on Twitter. CONCERN IN RULING PARTY Buhari, 75, has not yet said whether he will seek a second term in the Feb. 16, 2019, vote. Senior members of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) have said they would support his re-election. But three APC sources told Reuters some in the party were concerned that if the Dapchi girls are not found quickly, the kidnappings could be used to undermine Buhari, just as his supporters used the Chibok attack to mobilize against Jonathan. A spokesman for Buhari declined to comment on whether he would seek re-election next year or heed opposition calls for him to visit Dapchi. Buhari, a Muslim, is from the state of Katsina directly north of the capital, Abuja, and the north formed the core of his support in the 2015 election. Of 491,767 votes cast in nearby Yobe state in the northeast, where Dapchi is located, 446,265 went to Buhari. His support there appears to be holding up for now. "Nothing has changed my mind about supporting Buhari because I have faith in him that he's working tirelessly to see the situation is under control," said Kachallah Gumbam, a data processing officer who lives in the town. A rise in abductions and suicide attacks in one of Nigeria's poorest regions risks changing that picture if it is not brought under control, according to Malte Liewerscheidt at risk consultancy Teneo Intelligence. "The ongoing Boko Haram crisis has the potential to alienate the president's core constituency in the northeast, as putting an end to the conflict was one of Buhari's main campaign pledges in 2015," he wrote in a research note. SWING STATES The northeastern insurgency is just one of a series of security challenges which have plagued Buhari's administration. Militant attacks in the Niger Delta oil hub helped push Africa's biggest economy into recession under Buhari, although they have largely died down for now. But the Dapchi kidnappings came hot on the heels of resurgent communal violence in central states known as the "Middle Belt" between semi-nomadic herdsmen and farmers. Those clashes have killed more than 100 people this year. Buhari's opponents say he has failed to crack down on the herdsmen because they are from his Fulani ethnic group, an accusation which the presidency has strongly denied. He has deployed troops to the region. Should Buhari decide to run for re-election, any drop in support in his northern bastions combined with a weaker showing in the Middle Belt, where presidential races have traditionally been tighter, could prove to be damaging. "The escalating herder-settler conflict in about a dozen states across the so-called Middle Belt has the potential to affect the vote in crucial 'swing states'," said Liewerscheidt. For Bukky Shonibare, an activist with the "Bring Back Our Girls" campaign group set up to raise awareness about the Chibok kidnapping, history is repeating itself. Buhari's government should have learned from the mistakes made by the previous administration over the 2014 mass abduction, she told Reuters, by putting better security measures in place and communicating more quickly in the aftermath. "When you look at the response it's been very disappointing, short of what you would expect from a government that had a script," Shonibare said. "(They had) four years to prevent an occurrence like Chibok. Yet four years later, we still have Dapchi." (Additional reporting by Ahmed Kingimi and Afolabi Sotunde in Dapchi, Camillus Eboh and Felix Onuah in Abuja, Ola Lanre in Maiduguiri and Katharine Houreld in Nairobi; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Sonya Hepinstall)White House Counselor Kellyanne Conways gaffes may be well documented, but they are not entirely her fault according to New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who said there were people inside the White House trying to hurt her.

Speaking in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday, the former New Jersey governor suggested that figures within Trumps White House were working against the embattled counsellor.

She has this unique position that shes earned, Christie said.

Trending: Buddhist Group Admits 'Abhorrent Sexual Behavior' by Teachers

Shes gotten a bad rap at times, but I think thats because of some of the really awful people inside the White House who have been trying to hurt her, as opposed to anything the press came up with on its own, he added.

Conways on-screen errors have included her mentioning the non-existent Bowling Green massacre.

Despite this, Christie insisted the counselor was skilled in making television appearances.

Don't miss: Spotify: Using Hacked Apps to Get Free Music Will Result in Account Ban

I think that she is the presidents political adviser and she is someone who is very skilled on television. Shes unique in the White House in someone who can give him both political and policy advice, he said.

Christies comments come following Conways revelation that she has previously been offered the White House communications director role, which has just been vacated by President Donald Trumps longstanding aide Hope Hicks.

Despite the multiple offers she said she had received, Conway said she would be remaining as a counselor and would not take the position as White House communications director.

"Ive been offered that job many times and no, I work on policy here at the White House," Conway said in an interview with Fox and Friends, also suggesting that Hicks would likely be back in this orbit to help the president and his team in future.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from Newsweek Jim DeMint explains how "core of conservatism" at core of South Carolina's leadership on criminal justice reform | Main | "Sixth Amendment Sentencing after Hurst" 

March 4, 2018

Noting lengthy struggles in California over the definition of a violent crime

Federal sentencing practitioner know all too well how hard it can be to clearly define what offenses qualify as a "crime of violence" or a violent felony. And while the federal jurisprudence over this issue can be hellish, states can struggle with similar issues in various contexts. This new Los Angeles Times article, headlined "How a list of 23 crimes now dominates California's debate over prison punishment," explains:

Consider the last two years of debate over what should, and should not, be a "violent" crime. That debate begins with the index of crimes in section 667.5 of the California Penal Code. The list was first enacted in 1976, and has been tinkered with so many times it's hard to say whether it's a fair representation of the most heinous crimes. Here's why that matters: The list is now a key part of determining which California prison inmates are eligible for early parole under Gov. Jerry Brown's 2016 ballot measure, Proposition 57. A legal fight over how to interpret the ballot measure could become a potent political issue. Brown signed the law creating the original list of violent crimes during his first tour of duty as governor. It's since been amended or expanded 38 times, the last effort in 2014. Eight specific offenses or crime categories were in the original version. Now, there are 23 crimes. The list almost doubled in size in just the five years between 1988 and 1993. So what's included? Some violent crimes are relatively straightforward  murder, attempted murder, voluntary manslaughter, robbery, kidnapping. (Kidnapping, interestingly, was dropped from the list in 1977 with no noteworthy explanation and added back in 1991.) Some additions, like the inclusion of carjacking in 1993, were sparked by news events. A prosecutor told The Times that year that classifying the crime as "violent" would give "local district attorneys another weapon in their arsenal to attack this epidemic." Voters opted to tweak the law twice, making substantial changes that weren't well publicized in those elections. Proposition 21 in 2000 removed the long-standing focus on specific kinds of robberies  those in someone's home and involving a "deadly or dangerous weapon"  and instead made "any robbery" a violent crime. In 2006, voters added more definitions of sex crimes. And yet other crimes have long been sliced relatively thin. Only specific circumstances in the case of rape or first-degree burglary are on the list of violent crimes. It's doubtful, as a result, that the 23 offenses cover everything the average Californian would think of as being "violent." This might not be a pressing issue if not for the changes brought on by Brown's 2016 ballot measure, which expanded parole opportunities to those serving time for a "nonviolent felony offense." That phrase is brand new, and Proposition 57 placed the term in the California Constitution. It's unclear, though, whether "nonviolent felony offense" is just another way of saying any crime that's not on the list of violent crimes. A Sacramento Superior Court judge last month rejected that idea. At the same time, the judge ruled that some convicted sex offenders  who the Brown administration has deemed ineligible under Proposition 57  should be considered for release because they weren't convicted of one of the 23 crimes. Judge Allen Sumner's ruling seemed to hint that current law is full of knots crying out to be untangled. He wrote that "it is by no means clear what the voters understood, or intended, the term 'nonviolent' to mean."

Some prior related posts:

March 4, 2018 at 11:08 PM | Permalink

Comments

Why not keep it simple, use the legal definition of "Assault?" Intent, apprehension or fear in the victim, ability to carry out physical harm at the time of the crime. That excludes verbal threats without ability to do physical harm at the time of the threat. Let the trier of fact decide the presence of apprehension, perhaps even based on victim testimony. I mean testimony, not cry baby attestation without cross examination.

The question is not full of knots, not even to a Life Skills student learning to eat with a spoon, but only to lawyers.

California is the most over-lawyered state. This false controversy, these bullshit questions, are to generate worthless appellate advocacy jobs.



Posted by: David Behar | Mar 5, 2018 1:13:03 AM

I am the attorney challenging CDCR's regulations that implement Prop. 57. I am also the founder and Executive Director of the Alliance for Constitutional Sex Offense Laws, a national non-profit, dedicated to protecting the Constitution by restoring the civil rights of registrants (aka "sex offenders").

Posted by: Janice Bellucci | Mar 5, 2018 9:21:57 PM

Why is pc 288(a) listed in violet felonies. When no force or duress was used, but yet same crime on a 14 or 15 year old is not listed.

Posted by: Linda | Jan 20, 2020 8:57:18 PM

Post a commentDHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladeshi police arrested three men on Sunday as they investigate a knife attack on Zafar Iqbal, a popular author and professor of computer science and engineering. Police said the arrests were in connection with background checks on suspected assailant Faizur Rahman. He was detained at the scene after the attack on Iqbal at a university in the city of Sylhet on Saturday. Police said that Rahman, 25, identified as a student at an Islamic school, had said he attacked the writer as he was an enemy of Islam. Rahman is receiving treatment in a hospital as he was attacked by students at the scene before the university authorities, with the help of police, took him into custody. Iqbal, a respected writer and academic popular with children for his science fiction, was flown to a military hospital in Dhaka for treatment on Saturday night. He is now out of danger and will recover in a few days, said Munshi Mujibur Rahman, a senior consultant at the hospital. Prime Minster Sheikh Hasina described those responsible for the attack as fanatics who will face the full force of the law. Police said that now they are trying to ascertain whether there is any link with any militant group to the attack. Islamic militants in Bangladesh have increased attacks on a number of secularist, atheist writers, bloggers, publishers, foreigners, and religious minorities over the past five years. (Reporting by Serajul Quadir; Editing by Keith Weir)Levi Sanders listens as his father, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), speaks at a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Jan. 21, 2016. (Photo: Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Levi Sanders, Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign policy analyst and only biological child, is running for Congress in New Hampshire largely as an unknown. The senior Sanders is a notoriously private person, and for the most part, his son has stayed out of the public eye.

Thanks to years of Facebook postings, though, we can glean some sense of the passions that drive the younger Sanders. Because, in addition to his legal advocacy focusing on Social Security Disability Insurance, Levi Sanders is extremely mad online.

Levi (pronounced LEH-vee) has already come under some social media scrutiny for his past tweets. It seems that Twitter is where he goes to drop his iffy takes; Facebook is where he prefers to brawl.

Levi Sanders vs. The High School Reunion Establishment Elite

Take, for instance, a discussion from several years ago in a Facebook group for Levis high school graduating class. One alum, Daniel, started off the conversation about an upcoming get-together by saying, I understand that there has been discussion about the increased cost of attendance this evening for those that didnt RSVP. The problem was that the venue was charging a penalty for anyone who hadnt RSVPd before the group finalized the reservation. Daniel was very sorry, but the matter was out of his hands.

Levi wasnt having it.

(Photo: Screenshot)

This was followed by calls for Levi to cut Daniel some slack, and by assurances that the organizers of this get-together for Burlington High Schools class of 1987 were not in the high school reunion game for profit.

Levi again called bullshit.

(Photo: Facebook)

Another class member, Michelle, expressed discomfort with Levis tone and asked that he take his concerns to a more private forum. The voice of the people, however, would not be silenced.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Another classmate, Sue, followed up to suggest that Levi simply commit to observing the deadline, thus avoiding any additional fees. Classic neoliberal logic.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

Story continues

(Photo: Screenshot)

Friday, at Nectars, was free, classmate Leland replied, referring to a Burlington restaurant.

(Photo: Screenshot)

I am not sure anyone understands your point, Leland responded, adding that Levi was welcome to plan the next one.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Some discussion followed, in which Kristin jumped in to clarify that those who were unable to pay simply didnt, and that no one was turned away.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Levi Sanders vs. Simple Pepsi Brothers

Five years ago, one of Levis Facebook friends decided to post a status bashing socialism.

(Photo: Screenshot)

To which someone named Michael countered, somewhat unconvincingly, #2 is our biggest problem. No one wants to work, they just want handouts. Go Jets !!!!!

(Photo: Screenshot)

Bart then jumped in to suggest that comparing the U.S. to Scandinavia is like comparing a farm region in Iowa to a soon-to-be-bankrupt urban jungle in California.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Bart: HAHAHA really? you just went out of your way to defend socialism ... all I need to do is state the obvious, that Obama is more likely to move the US towards a bigger version of Cuba than Romney is.

(Photo: Screenshot)

To which the simple Pepsi brother offered nothing but silence.

Levi Sanders vs. The City of Houston

Levi fucking hates Houston.

(Photo: Screenshot)

But Houston is so cheap! suggested Jonas.

(Photo: Screenshot)

This was not the first time Jonas had insisted on praising the nations foremost shot hole.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Jonas noted that this is where the money is, to which Levi replied with devastating irony:

(Photo: Screenshot)

Jonas: How do Jewish people treat Black people in Massachusetts? Lets talk about Brighton, MASS..I KNOW YOU ARE JEWISH!!! JEWISH HIRE JEWISH PEOPLE COME ON NOW...

Levi was oblique in response:

(Photo: Screenshot)

Jonas then responded, as most people eventually do, by essentially telling Levi to chill out.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Levi Sanders vs. Conservative Women (The Stupid Ones)

In a discussion of immigration reform, one of Levis Facebook friends, Rendy, offhandedly suggested that we dont live in a country with terrible human rights violations and poverty.

Actually, said Levi ...

(Photo: Screenshot)

Levi Sanders, I agree with you and you know it, said Rendy.

(Photo: Screenshot)

At which point Andrew jumped in to counter with Levi and his progressive BS ideas, lol.

Levi replied to underscore that Rendy was on his side.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Andrew followed up to note that the idiot philosophy of social justice is just code word for communism or Marxism.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Levi Sanders vs. Liz Warren Fans

Bernie Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have never been particularly close, though neither seems willing to talk about their differences in public. Levi Sanders, however, is more than free to sound off.

(Photo: Screenshot)

In the discussion that followed, Levi uncharacteristically stayed out of it until one user casually referred to senators as working a thankless job. Not on Levis watch.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Levi Sanders vs. Farmers

One day several years ago, Vermont Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman, an organic farmer, announced to his Facebook friends that he was standing at the Burlington winter farmers market selling organic veggies and meat for Christmas dinners.

Were open until 2pm then we pack-up and drive home in the freezing rain, David wrote. Rain, snow, sleet and hail; nothing keeps us farmers from showing up at market.

Bullshit, Levi said.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Wait, what?

(Photo: Screenshot)

Hold on.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Hi Levi- Not sure what you are talking about, David finally said. He tried to explain that people like to talk about the weather casually and thanked Levi for working to make the world a better place.

(Photo: Screenshot)

David noted that he is not a vegetarian, however, I do believe that there is a difference in raising animals for consumption in a factory farming, cement floor, no outdoors environment, vs. lots of straw for bedding, indoor (shelter from elements), outdoor (free access), rotational grazing environment. He went on to explain how he tries to raise his animals ethically.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Davids silence remains deafening.

Levi Sanders vs. Farmers II

Its David again. And this time, hes selling some special pork sausage for Mothers Day.

(Photo: Screenshot)

How many pigs have you raised in your lifetime, Levi? asked Jason.

(Photo: Screenshot)

At which point, once again, Levi was basically told to chill.

(Photo: Screenshot)

(Photo: Screenshot)

Jason has yet to say whether or not he does, in fact, concur.

Levi Sanders vs. Vegetarian Liars

This one comes from our old friend Rendy, who posted a photo of a Reuben sandwich on Facebook. Levi wasnt born yesterday, you absolute fool, you nitwit.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Levi Sanders vs. Bacon

Just a few years ago, a Facebook user named Flavia posted a number of photos, one of which depicted a small plate of bacon in the corner that most people likely would never have even noticed.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Levi, Im sorry, its bacon.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Levi, Flavia didnt eat the bacon.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Flavia, perhaps frustrated with her friends didacticism, countered that kale is no better than spinach or other greens.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Levi did not take the hint.

Levi Sanders vs. Disgusting Flesh

Flavia, again, decided to share a nice photo of her meal.

(Photo: Screenshot)

(Photo: Screenshot)

Levi was, as always, told to chill.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Technically true! Flavia countered, once again, by asking Levi not to be quite so judgmental, asking: Do you drive a car? Because I dont and the folks that feed oil slaughter animals on the regular. No ethical consumption under capitalism, Lev.

(Photo: Screenshot)

All right, man.

Levi Sanders vs. A Frozen Food Brand

A nice meal idea, nothing more.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Take it away, my dude.

(Photo: Screenshot)

Levi Sanders vs. Yogurt Brand

Heres a clever twist on a classic snack that everyone will love, thought Chobanis social media manager.

(Photo: Screenshot)

You people make Levi sick.

(Photo: Screenshot)

While you probably didnt know who this Levi Sanders was until his campaign announcement last week, youve definitely known a Levi Sanders. Weve all known a Levi Sanders. Ever angry, scrapping with people who agree with him, screaming at brands when no one else will take the bait. There is a Levi Sanders in all our lives.

Have you ever fought with Bernie Sanders son on Facebook? Probably. In which case, let us know.

Send tips to ashley.feinberg@huffpost.com.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.When U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sit down in the Oval Office this week, they will both have much on their minds: when and whether the United States will present a plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace, impending decisions on the future of the Iran nuclear deal, and their own respective domestic and legal challenges. But the most pressing issue on their agenda is Irans efforts to entrench military capabilities in Syria  as a base for attacks against Israel. With Israels warnings of this emerging threat proving well founded in light of the February 10 incursion by an Iranian drone, Trump and Netanyau must consider how the United States can help Israel deter and defend itself from those attacks.

Israelis can be forgiven for some confusion about what the current U.S. policy is. In a January 17 speech on Syria, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson identified five objectives for the 2,000 U.S. special forces members that have remained in the country following the defeat of the Islamic State. Among these: preventing Iranian military entrenchment in Syria, including by holding key border areas to prevent the establishment of an Iran-controlled land bridge.

But Tillersons decision not to visit Israel during his Middle East tour following the February 10 incident sent a poor signal about U.S.-Israel coordination. The talk throughout the Middle East was that Russia, which brokered the end of the hostilities that day, now far eclipsed the United States in regional influence. U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster deployed tough rhetoric at the Munich Security Conference, where he said that the time is now to act against Iran and its proxies, but his silence about Irans direct role in Syria did little to allay fears.

To compound matters, on February 23, Trump told reporters, regarding U.S. troop presence in Syria, Were there for one reason: to get ISIS and get rid of ISIS and to go home. It would not be the first time the president articulated a view at odds with his own governments actual policy. But it is a telling signal that his appetite for extensive U.S. military engagements in Syria is very much in check. So was Gen. Joseph Votel of U.S. Central Commands testimony before the House Armed Services Committee in Febuary, when he said, countering Iran is not one of the coalition missions in Syria. In fairness, it must be said that the same limited appetite also applies to former President Barack Obama, Congress, and, one must conclude, the American people.

Story continues

Israel does not need, and is not seeking, U.S. use of force in response to Irans provocations, at least at this stage. For the past five years, Israel has carried out an effective campaign to interdict weapons shipments through Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon, conducting some 100 attacks, according to Israels recently retired Air Force chief, General Amir Eshel.

Now, with Iran more aggressively inserting Shia militias, drone operators, and other equipment into Syria, with the express intent of attacking Israel, the country needs to expand the target set of its raids, both geographically and definitionally. The strike against the Iranian drone operations center, staffed by Iranians, was one such action.

Here is what the United States should do to support these efforts: First, it should continue to defend Israels freedom of action in Syria, by vouching for the legitimacy of these raids, as both the Obama administration did and the Trump administration has done. Well-coordinated statements and demonstrations of support for Israels right to defend itself help reinforce the correct understanding that Israel is not the aggressor, but responding to Irans threats. Thats truer now than ever, since Iran has attacked Israel for the first time directly, not through proxies.

The United States should supplement its support with diplomatic efforts, aiming at three key targets: Russia, Lebanon, and Iran. Israel handles its own deconfliction with Russia just fine, but the United States should engage Russia to reinforce Israeli requests that Moscow impose constraints on Iranian provocations and military capabilities in Syria. In Lebanon, which will suffer greatly if Hezbollah joins the fray, the United States should underscore Israeli messages of deterrence. And Iran should hear, at least indirectly via European governments, that the United States would hold Tehran accountable for any attacks against Israel.

Second, the United States can support Israel in operational ways, both now and in the event of a major escalation. U.S.-Israeli intelligence cooperation, including the sharing of real-time data and strategic deployment of resources, is at its height. It needs to focus intently on Irans activities in Syria.

Missile defense is another important area for U.S. support. Israels medium- and long-range missile defense systems are now deployed and operational, but still limited in the coverage they provide. An accelerated production schedule for interceptor missiles would help Israel defend itself better in the event of a full-scale conflict. The U.S.-Israel Memorandum of Understanding on military assistance provides $500 million per year for Israeli missile defense programs. Congress and the administration should consider providing Israel an advance on those funds to enable the systems in question to defend more critical Israeli targets, like airfields and power plants, sooner.

For over a decade, thousands of U.S. troops have trained with their Israeli counterparts on a plan to defend Israel in a major ballistic missile war, in a biannual exercise known as Juniper Cobra. This years iteration, fortuitously, gets underway March 4, sending a well-timed signal of solidarity. After the exercise, U.S. commanders must be ready to deploy those troops and associated assets on a moments notice, to ensure that Americas support would arrive in time to be relevant to the fight.

Third, with Iran feeling emboldened and spreading its tentacles across the region, deterrence must be an element of the joint U.S.-Israel strategy. Netanyahu warned in Munich that Israel would hit back at Iran in Iran, and not limit itself to striking Irans proxies or forces deployed abroad. Israel has capabilities, including the F-35 fighter jets, which make the threat more than just rhetorical. But in the event of a major war, Israeli planners may be more focused on homeland defense and near-theater offense, rather than stretching to a long-range attack. Indeed, in a wartime scenario, Israels primary military requirement from the United States will be timely resupply of the ammunition and ordnance necessary to strike key targets in Lebanon and Syria.

Despite his bluster about the Iran nuclear deal, Trump is not looking for war with Iran any more than he is looking for war in Syria. But in an extreme situation, in which Israel faces a major challenge on its northern front, including the possibility of its missile defenses being overwhelmed, the United States needs to have its own offensive role, in the form of airstrikes against Iranian targets, planned, coordinated, and ready, and the ability to explain it to Congress and the American people. That provides deterrence, which hopefully ensures Iran will not risk such adventurism.

Finally, U.S. and Israeli strategists need to have a deep conversation on a sensitive subject. The First Northern Wara two-front war in both Lebanon and Syria, with Iran fully engagedis now widely considered inevitable by many Israelis. Israel has long been preparing for another war with Hezbollah, but has sought to postpone it as long as possible.

The question at hand is whether a shift in Israeli strategy is warranted. If a conflict is inevitable, is there an Israeli interest, or an American one, in it taking place sooner rather than later, before the Iranian threat in Syria consolidates too much, or before Hezbollah gains a domestic capability to produce precision-guided missiles? It is questionable whether any Israeli government could defend to its own public a decision to initiate such a war, which will surely bring a high cost in Israeli military and civilian casualties. But allies must not surprise each other. Restraining Iran, and maybe one day fighting Iran, is a joint U.S.-Israeli interest and project. In addition to supporting Israel in its self-defense in this new phase, we need to ensure we are coordinated for every possible future phase.By Angel Krasimirov SOFIA (Reuters) - Thousands of people marched on Monday in Bulgaria's second city to call for the release of a doctor charged with murdering an alleged burglar and said the accused only acted in self defense to protect his home. The protests in the southern city of Plovdiv reflect frustration with the authorities whom many people say fail to tackle violent home robbery, a crime most common in villages. The prosecutor's office in Plovdiv said on Saturday it had detained anesthesiologist Ivan Dimitrov for 72 hours and charged him with killing a 38-year-old Roma man during the incident. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted. National TV and radio, citing police sources, said Dimitrov shot the alleged burglar with a pistol dropped by his accomplice and said the doctor was stabbed in the leg during the incident. The accomplice escaped. "I insist on the immediate release of Ivan Dimitrov and the immediate dropping of all charges," said Angel Dzhambazki, a member of the European Parliament and the nationalist VMRO party's deputy chairman. Dimitrov's wife Julieta Zhelyazkova told local media she was grateful to her husband for protecting the family and said their two daughters were home during the incident. Thousands signed a petition for his release and there were also protests in the capital Sofia and elsewhere. Bulgaria's impoverished Roma community faces high levels of unemployment and many live on the edge of cities. Many people accuse them of crime and say they live off state benefits. Analysts said the case could reignite prejudice against the Roma. Bulgaria holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. The former communist country joined the bloc in 2007 but remains one of the poorest and most corrupt EU members and has made scant progress in tackling corruption and organized crime. Dzhambazki said his party would initiate a parliamentary debate and introduce legislation on necessary self-defense. The Populist Will party, led by parliament's deputy speaker Veselin Mareshki, also expressed support for Dimitrov. "If the state cannot ... implement the necessary measures to intimidate, stop and punish such criminals, nothing else remains to the population but to defend itself," Will said in a statement. (Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)A San Francisco snowboarder who had a near-death experience buried in an avalanche described what it was like trying to outrace a snow tsunami.

Evan Huck was snowboarding Friday at Squaw Valley Ski Resort near Lake Tahoe in northern California with his wife, Kahlynn, when he heard someone yell. He turned to see an eight foot wall of snow roaring down the mountain behind him  a snow tsunami.

It hit us in about a second, Huck told ABC7-TV Saturday. He was instantly buried.

I was conscious for about 45 seconds while I was under the snow at first, then I kind of ran out of oxygen and passed out, said Huck.

Meanwhile, his wife managed to free herself from the snow. I was inconsolable, I was hysterical. I was wondering if that was it and my husband was gone, said Kahlynn.

Evans snowboard tip was sticking out of the snow and nearby skiers immediately began digging for him in a rescue that was captured in a video and posted on Twitter. Huck said he believes he was buried for up to six minutes.

As soon as his face was uncovered, he opened his eyes and looked right at me and said, Wheres my wife? skier Joe Breault told ABC7.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Huck thanked his rescuers for being heroes and saving my life.

Five people were buried in the avalanche. Two were taken to a nearby hospital with non-life threatening injuries. The Hucks walked away and planned to continue their snowboarding vacation.

The avalanche occurred amid a powerful blizzard that brought winds gusting to 150 mph on the summits and up to seven feet of snow over the space of a few days to ski hills in Californias Sierra Nevada range.

Two snowboarders at resorts in the area died during the severe weather. Snowboarder Wenyu Zhang, 42, was found dead at Squaw Valley Friday morning before the avalanche.

Another snowboarder, Blake Smith, 36, died Friday at the China Peak Ski Resort 65 miles northeast of Fresno. He apparently fell head-first into deep snow and suffocated before he could get out, police said.

Story continues

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Mammoth Ski Resort in the Sierras, about 300 miles north of Los Angeles, also had a major avalanche Saturday morning. Three people partially buried managed to free themselves, and the resort was reopened on Sunday.

Also on HuffPost

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Beijing (AFP) - China sought on Sunday to downplay the Communist Party's move to scrap presidential term limits, a decision that could pave the way for Xi Jinping to remain president for life.

The National People's Congress (NPC), China's rubber-stamp parliament, will vote on March 11 on constitutional amendments which include the scrapping of a rule limiting the top leader to two five-year terms.

NPC spokesman Zhang Yesui told a news conference that the move will merely align the presidency with the titles of Communist Party general secretary and Military Commission chairman, which do not have term limits.

"It is conducive to uphold the authority of the Central Committee of the party with comrade Xi Jinping at the core and also to unify leadership," Zhang said on the eve of the opening of the NPC's annual session.

Zhang revealed that the party's Central Committee proposed the constitutional amendments, which include adding Xi's eponymous political guidelines to the country's charter, in January.

But the decision was first made public on February 25 in a report by the official Xinhua news agency.

The announcement sparked a rare bout of public criticism, prompting censors to work furiously to stamp out dissenting posts on social media.

Xi has consolidated power since taking office as party chief in 2012 but the move to lift presidential term limits surprised even the most experienced China watchers.

China's late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping championed a system of "collective" leadership to prevent a return of the chaotic years under Mao Zedong's one-man rule from 1949 to his death in 1976.

The presidential term limits were engraved in the state constitution in 1982.

"The constitution must adapt to the changing circumstances, include new experiences, reflect new achievements and lay out new guidelines to remain relevant," Zhang said.

"Revising the constitution is certainly a big event in the country's political life and it is also a major legislative activity that will have wide-ranging implications."

Story continues

US President Donald Trump had his own views on Xi's power play on Saturday, according to audio from a closed-door Florida fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago resort published by news outlet CNN.

"He's now president for life," the 71-year-old US president said, eliciting chuckles from the crowd of Republican donors. "And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great."

He garnered even more laughs when he quipped: "Maybe we'll have to give that a shot some day."United Nations (United States) (AFP) - China has put a hold on a US request at the United Nations to ban 33 ships from ports worldwide and blacklist 27 shipping firms for helping North Korea circumvent sanctions, according to a document seen by AFP on Monday.

The United States presented the request on February 23 to a UN sanctions committee as part of a crackdown on smuggling of North Korean commodities, in violation of UN sanctions resolutions.

China on Friday "placed a hold on the proposals" from the United States, said the Dutch chair of the sanctions committee in a letter seen by AFP.

US diplomats said they were waiting for a further explanation from China and the rest of the sanctions committee before considering the next steps.

The US request at the United Nations coincides with President Donald Trump's announcement last month of the "heaviest sanctions ever" on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile tests.

The request lists 33 vessels - 19 of which are from North Korea-- that would be barred from entering all ports worldwide.

Japan joined the United States in supporting the request concerning three of the 33 vessels for carrying out ship-to-ship transfers of oil destined for North Korea.

The three tankers are the Dominica-flagged Yuk Tung, Belize's Wan Heng 11 and the North Korean tanker Yu Jong 2.

The US request also targets a national from Taiwan, Tsang Yung Yuan, who is said to be coordinating illegal North Korean coal exports with a North Korean broker in Russia.

Of the 27 shipping and trading firms facing a UN assets freeze, five are based in Hong Kong including Huaxin Shipping, which has allegedly used its vessel to deliver North Korean coal to Vietnam.

Two other companies -- Shanghai Dongfeng Shipping and Weihai World Shipping Freight -- also based in China, are cited for carrying North Korean coal on their vessels.

Last year, the Security Council adopted a series of resolutions to ban North Korean exports of commodities in a bid to cut off revenue to North Korea's military programs.

The United States and Japan are strong backers of sanctions as a way to pressure Pyongyang to come to the negotiating table and end its drive to develop nuclear weapons.China announced its military budget will rise by 8.1 percent from 2017 on Monday, as it prepares for war and safeguards against profound changes in the international geopolitical environment.

The 2018 defense budget will be $175 billion (1.11 trillion yuan), according to a report issued at the opening of Chinas annual meeting of parliament.

China will advance all aspects of military training and war preparedness, and firmly and resolvedly safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests, Premier Li Keqiang told the opening session in an address.

Trending: Monster Hunter World Switch Release News: Studio that did Skyrim Port Wants a Chance

Faced with profound changes in the national security environment the absolute leadership of the military by the ruling Communist Party must be observed, and the unity between the government and the military, and the people and the military, must always be 'strong as stone,'" he added.

RTX3D8CT (1)

Reuters

The defense spending figure is closely watched around the world for clues to Chinas strategic intentions. The country is developing new military capabilities, including stealth fighters, aircraft carriers and anti-satellite missiles.

However, China does not provide a breakdown of how it allocates its defense budget, leading neighbors and other military powers to complain that Beijings lack of transparency is adding to regional tension.

Don't miss: Overwatch Brigitte Legendary Skin Leaked, More Coming to PTR

Diplomats say Chinas defense numbers probably underestimate true military spending for the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA), the worlds largest armed force.

Story continues

One senior Asian diplomat, speaking before the announcement, said the real rise would probably be at least double what China revealed, considering its efforts to build up the industrial military complex and deepen military-civilian integration. Some spending will be hidden in civilian spending, said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The move comes a week after Beijings increasingly authoritarian leader Xi Jinping announced a proposal to remove a constitutional clause limiting presidential service to two terms, which would effectively allow him to stay in power indefinitely.

Under Xis leadership, China has been undergoing an impressive modernization program. Earlier this year, the president rallied thousands of troops for a military address and grand display of might in Baoding, in the northern province of Hebei.

Most popular: Mario Is a Plumber Again After Official Profile Update

During his speech, Xi told 7,000 heavily armed officers and soldiers standing information that they should not fear death as they fight for their countrys Communist values. Xi encouraged the troops to enhance their military training and combat readiness to grasp the capability to win battles as dictated by the Chinese Communist Party (CPC).

Last year, defense spending was set to increase by just 7 percent, at $164.60 billion, or about one-quarter of the proposed U.S. defense spending for the year. In 2016, it grew by 7.6 percent.

The pace and scale of this build-up is really dramatic. It is extremely alarming for Australia and many other countries in the region, said Sam Roggeveen, a visiting fellow at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University in Canberra.

He added: There is every indication that China wants to expand what it will call defense capabilities in the South China Sea. I expect eventually we will see warships and aircraft there regularly, if not based there permanently. What is unclear, however, is whether the United States will want to rise to that challenge.

China now has the second-largest military budget in the world. However, its figure is still far lower than President Donald Trumps U.S. proposal, which would provide the Pentagon with $617 billion and an additional $69 billion for ongoing wars in fiscal year 2019a $74 billion increase over the previous fiscal years budget.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekBEIJING (Reuters) - China's "moderate" defense spending rises in the past few years have been to make up for past deficiencies and the country's military will not threaten anyone, a senior diplomat said on Sunday ahead of the release of the defense budget. How much China spends on its armed forces is closely watched around the region and in Washington for pointers about the country's broader strategic intentions amid an impressive modernization program that has included developing stealth fighters, aircraft carriers and anti-satellite missiles. Last year military spending was budgeted to increase by just 7 percent, to 1.044 trillion yuan ($164.60 billion) about one-quarter of the proposed U.S. defense spending for the year. Speaking ahead of Monday's release of China's national budget by parliament, Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui, who is also parliament's spokesman, declined to provide any guidance on how much defense spending would rise, as has been the custom in recent years the day before the legislature opens. Zhang said all countries adjusted their military spending depending on defensive needs and the state of the economy. "In recent years, China has moderately raised defense investment," he told a news conference. "Part of it has been to make up for past investment deficiencies, mostly on renewing equipment (and) improving material benefits for soldiers," Zhang added. However, proportionally, China's defense spending is less than other major countries, he said. "China has always upheld the path of peaceful development, and practices a defensive defense policy. China's development will not constitute a threat to any country." U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed a military budget that is the largest since 2011 and focused on beefing up the country's nuclear defenses and countering the growing strength of China and Russia. The proposal, part of Trump's budget request for the U.S. government, would provide the Pentagon $617 billion and an additional $69 billion to fund ongoing wars in fiscal year 2019. That is $74 billion more than in the budget for the previous fiscal year. With worries about potential disputes with the United States over the South China Sea and the status of self-ruled Taiwan, China's military had mounted what defense sources and diplomats viewed as a lobbying campaign for more spending. The actual number for defense spending should be released on Monday, when China's largely rubber-stamp parliament begins its annual session, though last year it was initially not announced, prompting concerns about transparency. ($1 = 6.3428 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman) Noting lengthy struggles in California over the definition of a violent crime | Main | SCOTUS grants cert on structural SORNA issue and Justice Sotomayor dissents in capital case with IAC issues 

March 5, 2018

"Sixth Amendment Sentencing after Hurst"

The title of this post is the title of this notable new article authored by Carissa Byrne Hessick and William Berry available via SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The Supreme Courts 2016 decision in Hurst v. Florida, which struck down Floridas capital sentencing scheme, altered the Courts Sixth Amendment sentencing doctrine. That doctrine has undergone several important changes since it was first recognized. At times the doctrine has expandedinvalidating sentencing practices across the country  and at times it has contracted  allowing restrictions on judicial sentencing discretion based on findings that are not submitted to a jury. Hurst represents another expansion of the doctrine. Although the precise scope of the decision is unclear, the most sensible reading of Hurst suggests that any finding required before a judge may impose a higher sentence must be submitted to a jury and proven beyond a reasonable doubt. This reading invalidates several state capital sentencing systems and several non-capital systems, and it would require dramatic changes to federal sentencing as well.

March 5, 2018 at 12:33 AM | Permalink

Comments

"That doctrine has undergone several important changes since it was first recognized."

Recognized? It does not exist.

All changes have been in the director of adding procedure and increasing jobs for lawyers. Change is never in the direction of reducing procedure because such procedure is quackery, and quackery violates the constitution.

Posted by: David Behar | Mar 5, 2018 1:03:33 AM

We have timestamps on this blog to the second but no chance to delete or edit our comments at all after they post. Win some, lose some.

Posted by: Joe | Mar 5, 2018 12:17:00 PM

Joe.I have never seen anyone mock another's punctuation or grammar. What I have seen are left wing, tax sucking, subhuman, pro-criminal scum, engage in only personal insult, copying the procedure out the KGB handbook from where these dirty rent seeking Commies came from.

Most of the time, people know what you meant when you make a msitake.

Posted by: David Behar | Mar 5, 2018 6:31:52 PM

Not sure that Hurst said anything that Ring didn't say. And anything new granted in Hurst was quickly taken back the following week in Carr.

Posted by: tmm | Mar 6, 2018 5:24:54 PM

Post a commentChina signalled Monday it was hardening its stance on dissent in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where it faces growing frustration with the increasingly authoritarian government of President Xi Jinping.

In a report to the opening session of the annual National People's Congress in Beijing, Premier Li Keqiang warned China "will never tolerate any separatist schemes" in Taiwan, amid increasing tensions between the mainland and the self-ruled island.

The warning to the almost 3,000 members of the mostly ceremonial legislature followed the omission of language supporting the political autonomy of Hong Kong and Macau that had featured prominently in previous years.

The report said Beijing would continue to uphold its "one China" principle and promote "peaceful growth" relations with Taiwan under the 1992 consensus, which agrees that there is only one China without specifying whether Beijing or Taipei is its rightful representative.

Beijing will also "advance China's peaceful reunification", Li said.

But, he added, it "will never tolerate any separatist schemes or activities for 'Taiwan independence'."

China still sees Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification. It has cut off official communications with Taipei because President Tsai Ing-wen refuses to acknowledge the democratic island as part of "one China".

Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, which handles relations with China, said in response the island wants to "maintain the peaceful and stable status quo in the Taiwan Strait".

"We urge China to adopt forward-looking and innovative positive thinking regarding the development of cross-strait relations," it said in a statement.

China voiced anger last week after the US Senate passed a bill to encourage visits between Washington and Taipei "at all levels".

Washington cut formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1979 in favour of Beijing. But it maintains trade relations with the island and sells it weapons, angering China.

Story continues

- Raising concern -

The report also hinted at a hardening stance towards dissent in the semi-autonomous cities of Hong Kong and Macau, which Beijing rules under the principle of "One country, two systems".

Last year the section of the report on governing the former European colonies said they would be allowed "a high degree of autonomy", a statement in keeping with past years, but this year's report omitted the phrase.

While this year's report referred to the "One country, two systems" concept, it no longer said it would "steadfastly" apply the principle.

The change may seem minor but silence speaks volumes in a system where government documents are edited down to the last comma.

Hong Kong has been governed under a "one country, two systems" deal since 1997, when Britain handed it back to China.

This allows residents rights unseen on the mainland, including freedom of speech and a partially directly elected legislature, as well as an independent judiciary.

But there are fears these freedoms are under threat from Beijing.

Tanya Chan, a pro-democracy lawmaker in the city, said the omission of the mention of Hong Kong people governing themselves was no mistake.

"I don't think any omission is without purpose, especially when Hong Kong people are concerned about autonomy and the whole system," she told AFP.

"I worry about whether the Chinese government still respects these very important promises," Chan added, predicting more "serious and overt" intervention by Beijing.

Claudia Mo, also a pro-democracy legislator, said the "one country, two systems" deal was already dead. "They are just confirming it," she added.Speculation is rife over who will exit the White House next



Christie sidesteps question of whether Kushner should be removed

Jarvanka out? Kushners business problems add to talk of DC exit

Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law, saw his function as a senior adviser threatened after his security clearances were downgraded. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

After a week of chaos and infighting at the White House, speculation remains rife over who might soon follow communications director Hope Hicks and resign.

Presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner saw his ability to function as a senior adviser threatened after his security clearances were downgraded at the behest of the chief of staff, John Kelly, whose own position has been questioned recently.

On Sunday Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who managed Trumps transition and remains a loyal supporter, said the presidents reliance on family members compromised his ability to run the White House.

But Christie, whose hopes of becoming attorney general were reportedly quashed as payback for his role in jailing Kushners father Charles, sidestepped the question of whether he thought the son should be removed.

The presidents going to have to make that judgment, Christie told ABCs This Week.

He added: This is most particularly sensitive because its a family member. In a normal situation, you might terminate a staff member for that reason. It becomes a lot more difficult if youre going to be sitting at Thanksgiving dinner with that person.

And so for Jared and for Ivanka [Trumps daughter] and for all the other members of the family who were involved in one way or the other, I think everybodys got to focus on whats best for the president.

Kushner is facing a series of reports concerning the intersection of his business and political portfolios, including one by the New York Times that said his company received hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from investors who attended White House meetings.

It was also reported that the president is considering whether his daughter and son-in-law should return to New York.

Christie pointedly praised Hicks, who became embroiled in controversy over the handling of domestic assault allegations against former White House staff secretary Rob Porter, to whom she was romantically linked. Hicks also appeared before the House intelligence committee this week, admitting in a nine-hour appearance to telling white lies for the president.

Story continues

I think Hope Hicks saw that between the Rob Porter situation and some of the other things that were going on that she was becoming a distraction for the president and less of an asset in her mind, Christie said.

And she did the noble thing, in my view, which was to say, You know what? If Im not 100% an asset for the president, Im gonna back away. And I think she deserves credit and I dont think shes getting a lot of it in this kind of scandal-driven stuff thats going on.

Among the names suggested as next out the door are chief economic adviser Gary Cohn, reportedly angered by Trumps sudden trade tariff decision, and national security adviser HR McMaster, who has reportedly never got on with the president. The White House has denied that either man will leave.

Despite Trumps public falling out with Jeff Sessions, it is not thought likely the attorney general will go. The former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus  who resigned last July  told ABC the Trump-Sessions feud was a problem but said: I dont think it would be good for the president for Attorney General Sessions to leave.

Trumps grievance with Sessions is based on the former Alabama senators decision to recuse himself from investigations into Russian election meddling.

[Trump] feels like that was the first sin, the original sin and he feels slighted by it, said Priebus. He doesnt like it and hes not going to let it go. And so I think when he feels frustrated by the Russia probe and all of those things he watches on television and reads about in the paper.

Christie said: The president has the right to do what he wants to do. And if the president has absolutely no confidence in the attorney general, then the president has to act.By Francois Murphy VIENNA (Reuters) - A collapse of the Iran nuclear deal would be a "great loss", the U.N. atomic watchdog's chief warned U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday, giving a wide-ranging defense of the accord and his agency's work under it. Trump has threatened to withdraw the United States from the accord between Tehran and six world powers, signed in 2015 before he took office, unless Congress and European allies help "fix" it with a follow-up pact. Trump does not like the deal's limited duration, among other things. Iran has stayed within the deal's restrictions since Trump took office but has fired diplomatic warning shots at Washington in recent weeks. It said on Monday that it could rapidly enrich uranium to a higher degree of purity if the deal collapsed. "If the JCPOA were to fail, it would be a great loss for nuclear verification and for multilateralism," International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano said in a speech to his agency's 35-nation Board of Governors, using the deal's official name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Amano, whose agency polices the deal's nuclear restrictions, later gave his most wide-ranging defense of the accord to date, listing numbers of buildings inspected, images captured and even seals placed on equipment since the accord was put into effect. "The IAEA now has the world's most robust verification regime in place in Iran. We have had access to all locations that we needed to visit," the veteran Japanese diplomat told a news conference after his speech. Amano declined to comment on the position of the United States or any other country, but his remarks were clearly a response to Trump's threat to scupper the accord, which also lifted painful economic sanctions against Iran. "We have carried out more than 60 complementary accesses and visited more than 190 buildings since JCPOA Implementation Day," he said, referring to a specific type of inspection under the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which Iran is implementing under the deal. Washington is telling European allies it wants a follow-on agreement that "ensures strong IAEA inspections", according to a State Department cable obtained by Reuters last month. That suggests that, from Washington's standpoint, there is something deficient about the current inspection system. Trump and his ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, have made similar comments. But diplomats familiar with the IAEA's thinking have said the Trump administration's view arises from a poor understanding of how the IAEA does its work in Iran. WARNING SHOTS Iran said on Monday it could produce higher enriched uranium within two days if it were no longer bound by the deal. "If America pulls out of the deal ... Iran could resume its 20 percent uranium enrichment in less than 48 hours," Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, told state-run Arabic language al-Alam TV. Iran is not allowed to enrich uranium beyond 3.67 percent fissile purity under the deal, a level that is suitable for fuelling some civilian nuclear power stations and far short of the 80-90 percent that is considered weapons grade. Kamalvandi, reiterating Tehran's official stance, said the nuclear deal is not re-negotiable. The other countries that signed the deal - Germany, Britain, France, Russia and China - are committed to preserving it. As mentioned in a quarterly IAEA report on Iran last month, Amano said in his speech that the agency had requested clarification from Iran about its plans for nuclear-powered naval vessels, suggesting the IAEA has still not heard back from the Islamic Republic. Iran has long said publicly that it intends to develop nuclear propulsion for naval vessels, though analysts and diplomats say that remains a distant prospect. It formally notified the IAEA of that intention in January in what was widely seen as a rebuff to pressure from Trump. (Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi in Ankara; Editing by Mark Heinrich)Combining dark comedy with dramatic intrigue, "Gringo" joyrides across the border into Mexico, where all is not as it seems for mild-mannered American businessman Harold Soyinka (David Oyelowo). Crossing the line from citizen to criminal, Harold tangles with duplicitous business partners, Mexican drug lords, international mercenaries, and the DEA. As he attempts to survive in one of the most dangerous places on earth, the question lingers: is this ordinary man in way over his head, or is he two steps ahead?President Trump claims Obama initiated the Russia probe to help Hillary Clinton (AP)

President Donald Trump has accused Barack Obama of initiating the Russia investigation to help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election.

Trump claims his predecessor started the probe into Kremlin influence on the historic vote without any evidence.

He tweeted: Why did the Obama Administration start an investigation into the Trump Campaign (with zero proof of wrongdoing) long before the Election in November?

Wanted to discredit so Crooked H would win.

He added: Unprecedented. Bigger than Watergate! Plus, Obama did NOTHING about Russian meddling.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Trump has previously made clear his thoughts on suggestions of a collusion between his campaign and Russia, branding them a witch hunt.

The president posted a series of tweets referring to the allegations, including one quoting legal analyst Jonathan Turley and another quoting Judge Ken Starr, as well as a third with just two words: WITCH HUNT!

His tweet comes just days after NSA and Cyber Command Chief Adm Mike Rogers told a Senate committee that Trump had not authorised him to counter Russian-led online attacks. He also said that Trumps administration had clearly not took enough action.

MOST POPULAR TODAY ON YAHOO

The FBI is currently investigation Moscows interference in the election and alleged collusion between Trumps aides and Russia.

Four ex-Trump aides and 13 Russian nationals have so far been indicted.

In an interview, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the individuals would never be extradited.Urgency ebbs on Capitol Hill after supreme court decision on Daca

Were worried that people are going to forget about the Dreamers

Opinion: Dreamers must be protected  as Indigenous Peoples were not

For months, Congress circled 5 March in bright red ink. It was the deadline  arbitrarily imposed by Donald Trump  for lawmakers to find a way to protect hundreds of thousands of young undocumented migrants, known as Dreamers, from deportation.

But on Monday in Washington that deadline passed unceremoniously. Negotiations have all but ceased as the nation turns to face another crisis. Congress is under pressure to act on guns, the one issue as politically polarizing as immigration.

Were not optimistic and were not holding our breath for Congress to pass immigration legislation, said Frank Sharry, executive director of Americas Voice, an immigrants rights group.

Last year, Trump announced the end of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca), a program that allows people brought to the country illegally as children to apply for renewable two-year work permits. Established by Barack Obama in 2012, Daca shields 690,000 people from deportation.

Last week, though, a supreme court decision removed any urgency on Capitol Hill. The justices ruled that Daca must be reinstated while lower courts consider challenges to Trumps action. The ruling could leave Dreamers in legal limbo for months.

Under the ruling, only those previously enrolled in the Daca program can renew their protection. Advocates and experts estimate that thousands and possibly more will lose protected status while they wait for applications to be processed. There are also hundreds of thousands of young migrants who would be eligible under Daca but never applied or who have only recently become old enough to qualify.

Were worried that while no one is paying attention, the administration will start quietly deporting Faiz Shakir, ACLU

Were worried that people are going to forget about the Dreamers and that while no one is paying attention, the administration will start quietly deporting them, said Faiz Shakir, national political director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Story continues

Dreamers and their supporters are petitioning for more clarity on what happens to those who have lost or will lose their status. Specifically, they want the Department of Homeland Security to issue guidance for employers and universities.

Activists and organizers have tried to keep up the pressure on Congress and the White House, continuing to lead protests and rallies. On Sunday, groups including the ACLU launched a six-figure national TV ad campaign demanding Trump fix what you broke before its too late.

A coalition of immigrant groups and Dreamers staged a protest in front of the US Capitol on Monday while dozens of similar marches and rallies were planned across the country.



Trump in turn tried to pass the blame on to the Democrats:

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

The Republican leaders in Congress, Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, only want to consider proposals that Trump would sign. Democrats agree that the president holds the key to crafting a deal.

Trump has publicly expressed empathy for Dreamers but his list of immigration demands paralyzed the debate. In exchange for protecting Dreamers, the White House wants funding for a border wall, increased border security and sweeping reductions to legal immigration.

As a result, the Senate last month rejected proposals including one strongly supported by the president. That plan, which addressed each of the White Houses demands, had 60 members against it. The Senate also fell short on a bipartisan plan that would have included a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers and funding for the wall.

Lawmakers in both chambers said last week that talks on immigration had stalled.

Jeff Flake, a Republican senator from Arizona, has introduced a modest proposal: a three-year renewal of Daca in exchange for three years of funding for Trumps wall.

But that proposal has drawn opposition from all sides. Democrats are unwilling to give Trump a $7.6bn down payment on a wall they do not want, in exchange for a temporary fix.

At this point, were not going to accept wholesale changes to immigration policy for temporary relief, said Arizona congressman Ruben Gallego, a Democrat and member of Congressional Hispanic Caucus leadership. The Republicans leverage is gone.

For now, after the deaths of 17 students and staff at a high school in Florida, Congress remains embroiled in debate over gun legislation.

Despite public support for Dreamers, Congress is unlikely to take on another divisive issue unless it must, said Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

When the courts finally rule on the merits of the case, the program could be ended really quickly without any notice at all, Brown said. Only Congress can offer a permanent solution.E-commerce for high-end goods is ramping up substantially, but there may be a limit to its growth.

Online sales for luxury retail jumped 24% in 2017, making up 9% of the space overall, according to the latest Bain Luxury Study.

Fashion cannot be digitized like media, music or video, said Jose Neves, founder and CEO of Farfetch, an online platform that sells products from 800 boutiques around the world. I believe the physical experience is here to stay, whether it makes up two-thirds or three-quarters of it, were really passionate about the physical store experience thats at the core of our DNA.

Unlike other luxury fashion sites like Net-a-Porter, Yoox and Matches Fashion, Farfetch is entirely dependent on brick-and-mortar retailers for its inventory.

What makes us unique is that on Farfetch, you will find that tiny little boutique in Tokyo or Capri, Italy that you would never be able to find and we bring that to you in an easy way. What that means for the consumer is they really have access to fashion they cannot find anywhere else, Neves told Yahoo Finance.

Amazon-proof for now

By virtue of being an online platform, Neves is banking on the fact that a customer wont want to physically seek out obscure boutiques around the world. But, the luxury shopper is very much intent on trusted sites for high-end items, which prevents Amazon (AMZN) from encroaching on all of commerce.

Luxury is built on emotion, desirability, heritage. And so, we believe that the DNA of Amazon is at present not really compatible with the luxury industry, he said, adding that Amazon has really nailed convenience and price. Theyre bringing lower prices to the market and convenience, which brings tons of customers, which allows them to go back to the suppliers, lower the prices and create this flywheel. That doesnt work with luxury. Its oil and water.

Neves himself is a happy Amazon Prime customer in the UK, but remains skeptical that Amazon is going to be the destination for luxury goods  thats not what the niche customers want anyway.

Story continues

Thats not where the consumer would expect to find these products. You wouldnt expect to find a Prada bag next to a toothbrush and a washing machine, he said. But thats what will happen, right? Never dismiss Amazon, theyre an incredible company. Who knows whats going to happen next?

Amazon has been trying to get its feet wet in the high-end universe. Last fall, Amazon offered a see now buy now experiment with former Diesel creative director Nicola Formichettis Nicopanda fashion show in the UK. Customers in London could get one-hour delivery on the items shown on the runway. The e-commerce behemoth has also been investing in At Tokyo, a program where it invites three brands that wouldnt normally be a part of Fashion Week to get a chance to show their creations.

Since Amazon Prime has arguably reached a peak saturation among affluent Americans, this foreboding possibility of Amazon penetrating the high-end market may come sooner than imagined. Eighty-two percent of households that earn more than $112,000 per year are Amazon Prime members.

Farfetchs vision for the store of the future

Despite Amazons looming foray into the high-end space, platforms like Farfetch have gained steady traction among a niche audience.

Founded in 2008, Farfetch bills itself as the one-stop shop for consumers looking for boutiques and brands across 50 different countries. Gross profit hit 87 million euros (or $114 million) and sales hit 151 million euros ($198 million) in 2016, up 74% from 2015.

The UK-based company raised $397 million from Chinese e-commerce behemoth JD.com last year to tap into what Neves calls the growth engine for the luxury industry thats experiencing triple-digit growth. And, earlier this year, Farfetch signed a joint venture with Chalhoub Group, the Middle East-based luxury retail distribution company.

Farfetch is in a unique position of being able to make a dual bet  on both the growth of physical spaces and e-commerce. Neves claims it isnt a zero-sum game.

We connect the most beautiful shops and brands to consumers worldwide and from day one we did it to connect physical spaces to digital platforms, which at the time was very new. We still believe that the magic needs to be kept alive, he said.

The next frontier of physical retail

Over the next decade, Bain expects physical stores will still account for 75% of all luxury purchases, but the mix of store formats will shift toward off-price stores and airport stores. That means single brand, department and specialty stores will get the short end of the stick.

This begs the question  what do retail players need to do to make sure customers want to step foot in their stores? Personalization through technology, according to Neves.

Great technology as Steve Jobs taught us all needs to be as invisible as possible. Its really not about gimmicks. If people see the technology, its not good technology, he said. Theres this tension that exists between our digital lives, which are ultra-personalized, and our anonymized physical experiences.

Technology like digital mirrors in dressing rooms, RFID (radio-frequency identification), which automatically tracks tags on objects, and NFC (near-field communication), which allows two electronic devices to establish a connection if theyre in close proximity to each other, are exciting, but theres a crucial layer thats missing, according to Neves.

[We need a] data and personalization layer, which extends from online to offline. But the layer is what no one has built. We have hundreds of startups, amazing companies that are building things, but theres no layer. The mirror is not connected to anything. The customer leaves and nothing was added in terms of value to the experience. And thats where in-store technology has failed so far, he said.

But, with the allure of convenience and ease of the online world, even this added layer of in-store customized shopping may not be enough to get customers in the door again.

Melody Hahm is a senior writer at Yahoo Finance, covering entrepreneurship, technology and real estate. Follow her on Twitter @melodyhahm.

This story is a part of Yahoo Finance Presents: The Retail Revolution , March 5-9, 2018.German artist Rita Furstenau has created a cross-stitch-style Google Doodle to celebrate the edelweiss, the most romantic of Alpine blooms.

The common name for Leontopodium nivale, which means lions foot, the word edelweiss was first discovered in writing on March 5, 1784. Derived from the German for noble and white, the downy flower has become a mainstay of Alpine folklore, whose tales often feature heroes journeying to the mountains to pluck the flower as a token for their beloved.

So deeply is it associated with love and fidelity that giving one as a gift was once considered equivalent to giving an engagement ring, according to Google.

The edelweiss is also synonymous with the Alps and the summer; it appears on the Austrian two Euro cent coin, is the brand name of a beer, and is painted on planes operated by a Swiss airline.

According to Google, the edelweiss was once on the brink of extinction but is now abundant across Europe.The visit is being made at the invitation of Chief of Malaysian Army Gen. Tan Sri Raja Mohamed Affandi.During the visit, the two sides will discuss international and regional issues of mutual concern and review the cooperation between the two armies in the recent past.They will also deliberate measures to step up cooperation in the coming time, including the implementation of the outcomes of the official visit to Malaysia in 2016 by the Vietnamese Minister of National Defence, thus developing military cooperation more effectively and practically on a par with the strategic partnership between the two countries.

VNSPrecious cargo is loaded Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) rangers load a tranquillized elephant onto a truck during a translocation exercise to Ithumba Camp in Tsavo East National Park, in Solio Ranch in Nyeri County, Kenya, Feb. 21, 2018. (Photo: Thomas Mukoya/Reuters)

Wildlife officials in Kenya kicked off a relocation operation for 30 elephants on Wednesday, fitting monitoring collars on the tranquilized animals before using cranes to swing them, inverted with bound feet and scything tusks, onto flatbed trucks.

Kenya has several thousand elephants, who face threats such as ivory poachers and habitat loss, but they often raid crops and farms as they migrate between parks, angering villagers who rely on the produce to feed their families.

The Kenya Wildlife Service, which transported the animals from Nyeri county, around 200 km (124 miles) north of the capital, Nairobi, to the Tsavo East National Park in a bid to avert such encounters, estimated the operation cost $6 million.

The ranch and the surrounding Lamuria region, home to about 300 elephants, forms part of a migration corridor for the pachyderms between the parks in the countrys Mount Kenyaand Aberdare mountain ranges. (Reuters)

Photography by Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

See more news-related photo galleries and follow us on Yahoo News Photo Twitter and Tumblr.JAKARTA (Reuters) - A critically endangered Sumatran tiger was brutally killed in Indonesia on Sunday, the latest victim of a killing spree targeting near-extinct species that has alarmed conservationists. Authorities have in recent months found a number of killed animals, including endangered Borneo orangutans, after conflicts with farmers or plantation workers. Activists said the tiger had been roaming Mandailing Natal village in North Sumatra for over a month and had injured one person, prompting residents to call on rangers to kill it. "We explained to the villagers that the tiger is an endangered animal...but they didn't like our way of handling this situation," said Hotmauli Sianturi, of the Natural Resources Conservation Agency, adding a trap had been used to try to capture the cat. "We regret that they killed the tiger. We will prove that its body parts are being traded," she added. An investigation showed it had several parts missing, including its canine teeth, claws, and skin off its face and tail. These body parts can be used in traditional medicines or sold as artefacts. A representative of the village community was not immediately available for comment. There are only around 400 Sumatran tigers left in the world, meaning it is on the brink of extinction, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Police on Borneo island arrested at least two people in two separate incidents this year in which an orangutan had been decapitated and another had been shot more than 130 times with an air rifle. (Reporting by Jessica Damiana, Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Nick Macfie)Milan (AFP) - A trial for oil giants Eni and Shell over bribery and corruption allegations in the purchase of an offshore oilfield in Nigeria was delayed for two months on Monday.

The trial had been set to start in a Milan court, but the judge said that, due to a high number of cases, it would be transferred to another chamber to avoid further delays.

The trial is now set to begin on May 14.

Eni chief executive Claudio Descalzi, his predecessor Paolo Scaroni and several managers from Eni and Shell are among those to on trial, as is ex-Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete.

Eni -- also charged with corruption in Algeria in a separate trial -- and Shell stand accused of handing out bribes during the 2011 purchase of OPL245, an offshore oil block estimated to hold nine billion barrels of crude, for $1.3 billion (1.06 billion euros).

Both companies deny the charges against them.

"Eni expresses its full confidence in the judicial process and that the trial will ascertain and confirm the correctness and integrity of its conduct," the Italian firm said in a statement.

The agreement allegedly saw Nigeria's former president Goodluck Jonathan and his oil minister Etete pocket bribes, according to corruption watchdog Global Witness.

"Eni and Shell closed the deal with the government without the involvement of an intermediary. The money... was deposited into an account owned by the Nigerian government," said Eni, which has regularly reaffirmed its trust in Descalzi.

- Major litigation -

Descalzi made it clear last year that Shell and Eni had not been "involved in the government's decision on how to use the money".

Shell also said it believed the judges would conclude there was no case against them, adding "there is no place for bribery or corruption in our company."

The 2011 deal with the Nigerian government aimed to end years of litigation over the OPL245 block between Shell and Etete's Oil and Gas Malabu company.

Story continues

A former oil minister under the dictator Sani Abacha, Etete appropriated the block in 1998, selling it to Malabu, a company he secretly owned.

The licence was subsequently revoked by the government and then transferred to Shell and then again to Malabu, resulting in major litigation.

After taking office as president in 2010, Jonathan resumed negotiations on the highly coveted block.

According to Global Witness, the deal resulted in $1.1 billion being paid into an account in London opened by Nigerian government officials that went directly to Etete. The Nigerian government received only $210 million.

- 'Cancer of corruption' -

Email exchanges between Shell management cited by Global Witness, and seen by AFP, suggest that Shell was aware the money was likely to be funnelled to individuals, including Etete and Jonathan.

"Etete can smell the money," a Shell official wrote in 2010, while another said, "the President (Jonathan) is motivated to see 245 closed quickly - driven by expectations about the proceeds that Malabu will receive and political contributions that will flow as a consequence."

Nigeria's anti-graft agency, the EFCC, filed corruption charges against Shell and Eni in March 2017, accusing 11 defendants, including Etete, of "official corruption" in connection with the deal.

The current president, Muhammadu Buhari, has pledged to fight relentlessly against the "cancer of corruption" that plagues Africa's largest oil producer.

But in a letter leaked in February from Justice Minister Abubakar Malami to Buhari dating from September, the minister asked the president to interrupt the EFCC investigation.

In the letter Malami expressed concern that the case did not contain enough evidence to bring the main defendants to justice and that a trial would be an embarrassment for the country and could put off potential investors.

Global Witness called for justice, saying that "$1.1 billion can help a lot of people in a country like Nigeria" where "80 percent of citizens live on less than two dollars a day".Rick Crawford finished second in the Truck Series standings in 2002. (Getty)

Former NASCAR Camping World Truck Series stalwart Rick Crawford was arrested in Florida on Thursday, according to the Orlando Sentinel and other reports, after he allegedly tried to arrange a sexual encounter with a minor.

According to the criminal complaint, the 59-year-old Crawford was texting back and forth with an undercover police officer posing as the father of a 12-year-old. Crawford allegedly wanted to have sex with the 12-year-old and discussed the parameters of the deal with the undercover officer before he was arrested.

Crawford is charged with attempted enticement of a minor. Per the complaint, Crawford reached out after seeing a Craigslist ad that wanted people to inquire for a dark taboo experience. The details of the complaint are grotesque and unnerving.

Hes currently being held in the Seminole County Jail without bail.

Crawford allegedly texted the officer on Feb. 10 and the officer replied. Arrangements were then allegedly made over the ensuing days for Crawford to have an encounter with who he believed to be a 12-year-old girl while the officer posing as the father would watch.

Crawford then allegedly asked for a picture of the 12-year-old on Feb. 27 and the officer sent a childhood picture back of a woman who currently works in law enforcement. The meeting was set up for the following day and Crawford allegedly agreed to pay between $50 and $75.

They allegedly agreed to meet in a Wendys parking lot off Interstate 4 in Lake Mary, Florida, for the deal to be completed in the back of a van. After Crawford allegedly exchanged pleasantries with the undercover officer posing as the father, he was arrested by other police officers after he got out of his truck.

After he was arrested, Crawford allegedly told authorities that he wasnt going to go forward with the arrangement had he seen that the girl he thought existed was actually underage.

Crawford won five races over a 16-year career in the Truck Series. His best year came in 2002 when he finished second in the points standings to Mike Bliss. He finished in the top 10 in the points standings seven different seasons.

Story continues

According to Motorsport.com, NASCAR has removed Crawford from the sanctioning bodys appeals panel.

Read the full police report here:

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

      

Nick Bromberg is a writer for Yahoo Sports.

More from Yahoo Sports:

 Kobe takes shot at Fox News in Oscar acceptance speech

 Cops search for troubled NFL star after domestic incident

 LeBron Jr. puts on a show with godfather CP3 watching

 Central Floridas Griffin is the talk of the scouting combine

The fate of my species literally depends on me, read the Tinder profile for a northern white rhino named Sudan, posted last year. Now, Sudan  the worlds last male northern white rhino  is battling a grave illness, and faces death with no progeny in sight.

Sudan is one of three remaining northern white rhinos on Earth, all protected 24/7 by armed guards at Kenyas Ol Pejeta Conservancy. Sudans companions are Najin and Fatu, both younger females. Considered elderly for a rhino at age 45, Sudan has been placed on death watch as he battles a leg infection his caretakers say is not responding to treatment. The life expectancy of white rhinos in captivity is about 40 to 50 years.

We dont think he will last for much longer, Elodie Sampere, an Ol Pejeta spokeswoman, told CNN last week, adding that euthanasia will be explored if it becomes clear that the rhino is suffering and has no chance of recovery.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Sudans death would mark a grim milestone in the story of the northern white rhino, a subspecies that numbered over 2,000 as recently as 1960. Poaching, fueled by demand for rhino horn, drove the subspecies to the brink of extinction. By 1984, just 15 of the animals were left.

When Angalifu, a male living at the San Diego Zoo, died in 2014, Sudan became the last living male of his subspecies  and a symbol for rhino conservation worldwide. To raise awareness about the animals plight, Ol Pejeta partnered with the dating app Tinder last year to create a profile for Sudan.

I perform well under pressure. I like to eat grass and chill in the mud, read the tongue-in-cheek Tinder listing. 6 ft tall and 5,000lbs if it matters.

(Photo: Tinder)

With Sudan ailing and his female companions both suffering from conditions making them physically incapable of pregnancy, the future of the northern white rhino is bleak. As National Geographic put it last month, the subspecies would require nothing short of a miracle to be saved from extinction.

Still, conservationists are clinging to that possible miracle. After years of futile attempts to breed Sudan, Fatu and Najin naturally, the rhinos caretakers have been looking at a far more costly  and controversial  option: in vitro fertilization.

Story continues

IVF in rhinos has never been successfully performed, but conservationists say its the only hope of saving the northern white rhino from extinction. Since Najin and Fatu cant physically bear progeny, scientists are banking on using a female southern white rhino as a surrogate mother. Sex cells will be harvested from Najin and Fatu, before fertilizing them in vitro with stored sperm cells harvested from (now long-dead) northern white males. If all goes well, the embryo will be implanted into the surrogate.

Ol Pejeta said last year that they hope to carry out the procedure in 2018. The fate of the northern white rhino subspecies depends on this operation going smoothly, the conservancy said in a May press release.

If that doesnt work, the absolute last resort would be to impregnate a southern white rhino with sperm from a northern white. Southern white rhinos, which number about 17,000 in the wild, are a distinct subspecies. Still, crossing the two subspecies would be better than complete extinction, conservationists have said.

All five remaining rhino species worldwide are considered threatened, according to the conservation group Save the Rhino. Three of the five species are critically endangered.

Also on HuffPost

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Local communities are struggling to cope with the aftermath of a major earthquake that hit Papua New Guinea's remote highlands almost a week ago, reports said Sunday, amid fears of a rising death toll.

The highlands in the Pacific nation's interior about 600 kilometres (370 miles) north-west of Port Moresby were struck by a 7.5-magnitude tremor early on February 26.

The region has also been shaken by a series of strong aftershocks in subsequent days, the latest a 6.0-magnitude tremor recorded by the United States Geological Survey that struck about 0.30am local time Monday (1430 GMT Sunday).

The government has declared a state of emergency and sent relief workers to the Southern Highlands, Western, Enga and Hela provinces, which have been hit by downed communications, landslides and sinkholes, as well as toppled homes and buildings.

"This was the biggest earthquake in a hundred years (in the highlands) and it spread 150 kilometres across the fault line," humanitarian duty officer Darian Clark of the Australian High Commission (embassy) said in a statement Saturday.

"A number of urban settlements, as well as villages, have been affected, many in the form of landslides and landslips, which means that roads have been cut off, water contaminated, power knocked out and other widespread effects for the local people."

Numerous communities have yet to be reached by aid workers and it was not known how badly they were affected, seismologist Mathew Moihoi of PNG's Geophysical Observatory told AFP Sunday.

No official death toll has been released by the government, but various PNG media reports have cited local officials on the ground who spoke of dozens of casualties.

The PNG Post-Courier newspaper has collated unconfirmed reports of more than 50 dead from the initial quake.

"The figures (for the death toll) have been coming out from areas where there is access, but there might be areas which are not accessible and it is a little bit hard to get to those areas," Moihoi said.

Story continues

"There might be some casualties there, we just don't know. It's going to be a little bit difficult to get the figures at this stage."

Local news website Loop PNG cited a police officer as saying that starvation and looting were on the rise in the affected communities.

The situation was worsening on the ground every day, the website added Sunday, quoting local advocacy groups mobilising to help stricken communities.

"People are crying and they are shouting when they are calling us," Cathy Alex from the Advancing PNG Women's Network said as she pleaded for public donations.

"We can't just sit and wait for the (government-pledged disaster funding of) 450 million kina (US$140 million)."

Besides the government's aid efforts, oil and gas companies ExxonMobil and Oil Search, which operate in the area, have assisted relief and recovery efforts.

The Australian military said Saturday it had arrived in PNG and was distributing relief supplies and conducting aerial surveys of quake-hit areas.Paris (AFP) - Self-styled revolutionary Carlos the Jackal was back in a French court on Monday for what is expected to be his final trial, appealing the life sentence handed down last year over a deadly 1974 bombing in Paris.

It was the third life term for 68-year-old Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, who became one of the world's most notorious fugitives in the 1970s and 80s during his pro-Palestinian campaign of terror.

True to form, the man known as Carlos seized his chance to turn the courtroom into a stage for theatrical diatribes, raising his right fist in defiance as he took the stand before blowing a kiss towards journalists.

"I am a professional revolutionary; revolution is my job," he said, stating his nationality as "Venezuelan and Palestinian".

But this time Carlos, wearing a turtleneck under a black suit, was addressing a half-empty courtroom, and judges refused his request to have the trial filmed, saying public interest had "sharply declined" in recent years.

Carlos has denied responsibility for the attack at the Publicis Drugstore at Saint-Germain-des-Pres, in the heart of Paris's Left Bank, more than 40 years ago, when a grenade was thrown from the mezzanine restaurant into a crowded gallery below.

Judges determined that all evidence pointed to Carlos, even though no DNA or fingerprints were found after the bombing which killed two people and injured 34.

"There are incredible weaknesses in this case: witnesses manipulated by the security services, liars, fake evidence," said Francis Vuillemin, Carlos's longtime lawyer along with Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, who has since become his partner.

"We are going to break it all down, and ask for an acquittal."

- Campaign of fear -

The trial recalls an era when Europe was repeatedly targeted by professed revolutionary militants, including some claiming to support the Palestinian cause.

Little known at the time of the Drugstore attack, Venezuelan-born Carlos shot to the front pages the following year when his commando group burst into a meeting of the OPEC oil cartel in Vienna, taking 11 people hostage. Three people were killed.

Story continues

His singular portrait -- with heavily tinted black glasses and a sardonic smile -- would capture the public imagination as he spent 20 years on the run, repeatedly giving the slip to international security services.

French police finally arrested him in the Sudanese capital Khartoum in 1994, and he has been imprisoned ever since.

He was given a life sentence for the murders of two policemen in the French capital in 1975, as well as that of a former comrade who betrayed him.

He was later found guilty of four bombings in Paris and Marseille in 1982 and 1983, some targeting trains, which killed a total of 11 people and injured nearly 150.

"You don't just decide one day to be violent, it becomes a necessity. The Israeli bombings made me a militant of the Palestinian cause," Carlos told the court.

"Nobody has executed more people in this cause than me. At my age, I ask myself how I was able to get through it."

Asked if he admitted killing the two policemen in 1975, for example, Carlos replied: "Of course."

- Verdict soon -

Prosecutors say the grenade at the Publicis Drugstore -- now located on the Champs-Elysees -- was part of several attacks aimed at pressuring French authorities to free a member of the Japanese Red Army who had been arrested at Paris's Orly airport.

The group was aligned with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, of which Carlos had become one of the main operatives in Europe.

Several witnesses appeared to back this theory at last year's trial, in particular one of Carlos's former associates, Hans Joachim Klein, who said Carlos told him he had thrown the grenade.

When the judge leading the trial was preparing the witness schedule on Monday, Carlos said: "No witness has ever said it was me!"

But the "Jackal" himself, a nickname that came from a fictional terrorist in the 1971 Frederick Forsyth novel, "The Day of the Jackal", claimed responsibility in a 1979 interview with the magazine El Watan Al Arabi.

Carlos later claimed that he had never given such an interview.

At the trial last year, he had argued that he should not be required to testify against himself, while claiming that he faced death if he divulged operational information.

The verdict is expected on March 16.Italy has been a populist stronghold for two and a half decades  that is since 1994, when Silvio Berlusconi created his Forza Italia (FI) party. His goal was allegedly to save the Italian people from being governed by Communists after the collapse of centrist parties under the weight of anti-corruption investigations. Having won the election in the same year, Berlusconi then led a short-lived coalition government, with the support of the extreme-right party the Social Movement and the regionalist populist Lega Nord.

Fast forward 24 years to the 2018 election, and not only is Berlusconi still FIs leader (and indeed owner), but, together with a renewed Lega, he has again managed to assemble an electoral coalition that could end up in government.

However, this time there is an important twist: yet another populist political actor was born in the meantime and now happens to be the largest single party of all: the Five Star Movement (M5s). Having entered the Italian political scene less than ten years ago as an anti-establishment force, this group has struck a chord with an electorate weighted down by the economic crisis and fed up with the corruption of mainstream parties. In this election the party has attracted just below one third of the votes by standing alone.

Rising stars

A first analysis of the electoral outcome should start with the undisputed winner  that is M5s. There is no denying it has achieved an amazing result, especially given that its performance in leading local administrations in recent years, particularly the city of Rome, has been far from impressive.

Having gained around 32% of the national vote, M5s has confirmed its position as the most successful new party in the history of Western Europe (going from 0 to 25% between 2009 and 2013, and having grown of a further 7% in the following five years). As such, the Italian president, Sergio Mattarella, might well feel compelled to give it a chance to form a government before exploring the alternatives.

Story continues

However, it is not obvious at this stage who could work with Beppe Grillos party to lead the country. A solution will probably turn out to be to reach an agreement with the Democratic Party (PD). But thats the very party that M5s has long identified as the source of the countrys ills. This would be a complete reversal of the position taken by M5s after the 2013 election, when it refused to even consider such a possibility and went into opposition, forcing the PD to govern with FI.

The difference between then and now, however, is considerable. Back then, the PD had emerged from the election with 29% of the vote  the largest share. M5s took 25%. Moreover, the centre-left coalition, of which the PD was the fulcrum, had a much larger number of seats than M5s, due to the electoral law in force at the time. This time round, the PD suffered a crushing defeat (its vote has gone down from 29% in 2013 to 18%) and would be forced into a supporting role if it went in to partnership with the dominant M5S. Its unclear why the Democrats would want to swallow such a bitter pill. While not impossible (after all, the centre-left has a great ability to shoot itself in the foot), I regard such a solution as very unlikely. It would be tantamount to committing political suicide.

A right-wing alliance

Meanwhile, the right wing alliance  made up of Berlusconis FI, Matteo Salvinis Lega and Giorgia Melonis Brothers of Italy, is by far the largest coalition. However, the Lega has overcome FI for the first time with an astonishing 17% of the vote (vs FIs 14%).

EPA

This is very significant since the agreement between the two was that whichever of them came on top would have a right to put forward the prime minister. If the right eventually manages to gain the support of enough MPs to create a government, therefore, Salvini would have to lead it.

Salvinis radicalism and harsh rhetoric (particularly on immigration) makes it less likely that anyone would want to give the right wing coalition this opportunity (and in any case, it is not clear at this stage where such extra MPs would come from). But having brought the party from 4% in 2013 to 17% today (the best result ever achieved by the party, and by far) Salvinis position within the Lega is now unassailable.

Who governs?

With the right-wing alliance unlikely to have enough seats to govern on its own and voters so obviously fed up with mainstream parties, it now looks at least possible that, despite their differences, the Lega and M5s may want to explore the possibility of governing together. This would be very difficult for the Lega, as the party would need to ditch its well tested alliance with FI, one that has served it well during many years.

Such a move would be further complicated by the fact that the two right-wing allies (and their minor ally, Brothers of Italy) have fielded coalition candidates together, since, under the new electoral law, one third of the seats are selected from single-member districts (SMDs) according to a plurality rule. It is true that each of the candidates came from one of these parties and, ultimately, is loyal to them, however they have received the support of all right-wing voters. If the Lega ignored this and agreed to join M5s in government, Berlusconi would accuse them of betraying the electorate.

In the end, what we are left with while we still wait for the final results to be confirmed is the certainty that populism continues to dominate Italian politics. Everything else is a question mark.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Daniele Albertazzi has received funding from AHRC, The Leverhulme Trust and the British AcademyChief of staff John Kelly, who recently downgraded Jared Kushners top security clearance, is reportedly wondering what exactly President Donald Trumps daughter Ivanka and her husband do all day in the White House.

Related: Jared Kushner must leave White House if he put business interests in Qatar ahead of troop safety, Democrat says

Kelly has been angered by what he sees as freelancing by the couple and blames them for changing the presidents mind at the last minute, an anonymous White House official told the Associated Press in a report published Monday.

Trending: Rick Ross Released From Hospital After Health Scare

Kushners security clearance downgrade, announced last week, bars him from accessing classified information presumably key to doing work in his broad portfolio, which includes forging peace in the Middle East and leading relations with China and Mexico.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Meanwhile, Ivanka has faced scrutiny for her own lack of permanent security clearance. When asked if the first daughter had the appropriate security clearance to brief South Korean President Moon Jae-in on her fathers new North Korea sanctions last month, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin answered she has the appropriate access, dodging the core of the question. Ivanka has also come under fire for her self-portrayal as an advocate for women and families in Washington, given the repeat sexual misconduct allegations against her father.

Don't miss: Oscars Ratings Hit All-Time Low Despite Inclusion and Diversity Among Nominees, Early Data Suggests

Kushner and Ivanka Trump have taken Kellys security clearances crackdown as a direct shot at them, White House aides and outside advisers told AP. One White House official said otherwise, claiming that Kellys work to bring order to the chaotic West Wing has allowed Kushner to focus on his duties.

The presidents own stance on his daughter and son-in-laws service seems shaky. He encouraged the couple to keep serving in their senior White House adviser roles, but also privately asked Kelly to help move them out, The New York Times reported last Thursday.

Story continues

A White House spokesman for the couple did not respond to a request for comment from Newsweek.

Most popular: Overwatch Season 9 Tier List: Best for the Meta

People close to the couple say they do not plan to leave Washington and return to New York, as the president has reportedly suggested they do to escape criticism from the public and media.

Kushner resigned as CEO of his family-owned real estate firm Kushner Companies, but questions loom on whether he is still involved in his business interest while doing foreign policy work. Ivanka stepped down from her leadership role at her eponymous clothing line but has continued to pursue her business endeavors, opening a shop at Trump Tower in December.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekBy Makini Brice WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In the midst of a joke-filled monologue at a dinner with journalists, President Donald Trump suggested on Saturday that the United States will be meeting with North Korea but has told Pyongyang it must first "denuke." "Now we are talking and they, by the way, called up a couple of days ago. They said that 'we would like to talk.' And I said 'So would we, but you have to denuke, you have to denuke,'" Trump told attendees at the annual Gridiron Club dinner. "We will be meeting and we'll see if anything positive happens," he added. It was unclear if Trump was joking or if formal U.S.-North Korea talks were imminent. On Sunday, a senior U.S. administration official said Trump did not hear directly from North Korea that the country would like to start talks. The information was relayed to the administration by South Korea, the official said. "I won't rule out direct talks with Kim Jong Un. I just won't," Trump said on Saturday, referring to North Korea's leader. Trump did, however, make a joke at his own expense. "As far as the risk of dealing with a madman is concerned, that's his problem, not mine," Trump said. If a meeting were to come together, it would be the first between the Trump administration and Pyongyang, which are in a standoff over North Korea's development of nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States. Trump's remarks came shortly before South Korea's presidency announced on Sunday that a high-level delegation of South Korean officials will travel to North Korea on Monday to discuss improving relations on the peninsula and possible talks between Washington and Pyongyang. After the two-day visit to North Korea, the special envoys will travel to the United States to brief officials on their discussions in Pyongyang, South Korea's presidential Blue House said. Last month, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was scheduled to meet with North Korean officials, including the North Korean leader's sister, while in South Korea for the Winter Olympics, but the North Koreans canceled at the last minute, U.S. officials said in February. They said the North Koreans had walked away after Pence condemned North Korean human rights abuses and announced plans for new economic sanctions. Signs of a North-South thaw have prompted speculation of future direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang after months of tension and exchanges of insults between Trump and the North Korean leader that have fueled fears of war. North Korea has refrained from carrying out any weapons tests since late November, when it tested its largest intercontinental ballistic missile. Trump's remarks on North Korea came toward the end of a 30-minute speech in his first press dinner since taking office 13 months ago. Gridiron Club members don wigs and costumes to perform satirical skits skewering the president and Washington political class, a tradition dating back to 1885. Presidents typically deliver a humorous speech at the event and do not disclose new policy initiatives. Trump rattled off a series of jokes that got plenty of laughs, skewering members of his own Cabinet like Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, who were all present in the Washington hotel ballroom. (Additional reporting by David Shepardson and Kevin Drawbaugh; Writing by Mary Milliken; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Paul Simao)Jordan Peele paid tribute to his directorial debut Get Out in a subtle way at the Oscars. On the red carpet Sunday night, he wore a golden pin shaped like deer antlers  a symbolic motif throughout his film.

The deer shows up multiple times in the social thriller as a metaphor for modern-day racism. For example, its on the wall of Roses (Allison Williams) parents home, where shes just brought her boyfriend, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), for the weekend. A deer also appears in the first moments of Chris first trip to the Sunken Place while being hypnotized by Roses mother.

Jordan Peele's antler lapel pin. (Photo: Frazer Harrison via Getty Images)

The deer and antlers imagery works to mirror Kaluuyas character, revealing how black men are often prey to racism. The theme is one of many for which the film has been applauded.

Get Out, which has a 99 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay.

Best Dressed for the 2018 Oscars

When interviewed on the red carpet Sunday night, Peele said the people needed this film to be made.

This is a movie for the fans, he said. And the reason Im here is because the fans brought me here.

Also on HuffPost

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

Nicole Kidman

Viola Davis

Jennifer Lawrence

Taraji P. Henson

Lupita Nyong'o

Sandra Bullock

Emma Stone

Allison Williams

Salma Hayek

Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer

Jennifer Garner

Chadwick Boseman

Gina Rodriguez

Daniel Kaluuya

Saoirse Ronan

Mirai Nagasu

Mary J. Blige

Betty Gabriel

Margot Robbie

Adam Rippon

Eiza Gonzalez

Zendaya

Whoopi Goldberg

Taura Stinson

St. Vincent

Tom Holland

Mira Sorvino

Lindsey Vonn

Danai Gurira

Gal Gadot

Michael Strahan

Jordan Peele and Chelsea Peretti

Kelly Ripa

Laura Dern

HOLLYWOOD, CA - MARCH 04: Laura Dern attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic)

Patrick Stewart and Sunny Ozell

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Washington (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to meet his "true friend" Donald Trump in Washington on Monday during a visit that will take him away from swirling accusations of personal corruption and a government crisis roiling the Israeli scene.

On Friday, police questioned Netanyahu for five hours over a bribery scandal that some commentators say could spell his political doom. In two separate cases, the police last month recommended that he be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of public trust.

At the same time, Netanyahu is grappling with a spreading governmental crisis that could lead to early elections.

But he will find a warm welcome at the White House from a president who has pursued a policy of unswerving support for Israel and its government.

The two leaders are not only friendly, they use some of the same populist arguments and appeals.

Netanyahu has embraced the Trumpian tactic of denouncing as "fake news" the corruption allegations hanging over his head, while insisting he is the target of a politically motivated smear campaign.

"I think they are partners in ideology, and the ideology is a populist, conservative ideology which says that the old liberal elites are against us," said Gayil Talshir, a political scientist at Jerusalem's Hebrew University.

- 'A boost' for Netanyahu -

"I think from that perspective it is a boost" for Netanyahu.

Netanyahu will also take part, during his four-day visit, in the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the influential pro-Israeli lobbying group.

The two leaders are certain to discuss Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital -- a move warmly embraced by Netanyahu though widely denounced in most capitals -- as well as the struggle to curb Iran's regional influence.

Breaking with his predecessors and defying warnings, Trump on December 6 announced his intention to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The White House plans to open the new facility on May 14, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of Israel's creation.

Story continues

Netanyahu said late Saturday as he was preparing to leave for the US that he hoped Trump could attend the ceremony.

"I'm very grateful to him for this historic decision," he said.

In another move strongly supported by Netanyahu, Trump froze tens of millions of dollars in aid payments to the Palestinian Authority.

- Countering Iran -

Those two actions drew an angry response from Palestinian leaders, who accused Trump of blatantly favoring Israel and said the United States had lost the ability to serve as an honest broker in any Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.

The peace process grew even more complicated recently after Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and one of his senior advisers, lost his top-secret security clearance.

That will greatly complicate Kushner's efforts to negotiate an "ultimate" peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, as Trump commissioned him to do.

That task has eluded far more experienced diplomats in previous administrations.

Analysts say it is hard to see how progress can be made when the Palestinians feel abandoned by the United States and Netanyahu faces pressure from hard-liners in his coalition to accelerate settlement construction in -- even the annexation of -- the occupied West Bank.

Meantime, a deep divide over Israel and the Palestinians has emerged in the US. Poll results early this year from the Pew Research Center show 79 percent of Republicans sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians, while only 27 percent of Democrats say the same.

But Netanyahu is not thought to be overly concerned about any delay in restarting the peace talks.

In his encounters with Trump and at the AIPAC conference, he is expected to focus mainly on Iran as Israel's greatest enemy, and one he says seeks a permanent military presence in neighboring Syria.

The prime minister is also expected to call again for changes to, or the cancellation of, the nuclear accord between world powers and Iran, said Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington.

"Israel, I think, is hoping that there will be a more active American role in trying to block, trying to stem, the Iranian advances in Syria," where Tehran backs the Assad government, he said.

Beyond its political support, the United States provides Israel, its key regional ally, with more than $3 billion in annual military aid.Tehran (AFP) - Journalists flooded Iran's National Museum on Monday for the arrival of more than 50 artworks from the Louvre -- the first major show by a Western museum in the country's history.

The show reflects France's determined use of cultural diplomacy as it seeks to rebuild traditional ties with Iran, even as their officials hold tense talks over political and security issues.

The doors were unsealed for journalists at the National Museum in central Tehran, which is currently celebrating its 80th anniversary, a day ahead of the public opening.

Among the items shipped over by cargo plane were a 2,400-year-old Egyptian sphinx, a bust of Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius and drawings by Rembrandt and Delacroix.

"Some were definitely easier to transport than others," said Judith Henon, one of the experts sent by the Louvre.

"Our Iranian partners really liked the sphinx, but it weighs close to a tonne and was extremely complicated to put in place."

The show marks the culmination of two years of work since a cultural exchange agreement was signed during a visit by President Hassan Rouhani to Paris in January 2016.

"Relations between France and Iran are old and profound because France was a pioneer of archaeological exploration here," Jean-Luc Martinez, president of the Louvre, told AFP.

"This completely unprecedented exhibition... allows us to make the link between this glorious moment and relations that date back to the 19th century."

- Cultural ties -

France has deep cultural ties with pre-revolutionary Iran, and the National Museum itself was built by a Frenchman, Andre Godard, in 1938.

While Britain and Russia battled for political influence in 19th century Persia, it was the French who led the way in archaeological affairs.

"France had priority on cultural questions in the late 19th century and was the only one doing digs in Iran," said Julien Cuny, one of the Louvre's curators for the Tehran show, and an expert on Iran.

Story continues

So as not to hand over everything to Britain and Russia, the Persian monarchs handed control of certain issues to other countries, and cultural affairs ended up largely with France.

"As a result of that, it was the French that set up the antiquities service here in 1930," said Cuny.

That helped preserve France's reputation among Iranians even as that of Britain, the United States and Russia plummeted in the years ahead of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

"Back in the day, the British were looking for oil while we were doing archaeology, so our relations have focused on positive things. It's an image that has stuck," said a French diplomat.

The irony is that the show opens just as France and Iran find themselves in a tense diplomatic moment.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was in Tehran to inaugurate the Louvre show, but more importantly to hold difficult talks over ballistic missiles and interventions in the region.

Iran's conservative press accused him of insulting the Iranian people with his criticisms of the missile programme and labelled him a "lackey" of US President Donald Trump.

The cultural domain offers a chance to focus on the positive re-engagement between France and Iran, which has also been seen in a number of trade and investment deals involving carmakers Peugeot and Renault as well as energy giant Total since the 2015 nuclear accord.

University links are another branch, with some 1,700 Iranians currently studying in France.

"In the tumultuous ocean of international relations, cultural diplomacy is a flare that we should maintain together," said Le Drian.BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Luxemburg will join Austria in suing the European Commission for allowing Hungary to expand its Paks atomic plant, it said on Monday, in a stand against nuclear energy. Staunchly anti-nuclear Austria, which shares a border with Hungary, has said it would file a suit against the EU executive with Europe's top court. "We are going to actively support Austria's claim," Luxemburg's environment minister Carole Dieschbourg told reporters in Brussels. "It is important that no public funds be invested in nuclear power. It is definitely the wrong way." Hungary's plan to build two new reactors at its Paks nuclear site with the help of Russia's Rosatom had been approved by EU state aid regulators in March. The regulators said that Hungarian authorities had agreed to several measures to ensure fair competition. The European Commission has said it will defend its decision in court. In many such complex cases, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has found in favor of the Commission. (Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Editing by David Goodman)Paris (AFP) - French President Emmanuel Macron called on his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani on Sunday to put the "necessary pressure" on the Syrian government to halt "indiscriminate" attacks on civilians in the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta.

During a telephone call between the two leaders, Macron underscored the "particular responsiblity for Iran, because of its ties to the regime, regarding the implementation of the humanitarian truce" sought by the UN, his office said.

Their talks came as a monitoring group said forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad had seized control of over a quarter of Eastern Ghouta, on the edge of Damascus, after two weeks of devastating bombardment.

The offensive has reportedly killed more than 640 civilians and sent hundreds more fleeing, prompting growing international calls to end the bloodshed.

"The two presidents expressed their agreement to work together in the coming days along with the UN, in conjunction with the Damascus regime and the main countries involved in Syria, to secure results on the ground, supply necessary aid to civilians and implement an effective ceasefire," Macron's office said.

He and Rouhani are expected to speak again later this week.

The United Nations has called for a 30-day ceasefire in Eastern Ghouta, but so far regime-backer Russia has declared only a five-hour daily "humanitarian pause".

Macron's office also said the French leader reiterated his support of the 2015 deal to limit Iran's nuclear activities, signed by Tehran and six world powers.

However he urged Iran to give "clear responses" to worries about the country's ballistic missile programme as well as claims that its foreign policies were heightening tensions throughout the region, in particular in Lebanon.

"He emphasised our expectation of Iran's positive contribution to regional de-escalation and efforts to resolve crises in the Middle East," the presidency said.

Story continues

US President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out of the 2015 deal unless more is done to rein in Iran's missile development.

French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will hold "frank discussions" with Iran's leaders during a visit on Monday, a spokesman said.

It will be the first by a top official from the three European signatories of the nuclear deal since Trump set out his ultimatum in January.A man wearing a bulletproof vest died after he was shot in the chest by a friend at a party.

Jason Griffin, a friend of the victim whose name has not been released, has been charged with manslaughter, police in Houston, Texas confirmed.

His girlfriend, Mary Warstler, told the ABC13 news channel that the 39-year-old did not think the gun was loaded and had not meant to kill his friend.

Although she had not attended the party, she said she spoke to her boyfriend shortly after he fled the scene of the shooting. He later turned himself in.

She said he told her that he had gone to "sell his friend a flak jacket." The victim, she said, had told him to "shoot me" after he tried it on.

Its so bad because he didnt know the gun was loaded, she added. He felt bad for what happened to his friend.

Jason Griffin claims he did not know the gun was loaded, his girlfriend said: Houston Police

She added that Mr Griffin had tried to save his friend before fleeing the scene and later became suicidal. He subsequently suffered two seizures and was taken to hospital.

Homicide Sgt Mark Holbrook confirmed part of the story.

"The victim put on a bulletproof vest and another man who has a gun winds up shooting him," he said. "It's unusual, but these things happen sometimes."

The victim was dead by the time officers arrived at the scene, he added.

He also confirmed that Mr Griffin was taken into custody on Sunday afternoon after being treated in hospital.

Along with manslaughter, Mr Griffin had also been charged with unlawful possession of body armour and being a felon in possession of a weapon.

Just over 3,200 people were killed by a firearm in Texas in 2015, according to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, a rate of 11.7 per 100,000 population.

The rate nationwide in 2015 was 11.1 per 100,000.A New York prisoner who, as a teenager, opened fire at his school has lauded the bravery of survivors of Februarys high school massacre in Parkland, Florida.

Jon Romano was 16 when he brought a pump-action shotgun to his New York high school in 2004. One teacher was injured when Romano opened fire, but the schools principal disarmed him before anybody was killed. Romano is now serving time for attempted murder and reckless endangerment, the BBC reports.

In a letter sent from his prison to New Yorks Times Union, Romano, now 30, wrote that the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School were courageous and inspiring for demanding action from politicians.

After an expelled student killed 17 classmates and staff with an AR-15 assault rifle, the Florida students have lobbied for tighter gun controls and criticized politicians who they say allow the National Rifle Association to buy influence.

A student-led March on Washington later this month will draw further attention to the issue.

Read more: Stoneman Douglas Student: How Photography Is Helping Me Cope With This Nightmare

Romanos letter to an editor at the Times Union came in response to a Feb. 21 column that featured comments from John Sawchuk, the school principal who subdued him.

Sawchuk, who Romano calls a hero who I owe my life to, said in the column that a lot of people would have been dead if Romano had bought an AR-15 or another semi-automatic weapon to school, rather than a shotgun.Bec Craven does not hide the scar she has from open-heart surgeries. (Photo: Courtesy of Project WomanKIND)

Jessica Vander Leahy will show you her scar if you show her yours.

Actually, shell show you regardless. The founder of Project WomanKIND, a website dedicated to celebrating women, just launched a photo and video series titled #ShowMeYourScar to encourage people to look past the forced idea of perfection and to more of a celebration of their own unique beauty, she says

Through the series, five women, Jessica included, share how their scars helped shape who they are and challenged them to look and think about themselves differently and what theyve learned through past pains.

Leahy was inspired in part by her own scar. She was 6 and at work with her dad at a coffee plantation when she lost the top half of her pointer finger through a freak accident with an industrial coffee grinder her dad was fixing; Leahy stuck her finger in a bolthole as a concrete slab was getting dropped in, and the weight of it took off the top of her finger.

Its such a catalyst for sharing and connecting, the plus-size model said about her scar in the YouTube video. Further, she tells Yahoo Lifestyle, I know losing the top of my finger is not a completely devastating or life-threatening injury, but its something on my body that when people notice, they ask questions. They look, they touch, and when I tell them I sliced it off in a machine, they wince and then almost immediately pull off their shirt or shoes or something to reveal their own wound thats now healed over. These exchanges, she says, the you show me yours, Ill show you mine sort of thing, has really fascinated her, because by being vulnerable and showing people youre human, others open up.

Felicity Parker embraces the scar, under her arm, from breast cancer. (Photo: Courtesy of Project WomanKIND)

It doesnt really bother me, Leahy said in the video of her finger. Unfortunately, it does bother some people in the fashion industry; a photographer once told her it would be a big issue. But once she learned to look past it, so did others  shes since modeled in NYFW for Dia & Co.

Story continues

I would go into castings thinking, Oh my God, is someone going to notice my finger? But honestly, they dont. Unfortunately, she knows the fashion industry still has a long way to go around so-called imperfections, which is where her series appreciating and normalizing scars comes in. Its kind of preposterous to me, though, that in the fashion industry, or in the beauty industry, little things like that are still seen as so damaged, and theyre not; theyre human. We are human, she says, beautifully referring to scars as little bookmarks on our body, showing the chapters that have been lived.

The participants in the photo series agree. To participate, Leahy found international model turned fashion agent Penelope Benson, model and heart-transplant survivor Bec Craven, breast cancer warrior Felicity Parker, and surfer-florist Phoebe East in Australia.

The women I found for the series were actually local women from where Im based at the moment, Byron Bay, she tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Ive had this idea to create a project on scars for a while, but finding women who were open to speaking and being photographed and filmed for the project was tough. She was also on the hunt for nonmodels. In my last series (you can also find on YouTube), I had only young models, because that was the story I was trying to tell, but here I wanted to be more diverse and have women who werent used to being in front of a camera. And it worked out well for the diversity activist. The women I did get were brilliant and interesting and able to articulate so much wisdom about how theyve been challenged and how those challenges have shaped them, and I think thats really special, she said.

I got my scar from having a heart transplant last year, participant Bec Craven explained in her YouTube interview. Before that I also had a mechanical heart, so Ive had two open-hearts now.

The model was 24 when she was diagnosed with heart failure. They told me that my heart function was down to a point where  I dont even know how I was still living. She learned the following year that shed need a heart transplant, which required grueling tests before the surgery.

When I tell people about my scar, a lot of people just go Oh my goodness, their jaw drops, and they are like How old are you?

Phoebe East lost vision in one eye when she was 29. (Photo: Courtesy of Project WomanKIND)

She has a long scar down the middle of her chest, which she flaunts frequently. I dont ever wear something to cover it up  it was hard to get used to, but once I got used to it, and then having my second open-heart surgery, I just figured, Im not going to change my fashion sense or change who I am to cover this. When I see my scar in the mirror, its a battle scar. Its a story for me.

To her, scars are a story that is not in words  its a medal almost  Its beautiful, and if people dont accept that, thats their problem. I think scars are beautiful, I really do. And Im not just saying that because I have this one.

Phoebe East lost half her vision when she was 29. She was surfing at her local spot when she went to duck dive over a wave. Instead of clearing the wave, something shed done thousands of times before, she got she caught in the lip and the force of the water flung her board back toward her and it sliced through her eye. Before her accident Phoebe had perfect 20-20 vision, but after it she could see only out of her right eye.

I think it probably brings up quite a bit of fear in people, the idea of losing vision, East said in her video interview. Its kind of just harrowing having your whole life ripped apart. She said she looks in the mirror a lot less now, not because Im grossed out by it or anything, but its just easier if I dont look at it all the time and dont focus on it.  Its strange knowing that youre still the same person but you look different physically.

Felicity Parker is actually thankful for the experience that led to her scars. I was in a very emotionally abusive marriage, and through breast cancer Ive learned that Im in the drivers seat of my life, and I cant give anyone the power anymore.  I have learned to live and not just survive, and so for that, Im very grateful. She said her illnesses have completely turned her spiritual life around. To those who are uncomfortable with their scars, she advised them to sit and just really feel who they are within, because what we see on the outside, thats just a house, and it houses so much more than what we can ever imagine.

Penelope Benson has a scar on her neck from a large tumor, one that could have quite possibly been growing since she was a teen, Project WomanKIND wrote. At the beginning I was so mortified that I had to not be a model for a little while, she said in her interview. As Penelope began to treat her cancer, her weight fluctuated, she lost her hair to chemotherapy, and, though she tried, she eventually became too weak to work. But she said the illness helped her cut through the bullshit of her life and discover what really matters.

The photo series on Instagram focuses on the scars in beautiful black-and-white images. The myth that were perfect is done, Leahy says. This beauty-positive project is all about trying to make that clear to anyone who sees it; we will no longer be made to feel less than so you can sell us something. To brands, the scar series says, Were smarter and we want you to capitalize on our joy, not our insecurities.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.







The Oscars may not have a #TimesUp dress code, but the simultaneous arrival of Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino on the red carpet made a powerful statement.

Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino arrive at the 90th Annual Academy Awards together. (Photo: Getty Images)

The women, who have been considered trailblazers in the #MeToo movement, pleasantly surprised viewers by timing their arrival on the red carpet.

The reactions on Twitter show how crucial the moment was.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

The two actresses were among the first to come out against the film producer Harvey Weinstein, claiming that he derailed their careers after they refused to succumb to his pressure to have a physical relationship with him. Judd, 49, detailed her account of sexual harassment in the New York Timess first report against Weinstein, describing a meeting in his hotel room that turned inappropriate. Just a few days later, Sorvino, 50, shared her experience, which was eerily similar to Judds.

The actresses were validated in their claims that they were blacklisted and blocked from roles in Peter Jacksons Lord of the Rings by Jackson himself, who said he was submitting to Weinsteins wishes. And to judge by their red carpet appearance (Judd wore a bespoke ring honoring the Times Up movement) and statements to reporters, its evident that the two actresses are now thriving.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Being yourself and being truthful has turned out to be the best thing you could be, even though it was superscary, Sorvino said in a red carpet interview with ABC.

We dont just warn our children you have to be able to navigate this thing. Instead, youre going to be teaching them this is what you should expect from yourself, this is whats not OK, she told Yahoo. Were building infrastructure to change rape culture, to change sexual harassment culture. She added, Theres so many wonderful things happening right now. Im just proud to be alive.

Notably, the pair skipped speaking with Ryan Seacrest, who was accused of sexual misconduct publicly last week.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.Ottawa (AFP) - A forensic search uncovered more human remains hidden in large planters used by a Toronto landscaper and alleged serial killer charged with murdering gay men, Canadian police said Monday.

Authorities also appealed to the public for help in identifying one victim from a photograph seemingly taken post-mortem.

Bruce McArthur, 66, was arrested in January following an investigation into the disappearances of two men from a predominantly gay neighborhood in downtown Toronto last year, which led police to the planters at a property that he used for storage.

The latest discovery brings the total number of victims in the grisly serial murder case to seven, although so far only three have been identified from dismembered body parts.

"We have recovered the remains of at least seven individuals from the planters seized at the (east side Toronto) home," lead investigator Sergeant Hank Idsinga told a press conference.

"Steps are ongoing in an attempt to identify these victims," he said.

The man in the victim photograph appeared to be in his 40s or early 50s, with dark hair and a beard, and bruises on his face.

Idsinga said the image -- which he described as a "key piece of evidence" -- is believed to have been taken after his death, but would not comment on its origin.

The photograph was released as a last resort, he said, after all other methods of identifying the man were exhausted.

The deceased man in the photograph has not yet been linked to any of the remains found in the planters, Idsinga added.

The victims currently known to police are Andrew Kinsman, 49, who had a long-term sexual relationship with McArthur; Skandaraj Navaratnam, 40, who went missing in 2010; and Soroush Mahmudi, 50, whose disappearance was reported almost three years ago.

McArthur is also charged with the murders of Majeed Kayhan, 58, Dean Lisowick, 47, and Selim Esen, 44.

And now a seventh murder charge is expected to be laid when McArthur returns to court later this month.

Story continues

Ontario's chief forensic pathologist Michael Pollanen told a press conference this case has "challenged" his team.

"We have used a multidisciplinary approach to try to find the truth behind what happened," he said.

Pathologists compared the body parts found in the planters to the fingerprints, dental records, and the medical histories of missing persons going back decades, for possible matches.

They have now also turned to DNA analysis.

"At this time, the cause of deaths are pending further studies," Pollanen said. "You can imagine that the state of decomposition and the dismemberment process requires us to reconstruct remains and then collect all of the relevant data."

Over the past two months, police have searched about 30 properties in Toronto before zeroing in on the eastside residence where upwards of 20 planters were seized, and two others it plans to excavate.

The investigation has been hampered by the cold. Police said they plan to return to the sites with cadaver sniffer dogs to comb for more possible remains once the frozen ground thaws.

McArthur came under suspicion in September 2017 in connection with the disappearance of Kinsman, but police at first rejected suggestions that a serial killer was prowling Toronto's gay neighborhood.

According to local media, police made a quick decision to enter McArthur's apartment and arrest him on January 18 when they saw a young man enter his home. Police found the man tied up on a bed, but unharmed.Through a grand jury, special counsel Robert Muellers investigation has issued a subpoena targeting communications and documents concerning members of Donald Trumps inner circle and the president himself, according to reports.

In a subpoena issued to one witness in the investigation last month, Mueller sought all communicationsincluding telephone logs, emails, text messages and handwritten notesconcerning nearly a dozen Trump aides and advisers, according to the document, reviewed by both Axios and NBC News.

The document targeted any communications about Trump as well as the various former heads of Trumps campaign throughout the election, including Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon and Corey Lewandowski, stretching back to November 1, 2015.

Trending: Trump Negotiates 'Like a Pinball Machine,' Top Republican Says

03_05_Trump

Chris Keane/Reuters

It also targets communications from the same period about Trumps personal lawyer Michael Cohen, Trumps longtime communications aide Hope Hicks, adviser Roger Stone and personal bodyguard Keith Schiller.

Mueller is also looking for communications about Rick Gates, who worked on the Trump campaign. Gates was indicted along with Manafort last October on charges of tax dodging and money laundering. Gates pleaded guilty last month to a lesser charge of lying to investigators and agreed to cooperate with Muellers team. Nearly two dozen charges against Gates have since been dropped.

The special counsel is conducting a wide-ranging probe into whether the Trump campaign assisted the Kremlins efforts to influence the 2016 election in its favor. The investigation also is examining if Trump attempted to stymie a law enforcement inquiry of the issue.

Last month, Mueller charged 13 Russians for waging information warfare on the U.S. through a misinformation campaign during the election.

Story continues

Don't miss: North Korea May Have Made Up To $200 Million From Bitcoins to Fund Its Nuclear Weapons

In an interview on NBC Newss Meet the Press on Sunday, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied that Russia interfered in the election and said he would never, never extradite the accused Russians.

Read more: Mueller asking about Trumps Russia business deals and Miss Universe Pageant

Over the past week, reports have emerged citing sources familiar with witness interviews conducted by Muellers investigators.

According to those reports, witnesses are being asked about Trumps Russia ties, efforts to build a Trump Tower in Moscow and why two separate deals there fell apart. They are also asking about potentially damaging information Russia might have on the president stemming from his visit to Moscow to promote the 2013 Miss Universe beauty pageant.

Mueller also is reportedly looking at whether Trumps son-in-law and senior White House adviser Jared Kushner's business dealings are impacting the administrations policies. Witnesses are being asked about what Trump knew of the timing and pending release of emails alleged to have been hacked by Russian intelligence from the Democratic party and Hillary Clintons campaign that were distributed by WikiLeaks.

Most popular: Child Opioid Overdoses Nearly Double in Last Decade

Trump has repeatedly called the investigation a politically motivated "witch hunt" and "hoax."

It was reported last December that Mueller had also obtained a wide range of documents from Trumps transition team.

The most recent subpoena was not a surprise to those familiar with national security investigations.

This encompasses major players that any reasonable prosecutor would be looking into in the regular and diligent course of the investigation, tweeted national security lawyer Bradley Moss in response to the subpoena for documents, calling it interesting but not really shocking.

This is entirely expected in terms of the scope of these subpoenas, he wrote.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Ned Price, a former CIA officer and special assistant to former President Barack Obama, observed that the subpoena concerns with just a few exceptions Trumps senior campaign team over the course of the election.

Mueller's investigation, Price tweeted, is treating it like a criminal enterprise.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekPalestinian demonstrators are seen as smoke rises from burning tires during a protest marking the 70th anniversary of Nakba, at the Israel-Gaza border in the southern Gaza Strip May 15, 2018. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Paul R. Pillar

Security, Middle East

The unresolved Israel-Palestinian conflict is one of the major factors preventing an effective region-wide prohibition of nuclear weapons.

The Palestinians and Nuclear Weapons

The significance of the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict has long been the subject of tendentious debates. The right-wing government of Israel, not wanting to relinquish the conquered land whose relinquishment would be necessary for peace, often contends, along with its sympathizers, that peace in that conflict doesnt really matter much anymore. The region has become preoccupied with other things, goes the argument, and even most Arabs care less about the Palestinians situation than about other problems. The kernels of truth in the argument are that the Middle East does indeed have many other troubles independent of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and that many Arab governments havent exactly been steadfast in upholding the interests of their Palestinian brethren.

Every now and then, however, comes evidence of how the nationalist aspirations of the Palestinians cannot be ignored or extinguished any more than comparable aspirations of other peoples, and how subsisting in intolerable conditions will make the limits of their toleration known. The most recent such reminder has been the series of demonstrations, in the face of lethal Israeli force, by residents of the open-air prison known as the Gaza Strip. Even considered apart from other issues, therefore, the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a significant source of violence and instability.

That leaves the question of how that conflict does or does not contribute to other security problems in the region. Those following the Israeli government line often employ the straw man argument that not all of those problems stem from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Of course they dont, but this fact is not inconsistent with this conflict being a substantial contributor to regional tension and insecurity. And some of the Israeli governments own positions underscore this linkage.

Story continues

Consider the issue of nuclear weapons. Most of the states of the region have actively supported diplomacy aimed at making the Middle East a nuclear weapons-free zone. Israel, backed by the United States and now especially by the Trump administration, has opposed this diplomacy and looked for ways to impede it. These lines of contention were apparent this spring at a preparatory meeting for the next quinquennial review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Israel argues that restrictions on nuclear weapons cannot be considered in isolation from other regional security issues. On the face of it, that is a valid argument, given the possible role of nuclear weapons as a deterrent against perceived non-nuclear threats. But Israel and its U.S. backer define the stumbling block in more Israel-specific terms. The Trump administrations representative at the preparatory committee meeting spoke of many ostensible and mostly vaguely worded reasons to slow-roll diplomacy on a regional nuclear weapons-free zone, but the specific problem he singled out was the non-recognition of Israel by some regional states.

Any talk of recognition or non-recognition of Israel should immediately evoke the Arab League peace initiative, which has been on the table since 2002 and commits all the Arab states to recognition of, and peace with, the state of Israel contingent on a withdrawal from occupied territories and a just settlement of the Palestinian refugee problem.

Subsequent modification of the initiative has made clear the Arabs acceptance of land swaps that would not require rigid adherence to boundaries that existed prior to the 1967 war. Saudi Arabia took the lead in constructing this peace proposal. The initiative is still on the table. Despite the dalliance with Israel of de facto Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman and reports that he is willing to throw Palestinians under the bus as he pursues his own agenda, his government still subscribes to the terms of the initiative.

Let us review the bidding. Construction of a regional nuclear weapons-free zone is said to require recognition of an important regional statea state especially relevant to anything having to do with nuclear weaponsthat is not currently recognized by some other regional states. Fair enough: it would be hard to arrive at a strong and effective arms control agreement without the key players dealing with each other normally as nation-states. Full recognition requires the players in question to recognize the national rights of all other players and not to occupy someone elses territory indefinitely. Also fair: amid much talk about recognizing Israels right to exist, it surely is just as reasonable to insist on recognition of the Palestinians right to exist. The conclusion: the unresolved Israel-Palestinian conflict is one of the major factors preventing an effective region-wide prohibition of nuclear weapons.

That the Trump administration has gone all in with the Israeli governments wishes while continuing to claim for itself the principal mediators role in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute augurs very badly for any settlement of the conflict in the foreseeable future. The pessimism is only accentuated when taking into account the personal and financial interests of would-be U.S. mediators that make it understandable for Palestinian leaders to reject them as hopelessly biased. The kind of suffering that has played out in Gaza and along the Gaza fence is one reason to regret the dim prospects for peace on this issue.

Deleterious spillover effects on other issues such as the control of nuclear weapons constitute another reason for regret. This is all the more so since Trump set out to destroy the most effective Middle Eastern arms control agreement in recent yearsthe Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which has closed all the pathways to a possible Iranian nuclear weapon. If the JCPOA were to survive, it would provide a model for major elements of any Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone.

Paul R. Pillar is a contributing editor at the National Interest and the author of Why America Misunderstands the World.

Image: Palestinian demonstrators are seen as smoke rises from burning tires during a protest marking the 70th anniversary of Nakba, at the Israel-Gaza border in the southern Gaza Strip May 15, 2018. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa

Read full articleWorkers at Apple Park in California have been walking into the glass walls (Wikipedia)

Apple may have spent a fortune on their brand new office complex in California but the high-tech looks come at a painful price.

Staff at Apple Park, which cost a staggering 3.6 BILLION to build, keep banging into the walls  because they are made out of ultra-transparent glass.

The glass is so clear and curved that people wandering around the vast complex seemingly cant tell that there is anything in front of them.

The four-storey glass and metal circle building, that was designed by Norman Foster, is full of glass that has been specially treated to achieve an exact level of transparency and whiteness.

The 3.6bn complex in California is full of glass that has been specially treated to achieve an exact level of transparency and whiteness (Wikipedia)

Workers transfixed by their iPhones have walking into the glass walls, according to Bloomberg, and started to stick yellow post-it notes on them to warn people that they are there.

Emergency phone calls unearthed by the San Francisco Chronicle found that staff were calling 911 to report injuries including cut and banged heads.

However, Apple thought the post-its were ruining the design of the building and removed them, replacing them with rectangular stickers on some of the glass.

MOST POPULAR TODAY ON YAHOO

Authorities were concerned about Apple Parks design  Cupertinos building official Albert Salvador reportedly worried people wouldnt be able to tell the difference between an automatic door and a window.

Apples vice president of real estate and development, Dan Whisenhunt, reputedly told the Rotary Club of Cupertino in January: Weve had people bump into the glass.

Thats a problem we are working on right now.LOS ANGELES  The protest at Mariachi Plaza didnt seem, at first, like a declaration of war.

In fact, the Feb. 7 event looked like the same sort of grassroots, anti-gentrification gathering that might have taken place in any big American city at any point over the past 10 years as higher-income transplants have increasingly colonized lower-income urban communities, remaking once marginalized neighborhoods in their own cold-brew-and-kombucha image.

But this one was different.

Thats because it was organized by Defend Boyle Heights, a coalition of scorched-earth young activists from the surrounding neighborhood  the heart of Mexican-American L.A.  who have rejected the old, peaceful forms of resistance (discussion, dialogue, policy proposals) and decided that the only sensible response is to attack and hopefully frighten off the sorts of art galleries, craft breweries and single-origin coffee shops that tend to pave the way for more powerful invaders: the real estate agents, developers and bankers whose arrival typically mark a neighborhoods point of no return.

A pedestrian walks past the mural Resiste! by Nanibah Chacon outside Self-Help Graphics & Art, Inc. in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon for Yahoo News)

Gentrification is not your next documentary topic, the group recently wrote on its blog. Its leaders distrust the media, saying theyd rather opt out and tell our story for ourselves, and did not respond to interview requests.

Gentrification is not a trend for the woke wide web or for the detached subculture of the left to consume, they continued. It is a vicious, protracted attack on poor and working-class people. And we are engaging in class warfare that leaves our friends, families, and neighbors, homeless, devastated, deported or dead. So get with down friends and make s*** crack.

By making s*** crack  by boycotting, protesting, disrupting, threatening and shouting in the streets  Defend Boyle Heights and its allies have notched a series of surprising victories over the past two and a half years, even as the forces of gentrification continue to make inroads in the neighborhood. A gallery closed its doors after its staff and artists were routinely trolled online and harassed in person. An experimental street opera was shut down after members of the Roosevelt High School band  egged on by a group of activists  used saxophones, trombones and trumpets to drown it out. A real estate bike tour promising clients access to a charming, historic, walkable and bikeable neighborhood was scrapped after the agent reported threats of violence. I cant help but hope that your 60-minute bike ride is a total disaster and that everyone who eats your artisanal treats pukes immediately, said one message. The national (and international) media descended, with many outlets flocking to Weird Wave Coffee, a hip new shop that was immediately targeted by activists after opening last summer.

Story continues

John Schwarz, co-owner of Weird Wave Coffee, prepares a beverage in the Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, shop. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon for Yahoo News)

As a result, like-minded groups in other cities  Chicago, Austin, New York  have adopted the same hard-line tactics. Their ranks are small and their methods are controversial, even within the communities they purport to defend. But their members are drawn from the most politically radical, economically anxious generational cohort in recent memory  young millennials of color  and their cause has the makings of a national movement: a new, more militant war on gentrification.

***

Back at Mariachi Plaza, activists set up a long table and rows of folding chairs in front of a curved concrete stage. Black-clad skateboarders loitered on nearby benches, smoking; mothers pushed children in strollers. It was 6:30 p.m. The sun was setting. The avenues of Boyle Heights were quiet  a succession of low-slung brick storefronts with signs in Spanish (Birrieria De Don Boni, Deportes Prieto), Chicano murals from the 1970s, more recent graffiti art, and modest, pastel-hued bungalows behind low iron fences. Unlike in, say, Brooklyn, few obvious signs of gentrification intruded upon the largely working-class, largely Latino streetscape, despite at least a decade of warnings that Boyle Heights was on the brink of a big change.

Yet the plaza itself symbolized how that transformation might finally be underway: For the last year, dozens of the musicians who live in a nearby apartment building and gather there to look for gigs had been warring with their new landlord over steep rent hikes that would force them to move  an all-too-common fate in a neighborhood where more than 75 percent of residents are renters, and where the median monthly rent rose $600, from $1,950 to $2,550, between September 2016 and August 2017.

Men sit outside a store in front of the mural El Corrido de Ricardo Valdez, painted in 1994 by Juan Solis, in Mariachi Plaza in February in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon for Yahoo News)

Soon, more activists began to meander into view. Some signed clipboards. Others bought T-shirts. A gray-haired woman in a loose hoodie passed out translation headsets; a man in rainbow suspenders distributed leaflets. The program began at 7 p.m.

There were four speakers: a mother of six who had won several court battles against the landlord trying to raise the rent on her East L.A. apartment; an organizer for the L.A. Tenants Union who urged listeners to support a proposed ballot measure that would overturn Californias major anti-rent-control law, a man who had led a recent rent strike at his building in Boyle Heights and an activist who spent every Sunday in Mariachi Plaza, handing out food and clothes to needy locals.

So far, familiar enough.

Yet throughout the event there were also hints that something less civil  and far more confrontational  was afoot. F*** Hipsters, read the shirts for sale. A few activists clutched bright red hammer-and-sickle flags. And behind the attendees stood silent men and women in black ski masks  comrades, said emcee Facundo Rompe, who are here to protect us.

Between speeches, Rompe  tall and lean, with the glasses, goatee and nom de guerre of a vintage leftist  took the mic and alluded to activities that might (or might not) transpire later that evening.

Obviously I cant tell you everything were going to do, because the cops have really big pig ears, Rompe said as he gestured toward a pair of plainclothes officers watching from a silver car at the edge of the plaza. But what Ive found is that the only thing that works to stop gentrifiers is intimidation. The only thing that works is fear  the fear of harm. Because they are harming us.

Posters on a Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, utility box state, The Movement Needs You To Inherit The Rebellion and Warning  Gentrifiers Keep Out  This Hood Will Be Hazardous to Your Health. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon for Yahoo News)

A few minutes later, the program concluded. Rompe made one last announcement.

Theres a legal side to the struggle, and theres a creative side to the struggle, he said. No one is telling you you gotta mask up  that you gotta be militant as f***. No one is telling you to do that  although, he chuckled, that is the right thing to do.

So lets take a poll, Rompe continued. Raise your hand if youre anti-gentrification  and youll do whatever the f*** possible to stop it.

Everyone in the plaza  about sixty people in total  raised his or her hand.

So that means youre down to put your body on the line? Rompe asked.

He scanned the crowd; no hands fell.

Cool, he said. Then let us show you a tour of Boyle Heights.

***

Why are young people taking such a militant stand against gentrification? And why now?

Gentrification itself is nothing new. The term originated in a 1964 essay by Ruth Glass, a British sociologist writing about the displacement of working-class Londoners, and the transformative effect of such displacement on American cities has become one of the most well-known economic storylines of the early 21st century. In the 1960s and 70s, cities were decimated by white flight, riots and the decline of manufacturing; in the 1980s, crime and drugs drove even more people away. But since the era of former President George W. Bush, major urban cores across the nation have been on the upswing, attracting millions of new residents. Neighborhoods from Fort Greene in Brooklyn to the Mission District in San Francisco have become wealthier  and whiter  in the process.

A pedestrian walks near Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights with the skyline of downtown Los Angeles on the horizon. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon for Yahoo News)

Anti-gentrification activism isnt novel either. For decades, nonprofit groups nationwide  Chicagos Pilsen Alliance, the East LA Community Corporation  have pushed back, working to rally residents around affordable housing initiatives and secure a voice in the planning process.

But Defend Boyle Heights and its ilk arent publishing white papers or dialoguing with developers. They are fighting in the streets.

So whats changed?

The first thing is income inequality  the defining challenge of our time, as former President Barack Obama once put it  and its effect on cities in particular.

In 2016, the top 1 percent made 87 times more than the bottom 50 percent of workers, up from a 27:1 ratio in 1980, and CEOs made 271 times more, on average, than a typical employee  a 930 percent increase since 1978.

And its not just the 1 percent. In fact, the recent growth of the upper middle class may be even more consequential. According to a 2016 report by the Urban Institute, households with incomes of $100,000 to $350,000 made up about 13 percent of the population in 1979. Today they make up nearly 30 percent. The $100,000-plus crowd is dominating Americas economy.

Theyre also clustering in cities. According to a December 2017 study from Harvard Universitys Joint Center for Housing Studies, in San Francisco, a whopping 93 percent of new renter households between 2006 and 2016  along with 65 percent in New York City  earned more than $100,000 a year. New rental apartment construction followed the money into cities, catering increasingly to the top end of the market, while overall the renter population remained younger with lower incomes than homeowners. Meanwhile, thanks in part to the post-economic-crisis crash in minority home-ownership rates, the overall renter population is heavily minority  47 percent  and more likely to contain immigrants.

At the same time, poverty has been on the rise  and is hitting cities especially hard. Earlier this year, a United Nations special rapporteur concluded a 15-day investigation that discovered poverty and inequality in the U.S. at levels shockingly at odds with [the United States] immense wealth and its founding commitment to human rights. Today, 1.5 million American households live in extreme poverty  nearly twice as many as 20 years ago.

The result is that major American cities have become economically polarized  playgrounds for the six-figure set, and increasingly perilous footholds for the poor, with almost no middle class left in between. A recent analysis from the National Housing Conference and the Center for Housing Policy showed that neither a teacher nor a social worker making the median national salary in their respective professions can afford the fair market rent for a two-bedroom home in the Boston, San Francisco, San Jose or Washington, D.C., metro areas. In San Francisco, the annual income now required to purchase a median-priced home is $303,000; in Las Vegas, nearly 9 out of 10 of the poorest renters spent more than 50 percent of their income on housing (a burden described in official reports as severe).

These are just some of the factors that led the Harvard study authors to conclude that the rental markets in Americas largest cities are settling into a new normal where nearly half of renter households are cost burdened.

The urban real estate market is the clearest, and most brutal, expression of this inequality  and big money is only making matters worse. The aesthetic and culinary choices of hipster millennials and Gen X parents may be the public face of gentrification, but behind all that avocado toast is a slew of changes driven by companies and holders of major capital.

Developers  often aided by the politicians they donate to  have concentrated on building homes and apartments for six-figure arrivistes, not the working-class locals they threaten to displace.

A new wave of foreign investors has also looked to the revived American city as a moneymaking opportunity. At the start of the decade, foreign investment in the New York real estate market hovered under 20 percent; by 2016, it had skyrocketed to 50 percent. Not to be outdone, Los Angeles just tied N.Y.C. for the first time as Americas top city for foreign buyers, according to a 2017 poll of major investors.

Attendees draw a community power map on a projection showing where property sales, speculation, rent increases and plans for a Biotech corridor are during an East Side Leads event at the Wellness Center in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, in February. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon for Yahoo News)

The rise of Airbnb, meanwhile, has transformed everyday homeowners and even tenants into bed-and-breakfast proprietors, ratcheting up rents in quickly gentrifying areas. According to a study by McGill University researchers, Airbnb has pushed up New York rents by as much 7 percent, with the biggest disparity in returns between white hosts and minority ones coming in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods such as Bedford-Stuyvesant and Harlem. Today, newcomers arent just moving in as families; they are moving in as cottage businesses.

And its not just the economic conditions in cities that have changed. The political attitudes of young, lower-income, largely minority residents have also changed in response.

Millennials are, simply put, facing the scariest financial future of any generation since the Great Depression, as HuffPosts Michael Hobbes recently put it. Theyve taken on at least 300 percent more student debt than their parents did. Theyre about half as likely to own a home as young adults were in 1975. One in five is living in poverty. Based on current trends, many of them wont be able to retire until theyre 75. Jobs have become gigs; college is exorbitant, starting salaries are paltry the social safety net is shredded.

And all of these trends are especially acute among the poorer, nonwhite millennials who tend to live in major cities. Between 1979 and 2014, for instance, the poverty rate among young high school-only graduates more than tripled, to 22 percent, and roughly 70 percent of black families and 71 percent of Latino families dont have enough money saved to cover three months of living expenses.

These harsh realities arent lost on millennials of color  especially young men and women from gentrifying neighborhoods, where such inequities tend to be on vivid, daily display. To that end, a 2016 Harvard Institute of Politics poll found that only 42 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds now support capitalism; a third now identify as socialists. Among those who backed Hillary Clintons presidential candidacy, the number was even higher  a full 54 percent  and minorities and people without a college degree were more likely to support socialism as well.

The rise of Americas first developer-in-chief, meanwhile, has fanned the flames, creating an atmosphere of at-all-costs resistance on the left  and a newfound sense of political urgency among women and people of color, who feel particularly unwelcome in Donald Trumps America.

Ultimately, the fight over gentrification is what the fight over income inequality in America looks like up close today: a clash between the economic forces transforming our cities and a young, diverse, debt-saddled generation that is losing faith in capitalism itself.

Not so long ago, activists sought to occupy Wall Street. Today they want to occupy the streets where they live  and where they fear they wont be able to live for long.

***

It was nighttime now in Boyle Heights. A few minutes after Facundo Rompe issued his invitation, a core group of activists embarked on his tour. Most hid the lower half of their faces behind red bandanas. Many were carrying signs fashioned from repurposed We Buy Houses placards: GENTRY GTFO; BE WARY OF WHITE MEN.

If we dont fight, were guaranteed to lose, Rompe told them. But if we do fight, we may not win  but at least we have a chance. So why not fight?

Among the masked marchers, several key activists were recognizable. There was Rompe, a self-described Marxist-Leninist-Maoist who, as a member of the Red Guards  Los Angeles and a founder of Serve the People  Los Angeles, has cited Turkeys Revolutionary Peoples Liberation Party/Front as his inspiration. (Both the United States and the European Union classify the group as a terrorist organization.) There was Angel Luna, a Boyle Heights native and newly minted UCLA grad  double major in English literature and Chicano studies with a minor in geography  whose family was twice evicted during his childhood and who is now a self-professed Marxist-leaning nerd liv[ing] with five roommates in a two-bedroom house in the neighborhood, according to a recent World Magazine report. And there was Nancy Meza, another local who helped launch Defend Boyle Heights after leaving her job as a communications and marketing associate at the more conventional East LA Community Corporation in 2016.

Defend Boyle Heights activists march in the Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. (Photo: Andrew Romano/Yahoo News)

The group walked west on East First Street, beneath the 101 freeway and toward the Los Angeles River. Both landmarks embody their neighborhoods plight. After racial redlining policies forced Latinos east, away from the Westsides wealthier, all-white communities, the 101 and a tangle of other freeways sliced through Boyle Heights, displacing 10,000 residents and cutting it off from the rest of the city. Likewise, the river divides the neighborhood from the Arts District  a formerly lifeless part of downtown Los Angeles that has recently been upended by gentrification. Between 2000 and 2014, rents there rose 140 percent. (In the county as a whole, the rate was much slower  a mere 25 percent.) Today, the Arts District is crowded with designer boutiques and chef-driven restaurants, and the galleries for which it was named have since forded the river in search of cheaper rents. The Sixth Street Viaduct, a $480 million, Michael Maltzan-designed bridge between the two communities, is slated to open in 2020  and it is only expected to hasten the spillover.

Se ama y se defiende! the activists chanted. El barrio no se vende!

What do we have? the ringleaders shouted.

Nothing! their followers responded.

What do we want?

Everything!

Four police cars with flashing lights drove behind and ahead of the activists; others were parked along side streets.

Pigs go home! yelled the activists.

Defend Boyle Heights first target  the first stop on its tour  was a seemingly unlikely one: Self Help Graphics & Art, at the corner of First and South Anderson. Founded in 1970 by a Franciscan nun, the not-for-profit arts collective has long promoted the work of Chicano and Latino artists. Last summer, Self Help attempted to broker a truce between the newer galleries and the activists. It did not end well.

A young artist with Self Help Graphics & Art prints posters for renters reading Conozca Sus Derechos (Know Your Rights) during an event hosted by the East Side Leads at the Wellness Center in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon for Yahoo News)

In no time, the meeting went south, the Los Angeles Times reported, as about a dozen mostly young activists, some wearing the brown berets of their 1960s Chicano Movement forebears, barged in. One woman covered her face with a red bandana. They accused Self Help Graphics of helping to roll the Trojan horse of gentrification into Boyle Heights by supporting art galleries popping up in the neighborhood.

To outsiders  and to many Boyle Heights residents  Self Help seems like part of the solution: a nearly 50-year-old refuge for local artists that says it wants to lift up the surrounding community. But Defend Boyle Heights sees Self Help  with its outreach to the new galleries and board members who support redevelopment and urban renewal  as part of the problem: a vendido, or sellout.

Self Help has a board of gentrifiers! shouted one of the marchs masked ringleaders. We dont want them here because we hate art. We dont want them here because theyre f***ing displacers. F*** Self Help!

Self Help, get the f*** out! the activists chanted as they rattled the organizations locked gates and pounded on its dumpsters. Vendidos, get the f*** out!

The police sounded their sirens  a sign to move along.

The next stop was 356 Mission, the first of the outside galleries to set up shop in the nonresidential, light industrial zone west of Anderson. (Later arrivals have included Hollywoods United Talent Agency, which recently opened a space where famous artists could do business, and the Maccarone gallery, whose proprietor bragged about the areas edgy, dangerous quality in 2015, adding, I like that we spent a fortune on security.)

Pedestrians walk past the 356 Mission art gallery in Boyle Heights. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon for Yahoo News)

Academics are divided over whether artists really contribute to displacement; one study by the London School of Economics found that galleries tend to chase gentrification, not cause it. Last fall, Laura Owens, the mild-mannered art world star who founded 356 Mission in 2012, wrote, The area and community surrounding 356 Mission is one about which I care deeply, and the gallerys homepage points out that 100 percent of its profits go to events programming: youth workshops, performances by local artists and political organizing meetings.

L.A. has an urgent housing crisis that is facing many communities, and Boyle Heights is particularly vulnerable to rising rents and inequity, Owens wrote. The relationship between art and gentrification is an urgent issue for the art community to discuss and should be further explored thoughtfully and respectfully between artists, civic leaders, and most importantly the residents of the neighborhood.  [But] the issue is extremely complex and multi-layered, and doesnt solely rest on the existence or absence of galleries.

None of this matters to Defend Boyle Heights or its sister group, the Boyle Heights Alliance Against Artwashing and Displacement (BHAAD). (Popularized by a 2014 article in the Atlantic, the term artwashing refers to any form of gentrification in which the artistic community is tacitly complicit.) According to Angel Luna, one of the groups leaders, Attacking the galleries is a useful strategy because we are directly attacking the amenities that developers are trying to use to attract new people into Boyle Heights; others point out that Owenss dealer and business partner, Gavin Brown, is a multimillionaire who lives in a six-story brownstone in Harlem, another gentrification hotspot.

As a result, gallery-goers have been pelted with water bottles, shot with a potato gun, surrounded, chased, harassed and harangued at any number of events over the last two years  including the opening last October of Laura Owenss mid-career retrospective at New Yorks Whitney Museum of American Art, which Defend Boyle Heights activists traveled thousands of miles to crash.

The groups demand is as simple as it is uncompromising: Hand over your keys and leave.

People ask, Why are yall going after the galleries? said activist Nancy Meza as she stood on 356 Missions stoop. Why arent you going after the big investors? The night that we disrupted at that fancy-ass museum  only art investors were invited. The whos-who in the real estate market of art. Thats an example  the real estate agents and the art investors are all the same person.

The door of the 356 Mission gallery was tagged by antri-gentrification activists in Boyle Heights. (Photo: Andrew Romano/Yahoo News)

When Meza finished, the masked man who had been leading the marchers chimed in.

356 Mission, theyre really f***ing smart, he said. In the past, they used to do black-queer events. People-of-color events. Empowering workshops on trans people. So f*** that identity s***. I dont give a f*** if someone is black or brown or queer or disabled. If theyre a gentrifier, they deserve to f***ing die.

Other activists whooped and clapped.

And thats the reason were doing this tonight, the man continued. Because look at us. Were f***ing scary-looking. If gentrifiers see this, theyre going to be like, Oh s***.

***

Looking scary is one thing. Actually halting gentrification  not only in Boyle Heights, but in countless other at-risk neighborhoods nationwide  is something else altogether.

Can Defend Boyle Heights really make a difference?

A sign saying No Gentrification Any Time is dispayed in the window of the La Conxa Autonomous Community Space in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon for Yahoo News)

The group is clearly grappling with that question. Before they made their way to Manhattans now-ritzy Meatpacking District to picket Owenss opening, Nancy Meza and her companions stopped in Chicago and the outer boroughs of New York to listen to like-minded activists, to tour similar battlegrounds and to talk about the lessons theyve learned in L.A.

They called it their #HoodSolidarity tour.

We are devoting our time to building a national movement against gentrification, they wrote in a February blog post titled Defending Boyle Heights and f***ing s*** up: A 2017 summation and report back from our Hood Solidarity tour. Boyle Heights has  become a beacon of hope for other communities facing similar threats.  We are hopeful that in the coming years, with the effort necessary to sustain a movement, poor and working-class people can escalate the class war against gentrification and actually hinder and possibly reverse its effects.

For now, movement is probably too grandiose a word for the anti-gentrification skirmishes spreading eastward from Boyle Heights. But they are spreading.

Last March, protesters scuffled and spouted racial epithets on the sidewalks in front of Uncle Ikes Pot Shop in Seattles Central District, a historically black neighborhood that has become increasingly white (and unaffordable) in recent years. The highly profitable operation is owned by a white real estate developer and sits on a corner once ravaged by the war on drugs, making it a perfect symbol of gentrification  and a frequent target of activists.

A protester named Renaissance chants Gentrification stops here! outside Uncle Ikes Pot Shop during the Irony on 23rd petition and Unity on Union protest in April 2016 in the Central District neighborhood of Seattle. (Photo: Bettina Hansen/Seattle Times)

In May, dozens of alleged anarchists vandalized high-end cars, tagged new upscale buildings and left behind a Gentrification Is Death, Revolt Is Life banner in Philadelphias Olde Kensington neighborhood, where housing prices have shot up roughly 50 percent since 2014. (Philadelphia ranks first among the 10 largest cities in the U.S. for the number of families living in poverty, with 25.7 percent.)

And in November, and again this January, an anonymous band of spirits in the night smashed the windows of Sock Fancy, a self-described awesomely random sock shop in the Cabbagetown section of Atlanta.

While more and more shops, boutiques, coffee shops and condos are built in this former working-class neighborhood, rent prices sky rocket and those who are less fortunate are forced to move elsewhere, they wrote in an online statement. With this small action we hope to send a firm statement to all gentrifying businesses that have their sights set on Atlanta: You will not be welcomed here. You will be run the f*** out. Trust us, you aint seen nothin yet.

Perhaps the best places to look for signs of growing national momentum, however, are Chicago and Austin, Texas. There, sympathetic activists have formed satellite groups of sorts  autonomous cells inspired by whats happening in L.A., if not directly connected to it.

In Austin  now home to three of the five most expensive zip codes in Texas  a collective called Defend Our Hoodz has focused its fire on the Blue Cat Cafe, a vegan eatery with more than 200 felines available for adoption. For eight years, the site at the corner of Navasota and Cesar Chavez streets was home to Jumpolin, a beloved, family-owned pinata shop. But in February 2015, the store was suddenly demolished on the orders of the landowners, sparking community outrage. Since late 2015, when the Blue Cat took Jumpolins place, Defend Our Hoodz and other activists have staged dozens of protests; at one point sprayed You Gentrified Scum on the side of the building and glued its doors shut. A recent clash, with white nationalist counterprotesters, ended with stun guns, slurs, arrests, blows and at least one man bloodied on the ground.

Activists hold signs up signs during protest against Blue Cat Cafe in Austin, Texas, in June 2017. The Jumpolin pinata store previously at the location was torn down. (Photo: Nick Wagner/Austin American-Statesman via AP)

[We want to] tell Austin and anyone coming into our communities that we do not accept the continued erasure of our working class black and brown neighborhoods of the east side, Defend Our Hoodz wrote on Facebook.

Meanwhile, in Chicagos Pilsen area, a longtime Latino enclave now facing the same pressures as Boyle Heights, an art-focused effort called ChiResists has been transitioning to help people in the neighborhood after launching in 2016 to fight the installation of the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock. Last October they co-hosted a free event, Boyle Heights to Pilsen: A Teach In on Resisting Gentrification, at the National Museum of Mexican Art; members of Defend Boyle Heights dropped by on their way to New York. Afterward, both groups wandered the streets of Pilsen and wound up outside S.K.Y.  a new contemporary American restaurant with glowing Edison bulbs, $9 black truffle croquettes and $24 foie gras bibimbap  where they confronted general manager Charles Ford.

Youve inserted yourself into a community that doesnt want you, without talking to us first, one activist said. Its national news that Pilsen is fighting gentrification, and you still went there.

Is there anything we can do to help? Ford asked.

Get the f*** out! someone shouted.

After three minutes of obscenities, Ford reached for his phone and dialed 911. The next day, S.K.Y. and a nearby restaurant named Duseks had been defaced by anonymous taggers: YT PPL OUTTA PILSEN. On Facebook, ChiResists posted two photos: one of the graffiti on Duseks, and another of a family being evicted in Logan Square.

When ppl care more about graffiti than they care about the economic instability and displacement created by gentrification, the caption read.

Graffiti demanding Duseks Get out was scrawled on the Pilsen neighborhood restaurants window in Chicago in October 2017. (Photo: Ariel Cheung)

In Pilsen or East Austin or Boyle Heights, its easy to find locals, young or old, who are concerned about gentrification but confused by, or just plain opposed to, these new, more aggressive tactics. And if you ask experts who have been studying the phenomenon  or the more conventional activists who have been battling it for decades  they always respond the same way. Gentrification is a huge, even global, force, they say. Resisting it in the streets isnt sufficient. You need a seat at the table  and a plan.

The younger generation is fed up, explains Byron Sigcho of the Pilsen Alliance, a social-justice nonprofit that has been fighting gentrification since 1998. The frustrations they face are real; the issues are systemic and oppressive. Theyre not able to go to school, theyre not able to find a good job. I understand their anger. But real issues need real solutions. We need to push for rent control, for affordable housing, for community benefit agreements, for policy change at the urban development level. We cant just inflate the same divides we criticize.

Sigcho and company arent wrong. But so what? say groups like Defend Boyle Heights. Activists have been floating these ideas since before we were born  and gentrification is only getting worse. Nows the time to make s*** crack. We can put it back together later.

It isnt impossible to imagine a model for fighting gentrification that unites the hardliners, the more mainstream activists and the broader community. The mariachis of Boyle Heights are a good example. When their new landlord, Frank B.J. Turner, raised rents on a handful of long-term tenants by 60 percent and 80 percent and rebranded the building Mariachi Crossing  trading on their cultural cachet to attract wealthier tenants looking for a vibrant neighborhood and a quick Metro ride downtown  the mariachis and other residents launched a rent strike. It lasted nine months. Turner finally backed down and agreed to meet with the tenants after members of various groups  the Los Angeles Tenants Union, Union de Vecinos, the Democratic Socialists of America  Los Angeles, Ground Game LA  spent last fall occupying the sidewalk in front of his house in Rancho Park.

Signs and posters are seen on an apartment block where, with no rent control due to the year it was built, the landlord has increased some rents by as much as $800 in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. (Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)

A deal was announced in February: a 14 percent rent increase; new, good-faith negotiations in 2021;, and all necessary repairs. The mariachis had won. And while Defend Boyle Heights, BHAAD and other militant groups supported the strike, the tenants themselves thanked many other allies as well, including lawyers from the Los Angeles Center for Community Law and Action for steering [them] through a complex legal system, Councilmember Jose Huizar, lawyer Richard Daggenhurst, and their own neighbors for having been willing to put the larger communitys needs ahead of their own.

Whatever comes next, conflicts over housing, commerce and culture wont subside anytime soon, especially in cities where the vast majority of young people come from disadvantaged minority groups. Nationwide, the majority of babies born since 2015 are racial or ethnic minorities, and todays young people are also substantially more minority than older, more prosperous generations. That creates new fault lines in todays intergenerational fights over gentrification  fault lines that run deep in cities. Los Angeles is only 29 percent non-Hispanic white to start with; among younger Angelenos, that fraction is even smaller.

Also complicating the picture: American young people are increasingly living with their parents, which is to say not moving away from communities of origin and starting their own households. More than half of younger millennials have yet to leave the nest, and black and Hispanic young people are more likely to stay put than whites. Not only are they less upwardly mobile  they are less mobile, period.

Ultimately that means theyre still around to notice and object to newcomers who move into their neighborhoods, and primed to resent privileged peers who can start independent lives thanks to their access to worlds that seem impossibly distant and opportunities that seem out of reach.

A food vendor of more than a decade serves pozole from a sidewalk grill in February in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles. (Photo: Patrick T. Fallon for Yahoo News)

Meanwhile, the gentrifiers will keep coming. According to a 2016 analysis by University of Illinois at Chicago professor John J. Betancur and doctoral candidate Youngjun Kim, about 10,000 Latino residents have left Pilsen since 2000  and for the most part, they havent been replaced by other Latinos. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley, recently found that between 2000 and 2010, more college-educated individuals moved to urban centers than to the suburbs in a majority of Americas 50 largest metro areas; they concluded that urban revival in the 50 largest cities is accounted for almost entirely by this trend. Examine individual-level census data more closely, and you can come up with an even clearer picture of whos reoccupying our cities. According to economist Jed Kolko, the influx is heavily skewed toward one group in particular: rich, young, educated whites without school-age kids.

***

Around 9 p.m., Defend Boyle Heights arrived at its destination: Dry River Brewing, a small craft brewery and taproom on Anderson Street that specializes in esoteric sour beers, including a persimmon-hued Calilina that deftly balances a robust yeast-driven aroma with a complex cereal character and just enough berry and lemongrass flavors, according to the Los Angeles Times.

En route, the activists debated whether they should continue.

Next time we wont put this s*** on Facebook, one said as he flipped off the police cars that were still following the march; another started to tag the outer wall of a warehouse but only got as far as F*** HIPST before he dashed away, afraid that a cop had spotted him.

Should we keep going? someone asked. Theyre going to be at every f***ing stop.

The group huddled to reassess.

We know the cops are going to be there  so we cant fully express ourselves, the ringleader said. But we want to go to the f***ing brewery, cause the breweries are the newest gentrifiers. Our homies are going and having a beer with the f***ing gentrifiers who are displacing their parents. That s*** makes us really angry  and I think it would be proper if we could at least tell them how angry we are.

I say we go! someone yelled.

Yeah!

As soon as Defend Boyle Heights arrived at Dry River, the chanting began.

Hey, hey, ho, ho! These gentrifiers have got to go!

Suddenly a metal construction sign smashed into the facade of the taproom; shards of concrete flew through the front door. Inside, patrons who had been enjoying their snifters of Lady Roja beneath windows adorned with local succulents scrambled as chaos overtook the rich sounds of eccentric grooves that had been playing on the brewerys vintage stereo system. (The descriptions come from Dry Rivers website.) For a moment, Dry Rivers iconic, apocalyptic, barn door slid shut, but then brewmaster Naga Reshi emerged to calm the crowd.

Get the f*** out of Boyle Heights, you hipster! shouted a man in a red L.A. Tenants Union sweatshirt. Pack your s*** and get the f*** out!

Reshi smiled serenely and pressed his palms together in a namaste pose.

Get the f*** out! the activists screamed.

A Dry River patron in a black T-shirt, a beard and a ponytail tried.

I grew up here! he yelled. I grew up in Boyle Heights! This is my neighborhood too! You guys want change through violence?

Gentrification is violence! a young woman replied.

F*** you, vendido! added a burly activist in a black hoodie. F*** you, coconut!

Eventually the police stepped in.

Control your group, one officer said. This is your warning.

This is your warning! the young woman spat back.

But for now, at least, there was nothing else to do. The evenings mission had been accomplished. As the activists retreated, the owners and patrons of Dry River picked up their reclaimed-wood benches and replaced them on both sides of the taproom entrance. They shook their heads. The eccentric music resumed, but the groove was gone.

Farther down Anderson Street, Defend Boyle Heights could still be heard chanting.

Well be back, they called into the night. And well be bigger.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:By Alexis Akwagyiram LAGOS (Reuters) - Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari will visit the state where 110 schoolgirls were abducted by suspected Islamist militants last month, his office said, as his security record comes under scrutiny less than a year before elections. The 75-year-old former military ruler will also tour other hotspots from Monday onwards, including areas hit by bloody clashes between semi-nomadic herders, the presidency added. The former general, who came to power in 2015 vowing to crush Boko Haram's jihadist insurgency, has not stated whether he will seek re-election in Feb. 2019. But a surge in violence has cast a shadow over his term. He has repeatedly declared the insurgents' defeat for more than a year. That was undermined by mass the abduction in the town of Dapchi in Yobe state on Feb. 19 and an attack on Thursday that killed at least 11 people, including three aid workers in another part of the northeast. His tour will begin in the "Middle Belt" state of Taraba, where herdsmen have farmers have fought over dwindling arable land, his office said. He will also visit the central state of Benue and Zamfara in the northwest - both hit by fighting over grazing in recent weeks, along with Rivers state in the south, and Yobe. "The president has decided to undertake an on the spot assessment of the various occurrences and to meet and console the communities affected," the presidency said. DAPCHI VISIT? The presidency did not say whether Buhari would visit Dapchi on his trip to Yobe. Buhari's predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, was criticized for failing to quickly visit Chibok, the scene of another mass abduction of schoolgirls in 2014. That was seized upon by his detractors in the 2015 election campaign. The opposition People's Democratic Party (PDP) had already called on Buhari to visit Dapchi in the days following the abduction. Boko Haram, which has killed tens of thousands of people since 2009 in its bid to create an Islamic state, lost most of its territory in the face of an offensive by Nigeria's army backed by troops from neighboring countries in early 2015. But factions of the group have continued to carry out suicide bomb attacks and gun raids in the northeast, Cameroon, Niger and Chad since then. The violence linked to grazing rights has killed more than 100 people since the start of the year. (Additional reporting by Felix Onuah in Abuja and Chijioke Ohuocha in Lagos; Editing by Toby Chopra and Andrew Heavens)By Rich McKay

(Reuters) - Public schools in West Virginia remained closed today for the eighth instructional day and teachers in Oklahoma might be the next to walk out statewide, officials said.

Echoing West Virginia teachers grievances for more pay and more staff, Oklahoma teachers and a newly formed group "Oklahoma Teacher Walkout - The Time Is Now!" are calling for the state's 41,000 teachers to walk off the job as soon as April 2, the group's leader said.

"A walkout would be the last resort, but we want more money for education in the state, that means more money for supplies, more staff and pay raises so teachers will stay," said the group's leader, Alberto Morejon.

"Teachers are leaving left and right, we're the lowest paid in the country," said Morejon, an eight grade history teacher in Stillwater, OK, about 66 miles northeast of Oklahoma City, .

The group's Facebook page, created last week, has more than 36,400 followers.

Teachers from around the state met in a planning session in Tulsa Friday and Oklahoma City teacher Heather Reed said, "Our teachers are exhausted, tired," the Tulsa World reported.

Neither state education officials nor legislative officials were immediately available for comment.

In West Virginia, the teachers' three major unions were promised a 5 percent pay raise last week from Republican Gov. Jim Justice.

The Republican-controlled House of Delegates voted in favor of the raise for the state's 35,000 teachers Saturday. But the Republican-controlled state senate balked and offered a 4 percent raise, with an eye toward saving $17 million in the state's budget.

The West Virginia Education Association, the West Virginia School Service Personnel Association and the American Federation of Teachers issued a joint statement Saturday that said they were "angry and disappointed" that an agreement hasn't been reached.

Governor Justice said in a tweet on Saturday night, "We've got to get our kids back to school." He added, "It's time to quit playing politics."

Neither union representatives nor a spokesperson for the state Senate were immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Rich McKay; Editing by Alexander Smith and Michael Perry)By Jill Serjeant LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Romantic fantasy "The Shape of Water" won the best picture Oscar on Sunday, the film industry's most prestigious honor, on a night where themes of female empowerment and activism almost overshadowed the awards. The Fox Searchlight movie's Mexican filmmaker, Guillermo del Toro, won best director, dashing the hopes of a rare win by a woman or a black filmmaker. The movie about a mute cleaning woman who falls in love with a strange river creature - a fable about the mistreatment of the powerless - had gone into the ceremony with a leading 13 nominations, and won a total of four Academy Awards. It won despite a plagiarism lawsuit filed in Los Angeles last month claiming its unusual plot was lifted from a 1969 American play. Del Toro has denied ever seeing or hearing about the play. Greta Gerwig's independent mother-daughter tale "Lady Bird" came away empty-handed while Universal Pictures' racial satire "Get Out" got just one award - for original screenplay - despite speculation that its bold take on modern race relations might take the top prize. "I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible. I thought it wasn't going to work," "Get Out" director and screenwriter Jordan Peele said. As expected, Britain's Gary Oldman won his first Oscar for playing World War Two leader Winston Churchill in Warner Bros.' "Darkest Hour," while Frances McDormand's woman in a vengeful fury was a popular best actress winner for Fox Searchlight's dark comedy "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri." McDormand, 60, whose character seemed to channel the anger of the #MeToo movement that has dominated Hollywood and beyond, asked all the female nominees - across directing, cinematography, costumes and some 20 other categories - to stand up in the audience and be recognized. "Look around ladies and gentlemen," she urged the glittering crowd in the Dolby Theater. "Because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed.". Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel tackled Hollywood's sexual misconduct scandal with pointed jokes on a night that became a platform for activists on issues ranging from gun violence and the Black Lives Matter movement to sexism and immigration. Activists also called for underrepresented filmmakers to seize on the momentum of the past year. Kimmel quipped that the tall golden Oscar statue itself was "the most beloved and respected man in Hollywood." "He keeps his hands where you can see them, he never says a rude word and most importantly he has no penis at all. He is literally a statue of limitations. That's the kind of man we need more of," he said. SMASHING BARRIERS Last year's embarrassing envelope mix-up over the best picture winner was turned into a running joke, with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway returning for a second year to announce the top prize. The two veterans got a standing ovation, as Beatty deadpanned, "It's so nice seeing you again." Elsewhere, awards were spread around, recognizing first-timers, LGBT issues and films inspired by other cultures. Gay romance "Call Me by Your Name" won best adapted screenplay, "A Fantastic Woman," Chile's groundbreaking story about a transgender woman won best foreign language film; and Mexican-inspired "Coco" was named best animated feature. Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney took home their first Oscars for their supporting roles in "Three Billboards" and independent ice-skating movie "I, Tonya," respectively. Rap artist Common and singer Andra Day brought the leaders of several activist movements, including #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, onstage for a performance of their Oscar-nominated song "Stand Up for Something." And director Ava DuVernay, Salma Hayek, Kumail Nanjiani and others spoke in a video segment about progress in smashing barriers in the industry around racism and sexism. Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong'o and Pakistani-American Nanjiani also spoke out on behalf of America's so-called Dreamers - hundreds of thousands of young people whose parents brought them to the United States illegally, and whose fate is now uncertain. "Dreams are the foundation of Hollywood and dreams are the foundations of America," Nyong'o said. (Additional reporting by Nichola Groom, Lisa Richwine and Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)On Sunday night at the 2018 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, Paris Jackson wore a green gown that, as many on social media said, gave off major Tinker Bell vibes.

Of course, this comparison would be more fitting if the fictional Peter Pan character could get her hands on Versace and pull off a sparkly bodysuit with attached chiffon train like the 19-year-old. Jacksons look also included crystal embellished shoulder pads and the plunging neckline showed off the line of tattoos down her chest. She kept her accessorizing simple and let the ensemble be the centerpiece of her look and pulled her blonde hair up into a messy ponytail.

BEVERLY HILLS, CA  MARCH 04: Paris Jackson attends the 2018 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on March 4, 2018 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images)

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Jacksons look was certainly a standout at the event, but her dispatches from inside the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hill, Calif., highlighted others in attendance.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.GENEVA (Reuters) - Areas of northeast Nigeria rendered inaccessible by an Islamist insurgency may be experiencing famine, an aid agency report said. The United Nations estimates that almost 1 million people are in hard-to-reach parts of the northeast, where Islamist group Boko Haram has waged an insurgency for the past nine years. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) said there was "an elevated risk of famine" in that area. That means that famine "cannot be confirmed nor disproven with available evidence," according to FEWSNET, which is funded by the United States Agency for International Development. "There is insufficient evidence to make a formal determination," it said in a report dated March 2 and seen by Reuters on Monday. The insurgency has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 2 million others, many of whom are almost entirely dependent on international aid. "Remote internally displaced person settlement areas could, in a worst-case scenario, become cut off by violence and experience extreme food insecurity," said FEWSNET. Last week, suspected Boko Haram militants killed at least 11 people in a northeast Nigerian town, including three aid staff, in one of the first major attacks on humanitarian workers in the conflict. Three other aid workers are missing and feared abducted. (Reporting by Tom Miles; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Alexis Akwagyiram and John Stonestreet)WASHINGTON  In a rare break with the White House, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan came out Monday against President Trumps proposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. Ryans office warned that the punitive measures could spark a trade war that undermines benefits from the GOPs recent tax overhaul.

We are extremely worried about the consequences of a trade war and are urging the White House to not advance with this plan, Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong said in a statement. The new tax reform law has boosted the economy, and we certainly dont want to jeopardize those gains.

A GOP source said Republican congressional leaders wont rule out potential action down the line. The source declined to flesh out what kind of response could be in the making, saying, We are focused on convincing him not to do the tariffs in the first place.

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations and to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises. But in practice, lawmakers have granted the president broad powers to manage trade. Its unclear whether the political appetite exists in Congress to take any meaningful action.

President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wis. (Photos: Alex Wong/Getty Images; Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

The president announced Thursday that his administration would impose tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on aluminum from overseas. The top 10 steel exporters to the United States are Canada, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, Japan, Taiwan, Germany and India. China, which Trump aides describe as the main target of the new tariffs, is 11th.

Labor unions and some Democrats, notably from Rust Belt regions, have come out in favor of the presidents approach, calling it a boon to U.S. workers facing unfair competition from overseas. Free-market Republicans, in contrast, have warned that American businesses like auto manufacturers will suffer  and with them, their workers.

Ryans comments added to that growing chorus of voices opposing Trumps plan.

Story continues

The European Union has already warned it would impose retaliatory tariffs on iconic U.S. goods like Harley-Davidson motorcycles, bourbon, and Levis blue jeans. Ahead of Trumps announcement, EU officials had floated the possibility of also targeting cheese from Ryans home state of Wisconsin. Going after bourbon would affect producers in Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells home state of Kentucky.

Steel coils sit on wagons when leaving the ThyssenKrupp steel factory in Duisburg, Germany. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

Trump tweeted Friday that trade wars are good, and easy to win. Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross dismissed the EU threat as pretty trivial and predicted that its not going to be much more than a rounding error, given the size of the U.S. economy.

But Ross also acknowledged the topsy-turvy nature of decision making at the White House, telling NBC News: What he has said, he has said. If he says something different, itll be something different. I have no reason to think hes going to change.  If he for some reason should change his mind, then it will change.

Stocks have dipped since Trumps announcement, the timing of which caught senior White House aides by surprise  enough surprise that the plan had not been drafted at the time the president previewed it. Steel and aluminum executives in the room at the time later told reporters that they did not know it was coming either.

In an unusual move, Ryans office sent reporters a CNBC story describing how stocks have suffered from the tariff news.

Trump used a pair of tweets on Monday morning to link the measures to the ongoing renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico.

We have large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada. NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs. Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed. Also, Canada musttreat our farmers much better. Highly restrictive. Mexico must do much more on stopping drugs from pouring into the U.S. They have not done what needs to be done. Millions of people addicted and dying, the president said.

According to the U.S. Trade Representative, the United States ran a $12.5 billion trade surplus with Canada as of 2016.

Read more from Yahoo News:The special election in the 18th district where Donald Trump won overwhelmingly in 2016 is an important test for his political potency

Conor Lamb, 33, a young ex-marine is the Democratic candidate for the 13 March special election in Pennsylvanias 18th congressional district. Photograph: Keith Srakocic/AP

His corner of Pennsylvania coal country was an ocean of Trump signs in 2016, Democratic activist Ben Bright said.

Today, all across the staunchly Republican area, there are Democratic yard signs backing Conor Lamb, a young ex-marine who is fighting for a seat in Congress.

The special election in Pennsylvanias 18th district has become an important test of Donald Trumps political potency. He won overwhelmingly here in 2016, in a district that includes Republican-leaning Pittsburgh suburbs and vast swaths of coal country that were ancestrally Democratic.

When he ran, Republican congressman Tim Murphy faced only token opposition. However, in October 2017 Murphy was forced to step down after it was revealed that he urged a woman with whom he was conducting an extramarital affair to have an abortion.

His resignation set up a special election in which Democrats are running a candidate who is considered formidable while Republicans have chosen one considered weak.

Lamb is 33, an ex-marine and federal prosecutor with the good looks and earnest demeanor of a student council president. His opponent, Rick Saccone, is a 60-year-old state legislator with an arch-conservative record and the type of broad, close-trimmed mustache that went out of style some time shortly after the end of the second world war.

Saccone has billed himself as Trump before Trump. However, in a blue-collar and heavily pro-union district that is as concerned about workers rights as the second amendment, his conservative voting record on labor issues has led to unions unanimously endorsing the Democrat. Before the sex scandal, Murphy was consistently endorsed by unions.

A sign in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, backing Republican candidate Rick Saccone, the 60-year-old state legislator with an arch-conservative record. Photograph: Maranie Staab/Reuters

In interviews with the Guardian, both candidates were cautious on how they would deal with gun control demands following the Florida high school shooting. They equivocated on whether they would support increasing the minimum age to buy an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. Lamb wanted to focus on fixing the background check system while Saccone hedged, saying he was willing to listen to both sides and engage in that debate. In a televised debate with Lamb on Saturday, the Republican came out against an increase in the age limit.

Story continues

As a legislator, Saccone was the sponsor of a bill to allow gun owners to freely carry a concealed firearm without a permit.

The two men are in an election race brought about by a sex scandal, but both declined to weigh in on the many allegations of sexual misconduct and assault against Donald Trump.

As far as I know, the president denies that and I havent heard anything from the voters in the 18th district about that, said Saccone. Im focused on taxes and spending issues that people in the district have told you about.

Lamb said: Im not running against the president. In this entire campaign, you guys love to ask about him but thats not what my voters want.

Anti-Trump sentiment, however, is clearly a factor behind the enthusiasm for Lamb. Speaking to the Guardian at a Lamb fundraiser, former Maryland governor Martin OMalley compared the grassroots energy in the Democratic party to green shoots after a forest fire.

One of those shoots was the Washington County Democrats, a grassroots group set up a year ago, different from the formal county Democratic party in an area pockmarked with blue-collar industrial towns. Two leaders, Ben Bright of Slovan and Christina Proctor of Canonsburg, said the new group had started to run monthly meetings and was actively volunteering for Lamb.

Many members had not been involved before Trumps election and talked about the spark of enthusiasm that they saw. Bright noted that Lamb had yard signs in yards all over the district while Saccones campaign only seemed to put signs in the right of way on the side of the road.

Yard signs showing support for congressional candidate Conor Lamb in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Maranie Staab/Reuters

Yet for all the proliferation of signs, the race will come down to voters. Outside a Whole Foods in Upper St Clair, a prosperous, traditionally Republican suburb of Pittsburgh, shoppers overwhelmingly preferred the Democrat. Linda Ortenzo told the Guardian we need someone young and fresh in Washington and talked about the need to clean house. There were exceptions, like Victor Raj of South Fayette, who thought Trump was doing a good job and was backing Saccone.

The question is whether the districts instinctive conservatism will overcome the surge in Democratic intensity. Both Democratic and Republican observers consider the race a toss-up.

Outside Republican groups have invested millions of dollars, trying to counterbalance Saccones lackluster fundraising and what one Republican operative conceded was an underwhelming campaign.

But while Lamb has been a strong fundraiser, raising more than $3m with 70,000 individual contributions in the last fundraising period, outside groups on the left have been far stingier.

Whatever happens in the 13 March vote, the 18th district will not exist in November when every House seat is up for grabs in the midterms.

The Pennsylvania supreme court ruled in February that the states congressional districts were unconstitutional, producing a new map that erased the 18th. If Lamb wins he will face a different Republican in a redrawn suburban swing district in November.

For Democrats, even a narrow loss would be a moral victory, leaving Lamb with a developed brand, poised to win a new race in November. For Republicans, a Democratic victory in the Trump heartland would be a major blow ahead of the midterms, after losing a Senate race in deep red Alabama in December.

For all of Saccones flaws, he is not Roy Moore, the Republican whose Alabama campaign was marred by sexual assault claims. In order to win, Democrats have to build a fragile coalition of their own energized base, suburban Republicans disaffected with Trump and blue-collar voters disaffected with everything.

Chuck Nimal, a union truck driver from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, showed up to support Lamb at a labor rally last week in front of the Washington county courthouse.

About two dozen other union members rallied to express support for public sector unions as the supreme court heard a case that could potentially cripple them. They were addressed by Lamb and several union activists on a handheld megaphone that projected the speeches over quiet rumbles of trucks and loud roars of motorcycles driving by.

Afterwards, Nimal, a lifelong Democrat, thought his neighbors in an area that overwhelmingly voted against both Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, might support Lamb. They just have to be tired enough of being tired, he said.Before Philando Castile became a household name after being fatally shot by police at a traffic stop in 2016, he was known for helping students who could not afford lunch at the school where he worked.

Castile, who was a cafeteria supervisor at J.J. Hill Montessori Magnet School in St. Paul, Minnesota, used to memorize kids names and their food allergies, and often pay for their lunches out of his own pocket.

To honor Castiles legacy of generosity, Pamela Fergus, an Inver Hills Community College professor, started the Philando Feeds the Children fund on YouCaring, a free fundraising and crowdfunding website.

The charity funds original goal was to raise to enough money to pay off the lunch debts of families at Castiles former school, but the YouCaring initiative raised so much money that it is able to pay off all of lunch debts in the St. Paul public school system.

Thanks to the support of almost 4,000 donors, the fund surpassed its original goal of $5,000 and had collected more than $140,000 as of Sunday afternoon. Earlier in the week, Fergus gave a check for a little more than $35,000 to the St. Paul School Districts nutritional program to pay off students lunch debts, she told ABC News.

Some kids get free lunch, but many kids come from families with incomes slightly above the cut off. They get behind in payments, and need our help, the Philando Feeds the Children fund explains on its website. St. Paul Public Schools System has 56 schools. K-12. That means that no parent of the 37,000 kids who eat meals at school need worry about how to pay that overdue debt.

Fergus didnt immediately return TIMEs request for comment, but she told ABC News that her goal was to keep it going until the state of Minnesota provides food for all kids.

Castile, who was known as Mr. Phil to the students at his school, was 32 years old when he was shot to death by police in Minnesota after being pulled over in a car. His girlfriend livestreamed the aftermath of the shooting on Facebook and Castiles death sparked protests in the states capital.Police are investigating a suspected double murder-suicide at the Illinois home of P.S. Ruckman Jr., a professor and political expert who appeared frequently on national TV and radio programs.

According to local news reports in Rockford, Ill., the bodies of a man and his two sons were found by authorities conducting a welfare check at the home of Ruckman, 58. All three were found dead of gunshot wounds inside the house about 80 miles northwest of Chicago. Ruckman and his wife had recently divorced.

Authorities have not officially confirmed the identities of the bodies, pending notification of relatives. Sheriffs deputies had been asked to check on the home by Ruckmans ex-wife, an attorney in Chicago, after she had been unable to reach them. She and Ruckman had been sharing custody of the children.

Ruckman was a professor at Northern Illinois University and Rock Valley College and an expert on presidential pardons. He was a regular guest on outlets such as MSNBC and National Public Radio, making the rounds in recent months to offer his analysis of President Donald Trumps pardon of Joe Arpaio and the ongoing Russia investigation.

He also was the editor of the blog Pardon Power and the author of two books about pardons. The most recent post on Pardon Power was a brief mention of The Sentence, the prize-winning Sundance documentary about a womans incarceration and her attorneys efforts toward reforming sentencing laws.

Related stories

Jimmy Kimmel Tackles Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Acceptance Speech Excess In Oscar Opening Monologue

Exclusive: 'Last Men In Aleppo' Producer On Making It To Oscars After Visa Denial Reversal: "We Almost Gave Up Hope"

'SNL': Alec Baldwin Gets Latest Jab At Trump, Pledging To Take Everyone's GunsBy Byron Kaye SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's personal popularity has slumped to a level seen only once before, a widely watched poll showed on Monday, hit by criticism for his handling of an affair between his former deputy and a staffer. The latest Newspoll, published by The Australian, found 37 percent of respondents backed the conservative Turnbull as prime minister, versus 35 percent for Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten, matching his thinnest lead since becoming PM in 2015. Monday's poll is Turnbull's slimmest margin since last November, narrowing a gap of 14 points over Shorten before news of the affair broke, when 45 percent of respondents preferred Turnbull, to 31 percent for Shorten. Turnbull's ruling coalition has trailed Labor in 28 straight Newspolls but he has relied on his personal standing to head off a leadership challenge. Last month, some members of his own party accused him of overreach, however, when he criticised his deputy, Barnaby Joyce, over the affair, before banning sex between politicians and their staff. Joyce, who is married and expecting a baby with a former media adviser, quit as leader of the rural National Party amid demands from some party members to end the century-old coalition. In a twist, Joyce has since told local media he is unsure the child is his. "Things are going to get worse for the government," said Monash University political scientist Nick Economou. The Newspoll survey of 1,657 voters between March 1 and March 5 was unlikely to have factored in the impact of an attack on Shorten by Turnbull's minister for jobs, Michaelia Cash, on March 1, Economou added. In a debate about Joyce, Cash used parliamentary protections to voice unsubstantiated rumours about Shorten. If Turnbull criticises Cash, "that'll just reinforce the sense that there's no real discipline, that there's no real direction in that government", Economou added. Last year, Turnbull's leadership was undermined by a constitutional crisis that forced members of most parties, including Joyce, to resign and recontest their seats after being found to hold dual citizenship, in breach of Australian law. During that period, in November, his margin against Shorten shrank to two points. Australian politicians are tracking the number of Newspolls in which the opposition outscores Turnbull's coalition, after he criticised former prime minister Tony Abbott for leading his party through 30 straight Newspoll losses, during Turnbull's bid to replace Abbott in 2015. (Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)It was a bland, bureaucratic statementbut its implications could be profound. In late February, Chinas Communist Party announced a proposal to abolish term limits for its highest office. The party hasnt made a final decision, but the news seemed to confirm what many have long suspected: Xi Jinping, the countrys leader, wants to be president for life.

The announcement wasnt surprising, but many didnt expect it to come so soon. Aside from being president, Xi is also the general secretary of the Communist Party and commander in chief of the countrys armed forces. The term limits on his presidency effectively constrain his ability to hold the other two jobs. Since Xi took office in March 2013, hes been consumed with his fight against corruption. This battle is basically a proxy for him and his allies to consolidate control over the highest levels of the party, as well as big state-owned companies. In Chinese politics, personal rivalries and differing agendas are rarely visible to the outside world. So many had assumed Xis fight was still ongoing, given how deeply entrenched corruption is in China.

If the party does decide to end term limits for president, it could have major implications for the nationand the world. Domestically, it would rupture what has been a stable system of succession. Deng Xiaoping, the father of Chinas economic reforms, created that system in 1982. Prior to Dengs rule, China was mired in the chaos and pain of the Cultural Revolution, when Mao Zedong had absolute power over the lives and deaths of others, wrote Mo Zhixu, a political commentator in Guangzhou.

Trending: Who Wins The Bachelor? Season 22 Finale Predictions and Spoilers

Post-Mao, Deng and his successors transformed China from an isolated, impoverished country into the second most powerful nation in the world. Many believe the country will inevitably surpass the United States in terms of influence and economic growth. But Beijing has experienced these changes during a period of relative stability, when political transitions came to be seen as orderly, predictable. Dengs successor, Jiang Zemin, handed power to Hu Jintao, who after a decade turned the party over to Xi. That predictability is now in question.

Story continues

PER_XiJinPing_02_862662078

STR/AFP/Getty

Whats not in question is that Xi wants to increase his countrys clout, to show the world that his model of government is a worthy alternative to those of the West. Despite American resistance, Xi shows no sign of backing away from his efforts to dominate in the South and East China Seas. He has also extended his countrys influence to the south and west, all the way to Pakistan, with his efforts to build infrastructure in developing nations. Xi believes the world should accommodate China, not the other way around. He shows no interest in deposing North Koreas Kim Jong Un, despite Pyongyangs nuclear antics, and will likely respond in kind to any American trade protections, like the ones the U.S. announced for steel and aluminum in early March.

Don't miss: Will Donald Trump Talk to Kim Jong Un in 2018?

After a decade of dithering, China is also finally trying to carry out some painful and necessary economic reforms. Some of Xis supporters believe he needs more time and more authority to implement them. The Chinese president may realize its going to take a while to reduce his countrys debt, which will lead to a slowdown in growth. Maybe he wants to manage that process. This is the most optimistic view of the partys announcement: that eventually, if the economy is humming and has a lower debt burden, perhaps Xi can hand over power to a designated successor and be remembered as a hero. Such a scenario is possible. But it assumes the Chinese leader is willing to oversee such a sustained and painful economic transition. It also assumes hed ever give up power.

In the West, many analysts seemed jaded after Beijings announcementespecially those who had hoped China would reform politically as its economy prospered (just as South Korea and Taiwan had in the 1980s). These observers finally seem to be accepting reality. China is now a more confident, more repressive authoritarian state than it was before Xi. His increased crackdown on anyone critical of the government, as well as his use of internet censorship and technology to monitor citizens the regime deems troublesome, are here to stay. And may even increase.

Despite Chinas economic successes, there are still millions in the country who want more political freedom. But under this regime, they have no voiceand wont, it appears, for a long time. At 64 years old, the apparently healthy Xi isnt going anywhere.

Hes now, most likely, Chinas emperor for life.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekPresident Donald Trump has once again claimed that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada, boasting on Wednesday evening that he made up the claim during a meeting with Canadas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau came to see meDonald, we have no trade deficit, Trump said during a fundraising speech. Audio of the speech was first obtained by The Washington Post and confirmed by TIME. I said, Wrong, Justin, you do. I didnt even know.  I had no idea. He claimed he later double-checked his assertion with an aide, who confirmed its veracity.

Trump tweeted on Thursday reaffirming again the trade deficit. We do have a Trade Deficit with Canada, as we do with almost all countries (some of them massive), he wrote.

P.M. Justin Trudeau of Canada, a very good guy, doesnt like saying that Canada has a Surplus vs. the U.S.(negotiating), but they dothey almost all doand thats how I know! he added.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

But, whether this is true depends on whom you ask. Both the U.S. and Canada say they are running trade surpluses with each other.

Trump claimed earlier this month that the U.S. has a large trade deficit with Canada as part of a series of tweets about the proposed U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum and the final round of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) talks.

We have large trade deficits with Mexico and Canada. NAFTA, which is under renegotiation right now, has been a bad deal for U.S.A. Massive relocation of companies & jobs, Trump tweeted on March 5. Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum will only come off if new & fair NAFTA agreement is signed.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Statistics from the Office of the United States Trade Representative refute Trumps claim of a trade deficit. The U.S. government agency said U.S. had a $12.5 billion trade surplus for goods and services in 2016, exporting $320.1 billion and importing $307.6 billion.

However, data from Statistics Canada says the U.S. had a $14.6 billion trade deficit for goods and services with its neighbor to the north in 2016, according to Bloomberg.

Story continues

Data from both countries say that the U.S. imports more goods from Canada than it exports  the U.S. says the good trade deficit was $12.1 billion. Canada has complained that the the U.S. Trade Representative is falsely inflating that number by counting goods that merely pass through Canada from other countries.

Either way, the trade imbalance with Canada Americas second-largest trading partner  is nothing like the $55 billion trade deficit with Mexico, or the $385 billion deficit with China  Americas largest trading partner. The trade deficit with European Union nations was $92 million, according to the U.S. Trade Representative.

In a sign of how much these numbers matter, Canadas ambassador to the U.S., David MacNaughton, cited U.S. data  not his countrys own  in refuting Trump claiming a trade imbalance in December.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Statistics Canada has previously identified discrepancies between U.S. and Canadian records, and attempts to explain them on its website, citing the different data sources and statistical methods the two countries use.

In 2016, Canada reported a US$24.4 billion trade in goods surplus with the United States, while from the US perspective this surplus was reported as US$16.3 billion, a difference of US$8.1 billion, the website cites.

It may be expected that the bilateral trade statistics of one country would mirror those of its trading partners. In practice, this is rarely the case, as countries use different data sources and statistical methods.After arguing that trade wars were good over the weekend, President Donald Trump dismissed the idea that the U.S. is gearing up for a trade war over proposed aluminum and steel tariffs on Monday.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump said that the Administration would not back down from the proposed tariffs in spite of heavy criticism from the world community and Republican lawmakers.

No, were not backing down, he said, adding, I dont think well have a trade war.

Last week, Trump announced plans to impose a 25% and 10% tariff on imports of steel and aluminum, respectively. The presidents policy proposal has not been formally outlined yet.

The announcement sent a shock through the stock market and brought threats and rebukes from key U.S. allies. Should restrictions be imposed on Canadian steel and aluminum products, Canada will take responsive measures to defend its trade interests and workers, Canadas minister for foreign affairs, Chrystia Freeland, said in a statement after the announcement.

Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the finance committee, also criticized the idea.

Tariffs on steel and aluminum are a tax hike the American people dont need and cant afford, he said. I encourage the president to carefully consider all of the implications of raising the cost of steel and aluminum on American manufacturers and consumers.

In response to criticism that had been lobbed his way, Trump tweeted on Friday that a trade war could be good for the U.S. and easy to win, something analysts and politicians have disputed.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Trump continued his Twitter tirade over the weekend and into Monday, singling out car imports from Europe and trade agreements with Mexico and Canada.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Lawmakers and former White House officials have continued to dispute Trumps stance on a potential trade war. On Monday,a spokesperson for House Speaker Paul Ryan said he was worried about the consequences of one and encouraging the White House to reconsider. Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said such wars are not won, only lost. But the president said Monday he will not back down, though he added that Canada and Mexico could face exemptions if the two countries agree to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.Washington (AFP) - US chipmaker Qualcomm postponed its annual shareholders' meeting after secretly requesting a national security review of Broadcom's bid to take over the company, the Singapore-based Broadcom announced Monday.

Qualcomm shareholders were due to meet Tuesday, but Broadcom said it was informed Sunday night that Qualcomm secretly filed a voluntary request on January 29 for US regulators to investigate the deal, and was ordered to postpone the meeting for 30 days.

"It should be clear to everyone that this is part of an unprecedented effort by Qualcomm to disenfranchise its own stockholders," Broadcom said in a statement.

Qualcomm fired back in a statement, accusing Broadcom of trying to mislead shareholders and 'trivialize' US regulatory and national security issues.

"Broadcom's dismissive rhetoric notwithstanding, this is a very serious matter for both Qualcomm and Broadcom," the US chipmaker said.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) can review any acquisition by a foreign corporation of a US firm that may have an impact on national security, and can recommend the president block the deal. CFIUS has blocked some transactions, but frequently foreign companies withdraw once it appears a transaction will be prohibited.

CFIUS issued an interim order to Qualcomm for the shareholder meeting to be delayed for 30 days to allow time to fully investigate the proposed acquisition by Broadcom, according to a US Department of Treasury.

Broadcom said it will fully cooperate with the review, but rejected any national security concerns since it is a US-controlled company, and is in the process of relocating its headquarters back to the United States.

- Board battle -

If finalized, the Broadcom-Qualcomm tie-up, estimated at $117 billion, would be the largest merger in a sector awash with consolidation amid the development of technologies for autonomous vehicles and 5G mobile services.

Story continues

Qualcomm has repeatedly rejected multiple Broadcom offers that it says undervalue the company.

Qualcomm shareholders at an annual gathering were to vote whether to replace six of the California company's 11 board members with candidates backed by Broadcom, essentially endorsing the deal.

Weeks of thrust and parry, along with tactical public statements, have left the companies' boards at odds over the unsolicited offer.

Qualcomm, which is the dominant maker of microprocessors for smartphones, says it has a bright future on its own, especially ahead of a transition to fifth-generation (5G) wireless communications networks.

The Qualcomm board has also expressed concern that any deal with Broadcom could be delayed or blocked by antitrust regulators around the world.

Broadcom has urged Qualcomm shareholders to elect all six of its nominees to the board, sending "a clear signal" supporting the takeover bid which would provide a handsome gain to shareholders of the US firm.

"This was a blatant, desperate act by Qualcomm to entrench its incumbent board of directors and prevent its own stockholders from voting for Broadcom's independent director nominees," Broadcom said of the delaying development.

- Coveted chip tech -

CFIUS last year opposed the takeover of US semiconductor manufacturer Lattice by a Chinese state group backed by a US investment fund, and President Donald Trump then blocked the deal.

In the semiconductor sector, the committee -- whose deliberations are secret -- in 2016 recommended that then-President Barack Obama oppose a deal between the German group Aixtron and Chinese fund Grand Chip because there was a US subsidiary of the German group.

Broadcom's initial offer was already tinged by politics, coming the day after a White House meeting between Trump and Broadcom CEO Hock Tan, who promised to repatriate the company's headquarters.

Any tie-up of the two giants could reshape the fast-evolving sector of chips for smartphones and connected devices. But it would have to pass regulatory muster in several countries.

Analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy questioned the wisdom of Broadcom buying Qualcomm.

The rival chip companies are very different in their approaches to the market, Noorhead said, comparing the tie-up to mixing "oil and water."

And, a merger would likely get tied up by regulators for a long time, he added.

Qualcomm, one of Apple's main suppliers, is currently engaged in the acquisition of the Dutch group NXP and has indicated the operation will proceed regardless of the outcome of discussions with Broadcom.

Broadcom shares lost 0.3 percent in mid-day trading, while Qualcomm was down 1.3 percent.Conservation authorities in Indonesia have said that villagers in northern Sumatra killed a rare tiger on March 4 after believing the animal to be a shape-shifting spirit. Authorities had made the residents aware of the tigers endangered status after clashes between the animal and villagers.

One local official told the Jakarta Post that the endangered creature had been asleep under a house when locals killed it with a spear. Images showed the animals carcass was later hung from the ceiling of a public hall in the northern Sumatran village of Hatupangan.

Superstition may not have been the only factor in the tigers death, with conservationists alleging that the tiger had several body parts missing that are known to be sold on the black market for traditional medicines.

Trending: Ravenous Ending Explained: Whats With The Chair Shrine In New Netflix Horror Movie?

Hotmauli Sianturi of the Natural Resources Conservation Agency told Reuters that the villagers had not approved of our way of handling the situation after they said that the animal was endangered, adding, We will prove that its body parts are being traded.

Related: A dog-eating Siberian tiger is on the prowl and authorities cant find it

According to the IUCN Red List, the Sumatran tiger is critically endangereda label it has kept for two decades. As well as poaching, the IUCN says that a loss of habitat due to expansive new plantations is a major threat to the several hundred extant animals.

Don't miss: Infinity War Wakanda Connection? Fans Trade Theories About the Location of the Soul Stone

This recent killing has come as a number of endangered animals have died due to conflicts with locals in the region. The executive director of the Scorpion Foundation, which tracks the illegal wildlife trade in Indonesia, told the Jakarta Post that the killing had been barbaric and called for authorities to quickly handle the case.

GettyImages-927432278

MUHAMMAD AGUSSALIM/AFP/Getty Images

Story continues

Anyone found to have been hunting Sumatran tigers could face jail time and hefty fines in Indonesia, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Although law enforcement has grown more active against poaching, the black market for tiger products remains.

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from Newsweek(Reuters) - Italy faces a prolonged period of political instability after voters delivered a hung parliament in Sunday's election, spurning traditional parties and flocking to anti-establishment and far-right groups in record numbers. Below are some initial reactions to the vote: ALBERTO GALLO, FUND MANAGER & HEAD OF MACRO STRATEGIES, ALGEBRIS "There are so many scenarios that it is hard to say which government will be formed but, if parties avoid stepping back on reforms already done -- because the economy is growing and there are more jobs -- the markets should not worry too much about these results, which were broadly in line with expectations." LORENZO PORTELLI, STRATEGIST, AMUNDI "We have to wait for final results and a clearer picture could emerge as soon as this afternoon. The possibility that no coalition would reach the majority was widely expected. Negotiations starting from March 23 will be crucial. At the moment we do not believe at the hypothesis of a populist government. We are in a very fluid framework and we cannot exclude some type of government with a short-term mandate to reform the electoral law. It is important to underline that, with respect to 2013, both the 5-Star and the League have smoothed their euro-skeptic tones: they have focused mainly on immigration and security issues." ALESSANDRO TENTORI, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, AXA "The political message of the vote is one thing, but the implementation of the government remains difficult. We believe we are heading towards a technocrat government. There is a strong message from the voters, but it did not secure a majority for any of the political parties. I don't expect big movements on markets because an inconclusive outcome was already priced in. It would be different if in the next few hours the possibility of a Europe-skeptic alliance, such as between the 5-Star and the League, materialized, but that seems unlikely." NICOLA NOBILE, ECONOMIST, OXFORD ECONOMICS "A vote dictated by gut feelings: it remains to be seen what happens now, whether the (anti-establishment) 5-Star decides to find an agreement with the League or with the PD. At the moment everything is uncertain, and the situation could remain like that until the appointment of the speakers of the lower house and of the Senate. We expect a couple of weeks of absolute uncertainty. "A parliament without a majority was widely expected, but what the market did not foresee is a boost of the populist movements and the weak performance of the moderate parties. It's unclear how exactly the 5-Star or the League, which together hold more than 50 percent, stand on issues relating to Europe or the banking union." RAFFAELLA TENCONI, ECONOMIST, ADA ECONOMICS "The market reaction won't be very positive: both the PD and (Silvio Berlusconi's) Forza Italia did worse than expected and worse than polls had predicted. With the League this strong, Matteo Salvini could ask to be appointed prime minister and this could put the centre-right coalition at risk. "There are two options, in our view: a centre-right coalition or a coming together of the League and 5-Star. We don't believe there will be a repeat vote because - whether this is good or bad - in Italy eventually you always get to an agreement. It could take a couple of weeks, which is relatively short if compared with other European countries." MATTEO RAMENGHI, CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER FOR ITALY, UBS WEALTH MANAGEMENT "We expect lengthy negotiations after these elections, which may lead to increased volatility of Italian assets. A broad grand coalition would be well received by markets as it could result in political stability and fiscal discipline. Repeat elections could prolong uncertainty and weigh on Italian assets. The Italian equity market has not priced in electoral uncertainty, but current yields on government bonds suggest they have incorporated some political risk." FABIO FOIS, ANALYST, BARCLAYS "We expect the formation of a wide and heterogeneous coalition that could include anti-system parties. We do not expect such a coalition to deliver meaningful structural reforms, and depending on its composition, we see the risk that previous reforms could be unravelled. Over the medium term, we remain of the view that the next legislature will be characterized by political instability that could culminate in government crisis and or snap elections." (Reporting by Milan newsroom; Editing by Toby Chopra)Hammuriyeh (Syria) (AFP) - On February 18, 2018, Syrian regime forces intensified their bombardment of Eastern Ghouta, an area home to almost 400,000 people that has escaped government control since 2012, been besieged almost ever since and is controlled by mostly Islamist and jihadist groups.

So far the assault has killed more than 700 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

The bombardment was widely considered to be preparation for a government ground assault to retake an area which lies within mortar range of central Damascus. Pro-government forces have now seized about a third of the enclave.

Here are a few days of the assault as seen by Abdulmonam Eassa, a local photographer whose images for AFP of the death and destruction there you may have seen.

Monday, February 19

Strikes on Eastern Ghouta leave at least 127 dead.

A strike hits very close today. I go to take a look. The whole area seems to have been burned. During the first few seconds, you think no one is dead, you just see ashes and destruction. That's because people hide as soon as they hear the sound of a rocket or a plane. But after a few seconds you see signs of life.

I see a woman coming out from a destroyed building with four children. They are screaming. One of the kids is carrying a notepad or a book, maybe a Koran, I can't remember.

The Syria Civil Defence volunteers known as the "White Helmets" arrive and begin to dig through the rubble. I see one of them carrying an infant. I am shocked that someone so young has been hurt.

I keep taking pictures and look at the back of my camera to see how they came out. Suddenly I see one my brothers-in-law staring at me from one of the images. He is standing next to a door of a building, screaming for help. He is injured. I didn't even realise it was him when I was shooting the scene, only after, when I quickly checked the photos. What should I do? Should I help him or continue to take pictures? It's a question that I constantly ask myself.

Story continues

I'm about to leave when I see a White Helmet carrying a child. I realise it's the son of a friend. I hurry and take him and rush to the hospital. The boy holds on tight to me, he doesn't want to let me go. When we get inside, I want to take a picture of him, but he doesn't want to let go of my hand. I manage to free my hand, but he keeps holding his hand towards me. I can feel myself crying.

I leave a half hour later, heading home, which is about 700 meters away. After about 200 meters, I see that the area where I live has been shelled. I suddenly panic. My family lives there! What if one of them is dead?!

It's a friend of mine. He has a head injury. He is dead. But we have to just leave his body there because there are wounded children and they have to be taken to the hospital.

I hurry along and see that the building where my sisters and other relatives live has been hit. It's covered in dust and I can't see anything. Fear spreads through me as I get closer. I leave my motorbike in the middle of the street and run into our house. I see one of my brothers. "Is Mum ok?" I ask. "Yes," he answers. "Is everyone else all right?" "Yes," he says. I am about to breathe a sigh of relief when I catch a figure lying on the ground out of the corner of my eye. It's a friend of mine. He has a head injury. He is dead. But we have to just leave his body there because there are wounded children and they have to be taken to the hospital. I can't take pictures of scenes like this.

I take a look at the other side of the street. I see a woman wearing a prayer outfit. Her face is bleeding. I suddenly realise that it's one of my sisters. Two other female relatives are standing next to her, also injured. I try to calm my sister down. She has no shoes, so I want to carry her, but she tells me not to worry, she will walk barefoot. I take her and the others to the hospital, then drop off my mother and other siblings in Daraya. Then I go back to take a look at our house.

The doors and windows are completely smashed. I take a look around and realise that I no longer care about death. There is a plane in the sky again, a strike can come at any moment, but I am not scared. I have been hurt to the point where I can hurt no more.

My family spends the night in another house. No one really sleeps. As I record these words, I can hear planes in the sky. The building is shaking. Thoughts keep shooting through my mind. What if my loved ones die and I live? How will I bear the pain? I leave.

Tuesday, February 20

The attacks on Eastern Ghouta kill at least 128 civilians, including 29 children. Another hospital, Arbin, has been taken out of action.

The UN children's agency UNICEF issues a blank statement. "No words will do justice to the children killed, their mothers, their fathers and their loved ones," it says.

I go to the hospital because I know the situation there is terrible. No one has eaten for a day. I walk into one room, it's full of dead bodies. Some died yesterday, some died before that, but haven't been buried yet.

I manage to sleep for a few hours at the hospital. I know in a few hours it's going to be the same routine -- planes, strikes, barrel bombs, wounded civilians, horror, recognising loved ones wounded or dead. But I am still strong. I can still go out and take pictures. I don't know how... But I can.

Wednesday, February 21

UN chief Antonio Guterres describes what's happening in Eastern Ghouta as "hell on earth." Barrel bombs are dropped on the area.

We go into the Saqba neighbourhood after a barrel bomb strike. A woman and her children are crying. A man is stuck between two walls of a destroyed building. While we're here, a second barrel bomb hits, two streets away. I can't focus. It feels like there is a huge cloud above my head...

After a while, I head back to my neighbourhood. A Russian plane had hit it. People are screaming. People don't know how to deal with a situation like this. I know a little because I follow death and destruction for my work. I get closer to a building. A boy and a girl are stuck between two walls of a collapsed building. I see their legs dangling. I inspect the area to make sure it's safe. Then I pull out the boy. Then the girl.

I climb to the rooftop to get a better view. Everything is burning. It seems like everywhere was shelled -- Saqba, Misraba, Douma, Kafr Batna... it seems like the whole area is burning.

My neighbours scream that there are more children under the rubble. I put away my camera and head to where they're pointing. Sometimes I take pictures and sometimes I help pull people out. I don't have a set formula for when I do what. I just go with my gut. The Civil Defence volunteers say there is one child still stuck, but we find a child and a father. The father has suffocated to death, the child has survived.

Thursday, February 22

German Chancellor Angela Merkel calls for an end to "massacre" in Syria. The UN Security Council fails to adopt a resolution on a ceasefire over objections from Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who has been helping him militarily.

I wake up at 6:00 am. It's quiet. There is destruction everywhere. People start to emerge, to check the damage and to try to get some food. A half hour later there is that dreaded sound -- a plane in the sky. It starts shelling. People run back to their shelters. It's been four days now that the bombing hasnt stopped. Everyone is scared.

Later I see White Helmets giving first aid to a man. "Where is my bag of flour?! I need it!" he keeps crying. Seems he was wounded getting food.

There are many people missing. Everyone seems to be searching for their relatives. Some are dead, some are just hiding, but communication is hard.

I don't have any electricity. I worry about being able to recharge my cameras and my computer. I need them, I can't work without them.

The number of dead has now risen to more than 300. Hospitals can't count the number of dead and injured. Some people are still stuck under the rubble. The Civil Defence volunteers are trying their best, but they just can't reach some areas because of the bombardment. The situation is so bad. God help us.

It's 3:00 pm as I record this and the planes haven't stopped bombing. Not one area has been spared. The White Helmets are really struggling. Many of their vehicles are damaged. It's very difficult.

Friday, February 23

The UN Security Council postpones a vote on a truce in Eastern Ghouta.

People are cowering in shelters. Everyone is in shock. We can't understand anything. Everything is out of service. I can't believe the difference four days of bombardment has made. The whole area has been changed, erased. The streets aren't there anymore. They're full of dust, rubble. Only ambulances use them.

Maybe crying doesn't help, but today I cry. I can't say anything else. Please, someone stop the carnage. Please, someone has to stop what is happening here!

But life goes on. Today we take out four children from underneath a fully destroyed building. The things that I have witnessed here, I will never forget. If I remain alive.

The things that I have witnessed here, I will never forget. If I remain alive.

On Saturday, February 24, the UN Security Council approved a ceasefire resolution, which called for a ceasefire "without delay" to allow aid into the area. But air strikes continued and claimed more lives. On February 26 the regime carried out more bombings, in spite of the UN-agreed truce.

Frustrated, the UN and European Union demanded the immediate implementation of the ceasefire.

Moscow then announced President Vladimir Putin had ordered a daily five-hour "humanitarian pause" from February 27 and the opening of protected corridors to allow people to leave. The first pause took effect the next day but no civilians have since left. The Syrian regime continued to pound the area and by Monday had seized control of a third of the enclave.

For more about Abdulmonam's work, including some of his pictures, follow this link to AFP's Correspondent blog: http://https://correspondent.afp.com/if-i-remain-alive-ghouta-diariesSpecial Counsel Robert Mueller is leading the federal probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election: Getty

A witness has reportedly been issued with a writ requiring them to turn over all documents relating to Donald Trump and some of his closest advisers, by the grand jury investigating allegations of Russian collusion in the 2016 US presidential election.

Robert Muellers team are seeking all emails, text messages, work documents and call logs going back to 1 November 2015, NBC News, which has seen a copy of the subpeona, reported.

It is said to ask for all documentation between Mr Trump and some of his core team, including the US president's former chief strategist Steve Bannon and ex-White House communications director Hope Hicks.

It also asks for communications involving Mr Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is already facing a variety of charges, including conspiracy to launder money, filing false tax returns and failing to register as a foreign agent for lobbying work for the pro-Kremlin Ukrainian government of former President Viktor Yanukovych. His trial will be heard in September.

For more news videos visit Yahoo View.

Mr Mueller's team have also demanded to see communications from six other people.

Significantly, the subpoena will seek communications from before Mr Trump announced his candidacy.

Former CIA official Ned Price said the revelation showed Mr Mueller was treating Mr Trumps "entire senior campaign team like a criminal enterprise.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Mr Price also claimed it was significant that Roger Stone was named in the document.

The former campaign adviser is reportedly the focus of the investigation into Mr Trumps contacts with WikiLeaks during his election campaign.

Several targets never took up a position in the White House, suggesting this particular subpoena isnt about obstruction," Mr Price said.

He added: "The inclusion of Roger Stone, who had foreknowledge of the Podesta leaks, indicates this could be about potential collusion."

It comes after the focus of the investigation recently turned to Mr Trumps alleged attempts to push Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign.

Story continues

The investigation will reportedly examine whether this could be part of a pattern of obstructing justice in the investigation.

Mr Mueller has been asking witnesses about Mr Trumps comments from July to August 2017, when the President was tweeting insults about Mr Sessions, sources told The Washington Post.Roseanne Barr became a superstar thanks to her eponymous ABC sitcom, which ended its hit network television run on May 20, 1997. However, in this age of endless reboots  especially on TV  it was only a matter of time before she and the rest of the Conner clan made their return to the small screen. That time is now, 21 years later, as theyre reuniting for a nine-episode run set to air later this month. And tonight, during the Academy Awards, we got our first look at the show  including John Goodmans Dan, who was supposedly dead at the end of the series prior season.

The gangs all here in the above clip, including Lady Bird Oscar nominee Laurie Metcalf as Jackie (spied in a brief pie-eating contest scene) and Sara Gilbert as Darlene  as well as Darlenes daughter, whos seen asking her grandma for money in the same way Darlene used to back in the day. Still, the focus is, unsurprisingly, on Barrs matriarch, who remains as cranky as ever  as evidenced by the fact that, when her grandson tells her that hes not scared of her, she responds with Give it time. Oh, and her signature laugh hasnt changed a bit either.

How the show will play in the era of #MeToo remains to be seen  especially given Barrs own outspoken political beliefs. Yet theres no doubt that the revival remains one of 2018s most eagerly anticipated debuts.

The new (and hopefully just-as-funny) Roseanne premieres Tuesday, March 27, on ABC.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:Dave Majumdar

Security,

What is noteworthy is that the bilateral relationship between Russia and the United States is clearly on a downward trajectory.

Russia's Big Military Buildup: Why Is America So Shocked?

American defense officials are not surprised by Russian President Vladimir Putins March 1 speech that highlighted a host of new strategic nuclear weapons that the Kremlin is developing to overcome U.S. missile defenses. Indeed, Russian officials have talked openly about most the capabilities Putin mentioned in Russian language media for years.

Certainly, President Putins remarks yesterday were very noteworthy, John C. Rood, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington on March 1. But theyre not the only remarks that Russian officials have made in the public domain in recent years.

As Rood noted, most of the Washington, D.C., foreign policy intelligentsia does not read Russian language medianor do they have the Russian language skills necessary to do so. However, for those who are capable of reading Russian language media, Putins comments come as no surprise.

Most of our commentators dont read foreign media sources still, and so when you look through some of the Russian language media you do see a much greater prevalence of these kinds of comments, Rood said.

Recommended: Stealth vs. North Koreas Air Defenses: Who Wins?

Recommended: Americas Battleships Went to War Against North Korea

Recommended: 5 Places World War III Could Start in 2018

And so while President Putin certainly gave a very full-throated explanation, I think there were elements of his comments that have been present for some time in various places and different comments that he and others have made before. So I was not surprised by much of the content of that.

What is noteworthy is that the bilateral relationship between Russia and the United States is clearly on a downward trajectory.

Story continues

It is concerning the direction thats going on in Russia, certainly, the direction of the country, and a number of us over the years have worked to find ways to build a closer relationship between the United States and Russia, Rood said. But I think, as our national security strategy and the national defense strategy said, were in an era of great power competition again and Russia has clearly chosen that as an approach. A number of the capabilities that President Putin talked about and an openness in talking about them being oriented at the United States and oriented at the United States and our allies is very noteworthy.

Rood noted that Russian military exercisesparticularly nuclear onesexplicitly identify the United States and the NATO alliance as the enemy.

Some of the large-scale Russian exercises that have been conducted that identify NATO and the United States as the  that which is being exercised against is certainly another indicator of concern, Rood said. And then we do see capabilities being developed and maintained by the Russians that concern us as well. And so I think we just have to take that into account in terms of the orientation of the country, the demonstrating of capabilities, seeing capabilities developed or maintained as we develop our doctrine. And Russian nuclear doctrine continues to emphasize the use of nuclear weapons in a way that U.S. doctrine in the past has not, and some of the moves that we have taken Russia has gone in the opposite direction with respect to, for instance, the size of their so-called nonstrategic nuclear forces.

Rood noted that the United States has been concerned with Russian nuclear doctrine before Putins speech.

I would say our concern about Russias capabilities, our concern about Russias direction and some of the statements that have been made in the past about the role of nuclear weapons predated President Putins speech yesterday, Rood said. I personally was not surprised to see a number of his comments in that speech. I think its, broadly, consistent with things that have been stated before from Russian officials. That doesnt mean I welcome it or that it was necessarily the message that we would have liked to have received. But I think its, broadly, consistent with things that the Russian government has said in the past.

Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for The National Interest. You can follow him on Twitter: @davemajumdar.

Image: Reuters.

Read full articleA Russian official has claimed Moscow has evidence that the U.S. attempted to interfere in its upcoming presidential election.

Deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov told RIA news agency that the U.S. was looking to create chaos in Russia to undermine the March election, CNBC reported.

Ryabkov also claimed that U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia were designed to destabilize the country and impact the election. He did not provide evidence for either of his claims.

Trending: Trump Name Removed From Panama Hotel As Majority Owner Plays Anti-Fascist Song to Celebrate

GettyImages-451364072 Sergei Ryabkov

LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty Images

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to comfortably win the March 18 election to secure another term in office. Putin served as president from 2000-2008 before constitutional term limits forced him to step aside and allow Dmitry Medvedev to take on the role from 2008-2012, during which time Putin was prime minister. He returned to the presidency for his current stint in 2012.

In February, the head of Russias Security Council, Nikolay Patrushev, said Moscow is anticipating hacking attempts in Russia's election, and is preparing for political, economic and informational operations in the run up to the vote.

On Monday, a Russian lawmaker proposed that any foreigners found guilty of interfering in Russian elections should face the death penalty, which was placed under a moratorium in 1996. Leonid Kalashnikov told the RIA news agency that election tampering is the worst crime that there is, other than rape and murder.

Don't miss: Final Fantasy XV Windows Edition: Minimum and Recommended PC Specs

GettyImages-926637684 Vladimir Putin election rally

KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP/Getty Images

Election tampering: The new normal?

U.S. intelligence services unanimously agree that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections. Special counsel Robert Mueller has been assigned to investigate accusations that U.S. President Donald Trump and his team colluded with Russian actors to undermine Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Story continues

In February, Mueller charged 13 Russian individuals and three Russian groups with interference in the election. In response, Putin said that he will never extradite any Russians.

Never. Never. Russia does not extradite its citizens to anyone, just like the United States, Putin said. Does the United States extradite its citizens to anyone?

Most popular: Trump State Department Accused of Abandoning Global Democracy in New Budget

While the U.S. investigates Russian meddling in its 2016 presidential election, and Russia accuses the U.S. of meddling in its upcoming 2018 election, U.S. intelligence services have been warning that Russia will likely target the midterm elections in November.

Dan Coates, the director of national intelligence, said, There should be no doubt that Russia perceives that its past efforts have been successful and views the 2018 midterm U.S. elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations.

Russia has been accused of interfering in elections in 27 countries since 2004, beginning in former Soviet nations and eventually spreading westwards. Russia is alleged to have interfered in the U.K.'s Brexit referendum in 2016 and unsuccessfully targeted Emmanuel Macron in France's 2017 presidential election.

GettyImages-699354966 Robert Mueller

Alex Wong/Getty Images

This article was first written by Newsweek

More from NewsweekCharlie Gao

Security, Europe

Who has the best artillery?

Russia vs. America: Which Army Has the Best 'Big Guns'?

Artillery has always been considered to be the primary killing force in ground combat. As the United States and Russia increase their defense budgets for the new cycle of military modernization, artillery systems are also being improved and revised. The newest American system is the 155mm M109A7, which is slated to slowly replace the M109A6 Paladin that forms the bulk of American self-propelled artillery. In the Russian Ground Forces, the Cold War vintage 152mm 2S3 is still in service, though it is flanked by the more modern 2S19 and its upgrades, the 2S19M1, 2S19M2 and 2S33. However, unlike the United States, Russia retains a significant light to medium self-propelled artillery component with the 122mm 2S1 and 120mm 2S34 systems. But how do these systems differ? What do the American systems do better than the Russian ones, and vice versa?

The M109A6 Paladin is the backbone of American self-propelled artillery. As part of the long M109 line, it retains the same slow manually loaded gun, including the process of manually attaching a firing lanyard before shooting a round. As a result, the M109A6 is rated at a sustained fire rate of one round every three minutes. The primary improvements the M109A6 had over previous models was in battlefield networking and the ability to rapidly attain a firing solution after stopping, for effective shoot and scoot tactics. While reliable and accurate, in sheer firepower it is dwarfed by Russian, European and Asian systems.

The M109A7 aims to rectify this situation. While in name it is another variant of the M109, the M109A7 actually uses a totally new chassis and turret. It has an automatic loader that improves the sustained rate to one round per minute, and can burst in up to four rounds per minute. It also features numerous enhancements to survivability and battlefield networking, and a modular armor package that improves survivability in COIN environments with additional belly armor.

Story continues

Recommended: America Has Military Options for North Korea (but They're All Bad)

Recommended: 1,700 Planes Ready for War: Everything You Need To Know About China's Air Force

Recommended: Stealth vs. North Koreas Air Defenses: Who Wins?

The oldest howitzer in Russian service is the 2S3 and its modernized variants. These are relatively simple manually loaded 152mm pieces. Modernization for the 2S3 has largely involved the installation of new fire control computers and navigation equipment without any real changes to armament. Being manually loaded, it has a rate of fire of around two to three rounds per minute. This is because it is considered an outdated design compared to the 2S19 Msta.

The 2S19 Msta is the Russian Ground Forces premier self-propelled howitzer. Developed in 1988, its still a highly advanced design. Designed in conjunction with an armored ammo carrier, the 2S19 is capable of carrying fifty rounds, a significant increase over any M109 variant. They are stored in a high tower at the rear of the 2S19 turret, which then utilizes an autoloader to rapidly load the gun at a programmed sequence. With this system, the 2S19 attains a sustained rate of fire of around seven to eight rounds per minute. This is improved to ten rounds per minute in the 2S19M2 variant, developed and procured around 2012. The 2S19M2 also integrated GLONASS for improved accuracy and speed. The most recent variant, 2S33 attains even faster speeds.

However, Russia also fields significant light self-propelled artillery capability. While most heavy howitzers listed above are divisional or brigade level assets, Russia also fields regimental level self-propelled howitzers with the 122mm 2S1 and 120mm 2S34 light self-propelled howitzers. The United States hasnt produced a similar vehicle since the 105mm M108, which was phased out after the Vietnam War. The 2S1 provides a light, accurate, but short-ranged howitzer that still packs quite a punch. The 2S34 is simply a modernized version with a 120mm gun, that uses more modern projectiles derived from Russian 120mm mortar designs. The 2S34 also contains significant upgrades to electronics. The American military has made overtures to reclaiming this sort of light artillery capability with projects like the 105mm Hawkeye system, but such systems are not mature or combat proven, as the 2S1 is.

Ammo choice is similar across all the howitzers. Both M109 variants can fire a full complement of base-bleed, laser-guided and standard ammunition. The same is true for the modernized 2S19s and 2S34. The Soviet Union made some use of laser-guided Krasnopol artillery during their war in Afghanistan. Ranges with base-bleed shells are roughly equivalent, despite the 2S19 using a longer forty-seven-caliber barrel relative to the 109s thirty-nine-caliber barrel.

Overall, the biggest differences between the howitzers comes down to rate of fire and battlefield integration. The U.S. Army has a far better integrated howitzer, but it shoots slower. Russians seem to prioritize firepower, with fast howitzers and more deeply integrated artillery. Each philosophy has validity, but its always easier to install or refresh a set of electronic equipment than to reengineer a main cannon.

Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Read full articleCAIRO (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's Mohammed Bin Salman arrived in Egypt on Sunday to meet President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi on his first public trip abroad since he became crown prince last year and purged the kingdom's political and economic elite. His arrival was confirmed by airport sources and the head of his private office. The Saudi prince will head for Britain on March 7 following his three-day visit to Cairo and then the United States, Riyadh's closest Western ally, later in the month. Also on Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump called Sisi to discuss with him "regional issues" and "ways of combating terrorism", a statement from the Egyptian presidency said. Egypt and Saudi have strengthened ties since Sisi took power after ousting the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013. Cairo supports Riyadh in its fight against Iran-backed Houthi militants in Yemen, and last year joined a Saudi-led boycott of Gulf state Qatar and agreed to hand over two Red Sea islands to Saudi despite widespread criticism at home. The day before Prince Mohammed's visit to Cairo, Egypt's top court dismissed all outstanding legal challenges to a deal transferring two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia. The plan to cede the islands to Riyadh, which has given billions of dollars in aid to Egypt, was announced in 2016 and became mired in political protests and court challenges. The Saudi prince is expected to sign a number of agreements, Saudi state television said without giving further details. The visit also comes three weeks ahead of an election where general-turned-president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seeks a second term and as Egyptian forces fight to crush Islamic State militants in the Sinai Peninsula. Sisi is guaranteed a win in a vote where rights groups and critics say Egyptian authorities have locked up opponents or forced them to halt election campaigns. As Egypt tries to keep a lid on any internal unrest, it has sided firmly with Saudi Arabia on key foreign policy issues including the face-off between the Sunni kingdom and its Shi'ite arch-foe Iran. Egypt eagerly joined the trade and diplomatic boycott of Qatar, whose government and media it accuses of supported the now banned Muslim Brotherhood, hundreds of whose members Cairo has imprisoned and sentenced to death. (Reporting by Cairo bureau; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)CAIRO (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met Coptic Pope Tawadros II at Cairo's largest Coptic cathedral on Monday in what state media said was an unprecedented visit by an official from the conservative Muslim kingdom. The visit was part of a three-day stay in Egypt for Prince Mohammed, his first public trip abroad since he became heir apparent last year. He will head for Britain and the United States later this month. Cairo and Riyadh have strengthened ties in recent years and Egypt has received billions of dollars in aid from its rich Gulf Arab ally. The two countries on Sunday set up a $10 billion joint fund to develop a planned mega-city. Prince Mohammed and Pope Tawadros walked together through St Mark's Cathedral late on Monday, footage on Saudi TV channel al-Arabiya showed. Egypt's state news agency MENA said it was the first visit of its kind, without elaborating. The Gulf Arab kingdom is trying to shed its reputation as a global exporter of an ultra-conservative brand of Islam which critics say has inspired Islamist militants worldwide. Promoting a more moderate form of Islam is one of the more ambitious promises made by Prince Mohammed under plans to transform Saudi and reduce its reliance on oil. Egypt has suffered from Islamist extremist violence in recent years, including attacks on churches often claimed by the ultra-violent Islamic State group. A bombing next to St Mark's cathedral killed at least 25 people in December 2016. Prince Mohammed's visit comes as his close ally President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi prepares to run in an election he is virtually guaranteed to win. Alongside posters urging people to vote for Sisi, large banners were put up in central Cairo on Monday with images of the Egyptian president, Prince Mohammed and Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz. "Welcome to your second country," said one; another read "Saudi and Egypt are one hand, one nation." Egypt has sided with Saudi Arabia on a number of foreign policy issues, including a diplomatic and trade boycott of tiny gas-rich Qatar, and the support of forces battling Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen. (Reporting by John Davison and Ali Abdelaty; additional reporting by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Hugh Lawson)Task and Purpose, Jeff Schogol

Security, North America

So what will they do?

Soldiers Hate the M4 and M16. The Pentagon Is Finally Doing Something about It.

While small arms and other infantry equipment cost far less than the Defense Departments modernization programs, they have not been a top Pentagon acquisition priority. For decades, expensive weapons programs like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier have eaten up a large part of the Pentagons budget, but Wilkie said the task force will now look at whether the Defense Department needs to spend more money on smaller arms.

For decades, troops have been complaining about the limitations of the M16 rifle and M4 carbine, both of which are hindered by the same flawed operating system that makes the weapons jam easily. But after years of ignoring small arms in favor of expensive aircraft and warships, the Pentagon is taking a long, hard look at how to give the Army 11 Bang Bangs and Marine grunts a better weapon.

Defense Secretary James Mattis has ordered the creation of a task force to make American small arms more lethal to give infantry soldiers and Marines an extra advantage in the close fight, Pentagon personnel chief Robert Wilkie said. It has been decades since the Pentagon last looked at the combat effectiveness of small units.

We dont want any more fair fights, Wilkie told Task & Purpose on Wednesday. We want to overmatch any adversary out there.

Close combat, in which opposing troops are no more than 600 meters from each other, accounts for up to 90 percent of U.S. casualties, Wilkie said, and Americas adversaries have made advances in this type of fighting in recent years.

The Israelis had planned to destroy Hezbollah using airpower in 2006, but they found themselves in close combat with a conventionally trained force that lured Israeli tanks and infantry into kill zones.

The bottom line for us is we dont want that to happen, Wilkie said.

Story continues

To ensure that U.S. troops can annihilate any enemy in the close fight, the new task force will look at how to update troops training and equipment based on lessons learned from special operations forces, he said. One aspect of the review is whether infantry soldiers and Marines need a new rifle, he said.

When asked if the Task Forces work could result in the Army and Marine Corps fielding a new rifle, Wilkie said: It could. We just havent gotten to that point yet.

But Wilkie stressed that the task forces focus is to make sure that infantry troops have the training to be dominant in the close fight, adding that discussions about how soldiers and Marines are equipped will flow from that.

Mattis has said that he wants U.S. troops to experience 25 simulated battles before they get their first actual combat experience, Wilkie said. To accomplish that, the task force will look at expanding the use of simulators that are currently in the works at Fort Benning, Georgia, and Camp Pendleton, California, he said.

Over the last 70 years, small infantry units have done most of the fighting and dying in Americas wars, but a Pentagon Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation review recently determined that infantry troops get less than 1 percent of the Defense Departments resources for training and equipment, said retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, who was an advisor to the CAPE review.

Meanwhile, any U.S. casualties can have strategic implications, Scales told Task & Purpose on Feb. 23. For example, the deaths of four soldiers in Niger in October 2017 has led the U.S. military to rethink its entire posture in Africa, he said.

Were very, very sensitive to casualties, Scales said. So, it make sense to me that the nation should do more to keep alive who are most likely to die.

While small arms and other infantry equipment cost far less than the Defense Departments modernization programs, they have not been a top Pentagon acquisition priority.

For decades, expensive weapons programs like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier have eaten up a large part of the Pentagons budget, but Wilkie said the task force will now look at whether the Defense Department needs to spend more money on small arms.

The focus for this secretary will be on the point of the spear where the most of the casualties occur, Wilkie said. We are going to determine whether or not we have devoted sufficient resources to that fight. My view is, yes, we will be spending more money on that.

Jeff Schogol covers the Pentagon for Task & Purpose. He has covered the military for 12 years and embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq and Haiti. Prior to joining T&P, he covered the Marine Corps and Air Force at Military Times. Follow Jeff Schogol on Twitter @JeffSchogol.

This article originally appeared at Task & Purpose. Follow Task & Purpose on Twitter.

More Articles from Task & Purpose:

- 7 Veteran-Friendly Manufacturers That Are Hiring

- The 6 Types Of Contractors You Encounter Overseas

- Heres How Marines Fared On The New Physical Fitness Test

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Read full article(Add details, background)

SEOUL, March 1 (Reuters) - South Korea plans to send a special envoy to North Korea in response to an invitation from leader Kim Jong Un, South Korean President Moon Jae-in told his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump in a phone call on Thursday.

The two presidents discussed the recent visits to the south by high-level North Korean officials, the South Korean presidential Blue House said in a statement.

The Olympics gave a boost to recent engagement between the two Koreas after more than a year of sharply rising tensions over the Norths missile programme and its sixth and largest nuclear test in defiance of U.N. sanctions.

"(Moon and Trump) agreed to continue to make efforts to head toward the Korean peninsula's denuclearisation by maintaining the momentum of South-North dialogue," the Blue House statement said.

In sending an envoy to Pyongyang, Moon said he would be seeking to reciprocate for the senior delegations dispatched to the Olympics by Kim Jong Un, including his sister, Kim Yo Jong, the first visit by a member of the Norths ruling bloodline since the 1950-53 Korean War.

Senior officials from Pyongyang visiting South Korea for the Winter Olympics said on Sunday their government was open to talks with the United States, while the White House said any talks with North Korea must lead to an end to its nuclear programme.

Moon has urged North Korea and the United States to talk to resolve the issue of Pyongyang's weapons programme, which Kim has said he will never abandon.

In the latest attempt to defuse the crisis over North Korea's weapons programme, Seoul urged Washington and Pyongyang to give ground to allow for talks.

"Both leaders agreed to continue close consultations on the progress of South-North Korea dialogue that will go on," the statement said. (Reporting by Ju-min Park and Josh Smith; Editing by Alison Williams)Oakland Raiders linebacker Aldon Smith can probably expect to stay on the suspended list a little longer. The 28-year-old was involved in a domestic violence incident Saturday night, according to a NBC Bay Area report.

Smith left the scene of the incident before police arrived. They are trying to get in touch with Smith in order to talk to him about what happened. The victim suffered non-life threatening injuries.

After some promising early seasons with the San Francisco 49ers, Smiths career has been marred by suspensions. He missed nine games in 2014 after violating the leagues substance abuse policy. He was involved in a DUI incident in 2015 that got him released from the team. He was also arrested for driving under the influence in 2013.

Smith signed on with the Raiders in 2015, but played in just nine games before violating the leagues substance abuse policy for a second time. He received a year-long suspension.

Aldon Smith was involved in a domestic incident Saturday. (AP Photo)

At some point, Smiths suspension was made indefinite until he resolved his court case from his 2015 incident. Smith pleaded no contest to a hit and run, and had his DUI charges dropped. He was sentenced to 20 days in jail.

This is the second time since his suspension Smith has been involved in a domestic violence incident. He was under investigation February of 2017 as well.

Smiths re-instatement has been dependent on his behavior. Commissioner Roger Goodell can lift it when he sees fit. Given Smiths repeated run-ins with the law even after his original suspension, thats not likely to happen any time soon.

      

Chris Cwik is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at christophercwik@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Chris_Cwik

More from Yahoo Sports:



 Kobe takes shot at Fox News in Oscar acceptance speech

 High school hoops team apologizes for 93-7 blowout win

 LeBron James Jr. puts on a show with godfather CP3 watching

 Central Floridas Griffin is the talk of the scouting combine

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The Syrian army said on Sunday it had been attacking rebel positions in eastern Ghouta for the last two days in response to shelling of Damascus and had recovered control of farmland and towns in the insurgent-held enclave. In a statement, the Syrian army said a "large numbers of terrorists" had been killed and that a number of their headquarters, tunnels and fortifications had been destroyed, in addition to their equipment. The army said its operations were being conducted outside the hours of a 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (0700 GMT to 1200 GMT) ceasefire organized by Russia, a military ally of Damascus. (Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Alexander Smith)BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian government forces took almost complete control of the town of al-Shayfouniya in eastern Ghouta near Damascus on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, pressing an assault into the last rebel stronghold near the capital. The spokesman for the rebel Jaish al-Islam group, writing on Twitter, said government forces had mounted a failed attempt to storm a nearby area, al-Rayhan, but did not mention al-Shayfouniya. A commander in the military alliance fighting in support of President Bashar al-Assad said fighting was underway in al-Shayfouniya, without giving further details. (Reporting by Tom Perry and Laila Bassam; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Janet Lawrence)Syrian youth prepare bread as they take shelter inside a building in Hamouria, in the besieged Eastern Ghouta region - AFP

Syrian troops and allied militia seized several villages in Eastern Ghouta over the weekend, in what appeared to be the start of a ground offensive to crush the besieged opposition stronghold.

Regime forces seized up to a quarter of the rebel-held enclave in fighting that sent hundreds of civilians fleeing, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday. Earlier, the Syrian armed forces said they had captured villages along the edge of the enclave.

Over 600 people have been killed and two thousand injured since the Syrian regime launched an air and artillery bombardment of Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus, on February 18.

The United Nations said on Sunday that a 40-lorry convoy loaded with aid was denied permission to enter the besieged district, despite the escalation in violence. "The convoy to east Ghouta is not able to proceed today," a UN official said, adding that the UN and its humanitarian partners "remain on standby to deliver desperately needed assistance as soon as conditions allow".

A Syrian boy holds an oxygen mask over the face of an infant at a make-shift hospital following a reported gas attack on the rebel-held besieged town of Douma in the eastern Ghouta region

Just one small convoy with a months worth of supplies for 7,200 people has been allowed to enter Ghouta so far this year, in mid-February.

The weekend offensive came as Western governments called on allies of Mr Assad to put pressure on Damascus to halt the attacks.

Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, on Sunday called on his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani to put the "necessary pressure" on the Syrian government to halt "indiscriminate" attacks on civilians in the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta.

Bashar al-Assad talks to reporters in Damascus on Sunday Credit: Sana via AFP

During a telephone call between the two leaders, Mr Macron underscored the "particular responsibility for Iran, because of its ties to the regime, regarding the implementation of the humanitarian truce" sought by the UN, his office said. Mr Macron is expected to visit Iran this year.

Mr Assad said on Sunday that the military operation against the eastern Ghouta area would continue.

Story continues

"There is no contradiction between a truce and combat operations. The progress achieved yesterday and the day before in Ghouta by the Syrian Arab Army was made during this truce," Mr Assad said in broadcast comments to journalists.

"Therefore we must continue with the operation in parallel with opening the way for civilians to leave."

Nearly 400,000 people are believed to be trapped in Eastern Ghouta, an opposition-held suburb that has been under siege since 2013.

Violence there has escalated sharply over the past weeks despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for ceasefire.

The Syrian Army said it was firing on militant areas in the enclave in response to the targeting of Damascus, just 10 miles away.

Telegraph exclusive image via Josie Ensor A satellite picture of Jobar, a rebel held district of besieged Eastern Ghouta which has been 91 per cent destroyed.

But photographs, videos and first-hand accounts from inside the enclave suggest civilians and especially children are paying the highest price.

Regime force dropped leaflets on Eastern Ghouta before the offensive on Saturday night, informing residents of safe spaces, humanitarian corridors and medical points.

However, no civilians have passed through a humanitarian corridor set up by Russia and the Syrian government nearly a week ago.

Observer groups said civilians fleeing the advancing troops were taking cover in underground shelters, rather than passing into the hands of government troops they do not trust.

"It is a scorched-earth policy," said Nour Adam, a Ghouta-based activist. "People are moving out because of the relentless bombing."

Activists with the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) inside Eastern Ghouta said on Sunday that they counted 2,750 airstrikes since the offensive began. The government assault has also included the use of 3,850 missiles and 840 barrel bombs, the group said.Last month, Tahera Rahman stood before the camera for CBS affiliate WHBF in Rock Island, Illinois, becoming Americas first full-time reporter to wear a hijab.

Though other women havepreviously reported online while wearing a hijab, Rahman is the first full-time broadcast reporter to go live while wearing the garment, according to the station and the group Muslim American Women in Media. It is a deeply impactful accomplishment and one that has been years in the making.

Rahman, who comes from a small town in Illinois, spoke with HuffPost about navigating a stubborn journalism industry and reaching this moment of triumph.

How are you coping with the pressure of being a first? Is it a burden for you?

[Laughs] Its definitely weird, because in a lot of ways, Im being reminded of it every day  in a good way. Im getting messages of support, either by social media or even by snail mail, which is even more touching. So Im being reminded of it almost on a daily basis, but at the same time, most of my day is spent not thinking about it at all. Most of my day is thinking about my own deadline: my four oclock, whats going to be my story when I come in at nine oclock in the morning, and then putting that together, and interviewing people, and then trying to go home and think about what Im going to have for dinner [laughs].

Of course.

So most of my day is spent not thinking about it. But, my dad has been reminding me to take a moment every single day, close my eyes, and think about where I am and what Im doing, and just be grateful to God for the opportunity. He was just like, You know, the enormity of this weight might make you feel stressed out  it might feel like a burden  but in the end, its a big blessing. So I do make a conscious effort to be grateful for it every single day.

From where did you draw influence when you grew up? Given the fact that you didnt see many Muslim women on camera, and certainly not many wearing hijabs, who did you look toward for guidance?

Story continues

Im a minority in a lot of different ways. Its not just my religious identity, its also being a person of color, and its also being a woman. So seeing other women particularly, regardless of race or ethnicity, that was always inspiring. People who are just good at their job who happened to be women; thats what I liked to see. And there were tons of journalists like that, whether they were on TV or not. And a lot of them gave me inspiration and mentorship throughout the years.

Radio journalist Miriam Sobh has been with NPR and WBBM radio in Chicago, and she was always there to give me advice about how to navigate the world of journalism in general. And then Rummana Hussain  shes a veteran writer for the Chicago Sun-Times  and I remember even seeing her name in print in high school, for me, was amazing. I was like, Oh, my God, thats a Muslim name. Thats a brown persons name.

And then theres Malika Bilal whos co-host of a show on Al Jazeera English called The Stream. She also wears a headscarf and shes on international television, always killing it with in-depth conversations about world events and worldly news. All of those women, and many more, gave me hope to go forward. Theres always got to be a first for something, and whether or not I was going to be a first, I definitely wanted to be among these women, so I think thats what carried me through.

Tahera Rahman prepares a live shot as a reporter for WHBF-TV in Rock Island, Illinois.

We live in a time when there are explicitly Islamophobic media with large followings. As a Muslim woman in this environment who doesnt wish to spend the totality of her time discussing her faith, how do you operate amid this constant barrage that stands to question your humanity and, consequently, your ability to do your job?

Youre absolutely right. I have gotten messages from people  maybe out of the goodness of their own heart  thinking that they were going to change my mind, emailing me YouTube videos about why Islam is the religion of the devil. And Im like, Okay, delete. So there are definitely people who dont see me as a welcoming neighbor, and honestly, that stinks.

But I think thats just the reality: There will always be people who  no matter what you tell them and no matter how nice you are  theyre not going to change their minds. And I dont think thats your burden, either. I dont think you should feel like its necessary to make everyone across the world think youre great, or awesome, or normal. I have always operated under the belief that, if you are a good person, and if you try your best to do the right thing, then other people wont believe those who try to vilify you. For me, as a journalist, that meant focusing on my craft, because I knew that there would be people who didnt think I should be on air.

You spent the past two years producing at your station and I imagine you were able to look at the broadcasts in totality in a way others could not. Our industry is stubbornly non-diverse, and I wonder whether that inspired you to move from behind the scenes to the front of the camera.

In general, I know in a lot of newsrooms, the goal is for your newsroom to reflect the community you live in. And not having that representation in the newsroom isnt necessarily one persons fault. Its the effect of multiple things happening at once. I dont want to speak for all Muslims, but I think part of the lack of representation is because a lot of American Muslims are hesitant about getting into the media. Part of that stems from growing up in the post-9/11 era, when a lot of people from our community felt they were vilified in the news and havent been able to trust journalists since then.

So I think thats part of the reason why theres not as much Muslim representation as people would like. But also, looking at it from the perspective of being Indian, and coming from a South Asian family, theres always a lot of focus on going into other fields. Most of my family are either doctors or engineers, and you cant blame a parent for wanting that, because they just want a stable job for their children. Journalism is very competitive, and if youre going into it for money you will be disappointed [laughs].

Very True. Very true.

People  especially with broadcast  assume that if youre on TV, youre makingsomuch money and you have all these nice clothes. But really, its like, Okay, Amazon, where you at? I need a six-dollar top [laughs]. So I think those are both reasons why we dont see as much representation as wed like. But still, at the time I made the transition, I was the only Muslim in the building, and I did think it was incumbent upon me to make sure I let people know whats going on in the Muslim community here and whats important. I think Id been able to contribute behind the scenes in that way and I dont think that was necessarily the driving force behind me wanting to be an on-air reporter. The lack of Muslim-American women who wear a headscarf on camera was obvious  I was very aware of that fact  but I never considered this something that was impossible.

A post shared by Tahera Rahman (@taheratv)on Feb 20, 2018 at 8:25pm PST

Ive always considered our industry to be meritocratic only in some ways  theres a base level of skill needed to succeed. But theres also a human element, a less precise means by which your success is determined: who you know, what sources you can cultivate, etc. In a world like ours, where Islamophobia is so rampant and seemingly commonplace, do you find unique obstacles in sources that discriminate based on your religion?

Off the top of my head, I dontthinkso. Even going back to college and all the reporting I did there, through the last three weeks of my reporting on air, I havent come across impediments in trying to get sources. Who knows, down the line, if people will feel more emboldened to be rude or deny me interviews. But for the most part, everyone has been extremely supportive. I mean, its actually been so, so surreal and strange.

How so?

Most people that I set up an interview with, I talk to them on the phone first and when I get there for my interview, they already know who I am. Theyre like, Oh, I saw you on the paper, I saw your story on TV, congratulations, were really proud of you! All that kind of stuff. I met with the local police chief the other day, and he knew me right when I walked through the door, so in a lot of ways, my identity has actually helped me get my interviews, so hopefully I still get those interviews once the novelty wears off.

What do you think it is about Rock Island, Illinois, that makes it hospitable to the first full-time reporter wearing a hijab? If people were to guess where that might occur for the first time in the U.S., I assume 99.99 percent wouldnt think itd occur in Rock Island. Is there something youve observed that makes this area more accepting than others?

You know, I dont know. I think a lot of small towns in America are just like this  just like the Quad Cities. Id like to believe that if I lived in any other small to midsize town, I wouldve gotten the same reception and same support. Because I do think overwhelmingly, we live in a country where people are good, and do believe in diversity, and do believe in getting to know each other. I think this would have happened wherever I ended up, but I think the Quad Cities are special because were right on the border of Illinois and Iowa.

Our station covers both states. Iowa is a swing state, Illinois is always blue, and Iowa went red in the last election. So I think its really interesting that there can be politics  you can swing very much conservative, or very much liberal, or somewhere in between but I think its very interesting to consider that most of us share the same world in the end. And I think thats really comforting. It gives me hope that I might be the first, but I wont be the last.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the first name of reporter Rummana Hussain, as well as the name of the radio station for which Miriam Sobh works.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Previously in this series:

This installment is a sample of the range of recent response. Note: many people have written about David Frenchs post explaining why he feels safer owning an AR-15. Since I didnt publish that item myself, I dont feel that I should post dissents here. Instead I have forwarded those messages to the editors of the Atlantics new Letters section.

Recommended: What I Saw Treating the Victims From Parkland Should Change the Debate on Guns

Moral equivalence and hypocrisy. Ive argued over the years that the AR-15 is a weapon designed for the military, which was never meant to be in civilian hands. Dissenting arguments fall into three main categories: slippery slope (any step toward gun regulation is really a step toward confiscation and prohibition); pointlessness (disturbed people will always find a way to kill); and hypocrisy (how can you complain about gun killings, when abortion goes on?). Heres a representative sample from the last category:

Funny how you write about gun violence in America Iike so many others without a hint of care about the 700,000 (yearly average) deaths of kids in this country caused by abortion. Death is final no matter how it's done, legal or not. All arguments about gun violence are hypocritical without addressing this sad, yet legal, genocide being accomplished by those liberal progressives who cry the loudest. No I don't own any automatic or semi-automatic gun and I am not a Republican or Conserative party member. Just a middle of the road American Citizen who thinks the pot should stop calling the kettel black!

Story continues

Read more from The Atlantic:

This article was originally published on The Atlantic.Magical moments at the Oscars dont only take place inside the Dolby Theater. The lobby is jam-packed with action everywhere from the first-floor bar to even the bathroom. Here are some of the moments that took place around the loo.

Frances McDormand was a woman on a mission.

The Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri star apparently does not mess around when it comes to her bathroom breaks. During a commercial break, and before she inspired the audience with her rousing speech, McDormand came striding out of the theater with purpose, waving away well-wishers and bypassing chatty attendees as she made a beeline for the bathroom. She did the exact same thing on the way back into the auditorium, making it down to her seat in the nick of time. This is just another example of the no nonsense approach to life  and awards season  that people have come to love and appreciate about the 2018 Best Actress winner.

Greta Gerwig and Ashley Judd. (Photo: Getty Images)

Timothee Chalemet is also no nonsense about bathroom breaks.

Best Actor nominee Timothee Chalamet was making the most of his first Oscars experience, which explains why he was in such a rush to get back to it. Chalamet only made it out to the bar area once during the broadcast, and it was only so he could make a beeline to the bathroom before the commercial break was over. As someone recognized him on the way, Chalamet pointed at him in acknowledgement and said a quick hello before disappearing behind the mens room door before dashing back to his seat.

Greta Gerwig and Ashley Judd share a tender moment.

As the Lady Bird director was on her way out of the bathroom, actress and activist Ashley Judd was on her way in. Judd stopped Gerwig to congratulate her on her Oscar nomination and tell her how much she appreciated her work. The ladies chatted about the magical evening before embracing, with Gerwig exclaiming, I love you, and I am so grateful for you. Judd thanked her, then said, Id like to get a picture with you later! Gerwig responded, Maybe not in the bathroom? The two laughed, with Judd clarifying she meant sometime in the evening. Ill be around, Gerwig assured her. Ill be partying all night!

Story continues

Leslie Mann shares the secrets of navigating an awards-show crowd in a big dress.

Also in the bathroom, was Leslie Mann wearing a voluminous dress and she somehow masterfully was able to handle any obstacle she came across throughout the night without the train getting demolished. Its really dirty material now, and every once in a while I feel someone step on it and it stops me, so I have to take a second, she shared, and then smiled broadly as she added, But you know what? Its fine. Just then, another bathroom patron complimented her on her gown, proving that its more than fine  its awesome.

Margot Robbies wardrobe issues persisted.

Unquestionably, Margot Robbie looked stunning in her Chanel dress on Oscar night, but it was also giving her some major issues. Earlier in the evening, the Best Actress nominee was fussing with some beading that was coming loose from the bodice and the repair continued later in the bathroom, as she examined the issue in the mirror and did what she could to make a fast fix that would hold until the next commercial break.

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.

By Elizabeth Burden LONDON (Reuters) - Burst water mains caused by a thaw in Britain's freezing temperatures closed a Jaguar Land Rover car plant in central England on Monday and left tens of thousands of people without water. London's mayor Sadiq Khan said it was "unacceptable" that thousands across the British capital had no water, as utility companies struggled to maintain water supplies. The worst snowstorms in Britain for nearly 30 years froze water in pipes last week, water suppliers said, during a blast of Siberian cold dubbed "the Beast from the East" which ground planes, stopped trains, blocked roads and shut schools. Carmaker Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) halted production at its Solihull car plant near Birmingham, as water firm Severn Trent said it was targeting its supplies to keep schools and hospitals in central England open. "Due to a water shortage caused by a burst water main, we have had to stop production this afternoon," a spokeswoman for JLR said. Severn Trent said that it was working with other big businesses in the area on limiting water consumption. Production at Mondelez-owned chocolate company Cadbury's Bournville plant was also halted, the BBC said. At least 23,800 households, including 12,000 households in London, were left without water when pipes burst after temperatures rose and snow thawed, prompting suppliers to advise customers not to waste water. "It is unacceptable that thousands of Londoners remain without water this morning," Khan said on Twitter. "I have sought assurances from Thames Water that they are doing everything possible to fix the problems and get the supply switched back on for everyone." At a supermarket in Balham, south London, Thames Water employees distributed crates of bottled water to a waiting queue of people, while in Hampstead to the north of the capital, they ferried crates to residential streets in their own cars. Suppliers warned disruption would continue as they worked to fix leaks and refill pipes and Thames Water advised its 15 million customers to cut their usage. "Where possible, take short showers rather than baths, do not leave taps running unnecessarily and only run washing machines and dish washers when you have a full load," the company said in a statement on its website. Severn Trent, a supplier of water to 4.3 million homes and businesses in the middle of England, said the number of burst pipes was up 4000 percent, while in Wales, Welsh Water said "unprecedented challenges" had affected 4,500 homes. Farther north, Scottish Water said there was no significant impact on its customers because Scotland had not suffered the same rapid thaw. (Additional reporting by Sarah Young; writing by Alistair Smout editing by Michael Holden)Tiffany Haddish may not be nominated for an Oscar, but she arrived at the award ceremony on Sunday looking like royalty.

Tiffany Haddish attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards. (Photo: Jeff Kravitz via Getty Images)

The princess of Eritrea has arrived, the Girls Trip actress said as she casually ambushed Michael Strahans interview with Get Out star Daniel Kaluuya.

TIFFANY HADDISH I LOVE YOU pic.twitter.com/a40RryV4td  sami (@oscarforoscar) March 5, 2018

After her abrupt but delightful entrance, Haddish explained to Strahan that her dress is a nod to her late father and his heritage.

My father is from Eritrea and he passed away last year, said Haddish, a presenter at the awards show. And he said one day I would end up here and if I ever end up at the Oscars to honor my people, so Im honoring my fellow Eritreans.

Best Dressed at the 2018 Oscars

Kaluuya wasnt the only actor Haddish got adorably aggressive with. Haddish mentioned to Strahan that she really wanted to meet Meryl Steep. So, when Haddish saw the Oscar-winning actress on the red carpet, she actually jumped over a velvet rope to seize the opportunity.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

Tiffany Haddish just jumped in front of Meryl Streep on the #Oscars carpet and curtsied pic.twitter.com/uqGTqRGW1b  Mia Galuppo (@miagaluppo) March 5, 2018

As far as her gorgeous gown, dont be surprised if you see Haddish rocking it again.

In November, she mentioned during her monologue on Saturday Night Live that she doesnt care about the taboo of wearing the same dress to more than one event.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story indicated Haddish interrupted an interview with Chadwick Boseman. In fact, it was an interview with Daniel Kaluuya.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.ActressesAshley JuddandMira Sorvinohit the red carpet together at the 90th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday night.

Both women came forward this year to accuse now-disgraced movie producerHarvey Weinsteinof sexual misconduct, making their arrival a moment to remember.

Judd, who is presenting at the ceremony, stunned in a deep purple gown with a sweetheart neckline, while Sorvino was feeling the fairytale in a one-shouldered blush dress complete with intricate floral details.

They arrived together, with the Mighty Aphrodite actress posting a photo of the two in the car before the ceremony kicked off.

Were on our way!!!, she captioned the photo, joking about their contrasting blonde and brunette dos with the hashtag #normajeanandmarilyn.

A post shared by Mira Sorvino (@mirasorvino)on Mar 4, 2018 at 2:45pm PST

Judd was one of the first actresses to publicly reveal Weinsteins sexual predation inThe New York Times bombshell report published in October about the producers decades-long history of abusing women in the film industry.

The Divergent star said he invited her into his hotel room 20 years ago, only to ask if she could give her a massage or watch him shower.

How do I get out of the room as fast as possible without alienating Harvey Weinstein? Judd recalled thinking.

Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino arrive for the 90th Annual Academy Awards.

Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino arrive for the 90th Annual Academy Awards.

The report opened the floodgates for other women, like Sorvino, to share their own accounts of Weinsteins behavior. The Oscar-winner said the producer harassed her on multiple occasions and went on to derail her career after she rejected his advances.

Both actresses were honored as Times Person of the Year in the group of silence breakers, alongside Me Too movement founder Tarana Burke, for bringing sexual harassment and abuse to the forefront in the national conversation.

Best Dressed at the 2018 Oscars

In conversation with ABC on the red carpet, the two stressed the importance of continuing the momentum of the Me Too movement and Times Up, the action planand legal defense fund that aims to combat gender and racial discrimination.

Story continues

This movement isnt stopping, were going forward until we have an equitable and safe world for women, Sorvino said.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Fans and others watching along on Sunday immediately took to social media to commemorate their arrival, with some describing the moment as vindication.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Jerusalem (AFP) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have a brief respite next week from the deluge of legal woes he faces when he heads to Washington to meet US President Donald Trump.

Even as he prepared for his trip, Netanyahu was again questioned by police in Jerusalem on Friday in connection with alleged corruption as concerns mount over whether he will eventually be forced from office.

Monday's visit to a White House that has shown enthusiastic support for Israel and Netanyahu may help bolster the long-serving prime minister, who has called Trump a "true friend" of his country.

Both men have used populist appeals in the face of investigations, with Netanyahu borrowing Trump's "fake news" moniker to denounce reports of his alleged corruption.

Israeli police recommended last month that Netanyahu be indicted in two corruption cases and investigations are continuing in others.

"I think they are partners in ideology, and the ideology is a populist, conservative ideology which says that the old liberal elites are against us," said Gayil Talshir, political scientist at Jerusalem's Hebrew University.

"I think from that perspective it is a boost" for Netanyahu.

But Trump has given Netanyahu far more than moral support.

The United States is set to upturn decades of international consensus when it moves its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to the disputed city of Jerusalem in May.

Trump has also frozen tens of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians in a bid to force them to the negotiating table.

Both moves have left the Palestinian leadership outraged, accusing Trump's administration of blatant bias and declaring it can no longer serve as mediator in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

That, along with Trump son-in-law and senior aide Jared Kushner losing his top-level security clearance, has raised questions over whether Trump's pledge to reach the "ultimate" peace deal will get off the ground any time soon.

Story continues

Kushner has been among those heading up the White House's efforts to restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

- 'Prestige problem' -

Netanyahu may not be troubled by any such delay.

He appears more interested in speaking with Trump about other issues, such as Israel's arch-enemy Iran and its influence in neighbouring Syria.

He will likely seek to further push his case that the Iran nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers should be changed, said Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington.

"Israel, I think, is hoping that there will be a more active American role in trying to block, trying to stem, the Iranian advances in Syria," Shoval said.

Beyond his meeting with Trump, Netanyahu will address a conference organised by powerful pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC during his trip after having done so by satellite link the last two years.

The speech, expected on Tuesday, comes as Netanyahu faces what some in Israel see as an important concern: a growing divide between Republicans and Democrats over support for his country, according to at least one recent poll.

The United States remains by far Israel's most important ally, providing it with more than $3 billion per year in defence aid and key diplomatic backing.

But poll results released in January by the US-based Pew Research Centre showed 79 percent of Republicans sympathise more with Israel than the Palestinians, while 27 percent of Democrats said the same.

Although Netanyahu may want to avoid talk about the Palestinians during his trip, the decades-long conflict is certain to be on the agenda.

Trump has spoken of wanting to reach the elusive Israeli-Palestinian deal that repeated US presidents have been unable to achieve.

At the same time, many analysts have trouble seeing how progress can be made with the Palestinians angered and a pressured Netanyahu playing to his right-wing base -- not to mention Kushner no longer able to access America's most closely guarded secrets.

Aaron David Miller, a former US Middle East negotiator now with the Wilson Centre think-tank, said Kushner faces a "prestige problem", but that may make little difference.

"The Arab-Israeli peace process right now is so fraught, so challenged, so burdened with complexity and problems that Jared Kushner could have access to every piece of classified information in the world," he said.

"It would not help him significantly broker a deal."A former aide to Donald Trumps presidential campaign delivered an extraordinary string of interviews with newspapers, websites and cable news outlets on Monday, defying special counsel Robert Muellers subpoena to testify before a grand jury, undercutting key claims made by the Trump administration on possible election collusion with Russia, and leading many of his interrogators to question his own mental state.

Sam Nunberg, who served as an adviser to then candidate Donald Trump in 2015, said Monday that he would refuse to appear before the federal grand jury investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election  and that he believes Mueller may have damning evidence against Trump.

I think that he may have done something during the election, Nunberg said in an afternoon interview with MSNBCs Katy Tur, adding: I dont know that for sure.

In a separate interview hours later with CNN, Nunberg continued to undercut the Trump administrations claims that no collusion had taken place between its campaign staff and the Russian government to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

I believe Carter Page colluded with the Russians, Nunberg told host Jake Tapper about the former foreign policy adviser who has become a focal point in Muellers investigation.

Nunberg was also asked by Tapper whether he believed the president was telling the truth when he said he knew nothing about the meeting between Russians and members of his campaign team at Trump Tower in June 2016.

No, Nunberg replied. He talked about it a week before. And I dont know why he did this. All he had to say was, Yeah, we met with the Russians.

Photo: Evan Vucci/AP

Throughout the day, Nunberg took credit for several of Trumps signature campaign promises, including the construction of a wall along the southern U.S. border and a ban on immigration from Muslim-majority countries. He also reiterated his message to Mueller.

Im not cooperating, he told Tapper. Arrest me.

Story continues

During her daily press briefing, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders dismissed Nunbergs speculation about what sort of case Mueller may have built against the president.

I definitely think he doesnt know that for sure because hes incorrect, Sanders said. As weve said many times before, there was no collusion with the Trump campaign.

Earlier, Nunberg told the Washington Post that he received a subpoena from Muellers office to appear before the grand jury. Nunberg said the two-page subpoena is seeking documents related to Trump and nine other people, including all email exchanges he may have had with campaign officials during and after his time on the Trump team.

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller; former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg (Photos: Alex Wong/Getty Images; Business Week/Yahoo View)

Nunberg, who was interviewed by Muellers team last month, said he will refuse to appear before the grand jury and will not turn over any documents  in particular, his correspondence with former Trump campaign CEO Steve Bannon and ex-adviser Roger Stone.

Im not spending 80 hours going over my emails with Roger Stone and Steve Bannon and producing them, Nunberg told the Post. Donald Trump won this election on his own. He campaigned his ass off. And there is nobody who hates him more than me.

If Nunberg does refuse to cooperate, he could face federal contempt of court charges  a possibility he dismissed in his interview with MSNBC.

Let him arrest me, Nunberg told the Post. Mr. Mueller should understand I am not going in on Friday.

Special counsel Robert Mueller. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

I think it would be really, really funny if they wanted to arrest me, he told Tur. Im not going to cooperate when they want me to come into a grand jury for them to insinuate that Roger Stone was colluding with [WikiLeaks founder] Julian Assange. Roger is my mentor. Roger is like family.

Echoing Trump, Nunberg called Muellers investigation a witch hunt.

What does Bob Mueller need to see  my emails when I send Roger and Steve clips and we talk about how much we hate people? Nunberg wondered.

After having spent hours answering questions on cable news networks, his responses lit up social media and made him the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter, Nunberg returned for a second CNN interview. Host Erin Burnett cut to the chase with a question.

Talking to you, I have smelled alcohol on your breath.

Well, I have not had a drink, Nunberg replied.

When Burnett pressed him, Nunberg repeated his claim that he had not had a drink. Besides my meds. Antidepressants, is that OK?

Read more from Yahoo News:President Donald Trump continued to call for changes to U.S. trade deals on Monday, saying that hes open to pulling back on the tariffs he plans to impose on international trade partners if Mexico and Canada come to the table and renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Trump announced his intention to slap a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imports on Thursday. He didnt specify which countries the measures would apply to but White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told CNNs State of the Union Sunday that no countries would be exempt.

Major U.S. trade partners, including both Canada and Mexico, hit back at Trump and threatened retaliatory measures last week.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it.

Trump has threatened to pull out of NAFTA for two years unless the United States can agree to a renegotiated deal with Canada and Mexico that Trump views as more beneficial to the U.S. NAFTA talks have been underway without much progress for the last six months. The latest round of negotiations was scheduled to take place between ministers from all three countries on Monday.

Trumps apparent willingness to exempt Canada and Mexico from tariffs, however, would not apply to the U.S.s other major steel and aluminum trade partners across Europe and Latin America. U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May expressed her deep concern with Trumps proposal during a phone call Sunday.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.By Susan Cornwell and Ayesha Rascoe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump faced growing pressure on Monday from political and diplomatic allies as well as U.S. companies urging him to pull back from proposed steel and aluminium tariffs, although he said he would stick to his guns.

Inside the White House, there still appeared to be confusion about the timing and extent of the planned tariffs, which would hit allies like Canada and Mexico hard.

Efforts by Trump and U.S. trade negotiators to link the NAFTA trade pact talks to the duties received short shrift from Ottawa and Mexico City.

Leading Republicans turned up the pressure on Trump, with House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan leading the charge. Ryan's home state of Wisconsin would be hit by proposed European counter-measures on Harley Davidson (HOG.N) motorbikes.

Representative Kevin Brady, another top House Republican, called on Trump not to hit America's closest allies.

The planned tariffs have roiled world stock markets as investors worried about the prospect of an escalating trade war that would derail global economic growth. Stocks across the globe rose on Monday, however, after four days in decline as investors saw the tariff threats as a U.S. negotiating tactic and not a done deal and as pressure grew on Trump to back off.

"We're not backing down," Trump said during a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "I don't think you're going to have a trade war," he added, without elaborating.

Earlier comments from Trump had stoked talk of a global trade war as he described them as easy to win and issued a threat to German carmakers. One of those, BMW (BMWG.DE), runs a plant in the United States that is the largest single autos exporter in the country and has created thousands of jobs.

Most responses to Trump's proposed tariffs have been targeted. The European Union said it would hit Harleys, bourbon and jeans, iconic American products. It did not threaten to ramp up the issue.

Story continues

China has been largely mum, urging caution, and both Canada and Mexico have stressed the targeted nature of any response.

STRESSES INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE?

Trump was expected to finalise the planned tariffs later in the week, although some observers familiar with the process said it could occur next week. The initial announcement by Trump last week came as a surprise.

The United States, Mexico and Canada have been holding talks over changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement, a pact that Trump has threatened to abandon.

Six months of tense talks have produced little in the way of progress and a move by Washington to link the steel and aluminium tariffs to progress on NAFTA was rebuffed by Canada and Mexico.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer also attempted to drive a wedge between Canada and Mexico when he suggested the United States would be willing to hold bilateral, rather than trilateral talks. The two countries again stood firm.

In Washington, aides scrambled to meet Trumps demand for the paperwork to be completed for a formal announcement. The exact timing was unclear as the tariff documentation had to be drafted and go through a variety of reviews, a process that takes days, an administration official said.

There was always a chance that Trump could amend his initial announcement to take account of the concerns expressed about it, said a source familiar with the internal debate at the White House.

TRUMP'S TRADE TRAIL

Trump has frequently talked tough on trade, although his actions have not always matched his words. On his first day in office in January 2017, he withdrew from the 14-nation Trans Pacific Partnership agreement, a deal that was dead on arrival in the U.S. Congress in any case.

He has frequently tweeted and said that he would pull out of NAFTA, which he has called a jobs killer. But a year after taking office, the 1994 deal remains intact.

Trump has approved a series of small-scale trade actions, of which the steel and aluminium duties would be a part. Taken together with actions on washing machines and solar panels, the proposed move accounts for just 4.1 percent of U.S. imports. In terms of global trade, they are just 0.6 percent, investment bank Morgan Stanley said in a report.

The head of the World Trade Organization warned of a real risk of triggering an escalation of global trade barriers and a deep recession, even as financial markets and many economists started to discount the risk of a global crisis.

"We must make every effort to avoid the fall of the first dominoes. There is still time," WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo told the heads of WTO delegations at a closed-door meeting in Geneva.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Steve Holland, Eric Walsh and Susan Heavey in Washington, Adriana Barrera, Sharay Angulo, Lesley Wroughton and David Ljunggren in Mexico City, Rodrigo Campos in New York and Tom Miles in Geneva; Writing by Frances Kerry and David Chance; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Peter Cooney)